FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan June 28, 2019. (Kevin Lamarque/File PhotoLamarque/File Photo/Reuters)

Trump to Putin: Hope to Avoid a Three Way Arms Race Between China, Russia, and US

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump discussed arms control during a phone call between the two leaders Thursday, the Kremlin and White House said.

The two leaders also discussed critical bilateral and global issues. President Trump reiterated his hope of avoiding an expensive three-way arms race between China, Russia, and the United States and looked forward to progress on upcoming arms control negotiations in Vienna, White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement.

The Kremlins readout of the call said the parties reaffirmed the timeliness of bilateral consultations on arms control issues, including the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

The two leaders also expressed a mutual desire to develop trade and economic interaction between Russia and the United States, the Kremlin added, according to Reuters.

Nuclear Arms Control Talks Fail to Draw China

Marshal Billingslea, U.S. President Donald Trumps special envoy for arms control on talks with Russias Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on nuclear arms control, informs the press in Vienna, Austria, on June 23, 2020. (Ronald Zak/AP Photo)

The United States and Russia held nuclear arms control talks on June 22 in Vienna, aimed at producing a new agreement to replace the New START treaty that expires soonthe last remaining pact constraining the arsenals of the worlds two major nuclear powers.

The only U.S.Russia nuclear arms control agreement still in force and binding the two countries is the New START Treaty, which was signed in 2010 and is set to expire in February 2021. The treaty limits the number of strategic nuclear weapons that each country can deploy.

China was also invited to join the talks, but it declined the invitation, U.S. Special Envoy for Arms Control Marshall Billingslea said.

Russia and the United States together possess more than 90 percent of the worlds total nuclear warheads in 2020, according to the Federation of American Scientists, which tallied 6,372 warheads for Russia and 5,800 for the United States. It counted China as having 320 nuclear warheads, although the actual number is unknown.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 2 endorsed Russias nuclear deterrent policy, which allows the country to use atomic weapons, not only in response to a nuclear attack but also to respond to conventional strikes targeting the nations critical government and military infrastructure.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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JULY 27, 8:50pm: Montoyo confirmed that Pearson will debut Wednesday, per Davidi.



3:35pm: Pearson is indeed still scheduled for his debut on Wednesday, Campbell tweets. Manager Charlie Montoyo still wasnt ready to announce a move, but did acknowledge the possibility of a call-up, as Sportsnets Shi Davidi tweets.

JULY 22: The Blue Jays plan to activate standout pitching prospect Nate Pearson on July 29, Jamie Campbell of Sportsnet reports. Pearson is not on the Blue Jays 40-man roster, which is currently full.

Toronto will gain an extra year of control over Pearson by keeping him off its roster during the first week of its season. So, considering the leagues rules on service time, its no surprise that the team will open its schedule without the 23-year-old right-hander. But Pearson may wind up as a game-changing addition to the Blue Jays roster when he does make his debut, and perhaps someone who could challenge for American League Rookie of the Year honors.

The flamethrowing Pearson joined Toronto as the 28th overall pick in the 2017 draft and has proven himself an elite farmhand since then (MLB.com ranks him first in the teams system and No. 8 in the sport, for instance). Pearson made his debut in Triple-A last year with 18 innings of 3.00 ERA ball, but he spent most of his season in Double-A, recording a terrific 2.59 ERA/2.90 FIP with 9.91 K/9 and 3.02 BB/9 over 62 2/3 frames. Pearson also acquitted himself well during spring training this year, as he held hitters to a paltry .194 batting average and totaled 16 strikeouts against five walks in 10 2/3 innings before the sport shut down.

If Pearson does come up and make a serious impact in 2020, Toronto could have an enviable duo atop its rotation with him and left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu  an $80MM offseason pickup who finished as the National League Cy Young runner-up as a Dodger in 2019. Until Pearson makes his first start and Chase Anderson returns from the injured list, though, the Blue Jays appear likely to fill out their rotation with Tanner Roark, Matt Shoemaker, Trent Thornton and Ryan Borucki behind Ryu.
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Linkedin Carlos Osorio (Reuters) Niagara Falls, Ontario  Thu, July 23, 2020 07:05 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066895677 2 News Niagara-falls,Canada,united-states,travel,social-distancing,Tourist Free

The tourist hotspot of Niagara Falls has gained a new photo-op for social distancing Canadian visitors on board ferries taking them into the mist of the falls: crowds of Americans.

Although cases of COVID-19 continue to rise across the United States, neighboring Canada has largely managed to contain the spread of the virus, helped by strict social distancing measures and mandatory masks in several jurisdictions.

At the famous waterfalls on the US-Canadian border, Canadian ferries are limited to just six passengers per boat, out of a 700 person capacity. But on the US side, the ferries are operating at 50 percent capacity, according to Maid of the Mist boat tours.

"We actually took a picture of the (American) boat," said Julie Pronovost, visiting from Quebec with her family on Tuesday. "I don't find that it's very safe to be on a boat like that. It's much better here."

Maid of the Mist could not immediately be reached for comment but its website said it was following the guidance of New York State public health officials. The boats contain markers to keep visitors spaced out, and face coverings are compulsory, among other safety changes, it said.

Mory DiMaurizio, general manager and vice president of Canada's Hornblower Niagara Cruises, said the limits placed on its business by the Ontario provincial government were "disappointing" and that it was "frustrating" to see the American boats relatively full.

Read also: Niagara Falls, northern lights among must-see attractions in Canada

"However we've made lemonade out of lemons," DiMaurizio said, referring to a new VIP cruise the company has created - a near-empty boat, plus a meal and funicular ride included with the ticket. Health precautions include temperature checks and mandatory masks.

The popularity of the C$69.95 ($52.00) per person cruise has "actually surprised us," DiMaurizio said.

The United States reported 57,777 new COVID-19 cases as of Tuesday, compared with Canada's 786. Since the outbreak began, the United States has reported around 118 coronavirus cases per 10,000 residents, while Canada has around 30.

Canadian authorities are dealing with both unwanted tourists slipping though the border and permitted travelers - including essential workers, those en route to Alaska, and families reuniting - who break the strict quarantine laws, causing concerns about possible outbreaks in several provinces.

Tourists at the falls on Tuesday said they felt much safer with the six person per boat limit.

"I'm glad I'm in Canada," said Amanda Barnes of Brampton, Ontario. "You can see why the pandemic is raging in the United States and not in Canada when you look at the difference between the boats."
Editor's note: This is the first in a two-part series about the decisions facing Rapid City Area Schools as the school year approaches.

Five percent of Rapid City Area Schools employees are considering not returning to work this fall, according to responses from a survey sent out to staff by the district last week.

Their decision comes as the district is finalizing its back-to-school plan, which will be presented to the school board in late July or early August.

Katy Urban, public information manager for the district, said the estimated five percent  about 90 of the 1,800-person workforce  might opt to use the Family Medical Leave Act or even resign from the district.

The deadline to answer the survey question was July 17 as the district was trying to get a sense of how many staff members were thinking about using the FMLA, a leave of absence or resigning, Urban said.

We just needed time, she said. We could have someone that decides the week before school that they dont want to go back to work due to health concerns.

They could apply for FMLA at that point. Theres not really a hard deadline on that, its just we were asking (staff) if you already know, let us know so we can start hiring for those positions," Urban said.

The district is always hiring substitute teachers, Urban said, but more recent challenges have arisen in hiring bus drivers and other non-teaching jobs that are often held by retirees or older workers who may be at higher risk for COVID-19.

Awaiting state guidance

Some decisions about a back-to-school plan have been held up as the district waits to receive guidance from the states education and health departments.

Urban said the latest shes heard was that the DOE and DOH are working together on guidelines for schools on how to respond if a student or teacher gets COVID-19, for example. The district is hoping the guidance will be available very soon  hoping for this week.

Guidance from Gov. Kristi Noems office also is yet to be seen. Noem announced school closures in mid-March, but no specific guidance or executive order is likely to come from her office for the upcoming school year.

Ian Fury, communications director for Noems office, said the governor expects each district will approach its back-to-school plans differently, but our common goal is one everyone agrees with: our kids must have access to the full educational experience this fall."

Given how important it is for our kids to be back in school this fall, our Department of Education team is working around the clock to get school districts all the information they need to make decisions that best fit their unique situations, he said Monday in an email to the Journal.

Noem's most recent comments about schools came one month ago, the last time she gave a regular press conference related to COVID-19. In Huron, she said June 24 she would push for schools to bring students into classrooms at least part of the time during the upcoming school year.

The CDC, World Health Organization and even the state health department and state's medical association have repeatedly said its important to wear masks around people who dont live in your household and especially when social distancing measures are difficult to maintain.

The masks may help prevent people who have COVID-19 from spreading the virus to others, the CDC says.

Fury said Noem wont mandate that anyone in the state wear a mask especially since the science on masks remains mixed, he said.

Overcrowding issues

While the plan isnt yet complete, the back-to-school options for the second-largest district in the state will likely offer in-person classes and a remote-learning option for students and families who dont feel comfortable going to school yet.

The remote-learning option could also be used by students who get sick or are exposed to COVID-19 and self-quarantine for 14 days.

Urban said a district survey showed that a majority of families want to see their kids back in schools and learning in-person. Fewer wanted to do online learning than she expected, she said.

Issues with overcrowding in schools, a major component of the bond issue earlier this year, will only become more pronounced when classrooms begin to implement social distancing measures. Around half the schools are at capacity or overcrowded, Urban said.

When the CDC came out with social distancing guidelines for schools, we said some of this is just impossible given our space constraints, she said. The district will implement physical distancing where it can, but recognize that were just maxed out as it is.

Even at the high school level, when you think about 1,500 kids in a hallway during a passing period, its pretty hard to stagger that, she said. Thats why we have to have that mask discussion, and if were going to require them, when is the most important time to wear them?

The district has said it will provide masks to teachers and staff, but the decision is still out on whether students will be required to wear them, especially during passing periods, in gym class or for those participating in choir, band and orchestra.

Ive already seen a great debate happening on social media posts the district has had, where weve seen parents fighting back and forth, Urban told South Dakota News Watch. I can only imagine that some of our kids will pick up on that as well.

Mike Roesler, board president, said school districts across the state will have different approaches to their back-to-school plans. The effects in Rapid City and in schools wont be known for a year or so.

Some variables impacting Rapid City are different than those in Sioux Falls, Aberdeen or other school districts elsewhere in the state or country, Roesler said. The one overarching data point that we must all appreciate is that the COVID-19 virus will eventually work its way through our entire population.

Roesler said the district has been working feverishly on its back-to-school plan in order to identify and mitigate risks. No matter what the plan ends up being, Roesler said, some will look at it and say, Thats not safe. We know that.

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Navalny charged with slander of Great Patriotic War veteran

 RAPSI, Oleg Sivozhelezov

10:27 23/07/2020

MOSCOW, July 23 (RAPSI)  Investigators have brought slander charges against Alexey Navalny over the bloggers statements about veteran of the Great Patriotic War Ignat Artemenko, lawyer Vadim Kobzev has told RAPSI.

In early June, Russia Today TV channel published a video where the 93-year Artemenko and other respondents were reading the Constitution preamble. Following that, Navalny released a video with comments insulting the veteran on his social networks.

If convicted he could face up to 200 hours of community service. Navalny pleads not guilty.
While Sushant Singh Rajputs death has been hard for his fans and many netizens to deal with, his family will be the most pained by the unfortunate event. As Sushant was living away from his family, someone who was always with him was his dog Fudge. Reports of how tremendously the dog was impacted by the owners death had started doing the rounds, and false reports of the pet passing away had also surfaced.

READ: Sushant Singh Rajput Feels 'foreverness' With His Pet Dog In His Throwback Home Tour Video

Fudge has now been united with Sushants father KK Singh. As per reports, Sushants father is currently living with one of Sushants sisters in Gurugram and another sister Shweta Singh Kriti shared the snap on Instagram to express her delight.

Heres the post

Earlier, reports of Fudge not eating food and searching for his owner had surfaced. Videos of Fudge seeing Sushants picture on a mobile phone and grieving too were shared by fans.

READ:Sushant Singh Rajput's Pet Labrador Fudge & Other Dogs Are Alive; Contrary Reports Untrue

Numerous videos of Sushants light-hearted moments with Fudge were also shared by the fan clubs. In one of them, the Chhichhore star was seen dancing to a Govinda song together and another where they enjoyed a trip on a boat together.

Bro  #SushanthSinghRajput koi aur naaa sahi ye to teri Value aaj bhi janta hai!  pic.twitter.com/gW2vcCSh2T  Manveer Gurjar (@imanveergurjar) June 17, 2020

Sushant Singh Rajput passed away at his home in Mumbais Bandra on June 14. He was found hanging, and Mumbai Police claimed that his death had happened of asphyxia due to hanging. Meanwhile, Sushants last film Dil Bechara will be releasing on Disney+ Hotstar on Friday.

READ:When Sushant Singh Rajput Happily Danced With His Dog Fudge On Govinda's Song; Watch

READ:Sushant Singh Rajputs Old Post With His Pet Dog Fudge Will Leave You Heartbroken
BRIDGEPORT  A Waterbury man was being held in lieu of $500,000 bond on Thursday after police said he broke into a local womans apartment and beat and kicked her nearly to death.

Jonathan Poulard, 25, of Cliff Street, Waterbury, was charged with home invasion, second-degree assault and first-degree reckless endangerment.

During Poulards arraignment hearing, Supervisory Assistant States Attorney Kevin Dunn urged Superior Court Judge Tracy Lee Dayton to set a high bond, pointing out that Poulard is currently on probation for a prior domestic violence case.

The allegations here are incredibly serious, the judge agreed. After setting the bond at $500,000, Dayton continued the case to Aug. 13.

On June 21, police said, officers were dispatched to an undisclosed address after neighbors complained about a woman screaming for help.

When officers arrived, police said the female resident was being treated by medics in an ambulance. They said her left eye was swollen shut, her lip was spit and she was crying blood. The woman had extensive bruises on her arms and side, police said.

Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media

Police said the woman had recently broken up with Poulard. They said he allegedly crawled through a window to get into her apartment.

The woman began screaming and ordered Poulard to leave but, police said, Poulard grabbed the woman and threw her to the floor. He then began pummeling her about the head and face with his fists, police said.

As the woman lay nearly unconscious on the floor, police said, Poulard then repeatedly kicked her in the side.
LOS ANGELES - The Sierra Club apologized Wednesday for racist remarks its founder, naturalist John Muir, made more then a century ago as the influential environmental group grapples with a harmful history that perpetuated white supremacy.

Executive Director Michael Brune said it was time to take down some of our own monuments as statues of Confederate officers and colonists are toppled across the U.S. in a reckoning with the nations racist history following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Muir, who founded the club in 1892, helped spawn the environmental movement and is called father of our national parks, figures prominently in what Brune called a truth-telling about the groups early history.

He made derogatory comments about Black people and Indigenous peoples that drew on deeply harmful racist stereotypes, though his views evolved later in his life, Brune wrote on the groups website. As the most iconic figure in Sierra Club history, Muirs words and actions carry an especially heavy weight. They continue to hurt and alienate Indigenous people and people of colour.

Muir, who was born in Scotland, came to the U.S. as a young man and travelled and wrote extensively, romanticizing nature in breathless passages. He emphasized the need to preserve the land but also disdained American Indians as dirty savages and Black people as lazy Sambos, a particularly offensive slur.

He also kept company with other early club members and leaders, such as Joseph LeConte and David Starr Jordan, who advocated for white supremacy and promoting the race through eugenics, which called for forced sterilization of Blacks and other minority groups, Brune said.

Until recent years, Muirs legacy has been largely untarnished and focused on his conservation efforts, such as saving Yosemite Valley before it became a national park and preserving the worlds largest trees in what became Sequoia National Park.

But Richard White, a Stanford history professor, said Muirs advocacy for wilderness has an inherent racial bias.

Muirs image of pristine wilderness unshaped by humans only existed if native people werent part of it. Even though they had been there for thousands of years, Muir wrote that they seemed to have no right place in the landscape. American Indians needed to be removed in order to reinvent those places as untouched.

There is a dark underside here that will not be erased by just saying Muir was a racist, White said. I would leave Muirs name on things but explain that, as hard as it may be to accept, it is not just Muir who was racist. The way we created the wilderness areas we now rightly prize was racist.

Muir is so widely revered that his name appears across California on everything from schools to national monuments, one of the states highest peaks, a giant swath of scenic Sierra Nevada wilderness that is bisected by a trail in his name and a national historic site. The discernible profile of Muir  with long beard, brimmed hat and walking stick gazing at Yosemites Half Dome  was stamped on the 2005 California quarter when the U.S. Mint was producing a commemorative coin for every state.

In Alaska, where he travelled extensively, a glacier and an inlet in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve are named for Muir, as likely is a mountain east of Anchorage.

You cant walk into a national park gift shop without coming face-to-face with T-shirts, mugs and tchotchkes bearing one of his pithy  often overused  quotes, such as The mountains are calling and I must go.

Revisiting Muirs offensive remarks comes as environmental groups and the outdoor industry aim to be more inclusive during renewed racial awareness following Floyds death. The killing of the Black man in May has sparked weeks of protests and led to calls to rename places named for Confederate officers and remove statues of historical figures who held slaves or colonized or exploited Native Americans.

Brune said the Sierra Club once excluded people of colour as it catered to middle- and upper-class whites. He said the focus on preserving recreational lands once inhabited by Indigenous people who had been driven out by white settlers wilfully ignored the plight of minorities who were fighting environmental injustices in their own communities.

For all the harms the Sierra Club has caused, and continues to cause, to Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of colour, I am deeply sorry, Brune wrote.

He pledged to hire a more diverse staff and invest in environmental and racial justice work.

___

Associated Press journalist Mark Thiessen in Anchorage contributed.
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Googles Messages app with Rich Communication Services (RCS) support functions more like an instant messaging app. The latest update to the Google Messages app brings in five new features. Since the new features wont work with SMS conversations, these will most likely be limited to regions that support RCS messaging.

Firstly, users can instantly react to any new messages in conversation with the new animated expressions. The official confirmation comes after several months of teasing from the company.

Google Messages new features include a built-in photo editor

There will be a total of seven emoji-like reactions including like, love, laughter, surprise, sadness, anger, and dislike. Obviously, these reactions will not be available in conversations using SMS. With Google Allo, the company introduced the Smart Reply feature that suggests responses based on the context of a conversation.

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For now, the Smart Reply suggestions will also include stickers along with text messages. Initially, these sticker suggestions will only show up in English conversations. The new update will also include a built-in media editor to create art from the photos and share them instantly.

The newly added option allows to add text or doodle when new photos are taken with the in-app camera. We should also expect to see an option for doing the same for previously captured photos. The Messages app already supports voice messages with a dedicated microphone button.

Users can make a video call directly from the chat

Users can now easily share short voice messages by holding down the button while talking. Finally, there is a shortcut to make a video call in the top section of the chat. Now, the user can instantly start a video call using the Google Duo app. Back in March, Google increased the group video call limit in Duo from 8 to 12 participants.

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Earlier this month, the limit for the number of participants was increased again to 32. With all these features, Google seems to be building an iMessage-like service for all Android smartphones. More importantly, the RCS implementation also needs support from carriers and device OEMs.

We need to wait and see how Google Messages can compete with the likes of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. If you are not yet seeing these features, try to update the app to its latest version. As of now, the latest update from the Play Store doesnt include any of these new features.
New Delhi:

Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das will again brief media with updates on the demonetisation process in India on Thursday at 10am.



The Department of Economic Affairs has been regularly updating rules and information related to demonetisation process across India. In the last brief on Tuesday, Shanktikanta Das had announced the introduction of indelible ink marks to ensure no repeat customers for cash exchange in banks.



On Monday, he had introduced the concept of Micro-ATM machines for ease of customers and announced the task force for recalibration of ATMs so that they can dispense new currency notes from Mahatma Gandhi series.

As it happened: (Top quotes)

#Task Force held a meeting and a road map has been formed to re-calibrate all ATMs; sure that it will be done soon: SK Das

#Central govt employees up to group C can draw salary advance up to Rs 10,000 in cash that'll be adjusted against their Nov salaries: S Das

#One member of the family, be it father or mother can withdraw upto Rs 2.5 lakhs for a wedding: Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das

#For over the counter exchange of old Rs 500/1000 notes, with effect from Nov 18, Rs 4,500 limit will be reduced to Rs 2000: Shaktikanta Das

#For wedding ceremonies, upto Rs 2.5 lakh can be withdrawn from the bank account which are KYC compliant: Shaktikanta Das

# The time limit of crop insurance payments will be extended by 15 days to help farmers

#Trader accounts will have to be KYC compliant

#Traders who are registered with the APMC markets will be allowed to withdraw Rs 50,000 per week, like bussiness holders: Shaktikanta Das

#Govt decides that farmers can withdraw Rs 25000 per week from a/c whre farmers receive either by cheque or which is credited by RTGS a/c-Das

Also read:

Indelible ink marks for cash exchange to weed out repeat customers: Top quotes from Economic Affairs Secys brief

Watch | Micro ATMs to be installed, daily cash limit removed, weekly limit set to Rs 24000: Economic Affairs Secy



For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
(Natural News) Statue vandalism and other anti-Christian attacks show no sign of dying down as a statue of Jesus was recently discovered knocked off its pedestal and beheaded at Miamis Good Shepherd Catholic Church.

The desecrated statue was discovered on July 15 by the Reverend Edivaldo da Silva. The church has now hired an overnight security guard. The Director of Communications for the Archdiocese of Miami, Mary Ross Agosta, told Fox News that the Archbishop is asking for the incident to be investigated as a hate crime.

The church said in a statement that the parish community was saddened by the incident, adding that they condemned the behavior and invited their community to pray for peace.

Florida Catholic Church set on fire with parishioners inside

The incident came on the heels of a far more violent one directed at Christians when 24-year-old Steven Anthony Shields slammed his car into the Queen of Peace Church, a Catholic Church in Ocala, Florida, and then set it on fire while the parishioners inside were getting ready for mass.

Shields is now facing several charges, including attempted murder, arson and evading arrest. An arrest affidavit says the man laughed while admitting to starting the fire. He reportedly told police that he is opposed to the Catholic Church and called his actions awesome.

In California, a fire recently broke out at the 249-year-old San Gabriel mission. The origin of the fire is still being investigated, but its worth noting that it occurred just days after the mission had moved a statue of Father Junipero Serra out of public view following the toppling of other statues of the missionary in the state in recent weeks. Indigenous activists consider Serra, the founder of the California mission system, a symbol of oppression.

Meanwhile, a pastor at St. Stephen Catholic Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, found a decapitated statue of the Virgin Mary. According to the Catholic News Agency, its head has yet to be located. The diocese of Knoxvilles Director of Communications, Jim Wogan, said in a statement that theyre not sure if the incident was a targeted desecration or simply a prank.

Statues of the Virgin Mary have also been vandalized recently in New York City and Boston. In New Haven, Connecticut, an incident is under investigation in which satanic and anarchist symbols were painted on the doors of St. Joseph Church.

When angry leftist mobs first started vandalizing statues across the nation representing white historical figures, far left activist Shaun King called for statues and images depicting Jesus as a white European to be removed because he considers them a form of white supremacy. He called for all imagery to be removed, including murals and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends.

Where is the mainstream media?

There are a few disturbing aspects to what is going on with the rising anti-Christian attacks across the country. The first, of course, is the fact that people are directing so much anger toward those who believe in God. Our nation was founded on the belief that all of us were created equally and have been endowed by our creator with the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These are not just attacks on God; theyre attacks on America itself.

However, another troubling dimension is the fact that the national mainstream media isnt giving the string of anti-Catholic incidents very much airtime. Just imagine how much coverage they would have given these incidents if they were directed toward a Black Lives Matter protest or an abortion clinic. Youll see story after story about white people going on racist rants, but somehow a church being burned down with people inside of it isnt deemed newsworthy.

Sources for this article include:

WesternJournal.com

FoxNews.com

FoxNews.com
 Adopt challenge trials. In the final stage of testing, researchers typically give a vaccine to one group of volunteers and a placebo to another, then wait to see whether significantly fewer in the first group develop the targeted infection. That takes time. A quicker but riskier alternative is to inject volunteers with the vaccine, then deliberately expose them to the pathogen. Such challenge trials are the basis for animal studies of vaccines, and theyve been used in human tests of cholera, malaria and typhoid shots as well. A number of prominent scientists have argued that the urgency of a Covid-19 vaccine justifies their use now, and the website 1daysooner.org has collected the names of tens of thousands of people who say theyd participate. Skeptics say its unethical to use this trial design until there are proven therapies to treat those who would become sick.
"Eulachacha Waikiki" and "Healer" star Son Seung Won has made his public appearance for the first time, following his release from prison.

Now that his sentence and time served are already done, and while he's still waiting for his official sentence, Son Seung Won was discharged from prison and made his appearance to the general public through posts on his Instagram.

As seen in his first post at around 1:00 p.m. KST, the actor shared a photo, wherein he is seemingly in a cafe, clothed in a simple dark outfit. He's also with another person.

Then, at around 5:40 p.m. KST, there was another post uploaded on his account. This time, he is seen with his mother and his younger brother, and it's evident that they missed each other very much!

Son Seung Won wrote a caption on his post that reads, "I'm very sorry. I missed you a lot. Mom and my younger brother."

In April of 2019, Son Seung Won was sentenced to 18 months in prison. He was accused of drunk driving, driving without a license, and fleeing the scene where the incident took place. Senior judge Hong Ki gave the sentence to the actor after he pleaded guilty to the act of Additional Punishment Law on Specific Crimes, for fleeing the scene of an accident, as well as other additional charges.

At first, the actor was charged under the "Yoon Chang Ho law," wherein it was put into place late last year to impose a much stern punishment against drunk drivers who put others in danger, injure, or even kill someone. However, his case was upgraded into a special one since he also tried to run away, resulting in an even severer punishment.

It is stated under the South Korean law that if a person was injured by a driver, who is under the influence of liquor, the drunk driver would receive a sentence of 1-15 years in prison. Not only that, but he will also be fined the amount of KRW 10,000,000-30,000,000 (USD 8,772-26,317).

It only gets heavier for actor Son Seung Won since in the law, if a drunk driver injures a person and then tries to run away from the crime scene, the punishment is increased to a maximum of 30 years, and the fine still remains a maximum of KRW 30,000,000.

According to reports, Son Seung Won was examined and was caught drunk driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.21% last August 2018. After several months, he was caught again, and the examination resulted in a blood alcohol content of 0.206%. He hit a car and injured two people, and what's even worse was that he tried to flee from the crime scene.

However, other cars blocked him from doing so. It means many witnessed what happened and what he tried to do.

Known to be most active in musical theatre, Song Seung Won was cast as the youngest Korean actor as a leading role in the Korean staging of Hedwig and the Angry Inch in 2013. He then became famous through his dramas like "Hello! My Twenties," "Healer," "Eulachacha Waikiki," and many more.
Representative image

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain, on July 22, warned that strict action will be taken if it is found that monetary transaction was done during the process of plasma donation for any COVID-19 patient.

He said this in response to a query from a reporter on such alleged irregularities.

"Plasma donation to benefit COVID patients is a benevolent act. And, strict action will be taken if anyone tries to buy or sell plasma," he said.

Follow our LIVE blog for the latest updates of the novel coronavirus pandemic

A first-of-its-kind 'plasma bank' in the country was recently set up at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Science (ILBS) in south Delhi.

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

Delhi government-run LNJP Hospital also recently started a plasma bank.

Later, in a statement issued by the Delhi government, Jain was quoted as saying, "Delhi government is very serious about plasma therapy. If there is any report of corruption regarding plasma donation then the government will take serious action against the people associated with such corruption".

Earlier this month, hospitals in Delhi were ordered to appoint a nodal officer for requisition, coordination and issuance of plasma from the 'plasma bank' recently set up at ILBS.

The July 8 order also said, plasma would be issued on a first come, first served basis subject to availability, with the understanding that there would be "no commerical usage" and it would be made available to the patient "free of cost".
A 14-year-old girl from Pakistan was burned alive after her uncle doused her in petrol and set her on fire. Her uncle was enraged after the girl's father refused to let her marry her cousin.

Burned alive

Mohammad Yousuf, the girl's father, turned down a marriage proposal from Mohammad Yaqoob, his brother. Yaqoob wanted his son and the girl, Sadia, to wed.

However, the girl's father already promised her to another relative two months before Yaqoob's proposal, according to Gulf News.

The authorities said that on July 17, the uncle waited for Sadia to return home. He then poured petrol all over her and set her on fire. The police stated that the girl was alone at the house when the incident happened, so she was left with her injuries.

After the brutal attack, she was able to escape from her home. She was rushed to the nearby hospital but was later pronounced dead, according to the Daily Mail.

Also Read: Afghan Girl Kills Two Taliban Fighters, Shoots Several More After They Murdered Her Parents

According to the media reports, the parents and other family members of the girl tried to cover up the uncle's crime. They began telling others that she died of a cylinder blast and it was an accident.

The police found contradicting factors in the statements of the girl's parents and in-laws. The authorities took the uncle into custody and he confessed during questioning.

Women being killed in Pakistan for the sake of "honor killing" is not new. Just last month, the body of a 24-year-old woman was found after she was stoned to death. On June 27, the National Highway and Motorway Police found a mutilated body near the Indus Highway.

The local police were able to identify the body of the woman who was stoned to death. Her named was Waziran and she lived in the village of Wadda Chachar. It is believed that the woman was pelted with stones and was hit with a wooden stick repeatedly.

Honor killings

In Pakistan, numerous communities see women and girls embodiment of family honor. They believe that a women's identity and her sense of social respect and worth are measured by how she follows her family's demands, such as marrying the man that the family chooses for her.

The problem is, seeking justice for "honor killings" is difficult. The loophole of honor killings allows the perpetrators to escape punishment.

Under Pakistani law, the family of the victim can pardon the perpetrator. Honor killings are not just rampant in Pakistan, it also happens in other parts of South Asia. It is difficult to know how many women were killed because of this, but the number is thousands worldwide.

Usually, the punishments for transgressions of honor or for bringing shame in a family are decided by councils of tribal elders. The tribal elders consist of only men.

In Pakistan, the statistics of honor killings vary from 900 to 1,000 every year, according to The New York Times.

But these numbers represent the instances that were documented by human rights groups based on reports submitted by law enforcement authorities or the media. It does not include those that were not publicized.

Related Article: Two Italian Teens Pay Bitcoins to Watch Livestream of Children Being Tortured and Murdered

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Michael Chatfield was sentenced to 108 months in prison on Thursday for his involvement in the Cream Scheme that defrauded insurors of millions of dollars. Chatfield was also ordered to pay $2 million in restitution.

The sentencing took place in Winchester, and Attorney David Eldridge had several issues with the pre-sentence investigation report, one being the claim Chatfield was a leader of the multi-level marketing scheme.

This organization is based on a whole host of independent contractors, said attorney Eldridge. He didnt hire or fire anyone, although it is true he recruited participants.

The attorney pointed toward co-defendant Billy Hindmons sentence, who received 51 months last week. Attorney Eldridge told Federal Judge Sandy Mattice his client and Hindmon were both on the same level of the scheme, and that there was no difference in their roles.

However, the state argued there is no requirement that says you have to be an employer to be a leader. You can lead independent contractors. Prosecutor Frank Clark also emphasized the finding that Chatfield was the one who was said to set up an LLC used in the scheme. Judge Mattice eventually overruled this objection by the defense.

Attorney Eldridge then asked for a variance from the standard sentencing guidelines, which would have seen Chatfield sentenced for a maximum of 210 months in prison. He emphasized the large number of people (and their letters of support) that vouched for his character.

Demarcus Rogers briefly took the witness stand, telling the court how Chatfield was someone who took him under his wing when the witness was a freshman in high school. He also said Chatfield helped his businesses a few years ago, and described Chatfield as a high-character and moral person.

Prosecutor Clark asked, if Chatfield was morally upstanding and intelligent, why did he get stuck in the Cream Scheme? And prosecutor Clark also paid special attention to the testimony stating that Chatfield came from an affluent family with plenty of resources, with the prosecutor saying there was no excuse for Chatfield to become so involved in the fraud.

It would not be obvious to a 23-year-old just out of college to disclose the cost their insurance would incur, said attorney Eldridge, who affirmed the fraud in the case as Chatfields inability or refusal to disclose the cost of the pharmaceutical and its effectiveness to insurance companies.



At least on the outset, I understand, said Judge Mattice. But at some point, it had to become apparent to Chatfield (fraud was being committed).



The defense also argued that sentencing Chatfield to almost 20 years in prison would be excessive. They cited studies that showed people who commit white collar crimes are deterred from committing similar crimes again after a short prison sentence. Judge Mattice did not support this argument, and pointed out how someone like Bernie Madoffs life sentence a decade ago has not stopped fraud from happening.



The mere concept of what you said is offensive, said Judge Mattice. We cant have a society where a class with wealth and connections dont deserve to go to jail.



Prosecutor Clark said he believed the sentence must be substantial, as $18 million was attributed to Chatfield. He said there is a reason there is a difference between misdemeanor theft and felony theft.



Someone who steals $18 million may be willing to go to prison for one year, or maybe even four, said prosecutor Clark. Give them enough money and they may be willing to ride it out for a few years.



The prosecutor told the court about Chatfields role within the scheme, painting a picture showing a man who was at the top of the scheme. Prosecutor Clark said Chatfield was the one who fed lies to those who were about to be questioned about the scheme. He also said that when Chatfield was about to be caught, Chatfield simply sold his book to someone else rather than coming clean, and that he often bragged about the scam in emails and texts.



After each side had argued their point, Judge Mattice sentenced Chatfield to the lengthy prison term. The prosecution agreed that $2 million is a proper amount of restitution, as it was determined Chatfield made $2.8 from the Cream Scheme.



Chatfield will have the opportunity to shave a year off his sentence if he completes 500 hours of drug treatment during his time in prison. After he leaves, Chatfield will be on probation for three years. Because Chatfields wife is both pregnant and diabetic, Chatfield will report to prison on Feb. 3rd (their child is due to be born in January).



Mr Chatfield, I wish you luck, said Judge Mattice before he adjourned court.


President Donald Trump talks to journalists during a news conference about his administration's response to the ongoing global CCP virus pandemic in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, on July 22, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Trump Outlines Actions to Protect US Seniors Amid CCP Virus Pandemic

President Donald Trump on Wednesday expressed his support to senior U.S. citizens and announced actions his administration is taking to protect them amid the CCP virus global pandemic.

I want to send a message of support and hope to every senior citizen who has been dealing with the struggle of isolation in what should be the golden years of your life, the president said at a press briefing. We will get to the other end of that tunnel very quickly, we hope. The light is starting to shine. We will get there very quickly. But we send our love; we send a message of lovevery important. Were with you all the way.

Trump noted that the median age for people who die from COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, is 78 years old. He also noted that nearly half of the deaths have occurred among people who live in nursing homes or long-term care facilities, which equates to about half of the COVID-19 deaths occurring among less than 1 percent of the U.S. population.

Think of that: less than 1 percent, half of the fatalities. So we know what to look for, he reiterated.

The administration will require increased testing of nursing home personnel in states with the worst outbreaks, and is distributing 15,000 rapid, point-of-care diagnostic devices across the country to support the effort, Trump said.

Furthermore, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will distribute $5 billion to all nursing homes, sourced from the Provider Relief Fund, with nursing homes in higher-risk areas to receive more funding.

This money can be used to address critical needs, including the hiring of additional staff, increasing testing, and providing technology support so [nursing home] residents can connect their families and they can connect to their families, Trump said of the funds.

They want to be with their loved ones. They cant do it, so what were doing is were working it so that we can connecthave them connect with their families if theyre not able to visit, he added.

President Donald Trump talks to journalists during a news conference about his administrations response to the ongoing global CCP pandemic at the White House in Washington, on July 22, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The administration has also been identifying especially high-risk nursing homes and informing governors to help guide appropriate action, Trump said.

Besides this, other agencies, such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the U.S. Public Health Service, are also prioritizing nursing homes facing the highest risk by providing enhanced technical assistance and support, and visits to the homes.

CMS and CDC are implementing a national training program focused on infection control for those nursing homes that need it most. And we have them surveyed, and we have them mostly pinpointed, Trump said.

The Trump administration over the past few months has created and employed a surveillance system to detect outbreaks in nursing homes, and 99 percent of all nursing homes have been directly reporting to the system.

We have great data.When a nursing home has three or more cases, we alert the state and make sure that it responds very quickly. We check on it and make sure they respond very quickly, Trump said.

The latest actions the president announced to help protect U.S. senior citizens come after the administration in March suspended all medically unnecessary visits to nursing homes in response to the CCP virus. Resources were also prioritized for nursing homes, Trump said, with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) sending protective equipment directly to 15,400 Medicaid- and Medicare-certified nursing homes across the United States.

Trump acknowledged that there has been a spike in infections throughout the country, in particular across the Sun Belt regions.

We continue to vigorously combat the rise of cases in the South and Southwest and the West, he said. Were closely monitoring and aggressively acting to control the infection in Texas, Arizona, California, Florida.

He added that there may be a number of causes for the spike, and noted that cases began to rise among young Americans shortly after demonstrationswhich you know very well aboutwhich presumably triggered a broader relaxation of mitigation efforts nationwide.

Trump said another cause was the substantial increase in travel, which includes increased gatherings on various holidays such as Memorial Day, where young Americans closely congregated at bars, maybe beaches, and other locations.

Our strategy is to shelter the highest-risk Americans, while allowing younger and healthier citizens to return to work or school while being careful and very vigilant, Trump explained. Wear a mask, socially distance, and repeatedly wash your hands  We want young Americans to avoid packed bars and other crowded indoor gatherings.
The Government of the Republic of Korea (RoK) will provide a total of 90 doctoral scholarships for candidates from ASEAN countries to study at six prestigious Korean universities over the next five years.

RoK Ambassador to ASEAN Lim Sung-nam

The move was announced at an online ceremony on July 22 to launch the Higher Education for ASEAN Talent (HEAT) programme, and was co-organised by the Korean delegation in ASEAN, the ASEAN Secretariat, and the Korean Council for University Education (KCUE).

Eleven candidates selected in the first round are expected to start their studies in September.

The scholarship programme was agreed to by ASEAN and Korean leaders in the RoK's Busan last November.

RoK Ambassador to ASEAN Lim Sung-nam said that through this programme, the RoK Government hopes to contribute to the development of human resources in each ASEAN member state.

Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN for ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Kung Phoak said people-to-people exchanges via scholarships could help promote mutual understanding between the bloc and the RoK as well as enhance bilateral relations.

President of KCUE Kim In-chul said HEAT will help ASEAN develop human resources and also strengthen competitiveness and capacity at Korean universities.

HEAT has a total budget of 8.3 million USD from the ASEAN-Korea Cooperation Fund (AKCF) for many projects and programmes to strengthen ASEAN-RoK relations and contribute to the building of the ASEAN Community.

Founded in 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) groups 10 member countries: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam./. VNA
The high prevalence of Covid-19 infections in Mumbai and Pune will help test the efficacy of the vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, its local manufacturer Serum Institute of India (SII) has said.

By end of August, between 4,000 to 5,000 people in Pune and Mumbai will be injected with the vaccine as part of trials that are scheduled to last over two months, SII said.

Oxford University has reported satisfactory progress from the vaccines test results and is conducting bigger field tests in the UK. In India, it has chosen SII as manufacturing partner, which has to conduct field trials before getting the final nod to ensure they are safe and effective for Indians.

While Pune district has over 59,000 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, Mumbai has 1.03 lakh such cases. Both the cities account for almost half the positive cases in Maharashtra and over a 10th of the cases in India.

There are a number of trial sites across both Mumbai and Pune that we have shortlisted, as these cities have many hotspots, which will help us understand the efficacy of the vaccine, the companys chief executive Adar Poonawalla told PTI in an email interview.

He said the company aims to commence the crucial phase-3 of the trials of the vaccine christened as Covishield in India by August after getting the necessary permissions from the Drug Controller General of India.

The Indian regulatory authorities have aided us in fast-tracking approvals keeping in mind the requisite guidelines of safety and efficacy, Poonawalla said.

We do not want to rush and would focus only on delivering a viable and effective product for the masses, he said.

His father and company chairman Cyrus Poonawalla had on Tuesday said SII is aiming to sell the vaccine for under Rs 1,000 per dose in India.

Adar Poonawalla said the company aims to manufacture 300 million to 400 million doses by the year-end, following the success of initial and licensure trials.

He said as part of the agreement with AstraZeneca, SII can manufacture 1 billion doses for India and nearly 70 low and middle income countries.

There are no challenges in the manufacturing of the vaccine doses and the company will be starting by making 60-70 million doses per day, he said.

He had earlier explained that the Covid-19 vaccine project is a USD 200 million bet, wherein it is investing in production even as the vaccine goes through the trials process, so as to ensure that it can introduce a large volume of the vaccines in the market as soon as the license is received. However, if this candidate fails, the company will lose the money.

Our facility is well-equipped with state-of-the-art technology to manufacture the Covid-19 vaccine. We plan to start production post regulatory approvals, Poonawala said.
Former U.S. congressman Michael Ozzie Myers, a Philadelphia political operative with a checkered past was indicted Thursday on federal charges that he bribed an election judge, stuffed ballot boxes and committed an array of other voting fraud.

U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain said Myers, 77, committed his crimes to aid Democratic candidates in the Pennsylvania primary elections from 2014 to 2016. His indictment was filed in U.S. Eastern District Court.

A chief accusation is that Myers bribed Domenick J. Demuro, an election judge in Phillys 39th Ward, 36th Division to illegally pad the vote totals for his favored candidates. Myers would solicit cash payments from those candidates, who included judge hopefuls, to pay the bribes, McSwain said.

Demuro pleaded guilty to charges relating to the fraud in May and is awaiting sentencing.

Myers advanced his political and financial interests through fraudulent and corrupt means by engaging in a ballot stuffing scheme that enabled him to take credit for the electoral success of his Philadelphia-based clients and preferred candidates, McSwain said. This secured his standing in local party politics that enabled him to control and influence the 39th Ward, and influence the distribution of local patronage jobs.

Myers is no stranger to prison. In 1979, the FBI record him taking a $50,000 bribe from undercover agents in the Abscam sting operation. He was expelled from the U.S. House and sentenced to 3 years in prison on bribery and conspiracy convictions.

Myers was among seven congressmen convicted over Abscam, in which FBI agents posed as officials of a fictious Arabian company that was offering bribes for political favors.
It has been almost half a year since the coronavirus global pandemic hit the U.S., but the nation is still battling with the novel virus and living day-by-day with the so-called "new normal." The symptoms of COVID-19 vary from one person to another: one may check all the possible signs, while others could be totally asymptomatic but still test positive.

Over the past few months, this pandemic only proves that everyone's life status is not enough to shield from the virus. Even the most prominent celebrities, world leaders and aristocrats contracted the dreaded disease.

While the internet provides tons of information about the symptoms of COVID-19, below are some of the key signs of having the virus as experienced by celebrities who survived the coronavirus.

Body Pain

Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson confirmed that they tested positive for COVID-19 in March while they were in Australia. In his Instagram post, the award-winning actor said they acquired the virus after displaying several symptoms of colds, fatigue and slight fever.

However, the "Cast Away" actor pointed out that they mainly experienced body pains or that heavy feeling of getting body aches without further physical activities.

Fever

One of the apparent symptoms of COVID-19 is getting consistent fever with a temperature of 37.8 degrees celsius and above. The Queen of Pop Madonna is one of the coronavirus survivors who experienced this.

While Madonna was not able to confirm that she tested positive for the virus, she revealed testing positive for the coronavirus antibody, which means she was able to recover from it. In an Instagram post, Madonna explained she was probably exposed to the virus during her "Madame X" concert tour in Paris -- during which she thought it was just extreme flu.

United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson also first suspected having coronavirus after his fever and cough would not go away for days.

Itchy Throat

Since coronavirus is said to be targeting the respiratory system, the early signs show through having an itchy throat that leads to a dry cough. Jazmin Grimaldi, daughter of Prince Albert of Monaco, recently described her symptoms from having an itchy throat before fatigue and chills set in.

Lost Of Sense Of Taste And Smell

When Britain's Prince Charles tested positive for coronavirus, the Buckingham Palace said that the heir to the throne only manifested mild symptoms. Months after his recovery, the 70-year-old royal revealed that his taste and smell had not yet fully recovered.

According to WebMD, respiratory viruses like COVID-19 or any typical cold and fly trigger anosmia that sometimes leave patients with permanent olfactory dysfunction.

Asymptomatic Celebrities

While the celebrities mentioned experienced symptoms like colds, fever fatigue, dry cough, and loss of smell and taste, some did not feel any symptoms at all.

Just like Idris Elba, as he completely felt like his usual self but still tested positive for COVID-19. The same goes for "Good Morning America" anchor George Stephanopolous.

How Did They Survive The Novel Virus?

These celebrities only followed the government and health experts' advice to submit themselves into self-isolation, be honest with their health and travel history, take prescribed medications, and follow protocols like staying at home, wearing a face mask and sanitizing often.

READ MORE: COVID-19 Scare: Royal Family Receives Heartbreaking News Amid Pandemic
By Akbar Mammadov

Armenians have committed acts of vandalism during peaceful rallies held in a number of countries against Armenias recent provocation on the border, Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov said during the ministrys presser on July 23.

Khalafov said that the Armenian regime, after the defeat of on the battlefield, have committed atrocities against Azerbaijanis holding peaceful protests in various foreign countries for the purpose of diverting attention from the main issue.

The deputy minister emphasized that Azerbaijanis abroad are protesting peacefully to demand an end to Armenian atrocities.

Khalafov also touched upon the latest Armenian provocation against Azerbaijanis ar the Azerbaijani General-Consulate in Los-Angeles.

We are in regular contact with the diplomatic missions of the countries, in which the incidents occurred. They are informed about the situation in details, Khalafov said.

The official noted that US police will thoroughly investigate the act of vandalism against Azerbaijanis in this country and take the necessary measures. The US ambassador to Azerbaijan has also stated this, the deputy minister added.

In the meantime, the FM Spokesperson Leyla Abdullayeva said in the same briefing that an Armenian attacking an Azerbaijani woman in Los Angeles was detained and will stand trial.

It should be noted that on July 22, the US ambassador to Azerbaijan was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after thousands of Armenians attacked a small group of Azerbaijanis and injured seven Azerbaijanis, including a woman.

Armenian radicals also committed provocation near the Azerbaijani Embassy in Belgium on July 22, assaulting Azerbaijani protestors by throwing stones at them. An Azerbaijani journalist received a head injury as a result of the attack.

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Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
The Illinois Department of Employment Security is investigating a nationwide scheme that has affected states federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance programs.

The fraud involves using personal information to file bogus unemployment claims. Personal information likely was obtained during a past data breach, according to the department.

The program, designed to provide benefits for those affected by COVID-19 layoffs, does not provide employers with the usual ability to protest a claim, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security.

If someone receives a debit card or a letter about unemployment status but has not filed for assistance, it could be an indication personal information has been misappropriated and should call 800-814-0513 to report it.

 Marco Cartolano
Anna Kendrick is one of Hollywoods most versatile actresses. Shes appeared in teen dramas, comedies, musicals, and shes even lent her voice to animated movies. Heres a look at some of Anna Kendricks most famous roles.

Anna Kendricks career blew up with the Twilight franchise

Anna Kendricks breakout role was in the 2008 blockbuster Twilight, based on the book of the same name by Stephanie Meyer. In the movie, Kendrick plays Jessica Stanley, a friend of the main character Bella Swan. Jessica is one of Bellas first friends when she moves to Forks, Washington, but she quickly becomes jealous of the attention Bella receives.

Kendrick reprised her role in the sequels The Twilight Saga: New Moon in 2009, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse in 2010, and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn  Part I in 2011.

Up in the Air

In 2009, Kendrick starred alongside George Clooney in the critically-acclaimed movie Up in the Air. The film centers on Clooneys character, Ryan Bingham, who works as a corporate downsizer, traveling the country to conduct company layoffs. Kendrick plays Natalie Keener, a young, ambitious, straight-laced go-getter, who threatens Binghams lifestyle with her new ideas.

Kendricks performance received widespread praise and earned her nominations for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and BAFTA Awards.

Pitch Perfect  Anna Kendricks big break

RELATED: Which Pitch Perfect Co-Star Does Anna Kendrick Want to Serenade Her?

Audiences were introduced to Kendricks impressive vocal chops in 2012s Pitch Perfect. The plot focuses on Barden Universitys all-girl acapella group, the Barden Bellas. Kendrick plays Beca, a feisty freshman who joins the group and helps them refresh their look and sound in preparation for the national competition.

Kendrick was part of an ensemble cast that also included Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow, and Skylar Astin, among others. The movie also spawned a successful soundtrack, which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. You might remember Kendricks song Cups from the soundtrack, which has sold more than 3 million copies and is certified 3x Multiplatinum by the RIAA. Kendrick returned as Beca in the sequels Pitch Perfect 2 in 2015 and Pitch Perfect 3 in 2017.

50/50

2011s 50/50 was inspired by the true story of a writer named Adam (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who is diagnosed with spinal cancer and given a 50 percent survival rate. The movie mixes seriousness with unexpected humor, telling the story of his struggle to beat the disease while maintaining the relationships in his life.

Kendrick has a supporting role as his young, inexperienced therapist at the cancer center, Katherine. Shes a grad student who tries to help Adam cope with his diagnosis, unsuccessfully at first. While their relationship starts out a bit unsteady, they get closer and form a special connection.

Into the Woods

Anna Kendrick at a photocall for Into the Woods | Ian Gavan/Getty Images

In 2014, Kendrick played Cinderella in Into the Woods, which was based on the 1986 Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical of the same name. In a modern retelling of classic Grimm Fairytales, it tells the story of a childless couple who have been cursed by a spiteful witch. In order to break the curse, the couple must bring the witch magical items from classic fairytales, which include Cinderellas golden slippers.

This wasnt the first time Kendrick appeared in one of Sondheims pieces. At the age of 18, she had a supporting role in the New York City Opera production of his musical, A Little Night Music.

The Trolls franchise

Kendrick first lent her voice to Princess Poppy in DreamWorks Trolls in 2016. Princess Poppy is known as the happiest troll ever born and must work with her polar opposite, the pessimistic Branch (voiced by Justin Timberlake) to save their village from destruction. The movie received generally favorable reviews from critics. Kendrick again played Poppy in Trolls 2 World Tour, which was released for digital rental due to the COVID-19 pandemic on April 10, 2020.

Kendrick is currently starring in the Quibi comedy Dummy and Love Life on HBO Max.
India-China stand off: No breakthrough as yet, ground situation remains unchanged

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, July 23: Tensions remain between India and China along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) as a breakthrough is yet to be reached, both at the military as well as diplomatic levels.

The last time the military commanders of both sides held talks was on July 14. With both armies amassing 1,00,000 soldiers in the forward and depth areas, the ground situation remains unchanged.

Sources tell OneIndia that there is no date which has been fixed for the next military commander level talks. There is complete disengagement only in two of the four friction points. The troops from both sides have stepped back at PP 14 and PP15. However, at the PP17A there are still 50 troops on each side, less than a kilometre away from each other.

The understanding reached by the military commanders states that no side is allowed to patrol the four friction points. In the Depsang Plains China has blocked Indian access to the traditional patrolling limit in the area. At Pangong Tso although the Chinese have stepped back at Finger 5, they continue to occupy the Finger 4 Ridgeline.

Also Read:

The next military commander level talks between India and China will take place only after some movement on the ground is visible.

India wants China to create a buffer and has noted that at PP-17 (Gogra), the gap between the two armies is incomplete. It has been reported that the gap is narrower than the ideal 1.5 kilometres on each side.

Further there has not been much change at Finger 4 on the north bank of Pangong Tso and the PLA continues to sit on the Ridgeline of a mountain spur. Now a fresh physical verification of the buffer zone will be made as the previous one showed a partial pull back by China. This was unlike what was agreed at the meetings of the top military commanders. It had been decided that both sides had to move back 1.5 kilometres on each side of the approximate Line of Actual Control. However the same has not happened.

The source cited above said that if the talks were to progress then China would need to completely adhere to the agreement on creating a buffer zone.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

India wants the PLA to move back till Finger 8. India was patrolling till Finger 8, but the Chinese are not allowing patrols to pass now. These have been sticking points and unless resolved, the talks would not move further at least for the time being.
Jeffery Epsteins ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell sought to block the release and obtain a gag order in New York court.

Ghislaine Maxwell, the former associate of late financier Jeffrey Epstein, suffered dual setbacks in a United States court on Thursday, as a judge authorised the release of new materials related to her, while another judge refused to block prosecutors and lawyers from publicly discussing her criminal case.

US District Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan directed the release of large portions of more than 80 documents from a 2015 civil lawsuit against Maxwell, the British socialite now facing criminal charges that she lured girls for Epstein to sexually abuse.

The materials ordered unsealed include flight logs from Epsteins private jets, testimony from depositions in 2016 in which Maxwells lawyers said she was asked intrusive questions about her sex life and police reports from Palm Beach, Florida, where Epstein had a home.

Maxwell, 58, is being held in a Brooklyn jail after pleading not guilty last week to charges she helped Epstein recruit and eventually abuse girls from 1994 to 1997, and committed perjury by denying knowledge of his abuse in depositions.

Preska said the presumption the public had a right to access the documents outweighed Maxwells arguments to keep them under wraps, including that they concerned extremely personal matters whose release could prove embarrassing or annoying.

Protesters hold up a sign outside Manhattan Federal Court during the arraignment hearing of Ghislaine Maxwell for her role in the alleged sexual exploitation and abuse of minor girls by Jeffrey Epstein, in Manhattan [Mike Segar/Reuters]

The judge gave Maxwell one week to file an emergency appeal, but said both sides should proceed as though the documents will be made public within a week.

Lawyers for Maxwell did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Earlier, US District Judge Alison Nathan rejected Maxwells separate effort to block prosecutors, FBI agents and lawyers for some accusers from making out-of-court statements about her criminal case.

Nathan, who oversees the criminal case, said a gag order was not needed to protect Maxwells right to a fair trial, but that she will not hesitate to act if needed.

A trial is scheduled for July 12, 2021.

Epstein was arrested in July last year and pleaded not guilty to separate sexual abuse charges. He was found hanged on August 10 in his jail cell at age 66, in a death ruled a suicide.

Before his arrest, Epstein had socialised over the years with many prominent people, including Britains Prince Andrew, US President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton. Trump has tried to distance himself from Epstein and Maxwell.

Asked about Trump's baffling comment wishing Ghislaine Maxwell "well," Kayleigh McEnany tells @BretBaier he was noting "that the last person who was charged in this case ended up dead in a jail cell" because he wants justice served and prefers for it to play out in a courtroom.  Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) July 23, 2020

A reporter asked the president during a Tuesday briefing if Maxwell will turn on powerful men rumoured to have engaged in illicit behaviour. Trump replied: I dont know. I havent really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly. Ive met her numerous times over the years  especially since I lived in Palm Beach. I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well. Whatever it is.

Fair trial?

The documents that Preska ordered unsealed were part of Virginia Giuffres defamation lawsuit against Maxwell, which was confidentially settled in 2017.

Giuffre has accused Epstein of sexually abusing her when she was underage, and Maxwell of aiding in the abuse. Maxwell has denied her claims.





Some information, including the names of non-parties and other Epstein accusers who have not publicly revealed their identities, will remain redacted.

Laura Menninger, a lawyer for Maxwell, told Preska the appeal reflected the great concerns Maxwell might not get a fair criminal trial if more information about her past became public, given the intensity and the scrutiny surrounding her.

Some records from the Giuffre case, including parts of Maxwells deposition testimony, were unsealed the day before Epstein died, and one day after he executed his will.

Epstein reached a nonprosecution agreement with US prosecutors in Miami in 2007, and pleaded guilty the following year to Florida prostitution charges, rather than face federal sex-trafficking charges.

He was sentenced to 13 months in jail, and the nonprosecution agreement is now widely seen as too lenient.
The U.S. Army today released the identity of an 82nd Airborne Division soldier who was killed Monday in a non-combat vehicle accident in Syria while supporting Operation Inherent Resolve.

Sgt. Bryan Cooper Mount died from injuries he suffered when his Mine Resistant Ambush Protected All-Terrain Vehicle (M-ATV) rolled over, according to an 82nd Airborne news release.

Read Next: Officials: Fort Hood Soldier Believed to Have Drowned

No more details were released about the accident, which is currently under investigation.

Mount, a 25-year-old native of St. George, Utah, was a cavalry scout assigned to the 82nd's 1st Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment. Mount's first combat deployment was in 2017 during Iraq's liberation of Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, according to the release.

"It was his second time serving in combat and we relied on his experience," Capt. Reid Jacobson, commander Bravo Troop, 1-73 Cav, said in a statement. "Bryan was just one of those dependable paratroopers everyone looked up to and relied upon. He had an easy smile and contagious personality."

Mount entered the Army in Jan. 2016 and arrived at Fort Bragg in June of that year. His awards and decorations include the Army Commendation Medal with Combat Device, Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Combat Action Badge, and the Army Parachutist Badge.

"Bryan was an incredible paratrooper and those who served with him will mourn his loss," Lt. Col. Val Moro, commander of 1-73 CAV, said in the release. "He had the unique ability to make everyone laugh no matter who they were or how you were feeling. His paratroopers looked up to him. ... If you had a problem, you could count on Bryan to help."

Mount is survived by his wife and parents, according to the release.

So far this year, ten service members have died while deployed in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. Six of those deaths were in non-hostile incidents, according to statistics maintained by the Department of Defense.

Cooper's death is the second this month due to a military vehicle rollover. On July 3, Army Spc. Vincent Sebastian Ibarria, 21, of San Antonio, Texas, died in a rollover incident in Farah province, Afghanistan. That incident remains under investigation.

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.

Related: Army Specialist Killed in Afghanistan Vehicle Rollover Accident
Trump came from nowhere five years ago to effectively take over the Republican Party, remaking it into a seeming cult of personality that has repeatedly violated the partys supposed orthodoxies. But this weeks dust-ups are bringing into relief the fault lines and competing personalities that will define the coming war over the soul of the post-Trump GOP, whether that is after a single term or in another four years, with some appearing already to be jockeying for position in the 2024 presidential contest.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tore into Republican Ted Yoho on the House floor Thursday after he called her a 'f***ing b***h' on the steps of the Capitol Monday - saying he 'accosted' her and slamming his grinning non-apology the previous day.

The Democratic congresswoman made a personal statement accusing him of showing 'no remorse' in his statement 'apologizing' Wednesday - when he denied abusing her and said he 'could not apologize for my passion.'

In a fiery and at times emotional speech, and speaking surrounded by other women from the Democratic caucus, she said that she was younger than Yoho's daughters but was 'dehumanized' by him.

'My parents did not raise me to accept abuse from men,' Ocasio-Cortez asserted during her remarks, where she repeated the vulgar phrase used by the Florida rep during the exchange.

Ocasio-Cortez, 30, also reiterated that she does not believe Yoho, 65, has truly apologized for 'accosting' her on the steps of the Capitol, where she claims he called her 'crazy,' 'dangerous' and put his finger in her face.

Yoho, a former veterinarian who is retiring from Congress this year, has three children, a son who is 30 and two daughters who are 32 and 33-years-old.

'Mr. Yoho mentioned that he has a wife and two daughters. I'm two years younger than Yoho's youngest daughter,' Ocasio-Cortez said during her floor remarks. 'I am someone's daughter too.'

'My father, thankfully, is not alive to see how Mr. Yoho treated his daughter,' she said, appearing to get choked up. 'My mother got to see Mr. Yoho's disrespect on the floor of the House toward me on television.'

'And I'm here because I have to show my parents that I'm their daughter,' she said, adding they raised her not to take abuse.

The New York City representative was recognized for up to one hour on the House floor as she requested time to speak on a 'question of personal privilege' in order to address the incident.

A reporter with The Hill had revealed on a Tuesday article how he overheard Yoho confronting Ocasio-Cortez on the staircase of the east side of the Capitol on Monday while he was leaving from a vote and she was arriving.

Representative Alexadria Ocasio-Cortez took to the House floor Thursday for hour-long remarks where she addressed an incident where a Republican representative called her a 'f***ing b***h'

Ocasio-Cortez, 30, also brought up Yoho's family, saying 'I'm two years younger than Yoho's youngest daughter, adding: 'I am someone's daughter too'

His family: Yoho has one son, Tyer, and two daughters Katie and Lauren. (bottom left-right: Lauren Chalmers, 32, Katie Yoho, 33, Carolyn Yoho, 65, and brother Tyler, 30, rear beside Ted Yoho)

According to the reporter, Yoho called Ocasio-Cortez 'disturbed' and 'out of your freaking mind' regarding her comments linking an uptick in crime in New York City to the coronavirus pandemic leading to a spike in unemployment.

The representative for New York's 14th congressional district, which includes parts of Queens and The Bronx, said every woman has had to deal with this sort of abuse from men.

'I've tossed men out of bars that use language like Mr. Yoho,' she said.

The congresswoman said Yoho might as well have made the vulgar comments to every 'congresswoman and every woman in this country' when he spoke to her in that way.

'All of us have had to deal with this in some form, some way, some shape, at some point in our lives,' Ocasio-Cortez said.

'This is not new,' she shared, adding that 'dehumanizing language' toward women is also not a new phenomenon. 'And that is the problem.'

Ocasio-Cortez chastised her 35-year-senior colleague on Wednesday for a non-apology after Yoho said he 'cannot apologize for my passion.'

Yoho grinned through remarks on the House floor when he was called on to apologize after revelations of a profanity-laced confrontation surfaced.

'This is not an apology,' Ocasio-Cortez said of the supposed atonement, where Yoho can be seen smiling and reading prepared remarks.

Ocasio-Cortez said she was contemplating letting the whole exchange go and moving on, but changed her mind when she heard Yoho 'make excuses speak from the House floor on Wednesday.

She said she 'could not let that go' after she claims he 'made excuses for his behavior.'

'I could not allow victims of verbal abuse and worse to see that, to see that excuse, and to see our Congress accept it as legitimate and accept it as an apology,' Ocasio-Cortez said. 'And accept silence as a form of acceptance.'

She added: 'I want to thank him for showing the world that you can be a powerful man, and accost women. You can have daughters, and accost women.'

Ocasio-Cortez's speech came after a far shorter address by Yoho on Wednesday - and one which he grinned through much of.

Yoho said in his remarks: 'I stand before you this morning to address the strife I injected into the already contentious Congress.'

Yoho said in prepared remarks after House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called on him to apologize for his conduct from the House floor.

'I rise to apologize for the abrupt manner of the conversation I had with my colleague from New York,' the Florida Republican continued after House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called on him Tuesday to apologize for his conduct from the House floor.

'It is true we disagree on policies and visions for America, but that does not mean we should be disrespectful,' he continued, dismissing the aggressive ordeal as a 'misunderstanding.'

Ocasio-Cortez denounced Yoho's comments.

'Republican responds to calling a colleague 'disgusting' & a 'fing b***h' w/ 'I cannot apologize for my passion' and blaming others,' the progressive freshman congresswoman posted on Wednesday along with a clip of his remarks.

'I will not teach my nieces and young people watching that this an apology, and what they should learn to accept,' she continued, adding: 'Yoho is refusing responsibility.'

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed Wednesday that Rep. Ted Yoho's remarks following a report that revealed he called her a 'f***ing b***h' are 'not an apology' - and she listed reasons she did not take it as such

She added that the Florida Republican didn't even use her name during his prepared remarks

Representative Ted Yoho refused during a House floor speech Wednesday to apologize for his 'passion' when confronting Ocasio-Cortez, which he dismissed as a 'misunderstanding'

Ocasio-Cortez condemned his non-apology, claiming 'Yoho is refusing responsibility' after confronting her on the Capitol stairs Monday

Ocasio-Cortez had rattled off reasons on Twitter Wednesday as to why she did not consider Yoho to be remorseful.

'- Does not apologize or name any action he did

- Does not accept responsibility

- Lies (this was not a 'conversation,' it was verbal assault)

- Distracts by making it abt poverty (ironically)

- Says everyone else is wrong and the incident never happened,' the New York City lawmaker tweeted in list-form.

'He didn't even say my name,' she concluded in another post.

In response to the profanity-laced insult, which took place on the east steps of the Capitol Monday, Ocasio-Cortez shot back in a tweet on Tuesday: 'B*****s get stuff done.'

The progressive New York City lawmaker was ascending the stairs to cast her vote on the same day the House stood in a moment of silence to honor the late Rep. John Lewis after he died Friday months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when she was approached by Yoho.

'You are out of your freaking mind,' Yoho told Ocasio-Cortez in the brief interaction, according to The Hill.

Yoho also called AOC, as she was dubbed early on in her political career, 'disgusting' for recent comments where she said the spike in New York City crime in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic are due to increased levels of poverty and unemployment.

He claimed Wednesday that he felt the need to approach Ocasio-Cortez because of his 'passion' for the topic.

But Ruben Gallego, a Democratic representative from Arizona, defended his colleague on Twitter Tuesday, claiming he has made the same claims and not been accosted in the way Ocasio-Cortez was.

'I have suggested the same thing that @aoc has poverty & unemployment lead to crime,' he claimed. 'Weird neither Yoho or any other member has ever talked to me that way.'

Ocasio-Cortez detailed to Yahoo News Tuesday that the representative put his finger in her face.

Yoho insisted to the Daily Caller that he did not use the vernacular outlined by The Hill.

Instead, he said he used the word 'bulls**t,' and said Ocasio-Cortez is trying to use the brief exchange for her personal benefit.

'He did not call Rep. Ocasio-Cortez what has been reported in The Hill or any name for that matter,' Yoho's office told the right-leaning media outlet. 'It sounds better for the Hill newspaper and gets more media attention to say he called her a name - which he did not do.'

'It is unfortunate that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is using this exchange to gain personal attention,' his office added.

'Instead,' it insisted, 'he made a brief comment to himself as he walked away summarizing what he believes her polices to be: bulls**t.'

Yoho's remarks and demands for an apology came after the 65-year-old retiring lawmakers called his Democratic colleague, 30-year-old Ocasio-Cortez, a 'f***ing b***h' during a heated exchange at the Capitol on Monday

The progressive 30-year-old congresswoman said Yoho put his finger in her face as he called her 'disgusting' and 'out of your freaking mind' for linking a surge in crime in New York City on rising unemployment levels in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic

She also shot back on Twitter Tuesday, claiming, 'B*****s get stuff done,' and asserting she usually gets along with her GOP colleagues

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called on Yoho Tuesday to personally apologize to Ocasio-Cortez, and demanded he also make amends for his comments in a speech on the House floor

'He kept muttering insults at me as I was walking away, but I didn't try to make it out,' she explained. 'I thought he had said something but didn't assume that's what he said.'

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called the behavior 'despicable' and demanded Tuesday that Yoho make a personal amends as well as a speech on the House floor apologizing to Ocasio-Cortez.

'Mr. Yoho owes not only the congresswoman an apology, but also an apology on the floor of the House of Representatives,' Hoyer told reporters.

'It was the act of a bully,' the Maryland Democrat continued of Yoho. 'Bottom line, I think it was despicable conduct. It needs to be sanctioned.'

Ocasio-Cortez told Yoho, who was joined by Texas Rep. Roger Williams on the Capitol stairs, that he was being 'rude.'

As the two walked away from each other, Yoho said audibly: 'F***ing b***h.'

She later expanded on her response on Twitter following the release of the report over the exchange.

'I never spoke to Rep. Yoho before he decided to accost me on the steps of the nation's Capitol yesterday,' the social-media active lawmaker posted Tuesday morning. 'Believe it or not, I usually get along fine w/ my GOP colleagues.'

'We know how to check our legislative sparring at the committee door,' she asserted.

'But hey, 'b*tches' get stuff done,' Ocasio-Cortez quipped, adding a shrugging emoji.

The Hill reported that Williams was in ear-shot of the whole back-and-forth, but when approached about the specifics of the comments said he wasn't paying attention to it at the time.

'I was actually thinking, as I was walking down the stairs, I was thinking about some issues I've got in my district that need to get done,' Williams said. 'I don't know what their topic was. There's always a topic, isn't there?'

Ocasio-Cortez wasn't buying the excuse.

'Gotta love Republican courage from Rep @RogerWilliamsTX: when he undeniably sees another man engaged in virulent harassment of a young woman, just pretend you never saw it in the most cartoonish manner possible and keep pushing,' she tweeted, adding in a parentheses, '(He's lying, by the way. He joined in w/ Yoho)'.

'What's wild to me @RogerWilliamsTX is why would you blatantly lie to a reporter who saw this exchange?' she continued in calling out the Republican representative. 'You were yelling at me too, about 'throwing urine.'

Ocasio-Cortez explained the incident in more detail in a direct message with Yahoo News on Twitter.

'When I pass other members on the steps, regardless of party, I usually nod or say hello if I'm able,' the progressive lawmaker detailed. 'Out of nowhere, Yoho comes up to me and puts his finger in my face and flies off in a rage.'

'He started going off about shootings and bread and nonsense, calling me crazy, shameful, out of my mind, etc.,' she continued.

'At first I tried to talk to him, but that just made him yell over me more,' she claimed.

'Williams then started joining in, yelling things at me and said something about throwing urine  I don't know what that was about,' she added. 'I said he was being rude and that this was unbelievable and started to walk away.'

She asserted that it was Yoho who called her 'rude' and not the other way around, and said following the interaction she 'just kept walking to my vote.'

Texas Republican Rep. Roger Williams was accompanying Yoho down stairs on the east side of the Capitol after a vote when they confrontation occured. But he asserted he was not paying attention to the back-and-forth: 'I was actually thinking, as I was walking down the stairs... I don't know what their topic was'

Ocasio-Cortez didn't buy Williams excuse, claiming he 'joined in w/ Yoho' in 'harassing' her

'Why would you blatantly lie to a reporter who saw this exchange?' she questioned of the Texas lawmaker, asserting he was yelling at her about 'throwing urine'

Yoho has served in Congress since 2013, but in December 2019 the Florida lawmaker announced he will not seek reelection in November.

He has been married to his wife since he was 19-years-old, and hey have three children together  two daughters and one son.

His daughters  Lauren, 32, and Katie, 33  are just a few years older than Ocasio-Cortez.

Yoho's comments when confronting AOC were about remarks she made earlier this month during a virtual town hall where she defended the rise in crime in New York City as people 'stealing bread to feed their children during record unemployment.'

Police data shows that shootings in the city last month were up 130 per cent this year  from 89 shootings last year to 205 this year.

But Ocasio-Cortez, who represents parts of Queens and The Bronx, questioned: 'Do we think this has to do with the fact that there's record unemployment in the United States right now?'

'Maybe this has to do with the fact that people aren't paying their rent and are scared to pay their rent,' she continued. 'And so they go out, and they need to feed their child and they don't have money so they feel like they either need to shoplift some bread or go hungry.'

The comments were widely chastised by Republicans, who pointed to the rise in violent crime rather than shoplifting or petty theft.

'That kind of confrontation hasn't ever happened to me  ever,' Ocasio-Cortez, who is often criticized publicly by GOP lawmakers, told The Hill of the in-person interaction. 'I've never had that kind of abrupt, disgusting kind of disrespect levied at me.'

Yoho, however, had 'no comment' on the matter.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 23)  The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) has filed administrative cases before the Office of the Ombudsman against three local officials for violating quarantine protocols.

In a statement on Thursday, Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano said two cases have been filed against Sto. Tomas, Pangasinan Municipal Mayor Timoteo Villar III and his son, Sto. Tomas Councilor Dickerson Villar, for holding a party to celebrate Mayor's Villar's birthday in May which violated social distancing and curfew protocols.

Ano said that another case is filed against Buluan, Maguindanao Mayor Babydats Mangudadatu after failing to ban mass gatherings in his municipality.

Binusisi po ng maigi ng Kagawaran ang mga natanggap na reklamo at ebidensya laban sa ilang local government officials, Ano said. Base rin sa kanilang naging sagot sa show cause orders ng DILG ay napag-alamang mayroon silang naging kapabayaan.

[Translation: The department thoroughly reviewed the complaints and evidence that we received against several local government officials. We found out that they had lapses based on their answers to DILGs show cause orders.]

However, the department said it has not received a reply to the show cause letter issued to Mangudadatu.

It has also sent a letter of admonition and warning to a city mayor from Central Luzon, who was not named, for holding a mass gathering as the official distributed Social Amelioration Program (SAP) forms.

The DILG will continue to act on complaints received by the public and we will handle the complaints without fear or favor, DILG Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya said.
The Oregon Employment Department missed its goal for the third straight week in processing thousands of unpaid benefits claims for self-employed workers who are out of a job during the pandemic.

And the beleaguered departments phone lines suffered fresh outages Tuesday and Wednesday, making it impossible for callers to reach the state to resolve problems with their claims.

Still, there are signs of progress that suggest Oregon is beginning to get a handle on the huge volume of unpaid jobless claims that left tens of thousands of unemployed workers going without income through the heart of the pandemic.

The department has now paid $3.2 billion in benefits since Oregon began its shutdown in March.

This time last month there were 70,000 self-employed workers waiting for aid under the new Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program that Congress established in March. Many of those had been waiting for several months for their checks.

The department has whittled that backlog down to 44,000 unprocessed claims, moving more slowly than anticipated. The trajectory for clearing those claims is accelerating, though, and interim director David Gerstenfeld said Wednesday he is increasingly optimistic of working through those 70,000 claims by the Aug. 8 target date he set in June.

Were turning the corner, Gerstenfeld said on his weekly media call Wednesday.

The department has been aided in part by a $240,000, Google-based technology upgrade implemented last Friday to automate some parts of the claims processing for self-employed workers.

In at least a few cases, the new system appears to have interrupted benefits payments people had been receiving. But Gerstenfeld said its been a huge net positive overall, with automation freeing up his staff to begin working unprocessed claims and accelerate payments.

State lawmakers approved $500 relief payments last week for as many as 70,000 Oregonians who have been waiting the longest for their unemployment benefits. State administrators said at the time it could take several weeks to begin payments, but the Legislatures Democratic leadership indicated Wednesday they have made good progress and hope to launch the program by the end of July.

As Oregon makes advances in other areas, though, the employment department is encountering new problems.

For example, the department has whittled the number of regular, unprocessed jobless claims down from more than 100,000 last spring to just 2,600 now.

Processed claims arent always paid, though. Some need an additional review called adjudication. Gerstenfeld said the typical waiting period for adjudicated claims has grown from 10 weeks to as many as 14 weeks  meaning many people with legitimate claims must wait months to see their benefits.

Every Oregon claim is still subject to a one-week period when benefits arent paid, even though Congress funded a waiver of the so-called waiting week in March. The states antiquated computers havent been able to accommodate the change.

The employment department says it will begin attempting to address the waiting week issue in August, but has cautioned it may not be able to implement the waiver by a federal deadline at the end of the year. That would leave hundreds of millions of dollars in federal benefits for Oregonians permanently unpaid, unless the state can secure additional latitude from the feds.

Additionally, this weeks phone outages exacerbated one of the departments thorniest issues.

The department relies primarily on phone calls to resolve questions about unpaid claims and the phones lines have been jammed since March due to the huge volume of new jobless claims and the states byzantine system for processing them.

Also Wednesday, Gerstenfeld disclosed that three more employment department workers have tested positive for the coronavirus. That brings the total number of infections among its staff to 16.

The outbreaks have slowed claims processing, at least modestly, and prompted the closure of the departments Gresham facility earlier this month. Gerstenfeld said that office will reopen Friday, and said the department now requires its staff to wear masks in most situations.

Weve been urging these measures for some time and theyre now mandatory, Gerstenfeld said.

-- Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | twitter: @rogoway |

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
OTTAWABill Morneau is under pressure, but you wouldnt have known it from a bizarre meeting of the Liberal caucus on Wednesday.

As the Opposition Conservatives clamour for his resignation, the finance minister did not face questions about his growing entanglement in the WE Charity ordeal when the caucus held a virtual meeting Wednesday evening, just hours after Morneau revealed his family had donated $100,000 to the charity and accepted two expenses-paid trips from the organization.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did make a brief comment to the troops about the growing political headache before moving on to other matters. It wasnt clear if Morneau was even on the call.

It was surreal how calm it was, said one Liberal MP, who spoke to the Star on condition of anonymity to discuss internal party discussions.

I dont know if its early enough in the storm, but it was a calm caucus meeting. (WE Charity) was only mentioned a couple times. Its quite bizarre.

On Thursday, Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre called for Morneau to resign from cabinet after the finance minister revealed previously undisclosed dealings with WE Charity.

Morneau told the House of Commons finance committee that his family had donated $100,000 to WE Charity between 2018 and this June, and that he and his family accepted two expenses-paid trips from the organization to Ecuador and Kenya. His daughter, Grace Acan, works for the organization.

Despite those connections, Morneau participated in a cabinet discussion and decision to select WE Charity to administer the governments planned $912 million Canada Student Service Grant program. The finance minister now faces another ethics probe, and has apologized for failing to recuse himself from the cabinet deliberations. On Wednesday, he cut a $41,366 cheque to cover his familys travel with the organization.

I do not believe I had a conflict, although I fully recognize that there are legitimate questions about the perception of a conflict, Morneau said Wednesday.

In hindsight I should have recused myself from discussions involving the WE organization and I will do so in the future. Most of all, I regret that not recusing myself has delayed this important support for young Canadians.

That certainly wasnt enough for Poilievre and the Conservatives.

We have identified at least five sections of the Ethics Act  that Bill Morneau has violated, Poilievre said Thursday morning, flanked by the partys ethics critic, Michael Barrett, and deputy finance critic Michael Cooper.

Bill Morneau has already in the past been found guilty of violating the ethics law. So why hasnt Justin Trudeau fired him?

Minister Morneau was upfront with the committee and transparent with Canadians, said Alex Wellstead, a spokesperson for the Prime Ministers Office, when asked if Trudeau still had faith in his finance minister.

Since the beginning of (the) pandemic, he has worked relentlessly with his colleagues in cabinet to deliver critical support to Canadians. Minister Morneau is continuing to do this work that Canadians rely on.

Within the senior government ranks, the Liberals appear to accept that the WE controversy will continue to play out as committees and opposition parties probe how the government conceived of the grant program and decided that WE Charity was the best and only organization capable of delivering it.

But theyve also signalled their confidence that, once the full story is out, Canadians will accept their explanations about the deal. Ian Shugart, a veteran public servant and the clerk of the Privy Council, committed Tuesday to deliver the finance committee extensive documentation  including timelines, the contribution agreement with WE Charity, and records of internal communication between the Department of Finance, the Prime Ministers Office, the Privy Council Office and Employment and Social Development Canada.

Trudeau tends to stay disciplined when confronted with scandal, one Liberal source, and ignores the headlines and the opposition to stay focused. The prime minister is also known to enjoy a good dust-up in debates.

He will have a chance to present his version of events when he testifies before the finance committee, likely next week.
Ryan Thomas took his 286,000 Rolls-Royce for a spin as he met up with his brothers Adam and Scott in Manchester on Thursday.

The former Coronation Street actor, 35, and his siblings showed off their impressive motors during the outing as they went on a shopping trip.

Adam, 31, arrived in his his black Chelsea truck, said to be worth around 70,000.

Family outing: Ryan Thomas, 35, took his 286,000 Rolls Royce for a spin as he met up with his brothers Adam and Scott, both 31, (pictured) in Manchester on Thursday

Scott, also 31, donned a black T-shirt with a matching pair of trousers along with a navy shirt with a grey print.

The former Love Island star wore a pair of sunglasses tucked into his T-shirt and completed his outfit with a pair of brown shoes.

Adam also went for a casual look, sporting a dark green T-shirt with cream trousers and a red jacket with a flat cap.

The outing comes after Ryan recently admitted that he has been finding fatherhood intense with his newborn son as he didn't fully appreciate it the first time round.

Luxury: The former Coronation Street actor and his siblings showed off their impressive motors during the outing as they went on a shopping trip

The actor welcomed his son Roman with his other half Lucy Mecklenburgh, 28, in March while he shares daughter Scarlett, 11, with his ex Tina O'Brien.

He told The Sun: 'It's intense not being able to have anyone else to hold the baby even for 10 minutes while you have a cup of tea'.

Ryan then reflected on how he has taken a different approach to fatherhood, admitting that he had a completely different experience of parenthood this time around.

Motor: Adam arrived in his his black Chelsea truck, said to be worth around 70,000

He reasoned: 'I was young and naive when I had Scarlett and I didn't really appreciate it the way I do now. I have a different outlook now. But, you know, there's no right or wrong time for parenthood.

'I'm just at a very different place in my life compared to back then  it was 11 years ago, and so in a lot of ways this feels like the first time all over again.

'I'm not working at the moment so I'm living and breathing what happens in our house and it's just incredible what a woman can do to go through the pregnancy, the birth, learning to feed, it's really inspiring to see.'
Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is horrified to hear the news of the killings of five humanitarian aid workers in northeast Nigeria. The aid workers who came from Action Against Hunger, the Borno State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), International Rescue Committee, Reach International and a security guard protecting humanitarian facilities, were abducted last month.

MSF condemns all forms of violence against humanitarian aid workers and humanitarian assistance, in the strongest possible terms.

We at MSF are devastated to hear this terrible news says Dr Christos Christou, International President of MSF. We stand in solidarity and send our deepest condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of those killed in these brutal attacks".

This is not the first time we have seen the deliberate targeting and execution of aid workers in Borno state. These murders come on top of similar atrocities in 2019, in which 12 aid workers were killed. MSF condemns, in the strongest possible terms, all violence against humanitarian aid workers.

Attacks against aid workers deprive people in need, of humanitarian assistance, including access to clean water, food and healthcare. In northeast Nigeria where conflict has raged for more than a decade and the humanitarian crisis has been aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 10 million people are estimated to be in need of urgent assistance.

MSF urges that all parties to the conflict must ensure that populations in need have safe and unhindered access to urgent and lifesaving humanitarian assistance.
Police at Ejura in the Ashanti Region have nabbed a 35-year-old woman alleged to have killed her two children at Yeboah-Akosua near Sekyedumase.

According to police, the bodies of the suspect's one-month-old baby and a two-year-old child were found at separate locations when police followed up after the father of the children lodged a complaint.

The body of the one-month-old baby was found in the suspect's room while that of the two-year-old was found partially buried at a secluded area some four miles away from their home.

The Ejura-Sekyedumase Police Commander, Superintendent Owusu Bempah, who confirmed the incident to Citi News said the suspect, Adwoa Juliana has been arrested and will be arraigned soon.

At about 7:30 pm on Wednesday, a man went to the Sekyedumase Police station and reported that his wife has murdered their one-month-old child and he also entertaining fear that the other one who was nowhere to be found has also been murdered by the wife. So, police accompanied him to the house and found the body of the boy about one-month-old in a T-shirt dead, but no visible marks of assault were found on him. Police interrogated the woman and the woman led them to a place near Frantei about four-miles away from their cottage and also found that the younger boy about two-years had also being murdered and partially buried because part of the body was out and could be seen. And also 200 Ghana cedis notes had been torn into pieces at where the body had been buried. And also, a small bag containing the deceased's personal effects like T-shirt, pants and other things were also in it, he narrated.

Superintendent Bempah indicated that although police cannot conclude on the mental state of the suspect, her posture in the course of interrogation is giving police reasons to suspect she could be mentally unstable.

Meanwhile, bodies of the two children have been deposited at the St. Theresa Hospital morgue at Nkoranza for autopsy and preservation.

---citinewsroom
(This is part of an ongoing series that brings State Fair food to you. Believe it or not, you can make some of your favorite Fair foods at home. We asked Fair vendors their secret to making their signature foods. While they wouldnt divulge their recipes, they let us in on a few of their secrets. Whats your favorite Fair food? Drop an email to cmiller@syracuse.com or text me at 315-382-1984 and Ill learn how to make it.)

***

Syracuse, N.Y.  The gyro is the second-most popular sandwich at the State Fair, hands down. One unscientific poll even had the Greek wrap edging out the jumbo sausage as the favorite.

So we feel your pain brought about by Gov. Cuomo canceling this years State Fair because of the coronavirus pandemic. Bob Cosselmon, owner of Kikis Authentic Greek Food in Camillus, has sold his lamb and chicken gyros at the Fair since 2012. Hes feeling your pain as well.

People love gyros, and it seems theyve gotten more and more popular (at the Fair) each year, said Cosselmon, who was all set to return to his stand on Restaurant Row near the West End.

Fret not. Syracuse has plenty of Middle Eastern restaurants that serve gyros. I wolfed down a Kikis lamb gyro with a side of fresh-cut tzatziki fries ($9.95) last week as I learned how to reconstruct one of these on my own.

These are moderately easy to make at home, whether you desire a lamb gyro or the chicken version. Cosselmon said the secret to the perfect gyro is the tzatziki, the yogurt-based sauce that lines the bottom of the pita. If you dont want to bother making your own, Cosselmon sells it at his restaurant, 8 ounces for $5.99. While he wont divulge his recipe, he said he uses an extra thick yogurt as the base.

Make the tzatziki before anything else so it has time to chill.

The tzatziki sauce: I grated a partially peeled cucumber in a food processor and let it dry in a strainer, pressing the water out with two paper towels. Put the cucumber slivers into a mixing bowl and add a teaspoon of white vinegar, a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, a teaspoon of kosher salt, a teaspoon of pepper and 5 cloves of minced garlic. Stir in 2 cups of fat-free Greek yogurt.

Chill for an hour or two in the refrigerator while you dice your vegetables: tomato, red onion, cucumber, green pepper and pitted Kalamata olives.

The vegetables used to assemble a State Fair gyro at home.Charlie Miller | cmiller@syracuse.com

Gyro meat: You dont need a vertical rotisserie spit to make a gyro at home, and you dont even have to go to a gourmet import supermarket. Its nothing more than a mixture of ground lamb, ground beef, onion, garlic and spices mashed together into one dense loaf.

Chop a red onion and 6 cloves of garlic in a food processor long enough for it to be finely ground. Add a pound of ground lamb and a pound of ground beef along with 2 teaspoons each of dried oregano, rosemary, marjoram, kosher salt and pepper.

This is where it get messy and slightly unpleasant. Grind it in your processor about 2 minutes, until it creates a thick, heavy paste. You might need to stop and mix it with a scraper and grind it for another minute.

Scoop this mess into a foil pan and spread it evenly with a rubber scraper. Itll look like cake batter made out of pate. Bake for an hour at 350 degrees, or until the meat reaches 175 degrees. (You might want to spend this hour cleaning your food processor. This raw meat will find its way into any hard-to-reach crevices.)

The meat mixture before cooking to make homemade lamb gyros like the State Fair.Charlie Miller | cmiller@syracuse.com

The meat will shrink while in the oven, making it very easy to handle. Drain the oil and lift the 2-pound brick onto a piece of aluminum foil and wrap tightly. Put it onto a flat surface and put an iron skillet on top. Let it sit and compress for 30 to 60 minutes.

When its done, youll be left with a dense loaf thats perfect for slicing. And youll end up with enough to make a dozen or more gyros.

The meat mixture after cooking to make homemade lamb gyros like the State Fair.Charlie Miller | cmiller@syracuse.com

Assembly: If you have a flattop outdoor grill, you can make six or more gyros simultaneously. Cosselmon suggests lightly grilling the pitas. You have to use good pitas, and you have to treat them right, he said.

I used Kontos pocketless pita bread from New Jersey (These are available in bags of five for $3 in local grocery stores.). Toast them in olive oil for about 30 seconds while browning the already-cooked gyro meat for a minute or two. Smear some tzatziki on the warm bread, add some meat, whatever vegetables you prefer and sprinkle with feta cheese.

TIP: Use a serrated knife to dice the tomatoes so youre not left with huge chunks that take over the sandwich. You also might want to crumble the feta a little as well. My tomatoes were too chunky.

A homemade lamb gyro (before folding) like the ones you get at the State Fair.Charlie Miller | cmiller@syracuse.com

Chicken gyro: Of the 15 gyros I ate at the Fair in 2019, one of them was made with chicken. To be fair to the Fair, I figured I should try making those as well. Not everyone fancies lamb meat.

For this, I marinated 4 pounds of chicken thighs overnight. They soaked in 2 cups of Greek yogurt, 4 tablespoons of olive oil, 4 tablespoons of red wine vinegar, 8 diced cloves of garlic, 2 teaspoons each of oregano, paprika, cumin and coriander, and a dash of salt and pepper.

I dumped all the soaked chicken on a hot flattop lightly drizzled in olive oil. As it sizzled, I cut the thighs into bite-size pieces. Once the chicken was ready, I heated 6 pitas on a low burner off to the side.

Cooking marinated chicken on a flattop grill to create a State Fair gyro at home.Charlie Miller | cmiller@syracuse.com

To make these like a Kikis gyro, I wrapped one end of mine in foil and kept it portable. Youll be surprised at how much these tasted like a Fair gyro. I was able to make a dozen gyros for under $30, and Ive still got leftover meat.

A State Fair gyro at home.Charlie Miller | cmiller@syracuse.com

Up next: Ill be making wine slushies and Belgian waffle sundaes soon, and Ill be deep frying all kinds of stuff. Let me know what you want to learn to make.

MORE ON FOOD

No State Fair? No worries! How to make smoked turkey legs at home

No State Fair? No worries! How to make a hot beef sundae at home

Missing the NY State Fair: This was our summer vacation

Best of NYS Fair food & drink: Whatever youre craving, see this guide first

The best things we ate and drank at the NYS Fair

NYS Fair food classics: Where to get big portions at small prices

Hidden Gems of CNY

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.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Salt Lake City will host the 2020 vice president debate in October with a smaller live audience than originally planned because of the coronavirus pandemic, per the Salt Lake Tribune.

Why it matters: Less than three months before the debate, it's still not known who will join Vice President Mike Pence on stage.

By the numbers: Only 150 to 200 people are expected to attend the debate in person, while millions of others will watch on television or online.

The 90-minute event, set for Oct. 7 at the University of Utah, will be the first national debated hosted by the state, according to the Tribune.

The big picture: Former Vice President Joe Biden is still whittling down his list of potential running mates. On Monday, Biden said four Black women are on his list and that his vetting team has so far briefed him on four candidates.

He is expected to announce his VP pick before the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 17.

In March, Biden committed to selecting a woman as a running mate.

Go deeper: College students want Warren as Biden's VP pick
Exchange rate investors have had little reason to buy the Pound in recent sessions, which is making it easier for a broadly appealing Euro to keep the British Pound to Euro (GBP/EUR) exchange rate pressured near its worst levels. The Euro remains broadly appealing in comparison to many other major currencies, despite some analysts hoping for more from the EU Recovery Fund agreement. Even if the Euro could have been even stronger, its outlook remains fairly solid.

Since markets opened at the level of 1.0999 this week, GBP/EUR has seen volatile movement. GBP/EUR briefly rebounded to a high of 1.1108 earlier in the week as the Pound attempted a recovery, but Sterlings appeal quickly fell flat again when Brexit fears revived.

Since then, GBP/EUR has slipped back to trending near the weeks lowest levels. On numerous occasions this week, GBP/EUR has dipped to near a low of 1.0945 - the pairs worst levels since the beginning of the month. At the time of writing, GBP/EUR trends just a little above these lows in the region of 1.0973.

A large part of this weeks persistent GBP/EUR weakness is due to persistent weakness in the Pound outlook. Investors simply have little reason to buy the British currency as the nations coronavirus and Brexit uncertainties continue to dampen the economic outlook.

The UK governments action on the coronavirus pandemic continues to see mixed reaction from critics. On top of this, concerns about the possibility of a hard Brexit have returned in full force to keep the Pound unappealing.

Reports emerged this week suggesting that the UK government could walk away from UK-EU negotiations unless the EU softens certain stances. Hopes for negotiations to end with a soft Brexit have been gradually weakening this year.

Britains economic outlook continues to face threat from coronavirus uncertainty as well. According to fresh comments from Bank of England (BoE) policymaker Professor Jonathan Haskel:

The path of recovery crucially depends therefore on the fear of infection, which in turn depends on the mix of public (e.g. track and trace) and private (e.g. screens in shops) health measures undertaken. It also depends on the fear, or realisation, of unemployment, as weak activity and capacity constraints on the operation of surviving businesses, and insolvencies, translate into a fall in the demand for labour

Euro (EUR) Exchange Rates Remain Buoyant amid Rival Weakness

The Euro remains one of the most appealing major currencies on the market this week, despite some mixed market reaction to the latest Eurozone developments.

This week saw EU leaders surprise markets with an earlier than expected EU Recovery Fund agreement.

While European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde said the deal could have gone further, it was still seen as a definite plus for the Eurozone outlook, especially when compared with other major economies.

Concerns over UK and US handlings of the coronavirus pandemic in comparison are keeping markets much more optimistic about the Eurozones chances of economic recovery. This is enough for the Euro to keep climbing.

Whats more, Eurozone data continues to beat forecasts, keeping investors hopeful that the blocs economy is indeed recovering from the pandemic downturn. Todays German consumer confidence data from GfK came in with a smaller than expected contraction.

According to Rolf Buerkly, Researcher at GfK:

There is no doubt that the reduction in value-added tax has contributed to the extremely positive progress. It is clear that consumers are looking to make major purchases earlier than planned, which will help boost spending this year.

GBP/EUR Exchange Rate Forecast: PMI Projections Could Further Damage Pound Outlook

The Pound to Euro exchange rate remains under pressure amid Britains gloomy outlooks, but the pair could fall even lower depending on UK news before the end of the week.

Fridays session will see the publication of Britains June retail sales results and July PMI projections.

If these stats come in worse than forecast, they could worsen market anxiety about the pandemics impact on Britains economy. This may worsen the pressure on the already unappealing Pound.

It would take some much stronger than expected UK data, as well as some more optimistic Brexit news, for the Pound to mount much of a recovery.

The outcomes of this weeks UK-EU Brexit negotiations, set to conclude today, could also influence Sterling. The Pound may remain weak unless there are optimistic developments.

Some data due tomorrow may influence the Euro as well though.

Eurozone PMI projections from July will give investors a better idea of how much Eurozone activity is rebounding from the coronavirus pandemic. Any big downside surprises could lead to Euro losses, which may help the Pound to Euro exchange rate to recover.
CHEBOYGAN, MI  A missing 81-year-old woman with Alzheimer's has been found alive in Northern Michigan.

9&10 News reports that Evelyn Ostwald was found on a two-track road in Cheboygan County by a man who got his truck stuck on the same road. He was looking for help when he spotted her.

Police had been searching for Ostwald and her tan Chevy Traverse since she was last seen in Cheboygan around 4 p.m. on Monday, July 20.

The Cheboygan Department of Public Safety says Oswald is being taken to the ER to be looked over but was conscious, alert, and responsive.

Police are thanking the Cheboygan Community for helping locate the woman.
A new 'spy saga' could be about to break out in Formula 1.

After a horror start to 2020, Ferrari has announced that it has "restructured its technical department", with Enrico Cardile appointed to head a new Performance Development department at Maranello.

But the statement also notably made reference to Rory Byrne, the Ferrari designer of the Schumacher era who more recently has been a consultant.

"The department run by Enrico Cardile will be able to count on the experience of Rory Byrne and established engineers such as David Sanchez," said team boss Mattia Binotto.

"It will be the cornerstone of the car's development."

Corriere della Sera correspondent Daniele Sparisci declared: "As Ferrari changes, Byrne returns to the front line."

That very same Italian newspaper is also reporting that a new 'spy saga' could be about to explode, with journalist Giorgio Terruzzi claiming that a leak of "stolen" information triggered the engine legality saga of 2019.

"Ferrari is the only team that has not improved since last year," claims former F1 team owner and boss Gian Carlo Minardi.

(GMM)
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 23, 2020

Lebanon County sues over being excluded from federal coronavirus relief funds. Meanwhile, a Philadelphia SWAT officer is facing criminal charges over his actions during a June 1 protest. Pennsylvania invests $66 million in projects to improve water infrastructure. The Pennsylvania Game Commission needs your help.

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.
MEXICO CITY, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Corporacion Inmobiliaria Vesta S.A.B. de C.V., ("Vesta", or the "Company") (BMV: VESTA), one of the leading pure-play industrial real estate companies in Mexico, today announced the results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2020. All figures included herein were prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and are stated in US dollars unless otherwise noted.

Highlights

Vesta's 2Q20 results were in-line with previously announced expectations, however, given the unusually wide range of potential outcomes as a result of volatile and uncertain outlook related to COVID-19, Vesta's management has adjusted the companys Full Year 2020 revenue guidance. Based on adjusted guidance, Full Year 2020 revenue is expected to increase between 1 to 2%, with NOI and EBITDA margins of 92% an 83%, respectively.

Vesta was included within the S&P/BMV IPC Index and the S&P/BMV Total Mexico ESG Index

At the close of June 30, 2020 , Vesta signed 42 deferral agreements with selected tenants for approximately US$ 4.0 million or 3%, of Vesta's total annual income, to be collected primarily between August and December.

, Vesta signed 42 deferral agreements with selected tenants for approximately or 3%, of Vesta's total annual income, to be collected primarily between August and December. Vestas second quarter 2020 rent collections reached 95%, 90% and 90% during April, May and June, respectively. April through June collections would have reached 100%, 100%, 90%, respectively, excluding deferrals.

Leasing activity for the second quarter 2020 exceeded expectations, reaching approximately 1.5 million square feet, with 345,681 ft (32,115 m) in new contracts, with current and new clients; 1,132,642 ft (105,226 m) of which represents lease renewals. This drove maturities to 2.6% and 7.0%, for 2020 and 2021, respectively.

During the quarter Vesta signed two new expansion projects with current clients in the Bajio and Central region, for 135,390 ft (12,578 m) with a total investment of around US$ 6 million . Therefore, Vesta's 2Q20 development portfolio totaled 1,540,467 ft (143,114 m) with a total expected investment of US$ 81.7 million . Weighted average expected return on cost is 10.6% for 2Q20 development projects.

and Central region, for 135,390 ft (12,578 m) with a total investment of around . Therefore, Vesta's 2Q20 development portfolio totaled 1,540,467 ft (143,114 m) with a total expected investment of . Weighted average expected return on cost is 10.6% for 2Q20 development projects. Consistent with Vestas Level 3 Strategy goals, 2Q20 NAV per share increased 4% to US$ 2.36 , from US$ 2.27 in 2Q19, while pre-tax FFO per share increased 12% year on year, from US$ 0.0321 in 2Q19 to US$ 0.0358 at the end of 2Q20.

, from in 2Q19, while pre-tax FFO per share increased 12% year on year, from in 2Q19 to at the end of 2Q20. Revenues increased 2% during 2Q20 to US$ 36.65 million , from US$ 35.94 million in 2Q19, while NOI and EBITDA margins reached 92.9% and 83.7%, respectively.

, from in 2Q19, while NOI and EBITDA margins reached 92.9% and 83.7%, respectively. During the quarter, Fitch Ratings maintained Vesta's BBB- rating with a stable view.

The Company drew down the remaining US$ 40 million from its existing US$ 125 million three-year revolving credit facility. Total cash at the end of 2Q20 reached US$ 144.6 million .









6 months

Financial Indicators (million) 2Q20 2Q19 Chg. % 2020 2019 Chg. % Rental Income 36.65 35.94 2.0 74.37 72.23 3.0 NOI 34.06 34.25 -0.6 69.50 69.20 0.4 NOI Margin % 92.9% 95.3%

93.5% 95.8%

EBITDA 30.68 30.26 1.4 62.15 61.55 1.0 EBITDA Margin % 83.7% 84.2%

83.6% 85.2%

EBITDA Per Share 0.0537 0.0509 5.4 0.1078 0.1036 4.1 Total Comprehensive Income 9.37 51.41 na (16.53) 71.51 na FFO Pretax 20.49 19.05 7.5 42.69 40.53 5.3 FFO Pretax Per Share 0.0358 0.0321 11.8 0.0741 0.0682 8.6 FFO 17.28 6.78 154.9 37.62 17.09 120.1 FFO Per Share 0.0302 0.0114 165.0 0.0653 0.0288 127.0 EPS 0.0164 0.0865 na (0.0287) 0.1203 na Shares (average) 571.58 594.38 (3.8) 576.38 594.39 (3.0)

Revenues increased 2.0% in 2Q20 to US$ 36.65 million , from US$ 35.94 million in 2Q19. This is primarily due to new revenue-generating contracts during the second quarter 2020.

, from in 2Q19. This is primarily due to new revenue-generating contracts during the second quarter 2020. Net Operating Income ("NOI") decreased 0.6% to US$ 34.06 million in 2Q20, compared to US$ 34.25 million in 2Q19. The second quarter 2020 NOI margin was 92.9%; a 237-basis-point decrease due to increased costs related to rental income generating properties which resulted from an increase in in the allowance for accounts receivable.

in 2Q20, compared to in 2Q19. The second quarter 2020 NOI margin was 92.9%; a 237-basis-point decrease due to increased costs related to rental income generating properties which resulted from an increase in in the allowance for accounts receivable. EBITDA increased 1.4% to US$ 30.68 million in the second quarter 2020, versus US$ 30.26 million in the second quarter of 2019. 2Q20 EBITDA margin was 83.7%; a 49-basis point decrease due to a lower gross profit, however, as administrative expenses during the quarter decreased by 13.8% as a result of budget reviews and adjustments to reduce expenses for the remainder of the year.

in the second quarter 2020, versus in the second quarter of 2019. 2Q20 EBITDA margin was 83.7%; a 49-basis point decrease due to a lower gross profit, however, as administrative expenses during the quarter decreased by 13.8% as a result of budget reviews and adjustments to reduce expenses for the remainder of the year. Pretax funds from operations ("FFO pretax") for 2Q20 increased 7.5% to US$ 20.49 million , from US$ 19.05 million for the same period in 2019. Pretax FFO per share was US$ 0.0358 for the second quarter 2020, compared with US$ 0.0321 for the same period in 2019; an 11.8% increase. FFO after tax for 2Q20 was US$ 17.28 million , compared to US$ 6.78 million during 2Q19. This increase was due to lower taxes resulting from Mexican peso depreciation.

, from for the same period in 2019. Pretax FFO per share was for the second quarter 2020, compared with for the same period in 2019; an 11.8% increase. FFO after tax for 2Q20 was , compared to during 2Q19. This increase was due to lower taxes resulting from Mexican peso depreciation. Total comprehensive gain for 2Q20 was US$ 9.37 million , versus a US$ 51.41 million gain in the same quarter 2019. This decrease was primarily due to the portfolio sale and higher gains in revaluation of investment properties during 2Q19.

, versus a gain in the same quarter 2019. This decrease was primarily due to the portfolio sale and higher gains in revaluation of investment properties during 2Q19. As of June 30, 2020 , the total value of Vesta's investment property portfolio was US$ 2.04 billion ; a 2.3% increase compared to US$ 1.99 billion at the end of December 31, 2019 .

For a full version of Corporacion Inmobiliaria Vesta Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Release please visit: https://www.vesta.com.mx/investors/financial_information

CONFERENCE CALL INFORMATION:

Vesta will host a conference call on Friday, July 24, 2020, to discuss these results at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time / 9:00 a.m. Central Time (Mexico City Time).

To access the call, please dial:

US, toll-free: +1 877-705-6003

International, toll: +1 201-493-6725

Mexico, toll-free: +1 800-522-0034

A replay will be available from 1 p.m. on July 24 until August 7, 2020 and can be accessed by dialing:

US, toll-free: +1 844-512-2921

International, toll: +1 412-317-6671

Replay ID: 13705579

About Vesta

Vesta is a best-in-class, fully integrated real estate company that owns, manages, acquires, sells, develops and re-develops industrial properties in Mexico. As of June 30, 2020, Vesta owned 187 properties located in modern industrial parks in 15 states of Mexico totaling a GLA of 30.2 million ft2 (2.80 million m2). The Company has multinational clients, which are focused in industries such as aerospace, automotive, food and beverage, logistics, medical devices, and plastics, among others. For additional information visit: www.vesta.com.mx.

Note on Forward-Looking Statements

This report may contain certain forward-looking statements and information relating to the Company that reflects the current views and/or expectations of the Company and its management with respect to its performance, business and future events. Forward looking statements include, without limitation, any statement that may predict, forecast, indicate or imply future results, performance or achievements, and may contain words like "believe," "anticipate," "expect," "envisages," "will likely result," or any other words or phrases of similar meaning. Such statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. We caution you that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the plans, objectives, expectations, estimates and intentions expressed in this presentation and in oral statements made by authorized officers of the Company. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE Corporacion Inmobiliaria Vesta, S.A.B. de C.V.

Related Links

http://www.vesta.com.mx


Dominic Cummings has been warned not to interfere in the running of the Intelligence and Security Committee by its new chairman after it published a bombshell report into Russian meddling.

Julian Lewis has demanded a 'categorical commitment' from Downing Street that Mr Cummings and other political special advisers will not be allowed 'anywhere near' the ISC.

He made the demand after he cited unconfirmed reports that Number 10 had previously tried to make political appointments to the committee.

His comments will further intensify a war of words between Dr Lewis and the Government after he secured the chairmanship of the committee by beating Number 10's preferred candidate Chris Grayling.

Julian Lewis, the new chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, has demanded a 'categorical commitment' from the Government that it will not seek to politicise the ISC

Dr Lewis said political advisers like the PM's top aide Dominic Cummings, pictured in Downing Street on July 21, must not be allowed 'anywhere near' the committee's work

Dr Lewis launched an unexpected and last minute bid for the ISC top job, blindsiding Mr Grayling and the Government.

He won the election after getting the votes of SNP and Labour members in what critics labelled a 'coup'.

He was then immediately stripped of the Conservative whip as government sources said there must be 'consequences for that duplicity'.

But Dr Lewis said Boris Johnson had no powers to decide who the chairman of the committee should be and that he believed a request for him to back Mr Grayling was 'improper'.

Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday, Dr Lewis asked Security Minister James Brokenshire for a guarantee that Number 10 would not try to politicise the future work of the ISC.

He said: 'The Russia report could not have been produced to this high standard without the dedication, the expertise and, above all, the objectivity of the ISCs brilliant staff, some of whom I have worked with previously.

'Yet according to the journalist, Tim Walker, some people within Government tried to sack the secretariat and make political appointments.

'Will my right hon. Friend, as I still regard him, resist the temptation to fob us off with cliches about not believing everything we read in the media and give this House now a categorical commitment that no party political special advisers will be allowed anywhere near the ISC?'

Mr Brokenshire replied: I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments on the work of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.

'He will recall that he and I served on the Bill Committee establishing the ISC so he will know the weight and consideration I give to it, and indeed to the work of its officials and those who work to support its activities, inquiries and investigations.

'He can certainly have my assurances on the weight and support I give to his Committee.

'I commend the work of the previous Committee, which produced the report that is the subject of this urgent question. I also commend all members of the Committee on the robust and rigorous work that I know they will do in the course of this Parliament.'

Downing Street said it was unaware of exactly what Dr Lewis had been referring to in the chamber.

The ISC published its long-awaited Russia report on Tuesday as it set out the results of an 18 month probe into the Kremlin's interference in British democracy.

The report made for damning reading for ministers as successive governments were accused of taking their 'eye off the ball' on Russia, with the UK now having to play 'catch up'.
California recorded its largest daily increase in COVID-19 cases on Tuesday and surpassed New York as the state with the highest number of cases.

As of Wednesday, the states total number of cases stood at more than 422,000, eclipsing the 413,000 cases recorded in New York, the early epicenter of the pandemic. California also counted a record 12,807 new cases of the virus on Tuesday, Governor Gavin Newsom said.

New York still surpasses California in deaths from the virus, however, with more than 32,200 deaths since the states outbreak began compared to Californias 8,000 deaths. Californias population of 40 million residents is about twice New Yorks 19 million residents.

More from National Review
Hours on the phone. A busy signal. Missing payments. Bills piling up.

Texans who lost their job due to the coronavirus pandemic have been put through the wringer, but another blow may come next week: They could lose $600 per week in unemployment benefits.

More than a million claimants in Texas are currently getting state benefits  which range from $69 to $521 per week  in addition to another $600 per week if they lost their job due to the pandemic. The $600 was a boost from Congress intended to make workers whole; something that would hold the nations jobless over until the pandemic was brought under control.

But with the pandemic worsening in Texas and other parts of the country, the enhanced benefits are set to expire next week. As Congress wrangles over whether to pass another economic relief package and which programs to extend, millions of unemployed workers face sharp drops in income and rising anxieties over how they will get by.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Houston hospitality firms struggle to lure workers back from unemployment

One them is DAndrea Richardson of Humble. Richardson, a single mother who lost her job as a product tester and then had a job offer rescinded because of the pandemic, has depended on $1,765 every two weeks to help support her four children and her sick mother.

Now, her benefits could plummet by two-thirds to $565.

Without the $600, I wouldve made less than when I was working, she said. I cant survive  our household cant survive  on the minimum (benefits).

In Texas, the recent surge in COVID-19 cases is threatening to derail a fragile economic recovery and make it even harder for workers to find jobs. On Wednesday, Texas saw the highest single-day jump in COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began with 217  56 more deaths than the second-highest day on record, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of state data.

Last week, another 86,800 Texans applied for first-time unemployment benefits, according to the U.S. Labor Department. Thats well-above pre-pandemic rates, but much lower than the last two weeks when claims were trending up and above 100,000.

About 1.3 million Texans are currently receiving benefits, according to the Labor Department data.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Claims for unemployment benefits in Texas fall, but remain elevated

Patrick Jankowski, an economist at the Greater Houston Partnership, a business-financed economic development group, calls the high levels of continued unemployment disturbing, noting that approximately a quarter-of-a-million people in the Houston region have continued to receive unemployment benefits for weeks  a level that has barely budged since April.

Theres still a lot of people out there who have not found work, he said. The numbers still show a lot of people suffering financial distress.

Nationally, 1.4 million applied for benefits last week; it was the first time unemployment claims have increased nationally in more than three months.

Struggle to get benefits

State unemployment agencies, overwhelmed by the onslaught of claims unlike anything the agencies have seen before, struggled to quickly process claims and roll out the expanded benefits provided by Congress.

In the first weeks after local officials issued stay-at-home orders, the millions of calls about unemployment benefits every day overwhelmed the state agencys phone lines and the online portal to apply frequently crashed.

The Texas Workforce Commission struggled to increase its capacity to match the demand. Many workers had to try for several weeks before they were even able to file an application, forcing them to wait for desperately needed benefits.

Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Richardson said she waited on the phone for hours, finally got through, and eventually, her payments began.

But her problems with the TWC had only just begun. Theres a glitch in her claim that the unemployment office has yet been able to fix, so each time she requests the next two weeks of unemployment payments, she must wait for hours on the phone until an agent can help her.

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Were so far behind in bills, and theyre no longer accepting, Oh, because of coronavirus, Richardson said. I dont have it because Im fighting with unemployment.

Richardson is also one of tens of thousands of Texans who received an overpayment notice from the state. The TWC, which administers unemployment benefits, overpaid thousands of claimants in benefits and requested they pay the money back.

While the issue affects a fraction of the 1.3 million Texans getting benefits in the state, those who have received the notices say its just another bill to add to a distressing pile. Adding to Richardsons concern is the recent death of her father, who lived on the south side of Houston, and the cost of paying for his funeral.

It is a mess out here, Richardson said. Theres nowhere to turn. I have a 3-year-old, a 6-year-old, a 13-year-old and a 14-year old. Outside of (unemployment benefits), we have no sustainable income.

Administration push

Experts and economists have warned that ending expanded unemployment benefits too soon would wreak more economic havoc for the country and on families like Richardsons.

Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

But some employers have complained that the boosted benefits have made it difficult to coax workers back. The Trump Administration has largely taken the side of such employers, pushing Republicans in Congress to eliminate the $600 benefit.

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Republicans indicated this week that there may be a compromise on the expanded benefits, but the full $600 was unlikely to remain.

Some employers have complained in surveys conducted by the Federal Reserve of Dallas that benefits are resulting in fewer people wanting to apply for jobs that would pay equivalent to the benefits or less. The rebound in COVID-19 infections has prevented employers from bringing their old workers back, since employers must again reduce staff and hours not only for health reasons but also because customers are staying away.

In Texas, employees arent allowed to refuse returning without losing unemployment benefits, except in very limited situations related to COVID-19. Reasonable reasons to refuse work, the Texas Workforce Commission said, include being 65 years of age or older, being diagnosed with COVID-19, living with someone who was diagnosed with COVID-19, being quarantined due to close contact with a person who tested positive for COVID-19, living in a household with a high-risk person, such as an elderly parent, or caring for a child if no other child care options are available.

Thats a relief for Richardson. She needs a job where she can work from home since her mother has malignant melanoma cancer. Taking a temp job isnt worth her mothers life, she said.

Its people out here like myself, we need help, she said. Jobs are not hiring. I cant work at Burger King, not for $8 an hour, thats not going to help me and my kids. (Congress) needs to figure out something to keep us going.

 The story was updated Tuesday, July 28 to correct the average benefits amount in Texas. State benefits range from $69 per week to $521 per week. In May, the average state weekly benefits amount in Texas was $351 per week.

erin.douglas@chron.com

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In spring, as Colombia settled into a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown, some Colombians received troubling new guidelinesand not from the government. In remote parts of 11 of the countrys 32 states, armed groups began enforcing their own quarantine measures, according to a report published July 15 by Human Rights Watch. Through pamphlets and WhatsApp messages, the groups laid out curfews, restrictions on movement, categories of essential work, and more. These restrictions were sometimes stricter than government rules, and punishments for breaking them far more serious.

One pamphlet seen by HRW, released in early April by Marxist guerrillas the National Liberation Army (ELN) in the northern Bolivar department, warned that fighters would be forced to kill people in order to preserve lives because residents had not respected the orders to prevent Covid-19.

Latin America is the current center of the pandemic, with more than 3.5 million cases across the region and numbers in many countries still rising sharply. Analysts say COVID-19 is worsening the regions problem with criminal governance  where the state loses control over a part of its territory as non-state armed groups, such as drug gangs and guerrilla forces, take over and effectively govern small areas. Groups in Colombia, Brazil, Mexico and elsewhere have taken on the fight against COVID-19, allowing them to claim an interest in the public good, and strengthen their violent grip on local communitiesin a way that could be permanent.

Which armed groups control territory in Latin America?

The nature of criminal governance varies hugely between regions and countries across Latin America, according to Chris Dalby, managing editor of investigative news site InSight Crime, which examines organized crime in the region. But it tends to take hold, he says, in poor or remote areas where the state presence is weak; that is, where the government has failed to provide effective law enforcement, public services, and economic opportunity.

Story continues

In Colombia, armed groups are mostly a legacy of the countrys decades-long conflict with rebel groups. Though the Colombian government reached a landmark peace deal with the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2016, other guerrilla groups, including the ELN, and paramilitary forces remain powerful in some rural areas. In Brazil, drug traffickers exert more influence than the police in some of the favela neighborhoods that lie on the outskirts of large cities, with the largest gang being the First Capital Command (PCC) in Sao Paulo. In Mexico, drug cartels, such as the Sinaloa Cartel in the northwest of the country, have similar control over poor communities.

These distinct groups use their territories for a range of illicit businesses: drug trafficking, people trafficking, illegal mining, extortion rackets and more. But they often also provide resources and public services for communities, as a way of legitimizing their control and buying loyalty. During the pandemic, with many money-making activities harder to carry out thanks to national restrictions on movement and businesses, many groups have leaned into this role of governing, Dalby says. Theyve taken the opportunity to reaffirm that control.

How have armed groups tried to tackle COVID-19?

In March, after COVID-19 started to spread through Brazil, gangs in Rio de Janeiro favelas drove through streets using a loudspeaker to tell residents they were putting a curfew in place and threatening violence if they did not comply, according to Brazilian newspaper UOL. Traffickers reportedly also handed out hand soap, and issued edicts banning tourists from entering the area in case they infect the residents. In Mexico, in April, drug cartels handed out boxes of food and other basic supplies to people struggling with the economic impact of the pandemic. Images circulated in Latin American media showed packages branded with the names of cartels.

In Colombia, some armed groups implemented stricter restrictions than the government did on peoples movement, humanitarian workers and community leaders told HRW, allowing no exceptions for accessing health services or banks during curfews, for example. People who did not comply with the rules faced brutal punishments: HRW documented at least 8 killings of civilians who apparently did not abide by COVID-19 measures imposed by armed groups between March and June.

Why are gangs and armed groups taking on the fight against COVID-19?

In part, armed groups are worried about losing their own fighters to COVID-19 and damage to their businesses if the disease spreads widely in their territory, according to Juan Pappier, a Colombia expert at HRW.

But the pandemic is also an opportunity for a PR boost that could win the loyalty of local communities. Establishing measures against COVID-19 creates the impression that theyre not just there for the drug trafficking or illegal mining or the crimes and they care about the public interest, Pappier says. It also suggests that they are the ones in charge and they are the ones whose rules youve got to follow.

How will the pandemic affect these armed groups going forward?

The loss of income during the pandemic could lead to upheaval among organized crime groups in Latin America, Dalby says. The larger groups, like larger companies, are better built to [withstand] this period. Smaller groups, without diversified income streams, will struggle to pay their members and allies if they cannot make money soon, which could lead to infighting and fragmentation.

But government efforts to wrest control of territory from armed groups, long hampered by a lack of resources, may get even weaker amid the chaos of the pandemic. In Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, national governments have offered very little in terms of an effective response to armed groups taking charge of lockdowns during the pandemic, beyond issuing statements condemning their actions, Dalby says. And, he adds, enforcing COVID-19 measures may allow armed groups to entrench themselves more deeply in the communities they control, as civilians are forced to get used to greater impositions on their lives. Once power like that is established, its hard to take away.

For Pappier, the most serious impact of COVID-19 is in the long term: it will grow the pool of potential recruits for armed groups. The levels of poverty that we are going to see after this pandemic will make it very easy to drive people to illegal activities, he says. Thats the best environment for these groups to thrive.
Health Board actively encouraging patients, public & staff to wear face coverings or masks in public areas of all sites as Chairman says there has been an increase at the Maelor

This article is old - Published: Thursday, Jul 23rd, 2020

There has been an increase in coronavirus in Wrexham Maelor Hospital, and Wrexham.com has been told further local testing in as yet unknown areas will start next week.

The latest 2pm update from Public Health Wales states there are 9 new cases in Wrexham, the highest in Wales again, out of a total of 43. There have been 34 confirmed cases in the last seven day period in Wrexham, and 100 new cases in the last twenty one day period.

This afternoon has also seen the regular Outbreak Control Team update after a meeting yesterday morning, that gives a full Wrexham update as below, noting a +4 increase in confirmed cases linked to the outbreak:

An Outbreak Control Team was convened to look at the outbreak associated with the workforce at Rowan Foods, and part of its work is to constantly review its data on cases of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) infection. As part of this process we are investigating cases within the Wrexham area through the Test Trace Protect process. This work naturally includes identifying where we believe transmission may be occurring, and identifying local clusters of cases. The outbreak associated with the workforce at the Rowan Foods plant in Wrexham remains active, although the number of reported cases has slowed down considerably. As of 22 July, the total number of positive cases associated with this outbreak is 313, which is a small increase of four since Wednesday 15 July. There is no evidence that these infections were acquired either onsite or that the infection is factory-based. We will continue to analyse the data to ensure we are taking appropriate and timely decisions to bring the outbreak to a close.

The Chair of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, Mark Polin headed up a meeting today (stream here) where coronavirus issues in the east area of the health board was lightly touched upon.

Mr Polin said he has asked for a review to be carried out on in hospital transmission, with it later noted that transmission can be staff to staff as well as patient to patient. He asked about the east area of the health board, and specifically Wrexham Hospital where he explained there has been an increase in cases, and referred to possible in hospital transmission.

The meeting was told there is ongoing work with the Outbreak Control Team, believed to be working in connection to the Rowan Foods outbreak, and there are agreed control measures being put in place due to a small increase in cases at the hospital, with it noted where we are seeing outbreaks on wards we are testing all patients on wards along with staff in those areas.

The meeting was told there is a change in focus in Wrexham and a change in testing approach in the area. Where and what that will entail is not public, however Wrexham.com has been told that Public Health Wales is due to start testing in the area with a focus not on the hospital, nor at the Rowan Foods site.

Mr Polin said he believed staff would support use of masks or face coverings, with others explaining staff have requested use of them in public areas and corridors, and the health board is actively encouraging the use of them now for staff and public where they feel able to.

Yesterday we asked the health board if there had been an increase in cases at the hospital, naming a specific ward we had been told had been affected. The health board did not comment at the time.

This morning we asked Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board if there had been any policy change this week over mask use in the hospital, and if so why. We also asked if that advice had changed since it was issued, and if so, why.

Simon Dean, Interim Chief Executive at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board said today,

We take our infection prevention and control responsibilities very seriously and are doing all we can to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection in our hospitals amongst both our staff and patients. We have taken a range of actions to prevent the spread of the virus including testing all patients who are due to come in for planned surgery before they are admitted to hospital. As of this week, all admissions  including emergencies  across the Health Board will be tested. We are also providing widespread staff training on infection prevention and hygiene supported by a high visibility communications campaign; following official guidance from the Chief Medical Officer on the use of PPE and checking compliance through PPE champions; undertaking extra cleaning of hospitals; imposing visiting restrictions and increasing the number of hand sanitiser stations for staff and patients. We are also increasing staffing levels in areas where the management of patients can be more challenging  for example, care of the elderly wards. A Post Infection Review is undertaken for each case of hospital acquired COVID-19 to help us learn from incidents. We are the largest Health Board in Wales, covering 22 per cent of the Welsh population and have had more cases of COVID-19 than other Health Boards. COVID-19 is highly infectious and it can be challenging to prevent the spread of the virus. We are not complacent and we are building on what we have learned to date. We are actively encouraging patients, the public and staff to wear face coverings or masks in public areas of all Health Board sites and are actively exploring repeat testing of patients seven days after a negative test to improve surveillance of the virus on our sites. Everyone has a role to play in preventing the spread of infection and we are grateful for the support of the public in observing good hand hygiene, maintaining social distancing and not visiting healthcare premises if displaying any symptoms of COVID-19.

We asked Public Health Wales about the understanding of the situation inside Wrexham Maelor Hospital, and specifically how many confirmed cases are there as of this morning, and how many where there this time last week and it was possible to clarify if these are new covid admissions or confirmed/suspected internal transmissions.

We also asked them regarding face mask use, and also about areas of concern outside of the hospital.

Public Health Wales pointed us to the statement issued late last night to us, where they said As part of this process we are investigating cases within the Wrexham area through the Test Trace Protect process. This work naturally includes identifying where we believe transmission may be occurring, and identifying local clusters of cases , as well as pointing us to pre-prepared lines based off the addition of hospital data to the Public Health Wales dashboard, noting the material on nosocomial data (hospital acquired infection) for COVID-19 is released on a Wales level and also by Health Board. There is no published breakdown by hospital.

We also asked questions to Wrexham Council, however as is usual in the pandemic, they are sent upwards to Public Health Wales with no local response.

This morning we asked Welsh Government what their understanding of the situation inside Wrexham Maelor Hospital is, along with queries over face mask use and PPE stock levels.

We also asked Welsh Government about areas of concern outside of the hospital, and if there was an update possible on any future testing believed to be starting next week. We asked if that was due to concerns over wider community spread.

We also asked if it was acceptable that the local authority, health board and public health wales all pass queries between them, rather than being proactive and accountable in informing the public of Wrexham about the situation on their doorstep.

We have had no reply from Welsh Government.

This week, the data science team at ZOE and Kings College London have created the COVID Symptom Study Watch List for the first time. The top 10 is the Upper Tier Local Authority (UTLA) regions which have the highest estimates of symptomatic COVID in the past week. The data team say the new analysis found that nine in 10 regions on the watch list are in the North of England, suggesting that it is now these areas of the North that the country needs to pay special attention to.

The ZOE app is one Welsh Government and others have pointed to for the public to join in and crowdsource symptom information.

Tim Spector, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at Kings College London, said:

We are now starting to see the figures in the North creep up week on week. The numbers are still very small so we cant say with 100% certainty that COVID is increasing significantly but it does make us focus on those areas. To understand if these increases are significant or not, we need as many people as possible in these areas to be logging in the app. So we are calling for people living in the North, to download the app and get logging, as without them, it will make spotting any real hotspots accurately much harder. This week, the app also revealed that COVID symptoms and outcomes get worse in colder, less humid weather, which makes it even more important that we get this virus under control as we only have a month or two of warm weather left. Our data suggests that levels have bottomed out at around 2000 cases per day which is too many, so we all need to be conscious of the dangers and to continue to practice high levels of personal hygiene, wear a face mask, social distance and know all the signs of early disease.

Prevalence is the number of symptomatic cases in the population based on the daily new cases and symptoms being logged in the app, whereas incidence rates are simply the number of daily new cases based on the results from swab tests. More detail , and how to take part in the ZOE project, can be found here.
With the new method, we can pinpoint that the DNA we found on the pants of the victim was not the DNA of Thai men. It matched with men from East Asia in the global genetic database that we can access with the help of Thai geneticists, Wannapong said.
Tesla has only been paying half of the $700,000-a-month rent on one of its showrooms in New York, a new report claims just one day after the electric carmaker boasted a 281 percent profit increase in the second quarter.

Insiders told Fox Business that eccentric Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk has been working to defer rent payments at many of his 80 showrooms across the US during the coronavirus pandemic.

At least one of the showrooms in New York declined to defer the rent, the sources said, so instead the company has only paid half of the full $2,800,000 its owed over the past four months.

Musk - who became the fifth-richest person in the world this week as his net worth ballooned to $74billion, according to the Forbes - allegedly promised to pay off the debt in August, conveniently after Tesla posted second-quarter earnings that made it eligible to enter the S&P 500.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk (pictured) has reportedly been trying to defer rent payment at many of his 80 showrooms across the US during the coronavirus pandemic

Tesla has only paid half of the $700,000-a-month rent at one of its New York showrooms since March, insiders claim. Tesla's showroom in Manhattan's Meatpacking District is pictured

The sources did not disclose which of the seven New York showrooms Tesla has failed to pay in full.

Given the high price tag its possible that the showroom in question is the first and only one Tesla opened in Manhattan in 2017 - located at 860 Washington Street in the heart of the coveted Meatpacking District right next to the High Line.

Leasing agents at the Washington Street location did not immediately return DailyMail.com's request for comment.

Tesla's other New York showrooms are located in Brooklyn, Henrietta, Huntington Station, Manhasset, Mt Kisco and White Plains.

DailyMail.com has approached the automaker's corporate office and Musk for comment about the alleged attempts to defer rent at showrooms nationwide.

The claims sparked speculation that Tesla could have attempted to postpone payments in an effort to boost its bottom line in the second quarter.

The sources did not disclose which of the seven New York showrooms at which Tesla has failed to pay rent in full. Given the high price tag its possible that the showroom in question is the first and only one Tesla opened in Manhattan in 2017 - located at 860 Washington Street in the heart of the coveted Meatpacking District right next to the High Line (pictured)

The automaker on Wednesday posted a second-quarter net income of $104million, or $0.50 per share, as cost cuts and strong deliveries helped offset coronavirus-related factory shutdowns.

It marked the first time Tesla has posted a profit for four straight quarters, clearing a hurdle that could lead to its inclusion in the S&P 500 index.

The performance is a major accomplishment for Musk, whose mission of leading the global auto industry into an electric future has frequently been questioned by investors who doubted Tesla's viability.

Tesla's shares, which have gained more than 500 percent over the past year, jumped another 4.4 percent in after-hours trading on Wednesday.

Many analysts believe the rally has been fueled in part by expectations of Tesla's imminent entrance into the stock index of the largest US companies, which would unleash a flood of demand for shares.

On a conference call with investors on Wednesday Musk said Tesla would prioritize growth over profit going forward and focus on making its vehicles more affordable.

'The thing that bugs me most right now is that our cars are not affordable enough, we need to fix that,' Musk said.

'I think we just want to be like slightly profitable and maximize growth and make the cars as affordable as possible.'

The price of a Model 3 sedan, its most popular vehicle, starts at $37,990 in the United States.

Tesla on Wednesday posted a second-quarter net income of $104million, marking the first time the electric automaker has posted a profit for four straight quarters and clearing a hurdle that could lead to its inclusion in the S&P 500 index

Musk also announced that Travis County, Texas, which includes Austin, would be the site of Tesla's new factory. The area had been competing with Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the new plant, which promises to create at least 5,000 jobs.

Musk said the factory would produce Model 3 and Model Y vehicles for the Eastern United States, as well as a new semi-truck called the Tesla Semi and the carmaker's futuristic Cybertruck.

Tesla on Wednesday affirmed its goal to deliver at least half a million vehicles by the end of 2020 despite production interruptions, including the shutting of its California factory for nearly six weeks of the quarter on orders of local authorities.

The company delivered more than 90,000 vehicles in the second quarter, surpassing analyst expectations.

'While achieving this goal has become more difficult, delivering half a million vehicles in 2020 remains our target,' the company said.

On the investor call Musk said that the real limitation to Tesla's growth is battery cell production at an affordable price, and said the company would expand its business with Panasonic Corp and China's Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL).

Tesla will introduce new low-cost, long-life batteries in its Model 3 sedan in China later this year or early next, Reuters reported previously.

Tesla's second-quarter profit came as cost cuts and strong deliveries helped offset coronavirus-related factory shutdowns. The company's flagship plant in Fremont, California, is pictured after it reopened back in May

Tesla's second-quarter revenue fell to $6.04billion from $6.35billion a year earlier, but surpassed analyst expectations for revenue of $5.37billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Tesla reported $5.18billion in second-quarter automotive revenue, but its share of income from regulatory credits - payments the company receives from other carmakers to offset emissions - increased to $428 million from $354million in the first quarter.

That revenue could dry up as more manufacturers develop and sell electric cars, but many rivals are still focused on reaping the high profit margins from fuel-guzzling trucks and SUVs.

'Right now in the EV market, it's Tesla's world and everyone else is paying rent, a dynamic shown front and center this quarter,' Dan Ives, a Wedbush analyst, said in a note.

Tesla's rapid rise to become the world's most valuable carmaker could mark the start of a new era for the global auto industry, defined by a Silicon Valley approach to software that is overtaking old-school manufacturing know-how.

The company said higher income from those regulatory credits in combination with temporary employee salary cuts during the pandemic and $48million in deferred revenue from its yet-to-be-released self-driving feature offset the cost of factory shutdowns.

Musk became the fifth-richest person in the world this week as his net worth ballooned to $74billion, according to the Forbes

Musk on Tuesday qualified for a payout worth an unprecedented $2.1billion, his second jackpot since May from the electric car maker following its massive stock surge.

The 49-year-old secured his place as the fifth-richest person in the world on Monday as his net worth hit $74billion thanks to Tesla's ongoing stock rally.

Musk's worth has tripled over the course of the coronavirus pandemic. In mid-March he was ranked number 31 on Forbes rich list with a net worth just under $25billion.

He now falls behind only Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who is fourth richest, Microsoft's Bill Gates in third, Bernard Arnault in second and Bezos, who is the world's richest man.

Tesla is now worth more than General Motors, Ford, BMW and Ferrari combined and has surpassed every rival to become the world's highest-valued automaker.

Shares in the company, of which Musk owns 21 percent, hit $1,643.00 on Monday - a 300 percent increase since January 2020 and up 60 percent since the end of June.

Asked by Forbes about his wealth, outspoken Musk, who is also the CEO of SpaceX, said: 'I really couldn't care less. These numbers rise and fall, but what really matters is making great products that people love.'
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The government is to establish an Automobile Industry Development Centre to coordinate the technical processes for licensing vehicle assemblers and manufacturers, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta, the Minister of Finance said on Thursday.



The minister who announced this at the presentation of the 2020 mid-year budget review statement said the centre will also coordinate the implementation of a Vehicle Financing Scheme, which will link financial institutions to individuals and groups interested in purchasing newly assembled vehicles in Ghana.



It will also monitor compliance with industry regulations and standards and manage an Automotive Skills and Technology Upgrading Programme to provide requisite skills for the industry.



The Minister said some leading global automobile companies referred to as Original Equipment Manufacturers had already established commercial interests in the country to assembly their brand of vehicles.



In March 2020, the Volkswagen Group rolled out the first VW locally assembled vehicle.

The VW Ghana is currently producing six different brands of vehicles-Tiguan, Teramont, Amarok, Passat, Polo, and Caddy.



The Toyota and Nissan Groups are said to be also positioning to establish assemble operations before the end of the year.



Mr Ofori-Atta said Sinotruk, a leading global manufacturer of Heavy Duty Trucks was assembling a variety of trucks in Ghana through Zonda Tec Ghana Limited.



He announced that the Kantanka Group, an indigenous Ghanaian company had been granted a license to continue with its auto assembly operations in Ghana and to benefit from incentives under the Ghana Automotive Manufacturing Development Policy.



"We envisaged that the development of the automobile industry in the country, which is one of the new Strategic Anchor Initiatives promoted under the Ministry of Trade and Industrys Industrial Transformation Agenda, will constitute a significant step towards import substitution and enhancing exports, particularly within the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area", the Minister said.



He said the country was well-positioned to become the new automobile manufacturing hub in Africa, saying, "we are gradually building a stronger foundation for a more inclusive transformation of our country".

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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President Akufo-Addo has directed the Minister for Communications, Madam Ursula Owusu-Ekuful to suspend her directive to the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation to reduce its channels from six to three on the DTT platform.

The sector minister directed the state broadcaster to reduce its channels on the DTT platform and later ask Crystal TV to do the same.

The decision has been met with stiff resistance by GBC and its union workers, the opposition NDC, the National Media Commission, and some individuals and groups.

The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, on Thursday, 23rd July 2020, directed the Minister for Communications, Hon. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, MP, to suspend the implementation of the directives given to the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), in connection with the reduction of GBCs channels on the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) platform, pending further consultation with stakeholders.

---Citinewsroom
A Chilean man accused of murdering a Japanese student in France was taken to Santiago's airport Wednesday night to be turned over to French authorities for a flight to Paris.

Nicolas Zepeda, 29, had been under house arrest at his mothers apartment in the resort of Vina del Mar, 120 kilometres (75 miles) northwest of Santiago, since the Chilean Supreme Court approved his extradition in May.

He is charged in France with premeditated murder in the alleged 2016 slaying of Narumi Kurosaki, 21, whose body was never found.

Judge Jorge Dahm Oyarzun, who presided over the proceedings against Zepeda, said in an email to The Associated Press that he had lifted the house arrest order and instructed police to allow Intepol officers to transfer the defendant to the airport.

Zepeda was to be turned over to French officials Thursday on a plane bound for Paris.

Kurosaki disappeared in the early hours of Dec. 5, 2016, from her apartment in France. Zepeda returned to Chile before her disappearance was investigated.

During court proceedings in Chile, Zepeda acknowledged that he had visited Kurosaki at her apartment on the night she disappeared, even though their romantic relationship had ended.

He said they had consensual sex.
A federal judge on Thursday unsealed civil court documents related to Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite arrested earlier this month on charges of aiding the sexual abuse of minor girls by the now-dead investor Jeffrey Epstein.

But Judge Loretta Preska postponed the release of the documents in U.S. District Court in Manhattan by up to one week to give Maxwell's lawyers time to file an appeal of her decision.

Preska reportedly said during a hearing that the public's right to see the documents "far outweighed" Maxwell's right to avoid being embarrassed by their contents.

The documents include a more-than-400-page deposition that Maxwell gave during litigation in the civil case, as well as depositions of several accusers of Epstein.

Maxwell's lawyers reportedly argued during a hearing Thursday that they had "grave concerns about our client's ability to seek and receive an impartial and fair trial and jury due to the intense media scrutiny around anything that is unsealed."

The documents are part of a now-settled civil case filed by Virginia Giuffre, who has accused Maxwell of recruiting her for Epstein's abuse years ago, when she was 17 years old.

At the time, Giuffre was working as an assistant in the spa at President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Giuffre has said Maxwell directed her to have sex with Prince Andrew of Britain, a then friend of Epstein's, as well as with Epstein's lawyer, Alan Dershowitz.

Both of those men deny Giuffre's claims.

The Miami Herald, whose investigation of Epstein led to his arrest on federal child sex trafficking charges in July 2019, had sued to win release of the documents.

Epstein, 66, died last August in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial in what authorities ruled was a suicide by hanging.

Shortly before his death, a federal appeals court ordered the release of more than 2,000 pages of documents from Maxwell's civil case.

Among those documents was a deposition of Giuffre, in which she says that Maxwell directed her to have sex with former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, ex-New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, hedge funder Glenn Dubin, late MIT scientist Marvin Minsky, modeling company founder Jean Luc-Brunel, the owner of a large hotel chain, and another prince besides Andrew.

All of the living men named by Giuffre have denied her claim.

A former friend of Trump and President Bill Clinton, Epstein was worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and owned luxurious residential properties on Manhattan's Upper East Side, Palm Beach and New Mexico, and he owned a private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
A copy of the book, "The Room Where It Happened," by former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, is seen at the White House in Washington DC on June 18. The 500-plus page memoir was released in South Korea last week. AP



By Jung Min-ho



Top U.S. officials in current and past administrations have maintained that "the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization" is an essential precondition for any negotiations with North Korea. A new book by former National Security Advisor John Bolton suggests that President Donald Trump has been the only one open to other possibilities.



In his memoir, "The Room Where It Happened," Bolton criticized Trump's way of dealing with North Korea, which, in his view, was "naive" and "dangerous." Trump, the book clearly shows, truly believed it would be possible to rid North Korea of its nuclear arms through diplomatic means and was ready to make concessions he deemed necessary  if he was not stopped by his key aides.



One of many such moments came during Trump's meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Hanoi on Feb. 28, 2019. In exchange for sanctions relief, North Korean officials offered to dismantle their Yongbyon nuclear facilities, while their U.S. counterparts were not interested in anything other than complete denuclearization.



But then, "Trump asked again if Kim could add something to his offer, such as asking only for a percentage reduction in the sanctions rather than completely removing them. This was beyond doubt the worst moment of the meeting," Bolton writes. "If Kim Jong-un had said yes there, they might have had a deal, disastrously for America. Fortunately, he wasn't biting, saying he was getting nothing, omitting any mention of the sanctions being lifted."



For Trump's foreign policy aides, the summit, which ended without much substance, was a great relief. But it was disappointing news for the South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who was promoting peaceful engagement and rapprochement, known as the "Moonshine" policy (Moon's version of the "Sunshine" policy).



A few days after the summit, Bolton says he had a phone conversation with Chung Eui-yong, his South Korean counterpart, who reflected on Moon's "schizophrenic" idea that North Korea's willingness to dismantle Yongbyon was a "very meaningful first step" that would lead it to an "irreversible stage of denuclearization." "This last contention was nonsense," he writes.



Bolton does not hide his deeply skeptical view of Moon's peaceful unification goal. He accuses the South Korean left of "worshipping" the "Sunshine" policy, which he thinks "subsidized the North's dictatorship."



"To many people, it was the U.S. presence that allowed the South Korean political left to engage in the fantasy of the Sunshine Policy to begin with," he writes. "If we ever left Korea, they would be effectively on their own and would feel the consequences of their foolishness, which I believed they themselves feared."





In this file photo taken on May 13, 2019, U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton listens while President Donald Trump speaks to the press. AFP
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Digital Editor
A popular pub linked to the Sydney's biggest coronavirus cluster will reopen its doors.

The Crossroads Hotel at Casula in Sydney's south-west will reopen on Friday, followed by the bistro from Saturday.

The hotel has been closed since July 12 after an interstate freight industry worker attended a party at the venue on July 3 tested positive.

The man, who says he didn't know he had the virus, later infected at least six colleagues.

At least 56 cases of the virus have since been linked to the pub.

The Crossroads Hotel (pictured on July 13) will reopen on Friday, 12 days after it was shut down after a patron who attended the premises on July 3 later tested positive

'Our team has worked closely with NSW Health, who cleared the hotel to reopen on Sunday July 12, and we are officially registered as a COVID Safe business with the NSW Government,' Crossroads Hotel posted on Facebook on Thursday.

The venue will have limited entry points of entry manned with staff and security, along with with digital, contactless QR scanning procedures.

At least 56 cases of the virus have since been linked to the Crossroads Hotel (pictured, a resident being tested at a pop up clinic set up at the pub in Casula on July 17)

An on-duty COVID Safe Hygiene Marshall will enforce social distancing, cleaning and hygiene at the venue and ensure patrons remain seated at all times.

'We would like to thank everyone for the support that has been shown by our community of loyal customers during this difficult period and we look forward to welcoming you back soon,' the hotel ended the post.

The announcement sparked a mixed response from the public on its Facebook page.

New South Wales recorded 19 new cases on Thursday and just seven on Friday.
MINSK, Belarus

LAS VEGAS

July 22, 2020

Mike Peele

e

Luba Pashkovskaya

Apple iOS

Apple iOS

www.Verv.com

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

YouTube

Kim Mackenzie

kim@hollywoodagency.com

and/PRNewswire/ -- Jam-packed concert venues and night clubs will likely never be the same and it's time to face the music and figure out where we can get our dancing fix. What if we combined dance and fitness, two things that are good for the body and soul, right in our living rooms? Verv, a global holistic health and wellness app focused on the interconnections between physical activity, nutrition, sleep and mindfulness, today announced a new dance section and content available exclusively on its app.The hip-hop style classes are led by expert dancer and trainer. Mike is known for his charisma, energy and choreography, and has been in videos alongside Beyonc, Rihanna and Madonna, among others."The opportunity to partner with Verv to share my passion for dancing and wellness with others during these uncertain times and help lift people's spirits is truly a gift. Dancing is a fun and effective way to burn calories and foster fitness. The routines are so high energy that you'll forget you are even working out," said Peele.To launch, Verv's dance section has three dance tutorials for three different levels  beginners, advanced and pro. Each workout is approximately 20 minutes and can burn 400-800 calories depending on the complexity."Even prior to COVID-19, we saw a huge demand in dance content from our subscribers and community. It's actually the fourth most requested activity behind fitness, walking and cardio exercise," said, CEO of Verv. "Mike's dance focus is to get people moving in a fun and effective way, and we're excited to welcome him to the Verv family."In general, dance is an effective way to strengthen muscles, burn calories and improve flexibility and coordination. Dancing also activates DOSE hormones (Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins), helping to boost your mood, regulate your body, and even helping you sleep better.Once users complete a dance workout, they can share via social media and tag Verv for a chance to be featured on Verv's social media channels. Monthly, 3-month or one-year subscriptions are available onVerv is a global holistic health and wellness app focused on the interconnections between physical activity, nutrition, sleep and mindfulness. While many other apps are focused on physical fitness only, Verv users get additional guidance related to other areas of their health and lifestyle. The Verv app customizes wellness programs via an onboarding quiz and continuous analysis of user behavior to create better and faster results. Whether you're a fitness fanatic, nutrition novice or master meditator, Verv's approach can help anyone achieve results in a healthy and holistic way. Monthly, 3-month or one-year subscriptions are available on. Visitfor more information or follow us onandHollywood Agency for Verv(781) 749-0077 x24

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/verv-launches-dance-fitness-content-301097842.html



SOURCE Verv




The United States recently threatened France with a 25 per cent tariff on goods imported from the country if the latter went ahead with its 3 per cent tax on digital services provided by foreign-based tech companies. It had slapped a 25 per cent tariff on import of French wine last year for the similar reason, forcing the French government to defer the implementation of its digital services tax by almost a year (from January 1 to December 31, 2020).

The US, home to many tech giants at the receiving end of the digital tax planned by France and other countries, is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that its technology companies don't end up being the worst hit. Barely a month ago, it had pulled out of talks on finalising a framework to tax digital companies, besides initiating probes against 10 countries, including India, which have levied or plan to levy taxes on digital services.

India recently expanded the scope of the Equalisation Levy, or digital tax, to the sale of goods and services in the country by overseas e-commerce firms.

Responding to US allegations, the Centre has said the tax is neither discriminatory nor extra-territorial, and is consistent with Indias commitments under the World Trade Organisation and global taxation agreements. However, with no consensus on the contentious issue, there could be another round of trade war between countries, especially between the US and European countries.

The Equalisation Levy was introduced for the first time in 2016 as 6 per cent tax on revenues earned by non-residents from online advertising and related services. The burden of this tax eventually fell on local firms advertising on these platforms. In March, the government expanded the scope of this levy to include the sale of goods and services in the country by overseas e-commerce operators. The transactions will be taxed at 2 per cent if businesses earned more than Rs 2 crore. The new provision is applicable from April 1, 2020. Globally, the rate of digital tax varies from 1.5 per cent (in Poland and Kenya) to 15 per cent (Paraguay). In Europe, the tax rate varies from 3 per cent (France, UK, Spain) to 7.5 per cent (Hungary).

The US Question

The need to tax digital companies - the likes of Amazon, Google and Netflix - arises because these companies collect digital revenues from countries where they do not have significant business presence, which in tax parlance is referred to as permanent establishments. These are new-age companies, which can use virtual infrastructure to operate in another country.

Countries across the globe have felt the need to tax revenues generated by such companies in a particular jurisdiction. Talks began in 2018 under the aegis of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to formalise a framework on what and how to tax revenues earned by such companies in a country in which they have no physical or significant presence. But an abrupt US decision to pull out of the negotiations, involving 137 countries, and threats of retaliatory action against those levying digital taxes have hit the 2020 deadline. For India, it creates enormous uncertainty, since the country has always been at the forefront of adopting the concept of taxing foreign digital companies. It is now subject to a probe initiated by the US.

While tax experts and government officials have called it a bullying tactic, some are also confused by the US dilly-dallying on the issue. Akhilesh Ranjan, Former CBDT Member, and Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, International, says: "The US is a bit confused. They are not able to decide what they want to do. The proposal, the unified approach that is being discussed, are all based mainly on a US proposal. It was the US which talked about these ways." What baffles Ranjan is the fact that though the US has withdrawn from the talks twice - the first being in December 2019 - it continues to attend the meetings. "So, does that mean that because of the presidential election in November 2020, they are not able to take a decision at this time?" he asks.

Experts hope once the presidential election is over, the US government is likely to make its stand on the issue clearer. OECD Tax Director Pascal Saint-Amans has even issued a statement that meaningful dialogues on a consensus on digital taxation can only occur after the US elections. Mukesh Butani, Founder, BMR Legal, also thinks any meaningful multilateral talks will happen only after the US elections. He, however, thinks the guidance given by the OECD that there will be a consensus on digital taxes by the end of 2020 is now a distant dream.

Uncertain Future?

The main reason for the US developing cold feet on digital taxation is its apprehension that the same will hit American tech giants the most. Even though there is no consensus yet on what and how to tax the digital economy, many countries have already implemented or plan to implement such a tax. In the absence of a consensus, the rate and scope of the tax varies from country to country.

Unlike in India, where the 2 per cent Equalisation Levy is applicable on a host of e-commerce operators selling goods and services worth Rs 2 crore or more in a year, most European countries have levied or plan to levy taxes mainly on big tech giants with global turnovers of $840 million or more in a year. Such a high threshold for turnover means most large US corporations will fall in the tax net.

Says Sunil Arora, Tax Partner at chartered accountancy firm ASA & Associates: "If I was the US, I would have reacted in the same way. I am not saying it is justified, but given that I am the worst affected because I own the Amazons and Googles of the world, there has to be some reaction."

He, however, admits that it (the retaliation and arm twisting) is not good for the future of the talks. "This action of the US (to pull out of the talks) is unilateral and I don't think it will find much support among other countries."

So, what happens if the OECD fails to break the impasse on digital taxation?

Himanshu Parekh, Partner and Head, Corporate and International Tax, KPMG in India, says if the US does not agree, each country will come out with its own unilateral measure like what India recently did. "It will create a lot of tension as far as global trade is concerned," he says.

The nature of the digital tax, at least the way in which some countries have formulated it in the absence of a global framework, is such that it feels more like a consumption tax than an income tax. And if no solution is arrived at, countries may use it as an import tax. Akash Karmakar, Partner in law firm Panag & Babu, says digital tax has ceased to be a tax in the true sense of the word, it's more of a tariff. "The illogical part of the digital tax is that it is deliberately targeting companies that are outside the country," he adds. He, however, hopes that all 137 countries could get into a discussion with the US and try to convince it that it is in the best interest of the latter to agree to a global framework on digital taxation.

The India Story

These developments are significant for India given its decision to expand the scope of the Equalisation Levy, despite the fact that no such provision was part of the Finance Bill presented with Budget 2020.

The announcement was followed by the US decision to probe 10 countries, including India, for introducing such a tax. Finally, the US pulled out of OECD talks.

Do these developments then make India's case for taxing non-resident digital companies weaker? Irrespective of the fact that most experts believe the government's decision to expand the scope of Equalisation Levy is a not well thought-out move, it may still escape the US ire.

The reason is its wider scope and much lower threshold. Unlike in other countries such as France and the UK, where the focus of the tax in digital services only, in India, the tax will be levied on both goods and services.

Mukesh Butani of BMR Legal says the investigation initiated by the US on India's digital tax falls under the US Trade Act, which gives its government power to impose retaliatory measures against each country that is discriminatory for American business enterprises. "But if you look at the India levy, it is not discriminatory. India has not imposed the tax on US companies. It has also not imposed this tax (only) on large technology giants. The threshold for the Equalisation Levy in India is very low (Rs 2 crore)," he says.

Akhilesh Ranjan agrees. "The Indian tax is very broad-based and has a very low threshold."

Experts and government sources say the Centre is not unduly perturbed by the US investigation, though it delayed the notification of the law, keeping in mind the US threat. There is almost unanimity among tax experts that India could have waited for the issue to be resolved at the multilateral level before expanding the scope of the tax.

Besides, the suddenness of the move has also not gone down well with businesses. "India has always been criticised for (tax) uncertainty and this only added fuel to the fire. If you could have given companies something to think about, they would have submitted their objections, they could have worked out something or at least would have some indication of what was coming," says Arora of ASA and Associates.

The new 2 per cent levy on the sale of goods and services that have no permanent establishments hereis believed to have been an afterthought by the government, and desperation to find ways of generating revenue. The government had collected around Rs 900-1,000 crore from the 6 per cent Equalisation Levy. With a much wider scope of the tax, the figure is expected to be higher.

Meanwhile, the government will keep an eye on the talks at the OECD level, hoping the US shuns its antagonistic approach and agrees to resolve the issue at the earliest.

@dipak_journo
EXTON, Pa., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE: WST) today announced its financial results for the second-quarter 2020 and updated full-year 2020 financial guidance.

Second-Quarter 2020 Summary (comparisons to prior-year period)

Net sales of $527.2 million grew 12.2%; organic sales growth was 14.3%.

grew 12.2%; organic sales growth was 14.3%. Reported-diluted EPS of $1.21 increased 38%.

increased 38%. Adjusted-diluted EPS of $1.25 increased 40%.

increased 40%. Company is raising full-year 2020 net sales guidance to a new range of between $2.035 billion and $2.055 billion .

and . Company is raising full-year 2020 adjusted-diluted EPS guidance to a new range of between $4.15 and $4.25 .

"Adjusted-diluted EPS" and "organic sales growth" are Non-U.S. GAAP measurements. See discussion under the heading "Non-U.S. GAAP Financial Measures" in this release.

"Our second quarter results reflect the strength and resiliency of our business in today's environment," said Eric M. Green, President and Chief Executive Officer. "We continue to see underlying demand growth in our existing business for our high-value products and in high adoption rates from customers who are developing therapeutics and vaccines to address the COVID-19 pandemic."

Mr. Green continued, "The outlook for the balance of 2020 remains robust; and with our One West philosophy, broad range of innovative solutions and the ability to flex our global operating network, we are well positioned. I am extremely proud of our colleagues' response to the challenging landscape and the dedicated focus on delivering high-quality components and solutions to our customers."

Proprietary Products Segment

Net sales grew by 10.9% to $399.5 million. Organic sales growth was 13.3%, with currency translation decreasing sales growth by 240 basis points. High-value products (HVP) represented 65% of segment sales and generated double-digit organic sales growth.

Our Biologics market unit had double-digit organic sales growth, led by customer purchases of film-coated components (Flurotec and Daikyo), self-injection platforms, Westar and Crystal Zenith components. Our Generics market unit posted double-digit organic sales growth, and our Pharma market unit grew organic sales by low-single digits. Both Generics and Pharma market units were led by sales of film-coated and Westar components.

Contract-Manufactured Products Segment

Net sales grew by 16.8% to $127.8 million. Organic sales growth was 17.8% with currency translation decreasing sales growth by 100 basis points. Segment performance was led by strong sales of healthcare-related injection and diagnostic devices.

Financial Highlights (first six months of 2020)

Operating cash flow was $205.2 million, an increase of 34%. Capital expenditures were $69.2 million. Free cash flow (operating cash flow minus capital expenditures) was $136.0 million, an increase of 42%.

Full-Year 2020 Financial Guidance



Full-year 2020 net sales guidance is expected to be in a range of between $2.035 billion and $2.055 billion , compared to a prior range of between $1.95 billion and $1.97 billion .

and , compared to a prior range of between and .

Organic sales growth is expected to be approximately 12%, compared to a prior guidance range of 8%.



Net sales guidance includes an estimated full-year headwind of $26 million for the full-year 2020 based on current foreign exchange rates, unchanged from prior guidance.

for the full-year 2020 based on current foreign exchange rates, unchanged from prior guidance. Full-year 2020 adjusted-diluted EPS is expected to be in a range of between $4.15 and $4.25 , compared to a prior range of between $3.52 and $3.62 .

and , compared to a prior range of between and . Full-year adjusted-diluted EPS guidance includes an estimated headwind of approximately $0.07 based on current foreign currency exchange rates, unchanged from prior guidance.

based on current foreign currency exchange rates, unchanged from prior guidance.

The revised guidance includes a $0.16 EPS impact from tax benefits from stock-based compensation in the first six months of 2020.

EPS impact from tax benefits from stock-based compensation in the first six months of 2020.

For the remainder of the year, our EPS guidance range assumes a tax rate of 24% and does not include potential tax benefits from stock-based compensation. Any tax benefits associated with stock-based compensation beyond those recorded in the first six months of 2020 would provide a positive adjustment to our full-year EPS guidance.

Second-Quarter 2020 Conference Call

The Company will host a conference call to discuss the results and business expectations at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time today. To participate on the call please dial 877-930-8295 (U.S.) or 253-336-8738 (International). The conference ID is 7789173.

A live broadcast of the conference call will be available at the Company's website, www.westpharma.com, in the "Investors" section. Management will refer to a slide presentation during the call, which will be made available on the day of the call. To view the presentation, select "Presentations" in the "Investors" section of the Company's website.

An online archive of the broadcast will be available at the website three hours after the live call and will be available through Thursday, July 30, 2020, by dialing 855-859-2056 (U.S.) or 404-537-3406 (International) and entering conference ID 7789173.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain forward-looking statements appear in this release and include such words as "raising," "continue," "see," "remains," "are," "expected," "to be," "includes," "estimated," "assumes," "would provide," and other similar terminology. These statements reflect management's current expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date of this release. There is no certainty that actual results will be achieved in-line with current expectations. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties. The following are some of the factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or underlying our forward-looking statements: the duration and severity of the global COVID-19 pandemic, including prevailing economic conditions and general uncertainties relating thereto that may be unknown and unforeseeable; customers' changing inventory requirements and manufacturing plans and customer decisions to move forward with our new products and product categories, including any re-prioritization of product needs due to COVID-19; other potential impacts from COVID-19, including interruptions or weaknesses in our supply chain, illness in our workforce and access to transport for our products; average profitability, or mix, of the products we sell; dependence on third-party suppliers and partners; increased raw material costs; fluctuations in currency exchange; and the ability to meet development milestones with key customers. This list of important factors is not all inclusive. For a description of certain additional factors that could cause the Company's future results to differ from those expressed in any such forward-looking statements, see Part I Item 1A and Part II Item 1A, entitled "Risk Factors," in the Company'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 31, 2020, respectively.

Except as required by law or regulation, we undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Non-U.S. GAAP Financial Measures

For the purpose of aiding the comparison of our year-over-year results, we may refer to net sales and other financial results excluding the effects of changes in foreign currency exchange rates. Organic net sales exclude the impact from acquisitions and/or divestitures and translate the current-period reported sales of subsidiaries whose functional currency is other than the U.S. Dollar at the applicable foreign exchange rates in effect during the comparable prior-year period. We may also refer to financial results excluding the effects of unallocated items. The re-measured results excluding effects from currency translation and excluding the effects of unallocated items are not in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("U.S. GAAP") and should not be used as a substitute for the comparable U.S. GAAP financial measures. The non-U.S. GAAP financial measures are incorporated into our discussion and analysis as management uses them in evaluating our results of operations and believes that this information provides users a valuable insight into our overall performance and financial position. A reconciliation of these adjusted Non-U.S. GAAP measures to the comparable U.S. GAAP financial measures is included in the accompanying tables.

WEST PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICES, INC. CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF INCOME (UNAUDITED) (in millions, except per share data)





Three Months Ended June 30, Six Months Ended

June 30,

2020 2019 2020 2019 Net sales $527.2 100% $469.7 100% $1,018.7 100% $913.2 100% Cost of goods and services sold 332.1 63 311.8 66 656.6 64 608.5 67 Gross profit 195.1 37 157.9 34 362.1 36 304.7 33 Research and development 10.8 2 9.6 2 21.5 2 19.4 2 Selling, general and administrative expenses 77.7 15 70.3 15 149.5 15 138.9 15 Other expense (income), net 3.0 - (2.5) - (0.5) - (4.8) (1) Operating profit 103.6 20 80.5 17 191.6 19 151.2 17 Interest expense, net 1.8 1 1.4 - 3.0 - 2.8 - Other nonoperating (income) expense (0.2) - (0.5) - 0.1 - (1.1) - Income before income taxes 102.0 19 79.6 17 188.5 19 149.5 17 Income tax expense 16.0 3 15.5 3 31.0 3 31.6 4 Equity in net income of affiliated companies (5.2) (1) (2.0) - (8.0) (1) (3.6) - Net income $91.2 17% $66.1 14% $165.5 16% $121.5 13%

















Net income per share:















Basic $1.24

$0.90

$2.24

$1.64

Diluted $1.21

$0.88

$2.19

$1.61



















Average common shares outstanding 73.8

73.7

73.8

73.9

Average shares assuming dilution 75.5

75.1

75.5

75.3



WEST PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICES REPORTING SEGMENT INFORMATION (UNAUDITED) (in millions)





Three Months Ended Six Months Ended

June 30, June 30, Net Sales: 2020 2019 2020 2019 Proprietary Products $399.5 $360.3 $773.0 $700.7 Contract-Manufactured Products 127.8 109.4 245.9 212.5 Eliminations (0.1) - (0.2) - Consolidated Total $527.2 $469.7 $1,018.7 $913.2









Gross Profit:







Proprietary Products $170.8 $142.2 $320.9 $274.5 Contract-Manufactured Products 24.3 15.7 41.2 30.2 Gross Profit $195.1 $157.9 $362.1 $304.7 Gross Profit Margin 37.0% 33.6% 35.5% 33.4%









Operating Profit (Loss):







Proprietary Products $112.2 $88.8 $205.4 $165.8 Contract-Manufactured Products 20.5 11.4 33.3 21.9 Stock-based compensation expense (12.3) (7.2) (17.7) (13.4) General corporate costs (14.4) (11.1) (27.0) (21.1) Adjusted Operating Profit $106.0 $81.9 $194.0 $153.2 Adjusted Operating Profit Margin 20.1% 17.4% 19.0% 16.8% Other unallocated items (2.4) (1.4) (2.4) (2.0) Reported Operating Profit $103.6 $80.5 $191.6 $151.2 Reported Operating Profit Margin 19.7% 17.1% 18.8% 16.6%

WEST PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICES RECONCILIATION OF NON-U.S. GAAP MEASURES (UNAUDITED) Please refer to "Non-U.S. GAAP Financial Measures" for more information (in millions, except per share data)

Reconciliation of Reported and Adjusted Operating Profit, Net Income and Diluted EPS

Three months ended June 30, 2020 Operating

profit Income

tax

expense Net

income Diluted

EPS Reported (U.S. GAAP) $103.6 $16.0 $91.2 $1.21 Pension Settlement (1) - 0.2 0.7 0.01 Severance related costs (2) 2.2 0.6 1.6 0.02 Amortization of Acquisition-related Intangible Assets (3) 0.2 - 1.1 0.01 Adjusted (Non-U.S. GAAP) $106.0 $16.8 $94.6 $1.25

Six months ended June 30, 2020 Operating

profit Income

tax

expense Net

income Diluted

EPS Reported (U.S. GAAP) $191.6 $31.0 $165.5 $2.19 Pension Settlement (1) - 0.5 1.8 0.02 Severance related costs (2) 2.2 0.6 1.6 0.02 Amortization of Acquisition-related Intangible Assets (3) 0.2 - 2.1 0.03 Adjusted (Non-U.S. GAAP) $194.0 $32.1 $171.0 $2.26

Three months ended June 30, 2019 Operating

profit Income

tax

expense Net

income Diluted

EPS Reported (U.S. GAAP) $80.5 $15.5 $66.1 $0.88 Restructuring and related charges (4) 1.4 0.3 1.1 0.01 Adjusted (Non-U.S. GAAP) $81.9 $15.8 $67.2 $0.89

Six months ended June 30, 2019 Operating

profit Income

tax

expense Net

income Diluted

EPS Reported (U.S. GAAP) $151.2 $31.6 $121.5 $1.61 Restructuring and related charges (4) 2.0 0.5 1.5 0.02 Adjusted (Non-U.S. GAAP) $153.2 $32.1 $123.0 $1.63





(1) During the three and six months ended June 30, 2020, the Company recorded a pension settlement charge of $0.9 million and $2.3 million, respectively, within other nonoperating expense (income), as it determined that normal-course lump-sum payments for our U.S. qualified defined benefit pension plan exceeded the threshold for settlement accounting.



(2) During the three and six months ended June 30, 2020, the Company recorded $2.2 million of severance related costs.



(3) During the three and six months ended June 30, 2020, the Company recorded $0.2 million of amortization expense within operating profit associated with an acquisition of an intangible asset during the second quarter of 2020. During the three and six months ended June 30, 2020 the company recorded $1.0 million and $2.0 million, respectively, of amortization expense in association with an acquisition of increased ownership interest in Daikyo.



(4) During the three and six months ended June 30, 2019, the Company recorded $1.4 million and $2.0 million, respectively, in restructuring and related charges.

WEST PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICES RECONCILIATION OF NON-U.S. GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES (UNAUDITED) Please refer to "Non-U.S. GAAP Financial Measures" for more information (in millions, except per share data)

Reconciliation of Net Sales to Organic Net Sales (5)

Three months ended June 30, 2020 Proprietary CM Eliminations Total Reported net sales (U.S. GAAP) $399.5 $127.8 (0.1) $527.2 Effect of acquisitions and/or divestitures - - - - Effect of changes in currency translation rates 8.6 1.0 - 9.6 Organic net sales (Non-U.S. GAAP) (5) $408.1 $128.8 (0.1) $536.8

Six months ended June 30, 2020 Proprietary CM Eliminations Total Reported net sales (U.S. GAAP) $773.0 $245.9 (0.2) $1,018.7 Effect of acquisitions and/or divestitures (1.2) - - (1.2) Effect of changes in currency translation rates 17.0 2.4 - 19.4 Organic net sales (Non-U.S. GAAP) (5) $788.8 $248.3 (0.2) $1,036.9





(5) Organic net sales exclude the impact from acquisitions and/or divestitures and translate the current-period reported sales of subsidiaries whose functional currency is other than the U.S. Dollar at the applicable foreign exchange rates in effect during the comparable prior-year period.

WEST PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICES RECONCILIATION OF NON-U.S. GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES (UNAUDITED) Please refer to "Non-U.S. GAAP Financial Measures" for more information (in millions, except per share data)

Reconciliation of Reported-Diluted EPS Guidance to Adjusted-Diluted EPS Guidance



2019

Actual 2020 Guidance % Change Reported-diluted EPS (U.S. GAAP) $3.21 $4.06 to $4.16 26.5% to 29.6% Restructuring and related charges 0.04 -

Gain on restructuring-related sales of assets (0.02) -

Pension settlement 0.04 0.02

Amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets - 0.05

Argentina devaluation 0.01 -

Tax recovery (0.04) -

Severance related costs - 0.02

Adjusted-diluted EPS (Non-U.S. GAAP) (6) $3.24 $4.15 to $4.25 28.1% to 31.2%



Notes:



See "Full-Year 2020 Financial Guidance" and "Non-U.S. GAAP Financial Measures" in today's press release for additional information regarding adjusted-diluted EPS.



(6) In 2019, tax benefits associated with stock-based compensation increased adjusted-diluted EPS by $0.14. We have opted not to forecast 2020 tax benefits from stock-based compensation in upcoming quarters, as they are out of the Company's control. Instead, we recognize the benefits as they occur. In the First-Quarter and Second-Quarter 2020, tax benefits associated with stock-based compensation increased adjusted-diluted EPS by $0.07 and $0.09, respectively. Any future tax benefits associated with stock-based compensation that we receive in 2020 would provide a positive adjustment to our full-year EPS guidance.

WEST PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICES CASH FLOW ITEMS (UNAUDITED) (in millions)



Six Months Ended June 30,

2020 2019 Depreciation and amortization $52.2 $51.8 Operating cash flow $205.2 $152.7 Capital expenditures $69.2 $57.1



WEST PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICES FINANCIAL CONDITION (UNAUDITED) (in millions)



As of

June 30, 2020 As of

December 31, 2019 Cash and cash equivalents $445.9 $439.1 Accounts receivable, net $340.6 $319.3 Inventories $274.8 $235.7 Accounts payable $162.3 $156.8 Debt $256.2 $257.3 Equity $1,606.3 $1,573.2 Working capital $735.4 $717.1

Trademark Notices

Trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc., in the United States and other jurisdictions, unless noted otherwise.

Daikyo, Daikyo Crystal Zenith and Daikyo CZ are registered trademarks of Daikyo Seiko, Ltd. Daikyo Crystal Zenith technologies are licensed from Daikyo Seiko, Ltd.

SOURCE West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.westpharma.com


OKLAHOMA CITY  Gov. Kevin Stitts chief of staff, Michael Junk, is leaving, adding to the list of key players in his office who have departed.

Asked by the Tulsa World on July 17 whether Junk was leaving, Stitts chief of communications, Charlie Hannema, said: Senior staff members are constantly rumored to be leaving political offices. Michael Junk and the rest of Governor Stitts team are fully engaged in supporting the governor.

Junk did not respond to a phone call seeking comment last week.

But he said Thursday that we have a gig lined up in Tulsa.

Thats been the first priority, he said. Its not because of anything good or bad in the Governors Office.

Junk has been commuting to Oklahoma City from Tulsa.

He would not disclose his new job, but he said he is not going to work for another elected official and is looking forward to spending time with his kids.

Deputy Chief of Staff Zachary Lee will take over as interim upon Junks departure. The search for a permanent replacement is ongoing, according to Stitts office.
Saudi Arabia records lowest temperature in 30 years

Erdogan's visit to Ukraine scheduled for February 3

Russian peacekeeping contingent establishes order of passage through Lachin corridor

French Senate votes to ban hijab at sporting events

Armenian FM: All necessary conditions to be created for Demarcation Commission work

Olaf Scholz: Borders in Europe cannot be changed by force

Lavrov presents Armenian Ambassador to Russia, with the Order of Friendship

Bill Gates warns of pandemics far more serious than COVID-19

Macron: EU countries must work together on agreement for stability and security

Turkey Central banks and UAE sign agreement worth almost $5 billion

Blinken: Western countries need unity to stop Russian aggression against Ukraine

Iranian President performs evening namaz in Kremlin after talks with Putin

Turkish police detain women protesting price hikes in hygiene products

Delegation headed by Chief of the Cypriot National Guard General Staff has meetings in Armenia

Merkel refuses job in UN structure

Greece receives the first batch of French Rafale fighters

NEWS.am daily digest: 19.01.22

Azerbaijan hopes Pope to mediate in relations with Armenia

Talks between presidents of Russia and Iran start in Kremlin

Armenian FM: This is not first time Baku makes nonconstructive statements

Ombudsman: I urge not to give in to Azerbaijani manipulations, to visit Artsakh

Armenian FM: Armenia passes a package of proposals to Azerbaijan

France names the main favorite of presidential election

Garo Paylan concludes address in Turkey parliament in Armenian

Russian Foreign Ministry believes there is no risk of large-scale war in Europe

Dollar goes up in Armenia

Sharmazanov: Armenia ex-President Sargsyan did not decide to hold press conference, he did not change his mind

Blinken: Russia has plans to increase force on Ukraine borders

:       

Azerbaijani military participate in Turkish drills

Taliban say all conditions for recognizing legitimacy of government are met

Azerbaijan MFA statement distorts events of Armenian massacres in Baku 32 years ago

Karabakh ombudsmans office: Azerbaijans anti-Armenian, genocidal policy has clear chronology

US official, Barzani are photographed against backdrop of Greater Armenia and Kurdistan map

Armenia ex-defense minister, army General Staff chief, some others criminal case court hearing kicks off

FM: Most important direction continues to be international recognition of Artsakh

Armenia revenue committee chief on opening of Turkey border: Shall we live with closed borders? In fear?

US selects Los Angeles to host Summit of the Americas in summer 2022

Karabakh Foreign Minister: Return of refugees can only be like mirror

Iranian president arrives on official visit to Moscow

All CSTO peacekeepers leaves Kazakhstan

Artsakh Foreign Minister: Unacceptable to bracket NKAO and NKR together

Karabakh FM: Format of OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs' visits needs to be restored

Media: Air communication between Turkey and Armenia will start on February 2

Artsakh FM: Azerbaijan attack on Karabakh will mean attack on Russia

Gold prices hardly change

American professor angers Erdogan's son-in-law

Hovhannes Khachatryan is elected Armenia Central Bank Deputy Governor

15 years pass since Hrant Dink assassination

563 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Guterres offers Merkel job at UN

Armenian church revamped in Iran

World oil prices going up

Newspaper: ECHR rulings increase after Armenia revolution in 2018

Newspaper: Armenia ex-President Sargsyan to give interview instead of press conference

Azerbaijan MFA falls into hysterical rage by France FM statement

The Pope to donate 100,000 to help migrants on border of Belarus and Poland

Fourth vaccine against COVID-19 is not enough for Omicron

World is on verge of country defaults

French Foreign Ministry considers unacceptable Azerbaijan statements about Pecresse

US to return two valuable artifacts over 4,000 years old to Iraq

Germany may consider halting Nord Stream 2 if Russia attacks Ukraine

Israel successfully completes test of anti-ballistic missile system

Plane landing in Sochi struck by lightning

Putin and Aliyev discuss Ukraine situation

Greek PM Mitsotakis threatens Turkey with sanctions

Handelsblatt: US and EU abandon idea of disconnecting Russia from SWIFT international payment system

Artsakh President meets representatives of non-governmental organizations

Avalanche kills person in Iran

Erdogan says he is pleased with decline in volatility of lira

NEWS.am daily digest: 18.01.22

Turkey and Azerbaijan to start laying gas pipeline to supply Nakhichevan

UK begins to supply Ukraine with anti-tank weapons

Armenian PM holds meeting on Armenia's Transformation Strategy until 2050

Nagorno-Karabakh: Remains of another Armenian soldier found in Jrakan region

Tehran to not accept any border change in South Caucasus

Dollar holding relatively steady in Armenia

Armenia special representative: Future process depends on Turkeys constructiveness degree

Erdogan: Gas from Mediterranean to Europe can only be pumped through Turkey

Iranian Consul General discusses customs cooperation in Nakhijevan

Inecobank brings Apple Pay to customers

Parliament vice-speaker says he is familiar with Armenia proposals on border demarcation commission work

US Secretary of State to visit Kyiv

Russia, Iran and China to hold joint naval drills

OSCE Chairmanship on Aliyev statement: We reiterate our full support to Minsk Group Co-Chairs

Artsakh NSS denies rumors about penetration of Azerbaijanis into Karabakh villages

Indonesian parliament approves bill to relocate capital

Armenia PM to Bulgaria colleague: Our interstate relations are marked by continuous development of cooperation

Armenian President meets Abu Dhabi Crown Prince

Azerbaijan to ban foreigners from visiting Nagorno-Karabakh occupied part

European Parliament new speaker elected

Armenian National Interests Fund participates in Abu Dhabi Sustainable Development Week summit

North Korea fires missiles for fourth time this year

ECHR recognizes violation of Armenian PM's rights after 2008 elections

Turkey reveals plans to produce combat aircraft

Karabakh official: Azerbaijan presidents impudent behavior is due to OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs silence

Azerbaijan special services force Artsakh resident to intelligence work

Copper price is stable

Minister of State: OSCE MG Co-Chairs must accept exercise of Karabakh people's right to self-determination

Armenia President, UAE Minister of State discuss possibilities of cooperation in science and technology
Amber Heard alleged in a British court on Wednesday that ex-husband Johnny Depp threw "30 or so bottles" at her as if they were "grenades or bombs" during a drunken and frenzied assault in Australia in March 2015 that also saw him accidentally sever part of his finger.

Taking the witness box for a third day at the High Court in London during Depp's libel case against a British tabloid, the actress refuted his allegation that it was she who lost her temper and that she had injured him.

Heard has described her stay in Australia with Depp as akin to a "three-day hostage situation," during which Depp was "completely out of his mind and out of control" following a binge on drugs and alcohol. Heard has said that she feared for her life while at the rented property on Australia's Gold Coast during a visit while Depp was filming the latest "Pirates of the Caribbean" film.

The incident is central to The Sun's labeling of Depp in an April 2018 article as a "wife-beater." The Sun's defense relies on 14 allegations made by Heard of violence by Depp between 2013 and 2016, in settings as varied as the rented house in Australia, his private island in the Bahamas and a private jet.

Depp, 57, denies abusing Heard and claims she was the aggressor during their tempestuous relationship. He was present once again to hear Heard's testimony. He is suing The Sun's publisher, News Group Newspapers, and its executive editor, Dan Wootton, over the article.

Depp's lawyer, Eleanor Laws, said Heard had worked herself "into a rage" during her stay in Australia and that she had a habit of just "losing it."

Heard, 34, said she got "angry at times but not into a rage that would cause me to throw anything at him."

She acknowledged that she broke one bottle during their second evening together in Australia, testifying that it happened as they argued about the scale of Depp's drinking.

"I regret I did that," said Heard, who also claimed that Depp often credited her for saving him by trying to get him clean and sober.

After she smashed the bottle, Heard alleges that Depp, fueled by alcohol and drugs, started throwing bottles, full enough that they broke a window behind her.

 Associated Press

Noah: Opening schools is risky

Pay attention, class: Trevor Noah is educating audiences on the potential dangers of sending kids back to school amid the COVID-19 crisis.

On Tuesday's episode of "The Daily Show," Noah weighed the risks of "adorable super-spreaders" bringing the virus home to their families or infecting their teachers and joked about how pandemic concerns might alter students' in-school interactions.

Though children appear to be less susceptible to the respiratory illness, Noah cited a study out of South Korea suggesting that minors over the age of 10 can spread COVID-19 at the same rate as adults.

As Noah notes, "parents aren't the only ones in danger here." As the country with the most COVID-19 cases in the world debates reopening schools, teachers are also facing the reality that they might contract the virus on the job.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

 Tribune News Service

Kanye needs empathy, Kim says

Kim Kardashian is asking for compassion and empathy as her husband, rap mogul Kanye West, and their family deal with his recent behavioral outbursts that have called his mental health into question.

West, 43, accused the E! reality star of trying to lock him up this week after he criticized her at a campaign rally and in a flurry of tweets on Monday. Kardashian took to Instagram Stories on Wednesday morning to remind followers that West has bipolar disorder, a lifelong mental health condition that causes extreme mood swings that include emotional highs and lows.

Though West has publicly refuted his diagnosis, Kardashian asked people to be sensitive to those who struggle with mental health issues.

"Anyone who has this or has a loved one in their life who does, knows how incredibly complicated and painful it is to understand," Kardashian said in her statement.

"I've never spoken publicly about how this has affected us at home because I am very protective of our children and Kanye's right to privacy when it comes to his health," she added. "But today, I feel like I should comment on it because of the stigma and misconceptions about mental health."

The mother of four, who has been married to West since 2014, said those who understand mental illness or compulsive behavior know the family is powerless unless the person with the illness is a minor.

 Tribune News Service
Ciena Corporation CIEN is selected by Spark, a New Zealand-based telecommunications company, to provide hardware, software and services to build its Optical Transport Network (OTN 2). Spark completed the first stage of its OTN 2 that has self-healing capabilities. The technology, first for New Zealand, is believed to automatically restore services after things like natural disasters while minimizing the impact of network outages.



Importantly, it will increase data capacity on Sparks network by up to eight times and support 5G services. With Cienas WaveLogic 5, advanced network automation and intelligent restoration capabilities, Spark will be able to support 5G and IoT services. The first part of the new OTN 2 fiber network was installed between Glenfield and Papakura in Auckland. It currently operates at 800 Gigabit per second.



The OTN 2 rollout is a two-year project which will expand towards Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch. Upon completion, OTN 2 will likely provide reductions in the power usage and space required for Gigabit per second. Spark will deploy several solutions from Ciena including 6500 flexible grid colorless, directionless and contentionless photonic line system with advanced control plane capabilities, WaveLogic 5 Extreme coherent optics as well as Manage, Control and Plan domain controller with Liquid Spectrum analytics.



A few days back, Ciena stated that Vodafone New Zealand has deployed 800G technology using its WaveLogic 5 Extreme. Vodafone NZ achieved a record transmission speed to address the growing demand for digital services. Also, the service provider is leveraging its Ciena 6500 shelves, doubling the data throughput for each hardware module and reducing energy consumption by 50%.



The fundamental demand drivers of Cienas business that include increased network traffic, demand for bandwidth and the adoption of cloud architectures continue to be strong. The company possesses the largest optical R&D investment capacity in the industry, which enables it to deliver leading innovation with the best time to market. It has a world-class specialized sales force that is focused on customers and drives toward opportunities.



Ciena is benefiting from diversification across customer segments and regions along with its technology leadership, including the 5th-generation 800-gig WaveLogic modem. The company added new products and capabilities to its 5G Network Solutions, aimed at reducing network complexity and fueling operators migration from 4G to 5G. Ciena enhanced its Packet Networking portfolio with Adaptive IP capabilities, coherent optics and purpose-built hardware platforms.



Cienas shares have returned 21.8% in the past three months, in line with the industrys growth. The Hanover, MD-based company has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 16%.





Story continues





Ciena carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), at present.



Some better-ranked stocks in the broader industry are Turtle Beach Corporation HEAR, T-Mobile US, Inc. TMUS and Ooma, Inc. OOMA. While Turtle Beach and T-Mobile sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), Ooma carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.



Turtle Beach has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 46.4%, on average.



T-Mobile has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 19.4%, on average.



Ooma has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 228.2%, on average.

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In order to prevent crowding due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has decided not to build artificial tanks for Ganpati immersions this year.

Instead, the civic body has appealed citizens to go for eco-friendly idols and immerse them at home.

The decision was taken by PMC during a meeting chaired by mayor Murlidhar Mohol on Wednesday where other PMC officials were also present. Around 2.5 lakh Ganpati idols were immersed last year in artificial tanks built by civic body as part of its eco-friendly drive.

Dynaneshwar Molak, department head of solid waste management said, The artificial ponds will remain closed as we do not want people to violate the norms of social distancing which can lead to the spread of infection. We are focusing more on promoting the use of ammonium bicarbonate powder. PMC will provide a free ammonium bicarbonate powder packet of two kilograms to everyone who will be purchasing the Ganesh idols. We just hope this decision would not make people perform Ganesh Visarjan in the rivers of Pune violating the rules for the sake of devotion.

This year, the 10-day Ganesh festival will be celebrated from August 22 to September 1. In view of the Covid pandemic, the government has already appealed mandals to not celebrate the festival in a big way. During the meeting, PMC officials also decided to not issue fresh passes for mandals this year and instead mandals can use last years passes for erecting a mandap.

Sachin Punekar, an environmentalist, stated, I think, this is a great decision for the environment as well as for the safety of the citizens of Pune. The artificial tanks can also be installed at a society level. If PMC successfully promotes this initiative of visarjan at home then I believe that citizens of Pune would not violate the government guidelines as they have followed the previous guidelines effectively.

Varsha Mandke, a resident of Warje said, We enjoy the Ganesh visarjan at home as it saves the environment and helps blossoms my plants in the balcony. I got the ammonium bicarbonate powder for free along with the Ganesh Idol last year and the experiment was successful. I choose to stay home and stay safe in the Covid-19 crises and I would not perform visarjan in an artificial pond even if there is an option for it.

Saket Ambardekar, a resident of Sahakar Nagar said, I am not even sure whether this year we are going to bring a Ganesh Idol at home. Instead, we might worship the existing metallic idol which we have in our house. It also becomes easier to perform visarjan at home without using the ammonium bicarbonate powder. I believe it is a safer and smarter option at this crucial time where everyone is struggling to stay safe.
Vidya Balan said though she didn't know Sushant Singh Rajput personally, she believes there was much more to him than just being an actor

Actor Vidya Balan says the only way in which one can honour Sushant Singh Rajput's legacy is by "keeping quiet" as he is not here to defend himself.

Rajput, known for films such as Kai Po Che, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, Chhichhore, was found dead in his Bandra apartment on 14 June. He was 34.

In its initial probe, Mumbai Police said no suicide note was found on the spot.

Rajput's death sparked a discourse around mental health, the struggle of survival for outsiders in films, and monopoly of power structures, which has now been reduced to a blame game on social media.

Balan said it was unfortunate that a "bright" mind like Rajput made such a choice.

"I feel that someone chose to end his life and he didn't leave a note, outlining why he did that. So we have no business to speculate and disrespect that person's choice because he is not even here to corroborate facts. He made a choice and it's really unfortunate, because what a bright guy," she told Press Trust of India.

The 41-year-old star said though she didn't know Rajput personally, she believes there was much more to him than just being an actor.

"... what a flourishing career. I personally feel, I'm no one to say what's right or wrong. But I feel whatever prompted him to end his life we don't know and we will never know. So the only way to show respect is by keeping quiet," Balan added.

*

A collection of Suicide prevention helpline numbers are available here. Please reach out if you or anyone you know is in need of support. The All-India helpline number is: 022 2754 6669
"All forms of abuse are unacceptable and indefensible," says Cardinal John Dew of Wellington, New Zealand (soupstock - stock.adobe.com)

The Bishops of New Zealand say they will closely review the new Vademecum, or manual, for dealing with cases of sexual abuse of minors by clerics.

By Vatican News

In a statement issued on Thursday, New Zealands Bishops say they will closely review a new Vatican document, known as a Vademecum, that explains procedures for dealing with accusations of clerical sexual abuse against minors.

It is a complex document, said Cardinal John Dew, Archbishop of Wellington. He said the Bishops will be looking carefully to see where it fits in with the civil and criminal law of New Zealand.



The Bishops statement notes that complaints of abuse in the New Zealand Catholic Church are handled under the A Path to Healing, Te Houhanga Rongo protocols, introduced by the bishops in 1993 and updated several times since.

The Bishops of New Zealand, said Cardinal Dew, believe that every person has an innate human dignity  [in Maori:] te tapu o te tangata  and therefore all forms of abuse are unacceptable and indefensible.

He explained that the Bishops will be considering further revisions to the protocols in light of the indications in the Vademecum.

The Vademecum was produced by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and includes instructions on procedural steps to be taken when an accusation of clerical abuse of a minor is made. It is primarily designed to assist Bishops and other Church leaders in applying the current legal norms to actual cases.

The Vademecum also offers practical, pastoral suggestions for welcoming, listening to, and accompanying victims, while also insisting on the right of the accused to self-defence.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ohios Supreme Court candidates for this fall have been invited to debate ahead of the November election, though organizers have not yet decided whether it will be virtual or in-person.

All campaigns are in conversation with the Ohio Debate Commission regarding participation, according to a news release.

The Ohio Debate Commission is organizing the Sept. 21 debate so that voters can be more informed on judicial candidates. Video of the event would be free for broadcast and live-streaming.

There are two contested seats for Novembers election, which could decide which political party has a majority on the court. The races are:

--Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge John ODonnell, challenging incumbent Justice Sharon Kennedy

-- Jennifer Brunner, a judge on the 10th District Court of Appeals and former Ohio Secretary of State, challenging incumbent Justice Judith French

The Debate Commission created a panel to advise on the format of the debate, including two former Ohio Supreme Court, Justices Yvette McGee Brown and Judith Lanzinger, and retired Judge Ronald Adrine. The event would also feature questions from the public, which could be sent in through YouTube and e-mail.

The group will share more information on how to submit questions in August, according to the release.

Statehouse News Bureaus Bureau Chief Karen Kasler and Spectrum News anchor Curtis Jackson would host the debate.

The Ohio Debate Commission is a non-partisan group made up of media and civic organizations and universities. The group formed to create debates based on best practices to inform Ohioans.

Judicial races too often fly under the radar, Debate Commission Executive Director Jill Miller Zimon said. We expect voter turnout will be high this year, and were going to work with our partners across the state to make sure these candidates get the attention they need so that voters can make an informed choice at the ballot box.

This story and its headline have been edited to show that campaigns are in conversation about participation in the debate, and have not committed yet.
DALLAS, July 23, 2020 -- Genetic testing and counseling for inherited cardiovascular diseases may help patients and their families make well-informed decisions about managing their heart health, according to "Genetic Testing for Inherited Cardiovascular Diseases," a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association, published today in the Association's journal Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine.

The statement summarizes what we know - and do not know - about the genes or combination of genes that may influence inherited heart diseases and also provides suggestions for best practices for genetic testing.

"Although genetic testing has seen explosive growth in the past few years, both in the clinical setting and with direct-to-consumer testing, genetic testing for heart disease should be reserved for specific patients," said Kiran Musunuru, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., M.L., FAHA, chair of the writing group for the scientific statement and professor of cardiovascular medicine and genetics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

According to the statement, cardiovascular conditions that may have an inherited genetic component include:

cardiomyopathies, heart muscle diseases that can lead to heart failure; thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections, syndromes that cause the body's major artery to balloon and rupture; arrhythmic disorders that predispose people to potentially fatal abnormal heart rhythms; and familial hypercholesterolemia, or highly LDL elevated cholesterol levels that greatly increase the risk of heart attack.

Before considering genetic testing, a health care provider should work with the patient to document their family medical history, ideally, going back three generations, to determine if there is a pattern of certain types of heart disease. Genetic testing should typically be reserved for patients with a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of an inherited cardiovascular disease or for individuals at high risk due to a previously identified disease-causing variant (a gene abnormality that is different from most humans, often responsible for the clinical disease in question) in their family.

Genetic counseling is essential before genetic testing to educate patients on the process and potential results, as well as the potential risks and uncertainties related to testing. Counseling is also critical after genetic testing, so the counselor can explain the results and potential consequences for the patient's health and the health of family members including children.

Since immediate family members - first-degree relatives such as fathers, mothers, siblings or children - might share genetic variants predisposing them to an inherited cardiovascular disease, they are considered to be at higher risk for the same conditions. Once a genetic variant is identified within a family, all first-degree relatives should consider undergoing genetic testing and counseling for that specific mutation whenever possible.

Genetic counselors can also advise and support patients on the best ways to communicate the news of any genetic variants they may discover through genetic testing to other family members. Although privacy laws restrict the ability of health care professionals to disseminate information directly to potentially affected relatives, they can provide written letters that explain the genetic findings, which the patients can give to their family members.

"With most genetic cardiovascular diseases, inheriting a mutation (or variant) from a parent substantially increases the risk of getting the disease but does not guarantee the disease," said Musunuru. "In some cases, it might be possible to act early and prevent the disease. In other cases, having the mutation for a genetically caused cardiovascular condition might lead to different and possibly more aggressive treatment."

Advances in human genetics are improving the understanding of a variety of inherited cardiovascular diseases. However, there are still limitations. Genetic testing might not reveal a cause or confirm a diagnosis of the patient's disease.

In many cases, genetic testing can reveal a mutation that is called "uninterpretable" or a "variant of uncertain significance." A variant of uncertain significance, or VUS, is not considered either definitively pathogenic (disease causing) or benign, meaning that it's unclear if the patient is at increased risk for disease. Since it is unclear whether the VUS increases the risk of disease or not, it can be challenging for doctors to counsel patients on appropriate treatment.

It is also possible that a patient may be diagnosed with an inherited cardiovascular disease, yet genetic testing doesn't reveal any genetic mutations. This makes it difficult to explain why the patient has the disease and whether any of their family members are also at risk.

"Another issue is that we have not yet clarified the full spectrum of genes that are responsible for various inherited cardiovascular diseases - we are still very much in discovery mode, with ongoing research efforts," added Musunuru. "Genetic testing methods are evolving, and reliable classification of variants identified in genetic testing will remain a preeminent challenge for the practice of clinical genetics."

###

The statement was written on behalf of the American Heart Association's Council on Genomic and Precision Medicine; Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology; Council on Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing; and Council on Clinical Cardiology.

Co-authors and members of the writing committee are Ray E. Hershberger, M.D., FAHA, vice chair; Sharlene M. Day, M.D.; N. Jennifer Klinedinst, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.N., FAHA; Andrew P. Landstrom, M.D., Ph.D., FAHA; Victoria N. Parikh, M.D.; Siddharth Prakash, M.D., Ph.D., FAHA; Christopher Semsarian, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., M.P.H., FAHA; and Amy C. Sturm, M.S., L.C.G.C. Author disclosures are in the manuscript.

Additional Resources:

Multimedia available on the right column of the release link https://newsroom.heart.org/news/genetic-testing-for-heart-diseases-may-help-patients-and-families-identify-risks?preview=f46130e306b94ff13433881acf255b60

The Association receives funding primarily from individuals. Foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific Association programs and events. The Association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations and health insurance providers are available at https://www.heart.org/en/about-us/aha-financial-information.

About the American Heart Association

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In Ankara, Turkey, Russia declare coordination for Libya truce

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 22 July 2020 2:22 PM

Russia and Turkey have agreed to work harder for a sustainable ceasefire in Libya in coordination with the United Nations.

In a joint statement released on Wednesday in Ankara, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the two countries would continue joint efforts to create "conditions for a lasting and sustainable ceasefire."

Ankara and Moscow also agreed to facilitate the "advancement of the intra-Libyan political dialogue" in line with the 2020 Berlin Conference on Libya.

In January, a conference took place in the German capital in order to start a political process and reach a permanent ceasefire in Libya.

Several countries expressed commitment to support the truce, respect an arms embargo and support the UN-facilitated political process.

Elsewhere in the statement, the two countries called on the Libyan parties to take measures for the "safe humanitarian access and delivery of urgent assistance to all those in need."

Turkey and Russia would also consider creating a 'Joint Working Group on Libya.'

There has been an international call for de-escalation in Libya through the removal of foreign forces.

A big escalation could risk igniting a direct conflict among the foreign powers that have poured in weapons and fighters in violation of the arms embargo.

The Government of National Accord (GNA), which is backed by the UN, in Tripoli has the support of Turkey, while renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) based in Benghazi is supported by Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

On Monday, the Egyptian Parliament unanimously approved the deployment of troops outside the country, laying the groundwork for a possible military intervention in Libya.

The move could bring Egypt and Turkey, both allies of the United States, into direct confrontation.

Tensions escalated further last year after the LNA moved toward Tripoli to seize the city.

Libya has been beset by chaos since the overthrow and killing of its long-serving ruler Muammar Gaddafi following a NATO intervention in 2011.

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At least 18,011,763 cases have now been registered as the pandemic's rate of infection continues to accelerate

Here are the latest developments in the coronavirus crisis:

- More than 15 million cases -

At least 15,007,291 cases of the new coronavirus, including 617,603 deaths, have been detected worldwide since the pandemic emerged late last year, according to an AFP tally at 1600 GMT on Wednesday based on official sources.

The United States is the hardest hit country with 3,915,780 cases and 142,312 deaths. More than half of the recorded cases are in the US and Latin America.

In the last seven days, more than 1.6 million new cases have been detected globally.

Africa, where an acceleration in cases is concerning the World Health Organization, has expressed concern, has passed the 15,000-death mark.

- US: $1.95 billion for potential vaccine -

The US government has agreed to pay $1.95 billion (1.68 billion euros) to secure 100 million doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine being developed by US pharma giant Pfizer and Germany's Biontech, the latter says.

It also has an option to purchase an additional 500 million doses, Biontech says.

- China defends itself -

China accuses the United States of "slander" after two Chinese nationals are indicted there for seeking to steal coronavirus vaccine research and hacking hundreds of companies.

"The Chinese government is a staunch defender of cyber security, and has always opposed and cracked down on cyber attacks and cyber crime in all forms," says foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin.

- Record infections in Australia -

Australia reports a record 502 new coronavirus infections, with most of the new cases in the southeastern state of Victoria, where authorities have struggled to bring an outbreak in Melbourne under control despite an almost two-week lockdown in Australia's second-biggest city.

- Indian Kashmir locks down -

Indian-administered Kashmir imposes a strict lockdown until July 29 amid rising cases.

India, the world's second most populous country is also the third most-infected nation. It has significantly eased a months-long shutdown to revive its shattered economy, but numerous states have reimposed restrictions.

Story continues

- 'Avalanche' in Belgium feared -

Belgium is experiencing a dangerous surge in cases after relaxing many of its lockdown measures, the Belgian national security council says, urging social distancing to prevent a "snowball effect before it provokes a new avalanche".

Belgium suffered one of Europe's worst per capita tolls of coronavirus earlier this year, but along with its neighbours was able to bring it under control. Now, however, the number of cases is increasing again.

- Tokyo under lockdown -

Tokyo's governor urges residents of the Japanese capital to stay at home during an upcoming four-day holiday weekend, after it hits a new daily record of 293 cases last week, and the figure has stayed above 200 in recent days.

Japan has had just over 26,300 cases and close to 1,000 deaths, a low figure compared with countries worst hit by the pandemic, but Japanese experts say the number of patients in serious condition is gradually increasing.
Amanda Aitchison is getting tired of not knowing what to expect every time she drives to work.

Aitchison, who works for the Nova Scotia health authority as an autism support worker in Cumberland County, has to cross the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border every day to return to her Sackville home.

My commute was so much easier when the border was closed, said Aitchison, explaining how she would just show her essential worker pass and be waved through.

Aitchison is not alone. Dozens of front-line workers employed in Nova Scotia but who live in communities on the New Brunswick side are often with her in line, she said. Many have expressed frustration and worry about inconsistent and what some feel to be unsafe practices.

Joanna Perkin, who commutes each day from her home in Sackville to work at a womens shelter in Amherst, agrees.

Perkin said she waited an hour and half one evening to get home after work.

This means less time for front-line workers to recuperate, she said, noting she has already spoken to other workers starting to feel burned out.

Im working 12-hour shifts, said Perkin, adding she often comes home more wired after the latest border ordeal. This is eventually going to make me less effective at my job.

Theyve seen people urinating at the side of the road during a long wait to cross the border, and emotions running high sometimes leading to unsafe driving conditions, said Perkin.

Often people wait for ages only for officials to decide that everyone will be waved through, she said. But when you suddenly wave through 40 people at once, people are passing each other, people are weaving trying to figure out which lane to go through, others are racing through  it feels very unsafe.

Aitchison echoes these concerns. She said she has even gone so far as to contemplate a leave of absence while things remain as they are. I dread going to work because I dread the commute home right now, she said. Never knowing what to expect is debilitating.

This is a New Brunswick problem, said Perkin.

Many essential workers have been writing to the government with their concerns, but say this week has seen no improvement.

Perkin would like to see essential workers be allowed to consistently use the truckers line, noting that using the weigh station on the Nova Scotia side would free up more lanes.

Regardless of what they choose, it needs to be consistent, Aitchison said.

Sackville Mayor John Higham and Amherst Mayor David Kogan are hearing all these concerns and met with New Brunswick Public Safety Minister Carl Urquhart Monday.

We dont know what solution they will choose but we were told we should expect to see some sort of progress on this issue some time this week, Higham said.

Kogan said he wants to see wait times reduced to 10 minutes or less, noting he and Higham are both watching the border situation and will be calling the minister again if they dont see an improvement soon.

This reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.

Read more about:
An old clip of Pakistan PM Imran Khan is doing the rounds on Twitter in which he can be seen criticising the political leaders of the country for misusing security agencies for their benefits and following orders of 'powerful men'.

A Pakistani journalist has shared the video on Twitter and said 'if only this man could be the Prime Minister of the country'. He adds; "I am so disheartened to see that revenge is sought from opponents. Is this the Pakistan we dreamt of. If I will be in power, I assure you, this shall end, if this happens, I am ready to tender my resignation."

The tweet that comes as a sarcasm has Imran Khan has been criticized by Opposition parties, human rights groups, and media for curbing free speech and incarcerating political leaders opposing the regime, as well as working in cahoots with the Pakistan Army and ISI. Moreover, media in Pakistan has been warned against covering events critical of the military and its activities against Pashtun and other minorities.

Kaash yeh banda humara wazir-e-azm hota.. pic.twitter.com/uYaZKLQmJp  Naila Inayat   (@nailainayat) July 22, 2020

READ | Imran Khan's Pakistan bears brunt of PIA ban in UK as flight fares surge triples: Reports

READ | Imran Khan's ex-wife Reham would 'love to visit India'; eyes Ladoos & Paranthas

Pakistan Army held the 233rd Corps Commanders Conference

Meanwhile, Pakistan Army on Tuesday held the 233rd Corps Commanders Conference headed by Pakistan's Army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa where the forum reviewed "operational readiness and evolving threat spectrum" with respect to the external and internal security of Pakistan. The Pakistani Army took to Twitter to give details of the meeting which they said was held to take "special note" of the situation in POK and the results of the abrogation of Article 370, which completes a year next month. However, netizens slammed the Pakistan army for cross-border terrorism and for curbing free speech in their own country.

233rd Corps Commanders Conference, presided by COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa held today at GHQ. Forum reviewed operational readiness & evolving threat spectrum in context of external & internal security of the country. COAS complimented efforts put in by all formations (1/4) pic.twitter.com/JJvAQ2oqNr  DG ISPR (@OfficialDGISPR) July 21, 2020

READ | Imran Khan's ex-wife Reham repents; 'he said all the right things that women want to hear"

Pakistani journalist abducted

Moreover, on July 22, a senior Pakistani journalist, Matiullah Jan, known for his criticism of the countrys powerful institutions, was abducted by unknown armed persons from Islamabad. A CCTV footage showed several armed men exiting at least three vehicles and putting Jan in a vehicle. Jan was critical of the government, security institutions and judiciary. The Supreme Court last week took cognizance of one of his tweets and initiated proceedings against him. The abduction was widely criticized by politicians, rights groups and social media users. However, on Tuesday night, he was freed, though he wouldn't share details.

Matiullahjan, my father, has been abducted from the heart of the capital Islamad. I demand he be found and the agencies behind it immediately be held responsible. God keep him safe.  Matiullah Jan (@Matiullahjan919) July 21, 2020

READ | Pro-Pakistan UK MPs' group got money from Imran Khan govt to visit PoK; 'receipt' accessed
(CNN)  Could an American takeover of TikTok save it from being locked out of the United States?

US investors are reportedly considering buying the video sharing app from Chinese parent company ByteDance in an effort to save TikTok's sizeable foothold in America.

A group of investors, including venture capital firms Sequoia and General Atlantic, are mulling buying a majority stake, according to The Information and the Financial Times. The investors are talking with the US Treasury Department and other regulators about whether a spinoff of TikTok would quell US concerns about the company, according to the FT, which cited anonymous sources.

The reports come as TikTok faces heightened scrutiny in Washington. Tensions between the United States and China have been climbing as the two powers battle over trade, technology, national security and human rights. ByteDance offers a very similar app called Douyin, with the same logo and branding as TikTok, in China. According to the FT, it would retain a minority stake in TikTok under the deal being discussed.

TikTok declined to comment on Thursday on a possible sale to US investors, and referred to an announcement earlier this month that ByteDance is weighing changes to its corporate structure. The Wall Street Journal reported at the time that such changes could include establishing a headquarters for the video app outside of China, or a new management board.

"We are very confident in the long-term success of TikTok and will make our plans public when we have something to announce," a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement on Thursday.

General Atlantic declined to comment. Sequoia did not respond to a request for comment outside of regular working hours.

TikTok has been trying to distance itself from its Beijing-based owner for months.

TikTok hired Disney veteran Kevin Mayer as CEO in May. Its main office is in Los Angeles County, and it has offices in London, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore, Jakarta, Seoul and Tokyo.

But for ByteDance to sell TikTok  the only major social media app created by a Chinese company to gain significant traction globally  would be a big move. And it still might not be enough to alleviate concerns in Washington, where lawmakers and US officials allege TikTok poses a national security threat because it could be used as a spying tool by Beijing. TikTok has denied those allegations.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other US officials say they are considering banning TikTok. The US House of Representatives voted to bar federal employees from downloading TikTok on government-issued devices. And President Donald Trump's re-election campaign is currently running Facebook advertisements bashing the app.

The ads declare that "TikTok is spying on you" and link to a survey and a sign-up for a Trump campaign mailing list asking if TikTok should be banned in the United States.

Wells Fargo has instructed its employees to remove the app from company devices. And TikTok is also under pressure in other countries.

The company pulled out of Hong Kong earlier this month, after China imposed a controversial national security law on the city. Last month, India banned TikTok along with several other popular Chinese apps, amid rising tensions with China. The app is also facing more scrutiny in Australia, according to CNN affiliate 9 News Australia.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "TikTok could be sold to American investors to avert US ban, reports say."
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson is clarifying comments he made in a radio interview in which he said children returning to school will come down with the coronavirus but will "get over it."
The Guardian

The Steelers quarterback is headed to the Hall of Fame. But he was unloved outside Pittsburgh for understandable reasons Ben Roethlisberger almost certainly played his final game in the NFL on Sunday. Photograph: Ed Zurga/AP Ben Roethlisberger is lucky that football legacies are not decided by finales. If Sunday night was indeed Big Bens last ever NFL game, as he has strongly hinted, it wasnt exactly a mic drop. In the 42-21 beatdown by the Chiefs, Roethlisberger struggled with rollouts, and l
The Covif-19 pandemic has resulted in a massive spike in cybercrime with manufacturing on the front line, and micro, small and medium enterprises particularly vulnerable to attacks, said a top official.



Houlin Zhao, the Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), was speaking at the Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit (#GMIS2020) Digital Series held recently in Hannover, Germany.



Zhaos remarks came in a keynote address that preceded a panel discussion around the topic of Cybersecurity: Safeguarding the future of manufacturing, which included representatives from GE, United Airlines, Good Harbor Security, and Dublin City University (DCU).



If we want to safeguard the future of manufacturing, businesses of all sizes need to rally around good cybersecurity practices, Zhao said. We at the ITU believe that, in addition to regulations, voluntary standards are an important tool to support reliable and predictable management of risk.



Covif-19 has highlighted the fundamental importance of digital technologies and services to economies and societies everywhere. New technologies such as 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), and many others, have the power to transform the industrial and manufacturing landscape on an unprecedented scale, Zhao said.



Zhao also categorically rejected conspiracy theories that Covif-19 is transmitted via 5G networks, which he said would be critical to the next wave of manufacturing innovation and acceleration towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).



Let me be clear, viruses cannot travel on radio waves and mobile networks, he said. These claims have no scientific basis whatsoever and ITU condemns the attacks on infrastructure vital to address the pandemic and keep our economies and societies working, he said.



Emilian Papadopoulos, President of Good Harbor Security, stressed that the crisis had hit companies hard and imposed financial constraints that meant investments in cybersecurity are not necessarily a top priority, even though the risk of an attack had risen exponentially during the pandemic. However, he said Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) should make a strong case for investment despite the current climate.



The attackers are still coming at us. They didn't stay at home and stop working. And the coronavirus has just taught us that Black Swan events happen. So now is not a time to be constraining the purse strings for the CISO, we need to actually invest more in security right now, he said.



Deneen DeFiore, Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) of United Airlines, also warned companies against compromising on cybersecurity, saying that there was no question that cybercriminals were taking advantage of the crisis and that industry data showed threat activity had increased by as much as 1,000%.



It's not the time to cut the budget. Its actually the time to double down and make sure that you are closing the gaps. That doesnt mean investing millions of dollars, but there are lots of things you can do to get back to basics and shore up those vulnerabilities and heighten your posture a little bit, she said.



Justin John, Executive Technology Director of GE, stressed the importance of strengthening standards governing cybersecurity and fourth industrial revolution technologies so that more companies complied with them. There's a number of standards that are out there, but they lack regulatory teeth. They lay out a really good plan of how you should comply, but there's nothing that's enforceable about them, he said.



Ray Walshe, Dublin City University (DCU) and Technology Standards Leader  EC, WEF, UN, agreed on the importance of developing international standards due to the proliferation of new technologies coupled with the complexity of global supply chains.



The whole ecosystem that we're living in has changed. Emerging technologies are highly embedded in the manufacturing industry now, he said. Standards give you that interoperability when you have people who are geographically dispersed and you're trading across international boundaries. Standards are the glue that holds all these ecosystems together, so I can't emphasise enough how important that standardisation process is.



DeFiore cited the aviation industry as an example of a sector where global standards had been successfully introduced and said this could be applied across others industries.



You're only as secure as the entire ecosystem and in aerospace and defence that's huge, she said. Our assets are big, theyre mobile and they cross international boundaries. So, for us, cybersecurity is paramount, as is having standards that are enforceable and normalised across the standards bodies, as well as regulators, and are easily implemented by operators. That's something that we're working on in the aviation industry but should be applied across many other industries as well.



Hosted by former BBC journalist Declan Curry, the virtual panel discussion on Health and Safety Reimagined titled Cybersecurity: Safeguarding the future of manufacturing is the fourth session of the #GMIS2020 Digital Series that will lead up to the Virtual Summit on September 4-5.  TradeArabia News Service
A sinking sense of deja vu struck this week.

Remember when it became official that our kids were not going back to school after spring break in March? Anyone who was paying attention to COVID-19 data knew that it was unlikely that schools would risk reopening  cases were rising, and the city and county issued stay-at-home orders.

But the realization that the school year had been cut nearly three months short with a slapdash effort to educate kids remotely hit like a ton of bricks, especially for those with graduating seniors.

Now its decision time for how to go back to school, so multiply that previous anxiety and sadness with unbridled anger.

Schools in the metro St. Louis region have unveiled their plans for the return to schooling for the fall. Depending on the district, options might include in-person instruction, all online or a hybrid. Even if your child goes to school five days a week, we know a localized COVID-19 outbreak could change everything.

In-school scenarios  and let alone distance learning  will not be the same educational experience our children need and deserve. Meanwhile, the number of coronavirus infections continues to surge.

Beginning in March, students are facing at least a nine-month educational disruption. The loss of teacher-led instructional time, peer interactions and extracurricular activities is going to take a significant toll on our childrens academic, social and emotional lives. Its not as simple as making up a semesters worth of learning later. For some students, this pandemic will irreparably damage their life trajectories.

Heres the blood-boiling, infuriating part: It didnt have to be this way.

Look at whats happened in other countries. Weve had far more deaths  over 140,000  than anywhere else. The U.S. death toll from coronavirus is more than twice as high as the next most-affected country, Brazil. We have the third-highest number of deaths per 100,000, according to Johns Hopkins data. Theres a reason Americans are barred from traveling into much of the rest of the world. They see us as disease vectors.

The reality is this: Trumps response to the pandemic, measured against the efforts of other developed countries, has been an unmitigated disaster, Professor Brian Klass recently wrote in an Op-Ed in The Washington Post. Compared with those peer countries with a similar combined population, the new caseload in the United States is roughly 50 times worse, he notes.

Much of the COVID-related death and destruction could have been prevented if our government had taken the decisive action other nations did to contain the spread and if people had followed social distancing and mask-wearing protocol. Nowhere else did the simple act of wearing a mask to save lives become as politicized as it did in America.

Back when the pandemic began raging through the Western world, I thought that American children would roughly end up in the same place as other children in the developed world. But while everyone else listened to their scientists and medical experts, took aggressive steps to contain the spread and reopened schools, our leaders downplayed the risks, attacked experts and let the virus spread like wildfire.

Schools in countries that handled this far better than we have have been open. American school children will be falling behind their peers globally.

American children in areas throughout the country will miss first days of kindergarten and senior year and major transitions in between. Our children will miss time with teachers and peers and the countless moments that are crucial to their development and growth.

We know who robbed our children of once-in-a-lifetime milestones and nearly a year of education. The political leadership that allowed this virus to spread unchecked, ignored the scientists and doctors, spread misinformation and delayed critical testing and contact tracing that could have checked the virus earlier.

We will remember the elected officials who failed to protect us and wrecked a significant part of our childrens education. Elected officials have underestimated our rage over what our children have needlessly lost.

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson said on a conservative radio show recently, These kids have got to get back to school. ... And if they do get COVID-19, which they will  and they will when they go to school  theyre not going to the hospitals. ... Theyre going to go home and theyre going to get over it.

He later said he didnt do a good job explaining his thoughts on schools reopening.

Oh, we understood exactly what you meant.

And you know who wont forget this attitude?

Moms wont forget. We can remember where every gadget in the house ends up, where the pants you havent seen in two months are put away and who made a passive aggressive comment about a child at a family gathering 10 years ago.

Come November, we wont forget who got us here.

Aisha Sultan  314-340-8300 Home and family editor @aishas on Twitter asultan@post-dispatch.com

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The owner of Ann Taylor and Lane Bryant, which just a few years ago was one of the countrys largest clothing retailers for women and girls, filed for bankruptcy on Thursday, after declining sales and high debt were exacerbated by store closures mandated by coronavirus lockdowns.

The company, Ascena Retail Group, will close 1,600 of its approximately 2,800 stores and hopes to shed $1 billion of its $1.1 billion in debt, the company said in a Chapter 11 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Eastern District of Virginia. The closings will include a select number of Ann Taylor, Lane Bryant, Loft and Lou & Grey stores, as well as all of its Catherines locations. Ascena had 53,000 employees last year, among them 40,000 part-time workers, according to recent government filings.

The meaningful progress we have made driving sustainable growth, improving our operating margins and strengthening our financial foundation has been severely disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, Carrie Teffner, the interim executive chair of Ascena, said in a statement. As a result, we took a strategic step forward today to protect the future of the business for all of our stakeholders.

The pandemic has taken a heavy toll on retailers, especially apparel sellers and other mall-based chains that might have otherwise stayed afloat, perhaps even for a short period, without turning to bankruptcy court. Ascena, based in Mahwah, N.J., is at least the ninth prominent retailer to file for bankruptcy since early May, right on the heels of Brooks Brothers and Sur La Table this month, and in the wake of J. Crew, Neiman Marcus Group, J.C. Penney, Lucky Brand, Stage Stores and GNC.
Thursday, July 23, 2020 at 9:45AM

A Microsoft executive may have confirmed the release month of the upcoming Xbox Series X console ahead of the Xbox Game Showcase. Bloomberg's Dina Bass asked Microsoft CFO Amy Hood during an investor call if the gaming machine is "still on track" for its launch. And Hood mentioned that it was on track for the November holidays launch. When asked to clarify, Bass tweeted, "It was in response to a question from me and I said 'new console' and "November holidays.' Her answer was the single word 'yes.'"

A November launch isn't out of the ordinary, as this would follow the release schedule of previous Xbox consoles. Microsoft is still using the "Holiday 2020" tagline for its marketing purposes, but we may or may not hear more information at the Xbox Games Showcase. We'll keep you posted for any updates.
By Akbar Mamamdov

Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov has said that Azerbaijan is committed to the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through negotiations, but it is important that the negotiations are conducted based on essence and focused on concrete results.

Bayramov made the remarks during the phone conversation with EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Affairs Josep Borrel and his Armenian counterpart Zohrab Mnatsakanyan on July 22 during the discussion of the recent cross-border clashes.

Bayramov said that Azerbaijan does not participate in the negotiations only for the sake of negotiations, adding that negotiations have been going on for many years, but no concrete results have been achieved in eliminating the consequences of the conflict.

It was highlighted that the Armenian side attempts to prolong the negotiations under various pretexts.

During the phone conversation, Bayramov informed Borrel about Armenian armed forces recent attack on Azerbaijans border district with the use of artillery installations.

Bayramov stressed the importance of fulfilling the demands of the international community, including the UN Security Council resolutions and the EU's firm position on the settlement of the conflict, withdrawing the occupying forces from all occupied territories of Azerbaijan and restoring Azerbaijan's territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders.

The minister also noted that 76-year-old civilian was killed during Armenian attack on Azerbaijans civilian infrastructure.

Furthermore, the minister informed Borrel that Armenia seeks to threaten the geostrategic projects passing near the border and emphasized that the root of the tension is the policy of aggression pursued by Armenia against Azerbaijan.

In turn, Josep Borrel stressed the importance of preventing the escalation of tensions, including the threat to important infrastructure in the region. He also underlined the need to restore substantive negotiations on the settlement of the conflict through the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.

The cross-border fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan started on July 12 with Armenia's firing artillery at Azerbaijan's positions in the direction of Tovuz region. Azerbaijani army lost 12 servicemen as a result of Armenian attacks. One civilian was killed as a result of artillery fire by the Armenian armed forces.

Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a conflict over Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway region, which along with seven adjacent regions was occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and around one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France has been mediating the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict since the signing of the volatile cease-fire agreement in 1994. The Minsk Groups efforts have resulted in no progress and to this date, Armenia has failed to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) that demand the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
The Great Flu of 1918-19 - misnamed the Spanish Flu by the governments of nations involved in the First World War, so as not to depress morale by admitting that this new strain of influenza was cutting a swathe through their populations too - hit the whole world hard, at the end of more than four years of devastating conflict.

Best estimates say 3pc of the global population died of it - far more than in the war's battles and bombings.

In Ireland, the mortality rate was by no means that high - perhaps 0.7pc, which still meant more than 20,000 people were lost. (The typical winter flu carried off old people, but the Great Flu was known for targeting young adults instead, so a whole generation of children were orphaned by it.)

So why would I choose Dublin as my setting for a novel about that pandemic, when I began to write The Pull of the Stars on the centenary of the outbreak, back in October 2018?

One reason was authenticity: I wanted to create an absolutely credible drama set in one small maternity ward where women with bad cases of the new flu would be sent if they were also heavily pregnant, because before and after labour women and their babies were particularly vulnerable to this virus's effects.

I thought I could get the voices of my protagonist Nurse Julia Power, Doctor Kathleen Lynn (the one real historical figure in the novel), and their mostly working-class patients more right, and more flavourful, if I drew on the Hiberno-English I grew up with, and its flair for loquaciousness and dark humour.

My title echoes Sean O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars, because his plays (performed at the Abbey) were my first glimpse into the lives of the Dublin poor and those ground-down, heroic mammies.

But I also liked the idea of an Irish setting because that meant taking an already complicated situation - a pandemic, hard on the heels of a world war - and throwing in the extra complication of our lurch towards independence.

I drew a lot on two excellent histories of the crisis, Caitriona Foley's The Last Great Plague: The Great Flu Epidemic in Ireland 1918-19 and Ida Milne's Stacking the Coffins: Influenza, War and Revolution in Ireland 1918-19 (as someone who has published academic studies as well as fiction, I know how much the latter often draws on the tireless and pretty much unpaid research and analysis that goes into the former).

If (allow me to generalise wildly) my grandparents' generation was mostly shocked and unimpressed by the Easter Rising in 1916, but mostly voted for Sinn Fein in 1919, then the pace of changing opinion in those years must have been startlingly rapid, I thought. What if I took a nurse who feels she has "no time for politics" and put her through the extraordinary peak of the epidemic, working past the point of exhaustion in an understaffed, understocked hospital?

Video of the Day

Might she begin to question both the British Government's and the Catholic Church's roles in shaping the lives of her slum-dwelling, malnourished, ever-pregnant patients?

How might she be changed, as the country around her changed?

Read More

Two days after I delivered my last draft of The Pull of the Stars, the WHO declared Covid-19 a pandemic. The novel wasn't due to come out till 2021, but my publishers decided it was so timely they should move it up to summer.

I didn't add a single echo of today to the novel, in the copy-editing process; it felt all too weirdly similar already. Maybe that's because the fear of invisible germs, weighed against the need to carry on with life anyway, is the same in any time and place.

The Pull of the Stars is called that because influenza comes from influence - Renaissance Italians thought the illness was caused by the influence of the stars.

But in researching and writing this novel, and even more as I've watched how Covid-19 has played out under different political regimes across the world, I've become more and more aware that health is political: a human right snatched away from so many, whether at the point when they're born (the most dangerous single day in a life) or later, but still too early.

Boris Johnson's notoriously vague 'Stay Alert' reminds me of the 1918 public information posters headed 'Save Yourself From Influenza': victim-blaming, across the centuries. And when I hear blustering leaders blaming the poor - especially Black communities - for what they imply are self-inflicted pre-existing conditions that leave them vulnerable to coronavirus, I think of those who died in 1918 partly because they were too tired, ill-fed or weakened by previous sickness to ward this one off. Because (like migrant farm workers today, say) they were in no position to follow useless government advice along the lines of, 'On feeling the first symptom of influenza, take to your bed and rest for a fortnight'.

This may all sound grim, but as usual I found it cathartic and even cheering to set a story in dark times, and even find some light at the end of it.

I'm glad to be publishing a novel that shines a spotlight on the astonishing courage and stamina of frontline healthcare workers (so many of them women).

I'm deeply grateful that our state of scientific knowledge is so much better than in 1918, when all doctors could offer bad flu cases was aspirin or whiskey.

This too shall pass, says the medieval Persian proverb. Or as Kathleen Lynn in my novel puts it, "the human race settles on terms with every plague in the end".

Emma Donoghue is the author of novels including Room, The Wonder and Akin. The Pull of the Stars is published on July 21 by Picador Books

A Writer's llfe: Packed with generous sympathy

Emma Donoghue was born in Dublin in 1969, the youngest of eight children. Her father was the literary critic, Denis Donoghue. She went to UCD and studied English and French, then moved to England and did a PhD at Cambridge. She has written screenplays, short stories, children's books and non-fiction as well as novels, and counts herself lucky enough to never have had an "honest job" since being sacked after a single summer month as a chambermaid.

In 2004, Publishers Weekly described her as "distinguished by her generous sympathy for her characters, sinuous prose and an imaginative range that may soon rival that of AS Byatt or Margaret Atwood".

In 2010 she published Room, an international bestseller that was shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange Prize, and won the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year, along with many other awards.

Room was very soon made into a film directed by Lenny Abrahamson, for which Emma wrote the screenplay. It won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Film, the Irish Film and Television Academy Award for Best Film, among many other awards. Emma now lives in London, Ontario, with Chris Roulston and their children, Finn and Una.

In 2011, she wrote a wise and funny piece on parenting: "If you're out in public with your kids, it can feel as though the CCTV cameras are always trained your way. Every parent I know jokes about the nightmarish possibility of being reported to Child Protection Services. You can bring down the wrath of a stranger simply by failing to keep a broad-brimmed sunhat on your child or letting her race around with a lollipop in her mouth.

"You might think that, having defied convention when it came to conception (anonymous donor, two mothers, as I tell anyone at the playground rash enough to ask 'is their dad tall?'), I'd be relaxed about what people thought of my parenting at the micro level. But no, I still get that Bad Mum Blush when our daughter bloodies her knee and I - not having a plaster - have to improvise with an old tissue."

Emily Hourican
In Pennsylvania, most people entering a retail establishment are required by the state to wear a face mask due to COVID-19.

Some retailers have exceptions  children under the age of 2 and those unable to wear a facial covering due to health reasons.

Here are some of the retailers in the central Pennsylvania that are now requiring a face mask:

American Eagle/Aerie:

Face masks are available to any customer that may need one.

Apple stores:

Face coverings will be provided to customers who dont bring their own.

A Best Buy employee assists cutomers with contactless curbside pickup at the Jonestown Road store in Lower Paxton Township. Best Buy now requires face coverings to enter its stores. (Dan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.com)

Best Buy:

A face covering will be supplied for those who dont have one. Small children and those unable to wear one for health reasons may enter without one.

BJs Wholesale Club:

A facial covering that covers both the mouth and nose must be worn at all times. Children under the age of 2 are not required to wear a facial covering. According to BJs Facebook page, the mask requirement took effect July 20.

Capital City Mall:

Requires all customers to wear a mask. Masks provided to any shopper without one, located at welcome stations in the JC Penney or Dicks Sporting Goods corridors or the management office.

Costco:

Face coverings must cover the mouth and nose at all times. This requirement does not apply to children under the age of 2 or to individuals who are unable to wear a face covering due to a medical condition. The mask requirement took effect May 4.

CVS:

The mask requirement took effect July 20.

The Home Depot:

Masks are available for shoppers who need one. Small children or those who have a valid medical rationale will not be required to wear a mask. The mask requirement took effect July 22.

Kohls:

The mask requirement took effect July 20.

Lowes:

Free masks are available at the customer service desk for customers who need them, while supplies last. The mask requirement took effect July 20.

Macys:

All customers are required to wear a mask before entering a Macys.

Panera Bread at High Pointe Commons, Swatara Township. Panera is now requiring that all customers wear masks, unless seating and drinking while seated. (Provided)

Panera Bread:

Masks are required at all times, except when seated while eating and drinking.

Petco:

The face covering requirement took effect July 20.

PetSmart:

All customers and associates must wear a face covering/mask over their noses and mouths. If a customer doesnt have a mask, ask an associate for one. The mask requirement took effect July 22.

Rite Aid:

If a customer does not have a face covering, Rite Aid will provide one free of charge. The mask requirement took effect July 21.

Sams Club:

Complimentary masks will be provided if the member doesnt have one. Or members can purchase masks in the club. The mask requirement took effect July 20.

As of July 15, 2020, Starbucks requires customers wear facial coverings to enter. (Justin Sullivan, Getty Images North America)Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Starbucks:

The requirement took effect July 15.

Stein Mart:

Required to enter, unless the customer has an underlying health problem.

Verizon stores:

The company requires customers and employees to wear face coverings in its stores.

Walgreens:

Customers are required to wear face covers before entering the store except where doing so would inhibit the individuals health or where the individual is under two years of age. This took effect July 20, according to USA Today.

Walmart:

The mask requirement took effect July 20.

Whole Foods Market:

Face masks will be available at the entrance of all stores for customers who do not have their own. The requirement took effect July 20

The following retailers will soon require that customers wear face masks:

The new Aldi grocery store at 6476 Carlisle Pike in Silver Spring Township. Aldi's will require customers to wear a mask effective July 27, 2020. (Dan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.com)

Aldi:

The face covering requirement will take effect July 27.

Bed Bath & Beyond:

A mask requirement will take effect July 24.

The Gap/Old Navy:

Requiring all customers wear masks in all North American Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Athleta, Intermix and Janie and Jack stores. Disposable masks will be offered to customers who need them, and small children and those with an underlying medical condition are exempt. The requirement will take effect Aug. 1.

Target:

Exempt from the mask requirement are those with underlying medical conditions and young children. It will take effect Aug. 1.
Former Congressman Charged With Bribing Election Official to Stuff Ballot Boxes

A former Philadelphia congressman, who was previously convicted in connection with the FBIs Abscam sting operation, has been charged with bribing an election official to illegally add votes for certain candidates in primary elections, the Justice Department announced.

Michael Ozzie Myers, who was working as a campaign consultant, is accused of paying an elections judge to add fraudulent votes on behalf of specific candidates in the 2014, 2015, and 2016 primariesa process known as ringing up votes. The candidates, who, like Myers, are Democrats, were backed by Myers for a variety of reasons, including that the candidates campaigns had hired Myers to represent them, prosecutors allege.

The indictment (pdf), which was unsealed on July 23, alleges that Myers, 77, would solicit payments from his clients, candidates from elective office, in the form of cash or checks as consulting fees. Myer would then use a portion of the funds to pay Domenick J. Demuro, a former election judge for the 39th Ward, 36th Division, who previously has pleaded guilty to accepting bribes to cast fraudulent ballots.

Myers would pay Demuro amounts between $300 and $5,000 per election, court documents say.

After receiving the payments, Demuro would add fraudulent votes on voting machines for Myerss clients and preferred candidatesthus diluting the value of the ballots cast by actual voters, prosecutors alleged. Demuro would also falsely certify that the voting machine results were accurate.

In an effort to cover his tracks, Myers would direct Demuro to lie about the scheme and the bribes, prosecutors said.

Myers has been charged on eight counts: one count of conspiracy to deprive individuals of their civil rights; one count of conspiring to illegally vote in a federal election; two counts of violating the Travel Act, which forbids the use of any facility in interstate commerce (here, a cell phone) with the intent to promote certain illegal activity (here, bribery); two counts of falsification of records; one count of voting more than once in a federal election; and one count of obstruction of justice.

Through the alleged scheme, Myers advanced his political and financial interests through fraudulent and corrupt means by engaging in a ballot-stuffing scheme that enabled him to take credit for the electoral success of his Philadelphia-based clients and preferred candidates, U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said in a press conference announcing the charges.

This secured his standing in local party politics that enabled him to control and influence the 39th Ward, and influence the distribution of local patronage jobs.

McSwain said during the press conference that Demuros votes added between 27 and 46 votes between 2014 and 2016. Those votes represented 22 percent of the total votes in his division in 2014, 15 percent in 2015, and 17 percent in 2016.

But at the end of the day, the specific number of votes does not really matter. Voting is the cornerstone of our democracy. If only one vote has been illegally rung up or fraudulently stuffed into a ballot box, the integrity of that entire election is undermined, McSwain said.

Myerss attorney, Arnold R. Silverstein, declined to comment to The Epoch Times on July 23.

Myers, a Democrat, represented Pennsylvanias 1st Congressional District in the House of Representatives between 1976 to 1980, when he was expelled from Congress due to his involvement in the Abscam scandal. Myers was sentenced to three years in prison and fined $20,000 on bribery and conspiracy charges for receiving a payment in return for promising to use official influence on immigration bills.
1. Yes. Too many kids are staying home. They need a virtual learning option to keep up.

2. Yes. Teachers are out sick and subs cant handle the load. Online learning is needed.

3. No. Its too late in the school year to make a wholesale switch in teaching platforms.

4.No. Many parents arent in a position to stay home while their kids learn virtually.

5. Unsure. It may seem like a good idea from a health standpoint, but it has shortcomings.

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There are grave fears for an Australian couple who are still missing off the coast of East Africa after their 14-metre long catamaran capsized in heavy seas.

Craig and Del McEwan had been sailing along the African coast and set off on a voyage across the Indian Ocean to the Seychelles archipelago.

But on Monday night their vessel Ohana-Uli hit severe storms and the boat began to sink.

There are grave fears for Australian couple Craig and Del and McEwan (pictured) who are missing off the coast of East Africa

The couple had set off on a voyage across the Indian Ocean to the Seychelles archipelago but on Monday night their vessel Ohana-Uli (pictured) hit severe storms and the boat began to sink

They managed to set off an emergency signal however an attempt to rescue the Queensland couple was not successful.

'They set off EPIRB and took to life raft when Ohana-Uli took on water and a tanker attempted to come to aid but in the rough conditions damaged the life raft,' a member of the Crossing the Indian Ocean Facebook page wrote.

'It's not known if they took to water or are in damaged a raft but 35km/h winds and 5-7m seas hampering attempts to search.

'Del's daughter informed me just now that a small boat was out searching till dark with no luck.'

'It doesn't look good if there 250 miles off the coast - you can't see land, you can't swim for assistance and there's no one there to help them,' a friend of the couple said. Pictured: The map shows where the couple are believed to have capsized off Tanzania

Initially the Seychelles coast guard said they could not get involved because conditions were too rough and there was little chance of survival.

In the meantime however, the Seychelles coast guard dispatched a military plane to conduct a visual search.

So far, there have been no sightings of the couple of their vessel.

A Friend of Mr and Mrs McEwan said the pair were experienced sailors and lived on their boat permanently while travelling the world.

'I can't imagine this would be human error.' he told the ABC.

'They would have been left floundering and if it was really rough seas and dark it would be catastrophic  there wouldn't be worse conditions to find yourself in.

Craig McEwan (pictured) and his wife Del were extremely experienced sailors and lived on their boat travelling the world

'So it doesn't look good if there 250 miles off the coast - you can't see land, you can't swim for assistance and there's no one there to help them.

'So it's all looking a bit tragic for our friends.

As friends and family hope for a miracle, there is one small glimmer of hope.

A similar-sized catamaran carrying five German nationals filled with water in the same stretch of water three years earlier.

The vessel was found more than 24 hours later after an extensive search effort and the passengers were all rescued safely.
Hobsons, the education technology leader enabling student success, has selected Everett (Washington) Public Schools as the 2020 winner of the Hobsons Education Advances Award for College, Career and Life Readiness.

Each year, Hobsons recognizes academic institutions contributing to a future where education advances every student towards their full potential. Nearly 60 applicants submitted their success stories for awards in three categories.

The finalists for College, Career and Life Readiness category showed how they innovatively support their students needs. Using capabilities from Hobsons Naviance solution, the finalists bridge students current strengths and interests to post-secondary success in college, career, and life.

We are delighted to hear how Naviance by Hobsons has positively impacted so many students, schools and school districts, said Kate Cassino, CEO of Hobsons. We are so proud of Everett Public Schools achievements, especially in significantly improving their high school graduation rates. Their successes can be attributed to a holistic approach in which counselors, teachers, administrators and other school staff worked together to develop strategies to help students succeed.

Everett Public Schools, a district serving 20,000 students just north of Seattle, decided in 2003-2004 to tackle on-time graduation challenges. The school district developed a holistic approach, with coordinated support shared by counselors, teachers, administrators and other school staff, to establish social and emotional skills as a foundation for students. The use of Naviance capabilities with students in grades 6-12 provided insights to each students strength and interests, allowing school staff to develop more tailored strategies and personalized lesson plans. As a result, Everett has successfully increased on-time graduation.

In its winning submission, Everett Public Schools said the $2,000 Hobsons Education Advances Award would help teachers structure their instruction and support for students from traditionally underrepresented populations.

Hobsons also recognized the other finalists: Marietta City High School in Georgia, Broward County Public Schools in Florida and Longwood Senior High School in New York. Each demonstrated what is possible when combining people, process and technology to make a difference in the lives of students. Read more about these remarkable Hobsons Education Advances Award finalists.

About Hobsons

A leader in education technology, Hobsons helps more than 19 million students to identify their strengths, explore careers, match to best-fit educational opportunities, create academic plans, and reach their education and life goals. More than 15,000 K-12 and higher education institutions partner with Hobsons, leveraging our expertise and solutions  Naviance, Intersect, and Starfish  for the success of students. Learn more at http://www.hobsons.com.
For more than three weeks, federal security forces have been terrorizing protesters in Portland, Oregon. Unidentified agents in unmarked minivans are kidnapping demonstrators without warrants, assaulting journalists, and beating people in the streets. The militarized forces, which have battered crowds with tear gas and less lethal munitions, were sent by the Trump administration under the guise of protecting federal property from vandals. The reckless show of force has escalated local tensions: In a video captured by New York Times correspondent Mike Baker on Wednesday night, demonstrators jeered at Mayor Ted Wheeler and called him tear gas Ted as he tried to address a crowd. Protesters hold Wheeler, who also serves as the citys police commissioner, responsible for both the protest crackdowns by the Portland Police Bureau and the continued abuses of federal agents. Wednesday night, some called for him to use the Portland police to protect residents from federal security forces. Wheeler attempted to show that he shared many of their concerns: We demand that the federal government stop occupying our city, he said.

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Theres a reason why Donald Trump chose Portland as his first major staging ground for this war on journalists and racial justice activists. In the weeks before Trump sent in Department of Homeland Security forces, the Portland police had been making regular use of violent tactics to subdue demonstrators. The Portland Police Bureau has already earned one temporary restraining order from a federal judge for its likely violation of protesters free speech rights and another for arresting journalists and legal observers for recording police activity at demonstrations. A few weeks ago, after state officials banned the use of tear gas by police except in the case of riots, the police simply began declaring the protests riots before tear-gassing crowds.

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In the PPB, Trump has found a police force fully aligned with his contention that violent shows of force are necessary and warranted to disperse progressive demonstrators. And in Daryl Turner, the president of the Portland Police Association, the PPBs union, Trump has found a ready ally. Turner has used the language of war to justify the presence of federal agents, saying the city is under siege. Hes also publicly denigrated the local elected officials who are calling for Trump to withdraw federal forces from the city: Turner said those leaders are demonizing and vilifying the officers on the front lines and have placed their political agenda ahead of the safety and welfare of the community.

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Jo Ann Hardesty, Portlands city commissioner and one of the few public officials making bold moves to try to reform policing in the city, has cast blame on both Turner and Wheeler for the federal governments disregard for protesters rights. I still have to question why was Portland police not protecting Portlanders when these federal goons came in and started attacking us, rather than joining the federal goons who were attacking peaceful protesters, Hardesty said at Wednesdays City Council meeting. Earlier this week, Wheeler rejected Hardestys request to take over as police commissioner.

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Dan Handelman, who co-founded Portland Copwatch in 1992, has followed the departments recent escalation of violent tacticsand its welcoming of federal security forceswith horror. In a way, its not surprising, because of the history of the Portland police, he said. Theres a long history of the police using violence in protests. Portland Copwatcha volunteer-run organization that advocates for an end to brutality, racism, and corruption in the PPBwas established, in part, in response to police tactics at a Gulf War protest during a visit from George H.W. Bush. In breaking up protests, the police brought out pepper spray and used it indiscriminately on the crowds. That was the first time wed seen that, Handelman said. His group was also created in response to the Rodney King uprisings and the PPBs accidental killing of a 12-year-old boy who was taken hostage in the city.

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Other incidents of police brutality against protesters followed: In 2004, the city paid a settlement to 12 victims whod been protesting George W. Bush in 2002 when police began tear-gassing, pepper-spraying, beating, and firing rubber bullets at demonstrators. (An infant was reportedly among those pepper-sprayed.) The plaintiffs in that suit had initially asked for less money in exchange for reforming the PPBs use-of-force protocols, but the bureau refused.

The Portland police have not targeted protesters equally across ideological lines.

The PPBs history of undue violence, which has bred distrust in the communities its supposed to protect, extends beyond political demonstrations. Like many police forces, the PPB has a history of officers killing Black people with impunityincluding 21-year-old Kendra James, who was killed during a 2003 traffic stop, and 17-year-old Quanice Hayes, who was gunned down while kneeling in 2017. (Black people, who make up about 6 percent of the Portland population, also make up a disproportionate number of those stopped by police and targeted by uses of force.) When the police chief banned chokeholds in 1985 after officers killed a Black man with the hold, officers made T-shirts that said, Dont Choke Em. Smoke Em. In 2012, the Justice Department reported that the PPB had an unconstitutional pattern or practice of using excessive force against people with mental illnesses and has maintained oversight of the PPB since a settlement agreement in 2014. Earlier this year, the DOJ announced that the PPB was finally in compliance with all the requirements of the settlement agreement, though thenpolice Chief Jami Resch admitted that officers are still shooting people with mental illnesses and will likely continue to do so. Were killing more people today with mental health issues by the Portland Police than we did before the DOJ came to town, Hardesty told Rolling Stone.

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In its abuses at protests, the PPB has not targeted demonstrators equally across ideological lines. As alt-right groups emboldened by Donald Trump have gathered in numbers in a state with deep roots in white supremacist organizing, the PPB has been seen as sympathetic to those organizations. A series of friendly text messages sent in 2017 and 2018 showed Lt. Jeff Niiya, the head of the PPB unit that addresses protests, giving protest tips to the leader of the alt-right Patriot Prayer group and congratulating him on his bid for public office. When right- and left-wing groups faced off in 2018, demonstrators observed that police officers faced the left-wing groups and kept their backs toward the right-wingers, though police had found Patriot Prayer members with a cache of weapons on the roof of a parking garage before the protest. (The bureau didnt inform the mayor of the bust for months.)

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The recent clashes are deeply enmeshed in the states history. Oregon really was settled as a white homeland, and thats why the skinhead groups and the white supremacists, the active white racists, are so strong here, said Karen Gibson, a Portland State University professor who has studied the Portland polices history with Black communities. Theyre still quite active here, and this is related to Trumps whole agenda of reasserting white supremacy, she said. Since the early 1900s, Portland has also been home to a formidable strain of revolutionary white folks, including antifascist and anarchist organizers.

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According to activists, the makeup of the PPB is key to its antagonistic relationship with many Portland communities. The force is even more white and less Black than the Portland population, and the Portland Mercury reported in 2018 that just 18 percent of Portland officers live in the city they police. Growing up in Oregon, in a place thats 90 percent white, its only if you live in the city that youre going to get exposed to and have experience with Black people and brown people, Gibson said of the backgrounds of Portland cops. And you can live in the city on the southern side of town and its still nearly 90 percent white. What it means is that [these] whites are unexposed to and unfamiliar with Black culture and Black people.

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When we talk about how it seems like theyre an occupying forcewell, theres a reason for that, because only 1 of every 5 or 6 officers lives in the city, Handelman told me.

Unsurprisingly, the PPBs union doesnt seem too upset about the current federal occupation. Recent police chiefs have made a habit of ignoring or explicitly violating the mayors wishes, including those that govern the policing of political demonstrations. Now, PPAs Turner is the one going rogue. Wheeler, Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese, and PPB Chief Chuck Lovell declined to meet with Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, when he came to town last week, but Turner was all ears. He was the only person from the PPB at a meeting with federal law enforcement officials last Thursday, the Portland Mercury reported, and only faults DHS for failing to coordinate with local police. While Portlands elected officials try to assert the citys right to police itself, Turner wants to work with Trumps forces: When he met with Wolf, he told the Mercury, The basic idea was to go and listen to see if there were any ideas in there that were helpful for us.

For more of Slates political coverage, subscribe to the Political Gabfest on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
Update: China's countermeasures to cause the US real pain over closure order of Chinese Consulate General in Houston

Global Times

By GT staff reporters Source: Global Times Published: 2020/7/22 15:36:17

Easing China-US ties impossible under Trump govt: experts

China's Foreign Ministry on Wednesday strongly condemned the US for asking China to close its Consulate General in Houston, a reckless and dangerous move which analysts said will further flare up tensions between the two largest economies in the world.

On Tuesday local time, the US abruptly asked China to close its Consulate General in Houston in 72 hours. This is a unilateral political provocation by the US side against China, a grave violation of the international law and basic norms governing international relations, a grave violation of relevant provisions of the China-US consular treaty, and a deliberate attempt to undermine China-US relations, Wang Wenbin, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on Wednesday.

The Chinese side strongly condemned the move, and urged the US to immediately correct its mistakes. Otherwise, China will make a legitimate and necessary response, the spokesperson said.

For some time, the US has been attacking and launching smear campaigns against China, and unreasonably made trouble for staff members at Chinese consulates. The latest move to ask China to close its Consulate General in Houston is an unprecedented escalation of its moves against China, the spokesperson said.

In October 2019 and June 2020, the US side twice imposed restrictions on Chinese diplomatic staff in the US, opened Chinese diplomatic packages privately on many occasions, and seized Chinese official supplies, the spokesperson said.

As a result of the recent indiscriminate stigmatization and incitement of hatred by the US, bomb and death threats have been made against Chinese diplomatic missions and personnel in the US, the spokesperson said.

The website of the US Embassy in China often publishes articles openly attacking China. It is clear who is interfering in other countries' internal affairs and who is infiltrating and inciting confrontations, he said.

The Consulate General in Houston is the first Chinese consulate general established in the US. Several Chinese experts on China-US relations said, "Washington is completely out of the line," while one expert suggested that China could take countermeasures such as shutting down the US Consulate General in Hong Kong.

Observers also called the move "unprecedented", saying it would trigger a broader earthquake in diplomatic ties between the two countries.

Some video footage circulating on social media showed documents being burned in the courtyard of the consulate general on Wednesday, with police and firefighters outside the embassy.

The last time the Trump administration ordered a foreign consulate on American territory to close was in August 2017, when it ordered Russia to close its consulate in San Francisco and two diplomatic annexes, in New York and Washington, "bearing all of the hallmarks of a Cold War-era grudge match," according to the New York Times.

Xin Qiang, deputy director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, told the Global Times on Wednesday that the US move, which is unprecedented in the history of China-US relations, indicated a serious escalation in bilateral confrontations and will definitely result in countermeasures from China.

Xin said that asking the Chinese consulate general to close down on a short notice is very rude, and is tantamount to eviction.

The US move disregards the consequences of all-around deterioration in bilateral ties and it seems that easing China-US relations is almost impossible during the Trump administration, Xin said.

He said that the US takes the full responsibility for the deterioration in bilateral ties, and under the current circumstances, the US may expel some Chinese diplomats in the US, Xin said.

Some US-China relations observers and legal experts also suggested that it is possible that China will ask the US to close the US Consulate General in Hong Kong as a countermeasure, a move which is conducive for Hong Kong's stability, as US consulate staff there have played a role in the months-long unrest in Hong Kong last year, observers said.

Such a suggestion also reflected public opinion. In an online poll conducted by the Global Times Wednesday asking netizens that as a countermeasure, "which US consulate general in China is most likely to be closed?" Over 8,600 netizens cast their votes as of 9:30 pm on Wednesday, and nearly 80 percent voted for the US consulate general in Hong Kong and Macao on Chinese Twitter-like Weibo.

Although it doesn't represent the official options for countermeasures, it represents a certain level of Chinese public sentiment, some observers suggested.

"Such poll result vividly reflected the public anger over the US meddling in Hong Kong affairs," Tian Feilong, a member of Beijing-based Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

The same poll on Twitter garnered nearly 10,000 respondents, with 64.9 percent voted for the US consulate general in Hong Kong and Macao, 10.4 percent voted for the one in Guangzhou and 7.8 percent voted for the one in Chengdu.

China is considering ordering the closure of the US consulate in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province, Reuters said on Wednesday, citing a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

However, those who speculate that China will shut the US consulate in Wuhan in retaliation are underestimating Chinese government's will. As staff has not returned to Wuhan consulate, so a closure would not be an equivalent countermeasure compared with the US bullying tactics, said observers.

The US' move came after reports claiming that some US diplomats have not been able to return to China as Washington and Beijing cannot agree on testing and quarantine procedures for diplomats and their families. However, insider said that this is not the reason that the US asked China to close consulate in Houston. The US doesn't have any reasonable excuse at all for this action, people who are familiar with the situation said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said on July 2 that China and the US have been in close communication on the return of American diplomats to China, and we already helped the US to arrange a charter flight to bring back their diplomats after bilateral consultations.

Our quarantine measures apply equally to all foreign diplomatic missions to China, Zhao said.

Violating Constitution & international norms

The US ratified the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations in 1969 as well as the optional protocol to the convention, the convention has legal precedence over the application of other domestic law, however, the US' unilateral request for China to close its consulate is an act of intentionally bypassing international treaty obligations and the US Constitution. The move is intended to exert extreme pressure on China, Peng Qinxuan, associate researcher of the Institute of International Law of Wuhan University, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

According to Article 25 and Article 27 of the convention, the US, as a recipient country, has the obligation to provide diplomatic personnel with sufficient facilities to perform their duties and should protect and allow embassies to communicate freely for all official purposes, Peng noted. However, as described by the Chinese FM, the US imposed unwarranted restrictions on Chinese diplomats in the US, opened Chinese diplomatic packages privately on many occasions and seized Chinese official supplies, all of which violated treaty obligations and the Constitution, the legal expert said.

Closing the consulate will have an impact on Chinese people living there, as Texas is one of the US states that has suffered most from the COVID-19 epidemic. Local businesses, people-to-people exchanges and communications with China will also be affected, Lu Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of the China Foreign Affairs University, described the move as "a typical gesture" of adventurism from the Trump administration, which would do anything to achieve its political goals, even "further sabotaging" US-China ties.

"We are at a tipping point that is highly dangerous, and we should respond in a reciprocal manner, and also in a very careful way in order to avoid further worsening the confrontation," he said.

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Night Curfew in Maharashtra: Check guidelines, rules; what is allowed, what is not allowed

Will schools in Maharashtra reopen next week amid rising Omicron cases? Proposal sent to CM

Won't celebrate 60th birthday this year, says Uddhav Thackeray

India

pti-PTI

Mumbai, July 23: Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said on Thursday that he would not celebrate his 60th birthday next week. Nobody should come to his house or office to extend greetings on his birthday on July 27, he said.

"Instead of spending money on garlands, the amount should be contributed to the Chief Minister's relief fund. Health camps, blood and plasma donation camps should be organized," he said, adding he would like to dedicate all the birthday wishesto COVID warriors.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

Dharavi a global role model of COVID management: Uddhav Thackeray

"There should be no posters and banners and no crowds," the chief minister added, reminding that the state was still battling coronavirus. "Last four months' efforts are bearing fruit but we have to be alert," he said.
Russias Ombudsman turns to UN over police attack on Russian journalists in U.S.

 RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov

12:39 23/07/2020

MOSCOW, July 23 (RAPSI)  Russias Rights Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova stood up for the rights of Russian journalists after they had been attacked by the police in Portland, U.S.A. The Ombudsman applied to UN Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet and President of the International Federation of Journalists Younes M'Jahed, Moskalkovas press-service reports on Thursday.

The Rights Commissioner was seriously alarmed after hearing about the attack of U.S. police officers on Russian journalists Vyacheslav Arkhipov and Yuliya Olkhovskaya, who at that time were reporting on protests in Portland.

Moskalkova reminded that the freedom of speech and safety of journalists work are among the core values of a democratic society enshrined in all key global and regional international instruments.

Russias Ombudsman believes it is inadmissible to use violence and to create obstacles to a person or a group of persons doing their professional duty; she asks Michelle Bachelet to attract attention of U.S. authorities to the incident so they could make all-out effort to prevent such cases of police abuse and brutality against journalists in the future, Moskalkovas statement reads.

The Rights Commissioner also called the President of the International Federation of Journalists to give his assessment of the incident and assist in prevention of such cases involving journalists from Russia.
DALLAS, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- PELITAS has announced today that it has partnered with Guadalupe Regional Medical Center (GRMC) to create and deploy its Virtual Intake Management solution. PELITAS, a leading provider of healthcare patient access technology solutions and 2019 and 2020 Best in KLAS for the Patient Access technology category, will build and deploy an innovative virtual experience for GRMC and providers nationwide.

As part of the PELITAS Integrated Patient Access SolutionSM (iPAS), Virtual Intake ManagerSM will allow patients to conveniently use their mobile devices to remotely interact and communicate with healthcare providers for scheduling, financial clearance, and registration, thereby allowing patients greater flexibility in engaging with providers and eliminating or reducing the need for unnecessary contact.

Robert Haynes, CEO of GRMC, stated, "GRMC believes that COVID-19 is the watershed moment to drive further innovation in providing enhanced engagement options for patients and their families."

Research shows that even patients who are satisfied with the quality of care from their current provider are very likely to switch to a different organization if it offers a more convenient experience. Providers who do not maximize user convenience are likely to lose patients. The effective use of Virtual Intake Management solutions creates a convenient experience that will increase both patient satisfaction and loyalty.

Steven Huddleston, CEO and President of PELITAS, stated, "We are excited to partner with GRMC to deploy our Virtual Intake Management solution. They clearly understand the link between convenience and patient loyalty, as evidenced by their HealthGrades top 5% designation. Patients are increasingly demanding innovative options to engage with providers, and there is a tremendous opportunity for providers to reevaluate the options they provide to attract, retain, and increase engagement with their patients. Providers can differentiate themselves by offering virtual engagement options that will lighten the load of both patients and staff members."

Mr. Haynes added, "At GRMC, we pride ourselves on offering world-class care and being a patient and family centered organization. We continue to strive to be our community's preferred choice for healthcare by providing exceptional medicine while making a positive difference in each life we are privileged to touch. Our partnership with PELITAS will enable our facility to offer more innovation and safer, more convenient options for our patients."

The iPAS Virtual Intake Manager will provide the following capabilities to GRMC:

Online preregistration and document completion

Touchless signatures

Two-way, interactive text messaging

Virtual check-in

Text to pay for services

Wayfinding

Wait-time tracking

Real-time video interaction between clinicians and families

About PELITAS

PELITAS provides technology solutions to help hospitals and physicians improve patient experience, maximize revenue, and eliminate inefficiencies throughout the revenue cycle. Awarded Best in KLAS for two years in a row, its Integrated Patient Access Solution (iPAS) is designed to financially clear patients at the first point of contact by increasing the quality of registrations, maximizing point of service payments, and using cloud-based technology to facilitate collaboration between the Patient, Provider and Payer. In 2020, PELITAS earned Best Places to Work by Modern Healthcare. Learn more at www.pelitas.com.

About Guadalupe Regional Medical Center

GRMC's team of highly qualified physicians and nurses deliver world-class treatment to each and every patient with the warmth and compassion they deserve. The culture of caring is so special at GRMC; we have consistently been recognized as "One of the Best Places to Work." In addition, we have been consistently recognized as one of the safest hospitals in the United States. At GRMC, we will take great care of you and your family, now and well into the future.

Media Contacts:

Jenifer Bush

Vice President, Marketing and Communications

PELITAS

[email protected]

214-914-4297

Elizabeth McCown

Director of Risk & Legal Affairs/Public Information Officer

Guadalupe Regional Medical Center

[email protected]

830.401.7314

SOURCE PELITAS

Related Links

http://www.pelitas.com


Twenty one years ago, the Indian Army and Indian Air Force fought a bloody and bitter war to evict Pakistani intruders from the icy heights in Kargil.

Air Commodore Nitin Sathe (retd) salutes the lesser known heroes of the Kargil War.

A new series.

Air Marshal Raghunath Nambiar (retd)

IMAGE: Then Wing Commander Raghunath Nambiar during the Kargil War in 1999. All Photographs: Kind courtesy Air Marshal Raghunath Nambiar

I heard about the first drop of laser guided bombs from Air Marshal Raghunath Nambiar, who was then a wing commander posted at the Gwalior air base (which was home to the Mirages) looking after flight safety aspects.

Namby sir, as he is known in the IAF, was a very experienced pilot on the Mirage 2000 with almost 2,000 hours on the aircraft and he had had the privilege to fly and test many other types of aeroplanes as an experimental test pilot.

He was augmented to the 'Battle Axes' squadron for flying duties as soon as it moved to Adampur for the operations.

"I had the target in sight, on my scope well before we reached the weapon release line."

"We were firing at the six-seven white tents on Tiger Hill with one laser guided bomb each."

"But there was a problem. At 28,000 feet, we had a very strong component of cross wind of almost 70 knots (130 kmph) which would not help in delivering the weapon on to the target."

"A quick decision was made and we descended to 26,000 feet where the winds were within acceptable limits ran in towards the target all systems 'On' for sending the bomb to its destination."

"I pressed the trigger and the aircraft bucked like a horse -- losing 600 kg of weight from under its belly."

"The bombs were on the way now and as I turned the aircraft away with my sights slaved to the target, I waited with bated breath seeing the small screen in front of me."

"The 30 seconds of bomb flight seemed like eternity and then whoosh! The entire screen went white showing the impact on the tents."

"We were elated after tasting first blood and hoped for a quick victory by the ground forces as they marched forward to mop up whatever opposition was left on Tiger Hill."

IMAGE: Then Wing Commander Raghunath Nambiar during the Kargil War in 1999.

"The sortie planning had started two days earlier."

"On the evening of June 22 we had received orders to attack enemy positions on Tiger Hill the next day."

"The target as shown in the photographs provided appeared to be 6 to 7 white tents on top of the hill."

"Takeoff was planned at 0630 hours from Adampur with escorts being provided by 2 more Mirage 2000s from Ambala".

"The rendezvous happened in the air as planned and all four aircraft set course for the target."

"Tiger Hill has a unique shape when seen in photographs."

"From the heights the Mirages were flying, all the mountains merge into one big mass of jagged rocks with valleys appearing as dark lines."

"The only feature that stood out in this area was K2 which towered above this mass at 28,251 feet, just a couple of thousand feet below the height they were flying."

"We had the electronics in our aeroplane which we were thankful for. Searching for the target with bare eyes was like searching for the needle in the haystack but due to the technology, we had a clear picture of the seven tents perched against the rocky background on our scopes."

As the Mirages got nearer to the firing distance the pilots realised there was a small fuzz of a cloud covering the target area and 'lasing' the target and thereafter guiding it on the laser beam wasn't possible.

Due to this constraint, they set up an orbit and conserved fuel to wait for the cloud to move out.

Luck was on the Pakistani side that morning.

The cloud persisted and the aircraft had to return without letting go their bombs.

The intruders were safe for another day on the hill.

"As we turned away from the target, Monish (the pilot in the second seat) yelled at me 'Flare left!', indicating a missile launch. I instantly throttled back to idle power and hauled the aircraft upward in a steep left turn and commenced dropping flares."

"I did not spot the tiny shoulder launched missile, but Monish did see it climb towards us and thereafter fall away as we were outside its envelope."

The sortie was re-planned for the next day. Air Chief Marshal A Y Tipnis -- the then chief of the air staff -- flew to Adampur and decided to join in for the mission.

A third fighter was planned in which the Chief flew in the rear seat to get a firsthand experience of the attack/conflict.

"As the bombs hit the target we went around the area looking for any more signs of the enemy."

On the return leg the Mirages flew over Tiger Hill at a lower height to film the area and assess the damage.

The smoke had cleared and nothing was left on top of the hill.

After they landed, the photo films were analysed.

The photos clearly showed four soldiers running inside the camp area just before the bomb impact.

IMAGE: Air Marshal Raghunath Nambiar.

Another pilot, who flew on the mission and did not want to be named for this feature, told me that he counted between 16 to 18 missiles fired upon the attacking formation that morning.

Indian ground forces were quick to capitalise on the degradation of the enemy and were able to take back the heights of Tiger Hill, albeit after a bloody battle.

Munto Dhalo was an important logistics base for the Pakistani intruders.

It had a road head very close to the camp and so it was easy for the enemy to stockpile their stores in good quantity.

This base was used as a supply point to deliver rations, ammunition and other war fighting wherewithal to the heights occupied in the area.

The post was well fortified since it was important for their survival.

Taking out this post, therefore, became extremely important for the IAF.

Another pilot, who still serves in the IAF, was tasked to carry out an attack at this camp.

"We used the 250 kg Spanish bombs to destroy these hardened bunkers which held the enemy stores."

"We destroyed the camp at Munto Dhalo completely."

With that, the sustenance of the troops on the hilltops became untenable and the Pakistani troops now knew that their end was near.

"We heard many panic-stricken radio intercepts to their HQ for supplies and sensed that we had broken their logistics backbone; so vital for their sustenance in that area."

"They had no choice, but to commence their withdrawal back into their country."

IMAGE: Air Marshal Raghunath Nambiar.

Another Mirage pilot, who also wishes to remain incognito, told me about the difficulties of identification of friend or foe (IFF) during the sorties flown in the war zone.

All the attacks were planned with adequate escorts so as to thwart any misadventure by the opposing side.

"In the absence of radar cover in that area as well as compatible IFF equipment on the differing types of aircraft flying in that area, it was good luck and some clear thinking on our part that we did not shoot down our own aircraft in the fog of war," says the pilot who flew extensively during the operations.

"We used many innovative methods so as to identify our own guys. Aircraft were flying from many bases from as south as Adampur; and although briefings were carried out over the phone, there were always gray areas."

"One day, there was a large package of aircraft milling around the area around Drass and I was giving them cover from right above at 40,000 feet."

"As I was scanning the area for intruders on my radar, I could see two unidentified blips on my scope."

"To ascertain whether they were friendly, I gave a call, 'All aircraft to turn 180 degrees', I saw that all except two turned around and obeyed my instructions. I locked onto the two fellows who hadn't heeded my call and started going towards them to ascertain visually if I could."

"It turned out that that the two blips were, in fact, our own Jaguars who were not on our radio channel due to some reason. In actual combat, I would have let my missiles go but better sense prevailed and we prevented severe embarrassment for the country and the IAF," remembers the battle hardened pilot.

There were many such close shaves which became jokes to laugh over a drink in the evening, but on a serious note, the IAF realised that it needed to have better IFF systems -- common to all aircraft in its inventory -- to prevent fratricide in future conflicts.

Air Commodore Nitin Sathe retired from the Indian Air Force in February 2020 after 35 distinguished years of service in the IAF.

He is the author of three books including Tsunami 2004: The IAF Story: a Few Good Men & the Angry Sea about how the IAF rebuilt its Car Nicobar airbase after the December 26, 2004 tsunami completely devastated it.

Feature Production: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
A doctor has caused a stir among ITV's This Morning viewers with his handsome looks and 'tight waistcoat and shirt'.

Dr Emeka Okorocha, 27, from east London, set pulses raising when appearing on the programme today to talk to hosts Ruth Langsford and Eamonn Holmes about Kanye West and his bipolar disorder.

The A&E doctor, who has an Instagram following of more than 31,900 under his handle @doctor.emeka, first went viral on TikTok last month after asking his fans to respect him in his hoodie as well as his scrubs.

Twitter users were excited to see the medical expert again, with many commenting on his tight garments and good looks.

A doctor has caused a stir among ITV's This Morning viewers with his handsome looks and 'tight waistcoat and shirt', pictured

Dr Emeka Okorocha (pictured above), 27, from east London, set pulses raising when appearing on the programme today to talk to hosts Ruth Langsford and Eamonn Holmes about Kanye West and his bipolar disorder

Twitter users were excited to see the medical expert again, with many commenting on his tight garments and good looks (above)

One person wrote: 'Doctor Emeka looking mighty fine on This Morning. #Ineedyouradvice (do you do private consultations?)'

Another said: 'Congrats to the doctor on This Morning for picking an outfit and waistcoat that emphasis his buffness. More of this please.'

A third added: 'Yes please doctor! Get that shirt off!' while a fourth wrote: 'Wow, who is this Doctor?'

The doctor appeared on the show to explain how manic and depressive episodes for someone with bipolar disorder can last for weeks and is often not spotted by the person suffering from them.

Bipolar disorder is a brain disorder which causes unusual and often sudden changes in mood and energy levels.

Reaction: Social media users were quick to share their excitement over seeing the doctor appearing on This Morning today

The A&E doctor, above, who has an Instagram following of more than 31,900 under his handle @doctor.emeka, first went viral on TikTok last month after asking his fans to respect him in his hoodie as well as his scrubs

Kanye West has hit headlines recently because of his condition, after his wife Kim Kardashian issued a statement yesterday saying the family feel 'powerless' following her husband's Twitter rants and 'bipolar disorder'.

Concern has grown for the rapper's mental health in recent weeks after he broke down in tears at a presidential rally, accused Kim of cheating on him with Meek Mill and called his mother-in-law Kris Jenner 'Kris Jong-Un' in a series of late-night tweets.

Dr. Emeka Okorocha first hit the spotlight after asking his TikTok followers to respect him in his hoodie as well as his scrubs.

The doctor (pictured) appeared on the show to explain how manic and depressive episodes for someone with bipolar disorder can last for weeks and is often not spotted by the person suffering from them

Dr. Emeka Okorocha (pictured) first hit the spotlight after asking his TikTok followers to respect him in his hoodie as well as his scrubs

In a powerful clip, to the tune of Childish Gambino's politically-charged 'This is America', the doctor appears in his blue medical scrubs and then changes into a black Nike hoodie, writing: 'If you celebrate me in my scrubs, don't hate me in my hoodie.'

Speaking to FEMAIL, Dr Emeka said he came up with the idea after seeing a similar video of a black lawyer being asked to be celebrated while out of his suit.

'It shows the contrast of how people see us in society,' he explained. 'I was in a group chat of doctors, and most of us are black. We were talking about it and all discussed how they when people in scrubs they'll celebrate us, but when they see you in hoodie they fear you.

'As we were talking I thought it was quite a good TikTok idea. Everyone seems to love me in my scrubs and everyone is clapping for the NHS, but if I wear a hoodie, as a 6ft6 black man in a affluent neighbourhood - they'll be scared,' he added.
The coronavirus spread continued its unrelenting pace in Bexar County, with nine more deaths and 1,688 new cases reported Wednesday.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg noted the average daily increase in the past five days has been 1,206; the previous five-day average was in the low 600s, not including a two-week backlog reported July 16.

Clearly we are seeing a surgefrom just around that July Fourth, Nirenberg said.

The Bexar County total is now 33,555 cases since the pandemic began in mid-March, up from 19,648 just 10 days ago. The vast majority  74 percent  are people aged 49 or younger. The single highest age category is 20-29, which accounts for 23 percent of all cases.

While numbers are improving slightly in local hospitals, Nirenberg said, there are more young patients.

He said 1,113 people with COVID-19, the deadly disease caused by the virus, are in local hospitals, down from 1,166 Tuesday. That leaves 12 percent of staffed hospital beds available in the city, an increase from 10 percent Tuesday.

But, on average, 36 percent of hospitalized pediatric cases are infants up to 2 years old, he said. Five percent of those hospitalized with COVID-19 are 19 or younger.

No age group is immune from the virus, Nirenberg said. Please dont risk the life of another person, whether elderly or young, by not following the guidance of public health officials. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Keep six feet of distance from others.

A loved one, in many cases a child, is depending on you to keep them safe.

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff remarked that some people can still be heard saying that COVID-19 is no worse than the common flu.

It is so much more deadly and contagious than the flu, Wolff said. On average, for every 1,000 who get COVID-19, 10 will die.

Even for those who recover, the long-term health complications can be serious, he said.

We dont talk about that much, Wolff said. Stay away from large crowds and help us turn this thing around.

Of the people in San Antonio hospitals Wednesday, 429 were in intensive care, down from 435 Tuesday,and 287 were on ventilators to help them breathe, up from 286 Tuesday.

Of the nine deaths, eight were Hispanic men, including one in his 20s and one in his 30s. The others were in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 90s. The ninth victim was a white man in his 80s.

Metropolitan Health District officials said Wednesday they were getting 200 additional case investigators and 50 new contact tracers who will aid the existing staff in notifying people who might have been exposed to an infected person and assist in documenting the actual county-wide footprint of the disease.

Outside San Antonio

Positive coronavirus diagnoses statewide now total 351,618. Texas reported 9,879 new cases on Wednesday, and the statewide death toll rose to 4,348, including 197 new fatalities.

Bexar County still ranks third among Texas counties in reported cases since the pandemic began, behind Harris and Dallas counties. Bexar ranks sixth for number of deaths resulting from the virus, behind Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Travis and El Paso counties, according to the state health departments website.

About 195,000 people have recovered so far in the state, according to the latest estimates posted on a website updated by the Texas Department of Health and Human Services and the Texas Department of State Health Services.

The number of COVID patients hospitalized across Texas rose Wednesday to 10,893. As recently as June 29, the state had 5,913 COVID-3 patients being cared for in hospitals.

Nearly 11,461 hospital beds are still available statewide, but only 1,088 ICU beds are vacant across Texas, while 5,096 ventilators remain available, according to the two agencies website.

In Comal County, officials reported six more COVID-19 deaths Wednesday, all residents of nursing homes in New Braunfels.

A man in his 90s and a woman in her 70s died at Kirkwood Manor, bringing to 11 the number of residents there who have succumbed to the disease.

Three women died at Colonial Manor, one in her 60s, another in her 70s, and one in her 80s. That makes six residents of Colonial Manor who have died with the virus. A man in his 80s died at Sodalias Senior Living, the first resident with COVID-19 to die there.

Officials also reported 57 new cases in Comal County, pushing the total to 1,804 since the pandemic began in mid-March.

Bruce Selcraig is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Bruce, become a subscriber. BSelcraig@express-news.net
AUSTIN, Texas, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Financial Gravity Companies (OTCQB: FGCO) and its subsidiary, Forta Financial Group, announced that Daniel Guillen has joined their organization.

Daniel Guillen explained, "I wasn't looking to move RIAs. When I was introduced to Scott Winters (CEO), I was skeptical that he could offer all that he was promising - innovative technology to help clients visualize, decide upon and own the real risk present in their portfolios, an investment widget that simplifies the allocation process so clients can easily understand, a fully capable CRM wizard that auto-populates everything from the risk tool, to the IA agreement to the custodial account application all in one DocuSign. In my 24 years in the industry, I've seen my share of promises. He's managed to pull it off and I'm excited to see what he pulls out of his hat next."

Guillen added, "We will bring 289 accounts, with over $51 million in AUM (Assets Under Management)."

Daniel Guillen is an accomplished executive offering progressive experience as a family wealth and business advisor. He frequently lectures on investment and personal finance topics. He is currently teaching at San Diego Christian College and Southwestern College where he is also a member of their foundation board of directors. Daniel is an Accredited Investment Fiduciary (AIF).

About Financial Gravity Companies

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


The German authorities have intensified their efforts in recent years to hold to account men and women, most of them now over 90, who played smaller roles in helping the Nazis round up and murder Europes Jews in their network of concentration and death camps.

Throughout the Cold War, these people were overlooked by a justice system that demanded evidence of direct involvement of a Nazi-era crime in order to bring charges against a perpetrator.

As the survivors grew older a reunited Germany began emphasizing the importance of remembrance and atonement, giving a prominent place to a Holocaust memorial in the heart of its new capital and establishing funds worth millions to compensate long overlooked victims of Nazi crimes.

Over the past decades, the courts, too, have shifted their perspective, following landmark rulings in 2011 and 2015 that established that individuals who played supporting roles in Nazi crimes could be convicted on the argument of association.

Last week, another former guard from Stutthof, age 95, was charged with similar crimes.

Because Mr. Dey was only 17 when he began his guard duties, he was tried as a juvenile. Prosecutors had sought a three-year prison sentence for his role at the camp, where he was tasked with making sure that none of the inmates, mostly Polish Jews and political prisoners, escaped.

More than 60,000 people  roughly half of whom were Jews  are believed to have died or been killed at the camp, which was the first to be established by the Nazi regime outside of Germanys borders. Located in the small Polish town of Sztutowo, it served as a prison camp after the invasion of Poland in 1939. Gas chambers were put into use in 1944, and the camp was one of the last to be liberated.
W ith travel restrictions dropping and our Instagram feeds slowly filling up with people travelling to Europe again, we're tentatively dpping our toes in short-haul travel - but it may be a bit longer before we go long-haul.

Which is why flight-comparison platform, Skyscanner, has revealed its top picks for cheap long-haul winter sun destinations this year.

Skyscanner has revealed that travellers booking long-haul flights now can save up to 55 per cent - with flights to destinations like Barbados dropping from 943 return to 424 return in December.

Langkawi in Malaysia has seen a 37 per cent price drop from 873 return to 554 return and you can get to Phuket for 480 return, down 34 per cent from 728 return.

Flights to Costa Rica have dropped by 25 per cent, from 603 to 453 return, and the perennially beautiful Maldives has seen a 21 per cent price drop from 923 to 732 return.

Stella Penso, Senior Director of Pricing at Skyscanner comments: "Many travellers are taking advantage of attractive pricing for breaks in the next few months, with summer trips to Europe featuring heavily in our searches and booking data for the near future. What many people don't realise is that these savings are also applicable to long-haul winter breaks, with proportionally similar - or sometimes larger - savings on more expensive tickets with some flights up to 55 per cent cheaper than average this year.

"With many long-haul tourist destinations relying on travellers for their income, we expect to see similar offers and deals from travel and holiday providers across the sector as they focus on boosting local tourist economies."

Click through the gallery above to see Skyscanners picks for the cheapest long-haul winter sun destinations for 2020.
History was made on this week more than half a century ago when two American astronauts walked on the Moon.

A mission many doubted was possible became reality for Neil Armstrongthe first man to walk on the Moonand Edwin Buzz Aldrin, who joined him 19 minutes later.

Edwin Buzz Aldrin poses for a photograph beside the United States flag on the lunar surface. (NASA)

Here are some facts about what happened 51 years ago Monday:

The world watched history unfold

Apollo 11 became the first manned spacecraft to land on the Moon.

During the widely televised event, the world watched and waited as the lunar module Eagle separated from the command module and began its descent.

A view of Earth appears over the lunar horizon as the Apollo 11 Command Module comes into view. (NASA/Newsmakers)

Then came the words from Armstrong: Tranquility base here, the Eagle has landed.

About six and a half hours later, at 10:56 p.m. ET on July 20, 1969, Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the Moon.

Armstrongs famous words

Thats one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind, the astronaut said as he took his first step on the Moons surface.

Armstrongs success did not come easily.

Part of Buzz Aldrins leg, foot, and footprint on the surface of the Moon during the Apollo 11 lunar mission. (Keystone/Getty Images)

He took two trips into space. He made his first journey in 1966 as commander of the Gemini 8 mission, which nearly ended in disaster. He kept his cool and brought the spacecraft home safely after a thruster rocket malfunctioned and caused it to spin wildly out of control.

Three years later, at age 38, he became the first person to walk on the Moon. Armstrong died in 2012 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

A four-day journey for a three-man crew

In July 1969, Armstrong, the mission commander, and fellow astronauts Buzz Aldrin, the lunar module pilot, and Michael Collins, the command module pilot, blasted off in Apollo 11 on a nearly 250,000-mile journey to the Moon. It took them four days to reach their destination.

This picture taken 21 July 1969 shows astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. walking on the surface of the Moon near the leg of the Lunar Module Eagle. (NASA/AFP via Getty Images)

Armstrong was on the Moons surface for 2 hours and 32 minutes, and Aldrin, who followed him, spent about 15 minutes less than that.

The two astronauts set up an American flag, scooped up moon rocks, and set up scientific experiments before returning to the spacecraft. They also spoke to President Richard Nixon via radio from the Oval Office.

All three astronauts returned home to a heros welcome, and none ever returned to space.

A challenge from President Kennedy

Eight years before the Apollo 11 mission, in May 1961, President John F. Kennedy had presented a bold vision before a joint session of Congress when he pledged to send a man to the Moon by the end of the decade.

Astronaut Neil Armstrong smiles inside the Lunar Module July 20, 1969. (NASA/Newsmakers)

Some called his dream lunacy. Others viewed it as just another strategic move in the Cold War chess match between the United States and the Soviet Union. But Kennedy was determined.

No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish, Kennedy said.

Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong poses for a portrait July 1969. (NASA/Newsmakers)

U.S. astronaut Edwin E. Buzz Aldrin, Jr., Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 11, poses for a portrait taken in July 1969. (NASA via Getty Images)
TORONTO, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Nymi Inc. is excited to welcome Michael Brown, Rear Admiral, United States Navy (Retired), and Founder & President of Spinnaker Security LLC, as their first Advisory Board Member.

With over twenty years of leadership experience at the highest levels in the government and private sectors, Brown will help shape and support Nymi's expansion strategy beyond the pharmaceutical industry and into government, industrial, and general enterprise use applications of the Digital Worker Platform.

Chris Sullivan, CEO of Nymi says: "Rear Admiral Brown is respected across the globe in both the public and private sectors. Rear Admiral Brown has played a significant role in shaping U.S. national and international cybersecurity strategies, policies, and operations. We are extremely honored to have him join the Nymi team."

Prior to founding Spinnaker Security LLC, Brown was President of RSA Federal where he spearheaded the strategy, policy decisions, and engagement with the United States federal government.. Adding to his depth and breadth of experience, Brown also held the position of Director for Interdepartmental Cybersecurity Coordination at the Department of Homeland Security, where he led collaboration efforts with the Department of Defense on cybersecurity planning, capabilities development and mission synchronization. He is also a former deputy assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications at DHS and assistant deputy director of the Joint Interagency Task Force at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

About Nymi

Nymi is a Toronto-based technology company that is enabling true digital transformation. Nymi is a world where people and digital systems converge with privacy by design, unmatched security, and a natural UX even in the most challenging work environments. We empower workers and enable true digital transformation. To date, Nymi works with the top 100 Pharmaceutical companies to deliver data integrity and security, allowing highly regulated industries to achieve compliance securely and efficiently. For more information, please visit nymi.com.

SOURCE Nymi

Related Links

www.nymi.com


By Neha Arora and Aftab Ahmed

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged India on Wednesday to focus on domestic supply chains and reduce its dependence on China for telecommunications and medical supplies, as Washington's ties with Beijing deteriorate dramatically.

India had a chance to move "supply chains away from China and reduce its reliance on Chinese companies in areas like telecommunications, medical supplies and others," Pompeo said at the U.S.-India Business Councils India Ideas Summit, being conducted online.

"India is in this position because it has earned the trust of many nations around the world, including the United States," Pompeo said.

The U.S. administration has squarely blamed China for the coronavirus pandemic and accused Chinese firms like Huawei Technologies Co Ltd of cyberspying and facilitating human rights violations in China, charges Huawei and Beijing deny. The United States has also lambasted China's new national security law for the former British colony of Hong Kong.

The United States has told China to close its consulate in Houston in a dramatic deterioration in ties between the world's two biggest economies amid accusations of Chinese espionage.

India's relations with China have strained following a border clash in the Himalayas last month in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed.

Pompeo accused the Chinese of initiating the conflict, also denied by Beijing.

"The recent clashes initiated by the PLA (People's Liberation Army) are just the latest examples of the CCP's (Chinese Communist Party) unacceptable behaviour," Pompeo said.

India, which recently banned dozens of Chinese apps in the country, including the popular TikTok video app, has not yet taken a call on Huawei after allowing the Chinese telecoms company to participate in trials for 5G networks.

India is the world's main generic drug supplier and its dependence on Chinese raw materials for its medicines is almost 70%.

Story continues

Separately, India's ambassador to the United States, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, said New Delhi was open to U.S. firms building manufacturing plants in the country.

India's military confrontation with China prompted calls for closer security ties with the United States and its allies, including Japan.

India is modernising its military to narrow a gap with China and has increasingly turned towards the United States over its traditional supplier, Russia.

"The United States has never been more supportive of India's security. India too, is an important partner and a key pillar of President (Donald) Trump's foreign policy," Pompeo said.

(Reporting by Neha Arora; editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on Wednesday said that it is important that relations between India and US are strong amid threats posed by CCP. He was speaking at the India Ideas Summit hosted by US-India Business Council.

US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on Wednesday said clashes initiated by Chinas PLA and its aggression in Eastern Ladakh was an example of unacceptable behaviour by the Communist Party of China. Speaking at the India Ideas Summit hosted by US-India Business Council, he said that Chinese companies have used technology as arms of the government and it is important that relations between India and US are strong amid threats posed by CCP.

He also referred to clash with Chinese troops in Galwan Valley last month and said he was deeply saddened by loss of lives of 20 Indian soldiers. He said PLAs latest aggression is unacceptable behaviour and is condemned.

Important that democracies like ours work together at a time when we see true scope of the challenge posed by the Chinese Communist Party. Recent clashes initiated by PLA are examples of CCPs unacceptable behaviour. Deeply saddened by deaths of 20 Indian service members, he said.

Also Read: Amid reports of documents burning, US orders closure of Chinese Houston Consulate General

Also Read: Covid outbreak likely to get worse before improving: Trump

Chinese companies have used technology as arms of the government. It is important that our relations are strong amid threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party, Pompeo added. He also supported the Indian governments decision to ban 59 Chinese apps including TikTok.

The United States has never been more supportive of Indias security, he said. Pompeo said the US will look to reduce Chinese dependence in areas such as medicine.

We have invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the G7 meeting next year. We will also look to reduce Chinese dependence in areas such as medicine. The role of the private sector will be indispensable in overcoming the economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that began in Wuhan, he said.

Speaking in a session titled: Leading in Times of Crisis: Perspectives on US-India Cooperation, the US Secretary of State said it is important for the two democracies to work together. It is important that democracies like ours work together. India is a rising US defence and security partner in the Indo-Pacific, he said.

He said India has earned the trust of many nations around the world, including the United States. India has the opportunity to attract manufacturing supply chains away from China in sectors like telecom and healthcare. India has earned the trust of many nations around the world, including the United States, he said.

Pompeo said India needs to encourage an environment that is more open to increasing trade and investment. I know thats possible because India and the US share the spirit of hard work and entrepreneurship and I am confident that our partnership is only getting stronger, he said.

Pompeo said the US is working with India for the Blue Dot Network, an initiative to promote high quality, transparent, infrastructure development. This initiative is crucial to adopt as free markets are the best way to lift people out of poverty, he said.

Also Read: US calls world to unite against China, says China using Covid to bully neighbours

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Susan Davis became a sex worker in 1986 at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, on the bracingly cold streets of Halifax.

She remembers the atmosphere of fear and uncertainty at the time, when scientists around the world did not understand the new virus, or how to save people from dying.

But she was sick of low-paying jobs and decided sex work was the best way to cover the bills as a young woman. She met others in the industry who shared tips on how to keep themselves and their clients as safe as possible.

Back in those days, we did not tolerate fluid contact of any kind. No (oral sex) without a condom, no kissing at all, Davis, now 52, told the Star.

On Tuesday, the term glory holes trended on Twitter in Canada, as thousands of posts included jokes, as well as some frank comments on sexual health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The B.C. Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) had updated its list of tips for sex during the pandemic, with recommendations including the use of barriers, like walls (e.g., glory holes), that allow for sexual contact but prevent close face-to-face contact.

Immediately, many agreed that the surreal nature of 2020 was threatening to put satirical publications out of business.

The unexpected reference on a public health agency website was comic relief during a year of sombre news. The BCCDC told the Star in an email that the information was based on a New York City Department of Health resource. While that publication had elicited similar online reactions, it stopped short of specifically using the term glory holes (holes in thin partitions).

For sex workers such as Davis, who has lived in Vancouver since 1990, the advice sounded strikingly familiar.

Limiting close face-to-face contact had been the norm for us for a while, and its only been recently that clients expect kissing from sex workers, even though that increases the risk of contracting illnesses through saliva, she said.

For many, sex through a wall may seem like a comical proposition, but Davis applauded the BCCDC for putting out such detailed information.

Its about time as a society that we stop being so ashamed of sex and sexuality, said Davis, who is the executive director of the BC Coalition of Experiential Communities, a consortium of sex workers rights advocates.

As I understand it, glory holes were mostly for gay men to have sex with one another anonymously and were found in places like bathhouses and nightclub bathrooms  Now its a whole genre of kink and pornography, she said.

According to the BCCDC, the coronavirus has been found in semen and feces, but it is not yet clear if the virus can be transmitted through sexual intercourse.

The most important thing you can do to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is to skip sex with a partner or partners if you are feeling sick, a BCCDC spokesperson said in an email. You should also check in with your partner(s) on how they are feeling before engaging in sex.

Since the pandemic reached Canada, Davis hasnt booked any of her regular sex work clients, because her husband is immunocompromised and she wants to err on the side of utmost caution.

Most of the sex workers she knows also stopped working under initial pandemic restrictions, and waited for the B.C. government to give the green light for massage parlours and strip clubs to reopen in May.

Over the decades, Davis has taken jobs as varied as roofer, caterer, chambermaid, piano teacher and lifeguard, and has even prepared geological samples.

But sex work continues to be her most lucrative career and allowed her to achieve her dream of opening a small business in Vancouver  a butcher shop, Calabria Meat Market, which she took over from the previous Italian owner.

While business has been slow during the pandemic, she said she is grateful to have options.

I worry about people like my friend who is on a $1,200 disability pension, but has three children to support and monthly minimum expenses of $5,000, so she has to do sex work.

People are forced to make choices between their health and feeding their family ... so we all have to fight COVID-19 to protect our communities.

BCCDC information about COVID-19 and sex: http://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/diseases-conditions/covid-19/prevention-risks/covid-19-and-sex

Joanna Chiu is a Vancouver-based reporter covering both Canada-China relations and current affairs on the West Coast for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @joannachiu

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The UKs Intelligence Security Committee (ISC) report into Russian interference in British politics has been released in significantly redacted form, after a years delay.

What was built up by the most fervently anti-Russian sections of the media as a political bombshell is a dud. Besides brief repetitions of previous claims of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections and 2017 French electionsasserted as proven factsthe report adds a few new allegations and nothing in the way of evidence.

A single throwaway reference is made to credible open source commentary suggesting that Russia undertook influence campaigns in relation to the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. This is justified with a reference to a study by Ben Nimmo, a member of the imperialist think tank, the Atlantic Council.

The reports sole case study, on the 2016 Brexit referendum, is less than three pages long and begins, There have been widespread public allegations that Russia sought to influence the 2016 referendum on the UKs membership of the EU. The impact of any such attempts would be difficultif not impossibleto assess, and we have not sought to do so.

It states, Open source studies have pointed to the preponderance of pro-Brexit or anti-EU stories on RT and Sputnik, and the use of bots and trolls, as evidence of Russian attempts to influence the process, but admits, HMG [Her Majestys Government] had not seen or sought evidence of successful interference in UK democratic processes or any activity that has had a material impact on an election, for example influencing results. Furthermore, We have not been provided with any post-referendum assessment of Russian attempts at interference.

None of which stops the report declaring, on the say-so of British officials and special contributors like anti-Russia hawks Anne Applebaum and Christopher Steele, that Russia poses a serious threat to the UK. The government and intelligence agencies are scolded for failing to provide the proof for this narrative. Had the relevant parts of the Intelligence Community conducted a  threat assessment prior to the referendum, it is inconceivable that Russian intent to interfere would not have been discovered, it asserts.

Realising how thin their evidence is, the reports authors also decided to discover the presence of Russian oligarchs rubbing shoulders with Britains ruling circles. They are accused of developing a new normal of Russian influence, having invested in extending patronage and building influence across a wide sphere of the British establishmentPR firms, charities, political interests, academia and cultural institutions.

The ISC has concocted a way of presenting no evidence of Russian interference in elections as proof of Russian interference in elections. As to referencing Russian oligarchs, no one needs convincing that the super-rich of many nationalities dominate British politics. The idea that this is evidence of a Machiavellian Russian plot is absurd.

As for the allegations of biased coverage on RT and Sputnik, where is the national media that does not represent its own ruling class interests abroad? The report approvingly references the UKs military Fusion Doctrine which explicitly lists the BBCs World Service as an instrument of UK soft power. It lists as a source of its findings the Integrity Initiative, described as a UK-based think-tank and charity, aimed at countering Russian disinformation campaigns, but which is a government-backed psy-ops operation. It describes the UKs offensive cyber capability as essential.

The only thing the report proves is that British politics is ever more closely mirroring American politics, where conflicts within the ruling class are fought out through the prism of anti-Russian hysteria, with anti-democratic and militarist implications.

The ISC Russia report has been a central mechanism through which pro-EU, Democratic Party-aligned sections of the British bourgeoisie have carried out their opposition to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Brexit policy. Johnson sought to impede its publication to prevent any undermining of the 2016 referendum vote on which his government depends.

Such differences on foreign policy orientation notwithstanding, raising the threat posed by Russia allows both wings of the ruling class to pursue the goals they have in commonthe suppression of political dissent in the working class at home and the preparation for aggressive interventions abroad.

One of the most sinister sections of the report reads, Whilst we understand the nervousness around any suggestion that the intelligence and security Agencies might be involved in democratic processes  that cannot apply when it comes to the protection of those processes.  In our opinion, the operational role must sit primarily with MI5.  The policy role should sit with the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT)

The authors also advise a requirement for social media companies to co-operate with MI5 where it is suspected that a hostile foreign state may be covertly running a campaign.

These are arguments for McCarthyism and a police state, where accusations of foreign interference can be used to outlaw facts and opinions the ruling class finds inconvenient. Russia is held responsible for fomenting political extremism and a general discrediting of the West.

The report quotes the Integrity Initiatives view that When people start to say You dont know what to believe or Theyre all as bad as each other, the disinformers are winning. It quotes British journalist and security specialist Edward Lucas saying, If you believe that the West is run by hypocritical, incompetent, greedy politicians, then it becomes much harder to take any kind of moral high ground about Russia which really is.

An indication of the use these recommendations will be put to was given by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raabs allegation last week that Russia had interfered in the 2019 General Election by amplifying a leaked government document on a potential trade deal with the US, which then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn revealed at a press conferencelong after it had been circulating freely on the Internet. The pro-Tory media denounced Corbyn as Russias useful idiot, passing over the fact that the leak revealed the fact that Johnsons government was preparing to sell off sections of the National Health Service. News reports on the Russia report crowded out reports of a vote by Tory MPs against a Labour motion barring foreign private companies securing control of UK health care services.

The turn to censorship and authoritarianism is intimately bound up with Britains attempt to spearhead an international war drive against Russia. The report argues as one of its key themes, More broadly, the way forward lies with taking action with our allies; a continuing international consensus is needed against Russian aggressive action. The West is strongest when it acts collectively and that is the way in which we can best attach a cost to Putins actions. The UK has shown it can shape the international response, as it did in response to the Salisbury attacks. It must now seek to build on this effort to ensure that momentum is not lost.

Support for this policy is now near universal in the corporate media and capitalist parties, with the sole difference that some believe the focus should be on China as the main danger. The Telegraph argued in its July 22 editorial, it is now beyond obvious that Russia is a rogue state that must be confronted robustly. The Financial Times wrote on July 21, With so much focus on a potential new cold war with China, the report is a salutary warning of the challenge still posed by the main foe in the last one. The same day, the Guardian, which has led the anti-Russian sabre rattling, labelled Russia a hostile state, having previously editorialised, what will the government do to halt [Putins] ongoing assault on Britain?

Labours Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy said in an interview with the LBC radio station, There have been repeated concerns that the Russian government have been interfering in British democracy.  We dont need this Russia report to know that weve got a problem here and weve got to be much tougher in our approach.

Confronted with a crisis of British imperialism after Brexit and, more importantly, increasingly explosive domestic social tensions, the ruling class is relaunching an anti-Russian campaign. The strategy is to maintain Britains geostrategic position by placing it in the front rank of an international confrontation with Russia and China, led by the US, urge national unity against global enemies and justify domestic censorship and repression.
Concerning reports of a 'mayhem' quarantine hotel system have sparked fears of a coronavirus breaches similar to the crisis in Melbourne.

Workers from some of Western Australia's COVID-19 quarantine hotels have warned that little action is taken to address major rule breaches.

The whistleblowers described an over-reliance on private security contractors and travellers wandering the halls, with one even getting a local taxi.

A host of similar flaws have also been blamed for Melbourne's second coronavirus wave, which saw 403 new infections on Thursday alone.

'It is mayhem and the handling of it is disgusting,' a staff member told ABC News.

These reports sparked fears of a coronavirus leak from the quarantine hotels similar to alleged breaches in Melbourne (pictured, the Crown in Melbourne where travellers have been staying)

The workers said there was a total reliance on private security contractors to monitor returned travellers, and guests often illegally left their rooms.

'It is like a time bomb,' the employee alleged.

They explained police would only attend the hotels when called out for an incident or searching for a specific person, not to do general checks on compliance.

Guests have allegedly tried to leave their hotel rooms multiple times, while children have been allowed to run around the corridors. These breaches have not been reported or ignored for several hours, staff claimed.

Several face-to-face interactions between quarantine guests and staff members not wearing full protective gear were also reported.

One incident allegedly saw a quarantined individual taken to a coronavirus test by ambulance and allowed to return to the hotel lobby in a taxi.

The staff member also said there had been repeated contact between employees dealing with quarantine guests face-to-face and those who had not.

Hotel staff alleged quarantined travellers interacted with staff (pictured, French nationals leaving Sydney airport)

Australian Medical Association WA president Andrew Miller said the over-reliance on private security contractors was a cause for concern.

Alleged breaches in hotel quarantine has been cited as a key reason for the coronavirus leak in Melbourne, which has seen the city forced to endure a second round of restrictions.

Mr Miller called on the WA state government needed to address the alleged hotel breaches 'as a matter of urgency' to avoid another lockdown.

'They need to reassure the public that we have a better system in place than that which has led to a huge outbreak in Victoria,' Dr Miller explained.

The WA state government manages the hotel quarantines with assistance from regular hotel staff.

'The State Health Incident Coordination Centre has stringent protocols in place for its mandatory hotel quarantine for returned travellers,' a statement from the Health Department said.

Nurses are stationed at the hotels 24 hours a day and private security contractors are also placed on all floors.

The department said reported incidents were investigated and dealt with appropriate action to ensure compliance with the coronavirus regulations.

WA has recorded a total of 651 coronavirus cases with 16 still active.

Hotel breaches were alleged to have contributed to the second wave of coronavirus cases in Victoria (people wearing masks in Metropolitan Melbourne on Thursday pictured)
Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz testifies in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington on Dec. 11, 2019. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

DOJ Watchdog Launches Probe Into Use of Force Allegations in Portland and District of Columbia

The Justice Departments internal watchdog on Thursday initiated a probe into use of force allegations involving federal law enforcement agents during recent protests in Portland, Oregon, and the District of Columbia.

The departments inspector general, Michael Horowitz, said the investigation was launched in response to congressional requests, complaints by members of the public, and a referral from the U.S. Attorney in Oregon. The probe will review the departments role and responsibilities in responding to protests and rioting in the two cities over the last two months, the department said in a statement, adding that the investigation will be coordinated with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The review will also examine the training and instruction that was provided to the DOJ law enforcement personnel; compliance with applicable identification requirements, rules of engagement, and legal authorities; and adherence to DOJ policies regarding the use of less-lethal munitions, chemical agents, and other uses of force.

Last month, the Office of Inspector General for the Interior Department announced that it was investigating allegations that excessive force was used to clear Lafayette Square of protesters on June 1an event that was highly controversial because it was carried out hours before President Donald Trump walked from the White House to St. Johns Church.

Attorney General William Barr explained at the time that the move to clear the square was part of their operation to expand the safety perimeter by one block in response to violent riots in the area over the previous few days. He added that decision was made before he knew Trump was going to speak at the church.

Horowitz said the DOJ will coordinate their review with the Interior Department.

This comes after the Trump administration drew criticism for deploying federal forces to Portland, Oregon, to protect federal buildings and monuments. The city has faced over 50 consecutive days of rioting and violence. Rioting began in the city since late May in the wake of George Floyds death, but local officials say the unrest only escalated after federal forces were dispatched there.

Accounts of how federal officers have arrested rioters who caused damage to a federal courthouse have raised concerns among local officials and U.S. lawmakers. Protesters have alleged federal agents wearing camouflage and tactical gear without identifying insignia detained individuals and placed them into unmarked vehicles without stating the basis for the arrest, according to various accounts made to media outlets.

The accuracy of these reports has been disputed by acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, who said federal officers wear multi-camouflage uniforms with insignia that read Police. He said operations only target and arrest individuals who have been identified as committing criminal acts.

Local and state officials have called on federal agents to leave the city. Meanwhile, four Oregon lawmakers sent a letter (pdf) to Horowitz and DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari on Wednesday urging them to investigate allegations of violent tactics used by federal law enforcement officers responding to protest activities in Portland.

The lawmakers cited an incident where a 26-year-old protestor was seriously injured after being struck by an impact munition allegedly fired by federal law enforcement agents.

Trump on Wednesday announced a surge of federal law enforcement agents will be sent into Chicago, Illinois, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, as part of efforts to combat a recent rise in violent crime in those cities and restore public safety.

Hundreds of law enforcement officers from the FBI, U.S. Marshal Service, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) will be sent to the cities in an effort to drive down crime, the president said.

The announcement is part of an expansion of a DOJ programknown as Operation Legendto stem the spike in violent crime across the country. Operation Legend, named after 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was shot and killed while sleeping in his home, was first launched in Kansas City, Missouri, as part of Trumps promise to assist cities that have have been hit by a recent string of violence, the DOJ said.

Every American no matter their income, their race, or their zip code should be able to walk their city streets, free from violence and free from fear, he said.
We saw a critical need and we knew we could help, said Myron Kowal. Thats why were here, doing what were doing, to help make the world a little bit better.

RCare, Inc., maker of nurse call and monitoring solutions, announced today that its founder and CEO Myron Kowal has been selected by the Rochester Business Journal (RBJ) as a winner of the 2020 Health Care Hero award. This annual award celebrates and recognizes excellence, promotes innovation, and honors the efforts of organizations and individuals making a significant impact on the quality of healthcare in the Rochester area.

Kowal is being recognized as a COVID-19 Hero, a special category created this year to honor individuals and organizations making exceptional efforts to help fight the COVID-19 health crisis and address the unique health care needs caused by the pandemic.

Headquartered in Webster, NY, RCare manufactures wireless nurse call and emergency monitoring systems for long-term care and senior housing communities. During the early days of COVID infections, RCare saw an unmet challenge. As cases were surging and hospitals were reaching capacity, providers were forced to create makeshift triage areas, tents in parking lots as well as full-scale temporary hospitals. These temporary solutions were missing the high-quality, reliable nurse call systems that play an integral role in safe patient care and response.

RCares response was to create a portable, durable, wireless nurse call system called the RCare Rapid Deployment Kit (RDK). It is a simple solution that can be set up quickly and easily, particularly in non-traditional patient settings. Completely plug and play, it can be installed in minutes, even in non-standard settings that may lack traditional infrastructure, while providing the reliability of a hospital-grade nurse call solution. The kit provides effective, reliable nurse call communications between patients and caregivers, or between equipment (such as ventilators) and caregivers, even in non-healthcare, field operation environments.

Through the initial wave of infections, the RDK was installed in field hospitals throughout the country, including in the UMass Memorial Temporary Hospital, a 216-bed pop-up hospital created in the 50,000 square foot Exhibit Hall of the DCU Center in Worcester, MA. Other deployments include the TCF Center in Detroit, SUNY Stony Brook, the Boston Medical Center, and many more.

We saw a critical need and we knew we could help, said Kowal. Thats why were here, doing what were doing, to help make the world a little bit better.

The RDK nurse call system includes a touchscreen server, one pendant for each patient, and four pagers. No internet connection is needed for the system, and no phone lines. The system is preprogrammed by the integrator, to be ready to use right out of the box. This capability is mission critical for overworked clinical staff who have neither the time nor the technical expertise to spend on installation. Each kit is designed for 40 patients, although expansion kits allow it to be used for many more. As easily as it is installed, the RDK can be uninstalled when the hospitals are no longer needed, and redeployed if needed again.

Kowal will be accepting the award at an exclusive virtual awards ceremony at noon on August 24.

Learn more about the RCare Rapid Deployment Kit.

For more information about the RBJ Health Care Hero Award.

ABOUT RCare

RCare is a global provider of nurse call and personal emergency response systems for the entire spectrum of eldercare and senior living. Our components integrate into a variety of healthcare communication systems to create efficient and verifiable responses to medical emergencies. RCare works together with distribution partners to build individualized, flexible and seamless systems to enhance both caregiving and resident quality of life. Contact info@rcareinc.com or call 585-671-4144.
Courtesy Emily RuttBY: ELLA TORRES



(PHILADELPHIA) -- A Philadelphia police officer has been charged with three counts of simple assault after video purportedly showed him spraying peaceful, kneeling protesters with pepper spray during protests against police brutality, officials said.



Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner announced the charges against Officer Richard Nicoletti, 35, on Wednesday.



Nicoletti was seen on social media videos on June 1 spraying the three protesters "without provocations," according to a statement from Krasner's office.



He was also seen physically pulling down the goggles of a protester who was kneeling in the street and spraying her in the face and "violently" throwing another protester, who was sitting hunched over to protect his face, onto his back and "continually spraying him with [pepper spray] while he was lying down and standing back up," the statement said.



The protester, unable to see because of the pepper spray, swung at the officer without contact and was left on his feet in close proximity to moving traffic on the other side of the highway, according to Krasner and online videos.



The incident took place during the protests against police brutality in the wake of the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who was killed by Minneapolis police in May.



The protesters had caused a traffic stop on 1-676 in Philadelphia around 5 p.m. that day, prompting state and local police to respond.



Nicoletti was among those to respond.



Although the protest was peaceful, Krasner's office said "tear gas was deployed, causing physical harm, panic and confusion."



While many scrambled to get away from the tear gas, three protesters remained kneeling and another stood closely by.



As the canisters of tear gas landed near them, the protesters would push them away.



"There is no indication that a thrown canister hit an officer or state trooper," according to Krasner's office, who said it was then that Nicoletti approached the four protesters and pepper sprayed them.



Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw have since publicly apologized for the deployment of tear gas during the protest and declared to end the use of pepper spray to disperse crowds under certain conditions.



The three protesters who were sprayed were offered medical treatment and eventually made it off I-676. The protester who was standing when Nicoletti approached the group was not sprayed.



"The Philadelphia District Attorneys Office will not make excuses for crimes committed by law enforcement that demean the democratic freedoms so many Americans have fought and died to preserve," Krasner said in a statement.



John McNesby, the president of FOP Lodge 5, the Philadelphia police union, said in a statement to ABC News that Krasner was "only charging Philadelphia police officers following the recent unrest in the city."



"Krasner refuses to hold unlawful protesters accountable, those who set fire and looted our great city  his top priority is to push his anti-police agenda," McNesby said.



The union will provide defense for Nicoletti, according to the statement.



In addition to the simple assault charges, Nicoletti was charged with possession of an instrument of crime, recklessly endangering another person and official oppression.



The Philadelphia Police Department did not immediately respond to ABC News for comment. Nicoletti was suspended from the department for 30 days with intent to dismiss, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Kangana Ranaut, Ankita Lokhande and Shekhar Suman were among celebrities who joined fans to take part in the Candle4SSR online protest on Wednesday evening, initiated as a tribute to Sushant Singh Rajput and to demand justice for the late actor.

Kangana lit a candle to show solidarity with the movement, a picture of which was posted by her Twitter team, which goes by the name of Team Kangana Ranaut, on their unverified Twitter account.

Sharing an image on Instagram, Sushant's co-star Ankita also penned a note for Sushant. "HOPE,PRAYERS AND STRENGTH !! Keep smiling wherever you are," she captioned the picture.

Earlier, Ishkaran Singh Bhandari, lawyer of former Cabinet minister Subramanian Swamy, had initiated the peaceful digital protest #Candle4SSR demanding justice for Sushant, who passed away last month.

The digital protest called upon everyone to light a candle in Sushant's name at 8pm. Fans of the late actor's participated in the protest.

Actor Shekhar Suman and his son Adhyayan Suman also took to Twitter and shared how they paid tribute to Sushant by chanting prayers and lighting candles.

"You will be burning in our hearts for ever #SSR love you I hope wherever you are..you are at peace brother ! #Candle4SSR #CBIEnquiryForSushantSinghRajput," Adhyayan tweeted.

"This is for you #SushantSinghRajput my heart still refuses to accept that you are no more. Hope justice prevails! #Candle4SSR," actress Meera Chopra wrote on Twitter.

#Candle4SSR has been trending on Twitter throughout Wednesday.

The protest, #Candle4SSR, is also a peaceful way of requesting authorities to initiate a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the actor's untimely demise.
A league of their own: ILCU president Gerry Thompson believes Central Bank regulation is making life harder for credit unions

An "unshackling" of the 18bn sector would deliver financial and social dividends, according to credit union veteran Gerry Thompson, but instead he fears many local unions face a regulatory cliff edge as well as financial squeeze.

Mr Thompson is president of the Irish League of Credit Unions (ILCU) which has 340 members and combined lending of 4.79bn, making it the biggest representative body for Irish credit unions.

The movement, as he describes it, is trapped between two worlds: its voluntary roots and ethic and post financial crisis regulatory approaches designed to tame banks capable of bringing down the State. Volunteers who put themselves up for senior roles - such as chairing a credit union - face a formal Central Bank vetting process in the same way directors of multi-billion euro banks do.

For board members exercising so-called 'control functions' such as the chair, vetting can feel invasive relative to what in some cases is a minor enough commitment to a local community organisation, Mr Thompson says.

From the regulator's point of view though, those volunteers are overseeing management of substantial amounts of other people's money and having to meet increasingly high standards of control over issues like governance and anti-money laundering, but Mr Thompson feels the regulator's approach is more appropriate to banks and for-profit financial institutions.

"The [Central Bank] veto is anti-democratic, I dare say, when these are diverse, volunteer-led organisations rooted in the membership. It is diversity at its best," he says.

If people won't put themselves forward it can create a real difficulty because boards then fall below the regulatory numbers.

"The legislation on board sizes is prescriptive - depending on its size, a credit union must have board of seven, nine or eleven members," Mr Thompson explains. If the board numbers fall below that level a credit union can be in breach of the regulation."

"Boards face a regulatory cliff and will be unable to function if they don't have the numbers."

It's another burden on top of the challenge of making money in a market where some credit unions are having to turn away savers because their ability to lend has become so restricted, he says.

Mr Thompson himself is steeped in the credit union movement - since the 1990s he's held local, regional and national roles in the movement and his father was a founding member of his own local credit union before that.

The 62-year-old retired telecoms engineer and father-of-four from Roscommon has been president of the Irish League of Credit Unions since April 2019.

That kind of life-long commitment is changing, Mr Thompson said.

"The nature of volunteering is changing. People in the past came and they stayed. The move now is to more short-term involvement, more flexibility," he says.

He cites the example of Sean Finn, the Limerick inter-county hurler, who gained experience in areas like board oversight through a committee role at his local credit union in Bruff relevant to his professional career in finance.

"Volunteering is a challenge but the opportunities can also be really attractive. People maybe are missing a trick, We're seeing students taking the opportunity to come into the movement to build their CVs, gaining experience as volunteers that helps them in their professional life," he says.

Credit unions face other challenges which he fears will have long term consequences if not addressed.

He cites the example whereby every 1000 of savings a credit union takes in needs to be matched by 100 in a trading surplus, but the credit union can only come up with reserves if it is lending.

A "perfect storm" has been amplified over the last five months by the Covid-19 crisis, which has seen lending plummeted.

"We've got to the stage where credit union regulations means some are effectively closed to taking savings, because of the restrictions around lending."

Members' savings are becoming a cost to credit unions that they cannot afford.

He sees the answer in channelling excess cash into more profitable lending - such as mortgages and small businesses and funding lines for social housing.

But in each case the regulatory restrictions make that impractical.

An individual credit union with 90m in assets may have money it wants to lend, but under the current rules could issue no more than around 30 mortgage loans, all locally. That's too few to justify the commitment for many managers, even with some ability to centralise structures to manage application and underwriting.

Although he chafes against the restrictions, Mr Thompson blames Government rather than the Central Bank.

"Do they [regulators] get it? No. Is it their job to get it? No," he says. "The regulator is very comfortable with the legislation. They have microscopically precise round holes but we are a square peg that is not going to fit."

"I think it's Government's job to recognise the fundamental difference between voluntary, community-based credit unions and banks - and find a proper framework."

The potential benefit is huge, he thinks, and in part he believes Irish credit unions are victims of their own success, having built up significant scale and professionalism compared to a country like the UK, where credit unions are often little more than local savings clubs.

"The problem now is credit unions are treated as if we were part of the for-profit sector. We are serious enough in terms of assets we're probably seen as a threat while the system underestimates the social impact," he says.

"The future could be extremely rosy for the credit unions but the experience now is quite negative. Potential is not being realised even though people, including a significant number of young people are crying out for ethical alternatives."
A man with autism has been overwhelmed after receiving thousands of cards and gifts from people around the world on his birthday.

Brenton, from Adelaide, celebrated his 33rd birthday on July 22, but due to COVID-19 restrictions, was unable to celebrate with any family and friends.

His sister Tanya, who is in Melbourne, took to Reddit requesting people to surprise Brenton with birthday cards.

Brenton, who has an intellectual disability, celebrated his 33rd birthday on July 22, but due to COVID-19 restrictions, was unable to celebrate with family and friends (pictured with his mother Libby)

Brenton received three bags full of birthday cards and gifts weighing a massive 36kg

'My brother Brenton is severely intellectually disabled and has had a hard year (not understanding the shut downs etc),' she wrote.

'He turns 33 on the 22nd. He loves checking the mail - I was hoping that people might consider sending him a birthday card?'

Brenton, who loves the police, was greeted by officers on his birthday who then escorted him to his P.O. Box.

There he found he had a parcel waiting for him and three bags full of birthday cards and gifts, weighing a massive 36kg.

Brenton could not wipe the smile off his face as he opened each card and gift from strangers around the world.

Brenton was overwhelmed with all the gifts and could not contain his excitement

Brenton shows off the birthday gifts he received from people around the world

'He's the most loveable person out, you can go anywhere and they'll say ''Yes, we know Brenton'',' his mother Libby told 7News.

'Once you meet him you don't forget him.'

Tanya took to Reddit and thanked all those who made her brother's birthday extra special.

'You did it, reddit! Brenton received 36kg of mail for his birthday today - a day he will never forget. Thank you for making it happen!' she wrote.

'I am so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of cards Brenton received - 3 bags full! And from all corners of the globe!

'Brenton can't communicate how he feels in words.

'Again - thank you all so so so much for making Brenton's birthday so special! It's so wonderful to see how kind people are with no expectation of anything in return.

'You're all awesome.'

If anyone would like to send a letter to Brenton, they can address it to: Brenton S, PO Box 193 Highbury SA 5089.
Ms. Bondil, on the other hand, said it was her unwillingness to publicly praise a recruiting process that resulted in the promotion of Mary-Dailey Desmarais to the role of a director of the curatorial division.

The Canadian press has questioned whether the elevation of Ms. Desmarais, a respected curator, was influenced by her familys wealth. Ms. Bondil has not embraced that view, but she has said that her support for another candidate was seen as insubordination and led to her dismissal.

Both sides say the other is constructing a story to distract from what really happened. Both have welcomed the governments investigation as an opportunity to air out the truth.

The president rules the museum and does not respect checks and balances, Ms. Bondil said. The investigation will help us understand the true reason for the firing decision.

According to Mr. de la Chenelieres account, the chain of events that ultimately led to Ms. Bondils termination on July 13 began with the union that represents museum employees approaching the board last year with complaints about the workplace environment. The museum then hired an outside human resources management consultant to assess the situation, according to the news release that accompanied the announcement that Ms. Bondil had been let go. The consultant reported back a significant and multilayered deterioration of the workplace climate, described by some employees as toxic, the release said.

Mr. de la Cheneliere said in an interview that the thrust of the complaints was that there was too much pressure on the employees in the curatorial department, and that pressure came, in good part, from Ms. Bondil. The boards solution, he said, was to introduce a position called director of the curatorial division, which was intended to lighten Ms. Bondils workload. (Ms. Bondils held two titles: both director general and chief curator of the museum.)
The 22nd of July is marked as the National Press Day in Azerbaijan. 145 years ago, on July 22, 1875, the founder of the Azerbaijani national press Hasan bey Zardabi, despite great financial and censorship difficulties, started to publish the newspaper "Akinchi" (kinci) in his native language.

It was brave journalists who supported the public with their immediate activities at the most sensitive times when information and news are extremely important.Today, in the midst of important events in the world and in our society, there is a great need for those who work tirelessly, fight to show the truth, who are constantly exploring to reveal the ongoing.

On National Press Day, Azercell Telecom highly values the endeavors of journalists and presents its gift as an appreciation to their hard and constant work. Thus, Mediacell tariff users can get 5GB of mobile internet as a gift from Azercell by texting symbolic "1875" digit to 5005 from July, 21 to July, 27. Notably, 5GB of mobile internet can be used within a month (30 days) from the date of upload.

For more detailed information, please, visit: https://www.azercell.com/en/personal/campaigns/monthly/metbuat

Azercell, the first operator to offer a special tariff package Mediacell for media representatives, has always taken various initiatives aimed at the development of journalism in our country. The company has contributed to the professional development of journalists by organizing seminars and information sessions with the participation of international trainers, creating conditions for them to benefit from international experience. We would like to emphasize that so far more than 450 journalists have taken part in Azercell's English language courses.

Thank you for keeping is constantly informed, dear media representatives!

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.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Sluice gates opened in Anhui province to protect other areas Qu Chengying was chatting with neighbors in a pavilion on Tuesday afternoon when a team of armed police arrived in her village in Anhui province with supplies of food, medicine and other necessities. The woman, who is in her 70s, and more than 50 other residents in Langlou village, Funan county, have been isolated since Monday morning, when the area was flooded. By Tuesday, crops and roads had been submerged by the waters. However, this was no surprise to the villagers, as the operation was carried out deliberately by opening the sluice gates on a major flood diversion project. The Wangjiaba sluice gates near the confluence of the 1,000-kilometer-long Huaihe River, which is several hundred meters from the village, and two other rivers, were opened on Monday morning. The Huaihe flows from west to east through Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu and Shandong provinces. The Huaihe River Commission of the Ministry of Water Resources said that due to continuous torrential rainfall in Anhui and Henan on the upper reaches of the river, the water level at the sluice gates reached 29.66 meters at 6:36 am on Monday0.36 meter higher than the safety level. The waters were continuing to rise. About two hours later, the commission ordered all 13 sluice gates to be opened. The waters poured into the Mengwa Flood Diversion Area, which includes four townships and is home to about 195,000 people. With the waters flowing at 1,626 cubic meters per second, the entire area was submerged in just a few hours. Lu Haitao, an official with the Huaihe River Course Administration, said, "With a capacity of 750 million cubic meters of water, the area will be used according to the situation on the river." In 2007, the last time the diversion area was used, it stored 250 million cubic meters of water, Lu added. When the Huaihe rises above the safety level in Funan, authorities can opt to open the sluice gateswhich were built in 1953to let excess water flow into the 180-square-kilometer Mengwa Flood Diversion Area. Administered by Fuyang city, the area is home to more than 195,000 people. It has been flooded deliberately 16 times since 1954. The Huaihe River Commission said the waterway rises in the mountains of Henan, and its upper reaches run for 364 km, with the river falling 178 meters over that distance. By contrast, the middle reaches, which are mostly in Anhui, lie between the Wangjiaba sluice gates and Hongze Lake in Jiangsu. This stretch is 490 km long, with the river dropping a mere 16 meters, according to the commission, which was founded in 1950. It is headquartered in Bengbu, a riverside city in Anhui, and employs more than 3,000 people. Wu Xu, an expert with the commission, said it was formed because harnessing the waters of the Huaihe along its entire length required coordinated efforts by governments in different areas. Course changed The river used to flow directly into the Yellow Sea, but as floods have greatly changed its course, it now forms a major tributary of the Yangtze River, which has experienced severe flooding recently. Wu said that over thousands of years, the Yellow River, to the north, repeatedly changed course southward to flow into the Huaihe, creating new highlands and lakes, including Hongze Lake, the largest body of water in the Huaihe's drainage area. "The bottom of Hongze Lake is actually higher than the Huaihe riverbed," he said. Floodwater runs rapidly along the upper reaches of the Huaihe from Henan into Anhui, but is unable to pass easily through the central stretches and into the Yangtze, he added. The river's total drainage area covers 270,000 sq km, about the size of New Zealand. Lu, from the Huaihe River Course Administration, said, "Residents in the diversion area have to make a sacrifice for the good of those on the upper and lower reaches." He said the local government and the public's willingness to make a sacrifice has been a key part of the so-called Wangjiaba Spirit, which has been hailed nationwide. Safety measures Thanks to the measures taken by the authorities, Qu, the Langlou villager, is no longer frightened of floods. Chatting in the pavilion, she said, "In the past, every time the floods came, there were huge losses and rescuers worked desperately to get us out of the water." Born in an area standing on high ground, Qu did not move into Wangjiaba township, one of four in the Mengwa Flood Diversion Area, until she married her husband in Langlou village. In 2000, the local government launched a project to rebuild villages in the diversion area. Qu's two-story house, paid for by the government and standing on ground more than 10 meters higher than nearby fields, was completed in 2003. Guo Chang, an official from the Funan transport bureau, who was sent to Langlou to take care of the villagers, said, "As the residents have all been relocated, flood relief work has become much easier. "More than 300 villagers in Langlou have hukou, or household registration, but only 59 peoplemostly seniors and childrenare living in the village," he said, as many people have moved to cities across the country for work. Yue Lei, a senior Funan official, said some villagers run fish, cattle or poultry farms in fields standing on low ground. On Sunday night, the local government issued an emergency notice, ordering people from these areas to evacuate. Yue said more than 2,000 people, along with property that could be moved, were relocated overnight before the sluice gates were opened on Monday morning. Even though the gates were not opened until everyone had been moved to safety, the operation was still a race against time. Lang Maoyong, who returned home several days ago from Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, said, "The government told us to store necessities two days before the sluice gates were opened." Chen Hongdeng, an armed police officer from Fuyang, who led a team carrying supplies to Langlou by boat on Tuesday, said the officers, many other government employees and volunteers helped with the evacuation on Sunday night. The main task now is to ensure supplies reach the villagers and to patrol dikes around the Mengwa Flood Diversion Area, Chen added. Yue said, "As the water will remain in the area for a while, according to our estimates, we must remain alert to the possibility of the dikes being damaged. "The biggest losses will come in the agricultural sector, as crops and farms have been submerged," she said. Compensation offer Authorities said the villagers will be offered compensation. Minor inconveniences have been experienced by some residents whose villages have become islands. Lang said that before the area was flooded, a doctor from a nearby village visited his home to treat him, but the flooding meant that such an arrangement was no longer possible. "It's not urgent, I can wait," he said, adding that he had enough food to last a week.


The U.S. government will pay $1.95 billion to buy 100 million doses of a Covid-19 vaccine being developed by Pfizer Inc and German biotech BioNTech SE if it proves to be safe and effective, the companies said on Wednesday. The contract is the most the United States has agreed to spend on a vaccine, although previous deals with other vaccine makers were intended to also help pay for development costs. Pfizer and BioNTech will not receive any money from the government unless their vaccine succeeds in large clinical trials and can be successfully manufactured, according to a Pfizer ...
Ukrainian side in TCG hands over lists for mutual release of detainees, expects other side to do likewise  President's office

Under the humanitarian working group of the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG, Ukraine, Russia, OSCE), the Ukrainian side handed over the lists for the mutual release of the detainees and expects the same action from the other side.

"As part of the humanitarian group, the Ukrainian side, as agreed, handed over the lists of people for mutual release and expects other side to do likewise," the Ukrainian President's Office said on Wednesday.
Russian FM Sergey Lavrov held a meeting with Azerbaijani and Armenian communities representatives, Russian MFA noted.

According to the statement, he held meetings with prominent representatives of the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities of Russia - Chairman of the board of directors of Kievskaya Ploshchad Group of companies God Nisanov and President of the All-Russian public organization Union of Armenians of Russia Ara Abrahamyan.

The role of the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities in maintaining interethnic peace and harmony on the territory of Russia in accordance with the current legislation was discussed.

The importance of joint explanatory and educational work to prevent and eradicate cases of violation of the rights of Russian citizens on a national basis was noted. The need for a constructive contribution of the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities to the creation of conditions for facilitating the normalization of relations between Baku and Yerevan was emphasized.
Clergy spearhead Jerricho March across Brooklyn Bridge, NYPD join; worship goes viral

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A group of clergy rallied elected officials and hundreds of New Yorkers last Wednesday for the Jericho March across the Brooklyn Bridge where they were joined by law enforcement groups and seen worshiping together in a video that has been viewed more than 1 million times.





Bishop Gerald G. Seabrooks of Rehoboth Cathedral in Bedford-Stuyvesant told Kings County Politics in an interview last week about the biblical meaning of Jericho.

And if they did not tear down the walls of Jericho, division and separation, then they would not have received. Therefore, the walls of Jericho in our city need to come down. We see the walls of hatred, we see the walls of police brutality, we see the walls of redlining, we see the walls of miseducation. Our city needs God, Seabrooks said about the purpose of the march.



The event, which started in Cadman Plaza Park, Brooklyn, and ended at City Hall was initially conceived by a coalition of black clergy who are calling for reforms to policing, healthcare and education. Sergeants Benevolent Association, a police union in New York City, also joined the march, describing it as a rally to "support law enforcement" as well as clergy, according to a flyer.

"This is a community that respects the police and wants peace," SBA President Ed Mullins told Gothamist about why they joined the march. "Police are the dividing line to keep them safe."

Videos of the march have been circulating online where hundreds are seen and heard singing the popular worship song WayMaker. The clip has amassed over 1 million views across various platforms.

As churchgoers marched across the iconic bridge, hundreds of NYPD officers  both retired and presently serving  also joined in and were seen wearing matching blue T-shirts.

Kings County Politics reported that different groups of marchers initially started on separate sides of each other but were united as they walked up the on-ramp to get on the bridge. Helicopters and police squad cars cleared a path on the bridge for marchers to peacefully walk. When the swarms of officers reached the Manhattan side of the bridge they were met by Occupy City Hall protesters who incited clashes with police.

Marchers were reportedly held ad bay on the ramp for 30 minutes and used it as an opportunity to pray out loud. As they prayed officers arrested 35 violent Occupy City Hall protesters.

First and foremost youre protesting God, Tony Herbert, community leader and one of the Jericho March organizers told Kings County Politics in response to the violent protest. At the end of the day, this is about New Yorkers, all New Yorkers, and nobody should be in the position to block that. So were good, were not deterred.

Once things settled down, the Jerricho March convened in front of a constructed stage on top of a float where they held an outdoor church service. They shouted, No Peace Without the Prince of Peace.



Leader of Progressive Action, Tramell Thompson, helped organize the event with the United Clergy Coalition and took to Facebook afterward to share of the event. He said he found the ministry time extremely powerful but was confused by some police officers who thought the march was a Blue Lives Matter march.

There are photos of uniformed officers taking pictures and high-fiving pro-police marchers.

NYPD Chief Judith Harrison spoke at a subsequent rally and she said the Black Lives Matter counter-protesters could not stop the march.

"Do you know why they didnt stop us?" Harrison declared, "because of the power of prayer.
The Federal Coup to Overthrow the States and Nix the 10th Amendment Is Underway

I dont need invitations by the state, state mayors, or state governors, to do our job. Were going to do that, whether they like us there or not.Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolfs defense of the Trump Administrations deployment of militarized federal police to address civil unrest in the states

July 22, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - This is a wake-up call.

What is unfolding before our very eyeswith police agencies defying local governments in order to tap into the power of federal militarized troops in order to put down domestic unrestcould very quickly snowball into an act of aggression against the states, a coup by armed, militarized agents of the federal government.

At a minimum, this is an attack on the Tenth Amendment, which affirms the sovereignty of the states and the citizenry, and the right of the states to stand as a bulwark against overreach and power grabs by the federal government.

If youre still deluding yourself into believing that this thinly-veiled exercise in martial law is anything other than an attempt to bulldoze what remains of the Constitution and reinforce the iron-fisted rule of the police state, you need to stop drinking the Kool-Aid.

This is no longer about partisan politics or civil unrest or even authoritarian impulses.

This is a turning point.

Unless we take back the reinsand soonlooking back on this time years from now, historians may well point to the events of 2020 as the death blow to Americas short-lived experiment in self-government.

The governments recent actions in Portland, Oregonwhen unidentified federal agents (believed to be border police, ICE and DHS agents), wearing military fatigues with patches that just say Police and sporting all kinds of weapons, descended uninvited on the city in unmarked vehicles, snatching protesters off the streets and detaining them without formally arresting them or offering any explanation of why theyre being heldis just a foretaste of whats to come.

One of those detainees was a 53-year-old disabled Navy veteran who was in downtown Portland during the protests but not a participant. Concerned about the tactics being used by government agents who had taken an oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution, Christopher David tried to speak the secret police. Almost immediately, he was assaulted by federal agents, beaten with batons and pepper sprayed

Another peaceful protester was reportedly shot in the head with an impact weapon by this federal goon squad.

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The Trump Administration has already announced its plans to deploy these border patrol agents to other cities across the country (Chicago is supposedly next) in an apparent bid to put down civil unrest. Yet the overriding concerns by state and local government officials to Trumps plans suggest that weaponizing the DHS as an occupying army will only provoke more violence and unrest.

Weve been set up.

Under the guise of protecting federal properties against civil unrest, the Trump Administration has formed a task force of secret agents who look, dress and act like military stormtroopers on a raid and have been empowered to roam cities in unmarked vehicles, snatching citizens off the streets, whether or not theyve been engaged in illegal activities.

As the Guardian reports, The incidents being described sound eerily reminiscent of the CIAs post-9/11 rendition program under George W Bush, where intelligence agents would roll up in unmarked vans in foreign countries, blindfold terrorism suspects (many of whom turned to be innocent) and kidnap them without explanation. Only instead of occurring on the streets of Italy or the Middle East, its happening in downtown Portland.

The so-called racial justice activists who have made looting, violence, vandalism and intimidation tactics the hallmarks of their protests have played right into the governments hands

They have delivered all of us into the police states hands.

Theres a reason Trump has tapped the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection for this dirty business: these agencies are notorious for their lawlessness, routinely sidestepping the Constitution and trampling on the rights of anyone who gets in their way, including legal citizens.

Indeed, it was only a matter of time before these roving bands of border patrol agents began flexing their muscles far beyond the nations borders and exercising their right to disregard the Constitution at every turn.

Except these border patrol cops arent just disregarding the Constitution.

Theyre trampling all over the Constitution, especially the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits the government from carrying out egregious warrantless searches and seizures without probable cause.

As part of the governments so-called crackdown on illegal immigration, drugs and trafficking, its border patrol cops have been expanding their reach, roaming further afield and subjecting greater numbers of Americans to warrantless searches, ID checkpoints, transportation checks, and even surveillance on private property far beyond the boundaries of the borderlands.

That so-called border, once a thin borderline, has become an ever-thickening band spreading deeper and deeper inside the country.

Now, with this latest salvo by the Trump administration in its so-called crackdown on rioting and civil unrest, America itself is about to become a Constitution-free zone where freedom is off-limits and government agents have all the power and we the people have none.

The Customs and Border Protection (CBP), with its more than 60,000 employees, supplemented by the National Guard and the U.S. military, is an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, a national police force imbued with all the brutality, ineptitude and corruption such a role implies.

As journalist Todd Miller explains:

In these vast domains, Homeland Security authorities can institute roving patrols with broad, extra-constitutional powers backed by national security, immigration enforcement and drug interdiction mandates. There, the Border Patrol can set up traffic checkpoints and fly surveillance drones overhead with high-powered cameras and radar that can track your movements. Within twenty-five miles of the international boundary, CBP agents can enter a persons private property without a warrant.

Just about every nefarious deed, tactic or thuggish policy advanced by the government today can be traced back to the DHS, its police state mindset, and the billions of dollars it distributes to local police agencies in the form of grants to transform them into extensions of the military.

As Miller points out, the government has turned the nations expanding border regions into a ripe place to experiment with tearing apart the Constitution, a place where not just undocumented border-crossers, but millions of borderland residents have become the targets of continual surveillance.

In much the same way that police across the country have been schooled in the art of sidestepping the Constitution, border cops have also been drilled in the art of anything goes in the name of national security.

In fact, according to FOIA documents shared with The Intercept, border cops even have a checklist of possible behaviors that warrant overriding the Constitution and subjecting individualsincluding American citizensto stops, searches, seizures, interrogations and even arrests.

For instance, if youre driving a vehicle that to a border cop looks unusual in some way, you can be stopped. If your passengers look dirty or unusual, you can be stopped. If you or your passengers avoid looking at a cop, you can be stopped. If you or your passengers look too long at a cop, you can be stopped.

If youre anywhere near a border (near being within 100 miles of a border, or in a city, or on a bus, or at an airport), you can be stopped and asked to prove youre legally allowed to be in the country. If youre traveling on a public road that smugglers and other criminals may have traveled, you can be stopped.

If youre not driving in the same direction as other cars, you can be stopped. If you appear to be avoiding a police checkpoint, you can be stopped. If your car appears to be weighed down, you can be stopped. If your vehicle is from out of town, wherever that might be, you can be stopped. If youre driving a make of car that criminal-types have also driven, you can be stopped.

If your car appears to have been altered or modified, you can be stopped. If the cargo area in your vehicle is covered, you can be stopped.

If youre driving during a time of day or night that border cops find suspicious, you can be stopped. If youre driving when border cops are changing shifts, you can be stopped. If youre driving in a motorcade or with another vehicle, you can be stopped. If your car appears dusty, you can be stopped.

If people with you are trying to avoid being seen, or exhibiting unusual behavior, you can be stopped. If you slow down after seeing a cop, you can be stopped.

In Portland, which is 400 miles from the border, protesters didnt even have to be near federal buildings to be targeted. Some claimed to be targeted for simply wearing black clothing in the area of the demonstration.

Are you starting to get the picture yet?

This was never about illegal aliens and border crossings at all. Its been a test to see how far we the people will allow the government to push the limits of the Constitution.

Weve been failing this particular test for a long time now.

It was 1798 when Americans, their fears stoked by rumblings of a Quasi-War with France, failed to protest the Alien and Sedition Acts, which criminalized anti-government speech, empowered the government to deport dangerous non-citizens and made it harder for immigrants to vote.

During the Civil War, Americans went along when Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus (the right to a speedy trial) and authorized government officials to spy on Americans mail.

During World War I, Americans took it in stride when President Woodrow Wilson and Congress adopted the Espionage and Sedition Acts, which made it a crime to interfere with the war effort and criminalized any speech critical of war.

By World War II, Americans were marching in lockstep with the governments expanding war powers to imprison Japanese-American citizens in detainment camps, censor mail, and lay the groundwork for the future surveillance state.

Fast-forward to the Cold Wars Red Scares, the McCarthy eras hearings on un-American activities, and the governments surveillance of Civil Rights activists such as Martin Luther King Jr.all done in the name of national security.

By the time 9/11 rolled around, all George W. Bush had to do was claim the country was being invaded by terrorists, and the government was given greater powers to spy, search, detain and arrest American citizens in order to keep America safe.

The terrorist invasion never really happened, but the government kept its newly acquired police powers made possible by the nefarious USA Patriot Act.

Barack Obama continued Bushs trend of undermining the Constitution, going so far as to give the military the power to strip Americans of their constitutional rights, label them extremists, and detain them indefinitely without trial, all in the name of keeping America safe.

Despite the fact that the breadth of the militarys power to detain American citizens violates not only U.S. law and the Constitution but also international laws, the government has refused to relinquish its detention powers made possible by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Then Donald Trump took office, claiming the country was being invaded by dangerous immigrants and insisting that the only way to keep America safe was to build an expensive border wall, expand the reach of border patrol, and empower the military to assist with border control.

That so-called immigration crisis has now morphed into multiple crises (domestic extremism, the COVID-19 pandemic, race wars, civil unrest, etc.) that the government is eager to use in order to expand its powers.

Yet as weve learned the hard way, once the government acquiresand usesadditional powers (to spy on its citizens, to carry out surveillance, to transform its police forces into extensions of the police, to seize taxpayer funds, to wage endless wars, to censor and silence dissidents, to identify potential troublemakers, to detain citizens without due process), it does not voluntarily relinquish them

This is the slippery slope on which weve been traveling for far too long.

As Yale historian Timothy Snyder explains, This is a classic way that violence happens in authoritarian regimes, whether its Francos Spain or whether its the Russian Empire. The people who are getting used to committing violence on the border are then brought in to commit violence against people in the interior.

Sure, its the Trump Administration calling the shots right now, but its government agents armed with totalitarian powers and beholden to the bureaucratic Deep State who are carrying out these orders in defiance of the U.S. Constitution and all it represents.

Whether its Trump or Biden or someone else altogether, this year or a dozen years from now, the damage has been done: as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we have allowed the president to acquire dictatorial powers that can be unleashed at any moment.

Theres a reason the Trump Administration is consulting with John Yoo, the Bush-era attorney notorious for justifying waterboarding torture tactics against detainees. Theyre not looking to understand how to follow the law and abide by the Constitution. Rather, theyre desperately seeking ways to thwart the Constitution.

As Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe recognizes, The dictatorial hunger for power is insatiable.

This is how it begins.

This is how it always begins.

Dont be fooled into thinking any of this will change when the next election rolls around.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute . His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People is available at www.amazon.com . Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.

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This weekend TCM ran an old movie I had never seen entitled You Cant Take it With You, with Jimmy Stewart, Jean Arthur and Lionel Barrymore. It was a good movie with a moral: everyone should enjoy their lives and not give in to greed because you cant take it with you.

I realized that the movie was directed by Frank Capra. In fact, Capra won two Academy Awards for the film, one for directing and one for producing.

Capra also directed one of my favorite movies, Its a Wonderful Life. I am like a 3 year old and can watch movies I like over and over. I am sure I have watched this one over 35 times, or more. Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, the stars of the movie, and Capra all said it was their favorite movie although it was not well received by critics and audiences when it first came out in 1946. It is now a Christmas classic.

I started looking up Capra movies and I was amazed at the breadth and depth of the movies he made. Many of them are movies I really like.

Born in 1897 in Italy, Capra came to the U.S. with his family in 1903 when he was only 5 years old. His work often reflected an idealized vision of the American dream, perhaps spurned by his own experiences as an immigrant. Depression-era audiences lapped up his sweetly sentimental screwball comedies, which often centered on the plight of the common man. Many referred to his movies as Capra-corn.

Capra graduated from California Institute of Technology with a degree in chemical engineering, which helped his early career with talkies. Early directors didnt know how to work with sound. Not so with Capra. He not only used sound but improved upon it, making him quite valuable to Harry Cohn and Columbia Pictures Corp.

Capra became one of Americas most influential directors during the 1930s. He directed such wonderful movies as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, starring, you guessed it, if you didnt know already, Jimmy Stewart.

And, Capra directed It Happened One Night, starring Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable. The first movie to win five Academy Awards in the top categories.

He had a team of regular collaborators, both on and off screen. In the 1930s, he co-wrote eight movies with the help of screenwriter Robert Riskin, worked with composer Dimitri Tiomkin for nearly a decade and repeatedly cast Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper in many of his films. But, of all the many performers he worked with over his long career, it was the talent and nervous energy of Jean Arthur that stuck with him most. She was his favorite actor to work with.

During World War II, Capra enlisted in the Army and made a series of documentary movies for the government entitled Why We Fight.

During his long career, Capra made 36 feature films and 16 documentaries. He made educational films for Cal Tech, and science films for television after he retired in 1961. He died at 94 in California. Only William Wyler and John Ford won more Academy Awards for directing than Capra. He is one of the greatest directors to EVER live.

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.
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By PTI

SRINAGAR: Pakistan violated ceasefire in two sectors along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district in the last 24 hours, injuring a woman, an Army official said on Thursday.

In the first ceasefire violation on Wednesday night, Pakistani Army targeted civilian villages in forward areas along the LoC in Tangdhar sector (in Kupwara district of North Kashmir), the official said.

A woman of Hajitra was injured in the Pakistani firing who was taken to a hospital and her condition is stable, he said.

In another incident on Thursday evening, Pakistan initiated an unprovoked ceasefire violation along the LoC in the Naugam sector of Kupwara by firing mortars and other weapons, the official said.

He said befitting response is being given to the Pakistani aggression.
The US demand this week that China close its consulate in Houston is the latest in a string of disputes that have taken the relationship between the world's two biggest economies to its lowest point in decades.

Here are the main points of contention between Beijing and Washington:

CORONAVIRUS

U.S. President Donald Trump has accused China of a lack of transparency about the coronavirus, which first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. He regularly refers to it as the "China virus."

Trump said Chinese officials "ignored their reporting obligations" to the World Health Organization about the virus - that has killed hundreds of thousands of people globally - and pressured the U.N. agency to "mislead the world."

China says it has been transparent about the outbreak and the WHO has denied Trump's assertions that it promoted Chinese "disinformation" about the virus. The United States plans to quit the WHO in mid-2021 over its handling of the pandemic.

TRADE

The Trump administration began increasing tariffs on imports from China, its largest trading partner, in 2018 as part of an ambitious plan to force Beijing to curb subsidies on state manufacturing and tough demands on U.S. companies in China.

After more than a year of tit-for-tat tariffs that slowed global economic growth, the countries signed a trade deal in January 2020 that rolls back some tariffs, but does not address the core issues. Beijing has pledged to increase imports of U.S. goods by $200 billion over two years.

The U.S. Commerce and State departments are pushing U.S. companies to move sourcing and manufacturing out of China.

SOUTH CHINA SEA

The United States has hardened its position in recent weeks on the South China Sea, where it has accused China of attempting to build a "maritime empire" in the potentially energy-rich waters.

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam challenge China's claim to about 90% of the sea. A July 13 statement by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was the first time the United States had called China's claims unlawful and accused Beijing of a "campaign of bullying".

HONG KONG

China and the United States have clashed over pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, most recently Beijing's imposition of new security legislation on the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Trump this month signed an executive order to end preferential economic treatment for Hong Kong, allowing him to impose sanctions and visa restrictions on Chinese officials and financial institutions involved in enacting the law.

China has threatened retaliatory sanctions of its own.

UIGHURS

The United States has imposed sanctions on Chinese officials, companies and institutions over human rights violations linked to China's treatment of minority Muslim Uighurs in the country's western Xinjiang region.

China has been widely condemned for setting up complexes in remote Xinjiang that it describes as "vocational training centers" to stamp out extremism and give people new skills.

JOURNALISTS AND CHINESE STUDENTS

The United States has started treating several major Chinese state media outlets as foreign embassies and slashed the number of journalists allowed to work at U.S. offices of those Chinese media outlets to 100 from 160.

In response, China expelled about a dozen American correspondents with major U.S. outlets and asked four U.S. media organizations to submit details about their operations in China.

Washington in May introduced new rules restricting the granting of visas to Chinese graduate students believed to have links with China's military.

HUAWEI

Chinese tech firm Huawei was added to the U.S. Commerce Department's "entity list" last year due to national security concerns, amid accusations from Washington that it violated U.S. sanctions on Iran and can spy on customers, allegations Huawei has denied. The listing greatly reduced its access to vital parts and supplies, like chips, from U.S. suppliers.

Huawei says Washington wants to frustrate its growth because no U.S. company offers the same technology at a competitive price.

The United States has been successfully pushing countries around the world to drop Huawei.

NORTH KOREA

China is at odds with the United States over North Korea, even though they both want the country to give up its nuclear weapons. Washington has accused China of breaching U.N. sanctions on North Korea, assertions Beijing has denied. China wants to lift some sanctions, but the United States disagrees.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Trump have met three times, but failed to make progress on U.S. calls for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and North Korea's demands for an end to sanctions.

The number-two diplomat at the State Department, Stephen Biegun, said on Wednesday Washington and Beijing could still work together against North Korea's development of weapons of mass destruction despite current tensions.
Mai Van Trung

According to the latest update from Electricity of Vietnam (EVN), the country has commissioned roughly 745 megawatt peak (93 MWp in June, 79MWp in May, and 56MWp in April). The aim to put 1,000MWp rooftop solar under commercial operation at the end of this year might be easily achieved because local and international developers are accelerating their investments to meet the feed-in tariff (FiT) deadline.

The attraction of the solar rooftop market in Vietnam is fostered by the fact that an electricity shortage from next year until perhaps 2025 will be faced by the country.

The prolonged concerns about electrical and construction regulations associated with rooftop solar systems may not be rectified within this year. However, there is hope as organisations like the Clean Energy Council of Australia or Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore to supervise the solar installation, operation, and maintenance across the country.

The technical specifications and regulations will be available sooner or later but the capacity installation limit of one megawatt for each rooftop solar system is still a hot topic to discuss among the investment community.

Particularly, industrial manufacturers are purchasing huge electricity from EVN through 110 kilovolt lines. Many of them have a monthly electric bill from five to 10 million kilowatt hour. A rooftop solar system of 1MW can contribute around 2-3 per cent of the demand.

The savings are insignificant for energy-extensive manufacturing firms. The availability of space to house from 5-10MW is common which can save the company at least 10 per cent of its total demand.

There should be a breakthrough in policy direction to adopt rooftop solar systems whose capacity is less than 5MW and eligible for those using more than 5 million kWh a month. The mandatory condition of the current energy usage stated is to assure the nature of self-consumption. And the project development approval should be assigned to the provincial level to shorten the process.

Grid congestion with such a model might be avoided by regional load dispatch centres when there is no load demand by the company covering their rooftop with solar modules from 1-5MW. If it is necessary, it is able to regulate the integration of energy storage of at least 15 minutes to make sure the load dispatch centres can manage the operation of such a system. It is stated that many manufacturers are taking advantage of the low electricity tariffs but it is not opened yet for them to power their unused rooftop. The FiT plays no role with these companies but the age and strength of their factories steel structures does.

The International Monetary Fund has forecast Vietnams GDP to grow at 2.7 per cent this year which is among the best performers in Asia. Also, the movement of manufacturers from China to Vietnam enables a busy year for industrial developers.

As of the end of May, there were 561 industrial zones covering 201,000 hectares, equivalent to 0.6 per cent of the countrys total area. Of this, 374 industrial zones were built on 114,400ha and 259 others were under construction or in the land clearance stage on 86,600ha.

The pressures to power those industrial zones might be comparable with the constructions of transmission lines to address the curtailment of solar and wind power plants. Each industrial zone requires 50-100MW depending on their scales. The investment of a 110-kV substation and 22kV lines to deliver the power to the tenants inside the zone seems to be a waste at the beginning due to the fact that factories will be gradually built and fully operational after five years.

It is where distributed power supplies in a micro-grid can find its application because of its growing nature. A micro-grid is a decentralised group of electricity sources (solar modules, wind turbines, energy storage, and diesel gensets) and loads.

The combination of these energy sources and smart load control algorithms will mobilise renewable energy as much as possible before diesel gensets are switched on.

The micro-grid might receive power from EVN through a 110-kV substation at 25MW or, in some cases, 10MW from 22 kV. The configuration will save public investment a great amount. The factories in the industrial park can enjoy very competitive electricity prices, even a fixed cost over their lease term.

Not only electricity but other utilities (water, heating, cooling, and communications) can also be supplied in similar ways. A breakthrough is needed in policy direction to allow industrial developers to use land to mount solar modules and small wind turbines instead of rooftops only.
The teenage girl was the hero of a night of carnage that left her familys hillside home in western Afghanistan strewed with bodies. Qamar Gul, 15, fought to her last bullet, gunning down Taliban attackers who raided the house and killed her father and mother.

In the days after the attack last week, Afghan social media was full of slick posters celebrating her as My Hero. Some users compared her to the Kurdish women of Kobani, Syria, who fought the Islamic State group. Local officials put out pictures of Gul posing with her rifle. Afghanistans vice-president praised her for defending against the enemies of the nation.

But the story of her heroism is steeped in pain, in a culture that often treats women as property, and in the confusion of an Afghan war that has twisted families into knots of complex loyalties and feuds.

One of the attackers she killed was her own husband, who was fighting on the Talibans side and apparently seeking her forcible return after a falling out with her family, according to relatives and local officials.

As the war in Afghanistan drags on, the violence has increasingly become local. Beyond the headlines of the major clashes between government forces and Taliban militants often lies a more complicated reality of local power rivalries, of a tug of war between mafia groups and drug-dealing rings, and of communities and families torn apart.

Increasingly, both the pro-government and Taliban side are drawing on the same pools of local fighters.

In villages and rural districts, the Taliban are not an unknown force; they are mostly the sons and brothers and husbands everyone there knows. And the Afghan government has in large stretches of the country found itself relying on tens of thousands of local militiamen, called the Public Uprising, to try to hold territory. They often bear the brunt of the fighting, but their casualties rarely make it to official records of the toll of the war on Afghan forces.

Ghor province, where the incident happened, has remained restive in recent years and proved particularly brutal for women. In government-controlled areas, girls have been bartered for dowries at a young age. Graphic videos of stoning and flogging have repeatedly come out of the Taliban-controlled areas.

The village in Taiwara district where Guls home was raided lies on the edge, near where government control gives way to the Taliban. But the familys fate had intertwined with violence long before the recent battle.

Guls mother, Fatima, had married twice before ending up with her father, Shah Gul Rahimi, according to Zabihullah Rahmani, a relative. Fatima Guls first husband died young of an overdose while working as a labourer in Iran, leaving behind a son who is now a police officer. Her second marriage to a local commander was short-lived: He was killed in clashes with the Taliban in the 1990s. Shah Gul, the local commanders younger brother, stepped in to marry Fatima. They had two children together: Qamar Gul and her 12-year-old brother, Habibullah Gul.

In recent years, Rahimi, who was just 40, took on his brothers responsibilities as a community elder in Taiwara. He frequently helped with the militia fending off Taliban attacks, joining them in their battles. But it wasnt clear whether he was also on a government payroll  the militias are paid anywhere between $50 (U.S.) to $150 by the Afghan intelligence agency and provided ammunition  or whether he was just helping in his role as a local elder.

Residents described him as a stalwart fighter, despite having had one hand amputated years before.

About four years ago, Rahimi struck an agreement with a local man from an adjacent village named Mohamed Naeem: Naeem would marry Rahimis daughter, Qamar, as his second wife. In exchange, Rahimi would take Naeems teenage niece as his second wife.

Since both girls were young, they waited two years before making the marriage official in separate wedding ceremonies. Naeem and Rahimi had grown so close that when Naeem needed a loan of about $3,000, Rahimi became his guarantor at a business that gave him the loan.

Naeem was his son-in-law, and they got along very well, too, said Sebghatullah, Rahimis nephew. It all turned upside down at once.

Just how Naeem joined the Taliban is not exactly clear. But relatives and local officials said it happened over the course of the past two years as his private life started falling apart and he was chased for his debts.

Naeem, who had taken his new bride to his old home, right away got into arguments with his parents over how unfairly he treated his first wife by spending all his time with the younger Qamar Gul, said the relative, Rahmani. After one fight, Naeem took Qamar Gul and left, first staying with his in-laws and then moving his home to neighbouring Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold.

He swore that he would never return to his own village, said Abdullah, Qamar Guls maternal uncle. Naeem lived with his father-in-law for a while; he was given a room at the house. But the people he owed money to now kept knocking on his father-in-laws door.

The trouble seems to have begun when Rahimis new wife visited her family and refused to return to her husband, saying she didnt want to live with him, according to the two relatives. In return, when Qamar Gul came home, her father held her until the family returned his wife and Naeem paid the $3,000 debt for which Rahimi was being harassed. After several rounds of mediation with local elders, Rahimi agreed a compromise: He would let Qamar Gul return only if Naeem paid the debt.

Naeems niece wasnt happy with the marriage because Shah Gul was much older than her. But Qamar Gul wasnt arguing much; she said she was OK with whatever her father had decided but that Naeem had to pay back the debt, Rahmani said.

But Naeem had other thoughts: He had grown close to a ruthless Taliban commander in Ghor who would help him take Qamar Gul home without paying any money. They chose the early hours after midnight on July 17 for a surprise attack, with about a dozen of their fighters surrounding the hillside home and barging in.

When Rahimi had come out of the hallway to see what was happening, he was given no chance to run for his weapon. He had six bullet wounds, including one in the neck. When Qamar Guls mother, Fatima, came out to cry for help after her husband was shot, she was also shot, three times  twice in her chest and once in the neck, family members said.

Qamar Gul grabbed her fathers weapon, ran to the doorway and began spraying at the attackers in the yard. She shot two of them dead and wounded the senior Taliban commander. The Taliban fled the scene as neighbours and local militia fighters began arriving.

Two days after the attack, the Ghor provincial governor put out a statement saying Qamar Gul and her 12-year old brother had defeated an offensive attack by the Taliban terrorist group and forced the bloodthirsty Taliban to flee, leaving behind two of their dead in the battlefield.

The statement attached graphic photos of two bodies. One was Naeem, Qamar Guls husband, the chest of his embroidered tunic soaked in blood.

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By PTI

KOLKATA: West Bengal's COVID-19 tally breached the 50,000-mark on Thursday with a record 2,436 new cases reported in 24 hours, as per the state health department.

The state's total number of cases was at 51,757 following the detection of fresh infections, it said.

Thirty-four fatalities were recorded in the last 24 hours, taking the toll to 1,225, said the bulletin issued by the department in the evening.

Most of the new deaths were reported from Kolkata where 19 people lost their lives.

The state also saw the highest discharge of people after recovery. A total of 2,006 people were discharged during the last 24 hours. There are 18,846 active cases in the state at present.

Since Wednesday, 14,558 samples were tested in the state.
Armenia needs to review its foreign and security policies in response to Turkeys increasingly aggressive support for Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Thursday.

Echoing statements by other Armenian officials, Pashinian charged that Ankara has sought to heighten tensions in the conflict zone by blaming Yerevan for this months deadly hostilities on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and promising military aid to Baku.

The only country that attempted to provoke greater violence, rather than calm the situation down, [during the flare-up] was Turkey, he said at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan.

Given that countrys destabilizing and aggressive policy towards a number of neighboring regions and traditional anti-Armenian policy, evidenced by its justification of the [1915] Armenian genocide, Turkeys stance did not come as a surprise, he said. But its increased aggressiveness is creating the need for a certain revision of our policy, including in terms of the scale of our participation in international formats for curbing Turkeys aggressiveness.

Pashinian did not specify whether he thinks Armenia should forge even closer military ties with Russia, its main ally, or step up security cooperation with the West.But he did single out Russias role in international efforts to stop the Armenian-Azerbaijani border clashes that broke out on July 17.

The deadly clashes provoked last week a bitter war of words between Ankara and Yerevan, with the two sides accusing each other of trying to destabilize the South Caucasus. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other Turkish leaders blamed Armenia for the violence that left at least 17 soldiers dead. For its part, the Armenian Foreign Ministry branded Turkey a security threat to Armenia and the region.

Turkeys National Security Council condemned the Armenian aggression on Wednesday in a statement issued after a meeting chaired by Erdogan. It said Ankara will support any decision by Azerbaijan.

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar vowed on July 16 that Armenia will be brought to account for its attack on Azerbaijan. He did not elaborate.

Akar spoke at a meeting with a visiting Azerbaijani military delegation headed by Deputy Defense Minister Ramiz Tahirov. The delegation also met with Ismail Demir, the head of a state body overseeing the Turkish defense industry. Demir tweeted afterwards that Ankara is ready to provide Baku with military drones and missiles.

Successive Turkish governments have lent Azerbaijan full support throughout the Karabakh conflict, reflecting close ethnic and cultural ties between the two Turkic nations. They have made the establishment of diplomatic relations with Armenia conditional on a Karabakh settlement acceptable to Baku.

Armenia, which is allied to Russia politically and militarily, has always rejected this precondition.
Non Nuoc Cao Bang Geopark (Photo: Shutterstock)

Hanoi  The USs leading news website Insider has named Vietnams Non Nuoc Cao Bang Geopark among the 50 best views in the world.

Non Nuoc Cao Bang is a UNESCO Global Geopark with magnificent views of its waterfalls, lakes, and diverse plant species, the newswire describes when gathering 50 of the most breathtaking views in the world.

Argentinas Los Glaciares National Park, Australias Great Barrier Reef, The Great Wall of China, and Lavender fields in the Provence region of France are also among the list.

Located in the north of Vietnam, 300km from Hanoi, Non Nuoc Cao Bang UNESCO Global Geopark covers 3,000sq.km. It covers six districts of Ha Quang, Tra Linh, Quang Yen, Trung Khanh, Ha Lang, Phuc Hoa, and part of Hoa An, Nguyen Binh and Thach An districts. The geopark is home to nine ethnic groups including Tay, Nung, Mong, Dao and San Chay.

The geopark is an exceptional territory which offers insights into the history of our planet across more than 500 million years through protected sites. Fossils, marine sediment, volcanic and plutonic rocks and minerals are witness to the remarkable evolution and changes of our planet, and they constitute an exceptional geological heritage.

It is also a land of tangible and intangible cultural heritage sites and special historical monuments. The area is also well-known for its high biological diversity with abundant endemic plant and animal species and ecosystems.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has warned that Congress is unlikely to reach a deal on a new pandemic relief bill within the next two weeks. (Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)

Congress responded to the spreading COVID-19 pandemic in March with astonishing speed (by congressional standards), enacting three bipartisan-backed measures in quick succession to increase coronavirus testing, extend sick leave to more workers and, most dramatically, inject more than $2 trillion into the collapsing U.S. economy.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has shown no such urgency since then. And now, one of the most important elements of the third measure, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, is about to expire, slashing benefits to millions of laid-off Americans even though unemployment is worse now than in the depths of the Great Recession. The CARES Act increased unemployment benefits by $600 a week, but that support is set to end this week.

Lawmakers are reportedly considering a temporary extension of the benefits to give them more time to work out a deal on a new relief package, something they should already have negotiated. They are so far apart that McConnell laughed Tuesday when asked whether Congress could pass a bill by the end of the month.

Of course, the situation is the furthest thing from funny. The list of needs that Congress has to address is long, starting with a persistent shortage of COVID-19 tests. The most immediate concern, though, is the looming drop in unemployment benefits. It arguably made sense in March to limit the duration of the $600 add-on; what we've seen, however, is a stubbornly resilient pandemic that surged after the stay-home orders were lifted. In mid-July, more than a million people were still filing new unemployment claims weekly and more than 17 million Americans were still without jobs.

Nevertheless, some Republican lawmakers are resisting renewing the $600 in additional benefits, favoring some combination of a smaller add-on, a tax credit for employers or a bonus for people who return to work. Their concern, buttressed by anecdotes from employers, is that the more generous benefits are deterring people from coming off the dole. Ordinarily, states' unemployment insurance programs cover only 30% to 50% of a person's lost wages. With the extra $600 per week, however, more than two-thirds of laid-off workers received as much as or more than they'd made on the job. (Full disclosure: Many unionized Los Angeles Times journalists who were furloughed during the pandemic have been receiving the increased unemployment benefits.)

Story continues

That concern might make sense on the surface, but it ignores reality. For starters, states typically bar people from collecting unemployment when they have a viable job offer. But as a number of states have acknowledged, returning to a job that increases the risk of contracting COVID-19 isn't a viable option for many Americans.

More important, the economy is still severely hobbled  not just by the restrictions that states and cities have put in place, but also the widespread fear of dying from a disease that has no proven treatments or vaccine. Millions of people are unemployed because there aren't enough jobs, not because the benefits are keeping them too comfortable.

Besides, unemployment benefits don't come with many of the things that a job can provide, including a degree of financial security, health insurance and retirement benefits.

The extra $600 a week has prevented greater suffering and economic harm. Among other things, it has helped avert the large-scale upheaval in the housing market that many analysts expected. As of July 20, 91% of tenants had paid part or all of their monthly rent, according to the National Multifamily Housing Council, which tracks larger apartment buildings. Thats only a 2% increase in missed rental payments compared with last July, when the economy was humming and the pandemic hadn't started.

It's hard to imagine that sort of stability continuing if the extra $600 evaporates. Nearly half of tenant households were paying more than a third of their income on rent before the pandemic. As the economic fallout continues, too few households have the financial cushion to keep paying the rent without a full paycheck or significant government assistance.

And thats just rent. For those who qualified and received unemployment checks, the extra money helped people buy groceries, pay their utilities and continue to spend on other essentials, like prescriptions and transportation. In other words, the federal dollars rippled through the economy, helping many more people than just the unemployed and their families.

The most important task facing this country is to beat the virus. In the meantime, Congress needs to do what it can to reduce hardship and keep economic activity going. The extra benefits are a tonic not just for families in financial duress, but for the economy as a whole. Lawmakers should keep them in place until the pandemic is under control once and for all.
tech2 News Staff

After the United Arab Emirates recently launched its Hope Mars Mission, China has followed them by launching a mission of its own to the Red Planet. The mission, going by the name 'Tianwen-1', is poised to be the first-ever mission to Mars with an orbiter, lander, and a rover.

While the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA) has not been too secretive about the mission, it hasn't been forthcoming with information either.

On 13 July 2020, the mission's team of scientists published a research article in the science journal Nature Astronomy on what the mission entails.

What we know about Tianwen-1

The Chinese Mars mission was formerly known as 'Huoxing-1' or 'HX-1' in its developmental stages. It promptly changed to 'Tianwen-1', which means 'Heavenly Questions' or 'Questions to Heaven', a name with its roots in a Chinese poem by the 'greatest' ancient Chinese poet Qu Yuan. In the poem, questions were raised about stars and other celestial bodies. The name is fitting considering Tianwen-1 will be the first interplanetary space exploration mission from China. The name is supposed to signify China's 'perseverance in pursuing truth and science and exploring nature and the universe's' CNSA told CGTN.

The CNSA said all of Chinas planetary exploration missions in the future would be named Tianwen to signify the countrys scientific pursuits in space. The name was revealed on 24 April 2020, to coincide with Chinas annual Space Day and the 50th anniversary of the launch of its first satellite.

China sends its first mission to Mars. Tianwen-1 was launched from Wenchang towards the red planet on a voyage that will last until next year. #Mars pic.twitter.com/9PmlzHCoEe  China Xinhua News (@XHNews) July 23, 2020

The Tianwen-1 spacecraft was launched today, 23 July, at 10.12 am IST from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island in southern China. Chinese news agencies Xinhua News, China Daily and CGTN tweeted confirmations on the successful launch of the Chinese Mars mission. Yet, no official confirmation was released by the space agency itself.

Kina sodien izlidoja Marsa virziena. Ja viss izdosies veiksmigi, nakama gada februara Tianwen-1 zonde ieies orbita ap sarkano planetu, bet pec 2-3 menesiem uz virsmas nolaidisies visurgajejs. #Goodluck pic.twitter.com/KS8SqtWz2O  StarSpace Redaktors (@StarSpaceLV) July 23, 2020

About 36 minutes after the launch, the spacecraft was sent into the Earth-Mars transfer orbit, CGTN reported the China National Space Administration stating.

The orbiter-rover-lander trio

The Tianwen-1 mission consists of an orbiter, a rover and lander, which are now at the start of a seven-month-long journey to Mars.

The spacecraft is expected to reach Mars around February 2021, which is around the same time NASA's Perseverance Mars rover (planned launch on 30 July) and the UAE's Hope orbiter (launched earlier this month) will also arrive at Mars. However, according to Space.com, the rover/lander module will not be deployed immediately as it will remain attached to the orbiter for two to three months before attempting its landing. During that time, it will survey potential landing sites using its high-resolution camera and prepare for a landing in May.

The spacecraft's first science observations will begin in April 2021. According to Scientific American, the mission is designed to study how water-ice is distributed on Mars, as well as the planets' evolution and habitability over time.

Watch: Animation shows China's first Mars probe #Tianwen1's journey to the red planet. Tianwen-1 spacecraft is scheduled for launch in late July or early August. pic.twitter.com/Nfld8GW7MB  Global Times (@globaltimesnews) July 21, 2020

According to the study published on the mission, "Tianwen-1 is going to orbit, land and release a rover all on the very first try, and coordinate observations with an orbiter. No planetary missions have ever been implemented in this way."

If the mission succeeds in this objective, Tianwen-1 will be signified as a major technical breakthrough in interplanetary mission technology.

The lander and rover will perform a soft landing on Utopia Planitia. Utopia Planitia a huge basin in the largest crater (Utopia) on Mars  the same region in which NASA's Viking 2 lander had touched down in 1976. China isolated a portion of this vast plain for its landing area, which runs from the Isidis Planitia plains to a big volcano called Elysium Mons.

The solar-powered rover, which weighs around 240 kg, is expected to be in operation for about 90 Martian days or sols i.e. 92 1/2 earth days (around 13 weeks). As per a Nature report on the Tianwen-1 mission, the orbiter will act as a relay communication link between the rover and the mission's control team on Earth. The rover has six instruments fitted to it  the Multispectral Camera, Terrain Camera, Mars-Rover Subsurface Exploration Radar, Mars Surface Composition Detector, Mars Magnetic Field Detector and Mars Meteorology Monitor.

The orbiter will carry out its own observations over one Martian year  approximately two years on Earth. The orbiter will be placed in a polar elliptical orbit roughly 265 km  12,000 km (nearest x farthest) in altitude. The orbiter is carrying seven instruments onboard - two cameras, the Mars-Orbiting Subsurface Exploration Radar, Mars Mineralogy Spectrometer, Mars Magnetometer, Mars Ion and Neutral Particle Analyzer and Mars Energetic Particle Analyzer.

The main science objectives of the Tianwen-1 mission are:

to map the morphology and geological structure of Mars,

to investigate the surface soil characteristics and water-ice distribution,

to analyse the material composition of the Martian surface,

to measure the ionosphere and the characteristics of the Martian climate and environment at the surface,

to perceive physical fields (both electromagnetic and gravitational) around Mars as well as its internal structure.

There are a total of 13 science instruments onboard the spacecraft.

The Long March 5 rocket

The spacecraft was launched using China's largest carrier rocket  Long March-5B  is about 53.7 metres long and has a liftoff mass of about 849 tonnes.

The rocket was rolled onto the launch pad on Friday, 17 July. This Tianwen-1 mission is the first time that the Long March-5 rocket has been use to launch a payload. It has flown on three experimental test flights before successfully launching the Chinese Mars mission.

China's past attempts to reach Mars

According to The New York Times, in 2011, China tried to reach Mars but failed. The Chinese space agency had paired its orbiter Yinghuo-1 along with Russias mission to study Phobos, one of the two tiny Martian moons.

The Russian rocket carrying both the spacecraft malfunctioned a little after launch, and it couldnt escape the Earth's gravity. Both spacecraft eventually burned up in the atmosphere.

Along with Tianwen-1 and UAE's Hope Probe, NASA's Perseverance Mars rover is also slated to accompany them on their journey. NASA has delayed their launch and is expected to launch on 30 July.

The Rosalind Franklin rover, a joint effort by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos), has been postponed to 2022 after the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic affected operations.
CHICAGO, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the new market research report "Thermal Management Market with COVID-19 impact Analysis by Material, Device (Conduction, Convection, Advanced, and Hybrid), Service (Installation & Calibration and Optimization & Post-sales Support), End-Use Industry, and Region - Global Forecast to 2025", published by MarketsandMarkets, the global Thermal Management Market is estimated to be USD 12.8 billion by 2025 (forecast year) from USD 8.8 billion in 2020 (estimated year), at a CAGR of 8.2% between 2020 to 2025. The growth of the thermal management market is fueled by rising demand for effective thermal management solutions and systems for use in consumer electronics, increasing use of electronic devices in different end-use industries, and ongoing radical miniaturization of electronic. Moreover, factors such as technological advancements in synthetic cooling systems and interface materials, advent of cool chips for thermal management in electronic devices, and the increasing demand for natural refrigerants play an important role in driving the growth of the market.

Ask for PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=155049228

The market for nonadhesive thermal management material expected to hold the largest market share during the forecast period

In 2019, the nonadhesive thermal management material segment accounted for the largest share of the thermal management market. Growth of this segment can be attributed to the various benefits provided by these materials which includes getting recharged in tandem with the changing ambient temperature, making them ideal for various applications that require temperature control. Also, these materials have mechanical shock absorption capacity which makes them preferable for automotive applications. Nonadhesive materials such as thermal pads, gap fillers, and grease are used widely in consumer electronic devices such as computers, laptops, and other handheld devices such as tablets. Thermal pads are used to fill the gaps between heat sinks and microprocessors. They eliminate air gaps to reduce thermal resistance and provide low-stress vibration dampening.

Advanced cooling devices expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period

The growth of this segment can be attributed to the increased adoption of microchannel cooling, cold plate cooling, and direct immersion cooling. The thermally conductive plates provide the most effective way to optimize liquid contact with hot surfaces as they enable the highest level of heat transfer due to the flow of liquid through layers of thermally conductive sheets. Direct immersion cooling is used widely in servers & data centers. In this process, servers are immersed in a nonreactive fluid or coolant for thermal cooling, thus eliminating the requirement for heat fans and heat sinks.

Browse in-depth TOC on "Thermal Management Market"

188  Tables

59  Figures

251  Pages

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APAC is projected to hold the largest share of thermal management market in 2025

APAC is expected to hold the largest share of the thermal management market in 2025. The commanding position of APAC is due to the presence of a large number of chip manufacturing companies in countries such as China and South Korea. Additionally, increasing investments and business expansion strategies executed by offshore companies in the region is expected to boost the thermal management market growth in the near future. Moreover, increasing demand for effective thermal management solutions and systems from consumer electronics, automotive, defense, and healthcare sectors is also fueling the growth of the thermal management market in APAC.

The report profiles key players, including Honeywell International (US), Aavid Thermalloy (US), Vertiv (US), European Thermodynamics (UK), and Master Bond (US), Advanced Cooling Technologies (US), Henkel (Germany), Laird (UK), Delta Electronics (Taiwan), and Parker (US). These companies focus on adopting both organic and inorganic growth strategies, such as new product launches, partnerships, agreements, mergers and acquisitions, and expansions to strengthen their position in the market.

Related Reports:

Thermal Interface Pads & Material Market by Type (Phase Change Material, Thermal Grease, Thermal Pads), Products (MOSFET, Thyristor, IGBT), Application (Consumer Electronics, Telecom Equipment, Power Supply Units) - Forecast to 2020





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Pennridge to vote on one textbook; further review on other one
Twenty five teenagers (25), 10 girls and 15 boys have been arrested by the Kenya Police for shooting blue film (pornography) in Kenya's Kakamega County.

The teenagers who are said to be in Form Two and Three, are between the ages of 13 and 17.

The Mastermind of the act, Caleb was also arrested.

According to a garbage collector who withness the event and summoned the police, he was attracted to the scene after he saw a polythene bag full of condoms.

Getting closer, he was shocked when he saw the teenagers having sexual intercourse and another person recording. He then notified the police immediately.

According to the OCPD of Kakamega Central, David Kabena who confirmed the arrest said that the minors were found during the act were arrested.

Kabena added that they will deal with Caleb for misleading the teenagers into this act. LIB
Former FAI CEO John Delaney has rejected claims by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) of engaging in conduct that would paralyse the watchdog's investigative powers.

In a sworn statement, Mr Delaney said he needs extra time to examine thousands of files, including the contents of his emails.

He says he needs to do this so he can set out what he claims are covered by legal professional privilege, and therefore cannot be used by the ODCE as part of its criminal investigation into the FAI.

The High Court was due later this month to make a determination on whether some of the files are covered by legal privilege and cannot be used by the ODCE.

However arising out of Mr Delaneys application for extra time that application is not proceeding and the matter will next be mentioned before the courts in September.

He also said that he had gone to work in the UK, where he lives in a "modest" shared two bedroom apartment near his place of work, to provide for his family.

He said since March 2019 over 1,000 media articles have been written in relation to me which had a huge negative impact on me and my family.

He said he had hoped to return to Ireland to inspect the documents, but due to Covid-19 travel restrictions and the demands of his work, Mr Delaney said he made arrangements for his solicitor Aidan Eames to inspect them.

He rejected the ODCEs suggestion that he had ignored a direction to return to Ireland to personally inspect the seized items.

The files consist of 13 hard copy documents and a digital device containing 270,000 separate files including the former CEOs emails.

They were seized from the FAIs offices at Abbotstown on foot of a search warrant last February.

An agreed plan was put in place to allow Mr Delaney examine the files to see which ones are private to him or covered by professional legal privilege.

It was envisaged that the inspection would be completed before the end of July.

However Mr Delaney, who is a notice party to the action, asked for additional time to examine the files due to the large number of files involved.

That application was opposed by the ODCE. Mr Delaney said the ODCE was seeking to complicate what is a relatively simple exercise.

It had no objections to his request to involve an IT forensic expert. However the ODCE said it had put in place a system, with sufficient facilities software and expertise that balances the rights and obligations of all parties and made the timetable entirely achievable.

Ms Justice Leonie Reynolds had directed Mr Delaney produce an affidavit setting out his co-operation with the inspection process to date.

In it, he denied trying to delay the process.

Mr Delaney said that he did not know how many documents would need to be inspected.

He said he was concerned that his rights may be infringed if he and his lawyers are not given enough time to inspect the documentation and the amount of time allotted to examine the files he said was surprising and disquieting.

Ms Justice Reynolds said the court was anxious that the matter proceeds as soon as possible.

She directed Mr Delaneys lawyers to furnish the ODCE with the number of documents he says are covered by professional legal privilege and a schedule listing those documents by early September.
Srinagar, July 23 : Pakistan targeted civilian areas in Tanghdar sector of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday night injuring one woman, officials said.

According to details, one woman was injured after Pakistan violated ceasefire and targeted civilian areas close to the LoC in Tangdhar sector.

She has been moved to the hospital and her condition is said to be stable.

"Pakistan Army targets civilian villages in forward areas along LoC. Last night, it resulted in bullet injury to a woman of Hajitra village, Tangdhar Sector. The injured lady was rushed to the hospital and is currently stable," army said.
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In a bid to prevent the spread of the coronavirus COVID-19 in Jharkhand, the state government on Wednesday announced a hefty penalty for those violating the lockdown rules.

The Cabinet approved the Jharkhand Contagious Disease Ordinance 2020 under which those who flout the guidelines, implemented to curb the spread of the infection, can face up to two years of jail term and a fine of up to Rs one lakh.

Anyone violating social distancing, not wearing masks in public, flouting guidelines for offices and shops crowd, spitting in public can be booked under the new law. Till now there was no law regarding this.

On bringing the ordinance, Chief Minister Hemant Soren said that there is a provision in the law and sometimes there is a need for strict action from time to time, that is why the government has taken this decision.

Jharkhand Cabinet Secretary Ajay Kumar said that guidelines are being implemented from time to time by the government regarding the lockdown. It is seen that people are negligent in its compliance, but the government is unable to take strict action as there is no Act to punish those who disobey the rules.

In the cabinet meeting, 39 proposals were passed in which many important decisions are taken. The Jharkhand government will encourage state-level toppers by rewarding them. An incentive will be given as a gift to the class X-XII students from Jharkhand Board, CBSE and ICSE boards.

The topper of Class 10 in the state will get Rs 1 lakh, and the student who secured the second position will get Rs 75,000. The topper students in different streams of Class12 will be given Rs Rs 3 lakh each, the students securing the second position will get Rs 2 lakh each and those securing third will be given a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh.
In a pioneering study, a group of international researchers has found that the brain has specific in-house immune cells that help in normal brain development and play a role in certain neurological diseases.

Image Credit: SciePro/Shutterstock.com

The study led by Professor Adrian Liston from Babraham Institute, UK & VIB-KU Leuven, Belgium and other colleagues was published in the journal Cell.

White blood cells  sentinels of the immune system

Detailed functions of white blood cells and their types are known in different parts of the body. The brain is protected by a blood-brain-barrier or the BBB, which prevents infections and other foreign chemicals and compounds from quickly entering the brain.

The white blood cells form a part of the bodys immune system. The cells increase and trigger inflammation to fight off infection, while the BBB stops the immune cells from entering the brain.

The brain has its own immune system sentinel cells called the microglial cells. If the microglial cells become damaged, they increase, trigger inflammation and repair the damaged tissues.

Where do these microglial cells come from?

Studies have shown that during embryonic development, the microglial cells enter and stay in the brain. Their population remains constant as they self-renew during the lifetime of the brain.

White blood cells in brain  what is known?

Several studies have revealed that there is a role of white blood cells in certain neurological diseases such as Alzheimers disease, Parkinsons disease, multiple sclerosis and cerebrovascular accident or stroke.

The researchers explained that there has been no scientific evidence showing the presence of these white blood cells in healthy brains. Therefore, the presence of these cells in a healthy brain has remained controversial.

What was this study about?

This study was a collaborative effort from a team of researchers led by Prof. Adrian Liston. The group sought to clarify the presence and role of white blood cells in developing brains of mice and humans.

A misconception about white blood cells comes from their name. These cells are not limited to the bloodstream, he said. He added, These 'immune cells' are not just present in the blood. They are constantly circulating around our body and enter all of our organs, including - as it turns out - the brain. We are only just starting to discover what white blood cells do when they leave the blood. This research indicates that they act as a go between, transferring information from the rest of the body to the brain environment. Dr Oliver Burton, Babraham Institute

What was done?

For this study, the team studied brain tissues of mice and humans in their labs, looking for a specific type of white blood cells called the T cells.

These T cells are activated when infective microbes are present on cell surfaces, and can trigger an inflammatory and immune response when an infective agent is detected.

There are two main types of T cells  the helper T cells and the killer T cells. In this study, the researchers studied how the T cells entered the brain and how they developed exclusive features that made them brain-resident T cells.

According to Dr. Carlos Roca, co-author of the study from Babraham Institute, Science is becoming increasingly multidisciplinary. Here, we didn't just bring in expertise from immunology, neuroscience and microbiology, but also from computer science and applied mathematics. New approaches for data analysis allow us to reach a much deeper level of understanding of the biology of the white blood cells we found in the brain.

What did they find?

This study quantified the population of T cells in the brain tissues of mice and humans. These were found to be resident T cells in the brain tissues  distinct from what was found elsewhere in the body.

The team showed that the microglial cells, which were supposed to act as immune cells in the brain, did not develop entirely if the T cells were absent in a mices brain. Their features were arrested between fetal and adult stages, the researchers noted. Therefore, these resident T cells were found to play a role in the development of microglial cells in the brain.

The mice that did not have brain T cells also showed behavioral changes, proving that T cells play an essential role in brain development.

In mice, the wave of entry of immune cells at birth triggers a switch in brain development. Humans have a much longer gestation than mice though, and we don't know about the timing of immune cell entry into the brain. Does this occur before birth? Is it delayed until after birth? Did a change in timing of entry contribute to the evolution of enhanced cognitive capacity in humans? Professor Liston

Implications of the study findings

Dr. Emanuela Pasciuto, a co-author of the study from VIB-KU Leuven, said, It has been really exciting to work on this project. We are learning so much about how our immune system can alter our brain, and how our brain modifies our immune system. The two are far more interconnected than we previously thought.

Liston adds that there also seems to be a role played by gut microbes. He added, There are now multiple links between the bacteria in our gut and different neurological conditions, but without any convincing explanations for what connects them. We show that white blood cells are modified by gut bacteria, and then take that information with them into the brain. This could be the route by which our gut microbiome influences the brain.

Researchers conclude that if the role of these immune cells is known in the healthy brain, more could be understood about their role in neurological and neurodegenerative progressive diseases such as Alzheimers, multiple sclerosis and Parkinsons disease.
ST. THOMAS, U.S. Virgin Islands, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Brad's Deals , a team of real people committed to saving shoppers time and money by connecting them with validated online deals and discounts revealed key findings from their new consumer study that looked at current back-to-school shopping behaviors and expectations in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of the parents polled about the back-to-school situation their family finds themselves in due to the pandemic: 44.7% remain uncertain about whether their children will be educated in-person, virtually or via a hybrid of former options in the fall, and 55.7% find it more important to save money this academic year than the previous year.

"Families across the U.S. are still awaiting the excruciating decision by education officials on whether or not they will be sending their children back to school," said Amy Bourne, President and Chief Operating Officer of Brad's Deals. "Parents are trying to prepare, but simply won't know which supplies their children need until these decisions are made. Brad's Deals is here to assist parents by providing a wide range of product deals that will help them shop smarter and save money, no matter what learning situation they find their family in."

Other insights from those polled included:

66.3% expect to spend up to $300 on school supplies and uniforms.

expect to spend up to on school supplies and uniforms. 64.8% plan to shop e-commerce stores and deal websites rather than in store.

plan to shop e-commerce stores and deal websites rather than in store. 81.3% are shopping for supplies before school starts.

are shopping for supplies before school starts. 79.1% cite free shipping offers are of more importance than in 2019-2020.

cite free shipping offers are of more importance than in 2019-2020. 73.6% opt for laptops to assist with virtual school needs over tablets, desktops.

With help from the survey findings, Brad's Deals is currently featuring a large variety of discounts in its annual 'Smart Savings for School' shopping guide on brands such as Apple, Nike, Under Armour, JanSport and Crayola, and across multiple product categories including apparel, electronics, dorm decor and supplies. All prices are subject to change, available for a limited time, and while supplies last.

About the Survey

The nationwide survey, conducted by Brad's Deals in July 2020, consisted of an online survey of 450 families. The margin of error was +/- 5.0 percent.

About Brad's Deals

Brad's Deals is a team of real people committed to saving shoppers time and money by connecting them with validated online deals and discounts. Since 2001 the company's mission has been to create the consumer advantage and provide users with an honest and transparent shopping experience, helping them to make the best choices. This commitment to value has saved consumers more than $200 million annually. Learn more at bradsdeals.com or follow us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram , Pinterest and LinkedIn .

Media Contact:

Molly LeCronier

[email protected]

917-282-4613

SOURCE Brad's Deals

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Jaguar Land Rover and the University of Cambridge are working on new touchscreen technology that eliminates the need to touch the screen. Counterintuitive, right? Its called predictive touch for now, in part because the system is able to predict what you might be aiming for on the screen.

The video at the top of this post is the best way to understand how users will interact with the tech, but well do some more explaining here. You simply reach out with your finger pointing toward the item on screen that you want to select. Itll highlight the item and then select it.

Heres how it works, according to the University of Cambridge: The technology uses machine intelligence to determine the item the user intends to select on the screen early in the pointing task, speeding up the interaction. It uses a gesture tracker, including vision-based or radio frequency-based sensors, which are increasingly common in consumer electronics; contextual information such as user profile, interface design, environmental conditions; and data available from other sensors, such as an eye-gaze tracker, to infer the users intent in real time.

Cambridge claims that lab tests showed a 50 percent reduction in both effort and time by the driver in using the screen, which would theoretically translate to more time looking at the road and less time jabbing away at the screen. If the prediction and machine learning tech is good enough, we could see this resulting in a reduced number of accidental inputs. However, on a certain level it almost sounds more difficult to point at a screen while moving than it does to actually touch a section of that screen. Without using the tech and its supposedly great predictive abilities, we cant come to any grand conclusions.

One comparison you may already be thinking of is BMWs Gesture Controls. Its already been addressed with a subtle diss from Cambridge:

Our technology has numerous advantages over more basic mid-air interaction techniques or conventional gesture recognition, because it supports intuitive interactions with legacy interface designs and doesnt require any learning on the part of the user, said Dr Bashar Ahmad of the University of Cambridge.

Story continues

Of course, this tech can be used for much more than just vehicle touchscreen control. Cambridge says it could be integrated into ATMs, airport check-in kiosks, grocery store self checkouts and more. In a world where were all paranoid about touching things, touchless interactions are sounding increasingly ideal.

According to the University of Cambridges press release, the software has reached high technology readiness levels. Basically, if Jaguar Land Rover wanted to integrate it into cars soon, it could. Existing touchscreens and interactive displays work with the tech, so it probably wont be terribly long until this hits the market.

Related video:



Click here to See Video >>

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The controversial Narrabri gas project enters the final stages of approval with more than 400 people presenting to the Independent Planning Commission, which will determine its fate. It is the most hotly contested resource project in NSW's history. Of more than 23,000 submissions, 98 per cent object.

Protesters opposing Santos' Narrabri gas project. Credit:Dean Sewell

While I was queueing up to be heard on Thursday afternoon, there was another queue forming. Liquefied Natural Gas tankers in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans are motoring in circles while they wait to find a market for their unwanted product. Gas is currently being almost given away on international markets.

The very last thing the world needs is more gas. Far from seeing the gas-powered recovery our politicians desire, we are seeing a gas-fired depression around the globe. In the US, the number of operating drill rigs has fallen 73 per cent in the past 12 months. And US LNG exports have more than halved so far in 2020. Deloitte estimates that almost a third of US shale producers are technically insolvent at current oil prices.

Domestically, the industry is faring little better. On Tuesday, Santos, the proponent of the Narrabri gas project, wrote off a further $950 million from its failed Coal Seam Gas to Liquefied Natural investments in Australia. Its total writedowns since 2014 are close to $8 billion.
These incredible images show off just what can be done using the camera on a smartphone.

All of the snaps were entered into this years iPhone Photography Awards, in the 13th year of the contest.

Submissions came from all over the world, and were entered into 18 categories including landscape, panorama and animals.

MORE: Nine people arrested as Liverpool fans gather outside Anfield

Dozens of winning photographs show the wonder and variety of the world  from vast landscapes to city streets to areas of remote isolation.

Photos entered into the competition are not allowed to be published anywhere other than on social media.

MORE: Lockdown-inspired Shed of the Year 2020 finalists

The overall winner of the contest came from UK entrant Dimpy Bhalotia for her image Flying Boys, which was taken on an iPhone X in Banaras, India.

Here is just a snapshot of some of the best photos in the competition.
By Dave Goldiner | New York Daily News

His "sorry" didn't cut it.

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday shot down Congressman Ted Yoho's apology for calling her a "f---ing b--ch" after a spat on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

"Yoho is refusing responsibility," the New York Democrat wrote on Twitter. "This is not an apology."

Ocasio-Cortez, who trolled the Florida Republican a day earlier by saying "b--ches get stuff done," trashed him for failing to even mention her name in his speech.

The conservative lawmaker went on the floor of the House of Representatives to apologize "for the abrupt manner of the conversation I had with my colleague from New York."

"It is true that we disagree on policies and visions for America but that does not mean we should be disrespectful," Yoho said.

Even as he said he was sorry, Yoho claimed he's very conscious of the dangers of "offensive name-calling."

"Having been married for 45 years with two daughters, I'm very cognizant of my language," he said.

He suggested he wasn't referring to AOC when he uttered the misogynistic epithet seconds after walking away from the argument.

"The words attributed to me by the press were never spoken to my colleagues," Yoho said.

Yoho faced off with Ocasio-Cortez Monday and called her "disgusting" for suggesting that a recent spike in New York City crime could be attributed to hungry parents shoplifting food for their families.

Ocasio-Cortez reportedly fired back by calling Yoho "rude." That's when the Florida lawmaker stalked off. A reporter overheard him use the foul language.

Yoho was immediately hit with a wave of criticism and calls for an apology.

Several male colleagues posted their agreement with Ocasio-Cortezs stance on crime, and noted Yoho hadnt seen fit to confront them about it.
A free, downloadable poster, designed by Shepard Fairey's Studio Number One and Camilla Lonis, is part of the city's new L.A. Mask Print Project. (Studio Number One)

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcettis latest weapon against COVID-19? Art.

On Wednesday, Garcetti announced a new initiative called the L.A. Mask Print Project, in which L.A. County artists can submit designs for posters bearing the public health message of the moment: Wear a mask. Posters chosen for the citys coronavirus website can be downloaded for free, and Garcetti is encouraging local businesses and residents to display them.

Wearing a mask is critical to helping us stop the spread of this virus, safely reopen our city and save lives, Garcetti said in an email to The Times. And we need to use every tool at our disposal to deliver this message across Los Angeles, throughout our country and around the world.

Shepard Faireys Studio Number One designed the first three posters in the program pro bono. They feature vivid illustrations, and each design is available in English and Spanish. Garcetti unveiled the first one on Friday, a poster created by graphic designer Camilla Lonis that says Protect & Respect above the face of a mask-clad woman against a luminous pink and orange sky.

Garcetti revealed the other two Studio Number One posters, also by Lonis, on Wednesday.

Mayor Garcetti revealed this poster, designed by Camilla Lonis of Shepard Fairey's Studio Number One, on Wednesday. It's part of the city's new L.A. Mask Print Project. (Courtesy, Studio Number One)

California now has more than 400,000 COVID-19 cases, and L.A. County remains a hot spot for the virus. Garcetti has warned of a possible second stay-at-home order for the city.

Considering that 69% of the states confirmed COVID-19 cases have been among those age 49 and younger, the new art initiative is seen as another way to bring an important message to a key group. Work by the likes of Fairey, who created the famed Hope poster for Barack Obamas 2008 presidential campaign, gives the L.A. Mask Print Project a degree of street cred that might appeal to young people.

Tapping into our citys trademark artistic talent, Garcetti said, gives us a creative way to meet that mission and engage younger individuals who are increasingly becoming infected and spreading this lethal disease.

Story continues

Mayor Garcetti revealed this poster, designed by Camilla Lonis of Shepard Fairey's Studio Number One, on Wednesday. (Studio Number One)

Fairey incorporates civic participation and social responsibility in his art and encourages it in the culture of his design studio, "so partnering with the city of L.A. to encourage mask wearing was logical for us," the artist said by email. "The art and design were donated because we think the pandemic, and often democracy itself, call for a contribution to the greater good.

Fairey has been active throughout the pandemic. He made an image for Adobes Honor Heroes poster series, propping up healthcare and other essential workers. Hes worked on a COVID-19 campaign, Angel of Hope and Strength, with Amplifier, a self-described design lab that builds art to amplify the voices of grassroots movements.

Fighting the virus with art means creating messaging about mask-wearing that's clear and engaging, Christopher Hawthorne, the city's chief design officer and former Times architecture critic, said in a statement. "And who better to help us in that effort than the city's artists and designers?"

Artists who would like to contribute to the L.A. Mask Print Project can email garcetti.reply@lacity.org for more information.

Fairey put a fine point on the issue, adding in the statement that wearing masks was, simply, a sign of respect and selflessness.

Times staff writer Sonaiya Kelley contributed to this story.
The demands facing hundreds of thousands of college students as they ramp up for the fall semester in Texas are numerous while the coronavirus rages on. Social distancing. Face covering requirements. Reducing capacity of in-person classes.

But with campuses that are as big as some cities the most difficult challenge will likely be one that the nation has grappled with since the pandemic began: testing.

Colleges and universities across Texas and the region are offering a mix of in-person, online and hybrid classes this fall. One of the key elements on any reopening plan that includes on campus interaction is testing for coronavirus.

Rice University in Houston plans to do random weekly screening for a portion of the colleges community, according to its website. And upon arrival, undergraduate students will be tested in a free two-step process. Rice has contracted 60,000 tests for the fall semester.

The Texas A&M system will send about 15,000 tests kits to its 11 college campuses each month and will have a central location for free testing for students, faculty and staff, officials said.

A&Ms testing, which will be conducted using mouth swabs, will require an online registration and sign-up. The systems more than 151,000 students and 25,000 faculty are encouraged to get tested if they experience COVID-19 symptoms, or suspect that they have been exposed to someone with COVID-19.

Ensuring the health and safety of our students is our top priority, said John Sharp, Texas A&M chancellor.

Baylor University in Waco will require students and faculty returning this fall to produce negative results for a COVID-19 test and will mail out more than 18,000 tests directly to them starting next week, according to the university website and spokeswoman Lori Fogleman.

The self-administered PCR test kits, a nasal swab test which Baylor refers to as the gold standard for testing, will include instructions with a video on how to collect the sample and packaging for overnight shipping. Students are required to send their nasal swab sample to the lab the same day as the test kit is received.

Students will receive their results through email and test notification in one to two days. If they test positive, students can return to campus 10 days after they test positive.

Baylor will also continue to conduct surveillance testing of students throughout the semester and will test symptomatic students through its on-campus health center.

Rice is similarly requesting that students be tested for COVID-19 at home and receive results before returning to campus. Those who test positive should stay home, Rice officials said.

But routine testing for larger campuses such as Texas A&Ms flagship, which has nearly 70,000 students, can be difficult, expensive and impractical, as testing only captures a small snapshot in time, said Gerald Parker, an infectious disease expert and director of the biosecurity and pandemic policy program at A&Ms Bush School of Government and Public Service.

You and I can be tested tomorrow, and tomorrow or in two days, we could test positive, so making it a requirement to test everybody as they come back to school doesnt make a lot of sense, Parker said.

But he added there are other effective ways to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19: focusing on testing the symptomatic, contact tracing to identify those who have come in close contact with positive cases, and active public health monitoring in order to protect people who are at-risk and most vulnerable.

The cost of testing

Testing on a large scale comes at a cost.

The free tests offered by A&M, for example, cost the system $150 each  ringing up an estimated $2.25 million monthly. Officials have already set aside about $16 million for testing, which could be offset by a possible 75 percent reimbursement through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Still, officials are encouraging those with insurance to get tested with their doctors.

Sharp negotiated a deal with California-based testing company Curative Inc., which has committed to producing lab results within 30 hours of receiving samples. The company currently processes more than 55,000 tests a day and has released more than 1.2 million test results.

The University of Texas at Austin, which will also require its students to self-quarantine ahead of their return to campus, plans to provide daily symptom screenings and testing for the virus but at a cost. UT-Austins Health Services will charge $88 for tests for the virus and $53 for antibody tests, which indicate whether a person has already been infected, according to its website. Insurance may cover all or some of the cost.

And at Rice, students who test positive will be placed in isolated housing in the universitys Sid Richardson College or will be required to self-quarantine in their living space. All non-quarantining students in on-campus living spaces that share a bathroom with a person who has tested positive will be moved to a nearby hotel at no cost to students, Rice officials said.

Even with all of the precautions, asymptomatic cases prevalent among younger populations can make curbing the spread more difficult, which could be a motive for health officials to implement a sampling system of students to identify where there may be unrecognized cases, Parker said.

The University of Houston is working to provide on-campus testing for students and employees who are symptomatic, with a 24-hour or less turnaround time for results, said UH spokeswoman Shawn Lindsey. The university plans to have onsite testing at its student health center in October, which would test 40 to 50 people daily with results in about an hour. Until then, testing will be outsourced to a lab that will provide results within a day.

COVID-19 testing at UH will be provided at no cost to employees and students who have the colleges student health insurance, Lindsey said .

The cost for those who do not have health insurance has not been determined, but UH is exploring federal reimbursement options.

Other approaches

Universities are considering other novel approaches to identify COVID-19 and curb the spread, Parker said. This includes monitoring wastewater for signs of the virus and active testing surveillance technology.

Clear communication about the virus and safety protocols could use improvement as some states, including Texas, experience surges in cases, Parker said.

We havent done a good job in communication on all levels, said Parker, adding that there has been some mixed messages about how to curb the spread of the virus, including the guidelines on social gatherings, facial coverings and avoiding large gatherings.

It gets confusing. As our knowledge of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 itself has changed, it would have been better early on if we said, Hey, theres a lot we dont know about this yet, and we are going to learn a lot as we go through this pandemic, Parker said.

brittany.britto@chron.com
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The U.S. government's request to close the Chinese Consulate General in Houston is "a political provocation," and "an outrageous and unjustified move which sabotages China-U.S. relations," said the Chinese embassy in the United States on Wednesday.

"The U.S. abruptly demanded that the Chinese Consulate-General in Houston cease all operations and events within a time limit. It is a political provocation unilaterally launched by the U.S. side, which seriously violates international law, basic norms governing international relations and the bilateral consular agreement between China and the U.S.," said the embassy in a statement.

"China strongly condemns and firmly opposes such an outrageous and unjustified move which sabotages China-U.S. relations," the embassy said, noting that China is committed to the principle of non-interference in other countries' domestic affairs.

Over the years, Chinese diplomatic missions in the United States, including the Consulate General in Houston, have been performing duties in strict accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, and are dedicated to promoting China-U.S. exchanges and cooperation and advancing the two peoples' mutual understanding and friendship, it said.

"The U.S. accusations are groundless fabrications, and the excuses it cites are far-fetched and untenable. For the U.S. side, if it is bent on attacking China, it will never be short of excuses," it said.

As for reciprocity, China has been providing facilitation for U.S. diplomatic missions and personnel pursuant to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the embassy said.

"In contrast, the U.S. imposed unjustified restrictions on Chinese diplomatic personnel last October and in June, unscrupulously and repeatedly opened China's diplomatic pouches and seized China's official goods," it said.

"Because of the willful and reckless stigmatization and fanning up of hatred by the U.S. side, the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. has received threats to the safety and security of Chinese diplomatic missions and personnel more than once," it said.

The U.S. side has more diplomatic and consular missions and personnel in China than China has in the United States, another area where the principle of reciprocity is not reflected. "The move of the U.S. side will only backfire on itself," said the embassy.

"We urge the U.S. side to immediately revoke this erroneous decision. Otherwise, China will have to respond with legitimate and necessary actions," it said.
TAMPA, FL  JULY 16: Middle school teacher Brittany Myers, stands in protest in front of the Hillsborough County Schools District Office on July 16, 2020 in Tampa, Florida. Teachers and administrators from Hillsborough County Schools rallied against the reopening of schools due to health and safety concerns amid the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Octavio Jones/Getty Images)

Its late July and across the country, tense conversations are taking place between teachers, parents, politicians, and state officials about reopening public schools. Coronavirus cases are spiking across the country, especially in states like Arizona, Florida, Texas, California, and Mississippi, and as reopening plans nevertheless push forward, theres real fear that its only going to get worse. For teachers, this means coming to grips with the reality that they may be forced to re-enter the classroom before case numbers significantly decrease in their cities and states. Some are so scared of this that theyre working on their wills in preparation.

To get a better sense of what teachers are going through right now and what we can do to support them, we spoke to Katrina, a high school algebra teacher in Texas, who also has a son in high school, and is the president of her local teachers union chapter. A few hours after we spoke, her school board officially approved a request from teachers for the first eight weeks back to be online. Shes relieved, but she also knows that schools like hers are under significant pressure  from parents desperate for respite as well as local and national leaders, including President Trump  to resume in-person learning ASAP. In fact, Trump has even threatened to cut funding for schools that dont fully resume in the fall. And while she says she wants to be back in the classroom with her students, shes concerned about getting sick, or bringing the virus home to her family, and shes not sure how plans for social distancing or mask-wearing will play out in the reality of the school day.

Refinery29: What grade and subject do you teach, and how long have you been teaching for?

Katrina: This year, Im going to be teaching 11th and 12th graders. Ill be teaching Algebra II and Advanced Quantitative Reasoning. And Ive been teaching since 2012. I specialize in teaching students from other countries.

Story continues

Texas schools are slated to re-open at the end of August, right?

Yes, thats when were supposed to. Texas law doesnt allow you to start earlier than the fourth Monday of August.

How are you feeling about the prospect of going back? Do you think, given the coronavirus numbers in the state, that it makes sense to head back to the classroom right now?

Well, given the numbers in the state now, it makes no sense to come back. There are too many people getting sick. And all of the people that keep on talking about how kids dont transmit this  well, most of us have been keeping our kids home. Thats why theyre not transmitting it. I have my own son and he doesnt go out  hes pretty much been homebound since March, unless we really need to go out, and even then, normally he stays home. Its not a comfortable thing to put your kid at risk. And even if the kids do have a less likely chance of transmitting it, the teachers and employees dont. They can still get it and they will die from it. They can still transmit it. And the kids can still bring it home to their guardians, to their families, to their friends. Its just a circle that doesnt need to happen. A lot of people are saying well, you know, you still go to Home Depot. Sure, but you dont stay there for eight hours. And my school has about 3,400 students, and about 300 to 400 employees. Thats not the type of situation you want to put yourself in. And theyre asking us to do that.

Do you know what kind of measures theyre planning to put in place to make it safer once you do go back?

I know they are purchasing PPE for us. They are trying to put plexiglass wherever possible. They are doing temperature scanners kids getting on the bus and kids entering the schools. I think that theyre going to try and do these six feet [apart] desks, but they havent put that out yet because theyre still trying to figure all of that out, if its even plausible.

Also, well have the first eight weeks online  I know our superintendent doesnt want to go back until our county is down to a Stage 2. But its up to the Texas Education Agency if well still get funding if we wait until Stage 2. So thats another issue, weve got to figure out how to get our funding. Because its not just Trump, our governor [Greg Abbott] also said that. I mean, it starts with [Trump]. But theyre trying to have accountability for us to teach our students, and I mean, I would personally prefer to be in my classroom with my students. But I also dont want to bring home something to my family that could kill one of us.

[In a statement to Refinery29, a representative for the Texas Education Agency said: Please see the press release issued last week detailing new reopening guidance, including a local option for a remote-only start to the 2020-2021 academic year. The press release coincides with revised public health guidelines that provide a framework for students, teachers, and staff to safely return to school campuses for daily, in-person instruction.]

It might be a little easier with high school students than with younger kids, but do you think it will be possible to get students to social distance, or commit to wearing a mask for eight hours a day? How do you think that will work?

Honestly, I think it depends on their parents. If their parents instill that in them at home, then I dont see it being a problem. If their parents dont instill it in them at home, then I see it being a fight. And I mean, kids are kids. Youre happy to see your friends. You dont want to sit six feet away from someone all day long. Its part of being human. You want to touch and talk, you want to give someone a hug. I can see them possibly doing it for a little bit  two, three days  but then you get used to being back in school, to doing whatever you want, and I see it going downhill pretty quickly.

Are you concerned that, for some of the kids youre working with, theyre getting very different messaging at home about things like wearing a mask?

Yeah. Like, oh its not that big of a deal. But, you know, one of my co-workers husbands just died earlier this week, and another co-workers dad just died earlier this week. Its something thats coming and its getting worse.

When state officials and other decision-makers are having conversations about re-opening, have teachers been involved?

Im the president of my union, and weve been fighting all summer long. We meet monthly with the superintendent and her board, letting them know exactly what we think needs to be done. Weve done everything we can to fight this idea of going back.

I know in some states, teachers with health conditions are being allowed to stay remote, even if their schools are reopening. Is that the case in Texas?

I think it is, but thats with a whole bunch of caveats. I havent heard of anybody trying to set that up yet [in my area]. And if they are, its going to be a long process  I know one of the other presidents of another area union, he has health issues, as does his wife, and its a long process. Its definitely causing  [theres a lot of questions like], Well how are you going to do your duty? Are you going to make someone else do your duty for you? Theyre having to work out, not just how to teach or how to counsel (one of them is a counselor), but how are you going to do everything else youre supposed to do while youre here on this campus? Youve got to have a really good case. You need to know your contract inside and out so you can fight it correctly.

Ive seen some news reports of teachers making end of life plans prior to the start of school, because theyre afraid of getting sick at school. Is that something youve heard of, or considered for yourself?

I do have a lot of friends who have been doing their wills. Honestly, I dont want to, because I dont want to think that could happen. I just dont want to worry about that. I know it possibly could. But I have my husband, so he would have to take care of stuff anyway. If I were a single mom, I would definitely be doing that. But since I have my spouse, Im not as worried about filling out my will. But I have considered writing letters to my children. Like, if something happens to me, that type of stuff.

Im sure there are many, but whats your biggest concern about going back?

Getting my son sick. He has asthma and that puts him at a high risk. If Im talking about a school concern, what causes me the most stress is how am I going to successfully teach these students? Because, I mean, Maslows Hierarchy of Needs: You need to feel secure. You need to be safe. You need to be fed. All these things that the students need. And, right now, learning my material is not at the top of what they need. So how do we make sure that the kids are taken care of enough so that they can learn this material so they can move on? Thats what keeps me up at night.

Do you know people who are leaving or talking about leaving the teaching profession?

A lot of people are just finding other jobs, or trying to. Im trying to convince them not to, Im not sure if its working. One of our [union] members was talking to me and was saying, I feel like Im being held hostage. Like I either go to work or I get penalized. And I dont like this feeling of, you have to do this, you could die, but we dont care. Ive done my best to talk people out of leaving. But, I mean, its a personal decision. I tell the school board or the superintendent whats going on, and I told the president of the school board whats going on. So theyre aware that weve got this issue. But its hard to move because the Texas Education Agency comes out with something new almost every two days. They change their minds. So how are you supposed to make plans when every two days it changes? Its been going like this for at least a month, maybe two months, where theres this constant change. It could be so much simpler if they left it up to the school district to be smart with their communities, to figure out how best to serve their community and just do it instead of having these constant changing regulations that they need to abide by.

Is there something you wish more people understood about what its like to be a teacher right now?

That we get paid and we dont have to work over the summer. Thats not true. We give the school district permission to hold that part of our money so we can get paid over the summer. We love our students. Were in it for the kids. And I told my students before, like when we do the drills for if theres an active shooter and theyre like, well, what would happen if someone came in? I say, theyd have to get past me. Theyre like, really? And Im like yes, I will die for you guys gladly if somebody is in here trying to kill you guys. I will get in the middle of it. You guys dont have to worry about that. But this isnt like a bullet. This is a virus that can take out my entire class. It can take out all of my colleagues. Its different than an active shooter. I cant train and teach my kids how to stay away from this all the time. Fear keeps kids safer. When theres an active shooter, when youre doing these drills, the fear keeps them quiet. The fear keeps them to the side. But the fear of something that you cant see, its just intangible. And it is hard for them to understand unless theyre taught it. And you get taught that at home. We want to be with our students. We want to be able to teach them correctly. We want to keep them safe. And we want to be able to identify, you know, disabilities that they might have, or food insecurities, or if theyre being abused, we want to help them get away from that. But we want to make sure its safe for them and for us. And I just wish people understood that. Were not hospital workers, were not doctors, were not nurses. We came into this to teach the future generations to be doctors and nurses, not to be the ones on deaths doorstep.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 22:01:58|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- China will step up efforts to advance the construction of battery swap infrastructure in the latest move to promote quality growth of the new-energy vehicle (NEV) sector, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said Thursday.

The battery swap mode will be piloted in regions including Beijing and Hainan, Xin Guobin, vice minister of MIIT, told a press conference.

Leading the world in NEV output and sales in the past five years, China has built 38,000 battery charging stations, 449 battery swap stations, and 1.3 million charging poles, MIIT data shows.

Despite its rapid expansion, the sector lacks strong core technologies and charging convenience, he said.

The battery swap mode, conducive to extending the life of batteries, will help enhance safety and lower costs for NEV buyers, according to Xin.

Enterprises are also encouraged to develop new battery charging and swapping technologies, according to the MIIT. Enditem
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- With over 720,000 confirmed cases across Africa, COVID-19 has already claimed almost 16,000 lives. In their efforts to reduce the devastating impact of the disease, several national authorities have partnered with leading technology and innovation company KC Wearable to use company's KC N901 Smart Helmet.

The helmet can detect fevers, the most prevalent COVID-19 symptom, with 96% accuracy. South Africa was the first African country to use the helmet following a surge in cases last month and it is already being used in airports and logistics hubs across Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg. Authorities in Algeria, Egypt and Gabon are now also using the smart helmet, as they look to better protect their populations and avoid further escalation of the pandemic.

Beyond Africa, the helmet is already being used in over 35 countries, including Indonesia, the UAE, Italy, Netherlands, Kuwait, Chile, and Turkey. KC Wearable has partnered with national authorities and major transport hubs such as airports, as well as schools and hospitals, to detect COVID-19 symptoms in a range of settings.

With the ability to screen the temperatures of up to 200 people a minute, the helmet offers a quick and accurate alternative to traditional thermal cameras. The wearable headset improves the efficiency and flexibility of COVID-19 screening.

Powered by sophisticated facial recognition technology and an infrared camera, the helmet visor's thermo-scan sensors show the temperature of people within a seven-metre radius and has the potential to link up to other data on COVID-19 tracking apps. The device stores all data itself with a 64GB internal memory.

Dr Jie Guo, global head of KC Wearable, said: "Our mission has always been to do everything possible to reduce the spread of this life-threatening disease, as well as the devastating impact that it is having on societies across the globe. We have already partnered with countries in Europe, Asia and South America and seen positive results. We have also been working in South Africa, which has experienced great difficulty in controlling the rapid proliferation of COVID-19 since March. Working with authorities in South Africa, we aimed to bring some relief to the country's citizens by complementing the government's preventative measures. We want to help other African countries too, as the infection rate continues to grow across the continent. With a high fever being a common COVID-19 symptom, the KC N901 Smart Helmet is a quick, efficient and accurate way of identifying potential cases."

Bradford Wood, Detection Handler at K9 Law Enforcement, a security company contracted by the South African authorities, said: "We are excited about what the KC N901 Smart Helmet has to offer as an additional temperature screening and security device in South Africa's continued efforts to reduce the spread of COVID-19 amongst citizens. Working with the country's main airports, including in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town, the helmet has proved vital in helping us detect and subsequently prevent outbreaks from domestic and international flights. The advanced technology and mass screening functionality of the helmets are crucial as the South African economy strives to return to normality."

Jeremy Capouya, Founder and CEO, Granule Holdings, added: "South Africa is known for the informal settlement lifestyle and close proximity living in townships where the risk of infection is extremely high. Which makes the KC N901 Smart Helmet particularly important to South Africa because of the ability to do rapid mass screening both indoors and outdoors. Further, most of the workforce in South Africa rely heavily on public transportation where taxi ranks naturally have mass gatherings. With the urgent need to resume economic activity we need to ensure that there are measures in place to help identify and stop the spread of COVID-19."

To find out more about the KC N901 Smart Helmet, please visit the following website: https://www.kcwearable.com/enpc/index.html.

About KC Wearable

KC Wearable, is a company with a passion to innovate. Founded by five colleagues with postgraduate degrees from top universities, KC Wearable has operations in many different high-technology industries including aerospace, communications, artificial intelligence and more.

Over the course of several years, they have built a global community of innovation that has one clear purpose: making the world better for all people. They have brought together companies and technologies across the globe from many different industries who share ideas, technology and vision to achieve this and through our co-operation, they have been able to achieve extraordinary goals ranging from providing connectivity to millions in Southeast Asia to directly saving lives in China.

For more information, please visit https://www.kcwearable.com/enpc/index.html.

SOURCE KC Wearable
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Lee Rosbach is honoring his late son and raising awareness for the ongoing opioid crisis.

The Below Deck Captain spoke to People, on Wednesday, to mark the year anniversary of his son Joshua's death by an accidental opioid overdose,

Still grieving the death of his 42-year-old son, Rosbach said 'There's a hole there that will never be filled. The person that said time heals all wounds is full of s**t. It really doesn't.'

Grieving: Below Deck's Lee Rosbach spoke to People, on Wednesday, to mark the year anniversary of his son Joshua's death by an accidental opioid overdose (pictured for season 6 in 2019)

'I don't really know how I'm feeling,' the reality TV star said. 'It's difficult to put into words.'

Adding: 'Because it's such  we're not wired to do this at all. It's not something that's supposed to happen to you. We're wired in the opposite way. We're supposed to die before our children do.'

On July 22, 2019, Josh died of an accidental overdose after battling addiction for 20 years, and now his father is working to raise awareness of the ongoing crisis as it continues to plague families across the country.

'You might get better coping with it, but it never goes away,' Rosbach said. 'It's never out of your mind. It's always there. There are some 200 kids a day that die from this, and we just don't do a damn thing about it.'

RIP: On July 22, 2019, Josh died of an accidental overdose after battling addiction for 20 years, and now his father is working to raise awareness of the ongoing crisis as it continues to plague families across the country

Loss: Still grieving the death of his 42-year-old son, Rosbach said 'There's a hole there that will never be filled. The person that said time heals all wounds is full of s**t. It really doesn't' (pictured in 2018)

Josh's surviving family include his father, mother Mary Anne, four sisters and brothers, nieces and nephews are continuing to honor him and help others who are facing the same addiction battle.

Rocbach and his wife mange a scholarship in Josh's name at the Awaken Recovery Center in Greenacres, Florida, providing free in-house treatment for as long as needed.

Speaking on the scholarship, Rosbach said that a generous donor reached out to donate the scholarship.

'Somebody [at the rehab center] got in touch with me because they wanted to donate a scholarship in Josh's name for a person that was deserving and in need of that,' he said. 'It was a full scholarship; everything was paid for and there was no timeline.'

Crisis: 'You might get better coping with it, but it never goes away,' Rosbach said. 'It's never out of your mind. It's always there. There are some 200 kids a day that die from this, and we just don't do a damn thing about it' (Lee and Josh at an unknown date)

Love: The ship Captain, 70, also took to Instagram to honor his son on the anniversary of his death and thanked fans for 'unconditional support'

Adding: 'It was a nice way to honor Josh's memory. Something good that happened for someone in Josh's position. It felt good and still does.'

The ship Captain, 70, also took to Instagram to honor his son on the anniversary of his death and thanked fans for 'unconditional support.'

'The struggle continues, but we're getting thru it,' Alongside a photo of Josh he wrote. 'Josh, we will always carry you in our hearts and will do so until our souls leave our bodies to join you. We love you son and are very proud of the kind and loving person you were. '

Surviving: Josh's surviving family include his father, mother Mary Anne, four sisters and brothers, nieces and nephews are continuing to honor him and help others who are facing the same addiction battle (with Mary Anne in 2016)

New ring: In a separate post, he also revealed he and Mary Anne, removed the stone at the center of her wedding ring, replacing it with a heart filled with some of Josh's ashes and reading his name across it

Of the support he said 'it does not go unnoticed and touches me in the very depths of my soul. We are both very grateful for the random acts of love and kindness that continue to come our way.'

In a separate post, he also revealed he and Mary Anne, removed the stone at the center of her wedding ring, replacing it with a heart filled with some of Josh's ashes and reading his name across it.

'This way Mary Anne can keep a part of him with her always,' he wrote.
At least 20 Hertz customers are accusing the company of wrongly reporting that they stole rental cars.

In a lawsuit filed in a Delaware state court shortly before Hertz requested Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May, the accusers claim they were falsely arrested, and in some cases jailed, because of the unlawful way Hertz reports rental vehicle thefts to local authorities.

The plaintiffs are suing Hertz, former and current executives, directors and certain investors for "dishonestly and maliciously turning potential civil disputes" into criminal theft reports and prosecutions.

Layoffs: 1.4M workers file for unemployment as COVID-19 surges

Delayed again: AMC Theatres reopening postponed, movies on hold during COVID-19

Claims include false imprisonment, negligence, malicious abuse of process and prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Among the defendants are three of Hertz's former CEOs, as well as current CEO Paul Stone, and five companies tied to billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who sold his 39% stake in Hertz at a loss of nearly $2 billion in May.

The accusers say Hertz has a pattern of wrongly reporting vehicles stolen because of its "broken computer systems" and that the company has ignored the problems for years, said Francis Alexander Malofiy, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, based in Pennsylvania.

"Hertz's policies, procedures and practices disproportionately condemn poor minorities to prison and prosecution, while presuming their guilt. Many of these innocent individuals  lacking money and access to effective legal services  remain wrongfully imprisoned for months as their cases slowly wind their way through the courts," Malofiy said in court filings.

Paul Stone, new CEO and president of Hertz Global Holdings.

When asked about the suit, Hertz spokeswoman Lauren Luster provided a company statement defending its rental car fleet's actions.

In the statement, the company said it has "extensively reviewed the lawsuit and strongly disputes the claims."

Story continues

"We have compiled significant evidence and will vigorously defend our case in court," Hertz said. "The vast majority of the claims involve renters whose arrests resulted from their failure to return rented vehicles for weeks past their due date, in violation of the rental agreement and despite our repeated attempts to communicate with them about the status of the vehicle."

Malofiy disagrees, saying his clients are innocent victims of Hertz's bad practices, which are no secret to the company.

"They know what they are doing," he said of the company in a phone interview. "They know what they're doing is wrong."

Hertz rental cars pack Hertz Arena on Wednesday, April 16, 2020. With so many cars not being rented because of the COVID-19 pandemic and Hertz arena not being used, the space became a perfect spot to store vehicles.

Growing complaints

Since filing the suit, Malofiy said he's received numerous calls from others who claim they were falsely arrested and put in jail because Hertz wrongly reported their rental vehicles stolen.

As word continues to spread about the suit, the number of plaintiffs joining it could easily double, he said.

The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory damages for everything from lost jobs and wages to mental and emotional stress. They're also asking for punitive damages.

This isn't the first time Hertz, which operates the Hertz, Dollar and Thrifty brands, has faced a lawsuit over its rental car theft reporting practices. The first cases surfaced more than five years ago.

Hertz has successfully defended itself in some of the previous cases, while it's lost or settled others.

Attorney Francis Malofiy

Since 2016, Malofiy has represented individual customers in false theft suits against Hertz. In the first case, a jury awarded a plaintiff in Philadelphia $100,000 in compensatory damages based on her claims of wrongful arrest for grand theft auto  a felony  and unnecessarily spending 12 days in jail. Shortly after the award, the dueling sides reached a settlement, with "no admission of wrongdoing,"

according to court filings.

False arrests, Malofiy said, occur because Hertz's computer systems generate inaccurate payment information, delete details on rental extensions and destroy other vital renter information  and the company fails to verify or double-check their theft packages before filing them with local authorities.

Hertz rental cars pack Hertz Arena on Wednesday, April 16, 2020. With so many cars not being rented because of the COVID-19 pandemic and Hertz arena not being used, the space became a perfect spot to store vehicles.

'Utterly baffled'

Plaintiffs in the mass tort include Shontrell Higgs, who lives in Miramar, Florida, and was prosecuted in Broward County. In the complaint, she alleges she spent more than 170 days in jail "solely as a result of Hertzs false police report."

When officers showed up to arrest Higgs while she was getting takeout with her godmother at a Little Caesars restaurant in April of last year, she claims she was "utterly baffled."

"It was a shock to me," she said in a phone interview. "I knew I had paid for the car. I thought it was a joke at first."

Shontrell Higgs

Hertz's theft report included nothing about the company extending her rental agreement or her contacting the company to provide a new credit card to cover the additional costs, Malofiy said, putting her at a big disadvantage in trying to defend herself.

Higgs stayed in jail for 37 days until her first court hearing, separated from her fiance and two children. When her public defender told her at that hearing that she had to plead no contest or spend another four months behind bars waiting for another hearing, Higgs said she agreed to take the pre-arranged deal, allowing her to go home.

"Honestly, if they asked me to paint the courthouse to go home, I would have painted the courthouse to go home," she said.

A new plea

Not long after getting out of jail, Higgs filed a motion to withdraw her plea after learning from an online search that Malofiy had represented other customers like her who had faced similar troubles with Hertz. When the judge denied her motion in a lower court, she appealed to a higher one.

Her motion is still pending in Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal, which heard oral arguments on the case July 14. A decision might not come for weeks  or even months.

Higgs rented a vehicle from Hertz because she couldn't afford to fix her own at the time and the company offered the best deal she could find, she said.

Little did she know how much that decision would upend her life.

While Higgs initially spent a little over a month in jail, she landed there again after failing to pay restitution to Hertz, a requirement of her plea bargain that she says she didn't fully understand and couldn't afford.

Shontrell Higgs

As a result of her dealings with Hertz, Higgs said she couldn't graduate from nursing school as planned and is still trying to finish her requirements to earn her degree. She said her home health care business has faltered and she struggled to find work and went without a paycheck for months because of her criminal record.

Julius Burnside

Hertz logo

'Repo service'

The way Hertz reports rental thefts is as "brilliant as it is evil," Malofiy argues.

It saves the company "millions upon millions of dollars it would otherwise have to spend updating its broken systems and paying corporate security personnel to verify the thousands of theft reports it makes every year," he said.

Attorney Francis Malofiy

Malofiy accuses Hertz of using the criminal justice system as a "repo service," saying that in too many cases, the company generates false police reports because it simply loses track of its cars or customer information and it's an easy way to get their vehicles back.

In its company statement about the lawsuit, Hertz denies the attorney's characterization of its business practices, saying "alerting the authorities is always a last resort," but it's "sometimes necessary after all options have been exhausted to retrieve a vehicle from a customer who has refused to return it, isnt responding, and isnt continuing payment.

"Alerting the authorities typically only happens at the end of an extensive, multi-week process that includes phone calls, texts, emails, and certified letters asking the customer to return the vehicle."

Customer safety and customer service remain a top priority for Hertz, the company added, evidenced by its recent No. 1 ranking in customer satisfaction by J.D. Power, a global leader in data analytics and consumer intelligence.

Bad timing

The mass tort comes at a difficult time for Hertz: It is fighting for its survival amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The lawsuit was filed May 21, a day before the company sought bankruptcy protection after seeing its rental revenue virtually vanish and the value of its rental fleet plummet with the spread of the deadly virus, leaving its U.S. operations in dire financial straits and unable to meet its debt obligations.

The bankruptcy filing put an automatic hold on the lawsuit  along with other pending litigation and credit claims  to provide Hertz with the breathing room it needs to come up with its restructuring plans.

In a motion to lift the automatic stay filed in bankruptcy court, Malofiy argues the case should be allowed to advance because Hertz has engaged in  and continues to engage in  conduct he describes as "atrocious and intolerable in a civilized society."

Malofiy accuses Hertz of filing for bankruptcy protection in part to "stem the tide of former customers coming forward to detail how they were abused by the company," and to avoid paying them the damages they're owed, while continuing to break the law.

"The debtors should not be able to issue securities, pay bonuses and enjoy the benefits of bankruptcy, while at the same time putting innocent consumers into the criminal justice system," he argued in his motion.

Francis Malofiy

Hertz has filed a complaint with the bankruptcy court, asking for injunctive relief from the false theft plaintiffs, saying that if their cases are allowed to proceed, they could cause "irreparable harm" to the company's restructuring efforts, distracting it leadership and draining its money and resources.

In its court filing, Hertz said Malofiy sent Hertz's former CEO Kathryn Marinello a letter on behalf of the plaintiffs in February, "demanding significant payment to resolve the claims at issue in the actions" and threatening to file more lawsuits if it didn't "timely address" his demands.

After receiving the letter from Malofiy, Hertz said it immediately began looking into the claims and after a monthlong investigation found the false arrest claims were "generally meritless" and the allegations of systemic failures were "baseless."

Amanda and Michael Koss

Amanda and Michael Koss

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Hertz rental car customers say they were falsely accused of theft
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Extending the 8 percent gain in the previous session, the share price of Hindustan Zinc jumped almost 7 percent in the morning trade on BSE on July 23.

The Vedanta Group company on July 21 reported a 23 percent year-on-year (YoY) decline in net profit at Rs 1,359 crore for the quarter ended June 30.

Total income dropped to Rs 4,673 crore as against Rs 5,416 crore in the year-ago period.

Read more: Hindustan Zinc Q1 net profit drops 23% to Rs 1,359 crore

Brokerages expressed mixed views on the stock after the June quarter earnings.

Brokerage firm Prabhudas Lilladher has an 'accumulate' call on the stock with a target price of Rs 200. It found Hindustan Zinc's earnings in line with consensus estimates.

"As the new shafts at both Rampura Agucha (RA) and Sindesar Khurd (SK) mines commenced hauling of ore, we expect a significant improvement in the quality of operations with better visibility on production and lower costs," it said.

"We factor in zinc at US$2,050/US$2085 in FY21e/FY22e as we expect ease in prices because of sharp run-up and cooling off in Chinas pent-up demand. In the backdrop of better outlook and attractive valuations, we reiterate accumulate rating with a target price of Rs 200, EV/EBITDA of 5 times FY22e," Prabhudas Lilladher said.

Narnolia Financial Advisors have a 'neutral' call on the stock with a target price of Rs 211.

"Higher employee cost due to lower mined metal volumes reduced margins. However, higher other income and reduced tax rates offset the PAT margin. We maintain our stance to remain neutral at Rs 211, 13.5 times EV/EBITDA FY21E," Narnolia said.

High volatility in LME zinc prices and lower than expected volume growth, uncertain demand outlook due to shutdown in production activity across the globe due to COVID-19 are the key risks for the stock, the brokerage said.

At 1110 hours, the stock was trading 5.37 percent higher at Rs 207.90 on BSE.

The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on Moneycontrol.com are their own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
A striking video captured during the thunderstorm on Wednesday reveals the moment lightning hits behind the Statue of Liberty.

The 21-second footage shared on Twitter depicts dark clouds gathering over Statue of Liberty, with a huge blast of lightning emerging from the sky and vanishing behind her pedestal. The powerful thunderstorm with strong winds passed across the Big Apple Wednesday afternoon, amid severe warnings of storm in the Tri-State area.

Many have taken to Twitter to post pictures and videos from the severe weather situation. And the dramatic footage of lightning striking the Statue of Liberty is going viral. The moment was captured by Twitter user Mikey Cee who shot it from a pier on Ellis Island.

The video inspired many reactions on Twitter and netizens could not help but wonder what other "ominous" things 2020 had in store for them this year.

Any other year this is cool. In 2020 it just comes off as particularly ominous. Peter Mallouk (@PeterMallouk) July 23, 2020

hi Mikey, that's great video. Did you shoot this video of the storm? Will you irrevocably grant all NBCU platforms/partners unlimited use in perpetuity with credit?Thanks for considering the request. Natalie Pasquarella (@Natalie4NY) July 22, 2020

Its pretty easy to figure out who is responsible for this high voltage attack on lady liberty... pic.twitter.com/0nEiobMKpn Larry Todesca (@larrytodesca1) July 23, 2020

All it's missing is Ghostbusters sound track. https://t.co/WKGIU7Vbfh Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) July 23, 2020

I assume it gets hit pretty often.After all, it's a big lump of copper sticking up in an open area.It really is just a decorative lightening rod. Cranky Old Guy (@Cranky_Old_Guy) July 23, 2020

According to the National Hurricane Center tweet , Tropical Storm, Gonzalo is building in the South Atlantic into what could become a hurricane by the time it reaches Florida.
Iran Has Started Development of Heavy Fighter Jet, Senior Commander Says

Sputnik News

19:20 GMT 22.07.2020(updated 19:27 GMT 22.07.2020)

At the moment, the Islamic Republic's Air Force is equipped with dozens of Russian, American, Chinese and French-made combat jets, with part of this inventory inherited from the Shah's regime after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and the rest purchased in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, before the introduction of the United Nations arms embargo.

Iran has begun the development of a homegrown heavy fighter jet, Iranian Air Force Deputy Commander Brig. Gen. Hamid Vahedi has confirmed.

Speaking to the Tasnim News Agency, Vahedi said that the decision to create a home-grown heavy fighter jet was made after domestic engineers achieved success with the Koswar light fighter plane, which entered into service with the Iranian Air Force late last month.

The Koswar features Iranian-made avionics and domestically-developed engines, and Iran has also 'achieved great success' in research into stealth capabilities in a variety of platforms, according to Vahedi. Furthermore, engineers have made progress in domestic efforts to improve the radar and electronic warfare capabilities of the Air Force's existing stock of planes, the commander said.

In the field of armaments, too, Iran's defence industry has made improvements, the senior Air Force commander indicated, pointing to a program to extend the range of the US-designed Sidewinder air-to-air missile mounted aboard the F-5 jet from 8 km to over 19 km, which he said would be "very effective in air combat."

At the moment, Iran's Air Force is equipped with about 20 MiG-29 and 23 Sukhoi Su-24 jets from Russia, about 17 Chinese-built Chengdu F-7s (a license-built copy of the Soviet MiG-21), close to 50 US-made F-4 Phantom IIs, 20 Northrop F-5s, two dozen Grumman F-14s and 9 Mirage F1s, all heavily modified and customized after decades of US arms restrictions.

The country has also experimented with its top-secret F-313 Qaher ('Conqueror') stealth fighter, a cutting edge experimental platform first unveiled in 2013 and modified repeatedly in recent years.

Iran has committed substantial technological and financial resources to create a self-sufficient military, producing everything from small arms and vehicles to drones and long-range missiles.

Earlier this year, the US began lobbying to prolong the UN arms embargo against Iran once it expires in October. However, fellow UN Security Council members Russia and China have indicated that they would block any US attempt to halt the lifting of the embargo.

A Sputnik

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- A dog identified as Cleo had to walk for 91 kilometres when it got lost to find its owner's former home in Missouri, US

- When Micheal, the new owner of the home saw Cleo, he was amazed as he scanned the dog's chip to locate its family

- The kilometres the dog covered to the home was estimated to be over an hour drive and between 15-20 hours if one was to walk

A dog that had gone missing traveled a whole 91 kilometres to find the place its owner used to live.

When the new owner of the home, Colton Micheal, saw the dog on Wednesday, July 15, on the porch, he was surprised.

READ ALSO: I will be back: Former Churchill Show comedian Njoro assures fans he will return amid depression

READ ALSO: I cried, begged Gloria Muliro to come home - Pastor Omba

Little did he know that the dog actually felt at home because that was where its owner used to live before they move, CBS News reported.

Micheal moved into the house in 2018 and had before that day never seen the dog.

"We assumed she was a neighbor's dog that we hadn't seen around, or some simple explanation like that. No way we would ever guess she came from so far away, he said.

Another thing worthy of note is that Cleo had to walk a distance calculated at over an hour drive and between 15-20 hour walk from Kansas to the old home in Missouri.

To find the owner, Micheal guessed the dog was wearing a microchip as most do.

READ ALSO: Mwanamke Mkenya afariki dunia baada ya kugonjwa na lori Marekani

The dog covered a whole 91 kilometres trying to locate its owner's old home, and found it. Photo: UGC

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Serge Aurier: Brother of Spurs star Christopher shot dead in France

After scanning the chip, he got the owners contact and reached out to them on Facebook.

"She did seem very confused in a way that I can't say I've seen in another dog. You could see in her eyes that she didn't recognise or trust us, but as soon as the owners' car pulled up her ears perked up, and when she saw the young men, even though they were wearing masks, she changed her demeanor like flipping a switch," Michael said.

Michael then advised that all dogs should be chipped, saying he may not have found the people who own Cleon were it not for the device.

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As nightly protests have dominated downtown Portland for nearly two months, both local officials and the Trump administration have attempted to cast the largely peaceful demonstrators as ruffians with suspect political values, hellbent on destruction. Its a very big difference between protests and the kind of mayhem that weve seen every night, deputy chief of the Portland police Chris Davis insisted at a July 8th press conference. Protests and this are two different things. President Donald Trump delivered the same message from the Oval Office on July 20th: These are not protesters. People say protesters; these people are anarchists. These are people that hate our country. And were not going to let it go forward.

But the composition of the protest crowd in Portland is changing, following revelations that the federal government effectively kidnapped people of Portland streets, to quote the city attorneys description of unidentified federal agents hauling protesters off into unmarked cars. Hundreds of mothers from across the city have shown up downtown this week, wearing yellow shirts and bike helmets or hard hats and improvised goggles. Theyve locked arms near the front of the protests to form a Wall of Moms, attempting to shield younger, edgier protesters from law enforcement violence. As one mother protester, Tara Russell, described her intentions on Facebook on July 20th: Going to join the Wall of Moms. I really hope I dont get tear gassed, but I cant sit at home anymore and watch these brave young people get beaten and rounded up by the Federal Secret Police. (And the Portland Police for that matter).

More from Rolling Stone

Story continues

The Wall of Moms draws on a long history of anti-authoritarian activism, particularly in Latin America where mother protesters famously demanded accountability for the thousands disappeared by right-wing regimes in Argentina and Chile. But the arrival of these demonstrators to protests that arose out of fury against official violence against Black people is complex. The layers of race- and class- and gender- privilege and expectation and subversion involved when a large group of (largely) white mothers shows up to make it more challenging for armed federal agents to injure marginalized people require a lot of unpacking. But many have welcomed the Wall of Moms:

The affective power of the mothers group singing lullabies and standing before the police relies on white womens innocence and the sancitity of white motherhood as its driving force. Its like, appropriating the discursive/social/political potency of the 14 Words for good. https://t.co/JO05TLmc3d  Zoe (@ztsamudzi) July 21, 2020

The Wall of Moms is taking more active steps to protect the civilian population than these local municipalities.  Bree Newsome Bass (@BreeNewsome) July 23, 2020

The arrival of the moms has certainly made it more difficult for local and federal authorities to justify their crackdown on protests by appealing to public hostility toward black bloc agitators. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, pulled no punches:

Only a coward would try to convince the entire country that these people are violent anarchists then deploy paramilitary forces to tear gas them. https://t.co/7JAqvCXUsC  Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) July 21, 2020

These demonstrators in yellow shirts have not just lifted their voices. On the night of July 21st, they put their bodies on the front line outside of the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse, in which federal agents have barricaded themselves. A Trump administration court filing on July 21st cites vandalism to the building  with estimated damages in excess of $50,000  as the key justification for the deployment of 114 federal law enforcement agents in Portland. The courthouse has been heavily tagged with graffiti, some of it reading Mamma, evoking George Floyds call for his mother with his dying breaths as he was pinned by cops in Minneapolis in late May.

The feds, wearing fatigues and holding military-style rifles, showed no special treatment to the Wall of Moms. The protesters absorbed blows and tear gas from federal agents who were trying to shut down the protests.

Jesus feds just came directly for the Portland moms using batons and tear gas while carrying assault rifles. pic.twitter.com/3BwfniKDVU  Joshua Potash (@JoshuaPotash) July 22, 2020

As resistance to Trumps paramilitary buildup in Portland has gone mainstream, the administration has announced it is expanding deployment of federal agents to assist American cities which are experiencing upticks in violent crime. The unwelcome federal surge, which began earlier this month in Kansas City, Missouri, will soon expand to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and to Chicago.

Trump, who is trying to rescue his failed presidency by campaigning on law and order, also invoked the sanctity of motherhood in justifying the federal intrusion known as Operation Legend and named after a four year old, LeGend Taliferro, who was recently killed in Kansas City gun violence.

No mother should ever have to cradle her dead child in her arms, said Trump, a president who has refused to take action on gun control, furthered lethal policies at the border for undocumented immigrants, and demonized a movement aimed at preventing black people from being killed at the hands of police, simply because politicians refused to do what is necessary to secure their neighborhood and to secure their city.

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By PTI

NEW DELHI: Anglo-Dutch FMCG major Unilever on Thursday said strict lockdowns in key markets, including India, have impacted its business growth in the first half of 2020. Unilever, which on Thursday announced results for the first half of 2020, reported a turnover of 25.7 billion euros for the January-June period, which was down 1.6 per cent from the corresponding period of 2019.

It said that lockdowns during the first half varied in severity, with some having a more significant impact on the supply and availability of goods, particularly those in India and China. "China entered lockdown in January and declined mid-teens during the first quarter. The market re-opened from April, and China returned to mid-single-digit growth in the second quarter. Growth in India was impacted by the lockdown implemented from March," Unilever said in earnings statement.

It said spread of COVID-19 combined with the lockdowns and restrictions that have been implemented in many countries led to significant changes in the operating environment. "Market growth in India had already been slowing prior to the spread of COVID-19 and the market was further impacted by the introduction of the strict national lockdown at the end of March. This national lockdown continued until early June, when it was followed by further regional lockdowns," said Unilever.

ALSO READ: Hindustan Unilever to retain Lipton, Brooke Bond brands in India

Latin America was impacted by COVID-19 later than other major markets, with the effects primarily in the second quarter, exacerbating already challenging conditions in the region, it said. However, it said consumption patterns normalised in the second quarter with heightened levels of demand for hygiene and in-home food products. India comes under Asia/AMET/RUB (Africa, Middle East, Turkey; Russia, Ukraine, Belarus) market region of Unilever, which has witnessed a sales decline 2.7 per cent with a volume decline of 2.9 per cent.

"India and the Philippines declined, as strict lockdowns were imposed from March, disrupting the flow of goods and negatively impacting consumption of discretionary personal care categories as consumers stayed at home more. Thailand was negatively impacted by reduced tourism," said Unilever. Regional lockdowns were imposed in Indonesia as COVID-19 spread, and while growth was positive over the half year, sales declined in the second quarter.

"Underlying operating margin was down 40 bps with a reduction in gross margin and higher overheads, driven by investment in our connected stores programme in South Asia, which digitises the retail value chain, and partially offset by lower brand and marketing investment," it said.

Unilever CEO Alan Jope said the company has demonstrated the resilience of the business. "From the start of the COVID-19 crisis, we have been guided by clear priorities in line with our multi-stakeholder business model to protect our people, safeguard supply, respond to new patterns of consumer demand, preserve cash and support our communities," he said.

During the second quarter, Unilever completed the acquisitions of the health food drinks portfolio of GlaxoSmithKline in India, Bangladesh and 20 other predominantly Asian markets. "Acquiring the iconic brands Horlicks and Boost is in line with Unilevers strategy to enhance its presence in healthy nutrition," it said. Unilever's Indian subsidiary Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) on Tuesday declared result for its April-June quarter and reported a negative growth of 7 per cent, excluding the impact of merger with GSKCH India. HUL reported a consolidated sales during the quarter at Rs 10,570 crore, up 3.65 per cent.
The Democratic mayors and governors did not back up their police departments and did not protect their cities. The almighty President Barack Obama should keep his mouth shut and stop criticizing President Trump. So should James Mattis and John Kelly. The defense secretary should be fired.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who made a mistake with nursing homes, has too much to say about nothing.

Eight presidents in the past have called the military for help, including Lyndon Johnson and Dwight Eisenhower.

I think the Rev. Al Sharpton is the biggest racist in the world.

Where is the justice for David Dorn and the officer shot in the head in Las Vegas?

Joseph Geralis

Egg Harbor Township

Give seniors aid funds

Seniors need financial aid, too. Social Security is not enough, and many have no pension to supplement it. We have paid into the safety net all our working lives. Usually, though, we were not the beneficiaries, others were.
The brains of people living with Alzheimer's are riddled with plaques: protein aggregates consisting mainly of amyloid-beta. Despite decades of research, the real contribution of these plaques to the disease process is still not clear.

A research team led by Bart De Strooper and Mark Fiers at the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research in Leuven, Belgium used pioneering technologies to study in detail what happens in brain cells in the direct vicinity of plaques.

Their findings, published in the prestigious journal Cell, show how different cell types in the brain work together to mount a complex response to amyloid plaques which is likely protective at first, but later on damaging to the brain.

The role of amyloid plaques in Alzheimer's disease has puzzled scientists ever since Alois Alzheimer first described them in the brain of a woman with young-onset dementia.

Now, over a century later, we have learned a lot about the molecular processes that lead to neurodegeneration and subsequent memory loss, but the relationship between the plaques and the disease process in the brain is still ambiguous.

"Amyloid plaques might act as a trigger or as a driver of disease, and the accumulation of amyloid beta in the brain likely initiates a complex multicellular neurodegenerative process," says professor Bart De Strooper (VIB-KU Leuven). His team set out to map the molecular changes that take place in cells near amyloid plaques.

We used the latest technologies to analyze genome-wide transcriptomic changes induced by amyloid plaques in hundreds of small tissue domains. In this way, we could generate a large data set of transcriptional changes that occur in response to increasing amyloid pathology, both in mouse and human brains." Mark Fiers, Study Co-Lead Author, VIB (the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology)

Two co-expression networks

"We focused on the transcriptomic changes in the immediate neighborhood of the amyloid plaques, with a 50-micrometer perimeter," explains Wei-Ting Chen, a postdoc in De Strooper's team. In a well-studied genetic mouse model showing amyloid pathology, the scientists identified two novel gene co-expression networks that appeared highly sensitive to amyloid-beta deposition.

Chen: "With increasing amyloid beta deposition, a multicellular co-expressed gene response was established encompassing no less than 57 plaque-induced genes." These genes were mainly expressed in astroglia and microglia, two types of supportive brain cells, and were not co-expressed in the absence of amyloid plaques.

"We also found interesting alterations in a second network, expressed mainly by another type of cells, namely oligodendrocytes," adds Ashley Lu, Ph.D. student in the team. "This gene network was activated under mild amyloid stress but depleted in microenvironments with high amyloid accumulation."

"Many of the genes in both networks show similar alterations in human brain samples, strengthening our observations," adds Fiers.

Targeting plaques

"Our data demonstrate that amyloid plaques are not innocent bystanders of the disease, as has been sometimes suggested, but in fact induce a strong and coordinated response of all surrounding cell types," says De Strooper.

"Further work is needed to understand whether, and when, removal of amyloid plaques--for instance by antibody therapy currently in development to treat amyloid plaques--is sufficient to reverse these ongoing cellular processes."

Whether antibody binding to amyloid plaques could also modulate these glial responses remains to be determined. "It would in any case complicate the interpretation of the outcome of clinical trials as these cellular effects might be different between different antibodies," adds De Strooper.
Have Sheriff Offices in North Carolina, possibly even Beaufort County's Sheriff Office, become too political in the discharging of their sworn constitutional duties?

No, the sheriff is a constitutional officer.

Yes, the Sheriff Office, on strong occasion, often reverts back to political patronage in the dispensation of their sworn constitutional duties.
07/22/2020

Contacts for media: Nancy Cicco, 978-934-4944 or Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu and Christine Gillette, 978-758-4664 or Christine_Gillette@uml.edu



LOWELL, Mass.  UMass Lowells program for first-generation college students is among the countrys best, according to a national organization dedicated to these learners.





The Center for First-generation Student Success has named UMass Lowell a First-gen Forward Advisory Institution, recognizing it as a model for other colleges and universities to emulate.





The honor singles out the UMass Lowell River Hawk Scholars Academy for the breadth of academic and support services it provides to enhance educational, campus and community experiences for first-year students who are the first in their families to pursue a college education.





Forty-one percent of UMass Lowell undergraduates are first-generation college students. Over the last academic year, the River Hawk Scholars Academy served more than 300 participants and more than 300 first-year students are expected to join this fall.





UMass Lowell has a long history of welcoming and supporting first-generation college students, who help make the university such a vibrant place. Going into our fourth year, its clear the program is working: River Hawk Scholars Academy students are academically successful and are found at all levels of student leadership. Were proud the Center for First-generation Student Success has recognized the program as a national model of excellence, said Julie Nash, UMass Lowell vice provost for academic affairs.





As a First-gen Forward Advisory Institution, UMass Lowell will serve as a mentor, sharing best practices and offering guidance to other colleges and universities throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont that seek to create educational and cultural opportunities for these learners.





This national recognition is a testament to the best of what UMass Lowell can achieve. Its a reflection of our first-generation students dreams and our universitys commitment to honoring those dreams, said River Hawk Scholars Academy Director Matthew Hurwitz, a faculty member in UMass Lowells English Department.





Other members of UMass Lowells First-gen Forward Advisory Institution leadership team include Justin Gerstenfield, director of college-based professional advising, and Shaima Ragab, director of student affairs, Hurwitz said.





The Center for First-generation Student Success is an initiative of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators and The Suder Foundation. The center identifies and supports colleges and universities across the country that excel at educating first-generation students. UMass Lowell was inducted into the centers inaugural class of colleges and universities honored as First-gen Forward Institutions for these efforts last year.





The center is so pleased to acknowledge UMass Lowell as a First-gen Forward Advisory Institution. The university continues to be a leader in the field and we look forward to working closely with them as they support other higher-education institutions in their regional community, said Sarah Whitley, senior director of the Center for First-generation Student Success.




There are approximately 1,200 animals that are threatened or endangered in North America, including the Florida panther, the whooping crane, the green sea turtle, and the shortnose sturgeon. While these animals are currently at risk of becoming extinct, there are a handful that have come back from the brink of elimination due to successful wildlife conservation efforts. The following examines eight such cases. They act as living proof that the others can also be saved.

8. Bald Eagle

Three American bald eagles perch on tree snag against background of Alaskan Kenai mountains and Cook Inlet. Image credit: FloridaStock/Shutterstock.com

The bald eagle has been the national bird of the United States since 1782, but the development of DDTone of the first synthetic pesticidesposed a serious threat to the majestic animal back in the mid-1900s. Due to its use, chemicals poisoned numerous lakes and streams, ultimately contaminating their main food source: fish. Illegal hunting and destruction of habitat also contributed to their dwindling numbers. By the 1960s, bald eagles were nearly extinct, their population as low as 480. However, they were offered official protection when the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973. With the help of other federal initiatives, their numbers slowly began to rise, until they were finally removed from the list of threatened species in 2007. Today, there are approximately 14,000 bald eagles living throughout the United States.

7. Peregrine Falcon

A close-up of the face of a Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) staring at the camera. Image credit: Chris Hill/Shutterstock.com

The peregrine falcon may be the fastest bird in the world, but their numbers also declined due to the use of DDT. By the 1970s, there were only approximately 320 left in the United States; in fact, the situation grew so dire that they were considered locally extinct in some of the eastern states. But by 1972, the use of DDT was prohibited, helping the peregrine falcon and the aforementioned bald eagle rebound in numbers. A year later, the former found protection under the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969, the short-lived predecessor of the 1973 act. With the help from Canadian wildlife agencies and various captive breeding and reintroduction programs, the peregrine falcon was saved from extinction and officially removed from the threatened species list in 1999. Today, there are roughly 6,000 soaring across North American skies.

6. Wild Turkey

Two male turkeys strutting on grassy meadow with full feather displayed. Image credit: David Scott Dodd/Shutterstock.com

There was such an abundance of wild turkeys when the colonizers first arrived that they were considered an unlimited food source and hunted without restrictions. To make matters worse, other activities such as logging razed entire habitats. By the beginning of the twentieth century, they had completely vanished from eighteen different states and by 1940, only two percent of their original population remained. Conservationists grew increasingly concerned with their dwindling numbers and called for governmental action. As a result, protected areas were created and newly introduced game laws were enforced. Due to these efforts and those of various organizations like the National Wild Turkey Federation, there are currently seven million wild turkeys gobble-gobbling about the country.

5. The Island Fox

An endangered Island Fox from Channel Islands National Park. Image credit: Kyle T Perry/Shutterstock.com

The island fox is a small mammal only found on the Channel Islands located off the coast of southern California. During the late 1900s, their population decreased up to ninety percent. On Santa Catalina, they were the victim of a deadly virus passed on from an invading raccoon. On three other islands, they were preyed on mercilessly by golden eagles who moved in due to the absence of bald eagles. In 2004, they were officially considered an endangered species. Through various captive breeding programs, the relocation of golden eagles to northern California, and the eventual return of bald eagles, the island fox population began to rise until they were finally removed from the list in 2016. They are one of the fastest mammals to recover in the United States under the Endangered Species Act.

4. Gray Wolf

Grey wolf in beautiful red foliage. Image credit: Atlon11111/Shutterstock.com

Gray wolves used to roam freely throughout two-thirds of the United States. At their height, it is estimated that their numbers were as high as two million. However, these regal creatures were hunted throughout history and their habitats largely destroyed. By the 1960s, they were close to extinction, with only 300 of their kind living deep in the woods of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Because they are crucial to the balance of various natural ecosystems, gray wolves were granted protection under the Endangered Species Act in 1974, a year after its establishment. Due to intense conservation efforts such as breeding and reintroduction programs, their population and territory began to grow. Today, there are approximately 6,000 gray wolves living in numerous states across the US, including Idaho, Wyoming, and Washington.

3. Louisiana Black Bear

Louisiana black bear searching for a snack. Image credit: Brandy McKnight/Shutterstock.com

The Louisiana black bear is one of sixteen subspecies of American black bear. Unsurprisingly, they live in Louisiana as well as parts of eastern Texas and western Mississippi. However, intense habitat loss due to rapid agricultural development posed a serious threat to their population. By 1980, eighty percent of their land had been taken away or completely destroyed. As a result, they were officially listed as an endangered species in 1992. Public and private efforts aimed to restore their numbers. Rehabilitation programs, environmental regulations, and incentives for landowners have all contributed to the revitalization of their habitats. As of 2016, they were no longer considered a threatened species. Today, there are approximately 750 Louisiana black bears, double the amount from back in 1992.

2. American Alligator

American Alligator in the Everglades National Park. Image credit: RICIfoto/Shutterstock.com

Alligators have thrived for over 200 million years, making them one of the oldest existing species. But back in the mid-1900s, the American alligator experienced a population decrease to near-extinction levels as a result of overhunting and trade. Destruction of the countrys wetlands for the purpose of development also posed a significant threat. However, the American alligator plays such an important role in their native ecosystem that it was placed on the endangered species list in 1967. In addition to the creation of hunting and habitat regulations, several wildlife agencies introduced captive breeding programs to rectify the problem. Their numbers increased so drastically that by 1987, exactly twenty years later, they were removed from the list. Approximately five million American alligators currently reside in the southern United States.

1. Robbins Cinquefoil

Robbins Cinquefoil. Image credit: U.S.D.A. Forest Service, White Mountain National Forest/Wikimedia.org

Not all wildlife conservation success stories are animal-related. For example, Robbins cinquefoil is a perennial plant known for its yellow flowers. Located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, 95 percent of the worlds total population grew in just one acre of land along the Crawford Path. Over the years, they were picked by collectors at an alarming rate or trampled by careless hikers. Overseen by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, recovery work soon began after they were declared an endangered species in 1980. The area was closed off to the public, hiking trails were rerouted, and experimental satellite colonies were established. All efforts paid off when the Robbins cinquefoil began to flourish again, rising from 1,800 to 4,800 plants by 2006. They were even delisted four years prior in 2002.
Close to half a million people in nearly a dozen districts in Bihar have been affected by the flood that has cut a swathe of destruction across the northern parts of the state, the disaster management department said on Wednesday.

A total of 4.6 lakh people in 245 panchayats of 10 districts have been affected by the deluge that has displaced more than 13,000 people. So far, 4,845 people have been put up at 16 relief camps, according to a release issued by the department.

However, there has been no report of any loss of life so far, it stated.

According to the state's water resources department, the Kosi, Budhi, Gandak, Kamala Balan and Lal Bakeya rivers, flowing above the danger mark at many places, have been showing a receding trend or were stable.

Water Resources Minister Sanjay Kumar Jha asserted in a statement that "all embankments in the state are safe" despite an increase in water pressure because of heavy rainfall in areas along north Bihar's border with Nepal earlier this month and again in the last 24 hours.

The minister claimed the embankments were "in better shape than ever" on account of the use of sheet pile while repair works were on before the calamity struck.

"We are fully prepared. All repair works were complete before the floods came. Surveys of the flood-prone areas have been made beforehand with the help of drones. Personnel are involved in relief and rescue work, and engineers have been deployed in areas deemed to be vulnerable," he added.

Life was affected in large parts of Sitamarhi, Sheohar, Supaul, Kishanganj, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Gopalganj, East Champaran, West Champaran and Khagaria districts due to the flood.

Large parts of Areraj sub-division in East Champaran have been marooned, Sub Divisional Officer Dheerendra Mishra said. "About 25,000 people from 18 villages have fled their homes and are taking shelter, along with their livestock, at nearby school buildings."

NDRF Ninth Battalion commandant Vijay Sinha said in a statement that 21 teams have been pressed into service in 12 districts, taking people to safety and distributing food and other essential items.

A 10-year-old girl in East Champaran was rescued by a team led by ASI Kaushal Kishore from her remote flood-hit village where she suffered a snakebite. She was carried NDRF personnel to a safe place where medical help was available, he said.

Meanwhile, the floods caused the state's political temperature to rise further.

Leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Yadav, who toured districts such as Darbhanga and Madhubani and distributed food among the flood-hit people at many places, accused the ruling dispensation of having left the populace to fend for themselves.

"I was appalled to see that these people have been compelled to take shelter in cramped surroundings, throwing to the winds social distancing which is still necessary in Bihar on account of the explosion of COVID-19 cases," Yadav told reporters at one of the spots visited by him.

The RJD leader drew flak from the BJP, a partner in the ruling alliance in the state, which accused the former deputy chief minister of "himself being in a hurry for electoral gains".

"Tejashwi Yadav's antics show that he is himself in a hurry for electoral gains. Instead of cooperating with the state machinery, he is holding gatherings which could potentially lead to a fresh spurt in coronavirus cases," BJP spokesperson Nikhil Anand said.

The BJP spokesperson's accusation was a rebuttal to the charge by the RJD leader who has been advocating postponement of state assembly elections, due in a few months, and alleging that the ruling coalition led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar wanted polls to be held on time, "unmindful" of the health risks involved.
Gabriel Ogbonna, a human rights lawyer based in Abia State, has been held in the custody of the State Security Service (SSS) for over two months, despite court judgments ordering his release, PREMIUM TIMES reports.

On March 24, over 20 police officers in company of Chief of Staff to the Abia governor, Tony Agbazuere, and former Commissioner of Police, Ene Okon, stormed Mr Ogbonnas chambers to arrest him.

Before his arrest, Mr Ogbonna had made critical comments about public officials and their policies via his Facebook page.

Shortly after the arrest of March 24, he was arraigned alongside another person for cybercrime and publishing false and threatening messages through the internet against the governor, Okezie Ikpeazu. He was arraigned at a magistrate court in Umuahia.

The offences, according to the charge sheet, are punishable under Section 27(1) (a) and 18(1) of cyber crimes (Prohibition Prevention ETC) Act, 2015.

However, because the magistrate court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case, he was then remanded at a correctional facility in the state capital until April 28, when he was arraigned before the Federal High Court in Umuahia and was granted bail.

Mr Ogbonna was, however, rearrested by SSS operatives on his way out of the correctional facility in Umuahia on the same day. This was after he had perfected the bail conditions.

This paper learnt that the SSS moved Mr Ogbonna to its office in the state and subsequently its headquarters in Abuja, where he has been in custody, without any charges against him.

Nkem Okoro, the lawyer representing Mr Ogbonna, told PREMIUM TIMES that the SSS got a petition from an NGO, alleging that the human rights lawyer had made abusive comments against President Muhammadu Buhari online.

President Muhammadu Buhari [PHOTO CREDIT: Bashir Ahmad]

This was masterminded by Abia Governor since there is nothing to hold against him in Umuahia and that the court has granted him bail, he said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.

Governor Okezie Ikpeazu

None of Mr Ogbonnas friends, relatives or legal representative has been allowed to visit him since he was transferred to Abuja.

Above the law?

All legal efforts to ensure the release of Mr Ogbonna from the SSS custody have been unsuccessful.

On June 29, the Federal High Court in Umuahia ordered that the SSS should release him unconditionally, thus awarding a N1.5 million damages in his favour.

Also, on July 6, in the suit challenging the infringement of Mr Ogbonnas human rights filed in Abuja, the SSS refused to present him in the FCT High Court and the case was adjourned to July 17.

SSS Officials

In reaction to the SSSs plea to further adjourn the case last Friday, Justice Aninih. of the FCT High Court granted bail to Mr Ogbonna on the conditions that he produce two sureties who have 20 million naira.

According to the documents obtained by this paper, one of them must be a civil servant not below Grade level 14, and both sureties must have landed property in Abuja.

Mr Okoro informed this paper that although the bail conditions are stringent, it will be perfected in no distant time. He expressed optimism that the security agency will comply with the courts order this time.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported the notoriety of the SSS when it comes to disobeying court rulings and adherence to judicial processes.

Sahara Reporters publisher, Omoyele Sowore. [PHOTO CREDIT: Official Instagram account of Sowore]

The publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, Shiite leader Ibrahim El-Zakzaky and former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, were held by the agency despite being granted bail by the courts in separate cases.

Former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki

Although Messrs Sowore and Dasuki were eventually freed in December 2019, Mr El-Zakzaky is still in detention.

Outcry

Uzoma Ogbonna, the wife of Mr Ogbonna, as well as human rights activists and organisations have protested the illegal detention, calling for the immediate release of Mr Ogbonna.

They should release my husband. He just spoke the truth and he is being persecuted for that. We need him. The children need him, she said in a telephone interview.

Mrs Ogbonna, who delivered a baby last Monday, told PREMIUM TIMES that she has been denied access to her husband for more than a month.

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She lamented the hardship that comes with taking care of the four kids during the pregnancy and after.

The pregnancy was 10-months old before I went to bed. You give birth and your husband is nowhere around. It is not easy doing everything alone.

Worried about the condition of her husband, Mrs Ogbonna said there are possibilities that Mr Ogbonnas health has worsened, noting that he suffers a chronic ulcer.

Femi Falana (SAN)

In a similar vein, human rights activist and senior lawyer, Femi Falana, demanded that the SSS should, as a matter of urgency, ensure his immediate release and payment of the N1.5 million awarded in his favour by the court.

However, if Mr Ogbonna is not released forthwith, his lawyers should commence contempt proceedings against the authorities holding him in illegal custody, as no individual or institution is above the law of the land, he advised.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) have also challenged the illegal actions of the DSS.

It is unacceptable that the #DSS is still unlawfully detaining Emperor Ogbonna despite concerns about his health. Ignoring court order by the DSS is a stain on Nigerias image, AI wrote on its Twitter page.

HURIWAs national coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, in a statement, noted that If the DSS believes they have any reasonable grounds to re-arrest him (assuming without conceding that they do have) or credible charges against him, they ought to have promptly handed him over to the police for prosecution, in accordance with due process.

He further stated that it is not only illegal, but also malicious and high-handed for the SSS to refuse his lawyers and family access to visit him.

Denial

The spokesperson of the Abia State governor, Onyebuchi Ememanka, did not deny the involvement of the state government in the arrest of Mr Ogbonna but claimed ignorance of his incarceration at the SSS custody.

He made a post on Facebook with criminal allegations and we wrote a petition to the police. He was arrested and charged to court.

The court granted him bail and we did not oppose the bail application. After he had perfected the bail conditions, he was re-arrested by the DSS. Governor Ikpeazu of Abia state knows nothing about his detention, Mr Ememanka told this reporter.

Repeated calls and text messages sent to the SSS spokesperson, Peter Afunaya, seeking the reaction of the security agency on the issue, have not been responded to.
IF you wanted evidence that reasonably competent government  not great, not corruption-free, just not awful  produces good results in the end, here it is.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

IF you wanted evidence that reasonably competent government  not great, not corruption-free, just not awful  produces good results in the end, here it is.

Back in 1971, when the two countries split apart, Bangladesh had 65 million people and Pakistan had 60 million. By the end of this century, Bangladesh will have around 80 million people  and Pakistan will have 250 million.

Bangladesh is usually seen as a seriously overpopulated country, and it still is today: 160 million people. But its birth-rate is dropping so fast that its population will halve by 2100, leaving it with no more people per square kilometre of farmland than the United Kingdom.

It has achieved this mainly by educating its girls and young women and making contraception easily available. Thats whats driving the global numbers down, too. The latest population predictions, published last week in the British medical journal The Lancet, forecast a global population in 2100 of only 8.8 billion.

Thats just one billion more than now. True, we will reach a peak in about 40 years time of 9.7 billion, but by centurys end we will be sliding down the other side of the population mountain quite fast.

These are "surprise-free" predictions, of course, and the future always brings surprises: wars, pandemics, a new religion or ideology. The forecasts dont even factor in the impact of foreseeable calamities such as climate change. Nevertheless, these numbers are not just fictions, and they really are good news.

The numbers come from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation of the University of Washington, and they predict an end-of-century world population that is 2 billion lower than the UN Population Divisions forecast last year of almost 11 billion people. As they say: a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon youre talking real numbers.

Even better, the assumption is that the global population will continue to go down after that. Give it another century of gentle decline, and we could hope for a global population of four or five billion by 2200, which would make the task of dealing with the long-term impacts of climate change a lot easier. Meanwhile, there are three other big things going on right now.

The first is that more than two dozen countries will lose around half their population by the end of this century, including all the countries of East Asia (China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan) and most of the countries of central, eastern and southern Europe (e.g. Italy, Poland, Spain and Greece).

Some will fall even further: Bulgaria from seven million to 2.6 million, Latvia from two million to less than half a million. Russia, however, will only drop from 145 million to 105 million.

The problem for all of these countries will be a huge overhang of elderly people as the younger population shrinks. The "population pyramid" will be stood on its point, more or less, with each person in the working population having to support at least one retired person (unless retirement ages are raised radically, as they may well be).

The second group are countries, almost all in Africa or the Middle East, where population growth is still out of control. These are the only regions where some countries will triple their populations (e.g. Israel and Angola), or quadruple them (Afghanistan and Nigeria).

Many countries in this category have more modest growth rates, but if just these two regions were excluded from the count, the population of the rest of the world in 2100 would be lower than it is today.

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And finally comes the oddest group: the countries where birth rates are already far below replacement level, but the populations will hold steady or even grow somewhat by the end of the century. They include not only the rich countries of Western Europe, North America and Australasia, but also many of the Latin American republics.

Whats their secret? Immigration. They almost all have a well-established tradition of accepting immigrants from other continents and cultures, and theyre prosperous enough to be attractive to immigrants.

So Sweden, Norway, France and the United Kingdom will each add a few million people by 2100. Canada, Australia and the U.S. will each add around 10 million (and New Zealand gets an extra million). The rest, apart from Germany and the Netherlands, will attract at least enough newcomers to plug the holes left by their very low birth rates.

This may seem unfair, but it gets worse. When the researchers factored predicted economic growth into the study, the 10 countries with the biggest GDP 80 years from now were, in order: the U.S., China, India, Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Australia, Nigeria and Canada.

Six of those 10 countries use English as their primary national language. To them that hath shall it be given.

Gwynne Dyers latest book is Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work).
Chinese and U.S. national flags flutter at the entrance of a company office building in Beijing.

The FBI alleges that a researcher focusing on biology who lied about her connection to the Chinese military in order to receive a U.S. visa has avoided arrest by taking refuge in the Chinese consulate in San Francisco.

According to court filings, Tang Juan was issued a non-immigrant visa last fall to conduct research at the University of California, Davis. But after FBI agents found photos of her in military uniform on the internet, they interviewed her on June 20 about her visa application. She said she had never served in the military and was not a member of the Communist party, the filings say.

After that encounter with the FBI, she headed to the San Francisco consulate, where she's still staying, the FBI alleges. The government brought federal charges against Tang for visa fraud on June 26.

"The FBI assesses that, at some point following the search and interview of Tang on June 20, 2020, Tang went to the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco, where the FBI assesses she has remained," U.S. attorneys wrote in a July 20 court filing.

The filings come at a time of increased tension between the United States and China, and increased scrutiny over possible economic espionage by Chinese citizens working in the U.S.

On Wednesday, the U.S. State Department ordered China to close a consulate in Houston, Texas. Officials said the move was made to protect American intellectual property and "private information." On Tuesday, the Justice Department claimed that two Chinese citizens had tried to steal trade secrets by hacking into firms working on a vaccine for Covid-19.

Trump administration officials, including FBI Director Christopher Wray, have loudly criticized China's use of cyberattacks to steal intellectual property from American institutions. The U.S. has also tried to hamper Huawei Technologies over fears that wireless networks using its technology could be used to spy on Americans.
Quantexa, a NYC-based contextual decision intelligence software company, raised $64.7m in Series C funding.

The round was led by Evolution Equity Partners, with participation from existing investors Dawn Capital, AlbionVC and HSBC and new investors British Patient Capital and ABN AMRO Ventures. They joined previous investor Accenture Ventures in this round. In conjunction with the funding, Richard Seewald, Founding and Managing Partner at Evolution Equity Partners, will join Quantexas board.

The company intends to use the funds to expand further into North America, Asia-Pacific and European territories, and accelerate the product innovation roadmap.

Founded in 2016 and led by Vishal Marria, CEO, Quantexa is a contextual decision intelligence software company that empowers organizations to drive decisions from their data. Using advancements in big data and AI, the platform uncovers hidden risk and new opportunities by providing a contextual view of internal and external data in a single place and solving major challenges across financial crime, customer intelligence, credit risk, fraud and throughout the customer lifecycle. Clients, such as HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank and OFX, and partners including Accenture and Dunn & Bradstreet use Quantexas contextual data approach and open, integrated technology to make informed business decisions across vast volumes of data. The company now has over 250 employees and thousands of users working with billions of transactions and data points across the world. It has offices in London, New York, Boston, Belgium, Toronto, Singapore, Melbourne and Sydney.

FinSMEs

23/07/2020
Google is getting serious about competing with Amazon in online shopping  just like it did in 2013, 2014, 2017 and 2019.

But in 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to grip America, the push to create an online shopping marketplace to compete with Amazon has taken on new urgency as consumers are avoiding stores and turning to the internet to fill more of their shopping needs.

On Thursday, Google announced that it would take steps to bring more sellers and products onto its shopping site by waiving sales commissions and allowing retailers to use popular third-party payment and order management services like Shopify instead of the companys own systems. Currently, commissions on Google Shopping range from a five to 15 per cent cut depending on the products.

Google is usually the starting point for finding information on the internet, but that is often not the case when consumers are searching for a product to buy. More U.S. consumers are turning first to Amazon to find products that they plan to purchase. This has allowed Amazon to build a rapidly growing advertising business, which is a threat to Googles main financial engine.

Googles seven-year battle to take on Amazon has had more lows than highs. In 2013, it started a shopping service called Google Shopping Express, offering free same-day delivery. It offered $95 (U.S.) annual memberships for faster delivery and tried delivering groceries. Google eventually scrapped the efforts.

Google Express evolved into an online shopping mall filled with top retailers like Target and Best Buy. In 2017, it added Walmart to its virtual mall, but the partnership was short-lived. Last year, Google ditched Google Express for Google Shopping and introduced a buy button to allow shoppers to use credit cards stored with the company to complete the transaction without leaving the search engine.

This year, Google brought in Bill Ready, a former executive at PayPal, to be its president of commerce and to compete more successfully with Amazon.

Google announced in April that it would allow anyone to list products for free on its shopping site, reversing its previous policy of requiring sellers to buy an ad for products to appear. The company also announced that those free listings would appear on its search results. By eliminating the cost of listing and selling products, Google aims to make it more appealing for retailers to put products in front of the search engines enormous user base.

In an interview, Ready said most retailers were already lagging behind in e-commerce before the pandemic hit. And as more consumers moved to shop online in recent months, the gap has widened with much of the growth in online sales swallowed by a handful of players.

We want to make sure selling online is easy and inexpensive, he said.

The changes are expected to start immediately in the United States before rolling out to other countries later this year. Google also said sellers that have an inventory of products listed on Amazon can move them over to Google without changing the data format.

While all of Googles moves are clearly aimed at unsettling Amazon, Ready wouldnt address its Seattle rival and refused to utter the A-word even once in a 20-minute discussion. (He even dodged a question about what is the name of the giant rainforest in South America.)

The closest he came was not very close.

Consumers benefit from a diverse and thriving ecosystem of sellers, he said.

There is no one player that can serve all the needs of consumers.

Read more about:
Appointment

23 July 2020

Raoul Hoelzle will take up the reins at the Steigenberger Grandhotel & Spa Petersberg with effect from 01. August. The hotel offers 102 rooms in a classic and elegant design as well as boasting 09 spacious and stylishly furnished suites, including a presidential suite with 230qm. The Steigenberger Grandhotel & Spa Petersberg officially reopened in September 2019 following an extensive modernisation and now features an impressive range of high-end fixtures and fittings. It serves up a diverse selection of culinary offerings, and guests also very much appreciate the generously proportioned spa and health and beauty area with unique views out over the Rhine Valley.

Mr. Hoelzle had been working as a Hotel Manager at the Steigenberger Frankfurter Hof since 2017. He had previously held a series of notable international roles, including Director of Rooms at the Peninsula Hong Kong and at the Park Hyatt Melbourne, Australia. The managing director of the operating company Gastehaus Petersberg GmbH, Vladimir Saal: "We would like to thank Michael Kain for his excellent work on the Petersberg. He was able to set numerous creative impulses and represented our hotel very well. At the same time, we would like to welcome Mr. Hoelzle to the Rhineland and wish him every success in his demanding new position. With his high-quality standards and his experience, he and his team will continue to work on positioning the redesigned Petersberg among the best hotels in Germany."
Government denies $130m meant to combat pandemic have been mismanaged as country faces severe medicine shortages.

Pakistans government has denied reports that $130m meant to fight the coronavirus pandemic have been mismanaged.

Doctors are accusing the government of mismanagement, and some are protesting against government policies and what they call incompetent hospital management.

But as Al Jazeeras Osama Bin Javaid reports, medicine shortages and exorbitant prices are affecting hundreds of patients.
Azerbaijan and Armenia work on various initiatives aimed at consolidating the ceasefire, official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said at a weekly briefing for journalists, answering the question of Vestnik Kavkaza about Baku's initiative to intensify diplomatic process for the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

"We are discussing these issues with both parties. We hope that after the restrictions on international travel will be lifted, it will be possible to work on the entire range of issues related to the settlement of the conflict," she said.

She also said that last week the situation in the conflict zone was discussed at a meeting of the Minsk Group and the OSCE Permanent Council in the presence of all members of the organization. "The Minsk Group co-chairs maintain close contact with the parties. Earlier, their online meetings with the OSCE Secretary General were held, consultations with the UN secretariat are curently planned. A number of statements were made calling on the parties to show absolute restraint, strictly adhere to the ceasefire regime. Sergey Lavrov had emergency telephone contacts with his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts. This week he discussed the situation with the ambassadors of Azerbaijan and Armenia in Moscow," official spokesman of the Foreign Ministry concluded.
Tony Abbott has slammed Black Lives Matter protesters as 'copycats' and argued there is nothing 'fundamentally racist' about Australia.

The former prime minister claimed marches are 'out of place' in Australia after the movement swept over from the United states in the wake of George Floyd's death.

Mr Abbott's criticism of the movement comes ahead of Black Lives Matter protests planned for Sydney next Tuesday.

At least 4,000 are expected to take to the streets to demand justice for David Dungay junior, an Indigenous man who died in custody in 2015.

'Obviously what happened to George Floyd in the United Sates was absolutely abominable, absolutely abominable,' the former Liberal leader said on a podcast with Institute of Public Affairs John Roskam.

Tony Abbott has slammed Black Lives Matter protesters as 'copycats' and argued that Australia's racial issues are completely different from the United States

About 4,000 are expected to take to the streets to demand justice for David Dungay junior, an Indigenous man who died in custody in 2015. Pictured: A BLM rally in Sydney on June 6

Mr Abbott's criticism of the movement comes ahead of Black Lives Matter protests planned for Sydney next Tuesday. Pictured: Protesters clash with police after a Black Lives Matter rally in Sydney, Saturday, June 6

'I don't like the copycat culture to start with but I particularly think that it's out of place here.'

Mr Abbott said the idea that there is something 'fundamentally wrong, illegitimate and racist' about Australia 'does not stand up to serious scrutiny'.

'I say to everyone unhappy with Australia, what country would you rather live in? Anyone who thinks that we are in some way racist, sexist, whatever, what country is better?'

'And the truth is it's almost impossible to identify one.'

Mr Abbott labelled the movement's presence in Australia as 'a cry of rage against everything' and urged people not to 'destroy the good' for the sake of finding 'mythical perfection'.

He also said Australians aren't educated enough about the nation's history, and should learn about the 'broad Western canon'.

'The fact that so many people have almost zero knowledge of our cultural underpinnings, such as the new Testament for instance, is collectively a failing of Australia's leadership class,' he told Mr Roskam.

'If you don't understand the things that have shaped the culture in which you live, it's very hard to navigate properly.'

His comments come a day after Scott Morrison said Sydney's planned Black Lives Matter protest next week is 'appalling' and should be cancelled.

Police want to ban the protest because it breaks NSW coronavirus restrictions which limit gatherings to 20 people in a public place - but organisers have insisted it will go ahead.

Asked what his message is for the protesters, the Prime Minister said: 'I just think that's appalling.'

'Where the police and where the state government has said that there's a mass gathering that can't go ahead, well, people should obey the law,' he told Sydney radio 2GB on Wednesday morning.

Mr Abbott said the idea that there is something 'fundamentally wrong, illegitimate and racist' about Australia 'does not stand up to serious scrutiny'. Pictured: Aboriginal protesters at a BLM protest march on June 06

Scott Morrison said Sydney's planned Black Lives Matter protest next week is 'appalling' and should be cancelled

'I mean there's no special rule for people to not obey the law. I mean, what gives people a ticket to not obey the law?'

NSW has suffered double-digit cases of coronavirus almost every day since 13 July after a freight worker from Melbourne spread the disease at a pub in south-west Sydney.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian told the protesters to express their views 'in a different way'.

'Irrespective of the issue, we need to follow the health advice. Large crowds are a huge concern. We cannot allow that march to continue unfortunately,' she told the ABC on Wednesday morning.

'If people feel strongly about that issue, they're welcome to express their views in different ways, but it's just not sensible at this time to expose yourself and others to the spread of the virus.

'We're at a critical point in New South Wales and we don't want to see the virus spread and actions like that are a huge health risk.'
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 15:07:09|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The immediate introduction of a temporary basic income for the world's poorest people could slow the current surge in COVID-19 cases by enabling nearly 3 billion people to stay at home, according to a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report released Thursday.

The report, Temporary Basic Income: Protecting Poor and Vulnerable People in Developing Countries, estimates that it would cost from 199 billion U.S. dollars per month to provide a time-bound, guaranteed basic income to 2.7 billion people living below or just above the poverty line in 132 developing countries.

The report concludes that the measure is feasible and urgently needed, with the pandemic now spreading at a rate of 1.6 million new cases per week, particularly in developing countries, where seven out of 10 workers make a living through informal markets and cannot earn money if they are at home.

Many of the huge numbers of people without social insurance are informal workers, low-waged women and young people, refugees and migrants, and people with disabilities, who are hardest hit by the health crisis, it added.

The UNDP carried out assessments on the socio-economic effects of COVID-19 in more than 60 countries in the past few months and the evidence shows that workers who are not covered by social protection cannot stay at home without an income.

A temporary basic income would give them the means to buy food and pay for health and education expenses, which is financially within reach, the UNDP said.

A six-month temporary basic income, for example, would require just 12 percent of the total financial response to COVID-19 expected in 2020, or the equivalent of one-third of what developing countries owe in external debt payments in 2020, it added.

"Unprecedented times call for unprecedented social and economic measures. Introducing a Temporary Basic Income for the world's poorest people has emerged as one option. This might have seemed impossible just a few months ago," said UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner.

"Bailouts and recovery plans cannot only focus on big markets and big business. A Temporary Basic Income might enable governments to give people in lockdown a financial lifeline, inject cash back into local economies to help keep small businesses afloat, and slow the devastating spread of COVID-19," he said.

However, a temporary basic income is not a silver bullet solution to the economic hardship the pandemic has brought, the UNDP said, urging countries to protect jobs, expand support to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and use digital solutions to identify and access people who are excluded.

One way for countries to pay for a temporary basic income would be to repurpose the funds they would use this year to service their debt, it added.

Developing and emerging economies will spend 3.1 trillion dollars in debt repayment this year, according to official data.

A comprehensive debt standstill for all developing countries would allow countries to temporarily repurpose these funds into emergency measures to combat the impact of the coronavirus crisis, the UNDP said.

Several countries have already taken steps to introduce temporary basic incomes.

Spain recently approved a monthly budget of 250 million euros (about 290 million dollars) to top up the incomes of 850,000 vulnerable families and 2.3 million individuals up to a minimum threshold.

COVID-19 has exacerbated existing global and national inequalities and created new disparities that are hitting the most vulnerable people the hardest.

With up to over 100 million people being pushed into extreme poverty in 2020, 1.4 billion children affected by school closures, and record-level unemployment and loss of livelihoods, the UNDP predicts that global human development is on course to decline this year for the first time since the concept was introduced. Enditem
Breast cancer rates among women globally are on the rise, but new research is uncovering trends related to age and where you live that could help target prevention measures to improve the situation.

A new study published in The Lancet Global Health includes data on women from 41 countries and found that in higher income nations, including Canada, rates of breast cancer in premenopausal women are increasing, while postmenopausal breast cancer is increasing more rapidly in lower income countries.

"To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the global rates and trends of pre- and postmenopausal breast cancer," says Dr. Miranda Fidler-Benaoudia, PhD, study principal investigator and member of the O'Brien Institute for Public Health at the Cumming School of Medicine (CSM).

"Distinguishing between pre- and postmenopausal breast cancer allowed us to uncover different trends, which could be important for tailoring prevention efforts and curbing the future breast cancer burden worldwide."

Although the study provides evidence of an increase in breast cancer rates in women of all ages, the increase in premenopausal breast cancer in higher income countries is particularly concerning, says Fidler-Benaoudia, an adjunct assistant professor with the departments of Oncology and Community Health Sciences at the CSM. Premenopausal breast cancer was significantly increasing in 20 out of 44 populations, each representing a country or an ethnic group, she studied.

The risk of developing cancer increases as a woman ages, says Fidler-Benaoudia. Postmenopausal breast cancer risks, such as obesity and having children later in life are well studied, but risk factors for developing breast cancer when you're young are not as well known.

"When young people get cancer, the impact on them is huge and it can lead to major repercussions later in life," says Fidler-Benaoudia. "For example, the current life expectancy in Canada is around 80 years, so when a person is diagnosed at 30, they could live another 50 years where they are more likely to experience major health, financial and career repercussions compared to the general population as a result of their treatment."

Postmenopausal breast cancer is significantly increasing in 24 out of the 44 populations, most notably in countries undergoing transitions from lower to higher income status. Fidler-Benaoudia says this could be a result of these countries adopting a more Western lifestyle that includes unhealthy behaviours that increase breast cancer risk such as lower levels of physical activity and increased alcohol consumption. Adopting early screening procedures, which are common in higher income countries, could play a part as well, by identifying more cases early on.

"The increasing rates of postmenopausal breast cancer in lower income countries highlights opportunities for prevention," says Dr. Hyuna Sung, PhD, a cancer epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society, and study co-author. "We know several well-established risk factors are modifiable, including excess body weight and physical inactivity, which is encouraging for prevention efforts."

Measuring the global breast cancer burden

Although breast cancer is thought to be a disease of the developed world, almost 50 per cent of breast cancer cases and 58 per cent of deaths occur in less developed countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The study highlights the inequities in cancer mortality worldwide, showing that about 47 per cent of women diagnosed with premenopausal breast cancer in less developed countries will die, compared to only 11 per cent per cent in the most developed countries. Postmenopausal breast cancer saw a fatality rate of 56 per cent in less developed nations compared to 21 per cent in their more developed counterparts.

Fidler-Benaoudia says early diagnosis and access to treatment remain key to combating breast cancer in low- and middle-income countries, and that prevention efforts to decrease exposure to known risk factors for the disease must be increased globally.

"The findings from this study shows important differences in the breast cancer burden by age and point to the need for prevention initiatives such as efforts to reduce obesity and alcohol consumption, increase physical activity and breastfeeding--all of which reduce one's risk for developing breast cancer," says Fidler-Benaoudia.

Dr. Miranda Fidler-Benaoudia, PhD, is an epidemiologist at CancerControl Alberta, Alberta Health Services, and adjunct assistant professor in the departments of Oncology and Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary's Cumming School of Medicine. She is a member of the O'Brien Institute for Public Health, Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute and Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute.

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LA Activists Drill Down on Who Deserves Reparations for Slavery and Why

Two bills calling for the study of reparations owed to African Americans are making their way through both the California legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives.

As state and federal lawmakers grapple with whether or not the State of California  and the United States as a whole  should take a closer look at what it owes the descendants of enslaved Africans in the United States, a group of Black California activists are getting ahead of the conversation. They are distilling the case for reparations down to why African Americans deserve to get paid for centuries of free labor and the Jim Crow laws and other forms of state-enforced discriminatory practices that followed. They are also specifying which segment of Black Americans should get those payments.

On July 12, the Los Angeles chapter of American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) hosted a live stream that dug down into the complexities of securing reparations for the descendants of enslaved Black people in the United States.

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They broadcasted the 90-minute special both on YouTube and Facebook. Experts on the history of the Black experience in America laid out the case for reparations. After that, ADOS activists followed with and a no-holds-barred conversation on race, racism and reparations. They discussed how some Americans, people of other races and some Blacks, too, often misunderstand the arguments at the foundation of their agenda.

The live stream featured Dr. William A. Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen, co-authors of From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century. The husband-and-wife duo started the show with denouncing the notion that slavery in America is ancient history.

When youre thinking about slavery from a generational perspective, its not that long ago, Mullen said. The legacy of slavery is something that were still feeling today.

Darity noted that reparations should not be distributed exclusively to mitigate the effects of generational slavery, but to recompense for all of the oppressive economic systems that have targeted Black people in America for centuries.

The case that we build in From Here to Equality is not restricted to so-called slavery reparations in the first place, Darity said. Our premise is that there is a series of atrocities that have been inflicted on Black Americans that have affected their economic status. So, we begin with slavery but then we move into the post-slavery era where the first atrocity was the failure to provide the formerly enslaved with any form of restitution.

Darity mentioned the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, also known as the fall of Black Wall Street, citing it as one example of the ways Black people experienced economic violence in America.

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He asserted that the racial wealth disparity in the US can be directly tied to atrocities like that committed by citizens as well as systemic discriminatory practices, and it can be assuaged with reparations.

While 25% of white households have a net worth in excess of $1 million, it is only 4% for Black households in the United States. So, to close that gap would require an allocation of funds that would at least amount to 10 to 12 trillion dollars and thats what we think should be one of the central objectives of a Black reparations project.

As far as policy, Darity briefly talked about speaking to Congress about H.R. 40, also known as the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, which is a bill that was introduced last year that if implemented would create a commission to determine the merits and logistics of providing reparations for the descendants of Black slaves.

Since its televised introduction in the House Judiciary Committee last year, legislators in the lower house of the U.S. Congress have not revisited H.R. 40. The bill would expire if no action is taken on it before the 116th Congress ends in January.

In California, on June 11, the State Assembly voted 61-12 to approve AB 3121, titled the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans. The Senate Judiciary Committee is now reviewing the legislation before it holds a hearing and votes on it. If passed, the bill would be referred to the full Senate for an up-or-down vote.

Last week, in Asheville, North Carolina, the city Council apologized for the towns role in slavery and discrimination and i5 voted to provide reparations for its Black residents in the form of investments in areas where Black residents face inequities.

Antonio Moore, a Los Angeles-based attorney and ADOS co-founder, says the distinction between descendants of slaves and other Black Americans does make a difference when it comes to generational wealth, citing former President Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) as his examples.

What do you do in a world where your first Black president inherited $500,000 from his White lineage and your possible, most likely, first Black Vice President basically lived as an elite Indian  they out earn White folks; and then told you that shes just as Black as you because she went to Howard, he said.

Moore was referring to $500,000 in stocks President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama reportedly inherited from the former POTUS maternal grandparents estate. Regarding Harris, he was pointing to Insight Center study, The Color of Wealth, that revealed that Asian Indian families (Harris mother, who is deceased, was Indian) have the second highest median net worth ($460,000) of all sub-groups in Los Angeles County. They are outpaced in L.A. County by Japanese households ($592,000) and followed by Chinese ones ($408,000). U.S. Black median net worth in Los Angeles County ranks the lowest at $4,000.

According to a Gallup News poll conducted in 2019, 27 % of Black Americans are opposed to the United States making cash payments to individuals for reparations.

Im not saying that acknowledging history doesnt matter. It does. Im saying that there is a difference between acknowledging history and allowing history to distract us from the problems we face today, said Coleman Hughes, a columnist at the online magazine Quillette and a 2020 graduate of Columbia University.

Hughes, who testified against HR 40 before the House Judiciary Committee in June 2019, says

Paying reparations to all descendants of Black people in the United States who were slaves is a mistake.

Take me as an example. I was born three decades after the end of Jim Crow into a privileged household in the suburbs. I attend an Ivy League school, he said at the congressional hearing. Yet Im descended from slaves who worked on Thomas Jeffersons Monticello plantation.

ADOS has faced pointed criticisms from several prominent media personalities and other Black activists. They say the organization engages in disinformation and divisive rhetoric, some saying the movements specific focus on descendants of slaves weakens Black communities, pitting Black immigrant groups against Black American descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

The movement relies heavily on right-wing, anti-Black, anti-immigrant talking points, and a series of policy positions reliant on a persons ability to produce documentation or what I am calling slave papers in order to verify Black native identity, said Jessica Ann Mitchell Aiwuyor, a writer for the Institute of the Black World 21st Century. If implemented, the end result of these policies could be a weakened, further marginalized Black population.

Yvette Carnell, co-founder and host of the ADOS media outlet Breaking Brown, addressed some of these criticisms during the show.
People's Liberation Army (PLA) continued deployment of around 40,000 troops in its front and depth areas for the Eastern Ladakh sector. These troops are supported by heavy weaponry like air defence systems, armoured personnel carriers and long-range artillery.

It seems that the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) is not in a mood to de-escalate the situation on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) as it has continued deployment of around 40,000 troops in its front and depth areas for the Eastern Ladakh sector.

The Chinese are also not honouring their commitment for disengagement at the friction points in Eastern Ladakh and not moving back as per the agreed terms during the multiple rounds of talks at the government and Army level and intervention at the senior level like the one done by the National Security Advisor couple of weeks ago would be required for further progress, the sources said.

The Chinese have not shown any signs of de-escalation as they continue to maintain their heavy troop deployment of almost 40,000 troops supported by heavy weaponry like air defence systems, armoured personnel carriers and long-range artillery in front and depth areas, sources said.

Also Read: Amid reports of documents burning, US orders closure of Chinese Houston Consulate General

Also Read: Covid outbreak likely to get worse before improving: Trump

The disengagement process has also not made any progress since the last round of talks between the two Corps Commanders held last week and ground positions have also not changed, the sources said. The Chinese are also showing reluctance in moving out of the Finger 5 area and retreat back to their permanent location in Sirijap as they want to create an observation post in the Finger area, sources said.

Similarly, they have done a heavy amount of construction of structures in the Hot Springs and Gogra post area which are the two major friction points in the Eastern Ladakh sector. In the Hot Springs and Gogra area, the Chinese have been giving excuse of the possibility of India occupying strategic heights there once they retreat to their permanent locations in their side of the border, the sources said.

In the last meeting between Corps commander-level officers on July 14-15, it was agreed that both sides will now monitor further disengagement by troops and verify the development in the next few days. The NSA, during his interaction with the Chinese side, had made it clear that both sides will have to move back to their permanent locations for the matter to be sorted out completely and to the satisfaction of both sides.

Also Read: US calls world to unite against China, says China using Covid to bully neighbours

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Surgical operations on patients will be cut by a third between now and the end of the year and some health services will only operate at half the level they were at pre-Covid-19.

The devastating impact of living with Covid-19, and the limitations infection control imposes on some of the sickest patients, was outlined by the HSE yesterday.

HSE chief Paul Reid said that he was now drawing up a "winter plan like no other" as the threat of Covid-19, flu and patient demand looms.

He was speaking as the HSE's phased plan for a 'Safe Return to Health Services' until the end of 2020 highlights the huge obstacles posed by infection risk, which are resulting in less patients being seen.

The plan warns that "theatre and procedure room activity may remain reduced by up to 30pc depending on the type of procedures being undertaken and extra safety requirements, PPE and infection control".

Patients also need to be tested for the coronavirus in advance .

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It says that procedures known as scopes are only operating at 50pc capacity.

Outpatient clinics are now running at 50pc to 60pc of their normal capacity. This should be increased to 70pc by September and be at this level until the end of the year.

Patients can expect less face-to-face consultations with doctors and instead half of these will take place over the phone or via video call.

"We know we have to operate within reduced capacity all across our systems which will make things slower in how we deliver services. Services will take longer to complete," said Mr Reid.

The plan to restore non-Covid-19 services is being carried out with a very uncertain lens and the risk of another surge in infection.

He asked people to "continue to stick with us".

"We never said this was going to be a short game. It was always going to be a long haul," he said.

Meanwhile, Ireland should look at moving away from nursing homes as it is difficult to protect older people from Covid-19 in congregated settings. It follows the damning Hiqa report showing many nursing homes hit by Covid-19 had poor infection control and governance.

Mr Reid said: "This is not a time for any one sector blaming the other.

"We all have to put up our hands and take really big learnings around how nursing homes are overseen and what learnings we have seen throughout the pandemic so far.

"The first learning is the obvious one, nursing homes and particularly congregated settings are not the environment in which you can protect people in a pandemic," he told Newstalk FM.

Nursing homes have been at the epicentre of a disease outbreak which has proven most deadly for the frail and elderly.

Mr Reid said the health service needed to look at how they care for older people in the future. "It can't be in congregated settings," he said.

"If you look at Denmark, they stopped building nursing homes a few years ago and I think that is lesson number one for Ireland.

"I do believe there is a gap when it comes to nursing homes and that is an issue we have to address, whether it is clinical oversight or governance. I am wide open as CEO of the HSE, to any learning that people believe we can make."
A uniformed sailor is at the center of a Navy investigation today after screaming 'f**k Trump' at protesters.

Aviation Boatswain's Mate Sarah J. Dudrey, 24, was filmed as she launched into an angry tirade at 'Pro-America' demonstrators in Ventura who said they 'had lined the sidewalks with happiness and American flags'.

An investigation has been opened after Navy chiefs were made aware of the footage.

Ms Dudrey blocked a lane of traffic when she stopped her car 'on a busy main street' outside the Ventura County Government Center on Sunday at around 1pm, one witness said.

Aviation Boatswain's Mate Sarah J. Dudrey, 24, was filmed as she launched into an angry tirade at 'Pro-America' demonstrators in Ventura

A woman who posted the clip to Facebook wrote: 'This attack took place on Sunday July 19th at about 1:00 pm.

'A large group of people were having a pro-America rally and had lined the sidewalks with happiness and American flags.

'Dudrey pulled up in a BORROWED CAR, parked illegally on a busy main street, blocking an entire lane, got out...'

The one-minute clip showed Ms Dudrey walk around her car before shouting and pointing at one of the demonstrators.

Continuing round she got close to the cameraman and shouted at the rest of the demonstrators, saying: 'F**k Trump, F***k you.'

One man said: 'Shame on you,' as Dudley shouted at an elderly woman holding a stars and stripes umbrella.

One person said: 'Don't touch anybody. Get back in your car.' Another added: 'You should be ashamed.'

The one-minute clip shows Ms Dudrey walk around her car before shouting and pointing at one of the demonstrators

Demonstrators started shouting at Ms Dudrey to 'take off the uniform' as she continued to make hand signals at the crowd

Ms Dudrey, who was wearing military fatigues and had her blue face mask around her chin, put both her middle fingers up at the demonstrators as she walked through the small crowd.

A man shouted: 'He's your commanding officer,' referencing the fact President Donald Trump is overall commander of the country's armed forces.

Demonstrators started shouting at Ms Dudrey to 'take off the uniform' as she continued to make hand signals at the crowd.

She then got back in the drivers' seat of the car and drove away.

Dudrey is based at Naval Base Ventura County, 15 miles away from where the altercation was filmed.
Startups building tech-based platforms to help make investments continue to be in high demand, building on an expanding market of investors getting more confident to rely on technology to undercut broker fees and speed up the process. Today, one of the hopefuls in the space is announcing a growth round to capitalise on that opportunity.

Scalable Capital -- the Munich-based startup that has built a platform to monitor and manage investment portfolios investing in shares, manage trades and exchange traded funds for a flat fee of 2.99 per month -- has closed a round of 50 million ($58 million) to expand its business. Scalable currently has some 80,000 customers across Germany, Austria and the UK. Using its services both directly and via bank partners, the startup says it has more than $2 billion under management on its platform and the plan is to build more products for those customers, add more customers in those regions and potentially look to more countries in Europe.

CEO Erik Podzuweit confirmed to TechCrunch that the Series D was made at a post-money valuation 400 million ($460 million).

The investment is coming from a mix of new and existing investors, including BlackRock, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures and Tengelmann Ventures. It brings the total raised by the startup to 116 million ($133 million).

The last several years have seen a veritable explosion of startups -- and banks, often tapping technology built by startups, as is the case with Scalable -- building financial technology tools that help people bypass slow, costly and often less-transparent legacy banking services. In place of the incumbents, startups are developing apps and web-based platforms to help users make faster, cheaper and (critically) more financial transactions.

That trend has been accelerated significantly in the last few months, where people are spending a lot more time in front of screens at home as part of social distancing orders to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. Services that used to be conducted in person are shifting to being carried out online: That was already a trend before the health pandemic, of course, but now with more limited options, people are making the shift faster.

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It seems that this is even the case in the world of investing apps.

Despite the wider economic downturn spurred by the global health pandemic, those who have the money to make investments are still doing so, not just to capture new opportunities that are arising, but also to move away from investments that might be less fruitful in the current climate.

It seems ironic for a startup to set out to "democratise" services for wealth management -- one way that Scalable likes to describe its service -- considering that wealth management is not something that the majority of people will ever have the means to need to think about, but the trend seems to play out at all levels of the economy.

And that means startups are raising money to meet that demand to disrupt traditional brokers. One of Scalable's direct competitors, Trade Republic, announced a fundraise of $67 million just in April. Others in the same space that are also on the radar of VCs include Bux, YieldStreet (out of the U.S.), Parallel Markets, Freetrade, Revolut and Robinhood.

"In times of Covid-19, our funding round is a powerful signal; it shows that our focused, digital business model is convincing the investors," Podzuweit, co-founder and co-CEO of Scalable Capital, said in a statement.

To date, Scalable has built out its business as both a B2B and B2C service. For the former, it sells its tech to banks who want to offer a "robo advisor" option to its investor customers. Partners in that business include a mix of huge banks and other startups, among them Barclays, Gerd Kommer Capital, Raiffeisen Banking Group Austria, Raisin, ING Deutschland, Siemens Private Finance, the Openbank digital bank from Santander, Targobank from French Credit Mutuel, Oskar and Baader Bank.

The B2C service, which was only launched in June, offers a service directly to investors themselves. It sounds like it has been growing very quickly in the month or so it's been in the market. In an email exchange, Podzuweit -- who co-founded the company in 2014 with Florian Prucker, Adam French (previously at Goldman Sachs) and Professor Dr. Stefan Mittnik (an academic who is the current chair of Financial Econometrics and director of the Center for Quantitative Risk Analysis at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich) -- said that the B2C and B2B businesses are roughly at a 50/50 rate in terms of revenues at the moment.

The B2C service includes a robo advisor for private investors with an "own asset management strategy." The service branded "Prime Broker" offers flat-rate trades, and Scalable says that on average users of it service are about 10 years younger than those for its wealth management service (no surprise there, since it's likely that older people who have accrued more wealth will be the most likely targets for something aimed at "wealth management").

And that underscores the opportunity for growth into new customer segments that Scalable wants to target with this funding.
Its the last tolerated prejudice. But Femails had enough. Its time we called out those day-to-day moments when were patronised for no longer being young...

The actress Julia Sawalha, 51, received some disappointing news over lockdown.

The makers of the Chicken Run sequel wrote to inform her that she will no longer be the voice of Ginger. Why? Because her voice is too old and they want a younger sounding actress to play the role.

British columnist Christa D'Souza (pictured), blasts the movie industry's decision to no longer use Julia Sawalha, 51, as the voice of Ginger in Chicken Run

I have officially been plucked, stuffed and roasted, she angrily tweeted.

How is it possible to judge a persons age by their voice? Even if it has minutely changed, so what? The movie industry assumes we cant handle the idea of a character growing up alongside us and underestimates how we grow attached to certain voices, irrespective of whether they get hoarser or project less well.

The producers should also take into account that a more mature Ginger would be even wiser and the one most likely to come up with the escape plan.

Even if Sawalhas voice did sound a teensy bit more mature than it did when she was 31 (which it doesnt, as she proved with a tape she sent in), it behoves continuity of the movie to keep her in.

Your voice is too old. Honestly. I feel a campaign coming on.
The art world loves a work of art that requires trekking to a remote location. Theres Spiral Jetty, one of the most iconic pieces of land art in existence, on the northern shores of the Great Salt Lake. New Mexico has Lightning Field, Walter de Marias installation of 400 stainless-steel poles that serves as minimal sculpture at most times, and a veritable light show during lightning storms.

These experiences are about long journeys, landscape and meditation. (And showing your friends that you were there by putting photos on Instagram: Look at me! Im contemplating!)

Now theres another piece to add to this list: Social Pool, by Austrian artist Alfredo Barsuglia, who was a resident at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture here in Los Angeles.

The piece was completed last Friday and it consists of a single, diminutive swimming pool located somewhere in the southern Mojave Desert between Joshua Tree and Apple Valley. The public is allowed to use the pool, but in order to do so visitors need the key that unlocks it (it is kept covered) as well as the GPS coordinates. Only once you have the key, which is kept at the MAK Center, are you given the coordinates.

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Its really hard to find, says Barsuglia. There is no road. There is no fence. There is no sign. There is no trail. You just come on it. Im sure some people wont find it.

The piece, he says, is about the effort people make to reach a luxury good. Pools, says Barsuglia, are often used as markers of wealth. Im interested in the way that these are often integrated into the architecture of a house. And, often, people will have a pool, but they dont even get into it. They just like to show that they have it. It shows they dont have to think about water.

Water is the first thing I thought about when I first heard about the piece. As in: why is some artist building a swimming pool in the middle of the California desert during one of the worst droughts on record? Could the art world possibly be more out of touch? How much more decadent ridiculosity can we stand?

Barsuglia says those are exactly some of the thoughts that he wants to inspire. When you are there by the pool, he says, I think you really understand what a luxury this is and you start to ask yourself if its really worth it. Perhaps some people might feel that this is not something they need to do.

Certainly, Barsuglia isnt making it easy to get to Social Pool. For one, reservations are not allowed, nor is calling in to find out if the key is available. You have to go to the MAK Center and see if the key is there, he says. If the key is there, then you go.

In addition, the user is only allowed to hold onto the key for 24 hours. I dont want people to go there and combine it with other things, says the artist. The idea is that it all starts the moment you pick up the key. You then have the experience of getting there: of maybe sitting in traffic, of the walk in the desert, of enjoying the pool if you find it, then returning the key to the MAK Center. That is all part of the project.

Moreover, once youve landed in the vicinity of the pool, there are no instructions on how to arrive. You really have to go and search for it, explains Barsuglia. This requires a hike through the desert, which, depending on where you happen to leave your car, could be anywhere from 20 minutes to more than an hour. Barsuglia warns against trying to four-wheel it all the way to the site: Ive gotten stuck in the sand. Plus, if you drive in, it destroys the desert ecology.

Each participating person is asked to take a gallon of water to help replenish the pool. And since it is small, and this is set up as a contemplative exercise, only four people are allowed at a time.

There is an element of danger to it, too, says Barsuglia. There are scorpions and rattlesnakes. You might get heat stroke. I recommend not going alone.

Barsuglia, who is from Austria, but comes regularly to Southern California, has done other works that play on ideas of desire, luxury and consumption. In 2008, he built a sculpture, Oderfla Beauty Resort, which resembles a spa structure being consumed by a desert dune. He also put that one in the Mojave, in a dune outside of Flamingo Heights in the Lucerne Valley.

That piece looks like something in a natural catastrophe, he says. Its like we come from the future and reflect on this buried spa, on the importance of being beautiful. Its like an archeological site.

The pool, in some ways, echoes the theme of consumption, albeit in a different way. But is the statement really necessary? Did some artist really need to gobble up 800-plus gallons of precious water to make a point about the lengths we go to consume? I asked myself this question repeatedly, but then thought of all the swimming pools already in existence in nearby Palm Springs and I realized that Barsuglias project was literally a drop in the bucket.

By my estimation, the large family pool at the Viceroy Hotel in Palm Springs easily contains something in the vicinity of 50,000 gallons of water. (!!!) And its just one of three pools at the hotel, which is just one of the countless hotels in Palm Springs with a pool. And that doesnt begin to get into the number of private pools, as well as fountains, ponds and emerald green lawns  not just in Palms Springs, but all over the state.

In this context, Barsuglias swimming pool is probably no more or less ridiculous than any of the pools that have already been built throughout California.

Still, is the artists piece part of the problem as it points to the problem? Yes it is. But is it the biggest part of the problem? Not even remotely. Will it make viewers, whove had to hike through the desert clutching a gallon of water, more enlightened about the way we manage humanitys most precious resource? I sure hope so, especially the city managers who insist on planting grass all over a region it wasnt meant to grow.

But, most significantly, will I go see Barsuglias work? Well, that depends. If I can get my hands on the key...

Social Pool will be open somewhere in the Mojave Desert through September 30. Note: The website says that reservations will be accepted, but Barsuglia says this is no longer the case. To arrange a visit, check in at the MAK Center for the key. 835 N Kings Rd, West Hollywood, makcenter.org
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 23)  The government is set to transport home another batch of individuals who got stranded in Metro Manila during the movement restrictions as the COVID-19 crisis flared, an official said Thursday.

Some 9,000 locally stranded individuals are scheduled to go back to their respective provinces on July 25 and 26, Joseph Encabo, Presidential Management Staff assistant secretary and Hatid Tulong project lead convenor, told a media briefing.

Those bound for Mindanao will leave on Saturday while others heading to the Visayas will depart on Sunday, the official added.

Encabo said that the travelers must undergo a rapid test, and secure a medical clearance as well as travel authority before being allowed to go back to their home provinces.

After this, Encabo said there will also be a cluster send-off for residents of island provinces such as Palawan and Batanes.

Encabo said a total of 123,000 have already benefited from the Hatid Tulong program. Authorities are still targeting to assist the homecoming of around 8,000 to 10,000 more who remain stranded in Metro Manila, he added.

Encabo admitted there are challenges in the implementation of the Hatid Tulong program as some local officials have sought the suspension of the return of stranded individuals to avert a surge in COVID-19 cases in their areas.

But other LGUs, which Encabo did not identify, have withdrawn their request following their dialogue with the Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Presidential Management Staff.

Local authorities are free to enforce their own health protocols upon the arrival of LSIs, the DILG earlier said.
The University of Nairobi Vice-Chancellor Stephen Kiama has reiterated that the resumption of studies slated for September 2020 will not go on as planned after 14 members of staff tested positive for Covid-19.

Speaking on Wednesday, Professor Kiama said: Nairobi is the most affected part of the country and the university sits right at the centre of the city. It will not be prudent to reopen.

Citing inadequate accommodation for learners, Prof Kiama told the Star that the institution can only accommodate 10,000 students against a 60,000 population due to the protocols issued by the government.

This means, 50,000 students live in all other estates within the city and its environs, putting everyone at risk We also have campuses in Kisumu, Mombasa, Kikuyu, Kiama said by phone.

Kiama, however, noted that teaching and learning will continue virtually and no student scheduled to graduate this year should fail to do so.

Faculties and students will continue to engage online. It has been happening but there are some challenges that we are working to address.

He added that the admission and orientation of new students will be done virtually pending the determination of reporting dates.

Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha last month announced that schools will reopen in January 2021.
Were concerned at our university  that the faculty or the teacher voice needs to be heard and understood, said Janet Smith, an urban planning professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. We know how to teach in the classroom, and we know what the issues are, but we also are individuals with health issues  personal health issues as well as health issues as caregivers.
Clint Eastwood has filed two lawsuits seeking millions of dollars in damages from several CBD manufacturers and marketers, who falsely claimed he had endorsed their goods.

The 90-year-old Academy Award-winning actor-turned-director said in one of the lawsuits that multiple CBD companies used photos of him, fraudulent articles and attributed quotes to him to promote and sell cannabidiol (CBD) products.

'In truth, Mr Eastwood has no connection of any kind whatsoever to any CBD products and never gave such an interview,' states the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles federal court on Wednesday, which claims defamation.

Taking legal action: Clint Eastwood has filed two lawsuits seeking millions of dollars in damages from several CBD manufacturers and marketers, who falsely claimed he had endorsed their goods (seen in 2018)

According to court documents: 'Mr Eastwood seeks to hold accountable the persons and entities that wrongfully crafted this scheme, spread false and malicious statements of facts about him, and illegally profited off of his name and likeness.'

The suit detailed that some of the phony news articles about Eastwood alleged he was quitting the movie business to focus on a CBD business, which is non-existent, according to the New York Times.

The three CBD companies accused of coming up with the phony articles, which first surfaced last year, were named as Sera Labs Inc, Greendios and For Our Vets LLC.

Suing: The 90-year-old Academy Award-winning actor-turned-director said in one of the lawsuits that multiple CBD companies used photos of him, fraudulent articles and attributed quotes to him to promote and sell cannabidiol (CBD) products (pictured in 2018)

The lawsuit also claims that three companies sent spam emails with the subject line: 'Clint Eastwood Exposes Shocking Secret Today.'

The body of the emails also included a fictitious interview supposedly with NBC's Today show, which never took place.

The second lawsuit targets ten companies and individuals throughout the United States that are accused of using a programming code to insert his name in hidden metatags, to direct online searches to their webpage.

'By using Mr Eastwood's name in hidden metatags, defendants have figuratively posted a sign with Mr Eastwood's trademark in front of their online store to attract customers and caused the consuming public to believe that Mr Eastwood is associated with and/or endorsed... defendants' CBD products, when no such association actually exists,' the court document points out.

Untrue: The suit detailed that some of the phony news articles about Eastwood alleged he was quitting the movie business to focus on a CBD business, which is non-existent (seen in 2020)

The father-of-eight explained in both lawsuits that he would not allow his name or image to be used to sell CBD products.

'Like many of his most famous characters, Mr Eastwood is not afraid to confront wrongdoing and hold accountable those that try to illegally profit off his name or likeness,' the documents continued.

Eastwood has asked the court to order the companies to give up all income, profits and benefits resulting from their conduct.

'In truth, Mr Eastwood has no connection of any kind whatsoever to any CBD products and never gave such an interview,' states the lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court on Wednesday, which claims defamation (seen in 2014)

Eastwood is not alone as a target of fake celebrity endorsements, which have also deceptively used the likenesses of George Clooney, Oprah and Tom Hanks.

'My client is not one to sit idly by as the defendants use his good name to dupe customers into purchasing products with which he has no affiliation,' Eastwood's attorney Nolan Heimann told Deadline.

He added: 'While the purpose of these lawsuits is to halt and remedy ongoing defamation and misappropriation violations, they should also serve as a reminder to customers to be cautious when they see a too-good-to-be-true celebrity endorsement.'
NAPLES, Fla., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Five agents from boutique luxury real estate firm Gulf Coast International Properties (GCIP) recently landed in the top 25 among real estate agents serving the Old Naples, Port Royal and Aqualane Shores areas. For the month of June 2020, Adam L. Carriero, who has been serving Naples' luxury real estate clientele for 24 years, took the number one spot with total closed sales of $25,700,000. Also ranked in the top 25 were Michael A. McCumber at number 10 with $9,900,000; Shay McCoy Trask at number 11 with $9,900,00; Tim Savage, P.A. at number 14 with $7,225,000; and Celine Godof Wells at number 21 with $3,575,000. In addition, with a total of just 30 agents, GCIP achieved the ranking of number one sales office for the month of June in the same market areas.

Naples, Florida is a market the GCIP team knows well. All the agents are local residents and the team specializes in the exclusive Old Naples, Port Royal and Aqualane Shores areas. "GCIP's success is evidence of our unrivaled client service, skillful strategy and innovative local, national and international marketing approach," said Vicki Tracy, GCIP's chief operating officer. "We are proud to announce these impressive statistics that demonstrate the team's local market knowledge and continued focus on customer service."

Locally owned and operated, Gulf Coast International Properties is an award-winning company that has been recognized by Who's Who in Luxury Real Estate, a worldwide collection of top brokers representing the finest luxury properties around the globe. With more than 100 years combined experience in the Naples, Florida market, GCIP is the only Naples-area member of Who's Who in Luxury Real Estate and was also chosen for membership in its Board of Regents, an exclusive network of the world's most elite luxury real estate professionals.

To learn more about Gulf Coast International Properties, visit the website at GCIPNaples.com.

CONTACT:

Vicki Tracy

Chief Operating Officer

Gulf Coast International Properties

Telephone: 239-434-2558

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Gulf Coast International Properties

Related Links

http://www.GCIPNaples.com


Some of Ms. Currys contributions were small but crucial to the movement. Julian Bond, a co-founder of S.N.C.C., once recalled how Ms. Curry had given him a key to her office to use a mimeograph machine. The fund-raising letters he printed, along with the student association network generally, was an invaluable resource for recruiting money and political support, he said.

In 1964, working as a Southern field representative for the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, Ms. Curry traveled to counties in Mississippi that were under court order to desegregate schools. Working covertly (she pretended to be the visiting college roommate of a local organizer), she sought to persuade the local white community to accept desegregation and investigated cases of reprisals against Black families.

Decades later, Ms. Curry returned to Mississippi to interview Matthew and Mae Bertha Carter, Black sharecroppers who, despite the Civil Rights Act of 1964, encountered vicious bigotry after their children began attending a recently desegregated school in 1965. The Carters were taunted, denied credit by shopkeepers and kicked off the land they worked, but they persisted, winning a lawsuit that confirmed their childrens right to attend the school.

It is their story that Ms. Curry tells in Silver Rights (1995), which takes its title from the way elderly Black Southerners had phrased the word civil. It was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times and a finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. (Marian Wright Edelman, the founder of the Childrens Defense Fund, wrote the introduction.) And it gave Ms. Curry a new, public-facing role in the fight for equality.

Constance Winifred Curry was born on July 19, 1933, in Paterson, N.J. Her parents, Ernest and Hazel (Richmond) Curry, were immigrants from Belfast, Northern Ireland. They settled first in the Northeast and then relocated to Greensboro, N.C., when Constance was in the third-grade. Her father went to work in the textile industry.

In Deep in Our Hearts (2000), a book that Ms. Curry co-authored about the lives of white women in the freedom movement, she credited her parents history with her social consciousness.

It is clear to me that the Irish struggle got planted deep in my heart and soul at an early age, she wrote, and that its lessons and music and poetry were easily transferred to the Southern freedom struggle.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak was a freedom fighter who played an important role in Indias struggle for Independence. He was popularly known as Lokmanya. The famous slogan, "Swaraj is my birth right and I shall have it", was coined by him.

Born on July 23, 1856, Tilak was a mathematician, philosopher, scholar and social reformer. To impart quality education to the countrys youth, he founded the Deccan Education Society in 1884. He also started two weeklies, Kesari (in Marathi) and Mahratta (in English), through which he criticised British policies of that time.

Tilak joined the Congress in 1890, but due to ideological differences, he and his supporters were known as extremist leaders within the party.

British arrested him on the charges of sedition in 1906 and a court sentenced him to six years of imprisonment in Mandalay (Burma). He bid adieu to this world on August 1, 1920.

Today, the country is remembering him on his 164th birth anniversary. People are paying tribute to him by posting his quotes or sharing information about his contribution during the national struggle on social media. Apart from netizens, political leaders have also paid homage to Tilak on his birth anniversary.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed gratitude towards Tilak and Chandra Shekhar Azad, who was also born on this day.

               -  -  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 23, 2020

Today, July 23rd marks the birth anniversaries of two great sons of IndiaBal Gangadhar Tilak and Chandra Shekhar Azad. I feel that present-day youth must read about their lives and sacrifices made for country's freedom, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu tweeted.

Today, July 23rd marks the birth anniversaries of two great sons of IndiaBal Gangadhar Tilak and Chandra Shekhar Azad.I feel that present-day youth must read about their lives and sacrifices made for country's freedom.Read my full facebook post- https://t.co/DNu6CxyQtl pic.twitter.com/KOjrVH8s4v Vice President of India (@VPSecretariat) July 23, 2020

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh called him a true patriot, saying that his contribution to Indias freedom movement will always be remembered.

I bow to Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak on his birth anniversary. He was a true patriot who envisioned the idea of Independent India. Lokmanya Tilak was a towering personality, blessed with immense wisdom. His contribution to Indias freedom movement will always be remembered. Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 23, 2020

There are also several other political leaders who have paid homage to Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
On Wednesday, Qantas' last Boeing 747 passenger plane took to the skies for the final time and traced a special image with its flightpath: the Australian carrier's iconic kangaroo logo.

On Wednesday, Qantas' last Boeing 747 passenger plane took to the skies for the final time and traced a special image with its flightpath: the Australian carrier's iconic kangaroo logo.

Farewell, #QueenoftheskiesToday, the last 747 in our fleet, VH-OEJ departed Australia for the final time  adding a special display en roo-te to the US#747farewell pic.twitter.com/KXzNKhxFOH  Qantas (@Qantas) July 22, 2020

As per a report in Indian Express, the Los Angeles-bound craft, which took off from Sydney Airport, drew the image before leaving the country's airspace.

As per a report in CNN, the plane received a water salute before take-off as citizens gathered at the airport to say goodbye. The aircraft will be stored at a boneyard in the Mojave Desert, as per a Qantas press release.

The airlines 747s were first brought into operation in Australia in August 1971, the same year that William McMahon became prime minister, the first McDonalds opened in Australia and Eagle Rock by Daddy Cool topped the music charts, the company said in a statement. Its arrival  and its economics  made international travel possible for millions of people for the first time, the company further stated, as per the Indian Express report.

Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce said the 747 is being replaced with more fuel-efficient crafts with better range such as the 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A350, as per CNN. The retirement of the fleet of 747s, slated for this year, was moved up by six months due to the coronavirus pandemic, as per the CNN report.

Joyce was quoted by The Canberra Times as saying: "This aircraft was well ahead of its time and extremely capable. Engineers and cabin crew loved working on them and pilots loved flying them. So did passengers," he said.

"They have carved out a very special place in aviation history and I know they'll be greatly missed by a lot of people."
Fox News has parted ways with one of its early morning hosts after she turned up to work visibly sick at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

Heather Childers, who had been at the Fox since 2012, was side-lined by the network after hosting Fox & Friends First on March 18 while visibly unwell, CNN reported.

Childers returned to work the following morning to host again but that would prove to be her final on-air appearance.

Earlier this week, after Childers removed all references to Fox News from her social media accounts.

'Fox News and Heather Childers have parted ways. We wish her all the best,' a spokesperson told CNN.

Heather Childers, who had been at the Fox since 2012, was side-lined by the network after hosting Fox & Friends First on March 18 (above) while visibly unwell

The scare caused by Childers came as Fox News was criticized for allowing many of its key stars to downplay the seriousness of COVID-19 on-air, during the key periods of February and March, when the virus first began ravaging across the US.

Hosts of Fox & Friends would frequently side with President Trump's claims the virus was under control and would simply go away somehow.

The network's tone shifted significantly on March 16, however, when New York City and other major metro areas ground to a halt as governors issued stay-at-home orders. Fox executives instituted work-from-home plans and limited the number of people who were allowed at the network's headquarters.

Childers was responsible for hosting the 4am hour of Fox and Friends First at the time, the network's first live show of the day.

Sources told CNN that on March 18, Childers turned up to work and was 'noticeably' sick both on and off camera, causing concern among her colleague who were still coming into the building to work.

Childers visited a doctor after hosting the segment and took to Twitter to say she was fine. She then returned to work the following day.

However, Fox executives were 'angry that she came to work while visibly ill,' a source told CNN. She was then benched from March 20 onwards.

Childers (above in December, entering Trump Tower) frequently shared messages of support from fans, and tweeted President Trump directly, asking him 'Can I return to work?'

Childers returned to work the following morning on March 18 to host again but that would prove to be her final on-air appearance

In the days and weeks that followed, Childers repeatedly took to Twitter to publicly lobby the network to allow her to return to the air.

In a March 31 tweet, she admitted to 'coughing and sneezing on air', but said she 'never went to work feeling sick'. She also repeatedly noted that she had tested negative for coronavirus, and sent those results to her superiors.

By April 6, she tweeted that she had tested negative twice, and said Fox management were leaving her in the dark about when she would be able to return to work. She frequently shared messages of support from fans, and tweeted President Trump directly, pleading her case.

'I'd love to go back to work @realDonaldTrump,' she tweeted April 9, 'but the antibody tests only show positive if you have had the virus. I've had TWO negative COVID19 tests results & no symptoms  Can I go back to work?'

She tweeted the president directly again 10 days later, urging him: 'Please get us all back to work.'

But the answer from her superiors seemed to be a resounding no. And earlier this month, after she was no longer affiliated with the network, she removed all Fox News references from her social-media profiles and began tweeting articles from Fox's right-wing competitors instead.
Hamilton tenant advocates are calling on the Ontario government to scrap legislation they warn will lead to more homelessness through expedited evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Protecting Tenants and Strengthening Community Act  Bill 184  will do quite the opposite, argues Mike Wood, downtown chair of Hamilton ACORN.

The legislation will speed up evictions for arrears without the regular checks-and-balances of the Landlord and Tenant Board, Wood said during a rally at Gore Park on Wednesday.

Hamilton was in a crisis before the pandemic. Now we have Bill 184, which will allow tenants ... to be fast-tracked through evictions.

The shift  retroactive to March 17, when Ontario declared a state of emergency  is an about-face for Premier Doug Ford, who told tenants not to worry about paying rent during the pandemic if they couldnt, Wood said.

The crux of the issue relates to landlords and tenants inking private agreements for rent repayment plans.

Advocates are concerned tenants who dont know their rights will be stuck with unfavourable deals that might not withstand scrutiny during a Landlord and Tenant Board hearing.

These agreements were permitted before, they note, but now landlords can claim to the board that tenants have breached terms, leading to eviction orders without hearings.

This bill is a complete attack on tenants, Stephanie Cox, a lawyer with the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic, told the rally.

The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, however, disputes the advocates take, citing a significant amount of misinformation about Bill 184.

If a tenant doesnt meet the terms of a private repayment agreement, the landlord still must apply to the tribunal for an eviction hearing, spokesperson Conrad Spezowka wrote in an email Wednesday.

Cox disputed the ministrys response, saying there is no hearing.

Spezowka added the legislation also encourages repayment agreements so that evictions can be avoided.

This means adjudicators must consider whether a landlord attempted to negotiate a repayment agreement with their tenant, he wrote. This reinforces to landlords the necessity of exploring repayment agreements and maintaining tenancies  rather than resorting to evictions.

But Cox told the rally the legislation does not recognize the power dynamics between landlords and tenants, who will do anything within their power to keep their housing.

Another drawback, ACORN says, is a clause that stipulates rent increases that would be void without 90 days notice can stand if the tenant has paid the hiked rate for at least 12 months in a row.

In addition to scrapping the bill, the organization wants the province to extend its eviction moratorium and institute a rent forgiveness program to help tenants who face losing homes in coming months.

Spezowka said the province has provided $148 million through its Social Services Relief Fund in response to the pandemic and recently announced another $150 million.
HOUSTON, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Quanta Services, Inc. (NYSE: PWR) announced today that it will release second quarter 2020 financial results on Thursday, August 6, 2020, before the market opens. In conjunction with the press release, Quanta has scheduled a conference call for 9:00 a.m. Eastern time on Thursday, August 6, 2020, which also will be broadcast live over the Internet. Quanta will utilize a slide presentation to accompany its prepared remarks, which will be viewable through the webcast and available on the Investor Relations section of the Quanta website prior to the conference call (http://investors.quantaservices.com).



What: Quanta Services Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call

When: Thursday, August 6, 2020  9:00 a.m. Eastern time

How: Live via phone  By dialing (201) 689-8345 or (877) 407-8291 and asking for the Quanta Services Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call at least 10 minutes prior to the start time.



Live over the Internet  By logging on to the website through the Investor Relations section of Quanta's website (http://investors.quantaservices.com)

For those who cannot participate live, an archive of the webcast will be available shortly after the call on the Investor Relations section of Quanta's website (http://investors.quantaservices.com) and dial-in information for a replay of the call will be available in the upcoming earnings release. For more information, please contact Kip Rupp at Quanta Services at (713) 341-7260.

About Quanta Services

Quanta is a leading specialized contracting services company, delivering comprehensive infrastructure solutions for the utility, pipeline, energy and communications industries. Quanta's comprehensive services include designing, installing, repairing and maintaining energy and communications infrastructure. With operations throughout the United States, Canada, Australia and select other international markets, Quanta has the manpower, resources and expertise to safely complete projects that are local, regional, national or international in scope. For more information, visit www.quantaservices.com.

Contact: Kip Rupp, CFA

Quanta Services, Inc.

(713) 341-7260

SOURCE Quanta Services, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.quantaservices.com/


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"You scare me," my husband said a few months ago, after peeking over my shoulder at Karin Slaughter's Blindsighted. He was (understandably) freaked out about how calm I was reading a thriller, describing the details of the woman who was sexually assaulted and mutilated. But here's the thing: I was more concerned with how well I could relate to the victim's sister, who sought justice on her own terms in this page-turner.

You see, it's not the violence against women that gives me nightmares - it's the fact that she was attacked while in the restroom of a public place by someone well-loved in the small-town community. It's that type of realistic plot that women authors know will shake women to the core. It's just one of the many reasons why women suspense writers are just better.

Long before quarantine started, I have binge-read books like other people watch TV. (Bachelor villains have nothing on Lisa Gardner's baddies, especially in Touch & Go, in which three men kidnap an entire family to torture them in a high-tech abandoned prison.) What can I say? I'm addicted to a good novel, a sucker for romantic side-plots, and obsessed with surprise twists. The main character has a split personality? The cop investigating the crime actually did it? Count. Me. In.

According to Slaughter (coolest name ever), she isn't interested in perfect characters "because they don't really exist." So, she prefers to write about people's flaws to define who they are. When you read about talented woman doctor Sara Linton, for example, you are also getting inside her head and relating to her fears, flaws, and desires. And this pattern carries over to the villains as well. They are so scary because they are so real.

"The easiest way to get into the mind of a bad guy is to think about the first time I was flashed on a school trip to a museum, or the time someone grabbed my breast on the subway, or the time a hand brushed against my ass in an elevator - the entitled thinking that motivates That Guy is on the same spectrum as the guy who thinks he has a right to rape, torture, murder and kill women," Slaughter told me in an email interview. As someone who has also experienced similar sexual harassment in everyday life, her stories seem so familiar . . . and I am rooting for That Guy to get caught.

Story continues

Related: 57 of the Best and Most Highly Anticipated New Thriller and Mystery Books Out This Year

During my reading, I started to notice something: it's much easier for me to get lost in a story if it was written by a woman. Slaughter, Gardner, Megan Miranda, Mary Kubica - the list goes on and on. In the suspense world, women writers are everywhere, and each one is incredibly talented in her own right. So why is it that more men thriller writers are household names? Unpopular opinion alert: James Patterson, Stephen King, and Dean Koontz are just a little overrated, if you ask me.

For example, I love Patterson's Women's Murder Club series. But when Detective Lindsay Boxer returned to work ONE WEEK postpartum in 12th of Never, I had to put it down. I could barely take a shower one week after having my firstborn, much less track down a murderer. Even though the series is cowritten by a woman, Maxine Paetro, I still get lost in the way the four main characters talk, think, and act when it comes to their women friendships, sex lives, and relationships with their kids. If the fundamental characters aren't believable, I just don't care about anything else.

Women writers that I've read seem to understand that the true horrors lie in the worried minds of women, who don't know if that neighbor walking his dog is a threat or not.

Koontz, on the other hand, writes books that are just so unbelievably strange that I have a hard time getting scared (for reference, I scream when I hear a knock on the door, so that's saying something). Take The Bad Place, a story about a murderous family who can teleport. If far-fetched science fiction is your thing, I get it. But if you are looking for a suspenseful page-turner, this is just not it. Women writers that I've read seem to understand that the true horrors lie in the worried minds of women, who don't know if that neighbor walking his dog is a threat or not, as opposed to mysterious clowns who hunt you down to kill you on five dates that your grandfather predicted on his death bed (yes, this is a real Koontz novel, Life Expectancy).

Don't even get me started on Stephen King's It. At 1,138 pages, you will fall asleep before you ever get to anything scary.

Ready to support some women authors and get the best scare of your life at the same time? Check out New York Times-bestselling author Kubica's The Other Mrs., a book about Sadie Foust, who recently moved to small-town Maine with her husband when their neighbor is found dead - and Foust is suspected of the tragic crime. Reading this book makes you doubt each character, including the narrator, until you aren't sure if you are actually going crazy or if the world is truly that messed up (maybe it's both?). This is for anyone who has ever doubted themselves - especially at the hands of manipulative partners.

Related: 34 Promising New YA Books to Look Out For in 2020

Another one to add to your reading list is The Girl From Widow Hills by another New York Times-bestselling author and a former Reese Witherspoon book club pick writer, Miranda. The novel is about Arden, a little girl who went missing during a sleepwalking incident and was found days later clinging to a storm drain. After her mother wrote a popular book about the incident, Arden disappeared from the public eye and changed her name to avoid the public scrutiny. Now she goes by Olivia, and she has been avoiding stalkers and the media successfully for years. Unfortunately, the 20th anniversary of the infamous incident is approaching, causing her sleepwalking to begin again. One day, she wakes up in her yard - and discovers the corpse of a man she knew from her previous life. If you can relate to your past coming back to haunt you, then this book is for you.

If you want to be chilled to the bone, pick up Slaughter's latest, The Silent Wife, coming out Aug. 4. When a woman is brutally attack in present day Atlanta, a prisoner in the state penitentiary recognizes the MO - it was the same one he claims former police chief Jeffrey Tolliver and his team falsely accused him of using in a string of murders almost a decade earlier. Now GBI investigator Will Trent looks to the past with medical examiner (and Trent's girlfriend!) Sara Linton to solve this present-day crime and determine if the prisoner is telling the truth about the past - which would tarnish the good name of Linton's deceased husband, Tolliver. It's messy, it's complicated, it's graphic, and it's absolutely mesmerizing.

Maybe you just discovered reading thanks to social distancing, or maybe you've been a self-proclaimed book lover your entire life; either way, now is the perfect time to stock up on some new novels. Might as well choose some written by some incredibly talented women while you're at it!
CAMPBELL, Calif., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Workspot's SaaS platform is now available on Google Cloud, extending the company's cloud-based desktops to even more users. Google Cloud customers now have access to enterprise-class, highly-scalable Windows 10 cloud PCs that they can deploy in any Google Cloud region for low-latency performance that delivers a great end-user experience.

Click to Tweet: @Workspot's SaaS Platform for Windows 10 Cloud PCs Now Available on Google Cloud: https://bit.ly/2CFz99L #clouddesktop #DaaS

Workspot is the first turnkey SaaS platform to deliver and manage cloud PCs, workstations and virtual applications from multiple clouds, as well as for hybrid and edge of cloud deployments, all from a single console. Workspot has long been available through Microsoft Azure; now Google Cloud users can also reap the benefits, including:

Multi-cloud support: Most enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy, and Workspot's turnkey SaaS platform makes it easy to transition end-user computing to the cloud of their choice  or choose multiple clouds.

Turnkey SaaS: Workspot's customer success team works with companies to deliver persistent and non-persistent virtual desktops that are fully tuned and integrated with each customer's Windows 10 images, security stack, multifactor authentication and company processes. This is available at a flat-rate price that includes Go-Live services, support and cloud compute.

Business SLA: Workspot takes over responsibility for delivering the desktop service level agreement (SLA). Workspot's platform is deeply instrumented, and a big data engine allows Workspot's support organization to quickly see, diagnose, and quickly resolve any issues in a customer environment.

Exceptional performance: Workspot places the virtual desktop in the cloud region closest to the user, minimizing latency and delivering performance equal to or better than a physical PC. Knowledge workers, engineers and other power users are able to work remotely as efficiently as if they were on a physical desktop or workstation.

Workspot CEO Amitabh Sinha will present at Google Cloud Next '20: OnAir with the session " Anywhere-Productivity with Modern, Low-Latency Cloud PCs ." The session will begin streaming on July 28th, 2020. Workspot is now a Google Premier Partner, and is collaborating with Google Cloud's extensive field organization to provide cloud-based virtual desktop computing solutions to customers.

Manvinder Singh, Director, Partnerships at Google Cloud, said: "Increasingly, businesses are looking to the cloud to simplify remote computing for end users and to leverage its simplicity and elasticity. We're excited to partner with Workspot to bring their SaaS platform to Google Cloud and to deliver a turnkey, managed service for Windows 10 cloud PCs for our joint customers."

Amitabh Sinha, CEO and co-founder, Workspot, said: "Organizations need cloud PCs now more than ever, and in greater numbers than ever before. While some legacy VDI providers have uploaded their VDI brokers to the cloud, the result is the same complexity and poor performance that customers have learned to hate. Our cloud-native desktop solution provides low latency from anywhere in the world and scales easily and quickly. Now that it's available from Google Cloud, many more organizations will be able to experience the Workspot difference."

About Workspot

Workspot is the modern way to work. Workspot's turnkey, enterprise-ready SaaS platform leverages global public cloud infrastructure to place Windows 10 desktops and GPU workstations at the edge of the cloud region nearest users for unparalleled performance. IT can expect fast-time-to-value and on-demand, global scalability. Business leaders can respond faster to changing market dynamics, pursue new opportunities globally and support work from anywhere, while fulfilling cloud-first mandates that position their companies for accelerated growth. The service features predictable flat-rate pricing, which includes the cost of cloud compute, Go-Live Deployment Services, and ongoing support. For more information on Workspot solutions, please visit www.workspot.com .

PR contact:

Shyna Deepak

Nadel Phelan, Inc.

831-440-2408

[email protected]

SOURCE Workspot

Related Links

https://www.workspot.com/


During a second quarter earnings call on Wednesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and CFO Zachary Kirkhorn told investors they hit an important milestone: four consecutive quarters of GAAP profitability. The electric vehicle maker stayed in the black, despite the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, thanks to sales of regulatory credits.

According to its earnings report, Tesla's total revenue hit $6.04 billion for the quarter, with about 7% of that, or $428 million, coming from sales of these credits. To put that in perspective, regulatory credit sales were greater than the company's free cash flow and amounted to four times Tesla's $104 million of net profit for the quarter.

Here's one way Tesla racked up these credits over the past year, according to Mike Taylor, president of the environmental credit brokerage and consulting firm Emission Advisors in Houston: selling them to other auto makers who want to avoid big fines.

In California, and at least 13 other states, any auto manufacturer who wants to sell their cars into that state must sell a certain amount of electric, hybrid electric or other zero emission vehicles (or ZEVs). Auto makers who are not selling these vehicles yet, or not selling many of them anyway, will buy credits from someone who is for compliance. Since Tesla only sells ZEVs, it doesn't need to keep the credits that it earns and can sell them before they expire.

Most states with a ZEV program in place plan to increase their requirements for eco-friendly cars for the next few years, so Taylor expects demand for credits to remain strong in the near-term. That should change dramatically, he cautioned, as other auto makers begin producing their own environmentally friendly vehicles in high volumes.

Prices for ZEV, and other types of regulatory credits, like greenhouse gas emission credits, are not typically disclosed. And environmental regulatory credits are not limited to the states, either.

Last year, Fiat Chrysler made a deal with Tesla to comply with new European environmental regulations coming into play in 2021. In their most recent shareholder update, FCA disclosed that as of March 31, 2020, its agreements represent total commitments of 1.1 billion. FCA plans to use the credits it's buying from Tesla to stay in compliance through 2023, the filing said. The deal was a boon for Tesla. The Financial Times previously reported on FCA's deal with Tesla.

But a lack of transparency and pricing data around automotive regulatory credits makes it hard for shareholders to predict how sales of these will affect Tesla's bottom line in any given quarter.
Two motorcycle-borne miscreants thrashed an 80-year-old man to death at Ladhowal village near railway crossings while attempting to snatch his mobile phone on Thursday.

Some youths, who witnessed the incident from a distance, nabbed one of the accused, while the others managed to escape.

The arrested accused has been identified as Mandeep Kumar, alias Golu, of Muradpuri Mohalla in Phillaur, and his absconding accomplice as Soni of Haripur village in Phillaur. Both accused are drug addicts. The GRP has lodged an FIR against the duo.

Inspector Balbir Singh, SHO at GRP police station, said victim Mohan Singh, of Bilga village, was crossing the railway over bridge, when the accused chased and intercepted him.

The accused tried to snatch the victims mobile phone. When he resisted, they thrashed him. The villagers rushed to the spot to rescue the elderly man, but he was already dead.

The SHO added that the accused are already facing trial in multiple cases of snatching in Ludhiana and Jalandhar.
A fire broke out near the Liege Airport terminal in Belgium late on July 22. As per reports, the fire in the vicinity of the airport broke out a 10 pm (Local Time) and firefighters were able to contain the fire by 11 pm. There have been no reports of aircraft being damaged of personnel being injured in the fire.

An important airport for Europe

According to reports, Liege Airport is the largest Airport in Belgium in terms of freight size and is an extremely important airport for continental Europe. Airport authorities have decided to suspend all flight until further notice after the fire.

Read: Jaipur Airport Customs Seizes Over 220g Gold From Saudi-return; Here's How It Was Hidden

Read: Peru Opens Airports After Lifting Local Travel Ban

As per reports, the Liege airport was chosen by the World Health Organisation as a hub of distribution for COVID-19 medical supplies for all of Europe.

Read: Taiwan Airport Offers 'fake Flights' For People Missing Air Travel Amid COVID-19 Lockdown

Read: Lebanon's Only International Airport Reopens

(With ANI inputs)




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My wife, Yumi, and I stood on the tarmac, waiting in cloth masks, on the morning of April 18. Finally, a Boeing 777 landed and taxied to the far corner of Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport. It was the first Korean Air flight ever to land at BWI, but it didnt have a single passenger aboard. The crew of five had flown 14 hours, straight from Seoul.

Congratulations, honey, I told Yumi as the pilot turned off the engines. You helped save a lot of lives.

The plane was filled with 500,000 test kits for my state, where the coronavirus had already infected 12,308 Marylanders and killed 463 of them. The numbers were still climbing, and we would never be able to contain them without mass testing. Anybody that wants a test can get a test, President Trump had declared the previous month. In reality, only 2,252 Americans had been tested at that point in March. Across the country, my fellow governors were desperately pleading for help on testing. But in early April, Trump said it was the states job.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/16/larry-hogan-trump-coronavirus/?arc404=true
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot is likely to call an assembly session next week to conduct a floor test and prove the government's majority in the House, sources said.

His camp claims that he has at least 103 MLAs loyal to him  88 from the Congress, 2 from the BTP and CPM each, 1 from RLD and 10 independents.

The political crisis in the state continued as Rajasthan Assembly Speaker C P Joshi told the Supreme Court during the hearing of his petition that the state high court had no jurisdiction to restrain him from conducting disqualification proceedings till July 24 against 19 dissident Congress MLAs, including sacked deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot.

However, the apex court on Thursday said Joshi cannot decide on disqualification of rebel Congress MLAs till the top court makes a decision on the issue. It also allowed the Rajasthan High Court to go ahead and deliver its ruling on the plea by the dissident MLAs against the disqualification notices served by the Speaker, but said the verdict will remain subject to the outcome of the hearing in the SC.

On July 13, former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot had declared open rebellion against CM Gehlot, claiming that he has the support of the 30 Congress MLAs and some independents in the state assembly.

At the time, Congress grappled with the crisis in Rajasthan, its top party leadership appeared to go all out to pacify Pilot who has raised a banner of revolt against Gehlot, with senior party leaders saying that both Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi had spoken to the rebel leader.

However, as the issue escalated, Rajasthan Speaker C P Joshi had issued notices on July 15 to Pilot and other rebel Congress MLAs after the party sought their disqualification from the state assembly. Sacked deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot and the other MLAs were asked to respond to the notices by July 17, sources said, adding that Pilot and 18 other MLAs had defied a whip and did not attend its legislature party meetings.

Sachin Pilot was on July 14 also sacked as deputy CM and the state Congress president after he did not show up at two Congress Legislature Party meetings.

The matter was taken to the Rajasthan High Court, and on Tuesday it requested the Legislative Assembly Speaker to defer action on disqualification notices till Friday as it will pass appropriate orders on the writ petition filed by Sachin Pilot and 18 dissident legislators on that day, the speaker's counsel said.

CP Joshi had filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court, alleging that the appropriate authorities of government bodies was being "circumvented" by the disqualification being challenged in the High Court, calling it a "constitutional crisis".
Bolivia postponed its general elections on Thursday for a second time because of the coronavirus pandemic, putting it off until October 18, officials said.

The poll was originally supposed to be held in May but had been rescheduled to September 6 after the country went into lockdown following the virus outbreak.

Salvador Romero, who heads the country's electoral court, said the decision to delay the elections again came after medical experts warned that COVID-19 infections would peak in Bolivia in late August or early September.

"The definitive date for the election gives better conditions for health protection, outside voting facilities and the arrival of international observer missions," said Romero.

A second round run-off -- should there be one -- would take place on November 29, the electoral court chief added.

The Catholic Church joined forces with conservatives earlier Thursday to push for a postponement in response to a rise in coronavirus infections.

Bolivia has recorded more than 64,000 COVID-19 cases and over 2,300 deaths from the disease.

Party of former president Morales wanted September date

The Movement for Socialism party of former president Evo Morales, whose candidate Luis Arce led the most recent opinion polls, insisted that the election should go ahead on the original September date.

But Romero said that "elections require the maximum possible security."

However, he acknowledged that Bolivia was suffering from "serious polarization" and that the reasons for Morales's resignation following a controversial poll he won last October "have not disappeared."

Morales fled the country in November following three weeks of protests over his re-election in a poll he was constitutionally barred from standing in.

He had tried to hold on to power but lost the backing of the country's military after an Organization of American States audit found clear evidence of election fraud.

Story continues

Morales is currently living in exile in Argentina and is barred from standing in the general election, even as a legislator.

Former conservative Senate vice president Jeanine Anez assumed the interim presidency after Morales left the country but her tenure -- originally intended merely as a stopgap until new elections could be organized -- has been criticized for dragging on and lacking legitimacy.

(AFP)
P-Valley debuted its first episode on Starz on July 12, introducing us to Uncle Clifford, Autumn Night, Mercedes, and everyone else who knows all about The Pynk.

With storylines that go beyond the strip club atmosphere, the show touches on religion, politics, survival, trauma, and money. Race and a different blend of Southern charm also play a role, as exemplified in a scene with Andre, a lawyer whos trying to seal a deal.

Scene from P-Valley season 1 | Courtesy of Starz

Whats P-Valley about?

Set in the Mississippi Delta, the series is based on a stage play by Katori Hall and centers on a Black strip club and the colorful characters in the local community.

Only two episodes of the series are out, but P-Valley hooked fans in with rich cinematography, spicy interactions, slick dialogue, and the characters. Uncle Clifford, the strip clubs owner, is the fan favorite right now. But due to financial problems, shes having problems holding the place down.

Mysterious newcomer Autumn Night is trying to make money while battling PTSD, and OG Mercedes is hustling so she can quit, open a dance school, and get her sanctimonious, money-hungry mother off her back.

In other parts of town, a corporation is buying up land to build a casino. Thats how Andre Watkins connects to the plot.

Scene with Andre and brothers based on truth

There are many things we can recap about season 2, but before that steamy scene between Andre and Autumn/Hailey toward the end, there was an interaction with some locals.

Andre visited two brothers to close out the Promised Land casino deal. He stood and surveyed the land they own, which was covered in cotton stalks.

Pick it, one of them called out to him. Andre, whos black, turned around to find the white brothers encouraging him to pick cotton. Excuse me? he said, but flipped the conversation and said he wanted to check the acreage.

P-Valley showrunner Katori Hall took to Twitter and stated that scene was based on a real situation she encountered while doing research.

The owner of the land rolled up behind me in a pick-up truck and yelled those exact words to me. Chilling as it is true, she wrote.

Pick some! Is based off a real life moment. I was doing research down in the Delta, I got out of my car to take a picture of a cotton field. The owner of the land rolled up behind me in a pick-up truck and yelled those exact words to me. Chilling as it is true #PValley  Katori Hall (@KatoriHall) July 20, 2020

Andre and the brothers will probably face off again

Later in the episode, it was revealed the brothers half sibling is a character named Corbin, their fathers son with the Black maid. Sibling rivalry doesnt describe the deep-rooted rift between the three.

Corbin is the third co-owner of the land, and he would rather lease the land and make more money. He wants Andre to help him broker the deal, but the outsider just wants to wrap up the job that brought him to town.

Although he turned down Corbins bribe, Andre may change his mind after that hot exchange with Hailey. Will the deal keep him in town, or will the girl be the cause? Corbin isnt budging and Andre has to close things out with the brothers on the casinos behalf.

There is no doubt viewers will see them again, but lets see if Andre and Corbin double-team them to check their ignorant behavior. Watch P-Valley on Starz each Sunday at 8 p.m. EST.

RELATED: P-Valley Isnt Just About Strippers
An LLC is a business structure where business owners are not held liable for the company's debts and can choose their own management structure.

Pass-through taxation is a major benefit of LLCs, as profits are taxed only once.

There are seven major steps to set up an LLC.

This article is for new entrepreneurs who are interested in learning how to start their own LLC.

One of the most important steps in starting a small business is deciding on a business structure. There are many to choose from, each with its own advantages and features. For most small business owners, an LLC is a great choice because of its simplicity, flexibility and ability to protect personal assets. This article will explain what an LLC is, its advantages, and the seven steps you need to take to set one up yourself.

What is an LLC?

An LLC, or limited liability company, is a business structure that shields business owners from being personally liable for the company's debts or other liabilities. It is a hybrid entity that combines the benefits of partnership and sole proprietorship structures. LLCs can be owned by one person or by multiple people, known as LLC "members."

An LLC provides protection from personal liability in most cases by keeping your personal assets  such as your vehicle, house and savings accounts  safe if your LLC declares bankruptcy or is sued.

Single-member LLCs are pass-through entities, so the profits and losses from the LLC are "passed through" to you and taxed as personal income. The benefit of this is that you don't have to pay both corporate and personal taxes on your earnings. Similarly, multi-member LLCs are taxed as partnerships  which are also pass-through entities  with each owner paying personal income taxes on their portion of the profits.

Alternatively, you can choose to be taxed as a C corporation or an S corporation.

Did you know? An LLC is a flexible business structure that protects the owners' personal assets.

What are the benefits of an LLC?

An LLC structure provides many benefits for your business besides the liability protection. These are the main advantages:

Personal asset protection: As long as you have not committed fraud or any criminal act as an LLC member, you are not personally responsible for the LLC's debts or lawsuits.





As long as you have not committed fraud or any criminal act as an LLC member, you are not personally responsible for the LLC's debts or lawsuits. Pass-through taxation: An LLC's profits go directly to the owners, who report their share of the profits on their personal tax returns, so the business's profits are only taxed once. In a C-corp, for example, profits are subject to double taxation, meaning the business is taxed on its profits and then again when the owners report their earnings from the business on their tax returns.





An LLC's profits go directly to the owners, who report their share of the profits on their personal tax returns, so the business's profits are only taxed once. In a C-corp, for example, profits are subject to double taxation, meaning the business is taxed on its profits and then again when the owners report their earnings from the business on their tax returns. Simplicity: LLCs are easy to create and maintain, with little paperwork and few requirements such as formal officers, annual meetings, or complicated company records.





LLCs are easy to create and maintain, with little paperwork and few requirements such as formal officers, annual meetings, or complicated company records. Flexibility: LLCs have little restrictions regarding the structure, ownership and management of your company, meaning your business can be a single- or multi-member LLC, a member-managed LLC, or a manager-managed LLC. You can also choose the method of taxation that is most beneficial for your business.





LLCs have little restrictions regarding the structure, ownership and management of your company, meaning your business can be a single- or multi-member LLC, a member-managed LLC, or a manager-managed LLC. You can also choose the method of taxation that is most beneficial for your business. Credibility: Forming your business as an LLC brings credibility, as LLCs are a widely recognized business structure that lets customers know you are serious and professional in how you run your business.





Forming your business as an LLC brings credibility, as LLCs are a widely recognized business structure that lets customers know you are serious and professional in how you run your business. Access to business loans: After your LLC is formed, you can start building a credit history, which will enable you to access business loans and lines of credit to help you further build your business.





After your LLC is formed, you can start building a credit history, which will enable you to access business loans and lines of credit to help you further build your business. Flexible profit distribution: LLCs can choose how they distribute profits to the owners  the distribution is not required to be equal among members or proportionate to ownership percentages.

Key takeaway: An LLC is easy to form and has few maintenance requirements. One of the main benefits of this structure is that your business is taxed as a pass-through entity.

How to start an LLC

Once you've decided to proceed with forming your business as an LLC, there are a few steps you have to take to get you to your goal.

1. Select your state.

The first thing you have to do as an LLC owner is select the state in which you will operate your LLC. For most new business owners, the most logical option is to form the LLC in the state where you live. If your business will have a physical presence (i.e., a storefront or office) in other states, you will need to register a foreign LLC in each state where you plan on doing business.

There are some situations in which you might choose to form your LLC in a different state from where you live. A few states, like Delaware and Nevada, have business-friendly laws that may attract potential LLCs. However, registering your LLC in another state (or multiple states) can incur costly fees and extra paperwork. [Read related article: How to Expand Your Business to Another State]

2. Name your LLC.

After you've decided where to set up your business, it's time to choose a business name. Each state has different rules for business names, but in general, you can expect to follow these guidelines:

The name must include the phrase "limited liability company" or an abbreviation (LLC or L.L.C.).





The name cannot include words that could confuse your business with a government agency (FBI, Treasury, CIA, etc.).





Restricted words such as "bank," "attorney" or "university" may require additional paperwork and the inclusion of a licensed individual, such as a doctor, to be part of your LLC.

3. Choose a registered agent.

A registered agent is a person or other business that sends and receives legal documents on your behalf. These documents can include legal summons or document filings that your registered agent will receive and forward to you. Most states require LLCs to use a registered agent, and the agent must be a resident of the state in which you are doing business.

4. File with the state.

Your next step will be to register your LLC with the state. In most states, the formation document is referred to as the "articles of organization," but it can also be referred to as the "certificate of formation" or "certificate of organization." This document, along with your state filing fee, is what officially creates your LLC. You can send in your documents by mail or online.

Along with your certificates, you will need to provide the following:

The full names and contact information for all founding members of the LLC





The business's name





The address of the LLC (If your company has multiple addresses, you will need to determine a primary address for official mail and tax purposes.)





Length of time the company has existed





Information about the registered agent





Information about the LLC, including a mission statement and explanation of purpose

5. Determine your management structure.

As an LLC, you have the ability to choose how your business's management will be structured. You can have your company be member-managed, meaning there is a small number of LLC members who are all involved in the day-to-day running of the company, or manager-managed, where members do not wish to be involved in managerial matters and place that power in the hands of one (or more) managers.

6. Create an LLC operating agreement.

An LLC operating agreement is a legal document that outlines the ownership structure and member roles of your LLC. Most states do not officially require an operating agreement, but it can still be beneficial to get everything down on paper. These are some of the sections in an operating agreement:

Organization: This section outlines when and where the company was created, who the members are, and the ownership structure.





This section outlines when and where the company was created, who the members are, and the ownership structure. Management and voting: This section addresses how the company is managed and how decisions are made.





This section addresses how the company is managed and how decisions are made. Capital contributions: This is where you'll designate which members financially support the LLC and form a structure for how more funds will be raised in the future.





This is where you'll designate which members financially support the LLC and form a structure for how more funds will be raised in the future. Distributions: This shows how the company's profits and losses are shared amongst the members.





This shows how the company's profits and losses are shared amongst the members. Dissolution:This section explains the circumstances under which the LLC may be dissolved.

[Read related article: Your Small Business Guide to LLC Operating Agreements]

7. Get an EIN.

An EIN, or Employer Identification Number, acts like a Social Security number for your LLC. You will need an EIN to hire employees and open business bank accounts. You can get an EIN for free from the IRS website, or via fax or mail.

8. File to do business in other states.

It is likely that your LLC will ultimately conduct business across state lines. Therefore, you need to ensure your business is qualified in other states. After you are registered in your company's home state, the state where you will pay taxes, your LLC needs to qualify in any state where it conducts significant business. States define "significant business" differently. Generally, however, a physical office or storefront requires qualification, as do sales in the state totaling more than $500. This is known as foreign qualification. You will need to familiarize yourself with the requirements for LLC qualification for each state where you conduct business. Follow their rules, and your LLC will be able to conduct business without breaking any laws.

What to do after starting an LLC

After you've started, named and filed your LLC, you still need to take care of a few things to get your LLC fully up and running.

Set up taxes and unemployment insurance.

First and foremost, make sure to register your LLC for state taxes. If you are selling a physical product, you'll need to register for sales and use tax, and if you have any employees, you'll need to register with the state for unemployment insurance and withholding taxes.

Determine who (or what) will do your accounting.

Next, determine how you will do your accounting. You may choose to do it yourself, in which case you should research the best accounting software to help you keep track of everything. You may also choose to hire a certified public accountant to either help you set up or perform your accounting for you.

Acquire the necessary permits.

If your business needs a permit for any reason, now is the time to register for them. Certain business activities require permits at the federal level, such as alcoholic beverage sales, mining and drilling, transportation and logistics, and aviation. State and local rules around permits vary.

Settle on business insurance policies.

You should also strongly consider getting business insurance. Most states require some form of insurance, usually workers' compensation at minimum. General liability insurance is highly recommended, as it protects your business assets from lawsuits by covering injuries, property damage, personal liabilities, advertising liabilities and legal defense.

Double-check the hiring laws.

Finally, make sure you are following hiring laws at both the federal and state levels. These are the major requirements for hiring:
MIDDLETOWN  The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted the lives of many, ushering fear, loss and anxiety. Yet, amid its impact, a light of hope has shined through health care heroes everywhere, whose untiring efforts have helped to keep us safe.

Though significantly hit by this pandemic, the nursing home industry and our health care heroes remain ever vigilant, employing a number of safety measures to ensure the well-being of those in our care.

Below are some of the measures our industry has taken to keep you or your loved ones safe at skilled nursing care facilities:

 Skilled nursing facilities adopted careful infection prevention and hygiene procedures such as hand washing, cough etiquette, the appropriate wearing of personal protective equipment, environmental cleaning, and disinfecting and reprocessing medical equipment.

 Many skilled nursing facilities, including Waters Edge Center for Health & Rehabilitation, adopted technological solutions to communicate with resident families and responsible parties, including virtual visits on their loved ones health status using apps like Facetime and web conference tools.

 In May, all Connecticut nursing homes completed point-prevalence testing on all of its residents. Testing entailed a swab of every patient in the nursing home at that given time. Once results came back, this allowed nonsymptomatic positive residents to be identified and placed into the appropriate area of the facilities. Once we could identify those infected in the facility and use the appropriate placement and precautions, getting rid of the virus became much more possible.

 In May, the Department of Public Health announced requirements for all nursing homes to make an observation unit for new admissions. All new patients admitted to an SNF are placed into a private room with appropriate precautions and treated as suspected COVID-19 for 14 days, even if they have never had symptoms or a positive test. After the 14 days, the patient deemed negative for COVID-19 can be moved to another unit if they remain in the facility long term or go to a unit that is kept for patients that are negative for the virus.

 SNFs continue to designate positive COVID units, COVID negative units, and unknown, or observation, units to prevent further spreading of the virus. Each unit requires staff to follow specific PPE guidance, including the type of face masks, face shields and gowns used.

 Weekly staff testing was started in June by DPH, which assigned several laboratory partners for weekly staff testing of all nursing home and assisted living employees. This weekly testing continues until no resident cases are in the facility, and no employee tests come back positive for two consecutive weeks. If a positive case does get newly confirmed, weekly testing restarts.

 Technology has helped with facilitating both physician visits to patients but just as important  family visits. As an industry, we have utilized iPads, cell phones, and apps to connect families to their loved ones. There are exceptions for certain situations for in-person visits like end-of-life care.

 In May, DPH gave guidance regarding visitation. Patients that are COVID negative can have social distance window visits or outdoor visits with their family members. COVID-positive patients and patients suspected of possibly having the virus will continue virtual visits with family until they have fully recovered from the virus. Patients under their 14-day observation can do window visits if the placement of their room allows for appropriate access.

 All patients and residents continue to be screened and monitored for symptoms of COVID-19. Any change in condition is documented and reported to the appropriate governing body.

 Staff continues to get in-servicing and training on infection control, the latest DPH, and CDC guidance and monitoring of the situation.

You or a family member may need the level of care offered by a skilled nursing facility that cannot be provided at home. We hope this gives you some comfort on what we are doing to keep you or your loved one as safe as possible. Our goal is always to provide the best care and service to all of our residents, patients and families.

If you have any questions specific to some of the Department of Public Health Guidance, visit portal.ct.gov. Those with questions about what national health care facilities, such as Waters Edge, are doing in regards to COVID-19, see watersedgerehab.com or call 860-335-7526.
Rachael Finch flaunted her toned midriff as she modelled the latest collection for her activewear label B.O.D by Finch.

On Wednesday, the model gave fans a sneak peek at the new range sharing a photo of herself in the yet-to-be released collection on Instagram.

'Hope you love what we have in store for you at @bodbyrachaelfinch,' she captioned the pic.

First look: Rachael Finch gave fans a sneak peek at the new rage sharing a snap of herself in the yet to be released range on Instagram

'Coming in just a few weeks!! Lots of love goes in to every collection & this one is no different. We are constantly working to improve & make you feel amazing every time you put it on. Stay tuned for the launch.'

The 32-year-old showed off her incredible body in a pair of navy spotted leggings with a matching crop top.

Her long locks were pulled back into a pony and she showcased her natural beauty with minimal makeup.

Shoot day: Rachael also shared a series of behind-the scenes photos and videos of the photo shoot for the new range

Rachael also shared a series of behind-the scenes photos and videos of the photo shoot for the new range to Instagram.

In one video her hair and makeup is being attended to and she cheekily pokes her tongue out at the camera.

In another snap she is sporting a pair of burnt orange leggings and a T-shirt posing on a chair.

Flaunt it: In another photo, Rachael is sporting a pair of burnt orange leggings and a T-shirt posing on a chair for the photographer

Last week, Rachael enjoyed a family holiday with her husband Michael Miziner and their two children, daughter Violet, six, and son Dominic, three on the Gold Coast, Queensland.

The mum-of-two shared a series of snaps featuring the family soaking up the sun on their fun-filled beach getaway.

'Holiday snaps so far. Sorry they're not very exciting, but we're having a ball. Sending you some QLD sunshine,' she wrote on Instagram.
Cash-strapped Australians will have more time to dip into their super to help make ends meet as the coronavirus pandemic continues.

The federal government announced in Thursday's mid-year economic update that its hardship early access superannuation scheme has been extended by another three months until December 31.

The scheme began in April to allow Australians hit financially by the pandemic to access up to $10,000 from their retirement savings.

Around 800,000 have already taken advantage of the option to access a further $10,000 since July 1, with the deadline to apply now extended to December 31.

Financial experts issued a dire warning about the long-term consequences after concerning data showed almost 400,000 Australians aged under-30 have already wiped out their entire super balance.

More than 2.8 million Australians hit financially by the coronavirus crisis have dipped into their superannuation early (pictured, Sydneysiders queuing up for Centrelink support)

Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia's chief executive Dr Martin Fahy believes early release should be considered as a last resort.

WHO CAN ACCESS COVID-19 EARLY RELEASE OF SUPER Citizens and permanent residents Citizens and permanent residents are able to apply to access up to: $10,000 of their super until June 30 and a further $10,000 from July 2020 1 until 24 September 2020. Applicants must satisfy one or more criteria: You are unemployed. You are eligible to receive a job seeker payment, youth allowance for jobseekers, parenting payment (which includes the single and partnered payments), special benefit or farm household allowance. On or after 1 January 2020, either: you were made redundant, your working hours were reduced by 20% or more, your business was suspended or there was a reduction in your turnover of 20% or more. SOURCE: AUSTRALIAN TAX OFFICE Advertisement

'These are anxious times and we face challenging economic headwinds,' he said in a statement on Thursday.

'If low income earners and young people's superannuation continues to be eroded by the early release stimulus scheme, we risk losing sight of superannuation's intended purpose, which is to provide adequate income for Australians in retirement.'

If you decide to withdraw from your super, Dr Fahy advises to make those funds last as long as possible and only spend it on necessities.

Wealth Within chief analyst Dale Gillham said some of those who have dipped into their super early didn't need the extra cash.

'While others have used the money to pay bills or reduce debt to give themselves some breathing space during the lockdown, you have to ask is this robbing Peter to pay Paul,' he told 9news.com.au.

Mr Gillham said they will pay the price in 20 years time.

'If you take $10,000 out of superannuation, then according to ASIC's compound interest calculator, your superannuation would be worse off by around $27,000, assuming a compounded growth rate of 5 per cent over 20 years,' he said.

'If you take the full $20,000, then you will be over $54,000 worse off in 20 years based on the same compounded growth rate.

Around 3.3 million approved applications have withdrawn a combined total of $25.3billion since April, according to Australian Prudential Regulation Authority figures.

Each applicant receives an average $7,718, which rises to $8,755 when considering repeat applications made since July 1.

A flood of second round applications at the start of the 2020-21 financial year caused the Australian Tax Office website to crash on July 1.

Australians now have until the end of year to get access another $10,000 from their super

Around 800,000 Australians dipped back into their super in the first 12 days of July, according to APRA figures.

'Over the week to 12 July, 581,000 applications were received by funds of which 109,000 were initial applications and 472,000 were repeat applications,' its latest report states.

'This brought the total number of initial applications to 2.8 million and repeat applications to 0.8 million since the inception of the scheme.'

The deadline to apply for the scheme's second round via the MyGov website was initially September 24 before it was extended until the end of the year on Thursday.

A 35-year-old who withdraws $10,000 now will see a $19,411 reduction in their super when they retire at 67, according to the MoneySmart calculator.

Australians can only access their super if they're unemployed, are eligible to receive a job seeker payment, have been made redundant since January 1 or had their work hours reduced by at least 20 per cent.

The MoneySmart website advises Australians to seek government assistance and speaking to their bank or lender about possible financial assistance before dipping into your super.

The ATO has vowed to take action against anyone caught seeking to fraud or exploit the scheme.

Around 800,000 Australians have made repeat applications to access their super early
WASHINGTON  Two government watchdogs said Thursday that they had opened investigations into the conduct of federal agents responding to unrest in Portland following abuse of power allegations by members of Congress, Oregon officials and the public.

The Justice Department watchdog said that it would investigate use of force allegations in Portland, while its counterpart at the Department of Homeland Security said it would examine whether officers from the agency improperly detained and transported protesters in the city last week.

The Justice Department is also examining the training and instruction provided to the federal agents who responded last month to protest activity at Lafayette Square, near the White House. Among the questions being studied are whether the agents followed department guidelines on the use of chemical agents and less lethal munitions and whether they followed identification requirements.

The investigation was announced amid ongoing nightly chaos in parts of Portlands downtown. Federal agents tear-gassed Mayor Ted Wheeler and nearby protesters late Wednesday as Wheeler stood outside the federal courthouse.

Local authorities in both cities have complained that the presence of federal agents have exacerbated tensions on the streets, while residents have accused the government of violating their constitutional rights.

Civil unrest escalated in Portland after Oregons attorney general accused federal agents of whisking people away in unmarked cars without probable cause in at least two instances. And in Washington, peaceful protesters were violently cleared from the streets by federal officers using tear gas.

The U.S. attorney for Oregon asked the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General last week to launch an investigation into the matter.

Democrats in Congress cheered the announcement of the investigations. The chairs of the Judiciary, Homeland Security and Oversight committees issued a joint statement saying many federal agents are dressed as soldiers, driving unmarked vehicles and refusing to identify themselves or the agencies where they work.

Congress will continue to check this reckless Administration, but it is deeply important that these independent inspectors general get to the bottom of President Trumps use of force against his own citizens, the statement said.

The decision to dispatch federal agents to American cities is playing out at a hyperpoliticized moment when Trump is grasping for a new reelection strategy after the coronavirus upended the economy, dismantling what his campaign had seen as his ticket to a second term.

Trump has seized on a moment of spiking violence in some cities, claiming it will only rise if his Democratic rival Joe Biden is elected in November and Democrats have a chance to make the police reforms they have endorsed after the killing of George Floyd and nationwide protests demanding racial justice.

The federal response is likely to be a major topic of discussion next week when Attorney General William Barr appears before the House Judiciary Committee for a hearing.

The Oregonian/OregonLive politics team contributed to this report.

-- The Associated Press
UK minister: No evidence of Russian meddling in Brexit vote

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 22 July 2020 9:29 AM

A British minister rejects the notion that Russia meddled in the 2016 Brexit referendum following the disclosure of a report that showed the UK was "clearly a target" for disinformation campaigns around its elections.

On Tuesday, a report into an alleged Russian "interference" in British national life was released, showing that the British intelligence community took their "eye off the ball" over the issue and more broadly the government has "badly underestimated" the alleged threat.

According to the report by the House of Commons' Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), the British Security Service failed to "fully investigate" the extent of Moscow's alleged interference for fear of "being seen" to interfere in "democratic processes".

Speaking to Sky on Wednesday, however, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said there was no evidence to support such an allegation.

"There needs to be some evidence that there's an issue there - which there isn't," Shapps said when asked if there should be a further probe into the matter.

The ISC said in its report that there were open source indications that Russia had wanted to influence the Brexit campaign, but did not provide any hard evidence.

"I don't think it's the case that the intelligence services took their eye off the ball," Shapps said.

Nevertheless, in a separate interview, Shapps said a new security law requiring foreign agents to register in the UK was being considered.

Although the move would not be the "only solution" to security threats, it could make it easier to extradite spies, he told Radio 4's Today program.

As Labour criticized "systemic failings" in the UK's response to Russia, Shapps noted the government was already taking a "more forward-leaning approach," but also thought the time was suitable for "additional powers".

Registration by foreign agents "might be very useful," he said, although cautioned it was "not the entire answer" to dealing with threats.

The plan was mentioned in the government's legislative agenda last December, and it was formerly announced by former home secretary Sajid Javid last year in May.

Under such a law, those who represent the interests of foreign powers would be required to register on arrival in the UK.

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Republicans Aaron Losey, left, and Earl Poleski, right, are running for the District 6 seat on the Jackson County Board of Commissioners for the Aug. 4, 2020 primary.

JACKSON COUNTY, MI  Two Republicans are running in the August primary for the District 6 seat on the Jackson County Board of Commissioners. Incumbent Earl Poleski of Spring Arbor Township is running against Aaron Losey of Horton. Poleski was appointed to the seat April 21, after former commissioner Dr. Allan Tompkins resigned because of health issues. Losey was the only other applicant for the seat, but the board voted 5-3 for Poleski. Former state rep returning as Jackson County commissioner The Aug. 4 election winner likely will be the person filling the two-year term as there is no Democrat running in the November general election. District 6 covers Concord, Hanover, Pulaski and Spring Arbor townships and the villages of Concord and Hanover. Pulaski is a certified public accountant and Losey works as a self-employed handy man, according to their profiles on Vote411.org. Losey also served six years in the U.S. Navy, receiving an other-than-honorable discharge, he said in a phone interview. The discharge stems from a supervisor training a nuclear submarine crew incorrectly and Losey pointing it out in an abrasive way in front of other people, he said. The way he pointed out the mistake was wrong, he said, adding hes learned from that. If you talk to people that have known me from the last decade, Im a very different person, Losey said. I was very angry for a long time, but I said Alright, theres nothing I can do about this. So I just moved forward with my life. MLive Media Group has partnered with the League of Women Voters of Michigan to provide candidate information and other voting resources to readers ahead of 2020 elections. Each candidate was given a list of questions relevant to the office for which they are campaigning. The voter guide can be accessed at vote411.org. 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.

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 an endorsement. The league never supports or opposes any candidates or political parties.

Here is how each candidate responded to the questions.

Describe your qualifications and experience for this office and explain your reasons for running. How would you be an asset?

Losey: October 23, 2018 I declared my candidacy for the County Commissioner District 6 seat and have attended most township or village board meetings for the municipalities that are in District 6 and have done my best to fill the vacancy left by Dr. Tompkins absence due to illness. By doing so, I have been able to gain an understanding of the help that each municipality will need from their County Commissioner. These last 2 years Ive performed the duties of county commissioner to the best of my abilities despite not having the actual title which has limited my influence with department heads and other relevant people. Even so, I have been able to gain the respect of municipal leaders in district 6, as well as being able to learn from them. Their professionalism and dedication to their communities is admirable and something I hope to emulate if elected. My commitment to getting a job done and taking care of the needs of my constituents in the face of difficulties is what district 6 needs.

Poleski:

 BA  Albion College (Economics)

 MS (Taxation)  Walsh College

 Michigan Certified Public Accountant since 1981.

 Jackson County Commissioner  4 years

 64th District State Representative  6 years

 Rotary Club member and board member of local not-for-profit organizations.

Since our children grew up and left home, I have been at public service in addition to my professional work. I believe a person should contribute to his/her community, and it has been my privilege to be able to do so.

My background, when combined with the backgrounds of colleagues, makes for a complete and disciplined consideration of the issues facing our communities.

Due to our current circumstances, what are the most important challenges facing our community, and how do you propose to address them?

Losey: The most important challenges facing each municipality is different. For example, Spring Arbor is facing issues with the State and getting approval for their water source. The village of Hanover has blighted buildings that need major repairs or to be demolished, which they do not have the funds to do either. The village of Concord is currently replacing their cast iron water lines and roads through the careful work of the village president, he did this by obtaining grants and putting together a bond package with the help of the state. But something all municipalities face is a lack of money for roads and other necessary municipal functions. The reduction of revenue sharing from the state is a significant blow to villages and townships. The best way that their county commissioner could address these issues is to ask them what they need and to do their best to address their individual issues or put them in contact with the people that can most efficiently address their issues.

Poleski: Our current circumstances have not been seen before, and so our responses to them must necessarily be different. We will need to be bold and innovative in reconfiguring our economy.

 Tax and governmental structures may need to change.

 Capital formation and risk evaluation will be significantly affected.

 We will need to build confidence so that businesses can re-open and employ the millions of Americans whose lives are currently in neutral.

 The workplace will be a different place than it has been  many more people will work somewhere other than where they worked before.

 To the extent jobs have been disrupted by the response to COVID-19, we should consider how public works needs may be met by those who would otherwise be unemployed.

We must provide clear plans upon which people can rely. Im not sure what those plans are, but I am prepared to consider and formulate our confident response to the rapid changes we have seen, and will continue to see.

Read more Jackson County election coverage:

Incumbent District 1 Jackson County Commissioner faces challenger in August primary

Three Republican contenders seek win in August primary race for Jackson County sheriff

Four vying to be judge in Jacksons 12th District Court

Two Jackson County Democrats vying for spot on November ballot in 65th District House race
The Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund has trained three hundred (300) persons from the Ghana Employers' Association and the Institute of Human Resource Management Practitioners (IHRMP) for the Fund's anti-stigmatization campaign against COVID-19.

The training programme is part of the COVID-19 Private Sector Fund's initiative to curtail incidents of stigmatization against COVID-19 recovered persons, frontline workers and their family members.

Apart from training persons from the security institutions, health institutions, among others, the Fund saw the need to train Employers as well as Human Resource practitioners as they manage and interact with employees on a daily basis.

In the three-day virtual sessions, about three hundred employers and human resource persons were tutored on the general knowledge on COVID-19 related psycho-social challenges and the most appropriate way of educating Ghanaians across the country, the psychological impact on persons who are stigmatized after recovery and the myths around COVID-19 recoveries. The training highlighted the need for employers and management of organizations to initiate COVID-19 competency protocol.

Senyo Hosi, Managing Trustee of the COVID-19 Private Sector Fund, mentioned that it was important to include employers and human resource practitioners in these training interventions because quite recently, it was observed that some of the infections were passed on amongst work colleagues and those who recover are likely to face stigmatization at the workplace.

We have heard reports of people contracting the disease at the workplace. Such occurrences are inevitable because while some organizations can work from home, others will need to have person to person interaction before the work can be done. These organizations definitely have high exposure risks. Nonetheless, we are aware some may recover and they will have to deal with yet another problem; stigmatization. This is why we have included the employers and human resource practitioners in our training program to ultimately help their organizations.

Dr. Ebenezer Agbetor, Executive Director of the Institute of Human Resource Management Practitioners (IHRMP), explained that we started experiencing stigmatization, hence the training has been timely for practitioners, not just for their personal benefit but in managing such incidents at the workplace.

We have been enlightened by the training and it has dispelled myths and misinformation hanging around COVID-19. The fear is reducing and managing cases has become easy because practitioners understand it better.

The 'Let Love Lead. End The Stigma' anti-stigmatization campaign is an initiative of the COVID -19 Private Sector Fund, sponsored by the Ghana National Petroleum Authority (GNPC), with support from the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Ghana Psychological Association (GPA), Ghana Medical Association (GMA) and Global Media Alliance.
Cuba has been so successful, it was able to send its doctors overseas to help other countries.

Cuba has been able to send thousands of doctors and nurses overseas to help other countries fight COVID-19.

That is because the island nation has had huge success containing the virus domestically, with a rigorous active screening campaign and strict restrictions.

Since the pandemic began, the country has recorded just more than 2,400 cases and fewer than 100 deaths.

Al Jazeeras Ed Augustin reports from Havana, Cuba.
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Linkedin Dzulfiqar Fathur Rahman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 07:47 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406689a008 1 Business BKPM,foreign-direct-investment,FDI,COVID-19,economic-growth,investment-realization Free

Indonesia recorded a further decline in foreign direct investment (FDI) realization in the second quarter this year, as the COVID-19 pandemic batters both the national and global economy.

The Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) announced on Wednesday that FDI fell 6.9 percent year-on-year (yoy) to Rp 97.6 trillion (US$6.67 billion) in the April-June period, continuing the downward trend recorded in the first three months of the year. In the first quarter, FDI dropped 9.2 percent yoy.

The second quarter was a very difficult period, BKPM head Bahlil Lahadalia said in a virtual presser on Wednesday. We had not anticipated this; our aim was to attract Rp 200 trillion in the second quarter.

Even before the pandemic, the government had been struggling to attract foreign investment and help investors realize their projects by cutting red tape and providing various incentives in a bid to support economic growth.

FDI contributes to more than 30 percent of Indonesias gross domestic product (GDP), making it the second-largest contributor after household spending. However, the pandemic has hit investment in the country as growth plunged to 1.7 percent yoy in the first quarter from 5.03 percent in the first three months of 2019, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data shows.

Indonesias economy grew by 2.97 percent in the first quarter, the slowest in 19 years. The government expects the economy to shrink by up to 5.08 percent in the second quarter as the outbreak paralyzes business activity.

The BKPM reported that domestic direct investment (DDI) was also down, declining by 1.4 percent to Rp 94.3 trillion in the April-June period from the same three months last year. Overall, total investment in the second quarter dropped 4.3 percent yoy to Rp 191.9 trillion, putting the half-year figure at Rp 402.6 trillion.

Of the total investment in the second quarter, 15.8 percent went into the electricity, gas and water sectors; 14.1 percent in transportation, warehouse and communications; 10.8 percent in metal and non-machine business; and 9.4 percent in the food and beverages sector.

Singapore continued to be the largest source of FDI, investing $4.7 billion in the first half of the year.

Despite the southward trend, Bahlil said he would not revise down this years investment realization target of Rp 817.2 trillion, which is lower than the prepandemic target of Rp 886.1 trillion.

There have been no more revisions up to this point  unless the coronavirus cases continue to rise, said Bahlil.

He conceded, however, that the current health crisis would make it difficult for the country to achieve its goal.

Indonesia has seen a steady increase in COVID-19 infections since March, recording more than 1,000 new cases per day since June. As of Wednesday afternoon, as the government works to gradually open the economy, the country has reported 91,700 cases with at least 50,200 deaths, according to official data.

The government has been stepping up efforts to attract new investment both from local and foreign companies by developing a 4,000-hectare industrial park in Batang Regency, Central Java.

In late June, President Joko Jokowi Widodo said seven foreign companies had expressed their interest in relocated their facilities from China to Indonesia. This was considered a sign of progress as Indonesia failed to attract firms moving from China last year.

One of the seven has already started construction work in Subang regency, West Java, while 119 companies with a total investment of $41.4 billion are expected to follow, according to the BKPM.

The government may be aiming too high as the pandemic has not shown signs of slowing down and international organizations are expecting a deeper slump in Indonesias economy, Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) economist Bhima Yudhistira told The Jakarta Post.

This is not just about investment figures but also about the multiplier effect on job creation.

According to the BKPM, realized investment created 263,109 jobs in the April-June period, up by 3 percent from the same period last year.

Center of Reform on Economics (CORE) Indonesia executive direct Mohammad Faisal said on Wednesday there was a growing appetite for investment in manufacturing, particularly metal-making, and food and beverage companies.

Although investment in the manufacturing sector does not immediately translate to building plants, factories might be prone to disruption if a COVID-19 cluster broke out on-site.

Publicly listed cigarette maker PT HM Sampoerna and consumer goods company PT Unilever Indonesia were forced to close their factories in Surabaya, East Java, and Cikarang, West Java, respectively, after several workers tested positive for COVID-19

We still have much to do to attract more investment to the manufacturing sector and we must address [any issues] as soon as possible if we want to compete against other countries, Faisal said.
The findings from Vital Update  Tauranga  a research project that measures the wellbeing of our communities  is now available at www.vitalupdate.org.nz.

The research findings identify significant trends in a range of areas related to quality of life, and capture the aspirations of the people that live, learn, work and play in Tauranga.

Tauranga Mayor Tenby Powell says the research has provided fundamental information to guide decision-making on future work in our communities.

We now have a better understanding of the make-up of our communities, and their aspirations for our city.

"The research has identified which demographic communities and geographical areas have identified needs to address, helping us understand where we can commit our resources to make positive changes.

Furthermore, it gives us weight when lobbying central government for improved health, social and community services and funding in Tauranga."

The research focused on hearing from the harder to reach communities, providing valuable data on people experiencing homelessness; disabled people and carers; youth; ageing population; ethnic communities and newcomers; and Maori.

It looked at topics such as:

what residents love about living in Tauranga, what they would change, and what they want to protect

housing and standards of living, including home ownership, savings and expenses

how connected people are and their interest in attending events

accessibility to services and facilities, technology and transport

perceptions of crime and safety.

An executive summary of the key findings is presented in the main report.

More detailed findings are presented in the 12 suburb snapshot reports and six priority group reports.

Acorn Foundation general manager Lori Luke says having shared data to work from means a more coordinated approach across our organisations to formulate and deliver great community outcomes.

The breadth and depth of this research provides us with information we havent previously been able to gather.

"This data will be tremendously useful for the local funders and the charitable organisations we support."

The research will also feed into councils long-term planning process when the community has a chance to have their say on what projects council will lead and fund over the next 10 years.

Acorn Foundation, TECT, BayTrust and Tauranga City Council teamed up to carry out Vital Update  Tauranga.

The research looked at the geographic communities in Tauranga: who is in them, and what are their needs, wants and aspirations for their neighbourhood and the wider city through a city-wide survey.

The survey was conducted by independent research company, Key Research.

A total of 5222 responses were received, with 4835 responses from Tauranga residents.

The Acorn Foundation runs the Vital Signs research study every three years which gathers information from people across the Western Bay of Plenty.

Vital Update  Tauranga is an interim research project between the last Vital Signs research in 2018 and the next which is planned for 2021.

This study focuses on the suburbs within the city of Tauranga rather than the Western Bay of Plenty sub-region.

For more information, visit www.vitalupdate.org.nz


Over the past few weeks, the Trump administration has decided to close the door to engineers, executives, information technology experts, doctors, nurses and others who come to the United States on work visas. It has attempted to ban international students from attending American colleges and universities that hold classes virtually in the fall. And it has shown an unwavering commitment to canceling the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

Taken together, these are the most restrictionist immigration policies in nearly a century. This is a fundamental mistake at a time when our nations economy is already suffering.

If you want businesses to grow and the economy to rebound, you allow skilled workers to come here legally to work and contribute to the well-being of our nation; you dont lock them out. If you want the next revolutionary start-up to be founded in America, you welcome foreign students; you dont threaten to upend their lives and send them home during the middle of a pandemic. And if you want children to grow up to reach their potential and live their American dream, you give them the tools and certainty to succeed; you dont kick them out of the only country theyve ever known.

How did we get to this point?

Last month, the administration issued a proclamation severely restricting legal immigration into the United States for work purposes. The executive order puts up a Do Not Enter sign for all sorts of skilled workers who come to our country legally to contribute to the economy. The sweeping order will push jobs and investment overseas and slow our economic growth at a time when we need it most.
The U.S. Justice Departments investigation of Goldman Sachs, and whether it will force the bank to take a guilty plea, is one of the biggest issues remaining. Prosecutors assert that beyond Leissner, some employees at Goldman knew about a bribery scheme but worked to hide it from the firms compliance and legal departments. Singapore was said to have expanded a criminal probe to include Goldman; two Abu Dhabi funds have filed a civil suit against Goldman in New York seeking damages for alleged fraud in connection with embezzlement at 1MDB; and a Justice Department employee has pleaded guilty to funneling money into the U.S. to pay for a lobbying effort to influence the 1MDB probe, with the filing identifying the funds source as Jho Low. In another twist, the U.S. was said to be investigating Deutsche Bank AG over a former Goldman executive who joined the German bank.
By Trend

Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops 47 times, Trend reports referring to Azerbaijani Defense Ministry.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding 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.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
The US violates the human rights of asylum seekers by imprisoning them, a Canadian judge rules.

Canada's federal court has ruled that an asylum agreement the country has with the US is invalid because America violates the human rights of refugees.

The Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), in place since 2004, requires refugee claimants to request protection in the first safe country they reach.

But on Wednesday, a judge declared the deal unconstitutional due to the chance that the US will imprison the migrants.

The ruling marks a major victory for Canadian immigration activists.

Lawyers for refugees who had been turned away at the Canadian border had challenged the agreement, arguing that the US did not qualify as "safe" for asylum seekers.

Nedira Jemal Mustefa, one of the refugees forced to remain in the US, told the court her time in US solitary confinement was "a terrifying, isolating and psychologically traumatic experience," according to the court ruling.

"We're all too familiar with the treatment that the US metes out to asylum seekers," Maureen Silcoff, president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, told Reuters news agency.

The 5,525 mile (8,891 km) US-Canada border is the longest border between two countries in the world.

What is the Safe Third Country Agreement?

The Safe Third Country Agreement is a policy implemented to better manage refugee claims and to avoid so-called "asylum shopping" between countries.

But it is also driving asylum seekers to make what the Canadian government calls "irregular" crossings to avoid being turned back at official border points.Since 2017, when President Donald Trump took office promising a crackdown on immigration, some 58,000 people have crossed into Canada from the US in that manner to make subsequent refugee claims.

Canada had been processing their claims until the coronavirus pandemic, when the Canadian government said they would be turned back.

There have been calls in Canada to suspend or renegotiate the agreement with the US.

What did the judge say?

Federal court judge Ann Marie McDonald ruled that the deal was in violation of a section of Canada's Charter of Rights that bans the government from interfering in the right to life, liberty and security.

"It is my conclusion, based upon the evidence, that ineligible STCA claimants are returned to the US by Canadian officials where they are immediately and automatically imprisoned by US authorities," Judge McDonald said in her ruling.

"I have concluded that imprisonment and the attendant consequences are inconsistent with the spirit and objective of the STCA and are a violation of the rights guaranteed by section 7 of the [Charter of Rights and Freedoms]," she continued.

But the judge delayed the ruling for six months to allow Canada's parliament and the US Congress to respond. The ruling can also be appealed.

US immigration authorities not have yet to comment on the ruling. BBC
The general and presidential elections of May 2020 , followed by the death of President Pierre Nkurunziza , put the international media spotlight on Burundi. The country is now facing one of the darkest times in its history since the 2015 crisis .

The crisis that year began when Nkurunziza, who had been in office since 2005, announced he would run for a third term.

The move was dubbed unconstitutional and the announcement triggered protests that were stifled and eventually banned by the authorities. Despite the protests, Nkurunziza was re-elected in July in polls boycotted by the opposition.

Since then, freedom of the press in Burundi has deteriorated considerably in an atmosphere of tension and repression. Local media have been silenced by repeated attacks from the government and the state security apparatus.

The remaining independent voices face difficult conditions. There are restrictive controls on the press and journalists and a constant fear of reprisals from elements enjoying impunity.

The media in Burundi: a historical perspective

The Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement of 2000 , also known as the Arusha Accords, added to the wave of hope that was brought on by the end of Burundi's 12-year civil war.

The agreement was signed in August 2000 after protracted negotiations facilitated by former presidents Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and Nelson Mandela of South Africa. The agreement was the beginning of a reconciliation process that also implied greater freedom of the press.

But since 2005, when Nkurunziza was elected under the National Council for the Defense of Democracy  Forces for the Defense of Democracy party, relations between the state and the media have become severely strained.

During the 2000s, private radio stations could oppose state oppression to an extent. They provided a platform for political opposition and civil society, and reported on embezzlement, corruption and human rights violations.

But as in past regimes, Burundian journalists faced huge difficulties when covering highly sensitive topics. Journalists were barred from covering rebel activities and issues relating to security and maintaining public order.

Mistrust between the government and the press deepened. Journalists experienced increasing threats, intimidation and imprisonment. In 2013, a highly controversial media law was passed which undermined the protection of sources, limited subjects on which journalists could report, and imposed new fines for media found in violation of the law.

The National Communication Council, which is supposed to regulate the sector, has been exploited by political authorities, and its independence has been severely compromised. In media circles, the council is perceived to be a government puppet .

Media blackout

Nkurunziza's decision to run for a third term in office, in defiance of the country's constitution, essentially created a media vacuum in Burundi . Private media coverage of protests against a potential third term immediately strained relations with political authorities; some radio stations were suspended and threats were made against journalists in the field.

The attempted military coup in May 2015 was a major turning point. Loyalist forces destroyed work and broadcasting equipment in newsrooms and burned down the headquarters of several media outlets. The forces accused them of pro-coup bias and broadcasting seditious messages. Private radio and television stations were heavily affected.

The attempted coup gave Nkurunziza and his supporters a pretext to lock down the already weakened political and media landscape. The independent media, seen as being on the side of the opposition, became an enemy of the government. Leandre Sikuyavuga (left), editor in chief of the newspaper Iwacu; Antoine Kaburahe (centre), director of the Iwacu Media Group; and Innocent Muhozi (right), director of the Renaissance radio and television stations, give a press conference at the Iwacu offices in Bujumbura on 19 May 2015, following attacks on, and closures of four private radio stations. Jennifer Huxta/AFP

Exile became the only option for some members of the press. Dozens of independent journalists were forced to flee the heavy-handed repression.

The crackdown on independent radio left the field wide open to Burundi's state broadcaster , which is the government's mouthpiece. Even international journalists, who are usually granted a certain immunity, have suffered pressure and intimidation from the government security apparatus.

In the turmoil brought about by the crisis, it is worth mentioning the remarkable role played by IWACU. The independent newspaper remained in operation despite the dangerous conditions. Four of its journalists were imprisoned in 2019 . They were accused of collusion with rebels operating on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Eventually, its director was forced into exile.

The online platform SOS Medias Burundi , coordinated by a social media collective, also stands out. It was formed at the time of the crisis and operates clandestinely.

Despite a few courageous voices who stood their ground, the 2015 crisis ushered in a climate of terror and deep mistrust between the government and the remaining independent media.

The pandemic blackout

The COVID-19 pandemic broke out in Burundi the day before the May 2020 elections. So that they could go ahead unhindered, the government adopted a strategy of denial, invoking the country's divine protection .

The deportation of the World Health Organisation representative and his team of three experts was one of the most glaring indications of the restriction of information in Burundi. In spite of their refusal to officially acknowledge the pandemic , Burundian authorities still imposed quarantine on national and foreign travellers.

The lack of strict preventive action and social distancing in the country, and the underestimation of the scale of the infection, have been severely criticised.

Social and electoral gatherings continued with minimal, or no, health protection measures. This led some Burundian medical professionals and civil society members trying to warn the media and the public of the worsening health situation and the lack of testing.

In this context, the reporting surrounding the death of President Nkurunziza was of critical importance. According to a government press release, the unexpected death of the Burundian head of state, which took place in the Karuzi hospital on 8 June 2020, was caused by a heart attack.

Many international media outlets reported suspicions that the real cause of death was COVID-19 , which would have made Nkurunziza the first leader to die from the virus in office.

The least that can be said is that there is no clear information surrounding government action on the pandemic and its consequences.

What now?

Since the May 2020 elections, the international community has moved towards normalising relations with the new president, Evariste Ndayishimiye , awaiting signs of openness on his part.

Western diplomatic missions appear to be keeping a low profile, limiting themselves to a handful of policy statements. But can diplomacy return to normal if the media landscape does not? The crisis cannot truly be said to be over if there is still no real space for public debate through a free and independent press.

Translated from the French by Alice Heathwood for Fast ForWord

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

By Aime-Jules Bizimana, Professeur au Departement des sciences sociales, Universite du Quebec en Outaouais (UQO) And

Oumar Kane, Professor of Communication Studies, Universite du Quebec a Montreal (UQAM)
Ulta Beauty will permanently close its Vineland store, a company spokeswoman told NJ Advance Media on Thursday.

The store is part of Cumberland Mall at 3849 South Delsea Dr., next to Dicks Sporting Goods. An official closing date was not yet announced.

Nationwide, Ulta will close 19 stores before the year is over. Ulta said the decision was made after evaluating its existing store portfolio, according to a statement. Store employees will be reassigned to other locations, the statement says.

The Ulta spokeswoman also told NJ Advance Media the company is planning to open stores in five New Jersey towns: Paramus, Toms River, East Rutherford, Chester and Wayne.

Specific details, such as timing and locations, will be announced as the grand openings approach, the spokeswoman said.

There are 39 Ulta Beauty stores in New Jersey. All stores appear to have reopened after being temporarily closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, except the Vineland location, which will reopen on July 27 before eventually shuttering, according to Ultas website.

If youre still hesitant to shop in-person, Ulta offers a number of deals online.

It has been a rough few months for the brick-and-mortar retail industry, which already had been struggling before the pandemic hit.

Walmart, Brooks Brothers, JCPenney, Nordstrom, New York & Company and Sur La Table are among the many retail companies that have recently announced store closures.

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Nicolette Accardi can be reached at naccardi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter: @N_Accardi. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips
A researcher who lied about her affiliation with a Chinese military university entered the Chinese consulate in San Francisco after being interviewed by the FBI on June 20 about alleged visa fraud and has remained there, according to an FBI assessment in court filings dated July 20.

Why it matters: Using a diplomatic facility to shelter someone charged with a federal crime could cause serious tension between the U.S. and China, especially as the U.S. is seeking to crack down on Chinese espionage and research theft.

"It is highly unusual for a Chinese diplomatic post to associate so closely with a suspect in an intellectual property theft-related case," said Minyao Wang, a New York-based lawyer who has worked on IP theft cases related to China.

"Sheltering a defendant in a criminal case by using the diplomatic immunity of a consular building, if true, is really extraordinary."

Context: On July 21, the U.S. told China that it must close its Houston consulate within 72 hours.

State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said the move was intended to "protect American intellectual property and Americans private information."

Details: According to documents filed on July 20 in the San Francisco division of the U.S. district court for the Northern District of California, Tang Juan came to the U.S. on a J-1 visa and was a researcher at the University of California, Davis.

On her visa application, Tang stated that she did not have any affiliation with the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the Chinese military.

But an investigation revealed that she worked at the Air Force Military Medical University (FMMU), a PLA-affiliated university in China, and she is considered to be active military personnel.

After obtaining a warrant, the FBI searched her home and found evidence of her affiliation with the PLA.

On June 26, Tang was charged with visa fraud.

Tang appears to have taken refuge inside the San Francisco consulate.

Federal prosecutors wrote that "at some point following the search and interview of Tang on June 20, 2020, Tang went to the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco, where the FBI assesses she has remained," according to court filings.

"As the Tang case demonstrates, the Chinese consulate in San Francisco provides a potential safe harbor for a PLA official intent on avoiding prosecution in the United States," prosecutors stated.

What they're saying: "We made the Chinese government aware that she is a charged individual, so it unquestionable that they know the defendant is a fugitive from Justice," a Department of Justice official told Axios.

The Chinese embassy in Washington, DC and the Chinese consulate in San Francisco did not respond to a request for comment.

The State Department declined to comment.

The big picture: Federal prosecutors believe this isn't an isolated case.

Tang's case is listed among several similar recent ones that appear "to be part of a program conducted by the PLA  and specifically, FMMU or associated institutionsto send military scientists to the United States on false pretenses with false covers or false statements about their true employment," the court filing states.

At least one among this group of cases involved a military scientist who had allegedly been directed by military superiors to steal information from a U.S. institution.

In other cases, the Chinese government directed military scientists to destroy evidence, and had helped them leave the U.S, according to court filings.

Related: The White House issued an executive order on May 29 barring entry to certain Chinese students and researchers from PLA-linked universities, stating that they are at "high risk of being exploited or co-opted by the PRC authorities" to serve as "non-traditional collectors of intellectual property."

The bottom line: If the FBI's assessment is correct, the San Francisco consulate's decision to shelter a fugitive affiliated with the Chinese military is highly provocative behavior that goes against basic diplomatic conventions.
Editors Note: The original headline incorrectly stated the amount of taxes Derek Chauvin and his wife failed to pay.

Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged in the death of George Floyd, was, along with his wife Kellie, charged with nine counts of felony tax evasion, the Washington County prosecutors office announced on Wednesday.

The couple failed to file Minnesota income tax returns from 2016 through 2019 and fraudulently filed tax returns from 2014 to 2019, the prosectors office said. The couple underreported filings by $464,433, including more than $95,000 that Derek Chauvin earned from off-duty security work, according to NPR.

According to the Washington Post, the couple owes 38,000 in taxes.

The complaints allege that the Chauvins knew of their obligation to file state income tax returns due to their filings in previous years and from multiple correspondences sent in 2019 by the department regarding their missing 2016 individual income tax return, the district attorneys statement said.

Revenue investigators began reviewing the Chauvins in June. Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder in connection to Floyds death on June 3.

Floyd was detained at the end of May on suspicion of forgery. He had just purchased cigarettes from a corner store but employees of that store said Floyd passed a fake $20 bill and called police, authorities said. Video shows Floyd being handcuffed and talking to officers outside his car.

Later, he was taken to a cruiser, which is when Chauvin and another officer arrived.

Video shows Chauvin kneeling directly on Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes as Floyd screams, I cant breathe and he, along with onlookers, ask police to help him. Authorities said Chauvin remained on Floyds neck even as Floyd lost consciousness, and also for a full minute after paramedics arrived.

Kellie Chauvin filed for divorce at the end of May.

Through her attorney, Kellie Chauvin said she is devastated by the death of George Floyd and expressed her sympathy to his family, with his loved ones and with everyone who is grieving.

The couple were married for a decade.

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As the summer ticks away, parents, teachers and schools have expressed concern regarding the lack of information on whether schools will reopen in a few weeks time, and if so, what procedures will be implemented.

Issues such as socially distancing younger child, class sizes and uniforms are yet to be addressed by the Minister.

A number of schools who are due to lose a teacher in September due to reduced enrolment figures are urging the Department of Education to reverse the cuts.

As reported in The Irish Times, over 700 parents of student in Holy Rosary National School in Co Wicklow have signed a petition, saying the loss of a teaching position there will make it harder to implement public health guidelines.

Rampark Nation School in Co Louth and Scoil Ide in Co Dublin are also calling for action as they face similar cuts to posts.

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However, the Department of Education said these rules operate in a clear and transparent manner.

Separately, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said the department also needs to make it clear if students will have to wear school uniforms whenever they return to school.

Over 80% of schools require their students to wear uniforms, but there are concerns whether they would have to be washed every day for hygiene reasons because of Covid-19.

Mary Lou McDonald says many parents want to know if their children need to wear uniforms or not.

All these things are still outstanding and it is astonishing with just a few short weeks to go that staff, students and indeed parents are still very much in the dark.

This follows comments from the Tanaiste, who said it will reflect badly on the country if schools do not re-opened next month.

Leo Varadkar said that it is still the plan to open schools fully:

There are other countries that have suffered much worse than us in this pandemic and never closed their schools fully.

I do think that it would reflect badly on us as politicians, on the Government and on the education partners if we were unable to open our schools in August.

Ms Foyle is expected to bring plans to Cabinet next week on the reopening of schools.
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- The city is investigating an ongoing dispute between a Meiers Corners woman yelling racial slurs and profanities as her neighbor, a Black NYPD cop, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced late Wednesday evening.

De Blasio called a video documenting the racist tirades Lisa Williams, a Black police officer at the 123 Precinct, has had to endure for years from her neighbor, Lenore Arce, shameful and disgusting.
The dairy and bucket calf show were held on Wednesday at the Gage County Fair.

Kirby Krogstad of Lincoln served as the judge. He said he grew up on a 400 Holstein cow family dairy in South Dakota and exhibited dairy in 4-H and FFA.

Krogstad is a graduate of South Dakota State University. Krogstad just finished graduate school at the University of Nebraska and will be moving to Michigan to pursue a PhD in Dairy Nutrition.

In 2017 Krogstad was the Champion in Judging at the World Dairy Expo.

Its nice to be out of the house and great that we can find creative ways to make these events happen and keep everyone safe," said Krogstad. "The kids seemed to be having a good time and that is why I enjoy doing 4-H shows. The interaction and the kids are here because they love it and they love the animals.

It wasnt a big show, but there were some quality animals here today."

Trevin and Taelyn Lang showed dairy cattle and dairy goats.

All of the animals that we show are home grown. Trevin, Taelyn and Trenden all help with the chores and they get to choose which animals they show, said Travis Lang, their father.

I love showing the animals because you see all the hard work finally pay off, said Trevin.

I like to show cows and goats, but I really like it when I beat my brother, said Taelyn.

We rushed around a little more this morning with the one-day show, but were glad to be able to show this year, said Toree Lang, their mother.

The bucket calf show was also held at the Gage County Fair on Wednesday.

Tyler Wolken of Diller judged the show. Wolken grew up on a crop and diversified livestock operation. He was involved in 4-H, FFA and the Livestock Judging Team at Southeast Community College. Wolken earned a Bachelors Degree in Animal Science at the University of Nebraska.

Wolken is currently working as a 4-H Assistant in Jefferson County. He serves as a Advisory Board Member of the Junior Braunvieh Association.

Its a lot of fun to spend time talking with the kids and help them as they are just getting started with showing, said Wolken.

All shows were live streamed on Youtube during the Gage County Fair courtesy of Diode Technologies and the Gage County Ag Society.

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WASHINGTON, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new survey from The Manifest, a business how-to and news website, 67% of Americans are at least somewhat uncomfortable with flying in the next month, limiting summer travel possibilities.

The survey accounts for 351 Americans' comfort with travel in May 2020 and another 501 American opinions on travel during the COVID-19 pandemic in July 2020. The same percentage of people (67%) said they were uncomfortable with air travel in May and July 2020.

People's Comfort Flying During COVID-19 How People Changed Vacation Plans During COVID-19

Despite concerns about air travel as daily new cases surge, only 23% of people have fully canceled their 2020 travel plans. Instead, 32%of people in the U.S. are stopping additional travel planning while 15% are continuing to plan.

With road travel exceeding pre-pandemic levels by over the July 4 holiday, travel lovers like Melissa James are replacing long-distance travel with road trips.

"Since we'll be in our own car and can do most of our site-seeing outdoors or socially distanced in museums, we feel it's the most reasonable compromise," James said.

Regional Hotspots Increase Travel Anxieties

Residents of regions that have seen more success with flattening the curve are more comfortable with air travel now than they were in May 2020. For example, the number people in the Northeast who were very uncomfortable with flying decreased from 67% to 51% from May to July.

Conversely, residents of virus hotspots since May 2020 are less comfortable with flying in July 2020. Extreme discomfort increased from 35% to 43% in the West and from 48% to 58% in the South, mirroring spikes in positive coronavirus cases .

At-Risk Demographics Experience Greater Travel Discomfort

COVID-19 hospitalization records show that older Americans are more vulnerable to severe cases of the virus.

The Manifest found that more people 55 years old and above were very uncomfortable with air travel than people 18-34 years old in both May (59% vs. 45%) and July (56% vs. 44%).

Conversely, Americans ages 18-34 are also more likely to be at least somewhat comfortable with the idea of plane travel than those 55 and older.

Read the full report here: https://themanifest.com/accounting/going-on-vacation-covid-comfortable-traveling

For questions, reach out to Sydney Wess at [email protected] .

The Manifest is a business news and how-to website that compiles and analyzes practical business wisdom for innovators, entrepreneurs, and small and mid-market businesses. Use The Manifest as an approachable tour guide through every stage of the buyer journey. With three main offerings  data-driven benchmarks, step-by-step guides, and agency shortlists  The Manifest strives to make your business goals a reality.

Contact

Sydney Wess

[email protected]

(202) 840-6690

SOURCE The Manifest
The four months of lockdown cost the state exchequer 55,000 crore in tax revenue against the budget estimates. Although there are no estimates available for the economic losses and how it will affect the state GDP, manufacturing, services, real estate and hospitality are the worst-hit sectors, according to government officials and industry insiders.

After starting a partial shutdown from March 14, the Maharashtra government imposed a complete lockdown across the state from March 23. By then almost all commercial-industrial activities had come to a halt, as shops, establishments and offices were shut down and local train services were stopped.

Rajiv Podar, president, Indian Merchants Chamber, said, The industrial sector witnessed 50%-70% production losses during the lockdown, mainly because of scarcity of labour, insufficient mobility and logistical support. Although it would be early to predict, Maharashtra can see a shrinkage of 3.5%-4.5% in state GDP compared to last year. It will depend on the duration of the lockdown and time taken to bounce back. The state should now provide support to the manufacturing sector, with working capital and focus on creating rural demand. By engaging the rural population in agriculture activities, rural agriculture infrastructure and their income level can be raised, which can in turn help revive other sectors like FMCG, infrastructure.

Nayan Shah, president, Credai-MCHI, said most of the ongoing 11,000 real estate projects in Mumbai Metropolitan Region have either been stalled or are progressing at 15% of their expected pace. The industry is going through major challenges, be it in terms of operational costs or interest paid on the loans or shortfall of construction workers. Gaining back the confidence of financial institutions, customers and even labourers is a challenge. A majority of the 11,000 projects registered with RERA are stalled due to the lockdown. The government should immediately extend a helping hand by reducing stamp duty, premium rate and fees for nod by local authorities, he said.

Amitabh Taneja, chairman, Shopping Centres Association of India, said, A mall usually generates sales of 60 crore a month and stores goods worth 300crore-400 crore at any given point. Stocks worth hundred of lakhs with the retailers are getting damaged and the value is expected to be lost, if not sold immediately. On the other hand, the exchequer has lost at least 8,000 crore in four months towards GST. The lockdown may see a loss of 50 lakh jobs employed in malls and with retailers, he said. Maharashtra has 75 malls and 50% of them are in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region.

Although the state relaxed the curbs and allowed industrial units to operate from April 20, only 65,208 of the 7.34 lakh industrial units started their operations. Besides the fear of Covid-19, shortage of labourers, disruption of supply chain, logistics and slowdown have resulted in lukewarm response from industries.

Deepak Sood, secretary general, Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), said, The losses to the economy could go up if we look at the drop in GST collection and GDP growth rate. India is in a better position than most other countries and things are moving back to normalcy rapidly. It may take three-six months to revive, depending on the sector. The rural economy is doing well and is expected to perform better this year, owing to satisfactory rainfall. Although Maharashtra is the worst-hit by Covid, it is a major contributor to the countrys GDP and is expected to bounce back sharply.

The Maharashtra government suffered losses of 26,000 crore against a targeted revenue of 45,000 crore in March, the last month of the fiscal. With the tax revenue losses of more than 23,000 crore in April and May and estimated losses of more than 10,000 crore in July, the state exchequers accumulated losses have reached over 55,000 crore. We were expecting the annual revenue receipt to be hit by 70,000 crore, but in the current scenario, it may be more. We have already borrowed 30,000 crore for monthly salary and pension bills, recurring establishment cost and incidental expenses such as Covid-19 and cyclone. We have already curtailed the expenditure on development works worth 70,000 crore, said a state government official.

A major chunk of the state revenue comes from GST, excise on liquor, stamp duty and registration and taxes on vehicles.

The revenue from excise dropped to 2,436 crore against estimates of more than 5,000 crore till July 20. Similarly, the GST revenue dropped to 12,906 crore against the estimated collection of 25,600 crore till July 20. With the extended lockdown in various parts of the state this month, the revenue losses are more than 10,000 crore than the estimated collection in July, another official from the finance department said. From raising revenue and borrowing to austerity measures and cutting capital expenditure, steps are being taken to cope with the situation, said Manoj Saunik, additional chief secretary, finance.

Industries minister Subhash Desai said, The losses are huge, but it is also difficult to predict the economic losses to the state owing to the lockdown. The state economy will bounce back after the unlocking is completed. We have taken steps to attract industries and investment.

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Boxwood continues its strong momentum by navigating a successful process through COVID-19 en route to its 3rd successful transaction of 2020

RICHMOND, VA / ACCESSWIRE / July 23, 2020 / Boxwood Partners, LLC is pleased to announce the recapitalization of Consolidated Label Co. and Online Labels, Inc. ("Consolidated Label", "Online Labels" or, collectively, the "Company") with investor Tenex Capital Management ("Tenex"), a New-York-based private equity firm.

Boxwood Partners acted as the exclusive advisor to Consolidated Label and Online Labels with respect to this transaction. The transaction was led by Managing Partner J. Patrick Galleher, Director Brian Alas, Vice President Robbie Nickle and Associate Madison Day. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Headquartered in Sanford, Florida, the Company provides a full-suite of custom printed pressure sensitive, shrink sleeve, flexible packaging, and blank labels on sheets and rolls to small businesses, consumers, and premier middle market brands via enterprise relationships and a direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform. As a result of strong demand and an impressive track record for growth, the Company has recently expanded its production footprint by opening new manufacturing and distribution facilities in Scranton, PA, Kansas City, MO and Sparks, NV.

"Consolidated Label and Online Labels are widely recognized throughout the industry as a leader for innovative solutions, high-quality products and first-class customer service. The Carmany family has done a tremendous job building the Company into the premier customized label and flexible packaging provider servicing small and medium-sized business across the country," said Perrin Monroe, Managing Director at Tenex. "We are extremely excited to be partnering with such a strong management team and look forward to the continued growth and success of the Company."

With consistent year-over-year growth over its 30+ year history, the Company has established a strong domestic and international reach, which is supported by a robust digital and e-commerce infrastructure.

Story continues

"We are confident that the Company has found a good home with Tenex and look forward to our partnership with Perrin, Ron and the rest of our team," commented President Joel Carmany. "Tenex is the perfect partner for Consolidated Label and Online Labels and shares our vision for growth," said CEO Dave Carmany. He continued, "We are extremely appreciative of the hard work that the Boxwood team put in throughout the process to ensure a successful outcome. Given their current circumstance, we would not have been able to achieve this result without the remarkable level of service, knowledge and advice that Patrick, Brian and the rest of our advisors were able to provide."

J. Patrick Galleher, Boxwood's Managing Partner added, "We are thrilled for Dave and Joel as they enter into this new partnership with Tenex. They've built a tremendous business and we are grateful to have represented them throughout the process."

Greg Bishop and Forbes Thompson of Williams Mullen served as legal counsel, while Scott Bormet and Steve Martin of BKD, LLP provided accounting advisory services to the Company.

About Boxwood Partners

Boxwood Partners, LLC (www.boxwoodpartners.com), is a boutique investment bank based in Richmond, Virginia. Boxwood Partners combines a unique blend of senior-level transaction advisory, business operating experience, and proven process execution skills to give its clients a distinct advantage in the market. The firm's extensive relationships within the global capital and buyer communities (including U.S. and international private equity groups, corporations, and lenders) and other important transaction-related service providers such as consultants, attorneys, and accountants, ensure that the firm's clients receive the attention, service, and results they deserve.

About Consolidated Label

Headquartered in Sanford, FL with over 30 years of experience, Consolidated Label provides a full-suite of custom printed pressure sensitive, shrink sleeve and flexible packaging solutions to small and medium-sized business throughout the country. Consolidated Label serves a diverse group of end markets, including food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, household chemicals, health, beauty and more.

About Online Labels

Founded in 2000 and Headquartered in Sanford, FL, Online Labels primarily provides blank and custom printed sheeted and roll labels directly to businesses and consumers via a first-class e-commerce platform. Online Labels also operates out of three satellite facilities in Scranton, PA, Kansas City, MO and Sparks, NV.

About Tenex Capital Management

Tenex Capital Management is a private equity firm that invests in and partners with middle-market companies. Tenex uses an in-house team of hybrid investment and operations professionals, which enables the firm to effectively collaborate with management teams and capitalize on business and market opportunities. Tenex has successfully invested in businesses and management teams across a diverse range of industries, including industrials, healthcare, business services, automotive aftermarket, and building products. For additional information, please visit www.tenexcm.com.

Contact: J. Patrick Galleher

Phone: (804) 343-3441

Email: pgalleher@boxwoodpartners.com

SOURCE: Boxwood Partners, LLC





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Different studies and researches suggest that COVID-19 antibodies of those who recovered from the virus disappear or decline in a matter of weeks or months.

The new coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) is not the same as other viruses and diseases. Infections like Hepatitis A and measles is a one-and-done deal. This means that once you get infected with these diseases, you develop antibodies that protect you against the virus.

However, COVID-19 does not behave in that way. A growing body of studies and researches suggests that the antibodies developed by COVID-19 recovered patients do not last long. They only stay in the body for weeks or sometimes for months.

Florian Krammer, a vaccinologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told the Business Insider the case of COVID-19 is apparently different. Krammer also said that anyone can get repeatedly infected once the immunity or the antibodies go down.

Kramer's statement is supported by different studies and researches. New research published in the New England Journal of Medicines found out that the antibodies produced by COVID-19 recovered patients dropped during the first three months after a person is infected. It was also written in the study that the antibodies are cut by half every 36 days.

Moreover, the authors of the study also said that if the rate of antibody decay is sustained over time, it would disappear within about a year.

Another study also from the researchers in the United Kingdom showed earlier this month that the antibodies may last in just less than three months. However, the study in Spain suggested that the antibodies will only last from three to five weeks in some patients.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's leading infectious disease expert, hypothesized in April that people who recovered from that time would like to be immune by fall. Fauci said, "If we get infected in February and March and recover, next September, October, that person who's infected - I believe - is going to be protected."

However, a growing body of researches and studies state that the time frame might be shorter. In one of the studies, they observed and examined 36 patients who recovered from mild COVID-19 infection. They measured the antibodies of participants twice with an interval of 36 days. The researchers found out that the levels of antibodies decreased by about half at each interval.

Meanwhile, a study from the United Kingdom shows that the antibody completely disappears within three months. The researchers from the UK observed and examined 90 COVID-19 patients for antibodies over 94 days.

The result of their study showed that 60 percent of the patients developed a potent antibody response three weeks after the infection. According to a report published in The Guardian, that nearly17 percent of the 90 COVID-19 patients maintained that level of antibodies just a week after.

Additionally, the antibodies of other patients in the same study have declined 23-fold or became undetectable within three months.

These are just few of the published studies that show the decline of antibodies. Thus making it possible to be infected again for the virus.

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Many are anxious about being able to catch one of the two to three flights a week to Australia aboard Garuda's smaller 737 planes in time, says Mr Taylor, but the longer they stay, the more scrutiny they'll be under from Australian agencies. That sends really big danger signals that if the Indonesian authorities do extend that extra 30 days, Australians need to be aware that in the next few weeks of September there will be a lot more Javanese flooding into Bali and walking around, who have not been thoroughly tested, he said. The island of Java is the equivalent of a Rottnest ferry ride away from Bali and accounts for a huge percentage of domestic tourism to the more liberal lifestyle destination. Mr Taylor said the East Javanese had been experiencing 1500 to 2500 cases a day, the equivalent of Balis total since the pandemic started, which was on the back of some of the lowest testing rates in the world.

Official figures have registered 1461 deaths in the province, nearly double Jakarta's 748 deaths. Loading It meant East Java has also assumed the mantle from the capital as Indonesias coronavirus epicentre after recording 18,828 infections, ahead of Jakarta's 17,279. Mr Taylor said while Bali intended to test each arrival, given Indonesias record of only conducting 2500 to 3500 tests per million people, per day  compared to Australias 14,336 tests per 100,000  the risk remained. It is really rapidly spiking in East Java and people are dying and in that environment we are going to let people flow in? he said.

Arrivals to Bali will also not be forced to quarantine or self-isolate. Earlier this month, Premier Mark McGowan said he feared the pressure on the state's quarantine measures could give way to a second wave, and reduced international arrivals to WA to 525 passengers weekly. So far, practically all of WA's active cases have been international arrivals in hotel quarantine. Mr Taylor said the East Java-Bali virus figures made the Melbourne-Perth issues look very benign indeed.

"Do they keep the lockout going and Balis economy gets completely smashed, or open up their borders to domestic travel in a pandemic?" he said. "And when you compare it to the pandemic here, it is like a birthday party here and even were not opening the borders, so should they be? Thats the dilemma." I dont think many West Australians will ever go back until they feel safe to do so. Ross Taylor, Indonesia Institute It also presents a huge problem for Bali being able to attract Australian tourists back. "The Australian government is not going to let that happen and I dont think many West Australians will ever go back until they feel safe to do so; I know Im not looking to go back until at the earliest next year and Ive been going since 1971," Mr Taylor said.

Bali will welcome back foreign travellers as of September 11, which prompted Indonesian immigration to resume its traditional visa controls. For the 7000 Australian expats on current Kitas (business/working visas), which can be renewed or extended for a fee, there appears to be little issue about staying. Retirees to Bali also appear unaffected. Balinese workers wearing face masks as a precaution against COVID-19. Credit:Firdia Lisnawati West Australian expat Linda Chesters Labuschagne said she was on a multiple-entry business visa, which she could currently extend every month for 800,000 to 1 million Indonesian rupiah  the equivalent of $77-95 and a bit of a moneymaker for the government  while tourists stayed for free.

[The tourists are] very lucky because when the pandemic was declared they were told they could stay at no extra cost and overstaying is very expensive, its like $US100 ($140) a day, so you dont overstay, she said. And theyve been staying for an extra four months without it costing a single cent and only now have been told by the Indonesia government that they have to leave on August 13, but the government very often changes its mind and if coronavirus blows up again worldwide and people couldnt leave then Id imagine that they would still get to stay. Returning WA tourists will have to foot their 14-day hotel quarantine bill on the back of living on dwindling funds for four months. Yet many Australians say it has been worth it. Fly-in, fly-out chef Tim Ryan said it was better for him to stay with his Balinese wife and son than to remain in Darwin working on a mine site.

Loading "If I was stuck in Australia and couldn't see my family, wow, I would be so upset," he said. NSW retiree Paul Sage said he too felt safe in Bali and had no plans to return to Australia. Ms Chesters Labuschagne said the Balinese were being very safe and taking precautions to prevent any virus spread, including wearing masks, and Bali life remained quite magical. Theres something in the air in Bali because of the lifestyle and the semi-open living and not being locked indoors; theres a happiness here unlike any other place in the world, she said.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Following bilateral Air Bubbles between India and selected countries including the USA and France, the Delhi airport has made it clear that international visitors landing at the Delhi airport will have to undergo a new protocol for quarantine.

Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, passengers that will be arriving by international flights at the airport will have to undergo seven days of institutional quarantine, followed by one-week of home quarantine.

According to officials at the aviation facility, these guidelines are meant for passengers, who are either arriving by international flights or domestic flights at the Delhi airport.

According to the guidelines passengers, who are arriving by international flight at Delhi Airport, have to undergo 7 days institutional quarantine at their own cost, which will be followed by seven days of home isolation.

Those arriving passengers, who plan to stay in Delhi or adjoining NCR areas, will have to undergo the mandatory health screening, which includes a primary screening by Airport Health Officials (APHO). The process includes thermal temperature screening by discreetly mounted, highly accurate, mass screening cameras.

This will be followed by a secondary screening at Delhi government post at the airport and then they will be allowed to proceed to the approved quarantine location.

In case, some passengers need an exemption, they have to fill an exemption form and discuss their case with government officials inside the terminal on arrival. Passengers of certain categories will be considered for exemption.

They include pregnant women, passengers suffering from serious illness and parents accompanied by children below 10 years.

Similarly, domestic passengers arriving at Delhi airport need to undergo mandatory thermal screening, which is done after baggage reclaim as one head towards the exit gates.

Soon after arrival, only asymptomatic passengers will be allowed to exit the airport and will then have to go for home quarantine for a week.
A Chinese courier company has been caught using a mannequin as its security inspector for parcels to allegedly save spending on labour.

Footage shows the dummy dressed in a purple uniform and surrounded by packages, seemingly working hard next to a security scanner at a ZTO Express branch in Henan province.

The delivery firm issued an apology yesterday after the incident was revealed by its employees, according to Chinese media.

The event was brought to light after footage of the fake employee working at the courier branch in Luyi county emerged Monday.

The dummy is seen in the viral clip wearing a black cap and the company uniform while being positioned behind the security desk.

The video was jointly released by nine ZTO Express employees, who claimed that the delivery company was trying to reduce labour costs by using a mannequin as its security inspector, reported Chinese media.

The anonymous workers also said that the dummy had been on duty for several months.

Footage shows the dummy dressed in a purple uniform and surrounded by packages, seemingly working hard next to a security scanner at a ZTO Express branch in Henan province

ZTO Express had initially claimed in a response to Chinese media that the video was staged, according to news outlet The Paper.

But the incident was confirmed yesterday by the local postal authorities in an official statement.

The administration had sent a letter to ZTO Express regarding its penalties for illegally using a mannequin worker, the notice said.

The delivery company has reportedly apologised today following the announcement from the authorities.

The dummy is seen in the viral clip wearing a black cap and the company uniform while being positioned behind the security desk at a ZTO Express branch in Henan province's Luyi county

In a statement obtained by Chinese media, the firm confirmed the incident and said that the Luyi branch had been closed since Monday.

The incident has exposed the serious flaws in our branch management, we will investigate them further, strengthen our management and provide better services for our clients.

We are deeply sorry for the bad impact it had on our clients and the public, it reportedly read.

But the notice appears to be absent from the companys website and social media platforms.
The isolated Twin Lake beach outside of Minneapolis is known as a haven for freewheeling summer behavior, a place where sunbathers feel comfortable socializing, drinking, and occasionally taking their tops off. According to local authorities, the beach has also been the site of sexual assaults, drownings, drunk driving, and other illicit behavior, drawing regular complaints from nearby homeowners. On July 10, police decided to take action. But instead of sending on-foot officers to the scene to hunt for rule-breakers, they flew their zoom cameraequipped DJI Matrice drone over the beach, in hope of catching them in the act. Police reasoned that the drone could help them deescalate things by avoiding unnecessary personal interaction, in light of the pandemic and the police brutality protests that had ignited over the death of George Floyd at the hands of an officer in late May, in nearby Minneapolis.

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Unfortunately, it did the opposite.

As officers from the Golden Valley Police Department and the Minneapolis Park Police (who worked together on the operation) watched the drone footage stream back, they say it showed clear footage of nudity, alcohol, and other infractions. Seven officers headed to the beach to find the people theyd seen on the drone video in person. As officers took information from alleged infractors, shocked beachgoers expressed surprise and anger at being confronted with an apparently breast-seeking police drone, in a place where they thought nudity was at least tacitly permitted.

One Twitter user said she received a ticket for being topless at the beach due to the drone footageand noted that the cops bee-lined straight for the black people only. The Golden Valley Polices press release disputed this claim of racism, although another woman interviewed by local news backed up the Twitter user. A third woman expressed anger over the discriminatory nature of the park rules, which permit men to go topless but bar women from doing the same. Bystander footage of officer conversations with beachgoers shows one police officer with an N95 mask secured to his chest, while another has a surgical mask bunched under her chinimagery that somewhat contradicts a police statement about how the drone was intended to reduce face-to-face interactions during the pandemic crisis. The police eventually retreated from the scene as beachgoers grew angrier. Soon, multiple news outlets carried stories about the backlash to the apparently boob-seeking drone: In response to the criticism, the Minneapolis Park Board even said that it would likely remove the discriminatory language that targets female breasts entirely.

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The deescalation experiment had not, it seemed, gone well.

When I spoke to Jason Sturgis, the chief of the Golden Valley Police Department, he said that he was a little bit surprised by the backlash, although he acknowledged the privacy-fueled reasons why people were angry. He said hed been paying attention to the protests, and he hoped the drone would be a less emotionally charged means of scoping out the situation: His department had been demonstrating the drone for months, in hope of gaining local trust (including sending loudspeaker drones to sing at childrens birthday parties during the height of lockdown). It seemed like a good idea when we went to do it. It met the criteria for being smart and safe, he said. Were hoping Minneapolis Park Police will handle enforcement at the beach, Sturgis told me. He did not sound eager to repeat his drones beach-side flight any time soon.

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The Golden Valley Police Departments well-intended but very wrong assumption about drone as deescalation tool is a familiar one among regular drone users. Because its people were comfortable with drones, they grossly overestimated how comfortable the average person actually is with the prospect of being looked at by a flying camera drone, much less one thats zeroing in on their private bits. Their use of a drone to search for rule-breakers at a de facto nude beach played right into the oldest drone-ethics scenario in the book: that of a topless sunbather being startled in her backyard by a sweaty pervert with a drone. Its a hypothetical that feeds into our deepest fears about how surveillance tech can violate our privacy and safety when were vulnerable, when we least expect it.

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While the Golden Valley Police have somewhat huffily pointed out that the Twin Lake beachgoers were in a public area and had no expectation of privacy, and that the drone is no different than a surveillance camera, these legal argumentstechnically accurate as they areamount to essentially bupkis against the terrific symbolic power of a weird flying robot watching unsuspecting naked people. While the police flight was perfectly legal, it still feels like a violation when you realize someone has been using a drone to shoot high-resolution imagery of your breasts. Its also a lot more unexpected: While people are mostly accustomed to surveillance cameras on busy streets, were more disturbed by the panopticonlike prospect of a surveillance camera that can literally be anywhere at any time, including at the local unofficial nude beach.

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Finally, the Golden Valley police flew their drone into an ongoing storm of public attention and debate over what the purpose of police aerial surveillance tech ought to be. Small police dronesand even a military Predator UAS on one occasionpopped up regularly during the George Floyd protests in May and June, prompting renewed calls for far stricter regulations on how law enforcement can use drones and drone data. In New York, a new bill will require police to release public information about the surveillance tools they use (which include drones), while another new New York campaign is calling for a ban on the warrantless use of drones by police.

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In Minnesota, a comprehensive new ACLU-backed law restricting the police use of drones will go into effect Aug. 1. (The Golden Valley Police department updated its own internal policies to reflect this law on July 15five days after the Twin Lake incident.) It will, among other things, require that police obtain a warrant to use a drone unless they receive an exception. The most important permits drone use to collect information from a public area if there is a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. Its unclear if this very broad exception would or wouldnt apply in the case of the Golden Valley police drone at the beach, and its likely that future controversies over the drone rule will revolve around how the exception is interpreted.

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The rule also requires that police document each use of a drone and identify the exception that they operated under if they didnt secure a warrant, information that will be made available to the public. Finally, it mandates that police delete all drone datawhich would include imagery of nude peopleafter seven days unless its related to an active criminal investigation (another area of the law that will likely lead to quite a bit of interpretation-based argument). In the absence of clear federal guidelines around the use of drones by police, the best Americans can hope for is the passage of more state and local-level rules like these that place explicit barriers around police drone use.

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The Golden Valley Police Department made its final error by using a drone to crack down on seemingly minor crimes. While police say theyve received complaints about more serious behavior than nudity, thats not what the drone captured on July 10. By acting upon these more minor violations, they inadvertently made themselves look like yet another example of overreaching policethe opposite of what they say their intentions were.

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As the Golden Valley PD learned, government drones go over best when theyre used in scenarios that are either egregiously seriouslike a drowning childor obviously noncontroversiallike delivering a mildly dystopian happy birthday message. The profound importance of context in drone operations is borne out by public opinion research, like this 2018 study that found that a drones intended purpose is the most important predictor of public support. Drones can be a remarkably useful tool for saving lives and collecting evidence, but theyre a lot less useful if their presence only makes everyone suspicious and angry. Drones, like police themselves, can only serve with the consent of the community. Thats true whether theyre flying over nude beaches or protests.

For more of Slates technology coverage, subscribe to What Next: TBD on Apple Podcasts or listen below.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump badly wants to cut the payroll tax. Hardly anyone in Congress shares his enthusiasm.

From the early days of the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the United States and plunging the economy into a sharp and brutal recession, Trump has been pushing Congress to temporarily eliminate the taxes that U.S. workers and their employers pay to help support Social Security and Medicare. He pushed such a cut on Twitter in March, before lawmakers agreed on the first of what would be several economic rescue packages passed this year.

This week, as congressional Republicans prepared to introduce a bill that will serve as their opening bid for negotiations over the next major economic bill, Trump told reporters that a payroll tax cut remained very important to the discussions.

Its very good, Trump said. Its been proven to be successful. Its a big saving for the people. Its a tremendous saving, and I think its an incentive for companies to hire their workers back and to keep their workers.

Most economists, even conservative ones, do not rank a payroll tax cut anywhere close to the top of their list for best ways to support and stimulate the U.S. economy as it struggles to climb out of the recession. They said it will cost a lot in lost tax revenues while doing little to induce hiring  and excluding millions of unemployed workers from its benefits. A broad cut would heavily benefit people who still have jobs and are earning six-figure salaries, which is not the group that is most in need of federal support right now. And it would cross into the political danger zone around funding for a pair of safety net programs that remain highly popular with the American public.

Bowing to political reality, the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said Thursday that the first draft of the next rescue package in the Senate would not include a payroll tax cut. But Trump remains enamored with the plan and is expected to continue lobbying for one, particularly if he wins a second term.

Heres what the fuss is all about.

Its a tax cut for workers and employers.

Currently, the federal government imposes a 15.3% tax on workers wages, which is split evenly between employees and employers. Most of it goes to fund Social Security. Only earnings above $137,700 are subject to the part of the tax that supports Social Security; all earnings are subject to the part of the tax that funds Medicare. Trump has proposed suspending the entirety of the payroll tax through the end of the year.

Congress has already passed a bill this year that delays  but does not eliminate  the employer side of those taxes, meaning companies will not have to start paying their liabilities for this year until next year. It is possible that lawmakers could vote to do the same with the employee side in their next bill, but that would not be the true cut that Trump is interested in.

Actually suspending the taxes would cost the government about $400 billion from August through the end of the year, according to estimates from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget in Washington.

Trumps favorite economist loves it.

The biggest champion of the cut outside the White House has been Arthur Laffer, the famed supply-side economist whom Trump honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year. Laffer touted the cut and its benefits this week in a call with Trump and congressional Republican leaders who had gathered in the Oval Office.

Laffers acolytes, including conservative activists Stephen Moore and Steve Forbes, have also pushed Trump to cut payroll taxes. Their argument is that by reducing the cost of employing someone and increasing the amount of money workers take home, the cut will make both hiring and job-seeking more attractive.

Few other economists support the idea, nor do business leaders or congressional Republicans.

Other economists point out that the shift in incentives from a temporary tax cut would be weak, at best. Employers would still have to factor in the cost of paying the tax starting in January, which is when workers would have to expect their take-home pay would shrink.

More important, cutting payroll taxes wont do much for laid-off workers who have few prospects at a time when 18 million Americans are unemployed. Economists have warned since March that such a move would not help those workers.

They were a bad idea then, Josh Bivens, director of research at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, who first wrote in opposition to Trumps payroll tax proposals in the spring, wrote in a direct message on Twitter this week, but since then weve lost 14 million-plus jobs, and so we now have 14 million fewer people who would benefit now from a payroll tax cut than wouldve back in March. It is, he said this week, a bad idea that has aged terribly.

Business groups also have shown little enthusiasm for the plan.

We can provide more targeted assistance both to employers to help maintain employment but also to individuals who are unemployed, Neil Bradley, executive vice president and chief policy officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told reporters last week. It is not an issue that we heard from businesses or state and local chambers as a priority that would help during this time.

Trump had been pushing Republicans to include the tax cut in the bill they will introduce to kick off the next round of negotiations with Democrats. But his own party has balked.

Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, pushed back against the idea in a private Senate Republican lunch attended by top administration officials Tuesday, arguing that direct payments to families, which would probably be sent out in October, would prove more meaningful to individual voters.

Grassley expressed a similar sentiment to reporters this week.

I think thats going to do more economic good than if we dribble out $30 every paycheck, he said. Because people are going to notice it, take some action as a result.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
" " Bill Nye The Science Guy says the U.S. is failing the test when it comes to science literacy. Amanda Edwards/Getty Images

The United States is facing two massive threats  climate change and the coronavirus  that we cannot solve without science. One is playing out slowly, over decades, growing inexorably worse as we continue to burn fossil fuels. The other is advancing rapidly, exacting a grim toll in human lives, as we fail to contain the spread of the virus.

In many ways, these dual crises amount to a national test of our science literacy  our basic understanding of what scientists know and how they know it. And Bill Nye "The Science Guy" isn't feeling good about our performance.

"We are failing the test," he says in a new interview. "It's a very serious problem."

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Why the U.S. Is Failing

The U.S. government has done little to curb greenhouse gas emissions, which need to drop in half over the next decade to keep the planet livable, and its response to the coronavirus has been similarly feeble. The pandemic is surging in the United States, even as new cases dwindle in countries as disparate as Estonia, New Zealand and Vietnam. Nye says that in both cases the U.S. failed to heed the warnings of experts.

"You have to have the ability to evaluate evidence and reach a reasonable conclusion that is based on what experts are saying," he says. "What we want to do is to get everybody in society to become scientifically literate."

Nye, who currently hosts the podcast Science Rules!, says that neither issue can be understood without experts. The U.S. has to rely on scientists to discern the role of climate change in a flood or heat wave, or to determine if our cough is a sign of the coronavirus or just seasonal allergies. When people prize their own intuition over expert opinion, they make poor decisions, Nye says, pointing to a news story about an Oklahoma man who refused to wear a mask even after seeing his friend die of the coronavirus.

"When you tell someone that you need to have a scientist to explain this, and then you have people on the other side saying your opinion is every bit as good as a scientist's, it's not resolvable," he says.

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Blaming Fossil Fuel Cos. and Social Media

Nye says that fossil fuel companies bear a lot of the blame for sowing mistrust in science generally, not just climate science. Over the last 30-some years, the industry has poured millions into climate change denial, attacking the credibility of researchers while exaggerating scientific uncertainty. If scientists offer a range of predictions  say, that temperatures will rise by between 5 and 6 degrees Celsius (9 to 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) if pollution goes unchecked  deniers will counter that the science is inconclusive.

"The fossil fuel industry in the U.S. has worked very hard, with success, to introduce the idea that scientific uncertainty  plus or minus a few percent  is somehow the same as plus or minus 100 percent," Nye says. "And that's absolutely wrong."

In those cases where genuine uncertainty does exist, the public needs to appreciate that science is a process, Nye says. He pointed to the coronavirus, where new studies are regularly being challenged and their findings overturned.

"As we get more information, we make changes," he says. "We thought that the coronavirus could exist on cardboard for a long time and that that was a real threat. We now know that cardboard surfaces are a little bit of a threat, but the main threat is in the air."

Nye says that social media can be a useful tool for keeping the public informed, but it has proved to be as much a blessing as a curse  a "blurse," he joked  as bad actors turn to social media to spread misinformation.

Social media companies are struggling with this dilemma, as Facebook recently demonstrated when it allowed a political group to spread a false claim about climate change  over the objection of its own fact checkers  while at the same time prohibiting climatologist Katharine Hayhoe from promoting educational videos about climate science on the grounds that the content was too political. Despite the present challenges, Nye is optimistic about the future of social media.

"In the same way that you're not allowed to print just anything, social media outlets may end up getting regulated," he says. "I could also see the issue sorting itself out as information becomes increasingly unreliable."

" " Bill Nye is putting a lot of faith in younger Americans, who he believes are more knowledgeable about climate change than older generations. Tara Ziemba/FilmMagic

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How Can Young Americans Promote Science?

Nye is a relentless optimist. He believes that things will improve as younger Americans  who tend to be more educated and more knowledgeable about climate change than older generations  start to make up a larger share of the electorate.

"As soon as older people are in the minority in voting, this will turn around very quickly. When people who are in their 20s right now are in their 40s  when they're at the height of their earning power and they are most influential in governments  then things will turn around," he says. However, he adds, "If you like to worry about things, this is a fantastic time, because it's not clear if that will happen fast enough."

Nye says that it is harder to persuade older Americans of the severity of climate change, because it challenges their longstanding beliefs. "The older you are, the more set in your ways you are. Your worldview has worked for you for decades, so why would you want to change it now?" he says. As for why young people are more attuned to the problem, he joked, "well, I take full credit."

Nye broached climate change on his PBS children's show, "Bill Nye the Science Guy" in the 1990s, and has continued to educate the public about climate change and other issues of scientific interest in his TV programs, public appearances and his podcast, which has focused almost exclusively on the coronavirus in recent months.

"I was around when the U.S. decided to stop teaching the metric system, to take solar panels off the White House, produce both the Ford Pinto and the Chevy Vega, and I was very concerned about it," he says. "I quit my day job to engage young people in the hope that we could have a better future through science literacy. I'm still fighting that fight."

Nye says the best thing Americans can do now to tackle the threats facing the country is to take part in the political process.

"I just encourage everyone to vote. The more people participate in the political process, the more we will reach a consensus on what to do about these very serious problems  climate change and the coronavirus pandemic," he says. "The more that people participate  especially people who disagree with me at first  the more we will work together."

This story originally appeared in Nexus Media News and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalistic collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.
Hamilton police have arrested a second 17-year-old male in the stabbing death of a Peel resident over the weekend

Police said that at around 1 a.m. Sunday, two groups of young males were at the plaza parking lot at 310 Limeridge Rd. in Hamilton.

One group of males was from Peel and the second was from Hamilton. Police said the males were there to discuss a minor dispute between the groups.

According to police, four cars with eight to 10 Peel males were immediately swarmed by approximately 30 males from the Hamilton group. They were said to be armed with knives, rocks, sticks and a stun gun.

Males in the vehicles were allegedly assaulted, removed from the cars and chased. Two members of the Hamilton group took over a Ford Mustang and BMW from the Peel group and struck two males.

Three Peel males suffered injuries and were taken to hospital, two of those males were stabbed.

Hours after the incident, detectives were advised that a male from the Peel group was missing.

Ali Mohummad, 19, was found dead in another parking lot nearby.

A 17-year-old male from Hamilton was later arrested Monday in connection with Mohummads death. The teen was charged with second degree murder, two counts of aggravated assault and assault with a weapon.

One day later, a second 17-year-old male was arrested after a search warrant was executed at a Mount Hope residence.

He was charged with second degree murder, two counts of aggravated assault and assault with a weapon.

Hamilton police continue to investigate this incident and are attempting to identify other persons who were present or participated.

A GoFundMe page has been started from Mohummad. It describes him as a kind, gentle and innocent soul who had no evil intentions towards anyone.

The page had raised more than $30,000 for funeral costs by early Thursday afternoon.

Any witnesses or anyone with information is asked to call police at 905-546-3825.
The participants in the meeting discussed the challenges in Donbas.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on the international community to assist Ukraine in rebuilding infrastructure in Donbas.

"Volodymyr Zelensky called for assistance in rebuilding the infrastructure of Donbas. In particular, he stressed the importance of building hospitals in small towns, which are currently not included in the general construction plan," the press service of the Office of the President said on the official website on July 23 to update on Zelensky's working visit to Donbas.

Read alsoOSCE special representative lists measures to strengthen ceasefire in Donbas agreed by TCG

During his trip, he was accompanied by his Swiss counterpart Simonetta Sommaruga.

The two presidents met with representatives of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the UN system in Ukraine and senior officials of Donetsk Regional State Administration.

International organizations in Ukraine are involved in such important processes in Donbas as providing medical care to local residents, restoring infrastructure, searching for missing persons, and assisting in overcoming the consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic. In addition, assistance to detainees is important.

The participants in the meeting discussed the challenges in Donbas and further steps to make local residents' life easier.

It was noted that Ukraine is doing a lot of work to integrate temporarily uncontrolled territories, and this process needs to be continued to make "people feel like home."

Zelensky also says it is necessary to solve the problem of providing housing for internally displaced persons who have lost their home.
Financing Will Support Exploration and Development of the Khundii Gold District

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES. ANY FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THIS RESTRICTION MAY CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF U.S. SECURITIES LAWS

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Erdene Resource Development Corporation (TSX:ERD | MSE:ERDN) ("Erdene" or the "Company") is pleased to announce a non-brokered private placement of approximately C$20 million ("Private Placement"), led by a $15 million strategic investment from Mr. Eric Sprott. Paradigm Capital acted as lead financial advisor to Erdene on the transaction. Haywood Securities acted as co-advisor.

"We are very pleased to have Mr. Sprott as a significant shareholder of Erdene," said Mr. Peter Akerley, Erdene's President and CEO. "His investment is a strong endorsement of Erdene's high-grade Bayan Khundii Gold Project and the prospectivity of our 100% owned Khundii Gold District. Funds from this financing will be used to initiate early construction works at Bayan Khundii and continue exploration to expand our high-grade resources."

The Private Placement will consist of the sale of 33,333,333 subscription receipts ("Subscription Receipts") at a price of $0.45 per Subscription Receipt, to an entity controlled by Mr. Eric Sprott and the concurrent sale of up to 11,111,111 units of the Company ("Units") at a price of $0.45 per Unit. Each Subscription Receipt will be convertible into Units, and each Unit consists of one common share and one Warrant ("Warrants"), with each Warrant exercisable into one common share of the Company within two years of the closing date, at a price of $0.60 per share.

Proceeds of the Private Placement will be used by the Company to advance exploration and development of the Bayan Khundii Gold Project ("Project"), as well as for working capital and general corporate purposes. Proceeds from the sale of Subscription Receipts will be placed in escrow on the closing date, to be released to Erdene on the receipt of all necessary shareholder and regulatory approvals, and the approval of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the "Approvals"). Upon receipt of the Approvals, each subscription receipt will automatically convert into a Unit, for no additional consideration. In the event that the Approvals are not obtained by October 31, 2020, each Subscription Receipt will be cancelled, and the subscription funds will be returned. Mr. Sprott currently does not own any securities of the Company.

All securities to be issued pursuant to the Private Placement will be subject to a four month hold period from the closing date under applicable securities laws in Canada.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase any securities in the United States. The securities being offered in the Private Placement have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act, or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

About Erdene

Erdene Resource Development Corp. is a Canada-based resource company focused on the acquisition, exploration, and development of precious and base metals projects in underexplored and highly prospective Mongolia. The Company is advancing the high-grade, low-cost and low capital intensity Bayan Khundii Gold Project targeting first gold production in early 2022. The Project is located in Southwest Mongolia where the Company has interests in three mining licenses and three exploration licenses in the highly prospective Khundii Gold District. Erdene Resource Development Corp. is listed on the Toronto and the Mongolian stock exchanges. Further information is available at www.erdene.com (http://www.erdene.com/). Important information may be disseminated exclusively via the website; investors should consult the site to access this information.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain information regarding Erdene contained herein may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements may include estimates, plans, expectations, opinions, forecasts, projections, guidance or other statements that are not statements of fact. Although Erdene believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to have been correct. Erdene cautions that actual performance will be affected by a number of factors, most of which are beyond its control, and that future events and results may vary substantially from what Erdene currently foresees. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include the ability to obtain required third party approvals (including the Approvals), the completion of the Private Placement, market prices, exploitation and exploration results, continued availability of capital and financing and general economic, market or business conditions. The forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The information contained herein is stated as of the current date and is subject to change after that date. The Company does not assume the obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.

NO REGULATORY AUTHORITY HAS APPROVED OR DISAPPROVED THE CONTENTS OF THIS RELEASE

Erdene Contact Information

Peter C. Akerley, President and CEO, or

Robert Jenkins, CFO
A motion calling on Derry's council to oppose the extradition to Lithuania of a man found liable in a civil court for the 1998 Omagh bombing failed this evening.

The motion was brought before the monthly meeting of Derry City and Strabane District Council by independent councillor Gary Donnelly.

He asked that the council call on the Irish government to 'do all in its power' to reverse the decision to extradite Liam Campbell to Lithuania.

Campbell is wanted in the Eastern European country on international arms-trafficking charges.

In June 2009, he was found liable in a civil court, along with convicted Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt, for the 1998 Omagh bombing.

Thirty-one people, including unborn twins, were killed in the Real IRA bombing of the County Tyrone town.

That verdict against Campbell and McDevitt followed a landmark civil action brought by relatives of some of those killed in the atrocity.

A similar motion earlier this month calling for opposition to Campbell's extradition proved controversial when it was brought before a meeting of Omagh and Fermanagh District Council.

It was supported by Sinn Fein, the SDLP and some independent councillors and passed with 23 councillors voting in favour and 14 against.

Families of Omagh bomb victims expressed anger and upset afterwards.

Following the controversy, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, said the partys councillors would be reversing their position.

He said their decision to support the proposal had caused immense hurt to the families of Omagh bomb victims and he apologised to the families.

Today's meeting of Derry City and Strabane District Council was held remotely because of the coronavirus pandemic restrictions.

DUP Alderman Graham Warke was joined in his home on the remote link to the meeting by relatives of some of those killed in the 1998 attack.

At the beginning of the meeting, Alderman Warke requested that standing orders for the meeting be suspended to allow the Omagh relatives to make a statement in relation to Cllr Donnelly's motion.

Twenty three councillors voted to suspend standing orders, while 16 voted against the proposal.

However, for standing orders to be suspended the decision must be supported by 80% of the councillors at the meeting.

As that required percentage was not met, the meeting continued as planned.

When Cllr Donnelly later put forward his motion, he insisted that it was not about Liam Campbell and was based purely on the denial of someone's human rights.

During his contribution to the debate, Alderman Warke read out a statement on behalf of the Omagh relatives in condemnation of Cllr Donnelly's motion.

When the motion was put to a vote, it was defeated.

Six councillors  independent councillors Gary Donnelly, Paul Gallagher and Sean Carr, Aontu councillor Anne McCloskey and People Before Profit councillors Shaun Harkin and Eamonn McCann  voted to support the motion.

A total of 21 councillors, including all the SDLP, Alliance and unionist councillors, voted against the motion.

Eleven Sinn Fein councillors abstained from voting.
The British economy will be back on an 'even keel' before the 2024 general election, Boris Johnson told Tory MPs last night as he said 'slowly but surely' life in the UK will return to normal.

The Prime Minister addressed an end-of-term meeting of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbench MPs in the House of Commons and he is said to have struck an optimistic tone.

Those who attended the meeting said the PM was 'bullish' on the chances of a swift economic recovery from the damage done by the coronavirus crisis.

But he warned the Government will not rush the easing of lockdown rules as he said the UK must 'avoid the situation' in the US where cases have spiked after measures were loosened in a number of states.

Mr Johnson's comments come after borrowing figures released this week highlighted the scale of the challenge which faces the UK in the coming years.

Office for National Statistics data published on Tuesday showed Britain now has the highest debt to GDP ratio recorded since 1961 after the Government borrowed record amounts to pay for the crisis.

Overall public sector debt at the end of June stood at 1,983.8 billion - or almost 2 trillion.

Boris Johnson, pictured in the House of Commons yesterday, told Tory MPs that 'slowly but surely' life in the UK will return to normal and the British economy will be on an 'even keel' before 2024

It comes after the Office for National Statistics published data this week which showed public sector borrowing hit its highest ever levels in April, May and June of this year

Mr Johnson addressed an estimated 100 Tory MPs at yesterday's meeting, with some attending in person while others watched remotely on a video link, as the PM reportedly spoke and answered questions for 45 minutes.

One MP who saw the address told the Telegraph: 'He was very bullish [saying] "we are going to get the public finances back on track as quickly as possible".'

The MP added: 'He was saying: "well before the next general election... we will be back on an even keel". So it depends on the recovery of the economy.'

Another MP said the PM had warned that the UK must not go down the path of the US where coronavirus cases continue to surge.

He said the Government's approach will continue to be 'opening up as fast as we can, and proceeding as the science advises' and that 'slowly but surely we will get through this'.

He said Britain has 'to be careful to avoid the situation that is going on in the States' and that the US had 'eased the lockdown too soon and are suffering as a result'.

Ministers are hoping for a 'V-shaped' economic recovery, with a sharp fall caused by the nationwide lockdown followed immediately by an equally sharp uptick.

But the Bank of England has warned that the UK could see an 'incomplete V-shaped' recovery where there is an initial surge before rising unemployment slows things down towards the end of the year.

The scale of the economic damage done by the crisis was illustrated this week by staggering new Government borrowing numbers.

The data published by the ONS showed borrowing rocketed to a record high of almost 36 billion in June this year - five times higher than what was borrowed in the same month in 2019.

The amount borrowed in June represented the third highest amount for any month on record, with the preceding May and April the other two record-setters.

It means borrowing in the first quarter of the current financial year stood at 127.9 billion - more than double that seen in the whole of the previous year.

Meanwhile, the public sector debt to gross domestic product ration has now hit its highest level since 1961.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 23, 2020) - Thunderstruck Resources Ltd. (TSXV: AWE) (OTC: THURF) ("Thunderstruck" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that 5,197,000 warrants have been exercised at $0.10, for total proceeds of $519,700.00. This represents a 93% rate of conversion with the remaining 7% now expired.

This comes just a month after the company announced closing its $1,050,450 private placement to commence drilling at its Liwa Creek Gold asset in Fiji (see release dated June 25, 2020).

"We again can't thank our shareholders enough for the vote of confidence in exercising this round of warrants," commented Thunderstruck President and CEO Bryce Bradley, "This gives us significantly more runway to strategically execute our exploration plans at Liwa."

The Company is also pleased to announce that it has entered into a strategic advisory agreement with Red Cloud Financial Services Inc. who will support the company to execute its new and aggressive corporate access strategy. As a kickoff to this program Red Cloud will be hosting a webinar featuring Thunderstruck on Wednesday July 29th at 2pm EST. To register please click here.





Image 1



To view an enhanced version of Image 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/2901/60408_b1f49557e42c3a94_002full.jpg

About Red Cloud Financial Services Inc.

Red Cloud Financial Services is a globally oriented, resource-focused financial services platform which offers clients an extensive array of corporate access services including advisory, marketing and media.

About Fiji

Viti Levu, the main island of Fiji, has a long mining history. It is on the prolific Pacific Ring of Fire, a trend that has produced numerous large deposits, including Porgera, Lihir and Grasberg. The island of Viti Levu hosts Namosi, held by a joint venture between Newcrest and Mitsubishi. Newcrest published Proven and Probable Reserves for Namosi of 1.3 billion tonnes at 0.37% Cu and 0.12 g/t Au (5.2M ounces Au and 4.9M tonnes Cu). Namosi is now undergoing environmental assessment as part of the permitting process. Lion One Metals is now developing its Tuvatu Project, with Indicated Resources of 1.1 million tonnes at 8.17 g/t Au (294,000 ounces Au), and Inferred Resources of 1.3 million tonnes at 10.6 g/t Au (445,000 ounces Au). The Vatukoula Gold Mine has been operating for 80 years, producing in excess of 7 million ounces.

About Thunderstruck Resources

Thunderstruck Resources is a Canadian mineral exploration company that has assembled extensive and highly prospective properties in Fiji on which recent and previous exploration has confirmed VMS, copper and precious metals mineralization. The Company provides investors with exposure to a diverse portfolio of exploration stage projects with potential for zinc, copper, gold and silver in a politically safe and stable jurisdiction. Thunderstruck trades on the Toronto Venture Exchange (TSX-V) under the symbol "AWE" and United States OTC under the symbol "THURF".

For additional information, please contact:

Rob Christl, Investor Relations

Email: rob@thunderstruck.ca

P: 778 840-7180

or, visit our website: http://www.thunderstruck.ca

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange Inc. 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.

This news release contains certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". Although Thunderstruck 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 may differ materially from those in forward looking statements. Forward looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of Thunderstruck's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by law, Thunderstruck undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60408
Miss the days when you could just sit in a random Chicago bar with a beer in your hand, and the moment you felt suddenly, desperately hungry, someone would burst through the door with a red cooler stocked full of freshly made tamales? That was Claudio Velez, better known as the Tamale Guy, who has been a staple of Chicagos bar scene for years.
One of Joe Bidens recent campaign ads highlights President Trumps mismanagement of COVID-19, the economic collateral damage of the virus, the presidents putative weakness on China, and his notorious tweets. Its a snapshot of chaos, and a bet that Americans are weary of the Trump-era political culture after years of media battles, scandal, fake news, and now, a pandemic. Growing gaps in the polls suggest its likely to pay off.

Trump has occasionally referred to the former vice president as Sleepy Joe. But that may ultimately be to Bidens benefit. While Trump embarks on tweet tirades and engages in puzzling interviews, Biden has remained relatively quiet. Many Americans dont even know his stance on coronavirus. Biden has presented himself as a studiously moderate figure, a run-of-the-mill Democratic persona, promising both change and normality amid todays chaos. And while many see the looming November election as a referendum on Trump, it is also a test of image  and Bidens sleepy performance may be just what he needs to clear 270.

With the Russia probe, impeachment, a trade war, the ongoing struggle between the White House and the media, the pandemic, the death of George Floyd, and the rise of cancel culture, its been a busy four years. This may explain Bidens apparent appeal. Consider the Downsian model of voting. Public-choice economist Anthony Downs contended that voters consider conditions under the incumbent and imagine what life would have been like under the challenger. Whoever brought  or would have brought  the most utility to an individual gets their vote, a process Downs called rational voting.

The catch is that rational voting is usually anything but rational. In America, utility depends on impressions. Many Americans arent calculating which candidates policies are best for them; they are calculating which candidate seems to be the best. Thats all based on image.

Political scientists have long pondered the uninformed voter: one who votes based on vague penchants and hunches over concrete policy preferences. Candidate personality and amorphous cultural affinities help create voters general impressions of a candidate and dictate their choices at the ballot box.

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For instance, a study by political scientists John Zaller and Stanley Feldman looks at public opinion surveys, finding that most respond to survey questions on the basis of whatever ideas are at the top of their heads at the moment of answering. By averaging across the considerations that happen to be salient at the moment of response, respondents choose an answer devoid of deep conviction. Economists Faruk Gul and Wolfgang Psensedorfer take this a step further and suggest that personality can win elections. Voter ignorance on policy plus personality preference mean that the more attractive candidate often prevails, regardless of specific policy.

Altogether, Downs theory and the very real idea combination of voter ignorance and personality preference suggest that an average voter chooses their highest utility based on impressions.

So why would Bidens image infer higher utility for voters? Why would Biden have been better over these last four years than Trump?

Bidens relative boringness and Trumps erratic presidency come together for the perfect storm in this unusual political moment, rendering the impression of a bland candidate as most consistent with voters utility preferences. The chaos of the past decade is also a factor  the whiplash from Change! to America First may certainly be enough to drive tired voters into the arms of old-school, bland Joe. His return to normalcy appeal is just the redemption he needs to distinguish himself from the transformational feeling of the Obama era.

One might retort that Biden is not as harmless as he seems. After all, he just teamed up with Sanders in a unity task force to roll out a list of policy recommendations before the Democratic National Convention. Other progressive leaders, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), contributed to the document. On one level, Bidens critics are correct that he is capitulating to the Lefts growing progressive wing. But on another, theyre missing the point: If Biden succeeds at portraying himself as a calming moderate, then he wins the messaging battle.

Downs offers another point in favor of Bidens image: Americans vote based on changes in performance. Trumps trend there isnt looking too good. Keep America Great doesnt sound as appealing in light of racial injustices and mass public-health mismanagement. Only 42 percent of Americans approve of Trumps management of coronavirus, down from 50 percent in April. And the positive economic trends celebrated just months ago by the Trump administration have been utterly destroyed. These events certainly have consequences on public opinion. For instance, Trumps job approval has taken a direct hit, falling from 49 percent in March to 39 percent today in Gallups survey.

Trumps America First message likely wont fare well either. Conversations around Americas legacy of racial inequality, coupled with an unsympathetic approach by Trump to condemning things such as Confederate imagery, breed low morale. U.S. national pride is tanking: In 2015, Gallup reported that 81 percent of Americans were very proud or extremely proud to be American. Today, the number stands at 63 percent. Republicans arent immune to Trump trends either: 76 percent were extremely proud in 2019 while only 67 percent are extremely proud today.

All the while, President Trump is taking on all of these matters, commenting on anything and everything. Despite any arguably positive achievements he may have achieved during his presidency, many Americans will only remember the impression he gave over time. From his botched COVID briefings to his insistence on maintaining Confederate-named bases, the president is currently drawing the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Meanwhile sleepy Joe is keeping a low profile. Biden brings a dose of monotony that Americans seem to be craving.

More from National Review
A teenage girl hailed a hero for gunning down two Taliban extremists who shot her parents dead in Afghanistan 'killed her own husband' when she opened fire, according to fresh reports.

Qamar Gul, 15, was married to one of the two attackers she shot with an AK-47 after he tried to seize her back in a family feud, relatives and local officials told the NY Times.

Arif Aber, spokesman for the governor of Ghor province where the incident took place, said yesterday the teenager and her younger brother, 12-year-old Habibullah, are modern-day champions in the fight against the Taliban.

Insurgents stormed the home of Gul last week looking for her father, the village chief, before shooting both of her parents.

Qamar Gul, pictured brandishing an AK-47, was hailed a hero for gunning down two Taliban extremists who shot her parents dead in Afghanistan, with fresh reports now claiming one of the attackers she killed was her own husband

Some reports initially said the Taliban came to extort 'taxes' from the villagers, while others simply claimed the attack was due to the parents' support of the government.

Gul then emerged from the house with her family's AK-47 and opened fire, killing the two Taliban fighters who gunned down her mother and father and injuring several others.

The girl and her brother are being brought to the Afghan capital Kabul to meet President Ashraf Ghani as a result of their bravery.

'I am proud I killed my parents' murderers,' she said this week. 'I killed them because they killed my parents, and also because I knew they would come for me and my little brother.'

Gul regrets she was unable to say goodbye to her mother and father.

'After I killed the two Taliban, I went to talk to my parents, but they were not breathing,' she said. 'I feel sad, I could not talk to them one last time.'

The NY Times describes the Ghor Province as being a 'particularly brutal' area for women, where girls are bartered at a young age and graphic videos of stoning and flogging regularly come out of Taliban-controlled areas.

The site adds that the family has endured violence long before last week's raid.

Qamar Gul and her younger brother Habibullah, 12, pictured in the governor's office in Feroz Koh, the provincial capital of Ghor province, on Tuesday, are being hailed as heroes after fighting off Taliban militants who killed their parents

Gul's mother, Fatima, has married twice before tying the knot with her father, Shah Gul Rahimi, with her first husband dying of an overdose and her second, Rahimi's older brother, killed in clashes with the Taliban in the 1990s.

The father, described as a stalwart fighter, despite losing a hand many years ago, regularly helped the local uprising militia fend off Taliban attacks, though it wasn't clear whether he was also on a government payroll.

In 2016, he arranged for Mohamed Naeem, a man from an adjacent village, to marry his daughter, while he would take Naeem's teenage niece as his second wife.

'Naeem was his son-in-law, and they got along very well too,' said Rahimi's nephew, Sebghatullah. 'It all turned upside down at once.'

It is unclear how Naeem then ended up joining the Taliban but relatives and local officials said his private life had fallen apart and he was being chased for debts over the last two years.

He fell out with his parents over treatment of his first wife, having spent all his time with Gul, and after one argument he took his new bridge and left, staying first with his in-laws and then to Helmand Province, a Taliban stronghold.

Trouble then began when Gul's father's new wife visited her family and refused to return to her husband, at which point Rahimi held his daughter until Naeem agreed paid the debts he was being harassed over.

Family relative Zabihullah Rahmani told the NY Times: 'Naeem's niece wasn't happy with the marriage because Shah Gul was much older than her. But Qamar Gul wasn't arguing much  she said she was OK with whatever her father had decided, but that Naeem had to pay back the debt.'

However, Naeem had grown close to a ruthless Taliban commander who helped him raid the family home without paying any money and so around a dozen fighters barged into the hillside home just after midnight on July 17.

Gul's father tried to run for his weapon when he saw what was happening but was shot six times, including once in the neck, while the mother was shot three times, twice in the chest and once in the neck.

It was at that point 15-year-old Gul grabbed her father's gun, ran to the doorway, and opened fire on the attackers, shooting two dead and wounding the senior commander.

Hundreds of people on social media have since demanding the government protect the teenager, with some calling for her to be sent outside of Afghanistan.

'I demand that the president help transfer her to a safe place as her and her family's security is at risk,' prominent women's rights activist and former lawmaker Fawzia Koofi wrote on Facebook.

Munera Yousufzada, a defence ministry official, said Gul's 'brave act' was a message to the Taliban from Afghan women.

'The Taliban must realise and know that today's women are different than the women during their rule,' she said on Twitter.

'If you really want to protect her, then send her abroad. If she comes to Kabul for even two days... she will be killed,' Zoya Amini, a resident of Kabul, wrote on Facebook.

President Ashraf Ghani also praised Gul for 'defending her family against a ruthless enemy', his spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told AFP.

A Taliban spokesman has confirmed an operation took place in the area of the attack, but denied any of the group's fighters had been killed by a woman.
1702 Digital bags the digital marketing mandate of Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance, a new-age innovative insurer safeguarding and enabling peoples dreams and aspirations in an effort to make their #ZindagiUnlimited.

Commenting on this alliance, Abhishek Gupta, Chief Marketing Officer, Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance said: Digital has become the undisputable frontier, especially in the current situation. Content consumption is consistently increasing, and moment marketing has become a crucial part of brand strategy. In the immediate future, we will look at strengthening our focus on digital and strive to change the existing perception of insurance being complex through relevant, and quirky content. We are glad to have found like-minded partners like 1702 in this exciting journey.

1702 Digital endeavors are always been to understand their partners business goal first and to align digital marketing across all consumer touchpoints on digital. 1702 partners with MasterCard, Bajaj Finserv & IDFC First Banks in BFSI among various other sectors like Education, B2B, FMCG, Wellness, and E-commerce which 1702 holds expertise in across digital, media and creative tech services.



As a former Project Finance and Investment Banking professional, Mihir Joshi, the co-founder of 1702 Digital, said It is necessary to build a comprehensive alignment of practices to tap into various touchpoints using digital channels and thus generate an experience for various stakeholders in the insurance industry. We are very glad to add Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance to our BFSI roaster and look forward to working alongside their amazing team.

1702 Digital is all set to partner with Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance to aid them with their cohesive digital methods to achieve their marketing goals.




China successfully launched Tianwen-1  its first independent mission to Mars on Thursday.

According to Xinhua News Agency, a Long March 5 rocket carrying the spacecraft ignited at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in south Chinas tropical Hainan province at 12:41 p.m. (0441 GMT).

A live stream of the launch hosted by Chinese media company douyu.com and shared live on YouTube prompted live comments of encouragement, including many posts of Beijing! after the takeoff.

Tianwen-1, whose name means Questions to Heaven, is a combined orbiter, lander and rover that aims to explore the Martian environment and search for hints of life.

The spacecraft will travel for about seven months until it reaches Mars.

It will orbit the red planet for two to three months before attempting a landing.

If all goes according to plan, the lender will release a rover in April to roam around the surface of Mars and conduct experiments.

If Tianwen-1 is successful, China will become only the third country to land a spacecraft on Mars, after the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

No other space-faring nation has attempted a landing with a rover on their first Mars mission.

It is a risky endeavour, previous Mars missions by other nations have had a success rate of about 50 per cent.

China will not be the only nation attempting the feat.

The United Arab Emirates launched its own Mars-bound orbiter on Sunday, while NASA is set to blast off its Perseverance rover coming.

China had launched an orbiter destined for Mars on a Russian rocket in 2011, However, the mission failed because the rocket malfunctioned. (dpa/Chinese media company douyu.com)
Nurses Janil Wise, left, and Melinda Gruman discuss treatment for a pregnant patient at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills on July 10. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

California recorded the most coronavirus-related deaths in a single day amid a spike in infections that has pushed the state's cumulative case count to the highest in the nation.

Wednesday's 157 fatalities  the state's highest one-day toll yet, according to The Times' coronavirus tracker  pushed California's fatalities above 8,000.

The sobering death toll continues what's been an unprecedented week in California in terms of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday afternoon that 12,807 new coronavirus infections had been reported statewide in the past 24 hours, a record high.

More than 421,000 COVID-19 cases have been reported statewide over the course of the pandemic. That means roughly 1 in every 94 Californians has had a confirmed infection at some point.

Statewide, 7,170 confirmed COVID-19 patients were hospitalized as of Tuesday  also a new high and an increase of 18% from two weeks ago  with 2,058 people in intensive care, according to the state Department of Public Health.

Its just another reminder  of the magnitude of impact that this virus continues to have, Newsom said during a briefing Wednesday.

However, both those numbers fell markedly in the latest available state data released Thursday, which showed that 6,825 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized and 1,978 were in intensive care as of Wednesday.

Los Angeles County continues to bear the brunt of the statewide surge, with more than 165,000 total cases and 4,200 deaths confirmed as of Thursday morning.

Later in the afternoon, county health officials announced 49 additional deaths and 2,014 new cases.

So severe is the outbreak that health officials said COVID-19 is on track to be the second-leading cause of death in the county.

From January to June, COVID-19 killed roughly 3,400 people, according to the county Department of Public Health. Over the same period last year, only coronary heart disease was attributed as the cause of more deaths, with nearly 5,800.

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During the first six months of this year, COVID-19 also killed more than twice as many people in L.A. County as pneumonia and influenza did during the last flu season  which ran from October to May, health officials said.

"One of the reasons that we're working so hard to flatten the curve and slow the spread of COVID-19 is to limit the strain on our healthcare system so that, when flu season arrives in a few short months, we'll be able to contain and slow the spread of COVID-19 while we know that our hospitals will also need to care for people with influenza," county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Wednesday.

Los Angeles is far from the only county that's seeing high levels of coronavirus activity.

Kern County reported 1,135 new COVID-19 cases Thursday  its second straight day in quadruple digits following Wednesday's tally of 1,120, according to The Times' tracker. The past two days alone account for roughly 18% of the county's total confirmed cases.

In San Bernardino County, officials announced 21 new deaths Thursday, matching the most reported in a single day and bringing the total number of fatalities to 358.

Throughout the pandemic, officials have preached the importance of flattening the curve  holding the rate of new infections in check  so that the healthcare system isnt overwhelmed.

However, experts say hospitalization and death totals reflect exposure to the virus that occurred weeks ago, so it takes time to see how behavioral changes are affecting transmission, and whether measures implemented to stem the spread of the disease are working.

I think we started to exit shelter-in-place sometime around Memorial Day both emotionally and physically. And we are paying the price for that, said Nicholas Jewell, a biostatistics authority at UC Berkeley. Its like we should be tiptoeing out on the ice. What we did, instead, was all run out on the ice, some not too cautiously. And a lot of people fell through the ice.

California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said it could take three to five weeks to see the full impact of measures the state has taken recently  including issuing a universal face mask order on June 18 and renewing restrictions on numerous activities and businesses last week.

Some, though, contend that the situation calls for swifter, more far-reaching action. Among those is State Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Orinda), who has called for Newsom to reimpose stay-at-home policies in most of the state until the outbreak is under control.

Specifically, the Bay Area lawmaker has proposed that counties return to sheltering in place  meaning their residents would be required to stay home except for essential work or trips  if they have a positive test rate greater than 2% over the past 14 days.

The statewide positivity rate over the last 14 days is 7.6%.

Ferrer has previously said that nothing can be off the table in the pandemic but that she personally hopes we dont have to go back" to those kind of restrictions in Los Angeles County.

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti  who also has raised the specter of potentially reimposing some type of stay-at-home order if conditions continue to deteriorate  said Wednesday that, though the COVID-19 threat level remains at orange, or high risk, the city is not moving to red and we are not closing any additional businesses or activities.

He added that the virus case positivity rate had declined slightly for the first time in several weeks, from a seven-day average of 13.6% last week to 10%.

"Between the closures two weeks ago and the renewed vigilance that I am certainly feeling across the city, we'll know in the next week or so  together, guided by our county health department, by the data  where we are and where we're moving," he said.

Health officials continue to emphasize that personal decisions are just as important as policies. Residents and business owners need to continue taking the steps necessary to protect themselves, their customers and those around them including physical distancing, wearing cloth face coverings and practicing good hand hygiene.

"Well get to the other side of this soon enough, but it will, again, take all of us and all of our businesses to do," L.A. County Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis said Thursday.

County officials unveiled a tiered enforcement plan to potentially cite and fine businesses that violate the county's coronavirus health orders.

Starting at the end of August, noncompliant businesses will face fines ranging from $100 for a first offense to $500 and a 30-day permit suspension for multiple offenses.

Last weekend, county inspectors visited 507 restaurants, 69 hotels and 174 residential pools and found that the vast majority of them were complying with relevant rules, according to Davis.

"We want to be reasonable and work with businesses, but we also know that time is of the essence to slow the spread of this virus and protect our residents' health," he said.

Times staff writers Alejandra Reyes-Velarde and James Rainey contributed to this report.
Little Traverse Bay Humane Society hires training and behavior specialist

Sarah Schertel will serve the training needs of Little Traverse Bay Humane Society, in addition to offering classes to the public.
Landmark Conservation Bill Ready for Presidents Signature

The House on Wednesday passed a massive conservation and public lands bill, the Great American Outdoors Act, with a vote of 310-107, and which President Donald Trump has pledged to sign.

Over the next five years, it will put over $9 billion towards the nations massive backlog in needed maintenance for roads, facilities, and more. The Great American Outdoors Act will fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).

The legislation had bipartisan support and moved through Congress without any obstacles. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), who sponsored the bill, negotiated the support of Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in March.

By fixing and repairing our public lands and National Parks, we not only have the chance to improve the roads, hiking trails, campsites, and visitor centers for generations to enjoy but also to create thousands of job opportunities in Colorado and across the nation at a time when our country needs them most, said Gardner in a statement.

On Wednesday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) addressed Congress to celebrate the landmark legislation as a win for conservation.

As a Californian, as an American and as Speaker of the House, I proudly rise in support of the Great American Outdoors Act, one of the most important conservation and public lands bills in decades.

In passing this legislation, Congress is ensuring that America lives up to its conservation promises as we finally permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund at levels that were promised, she continued.

Over 55 years, the Land and Water Conservation Fund has provided over $17 billion in funding for over 40,000 recreational and conservation initiatives in every county in the country. In every county in the country. Creating and protecting Americas iconic landscapes, like the Grand Canyon, and the historical sites, like the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Park, she added.

Many conservation and outdoor recreation groups also applauded the bill.

Big conservation win! Congress has passed The Great American Outdoors Act, wrote the World Wildlife Fund U.S. Action Team on Twitter. This bipartisan bill secures long-term funding for our national parks and wildlife refuges through the Land and Water Conservation Fund. #LWCF is vital to protecting public lands and outdoor recreation.

The Senate passed the bill in late June and one month later the House overwhelming supported the legislation.

Gardner said, I applaud the House of Representatives for taking quick action on this historic legislation, and I look forward to the President signing this bill into law.

Gardners legislation is likely to become law because the President already promised to sign it in March of 2019.

I am calling on Congress to send me a Bill that fully and permanently funds the LWCF and restores our National Parks. When I sign it into law, it will be HISTORIC for our beautiful lands. All thanks to @SenCoryGardner and @SteveDaines two Great Conservative Leaders, The president wrote on Twitter.
the startup dispatch austin banner

Samantha Lee/Business Insider

The Zebra cofounder and COO Joshua Dziabiak

The Zebra

The Zebra, an insurance startup backed by Silicon Valley venture capital firm Accel, moved to trendy East Austin in October when it outgrew its downtown office space.

High rents for office space in downtown Austin have pushed startups like The Zebra to look for larger spaces in up and coming neighborhoods like East Austin.

Accel led The Zebra's $40 million Series B in 2017, which valued the startup at $96 million, according to Pitchbook. Several Austin-based investors also participated.

Cofounder and COO Josh Dziabiak told Business Insider that he chose to move The Zebra to Austin after a visit to the city during its annual music and arts festival Austin City Limits.

See their new office in one of Austin's fastest growing neighborhoods for startups.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

When you step inside The Zebra's massive new office, you think you've been teleported more than 1,700 miles northwest to Silicon Valley.

The buzzy car insurance startup is headquartered in East Austin  a trendy, fast-growing neighborhood outside the Texas capitol. As Apple, Google, Facebook, and other tech titans start putting down deeper roots in the city, it's increasingly forcing startups like The Zebra to leave the city center and go to areas where real estate is cheaper and more plentiful.

"When we moved here, Austin was really still at the early stages of kind of being this buzzy, trendy, startup destination place," The Zebra cofounder and COO Josh Dziabiak told Business Insider.

Read More: Female-led robotics startup Diligent raises $3.15 million in seed funding to bring its hospital assistant robot Moxi to Texas hospitals

The Zebra originally occupied a penthouse in one of Austin's downtown skyscrapers. Now, it's in a two-story office with four times more space, in a building flanked by hip breweries and luxury apartments. What the new space lacks in centrality, Dziabiak said, it makes up for in feeling more like a home.

Story continues

The new office itself is stocked with perks that mirror the best of Silicon Valley. There is an in-house barista seated in the lobby with an array of milk and milk-alternative beverage options. The open floor plan features mounted monitors displaying real-time data about the company. There is a bike room for employees that choose to cycle to work  after all, it's a tougher commute for many employees than it used to be.

There are the other Silicon Valley must-haves like kombucha on tap, a ping pong table, and a fun conference room naming theme. But there are also features that you would likely never see at a Californian tech company, like the three massive siloes filled with rainwater outside.

The decision to set up in Austin at all was an easy one, said Dziabiak. The Zebra was originally founded in Pittsburgh, but Austin felt like a more natural home for the company: the South by Southwest tech and media conference, the pool of talent, and Austin's famously easygoing culture all made for an appealing confluence of factors. The city was also enough to allure Elon Musk, who announced Wednesday that Tesla's newest factory would be located in town.

"All these signals just kind of pointed to, if we had to place a bet on where this growth is going to happen, it was going to be Austin," Dziabiak.

But it wasn't easy to recruit talent to a young startup in Austin, Dziabiak said. In fact, the company decided to change the name from Insurance Zebra to The Zebra because being associated with a "stodgy" industry was turning off would-be employees. Now, the growing team hails from all over the country, in what Dziabiak credits to a more generally pleasant lifestyle.

"Anecdotally, it feels like we moved a lot of people here from California," Dziabiak said. "A lot of it has to do with the cost of living."

Take a look inside The Zebra's new space, that is bringing a taste of Silicon Valley startup life to Austin's hip East side.

The Zebra, a car insurance startup, features shredded insurance documents behind a neon sign in its spacious lobby. Dziabiak told Business Insider that the startup removed "Insurance" from its name after they realized it made recruiting engineers much harder.

Zebra office tour 16

Megan Hernbroth / Business Insider

The Zebra's new office in East Austin is four times larger than its previous office in downtown Austin, and features several references to the company's namesake animal throughout the two-floor space.

Zebra Office Tour 1

Megan Hernbroth / Business Insider

The office was built for The Zebra by a local architecture firm called IA Interior Architects. The light-filled space contrasted with dark walls and industrial elements. A company spokesperson told Business Insider that the design was a step up from the company's first office that "looked like it was designed by a 22-year-old" with graffiti art installations and concrete floors.

Zebra office tour 2

Megan Hernbroth / Business Insider

The office interior was designed by Connecticut-based Chrystal Toth Designs. The Zebra cofounder Keith Melnick worked with Chrystal Toth on his family home in Connecticut  and was so pleased with the result he contracted the firm to work on The Zebra's office.

Zebra Office Tour 8

Megan Hernbroth / Business Insider

There are 40 glass-walled conference rooms with full audiovisual capabilities. Each office is named after a different animal that corresponds to the size of the room. For example, a two-person phone booth was named "Rat," while the largest room was named "Kraken."

Zebra Office Tour 6

Megan Hernbroth / Business Insider

The office currently holds 154 employees with capacity up to 300, and features typical Silicon Valley-style perks like standing desks and an in-house barista.

Zebra office tour 14

Megan Hernbroth / Business Insider

Although The Zebra's last office was in the penthouse of an iconic office downtown, a company spokesperson said employees were supportive of the move because of the extra space and abundant natural light.

Zebra Office Tour 5

Megan Hernbroth / Business Insider

The office has several work spaces scattered throughout to promote collaboration, a key feature the team worked with IA Interior Architects to create, the spokesperson said. Employees also have access to bike storage and kombucha on tap.

Zebra office tour 15

Megan Hernbroth / Business Insider

The fast-growing east side of Austin is only 1.5 miles from downtown, and The Zebra is within walking distance to multiple apartment buildings, breweries, coffee shops, and local transportation.

Zebra Office Tour 4

Megan Hernbroth / Business Insider

Part of the startup's initiative in building a new space was sustainability, a spokesperson said. They brought three large siloes to fill with rainwater which they recycle for use on-site.

Zebra Office Tour 11

Megan Hernbroth / Business Insider

The startup's substantial outdoor space features seating, artificial turf, and grills. But most striking is the mural, commissioned by the company from local muralist Luis Angulo.

Zebra Office Tour 12

Megan Hernbroth / Business Insider

Read the original article on Business Insider
Eight Afghan Security Officers Killed By Roadside Bomb As Attacks Continue

By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan July 22, 2020

Over a dozen Afghan security personnel and scores of Taliban militants have been killed in attacks across the country as violence continues to surge despite an initial peace deal.

Afghan officials said at least 45 Taliban militants, including several commanders, were killed in an air strike in the western province of Herat on July 22.

Abdul Ali Faqiryar, the governor of Herat's Adraskan district, said the air strike targeted a gathering of Taliban fighters.

The Taliban said in a statement that people had gathered to welcome a Taliban prisoner who was recently released by the government. The militants said eight civilians were among those killed.

It was unclear if the air strike was conducted by Afghan or NATO forces.

Hours earlier, eight Afghan security personnel, including three senior security officials, were killed by a roadside bomb in the southern province of Uruzgan.

The security officers were on their way from an army base in the Khas Uruzgan district of Urozgan Province to the local police headquarters on July 22 when their Humvee tank hit a roadside bomb, provincial authorities told RFE/RL.

District police chief Dad Gul, a commander of local police in Khas Uruzgan, and a senior officer of the Afghan National Army were among those killed, Khan Mohammad, a commander at the district base, told RFE/RL. Several other officers were injured.

The Taliban has controlled the roads leading to the area for more than eight years and has been carrying out large-scale operations. The Afghan forces stationed there are often supplied by air as the roads are too dangerous.

Mohammad said that dozens of Taliban fighters had gathered from neighboring districts and were planning a massive attack on the district's headquarters. The spokesperson for the provincial governor Zargai Ebadi said that they would send more security forces to the area in the coming days to boost support.

Elsewhere, the provincial police chief of the southern province of Kandahar said on July 22 that Taliban militants stormed several security checkpoints in the Takht-e Pol district overnight, killing at least seven government personnel.

The July 22 attack is the latest against Afghan forces since a peace deal was signed five months ago. More than a dozen Afghan forces were killed on July 20 in separate attacks.

A framework deal signed by the Taliban and the United States in February calls for direct negotiations between the militant group and the Western-backed government in Kabul aimed at putting an end to the nearly two-decade-old war in Afghanistan.

The Taliban and government forces have been exchanging accusations over a recent surge in attacks across Afghanistan -- even as efforts continue to try and bring about the start of direct peace talks between Kabul and the militants.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/eight-afghan- security-officers-killed-by-roadside-bomb- as-attacks-continue/30741613.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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The West Africa Health Organization (WAHO), marks 33rd anniversary milestone as the Health Institution of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).



In a statement signed by Professor Stanley Okolo, Director General, WAHO and copied to the Ghana News Agency, said since 1987 it worked closely to advance the health agenda in the region.

The statement said it worked towards improvement in national immunization programmes and investments in malaria prevention strategies, through the excellent initiatives in sexual and reproductive health and rights.



The organization is aimed at improving demographic transition in the region; the herculean efforts that defeated Ebola in the region was in collaboration with the Ministries of Health of the 15-Member States of ECOWAS.



As we mark WAHO Day this year; the sub-region has not been spared from the COVID-19 pandemic that is ravaging the world, the lessons of the Ebola epidemic and the support of our partners through various health security strengthening programmes meant that the disease surveillance and preparedness architecture in the ECOWAS region was in a much better shape going into the COVID-19 pandemic than was the case before, it said.



It said all countries had set up National Public Health Institutions for coordinating public health preparedness and response to epidemics, networked regionally through WAHO and its Agency, the ECOWAS Regional Centre for Surveillance and Disease Control (RCSDC).



The statement said a Regional Reference Laboratory Network was set up with WAHO support to formalize regular Communication policies and platforms and to ensure there was transparency, early warnings, peer support and mutual respect and trust among Member States.



It said since the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the COVID-19 infection a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, WAHO has worked tirelessly to support the region and protect our populations, coordinating communication.



It said the scale and nature of the pandemic had exposed weaknesses in the health systems that undermined response efforts, including; weaknesses in infrastructure, human resources, diagnostic and therapeutic facilities, manufacturing capacity particularly of medicines and vaccines, and deficits in the level of community engagement required to effectively tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.



We can therefore commit ourselves to break the stranglehold of poor health funding, neglect of human resources for health, and weak health systems through innovative involvement of the private sector, civil society organisations and universal community health insurance schemes, it said.



It said the government must rebuild trust with its populations and engage community and religious leaders in strengthening public adherence to the social distancing and personal hygiene measures critical to defeating the current pandemic.



It is within our power as individuals to protect ourselves and our loved ones and rapidly contain community transmission, we challenge every citizen of West Africa to practise scrupulous personal hygiene and responsible social distancing.



Never be out in public without a face mask, and to encourage each other to keep the pact during this pandemic. You will be amazed at how quickly this pandemic will go down in your community. It said.



It called on governments to continue to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on vulnerable populations, to safeguard the delivery of essential health services particularly women, children, Elderly and marginalised populations.



It also called for a reward for selfless services of all those in the frontline of fighting this pandemic; the doctors, nurses, contact tracers, laboratory, volunteers, and their families.

It said WAHO would continue to work with the Ministers and National Experts of all ECOWAS Member States, Africa Centre for Disease Control, the WHO Afro Regional Office.



It would collaborate with all our partners to sustain strong efforts within the region.

It said there was a lot of work to do, but believed that WAHO would continue to serve the region creditably from a Comity of States to a Comity of People.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The number of hacks taking place in 2020 is bewildering and there is no sign of a slow-down. Garmins services are out as we write this piece thanks to a ransomware attack. The company updated the top of its home page to advise users of the problem.

The SD-WAN market realizes the importance of security as well which is why it is morphing into Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)  a more secure method of providing networking solutions. As a result, many tech companies are scrambling to improve their offerings.

For example, Fortinet just acquired OPAQ to boost their SASE offerings a few days ago as an example. This was a big area of discussion at the most recent SD-WAN Expo in Florida, part of the ITEXPO #TECHSUPERSHOW.

TMCs Rich Tehrani speaks with David Ginsburg, VP of Product Solutions Marketing with Aryaka at the #TechSuperShow 2020 in Ft. Lauderdale FL. The organization is now The Cloud First WAN Company.

Now, Aryaka, a leader in the SD-WAN and network-as-a-Service (NaaS) space has announced a partnership with Check Point Software Technologies that leverages Aryakas Cloud-First managed SD-WAN solution and Check Point CloudGuard Connect and CloudGuard Edge to deliver integrated security and SD-WAN as-a-Service. Check Point CloudGuard technology delivers industry-leading threat prevention that is updated in real-time using the latest Check Point ThreatCloud intelligence. The partnership announced today delivers customers a unified threat and access management platform that has the flexibility to deploy branch office security in minutes, while reducing operational expenses. The partnership also delivers seamless integration with Aryakas Cloud-First WAN, allowing network and security to be delivered as a service.

The CloudGuard Connect cloud-hosted security service delivers maintenance-free, advanced threat prevention to thousands of branch offices in minutes. CloudGuard Edge implements on-premise security for data privacy or data-residency requirements. CloudGuard Edge is tightly integrated with Virtual Network Functions (VNF) on Aryakas Network Access Point (ANAP) customer premise equipment (CPE), leveraging Aryakas SmartConnect Global backbone with multi-cloud connectivity options that enable security deployment in minutes.

The combined solution provides gives SASE benefits while taking advantage of the service delivery footprint through Aryakas global service PoPs and its multi-cloud networking capabilities.

Aviv Abramovich, head of security services management at Check Point Software Technologies

Connecting branch offices directly to the cloud using SD-WAN significantly increases security risks, said Aviv Abramovich, head of security services management at Check Point Software Technologies. With Aryakas cloud-first SD-WAN, combined with CloudGuard Connect and CloudGuard Edge, enterprises now have the flexibility to deploy Check Points top-rated threat prevention and intelligence to protect their branch offices against the latest Zero Day and Gen V security threats.

We are very pleased to partner with Check Point Software Technologies in order to further extend the Aryaka SmartSecure offering, said Shashi Kiran, CMO at Aryaka. Check Point is a renowned industry leader in the security space. Combining Check Points best-in-class security with Aryakas high-performance managed SD-WAN allows us to deliver both Network and Security as-a-Service for a variety of deployment models, while giving our customers greater choice, simplicity and flexibility.

Shashi Kiran, CMO at Aryaka

Aryaka SmartConnect and Aryaka SmartSecure are delivered as a fully managed service, which eliminates the cumbersome process of implementing, operating and troubleshooting complex network and security features. When disparate solutions are designed to work together, it removes numerous headaches like out-of-sync software updates and other issues which could result in vendor finger-pointing, which doesnt help anybody.

The natural question pertains to why this wasnt acquisition news  just a partnership.

Here is our take based on work at our investment banking firm, RT-Advisors. Goldman Sachs invested $50 million in Aryaka last year. The company has taken in a lot of VC funding; $184 million over 10 years. The investors have been patient and want a significant return. Check Point is worth $17.3 billion and has made large acquisitions before  PointSec cost $586 million but that transaction happened in 2006. As of late, Check Point hasnt made any huge acquisitions.

Aryaka expected to IPO in 2018 for $1 billion. They are worth at least a few times that amount now and the way the SD-WAN market is accelerating, there is no reason to think the growth will slow for the foreseeable future.

If Check Point were to acquire, it would be for a significant amount of money as a percentage of their own valuation. It would be a game-changing merger.

A further challenge is Check Point is seen as a cybersecurity company and its stock price has not appreciated as a result of the pandemic  it is trading near its value in February. Cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks also has an SD-WAN solution but its value is at pre-Covid levels as well.

Teleworking companies though have flown since mass work-at-home began. Citrix plays in numerous teleworking spaces and has seen its value increase by a third since before Covid.

In other words, there is a mismatch between cyber and telework valuations. The market may not give Check Point the credit it deserves if it picks up Aryaka as it will still be known as a security play.

Meanwhile, Aryaka knows public markets are willing to give nice multiples to SD-WAN companies. This is why the company now sends its press releases to journalists starting with this text, Goldman Sachs backed global networking leader Aryaka. Do you know how many tech decision-makers care if their SD-WAN provider is backed by Goldman? Zero. This tells you the company is using the Goldman name as a Good Housekeeping seal for an IPO.

So it does not seem like a marriage between Aryaka and Check Point is on the horizon. They will stay engaged for now and see what happens. If Wall Street teleworking valuations do crater, we may see a shotgun wedding. 
New Delhi, July 23 : National carrier Air India will review the revision in allowances along with the 'Leave without Pay' scheme after the airline's operations expand and its finances improve.

The national carrier's statement comes after a review meeting was held on Thursday at the Ministry of Civil Aviation on these measures.

"Flying crew will be paid as per the actual number of hours flown. As domestic and international operations expand to reach pre-Covid levels and the financial position of Air India improves, the rationalisation of allowances will be reviewed," Air India said in a tweet.

"Unlike other carriers which have laid off large number of their employees, no employee of AirIndia will be laid off," it asserted.

The airline said that there has been no reduction in the 'Basic pay, DA and HRA' of any category of employees, but rationalisation of allowances had to be implemented on account of the difficult financial condition of the airline that were exacerbated by Covid-19.

The statement comes at a time when employees, including pilots, have protested against the cost-cutting measures with many describing the measures as "backdoor and illegal layoffs".

Air India has instituted a massive cut in employee allowances even as protests from all sections of the employees continued.

As per an office order, this has been done as per the directions of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and following approval from the Board of Directors of Air lndia Ltd. The rationalisation of allowances will be effective from April 1 and shall remain in force till further review by the Air lndia Board.

Consequently, the rate of allowances other than DPE allowances will stand reduced by 40 per cent These include flying allowance, executive flying allowance, special pay, wide body allowance, domestic layover allowance, quick return allowance, high altitude allowance, check allowance, instructor allowance, examiner allowance and additional landing allowance.

Last week, the airline cited the challenging financial situation for implementing the LWP scheme.

As per the airline, the LWP scheme provides the opportunity to employees to take up alternative employment with the approval of the management during the period of the said leave.

"The only addition in this scheme as compared to the earlier LWP scheme is that the management can pass an order requiring the employees to go on leave for a period of six months or two years (extendable up to 5 years) compulsorily, taking into consideration suitability, efficiency, competence, quality of performance, health, non-availability of employee and redundancy," the airline had said in a statement.

Air India said that this provision has been introduced for use "very sparingly", with a view to ensure that the overall efficiency of the organisation improves.
South Korea's new daily virus cases stayed around 60 for the second straight day on Thursday as locally-transmitted cases spiked due to cluster infections traced to a military unit and nursing homes, with imported cases showing no sign of a letup.



- S. Korea reports 59 more cases of new coronavirus, total now at 13,938

- No additional coronavirus-related death, total now at 297

- 60 more released from coronavirus treatment, total now at 12,758



South Korea's new daily virus cases stayed around 60 for the second straight day on Thursday as locally-transmitted cases spiked due to cluster infections traced to a military unit and nursing homes, with imported cases showing no sign of a letup.



The country identified 59 new cases, raising the total caseload to 13,938, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). Of the newly added cases, 39 were local infections, the highest in 18 days.



New virus cases jumped to 63 on Wednesday after falling below 30 for the first time in more than three weeks on Monday. Of the locally transmitted cases reported Thursday, 11 were from Seoul.



A nursing home in western Seoul reported three new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, raising the total number of related cases to 15.



Gyeonggi Province surrounding the capital city reported 17 new infections as an Army unit near the inter-Korean border reported a cluster infection, with at least fourteen soldiers being infected with COVID-19 so far.



Gwangju, located 330 kilometers southwest of Seoul, added nine new case. Incheon, just west of Seoul, added two new infections.













South Korea is also grappling with a steady inflow of cases from overseas, as imported cases have increased by double-digit daily figures for 28 consecutive days.



The increase came as South Korean workers returned home from virus-hit nations such as Iraq. There were also group infections on Russian ships docked in the country's southeastern port city of Busan and virus-infected foreign workers from Central Asian countries were detected at airports.



South Korea has been requiring foreigners from six high-risk nations to hand in documentation showing they tested negative for the virus.



Related cases may rise down the road as the country plans to bring home nationals from virus-hit Iraq. The country is set to bring some South Korean nationals from Iraq on Friday on two chartered flights.



Among the first batch of 105 South Koreans who arrived here from Iraq on July 15, 45 tested positive for the virus after arriving.



But with the number of new locally transmitted cases staying below 50 over recently, which is considered manageable by health authorities, South Korea decided to reopen museums and libraries in the greater Seoul area this week.



Bans on gatherings other than regular worship services by churches will be lifted on Friday as well.



The country's death toll came to 297, unchanged from the previous day, according to the KCDC.



The number of patients being fully cured of the virus reached 12,758, up 60 from Wednesday. (Yonhap)
Johnny Hanson, Staff / Houston Chronicle

Several private schools in northern Brazoria County are planning an August start to the school year with in-person instruction.

Eagle Heights Christian Academy in Pearland will have its first day of school on Aug. 24.
In fairness, many commercial landlords are opting for a pay what you can model. They understand that the chances of filling empty retail space right now are slim. They may have even cut a deal on their own mortgages, allowing them to be more lenient with their tenants.

Unfortunately, some landlords are less reasonable. And, for now, aggressive landlords are enabled to do so by bankruptcy and contract law. In negotiations between two parties, if one party (the landlord) has all the power in the worst-case scenario (closure), then they also have power throughout the bargaining process because they can use that worst case as a threat.

There are ways, besides changes to the bankruptcy code, that could also lessen the power imbalance between small businesses and their landlords. State governments reinstating or extending a moratorium on evictions make sense, especially for vulnerable individuals and families. Such moratoriums dont solve power imbalances in renegotiation, though, since businesses are still on the hook for unpaid rent.

Some retailers, including Valentino and Victorias Secret, have latched onto potential contractual loopholes in the hopes that they withdraw from pricey Manhattan leases. These remedies, however, require expensive lawyers that your favorite coffee shop, bookstore or florist probably cant afford.

None of this is intended to be unsympathetic to landlords. While most commercial landlords are multi-property operations or wealthy investors, some are small businesses themselves and rely on a steady stream of rent to survive. Among the landlords being hardest on tenants, some have their backs against the wall financially because their own mortgages contain strict terms.

Local governments can help out by cutting taxes for commercial landlords in a way that benefits smaller-scale landlords the most. Still, property taxes are an important source of revenue for towns and cities, which are already in dire straits. So its imperative that Congress pass emergency aid for states that are weeks away from choosing between saving government employees, like teachers, and saving small businesses.

Many economists will claim in the coming months that its inefficient to prop up small businesses because their stores are relatively easy to replace and most do not, on paper, contribute meaningfully to innovation. But that thinking ignores the tremendous value that small businesses create by connecting us to our communities and, in part, creating them.
We are excited to help provide the hands-on education that is needed to build the next generation of cyber professionals and fill the cyber skills gap, and ultimately defend our society in cyberspace.

ReFirm Labs, a provider of the industrys first proactive IoT and firmware security solutions, today launched the IoT Cybersecurity Education Program with the mission to advance cyber education around IoT devices while helping tackle the national security problem of emerging IoT threats.

By providing free access to its Centrifuge automated firmware analysis platform, ReFirm Labs will put the latest technology into the hands of students and researchers at the nations top universities to help them explore IoT device security, learn how to build secure products, and conduct their own research.

As 5G communications take off, billions of devices will be connected to networks and critical infrastructure. This presents a major attack surface that has historically been vulnerable. In March the US Cyberspace Solarium Commissions report highlighted the threat to the nation from cyber attacks and provided recommendations, including improvements to cybersecurity education in order to address the cyber workforce gap of over half a million private and public sector jobs.

Recently we have seen more universities incorporating firmware analysis and reverse engineering into their curriculum, to teach product security assessment techniques or to just educate students about the risks of network connected devices. We have also seen more students conducting and publishing their own vulnerability research, said Derick Naef, CEO of ReFirm Labs. We are excited to help provide the hands-on education that is needed to build the next generation of cyber professionals and fill the cyber skills gap, and ultimately defend our society in cyberspace.

In the first phase of the program, ReFirm Labs will partner with 10 higher education institutions to provide access to the Centrifuge Platform. ReFirm will also create and foster a community to promote collaboration and sharing of curriculum, labs, and research ideas. Because Centrifuge is a cloud-based platform and requires no agents on the network or SDK implementation on the device, students and researchers can access it remotely for classes that have moved online.

One early adopter of Centrifuge in the classroom, Dr. TJ OConnor, Program Chair Cybersecurity for Computer Engineering and Sciences at Florida Tech, said, We used Centrifuge in an undergraduate class this spring, and it really opened the students view of the abundance and severity of vulnerabilities in current firmware for a wide range of IoT devices. With the Centrifuge Code Analysis, students were able to uncover binaries with unsafe function calls and lacked memory protection. Further, with the Centrifuge Software BOM reports, our students uncovered current firmwares using legacy software components with known vulnerabilities. The ease of the platform provided students an opportunity to quickly dissect and discover the insecurity of several firmware samples."

Texas A&M will also adopt Centrifuge for undergraduate education, as well as to support research evaluating the cybersecurity of next generation equipment at the Internet2 Technology Evaluation Center (ITEC). Dr. Walt Magnussen, Director of ITEC, said, "We work with more than 340 leading research universities in the nation to support the deployment of advanced communication and collaboration services such as Next Generation 9-1-1, Public Safety Voice Services and Public Safety Information Sharing. Information Assurance has to be a primary consideration in all of these areas. Providing access to IoT security tools such as Centrifuge supports our mission to collaborate with industry and make leading-edge technology accessible to graduate and undergraduate students."

ReFirm Labs is focused on building solutions to evaluate the security of IoT and embedded systems and is the creator of the binwalk open source tool, which is used by security researchers worldwide as a starting point in studying vulnerabilities in IoT devices.

How to Participate in the IoT Cybersecurity Education Program

Participation is open to higher education institutions with a cybersecurity curriculum that involves firmware analysis, penetration testing, reverse engineering, or building secure devices. Interested parties can reach out to ReFirm Labs by visiting the IoT Cybersecurity Education Program website: https://www.refirmlabs.com/education

About ReFirm Labs

ReFirm Labs provides the industry's first IoT and firmware security solutions that proactively vet, validate and continuously monitor IoT devices from hidden threats. Its flagship product, Centrifuge Platform, detects and reports potential zero-day vulnerabilities, hidden crypto keys, backdoor passwords and known vulnerabilities in IoT devices without needing access to source code. ReFirm Labs' technology has been proven to provide the insight and intelligence needed for users to proactively defend connected devices and maintain compliance and the integrity of supply chain security. Founded by a team of former NSA offensive cyber operators, ReFirm Labs is trusted by government agencies and Fortune 500 companies that operate in a wide variety of industries, including: telecommunications, cloud infrastructure and data centers, automotive, health care, utilities, and manufacturing. For more information, visit https://www.refirmlabs.com or follow on Twitter @ReFirmLabs.
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Linkedin Dzulfiqar Fathur Rahman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 13:39 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668b844a 1 Business micro-small-medium-enterprises,MSMEs,small-and-medium-enterprises,cooperatives,Cooperative-SME-ministry,social-assistance-funds,social-aid,stimulus-package Free

The government is mulling over a plan to introduce a grant, or productive social assistance, to help hard-hit micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) amid the pandemic slowdown, according to a minister.

We hope it can help micro enterprises, Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Minister Teten Masduki said in a virtual discussion on Wednesday. The amount [of the assistance] is quite big.

However, he refused to go into further details as the plan was still under discussion.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which contribute to more than half of the countrys gross domestic product (GDP), have been greatly affected by the pandemic, which has forced shops, offices and factories to close to contain the coronavirus, and hit demand.

The government is seeking to speed up the disbursement of the current COVID-19 stimulus for small businesses amounting to Rp 123.46 trillion (US$8.4 billion). As of Tuesday, the government had disbursed only 9.59 percent of the budget to more than 1 million cooperatives and MSMEs.

The small business stimulus is part of the governments Rp 695.2 trillion stimulus package to speed up Indonesias economic recovery.

Teten vowed that the government was continuing to look for a solution with regard to designing aid for SMEs, as the number of pandemic-hit small businesses increased faster than the stimulus disbursement.

The proportion of MSMEs closing their businesses due to pandemic restrictions rose by 13.1 percentage points to 49.3 percent in April from March, according to a survey of 525 respondents between April 17 and May 22 by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

As the temporary closure stripped the small businesses of their revenue, more than half of them reduced the number of employees in April. Slashing work hours and furloughing employees were the most popular responses among the small businesses.

Around half of small businesses surveyed told ADB they were running out of cash or savings. The proportion of cash-strapped MSMEs in Indonesia was larger than in other surveyed countries, namely the Philippines, Thailand and Laos.

MSMEs in all of the countries reported a serious lack of funds to regain their business, especially in Indonesia, said Shigehiro Shinozaki, a senior economist at ADB.

More concretely, in Indonesia, 88 percent of micro enterprises reported having no cash and savings, and would run out of funds in a month.

ADB also found that most small businesses reported difficulties in getting funding amid the pandemic. As a result, around 39 percent of the small businesses borrowed money from friends and relatives, while one-fourth of them used their own remaining cash or profit.

To survive the pandemic-induced downturn, 46.9 percent of the MSMEs were considering asking financial institutions for debt restructuring.

Most Indonesian small businesses surveyed expressed hope they could get a loan without interest and collateral, as well as cash assistance or grants.

The Cooperatives and SMEs Ministry reported Tuesday that most of the small business stimulus was disbursed through state-owned banks in the form of debt restructuring funds.

The second-largest spending of the stimulus was Rp 381.4 billion for investment funds for 34 cooperatives through the Revolving Fund Management Agency (LPDB). The remainder went to the interest subsidy for MSMEs via the micro loan program (KUR).

Arief Ramayandi, the principal economist at ADB, said Wednesday small businesses relied on informal sources of funding because they faced issues in accessing funding from formal financial institutions such as banks.

Of the surveyed MSMEs, only 1 percent stated they borrowed from banks to get working capital. Other surveyed countries showed a similar picture, with mostly less than 8 percent of small businesses getting loans from banks.

The problem of getting funding from formal financial institutions has not emerged only because of COVID-19, but it has been around all this time, said Arief.

ADB has approved a $1.5 billion loan for Indonesias COVID-19 response and a $3 million grant for medical supplies.

The Manila-based development bank is currently processing a funding facility worth $500 million for Indonesias disaster response, according to Bambang Susantono, the vice president for knowledge management and sustainable development at ADB.
Prasanta Mazumdar By

Express News Service

GUWAHATI: Four more persons died as the flood situation in Assam worsened further after rains for the past two days.

The deaths  reported from Bongaigaon, Kokrajhar, Morigaon and Golaghat districts  took the toll to 93. Combined with 26 deaths in the rain-triggered landslides earlier, 119 people died so far.

The swollen Brahmaputra, Dhansiri, Jia Bharali, Beki, Kopili, Sankosh and Kushiyara rivers inundated vast swathes of land. Standing crop in over 1.19 lakh hectares of land was under water.

According to the Assam State Disaster Management Authority, over 28.32 lakh people from 2,634 villages and localities across 26 of the states 33 districts were in the grip of the deluge.

The personnel of National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force, police and locals were engaged in rescue operations. The authorities set up 456 relief camps where 47,213 people were sheltered.

At the Kaziranga National Park, 123 animals, including 12 rhinos, died till Thursday morning due to various reasons including drowning and vehicle hits. The incidents of vehicle hits occurred on a national highway that traverses beside the park.

Forest Man of India' narrowly escapes

Environmentalist Jadav Payeng, who earned the sobriquet Forest Man of India, narrowly escaped after his boat capsized on the mighty Brahmaputra in Jorhat district on Wednesday.

Accompanied by his son and a nephew, he was rowing to Molai Kathoni  a forest on a Brahmaputra sandbar that he has been nurturing for four decades  when the mishap occurred.

All three of them were washed away downstream for about 3 km by the swirling water when a mechanised boat rescued them. Later, Payeng told journalists that they saved their lives by holding on to the boat as it kept drifting away.

Solving Problem of flood, erosion

After visiting some affected areas, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said the Centre had constituted a national committee that recommended the setting up of North East Water Management Authority under the chairmanship of NITI Aayog Vice Chairman to permanently solve the problems of flood and erosion in Assam.

He said the Centre would take steps for passing an ordinance to this effect in the Parliament. He was optimistic that the initiative would lead to a permanent solution to the problems.
Activity impacted by the Covid-19 health crisis and economic context



Significant points for 1st quarter:

Significant impact of Covid-19 pandemic in April and May. Partial recovery begins in June.

Printing activity (-49%) is severely disadvantaged due to its direct links with sectors most hard hit by the measures and restrictions deployed. Home Decor activity however is up following an increase in on-line sales.

Hardware activity continues to resist well. LED billboard sales are on the up for the period following the supply of international orders.

Order backlog on June 30, 2020 stands at 9.6 million, up on June 30, 2019.

Q1 consolidated sales

Q1: April 1, 2020 - June 30, 2020 Not audited 3 months 3 months In  million (estimated) 2020-2021 2019-2020 Var M % Printing activity 4.39 8.61 -4.22 -49.0% Hardware activity 3.85 4.21 -0.36 -8.6% Total Q1 8.24 12.82 -4.58 -35.7% Total constant currencies 8.29 12.82 -4.53 -35.3%

The foreign exchange impact is mainly due to variations in the value of the South African Rand.

Prismaflex International Q1 2020-2021 figures are down by 36% at 8.2 million. The figures are slightly better than anticipated mid-June with greater momentum towards the end of the period. The greater part of the decline in business occurred during March and April, when lockdown measures were imposed throughout Europe. Business picked up in June, ending at -9.8% for the month.

Printing Activity was the hardest hit over the period. The activity is directly affected by the economic slowdown resulting from the health crisis and that impacted a number of clients, namely from the events, advertising and retail sectors. Sales stand at 4.4 million, down by -49%. The downward movement was tempered by the return to growth of the Home Decor activity (+8% for the period), following an increase in sales on-line (+74%).

Hardware activity resisted well, with sales down only by -8,6%. LED billboard sales are positive for the quarter (3.4 million vs 2.5 million, +37%), following deliveries to Italy and Brazil of orders placed the previous year. Traditional activities (static signs, trivision signs, street furniture) and sales of LED billboards in the USA were the worst hit.

Outlook

Whereas order intake was quite logically slower during the 1st quarter, order backlog is up on the previous year (9.6 million vs 9.1 million).

The recovery is happening, gradually, due to an uncertain economic context in which order issuers have adopted a wait-and-see attitude. The rate of recovery varies from one geographic zone to another and currently is very complicated in the United States where the subsidiary's key order issuer has frozen all orders. There are still a number of uncertainties and the expected rate of economic recovery as of September in France and North America will condition the Group's capacity to return to a level of activity in line with that recorded pre-Covid-19.

Forthcoming dates :

The Annual Shareholders Meeting will take place on September 30, 2020 in Saint Clement les Places (69930) France at 2.30pm.

Q2 sales figures, October 29, 2020 after closure.

PRISMAFLEX INTERNATIONAL

OUTDOOR ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS MANUFACTURER AND WIDE FORMAT DIGITAL PRINTING

ISIN: FR0004044600-ALPRI - Reuters: ALPRI.PA - Bloomberg: ALPRI.FP

EURONEXT GROWTHTM

www.prismaflex.com



Contacts :

Florence Therond - CFO - Phone: +33 (0)4 74 70 68 00 - finance@prismaflex.com

Guillaume Le Floch - Analysts/investors/press contacts - +33 (0)1 53 67 36 70 - glefloch@actus.fr

Marie-Claude Triquet - Press relations - Phone: +33 (0)4 72 18 04 93 - mctriquet@actus.fr

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I really enjoy the one that we do, says Sosa. We make everything, including the bread and the giardiniera. We roast all the peppers. For the meat, Sosa roasts prime rib for four hours, before letting it cool overnight, and then slicing to order. We make an au jus and let the meat simmer for a bit, says Sosa. We let the bread soak up some of the au jus, but not so much that it would be really messy. But we do serve some au jus on the side, so you can add more if you want. Everyone enjoys that sandwich.
Ciarran Stott has become a hot topic among Bachelor in Paradise fans after his on-screen reunion with ex-girlfriend Renee Barrett this week.

But viewers may struggle to recognise the 26-year-old in newly-surfaced modelling photos.

In the striking images, Ciarran appears to have significantly more tattoos on his chest than he did while filming Paradise last November.

What a transformation! Ciarran Stott, 26, looked very different to how he appeared on Bachelor in Paradise (left) while posing for a sizzling new photo shoot (right)

The portion of his stomach that was bare on the show has since been covered in heavy ink, suggesting that Ciarran has paid a visit to the tattoo parlour since returning from Fiji.

Meanwhile, the former Army rifleman's hair appears much darker in the new photos.

On the program, Ciarran sported a shock of platinum blond hair, while the latest shoot shows him with chestnut brown tresses.

Brunettes have more fun! The ex-Army rifleman's hair appears much darker in the new photos

Ciarran's Paradise moustache is also nowhere to be seen in the new images.

The creative team behind Ciarran's photo shoot includes photographer Andrei Philippe, makeup artist Shiree Collier, hairstylist Tammy Paradiso and fashion stylist Bianca Rose.

Ciarran's time on Bachelor in Paradise has been rocked by scandal thanks to the arrival of Renee Barrett on Wednesday night's episode.

Hair today, gone tomorrow: Ciarran sported a shock of platinum blond hair, while the new photos show him with chestnut brown-coloured tresses

Rock 'n roll! The Englishman looked stylish as he posed shirtless in a pair of gingham jeans, platform boots and layered necklaces, while draping a black fur coat over his shoulders

Missing moustache: Ciarran's Bachelor in Paradise moustache is also nowhere to be seen in the new images

In shocking scenes, former Bachelor contestant Renee told producers that Ciarran had dumped Angie Kent on The Bachelorette last year to be with her instead.

However, things soured between the pair around September when Ciarran cheated on Renee - an incident for which he profusely apologised on Tuesday's episode of Paradise.

The tattooed Englishman was reduced to tears as he apologised to Renee for his actions, before threatening to leave the show altogether.

Tense reunion: Ciarran's time on Bachelor In Paradise has been rocked by scandal thanks to the arrival of Renee Barrett (pictured) on Wednesday night's episode
Twitter Inc on Thursday reported its highest-ever yearly growth of daily users who can view ads, beating analysts' estimates on usage and sending its shares up 4 per cent. Twitter's average monetisable daily active users (mDAU) increased 34 per cent year over year to 186 million, above analysts' estimate of 176 million, in a rise it said was primarily driven by external factors such as shelter-in-place requirements and increased conversation around the Covid-19 pandemic. But the company missed Wall Street's lowered expectations for quarterly revenue, as the ...
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), inspects the teaching facilities for drone operating systems and learns about the training of drone operators at the Aviation University of the Air Force in northeast China's Jilin Province, July 23, 2020. Xi inspected the Aviation University of the Air Force in Jilin on Thursday, in the run-up to China's Army Day. On behalf of the CPC Central Committee and the CMC, Xi extended Army Day greetings to the personnel of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the Armed Police Force, the militia, and the reserve force. China's Army Day falls on Aug. 1. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

CHANGCHUN, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping inspected the Aviation University of the Air Force in the northeastern province of Jilin on Thursday, in the run-up to China's Army Day.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), stressed further reform and innovation, as well as continuous efforts to improve teaching.

On behalf of the CPC Central Committee and the CMC, Xi extended Army Day greetings to the personnel of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the Armed Police Force, the militia, and the reserve force. China's Army Day falls on Aug. 1.

After a visit to the university's aviation museum, he went on to watch a training course of student pilots and talked with them.

At the university's laboratory for drone technology, Xi inspected teaching facilities for drone operating systems and learned about the training of drone operators.

He said with the emergence of a large number of drones of different kinds, unmanned combat has brought about profound changes in warfare.

Xi stressed strengthening research into unmanned combat, enhancing drone education as a discipline, stepping up training in real combat conditions, and cultivating professionals who can use drones and take command in such warfare.

He stressed the need to transform the strategy of "strengthening the military through talent cultivation" into development plans and practical measures.

Highlighting the strong connection between military education and the battlefield, Xi demanded the bolstering of research on modern warfare, especially modern air combat, and upgrading education and training as a whole.

He stressed the need to keep up with the global trends of a new military revolution, be better prepared for emerging fields, conduct work in frontier disciplines and the training of new types of talent, while accelerating the incubation and generation of new combat capabilities.

Xi also spoke of the need to adhere to the correct political orientation in every aspect of school work.
SOFIA -- Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has replaced three key ministers in a reshuffle meant to appease weeks-long anti-corruption protests that have called for his resignation.

On July 23, two days after surviving a no-confidence vote, Borisov dismissed the ministers of finance, economy, and interior, whose resignations he had asked for last week to curb speculation that the three were serving the interests of controversial businessman and media owner Delyan Peevski, who is linked to the opposition MRF party.

The tourism minister was also sacked, Borisov said.

The July 21 vote was the fifth no-confidence motion against Borisov's center-right coalition government since it took office in 2017. It was initiated by the opposition Socialists who accuse it of failing to fight endemic corruption.

After a meeting with his junior coalition partners, Borisov announced that Health Minister Kiril Ananiev, 65, will replace Vladislav Goranov as the new finance minister.

Ananiev has served as deputy finance minister under four different governments since 1998 and was briefly finance minister in a caretaker cabinet in early 2017. He has a reputation as an expert in budget drafting.

Kostadin Angelov, currently the director of Bulgaria's largest medical facility, the Alexandrovska Hospital in the capital, will take over the Health Ministry.

Interior Minister Mladen Marinov will be replaced by national police chief Hristo Terziiski, while Economy Minister Emil Karanikolov will cede his position to his deputy, Lachezar Borisov.

Tourism Minister Nikolina Angelkova will be replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Mariana Nikolova, Borisov said.

Thousands of mostly young people demonstrated for almost two weeks in a row this month in the capital against the government's perceived favoritism of powerful behind-the-scenes oligarchs.

Rallies were also held in Lovech, Haskovo, Plovdiv, Vratsa, Montana, Varna, Burgas, Kyustendil, and other cities.

Protesters accuse Borisov of turning a blind eye to endemic graft that has weakened state institutions and eroded the rule of law for the benefit of a few.

Borisov has vowed to carry out in full his third four-year mandate, which expires in March.

Bulgaria, the poorest European Union member, is also the most corrupt of the bloc's 27 members, according to Transparency International.

With reporting by Reuters
K Krishnachand By

Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Community spread of Covid- 19 and the subsequent triple lockdown in the coastal areas, including Pulluvila and Poonthura, have dealt a heavy blow on the lives of the residents who depend on fishing for their livelihood. Total ban on seafaring has left the fishermen families in the two regions penniless as they completely rely on selling their daily catch and allied jobs to make both ends meet. A majority of the families do not have any savings and the lockdown has pushed them to abject poverty.

Though the state government announced free ration of 5 kilograms of rice, many hamlets in the containment regions are yet to receive the kits. As the state government had already made it clear that community spread is taking place at Pulluvila and Poonthura, residents fear to come out of their homes. The church authorities of the two coastal regions are in talks with Latin Catholic archdiocese bishop for the state governments immediate intervention to provide temporary relief for the fishermen community.

According to the church, the people are on the verge of starvation. In certain hamlets, even the free rice has not been supplied to the residents. Last months trawling ban, followed by the Covid-19 attack and the ensuing lockdown have hit the fishing families hard. Since they are not in the habit of keeping savings, majority of residents have slipped into starvation. The fishermens livelihood is completely dependent on the sea. Since fishing has been prohibited, their income has stopped. The free grain offered will not be sufficient as uncertainty persists over lifting the lockdown, said Fr Baby Bevinson, vicar, Pulluvila St Jacobs Forane church. The situation in Poonthura is not different either. The free ration will not help the coastal folks if the lockdown is set to stay, said Fr Edison Yohannan, vicar of Poonthura St Thomas church.

Savings-Cum-Relief scheme

R Sandhya, additional director of the fisheries department, told TNIE the government has initiated steps to implement the Savings-Cum-Relief scheme by providing monthly installment of `1,500 to each family affected by the virus spread. The first installment has already been released and we are in process to release the second instalment. The grocery kit distribution at Poonthura and Pulluvila is also under consideration, she said.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Paris, France  Thu, July 23, 2020 09:50 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668aa22b 2 World US-China,US-China-Hong-Kong-tension,US-China-Uighur,US-China-tension,US-China-tension-COVID-19,US-China-trade-war,bilateral-spat,bilateral-tension Free

The United States and China are at loggerheads over a long list of issues, from the cause of the novel coronavirus to Hong Kong, and trade.

An overview, after Washington ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston within 72 hours, accusing it of being a center for spies.

Coronavirus

Washington and Beijing have been engaged in a war of words over who is to blame for the novel coronavirus, since Trump described it as a "Chinese" virus in March.

China's Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian retorted by suggesting that the US army might have brought the epidemic to Wuhan, the central Chinese city where it first emerged late last year.

The two superpowers then cracked down on each other's news outlets.

In May the foreign ministry pointed to American errors in the handling of the pandemic, while Trump fired back it was "incompetence of China and nothing else, that did this mass Worldwide killing."

Vaccine hacking

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in May warned healthcare and scientific researchers that Chinese-backed hackers were attempting to steal research and intellectual property related to treatments and vaccines for COVID-19.

On July 21, two Chinese nationals were indicted in the US for allegedly hacking hundreds of companies worldwide.

Hong Kong

Washington reacted to China's imposition of a sweeping new national security law on Hong Kong by ending preferential trade treatment for the former British colony.

It also restricted visas for Chinese officials seen as infringing on the city's autonomy and stopped the export of sensitive technologies.

China pressed ahead with the law in late June.

Uighurs

The United States earlier in July froze the assets and imposed visa bans on several officials from China's northwestern region of Xinjiang over rights abuses of its Turkic speaking minority.

It accused the group of "horrific and systematic abuses" in Xinjiang including forced labor, mass detention and involuntary population control.

It then put 11 Chinese companies suspected of taking part in the persecution on a black list, limiting their access to American technologies and products.

Washington says more than one million ethnic Uighurs and other Turkic-speaking minorities have been rounded up into a network of internment camps.

China contends that the facilities are vocational education centers.

Trade war

Weary of its hefty trade deficit with China, Washington declared a trade war in March 2018. It quickly escalated with tit-for-tat punitive duties on hundreds of billions of dollars of bilateral trade.

After truces and resumptions of hostilities, the two superpowers in January 2020 signed an initial accord under which China agreed to buy an extra $200 billion of US imports over two years.

But earlier this month Trump said he does not plan to proceed to the second phase of the accord, as relations with China have been seriously damaged.

Huawei

The US has accused Chinese telecoms giant Huawei of spying for Beijing and of rights abuses by allowing the Chinese regime to carry out surveillance of dissidents. It is also accused of installing large scale surveillance technologies in Xinjiang and non respect of the embargo on Iran.

Trump's administration has stepped up sanctions against the worldwide leader in 5G and has pressured allies, such as Britain, to shun the group.

South China Sea

On July 2, the US Defense Department criticized Chinese military exercises around the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, in an area also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam.

Two days later, the Pentagon said two of its own aircraft carriers had carried out drills in the South China Sea to "support a free and open Indo-Pacific".

Nuclear talks

In early July Beijing rejected a new US invitation to join arms control talks with Russia.

Trump's administration has demanded that China take part in talks on a successor to the New START treaty, which caps the nuclear warheads of the United States and Russia -- the two Cold War-era superpowers.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 23)  Philippine Airlines said on Thursday it lost billions of pesos in January to March as the entire aviation industry took a big blow in light of travel restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a statement, the flag carrier said it incurred a comprehensive loss of $183.1 million (around P9 billion), widening the gap from $14.7 million (about P725 million) in losses during the same period last year.

PAL said it began the year with a healthy net income of $37 million (around P1.8 billion) before the pandemic forced governments to restrict travel as early as February.

To address the impact of the flight shutdown that persisted into April and May, PALs shareholders have infused new capital and endorsed an aggressive strategy to generate revenues and control costs, as the flag carrier gears up for a new normal in air transportation, it said.

Among the cost control measures implemented by PAL are a delay in the delivery of new aircraft, the suspension of capital expenditures, adoption of a skeletal work force set up during the current crisis period, cuts in senior management salaries and cutback on non-essential expenses, the statement read.

To recall, PAL also laid off some 300 employees in February in a bid to reduce losses amid the global health crisis. Fellow airlines AirAsia and Cebu Pacific followed suit in the past months, with the budget carrier set to let go of 800 more employees in August.

Despite this, the airline still managed to do its part in contributing to the country's response to the coronavirus crisis. Since March, it operated 640 local and international cargo flights transporting medical and food supplies, along with 222 sweeper and repatriation flights catering to passengers stranded in various countries, PAL's statement read.

The airline added it brought back regular weekly commercial flights on a limited basis to select countries starting June. This August, it will begin offering over 100 domestic and international flights per week, coupled with plans to progressively increase routes and flight frequencies.
ANKARA, Turkey - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is scheduled to join hundreds of worshippers Friday for the first Muslim prayers at the Hagia Sophia in 86 years, after a controversial high court ruling paved the way for the landmark monument to be turned back into a mosque.

A government decree reopened the jewel of the Byzantine Empire for Muslim worship and abolished its status as a museum. The conversion of what was once the most important church of Christendom has led to an international outcry.

The 6th century monument, which remains the main feature of the Istanbul skyline, has a history rich with symbolism.

THE BYZANTINE ERA

Hagia Sophia, or the Church of Holy Wisdom, was built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I on the site of an destroyed basilica of the same name. Completed in 537, it was among the worlds largest domed structures and would serve as the foremost Orthodox Christian church for some 900 years. Imperial ceremonies, including the crowning of emperors, were held there. The multicolored mosaics depicting the Virgin Mary, the baby Jesus, angels and other Christian symbols along with emperors and their families that centuries of rulers installed added to its reputation as an architectural gem.

THE OTTOMAN CONQUEST

Ottoman sultan Mehmet the Conqueror defeated the Byzantine Empire and captured Istanbul, then known as Constantinople, in 1453. The 21-year-old immediately turned the majestic Hagia Sophia into a mosque as an emblem of Muslim triumph over the city. The structure served as an imperial mosque and subsequent sultans added minarets, a school, library and a fountain, completing its transformation into a mosque complex. The mosaics were eventually plastered over in line with iconoclasm traditions that bar the depiction of figures.

A MUSEUM FOR A SECULAR TURKEY

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the war hero who founded the Turkish Republic from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire in 1923, had Hagia Sophia made into a museum in 1934 as part of his reforms to build a secular country. Its mosaics were brought back into the open, and the structure served for years as a symbol of Istanbuls rich multi-faith and multicultural past.

Included on the list of World Heritage sites maintained by the U.N. cultural body UNESCO, it became one of Turkeys most-visited landmarks, drawing millions of tourists every year. However, Atakurks decision to cease Hagia Sophias use as a mosque was met with dismay by religious and nationalist groups. They had long called for the iconic building to be freed from its chains and converted back into a Muslim place of worship.

RESTORATION AS A MOSQUE

Erdogan signed a July 10 decree fulfilling their wishes soon after Turkeys highest administrative court ruled that Istanbuls conqueror had bequeathed the Hagia Sophia as a mosque and that the 1934 museum conversion was illegal. His government has vowed to protect the Hagia Sophias Christian artifacts and to keep the structure open to tourists outside of prayer hours.

The ticket kiosk outside has been removed and the interior marble floors have been covered in a turquoise-colored carpet chosen by the president himself in preparation for the first Friday prayers. Some 500 invited participants will be required to maintain social distance due to the coronavirus outbreak. The mosaics will be covered up with curtains during the prayers, officials have said.

FULFILLING AN ISLAMIST DREAM

For Erdogan, a pious Muslim whose ruling party has roots in Turkeys Islamic movement, performing Friday prayers at Hagia Sophia is a dream from his youth coming true. He has described Ataturks decision to turn it into a museum as a mistake that is now being rectified.

Critics see the presidents decision as the latest move by Erdogan to distract attention from economic woes the coronavirus has only exacerbated and to shore up his conservative-religious support base. Opening up Hagia Sophia to Muslim prayers is also seen as a part of Erdogans efforts to deepen Turkeys Muslim identity and to roll back his predecessors secular legacy.
Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesBy ALLISON PECORIN, ABC NEWS



(WASHINGTON) -- Federal protections that have prevented millions of renters across the country from being evicted are about to expire and could leave them at risk of losing their homes if Congress does not act by Saturday.



Senate Democrats are urging an extension of the eviction protection program, but it is unlikely that a new coronavirus relief bill will make it across the finish line before the current protections lapse at the end of the week, as Republicans scramble to put their plan forward.



More than 12 million renters failed to make rent last month, according to data collected by the US Census Bureau for the week of July 9 through July 14. More than 23 million reported that they have slight or no confidence in their ability to make next month's rent.



"This is a potential catastrophe," Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday. "Housing is fundamental."



Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., blamed Republicans Wednesday for inaction on housing that she said has left the nation on the cusp of crisis.



"We are just days away from a housing crisis that could be prevented if Mitch McConnell stops stalling and the Senate acts," Warren said. "Failing to put a safeguard in place to keep people in their homes is most likely to harm the most vulnerable Americans.



Under the coronavirus relief legislation passed in March, renters who live in federally subsidized housing or in a property with a federally backed mortgage are currently protected from eviction. Landlords are not allowed to issue eviction notices until Saturday under the law, and late fees for missed rent following the passage of the law are prohibited. But if the legislation is not extended in the coming days, eviction notices for renters could follow.



Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not yet made clear whether the Republican proposal, which is expected to be introduced in the coming days, will include an extension of the eviction protection program, but on Wednesday several Republicans said they believed that the some sort of fix is going to be needed, though it's unclear what form it would take.



Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, authored a bill alongside Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado before the coronavirus pandemic which aimed to implement grant programs to prevent at-risk tenants from being evicted.



He said Wednesday that he'd like to see funding in the bill to address possible evictions that is "even broader" than what he proposed, though said he was unclear what form the legislation should take.



"I think its important that we deal with it, but again that's kind of a work in progress," Portman said "We should do it before next week because of the expiration."



Sen. Mike Crapo, who chairs the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs committee, said the form of eviction protection outlined in the next bill would be determined by other aspects of the legislation related to payments to Americans, like direct payments and unemployment insurance.



"We've got to work at the entire picture before we can describe exactly how any single piece will work," Crapo said.



Dr. Tim Thomas heads the Urban Displacement Project at University of California Berkley where he has researched evictions. He warned of possibly devastating impacts on vulnerable communities if rent protections do not continue.



"If this moratorium doesn't pass, you're going to have a lot of landlords that have not been paid in awhile and there's going to be a mass eviction," Thomas told ABC News.



He also warned that evictions could disproportionately impact communities of color. In his research on evictions he said he's found "just astronomical impacts on Black communities in particular."



Of those who said they had little or no confidence to make rent next month, 12 million were Hispanic or Black.



Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
OTTAWA - Opposition parties are asking the federal ethics watchdog to widen his probe of Bill Morneau regarding the WE organization as the finance minister continues to face calls for his resignation.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau speaks to media during a press conference in Toronto, Friday, July 17, 2020. The opposition parties are asking the federal ethics watchdog to widen his probe of Morneau regarding the WE organization as the finance minister continues to face calls for his resignation. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

OTTAWA - Opposition parties are asking the federal ethics watchdog to widen his probe of Bill Morneau regarding the WE organization as the finance minister continues to face calls for his resignation.

Conservatives and New Democrats have written to ethics commissioner Mario Dion to look into trips Morneau took three years ago, part of which were paid for by the WE organization.

Morneau said Wednesday he had just repaid WE Charity more than $41,000 for expenses the group covered for trips his family took to Kenya and Ecuador in 2017 to see some of its humanitarian work.

WE said the Morneau family trips were meant to be complimentary, part of a practice of showing donors WE's work to encourage them to give more.

Morneau said he always planned to personally cover those amounts, but WE never charged him, much to his surprise after poring through receipts ahead of his testimony.

He said his family has since made two $50,000 donations to the charity.

The conflict of interest law prohibits ministers or their families from accepting paid travel, a lesson the government learned when Trudeau was found afoul of the rule for his family's 2016 vacation to the Aga Khan's private island.

On Thursday, the Tories said Morneau's trips violated several sections of the Conflict of Interest Act  listing them out during a morning press conference  and called on him to resign as minister.

Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre said Morneau's apology doesn't cut it, and cited former Harper cabinet minister Bev Oda's resignation following an expenses uproar that included expensing an infamous $16 glass of orange juice during a stay at a swanky London hotel.

"Why hasn't Justin Trudeau fired him? I don't ask that rhetorically, but specifically," Poilievre said.

"If Justin Trudeau imposes any level of ethical standard on Bill Morneau, then others would ask that he impose it on himself."

Trudeau, too, is facing an ethics probe for not recusing himself during discussions about awarding WE a deal to run the government's $912-million program that will pay students grants of up to $5,000 based on the hours they volunteers.

Trudeau and Morneau have apologized for not declaring possible conflicts because of their familial ties to the organization  Trudeau because of speaking fees paid to his brother, mother and wife, and Morneau because one of his daughters is nearing the end of a one-year contract in an administrative role.

NDP MP Charlie Angus told the ethics commissioner in a letter that Morneau's trips bring "to another level" concerns about the finance minister's involvement in handing WE a contract to run the student-volunteer program.

The deal would have paid the organization $43.5 million in fees.

"WE may well indeed be engaged in philanthropic work, but as the case of the Aga Khan decision, it is plainly impermissible for a minister of the Crown to receive financial or in-kind gifts of this nature," Angus wrote.

Separately, the House of Commons' ethics committee decided Thursday to examine the ethics processes in the Prime Minister's Office, to determine whether they need structural changes. The committee is already seeking copies of records related to the Trudeaus' speaking engagements to inform a case study of the conflict-of-interest regime the committee monitors.

Two of Morneau's cabinet colleagues  Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault and Economic Development Minister Melanie Joly  came to his defence, saying the finance minister explained himself at committee and apologized for any oversight.

Speaking at a virtual press conference in Montreal, where they announced investments in clean technology, Joly said Canadians would judge Morneau on his performance in steering the country through the worst economic downturn in a century.

"In these circumstances he was able to show leadership and come up with some programs that we've never seen as a country, including the wage subsidy, including the CERB," she said.

"In that sense, Canadians will, I'm convinced, see that his work has been relevant and impactful in the context of the last months."

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It has been nearly three weeks since the government took over the program after WE backed out over the controversy of its involvement, and Ottawa has yet to roll it out.

Student groups have asked the Liberals to push the money into other supports, saying it's too late in the summer for students to make the most of the program and earn enough to pay for schooling costs in the fall.

Employment and Social Development Canada, which oversees the program, said in a statement Thursday, echoing previous ones, that officials are "working diligently to develop a transition plan, including looking at options on how best to proceed."

"This means there will be delays but more information will be provided as soon as it is available," spokeswoman Isabelle Maheu said in an email, adding officials "cannot comment or speculate on aspects of program design until a new plan is announced."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2020.

 With files from Catherine Levesque
As developments related to the Libyan crisis pick up pace, Egypt has stepped up political and military preparations in connection with the Sirte-Jafra red line that Egypt has defined as the western boundary of its national security realm, in the event that forces fighting for the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) attempt to advance further eastward. Cairo has simultaneously urged the international community to press for a ceasefire along this line and to compel the GNA and the Libyan National Army (LNA) to deescalate and return to the negotiating table in the framework of the outputs of the Berlin Conference and the Cairo Declaration that seek to advance the UN-sponsored peace process for Libya.

Ankara, by contrast, remains bent on the military solution. It continues to reject all ceasefire initiatives out of hand as it ratchets up its military supplies to the GNA, intensifying its belligerent rhetoric, saying that there is nothing to compel it to adhere to the Sirte-Jafra line or to ceasefire initiatives.

Although the battle between Cairo and Ankara has so far confined itself to rhetorical outbursts and diplomatic manoeuvres, the likelihood of a slide into a military clash is increasing while the prospects for a political settlement are receding. Both sides have staged a series of military manoeuvres. The Egyptian armys Hasm 2020 drills near the border with Libya were meant to convey the message that Egypt will act with resolve in order to defend its national security.

Turkey responded with sabre rattling in the form of naval manoeuvres off the coast of Libya. Both sides then moved to bolster their respective allies in Libya. Cairo helped the Libyans build an anti-occupation resistance army, made up of Libyan tribes, to supplement the ranks of the LNA, which is fatigued after six years of fighting radical forces. In addition to more shiploads of military hardware to the GNA, Ankara has increased its shipments of mercenaries to supplement the GNAs attack force that is preparing to breach the Sirte-Jufra red line.

But even as they escalate verbally and posture militarily, some factors might be working against a military conflagration. One is the alarming prospect of a clash between two regional powers the size of Egypt and Turkey which are roughly equivalent in military might.

The repercussions of a military locking of horns between them in Libya would reverberate well beyond that encounter to throw havoc into the balances of power throughout the entire Middle East. Both sides are aware of this. This is why President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, in his meeting with representatives of Libyan tribes last week, stressed that the Sirte-Jufra line was the peace line, meaning the line to conclude a ceasefire and restart the political process. Turkey, too, seemed to soften its rhetoric somewhat, saying that it did not want a military confrontation with Egypt.

It appears, therefore, that the warring parties and their backers appreciate that their options are limited. Every option comes at a cost and with obligations. For example, escalation can only aggravate the complexities of the Libyan crisis and put the prospects of a solution further out of reach. This is all the more the case given that the record of modern warfare in the Middle East tells us that there is no such thing as a winner and loser in regional conflicts but only a redrawing of lines and balances of power that accompany stakeholders to the negotiating table. As the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz put it, war is a continuation of politics by other means.

On the other hand, the political option also has its red lines that can be adhered to while averting the slide into war. Egypt took the lead with the Cairo Declaration, a peace initiative it proposed to Aguila Saleh, speaker of the Libyan House of Representatives. This position rests on the principles of international legitimacy and the framework of the UN-sponsored process to resolve the Libyan crisis (as manifested in the political, economic and military tracks that were the outputs of the Berlin Process).

At the same time, Cairo set the Sirte-Jufra line as the limit to the political, military and economic ambitions of the GNA, an unelected body that has forfeited its legitimacy under the Skhirat Agreement, as a result of its behaviours. Most importantly, here, the GNA concluded an illegitimate pact with a foreign power to help it monopolise government and secure control over the sources of Libyan wealth in exchange for channelling much of that wealth into Turkish coffers and private pockets.

Egypt also maintains that security reform must not serve as a pretext to exclude the LNA in favour of illegal militias, and that social reform must not serve as a pretext to exclude authentic Libyan tribes in favour of a Turkish-backed ideological organisation such as the Libyan chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood or its offshoots in Misrata, in order to advance the political and economic fortunes of a non-Arab axis in Libya.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 23 July, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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NEW DELHI: There has never been a better time to invest in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday, inviting foreign investments and adding the Indo-US partnership should help the world bounce back from the coronavirus pandemic.

Delivering the keynote address at the US India Business Council-hosted India Ideas Summit virtually, Modi said, India is contributing towards a prosperous and resilient world through the clarion call of Aatmanirbhar Bharat. There is a global optimism towards India as it offers a perfect combination of openness, opportunities and options.

The prime minister said that global economic resilience can be achieved by stronger economic capacities.

Modi saw too much focus on efficiency and optimisation as a pitfall for the global economy and said improved domestic manufacturing together with healthy financial systems and diversified international trade was the answer to the shocks triggered by COVID-19.

"India offers many more opportunities. We have what is needed to power the global economic recovery," he said.

"The US-India friendship has scaled many heights in the past. Now it is time our partnership plays an important role in helping the world bounce back faster after the pandemic," he said.

"There are few better partners than the United States of America and India. India and the USA are two vibrant democracies with shared values. We are natural partners."

Stating that the world needs a better future, he said the recent experience has showed that the global economy has been too focused on efficiency and optimisation.

ALSO READ | Recent clashes initiated by PLA latest examples of 'unacceptable behaviour' of China: Pompeo

"Efficiency is a good thing. But, on the way, we forgot to focus on something equally important. That is resilience against external shocks. It has taken a global pandemic to remind us how important resilience is," he said.

Global economic resilience, he said, can be achieved by stronger domestic economic capacities, which mean improved manufacturing capacity, restoration of the health of the financial system and diversification of international trade.

Making a strong pitch for US investments, he said India got more than USD 20 billion of foreign investment during the pandemic times.

"American investors often look out for the perfect timing to enter a sector or a country. To them, I would like to say: there has never been a better time to invest in India," he said.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into India in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020 stood at USD 74 billion, 20 per cent higher than the previous year.

"Every year, we are reaching record highs in FDI," he said, adding pledged investment from the US has already crossed USD 40 billion this year.

"The rise of India means a rise in trade opportunities with a nation that you can trust, a rise in global integration with increasing openness, a rise in your competitiveness with access to a market which offers scale. And a rise in your returns on investment with the availability of skilled human resources," he said.

The Prime Minister sought US investments in healthcare, energy, defence, space, civil aviation, infrastructure, finance and insurance sectors, saying his government has eased foreign investment caps and ushered in path-breaking reforms.

"When the markets are open, when the opportunity is high and the options are many, can optimism be far behind? You can see the optimism when India rises in key business ratings. Particularly, the Ease of Doing Business ratings of the World Bank," he said.

Modi said the FDI cap for investment in the insurance sector has been raised to 49 per cent, while 100 per cent foreign investment is permitted in insurance intermediaries.

While the space sector has been opened up for the private sector, the FDI cap for investment in defense sector has been raised to 74 per cent.

"India has established two defense corridors to encourage the production of defense equipment and platforms," he said.

"Civil Aviation is another area of great potential growth. The number of air passengers is expected to more than double within the next eight years. The top private Indian airlines plan to include over a thousand new aircraft over the coming decade," he said.

Also, India is witnessing the largest infrastructure creation drive in its history and US firms can partner in building housing for millions and constructing roads, highways and ports.

They can also invest in energy as the nation evolves into a gas-based economy, offering big investment opportunities for US companies.

ALSO READ | US maintains 'tremendous cooperation' with India on Chinese border aggression: Juster

There are also big opportunities in the clean energy sector, he said.

"India invites you to invest in healthcare. The healthcare sector in India is growing faster than 22 per cent every year. Our companies are also progressing in production of medical-technology, telemedicine, and diagnostics," he said.

Modi further said his government recently ushered in historic reforms in the agriculture sector and it now offers investment opportunities in agricultural inputs and machinery, agriculture supply chain management, ready-to-eat items, fisheries and organic produce.

Modi said during the last six years, the Indian economy has opened up more and become reform-oriented.

Reforms have ensured increased competitiveness, enhanced transparency, expanded digitization, greater innovation, and more policy stability, the Prime Minister said.

"The options to invest in India are extensive," he said.

Giving examples of sectors where US companies can invest, Modi said India's food processing sector is expected to be worth over half a trillion dollars by 2025 and this was the best time to tap investment opportunities in the agriculture sector.

Also, huge opportunities are available for any investor who chooses to set up manufacturing facilities in the civil aviation sector.

"To give flight to your aviation targets, this is an ideal time to invest in the Indian aviation sector," he said.

Earlier in the day, speaking at the summit, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar pitched for India-US relations to go beyond trade. The US really needs to learn to work in a multi-polar world. It needs to go beyond alliances that it has grown up with in the last two decades. We need to find more common ground. For Indo-US relations we need to think beyond trade, he said.

The ministers statement comes in the backdrop of China warning India against siding with the US, saying that it was wishful thinking by New Delhi if it hoped that Washington will stand by it. Jaishankars views were echoed by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who also virtually participated in the summit.

We believe this is a new age of relationship between US and India. It is important for the two countries to cultivate strong ties amid threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), he said, adding India was a key player in an open and free Indo-Pacific.

Modi said the poor and vulnerable must be at the core of the growth agenda. Ease of living is as important as ease of business. The pandemic has reminded us of the importance of resilience of the global economy against external shocks, which can be achieved by stronger domestic economic capacities, he said.

Spelling out the sectors that can attract investment, the PM said: The healthcare sector in India is growing faster than 22% every year and the progress of Indian companies in production of medical-technology, telemedicine and diagnostics has been immense.

(With PTI Inputs)
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  The rapid growth in New Mexicos coronavirus outbreak is leveling off  a sign the disease isnt spreading as rapidly now as it did for most of the summer, according to statistical modeling by Presbyterian Healthcare Services and the state Department of Health.

Thats the good news.

But the state has plateaued at a high level, reaching a record high earlier this week in the average number of new cases detected by testing each day.

In an interview, Human Services Secretary David Scrase said the next goal for the state  now that growth has slowed  is to push the number of cases back down, reducing the prevalence of the disease in New Mexico.

If youre headed toward the edge of the cliff, he said, and you manage to stop the car, thats a positive thing. But you still have to back up.

Nonetheless, he called it fantastic news that New Mexicos spread rate fell to 1.0 this week  its lowest level since mid-June, according to statistical modeling.

The 1.0 rate of transmission means that each person with COVID-19 will, on average, spread it to one other person. It suggests presence of the disease is now flat, rather than growing.

But pushing the number below 1.0 would put the disease on the path to slowly dying out.

The spread rate climbed to about 1.2 in late June and early July, triggering growth that pushed the average number of new cases in New Mexico to a record high of 286 through Tuesday. The number fell slightly on Wednesday, to an average of 284 cases for the last seven days.

Even small changes in the spread rate can quickly add up because of the potential for exponential growth.

This weeks 1.0 spread rate is the lowest calculated in New Mexicos weekly modeling reports since June 16, when the rate fell below 0.9.

The rate was closer to 2.0 early in the pandemic, meaning each person infected would transmit the disease to two other people.

Jason Mitchell, chief medical officer for Presbyterian Healthcare Services, which helps handle the statistical modeling, said the fall in spread rate is encouraging. But he said there are still some potential problem areas  such as a 1.2 transmission rate in northeastern New Mexico, including Santa Fe County, and a 1.1 rate in the Albuquerque area.

He described the spread rate in Bernalillo County  the states most populous county  as a worrisome trend.

Hospitalizations up

The state reported 316 more coronavirus cases Wednesday, continuing a week of high numbers for newly detected infections.

The number of virus patients in New Mexico hospitals also climbed 16%, an increase from 154 patients Tuesday to 178 on Wednesday. That figure includes both in-state patients and those transferred to New Mexico from other states.

State officials announced three more virus deaths  all individuals with underlying medical conditions  pushing the statewide death toll to 591 residents.

Those who died were a man in his 30s and a woman in her 50s from McKinley County and a woman in her 80s from Bernalillo County.

The state is now averaging fewer than five deaths a day, or less than half the peak of 10 deaths a day in mid-May.

The 316 new cases reported Wednesday moved the average daily case count for the past week to 284, just below the record high of 286 on Tuesday.

The fact that weve leveled off is a good thing, Scrase said, but we have to push the number of cases back down.

Since the pandemic arrived in the state in March, New Mexico has reported 17,828 cases of COVID-19 and 489,334 tests, for a positivity rate of 3.6%. The positivity rate has been a little higher recently, according to calculations by Johns Hopkins University, which estimates New Mexicos positivity rate at 3.7% for the seven-day period that ended Sunday.

The state has designated 6,974 people as having recovered.

Tighter rules

The decline in the rate of transmission to 1.0 comes after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and state health officials tightened New Mexicos mask mandate and announced plans for aggressive enforcement. They also reimposed a ban on indoor dining at restaurants.

Scrase said the spread rate often falls when case counts are high. People start to take more precautions, he said, because they either know someone whos sick or see the increased publicity about the virus.

The spread rate is now below the states target for its reopening plan  a transmission rate of 1.05.

Its just one of several standards set by New Mexico to guide when its safe to move into the next phase of relaxed restrictions on businesses and individuals.

As of Friday, the state was still falling short of some of its other goals  such as the time it takes contact tracers to get in touch with people who have either tested positive or come into contact with someone who has.

Mitchell, of Presbyterian, encouraged fellow New Mexicans to all do our part to help reduce the transmission rate and allow for a safe reopening.

We know that social distancing, wearing face masks and reducing mobility are how we gain control over a pandemic, he said.
The selected Running Mate of the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG), Mrs Margaret OBrien Sarfo has made a passionate appeal to the media to give her party equal platform that the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress are enjoying.



At an event to introduce boththe presidential candidate and his running mate in Accra yesterday, 13 national executives of the party were also acclaimed to aid the party to capture political power.



The Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG) has endorsed its Founder, Mr Kofi Akpaloo, as its presidential candidate in the upcoming general election.



In a similar fashion, it has also endorsed Mrs Margaret Obrian Sarfo, a business woman, as the running mate to support the party in its bid to win power in the upcoming elections.



This is the second time she has been considered as a Running Mate to Mr Kofi Akpaloo and as an ardent advocate for women and childrens right, Mrs Sarfo has won the admiration of many people who affectionately call her Aunty Maggie.



In her acceptance speech as Running Mate for the LPG at the National Conference on Tuesday July 21, 2020 in Accra at Marriot Hotel, the former General Secretary of the party assured victory her party as she is ready to work assiduously in order to implement their flagship Child and Unemployment Benefits Policies as promised by LPG.



I want to appeal to the media to offer the LPG the same space you give to the NPP and the NDC to propagate our election manifesto and activies. We want to be given the chance to share our views on issues about country so that Ghanaians can see what we can offer them, she appealed.



National Executive



The executive members are Mr John Ameka, National Chairman; Mrs Sophia Akpaloo, National First Vice-Chairman; Mrs Eunice Adu, National Third Vice-Chairman; Mrs Sarah Grant, General Secretary, and Mr Fleischer Lartey, National Organiser.



The rest are Mr Clement Boadi, National Youth Organiser; Mr Samuel Owusu Afriyie, National Communications Director; Alhaji Adam Sulley, National Zongo Coordinator; Mrs Krystle Houston, Director of International Relations, and Mr Jerry Owusu Appiah, Director of Operations and Elections.

In an address, Mr Akpaloo commended the national council for having confidence in him by electing him to lead the party in the upcoming elections.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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WASHINGTON - Bipartisan Capitol Hill talks have only just begun on a sweeping renewal of coronavirus legislation, but areas of likely agreement  and flashpoints of discord  are becoming apparent as the package starts to take shape.

The Democratic House passed a whopping $3.5 trillion coronavirus response bill more than two months ago, re-upping a $600 per week federal unemployment benefit that expires July 31, another round of $1,200 payments to most people and almost $1 trillion for cash-starved states and local governments. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is set to unveil a $1 trillion COVID-19 aid package on Thursday. The GOPs response will have far less money than the Democrats and will feature a sweeping liability shield for schools, businesses and charities that are trying to reopen. Its up to top congressional leaders to bridge the gaps.

A rundown of the top issues in play as the talks gain momentum.

___

LIKELY IN THE FINAL BILL

$1,200 direct payments. President Donald Trump, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell all agree that there should be another round of $1,200 direct payments to most Americans at a cost approaching $300 billion. Its seen as a slam dunk for inclusion despite grumbling that the aid isnt well targeted to those most in need.

Aid to schools/universities. Both the House and Senate bills contain $100 billion or more to help schools and universities through the crisis and reopen as soon as possible. The emerging GOP draft would dedicate half of a $70 billion school aid package to schools that resume in-school learning, Republicans say, with half going to those reopening with remote learning. Democrats are sure to oppose the idea.

Small business subsidies. The Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, has received $660 million to help generally smaller businesses weather the pandemic, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is pressing for more targeted to especially hard-hit sectors like restaurants. Democrats and Republicans have worked well together on the issue, and theres more than $100 billion in unspent PPP funding that they could re-purpose.

___

LIKELY IN THE BILL, BUT ONLY AFTER A FIGHT

State and local aid. A huge payment to state and local governments, including smaller cities left out of the huge $2 trillion CARES Act passed in March, is one of Pelosis core demands. Shes backed by a bipartisan gaggle of governors, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, and Republicans like Susan Collins of Maine. Supporters say the funding is crucial to boost the economy, to prevent a wave of layoffs and to alleviate cuts to education and health care. Republicans so far are only promising new flexibility on $150 billion in state and local funding that was allocated in the March, but Democrats will insist on far more.

Extension of jobless aid. A supplemental $600 per week federal pandemic unemployment insurance benefit that has kept millions of workers and households afloat expires on July 31. Democrats would extend the $600 through January 2021. Republicans want to slash the benefits because many workers make more on unemployment than they would if they were to reclaim their jobs. A robust fight is certain.

Liability shield. Businesses and school systems are among those seeking protection from lawsuits arising from coronavirus exposure. McConnell and John Cornyn, R-Texas, have drafted a plan promising to shield employers from ordinary negligence lawsuits, imposing a higher, though temporary, legal standard. Liability protections are a must-have for McConnell, but Democrats and the still-powerful trial lawyers lobby are sure to resist.

Business tax breaks. Republicans are pressing to extend both the employer retention tax credit, which helps businesses defray payroll costs, as well as the work opportunity tax credit, which subsidizes the hiring of disadvantaged workers. Those are likely to make it into the package, but lawmakers are unlikely to consider more ambitious tax breaks.

Election assistance. States are scrambling to expand their absentee and vote-by-mail capacities during the pandemic. The House bill contains $3.6 billion to pay for printing ballots, for postage costs, and for protective equipment and training for poll workers. Itll end up being far less, but key Republicans support the initiative, despite Trumps campaign against mail-in voting.

POSSIBLY OUT OF FINAL BILL

Payroll tax cut. Trump is pushing to temporarily reduce the 7.65% Social Security and Medicare payroll tax to boost take-home paychecks, but it has little buy-in from Senate Republicans, who are increasingly vocal in their opposition. Still, some version of it is likely to make it into McConnells draft. Democrats are firmly against it, and Trump may not have the leverage necessary to make it happen  though he is pushing hard.
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PHOENIX  Arizona schools won't be required to put kids back into classrooms next month.

But they will be required to make some sort of on-site learning available for parents who want it.

On Thursday, Gov. Doug Ducey and Arizona Schools Chief Kathy Hoffman abandoned what had been an Aug. 17 "aspirational" date to begin offering in-classroom education. And they did not replace it with any new target.

"It's not reasonable to set a date," Hoffman said. In fact, she said she doubts that any school would be ready to actually begin classroom instruction by that original target date.

Instead, the new executive order signed by the governor directs school boards and charter school operators to begin some sort of operations  even if just online  on what would have been their regular start date.

Tucson-area school leaders were working to understand on Thursday what Ducey's announcement means for the school year slated to begin in just a few weeks.

In the meantime, the Arizona Department of Health Services is supposed to come up with "public health benchmarks" by Aug. 7 that school officials will be required to consider when determining whether to open classrooms. But it will remain up to each entity to determine when they are ready for in-person learning.
Families generally take care of their own, especially the British royal family; its one of the reasons the Windsors have survived for so long.

This must be more obvious now to American federal prosecutors pressuring Prince Andrew, the shamed Duke of York, to help them with their investigation of two of his friends: the late Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, and Ghislaine Maxwell, the woman whos accused of helping Epstein recruit, groom and abuse girls.

Hows it going so far? Not so good, although we dont know what might be happening between governments behind closed doors in both countries, which have long enjoyed a special relationship as allies.

But publicly things appear to be at a stalemate in the struggle between the son of a sovereign and the federal Southern District of New York, where Epstein died in jail last year and where Maxwell has just been locked up on sex-trafficking charges until a trial next year.

Heres an update on the situation:

What do prosecutors want from Andrew?

They want him to help with their inquiries, as the British police usually put it. The Americans want him to talk to them as an alleged witness about their investigation of Epsteins and Maxwells alleged sex-trafficking of teen girls.

So far they have not explained publicly exactly how that assistance would work or where it would take place. Andrew is not charged with a crime or suspected of a crime, his lawyers have said. Also, the continuing COVID-19 pandemic complicates matters because of quarantines and lockdowns.

Since Andrew and Buckingham Palace continue to protest his innocence and ignorance of any wrongdoing, it seems unlikely that royal lawyers are going to allow him to fly to New York for a chat that carries even the remote potential of ending with his arrest.

What have prosecutors got so far?

They say theyve had no co-operation from Andrew and Buckingham Palace. It is not clear whether theyve had any co-operation from the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

The former U.S. Attorney for the SDNY, Geoffrey Berman, took the unusual step of publicly declaring in January that Andrew had provided zero co-operation, despite earlier promises to do so. Andrew had completely shut the door on voluntary co-operation, Berman said.

Five months later, Berman was fired by U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, apparently for other reasons. But Bermans replacement renewed the call for Andrew to come in.

We would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk to us. We would like to have the benefit of his statement, said Audrey Strauss, the acting U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, in announcing Maxwells arrest earlier this month.

Andrew, according to his legal team, has three times offered his assistance to the Americans.

Unfortunately, the (Justice Department) has reacted to the first two offers by breaching their own confidentiality rules and claiming that the duke has offered zero co-operation, the lawyers statement said. In doing so, they are perhaps seeking publicity rather than accepting the assistance proffered.

What about the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between the U.S. and U.K.?

Last month, according to anonymous sources leaking to media in both countries, the Justice Department formally requested that British authorities interview Andrew in connection with the Epstein investigation under the treaty governing mutual assistance in criminal cases.

This process is opaque by design. But its not hard to imagine that Andrews legal team would resist such a move since its reserved for criminal cases.

In their previous discussions with federal prosecutors, the princes lawyers said they were advised ... that the duke is not and has never been a target of their criminal investigations into Epstein and that they sought his confidential, voluntary co-operation.

Who else wants to grill Andrew?

Who doesnt? For months, American accusers of Epstein have been publicly assailing Andrew for failing to submit to prosecutors, led by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who says she was forced to have sex with Andrew when she was 17 in 2001.

Lawyers for these accusers, including Gloria Allred, her daughter Lisa Bloom, and David Boies, who represents Giuffre, have regularly appeared in the media in the U.S. and in Britain since Epstein died, hinting that Andrew knows something about sex crimes and insisting he talk to them and to investigators.

Last year, Boies told the BBC that he planned to serve subpoenas to force the prince to testify as a witness in the civil cases hes pursuing. Andrew says he has no information on sex trafficking and never saw anything suspicious during his visits to Epsteins homes. In an interview with The Mail on Sunday in May, Boies said he has reached out to Andrew and his lawyers and been ignored.

Last week, Allred, who represents 17 Epstein accusers in civil suits, went on Fox News The Story to continue the pressure on Andrew.

Its time for Prince Andrew to stop dragging his feet, making excuses, Allred said. He needs to just step up to the plate, as many other people have, and tell everything that he knows sooner rather than later. The victims deserve it.

How have the Windsors responded to the Andrew problem?

The palace continues to insist, as it has since 2015 when his friendship with Epstein blew up in a global scandal, that Andrew has committed no wrongdoing. But he was stripped of his royal role in the wake of his train wreck interview last year with the BBC, in which he defended his friendship with Epstein and failed to express any sympathy for his accusers.

Andrew, eighth in line to the throne, is said to be Queen Elizabeth IIs favourite of her four children, so subjecting him to a forced early retirement could not have been easy, if necessary.

The queen has made several subtle but public gestures of support for Andrew while at the same time making sure hes not front and centre. When Andrews elder daughter, Princess Beatrice, got married in private last week, her dad walked her down the aisle, the palace said, but he was nowhere to be seen in the official photographs.

Instead, her grandparents, the queen, 94, and Prince Philip, 99, stood socially distanced beside the bride and groom  and beamed.

The Queen shows support for scandal-hit Andrew by attending Princess Beatrices surprise wedding, said the headline in The Sun, a fierce critic of Andrew.

Could federal prosecutors subpoena or indict Andrew?

This appears unlikely, thus the public pressure campaign against Andrew.

Lawyers dismiss the possibility that Andrew could face criminal charges in the U.S., partly because of the statute of limitations and partly because he arguably would have immunity as a foreign royal.

British law has to be taken into account, too: According to The Independent in London, if a subpoena were issued to compel his testimony in the U.S., he would not be obliged to comply unless he happened to be in the U.S.

Certainly, if he ever came back to the United States, that would be one of the first things that Im sure a lot of lawyers, including me, would want to do, Allred told BBC Radio in January.

Also, the British Evidence Act of 1975 says a person shall not be compelled ... to give any evidence if his doing so would be prejudicial to the security of the United Kingdom. Indicting the queens son would likely fall into that category.

How did Andrew know Jeffrey Epstein?

According to British media, they were friends for more than two decades; their relationship is often cited as evidence of Andrews alleged poor judgment.

The Guardian reported that Andrew met Epstein in the 1990s after being introduced by Maxwell, Epsteins girlfriend and employee at the time.

In 2011, Andrews ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, to whom he is still close, acknowledged that Epstein had once loaned her money to pay off her debts. According to The Telegraph, she apologized for a gigantic error of judgment.

How does Andrew know Maxwell?

Andrew and Maxwell also go way back: In his BBC interview he said he knew Maxwell when she was an undergraduate at Oxford in the 1980s, and later she was a key element in his friendship with Epstein.

Maxwell eventually became a leading London socialite, frequently pictured at parties, galas and royal social events, including with Andrew. She became an American citizen and made new and powerful friends, including President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton, whose daughters wedding she attended in 2010.

Epstein and Maxwell were pictured with Trump and his now-wife Melania at Mar-a-Lago in 2000. On Tuesday, Trump offered sympathetic words to Maxwell, whom hes met numerous times in Palm Beach. I just wish her well, frankly, Trump said during a news conference.

The pressure on Andrew has increased with Maxwells arrest, but one of Maxwells friends, a former investment banker named Laura Goldman, predicted to multiple British outlets that Maxwell would never turn on Andrew.

How did the allegations against Andrew come to light?

In early 2015, Giuffre accused Epstein, Maxwell and others of paying her as a teenager to sexually service Epstein, Andrew and some of Epsteins other rich friends.

She made these claims, denied emphatically by Andrew and Buckingham Palace, when she was seeking to join a lawsuit filed in Florida against Epstein.

However, the judge in the case ruled that her claims regarding Andrew were immaterial and impertinent to her legal argument about joining the lawsuit. He ordered that her claims be struck from the record.

What did Andrew and the palace say at the time?

In a rare move, Buckingham Palace issued three increasingly emphatic statements in early January 2015 denying that Andrew had sex with Giuffre at any time or with anyone else underage.

And in an even rarer move, a few weeks later Andrew himself issued a denial when he appeared in Davos, Switzerland, where he hosted a British trade reception.

I just wish to reiterate and to reaffirm the statements which have already been made on my behalf by Buckingham Palace, Andrew said, according to The Associated Press. He went on to say: My focus is on my work.

British royals do not usually go public to denounce accusations the way Americans routinely do. Most of the time, palace spokespeople dont even bother to issue denials about the deluge of allegations, real, ridiculous or imagined.

But this was different: It was a potentially ruinous allegation, worse than anything else that has been thrown at the royals.

Andrew was reported to have told the queen that he was innocent. And his ex-wife, Sarah, jumped to defend him a few days after the allegations surfaced.

He is the greatest man there is, she told reporters. The best man in the world.
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Gold prices rose on Thursday and hovered near nine-year highs reached the previous day, driven by an escalation in U.S.-China tensions and expectations of more stimulus as global coronavirus cases grow by more than a million a week. Spot gold rose 0.6 percent to $1,882.57 per ounce, while U.S. gold futures were up 0.9 percent at $1,881.40 per ounce. The Trump administration's decision to close China's consulate in Houston over concerns about spying has sent U.S.-China relations to a new low. China vowed to retaliate and said the unilateral closure within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China. Meanwhile, U.S. deaths from the coronavirus rose by more than 1100 for a second day in a row Wednesday, while total cases neared 4 million. Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro again tested positive for the novel coronavirus, but the head of state was nevertheless 'in good condition', the president's office said. The three worst-hit countries- the U.S., Brazil, and India-account for nearly half of all confirmed cases globally and more than 40 percent of fatalities. Researchers are making 'good progress' in developing vaccines against Covid-19, but their first use cannot be expected until early 2021, a World Health Organization (WHO) expert said. On the stimulus front, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to put forward the Republican version of another comprehensive stimulus relief package-including a second stimulus check-later today. 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.
Two years ago, when Kanye West suddenly fired his manager and lawyer and professed his love for 'my brother' Donald Trump, his wife Kim Kardashian lashed out at the media for 'trying to demonize my husband.'

In an angry series of tweets, she raged that the media's 'commentary on Kanye being erratic and disturbing' is 'actually scary'.

She added: 'So quick to label him as having mental health issues for just being himself when he has always been expressive is not fair. Mental Health is no joke and the media needs to stop spitting that out so casually. Bottom line.'

Yesterday, the same Kim Kardashian reacted very different way to Kanye's latest outburst of erratic and disturbing tweets about HER and their own family.

Two years ago, when Kanye West suddenly fired his manager and lawyer and professed his love for 'my brother' Donald Trump, his wife Kim Kardashian lashed out at the media for 'trying to demonize my husband'

Yesterday, Kim posted an Instagram story which started: 'Kanye has bi-polar disorder. Anyone who has this or has a loved one in their life who does knows how complicated it is to understand.' She then continued: 'I understand Kanye is subject to criticism because he is a public figure and his actions at times can cause strong opinions and emotions'

Kim ended her story by saying 'we as a society talk about giving grace to the issue of mental health, however we should also give it to the individuals who are living with it in times when they need it the most'

'Kanye has bi-polar disorder,' she wrote in a lengthy Instagram post. 'Anyone who has this or has a loved one in their life who does, knows how incredibly complicated and painful it is to understand. I've never spoken publicly about how this has affected us at home because I am very protective of our children and Kanye's right to privacy when it comes to his health.

'But today, I feel like I should comment on it because off the stigma and misconceptions about mental health. Those that understand mental illness or even compulsive behavior know that the family is powerless unless the member is a minor. I understand Kanye is subject to criticism because he is a public figure and his actions at times can cause strong opinions and emotions.

'He is a brilliant but complicated person who on top of the pressures of being an artist and a black man, who experienced the painful loss of his mother, and has to deal with the pressure and isolation that is heightened by his bi-polar disorder. Those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words some times do not align with his intentions.'

She continued: 'People who are unaware or far removed from this experience can be judgmental and not understand that the individual themselves have to engage in the process of getting help no matter how hard family and friends try. Living with bi-polar disorder does not diminish or invalidate his dreams and his creative ideas, no matter how big or unobtainable they may feel to some. That is part of his genius and as we have all witnessed, many of his big dreams have come true.'

Kim ended with this plea: 'We as a society talk about giving grace to the issue of mental health as a whole, however we should also give it to the individuals who are living with it in times when they need it the most. I kindly ask that the media and public give us the compassion and empathy that is needed so that we can get through this.'

Kanye West met with Donald Trump at the White House in October 2018

Kim Kardashian also met with Donald Trump in June 2019 at an event on criminal justice reform

First, let me acknowledge that it was good to see her finally speaking about Kanye's mental illness.

I urged her to do something about his humiliating public self-implosion, in a column I posted on Monday, and she did.

It even emerged that she had tried that same day to get Kanye the medical treatment he so clearly needs, something I specifically urged her to do.

I also agree with her that bi-polar is a very complicated and painful condition that must cause huge stress for any family which has a member suffering from it.

And she's right that Kanye is a sick man who deserves our compassion and empathy, even if there there's something vaguely ridiculous about a Kardashian asking for privacy given how cynically and ruthlessly they've commercialised every aspect of their private lives for the past decade.

But none of her eloquent words yesterday, which attracted widespread praise and sympathy, give Kim Kardashian a pass for her complicit behaviour from the moment Kanye declared he was running for president on July 5.

In an angry series of tweets two years ago, Kim Kardashian raged that the media's 'commentary on Kanye being erratic and disturbing' is 'actually scary'

Before posting an Instagram story addressing Kanye West's bipolar disorder, Kim endorsed his bid for the presidency by retweeting his announcement with a picture of the American flag to her six million followers

It was obviously the very last thing anyone suffering from bi-polar should be doing.

For any doubt about this, consider what Kanye himself said about what he experiences when he has an 'episode' like the one that ended up with him being hospitalised in 2016 for a 'psychiatric emergency.'

In May last year, Kanye appeared on David Letterman's Netflix show 'My Next Guest Needs No Introduction' and said: 'When you're in this state, you're hyper-paranoid about everything. Everyone now is an actor. Everything's a conspiracy. You feel the government is putting chips in your head. You feel you're being recorded. You feel all these things. You feel everyone wants to kill you. You pretty much don't trust anyone.'

He added about his hospitalisation: 'They have this moment where they handcuff you, they drug you, they put you on the bed, and they separate you from everyone you know.'

Self-evidently, someone who suffers such severe episodes like this should not be President of the United States.

Yet, Kim Kardashian watched her sick husband say he intended to run for president and enthusiastically endorsed it on the same day by retweeting his announcement with an emoji of an American flag.

Four days later, on July 9, she retweeted Kanye's link to how to register to vote for him that he posted with the hashtag #2020vision.

These were both very significant contributions to his campaign, given that Kim has 65 million followers on Twitter alone.

They were also an outrageously irresponsible act by a woman who put the gleeful thought of possibly becoming First Lady above the country's national interests.

Kim has known for at least four years, from when Kanye was first hospitalised and diagnosed, that his bi-polar mental illness makes him a very unstable person prone to severe episodes where he often behaves in a dangerously erratic manner.

Yet she still threw her huge social media firepower behind his presidential bid, knowing it would be a potential catastrophe if he actually won.

Kanye West was pictured with Cody, Wyoming with friend Damon Dash after shopping at a local Walmart and visiting a bank

Kim and Kanye have four children together, North, 7, Saint, 5, Chicago, 2, and Psalm, 1

Can you imagine the scenario if he had a bad episode at the same moment the US was suddenly faced with a nuclear crisis?

And to those who say Kanye could never become president, I simply remind them that we currently have another billionaire celebrity in the Oval Office who propelled himself to electoral victory in 2016 through erratic antics, inflammatory statements, Twitter storms and gargantuan media attention.

Kim said yesterday that Kanye's bi-polar disorder shouldn't 'diminish or invalidate his dreams, no matter how big or unobtainable they may feel to some.'

In the main, I agree - but it should absolutely prevent him running for president.

That's not perpetuating any stigma about mental illness - I have incredible sympathy for anyone who is bi-polar and sincerely hope Kanye gets the help he needs - it's just a cold hard very obvious fact.

So before everyone goes overboard with their cheers for Kim Kardashian's 'inspiring courage' in speaking out about her husband's mental illness, remember that she vilified the media as liars for saying the same thing two years ago, and she was prepared to put her own chilling ambition before Kanye's health and America's interests to back his presidential run.

Sorry, but that's not something I feel like cheering.
Anunt de selectare a participantilor si participantelor la cel de-al doilea curs de instruire din cadrul Programului educational pentru dezvoltarea competentelor lucratorilor de tineret




TOKYO, July 23, 2020 - (JCN Newswire) - Mazda Motor Corporation would like to express our sympathy and concern for all those who have been suffering from the novel coronavirus outbreak and extend our condolences to the families of the deceased.Mazda has been making our inventory levels appropriate through production adjustments carried out since the end of March due to the spread of the novel coronavirus. Now, almost all Mazda dealerships worldwide have resumed sales operations.Considering the current situations as well as future forecasts up to September, Mazda has decided to return operations to normal or to pre-production adjustment levels starting from August. This means we are going to end in July all adjustments implemented at plants in Japan, Mexico, and Thailand due to the spread of the novel coronavirus. Overtime hours and work on holidays will resume for all plants in Japan. We plan to continue normal operations from September and onwards. However, we will respond cautiously and flexibly as we consider the risk of a second wave of the virus, all while carefully watching the situation of the spread of the novel coronavirus as well as the trend of automobile demand in each market where our vehicles are shipped.Furthermore, we will continue our initiatives to support medical professionals who work tirelessly every day on the front lines to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, as well as other efforts including providing support for our local business partners and reducing our employees' use of public transportation when commuting.About MazdaMazda Motor Corporation (TSE: 7261) started manufacturing tools in 1929 and soon branched out into production of trucks for commercial use. In the early 1960s, Mazda launched its first passenger car models and began developing rotary engines. Still headquartered in Hiroshima in western Japan, Mazda today ranks as one of Japan's leading automakers, and exports cars to the United States and Europe for over 30 years. For more information, please visit www.mazda.comSource: MazdaCopyright 2020 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
Rebels from al-Qaida affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra sit on a truck full of ammunition after capturing an air base in Idlib province in northern Syria. (Anonymous/AP)

American hopes of winning more influence over Syrias fractious rebel movement faded Wednesday after 11 of the biggest armed factions repudiated the Western-backed opposition coalition and announced the formation of a new alliance dedicated to creating an Islamic state.

The al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, designated a terrorist organization by the United States, is the lead signatory of the new group, which will further complicate fledgling U.S. efforts to provide lethal aid to moderate rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Others include the Tawheed Brigade, the biggest Free Syrian Army unit in the northern city of Aleppo; Liwa al-Islam, the largest rebel group in the capital, Damascus; and Ahrar al-Sham, the most successful nationwide franchise of mostly Syrian Salafist fighters. Collectively, the new front, which does not yet have a formal name but has been dubbed by its members the Islamist Alliance, claims to represent 75 percent of the rebels fighting to topple Assad.

Gen. Salim Idriss, the head of the moderate Supreme Military Council and the chief conduit for U.S. aid to the rebels, cut short a visit to Paris after the announcement of the alliance overnight Tuesday and will head to Syria on Thursday to attempt to persuade the factions to reconsider, according to the councils spokesman, Louay al-Mokdad.

The new alliance stressed that it was not abandoning Idrisss council, only the exiled political opposition coalition, which, it said in a statement, does not represent us.

Timeline: Unrest in Syria Two years after the first anti-government protests, conflict in Syria rages on. See the major events in the country's tumultuous uprising.

The creation of the bloc nonetheless leaves Idrisss council directly responsible for just a handful of small units, calling into question the utility of extending aid to moderate rebels, according to Charles Lister of the London-based defense consultancy IHS Janes.

If the development holds, he said, it will likely prove the most significant turning point in the evolution of Syrias anti-government insurgency to date.

The scope for Western influence over the Syrian opposition has now been diminished considerably, he added.

Mokdad acknowledged that by aligning themselves with Jabhat al-Nusra, the other rebel factions could jeopardize hopes of receiving outside military help, just as the Obama administration says it is starting to step up its support after more than a year of hesitation.

But, he said, the United States and its allies are to blame, for failing repeatedly to deliver on promises to provide assistance as the death toll in Syria, now well over 100,000, steadily mounted.

The development appeared to take the Obama administration by surprise. A senior State Department official, briefing reporters Tuesday night on a meeting at the United Nations between Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Syrian Opposition Coalition Chairman Ahmad al-Jarba, was unaware of the rebel announcement that had been made several hours earlier.

In a statement Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that officials had seen the reports and were discussing with the moderate opposition what impact this will have going forward.

A divided opposition benefits the Assad regime and opportunists who are using the conflict to further their own extreme agenda, Psaki said. U.S. aid would continue, she said, taking into account that alliances and associations often change on the ground based on resources and needs of the moment.

At a time when the United States and Russia are accelerating efforts to hold a peace conference in Geneva that would bring together the government and the opposition, the defection of some of the most significant rebel factions comes as a reminder that any negotiated settlement will also have to take into account the wishes of those who wield power on the ground, said Amr al-Azm, a history professor at Shawnee State University in Ohio who is Syrian and supports the opposition.

Azm said he does not believe the mainstream factions have embraced Jabhat al-Nusras extremist ideology. Rather, he said, the brigades on the ground are sending a major shot across the bows of the coalition before talks in Geneva. They are essentially reminding them that they will need to include them.

This is why you have a lot of moderates and extremists banding together, because otherwise its not a natural fit, he added.

Mokdad said that Idriss had called some of the rebel leaders Wednesday, and they told us they signed this because they lost all hope in the international community.

They said: We are really tired, Bashar al-Assad is killing us, all the West is betraying us, and they want to negotiate with the regime over our blood. 

Abu Hassan, a spokesman for the Tawheed Brigade in Aleppo, echoed those sentiments, citing rebel disappointment with the Obama administrations failure to go ahead with threatened airstrikes to punish Assad for using chemical weapons in the suburbs of Damascus last month, as well as its decision to strike a deal with Russia over ways to negotiate a solution.

Jabhat al-Nusra is a Syrian military formation that fought the regime and played an active role in liberating many locations, he said. So we dont care about the stand of those who dont care about our interests.

The statement issued by the rebel groups and read on video by a Tawheed commander attributed their decision mostly to dissatisfaction with the Syrian Opposition Coalition, made up of exiled politicians who have struggled to win support among Syrians in the country even as they have courted the international community.

But the Islamist alliances creation also coincides with growing concerns among mainstream rebels about the rapid ascent of the other main al-Qaeda affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which expanded into Syria from Iraq earlier this year and has recently taken up arms against other rebel factions to extend its control over rebel territory.

Although the statement did not mention the Islamic State, Abu Hassan acknowledged that the new alliance is also intended to confront anyone who might harm the security and safety of the Syrian citizen in the liberated areas, and solve differences using weapons instead of going to court.

He was referring to the recent battles in which the Islamic State wrested control of the northern Aleppo provincial town of Azaz from the local rebel faction, the Northern Storm brigade. There have been other clashes, too, in recent weeks, in the eastern cities of Raqqah, Deir el-Zour and several smaller towns where the Islamic State has succeeded in trouncing more moderate groups.

Jabhat al-Nusra, which was established by a Syrian commander from the Islamic State in 2011, regards itself as less extreme even as it acknowledges its allegiance to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. It has also become one of the chief victims of the Islamic States expansion.

Although its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, has resisted the Islamic States efforts to merge with Jabhat al-Nusra, many fighters left him to join the Iraqi group, and his fighters have been forced to withdraw from a number of towns they had controlled.

In recent weeks, the group has been quietly recruiting support for an effort to confront the Islamic State, according to two rebel fighters in northern Syria.

Ahmad Ramadan in Beirut and Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.


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As the world grapples with the toll of the coronavirus pandemic, scientists are warning the funding needed to prevent the next zoonotic disease outbreak is severely lacking  leaving everyone vulnerable.

The price tag for protecting and monitoring pristine forests and wildlife trade where diseases emerge is an estimated $22.2 billion to $30.7 billion, according to the report in the journal Science.

While hefty, it pales in comparison to the minimum of $8.1 trillion in losses globally resulting from the current pandemic, the report said.

Everybody has a vested interest in stopping it from happening again, Andrew Dobson, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University and the lead author of the research, said.

New epidemics  such as SARS, MERS and HIV  appear to emerge every four or five years, he said.

Investing in research including genetic libraries of viruses would hasten the response from testing to vaccine development when new diseases emerge, he added.

And to catch the disease spillover from animals to humans at the source, there needs to be a global push to reduce deforestation and restrict and monitor wildlife trade, as well as livestock.

"If you're worried about safety and protection, the cost of doing this is less than 2 percent of the military spending by the top 10 militarized countries in the world," Dobson said.

People wearing protective face masks shop at a chicken stall at a wet market in Shanghai on Feb. 13, 2020. (Noel Celis / AFP via Getty Images)

There are examples in which monitoring health, wildlife and the environment in collaboration have shown promise.

In the late 1990s and the early 2000s, deep in the forests of Central Africa, carcasses of gorillas and chimpanzees infected by the Ebola virus sparked outbreaks among humans after hunters unknowingly consumed the infected meat, according to Johannes Refisch, program manager for the United Nations Great Apes Survival Partnership.

Programs to monitor the health of both the wildlife and the people were established in Gabon, the Republic of Congo and other countries to detect the disease earlier, said Refisch, who contributed to a similar U.N. report on the prevention of pandemics earlier this year.

Story continues

"If our monitoring system can detect the disease, we can have hopefully enough time to get some medical doctors in and find a response. This is important for research but also gives local communities better protection," he said.

But such programs aren't pervasive enough to keep up with the threats.

A new outbreak of Ebola was declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo on June 1 by the World Health Organization, just weeks before a previous outbreak in another region of the country was finally over.

Rampant deforestation and wildlife trade are two major causes of disease spillover.

As human populations encroach on natural environments, the exposure to wildlife  including bats or rats  that carry diseases is increased, experts say. But there also are other compounding factors.

It's not always that when we destroy a forest, then a new disease will come up," Refisch said, adding that climate change and its effect on rain and temperature could be affecting how and when diseases emerge.

Hogs stand in a pen on the Francis Gilmore farm near Perry, Iowa, on April 28, 2009, near Perry, Iowa. (Charlie Neibergall / AP)

Wildlife markets and trade, in addition to domesticated animals, across the world pose high risks for disease spread, particularly in countries that don't have the resources to enforce regulations on the industry.

"It's a horrible hygiene situation packing live, dead, wild, domestic animals together," the World Wildlife Fund's Margaret Kinnaird, who co-authored Thursday's report.

Regional and international agencies already exist to regulate wildlife trade, but these groups are vastly underfunded and lack the mandate and coordination to look for zoonotic diseases, the report said.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which oversees wildlife trafficking, has an annual budget of $6 million.

At the regional level, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has a mere $30,000 allocated annually for wildlife trade monitoring, the report said.

Yet, the scale of the industry far outpaces that with the value of illegal wildlife trade pegged at as much as $23 billion in 2016, according to the World Bank.

Scientists are calling for agencies monitoring wildlife to be funded $500 million annually in order to prevent the next pandemic.

Funding in a similar range is also needed for the livestock industry where diseases such as swine and avian flu are known to emerge around the world.

But particularly for poorer countries, governments tend to prioritize other sectors above disease control, Bernard Bett, a senior scientist for the International Livestock Research Institute, said.

"It's only when you have major pandemics like now when people are coming up, 'Oh, yeah, we should be looking at these issues,'" he said.

The investments in prevention come with cost benefits beyond averting a pandemic. Protecting forest ecosystems offers $18.6 billion annually by reducing carbon emissions, Thursday's report said.

Maintaining biodiversity also prevents a species from being wiped out when diseases strike and improves other resources that humans rely on, such as soil and water.

"We need to get a handle on our really broken relationship with nature," Kinnaird said.
The Congress on Thursday alleged that China is carrying out construction work along the border in Ladakh despite talks and asked the government about its policy and strategy to stop Chinese transgressions and protect Indian territory.

Congress's senior spokesperson Ajay Maken demanded answers from the government over "Chinese occupation in Pangong Tso Lake and Depsang areas", saying the PLA is "yet to return" to its original positions.

He also posed a set of questions to the government in this regard, asking what was its strategy to push back the Chinese and maintain status quo ante as on May 2020.

He also asked whether it is correct that China "continues to occupy 8 km of our territory in Pangong Tso Lake area between Finger 4 to Finger 8" and how the Modi government proposes to push back the Chinese Army behind the LAC and behind Finger 8 into their own territory.

"We are all watching how the Chinese PLA is building inside the Depsang area and Daulat Beg Oldi area. But we do not see any response or preparation from the Indian government.

"Surprisingly, if we are arriving at no solution through a dialogue, then what is our government doing," Maken asked at a virtual press conference.

"Is it correct that China is continuing construction in Daulat Beg Oldi and Depsang Sector? What is our government's policy and strategy to ensure our territory is protected and the Chinese transgressions and the constructions are stopped," he further asked.

There can never be a compromise on national security or territorial integrity of India, he said, adding that this is a cardinal principle and a non-negotiable and uncompromisable principle that every citizen, countrymen and every congressman have repeated umpteen times.

"The facts also now demonstrate an extremely worrying picture," he said.

Maken said harsh winters are approaching and the Chinese PLA is not moving back as per reported agreements among the corps commanders.
Kin Man Hui /Staff photographer

Mayor Ron Nirenberg reminded San Antonio  in Spanish this time  to not go to a friends house and to stay home as coronavirus cases show very little signs of decreasing in Bexar County.

Nirenberg uploaded a video Wednesday on his Facebook account, naming it "Estamos juntos en esto, San Antonio," which translates to, "We are all in this together, San Antonio." In the video, he stresses to San Antonians that their choices and activities can have a negative effect on the community during this time.
WASHINGTONWednesday night, federal agents tear-gassed the mayor of Portland, neatly encapsulating U.S. President Donald Trumps current reelection strategy.

Losing the war he declared on coronavirus, Trump has shown himself eager to ramp up another war: one fought in the streets , and aimed squarely at his opponents in the Democratic party.

Ted Wheeler, a Democrat who as mayor and police commissioner has been a target of the protesters, joined the demonstration Wednesday night to object to the presence of federal Department of Homeland Security forces sent by Trump to quell the protests. The governor of Oregon has also objected to the federal presence. Many of the actions of the combat-fatigue-clad officers are said to be unconstitutional, including snatching protesters off the street without probable cause. Since the arrival of the federal agents and the nightly conflict they provoke, Portland residents have responded by joining the protests. Theyve grown from a few dozen committed activists to thousands of marchers, including a Wall of Moms in bike helmets, and Dads carrying leaf blowers to clear tear gas.

Federal forces in Portland, defended vocally by Trump, have beaten and pepper-sprayed a U.S. Navy veteran. They have tear-gassed the moms. They tear-gassed the mayor. Theyre not backing down. Theyre ramping up.

Hours earlier on Wednesday, Trump formally announced he was expanding the initiative to send federal agents out to police Democratic-party-led cities in a press conference at the White House. In recent weeks, there has been a radical movement to defund, dismantle, and dissolve our police departments, Trump said, linking the protest movement to a rise in violent crime, though experts have not attributed the latter to the former. Today, Im announcing a surge of federal law enforcement into American communities plagued by violent crime.

Trump said he would immediately send Department of Justice agents to Chicago, suggesting local leaders had abdicated their crime-fighting obligations. He suggested the initiative would spread to other cities, such as Albuquerque, New Mexico. This policing of violent crime was different than the security crackdown in Portland, though Trump made clear both are part of the same presidential law-and-order initiative.

Trump said federal agents would be sent to cities run by very liberal Democrats such as Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit and Baltimore. They should want it, he said Wednesday, Theyre too proud or theyre too political to do that.

Politics are driving Trumps decision-making, and his portrayal of it. When he first promised the surge to Democratic party-run cities, comparing Portland and Chicago to Afghanistan, he said, If Biden got in, that would be true for the country. The whole country would go to hell.

That has been the singular thrust of Trumps recent campaign messages. In the 20 days leading up to Tuesday, the New York Times reported, the Trump campaign has spent $20 million (83 per cent of its total ad spending) on law and order-focused ads. One depicts an older woman attacked while on hold because 911 has been defunded; others show confrontations between demonstrators and police. You wont be safe in Joe Bidens America, reads the tag line in one.

Most of the images displayed in the ads took place in President Trumps America. One  showing protesters attacking a police officer  wasnt America at all: it shows a 2014 protest in Ukraine (one among many distortions critics have pointed out in the ads). Accuracy doesnt appear to be the point. Theyre stirring up fear.

And Trump is demonstrating a response to that fear in real time, sending federal agents to police cities. If that turns out to be unconstitutional, that may be besides the point. If local officials object, that may be even better, especially if those officials are Democrats.

Since the infamous church photo-op in Washington that saw peaceful protesters gassed so Trump could walk through  which escalated a confrontation with Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser  Trumps strategy has been to portray protesters as dangerous anarchists and himself as ready to send armed troops to fight a war against them while Biden and Democrats will not. Doing so often provokes confrontations and creates more footage of chaotic conflict in the streets. Those images are part of the point  appearing to justify the police presence, and to justify increasing it. When local Democratic leaders, like Bowser and Wheeler, object, Trump portrays it as evidence of their weakness. Constitutional boundaries are stretched. Protesters are gassed, beaten, arrested. But the ultimate targets are Trumps political opponents.

A Democratic mayor tear-gassed by Trumps troops while standing with protesters in the streets of his own city? Thats the whole strategy in a nutshell.

Read more about:
The lawsuit brought by Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, seen above in London, says that "certain paparazzi ... have crossed a red line for any parent." (Associated Press)

Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex newly ensconced in a Beverly Hills gated community, have struck out against Los Angeles' paparazzi with a lawsuit over harassment at home.

The complaint filed Thursday in L.A. County Superior Court alleges unnamed individuals photographed their 14-month-old son Archie in their backyard as they hunkered down during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The invasion of privacy lawsuit leans on California's law to rein in paparazzi, which made photographing or filming anyone in their homes by use of drone or telephoto lens illegal. Because the couple doesn't know who took the shots, the suit targets unnamed defendants as a way to allow them to pursue, through subpoenas, anyone peddling the photos.

Every individual and family member in California is guaranteed by law the right to privacy in their home," said Michael J. Kump, the couple's attorney and partner at Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert LLP. "No drones, helicopters or telephoto lenses can take away that right. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are filing this lawsuit to protect their young sons right to privacy in their home without intrusion by photographers, and to uncover and stop those who seek to profit from these illegal actions.

The suit describes a life besieged by drones and photographers tracking the pair from country to country and now trained on their new home, with helicopters flying overhead and photographers cutting holes in their security fences.

The royal couple said in their complaint they are not looking for any special treatment, and expect they will be trailed by media when out in public, but draw the line on incursions into their home life.

The suit, while unconnected to any other litigation, comes as Meghan Markle is suing a U.K. newspaper for publishing a letter she wrote to her father.

"The family has tried to ignore these physical and constructive trespasses as best they can. ... But the plaintiffs recently learned that certain paparazzi and their enablers have crossed a red line for any parent," Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, said in their suit. "The plaintiffs will not allow the tabloids to break the law, especially when it involves intimidation, harassment and the addition of a very real security threat on top of what already exists."

Story continues

The couple's every move has been scrutinized since their highly public departure from British royal life as senior members of the family.

Harry and Meghan have dropped previous plans for a foundation called Sussex Royal and instead are already working on initiatives for a new charitable venture they have named Archewell.

They have been photographed out and about in L.A., delivering food for the needy earlier this year and working more recently to help promote the L.A. nonprofit Homeboy Industries.
EU negotiator Michel Barnier blasted the UK today as he warned a trade deal is 'unlikely' before the end of the year.

He lashed out at Britain over its hardline position on fishing rights in territorial waters after the transition period ends on December 31 as talks ended without breakthrough in London.

Mr Barnier used a press conference to warn that the EU would not accept a deal that resulted in the 'partial destruction' of the EU fishing industry, but would continue with talks to 'the last moment'.

'By its current refusal to commit to conditions of open and fair competition and to a balanced agreement on fisheries, the UK makes a trade agreement - at this point - unlikely,' Mr Barnier said.

Speaking after this week's round of negotiations in London, Barnier said there been no progress at all on the question of ensuring fairness on state aid.

'The time for answers is quickly running out,' he told a news conference, referring to the five months left before the end of Britain's transition period since it formally left the EU at the end of January. 'If we do not reach an agreement on our future partnership there will be more friction.'

UK negotiator David Frost admitted 'considerable gaps' remain between the two sides but help out hope for a deal to be struck after some concession in other areas of conflict.

But he confirmed the two sides remained at loggerheads over fishing rights in UK waters and the 'level playing field' on standards.

In a statement this morning Mr Frost said: 'When the next round of negotiations begins there will be not much more than four months left until the end of the transition period.

'Although we will continue energetically to seek an agreement with the EU, we must face the possibility that one will not be reached, and we must therefore continue preparing for all possible scenarios for the end of the transition period at the end of this year.

Mr Barnier used a press conference to warn that the EU would not accept a deal that resulted in the 'partial destruction' of the EU fishing industry, but would continue with talks to 'the last moment'.

Boris Johnson was in Orkney today to support the UK fishing industry

No agreement has been reached over a dispute mechanism but the EU has recognised that the European Court of Justice is a sticking point for the UK, said a Government source.

Speaking to reporters, the senior source involved in the talks said: 'No... we are in the talks process and we're both exploring where we are.

'But what I think is clear is that they have understood that the presence of the Court of Justice in an agreement between us is essentially a non-starter for us for all the obvious reasons.

'They have indicated flexibility on this - we don't know exactly what that means but they have obviously heard and understood that point of concern to us.'

They added that there was 'a lot of precedents' in free trade deals for the 'kind of dispute resolutions we could have'.

Discussing a deal by September, they added: 'It can be done, there is a way to do it, but we cannot be sure we will get there.'

Britain is keen to strike out alone after Brexit, pursuing trade deals with other countries and setting its own sanctions regime, and again Frost said the EU's proposals failed to meet the government's demand to be treated as an independent country.

Frost said the chance of reaching an 'early understanding on the principles underlying any agreement' would not be reached in July, with the two sides unable to breach the gap over fair competition and fisheries.

Mr Barnier said: 'In June the Prime Minister Boris Johnson told us that he wanted to reach a political agreement quickly.

'The Prime Minister also stated three red lines.

'Number one; no role for the European Court of Justice in the UK.

'Number two; the right to determine future UK laws without constraints.

'Number three; an agreement on fisheries that shows that Brexit makes a real difference compared to the existing situation.

'We have tried to understand how these three red lines can be squared with our commitment to a comprehensive new partnership as set out in the Political Deceleration signed by Prime Minister Johnson on 17 of October last year.'

He said the EU had engaged 'sincerely', adding: 'Over the past few weeks the UK has not shown the same level of engagement and readiness to find solutions respecting the EU fundamental principles and interests.'
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) has held its 2020 General Shareholders' Meeting at the Bizkaia Aretoa auditorium in Bilbao, with all possible safety measures in place to ensure the health and safety of shareholders attending, amid the ongoing coronavirus crisis.

At the meeting, the shareholders approved all items on the agenda, including the ratification of the recent appointment of the company's CEO, Andreas Nauen, as executive director on the Board. The meeting also ratified the appointments of Harald von Heynitz and Rudolf Kraemmer as independent directors, and Maria Ferraro, Andreas Hoffman and Tim Oliver Holt as proprietary directors. It also passed a motion to reduce the size of the Board of Directors from 13 to 10 directors.

Shareholders also approved the 2019 financial statements, together with a dividend of 0.05173 per share.

For the first time, the meeting obtained the Erronka Garbia certificate, issued by the Basque government through its company Ihobe; the seal certifies events whose design and organisation integrate environmental factors to minimise the potential environmental impact.

The company held its Shareholders' Meeting at a time marked by the scourge of Covid-19 and the economic impact it has brought. Addressing the meeting, Miguel Angel Lopez, Chairman of the Board of Directors, said: The threat posed to the world by climate change is now better understood and more accepted than it has ever been, and while the Covid crisis may temporarily obscure this, we believe now is the time to act and that the post crisis recovery can be stimulated by climate action. Wind energy is one of the very few proven solutions to the climate challenge, and it will play a key role in providing affordable, clean and sustainable energy for decades to come.

Moreover, he noted that despite the complex macroeconomic backdrop: Siemens Gamesa is well positioned to play a part in the necessary energy transition. The industry and the company are experiencing a difficult period, but I firmly believe that we are laying the right groundwork to achieve long-term profitability and success.

Addressing shareholders for the first time as CEO, Andreas Nauen highlighted the need to lead a change in the business in order to overcome the setbacks of this financial year, accentuated by the Covid-19 pandemic, and to regain profitability at the company. We must turn the business around to ensure that we are performing at our maximum potential. This will take time, but we have already started to implement measures to optimise all our operations. This change of course is even more urgent and necessary in the onshore area, so we will work with determination to achieve it.

In this regard, the company will present a new strategic plan at a Capital Markets Day scheduled for August 27.

Miguel Angel Lopez reiterated Siemens Gamesa's commitment to Spain, where it employs over 5,000 people and has its corporate base. Although we are the most international wind power manufacturer and we benefit from our global operations, we are proud of our Spanish heritage and we will keep our headquarters here, in the Basque Country, he emphasised.

Siemens Gamesa has a broad industrial presence in Spain, with 11 factories, as well as one of its main R&D facilities, located in Navarre. In 2019, it had a base of more than 3,000 suppliers. -- Tradearabia News Service
India on Thursday slammed Pakistan over its non-serious and farcical approach in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case, adding that Pakistan isn't interested in implementing the judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in letter and spirit. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Anurag Srivastava asserted that Pakistan has blocked all the avenues for an effective remedy available for India in the matter.

He added that Pakistan has completely failed to provide the remedy as directed by the ICJ and India reserves its position in the matter, including its rights to avail of further remedies. Srivastava clarified that over the past one year India has requested consular access twelve times but Pakistan so far has not been able to provide unimpeded consular access.

"The meeting of the Indian Consular Officers with Jadhav on July 16 was scuttled by Pakistan authorities. The officers were instructed not to hand over any document to Jadhav and hence, they couldn't obtain a power of attorney from Jadhav," said the MEA spokesperson.

He added, "Similarly, India has repeatedly requested Pakistan for relevant documents related to the case of Jadhav. Pakistan advised India that the relevant documents could be handed over only to an authorised Pakistani lawyer. Thereafter, India appointed a Pakistani lawyer to obtain the relevant documents. To our surprise, as advised by the Pakistani authorities, when the authorised Pakistani lawyer approached the concerned authorities, they declined to hand over the documents to the lawyer."

"In the absence of an unimpeded and unhindered consular access as well as of the relevant documents, as a last resort, India tried to file a petition on July 18. However, our Pakistani lawyer informed that a review petition could not be filed in the absence of power of attorney and supporting documents related to the case of Jadhav," the spokesperson further said.

"Pakistan also created confusion over the last date of filing a petition. Initially, they indicated that a petition has to be filed by no later than July 19. Subsequently, Pakistan indicated that the time limit to file a review petition shall expire on July 20. Knowing the inadequacies and shortcomings in Pakistan's ordinance, India had already shared its concerns in June 2020, including a considerable delay in informing India about its promulgation, with the Pakistan authorities," he added.

"Pakistan took two weeks to inform us about this Ordinance and shared the copy of the Ordinance only after India requested the same. India has conveyed that the Ordinance neither fulfils nor does it give complete weight to the judgment of the ICJ. With regards to the Ordinance, it seems, Pakistan was non-serious in its approach and was not interested in implementing the judgment of the ICJ in letter and spirit. It has blocked all the avenues for an effective remedy available for India," the spokesperson also said.

"The whole exercise of not providing any documents related to the case even after repeated requests, not providing unimpeded consular access and some reported unilateral action of approaching the HC on part of Pakistan again exposes the farcical nature of Pakistans approach. Pakistan is not only in violation of the judgment of ICJ but also of its own Ordinance. Pakistan has completely failed to provide the remedy as directed by the ICJ and India reserves its position in the matter, including its rights to avail of further remedies," he concluded in the matter.
VANCOUVER, BC, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - KORE Mining Ltd. (TSXV: KORE) (OTCQB: KOREF ) (" KORE " or the " Company ") announces that drill hole FG-20-373 intercepted 11.0 meters of 10.0 g/t gold starting at 44.0 meters downhole in the Upper Zone of the FG Gold Project (" Project " or " FG Gold ") in the Cariboo Region of British Columbia. Drilling has also extended the June 2020 Lower Zone discovery with a new intercept of 52.5 meters of 1.1 g/t gold starting at 122.5 meters downhole in drill hole FG-20-375. This news release reports six drill holes on two cross-sections (" Sections ") extending across 250 meters of strike length.

Highlights

Continued to define Upper Zone with:

11.0 meters of 10.0 g/t gold at 44.0 meters downhole in FG-20-373 including:

in FG-20-373 including:

1.0 meter of 24.3 g/t at 44.0 meters





1.0 meter of 72.4 g/t at 52.0 meters



98.0 meters of 1.0 g/t gold at 24.0 meters downhole in FG-20-372 including:

in FG-20-372 including:

1.0 meter of 22.5 g/t at 28.0 meters within 5.0 meters of 6.5 g/t at 25 meters





1.0 meter of 14.2 g/t at 61.0 meters



51.0 meters of 1.6 g/t gold at 19.0 meters downhole in FG-20-370 including:

in FG-20-370 including:

1.0 meter of 23.7 g/t at 34 meters within 17 meters of 2.7 g/t at 36 meters





1.0 meter of 17.5 g/t at 58 meters within 15 meters of 2.0 g/t at 55 meters

Extended Lower Zone discovery with 52.5 meters of 1.1 g/t gold at 122.5 meters in FG-20-375

in FG-20-375 Hole terminated in mineralization @ 2.6 g/t gold; open at depth

Continued to see higher gold grades from large diameter, oriented core and metallic screen assays

Silver assays, rarely assayed for historically, as high as 116 g/t over 1 meter in metallic screens indicate some silver potential

Additional two kilometers mineralized strike targeted with on-going 5,000 meter drill program

Project remains open at depth and along almost the entire 20-kilometer trend representing a district scale exploration opportunity

KORE CEO Scott Trebilcock commented, "Our objective is to upgrade the current FG Gold resource, make down-dip discoveries and demonstrate the district scale of the FG Gold project. I am pleased to report we are well on our way! Drilling is exceeding our expectations and with financing from Eric Sprott we have extended the program to test an additional 2 km of strike on the known resource. A separate team is conducting soil sampling and mapping of the under-explored 10 km SW limb and Kusk area of the same trend."

With the close on July 22, 2020 of the first tranche of the $7.5 million financing with Eric Sprott, KORE has commenced a new 5,000 meter drill program to further delineate the existing resource and test on-strike and downdip extensions along a strike length of over 2 kilometers ("km"). Drilling is underway and three new holes have been completed to date with assays pending. These three holes have also encountered quartz veining, alteration, and deformation consistent with the first 8 drill holes and have been drilled downdip of the existing resource area.

KORE has also mobilized a soil sampling crew to the SW Limb Zone, South Zone, and Kusk Zone, the underexplored areas of the 20-km trend defined by gold in soils and geophysics see Figure 1 for location details.

The district scale of the FG Gold project is shown Figure 1. The 20-km district trend traces the mineralized rock group around the regional syncline. Shallow historic drilling averaged only 93 meters deep, leaving the mineralization open at depth and along almost the entire trend. Figure 2 is a regional cross-section that shows the host rock potential at depth and connection to a potential porphyritic intrusion.

Exploration Program Details

Eight large diameter (HQ) oriented core drill holes for a total of 1,577 meters ("m") were completed in April 2020. Assays from six holes, FG-20-370 through FG-20-375 are reported in this release. Holes FG-20-368 and FG-20-369 were previously reported in a news release dated June 10, 2020. A plan map of the drill collars and traces is included in Figure 3 including the location of the two target Sections. Figures 4 and 5 show the eight holes in section.

The full table of results are included below. Detailed core logs and photos are available on KORE's website.

Due to coarse visible gold, metallic screening assays provide a much more representative sample versus conventional fire assays. Historical drilling and assays had limited and sporadic metallic screen analyses which may have underestimated historical gold grades.

Structural Interpretation

A structural analysis and re-interpretation of historical drilling carried out prior to initiation of 2020 drilling by KORE highlighted significant potential for structurally-controlled high grade gold zones occurring in a predictable and repeating fashion at the Project. 2020 drilling was designed to test the structural hypothesis that repeating high grade gold zones were predictably positioned in fold hinge regions of the deformed host rock. The orientation [azimuth] of the drilling was intended to delineate potential continuous 'mineral-shoots' within the mineralized zones.

Drill holes FG 20-372 and FG 20-374 are interpreted to have successfully targeted multiple [stacked] fold hinge regions within and beyond the mineralized zones.

The stratigraphic down-dip depth of drilling was beyond that of historical drilling, leading to the discovery of the Lower Zone, below the current resource. The Lower Zone is a continuation of significant gold mineralization in the down-dip direction [Southwest] from the current mineralized zones and resource. Additionally, drill holes FG-20-370, FG 20-373, and FG 20-375 ended in significant gold mineralized zones at depths that had not been previously tested.

To date, the results from the 2020 drilling program are very encouraging to KORE. They provide confidence in the structural interpretation employed to target high grade mineral-shoots and down-dip continuation of significant gold mineralization.

KORE's ongoing 5,000m drill program is aggressively stepping-out up to 200 meters downdip and along strike. The program is targeting the continuation of known gold-mineralized [orogenic] quartz veins further down-dip and along strike within prospective and un-tested regions of the targeted [phyllite] host rock.

Details of Metallic Screen Assaying

Metallic screen assays are often used in exploration when coarse or visible gold is present in the core as we have here at the FG Gold Project. Traditionally, fire assays are undertaken on 30-50 grams of pulverised sample. The metallic screen fire assay uses a larger sample (1 kilogram in KORE's case), with screening (to -106 micron) to separate coarse gold particles from fine material. After screening, two samples of the fine fraction are analysed using the traditional fire assay method. The fine fraction is expected to be reasonably homogenous. The entire coarse fraction is assayed to determine the contribution of the coarse gold. This method helps reduce the erratic assay results often seen in the higher-grade zones found in "nuggety" gold deposits such as the FG Gold Project. All assays are performed at accredited independent commercial assay labs.

Detailed Drill Hole Assays Tables

Hole FG-20-368 (previously reported)



From

(meters) To

(meters) Width*

(meters) Gold (g/t) Zone Intercept 5.5 82.0 76.5 1.1 Upper including 5.5 18.0 12.5 1.2

including 27.0 35.0 8.0 1.6

including 56.0 82.0 26.0 2.0

and including 81.0 82.0 1.0 28.4

and 106.0 110.0 4.0 0.6 Upper and (new) 185.0 195.0 10.0 0.8 Lower

Hole FG-20-369 (previously reported and amended to include long intercept)



From

(meters) To

(meters) Width*

(meters) Gold (g/t) Zone Intercept 29.0 240.0 211.0 0.9 Upper and Lower including 22.0 54.0 32.0 3.0 Upper including 29.0 51.5 22.5 4.0

including 29.0 30.0 1.0 42.5

including 102.5 118.0 15.5 0.7 Upper including 192.5 213.5 21.0 0.9 Lower And 237.0 247.0 10.0 3.9 Lower and including 239.0 240.0 1.0 33.9



Hole FG-20-370



From

(meters) To

(meters) Width*

(meters) Gold (g/t) Zone Intercept 19.0 70.0 51.0 1.6 Upper including 19.0 36.0 17.0 2.7

including 34.0 35.0 1.0 23.7

including 55.0 70.0 15.0 2.0

including 58.0 59.0 1.0 17.5

And 128.0 145.0 17.0 1.2 Lower And 173.0 183.0 10.0 1.8 Lower

Hole FG-20-371



From

(meters) To

meters) Width*

(meters) Gold (g/t) Zone Intercept 91.0 116.0 25.0 0.6 Upper

Hole FG-20-372



From

(meters) To

(meters) Width*

(meters) Gold (g/t) Zone Intercept 24.0 122.0 98.0 1.0 Upper including 25.0 30.0 5.0 6.5

including 28.0 29.0 1.0 22.5

including 61.0 62.0 1.0 14.2



Hole FG-20-373



From

(meters) To

(meters) Width*

(meters) Gold (g/t) Zone Intercept 24.0 58.0 34.0 4.0 Upper including 43.0 54.0 11.0 10.0

including 44.0 45.0 1.0 24.3

and including 52.0 53.0 1.0 72.4

And 146.0 152.0 6.0 0.8 Lower And 180.0 193.0 13.0 0.8 Lower And 226.0 235.0 (EOH) 9.0 1.1 Lower

Hole FG-20-374



From

(meters) To

(meters) Width*

(meters) Gold (g/t) Zone Intercept 8.0 46.0 38.0 1.0 Upper including 43.0 44.0 1.0 25.3

And 112.0 144.0 32.0 0.7 Lower including 112.0 133.0 21.0 0.8



Hole FG-20-375



From

(meters) To

(meters) Width*

(meters) Gold (g/t) Zone Intercept 26.5 52.0 25.5 0.7 Upper And 122.5 175.0 (EOH) 52.5 1.1 Lower

* KORE has not been able to determine true width yet due to complexity of the vein structures within the mineralized zones. KORE's current drill program is designed to better understand the geometry and how the mineralized zones are related. The orientation of individual quartz veins within the mineralized zones are quite variable. Reported widths are drill indicated core length and not true width, for the reasons above. Average grades are calculated with un-capped gold assays, as insufficient drilling has been completed to determine capping levels for higher grade gold intercepts.

Hole location data is included at the end of this release.

Regional Geology

The FG Gold property straddles the boundary between the Omineca and Intermontane tectonics belts of the Canadian Cordillera. The eastward emplacement of the Intermontane Belt onto the Omineca Belt along the Eureka Thrust Fault caused widespread regional metamorphism and structural deformation of both Belts. The regional scale, northwest trending, shallowly plunging, Eureka Syncline is the dominant resulting structure in the project area. Rocks in the core of the Eureka Syncline are comprised of basalt, augite porphyry flows, tuffs and volcanic breccias metamorphosed to a low grade; they are structurally emplaced onto metavolcanic and sedimentary rocks of the Quesnel Terrane. The Quesnel Terrane is recognized for its prevalence of copper, gold and molybdenum mines and showings such as those at Highland Valley, Boss Mountain, QR and Mount Polley.

Property Geology

The FG Gold property is centrally located over the Eureka Syncline, strategically encompassing two limbs and the hinge zone of a gold-bearing meta-sedimentary rock unit of the Quesnel Terrane. The gold-bearing rock, a 'knotted' phyllite, is the host rock for gold mineralization over the 3 km strike length of the Resource Area (see Figure 1). Surface mapping and geophysical inversion of airborne electromagnetic (EM) data suggests the knotted phyllite has a strike length of over 20 km with potentially thickened regions occurring in the Eureka Syncline hinge zone (Kusk Zone Target) (see Figure 1).

Gold mineralization occurs in and is associated with development of quartz  Fe carbonate  muscovite  pyrite vein stockwork. The stockwork is best developed in the knotted phyllite unit. Stockwork zones locally concentrate in zones greater than 10 meters wide and are dominantly stratabound. Fe-carbonate alteration and carbonate porphyroblasts development within the knotted phyllite unit is observed to extend well outside immediate areas of veining.

About the FG Gold Project

The FG Gold project consists of 35 claims, totaling 13,008 ha, in the eastern Cariboo region of central British Columbia, approximately 100 km east of Williams Lake. The project is at low elevation and accessible by forestry roads. FG Gold hosts an orogenic gold deposit on the northeast limb of the Eureka syncline. The southwest limb and hinge zone are underexplored. The Project also hosts copper-gold porphyry mineralization at the Nova Zone, discovered by KORE in 2018. Figure 1 highlights the 20km trend of host rock expression at surface.

The 20km trend is defined by gold in soils and geophysics that traces the mineralized rock group around the regional syncline. The Project has only been shallowly drilled where the mineralized rock group comes to surface. Past drilling averages only 93m deep into a steeply plunging sedimentary host rock. Mineralization is open at depth and along almost the entire trend. Figure 2 is a regional cross-section that shows the host rock potential at depth and potential connection to the Project's porphyritic intrusion.

The previous drilling targeted stratigraphic controls on mineralization and did not penetrate into the bulk of the host-rock structure. Drilling was largely done with reverse circulation ("RC") drilling and narrow core to generate shallow bulk-disseminated gold intercept models. Within the current resource there appears to be mineralized corridors or chutes that are open at depth in the host rock.

The current resource at the FG Gold project is as follows:

Classification Size (tonnes) Grade (g/t) Au (oz) Au Cutoff (g/t) Measured 5,600,000 0.812 145,000 0.50 Indicated 9,570,000 0.755 231,000 0.50 Inferred 27,493,000 0.718 634,900 0.50

More information on the FG Gold Project and resource is available in the "NI 43-101 Technical Report, Frasergold Exploration Project, Cariboo Mining Division, BC" dated July 20, 2015 by K.V. Campbell of ERSi Earth Resource Surveys Inc. and G.H. Giroux of Giroux Consultants Ltd. technical report filed under Kore's Profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on KORE's website at www.koremining.com.

About KORE

KORE is 100% owner of a portfolio of advanced gold exploration and development assets in California and British Columbia. KORE is supported by strategic investors Eric Sprott and Macquarie Bank; and insiders, together with the management and Board, own approximately 66% of the basic shares outstanding.

On behalf of KORE Mining Ltd

"Scott Trebilcock"

Chief Executive Officer

(888) 407-5450

QA/QC and Qualified Person

Once the drill core was received from the drill site, individual samples were determined, logged for geological attributes, sawn in half, labelled, and bagged for assay submittal. The remaining drill core was then stored at a secure site in Horsefly, BC. The Company inserted quality control samples at regular intervals within the sample stream which included blanks, preparation duplicates, and standard reference materials with all sample shipments intended to monitor laboratory performance. Sample shipment was conducted under a chain of custody procedure.

Drill core samples were submitted to Bureau Veritas' analytical facility in Vancouver, British Columbia for preparation and analysis. Sample preparation included drying and weighing the samples, crushing the entire sample, and pulverizing 250 grams. Analysis for gold was by method FA450: 50g fire assay fusion with atomic absorption (AAS) finish with a lower limit of 0.005 ppm and upper limit of 10 ppm. Gold assays greater than 10ppm are automatically analysed by method FA550: 50g fire assay fusion with a gravimetric fusion. Metallic screen techniques were employed to assay gold mineralized zones thought to contain coarse gold. Approximately 1000 grams of coarse reject material are pulverized and screened. Two splits of the fine fraction are assayed, as well as all material that does not pass through the screen (the coarse fraction). The final gold assay reported is a weighted average of the coarse and fine fractions.

Bureau Veritas is accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard for gold assays, and all analytical methods include quality control materials at set frequencies with established data acceptance criteria. Parameters for Bureau Veritas' internal and Kore's external blind quality control samples were acceptable for the analyses returned.

Technical information with respect to the Project contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Marc Leduc, P.Eng, who is KORE's COO and is the qualified person under National Instrument 43-101 responsible for the technical matters of this news release.

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.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to the future operations of the Company and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding the future plans and objectives of the Company are forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements, and any assumptions upon which they are based, are made in good faith and reflect our current judgment regarding the direction of our business. Management believes that these assumptions are reasonable. Forward looking information involves 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 information.

Such factors include, among others: risks related to exploration and development activities at the Company's projects, and factors relating to whether or not mineralization extraction will be commercially viable; risks related to mining operations and the hazards and risks normally encountered in the exploration, development and production of minerals, such as unusual and unexpected geological formations, rock falls, seismic activity, flooding and other conditions involved in the extraction and removal of materials; uncertainties regarding regulatory matters, including obtaining permits and complying with laws and regulations governing exploration, development, production, taxes, labour standards, occupational health, waste disposal, toxic substances, land use, environmental protection, site safety and other matters, and the potential for existing laws and regulations to be amended or more stringently implemented by the relevant authorities; uncertainties regarding estimating mineral resources, which estimates may require revision (either up or down) based on actual production experience; risks relating to fluctuating metals prices and the ability to operate the Company's projects at a profit in the event of declining metals prices and the need to reassess feasibility of a particular project that estimated resources will be recovered or that they will be recovered at the rates estimated; risks related to title to the Company's properties, including the risk that the Company's title may be challenged or impugned by third parties; the ability of the Company to access necessary resources, including mining equipment and crews, on a timely basis and at reasonable cost; competition within the mining industry for the discovery and acquisition of properties from other mining companies, many of which have greater financial, technical and other resources than the Company, for, among other things, the acquisition of mineral claims, leases and other mineral interests as well as for the recruitment and retention of qualified employees and other personnel; access to suitable infrastructure, such as roads, energy and water supplies in the vicinity of the Company's properties; and risks related to the stage of the Company's development, including risks relating to limited financial resources, limited availability of additional financing and potential dilution to existing shareholders; reliance on its management and key personnel; inability to obtain adequate or any insurance; exposure to litigation or similar claims; currently unprofitable operations; risks regarding the ability of the Company and its management to manage growth; and potential conflicts of interest.

In addition to the above summary, additional risks and uncertainties are described in the "Risks" section of the Company's management discussion and analysis for the year ended December 31, 2019 prepared as of April 27, 2020 available under the Company's issuer profile on www.sedar.com.

Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this news release and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results, except as may be required by applicable securities laws. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

There is no certainty that all or any part of the mineral resource will be converted into mineral reserve. It is uncertain if further exploration will allow improving the classification of the Indicated or Inferred mineral resource. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability.

Cautionary Note Regarding Mineral Resource Estimates: Information regarding mineral resource estimates has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of Canadian securities laws, which differ from the requirements of United States Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") Industry Guide 7. In October 2018, the SEC approved final rules requiring comprehensive and detailed disclosure requirements for issuers with material mining operations. The provisions in Industry Guide 7 and Item 102 of Regulation S-K, have been replaced with a new subpart 1300 of Regulation S-K under the United States Securities Act and will become mandatory for SEC registrants after January 1, 2021. The changes adopted are intended to align the SEC's disclosure requirements more closely with global standards as embodied by the Committee for Mineral Reserves International Reporting Standards (CRIRSCO), including Canada's NI 43-101 and CIM Definition Standards. Under the new SEC rules, SEC registrants will be permitted to disclose "mineral resources" even though they reflect a lower level of certainty than mineral reserves. Additionally, under the New Rules, mineral resources must be classified as "measured", "indicated", or "inferred", terms which are defined in and required to be disclosed by NI 43-101 for Canadian issuers and are not recognized under SEC Industry Guide 7. An "Inferred Mineral Resource" has a lower level of confidence than that applying to an "Indicated Mineral Resource" and must not be converted to a Mineral Reserve. It is reasonably expected that the majority of "Inferred Mineral Resources" could be upgraded to "Indicated Mineral Resources" with continued exploration. Accordingly, the mineral resource estimates and related information may not be comparable to similar information made public by United States companies subject to the reporting and disclosure requirements under the United States federal laws and the rules and regulations thereunder, including SEC Industry Guide 7.

Drill Hole Locations

Location, azimuth, dip and lengths for drill holes in this news release are listed in the following table:

HoleID East North Elevation Length Azimuth Dip FG-20-368 665196 5797758 1525 196 229 -70 FG-20-369 665196 5797758 1525 250 231 -55 FG-20-370 665212 5797734 1525 187 218 -75 FG-20-371 665189 5797779 1525 181 228 -68 FG-20-372 665290 5797637 1526 178 223 -75 FG-20-373 665290 5797637 1526 235 227 -53 FG-20-374 665306 5797611 1526 181 225 -60 FG-20-375 665276 5797653 1526 175 225 -60

SOURCE Kore Mining

Related Links

http://www.koremining.com


The Atlantic Provinces Harness Racing Commission is pleased to announce the Atlantic Bursary Program's list of 2020 winners.

Each of the winning students will receive a $1,000 bursary towards their post secondary education for the 2020-2021 academic term.

The list of winners appears below.

 Alexa MacKinley of Clyde River, PE

 Courtney MacLean of Stratford, PE

 Tianna McLaughlin of Woodstock, NB

 Matthew Trenholm of Port Hood, NS

 Abby Clow of New Haven, PE

The bursaries were awarded based on active involvement in the harness racing community, academics and financial need.

Presentations will be made to the winners before the end of the summer at their home tracks.

The Atlantic Bursary Program is supported and funded by various organizations from the Atlantic Provinces and Standardbred Canada. Partners from the Atlantic Provinces include the Nova Scotia Harness Racing Industry Association, Prince Edward Island Harness Racing Industry Association, and the 'Stretch Drive Fund,' a fund created by the Atlantic Provinces Harness Racing Commissions race officials.

The APHRC Canada and all of the partners from the Atlantic Provinces and Standardbred Canada would like to extend their congratulations to the winners and thank all of the students who submitted applications for bursaries.

(APHRC)
London, July 23 : Face masks will become mandatory in takeaways and sandwich shops in the UK under government laws which will come into effect on Friday, media reports said.

The Downing Street is expected to clarify its position on Thursday after mixed messages from Ministers over wearing masks in food establishments, the Metro newspaper reported.

Premises with table service are said to be exempt from the new rules, though buying food from a counter and sitting down to eat inside will banned, according to The Daily Telegraph.

A government source told the newspaper that only eateries with table service would not require masks.

"You have to sit down straight away if you are going to eat in. If you can sit at a table you don't need to wear a mask." This comes ahead of already planned changes over face mask usage.

From Friday onwards, wearing a face mask in shops and supermarkets will become mandatory and anyone failing to comply will be fined up to 100 pounds.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Thought of the day: The time is always right to do what is right.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Yesterday, Michigan reported 523 new COVID-19 cases and nationwide there were 68,377 new cases. California has now surpassed New York as the state with the most cases. There was also a report put out by the Center for Disease Control that suggests COVID-19 infections may be up to 24% higher than whats been reported. The findings in this report may reflect people who did not have any COVID-19 symptoms or received medical care/got tested. Remember, you can still spread the disease if you dont have symptoms. So wear your mask, be smart, and understand this virus is still out there.

Next Friday, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis will hear from members of the White House COVID-19 Task Force. This will include Dr. Fauci. The focus of the hearing will examine the urgent need for a national comprehensive plan to address the COVID-19 pandemic. We will provide more updates as we get closer to the hearing.

Yesterday was a special day filled with lots of emotions. The House passed the Great American Outdoors Act to provide permanent, full funding to the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). John played a leading role in establishing the LWCF and its permanent funding was something John fought to make happen for years. The LWCF has been used to enhance and establish local, state and national preservation areas, and funds everything from local playgrounds to national park expansions. John would have been so proud to see yesterday.

Senate inaction has been an issue thats hurt our country for the last two years. This time it will impact the livelihood of millions of American relying on unemployment to get by. This weekend affected workers will receive their last $600 in federal supplement to their weekly Unemployment benefits. Weve known this was coming for months and is why the House renewed the benefits in the Heroes Act. People want to feel safe, not stress about their next meal & know theres a safety net in place. Its why the House has passed relief aid to help millions of people so we can prevent more hurting.

I came across this incredible article about one of the original Rosie the Riveters who is now making masks to help defeat COVID-19. Rosies were so helpful during World War II and played a major then. Now, their can-do spirit is continuing to help out as we face a different enemy.

Team Dingell is here seven days a week and wants to listen and help. It isnt as smooth as we want on some issues, but we will never stop fighting for you. Call our office at 313-278-2936 or contact us through Facebook or our webpage.

New information becomes available every day. Below is a list of resources and information that can be helpful during this time. Please share this information with your family, friends, and colleagues. Remember, stay home, stay safe, save lives.

Coronavirus information

File for unemployment

Small Businesses can apply for low-interest disaster loans

Navigating Social Security Benefits

School Based Food Service Interactive Map

Food Banks and Kitchens in Michigans 12th Congressional District

Contact numbers for people looking for information are:

* Centers for Disease Control, cdc.gov/coronavirus, 1-800-CDC-INFO (1-800-232-4636).

* Michigan.gov/coronavirus, or 888-535-6136.
UP assembly polls will be about '80 per cent vs 20 per cent'; BJP will win: Yogi Adityanath

UP Police Recruitment 2022 to begin soon: Check vacancy details

UP: Elections not won on exit polls basis, results will be surprising: Kamal Nath

Uttar Pradesh lockdown: Liquor shops outside containment zones to remain open

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Lucknow, July 23: The Uttar Pradesh government has relaxed liquor shop opening rules during the weekend lockdown in the state. The Government of Uttar Pradesh has decided that liquor shops, outside containment zones, will remain open during the lockdown on Saturdays and Sundays in the state.

The state government had on July 12 imposed a stricter lockdown across the state on weekends to stop the coronavirus spread.

No complete lockdown in Kerala as of now, says CM Pinarayi Vijayan

Additional Chief Secretary (Home and Information) Awanish Awasthi said that the restrictions imposed on Saturdays and Sundays will remain in place till July end.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

Meanwhile, shops and business establishments, other than those dealing in essential services, remained closed in Uttar Pradesh on weekends.

The Excise department had lodged 401 cases and seized 10,169 litres of illicit liquor in the last three days during a special drive conducted in the state, a senior official said on Thursday.
Nexxtep, based in Valdosta, Ga., is a managed services provider founded in 2002. It provides information technology, disaster recovery and hosting services to businesses.

The purchase will expand Dynamics Georgia and Florida markets.

Dynamic, led by founder and chief executive Javier Gomez, has made four acquisitions since gaining an investment from Spire Capital in 2018.

Dynamic, founded in 2000, has satellite offices in Winston-Salem, Cary, Atlanta and Clark, Philippines.

Richard Craver

Tesla picks Texas site for second U.S. vehicle-assembly plant

Electric car maker Tesla Inc. has picked the Austin, Texas, area as the site for its largest auto assembly plant employing at least 5,000 workers.

The new factory will build Teslas upcoming Cybertruck pickup and will be a second U.S. manufacturing site for the Model Y small SUV.
LOS ANGELES  Nearly a month after a federal judge ruled the Trump administration must release migrant children "with all deliberate speed" from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers because of COVID-19, 346 parents and children are detained in facilities with outbreaks and court filings show releases remain rare.

When U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ordered the release of children detained with their parents in late June, she was explicit in her reasoning. The ICE facilities, she said, were "on fire and there is no more time for half measures."

ICE, which has historically released families and children together, has refused to do so ahead of the July 27 deadline set by the judge, stoking outrage among lawyers and some who have worked inside the system itself.

"Its preposterous," said a former ICE official who served during both the Obama and Trump administrations. "Theres no reason other than cruelty."

ICE declined to respond to the former ICE official's comment "due to pending litigation," said spokeswoman Jenny Burke.

The continued detention of families has angered lawyers from two of the three legal service providers representing them, and caused a rift between advocates for the migrants. The immigration lawyers for the families are fighting on two fronts, against the Trump administration and the legal position of Peter Schey, who represents the same children they do. They allege the best interests of those children are not being "adequately represented" by Schey, who is the lead attorney for the migrants in the case.

On Tuesday, RAICES and AldeaThe Peoples Justice Center, filed a motion to intervene in the case. They say the government and Schey should not be negotiating a waiver deal that would let parents choose between remaining detained with children or releasing the children separately, and that ICE should instead release parents and children together and implement strict COVID-19 safety measures in its facilities.

Story continues

In a letter to Schey that was submitted to the court, the other lawyers said his efforts are "at odds with the stated interests, health, and well-being of our clients."

On Wednesday, the Trump administration filed a response to the motion to intervene, saying "[t]he government opposed the family separation process now requested by the Plaintiffs and ordered by this Court."

Image: Health Care Professionals Call On ICE To Release All Immigrants During COVID-19 Pandemic (Joe Raedle / Getty Images file)

"I think thats laughable because what we know is that for new intakes in at least one of the facilities theyre asking people to separate at intake," said Amy Maldonado, attorney who represents detained families in other federal litigation, referring to ICEs Karnes County Residential Center in Texas. "Obviously the government's policy has been about separations. They never stopped separating children from their parents."

Since 2017, the Trump administration has separated more than 5,000 children from their parents.

The developments are the latest dramatic turns in the Flores settlement agreement, which since 1997 has regulated the detention of migrant children in government custody. In 2015, amid a court challenge to the agreement by the Obama administration, Judge Gee ruled detained children must be released after 20 days. Trump administration officials described the agreement as a "loophole" that allows for the "catch and release" of migrant families coming to the United States.

The original deadline to release the children was July 17, but after a joint motion by Schey and the Trump administration, Judge Gee extended it to Monday.

Schey is a controversial figure in the immigrant rights community, having represented the children covered by the Flores agreement for decades, and his work on the waiver deal has exposed deep rifts within the movement, first reported by Tina Vasquez of Prism, leading to allegations he is in favor of binary choice, also referred to as "family separation 2.0."

In an interview with NBC News, Schey defended his negotiations with the government over the waiver, and the decision it could force parents to make between family separation and indefinite detention.

We believe that while the Flores settlement only extends release rights to children, that means parents face a difficult choice about whats in their best interests for their children. We strongly believe parents have a right to be fully informed about their childrens rights and secondly that there is a procedure in place to honor the parents decision however difficult to make.

Binary choice, as NBC News reported in April 2019, was developed as an alternative to the Trump administrations systematic family separation policy that took more than 5,000 children away from their parents after it was ruled unconstitutional by U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw in 2018.

In an August 2018 email produced as part of a Freedom of Information Act request by BuzzFeed News, as the policy was being dismantled, Gene Hamilton, a Justice Department official and Stephen Miller, the Trump senior advisor, e-mailed about binary choice.

"We got an order from Judge Sabraw allowing binary choice," Hamilton emailed to Miller.

"We should discuss," Miller replied.

In May, NBC News reported ICE presented detained families with a form that would allow them to release their children in lieu of remaining detained together, but not a single parent from the hundreds of families then detained in ICE custody agreed to be separated from their children when presented with the option.

"The families we represent do not want to be separated from each other. Family integrity is a human right," RAICES said in a statement. "The idea that all children would be better off in the United States without their parents is an indignity to the journey these families have taken together."
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Linkedin Anthony M. Dermawan (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 07:25 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066896cfe 3 Science & Tech GDP-Venture,Qlue,IoT,internet-of-things,post-pandemic,digital-transformation Free

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unforeseen crisis that hit the world earlier this year. Starting in Wuhan, China, COVID-19 has spread to more than 216 countries worldwide. The rapid transmission has shaken the world, which was never prepared for its impact. The health crisis has not only affected the health sector but has also had a domino effect on all socioeconomic sectors.

Most countries have implemented lockdown policies to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This might be the best option to reduce the potential number of infections. However, the best always comes with consequences. By applying a lockdown policy, countries have been forced to halt their domestic and international socioeconomic activities. People are asked to stay at home and engage in fewer physical activities like working, traveling or shopping outside their homes.

Indonesia is among the countries hit by the virus. The announcement of the first COVID-19 cases by President Joko Jokowi Widodo on March 2 marked the beginning of the governments struggle in fighting the COVID-19 transmission. As of July 21, Indonesia had recorded a total of 89,869 cases with 48,466 recoveries.

The government has made a number of efforts to break the chain of COVID-19 transmission. Large-scale social restrictions (PSBB), which were initiated by the government, are more or less similar to a lockdown policy in other countries. The policy has limited socioeconomic activities rather than stopping them to prevent our economy stumbling. However, many warn that Indonesia will face the threat of recession with several indicators emerging in the past three months, such as the declining economic growth rate and increasing unemployment and poverty rates.

Despite the number of cases reaching 1,000 per day, the government recently launched a post-pandemic policy, which allows businesses to open and people to travel. The introduction of Adaptasi Kebiasaan Baru, known as "the new normal", requires people to follow the Health Ministry's protocols as the new guidelines for the post-pandemic society.

In the new normal or post-pandemic era, all people are obliged to wear masks, avoid physical contact, maintain physical distance and undergo body temperature screening in public places or facilities. How will people adapt to the new protocols in running their daily activities? What can technology do to accelerate the adaptation?

Technology is one of the necessary tools to help people adapt. The rapid development of technology like artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IoT) and big data will help us to automate some processes without any human intervention. These technologies can empower other existing technology like CCTV, public address systems and even our mobile phones.

For example, social-distancing protocols might require the government to place security guards everywhere, which would be impossible. It would force the government to allocate more resources in terms of funding and manpower, which often leads to inefficiency. The process needs to be brief and strengthened with the help of technology. For instance, an AI engine can empower CCTV to be able to detect crowds automatically. Even further, IoT-based public address systems will help to disperse crowds immediately and automatically.

We can also utilize technology to substitute physical contact. As people are required to avoid any physical contact, conventional attendance or barrier gate systems that use card tapping or fingerprints are no longer relevant. Those conventional methods can be replaced with touchless technology such as facial-recognition systems, which allow people to open door access using their faces while logging their attendance at the same time.

The new precautions also require building managements or the government to screen their visitors or people who have been in public places, such as MRT stations, Commuter Line stations, hospitals and so on. To do this, they have to allocate more manpower on the ground to manually monitor visitors' temperatures and check mask usage. AI-powered CCTVs with attached thermal sensors can automatically detect a persons body temperature and whether he or she is wearing a mask or not. Integrated with a barrier gate, it will automatically open the gate when it detects one has a normal body temperature and is wearing a mask.

Above all, the entire data captured through CCTVs and other sensors will be regarded as big data in the post-pandemic era. Presidential Regulation No 39/2019 on data provides a strong base to stimulate big data utilization in social aid distribution data, despite the challenges in a crisis. Big data can play a major role in adaptation in a post-pandemic period, especially in formulating better decisions for the future.

We might finally realize the dream for a digital life by minimizing human interventions to reduce physical contact and shorten processing time. As everything happens automatically, we can reap the benefits to accelerate the adaptation process. In the end, with the dynamics of technological innovation, we surmise the vast possibility for technology can be capitalized for greater purposes in our society. (wng)

***

The writer acts as government relations at Qlue, a comprehensive smart city provider company in Indonesia, which comprises leveraging workforce management, artificial intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT). Anthony is Qlues point of contact for communications across city governments. He has a strong passion for smart city, urban development, socio-political sector and digital governance.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
We are on the cusp of a critical decision about schooling in the time of COVID-19  whether to resume full classes, revert to online classes, or something in between. It will require wisdom and judgment from all sides  students and parents, teachers and politicians, educators and administrators.

Yet the static over schooling is now so over the top that one can only wonder if all the players will be able to see past their own positions and suspicions. Consider the backlash against a recent announcement by Education Minister Stephen Lecce that school board heads will no longer have to be former teachers.

Peels public school board has been plagued by allegations of racism at all levels  both in-person and incipient, situational and systemic. The Toronto District School Board  by far the biggest in Canada  has historically been riven by outsized infighting and incompetence.

School boards across the province are hardly paragons of good governance, models of diversity or prudent stewards of public finances. Over the years, provincial governments of all stripes have stepped in to investigate and send in outside supervisors for wayward school boards, big and small.

With such a dismal track record, you might think that establishment educators and perennial advocates might show a little humility about past failings, personnel shortcomings, and institutional blind spots. And ask themselves how to broaden the talent pool and bring in fresh eyes.

You would be wrong. When Lecce dared to clear the way for hiring a new interim director of education in Toronto  Black and abundantly qualified  he was second-guessed for removing the requirement of a teaching certificate, which the pedagogical elites have always deemed essential.

The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario is leading the charge, with union president Sam Hammond tweeting out this erroneous rallying cry: The Toronto Fire Chief is a firefighter. The Toronto Chief of Police is a police officer. The President & CEO of Sick Kids is a Doctor and a Director of Education should be a teacher!

When the error-prone Tories get it right, and ETFO gets it wrong, its a teachable moment.

In fact, the most famously successful CEO of the Hospital for Sick Children, Mary Jo Haddad, was never a doctor. It might surprise ETFOs Hammond that she started out as a neonatal nurse who did things differently in a mans world where people insisted on doing things the way they were always done, and that only doctors  like teachers  knew best.

This is how institutional rigidity blocks diversity of thought and diversity of skin colour. It also gets in the way of reality.

The dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education doesnt require an elementary or high school teaching certificate. Most school trustees arent teachers.

Justices of the peace dont have to be lawyers, publishers arent always journalists, and many editors were never reporters. Doctors have rarely headed health ministries, and soldiers were discouraged from running defence departments.

Thats not to say that credentials dont count, just that other qualifications shouldnt be discounted or devalued in the mix. Nor should motivations always be suspect in every instance.

Torontos new interim director of education, Carlene Jackson, is a chartered professional accountant and certified general accountant with a masters degree in business administration. She has worked for years in education and other public sector roles as a chief financial officer which, given the TDSBs traditional budget woes, should be a plus.

Instead, critics suggest her proficiency with budgets is evidence of Lecces hidden agenda to privatize public schools. As if Jackson is a caricature of a Bay Street venture capitalist who slipped into the TDSB as a sleeper agent years ago to destroy it from the inside.

Peels interim director is Jaspal Gill, who is not a teacher  and so the ministry made it happen. Colleen Russell-Rawlins will become interim director next month (and take over permanently after an outside supervisor  imposed by the province to deal with problems of racism  hands back responsibility). She was previously responsible for equity, well-being and school improvement at the TDSB (and was once a teacher, so protestors can stand down here).

There are many things this government can be criticized for, but broadening the hiring pool isnt one of them. Given the lack of diversity among directors today, and the fact that Lecce expects many new positions to open up in the near future, this is a good time to be casting a wider net.

The real risk to our public schools is not that Tories will deviously turn them into private schools. It is that private schools may systematically overtake public schools by responding more rapidly and nimbly to the challenges of online learning in the era of COVID-19.

Thats the real world challenge facing every politician, every director of education, every teacher, every parent, and every student in Ontario today. Many of our school boards have failed to deliver in the past, but they are about to be tested as never before.

They need all the managerial talent they can get. Wherever they can get it.

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By Angelique Jackson

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) - During the early days of Black Lives Matter protests, Algee Smith took to Instagram Live to express his feelings about the state of the world in the wake of George Floyd's death. He shared the emotional toll of acting in films that portray police brutality, saying that he no longer wanted to take on those robes but instead roles that are "edifying a Black man."

"I was obviously in a very emotional place. However, it was a very honest place," Smith says during Variety's #Represent: Black Men in Hollywood roundtable. "I feel like I've played so many roles where I've either died as a young Black teenager or where it's been something that hasn't been edifying a Black teenager or a Black man at all. And so, I was like, for myself, I'm tired of playing those roles and I said 'I'm done with it.'"

At just 25-years-old, Smith has already taken on that emotional burden twice. In 2017's "Detroit," Smith played Larry Reed, who endured a nightmarish experience of police abuse in a 1967 incident at the Algiers Motel. In 2018's "The Hate U Give," Smith took on the role of Khalil, whose murder by a police officer during a traffic stop galvanizes the story's plot.

"I realize that it was educating, and it was cool to do," Smith says of those parts. "But I want to see more roles where my little brother can look up and see a doctor or he can look up and see any type of role that we see anyone else play."

Though Smith doesn't have a completely negative view of those roles, that didn't make it easier to portray those experiences onscreen.

"It's not cool on set either, when you're hearing all types of things and you can't sleep," Smith recalls, describing the emotional weight of the experience. "I had to take Ambien while I was shooting 'Detroit' because I couldn't sleep, because you're hearing that [abuse] 12 hours a day, and then you're just yelling and crying. But you do it for a reason. That's why we are actors, that's why we put ourselves in that position, to feel for people."

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Smith shared his thought process during an intimate conversation with fellow actors Aldis Hodge ("City on a Hill"), Chris Chalk ("Perry Mason"), Derek Luke ("13 Reasons Why") and Jay Pharoah ("Saturday Night Live," "Bad Hair"). The virtual roundtable is the second installment of Variety's "#Represent" series, dedicated to the intersection of race, culture and Hollywood. And in sharing his experience, Smith learned he wasn't alone in questioning what roles he should be playing. In fact, the whole group have found themselves worrying about typecasting or fearing playing into Hollywood stereotypes at one time or another during their careers.

"It's very tough because you've got to trust the process, you've got to trust the project. But is this project going to serve, to elevate, the perception of my culture? Or does it serve the detriment of my culture? That is a responsibility that we carry, and it's often the risk we take, as entertainers, giving our portrayals," Hodge said. "What most people don't get is that they don't see that, of the very specific roles that you've chosen, are probably about 80 and 90% of the roles that you had passed your way to get to those roles, were trash, trash, trash, trash."

Smith -- who is also known for his work on HBO's "Euphoria" and playing Ralph Tresvant in "The New Edition Story" -- went on to explain that he's been doing a great deal of introspection during the coronavirus shutdown about the art he hopes to create moving forward.

"When 2020 started, there was some weird energy going on that I felt, but when coronavirus happened, I kind of got angry. I got a little bit upset because I had a lot of things that I was working on that just stopped," Smith says. "And I had to step back and look at it, and understand that, from my perspective, I think this [moment] is spiritual. And not just with coronavirus but also with what's going on with Black Lives [Matter] and what's going on with Black people, with our experience being felt by the world."

He continues, "It's very deep to talk about, you can hear I'm kind of like getting angsty talking about it because it's just real. And when you kind of think about, it like, 'Okay, what is my part in this? What do I play?' I got to educate myself so I can know what to talk about, I got to educate myself so I can know what to do, what roles to take, what roles to write, what stuff to be a part of."

Watch the full "#Represent: Black Men in Hollywood" roundtable discussion below.
Kerala police on Wednesday registered a case against about 600 parents of students, who appeared for Kerala Engineering Architecture Medical (KEAM) entrance exam, for flouting COVID-19 protocol on July 16.

On Tuesday, a 17-year-old boy from Poonthura in Thiruvananthapuram, who had appeared for KEAM examination, tested positive. He wrote the examination at St Antonys School, Valiyathura.

Two students who attended Kerala Engineering Architecture Medical (KEAM) in Thiruvananthapuram tested positive for #COVID19. This is what all of us warned about, and yet the authoritarian, clueless @CMOKerala went ahead and did it anyway. A ticking time bomb. https://t.co/Ap9vYe6deA  Sobha Surendran (@SobhaBJP) July 21, 2020

According to reports, a total of three students and one parent have tested positive among students who appeared for KEAM.

Photos and videos of people gathering outside the examination centre were circulating on social media. The police team will verify the pictures and videos from outside examination centres to identify each person.

The case was registered under relevant sections of the Kerala Epidemic Diseases Ordinance 2020.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: A Pakistani and two Indian-origin persons based in the US have been "blacklisted" by the government for their alleged anti-India activities.

The move came after Shiv Sena MP Rahul Shewale wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah apprising them about the alleged anti-India activities of Rehan Siddiqui, a US-based Pakistani, and Rakesh Kaushal and Darshan Mehta.

The trio will not be able to travel to India following the blacklisting.

In a letter to Shewale, Union Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy said the issue was examined by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) following his complaint.

"The MEA has apprised that Rehan Siddiqui, Rakesh Kaushal and Darshan Mehta have been blacklisted on the recommendations of the Consulate General of India, Houston," Reddy wrote to Shewale.

Siddiqui runs a radio station in Houston and organises cultural events with artistes from Bollywood.

Kaushal and Mehta allegedly assist Siddiqui in organising such events.

Reddy also conveyed to the MP that the Indian Embassy in Washington DC and the Consulate General in Houston have been requested to engage with prominent influencers, cultural bodies and bona-fide "Bollywood-affiliated" local entities to ensure that appropriate message is conveyed to Indian actors and artistes so that they disassociate themselves from such anti-national elements.

Shewale, the MP from Mumbai South Central, said the government has advised the Bollywood celebrities not to participate in events organised by the trio.

In his complaint to Home Minister Shah in February 2020, Shewale had said Siddiqui is the owner of a radio station in Houston and promoter of cultural events and has been allegedly involved in anti-India activities and anti-India propaganda.

The MP claimed that Siddiqui's radio station was funded by US-based Pakistanis and the Pakistan government.

Shewale said that after the February 2019 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama, Siddiqui "launched a vicious anti-India campaign and tried to malign the dignity and honour" of the Prime Minister.

Forty CRPF jawans were killed in the terror attack in Pulwama.

India had carried out an air strike at a terror camp in Pakistan, days after the Pulwama attack.

Shewale has now demanded investigations by the Enforcement Directorate and the National Investigation Agency on the Bollywood celebrities who had participated in the events organised by Siddiqui and his two accomplices.
Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 12:52:08|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. decision to close the Chinese Consulate General in Houston has drawn criticisms worldwide. Multiple international experts called the move a unilateral U.S. political provocation, which seriously violates international law and basic norms governing international relations, and undermines China-U.S. relations.

On Tuesday, the U.S. side abruptly requested the Chinese side to close its Consulate General in Houston.

Hussein Ismail, a researcher at Egypt State Information Service, said that the U.S. move is a unilateral political provocation, a serious violation of international law and basic norms governing international relations, a reflection of the arrogance of the U.S. government and a destruction of China-U.S. relations.

Ali Sarwar Naqvi, executive director at the Islamabad-based Center for International Strategic Studies in Pakistan, said the U.S. move has shocked the world because people got scared of the direction in which the United States is taking the world.

Such a condemnable and immature decision is totally against the diplomatic norms and a sheer violation of the Vienna Convention, he added.

Regarding the U.S. move as a petty and vile provocation, Andrey Manoilo, doctor of political science at Moscow State Lomonosov University, said from a diplomatic point of view, this is a clearly unfriendly act of the United States.

Cavince Adhere, an international relations researcher specializing in China-Africa relations in Kenya, said the U.S. move that risks escalating the diplomatic friction between China and the United States may further rock bilateral ties.

The closure of the consulate will adversely impact the daily lives of the Chinese living in the United States and blunt efforts to promote cultural exchanges among the people of the two countries, Adhere added.

The United States is using "China card" so that U.S. President Donald Trump can turn the election situation in his favor, said Volodymyr Volya, an expert at the Ukrainian Institute of Politics.

This has already made a small negative impact on global economic development, said Volya, warning that further deterioration of China-U.S. relations is possible.

On Wednesday, Chinese Embassy in the United States said in a statement that "China strongly condemns and firmly opposes such an outrageous and unjustified move which sabotages China-U.S. relations."

Over the years, Chinese diplomatic missions in the United States, including the Consulate General in Houston, have been performing duties in strict accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, and are dedicated to promoting China-U.S. exchanges and cooperation and advancing the two peoples' mutual understanding and friendship, the statement said. Enditem
A 37-year- old man ended his life by hanging in his house, live-streaming the shocking act on social media in neighbouring Tirupur district, police said on Thursday.

Some people who watched the mans suicide on Wednesday on his Facebook page alerted his wife and police, but he was declared brought dead at a hospital, they said.

K Ramkumar, a driver by profession and said to be an alcoholic, bolted the house door from inside and hung himself from a ceiling fan using a rope after switching on the live video option in Facebook around 1 pm on Wednesday.

Some locals who happened to see the shocking sequence informed the police and also the mans wife, working as a tailor in a knitwear unit in Tirupur town.

She, in turn, alerted Tirupur police and the owner of their rented house. They rushed to the house, broke open the door and found the man hanging.

He was rushed to the Tirupur Medical College Hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead, police said.

In a suicide note, purportedly written by him, Ramkumar had said no one was responsible for his death and he was not interested to live.

Police said a case had been registered and further investigation was on.
President Abdel-Fattah El Sisi has instructed the government to get hold of the vaccine once it becomes available

Egypt has stressed the need to receive its share of the coronavirus vaccine from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations (GAVI), said Bahaa El-Deen Zidan, the head of the authority for unified procurement.

In a report sent to Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly on the efforts exerted by the procurement authority to follow up on the latest developments on the coronavirus vaccines, Zidan said Egypt has "reiterated its share of the coronavirus vaccine from GAVI during a meeting held on Tuesday between representatives of the Egyptian authority and officials from the international alliance," a cabinet statement said on Thursday.

The GAVI is an international body aimed at creating equal access to new and underused vaccines for children. Along with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the GAVI co-leads the COVAX Facility, a financing mechanism designed to guarantee rapid and fair access to COVID-19 vaccines worldwide. It aims to deliver 2 billion doses of safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines by the end of 2021.

According to the WHO, 75 countries have joined the COVAX Facility. These countries are to finance the vaccines from their own public finance budgets, and up to 90 lower-income countries could be supported through voluntary donations to GAVIs COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC).

Zidan told the prime minister that the GAVI had presented the available vaccines, the manufacturers, and stages needed to develop them, as well as the timetable for the process of manufacturing and exporting the vaccine to various countries.

The vaccines are to be manufactured in September and October and GAVI will adopt a plan for distributing them to countries, he added.

Madbouly said that President Abdel-Fattah El Sisi has instructed the government to get hold of any vaccine once available, the statement added.

The prime minister has called for following up on the latest results of experiments in vaccines worldwide, to provide them as soon as they are available for sale to countries.

Madbouly's call was made during a set of meetings held in recent weeks with the president's adviser for health affairs, the ministers of health and scientific research, and the head of the unified procurement authority, according to the statement.

Egypt has been using a variety of immune-boosting drugs to treat COVD-19 cases.

It has been seeing a remarkable drop in detected coronavirus cases recently, registering daily cases lower than 1,000 for two weeks.

As of Wednesday, the country has recorded a total of 89,745 coronavirus cases, including 4,440 fatalities and 30,075 recoveries, since the outbreak began in February.

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The mayor of Portland was left struggling to breathe when federal agents hit him with tear gas after a crowd of angry protesters threw shrapnel at his feet as they demanded the city official resign during a Wednesday night demonstration.

Mayor Ted Wheeler scrambled to put goggles on after the noxious gas was used on crowds of Black Lives Matter protesters demonstrating against police brutality for the 56th night following the death of George Floyd who took his last breath under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer on May 25.

Wheeler told The New York Times: 'I'm not going to lie  it stings; it's hard to breathe. And I can tell you with 100 per cent honesty, I saw nothing which provoked this response.'

During his appearance, Wheeler promised that he would continue to try and get federal agents out of Portland.

'I am doing everything in my power to get them to leave,' he told protesters in footage captured by OPB.

The Trump administration sent federal agents to quell what the president claims is out-of-control violence in Portland. President Donald Trump has also threatened to send more than 150 federal officers to Chicago, which has been ravaged by escalating crime in recent weeks, including a shootout at a funeral home on Tuesday where 15 people were shot.

The presence of the federal officers has re-energized protests in Portland with as many as 2,000 people taking to the streets within the past few days after video showed officers detaining demonstrators in unmarked vehicles. Local leaders have decried the presence of the agents and have called on Trump's administration to remove them.

But Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said earlier this week that the officers aren't going anywhere. He claimed that federal law enforcement was doing its job and 'we're not going to apologize for it'.

'DHS is not going to back down from our responsibilities. We are not escalating, we are protecting,' Wolf said.

Scroll down for video

Mayor Ted Wheeler (pictured) scrambled to put goggles on after the noxious gas was used on crowds of Black Lives Matter protesters outside the city's federal courthouse

Wheeler reacts after being exposed to tear gas fired by federal officers while attending a protest against police brutality and racial injustice in front of the Mark O. Hatfield US Courthouse on Wednesday

During his appearance, Wheeler promised that he would continue to try and get federal agents out of Portland. 'I am doing everything in my power to get them to leave,' he told protesters

Wheeler spoke to the massive crowd during a demonstration Wednesday night outside the Multnomah County Justice Center

Wheeler was met by angry crowds who chanted and held banners reading 'tear gas Ted', as hundreds gathered for another demonstration on Wednesday

Members of Wheeler's security staff fight to close a door to The Portland Building after protesters followed and heckled the mayor when he left the protest

On Wednesday night, Wheeler was met with outrage from the crowd chanting 'Ted must go', swearing at him and calling for his resignation.

One man walked up and emptied a bag full of shrapnel in front of him causing Wheeler to stop in his tracks, while another came up behind him and put a police hat on his head which he swiftly removed.

Several people held banners aloft reading 'Tear gas Ted' and 'Hey Ted, no more tear gas'.

Wheeler spoke into a microphone telling protesters he was there to hold a 'listening session' where he wanted to hear their views.

Crowds pushed forward as he urged them to 'step back' to prevent 'crushing'.

'I thought this was going to be a listening session not me doing all the talking,' he said as he faced a barrage of questions.

When asked by one protester about the police allegedly working with Proud Boys, where he said 'it would be appalling to me personally' if this was true.

The Proud Boys is a far-right neo-fascist organization that admits only men and encourages political violence.

Protesters also raised concerns about the powers of Portland Police Association president Daryl Turner.

'I can not regulate Daryl Turner. He's a union official,' said Wheeler.

Federal agents are seen near a fenced-in area that protesters had breached outside the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse

Protesters throw tear gas canisters back inside the perimeter of the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse after they were launched in the crowd by federal agents

Protesters wearing helmets and carrying umbrellas demonstrate outside a perimeter set up around the Portland courthouse Wednesday night

A protester recovers from tear gas fired by federal officers during crowd dispersal at the Mark O. Hatfield US Courthouse on Wednesday

A federal officer points a less-lethal weapon toward a crowd of a few hundred protesters in front of the Mark O. Hatfield US Courthouse early Thursday morning

Protesters hold peace signs and pictures of victims of police violence during Wednesday night's protest outside the federal courthouse

A federal police officer takes cover behind a shield while clashing with protesters at the Mark O. Hatfield US Courthouse early Thursday morning

Protesters throw flaming debris over a fence surrounding the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Wednesday

A protester extinguishes a fire set by fellow protesters outside the Portland federal courthouse on Wednesday night

Protesters walk through chemical irritants dispersed by federal agents at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse early Thursday morning

This comes after Turner and Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty exchanged a fierce war of words at a city council meeting earlier in the day where Hardesty called him a liar and said cops could be setting fires in the city during protests to stoke unrest.

Hardesty also accused Wheeler and Turner of inviting the 'federal goons' to the city.

'It is appalling to find out the Portland Police Association and the union president continues to lie to the public on a daily basis about the lack of cooperation by Portland police personnel,' Hardesty said.

'If Portland does not stand up now and we as a City Council don't hold our own police officers accountable for this egregious behavior, we will be  we will go down in history of having failed in our obligation to protect community members.

'I still have to question why was Portland police not protecting Portlanders when these federal goons came in and started attacking us rather than joining the federal goons who were attacking peaceful protesters.'

Turner hit back at the claims demanding she produce evidence to back up her 'outlandish accusation'. The city council passed new policies Wednesday, banning all Portland police bureau members from cooperating with federal agents as city officials want to rid the city of the troops sent in by President Donald Trump.

Wheeler, Hardesty, Commissioner Chloe Eudaly and Commissioner Amanda Fritz voted unanimously to approve the new rules citing 'an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by the federal government'.

Meanwhile, federal officials are also blasting the actions of protesters, with at least three federal agents in Portland being blinded in an altercation this week.

Authorities said the three agents may never recover their vision after it was damaged when people shone lasers in their eyes and threw fireworks toward at the city's federal courthouse earlier in the week.

On Monday night, one person also allegedly threatened to cut off the water supply to federal officers inside the building.

A growing fire is seen near the barricaded perimeter around the federal courthouse on Wednesday

Some protesters are seen with their hands up while others hold makeshift shields and umbrellas for protection against the federal officers

Demonstrators dance and chant during the protest outside the Mark O. Hatfield US Courthouse on Wednesday

Federal officers arrest a protester after she crossed a fence line set up around the Mark O. Hatfield US Courthouse early Thursday morning

Brian Harding receives medical attention after being shot in the collarbone by a rubber bullet Wednesday night

Protesters ready their shields outside of Portland's Mark O. Hatfield US Courthouse on Wednesday night

Wall of Moms group protests for fifth night in a row as founder reveals they use their 'mombods' to shield the protesters from harm

Wednesday night marked the fifth night in a row that the group, Wall of Moms, took to the streets to act as human shields for protesters.

Earlier on Wednesday, the founder, Bev Barnum, revealed how the group came about last Friday. She said the group was formed in less than eight hours after she felt compelled to shift the 'pervasive narrative that protesters are rioters'.

At first Barnum considered doing a fundraiser. She soon decided against it, saying: 'But I thought I needed to do more so I asked the Portland working moms group to protest with me - to shield the protesters from harm with our 'mombods,'' she said.

Barnum said videos showing federal officers detaining protesters in unmarked vehicles also made her want to jump into action.

The mother-of-two told CNN: 'It didn't take long for me to find a massive array of video displaying obvious human rights violations.'

On Saturday night, the moms wore white shirts to 'show that we weren't there to make trouble, we showed up to prove that the feds are the violent ones at protest'.

Wednesday night marked the fifth night in a row that the group, Wall of Moms, took to the streets to act as human shields for protesters

Earlier on Wednesday, the founder, Bev Barnum, revealed how the group came about last Friday. She said the group was formed in less than eight hours after she felt compelled to shift the 'pervasive narrative that protesters are rioters'

Nearly 1,000 people gathered outside the Multnomah County Justice Center again Wednesday night

Mothers protest against racial inequality and police violence in Portland for the firth night in a row

A Black Lives Matter protester, who declined to give her name, rallies at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Wednesday

Federal agents teargassed a group of mothers (pictured after being teargassed Saturday night) who formed a 'wall of moms' to protect protesters during a Black Lives Matter demonstration

'And we were right. Kids took down fences and did some skateboarding, two or three kids were banging on walls, but over 100 people were peaceful.'

Barnum then described the moment she and other mothers were teargassed by authorities.

'I want to tell you that I didn't vomit or pee my pants after being gassed, but I did. I guess I lost control of my bodily fluids and soon after I couldn't open my eyes.

'To be clear, we moms weren't armed, throwing rocks, throwing water...THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN. We were gassed for chanting 'Leave The Kids Alone.''

Despite being gassed Saturday night, the mothers took to the streets of Portland once again to protect demonstrators.

On Sunday night, Barnum told CNN that around 200 women joined the Wall of Moms movement.

They also changed up their color from white to yellow as they locked arms and chanted outside the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse.

Trump administration deploys FBI and other agents to Chicago to quell 'out of control violence'

While tensions continue to bubble over in Portland, concerns are mounting that Chicago is headed the same way after Trump said he was sending in federal agents there.

Trump escalated his federal intervention in cities Wednesday by deploying FBI and other agents to Chicago and Albuquerque to quell what he claims is out of control violence.

The president said he was sending 'hundreds' of federal agents into Chicago and other cities to combat street violence  including an influx of a controversial Homeland Security unit that has been deployed in Portland.

Trump also said he was holding back on dispatching what he termed 'large numbers' of federal agents, pending requests from city mayors  then added: 'At some point we may have no other choice but to go in.'

Trump ordered the agents in after Chicago has been ravaged by escalating violence in recent weeks including a shootout at a funeral home Tuesday.

'The FBI, ATF, DEA, US Marshalls Service and Homeland Security will together be sending hundreds of skilled law enforcement officers to Chicago to help drive down violent crime,' Trump said at the White House.

Chad Wolf, the acting director of the Homeland Security Department, sought to stress the distinction between the two missions in Chicago and Portland after concerns have been raised after the controversial actions in the Oregon city.

While tensions continue to bubble over in Portland, concerns are mounting that Chicago is headed the same way after Trump said he was sending in federal agents there. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (pictured) vowed there would be no 'Portland-style deployment' of federal agents in her city

In Chicago, the agents will help local authorities battle a spate of street violence that has ripped apart families and injured young children and bystanders.

'In Chicago the mission is to protect the public from violent crime on the streets,' said Wolf, who has not been confirmed by the Senate for his position.

Trump during remarks repeatedly tore into local officials, blaming them for violence in their cities.

'When they abdicate their duty the results are catastrophic,' the president said. He repeatedly connected violent crime to left-wing policies, as he faces a stiff challenge from Democrat Joe Biden amid protests over police violence and stresses his own 'law and order' platform.

'What cities are doing is absolute insanity,' Trump said, blasting calls to defund police departments. He decried a 'rampage of violence.'

The administration has relied on a legal justification related to protecting federal buildings for inserting Portland agents, who are opposed by local officials.

The Chicago model is to be based on 'Operation LeGend,' which has already been used in Kansas City.

The operation is named after LeGend Taliferro, a four-year-old boy shot and killed in Kansas City, Missouri June 29.

Trump is expanding the operation by deploying FBI and other agents to Chicago and Albuquerque to quell what he claims is out of control violence.

Lightfoot offered some off-ramp to the tensions before the formal announcement, saying a plan to surge FBI and DEA agents to help her city contend with local crime had her approval - but not an 'undemocratic' insertion of unidentified Homeland Security agents, as Trump has ordered in Portland.

Her statement signaled a possible de-escalation as critics fume about the Trump administration's use of 'secret' Homeland Security Investigations agents who have taken part in violent clashes with protesters in Portland.

Lightfoot, who has publicly clashed with Trump , had vowed there would be no 'Portland-style deployment' in her city, just hours before gun violence erupted at a funeral.

Fifteen people were wounded on Chicago's South Side in the shooting outside a funeral home Tuesday night. Police said at least 60 bullets were fired in the shootout when gunmen in a car opened fire on the funeral party, who then returned fire on the vehicle.

Violent crime is soaring across Chicago, with 12 killed in shootings and another 51 injured last weekend.

CCTV footage believed to be from the Chicago incident shows the horrifying moment mourners are shot at while standing outside the funeral home. A dark car is seen pulling up by the pavement where attendees of the funeral are gathered. Gunshots can then be heard and the people run for cover from the bullets

Police investigate the scene of the shooting Tuesday - in what marked yet another day of shocking violence in the city

Chicago has seen an explosion in violence this summer. There were 116 murders over the 28 days through July 19, an increase of nearly 200 per cent, police department data shows.

The city's police superintendent David Brown blamed turf battles among the roughly 117,000 gang members in the city of 2.7 million people, where one shooting begets another in an endless cycle of revenge.

'This same cycle repeats itself over and over and over again. This cycle is fueled by street gangs, guns and drugs,' he said. 'Too many people in Chicago have been touched by gun violence.'

Lightfoot also vowed in a tweet before that incident: 'Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trump's troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents.'

Amid confusion about what federal agents might be sent in, Lightfoot hedged her language. DHS has refused to comment on 'leaked' reports about its agents being deployed.

'What I understand at this point  and I caveat that  is that the Trump administration is not going to foolishly deploy unnamed agents to the streets of Chicago,' she said.

'As I understand it, what we will be getting are some additional resources in the FBI, the DEA and the ATF,' she added.

She even described the federal help as potentially useful in combating the city's crime wave  which Trump made a campaign issue in 2016 and has been fuming about again.

'What we will receive is resources that are going to plug into the existing federal agencies that we work with on a regular basis to help manage and suppress violent crime in our city,' she said.

She said Laushch would be 'in the loop.' She called what happened in Portland 'not only unconstitutional, it was undemocratic'.
It is vital that we prepare our workforces with the necessary skillsets to meet future needs

In the last few years, Data Science has been fuelling powerful business decisions taken by Industry leaders. Data scientists are story tellers. They often need to dig into Data, clean, transform, build and validate models, understand pattern, generate insights and, most importantly, communicate results effectively.

In the field of Statistics, Analytics and Visualization, in addition to SAS (Statistical Analysis System), most talked about languages are R and Python. This article highlights the current status, the observed challenges of R, proposed approaches for the risk assessment of R packages, mitigation, and implementation for Clinical Trial Data Analysis.

So, what is the Need of the Hour? It is of paramount importance that we understand the bigger picture for the Life Sciences Industry.

The Life Sciences Industry needs greater innovation in order to reach patients faster, with affordable drug prices and improved accessibility. With the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, this is now more important than ever before.

The industry is seeking better alternative Technologies and Tools, which are sustainable and can provide optimal solutions while effectively addressing Industry challenges. There are a number of questions to be addressed:

Are our current Tools outdated?

Do we have an alternate solution for SAS, in order to avoid high license and maintenance cost?

Is the Industry ready for R, Python, or another tool?

What is certain, is that we need efficient Data Science Technologies and Tools that can help us to manage Data Lake (Example: Big Data and Real-World Data) while being able to process it faster and with accuracy. Efficiency in Data Analysis results in greater Insights about data and can help improve decision making across Drug Development.

Innovation is needed in order to move away from any traditional inefficient processes and tools, towards efficient, simple, easy to implement, reliable and cost-effective solutions. Collaboration across Industry stakeholders is needed to develop better technology ecosystems and to agree on Validation and Regulatory benchmarks.

It is vital that we prepare our workforces with the necessary skillsets to meet future needs.

Current Trends of R in Pharma and CROs:

R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. It is available as Free Software under the terms of the Free Software Foundations GNU General Public License in source code form. As an open source software, R gets huge support from the Data Community. Source code availability provides superior and thorough documentation. There are approximately 2 Million users worldwide for R.

In order to understand how R is used across Pharma and CRO Industry in India, a survey was conducted on social media. More than 25 Companies and 250+ participants engaged in this survey. Looking at the current industry trends, R usage is less than 10% in activities related to Pharma Regulatory Submissions. However, R is extensively used in public health projects, healthcare economics, exploratory/scientific analysis, trend identification, generation of Plots/Graphs, specific Statistical analysis and machine learning. R is not widely used for creation of CDISC (SDTM, ADaM) datasets.

One of the most common questions from the Programming community is Should we replace SAS with R, or use both, or another language (Python)?. There is no one size fits all, instead of choosing between SAS or R or Python, we should leverage the best from each of these programming languages to solve appropriate Data science problems.

We have few Early Adopters of R, and they have experienced some challenges. Ensuring regulatory compliance of R packages is one of the most common. If R has to be considered for doing work related to regulatory submissions, one needs to do Risk assessment of R packages, feasibility analysis, and establish process for R usage through Pilot projects with the necessary documentation.

Often, we end up using different technologies and it can become difficult to integrate when needed.

The Technology space continues to expand, and it is paramount that we stay ahead, in terms of learning curve, in order to take advantage of the cutting-edge solutions that are required for Data science problem solving.

In India, workforce retraining is one of the major strategies that Companies must embark on for the next 2 to 3 years to ensure their employees are upskilled with the latest technology and tools.

R Validation Hub: Enabling Use of R in Regulatory Setting:

R is free, but it is an investment. The main challenge of using R is ensuring validation documentation. R needs to be programmed.

In May 2015, the US FDA released a Statistical Software Clarifying Statement. The FDA does not require use of any specific software for statistical analysis. However, software packages used for statistical analysis should be fully documented in the submission, including version and build identification. In addition, documentation of appropriate software testing procedures should be readily available.

In March 2018, the FDA released the Study Data Technical Conformance Guide. Delivering Software Programs, paragraph 4.1.2.10 states: Sponsors should provide the software programs used to create all ADaM datasets and generate tables and figures associated with primary and secondary efficacy analyses. Furthermore, sponsors should submit software programs used to generate additional information included in Section 14 CLINICAL STUDIES of the Prescribing Information (PI)26 if applicable. The specific software utilized should be specified in the ADRG (Analysis Data Reviewer's Guide).

The main purpose of requesting the submission of these programs is to understand the process by which the variables for the respective analyses were created and to confirm the analysis algorithms. Sponsors should submit software programs in ASCII text format; however, executable file extensions should not be used.

R Validation hub is a Cross Industry Initiative. The mission is to enable the use of R by the Bio-Pharmaceutical Industry in a regulatory setting, where the output may be used in submissions to regulatory agencies.

The R Validation Hub comprises of participants from across the pharmaceutical industry (Abbvie, Amgen, Astellas, Bayer, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Celgene, Eli Lilly, FDA, Genentech, Gilead, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Roche, RStudio, Sanofi, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, and many more). Participants contribute to the effort through regular group meetings, as well as the various workstreams that make up the project.

The focus of this group is on designing a framework that assesses the quality of an R package (Contributed by volunteers) and to create a repository of accepted packages.

Shrishaila Patil, Vice President, Statistical Programming, Navitas Data Sciences, a part of Navitas Life Sciences (a TAKE Solutions Enterprise), Bengaluru
ROXBURY  Two people were rescued from a pickup truck Wednesday night after it crashed down an embankment on Route 67.

First responders were called to the area of 396 Southbury Road at 11:52 p.m. for a rollover involving a pickup truck that went off the roadway.

Two people were trapped in the truck, which had gone about 10 to 15 feet down an embankment, according to dispatch reports.

State police later determined that the truck had been heading eastbound on Route 67 when it went off the roadway, struck a guide rail and went down an embankment before striking a tree and coming to a final rest.

A medic said both occupants were semi-conscious and still in the vehicle around 12:30 a.m.. They were both extricated by 12:50 a.m.

State police said the driver  a 63-year-old Fairfield man  claimed to have fallen asleep while driving.

The driver complained of head, neck and chest pain and was transported to Danbury Hospital for further medical evaluation, according to police.

His passenger  a 63-year-old Southbury woman  was transported to the hospital with head, arm and leg injuries.

The pickup truck was towed from the scene with heavy damage.

State police said they are investigating the crash.

kendra.baker@hearst.com
As the world and the United States in particular remain trapped in a raging COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is travelling abroad to coordinate a response -- not against the deadly pathogen, but against China.

During a press conference with his British counterpart Dominic Raab, he weaponized a variety of issues to smear the country and the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) while offering no concrete evidence -- as usual -- to support his claims.

China demonstrated plenty of global leadership at the start of the outbreak and swiftly shared crucial information about the novel coronavirus with the world. Yet Pompeo continues to accuse China of a cover up.

Pompeo and the like should wake up to the fact that their desperate attempts to blame China won't save a single life in America. Worse, their damage to global cooperation to defeat the virus has contributed to the current dire situation.

Pompeo unsurprisingly called the CPC a "threat." Washington, according to Robin Wright, a contributing writer to The New Yorker, "has a long history of provoking, instigating, or launching wars based on dubious, flimsy, or manufactured threats."

Pompeo the demagogue, who has recently been called one of the "worst secretaries of state ever" by The Washington Post, again chose to turn a blind eye to the fact that each country is entitled to choose a path of development suitable to its own national characteristics.

The so-called CPC threat comes from nowhere but the imagination and anxiety of a troubled soul mired in a Cold-War and zero-sum mentality.

Pompeo also called for a coalition against China and professed to ensure that every country "behaves properly."

How well has the U.S. behaved in its history? Throughout the country's 240-plus years of existence, only 16 years saw no warfare. Since 2001 alone, it has waged unjustified wars and military operations in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and other countries, spending over 6.4 trillion U.S. dollars, causing over 800,000 deaths and displacing tens of millions.

Regarding tech company Huawei, the top U.S. diplomat congratulated London for its political decision to ban the Chinese firm from Britain's 5G network. London's unwise decision threatens to move Britain into the digital slow lane and increases its 5G infrastructure roll-out costs by up to 29 percent.

For years Pompeo has failed to offer any concrete evidence to support his claim that Huawei poses a security threat. Driven by strong ideological biases, the U.S. administration went so far as to employ national resources, abuse national security, and use democracy and values as a cover to repress the Chinese company.

Once again, Pompeo's performance in London reminds the world that Washington's current China policy is based on ill-informed strategic miscalculations and is fraught with McCarthyist bigotry.

In a rare moment of truth, Pompeo, also the former Central Intelligence Agency chief, once admitted that "we lied, we cheated, we stole," a perfect phrase to sum up how low Washington would go to stem China's rise.
Investing in buy-ranked stocks that are seeing upward estimate revisions is a no-brainer. Heres a quick dive into a couple you may want to add to your portfolio-

Koninklijke Philips N.V. PHG

Headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Koninklijke Philips N.V. is the parent company of the Philips Group. It is a health technology company operating through Personal Health, Diagnosis & Treatment, and Connected Care segments.

Through these segments, it offers imaging, x-ray (for diagnostics and therapy), proprietary software facilitating diagnostics and intervention, monitoring and analytics, sleep and respiratory solutions, etc; digital frameworks connecting consumers, patients, healthcare providers, payers, and partners in a cloud-based connected health ecosystem.

Its in the process of divesting the domestic appliances business, which includes products like power toothbrushes, infant feeding and digital parental solutions, products for male grooming, beauty, kitchen appliances, home care, garment care products as well as coffee which is being divested.

Headline numbers: The company reported revenue of $4.84 billion and earnings of 39 cents. Although down from last year, they were up a respective 5.4% and 95% on a sequential basis.

Highlights of the quarter: This is primarily a COVID story, as the areas of the business supporting the pandemic saw extremely high growth while some others languished. Management remarked that the second quarter has seen the largest adverse impact on revenue and margins from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic while maintaining expectations of continued increasing market share in the professional healthcare market.

In terms of revenue, this translated into a 19% decline in Personal Health and a 9% decline in Diagnosis & Treatment, as offset by a 14% increase in Connected Care.

Equipment orders jumped 27%, the second straight quarter of strength, driven by patient monitors, hospital ventilators, computed tomography, and portable ultrasound systems. Sleep and respiratory care sales grew double-digits and monitoring and analytics grew mid-single-digits. However, installation for elective procedures in hospitals dropped 6% (volumes recovered to 10% below pre-COVID-19 levels in recent weeks compared to 50%+ decline coming into the current quarter).

Story continues

There were 14 new large scale strategic partnerships, such as a 10-year agreement with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, expanding their tele-critical care program. The VA expects to manage 1,800 ICU beds across the nation, creating the world's largest system providing virtual access to intensive care expertise.

Operations were fully functional. Sales and field service engineers delivered on critical equipment installations and maintenance services whether physically or remotely.

While there was a hit to profitability due to product mix and lower utilization, it was partially offset by cost mitigation efforts that remain on track. Therefore, with elective procedures normalizing in the second half, consumer demand also picking up and order fulfilment on the Diagnosis and Treatment side, management expects to maintain growth and improve on profitability targets for the year.

Other details:

Zacks Rank #1 (Buy)

VGM Score A

Industry: Electronics - Miscellaneous Products (top 35%)

2020 estimate up 11 cents in the last 7 days

2021 estimate up 16 cents in the last 7 days

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. CDNS

Based in San Jose, CA, Cadence Design Systems offers products and tools that help customers design integrated circuits (ICs), IC packages and printed circuit boards (PCBs). As IC making is a complicated process and the cost of an incorrectly developed design very high, precision tools are imperative to generate effective results.

Cadence offers the whole gamut of tools spanning software, hardware and services for schematic and physical representations of ICs, including tools for simulation and analysis of the logic, verification of each step, finalization of the design and identifying manufacturing and yield issues as early in the development process as possible. It also offers pre-verified, customizable functional blocks called IPs that can be used in the design process to speed up development and minimize errors.

Headline numbers: Cadence reported earnings of 66 cents that topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 52 cents by 26.9%. Revenue of $638 million was 7.8% higher than the estimated $592 million.

Highlights of the quarter: The results were driven by strength across product lines, as longer-term demand trends in things like 5G, artificial intelligence and hyperscale computing remained on track.

Programs at customers like Renesas and Micron MU were expanded and new accounts were also won. Collaboration with Taiwan Semiconductor TSM and Microsoft MSFT for Cadence signoff solutions in TSM technology on Azure was also called out.

As has been the common theme for many players of late, the employee base continues to work from home. Management said that things were effectively handled on the operational side as regards R&D and customer deliverables. Moreover, investment in infrastructure and collaboration platforms continues, supporting the sales and application engineering teams.

The very strong demand allowed management to raise guidance for the year, even after providing for weaker collections expected at some smaller customers.

Other details:

Zacks Rank #2 (Buy)

VGM Score B

Industry: Computer  Software (top 43%)

2020 estimate up 2 cents in the last 7 days

The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All

Last year, it generated $24 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $77.6 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early.

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WASHINGTON  As Congress negotiates the next coronavirus relief package, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is pushing for it to target relief to Latinos, with polls showing that nearly 30 percent of their households in Texas didnt get economic stimulus checks or any other support from the federal coronavirus relief bill passed in March.

Among the biggest issues: The last round of stimulus checks did not go to as many as 940,000 Texans who are citizens or legal U.S. residents because their spouses or parents entered the country without legal authorization, according to estimates by the Migration Policy Institute. Members of such mixed-status families were cut out of the stimulus aid.

Yet the coronavirus has disproportionately hammered the Hispanic community. Latinos made up 35 percent of all COVID-19 cases for which data on race and ethnicity were available as of July 1, according to a recent report by national advocacy group UnidosUS. Latinos make up 19 percent of the U.S. population. The same data show that Latinos account for 55 percent of all confirmed COVID-19 cases in children.

Sadly, our fellow Texans  particularly Latinos and communities of color  are now bearing the brunt of this suffering, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat who chairs the CHC, wrote in a letter to U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn of Texas. It is imperative that the federal government take robust action to provide the assistance that our constituents desperately need.

HOUSTON HISPANICS BEAR BRUNT: Language barriers are a main reason.

More than three-quarters of Latinos in Texas are worried that they wouldnt be able to afford COVID-19 treatment if they got sick, according to a May poll by the two advocacy groups. Nearly 60 percent of Latinos, meanwhile, say they have struggled to buy food, medicine and household items, while 40 percent are having trouble making rent or mortgage payments.

Over the last two months, rapid case growth among Hispanic residents has drastically outpaced COVID-19 spread among other ethnicities, Hearst Newspapers reported, with up to 65 percent of those hospitalized being of Hispanic ethnicity. Experts say language barriers and lack of translated health information are a big reason.

Castro is pushing for the next relief package to include provisions included in the version that House Democrats passed earlier this year that would, among other things, direct stimulus checks to anyone who pays taxes, including those with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, used by many undocumented immigrants to pay federal taxes.

He is also calling for automatic extension of work permits for people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and those with temporary protected status, which the House legislation would do, as well. Texas is home to more than 106,000 DACA recipients, according to estimates by the Migration Policy Institute. Castros letter says there are 48,600 people with temporary protected status in Texas.

All told, as many as 2.4 million Texas immigrants and their families  including those who are in the country illegally  didnt get stimulus checks the federal government cut earlier this year.

ben.wermund@chron.com
A SoCalGas sign outside the Scattergood power plant in El Segundo. (Mario Tama / Getty Images)

The nation's largest gas utility has spent months fighting an investigation by a California consumer watchdog agency, saying the company's constitutional rights are being trampled and refusing to give regulators full access to its financial records.

California's Public Advocates Office says Southern California Gas Co. should be fined millions of dollars for failing to comply with a subpoena. It's only the latest skirmish between SoCalGas and the consumer watchdog, which is investigating what it describes as the gas company's inappropriate use of customer money to fight climate change policies.

SoCalGas serves nearly 22 million people from the Central Valley to the U.S.-Mexico border. The company faces a diminished future as a growing number of cities ban gas hookups in new buildings, and as climate activists call for a total phaseout of fossil fuels  a prospect SoCalGas and its parent company, Sempra Energy of San Diego, are determined to avoid.

It's a preview of a battle that could play out across the country as more governments take steps to slash consumption of natural gas, a planet-warming fossil fuel commonly used for heating, cooking and electricity generation.

SoCalGas can spend shareholder money however it wants. But as a state-sanctioned monopoly, it's required to spend ratepayer money strictly on programs that benefit ratepayers, such as infrastructure upgrades that improve safety or efficiency programs that help customers reduce gas use.

The Public Advocates Office, the consumer watchdog branch of the California Public Utilities Commission, first grew suspicious when it discovered several years ago that SoCalGas had used customer funds to try to block a federal efficiency standard for gas furnaces. The watchdog also unearthed evidence that SoCalGas used ratepayer funds to help create the pro-gas advocacy group Californians for Balanced Energy Solutions, although the company later agreed to bill the work to shareholders instead.

Story continues

Spurred by those revelations, the Public Advocates Office launched a broader investigation last year to determine where else the utility may have tried to use ratepayer dollars to support pro-gas advocacy.

In response to questions from the consumer watchdog, SoCalGas has acknowledged lobbying government officials for policies that would result in more natural gas-fueled vehicles at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, at Los Angeles International Airport and in L.A. County's bus fleet. SoCalGas has also acknowledged charging its customers for some of that lobbying, according to documents shared with The Times by the Public Advocates Office.

The company has argued that switching from petroleum-based fuels to natural gas can dramatically reduce air pollution. Environmental groups have instead pushed for electric trucks and buses, which unlike natural gas vehicles have zero emissions.

Trucks line up at the entrance of a cargo terminal in the Port of Long Beach. (Beatrice de Gea / Los Angeles Times)

The amount of money SoCalGas has spent lobbying for natural gas vehicles is redacted in the documents provided to The Times. It appears to be relatively small, compared to the nearly $3 billion in sales revenue the company collected in 2018.

The Public Advocates Office also unearthed a March 2019 work order in which a SoCalGas executive authorized nearly $28 million for "balanced energy" activities." In addition to the company's role in founding Californians for Balanced Energy Solutions, SoCalGas has helped persuade more than 120 city and county governments to pass similarly worded resolutions calling for balanced energy solutions"  a centerpiece of the company's efforts to demonstrate widespread opposition to phasing out gas.

Gas company spokesman Chris Gilbride said in an email that the March 2019 work order "does not reflect actual spending" and is "an internal projection of what those costs might look like" over a five-year period. He said the account was established "specifically to make sure those costs are not paid for by ratepayers."

But the work order characterized all "balanced energy" expenditures as operations and maintenance, which are typically funded by ratepayers. Pressed by the consumer watchdog this year, SoCalGas said the account was initially booked to ratepayers rather than shareholders because of an "inadvertent accounting error" that was later corrected.

After a year of wrangling with the Public Advocates Office, SoCalGas now says additional scrutiny of its actions is warranted.

In a July 17 letter to the Public Utilities Commission, Dan Skopec, the company's vice president of regulatory affairs, asked the agency to open an investigation into SoCalGas. He cited a "lack of clarity" in where spending ratepayer money is appropriate, writing that "gray areas exist in rate-making treatment for lobbying activity."

"While such a request is unprecedented, an inquiry is vital for achieving clarity on compliance with commission rules regarding how costs are allocated to ratepayers," Skopec wrote.

Skopec said the gas company would hire an independent third party to review its accounting. He also asked the commission to clarify for all investor-owned utilities the rules around use of ratepayer funds and what constitutes lobbying.

"Rapidly evolving decarbonization policies and local advocacy in support of them throughout the state present unique challenges for SoCalGas and other entities working in this sector," Skopec wrote, referring to policies meant to reduce carbon emissions.

The full extent of the company's ratepayer-funded lobbying is hard to know, in part because SoCalGas has thus far refused to provide some of the information demanded by the consumer watchdog.

In May, the Public Utilities Commission served SoCalGas with a subpoena, ordering the company to give the Public Advocates Office access to its accounting system. The company said it would comply only if it could shield certain financial records from view, including activities funded entirely by shareholders and documents protected by attorney-client privilege.

"SoCalGas takes seriously its obligations as a regulated entity to make its books and records available to the commission and Cal Advocates on request," the company wrote, using another name for the Public Advocates Office. "But it must comply with its obligations in a manner that protects its privileged and constitutionally protected information from disclosure to Cal Advocates."

SoCalGas made similar arguments in response to an earlier data request, saying the Public Advocates Office's demands amounted to a violation of its rights to free speech and free association. The company said that earlier request  seeking information about political activities that it claims are 100% shareholder-funded  "tramples dangerously on core constitutional rights."

"That, in turn, has had a substantial chilling effect on SoCalGas and others exercise of their constitutional rights to associate with each other, petition the government, and engage in free speech," the utility wrote in December.

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San Fernando Valley residents hold signs at an Oct. 23 rally marking the fourth anniversary of the blowout at Aliso Canyon, a gas storage facility owned by SoCalGas, in the Porter Ranch neighborhood of Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

The Public Advocates Office declined the gas company's offer of partial access to its financial records, demanding full access.

Mike Campbell, a program manager at the consumer watchdog, told The Times it would be difficult to trust that SoCalGas wasn't hiding something incriminating, because the company has previously provided misleading information about which activities are funded by ratepayers and which by shareholders.

"Frankly, how are you supposed to tell the difference if you don't look at both?" Campbell asked.

Last month, Campbell's office asked the Public Utilities Commission to fine SoCalGas $100,000 a day for its failure to honor the subpoena. That would amount to $4.5 million as of June 23, the day the motion was filed, with the amount growing each day.

SoCalGas responded that the request for fines "is an effort to coerce SoCalGas to waive its privileges and First Amendment rights."

The commission, whose five members are appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, hasn't yet ruled on the subpoena dispute.

A similar fight played out in the commission's investigation into safety practices at Aliso Canyon, the SoCalGas fuel storage facility that sprung a massive leak in 2015, sickening residents of nearby Porter Ranch and forcing thousands of people to evacuate.

In October, the commission issued a subpoena on behalf of its Safety and Enforcement Division, ordering SoCalGas to let safety officials question a company representative under oath.

SoCalGas had alleged that a safety division investigator may have "improperly influenced" an outside consultant's analysis of the Aliso Canyon leak. The subpoena ordered SoCalGas to provide the "person or persons most knowledgeable" to explain the basis for its allegation.

The utility did not comply, arguing the subpoena was "premature" and "premised on a mischaracterization of SoCalGas position." Two administrative law judges disagreed.

When the Safety and Enforcement Division asked the commission to fine SoCalGas $100,000 a day for failing to honor the subpoena, the same administrative law judges dismissed the request on procedural grounds.

The Aliso Canyon gas storage field in the Santa Susana Mountains north of Los Angeles. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

The Public Advocates Office now says the company's refusal to allow a full inspection of its financial records "is perhaps understandable given its prior unpunished defiance of a commission subpoena in the Aliso Canyon investigation."

Why should SoCalGas comply with commission orders when there are no consequences for violations? the watchdog asked.

Asked to respond to that criticism, commission spokeswoman Terrie Prosper said in an email that the agency "will hold SoCalGas accountable if wrongdoing is found."

The Sierra Club is also pressing SoCalGas for information as part of a separate Public Utilities Commission investigation.

Documents obtained by the environmental group, and shared with The Times, shine additional light on the gas company's eagerness to avoid climate policies that could hurt its bottom line. One of those documents  a 2014 presentation prepared for the company's senior management team  warned that a stricter efficiency standard for gas water heaters, proposed by the California Energy Commission, could have a significant effect on $800 million in annual revenue from residential water heating.

SoCalGas faced "up to $17 [million] in lost revenues and opportunity cost annually," according to the presentation, which also warned the proposed efficiency standard could help spur a transition to all-electric homes.

"We are taking aggressive steps to address the proposed changes," the presentation said.

The company's fears have started to come true: Not only did the Energy Commission approve the stricter efficiency standard for gas water heaters, it later went a step further, adopting rules that make it easier for home builders to use electric water heaters. Since then, 31 cities and counties have either banned or limited gas hookups in new buildings.

The Public Advocates Office is scrutinizing the gas company's efforts to stave off those types of policies. In at least one city, San Luis Obispo, some of the company's advocacy was carried out by employees whose salaries are paid by SoCalGas customers, the utility has acknowledged.

"Theyre using customer money to obstruct local governments efforts to address the climate crisis," said Matt Vespa, an attorney with the nonprofit law firm Earthjustice who has represented the Sierra Club in regulatory disputes with SoCalGas. "They want to keep California hooked on fossil fuels."

A SoCalGas pipeline known as Line 235 brings natural gas through the California desert toward the Los Angeles Basin. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

In a written statement, SoCalGas spokesman Chris Gilbride said the company supports California's climate targets.

We are lucky to live in a state where innovation is prized and where consumers and businesses have access to a wide variety of clean energy options," Gilbride said. "Our goal has always been to follow the [Public Utilities Commission] rules and to do the right thing for our customers and the communities we serve. That is why we are requesting the commission clarify its rules."

Given the importance of the SoCalGas system to keeping energy bills affordable, the electric grid reliable, and resilient, and to meeting the states environmental goals, these issues deserve a forum that promotes public participation and transparency," he added.
A Swansea University project exploring how to use algae to create the next generation of sunscreens has now teamed up with an award-winning skincare firm to help develop the idea.

ALG-SUN, led by the Biosciences Department, has been awarded funding from the Algae-UK (Proof of Concept) Scheme to undertake research with both academic and industrial partners.

The Swansea team will now be working on the project with the Natural Products Factory which owns award-winning organic and vegan skincare brand Nourish London along with health scientists from Swansea University Medical School and University spin-off company Membranology.

It is great that Algae-UK is funding this proof of concept research to enable us to work together with Natural Products Factory to better understand how we can take these promising natural products to market." Carole Llewellyn, Professor in Applied Aquatic Bioscience

Professor Llewellyn said evidence is emerging that products that contain sunscreen can damage the ecosystem when they are washed off skin. As a result, synthetic organic sunscreens are now banned in some areas of the world.

Also some sunscreen compounds can be harmful to health by disrupting hormone signalling linked to an increase cancer risk.

The team is seeking to develop new sunscreen products that do not damage the natural environment and are proven to be safe to use on the skin.

Professor Llewellyn believes microalgae could hold the key. Microalgae protect themselves from damaging solar ultraviolet radiation with a group of sunscreen compounds called mycosporine-like amino acids (MAAs). However, there is a major challenge in obtaining MAAs in sufficient quantity and purity to confirm their effectiveness on the skin and to make algal sunscreens commercially viable.

This project will see the partners working together to try to overcome these commercial barriers.

Dr Pauline Hili, founder of Natural Products Factory and renowned expert in organic skincare, said she first became interested after reading about Professor Llewellyn's work with algae.

She said: "For a long time I had been wanting to explore more natural sunscreens and what possibilities might exist in the natural world. It struck me that surely we could find some way to make an improvement in this area.

"After speaking to Professor Llewellyn it became clear to me that an industry and academic collaboration would be a great way forward."

She said sunscreens were among her customers' most requested items.

"Through this work we could provide a real game changer for the consumer who is concerned about the environmental impact of their products. It is at a very early stage but it is very exciting to be generating research that has so many possibilities."
Littman Krooks LLP is pleased to announce our new online series, "Lunch with Littman Krooks. Join us Tuesdays at 12:00PM (EST) as our attorneys share valuable updates and information about laws pertaining to elder law, Medicaid planning, estate planning, guardianship, special needs planning and special education advocacy in New York State.

This information will be offered through a series of Zoom conferences. Here is the schedule:



July 28th: Time is of the Essence: How to Protect Your Assets Before Community Medicaid Rules Change. Recent changes to Community Medicaid are scheduled to take effect on October 1, 2020, Littman Krooks attorney, Brian L. Miller, Esq., will discuss estate planning techniques that should be put in place prior to October 1st, including how to best protect your assets while maintaining eligibility for future Community Medicaid benefits.

Aug 4th: Am I Too Young to Have an Estate Plan? People often wonder whether they are too young to prepare an estate plan. Littman Krooks attorney, Joel Krooks, Esq., will discuss why every millennial should have their estate in order and will review the necessary documents. You should hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

Aug 11th: What You Need to Know When a Loved One Dies." Dealing with the death of a loved one is difficult and the process of administrating your loved ones estate can be overwhelming. Littman Krooks partner, Amy C. OHara, Esq., will lead a discussion of what steps should be taken when a loved one dies and what responsibilities you may have.

Aug 18th: Pandemic Planning: Checklist for Preparing Students for the New and Uncertain School Year.  The coming school year will be filled with uncertainty for all. Each school district will be developing its own plan for reopening, Littman Krooks partner, Marion M. Walsh, Esq., will present a checklist on how to prepare your student for the school year, with a focus on supporting students with disabilities or learning/emotional needs.

Aug 25th: Basics of an New York State Special Education Impartial Hearing." Littman Krooks attorney, Arshi Pal, Esq., with provide an explanation of the Impartial Hearing Process and the associated timelines. She will also review best practices to preserve the record and explain any changes in the process due to the pandemic.

Sept 1st: Basics of Article 81 Guardianship in New York." Littman Krooks attorney, Stephanie Goldstein, Esq., will discuss the basics of Article 81 Guardianship in New York. She will review what you need to know in order to prepare and file a petition and what happens thereafter.

To learn more about these conferences and to register for any of these conferences, please visit https://www.littmankrooks.com/lunch-with-littman-krooks/

About Littman Krooks LLP

Littman Krooks LLP provides sophisticated legal advice and the high level of expertise ordinarily associated with large law firms along with the personal attention and responsiveness of smaller firms. These ingredients, which are the cornerstone of effective representation and necessary to a successful lawyer/client relationship, have become the foundation of the firms success.

Littman Krooks LLP offers legal services in several areas of law, including elder law, estate planning, special needs planning, special education advocacy, and corporate and securities. Their offices are located at 655 Third Avenue, New York, New York and 399 Knollwood Road, White Plains, New York. For more information about Littman Krooks LLP, visit http://www.littmankrooks.com.

Disclaimer: Please note that Zoom is a third party and not an agent of or associated with Littman Krooks LLP. You agree that your use of such third party websites and resources is subject to the terms and conditions of the use of such websites.

Disclaimer: These conferences are provided for educational purposes only and shall not constitute the provision of professional legal, tax or other advice. Littman Krooks LLP and its attorneys shall have no liability for errors, incorrect information, or inapplicability of information provided to any particular visitor/attendee.


A groundbreaking ceremony on the waterfront Thursday morning was interrupted by protesters demanding Mayor John Tory take action on pending evictions during the pandemic.

While Tory was at the podium at a construction site off Queens Quay East, protesters from Parkdale Organize and Peoples Defence Toronto interrupted with large signs and a megaphone, cutting the event short after the mayor refused to speak with them about their demands before the press conference was over.

Your ribbon-cutting can wait. Your gold shovels can wait, one protester shouted at the mayor.

After Tory criticized the group for what he called a violent protest staged earlier this month outside his Bedford Road condo, demonstrators followed him to a nearby building demanding to speak with him as police officers in cruisers and on bikes arrived (the mayor is always escorted by a plainclothes Toronto police officer).

I dont know how Im going to go back and Im going to face my community, said Hamna Mughal, who said her neighbours are being offered repayment plans they cant possibly afford.

These are families that can end up on the street and if he does nothing they will end up on the street.

She said Ontario Premier Doug Ford should be doing something about it, but isnt.

In March, Ford said tenants who couldnt afford to pay during the pandemic and amid massive job losses would not be evicted.

But that same month, his government also introduced Bill 184, the Protecting Tenants and Strengthening Community Housing Act, which is now law, which advocates warned could speed up pandemic-related evictions and which applies to nonpayment of rent retroactive to mid-March.

While the law governing evictions is provincial and control of the Landlord and Tenant Board is also provincial jurisdiction, the protesters say Tory has the power to enact a moratorium on evictions in Toronto through an emergency order during the pandemic.

Under the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act, municipal mayors have broad powers, said Cole Webber, with Parkdale Community Legal Services.

As the mayor of Toronto, John Tory is empowered to make any order to protect the health, safety and well-being of the residents is Toronto.

Webber said this is something Tory can do now as long as the declaration of emergency remains in effect.

Tory left shortly after the protest began in a car guarded by officers. Demonstrators shouted at him as he left.

In a statement released later, Tory said the citys legal team has advised him that the city has no legal authority to impose a ban on evictions.

He reiterated that he believes no evictions should take place without a hearing, as would be possible under the new bill.

I have fought throughout the COVID-19 pandemic for tenants  both residential and commercial tenants who have been hit hard by this crisis, the statement said.

I will continue to advocate on behalf of tenants and have repeatedly said I am concerned about people who are at risk of being evicted once the provinces ban on evictions is lifted.

He also chided the protesters for disrupting the groundbreaking ceremony.

I am willing to work with anyone who wants to constructively work with me to help the residents of Toronto. I repeatedly offered today to meet with the protesters after the announcement to hear their concerns, but they chose to continue their public protest instead and not let the event proceed.

As for the groups other demands, Tory said council will get a report from staff later this month on the possibility of legally challenging the bill on the grounds it undermines the rights of tenants to a fair hearing.

Though the protesters were asking Tory to direct the police not to participate in the enforcement of evictions, including homeless encampments, the mayor noted officials are not legally allowed to direct police operations.

The city has dealt with encampments in a sensitive manner, finding housing for hundreds of people while at the same time being consistent in saying these encampments cannot remain on public property indefinitely, a position I stand by, the statement said.

Jennifer Pagliaro is a Toronto-based reporter covering city hall and municipal politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @jpags

Read more about:
American College of Medical Toxicoloy As pressure mounts for schools to reopen this fall, awareness is growing of the need for specific plans on how schools will protect the health of children, families, teachers, and school staff. Healthy Schools Network Founder, Executive Director, Claire Barnett offers insights and recommendations.

As pressure mounts for schools to reopen this fall, awareness is growing of the need for specific plans on how schools will protect the health of children and their families, teachers, administrators, and school staff.

Wednesday, July 29, 2020, at 3:00 pm ET, the American College of Medical Toxicology (ACMT) weekly webinar series, Medical & Public Health Considerations of COVID-19 will address this timely and important topic with Founder and Executive Director of the Healthy Schools Network, Claire Barnett. She will discuss the recently released National Call to Action for state public health agencies to provide all schools an authoritative School Infection Prevention and Control Plan to adopt. She will be joined by Allen Barkkume, an Industrial Hygienist who helped author the report, and will discuss occupational health and indoor air in schools. The webinar is free to attend, but registration is required.

Speakers



Claire Barnett, MBA, Founder & Executive Director, Healthy Schools Network, Saratoga Springs, NY

Allen Barkkume, MS, Industrial Hygiene Consultant, New Jersey Work Environment Council, Trenton, NJ

Guest Moderator



Sharon Vanairsdale, DNP, MS, RN, NP, CNS, ACNS-BC, NP-C, FAEN, Director for Education, National Ebola Training and Education Center; Program Director, Serious Communicable Diseases Unit at Emory University Hospital, Atlanta, GA

Series Moderators



Paul M. Wax, MD FACMT, Executive Director, American College of Medical Toxicology (ACMT)

Ziad Kazzi, MD FACMT, Board Member, American College of Medical Toxicology (ACMT); President, Middle East & North Africa Clinical Toxicology Association (MENATOX)

About the Webinar Series

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the American College of Medical Toxicology (ACMT) in collaboration with several national and international partner societies, offers a weekly webinar series featuring presentations, panel discussions, and front line updates from medical and health professionals from around the globe. Subject-matter experts and practitioners, many of whom are caring for COVID-19 patients, present on emerging issues related to COVID-19, and participate in a Q and A. The goal of this webinar series is to provide timely, critical, and science-practice-based information as part of the global response to this pandemic and caring for COVID-19 patients.

Series partner organizations: American Academy of Clinical Toxicology (AACT), American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM), American Academy of Emergency Nurse Practitioners (AAENP), American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC), Asia Pacific Association of Medical Toxicologists (APAMT), Emergency Nurses Association (ENA), European Association of Poison Centers and Clinical Toxicologists (EAPCCT), Middle East & North Africa Clinical Toxicology Association (MENATOX).

Upcoming webinars topics include the impact of racial and ethnic disparities during the pandemic on August 5, and COVID-19 modelling on August 12. For more information on previous and upcoming webinars visit ACMTs COVID-19 Webinar page.

About ACMT

The American College of Medical Toxicology (ACMT) is a professional, nonprofit association of physicians with recognized expertise and board certification in medical toxicology. Our members specialize in the prevention, evaluation, treatment, and monitoring of injury and illness from exposures to drugs and chemicals, as well as biological and radiological agents. We care for people in clinical, academic, governmental, and public health settings, and provide poison control center leadership.
Instead, McConnell and his lieutenants are piecing together something that is likely to lack full Republican support. Its release has been delayed until sometime next week, and Republicans say that these are just initial proposals that are not even considered one large counter to Pelosis legislation.
CANTON, Ohio, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- TimkenSteel Corp. (NYSE: TMST) will release its 2020 second-quarter financial results on Thursday, August 6, after the market closes on the New York Stock Exchange.

The company will host a conference call at 9 a.m. ET on Friday, August 7 to discuss its financial performance with investors and securities analysts. The financial results will be available online at investors.timkensteel.com.

TimkenSteel earnings call information:

Conference call Friday, August 7, 2020

9 a.m. ET

Toll-free dial-in: 833-238-7951

International dial-in: 647-689-4199

Conference ID: 2995267 Conference call replay Replay dial-in available through August 14, 2020

800-585-8367 or 416-621-4642

Replay passcode: 2995267

About TimkenSteel Corporation

TimkenSteel (NYSE: TMST) manufactures high-performance carbon and alloy steel products in Canton, OH serving demanding applications in automotive, energy and a variety of industrial end markets. The company is a premier U.S. producer of alloy steel bars (up to 16 inches in diameter), seamless mechanical tubing and precision components. In the business of making high-quality steel primarily from recycled materials for more than 100 years, TimkenSteel's proven expertise contributes to the performance of our customers' products. The company employs approximately 2,200 people and had sales of $1.2 billion in 2019. For more information, please visit us at www.timkensteel.com .

SOURCE TimkenSteel Corp.

Related Links

http://www.timkensteel.com


Jaipur:

The anti-terrorist squad of Rajasthan on Wednesday arrested an alleged Islamic State operative in Sikar district who was involved in collecting and transferringfunds for the terror organisation from Dubai.

"The accused identified as Jamil Ahemad (41) works in Dubai. He is a sympathiser and operative of ISIS. He had been raising funds from India, Bangladesh and UAE and transferring to the ISIS for the last two years through hawala," ADG-ATS Umesh Mishra said.

"He was on our radar for some time. He came to India recently and visited his ancestral house in Fatehpur eight days back. He was picked up by us interrogation and was placed under arrest," he told PTI.

Ahemad was in touch with other ISIS operatives on social media platform. An MBA graduate, Ahemad was working as the Assistant Financial Manager at a reputed firm in Dubai since2003.

He has a house in Mumbai where his wife and children live, Mishra said."Our one team is in Mumbai and conducing searches at his house with the help of Mumbai ATS," he said on Wednesday.

Mishra said that the accused, who has been arrested under prevention of unlawful activities act, has revealed his connections in the ISIS and says that he has no regret."He is completely remorseless and supports the organisation. He said that those (terrorists) are fighting for a cause," the officer said, adding, that he is being interrogated.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 18:51:07|Editor: huaxia

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by Keren Setton

JERUSALEM, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Israeli police are on high alert Thursday, hours before major protests are scheduled to begin in Jerusalem.

The demonstrations, with voices in favor and against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will be held in front of his residence.

In recent weeks, Netanyahu's official house has been the focal point of many protests amid seemingly growing dissatisfaction with the government.

Those opposing the government are against Netanyahu's response to the COVID-19 crisis. Drawing criticism for a lackluster program to combat the economic fallout of the pandemic, anti-Netanyahu protestors are also wary of a new law that allows the government to bypass the parliament when enforcing anti-virus measures.

The longest serving Israeli prime minister is also under criticism for running the country while on trial for corruption charges.

On Thursday evening, Netanyahu's supporters are also slated for showing up in front of the same place. Although his approval ratings have dropped in recent weeks, Netanyahu still has loyal followers.

Coupled with the growing civil unrest is political instability. The wobbly coalition government sworn in this May after over a year of political paralysis and three elections appears to be hanging on a thread.

If a budget is not approved by the end of August, the parliament will be dissolved automatically, leading to another election. Meanwhile, the coalition partners engage in daily squabbles on an array of topics, wearing down confidence in the ability of the government to survive.

Netanyahu and his partner, also rival, Defense Minister Benny Gantz would both lose a lot in another election. With the crisis in Israel widespread, the prime minister would take a huge risk at holding a referendum when the public is increasingly dissatisfied with his performance. Gantz had sacrificed much of his political credibility when he entered the partnership with Netanyahu despite an election promise not to do so.

Members of parliament and municipal leaders have called Netanyahu and Gantz to put their differences aside and combat the major crisis Israel is facing.

"In the short term, the government will probably not fall even though the breaks are screeching," said Eran Vigoda-Gadot, a professor of political science and governance at the University of Haifa. "Once the COVID-19 crisis is over, the divisions will become even more visible."

Some Israeli media have reported that Netanyahu is set on breaking-up the coalition and heading to the ballots in November.

In the past weeks, the feeling of a looming crisis has emerged from the streets. Frequent demonstrations and scenes of Israelis clashing with police forces signal a breaking point in society.

"This is one of the most complex situations the country has ever dealt with," Vigoda-Gadot told Xinhua.

"Israelis feel that the government is not operating in a clear consistent manner with their welfare at the top of the agenda," said Jonathan Rynhold, a professor with the Political Studies Department at Bar Ilan University.

The last time Israel witnessed widespread social protests was in 2011, against the high cost of living in the country. Netanyahu consequently approved a series of reforms.

Critics of the government say its response to the fallout of the pandemic has been inadequate and slow. With an alarming unemployment rate and inconsistent decisions on how to battle the virus, the public is growing impatient.

"The protests are underestimated. The government does not understand the depth of the crisis and the wave of protests will not subside, but rather will intensify as people's despair grows," said Vigoda-Gadot.

Hours before demonstrators arrive in Jerusalem, Israeli president tweeted to the members of the coalition.

"Get your act together! Our citizens need you focused and working to find a solution to this unprecedented crisis Israel has found itself in," wrote Reuven Rivlin.
Another Congress MLA dumped the party and joined the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) in Madhya Pradesh on Thursday. Narayan Patel, the third MLA to quit the Congress in the last two weeks, joined the BJP within hours after his resignation from state assembly was accepted by the pro-tem speaker. Patel joined the party in the presence of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan at the party office in Bhopal, reported a news agency.

The recent resignations have prompted the Congress to accuse the BJP of engineering defections to cushion the party against any possible setbacks in the assembly by polls for 24 seats due to be held later this year.

63 year old Narayan Patel represented Mandhata assembly constituency in Khandwa district had resigned yesterday and confirmed his resignation to the speaker on Thursday, making it official.

Also Read: Another Congress MLA resigns from Madhya Pradesh assembly

He follows Pradyumn Singh Lodhi and Sumitra Devi Kasdekar, who quit from the state assembly and later joined the BJP. Lodhi was appointed the chairman of MP state civil supplies corporation within hours of joining the party.

Pradyumn Singh Lodhi represented Malhara assembly constituency in Bundelkhand region and Lodhi Savitri Devi represented Nepanagar (ST) state assembly seat in Burhanpur district.

Patel was unavailable for his comments, despite repeated attempts.

Also Read: Madhya Pradesh govts employment initiative for migrant workers falls flat, private players show little interest

The Congress responded to the development by accusing the BJP of overtly playing the dirty game of horse-trading in a bid to save its government.

Senior Congress leader and former chief minister Kamal Nath has maintained that his party will win the bypolls for 24 seats and wrestle back power from BJP. The Congress government fell after 22 Congress MLAs including senior leader Jyotiraditya Scindia quit the party earlier this year.
California Death Row Inmate Dies From Apparent COVID-19 Complications

A California death row inmate who was convicted of the murder of a 7-year-old girl died at a hospital on Monday following an outbreak of COVID-19 at the San Quentin State Prison.

The California Department of Corrections (CDCR) said Troy Ashmus, 58, was pronounced dead at the hospital outside the state prison. Hes now the seventh death row prisoner and 13th overall to die at the San Quentin prison.

His exact cause of death was under investigation, but officials said it appears to be COVID-19-related.

Ashmus was convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering 7-year-old Marcella Davis in 1984. She had biked to a park in Sacramento but never returned home, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

Ashmus was admitted to state prison from Sacramento County on Sept. 18, 1985, to serve a six-year sentence for assault with intent to commit a specific sex crime. While incarcerated, he was sentenced to death on July 25, 1986, by a Sacramento County jury, the state corrections department wrote. There are now 718 people on Californias death row.

Since 1986, Ashmus has been on death row.

According to KOVR, citing officials, 64-year-old Jeffrey Jay Hawkins, another death row inmate, died from complications consistent with the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes the disease COVID-19.

Californias prison system so far has recorded nearly 7,000 CCP virus cases among inmates, and at least 39 inmates in the states prison system have died from virus complications. Meanwhile, dozens of inmates remain hospitalized, with some in intensive care.

State officials have reported that more than 800 corrections employees have contracted the virus.

According to the CDCRs coronavirus tracker, some 925 inmates at San Quentin prison have active infections.
By PTI

PESHAWAR: Unidentified gunmen killed a woman in a restive tribal district near Afghan border in northwest Pakistan on Thursday, police said.

The bike-borne assailants opened fire at the woman while she was en route to her home carrying a pile of grass from a nearby field in Haider Ali village in North Waziristan district of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The killers fled the scene after committing the crime, police said, adding that the reason behind the murder is not yet known.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday expressed concern over climate change and called for protection of the environment by planting more trees. Climate change has impacted the world and only greenery is the solution to this crisis, he said.

In the blind race of development, we forget the mantra of Indian culture that nature is our mother and it cannot be exploited. This is the reason why the temperature of the earth is increasing and the climate has been badly affected. The world is afraid of climate change, said Shah.

Shah was launching Tree Plantation Drive-2020 (Vriksharopan Abhiyan) of the Ministry of Coal under which thousands of saplings will be planted across 10 states in the country.

Shah also inaugurated and laid the foundation stone of six eco-parks and tourism sites.The tree plantation campaign was conducted at more than 130 locations spread in 38 districts of 10 coal and lignite-bearing states across India through video conference.

The focal mantra of Indian heritage has been that we should harness natural resources and not exploit them.

We ignored this principle at our own peril, leading to depletion of the ozone layer and forming ozone holes, which in turn resulted in global warming and climate change, he said.

Shah said there is only one solution to this problem, one that has been mentioned in the Puranas by sages, that trees are friends of mankind and only greenery can get people out of this crisis. Trees give people life-saving oxygen, help reduce carbon footprint and preserve the ozone layer, he said.

Man held for posing as Amit Shahs secretary



The Crime Branch of Delhi Police has arrested a 25-year-old man for allegedly posing as a personal secretary of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, officials said on Thursday.



The man arrested by the Crime Branch has been identified as Sandeep Choudhary, who is a resident of Teh Mundawar in Alwar district of Rajasthan, according to police officials.

He was arrested after the Crime Branch registered a case based on a complaint by the home ministry, police said. According to the complaint, a man posing as a personal secretary of Shah had called up the Rajasthan Labour Minister Tikaram and his Haryana counterpart Anoop Dhanak to get somebody employed.
HOUSTON, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- ZT Corporate, a private equity firm that specializes in healthcare and automotive investments, and Physicians Surgical Network Affiliates (PSN Affiliates), a privately held provider of specialized healthcare and surgical services through Legent Health facilities, today announced that the two Texas-based companies established a strategic partnership to invest in development and acquisition of acute-care health facilities in Texas and Florida.

The strategic partnership will leverage PSN Affiliate's network of acute care surgical hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers and ZT Corporate's healthcare portfolio company, Altus Health, a network of specialized physicians, hospitals, emergency rooms and other acute-care facilities. The partnership will utilize the parties' core expertise in capital sponsorship and health care services, with ZT Corporate serving as the capital sponsor and PSN Affiliate as the operations partner. PSN Affiliates will become part of ZT Corporate's overall healthcare portfolio.

PSN Affiliates currently operates facilities in El Paso, San Antonio, Carrollton, Austin, Frisco, Plano and is headquartered in Irving. With ZT Corporate's capital support, the partnership will allow the company to expand outside of Texas into the growing Florida market.

Taseer Badar, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ZT Corporate, said, "ZT Corporate's investments in healthcare have always been built on the idea that empowering physicians to provide the best care is good business. This strategic alliance with PSN Affiliates aligns perfectly with our core philosophy of taking excellent care of patients and operating our healthcare facilities in a way that allows our physicians to focus on patients. This partnership formalizes the extraordinary work we both do and brings us one step closer to achieving our goal of becoming the largest, privately held acute care company in Texas."

Jordan Fowler, Founding and Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer of PSN Affiliates, LLC, said, "We're excited and honored to enter into this partnership with ZT Corporate. Together, we are elevating and redefining patient experiences. This partnership allows PSN Affiliates to grow our footprint with a capital sponsor who truly understands the business of providing acute healthcare and shares our focus on best-in-class business operations that free up the physicians to deliver best-in-class health care."

Kraig Killough, Managing Partner of ZT Corporate and President of Altus Health, said, "Much like Altus Health, PSN Affiliates has a proven track record of providing exceptional care to patients across Texas. We decided to partner with PSN Affiliates because their leadership and business model complement our vision for a true community-based healthcare system. Our goal is for all Texans to be able to receive high-quality health care, close to home, without the frustrating inefficiencies of traditional healthcare systems."

Sheheryar Shah, Group Chief Operating Officer & Chief Investment Officer of ZT Corporate, said, "ZT Corporate's investment team is excited about this partnership and the opportunities to scale our proven model of physician-empowered community health care. We vet a lot of deals in the acute-care industry and this partnership with PSN Affiliates fits hand-in-glove with our model. The fact that PSN Affiliates' footprint completes the Texas metro footprint for us makes this partnership a natural fit."

About ZT Corporate

Established in 1997, ZT Corporate is a private equity firm with an active portfolio in healthcare services and automotive dealerships. With offices in Houston and New York, the team provides full-service wealth management services to its clients and investors and creates value through a broad range of financial channels, including traditional and alternative investments. ZT Corporate's active healthcare portfolio operates under Altus Healthcare and Neighbors, with automotive dealerships branded under the ZT Motors umbrella. For more information: www.ztcorporate.com

About Physicians Surgical Network Affiliates

Physicians Surgical Network Affiliates is a privately held provider of specialized healthcare and surgical services through Legent Health facilities. Headquartered in Irving, Texas, the network of Legent Health facilities is comprised of acute care surgical hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers. PSN Affiliates and Legent Health aim to preserve private practice by providing patients with high-quality healthcare at reduced cost, in doing so, transforming the healthcare experience. For more information: www.psnaffiliates.com

Media Contact

Victoria Cook

Pierpont Communications for ZT Corporate

[email protected], 713-627-2223

SOURCE ZT Corporate

Related Links

https://ztcorporate.com


It follows the release of a video showing the killing of the humanitarian workers after their abduction in Borno state.

The United Nations has said it is utterly shocked and horrified by the killing of five aid workers by unknown armed groups in northeastern Nigeria.

The statement late on Wednesday by Edward Kallon, UN humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria, followed the release of a video showing the murder of the humanitarian workers who were kidnapped last month in Borno state.

The Nigerian government identified the victims as employees of the countrys State Emergency Management Agency as well as international aid organisations Action Against Hunger (ACF), International Rescue Committee and Rich International.

They were committed humanitarians who devoted their lives to helping vulnerable people and communities in an area heavily affected by violence, Kallon said.

I am utterly horrified by the gruesome killing of our colleagues

We repeatedly called for such blatant violation of #IHL to never happen again. Yet, it does.

I call on all armed parties to stop targeting aid workers &civilians.https://t.co/iznpYswNDF#NotATarget @UNReliefChief  Edward Kallon (@EdwardKallon) July 23, 2020

The aid workers were abducted while travelling on a main route connecting the town of Monguno with Borno state capital, Maiduguri.

Kallon said he was troubled by the number of illegal checkpoints set up by non-state armed groups along the regions main supply routes.

These checkpoints disrupt the delivery of life-saving assistance and heighten the risks for civilians of being abducted, killed or injured, with aid workers increasingly being singled out.

Northeast Nigeria has been ravaged by a decade-long armed campaign led by the armed group Boko Haram that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced about two million from their homes.

Last year, fighters from a Boko Haram splinter group, the Islamic State West Africa Province, abducted a group of six humanitarian workers  including a female ACF employee  in the region.

Five of the hostages were later executed and the ACF worker remains in captivity.

Aid groups provide a vital lifeline for some 7.9 million people in the region who the UN says are in need of urgent assistance.
(Natural News) The parents of a young Hispanic boy who was admitted to a juvenile detention center in Los Angeles are suing the state for allegedly administering estrogen hormones to the child to make him less aggressive.

The lawsuit alleges that California state employees illegally pumped the boy with female hormone chemicals as part of a Mengele-style experiment to see if they could get him to behave more to their liking. And this was done without the knowledge or permission of the boys parents.

Drs. Danny Wang and David Oh, both of whom are employed by Juvenile Court Health Services, reportedly classified the boy as having Oppositional Defiance Disorder, or ODD, and proceeded to abuse him with Big Pharma medications that altered his sexual makeup.

Once this type of diagnosis is given, juvenile detention centers often take it upon themselves to drug up their underage inmates under the guise of quelling aggression, which they claim is linked to elevated levels of testosterone  as if high testosterone is somehow abnormal for a teenage boy, which it is not.

Dosing male children with estrogen though is a new phenomenon, enabled by LGBT perversion enveloping all of society, notes Shane Trejo, writing for Big League Politics.

According to the suit, the boy was administered estradiol, an estrogen drug that is typically used by older women to combat the negative effects of menopause. The boy was forced to take daily doses of Estradiol without his parents knowledge or permission, and his first dose of the female drug was given through three vaccine injections.

Black Lives Matter aside, the criminal justice system desperately needs MAJOR reform

The boy himself told his parents and their lawyer that he was afraid to ever speak out against this forced drugging because he was worried about getting a write up, which could have resulted in a longer prison sentence. He also claims the judge in the case had threatened to lengthen his sentence if he failed to perform as a model inmate.

As for his health, the boy says the female drugs made him feel immediately sick both physically and emotionally, as well as cognitively and psychologically. He also started to grow breasts, which resulted in him being ridiculed by the other boys held at the facility.

He further broke out with pimples and started to develop anxiety and depression, which sounds about right for a developing young boy who is being unnaturally bombarded with female hormones, which indeed is a form of sexual assault.

After 13 days of having estradiol forced on him by Drs. Wang and Oh, the boy finally resisted and told his parents what was going on. When they pressed the two doctors for further information, they refused to reveal which, how, and for what purpose drugs were given to their son.

There is not any kind of indication that providing estradiol to an adolescent male is any kind of accepted treatment for anything, stated attorney Wes Ouchi, who is representing the child, to WitnessLA. We think it was an experiment. And we think its likely not the only time they used the treatment experimentally.

Besides winning the case, Ouchi is also hoping to uncover whether or not other children at the same detention center have been, or are being, given similar drug treatments, which he says is a potentially criminal act.

These troubling developments point to the need for real oversight with power to hold probation  and those from other county agencies, who work inside probations facilities  fully accountable when they harm those in their care, added. Dr. Jorja Leap, an anthropologist and adjunct professor from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) who has worked on what is known as the LA County Probation Governance Report.

For more related news on the growing societal assault against natural male biology, visit Gender.news.

Sources for this article include:

BigLeaguePolitics.com

NaturalNews.com
Genetic testing for heart diseases may help patients and families identify risks

DALLAS, July 23, 2020 -- Genetic testing and counseling for inherited cardiovascular diseases may help patients and their families make well-informed decisions about managing their heart health, according to "Genetic Testing for Inherited Cardiovascular Diseases," a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association, published today in the Association's journal Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine.

The statement summarizes what we know - and do not know - about the genes or combination of genes that may influence inherited heart diseases and also provides suggestions for best practices for genetic testing.

"Although genetic testing has seen explosive growth in the past few years, both in the clinical setting and with direct-to-consumer testing, genetic testing for heart disease should be reserved for specific patients," said Kiran Musunuru, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., M.L., FAHA, chair of the writing group for the scientific statement and professor of cardiovascular medicine and genetics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

According to the statement, cardiovascular conditions that may have an inherited genetic component include:

cardiomyopathies, heart muscle diseases that can lead to heart failure; thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections, syndromes that cause the body's major artery to balloon and rupture; arrhythmic disorders that predispose people to potentially fatal abnormal heart rhythms; and familial hypercholesterolemia, or highly LDL elevated cholesterol levels that greatly increase the risk of heart attack.

Before considering genetic testing, a health care provider should work with the patient to document their family medical history, ideally, going back three generations, to determine if there is a pattern of certain types of heart disease. Genetic testing should typically be reserved for patients with a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of an inherited cardiovascular disease or for individuals at high risk due to a previously identified disease-causing variant (a gene abnormality that is different from most humans, often responsible for the clinical disease in question) in their family.

Genetic counseling is essential before genetic testing to educate patients on the process and potential results, as well as the potential risks and uncertainties related to testing. Counseling is also critical after genetic testing, so the counselor can explain the results and potential consequences for the patient's health and the health of family members including children.

Since immediate family members - first-degree relatives such as fathers, mothers, siblings or children - might share genetic variants predisposing them to an inherited cardiovascular disease, they are considered to be at higher risk for the same conditions. Once a genetic variant is identified within a family, all first-degree relatives should consider undergoing genetic testing and counseling for that specific mutation whenever possible.

Genetic counselors can also advise and support patients on the best ways to communicate the news of any genetic variants they may discover through genetic testing to other family members. Although privacy laws restrict the ability of health care professionals to disseminate information directly to potentially affected relatives, they can provide written letters that explain the genetic findings, which the patients can give to their family members.

"With most genetic cardiovascular diseases, inheriting a mutation (or variant) from a parent substantially increases the risk of getting the disease but does not guarantee the disease," said Musunuru. "In some cases, it might be possible to act early and prevent the disease. In other cases, having the mutation for a genetically caused cardiovascular condition might lead to different and possibly more aggressive treatment."

Advances in human genetics are improving the understanding of a variety of inherited cardiovascular diseases. However, there are still limitations. Genetic testing might not reveal a cause or confirm a diagnosis of the patient's disease.

In many cases, genetic testing can reveal a mutation that is called "uninterpretable" or a "variant of uncertain significance." A variant of uncertain significance, or VUS, is not considered either definitively pathogenic (disease causing) or benign, meaning that it's unclear if the patient is at increased risk for disease. Since it is unclear whether the VUS increases the risk of disease or not, it can be challenging for doctors to counsel patients on appropriate treatment.

It is also possible that a patient may be diagnosed with an inherited cardiovascular disease, yet genetic testing doesn't reveal any genetic mutations. This makes it difficult to explain why the patient has the disease and whether any of their family members are also at risk.

"Another issue is that we have not yet clarified the full spectrum of genes that are responsible for various inherited cardiovascular diseases - we are still very much in discovery mode, with ongoing research efforts," added Musunuru. "Genetic testing methods are evolving, and reliable classification of variants identified in genetic testing will remain a preeminent challenge for the practice of clinical genetics."

###

The statement was written on behalf of the American Heart Association's Council on Genomic and Precision Medicine; Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology; Council on Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing; and Council on Clinical Cardiology.

Co-authors and members of the writing committee are Ray E. Hershberger, M.D., FAHA, vice chair; Sharlene M. Day, M.D.; N. Jennifer Klinedinst, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.N., FAHA; Andrew P. Landstrom, M.D., Ph.D., FAHA; Victoria N. Parikh, M.D.; Siddharth Prakash, M.D., Ph.D., FAHA; Christopher Semsarian, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., M.P.H., FAHA; and Amy C. Sturm, M.S., L.C.G.C. Author disclosures are in the manuscript.

Additional Resources:

Multimedia available on the right column of the release link https:/ / newsroom. heart. org/ news/ genetic-testing-for-heart-diseases-may-help-patients-and-families-identify-risks?preview= f46130e306b94ff13433881acf255b60

The Association receives funding primarily from individuals. Foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific Association programs and events. The Association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations and health insurance providers are available at https:/ / www. heart. org/ en/ about-us/ aha-financial-information .

About the American Heart Association

The American Heart Association is a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives. We are dedicated to ensuring equitable health in all communities. Through collaboration with numerous organizations, and powered by millions of volunteers, we fund innovative research, advocate for the public's health and share lifesaving resources. The Dallas-based organization has been a leading source of health information for nearly a century. Connect with us on heart.org, Facebook, Twitter or by calling 1-800-AHA-USA1.

This story has been published on: 2020-07-23. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
BOLINGBROOK, Ill., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Wi-Tronix, LLC has been awarded a Federal Railroad Administration contract in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Transportation Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program on Grade Crossing Safety.

Excerpt slides from the U.S. D.O.T. SBIR Grant Pitch Day Presentation

The U.S. Department of Transportation, through the Volpe Center, annually issues solicitations for participation in research projects to solve industry issues. In early 2020, the DOT's annual SBIR solicitation, with the sponsorship and guidance of the FRA, for "Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Aided Machine Vision for Grade Crossing Safety" was issued. On May 21, 2020, Wi-Tronix competed in the U.S. DOT SBIR "Pitch Day" and was awarded the contract in July.

Grade crossing incidents are the second leading cause of rail-related fatalities in the United States, with trespassing incidents the leading cause. In testimony before Congress in February of this year, the FRA Chief Safety Officer Karl Alexy stated, "The safety of rail operations over highway-rail grade crossings and trespassing on railroad rights-of-way are two critical issues that FRA recognizes continue to impact and concern communities."

Wi-Tronix will be working with a railroad partner in evaluating the ability of forward-facing cameras in locomotives to detect and analyze grade crossing infrastructure such as railroad grade crossing lights and gates. Critical success factors will be evaluated in the use of video analytics and visual intelligence tools. The ultimate objectives are automating inspections to improve safety. "We are thrilled with the SBIR award," stated Wi-Tronix CEO Larry Jordan. "This potential safety improvement is a perfect application of our Violet Edge IoT platform and Ecosystem."

About Wi-Tronix

Wi-Tronix, LLC delivers advanced IoT platforms for the rail industry that provide actionable information and insights on how networks are performing in real-time. By enabling continuous improvement with a powerful combination of connectivity, analytics, alerts and more, we are enabling freight, passenger railroads and transit systems with the tools that help enhance safety, operational efficiency, and service reliability. The Wi-Tronix team is passionately committed to its global vision of saving lives and ensuring the most efficient and reliable movement of goods and people throughout the world. Find out more about Wi-Tronix at www.wi-tronix.com or contact us at [email protected].

Media Contact: Jessica Sawyer-Lueck | [email protected] | 630-679-9927 ext. 369

SOURCE Wi-Tronix

Related Links

http://www.wi-tronix.com


A cafeteria in the White House complex was closed this week after an employee tested positive for COVID-19, three Trump administration officials told NBC News on Wednesday.

The cafeteria is in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and run by a government contractor. Located next to the West Wing and home of the vice president's office, a majority of White House staffers work out of the building, including members of the National Security Council and the coronavirus task force.

The Eisenhower Executive Office Building is maintained by the General Services Administration, and a spokesperson told NBC News that "all proper protocols were in place by the vendor including masks, gloves, plastic shielding at check out, and no dine-in service. The White House Medical Unit has done contact tracing and determined that the risk of retransmission is low." The GSA did not say how long the cafeteria will remain closed, but administration officials told NBC News it might not reopen for another two weeks.

More stories from theweek.com

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Fox & Friends marvels at Trump repeating 'person, woman, man, camera, TV'


Joe Biden has described his rival for the presidency in November's election as the first racist president of the United States.

Biden on Wednesday, speaking at a virtual town hall organized by the Service Employees International Union, was asked about the president's description of COVID-19 as 'kung flu' and the 'China virus'.

A health-care worker at the meeting expressed concern that Trump continues to blame Asians for the coronavirus pandemic.

'The way he deals with people based on the color of their skin, their national origin, where they're from, is absolutely sickening,' said Biden.

'No sitting president has ever done this.

'Never, never, never. No Republican president has done this. No Democratic president.

'We've had racists, and they've existed, they've tried to get elected president. He's the first one that has.'

Joe Biden on Wednesday addressed a virtual town hall with a service industry union

Biden accused Trump of using race to drive a wedge between people in society.

'And the way he pits people against one another is all designed to divide the country, divide people, not pull them together,' Biden continued.

'Look what he's doing now. He's blaming everything on China.

'He's using it as a wedge.'

Trump was asked shortly after, during a White House press briefing, for his response to the accusation.

The president said once again that no one has done more than him to help black Americans since Abraham Lincoln.

He pointed out his administration's reform of the criminal justice system; the low unemployment rate among black Americans before the pandemic; and his 2017 creation of 'opportunity zones' - areas which provided tax breaks for developers in deprived areas, leading to new housing, businesses and jobs.

'Well, you know, its interesting because we did criminal justice reform. We passed criminal justice reform, something that Obama and Biden were unable to do.' he said.

'We did opportunity cities. We did the greatest - if you look at what we've done with Opportunity Zones, nobody has ever even thought of a plan like that.

'Prior to the China plague coming in, floating in, coming into our country, and really doing terrible things all over the world - doing terrible things - we had the best African American, Hispanic American, Asian American - almost every group was the best for unemployment. The unemployment numbers were the best.

'I've said this, and I say it openly, and not a lot of people dispute it: I've done more for black Americans than anybody, with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln.

'Nobody has even been close.'

Donald Trump Wednesday denied that he was racist and said he work to help black Americans

Katrina Pierson, a Trump campaign senior adviser, said Biden's comments were 'an insult to the intelligence of black voters' and pointed to remarks Biden has made in the past.

Biden last year faced criticism from his Democratic primary opponents when he spoke favorably of his ability to work with segregationist senators, and he once had to apologize for calling Barack Obama 'the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.'

'President Trump loves all people, works hard to empower all Americans, and is supported by more black voters than any Republican presidential candidate in modern history,' Pierson said.

'No one should take lectures on racial justice from Joe Biden.'

Biden has accused Trump of using racist language and promoting racist policies in the past.

In May, Biden told the Asian American and Pacific Islanders Victory Fund that Trump had allowed racism to be 'unleashed' by the pandemic.

'The pandemic has unleashed familiar forces of hate, fear and xenophobia that he always flames, that have always existed in this society,' Biden said.

'But this president brought it with him, has brought with it a new rash of racial messages, verbal and physical attacks, and other acts of hate, some subtle, some overt, against the Asian American and Pacific Islanders.'

Last year, Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart asked Biden whether it was wrong to describe Trump as 'a racist with a white supremacist policy agenda.'

Biden answered: 'No.'

He then said he did not want to wade into labeling whether Trump is personally racist, but said Trump was promoting 'racist policies.'

'The way he talks about Muslims, the way he talks about them as if they're pariah,' Biden said.

'The way he talks about immigrants as if they are, they're corrupting America, as if they're all terrorists. I mean, it's just bizarre.'

And when Trump said four Democratic congresswomen of color should 'go back to the places from which they came,' Biden called it 'a flat racist attack.'
Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday said his government will soon prove its majority in the assembly, hours before he met the governor with whom he is said to have discussed calling a session of the House.

IMAGE: Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot addresses during a meeting with party MLAs at a hotel in Jaipur. Photograph: PTI Photo

The assembly session will take place soon. The majority is with us, all Congress MLAs are united, Gehlot told reporters.

He hoped that some of the dissident MLAs, who are led by sacked deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot, will also attend the session when it is called very soon.

Without them too, we have a complete majority and will go to the House on the basis of this majority, and we will prove it, he said.

About three hours after this interaction with the media, Gehlot met governor Kalraj Mishra at the Raj Bhavan.

Congress sources said the two discussed the possibility of calling a session of the Vidhan Sabha.

The indication that the Gehlot government is preparing for a floor test in the assembly comes a day ahead of the expected pronouncement of a high court order on the disqualification notices sent by the Speaker to the rebel MLAs.

But any high court order will be subject to the outcome of a petition by the Rajasthan Speaker that the Supreme Court is now hearing, the three-judge bench has made it clear.

The 19 dissident MLAs had filed a petition in the high court, challenging the disqualification notices.

Gehlot said those who went to court are the ones who were wrong and had been misguided.

They are calling us and saying that they are unable to come out, he said, hinting at reports that the rebel MLAs are camping together, just like the ones in his camp. Bouncers are deployed, he alleged.

I hope that some of them, when they come out, will vote with us, the chief minister said, adding that his government is in majority even without their support.

Gehlot said the coronavirus pandemic and political issues will be discussed in the assembly session.

Including the dissidents who face the possibility of disqualification, the Congress has 107 MLAs in the 200-member state assembly and the BJP 72.

Targeting Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, the chief minister said the audio clips which indicate an alleged plot to topple his government can be sent abroad for forensic tests.

Without taking the minister's name, Gehlot questioned why he is not coming forward to give a voice sample.

Rejecting the charge that the audio clips are fabricated, he said they can be sent to any forensic science laboratory for examination.

We can send it for FSL testing to America if they have no trust in the Rajasthan government, he said, adding that the Congress also did not trust the Centre.

Shekhawat has rejected the Congress charge that it is his voice in one of the three clips.

The party has accused the BJP of engineering a plot to lure Congress MLAs away.

When asked about the raids in the state, Gehlot claimed that the central agencies were acting on the directions of Union Home Minister Amit Shah under Modi raj.

The Enforcement Directorate recently searched the premises of his brother as part of a nationwide investigation into an alleged fertiliser export scam. We are not afraid of the raids and our mission is not going to stop, he said.

The BJP policies and programmes are going to ruin the country, he said. They are fascist people and are murdering democracy.

He mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi or getting people to beat thalis or light candles, when the nation is facing a dangerous pandemic.
ZTE Blade A7s, Blade L210 Appears At Google Play Console: New Budget Offerings? News oi-Sandeep Sarkar

ZTE might soon refresh its Blade smartphone series as two upcoming models have been spotted online. The ZTE Blade A7 2020 and the Blade L210 have paid a visit to Google Play Console. The website gives insight into some of the key features of both the smartphones. And it seems that they both will come with an affordable price tag.

The ZTE Blade A7 2020 is listed with the P963F03 model number, while the Blade L210 is spotted with the P731F50 model number. As per the listing, the Blade A7s will have an HD+ display with 720 x 1560 pixels resolution and 320 DPI pixel density.

The display type is not mentioned, but it could be an LCD panel. The image shared on the website shows a waterdrop notch for the selfie camera. The device is further listed with the Spreadtrum SC9863A chipset which will be paired with PowerVR GE8322 GPU and 2GB RAM. It will be pre-loaded with Android 10 OS.

The ZTE Blase L210 seems to be the low-end variant amongst the two. The Google Play Console listing suggests Spreadtrum SC7731E processor clubbed with Mali T820 GPU for graphics. The device will come with a 1GB RAM configuration.

The listing also suggests a low-end display with 480 x 960 pixels resolution and 240 DPI pixel density. This model will also come with Android 10 OS pre-installed. As per the image, the device will have thick bezels on all corners and there will be no notch as well.

The camera and battery specifications of both smartphones haven't been revealed by this listing and the information on the same are still at large. If the reports are to be believed, then ZTE will launch the Blade A7s and the Blade L210 sometime soon in China and European countries. Its arrival in India remains uncertain as of now.

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NORWALK  A 34-year-old Bridgeport man has been accused of kidnapping and raping a woman at gunpoint after meeting online, according to an arrest warrant.

Derek Person, 34, of Harriet Street, Bridgeport, was arrested Tuesday and charged with first-degree kidnapping and first-degree sexual assault related to a May 11 incident, police said.

Person was arraigned late Wednesday morning at state Superior Court in Stamford, where Judge Bruce Hudock upheld his $1 million bond.

The court is aware of the seriousness of the allegations, which include a firearm, which the victim claims she was threatened with during the sexual assault, the judge said.

Detective Michael Pugliese wrote in an arrest warrant that the victim and Person met in April through Facebook, where he listed his name as Scott Damon.

Over the next month, she and Person had conversations over the phone that she described as casual and comfortable in nature with nothing sexual ever being discussed, though she did say he kept pushing to meet her in person, the warrant said.

The victim agreed to meet Person for the first time at the Rite Aid parking lot on East Avenue in Norwalk around 8:45 p.m. May 11, the warrant said.

Person pulled up in a black SUV, a newer model with tinted windows, the victim told police, according to the warrant. After standing outside the SUV and speaking to Person, she accepted his invitation to get inside when he noticed she was shivering, the warrant said.

He then began to stare at me and did not say anything, the victim wrote in an affidavit included in the arrest warrant. His car smelled like weed. Thats when he put the key in the ignition, he turned it on, and told me that he had a gun underneath his seat and he stated that if I did not comply that he would kill me.

According to the warrant, Person then drove to a secluded place and parked the vehicle. She tried to escape, but the doors were locked, the warrant said.

The victim said Person then raped her at gunpoint before dropping her back off at the Rite Aid, the warrant stated.

In the days after the incident, the victim said Person texted her multiple times, but she did not respond, according to the warrant.

Norwalk police began investigating the incident on May 15 and traced the Scott Damon Facebook account to Person, the warrant said. The victim later positively identified Person in a photo lineup as the man who had kidnapped and raped her, the warrant said.

Police are waiting for test results to see if Persons DNA is on the clothes worn by the victim the night of the sexual assault, according to his arrest warrant.

Persons attorney David Bothwell did not discuss the allegations against his client on Wednesday.

Person did not enter a plea during his arraignment. According to the bail commissioner, Person has multiple violations of probation on his record as well as a conviction for armed robbery.

The case was transferred to the Part A docket where the most serious cases are adjudicated. Person is set to return to court on Aug. 5.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the name of the street Rite Aid is located.
The NPP Parliamentary Candidate for Shama, Lawyer Samuel Erickson Abakah has called on all party members in the constituency to rally together in unity for victory 2020.

Mr. Abakah made the call when he toured about 32 electoral areas in the constituency to interact with his constituents as part of his thank-you tour to show appreciation to delegates after winning the primaries.

Mr. Abakah discouraged rumours which suggest that some party supporters have threatened to vote skirt and blouse simply because their preferred candidate failed to win.

Party politics is about competition, a competition which you can either lose or win, I have tried 3 unsuccessful times since 2008 but won this year he stressed.

According to him, he joined in all the campaigns even when he lost, to campaign massively for the incumbent then adding, that his supporters could have also decided to tow that line.

He advised supporters of the party in the consistency to be reminded of his humility, patience, sacrifices, and how dedicated he has been all these years serving the party, and support him to secure victory for himself and the president.

Voting skirt and blouse is not a good decision and will not help the party and the constituency if you vote for Nana Addo and he becomes the president and i lose to an opposition member, the president may have minority MPs in Parliament should other constituencies whose preferred candidate lost, follow the same trend, he emphasized.

Additionally, opposition MPs will sabotage the developmental agenda of the President because they do not support that agenda, which will come back to hunt the constituency.

This statement was collaborated by former member of the Presidential and Parliamentary Press Corps, Evangelist Raymond Kwofie.

He called on supporters to work hard to appreciate the vote difference of 5,000, between the NPP, and NDC attained in the previous election.

The NPP Parliamentary candidate as part of his thank-you tour toured registration centres to call on them to strictly adhere to the COVID-19 protocols laid down by the government to fight the novel coronavirus. He observed adherence to safety protocols is one way of fighting the spread of the disease.

Mr. Abakah who used the opportunity to distribute sanitizers to the electorate from one polling station to the other, was flanked by the constituency chairman, treasurer, women organizer, and other party executives and some assembly members.
Many Nebraska organizations applied for the Google grants in December, when the challenge got underway.

It is a big deal to be a winner, for sure, Roetman said.

Kearney Works now is competing against four other Nebraska nonprofits, including two in Omaha and one each in Lincoln and Grand Island.

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The winner of the $125,000 bonus grant will be the organization that collects the most votes during the next seven days.

The public vote began today and concludes at 11:59 p.m. July 30. To vote go to g.co/NebraskaChallenge.

Competing against organizations in larger communities will be tough, Roetman said, but Kearney Works is a home-grown solution to a communitys crisis  the loss of the state-operated employment office. Kearney Works also was formed to aid Kearney area employers in filling skill positions at their businesses.

Since it began in 2017, Kearney Works has helped hundreds of unemployed and underemployed clients prepare for their job search. Clients also get help upgrading their skills and finding opportunities at local businesses.
We work in silos at the ACLU, where we have a little bit of tunnel vision on our own issues, says Ho. We see each other in the elevator or kitchen and chat for a few minutes, but when I saw those moments captured on film, the human stakes of what my colleagues were working on, it really hit home. I was just so profoundly moved by it and grateful to them for what they do.
After first announcing it last year, Microsoft has started rolling out the Surface Pro X's highly-anticipated Eye Contact feature as part of its latest Windows 10 Insider Preview. The AI-powered software uses the tablet's custom SQ1 ARM processor to make it look like your eyes are always directly looking at the camera while video chatting.

The feature is available with any app that works with the Surface Pro X's front-facing camera, so you can use it with non-Microsoft apps like Zoom and Google Meet. However, you can't take advantage of the feature while the tablet is oriented vertically.

Surface Pro X eye contact

Because the software depends on Microsoft's custom silicon, it's unclear if the company will make the feature available on x86-based PCs. That said, Microsoft is not the only company working on this type of functionality. With the iOS 13 betas, Apple started testing a similar FaceTime Attention Correction feature. The company ultimately shelved the feature before releasing the operating system to the public. However, as The Verge notes, Attention Correction is one of the enhancements Apple says iOS 14 will include when it comes out later this year.

If you don't own a Surface Pro X, there's still a good reason to check out the latest Windows 10 preview build. The update includes a nifty tweak to how the Alt + Tab shortcut works. By default, pressing the two keys will let you see all of your browser tabs alongside open app windows. If having the option to switch between all your tabs at once is jarring, you can tweak the feature to show only your most recent three or five tabs instead, or none at all.
Panelists include Michael C. Gass, Amy Mansue and Sunita Holzerall senior leaders who have helped their companies navigate various crises, including the financial meltdowns of 2001 and 2008. Given the Covid-19 pandemic challenges, it is imperative for us to explore creative and relevant solutions to help organizational leaders facing numerous disruptive issues right now, such as employee care, financial stability, and customer impact.. - Dr. Loubna Erraji, Rutgers SMLR

COMPETITIVE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS with RUTGERS UNIVERSITY School of Management and Labor Relations Center for HR and Leadership Development presents:

BEYOND THE SHUTDOWN: A Webinar Series

Webinar 2

Leadership in Crisis

Competitive Business Solutions (CBS) along with Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations (SMLR) Executive and Professional Education, is proud to announce the second of a shared webinar series that will provide useful and practical information for organizations that now find themselves operating in a new reality. The second webinar titled LEADERSHIP IN CRISIS is part of CBSs Beyond the Shutdown learning series. The 1-hour webinar will be in panel-discussion format. The event will be broadcast live on July 29th at 2:00 PM(EST). To join this event, register on the Rutgers University SMLR website at: https://rutgers.webex.com/rutgers/onstage/g.php?MTID=ecaa278d36b083ca492bd04bcf82a705e

Once again, participation is free.

At this event, Dr. Loubna Erraji, Director of Executive and Professional Education at Rutgers SMLR, will host the discussion while Ed Hoffman, founder and president of Competitive Business Solutions, moderates. Panelists include Michael C. Gass, Amy Mansue and Sunita Holzerall senior leaders who have helped their companies navigate various crises, including the financial meltdowns of 2001 and 2008.

Michael C. Gass, prior to retirement was the President and CEO for United Launch Alliance, a joint venture company between Lockheed Martin and Boeing. In this role, Gass served as the principle strategic leader of the organization and was responsible for all business management and operational performance.

Amy Mansue was recently named CEO of Inspira Health after serving as executive vice-president of RWJ Barnabas Health. Before that, Amy was president and CEO of the Childrens Specialized Hospital for 12 years, during which she led the organization through the various crises of the early 2000s. Described by ROI-NJ editor Tom Berguon, Amy represents the best of us. Shes smart, shes kind, and shes Jersey.

Sunita Holzer joined Realogy Holdings Corporation in 2015 when it was comprised of 4 business units, each with their own HR departments. Under her change leadership, Realogys separate HR departments merged and functioned as one, attracting, developing and retaining best-in-class employees. During the turbulent decade before her move to Realogy, Sunita worked at GE Capital during 2001 and then at Chubb from 2003 to 2012.

Hoffman explains the objectives of this webinar: Our panelists will share their experiences leading their companies through the financial uncertainties following 9/11 and how that knowledge helped them through the 2008 financial meltdown. The lessons learned are a great resource to our corporate leadership today.

In addition, Erraji emphasizes the importance and timeliness of this webinar: Given the Covid-19 pandemic challenges, it is imperative for us to explore creative and relevant solutions to help organizational leaders facing numerous disruptive issues right now, such as employee care, financial stability, and customer impact, among many others.

For further information about this event and others, visit: https://cbsteam.com/beyondtheshutdown/.

About Competitive Business Solutions (CBS)

Competitive Business Solutions consultants are masters of world-class operating and lean sigma principles. Creative problem-solvers throughout the improvement processfrom initial discovery and strategic solution development to implementation and knowledge transferCBS consultants take pride in their client relationships, working side-by-side with every member of your team, from shop floor to board room, to identify and resolve performance issues quickly, effectively and with minimal impact on business productivity.

About Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations (SMLR) Executive and Professional Education

Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations (SMLR) Executive and Professional Education (EPE) develops and delivers innovative learning and development solutions that strengthen and advance the individual, workforce and organization as a whole. EPE provides a rich learning environment through a powerful combination of expert class instruction and peer interaction, led by distinguished Rutgers University faculty, thought leaders and industry experts.

Contact Information:

Keith Yeater

Competitive Business Solutions

https://cbsteam.com

+1 9735090110 Ext: 147
A team of doctors, nurses and other personnel repatriate Vietnamese from China's Wuhan City in February 2020. Photo courtesy of the Government Portal.

Two doctors and two nurses from Hanois National Hospital for Tropical Diseases will help repatriate 120 Covid-19 positive Vietnamese citizens from Equatorial Guinea in the coming days.

The infected citizens, who are part of more than 200 Vietnamese managerial employees of three Vietnamese firms in Equatorial Guinea in Central Africa, will be repatriated in late July or early August, Pham Ngoc Thach, director of the Hanoi hospital, said Thursday.

The doctors and nurses will take medicines, equipment and protective gear with them, he said.

All 120 infected passengers and the crew will be quarantined and treated at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases upon arrival, and it will be the highest number of Covid-19 patients the hospital has had to treat at the same time, Thach said.

Among the 120 infected, three have recovered while the rest are still positive with the coronavirus, according to the Ministry of Health. Several have symptoms like cough, throat pain, headache or fever. Forty-six have chronic diseases, including high blood pressure and peptic ulcers.

In the last few months, Vietnam has repatriated thousands of its citizens from around the world, including the U.S., South Korea, Africa and South Asia.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said at a press briefing last week that 13,323 Vietnamese have been brought back on 55 flights since April 10.

Dinh Viet Thang, head of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam, said another 50 flights or so would bring over 13,000 Vietnamese citizens home by the end of next month.

Vietnam has to date recorded 412 Covid-19 cases of which all but 47 have completely recovered. The country has recorded no community transmission in over three months.
The Iran policy part of a new draft of Democratic Party's 2020 platform which calls for "a responsible end to forever wars" has received mixed reactions in the United States and worried some in Israel, while politicians in Iran have remained silent about It.

Even compared to the party's own platform in 2016, the new draft marks a shift in attitudes toward Iran.

The 80-page 2020 Democratic Party platform opposes regime change in Tehran. According to the Politico, Bernie "Sanders staffers pointed to some anti-interventionist language in the draft as a victory, particularly compared to the 2016 platforms foreign policy proposals, which they viewed as overly hawkish."

The Democratic Party platform maintains that "Democrats believe the United States should not impose regime change on other countries and reject that as the goal of U.S. policy toward Iran.

The final draft of the Democratic Party platform also calls for returning to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran also called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018 and subsequently the United States imposed new sanctions on Iran and called for a new agreement that would also constrain Iran's ballistic missile program, its military ambitions in the Middle East, its violation of human rights as well as its controversial nuclear program.

The Democratic platform maintains that the JCPOA, "was always meant to be the beginning, not the end, of our diplomacy with Iran," adding that the nuclear deal remains the best means to verifiably cut off all of Irans pathways to a nuclear bomb.

Former Senators Joe Lieberman (Democrat-Connecticut) and Mark Kirk (Republican-Illinois) wrote in the New York Daily News wrote in the NY Daily News on July 23 that Americas commitment to policies that make Iran less dangerous is bipartisan, well-established and entirely necessary. With increased weaponry stockpiles, strengthened capabilities and more accurate military equipment, it is evident now more than ever that the threat from Tehran can only grow. Americans must work together to keep America safe.

Meanwhile, Haaretz in Israel cited the opening statement of the platform which stresses Democrats will call off the Trump Administrations race to war with Iran and prioritize nuclear diplomacy, de-escalation, and regional dialogue. Democrats believe the United States should not impose regime change on other countries and reject that as the goal of U.S. policy toward Iran.

In another reaction from Israel, the Jewish Insider quoted Likud minister Tzachi Hanegbi as saying on July 21 that "that while the Israeli government has remained impartial ahead of the U.S. presidential election, he is concerned that, should former Vice President Joe Biden win in November, the U.S. would re-join the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran."

He added that he was worried that Joe Biden and other officials in the Democratic Party talk about going back to the JCPOA, which, in my opinion, would be a very, very big mistake, adding that I am not so sure that Democrats dont still believe, like they did during the Obama administration, that engaging with Iran, trying to appease Iran, is a policy that is good for the United States.

Many Iranians who are opposed to the Islamic Republic and seek a regime change have been content with President Donald Trumps tough stance against Tehran. But some fear a Biden victory could change U.S. policy to a more conciliatory approach toward Iran.

In April, Biden called on Trump "to ease economic sanctions on Iran as a humanitarian gesture during the global coronavirus pandemic," stressing that "the U.S. has a moral obligation to be among the first to offer aid to people in need regardless of where they live when confronting a virus that knows no borders or political affiliations," Al-Jazeera reported at the time.

Iranian officials during the past months shunned all reconciliatory offers from the United States, including offers of help to alleviate the pressure of the pandemic on Iranians, probably waiting for the results of the elections in November.

President Donald Trump in June told Iran officials in a tweet not to wait for the election and start negotiations immediately to make the Big Deal, but Iran refused this offer too. According to the New York Times, "Mr. Trumps offer was immediately rejected by the Iranian leadership, which now seems to harbor doubts that he will remain president and is hunkering down to survive American-led sanctions until they see the results of the November election."
WATERLOO  A team of international researchers led by an astrophysicist at the University of Waterloo has released the largest ever three-dimensional map of the universe.

Filling in the gaps of 11 billion years of cosmic history, William Percival and the team of more than 100 researchers have included detailed measurements of more than two million galaxies and quasars.

Its the most comprehensive map ever released of the universe, a culmination of nearly five years of data retrieval and analysis.

As you look back and observe galaxies that are distant from us, youre actually seeing the universe as it was in the past, said Percival, who served as the survey scientist on the project. So were seeing a historical record of the universe, as well as making a large three-dimensional map of it.

They did this by identifying the spectra  or colour  of each galaxy, working out how quickly it is moving away from Earth, and then using the expansion of the universe to work out the distance.

The map was created through the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, or eBOSS, which is part of a larger 20-year Sloan Digital Sky Survey looking at cosmic history.

It is available to the public on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey website.

The survey is based on data using the 2.5-metre wide-angle optical telescope at Apache Point in New Mexico, which can pick up the light of 1,000 objects in any one pointing of the telescope.

But while much of the attention has been drawn to the map, what interests Percival is the science we get from the data, and what it means for our understanding of physics.

The reason why this is exciting is because we have found problems with modern physics, he said. They were known before, but weve found them at higher significance than in previous studies.

Scientists have long understood that the universe has been expanding since the Big Bang around 13.8 billion years ago. But under the standard picture of gravity  a force that pulls things together  Percival said you would expect the expansion to be decelerating.

Thats not the case. Instead, the findings show that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.

And researchers dont know why.

The acceleration is being attributed to a mysterious, invisible component of the universe called dark energy.

Weve got a name for it, but we dont know what it is, said Percival. And that is, for me, the exciting part about this map.

The findings from the map do fall in line with Albert Einsteins general theory of relativity, Percival said, but the problem is that physically, dark energy is still an unknown.

Its a mystery he compares to the discovery of electricity.

Before something is understood, people think of it as being magic, he said. At the moment with dark energy, we have observed a phenomenon, weve seen the acceleration of the universe, we just dont know whats causing it. So were in that really exciting early phase like the discovery of electricity, where weve seen some strange things happen but we dont know why they happen.

Further research will use the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, a larger telescope, giving researchers access to more galaxies to survey. They also hope to expand on the map by using findings from a European Space Agency satellite mission, which would avoid the distortions caused by the Earths atmosphere.

Percival is involved with both projects.

We are pushing the boundaries in observations and in scale in our understanding of the universe, and its exciting and a driver for getting up every morning, he said.
Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap recently tweeted that the last time he spoke to actor Kangana Ranaut, she put their conversation on social media. Now, in an interview with NDTV, Anurag has given more details about their last interaction.

Anurag said that he spoke to Kangana a year ago, when he felt she was hurt by an interview clip of him and Taapsee Pannu laughing at a joke about Kangana. Anurag called Kangana to sort things out between the two actors but it did not work. Taapsee is also a friend and I said that two friends are there and why are they saying things to each other... I called her (Kangana) and asked her and she put the whole conversation on social media and I was just there like a friend trying to sort things out, he said.

Taapsee was asked in the interview during the promotions of Manmarziyaan what product she would suggest for Kangana Ranaut and she replied, double filter. Kangana and her sister Rangoli Chandel took offence to it and called Taapsee a sasti copy of Kangana on Twitter. Kuch log Kangana ko copy kar ke he apni dukaan chalate hain (Some people are running their business by copying Kangana), magar pls note, they never acknowledge her not even a mention of her name in praising the trailer, last I heard Taapsee ji said Kangana needs a double filter and Taapsee ji you need to stop being a sasti copy, Rangoli had written in a tweet.

Also read: Before Dil Bechara, did you spot Sanjana Sanghi in Hindi Medium and Fukrey Returns? Watch videos

Anurag added that he was ready to apologise to Kangana for the interview but her current outlook is not helping. I am saying okay, if you are hurt by that, I will apologize for that. Thats what friends do. But she has gone on to a mode where If (you) are not with me you are my enemy, he said.

Kangana, Taapsee and Anurag have been warring on Twitter since Sunday when Kangana gave an interview to Republic TV, once again launching an attack on Taapsee and Swara Bhaskar. She called them B-grade actors who are not rising in ranks despite being chaploos (bootlickers).

Taapsee rejected all her accusations in an interview to Hindustan Times, saying, Yes, Ive been dropped out of films and replaced with star kids but the fact that Kangana and her sister (Rangoli Chandel) try to discredit me and my hard work, call me names, put wrong allegations on me, is actually an equal level of harassment, if not more.

Anurag has also been tweeting about Kangana, saying while they used to be friends once, but he doesnt recognise the person she has become. I saw Kanganas interview yesterday. She used to be a very good friend of mine at one time. She used to encourage me by coming for my films. But I do not know this new Kangana. And I just saw this scary interview of hers, which is just after the release of Manikarnika, he wrote. Intoxication of success and vigour seduces everyone equally, whether it is insider or outsider. Learn from me, be like me, I have never heard this from her before 2015. And since then, it has come to the point that those who are not with me are all mean and sycophantic, he added.

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Colombo, Jul 23 (PTI) Wearing black arm bands, the workers of the strategic Colombo Port have restarted their protest against a proposed deal with India to develop a deep-sea container terminal of the country's largest and busiest port.

The workers ended their protest on July 3 following a meeting with Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, a day after they had threatened to go on an indefinite strike if the government allowed a foreign country to develop the Eastern Container Terminal (ECT).

The previous Sirisena government signed a "memorandum of cooperation" (MOC) with India and Japan for a tripartite effort to develop the ECT which is located just next to the USD 500 million Chinese-run Colombo International Container Terminal (CICT).

Although the MOC was completed last year, a formal agreement for the terminal's development is yet to be signed and the trade unions are pressing the government to abandon the MOC and develop the terminal as a 100 per cent Sri Lankan venture.

The workers, who launched the 'Black Week' protest on Wednesday, alleged that government had reneged on the pledge to make the ECT operational as a Sri Lankan venture.

"The government must say who is pressuring them on this. If it is India, then we will say that port's future will be in danger," Shamal Sumanaratne, a trade union leader told reporters.

The port workers have roped in influential Buddhist monk Elle Gunawansa to join them. The monk blessed the protestors and issued a warning to the government.

"We will give this government more time, if they don't want to do the right thing, we will take to the streets," Gunawansa said.

Prasanna Kalutharage, another trade union leader, said the port workers would ensure 50 million rupees to the Treasury every month through ECT's operation as a 100 per cent Sri Lankan venture.

The workers said that one of the solutions offered at the meeting with Rajapaksa was to install three newly-imported gantry cranes at the ECT, which is not being fulfilled as due to the deliberate delay in work.

They expressed happiness after the meeting with Rajapaksa, asserting that they had won the round one in getting permission to instal the cranes while the next step would be to operationalise the ECT.

The workers said the crisis at the port would be decisive to the government at the parliamentary election on August 5.

"The government would learn a lesson at the election," warned KPP Krishantha, another union leader.

Both President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa have appealed to the voters to give them a mandate as large as two thirds of seats in the 225-member parliament.

Earlier this month, the prime minister told reporters that no final decision had been made yet to hand over the development of the ECT to India.

"This was a diplomatic agreement with India signed by the last government  an agreement between President Sirisena and Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi," he had said.

The trade unions were protesting against the alleged "Indian pressure" to prevent Sri Lanka from developing the ECT on its own.

They have called for expediting the development of the East Terminal and are against handing it over to a foreign country.

Colombo Port is the largest and busiest port in Sri Lanka. Located on the southwestern shores on the Kelani River, it serves as an important terminal in Asia due to its strategic location in the Indian Ocean. PTI CORR MRJ MRJ
Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe has said he is ready to "draw a line in the sand" following "10 years of hell" during which he was the victim of a smear campaign orchestrated by senior Garda officials.

Mr McCabe was a sergeant at Bailieborough, Co Cavan, before resigning after an investigation into an assault in Crossan's Pub in the town was mishandled.

After raising concern about Garda malpractice in 2008, Mr McCabe was subjected to a smear campaign which saw him falsely accused of raping an eight-year-old girl.

After the Charleton Tribunal, which investigated whether there was a smear campaign against Sgt McCabe, found he had been "repulsively denigrated for being no more than a good citizen and police officer", he was finally vindicated after years of abuse.

However, Mr McCabe and his wife Lorraine said they are finally ready to move on.

Expand Close Dignity: Maurice McCabe and wife Lorraine endured a harrowing 12 years that Mr Justice Peter Charleton helped bring to an end with his report / Facebook

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Whatsapp Dignity: Maurice McCabe and wife Lorraine endured a harrowing 12 years that Mr Justice Peter Charleton helped bring to an end with his report

"We went through 10 years of hell so everything is wonderful now.

"We live a very normal life, so there's no trouble or hassle," said Ms McCabe.

"We've drawn a line in the sand and if we ever go back to that it just annoys me. We've just left it behind us," Mr McCabe added.

The couple were speaking to Ivan Yates on Newstalk's 'The Hard Shoulder'.

"I was on medication for the past 10 years - it was a mild medication," said Mr McCabe.

"After the Charleton report and after our settlement, I said 'I'm going to completely wean off that'... within one month I had to go back on it. I couldn't cope."

The couple described the abuse Mr McCabe suffered online after raising concerns about the handling of penalty points within An Garda Siochana.

He recalled a "shocking" incident when abusive messages were spread about him on social media. Images in one instance, he said, were posted of a man carrying out lewd acts on a plastic rat.

"[There were] sexual gestures, they were sticking their fingers everywhere, they were licking parts of the rat," he said.

"Under the photographs they had 'Maurice', and then the words 'cheese eating rat b******'."

He said that since the publishing of the tribunal's report, he has suffered much less abuse.

However, he said that travelling to Bailieborough is difficult for him and there were always little moments where he was made to feel like a traitor.

"It was hard going at the time. I went to Mullingar and I was in the traffic unit, and they were great. But there was also something coming up in relation to Bailieborough.

"It was tough... it was extremely tough for years. There was always something...every week there was always something."

However, Mr McCabe told how recently gardai attended an incident in his neighbour's home and he was taken by how proper and reasonable they were.

He is finally prepared to let go of what happened to him, he said, because he is confident that it will not happen again to another garda.

"I think there's more accountability now," he said.

"I think the oversight is in now at the moment... every rank now is inspected and every rank has to go through each incident. There are daily accountability meetings, there are weekly accountability meetings and I don't think anything nowadays is going to fall through the cracks. The systems are now in place."
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) speaks to the media after weekly policy luncheons on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 21, 2020. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

White House, GOP Reach Deal on Key Parts of New Stimulus Relief Bill

The White House and Senate Republicans on July 22 tentatively agreed on key components of the forthcoming stimulus package to provide relief during the COVID-19 pandemic, including funding for schools and testing.

The package is expected to be unveiled by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in parts on Thursday, according to lawmakers at the Capitol.

Although deep disagreements over the scope of the $1 trillion in federal aid remain ahead of the expected roll out this week, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said a fundamental agreement on the funding level was reached.

I think our agreement reflects our priorities, which is back to school, back to child care, back to work, Senate Health Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) told reporters as he exited a session late Wednesday at the Capitol.

Lawmakers said the proposed $105 billion funding for schools would be split with $70 billion to help K-12 schools reopen, $30 billion for colleges and universities, and $5 billion for governors to allocate.

Republicans also propose giving $15 billion for child care centers to create safe environments for youngsters during the pandemic.

The tentative agreement calls for a further $16 billion in funding for testing and $9 billion in unspent from the from the previous $2.2 trillion stimulus package approved by Congress in March. The White House and Senate Republicans settled on adding the funds to reach $25 billion, senators said.

Well have $16 billion in a line tomorrow, and $9 billion that previously was not as clearly designated that they already had will now be clearly designated as testing, so the total testing money will be $25 billion, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) told reporters.

Still unresolved is how to phase out the $600 weekly unemployment benefit boost that is expiring, starting Friday, with millions still out of work. Republicans appear to be settling on $200 a week that would ultimately be adjusted according to state jobless benefits rates. Democrats want to keep the provision until early next year.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Tuesday that he doesnt expect the relief package to be passed until next month.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Representative Bennie G. Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi who chairs the House Committee on Homeland Security, said on Thursday that he would hold a hearing next week to examine the D.H.S. response to the protests.

The administrations actions are not only violent and clearly politically motivated, they are anathema to the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and a threat to every value for which our Republic stands, Mr. Thompson said.

Seattles mayor, Jenny Durkan, said in an interview that she spoke earlier Thursday with Chad F. Wolf, the acting secretary of homeland security. She said he had assured her that the administration had no plans to deploy a surge of agents to Seattle and would not do so without communicating with the city. She had not been alerted to plans to position the tactical team, but said that the department may be distinguishing between an active deployment and agents who are on standby.

Ms. Durkan said she made it clear that the city did not need the help of federal agents.

Any deployment here would, in my view, undermine public safety, Ms. Durkan said.

Protests in the Seattle area have quieted somewhat since police this month cleared the so-called Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone, where demonstrators had laid claim to several city blocks. But there have been signs that demonstrations may be ramping back up, including on Thursday, when the police said a group of protesters broke windows and lit fires in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Alexei Woltornist, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement that the expected presence in Seattle would be smaller than that in Portland.

There is no large-scale deployment of personnel to Seattle at this time. As threats warrant, any large-scale use of law enforcement assets will involve close coordination with local law enforcement, Mr. Woltornist said. There are no other cities across the country that have the same threats and lack of local law enforcement support as we are experiencing in Portland.
(Natural News) Newly declassified documents released by the Senate Judiciary Committee definitely prove that The New York Times knew its Trump-Russia collusion narrative was fake before it even published the story  meaning the Times intentionally spread lies to smear President Trump.

The documents in question contain clear evidence showing that former FBI agent Peter Strzok was not in agreement with the Times version of events in its article, Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence. As you may recall, this article falsely claimed that Donald Trumps 2016 presidential campaign along with other Trump associates had been in repeated contact with senior Russian intelligence officials before the election.

In a draft document of this Times article that was obtained by the committee, Strzok had written notes and annotations correcting all sorts of false information that Times writers Michael Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti, and Matt Apuzzo had gotten wrong. But rather than correct any of their blatant errors, this trio  with the approval of the Times editorial board  published the fake news story as it was originally written.

This statement is misleading and inaccurate as written, Strzok wrote alongside repeated instances in which the Times writers had gotten it wrong about the Trump campaigns alleged communications with the Russians. We have not seen evidence of any individuals affiliated with the Trump campaign in contact with IOs [intelligence officials].

Based on Strzoks notations, every significant claim made in the Times article as it was published is completely false. There was no Russian collusion, nor was the Trump campaign engaged in any discolored behavior with the Russians in the leadup to the 2016 presidential election, which to this day is the claim made by Trump-hating Democrats and the mainstream media.

Keep in mind that this fake news Times article was published just one day after National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was forced to resign over allegations that he had lied about his alleged conversations with Russian officials. This suggests that the real collusion was taking place between the Times and the Democrat Party, which had engaged in manufacturing a fake news narrative to treasonously oust a sitting president.

The FBI engaged in a miscarriage of justice by seeking FISA warrant against Carter Page, says Lindsey Graham

A second document obtained by the committee contains an FBI memorandum pertaining to an interview with the so-called primary sub-source of the infamous dossier, which was compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. This dossier, as you may recall, was a product of Fusion GPS opposition research, and had been funded by Hillary Clintons failed presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to smear Trump.

Well, it turns out that this source was not actually a real source, but rather a paid employee of Steeles firm. In other words, it was more manufactured fake news to falsely portray Trump as a traitor, and in turn hand the election to Hillary Clinton  a scheme that the world now knows ultimately failed.

[It] was a miscarriage of justice for the FBI and the Department of Justice to continue to seek a FISA warrant against [former Trump campaign aide] Carter Page in April and June of 2017, announced Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) with regard to these new findings.

Those who knew or should have known of this development and continued to pursue a FISA warrant against Mr. Page anyway are in deep legal jeopardy in my view, he added.

President Trump himself has repeatedly accused the FBI of spying on his campaign, which would make sense in light of these new revelations. The system was obviously stacked against him, though the deep state plan to unseat him has been foiled.

For more related news, be sure to check out Corruption.news.

Sources for this article include:

Breitbart.com

NaturalNews.com
Massachusetts lawmakers took another step toward approving a plaque in the State House that commemorates Dr. Martin Luther Kings 1965 speech before a joint convention of the Legislature.

Senators unanimously approved a bill Thursday to set up a bronze plaque in the House chamber. The plaque would contain text from an April 22, 1965, speech King delivered to lawmakers during a two-day visit to Boston.

King urged them to do more to create a just society, stating no section of the country can boast of clean hands in the area of brotherhood.

Rep. Bud Williams, a Springfield Democrat who filed the bill in the House, said King may be the first Black historical figure to be memorialized in the House Chamber.

It couldnt have come at a better time, said Williams, a member of the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus. He stood for peace, justice and liberty. Then maybe this will be the catalyst to recognize other individuals.

Other individuals Williams referenced as possible examples range from Harriet Tubman, the famous abolitionist, to Madam C.J. Walker, the first Black millionaire, to the late John Lewis, an activist of the Civil Rights Movement who served as U.S. congressman for three decades before his death on July 17.

Massachusetts lawmakers are debating a massive police reform bill drafted in the wake of nationwide protests against police brutality. The catalyst of those protests was the May 25 officer-involved killing of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis.

Floyds death not only sparked protests and calls to defund police budgets, but also prompted companies and elected officials to reflect on how they could support Black communities. Several companies announced they would take off for June 19 for Juneteenth, which is celebrated in Black communities nationwide to commemorate emancipation from slavery. A $1.1 billion supplemental budget that includes a provision to make June 19 a state holiday is on the governors desk.

The House engrossed the bill in December. The Senate bill, filed by Sen. Joan Lovely, was taken up during Thursdays formal session.

Dr. Kings 1965 speech reminds all legislators of our heavy responsibilities to create a Commonwealth where Black people receive equal and just treatment, said Lovely, a Salem Democrat. The placement of this plaque in the House chamber will make the State House a more inclusive and inspirational place for those of us who work here as well as for those who come to see our work.

Senate President Karen Spilkas office said the bill returns to the House for further consideration.

I look forward to seeing his powerful message memorialized in the State House, the Ashland Democrat said in a statement.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-24 05:40:10|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Iran on Thursday touted that an indigenous vaccine for COVID-19 has "successfully" passed the initial tests; Meanwhile, the total number of COVID-19 cases in Saudi Arabia exceeded 260,000 as the pandemic continued to rage in the kingdom.

Iranian Health Minister Saeed Namaki said Iran has achieved a remarkable success in producing the COVID-19 vaccine. "It has passed the initial tests and we hope to reach promising stages," he said.

Iran's confirmed COVID-19 cases surged to 284,034 on Thursday after 2,621 new infections were confirmed, while the death toll climbed to 15,074 after 221 more deaths were added overnight.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani blamed the new surge in COVID-19 infections on the "insufficient attention" paid to the health protocols by some groups of people.

Evaluation of the recent resurgence of the cases suggested that it was not caused by the reopening of economic and social activities, Rouhani told a meeting of the National Headquarters for Managing and Fighting the Coronavirus.

He said that the use of face masks in public and indoor or high-risk places, as well as a ban on gatherings, wedding ceremonies, funerals and parties would be effective ways to deal with the second wave of the coronavirus outbreak in Iran.

In Saudi Arabia, the Health Ministry on Thursday called on the public to follow anti-coronavirus precautions during the upcoming Eid al-Adha, as the kingdom's tally of infections surged to 260,394, after 2,238 new cases were confirmed.

Mohammed Al Abdulaali, the ministry's spokesman, said the death toll in the country rose to 2,635 with the addition of 24 more deaths, while the total recoveries increased to 213,490 after 3,092 more patients recovered.

Turkey's total COVID-19 cases increased by 913 on Thursday to 223,315, while the death toll went up by 18 to 5,563, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said.

A total of 1,151 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, raising the total recoveries to 206,365 in Turkey since the outbreak, Koca said.

In Iraq, the pandemic continued its resurgence as the total number of COVID-19 infections surged to 102,226, after 2,361 new cases were recorded. The death toll reached 4,122 with the addition of 80 more fatalities.

Despite the resurgence, Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority on Thursday resumed regular international flights at the airports of Baghdad, Basra and Najaf.

It said that Erbil and Sulaimaniyah international airports, in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, did not resume the flights, because they were not ready yet to apply the preventive health measures as required.

In Israel, the Health Ministry reported 1,897 new cases of coronavirus infection, leading the total infections in the country to 57,982. The death toll rose to 442, after 12 more fatalities were recorded.

Oman recorded 1,099 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, bringing the total infections to 72,646, including 355 deaths and 51,349 recoveries.

Kuwait on Thursday reported 687 new COVID-19 cases and four more deaths, raising the tally of infections to 61,872 and the death toll to 421.

Tareq Al-Mezrem, the government spokesman, said on Twitter account that Kuwait will start the third-phase plan of restoring normal life on July 28.

The curfew hours will be further reduced during the third phase, while labor capacity will increase to no more than 50 percent, visits to social care homes will be allowed, and hotels and resorts will be allowed to reopen.

Egypt reported on Thursday its highest single-day recoveries from COVID-19, as 991 patients were cured, bringing the total recoveries in the country to 31,066.

Egyptian Health Ministry also confirmed 668 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the tally of infections in the country to 90,413. On the same day, 40 patients died from the novel coronavirus, marking the lowest daily fatalities in nearly six weeks and raising the death toll to 4,480.

Qatar reported 373 new COVID-19 cases, increasing the total number of confirmed cases in the Gulf state to 108,244, including 164 deaths and 105,018 recoveries.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced 254 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total confirmed cases in the country to 57,988, including 50,848 recoveries. The death toll in the UAE remained unchanged from the previous day's 342.

A total of 302 new COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Morocco on Thursday, bringing the total infections in the country to 18,264, includding 292 deaths and 15,872 recoveries.

In Lebanon, the tally of COVID-19 infections increased on Thursday by 156 cases to 3,260, while the death toll remained at 43.

The National Center for Disease Control of Libya reported 138 new COVID-19 cases, the highest daily infections in the war-torn country so far, bringing its tally of infections to 2,314, including 56 deaths and 501 recoveries. Enditem
Virgin Hyperloop has appointed Raja Narayanan as the Chief Financial Officer. Narayanan who was formerly with Hyundai Aptiv Joint Venture will oversee all finance and business development for Virgin Hyperloop.

Narayanan said that he has built his career around things 'that fly and move' and is convinced in the value of Virgin Hyperloop. "I have built my career around things that fly and things that move. For the next chapter, I am excited to be joining Virgin Hyperloop, the company truly pioneering the future of autonomous mass transit. I am convinced in the value of hyperloop to unlock exponential growth and impact millions in generations to come by creating a safe, sustainable mode of transportation," said Narayanan.

CEO Jay Walder welcomed Narayanan and said that he has an unprecedented background in creating value in disruptive transportation opportunities. "We are excited to have him join Virgin Hyperloop at this pivotal time where the world is adapting to the new normal and realising we need solutions like hyperloop that allow us to not just rebuild, but evolve," he added.

The new CFO of Virgin Hyperloop has formerly worked with Hyundai-Aptiv Autonomous Driving Joint Venture, OneWeb, and Panasonic. He is an alumnus of University of Louisiana and University of Madras.

Before heading to Virgin Hyperloop, Narayanan was SVP at Hyundai-Aptiv Autonomous Driving Joint Venture. He was responsible for commercialising L4 autonomous driving technology. L4 is an advanced form of self-driving, where no driver attention is required for safety, as against partial monitoring by the driver. The driver could even go to sleep.

Narayanan was involved with OneWeb, before Hyundai-Aptiv. He was the VP at Panasonic before that, heading the strategic planning of the appliances business to IoT-based automation.

Narayanan is a graduate of Computer Science from University of Louisiana, Lafayette and has dual Bachelor's degrees in Engineering and Physics from Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and University of Madras. He is also the co-author of six wireless patents.

Also read: India received foreign investment of $20 billion amid pandemic: PM Modi at India-Idea's summit
Following the detection of its first omicron case Saturday in Haidian district of Beijing, the Chinese capital locked down certain communities and office buildings just weeks before the Winter Olympics and the Lunar New Year holiday. The city opened 30 emergency testing points in Haidian on Monday as it rushes to contain the spread

Jan 19, 2022 05:37 PM
KITCHENER  It was a chaotic scene as a volley of 30 gunshots was fired at a Waterloo Subway shop on an early April morning last year.

Most of the 17 people inside were young people who had come to the restaurant after a night of partying at local bars.

Shortly after 2 a.m., patrons were in the restaurant sitting at a table eating. When the shooting started, they dropped to the ground, ducking for cover. One man pulled a table over to protect him and his friends from gunfire.

Some hid behind a refrigerator, others took cover in a walk-in refrigerator and some ran to the washroom.

One man was shot in the forearm, a woman had cuts from shattered glass and another woman was trampled as customers dispersed, fleeing the gunfire.

A woman tied a cloth around the mans arm to stop the bleeding. Others outside the shop mistook the gunfire for fireworks.

Four suspects fled. Two of them were arrested about a month later by Waterloo Regional Police.

In a Kitchener courtroom Wednesday, one of the arrested  a Waterloo teen  was on trial.

The teenager, who was 17 at the time, cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. In the prisoners box, the teen, who was dressed in black slacks and a long-sleeved buttoned shirt, wearing glasses and with his hair tied in a ponytail, listened attentively before Justice Craig Parry.

The teenager, who turns 19 on Friday, has pleaded not guilty to a slew of charges including discharging a firearm with the intent to endanger life, aggravated assault, possessing a prohibited weapon and breach of probation.

He also faces charges in connection to his arrest a month later in Kitchener, when police stopped a BMW at King Street and Fairway Road just before 11 a.m. The driver, who was allegedly using his cellphone while driving, was initially stopped for distracted driving.

The driver sped off and crashed into a pole about a kilometre away, at King Street and River Road. He got out of the car and ran off, police said.

Police dogs checked a nearby wooded lot and a loaded Glock pistol was found. The driver was arrested hours later in Etobicoke.

Charges in relation to that incident include unauthorized possession of a firearm, possession of a firearm in a motor vehicle and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle. He is also charged with possession of cannabis for distribution.

In an agreed of statement of facts on the Subway shop shooting, court was told police received 12 calls to their dispatch just after 2:05 a.m. on April 19, 2019.

It was Good Friday and 17 people were inside the King Street North restaurant, including two employees.

The statement says there were four groups of people at the shop, who had been at various bars that night: Chainsaw, the Starlight, Brixton Social Club and Night School.

A second suspect was arrested weeks after the shooting. Levi Alexander, 23, of Toronto is charged with discharging a firearm with intent to endanger life and aggravated assault.

Police said Wednesday that two other suspects in the shooting remain at large. The men are between 19 and 25 years old. One was wearing a blue hooded puffy vest, black pants and white shoes. The other was wearing a black hoodie, grey pants and black shoes.

Shortly after the two arrests, Police Chief Bryan Larkin said the shooting was targeted and linked to organized street-level activity.

The teenagers trial began last week and Crown prosecutor Aaron McMaster expects his portion of the case to end this week. The trial will resume later next month. So far 16 witnesses have testified, mostly police officers.
The market has a promising growth potential owingto several driving factors such as government initiatives for promoting water conservation and growth of smart cities opting for conservation of water.

New York, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Smart Irrigation Market with COVID-19 Impact Analysis by System Type, Application, Component And Geography - Global Forecast to 2025" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p03825776/?utm_source=GNW



The smart irrigation market is currently in the introductory growth phase and is expected to witness robust growth in the future owing to the increasing role of technology in irrigation.The advent of IoT and AI-based solution have proved beneficial for the smart irrigation market and could provide the further growth to the market.



The impact of COVID-19 on the smart irrigation market is likely to be there for a short term, and by end of 2020 or early 2021 the market is expected to witness robust recovery with higher demand for installation of IoT devices in agricultural farms across the world to make optimum use of resources with reduced labor requirements in the fields.



The market for controllers estimated to dominate the market during the forecast period

The controllers are the core components in an automated agriculture systems and the market for it is estimated to doniate the market during the forecast period.The adoption of these controllers by the large commercial farms has resulted in the huge demand as well as the developments in the field of IoT in agriculture has automated the controllers to a large extent.



Over the past few years, the number of smart controller products on the market has increased dramatically, with different manufacturers opting for different control technology solutions.



The market for agriculture applications estimated to grow at highest CAGR during the forecast period

The non-agriculture application hold a major chunk of share in the smart irrigation market however the use of smart irrigation systems in the agriculture has been on the rise with a substantial growth prospects.The rising concerns to feed the growing population and focus on sustainable development has led to the use of precision irrigation to provide optimum inputs.



Moreover the rising labor crisis has fuelled the need for the smart irrigation systems so as to reduce dependency on human labor.



Smart irrigation market in Asia Pacific to grow at the highest CAGR between 2019 and 2025

Major driving factors for the growth of the smart irrigation market in the APAC region are the rising investments in the ag-tech sector in countries like India, China, Australia and the increasing penetration of remote sensing technology along with the integration of IoT devices with smart phones.The APAC region has a tremendous growth potential owing to several invetments made in the agriculture technology by established players in the region.



Other driving factors for the growth of this market are strong government support, increased crop productivity, and minimal water wastage using smart irrigation systems. The agriculture, turf, landscape, and ground care are the major application areas for smart irrigation in APAC.



The breakup of primaries conducted during the study is depicted below:

 By Company Type: Tier 1  35 %, Tier 2  40%, and Tier 3 25%

 By Designation: C-Level Executives  57%, Directors  29%, and Others  14%

 By Region: Americas 40%, Europe  30%, APAC  20%, and RoW  10%



Research Coverage

The report segments the smart irrigation market and forecasts its size, by volume and value, based on region (Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, and RoW), component (cotroller, sensor, water flow meter and others), system type (weather based system and sensor based system), and application (non-agriculture and agriculture)

The report also provides a comprehensive review of market drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges in the automotive smart irrigation market. The report also covers qualitative aspects in addition to the quantitative aspects of these markets.



Key Benefits of Buying This Report

 This report includes the market statistics pertaining to component, system type, application, and region.

 An in-depth value chain analysis has been done to provide deep insight into the smart irrigation market.

 Major market drivers, restraints, challenges, and opportunities have been detailed in this report.

 Illustrative segmentation, analyses, and forecasts for the market based on component, system type, application and region have been conducted to provide an overall view of the smart irrigation market.

 The report includes an in-depth analysis and ranking of key players.



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p03825776/?utm_source=GNW



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



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CONTACT: Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001




A new lawsuit has claimed that laicized Cardinal Theodore McCarrick ran a sex ring from a New Jersey beach house in the 1980s, and that he groomed a young victim for a role in it by the time he was a teenager.

The Tuesday filing names the plaintiff as only Doe 14 and the anonymous person  who is now 53 years old  claims he was first abused by McCarrick when he was 14 years old.

He alleges that the sex ring activity took place at a property in the Jersey Shore's Sea Girt area and that McCarrick directed Father Anthony Nardino, Father John Laferrera, Father Michael Walters, Father Gerald Ruane and Brother Andrew Thomas Hewitt, CFC, who are accused of procuring at least seven boys.

The plaintiff claims that Hewitt, who was the principal at Essex Catholic Boy's High School at the time, abused him and that he introduced him to McCarrick, who was the Bishop of the Archdiocese of Metuchen, as someone who could help pay his tuition. Hewitt died in 2002.

An anonymous man referred to as Doe 14 claims in a Tuesday lawsuit that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick ran a child sex ring out of a house in the Jersey Shore's Sea Girt

The man claims in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that he was abused by McCarrick and three others, and that at least seven children were victims at the beach house

'McCarrick assigned sleeping arrangements, choosing his victims from the boys, seminarians and clerics present at the beach house,' according to the suit.

'On these occasions, minor boys were assigned to different rooms and paired with adult clerics.'

In a press conference on Wednesday, lawyer Jeffrey Anderson claimed that at that house 'was an assembly of a large number of seminarians and other priests all answering in service to the boss, to the bishop, to McCarrick.'

'And in the night, with the assistance of others, McCarrick would creep into this kid's bed and engage in criminal sexual assault  whispering, "It's OK,"' Anderson said in the Zoom press conference from St. Paul, Minnesota.

The lawsuit, filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey in Middlesex County, alleges the plaintiff  who attended St. Francis Xavier in Newark and Essex Catholic in East Orange in the Archdiocese of Newark - was abused by McCarrick and three of the other priests.

It claims Father Anthony Nardino, Archdiocese of Newark, was responsible for 'an unpermitted sexual contact' on Doe 14 in 1978 when he was 11 years old. Nardino was not named in the beach house ring.

It alleges abuse by Hewitt - was named in two previous sex abuse cases - between 1981 and 1983. Ruane, Lafererra and Walters, all of the Archdiocese of Newark, are alleged to have been involved at the beach house in 1982 and 1983.

Doe's lawyer claimed Wednesday in a press conference: 'McCarrick would creep into this kid's bed and engage in criminal sexual assault whispering, "It's OK"'

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of the Archdiocese of Washington speaks during a news conference at the Vatican press center, Vatican City, 24 April 2002

In February 2019, the Archdiocese of Newark included Fr. John Laferrera on its List of Clergy Credibly Accused of Sexually Abusing Minors. Ruane is now deceased.

The lawyer claimed they engaged in 'open and obvious criminal sexual conduct  that continued for 50 years until McCarrick, having been publicly exposed, was ultimately defrocked.'

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick Timeline 1958 Ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of New York. 1969 McCarrick allegedly sexually abused James Grein starting in approximately 1969 and continuing until approximately 1976. 1971 McCarrick allegedly sexually abuses an altar boy at Cathedral Prep Seminary in New York, NY. 1981 Appointed as the first Bishop of the Diocese of Metuchen. 1982 McCarrick allegedly sexually abuses Plaintiff, continuing until approximately 1983, when Plaintiff is approximately 14 to 16 years old. 1987 Appointed as Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Newark. 1993 Fr. Boniface Ramsey, O.P. reports McCarricks conduct with seminarians to the Archbishop of Louisville Thomas Kelly, O.P. 1993 Bishop of Metuchen Edward Hughes learns of McCarricks alleged sexual exploitation of a young seminarian. 1995 A priest reports to Bishop Hughes that McCarrick inappropriately touched him as a seminarian. 1995 McCarrick allegedly sexually abuses a minor altar boy, John Bellocchio. 2000 Appointed Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC. 2001 Elevated to Cardinal by Pope John Paul II. 2006 Retires. 2008 Pope Benedict imposes secret canonical sanctions on McCarrick but McCarrick continues to travel and celebrate mass publicly. 2018 McCarrick allowed to resign after allegations of McCarricks sexual abuse of a minor boy are made public. 2018 Holy See orders McCarrick to a life of prayer and penance. 2019 McCarrick involuntarily laicized by Pope Francis on February 13. Advertisement

He had risen through the ranks to become auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York and Archbishop of Newark, and was handpicked by Pope John Paul II to serve as Archbishop of Washington, D.C.

It's not the first time Sea Girt has been referenced in claims against McCarrick, 90, who resigned in 2018, after credible claims of abuse from someone who was an alter boy in New York.

The person claimed that McCarrick unzipped his pants during a fitting for a cassock and later cornered him in a bathroom.

Before any allegations came to light, McCarrick has secretly settled two cases. In one the cases he paid $80,000 to a New Jersey priest-turned-lawyer who claimed McCarrick would invite young seminarians and priests to the house and said that they shared beds.

That occurred while he was picked as Archbishop of Washington DC in last 2000. McCarrick was made a cardinal a year later.

A 2019 lawsuit from James Grein claimed that he was abused by McCarrick for 20 years but nothing was done about it, even after he told Pope John Paul II during a visit to the Vatican.

Former Catholic schoolteacher and principal, John Bellocchio, previously alleged that McCarrick abused him when he was the Archbishop of Newark.

In the new lawsuit the defendants are charged with one count of sexual battery and six counts of negligence.

The new filing comes after a change in the statute of limitation for New Jersey under New Jersey's Child Victims Act.

Jeffrey Anderson's law firm filed 33 more suits against the Diocese of Albany on Tuesday. The firm has now filed a total of 107 lawsuits against the Diocese.

McCarrick's attorney Barry Coburn told NJ.com that he has 'no comment at this time.'

Last year McCarrick denied the earlier beach house allegations.

'I'm not as bad as they paint me. I do not believe that I did the things that they accused me of,' he told Slate. 'There were many who were in that situation (at the beach house) who never had any problems like that.'

The Newark Archdiocese declined comment on the new allegations.

'It would be inappropriate to discuss or comment on matters in litigation,' spokeswoman, Maria Margiotta, said.

'The Archdiocese of Newark remains fully committed to transparency and to our long-standing programs to protect the faithful and will continue to work with victims, their legal representatives and law enforcement authorities in an ongoing effort to resolve allegations and bring closure to victims.'

Retired Cardinal Theodore McCarrick walks in a procession of bishops as it makes its way through the Bayridge neighborhood of the Brooklyn Borough of New York for the ordination of three auxiliary bishops to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn August 22, 2006
Then-President Obama listens as Vice President Joe Biden speaks in the White House complex in December 2016. (Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press)

In a campaign event for the times, Joe Biden and former President Obama made a joint but socially distant video appearance Thursday to attack President Trump and inspire Democratic voters to bring back their style of government by electing Biden.

In releasing the 15-minute video conversation with Obama, Biden deployed one of his most valuable political assets: his eight-year partnership with the nation's first Black president, one of the most popular Democrats in America.

Obama joined his former vice president, now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, in wide-ranging reminiscences about the challenges their administration faced  and in hammering Biden's central campaign themes: that Trump has failed as a leader at a time of crisis and Biden is uniquely experienced to replace him.

You know what its like, as much as anybody, to be in the White House in a crisis, Obama told Biden. You are going to be able to reassemble the kind of government that cares about people and brings people together.

"For all the specific policies that we're going to need, more than anything it's just that basic decency and an understanding about what's best in America, that I think people are going to be hungry for."

The conversation, filmed in Obamas Washington office, marked the first time the two men had met in person since before the COVID-19 pandemic drove the 2020 campaign  and much of the U.S. economy  into lockdown to slow the spread of the virus.

The Biden campaign, which has struggled to make its digital mark and get its message to voters during the pandemic, worked to drive up viewership of the video by releasing advance excerpts Wednesday night, teasing its Thursday release like a major television production.

The campaign bragged on Twitter even about the reach of the teaser. Rob Flaherty, the Biden campaign digital director, said the first advance excerpt alone drew more than 10 million views, and email signups for campaign releases tripled on Wednesday.

Story continues

The two men, filmed sitting in leather chairs far removed from each other, criticized Trump for his handling of the coronavirus crisis and for trying to deflect responsibility for its spread.

Can you imagine standing up when you were president and saying, Its not my responsibility, I take no responsibility? Biden said.

Those words didnt come out of our mouths while we were in office, Obama replied.

Biden denounced Trump as a divisive leader, harking back to the day Trump launched his 2016 presidential campaign in his Manhattan office building: He ran by deliberately dividing people from the moment he came down that escalator. And I think people are now going, I dont want my kid growing up that way.

Trump, on Twitter, derided Obama for making a commercial for Biden after not backing him during the Democratic primary, and said he was elected because of dissatisfaction with the Obama administration: Remember, I wouldnt even be here if it werent for them. I wouldnt be president. They did a terrible job.

Obama deliberately stayed out of the crowded Democratic primary contest to avoid unduly swaying his partys choice. Since Biden clinched the nomination, Obama has taken an increasingly active role in Bidens campaign. He speaks regularly to his former vice president and has brought in a flood of campaign cash by headlining virtual fundraisers. Nearly 56% of Americans have a positive view of Obama, according to YouGov polling, compared to 41% for Trump and 49% for Biden.

The video brought the spotlight back onto Bidens role in the Obama administration even as he has largely ditched his primary campaigns nostalgia-infused theme of promising a return to pre-Trump normalcy. That focus drew criticism from primary opponents and progressives who said racial and economic inequities persisted through the Obama era and that more fundamental changes are needed post-Trump.

Now, amid the pandemic, the economy's downturn and the waves of protests against systemic racism, Biden is calling for more dramatic changes. The more forward-looking tagline for his economic agenda is Built Back Better.

In the new video, however, Obama indulges in some retrospective boasting about the Affordable Care Act  the legislative capstone of their administration  despite complaints from the left that it did not go far enough.

I couldn't be prouder of what we got done, Obama said. Twenty million people have health insurance that didn't have it because of what we did.

Yet he and Biden always saw room for improvement, Obama added. "I always used to say the Affordable Care Act  Obamacare  it's like a starter house," he said. "It's the first house you get. Its not the end of the process. Its the beginning of the process.
In a time when most Americans are unable to travel, the Travel Tales series provides audiences with deep, rich travel stories told by esteemed writers and photographers, who personally narrate their experiences. Since its launch in 2018, Travel Tales has connected travelers via intimate, live storytelling events as well as hand-illustrated video animations featuring voiceovers by recognized writers and photographers. In 2019, both the MPA Kelly Award and Imagination Award recognized Travel Tales as a finalist.

This year, listeners will get an inside look at the ways in which travel can change our lives. You will hear from Ryan Knighton, a blind writer, who narrates his experience navigating a safari in Zimbabwe. The story won gold in the 2017-2018 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism competition. Francis Lam, an award-winning food writer and the host of the beloved NPR podcast "Splendid Table," shares his journey with a Malaysian chef struggling to embrace her roots. Sally Kohn, CNN's frequent guest commentator, took a spontaneous trip to Amsterdam, a city renowned for its coffee shops and progressive ideals, only to find that tolerance there isn't as straightforward as she thought.

"Travel changes lives and opens minds," says Julia Cosgrove, VP and Editor in Chief at AFAR. "The Travel Tales by AFAR podcast highlights the very best of AFAR's stories over the years: ten storytellers share their tales of transformative travel. At a time when many of us aren't traveling, it's an inspiring reminder of what's to come as the world opens up through our contributors' most surprising and moving experiences."

Travel Tales is exclusively empowered by The Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Card from Chase, which shares AFAR's belief in the power of travel.

"Travel literally is a moving experience  from the connections you make with people and cultures, to the memorable stories you'll share time and time again," said Greg Stranz, Marketing Director of the Chase Marriott Bonvoy cards. "Chase and Marriott Bonvoy believe in the power of travel, and the AFAR series provides a welcomed escape for listeners while inspiring them as they contemplate future travel plans."

Explore Travel Tales stories at afar.com/traveltales and subscribe to the Travel Tales by AFAR podcast on your favorite platform now with new episodes releasing every Thursday. And beginning July 24, Travel Tales will be accompanied by travel itineraries providing readers with additional inspiration for future travel experiences like those in the stories.

About AFAR Media:

Dedicated to inspiring and enabling deeper, richer, and more fulfilling travel experiences, AFAR Media's mission is to make travel a force for good. AFAR launched as a print travel magazine in 2009 to approach travel in a way that no other media publication was doing at the time, and has grown into a critically acclaimed travel media company with a well-traveled and highly influential audience. Based in New York and San Francisco, AFAR's diverse portfolio includes: AFAR magazine; AFAR.com; Learning AFAR, a non-profit program transforming communities by giving underserved students opportunities to make an impact through travel experiences; AFAR Experiences, an immersive travel event series; and AFAR Advisor, a B-to-B platform inspiring and empowering the world's best travel advisors.

SOURCE AFAR Media

Related Links

http://www.afar.com


HOUSTON, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- ION Geophysical Corporation (NYSE: IO) today announced the first 3D multi-client program in Mauritania in partnership with the Ministry of Petroleum, Mines and Energy (MPME). ION will seamlessly integrate and reimage ~24,000 sq km of MPME-held 3D data and can expand the scope to include ~15,000 km of 2D data pending industry support. Leveraging the Company's latest technology and extensive reimaging experience, ION aims to significantly enhance the data's resolution and subsurface insights. The 3D volume has applications across the E&P lifecycle, helping reduce risk at play, prospect and reservoir scales. ION expects the program to commence in 2020 with final deliverables available in mid-2021.

His Excellency Mr. Mohamed Abdel Vetah, Minister of Petroleum, Mines and Energy, commented, "Through this project, ION will support the efforts of the Ministry to improve its exploration strategy offshore and onshore in the Taoudeni area and attract more investors with the aim of developing the national resources for the benefit of our nation and to build a long-term beneficial partnership, which are the ultimate goals of his Excellency the President of Mauritania."

"We are pleased Mauritania selected ION to better understand its resources and attract new investments to the country, enabling all stakeholders to make more informed decisions," said Joe Gagliardi, Senior Vice President of ION's Ventures group. "Recent world-class discoveries have identified huge volumes of natural gas. Mauritania's subsurface has never been revealed on a regional 3D scale and we believe there is substantial potential to identify new prospective oil and gas opportunities in this proven, under-explored basin when viewed in this new context. We expect this data volume will play a pivotal role in unlocking Mauritania's remaining hydrocarbon potential for years to come."

To learn more, visit iongeo.com/Mauritania.

About ION

Leveraging innovative technologies, ION delivers powerful data-driven decision-making to offshore energy, ports and defense industries, enabling clients to optimize operations and deliver superior returns. Learn more at iongeo.com.

Contacts

ION (Investor relations)

Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Mike Morrison, +1 281.552.3011

[email protected]

ION (Media relations)

Vice President, Communications

Rachel White, +1 281.781.1168

[email protected]

The information herein contains certain 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 may include information and other statements that are not of historical fact. Actual results may vary materially from those described in these forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements reflect numerous assumptions and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties include the risks associated with the timing and development of ION Geophysical Corporation's products and services; pricing pressure; decreased demand; changes in oil prices; agreements made or adhered to by members of OPEC and other oil producing countries to maintain production levels; the COVID-19 pandemic; and political, execution, regulatory, and currency risks . For additional information regarding these various risks and uncertainties, see our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, filed on February 6, 2020. Additional risk factors, which could affect actual results, are disclosed by the Company in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including its Form 10-K, Form 10-Qs and Form 8-Ks filed during the year. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements.

SOURCE ION Geophysical Corporation

Related Links

https://www.iongeo.com


Belgium is to tighten measures to contain the spread of Covid-19 after a spike in infections, introducing compulsory face masks in crowded outdoor public spaces.

Brussels imposed a lockdown on 18 March in an attempt to contain the coronavirus epidemic, which has claimed 9,808 lives to date.

With a population of just 11.5 million, Belgium is one of the nations per capita that has been hardest hit by the virus, although it has said that was partly due to its transparency .

The government eased the lockdown in early May, and it had planned to loosen restrictions further on Thursday.

But a series of localised outbreaks and a 91 percent spike in nationwide infections last week forced the government to think again.

The latest figures should not throw us into panic but have to be taken seriously, Prime Minister Sophie Wilmes told a news conference on Thursday.

Masks outdoors, tracing

Under the new measures, which come into effect on 25 July, Belgians will have to wear a mask in public, including at outdoor markets, shopping streets and other crowded sites.

Tighter measures will also be imposed on bars and restaurants: people who are not seated will have to wear masks.

Customers will also have to leave their contact details to make them easier to trace in case of localised outbreaks.

Night shops will have to close by 10:00 pm.

Local authorities could also put communities into full lockdown if it was justified by epidemiological data.

The government stopped short, however, of imposing stricter restrictions, such as checks on all travellers returning from abroad or shortening opening hours for bars and restaurants.

Belgians will continue to be allowed to meet as many as 15 friends a week after the government decided against cutting the number to 10, Wilmes said.

An easing of restrictions could be announced on 1 September, potentially allowing trade fairs to resume.

Story continues

France concerned

France has also seen a recent spike in infections in areas which had been relatively unaffected until now, such as Mayenne, La Rochelle and Brittany.

The government is to announce a series of measures on Friday following a council of defence meeting at the Elysee palace, as fears grow over a possible second wave.

The issue of closing borders with neighbouring countries such as Belgium and Spain will be one of the thorny questions under discussion at Fridays meeting.

Absolutely nothing is ruled out, government spokesperson Gabriel Attal said on Wednesday. There are no taboos on that question. The only objective is to protect French people.

(with Reuters)
Megachurch Pastor Andy Stanley suspends in-person services until 2021

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Andy Stanley, leader of the multi-campus North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia, announced Tuesday that in-person services have been suspended until 2021 because he cannot guarantee the safety of members in the wake of increasing coronavirus infections.

Based on the uptick in COVID-19 cases, the results of our attendee surveys and the experiences of churches that have already reopened weve decided to suspend in-person adult worship services for the remainder of the year, Stanley announced on Facebook.

He explained that it was a difficult decision to make as the church was hoping to start gathering again on Aug. 9 but the pandemic disrupted that plan.

Now as you would imagine, that was not a casual decision. In fact, back in May when we announced a possible August 9 reopening, the COVID numbers were actually moving in the right direction. That has changed. Consequently we cannot guarantee your safety and thats a big part of this decision, Stanley said. Even if we did reopen, we certainly would not be able to create a quality adult or childrens worship experience with social distancing protocols in place.

He noted that he is aware that some people may judge his faith for the decision of support him for it but explained that he studied the experience of comparable megachurches which tried to reopen in recent weeks.

This is based on the experience of other similar-sized churches around the country that opened two or even three weeks ago. If we open and a volunteer, child, student or an adult who attends any of our environments tests positive after the fact, we are responsible for doing all the contract tracing. And that would be the right thing to do, that would be the responsible thing to do but that would be pretty much an impossible thing to do, Stanley said.

If youve been a part of any of our churches for any length of time, you can imagine how difficult, again next to impossible, that would be and honestly, thats just one of several unforeseen factors that other churches are running into. So the truth is, I actually have a lot of faith. I have so much faith that Im absolutely confident that the Church and our local churches will not only survive this but I think ultimately we're going to thrive as a result.

While seven weeks ago, there were no church leaders that indicated they would wait until 2021 to start in-person worship services in their buildings, the latest data from Barnas Church Pulse survey shows that at least 5% of pastors are in line with Stanleys decision. Around a quarter plan to open July-August and 21% plan to restart in-person services in September-December. Forty-nine percent of pastors said they were already conducting in-person services as of July 14.
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Speciality chemical maker Rossari Biotech is set to debut on bourses on July 23 after receiving a stellar response to its Rs 496-crore public issue from investors.

Rossari Biotech will be the first to list during the lockdown and the second to debut after SBI Card IPO in March this year.

Given the appetite during subscription period last week and strong fundamentals, Rossari Biotech is likely to start the first day with 30-40 percent premium over its issue price of Rs 425 per share.

The public issue, which consists a fresh issue of Rs 50 crore and an offer for sale of 1.05 crore equity shares by promoters, closed with a massive 79.37 times subscription on July 15, backed by a strong response from all kind of investors.

"We expect the stock to list at a whopping premium of 30-40 percent on debut day," Astha Jain, Senior Research Analyst at Hem Securities told Moneycontrol.

Manali Bhatia, Senior Research Analyst at Rudra Shares and Stock Brokers also expect the stock to list at a premium of Rs 130-175 which translates to a listing gain of around 30-40 percent over the issue price.

The grey market premium is around Rs 160-175 per share, sources told Moneycontrol.

The upcoming new manufacturing unit at Dahej in Gujarat with a proposed installed capacity of 1,32,500 MTPA would significantly double its capacity and improve the revenue growth even further, she feels.

Rossari Biotech, which provides customised solutions to specific industrial and production requirements of customers primarily in the FMCG, apparel, poultry and animal feed industries, already has an installed capacity of 1,20,000 MTPA at Silvassa which was the only manufacturing facility.

Company has a diversified product portfolio and has a range of 2,030 different products sold across the different product categories as on May 31, 2020.

Company has been able to increase its total revenue from fiscal 2018 to fiscal 2020 at a compound annual growth rate of 41.65 percent, EBITDA at a compound annual growth rate of 56.58 percent and profit after tax has increased at a compound annual growth rate of 60.27 percent over the same period.

It has strong financial ratios, ROCE at 24.79 percent and RONW being highest amongst peers at 31.79 percent. In fact, considering the current market scenario this particular sector on a whole is in focus, especially after COVID-19.

The company operates in the home, personal care and performance chemicals; textile speciality chemicals; and animal health and nutrition segments.

The surge in demand for home, personal care and performance chemicals segment given the spike in demand for sanitizers, disinfectants and handwashes augur well for the company, said Akash Jain of Ajcon Global.

"The company is experiencing robust recovery from June 2020 onwards. Revenue during June 2020 is expected to surpass the average monthly revenue of FY20. Due to the renewed focus on the Home, Personal Care & Performance Chemicals segment and the ability of the company to deliver during critical times led to the addition of many new large clients during the last 3 months," he added.

The company generates around 43 percent of revenue from textile speciality segment, which can be a concern as this sector is hit hard by pandemic, but it has reduced dependence from 72 percent in FY19.

"Rossari Biotech IPO was a great success and subscription levels were above market expectations. We are optimistic on the sector as well as the company as rising "Make in India" campaign would add impetus to the emergence of India as a manufacturing hub for the specialty chemicals," Prashanth Tapse, AVP Research at Mehta Equities told Moneycontrol.

"We believe Rossari biotech is well-positioned to tap the shifting global demand by having customised solutions to the apparel, animal & poultry feed and FMCG industries by offering a diversified product portfolio. Considering all the factors and above market demand, we expect a handsome listing gain around 30-35 percent on issue price Rs 425," he said.

Rossari Biotech will utilise its net fresh issue proceeds for repayment/prepayment of certain indebtedness, funding working capital requirements; and general corporate purposes.

: 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.
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WASHINGTON - U.S. airlines this week unveiled stricter rules for face coverings, with at least two, American and Southwest, saying they will no longer carry passengers who refuse to wear masks.

Under new rules announced by American, Delta, Southwest and United, only children under 2 will be permitted to fly without a mask. Travelers on Delta may travel without face coverings but would have to undergo a special screening that the carrier warned could take more than an hour. United said it may deny boarding to travelers who refuse to wear a mask, adding that those with special medical conditions should contact the airline before their flight.

In rolling out stricter policies, airline executives cited passenger surveys in which travelers voiced support for better enforcement of mask mandates. Since May, most major carriers have required passengers to wear masks, but enforcement of the policy has been spotty. There is no federal rule that requires travelers to wear masks when flying, so it is left to the airlines to deal with passengers who refuse.

The result? Even as many passengers have complied with the mandates, others have openly flouted the rules.

In recent weeks, however, airlines have been more aggressive in enforcing the mask mandates. In an interview this week on NBC's "Today," Delta chief executive Ed Bastian said the airline had banned at least 100 people from flying because they refused to wear a mask. On an earnings call this week, Scott Kirby, chief executive of United Airlines, said the carrier has taken action against fewer than 30 people.

Even so, many airline executives said the rules needed to be tightened. Southwest President Tom Nealon told reporters that the new restrictions were needed because they "were simply seeing too many exceptions to the policy."

Carriers said they will provide masks free to customers who don't have them.

Airlines have embraced a "layered approach" that they say will keep travelers safe when flying. Masks are a key element, as is social distancing and more frequent cleaning of airplanes and gate areas.

The announcements came during a week when several major carriers announced second-quarter financial results.

Here is a quick roundup of the new policies and when they take effect. (Note that travelers do not have to wear face coverings when eating and drinking):

- American Airlines: Starting July 29, all customers must wear face coverings or will not be allowed to board their flight. The only exception: children 2 or younger. The airline said mask also will be required in all areas of the airport that the carrier controls, including in Admirals Club lounges.

- Delta Air Lines: The carrier's policy took effect July 20 and requires travelers to wear face coverings. Children 2 or younger are exempted. Travelers who have medical issues must undergo screening before boarding their flight, a process that the airline said could take up to an hour.

- Southwest Airlines: Starting July 27, all travelers must wear masks. Only children younger than 2 are exempted.

- United Airlines: Starting July 24, all travelers over age 2 must wear masks on the flight and throughout the airport. Those who have special issues should contact the airline before their flight.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 16

By Nargiz Ismayilova  Trend:

The budget expenditures of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) from January through June 2020 amounted to 5.8 billion manat ($3.4 billion),Trend reports referring to SOFAZs report for the first half of 2020.

Despite a sharp drop in crude oil prices during this period, SOFAZ ensured fulfillment of its functions in maintaining the macroeconomic and fiscal balance, fulfilling the obligations to the state budget.

According to the report, 5.7 billion manat ($3.3 billion) was transferred to the state budget during the reporting period.

At the same time, 140 million manat ($82 million) was used to finance the measures to improve the social situation, living conditions and resettlement of families of internally displaced people.

During the reporting period, the costs associated with the management of SOFAZ amounted to 9.7 million manat ($5.7 million).

----

Follow the author on Twitter:@IsmailovaNargis
A man accused of killing three motorcyclists in a drunken driving crash is a former foreign student who has been in the country illegally since losing his temporary residence status last year.

Ivan Robles Navejas, 28, was charged with four counts of intoxication assault with a deadly vehicle and three counts of intoxication manslaughter in connection with the collision. His bail totals $500,000.

Navejas also faces a 2018 aggravated assault charge.

On Saturday afternoon, Navejas was driving on Texas 16 south of Kerrville in Kerr County. He allegedly drove across the center lane and into a group of motorcyclists who were riding with the Thin Blue Line Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club, an organization of active and retired law enforcement officers.

Killed in the collision were Jerry Wayne Harbour of Houston, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a retired pilot for Eastern Airlines; Joseph Paglia of Chicago, a retired police detective; and Michael White, also of Chicago, a police officer and retired Army officer.

Four other motorcyclists were taken to a hospital in critical condition, according to the Kerr County Sheriffs Office.

Nina Pruneda, an ICE spokeswoman, said Tuesday that Navejas is an unlawfuly present Mexican national. She confirmed that ICE lodged an immigration detainer following his arrest in the case.

Navejas was a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, recipient from 2013 to 2015, according to ICE. His conditional permanent resident status expired in January 2019, making him an undocumented immigrant.

Navejas criminal record dates to November 2013, when he was arrested and charged with resisting arrest. In March 2015, he was sentenced to 2 days jail time and had to pay $257 in court costs.

On Nov. 17, 2018, Navejas allegedly drove a Ford Ranger into a man in the parking lot of a Northwest Side restaurant, pinning him against another vehicle, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

The 23-year-old man, who had been with Navejas wife, was able to free himself before Navejas began assaulting him, San Antonio police said.

While Navejas allegedly punched the man, his sister got out of the truck and assaulted Navejas wife, investigators said. As his sister encouraged him to keep hitting the man, Navejas bit off a portion of the mans ear, and bit his back before the siblings fled the scene.

According to the affidavit, Navejas was living with his sister in Center Point when the assault occurred. He was arrested the next day but was released hours later after posting a $65,000 bond.

On Wednesday, Pruneda said Navejas was not subject to removal from the U.S. following his 2018 arrest because his conditional permanent resident status was still active at the time.

Jacob Beltran is a reporter covering San Antonio and Bexar County. To read more from Jacob, become a subscriber. jbeltran@express-news.net | Twitter: @JBfromSA
Kathmandu, July 23

Over 300 teachers of private schools across Nepal have lost their job during four months of the lockdown in the country, from March 24 to July 22, according to a union.

The Institutional School Teachers Union Chairperson Hom Kumar Thapa informs over 300 teachers have filed their complaints of job loss with the union. As many as 48 teachers of the Kathmandu valley have lost their job, according to Thapa.

This is the number of complaints we have received, but in reality, the number might be higher, he says, The schools should immediately stop firing teachers and other staff.

Meanwhile, the union has warned of a stern protest if the teachers are not reinstated. It has already communicated its concern to concerned government offices such as the Ministry of Education, Centre for Education and Human Resource Development, and local bodies.

Private schools across Nepal employ over 200,000 teachers and non-teaching staff. Many of them have not received their pay during the lockdown, according to the union.
CALGARY - A sharp decline in North American oilfield activity in the second quarter meant more layoffs, contract terminations and parked drilling rigs, Precision Drilling Corp. reported Thursday.

The Calgary-based company reported a net loss of $48.9 million, compared with a loss of $13.8 million in the same period last year, as revenue fell by 47 per cent to $190 million amid a plunge in oil prices.

This has been a very challenging time, said CEO Kevin Neveu on a conference call.

For most of March, April and May, all of our customer discussions centred on terminating contracts, idling rigs and working with customers to find ways to minimize their spending.

It reported adjusted earnings of $58 million, compared with $81 million in the year-earlier period.

The number was bolstered by US$16 million from U.S. customers who didnt actually use Precisions rigs  half that amount was under ongoing take-or-pay contracts and the rest came from customers who paid a lump sum penalty to cancel their contracts.

Precision also declared revenue of $9 million under Canadas wage subsidy program while confirming $6 million in severance and restructuring charges.

Neveu said the demand outlook for drilling services for the rest of the year remains opaque, adding he doesnt expect much increase in Precisions current working rig totals.

In the second quarter, the company had nine active rigs in Canada, down from 27 in the same period of 2019, and 30 in the U.S., down from 77.

Precision says deeper cost-cutting than was previously announced should lead to an additional $14 million in annualized savings this year.

It said total savings, capital expenditure reductions and the Canadian wage subsidy program will reduce 2020 cash outflows by up to $150 million, surpassing its $100-million previous target.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2020.

Companies in this story: (TSX:PD)

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version misstated the number of U.S. rigs in Q2 2019.
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In exchange for your mailed sample of saliva, direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing companies promise insights about your ancestry, your family connections, and even your health. These widely used testsfrom companies such as 23andMe and Ancestryare advertised as a way to learn more about your family history, better understand your health, and more. Theyre often touted as thoughtful gifts, especially around the holidays.

But many people might not have a clear understanding of what happens to their personal genetic data after they mail a tube of spit to a private company for analysis. In a new white paper (PDF) published today, Consumer Reports privacy experts argue that part of the reason for this uncertainty is a gap in the regulatory framework surrounding consumers genetic data privacy.

Right now, companies write their own privacy policies that consumers agree to when they buy a test. But few laws regulate what companies must do to keep your data private and secure.

Ideally wed like to see federal and state laws enacted that will empower consumers to control who has access to their genetic information, says Justin Brookman, Consumer Reports director of privacy and technology policy.

The Gaps in the Law

A few existing laws regulate some aspects of genetic privacy.

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) prevents employers from discriminating against you on the basis of your genetic information. But it doesnt say anything about what a third-party DTC genetic testing company can do with the information it collects about you.

Also, importantly, GINAs protections apply only if a person is displaying no symptoms of their genetic condition, says Ellen Clayton, J.D., M.D., a professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. If a person becomes symptomatic, GINAs protections against discrimination no longer apply. (The Americans with Disabilities Act protects some people with genetic disorders, but generally only if those disorders cause significant limitations to daily life.)

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Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), health insurance companies cannot refuse coverage or charge more for coverage based on a preexisting conditiona prohibition that also applies to any condition discovered as the result of genetic testing, Clayton says.

Also, the Federal Trade Commission can stop companies from making false claims about what their DTC genetic testing products do, and it can ensure that companies abide by the provisions in their own privacy agreements. Although the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) does apply to the results of genetic tests administered by your doctor or another healthcare provider, it doesnt apply to DTC genetic testing companies.

Currently, however, no federal law directly addresses consumer privacy issues resulting from DTC genetic testing.

That means the companies that provide these services have the freedom to control what happens to a consumers genetic information once they receive it, Brookman says. Some companies also encourage consumers to provide additional sensitive family or health information in order to maximize the possible insights from the genetic tests being offered.

In one 2018 study of DTC genetic testing companies privacy policies, Vanderbilt University researchers found that 71 percent of companies used consumer information internally for purposes other than providing the results to consumers. Sixty-two percent said they use data for internal research and development, while 78 percent said they provided genetic information to third parties in de-identified or aggregate forms without additional consumer consent.

There are also few laws regulating how consumers genetic data should be stored and protected by the companies that collect it, and genetic testing companies have experienced data breaches. For example, the DTC genetic testing company MyHeritage was hacked in 2018, and users emails and scrambled passwords were stolen. Their DNA information wasnt stolen, but such a breach is certainly possible, CR experts say.

Why Existing Rules Are Not Enough

Unlike your credit card number or your bank account password, if your genetic information is stolen or simply given away without your consent by a company that possesses it, it cant be changed. And recent studies of sites (PDF) such as GEDmatch (where users can publicly post their genetic data) have found that its possible for people with nefarious intentions to reidentify individuals from supposedly de-identified genetic data.

So far, many of the harms of having part or all of your genome publicly available or in the hands of a thief are largely hypothetical. In part, thats because the science of genetics is constantly evolving, says Michael Edge, Ph.D., an incoming assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and the author of one recent study on reidentification of genetic data. The ground is moving in terms of what this genetic information tells you about a person, he says.

Still, privacy experts say there are some key concerns. One is that your genetic information could be used in underwriting insurance policies. It cant be used for health insurance, thanks to the ACA, butexcept in Florida where this practice was recently prohibitedit could theoretically be used to determine life, long-term care, or disability insurance plans.

Your genetic information could also potentially be used against you in a court case. If you were to seek damages for a work-related injury, for example, a company might try to use information from your genome to point to potential other causes for your symptoms. Law enforcement agencies have used genetic data to identify criminal suspects through their blood relatives. Its even conceivable that sensitive information about your family or your health could be used in a blackmail scenario.

Those examples may sound extreme. But the bottom line, Brookman says, is that genetic information could reveal facts about you that you dont want known. And right now, consumers dont have many protections against that happening. An individuals most personal information is still being bought, sold, and traded without clear understanding or consent, Brookman says.

A final important consideration is that when your genetic data becomes public, its not only revealing information about you. It also reveals information about blood relatives, who may or may not even be aware that you opted to share your genome with a DTC testing company. Clayton at Vanderbilt recommends that consumers take this into consideration when deciding whether to use a DTC genetic testing product.

One Flawed Policy Solution

To give consumers more control over their own personal data, somesuch as computer scientist Jaron Lanier and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yanghave proposed providing a property right for such data. In the context of genetic data, this would mean that you could be monetarily compensated for providing your genome to companies and researchers. But there are several problems with this solution.

One, Clayton says, is that it could be incredibly complex to implement. Imagine, for example, a scientific study that uses genetic data from 25,000 people. Scientists regularly compensate research subjects for their participation. But if the result of the study was some new product, such as a drug, would each of the 25,000 study participants be entitled to royalties from of the sales of the product? The difficulties mount quickly under such a policy, according to Clayton.

And the policy could have other unintended consequences. Consumer Reports advocates are concerned that such a policy would have outsized harms on low-income or marginalized communities, who could be targeted for mining of valuable genetic information. People could be coerced into giving up their genetic data, in the face of an immediate need for cash.

Privacy should be a right, Brookman says. Were not allowed to sell away our right to speech or our right to vote.

A Better Way to Protect Genetic Privacy

Consumer Reports believes lawmakers should enact legislation that would make results from all genetic testing private by default.

That would mean companies or other entities that collect consumer genetic information would face detailed requirements before they could release or sell that information. And CR advocates say that laws should include safeguards that will ensure that an individuals choice to share their genetic information will not compromise their privacy and that of their blood relatives. Such laws should also require strict safeguards against data theft, they say.

Some state laws are on the right trackthose in Missouri and Illinois require that individuals specifically authorize any selling of their information. These laws also stop genetic data from being used in insurance underwriting unless authorized by the individual.

A proposed law under consideration in California would enact similar protections, limiting the sharing of genetic data with insurers and employers and requiring consumer consent before genetic data could be shared with any third parties.

Consumer Reports is calling on legislators to enact a strong privacy standard that would give consumers control of their genetic data. In the meantime, if youve purchased a DTC genetic test and are concerned about the safety of your information, check our guide to deleting genetic data.





More from Consumer Reports:

Top pick tires for 2016

Best used cars for $25,000 and less

7 best mattresses for couples





Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. CR does not endorse products or services, and does not accept advertising. Copyright  2020, Consumer Reports, Inc.
Juan Tang, a cancer researcher at UC Davis, is suspected of working for the Chinese military. She has taken refuge at the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco after being questioned by the FBI. (Department of Justice)

A UC Davis cancer researcher, suspected of being a clandestine member of the Chinese military, has taken refuge in the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco, according to U.S. prosecutors.

The researcher, Juan Tang, is charged with visa fraud, accused of concealing her membership in Chinas military and Communist Party in seeking permission to work in a radiation oncology lab at UC Davis. She fled to the consulate after being interviewed by FBI agents in late June, prosecutors said.

Tang is a fugitive from justice currently being harbored at the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco, a Justice Department spokeswoman said Thursday.

The charges against Tang come as the U.S. government escalates a simmering dispute with Beijing over what it says are attempts by the Chinese government to steal secrets from the United States eminent research institutions. Officials at the consulate could not be reached for comment.

The State Department on Wednesday ordered the Chinese consulate in Houston to close. We are setting out clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters in Copenhagen, and when they dont, were going to take actions that protect the American people, protect our security, our national security and also protect our economy and jobs.

It was unclear from court records whether Tang had retained an attorney. A phone number listed for the consulate was disconnected.

Her case does not mark the first time U.S. authorities have eyed the San Francisco consulate for aiding researchers suspected of hiding their affiliations with the Chinese government. In June, a researcher at UC San Francisco acknowledged he was secretly a Chinese military official and said he had a designated point of contact at the consulate, an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit.

The researcher, Xin Wang, has been charged with visa fraud. Chen Song, a neurology researcher at Stanford, and Kaikai Zhao, who studied machine learning and artificial intelligence as a graduate student at Indiana University, face the same charge; both are accused of having undisclosed ties to the Chinese military.

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John Brown, who leads the FBIs National Security Branch, said Thursday that agents had identified visa holders in more than 25 American cities with hidden affiliations with the Chinese military.

U.S. authorities have evidence the Chinese government is instructing these individuals to destroy evidence and [is] coordinating efforts" to spirit them out of the United States, Benjamin Kingsley, an assistant U.S. attorney, wrote in court papers.

FBI agents interviewed Tang, the UC Davis researcher, at her apartment in June and served a search warrant, seizing her Chinese passport and various electronic media, Steven G. Dilland, an FBI agent in Sacramento, wrote in an affidavit.

The agents recovered pictures of Tang wearing a uniform of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force, Dilland said. They also found an application for government benefits in which Tang identified herself as a member of the Chinese Communist Party, he said.

At some point after being interviewed, Tang fled to the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco, a prosecutor wrote in court papers.

Andy Fell, a spokesman for UC Davis, said Tang was a visiting researcher in UC Davis School of Medicines radiation oncology department. Her research was funded by the Chinese Scholarship Council, a study-based exchange program affiliated with the Chinas Ministry of Education and Xijing Hospital in China, Fell said.

Tang left UC Davis at the end of June, and the school is providing all information requested by the authorities, he said.

In asking a judge to unseal documents in her case, a second prosecutor, Heiko P. Coppola, said in court papers filed July 13 that representatives of the Chinese government had approached U.S. officials about the law enforcement activity surrounding Tang.

The State Department issued a bulletin this month, warning U.S. citizens in China of arbitrary enforcement of local laws for purposes other than maintaining law and order. U.S. officials believe that activity has some relation to Tangs case, Coppola wrote.




Former U.S. Rep. Michael "Ozzie" Myers pictured at a 1976 campaign stop in Philadelphia. Read more

A former Pennsylvania congressman convicted in the 1970s Abscam investigation was charged Thursday as a result of new allegations that he bribed a poll worker to stuff ballot boxes in local elections.

Federal prosecutors said former U.S. Rep. Michael Ozzie Myers, now working as a campaign consultant, paid a South Philadelphia judge of elections to fraudulently add votes for candidates who had hired him for their races from 2014 to 2016.

The eight-count indictment details thousands of dollars he paid Election Judge Domenick DeMuro during the 2015 Democratic primary to pad vote counts for three candidates for Common Pleas Court, who did not know about the scheme.

Prosecutors did not identify the candidates, say whether they won election, or indicate whether the fraudulent votes were decisive. Still, the 40 fake ballots added by DeMuro accounted for 15% of the votes certified from the ward he oversaw.

The indictment hints at an ongoing investigation, broadly accusing Myers of conspiring with other unnamed election board officials and tampering with vote results for other favored candidates, including for local, state, and federal offices  including members of the U.S. House.

If only one vote has been illegally rung up or fraudulently stuffed into a ballot box, the integrity of that entire election is undermined, U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain said in a video statement outlining the case. Votes are not things to be purchased, and democracy is not for sale.

Myers, 77, did not return calls for comment Thursday. His attorneys, Noah Gorson and Arnold R. Silverstein, declined to comment.

The former congressman is expected to surrender next week for his first court appearance on counts including conspiring to violate voting rights, bribery of an election official, falsification of records, voting more than once in an election, and obstruction of justice. If convicted, he would face a maximum 20-year sentence on the most serious charge.

Myers spent three years in federal lockup in the early 1980s for his involvement in Abscam, a sprawling FBI investigation that involved agents posing as representatives of a sheikh offering cash in exchange for political favors. The probe netted bribery convictions against seven members of Congress, a New Jersey state senator, three Philadelphia city councilmembers, and the mayor of Camden.

The case brought an end to Myers electoral career and led to his expulsion from Congress, where he had served as the representative of the 1st Congressional District since 1976. But his career as a lawmaker is best know for the most enduring line to emerge from the sting operation.

Money talks in this business and bulls walks, he told the agents on a 1979 FBI recording while accepting a $50,000 bribe.

Since his release from prison in 1985, Myers has refashioned himself as one of the go-to political consultants for candidates looking to navigate the intricacies of ward politics in South Philadelphia.

Hes advised clients ranging from judicial candidates to Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, whose work with Myers drew scrutiny from federal agents as part of the 2016 investigation that led to the corruption indictment of labor leader John J. Dougherty. Dougherty has pleaded not guilty.

Operatives like him hold influence with ward leaders and committee people across the city, and can often make the difference on whether candidates in down-ballot races, like judicial elections, show up on sample ballots of endorsed candidates distributed at polling locations.

Several of Myers past judicial clients, interviewed earlier this year, said that while they werent sure what he did with the money they paid him, and they were advised it was helpful to put him on their campaign payroll.

,The Inquirer first identified Myers in May as the then-unnamed campaign consultant accused of bribing DeMuro in court documents surrounding the election judges guilty plea.

His connections run deep in the 39th Wards 36th Division  the area DeMuro oversaw, which lies east of Broad Street to 12th Street from Oregon Avenue to the Schuylkill Expressway.

Myers brother, Matthew, is the Democratic leader of Ward 39B. His nephew Jonathan J.R. Rowan holds the same position in Ward 39A, and ran unsuccessfully for the state House in 2018.

The alleged ballot stuffing scheme served as yet another mechanism by which Myers bolstered his control over his familys political fiefdom, prosecutors said Thursday.

It enabled him to take credit for the electoral successes of his Philadelphia-based clients and preferred candidates, secure his standing in local party politics that enabled him to control and influence the 39th Ward, and influence the distribution of local patronage jobs, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric L. Gibson wrote in court filings.

DeMuro, who pleaded guilty to election fraud charges in March, has been cooperating with the FBI ever since agents confronted him in October 2016 and recorded Myers during two election cycles as they discussed what the former congressman described as ringing up votes.

In excerpts of those conversations quoted in Thursdays indictment, Myers allegedly instructed DeMuro on how to hide the bribes he was receiving  including providing fictitious names to be put on checks.

Im gonna get you a couple checks, theres no question about that, the former congressman told DeMuro in one conversation quoted in court papers. If you want to give me a different name than Domenick DeMuro, thats your business.

Myers also allegedly explained that he wouldnt be able to pay the bribes until the deadline had passed for his clients last campaign finance report prior to primary election.

You dont want to be on any [candidates campaign finance] report May 7 when the election is May 16, the indictment quotes him as saying.

In one case described by prosecutors, Myers cut a $1,000 bribe check made out to DeMuros wife during the 2017 Democratic primary campaign. Little did he know DeMuro was working for the feds at the time.

The money was later listed as payment for get out the vote efforts on the campaign finance reports of Viktoria Kristiansson, who was running for the spot she now holds as a Common Pleas Court judge.

Kristiansson paid Myers $5,000 for campaign consulting work that year  one of at least five judicial candidates who hired him to do so, according to campaign finance records.

Prosecutors did not name her in Myers court filings or suggest she had committed a crime. Kristiansson did not return calls for comment Thursday.

Read the indictment:

Staff writer Chris Brennan contributed to this article.
The Mayor of the city and county of Limerick, Cllr Michael Collins, has today announced that an online Book of Condolence has been opened in memory of Ruth Morrissey, RIP.

Ms Morrissey, 39, from Monaleen in Limerick died last Sunday from cancer.

"i don't think we will ever recover" - the words of Ruth's husband Paul - here:

I think everyone, not just in Limerick, but across Ireland has been left heartbroken by Ruths passing, said Mayor Collins. We remember her as a true warrior who fought for justice and campaigned on behalf of the women of Ireland over the last number of years when she was also battling cancer, her bravery was truly astounding. Her loss to her husband Paul, daughter Libby, her extended family and many, many friends is truly unimaginable. I hope that her family find strength and a little comfort in knowing that so many people around Limerick and the country are thinking and praying for them at this truly sad time. May her courageous and gentle soul rest in peace.

The online book can be accessed here
A group of doctors and data scientists is calling on hospitals to create clinical departments devoted to artificial intelligence (AI) to harness the power of the technology to transform patient care.

While there have been many predictions of AI's potential to benefit healthcare delivery - from helping doctors perform surgery to catching cancer earlier - the technology's benefits so far have been blunted by inconsistent implementation, the researchers say. They outline a plan to make hospitals "AI ready," in a way they say would enhance both patient care and medical research.

AI in Healthcare

UVA Health's David J. Stone, MD, and colleagues from several other major medical centers have outlined their plan in a new article in the scientific journal BMJ Health & Care Informatics that was highlighted in the July 22 issue of the STAT health news site's Healthtech newsletter. They begin by offering a frank assessment of the current integration of AI in healthcare: "The reality of the available evidence increasingly leaves little room for optimism," they write. "There is a stark contrast between the lack of concrete penetration of AI in medical practice and the expectations set by the presence of AI in our daily life."

The authors are particularly concerned that the implementation of artificial intelligence into healthcare not be burdened by problems that have accompanied the use of electronic health records (EHRs). Many clinicians have complained that EHRs were poorly designed to fit into their workflows and have added greatly to their documentation burden while distracting them from their patients. (Surgeon Atul Gawande, MD, has opined, "We've reached a point where people in the medical profession actively, viscerally, volubly hate their computers.")

The disorganization that is holding back AI's potential in healthcare must be addressed systematically, the authors say. They cite many issues involved in the application of AI, including the quality of the data and algorithms employed.

AI applications must be specifically designed to fit seamlessly into clinical workflows to solve clinicians' problems rather than add to them, the authors argue. Associated issues include potential overdependence on AI, loss of associated clinical skills, developing proper transitions between humans and machines and designing AI with better situational awareness than current applications possess.

Creating clinical departments dedicated to implementing AI, the authors argue, would offer far greater and faster benefits than piecemeal organization driven by short-term needs.

These departments would serve to bring together the diverse expertise required, cut through red tape and receive appropriate institutional support, and address important educational, financial and regulatory issues. They also would help drive research efforts and focus AI implementations in the directions most useful to each hospital's patient population. In addition, the departments would map out and monitor performance and safety metrics, the authors envision.

Learning from the EHR experience, it is critical for frontline clinicians to be involved in all aspects of AI, including its development, use and interpretation of results, the authors say. Clinicians should also provide robust feedback on workflows and outcomes.

"These initiatives should lead to the development of models that will directly benefit the health of our patients, pioneer research that advances the field of clinical AI, focus on its integration into clinical workflows and foster educational programs and fellowships to ensure we are training current practitioners as well as the next generation of leaders in this field," the authors write.

Better Patient Care

The time to act is now, the authors argue. The longer hospitals wait, they say, the more haphazard AI implementation becomes. Stone notes that today's clinicians may view the need for clinical AI departments as unnecessary ("or, frankly, crazy"), but he says it is very likely that AI will become an intrinsic element of clinical processes in the future. "This is an opportunity to do it right from very near to the beginning of clinical AI's use, rather than having to repair and replace a flawed system in the future," he said.

"Twenty years now into the 21st century, there is little question that AI will be a defining technology for the foreseeable future," the authors write. "We need visionary clinicians working with expert technical collaborators to establish the organizational structures requisite to translate technological progress into meaningful clinical outcomes."

About the Call to AI Action

The call to action was written by Christopher Vincent Cosgriff, of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania; David J. Stone, of UVA's Departments of Anesthesiology and Neurosurgery and the Center for Advanced Medical Analytics; Gary Weissman, of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania; Romain Pirracchio, of the University of California San Francisco; and Leo Anthony Celi, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Laboratory for Computational Physiology, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. Celi is supported by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering through grant R01 EB017205.

To keep up with the latest medical research news from UVA, subscribe to the Making of Medicine blog at http://makingofmedicine.virginia.edu.

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Governor Kaode Fayemi of Ekiti who tested positive for Coronavirus has said that he would overcome his current health challenge and return to his duty post sooner than expected.

The governor said this in a video clip from where he was observing self-isolation, a condition to be fulfilled by anyone that tested positive for Coronavirus.

The video was made available to journalists by Mr Fayemi s Chief Press Secretary, Olayinka Oyebode, in Ado Ekiti.

Mr Fayemi assured Ekiti people and Nigerians that he was okay.

He expressed delight at the outpouring of love, prayers and solidarity showed to him by Nigerians since he made his COVID-19 positive status known on Wednesday.

 I shared on my twitter handle my COVID-19 results which came out to be positive. I have decided to do this for the generality of Ekiti people and to reassure everyone that I am okay.

I have basically isolated myself, which is the protocol, but only see my doctor. I want to tell our people that COVID-19 is real, if there are people out there who still think there is nothing like that, it is real.

 So, it is important you wear your face masks, wash your hands regularly and maintain social distancing at every opportunity and keep to yourself, that is the least we can do.

 We can only care, it is God who heals. I thank our people for their solidarity and effusive messages of prayers that I have received across Ekiti, Nigeria and even from outside Nigeria.

 I shall come out of this health challenge and be physically back to duty to render services to Ekiti. Thank you, the governor said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mr Fayemi on Wednesday had announced on his Twitter handle that the third result of his COVID- 19 tests had turned out to be positive and that he had proceeded on self- isolation.

He had also handed over critical areas of governance to his deputy, Bisi Egbeyemi.(NAN)
When widespread civil unrest broke out across the nation at the end of May after a Black man died unjustly at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, I messaged a friend who lives in a small city in northern Michigan to get his opinion on what was happening. We both joked about how we were unlikely to see similar incidents where we lived, with littering topping the list of crimes wed be most likely to witness in person. The Thumb is a very safe place to live, and were very fortunate to be able to make out homes here.

Not everyone is so lucky. Sometimes watching the local evening news is like watching a roundup of the horrible stuff that goes on every day around the state. And in those cities scarred by rioting, residents and small business owners struggle to pick up the pieces, sometimes in communities that have already been decimated by violence and poverty. This comes at a time when were reeling from the effects of the pandemic and the ensuing shutdown. As an avid reader and watcher of news, it was easy for me to take a break from the constant barrage of horror and divisiveness as I took some time off from work recently.

Well, my vacation time ended, but the horror and divisiveness has not. One of the biggest controversies right now involves law enforcement in America. That shocking video of George Floyd being murdered (lets face it, thats what happened) by a police officer re-ignited the debate over civil rights and police brutality. Its a debate thats taken place for at least 50 years. The names change  Rodney King, Michael Brown, George Floyd  but the issue remains the same. At what point do we finally act when the rights of some are being trampled to protect the rights of others? Obviously, opinions differ. Policies are already in place to deal with police misconduct. I wish I had an easy answer, but there isnt one. The names listed above involved very different circumstances. In the Michael Brown case, the Ferguson, Missouri, officer involved was cleared of wrongdoing by the local prosecutor and the U.S. Department of Justice. That certainly wont be the case for the universally reviled Officer Derek Chauvin, who knelt on George Floyds neck for several minutes in a Minneapolis street.

My opinion on the matter of police is a biased one  my dad worked in law enforcement. I have a visceral reaction when I see a police officer being attacked in the endless rioting footage permeating TV and social media. I cant help but picture my father in those situations, especially when the officer is wearing a tan uniform. I know for a fact he wasnt a violent or overly aggressive person, and on at least two occasions when I was with him in public, former clients he had encountered on the job would recognize him and say hello, sometimes telling him how they had turned their lives around. Admittedly, it was a different time. Things change. But I always remember when he would talk about what he did for a living, he made it clear that if he chose to be a violent jerk, for lack of a better term, it would be much, much harder to do his job.

Recently, I spoke again with that friend from northern Michigan. Hes a journalist, too. I called him after I watched a video on social media that showed a police officer in his town tackling a 16-year-old boy after the teen kept walking down the street after he was ordered to stop and talk to police. The teen was walking to his mothers home after a family fight at his fathers house and was wearing earbuds and listening to music. The teen suffered injuries when he was tackled and had to be hospitalized. The officer that injured him is now in some hot water. It remains to be seen whether hell stay on the job.

Law enforcement officers have a very difficult job to do, but we must be able to trust them to do it the right way. They have the power to take someones life, so their standard of accountability is extremely high. Almost all who enter the profession well aware of this fact. I just hope our current climate doesn't discourage people from entering that profession. We're living in a time when we need them the most.

Mark Birdsall is sports editor of the Huron Daily Tribune. Email him at mark.birdsall@hearstnp.com.
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Another Sunday morning rolls around as a familiar face appears on the screen,welcoming me to church. It feels normal, the motions of the Sunday service but this time something is different.

I have never led myself in worship until today

I started worship leading at my small local church at seventeen years old. I found role models online, watching famous worship leaders for inspiration. It is alluring, seeing people worship with passion and vulnerability in front of crowds of thousands. Of course, I dreamed of being a worship leader like them. I thought being on screen would be the best thing ever.

And then it happened, although not at all the way I had imagined.

COVID-19 shut down my local community and church and within two weeks we were all online. We were able to record our worship team playing songs which we spliced every week into our online services. My dream had come true. I was getting to see myself worship on-screen, filmed under lights.

Being both a worship leader and a member of the online congregation challenged me in how I view myself and taught me about the importance of self-leadership.

Watching myself on screen is very disconcerting

The first thing I learnt was how strange rather than glamourous it was to watch myself on screen. Disconnected from myself, but I know its still me.

It made it even harder not to focus on myself

One of the greatest dangers for Christians is when we fix our eyes more on ourselves than on Jesus. Its a very easy trap to fall into. Screens, social media, self-help: everything encourages us to focus on ourselves. This becomes dangerous when we become our own idols. When we think more about ourselves than Jesus, or believe we have the power to save ourselves.

I learnt to worship with my eyes closed because otherwise I was fixated by my screen self, both admiring and criticizing.

Fix your eyes on Him

Ive learnt more than ever from being my own worship leader that worship is about directing our attention and hearts towards Jesus. Refocusing my distracted mind back to Him. Ive learnt the joys of not being distracted by others or by the technical side of leading. And Ive remembered how much I need the encouragement of a community surrounding me in worship to pull me back when my heart is weak.

Ive learnt to use the skills of leading a congregation on myself. To call myself into worship with psalms and prayers, to encourage myself to worship with my body and posture, to worship simply because God is worthy not because I need to lead or out of habit.

Worship is a heart posture which flows out into action. Whether were the ones leading, whether were allowed to sing or not, whether were in a church building or were just walking down the street, we can worship God at any time.

Only I can truly lead myself- warm-up for worship

At home, there was no one else to lead to me into worship. Worship leaders meet a congregation where theyre at, but it is so much easier to worship God when everyone is already ready.

Before we gather to worship together, we need to prepare our own hearts. We warm-up before we exercise, we drink coffee before we start work, so lets prepare ourselves to meet in community and with the Lord as well.

The Israelites had Psalms of Ascent, songs they sang on their way to the temple in Jerusalem for the annual feasts. These fifteen psalms cover many of the emotions we experience during our journey of faith- distress, suffering, praise, joy, as well as reminding what the Lord has done, is doing and will do. This is how the Israelites prepared themselves to meet as a community with the Lord. They were honest in acknowledging their fears and suffering. They praised and worshipped God. All before they had even reached the temple.

Preparing beforehand and just imagine

This is how we can prepare ourselves before a Sunday service. Spend time with God beforehand (sounds simple, but how many times do we rush out the door on the way to church without praying, reading our Bible or even stopping to acknowledge God?) Come before Him honestly, no need to be fake or pretend to be perfect; instead tell Him how you really are. Allow Him to work in that emotion. Then spend some time remembering who God is and what he has done. No matter your circumstances, when you remember the power, majesty, and love of God, you cant help but worship Him.

Imagine how our worship would overflow in the Sunday service if we had all prepared our hearts beforehand, rather than using the first three songs as a warm-up.

Imagine how our worship would overflow as a pleasant and fragrant offering to God if it was only a small portion of the worship we offered to Him during the week. Imagine how we could fully engage in community and worship if we did the preparation work beforehand.

Watching myself lead on-screen has been surreal and strange. Ive remembered its really not about me. Its about God. And I need to take responsibility as a congregation member in worshipping Him.
A New York State trooper stands guard near where attorney Roy Den Hollander was found dead. Den Hollander is suspected of killing the son of New Jersey federal judge Esther Salas and wounding her husband. Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

The FBI said on Wednesday that it found evidence linking Roy Den Hollander, the man suspected of killing the son of a New Jersey federal judge, to the death of a California attorney.

Den Hollander is suspected of a shooting Sunday that killed the son of US District Judge Esther Salas and injured her husband at their North Brunswick, New Jersey home.

He was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Monday.

Now, the FBI says he may have killed a fellow men's rights lawyer, Marc Angelucci, in San Bernardino on July 11.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Federal investigators have unearthed evidence that connects Roy Den Hollander, the man accused of ambushing a federal judge's family in New Jersey, to the killing of a lawyer in California, the FBI announced on Wednesday.

Den Hollander, a 72-year-old self-proclaimed men's rights lawyer, is the "primary subject in the attack" on US District Judge Esther Salas' home in North Brunswick on Sunday.

Salas, 51, was in another part of the house, but Den Hollander shot and killed her son, 20-year-old Daniel Anderl, and seriously wounded her husband, 63-year-old Mark Anderl, according to the Associated Press.

The next day, Den Hollander was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Liberty, New York, authorities said.

The latest development in this investigation links Den Hollander to the killing of Marc Angelucci in San Bernardino, California, the FBI said in a tweet. The agency didn't offer details about the nature of the evidence.

A law enforcement official, who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity, said that Den Hollander carried out both attacks disguised as a delivery driver.

Like Den Hollander, Angelucci participated in gender discrimination lawsuits against men. He was fatally shot on July 11, the AP reported.

Story continues

Before his death, Den Hollander ran a website where he argued against the "PC/Feminist collective," which ranged from ladies' nights at bars and nightclubs to the Violence Against Women Act. He described himself as an "anti-feminist" and unsuccessfully sued Columbia University in an attempt to end its women's studies courses.

Read the original article on Insider
Japan has announced plans to remove overseas travel bans imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic, with Australia and New Zealand at the head of the queue.

The country's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, confirmed on Wednesday his government will consider easing restrictions with countries where the outbreak is under control.

This will include Asian countries including China, South Korea and Taiwan, as well as Pacific partners Australia and New Zealand.

It's promising news for jetsetting Australians, but overseas travel currently off-limits unless they have an exemption from the Department of Home Affairs.

But there are ongoing calls for a coronavirus travel bubble between countries such as New Zealand and Australia with the likes of Japan and South Korea.

Overseas visitors would be tested twice for coronavirus and must provide an itinerary of their trip as part of the strict conditions of being granted entry into Japan, which is the world's fourth biggest economy.

Entry will initially be restricted to business travellers, experts and trainees only with students and tourists to eventually follow.
Deputy National Communication Officer for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Kweku Boahen has cautioned citizens to be careful when dealing with members of the ruling New Patriotic Party(NPP).



According to Kweku Boahen they have guns on them everywhere they go.



He said the ruling government has interferred with activities of all government institutions especially the security services, therefore the brain behind their protective weapons.



"Members of the NPP carry guns along everywhere they go; their officers, MPs and all their leaders . . . ," he told Afia Pokuaa on UTV.



On whether he has evidence to that effect, he said he has been to many polling stations and can testify that they have in their possession guns.



"Immediately you talk to them they easily tell you they have their licensed guns in their cars . . . what at all are they doiing with their guns in their cars? Every NPP big shot has a gun in their Landcruiser . . . we have to do away with this kind of intimidation in our politics . . . this is what the Peace Council has to talk to the government about . . . " he added.



Listen to Kweku Boahen in the video below





Source: Elizabeth Semiheva Bedi, peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The HPBOSE TET Admit Cards have been released on Himachal Board's official website, available for download by candidates. Know more details about the exams here.

The Himachal Pradesh Board of School Education (HPBOSE) Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) Admit Card 2020: HPBOSE has released the Admit Cards/Hall Tickets for the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) 2020. TET aspirants who have applied for the exam may download their Admit Card by visiting the official website of the Board, hpbose.org. As is obvious by the name, those who pass in the exam will be designated as eligible for working as a teacher in a state-controlled school.

There will a total of 150 multiple-choice questions of one mark each in the exam. The exam lasts for 2 and a half hours (150 minutes) with the minimum marks required for clearing it being 60. Negative marking will be non-existent for this exam and it will be held physically.

Download HPBOSE Himachal Pradesh TET admit card 2020:

Go to the official website hpbose.org. Click on the link that says Download Admit Cards (SHASTRI, JBT) TET-JUNE 2020. To login, key in your Application Number and Date of Birth. Click on Submit button. Your application will be submitted.

Also read: Tamil Nadu cancels all semester exams, barring final year

Also read: Can final year exams be based on assignments and presentations: Delhi HC asks UGC to clarify

A list of 4,146 students who were rejected because of an incomplete application can be seen on the website. Accepted students will have to carry along a print out of their admit cards to the exam centres so they can be their identity can be confirmed. A total of 48,713 students have applied for the exams.

As per the Board, the examinations for the same (JBT TET and Shastri TET) are scheduled to be conducted on 26th of July. The exam for TGT and Languages teacher is planned to be held on 2nd August. TGT Arts and TGT Medical are to be conducted on August 8, and the Punjabi TET and Urdu TET will be finally conducted by the Board on 9th August.

The examination is to be conducted in both languages: English and Hindi. The exam for Shastri will partially be in Sanskrit and the rest in Hindi. The exams of Punjabi and Urdu will be in the respective languages.

Also read: NCERT adds abrogation of Article 370 to class 12 syllabus

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Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

New Mexico lawmakers and outdoor enthusiasts are praising the passage of the Great American Outdoors Act by the U.S. House on Wednesday, saying it will be a boost for an economy already weakened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

It will create jobs, said Kami Elsisie of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation during a press call hosted by U.S. Rep. Xochitl Torres Small, D-N.M., who was a sponsor of the bill in the House. The construction, restoration and conservation work will help support our small businesses.

Torres Small credited President Donald Trumps support for the legislation, which will permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund at $900 million a year and provide $1.9 billion a year for five years to help clear a backlog at national parks, monuments, refuges and other federal lands.

He is expected to sign it in the next few days.

Torres Small praised fellow New Mexico Democrats, U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall, for championing the bill in the Senate.

Before I was even elected to Congress, the Land and Water Conservation Fund was a big topic of conversation in New Mexico, she said.  Weve got great resources and gems all across the 2nd Congressional District made possible because of the Land and Water Conservation Act.

She said it would be a boost to both rural and urban economies in New Mexico.

The Great American Outdoors Act will create jobs at a crucial time, building the infrastructure needed to support the millions of visitors who come from all over the world to explore, camp, fish, hunt, and enjoy the natural wonders of our public lands in New Mexico and the U.S., Udall said in a news release.

The Great American Outdoors Act fully funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund that supports places like the ballpark at Los Altos, Isleta Recreation Center, Mountainair Rodeo Grounds, and Moriarty City Park, U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., said.

Mark Hollen, owner of Campfire Industries in southeastern New Mexico, said funding for deferred maintenance projects was badly needed in that part of the state with more people moving into the area because of the oil and gas industry and an increase in traffic at sites such as Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

We cant keep up with the preservation maintenance, he said. Weve had too many people and not enough funding.

He said more education was needed about land ecology.

I know we all should become stewards of the land, he said.
This story originally appeared on KCRA.

GRASS VALLEY, Calif.  Three Nevada County restaurants have been ordered to close for not following state orders to cease indoor dining during COVID-19.

Sergio's Caffe, Old Town Cafe and Friar Tucks were all served closure orders by the Nevada County Department of Public Health for continuing to operate indoor dining in Grass Valley and Nevada City.

The owner of Sergio's said Thursday he will continue allowing his guests inside despite the order.

"We cannot survive just having a few tables outside. When its very hot, nobody wants to sit outside. We can only sit outside when the sun goes down. Its just not fair. We pay the rent, we pay taxes, we want to be able to operate," said owner Sergio Martignago.

In downtown Grass Valley, a portion of Mill Street has been closed to cars to accommodate outdoor dining. Sergio's and Old Town Cafe both sit along the re-imagined stretch of road.

Martignago said he encourages his guests to sit outside but protests it's his right to offer indoor seating to those who choose it.

"We have a comfortable environment, air-conditioned. A lot of people like it. We do encourage people to sit outside, but some people prefer to be inside, and we dont argue with them," said Martignago.

The county has warned the restaurants that failure to comply with the closure order could lead to fines ranging from $25 per day up to $1,000 per day.
Russian Black Sea Fleet Monitoring NATO Vessels, Planes Taking Part in Sea Breeze Drills, MoD Says

Sputnik News

12:31 GMT 22.07.2020(updated 13:04 GMT 22.07.2020)

Russia's Black Sea Fleet is keeping track of NATO vessels and aircraft taking part in the Sea Breeze drills in the north-west of the Black Sea, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Wednesday.

"The equipment and personnel of the Black Sea Flee implement a set of measures to control the activities of the vessels and aircraft of the NATO Allied Maritime Command, participating in the Sea Breeze-2020 exercise. The active phase of the NATO Allied Maritime Command's drills Sea Breeze-2020 is being carried out in the north-western area of the Black Sea. Ships and aviation equipment of the US Navy and partner nations take part in the maneuvers," the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement.

The Sea Breeze-2020 international military exercises began on Monday in the Black Sea, Oleksiy Neizhpapa, commander of the Naval Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said. According to him, the exercises are being conducted to "work out a wide range of missions in the sea, where urgent challenges and threats to the international security system are now emerging".

About 2,000 servicemen from nine countries, 27 warships and 19 aircraft are taking part in the Sea Breeze naval drills. This year's participants include Bulgaria, France, Georgia, Norway, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United States.

A Sputnik

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ALBANY, N.Y.As New York moves from coronavirus crisis to sustained recovery, there remains a heartbreaking fact that some are trying to explore and others seem to be trying to exploit: Nearly 6,500 people have died of the virus in nursing homes and other long-term facilities in the state.

Republicans in Washington and elsewhere have attacked Gov. Andrew Cuomo for his role in, and response to, those deaths. Cuomo has returned fire, accusing his foes of politicizing a human tragedy and arguing that the blame for the number of deaths lies with infected health care workers, not his own policies.

The death toll  a figure that surpasses that of many states  has also inspired questions from Cuomos fellow Democrats, who rule the state Legislature and have scheduled hearings on the issue next month.

The tension and pain surrounding the topic have bled into the debate over a related bill that is expected to be passed Thursday by the Legislature.

The initial goal of the bills supporters was to void a last-minute provision, buried in the state budget just before it was passed in early April, that gave nursing homes and hospitals broad immunity from lawsuits stemming from their failure to protect residents from death or sickness caused by the coronavirus.

But after considerable pushback from the hospital and nursing home industries, and legal questions about its scope, the legislation that is being advanced is far weaker, with the immunity merely narrowed.

This is just a first step, said the bills lead sponsor, Assemblyman Ron Kim, of Queens, where nearly 1,000 nursing homes residents died. Were coming back after the hearings to see how we can provide retroactive justice for anyone who feels like theyve been wronged.

The fight over the bill highlights how fraught the issue has become for Cuomo and other politicians, as well as nursing home executives, and how sensitive all involved have been to suggestions that they are to blame for the deaths.

Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, has pushed back aggressively on assertions that his administrations directive of March 25, which effectively ordered nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients from hospitals, led to more deaths.

In response to that criticism, the state Health Department released a report that essentially absolved the state of any blame. The report concluded that most patients admitted to nursing homes from hospitals were no longer contagious when admitted and therefore were not a source of infection.

The report said that the disease was spread by thousands of employees who had the disease and did not know they were contagious.

Those conclusions did little to stem Republican criticism that the governor was to blame for thousands of deaths, allegations carried on Twitter and marked by hashtags like #KillerCuomo.

In a letter sent to Cuomo in July, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the Republican minority whip who sits on a House subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis, said the state report was filled with blame-shifting, name-calling and half-baked data manipulations.

Cuomo said his political enemies were spreading lies and ludicrous accusations.

It was cheap, it was ugly, it was political, it was Fox News, it was the haters, and it was a lie, Cuomo said in a July 10 radio interview, a day after Scalise sent his letter. Its just a pure lie, not based on any fact, but they did it for political expediency.

For the families of people who died in nursing homes and assisted living facilities in New York, the political friction overshadowed the importance of seeking accountability for deaths that they believe were preventable.

Many were outraged when the state included the immunity provision in the budget. Advocates called it among the most restrictive protections against lawsuits in the country.

Having liability can cause a facility to be more diligent and prevent incidents occurring that will cost them money, said Susan Dooha, the executive director of the Center for Independence of the Disabled. The preventive power of liability has been muted.

Under the budget provision, health care facilities and their employees were protected from civil or criminal liability for the duration of the COVID-19 emergency, which Cuomo declared March 7 and is still in force.

The legal immunity did not cover gross negligence or intentional criminal misconduct but would most likely cover a variety of other scenarios, including harm that arose from a shortage in staffing or protective equipment.

The provision was fought for and celebrated by industry lobbyists like the Greater New York Hospital Association, which has close ties to Cuomo and has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic campaign committees in Albany in recent months (as well as lesser amounts to committees for Republicans, who sit in the minority in both legislative chambers).

Under Kims bill, that immunity would be modified to allow legal action if it could be argued that a health care facility or health care professional had failed to prevent a patient from contracting the coronavirus or had not tried to safeguard them from infection.

We now know how to prevent and arrange for COVID, said Kim, who is a Democrat. So we will be able to hold nursing homes accountable.

The bill will also specify that the immunity clause will only apply to COVID-19 related care and treatment. That will restore a path for medical malpractice suits unrelated to COVID-19, said Richard Gottfried, the chairman of the Assembly Health Committee.

But opponents quickly pointed to what they consider shortcomings of the legislation, including a stipulation that the bill would affect only future cases and would not be applied retroactively  a clause that they said would hurt those most affected.

The overreliance, the overacceptance of the industrys lobbying efforts, and the credulity that we give to the arguments they make is what led to a large extent to tragedies for families across the state, said Richard Mollot, executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition.

Nursing home facilities were encouraged to reach out to lawmakers to voice their concerns, and the Greater New York Hospital Association sent legislators a two-page memo Tuesday outlining its opposition to any legislative action meant to scale back immunity.

New York hospitals are deeply committed to caring for New Yorkers to the best of their abilities at all times, including in a possible resurgence of COVID-19, the memo said. The Legislature should not take actions to undercut or chill that commitment.

Industry groups argued that repealing immunity could pose constitutional issues and open the floodgates to a barrage of retroactive lawsuits against health care facilities. They said the legislation did not take into account the broad impact a resurgence of the virus could have on the way hospitals and nursing homes care for all patients and residents, not just those ill with the coronavirus.

A surge in cases, for example, could lead to a shortage of health care workers and strain the supply of personal protective equipment, both of which could affect the care provided to those not infected with the virus, they said.

If the pandemic comes back in full force like it was in April, the pressures that come up at nursing homes dont affect only people with COVID. They affect all the residents that youre serving, said Jim Clyne, chief executive of LeadingAge New York, a group that represents non-profit nursing homes.

Campaign finance records show that since mid-March, the Greater New York Hospital Association has given more than $300,000 (U.S.) to campaign committees controlled by the Democrats  who rule both chambers of the Legislature  and Republicans. That haul includes $150,000 to the New York State Democratic Assembly Democratic Committee and $100,000 to their Senate Democratic counterparts.

Both Senate and Assembly spokesmen noted, however, the hospital association had opposed Kims bill, which is sponsored by Sen. Luis Sepulveda in the Senate.

Contributions do not influence our positions nor will they ever, said Michael Whyland, a spokesman for the Assembly.

On Wednesday, Cuomo said he could see the rationale for allowing lawsuits on cases that are not COVID-related but said he wanted to review the entire bill before giving an opinion.

Kim said he hopes that the Legislature approves a victims compensation fund at some later date for families of nursing home victims, a sentiment shared by Gottfried, who said he still supports a full repeal of the immunity provision.

But like determinations on what went wrong in the states nursing homes, Gottfried suggested that sometimes a full reckoning on an issue can take time.

Half a loaf is better than none, Gottfried said.
New Delhi India on Thursday accused Pakistan of blocking all avenues for an effective review of the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, sentenced to death for alleged involvement in spying, and said it reserved its rights to avail of further remedies.

A day after the Pakistan government petitioned the Islamabad high court to appoint a lawyer to represent Jadhav for filing a review petition against his death sentence, the external affairs ministry charged Islamabad with systematically blocking access to the former naval officer, not providing documents related to his case and violating the International Court of Justices (ICJ) order for a review of his conviction.

[Pakistan] has blocked all the avenues for an effective remedy available for India, external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava told a weekly briefing.

Pakistan has completely failed to provide the remedy as directed by the ICJ and India reserves its position in the matter, including its rights to avail of further remedies, he said, without giving details.

People familiar with developments said on condition of anonymity that India would take the next step after legal consultations. They didnt preclude the possibility of again approaching the ICJ on Jadhavs case.

The Pakistan government promulgated an ordinance on May 20 to give foreign citizens convicted in the country the right to file a review petition in courts. The ordinance was aimed at complying with ICJs order for effective review and reconsideration of Jadhavs conviction and sentencing by a Pakistani military court.

But even here Pakistans actions had led to confusion, Srivastava said. Pakistan created confusion over the last date for filing a review petition, initially saying it was July 19 before changing the date to July 20. Pakistan took two weeks to inform India about the ordinance and shared the copy of it only after a request from New Delhi.

India conveyed its concerns about inadequacies and shortcomings in the ordinance with Pakistan in June. It also informed Pakistan the ordinance neither fulfils nor does it give complete weight to the judgment of the ICJ, Srivastava said.

India also made repeated requests to Pakistan to provide documents related to Jadhavs case and was told they could be handed over only to an authorised Pakistani lawyer. Thereafter, India appointed a Pakistani lawyer to obtain the relevant documents. To our surprise...when the authorised Pakistani lawyer approached the concerned authorities, they declined to hand over the documents to the lawyer, he added.

In the absence of unhindered consular access to Jadhav and the documents, the Indian side tried, as a last resort, to file a review petition in Islamabad high court on July 18. However, our Pakistani lawyer [said] that a review petition could not be filed in the absence of power of attorney and supporting documents related to the case of Jadhav, said Srivastava.

Indian officials had walked out of a meeting with Jadhav on July 16 after Pakistan breached assurances about providing unimpeded consular access. The meeting of consular officers with Jadhav on July 16 was scuttled by Pakistan authorities. The consular officers were instructed not to hand over any document to Jadhav. Hence, the officers could not obtain a power of attorney from Jadhav, he said.

Srivastava said Pakistan was non-serious in its approach and was not interested in implementing the judgment of the ICJ in letter and spirit. He added, The whole exercise of not providing any documents related to the case even after repeated requests, not providing unimpeded consular access and some reported unilateral action of approaching the Islamabad high court on the part of Pakistan again exposes the farcical nature of Pakistans approach, he said.

Jadhav, 50, was arrested by Pakistani security agencies in Balochistan in March 2016 and charged with involvement in spying. In April 2017, Pakistan announced he had been sentenced to death by a military court.

ICJ ruled in July 2019 that Pakistan had violated Jadhavs rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and stayed his execution while calling for an effective review and reconsideration of his sentence.

India has rejected the allegations against Jadhav and said he was kidnapped by Pakistani operatives from the Iranian port of Chabahar, where he was running a business.

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Local officials across the country  worried about the scenes in Portland playing out on their streets  have pushed back against the administration. On Tuesday, a group of 15, including D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), Kansas City, Mo., Mayor Quinton Lucas (D) and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler (D)  sent a letter to Barr and Wolf saying the deployment of federal forces to cities was unprecedented and violates fundamental constitutional protections and tenets of federalism. New York Citys top lawyer said Wednesday that officials there opposed the federal government sending in federal troops or law enforcement, adding, we will fight it in court.
In the latest Global Destination Sustainability Index (GDS-Index), AalborgCapital of North Denmarkjumped to fifth place on the prestigious top 20 list. The ranking is the result of a joint effort to develop the city within the context of the UNs 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Aalborg, situated in the northernmost part of Denmark, is a city with a working culture born out of coal and steel as well as strong maritime and industrial traditions. Through the years, the city has evolved from an industrial town to a global innovation centre for modern and creative businessesand simultaneously, a charming city with a rich culture, world-class architecture and unique experiences, which has been named the Happiest City in Europe on more than one occasion.

The ambition in Aalborg is to practise and promote social, economic and environmental sustainability, which includes working towards the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. This has resulted in international recognition of the citys sustainability achievements and its ranking in the top five in the worldwide GDS-Index 2019.

The northern Danish city was ranked fifth-best in the category Leadership in Sustainability and third-best in the Best Improver category, due to Aalborgs impressive 15-rank jump all the way to the top of the latest GDS-Index.

Aalborg is a shining example of a smart destination, where the citys tourism organisation, municipality and supply chain are working together to create a better place to visit, meet and live in. In a short time they have catalysed stakeholder engagement, and laid plans for a better, more regenerative and inclusive future. Most importantly, they are already educating the value chain, sharing best practices and driving certification within the destination. Their performance improvement is highlighted by their jump into the fifth place of the GDS-Index, says Guy Bigwood, who is the Managing Director of the Global Destination Sustainability Index.
BERKELEY (BCN)

The National Science Foundation awarded the University of California at Berkeley a multi-year $25 million grant to lead a quantum computing science center, UC Berkeley officials said Tuesday.

UC Berkeley will use the $25 million grant over five years to lead one of three Quantum Challenge Institutes funded by the National Science Foundation. Seven other universities across the country are also collaborating with UC Berkeley on the project, according to the university.

The NSF's $75 million investment is part of the federal government's National Quantum Initiative Act, an effort to advance quantum science and technology in the U.S. The UC Berkeley-led facility will focus on making quantum computers as common as mobile phones.

"There is a sense that we are on the precipice of a really big move toward quantum computing," said UC Berkeley physics professor and Quantum Challenge Institute Director Dan Stamper-Kurn.

"We think that the development of the quantum computer will be a real scientific revolution, the defining challenge of the moment, especially if you think about the fact that the computer plays a central role in just about everything society does," he said.

Quantum computing is already theorized to be the best way to complete certain tasks like factoring large numbers and encrypting or decrypting data because it is much faster than standard digital computing.

According to the NSF, the three institutes will help lay a foundation of quantum programming and algorithms that will allow researchers and scientists to hit the ground running when quantum computing hardware is available on a large scale.

"Quantum information science has the potential to change the world," NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said. "But to realize that potential, we must first answer some fundamental research questions. ... Within five years, we are confident these institutes can make tangible advances to help carry us into a true quantum revolution."

The other two institutes will be located at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne. They will focus on quantum sensors and quantum information science, respectively.

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.
Hezbollah have mourned the death of Ali Kamal Mohsen, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the southern suburbs of Damascus reports Al-Masdar.

On Tuesday evening, Hezbollah mourned one of its fighters, who was killed by an airstrike launched by the Israeli Air Force in the southern suburbs of Damascus.

According to Al-Mayadeen TV, Hezbollah mourned the death of Ali Kamal Mohsen, who was killed in the Israeli raid on Tuesday evening.

Previously, the Syrian Ministry of Defense announced that seven soldiers were wounded and some material damage was caused when Israeli missiles struck southern Damascus.

A source from the Syrian military said their air defenses were able to intercept some of the Israeli missiles; however, a few managed to hit their intended targets, which caused powerful explosions in the Sahnaya suburb and its surroundings.

Due to the limited information available regarding Hezbollahs activities in Syria, the death of their fighters is often unknown until the Lebanese organization makes a statement.

This latest Israeli attack comes just weeks after their air force used Lebanese airspace to strike several targets inside Syria.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
MAYS LANDING  An 18-year-old from Egg Harbor City charged in the 2018 fatal shooting of a Ventnor man has been waived up from juvenile court, officials said Thursday.

Angelo Delgado, who was 16 at the time of the Nov. 15 fatal shooting of Sunil Edla, is charged with first-degree murder, felony murder, robbery and carjacking, as well as second-degree unlawful possession of a handgun and possession of a handgun for an unlawful purpose, according to a news release from Atlantic County Prosecutor Damon G. Tyner.

+2 Egg Harbor City teen charged in fatal shooting held for court The Egg Harbor City teen charged in the murder and carjacking of a 61-year-old Ventnor man w

Delgado has been detained on the charges and is housed at the Harborfields Juvenile Detention Center in Egg Harbor City, according to the release.

At 8:04 p.m. Nov. 15, 2018, Ventnor police received a 911 call about a man down in the first block of North Nashville Avenue, according to the release. Police found the 61-year-old Edla on the sidewalk with suspected gunshot wounds and no obvious signs of life.

Edla lived in an apartment on the avenue, and his car, a 2002 Subaru Forester, was missing, officials said. It was later found by Atlantic City police in the 1600 block of Sewell Avenue in the resort.

+3 Egg Harbor City teen arrested in murder of Ventnor man VENTNOR  Sunil Edla was planning for the holidays. He was days away from traveling to India
A didas, Nike, Zara and Amazon are among the western brands facing mounting global pressure over ties to suppliers in China that benefit from the forced labour of the ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim groups.

A coalition of civil society groups said on Thursday that major retailers must stop sourcing from the Xinjiang region due to the "grave risk of forced labour".

More than 180 organisations urged brands to end sourcing of cotton and clothing from the region and cut ties with any suppliers in China that benefit from forced labour.

The pressure comes after drone footage was posted anonymously on YouTube last year, showing hundreds of prisoners tied up and wearing blindfolds in Xinjiang, leading to speculation they were being transported to concentration camps.

Drone footage was posted anonymously on YouTube last year, showing hundreds of prisoners tied up and wearing blindfolds in Xinjiang / BBC

The United Nations experts estimate that at least a million Uighurs and other Muslims are held in detention centres in Xinjiang.

But China has denied mistreatment, saying the the camps offer vocational training and aim to fight terrorism and extremism.

Last week, the Chinese ambassador to the UK dismissed allegations of abuse against the Uighur people after the BBC's Andrew Marr confronted him about the shocking drone footage.

A guard tower and barbed wire fence surround a detention facility in the Kunshan Industrial Park in Artux in western China's Xinjiang region (file photo) / AP

The United States this month hit senior Chinese officials with sanctions over alleged rights abuses against the Uighurs.

Britain and France have also recently condemned their treatment.

A Uighur woman waiting with children on a street in Kashgar in China's northwest Xinjiang region / AFP via Getty Images

The rights group said in a letter that many of their supply chains are likely to be tainted by cotton picked by Uighurs.

It said that while most fashion brands do not source directly from factories in Xinjiang, the cotton that is exported across China and used by other suppliers.

More than 80 per cent of China's cotton comes from northwestern Xinjiang, which is home to about 11 million Uighurs.

People line up at the Artux City Vocational Skills Education Training Service Center at the Kunshan Industrial Park in Artux in western China's Xinjiang region. / AP

"Brands and retailers recognise there is a massive problem in the region, and that their supply chains are exposed to a grave risk of forced labour," said Scott Nova, head of the US-based Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), which signed the letter.

"We are cautiously optimistic that there will be commitments (from brands to pull out of Xinjiang) in the future," he added.

A man driving a vehicle in an ethnic Uighur neighbourhood in Aksu in the region of Xinjiang. / AFP via Getty Images

The Chinese embassies in London and Washington did not respond to requests for comment about the campaigners' letter.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the United States earlier this month said the accusation of forced labour in Xinjiang was "both false and malicious".

Meanwhile, the Thomson Reuters Foundation sent emails to more than 30 leading global retailers to ask about their supply chains in China and the origins of the cotton they sourced

Rushan Abbas, Executive Director of Campaign for Uyghurs, speaks to a group gathered near the White House on July 3 / REUTERS

Almost all of the brands did not respond directly to the questions, but most said they had anti-forced labour policies and required their suppliers to comply with a code of conduct.

Only one retailer - US-based Costco - declined to comment.

All the companies that responded - including Gap, Patagonia and Zara-owner Inditex - said they did not source from factories in Xinjiang.

However, the majority could not confirm that their supply chain was free of cotton picked from the region.

Japanese retailer Muji said it used cotton from Xinjiang but that independent auditors had found "no evidence of accusations of forced labour ... at their mills".

US-based PVH - owner of brands from Calvin Klein to Tommy Hilfiger - said it would cut ties with any factories or mills that produce fabric or use cotton from Xinjiang within a year.

A Uighur woman and children sit on a motor-tricycle after school at the Unity New Village in Hotan, in western China's Xinjiang region / AP

"The only way brands can ensure they are not profiting from exploitation is by exiting the region and ending relationships with suppliers propping up this Chinese government system," said Jasmine O'Connor, chief executive of Anti-Slavery International.

Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), a global non-profit aiming to improve conditions in the garment sector, said in March it would no longer license so-called Better Cotton from Xinjiang.

Companies such as IKEA and H&M, who use BCI to source cotton, have previously said they backed the decision to suspend licensing in the region and would no longer source from there.

Amid the growing international pressure on China, the US government this month in a rare move said it blocked an $800,000 shipment of hair extensions from a Xinjiang-based business on suspicions that the goods were made with forced labour.

A New York Times investigation last week found some Chinese companies making face masks to protect against the coronavirus for both domestic and export markets had used Uighur labour.
NEW YORKA Manhattan federal judge ordered the unsealing Thursday of dozens of documents about Jeffrey Epsteins underage sex trafficking scheme, but an attorney for Ghislaine Maxwell vowed to appeal because the papers could impact her right to a fair trial.

The documents are part of a sprawling, mostly secret civil lawsuit brought by Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre against Maxwell. Judge Loretta Preska is overseeing the methodical process of determining which papers should be made public.

Among the documents she ordered be unsealed: depositions of Maxwell and Giuffre, as well as one of a man identified as John Doe 1.

Giuffre has said Epstein loaned her to Prince Andrew for sex while she was underage. Giuffre also claims she had sex with Epstein attorney Alan Dershowitz. Both men deny the allegations.

Maxwell attorney Laura Menninger said she would appeal the ruling, raising the possibility the new documents would not be unsealed within a week as Preska ordered.

Ms. Maxwell has been indicted and a trial has been scheduled, Menninger said.

We are in a vastly different position and certainly have great concerns about our clients ability to seek and receive an impartial and fair jury.
Mosquitoes have been called the deadliest animal in the world: tiny creatures so dangerous that genetic engineering may be necessary to win the battle against them. But not all mosquitoes are equally responsible for devastating the human population by spreading disease. Out of thousands of species, only a few like to bite humans  and even within the same species, mosquitoes from different places can have different preferences. Why do some find us irresistible, while others remain unimpressed?

To answer that question, a team of Princeton researchers, working with a large network of local collaborators, spent three years driving around sub-Saharan Africa collecting the eggs of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which are responsible for Zika, yellow fever and dengue.

There are two subspecies of Aedes aegypti: one that prefers humans and one that prefers animals; most populations are a genetic mix. After sending the eggs to New Jersey to grow new colonies, and then tempting the insects with the sweet smells of human and of rodent, the researchers found that the more human-loving mosquitoes tended to come from areas with a dry climate and dense human population. That, in turn, is because humans provide the water mosquitoes need to breed.

There had been quite a bit of speculation in the literature that the original reason this species evolved to be a human specialist had to do with its use of human water, said Lindy McBride, a Princeton neuroscientist and an author on the study. Its easy to come up with hypotheses, but what was incredibly surprising was that you could actually see evidence for that.
They watched Chad Hurst celebrate his epic Big Brother win on Wednesday night.

And shortly after the finale, it was time for the rest of the housemates to let loose, which was evident in a series of photos and hilariously drunk videos uploaded to Casey Mazzucchelli's Instagram account.

The brunette, 25, appeared to have had too much to drink as she made her way to the men's toilet at the pub before stripping down to her lacy black lingerie.

Scroll down for video

Celebrations: After watching Chad Hurst celebrate his Big Brother win on Wednesday night, it was time for the rest of the housemates to let loose

Things started calmly enough as Casey shared an impressive video of Soobong Hwang playing the piano.

'There's nothing he can't do,' she captioned the clip as he displayed his impressive musical talents.

Things suddenly took a chaotic turn, as Casey followed the boys into the toilet, where Mat Garrick jokingly positioned his bottom above the urinal.

In another snap, Casey poked fun at her excruciating battle with constipation in the Big Brother house, telling Xavier: 'I'm trying to go to the toilet, no more strategy.'

Having fun: Casey Mazzucchelli, 25, appeared to have had too much to drink as she made her way to the men's toilet at the pub before stripping down to her lacy black lingerie

Tuneful: Things started calmly enough as Casey shared an impressive video of Soobong Hwang playing the piano

Bottoms up! Things suddenly took a chaotic turn, as Casey followed the boys into the toilet, where Mat Garrick jokingly positioned his bottom above the urinal

She then showed off her ample cleavage in a black bra, adding: 'When you get naked in the men's toilet and it's an oop!'

The pals then made their way back to their table at the pub, where Ian Joass listed off some facts about bumble bees.

Earlier in the evening, Talia Rycroft had thrown social distancing measures to the wind as she locked lips with co-star Casey.

Despite both women being in relationships with men, the 22-year-old blonde joked that they had 'hooked up in the house'.

Good sport: In another snap, Casey poked fun at her excruciating battle with constipation in the Big Brother house

You better bee-lieve it! The pals then made their way back to their table at the pub, where Ian Joass listed off some facts about bumble bees

Drunk: Casey looked like she was having a whale of a time as she continued the celebrations into the early hours

'Casey and I actually hooked up in the house,' Talia wrote on Instagram, as the two girls stuck their tongues out seductively before kissing for the camera.

And they weren't the only Big Brother stars sharing a same-sex kiss.

Self-proclaimed 'Ken doll' Xavier Molyneux puckered up with Garth Saville while out with other cast members at Sydney's Civic Hotel.

'Kissing practice with my hot Aunty,' Xavier wrote on Instagram stories.

Kissy kissy: Earlier in the evening, Talia Rycroft had thrown social distancing measures to the wind as she locked lips with co-star Casey

'Kissing practice': Self-proclaimed 'Ken doll' Xavier Molyneux (left) also puckered up with Garth Saville (right) while out with other cast members at Sydney's Civic Hotel

It comes after Big Brother fans shared their outrage at the lack of social distancing at the end of Wednesday night's live finale.

While the housemates kept a safe distance with one another for most of the episode, they rushed in to warmly embrace Chad Hurst after he was announced the winner.

'Seriously, social distancing is still a thing and should be represented on our screens,' one disgruntled viewer shared on Twitter.

Outrage: Big Brother fans were in outrage on Twitter over the lack of social distancing, as stars rushed to 'hug and kiss' winner Chad Hurst (pictured with Sophie Budack) during the live finale

'I care less about the result than the fact they're all hugging and not social distancing,' another wrote.

'How's that social distancing going at the end there?!?' and 'Social distancing just went out the window,' were further comments.

One even questioned what New South Wales Health would think of the antics, with the finale having been filmed in Sydney.

'Curious if NSW Health or NSW Police think Big Brother is exempt from social distancing on live TV. Everyone hugged and kissed at the end,' they posted.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Channel Seven for comment.

Online: Disgruntled viewers at home questioned what happened to social distancing during the final moments of the show
The opening of long-awaited toll lanes on Texas 288 is set for this fall, and officials have calculated initial toll charges for each leg of the route.

The toll lanes  two in each direction down the center of the roadway  will constitute more than 15 miles along the highway from Brazoria County into Houston. At the southern end, the lanes begin at County Road 59 and head north to the county line and continue to U.S. 59.

MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR: Texas 288 toll lanes remain on pace for summer finish

The Texas Department of Transportation is racing to complete construction on its 10.3 miles of toll lanes within Harris County, a $1.1 billion project that had been planned for opening last fall but was hit with delays related to weather and acquisition of steel.

Meanwhile, Brazoria County recently completed its five miles of toll lanes  dubbed the Brazoria County Expressway- at a cost of approximately $97 million.

In Brazoria County, the cost will be 50 cents for one-way fare in either direction on the toll gantry between County Road 58 and Farm Road 518. Farther north along the expressway, from FM 518 to the Brazoria/Harris County line, the toll fees in either direction will be $1.30. In short, a one-way trip through both gantries will cost motorists $1.80.

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Houston looking to add more electric car charging in public spaces

For those drivers continuing north on the Texas 288 toll lanes into Houston, there will be more tolls. These will be managed and collected by Harris County. In total, the 10.3 miles of toll lanes within Harris County will include 11 gantries for north- and southbound lanes and for connectors, according to information from Blue Ridge Transportation Group, which is managing the projects design, construction, financing, operation and management.

Three main-lane toll gantries are along Texas 288 with an additional eight ramp gantries at the roadways direct connectors at Beltway 8 and Loop 610. The toll fees will be adjusted based on real-time traffic conditions and driver demand. An initial fee schedule has been posted online at https://bit.ly/2OQtJeA.

Harris County tolls for trips will range from 45 cents to $3.20, depend on which gantries drivers pass through, at what time of day and whether they are traveling on a weekday or a weekend. The highest fees will be charged during weekday morning and afternoon rush-hour traffic times.

Details on how motorists will pay in the Brazoria and Harris County parts of the toll lanes have not been determined.

For more information, visit drive288.com.
HENRIETTA TOWNSHIP, Ohio  A Mentor man was one of two people killed late Tuesday night when they were hit by a pickup truck while on the side of the Ohio Turnpike, according to the State Highway Patrol.

The State Highway Patrol says Darren Hebner, 45, of Mentor, and Eric Ackerman, 44, of Sandusky, both were pronounced dead at the scene after the crash at about 11:23 p.m.

Ackerman was a tow truck driver with Interstate Towing of Norwalk, according to troopers. Ackerman was helping Hebner load two Sea-Doo watercraft from the trailer of Hebners disabled vehicle onto the tow truck when they were hit by a 2009 Chevrolet 2500 pickup.

The pickup truck hit the tow truck and trailer, becoming airborne and landing on its top in the right lane of turnpike, troopers say. Ackerman was wearing a reflective vest and the overhead emergency lights on his truck were on when the crash occurred, according to troopers.

The driver of the pickup truck, a 30-year-old Bellevue resident, was treated at Mercy Health Hospital in Lorain for minor injuries, troopers say. The crash remains under investigation, but troopers say its suspected the driver of the pickup truck was impaired. No charges have been filed.

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The Great American Outdoors Act, authored and driven by Coloradans, passed the U.S. House Wednesday by a vote of 310-107 and now heads to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign the most sweeping public lands legislation in a generation.

The bill, authored by U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican from Yuma, fully funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund at $900 million a year, as well as addressing a deferred maintenance list in national parks and other public lands that has reached $20 billion. Read the bill by clicking here.

The Senate approved the bill 73-25 on June 17.

"It's the most historic conservation accomplishment in over 50 years," Gardner said in an interview with Colorado Politics on Wednesday. Gardner secured Trump's support for the legislation early in the process, but Trump put the fund in danger when he sought to empty out the conservation fund, which is paid for with lease money from the oil and gas industry.

While conservation groups have applauded the legislation, they've sought to downplay Gardner's role, as he is one of the most endangered Republicans in the Senate this year.

Acting BLM chief defends moving agency's HQ West, says D.C. managers out of touch Acting Bureau of Land Management Director William Perry Pendley, speaking at a conference in Colorado, insisted that moving his agencys headquarters to the state will make the staff more responsive to the public.

For Democrats to win a Senate majority, they must keep their seats and unseat three Republicans. With the president unpopular in Colorado, efforts on the left are aimed at recasting Gardner's accomplishments and tying him to the president, who lost Colorado by five points to Hillary Clinton four years ago.

The legislation was co-sponsored in the House by all four Colorado Democrats: Joe Neguse of Boulder County, Diana DeGette of Denver, Ed Perlmutter of Arvada and Jason Crow of Aurora.

"They accepted what I wrote, and this historic bill is off to the president," Gardner said. "There's no room for politics in a historic accomplishment like this."

Asked about the criticism that he's anti-conservation and anti-environment, Gardner cited a list of bills and efforts he's led dating back to his days as a state legislator, including protections for the Great San Dunes National Park and the purchase of the Baca National Wildlife Refuge.

Gardner, because he is a Republican who supports the oil and gas industry, is most often tied to Trump's regulatory rollbacks and use of public lands for private enterprise.

"Election or no election, people love our public lands," he said. "That's why this bill is passing, and it's exciting."

Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and White House adviser, is expected to come to Rocky Mountain National Park on Thursday with Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, who grew up in Rifle and used to practice law in Denver.

I am looking forward to visiting the great state of Colorado and learning how this administrations policies are helping citizens across the state. Working with Senator Gardner on the Great American Outdoors Act, we are securing funding for the next 100 years to preserve our national parks and public lands," she said in a statement Wednesday, before veering into election year politics about her father's policies.

Bernhardt, too, lauded Trump and Gardner.

President Trump put forth a bold proposal and called on Congress to fix the aging infrastructure at our national parks and permanently fund conservation projects, the Interior secretary stated Wednesday.

A Boston University analysis of conservation spending in May indicated that every $1 million invested in LWCF supports as many as 30.8 jobs and $4 in economic value.

"Conservation of land and water is generally an area with broad support, as nature appeals not only to lovers of natural beauty but also recreational enthusiasts, including hikers, park-goers, hunters, and anglers," wrote Heidi Peltier, who is an expert on environmental economics. "Further, conservation creates jobs."

The Durango-based Mountain Pact advocacy organization provided quotes from local leaders across the West thanking Congress, including five leaders from Colorado.

Frisco Mayor Hunter Mortensen:

For over five decades, the Land and Water Conservation Fund has invested approximately $278.6 million in the state of Colorado, protecting some of the states most special places and helping to ensure recreational access for hunting, fishing, and other outdoor activities.

Steamboat Springs City Council member Sonja Macys:

In Steamboat Springs LWCF has provided funding for many popular local attractions such as our iconic ski area, Howelsen Hill and the Yampa River Core Trail. Throughout Colorado, I can only imagine the good it has done for outdoor recreation. This bipartisan effort is truly a win-win for the public and our public lands.

Eagle County Commission chairwoman Kathy Chandler-Henry:

Since 1967, Eagle County has received more than $1.7 million in LWCF funding for more than 15 local projects including the new Eagle River Park, boat ramps on the Colorado River, and the Rio Grande Trail, which connects the city of Glenwood Springs to the City of Aspen through the Roaring Fork Valley. Its likely we could never have done these fantastic projects without LWCF funding.

Salida Mayor P.T. Wood:

We are excited Congress has passed the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA). The GAOA will enhance our environment, public spaces, economy and fully funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which pays for projects like Salidas Milk Run Trail.

Avon Mayor Sarah Smith-Hymes:

As the mayor of a mountain community, Ive seen how Land and Water Conservation Fund dollars have flowed back into Avon and improved our public parks and trails. These funds have greatly benefited our community and the White River National Forest, our country's busiest. We are thrilled that Congress has finally passed the Great American Outdoors Act, which will fully and permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund."

The American Petroleum Institute's Colorado office also welcomed the news about how the industry's money would be used on public lands.

LWCF is the funding backbone for many of the outdoor activities that Coloradans enjoy daily and would not exist without the funding from safe offshore oil and natural gas development, API Colorado executive director Lynn Granger said in a statement. Since 1965, the LWCF has grown to include grants that protect working forests, wildlife habitats, drinking water supplies and other critical environmental assets. Colorados national and state parks, recreation areas and conservation programs rely on the continued support of safe offshore energy production, this underscores the importance of maintaining access to offshore resources.
Police will not pursue a claim Sydney socialite Emma Steel threatened a medical secretary over an alleged affair with her estranged neurosurgeon husband.

Angie Turner contacted police on July 2 complaining Mrs Steel had allegedly warned her to 'watch her back' and accused her of having had sex with her former boss Dr Timothy Steel.

The alleged call came within hours of Dr Steel being cleared in court of punching, slapping and kicking his wife at the couple's home in Sydney's eastern suburbs.

Mrs Steel, a 41-year-old former model, allegedly told Ms Turner, 35, words to the effect of: 'I know you f***ed my husband. Watch your back.'

News of police dropping their investigation comes as Mrs Steel was spotted getting into her Range Rover outside a Bondi hair salon on Thursday afternoon.

She was also seen at a Darlinghurst cosmetic medical facility five days after a magistrate dismissed all charges against Dr Steel, finding her evidence inconsistent.

Police will not pursue a claim Sydney socialite Emma Steel threatened a medical secretary over an alleged affair with her estranged neurosurgeon husband. Mrs Steel is pictured outside a Bondi hair salon on Thursday

Angie Turner (pictured) contacted police claiming Emma Steel had accused her of having sex with her husband Dr Timothy Steel in a phone call on the afternoon of July 2. It was alleged Mrs Steel said words to the effect of, 'I know you f***ed my husband. Watch your back'

Mrs Steel had accused Dr Timothy Steel (pictured) of punching, slapping and kicking her in the couple's sprawling home at Bellevue in Sydney's eastern suburbs. Dr Steel is a senior neurosurgeon and spine surgeon at St Vincent's Hospital who recently returned to work

Ms Turner, who had given evidence on Dr Steel's behalf in the domestic violence case, declined to make a formal statement to police about the alleged phone call.

During the court case she had denied having sex with 56-year-old Dr Steel and magistrate Vivien Swain found there was no evidence any such affair ever took place.

Daily Mail Australia understands Ms Turner told police she did not hold serious fears about Mrs Steel and was content once a record of the alleged call was made.

'Investigations have concluded,' a New South Wales Police Force spokeswoman said. 'No police action will be taken.'

This week it was revealed Mrs Steel had placed caveats over residential and commercial properties her husband owns worth more than $23million.

The move means Dr Steel cannot sell any of the properties - including the couple's lavish eastern suburbs mansion - without his wife's approval.

The five-bedroom family home in Holland Road, Bellevue Hill, was bought by Dr Steel for $6.53million in May 2010 and is now likely to be worth at least $8million.

This week it was revealed Mrs Steel had placed caveats over residential and commercial properties her husband owns worth more than $23million. She is pictured outside a Bondi hair salon on Thursday

Mrs Steel has put a caveat over the five-bedroom home she shared with Dr Steel in Bellevue Hill, worth an estimated $8million. She has also put caveats on a house in Woollahra bought for $3.3million in 2002 and an apartment in the same suburb bought for $1.4million in 2009

Mrs Steel has also put caveats on a house in Edward Street, Woollahra bought for $3.3million in 2002 and a Trelawney Street apartment in the same suburb bought for $1.4million in 2009.

Caveats cover the KFC at Engadine, in Sydney's south, bought for $4.05million in 2014, a Wylde Street, Potts Point, apartment ($2.75million in 2015) and a Darling One apartment at Darling Harbour ($3.5million in 2018).

A Balmain apartment which cost $1.8million in 2017 and a share in the family farm at Wingen in the Upper Hunter Valley put the value of Dr Steel's properties at more than $23million.

Mrs Steel had accused Dr Steel of having sex with Ms Turner at a Christmas party the night before the couple had a domestic dispute in their Bellevue Hill mansion.

Dr Steel categorically denied ever having an affair with the secretary - or anyone else - during his 15-year relationship with Mrs Steel, which included 11 years of marriage.

Emma Steel, who wrongly accused her neurosurgeon husband Dr Timothy Steel, of assault allegedly rang a secretary she claimed had an affair with him after all criminal charges were dismissed by a magistrate. Mrs Steel is pictured at a Christmas function in 2014

When police arrived at Dr Steel and Mrs Steel's home (pictured) he immediately said he had acted in self-defence. 'My wife came into the room and started hitting me,' Dr Steel said

On July 2 Mrs Steel's evidence about domestic and financial abuse was rejected by Ms Swain, who found inconsistencies in her evidence.

Dr Steel had faced charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, common assault and damaging property, all of which were dismissed.

The surgeon told Downing Centre Local Court that on December 13 he had organised a Christmas party at Woolloomooloo's Ovolo hotel for 50 to 60 guests.

Among those invited were friends, colleagues, nurses, radiographers, theatre staff and employees including Ms Turner and practice manager Stephanie Jobson.

Dr Steel said that morning his 41-year-old wife had been in a bad mood and while in the shower she had thrown a wet fake tanning mitt across the bathroom at him.

'I hate you,' Mrs Steel allegedly said. 'Why don't you just leave. Get out.'

Dr Steel said he performed surgery that day and then attended the Ovolo hotel where he had paid for drinks and canapes to be served from 6 to 9pm.

Dr Steel's solicitor, Paul McGirr, described Mrs Steel as a witness of 'very little credit' and an 'unhinged person' who made up allegations against her husband. She is pictured on Thursday

Mrs Steel arrived at the gathering with the couple's children, sat in an area separate from the main party and stayed about an hour and a half.

'She was aggressive, angry and hostile to me,' Dr Steel told the court. 'She would not speak to me and she told me to stay away.

'She did not come anywhere near me. She was rude to my staff.'

Dr Steel said he left the party, which had run much later than planned, shortly after his wife tried to call Ms Turner about 4.20am.

He had been sound asleep, face down in bed, when his wife woke him up by scratching his back and head about 8.45am.

'I was awoken by severe pain in my back and behind my ears,' Dr Steel told the court. 'I was hit about three or four times.'

Dr Steel said his wife screamed at him with accusations he had been having an affair with Ms Turner.

He said she told him: 'You're a f***ing disgrace. It's disgusting. You've been with Angie.

Video emerged of Mrs Steel nagging Dr Steel about money (pictured). 'You drip feed me,' she says to her husband in the footage tendered to court. '$24,000 a month!' Dr Steel replies. Mrs Steel then says, 'Big deal. You're on six million or four million dollars a year, Tim'

Dr Steel said it was his wife who had assaulted him and he sustained deep scratches to his head, back and arms (left) when Mrs Steel dug her nails into him. He now has permanently scarring on his back. Injuries from an alleged domestic dispute in 2017 are pictured right

'You were having sex with Angie. I had a private investigator following you. I've got everything I need.'

Mrs Steel had claimed it was Dr Steel who assaulted her with a punch to the head and stomach and a slap to the face.

She also accused him of pinning her down and ripping her hair extensions out.

After the incident Dr Steel had run downstairs and jumped in the pool while holding his wife's phone. Mrs Steel then called police.

She claimed in court she 'knew' Dr Steel had been having an affair with Ms Turner but could not provide any evidence.

'I've seen text messages between the two of them and I'd heard conversations between them,' Mrs Steel said.

Mrs Steel, pictured on Thursday afternoon, claimed in court she 'knew' Dr Steel had been having an affair with Ms Turner but could not provide any evidence. 'I've seen text messages between the two of them and I'd heard conversations between them,' she said

Dr Steel said his wife screamed at him with accusations he had been having an affair with his secretary Angie Turner (pictured left). His practice manager Stephanie Jobson is pictured right. Both women denied ever having a sexual relationship with Dr Steel

Ms Turner told the court she had never had anything other than a professional relationship with Dr Steel.

She had worked for Dr Steel as a medical secretary for two years but no longer did and any suggestion she had an affair with him was 'ridiculous'.

After the Christmas party she had been in a hotel room with Dr Steel and Ms Jobson, drinking chardonnay ordered from room service.

Dr Steele had paid for the room because Ms Turner lived in Cronulla and Ms Jobson lived in Wollongong, south of Sydney.

Ms Turner was surprised Mrs Steel had tried to call her at 4.09am and again at 4.19am.

'I just said to him, "I think you need to go",' she said of Dr Steele.

'He seemed frightened. He seemed very concerned to go home and face Emma because they had been fighting all night.

'I think she told him to f*** off at one stage.'

Ms Jobson was also asked is he had ever had an affair with Dr Steel.

'Absolutely not,' she said.

Ms Swain found there was no evidence Dr Steel had ever had an affair with anyone.

Dr Steel's solicitor, Paul McGirr, described Mrs Steel as a witness of 'very little credit' and an 'unhinged person' who made up allegations against her husband.

From the time police arrived at the Steel family home Dr Steel maintained he had only acted in self defence and Ms Swain found nothing to disprove that.

Any injuries Mrs Steel sustained were the result of Dr Steel protecting himself against an attack by his wife.

Mrs Steel modelled as a young woman when she was known as Emma-Kate Sullivan.

She was a hostess on the Sale of the Century quiz show, worked for leading fashion brands and was previously married to champion jockey Shane Dye.

Dr Steel, a senior neurosurgeon at St Vincent's Hospital in Darlinghurst, returned to work on July 16, two weeks after he was cleared of all charges.


BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - European stocks were gaining ground on Thursday as hopes for another round of government stimulus for the virus-stricken U.S. economy coupled with upbeat earning updates from the likes of Daimler and Unilever helped investors look past an escalation in Sino-U.S. tensions.



Meanwhile, a survey showed German consumer morale improved more than expected heading into August.



Market research group GfK said its forward-looking consumer sentiment index rose to -0.3 points from revised -9.4 in July. The expected reading was -5.0.



Gfk said German consumers are gradually putting the coronavirus shock of earlier this year behind them. A V-shaped trend is currently emerging for the consumer climate.



The pan European Stoxx 600 rose 0.42 percent to 375.03 after losing 0.9 percent on Wednesday.



The German DAX and France's CAC 40 index gained about 0.6 percent, while the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was up 0.7 percent.



Shares of Daimler AG soared 6 percent. After reporting wider loss and weak sales volume in its second quarter hurt by the virus-related lockdowns, the auto giant said that it started seeing first signs of sales recovery amid Covid-19 pandemic, and expects to record an operating profit in fiscal 2020.



Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG surged 7.7 percent. The precision mechanical engineering company has agreed to sell the German-Swiss Gallus Group to the Swiss packaging group benpac holding.



French drinks group Pernod Ricard advanced 2.7 percent after lifting its FY20 organic profit outlook from recurring operations.



Publicis Groupe SA shares jumped 13 percent. The world's third-biggest advertising company beat expectations for underlying sales in the second quarter and said it continued to record significant wins in new business across the world.



Unilever soared almost 8 percent as it beat analyst expectations of a drop in sales in its latest half-year results. Second-quarter underlying sales declined just 0.3 percent versus expectations of a 4.3 percent drop.



Risk insurance and reinsurance provider Beazley Group jumped 6 percent. The company swung to a loss in the first-half after setting aside $170 million for coronavirus-related claims.



Security contractor G4S climbed 6.3 percent after posting a higher-than-expected first-half operating profit.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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She's one of the stars of The Real Housewives of Potomac and a former Miss America contestant.

But Ashley Darby could be ready for a change of scenery, with the 32-year-old revealing that she'd 'definitely' like to move Down Under in the future.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Ashley admitted that she and her Australian husband Michael are keen to relocate one day.

'I definitely would move to Australia!' Real Housewives of Potomac star Ashley Darby is keen to move Down Under with her Australian husband Michael

'I definitely would move to Australia!' she gushed.

'My best friend actually married an Australian guy. She and I both talk about how nice it would be to move to Australia,' she continued.

'We would have to drastically change our lives but it is definitely something that is very appealing right now.'

The former restaurateur explained that the move could be good for her one-year-old son Dean, who would be able to see his Australian relatives more often if they lived Down Under.

'We would have to drastically change our lives but it is definitely something that is very appealing right now': Ashley is married to Australian businessman Michael Darby. The couple recently welcomed their first child, Dean. (Pictured together)

'My husband's family lives in Melbourne and all these babies are growing up in Melbourne close [in age] to Dean, and I just wish he could see that side of his family more,' she said.

'As soon as we're capable we're flying, we're venturing across the pond to come to Australia.'

While Ashley was born and raised in Maryland, Michael is a native of Melbourne.

'As soon as we're capable we're flying, we're venturing across the pond to come to Australia': The 32-year-old says that she'd love Dean, one, to be closer to his Australian relatives

Michael earned his degree in Construction Engineering and Business Development from the University of Melbourne before relocating to America in the 1980s.

If Ashley does end up moving to Australia, she won't be the first Real Housewife to do so.

Former Real Housewives of New York star Alex McCord and her husband Simon van Kempen left Brooklyn for the Byron Bay hinterland back in 2014.

'I always have my spoon in my back pocket!' While Ashley is famous for stirring the pot on RHOP, the star says that viewers will see a more mature side of her on season five

Alex has since received her master in professional psychology, while Simon has his own law firm in Tweed Heads.

Ashley is currently gearing up for the fifth season of The Real Housewives of Potomac, which premieres on Bravo and Hayu at the start of August.

While the star promises that she'll stir the pot as usual, she also says that viewers will see a more mature side of her this year.

Real Housewives Down Under! Former Real Housewives of New York star Alex McCord and her husband Simon van Kempen left Brooklyn for the Byron Bay hinterland back in 2014. (Pictured with their two sons)

'I always have my spoon in my back pocket just in case I need to work it out, but I did have my baby in July last year, so more so [you'll see] my motherhood journey,' she explained.

'We started filming the show when I was two months postpartum, so I was still going through it being a first time mum.'

'I've been on since season one and I've grown a lot as a person and our relationships have evolved so much,' she continued.

'With some new dynamics to our group, the dynamics are really interesting ... We will certainly not disappoint!'

Stream The Real Housewives of Potomac Season 5 from August 3 on hayu & Foxtel.
CuraSigna, a tech company in medical equipment design, on Thursday said it is going into the production of NASA -designed and FDA-approved multi-functional ventilators named "VITAL (Ventilator Intervention Technology Accessible Locally)."

The firm said in a statement it is among a handful of Indian companies licenced by NASA for meeting the worldwide acute shortage of ventilators needed in treating COVID-19 patients.

CuraSigna, promoted by Sushil Swabhiman Trust (SST), is in an advanced stage of manufacturing the ventilators first for meeting Indias needs in the COVID-19 situation and then for exports, it said in a statement.

CuraSigna has its manufacturing resources at Non-Ferrous Material Technology Development Centre (NFTDC), Hyderabad, an autonomous "non-grant-in-aid institution" under the Ministry of Mines, Government of India, it said.

NFTDC has been engaged in the design and development of vital medical equipment for the last two decades.

CuraSigna is proposing to blend the hardware capabilities of NFTDC with its state-of-the-art software expertise and international quality control processes in the manufacture of not only advanced ventilators but also other critical care equipment, the statement added.

It is estimated that the domestic ventilator supply-demand gap is at least about 100,000 high-pressure Ventilators.

Besides, the SAARC and South East Asian region requirements of such ventilators are about another 300,000, according to the statement.

CuraSigna has already partnered with Max Global, Malaysia, for export of Ventilators in the South East Asian region.

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GBP/NZD Exchange Rate Rangebound as Brexit Concerns Return

The Pound to New Zealand Dollar (GBP/NZD) exchange rate held steady today, with the pairing currently trading around NZ$1.911.

Sterling is rangebound with the New Zealand Dollar (NZD) today despite David Frost  the UKs Chief Brexit Negotiator  saying that considerable gaps remain in UK-EU Brexit talks. As a result, GBP investors becoming increasingly concerned the UK could leave on the World Trade Organisations (WTO) terms.

Mr Frost added:

Despite all the difficulties, on the basis of the work we have done in July, my assessment is that agreement can still be reached in September, and that we should continue to negotiate with this aim in mind.

In UK economic data, today saw the release of the CBIs Industrial Trends Survey for July, which fell to a worse-than-expected -46%.

Rain Newton-Smith, CBI chief economist, was more hopeful in her statement, saying:

Manufacturers continue to face extreme hardship due to the COVID-19 crisis.

There are tentative signs of gradual recovery on the horizon, with firms expecting output and orders to begin to pick up in the next three months. But demand still remains deeply depressed.

New Zealand Dollar (NZD) Steady as Risk-Sentiment Falters on US-China Trade Fears

The New Zealand Dollar (NZD) held steady today after US unemployment claims continue to rise. This weighed on risk appetite for the Kiwi as the worlds largest economy continues to struggle.

US-China trade tensions have also clipped risk-appetite. With tensions increasing between the worlds two largest economies, NZD traders are concerned this could negative impact New Zealands economy.

Diplomatic tensions between the two superpowers intensified after Donald Trumps administration accused the Chinese consulate in Houston as being involved in a spying operation.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin condemned Washington, saying:

China strongly condemns such an outrageous and unjustified move, which will sabotage China-US relations.

We urge the US to immediately withdraw its erroneous decision, otherwise China will make legitimate and necessary reactions.

In New Zealands economic news, today will see the release of the latest New Zealand trade figures for June. Any improvement in the nations exports figures would prove NZD-positive.

GBP/NZD Forecast: Could US-China Trade Tensions Drag Down the Kiwi?

Pound (GBP) investors will be looking ahead to tomorrows release of the UKs Manufacturing PMI for July. Any improvement in the UKs most lucrative sector would prove GBP-positive.

Tomorrow will also see the release of the UKs Retail Sales figure June. However, if these figures remain low, we could see Sterling suffer.

The New Zealand (NZD) will remain sensitive to risk sentiment this week. If US-China trade relations continue to intensify, then we could see the risk-averse Kiwi suffer.
Clermont series starts Saturday

GERMANTOWN - Clermont State Historic Site offers a series of talks and performances on the back porch of the house.

The series kicks off on July 25 and 26 with History Story Hour at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. both days.

This will be followed by "Mrs. Livingston, I Presume? A Chat with Alice Delafield Clarkson Livingston" at 1 p.m. on Aug. 1 and History Comics Chat with professional artist and Clermont School Program Coordinator Emily Robinson at 1 p.m. Aug. 2.

On Sunday, Aug. 9, join curator Geoff Benton for a walk and talk tour of the grounds entitled "'A Tyrant with whom he will never be reconciled': The Livingstons and Their Community in the Revolutionary War."

Masks and social distancing will be required of all participants.

Programs are free, but registration is required to help with social distancing. Those interested can register at https://www.eventbrite.com/o/friends-of-clermont-amp-clermont-state-historic-site-13401630297.

Van Buren site hosts speaker events

KINDERHOOK  Martin Van Buren National Historic Site's virtual speaker series, with the support of the Friends of Lindenwald, presents:

Friday, July 24, Van Buren biographer James Bradley will join park staff for a conversation about the eighth president's personality, political career and legacy. Bradley is co-editor of "The Papers of Martin Van Buren" and is currently writing "Van Buren: America's First Politician."

Tuesday, Aug. 18, historian Michelle Dempsey will share her research on the lives of Angelica Singleton Van Buren and Christina Cantine, two women who had a profound influence on Van Buren. She served at the site in 2019 as the Cultural Resources Diversity Internship Program's 19th Amendment interpretation intern. She works at Edith Wharton's The Mount in Lenox, Massachusetts.

Both videos will premiere on Martin Van Buren National Historic Site's Facebook page at 7 p.m. The talks will also be available for viewing on the park's website and YouTube channel.

Car wash to aid theater workshop

CORINTH  Adirondack Center Stage plans a "social-distanced-per-Covid-guidelines car wash," 8 to 11 a.m. Saturday, July 25, at the Saratoga National Bank parking lot, Main and Maple streets.

All donations will benefit their 2020 Summer Theatre Workshop programs for young people in the Northern Saratoga County area. This year they are having Zoom workshops and outdoor sessions on music, costuming, technical stage work, choreography, script writing, fine art and other elements of arts experiences. Performances of "Roald Dahl's Matilda" have been postponed until summer 2021.

More information can be found at www.adkcenterstage.org or call 518-744-7396.

Summer Sunday Strolls

SARATOGA SPRINGS  The Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation's Summer Sunday Strolls continue through Sept. 6. The summer series of historic walking tours take place 10:30 a.m. to noon every in various neighborhoods of the city.

The schedule is:

Aug. 2, "Those Who Left Their Mark on Saratoga," Gloria May talks about the people in Greenridge Cemetery whose stories tell about the city's buildings, monuments and markers. Who started Adirondack Trust? Why is it called the Ainsworth building? What is the civil war monument about?

Meet at Sackett Gates entrance on Lincoln Avenue. This walk may take two hours.

Aug. 9, "Women of Greenridge," Gloria May talks about the women in Greenridge Cemetery  the prominent and influential as well as the ordinary women whose life stories tell the history of Saratoga Springs.

Meet at Sackett Gates entrance on Lincoln Avenue. This walk may take up to two hours.

Aug. 16, "The Spa Complex," Linda Harvey-Opiteck leads a tour of the Spa Complex at the core of the Saratoga Spa State Park, a national historic landmark. Learn about key local and national individuals while exploring the architecture and landscape.

Meet at 108 Avenue of the Pines in front of Hall of Springs.

Aug. 23, "Post Time!," Georgia Horner explores the Saratoga Race Course area along Union Avenue featuring the Reading Rooms, National Museum of Racing, Oklahoma Track and Fasig-Tipton Humphrey S. Finney Sales Pavilion.

Meet at southeast corner of Nelson and Union avenues

Aug. 30, "Saratoga's Historic West Side," join George DeMers in the restored historic West Side and learn about the Irish and Italian immigrants who helped shape its history.

Meet at South Franklin Street (Gideon Putnam Cemetery Entrance).

Sept. 6, "Queen Annes Circular Street and Union Avenue," Debbie Studwell leads a tour of the area formerly home to the Young Women's Industrial Club of Saratoga, which would later become Skidmore College.

Meet at southeast corner of Spring and Circular streets

Due to current restrictions in the state, each Summer Stroll will be limited to 20 guests.

Everyone will be required to wear a face mask and physical distancing will be encouraged.

The cost is $20, $15 for SSPF members.

The foundation will offer three-hour bike tours of the Saratoga Spa State Park on Aug. 22 and Sept. 29.

Founded in 1977, the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation promotes preservation and enhancement of the city's architectural, cultural and landscaped heritage.

For more information, or to purchase tickets, call the foundation, 518-587-5030; email: nbabie@saratogapreservation.org; or go to https://www.saratogapreservation.org.

Compiled by Tim Blydenburgh
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday will discuss a strategy to reopen the nation's schools as coronavirus cases surge in many parts of the country.

Trump's 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) news conference will focus on a schools reopening plan, White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said in an interview with Fox News Channel.

Schools were shut down across the country after the novel coronavirus emerged and began spreading, and Trump has been determined to find a way to get them open again.

McEnany said the institutions are key to identifying child abuse cases and to helping women return to work, as they primarily provide childcare in the country.

"Look, this president's been clear: we want schools to reopen," she said.

On Tuesday, U.S. deaths from COVID-19 topped 1,000 in a single day for the first time since June 10. More than 142,000 people have died in the country during the past five months and deaths are still rising in 23 states, according to a Reuters tally.

With schools set to resume in a few weeks, local officials across the country have announced a variety of plans to resume teaching.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to issue additional guidelines on how schools can safely reopen as early as this week.

Trump, a Republican who is seeking re-election in November, has accused Democrats of wanting to keep schools shut for political reasons and threatened to cut off federal funding to schools that do not reopen, despite a surge in coronavirus cases.

He criticized the original CDC guidelines on schools as too tough, impractical and expensive earlier this month. The agency charged with protecting Americans' health then said it would issue additional guidelines.

While the risk of severe COVID-19 is seen as relatively low for children, there is fear they could infect more vulnerable teachers and other adult school administrators.

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Chicago Police Department Releases Footage of Deadly Shooting Along River

The Chicago Police Department on Thursday released video footage of a deadly shooting that may have involved at least two suspects.

The incident took place along a bridge over the Chicago River at around 2:30 a.m. that occurred on July 19, officials said. Namely, the shooting occurred in the 300 Block of North Wabash.

One person was killed in the shooting, and another person was injured, police said.

The four-minute video shows a group of about 10 men, all of whom appear to be black, walking on the bridge before several look toward the street.

Police then highlight one man wearing a black T-shirt and black pants. He then pulls out a gun.

Moments later, the man opens fire, and another suspect pulls out a pistol and fires several rounds.

The video shows people trying to scramble away and drop to the ground for cover.

The Chicago Tribune, citing police officials, reported that the slain man was identified as Gregory Crawford. He died in the hospital after being shot in the neck.

Over the weekend, more than 60 people were shot and 10 died in separate shootings across the city.

It comes as President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he will send federal officers to the city in the wake of a surge in violent crime.

In a statement obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Trump reached out to Mayor Lightfoot this evening to confirm that he plans to send federal resources to Chicago to supplement ongoing federal investigations pertaining to violent crime.

The conversation was brief and straightforward, the statement said.

Trump and Lightfoot are in agreement in sending in federal officers.

President Donald Trump talks to journalists during a news conference about his administrations response to the ongoing global CCP virus pandemic in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, on July 22, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Mayor Lightfoot maintains that all resources will be investigatory in nature and be coordinated through the U.S. Attorneys office, the statement said. The Mayor has made clear that if there is any deviation from what has been announced, we will pursue all available legal options to protect Chicagoans.

Earlier this month, federal officers were deployed in Portland, Oregon, to protect a federal courthouse from rioters. Agents were also sent to Kansas City.

Trump said Wednesday that officers will also be sent to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

If you have any information, you are asked to contact Area Three Detectives Leavitt #21081 or Taglieri #20722 at 312-744-8261. You can also submit an anonymous tip at www.CPDTIP.com.
News of an Afghan girls valor who killed two members of Taliban by shooting them and injured others has been all over the media recently.

According to AFP, the Taliban men were searching for her father who was the village chief and loyal to the government, according to local police head Habiburahman Malekzada. The militants killed her parents. Now she has told AFP that she would kill other insurgents again if they try to attack her and if she had to.

AFP

15-year-old Qamar Gul killed the militants when they stormed her home in in a remote village in the central province of Ghor.

"I no longer fear them and I'm ready to fight them again," Gul told AFP while talking on phone from a relatives home.

A picture of Gul posing with a gun went viral online. Many have praised her actions and her calling for her to be safely taken out of the war torn country.

Recounting the events she said, My mother ran to stop them but by then they had already broken the door. They took my father and mother outside and shot them several times. I was terrified".

But moments later she picked up the gun at home. "I picked up the gun we had at home, went to the door and shot them," said Gul, who was taught by her father how to fire an AK-47 assault rifle. Her brother helped when one of the insurgents tried to return fire.

AP

"My brother took the gun from me and hit (shot) him. The fighter ran away injured, only to return later," she said.

When several villagers and pro-government militiamen arrived the men eventually fled following a fire fight.

The New York Times reported that the killings at Gul's home also involved a family feud -- and one of the attackers was Gul's own husband. He was reportedly seeking her "forcible return" after a falling-out with her family.

"I am proud I killed my parents' murderers. I killed them because they killed my parents, and also because I knew they would come for me and my little brother, she said.

Also Read: Terror Amid Coronavirus - At Least 7 Killed In Taliban Attack In Northern Afghanistan

AFP

President Ashraf Ghani also praised Gul for "defending her family against a ruthless enemy", his spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told AFP.

However, hundreds of people are concerned about her safety and are calling for her to be sent out of Afghanistan.

'I demand that the president help transfer her to a safe place as her and her family's security is at risk,' women's rights activist and former lawmaker Fawzia Koofi wrote on Facebook.

We hope her protection is taken seriously by the government.

Also Read: Taliban Terrorist Ehsanullah Ehsan Behind Attack On Malala Yousafzai Escapes From Pakistan Jail
During a meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) for the settlement of the conflict in Donbas in the format of a video conference, the parties agreed to observe a full and comprehensive ceasefire regime from 00:01 on July 27, 2020 on the contact line in Donbas.

"A breakthrough in the work of the TCG in this direction is the result of effective work of the Ukrainian delegation with the assistance of our international partners in Berlin and Paris, as well as work of the political advisers and heads of Foreign Ministries of the Normandy countries," the Office of the President of Ukraine said.

During the Wednesday meeting, the parties with the mediation of the OSCE agreed to "take measures for intensification of the ceasefire regime until full settlement of the international armed conflict in the territory of Ukraine's Donbas."

"Respective measures were approved at the meeting of the TCG by Ukraine and Russia, and supported by the OSCE," the president's office said.

It also noted that the full and comprehensive ceasefire regime, if it is observed by the other side, is the main condition of the Minsk agreements which opens the way for the implementation of the other clauses of these agreements.

"Ukraine has reaffirmed its full readiness for observation of the agreements that were reached during the December summit in Paris at the level of the leaders of the Normandy countries and its commitment to the implementation of the Minsk agreements. The OSCE SMM will help to promote and support implementation of these measures," the president's office said.
UWs Geerts Receives DOE Atmospheric Grant to Study Cold-Air Outbreaks in the Arctic

Bart Geerts, a UW professor of atmospheric science, received a $724,331 DOE grant for new atmospheric science research. Geerts will use the grant to study cold-air outbreaks in the Arctic. Cold-air outbreaks have a significant impact on the global energy and water cycles, including ocean circulation. (Bart Geerts Photo)

Bart Geerts says the Arctic is arguably the region on Earth that is warming the most rapidly, with rapid sea ice loss and warming air temperatures reinforcing each other. Decreasing ice cover implies potentially more hazardous Arctic winter weather effects upon coastal communities and local transportation.

To better tackle this issue, the University of Wyoming department head and professor of atmospheric science is looking at cold-air outbreaks, which are poorly understood, he says.

A key question is how the high-latitude changes connect to those in the midlatitude and the global climate system. Outbreaks of cold, Arctic air streaming over open ocean water encourage strong surface fluxes of moisture and heat, supporting shallow, but highly convective clouds, Geerts says. These occasionally spawn intense polar lows, and both are difficult to forecast. Cold-air outbreaks have a significant impact on the global energy and water cycles, including the ocean circulation.

To help continue his research, Geerts recently received a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) grant worth $724,331 over three years. His project is one of 31 in the atmospheric sciences that received $19 million in total funding from the DOE. The projects aim to improve the power of Earth system models to predict weather and climate.

This newest grant builds on a current DOE grant under its Atmospheric System Research (ASR) program, called Mixed-Phase Convective Clouds in the Polar Marine Boundary Layer. Under that program, Geerts says observations and modeling are used to focus on the cloud and precipitation properties of shallow convective clouds cold air over open waters near the Arctic.

Despite the impacts on weather and climate, cold-air outbreaks remain difficult to model. This is, in part, because of the range of scales involved, with this cloud regime occupying a gray zone where typical weather or climate models fail to capture or parameterize the relevant cloud and dynamical processes, Geerts explains. In addition, little is known about the cloud properties; their rain and snowfall amounts; the accompanying boundary layer structure and circulations; interactions with meteorology; and surface fluxes. Very little is known about these clouds, given the emptiness of the Arctic.

DOE supported a dedicated field campaign -- called Cold-Air Outbreaks in the Marine Boundary Layer Experiment (COMBLE) -- through which the necessary measurements were gathered to support modeling improvements of this mysterious cloud regime.

Geerts served as COMBLEs lead scientist during the project -- which took place from Dec. 1, 2019-May 31, 2020 -- with DOEs ASR and 20 international collaborators. Geerts says the campaigns outdoor laboratory was a vast stretch of open water in the open sea. Their main observation station was as far north as we could go in Scandinavia, he says.

We are using the COMBLE observations to assess multiscale numerical simulations of these clouds and, in turn, well use these simulations to better understand the cloud regime and enable better representation of these clouds in climate models, Geerts says.

This work is in collaboration with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientists, and will require a large supercomputer allocation from the NCAR Wyoming Supercomputing Center.

Geerts says the latest DOE grant will fund one Ph.D. student, Christian Lackner, of Mainz, Germany, who will start his studies at UW this fall.

The DOE projects were chosen by competitive peer review under a DOE funding opportunity announcement, which falls under the ASR program and is sponsored by the Biological and Environmental Research program within the DOEs Office of Science. Selected projects cover a range of atmospheric science topics, including interactions between clouds and aerosols; atmospheric processes in the high northern and southern latitudes; and the development of new data products to render atmospheric data more accessible to researchers.

Atmospheric processes leading to cloud formation and precipitation are notoriously complex and difficult to model accurately, says Chris Fall, director of the DOEs Office of Science. These studies, which combine observation and modeling, will be important steps toward more precise and predictive models on both regional and global scales.
New York parents worried about sending their children back to school during the coronavirus crisis this fall may be able to choose to keep their kid home every day.

Local school districts appear to be ready to offer in-school instruction for many students, especially the youngest ones, on all or many days of the week.

But that doesnt mean your child has to go.

Language tucked into the 145-page guidelines published by the New York state education department and the state health department appears to require local districts to support any students who are kept home all week by nervous parents.

The governors office is looking into an official response to questions from Syracuse.com and local district officials.

Most school superintendents and experts say they believe parents will be free to choose, and will let them make that decision for themselves.

We are supporting parents who want to keep their kids home for the option of remote learning,' said David Bills, West Genesee schools superintendent.

West Genesee surveyed parents, and some indicated an interest in that option. A second survey will allow parents to both confirm and commit to that option, Bill said.

A Central Square school district parent survey indicated 10% of those who responded want to continue with remote learning.

Among others, Baldwinsville, Liverpool and Cazenovia school officials said they plan to give parents that option, and interpret the rules as allowing them to offer that option.

Baldwinsville Deputy Superintendent Joseph M. DeBarbieri said state ed requires districts to be flexible and work with families. Parents can choose remote learning if theyd like.

Syracuse City School District officials said no final decisions have been made yet.

What do the rules say?

State health department guidelines say vulnerable populations  including students and staff at increased risk who dont feel comfortable returning in person should be accommodated where appropriate. Options include remote learning, modified work settings or additional protective gear.

State education school reopening guidelines lay out some specifics, and says that students with family members in high-risk groups may need to attend school remotely.

Those high-risk groups include people 65 or older, those who are pregnant, and those with underlying health conditions. Those underlying conditions include, but arent limited to, chronic lung disease or asthma, severe obesity, diabetes, kidney or liver disease, sickle cell anemia; and, medically complex children and those at higher risk for severe illness from Covid-19.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said he will decide the first week of August on whether or not to reopen schools in September, and some district officials believe he will address the question of remote learning by choice at that time.
Srinagar:

After remaining suspended for over four months due to ongoing unrest in the Valley, the rail service connecting north and south parts of Kashmir resumed partially on Thursday.

The full operations are expected to start within the next 10 days, they said.

The rail service resumed from Budgam to Srinagar Railway stations after completion of necessary restoration work on damaged infrastructure and tracks, the officials said.

They said the service was resumed along the 11.5 km axis after a trial run yesterday.

Two trains were scheduled to run on the route today, one in the morning and another in the evening, they said, adding the passenger turnout was very low but is expected to pick up in the coming days.

The Railway authorities are working on a plan to resume normal operations along the 120-km track between Banihal in south and Baramulla in north Kashmir within next 10 days, the officials said, adding restoration work on the damaged infrastructure and tracks are in full swing and expected to be completed shortly.

Northern railways suspended the service as a precautionary measure on July 9 following widespread protests over the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani in an encounter with security forces in south Kashmir a day earlier.

The unrest has left 86 persons dead and thousands others injured.The railways suffered heavy losses due to the damages and disruption in its services. The signal boxes, junction boxes, wiring and other infrastructure have been badly damaged during the unrest, the officials said

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A court in Meru has awarded a lawyer Ksh7.7 million as compensation for wrongful arrest, malicious prosecution and imprisonment.

In his ruling, Meru Principal Magistrate Gathogo Sogomo said the complainant, Kirimi Mbogo, suffered immensely in the hands of National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) officials and traffic police officers four years ago.

The Magistrate ordered that the lawyer be paid immediately.

Mr Mbogo had sued NTSA following the collapse of a case in which he had been arrested for allegedly driving a car with a cracked windshield and exceeding the speed limit on September 22, 2016, at 9 am.

NTSA officials are said have stopped Mr Mbogo at a roadblock at Muthara market, in Tigania East as he drove from Maua to Meru. They handcuffed the lawyer and held him for hours inside a vehicle belonging to NTSA.

The officers also towed his vehicle to the Meru Police Station and have never returned his car key to date, forcing him to get another.

Mbogo was charged on the same day he was arrested but was acquitted after nine months because the arresting officers did not produce any evidence against him.

It is then that the lawyer filed a case at the Tigania Law Courts seeking compensation for wrongful arrest, illegal imprisonment and malicious prosecution.

During the hearing, the court was told that during the arrest, the officers harassed and embarrassed Mr Mbogo in the presence of other road users, his passengers and clients.

The lawyer claimed that, at one point, the officers insulted and ridiculed him in the presence of passers-by, thus demeaning his standing as an officer of the court.

While delivering the ruling, Magistrate Gathogo reprimanded the officers involved in the incident and asked them to be mindful of other road users.

Mbogo was awarded Ksh7.7 million as compensation and costs of the case and interests. He said he will move to execute the decree after expiry of two weeks if he will not have been paid by then.
Loading Visits will be limited to one person for one hour a day at aged care homes and hospitals but there will be exceptions for parents with children in hospital and visitors of patients in palliative care. Ms Mikakos said the changes were "designed to strike the balance between compassion ... and putting the safety of those residents and patients first". The reimposed lockdown for Melbourne and Mitchell Shire came into effect two weeks ago on Thursday, July 9. Health authorities have said it would take a fortnight or more for the effects of the strict measures to take hold due to the virus incubation period and time lag from receiving test results.

'One-percenters' will help defeat the virus Premier Daniel Andrews said Victoria's "one-percenters" would help win the battle against the second spike in COVID-19. On Thursday, Mr Andrews revealed a key metric of the intensity of the virus spread had dropped. Credit:Eddie Jim Mr Andrews said each infected person was on average spreading the virus to one other person, meaning the numbers were stable. But that infection rate, also known as the reproduction (R) rate, needed to be pushed lower. He said Victorians doing the little things right, including isolating when needed, would contribute to driving the R number below one and stifling the second surge of the virus.

"If the [R number], so the number of people that a positive case infects, stays at one, then we will see stable numbers, but we will not see falling numbers," he said. "If, however ... only every second person is infected  then we will see our numbers come down and come down again and again. That's what we have to get to. "[It's] all about the one- and two-percenters, it's all about the small things, the small improvements in our internal processes, and in terms of compliance across the Victorian community that add up." Of Thursday's new cases, 69 have been linked to known outbreaks while 334 remain under investigation.

Thirteen new cases are in regional Victoria. "On a number of occasions [we have] talked about the prospect of easing restrictions in regional Victoria at an appropriate time. We simply won't have that option available to us unless we continue to see those numbers lower," Mr Andrews said. New $300 payment for casual workers to isolate after tests Meanwhile, workers without sick leave will be entitled to a $300 government payment to ensure they stay home while waiting for COVID-19 test results without being financially worse off.

Loading On Wednesday, Mr Andrews revealed the majority of Victorians were not isolating after being tested, a problem driven by casual workers who could not afford to miss a shift. "A payment of $300 will be available to anybody who has taken a test, and then needs to isolate  [who] is in work, but does not have sick leave they can fall back on," he said. "This will be as quick a process as we can possibly make it. It'll be a relatively simple and easy process. "It essentially requires you, for instance, to provide a payslip." If a payslip cannot be provided, a statutory declaration will suffice, he said. If a person tests positive and needs to quarantine for two weeks, they will be eligible for the governments $1500 hardship payment.

Premier pleads with young people to follow rules The Premier appealed to young people  who have made up more than a quarter of all infections so far this month  to follow lockdown rules. He stressed that while he did not want to lay any blame at the feet of younger people, there was growing evidence of healthy, younger people suffering serious illness, or death, from COVID-19. About 25 per cent of all positive cases since the beginning of July have been people in their 20s, according to the state government, compared with 6 per cent who were aged in their 60s.
Company to Receive Production Sample Kits from its Contract Manufacturer for U.S. FDA Level Testing of Each Modality, Plus Additional Sample GenViro! Swift Kits for International Testing Needs

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 23, 2020 / Decision Diagnostics Corp. (OTC PINK:DECN) through its subsidiary Pharma Tech Solutions, Inc., today announced it is immediately readying testing samples of its GenViro! Covid-19 Swift Kits for testing in the US market and additional testing internationally. One-half will be used in a blood-based testing protocol and the other half in a saliva-based testing protocol. Based on the results, the company will make a direct run for completion of the feasibility testing so that sales of GenViro! Swift kits can commence as soon as possible in select International markets in which the company has or shortly expects to have distribution agreements. The company is conducting a parallel "sister" study in Korea, and additional saliva testing will be completed for international distribution.

DECN expects to receive the U.S. supply of production testing samples during the first week of August 2020 which is expected to coincide with the company's selection of an experienced US based clinical testing partner. The company has narrowed potential US testing partners to two clinical trials organizations and allied laboratories and expects to announce its decision in the next few days. That organization will lead the clinical trials in the U.S. that DECN expects will be the final requirement to secure FDA emergency authorization.

The company plans a total of four studies, two covering feasibility for both the blood based and saliva based modalities, using as a foundation the most recent FDA guidelines for both blood and saliva-based testing, and two each covering the actual clinical testing. Once the feasibility testing is completed, the company will make any final adjustments that may be required to impedance wavelength. And through its European distributor(s) the company will be seeking European CE Mark certification. The CE registration is primarily a Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) review, which is not as protracted as the FDA testing. Further, to register GenViro! Swift for CE Mark, DECN's feasibility testing will similarly meet the product registration needs of the recently announced Asian distributor. The company has also had involved discussions with a California organization with worldwide reach. This organization is already an approved FDA establishment provider, and has expressed significant interest in a distribution relationship in the EU, Pakistan and select Middle Eastern countries.

Important to the continued movement toward FDA testing, the company is in the final stages of producing two Point-of-Care instructional videos that will be available on the web site of the company's subsidiary, Pharma Tech Solutions. These videos are also a part of the FDA EUA (emergency) application process. DECN will furnish subtitles for the videos and will initially be made available in French, German, Spanish and Portuguese. Later versions are contemplated in additional languages.

"Although we have just passed the 120 day mark in the journey to get to this point, we are confident we are ready to conduct the revised FDA level testing required to gain emergency authorization approval here in the US," said Keith Berman, DECN CEO. "While we have dealt with four separate FDA foundation adjustments since we first began development of our GenViro! Covid-19 Swift Kit products, late last week we learned we aren't the only small company with proprietary technology that is dealing with such issues. "

The company has ordered approximately 600 Genviro! Swift testing strips delivered in vials for the feasibility rounds of testing; 300 for testing in both Korea and the U.S. After this initial testing, another 600 test strips for the second, more demanding study to be conducted by the clinical testing partner in the US. Delivery of the second round of test strips is expected the 3rd week in August. In all, a total of 1,200 testing sensors plus 90 complete GenViro! Test kits will be delivered, 30 available for blood and 30 available for saliva, and another 30 saliva kits available for demonstration and photographic purposes overseas. The company will be updating its Pharma Tech Solutions web site to demonstrate in more detail the contents of the GenViro! Swift test kits.

Mr. Berman concluded, "Finally, it is important that we recognize that the new FDA testing mandates places a huge strain on company resources. Testing is expensive enough, but the testing of infected subjects requires special insurance policies where the premiums are extreme. A bill to be shortly presented in the U.S. Senate seeks to lower liability limits for companies and first responders, and if passed will be among the biggest adjuncts to our expected success."

ABOUT DECISION DIAGNOSTICS CORP

Decision Diagnostics Corp. has been the leading manufacturer and worldwide distributor of diabetic test strips engineered to operate on legacy glucose meters for 18 years. 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. The company's GenViro! products are designed to test for Covid-19, and applications for Emergency (EUA) Waivers have been submitted to the U.S. FDA. The finger stick test kit is currently being readied for international sales and an agreement for distribution has been signed for sales to commence in multiple countries including India, Malaysia, Singapore, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Australia. Registration in those countries where such documentation is required is the responsibility of the distributor.

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 22, 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/598539/DECN-Readies-its-GenViro-Covid-19-Swift-Kits-for-Latest-FDA-Mandated-Testing-of-both-Saliva-and-Blood-Protocols-as-it-Enters-Final-Selection-Process-for-a-US-Based-Testing-Partner
The impact of warmer weather on Covid-19 is still unknown  study (Gareth Fuller/PA)

It is currently impossible to know whether more people contract coronavirus in hot or cold weather, researchers say.

The arrival of summer in the Northern hemisphere has drawn attention to the question of whether warmer weather might slow the spread of Covid-19.

But new analysis from researchers at the University of Oxford highlights key limitations of available data.

The existing data cant reliably tell us whether warmer weather slows down the spread of Covid-19 Dr Francois Cohen

Dr Francois Cohen, study lead author and senior researcher at Oxfords Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, said: Our study found several problems with trying to understand the influence of weather using existing data on confirmed Covid-19 cases.

The existing data cant reliably tell us whether warmer weather slows down the spread of Covid-19, as some earlier studies have tried to assess, so we urge both policy makers and the public to act with caution.

The analysis, published in the Environmental and Resource Economics journal, says there are a number of potential problems with the data.

The main issue, according to the study, is that the weather itself could be influencing the number of tests carried out and who gets tested.

For example, patients suffering from pre-existing diseases could develop Covid-19 unrelated symptoms due to the prevailing weather conditions and hence be selected for Covid-19 testing more frequently than other population groups.

Such influences make it impossible to statistically separate this effect from any influence of the weather on the actual spread of the virus, the researchers say.

They added that the available data was patchy.

Good weather is no excuse to take risks with a disease that has already killed hundreds of thousands of people Anant Jani, study author

Researchers said that during the first months of the pandemic, testing was insufficient everywhere and, when tests were conducted, the reliability of some tests was questionable.

Other potential issues include the need for the limited available tests to be used for anyone with symptoms of the virus, including all those that did not have the virus but another seasonal respiratory illness  potentially increasing false positives during cold weather.

Anant Jani, study author and Oxford Martin Fellow at the University of Oxford, said: Although we still dont know the influence of weather on the spread of Covid-19, we are sure of one thing  the virus has been able to spread everywhere, including in very warm areas of the globe, such as Ecuador, Brazil and India.

It continues to spread even in warmer states in the United States like Florida, California and Texas.

Good weather is no excuse to take risks with a disease that has already killed hundreds of thousands of people.

On Tuesday a study from researchers Kings College London suggested the virus may be more severe in colder months than warmer ones, and dry indoor air may encourage its spread.
In our party, were allowed to have differences of opinion, especially when it comes to foreign policy, he said at a news conference. I think Liz Cheney and the president agree 98 percent of the time. Theres nothing wrong with having a discussion about different ways of going forward. But I think the best part is that were united and that we dont air these in public.
The National Media Commission disagrees with the Ministry of Communications of plans to limit the channels of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) and Crystal TV on Ghanas Digital Terrestrial Television platform.

According to the NMC, the directive usurps its mandate, hence cannot approve of it.

The NMC also explained that the directive will breach provisions of the countrys constitution if it is allowed.

The Commission wishes to state clearly that the directive given to GBC and Crystal TV by the Minister for Communications purports to usurp the constitutional mandate and authority of the National Media Commission and same cannot be obliged under our current constitutional dispensation, NMC said in a statement signed by its Chairman, Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafo.

Read full statement below:

The National Media Commission (NMC) has held an emergency meeting in Accra to consider issues relating to the directives issued by the Minister of Communications, Hon. Mrs. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, to the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) and Crystal TV, regarding their broadcasting channels on the National Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) platform.

The Commission has examined:

i. A petition from the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC)to the NMC datedJuly 7, 2020;

ii. a letter from the Minister of Communications addressed to the Director-General of GBC dated June 26, 2020;

iii. a letter from the Minister for Information to the NMC dated July 16, 2020;

iv. and also, a letter from Crystal TV to the Minister of Communications dated July 16, 2020 and copied to the NMC.

The Commission is grateful to the Minister for Information, Hon. Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, for providing detailed explanation of what constituted his understanding of the issues. However, the Commission believes that any discussion on the matters at stake should be situated within the overall context of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana.

A fundamental function of the Commission under Article 167(a) is to promote and ensure the freedom and independence of the media for mass communication or information. Article 167(c) of the Constitution mandates the NMC to insulate the state-owned media from governmental control. The freedom and independence of the media as guaranteed under Article 162(1) of the Constitution, encompasses all forms of media for mass communication operated by both the state-owned and the private media.

The Commissions mandate to insulate the state-owned media therefore enjoins the Commission to protect the Board, Management and staff of GBC from political interference as well as safeguard and preserve the entirety of state-owned media facilities, assets and other resources from governmental control.

Political control can emanate from overruns on the right of the Board and Management to prudently manage the resources of the Public Broadcaster in accordance with sound public administration principles.

It is the view of the Commission that any action by any entity which culminates into limiting or depriving the media of the use of public resources legitimately allocated to them undermines their capacity to serve the nation as anticipated by the Constitution.

The Commission wishes to state clearly that the directive given to GBC and Crystal TV by the Minister for Communications purports to usurp the constitutional mandate and authority of the National Media Commission and same cannot be obliged under our current constitutional dispensation.

We wish, however, to take advantage of the current discussion to draw public attention to the Commissions concerns regarding the operations, management and governance of the National DTT platform.

Broadcasting at all material times has involved two elements. These are content production and transmission. The two combine to constitute the broadcast medium. The DTT platform is the new technology for broadcasting transmission. It is indeed part of broadcasting. It should therefore be treated as media to enable it benefit from all the freedoms guaranteed the media by the 1992 Constitution.

Second, it is state-owned. Therefore, it must be covered by the constitutional provisions on the state-owned media.

Third, it is uniquely positioned as the medium through which all free-to-air broadcast content can be transmitted to reach the Ghanaian public. Accordingly, it sits at the gateway of public communications with the capacity to determine whose ideas get communicated within the public sphere. It would be unhelpful to democracy to leave the control of the gateway to public communications in the hands of a Minster of State. Allowing politicians to control the gateway to public communication would introduce vulnerabilities into the constitutional firewalls of free expression in Ghana.

To put our concerns on the DTT in context, we wish to state that the National Media Commission has always held and articulated the foregoing view since the process of migration started a little over a decade ago. In the intense partisanship of public policy debate in Ghana, we feel obliged to reiterate that this is not only a matter of fact, but also that of principle.

The National Media Commission assures the general public that it is highly aware and alert to the huge responsibility it bears as the shepherds against any form of encroachment by individuals, politicians and state agencies on the freedom and independence of the media, and we shall continue to perform our constitutionally-mandated guardian role with high sense of dedication, alertness and patriotism.

Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafo

Chairman
On Monday Catalonias riot police indulged in some good old separatist bashing, as they tend to do (although, to be fair, you will also meet Catalan separatists who enjoy being at the receiving end of the beating) on occasion of the Spanish kings visit to the monastery of Poblet, near Tarragona. In contrast, Vox supporters were politely encouraged to walk past the police cordon so they could cheer their king and his wife, Letizia, from up close. Its worth pointing out how that lot Spains far-right ultra-nationalists are practically the only ones left who still look forward to a snapshot with a king this cant be emphasised enough who is a complete failure.

All of us republican types pretty much already had confirmation from a range of public, credible sources that his father and predecessor, King Juan Carlos, was a crook. Those who are kicking up a fuss now and feigning outrage are the same ones who used to be on the old mans payroll and now they are gnashing their teeth, like the hypocrites they are.

However, it is fair to say that the King Emeritus always displayed a certain flair or survival instinct, if you like, in the political and institutional arena which prevented him from becoming the caricature that his son Felipe has turned into: a puppet in the hands of the far right and the extreme right since 3 October 2017 (1).

Speaking of 2017 and Vox the political party that made the single, most decisive contribution to the spread of the coronavirus in Madrid on March 8 and 9 (2), the Spanish far right is, once again, the plaintiff in a court case. This time in Catalonias Higher Court of Justice, where the former members of the Catalan Parliaments Board are being tried [for allowing a parliamentary debate on self-determination in 2017] together with then-CUP MP Mireia Boya.

Incidentally, Vox have asked that the organised crime charges be dropped from the case (they carried a prison sentence of up to 12 years) and they appear to be satisfied with the penalties that the public prosecutor is pushing for: a fine and a ban from holding public office. We must be careful not to take certain things for granted: in a court of law far-right parties should be sitting in the dock, the place reserved for them, instead of leading the prosecution. In contrast, the Speaker and the Board of a parliament should never face prosecution for having done their job in a democracy, not to mention be convicted and sentenced to jail, like Carme Forcadell was.

The outrage (logical, even necessary) at such state of affairs is currently the single driving force behind Catalonias independence movement. Oriol Junqueras cockiness still rings in our ears after Sundays tv interview, as the first volume of Carles Puigdemonts memoir is coming out penned by the outstanding Xevi Xirgo a book where the exiled president will say whatever suits him. Both leaders have announced some sort of detente, a move whose aim should be deciphered by specialists in the Catalan independence process. Seen from the outside, though, it appears to be an attempt to rally their own voters. It makes sense, too: considering the actions of the political parties they lead over the last two and a half years, the one incentive for independence supporters to go to the polls is to prevent the other side from getting in. And that, in itself, is a very poor incentive.

________________

Translators notes:

(1) On 3 October 2017, two days after Catalonias independence referendum when one thousand peaceful Catalan voters were injured by Spanish riot police, King Felipe made a formal address on Spanish TV sanctioning the crackdown.

(2) Vox, Spains far-right party, held a widely attended political conference in Madrid city on March 8 and 9.
B oris Johnson clashed with Nicola Sturgeon today as he arrived in Scotland to champion the union of the United Kingdom.

The Prime Minister travelled north of the border for the first time since the general election in December to meet businesses hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr Johnson said the sheer might of the UK had been shown during the outbreak, with almost 900,000 workers in Scotland benefiting from Government assistance.

He said: The last six months have shown exactly why the historic and heartfelt bond that ties the four nations of our country together is so important and the sheer might of our union has been proven once again.

But Ms Sturgeon tweeted: I welcome the PM to Scotland today. One of the key arguments for independence is the ability of Scotland to take our own decisions, rather than having our future decided by politicians we didnt vote for, taking us down a path we havent chosen. His presence highlights that.

The visit comes amid a surge in support for Scottish independence, with surveys reporting 54 per cent would back it.
A video from 2015 has emerged in which Donald Trump directs reporters to "Ask Prince Andrew" about Jeffrey Epstein's private island.

The encounter with reporters took place before Mr Trump entered the 2016 presidential race at that year's CPAC conservative conference.

During a question and answer session with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Mr Trump was asked what he thought of former President Bill Clinton.

"Nice guy, got a lot of problems coming up in my opinion, with the famous island with Jeffrey Epstein," Mr Trump said.

Later, a Bloomberg reporter asked Mr Trump what "problems" he thought Mr Clinton would face.

Recommended Trump says he wishes accused sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell well

"I don't know, but that island was really a cesspool, there's no question about it, just ask Prince Andrew, he'll tell you about it, the island was an absolute cesspool," Mr Trump said.

Prince Andrew was a friend of Epstein and met him through Epstein's former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. Ms Maxwell was arrested last month and is awaiting trial for child sex trafficking tied to Epstein's sexual abuse of children.

Many of the abuses Epstein committed occurred on his private island, Little Saint James.

Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a woman who claims she was trafficked as a 17-year-old by Epstein and Ms Maxwell, claims she was sent to have sex with Prince Andrew on three occasions.

Prince Andrew has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

In a widely criticised interview with the BBC last fall, he said he'd never met the girl, but he remembers being at a pizza shop with his daughter on the day in question. A widely-circulated photo of Prince Andrew shows him standing in a room with his arm around the then-17-year-old Ms Giuffre. Ms Maxwell also appears in the photo.

Prince Andrew  eighth in line to the British throne  said he was willing to make himself available to US officials investigating the Epstein case, but has been accused of "stonewalling" and being otherwise uncooperative by US investigators.

The prince's legal team denies that he has been uncooperative and claimed instead that he was being treated poorly by US officials.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Rajasthan High Court to deliver its ruling on Friday on the plea filed by the rebel MLAs but the judgment will be subject to the outcome of the apex court order.

Speaker CP Joshi was told by the bench that he will not decide upon disqualification of the MLAs till the verdict comes.

During the hearing, a three-judge bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra asked the senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Joshi, on what grounds the disqualification has been sought.

In his reply, Sibal says the MLAs did not attend party meetings. They were indulging in various anti-party activities and gave interviews that they want a floor test.

They are presently in a hotel in Haryana, incommunicado.

Sibal read out the disqualification notices sent by the Speaker and said, till Joshi's decision, there can't be any interdiction.

The bench then asked Sibal if the party has expelled them.

"Why isn't the party expelling them if they are convinced about all this," asked the apex court.

ALSO READ | Rajasthan crisis: After Gehlot's outburst, is it the end of road for Pilot in Congress?

Sibal replied on behalf of Joshi, "I am not the party, I am the Speaker."

Voice of dissent cannot be suppressed because then democracy will shut, the bench told Sibal, adding, The MLAs have been elected by the people, can they not express their dissent?

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi pointed out that Speaker CP Joshi had given two letters in the Rajasthan High Court agreeing for deferment of proceedings but he did not put those letters on record.

The court also asked Sibal if a whip can be issued for attending a party meeting.

Sibal denied that Joshi issued a whip for the meeting and said, "It was only a notice not a whip. It is about a lot more than not attending a meeting. It is about their anti-party activities."

ALSO READ | Apologise, pay Re 1: Sachin Pilot sends notice to Rajasthan Congress MLA over horse-trading charge

The bench then said, Let the matter be heard at length. Your questions require lengthy hearing.

Sibal told the bench that time should not be given to the MLAs to do whatever they want as it will risk the existence of the Gehlot government.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, representating Sachin Pilot and the 18 other rebel MLAs, pointed out that Joshi had deferred the proceedings on his own twice in the past and stressed that issues of jurisdiction and maintainability have been argued before the High Court.

The court has slated the detailed hearing for Monday.

During the hearing, Joshi told the top court that the state high court has no jurisdiction to restrain him from conducting disqualification proceedings till July 24 against 19 dissident Congress MLAs, including sacked deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot.

Sibal referred to a famous top court verdict rendered in the 1992 Kihoto Hollohan case, in which it was held that courts can't intervene in disqualification proceedings undertaken by the Speaker under the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution.

Joshi has challenged the Rajasthan High Court's July 21 order, which said the verdict on the petition filed by the 19 MLAs, challenging the disqualification notices, will be pronounced on July 24 and asked him to defer the disqualification proceedings till then.

(With PTI inputs)
Worlds largest fly factory attracting investors eyeing aquafeed expansion

by Lisa Jackson

July 23,2020 | Source: GAA

When it comes to making a good investment, you might look to sink your savings into lucrative technology titans  think Facebook, Apple and Microsoft  or jump on initial public offerings (IPOs) for high-flying digital disruptors like Uber, Lyft or Airbnb.



Pretty soon, Wall Street might start chasing a different (albeit less sexy) investment opportunity: insect meal manufacturers. In 2020, Rabobank Corporate Investments (RCI)  the investment franchise of the Dutch multinational banking and financial services company  made an undisclosed investment in Protix, a breeder of black soldier fly (BSF) larvae for sustainable animal feed production. The Netherlands-based company breeds BSF larvae and processes them into meal and oils for fish feed and livestock, and also produces fertilizer from their waste. For investors like RCI, this latest cash injection made good financial sense.



As a large investor in food and agriculture and sustainability propositions, Rabo Corporate Investments is continuously looking for promising companies that offer solutions for todays challenges, said Arjan van der Hout, associate director at RCI.



In Protix, we see a company that tackles two of the largest issues we face today: How do we sustainably produce enough food for a fast-growing global population and how do we reduce food waste throughout the supply chain? Within a new and pioneering industry, it is key to back the right party. After extensive research into the competitive field, we chose to back Protix  which we consider an absolute frontrunner, capable of meeting the challenges of this pioneering industry.



Its not the first investment that Protix has seen since it was first founded in 2009. In June 2017, the company received 45 million ($50.5 million) in funding from Rabobank, Aqua-Spark and other investors. The RCI investment comes on the heels of the Protix opening the worlds largest insect factory in Bergen op Zoom, in southern Holland, at a cost of 40 million ($45 million).



Protix had met several key milestones  most importantly with the successful opening of the worlds first industrial-scale, largely automated production facility for insect ingredients, said van der Hout. We considered it an opportune moment to once again join with an equity investment, this time via Rabobanks captive investment arm, Rabo Corporate Investments.



Protix announced it March that it intends on using this injection of capital to scale up the production of insects in the Netherlands and expedite its international expansion. Its a win for the company  but also the aquaculture industry as a whole, explains Dr. Kevin Fitzsimmons, Department of Environmental Science at the University of Arizona.



Ramping up production levels and maintaining quality controls in the BSF meal are the last critical steps to widespread adoption of BSF as a key ingredient in aquaculture feeds, said Fitzsimmons. The demand for high-quality protein ingredients is rapidly growing in the aquaculture and poultry industries. Aquaculture in general is willing to pay more for these proteins than the poultry people, and still, virtually every sector of aquaculture identifies high feed costs as a key barrier to further growth. As economies of scale are achieved and costs of BSF meal production are decreased, the potential is virtually unlimited for BSF meal to replace fishmeal and even compete with soy and other plant-based proteins.



With investments made in some in the worlds biggest insect players, investors and scientists are optimistic, believing that BSF meal will soon become a bigger factor in the global aquafeed supply picture.

 20162020 Global Aquaculture Alliance

Theme(s): Fisheries Development and Aquaculture.
Strong success of the issuance of Bonds Convertible into New Shares and/or Exchangeable for Existing Shares (OCEANE) due 2025

Bezons, July 23rd, 2020 - Worldline (the Company) (Euronext Paris: FR0011981968), the European leader in the payment and transactional services industry has successfully placed today bonds convertible into new shares and/or exchangeable for existing shares (OCEANE) due July 30, 2025 (the Bonds) for a nominal amount of approximately 600 million being offered to qualified investors (within the meaning of Regulation (EU) 2017/1129) only in accordance with Article L. 411-2-1 of the French monetary and financial code (Code monetaire et financier) (the Offering).

Following strong investor demand, the initial amount of 500 million has been increased to approximately 600 million.

The net proceeds of the Offering will be used for the pre-financing of the contemplated acquisition of Ingenico Group S.A. and/or for general corporate purposes.



Eric Heurtaux, Group Chief Financial Officer, said:

We are pleased to announce the success of a convertible bond issuance of 600 million euros on very favorable terms, with both a negative yield and a high conversion premium for this maturity. It confirms the attractiveness of Worldline and secures excellent conditions for the pre-financing of the Ingenico acquisition. This issuance complements the bonds issued for 1 billion euros on June 30th and represents one more step towards the finalization of the Ingenico financing.



The nominal value of the Bonds has been set at 119.44, corresponding to a premium of 57.50% above Worldlines reference share price1 on the regulated market of Euronext in Paris (Euronext Paris).

The Bonds will not bear interest (zero-coupon) and will be issued at price of 126.96, i.e. 106.30% of their nominal value, corresponding to an annual gross yield-to-maturity of (1.22)%.

Story continues

The settlement-delivery of the Bonds is expected to take place on July 30, 2020 (the Issue Date).

Unless previously converted, exchanged, redeemed or purchased and cancelled, the Bonds will be redeemed at par on July 30, 2025 (the Maturity Date) (or on the following business day if this date is not a business day).





The Bonds may be redeemed prior to maturity at the discretion of the Company, under certain conditions. In particular, the Bonds may be fully redeemed earlier at par, at the Companys option at any time from July 30, 2023 until the maturity date of the Bonds, subject to giving at least 30 (but not more than 60) calendar days prior notice, if the arithmetic average, calculated over a period of 10 consecutive trading days chosen by the Company from among the 20 consecutive trading days preceding the publication of the early redemption notice, of the daily products of the Companys volume weighted average price on Euronext Paris on each trading day within the relevant period and the applicable conversion/exchange ratio on each such trading day exceeds 130% of the nominal value of the Bonds.

Upon a Change of Control of the Company or a Delisting of the shares of the Company (as these terms are defined in the terms and conditions of the Bonds), all bondholders will have an option to request the redemption of their Bonds before the Maturity Date at their nominal amount.

Application will be made for the listing of the Bonds on Euronext AccessTM (the open market of Euronext Paris) to occur within 30 days from the Issue Date.

Conversion/Exchange Right

Bondholders will be granted a conversion/exchange right of the Bonds into new and/or existing shares of the Company which they may exercise at any time from the Issue Date and until 5.00 p.m. (Paris time) on the 7th business day (inclusive) preceding the Maturity Date or the relevant early redemption date.

The conversion/exchange ratio is set at one share per Bond subject to standard adjustments in certain cases. Upon exercise of their conversion/exchange right, bondholders will receive at the option of the Company new and/or existing Companys shares carrying in all cases all rights attached to existing shares as from the date of delivery.

Lock-up undertaking from the Company

In the context of the Offering, the Company agreed to a lock-up undertaking for a period starting from the announcement of the final terms of the Bonds and ending 90 days after the Issue Date, subject to the potential issuance of shares in the context of the contemplated acquisition of Ingenico, waiver from the Joint Global Coordinators, certain customary exceptions and the issuance of shares or equity securities in the context of other M&A transactions, but provided that the lock-up is picked-up by the owner of such newly issued shares or equity securities.

Dilution

As a result of the Offering, the issue of the Bonds in an aggregate amount of 599,999,912.48 euros represented by 5,023,442 Bonds each with a nominal value of 119.44, would lead to a dilution of approximately 2.75% of the outstanding share capital, should the Company decide to exclusively deliver new shares upon conversion.





Legal framework of the Offering and placement

The Offering has been conducted pursuant to the authorization granted by the Companys combined general meeting held on June 9, 2020 (39th resolution) and has been offered to qualified investors (within the meaning of Regulation (EU) 2017/1129) only, in compliance with Article L. 411-2-1 of the French monetary and financial code (Code monetaire et financier), by way of an accelerated bookbuilt placement to institutional investors only, in France and outside of France (excluding in particular the United States of America, Canada, Australia or Japan).

Existing shareholders of the Company shall have no preferential subscription rights (nor priority subscription period) in connection with the issuance of the Bonds or the underlying new shares of the Company issued upon conversion.

Available information

The Offering and the admission to trading on Euronext AccessTM are not subject to a prospectus approved by the French Financial Market Authority (Autorite des marches financiers) (the AMF). Detailed information on Worldline, including its business, results, prospects and related risk factors are described in the Companys universal registration document (document denregistrement universel) filed by the Company with the AMF on April 29, 2020 under no D.20-0411, together with H1 2020 results, the press releases and other regulated information about the Company, on Worldlines website ( www.worldline.com ).



Contacts

Investor Relations

David Pierre-Kahn

Email: David.pierre-kahn@worldline.com

Communication

Sandrine van der Ghinst

Email: sandrine.vanderghinst@worldline.com

Press Contact

Anne-Sophie Gentil

Email: asgentil@kairosconsulting.fr



About Worldline

Worldline [Euronext: WLN] is the European leader in the payment and transactional services industry. With innovation at the core of its DNA, Worldlines core offerings include pan-European and domestic Commercial Acquiring for physical or online businesses, secured payment transaction processing for banks and financial institutions, as well as transactional services in e-Ticketing and for local and central public agencies. Thanks to a presence in 30+ countries, Worldline is the payment partner of choice for merchants, banks, public transport operators, government agencies and industrial companies, delivering cutting-edge digital services. Worldlines activities are organized around three axes: Merchant Services, Financial Services including equensWorldline and Mobility & e-Transactional Services. Worldline employs circa 12,000 people worldwide, with 2019 revenue of 2.4 billion euros. worldline.com .

Worldlines corporate purpose (raison detre) is to design and operate leading digital payment and transactional solutions that enable sustainable economic growth and reinforce trust and security in our societies. Worldline makes them environmentally friendly, widely accessible and support social transformation.







This press release does not constitute or form part of any offer or solicitation to purchase or subscribe for or to sell the Bonds or the shares of Worldline (together, the Securities) to any person in the United States (as defined in Regulation S under the US Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the Securities Act)). The Securities may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration under the Securities Act or pursuant to an available exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements thereof and applicable state or local securities laws. Worldline does not intend to register any portion of the offering of the Securities in the United States of America or to conduct a public offering of the Securities in the United States.

The Bonds have been offered only by way of a private placement to institutional investors comprising, for the purposes of this press release, professional clients and eligible counterparties, within the meaning of MiFID II (as defined hereafter). The Bonds may not be offered or sold to retail investors (as defined hereafter). No Key Information Document under PRIIPs Regulation (as defined hereafter) has been and will be prepared

Disclaimer - Important information

This press release may not be released, published or distributed, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States of America, Australia, Canada or Japan. The distribution of this press release may be restricted by law in certain jurisdictions and persons into whose possession any document or other information referred to herein comes, should inform themselves about and observe any such restriction. Any failure to comply with these restrictions may constitute a violation of the securities laws of any such jurisdiction.

No communication or information relating to the offering of the Bonds may be transmitted to the public in a country where there is a registration obligation or where an approval is required. No action has been or will be taken in any country in which such registration or approval would be required. The issuance or the subscription of the Bonds may be subject to legal and regulatory restrictions in certain jurisdictions; none of Worldline and the Managers assumes any liability in connection with the breach by any person of such restrictions.

This press release is an advertisement and not a prospectus within the meaning of Regulation (EU) 2017/1129 (the Prospectus Regulation).

This press release is not an offer to the public other than to qualified investors, an offer to subscribe or designed to solicit interest for purposes of an offer to the public other than to qualified investors in any jurisdiction, including France. The Bonds have been offered only by way of an offering in France and/or outside France (excluding the United States of America, Australia, Canada and Japan), solely to qualified investors as defined in article 2(e) of the Prospectus Regulation and in accordance with articles L. 411-1 and L. 411-2 of the French monetary and financial code (Code monetaire et financier). There will be no public offering in any country (including France) in connection with the Bonds, other than to qualified investors. This press release does not constitute a recommendation concerning the issue of the Bonds. The value of the Bonds and the shares of Worldline can decrease as well as increase. Potential investors should consult a professional adviser as to the suitability of the Bonds for the person concerned.





Prohibition of sales to European Economic Area and United Kingdom retail investors

No action has been undertaken or will be undertaken to make available any Bonds to any retail investor in the European Economic Area and in the United Kingdom. For the purposes of this provision:

the expression "retail investor" means a person who is one (or more) of the following: a retail client as defined in point (11) of Article 4(1) of Directive 2014/65/EU (as amended, "MiFID II"); or a customer within the meaning of Directive (EU) 2016/97, as amended, where that customer would not qualify as a professional client as defined in point (10) of Article 4(1) of MiFID II; or not a qualified investor as defined in the Prospectus Regulation; and

the expression offer" includes the communication in any form and by any means of sufficient information on the terms of the offer and the Bonds to be offered so as to enable an investor to decide to purchase or subscribe the Bonds.

Consequently no key information document required by Regulation (EU) No 1286/2014 (as amended, the "PRIIPs Regulation") for offering or selling the Bonds or otherwise making them available to retail investors in the European Economic Area or in the United Kingdom has been prepared and therefore offering or selling the Bonds or otherwise making them available to any retail investor in the European Economic Area or in the United Kingdom may be unlawful under the PRIIPS Regulation.

MIFID II product governance / French Retail investors, professional investors and ECPs only target market

Solely for the purposes of each manufacturers product approval process, the target market assessment in respect of the Bonds has led to the conclusion that: (i) the target market for the Bonds is French retail investors, eligible counterparties and professional clients, each as defined in MiFID II; and (ii) all channels for distribution of the Bonds to French retail investors, eligible counterparties and professional clients are appropriate. Any person subsequently offering, selling or recommending the Bonds (a distributor) should take into consideration the manufacturers target market assessment; however, a distributor subject to MiFID II is responsible for undertaking its own target market assessment in respect of the Bonds (by either adopting or refining the manufacturers target market assessment) and determining appropriate distribution channels. For the avoidance of doubt, even if the target market includes French retail investors, the manufacturers have decided that the Bonds have been offered, as part of the initial offering, only to eligible counterparties and professional clients.

France

The Bonds have not been and will not be offered or sold or cause to be offered or sold, directly or indirectly, to the public in France other than to qualified investors. Any offer or sale of the Bonds and distribution of any offering material relating to the Bonds have been and will be made in France only to qualified investors, as defined in article 2(e) of the Prospectus Regulation, and in accordance with, Articles L.411-1 and L.411-2 of the French monetary and financial code (Code monetaire et financier).





United Kingdom

This press release is addressed and directed only (i) to persons located outside the United Kingdom, (ii) to investment professionals as defined in Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005, as amended (the Order), (iii) to high net worth companies, and other persons to whom it may lawfully be communicated, falling within by Article 49(2) (a) to (d) of the Order (the persons mentioned in paragraphs (i), (ii) and (iii) all deemed relevant persons (the Relevant Persons)). The Bonds and, as the case may be, the Shares to be delivered upon exercise of the conversion rights (the Financial Instruments), are intended only for Relevant Persons and any invitation, offer or agreement related to the subscription, tender, or acquisition of the Financial Instruments may be addressed and/or concluded only with Relevant Persons. All persons other than Relevant Persons must abstain from using or relying on this document and all information contained therein.

This press release is not a prospectus which has been approved by the Financial Conduct Authority or any other United Kingdom regulatory authority for the purposes of Section 85 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

United States of America

This press release may not be released, published or distributed in or into the United States. This press release does not constitute or form a part of an offer of securities for sale or an offer of securities for sale or of any offer or solicitation to purchase securities in the United States. The Bonds and the shares deliverable upon conversion or exchange of the Bonds described in this press release have not been, and will not be, registered under the Securities Act, or the securities laws of any state or other jurisdiction in the United States, and such securities may not be offered, sold, pledged or otherwise transferred in the United States absent registration under the Securities Act or pursuant to an available exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements thereof and applicable state or local securities laws. The Bonds will be offered or sold only outside of the United States in offshore transactions in accordance with Regulation S under the Securities Act. Terms used in this paragraph shall have the meaning given to them by Regulation S under the Securities Act.

Australia, Canada and Japan

The Bonds may not and will not be offered, sold or purchased in Australia, Canada or Japan. The information contained in this press release does not constitute an offer of securities for sale in Australia, Canada or Japan.

The distribution of this press release in certain countries may constitute a breach of applicable law.







1 The reference share price is equal to the volume-weighted average price of Worldline shares recorded on Euronext Paris from the launch of the Offering today until the determination of the final terms (pricing) of the Bonds on the same day, i.e. 75.8343.





Attachment




India has experienced hands and will emerge with flying colours, declares Inspector General Gurdip Singh Uban (retd).

IMAGE: Indian Army T-90 tanks and BMP infantry combat vehicles show their might in the Ladakh theatre during a military display conducted during Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's visit to Ladakh, July 17, 2020.

Immersed as the world was, in combating an unprecedented pandemic, China upped the ante by its military manoeuvres and territorial onslaughts on nations in the South China Sea, cartographic aggressions in the Indo Pacific region, combined with an aggressive display of naval and air power.

Forays into Indian territory were an adjunct. Nations at the receiving end scampered to put up a united front against this unexpected rampage.

The US responded by sending two carrier battle groups with their substantial lethal assets of aircraft, cruisers, guided missiles, destroyers and submarines to patrol the South China Sea.

Also to maintain surveillance over the choke point of the Malacca Straits through which some 94,000 vessels pass each year carrying a fourth of the world trade.

There was accelerated focus on the QUAD and a desire for a combined front at international forums.

Even as these events were unfolding, China engineered a significant manoeuver with wide ranging ramifications.

China has signed a $400 billion deal with Iran spanning 25 years. It encompasses a wide range of important sectors of Iranian economy such as banking, ports, rail and telecommunications.

It incorporates joint training by their Armed Forces which covers weapons and equipment, and the sharing of intelligence.

Simultaneously, India has been eased out of the ongoing development of the Chabahar Port, the Chabahar-Zehadan rail link as also the development and exploitation of the Farzad-B oil field on which the ONGC was working, even as the IRCON had been working on the rail link for the last four years.

Even more disconcerting is the reported hand over of another port of Jash, merely 300 km from Chabahar, thus denying India access to Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics.

With India hampered by US sanctions on Iran, this was something waiting to happen.

Reeling under economic sanctions and unable to exploit its oil reserves of 10% of the worlds proven oil reserves as also 15% of its gas, there will be little criticism to this deal over the proverbial China debt trap.

The situation can still be retrieved, as this deal has its opponents within Iran, even as it hampers the US trade agreements with the Central Asian Republics.

IMAGE: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, left, with Xi Jinping, president and general secretary of the Communist party of China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, November 2, 2018. Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters

Simultaneously Imran Khan has inaugurated the Daimar Basha dam which has been built by China in Pakistan occupied Kashmir and signed up for another two, namely Azad Pattan and Kohalu, all part of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor to which India has objected to vigorously.

Ultimately, it boils down to dexterity and speed in decision making while putting money down on the table.

A quote from Shakespeare would drive the point closer home -- 'There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads onto fortune: omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows.'

Closer home, towards the end of April, the Chinese Western Theatre Command having completed exercises on the edge of the Gobi desert took to the Xinjiang highway with two motorised divisions.

In a well rehearsed move they branched off on to a series of feeder roads along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh.

Once the stage had been set, they initiated multiple incursions across the LAC.

A mirror deployment by the Indian Army resulted in a clash in the Galwan valley about which much has been written.

After the Doklam incident, this was the next provocation.

Make no mistake, the Doklam plateau is of extreme strategic value poised as it is to dominate the Chumbi Valley dagger which in turn is the sword of Damocles hanging over the 'Chicken's Neck' of the Siliguri corridor.

Both sides have now agreed to a phased withdrawal, and the creation of buffer zones with limits of patrolling to avoid any further clashes.

The military commanders on the ground will no doubt ensure that the PLA withdrawal is confined not only to the roads, but includes the crucial heights that dominate these roads.

Of even greater importance is the amassing of PLA mechanised forces on the Depsang Plains which is a direct threat to our airfield at Daulat Beg Oldie.

To my mind, this is just a pause in an extended game of 'check mate'.

As mentioned in my previous article, we are dealing with a bellicose neighbour, with an obsession for reassertion of rights over land which their predecessors may have acquired through conquest or guile.

Their own history of submission for over a century to the Mongols, then to the Japanese, followed by the colonial powers that ruled over them are glossed over, as of little consequence.

China has land borders with 14 neighbours covering an estimated 22,100 km.

As its economic status burgeoned so did its military muscle. Based on a medieval mindset of the Middle Kingdom, the centre of the universe and head of the Confucian family, China has embarked on claims based on perceived imbalances of treaties forced on them when the country was weak.

Some of these have been resolved after bloody clashes such as with Russia and Vietnam, while others were resolved through a combination of lucrative offers of money, trade and guile.

In most cases, the end result has been such that victory can be claimed by both sides.

Russia accepted half of China's claim, Kazakhstan was given lucrative economic deals, who in turn promised help with the Uighurs, and Kyrgyzstan retained 70% of the land, ceding 30% to China.

Tajikistan gave up 1,000 square kms, less that 5% of the claim, while the Myanmar issue was settled with an oil deal.

Generally, nations wish to avoid war and prefer a settlement.

India with a strong central leadership, which has an overwhelming majority in Parliament, and with battle hardened armed forces, is no pushover.

We have displayed a strong resolve with our build up post Galwan. The lockdown for COVID-19 not only helped stem the rapid spread of the disease, but also gave time to plan the strategy ahead.

Now that there is a pause, it is time to plan our strategy ahead for our Nnorthern borders.

The India-China border stretches over 4,056 km (2,520 miles) and traverses one Union territory (Ladakh) and the four states of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.

Mobilisation of considerable sections of the army, air force, navy and other assets has a high economic cost.

Factor into this the stocking of supplies for the additional troops and equipment which will be positioned there during the winter months when temperatures plunge well below zero.

Add to this, the value of weapon systems and platforms being procured hurriedly from across the world.

An economic cost has been imposed on us, even without a single shot having been fired.

As a soldier who has witnessed firsthand the death, destruction and devastation of the 1971 and Kargil Wars, I would opt for the adage of Sun Tzu: 'The supreme Art of Warfare is to subdue the enemy without fighting.'

Out of the box solutions, based on years of experience, which cannot be stated in articles or debated on television channels, could and should be examined.

We have very competent and experienced hands dealing with the current situation, and we will no doubt, emerge with flying colours.

Inspector General Gurdip Singh Uban (retd) commanded special forces and served as a senior instructor at the Army War College.

Feature Production: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com
A former Google engineer has suggested that the company may have an internal blacklist of conservative news outlets. The claim came after several conservative-leaning online publications including Breitbart, The National Pulse, The Drudge Report, Newsbusters, The Bongino Report, and Human Events briefly vanished from Google search results earlier this week.

It appears to have revealed the existence of another blacklist that disproportionately targets conservatives, Mike Wacker, former Google engineer, said in a message to Mediaite.

The glitch is that sites on this blacklist disappeared from Google search results, but the existence of the list is very much by design. And that raises a major question: Why was this blacklist created in the first place, and what else is it used for? Wacker questioned.

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The aforementioned sites did not appear in Google search results for several hours Tuesday morning and early afternoon. Left-leaning website, Occupy Democrats, was also missing from search results for several hours. Legacy media sites such as The New York Times and Washington Post, meanwhile, were not.

Google said it was a technical error and was unrelated to the content or ideology of the sites affected. We are aware of an issue with the site: command that may fail to show some or any indexed pages from a website, the company said without offering any explanation. We are investigating this and any potentially related issues.

Google has fixed the issue since and all the affected sites are now showing up in search results. However, the whole incident has raised a few eyebrows.

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Does Google have a blacklist of conservative news outlets?

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, in his testimony to Congress in December 2018 had said that the company does not manually intervene on any search result. This was the reason why search results for the word idiot showed pictures of President Donald Trump at the top.

However, Wacker suggested that recent events are manually curated and are a product of an algorithm created by a human or an AI. Wacker was fired from Google last year amid a row over his conservative ideology.

His remarks suggest that Google may have a blacklist aimed at suppressing certain conservative news outlets. Normally, they penalize those sites by throttling the search results to suppress their visibility. But this time around, they ended up blocking them completely. Possibly the AI may have found something very offensive on those sites.

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Dr. Robert Epstein, a researcher who has argued Google has the power to sway up to 10 percent of American voters in the 2020 election, also agreed with Wackers assessment. A person or algorithm at Google likely added breitbart.com and other URLs to one or more of the companys blacklists. Then, perhaps after some pushback, someone pulled those URLs off the blacklists, Epstein said.

This isnt the first time Google is facing scrutiny over possible censorship of search results. In 2019, some leaked internal documents suggested the search giant was seeking to rank websites according to quality.

The documents released by the right-leaning Project Veritas showed Fox News ranking below CNN and MSNBC. State-backed Russia Today was well above Breitbart in that list. The recent incident may lead to enhanced scrutiny ahead of the 2020 election.
MT. CRAWFORD, Va., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- InterChange Group has signed an agreement with Secure Futures Solar of Staunton to install and operate solar panels on its new cold storage warehouse in Mt. Crawford, located just south of Harrisonburg. The facility's solar array will generate a total capacity of 1.3 megawatts of power, more than any solar power system installed at a cold storage facility in Virginia. Along with 1.6 megawatts of solar panels that Secure Futures installed on four buildings for InterChange in 2019, the company will now boast a total of nearly 3 megawatts of solar generating capacity.

The solar panels to be installed at the InterChange cold storage warehouse will offset 70 percent of the electricity used by the facility's operations while generating enough clean energy to run the equivalent of about 160 average homes and avoid more than 1400 tons of carbon dioxide pollution per year. The system is projected to be completed by the fall of 2020.

Solar energy is a key feature of the new cold storage facility, which is being constructed in phases using state-of-the-art technology to serve growing demand from food and beverage producers in the Shenandoah Valley. Multiple rooms will offer spaces with temperatures ranging from -10 degrees Fahrenheit up to 34 degrees. The first part of the project, a building with 220,000 square feet, was opened in September of 2019, and will host the solar installation.

"We are pleased to continue our investment in sustainable energy and partnership with Secure Futures" Devon Anders, President of InterChange Group, Inc. "Our 2019 investment has proven that we can produce clean energy for our faciltiies and reduce our carbon footprint. With the amount of energy needed to store frozen food day in and day out, we are confident in deploying enhanced solar and metering technology to further minimize our effect on the environment."

Using 3,421 monocrystalline solar panels from top-tier manufacturer Heilene, the solar energy system is expected to deliver electric power at a lower cost than the facility's local utility, Dominion, yielding a 15% internal rate of return on investment over the 35-year lifespan of the solar panels. During that time, Secure Futures will operate and maintain the solar power system to maximize energy production.

"InterChange is leading the logistics and supply chain management industry in its use of clean energy both within Virginia and nationwide," said Anthony Smith, CEO and Founder of Secure Futures. "Generating solar power on site offers key advantages to InterChange over other cold storage providers. They'll save money on their operations while helping the major consumer brands who use the facility to meet their own commitments to go green."

During the Covid-19 crisis, cold storage warehouses have proven to be a key link in the national food system. After years of food sellers stocking minimal product inventory in warehouses under the "just in time" approach to supply chain management, in March a spike in consumer demand cleared out weeks of inventory at grocery stores in just a few days. To keep shelves stocked in the future, over the last few months food retailers and distributors have been competing against each other to secure warehouse space.

Even after the coronavirus pandemic recedes, the industry will continue to require more warehouse space as a cushion against weather emergencies and other disruptions.

"Organizations must have redundancy in the supply chain," Abe Eshkenazi, head of the Association for Supply Chain Management, recently told Food Logistics Magazine. "Redundancy means keeping excess capacity or backup over the entire supply chain to maintain regular functions in case an incident disrupts business."

In response to longer term demand for warehouse space in the food and beverage industry, InterChange had already opened the first part of its cold storage facility before Covid hit. However, recent stresses on the supply chain have added urgency to expanding the facility, which can grow to 600,000 square feet and more than 80,000 pallet positions. To increase the building's resilience, the solar power system will be designed to add battery storage in the future to provide backup power in case grid electricity is interrupted, as the economics make it more feasible.

About InterChange Group, Inc.

Founded in 1993, InterChange Group, Inc. is a regional Third Party Logistics (3PL) provider and developer based in Harrisonburg, Va. With a building portfolio of nearly 2.7 million SF, over 500 acres of prime industrial/commercial land and a staff of highly experienced warehousemen, InterChange is positioned to meet the supply chain and distribution needs of a variety of industries. For more information: www.interchangeco.com.

About Secure Futures, LLC

As a market and policy leader, Secure Futures builds, owns, manages and funds affordable Resilient Solar Solutions for hospitals, schools and businesses. Headquartered in Staunton, Va., the company combines state-ofthe-art solar technology with an innovative business model to make commercial scale solar readily affordable in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, helping customers to realize the economic, environmental, and community benefits of solar energy. In 2017, Secure Futures became a Certified B Corporation, having met the exacting standards for social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability established by the nonprofit B Lab. For more information: www.securefutures.solar.

Media Contacts:

Chris Thompson

VP of Business Development

InterChange Group

(540) 578-1264

[email protected]

Erik Curren

Marketing Advisor

Secure Futures Solar

(540) 466-6128

[email protected]

SOURCE Secure Futures LLC

Related Links

http://www.securefutures.us


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New York officials began the massive task of getting lower Manhattan back to normal yesterday after cops in riot gear cleared out the remaining Occupy City Hall protesters.

The park outside City Hall will be on lockdown for weeks as clean-up crews move in to clear the huge amount of debris and graffiti from nearby buildings and statues.

During his daily briefing, the mayor said NYPD officers were sent in because the protest movement which began a month ago had been growing smaller. He also said he was not influenced by President Donald Trumps threats to send in federal agents but was a health and safety issue they had been looking at for days.

'What we saw change over the last few weeks was the gathering there got smaller and smaller, was less and less about protests and more and more became an area where homeless folks were gathering. I said repeatedly we do always respect the right to protest, but we have to think about health and safety first and the health and safety issues were growing. So it was time to take action,' de Blasio said.

The officers moved in at 3.40am yesterday, pushing around 70 remaining occupants north on Centre Street to Foley Square, where the crowd began to disperse.

Police said they gave the occupants a 10 minute warning before the Defund the Police activists 'left voluntarily'.

But the protesters left behind scribblings of graffiti lining the floor, walls and the Brooklyn City Hall subway station after the month-long demonstration, as well as some more unsanitary reminders of their stay.

Yesterday officers were busy throwing the tents that the activists had been sleeping into garbage trucks.

And cleaning crews were washing the graffiti from the walls and floor around City Hall.

A Manhattan Transport Authority boss revealed to the New York Post that the protesters had turned the subway gates, which they had camped around, into a toilet.

Clean up crews are seen scrubbing the outside of a Subway booth on Wednesday

A Manhattan Transport Authority boss revealed to the New York Post that the protesters had turned the City Hall subway gates (pictured), which they had camped around, into a toilet

The goal of the Occupy City Hall demonstration  similar to the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011  had been to secure at least a $1 billion cut from the NYPD budget

What began as a serious and festive call for change in the wake of the police killing of Black American George Floyd, in an area adjacent to New York's City Hall, now have the look, feel and smell of an occupied shanty town as seen on Thursday, 2 July, 2020, at City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan.

The MTA chief said: 'All the people who were here were going to the bathroom in the vents.

'They were s******g and p*****g in the vents. They were using this as a facility, as a bathroom. It's unbelievable what's in there.'

A group of transit workers have been tasked with removing the brown sludge from between the subway grates, from near the Citi Bike rack and on the plaza on the corner of Chambers and Centre streets.

An MTA spokeswoman said a vacuum team was deployed to remove everything at the entrance to the subway, adding that 'nothing got onto the trains.' The defecation was accompanied by cigarette butts and other trash.

Anthony Lupo, 31, who lives nearby, said he saw people from the group relieving themselves 'right out there in public for everyone to see.'

Occupy City Hall is cleared out by NYPD Police Officers after months of occupation by BLM Protesters and homeless people

Occupy City Hall is cleared out by NYPD Police Officers after months of occupation by BLM Protesters and homeless people. A heavy NYPD presence surrounded the park and cleaning crews removed graffiti and signs from the area

Pictured: City cleaners use sprays to remove graffiti from the New York City Hall subway station after a month-long sit in

Occupy City Hall is cleared out by NYPD Police Officers after months of occupation by BLM Protesters and homeless people

Sanitation workers clean up graffiti yesterday, after the Occupy City Hall protesters were cleared overnight by police - New York police removed the remaining Occupy City Hall protesters out of a month-long encampment

'The graffiti is just another manifestation of the city in decline,' Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said yesterday.

In total, seven people were taken into custody during Wednesday night's operation to remove the squatters but charges are still pending.

One officer was injured after being struck by a brick, police said. Whether any protesters suffered injuries could not immediately be confirmed by the department.

After successfully moving the crowd on, the officers then began to take down the makeshift tents and remnants of the encampment, which first began on June 23 as a protest for police reform in response to the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor.

Video footage captured the moment the officers, donning heavy gear, moved in on protesters who were heard chanting as they approached.

ABC 7 observed two people being taken into custody. One man also appeared to have suffered a medical condition and was taken away in an ambulance.

The NYPD temporarily shut down the near-by Brooklyn Bridge while they carried out the operation.

Tents are seen strewn out across the floor out-front City Hall as clean up crews prepare for weeks of work ahead

After successfully moving the crowd on, the officers then began to take down the makeshift tents and remnants of the encampment

The clean up will occur over a several week period after the encampment stood for more than a month

The goal of the Occupy City Hall demonstration  similar to the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011  had been to secure at least a $1 billion cut from the NYPD budget.

After the reform was approved by City Hall earlier this month, and signed into law by Mayor Bill de Blasio last week, organizers of the protests and many of its members left. Only a few stayed, with the majority of the crowd made up by homeless people.

De Blasio's administration has long stated homeless encampments are no longer permitted in the city, and had been closely monitoring the encampment to determine if it was still operating as some form of protest.
The ministry of labour and employment says Festus Keyamo, its minister of state, will supervise the recruitment of 774,000 citizens for ...

The ministry of labour and employment says Festus Keyamo, its minister of state, will supervise the recruitment of 774,000 citizens for the special public works programme.





The ministry said this in reaction to the resolutions of both chambers of the national assembly which asked that the minister be barred from supervising the recruitment process.





The national assembly said instead of the minister, the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) should handle the recruitment exercise.





Keyamo had clashed with some lawmakers when he appeared before a legislative panel over the programme.

The lawmakers accused Keyamo of hijacking the programme from the NDE, but the minister fired back, alleging they were seeking to allocate job slots to themselves.





The national assembly later suspended programme.





TheCable had reported that President Muhammadu Buhari gave Keyamo the go-ahead to execute the programme, despite the position of the lawmakers.





Speaking with The Punch on Wednesday, Charles Akpan, deputy director, press and public relations for the ministry of labour, said Keyamo is still in charge of the recruitment exercise.





He said nothing has changed since Buhari gave the go-ahead.





Akpan said the exercise would be supervised by Keyamo, under whose office the NDE operates.





The special works programme is with the NDE, but our ministry is the supervising ministry for NDE and because of that, we monitor their activities and the ministry of labour was given the responsibility to handle that assignment, and it is under the supervision of the minister of state, he said.





So, whatever the directorate does, it would report to the minister of state; so nothing has changed.





Keyamo had warned Nasir Laden, NDE director-general, of severe penalties if he further breaches the directives of his ministry on the recruitment.





He asked the DG to halt further arrangements with the national assembly committees on an alternative plan to implement the programme.




SHELTON  Police Chief Shawn Sequeira fired three police officers: two for allegedly failing to properly investigate a domestic violence complaint against another police officer and the third for allegedly covering it up.

Sequeira said an internal affairs investigation led to the termination of officers John Napoleone and Michael McClain and Lt. Dave Moore for dereliction of duty. Napoleone and Moore are the police union president and vice president, respectively.

Domestic violence should not be ignored  and I sincerely apologize to the reported victim, Sequeira said. The actions of these officers are not a reflection of the Shelton Police Department. We stand for professionalism, respect and integrity. No misconduct such as this will be tolerated.

The three Shelton officers were called to headquarters Monday afternoon and were asked to hand in their guns and clear out their lockers.

Union attorney Barbara Resnick called the dismissals completely baseless and without just cause.

Resnick said the officers will file grievances over the terminations.

This is a pretextual resurrection of an investigation done by the chief and command staff over a year ago that found no misconduct whatsoever on the officers part, Resnick said.

Sequeira said the initial internal affairs investigation began in August 2019 and was completed in November by Moore. The chief said the report, in which Moore cleared Napoleone and McClain, was found to be incomplete, leading to the additional internal affairs investigation.

More disciplinary actions are expected before the investigation is closed, Sequeira said.

The chief said Napoleone and McClain were fired for not properly investigating a complaint at the apartment of since-fired Bridgeport police officer Steven Figueroa and another Bridgeport police officer. Moore was fired, according to Sequeira, for attempting to cover up Napoleone and McClains mishandling of the incident.

According to the Figueroas arrest affidavit, a neighbor at his apartment complex called in a disturbance around 4:45 a.m. June 29, 2019, that woke up her and her daughter. She told police it was a loud fight and that she could hear someone was being thrown to the ground several times and a woman crying and screaming.

The witness told police, the sounds were not that of just normal arguing, they were horrific and it sounded like extreme violence was taking place. I was in fear for the screaming woman and did not go back to sleep that night, the affidavit said.

Napoleone and McClain were sent to check out the call but, Sequeira said, failed to perform a complete investigation. The two officers knocked on the door but did not identify themselves as Shelton police officers, he said.

The alleged victim later told police she heard knocks but could not respond because Figueroa had allegedly covered her mouth and threatened her if she made a sound, according to Sequeira. After Napoleone and McClain left, the victim was sexually assaulted, Sequeira said.

You neglected to properly investigate the reported domestic violence incident and your dereliction to duty caused further harm and serious injury to the victim, Sequeira wrote in the termination letters to Napoleone and McClain. The fact that you did not perform a complete and thorough investigation resulted in you failing to speak with the known complainant, identify the involved parties and examine their criminal history amongst other critical investigatory steps.

Figueroa had previously been arrested on breach of peace, harassment charges and for violation of a protective order.

A proper interview would have revealed the identity of the Bridgeport Officer involved who was actually on administrative leave and previously arrested four times for domestic violence for which his firearms were seized by Bridgeport Police Department, Sequeira wrote. Domestic violence is a very serious matter and its extraordinarily important the victims be able to trust law enforcement to do their job properly. Your actions/inactions allowed for a further assault to take place.

In the letters, Sequeira said had it not been a Bridgeport Police Officer, the investigation would have been handled differently.

Figueroa was ultimately charged with first-degree sexual assault, third-degree assault, unlawful restraint, threatening, risk of injury to a child and violating conditions of release for the June 29, 2019, Shelton case. Those charges are pending in court.

After Figueroas arrest, Shelton Police conducted an internal investigation, led by Moore, into the actions by Napoleone and McClain.

Napoleone and McClain stated during that investigation that the noise the neighbor heard was probably coming from a loud television. Sequeira said a second internal affairs investigation  including a text message provided by the dispatcher  proved that the officers had details that the apartment was home to the Bridgeport officers and cast doubt that the noise the neighbor heard was from a TV.

Moores investigation knowingly and intentionally omitted vital information in order to paint Napoleone and McClain in a better light, Sequeira said.

There is clear and convincing information that your investigation report contained untruthful statements, omitted statements, contained false & misleading information, and showed a lack of integrity, which appeared to be compromised by your close relationships with the subjects, Sequeira wrote in Moores termination letter.

Both Moore and McClain had been subject of numerous disciplinary measures, according to Sequeira, which also led to the decision to terminate.

In one instance Moore allegedly failed to properly supervise an investigation of a school bus driver who was driving under the influence, his termination letter stated.

Just like with the Figueroa incident, it appears that the protection of fellow police officers is more important to you than the protection of the citizens of the City of Shelton, Sequeira wrote.

Mayor Mark Lauretti said Monday that he expected the investigation would result in more disciplinary actions against other police department staff. He also said There has been this parochial protectionism inherent in the union mindset when it comes to policing known law enforcement officers who live in a community.

Lauretti said, at the end of the day, a woman was sexually assaulted.

You will see more heads roll, the mayor said. This is a sad commentary, especially knowing something could have been done to prevent that.

brian.gioiele@hearstmediact.com
China launched a major Mars mission on Thursday in what it hopes will become its first successful landing on the Red Planet.

The mission, known as Tianwen -1 will see a rover, lander and orbiter launched aboard a Long March 5 rocket from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island on Thursday. It is China's first solo mission to Mars after a previous attempt with Russia failed several years ago.

The state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation declared the launch a success and said the Tianwen-1 rover had been successfully transferred to the "predetermined orbit," according to an official post on WeChat.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is gearing up for a launch of NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover which is scheduled for July 30.

China's Tianwen-1 will arrive at its destination seven months after launch. The orbiter will orbit Mars while the rover and lander will make a journey to the surface of the Red Planet.

Scientists from the world's second-largest economy hope to map the geological structure of Mars, investigate the characteristics of its soil and water-ice distribution, study the surface material composition and more broadly understand the environment on the planet, according to the mission's chief scientist.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 23:01:41|Editor: huaxia

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YUANWANG-5, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Three space tracking ships of China's Yuanwang fleet completed maritime monitoring of the country's first Mars probe launch in the Pacific Ocean Thursday.

A Long March-5 rocket blasted off Thursday from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in the southern province of Hainan, sending China's Mars probe into the Earth-Mars transfer orbit.

About six minutes after the liftoff, Yuanwang-6 detected and locked its targets, and carried out measuring of the rocket, and control and monitoring of the Mars orbiter.

The other two tracking ships, Yuanwang-5 and Yuanwang-7, then took turns to complete their missions.

The monitoring process lasted nearly 30 minutes.

As scheduled, Yuanwang-5 and Yuanwang-7 will return to China, while Yuanwang-6 will sail to its next mission area for satellite monitoring. Enditem
BRIDGEWATER, N.S. - RCMP say they continue to get reports of sightings of Tobias Charles Doucette, the fugitive accused of stabbing a police sergeant, assaulting a woman and injuring a police dog, as the manhunt for him enters its third day.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRIDGEWATER, N.S. - RCMP say they continue to get reports of sightings of Tobias Charles Doucette, the fugitive accused of stabbing a police sergeant, assaulting a woman and injuring a police dog, as the manhunt for him enters its third day.

Police spokeswoman Cpl. Jennifer Clarke said Thursday none of the sightings have been substantiated.

Tobias Charles Doucette is seen in this undated police handout photo. A manhunt is underway in Bridgewater, N.S., for a suspect accused of domestic assault and stabbing a police officer in the neck. Bridgewater police and the RCMP are searching for Doucette, who has been charged with attempted murder of a Bridgewater police sergeant and assault on Doucette's common law partner. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Bridgewater Police *MANDATORY CREDIT*

Doucette has been charged with attempted murder after he allegedly struck an officer in the neck with an edged weapon when police responded to a domestic violence call Monday night at a hotel in Bridgewater, N.S.

The suspect, who is in his 30s and from Cape Breton, was briefly spotted by an RCMP dog and handler Tuesday, but police said he escaped into nearby woods after stabbing the dog with a stick in Conquerall Bank, N.S.

Although the operation is being lead by the RCMP, police in Bridgewater said in a news release Thursday the search is being concentrated in an area south of the town, located on Nova Scotia's South Shore.

Bridgewater police said they were continuing a criminal investigation into the incident that took place at the hotel. The force said its injured officer  Sgt. Matthew Bennett  was recovering in hospital and was in stable condition.

"Out of respect for the privacy of Sgt. Bennett and his family, we will be providing no additional updates at this time," Bridgewater police said.

The woman described as the suspect's common-law partner was treated for minor injuries sustained in Monday's incident.

The condition of the injured police dog was described as stable.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2020.
President Donald Trump on Thursday refused to condemn QAnon, saying he knows "nothing" about the growing, yet baseless, conspiracy theory that falsely alleges the existence of a satanic "deep state" apparatus that supports a child sex trafficking ring.

I know nothing about it, Trump told town hall moderator Savannah Guthrie, pivoting to violence among groups on the left. After Guthrie asked Trump to disavow QAnon, he said he believes its followers are "very much against pedophilia," affirming one of its central tenants, but repeatedly said he was unfamiliar with the beliefs.

Trump has retweeted some Twitter accounts tied to the conspiracy theory and has previously said he didn't know much about it while offering praise for its believers.

QAnon followers have spread misinformation about COVID-19 and a variety of other topics. While social media accounts spreading falsehoods connected to QAnon beliefs have faced crackdowns from tech platforms in recent months, the theory continues to flourish on mainstream and "dark web" sites.

After Trump's announcement of his positive COVID-19 test, believers in QAnon sought to decode the wording of his tweet as a sign that the president was poised to arrest former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for her role in the made-up scandal of the sex trafficking ring. They suggested, without evidence, that Trump actually doesn't have the virus at all but was sending a message that he's about to go on a mission to root out the "evil cabal." Trump's role in rooting out the fabricated cabal is a central theme of the theory.

Social media teems with conspiracy theories from QAnon and Trump critics after president's positive COVID-19 test

A deeper look at QAnon: How the theory and other dark forces are radicalizing Americans as the COVID-19 pandemic rages and election looms

As QAnon has spread in recent months, experts who study the beliefs and growing movement behind it say it has trickled into mainstream politics and conversation.

Story continues

"It has grown very rapidly, and .... there are really no indications that it is going to slow down," Travis View, who has been researching QAnon for the past two years and co-hosts the QAnon Anonymous podcast, told USA TODAY in July.

Here's a look at QAnon, where it originated and what its followers believe:

Supporters of President Donald Trump hold up their phones with messages referring to the QAnon conspiracy theory at a campaign rally at Las Vegas Convention Center on February 21, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

What is QAnon and where did it come from?

The QAnon conspiracy theory baselessly claims that there is a "deep state" apparatus run by political elites, business leaders and Hollywood celebrities who are also pedophiles and actively working against Trump.

View described it as a meta conspiracy theory that provides an underlying narrative for other baseless theories. According to View, its followers believe that this "worldwide cabal of satanic pedophiles" run "all the major levers of power," including government, media, business and Hollywood.

QAnon theorists believe that were it not for Trump's election in 2016, the cabal would stay in power, View says. But Trump, working with the military, is actively putting an end to it, according to the theory.

An anonymous poster named Q shares cryptic tips that followers then decode to learn the ways in which the "deep state" controls the world, how Trump is battling and marching orders to join in, said Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters for America, a nonprofit that researches misinformation in the United States.

The boogaloo movement is gaining momentum: Who are the boogaloo 'bois' and what do they want?

View said the first of these tips, dubbed Q drops, was posted on 4chan on Oct. 28, 2017, by a poster claiming to have insider information about the government. Q drops are "usually nonsense," View said, but followers believe they are decoding these messages.

Carusone described it like an activity or "a choose your own adventure" for followers.

Part of what makes the QAnon theory so powerful is the trust that the original poster built in followers, Carusone said.

The platforms where the Q drops occur have changed over time, Carusone said. And followers of the theory share QAnon content on all major social media platforms.

Fact check: Ellen, Oprah, many others are not under house arrest for child sex trafficking

What do QAnon supporters believe?

There are a wide range of conspiracy theories that QAnon supporters believe, View said.

Many falsely believe that mainstream U.S. media outlets receive an email at 4 a.m. every morning dictating what to cover. Others bizarrely say adrenochrome, a chemical compound, is the drug of the elite, and the only way to get the substance is to torture and kill children.

Others falsely say that John F. Kennedy Jr., didn't die in a plane crash. The furniture retailer Wayfair was recently the target of an unsubstantiated QAnon belief that the company was trafficking children through listings of products with inflated prices.

"It sounds completely nutty, and it is," Carusone said.

For many, these theories become obsessive and can take over a person's life, View said. "We often see QAnon followers alienate family members because they believe they have been granted a key to the universe," he said.

Many continue to adhere to the belief system, however, because they see themselves as evangelizing Q's message, Carusone said.

Don't be fooled: How to spot debunked QAnon conspiracy theories seeping into mainstream social media

Another central tenant of the QAnon theory is that there will be a "storm" during which 100,000 politicians, celebrities and business leaders involved in the "deep state" ring will be rounded up and held accountable, View said.

The QAnon theory connected to Trump's positive COVID-19 test being a sign of the coming "storm" is not the first time followers have spread coronavirus misinformation, either.

For example, a misleading and inaccurate conclusion spread on social media tied to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. The false claim said that only 6% of reported COVID-19 deaths were the result of the coronavirus.

Trump retweeted the claim from QAnon supporter "Mel Q," which was removed by Twitter as a violation of its rules.

The CDC report actually read, For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.

Epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz explained on Medium that the figure cited in the CDC report means "that in 94% of cases people who had COVID-19 also developed other issues, or had other problems at the same time."

The CDC defines a comorbidity as when more than one disease or condition is present in the same person at the same time. A comorbidity is often a chronic condition that a person can live with, such as arthritis, diabetes or obesity.

Another false QAnon claim tied to the COVID-19 pandemic said Dr. Anthony Fauci had been arrested. Doctored and out of context photos were used to spread the myth.

What's the tie between Trump, other politicians and QAnon?

In August, Trump addressed QAnon, saying he didn't know much about it but offered praise for its believers.

"Well I don't know much about the movement, other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate," Trump told reporters during a White House briefing. "These are people that don't like seeing what's going on in places like Portland, Chicago and New York and other cities and states. ... I've heard these are people that love our country."

Trump has also retweeted accounts that promote the QAnon conspiracy theory more than 200 times, according to Media Matters for America.

According to the group, Trump family members, including Donald Trump Jr., have amplified QAnon accounts on social media, too.

Carusone said many of Trump's QAnon retweets have come in recent months, fueling the theory's growth and leading to more politicians openly supporting it.

Media Matters for America has also tracked 75 current or former 2020 congressional candidates who are tied to QAnon in some way. The group says that at least 24 candidates that will be on voters' ballots in November have endorsed, given credence to or promoted QAnon beliefs.

"There are going to be Q members of Congress," Carusone said. While some may distance themselves from messages explicitly tied QAnon and its symbols, the underlying beliefs are here to stay in U.S. politics, Carusone added.

"The core critique that Q is dabbling into gets at something that a lot of people believe and feel, especially right now: That there is this elite that has impunity, that gets away with anything that it wants," Carusone said.

Boogaloo crackdown: Facebook bans movement, gives it same designation as hate groups and terrorists

Is QAnon dangerous?

A Yahoo News report from August 2019 says that the FBI identified fringe conspiracy theories as a domestic extremist threat, and it specifically mentions QAnon.

The majority of QAnon supporters say they are peaceful and most of their activities remain online, View said.

"The danger is essentially that there have been multiple instances where QAnon followers have taken their beliefs offline in violent or dangerous ways," he added.

View cited multiple cases of violence connected to QAnon believers.

In June 2018, Matthew Wright, motivated by his belief in QAnon, blocked the bridge near the Hoover Dam with a homemade armored vehicle. He later pleaded guilty to making a terrorist threat.

Anthony Comello, accused of killing Frank Cali, the alleged boss of the Gambino crime family, was influenced by right-wing hate speech and conspiracy theories, his lawyer said. He appeared in court with the letter "Q" written on his hand.

The Pizzagate conspiracy theory, a sort of precursor to the QAnon theory, culminated in a man driving from North Carolina to Washington, D.C., where he started firing an assault-style rifle at Comet Ping Pong pizzeria. No one was killed, but the event brought the fringe theory  in this case that there was a child sex trafficking ring operating in the basement of the pizzeria  into the national spotlight.

View said the Pizzagate theory was based on a distorted attempt at decoding emails from John Podesta published by Wikileaks, and it plays on many similar themes of QAnon.

View said that posters believed to be Q have never openly advocated for violence  though they have organized target harassment of people.

"There's this whole 'the ends justify the means' idea," Carusone said of QAnon followers. "You have to be willing to rise up to save these children."

Contributing: Joel Shannon, John Fritze, Nathan Bomey and Courtney Subramanian, USA TODAY; Richard Ruelas, Arizona Republic; Courtney Marabella, Asbury Park Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: QAnon conspiracy theory: What is it, how connected to Trump, COVID
On Tuesday, July 28, at 10.00, the press center of the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency will host a press conference entitled "Towards Hepatitis Free Future," dedicated to World Hepatitis Day. Participants include Ukraine's Deputy Health Minister, Chief Health Officer Viktor Liashko; Acting Director General of the Public Health Centre of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine Ihor Kuzin; President of the All-Ukrainian Council for the Protection of Patients' Rights and Safety Viktor Serdyuk; patient with hepatitis C with renal failure Oksana Nahornichevska (8/5a Reitarska Street). The press conference will be broadcast on the YouTube channel of Interfax-Ukraine. Admission of journalists requires registration on the spot.
China has become a model in the global fight against COVID-19, a senior Palestinian official said Wednesday, adding that Palestine appreciates the support provided by China in confronting the pandemic.

In an exclusive interview with Xinhua, Nabil Shaath, adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for international relations, said that Palestine implemented China's instructions on curbing the virus.

Noting that Palestine is now facing a resurgence in the spread of the coronavirus, Shaath said that China still provides logistical and spiritual support for Palestinians.

The Palestinian people will never forget China's humanitarian assistance, Shaath stressed, adding that there are common interests that can link China and Palestine economically.

In mid-April, China handed over a batch of medical supplies to Palestine, while a shipment of medical aid was also donated by Chinese company Alibaba.

Since April 14, Chinese doctors and medical experts have held three video conferences with their Palestinian counterparts to share China's experience on containing the outbreak.

"China has (played) a great role in curbing the virus, as it has provided medical aid as well as dispatched medical experts to teach the Palestinian staff how to deal with the unprecedented situation," Shaath said.

A Chinese medical team arrived in Palestine on June 10 for a week-long mission. The 10-member team, sent by China's National Health Commission, consisted of experts specializing in various medical fields, including infectious diseases, virus examination and health management.

The week-long visit aimed to enhance bilateral relations in the health sector, as well as facilitate the exchange of expertise in the fight against the coronavirus outbreak.
New Delhi, July 23 : The Special Window for Affordable and Mid Income Housing (SWAMIH) fund announced by the government last year has so far approved the sanction of Rs 8,767 crore for the completion of 81 stalled projects.

The fund with a total corpus of Rs 25,000 crore was created last year to help last mile funding of stalled housing projects, with the government infusing Rs 10,000 crore.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday held a review meeting on the progress of the implementation of the fund.

An official statement said that the approved amount will help the completion of almost 60,000 housing units across the country.

These projects are spread across several markets, including large cities such as NCR, MMR, Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune and also Tier-2 locations, including Karnal, Panipat, Lucknow, Surat, Dehradun, Kota, Nagpur, Jaipur, Nashik, Vizag and Chandigarh, among other cities.

Among these projects, investments in 18 projects have been given final clearance and the disbursement is at various stages across seven residential projects.

Applications from 353 stressed projects are under examination for provision of assistance. Activation of these construction sites by the special window would provide employment opportunities to various skilled and semi-skilled labourers, the Finance Ministry statement said.

Additionally, the fund is actively evaluating options to provide relief to 15,000 homebuyers in certain long-stalled projects which are pending before the Supreme Court for resolution.

"The recent initiative by the fund to reduce the cost of capital to 12 per cent has resulted in an increase in the number of projects that meet the funding criteria laid out under the special window," it said.

While acknowledging the steps taken by the special window to expedite participation from the existing lenders, Sitharaman suggested that both private and public banks, NBFCs and HFCs should see the special window as a stakeholder and increase support for early completion of the stressed projects.

During the review meeting, the Finance Minister asked the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) to closely monitor the performance of the SWAMIH Investment Fund in order to ensure that the capital raised by the fund is rapidly committed towards resolving the stressed projects and remove any impediments that could arise in this process.

The statement said that Sitharaman also wanted speedy efforts to complete the construction of projects for which last mile funding has been sanctioned.
DAKAR, Senegal  A Nigerian terrorist group has executed five men  three of them aid workers  who disappeared while providing assistance in the northeastern state of Borno last month. A video surfaced on Wednesday showing the men kneeling and blindfolded. They were then shot.

The West African country of Nigeria has endured more than 10 years of abductions, killings and other abuses by armed Islamist groups, but regional governments have recently cracked down on insurgents, claiming to have killed thousands.

A group allied with the Islamic State, Islamic State West Africa Province, or I.S.W.A.P., is thought to be behind the executions of the five men, all Nigerians.

The men had been traveling between Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, the Nigerian region hardest hit by terrorist attacks, and the town of Monguno when they were kidnapped. Local news outlets reported that they were aid workers with Action Against Hunger and the International Rescue Committee. One worked for Nigerias State Emergency Management Agency.
Sydney (AFP) - Australia warned on Thursday that its economy will shrink at its fastest pace in history during the second quarter, while the budget deficit will be the biggest since the Second World War as the country battles to contain the impact of the coronavirus.

The government has stumped up tens of billions of dollars to fight the pandemic, which has ravaged global trade and forced the shutdown of much of the country earlier in the year, crippling the economy.

The reimposition of a six-week lockdown on five million people in Melbourne, the second-biggest city, has added to the struggles for a country already reeling from a prolonged drought and massive bushfires before the disease struck.

Officials said gross domestic product would contract seven percent in April-June, pushing the economy into recession for the first time in nearly three decades.

A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction and the economy shrank 0.3 percent in the previous three months.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg also said the budget deficit would blow out to Aus$185 (US$132) billion -- almost a tenth of GDP -- in the year to June 30, 2021, having hit Aus$86 billion in the previous 12 months.

"These harsh numbers reflect the harsh reality we face," Frydenberg said. "The economic outlook remains very uncertain."

Much of the forecast deficit comes from massive stimulus spending designed to keep the economy afloat and prevent a full-blown economic depression.

The government has rolled out around Aus$289 billion in economic stimulus to cushion the country from the virus fallout, Frydenberg said, including support for workers, businesses and retirees.

Unemployment -- currently at a two-decade high of 7.4 percent -- is expected to peak at 9.3 percent in December.

The Australian dollar dipped 0.3 percent Thursday, while shares on the S&P/ASX 200 were flat.

However, the government is predicting a quick recovery with the economy returning to growth in the third quarter as easing virus restrictions bring increased activity.

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Frydenberg also predicted GDP would grow 2.5 percent in 2021, partially based on the assumption that international borders would open from January 1.

Australia has recorded more than 13,000 cases of COVID-19 and 133 deaths from the virus.

The government is expected to deliver its budget in full in October, while economic growth figures are released in September.
India on Thursday accused Pakistan of blocking all avenues for an effective review of the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, sentenced to death for alleged involvement in spying, and said it reserved its rights to avail of further remedies.

A day after the Pakistan government petitioned the Islamabad high court to appoint a lawyer to represent Jadhav for filing a review petition against his death sentence, the external affairs ministry charged Islamabad with systematically blocking access to the former naval officer, not providing documents related to his case and violating the International Court of Justices (ICJ) order for a review of his conviction.

[Pakistan] has blocked all the avenues for an effective remedy available for India, external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava told a weekly briefing.

Pakistan has completely failed to provide the remedy as directed by the ICJ and India reserves its position in the matter, including its rights to avail of further remedies, he said, without giving details.

People familiar with developments said on condition of anonymity that India would take the next step after legal consultations. They didnt preclude the possibility of again approaching the ICJ on Jadhavs case.

The Pakistan government promulgated an ordinance on May 20 to give foreign citizens convicted in the country the right to file a review petition in courts. The ordinance was aimed at complying with ICJs order for effective review and reconsideration of Jadhavs conviction and sentencing by a Pakistani military court.

But even here Pakistans actions had led to confusion, Srivastava said. Pakistan created confusion over the last date for filing a review petition, initially saying it was July 19 before changing the date to July 20. Pakistan took two weeks to inform India about the ordinance and shared the copy of it only after a request from New Delhi.

India conveyed its concerns about inadequacies and shortcomings in the ordinance with Pakistan in June. It also informed Pakistan the ordinance neither fulfils nor does it give complete weight to the judgment of the ICJ, Srivastava said.

India also made repeated requests to Pakistan to provide documents related to Jadhavs case and was told they could be handed over only to an authorised Pakistani lawyer. Thereafter, India appointed a Pakistani lawyer to obtain the relevant documents. To our surprise...when the authorised Pakistani lawyer approached the concerned authorities, they declined to hand over the documents to the lawyer, he added.

In the absence of unhindered consular access to Jadhav and the documents, the Indian side tried, as a last resort, to file a review petition in Islamabad high court on July 18. However, our Pakistani lawyer [said] that a review petition could not be filed in the absence of power of attorney and supporting documents related to the case of Jadhav, said Srivastava.

Indian officials had walked out of a meeting with Jadhav on July 16 after Pakistan breached assurances about providing unimpeded consular access. The meeting of consular officers with Jadhav on July 16 was scuttled by Pakistan authorities. The consular officers were instructed not to hand over any document to Jadhav. Hence, the officers could not obtain a power of attorney from Jadhav, he said.

Srivastava said Pakistan was non-serious in its approach and was not interested in implementing the judgment of the ICJ in letter and spirit. He added, The whole exercise of not providing any documents related to the case even after repeated requests, not providing unimpeded consular access and some reported unilateral action of approaching the Islamabad high court on the part of Pakistan again exposes the farcical nature of Pakistans approach, he said.

Jadhav, 50, was arrested by Pakistani security agencies in Balochistan in March 2016 and charged with involvement in spying. In April 2017, Pakistan announced he had been sentenced to death by a military court.

The ICJ ruled in July 2019 that Pakistan had violated Jadhavs rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and stayed his execution while calling for an effective review and reconsideration of his sentence.

India has rejected the allegations against Jadhav and said he was kidnapped by Pakistani operatives from the Iranian port of Chabahar, where he was running a business.

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A Troy teen has been arrested in connection with the shooting death of a man last week in Pike County.

Jamarco Dynell Harris, 17, is charged with capital murder in the July 13 slaying of 21-year-old Jacoby Deshon Cogburn. The shooting happened at Tanglewood Apartments in the 300 block of Elba Highway.

Troy police responded to the scene about 9:13 p.m. that Monday. Cogburn, who lived in Ramer, was found dead at the rear of the complex.

Harris is currently incarcerated in the Pike County Jail with no bond.

During the investigation, witnesses identified the suspect vehicle as being a white passenger car. This vehicle has been located by Troy police, authorities said. The charge against Harris is capital because the shots were fired from a vehicle.

According to Central Alabama Crime Stoppers, the investigation into Cogburns death is ongoing and is still a very active investigation. Additional arrests are anticipated in this case.

The Troy Police Department is being assisted in this investigation by The Pike County District Attorneys Office, The Pike County Coroners Office, The Pike County Sheriffs Office and The Alabama Department of Forensic Science.

Troy police are still asking for the publics help. Anyone with information regarding Cogburns slaying is asked to call the Troy Police Department at 334-566-0500 or Crime Stoppers at 215-STOP (7867) or via the P3-tips app.
WATERLOO REGION  Parents have a lot weighing on their minds with school plans for the fall up in the air.

The Record reached out to parents to ask what challenges they anticipate for schooling in the fall.

Interviews and email responses from parents may have been edited and condensed. Heres what some parents had to say:

Martha Norton, Waterloo

Two children ages 11 and 13 in public school

I have two kids (11 and 13) and a husband who has had a kidney transplant and is immune compromised, so as much as Id love to see full-time back to school, it likely wouldnt work for our family.

I just cant see how they could go back to crowded classrooms and lunchrooms and stay safely distanced.

Also, since my kids are old enough to understand the pandemic and the rules in place to protect people like their dad, they would be way too anxious in the usual busy school setting.

I dont know what school is going to look like in September. Personally, Im not concerned about the academics aspect. My kids did fine with online learning. But I fear if they dont go back in some form or another, they will become more isolated, lose their friendships, and it will be more difficult for them to readjust.

Definitely a difficult situation.

Louise Jessup, Kitchener

Two children ages nine and five in public school

I think I am most anxious about the ability of children to socially distance themselves at school. And I think my main concern is for the health of my mom. She lives by herself, only a few blocks from us, and we see her all the time. Exposing her to all the school families, via my boys, makes me most nervous. She is 79, has some respiratory issues but also depends on us for things like groceries.

I do want the boys to go back, though. They very much need the educational and social benefits of school. Its been so long already  I cant imagine if the same, less-than-ideal e-learning 100 per cent of the time were to continue. Im not sure wed make it! It was very hard to have two working parents and manage also being full-time parents and part-time teachers. To be honest, I hope we never have to do that again.

We could make the two-three days of school per week scenario work because I dont see me or my husband going back to our offices until 2021. But once we do, we will also need after-school care in order to commute to our Guelph and Wellesley offices. No parents work day is 9 a.m. - 3:20 p.m., unfortunately.

Tigger McCullough, Waterloo

Two children ages 12 and 14 in public school

While McCullough is concerned about the virus, her bigger worry is the length of time her children have been out of school, particularly since both of her children found distance learning difficult.

Neither of my children is successful with the non-personal delivery method of education, she said. I know the schools tried but distance learning is not online learning. It was learning that was not designed to be delivered online.

She is also worried her children will be behind academically when they start school in the fall. Her daughter started Grade 9 last year, and was just starting to find her footing when the pandemic hit.

To have the rug pulled out from under her feet was a little alarming for her, and she was pretty disappointed because she missed out on field trips and on courses that she was really looking forward to, she said. Going in, in September, she is very anxious that she does not have the background knowledge for the stuff she is doing next and, to be honest, thats my concern too.

Her son is also moving into Grade 7 and a whole new school.

The lack of clarity about what will happen in September is  very anxiety-causing for parents.

There are lots of different aspects to how challenging this is going to prove to be for parents and students, McCullough said.

It kind of feels like education and child care are a footnote to the whole pandemic issue, whereas I think they really need to be the headline.

Susan Harbour, Waterloo

10-year-old son in public school

Harbour doesnt plan to send her son back to school in September as she is vulnerable healthwise, her son has asthma and she is worried about any risk of him getting COVID-19.

Unless there is some kind of massive change in circumstances where Waterloo Region has no cases, I dont think Im sending him back, she said, adding that she has been on leave from her job this summer and will likely stay home with her son in the fall.

She worries that the return to school could prompt a surge in COVID-19 cases.

At this point, the decision is down to whether thats a price we are willing to pay to try and get back to normal. But how normal will it be if schools have to shut down again in just a few months, or if children will need grief counselling because their teacher or janitor or grandparent dies of COVID-19?

Were reaching for a normal that wont exist until there is a vaccine.
A former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo has been accused of physically assaulting the wife of his close relative and top confidant, Adebayo Molaja, in Ifo Ibogun area of Ogun State.

According to SaharaReporters, Obasanjo stormed the area with a truckload of armed security operatives and he personally flogged Mrs Adebayo several times with a horse whip (Koboko) for an alleged theft of N160 million.

A resident of the area, who witnessed the incident, but asked not to be named for safety reasons, said Obasanjo was heard shouting Omolaja, ole! Abiodun, ole! Won loji N160m (Omolaja thief! Abiodun thief! They said you stole N160m) during the incident.

Obasanjo came from his Ota farm abode at exactly 5:00am while people were still sleeping. He was accompanied by fiery-looking security men armed to the teeth who condoned the residence of the Adebayos. He immediately called out Mrs Adebayo and ordered the mobile policemen with him to form a barricade. He then proceeded with a horse whip (Koboko) to personally flog the woman several times. Many residents of the community were shocked. Hundreds of commercial bike riders popularly called Okada parked at the scene wondering whether there was an armed robbery incidence or any other tragic occurrence, the eyewitness said.

It was not clear how the issue came about and what actually prompted the former President, who is also a retired military general, to take such action.

Residents of the community, who also witnessed the incident and were contacted for more details, but all declined to comment citing safety concerns.

Attempts to get the reaction of Kehinde Akinyemi, spokesperson for Obasanjo, was unsuccessful as his telephone line was not reachable at the time of this report.

KanyiDaily recalled last year, Obasanjos wife, Taiwo Obasanjo had alleged that the former president sent assassins to kill her and her son because they were supporting President Muhammadu Buhari.
Academics warn universities' commitment to free speech and the safety of their students will be tested by a potential influx of Hongkongers enrolling as they flee Beijing's crackdown in the city.

While the sweeping national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing has triggered concerns for human rights in the city, it also reaches beyond Chinese territory, containing a measure that targets people for dissent when overseas.

The political turmoil in Hong Kong is causing many citizens to look overseas. Credit:AP

In response to the political upheaval, Australia's universities are experiencing a surge in interest from Hongkongers looking to study overseas and take advantage of safe-haven visa measures, which include a five-year graduate visa for students and a pathway to permanent residency.

China experts at Australian universities warn it could be a challenge for their institutions to protect students' fundamental rights on their campuses while navigating their lucrative relationships with mainland China, a source of high-fee-paying international students and research collaboration.
The Indian Army on Thursday asserted that a huge cache of weapons, including warlike stores, was recovered along the Line of Control (LoC) in Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir. On July 22 late evening, input was received regarding a likely weapon drop along the LoC ahead of the anti-infiltration obstacle system (AIOS), added the Army.

On the basis of the input, a search operation was launched in Hathlanga area of Rampur Sector in the district. During the search operation, arms and ammunition including an AK-47 with magazines, five Chinese pistols with magazines, 24 grenades and other warlike stores were discovered.

The warlike stores were new and all markings had been erased. They were likely to have been transhipped from across the border for further transport to the hinterland for the terrorists.

This comes nearly two weeks after security forces on July 11 killed at least two terrorists along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Naugam sector of Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir.

An Army spokesperson had said the suspicious movement was detected by troops along the LoC at the wee hours. "The forces swiftly launched an ambush, resulting in the elimination of two terrorists. A huge cache of arms and warlike stores were recovered," the spokesperson had said.

Reports stated that a group of terrorists while trying to sneak into this part of the LoC, were challenged by alert forces. However, they began firing on the Army, thus triggering an encounter.

During the gunfight, two terrorists were killed. The forces cordoned off the area and launched a search operation to find out the presence of more terrorists, if any, in the area.

The Army later said that the cache of arms recovered comprises 2xAK-47 rifles & 1x Pistol with magazines, ammunition, 04 x grenades & medical supplies. Recoveries include Pakistani currency and medicines.

According to an Army officer, Pakistan is continuously trying to push terrorists into this side of the border. Till July this year, the forces have successfully neutralised hundreds of Pakistan-sponsored terrorists in the Kashmir Valley.
BROKEN BOW  Law enforcement K9s tracked an individual who fled from law enforcement Wednesday night near Broken Bow.

According to a Nebraska State Patrol press release, a Custer County Sheriffs Office K9 detected the odor of a controlled substance during a traffic stop at the Victoria Springs and Gates Roads intersection north of Broken Bow.

A NSP trooper stopped the vehicle at about 8:40 p.m. Wednesday for allegedly failing to stop at a stop sign at the intersection.

When troopers searched the vehicle, the driver, Jacob Funson, 22 of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, fled on foot into a cornfield. A passenger of the vehicle remained on scene.

The Custer County K9 and an NSP K9 tracked Funson. Less than an hour later, they located him in a nearby river.

Troopers and CCSO deputies arrested Funson without further incident.

Funson was arrested on the suspicion of fleeing to avoid arrest, obstructing a peace officer, possession of marijuana  over an ounce and less than a pound, possession of drug paraphernalia, carrying a concealed weapon, and possession of a controlled substance. He was booked in Custer County Jail.

The passenger was cited and released.
US Airstrike Hits Pro-Islamic State Militants in Somalia

By Fadumo Yasin July 22, 2020

The U.S. military says it conducted an airstrike in Somalia's Puntland region that killed seven pro-Islamic state militants.

VOA's Somali service initially reported the airstrike on Tuesday. Local officials and witnesses told VOA that Puntland regional forces carried out a ground operation against the militants in Turmasale and Amayra, mountainous hideouts near the village of Timirshe, 140 kilometers southeast of Bosaso.

A statement Wednesday from the U.S. Africa Command said the airstrike was in response to an attack on partner forces by the militants.

"We continue to apply pressure on terrorist groups and assist our Somali partners in disrupting their operations," said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Miguel Castellanos, deputy director of operations, AFRICOM. "We continue our support to rid Somalia of the likes of ISIS and al-Shabaab."

AFRICOM said it assesses no civilians were injured or killed as a result of this latest airstrike. This was the United States' 42nd airstrike of the year in Somalia, and the first targeting pro-ISIS forces.

Officials in Puntland issued their own statement, saying they killed 20 ISIS militants during 48-hour operation in the eastern parts of Bari region. Puntland says senior local militants and one senior foreign fighter were among those killed in the operation.

The statement did not identify the foreign fighters killed in the operation but say he was a trainer and a liaison between ISIS in Somalia and ISIS fighters in other parts of the world.

Puntland says the targeted foreign fighter has been in Somalia since 2014. Puntland also said their forces destroyed a storage for weapons, explosive materials and foods.

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The Hamilton police board is defending the services track record on mental-health calls, use of force and its work in schools as a campaign aimed at defunding its budget sustains pressure.

More than 100 protesters gathered outside city hall Thursday to call for the reallocation of police funds to other services like housing, mental health and education just as board members settled in for an agenda packed with reports.

The demonstration  which blocked about 200 metres of Main Street  resonated with such rallying cries as Black Lives Matter and defund, disarm, dismantle  abolish.

The protest culminated with activists painting in capital, yellow letters, Defund the police, in the middle of the street  a message that the city said it would remove in the interest of public safety due to the slippery paint.

Police say the graffiti is currently under criminal investigation, and they have executed a warrant on one individual involved.

Our job is crime prevention, and if people are feeling comfortable enough to affix graffiti or paint or anything like that onto statues or onto our roadways, that is a criminal code offence of mischief, deputy chief Frank Bergen told reporters.

Earlier, board vice-chair Don MacVicar responded to a raft of letters  297 of them  calling for police reform, body-worn cameras and redirection of funds. Some, he noted, were in opposition to those sentiments.

More than 100 activists gathered in front of city hall Thursday where a peaceful art demonstration called for the defunding of Hamilton Police Services. Cathie Coward

At this time, I want to thank each and very one of you who sent in a letter, as we appreciate your feedback and we are listening and trying to act.

Demonstrators, meanwhile, suggested nothing short of a significant change was necessary  including a 20 per cent cut to the $171-million city police budget.

Its shameful that the city believes that much funding should be allocated to the police, when so many services in this city are underfunded, organizer Koubra Haggar said.

Greg Dongen took city councillor and police board member Chad Collins to task for arguing a 20 per cent reduction isnt feasible. We say its nothing but possible.

Dongen also argued those funds should be invested in the community instead of put to use to bully the community.

Last month, Collins, in asking for a staff report thats expected in September, contended such a cut would neuter the service and put the publics safety in jeopardy.

On Thursday, Chief Eric Girt told reporters he looked forward to community solutions that may or may not involve us, and if they can prevent that criminality through all those other means available, I look forward to what that would look like.

He added: In the interim, we do have the obligation to handle these calls for service, whether its mental health or whether its criminal offences.

"DEFUND THE POLICE" say participants in a peaceful protest outside city hall on Thursday. Cathie Coward

Thursdays packed agenda included staff presentations on use of force, the crisis response unit and youth crime  all pertinent to the climate of protest.

The death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man in Minneapolis police custody in May, sparked rallies around the world  including Hamilton  against systemic racism and in favour of reform.

Locally, the momentum has led to the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board ending a long-standing police liaison program in its schools after students argued it affected racialized youths adversely.

On Thursday, Girt said the initiative has enabled police to take a proactive approach to prevent crime, but noted the service would respect the boards decision.

The defunding movement has also trained a spotlight on how police respond to crisis calls, maintaining those situations are best left to mental-health professionals.

Girt said the service supports more mental-health funding and said it would be happy to get out of the business, so to speak. However, police are still required for life-threatening calls, he added.

The chief also told the board the services three-pronged crisis response unit has proven a trailblazer in pairing officers with paramedics and mental-health professionals.

Participants at a rally calling the defunding of the Hamilton police took on an artistic approach on Main Street in front of Hamilton City Hall Thursday. Cathie Coward

The unit  which includes the Social Navigator, Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Unit and COAST  is quite diverse in its approaches.

The rapid response initiative, in particular, has responded to 2,691 people in crisis annually over five years. The percentage of patients taken to hospital has reduced to 17.2 per cent from 75.4 per cent in that period by referring them to community-based services.

In a presentation, Sgt. Steve Holmes said this drop was quite staggering, noting the decline in apprehensions has taken pressure off emergency rooms.

Parts of Main and Bay streets were closed for approximately two hours with traffic being rerouted for the rally. Cathie Coward

Police board member and city councillor Tom Jackson called the overview a gem for our community that needs to be aired to a wider audience. But he added there will always be protesters that are just anti-police.

Explaining the highlights of a year-end report on use of force, Sgt. Andrew Poustie noted officers used force in 1.9 per cent of criminal arrests last year. We dont shoot to kill. We shoot to stop the threat.

Earlier Thursday, the grieving friends and family of Jason Peterson  a 42-year-old man police shot dead three weeks ago  issued a plea for answers during a news conference outside city hall.

The Special Investigations Unit, a provincial agency, is probing the shooting, which happened outside Corners Variety on Cannon Street East and Gage Avenue North on July 7.
(Newser)  A biology researcher accused of lying to the FBI fled to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco last month and is still there, the agency says. According to court papers filed July 20, University of California, Davis researcher Tang Juan went to the consulate after a June 20 interview with FBI agents, who accused her of denying her connections to the Chinese military in order to get a US visa, Fox reports. The FBI says Tang claimed on her application that she had never served in the People's Liberation Army, but their investigation found pictures of her in the uniform of the civilian cadre of the PLA, along with evidence that she had worked as a researcher in a military hospital. They said a search of her home after the interview uncovered more evidence of her military connections.

story continues below

Tang is an "active duty People's Liberation Army military scientist who lied to get into the United States, attempted to destroy evidence and lied extensively to the FBI when interviewed," federal agents said in charging documents. A prosecutorial memo states that two other Chinese citizens with military links allegedly came to the US under false pretenses, with the cases suggesting "a program conducted by the PLA ... to send military scientists to the US" in that deceptive manner, the Guardian reports. A Department of Justice official tells Axios that they "made the Chinese government aware that she is a charged individual, so it [is] unquestionable that they know the defendant is a fugitive from Justice." (The disclosure follows an order from the US for China to close its Houston consulate by Friday.)
In early 2019, I happened to read an unbelievable press release. A diving team was attempting to reach the bottom of the world's five oceans. Five Deeps is led by one Victor Vescovo  borderline-billionaire, investment fund manager, ex-Navy officer, plane and helicopter pilot, he also conquered the two versions of the Seven Summits (the world's seven highest peaks AND the highest peak in each of the seven continents) and reached both poles by ski... a mere trifle to this intrepid adventurer. He set up the operation entirely on his own funds and, amazingly, without a single watchmaking sponsor. I mentioned the name to several brands and none of them had even heard about the expedition, even though it is by far the most ambitious of the kind.

Victor Vescovo in diving outfit  Omega

Later in June 2019, Omega announced they had become the official timepiece supplier of the expedition with a monster of a watch, the Seamaster Planet Ocean Ultra Deep Professional, aka the Ultra Deep. This purpose-built timepiece is 55mm wide and a mere (!!!) 28mm in thickness, and machined out of blocks of titanium. Synthetic gaskets offering insufficient resistance for the extreme pressures of the deepest points of the ocean, the sapphire dial crystal is bonded to the titanium case with LiquidMetal, an amorphous alloy with extraordinary resistance capabilities. It's exactly what the doctor ordered, since the watch had to be able to withstand 1,500 bar of atmospheric pressure, which is the pressure one experiences when 49,200 ft deep.

The Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean Ultra Deep Professional  Omega

Three units of the Ultra Deep were then fitted onto the hull of the manned submersible Limiting Factor and its sonar exploration rovers. This titanium deep-submergence vehicle (DSV), designed and built by specialist firm Triton, is one of the toughest of its kind. At least, one hopes so, since each dive is manned, and most of the time by Victor Vescovo himself. And he is lining up quite the series of feats. December 2018: he reaches the deepest floor in the Atlantic, the Puerto Rico Trench, at 27,480 ft. In February of 2019, he moves on to the Southern Ocean and the South Sandwich Trench, at 24,388 feet. In April, he reaches the Indian Ocean and lands down the Java Trench, 23,596 feet deep. Because it's next in geographical order, Five Deeps dives right into the expedition's most crucial trial, the legendary Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Limiting Factor went down 35,853 feet deep, the world's new deepest point. They did it not just once, but a total of four times, one of which lasted four hours under the unfathomable pressure of 2,238,229 lb/ft. He then concluded his tour of trenches with the Molloy Deep, located approximately 18,209 ft deep, somewhere near Greenland, in the Arctic Ocean.

55 mm in diameter, 28 in thickness and METAS-certified, each Ultra Deep has been fitted onto the Limiting Factor's hull, or one of its sonar exploration rovers'  Omega

None of these dives, and there have been a total of 39, was for record's sake only. They all aimed at mapping the ocean's deepest floors and discovering new species, which earned Five Deeps the help of several Oceanographic institutes. For Omega, the interest was even more obvious, since the brand is going for the record of greatest depth rating of the watchmaking industry. They broke the standing record by a hair (or more precisely five feet) to make their point. Yet that still wasn't enough so Omega decided to have all Ultra Deep timepieces go through their METAS certification procedure after they came back from the diving expedition. Each one of them passed with flying colours, chronometry, magnetism and of course, water-resistance test included.

Five Deep aren't resting on their laurels. The vessel and its submarine are at it again with a new campaign, which started in July 2020. They're welcoming new participants on board, including Kathy Sullivan, the first American woman in space back in 1984. She'll soon be joined by Kelly Walsh, son of Don Walsh, who was the Captain of the Trieste, the submarine that first conquered Challenger Deep, the world's deepest point, back in 1960.
SHELTON  Two familiar faces are in new places as the school district continues filling vacant principal positions.

John Skerritt was named principal at Shelton Intermediate School where he was assistant principal this past year and Darla Lussier was tapped as Mohegan School principal during the Board of Education meeting Wednesday.

Skerritt replaces Dina Marks, now principal at Booth Hill Road.

John connects with students, staff and parents, something that is needed during this pandemic, said interim Superintendent Beth Smith. Johns administrative experiences at the high school and SIS have prepared him well for the principal position. I am confident that he will be an asset to the district in his new role.

Skerritt was assistant principal at Shelton High School for 10 years when Smith was principal. The pair had been placed on administrative leave in March 2019 as police investigated whether they responded improperly to a possible sex assault involving students. No charges were ever filed.

At the time, Skerritt was reassigned to the SIS assistant principal post and Smith was named director of special education for the district. Smith was voted in as interim superintendent in February after the resignation of Chris Clouet.

Smith called Skerritt an experienced educator. He entered education from the business sector, said Smith, and his career in education began as a business teacher at Derby High School. At that time, Skerritt was also a credit diploma teacher at the Valley Regional Adult Education.

Skerritt taught business education at Shelton High School for six years before being promoted to an assistant principal at Shelton High School, a position he held for 10 years.

Lussier takes over for Kristen Santilli, who was recently named the districts director of curriculum, instruction and data.

Lussier has served as an elementary school teacher in the school district for the past 20 years. She was the administrative intern at Sunnyside School for four years. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, Lussier has served the district as the summer school program director since 2011.

Darlas administrative experiences as an administrative intern and summer school director have prepared her for the principal position, said Smith. She knows many of the Mohegan staff members, as they have been involved in the summer school program.

Darla is caring and compassionate and will be a good fit for the Mohegan School community, added Smith.

brian.gioiele@hearstmediact.com
Key Lawmaker: Blast In Iran's Enrichment Site Was Due To Security Breach

Radio Farda July 22, 2020

A member of the Iranian Parliament's National Security Committee says the blast at Iran's main nuclear establishment in Natanz on July 2 was caused by a "security breach".

The Persian word Javad Karimi Qoddousi has used to describe the cause of the blast can also be translated into infiltration of security, which makes it slightly different.

He strictly rules out "a strike on the complex by an external object," the oblique jargon that means he believes no bombs or missiles have hit the building which is the main venue of uranium enrichment in Iran.

Karimi Qoddousi who spoke to the parliament's website, ICANA, on Wednesday July 22, said: "If it was from the outside, we should have seen shrapnel, but there are absolutely no remnants left on the site."

However, he did not elaborate further on the "security breach" or "infiltration."

Earlier, various analysts, politicians, disinformation operatives and conspiracy theorists had come up with hypothesis including an Israeli drone or missile attack, bombs planted by foreign agents, a cyberattack by Israel or the U.S., technical defect, accidental fire, and sabotage.

The latter was backed by an unverified email by a group named "Persian Cheetahs" or "Panthers" which was never heard of before or after the incident. The email claimed that a group of dissident security officers were behind the blast. The email was sent to a few staff members of only one media outlet in the United Kingdom. IT experts in the United States, the UK and Europe are said to be examining the email to track down the sender, but the outcome of the investigation is still not known to public.

The statement by the member of Iran's parliament is consistent with a July 5 New York Times report that quoted an IRGC commander without naming him as having said that a powerful bomb detonated inside the building had caused heavy damage.

The Natanz incident being the most notable in recent weeks is not the only mysterious event. More than a dozen important industrial and at least one military site near Tehran experienced suspicious explosions and fires. The government has dismissed them as accidents.

Karimi Qoddousi, is an MP for Mashad and a former IRGC (Basij militia) commander. During the past years, he has made outlandish remarks about the Iran's nuclear program and the nuclear agreement with world powers that has created controversies and at times enraged politicians such as Foreign Minister Javad Zarif or Nuclear Chief Ali Akbar Salehi while they were at the podium of the parliament (Majles).

He has recently visited the site in Natanz along with other MPs and has expressed concern over the building's "vulnerability." He said after the visit: "We are almost certain that no suspicious object has flown in and hit the building." He added: "It was more likely that explosives were planted in the machines in the West." However, Iran builds its own enrichment centrifuges and the West would hardly sell anything to Iran ready to be used in such a sensitive nuclear site.

Earlier, Iranian media had ruled out the possibility of an air strike or a cyber-attack as the cause of the blast in Natanz.

Hamshahri newspaper in Tehran wrote on July 7 that "the site is being constantly protected by machine guns and more powerful air defense systems such as the S-300 are stationed at sensitive places and near the borders, so an air strike on the site in Natanz is almost impossible."

Iran has still not officially declared the cause of the blast. The Supreme Council of National Security said one day after the incident that it knew the cause but would not declare it at the time being for security reasons.

Government Spokesman Ali Rabiei said on July 11 that the cause of the incident will be announced after experts complete their investigations.

According to the New York Times, the blast will delay Iran's nuclear program for up to another two years.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/key-lawmaker- blast-in-iran-s-enrichment-site-was-due-to- security-breach/30741734.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Pakistani Journalist Home Safe After Abduction That Lasted 12 Hours

By RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal July 22, 2020

A prominent Pakistani journalist known for his criticism of the military has returned home after being kidnapped in Islamabad one day before he was scheduled to appear in court over a tweet critical of Pakistan's judges and military.

Matiullah Jan, who was found safe 12 hours after being abducted on July 21, told Pakistan's private TV channel Geo News he was blindfolded and taken to an unknown location after being shoved into the assailants' car.

He said he was then driven around the city before being released in Fateh Jang, about 45 kilometers outside the capital. A close friend and fellow journalist, Azaz Syed, published a photo of Jan after his release.

Jan, a freelancer who has worked for local and international news outlets, was due to appear in the Supreme Court this week after the court took notice of the alleged contemptuous tweet, the newspaper Dawn reported.

Khawaja Asif, a former foreign minister and senior leader in the opposition Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), held a news conference to condemn Jan's disappearance.

Jan "has talked about media and journalism," Asif said, noting the court hearing on July 22. "To take him into custody now is an attempt to silence him and his journalism," Asif said, according to Dawn.

He said the PML-N would support people who are targeted after speaking against the government, adding that the manner in which journalists have been silenced in Pakistan "does not happen in civilized societies."

Jan was abducted by several unidentified men after they intercepted his car, his colleague Asad Toor said. Footage from surveillance cameras showed men dragging a driver out of a vehicle and pushing him into another car before driving away.

"There were more than five people -- some in civilian clothes, others in black uniforms -- who forcibly picked up my husband," Jan's wife, Kaneez Sughra, told AFP. She said her husband had been followed by unknown men in recent weeks.

Information Minister Shibli Faraz also confirmed the journalist's abduction, according to Dawn.

Leading politicians, activists, and journalists had called for the journalist's release on Twitter, with the hashtag #BringBackMatiullah trending in the country.

Jan, who has worked as a print and broadcast journalist for the past three decades, has been intimidated, harassed, and attacked in the past, his friend Azaz Syed said.

He was fired by Pakistan's Waqt TV station, allegedly under pressure from the military, which has been a frequent target of his criticism.

A spokesperson for the military declined to comment on Jan's case.

Pakistan's military plays an outsized role in the domestic and foreign affairs of the South Asian country of around 220 million and critical reporting of the institution is not tolerated.

Journalists and bloggers inside Pakistan have complained of intimidation tactics including kidnappings, beatings, and even killings if they cross a red line in their reporting on the military.

Several Pakistani journalists were briefly detained in recent months, allegedly by the military's spy agency, in what is thought to be an attempt to silence criticism of the powerful military.

The military has denied the accusations.

With reporting by AFP, dpa, Dawn, and AP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/pakistan- journalist-abduction/30740593.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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The US House Rules Committee has given the green light for the amendment calling for continued US aid for Artsakh demining to be considered and voted upon by the full US House of Representatives, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) reported.

The US House is set to take up the amendment as early as Thursday, July 23.

"The Rules Committee ruled out of order Amendment #69, introduced by Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus and Turkey Caucus Co-Chair Steve Cohen (D-TN), which sought to block any U.S. funding for humanitarian de-mining in Artsakh. A similarly hostile amendment, offered by Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), was withdrawn earlier today. The panel also ruled out of order the ANCA-backed Speier-Sherman-Costa Amendment #50 which would have increased U.S. aid to Armenia by $20 million," ANCA noted.

The US has been funding humanitarian programs in Artsakh since 1998. Artsakh assistance has been long under attack by Azerbaijans Aliyev regime.

Tens of thousands of advocates have contacted Congress in support of continued US demining support to Artsakh via the ANCAs online action portals.
Families in Marion County who need help paying rent had to act quickly when the city opened an application for assistance July 13. It only took three days for the city to temporarily close the application and start a waitlist because of high demand.

James Taylor, CEO at John Boner Neighborhood Centers, said he thought there was a chance the applications could get shut down on the first day.

I just think this speaks to the economic pandemic that has coincided with the COVID pandemic and just demonstrates the economic disaster, he said.

The city set aside $15 million from federal COVID-19 relief funds specifically for rent assistance, and Lilly Endowment offered about $10 million to help community centers implement the program through the Indianapolis Community Response Network.

The city received more than 10,000 applications for rent assistance in the first three days of the program and is now asking users who visit the website, indyrent.org, to give contact information so they can get on a waitlist. Mayor Joe Hogsett said during a press conference earlier in July that he expects the program to help up to 11,000 households.

Taylor said there were 2,500 people on the waitlist less than 24 hours after the city stopped taking applications. A press release from the city said it could take until the end of this week to process those applications.

Mia Black, assistant director of reentry and community engagement at Christamore House, said the nonprofit took about 20 calls a day from people in Haughville and the near west side asking about rent assistance before the citys program started. The city sent about 100 applications to Christamore House for final review in the first week, according to Black.

Its ongoing, practically non-stop requests, she said.

There usually isnt a high volume of such requests during the summer months, Black explained. Its the winter months when things start to pick up.

But this year is different. About 45,000 fewer people were employed in Marion County in May compared to May 2019, according to data from the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

Future studies will likely show a bleak picture when it comes to low-income neighborhoods with high concentrations of Black residents, who are already more susceptible to health complications from COVID-19.

 More: Know your rights: understanding evictions

Low-income neighborhoods are the hardest hit, theyre the first hit, and theyre the last to recover, Taylor said.

He compared it to the financial crisis in 2008 but said that was a slow train wreck, whereas now its like we fell off a cliff.

One thing housing advocates worry about is that renters havent even seen the worst of this financial crisis yet. Theres a moratorium on rent in Indiana through July, and the extra $600 in unemployment is also set to expire at the end of the month.

What happens when these safeguards go away?

I think were holding our breath to see what that potentially looks like, said Dean Johns, chief program officer at John Boner Neighborhood Centers.

It could look like a wave of evictions, families moving in together to make ends meet, a rise in homelessness. Families that were already struggling before the pandemic could be worse off on the other side.

This has just increased that challenge for them, Johns said.

Contact staff writer Tyler Fenwick at 317-762-7853. Follow him on Twitter @Ty_Fenwick.

eviction noticeSteve Heap
W&M announces safety protocols for fall

Rules for a different kind of semester William & Mary recently announced a series of campus safety protocols for the fall semester. The new mandates relate to COVID-19 testing and face coverings. The safeguards will remain in place through at least December 2020. Photo by Stephen Salpukas Photo - of - Hide Caption

Creative solutions for a different kind of semester

William & Mary recently announced a series of campus safety protocols for the fall semester. The new mandates relate to COVID-19 testing and face coverings. The safeguards will remain in place through at least December 2020.

W&M President Katherine A. Rowe discussed the protocols during a virtual town hall meeting Monday night, in which faculty, staff and student assembly representatives asked campus leaders a wide range of questions about COVID-19 and the fall semester. Rowe emphasized that the fall at W&M will be different and said that actions such as physical distancing and face coverings have proven to be effective in mitigating the spread of the virus.

William & Mary is one of the rare institutions that could make those interventions work, Rowe said. Our students are different. They are creative, insightful and ultimately profoundly prosocial  that is, they are committed to community and protecting those who are vulnerable. This is a community that can be successful in implementing such systematic safeguards and behavioral norms, so long as the surrounding context makes that possible.

{{youtube:medium:left|r1l5rUA6-7A, W&M Town Hall}}

COVID-19 testing

William & Mary announced Monday it is partnering with the VCU Health System to expand its capacity for physical and mental health services, including COVID-19 testing for students and employees. The university followed that news up Wednesday with a campus-wide message outlining testing protocols for the fall semester.

We are establishing a testing program that goes above and beyond state health and CDC guidelines and is designed to be responsive to the most at-risk populations within our community, said Sam Jones, chair of William & Marys COVID-19 Response Team. Jones added that testing frequency and population percentage will evolve based on campus trends and available testing methods.

Recognizing that the health landscape continues to evolve, a robust testing effort allows us to monitor the prevalence of COVID-19 on campus among students and employees, and to track campus trends relative to those locally, within Virginia and nationally, he said.

All students will be required to be tested before the start of fall semester. Most students will receive a self-administered, mail-in test kit prior to arriving, Jones said. Those kits should arrive in time for students to self-administer the test, mail it back with the required consent form and get their test results before they arrive on campus. As part of the process, students will be able to specify the address to which the testing kits should be mailed.

Prevalence testing, which will use an initial sampling of 5% of the student body, will occur at least every two weeks, but is subject to change with evolving public health trends and testing methods, Jones said. William & Mary will cover the cost of voluntary testing at the end of the semester for both students and employees who wish to be tested prior to returning home for the Thanksgiving holiday.

All employees will have access to voluntary at-will testing through the VCUHS for a $15 out-of-pocket copayment, with the university covering the balance. Prevalence testing will also occur every two weeks for employees, with an initial sample of 2% of the employee/contractor population.

Employees or contract workers in positions where physical distancing cannot be maintained or where other modifications may not be feasible will be tested before working with students. They will be contacted over the next two weeks with instructions for testing.

Face covering requirements

William & Mary recently announced it will require the use of face coverings on campus from now through the end of the calendar year. Compliance with the requirement is mandatory and applies to all faculty, staff, students, contract workers, vendors and others who are on the universitys various campuses or enter university owned or leased buildings.

It is not optional  that needs to be declared from the start, said Rowe in the town hall, adding that the nation is struggling with establishing shared norms.

We need to be pursuing a dialogue around the shared norms, the actions that are required for reopening, from a place of respect and one that thinks about working and learning together as a goal we can achieve during the pandemic, otherwise the only option we will have is to continue to be apart, and we have seen just how challenging that is.

In a message to campus, Jones said face coverings will be required in all indoor spaces and may only be removed outdoors when an uninterrupted 6-foot distance can be maintained between individuals. Students residing on campus will not be required to wear face covering when in their own room or residence hall suite, but masks will be required for all other shared residential spaces.

Jones added that instructors will have the option of wearing a face shield during instruction, as an alternative to a cloth face covering, to enable learners to better understand their speech. They will be required to use a face covering immediately before and after instruction. Faculty and staff are not required to wear a face covering while at their private offices.

During the town hall, Vice President for Student Affairs Ginger Ambler said that there will be a mechanism in place to report noncompliance to the COVID Response Team, but the goal is to create a culture of compliance.

We do that partly by setting clear expectations in town-hall conversations like this and in other materials and also empowering people with what they need to be compliant, she said, noting that all those coming back to campus will receive PPE kits. In addition, the campus community will be required to participate in video training that explains the expectations around safety protocols on campus. The university is also drafting a Community Commitment that will outline clear expectations for members of the community to live, work and learn on campus.

Students who require an accommodation for mask requirements due to health concerns are permitted to make request through Office of Student Accessibility Services. Employees can request an accommodation through Human Resources.

There is no easy path forward, but please know we are thinking in a very deep and sustained way and working as quickly as we can to bring clarity at a moment when clarity is so hard to find, said Rowe. We are going to do everything in our power to meet our mission to ensure our students stay on track to their degrees while safeguarding the health of our community in making this a place that you can work and where we can be together in pandemic.

We need to hang together as we create these solutions.
London: The head of the World Health Organisation says the Trump administration's claim that he was "bought" by China and contributed to "dead Britons" is untrue and unacceptable.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was asked at a news conference in Geneva about the accusation made by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in London earlier this week.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is head of the World Health Organisation. Credit:AP

Speaking at the Henry Jackson Society  a think tank which takes a hawkish stance on China  Pompeo told a group of cross-party MPs that Tedros was "bought hook, line and sinker" by the Chinese government when he won the contest to lead the UN body in 2017.

"When push came to shove you've got dead Britons because of the deal that was made," Pompeo said.
A group of Texan parents are furious after their teenagers caught Covid-19 at a church camp for 300 youngsters.

The Keystone Church in Keller, Texas led a trip with 300 children to Latham Springs Camp in early July, where masks were not worn and social distancing guidelines were not followed.

One mother whose 17-year-old daughter tested positive for the virus, told Fox News she was 'angry'.

Stephanie Brady, the mother of the girl, said her daughter has been quarantined for three weeks since the camp and became concerned after another of her daughter's friends had to be rushed to hospital with breathing difficulties.

The Keystone Church in Keller, Texas (pictured) led a trip with 300 children to Latham Springs Camp in early July, where masks were not worn and social distancing guidelines were not followed

Brady saw photographs of her daughter and friends without masks on and not social distancing.

'Every day I think, 'I really wish I would have put my foot down, I really wish I would have not sent her,'' Brady told NBC5. 'But I really had faith that the church would do the right thing.'

Tarrant County's chief elected officer Judge Glen Whitley said: 'I was very disappointed in the photos that showed little if any wearing of masks.

'If we're going to beat this thing, we've got to be doing the social distancing, we have to be as concerned about other people's rights as we are about our own.'

According to KXAS-TV, the church emailed families to tell them a student was sent home with the virus a day after camp supervisors discovered it.

Latham Springs Camp and Retreat Center, Texas, where the 300 children were taken by the Keystone Church at the start of July

Latham Springs Camp and Retreat Center, Texas, where the 300 children were taken by the Keystone Church at the start of July

Local resident to the church Krissy Askins, said the church leadership should tell the community how many of the youngster's tested positive for the disease.

'We are all sharing facilities, we are all sharing grocery stores, restaurants, it's fair to want to know if there is a large outbreak going basically in your backyard,' Askins told WFAA. 'I just want everyone to be honest and tell the truth.'

Amy Jackson, another camper's mother, said she felt the church did 'everything in their power' after discovering the infections.

Keystone Church responded to the allegations, saying: ' [The church] takes seriously the physical, spiritual and emotional health of our community and those that call Keystone Church their home.'

They added that if the campers were exposed, the parents were immediately told.

'Keystone Church has always and will continue to pray for, invest in and serve our community,' they added.

Tarrant County reported 663 new cases Tuesday, raising its total of confirmed positives to 22,665.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Saudi Arabias King Salman underwent a successful surgery that removed his gallbladder, the kingdom said Thursday, just days after being admitted to hospital over an inflammation of the organ.

Surgeons at Riyadhs King Faisal Specialist Hospital operated on the king, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported, describing the procedure as a laparoscopic surgery  a low-risk procedure that usually involves only small incisions and a tiny camera to aid the surgeons work.

The gallbladder, a small, pouch-like organ near the liver that stores bile, can easily be removed and is not critical for life. Surgeons often take it out if it begins to bother a patient.

King Salman will remain at the hospital for some time to recover and be observed by doctors, the report said, citing a statement from the Saudi royal court.

The king thanked all his well-wishers, the report said.

King Salman has been in power since January 2015. He is considered the last Saudi monarch of his generation of brothers who have held power since the death of their father and founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdulaziz.

The king serves as an absolute monarch of Saudi Arabia, one of the worlds top oil producers and the site of the holiest sites of Islam. His health remains a key factor watched by observers of the kingdom, as next in line to the throne is his assertive 34-year-old son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who could rule for decades.

The crown princes ascension comes as King Salman has empowered him to make sweeping changes in the kingdom. Since taking the throne, Saudi Arabia has granted women the right to drive and disempowered the countrys religious police, loosening mores in the ultraconservative Sunni kingdom.

However, Saudi Arabia has been widely criticized internationally over its conduct during its war in Yemen. Potential political rivals have been imprisoned. The assassination and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi in late 2018 also has been linked to the crown prince by Western intelligence services and U.S. lawmakers, further straining ties between the kingdom and the U.S.

King Salmans surgery comes as Kuwaits 91-year-old ruling emir left Thursday morning for the United States with the help of the U.S. government to seek further medical care after recently undergoing surgery himself. It remains unclear what ails Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, Kuwaits ruler since 2006.
A Deputy General Secretary of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Obiri Boahen, has come to the defense of Hon. Mavis Hawa Koomson, Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya East and Special Development Initiatives Minister, over her shooting incident at a registration centre in the Central Region.



Hawa Koomson has been at the receiving end of an avalanche of criticisms after she fired shots at a registration centre at the Awutu Senya East constituency.



According to her, she fired to protect her life.



I realised the lives of my people were in danger. So I wanted to scare the people. I fired the warning shots. I didnt direct it at anybody...Im a Member of Parliament, I need to protect myself. It was at dawn, my police escort had not started work yet. So that is a mechanism I have adopted in his absence," she said in an interview on Adom News.



Nana Obiri Boahen believes the Minister "was left with no other options because of the attacks on her and her entourage (alleged).



Speaking in an interview on Citi Eyewitness News, he claimed Hawa Koomson "was being chased with their motorbike and those doing that were heavily armed. Her car was hit with a motorbike. She fired to ward off the attack. She's a human being. She has the right to protect herself".



"I said she has not done anything wrong. When people started beating war drums in this country people treated my advice with contempt . . . the security analysts where were they?" he said.



Shatta Wale, Stonebwoy Vs Hawa Koomson



Stonebwoy and Shatta Wale are currently in court after disrupting VGMA in May 2019.



Shatta Wale and Stonebwoy have been charged with offensive conduct conducive to breach of peace. The latter is also facing another charge of displaying a weapon in a public place without permission.



The Bhim Nation artiste brandished a gun after Shatta Wale stormed the stage with his militants.



Connecting it to Hawa Koomson; some claims if the two artistes are facing legal action, then the same should be applied to the Awutu Senya East MP.



Disingenuous comparison



However, Obiri Boahen thinks it is 'disingenuous' to compare Hawa Koomson's act to that of Stonebwoy and Shatta Wale.



"This is disingenuous; the scenarios are not the same; disingenuous comparison; you better drop that argument; it's immaterial; it's a hasty conclusion," he told the host Umaru Sanda Amadu



Clearing Agent Akufo-Addo



Meanwhile, the National Communication Officer of the NDC has condemned Obiri Boahen for defending Hawa Koomson.



"It's a shame that Obiri Boahen will defend this illegal and criminal conduct of Hawa Koomson. We must learn to call out public officers who violate the law . . . Lawyer Obiri Boahen who should know better is defending this? What is this country being turned into by this Government?"



According to him, "this government is determined to cover up this crime, it is clear that she will be left off the hook. That is why we have served notice that if the clearing agent Akufo-Addo leaves Hawa Koomson off the hook any future NDC government will ensure that the woman pays for her crime."







Source: Rebecca Addo Tetteh/Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Kweku Baako has urged security forces in the country to boldly stand up against anything that threatens the security of Ghana.



Mr. Baako's admonition comes on the heels of a shooting incident at the Awutu Senya East constituency in the Central Region involving the Member of Parliament for the area, Mavis Hawa Koomson.



Hon. Hawa Koomson, who is also the Minister for Special Development Initiatives, on Monday, July 20, 2020 fired gunshots at a registration centre in the Awutu Senya East.



According to her, she was reacting to an aggression from some people who had threatened her life.



She stressed her action was a self-defence mechanism.



"Im a Member of Parliament, I need to protect myself. It was at dawn, my police escort had not started work yet. So that is a mechanism I have adopted in his absence...I realised the lives of my people were in danger. So I wanted to scare the people. I fired the warning shots. I didnt direct it at anybody," the Minister explained.



The Police have begun investigations into the issue.



Contributing to Wednesday's 'Kokrokoo' on Peace FM, Kweku Baako condemned Hawa Koomson's action saying ''I doubt if there is any basis for her conduct. Member of Parliament and Minister of State, such an exercise and that place is a flashpoint and you're entitled to some personal security but if the personal security is not ready, I don't see why you should go alone. And I'm assuming that she went without a personal security, yes, so I want to give the benefit of the doubt. But why go when your personal security is not immediately available and actually it's not a case where will never show up? And the exercise takes some hours, so why put yourself in potential danger so that you, the Minister the MP, will have to exercise self-defence''



''I think it's completely avoidable and ought not to have happened. So, if you take it from that perspective alone, it's difficult to defend her conduct. I'm being honest with you and it has collateral implications for the party as well as the administration of which she's a part. Needlessly, completely needless!'', he slammed the Minister.



Addressing the issue further, Kweku Baako reposed confidence in the Police administration to exhibit quality professionalism in their work.



Mentioning names like COP Kofi Boakye, the late DCOP Angwubutoge Awuni and others as some Police personnel who have distinguished themselves in their field of work, he appealed to the Police to handle Hawa Koomson's case ''in a transparent manner''.



Kweku Baako also called on all Ghanaians to stand for the truth, stressing the country has evolved from the period of the culture of silence.



"If everybody was scared, afraid and not prepared to fight, I don't think the PNDC would have given way. I don't think we would have had the fourth Republic and don't forget in the process, people died. People went to jail; people went into exile. So, it comes with sacrifice. Something must give way. We must begin to grow that culture. Tell people that, look, stand up and speak. You may suffer. You may become a casualty. It's difficult but they're many such examples. Even winning independence, we went through that. Indeed, we didn't go to war but, people don't know, people died. People went to jail for life," he said.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The action in Rajasthan drama moves back to the desert state with the state high court set to pronounce its verdict on Friday at 10:30 am on the writ petition moved by rebel Congress leader Sachin Pilot and 18 dissident MLAs challenging the speakers disqualification notice to them.

Earlier today, the Supreme Court allowed the high court to rule on the petition filed by team Pilot against the speakers disqualification notice, adding that it would be subject to the outcome of the petition before the top court.

The Pilot camp has argued that they cannot be disqualified for merely disagreeing with the decisions of some leaders outside the assembly. They also say issuance of disqualification notice by the speaker is a violation of their freedom of speech right. Their lawyers further argued that the lawmakers were given only three days time to reply during Covid-19 pandemic.

Earlier, defying party whip, Team Pilot skipped the two Congress legislature party meetings but underscored that they have not given up their membership of the house. The writ petition challenges the speakers notice to rebel MLAs as well as the disqualification on the grounds of defection.

If the rebel MLAs are disqualified, the majority mark in the 200-member assembly will automatically come down, making it easier for chief minister Ashok Gehlot to win a floor test.

The number of lawmakers present at the two Congress legislature party meetings indicated that the Gehlot government would be able to stay in power even if with a wafer-thin majority. At the third meeting held this week, Gehlot urged the legislators to stand firm like a rock as the country is watching them.

The Rajasthan CM hasnt put a number of lawmakers on his side yet. Youll get to know the exact number when we win the floor test by a thumping majority. This time, every MLA will hear the voice of his conscience and vote, Gehlot told HT on Monday.

Sachin Pilot was stripped of his posts in the government and the party after, according to the Congress, he turned down peace overtures from the party leadership that asked him to make it clear that he was a loyal soldier of the Congress and not working with the BJP.

Encouraged by the support of the party, Gehlot has been launching sharp attacks on Sachin Pilot in an effort to dent his image as the Congress leader who led the party to victory in the 2018 state elections. Pilot was tasked to rebuild the Rajasthan Congress chief in 2014.

Gehlot, who has accused Pilot of conspiring with the BJP to bring down his government, said his former deputy had used his command over the language and his innocent face to convince the media that he had worked hard to get the party in power. This wasnt a fact, the chief minister said. We knew he is nikamma (worthless) and nakara [good for nothing], Gehlot told reporters on Monday.
The European Unions foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to avoid further ceasefire violations and resume peace talks during a trilateral phone call with the foreign ministers of the two South Caucasus states.

Borrell phoned Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian and his newly appointed Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov late on Wednesday to again discuss the July 12 outbreak of deadly clashes on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, which left at least 17 soldiers dead. It was Mnatsakanians first conversation with Bayramov, who replaced Azerbaijans longtime Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov last week.

I urged both sides to reaffirm their commitment to a ceasefire and undertake immediate measures to prevent further escalation, Borrell tweeted after the phone call.

In a separate statement, the EU cited Borrell as saying that the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should refrain from action and rhetoric that provoke tension, in particular from any further threats to critical infrastructure in the region.

He also stressed the need for meaningful re-engagement in substantive negotiations on the key aspects of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement under the auspices of the [OSCE Minsk Group] Co-Chairs; both ministers concurred on this, read the statement.

Baku and Yerevan blame each other for the border clashes which appear to have subsided over the past week. Mnatsakanian and Bayramov were reported to stand by their governments diametrically opposite versions of the events.

According to the Armenian Foreign Ministry, Mnatsakanian emphasized the importance of implementation of the previous agreements on reducing tensions, restoring and strengthening the ceasefire. The confidence-building agreements reached in 2016-2017 called for the deployment of more OSCE monitors in the conflict zone and international investigations of truce violations happening there.

For his part, Bayramov said that while Azerbaijan remains committed to a peaceful Karabakh settlement it wants further negotiations with Armenia to produce concrete results.

Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev has threatened in recent weeks to withdraw from the negotiating process, saying that it has been meaningless so far. He has said the U.S., Russian and French mediators co-heading the Minsk Group should do more to make the talks substantive in addition to trying to prevent violence.

Meanwhile, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian insisted on Thursday that Azerbaijan itself hampers progress towards the conflicts resolutions with its maximalist position that preludes any compromise peace accord. He said Baku must not talk to us from the position of force.

Azerbaijan should publicly renounce the use of force and take credible steps to end its anti-Armenian rhetoric, Pashinian added during a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan.
Ramsay residents arent giving up their fight to prevent Loves Travel Stops from locating a sprawling truck stop complex next to their quiet, tiny community on Interstate 90 about 7 miles west of Butte.

They say a Butte-Silver Bow Zoning Board decision that went against them on technical and timing grounds might have actually bolstered their case because they have more information, introduced key arguments and can detail them at length in the future.

The Ramsay Citizens Council contends that Planning Director Lori Casey has already decided that the planned truck stop would not be in an area that falls under Ramsay zoning boundaries. Ramsay residents say it would be and sought to appeal that finding.

Casey says no official decision has been made and wont be until her office issues a location permit, and that wont happen until Loves obtains necessary environmental regulatory permits, including two from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ.

Loves site plans could change because of permit requirements, Casey says, so until they are finalized and a location permit is issued, there is no official zoning matter to appeal.

During a videoconference meeting of the Zoning Board last Thursday, and after two board members expressed confusion over the issues and process in play, the board voted 7-0 to dismiss the appeal because for now, there was nothing to appeal.

But Board Chairman Dave Wing said the entire discussion Thursday night would be put in the record and if and when a location permit is issued, and Ramsay citizens want to appeal, they can argue all of their points then.

We will no doubt hear this again in the future and I will do so with an open mind, he said.

Jim Ayres, a member of the Ramsay group, says hes banking on the entire board doing that.

I think that they really believe that we have a legitimate argument but the timing wasnt right, Ayres said Monday.

The Montana Standard sent emails to two Loves public relations representatives on Tuesday seeking comment.

Loves Travel Stops & Country Stores, an Oklahoma City-based corporation, announced plans to locate a truck stop next to Ramsay in January 2017. It had 410 locations across the U.S. then and opened its first in Montana, in Hardin, east of Billings, that year.

Loves has purchased land for the truck stop at Ramsay and obtained a DEQ stormwater permit for general construction activities, but other regulatory approvals are still pending. Loves now has more than 520 locations across the U.S., including one near Missoula.

The one at Ramsay would include a large convenience store, an Arbys restaurant, a casino, a tire shop and parking for at least 110 semis. A state agency has approved a license transfer that would allow the casino to serve liquor, but Ramsay citizens have appealed that in District Court in Butte and a decision is still pending.

Numerous Ramsay residents have opposed the overall project from the start, saying the truck stop will bring traffic, noise, pollution, transients and crime to their quiet community of about 40 houses.

Loves says the project would mean 60 to 80 jobs ranging from part-time to a handful of managerial positions, with all employees starting above minimum wage and getting benefits.

Dave Palmer, Butte-Silver Bows chief executive, says county officials have not tried to entice Loves to come but theres nothing legally they can do to stop the project.

But Ramsay residents say the town has had zoning regulations on the books for decades and buildings for the Loves truck stop fall clearly in a commercial zone. The zone allows for a truck depot, but they say that doesnt equate to anything approaching what Loves would be.

They also contend that Casey, in documents and in testimony before a state hearing officer, has said the buildings would be in an unzoned area, there were no preclusions for a casino in an unzoned area, and plans for parking were allowed.

A planning staff analysis given to Zoning Board members last week says the Loves site plan was overlaid with a map of zoning boundaries, and the information was utilized to make the determination that the buildings are located in an area that is unzoned.

To me, a determination is a decision, Ayres told the Zoning Board, so an appeal should be allowed. Resident also say that according to maps on file with the countys Clerk and Recorder Office and the GIS department, buildings in Loves site plans are within Ramsay zones.

Ayres said planning staff presented a new hand-drawn map, colored in with crayons, only five days before last Thursdays hearing and he questions how they came up with it.

Casey acknowledged that Loves has submitted several site plans, but none is official and wont be until the county issues a location permit. And that cant be done until all necessary state regulatory permits have been issued, she said.

Until that is done, she said, There is always the potential, the possibility that things can shift and move.

Wing agreed, saying there was nothing to appeal at this point.

We dont know where Loves is going to put their facility, he said. I dont have any idea. Weve (only) got a general idea.

Wing said Ayres could argue all the points at length if and when there was a decision to appeal, including discrepancies over maps and any other matters.

The state DEQ, meanwhile, has said it expects to rule on some pending environmental permit issues very soon and that will be followed by a public comment period.

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Following their July 9th announcement about the end of streaming in Grade 9 classes, starting with math in 2021, the provincial Tories have received a fair deal of good press, albeit with reservations. Analysts have noted that this change must be implemented with care, that class sizes should be low, and that there must be adequate supports in schools. This is going to cost money. Educators fear this move is a ploy to increase class sizes, under the guise of destreaming. If so, the result will mean underserved students are further sidelined.

In speeches, Ford and Lecce declare that destreaming is happening in order to address systemic racism within the education sector. It should be noted that the premier recently denied the existence of systemic racism in Canada. He has done a profound about face on that issue.

One thing no one seems to be writing about is the tone of the announcement. Ford and Lecce crowed about the importance of this announcement for BIPOC and underprivileged students and their families. Lecce actually declared that we can literally change the lives of a generation with this move to destreaming. High expectations for destreamed Grade 9 math indeed!

The most troubling aspect of the announcement was the way both Ford and Lecce attacked teachers. They stated repeatedly that the system was broken, that systemic racism was a serious problem, and they were going to fix it. Early on Ford went after teachers, suggesting that the use of racial slurs against students, by teachers, was prevalent in classrooms in Ontario. Let me make one thing crystal clear  racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, Islamophobia and any kind of hate speech have no place in our classrooms. Any teacher who engages in this type of behaviour or who makes hateful slurs  theyre done. Theyre gone. Were strengthening sanctions against teachers who engage in this kind of behaviour, said Ford. Lecce doubled down, stating that families deserve accountability and justice for incidences of racism behaviour by teachers. He repeated the threat of punishment against teachers who inflict trauma and hurt on students.

Is there evidence that there is widespread use of slurs by teachers toward students in Ontario? There is not. On the government of Ontarios website, this is made clear. Over the last 23 years, the Ontario College of Teachers reports that there have been 32 instances of teacher discipline for racist or homophobic behaviour or remarks. While this is not acceptable, it does not remotely suggest this is a widespread practice. Yet Ford and Lecce seemed to relish their attacks on the integrity of Ontario teachers. This is a clear example of gaslighting. Ironically, they continue to employ Sam Oosterhoof as the Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Education despite the fact that he has publicly made homophobic statements.

It should also be noted that the Ford government cancelled plans for a review of Indigenous content in our curricula, and the chance to strengthen such content. He also cancelled plans to help impoverished students by making post-secondary education more accessible. Instead, he raised tuition by 10 per cent across the board. Massive cuts were also made to student grant and loan programs. How can the minister claim that the goal of destreaming is to help students while he simultaneously raises costs and lowers support for post-secondary education, and cancels plans to improve the curriculum in ways that actually address systemic racism in Canada?

Destreaming Grade 9 classes is not a magic bullet that will create equity in education, solve the issue of systemic racism and raise academic achievement. A far more profound action would be for the government to invest in developing intensive literacy programs for students in the elementary level. Far too many students are entering secondary schools with a Grade 6 or lower reading level. These students will not be able to succeed in any academic class, and they will struggle in applied classes. If you cant read or communicate effectively, you have no chance. Students with weak reading skills are identified early on. That is the time for a massive intervention, to help them attain the literacy skills that will actually make it possible for them to study at an academic level. That would be life changing for students.

Ford, Lecce: As a result of the COVID epidemic, there exists much anxiety about what education will look like in September. You have wasted an opportunity to work with teachers, the very people who could provide you with so much assistance with necessary protocols, no matter how things play out. Instead, you seem to be happy to clap yourselves on the back, promoting a plan without details, while lashing out at teachers in order to settle political scores. It is entirely counterproductive. Stop throwing darts at teachers and do your jobs! Develop a plan for September!
Express News Service

BENGALURU/BHUBANESWAR/KOCHI/VIJAYAWADA/HYDERABAD: We are worried about money at the moment, not our health. The poor have no health to worry about, Ravi Chourasiya, 30, a contract carpenter in Bengalurus Cox Town, says stoically.

Back home in Bihar, I have to feed my aged parents, two sisters, wife, two children and a younger brother. There was no source of income, so I had to come back to Bengaluru, even in this dangerous time, he says.

Chourasiyas story is interchangeable with the majority of lakhs of Indian migrant workers, who without warning found themselves jobless at the end of March and stranded far from their homes.

During the lockdown, Chourasiya went to his home state, but the familiar dearth of suitable jobs there has now forced him to return to Bengaluru.

Across the South, migrant workers have begun trickling in back to the jobs they held before the Covid-19 lockdown. The workers say they have no choice but to return as government subsidies at their home states are not enough to sustain them any longer.

I earned just Rs 828 from the MGNREGA work I did for a week and received Rs 2,000 as government incentive after two months. How can my family live on such a meagre sum? asks Narendra, a migrant from Cuttack district in Odisha.

There are few jobs to be had in migrants native villages. Birendra Das from West Bengal says, At my village, shops and restaurants restarted in June first week, but I could not find any job, not even as a cleaner. I tried for nearly a month, but in Vijayawada my boss was ready to hire me back. So though I wasnt willing to, I returned on June 27, says Das.

But travelling back to states where they had worked is not easy. Employers in Kerala say thousands in West Bengal, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are unable to return either due to a lack of trains or stringent travel restrictions in their home states.

We are ready to meet the initial quarantine and food expenses of the returning workers. But, we are told their home states, especially West Bengal and Assam, are not ready to provide the sanction for travel, says Shibin Jose, director, KLR Facility Management, a Kochi-based manpower supplier.

GHAR WAPSI: WILL THEY...? WONT THEY...?

The problem is more or less similar for another employer, Amjad Ali VA, who runs a plywood factory in Perumbavoor. We used to run two shifts a day. Now, we are operating just one due to a decline in business and lack of labour, said Ali. Some migrant workers are making every effort to return.

One tile-mason, Ramesh, rode his motorcycle 300 km every day for 10 days from his home in Uttar Pradesh to his workplace in Tiruchy, as there was no public transport.

Others such as Pooran Chand Yadav, 55, a supervisor for a contractor working with BPCL, had an easier time returning because they lived in green zone areas in the country.

As the southern states rely heavily on migrant workers to keep businesses running, their absence has stalled projects.

Srinivas Rao, Visakhapatnam secretary of the builders group Credai, says around 2,000 big and small projects have been affected, as nearly 70% of one lakh workers have not returned, though over a month has passed since Unlock 1.

Precise data is not available yet on how many migrant workers have returned, but authorities say the bulk of the workforce is still staying away.

In Andhra Pradeshs Krishna district alone, only 72,000 have returned out of 4 lakh who left. The lack of labour combined with a collapse in demand has hit industrialists hard. In Coimbatore, up to 60% of units could not resume operations because of labour shortage.

The migrants who went to their hometowns in special trains could not return here as the inter-state transport facility is frozen due to the pandemic.

We are facing a severe labour shortage, says J James, district president of TN Association of Cottage and Tiny Enterprises.

Also, job orders have plunged by 60%, he says. Some migrant workers remain wary about the virus. Ajay Kumar and his family had left Vijayawada and returned to Brahmapur in Odisha during the lockdown.

My boss called me and offered to pay some extra money than what he used to pay and said he would foot my train fare and house rent here till everything normalises. So I decided to come back. But this time I came alone as I did not want my family to suffer. I will bring them only when everything is back to normal.

Others are set against returning because they had a rough time during the lockdown. Nabi Ul Sheikh from Malda in West Bengal faced a torrid time in Hyderabad along with 6,000 others when the lockdown was imposed.

They were restricted to a settlement, he alleges, and he and his group did not receive adequate food and accommodation. After the Shramik trains were announced, they hopped on without thinking, thanking their gods for the chance to return home. Sheikh has now found work as a mason in his hometown and says he will now never return.

Its fine that Covid-19 happened, nobody could have done anything about it. But we did not expect this treatment from our company. Chandan Das, who stayed back near his workplace at Cherlapally industries cluster in the outskirts of Hyderabad, says the government is not providing adequate support.

We are paid Rs 10,000 per month out of which Rs 3,500 goes to rent. Around Rs 5,000 is left for food, which is not enough to support my family of three. In Odisha, workers have begun to leave for their former jobs.

The prime destination for those workers is Gujarat, particularly Surat, where lakhs of Odia workers are employed in powerlooms.

The absence of quarantine stipulation in Gujarat has encouraged the workers to return, says Sushant Rout of Prabasi Odia organisation. In Madurai, cases are still rising and officials say migrant workers have not yet returned to work as there is a strict lockdown.
IGNOU has said that the June TEE 2020 exams will be conducted subject to fulfilling the university norms on admission year and registration validity period

The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) will be conducting Term End Examination (TEE) for final year students in September.

The university's notification said that it will conduct the TEE June 2020 from the first week of September for final year/final semester students of Master's Degree, Bachelor's Degree, Post-Graduate Diploma, Diploma and Certificate Programmes.

The examinations are being organised as per the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and the University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines released recently.

IGNOU has said that the June TEE 2020 exams will be conducted subject to fulfilling the university norms on admission year and registration validity period.

The deadline for filling the examination applications has also been extended till 31 July. Candidates who want to take the exam in September can apply on the official website - ignou.ac.in.

According to a report by The Times of India, regional centres of IGNOU will inform students about the practical exams if applicable.

The report said the University has stated that those students who would be unable to appear for the examination in September due to the COVID-19 pandemic will be given another chance in December.

The IGNOU Academic Council members met on Tuesday and reached a decision that written examinations have to be held regardless of the year/semester students are enrolled in.

As per a report by NDTV, the Joint Forum for Movement on Education (JFME) has begun a petition online seeking withdrawal of UGC guidelines and cancellation of final year exams. The petition will be submitted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi after it receives 1,000 digital signatures on the platform Change.org.

The UGC recently issued revised guidelines asking the universities across the country to conduct the final year or semester examination by the end of September.
The C.I.A. has not commented on Mr. Petraeuss trip, made to a region he knows well from his days as the Army general in charge of Central Command, which is responsible for all American military operations in the Middle East. Officials of countries in the region say that Mr. Petraeus has been deeply involved in trying to steer the supply effort, though American officials dispute that assertion.

One Middle Eastern diplomat who has dealt extensively with the C.I.A. on the issue said that Mr. Petraeuss goal was to oversee the process of vetting, and then shaping, an opposition that the U.S. thinks it can work with. According to American and Arab officials, the C.I.A. has sent officers to Turkey to help direct the aid, but the agency has been hampered by a lack of good intelligence about many rebel figures and factions.

Another Middle Eastern diplomat whose government has supported the Syrian rebels said his countrys political leadership was discouraged by the lack of organization and the ineffectiveness of the disjointed Syrian opposition movement, and had raised its concerns with American officials. The diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing delicate intelligence issues, said the various rebel groups had failed to assemble a clear military plan, lacked a coherent blueprint for governing Syria afterward if the Assad government fell, and quarreled too often among themselves, undercutting their military and political effectiveness.

We havent seen anyone step up to take a leadership role for what happens after Assad, the diplomat said. Theres not much of anything thats encouraging. We should have lowered our expectations.

The disorganization is strengthening the hand of Islamic extremist groups in Syria, some with ties or affiliations with Al Qaeda, he said: The longer this goes on, the more likely those groups will gain strength.

American officials worry that, should Mr. Assad be ousted, Syria could erupt afterward into a new conflict over control of the country, in which the more hard-line Islamic groups would be the best armed. That depends on what happens in the arms bazaar that has been feeding the rebel groups. In several towns along the Turkey-Syria border, rebel commanders can be found seeking weapons and meeting with shadowy intermediaries, in a chaotic atmosphere where the true identities and affiliations of any party can be extremely difficult to ascertain.

Late last month in the Turkish border town of Antakya, at least two men who had recently been in Syria said they had seen Islamist rebels buying weapons in large quantities and then burying them in caches, to be used after the collapse of the Assad government. But it was impossible to verify these accounts, and other rebels derided the reports as wildly implausible.
President Donald Trump said Wednesday he would be comfortable sending his school-age son and grandchildren to in-person school this fall even as the country struggles to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump suggested during a press briefing that children have strong immune systems to ward off the virus and pointed to some evidence that has shown young children transmit it less easily.

"Yeah, I am comfortable with that," Trump said when asked about his own family.

"I would like to see the schools open 100 percent. And we'll do it safely. We'll do it carefully," he said.

This week the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association released a joint report on covid-19 cases among U.S. children. While it found that severe illness among children who contract the disease is rare, there has been a marked increase in children testing positive in the past several weeks as more day-cares and camps reopened.

Trump was pressed on whether he understood concerns that sending children back to school increases their potential exposure to the virus that they then could spread to parents or grandparents who are more vulnerable to serious illness.

The president said his administration was examining whether children who caught the virus at school would even transmit it at home.

"A lot of people are saying they don't transmit ... They don't catch it easily," Trump said. "They don't bring it home easily. And if they do catch it, they get better fast."

A study in June found that children and teenagers are only half as likely to get infected with the coronavirus as adults 20 and older. But the findings did not rule out children spreading the virus to family members. Experts say the evidence on how children catch and transmit the virus is still too scant to be definitive.

New research from South Korea released this week determined that children older than 10 were just as likely to transmit the virus as adults. Those younger than 10 were less likely to spread it, but the risk wasn't zero. Trump's youngest child is 14 years old.

Critics of reopening schools this fall also point out that it's not just children and their families whose health would be at risk, but also the adult faculty and support staff that run the school.
Sure, it might be warm Wednesday, but what about the rest of the week?
In recent months, Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge have been pushed to the forefront of the British royal family. With Megxit and amid the coronavirus pandemic, all eyes have been put on the future, Crowned King and Queen Consort.

Now that Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry are living a non-royal life in LA, the Cambridges are feeling the brunt of all of the praise and criticism that comes with royal life.

With the Sussexes out of the way, Kate and Prince William have found themselves in a newfound wave of criticism with a major spotlight on their spending habits.

RELATED: Fans Are Furious That the Royal Family Is Defending Kate Middleton but Not Meghan Markle

The British royal family costs taxpayers quite a bit of money each year

Though the royal family and Queen Elizabeth II, in particular, are worth quite a bit of money independently, the royals private money is rarely touched. In order to live such lavish lifestyles, taxpayers contribute a great deal to the royals.

In fact, one of the reasons the royals rarely comment on rumors and criticism is because the public essentially finances their lifestyles. If the press says something unkind and you respond, then the anger becomes the story, royal author Tom Quinn told Fox News. Someone once [told me] its the price [these royals] pay for being paid millions every year by British taxpayers to live like 18th-century aristocrats.

The royals may get quite a bit more than is reported from taxpayers. The monarchy in general costs a lot more than the royal household admits to, Republic CEO Graham Smith told Express. It is about 345million from the taxpayer every year, it needs to be stripped right back.

RELATED: Kate Middleton Was Brutally Mocked in the Press After She Got Engaged to Prince William

Royal experts believe Kate Middleton and Prince William should earn their own income

With the Sussexes resigning to reclaim their lives and earn their own living, royal experts are now suggesting that the Cambridges do the same until its time for Prince William to take the throne.

We do not owe Prince William and Kate an income, we do not owe them a role, we dont owe them anything, Smith said. They can go off and do their own thing. The monarchy is there to give us one person and that is the head of state, the Queen. The Queen should, therefore, be on an annual salary similar to that of the Prime Minister. The costs should be stripped away so that we can save that 345million and just provided us with a head of state who is supported by a small office.

RELATED: The Royal Family Was Alarmed by Meghan Markle and Prince Harrys Spending Habits, Source Reveals

Prince William and Kate Middleton are being slammed for their spending habits

A lot was said about the Sussexes spending habits during their time in the royal fold. Critics are displeased with the $2 million renovations to their U.K. home, Frogmore Cottage which they have since paid back. Harrys [spending] transformation is revealed as one of the fundamental factors behind the deep fissure that opened between him and his brother, Prince William, Dylan Howard and Andy Tillett write in their book, Royals at War.

Now it looks like the Cambridges spending habits are getting a closer examination. Apparently, the royal couple spent 15,000 on a 950ft hedge to block the public from seeing into their property.

It is typical of the royals to spend this type of money because all they think about is their own lifestyles, Smith explained. They have a deep-seated sense of entitlement. They routinely spend money in the tens of thousands whether it is on their own homes or private plane and helicopter travel around the UK when they could easily take cars or trains. So this is typical of more of their spending.

We doubt anything will change, but we do know that Prince Charles is looking to significantly trim down the monarchy.
Dr. Ahmet Yayla , Assistant Professor at DeSales University, has said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slowly established his rule in the country by shifting moderate Turkish Sufi Islam, based on teachings of Rumi towards a Salafi Islam  the political Islam. Dr Yayla made the remarks during a webinar on Turkeys Undoing of Kemalist Project and its Tremors in Geopolitics of Islamic World organized by Usanas Foundation, Udaipur-based security, and geopolitical affairs think-tank and Law and Society.

Dr. Ahmet Yayla added that currently, Erdogans core support base constitutes 30% of Turkeys population. He needs more and more support to save himself from being prosecuted on charges of corruption and killings. So first of all he is trying to convey to the 30% population that in order to practice your religion and protect it, you need to vote and support him. For the support of others, he is trying to project himself a nationalist and tallest leader of the Muslim world. Though he is projecting himself as the Messiah of Islam, however, he is himself not practicing proper Islam. Instead, he is misusing the religion for his political ambitions. Over 60 thousand ISIS fighters came to fight via Turkey, who were given an open and free passage, without being stopped by the Turkish government. The support to ISIS was so open, that in several instances, it was seen that ISIS fighters used to make clear declarations in front of Turkish authorities to let them cross over Turkey to fight for ISIS.

Erdogan has been trying to strengthen his position as the global leader of Islam.He has learned from the fate of his predecessors and is trying to promote a muscular Islam. Foreign policy is the reflection of domestic conditions. His overt interventions in Syria and Iraq are methods of reflecting his muscular power in the region. It is a major NATO power with the second-largest army and has constantly tried to get into the EU, but has failed. It is also challenging in several European countries in their quest in Syria. Said Anil Trigunayat, Indias Former Ambassador to Jordan, Libya, and Malta,

Anil Trigunayat also said that Turkey has tried to found a new Islamic organization to counter the OIC with the help of Pakistan. We have seen their covert statements on Kashmir and 370. Hope that Erdoganwill release his limitations and not continue to force his thoughts over other countries. India has worked together with Turkey in the G-20. In South Asia, Erdogans major focus is on Pakistan and on China, trying to create a kind of nexus. We need to be a bit cautious in dealing with Turkey. We are certainly in the right direction by canceling a couple of important deals with Turkey.

In the end, to Abhinav Pandya CEO of Usanas Foundation question about the possibility of a public revolt against Erdogan to bring secular and democratic Turkey back, Dr. Yayla said that its possibility is very unlikely in the future because Erdogan controls all media and the Salafism is spreading fast in Turkey.
The telecom brands Reliance Jio, Airtel, and Vodafone have introduced many prepaid plans in the recent past. The plans not only offer high-speed data per day but also come bundled with a free subscription to streaming apps. So if you are looking for prepaid plans that offer as much as 3GB data per day or 84GB data per month, here's a complete list of prepaid plans by Vodafone, Airtel, and Reliance Jio.

The 3GB data per day plans are beneficial for users who use their phones extensively, if you don't want so much data in one day you can check out other prepaid plans.

Reliance Jio

Jio has three prepaid plans that offer 3GB data per day or 84GB data per month. The prepaid plans include Rs 401, Rs 999 and Rs 349. The Rs 401 prepaid plan comes with 3GB high-speed data per day and an additional data of 6GB whereas the other two plan only offers 3GB data per day and no additional data. The prepaid plans also ship with Jio to Jio Unlimited, Jio to Non-Jio with FUP limit, and 100 SMS per day. Out of all the three plans, the Rs 401 prepaid plan comes with a free subscription to Disney+ Hotstar whereas all other plans offer a free subscription to Jio apps. The Rs 401 and Rs 349 prepaid plans have a validity of 28 days whereas the Rs 999 prepaid plan has a validity of 84 days.

Airtel

Airtel has two prepaid plans that offer 3GB data per day. The plans are priced at Rs 398 and Rs 558. The prepaid plans offer 84Gb data per month, unlimited calls to all networks, and 100 SMS per day. Both the prepaid plans offer a free subscriptions to the Airtel Stream app. The Rs 398 prepaid plan has a validity of 28 days whereas the Rs 558 prepaid plan has a validity of 56 days.

Vodafone

We are talking about the prepaid plans that are offering 3GB data per day but under Vodafone's special scheme users are getting as much as 4GB data per day. Vodafone currently has three double data packs that are active and offer as much as 4GB data every day. The plans are available for Rs 299, 449, and 699. However, Vodafone does have one dedicated plan that costs Rs 398 and offers 3GB data per day. It ships with 100SMSes per day. The plan offers unlimited calling benefits and it is valid only for 28 days.
Writer-filmmaker Tahira Kashyap has shared several throwback pictures with her daughter Varushka from their family vacation seven months ago, along with a sweet note. Tahira along with husband Ayushmann Khurrana and kids Varushka and Virajveer had flown to Bahamas around Christmas last year and to ring in the New Year at the picturesque location.

She wrote, Throwback with my little antithesis. She definitely likes to dress up and always has an opinion on what I wear. And I can see the future where she is going to get really upset when she gets my pajamas and shorts as her hereditary wealth! Till then its these pouts and beautiful memories #throwbackthursday #throwbackwithdaughters #throwback #nassau #nassaubahamas #bahamas #daughter #daughtersarethebest.

The first picture shows the mother-daughter duo pouting for the camera. Another one has them showing their hair in cornrows. There is also a picture of them posing with a puppy on the beach and enjoying their time in water in a different photo. One of the clicks features Tahira riding a water-scooter with Varushka riding pillion.

Ayushmanns Bala co-star Yami Gautam commented to the post, So cuuuute Mama-daughter. Twinkle Khanna reacted, Big hug along with a heart emoji. Sameera Reddy dropped several heart-eye emojis in the comments section. Shama Sikander wrote, I miss her two ponies flying around while walking.

Also read: Kartik Aaryan debunks myths about depression on his show, says his mom asks him to get married whenever hes angry

Tahira and Ayushmann had celebrated Varushkas 6th birthday at home in lockdown. She had shared several pictures of their handmade decorations made from scratch using recycled paper. She had also shared a video of the preparations and said, Its our daughters sixth birthday. We wanted to throw a small party but there werent any decorations and balloons available in the market so we thought we are going to make some homemade decorations and we wanted to share the joy of doing the same with you.

The man behind all these art sessions is Mr Ayushmann Khurrana, who has just played the music, and thats about it, she added.

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In the Sulak canyon of Russia's Republic of Daghestan, farmers rely on a system of makeshift, hand-powered cable cars to transport their produce across a mountain river.
Jordans flag carrier airline is resuming weekly domestic flights as the country gears up to also allow international travel following a monthslong grounding of planes.

Airports including Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, the countrys largest, closed to commercial traffic in mid-March. From today, Royal Jordanian Airlines will run flights between the capital and King Hussein International Airport in Aqaba three times a week.

The government announced last week that the Amman airport will resume international flights in the first or second week of August. Travelers from countries deemed low risk will be allowed to board, provided they have proof of a negative coronavirus test 72 hours prior to their departure and also test negative upon arrival in Jordan.

The Hashemite Kingdom has so far designated 22 countries as low risk, including Canada, China, Germany and Taiwan. Under the new regulations, travelers who lie about their test results risk a fine of 10,000 Jordanian dinars ($14,100).

Minister of Transport Khalid Saif hailed the resumption of travel, but warned Jordanians to proceed with caution.

Though resuming air travel is important, the citizens safety is more important. The reopening of the airport does not imply that the situation is now back to normal, he said, as reported by The Jordan Times.

Jordan, a nation of 10 million people, has recorded just 1,120 coronavirus cases and 11 deaths.

The country has weathered the crisis better than its neighbors thanks to the Jordanian governments swift reaction in mid-March, which included imposing a nationwide lockdown and state of emergency. Earlier this month, King Abdullah said that having brought the virus under control, Jordan would come out stronger compared to other countries in the region."

The government began to relax restrictions in late April and by early June, a majority of businesses had reopened. Still, many Jordanians are worried over the potential economic fallout of more than 40 days of shutdown.
CHICAGO - A collection of Chicago activist groups want a judge to block federal agents sent to the city to combat violent crime from interfering in or policing protests, arguing in a lawsuit filed Thursday that the surge ordered by President Donald Trump will inhibit residents ability to hold demonstrations.

The suit names Attorney General William Barr along with the heads of other federal agencies whose agents are part of the surge plan announced at the White House on Wednesday. The announcement did little to calm some Chicago residents fear that the agents presence will lead to the violent clashes between demonstrators and federal agents seen in Portland.

Aislinn Pulley, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Chicago, said the federal strategy uses crime as an excuse to stifle righteous rage and anger at the continued killing of Black people by police.

We will not be threatened, Pulley said at a news conference announcing the suit. We will not be coerced into suppressing our rage.

The lawsuit also asks a judge to prevent agents in Chicago from making arrests or detaining people without probable cause, along with requiring agents to identify themselves and their agency and explain why someone is being arrested.

The planned surge already has caused some members of the activist groups to draw back from protest plans this weekend, due to the well-founded fear that they will be brutalized or kidnapped by federal agents, attorneys wrote.

In Oregon, the state has asked a judge for a similar restraining order against agents deployed to quell protests in Portland. The suit filed by Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum accuses federal agents of arresting protesters without probable cause, whisking them away in unmarked cars and using excessive force.

Federal authorities have disputed those allegations.

Barr and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf on Wednesday also sought to separate the mission in Portland  to protect federal property  from the goal of helping stop violent crime. Barr said the additional agents will focus on classic crime fighting, expanding an existing operation that sent federal agents to Kansas City, Missouri, after a 4-year-old boys shooting death.

Trump and Barr spoke only of plans in Chicago and Albuquerque during the announcement, but the White House said in a later press release that the program would be expanded in coming weeks into Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee.

Officials in those cities said they oppose any plan that could bring the chaotic scenes from Portland to their own streets. Democratic leaders remain skeptical of the Trump administrations motivation and uncertain about the agents responsibilities.

Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers sent Trump a letter Wednesday saying he was deeply disturbed to hear about federal agents possibly being deployed to Milwaukee through a television interview with Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows rather than direct communication with his office.

This is not a moment to double down and unnecessarily increase police presence, especially without invitation, Evers wrote.

Democratic Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said Thursday that he would take the appropriate legal action if agents interfere with peaceful protests.

In Michigan, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said hes comfortable that any agents coming to the city will not be under the Department of Homeland Security. Duggan said a focus on gun trafficking cases, though, would be helpful.

Ohios Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said he anticipates a very different type of help than you saw in Portland coming to Cleveland.

I dont know exactly what happened in Portland, DeWine said. The idea of people coming in, and there was not the consent of people locally, that would be a problem in Ohio. But I dont think thats going to happen. We have no indication thats going to happen.

The Chicago activists suit said the Trump administrations public statements about the agents duties mean little compared to the presidents repeated criticism of demonstrators in U.S. cities following the death of George Floyd and unwavering support for federal agents presence in Portland.

Neither the President, Defendant Barr, nor Defendant Wolf gave any assurance that the hundreds of federal agents flooding Chicago would leave protestors alone, the activists lawsuit said.

Messages left Thursday for representatives of the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security seeking comment on the lawsuit were not immediately returned.

___

Associated Press writers Todd Richmond in Madison, Wis., Andrew Welsh-Huggins in Columbus, Ohio and Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.
Now that everyone has binged on streamings in cyberspace, let's take a look at the real world of cinemas and take a peek at highlights of upcoming film releases of 2020.

On the local front

On the horror front

In writer-director Christopher Nolan much anticipated Tenet (14 August) a man fights for the survival of the entire world, and journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real-time. Not time travel. Inversion. It stars John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Clemence Poesy, Michael Caine and Kenneth Branagh.Acclaimed filmmaker Niki Caro brings the epic tale of Chinas legendary warrior to life in Disneys Mulan (21 August), in which a fearless young woman risks everything out of love for her family and her country to become one of the greatest warriors China has ever known.Masquerading as a man, she is tested every step of the way and must harness her inner-strength and embrace her true potential. It is an epic journey that will transform her into an honoured warrior and earn her the respect of a grateful nation and a proud father. It features a celebrated international cast that includes Yifei Liu as Mulan; Donnie Yen as Commander Tung; Jason Scott Lee as Bori Khan; Yoson An as Cheng Honghui; with Gong Li as Xianniang and Jet Li as the Emperor.Following the deadly events at home, the Abbott family (Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe) must now face the terrors of the outside world as they continue their fight for survival in silence in A Quiet Place: Part II (4 September). Forced to venture into the unknown, they quickly realise that the creatures that hunt by sound are not the only threats that lurk beyond the sand path. This sequel to A Quiet Place (2018) is written and directed by John Krasinski.Set in the dazzling world of the LA music scene comes The High Note (25 September), the story of Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross), a superstar whose talent, and ego, have reached unbelievable heights. Maggie (Dakota Johnson) is Graces overworked personal assistant whos stuck running errands but still aspires to her childhood dream of becoming a music producer. When Graces manager (Ice Cube) presents her with a choice that could alter the course of her career, Maggie and Grace come up with a plan that could change their lives forever. Directed by Nisha Ganatra (Late Night) from a screenplay by Flora Greeson.Gal Gadot returns as Diana Prince and comes into conflict with the Soviet Union during the Cold War in the 1980s and finds a formidable foe by the name of the Cheetah in Wonder Woman 1984 (2 October). This superhero film based on the DC Comics character Wonder Woman is a sequel to 2017s Wonder Woman and is directed by Patty Jenkins, who wrote it with Geoff Johns and David Callaham from a story written by Johns and Jenkins. It also stars Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen and Robin Wright in supporting roles. It is the fourth live-action theatrical film featuring the title character, following Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Wonder Woman and Justice League (2017); it will be the second full-length feature film centred around the character.Kenneth Branagh directs and stars in the mystery thriller Death On The Nile (9 October), following Poirot, a world-renowned detective, on a vacation in Egypt and becoming involved in a love triangle gone murderously bad. Based on the 1937 novel of the same name by Agatha Christie, it is a sequel to 2017s Murder on the Orient Express and also stars Gal Gadot, Letitia Wright, Armie Hammer, Annette Bening, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Russell Brand.The psychological thriller Unhinged (9 October) takes something weve all experienced  road rage  to an unpredictable and terrifying conclusion. Rachel (Caren Pistorius) is running late getting to work when she crosses paths with a stranger (Russell Crowe) at a traffic light. Soon, Rachel finds herself and everyone she loves the target of a man who feels invisible and is looking to make one last mark upon the world by teaching her a series of deadly lessons. What follows is a dangerous game of cat and mouse that proves you never know who youre driving next to.Following the events of Captain America: Civil War (2016), Scarlett Johansson returns as Natasha Romanoff and finds herself alone and forced to confront her past in Black Widow (6 November), a superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is intended to be the 24th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and is directed by Cate Shortland.In No Time To Die (27 Nov) James Bond has left active service and is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica. His peace is short-lived when his old friend Felix Leiter from the CIA turns up asking for help. The mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist turns out to be far more treacherous than expected, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology. This spy film is directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga and the 25th instalment in the James Bond series. The film features Daniel Craig in his fifth outing as the MI6 agent James Bond. Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, Rory Kinnear, Jeffrey Wright, Lea Seydoux and Christoph Waltz reprise their roles from previous films, with Rami Malek, Ana de Armas, Lashana Lynch, David Dencik, Dali Benssalah and Billy Magnussen joining the cast.Steven Spielberg directs his first musical, West Side Story (18 December). Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler star as the star-crossed lovers, Tony and Maria, despite having affiliations with rival street gangs, the white Jets and Puerto Rican Sharks, they fall in love in 1950s New York City. Exploring forbidden love, and the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds, this romantic musical film is an adaptation of the Broadway musical of the same name by Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. The films screenplay is expected to hew more closely to the Broadway script than to the 1961 film adaptation directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins.Paul Atreides leads nomadic tribes in a battle to control the desert planet Arrakis in the epic science fiction film Dune (18 December), directed by Denis Villeneuve. It is the first of a planned two-part adaptation of the 1965 novel of the same name by Frank Herbert and will cover roughly the first half of the book. The film stars an ensemble cast including Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgard, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, David Dastmalchian, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa and Javier Bardem.In Top Gun: Maverick (25 December) Pete Maverick Mitchell mentors a new generation of US Navy fighter pilots. This action drama directed by Joseph Kosinski is the sequel to Top Gun (1986), with Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer reprising their roles from the first film.Toorbos (25 September) explores the Afrikaner feminine, through her fragility and power, this magical realist period drama, set in South Africas Knysna forest of the 1930s, follows the free-spirited Karoliena as she is coaxed into marriage to a townsman and has to navigate the realities of progress, oppression of society, denying her true self, love and war back to her own personal freedom. An accomplished and assured feature from novelist Rene Van Rooyen, who adapted renowned writer Dalene Matthees 2003 best-selling novel. It stars Elani Dekker and Stiaan Smith in the lead roles as Karoliena Kapp and Johannes Stander, respectively.In Material 2 (2 October) we follow the Kaif family as they balance family values and personal choices, whilst bringing in elements of comedic satire. It stars Riaad Moosa, Joey Rasdien, Denise Newman.Questioning issues of race, class and gender, Flatland (30 October) is a portrait of femininity set against the backdrop of hostile frontier land, that interrogates what it means to be a woman today  in South Africa and the world at large. Directed by Jenna Bass and starring Faith Baloyi, Nicole Fortuin and Izel Bezuidenhout. The unique, contemporary drama, which opened Berlin Film Festivals Panorama section at the beginning of 2019, is a journey of self-discovery for three different but equally trapped women  a pregnant teenager, a young bride and a middle-aged cop  played out against the backdrop of the Karoo.The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (11 September) is a chilling story of terror, murder and unknown evil that starts with a fight for the soul of a young boy, then takes paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) beyond anything theyd ever seen before.Candyman (30 October) is a spiritual sequel to the 1992 film, with a new Candyman returning to the neighbourhood where the legend began.
Despite the political tensions between the United States and China, scientists in the two countries are working together more than ever to study the COVID-19 virus, a new study suggests.

Researchers analyzed the scientific papers that researchers around the world produced on coronaviruses before and after the arrival of COVID-19. They found that the United States and China were world leaders in the topic area before COVID-19 and they remain so now.

"The collaborations between U.S. and Chinese scientists have intensified to the exclusion of most other countries, except the U.K." said Caroline Wagner, co-author of the study and associate professor in the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University.

"There may be friction between the U.S. and China on the political level, but at the scientific level we see something different -- a lot of collaboration."

The study was published today (July 21, 2020) in PLOS ONE.

Wagner and her colleagues analyzed a database of scientific articles on coronavirus-related research between Jan. 1, 2018, and Jan. 1, 2020. They compared that with a similar database of research from Jan. 1 to April 23, 2020.

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They examined the country where the authors of each study were based to see if there were differences in the pre- and post-COVID-19 periods.

One key finding was how quickly China ramped up its coronavirus research after COVID-19 was first identified in Wuhan, China, late in 2019, Wagner said.

"Chinese researchers produced more scientific articles on coronavirus in the first four months of 2020 -- more than 1,600 articles -- than in the previous 24 months combined," she said.

Chinese papers on coronavirus tended to be published in higher-impact journals after the crisis than before -- one indication of better-quality research.

The study also found that China has become the world leader in funding coronavirus research since COVID-19 was discovered.

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Before COVID-19, the U.S. National Institutes of Health was the leading funder of coronavirus-related research.

But since then, Chinese governmental agencies are more likely than the NIH to be acknowledged as the funding source in published studies.

Even before COVID-19, China and the United States were at the center of the global network of coronavirus research, although scientists from many countries also participated, findings showed.

But research on coronaviruses today is driven by smaller teams with researchers from fewer countries. Scientists from China, the United States and the U.K. dominate international teams.

"The network has shifted. With the urgency of the crisis, it makes sense that researchers are looking for smaller teams that can speed up the research process," Wagner said.

In separate research published in December, Wagner and colleagues found that a growing number of Chinese scientists working in the United States were returning to their homeland. That has probably influenced coronavirus research, according to Wagner.

"Now, many of those Chinese scientists who went back home may be working with their former colleagues in the United States on coronavirus studies, among many other topics," she said.

While the close connections between U.S. and Chinese scientists may be good for speeding up research, it comes with a cost.

"There is a vulnerability for scientists in other countries who are no longer part of these research networks," she said. "It is good to have researchers from all over the world working on a crisis like this."

Co-authors on the study were Caroline Fry of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Yi Zhang of the University of Technology Sydney in Australia; and Xiaojing Cai, a visiting fellow at Ohio State from Zhejiang University in China.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 10:24:02|Editor: huaxia

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MATANZAS, Cuba, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Felix Limas graduated with the highest honors from the Matanzas Regional Lifeguard Academy after successfully performing a rescue drill at Varadero Beach, Cuba's most developed resort.

Today he works not just to save lives from drowning, but to protect people from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Limas and dozens of other newly graduated lifeguards have been working at the beaches, ensuring visitors comply with the need for social distancing and proper hygiene to prevent the spread of the virus.

Cubans have been flocking to the seaside since the government eased three-month restrictions and allowed hotels to reopen in June. But new restrictions are in place, including staying a minimum of two meters apart on land and in the water.

The pandemic has changed how lifeguards monitor what's happening at the beaches, said the 29-year-old lifeguard. "This is a hard and complicated work. It is very important that people protect themselves from the virus, which can be transmitted by asymptomatic carriers," Limas told Xinhua.

In addition to ensuring everyone is complying with the new rules, "we will be providing beachgoers with sanitizer," he said.

Even before the summer vacation, students and professors from the academy joined the anti-COVID campaign, helping healthcare workers going door to door to identify possible patients. They also worked as volunteers when the academy's dorms were turned into an isolation center for treating suspected cases.

Maritza Betancourt, director general of the academy, agreed that the health emergency poses new challenges for lifeguards, who are not only warning people not to venture out too far, but also not to get too close.

"Lifeguards can help raise awareness," she said. "This is a high-risk job at the moment but our students and professors are committed to the safety of bathers."

Meanwhile, Jose Angel Vizoso, a senior professor at the academy, said lifeguards need to protect themselves more than ever to avoid catching the virus while on duty, performing first aid or saving lives.

"Despite the use of personal protective equipment, proximity or physical contact with beachgoers is required during emergencies. That's why we have to take extreme safety measures at work," Vizoso said.

Yeni Fiallo, one of the few female lifeguards at Varadero Beach, said "of course, we have to take risks ... staying three meters away from a person who is drowning is not a choice."

So far, Cuba has reported 2,449 confirmed cases and 87 deaths from the disease. Enditem
[July 22, 2020] Sangoma Technologies Corporation Announces $60 Million Underwritten Public Offering /NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES/ MARKHAM, ON, July 22, 2020 /CNW/ - Sangoma Technologies Corporation (TSXV: STC) (the "Company" or "Sangoma") is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement with a syndicate of investment dealers led by Cormark Securities Inc. (collectively, the "Underwriters") pursuant to which the Underwriters have agreed to purchase 26,090,000 Common Shares (the "Common Shares") from the treasury of the Company, at a price of $2.30 per Common Share for total gross proceeds of approximately $60 million (the "Offering"). In addition, the Company has granted the Underwriters an option (the "Over-Allotment Option") to purchase up to an additional 15% of the Common Shares of the Offering on the same terms exercisable at any time up to 30 days following the closing of the Offering, for market stabilization purposes and to cover over-allotments, if any. The net proceeds of the Offering shall be used to fund any future acquisitions, for debt repayment, and for general corporate purposes. Closing of the Offering is expected to occur on or about July 30, 2020 and is subject to regulatory approval including that of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV"). The Offering will be made by way of a prospectus supplement (the "Prospectus Supplement") to the Company's existing short form base shelf prospectus (the "Base Shelf Prospectus") dated June 29, 2020. The Prospectus Supplement (together with the Base Shelf Prospectus, being the "Offering Documents") will be filed with the securities commissions in all of the provinces of Canada. The Offering Documents will contain important detailed information about the securities being offered. Copies of the Underwriting Agreement and the Offering Documents will be available by visiting the Company's profile on the SEDAR website maintained by the Canadian Securities Administrators at www.sedar.com. This pres release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. This press release does not constitute an offer of securities for sale in the United States. The securities being offered have not been, nor will they be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and such securities may not be offered or sold within the United States absent registration under U.S. federal and state securities laws or an applicable exemption from such U.S. registration requirements.

About Sangoma Technologies Corporation Sangoma Technologies is a trusted leader in delivering Unified Communications and Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) solutions for SMBs, Enterprises, OEMs, Carriers and service providers. Sangoma's globally scalable offerings also include industry leading Voice-Over-IP solutions, which together provide seamless connectivity between traditional infrastructure and new technologies. Sangoma's products and services are used in leading PBX, IVR, contact center, carrier networks and data-communication applications worldwide. Businesses can achieve enhanced levels of collaboration, productivity and ROI with Sangoma. Sangoma is the primary developer and sponsor of the Asterisk project, the world's most widely used open source communications software and FreePBX, the world's most widely used open source PBX software. Everything Connects, Connect with Sangoma! Founded in 1984, Sangoma Technologies Corporation is publicly traded on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX VENTURE: STC). Additional information on Sangoma can be found by visiting https://www.sangoma.com. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the future success of our business, development strategies and future opportunities. When used in this news release, the words such as "could", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "intend", "may", "potential", "should" and similar expressions indicate forward looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are based will occur. By their nature, forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management on the date that the statements are made and involve numerous assumptions, known and unknown risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, that contribute to the possibility that the predictions, forecasts, projections and other events contemplated by the forward-looking statements will not occur or will differ materially from those expected. Although Sangoma believes that the expectations represented by such forward-looking statements are reasonable based on the current business environment, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct as these expectations are inherently subject to business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. Some of the risks and other factors which could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to risks and uncertainties associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, changes in exchange rate between the Canadian Dollar and other currencies, the variability of sales between one reporting period and the next, changes in technology, changes in the business climate in one or more of the countries that Sangoma operates in, changes in the regulatory environment, the rate of adoption of the Company's products in new markets, the decline in the importance of the PSTN and new competitive pressures. The forward- looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement and Sangoma undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE Sangoma Technologies Corporation

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China set off on what it hoped would be its first successful journey to Mars on Thursday, launching a combined orbiter, lander and rover to the red planet on a voyage that will last until next year.

If successful, the mission would affirm Chinas place among the top spacefaring nations, able to plan and carry out complex interplanetary missions on its own. Only the United States and, briefly, the Soviet Union have previously succeeded in landing a vehicle on the planet.

As ever in China, the launch was shrouded in secrecy in advance, though unofficial video streams posted by Chinese viewers showed the vessel beginning to rise at 12:41 p.m. from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on Hainan Island, ringed by crystal blue waters.

Crowds cheered from nearby beaches as the rocket traveled toward the south and east through clear skies on its way out of Earths atmosphere.
In Person Politicians in Myanmars Rakhine Must Stop Fighting Each Other: Independent Candidate

Upper House parliamentarian Daw Htoot May. / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy

Rakhine lawmakers who represented the Arakan National Party (ANP) in the 2015 general election but later resigned can only run as independent candidates in Novembers general election, rather than representing another party.

The Union Election Commission (UEC) answered a question from an ANP Lower House parliamentarian on July 13 saying no one can represent another party before they are officially expelled from their original party. Running as anything other than an independent candidate would violate Article 21 of the Political Party Registration Act, the UEC said.

Now Rakhine lawmaker Daw Htoot May must decide whether to run as an independent or leave constituency no.11 in Ann and Ramree townships in Rakhine State.

She said she has decided to contest the Rakhine ethnic affair minister post in November in Yangon Region, because we have a political crisis.

The ANP emerged in 2015 from an alliance of two parties: the Arakan League for Democracy (ALD), which contested the 1990 general election, and the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP), which won seats in the 2010 general election. The ANP won 47 seats in the Union and state parliaments in 2015, winning a majority in the Rakhine State parliament.

Daw Htoot May, 41, left the ANP in March 2016 and became an independent but the ANP neither recognizes her resignation nor works with her in party affairs. She came originally from the ALD and now wants to represent the party, which has now been re-registered.

I love my work as an MP as I am able to represent my peoples needs, the enthusiastic politician said. Daw Htoot May now wants to serve the Rakhine people, both in Yangon Region and Rakhine State.

Sharing her experience and the challenges of becoming a parliamentarian, Daw Htoot May urges young people and women to participate in politics and not to be discouraged by the current political situation. Daw Htoot May added that she is determined to continue her political career.

Daw Htoot May spoke in-depth to The Irrawaddy.

You are currently a lawmaker and you aim to become the regional ethnic affairs minister. The nature of the work is different. What do you think of the challenges and how do you prepare for the role?

As I am an independent candidate, I would face a lot of challenges, compared to those candidates who are backed by a political party. During the election campaign and on the election day, I would have to work hard to get supporters who would volunteer for the election campaign, such as observing polling booths and vote counting.

And most importantly, the current regional minister [from the ANP] has 10 years experience in the position. He has his supporters.

Although I am an individual, I believe that the voters would look into my efforts in the past five years and accept my capacity to serve in the position. I would have to try harder than other candidates.

Do you think the UECs decision is fair to prevent people listed as party members from running for other parties, despite requests to leave?

That decision is unfair, not only for a citizen but also for a party member. No candidate should represent two political parties. But I did not break any party rules and am not a member of two parties.

The ANP is a merger of two parties. We had many difficulties when the merger was negotiated but we put them aside and focused on working together in solidarity to fulfill the Rakhine peoples needs. We accepted the gentlemens agreement which was reached between the two leaders at the party conference. We entered the 2015 election and I was elected representing the ANP.

But we younger politicians are being sandwiched between rival political groups.

Since the merger, there has been much injustice from the party leadership. The RNDP maintained many central executive committee roles, violated regulations and expelled some ALD members of the committee.

The ANP leadership objects to current MPs being able to run for another party.

It happens because we had a weak tradition of democracy and political culture. Whoever is in power, they want to control everything and thats the problem.

In the 2018 by-election, the ANP objected to the ALD candidate for Rathedaung in the state parliament but the UEC allowed him to contest as a candidate.

It should be the same for me. I am not a member of two parties. I submitted my resignation to the ANP [in 2016] and publicly announced my resignation.

The UECs answer to the Lower House is inconsistent. If a candidate is eligible, they should be entitled to their rights. The commission does not need to intervene in such issues. If there is any problem between me and the party, there are laws to sue. Therefore, the commissions decision is unfair.

Younger politicians, like you, have suffered from political rivalries and young people face obstacles. Does it discourage young people from participating in politics?

There are challenges for young people, especially young women, in Rakhine State when participating in politics. Political parties need to create space to allow them to participate. We do not ask for a position, we never do. But they need to acknowledge us.

Younger people may not have enough money but they have strength and they are good at studying and contributing to parties.

As politics needs more than one person, we need to have harmony between different age groups. Older politicians need to avoid having groups and ignoring others when they have the upper hand. Mindsets need to be changed. It is important to evaluate what to do next.

The Rakhine population in Myanmar is a little over 3 million. We hope to create a federal union with self-determination and must welcome the next generation.

But the ANP leadership has forgotten about the merger of the parties. As the RNDP hold most of the leadership roles, they try to block former ALD politicians.

Despite the challenges, younger people and women must continue to stand up. I am aware that I would face more challenges if I continue to take part in politics, but I will overcome these problems.

Younger people need to know the truth that the merged party avoided solving the political issues and did not acknowledge the existence of other parties and made decisions that hurt others.

What is the reason for such disunity among Rakhine politicians?

We did not have unity because of injustice. There has been unfairness since cooperation started. Disunity happens when there is a lack of respect. The party centered itself around powerful individuals, without creating strong institutions.

We were not familiar with democratic systems after decades under the military regime. We should be demanding justice. We failed to build strong institutions and the party leadership just took power for themselves.

Public perceptions of politicians have changed. It is sad to see disappointment towards politicians who use their power for personal gain. Only when we build our political integrity and political culture can we create unity among ourselves.

I am sad to say that our political party failed to strengthen institutional development, but rather there is bullying by those who have already got the upper hand. Younger people have to try hard. I am not assaulting or attacking anyone. I am saying it as everyone should know the truth.

There are perceptions that Rakhine States problems are caused by the ethnic Bamar, the government or military. But Rakhine parties are divided. Who is responsible for that?

I dont think blaming others based on ethnicity is a good approach and it does not find the right solutions. Our country is in conflict because of the system, not because of ethnic groups. Since independence, a federal system was not established and it leads to todays conflict, where the majority oppresses the minorities.

The root causes are ignorance of rights for ethnic minorities and the state leaders use of arms to govern. So we have ethnic armed organizations fighting for their rights across the country.

I dont look at the problem from the ethnicity point of view. As we have many ethnic groups, people tend to refer to either majority or minority groups. For me, those who implement the system try to break up unity and cause conflict.

I will not blame others for what is happening in Rakhine. I discuss the challenges we are facing and criticize the situation, but I dont blame anyone. I try to find solutions. It is easy to blame others but we need to analyze the cause of the conflict.

You have raised many issues in Parliament about your current constituency and Rakhine development. What have you learned from your constituents about Rakhine political affairs? How do you assess voters political experiences?

They know that Myanmar still needs to do much for political change. And they are optimistic when they share their opinions on Myanmars politics. They commit to participating in change and hope their representatives and parties work for reform. They understand that changes are needed.

On development, voters are angry about the budget allocation. We discuss federalism and the sharing of natural resources. They were not satisfied with the central governments sharing out of natural resources.

In Yangon in 2015, there was about 69 percent voter turnout in the Rakhine ethnic affairs ministerial election. In Hlaing Tharyar, where many Rakhine migrant workers live, there was some 40 percent voter turnout for parliamentary seats. As you will be running in the region, what do you expect the voter turnout to be this year?

The voter turnout could be very different from the 2015 general election because conditions in 2020 are difficult. In 2015, Rakhine peoples political enthusiasm was high, they had high expectations following the merger of the two parties.

Now we are facing COVID-19 and many migrants have returned to their homes or lost their jobs and are facing economic hardship. They may think nothing will change if they vote. We are hearing these frustrations from the people.

For people to cast their ballots, we have to follow COVID-19 preventative measures. And we have to explain why each ballot is important. People need to understand that their vote helps to choose the government or minister they want and keep out those that they do not like. When they understand, they will surely come out to vote. Politicians have the responsibility to make it right.

This interview is edited for length and clarity.

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By Laman Ismayilova

"Sabah" Creative Studiol has shot a new feature film about the Karabakh war. The film was premired on AzTV on July 19.

The film "Family Portrait in Oil" tells about the life of a man named Chingiz, whose only son, a student-artist, became the martyr at the Karabakh war. Unable to bear the loss of his son, his wife also dies. Despite all hardships, Chingiz found the strength to help a neighbor whose son is seriously ill.

The scriptwriter and director of the film is Siraj Mustafayev, photograper - Fakhir Samadoghlu, music composer - Vusal Omarov, artist -Elyaz Safarov, producer - Sharif Gurbanaliev.

The Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict started with Armenia's open territorial claims to Azerbaijan`s historical lands and ethnic provocations in 1988.

More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and around one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities initiated by Armenia.

Since 1994, hostilities between the two countries have persisted despite the temporary cease-fire agreement. Usually, Armenian forces violate the ceasefire regime on the line of contact. But recently Armenia has increased military aggression on the border.
PokerStars Stadium Series Round-Up: Lex Veldhuis Bags $96K Score

July 23 2020

The exciting PokerStars Stadium Series continues to award massive prizes to players from all four corners of the world and Team PokerStars Pro Lex Veldhuis was one of those big winners.

Veldhuis came out on top in the Stadium Series Heat 16-H: $2,100 NLHE, a tournament with $500,000 guaranteed. Tournaments of this magnitude attract the superstars of poker and this event was no different with the entry list reading like a whos who of the poker world.

Antoine A.Saout Saout, Joao IneedMassari Simao, Anatoly NL_Profit Filatov, and Dominik Bounatirou Nitsche were just a handful of the players who made it into the top 31 places where the prize pool was distributed.

Sam Str8$$$Homey Greenwood and Christian eisenhower1 Jeppsson also cashed, with Joao Naza114 Vieira busting in 10th place and setting the final table.

Don't miss PokerNews live coverage of the Stadium Series Follow along with weekly PokerNews live coverage from the Stadium Series finals. FOLLOW HERE

British grinder Andrew stato_1 Hulme was the first finalist to bust and the first player to net a five-figure prize. Hulme collected $10,517. Russias MiracleQ followed Hulme to the cashiers desk and got his hands on $13,869 before former EPT Malta champion Aliaksei ale6ka Boika crashed and burned in seventh-place for $18,288.

Pablo pabritz Brito Silvas exit in sixth-place made the waters slightly less shark-infested. Veldhuis then tripled up when his aces held against the eights of Anton Bomber&Granater Wigg and the queens of Mike SirWatts Watson to put him in contention for the title.

Ivan Negriin Luca, Wigg and Fedor GlitchSystem Kruse all busted in succession to leave Veldhuis heads-up against Watson. Amazingly, Veldhuis found aces again to send Luca to the showers.

The final hand saw Watson jam for a shade over 10 big blinds with ace-six and Veldhuis look him up with queen-nine of hearts. A queen landed on the turn to bust Watson and resign him to the $72,911, leaving Veldhuis to bank another $96,143 and doing so in front of his legion of Twitch followers.

Place Player Country Prize 1 Lex L.Veldhuis Veldhuis Netherlands $96,143 2 Mike SirWatts Watson Canada $72,911 3 Fedor "GlitchSystem" Kruse Germany $55,293 4 Anton "Bomber&Granater" Wigg Austria $41,932 5 Ivan Negriin Luca Argentina $31,799 6 Pablo pabritz Brito Silva Brazil $24,115 7 Aliaksei ale6ka Boika Belarus $18,288 8 MiracleQ Russia $13,869 9 Andrew stato_1 Hulme United Kingdom $10,517

Your guide to PokerStars PKO tournaments

Stadium Series Freezeout Weekly Final  High: $1,050 NLHE 8-Max, $1.5M Gtd

The biggest prize of the weeks Stadium Series action went to the Brazilian star Alisson heyalisson Piekazewicz. He triumphed over 1,346 opponents in the $1,050 buy-in Freezeout Weekly Final.

Piekazewicz turned his $1,050 into a colossal $216,705 and the title of champion. The elite Brazilian defeated fellow countryman Luan Pseudo Fruto Felipe heads-up for the victory, the runner-up banked $185,376.

One other player scooped a six-figure score. That was third-place finisher Zar77262 of Russia who netted a cool $119,584.

Others who reached the final table included Daniel Razer2311 Rezaei (9th - $18,128), Tino tinnoemulder Mulder (8th - $22,395), and Pascal FrenchDawg Lefrancois (4th - $85,694).

The tournament took place under the watchful eye of the PokerNews Live Reporting team. Read a blow-by-blow account of this massive tournament at our live reporting pages.

Place Player Country Prize 1 Alisson heyalisson Piekazewicz Brazil $216,705 2 Luan Pseudo Fruto Felipe Brazil $185,376 3 Zar77262 Russia $119,584 4 Pascal FrenchDawg Lefrancois Canada $85,694 5 Breno Breno2728 Drummond Brazil $61,270 6 _m0ney2_89 Russia $43,807 7 K0SICE Netherland $31,322 8 Tino tinnoemulder Mulder Netherlands $22,395 9 Daniel Razer2311 Rezaei Austria $18,128

Alisson "heyalisson" Piekazewicz Wins Second PokerStars Stadium Series Weekly Final

Stadium Series Freezeout Weekly Final  Medium: $109 NLHE 8-Max, $1.5M Gtd

The $109 weekly final was incredible value because the 11,292-strong crowd enjoyed a $370,800 overlay. This money was added by PokerStars and shared among the top 1,367 finishers.

Everyone at the eight-handed final table banked at least $18,364 for navigating their way there. Belgiums Pimello got their hands on this prize and they were joined on the rail first by fozzzi of the Ukraine then Shane shaniac Schleger. This was Schlegers first online cash at PokerStars since August 2015! The man still has skills.

thx4yours$ and |Chomprias|0 busted in fifth and fourth-place, the latter scooping $71,123 for their $109 investment. Russias Goallinfishara saw their tournament end in a third-place finish worth $99,775.

Heads-up pitted CoolerAHAH and Hookz against each other in a heads-up battle for the $196,355 top prize. Second-place was $139,969, more than $56,000 less so it wasnt surprising to see the heads-up duo strike a deal. That deal saw CoolerAHAH finish in second and net $160,662 with Hookz banking $175,662.

Place Player Country Prize 1 Hookz Canada $175,662* 2 CoolerAHAH Malta $160,662* 3 Goallinfishara Russia $99,775 4 Chomprias 0 5 thx4your$ Canada $50,699 6 Shane shaniac Schleger Mexico $36,140 7 fozzzi Ukraine $25,762 8 Pimello Belgium $18,364

*reflects a heads-up deal

Michael 'munchenHB' Telker Wins PokerStars Stadium Series Weekly Final

Some of the other notable victories from the past weeks Stadium Series schedule included:

Lifesucksyah  first-place in Stadium Series Heat 13-H: $1,050 NLHE 8-Max PKO for $124,324*

 first-place in Stadium Series Heat 13-H: $1,050 NLHE 8-Max PKO for $124,324* Mitch sirkingmitch Johnson  first-place in Stadium Series Heat 12-H: $1,050 NLHE 6-Max for $89,248

 first-place in Stadium Series Heat 12-H: $1,050 NLHE 6-Max for $89,248 spirrevip  first-place in Stadium Series Heat 15-H: $1,050 NLHE PKO for $68,262*

 first-place in Stadium Series Heat 15-H: $1,050 NLHE PKO for $68,262* Aleks Better  first-place in Stadium Series Heat 11-H: $1,050 NLHE for $65,763

 first-place in Stadium Series Heat 11-H: $1,050 NLHE for $65,763 veruswelt  first-place in Stadium Series 14-H: $1,050 NLHE Deep Stack for $65,741

 first-place in Stadium Series 14-H: $1,050 NLHE Deep Stack for $65,741 lensia  first-place in Stadium Series Freezeout Weekly Final  Low: $11 for $34,114

How To Get Involved in the Stadium Series

Stadium Series tournaments run every day and continue to do so up until August 2. Head to the PokerStars tournament lobby and buy in now if you have the bankroll for those events. If you dont have the bankroll for the bigger events, or you simply want to save yourself some cash, there are plenty of other routes into the biggest Stadium Series games.

The Stadium Series Heats are the daily tournaments. The top finishers in these tournaments receive a free ticket to the coveted weekly Stadium Series Sunday Finals. Reach the final tables of these finals and PokerStars gifts you a $5,200 ticket to the Grand Final where youll play for a share of a guaranteed $5 million.

Spin & Go specialists can try their luck in the special edition Spin & Gos. These come with buy-ins of $4 and $22 and award a mixture of cash and Stadium Series tournament tickets.

Dont forget you can also complete the Stadium Series Trials via the Challenges Window of your PokerStars account. Start the challenge then play real money multi-table tournaments. You earn one leaderboard point for every $1 spent on tournament buy-ins. Finish in the top 25 of the leaderboard when the promotion ends on August 1 and a $5,200 Grand Final ticket is all yours. Finish in 26-125th place and bank a free Stadium Series Fast track Final ticket worth a cool $1,050.

Last, but certainly not least, is the Stadium Series Fast Track program. These are a series of sit & go and MTT tournaments where you can buy into at any stage, but only Stage 4 awards Grand Final tickets.

Step 1: $1 Sit & Go Tournament (12 players)

Step 2: $11 Sit & Go Tournament (21 players)

Step 3: $109 MTT Tournament

Step 4: $1,050 MTT Tournament

Keep an eye on your email inbox and in the PokerStars lobby for the many planned giveaways. PokerNews has learned PokerStars is giving away more than $2.5 million in Stadium Series tickets and by adding some serious value via other giveaways to make it possible for every player to have a shot at Stadium Series glory.
Only two Melbourne hotels are still operating as quarantine facilities, with 14 others now free of incoming travellers after the closure of Victoria's national and international borders.

Almost no returned travellers remain in the two hotels that continue to provide rooms as part of the state's troubled quarantine program. Some of the people in quarantine at these hotels are public housing tenants who have tested positive.

One of Melbourne's quarantine hotels this month Credit:Jason South

The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have chosen not to name the two hotels that continue to provide quarantine services as there have been no outbreaks on their premises.

The program is now the subject of an inquiry, after security guards working in hotels inadvertently spread coronavirus to their family and friends.
NEW MILFORD  A local man and nurse at New Milford Hospital has been accused of sexually assaulting a patient.

Charnjit Singh Bains, 61, of New Milford, was arrested and charged Tuesday with first- and fourth-degree sexual assault following a seven-month police investigation.

Police said they received a complaint in December about a female patient at New Milford Hospital who had been sexually assaulted by a male nurse. Police said they later identified the nurse as Bains.

New Milford Police Department

The investigation was methodical and detailed, with the evaluation of physical evidence recovered by detectives linking the suspect through DNA analysis, New Milford Police Chief Spencer Cerruto said.

Cerruto said he is very proud of New Milford police detectives investigative efforts.

Their hard work on behalf of the victim helped to bring closure and justice, he said.

Bains was arraigned at state Superior Court in Torrington and released after posting a $250,000 professional surety bond, according to court records.

Andrea Rynn, a spokeswoman for Nuvance Health, the parent company of New Milford Hospital, on Wednesday declined to say whether Bains was still employed with the health system.

We take patient safety and this allegation very seriously and are fully cooperating with law enforcement officials, Rynn said. As this is an active investigation, and in accordance with Connecticut employment privacy law, we will not be commenting further.

Bains has a plea hearing scheduled for Sept. 9.
The European Seed Treatment Market is projected to register a CAGR of 5. 7% during the forecast period (2020-2025). Growing population and the need to meet the food requirement increasing productivity is inevitable.

New York, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Europe Seed Treatment Market - Growth, Trends and Forecasts (2020 - 2025)" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05934712/?utm_source=GNW

By origin, the non-chemical or bio-based seed treatment is growing at the fastest rate during the forecast period due to the shift in preference for organic products. European Seed Treatment Assurance Scheme (ESTA) is a quality assurance system to ensure that seed treatment and the resulting treated seed meet requirements defined by legislators and industry. The move comes as the seed industry seeks to preserve essential plant protection products, protect the environment, and to maintain international trade and ensure on-going investment. Several big players, like Syngenta International AG, Bayer CropScience AG, Philagro France, Germains Seed Technology, and few others, occupy a major portion of the market studied.



Key Market Trends

Need for Increasing Productivity



The growing population and rising demand for food have accelerated the practice of seed treatment to increase productivity. The demand for treated seeds is high in Germany, as cereal crops, like maize, barley, and fruits and vegetables, like grapes and sugar beet, are cultivated on a large scale in the country. To put forth, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation(FAO), in 2017 maize yield in Germany amounted to 105269 hg/ha which has decreased to 81363 hg/ha which was the least in the past 3 years in 2018. Ban of GMO seeds and demand for higher yield is encouraging the seed treatment practice. In May 2018, the European Union adopted the regulation to completely ban the outdoor usage of imidacloprid, clothianidin, and thiamethoxam. This development is expected to affect the market for these pesticides in the European region.



Biological Seed Treatment is the Fastest Growing Segment



European countries and increasing demand for the organic farming market in Europe is increasing the demand for non-chemical seed treatment products. According to Eurostat, in 2018, the total area under organic farming in European countries covered 13.4 million hectares of agricultural land and it continues to increase further. Also, the organic area made up 7.5 % of the total European agricultural land in 2018. Four Member States accounted for more than half of all organically farmed land in 2018: Spain (16.7 %), France (15.1 %), Italy (14.6 %), and Germany (9.1 %), together making up 55.5 % of the total EU-28 organic area. In 2017, these four countries represented a share, 54.7 %. In 2017, Germans focused to develop pre-emergent seed technologies, such as organic seed treatments for spinach, that provide protection against pests. One treatment provides early-season protection against Pythium before the plant even emerges. The increasing demand for organically grown products resulted in the adoption of organic farming practices which will drive the market of biological or non-chemical seed treatment products.



Competitive Landscape

The seed treatment market is highly consolidated. Several big players, like Syngenta International AG, Bayer CropScience AG, Philagro France, Germains Seed Technology and few others, occupy a major portion of the market studied, having a diverse and increasing product portfolio. Companies are focusing majorly on new product launches, mergers, and acquisitions, which help in increasing their market shares. The development of bio-based seed treatment products has massive potential for expansion during the forecast period, with advantages, like environmental sustainability and lesser regulations for development, and the launch of new products.



Reasons to Purchase this report:

- The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format

- 3 months of analyst support

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05934712/?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.



__________________________

Story continues

CONTACT: Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001




Relationship with India is only getting stronger, says US Secretary of State

United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated the Trump Administration's message to ally with India, stating that New Delhi is an important partner and a key pillar of President Donald Trumps foreign policy.

India, Pompeo said, has a chance to attract global supply chains away from China and reduce its reliance on Chinese companies in areas like telecommunications, medical supplies and others. Photo courtesy: US State Department

In his virtual keynote address to the annual India Ideas Summit of the US India Business Council (USIBC), Pompeo said he was happy to report that India is a rising US defense and security partner in the Indo-Pacific and globally.

We dont just interact on a bilateral basis. We see each other for what we are great democracies, global powers and really good friends. India is one of the few trusted like-minded countries whose leaders I call on a regular basis for counsel and collaboration on issues that span continents, Pompeo said.

Im confident that our relationship is only getting stronger. Lets emerge from this current challenge more resilient and innovative than before. And lets seize this moment to deepen cooperation between two of the worlds greatest democracies, he added.

Pompeo said the US has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the next G7 meeting to be hosted by President Trump.

We will advance the economic prosperity network. It is the group of countries and organisations that we consider natural partners with we share values like democracy, transparency and rule of law, Pompeo said.

The Group of Seven (G-7) is an international intergovernmental economic organisation consisting of seven major developed countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, which are some of the largest IMF-advanced economies in the world.

India, Pompeo said, has a chance to attract global supply chains away from China and reduce its reliance on Chinese companies in areas like telecommunications, medical supplies and others.

The top US diplomat also urged India to encourage a business environment that is "more open" to increased trade and investment from America.

Navies from the US, India, Australia, Japan and France have been deepening their mutual cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region in view of Chinas growing attempt to expand military influence in the resource-rich region.

Recently, four frontline warships of the Indian Navy, as well as a US Navy carrier strike group led by nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, participated in the PASSEX military drill off the coast of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 21:26:50|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Rural reforms in the late 1970s raised the curtain of China's reform and opening up. More than 40 years on, a new round of rural reforms is ongoing to ensure rural progress and farmers' well-being.

As the country races to meet its goal of eradicating absolute poverty this year as scheduled despite the COVID-19 epidemic, policies have been put in place to boost rural vitalization and enable rural residents to be more prosperous as President Xi Jinping believes lifting people out of poverty is not an end but the starting point to a new life.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, has stressed the importance of deepening reforms on many occasions, considering it key for rural vitalization.

The following facts and figures present China's latest efforts in pushing forward rural reforms:

-- Facilitating transfer of farmland management rights

Under China's household contract responsibility system, all rural land is owned by rural collectives, which allocate contract rights for parcels of farmland to eligible households. The tenure of contract rights was 15 years in the 1980s and renewed for 30 years in 1998.

The country decided to extend the current round of contracts for another 30 years upon expiration, and rolled out pilot schemes this year for the extension.

As the country promotes the development of modern agriculture, small farm sizes and low productivity can be ameliorated by letting farmers transfer farmland to others for modern agricultural production.

Starting in 2014, the country began piloting a reform to separate farmland ownership rights, contract rights and management rights. The reform allows farmers to retain contract rights but transfer management rights.

The transfer has now covered more than 550 million mu (about 36.7 million hectares) of farmland, as more than 3.4 million agricultural entities helped farmers with standardized, efficient and scale production.

The country also vowed to press ahead with the pilot reform of the rural collective property rights system to cover all agriculture-related counties this year.

Since 2015, the government has organized four batches of rural collective property rights system pilot programs in 15 provincial regions. Such pilot programs have covered about 80 percent of the counties in the country.

-- Developing high-standard arable land

Effective measures must be taken to protect black soil, Xi stressed Wednesday during an inspection tour in northeast China's Jilin Province, where he visited a demonstration zone for green food production in Lishu County, Siping City to learn about the improvement of chernozem soil quality and the growth of corn.

The country strives to develop high-standard farmland, which is estimated to increase grain production capacity by 10 percent to 20 percent.

It aims to develop an additional 5.3 million hectares of high-standard farmland in 2020, taking the total to 53.3 million hectares by year-end. By the end of June, 54 percent of the annual target had been achieved, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

-- Promoting rural financial support

The country vowed to enlarge the share of local government bonds used in agriculture and rural areas, increase government fiscal input, strengthen financial services and encourage social capital to invest in these fields.

In the first half of the year, 27 provinces issued a total of 86.5 billion yuan (about 12.37 billion U.S. dollars) of special local government bonds designated to support agriculture and rural areas.

Although the country's fiscal expenditure fell 5.8 percent in the first half of the year, largely due to the COVID-19 epidemic, its spending on agriculture, forestry and water conservancy projects climbed 7.9 percent from one year earlier.

-- Enhancing training for new farmers

Using livestreaming and social media to sell agricultural products, flying drones for sowing or crop dusting, employing soilless cultivation and micro-spray irrigation technology in greenhouses ... these are increasingly the norm among the country's modern farmers.

The country launched a three-year training program starting in 2019 to help farmers adapt to modern agricultural production. Two billion yuan was allocated from the central budget this year to the program, which was expected to train up to 1 million farmers.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the country now has 16 million farmers who are well-educated, skilled and proficient in business management. Enditem
B ritish holidaymakers basking in the Spanish sun appeared to brush off fears of a second coronavirus wave in the country, with one declaring: "We work in ASDA  we are used to Covid".

Spain has seen a rapid rise in coronavirus infections in recent weeks, leading to some lockdown restrictions being reimposed in parts of the country. New cases jumped by nearly 4,600 on Monday.

The spike has prompted fears that Spain could soon be taken off the list of places Britons can visit without needing to quarantine for 14 days on their return.

But some of those already in the country appeared to brush off such concerns.

A man plays as he enjoys the sunny weather at Barceloneta beach / REUTERS

"Im not too worried really, because we work in ASDA we are used to Covid and it really doesnt scare us anymore, we know how to deal with it and be sensible," Wigan resident Charmaine Bell, 37, told the Mirror from holiday resort Magaluf.

She added: "Coming out here has actually been a blessing really, just make sure you have done your homework before you come out and do things right.

Its not new now, everyone is educated about it now, you should come out and enjoy yourselves if you can."

Emily Boddy and Mark Nolan, on holiday with their young son Jack, urged people to join them in Spain, despite the surge in cases.

People dance at Barceloneta beach / REUTERS

Ms Boddy said: We only arrived on Sunday and we 'ummed' and 'ahed' about coming, we did not really know what to expect with wearing masks and everything, but it has been OK so far and I would tell people to come on out if they can.

Mr Nolan added: "It is a little worrying they could be put on the unsafe list because that was one of the things that put us off coming but to be honest my advice to people at the moment would be to just come.

It really hasnt been that bad to deal with and we are having great fun. If they did bring in quarantine there is very little we can do about it is there?
New Delhi, July 23 : Twitter on Thursday revealed further details in the massive crypto hack, saying the hackers accessed the DM (direct message) inbox of up to 36 of the 130 targeted users, including one elected official in the Netherlands.

The company said it was communicating directly with impacted account owners and will share updates "when we have them".

In total, 130 accounts were targeted by attackers, 45 accounts had Tweets sent by attackers, 36 accounts had the DM inbox accessed and eight accounts had an archive of "Your Twitter Data" downloaded (none of these were verified), informed Twitter.

"To date, we have no indication that any other former or current elected official had their DMs accessed," tweeted Twitter Support.

Twitter was yet to provide country-wise data of those affected.

The company tried to allay confusion around how the eight accounts relate to the 36 reported now.

"Eight is the number of accounts where an archive of 'Your Twitter Data' was downloaded. This includes all of your account activity including DMs. None of the 'Your Twitter Data' downloads impacted Verified accounts," clarified Twitter.

Thirty-six is the number of accounts where the attacker took control of the account and viewed the DM inbox on https://Twitter.com.

"The attackers were not able to view previous account passwords, as those are not stored in plain text or available through the tools used in the attack," said the micro-blogging platform.

However, the attackers were able to view personal information including email addresses and phone numbers, which are displayed to some users of the internal support tools.

"In cases where an account was taken over by the attacker, they may have been able to view additional information. Our forensic investigation of these activities is still ongoing," said Twitter.

It last week admitted that the cryptocurrency hack was a "coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools".

The accounts of major public figures including US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Apple and Uber were simultaneously hacked by attackers to spread a cryptocurrency scam.
A federally commissioned report wants high school students to focus on building a "learner profile" that reflects the skills and knowledge they have gathered over 13 years of education instead of worrying about how to boost their ATAR.

The proposed profile would include non-scholastic experience such as work, sport and volunteering alongside academic results and would reflect skills such as collaboration and problem solving.

Students should curate a 'learner profile' instead of worrying about their ATAR, a report has found. Credit:Louise Kennerley

A review of pathways from senior school to work, released by federal Education Minister Dan Tehan on Thursday, also found careers advice across schools was patchy and needed to be strengthened so students could better understand their options.

The review's chairman, Peter Shergold, who is also chancellor of Western Sydney University and chairman of the NSW Education Standards Authority, said students often chose easier or unsuitable subjects to inflate their ATAR.
Stuck in a seemingly intractable border dispute with China in eastern Ladakh, India is looking at arming its new Rafale fighter jets with an all-weather smart weapon of French origin that will allow combat pilots to engage ground targets from a standoff range of up to 60 km, people familiar with the developments said on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Indian Air Force is likely to initiate the purchase of Hammer (Highly Agile Modular Munition Extended Range) using emergency financial powers granted to the military by the government at a time of heightened military tensions with China, said one of the officials cited above.

The IAF will induct its first batch of five Rafale jets imported from France at the Ambala air base on July 29. The air force could deploy the new fighters in the Ladakh sector as part of Indias overarching plan to strengthen its military posture in the region, officials previously indicated to Hindustan Times.

The Hammer, consisting of a guidance kit and a range extension kit fitted on a standard bomb of the Mk80 series, is manufactured by French defence firm Safran. The Hammer purchase will necessitate the import of Mk80 series bombs that can later be manufactured in India, said a second official.

The other weapons that the Rafale jets will be armed with include Meteor beyond visual range air-to-air missiles, Mica multi-mission air-to-air missiles and Scalp deep-strike cruise missiles.

While India initiated discussions with France to buy Hammer two to three years ago, the current border tensions with China have lent fresh urgency to the procurement, said a third official.

Enhancement of capability, especially under the present circumstances, will serve the IAF well. Efforts should be made to fast-track the purchase, said Air Chief Marshal Fali H Major (retd), a former IAF chief.

India ordered 36 Rafale jets from France in a deal worth Rs 59,000 crore in September 2016 as an emergency purchase to plug gaps in the IAFs combat capabilities. The jets have been specially tailored for IAF.

India-specific enhancements on the jets include cold engine start capability to operate from high-altitude bases including Leh, radar warning receivers, flight data recorders with storage for 10 hours of data, infrared search and track systems, jammers and towed decoys to ward off incoming missiles.

The twin-engine jet is capable of carrying out a variety of missions  ground and sea attack, air defence and air superiority, reconnaissance and nuclear strike deterrence. It can carry more than nine tonnes of weapons on as many as 14 hard-points.

The two Rafale squadrons will be based at Ambala in Haryana and Hasimara in West Bengal, covering the western and eastern fronts.

Acting on a special request by the IAF, France has accelerated the deliveries of Rafale fighters to India --- five jets are coming to Ambala instead of four that were originally planned to be delivered in the first batch.

According to the original delivery schedule, the first 18 jets (including the four in the first batch) were to be delivered to the IAF by February 2021, with the rest expected by April-May 2022. Future deliveries will also be expedited.
When life scales back and moves indoors, it makes sense to set Swan Lake in a bathtub.

As a quarantine project, British-Australian cinematographer Nicola Daley remotely shot a novel take on the classic ballet with 27 dancers from around the world performing in their own baths.

And in the last fortnight, the striking just-over-three-minute film has become a viral hit watched more than 4 million times before it was even launched on the BBC's YouTube channel this week.

The Australian Ballet's Karina Arimura was joined by dancers in the UK, US, France, Germany, Holland, Canada, Hong Kong, South Africa and New Zealand for Swan Lake Bath Ballet - part of a BBC Arts series called Culture Under Quarantine.
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former lawyer and self-described "fixer", will be released from prison and returned to home confinement after a judge ruled his detention was retaliatory.

Cohen was released from prison in May because of the coronavirus pandemic, and later instructed to a sign an agreement for home confinement on the condition that he would not speak to the media.

He was ordered back to jail on 9 July after it was revealed that he was working on a book about the president.

Ordering his release to home detention again, Judge Alvin Hellerstein said he had never in his 21 years on the bench seen a provision barring a prisoner from speaking to the media.

"How can I take any other inference but that it was retaliatory?" the judge said.

"He should be released by 2 p.m. to his son."

Cohen's lawyers had said in court papers the US Bureau of Prisons violated his First Amendment rights to free speech.

"Michael Cohen is currently imprisoned in solitary confinement because he is drafting a book manuscript that is critical of the President of the United States -- and because he recently made public that he intends to publish this book shortly before the upcoming election," Cohen's lawyers, who include attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, wrote in seeking an order for his immediate release.

Lawyers for the government told the judge that Cohen was "antagonistic" during the 9 July meeting with probation officers. Mr Hellerstein said Cohen and his lawyer were merely negotiating an agreement.

Cohen on 9 July had taken issue with nearly every provision of an agreement that would have let him finish his sentence at home, prosecutors said. Among the provisions were the media ban, electronic monitoring and approval for employment.

Jon Gustin, a Federal Bureau of Prisons official, said in a court filing that he made the decision to send Cohen back to prison.

"In my view, Cohen's behavior and, in particular, his refusal to sign the conditions of home confinement was unacceptable and undermined his suitability for placement on home confinement," Mr Gustin wrote.

Cohen, who once said he would "take a bullet" for Mr Trump, was sentenced in 2018 for directing hush payments to pornographic film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claimed they had affairs with Mr Trump. The president has denied having the encounters.

Cohen served a year of his three-year sentence before being released in May.

In a friend-of-the-court filing, 10 law professors said the government cannot jail a critic for exercising his right to free speech under the US Constitution.

The professors noted the Trump administration's "disparate treatment of its allies and prior attempts to silence or retaliate against critics of the President."

Reuters contributed to this report
One of the major trends in California wine over the past five years is the renaissance of Mission, a long-neglected grape variety with a quirky history.

Its a great story. Mission vines were brought to the U.S., via Mexico, from Spain in the 1620s. That makes it, to our knowledge, the first wine grape (Vitis vinifera) planted in this country. Known in Spain as Listan Prieto, Mission earned its American name from its proliferation at the Franciscan Missions throughout California, where it was mainly used for sacramental wine.

For about a century, Mission was the only thing going here, viticulturally, but the importation of so-called noble European grape varieties  Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon  pushed Mission into obscurity. By the 20th century, pretty much everyone agreed: Mission just doesnt make that great of a wine.

That notion has received some compelling rebuttals in recent years, as talented California winemakers like Ryan Stirm, Tegan Passalacqua, Chris Brockway, Pax Mahle and Bryan Harrington have invested in a Mission revival. It makes a dual-natured wine, extremely light in color yet extremely tannic. I recently tasted a gorgeous version from Santa Barbara County winery Rusack, which has an especially interesting backstory with the grape (read about it here!). Once maligned, Mission is now the height of fashion.

My latest Mission discovery comes from a new-to-me winemaker, Adam Sabelli-Frisch.

Sabelli-Frisch, who was born in Sweden and lives in Los Angeles, is a cinematographer who got into natural wine as a hobby. When he decided to make some of his own wine, he wanted to take natural to a whole new extreme: I thought it didnt really make sense to make natural wine here in America from grapes that are imported, he says. By imported, he means native to Europe, or Vitis vinifera, which most likely describes every California wine youve ever had, from Pinot Noir to Vermentino to Viognier.

So Sabelli-Frisch looked into getting native American grape species or hybrids  varieties like Norton and Catawba, used to make wine in other parts of the U.S.  but didnt like the resulting wines. So I thought, whats the closest you can get to a native grape here? he says.

Mission may not be a native North American plant, but its been here long enough, he figured. He found some fruit for sale from the Somers Vineyard in Lodi (also the source of Harrington and Mahles wines). The goal was to emphasize Missions more serious, ageworthy qualities, Sabelli-Frisch says: A lot of people do it in the glou-glou style, whereas Im trying to make something you can cellar, by giving it a longer maceration and barrel aging.

His quest to uncover strange historical artifacts didnt stop with Mission. Sabelli-Frisch also makes Flame Tokay, which really intrigued me. Flame Tokay is a pink-skinned North African variety that was once the most widely planted grape in Lodi. Although its a member of the Vitis vinifera species, it was mostly used as a table grape, for eating. So ingrained is it in the identity of Lodi that one of the citys high schools is called Tokay; the other high schools mascot is the Flame.

Like Mission, Flame Tokay was eventually abandoned in favor of newer, shinier grapes  in its case, an easier-to-chew hybrid called Flame Seedless. Today, Jessies Grove Winery makes a dessert wine from some old Flame Tokay vines, but Id never tasted a dry version.

Sabelli-Frisch found a tiny amount of Flame Tokay still standing in a few different Lodi vineyards  one of them has just 30 vines left, he says  enough to make only 120 cases. He fashions it as an orange wine. Does it produce the most compelling wine youve ever tasted? No. But its not bad, and its a rare taste of California history, which I think is pretty cool.

What Im drinking

Esther Mobley / The Chronicle

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

 Flame Tokay, made as an orange wine: Sabelli-Frisch Lanterna Flame Tokay Mokelumne River AVA 2018 ($30, 12.6%). The Chandler Vineyards 119-year-old Flame Tokay vines are the main source for this wine. Its copper color resembles that of a ramato-style (a.k.a. skin-contact) Pinot Grigio, another pinkish-skinned grape variety. The wine is intense, slightly volatile on the nose with suggestions of date and butterscotch, and more structured on the palate than youd expect, thanks to a three-week maceration on its skins. The tannins have a bitter bite to them, recalling grapefruit pith.

 Mission, a light-colored but deceptively big red: Sabelli-Frisch La Malinche Mission Mokelumne River AVA 2018 ($30, 13.6%). With Mission, theres usually a disconnect between the light appearance and the hefty weight, and thats very true here. The wine is light to the point of translucence, with orange brick-colored highlights. It smells like red cherries, the inside of a cigar box and rose petals, and on the palate tastes rustic, tarry and thick, with a core of juicy strawberry and blueberry flavors.

 Alicante Bouschet, a full-throttle red: Sabelli-Frisch Gordon W. Alicante Bouschet Lodi 2018 ($30, 12.7%). Another grape variety with a long history in California, Alicante Bouschet is notable because its a teinturier  its flesh is red, not clear. Predictably, its dark and opaque and almost seems to stain the glass when you swirl it. It tastes like a full barbecue all at once, from the grilled meats to the charred herbs to the blueberry pie for dessert. Full-throttle, huge, just barely containing itself.

In other news

Like many of you, I tried to learn how to bake sourdough bread during quarantine. It didnt go so well for me. So I wrote a breakup letter to sourdough.

Drinking with Esther is a weekly newsletter from The Chronicles wine critic. Follow along on Twitter: @Esther_Mobley and Instagram: @esthermob
MINNEAPOLIS, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ally Law, a global legal network that includes nearly 3,000 lawyers worldwide, congratulates its member firms and lawyers ranked in the Chambers High Net Worth Guide 2020.

Said Bjorn Welinder, president of Ally Law and a partner in Lund, Sweden-based law firm Lindmark Welinder, "I commend all of our members on this honor. The credentials and reputation of our member firms is the cornerstone of our mission to provide cost-effective, coordinated legal services world-wide."

Ally Law member firms and individuals ranked in Chambers High Net Worth Guide 2020 include:

About the Chambers High Net Worth Guide

The guide ranks the top lawyers and law firms for international private wealth from more than 50 countries around the world and is used by family offices and professional advisers to wealthy individuals, providing objective guidance on an international scale. The recommendations within the guide are based on in-depth analysis following extensive research by Chambers' experienced team.

About Ally Law

Ally Law, a Chambers and Partners Band 1 Global Law Firm Network, provides sophisticated legal services to major corporations, with a sharp focus on value. Our 70+ firms include nearly 3,000 lawyers in 100+ business centers worldwide.

Press contact:

Wendy Horn, Executive Director, Ally Law

+1 612 770 6046, [email protected]

SOURCE Ally Law

Related Links

https://chambers.com/


AP Photo/Nati Harnik

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

Low-wage service workers increasingly are facing new physical and emotional hazards in the workplace as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to interviews with workers we conducted in April. We found that in addition to being afraid and anxious about their own health and possible exposure to COVID-19 while working, these employees said dealing with unpredictable customer emotions was taking an additional toll.

The workers we spoke with reported that interactions with customers were becoming emotionally charged over issues such as mask requirements and other safety guidelines. Workers of color said they were experiencing increased racial harassment.

Exposure to these emotional hazards was widespread among the workers we interviewed and was also spilling over into their home lives. A grocery worker with underlying health conditions told us her son was super worried, like borderline tears, because he didnt want me to go [to work] because he knows its not safe. And I felt horrible because I didnt want to go, but I knew that I had to.

Why it matters

As states and businesses try to reopen with a mix of safety guidelines and protocols, workers have often been on the front lines of enforcing health measures such as requiring customers to wear a mask or maintain social distancing. Some customers have even turned violent, which adds a threat of physical harm to workers who are already disproportionately exposed to a lethal virus.

The experiences of the workers in our study, most of whom worked throughout the shutdown, reveal the need for government and companies to address these new emotional hazards and protect them from customer harassment. Without clear governmental safety mandates, for example, workers easily become the targets of harassment as they tried to enforce their companies policies. Workers also said their companies often had weak enforcement mechanisms, frequently adjusted their policies and didnt provide support in dealing with intense interactions with customers.

Story continues

Whats next

These results are part of a series of ongoing studies were conducting with essential workers in a variety of roles, such as home care and food processing, to examine how they are navigating these new emotional risks during the pandemic. We are also looking at efforts by workers to organize to demand better protections and how these challenges are affecting their families.

How we do our work

As a team of sociologists at the University of Oregon, we rely on rich qualitative data from in-depth interviews, focus groups and participant observation. Our results here come from interviewing dozens of workers in Oregons hospitality, retail and food services industries whom we first met in 2019 as a part of an ongoing longitudinal study.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:



Lola Loustaunau and this research team has received funding from the Ford Foundation, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555, the United Association for Labor Education, the University of Oregon Sociology, and the University of Oregon Labor Education and Research Center.

Ellen Scott receives funding from UFCW555, UALE, the Ford Foundation, and the University of Oregon.

Larissa Petrucci receives funding from Ford Foundation, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555, United Association for Labor Education, University of Oregon Sociology and University of Oregon Labor Education and Research Center.

Lina Stepick and this research team has received funding from the Ford Foundation, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555, the United Association for Labor Education, the University of Oregon Sociology, and the University of Oregon Labor Education and Research Center.
President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla., on June 20. Read more

Four years ago at this time, Sen. Pat Toomey was keeping such a distance from Donald Trump that he refused to say whether he would vote for his own partys nominee for president. This year, Toomey is one of the Pennsylvania delegates who will formally renominate Trump and is heading to Jacksonville, Fla., next month for the Republican National Convention.

Meanwhile, Rep. Scott Perry, a vocal Trump supporter, is skipping the event and plans to spend that time in his Harrisburg-area district, where he faces a stiff reelection challenge.

The split responses from the two Pennsylvania Republicans show how what is normally an easy call  attending the partys marquee event to support its presidential nominee  is laden with political and health concerns about a month before the event begins.

We asked Toomey and every Republican House member from Pennsylvania and New Jersey (11 lawmakers in all) if they plan to attend the convention, set for Aug. 24-27. Seven said or indicated they are going, three are skipping it, and one didnt answer.

Trump remains as polarizing as ever, with fervent supporters ready to punish any signs of disloyalty and fierce critics eager to pounce on anyone seen to be enabling him. Yet he has been steadily sinking in public polling. And on top of that, his convention  already moved from Charlotte, N.C., because of coronavirus worries there  is now set to take place in one of the countrys hot spots for the pandemic. Details of what events will look like, how large they will be, and if theyll be indoors or outside remain unclear.

 READ MORE: Coronavirus isnt scaring Trumps Pa. supporters away from his Republican convention in Florida

Democrats have already moved to an almost entirely virtual convention and told their delegates to stay home.

Heres what local Republicans in Congress said about their partys event. Well update this if we hear back from other members.

Sen. Pat Toomey

Senator Toomey is currently planning to attend a portion of the [convention], spokesperson Steve Kelly said in an email. Asked about the senators change of views since the last election (when Toomey announced his support for Trump on Election Day), Kelly wrote: Since 2017, he has worked with President Trump on several issues, including the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and supporting Pennsylvanias natural gas sector. Senator Toomey is supporting the presidents re-election and was named an at-large delegate by PA GOP Chairman Lawrence Tabas.

Toomey isnt on the ballot this year. His Senate term is up in 2022, when he could seek reelection but is also widely seen as considering a run for governor.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick

The Congressman had planned on staying in his district working on constituent matters that week, wrote campaign spokesperson Kate Constantini.

Fitzpatrick, of Bucks County, is seeking reelection in a tough swing district Trump narrowly lost in 2016. Democrat Christina Finello is challenging him.

 READ MORE: The most important Pennsylvania congressional races used to be in the Philly suburbs. Not anymore

Rep. Fred Keller

Keller, from Northeast Pennsylvania,is an at-large delegate to the convention and tweeted earlier this month that he is honored to serve at the convention. He is planning to attend.

Rep. Mike Kelly

At this time, the Congressman plans on attending to support the president, wrote his campaign manager, Melanie Brewer.

Kelly, from Butler County, is a strong Trump supporter who faced an unusually close 2018 reelection.

Rep. Dan Meuser

Congressman Meuser is attending the RNC Convention, wrote campaign spokesperson Mike Barley. Congressman Meuser fully supports President Donald Trump and is active in supporting his re-election.

Rep. Scott Perry

Congressman Perry is not planning on attending the convention this year, emailed campaign spokesperson Matt Beynon. He will be spending that week working in the district for his constituents.

In a changing district that still leans right, but less so than before, Perry won reelection by just two percentage points in 2018. His race this year against Auditor General Eugene DePasquale is expected to be one of the toughest in the state.

 READ MORE: Americas twin crises are highlighting Trumps biggest weaknesses

Rep. Guy Reschenthaler

He is planning to attend, his spokesperson said.

Rep. John Joyce

He is planning to attend, his spokesperson said.

Rep. Chris Smith

The central New Jersey congressman is not planning to attend, according to his office.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew

The Democrat-turned-Republican from South Jersey said he is planning to attend. Van Drew switched parties in December after opposing Trumps impeachment, and pledged his undying support to the president. Trump later held a raucous rally in Wildwood to boost Van Drews standing. After decades as a Democrat, Van Drew is counting on Republican voters who once opposed him to help him win reelection against Democrat Amy Kennedy.

Did not respond

Rep. Lloyd Smucker

Smucker  like Joyce, Keller, Meuser, and Reschenthaler  collectively represent the most conservative districts in Pennsylvania and all have been consistent Trump supporters.
US Orders China to Shut Down its Houston, Texas Consulate in 72 Hours

Sputnik News

07:14 GMT 22.07.2020(updated 09:19 GMT 22.07.2020)

The Global Times' editor-in-chief had claimed earlier that Washington asked Beijing to close down one of its five consulates in the country, specifically, the one located in Houston, Texas. The Chinese Foreign Ministry later confirmed this report.

The United States has asked China to close its Passport and Visa Office at the China Consulate General in Houston, Texas, according to the Global Times editor-in-chief, as cited by Reuters.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry confirmed the development, saying that Washington had "abruptly" informed Beijing to close down its Texas consulate on 21 July.

According to daily briefing of Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, Beijing has strongly condemned the decision and called upon the US to rescind the move, while suggesting retaliatory measures in response, as quoted by Reuters.

During the briefing, Wang Wenbin also described the US decision as a "political provocation" and "a grave violation of international law".

"China firmly condemns this revolting and unjustified move, undermining Chinese-US relations ... China calls on the US to immediately abolish this erroneous decision," the official added.

Beijing currently operates five Consulates-General in the United States, including those in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC.

The local NBC TV affiliate KPRC 2 quoted the Houston Police Department, as saying that police and fire officials had responded to reports earlier about a fire being sighted in the courtyard of the consulate on Tuesday night.

Reports suggested that the fire was the result of documents being burned in the building's courtyard.

Commenting on reports about documents being burned in the consulate's courtyard, Wang Wenbin said that the Houston office was operating "normally".

The development signified a "decouple" and "chicken game" in China-US relations, says Dr. Wang Yiwei, Director of the Institute of International Affairs and Centre for European Studies at Renmin University of Beijing.

"Trump is only pressuring China to win the re-election, to get away from his troubles. Even he can not reach such goal. More dangerous actions such as cutting diplomatic relations and military conflict may happen as well, if China shows weakness. Trump is forcing China to make sacrifices for his re-election, by hijacking American voters and American allies," the professor adds.

US Explains Its Move

Later, US State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus commented on the move, while saying, as quoted by Reuters, that the closure of the consulate was motivated by the need to "protect American intellectual property" and "private information".

On Tuesday, the US Justice Department said that two Chinese officials were indicated as trying to "steal" research on COVID-19 vaccine through alleged hacking attempts on a number of US, British and other international companies. China's UK ambassador, Liu Xiaoming, dismissed these "groundless" claims as "disrespect for Chinese scientists & their achievements".

Beijing has been one among leading countries in its anti-coronavirus research attempts, with its second national experiment vaccine, produced by Sinovac Biotech, is soon expected to enter final stage of human testing.

The Latest Turn in Deteriorating Relations?

The China-US relationship has plummeted during the coronavirus pandemic, as US President Donald Trump repeatedly blamed the spreading of the virus on Beijing. US officials had said earlier that they were mulling over various options to "punish" China for the number of deaths which have resulted from the pandemic, including banning some of its most popular social media platforms, such as TikTok. However, according to China's foreign ministry, the order to shut down its consulate was rather unexpected.

Washington has also been pressuring its Five Eyes intelligence alliance partners (the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) to abstain from allowing Chinese giant Huawei to enter their national 5G networks, citing long-disputed claims about the company's espionage activities on behalf of Beijing.

Recently, the UK made a U-turn by announcing that it would ban Huawei, a world leader in producing 5G equipment, from its market, despite its January decision to partner with the company in its national fifth-generation-technology rollout. Donald Trump said at that time that it was the United States who "convinced" its partners about alleged security risks associated with the firm, a statement that was criticised by British officials as "claiming credit" for the decision, that was primarily based on a "technical assessment". Some, however, later suggested that it was still the need to conclude a trade deal with the United States that influenced the British decision to remove Huawei equipment from the country's 5G networks by 2027.

A Sputnik

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Five years ago last spring, fear of a federal takeover of Texas grew so heated in some circles that Gov. Greg Abbott deployed the state guard to shadow U.S. Special Forces during a training exercise to ensure Texans safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed.

It was absurd, of course. Operation Jade Helm 15 was nothing more than advertised: eight weeks of training in Texas and six other states. But the fear  stoked online, the CIA later confirmed, by Russian bots  was real. Some residents stocked up on ammunition and stowed weapons as rumors of impending martial law raged.

This summer, a true threat to civil liberties, with all the hallmarks of genuine authoritarianism, is spreading from city to city and yet the outrage on the right has been, to put it gently, muted. Why?

President Donald Trump has sent a swarm of Department of Homeland Security officers  many of them Border Patrol agents, trained to enforce immigration laws, not to police American cities  to Portland under the pretext of protecting courthouses and other federal property. On Wednesday, he announced hundreds of federal agents under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security are headed to Chicago to confront a spike in gun violence and shootings he says local police have failed to stem. Agents are already in Kansas City and are expected soon in other cities, from Albuquerque to Detroit.

In recent weeks, there has been a radical movement to defund, dismantle, and dissolve our police departments, he said Wednesday, wildly exaggerating a spectrum of proposed reforms. Extreme politicians have joined this anti-police crusade and relentlessly vilified our law enforcement heroes.

Since local officials cant be trusted, according to the president, he is sending in his own troops. That should alarm every American.

None of the mayors have asked for the federal agents help. Governors of Oregon, Washington, Illinois and other states have protested loudly. Tom Ridge, the former Republican governor of Pennsylvania and the nations first Homeland Security secretary, says it would be a cold day in hell before hed authorize a similar deployment of DHS agents to U.S. cities.

The agency, created after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, was not established to be the president's personal militia, he said.

In Trumps hands, thats what it has become. He is creating a private police force answerable only to him. The self-proclaimed law-and-order president is perverting the rule of law.

In Portland

The situation in Portland is chaotic, no doubt. Protesters have remained in the streets overnight for weeks following the killing in Minneapolis of former Houston resident George Floyd. While mostly peaceful, there have been some acts of vandalism  windows broken, fires set, bottles hurled at police  which Black Lives Matter leaders have disavowed.

When protesters targeted a federal courthouse, DHS officials surrounded the site with agents  mostly from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Agents in riot gear have fanned out into the city beyond federal property to make arrests, lobbing tear gas at moms, raining baton blows on a Navy veteran who stood with hands at his side and snatching citizens off the streets.

Federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland, detain protesters, and place them into the officers unmarked vehicles, removing them from public without either arresting them or stating the basis for an arrest, since at least Tuesday, July 14, according to a federal complaint filed by Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum.

In a letter to the U.S. attorney general, Oregons congressional delegation called the tactics more reflective of those used by a government led by a dictator, not from the government of our constitutional democratic republic. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said the president is not only breaking the law, but he is also endangering the lives of Portlanders. His actions are unconstitutional.

In a statement to the editorial board, Oregon Gov. Katie Brown said, This political theater from President Trump has nothing to do with public safety. The President is failing to lead this nation. Now he is deploying federal officers to patrol the streets of Portland in a blatant abuse of power by the federal government.

A fig leaf

On Thursday morning, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf defended the arrests in Oregon as legal. He said anyone who threatens a federal courthouse is subject to arrest  and agents may pursue arrests on or off premises. He denied that agents wore no identifying insignia.

I don't need invitations by the state, state mayors or state governors to do our job. We're going to do that, whether they like us there or not, he said on Monday on Fox & Friends.

Past presidents have relied on federal agents to enforce federal law  from President Dwight Eisenhowers sending the 101st Airborne to desegregate schools in Little Rock to the Clinton administrations decisions to send federal agents to apprehend Elian Gonzalez in Miami and ATF agents to confront the Branch Davidians in Waco.

But Trumps use of hundreds of agents to police the streets of U.S. cities, without the invitation of local officials, is in a whole other category. Is it legal? Experts are divided, but that only makes it more worrisome, said Clark Neily, vice president for criminal justice at the libertarian Cato Institute.

Its a very dangerous situation because there is at least a pretext  if not more  for some of what the federal law enforcement officials are doing, Neily said. Once you have the cover of a fig leaf over their actions, then it is very difficult for anyone  from the Oregon attorney general to the federal judiciary  to rein them in.

Neily also took a longer view: Democrats and Republicans share responsibility for the steady expansion of federal power across the decades, he said. Congress has entrusted the presidency with vast powers, often assuming self-restraint or adherence to political norms will govern its use.

That is no longer a safe assumption.

That has helped set the table legally for what we have now, a norm-busting president to come along and weaponize law enforcement. Its very scary, Neily said.

Abuse of power

This crisis appears likely to get worse before it gets better.

Mayors in at least 15 cities have objected to Trumps Operation LeGend, his plan to send federal agents to cities  all of them, so far, led by Democrats  to fight crime.

We welcome actual partnership, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said. But we do not welcome dictatorship, we do not welcome authoritarianism and we do not welcome unconstitutional arrest and detainment of our residents.

None of us should. Big-city mayors and Democratic members of Congress have called for investigations of the Trump administrations deployment of federal forces. Even some Republicans leaders have done the right thing and condemned it. But we should all speak out about this abuse of power that is appalling, unneeded and un-American.
The Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Hon. Cecilia Abena Dapaah paid a one-day working visit to Brosankro in the Tano South Municipal in the Ahafo Region of Ghana.

The Minister in her address thanked the chief and people of Brosankro for their patience and warm reception.

She continued that, water is a basic necessity and President Akufo Addo acknowledges that need and due to that Brosankro was not exempted.

She said the President has tasked her ministry to do everything possible to make sure every community in the country have easy access to clean water and that is why Brosankro hasnt been left out.

The sector minister noted that the visit was just to monitor the project and in the right time, it will be commissioned, hopefully by the president himself.

She ended by mentioning the governments commitment to better the lives of all Ghanaians and urged all and sundry to aid the realisation of the Presidents dream by voting for him come December 7.

The Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Hon. Cecilia Abena Dapaah speaking at the gathering

The MCE for Tano South, Hon. Collins Offinam Takyi also thanked the government for fulfilling its promise and working within the stipulated time for the project to be completed.

He asked the people of Brosankro to practice good maintenance culture so as to get the project last longer and serve its intended purpose.

MCE for Tano South, Hon. Collins Offinam Takyi educating them

The Krontihene of Brosankro, Nana Kwasi Prempeh addressing the gathering expressed his profound gratitude to the government for not leaving his town out because it has been in need of water for long.

He said, just like Oliver Twist, they will always ask for more so he pleads with the minister and the government to upgrade Brosankro health post and also fix their roads leading to the Old Town which are in a very bad state.
Police arrested a woman after they were called to an address in Wembley. (SWNS)

A woman is being held in police custody after she was arrested on suspicion of murdering an eight-month-old baby.

Paramedics pronounced the baby dead at the scene of the incident at Preston Road in Wembley, north-west London on Wednesday morning.

The Metropolitan Police said the woman and the baby, who was less than a year old, were known to each other. Investigators are not looking for anyone else over the death.

Paramedics pronounced the baby dead at the scene. (SWNS)

Roy Smith, Met Police North West Commander, said: This is a tragic incident and my thoughts are with all those affected including the family and our first responders who rushed to the scene.

MORE: Cruel pair push homeless man into canal after pouring beer on his head

"Whilst I know the effects of this death will reverberate throughout the local community, please be reassured that we are doing everything we can to investigate and, at this early stage, are not seeking any other person in connection with the death.

"I would like to hear from anyone who feels they may have information that could assist our investigation to understand this horrific tragedy."

Police investigating the death of a baby in Wembley have arrested a woman on suspicion of murderhttps://t.co/CMpI4vRWYD  Brent MPS | North West BCU (@MPSBrent) July 22, 2020

A Met Police spokesman on Wednesday said: "Officers were called to an address in Preston Road, Wembley, at 9.51am to a report of an injured infant.

"Officers and London Ambulance Service attended. A baby, believed to be less than a year old, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Next of kin are being supported by specially trained officers.

MORE: Thief uses broom to steal pints of milk from nursery

"A woman was arrested today and remains in custody.

"It is believed that all parties involved were known to each other.

He added: "At this early stage, police are not looking for anyone else in connection with this incident."
NEW DELHI: The disengagement between India and China might have hit a roadblock in eastern Ladakh as Chinese troops have not moved back from the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in line with the consensus arrived at during the disengagement talks between both the countries recently, reports said on Thursday (July 23, 2020).

According to reports, no movement by Chinese troops had been noticed in areas like Finger 5 and Pangong Lake in the past one week suggesting that Beijing is not too keen on disengagement.

Instead, China's People`s Liberation Army (PLA) has deployed around 40,000 troops in its front and depth areas for the Eastern Ladakh sector, according to news agency ANI.

The report quoting sources stated that Chinese are also not honouring their commitment for disengagement at the friction points in Eastern Ladakh and not moving back as per the agreed terms during the multiple rounds of talks at the government and Army level.

"The Chinese have not shown any signs of de-escalation as they continue to maintain their heavy troop deployment of almost 40,000 troops supported by heavy weaponry like air defence systems, armoured personnel carriers and long-range artillery in front and depth areas," the report said quoting sources.

The disengagement process has also not made any progress since the last round of talks between the two Corps Commanders held last week and ground positions have also not changed, the sources said.

It has been found that the Indian and Chinese troops have pulled back at Pangong Lake by 2-km and Finger 4 is empty. However, the Chinese are still camping on the ridgeline. This clearly indicates that the Chinese had camped at Finger 4 that had traditionally been under the Indian control.

In view of the prevailing tension between the two countries, the Indian Army is preparing itself for a long haul and harsh winter for the high-altitude region. A massive logistical exercise has also started to provide adequate rations and other supplies to its soldiers as the friction areas still remain volatile.

This is being done since the Chinese are showing reluctance in moving out of the Finger 5 area and retreat back to their permanent location in Sirijap as they want to create an observation post in the region, according to sources.

The Chinese have also done a heavy amount of construction of structures in the Hot Springs and Gogra post area which are the two major friction points in the Eastern Ladakh sector.

In the Hot Springs and Gogra area, the Chinese have been giving the excuse of the possibility of India occupying strategic heights there once they retreat to their permanent locations in their side of the border, the sources said.

In the last meeting between Corps commander-level officers on July 14-15, it was agreed that both sides will now monitor further disengagement by troops and verify the development in the next few days.
A federal appeals court this week denied The Washington Post and two civil liberties groups access to a lower court opinion blocking the government from forcing a tech company to break its encryption to help law enforcement.

At issue is a September 2018 sealed opinion by a federal judge denying the government's request to compel Facebook under the Wiretap Act to break the encryption on its popular Messenger app so authorities could monitor the calls of members of the MS-13 gang.

In February 2019, U.S. District Judge Lawrence O'Neill in the Eastern District of California denied a motion by The Post, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation to unseal the opinion.

The newspaper and civil liberties group appealed, arguing in April that the public has a right to know a court's reasons for restraining the government's power to force a tech company to break its encryption. But an attorney for the Justice Department countered that unsealing the 2018 opinion would harm an ongoing investigation in California.

On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit affirmed O'Neill's denial.

"The documents [sought] have not historically been open to the general public during an investigation," the panel wrote. "And because of the ongoing nature of the investigation, the benefits of open proceedings are 'more than outweighed by the damage to the criminal investigatory process,' " quoting an opinion from a 1989 case.

The issue of how a company reconciles its obligation to provide technical assistance to government investigations with its duty to protect user privacy and security is at the heart of a long-running national debate.

Several years ago, the Justice Department and Apple squared off in a high-profile legal showdown over the same issue, when the government sued Apple to break into a dead terrorist's locked iPhone. The department backed off when the FBI found a way to hack the phone without having Apple undermine its device encryption.

"It's disappointing and frustrating because the justification for the sealing was also sealed and yet we knew the matter pertained to more than a dozen indicted cases," said Duffy Carolan, The Post's attorney in the case. "Once a case is indicted, the investigatory interest should give way to the public's right of access."
Policy think tank, IMANI Africa wants the government to account for the savings made from the 2020 budget due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the think tank, there is a need for the government to account for potential savings made due to the re-alignment of spending priorities arising from the pandemic.

Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta prepares to deliver the 2020 mid-year budget review later today, Thursday,

In a statement IMANI Africa said: More pressingly, government should in the conversation following the presentation of the supplementary budget account for the money it made from these creative adjustments even as it asks for more money. The diversion of spending from dispensable areas to stimulus and mitigation should have been deliberate and clever to have the right effect, and we want to know more.

IMANI Africa noted that its preliminary analysis shows that these fiscal adjustments should have yielded about GHS3 billion in freed resources.

For example, the extant budget indicates a total amount of budgeted expenditure for goods and services, capital expenditure and government flagship programmes of GHS19,871,033,229 prior to COVID, representing 20.27% of the entire budget for the year 2020. This amount can be broken down into GHS7,763,668,451, representing 39.1%, for government flagship programmes; GHS8,330,827,244, representing 41.9%, for goods and services; and 3,776,538,534, representing 19%, for capital expenditure.

In short, even limited sensitivity analysis and financial modelling performed on only parts of the overall budget led to savings of GHS3,567,326,880, representing 17.95% of the affected outlay, from initially planned expenditure, which with limited fiscal management savvy must have been generated, IMANI Africa added in its statement.

The policy think tank argued that it would be disappointing if the Minister of Finance makes no effort to explain clearly how the Government has taken advantage of the pandemic to restructure certain expenditures, eliminate waste, rationalise many commitments, freed up resources, and more effectively utilised the savings thus generated in a creative effort to overcome the many woes he is sure to lament about tomorrow.

Finance Minister presents budget review today

Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta will later today, Thursday, July 23, present the 2020 mid-year budget review and supplementary estimates for the financial year in Parliament in accordance with Section 28 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921).

This particular presentation will highlight the government's plan on how the country is to recover from the shocks of the economy due to the withdrawal of advanced monies from the Contingency and Stabilisation Funds following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr. Ofori-Atta is also expected to use the opportunity to review some of the key macroeconomic targets announced in the 2020 budget read last year.

---citinewsroom
Mumbai: The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) is expected to release the result of Maharashtra SSC Class 10 board exams or SSC results this week. However, there is no official confirmation yet about the date of declaration of MSBSHSE Maharashtra SSC 10th Results 2020.

About 17 lakh students had registered for the board exams this year. This year, the Geography exam could not be held due to the Coronavirus COVID-19 induced lockdown across the country. The board has decided to grant marks for Geography subject on the basis of internal assessment.

This year, the results, which are expected to come out next week, would be unique in itself as the board could not conduct all the exams.

How to check Maharashtra SSC Class 10 results 2020 result-

Step 1: Visit official website mahresult.nic.in, maharashtraeducation.com, and mahahsscboard.maharashtra.gov.in.

Step 2: Find Direct Link for Maharashtra SSC Class 10 results 2020

Step 3: Input your exam roll number and other details asked on the page

Step 4: Verify the details against your hall ticket and submit them on the website

Step 5: Your SSC Result Scorecard will be displayed on the screen

Step 6: Download PDF Softcopy or take printout for future reference

To pass the Maharashtra SSC exam, students need to score an aggregate score of 35 per cent with at least 20 per cent marks in the theory of every subject. Going by trends of previous years, the results for Maharashtra Board class 10 exams are most likely to be announced in a week after the declaration of Maharashtra HSC results. Maharashtra HSC result 2020 was declared on July 16, 2020.

On July 16, the MSBSHSE declared the Maharashtra HSC Class 12 results 2020. The results were declared at 1 pm on Thursday. After the official declaration, the links of the results were made available on MSBSHSE's official websites.
Ascena, the parent company of Ann Taylor, Lane Bryant, LOFT and Lou & Grey announced Thursday it will close a select number of the stores as it filed for bankruptcy amid high debt and declining sales during the coronavirus pandemic.

While 95% of its stores currently remain open, Ascena said all Catherines and a significant amount of Justice stores will be closed as a result of the move. The final number of store closings will be determined based on the ability of Ascena and its landlords to reach agreement on sustainable lease structures, the company said.

Ascena operates about 2,800 stores throughout the United States and Canada.

I want to thank you for your continued commitment to our brands, CEO Gary Muto said in a statement to customers. You have always been at the center of everything we do and we remain in service to you as we navigate our company through COVID-19 and best position ourselves for the future.

Gift cards, merchandise credits and customer rewards programs remain valid until stores are closed.

Ascena, based in Mahwah, New Jersey, is at least the ninth prominent retailer to file for bankruptcy since early May, according to the New York Times.

JC Penny, Brooks Brothers, and J. Crew are among the household retail names that have filed for bankruptcy since the start of the pandemic.

Ascena was known for decades as Dress Barn, the clothing chain founded in 1962 by Roslyn S. Jaffe.

In 2009, it purchased Tween Brands, which owned Justice. Two years later it adopted the name Ascena as it reorganized and continued to grow by purchasing Lane Brant, Ann Taylor, Catherines, LOFT and Lou & Grey.

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tech2 News Staff

China's Mars mission, Tianwen-1, has launched today, 23 July 202o at 10.12 am IST from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island in China. The mission named Tianwen-1 is the first interplanetary mission the Chinese space agency has undertaken, and the world's first Mars mission comprising of an orbiter, rover and lander.

The spacecraft was launched using China's largest carrier rocket, Long March-5, and weighed (including fuel) around 5 tonnes.

The spacecraft is expected to reach Mars around February 2021 and begin its scientific observation phase in April 2021.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has named the mission 'Tianwen-1' after a poem by a popular ancient poet in Chinese history, Qu Yuan.

The lander and rover will perform a soft landing on Utopia Planitia, around two to three months after it arrives to Mars. It a large plain in the largest crater  Utopia  on Mars.

Full-size models of the lander and rover for the "#Tianwen-1," China's first #Mars exploration mission, made their debut on Wednesday. @CGTNOfficial pic.twitter.com/Y4GLT3NUDi  CGTN Global Watch (@GlobalWatchCGTN) July 23, 2020

This will be the second interplanetary mission that will be launched this year after the United Arab Emirates successfully launched their Hope Probe on 20 July. NASA is also planning to launch its fifth Mars rover, called Perseverance, on 30 July.

Here are some Twitter reactions that caught our attention:

Well that was a bit of an event. A bunch of space geeks around the world, all watching a sketchy bootleg feed of a big honkin' rocket for about 30seconds. Sleep well my friends. #Tianwen1  An Ottawa Ross (@ottaross) July 23, 2020

The #Tianwen1 launch is the oddest rocket launch I've ever watched.  Taraustralis (@Taraustralis) July 23, 2020

What a messy broadcast! (it was unofficial) But there goes a mighty big rocket - heading for Mars!#Tianwen1 #Mars pic.twitter.com/3OCANj6iIG  Rami Mandow  (@CosmicRami) July 23, 2020

That was a gorgeous launch of the Long March 5! #Tianwen1 #Mars pic.twitter.com/FryKcn1lVn  Adam Bernstein (@ABernNYC) July 23, 2020

my favourite part was when the valiant rogue stream picked liftoff as the best time to try portrait mode #tianwen1 pic.twitter.com/w5MmnF3mHf  WeMartians Podcast (@We_Martians) July 23, 2020

Suspicions were raised about whether the launch was a success

Im majorly suspect right now about the #Tianwen1 launch that just happened. At ~1:40, I saw what looked like debris falling but Im hoping it was the boosters separating. Everyone starts panicking and the feed immediately cuts out.  Laurence Tognetti, MSc  (@ET_Exists) July 23, 2020

However, an insider reported that things are "nominal through SECO-1" as the rocket's second stage coasts towards the equator.

Chinese news agencies Xinhua News, China Daily and CGTN have also tweeted confirmations on the successful launch of the Chinese Mars mission.

China Thursday launched a Mars probe on a Long March-5 rocket from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the coast of southern China's island province of Hainan https://t.co/g8zTQEUDeJ pic.twitter.com/sOy2Cz0Gmg  China Xinhua News (@XHNews) July 23, 2020

#BREAKING China launched its first independent Mars mission on Thursday from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province. pic.twitter.com/9xe7nTy1qX  China Daily (@ChinaDaily) July 23, 2020
The planned Stonehenge road tunnel which would divert traffic from the ancient monument threatens to become a 'hugely expensive white elephant' as costs exceed 2billion, the Government has been warned today.

For decades motorists on the A303 in Wiltshire, which passes the stone circle, have endured severe congestion on the popular route to and from the South West.

Under proposals drawn up by Highways England, the A303 would be moved into a tunnel under the Stonehenge World Heritage Site.

The long-delayed project was given the green light by Rishi Sunak in his first Budget in March before lockdown, but was last week postponed again by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps until November following a recent archaeological find.

For decades motorists on the A303 in Wiltshire, which passes the stone circle, have endured severe congestion on the popular route to and from the South West. Under proposals drawn up by Highways England, the A303 would be moved into a tunnel under the World Heritage Site

The long-delayed project was given the green light by Rishi Sunak in his first Budget in March before lockdown, but was last week postponed again by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps until November following a recent archaeological find

Last month it emerged that a team of archaeologists had discovered a ring of at least 20 large shafts a short distance from the stones.

Experts believe these may have served as a boundary to a sacred area.

Though Highways England says the two-mile tunnel will remove the sight and sound of traffic passing the site, some environmentalists and archaeologists have voiced their opposition to the plan due to its potential impact on the area.

Lord Dobbs, author of House of Cards, highlighted the decades of wrangling over the project and the rising costs, which he said now topped more than 2billion

The latest delay to the scheme was raised with the Government in the House of Lords by Lord Dobbs.

Lord Dobbs, author of House of Cards and a local resident, highlighted the decades of wrangling over the project and the rising costs, which he said now topped more than 2billion.

Pressing roads minister Baroness Vere of Norbiton, the Tory peer said: 'Does she agree that it seems any tunnel could be finished much before 2030 by which semi-autonomous electric vehicles will be commonplace and perhaps even compulsory, making traffic passed Stonehenge less intrusive, less polluting and easier to manage?

'So, may I ask, because of these advances in vehicle technology, whether it's just possible that by the time any tunnel might be completed it could already be on the verge of becoming a hugely expensive white elephant?'

Lady Vere pointed out that self-driving vehicles 'do still need road space and therefore further road enhancements will be necessary'. However, she could not say how long it would take for the tunnel to be built.

When the project was revealed in 2002, the tunnel was due to cost 183 million. Officials have promised the project will avoid important archaeological sites and will not spoil the view of the setting sun from Stonehenge during the winter solstice

The project was designed to slash travel times on the A303 in Wiltshire which is often at a standstill on bank holidays. The scheme is one of dozens intended to 'level up' the regions by improving road links. They have been unveiled as part of a Road Investment Strategy for the next five years

Though Highways England says the two-mile tunnel will remove the sight and sound of traffic passing the site, some environmentalists and archaeologists have voiced their opposition to the plan due to its potential impact on the area

A hole new 'Stonehenge'! New prehistoric monument dating back 4,500 years made up of 15ft-deep shafts in a mile-wide circle is discovered in English countryside A team of archaeologists have discovered a major new prehistoric monument just a short distance away from Stonehenge. Fieldwork and analysis have revealed evidence of 20 or more massive prehistoric shafts - more than 10 metres in diameter and five metres deep - forming a circle more than two kilometres in diameter around the Durrington Walls henge. Coring of the shafts suggest the features are Neolithic and excavated more than 4,500 years ago - around the time Durrington Walls was built. It is thought the shafts served as a boundary to a sacred area or precinct associated with the henge. Advertisement

Independent crossbencher Baroness Boycott said the years of delay had been 'extremely frustrating', adding: 'I find it really shameful that one of our greatest monuments is regularly passed by a rumble of trucks day and night and the area for visitors is so cramped.

'Given the recent findings about how big, extensive and important this whole site is, would it not be worth putting a big ring road around the site - at least something which we could get on with much quicker? The stones may fall down at this rate because we have wasted so much time and money.'

Lady Vere said: 'This is a very complicated and difficult situation. When it became a World Heritage Site it was one of the commitments that we would do something about the road.

'But Highways England has done an enormous amount of work around the archaeological elements of this area and continues to employ archaeologists to make sure we could not only build the tunnel if it's appropriate, but also preserve the site.'

The Stonehenge Alliance, a campaign group which opposes the plans and has gained nearly 60,000 signatures on an online petition, said the tunnel would need to be deeper and more extensive, adding: 'Anything shorter would cause irreparable damage to this landscape, in breach of the World Heritage Convention.'

Tom Holland, the group's president, called the proposal 'a scheme that constitutes the most grotesque act of desecration ever contemplated by a British government: the driving of a great gash of concrete and tarmac through our most significant, our most sacred prehistoric landscape.'

The tunnel project is one of eight schemes to upgrade the whole of the A303, which passes close to the stone circle, and the A358 further west.

Who else has opposed the 'Stonehenge tunnel'?

The Stonehenge tunnel plan has run into opposition in the past, with UNESCO warning that changes to the A303 at Stonehenge would have an 'adverse impact' on the 'outstanding universal value' of the site.

A report from the National Audit Office released in May last year cast doubt on the whether the 2billion project will represent value for money and whether the work could be completed by even the proposed opening date of December 2026.

The NAO, the independent parliamentary body responsible for auditing government departments, says the project is predicted to deliver 1.15 in benefits for every 1 spent, in part due to the high cost of building a tunnel.

'While Highways England used approved methodologies to do this, calculating benefits in this way is inherently uncertain,' the report said.
Stopping drug smuggling, preventing escapes and fixing leaking roofs are among the reasons why jails in Portlaoise and elsewhere are getting millions of Euro from the 5 billion Government fund help the country recover from Covid-19.

The Department of Justice has announced that the Irish Prisons Service is set to get 8 million extra to increase security and safety in prisons.

It says the service has continuous demands for minor/mid-scale refurbishments as well as security-related works such as "drug throw over escape prevention".

Other money is earmarked for nationwide carbon-related led lighting replacement both internal/external and fire alarm upgrading/ replacement.

Weather damaged leaking buildings also have to be fixed.

"There are also issues with leaking roofs in several locations because of recent severe weather events as well as window replacement/laundry/equipment upgrading requirements," said the Department.

The Minister for Justice and Equality confirmed recently that Covid-19 would mean an extra 5 million in costs for the prison service.

Additional funding of 24 million across the justice sector for a number of projects which the Department says will improve access to justice in Ireland whilst also creating jobs and improving energy efficiency.

Gardai will receive an additional 11 million, the Irish Prisons Service 8 million and the Courts Service will get 5 million.
NEW DELHI:

Pictures of people making beeline at banks and ATMs can be seen for one more week as cash crunch situation is expected to continue for at least one more week, according to an intelligence report which attributed the unprecedented situation to a huge gap in demand and supply of currency notes.

Based on a report prepared by the intelligence agencies, Home Ministry officials said there has not been enough money in circulation. People are hoarding smaller denomination and not spending Rs 100 notes which they are getting either after exchanging the defunct Rs 500 or Rs 1,000 currency notes or from the ATMs, they said.

Due to huge gap in demand and supply of currency, the cash shortage will continue for at least one more week, officials said. The problem is acute in Delhi and a few major urban centres as not enough ATMs are working and refill remains very slow. Unless the ATMs are operationalised as early as possible, the long queues outside the banks will continue, the officials said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8 announced that Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes ceased to be legal tender and asked people possessing such notes to deposit or exchange the same with banks.

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REUTERS/Todd Korol

Cenovus Energy (CVE.TO)(CVE) says it ramped up production in its second quarter to capitalize on a nearly tenfold increase in Canadian heavy crude prices. The company now sees the beginnings of a recovery from the slump brought on by COVID-19 and a flood of cheap foreign oil.

The one-two punch of Saudi-Russian supply aggression and the world staying at home during COVID-19 slammed oil prices and crippled demand for refined fuel products, sending North American benchmarks to historic lows in the spring. Chief executive officer Alex Pourbaix is now cautiously optimistic about West Texas Intermediate prices rebounding into the US$40 range, and the companys ability to pivot its assets to address changes in the market.

We view the second quarter as a period of transition, with April as the low point of the downturn and the first signs of recovery taking hold in May and June, Pourbaix said in a news release on Thursday. That said, we expect the commodity price environment to remain volatile for some time.

Speaking on a post-earnings conference call with analysts on Thursday, he called the three months ended June 30 the worst quarter our industry has witnessed in recent memory. He said while COVID-19 is far from in the rearview mirror, strong trends that emerged in June are expected to carry to some degree throughout the summer.

In April, the company voluntarily reduced oil sands production to just under 344,000 barrels per day (bbls/d). Production climbed to 405,658 bbls/d in June as the company leveraged its transportation, storage and pipeline capabilities to capture rising prices.

Calgary-based Cenovus said it achieved record volumes at its Christina Lake oil sands project last month as prices jumped almost tenfold from April to an average of US$46.03 per barrel in June. That month saw the discount on Western Canadian Select oil narrow to just over US$4 per barrel, a historically tight differential. Pourbaix said the companys quick action in June resulted in free cash flow of more than $290 million.

Story continues

The differentials are still narrow for both July and August, and the condensate pricing is still quite favourable, he said. Though I dont expect July and August to be as good as June, directionally they are consistent with June.

Revenues fell to $2.17 billion in the companys second quarter from $5.6 billion a year earlier. The company swung to a net loss of $235 million, or $0.19 per share. Thats compared a profit of $1.78 billion, or $1.45 per share, during the same period last year. On an adjusted basis, Cenovus posted a loss of $0.34 cents per share. Analysts polled by Bloomberg called for an adjusted loss of $0.38 per share.

We are maximizing value for our shareholders even in this challenging economic environment, Pourbaix added.

Toronto-listed shares climbed 1.42 per cent to $6.78 at 12:33 p.m. ET.

Jeff Lagerquist is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jefflagerquist.

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India-US ties that were dominated by trade friction in 2018 and 2019 appear to be getting a China-related reset this year. While differences over trade are being ironed out by US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, they do not seem to be in prominent focus of the public discourse any more from the American side as it shifts its attention to countering China.

Speaking at the India Ideas Summit on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke about working together especially at the time when we see the true scope of the challenges posed by the Chinese Communist Party. Significantly, he mentioned, Weve revived the Quad comprising US, Japan, India and Australia.

Minutes later, while speaking on how to take the IndiaUS relationship to the next level, US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster said an important aspect will be how to implement the vision for the Indo-Pacific region, a beginning for which has been made through the engagement in the Quad.

Earlier this week, a US Navy carrier strike group led by USS Nimitz carried out a maritime drill with the Indian Navy in the Indian Ocean. USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan had conducted a major military exercise in the South China Sea just ahead of the drill in the Indian Ocean.

These two events took place just as the US State Department spelled out its position on maritime claims in South China Sea. On July 13, it said, The United States champions a free and open Indo-Pacific. Today we are strengthening US policy in a vital, contentious part of that region  the South China Sea. We are making clear: Beijings claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea are completely unlawful, as is its campaign of bullying to control them.

It has also backed India on the aggressive move of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Pompeo at the India Ideas Summit said the recent clashes initiated by the PLA were just the latest examples of the CCPs unacceptable behaviour. He added that the US commends the ban of 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok, that pose serious security risk for the Indian people and was happy to note that India is a rising security partner in Indo-Pacific and globally. This reiteration came just a day after he said, Weve watched the CCP bully its neighbours, militarise features in the South China Sea, and instigate a deadly confrontation with India.

Its only towards the end of his speech did Pompeo make a reference to trade, saying, India will need to encourage an environment which is open to increased trade and investment.

Compare this to what had transpired in the previous two years. The US first increased trade tariffs on import of aluminum and steel in 2018. It withdrew India's GSP status in June 2019. The GSP allowed duty-free imports for some products from designated beneficiary countries, including India. The Trump administration accused India of not giving equitable market access to some US products like medical equipment and also piled pressure on doing away with mandatory certification on dairy products, following which GSP was withdrawn.

US President Donald Trump was very vocal about his displeasure on what he believed were unfair trade practices employed by developing countries like India. He used social media to target India over the tariffs and was seen insisting on discussing trade on priority when he met PM Narendra Modi in Osaka, Japan, on the sidelines of the G20 summit and later in Biarritz, France, on the sidelines of the G7 summit in 2019.

Trump had earlier tweeted, India has long had a field day putting Tariffs on American products. No longer acceptable!"

He had also publicly at a press interaction raised the issue of taxes on Harley Davidson  So, when Harley sends over there, they have 100 per cent tax. When they (India) send in they make a tremendous number of motorcycles when they send them in, no tax. I called him. I said it's unacceptable. This referred to his telephone call with Modi.

Meanwhile, as the clouds of trade and tariff continued to overcast ties over the last two years, the India side tried hard to veer the attention away from it to the larger and growing relationship with the US. Sources within the government continued to say that trade was just one aspect of a wider relationship that was well on track.

On Wednesday at the India Ideas Summit, External affairs Minister S Jaishankar said economics in a relationship were bread and butter issues but for India and the US, while they work on trade issues, they need to think bigger. In fact, he said that there are two big basket of issues that the two countries should be looking at - one is geopolitical and the second is people-to-people. Each one is a game changer, they reinforce each other and have the potential to create a very durable relationship between India and United States, said Jaishankar.

Clearly for the moment, it appears the focus is on maritime security, counter terrorism, connectivity and maintaining global supply chains  in which India could play a reliable role.
The clash between Trump and California underscores tensions over conservative and progressive visions for the country.

In the United States, the clash between President Donald Trump and the state of California underscores fundamental policy differences between Democrats and Republicans at play in the 2020 presidential race, and the choice voters face between conservative and progressive visions for the country.

Trump has no chance of winning California in the 2020 election, and Democrats control all the levers of power there. But to fire up his base, the president rails against the state as shorthand for all that is wrong with Democrats and progressives in the US.

California Democrats, for their part, have not been bashful about pushing back. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hails from San Francisco, and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has been at the forefront of challenging the Trump administration in court, filing more than 60 lawsuits.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, flanked by New York State Attorney General Letitia James and DACA plaintiffs, speaking to reporters outside the US Supreme Court in Washington, on November 12, 2019 [Jonathan Ernst/Reuters]

A major source of the conflict between the president and California is immigration policy and demographic change in the US. The state is home to about 11 million immigrants  25 percent of all foreign-born people in the US. About a quarter of the countrys undocumented population also reside there, 66 percent of them for 10 years or more.

Trumps anti-immigrant nativism was critical to his success in the 2016 presidential election, and attacks on California for its relatively tolerant policies towards undocumented immigrants are mainstays of his rallies.

What we learned in California was that this kind of scapegoating and racial division is not what you need to do to bring a society together and to be able to address your economic issues moving forward to create opportunity for everyone, says Manuel Pastor, a professor of sociology at the University of Southern California.

What we learned in California was that ... scapegoating and racial division is not what you need to do to bring a society together and to be able to address your economic issues moving forward. Manuel Pastor, University of Southern California

In his recent book, State of Resistance, Pastor argues that California is America fast forward.

This is the state that in the early 1990s passed one of the most draconian anti-immigrant pieces of legislation possible when we went from being about 69 percent non-Hispanic white to being majority people of colour. Thats exactly the demographic change that the United States is going through between 2000 and 2050, Pastor says.

California also experienced another cause of anti-immigrant sentiment present in the US today, Pastor says. The state went through one of the most significant deindustrialisations here when defence spending got cut back in the early 1990s which disappeared middle-class jobs.

The California Dream

In fact, the notion of the American Dream is an outgrowth of the so-called California Dream that originated with the California Gold Rush. It began in 1848 when gold was discovered in the water channel of a sawmill, setting off one of the largest mass migrations in history.

A Pike Peak wagon on the trek to California during the Gold Rush, circa 1848 [Hulton Archive/Getty Images]

About 180,000 people flocked into California over the next two years, setting the stage for California statehood, and for policies that welcome people of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds to this day. Every continent other than Antarctica had representatives here during the gold rush, Allen says.

People came here from all over the place and they all had the exact same idea. Im going to get rich and Im going to go home. But when they got here and realised all these resources that were here, they stayed.

Pastor views the California Dream as it evolved over time as the American Dream kind of on steroids.

But right now we have a very different kind of economy. And I think were actually seeing a different kind of dream emerge thats more focused on How do we build community and create an economy that actually functions for everyone?'

This country's given my parents a lot and that's why they always gave back. And that's what most immigrants do. Xavier Becerra, California Attorney General

California Calls, an alliance of 31 community-based organisations across the state, is at the forefront of the effort to renew the California Dream. Black, Latino and Asian members of the alliance have played a major role in swinging power from Republicans to Democrats in the state. Today, California Calls is capable of turning out close to a million voters for elections.

Demographic change in California was a critical factor in transforming politics in the state, according to California Calls field director Karla Zombro. What were saying is we need to make the electorate actually reflect who the people are. And weve been at it for a while. Our wake-up call was the 90s, we got a hell of a lot smarter and more sophisticated.

Democratic party dominance

In 1992, the use of excessive force by police unleashed a powerful reaction in Los Angeles, similar to what happened in Minneapolis in May after George Floyd was killed by a police officer there. In 1992, protests and riots broke out when white police officers were found not guilty for the brutal beating of Black motorist Rodney King.

In March 1991, demonstrators called for the resignation of then-Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates who was best known for his controversial handling of the Rodney King beating and 1992 race riots [File: Maria Morrison/Reuters]

Within a year our organisation was first formed to start working with people in the neighbourhoods to identify what really are the root causes that led to this explosion of anger, Zombro says.

Then in 1994, Republican Governor Pete Wilson inflamed the states Latino population while running for re-election by championing Proposition 187, a ballot initiative that allowed Californians to vote on whether to deny social services to undocumented immigrants and their children.

According to Pastor, the Prop 187 fight brought new Latino voters and leaders into the electoral process, also helping to set the stage for Democratic Party dominance in California politics.

The Republican party really alienated themselves from the growing Latino vote. So that's probably scary to Republicans because that demographic change is going to occur in other states as well. Manuel Pastor

Charles Kesler, the editor of the conservative Claremont Review of Books, takes issue with the idea that Prop 187 was the cause of the California Republican partys demise. He also argues that Trumps hardline stance on immigration is not necessarily bad for the Republican party nationally.

After Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential election, the advice to the Republican party was that it needed to be more accommodating to the changing demographics and soften its stand on immigration, Kesler says. And Donald Trump won four years later by basically ignoring every piece of advice in that post-mortem. Now, in the long term, that may have been a mistake but it doesnt look like it at this point.





Anti-immigrant sentiments

Conservative intellectuals and media operations in California play an important role in providing ideological underpinnings for Trumpist Republicanism. Some of Trumps closest aides, like anti-immigrant hawk Stephen Miller, are also from the state.

California Republicans are sensitive to the impact of immigration on political power, Kesler says. People who were in a way scarred by their experience of the changes in California were not only open to Trump in a way that other conservatives were not, they had an agenda for Trump in a way that other conservatives did not.

The cornerstone of President Trumps anti-immigrant agenda is the wall he wants to build along the entire US-Mexico border. At a cost of $20m per mile so far, Trumps wall is the most expensive border barrier of its kind anywhere in the world. To pay for it, he bypassed Congress and diverted billions of dollars in military funds through an emergency declaration that is being challenged as unconstitutional in court.

Donald Trump talking to reporters while touring a section of the US-Mexico border wall in San Luis, Arizona, in June [Carlos Barria/Reuters]

In Calexico, a California border town next to the Mexican city of Mexicali, people view the wall as a waste of money and an affront to their values. Victor Carrillo, who served as mayor of Calexico, feels that Trump supporters who ardently support the wall dont have a true understanding of the relationship or the diversity of the people that we have living here already. We speak over 200 languages here in the state of California. And so, we embrace and welcome that diversity because it makes us stronger culturally.

Diversity also makes the state stronger economically. Californias agricultural sector which ranks number one in the US, for example, is heavily dependent on workers from Mexico and Central America.

The idea that diversity and immigration provide cultural and economic benefits to the country is an important part of the Democratic Partys platform, as well as presidential candidate Joe Bidens campaign messaging.

Demographic changes

California Attorney General Becerra, whose parents were born in Mexico, argues that Americans have little to fear from a tolerant approach to immigrants. This countrys given my parents a lot and thats why they always gave back. And thats what most immigrants do, he says.

This past June, the US Supreme Court sided with Becerra in his efforts to prevent the Trump administration from terminating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme, which allows undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children to live and work in the country. The Trump administration has also targeted a California law that bars state and local law enforcement from cooperating with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement in deporting undocumented immigrants. So far, Becerra has successfully defended the law in court.

DACA recipients and their supporters rallying outside the US Supreme Court on June 18 in Washington, DC [Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFP]

The attorney general pleads ignorance as to why Republicans and conservatives dislike California so much. But in a discussion with five businessmen who used to live in California and now reside in Nevada, demographic change and the states policies towards immigrants came up as reasons for why people move out of the state.

Jimmy Ingram, a marketing director, says demographic change in California and its impact on politics there, is one of the main reasons he left. Id been there my whole life and didnt want to deal with it.

None of the group was convinced by the argument that California might be leading the way in building an inclusive society, renewing the idea of America as a melting pot.

I think this whole thing of diversity is our strength, that is crap, says Kirk Hankla, the owner of a mortgage bank. Pursuit of excellence of individuals regardless of where they come from on this planet has been our strength. Like others in the group, Hankla says he will be voting for Trump in the upcoming election.

To attempt to stop President Trump from winning a second term, California Calls is helping organise a national effort in 15 states called the State Power Caucus. It aims to turn out millions of new and occasional voters.

If the people who are eligible can just vote, can actually believe in their power, Zombro says, we win.
Ben Fordham has revealed why he initially turned down the offer to host Australian Ninja Warrior.

The respected journalist, who has fronted the Channel Nine series since 2017, explained that he didn't think the role 'sounded like him'.

Ben, 43, told WHO magazine on Thursday that it was his wife, Seven newsreader Jodie Speers, who convinced him otherwise.

Nearly said no! Ben Fordham (right) has revealed why he initially turned down the offer to host Australian Ninja Warrior. Pictured with co-host Rebecca Maddern

Ben mentioned his misgivings about the obstacle course show while discussing his recent promotion to the breakfast slot on 2GB radio.

He said he was 'scared' about replacing veteran broadcaster Alan Jones, noting that he'd felt the same way when Nine asked him to host Ninja Warrior four years ago.

Ben, who is known as a serious news reporter, said he didn't think the family-friendly program was for him and so initially rejected the role.

Change of path: The respected journalist, who has fronted the Channel Nine series since 2017, explained that he didn't think the role 'sounded like him'

Wife knows best! Ben, 43, told WHO magazine on Thursday that it was his wife, Seven newsreader Jodie Speers (left), who convinced him otherwise

But he was torn by the decision, and eventually changed his mind after talking it over with Jodie, with whom he shares three children, Freddy, five, Pearl, three, and Marigold, 10 months.

Ben added: 'I have learnt that if you're asked to do something, and it scares you, the smartest thing to do is say yes because you don't want to have any regrets.'

He also revealed that filming for the new season had been under way in Melbourne when the COVID-19 pandemic hit at the start of the year.

'I was stuck in Melbourne, away from [my] young family, and it was more than a little bit challenging,' he said of the difficult time.

Hindsight: Reflecting on the decision, Ben said, 'I've learnt that if you're asked to do something and it scares you, the smartest thing is to say yes because you don't want to have any regrets'

It comes after Nine finally gave fans a glimpse of the new Power Tower obstacle in a trailer for the fourth season of Australian Ninja Warrior.

'We're super charging Ninja Warrior for the first time ever its ninja versus ninja... the almighty Power Tower is here,' a voice over says.

The Power Tower appears to be a tall structure with gymnastic rings, ropes and ladders attached.

Australian Ninja Warrior premieres July 26 on Channel Nine
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his virtual keynote address at the India-Idea's summit on Wednesday, said there is global optimism towards India because it offers a perfect combination of openness, opportunities and options for those seeking to do business here. He also said that even during the pandemic, India attracted foreign investment of over $20 billion between April and July.

Calling USA and India natural partners, he said this partnership can play an important role in helping the world bounce back faster after the pandemic. Reaching out to the American investors, he said that there has never been a better time to invest in India.

In the last six years, efforts have been undertaken to make our economy more open and reform-oriented, adding that reforms have ensured competitiveness, transparency, digitisation, greater innovation and policy stability, the PM said.

He said there are now more rural internet users than urban internet users. Hailing India as a land of opportunities, the PM said there are about half a billion active internet users in the country now.

The PM also talked about the need to place the poor and the vulnerable at the core of the growth agenda. He said 'Ease of Living' is as important as 'Ease of Business' and that the pandemic had reminded people of the importance of resilience of the global economy against external shocks, which can be achieved by stronger domestic economic capacities.

India is contributing towards a prosperous and resilient world through the clarion call of an 'Atma Nirbhar Bharat', he said.

The PM also underlined that there were extensive opportunities to invest in many sectors in India. He talked about the recently undertaken reforms in agriculture, saying there are opportunities to invest in areas including agriculture inputs and machinery, agriculture supply chain, food processing sector, fisheries and organic produce. He added that now was the best time to expand investment in the Indian healthcare sector as it was growing faster than 22% every year.

Also read: India a rising defence, security partner of US: Mike Pompeo
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Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson locked horns over Scottish independence today as the Prime Minister visited the country for the first time since the general election.

The First Minister lashed out as Mr Johnson visited Orkney and north east Scotland on a whistle-stop one-day tour in which he ruled out a re-run of the 2014 referendum.

Mr Johnson, who was greeted by pro-independence campaigners as soon as he arrived north of the border this morning, said the 'Union is a fantastically strong institution' as he outright rejected the SNP leader's demand for another border poll.

He also claimed that coronavirus would have been a 'disaster' for an independent Scotland which could not rely on assistance from the rest of the UK.

But in a scathing retort, Ms Sturgeon argued his visit - the day before Mr Johnson marks one year in charge at Downing Street - highlights a key argument for independence.

She tweeted: 'I welcome the PM to Scotland today. One of the key arguments for independence is the ability of Scotland to take our own decisions, rather than having our future decided by politicians we didn't vote for, taking us down a path we haven't chosen. His presence highlights that.'

And she lashed out at the idea that Scotland was beholden to the English, saying financial support from Westminster was 'not some kind of favour' to Scots.

Nicola Sturgeon told her daily coronavirus briefing that 'none of us should be crowing about this pandemic in a political sense' as she hit back at Mr Johnson

Mr Johnson examined a Typhoon fighter jet at RAF Lossiemouth in Moray this afternoon during his visit to Scotland

Battle for Britain: Mr Johnson also posed with a Spitfire on a trip in which he defended the Union

Boris Johnson today visited Scotland for the first time since the 2019 general election campaign, starting in Stromness in Orkney

'Let's be clear, this is borrowed money and the reason it is coming to the Scottish Government from the UK Government is the UK Government holds the borrowing powers that Scotland doesn't hold,' she said.

'Scottish taxpayers will pay the cost of that borrowing in the same way as taxpayers across the UK will so it is not some kind of favour that is being done for Scotland.

'And if the Scottish Government held the borrowing powers we would be able to provide that support directly, and perhaps we would be able to have greater flexibility in how we design these schemes.'

Mr Johnson had earlier reminded Ms Sturgeon that the vote six years ago was billed as a 'once in a generation' event.

He said: 'That is not a generation by any computation and I think what people really want to do is see our whole country coming back strongly together and that is what we are going to do.'

Overnight Mr Johnson had suggested the coronavirus lockdown 'could have spelled disaster' for Scotland if it was an independent country.

He said it was the UK's 'massive purchasing power' that had boosted the supply of PPE in Scottish hospitals and would mean access to 'millions of doses of promising vaccines'.

Mr Johnson's comments prompted a furious response from Ms Sturgeon who accused the PM of 'championing and celebrating a pandemic' in order to support a 'political case' for the Union.

The Scottish First Minister said that if she was in Mr Johnson's shoes she would not be out 'campaigning' and that 'none of us should be crowing about this pandemic in a political sense'.

Mr Johnson had already sparked SNP anger overnight after he claimed the Union had saved 900,000 Scottish jobs during the crisis and its 'sheer might... has been proven once again' by the pandemic.

The SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford suggested the PM viewed Scotland as a minor partner in the United Kingdom and believed it is 'too wee, too poor or too stupid' to cope on its own.

A number of recent opinion polls showed that support for Scottish independence is now more popular than staying part of the UK.

The PM, pictured holding crabs in Stromness Harbour, used the trip to reject Nicola Sturgeon's demand for a second Scottish independence referendum

Mr Johnson said that 'what people really want to do is see our whole country coming back strongly together and that is what we are going to do.'

Mr Johnson was immediately greeted by pro-independence protesters upon his arrival north of the border this morning

Cheesy does it: The PM dons a face mask and white coat on a visit to Orkney Cheese in Kirkwall this afternoon

Scotland's coronavirus billions from UK coffers Scotland has received billions of pounds from the British Government to tackle coronavirus, as well as support to prop up almost a million jobs. The country was already due to receive around 29billion from the Treasury for the 2020/2021 financial year, almost half of the Scottish Government's estimated 70billion budget. And the earlier this month Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that the country had received an additional 4.6billion as part of his UK-wide scheme to stave off the worst economic impact of the pandemic. There is no further breakdown of how the pandemic money was used. The payouts were determined using the Barnett Formula, a convention used since the late 1970s to pay a grant to devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Its aim is to ensure they receive a proportionate share of of public spending despite having far smaller populations than England. However, critics say that the way it is calculated means that Scotland gets more than its fair share of UK taxpayer cash. Per capita Scotland received 20 per cent more than the other three home nations. Since devolution Scotland has its own powers to set its own tax levels and generate its own income. Even Joel Barnett, who created it, has called for it to be scrapped. In addition to the coronavirus cash, the Chancellor's Job Retention Scheme (JRS) has propped up 736,500 Scottish workers. Additionally Government figures show that it has spend 449 million on supporting 155,000 self-employed people via the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme. Advertisement

During his visit today, Mr Johnson met with businesses hit by the coronavirus outbreak and visited military staff to thank them for their efforts during the crisis.

However, in a sign of growing tensions between Downing Street and Holyrood, there were no plans for Mr Johnson to meet with Ms Sturgeon despite her saying yesterday that she was willing to see the PM.

The SNP leader has called for another Scottish independence vote to take place this year but Mr Johnson has repeatedly ruled it out.

Today he made clear he believes not enough time has passed to require another vote.

He said: 'We had a referendum in 2014. It was decisive, it was I think by common consent a once in a generation event and what we have seen throughout this crisis is the importance of the strength of Union in dealing with certain crucial, crucial things.

'Supporting people through the furlough scheme, the work of the army and the armed services in testing, in moving people around.

'Now of course through Barnett consequentials we have put another 250m into the NHS in Scotland to make sure we are ready for the winter because we have got to be clear that this thing has not gone away.'

Pushed on whether he believed an independent Scotland could have tackled the coronavirus crisis on its own, Mr Johnson said: 'What I am saying is the Union is a fantastically strong institution, it has helped our country through thick and thin, it is very, very valuable in terms of the support we have been able to give to everybody throughout all corners of the UK and we had a referendum on breaking up the Union a few years ago, I think only six years ago.

'That is not a generation by any computation and I think what people really want to do is see our whole country coming back strongly together and that is what we are going to do.'

Speaking ahead of the visit, Mr Johnson had said: 'When I stood on the steps of Downing Street one year ago, I pledged to be a Prime Minister for every corner of the United Kingdom.

'Whether you are from East Kilbride or Dumfries, Motherwell or Paisley, I promised to level up across Britain and close the opportunity gap.

'The last six months have shown exactly why the historic and heartfelt bond that ties the four nations of our country together is so important and the sheer might of our union has been proven once again.'

Mr Johnson's comments on the Union prompted a pointed response from Ms Sturgeon who told her daily coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh: 'I just don't think any of us should be championing and celebrating a pandemic that has taken thousands of lives as some example of the pre-existing political case we want to make.'

She added: 'Campaigning right now is not my priority. Boris Johnson has every right to be on a campaign visit to Scotland today. In his shoes, it is not how I would be choosing to spend my time given what we are facing right now.

'People can make up their own minds about these things and can make up their own minds about where they think the decisions we are having to take right now are best taken.

'But none of us should be crowing about this pandemic in a political sense is my honest opinion.'

A claim by Mr Johnson that being part of the UK had saved 900,000 Scottish jobs during the pandemic had earlier provoked the ire of Mr Blackford.

He told the BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said: 'I think he's going to find that this message is going to go down particularly badly in Scotland.

'Is he really saying that any other small nation in Europe and any other part of the world doesn't have the capability to deal with the Covid crisis?

'I think the days of telling Scotland that we are either too wee, too poor or too stupid really is over.

'I think what we've demonstrated over the past two months in the areas of devolved responsibility and of public health is that the leadership that has been shown by our First Minister (Nicola Sturgeon) is in sharp contrast with the bluster we have seen from Boris Johnson.'

As well as the jobs claim, Mr Johnson has today pledged 50 million for Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles to develop the economy of the islands as part of a growth deal. He began his visit at Stromness Harbour in Orkney.

The Scottish Government said it will invest the same amount in the islands, meaning every area in Scotland will now receive funding from the joint UK and Scottish government initiatives.

Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis today insisted the Government was right to suggest that Scotland was only able to weather the coronavirus impact due to the 'strength of the Union'.

He told the BBC: 'The reason we were able to put such massive support in for nearly the one million people whose jobs were protected in Scotland - the 4.6 billion they had from the Treasury, 1.6 billion and half a million jobs roughly for Northern Ireland, similar in Wales as well - that's because we had the strength of the Union, all four nations together.'

Asked whether he was suggesting that an independent Scotland could not have bailed out businesses and jobs during the pandemic, Mr Lewis said: 'I'm absolutely being very clear that yes, we as a UK were able to put in place unprecedented support that the Chancellor was able to put in place for businesses, individuals, because we are part of an entire United Kingdom.'

Mr Johnson and Secretary of State for Scotland Alister Jack (pictured left), speak to Karl Adamson as they look at crabs caught on the Carvela at Stromness Harbour today

Earlier today the SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford said 'the days of telling Scotland that we are either too wee, too poor or too stupid really is over'

On the issue of polls showing support for Scottish independence, Mr Lewis added: 'We should all be very wary of getting too driven by polling, we have seen a few interesting results contrasting to what polling has said over the past few years.'

Ms Sturgeon tweeted this morning to suggest that Mr Johnson's trip to Scotland would actually help the fight for independence.

She said: 'One of the key arguments for independence is the ability of Scotland to take our own decisions, rather than having our future decided by politicians we didn't vote for, taking us down a path we haven't chosen. His presence highlights that.'

But the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Jackson Carlaw, hit back and accused Ms Sturgeon of 'refighting arguments the SNP lost in the largest participative vote in Scotland's history'.

He said: 'She's obsessed. Scotland chose a future and a path in the UK. No SNP spin alters facts - it's the strength of Great Britain protecting jobs and energising recovery.'

The Prime Minister's visit, as he prepares for his one year anniversary in Downing Street, comes after a surge in poll support for Scottish independence in recent months.

Two Panelbase surveys recently reported that 54 per cent of respondents would like to see Scotland split from the UK.

The same polls predicted the SNP will win a majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament at next year's election.

Scotland voted against becoming an independent nation by 55 per cent to 45 per cent at a referendum in 2014.
Music Generation Laois have commissioned composer Martin Tourish to create a 20-minute suite of music inspired by the life of Colonel James Fitzmaurice for the Music Generation Laois Trad Orchestra.

Colonel James Fitzmaurice was a pioneering aviator from Portlaoise who was part of the first successful transatlantic aircraft flight from East to West in 1928.

This project is supported by Creative Ireland Laois, as part of the Creative Ireland Programme 2018-2022 in partnership with Laois County Council.

The Music Generation Laois Trad Orchestra was established in 2016 and is a traditional music ensemble that provides a platform for the burgeoning interest in traditional music among young people in Co. Laois.

Composer Martin Tourish is working in a highly collaborative way with young musicians from the orchestra - they are creating new music together, inspired by the events of Fitzmaurices life, from his first foray into flying as he witnessed an aeroplane under construction in Aldritts garage in Portlaoise, to his own aviation feats after becoming a pilot in the British Army in World War I. Fitzmaurices achievements took place during the significant upheaval of World Wars, and Civil War, in the first part of the 20th century in Ireland, and Europe.

With a working title -The Impossible Dream, this music project moved online after Ireland went into lockdown in March.

Music Generation Laois put out a national call in May for new members, and the Laois-based orchestra expanded from 23 members to 76, and together this group face the challenges of composing, workshopping and performing music remotely and online, with young musicians from different parts of Ireland, north and south, from Armagh to Cork.

This projects development has unearthed many intriguing parallels between current challenges in Ireland in the Covid-19 pandemic, and those faced by Fitzmaurice in his lifetime.

Martin Tourish is a Donegal born accordionist and composer and member of trad supergroup Altan.

Rosa Flannery, Music Development Officer with Music Generation Laois spoke about this composition project.

We are delighted to be embarking on an ambitious composition project with Martin Tourish and the Music Generation Laois Trad Orchestra, and also celebrating the achievements of Portlaoises Colonel James Fitzmaurice, a fascinating person, who is inspiring a new generation of young people as we engage with his life-story, and as we prepare to convey that story through music, he said.

This project will continue to work online and hopes for a live premiere later in 2020 are still in place, in line with Government regulations.

Music Generation Laois deliver programmes in schools across the county, and a range of classes, bands and orchestra programmes are available in Laois Music Centre, Portlaoise. New schools and students are always welcome, contact Music Generation Laois on mgl@loetb.ie or call 057 8681782

Music Generation Laois is a performance music education programme, part of Music Generation, Ireland's national music education programme, initiated by Music Network and co-funded nationally by U2, the Ireland Funds and the Department of Education and Skills.

Locally Music Generation Laois is based in Laois Offaly ETB (lead partner) and co-funded by Laois County Council.

See www.musicgenerationlaois.ie for further details or email mgl@loetb.ie.
Two of the ISIS 'Beatles' have finally admitted their involvement in holding American aid worker Kayla Mueller hostage in Syria, where she was sexually abused and tortured before her death in 2015.

Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, who are both in U.S. military custody in Iraq, had previously denied ever meeting Mueller, but in interview tapes obtained by NBC News they came clean.

'She was in a large room, it was dark, and she was alone, andshe was very scared,' said Elsheikh, a member of the cruel execution squad dubbed the 'Beatles' because of their British accents.

'I took an email from her myself,' he admitted, meaning he got an email address ISIS could use to demand ransom from the family. Said Kotey: 'She was in a room by herself that no one would go in.'

Alexanda Kotey (left) and El Shafee Elsheikh (right), who are both in U.S. military custody in Iraq, had previously denied ever meeting Mueller, but came clean in new taped interviews

Kayla Mueller was held hostage in Syria , where she was sexually abused and tortured before her death in 2015

ISIS reportedly demanded 5 million euros from Mueller's family, telling them that that they would send 'a picture of Kayla's dead body' if their demands were not met

Additional footage from the interviews is due to air on Thursday night's broadcast of NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt.

ISIS reportedly demanded 5 million euros from Mueller's family, telling them that that they would send 'a picture of Kayla's dead body' if their demands were not met.

Mueller, an international aid worker, was abducted in Syria in 2013. During her captivity, she was raped by the former ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, U.S. officials have said.

Baghdadi killed himself with a suicide vest as American commandos closed in on him in a daring raid.

Kotey and Elsheikh are two of the four so-called ISIS 'Beatles', a sadistic hostage-taking execution squad responsible for beheading numerous Western captives, including Americans James Foley, Steven Sotloff and Peter Kassig.

The other two 'Beatles' are Mohammed Emmwazi, aka 'Jihadi John', who was killed by a CIA drone strike in 2015, and Aine Lesley Davis, who was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison in Turkey in 2017.

Mohammed Emmwazi, aka 'Jihadi John', (left and right) was killed by a CIA drone strike in 2015

Though Kotey (left) and Elsheikh (right) are British citizens, the UK has rejected calls to put them on trial there, and refused to share crucial evidence with America

Though Kotey and Elsheikh are British citizens, the UK has rejected calls to put them on trial there. Former British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson called them the 'worst of the worst' and said they should 'never set foot in this country again'.

The U.S. is now contemplating how to bring Kotey and Elsheikh to justice in an American court, but the effort has been stymied by UK allies, who refuse to turn over crucial evidence against the duo because they would face the death penalty.

On Thursday, the family members of Kotey and Elsheikh's victims, including Mueller's parents Marsha and Carl, published an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for the duo to be brought to trial in America.

'We implore President Trump, Attorney General William P. Barr and the Justice Department to have the detainees brought to the United States to face trial,' the families wrote.

'There is no nation on Earth better at bringing terrorists to justice than the United States,' they added.

The families say that U.S. federal court is the best venue to expose to the world the vile crimes committed by the duo.

Mueller's parents Marsha and Carl (together above) are calling for Kotey and Elsheikh to be brought to face justice in a US federal court

'They did so much horror to so many people,' Marsha Mueller told NBC News. 'They need to be brought here. They need to be prosecuted.'

'The other thing that's really important to me about this is I need information about Kayla. We know so little about what happened to her,' she said.

She added, 'I believe these two have more information than they're sharing with us. And I believe that we would find out more if they were brought here.'

ISIS said that Mueller was killed near Raqa in February 2015 during an air raid carried out by the US-led international coalition against the jihadists, although the exact circumstances of her death remain unclear.

Her body was never found, leaving a sliver of hope for her parents that she might still be alive.
Bicycles have been a hot commodity during the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, hot enough that three Houston-area bike shops have been robbed in the past month.

KPRC 2 reports that Pearland Bicycles, Society Cycle Works in Sugar Land and Sugar Cycles in Missouri City had bikes stolen from the shops.

THREE'S COMPANY?: Houstonians are busy looking for threesomes during COVID-19 pandemic, study says

The burglars who went to Pearland Bicycles stole around 20 bikes on July 21, the owner said, totaling around $40,000 worth of bicycles.

They spend about a minute working on the door with the crowbar to get it open and once they got in they just started scattering and grabbing bikes. Looks like one of them, he went to the restroom, Pearland Bicycles owner Daryl Catching told the TV station.

Society Cycle Works owner Jennie Leveritt said the burglars in the video from Pearland Bicycles looked similar to those that robbed her shop on June 27, the same night Sugar Cycles in Missouri City was robbed.

So far, none of the stolen bikes have emerged, though each shop has a list of serial numbers.

Theres enough of them stolen, between us and the other couple shops that have been robbed, Catching told KPRC 2. One of their bikes should turn up somewhere and maybe that will lead to whoever got them.
Zimbabwes government has imposed an indefinite dusk to dawn curfew and other travel restrictions, saying the measures are needed to contain rising cases of COVID-19. The southern African country has more than 1,800 confirmed cases and 26 deaths but, health experts say the true number of infections is likely higher. However, rights groups and critics say the measures are aimed at stopping anti-government protests planned for July 31.

Announcing the 12-hour curfew late Tuesday on national television, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said it was part of efforts to contain a spike in coronavirus cases that he described as a worrisome development. Therefore, this sobering reality means that we can no longer be complacent, and that requires urgent and decisive measures," he said.

"Fellow Zimbabweans, these urgent and necessary measures will entail curtailing the freedoms we have always enjoyed, and had grown accustomed to. From now on, these freedoms stand suspended and deferred, in the interest of all of us; indeed in the interest of our children and our nation which must survive, thrive and prosper beyond this pandemic. No responsible government places its citizens in harm's way, hence my government will do all it can to preserve and protect the right to life.

Mnangagwa did not mention the planned July 31 protests that his sympathizers say are meant to depose his government. The government has said it will deploy security forces  including the army  to quell any demonstrations.

In an interview, Tendai Biti, vice-president of the countrys main opposition Movement for Democratic Change party, said the president had no real reason to impose the restrictions.

Its madness. You cant impose a state of emergency, he has no right to declare state of emergency, its a serious curtailment of rights. You need parliament [to rectify the declaration].

Reporter: "They are saying they are trying to deal with coronavirus?"

Biti: "Its an excuse: they are just afraid of 31 July."

Asked about Bitis allegations, government officials said they stick by Mnangagwas reasons for the curfew.

Dr. Nyika Mahachi, the president of Zimbabwe College of Public Health Physicians, says lockdowns alone cannot stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. He says the new measures, which include banning religious gatherings, should be complemented with requirements to wear face masks and enforcing hygienic practice.

And we expand testing. Those that are infected we isolate them," he said. "More importantly, in the context of Zimbabwe; ensuring that the health facilities are ready to deal with complicated cases. We know five to 10 percent cases complicate and require oxygen and intensive care hospitalization. So ensuring that hospitals are prepped with oxygen, intensive care beds, for the few complicated cases. This is something we have not been able to do and it needs to be addressed urgently. This is also an opportunity to address some existing health system challenges.

That was a reference to nurses who are boycotting their jobs, saying the less than $50 salary they earn each month is leaving them in poverty.

The government has offered a $75 COVID-19 allowance for three months, but so far that has failed to lure back the nurses.
July 23 (Reuters) - Singapore Airlines Ltd said on Thursday it had secured S$750 million ($541.87 million) of funding against some of its Airbus and Boeing aircraft to shore up liquidity amid plummeting demand due to the novel coronavirus.

Coronavirus travel curbs have led to the grounding of fleets worldwide and airlines are facing a massive liquidity crisis and tapping multiple avenues to raise cash.

In March, Australia's Qantas Airways secured financing against its aircraft fleet, while Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific sold six Boeing 777-300ERs to BOC Aviation Ltd .

Singapore Airlines has raised about S$11 billion this year via a combination of rights issue, secured financing, credit lines and short-term loans, it said in a statement.

Its total financing is among the largest amounts raised by any carrier during the global health crisis.

With the new committed lines of credit, the carrier has ensured it gets continued access to more than S$2.1 billion in committed liquidity, it said.

The airline, considered a bellwether for premium travel in Asia, posted its first ever annual loss for the year that ended March 31, and later warned it would report a material operating loss in the first-quarter of fiscal 2021. ($1 = 1.3841 Singapore dollars) (Reporting by Anushka Trivedi in Bengaluru)
Remarking that it would be torture for students to wait for their degrees and marksheets, the Delhi High Court on Thursday directed the Delhi University to take immediate steps to chalk out a protocol for issuing degree certificates, marksheets and transcripts online with digital signatures and security features.

Justice Pratibha M Singh said that students have to wait for several years for their marksheets and degree certificates due to delays in the transfer of data and the holding of convocations, even as Vinay Gupta, the dean of examinations, said that the data regarding the marksheets has been given to the National Academic Depository (NAD), a digital database of academic awards provided by the Centre, to upload.

Since the NAD is a unique feature and act as a national depository for academic records, DU should utilise it effectively and take immediate steps to transfer all existing data about students to NAD, the judge said.

The court said that in such a scenario, digital marksheets and degrees should be issued to the students as it is a fast process. It asked Gupta and the varsity to explore the possibility of digitally signed documents so that students do not face problems in the future.

A solution is needed within four days. Why dont you give the degrees and marksheets with the digital signature? At this stage, every university is in difficulty but this (DU) is the only one which is not helping its students.

Give digitally signed marksheets. The process is fast enough and the digital signature software can be procured within 24 hours as a large number of students is yet to receive their documents from the varsity, the judge said.

The dean of examination, told the court that all marksheets, except for a few subjects, are online. He also said that the varsity would explore the possibility of digitally signed marksheets.

The High Court directed that the Joint Director of DU Computer Centre officer arrange his digital signature before the next hearing date (August 4) so that the degrees can be emailed to the petitioners with his digital signature.

The court was hearing a plea by five doctors who graduated from Lady Hardinge Medical College, which is a part of Faculty of Medical Sciences, DU, and had not received their certificates till date even after graduating in 2018.

The plea filed through advocate Sarthak Maggon had contended that the petitioners wished to apply for their residency programmes in the United States and to sit for the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE).

The court also said DU could take help from the IT department of the Delhi High Court to prepare a protocol for issuing digital degree certificates, marksheets and transcripts.

On Wednesday, the court had directed the varsity to take a pragmatic approach and seriously consider the option of setting up a special cell for entertaining students issues of digital certificates, marksheets and transcripts.

The matter will now be heard on August 4.
The Hallmark Channel said it will include LGBTQ people in its movies in the near future, according to Good Morning America.

Hallmark Channel was criticized recently when announcing it will have 40 new holiday movies for its Countdown to Christmas and Miracles of Christmas, which start Oct. 23.

The representative of the channel told GMA, in the coming months it will make announcements about projects featuring LGBTQ storylines, characters and actors.

"Diversity and inclusion is a top priority for us," read the company's statement. "We are committed to creating a Hallmark experience where everyone feels welcome."

Hallmark apologized last year for removing a commercial that featured a gay couple after the conservative group One Million Moms complained. The wedding-planning ad for Zola featured two brides kissing.

At the time, Hallmark president and CEO Mike Perry told CNN, The Crown Media team has been agonizing over this decision as weve seen the hurt it has unintentionally caused. Said simply, they believe this was the wrong decision.

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WASHINGTON - House Democrats rallied around a high-profile congresswoman Thursday in an extraordinary denunciation of sexism, while the chamber's top Republican was forced to defend his party's highest-ranking woman from attacks by President Donald Trump and his allies.

Surrounded by Democratic colleagues, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., a favorite target of Trump and other Republicans since her arrival in the Capitol, excoriated Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., during remarks on the House floor. She dismissed what she called a non-apology for a confrontation between them on the Capitol steps this week and decried Yoho's reported use of a sexist slur as part of a pattern of inexcusable behavior by men.

Shortly afterward, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., found himself fielding questions from reporters about whether the GOP leadership position of Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., remained secure. In a morning tweet, Trump chided Cheney, the chair of the House Republican Conference, for her opposition to his troop withdrawals, echoing criticism leveled at her this week by some of the president's closest congressional allies.

The twin episodes brought into sharp relief a gaping disparity in the House: Democrats have their largest class of female lawmakers in history, while Republicans count only 13 women in their ranks.

In her floor remarks, Ocasio-Cortez repeated the reported slur - "f---ing b---h" - made by Yoho and called him "a man with no remorse." She was joined by more than a dozen Democratic colleagues who seized the moment to rail against sexism and reject the common explanation from men that they would never disrespect a woman because they have wives and daughters.

"What we are seeing here is a resounding rejection of abuse and accosting of women," Ocasio-Cortez said during the hour of remarks, adding that "incidents like these are happening in a pattern."

The speeches were prompted by an incident Monday in which Yoho approached Ocasio-Cortez outside the Capitol and reportedly told her she was "disgusting" and "out of your freaking mind" in response to a view she had expressed that poverty was a root cause of crime.

According to an account by the Hill, Yoho uttered the words "f---ing b---h" once Ocasio-Cortez was out of earshot.

Yoho, during remarks on the House floor Wednesday, denied using the slur but said he wanted "to apologize for the abrupt manner of the conversation I had with my colleague from New York."

In a statement Thursday, Yoho did not give any more ground.

"No one was accosted, bullied or attacked," he said. "This was a brief policy discussion, plain and simple, and we have our differences."

According to Ocasio-Cortez's recounting of the incident, she was "minding my own business, walking up the steps" when Yoho, she said, pointed his finger at her face as he "accosted me on the steps." Yoho later used the sexist slur in the presence of reporters after she left, Ocasio-Cortez said.

Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman in the House and a liberal star who often unsettles conservatives, said she has heard similar language many times as someone who worked in bars and spent time on the streets of New York.

"All of us have had to deal with this in some form, some way, some shape in our lives," she said.

Ocasio-Cortez said she was initially inclined to let the episode pass but decided to speak out after Yoho's remarks on the House floor Wednesday, which she said made "excuses for his behavior." "That I could not let go," she said.

During his remarks, Yoho recounted that he and his wife were poor early in their marriage and said that that informed his passion on Ocasio-Cortez's comments about crime and poverty.

"I cannot apologize for my passion or for loving my God, my family and my country," he said.

Ocasio-Cortez also took issue with Yoho's referring to his wife and two daughters when he claimed Wednesday that he was "very cognizant of my language" and denied using "offensive name-calling words."

"What I believe is that having a daughter does not make a man decent," Ocasio-Cortez said. "Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man."

Ocasio-Cortez noted that she is two years younger than Yoho's youngest daughter.

"My father thankfully is not alive to see how Mr. Yoho treated his daughter," she said, relaying that her mother had seen reports on Yoho's remarks Wednesday on television.

"I have to show my parents that I am their daughter, and they did not raise me to accept abuse from men," she said.

In an email to The Washington Post earlier in the week, Yoho spokesman Brian Kaveney said the congressman "did not call Rep. Ocasio-Cortez what has been reported in the Hill [newspaper] or any name for that matter."

"Instead, he made a brief comment to himself as he walked away summarizing what he believes her policies to be: bulls---," Kaveney said.

McCarthy, who met with Yoho on Tuesday after his clash with Ocasio-Cortez, told reporters that he found the Republican congressman's apology sufficient, noting that Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., was on the floor for Yoho's remarks Wednesday and had accepted the apology at the time.

"He said, 'I'm sorry to the congresswoman from New York'. . . .Yes, he made a mistake, and yes, he apologized for it," McCarthy said.

The GOP leader said that the hour of speeches, overseen by Ocasio-Cortez, was a distraction from more-serious issues such as the negotiations over the next coronavirus legislation.

At the same news conference, when asked about the attacks on Cheney, McCarthy sought to minimize differences within his caucus and said there is "no question" that Cheney will keep her leadership position.

"In our party, we're allowed to have differences of opinion, especially when it comes to foreign policy," he said at a news conference. "I think Liz Cheney and the president agree 98 percent of the time. There's nothing wrong with having a discussion about different ways of going forward. But I think the best part is that we're united and that we don't air these in public."

McCarthy also played down the notion that House Republicans have a broader "woman problem," pointing to greater numbers of women running for Congress this year than in the past.

"So, if you want to measure it based upon that, I think we're improving," he said. "Do we have rooms for improvement? A hundred percent yes."

In a tweet hours earlier, Trump wrote: "Liz Cheney is only upset because I have been actively getting our great and beautiful Country out of the ridiculous and costly Endless Wars."

His dig came as several Republicans have accused her of disloyalty because she has bucked Trump on national security issues - including pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan and Germany - and has embraced public health advice and officials of whom Trump has been dismissive.

Some of Cheney's critics have called for her to be removed from her position as chair of the House Republican Conference. Trump did not advocate that himself, but he retweeted messages from some of the congresswoman's most vocal antagonists, including Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who have advocated for her replacement.

Among the tweets Trump shared was one by Gaetz that said Republicans "deserve better" than Cheney. Trump also shared a tweet by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in which Paul called Cheney's opposition to Trump's troop withdrawals "unacceptable." In a television interview Wednesday, Paul accused Cheney of trying to "sabotage" Trump's foreign policy and said, "I don't think she's good for the country."

Cheney, who warned in the past month of "a serious error" with "grave consequences" if troops were withdrawn from Germany, has sought to play down her differences with Trump as the rancor has become public.

Asked Thursday about Trump's tweet, she said it was "no secret the president and I disagree on some foreign policy issues."

But Cheney said that as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, her biggest obligation is to "provide for the defense of the nation." She said she would continue to speak out on foreign policy issues.

Hoyer was among a handful of male lawmakers who joined Ocasio-Cortez and other female lawmakers during the hour of speeches on the floor Thursday regarding the confrontation with Yoho.

"This is an issue of who we are as a people," Hoyer said. "Many women have spoken on this floor, but this is an issue for fathers. This is an issue for sons. This is an issue for brothers.

"I have three daughters, two granddaughters and three great-granddaughters. They must not be confronted with this kind of attack. That's what it was."

Others who spoke sought to make larger points about the episode.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said male lawmakers need to accept their female counterparts. "We are not going away," she said. "There are going to be more of us here. . . . We are going to continue to speak up."

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., said she was speaking "on behalf of women around the world."

"This is not just about one woman, one incident or one verbal assaulter," she said. "This is about respect and fundamental equality. . . . You respect women because they are an equal human being to you. We will not allow sexism and misogyny and patriarchy to hold us back."

Asked at her weekly news conference to comment on Yoho's remarks, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., linked the confrontation with Ocasio-Cortez to those that women have faced in Congress for decades.

Pelosi, who did not join Ocasio-Cortez on the House floor, said she has been on the receiving end of what she called "condescending" remarks by male counterparts during more than 18 years in congressional leadership.

Pelosi defended Ocasio-Cortez and told a story about a debate on abortion rights years ago when Republicans disparaged Pelosi's knowledge of the issue.

"Nancy Pelosi thinks she knows more about having babies than the pope," the mother of five children recalled Thursday. "Yes."
N aga Munchetty has divided viewers after she clashed with SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford over the question of Scottish independence.

The BBC Breakfast host was interviewing the MP when the pair began to spar while discussing the amount that Scotland relies on the UK for financial support.

Ms Munchetty interrupted Mr Blackford to bring up the recent announcement that the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland will receive 100 million in government investment.

But Mr Blackford came back by arguing that there are other examples where the UK has not matched Scotland's investments.

Naga Munchetty has divided viewers after she clashed with SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford over Scottish independence / BBC Breakfast

She interrupted, saying: "You wouldn't get anything if you weren't part of the union though would you?"

Mr Blackford answered: "I think people might want to reflect on a comment such as that, because that kind of flies into the rhetoric that we get from the Tories that, were too wee, were too poor, were too stupid.

"I think when you look at the economic success of Ireland, of Denmark, of Norway, I think wed actually do pretty well as an independent country.

"If we had control and we had the ability to grow our economy, to deliver fairness, to take account of the climate challenge that we face, we could look forward to our future with a degree of confidence, as to what we could achieve as an independent country."

Ms Munchetty's questioning prompted mixed reactions from viewers. Some claimed she had insulted the Scottish.

One wrote: "Naga Munchetty today on BBC Breakfast giving every Scot a reason to want independence, her disdain was palpable and the icing on the cake, her comment that the Scots were 'lucky to get anything at all'."

Another argued: "If we were independent wed have our own central bank Naga. We wouldnt be paying off Englands debt while having to go cap-in-hand for our own money. Idiocy from the BBC as per."

A third said: "Naga Munchetty is trying to imply that Scotland wouldnt be able to cope if independent as we wouldnt get money from Westminster. This is like saying we are so stupid or we are dumb. I think she needs to think before she speaks as she has insulted all of Scotland there."

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon responded, saying: "I welcome the PM to Scotland today. One of the key arguments for independence is the ability of Scotland to take our own decisions, rather than having our future decided by politicians we didnt vote for, taking us down a path we havent chosen. His presence highlights that."

But others praised Ms Munchetty's "great" interview, with one viewer tweeting: "Naga Munchetty seems to trend almost every morning. This time, its because she dared to challenge an SNP politician on something. Shes one of the best and gets dragged for so much."

"Putting it out there, Naga Munchetty did a great interview there," another tweeted.

A third wrote: "The obsession people have with Naga Munchetty is honestly disturbing, shes doing a great job and if Paxman has done that interview, theyd be calling him a cold, direct, genius; not to even mention the hate she gets for her outfit?! In 2020!? Some people really need to grow up.."
The Company's successful fundraising and inclusion in the Russell Microcap(R) Index comes after a series of promising test results for its COVID-19 drug candidates

Shelton, Connecticut--(Newsfile Corp. - July 23, 2020) - NanoViricides, Inc. (NYSE American: NNVC) (the "Company") is a development stage, nano-biopharmaceutical Company, with proprietary research focused on countering viral diseases. The Company's lead drug candidate, a topical cream for shingles, has been at the cusp of the IND (Investigational New Drug) application before heading for Phase 1 of human trials. Its research team has also been working on the development of a drug to treat the SARS-CoV-2 virus since the beginning of 2020 and has shown visible progress with positive results in the animal model.

Read Full Article Here: http://smallcapsdaily.com/excellent-safety-data-for-covid-19-drug-candidate-plus-15-million-in-cash-put-nanoviricides-in-the-drivers-seat/

The NanoViricides management announced the completion of a capital raise to the tune of $11.5 million through an underwritten public offering. The Company issued 1,369,863 shares and a fully exercised underwriters' over-allotment option of 205,479 additional shares of NanoViricides' common stock at the public offering price of $7.30 per share. This issue took place at an approximate discount of 17% over the stock's closing price in the previous trading session and was underwritten by Kingswood Capital Markets, a division of Benchmark Investments, Inc. Kingswood Capital acted as sole bookrunner for the public offering. The overall net proceeds with the Company after the pay out of commission and other transaction fees is approximately $10.53 million, before deducting the Company's legal and accounting expenses related to the offering. It is worth highlighting that prior to this offering, the management reported cash and cash equivalents worth $6.11 million in its most recent quarterly result. Currently, the Company has over $15 million in cash available for funding its research and meeting its working capital requirements. Notably, the Company had been added to the Russell Microcap Index as of June 29, 2020.

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Prior to the public offering, NanoViricides featured in the news for significant progress made on its COVID-19 drug candidate. The Company's proprietary nanoviricide technology, which works by trapping virus particles the same way as a Venus-fly-trap captures and consumes insects, has wide-ranging antiviral applications and is being used in drug development against many different viruses including COVID-19, shingles, herpes, HIV, and others. With respect to COVID-19, the Company has developed broad-spectrum anti-coronavirus drug candidates and carried out initial tests using cell culture assays as well as through an animal model. In its tests using cell culture assays of two different coronaviruses, namely hCoV-229E, and hCoV-NL63, the Company's drug candidates have proven to be far more effective than favipiravir, a commonly used antiviral medication used for treating SARS-CoV-2. While the coronavirus samples used in the cell culture studies were not the SARS-CoV-2, they have related cellular receptors, namely APN which provides a rational basis to the research team. These tests were followed by the use of an animal model of the human coronavirus disease. The results were compared with remdesivir, the popular broad-spectrum antiviral medication developed by Gilead Sciences that has been approved as a treatment for COVID-19 patients. NanoViricides' candidates showed superior results to remdesivir in the animal model. For the animal study, the researchers employed the hCoV-NL63, the same coronavirus used in the cell culture assays which uses the same cell receptor, ACE2, as does the SARS-CoV-2. While the hCoV-NL3 is a milder strain of the coronavirus, it acts as a suitable surrogate for the study that can be done in the Company's BSL-2 lab. The Company would require BSL-3 or BSL-4 labs for carrying out similar studies using the actual SARS-CoV-2 strain for which the management is on the lookout for potential collaborations. The results of these tests were encouraging and prompted the Company to move ahead with safety and tolerability studies on its COVID-19 drug candidates.

As a part of its safety and tolerability tests, the Company's research team tested three different drug candidates at three different dosage levels and vehicle control through separate groups of mice intravenously. Sixteen mice in each group, eight males and eight females, were administered one of the three drug candidates at one of the three dose levels, and additionally, one group was administered vehicle control, for seven days by daily tail-vein intravenous infusion in this blinded study with additional evaluations on the eighth day. This non-GLP safety and tolerability study was conducted under GLP-like conditions by AR BioSystems in Tampa, Florida. The results indicated that tested drug candidates were safe and well-tolerated with no clinical signs of immune or allergic reactions. The results showed no observable changes in any organs, including the large intestine or colon, on post mortem in gross histology. The only reportable changes were, in the high dosage groups of two of the three drug candidates tested, associated with the non-absorption of water, in the colon. This is consistent with the clinical observation of very loosened stools in the same groups. The positive result is expected to enable the Company to move forward with further development of its candidates and advancing to human trials.

Prior to advancing with human clinical trials, the Company's management plans to conduct studies to carry out clinical candidate selection and possibly request a pre-IND meeting with the FDA for regulatory guidance. The management looks to engage in strong collaborations in the future and can also expect cash flows expected through licensing once its candidates for shingles as well as the SARS-CoV-2 start clearing the initial phases of human trials.

About NanoViricides

NanoViricides, Inc. (AMEX: NNVC) is a development stage Company that is creating special purpose nanomaterials for antiviral therapy. The Company's novel nanoviricide class of drug candidates are designed to specifically attack enveloped virus particles and to dismantle them. The Company is developing drugs against a number of viral diseases including H1N1 swine flu, H5N1 bird flu, seasonal Influenza, HIV, oral and genital Herpes, shingles and chickenpox, viral diseases of the eye including EKC and herpes keratitis, Hepatitis C, Rabies, Dengue fever, and Ebola virus, among others. This press release contains forward-looking statements that reflect the Company's current expectation regarding future events. Actual events could differ materially and substantially from those projected herein and depend on a number of factors. Certain statements in this release, and other written or oral statements made by NanoViricides, Inc. are "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. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements since they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond the Company's control and which could, and likely will, materially affect actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. The Company assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include, but are not limited to, those factors that are disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in documents filed by the Company from time to time with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory authorities. Although it is not possible to predict or identify all such factors, they may include the following: demonstration and proof of principle in preclinical trials that a nanoviricide is safe and effective; successful development of our product candidates; our ability to seek and obtain regulatory approvals, including with respect to the indications we are seeking; the successful commercialization of our product candidates; and market acceptance of our products. For more details on the Company, please visit http://www.nanoviricides.com/.

Forward-Looking Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements that reflect the Company's current expectation regarding future events. Actual events could differ materially and substantially from those projected herein and depend on a number of factors. Certain statements in this release, and other written or oral statements made by NanoViricides, Inc. are "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. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements since they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond the Company's control and which could, and likely will, materially affect actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. The Company assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the company's expectations include, but are not limited to, those factors that are disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in documents filed by the company from time to time with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory authorities. Although it is not possible to predict or identify all such factors, they may include the following: demonstration and proof of principle in preclinical trials that a nanoviricide is safe and effective; successful development of our product candidates; our ability to seek and obtain regulatory approvals, including with respect to the indications we are seeking; the successful commercialization of our product candidates; and market acceptance of our products. FDA refers to US Food and Drug Administration. IND application refers to "Investigational New Drug" application. CMC refers to "Chemistry, Manufacture, and Controls".

Contact:

Smallcaps Daily

Email: info@smallcapsdaily.com

Website: https://smallcapsdaily.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60395
Company MOUs exponentially increases revenue streams with Solar Utility Agreements

Malibu, California--(Newsfile Corp. - July 23, 2020) - Green Stream Holdings Inc. (OTC PINK: GSFI), a holding company of Green Stream Finance, Inc., a solar utility and finance company, today announced that it has recently entered into MOU's in New York.





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In line with GSFI's business model, Morali Architects will design alongside construct and install or retrofitting of various solar structures (rooftops, canopies, parking structures and more) at the designated locations leased by GSFI. The structures produce energy from the sun and GSFI owns the contracts with ability to sell the energy generated to the surrounding communities.

"We are on our way to becoming an industry leader in the renewable energy utility space," states CEO Madeline Cammarata. "The opportunity in New York is unique in that NY communities offer cash upfront, in addition to above average rates, nationally. We anticipate the projects targeted in New York and surrounding states will generate an average of $265k per year, per project over the 25 year contracts we are able to secure."

One of the Company's new deals, the "Imlay 160 Project" is with Red Hook 160 LLC, a privatelyowned residential developer and owner of residential apartment buildings in New York City, owns 160 Imlay Street, Brooklyn, New York 11231.





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The project shall include implementation of a rooftop photovoltaic system providing at a minimum of 300- 450 Kw of electric Photo Voltic Power, utilizing approximately 1000-1440 panels, on approximately 22,000 square foot space on the property.

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Earlier this year the Company had previously disclosed that it had entered into an agreement to construct solar car ports in three separate high traffic locations, owned by a well-known successful regional gas station owner/provider.

"We are thrilled to announce that albeit the prior agreement called for three locations in the North East initially, we expect to expand to all locations post completion," states Cammarata.

The project calls for Green Stream Holdings to lease the land from the owner for a fixed fee over a twenty-year period. Green Stream Holdings together with Morali Architects as their joint venture partner in this project, will design, erect, construct and install or retrofit the structures at the three locations as well as the locations to be announced. Another result of utilizing Morali's technology will be that this project will also contribute to the reduction of the location's carbon footprint.

About Green Stream Finance, Inc.:

Green Stream Finance, Inc., a Wyoming-based corporation with satellite offices in Malibu, CA and New York, NY, is focused on exploiting currently unmet markets in the solar energy space, and is currently licensed in California, Nevada, Arizona, Washington, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Colorado, Hawaii, and Canada. The Company's next-generation solar greenhouses, constructed and managed by Green Rain Solar, LLC, a Nevada-based division, utilize proprietary greenhouse technology and trademarked design developed by world-renowned architect Mr. Antony Morali. The Company is currently targeting high-growth solar market segments for its advanced solar greenhouse and advanced solar battery products. The Company has a growing footprint in the significantly underserved solar market in New York City where it is targeting 50,000 to 100,000 square feet of rooftop space for the installation of its solar panels. Green Stream is looking to forge key partnership with major investment groups, brokers, and private investors in order to capitalize on a variety of unique investment opportunities in the commercial solar energy markets. The Company is dedicated to becoming a major player in this critical space. Through its innovative solar product offerings and industry partnerships, the Company is well-positioned to become a significant player in the solar space.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and is subject to the safe harbor created by those sections. This material contains statements about expected future events and/or financial results that are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties. That includes the possibility that the business outlined in this press release cannot be concluded for some reason. That could be as a result of technical, installation, permitting or other problems that were not anticipated. Such forward-looking statements by definition involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Green Stream Finance, Inc. to be materially different from the statements made herein. Except for any obligation under the U.S. federal securities laws, Green Stream Finance, Inc. undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Company Address

Company Contact/Address

1620 Marquez Avenue Pacific Palisades, CA 90272

Phone: 310-230-0240



For All Inquiries Contact:

info@greenstreamfinance.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60372
Myanmar police advance towards demonstrators during an antiwar protest in the commercial hub Yangon, May 12, 2018.

Human Rights Watch on Thursday urged the Japanese government to drop a plan to donate 100 million yen (U.S. $934,300) to buy vehicles and communications equipment for the Myanmar Police Force to use to protect dignitaries, arguing that the police are partners with the army in widespread abuses.

Japans Foreign Ministry announced the plan on July 2, describing it as a modernization effort aimed at strengthening the capabilities of police agencies in various fields and updating equipment that had not been replaced for more than 20 years in a country vulnerable to terrorism, illegal drug trafficking, and human trafficking.

Under this plan, by providing vehicles and radios for the protection of dignitaries, the police force in the country, which promotes democratization and civil servant reform, will be strengthened in security measures to stabilize the society and contribute to the economic and social development of the country, said the Japanese Embassy website in Myanmar.

New York-based HRW said, however, that Myanmars police has worked hand-in-glove with the military during a spate of atrocities in recent years, particularly in Rakhine state, where they expelled more than 740,000 Muslim Rohingya in 2017 and now are brutalizing civilians in a war against ethnic Rakhine fighters.

Its inexplicable that the Japanese government would try to curry favor with Myanmars abusive security apparatus by providing financial assistance to the police, said Brad Adams, HRWs Asia director, in the statement issued Thursday.

Instead of supporting Myanmars police, Japan should be helping the victims of rights abuses and ethnic cleansing by working with other donor governments to hold the security forces accountable, he said.

Under the 2008 constitution drafted by the military, the Myanmar Police Force operates under the authority of the military-controlled Ministry of Home Affairs and outside the control of the civilian-led government, HRW noted.

In addition to working with the military in conducing the clearance operations in Rohingya Muslim communities in Rakhine state, the police played a part in violence against the Rohingya in 2012 and 2016, and are accused of committing human rights abuses against ethnic Rakhines in the 19-month armed conflict between the Myanmar military and rebel Arakan Army (AA) forces in northern Rakhine.

Playing real politics

Phil Robertson, HRWs deputy Asia director, said the move contradicted the Japanese governments stated objective to use human rights principles to guide its policy of issuing financial assistance packages to Asia-Pacific countries.

If they move forward with this grant of a significant amount of money for the Myanmar police, it will show that the government of Japans words are not true, he told RFA.

Japan says it cares about human rights, but the reality is that the more interested it is in playing real politics, the more it is interested in playing games to try to influence the government, Robertson said. It doesnt care about human rights.

HRW noted that Japans Foreign Ministry said it had confirmed with the Myanmar government that the aid should be used and maintained for its stated purposes.

The ministry also said that its embassy in Yangon would monitor whether the equipment was being used appropriately.

When RFAs Myanmar Service contacted the embassy for comment, an official replied that someone would respond in a week.

Police Colonel Kyaw Thiha, spokesman for the Ministry of Home Affairs, told RFA by email that he had no comment on the issue. RFA could not reach the ministrys director general, Khine Tun Oo, for comment.

Aiding an evil entity

Some rights activists in Myanmar also lashed out about Japans plan to provide finds to the Myanmar Police Force.

Our police forces are not under the control of the civilian government, [but] rather the control of the military [which] gives them full orders, said Min Thway Thit from the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU), who previously had been arrested and detained by police for peaceful protest activities.

When the international community gives them humanitarian assistance, regardless of what type of aid it is, they are aiding an evil entity, he said.

Aung Myo Min, executive director of the Yangon-based human rights education group Equality Myanmar, said it would not be easy for Japanese officials to follow how the money would be spent.

There are examples of the authorities using grant funds for purposes other than what they were intended for, he told RFA. There are many dubious actions in the [police] force that should concern the civil community. Monitoring the use of [funds] by the force is easier said than done.

But Moe Yan Naing, a former police captain who was fired and jailed for blowing the whistle on a police setup of two Reuters journalists who were reporting on the crackdown on the Rohingya, said that the police force needs to receive international assistance in order to change its ways.

The police force should receive the aid, as it is still in transition, he said. If it receives aid, it will be very helpful for its progress toward changing over to civilian control.

We dont know for sure when the police force will be completely under the civilian government, he added. In the meantime, the international aid could help speed up the police forces reform process.

Reported by Wai Mar Tun for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
USDA funds technology research for optimum production from better, smarter planting

Thursday, July 23, 2020

Ajay Sharda, Kansas State University associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering. | Download this photo.





MANHATTAN  In a collaborative effort with crop producers, researchers at Kansas State University will introduce the latest technologies for precision planters to help enhance productivity and maximize yield.

With nearly $300,000 in funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Research Education and Economics  National Institute of Food and Agriculture program, a team led by Ajay Sharda, associate professor in the Carl and Melinda Helwig Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, will pursue "Enhancing Crop Productivity by Developing Operational Strategies for High-Speed Precision Seeding Technologies."



The three-year project involves conducting on-farm studies in collaboration with producers to better understand planter control system dynamics during high-speed planting. This will be observed under varying seeding rates, row spacing, planting depths, tillage systems, and weather and soil types.



"We will establish recommendations for producers to smartly implement machine operating parameters to achieve uniform emergence. This in turn will improve stand establishment, early-season growth and yield optimization on a row-by-row basis," said Sharda, a Patrick Wilburn  Carl and Mary Ice Keystone research scholar in the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering at K-State.



On-farm research with producers as partners will provide a metric to assess the advantages of adopting precision planter technologies  not only from the machinery but also from the agronomic perspective with the ultimate goal of improving overall productivity and profitability.



"This will develop strong extension and applied research programs for disseminating this material," Sharda said. "It will showcase best management practices for optimizing current precision planter technologies to achieve uniform seed placement and gain yield advantages."



The project will require Sharda and K-State co-collaborators Ignacio Ciampitti, agronomy, and Edwin Brokesh, biological and agricultural engineering, to adopt novel methodologies and robust high-frequency data acquisition systems for gathering detailed machinery and agronomic data.



"Collecting this multiyear, large scale on-farm research data," Sharda said, "will not only allow our students to work with state-of-the-art technologies for their professional development, but will also enhance K-State's research capacity to engage with numerous research partners to conduct collaborative large-scale on-farm research."



Engagement and support will also be provided by Kansas extension agents Tony Whitehair, Dickinson County, and David Hallauer, Meadowlark Extension District.






We need to permanently and fully fund LWCF to guarantee  the outdoor places we all treasure will be protected for future generations to enjoy.

 U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.

Expanding, restoring and maintaining our public lands can be a massive job creator.

 U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M.

Five decades after Congress passed the Land and Water Conservation Fund to safeguard our natural areas, water resources and cultural heritage, and to provide recreation opportunities to all Americans, it is going to fully fund the program. And it couldnt come at a more opportune time.

The Great American Outdoors Act combines the Land and Water Conservation Fund Permanent Funding Act and the Restore Our Parks Act. Just as the New Deal put people back to work improving our nations infrastructure during the Great Depression, the Great American Outdoors Act  which fully and permanently funds the LWCF and dedicates up to $1.9 billion to deferred park maintenance over 5 years  promises to put people back to work in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, improving our states and nations most special places.

And all without taking a dime from taxpayers.

Thats because the LWCF was ingeniously crafted to take revenues from the depletion of one resource  offshore oil and gas  and use them to conserve another  parks, wildlife refuges, forests, open spaces, trails and wildlife habitat. Unfortunately, in the years since its passage, Congress has fully funded the program just once, diverting more than $22 billion to purposes other than the law was intended. And in New Mexico that has left world-class sites like Carlsbad Caverns with $40 million in deferred maintenance. Special places our states tourism economy relies on  from Aztec Ruins National Monument to Valles Caldera National Preserve  have a whopping $121 million-plus to-do list to adequately preserve, protect and improve everything from stabilizing archaeological sites at Bandelier and Chaco Canyon to replacing trails and handrails at Carlsbad Caverns to updating 1930s-era bathrooms and adding Wi-Fi at White Sands.

Meanwhile, the next generation of our states outdoor recreational must-sees, from a completed Continental Divide Trail to hiking routes along the Animas River through Farmington and from Raton to the Colorado border, have been piecemeal projects or remained on the drawing board.

Until now. The Senate passed the Great American Outdoors Act on a bipartisan 73-25 vote last month; the House passed it 310-107 Wednesday. The president has expressed his support for it on Twitter. Passage will mean a huge investment in national and state treasures, as well as local parks, pools and ball field. It will mean years of construction and maintenance jobs at sites locals and tourists will enjoy for decades to come.

And while things like travel and crowds will be different in a COVID-19 world, theres little question enjoying the great outdoors will remain one of the healthiest ways to recreate.

Also of little question is the fact recreation remains a critical part of the economic lifeblood of New Mexico and our local economies. According to an op-ed from the Economic Forum of Albuquerque earlier this year, our tourism and hospitality industries ha(ve) created the second-largest sector of the New Mexico economy, with more than 100,000 quality jobs and visitor-driven spending that accounts for about $7.1 billion of our overall annual economic impact.

Investing in our national parks, national wildlife refuges, national forests, rivers and lakes, community parks, trails, and ballfields is an investment in our people, our heritage and our future. New Mexicos Sens. Udall and Heinrich have fought for permanent and full funding for years, and we are now perhaps just weeks away from seeing that hard work quite literally pay off for generations of New Mexicans.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
Lockdown saw a reduction in the number of ED attendances (Chris Radburn/PA)

The number of people attending emergency departments (EDs) in Northern Ireland is steadily increasing as lockdown eases, new figures suggest.

Statistics from the Department of Health show that, in April of this year, there were 35,439 ED attendances. This increased to 49,541 in May and 54,448 in June.

Compared to the same quarter later year, this represents a 30% decrease in attendances.

Around two-thirds (65.5%) of patients at Type 1 EDs, which are led by consultants and provide emergency medicine and surgical services over 24 hours, were treated, discharged or admitted within four hours of their arrival.

However, from April to June, a total of 2891 patients spent more than 12 hours in EDs across Northern Ireland.

Ministerial targets state that 95% of patients should be treated and discharged or admitted with four hours of their arrival.

The average time from arrival at an ED to initial assessment in June 2020 was seven minutes.

Dr Paul Kerr, vice president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine Northern Ireland, said change is needed to avoid the return of crowded EDs seen prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

It is deeply concerning that the number of patients waiting more than 12 hours is already rising dramatically in some trusts, in a world where we are going to have to treat and manage patients alongside the coronavirus, this is simply unacceptable," he added.

The resetting and redesigning of emergency departments will play an integral role in ensuring that patients are receiving the best care in the appropriate setting while also reducing crowding in our departments.

Health Minister Robin Swann said: While the numbers of people attending emergency departments fell during the lockdown period, they have been rising steadily again.

In the context of Covid-19, we must not permit overcrowding in our emergency departments to return to pre-pandemic levels.

A number of initiatives are being developed to address this issue.

This is an important priority, ahead of winter pressures for our emergency departments and the potential for further waves of Covid-19 infection.

In June, Craigavon Area Hospital had the longest average waiting time from arrival to admission at eight hours and 36 minutes, while the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children had the shortest at two hours and 53 minutes.
Berklee College of Music announced on Wednesday that it will be holding online-only classes in the fall amid crowing concerns that coronavirus cases could spike again in Massachusetts.

Despite our extensive efforts to build the Back to Berklee hybrid plan, and our determination to return to campus, when we look at the facts as they are unfolding across the country and abroad, we simply dont feel confident that it would be healthy and safe for our community to be on campus this fall, Berklee officials wrote on Wednesday.

All classes at the college, as well as at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, will be held online his coming semester, officials said, noting that they simply dont feel confident that it would be healthy and safe.

In reaching our decision, we considered the many complex factors that could potentially disrupt on-campus activities: the recent surge in COVID-19 cases across the U.S.; future projections; travel risks; the unique challenges of teaching music, theater, and dance; and the reality of our campus location in an urban setting, Berklee officials said.

Coronavirus cases continue to rise across the United States at record levels. Over the last two weeks, there have been between 55,000 and 70,000 new cases reported every day.

While Massachusetts colleges and universities decide on plans for instruction in the fall, the The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released guidance on Wednesday detailing the reopening of the states school districts.

Related Content:
ATTICA, MI  A Michigan animal rescue recently made the tough decision to euthanize a fawn apparently born without eyeballs.

Critter Crossing Rehabilitation in Attica shared the odd, but sad story on its Facebook page on Tuesday, noting the ordeal began when residents near North Branch spotted the fawn swimming in circles in a pond.

Assuming the animal was caught on something, they investigated further using a paddle boat only to discover that the young deer didnt have any eyeballs. The animal was brought to Critter Crossing where she was examined by a veterinarian who confirmed that the fawn was born this way.

There were no eyeballs, no ocular nerves, nothing, just empty sockets, a Facebook post reads.

After deliberation, staff determined the most ethical and humane thing to do was to euthanize the animal.

We determined that the fawn was surviving just fine without eyeballs up until this point because when they are first born, they arent very mobile. Now at the point where she was expected to keep up with her mom, she found herself getting left behind, or in threatening situations.

Critter Crossing went on to explain the three main reasons for the decision, noting that wild fawns cannot legally be integrated with farmed or captive deer herds because of disease. They added that deer are already a high-stress prey animal and living without eyes would just add to a constant state of fear, severely limiting the animals quality of life.

This case was very, very sad, the post reads. After reaching out to some colleagues, we have discovered there has been an increased report of wild animals being born without eyeballs amongst rehabbers, including most commonly, birds and opossums.

The group then speculated that while it could be a congenital defect just being recognized as more animals are being rehabbed, the anomaly could also be caused by the long-term effects of pesticides and human contaminants in the environment.

The post ends: Definitely something to make you wonder about how we have potentially affected this planets future in ways that havent even been uncovered yet.
Royal Navy Spots, Shadows Russian Kalibr-Carrying Sub in English Channel

Sputnik News

12:37 GMT 22.07.2020(updated 12:51 GMT 22.07.2020)

Russian submarines and other warships regularly pass through the waters adjacent to the UK and France on their way to the Mediterranean and Black seas, with the subs doing so in a surfaced position and often accompanied by support vessels.

A pair of Royal Navy warships intercepted and shadowed a Russian Project 636.3 Varshavyanka-class submarine (NATO codename Improved Kilo), believed to be the B-265 Krasnodar, as it sailed past the UK's south coast and on into the North Sea, the Navy has said.

The Russian vessel is said to have made its passage through the English Channel between 19 and 21 July, with the HMS Tyne River-class offshore patrol vessel tasked with following the sub before being relieved by the HMS Mersey, another River-class patrol ship, as the Russian vessel entered the North Sea.

"HMS Tyne and HMS Mersey watched every movement of the Kilo-class submarine, Krasnodar, after picking up monitoring duties from French light frigate FS Enseigne de vaisseau Jacoubet off the coast of Ushant Island in Brittany on Sunday," the Navy said in its press statement.

Accompanying the Krasnodar was the Sergei Balk, an ocean-going support tug.

According to Forbes defence contributor and open source intelligence analyst H. I. Sutton, the Krasnodar left Tartus, Syria on 1 July, and has been tracked as it made the trek from the Mediterranean toward the Baltic Sea, with St. Petersburg being its possible final destination.

The Russian sub has been sailing in surfaced mode, and has made no attempt whatsoever to hide its position. The Russian defence ministry has not yet commented on the shadowing incident, although previously expressed "surprise" at the tenacity of the Royal Navy's efforts to trace, track and shadow Russian subs travelling at low speeds, in surfaced mode, and accompanied by a tug, following a similar incident in 2016.

The Daily Mail reported on this week's incident, but erroneously referred to the Krasnodar as a 'Soviet-era' attack sub "built in the Soviet Union for the Soviet Navy in the 1980s," even though it's actually a relatively new vessel, commissioned in 2015. It's possible that the newspaper mistook the upgraded Project 636.3 submarine for its Soviet Project 877 predecessor.

Project 636.3 is a class of diesel-electric attack subs designed by the Rubin Design Bureau and built by a handful of shipyard across Russia. Along with torpedoes, some versions of the sub are capable of carrying Kalibr land-attack and anti-ship cruise missiles, as well as sea mines and surface-to-air missiles. The Krasnodar itself is Kalibr-armed, and fired multiple missiles at Daesh (ISIS)* targets in Syria in 2017.

* A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries.

A Sputnik

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Harvard University's Office of Technology Development (OTD) and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health today announced the launch of Vesigen Therapeutics, a startup company that aims to overcome the challenge of delivering next-generation therapeutics, such as gene-editing complexes, RNA molecules, and other large proteins, to intracellular targets in specific tissues of interest.

Through an exclusive license agreement with Harvard, Vesigen will develop and commercialize novel drug-delivery technologies that originated in the lab of Quan Lu, Professor of Environmental Genetics and Physiology at the Harvard Chan School.

In Lu's lab, what began as a basic biological study of how cells communicate with each other ended up pointing, "completely unexpectedly," to a new way of creating tiny, mobile capsules that efficiently direct therapeutic molecules to the cells where they're needed.

Support from Harvard's Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator enabled Lu's research team at the Harvard Chan School to conduct validating studies and advance the nascent technology to a point of readiness for full commercial development.

We can harness the capability of these vesicles, called ARMMs, to first package and then deliver therapeutic cargoes to the targeted tissues. That's the ultimate goal of this, to enable next-generation therapeutics to reach their full potential in combating a wide range of diseases." Quan Lu, Professor of Environmental Genetics and Physiology, Harvard Chan School, Harvard University

Vesigen Therapeutics launches with $28.5M in Series A investment led by Leaps by Bayer and Morningside Ventures, with participation by Linden Lake Ventures and Alexandria Venture Investments. Vesigen will use the capital raised to build out the ARMMs platform as well as to advance numerous therapeutic agents into preclinical and clinical development.

More than 80 percent of identified and biologically validated drug targets in humans are located intracellularly (inside cells). Yet some of the most promising new therapeutics, such as CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing complexes or mRNA or RNAi molecules, are large proteins and nucleic acids that cannot cross the cell membrane without help.

Several approaches, including adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) and lipid nanoparticles, rely on a natural process called endocytosis to deliver their cargo into the cells. The drawback is that most of what enters the cell in this way ends up channeled to the lysosomes and degraded, resulting in low efficiency.

The key innovation from Lu's lab stems from the discovery of a previously unrecognized mechanism in the cell membrane that allows it to accept deliveries without, essentially, sending them to be destroyed.

The advance could enable the development of new therapeutics for numerous conditions where intracellular drug delivery is currently a roadblock.

Vesigen intends to focus primarily on the targeted delivery of treatments for neurological diseases, oncology, and ophthalmology, while making engineered vesicles available to interested companies advancing treatments in other indications.

Using his lab's technology, Lu said, "If you want to deliver a therapeutic to the muscle, this vesicle can be engineered with specific surface molecules to target muscle cells." In the case of eye diseases, he noted, "Injecting locally into the retina might avoid some of the unwanted immune responses and toxicity associated with viral delivery methods."

"ARMMs have the potential to solve some truly vexing problems for the biotech industry," said Grant Zimmermann, PhD, Managing Director of Business Development in Harvard OTD. "For example, many therapeutic modalities would benefit from a drug-delivery mechanism with low immunogenicity, an intrinsic ability to traffic to specific tissues and cell types, and an efficient capability to deliver cargo directly to the cytoplasm of target cells.

"Additionally, RNA- or protein-based therapeutic cargo is directly loaded into the ARMM delivery vehicle during biogenesis, streamlining the biological manufacturing process. The innovations from the Lu Lab are extremely promising in these respects, and I'm thrilled to see them enter commercial development."

In Lu's lab, the work began a decade ago. From a postdoc at Stanford, Lu was recruited to a faculty position at Harvard Chan School to study the biology of the lung--specifically, how smooth muscle tissue in the airway expands and contracts.

Having expertise in genomic screening tools, Lu was able to sift through the genes active in these smooth muscle cells and identify the signaling mechanism that regulates the cells' receptivity to asthma drugs called beta-agonists.

Lu subsequently expanded his work to examine more broadly the complex gene-environment interactions in asthma and in other multigenic human diseases such as diabetes and neurodegeneration. His work generated important insights, but along the way, he stumbled onto something else.

A protein called ARRDC1 (arrestin domain containing protein 1), closely related to a key protein identified in the asthma study, localizes "beautifully on the cell surface."

While ARRDC1 is not involved in airway response to beta-agonists or in asthma, Lu's lab was stunned to discover that this ARRDC1 protein drives the formation of small vesicles that transport materials in and out of the cell, essentially passing messages among neighboring cells in a way that was previously unrecognized.

They called these vesicles ARMMs, an abbreviation for ARRDC1-mediated microvesicles. In the same 2012 PNAS publication, the research team noted that this mechanism explains how budding viruses like HIV and Ebola egress from within a cell host, coopting some components of ARMMs for their own purposes.

The lab also showed, a few years later, that ARMMs can package and transfer bioactive receptor protein molecules between cells. Each ARMM vesicle is about one-millionth the volume of the cell, but it can hold hundreds of large molecules, and each cell can produce thousands of vesicles in a day.

"Once we figured that out, we thought, well, if cells can transfer molecules from one cell to another through this mechanism, then you could actually replace the endogenous molecule with a therapeutic cargo," said Lu.

With funding and strategic advising from the Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator, Lu proved the point. His lab demonstrated that they could engineer ARMMs to deliver the tumor-suppressor protein p53 to cells that were lacking it, in mice.

The research team published this work in Nature Communications in 2018, and generated important validating data on how the vesicles move within the body.

Harvard OTD helped Lu to develop a business plan and assemble a founding team, and in 2019, Vesigen received the Alexandria LaunchLabs Innovation Prize, a recognition of the emerging startup's "excellence in scientific innovation, leadership, and business strategy."

"The support from the Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator was critical for my lab," noted Lu. "It allowed me to complete most of the experiments described in our 2018 publication.

Equally importantly, the Office of Technology Development and their Accelerator team helped me to make connections in industry and navigate the interactions with venture capitalists and pharmaceutical companies. They played a pivotal role in translating my lab's innovations into the critical opportunities that led to the founding of Vesigen."

Lu is a cofounder of Vesigen and will serve on the company's scientific advisory board while remaining full time at Harvard Chan School to continue to focus primarily on his research and teaching.

"My lab did not set out to find a therapeutic cure or a method to deliver therapeutics; we research biological questions that are relevant to public health," he said.

"But I'm very satisfied that some of the very basic findings in my lab have found these translation opportunities, and hopeful that our work may enable new therapies that save lives."

Entrepreneur Robert Millman, JD, will lead the company as cofounder and CEO. Millman previously founded and led two other companies to commercialize biomedical innovations from Harvard: Semma Therapeutics and CoStim Pharmaceuticals.

"Many biotechs today, including some that I've worked with, have made it their mission to translate new biological tools, such as RNA interference, mRNA replacement, and DNA editing, into new therapies," said Millman.

"For most companies in this space, delivering the agent into the cell safely and efficiently is still an unsolved problem. With the ARMMs technology, we aim to overcome this barrier and expand the treatment options for patients."

Vesigen has named Gerald Chan, SM '75, SD '79, of Morningside Ventures, as chairman of the company, while Stephen Bruso of Morningside and Jurgen Eckhardt and Jak Knowles of Leaps by Bayer will join the board of directors.
A student who publicly criticized ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping on social media while studying on the democratic island of Taiwan has made a special appeal to the authorities to allow him to marry there.



Li Jiabao, who began his studies in Taiwan in February 2019, submitted a petition on Thursday to Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), the executive department that handles the island's troubled relationship with the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing.



Li has been stranded in Taiwan since he criticized Xi Jinping in a livestream in mid-March, shortly after China's National People's Congress (NPC) nodded through constitutional changes removing presidential term limits and enabling Xi to begin an indefinite term in office.



Since then, Li's Facebook account has been concerned with other things, including his new relationship with a Taiwanese woman, a fellow student, now his fiancee.



"I have met a wonderful woman, but I have no status in Taiwan, which has no law on refugees," Li told RFA on Thursday. "I want to hand in my marriage application today."



Li's marriage plans are being stymied by a requirement that he produce notarized, original documents from his hometown in China.



Taiwan currently requires cross-straits marriages to first be registered in China, before being registered by the MAC.



But Li says that he used his real name to criticize Xi, and that he would be risking political retaliation if he were to go back to China to get the necessary paperwork.



"Under normal procedures, there are a lot of documents that need to be notarized in China," he said. "But I am worried about a threat to my life or safety if I go back there."



Li is reluctant to talk about his parents, for fear that they will suffer at the hands of the Chinese authorities.



Asked how they took the news of his engagement, he replied: "They were shocked, but not too shocked."



Hopes for legal status



Li has now left his course at Chia Nan University of Pharmacy  Science in Taipei, and has been eking a living in the cheaper south of the island, without proper documentation.



He has been unable to work, and hopes that he will gain legal status after marriage.



An MAC official said the application would be handled in accordance with current regulations.



While the administration of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) President Tsai Ing-wen is proud of its human rights record, Taiwan, which has a refugee law in the pipeline, is traditionally wary of granting political asylum to Chinese nationals for fear of triggering a flood of applications.



The Taiwan government granted Li a "special student visa" after he applied for political asylum last year, enabling him to continue his studies for a time.



But no decision has yet been forthcoming on political asylum. In the absence of legislation on refugees, Taiwan has tended to find workarounds if the authorities decide to allow someone to stay on the island, rather than issuing a blanket residency.



'Imperial tyranny'



In Li's video livestream on Periscope, he hit out at a nationwide police operation targeting Chinese human rights lawyers since July 2015, and said he hoped China can one day take the path of democratic reform, as Taiwan once did.



"When Xi Jinping succeeded in eliminating his political rival [jailed former Chongqing party chief] Bo Xilai in 2012, he succeeded in becoming the most powerful politician in China in one step," Li said.



"Like many other ordinary people, I once had a hankering for the monarchy," he said.



But he compared China under Xi to an imperial tyranny presiding over an Orwellian dystopia.



He said the "martyrs" who died during the Tiananmen massacre that ended the 1989 student-led pro-democracy movement were all seeking freedom.



Li, who has received furious online abuse after his live-streaming session, has also said he fears being kidnapped by Chinese agents operating in Taiwan, and unofficially repatriated to face punishment.



His public criticisms of Xi come amid a very public debate in Taiwan over the Chinese president's claim that the island should be "unified" with the People's Republic of China, which has never controlled Taiwan.



A separate country



Li takes a view regarded as criminal by Beijing; namely that the island is a totally separate country from China.



President Tsai rejected calls from Xi on Jan. 2, 2019 to move towards "unification," saying that Taiwan's 23 million people have no wish to give up their sovereignty, and that China should first move towards a democratic system.



In the statement, titled "Letter to our Taiwan compatriots," Xi was insistent that China must be "unified," saying that China would make no promises not to use military force to annex the island.



But a recent opinion poll found that more than 80 percent of Taiwanese would reject Xi's offer to rule the island via the "one country, two systems" model used for the former colonies of Hong Kong and Macau.



Taiwan was ruled as a Japanese colony in the 50 years prior to the end of World War II, but was occupied by the 1911 Republic of China under the Kuomintang (KMT) government as part of the post-war settlement.



The island began a transition to democracy following the death of Chiang Kai-shek's son, President Chiang Ching-kuo, in January 1988, starting with direct elections to the legislature in the early 1990s and culminating in the first direct election of a president, Lee Teng-hui, in 1996.



Reported by Hwang Chun-mei for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
KINGSTON, N.Y.  Mental health and mistreatment were among the topics raised by community members during the first Ulster County Justice and Reform Commission virtual town hall, which was created to address police reform.

Bob McGough of Stone Ridge shared how he has seen that police often feel like they do not have the training to handle mental health concerns.

My wife has worked in mental health field and has talked about how police often say they dont feel trained and prepared to deal with mental health situations, he said. If the county devoted resources to that sort of thing that would help, a lot.

Ulster County Legislator Laura Petit said it would be beneficial to have a 24-hour mental health crisis center in the county similar to the Dutchess County Stabilization Center.

Instead of getting caught up in a system and becoming adversarial, the public knows that there is more in place for them, she said. Theres more programs that should be done across the board.

Resident Jennifer Vallance brought up how police mistreatment is not always reserved for people of color.

She described how she has been turned away after complaining about a neighbors bias towards her and how it made her feel unsafe.

They dont understand that this is a harassment issue, she said. They dont understand that there can be harassment against anybody.

Others brought up how the panel assembled for the Justice and Reform Commission, which was announced on June 23 by Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan, should reflect the breadth of its mission.

It was pointed out that 10 of the commissions 17 members are African American, and LGBTQ diversity is reflected on the panel as well.

Assistant County Executive Anna Markowitz served as moderator of the Zoom meeting, along with the commissions leader, Ulster County Attorney Clint Johnson. The commissions goals are to end mass incarceration, create police oversight and accountability, address systemic racial bias, and heal the division between law enforcement and the communities they serve.

The commission was created after Gov. Andrew Cuomo charged all local governments with police departments to perform a comprehensive review of current police force deployments, strategies, policies, procedures and practices, and develop a plan to improve such deployments, strategies, policies, procedures and practices. Cuomos order cites the need to foster trust, fairness and legitimacy, and to address any racial bias and disproportionate policing of communities of color.

Under Cuomos order, all municipalities with a police department must undertake the effort and adopt a plan with specific actions no later than April 1, 2021.
Ontario could receive $1 billion in transit funding under the federal governments safe restart agreement with provinces battling COVID-19, the Star has learned.

Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna is expected to announce Ottawa will match up to $1.8 billion of provincial and territorial funding to support local public transit in the provinces, according to documents reviewed by the Star.

The transit funding is part of the $19-billion package announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week to help provinces reopen their economies during COVID-19.

Ontarios share of that available funding is $1 billion, according to documents reviewed by the Star. A federal government source told the Star that the total will depend on how much Premier Doug Fords government matches the federal contribution, dollar for dollar.

Essential, front-line workers need good public transit, parents need child care, public health must be able to track and contain disease outbreaks, everyone requires personal protective equipment, and vulnerable communities  including seniors  need enhance support as Canada gradually reopens while containing the spread of COVID-19, one document reads.

The federal governments funding announcement last week was welcomed by Mayor John Tory and other GTA mayors and regional chairs, who had been pleading with Ottawa and Queens Park to come to an agreement to bail them out of budget shortfalls caused by the pandemic.

In Toronto, city staff have calculated a $1.35-billion shortfall that is largely driven by a loss of $700 million to the TTC.

The TTC is the countrys busiest system, which had been carrying about 1.8 million people on an average weekday. It relies on fare proceeds for about two-thirds of its operating budget, and the pandemic caused its ridership and revenue to almost evaporate overnight. By late April, passenger volumes hit a low of about 14 per cent of normal levels, and the TTC said it was losing more than $20 million a week.

Riders are starting to return as the city and province open up, but municipal staff expect ridership to stay well below pre-crisis levels at least through the fall.

To help deal with its financial crisis, the TTC launched a cost-containment strategy in May that included reducing service to about 85 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, freezing planned wage increases, and deferring new hires. The agency also delayed millions of dollars in planned capital work on the transit system, and announced it would temporarily lay off 1,200 employees. As of last week it had only completed about half of the planned layoffs.

Speaking last week before details of the federal funding were announced, TTC CEO Rick Leary said Ottawas promise of financial aid to transit systems was recognition of how important public transportation will be to Canadas post-COVID economic recovery.

Leary said he hoped the package would be enough to prevent any further layoffs at the TTC and allow the agency to restore pre-crisis service levels.

While the transit funding will come as a relief to cities like Toronto, its not clear whether additional conditions attached to the remaining funds will allow the city to make up the remainder of the shortfall.

For example, city staff projected unplanned spending of $181.1 million by the end of this year to manage the lack of shelter space and provide proper distancing in hotels and other spaces for people experiencing homelessness.

It will help us with quite a wide range of our problems, Tory said last week following the federal announcement before any details were announced.

Jennifer Pagliaro is a Toronto-based reporter covering city hall and municipal politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @jpags

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

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BJP Vice-President Baijayant Jay Panda on Wednesday tweeted that he has come across threads on social media which revealed 'personal and business links' of some Bollywood personalities with 'Pakistanis and NRIs.

BJP Vice-President Baijayant Jay Panda on Wednesday claimed that he has come across threads on social media which revealed personal and business links of some Bollywood personalities with Pakistanis and NRIs having a track record of encouraging violence in Jammu and Kashmir. He urged patriotic Bollywoodies to renounce such celebrities.

The BJP leader, however, desisted from naming any Bollywood celebrity in his tweet.

Came across shocking threads documenting personal and business links of some Bollywood personalities with certain Pakistanis and NRIs with undeniable track record encouraging violence in Jammu and Kashmir, who have verifiable links to ISI and Pakistan army. I urge patriotic Bollywoodies to renounce them, Pandas tweet read.

Came across shocking threads documenting personal & business links of some Bollywood personalities with certain Pakistanis & NRIs with undeniable track record encouraging violence in J&K, who have verifiable links to ISI & Pak army. I urge patriotic Bollywoodies to renounce them.  Baijayant Jay Panda (@PandaJay) July 22, 2020

Pandas allegations have come at a time when Bollywood is reeling from various scandals, ranging from nepotism to harassment, triggered by the demise of Kai Po Che actor Sushant Singh Rajput. The Kai Po Che! actor was found dead in his Mumbais Bandra residence on June 14.

The actor will be last seen in Dil Bechara. The film will be premiered on the digital platform Disney+Hotstar on July 24.

Directed by Mukesh Chhabra, the romantic flick is adapted from the famous novel The Fault In Our Stars by John Green and will also see actor Saif Ali Khan in a special appearance.

Ahead of the digital premiere of late Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajputs last film  Dil Bechara  director of the film Mukesh Chhabra on Wednesday said he wants all fans to watch the film together at the same time from their homes.

Chhabra who was also a close friend of the departed actor, took to Instagram and shared a motion poster of the upcoming film and announced that it will release at 7.30 pm (IST) on its premiere date, which is July 24.

We want to make this even more special for everyone. Lock the date and time. Lets all watch it together, the premiere of the film, same time, different places (your homes) but as one audience in whole. This one for Sushant Singh Rajput, he wrote in the caption.

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A Queensland father accused of murdering his five-month-old son allegedly threatened to kill the boy because he would not stop crying.

Kozan Samuel Thomas Ware, 34, was charged after Adrian Joshua Wommie Ware was found unresponsive in a Brisbane home in 2017.

An autopsy revealed the boy suffered bleeding around his brain, a torn vein near his brainstem, damage to an optical nerve and a wound to his scalp.

Ware was granted bail in the Brisbane Supreme Court on Thursday with strict conditions that he report to police every day and abide by an 8pm curfew.

He also has to wear an electronic tracking device and was ordered to not contact witnesses.

Kozan Samuel Thomas Ware (pictured), 34, allegedly threatened to kill his five-month-old son Joshua Wommie Ware via text before allegedly murdering him at their Brisbane home in 2017

Adrian (pictured) was found unresponsive in a Brisbane home in 2017. An autopsy revealed the boy suffered bleeding around his brain, a torn vein near his brainstem, damage to an optical nerve and a wound to his scalp

Justice Peter Callaghan's published reasons for releasing Ware also revealed the timeline of events leading up to Adrian's death in the early hours of March 28.

Two days before the child died, Ware allegedly sent a series of desperate text messages threatening to harm his son.

'This motherf***en boy will not stop crying. I am going to kill this kid soon,' Ware allegedly wrote.

It was followed shortly after with another: 'I got a f***ing baby that is not even mine here teething and (he) will not stop crying'.

'I am going to kill the little c*** soon.'

Justice Callaghan said Adrian was again crying on the day he was allegedly killed.

Threatening texts allegedly sent by Ware, 34, prior to his son's death

In the hours before his death, Ware also allegedly sent more text messages.

One contained multiple crying and screaming emoji symbols.

It was allegedly followed by another at 2.44am saying: 'Heeelllppp meeeeeee'.

The Crown alleges Adrian died some time between then and 8.49am - the time Ware called for an ambulance.

He allegedly reported finding Adrian with his eyes a little bit open, cold and without a heartbeat.

'He also said that Adrian had blood and mucus coming from one of his nostrils and an injury above his lip,' Justice Callaghan said.

The Crown alleges Adrian died some time between then and 8.49am - the time Ware called for an ambulance

Paramedics found Adrian lying on the floor. Ware was allegedly nearby, on his hands and knees, on the phone receiving CPR instructions, which he allegedly did not understand.

Prosecutor Caroline Marco previously told the court Adrian's injuries were probably caused by deliberate blunt force trauma and or shaking.

But Ware's lawyer, Deborah Holliday, says there was nothing in the post-mortem that determined why the child stopped breathing and sudden infant death syndrome could not be ruled out.

She said it was also possible Adrian's injuries may have been from a fall off his bed.

Ware will reappear in the same court on August 28.
Nicola Sturgeon is using her daily coronavirus press conferences as 'party political broadcasts' and a lack of proper scrutiny of her decisions has allowed her to cultivate a 'Saint Nicola' persona in Scotland through the crisis, a leading MSP told MailOnline today.

Michelle Ballantyne, Conservative MSP for South Scotland, spoke out as Boris Johnson visited Orkney and said the pandemic would have been 'disaster' for Scotland if it had been independent from the UK.

She told MailOnline that a largely pro-Independence press have failed to hold the First Minister to account during the pandemic while the Government in London fielded questions every night for months at the Downing Street news conferences.

The collapse of press scrutiny in Scotland has allowed Ms Sturgeon to sell the idea of holding a second Independence referendum to the public, as two polls find that 54 per cent of people would back secession if there was a second vote.

It has also caused even people in England to imagine that the SNP leader has handled the crisis better than the PM, as a YouGov poll last month showed.

Nicola Sturgeon (pictured today) is using her daily coronavirus press conferences as 'party political broadcasts', Michelle Ballantyne, Conservative MSP for South Scotland (right), has said

Boris Johnson with some crabs in Orkney today as he said the Prime Minister said COVID would have been 'disaster' for Scotland if it had been independent from the UK

Britons 'think that the relationship between England and Scotland is getting worse' Six out of 10 Britons say that the relationship between England and Wales is weaker than it was five years ago after the Independence referendum, YouGov said today. This figure rises to 74 per cent among Scots as the PM visited Scotland. Only 2 per cent think the Anglo-Scottish relationship has become stronger since 2015, with 23 per cent saying it is much the same as it was before. Meanwhile 52 per cent of respondents said Scotland has handled the COVID-19 pandemic better than Westminster, rising to 76 per cent among Scots. Only 10 per cent of respondents think that England have handled the crisis the best, whilst 24 per cent think they have both handled it the same. Advertisement

Ms Ballantyne said: 'If you look at the outbreak at Nike that was covered up, the decision to put people in care homes from hospital without COVID testing - she's used her briefings to shut criticism down and spin it like they have handled it better than in Westminster and that 'Saint Nicola' has delivered - but that's not the case at all if you look at the figures'.

She added: 'Nicola Sturgeon hides behind systems and processes that protect the Scottish Government from being robustly questioned and the press need to be better at challenging the obvious failures in policy outcomes'.

Ms Ballantyne claims more recently she has adopted a policy of complaining about steps taken by Mr Johnson to ease England out of lockdown - before announcing largely the same rules days later, such as compulsory face masks on public transport, reopening shops and air corridors to Europe.

She said: 'There is no need to be broadcasting daily - and the fact she does it begs the question why. It is because it is a chance for her to grab air time to promote herself, her policies and her party.

'She doesn't get scrutinised by most of the press here - and when they do those journalists are attacked online. It's not the same playing field as it is down south.

'What she actually is doing is the same as the UK Government, with a delay. She watches the reaction and largely does the same. It's like copying your friend's homework after it's been marked. It is a fascinating piece of manipulation. The press up here are letting her get away it.

Even the English think Nicola Sturgeon has a better handle of COVID than Boris Johnson, YouGov poll shows Even people in England think Nicola Sturgeon has had a better handle of COVID-19 than Boris Johnson, new research by YouGov shows. The June poll shows that 41 per cent think the London has dealt with the pandemic very well or fairly well, with 53 per cent saying it had done poorly. By contrast, English people have been more impressed by the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with 57 per cent of respondents saying the Scottish First Minister has performed well - while just 19 per cent thought that she had managed the crisis poorly. Half said the Welsh administration has performed well, with only 17 per cent said it had performed poorly. Stormont compared favourably to Westminster, receiving a 45 per cent approval rating, with only 13 per cent saying it had done poorly. Advertisement

'And the personal attacks and bullying for criticising her or the Scottish government is appalling'.

Ms Sturgeon has also been accused of using the pandemic to aid her independence campaign after insisting she would not hesitate to force English visitors to self-isolate for two weeks days after nationalists put up banners on the border telling 'the English' to stay away.

The MSP says that Ms Sturgeon gives a long speech the nation 'to promote herself, her policies and her party' - and is often asked soft questions by journalists who are banned from asking anything else.

Earlier in lockdown Ms Sturgeon repeatedly chose to gazump the PM during lockdown ahead of his own announcements to the nation.

Ms Sturgeon is running coronavirus press conferences three days on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for the next fortnight to give staff behind the scenes a break.

But from August the Scottish First Minister will return to doing it five days a week, despite daily infections now running at around 15 per day and daily deaths now often at zero.

Boris Johnson scrapped daily briefings exactly a month ago and will be run on an 'ad hoc' basis to 'coincide with significant announcements'.

Ms Ballantyne said Nicola Sturgeon is often given an 'easy ride' by journalists who are banned from asking follow-up questions.

A spokesman for the Scottish Government told MailOnline: 'Daily media briefings continue to be the most used source of information about the COVID-19 pandemic in Scotland and are used to disseminate the latest public health guidance as well as essential information about services and support for people and the economy.

Support for independence rises to 54 per cent for 'first time in Scottish history', two polls show Two polls by Panelbase studies published in June and this month found that 54 per cent of Scots now back a 'Yes' vote - the first time in Scottish history that the pro-independence movement could win a second referendum. Sir John Curtice said the 'Yes' side is the favourite to win should Scotland host a second referendum. Following a series of recent surveys around the prospect of another independence referendum, support for the movement is at an all-time high. Sir John added: 'One has to say, this is the longest period of time over which we've had support for Yes averaging ahead of support for No.' Advertisement

'Today, for example, this included important advice for people who are shielding, an update about care home visiting arrangements and information about guidance for people working from home.

'The briefings also provide an opportunity for rigorous scrutiny from the media with 15 to 20 journalists participating every day - and, as today's briefing illustrates, journalists are able to ask follow up questions.

'All parties agreed that the First Minister would address parliament on changes to lockdown regulations at the two review points in July, the second of which is next week. The Scottish Government has also offered to take part in weekly question sessions.'

Nicola Sturgeon has furiously denied claims of a cover-up after an investigation linked a cluster of coronavirus cases to Scotland to a Nike conference in February.

A BBC Scotland Disclosure investigation revealed more than 70 Nike employees from around the world attended a conference at the Hilton Carlton Hotel in Edinburgh on February 26 and 27.

It is understood one visiting attendee passed on the virus, with investigations finding at least 25 people linked to the event contracted COVID-19, including eight in Scotland.

She also defended the decision to discharge elderly patients from hospital to care homes early in the outbreak, despite fury that they were not tested and might have seeded a wave of infections.

Scotland has recorded 16 new confirmed cases of coronavirus in a day, Nicola Sturgeon has announced.

Critics have said that Ms Sturgeon has taken to announcing the same policies as England - just a few days later. These are the dates they were announced in England and Scotland

When did Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon announce lockdown easing? Air bridges England announced on July 4 Scotland announced on July 8 Essential shops reopening England on June 9 Scotland on June 18 Face masks on public transport England on June 4 Scotland on June 18 Advertisement

Speaking at the Scottish Government's coronavirus briefing, she said 18,500 people have tested positive for COVID-19 north of the border.

She added provisional figures indicate four of the new cases are in Lanarkshire and added there are now 24 cases linked to the outbreak at the Sitel call centre in the region, up from 20 yesterday.

No deaths of people who tested positive for the virus have been recorded for a week running, meaning the toll remains at 2,491.

Boris Johnson today told Nicola Sturgeon that nowhere near enough time has passed since the 2014 Scottish independence referendum to require a rerun as he visited Scotland for the first time since the general election.

Nicola Sturgeon says Boris Johnson's visit to Scotland only BOOSTS the argument for independence Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson locked horns over Scottish independence today as the Prime Minister visited the country for the first time since the general election. The First Minister lashed out as Mr Johnson visited Orkney and north east Scotland on a whistle-stop one-day tour in which he ruled out a re-run of the 2014 referendum. She tweeted: 'I welcome the PM to Scotland today. One of the key arguments for independence is the ability of Scotland to take our own decisions, rather than having our future decided by politicians we didn't vote for, taking us down a path we haven't chosen. His presence highlights that.' Advertisement

Mr Johnson, who was greeted by pro-independence campaigners as soon as he arrived north of the border this morning, said the 'Union is a fantastically strong institution' as he outright rejected the SNP leader's demand for another border poll.

The Prime Minister reminded Ms Sturgeon that the vote six years ago was billed as a 'once in a generation' event.

He said: 'That is not a generation by any computation and I think what people really want to do is see our whole country coming back strongly together and that is what we are going to do.'

Overnight Mr Johnson had suggested the coronavirus lockdown 'could have spelled disaster' for Scotland if it was an independent country.

He said it was the UK's 'massive purchasing power' that had boosted the supply of PPE in Scottish hospitals and would mean access to 'millions of doses of promising vaccines'.

Mr Johnson's comments prompted a furious response from Ms Sturgeon who accused the PM of 'championing and celebrating a pandemic' in order to support a 'political case' for the Union.

The Scottish First Minister said that if she was in Mr Johnson's shoes she would not be out 'campaigning' and that 'none of us should be crowing about this pandemic in a political sense'.

Mr Johnson had already sparked SNP anger overnight after he claimed the Union had saved 900,000 Scottish jobs during the crisis and its 'sheer might... has been proven once again' by the pandemic.

The SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford suggested the PM viewed Scotland as a minor partner in the United Kingdom and believed it is 'too wee, too poor or too stupid' to cope on its own.

A number of recent opinion polls showed that support for Scottish independence is now more popular than staying part of the UK.

The same polls predicted the SNP will win a majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament at next year's election.

Then prime minister David Cameron agreed to stage the independence vote in 2014 after the SNP won a majority at Holyrood in the 2011 election, but Mr Johnson has repeatedly ruled out another referendum.
A group being described as a Black armed militia appears to be making Louisville its next stop, and city officials are aware.

The group is called the "No F****** Around Coalition," or NFAC. The group's leader, Grand Master Jay, has promoted a visit to Louisville this weekend in multiple YouTube videos: Video 1 | Video 2

On the Fourth of July, the group was at Georgia's Stone Mountain Park, calling for the parks massive Confederate carving to be removed. According to the Associated Press, the group of more than 100 carried large rifles as they marched through the park and all remained peaceful.

Now, the group is setting sights on the Breonna Taylor case and Grand Master Jay says they anticipate a much larger crowd this time.

Ive got to move on this one. Weve got to go in on this one," Grand Master Jay says in a video. "We just need someone in custody for the murder of Ms. Breonna."

He gave instructions to members saying all should meet at noon on Saturday at Baxter Park. The group is planning to march to Metro Hall and back. They are being told to wear an all-black uniform and to bring a gun if they are legally able and have used one before.

Grand Master Jay made it clear that the group is a militia, not a mob, and what they are doing is a formation, not a demonstration. As for where they'll go, Grand Master Jay said they will "pay some people a visit."

He said he has spoken with Attorney General Daniel Cameron, whose office is investigating Taylor's death.

In a statement, Cameron's office called the conversation "productive" and said the attorney general "discussed his continued commitment to moving forward with our offices independent and thorough investigation into the death of Ms. Taylor."

Metro Council President David James said he spoke with Grand Master Jay as well, and left the conversation believing this march, like the last, will be peaceful.

"I don't support anybody coming to our city with our firearms to march, whether it's this group or another group. I don't care, to protest, I don't think it's a great idea, but my larger concern isn't the group themselves. It's the counter groups that cause my greatest concern because it just takes one person to do something stupid and then, you know, we have a major problem," James said.

James said the group has been in contact with LMPD and they've been working together to make sure everybody's safe.

Not long ago, a group of armed counter protesters planned to move in on protests downtown. In that instance, LMPD also made contact with the group and took precautionary steps like adding more patrols and creating a divide between groups.

That group never showed up.

Chris Will, the president of the nonprofit organization Firm, has been protesting in Jefferson Square Park since May. He said he welcomes the NFAC's support and believes their action may put a bigger spotlight on the Breonna Taylor case.

"A lot of different organizations are doing a lot of different things, but I don't want them to get shunned because they're coming with weapons. They're well within their rights to," Will said.

But Will stressed it's up to local activists to keep the pressure on those handling the Taylor investigation to hold the officers involved in her death accountable.

"Breonna Taylor, right now, that's the fire that's burning in Louisville, of course. The tragic shooting of David McAtee, Tyler Gerth, out here. Those are fires that are burning but we got to keep throwing logs on Breonna so the fire is put out and then there's actually justice obtained," Will said. "That's what her family deserves and that's what the city of Louisville deserves."
23.07.2020 LISTEN

Earlier this month, the African Union (AU) observed the 4th annual African Anti-Corruption Day. The day was established in commemoration of the AUs Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption, which was adopted on July 11, 2003. This years theme was Fighting Corruption through Effective and Efficient Judicial Systems. What does this look like in the era of COVID-19 when large amounts of aid and assistance are being distributed to countries across the continent?

Africa, like the rest of the world, is fighting the pandemic and its systems and infrastructure have been put to the test. With pre-existing and long-standing underlying issues, African countries are fighting to ensure that COVID-19 does not further weaken these systems. In addition, corruption is a pandemic of its own and during this critical time, we must be vigilant and act with the same vigor with which we are addressing COVID-19 itself. With the onset of the health crisis, the consequences of corruption are more severe and can potentially hinder Africas ability to cope and recuperate in its aftermath. However, this challenge also presents the opportunity for Africa to create new anti-corruption policies and accountability measures.

The first step to solving a problem is to acknowledge that it exists. African countries as a collective have done relatively well keeping COVID-19 cases and death tolls low, compared to their global counterparts. One of the reasons for this is that most leaders in Africa acknowledged the virus and its potential impact early, with no illusions that it would be an easy problem to solve, and governments acted very swiftly to put preventative measures in place. The way Africa has handled COVID-19 gives us a potential case study that could be applicable to corruption. We need to use the same tactics and apply them to our anti-corruption strategies.

We cannot afford to turn a blind eye on corruption and allow it to go unaddressed. If we do, we are risking the same outcomes as countries that denied the existence of COVID-19. Africa is all too familiar with the ills caused by corruption and the trickle-down effect that leads to the most vulnerable communities suffering the greatest harm leaving the hungry to go without food, the sick to lack adequate care, and our children to forgo the benefits of basic education. This is simply not acceptable and it is preventable.

We must also act swiftly to take preventative measures. One hundred civil societies have written the International Monetary Fund (IMF) urging them to include anti-corruption measures for emergency funding given to governments. We must continue to collectively make these demands and develop systems for accountability and oversight that track how money is being used and put measures in place that require transparency.

Furthermore, we cannot allow corruption to spread from system to system. The same way countries have launched public health campaigns explaining how we must all wash our hands properly and wear masks, there is a need for large scale campaigns against corruption. Similar to how we all have a role to play in preventing the spread of COVID-19, we all have a role to play in preventing the spread of corruption. We have already seen public outcries bringing the attention to the questionable use of funds and in some cases, investigations and orders that individuals return money.

In South Africa, investigations have been launched into possible corruption cases linked to $26.3 billion allocated to the government for relief. In Zimbabwe, the health minister was arrested in related to corruption charges for $20 million and in Kenya, we have seen people take to social media using the hashtag #MoneyHeist to demand an explanation about the use of funds to procure medical supplies. In Uganda, a high court ordered members of parliament pay back $2.6 million they had awarded to themselves individually. This is all very encouraging and must continue at scale.

Procurement laws and processes must be respected even in emergencies. Publishing of awarded contracts on government procurement portals for access to the public must be seen as crucial to gain citizens' trust in the efforts of government. In countries where this has happened, citizens are asking the right questions as we see in Nigeria where citizens are questioning the award of contracts to companies that were not verified by the Bureau of Public Procurement in compliance with the Public Procurement guidelines.

As important as all these measures, we must also put protocols in place for when corruption has occurred. African countries must commit to fighting corruption and improving the coordination of government bodies. Corruption during the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and Sierra Leone accounted for more than $6 million being lost between 2014 and 2016. The amount of aid coming into Africa and the number of countries affected by COVID-19 present potential for an exponentially greater loss. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), approximately 10  25 percent of all money spent on procurement globally is lost to corruption.

The issue is not whether corruption will occur. We should assume that it will. The questions we need to answer are- How will we prevent it and how will we respond when it does occur? Our systems, in both the public and private sectors, were already vulnerable before COVID-19. We must strengthen them, even amidst the health and economic crises African countries are facing. We have a critical opportunity to make progress in the fight against corruption and to mitigate its corrosive impacts on prosperity, growth, security, and the fight against extreme poverty if we stand together.
HOLYOKE  A grassroots network formed in the wake of mass COVID-19 deaths at the Soldiers Home in Holyoke is gaining steam, town by town, to push for a new building and enhanced staff for veterans in long-term care.

The Holyoke Soldiers Home Coalition  a group of former executives, veterans, family members and other supporters  won the official support of three towns in Hampden and Hampshire counties. Ludlow, Southwick and Granby recently passed resolutions at municipal proceedings to support the coalitions efforts.

While the resolutions are largely symbolic, coalition leader John Paradis, onetime deputy superintendent at the Soldiers Home, said they are emblematic of swelling support for the initiative.

This is truly, truly a grass roots initiative. We are calling on our members to tap into their personal relationships in their cities and towns and we expect more to join this movement, because its the right thing to do, Paradis said on Wednesday.

He said the coalition expects similar supportive measures from other cities and towns across the region.

After a coronavirus outbreak tragically blossomed in late March at the Soldiers Home, 76 veterans were killed by the disease, 84 more fell ill, many staff were sickened and the top staff at the facility were ousted from or surrendered their jobs  including Superintendent Bennett Walsh and state Veterans Services Secretary Francisco Urena.

The assessment of the Soldiers Home became far graver after Gov. Charlie Baker commissioned an independent report from Boston attorney Mark Pearlstein, released in late June and portraying a nightmarish landscape at the facility as the disease began to spread.

An attorney for Walsh, who intends to hold a press conference on Thursday, argues many of the representations in the Pearlstein report are baseless and inaccurate.

Paradis says the coalition was not formed to demonize Walsh or any of the ousted staff or state officials.

Were putting together the most solid case we can to make sure the state does right for putting in a long-term care facility that we can we be proud of for generations to come, Paradis said. We just have to let justice and accountability run its course because that is what the families want.
The Coastal Development Authority (CoDA) in collaboration with the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development has presented 300 outboard motors for sale to fishermen in the Central Region.



The subsidised outboard motors were handed over to the fishermen from the nine districts in the region.



The 300 outboard motors were part of a total of 1,300 delivered to the country out of a total of 5,000 outboard motors being procured for the sector.



Additional consignment of the outboard motors was expected to arrive in the country by the end of August for sale to the fishermen.



At a presentation ceremony at Cape Coast, the Chief Executive of CoDA, Jerry Ahmed Shiab, explained that the presentation of outboard motors was part of governments support to the fishermen to enhance their activities.



He stated that a committee with membership from all the fishing communities in the various districts had been constituted to ensure that every fisherman benefitted from the governments intervention.



Mr Shiab said that government was offering the out board motors at a discount, indicating that a 15 horsepower outboard motor, which costs GH13,000 on the market, would be sold at GH5,000.



The government, he said, was implementing programmes to uplift the standards of people in fishing communities in the coastal regions.



Mr Shiab mentioned that 11 landing beaches were being constructed at some fishing communities.



He said CoDA would support governments development agenda.



Mr Shiab said CoDA had established a credit scheme to give financial support to fishermen, traders and commercial drivers.



The Central Regional Minister, Kwamena Duncan, commended CoDA for initiating projects to promote the development of people in coastal communities.



He said that the Akufo-Addo government in the last three- and-half years initiated social intervention as well as infrastructural projects to promote the nations transformation process, stressing that The infrastructural projects so far have been phenomenal.



The current political administration, he said, had worked to ensure adequate supply of pre-mix fuel for fishermen in the fishing communities.



Mr Duncan said the government will not neglect efforts in providing support for fishermen as well as fishing communities.



The Chief Fisherman of Gomoa Fetteh and Central Regional Chairman of the Ghana National Canoe and Fishermen Council, Nana Obrenu Dabum III, on behalf of the fishermen, expressed appreciation to government for the support.



In a related development, the two Council of State members, Obrempong Appiah Nuamah, and Major General Richardson Baiden (Rtd), have presented bulbs to support street light projects in the Metropolitan Municipal and District Assemblies in the region.

Source: The Ghanaian Times









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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 14:50:04|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- If you want to take a trip to Mars, now is the time to go.

Every 26 months, Mars reaches the closest point to Earth in its orbit, and the nearest launch window to the Red Planet is this summer, when launching a spacecraft will use the least amount of fuel.

On Thursday, China launched a Mars probe, aiming to complete orbiting, landing and roving in one mission, marking the first step in its planetary exploration of the solar system.

A Long March-5 rocket, China's largest launch vehicle, carrying the spacecraft with a mass of about 5 tonnes, soared into the sky from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the coast of southern China's island province of Hainan at 12:41 p.m. (0441 GMT) on the day.

This is China's first Mars mission named Tianwen-1. About 36 minutes later, the spacecraft, including an orbiter and a rover, was sent into the Earth-Mars transfer orbit, embarking on an almost seven-month journey to the red planet.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), China and the United States all decided to seize this summer to launch their Mars missions.

On Monday, the UAE successfully launched its 1.5-ton Hope Probe, the Arab world's first Mars orbiter, kicking off the three international missions to the Red Planet this summer.

The Hope Probe, which measures 2.9 meters in length and 2.37 meters in width, was developed at Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center in Dubai, and took off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture in southwestern Japan.

The probe is expected to reach Mars by 2021 to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the UAE.

U.S. Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is slated to launch no earlier than July 30, said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on its official website.

The rover will take off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, and will land on the Red Planet in February 2021, NASA said.

The rover's astrobiology mission will seek signs of past microscopic life on Mars, explore the geology of the Jezero Crater landing site, and demonstrate key technologies to help prepare for future robotic and human exploration, according to NASA.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Roscosmos Space Corporation said in mid-March that the launch of the second ExoMars mission was delayed to 2022.

Japan's Mars mission is scheduled to launch in 2024, said the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

The ESA said the scientific reasons for heading to Mars, the planet that is most similar to Earth in the Solar System, are searching for life, understanding the surface and the evolution of the planet, and preparing for future human exploration. Enditem
HARTFORD  On a day when as many as 2,000 people in seven different groups paraded around the Capitol but couldnt get in, and technical difficulties delayed the House of Representatives for about 90 minutes, lawmakers on Thursday easily approved legislation to allow no-excuse mailed-in ballots for the November election.

But action on a controversial package of Black Lives Matter-related police reforms was still under negotiation deep into the evening, with the legislative microscope on an emotion-provoking section that would shift more civil liability to individual officers found to have committed wanton brutality. While Republicans were unified against the provision, Democrats, who have a 90-61 majority, were split.

Finally, around 11 p.m. Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, prepared to introduce the entire police-reform package, with the controversial immunity provision, which would sink or swim on the reaction from the Democratic majority. The bill, which included a ban against chokeholds, a new inspector general to investigate incidents of police violence, and more oversight, was expected to be debated deep into the night and early morning.

An anticipated amendment to strip out the controversial section was on track to be introduced, and Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz and House Majority Leader Matt Ritter said they werent sure whether it would pass. But they expected emotional responses, particularly from Black lawmakers who are using this moment to attempt major strides against racially fueled encounters with police.

There is a desire on the part of many folks to include it in the bill, Stafstrom said in an interview. He said the latest draft of the bill stresses that police who are sued individually would still be entitled to indemnification and defense by towns and cities unless they are found to engage in willful and wanton misconduct.

That wasnt explicit in the last draft of bill, but thats current law, Stafstrom said. This will hopefully give comfort and educate the public. Weve now incorporated that in the current draft of the bill. Also under the current draft we made clear that if officers acted in good faith, they are required to be indemnified by their towns.

Stafstrom blamed confusion and misinformation about current laws requiring municipalities to pay the price for police misconduct as the reason why some lawmakers had doubts about the bill.

House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, said that if the immunity section remains in the bill in any form, her 61-member caucus would not support it.

This, unfortunately, has become an issue of, if you support police, then you dont support people being treated fairly, Klarides said. If you support people being treated fairly, you dont support police. I think that not only you can support both, you must support both.

People get sued when they are accountable, said Michael Oretade, of the Hartford-based Black Lives Matter 860, while nearby, Hartford and Capitol police were keeping a small group away from confronting the much-larger police group. Thats how it should be. Thats why we have a justice system. Justice.

A few minutes later, Andrew Matthews, a retired state trooper who is now executive director of the Connecticut State Police Union, used a bullhorn to lead about 300 off-duty police massed outside the Capitols south entrance.

Vote Them Out, said the crowd, many of whom did not have face masks and most of whom wore police-themed T-shirts and carried several so-called thin-blue-line flags. They require us to respond to situations that may require deadly force, yet you expect us to defend and protect others with the thick overcast of liability hanging over our heads, Matthews said Thats unfair, Matthews shouted, and his supporters picked up on the chant. Thats unfair.

Mathews predicted that many law enforcement officers will quit or retire if the section of the bill passes.

Municipal officials, whose jobs are also indemnified to handle lawsuits for job-related behaviors, are concerned that the bill would create further costs and result in high local taxes.

The proposed police accountability bill includes a number of significant reforms that COST supports to address issues involving police misconduct to ensure that all individuals are treated equally under the law and with respect and compassion, said Betsy Gara, executive director of the Connecticut Council of Small Towns.

However, eliminating qualified immunity for police officers will expose municipal employers to significant potential liability, dramatically driving up municipal insurance costs, she said.

Several competing and overlapping rallies lasted throughout much of the day, including Black Lives Matter, unionized health care union workers, the American Civil Liberties Union, school teachers and Republican-backed opponents of election fraud.

State Capitol Police reported that by about 10:30, the total crowd peaked at about 1,500 people.

In the Capitol building, by 12:23 p.m., the technical glitches seemed to have been overcome, and debate began on a telehealth bill that would expand and require insurers to cover virtual visits, which have become commonplace in the coronavirus pandemic. It passed in a unanimous 145-0 vote less than an hour later.

By 1:20, debate began on legislation to provide for absentee ballots for the November elector for any voters who fear that going to the polls could affect their health in the pandemic. Two hours later, debate continued as Republicans unsuccessfully attempted to prevent plans by the Secretary of the State to send absentee ballot applications to every registered voter.

Then there was a delay of about 90 minutes when there was a massive failure of the House audio system, but a final vote on the voting measures took place at about 6:30. The bill finally passed 144-2, with dissent limited to two Bristol lawmakers who said their local officials would have a hard time handling a mountain of absentee ballots.

Outgoing Minority Leader Klarides used her summing-up speech on the voting legislation to potentially launch a bid for the 2022 governors race, stressing the need for lawmakers to address other issues beyond the narrow focus of the one-day special session focused on coronavirus and Black Lives Matter issue that will send bills to the Senate for action next week.

We have over 700,000 people that have filed unemployment, she said. We have businesses that have closed that havent opened again and will never open again. We have businesses that have opened and may not last. We have people out of work. We have lost family members. We have lost friends. I am proud of what he have done as a state.

She agreed that Lamonts executive orders in the pandemic have been necessary and helpful.

But what concerns me is the inconsistency in regards to that, she said, moving to the days business. These bills were chosen, but why wasnt other bills chosen that also could have helped 3.5 million people in this state? She criticized the recent contractual raise of $300 million for unionized state employees.

We have a financial crisis in this state now, she said, pointing at Lamont and the Democratic majority. If the governor was not willing to do it, this legislature should have been willing to do it.

This set off Majority Leader Ritter.

I dont know of anything that surpasses in my mind how important it is to be allowed to vote in this country, Ritter. Generally speaking, all the things we talk about that you could have added to the special session, flow from having elections and sending people up here. So the 151 people who sit here cant vote on any bill if they arent elected. Having fair, safe elections, to me, is the cornerstone of our democracy.

He said next year Democrats will focus on approving a constitutional amendment for universal mail-in balloting. In the many executive orders during the pandemic, Lamont allowed mail-in voting for the August 11 primaries. Under usual state law, absentee ballots are limited to people who are sick, or out of town working, in the military, or have religious conflicts.

This obsession over the COVID-19 changes, Im just confused, Ritter said, reviewing failed GOP amendments that would have prevented the secretary of the state from mailing out ballot applications. You can go online and download an application and print it. You can go to town hall and sign out applications and give them to your friends and neighbors. Theyre mailing applications, theyre not mailing ballots.

Around 6:30, debate began on a bill to cap insulin costs at $25 a month. Ninety minutes later it passed 142-4.

Then the House recessed for caucusing the final version of the police legislation.

kdixon@ctpost.com Twitter: @KenDixonCT
India and the US need to think "bigger" while attempting to resolve the pending trade issues, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday, while delving into various key facets of the fast expanding ties between the two countries. In an interactive session at an annual summit of the US-India Business Council, Jaishankar pitched for deeper collaboration between the two countries in the areas of innovation and technology.

On the trade issue, he said: "I understand the centrality of the economic relations....These are bread and butter issues. These are really what make countries deal with each other. But I think, between India and the US, while we work through trade issues, we need to think bigger."

India and the US have been engaged in talks to iron out differences over a set of tariff related issues. "My sense is that it is in our mutual interest. We need to resolve these pending problems and move onto something bigger. I think there is a lot of interest here in doing that," he said.

Mentioning about the strength of the Indo-US ties, he said there will be issues on which "our convergence will be more, somewhere it will be less. I think the quest in the last 20 years, and I see that continuing into the future, is really to find more common ground." Talking about changing geopolitics, he said the US really will require to learn to work with a more multipolar world with a more plurilateral arrangement and will require to go beyond the alliances with which it has really grown up over the last two generations.

The external affairs minister said there is a much "bigger connect" between the two countries beyond trade, which he identified as "knowledge innovation connect" "I think beyond the exchange of goods and creating a better investment climate for each other, this ability to work together in the world of innovation and technology, I think, that is really what will set our relationship apart," said the minister.

Explaining about the importance of innovation and technology, he said it is vital that both the countries have a very strong convergence on the "big picture".

"When we see the world, the landscape looks similar to us, aspirations look more shared. I think definitely in all of these, values do matter. Because at the end of the day, when you work on technology, on innovation and knowledge, trust and confidence are very very important factors," he added.

On the overall ties, the external affairs minister said both countries have the ability today to shape the world by working together. We are working on maritime security, counter-terrorism, connectivity, how to respond in the case of coronavirus pandemic, even on issues like climate change, the knowledge economy," he said.

Speaking at the session, Senator Mark Warner talked about the need to form a core coalition called "Alliance of the Willing" to confront China's dominance on use of technology including 5G. On pressing trade issues, Jaishankar said it will be fair to accommodate "legitimate concerns of emerging economies, emerging companies and emerging technologies".

Also read: India Ideas Summit: US maintains 'tremendous cooperation' with India on Chinese aggression, says Ken Juster
A judge today has ordered the unsealing of a vast tranche of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, which could shed light on his friendship with powerful men accused of having sex with his victims.

Judge Loretta Preska said that 80 documents - which will run to hundreds of pages - should be made public within a week.

The documents will include depositions from Ghislaine Maxwell, which could explain her alleged role in Epsteins sex trafficking operation.

They could include details about Maxwells sex life that her lawyers have previously tried to stop from being released, relating to a seven-hour, 418-page deposition Maxwell gave which her legal team said was extremely personal, confidential.

In filings Maxwells lawyers have called the depositions a series of (efforts) to compel Maxwell to answer intrusive questions about her sex life'.

The documents will also include communications between Maxwell and Epstein from January 2015 when Virginia Roberts made explosive allegations about them in court papers.

In the papers Roberts claimed she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew three times when she was just 17 at Epsteins command.

The case is separate from the criminal proceedings against Maxwell, 58, who is accused by federal prosecutors of procuring girls as young as 14 for Epstein to abuse. She has pleaded not guilty and is due to stand trial next year.

A judge today has ordered the unsealing of a vast tranche of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein , which could shed light on his friendship with powerful men accused of having sex with his victims. The documents will include depositions from Ghislaine Maxwell , which could explain her alleged role in Epsteins sex trafficking operation

They include flight logs from Epstein's jets, a deposition in 2016 in which Maxwell's lawyers said she was asked 'intrusive' questions about her sex life. The documents also include police reports from Palm Beach, Florida, where Epstein had a home

Although the case is separate from Maxwell's criminal case, one of the unsealed deposition documents is linked to her perjury charge.

The case ruled on Thursday was originally brought by Roberts, now a 36-year-old mother-of-three who lives in Australia and goes by her married name Virginia Giuffre.

She sued Maxwell in 2015 for defamation because Maxwell accused her of lying.

Roberts said in court filings that Maxwell recruited her and other girls into a sex trafficking ring for politically connected and financially powerful people.

The case was settled in 2017 for an undisclosed sum but media organizations sued for documents in the case to be made public.

Judge Loretta Preska said that 80 documents - which will run to hundreds of pages - should be made public within a week

During the hearing at Manhattans federal court, Judge Preska said Maxwells right to privacy was outweighed by the need for the documents to become public.

She went through the dozens of documents, which included Giuffre's depositions and various dull-sounding legal papers.

The contents however could be explosive and may contain fresh evidence against the wealthy elite who socialized with Epstein.

After the ruling Maxwells lawyer Laura Menninger asked for a two week delay in the unsealing so they could file an appeal in the Second Circuit in New York.

Menninger said: There have been some significant changes with respect to my clients positions and perhaps known to everyone listening to this, while we were speaking about a potential ongoing criminal investigation (before), since that time Miss Maxwell has been indicted and a trial has been scheduled.

Now we are in a vastly different position and have grave concerns about our clients ability to receive a fair trial given the intense media scrutiny around anything that is unsealed.

Giuffres lawyer Sigrid McCawley said she wanted the documents made public as swiftly as possible.

Judge Preska said if the Second Circuit had not ruled within a week then the files should be made public.

The case ruled on Thursday was originally brought by Roberts, now a 36-year-old mother of three who lives in Australia and goes by her married name Virginia Giuffre (pictured). She sued Maxwell in 2015 for defamation because Maxwell accused her of lying. Roberts said in court filings that Maxwell recruited her and other girls into a sex trafficking ring for politically connected and financially powerful people

The documents will also include communications between Maxwell and Epstein from January 2015 when Virginia Roberts made explosive allegations about them in court papers. In the papers Roberts claimed that she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew (pictured together) three times when she was 17 at Epsteins command

The lawsuit to release the documents was originally filed by the Miami Herald and their reporter Julie Brown, whose series on Epstein called Perversion of Justice in 2018 put renewed focus on the case and led to his arrest last July.

As a result there are thousands of pages of documents which are being released on a rolling basis.

Each time a persons name comes up they are notified and given the chance to make objections to their name becoming public.

There were two John Does in this latest batch but they did not make any complaints when approached to make any comments, according to court filings.

The Second Circuit had already ordered 2,000 pages of documents to be made public and they were released last August, the day before Epstein killed himself.

The documents included the unpublished manuscript of a memoir from Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts which detailed her years of abuse by him.

There were depositions from Epsteins pilots, his former associates and flight logs showing him traveling the globe with his victims and famous people such as Bill Clinton.

Among those who have taken an interest in the defamation case are lawyers for a John Doe who appears to be somebody who will be featured in the documents.

His identity is unclear but the powerful men who have been accused of involvement with Epstein include former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barack.

On the same day Maxwell was dealt another blow when the judge overseeing her criminal case refused her request to gag the FBI, prosecutors and victims' lawyers.

Judge Alison Nathan said Maxwell could still get a fair trial but warned she would not hesitate to take appropriate action if anyone stepped out of line.

Maxwell's lawyers had claimed that comments by the prosecutors and victims' lawyers meant that a jury could be prejudiced against her.

On the same day Maxwell was dealt another blow when the judge overseeing her criminal case refused her request to gag the FBI, prosecutors and victims' lawyers. Judge Alison Nathan said Maxwell could still get a fair trial but warned she would not hesitate to take appropriate action if anyone stepped out of line

Pagliuca complained about FBI Special Agent William Sweeney calling Maxwell a 'villain' who has 'slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire' (pictured)

Attorneys for Jeffrey Epstein's alleged madam objected to the FBI referring to her as a 'slithering snake' at a press conference announcing her arrest on July 2.

The letter from Maxwell's lawyers, which was filed on Tuesday, said: 'We write to request that the Court enter an order prohibiting the Government, its agents and counsel for witnesses from making extrajudicial statements concerning this case.

'Although Ms. Maxwell is presumed innocent, the Government, its agents, witnesses and their lawyers have made, and continue to make, statements prejudicial to a fair trial.

'A defendant must be judged by a jury of her peers based on evidence presented at trial, not in the media'.

Maxwell's lawyer, Jeff Pagliuca, outlined seven wide-ranging categories which prosecutors, the FBI and victims' lawyers should be banned from talking about.

This included 'the character or reputation of the accused' and 'any opinion as to the accused's guilt or innocence or as to the merits of the case or the evidence in the case'.

Pagliuca said he had been forced to act after the inappropriate handling of the case, starting with the raid at Maxwell's $1 million home in New Hampshire on July 2nd.

He complained she was apprehended 'without notice', even though her lawyers were in regular contact with prosecutors.

Pagliuca wrote: 'Because plain vanilla surrenders lack the fanfare and attendant media coverage afforded to secret, armed, raids at dawn, the Government chose to invade Ms. Maxwell's New Hampshire residence, arrest her, and stage a media presentation that included numerous statements that prejudice Ms. Maxwell's right to a fair trial'.

The letter strongly objected to comments by Audrey Strauss, the top federal prosecutor overseeing her case, that Maxwell lied because the truth was almost unspeakable'.

Pagliuca complained about FBI Special Agent William Sweeney calling Maxwell a 'villain' who has 'slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire'.

The letter said: 'Thus, Mr. Sweeney offers the Government's, again flatly wrong, opinions about character and guilt while, at the same time, invoking a semi-biblical reference involving a snake slithering away to a garden in New Hampshire'.
Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Photo by Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

Russia conducted a space-based anti-satellite test last week, US Space Command said in a statement Thursday.

A Russian satellite caught shadowing a US spy satellite earlier this year released some sort of projectile into space, in a move mimicking a suspected anti-satellite weapons test in 2017, Space Command said.

As the US relies on satellites for everything from GPS navigation to communication and data relays for military operations, it has argued that it must pay greater attention to what is becoming a contested domain.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

US Space Command said on Thursday that it had evidence that Russia tested a space-based anti-satellite weapon last week, adding that Cosmos 2543, a Russian satellite caught tailing a US spy satellite earlier this year, released some sort of projectile into orbit.

"The Russian satellite system used to conduct this on-orbit weapons test is the same satellite system that we raised concerns about earlier this year, when Russia maneuvered near a US government satellite," Gen. John Raymond, the commander of Space Command, said in a statement.

Raymond said in February that a pair of Russian satellites, Cosmos 2542 and 2543, were found shadowing a US spy satellite called USA 245, also known as KH-11. "We view this behavior as unusual and disturbing," he told Time magazine.

"It has the potential to create a dangerous situation in space," he said, adding that the US had expressed its concerns to the Russians.

The Russian satellites raised a few eyebrows shortly after their launch last year. What had at first appeared to be one satellite suddenly split in two, with one emerging from inside the other. Now, additional objects are being released into orbit.

Video: How social distancing during the pandemic looks from a satellite

"The way I picture it, in my mind, is like Russian nesting dolls," Raymond told Time in February.

In the statement on Thursday, Space Command said the Russian anti-satellite test appeared similar to a troubling 2017 test, which the Pentagon discussed during its presentation of the new Defense Space Strategy in June.

Story continues

In that test, the Russians launched a satellite, as they had done before. But then out of that satellite, "a smaller satellite was birthed," and then "a projectile was launched" from it, Stephen Kitay, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, told reporters at the Pentagon.

Russia said the third object was an inspector satellite, but the State Department found that "the behavior of that satellite looked nothing like an inspector satellite and looked like something much more concerning," Kitay said.

The new Defense Space Strategy identified Russia and China as "the most immediate and serious threats to US space operations."

In mid-April, Space Command said Russia conducted a direct-ascent anti-satellite missile test, describing it as another example that "the threats to US and allied space systems are real, serious and growing."

As the US relies on satellites for everything from GPS navigation to overseas military operations, it has used the militarization of space by adversaries as justification for increased US military activity in space and the creation of the US Space Force, the first military service branch created since the establishment of the Air Force in 1947.

Kitay told reporters in June that because China and Russia were "actively developing capabilities to negate US allied and partnered space systems, we are left with no choice but to ensure we are prepared with the necessary means to protect and defend ourselves from attacks to our systems."

"I wish I could say that space was a sea of tranquility and a sanctuary from attack. But the fact of the matter is, space is contested," Kitay said. "Outer space has emerged as a key arena of potential conflict in an era of great power competition."

Read the original article on Business Insider
The Federal Government on Thursday declared that the much talked about Madagascar COVID-19 herb syrup did not show any evidence that it had real curative properties against COVID-19.

The Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, made the disclosure in Abuja at the 52nd Joint National Briefing of the Presidential Task Force (PTF), on COVID-19.

According to him, the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD), has shared its final report on the evaluation of the COVID Organics from Madagascar.

He said the initial report showed that its main ingredient is the same as Artemisia annua.

While the preparation at high dose showed activity in reducing the frequency of cough, it did not show any evidence that it has real curative properties against COVID-19.

However, we shall continue to support all genuine efforts toward finding local COVID-19 cures, Mr Ehanire said.

The minister also said the COVID-19 cases recorded daily over the past weeks now fluctuate within the 500 to 700 bracket, with 543 new cases in the past 24 hours.

Accordingly, the nations confirmed total number in Nigeria so far is 38,344, of which 15,815 were successfully treated and discharged.

We have regrettably recorded 813 fatalities, mostly with co-morbidities and tested a total of 247,825 persons in all.

We can rightly assume from the exponentially increasing numbers that the pool of potentially infectious persons in the community is rising.

And with that, the risk of infection for citizens at all levels of society, since a very significant number of persons testing positive is not in observation or treatment, the minister said.

He, however, commended persons of influence in society, who tested positive for COVID-19 and came out publicly to declare it and entrust themselves to prescribed treatment.

He noted that those concerned did the nation a lot of good by showing that there was no shame and nothing to hide about COVID-19, and they also contributed immensely to building confidence in the health system.

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While commending the nations health care providers for their efforts, the minister said that in spite of this, the focus was still on prevention, being better and cheaper than cure.

Mr Ehanire said the Federal Ministry of Health through the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), now had 59 molecular diagnostic laboratories for COVID-19 tests activated.

He added that with a little improvement in logistics, lack of availability of testing capacity should not be a tenable excuse any more.

He also disclosed that all states of the federation, including the FCT , were receiving support from the COVID-19 response through the Regional Diseases Surveillance Enhancement (REDISSE), Project.

With this support, all states of the federation will receive N100m to enhance high impact priority response activities. The soon-to-be-reactivated BHCPF will join the funding pool, Mr Ehanire said.

The minister said that July 21 was the reporting day of the Ministerial Expert Advisory Committee on COVID-19, when the leadership of the Ministry of Healths Agencies and Departments received the second report from the Chairman, Oyewale Tomori.

According to him, its findings are highly instructive and will be shared with agencies, the PTF and stakeholders.

Speaking on the Eid-el-Kabir Sallah celebration, Mr Ehanire urged Muslims and Nigerians not to forget the precautions that had been prescribed, so as to reduce the risks of COVID-19 transmission.

He said: All over the world, mass gatherings have been linked with the mass infections and casualties in other countries, which we see in the media each day, and which we are trying to avoid, in order not to overwhelm the capacity of our health system.

Since the risk of crowding cannot be ruled out in places of worship and pose a serious hazard for COVID-19 transmission, it is very wise that persons over 60 years, the obese and those in treatment for hypertension, diabetes, cancer, HIV, among others, or have had a transplant, should stay at home, pray at home.

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I also strongly advise that travel be avoided in this period, except for a critical reason.

Speaking on some of the seemingly confused symptoms of COVID-19, the minister said that although COVID-19 could present with symptoms like fever, similar to malaria, it is not malaria.

Symptoms like cough, sore throat, fever, loss of sense of taste or smell, difficulty in breathing, headache, and less commonly, diarrhoea, body pain, catarrh, shivering, fatigue, especially when several symptoms occur together, are suggestive of COVID-19.

 A test is required, the health minister advised.(NAN)
President Donald Trump attacked Rep. Liz Cheney, the highest-ranking Republican woman in the U.S. House, saying Thursday she is "upset" because he is trying to end overseas wars.

Cheney is the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney, a major proponent of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has broken with the president on foreign policy.

Trump decided to join with conservatives in the House, who accused Liz Cheney earlier this week of being disloyal to the president.

He later retweeted a post from Sen. Rand Paul that also was critical of Cheney. Paul's post shared a tweet from Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, a close ally of Trump, that called on Cheney to step down as head of the House Republican Conference, the third-ranking GOP leadership spot.

The president also retweeted conservative pundit Mollie Hemingway, who said some on the right were "extremely disappointed" in how she expressed concern about media reports that Russia offered bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Cheney questioned whether Trump was briefed on the bounty reports, and has generally called for a more aggressive posture toward Russia.

The intra-party fight erupted Tuesday during a closed-door meeting of lawmakers at the Capitol, but spilled out into the open after Trump's eldest son, Donald Jr., went after Cheney on Twitter.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy came to Cheney's defense later Tuesday, saying her fellow Republicans are "honored to have her as conference chair."

Cheney downplayed the conflict, saying, "Freedom of speech is the right for all of us to have this kind of healthy debate and exchange." The Wyoming Republican has regularly supported Trump's agenda in Congress and vocally defended the president during impeachment.

The internal divisions among Republicans come just months before the November elections and as lawmakers are debating another coronavirus-related stimulus package.
Ghanas debt stock has ballooned to GHS255.7 billion, as of June 2020.

Some GHS50 billion has been added to the debt stock in the last 12 months.

Provisional figures from the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, indicated that the current debt stock is 66.36 percent of GDP.

The increase was mainly as a result of a Eurobond issuance of US$3.0 billion in February 2020, exchange rate depreciation, frontloading of expenditures and the COVID-19 effect which increased the cedi equivalent of the outstanding debt stock, Mr. Ofori-Atta explained during the mid-year budget review.

The total debt stock was made up of GHS134.8 billion of external debt and GHS120.8 billion domestic debt.

These accounted for 52.7 percent and 47.3 percent of the total public debt stock, respectively.

As a percentage of GDP, external and domestic debt represented 35 percent and 31.36 percent, respectively.

In the first quarter of 2020, Ghana added GHS16.9 billion to its debt stock, taking it to GHS 236.1 billion.

This means Ghana added almost GHS20 billion to its debt stock in the subsequent three months, which coincided with the harshest periods of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The debt figures have been a point of attack for the opposition National Democratic Congress.

It claims the Akufo-Addo administration has been adding over GHS 3 billion monthly to Ghana's public debt stock over the last three years.

Former Finance Minister Seth Terkper also used to argue that Ghana's total debt stock published by the Bank of Ghana was downplayed and not reflecting the true debt of the country .

 citinewsroom
Whoever said the Cold War ended? That war of sorts, dismissed too rapidly as almost historical now, was of course led by the US, together with its Western European allies against communism of the Soviet kind. Those cold clouds have begun to gather again over recent months and weeks, and they now loom heavily over London, doubly layered; they look both Chinese and Russian. A report by MPs just published in London shows heavy KGB penetration of Britain over years now, and a new front opens wider by the day against China.

That neither Chinese communism today, nor Russian, is what it was through the Cold War does alter the temperature of this new one. And it changes the feel of the front; the enemy has more money. China certainly and Russia in its way bring more money west than they ever could earlier, or be conceived of earlier as doing.

Britain has emerged as a laundromat for corrupt oligarch money in Britain, the MPs report published this week says. We didnt need an MPs report to tell us that. Some of the grandest property in and around London has been bought over recent years by oligarchs; any of the big estate agents can tell you that. Many who live in the most exclusive neighbourhoods in Britain will. Britain is not particular about attracting only oligarch money, though. Crooked money from around the world comes to Britain, and those who made it, come with it. It comes because its welcomed.

The welcome is official. A couple of million pounds, small change by oligarch standards, that is invested, not even paid  and anyone can fly in to live in Britain as resident and soon enough as citizen. Money from offshore accounts is accepted, with no or few questions asked. Its politely called an investor visa. The gates have opened widely to the enemy.

Few around the world have been buying property in London as busily as the Chinese and the Russians - the British can almost not afford central London any more. Nobody needs a report to point this out, you can see that on the streets of the swankest areas of central London. It speaks of a duality, not for the first time: Britain is entering into a new cold war of sorts with both China and Russia, while taking in billions from both Russians and Chinese. The British are looking for ways to be cold to Russian and Chinese policies but warm to their money.

The British have long been rather good at this sort of thing. Britain has said no to Huawei, it says all the correctly liberal things about Hong Kong. But its a long way from saying no to money that comes in from the Chinese or the Russians, and no most promisingly, to citizens from Hong Kong. Now that the economy has taken a pounding, Britain needs pounds from somewhere, anywhere, more than ever.

Injecting Armour

The Oxford vaccine as its come to be called has taken us the nearest weve been to that dream through difficult months: one jab and your armour is in place against coronavirus. But consider what we know  and what we dont. Were not there yet, we dont in fact have this Oxford vaccine, only the promise of one through early and limited trials.

So far so good, the results are an important milestone, Prof. Andrew Pollard, Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group told CNN-News18. The type of responses we are seeing are exactly the sort we were hoping for. The early tests demonstrate a promising immune response to the vaccine.

We see strong neutralising antibodies, these are antibodies that bind to the virus and neutralise it so it cant infect cells, and secondly we can see white blood cells being produced by the vaccine that destroy cells that have already got infected, Prof. Pollard said. We hope that will lead to protection as we carry forward.

That is hope enough for Adar Poonawalla, CEO of The Serum Institute in India, to be speaking already of production of doses in millions this year, and eventually a billion for India.

But were as yet at the stage of hope, not of delivery, and well short of any guarantee of protection through development of this vaccine. There are no guarantees, British PM Boris Johnson said. He called the early results an important step in the right direction. Health secretary Matt Hancock pointed out that the UK government has already ordered 100 million doses should it succeed.

And what could success be? Protection ideally, but wed all need an overdose of optimism to believe that we could have access to a fully protective vaccine by the end of the year. The next and bigger phase of trials is seeking to answer some difficult questions: how long this vaccine could offer protection for, whether it would offer limited protection or only reduce the severity of symptoms, and whether it can work with older people, not the younger lot its been tested on so far. And what if or when the virus mutates, as the flu virus does, that makes flu vaccines limited at best.

Plans for production are proceeding. Head of the UK government taskforce on Covid Kate Bingham pointed out on Wednesday that manufacturing of the vaccine was a risk because it was not certain what the final outcome will be, and whether this vaccine would get regulatory approval. Its a risk everyone seems happy at the moment to take.
A group of major Tabcorp investors combined forces to demand a change of leadership at the $7 billion wagering giant in the weeks leading up to Thursday's announcement that both its chief executive and chairman will depart within the next 12 months.

Shareholders welcomed the shock announcement that Tabcorp's long-standing chief executive David Attenborough will retire in the first half of 2021 and that chairman Paula Dwyer will step down at the end of December, sending the stock as much as 7 per cent higher in early trade.

Tabcorp chief executive David Attenborough and chairman Paula Dwyer (pictured at the Victoria Derby Day at Flemington Racecourse in 2015) will both depart the company within the next 12 months. Credit:Jesse Marlow

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald can reveal that brewing investor disquiet came to a head earlier this month when a group of influential shareholders sent a co-signed letter to Tabcorp's board expressing disappointment over the company's leadership and performance.

The letter called for both Mr Attenborough and Ms Dwyer's departure, according to multiple sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential matters.
EP Global Opportunities Trust plc (the "Company")

Total Voting Rights

As a result of the purchase of 25,000 Ordinary 1p shares placed into Treasury on 22 July 2020 and in conformity with Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rule 5.6.1A, the issued share capital and voting rights of the Company are as follows:

Class of share Total number of shares in circulation Number of voting rights attached to each share Total number of voting rights of shares in circulation Number of shares held in treasury (carrying no voting rights attached until issued) Total number of shares in issue Ordinary 1p Shares 39,712,725 1 39,712,725 24,796,917 64,509,642

The above total voting rights figure may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine whether they are required to notify their interest in EP Global Opportunities Trust plc under the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.

23 July 2020

LEI: 2138005T5CT5ITZ7ZX58

Enquiries:

Kenneth Greig

Edinburgh Partners AIFM Limited

Tel: 0131 270 3800

The Company's registered office address is:

27-31 Melville Street

Edinburgh

EH3 7JF
A bipartisan proposal to grant Hongkongers political asylum in the US was left out of a national defence bill that cleared the US House of Representatives on Tuesday, a setback but not necessarily a final defeat for the plan's supporters amid rapidly worsening tensions with China.

The legislation, led by New Jersey Representative Tom Malinowski, a Democrat, and Utah Representative John Curtis, a Republican, would have given Hongkongers fleeing the city's controversial national security law the right to seek refuge in the United States.

"Offering prospective refuge to those who have contributed the most to Hong Kong's success would signal to the Chinese Communist Party that repression in Hong Kong would result in losing its immense wealth and talent to the United States," the legislative text says.

It was one of many proposals targeting China considered for this year's defence bill.

Both parties in Washington are now essentially united in their view that Beijing is not to be trusted, though they may differ in their ideas on what the US should do about it.

The Hong Kong asylum idea has bipartisan support in both the US House and Senate. The Senate's version of the plan was introduced by Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida.

But observers say this particular proposal may be harder to pass than others regarding China. The reason: it also touches on the highly contentious question of immigration, one of the most polarising issues in Washington.

President Trump and his allies in Congress have sought to restrict the flow of immigration into America throughout his presidency, including refugees and asylum seekers.

Congressional aides said there may yet be another attempt to pass the proposal into law this year, though it is unclear if it would ultimately succeed.

Samuel Chu, a US-based political organiser who has been involved in securing lawmakers' support for various pieces of Hong Kong legislation, said there will likely be some tweaks made to the plan to make it more palatable to members of Congress, noting that immigration was a "complex subject" for lawmakers.

Story continues

"HKDC and I want to do this right," said Chu, the managing director of the nonprofit Hong Kong Democracy Council.

"We really need to protect Hongkongers while trying to punish the CCP," he said. "We need a comprehensive bill, because if not, US action would disproportionately harm Hongkongers."

Last week, a group of retired American diplomats, including nine former US consuls general to Hong Kong " among them, Kurt Tong and Clifford Hart Jnr, the two most recent US envoys to the city " urged Congress to grant Hongkongers seeking political asylum safe harbour in the United States.

The House proposal, if it does eventually become law, would grant two types of immigration protection to Hongkongers escaping the city.

One, known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS), would allow Hong Kong residents currently in the US to stay in the country.

The other, known as Priority 2 (P-2) refugee status, would be granted to Hong Kong's civil society leaders, protest organisers, first aid workers who responded to the protests, journalists injured at the protests, and lawyers who provided legal services to anyone arrested at the protests.

This status has also been used to protect religious minority groups in parts of Europe, Iraqis who work for the United States, and religious minority groups in Iran.

Additional reporting by Owen Churchill

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.
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DETROIT, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- One of America's most recognizable and storied parades has a new partner. Today, The Parade Company announced Gardner-White, Detroit's new #1 furniture and mattress store, as the new presenting sponsor of America's Thanksgiving Parade. Nearing a century of tradition in Detroit and broadcast in more than 185 television markets across the country, the new official name of the event is America's Thanksgiving Parade presented by Gardner-White. The event in its 94th year is produced by The Parade Company and WDIV Local 4 is the exclusive and longtime television partner. Images are available here.

"We are elated to welcome Gardner-White to The Parade Company family and are incredibly grateful to have a partner whose commitment signifies an exciting future for America's Thanksgiving Parade presented by Gardner-White," said Tony Michaels, President and CEO of The Parade Company.

The Gardner-White presenting sponsorship represents a three-year partnership with The Parade Company, and this is the first time the Michigan-based and family-owned furniture retailer has been a part of the Parade.

"As Michigan's top furniture store, it is our responsibility to do more than march in the parade; we need to take the baton and lead," said Gardner-White President Rachel Stewart. "As a family-owned business in Michigan for over 100 years, we are humbled to be a part of this treasured event that brings joy to generations of Gardner-White customers, employees and parade-lovers everywhere."

Family-owned and operated for 108 years, Gardner-White has been a staple in metro Detroit. Irwin Kahn became the second-generation owner in the mid-1950s. Irwin's daughter Barb Tronstein and son-in-law Steve are the third-generation owners and are still very active in the day-to-day operations of Gardner-White. Their daughter Rachel Stewart is now positioned to lead the organization into the future.

America's Thanksgiving Parade presented by Gardner-White is recognized as the Best Holiday Parade by USA Today, two years running, 2018 and 2019.

America's Thanksgiving Parade presented by Gardner-White is featured annually on WDIV Local 4, including a one-hour syndicated national broadcast reaching more than 185 television markets across the country. News/Talk 760 WJR's Paul W. Smith and Entercom's WOMC 104.3 also broadcast parade shows. Detail of this year's parade will be announced in the coming months. For more information, visit theparade.org.

About The Parade Company

Founded in 1984, The Parade Company is a not-for-profit organization governed by the Michigan Thanksgiving Parade Foundation whose board of directors is comprised of key civic and corporate leaders in the greater Detroit region. The Parade Company is celebrating more than 90 years of Parade tradition in Detroit and is committed to funding, creating and executing the best family events in Michigan. The Parade Company staff, board of directors and thousands of parade volunteers work year-round to bring a wide variety of magnificent events to the City of Detroit and the region including the Ford Fireworks, Strategic Staffing Solutions Turkey Trot, and America's Thanksgiving Parade presented by Gardner-White. Follow The Parade Company on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

About Gardner-White

Gardner-White is Detroit's new #1 furniture and mattress store. A metro Detroit staple since 1912, Gardner-White is committed to providing the amazing furniture and mattresses to consumers for the best value. Gardner-White has always been a leader and innovator in the industry  having been the first to introduce new products and services to consumers throughout its history. Gardner-White has deep and longstanding partnerships to improve the southeast Michigan community with organizations like the American Red Cross, Lighthouse, and the Salvation Army. Gardner-White is family-owned and operated and Michigan-based. For more information, or to start a career at Gardner-White, visit www.gardner-white.com.

SOURCE The Parade Company
Iran Urges Iraq to 'Vigorously Pursue' Justice in Soleimani Assassination Case

Sputnik News

14:05 GMT 22.07.2020

Iranian authorities have already issued an arrest warrant against US President Donald Trump and three dozen other alleged conspirators in the plot to kill senior Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani. Interpol has said it would refuse a red notice request for Trump, citing the case's "political" nature.

Iraq should join Iran in pursuing justice following the assassination of commander Soleimani and Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces deputy leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, as their assassination on Iraqi soil by the US constitutes a violation of Iraq's sovereignty, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf has said.

"The United States violated Iraqi territory and impudently assassinated those who risked their lives to crush the bones of terrorism. This is not a simple issue. The American assassination is a major case that must be pursued vigorously," Qalibaf said, speaking to Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in Tehran on Wednesday.

According to Qalibaf, the assassinations of Soleimani and al-Muhandis, "on the direct order of President Trump, is a stain of shame that will never be erased from the faces of White House officials."

"We believe that the region will not achieve stability as long as foreign forces are present in the region," the parliament speaker added, referring to the Iraqi parliamentary initiative to remove US forces from Iraqi soil following the US drone strike at Baghdad's international airport which killed Soleimani and the senior Iraqi Shia commander.

Al-Kadhimi was said to have thanked Iran for its assistance in the campaign to crush Daesh (ISIS)*, and promised that Iraq would not allow for its territory to be used in a way that threatens Tehran.

The Iraqi prime minister arrived in Iran on Tuesday for talks with senior Iranian officials, with Iran becoming his first international trip since he took office in May. Along with the Soleimani assassination and the US presence in Iraq, al-Kadhimi and Qalibaf discussed political and economic ties, the coronavirus situation, and other issues. During his trip, al-Kadhimi also spoke to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Rouhani called the visit a symbolic "turning point" in Iran-Iraq ties.

In his remarks Wednesday, Qalibaf similarly recalled the significance of warming relations. "Iraq is important for every single Iranian; however, the two countries had a special time during the rule of the criminal Saddam [Hussein] in Iraq," the official said. "But in recent years, Iraq has hosted millions of Iranians during Arbaeen rallies and ceremonies and Iran has hosted millions of Iraqi pilgrims in Mashhad and Qom. The political, economic and cultural relations between the two neighbouring countries are being deepened at the highest levels," he stressed.

Baghdad and Tehran have enjoyed warming ties in recent years amid the common war against Daesh. Before that, the two nations faced decades of poor relations following the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which was followed shortly thereafter by the Iraqi invasion of Iran and a brutal eight year war which claimed the lives of as many as 1.2 million soldiers and civilians.

Over Half a Year Later, Soleimani's Killing Continues to Resonate

Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards Quds Force extraterritorial military formation, played a key role in Iran's contribution to the war against Daesh in Iraq and Syria between 2014-2017, and Syria's war against Islamist militants, including the local branch of al-Qaeda* before that. His assassination in a US drone strike on January 3, 2020 led to a sharp escalation of tensions between Iran and the US, and caused retaliatory missile strikes on two Iraqi bases hosting US troops on January 8. Iraqi authorities were warned of the strikes ahead of time, allowing them to warn US forces of the impending attack. Nevertheless, over 100 US servicemen and women suffered traumatic brain injuries in the attacks.

Late last month, Iranian authorities approved issuing an arrest warrant against Trump and other US and foreign officials thought to be involved in the planning of Soleimani's assassination. Interpol has indicated that it would reject an international red notice request from Iran on the matter.

Earlier this month, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Agnes Callamard concluded that Soleimani's assassination was unlawful, and "directed not only at Iran but also Iraq" because it violated the nation's territorial integrity.

* Terrorist groups outlawed in Russia and many other countries.

A Sputnik

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With Warren County Prosecutor James Pfeiffer looking on, police in tactical gear took a Phillipsburg man into custody on allegations he sexually assaulted a child and engaged in sexual conduct with a second victim.

Paul F. Handibode, 42, was arrested Tuesday night at home in the 100 block of Mercer Street by Phillipsburg police and members of the Warren County Tactical Response Team.

Charges against Handibode include first-degree aggravated sexual assault (victim less than 13 years old), which carries a potential penalty of life in New Jersey State Prison upon conviction under the state's Jessica Lunsford Act. Jessica was a 9-year-old girl abducted, raped and murdered in 2005 by a convicted sex offender in Florida.

According to a news release from Pfeiffer on Handibode's arrest:

"The complaint alleges that the defendant committed an act of sexual penetration upon a child, when said child was under 13 years old and committed an attempted act of sexual penetration upon the same victim. The complaint also alleges that the defendant endangered the welfare of a child by engaging in sexual contact with a second victim."

Investigators also allege Handibode had in his bedroom a high-capacity firearm magazine plus a machete, hatchet and two hunting knives, despite having been previously convicted of aggravated assault in New York State.

Handibode is also charged with first-degree attempted aggravated sexual assault (victim less than 13 years old), two counts of third-degree endangering the welfare of a child (sexual conduct) and single fourth-degree counts of possession of prohibited weapons and person not to possess weapons.

Conviction on the sexual assault or endangerment crimes would subject Handibode to Megan's Law registration and parole supervision for life. The endangerment charge is punishable by up to five years in state prison with the weapons charges each punishable by up to 18 months in state prison, upon conviction.

Handibode was sent to Warren County prison and had his first appearance Wednesday afternoon in New Jersey Superior Court in Belvidere. Pfeiffer has filed a motion for pretrial detention that is scheduled to be heard Monday.

The Warren County Prosecutors Office Special Victims Unit and Phillipsburg police investigated the allegations that led to Handibodes arrest.

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Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.
OTTAWAPrime Minister Justin Trudeau is considering all options to evaluate claims of harassment at Rideau Hall after unprecedented allegations that Governor General Julie Payette has created a toxic workplace there.

CBC News reported Tuesday evening that Payette has reduced some staff members to tears and caused a number of them to quit the Governor Generals service.

Citing a dozen unnamed sources, the CBC reported that Payette  a former astronaut recommended by Trudeau to Queen Elizabeth for the position in 2017  yelled at, belittled and publicly humiliated people who work for her.

It is the latest in a number of controversies that have raised questions about Payettes selection as Governor General, a largely ceremonial position whose office-holders are nonetheless called upon occasionally to advise the prime minister on constitutional questions and to act as a democratic safeguard in times of crisis.

Asked if Trudeau still had confidence in the Governor General, the Prime Ministers Office responded that every Canadian has the right to work in a healthy, respectful and safe environment.

Our government is committed to ensuring that all federally regulated workplaces are free from harassment of any kind, PMO spokesperson Alex Wellstead said in a written statement Tuesday.

A government source said the PMO was looking at all options to evaluate the claims, noting that new federal regulations about workplace harassment that came into effect in June apply to the staff at Rideau Hall.

Contacted Wednesday for comment, a spokesperson for Payette referred the Star to Rideau Halls public statement from Tuesday night.

We take these matters very seriously, and we are proud of our stringent internal processes for our employees to voice concerns, the statement read, noting Rideau Halls employees are unionized and have additional processes for the protection and support of federal public servants.

Since the beginning of the mandate, no formal complaint regarding harassment has been made through any of these channels.

Payettes friend and personal secretary, Assunta Di Lorenza, is also alleged in the CBC report to bully staff at Rideau Hall, calling them lazy and incompetent.

In a letter sent Tuesday night to Rideau Hall employees, Di Lorenza called the CBC report negative but did not dispute its content.

I want you to know that I, along with the Governor General and the entire management team, am deeply committed to fostering a healthy work environment, Di Lorenza wrote in the letter, obtained by the Star and first reported by CBC.

Please rest assured that the well-being of our employees remains our priority.

On Wednesday, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Trudeau had an obligation to look into the allegations.

The stories shared by the workers at Rideau Hall are so troubling that the prime minister has a role to play, Singh said, asking if Trudeau will launch an independent investigation into the allegations.

The Conservative party had no comment on the allegations Wednesday. A party spokesperson said it was focused on the governments decision to allow WE Charity to administer a student volunteer grant.

The allegations of bullying and harassment are not the first controversy in which Payette has found herself embroiled.

Shortly after Trudeau announced her appointment in 2017, it was revealed that Payette had been charged with second-degree assault in 2011 after an altercation with her then-husband in Maryland. The charges were dropped weeks later.

The Stars Kevin Donovan also reported in 2017 that months before Payette was charged with assault, she had been the driver in a fatal collision with a pedestrian in Florida. She was not charged in relation to the collision.

I know that Mme. Payette is going to make an extraordinary Governor General. She represents the very best of Canadian values, openness to the world, curiosity, intellectual rigour and inspiration, Trudeau said in 2017.

She will continue to inspire generations of Canadians as she represents us at the very highest level.

In 2018, a Star analysis found that Payette had attended one-third fewer public events than her predecessor, David Johnson, after one year in office.

Charities which had previously enjoyed the support of the Governor General were left to wait for Payettes decision on which ones to back, the Star reported at the time.

As Queen Elizabeths representative in Canada, the Governor Generals role within Canadas constitutional framework includes giving royal assent to legislation passed by the government and determining whether to dissolve Parliament for an election on the advice of the prime minister.

Reached Wednesday afternoon, Queen Elizabeths media relations team deferred questions about her representatives conduct to Rideau Hall.

It would be a matter for the Governor Generals office, said a spokesperson for the Queen.
"The pandemic affects us all. When our communities here face a crisis, they also feel it in Mexico. We are closely bound together by our families, culture, and our economies are deeply intertwined. We are and will always be a company of passionate people who care about making a difference, and our promise to continue to help our communities by working together with our neighbors in Mexico", said Bob Unanue, President of Goya Foods.

Through Goya Gives, a global program committed to promoting the overall well-being of communities through social responsibility, environmental initiatives, and company values, Goya supports each year nearly 300 charitable endeavors, scholarships, and events. In times of desperate need, Goya has always been at the forefront of disaster and humanitarian relief efforts, providing millions of pounds of food worldwide.

Since the start of the pandemic, the company has donated a total of 2.5 million pounds of food and 20,000 protective masks. During Hurricane Maria Goya donated over 1 million pounds of food to the people of Puerto Rico, in addition to the starving people of Venezuela during governmental unrest, to the people of Haiti during the earthquake, and at home during Superstorm Sandy, and Hurricanes Isaac, Harvey, and Irene. Since 1936, giving back is the heart of Goya and has always been a part of the company's DNA.

To learn more about Goya Gives, please visit: www.goya.com

About Goya Foods

Founded in 1936, Goya Foods, Inc. is America's largest Hispanic-owned food company, and has established itself as the leader in Latin American food and condiments. Goya manufactures, packages, and distributes over 2,500 high-quality food products from Spain, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central, and South America. Goya products have their roots in the culinary traditions of Hispanic communities around the world. The combination of authentic ingredients, robust seasonings, and convenient preparation makes Goya products ideal for every taste and every table. For more information on Goya Foods, please visit www.goya.com.

For more information, contact:

Natalie J. Maniscalco

845.659.6506 / [email protected]

SOURCE Goya Foods, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.goya.com


Former Speaker of the House Tip ONeill is credited with making the phrase, All politics is local famous. People have ascribed different meanings to this missive, but essentially it embraces the idea that people care most about issues that hit closest to home. In other words, fixing that pothole at the end of your street or making sure the roads are plowed in a timely fashion is more important to peoples day-to-day lives than passing campaign finance reform or solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This makes sense. You drive on those roads every day of your life, whereas most of us will never run for office or travel to the Middle East.

There are, however, national issues that are very much local. Healthcare access may be chief among them. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), for instance, included provisions for states to expand Medicaid access to its residents. Idahoans are embracing that program whole-heartedly as tens of thousands of our trusted friends and neighbors now have access to quality healthcare at the most critical time. The ACA may be a national program, but it is impacting local communities all over the state and country.

Thats why our National Election in November is so important to the Gem State, its towns and its families.

Based on personal interactions with hundreds of voters, I can tell you a fair number of people still think Idahos State Legislature succeeded in restricting access to Medicaid Expansion back in 2019. This simply isnt true. To date, Idahoans have exactly what they voted for  with an enhancement to use federal funds to treat substance abuse and mental health issues. We actually got more than what we voted for in a positive way.

It is true the legislature passed three major restrictions to the program that have the potential to kick thousands of Idahoans off of healthcare. However, under federal law, the state doesnt have carte blanche to simply impose the restrictions without federal approval. So far, that approval has not come.

The first restriction would have allowed Medicaid Expansion-eligible Idahoans to keep their exchange plans if they wanted to. This choice would have cost Idaho taxpayers $42.5 million a year to implement while keeping people on sub-standard plans. The feds rejected the states proposal last summer and efforts to revive the restriction have not materialized.

The second restriction would require Idaho families to, essentially, get permission to see their own doctor for certain medical advice. The Anti-Idaho Family restriction passed by the state legislature also requires federal approval, but none has been given to date.

Finally, the Paperwork Penalty is still pending federal approval. Otherwise known as the work requirement restriction to Medicaid Expansion, this provision would create a Red Tape Regatta requiring thousands of working Idahoans to fill out paperwork on a regular basis to remind the state they are indeed working. Failure to fill out the paperwork correctly could result in coverage loss. This bureaucratic boondoggle has little to do with work and everything to do with penalizing Idahoans for not being good at filling out forms. The Trump administration has green-lit similar provisions in other states, but Idahos plan remains on the shelf.

Thats why the federal election on November 3rd could have huge implications locally for so many Idahoans.

Heres what I mean. Joe Biden is going to be our next President (I will address this in greater detail some other time). You will recall that Biden was instrumental in getting the ACA passed in the first place, including Medicaid Expansion. It is highly unlikely a Biden administration (specifically the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) would approve any of Idahos draconian and spiteful restrictions to Medicaid Expansion that none of us voted for and very few of us want. Lets not forget that Arkansas kicked close to 20,000 people off healthcare under its restriction regime. I cant see the Biden administration going along with any of that, particularly since the Pandemic will still be an issue when he takes office.

Idaho voters approved Medicaid Expansion overwhelmingly in November 2018 and American voters will seal that legacy in November 2020. Its been a long journey and hard fight to make sure Idahoans got exactly what they voted for. Medicaid Expansion may be a national program, but safeguarding the lives of Idahos families and communities is about as local as it gets.

Jeremy J. Gugino is a Democratic communications volunteer.

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The Tarpon Springs location expands direct access to the state's widest-ranging medical cannabis inventory and kicks off a weekend-long celebration of natural relief

TARPON SPRINGS, Fla., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Trulieve Cannabis Corp. (CSE: TRUL) & (OTCQX: TCNNF) ("Trulieve" or "the Company"), a leading and top-performing cannabis company based in the United States, announced today the opening of its latest storefront. Tarpon Springs will be home to the Company's 53rd dispensary in the state of Florida and 55th nationwide.

Situated next to Lake Tarpon, the dispensary supports Trulieve's goal of expanding and ensuring direct, reliable patient access to medical cannabis throughout the state. It also joins the Company's 52 other Florida dispensaries, including those in nearby New Port Richey, Clearwater, and Tampa.

"Today's grand opening of Tarpon Springs is exciting for us as we celebrate four successful years this weekend of bringing natural, reliable relief to patients across the state of Florida. We're very proud of the business we've built, of the amazing innovation we've seen in this industry, and of the growth we've been able to achieve organically over the past four years," said Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers. "Trulieve has built a foundation of compassionate core values, with strong diversity and inclusion initiatives and a mission to bring the highest quality cannabis products possible to the Trulievers that rely on us, and we look forward to continuing that for years to come."

Rivers continued, "It's incredible to look back at where we were four years ago and see where we are now. As we open the doors on our 55th store nationwide, we're incredibly grateful to our dedicated Truliever community for being there every step of the way and we can't wait to celebrate four groundbreaking years all weekend long."

To commemorate the brand-new dispensary, all patients  from those new to Trulieve to our strong Truliever community  will be eligible for a 25% in-store discount at the Tarpon Springs location on opening day. In line with policies that have been adopted statewide, all visitors will be required to wear masks inside the dispensary. At this time, only patients and their state-approved caregivers will be allowed inside the waiting room and dispensary.

ANNOUNCING: Trulieve Tarpon Springs Opening

WHERE: 40545 US-19, Tarpon Springs, Florida 34689

WHEN: Friday, July 24, 2020, at 9:00 AM

To assist patients with ordering, Trulieve has made our entire catalog of products available for online ordering, with in-store pickup, curbside pickup (at select locations), or statewide home delivery options available. Furthermore, to assist with CDC recommendations for social distancing and in compliance with additional company-enforced safety guidelines, several measures have been taken to ensure the health and well-being of employees and patients, including modifying the store layout, installation of plexiglass partitions and HEPA air filtration scrubbers in the dispensaries, increasing access to masks and sanitizer throughout the store for staff and visitors, utilizing visual aids to direct traffic throughout the store, and increasing the frequency of deep cleanings for all dispensaries. Trulieve is closely monitoring the coronavirus situation and will update store policies as needed to ensure the safety of patients and staff; all updates will be shared directly on Trulieve's website as they are enacted.

As the state's leading medical cannabis provider, Trulieve's employees are experienced, knowledgeable, and eager to help patients. Trulieve encourages potential patients, as well as patients who are new to cannabis and to our wide array of products, to connect with the staff in-store or through the online chat feature to learn more.

In stores and online, patients will find Florida's largest selection of THC and CBD products, available in a variety of delivery methods, including smokable cannabis, concentrates, tinctures, topical creams, vaporizers, and more. Trulieve also offers home delivery statewide for patients, and convenient in-store pick-up at its 53 dispensaries in locations across the state from Pensacola to Key West.

The Office of Medical Marijuana Use recently announced the registry was quickly approaching 375,000 registered medical marijuana patients with an active ID card, with Trulieve consistently selling approximately half of the state's overall volume, per the Florida Department of Health. There are nearly 2,500 registered ordering physicians in the State of Florida as well.

For more information, please visit www.Trulieve.com.

About Trulieve

Trulieve is a vertically integrated "seed-to-sale" company and is the first and largest fully licensed medical cannabis company in the State of Florida. Trulieve cultivates and produces all of its products in-house and distributes those products to Trulieve-branded stores (dispensaries) throughout the State of Florida, as well as directly to patients via home delivery. Trulieve also operates in California, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Trulieve is listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol TRUL and trades on the OTCQX market under the symbol TCNNF.

To learn more about Trulieve, visit www.Trulieve.com.

SOURCE Trulieve Cannabis Corp.
As much of the GTA enters Stage 3 reopening, Markham is joining Toronto in expressing concern that provincial anti-virus rules arent stringent enough.

Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti told the Star hes happy to see a financial lifeline for bars, gyms and theatres in York, Durham and Halton regions that, as of Friday, can re-open or expand previously limited activities.

But Scarpitti has concerns about bars and fitness clubs, given rising COVID-19 infection rates in some Ontario communities, particularly among young adults, after restrictions were loosened.

Two metres outside on (bar) patios, thats fine, but not in enclosed areas, where respiratory droplets seem to spread infection more, Scarpitti said.

I hope the Province will have a protocol that they will have a more than two-metre distance, in bars and fitness clubs where people might expel more droplets.

In Stage 3, fitness clubs are restricted to 50 users at a time, regardless of size, with at least two metres of distancing. Rules for bars include no dancing.

John Tory, Mayor of Toronto, which will remain in Stage 2 with Peel Region and Windsor-Essex until at least next week, recently urged Premier Doug Ford to add six safety conditions for bars.

They include making masks mandatory for patrons, except when they are drinking or eating; no standing, except to come or go; and additional restrictions on capacity.

We have seen, in other jurisdictions, that further reopening can lead to increased outbreaks of COVID-19 and growing case count numbers, Tory wrote.

We do not want to go in that direction.

Ford and his ministers say any extra restrictions should come from local public health authorities. Municipalities counter that they are on firmer legal ground with a Provincial directive behind them.

Our top priority is the health and safety of all Ontarians, Alexandra Hilkene, a spokesperson for Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott, said Thursday.

We appreciate the City of Markhams advice and will continue to work directly with them .

At Queens Park, Ford said Tory and other mayors have made great, valid points, but COVID-19 rates vary widely across Ontario, so any extra rules should come from local authorities.

Drew Redden, chief executive of the Oakville Chamber of Commerce, said Oakville businesses are optimistic about Stage 3 after a few really tough months of lockdown.

Out here, we have our mandatory mask bylaw. Theres good signage. Customers are being respectful and nobody wants to have to go back to what we went through with an economic shutdown, Redden said in an interview.

I believe that were doing this in a measured approach and our communitys going to support our businesses as we move forward.

Goodlife Fitness will on Friday reopen 42 of its gyms, adding to 44 already opened in parts of Ontario that earlier moved to Stage 3.

The chain has a new set of anti-virus protocols to protect members and staff, company spokesperson Carlton Braithwaite told the Star.

A suggestion from Scarpitti that gym patrons bring their own sanitary wipes is not necessary at Goodlife, Braithwaite said.

In the Markham area, health authorities mandate masks for people, except while they are exercising, he said. We supply a pretty copious amount of hand sanitizer stations and wipe-down stations.

with files from Robert Benzie

David Rider is the Star's City Hall bureau chief and a reporter covering city hall and municipal politics. Follow him on Twitter: @dmrider

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Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick said he was played like a cheap harmonica when he signed a letter that was used to help a Port Arthur chemical plant effectively shut down a business partner two years ago.

The company that closed, Port Arthur Steam Energy, or PASE, has alleged that Oxbow Calcining violated the terms of their contract when it stopped providing exhaust gases that PASE used to create steam that it sold to a third party. It says Oxbow used the May 7, 2018, letter signed by Branick to bolster its claim that it had to stop working with PASE because of environmental concerns raised by the county judge and the chance of legal action.

In a deposition last August related to the ongoing contract dispute, Branick claimed he thought the purpose of the letter was to encourage Oxbow to install better pollution controls.

In retrospect, I certainly should have asked more questions, Branick said in the deposition, which was recently unsealed and cited on Wednesday in a court hearing in Houston. But my assumption was that this letter is going to help them convince their board of directors that they need to spend money on pollution-control equipment.

Related: Emissions concerns arise over Port Arthur plant

Instead, PASE alleges, Oxbow wanted out of the contract because when it released exhaust directly, it was less likely to trigger state pollution monitors for sulfur dioxide. Thats because it was pumped out at such high temperatures that the chemical floated higher in the sky and over the monitors, according to PASE and experts interviewed by The Enterprise for an investigative article last year.

Whenever PASE extracted heat from the exhaust to make steam, the emissions were released at a lower temperature and into the path of the monitors, PASE and the experts said.

PASE claims Oxbow wrongfully took advantage of a clause in the contract that says it could break the deal if it could show that authorities were threatening to take legal action.

Did you come to have an understanding as to how your May 7, 2018, letter was being used by Oxbow to terminate the delivery of flue gas energy to Port Arthur Steam Energy? lawyers asked in the deposition.

Top hits: Get Beaumont Enterprise stories sent directly to your inbox

I came to have a feeling that I had been played like a cheap harmonica, Branick answered.

Branick also said in the deposition that the letter had been drafted by Oxbows local counsel, Guy Goodson, who was also a friend and campaign treasurer, as well as a former Beaumont mayor.

But Fred Jackson, the county judges attorney, acknowledged during his own deposition that he had written the letter  but only after Goodson gave him a heads up that Oxbow could cause air quality-related problems for the county.

Both Branick and Jackson testified they were unaware that Goodson was working for Oxbow at the time.

Jackson even said he thought the heads up was the result of Goodsons work with the county on economic development, among other issues.

Related: Halting deal, Oxbow cited Branick letter

That would have been strange for him to come in and tell me he represents Oxbow, and then in the same breath suggest that I have Judge Branick consider a letter perhaps threatening a lawsuit against that company, Jackson testified, according to the transcript.

Branick, who like Jackson did not attend Wednesdays hearing, said the misunderstanding over who wrote the letter does not affect what he thought of its intention at the time.

My original testimony was that Oxbows legal counsel drafted the letter that was sent, Branick told The Enterprise. I was apparently incorrect about that as it was, I believe, done by Fred Jackson in my office. However, nothing changes my mind about the fact that I think that Oxbow should have to install air-pollution-prevention equipment.

PASE alleges that a consequence of the effort to shut it down is that Oxbow Calcining will be able to continue techniques employed to avoid regulation and pump unknown amounts of sulfur dioxide into the regions air.

Attorneys for Oxbow stuck largely to procedural arguments in court regarding how previous disputes were resolved.

Oxbow attorney Michael Goldberg dismissed as a conspiracy theory any allegation that the Jefferson County judges office was used in the effort to break the contract. He said the interviews with Branick and Jackson should not even be considered because of the disagreement over who authored the letter.

Top hits: Get Beaumont Enterprise stories sent directly to your inbox

The fight between PASE and Oxbow also brought attention to the way Oxbow sends sulfur dioxide into the air from its plant on a 112-acre waterfront site near the Sabine Neches Ship Channel. The plant uses petroleum coke to create calcined coke.

One byproduct is sulfur dioxide, a pollutant that makes breathing difficult and reacts with other compounds to form small particles that penetrate deeply into sensitive parts of the lungs, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It also impacts the environment, contributing to acid rain and reacting in the atmosphere to form aerosol particles, which can contribute to outbreaks of haze.

Oxbow was cited multiple times between 2016 and 2018 for exceeding national standards for sulfur dioxide releases. Those releases, and the allegations from PASE, led to an April 2019 investigation into the situation by The Enterprise.

Since then, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has changed the location of the monitor it uses to measure sulfur dioxide in the area around Oxbow. And at least one meeting conducted by the state agency drew record turnout from members of the local community, many of whom expressed concern about Oxbows pollution.

Related: SETX residents implore plant to stop polluting neighborhood

But it wasnt until this week that previously sealed transcripts from a private arbitration between the two companies were made public and revealed the extent of the seeming plan to use Branick and his office to allow Oxbow to effectively shutter PASE.

Goodson, who did not respond to requests for comments for The Enterprise article last year, did not return a call from a reporter on Wednesday.

Oxbow contends that it was the way the sulfur dioxide was released through PASE that caused the violations of national air quality standards. The companys attorney told state District Judge Dedra Davis of Harris County that since PASE has been closed, Oxbow hasnt violated the standards once.

Oxbow is a company that cares about the environment, Goldberg said. It cares about the environment near this facility and in the Beaumont area.

But PASE says this just allows Oxbow to continue using dispersion techniques to pump sulfur dioxide into the Port Arthur in such a way that avoids detection by the TCEQ.

kaitlin.bain@beaumontenterprise.com

twitter.com/KaitlinBain
European Telescope Takes First Picture of Another Solar System

By VOA News July 22, 2020

The European Southern Observatory has released the first image ever captured by a telescope of multiple planets orbiting around a sun-like star, just like our solar system.

The ESO said Wednesday that its Extremely Large Telescope set up in Chile's Atacama Desert took the image.

The researchers said the newly discovered solar system is 300 light-years away, relatively close by galactic standards. They said the star is officially known as TYC 8998-760-1 and located in the Musca, or Fly, constellation. They have determined it is barely 17 million years old  a youngster compared to our sun, which is believed to be 4.5 billion years old.

Research behind the discovery was published Tuesday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Lead researcher Alexander Bohn of Leiden University said what makes the discovery so exciting is that the star is "a very young version of our sun." He said it provides "a snapshot of an environment that is very similar to our solar system but at a much earlier stage of its evolution."

Bohn said the observations can help scientists better understand the evolution of our own solar system. Taking direct images, he said, provides the best chance to detect life outside our solar system, if it exists.

He said that in observing light from the planets themselves, "the atmospheres can be analyzed for molecules and elements that might suggest life."

Astronomers typically confirm worlds around other stars by observing brief but periodic dimming of the starlight, indicating an orbiting planet. Such indirect observations have identified thousands of planets in our Milky Way galaxy.

The ESO is considered the world's most productive astronomical observatory. It is supported by a consortium of European nations and Chile, as well as other member nations.

Kenneth Schwartz contributed to this report.

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UPDATED AT 3:11 P.M. JULY 22

A boy believed to be about 10 years old has died after being shot at a Warren apartment complex, city Police Commissioner William Dwyer has confirmed.

Several youngsters who were in the apartment when the fatal shot or shots were fired have been taken to the Warren Police Department for questioning, but investigators said the teens were not cooperating with police.

The incident occurred Wednesday in the 21500 block of Dequindre Road, north of Eight Mile Road, at the Warren Manor Apartments.

Dwyer said police received a phone call at 1:07 p.m. that a boy had been shot in the chest. The boy was rushed in critical condition to Childrens Hospital in Detroit. He died shortly before 2:30 p.m., police said.

According to police, there were no adults present when the shooting took place. However, officers located the victims father, who then was immediately driven to the hospital.

At least 10 juveniles  ranging in age from 10 to 17 years old  were inside the apartment when a gunshot was heard. Eight of them  five males and three females  were taken to the police department where detectives are trying to interview them.

Its a fluid situation, Dwyer said. Theyre uncooperative. We dont know if it was an accident. Were hearing it may have been accidental (with) another juvenile playing with a gun.

Detectives were attempting to get a search warrant around 2:30 p.m. to check the apartment, located on the second floor of a two-story building, for evidence and hoping to recover the gun used in the shooting, the commissioner said.

A police K9 team also was dispatched to the scene and was searching the grounds in an effort to locate the weapon.

A group of adults sitting on the front porch a couple of buildings away from where the incident happened said they didnt hear the gunshot being fired. They looked on as officers entered and exited the apartment building.

I seen a couple of (the kids) running outside, but I didnt think nothing of it, said one woman, who did not want to be identified. Then I seen a bunch of police cars pulling up and I knew something bad had happened in there.

Stay with MacombDaily.com for updates to this report.

Macomb Daily staff writer Mitch Hotts contributed to this report
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The Report Commercial Kitchen Appliances Market [By Product (Cooking Appliances, Dishwasher, Refrigerator, Others); By Fuel Type (Cooking Gas, Electricity, Others); By End-User (Full Service Restaurants, Quick Service Restaurants, Hotels and Resorts, Commercial Kitchens, College and University Kitchens, Others); By Structure (Built-in, Free Stand); By Region]: Market size & Forecast, 2017  2026 According to a new study published by Polaris Market Research the worldwide commercial kitchen appliances market is anticipated to reach USD 138.5 billion by 2026. In 2017, the refrigerator segment dominated the global market, in terms of revenue. North America is expected to be the leading contributor to the global market revenue during the forecast period.

The significant increase in food establishments, and the growing tourism industry are the major factors driving the growth of this market. The changing lifestyles and hectic schedules of the working professionals are leading to higher instances of dining at restaurants and other food establishments. Rising disposable income is one of the factors responsible for the growth of the market.

Browse for full research summary: https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/commercial-kitchen-appliances-market

Restaurants are increasingly adopting technologically advanced kitchen appliances to simplify kitchen activities and offer enhanced services to consumers. Restaurant businesses prefer compact and space efficient appliances, which encourages market players to launch new products in the global market. Increasing spending on the hospitality sector, and tourism activities encourage restaurant owners to improve their infrastructure and offer enhanced services. The market is also driven by increasing need to use kitchen appliances that consume less energy and provide faster kitchen services. Growing concerns regarding environment and increasing adoption of energy efficient kitchen appliances are expected to offer numerous growth opportunities in the future. However, high costs associated with commercial kitchen appliances, high installation prices, and strict regulations on production of commercial cooking appliances restrict the growth of the market.

Increasing disposable income coupled with rise in number of working class population has changed the lifestyle pattern of consumers. The commercial kitchen appliances market has witnessed considerable growth in the recent years due to improved lifestyle, changing consumption patterns of people and rising number of social events. The disposable income of people in the developing countries has increased owing to the improving economic conditions in these regions. High disposable income increases the spending capacity of consumers encouraging them to dine at restaurants and attend social events. These factors support the growth of the global commercial kitchen appliances market.

Request For sample copy of this report: https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/commercial-kitchen-appliances-market/request-for-sample

North America generated the highest revenue in the market in 2017, and is expected to lead the global market throughout the forecast period. The high living standards along with high disposable income in the region drive the market growth. Other factors supporting market growth in North America include different eating habits, increasing popularity of different cuisines, and a multi-cultural environment. Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at a significant rate during the forecast period owing to the increasing population and improving living standards.

The different types of commercial kitchen appliances include cooking appliances, refrigerators, dishwashers, and others. In 2017, refrigerators accounted for the highest market share owing to increasing need to conserve edible items at a range of different temperatures. Restaurants are increasingly adopting technologically advanced refrigerators to meet high storage demands and to offer fresh & high quality food. Food establishments are also inclined towards using energy efficient refrigerators owing to growing environmental concerns.

The well-known companies profiled in the report include Meiko International, AB Electrolux, Hobart Corporation, Fujimak Corporation, Duke Manufacturing Co. Inc., Ali Group Company, Hoshizaki Corporation, Fagor Industrial, Rational AG, Carrier Corporation among others. These companies launch new products and collaborate with other market leaders to innovate and launch new products to meet the increasing needs and requirements of consumers.

Check for discount: https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/commercial-kitchen-appliances-market/request-for-discount-pricing

Commercial Kitchen Appliances Market Size and Forecast, 2017-2026 by Product Cooking Appliances Refrigerator Dishwasher Others

Commercial Kitchen Appliances Market Size and Forecast, 2017-2026 by Fuel Type Cooking Gas Electricity Others

Commercial Kitchen Appliances Market Size and Forecast, 2017-2026 by End-Users Full Service Restaurants Quick Service Restaurants Hotels and Resorts Corporate Kitchens College and University Kitchens Others

Commercial Kitchen Appliances Market Size and Forecast, 2017-2026 by Structure Free Stand Built-in

Commercial Kitchen Appliances Market Size and Forecast, 2017-2026 by Region North America US. Canada Mexico Europe Germany UK France Italy Rest of Europe Asia-Pacific China India Japan Rest of Asia-Pacific Latin America Brazil Middle East & Africa



Make Inquiry about this report @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/commercial-kitchen-appliances-market/inquire-before-buying

About Polaris Market Research

Polaris Market Research is a global market research and consulting company. We provide unmatched quality of offerings to our clients present globally. The company specializes in providing exceptional market intelligence and in-depth business research services for our clientele spread across different enterprises. We at Polaris are obliged to serve our diverse customer base present across the industries of healthcare, technology, semi-conductors and chemicals among various other industries present around the world.

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As long as we allow people with colonial mentalities to act as the self-appointed gatekeepers of our own history, culture, and knowledge systems, placing them upon a pedestal because of their accents or social circles, the process of decolonisation is incomplete.

The past weeks have seen some monumental campaigns for justice around the world, ranging from demands to tear down monuments honouring colonial oppressors and slave-owners, to allegations of human trafficking among rich and powerful paedophiles by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and initiatives to help Yazidi women held as sex slaves by ISIS. In this milieu, one would think that it would be the ideal opportunity for progressive voices in India to push for truth, justice, and reconciliation in a similar manner, for as the Black Lives Matter slogan says, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Instead, we witnessed the opposite this week  a cynical and reprehensible attempt to whitewash slave-owners and sex traffickers, by a darling of the countrys literature festival circuit and liberal cognoscenti. After heavy rains in Delhi caused the collapse of a dome of the Mubarak Begum Mosque, also known as the Randi ki Masjid (Whores Mosque) among the pious locals, we watched Edward Saids Orientalism come to life before our very eyes. The White Mans Burden was bizarrely resurrected in the age of Black Lives Matter, in an effort to enlighten the ignorant natives of the exotic Orient on their own history,

Mubarak Begum was wife [sic] of Sir David Ochterlony. She started off a Brahmin girl in Pune; found her way to Delhi where she converted to Islam & married Ochterlony, who built her the last great Mughal tomb, Mubarak Bagh. She then remarried a noble who fought vs the British in 1857.

Fascinating term there, found her way. Three innocuous words, which say so little, yet hide so much. Those three flowery words sure are a strange way to say, "abducted at age 12, enslaved, groomed, trafficked, and gifted/sold to a debauched, Epstein-esque colonial warmonger who kept 13 sex slaves. One imagines that in the absence of reliable a native munshi these days, the worthy sahib found it too tiresome to have to type out so many long words. After all, it would be difficult to claim it was out of ignorance, having discovered this story himself and profited off it in a book just a few years ago. Is it not strange for one to whitewash the slavery and trafficking aspects of such a remarkable story on a public forum, just as movements for justice for such victims are gaining momentum worldwide?

It is eye-opening to learn that according to our eminent intellectuals, the African-American community were not enslaved, tortured, and raped, they just "found their way" across the Atlantic. Epstein's victims were not groomed and trafficked to a ring of powerful men, they just "found their way" to their bedrooms. Perhaps they think Native Americans just "found their way" off their ancestral lands, reduced to living in poverty and neglect on reservations? Or that Aboriginals just "found their way" to horrifying institutions designed to 'breed the black out of them'? Slavery apologists around the world now have a very useful new addition to their vocabulary of bigotry and hatred, thanks to this egregious attempt at testing the limits of the English language by its resident purveyors in the former colonies.

Upon being pressed repeatedly on this point, a ham-fisted elaboration came forth, This was a period of Anarchy [sic] &many [sic] of all religions were sold by their starving parents or kidnapped: slavery knew no religious boundaries.

This is simply a cunning repackaging of an old white saviour fantasy of how an upright white man rescued a distressed Indian damsel from poverty, sati, patriarchy, or barbarism. A popular trope in many 19th century novels, and even some 21st century ones, but where the reality is one of paedophilia and slave trafficking. So, perhaps that means that over the past few years, Yazidi women and children were not enslaved by ISIS and sold as sex slaves to violent sociopaths, they just found their way into locked rooms at the disposal of assorted sadists, and this is acceptable and can be contextualised since this was a period of anarchy? That will surely be a great comfort to them.

It is also a particularly bold statement to claim slavery had no religious boundaries, in the light of extensive primary sources written by Sultanate and Mughal court chroniclers, which describe with pride how for centuries, these pious and righteous rulers enslaved and sold hundreds and thousands of infidels as war booty or in lieu of taxes, and sold them in the slave markets of Central Asia to boost the state exchequer, if they survived the death march through the Hindu Kush (Persian for Hindu Killer) mountain range. Or how the Fatawa-i-Alamgiri commissioned by Aurangzeb enshrined the dehumanisation and disenfranchisement of slaves as both state and religious law. This was not some aberration during a period of anarchy, it was an enthusiastic state policy for centuries. Unless, of course, the period between Megasthenes saying India was remarkable for having no institution of slavery and Shivajis ban on the sale and transport of slaves in 1677 was a period of anarchy.

But who do Minhaj-i-Siraj, Ziauddin Barani, Abu Fazl, and the 500 learned Islamic scholars from Mecca, Medina, Baghdad, and Delhi behind the Fatawa-i-Alamgiri think they are, the authorities on this era? Those worthy Oriental luminaries at the royal court never got the memo that the last word on medieval Indian history rests not with them, nor with the bottom-up accounts of ordinary people of the time as Howard Zinn would advocate. No, that privilege lies with firangis  whitesplainers who dismiss these records of lived experience as mere exaggeration or gaslight the victims by saying slavery knew no religious boundaries.

Who are these self-declared experts, to question the historical records of the time? Are they saying every Muslim court historian and jurist from 1192 to 1857 fabricated their chronicles because boasting about inflated numbers of slaves would make them and the ruler look more pious in the eyes of the ulema? This sounds like blatant bigotry and Islamophobia from these supposedly liberal voices. Do these modern luminaries not know that their favourite Kashmiri separatist famously said, Muslims never lie? They sure seem okay with treating this communitys historical intellectuals and clerics as pathological liars, just because these accounts of the past are inconvenient to their desired narrative today.

That apart, it should not matter whether these accounts were an exaggeration or not, even a single man, woman, or child enslaved, is one too many. But maybe that is just us being child-like natives, ignorant of the ways of the world. Uncivilised and jahil that we are, according to our colonisers. Perhaps, for these apologists, slavery is acceptable below a certain number and only bad if it is above a certain number. Fascinating insight into how they think. However, what is worst of all, is when such people say, we must judge these issues by the standards of their time. Like the infamous Aurangzeb was a secular king for his times spiel emanating from the swamps of New Jersey every few months.

As Indi Samarajiva wrote in his moving and powerful essay, They Were Monsters In Their Own Time,

The nine-year-olds taken as sex slaves by Christopher Columbus were not like this is a great guy. While they were being raped or beaten and thrown overboard, they certainly knew that these men were bad  When people say, we cant judge historical figures by the standard of our time what they mean is the monsters did not think themselves monstrous. What they mean is colonised lives dont matter. Because these human beings, living at the very same time, certainly knew that these were monsters.

If you had your child ripped away from you and sold, would you shrug and say by historical standards, my baby is just property? No. The heart of a mother cries out throughout time, and it never heals  These perspectives matter. All of the lives that were silenced by the whip or the noose before, they are silenced by armchair historians today.

Speaking of armchair historians, as Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib cantankerously spiral into irrelevance, it must be comforting for some, to know that there are now worthy successors to their past function as a self-appointed Truth and Reconciliation Commission, mandated to protect communal harmony and the "secular fabric of the Idea of India" from the savage natives who cannot be trusted to process historical truths in a mature manner without bloodshed and civil war. Plus, this new generation are Europeans and Americans, which means they are naturally more credible than some native historian with a funny name and accent like a Kishori Saran Lal, Kallidaikurichi Aiyah Nilakanta Sastri, Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, or Karingamannu Kuzhiyil Muhammed. Dont these uppity natives know they are only useful as munshis and sepoys, and that research on Indian history is only credible when it comes from Western academia?

There are many reasons for this deliberate distortion and disposal of inconvenient historical facts. Firstly, white colonisers and their native compradors have a well-documented fascination with the Mughals. This is because it helps create a narrative to justify foreign rule and alien value systems - that the history of India is the history of successive invaders "civilising" the meek natives who are captives of evil, backward paganism, and who had no military, naval, or cultural achievements of their own. This explains why it was a common European fantasy during colonial times that they were rescuing Indian women from evil, patriarchal native traditions (as illustrated in Around the World in 80 Days), while hiding how British, Portuguese, and Dutch were complicit in slavery and sex trafficking, much like the Mughals they replaced and admired. The protection of this treasured narrative is also why today, we learn the long-discredited Aryan Invasion Theory in schools, but not about Rajendra Cholan and his cultural impact on our civilisational brethren in Champa, Kambuj, Ayutthaya, and Majapahit. Nor the long reign of the Ahom dynasty, the glories of Vijayanagara, the struggle for Hindavi Swarajya. Even Raja Hemchandra Vikramaditya is reduced to "Hemu", the grocer's son. Such civilisational awareness is seen as dangerous revivalism, which may result in self-respect among former colonial populations, which is unacceptable to the colonial master even today.

Secondly, which is another reason why the tweet in question pussyfooted around the abduction, enslavement, grooming, and forced conversion aspect of the Mubarak Begum story, members of the literature festival circuit do not want to get cancelled by their own cabal for undermining the new narrative they have been pushing lately  reversing which community were enslaved and who were the slave-owners in medieval and early modern India, with an infantile Muslims are now the Blacks of India analogy. It does not matter that Megasthenes marvelled at the absence of the institution of slavery and the equality by law of all humans in ancient India, or that Sultanate and Mughal chronicles take pride in state-enforced slavery, or that slavery in early-modern India was first banned by Chhatrapati Shivaji, 150 years before the civilised British got around to it.

Inconvenient truths should never be allowed to come in the way of the gatekeeping of opinion from the hoi polloi. The descendants of slave owners are the new Blacks of India because their self-styled leaders say there is an atmosphere of fear. By that logic, what does that make the KKK claiming that they felt unsafe for their views and heritage during the Obama presidency, or AfD voters in Germany, who claim that refugees and immigrants have created an atmosphere of fear? How about white Afrikaner farmers who claim to be oppressed and beg for foreign countries to protect and shelter them, because of their fear of having to share political and economic power with the non-whites they treated as an inferior race for centuries? They must all be such oppressed communities! According to our whitewashers and whitesplainers, does that make them the true Blacks of these countries, not the actual victims of civil war, ethnic cleansing, slavery, or apartheid?

Thirdly, the new generation of colonisers and their native munshis and sepoys, by whitewashing the horrors of our past, empower certain elements who are proud of their history of enslaving infidels of inferior races. To use the simplistic Western analogies that are so popular these days, these are "Indias Confederates, subcontinental Rhodesians", or the whites of South Asia. Unlike the US Civil War or Ian Smiths Rhodesia, however, the proud descendants of these slave-owners won the civil war they started, and thus created their own land of the pure, free of racially-inferior infidels, purged of all leftist and dissenting voices, and eventually even cleansed of dark-skinned Bengalis, who shared their language and culture with their Hindu compatriots. Where today, schoolchildren are taught about the glories of their slaveholding ancestors and missiles named after notorious enslavers. Some readers may be familiar with the popular expression within these circles, "900 saal tujhe ghulam banake rakha tha, yeh mat bhoolna (never forget that we enslaved you for 900 years). Somewhat different to the Never Forget slogan used in the rest of the world to commemorate the victims of other Holocausts and genocides.

These elements, capable of mobilising prodigious violence against the Indian state and civilians, can be useful assets in the evergreen Western policy of keeping postcolonial and transition states unstable, insecure, chaotic, and poor. A green light from certain foreign capitals, et voila! A media-friendly Indian Spring or a neo-colonial Colour Revolution on the streets of Delhi, using threats of violence to bait the state and civilian victims into responding. And when this response does come, the propaganda wings of the establishment in Washington, London, Ankara, and Doha spin basic riot control to the world as fascism, hyper-nationalism, and authoritarianism, arguing that regime change is the need of the hour. Ignoring that they themselves handle much milder protests and riots in their own countries with water-cannons, tear gas, and paramilitary deployment.

Finally, while the world protests to end the glorification of slave-owners and bring justice to victims of child sex trafficking, the self-appointed custodians of history, in their infinite wisdom, choose to whitewash both, because according to colonial-era logic, we savage natives cannot be trusted with the truth. We are not empowered individuals, with reason and intellect, capable of solving historical issues through public debates, courts, or Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. Through their colonial lenses, we are just a powder-keg of various incompatible communities, prone to violence at the slightest provocation, and the role of the state (and a certain enlightened substratum of society) is to civilise us by imposing law and order, not delivering truth or justice. It reminds one of the words of the great Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., who said,

The great stumbling block in [our] stride toward freedom is ... the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace which is the presence of justice;  who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom.

The African revolutionary and decolonisation icon Thomas Sankara once said, The enemies of a people are those who keep them in ignorance. As long as we allow people with colonial mentalities, be they modern nabobs or their mercenary native sepoys to act as the self-appointed gatekeepers of our own history, culture, and knowledge systems, placing them upon a pedestal because of their accents or social circles, the process of decolonisation is incomplete. Swatantrata (independence) is incomplete without Swarajya (self-rule), Swarajya is incomplete without Swabhimaan (self-respect).

The Indian Constitution and state institutions go farther than any Western country in recognising the concept of historical injustice, enshrining affirmative action in universities and jobs on the basis of historical caste discrimination. By this standard, we must similarly deliver truth, reconciliation, and justice to the victims of the Sultanate and Mughal Empires state-sponsored dehumanisation and trafficking of slaves, instead of blaming and shaming the descendants of those victims for asking inconvenient questions. Statues, monuments, and streets honouring slave-owners should be torn down and renamed, no matter where in the world they are. After all, as we learnt from Black Lives Matter, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And those who then howl in protest at these efforts at decolonisation in India will show their true colours, as supporters of slavery and human trafficking.

As for our esteemed firangi sahibs, let us not get above our stations by asking them to apologise or delete their tweets, they must maintain their stiff upper lip in front of us humble servants. Having achieved the surely hard-earned acclaim of the no-doubt discerning living rooms of Bandra (West) and two whole neighbourhoods in South Delhi, as well as literally dozens of future US and UK citizens temporarily inconvenienced by Indian passports, we must bow to their authority on all subjects. Although there is one piece of advice they could find useful  if anyone ever wants to turn the book White Mughals into a trilogy, Whitewashers and Whitesplainers would be perfect titles for the sequels. One can only hope the nabobs and sahibs of our time too, find their way.

The writer is a decolonisation and anti-imperialism theorist.

 Featured image: Watercolour by an anonymous Delhi artist of Sir David Ochterlony ca. 1820s via Wikimedia Commons
The International Rescue Committee, IRC, has condemned the killing of its colleague and four aid workers by suspected members of Boko Haram in the Northern part of Nigeria.

The organisation identified its colleague Luka Filibus as one of the five humanitarian workers slain by the dreaded Boko Haram group.

In a statement on Wednesday by IRC it explained that they were deeply saddened and heartbroken by the news.

They described Filibus to be one who dedicated his life to protecting children and to help lessen their trauma in the face of crisis.

The statement reads, Luka and his family were forced to flee their home, and he was still compelled to alleviate the suffering of children.

His colleagues in Nigeria remember him always with a smile on his face. We grieve with Lukas family and will do everything we can to support them through this challenging time.

We condemn this barbaric treatment and demand the immediate return of his remains to his family.

The killing of aid workers is a violation of international law, Aid workers must never be a target.

Boko Haram earlier published a video on its social media platform showing five armed men standing behind the five abducted workers who knelt before them.

Speaking in Hausa language the gun men warned other Aid workers tp desist from coming to their area to turn their people into non-believers, after few seconds of talking the Aid workers were shot by the gunmen.

The International Rescue Committee founded in 1933 responds to the worlds worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster.

It is at work in over 40 countries and over 20 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future, and strengthen their communities.
Subscriber content preview

By MICHAEL HILL

Associated Press

If the outbreak roars back in New York City, Anil and Joyce Lilly will not be sheltering again in their Bronx apartment. They just bought a house an hour north in the Hudson Valley.

We need more elbow room, said Joyce Lilly, explaining their move to Washingtonville, New York. Because we were locked into the apartment for three months, a solid three months, I feel like I'm getting out of prison and I want to run as far away as possible.





. . .
Johnny Depp used a tampon applicator to snort cocaine, Amber Heard's sister claimed today, as she took to the stand in the actor's bombshell libel trial.

Whitney Henriquez denied setting up a photograph showing the applicator alongside a pint of whisky, four lines of cocaine and Depp's skull and crossbones 'pill box' at the High Court in London.

The actor's ex-wife Heard, 34, took the snapshot at her LA home in 2013 before the couple allegedly had a blazing row about his drug and alcohol use.

The image also featured tobacco and a Keith Richards CD, and was taken on the afternoon the actor was supposed to be filming a documentary on the Rolling Stones legend.

Ms Henriquez today told the High Court how Depp was 'quite fond' of a trick she taught him to snort cocaine through a plastic tampon applicator.

Heard's sister was asked what the object would be used for as she was quizzed about the photograph and texts between herself and Depp, and replied: 'To get the coke in your nose.'

Eleanor Laws QC, representing Depp, said: 'That is what you use to snort cocaine, isn't it?' Ms Henriquez said: 'When I did cocaine, yes.'

The barrister said: 'I would suggest that this photograph is some sort of set up, isn't it?' Ms Henriquez replied: 'It is not.'

Whitney Henriquez denied setting up a photograph showing the applicator alongside a pint of whisky, four lines of cocaine and Depp's skull and crossbones 'pill box' at the High Court in London

Ms Laws then asked Ms Henriquez about a text message she sent to Depp, accompanied by a photograph of cocaine and a tampon applicator, and Ms Henriquez said: 'I had given him a tampon applicator and he was quite fond of that trick.'

The barrister read out the text, in which Ms Henriquez said: 'Holy S***, this strange stuff came into my possession at work today and I have no clue what it is, maybe I should smell it (to) figure it out.'

Ms Henriquez confirmed this was a joke, following which Ms Laws suggested again that the cocaine photograph referred to in court was a set up.

The hotel banquet manager said she disagreed and confirmed she stuck to her previous account.

Ms Henriquez today passionately backed her sibling on the stand at the High Court in Depp's libel trial against The Sun's publisher News Group Newspapers.

Depp, 57, is suing NGN over an article in April 2018 which labelled him a 'wife beater.'

The publisher is defending the article as true, claiming Depp was 'controlling and verbally and physically abusive towards Heard, particularly when he was under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs'.

Johnny Depp arrives to attend his libel trial against News Group Newspapers at the High Court in London this afternoon

Heard, pictured arriving at the High Court in London, today concluded her evidence about 14 allegations of domestic violence

Ms Henriquez today said she witnessed the so-called 'stairs incident' in March 2015 and described how a drunken Depp nearly pushed her down the stairs at the couple's penthouse apartment in Los Angeles when she intervened in an argument.

Heard's sister claimed he struck her on the arm while at the top of a staircase, causing the actress to say 'don't hit my sister' and hit him back.

She said Depp then 'really went for Amber', adding that she was 'standing right there next to them when Johnny grabbed her by the hair with one hand and I saw him punch her really hard in the head'.

In a wide-ranging testimony, the sister said Depp would insult Heard and say he loved her in the same sentence 'with equal amounts of passion', telling her: 'F***ing ugly c**t, you fat w***e but God I f***ing love you'.

Ms Henriquez (pictured) today passionately backed her sibling on the stand at the High Court in Depp's libel trial against The Sun's publisher News Group Newspapers

The hotel banquet manager was living with the couple in Los Angeles in March 2013 when Depp began arguing with Heard after the actress claimed he had been cheating on her with a woman called Rochelle Hathaway.

She claimed that Depp was drinking whisky in the kitchen with an almost empty bottle in one hand, even though his 'sobriety nurse' Debbie Lloyd was also there, and he was swearing about Heard but 'not making much sense'.

Heard came in and was on the mezzanine level allegedly screaming 'f*** you' at him while Depp was on the ground floor, also screaming verbal abuse, saying she was a 'w***e' and 'an ugly old c**t', according to Ms Henriquez.

How Amber Heard's sister lived with the couple and Johnny Depp said he would 'take care of her and her parents' Amber Heard's sister Whitney Henriquez previously lived in one of five penthouses owned by Depp in the Eastern Columbia Building in Los Angeles. In a written witness statement in Depp's libel case against The Sun, Ms Henriquez said when she first met the Pirates Of The Caribbean star, he seemed 'very sweet' and she was 'surprised how much I liked him'. The pair became close, 'like brother and sister', she claimed, with Mr Dep calling her 'sis'. But Ms Henriquez also said her sister's relationship with the actor was 'tumultuous from the start'. While living with the couple between 2014 and 2015, Ms Henriquez said Depp did not like Heard working and 'this got worse the longer they were together'. She added: 'They would both tell me about fights which started about her taking film roles.' On one occasion Ms Henriquez spoke to Depp about this and he allegedly replied: 'I don't know why she even has to work. I'll take care of her, I'll take care of you and your parents.' She told the High Court that she remembered thinking 'how crazy it was that he was offering to pay for all of us just so he could get her to stop working', adding: 'I also remember talking to them both about a fight they had about the fact she wouldn't take the credit card he wanted to give her.' He is said to have explained that he wanted 'to look after my girl', but she wanted to keep working and pay her own way. Ms Henriquez said: 'Amber is really independent and proud about it.' Depp was also said to have been 'incredibly jealous and possessive and was threatened by her former partners and co-stars, both men and women'. Ms Henriquez said she was with the couple in Brazil in September 2015 when they had a 'huge fight' because she and Heard were leaving early so she could do a screen test for Aquaman. She added: 'I remember his assistant, Nathan Holmes, and I joking about the fact we hoped she didn't get the role because Johnny would go crazy when he saw a picture of Jason Momoa, her co-star. But there are many examples of this. Many of their fights stemmed from his jealousy.' Advertisement

Ms Henriquez said that she then went upstairs to try to calm Heard down, while Depp was still on the ground floor with both of his security guards and threw a Red Bull can at the sisters, which hit Ms Lloyd.

He allegedly shouted 'f*** you b****es, you c***s' and then started coming up the stairs towards them while yelling.

Ms Henriquez said: 'He came up the stairs from the kitchen to the mezzanine level. I was on the top of the stairs at the mezzanine level and I stood with my back to the stairs, facing Amber but between them. I remember being worried that I was near the edge of the top of the stairs.

'When he got to the top of the stairs, he was pulling me backwards so he could get to Amber. I remember being scared because I was worried that I would fall backwards and fall down the stairs. Johnny reached out to shove me out of the way to lunge at Amber  reaching out to try hit Amber  and instead struck me, hitting me in the arm.

'Amber suddenly lurched forward and hit him and said, 'don't hit my sister'. I didn't see exactly how Amber hit him but it didn't seem especially hard; it was just enough for him to lose momentum. She was just trying to protect me and I think it probably stopped me from being pushed down the stairs.

'There was a struggle with me stuck in the middle of it, and he really went for Amber. Somehow I was pushed out of the way so I wasn't between them, but I was standing right there next to them when Johnny grabbed her by the hair with one hand and I saw him punch her really hard in the head with his other hand multiple times.

'I was trying to push my way in between them to stop Johnny from hitting Amber when Travis, Johnny's security guard, stepped in to pull them apart. The security guards had been at bottom of the staircase; only then they intervened. We were separated and I immediately took Amber back into my apartment to make sure she was OK.'

She said she could hear 'someone breaking and smashing things, and Johnny screaming 'f***ing c**t', 'you f***ing w***e, I hate you'.' The next morning Ms Henriquez returned to the apartment and saw the 'place had been ransacked; shelves had been ripped off the wall and racks of Amber's clothes had been pulled over'.

She added: 'Things were taken out of boxes and thrown around all over the place. I took photos of the damage and had a text message exchange with Kevin Murphy, the estate manager. It was Kevin's job to repair that sort of thing. By the afternoon, it was cleaned up as if nothing had happened.'

Heard has accused Depp of both verbal and physical abuse throughout their relationship - allegedly punching, slapping, kicking, headbutting and choking her, as well as displaying 'extremely controlling and intimidating behaviour'.

However, Depp says he was not violent towards Heard, claiming it was she who was violent to him.

The actor is suing NGN over the publication of an article in April 2018. His lawyers say the article bore the meaning there was 'overwhelming evidence' Depp assaulted Heard on a number of occasions and left her 'in fear for her life'.

NGN is defending the article as true, and says Mr Depp was 'controlling and verbally and physically abusive towards Ms Heard, particularly when he was under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs'.

The case continues.
WESTCHESTER, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 23, 2020 / In response to the surge in demand for wills and estate planning during the COVID-19 pandemic, Westchester County elder law attorney Anthony J. Enea has launched a new YouTube series sharing insights on a variety of pertinent topics. "Pandemics & Planning" offers a repository of educational programs from Mr. Enea and his colleagues at the White Plains and Somers-based firm Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP.

The "Pandemics & Planning" video series is available at https://bit.ly/392XRwv or by searching the firm's name on YouTube. New topics are added weekly and range from Five Things You Can Do Right Now to Protect Your Estate and What is a Power of Attorney and Why Do I Need One? to Financial Elder Abuse and Senior Scams, Best Ways to Set Up the Home for Aging in Place, and more. Those who subscribe and click the bell icon will be notified when a new program is available.

"Our educational programs answer the questions we're hearing most often from those concerned with how the pandemic will affect their health and financial wellbeing," said Anthony Enea, who has spent 35 years protecting the rights of seniors, the disabled and their families. "We understand the unique challenges that so many are facing right now - and we're here to help."

A strong leader in Westchester's legal community, Anthony J. Enea is chair of the New York State Bar Association's Senior Lawyers Section and president of the Westchester County Bar Foundation. He was named Westchester County's Leading Elder Care Attorney at the Above the Bar Awards and Best Lawyers' 2019 Trusts & Estates "Lawyer of the Year" in White Plains. A past chair of the New York State Bar Association's Elder Law Section, Enea's practice areas include elder law; Medicaid asset protection trusts; Medicaid applications (home care and nursing home); special needs planning; guardianships (Article 81 and 17-A); and wills, trusts and estates.

Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP is located at 245 Main Street in White Plains, N.Y. with additional offices in Somers, N.Y. While the firm is open for a select number of in-person meetings following New York State's Phase 2 reopening guidelines, they continue to encourage telephone and video-conference meetings whenever possible. For more information or to schedule a consultation, call 914-948-1500 or visit www.esslawfirm.com.

About Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP

Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP is an AV preeminent rated elder law firm with offices in White Plains and Somers, N.Y. The practice concentrates on Elder Law; Medicaid Planning; Nursing Home and Home Care Applications; Wills, Trusts and Estates; Guardianships; Estate Litigation; Supplemental Needs Trusts; and Special Needs Planning. Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP serves Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, the Bronx, Manhattan, Long Island and Queens and is committed to providing the highest quality legal services to seniors, the disabled and their families. Visit the firm online at www.esslawfirm.com.

Elder law attorney Anthony J. Enea, member at Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP

Press Contact:

Kelly Lee

Co-Communications

914-666-0066

kelly@cocommunications.com

SOURCE: Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598634/Westchester-County-Elder-Law-Attorney-Anthony-J-Enea-Launches-Pandemics-Planning-YouTube-Series
Maurice Radebe appointed as the Head of the Wits Business School

The University of the Witwatersrand is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr Maurice Radebe as the new Head and Director of the Wits Business School (WBS).

Radebe is currently the Executive Vice-President of the Energy Business at Sasol Ltd. He has previously served as the Group Executive: Corporate Affairs, Stakeholder Relations and Enterprise Development, as well as the Managing Director of Sasol Oil Ltd.

Wits Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Adam Habib says: Maurice Radebe is a fantastic choice to lead the Wits Business School. A business school is meant to train a new generation of corporate leaders. Radebe brings a wealth of experience as a highly-acclaimed leader in the private sector as well as an academic leader in the university system. This combination is exactly what is required for the future of the WBS.

Radebe is an alumnus of the WBS, having graduated with two qualifications - the Management Advancement Programme and a Masters in Business Administration (MBA). He had previously also obtained a Higher Diploma for educators of adults at Wits. He has maintained his ties with the WBS through participating in occasional lectures, public events and being instrumental in establishing the African Energy Leadership Centre.

The Vice-Principal and Vice-Chancellor: Designate, Professor Zeblon Vilakazi adds: In a rapidly changing world, it is essential for the private and public sectors, and academia, to forge strong partnerships that will help us to reimagine the futures that we want, and to craft solutions that will ultimately benefit society. The WBS should serve as the nexus between academia and business, and Maurice Radebe is the ideal catalyst to effect positive change to shape our future economy.

Radebe brings with him over three decades of experience in the corporate sector. But his vision encompasses more than strengthening the WBS to be a world-class Business School. He has strong views on the need for a clear common purpose for South Africa, what its elements could be and the imperative role that education will play in building our future economy. He is deeply committed to the socio-economic transformation of South Africa and has made great strides in working towards this goal. He is also passionate about leadership and gender equality and invests his own time and resources in providing young people with the skills to be successful.

His experience in the corporate sector, along with his long-standing partnership with the WBS makes him an ideal candidate to lead the School in the next phase.

Radebe will start as the new Head of School and Director on 1 January 2021. In the interim, Professor Jannie Rossouw will continue to serve as the Acting Head of the School.
Adolescents and young women with disabilities can stop periods and get relief from distressing menstrual symptoms with IUDs, in the largest study in this population to date.

PHILADELPHIA -- Studies have shown that intrauterine devices (IUDs) that release progestins can help adult women with heavy menstrual bleeding, discomfort, and cramping, in addition to providing contraception. However, there are little data on whether they reduce these symptoms in younger women and adolescents, especially those with physical or intellectual disabilities. New research from the largest dataset studied to date, demonstrates that IUDs are an effective means of stopping periods or managing symptoms associated with periods in adolescents with disabilities.

"Young women with complex medical conditions, including physical, intellectual, and developmental disabilities, are often interested in menstrual management or suppression for many reasons," says Beth Schwartz, MD, Director of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology at Thomas Jefferson University and Nemours Children's Health System and Assistant Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Pediatrics at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. "This study describes how safe and effective this option is for young women and their families."

The results were reported in the journal Pediatrics, July 23rd, 2020.

For young women with intellectual or developmental disabilities, puberty and the onset of a menstrual cycle can be alarming and difficult to understand. "Many families seek support for this difficult transition," says Dr. Schwartz. "IUDs don't always come to mind for many pediatric providers. This data shows physicians that this treatment option can be immensely helpful and improve a young woman's quality of life."

Dr. Schwartz and colleagues at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center performed a retrospective chart review of all IUDs placed there over a 10-year period. The analysis included women ages 22 and under who had never had a baby, and who had a physical, intellectual or developmental disability. The study ultimately included 159 patients with disabilities in the analysis, whose mean age was 16 (range of 9-22 years) at IUD placement.

The results showed that 65% of young women and adolescents reported less bleeding one year after IUD placement, and only 7% had worsened bleeding. As many as 59% had no bleeding with the IUD placement, which is very high compared to the general population and to other menstrual management methods.

The researchers also found that 95% of women in the study kept their IUD after 1 year, and an estimated 73% still had it at 5 years, which is an indication of satisfaction with the treatment. "These rates are much higher than those reported in studies with adult women without disabilities and compared to other methods of contraception," says Dr. Schwartz. The side effects reported were also rare, at 5% or less.

"Women with disabilities and their families request help managing menarche for reasons of hygiene, mood issues, exacerbation of other medical issues, abnormal bleeding and pregnancy prevention," says Dr. Schwartz. "We hope this data will help reassure physicians that this is a viable option."

In a separate study, Dr. Schwartz also examined the use of IUDs in an adolescent population without disabilities but who were using them primarily for medical reasons, such as heavy bleeding or menstrual pain. In this group, which included 219 adolescents and young women, 80% reported reductions in volume of menstrual bleeding, and 76% reported reductions in pain. "These benefits are similar to what we see in the adult population," says Dr. Schwartz, "and suggest that IUDs could be a helpful tool in managing menstrual symptoms for young women whose lives are disrupted or negatively impacted by difficult cycles. These methods should not be reserved for adult women or only for birth control. In fact, the majority of patients in both studies had never been sexually active."

###

This research was supported by a Bayer Healthcare investigator-initiated Women's Health research grant (WH-2013-006). The sponsor had a minimal role in approving the study design. There was no sponsor involvement in the conduct of the study; collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; or the decision to submit for publication. The authors have no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose.

Article Reference: Beth I. Schwartz, Morgan Alexander, Lesley L. Breech, "Intrauterine Device Use in Adolescents with Disabilities," Pediatrics, DOI: 10.1542/2020-000123, 2020.

Media Contact: Edyta Zielinska, 267-234-3553, edyta.zielinska@jefferson.edu.
We put that question to leaders at a range of organizations, from Lyric Opera to the Field Museum. Some said, yes, circumstances will force them to skim some number of millions extra from the endowment to make up for COVID-19-related shortfalls. All explained that endowments come with restrictions and encumbrances that complicate the very thought of dipping into them.
The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board released updated guidelines Wednesday for bars and restaurants in green counties that serve alcohol on-premises.

The guidelines, designed to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, come during a recent rise in the number of daily confirmed coronavirus cases in Pa. that can partially be attributed to the places where people are drinking alcohol, Gov. Tom Wolf said.

Here are the new guidelines for liquor licensees:

Sales of alcohol for on-premises consumption are only permissible as part of a larger transaction that includes a meal purchase. The term meal is defined in section 406 of the Pennsylvania Liquor Code as food prepared on the premises, sufficient to constitute breakfast, lunch or dinner. The definition expressly states that a snack, such as pretzels, popcorn, chips, or similar food, does not meet the definition of a meal.

A customer who wishes to consume alcohol on-premises must also purchase a meal; a group of customers who wish to consume alcohol on premises may do so as long as a meal is part of the purchase made by the group.

Additional drinks may be purchased while the customer is consuming the meal, but no further drinks may be purchased after the meal is finished.

Bar service of food and/or alcohol is prohibited.

For Pennsylvania manufacturers (breweries, distilleries, and wineries), meals may be provided by the licensee or by a third party, such as a food truck.

Casinos may no longer provide drink service on the casino floor.

If a club does not sell food, either directly or through a concessionaire, it cannot use its liquor license.

The governors additional order directing targeted mitigation measures specifically prohibits businesses that meet the definition of a nightclub under the Clear Indoor Air Act from operating.

Indoor seating in yellow counties is NOT allowed.

These guidelines will be enforced by the Pennsylvania State Police and local law enforcement and local law enforcement, the Liquor Control Board, and the Department of Agriculture.

For restaurants and bars, social distancing, mask-wearing and other mitigation measures must be employed to protect workers and patrons. In addition, occupancy is limited to 25 percent of the fire-code maximum occupancy for indoor dining or 25 persons for a specific indoor event or gathering in a restaurant. The maximum occupancy limit includes staff.

Events and gatherings must adhere to the gathering limitations outlined by the state previously, including:
PHOENIX and ATLANTA, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Advisor Group, the nation's largest network of independent wealth management firms, and network member firm Triad Advisors today announced the successful recruitment of Professional Planning & Wealth, LLC ("PP&W"). PP&W has affiliated with Triad Hybrid Solutions, its corporate registered investment adviser, as well as with Triad's broker-dealer platform. The announcement reinforces Triad's longstanding position as the leading destination for independent hybrid advisor businesses, while underscoring the enhanced value it offers to financial professionals through the scale and resources of its parent company, Advisor Group.

In addition to Triad Advisors, Advisor Group also includes FSC Securities Corporation, KMS Financial Services, Royal Alliance Associates, SagePoint Financial, Securities America, Securities Service Network, and Woodbury Financial.

Based in Greenville, S.C., PP&W is an independent practice that includes two financial professionals and oversees $130 million in total client assets. It offers comprehensive financial planning and wealth management services, along with custom retirement plan programs for business clients. The practice primarily serves working professionals and business owners in the southeastern United States. With 25 and 11 years' experience, respectively, in the wealth management space, Managing Partners Chris Beard and Jesse Hansford started PP&W recently after working side-by-side at another practice in their area.

Triad CEO and President Jeff Rosenthal said, "From our first meetings with Chris and Jesse, we could tell that their focus on serving their clients with integrity while ethically and diligently growing their business would fit right in with our culture at Triad. When we bring new financial professionals on board our platforms, we are looking for people who are willing to roll up their sleeves for the long haul to achieve their goals. Chris and Jesse fit this description, and we are thrilled at the chance to collaborate with them and work towards our mutual success."

Mr. Beard said, "Triad is the gold standard in the industry when it comes to helping practices like ours to thrive, so when it came time for us to make a strategic move, the firm was the logical choice. We pride ourselves on doing our jobs with honesty and transparency and working tirelessly to further our clients' best interests through the provision of candid, unbiased financial guidance. To reach our fullest potential, we knew we needed the support of a great partner, and we found that in Triad and their excellent team. We look forward to building a fruitful relationship for years to come."

Jamie Price, CEO and President of Advisor Group, said, "On behalf of the entire Advisor Group network, we welcome PP&W to the family and congratulate Triad on the recruitment of two financial professionals of Messrs. Beard and Hansford's caliber. Our goal is to provide each of the more than 11,000 financial professionals affiliated with our wealth management firms with the services, platforms and technology they need to grow their businesses. Our financial professionals bring the drive, dedication and commitment to client service, and together we forge ahead to new levels of success. As always, we are in our financial professionals' corner and stand ready to support them in their ongoing growth."

About Triad Advisors

Triad Advisors is part of Advisor Group, one of the nation's largest networks of independent financial professionals. Headquartered in Atlanta, Triad is a national broker-dealer as well as a multi-custodial registered investment adviser firm that was an early pioneer and continued leader in the hybrid registered investment adviser marketplace. The company has more than 600 financial providers on its platform and provides a comprehensive set of products, trading and technology systems, as well as customized wealth management strategies. For more information, please visit www.triad-advisors.com.

About Advisor Group

Advisor Group, Inc. is the nation's largest network of independent wealth management firms, serving approximately 11,300 financial professionals and overseeing over $450 billion in client assets. The firm is mission-driven to support the strategic role that financial professionals 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.

Media Inquiries

Joseph Kuo / Chris Clemens

Haven Tower Group

424 317 4851 or 424 317 4854

[email protected] or [email protected]

SOURCE Advisor Group; Triad Advisors

Related Links

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Alhaji Yusuf Yabo, The Man Likely To Takeover The EFCC

23.07.2020 LISTEN

Once again history has repeated itself at Nigerias Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the state institution charged with responsibility for tracking and curbing economic and financial malfeasance in a country globally notorious for being one of the most corrupt nation-states in the world, a situation which has left the majority of its over 170 million strong populace wallowing in poverty despite its being one of the worlds biggest oil and gas exporters.

The EFCC was established in 2004 as the lead state institution in the fight against corruption and in the effort to eliminate all forms of economic and financial crimes. However, over the past one and a half decades, its conduct has been shrouded in intense controversy, its occasional major successes overshadowed by allegations  both proven and unproven  of misconduct by its top officials and of political targeting of perceived opponents of the incumbent government.

Most instructively, every single chief executive of the EFCC, since its establishment has been forced out of office by one scandal or the other. By turn, Nuhu Ribadu, Farida Waziri, Ibrahim Lamorde, and now, Ibrahim Magu have forfeited the position of Chairman of the Commission amid revelations of self-enrichment, collusion with the very people that it is meant to prosecute, abuse of office or some other sort of official misconduct.

The latest culprit, Ibrahim Magu, who has been operating in an acting capacity is now suspended while investigations into some of his alleged illegal and unethical acts are carried out. His chances of surviving the investigation are obviously zero; among several other revelations, a search of his house revealed some 501 billion nairas in cash, this amounting to roughly the equivalent of a billion US dollars. It is now becoming increasingly clear that he has been keeping, state funds, supposedly recovered from culprits of financial crimes against the public treasury, for himself. Obviously, this must have required collusion with the culprits themselves.

This is a situation that has repeated itself time and again since the EFCC was established- the only thing that changes is the identity of the Commissions CEO caught out.

Finally though, not only is the need for a change of strategy being recognized; a clear opportunity for implemented potentially effective positive change is emerging.

Change is required on two fronts. One is the way the EFCCs chairman is selected and the other is the way the Commission executes its mandate.

The 2004 Act that established the EFCC requires that its chairman/CEO be a serving or retired member of any government security or law enforcement agency not below the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police or its equivalent. While this in itself is severely limiting, successive political administrations have narrowed the field even further by reserving this key position to serving or retired top police officers. Nigerians have justifiably questioned the prudence of appointing senior officers from the institution of state generally regarded as the most corrupt, to lead the fight against corruption. The situation is worsened further by the resultant tendency of the EFCC to operate as a unit of the Nigeria Police Force rather than as an independent institution. With police collusion obvious involved in the committing of financial and economic crimes by public officers in the first place, the likelihood of police officers assigned to the EFCC uncovering such acts is close to zero.

The second requisite change is in the way the EFCC goes about its business. Basically, the Commission operates reactively, investigating allegations of corruption in the form of financial and economic malfeasance. No effort is made towards plugging the institutional and procedural loopholes which enable such crimes to be committed in the first place.

Even the way in which this reactive strategy is executed proves extremely controversial, with the EFCC regularly accused of being used by successive political administrations to hound perceived political opponents, rather than as a neutral tool for curbing state corruption in all its forms. Public policy commentators now agree that primary efforts should be directed towards proactively blocking the opportunities for corruption by getting regulatory institutions and the legal instruments they are empowered with, to do their jobs properly.

Crucially, an opportunity now arises to implement both identified, requisite changes in one go, by appointing a new chairman  who is not a police officer, but a retired government security chieftain from a different arm of law enforcement, with an exemplary track record of personal and professional accomplishment and integrity - who most importantly has been championing a switch from reactive to proactive strategy by the EFCC for several years now.

This is Alhaji Yusuf Yabo, a 56 year old Fulani from Sokoto State. Crucially, his 16 years professional career in the Nigeria Customs Service  spanning 1987 to 2003  where he specialized in investigation, inspection and enforcement, alongside general administration, finance and public conduct, qualifies him for the chairmanship of EFCC as demanded by law. But he is also thoroughly experienced in political governance, an essential skill requisite for the job. He has been Commissioner for both water resources and foe commerce, industry and tourism in Sokoto State, has been a gubernatorial aspirant in that state and has been the deputy state chairman of a leading political party, all positions that have given him invaluable experience and insights into the machinations of political governance within the framework of Nigerias peculiar type of democratic practice.

He is also highly reputed for his professionalism and personal integrity, key attributes for someone charged with leading the fight against official corruption. Furthermore his formal educational background is perfectly suited for the job. He holds a masters degree in public policy and administration, another masters degree in crime management and a post graduate diploma in crime management, prevention and control.

But perhaps most important of all are his perspectives on how the EFCC should execute its mandate. He is the champion of the direly needed switch to proactive strategy.

Over the years, the fight against corruption has been fought one-sided without any attempt to deal with the other side of the coin asserts Alhaji Dahiru Yusuf Yabo. Either lack of understanding of the statutory functions of the organization or poor knowledge or training or both, can be the only reasons for operational miscarriage in the EFCCs anti corruption operations all this time.

Over the years, the leadership has dissipated more energy in chasing gratification issues usually committed by government officials as against corruption issues that are more systematic and corporate in nature. That is why the focus of EFCC is targeted at financial crimes committed by persons in vantage positions of authority, with unlimited and unchecked access to power, largely due to failure of institutional mechanisms put in place but not properly implemented.

The fight against corruption will never succeed by merely pursuing individuals or groups who are accused of stealing public funds, except and unless the linkages are blocked through enhancement of operational laws by the regulatory agencies. Economic subterfuge and cutting corners by compromising standards or negligence on the part of those officials responsible, is certainly the main shortcoming that breeds financial crime, as a result of regulatory agencies refusing to do their duties. The EFCC is simply laying ambush for stolen funds as against going further to put pressure on the regulatory agencies to do their job proactively by strengthening compliance as a means of blocking leverage to steal.

He points out, as an example the fact that if the Standards Organization of Nigeria is doing its job properly there would be less chance of crime committed in collusion with manufacturers and importers. Another example: if the National Deposit Insurance Corporation can properly manage the banking sector as the main hub for facilitating corruption by serving as custodian of illegally acquired funds, financial crime would be minimized.

Therefore for more effective fight against corruption, EFCC must extend its beam light on major institutional frameworks that have been put in place. The effort should be geared towards ensuring strict compliance with rules and regulations governing the corporate organizations under the purview of those regulating agencies. This is achievable and realizable one the EFCC is conditioned to be on its toes and especially where sanctions are indiscriminately applied to violators as deterrents to would-be offenders.

This thinking, coupled with his professional training and experience as well as his personal attributes of exemplary integrity and commitment, makes Alhaji Yabo the ideal man for the job of taking the EFCC out of its 16 yearlong loop of falling short of expectations. A new man, with the right new ideas, is just what the EFCC, and indeed Nigeria, needs right now.

BY Dr Prosper Ladislas, President, Pan African Business Forum
The coal ministry has withdrawn Bander mine in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra from the list of 41 coal blocks put up for auction for commercial mining as the mine lies in the eco sensitive zone of Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve.

Image used for representational purpose only. Photograph: Ahmad Masood/Reuters.

In the withdrawal notice dated July 21, the coal ministry said, "Bidders may kindly note that Bander coal mine is now part of the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve as per the notification declaring the area as eco sensitive zone issued by the ministry of environment, forests & climate change."

Accordingly, the ministry of coal has decided to withdraw the Bander coal mine from the auction process under the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015, it said.

"In view of the above, Bander coal mine is withdrawn from the 11th tranche of auction," it said.

Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the auction process of 41 coal blocks for commercial mining.

The notice further said that the "list of coal mines offered for auction of coal mines for sale of coal, dated June 18, shall stand amended to this effect."

The block, having geological reserves of 126.105 million tonnes, has a tentative peak rated capacity of two million tonne per annum.

Launching the auction of mines for commercial mining, that is expected to garner Rs 33,000 crore of capital investment in the country over next 5-7 years, Modi had said India will win the coronavirus war and turn this crisis into an opportunity, and the pandemic will make India self-reliant.

The launch not only marks the beginning of unlocking of the country's coal sector from the lockdown of decades, but also aims at making India the largest exporter of coal, he had said.

Currently, despite being the world's fourth largest producer, India is the second largest importer of the dry fuel, Modi said, noting that the auction process will result in major revenues to states and create employment besides developing the far-flung areas.

The commencement of auction process of these blocks, part of the series of announcements made under Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, is likely to contribute Rs 20,000 crore revenue annually to state governments.
But Ms. Singas said that when the prosecutor on the case received the death certificate, she quickly noticed something was off and compared the document with an online example. She realized that, among other things that were not right, the complex watermark underneath text was missing.

She showed the document to some colleagues, and after a few phone calls with the New Jersey State department that would have issued the certificate, Ms. Singas said officials verified it was not real.

Nassau County officials said they also notified the Suffolk County Attorneys Office of the falsified certificate, since Mr. Berger had another pending criminal case there.

Around the time officials were sorting out those details, in November, Mr. Berger was having a hard time staying dead: He was arrested in suburban Pennsylvania on charges including providing a false identity to law enforcement.

On Tuesday, Mr. Berger pleaded not guilty to the charge related to the death certificate; he is set to return to court later this month. Mr. Bergers current lawyer, Taryn Shechter, declined to comment.

He had been set to spend one year in prison ahead of his initial sentencing, Meir Moza, his former lawyer, said, which seemed like a really good deal. Thats why, he said, he was flabbergasted upon learning that the death certificate was doctored.

Our heart went out to the family upon learning of the deceased, Mr. Moza said. It was a tragedy. And then to learn it was a hoax, we were shocked.
Scientists at the University of California, Davis, have successfully produced a bull calf, named Cosmo, who was genome-edited as an embryo so that he'll produce more male offspring. The research was presented in a poster today (July 23) at the American Society of Animal Science meeting.

Using the genome-editing technology CRISPR, researchers can make targeted cuts to the genome or insert useful genes, which is called a gene knock-in. In this case, scientists successfully inserted or knocked-in the cattle SRY gene, the gene that is responsible for initiating male development, into a bovine embryo. It's the first demonstration of a targeted gene knock-in for large sequences of DNA via embryo-mediated genome editing in cattle.

"We anticipate Cosmo's offspring that inherit this SRY gene will grow and look like males, regardless of whether they inherit a Y chromosome," said Alison Van Eenennaam, animal geneticist with the UC Davis Department of Animal Science.

MORE MALES, MORE BEEF

Van Eenennaam says part of the motivation to produce more male cattle is that male cattle are about 15 percent more efficient at converting feed into weight gain. They are more fuel-efficient than females. Additionally, they tend to be processed at a heavier weight.

It could also be a win for the environment, with fewer cattle needed to produce the same amount of beef. "Ranchers could produce some females as replacements and direct a higher proportion of male cattle for market," said Joey Owen, a postdoctoral researcher in animal science who is leading the project with Van Eenennaam.

AN ARDUOUS JOURNEY

The SRY gene was inserted into bovine chromosome 17, which is a genomic safe harbor site. That ensures the genetic elements function predictably and don't disrupt the expression or regulation of adjacent genes. Chromosome 17 was chosen after unsuccessful attempts to knock-in the gene on the X chromosome, which would have resulted in a bull that produced only male offspring. Cosmo is expected to produce 75 percent male offspring -- the normal 50 percent XY animals, and another 25percent XX animals that inherit the SRY gene.

"It took two and a half years to develop the method to insert a gene into the developing embryo and another two years to successfully establish a pregnancy," said Owen. But in April of 2020, a healthy 110-pound male calf was born.

"This has been a real labor of love," said Van Eenennaam.

She said this is just the beginning of the research. Cosmo will reach sexual maturity in a year, and he will be bred to study if inheriting the SRY gene on chromosome 17 is sufficient to trigger the male developmental pathway in XX embryos, and result in offspring that will grow and look like males. As the Food and Drug Administration regulates gene-editing of animals as if they were drugs, Cosmo and his offspring will not enter the food supply.

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Other researchers on the team include James Murray, Pablo Ross, Sadie Hennig and Jason Lin with the UC Davis Department of Animal Science, and Bret McNabb and Tamer Mansour of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

This project was supported by Biotechnology Risk Assessment Grant Program from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the California Agricultural Experiment Station at UC Davis and the USDA NIFA National Needs Graduate and Postgraduate Fellowship.
YEREVAN, JULY 23, ARMENPRESS. The Healthcare Ministry of Armenia will donate 10 new ambulances to the Healthcare Ministry of Artsakh for increasing the quality of medical care there, ARMENPRESS was informed from the Healthcare Ministry of Armenia.

The ambulances are already in Armenia, though they were planned to be here in March. The delay is conditioned by the coronavirus pandemic. They will be sent to Artsakh soon.

Editing and Translating by Tigran Sirekanyan
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.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany attempted to explain on Thursday why President Donald Trump sent well-wishes this week to Ghislaine Maxwell, who is jailed on charges of helping to facilitate Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse of underage girls.

"What the president was noting is that the last person who was charged in this case ended up dead in a jail cell," McEnany said on Fox News, referring to Epstein. "And the president wants justice to be served for victims in this case, and he prefers that to play out in a courtroom."

Trump made the remarks Tuesday at a White House press conference after a reporter asked him about Maxwell, with whom he used to socialize.

"I just wish her well, frankly," Trump replied, adding that he had "met her numerous times over the years."

Given the gravity of the crimes with which Maxwell is charged, Trump's sympathetic tone quickly drew scrutiny from his critics and at least one member of his own party.

One group, Republican Voters Against Trump, released on Wednesday a 30-second ad slamming Trump for his comments.

"You wish her well?" the ad, featuring photos of Trump and Epstein together, asks. "No sympathy for Maxwell's victims? No sympathy for young girls who were molested by powerful people?"

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ad.

McEnany, however, rejected the insinuation that the president should have taken a harder line against Maxwell.

On the contrary, said McEnany, Trump had been "ahead of" law enforcement and prosecutors when he banned Epstein from his private club in Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago, in the early 2000s.

"This president is the president that banned Jeffrey Epstein from coming to Mar-a-Lago," said McEnany. "This president was always on top of this, ahead of this, banning this man from his property long before this case was even being played out in a court of law."

Trump and Epstein partied together in the 1980s and 1990s but reportedly had a falling out sometime between 2002 and 2005. There are conflicting reports as to what prompted Trump to end his friendship with the millionaire financier and ban him from Mar-a-Lago.

Maxwell, 58, was the longtime girlfriend of Epstein, who was found dead in his jail cell last year while awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges. Jail officials said the death was suicide.

Maxwell was arrested July 2 at a million-dollar home in rural New Hampshire. The whereabouts of the daughter of the late British media baron Robert Maxwell had been a mystery since Epstein's death, prompting widespread speculation that she had permanently left the United States.

Following her arrest, Maxwell was transferred to New York, where she pleaded not guilty to federal charges of enticement of minors, sex trafficking of children and perjury.

At Maxwell's bail hearing in Manhattan federal court, Judge Alison Nathan denied bail, agreeing with prosecutors that Maxwell posed "a substantial risk of flight" because of her personal wealth and because she has triple citizenship in the United States, France and the United Kingdom.

Maxwell is being held in a Brooklyn federal jail awaiting her trial, which is scheduled to begin next summer.
China's President Xi Jinping (R) shakes hands with Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen during the welcome ceremony for the Belt and Road Forum, at the International Conference Center in Yanqi Lake, north of Beijing, May 15, 2017.

Cambodias bid to offset the partial loss of a European Union preferential trade scheme by pursuing a free trade agreement (FTA) with China will leave the country poorer and beholden to Beijing, unions and analysts said Thursday, ahead of an expected signing of the deal next month.

On Monday, Cambodia and China announced the end of trade agreement negotiations between Cambodian Commerce Minister Pan Sorasak and Chinese counterpart Zhong Shan with a deal they said will bolster ties between the two nations and benefit them both.

In a statement posted to Facebook, Cambodias Ministry of Commerce hailed the agreement as reflective of the long-lasting relationship and collaboration between the two countries, and said it would provide economic and social benefits for both sides.

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce called reaching the agreement an implementation of the two countries' leaders' instructions and a specific measure for developing a comprehensive strategic partnership and promoting the joint establishment of a community forged by a shared future, Chinas official Global Times newspaper reported, citing a press release.

While the details of Cambodias first FTA with a foreign nation have not been made public, it is expected to focus on boosting agricultural exports, including rice and mangoes, to China, based on recent comments by ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) spokesperson Phay Siphan.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a regular press briefing in Beijing on Tuesday that the deal focuses on Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) cooperation, trade in goods and services, investment, economic and technical cooperation, and e-commerce.

Wang said the agreement would create a more stabilized supply and industrial chain that would help weather crises like the coronavirus pandemic.

The $1.3 trillion BRI is Chinese President Xi Jinpings signature geopolitical policy, which features major investments to build infrastructure supporting trade between China and countries across Asia, Europe and Africa. It has been dogged by controversy after countries in Asia and Africa piled up unsustainable debts.

Cambodias pro-government Fresh News outlet cited Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong, who also took part in negotiations, as saying Prime Minister Hun Sen will travel to Beijing to sign the agreement with his counterpart Li Keqiang no later than Aug. 12the same day the EU is expected to suspend trade preferences for the Southeast Asian nation.

The EU in mid-February announced plans to suspend tariff-free access to its market under the Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme for around one-fifth of Cambodias exports, citing rollbacks on democracy and human rightsa move that would reinstate tariffs on garments and footwear beginning Aug. 12, unless it is overturned by the blocs governments or its parliament.

The decision will result in a loss of around U.S. $1.1 billion of the countrys annual U.S. $5.8 billion in exports to the EU, some 75 percent of which are made up of clothing and textilesa crucial industry in Cambodia that employs one million people.

Hun Sen has shrugged off the move, but unions have warned that the reinstatement of tariffs on Cambodian exports to the EU could leave 80,000 workers from more than 1,000 garment factories in Cambodia jobless if buyers from the bloc stop placing orders because of increased costs.

Cambodian Ministry of Commerce spokesman Seang Thai recently said that Cambodia expects to increase its exports by 25 percent through the FTA, which he claimed is not meant to substitute for the EBA, but to bring additional benefits to the country.

Lopsided deal

However, on Thursday, unions and analysts suggested the deal amounted to a swap, and one which heavily favored China.

Ath Thon, president of the Cambodian Labour Confederation, warned that the EU trade scheme remains critical to Cambodias economy.

Cambodia has apparently abandoned the U.S. and EU in embracing an unproven market to export its productsits not a smart move, he said.

The U.S. and European markets are still important because they import the most and at good prices.

He said that if the EBA is withdrawn, Cambodia will lose a massive market in the EU and the cost to the countrys economy will be devastating.

Economic analyst Nget Chou said any FTA would provide more benefits to China because of an existing trade imbalance and that Cambodia will end up losing substantial tax revenue through such a deal. According to official statistics, bilateral trade between China and Cambodia over the past two years has amounted to more than U.S. $7 billion, of which Cambodian exports accounted for only around U.S. $900 million.

Nget Chou suggested that the government not rush to sign a trade agreement with China and instead work with the EU to maintain full EBA status, citing the blocs larger market.

We have a trade deficit [with China], so we should maintain the status quo and establish a national strategy to build a strong economy first, he said.

Growing influence

The EU launched the process to strip Cambodia of its preferential trade terms following the arrest of opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) President Kem Sokha in September 2017 and the Supreme Courts decision to ban his party for its role in an alleged plot to topple the government two months later.

The ban, along with a wider crackdown on NGOs and the independent media, paved the way for Hun Sens CPP to win all 125 seats in parliament in the countrys July 2018 general election.

Hun Sen has said that EU demands to maintain the EBA, which include dropping charges of treason against Kem Soka and reinstating the CNRP, are unreasonable and an encroachment on Cambodias internal affairs.

China has stepped in to wield significant influence in Cambodia as relations between Phnom Penh and Western governments have waned amid concerns over the countrys human rights situation and political environment.

Chinese investment has flowed into Cambodia in recent years, but Cambodians regularly chafe at what they call unscrupulous business practices and unbecoming behavior by Chinese businessmen and residents.

Analyst Kim Sok said Thursday that while officials claim that the FTA is necessary to help Cambodias fragile economy, the same is true of the EBA, and it should not be abandoned.

But he expressed doubt that Hun Sen would ever agree with the EUs calls for Cambodia to restore democratic protections because the conditions would effectively kill Hun Sens power. Hun Sen, who turns 68 next month, has ruled Cambodia since 1985.

Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Presidents of Ghana, Ivory Coast, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal arrive in Bamako in a bid to defuse political crisis.

West African leaders have arrived in Bamako on a high-stakes mission aimed at defusing Malis weeks-long political crisis that has raised concerns of further instability in a country grappling with multiple crises, including an escalating conflict.

The visit on Thursday by the presidents of Ghana, Ivory Coast, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal comes days after a mediation mission by the West African regional bloc ECOWAS failed to break the deadlock.

The foreign leaders are expected to meet Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and key figures of the opposition coalition behind the protests, known as the June 5 Movement.

It will be difficult to rebuff presidents who come to help bring back peace and stability to your country, said researcher Demba Moussa Dembele, president of the Dakar-based African Forum on Alternatives.

The government and the opposition would likely avoid being blamed if the mission were to fail, Dembele said.





Mobilised by influential Muslim leader Ibrahim Dicko, tens of thousands of opposition protesters have in recent weeks poured onto the streets of Bamako to demand Keitas resignation.

Although dissatisfaction over the countrys economic woes, corruption and worsening security situation has been simmering for a while, the spark for the current crisis was a decision by the Constitutional Court in April to overturn the results of parliamentary polls for 31 seats, in a move that saw candidates with Keitas party get re-elected.

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The protests turned violent earlier this month when three days of clashes between security forces and protesters left 11 people dead. Several opposition leaders were also briefly detained.

An ECOWAS mission last week, led by Goodluck Jonathan, former Nigerian president, proposed setting up a government of national unity that would include members of the opposition and civil society groups. It also suggested, among others, the appointment of new judges to the Constitutional Court, which had already been de facto dissolved by Keita in a bid to calm unrest.

But the proposals were rejected by the June 5 Movement, with protest leaders insisting that Keita must go and calling for accountability for the killings in the June 10-12 protests.

The gap is currently wide between the demands of the parties  especially the June 5 Movement and what the government is ready to concede, said Ousmane Diallo, Amnesty Internationals West Africa researcher.

Dembele said forcing Keita to step down could be seen as unconstitutional, warning it could result in Malis international isolation.

In recent weeks, a number of Western diplomats and groups have also been meeting opposition leaders and government officials in an attempt to find a solution.

While a level of calmness has now been restored  the June 5 Movement on Tuesday pledged not to call protests for 10 days, until the forthcoming Eid religious festival  the situation remains tense and could spill over beyond Bamako, to Kati, Gao and Timbuktu, Diallo said.

Beyond the possibility of Mali sliding further into crisis if a middle ground between the parties is not found, the credibility of the ECOWAS mediation itself is also at stake.





Regional leaders are eager to avoid further instability in Mali, a country of some 20 million people that has been plagued by a conflict that began in 2012 and has since spilled into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

According to the United Nations, attacks grew fivefold between 2016 and 2020, with 4,000 people killed in the three countries last year, up from about 770 in 2016. The fighting has also forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and led to the closure of thousands of schools.

In central Mali, a multitude of armed groups have been jockeying for control while exploiting the poverty of marginalised communities and inflaming tensions between ethnic groups.

The presence of thousands of foreign troops has failed to stem the violence, while allegations of abuses and extrajudicial killings by Malian forces have perpetuated deep-rooted mistrust and enmity in parts of the country with little government presence otherwise.

The [regional] security concerns are real, Dembele said.

If the crisis lingers on, Mali is likely to descend into chaos, which will affect the morale of the military and weaken its fight against the terrorist groups. In that case, there is a risk that neighbouring countries, like Senegal and Guinea, will be affected, which in turn will affect other countries.

Diallo said the visit by the five presidents, only days after the ECOWAS mediation mission, showed how important it is for them to have stability in Bamako.

For a long time, Mali was perceived the weak link regarding the insurgency in the Sahel; there is an imperative of preventing the political crisis from impacting very negatively regional security initiatives, he added.

The goal is to prevent a bad situation from getting worse.
A man who pretended to be a Navy SEAL, Silver Star recipient and prisoner of war in order to collect more than $300,000 worth of free heath care from the Department of Veterans Affairs has pleaded guilty to charges including healthcare fraud, stolen valor and abetting illicit gun purchases.

Richard Meleski, 58, of Chalfont, Penn., was indicted last November for his scheme to defraud the VA, which included not only health care but also monetary compensation for post-traumatic stress he claimed was due to service in Beirut, where he said he rescued other wounded troops. He also submitted another application for compensation to the VA in which he "included obituaries of actual Navy SEALs alongside whom he had supposedly served," according to a U.S. Department of Justice release.

Read Next: Officials: Fort Hood Soldier Believed to Have Drowned

"In short, he traded on the actions of true heroes in an attempt to bolster his false application for monetary benefits," DOJ officials said.

In reality, according to the DOJ, Meleski never served a single day in uniform and had earned no medals.

Meleski's indictment, obtained by the Philadelphia Inquirer, showed he had claimed a number of other combat-related injuries.

"[Eighteen-hour] hostile takeover. Became POW, during this tour. Beaten, shot, head injury, tortured. Hospitalized in Germany for injuries sustained. Crushed hand. Shrapnel," Meleski wrote in a request for benefits. He claimed his service took place in the 1980s.

The Inquirer also reported that Meleski had claimed he injured his knee jumping out of a window with a dead SEAL on his back.

Meleski also requested disability benefits from the U.S. Social Security Administration for service-related injuries, and falsely testified under oath in an SSA disability hearing, DOJ officials said.

Following his arrest for fraud, according to DOJ, Meleski was found to have helped in the straw purchase of two different guns, meaning he assisted in buying them for another individual who could not legally purchase them.

Because Meleski claimed to be a POW, officials said, he was bumped up in the VA priority list to Group 3, meaning he got health care ahead of many deserving veterans who had earned it.

"Meleski faked a record as a decorated U.S. Navy SEAL in order to steal numerous forms of compensation," U.S. Attorney McSwain said in a statement. "Everything about this case is profoundly offensive. Our veterans fought for the freedoms we hold dear, and we owe them a debt that we can never fully repay. But holding individuals like Meleski accountable for their crimes is one small way that we can honor our veterans' service."

Meleski has not been sentenced yet. According to prior DOJ releases, he faces up to 68 years in prison, a fine of $2.25 million and additional restitution of $302,121.21, although it's not clear how his voluntary guilty plea may affect his sentence.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.

Related: Man Accused of Faking Record as Navy SEAL, POW to Steal $300K in VA Benefits
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  Public schools across New Mexico will start the new school year without students in classrooms, after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Thursday the states recent growth in COVID-19 cases makes it too dangerous for in-person learning.

The decision to limit schools to online learning  with a few exceptions  until at least after Labor Day will not affect such school districts as Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe that had already been planning to start the school year using such a model.

It was announced on the same day Lujan Grisham said that testing had revealed 343 new coronavirus cases around New Mexico  the states highest single-day total since the pandemic started in mid-March.

The data that we have about whats happening with COVID-19 in New Mexico is far too problematic to allow in-person learning, the governor said during a Thursday news briefing that was broadcast online from the Roundhouse and watched by more than 19,000 viewers.

I do think that parents, and I get it, are really frustrated, the governor added, saying state agencies would be working to expand child-care services for parents who cannot work from home.

Several teachers union leaders praised the governors decision, which does not impact private schools, with Albuquerque Teachers Federation President Ellen Bernstein saying: It was clear this is what we needed to do.

However, the governors decision to delay in-person learning was criticized by state Republican Party Chairman Steve Pearce, who said it would impose a financial burden on thousands of New Mexico parents.

It could also force a change of plans for many smaller school districts that had been planning to bring students back next month.

Arsenio Romero, superintendent of Deming Public Schools, said Thursday that school districts knew a remote start to the school year was a possibility.

With the ever-changing information that comes every day, it has absolutely been difficult for all of us but we are going to continue to charge forward, he said.

Stan Rounds, executive director of the New Mexico School Superintendents Association, said the states 89 districts face an array of challenges as they try to start the school year  ranging from transportation to staff shortages.

Getting students to school safely, for example, may require operating buses at limited capacity to allow for social distancing. In some areas, Rounds said, it might take more buses to transport the same number of students.

That money is not in anybodys budget, Rounds said in an interview. Those are the kinds of things were trying to work out.

Other challenges include addressing teachers who are at risk because of their age or medical condition and the availability of high-speed internet to accommodate distance learning.

One things for certain: One size does not fit all, Rounds said.

A risk we cannot take

Under the Lujan Grisham administrations plan unveiled Thursday, New Mexicos roughly 320,000 public school students could be gradually allowed to reenter classrooms based on age.

Depending on COVID-19 numbers over the next month or so, the state could start allowing elementary school students to return to school the week of Sept. 8, the day after Labor Day. Middle- and high-school students would then be allowed to return at a later date.

The governor said thats because studies have shown that younger students have the hardest time with distance learning.

Im using data, science and effective techniques to keep educators and students safe, and to meet their needs, Lujan Grisham said.

The initial return would be a hybrid model in which students rotate between distance and in-person learning, though the governor said her goal is to eventually have students fully return to school.

School districts and charter schools would have to offer an online-only option for students, state officials said. And families could not be penalized for choosing that option.

In defending her decision to pause in-person learning, Lujan Grisham cited a recent increase in COVID-19 infections among New Mexicans in the 10-19 age range and alluded to the states large number of grandparents raising their grandchildren.

She said that dynamic in particular could put elderly caregivers at added risk of being exposed to the virus.

This is a risk we cannot take, Lujan Grisham said. Its immoral.

In response to a question, the governor also said its possible that some parts of the state could be allowed to bring students back into classrooms sooner than others, though she did not provide specific details.

For now, the state will allow some exceptions for in-person work with students who have special needs and for small groups of children in kindergarten through third grade.

Meanwhile, at least four high schools around New Mexico have had at least one employee test positive for COVID-19 since the start of July, according to state Environment Department data.

Those high schools are: Hobbs High School, Carlsbad High School, Rio Rancho High School and Valencia High School in Los Lunas.

Positivity rate climbing

New Mexicos average number of daily cases has more than doubled over the past month  from 143 to 289, based on a Journal analysis.

Human Services Secretary David Scrase said Thursday the uptick is largely due to social behavior by New Mexicans and visitors alike.

More people are spending more time outside their homes with other people  and that is how COVID-19 spreads, Scrase said.

In addition to the record number of new cases, Lujan Grisham also reported five additional deaths due to coronavirus, pushing the states death toll to 596 since the pandemic arrived.

The five deaths announced Thursday included adults ranging in age from their 40s to their 90s  all of whom had an underlying medical condition of some kind.

The state has now confirmed 18,163 cases of the disease out of 496,985 tests for a positivity rate of 3.7%. The rate has been climbing in recent days.

Lujan Grisham responded to the surge in cases this summer by ramping up enforcement of New Mexicos face mask mandate, though some county sheriffs have flouted the requirement and refused to enforce it.

The governor also reimposed a ban on indoor dining at restaurants and directed out-of-state visitors to stay in quarantine for 14 days on arrival in New Mexico.

New Mexicos current public health order expires July 30, though its expected to be extended by the Lujan Grisham administration with some possible changes.

Journal staff writer Shelby Perea contributed to this report.
They were once Australia's power couple of international entrepreneurship. But sadly, Jessica Rudd and Albert Tse have split after 13 years of marriage.

Sources close to the pair have told CBD the split was "extremely" amicable.

Jessica Rudd and Albert Tse at their holiday home in Port Douglas in 2017. Credit:Brian Cassey

"It's pretty sad, but that is what happens when you're busy people," the source told CBD.

Rudd, 36, daughter of former prime minister Kevin Rudd and businesswoman Therese Rein, is a director on the board of local beef producer, AACo, and an Australian ambassador to Chinese online giant Alibaba. She is a former director of listed e-commerce group eCargo, which bought her own exporter Jessicas Suitcase in 2018 in a multimillion-dollar deal.
Spain's El Mundo on Thursday reported that the Economic and Fiscal Crime Division of the Spanish Police (UDEF) has announced that between 2012 and 2015 the media company belonging to Pablo Iglesias, the leader of the leftist, anti-corruption Podemos Party, received more than nine million euros from Iran through other companies.

El Mondo said evidence gathered by the Police and anti-money laundering committee indicates that the 16 companies suspected of money laundering injected a total of 9.3 million euro of illicit Iranian money into the leftist politician's company.

According to El Mondo informed sources have said that these companies made at least 67 suspicious transfers to 360 Global Media through intermediary banks. The majority of the transfers were made through Emirates NBD (national Bank of Dubai) to the company which is the producer of programs for Hispan TV, the Spanish-language satellite channel of Iran's state-run broadcaster (IRIB).

Hispan TV is run by Iranian citizen Mahmoud Alizadeh Azimi and its programs mainly target Latin American states such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Nicaragua and Mexico.

Iglesias, Second Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Social Rights and 2030 Agenda, and leader of Podemos, hosted Fort Apache, a talk show, on Hispan TV from January 2013 to 2019. The program was produced by his company 360 Global Media and CMI.

The Podemos party which campaigned on an anti-corruption platform has been under investigation from the Spanish Police and anti money-laundering authorities since 2016.
The F.A.D.E.D. cocktail at the Rose in Venice is available to take away. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Temperatures are rising, bars are scaled back or closed, and summer in L.A. feels like it's slipping away. What should the discerning, socially distanced drinker reach for? Consider the frozen cocktail. Thirst-quenching, unfussy and best sipped outdoors, these beverages are so suited to our current moment, its no wonder many restaurants have added them to their menus since the pandemic flipped the industry on its ear. Whether alcoholic popsicles or pina coladas in pouches, here are five frosty concoctions that are pretty chill. Just watch out for the brain freeze.

F.A.D.E.D. at the Rose

Theres a lot to like about the frozen cocktails at the Rose in Venice  theyre refreshing, straightforward and seem to suit a restaurant thats a short walk from the ocean. But on second sip, its clear theres much more to bar director Lindsey Morris elixirs than just booze and a blender. The F.A.D.E.D., which supposedly stands for frozen all day, every day, is a potent mixture of tequila, Aperol, rose, grapefruit and strawberries  a vibrant, ruby red slurry that falls somewhere between a margarita and an Aperol spritz. And the Beach, Please is made with aged Venezuelan rum, Brazilian cachaca, coconut, banana, lime, ginger and a shot of amaro, which adds a welcome warming-spice complexity. The Rose doesnt offer its frozen cocktails for delivery, but the bar staff will happily package them to-go if you dont feel like drinking on the restaurants breezy outdoor patio.

220 Rose Ave., Venice, (310) 399-0711, therosevenice.la

Frozen pops at Thunderbolt

Thunderbolt, the vaguely Southern-themed cocktail bar that opened last year next door to the Parks Finest BBQ, hasnt let the pandemic put a damper on its creativity. Among the Echo Park establishment's robust selection of canned and bagged cocktails: boozy tropical sodas, nitrogen-infused espresso martinis, and a coconut Old-Fashioned perfumed with pandan leaf. Owner Mike Capoferri and his staff seem to have the most fun with their $7 frozen cocktail pops, which come packaged in plastic pouches for slurping, a la Otter Pops. Flavors rotate weekly; the latest is a dangerously quaffable stone fruit sangria made with vodka, Sauvignon Blanc, bitter orange liqueur, peach and apricot.

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1263 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, (213) 372-5099, thunderboltla.com

Brain Freezers at Hippo

Hippo's bar director, Clare Ward, has a knack for coming up with cheeky names to fit her balanced, thoughtful cocktails  the Back on our Bulls*!t is one current example. That same marketing panache appears in the Highland Park restaurants line of so-called Brain Freezers, batched to-go cocktails that are vacuum sealed and frozen solid, so all they require is a spin in the blender before theyre ready to be poured into glasses. The simple but effective Skools Out, Forever is made with Mexican Coke, ripe California cherries and Tennessee whiskey, while the Moms on Instagram? suggests a day at the health spa: tequila, gin, cucumber, herbs, lemon and a touch of creme fraiche. Brain Freezers are $9 or $10 each; a mixed six-pack costs $52.

5916 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, (323) 545-3536, hipporestaurant.com

Lychee mojito slushie at Maam Sir

Maam Sir bar director and self-professed tiki obsessive Ramsey Musk has kept Silver Lakes cocktail game going strong during the pandemic, stocking his drink menu with seasonal creations such as ube-flavored cosmopolitans, frozen rose ice pops and pina coladas served in freshly husked coconuts. Another standby: his industrial strength $9 alcoholic slushies, which rotate flavors every few weeks. Right now youll find a frozen paloma made from tequila, grapefruit cordial, passion fruit and coconut, and a frozen mojito blended with fresh lychee.

4330 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 741-8371, maamsirla.com

Run the Julep at Melrose Umbrella Co.

West Hollywoods Melrose Umbrella Co. and Hollywood tiki bar Lono have pooled their resources to offer a to-go cocktail menu that includes a dozen or so drinks and caters to a variety of tastes. Theres a mai tai that serves four, a mezcal-banana concoction made with prickly pear juice, and shots of house-made Fireball made from Ceylon cinnamon-spiked rye whiskey. But on a balmy day youll probably be drawn to the blended pina colada, made with aged rum, brandy, Angostura amaro and fresh coconut cream, or the emerald-green Run the Julep, a slushie peach mint julep spiked with bourbon. Bonus? All profits from the sale of the latter cocktail during the month of July will be donated to the nonprofit organization Black Women Lead.

7465 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 951-0709, umbrellahospitalitygroup.com
One of his accomplices may be released on PLN 1 million bail.

The National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) has said a court in Warsaw took ex-head of Ukraine's road management agency Ukravtodor, Slawomir Nowak, along with his two accomplices for a period of three months.

"On July 20, 2020, court in Warsaw chose preventive measures in form of 3-month temporary custody for Ukravtodor ex-Head and two of his Polish accomplices, suspected of receiving improper advantages and legalization," NABU wrote on Twitter.

Read alsoUkravtodor's ex-head detained in Poland not to be extradited to Ukraine  NABU

According to Spokesperson of the Minister-Special Services Coordinator Stanisaw Zaryn, one of the accomplices may be released on PLN 1 million bail.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Poland's Central Anti-Corruption Bureau detained Slawomir Nowak, the former Minister of Transport of Poland and ex-head of Ukravtodor, on charges of corruption. Two more individuals were detained in that country simultaneously with Nowak.
The government has initiated the construction of 654 boreholes nationwide, out of which 621 are to be fitted with hand-pumps and 33, mechanized.



A total of 433 of the boreholes have been drilled and water quality and pumping tests conducted with the rest at various stages of completion.



Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, the Minister of Finance, announced this in the 2020 Mid-Year Budget Review in Parliament on Thursday.



He said Government also procured pumps to be installed on successfully drilled boreholes and that when completed the project would provide potable water to about 220,000 people.

The Minister said Government also launched a Street Litter Bin Campaign to ensure proper disposal of refuse along major and principal streets.



A total of 7,000 (240-litre) waste bins were deployed to aid the proper disposal of waste in selected MMDAs within the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Western, Central, Oti, and Eastern Regions, as well as state institutions, he said.



The Finance Minister said: In addition, the Greater Accra Sustainable Sanitation and Livelihoods Project procured 1,000 (120-litre) waste bins to support the initiative. A US-based company also donated 100 (240-litre) waste bins to support this laudable initiative.



The government, he said, also acquired 65.5 acres of land at Ayidan in the Ga South Municipality for the construction of sustainable state-of-the-art waste treatment facilities.



Also, as part of the sustainable management of landfill sites, the Government has initiated a process to decommission and re-engineer existing landfill sites at Kpone-on-sea in the KponeKatamanso Municipality and Oti in the Kumasi metropolis.



Mr Ofori-Atta said 982 out of 2,000 household toilets were constructed in selected MMDAs in the Ashanti, Western, Central, and Northern Regions with the sole aim of reducing open defecation.



He said the rest were at various stages of completion, saying, the construction of 35 institutional toilets for selected second cycle schools, post-secondary, and other institutions was also ongoing.





Source: GNA









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Chhattisgarh Home Minister Tamradhwaj Sahu has urged Union Home Minister Amit Shah to increase the Centres share in the Police Modernisation Fund (PMF), reminding him of the states internecine war with the Left-wing extremism since its inception on November 1, 2000.

Sahu drew Shahs attention to the expansion of the Chhattisgarh Police since the new state was carved out of Madhya Pradesh (MP) two decades ago and 14 of its 27 districts come under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) Security Related Expenditure (SRE) scheme.

Sahu wrote to Shah on Wednesday and cited facts and figures to underscore a gradual decline in the Centres share in PMF.

In 2013-14, the funds sanctioned for the modernisation of Chhattisgarh Police were Rs 56 crore, but the requirement fell short by Rs 20 crore, the state home ministers letter stated.

There has been gradual deduction of allocation under PMF for the state even though Chhattisgarh is fighting the Communist Party of India (CPI)-(Maoist) menace for several years. The trend is disconcerting and I am urging you to increase the Central governments share in PMF, he wrote.

Sahu further stated that Chhattisgarhs PMF share has been decreased, despite the fact that 14 of the 27 districts in the districts are LWE-affected and fall under the MHAs SRE scheme.

 Out of these 14 districts, eight districts are severely Maoist affected and we urgently need funds for police modernisation in these areas, the letter stated.

Sahu also cited that the strength of the Chhattisgarh Police has increased from 22,520 to 75,678 personnel since its formation and during this period, 11 new revenue districts were created and the number of police stations has also gone up from 293 to 467.

Besides the Special Task Force (STF), Chhattisgarh has 22 armed battalions, a special information branch unit and training schools such as Police Academy at Chandrakhuri and Counter-Terrorism and Jungle Warfare (CTJW) College at Kanker. At present, a total of 45 battalions of paramilitary forces are deployed in the state to fight the Maoists, he added.

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The Dail around the corner is in a class of its own for dawdling, sucking on the end of a pencil and staring vacantly into space.

Teachers will recognise the apparent stupor, and the impossibility of knowing how much is sinking in. A new school year is almost upon us, parents and teachers alike are chanting it over and over, but the Government doesnt appear to have done its homework. And its no excuse to say it was eaten by the virus, because the virus is the very thing at issue. How will schools reopen? What are the plans? Tell us what you know.

Pearse Doherty put on a patient parent voice, hiding his frustration in case man-child Leo Varadkar should burst into tears. Lets just go over it again We know that children will need to get buses to and from school. Nodding. But parents are being asked to pay school transport fees, not knowing if school buses will operate. Leo listened blankly.

Pearse asked for a commitment that all children would return to school on a five-day-a-week basis from September. Leo Varadkar appeared confident in attempting an answer, regurgitating what he knew - that hundreds of thousands of parents are concerned and there are over a million children who need to get back to school at the end of August.

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Pearse frowned, waiting patiently for his pupil to kick on and start putting two and two together. It was crucial and essential to get the schools open, Leo rhymed off, hoping to impress. Then he added that this would happen provided the virus is suppressed.

But what was the answer? Would they open or not? The former class captain, lately marked down, offered the grown-up equivalent of what a child thinks every time they are hit with a poser: I do want to answer that question, but I don't want to get it wrong.

But kids generally just think it, whereas Leo put it into words: We want to get all the details right before we share them widely, because what would undermine confidence is to get them out and then have to update them after a few days. It would reflect badly on Ireland if a school reopening could not be achieved, he added blithely, like a youngster unconscious of irony.

Patient Pearse said the public had borne with the Government for four months, but there were now only four weeks left and parents needed answers. A neighbouring boy, Joe McHugh of Donegal, had said there would be a comprehensive plan by the end of June. But then he had left the class and it hasnt materialised.

Leo suddenly chirped: We have learned a lot about the virus in the last few months. Brightening, he went on: We have learnt that while nothing is no-risk, the risk of reopening schools is low. A lot of work is being done on this. I dont want to give detailed answers.

Like an urchin refusing to name the capital city of France because the answer could change in the years ahead. But he said pupils could still wear uniforms because there were no issues from a public health perspective.

Another teacher took over. Alan Kelly tried to get him to see the need to answer the question asked. His own kids had asked him: Will you find out if were going back to school? His wife Regina is a teacher, he added, threatening Leo with an SNA.

Simon Harris over there (and the masked former minister looked up from his desk) had submitted guidance for a two-metre separation and a maximum of two hours in class, he pointed out.

If that is the guidance, where does this leave the opening of schools?

There we were - two and two had indeed come into it. And none of it added up. What about kids with underlying illnesses, and what if Covid did break out in a school?

The Varadkar lad quite agreed that there was no good reason why Ireland should be the only country in Europe that doesnt open its schools. It would not be business as usual and there would be a new normal.

He seemed pleased with himself. Alan sighed. A new Education estimate would be needed. The Department had advertised for supplies of PPE, with a closing date of June 24  but no tender had gone out. It doesnt breed confidence.

Slow learner Leo - or slow revealer, at least - said he had every confidence that teachers would rise to the challenge.
A dot com millionaire who pivoted into the world of hospitality after making his fortune has launched an app, which he hopes will eventually go out of business.

As pubs, gyms and other venues struggle to meet the NSW government's ever-changing guidelines during the coronavirus pandemic, Adrian Kinderis has developed an app to help them securely register guests.

"From the start Ive called this the pop-up startup," Mr Kinderis said.

"Were building a business that we hope has a finite life. We didnt start this to get bought out. We started this to solve a problem."
A new song titled Raja Hindustani from the film Shakuntala Devi released on Thursday. It shows lead actor Vidya Balan learning the ropes of an English lifestyle upon her arrival in London. It shows her awe-inspiring journey as she polishes her English and even masters extremely difficult tongue twisters to fit into the new surroundings. She not just picks up a modern lifestyle with ease but also becomes everyones favourite with her humour and confidence.

The empowering song has been sung by Sunidhi Chauhan and is composed by composer duo Sachin-Jigar. The lyrics of the song are penned by noted lyricist Vayu.

Watch Rani Hindustani here

Talking about the song Rani Hindustani, Sachin-Jigar said,  Shakuntala Devis life is very inspiring. Apart from her mathematical prowess, theres so much that people dont know about her life. She was a confident and independent woman and we needed to capture that essence in the song. Vayu has beautifully penned the words and like always, Sunidhi has brought the song to life with her incredible voice. Vidya Balans charm and brilliant screen presence makes it a perfect treat for the audience. We hope that the audiences will enjoy and love the song.

Shakuntala Devi had inked her name in the Guinness Book of World Records by multiplying two 13-digit numbers. Vidya says the biopic strengthened her belief that it is okay for women to claim ownership of their lives without being apologetic. She owned her choices and stood her ground. Her story definitely inspired me and has shown me that it is actually okay for a woman to want it all in life, she told PTI in an interview.

Also read: Tahira Kashyap jokes she will leave pajamas and shorts as hereditary wealth for daughter Varushka, shares throwback photos

Shakuntala Devi enjoyed the attention and she couldnt understand the world saying that You are a wife now or you are a mother and your priorities should change. She had this gift and she wanted to celebrate it. She was someone who wanted it all and had it all, she added.

Directed by Anu Menon, the biographical drama touches upon the various events in the life of Shakuntala Devi, whose ability to solve complex mathematical problems swiftly, made her famous as the human computer. It premieres on Amazon Prime Video on July 31. The film also features Sanya Malhotra, Jisshu Sengupta and Amit Sadh in pivotal roles.

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Actor Shatrughan Sinha has taken a dig at Koffee with Karan, calling it Koffee with Arjun, and has said that the show has led to controversies. He said that shows such shows did not exist back in the day.

During our era, there was no Koffee with Arjun, he said, making an indirect statement about Karan Johars show. These kinds of planned events are what cause controversies. As far as those who are being talked about at the moment are all members of our own society, but film industry doesnt belong to one person that anyone can say, Lets boycott this person or remove this person from the industry. He added rhetorically, Who are you to say that? How did you enter the industry and what have you done in life?

Also read: Kangana Ranauts entire career is standing on pillar of nepotism, tweets Nagma; her team posts four-point rebuttal

Also Watch | Anubhav Sinha: Insider-outsider debate superficial, starkids have their share of difficulties

Karan has been accused, most vocally by Kangana Ranaut, of poking fun at actor Sushant Singh Rajput, and favouring young actors belonging to influential film families over outsiders. Sushant died by suicide on June 14, at the age of 34. He was said to be suffering from depression, and the Mumbai Police are investigating the professional rivalry angle as well.

Shatrughans own daughter, actor Sonakshi Sinha, was at the receiving end of social media backlash after Sushants death, mainly for being a product of nepotism. Sonakshi subsequently quit Twitter.

Earlier in the day, filmmaker Anurag Kashyap told NDTV that while Karan Johar certainly has the power to launch a newcomer successfully, even he cant kill someones career. A Karan Johar can make somebodys career... by launching (him/her) in a big film. Because hes not just a filmmaker, hes also a businessman. He understands. But he cannot break anyone, Anurag said.

Also read: Anurag Kashyap says Karan Johar can launch someone and make their career but cannot break anyone

Kangana claimed that Karan dumped Drive and spread the word that Sushant was a flop star, whose films could not find buyers. She also said that Yash Raj Films and Dharma Productions systematically work with each other and in sync with each other - whom to promote, whom to demote, whom to destroy.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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LONDON, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Construction on five new housing projects in Roseau Valley in the Commonwealth of Dominica will begin soon, benefitting around 150 families. A new polyclinic will also be accessible for residents of the Georgetown community. This is according to a recent announcement from Dr Irving McIntyre, Dominica's Health, Wellness and New Health Investment Minister and Roseau Valley MP. Funded entirely by the Citizenship by Investment (CBI) Programme, the projects are part of the island's wider Housing Revolution initiative.

The Housing Revolution aims to build new communities with 5,000 weather-resistant homes as part of Dominica's pledge to become the 'world's first climate-resilient nation'. The government has already built over a thousand homes and handed them over to families across the island. In addition, a resource centre will reach completion soon along with health centres and a modern hospital.

"This health centre will be hurricane-proof and all part of the resilience building efforts in our country," said Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit for the Government Information Service. "Last year, [] we visited all the sites in the Roseau Valley where we are going to have apartments built by MMC. So we have identified the sites in Morne Prosper, Wotten Waven, Trafalgar, Laudat and even Cochrane," said Minister McIntyre. He offered details on other ongoing construction projects: "in Lily Valley in Trafalgar, we have 12 units being built  they should be over within the next two to three months. Nine of these are two-bedroom and three of these are three-bedroom apartments. [] They are all climate resilient."

The government made the initiative possible through financing from Dominica's popular CBI Programme. Operating since 1993, the Programme enables wealthy investors to become citizens of Dominica once making an economic contribution to either a government fund or buying into selected luxury real estate. Revenue generated from the fund contributes to different sectors of society, including healthcare, education, infrastructure, climate change research and more.

Dominica's CBI Programme is the world's best option for second citizenship. It has remained in first place for the past three years, as recognised by the CBI Index  a report published by the Financial Times' Professional Wealth Management magazine. The study noted that affordability, efficiency and robust due diligence processes are some of the reasons why investors continue to choose Dominica as the best country for second citizenship.

[email protected], www.csglobalpartners.com

SOURCE CS Global Partners
Jacksonville Rotary has recognized the accomplishments of three students with college scholarships totaling $5,000.

Abby Schumacher and Isabella McCartney were awarded the $2,000 Rotary Scholarship. Katie White was awarded the $1,000 SSgt. Matthew Weikert Memorial Scholarship.

Schumacher is a Jacksonville High School graduate. She is involved with the JHS Interact Club, is a counselor and volunteer at HoneyRock Center for Outdoor Leadership Development, a National Honor Society officer, JHS blood drive organizer and a winner of the Student Volunteer Award from the Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce for every year of high school. She plans to attend Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky.

McCartney is a Routt Catholic High School graduate. She has been a member of Catholic Athletes for Christ and has participated in multiple food drives and volunteered for the St. Johns Foodline. She also attended a mission trip to Guatemala, where she worked as a volunteer at the Hope of Life Compound. She plans to attend the University of Missouri at Columbia.

White is a Jacksonville High School graduate who is attended classes at Lincoln Land Community College. She has volunteered for Illini Feeding and Growing, through which she helped to package 12,000 meals for needy families. Shes organized multiple collections for donations to area nursing homes and crisis centers. She has been a 4-H member for 10 years.

The Weikert Scholarship was created to honor the memory of the Jacksonville soldier, who died in July 2010 while serving in Afghanistan. It is funded by an anonymous donor and administered by the Jacksonville Rotary.

The Rotary Scholarships were made possible by Rotary Club fundraising efforts and are designed to recognize scholastic achievement, leadership, volunteerism and contributions to the community.

 Rochelle Eiselt
Ankara, July 23 : Ankara and Moscow announced that they agreed to consider establishing a joint working group to solve Libyan crisis, a joint statement said.

The two countries "consider creating a Joint Working Group on Libya and convene for the next round of consultations in Moscow in the near future," the joint statement said on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency reported.

The announcement came after the Turkish and Russian delegations, chaired by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin and his Turkish counterpart Sedat Onal, held two-day talks in Turkey's capital Ankara, aiming to achieve a ceasefire in Libya.

According to the joint statement, Turkey and Russia have agreed to continue joint efforts, including encouraging the Libyan parties to create conditions for a lasting and sustainable ceasefire.

They also pledged to facilitate the advancement of the intra-Libyan political dialogue in line with the conclusions of the Berlin Conference on Libya in coordination with the UN.

Ankara and Moscow called upon the parties to take steps to ensure safe humanitarian access and delivery of urgent assistance to all those in need.

Turkey and Russia support warring sides in Libya, but have been in dialogue for a ceasefire and political solution in the war-torn country.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin launched an initiative in Istanbul on January 8 to de-escalate the situation on the ground and to pave the way for a political process in Libya.

Turkey backs the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), while Russia supports Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA).
JOHANNESBURG, July 23 (Reuters) - Petra Diamonds shares fell on Thursday after it reported selling 23% fewer diamond carats for 36% less revenue in the year to June 30 as the COVID-19 pandemic dealt a fresh blow to a struggling diamond industry.

Petra sold 2.9 million carats in its full-year 2020, down from 3.7 million in the previous year, while revenues dropped to $295.8 million from $463.6 million.

The falls reflect already weaker diamond prices to February this year, which were exacerbated when the pandemic disrupted sales cycles. Petra shares were down 5.8% at 1.55p by 0758 GMT.

The stock has fallen 81% this year, Refinitiv data showed. Petra cancelled May and June tenders because of travel restrictions and low demand from the midstream. It plans to hold its next tender in September. The African diamond miner is restructuring debt. It said discussions with noteholders and South African lenders continued and it expects to announce progress this quarter.

Production fell 7% year-on-year, partly because Petra's Williamson mine in Tanzania has been shut since the start of April. It remains suspended due to the impact of low pricing on its liquidity, the company said.

South Africa's coronavirus lockdown also caused Petra's mines there to shut for three weeks from March 26.

Petra said it is targeting a ramp-up to pre-COVID-19 production levels, and will give production guidance for 2021 once it reaches a "sustainable level of operational stability". Petra's free cash flow fell to $53.6 million by June 30, from $64.2 million on March 30, while net debt rose to $658 million from $601 million.

As South Africa's COVID-19 epidemic worsens, Petra said 39 workers have been confirmed coronavirus positive at its South African operations so far, and one worker at the Cullinan mine has died of the respiratory disease.
Mumbai: The Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), who are coalition partners in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharashtra, have begun working on a pre-poll tie-up for future elections.

According to people familiar with the developments, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, who heads the Sena, and deputy CM Ajit Pawar, who is a key NCP leader, held a closed-door meeting on Thursday to discuss the future alliance plan.

The Sena and the NCP are looking at forging an electoral alliance to contest the upcoming polls together, said leaders from both the parties, who spoke to HT on condition of anonymity, as the deal is yet to be sealed.

Initially, the two parties are planning to contest together all local elections, including zilla parishad and civic body polls, in Maharashtras Raigad district.

Thackeray and Pawar also held a meeting with legislators of both the parties from the Raigad district following the closed-door parley on Thursday at a colonial-era building in Dadar that is being converted into a memorial of Sena founder, the late Balasaheb Thackeray.

NCP Member of Parliament (MP) Sunil Tatkare and Sena secretary Milind Narvekar were also present in the meeting.

The two parties are keen to contest district council (zilla Parishad) and civic polls that would be held in the next couple of years, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) election that is significant for the Sena.

Earlier, the three partners of the ruling alliance, the Sena, the NCP, and the Congress, had discussed electoral alliance plans.

While the Sena and the NCP have started working on that plan, the Congress is still undecided, as certain sections within the party are not in favour of contesting elections in alliance with CM Thackerays party.

Both Thackeray and Pawar are of the opinion that they should finalise the alliance plans instead of waiting for the Congress to decide. If this plan clicks, then the two parties can go ahead with pre-election alliance for the next Lok Sabha and assembly elections as well, said a key NCP functionary, requesting anonymity.

Political analyst Hemant Desai opined that the tactical move by the two parties would be significant for them.

Their strongholds are largely different and as such their alliance can help them. However, whether their cadres will accept the plan and respond accordingly remains to be seen. This move has also raised the question over the Congress. Will they join or stay away? This could lead to mistrust between the Congress and its two ruling partners, he said.

Wednesdays development also indicates that Thackeray and Pawar are coming closer.

Pawar had tried to scuttle Thackerays chances to become the CM, when he shocked both the parties by taking oath as deputy CM along with BJPs Devendra Fadnavis as the CM in the middle of the discussions to form a three-party alliance after 2019 assembly election results were declared.

The high-voltage political drama lasted for barely 80 hours, as most of the NCP MLAs made it clear that they would stick to party chief Sharad Pawar. Ajit then returned to the party fold and was accommodated as the deputy CM.

That Uddhavji chose to discuss such a crucial issue with Ajitdada indicates that the two are probably working together now, said a senior Sena leader, who didnt wish to be identified.

The Sena had contested 2019 assembly elections in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but parted ways with the latter after the elections over the thorny issue of CMs chair.

Later, the Sena forged an alliance with the NCP and the Congress to form the MVA in November 2019 under Thackerays leadership as the CM in a break from the past of a Thackeray occupying the states top political job.

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New Delhi: Vidya Balan will be next seen in and as 'Shakuntala Devi' - the Math wizard. The makers have released a new song 'Rani Hindustani' in which she gives us a sneak-peek into her life journey. It shows how she lands up in London.

Watch the 'Rani Hindustani' song here:

The song is composed by Sachin-Jigar and sung by Sunidhi Chauhan. The song celebrates Shakuntala Devis life as an independent and confident woman.

Shakuntala Devis life is very inspiring. Apart from her mathematical prowess, theres so much that people dont know about her life. She was a confident and independent woman and we needed to capture that essence in the song. Vayu has beautifully penned the words and like always, Sunidhi has brought the song to life with her incredible voice. Vidya Balans charm and brilliant screen presence makes it a perfect treat for the audience. We hope that the audiences will enjoy and love the song, said the musical duo Sachin-Jigar.

Shakuntala Devi biopic is set to release on July 31, 2020, on Amazon Prime Videos.
Tawal, one of the leading telecom tower companies in the region, has signed a managed services agreement with Ericsson to reduce its carbon footprint in Saudi Arabia.



Ericssons end-to-end managed services including Ericssons Energy Infrastructure Operations, energy solution, offers an innovative approach to operate energy infrastructure for mobile operators and tower companies.



This agreement is a major step forward by Tawal to support Saudi Arabias Vision 2030 by establishing infrastructure for telecommunications operators and a stable platform to ensure connectivity for all residents.



Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Alhakbani, Chief Executive Officer of Tawal said: We are pleased to solidify our partnership with Ericsson through the new managed services agreement. A key aspect of the deal is Ericssons sustainable solutions which we decided to implement to further reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions in alignment with Vision 2030s sustainable agenda.



Under the terms of the contract with Tawal, Ericsson will assume responsibility for managed services for Tawals tower infrastructure and provide energy management solutions. Ericsson will ensure the highest levels of energy efficiency and availability  utilizing AI and automation and energy management platform. This will result in reduced CO2 emissions, improved network up-time and significant operational expenditure savings.



Eva Andren, Vice President and Head of Managed Services for Ericsson Middle East and Africa said: This new agreement takes our relationship with Tawal to a new level and confirms our position as a leading managed services and energy management solutions provider. We believe our new agreement with Tawal will deliver significant benefits by reducing carbon footprint and contributing to an overall improved experience for customers.



The operational benefits of Ericssons Energy Infrastructure Operations include the ability to remotely monitor site infrastructure, enabling predictive maintenance and automated actions without the need to visit the site. This can be particularly useful in a country such as Saudi Arabia that features a large geography, enabling remote access to rural areas.  TradeArabia News Service
Supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is a top priority in the UAEs agenda for ensuring the growth of national economy in the future, said Dr Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, UAE Minister of State for Entrepreneurship and Small and Medium Enterprises.

"SMEs represent the backbone of the global economy and serve as a flexible tool for governments to support their economies. The sector makes up about 90 per cent of companies in the world, and in some developed countries such as South Korea and Japan, its contribution reaches up to 99 per cent. SMEs contributed 52 per cent to the UAE's non-oil GDP in 2017, he said.

He added: "Several measures have been adopted at the federal and local levels to support the sector and increase its contribution to the national economy. SMEs have received a great deal of attention from the UAE and local governments during the past months in light of the Covid-19 crisis in the form of support and economic stimulus packages that have been announced. MoE and its partners will continue to work towards initiating these projects and supporting the capacity and continuity of their activities, which will have a tangible positive impact on the countrys SME sector.

During a meeting with a number of local entrepreneurs from across the UAE and representatives of institutions and SME incubators, he said the business ecosystem is currently focused on adopting tangible measures to find practical solutions to all challenges related to entrepreneurship and strengthening mechanisms for its stability and prosperity across the countrys various vital sectors.

The meeting was attended by Dr Thani Al Zeyoudi, Minister of State for Foreign Trade; Sanad Al Meqbali, Chairman of the Board of the Emirati Entrepreneurs Association; and Ibrahim Shahin, Vice President of the Emirati Entrepreneurs Association and discussed the demands of local entrepreneurs, representatives of institutions and SMEs incubators. It also discussed the need to set a clear vision to identify the priorities and procedures during the next stage.

Dr Al Falasi listened to the views of the attendees and exchanged his views with them on the most important topics related to empowering entrepreneurs and creating a new business approach based on cooperation and strategic partnership between MoE and entrepreneurs to find common solutions that contribute to the prosperity of the industry and its growth.

The meeting also reviewed the ministrys vision for the next stage in addition to discussing all the solutions that are currently being studied. The meeting further discussed various measures to reduce the cost of doing business, diversify financing options and facilitate banking procedures, and ways to expand the scope of incentives and facilities, especially those related to governmental purchases.

Dr Al Falasi praised the efforts of various stakeholders in the country for their efforts to empower citizen entrepreneurs in every way, contributing to the creation of a new generation of entrepreneurs who are capable of supporting the national economy and increasing its diversity, thereby enhancing the countrys global competitiveness in many vital sectors.

The Government of the UAE seeks to continuously enhance the competitiveness of the business environment in the country and introduce various programmes and policies that contribute to maintaining the advanced position of the country globally. As a result, the UAE ranked fifth globally in entrepreneurship according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) index.

He further underscored MOEs keenness to work intensively along with all partners at the federal and local levels through the UAE SME Council and the National SME Programme.-- Tradearabia News Service
Bhubaneswar, July 24 : At least two Maoists, including a woman, were killed in a gunfight with security personnel in Odisha's Kandhamal district on Thursday, police said.

The gun-battle broke out after the left-wing extremists opened fire on a party of the state police's Special Operation on Thursday evening. The security personnel returned the fire, killing two insurgents, said state DGP Abhay.

Two bodies (one male and one female in uniform), an INSAS rifle, a carbine and 2 country-made weapons were recovered from the spot, he said in a tweet.

"We once again appeal to Maoists to lay down arms and surrender. Odisha government has a generous surrender and rehabilitation policy," he added.
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised the "strength of the union" on Thursday, using a visit to Scotland to dismiss the possibility of a new independence referendum for a nation that is increasingly at odds with his government.

With some polls suggesting a slim majority of people in Scotland now support independence from the rest of the United Kingdom, Johnson was keen to press the case for the whole country working together to tackle the coronavirus and economic crisis.

The pandemic and Brexit have badly strained the ties that bind the kingdom's constituent parts - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland's pro-independence government opposes leaving the European Union and accuses Johnson of mistakes in responding to COVID-19.

"The union is a fantastically strong institution, it's helped our country through thick and thin. It's very, very valuable in terms of the support we've been able to give everybody throughout all corners of the UK," Johnson told reporters after arriving in Orkney, an island group off the northern coast of Scotland.

Asked whether there was a growing case for a new independence referendum after Scotland voted in favour of the union in 2014, Johnson said: "We had a referendum in 2014. It was decisive - it was, I think, by common consent, a once in a generation event."

While in Scotland, Johnson will meet businesses and members of the military, marking a year since he took office by reaffirming a commitment to increase opportunity and prosperity for all parts of Britain.

Johnson will also thank members of the armed forces for their coronavirus response, which included setting up testing sites and transferring patients.

But he will also warn that the coronavirus crisis is by no means over, saying "we've got to be very, very vigilant as we go forward into the colder months".

The Scottish National Party, which runs the semi-autonomous government in Scotland, has accused Johnson of muddled messaging on coronavirus and implemented its own lockdown strategy independently of London.

Story continues

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who was not expected to meet Johnson, said she welcomed the prime minister.

"One of the key arguments for independence is the ability of Scotland to take our own decisions, rather than having our future decided by politicians we didn't vote for, taking us down a path we haven't chosen," she said on Twitter.

"His presence highlights that."

(Reporting by William James and Elizabeth Piper and Angus MacSwan)
Chinas actions around the globe, including imposing a national security law in Hong Kong and the border standoff with India, are a challenge for the world community and Britain will work with partners to call out violations of international law, UK high commissioner Philip Barton said on Thursday.

Following its exit from the European Union (EU), the UK will focus on healthcare, a long-term agenda for green growth and recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and trade and investment while strengthening its ties with India, Barton said during his first news briefing after presenting his credentials.

There are challenges around the world on all sorts of Chinese actions, for us Hong Kong particularly is a focus, clearly for India the LAC (Line of Actual Control) is a particular focus, he said.

These are concerning things and our hope would be that there can be de-escalation, and tensions do seem to have eased over the last week or two after the tragic loss of lives, he said, referring to the death of 20 Indian soldiers in a clash with Chinese forces along the LAC on June 15.

Barton welcomed progress by India and China in managing tensions and the commitment by the two Special Representatives on the border issue to disengage and de-escalate. I hope were not about to see a change in that, he said.

Britain, he said, has its own concerns about a range of Chinese actions and has decided to remove Chinese technology giant Huaweis equipment from all its telecommunications networks by 2027 because of concerns highlighted by the UK National Cyber Security Centre.

We dont have a border with China but we have particular responsibilities for Hong Kong and the new national security law which China has imposed there, we see this as a very clear and serious violation of the UK-China joint declaration, he said, referring to the agreement that laid out the administrative arrangement for Hong Kong when the former British colony was handed over to China in 1997.

We are very clear sighted about the challenges China presents in the region and around the world. We in the UK want to work with China and hope for positive, constructive engagement and strive for that...We welcome all partners who join us in calling out what is a serious violation of the UK-China joint declaration..., Barton said.

The UK also has grave concerns about human rights abuses, particularly against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, he added. Pointing specifically to Huaweis role in 5G, he said the UK and India can work together to resolve such wider global issues and to diversify markets.

Asked about the activities in UK of Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), a pro-Khalistan group banned by India, Barton declined to go into details but said Britain would act if any of its laws were violated.

In the UK, you have the right to protest and the right to freedom of speech is there but there are limits to it. Where people clearly break the law, we will take action. We have a dialogue with the Indian government across a range of issues of mutual interest and extremism of all kinds is one of those, he said.

Barton said there was no inconsistency between the Indian government projecting the country as an open destination for trade and investment while also working for self-reliance through the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative. The two countries, he said, can work on making critical supply chains more resilient.

Its perfectly possible for India to be an open trading economy and open to investments and international cooperation while also pursuing the [Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative] and wanting to manufacture in India and wanting to build manufacturing and other capacities and capability...I dont see any inconsistency, he said.

Barton, a career diplomat with long experience of South Asia and India, advised the need for caution while responding to questions about the two countries cooperating on Covid-19 vaccines, including the Oxford-AstraZeneca backed vaccine that has shown encouraging results.

He said it wasnt known for certain if any of the vaccines would work, and the world community needs to keep backing a suite of potential vaccines till research reaches a stage where experts can be confident. Distribution of any successful vaccine would also be based on the ability of countries to pay for it and those needing subsidies, he added.

Indias fantastic vaccine capability and the tie-up between the Serum Institute of India and AstraZeneca represent a clear partnership with India in this field, Barton said.

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44th Session of the Human Rights Council

Agenda Item 2: Interactive dialogue on the annual report of the High Commissioner

02 July 2020

Statement by Sri Lanka

Madam President,

Sri Lanka welcomes the presentation by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Annual Report of her Office for 2019.We appreciate the initiatives taken by the Office to provide technical and financial assistance to States upon request, and highlight the need for equitable geographical representation in the Office. In continuation of our commitment to constructive engagement, Sri Lanka will be making a voluntary contribution of USD 5000 to the Office of the High Commissioner in 2020.

Sri Lanka also notes the oral update provided to this Council by the High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday, on COVID-19 related human rights implications in the world. We welcome the High Commissioners request for greater international solidarity in recovering from the pandemic, especially her call to recognize a future COVID-19 vaccine as a global public good, and the call for easing or suspension of sanctions that hinder pandemic-related relief.

As a country that has guaranteed free universal healthcare to all its people since 1953, through one of the highest per capita health expenditures in its region, Sri Lanka has been able to successfully contain the spread of COVID-19 through a balanced, multi-sectoral approach.

Swift preventive measures at the national level, a well-networked, multi-stakeholder contact tracing mechanism, and a robust healthcare system geared towards screening / testing and hospitalized care, have helped to ensure zero social transmission of COVID-19 in the country since 1 May 2020. With only 11 deaths, the last being on 01 June 2020, the COVID-19 fatality rate in Sri Lanka stands at 0.54%, which is significantly lower than the global fatality rate of 4.85%, while the recovery rate in Sri Lanka stands at 83.59% higher than the global recovery rate of 54.77%.[1]

Madam President,

The approach adopted by the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) in containing the pandemic, which has also been commended by the World Health Organisation, has been inclusive, non-discriminatory and holistic, providing foremost importance to safeguarding the health and safety of not only its people but foreign nationals in its territory.

The steps taken by the Government to curb the spread of the virus did not at any point involve resort to emergency measures that would have required derogations from the exercise of fundamental freedoms, but were strictly limited to minimum temporary restrictions on movement in the interest of public health, in accordance with the due process of law, with the aim of protecting right across the country all sections of society during this pandemic, which too were fully lifted on 28 June 2020.

These public health measures were accompanied by a series of policies aimed at advancing the economic and social rights of particularly the vulnerable segments in society, such as support for low income families, older persons, the differently-abled, day income earners, farmers and industries, with a view to building their resilience to the effects of the pandemic.

In this regard, we recall the address by the President of Sri Lanka to the Summit of the Non-aligned Movement (NAM) on 4 May 2020, where the attention of world leaders was drawn to the unprecedented economic and debt-related challenges arising from COVID-19, and the consequent need for debt relief and financial stimulus for developing countries. We appreciate that the High Commissioner has also highlighted this need in her update by calling for debt relief and direct investments to fulfil the right to development in the post-pandemic world.

At the regional level, Sri Lanka has contributed USD 5 million to the COVID-19 Emergency Fund of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation to assist pandemic related challenges in the region.

Madam President,

As the COVID-19 pandemic moves from one geographical region in the world to another, we are increasingly reminded of the stark inequalities that exist in our global landscape, which are often exacerbated by the effects of the pandemic. The United Nations system, including this Council, has a pivotal role in addressing these inequalities and in ensuring that no one is actually left behind in global efforts to overcome the COVID-19 crisis. Sri Lanka believes that genuine dialogue and cooperation among the international community is important to achieve this objective and we stand ready to share its experience and good practices with fellow nations and work in solidarity with them towards this end.

Madam President,

With regard to views expressed on Tuesday (30 June) by the core group on Resolution 30/1 on Sri Lanka (UK, Canada, Germany, North Macedonia and Montenegro), the GoSL has made clear that even as it withdraws from co-sponsorship of Resolution 30/1, it remains committed to achieve reconciliation, accountability and human rights within the framework of the Sri Lankan Constitution, through a domestically designed and executed process in line with the Governments policy framework. We urge all parties once again to recognize the realities on the ground, and appreciate this approach of focusing on deliverable measures of reconciliation  which is backed by a peoples mandate and is in the interest of Sri Lanka and its people, instead of opting to continue with a framework driven externally that has failed to deliver genuine reconciliation for over four and half years.

In conclusion, the Government of Sri Lanka continues its engagement with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Human Rights mechanisms and work in close cooperation with the international community through capacity building and technical assistance in mutually agreed areas, in keeping with domestic priorities and policies.

Thank you.

[1] COVID-19: Live Situational Analysis Dashboard of Sri Lanka- Health Promotion Board of Sri Lanka, updated as at 01 July 2020, https://hpb.health.gov.lk/covid19-dashboard/

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FAIRFIELD  The Democratic candidate for the 28th Districts State Senate seat has been recognized again by an organization in favor of gun legislation reform.

According to a press release, Michelle McCabe was awarded the 2020 Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America candidate distinction for the second time.

The organizations website says Moms Demand Action is a grassroots movement fighting for public safety measures that can protect people from gun violence.

Contributed Photo / Contributed Photo

The release said McCabe also received the Moms Demand Action Gun Sense Candidate distinction in 2018. McCabe was one of only two candidates in Connecticut to be endorsed by Everytown for Gun Safety.

McCabe, a long-time Fairfield resident and mother of three, is the director of the Center for Food Equity and Economic Development at The Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport. She said she was proud to be recognized for her support of strong gun safety legislation a second time.

With gun violence on the rise, we need elected officials we can count on to consistently support policies that keep us safe, McCabe said.

The release said more than 100 Americans are shot and killed every day on average, and twice that many wounded.

While Connecticut has the fifth lowest rate of gun violence in the United States, McCabe said, there is still much work to be done to reduce gun homicide rates, reduce the flow of illegal weapons and ensure that our gun laws protect all members of our community, including people of color.
Kolkata, July 23 : With the political centrestage set for the high-voltage West Bengal Assembly polls scheduled in 2021, the state's ruling Trinamool Congress and its arch rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are busy chalking out their electoral strategies against each other.

At a time when state BJP leaderships held high-level meetings with their Delhi counterparts in the national capital on Thursday, Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee reshuffled the party's organisational structures in various districts across West Bengal.

Spiralling protests over Amphan relief fund irregularities had already plagued the state's incumbent formation with many senior-level leaders in the districts getting embroiled in the controversy. Be it distribution of food grains and tarpaulin in cyclone-ravaged pockets of Sunderbans or inclusion of ghost names in the list of beneficiaries - Trinamool Congress' name cropped up almost everywhere.

To troubleshoot the party's image in run up to the next year's elections, Banerjee made a number of changes in the Trinamool Congress from its core committee members to district presidents.

Announcing a major rejig, the West Bengal CM gave more priorities to younger and new faces in the party's forefront that are relatively clean as far as their political image is concerned. She announced a new state committee with 21 members in it and a seven-member core panel of Trinamool Congress that included names of Abhishek Banerjee, Subhendu Adhikari, Partha Chatterjee, Subrata Bakshi, Firhad Hakim, Kalyan Banerjee and Shanta Chetri, Trinamool sources said.

Besides this, the presidents of several districts including Howrah, Coochbehar, Purulia, Nadia, Jhargram and South Dinajpur were also removed.

New and younger faces such as Laxmi Ratan Shukla in Howrah, Mahua Moitra in Nadia, Dulal Murmu in Jhargram, Gurupad Tudu in Purulia and Shyamal Santra in Bankura have been given charge of the districts.

Shukla who replaced senior Trinamool Congress leader and West Bengal cooperative minister Arup Roy, said: "I will try to perform to the best of my ability. I will do my 100 per cent in the role that I have been given. I will perform my duties with utmost honesty and responsibility." Interestingly, former People's Committee against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) leader from Maoist-hit Lalgarh Chatradhar Mahato was included in the Trinamool state committee along with Churamoni Mahato and Sukumar Hnasda. Mahato was a prominent Maoist (Naxal) leader who gained prominence following the Salboni blast in November 2008. In 2020 he joined Trinamool Congress after being released from jail recently.

Sources in the party said that giving importance to Mahato at the state level can turn out to be Mamata's political masterstroke ahead of the 2021 Assembly polls. Mahato who was convicted under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) in 2015, will help Mamata to control the dreaded western region of Bengal known as Junglemahal - an imaginary belt now comprising four districts of Bankura, Purulia, Jhargram and West Midnapore.

On the other hand, state BJP has also been holding district-wise mega-meetings to cement their booth-level organisations. BJP sources said in the Chintan meeting, the BJP leadership is meeting state leaders from all districts to analyse the political situation at the grassroots. The sessions are chaired by state BJP president Dilip Ghosh, national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargia, Rahul Sinha, Mukul Roy and others. The series of meetings will continue for the entire week, sources said.

Meanwhile, former Kolkata mayor and West Bengal minister Sovan Chatterjee who had resigned from the Trinamool Congress after a tiff with the party chief and joined the BJP in Bengal, was requested to join the sessions virtually via video conferencing. Political observers said the saffron brigade now wants to activate all opposition political entities across Bengal who can put up a strong fight against Trinamool in the days to come.
US has accused China of engaging in massive illegal spying and influencing operations against US government officials and American citizens. US State Department Spokesperson has said that these activities have increased markedly in scale and scope over the past few years.

As the relations between two countries worsen, US has said that China has been engaging in massive illegal spying and influencing operations against US government officials and American citizens. The Peoples Republic of China has engaged for years in massive illegal spying and influence operations throughout the United States against U.S. government officials and American citizens. These activities have increased markedly in scale and scope over the past few years, US State Department Spokesperson told ANI.

As detailed by Secretary of State Pompeo, FBI Director Wray, and Attorney General Barr in public remarks, PRC officials have interfered in our domestic politics, stolen U.S. intellectual property, coerced our business leaders, threatened families of Chinese Americans residing in China, and more, the State Department spokesperson said.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday (local time) that his administration does not rule out closing additional Chinese diplomatic missions in the United States.

Also Read: After Houston, US hints at closing additional Chinese diplomatic missions

Also Read: China not de-escalating? 40,000 troops still present near LAC

As far as closing additional embassies, its always possible. We thought there was a fire in the one we did close, I guess they were burning documents and papers. I wonder what that is all about, Trump said during a daily press briefing at the White House when asked if he planned to close more Chinese diplomatic missions in the country.

Earlier on Wednesday, the US State Department ordered China to close by Friday its consulate in Houston, Texas, over accusations that it engaged for years in massive illegal spying and influence operations in the US.

Regarding the same, State Secretary Mike Pompeo said, Its not just American intellectual property been stolen, its been European intellectual property too, causing hundreds  costing hundreds of thousands of jobs, good jobs for hard-working people all across Europe and America stolen by the Chinese Communist Party.

We are setting out clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave, and when they do not, we are going to take actions that protect the American people, protect our security, our national security, and also protect our economy and jobs. Thats the actions that youre seeing taken by President Trump. We will continue to engage in those, Pompeo told reporters further.

The two countries have sparred over a range of issues in recent times  Chinas move to impose national security law in Hong Kong, its human rights violation in Xinjiang and territorial aggression in the South China Sea have all drawn fierce criticism from Washington.

Accusing China of bullying smaller countries, US Defence Secretary Mark T Esper had on Tuesday vowed to deter against Chinas coercive behaviour in the South China Sea.

Also Read: Unacceptable behaviour: US chides China on Galwan clash

For all the latest World News, download NewsX App
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 16:26:23|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Germany's state health ministers have decided to conduct coronavirus testing at airports for inbound travelers from high-risk countries, local media reported Thursday.

Germany's state health ministers, along with federal health minister Jens Spahn, agreed in principle on the mandatory tests during a conference call on Wednesday, though a formal decision has not been made, the German Press Agency dpa said.

Arriving passengers from high-risk countries to Germany are currently required to self-quarantine for 14 days. People entering Germany from low-risk countries such as France, Spain, Greece and most of the EU, would not have to submit to testing under the new rule.

Many Germans on vacation in countries like Spain and Greece have put politicians on alert, after media reports accused holidaymakers of attending parties without masks and ignoring social distancing measures on the Spanish island of Mallorca, which is especially popular with Germans.

The president of the German Medical Association, Klaus Reinhardt, has said "The coronavirus pandemic is not over yet." Enditem
(TNS) - A tsunami warning across a large swath of coastal Alaska triggered by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake off the Alaska Peninsula on Tuesday night was canceled early Wednesday after the officials determined the tsunami was no longer a threat.The tsunami warning originally stretched from the Alaska Peninsula to Kodiak Island and the western Kenai Peninsula, sending Alaskans scrambling to higher ground in communities such as Kodiak, Sand Point, Unalaska and Homer.Though some people in Anchorage received tsunami warning alerts, the Anchorage area was not at risk, said Louise Fode, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service.In its notice of the tsunami warning cancellation, the National Tsunami Warning Center said that a tsunami was generated by this event, but no longer poses a threat. Some areas may continue to see small sea level changes.The center also urged people not to return to hazard zones until local officials said it was safe to do so.James Gridley, director of the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, said in an interview early Wednesday that our procedures put us into a warning even if we havent measured a tsunami wave  we imply that there is until we know better.The earthquake occurred at 10:12 p.m. Alaska Daylight Time on Tuesday about 75 miles south of Chignik at a depth of about 17 miles, and was reportedly felt as far away as Anchorage, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.This is a very significant earthquake in size, said Michael West, state seismologist with the Alaska Earthquake Center.The Tuesday night earthquake was something like 15 times more energy than was released in the 2018 Anchorage earthquake, he said. But since it happened offshore, there was much less shaking recorded, and West said earthquake center officials werent expecting damage from shaking.The kind of earthquake that occurred Tuesday evening was typical for the southern coast of Alaska, West said. Its also the same style  more or less, West said  as the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964.These are the style of earthquakes which can be very tsunami-producing, West said.In Kodiak, tsunami warning sirens sounded Tuesday night and residents headed to high ground. Kodiak High School opened its doors for evacuees, as did the local Catholic school. At Coast Guard base Kodiak, residents were instructed to head to Aviation Hill, high ground overlooking the nearby airport. The local public radio station reminded evacuees to carry masks.Weve got a high school full of people. Ive been passing out masks since the first siren sounded, said Larry LeDoux, superintendent of the Kodiak School District. Everythings as calm as can be. Weve got probably 300, 400 people all wearing masks, he said.At the Kodiak Police Department, where local officials had set up an emergency operations center, Officer Francis de la Fuente said they had not seen a wave by 12:15 a.m. Were just waiting for the tsunami warning center, he said.At Kodiak High School, LeDoux said the sirens and evacuations were nothing out of the ordinary for someone who grew up in Kodiak.Ive been doing these since I was a little kid, he said. Old news.In the first minutes of a seismic event, there arent usually enough ocean sensors to measure a tsunami wave, said Gridley with the National Tsunami Warning Center. You have to give it time to get to nearby sensors, he said, but if theres a wave, beaches and shorelines could be impacted before then.We have to assume the worst-case scenario, Gridley said. The safest position is to get people moving. Its not like a hurricane that forms out in the ocean, days away from shore, he said  they have to go straight to a warning.On Tuesday, the center issued its tsunami warning and kept the warning in place after seeing a 25-centimeter, or nearly 10-inch, wave in Sand Point. Center officials knew the tsunami wouldnt be huge, Gridley said, but they had to be certain and wait for the entire wave cycle.If we just start seeing a little bump, we dont know if that bump is going to get much bigger, or if that was it, Gridley said. After about an hour and a half Tuesday, the tsunami advisories for certain areas outside of the warning zones were canceled, Gridley said.We just had to wait long enough to see whether or not we would see more of a wave develop or not, Gridley said. And the answer was no.The center canceled the tsunami warning, which grew to stretch from the Aleutian Islands to the Western Kenai, a little under two hours after it issued its initial warning.Unalaska City Manager Erin Reinders said the city activated its emergency operations center Tuesday night and notified the community to evacuate areas below 50 feet to higher ground, before later issuing the all-clear.We were in a (city) council meeting and started feeling it rocking, and by the time I got home from the council meeting then the warnings were going and had to turn back around, Reinders said.Kachemak Bay communities including Nanwalek, Port Graham, Seldovia, Homer and further inland up to the Fox River mudflats area fell under the tsunami warning, said Brenda Ahlberg, public information officer at the Kenai Peninsula Borough Office of Emergency Management, at 11:45 p.m. Tuesday. People in those areas were told to evacuate and go to higher ground, Ahlberg said.This is a developing situation, and we are monitoring closely the information that is coming from the state and federal agencies that were collaborating with, Ahlberg said before the tsunami warning was canceled. So at this juncture, Im not putting a time stamp on it.2020 Alaska Dispatch News (Anchorage, Alaska)Visit the Alaska Dispatch News (Anchorage, Alaska) at www.adn.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Madera Police Department

California authorities on Thursday continued their desperate search for a special needs toddler who has been missing for over a weeka search made more difficult now that his parents have stopped cooperating with investigators.

Thaddeus Sran, 2, was reported missing on July 15 after his parents said he vanished from their home in Madera, about 30 minutes outside Fresno, the City of Madera Police Department said in a statement. His parents told police that they put the toddler to bed around 10 p.m. but when they woke up to check on their son at around 8:30 a.m. the next morning, he was gone.

But while City of Madera Police Chief Dino Lawson called the incident a parents worst nightmare last week, authorities are now alleging that the couple has not helped in the ongoing search for the 2-year-old.

Unfortunately, Thaddeus parents stopped cooperating early on in the investigation. We believe their assistance, in this case, would be helpful, the police said in a statement to The Daily Beast. We are hopeful that they will resume cooperating with Madera Police Department detectives and help us to locate Thaddeus.

The police department, which did not provide the parents names or say if the couple has been accused of any crime, has been extremely tip-lipped about their investigation. Stressing that they will not stop looking for Thaddeus, the department declined to give any updates on the case.

According to his missing persons poster, Thaddeus was last seen wearing a red shirt and Spiderman pants with a diaper underneath. Authorities said an Amber Alert was never issued for the 30-pound child because there was no information about a possible vehicle. Police added that the toddlers family has offered a $5,000 reward for any information to help find him.

Lawson also revealed last week that the toddler had severe health issues after he was born prematurely. He said that Thaddeus, who is non-verbal, uses a feeding tube and is just learning how to walk.

Story continues

Everything is on the table and were not ruling anything out, Lawson said about the investigation, adding that authorities are looking into the possibility the toddlers disappearance was a possible abduction.

Madera Police Lt. Josiah Arnold also revealed to NBC News that the toddlers parents had another daughter who died in 2015, but declined to provide further details. He added, however, that Thaddeus sisters death was investigated and the case remains open.

On Tuesday evening, dozens of residents who have been helping in the search for Thaddeus, including a group of mothers, hosted a vigil at Courthouse Park with candles, photos, and posters asking for prayers. Many attendees wore red and blue, the colors of Thaddeus Spiderman pants.

We just want to bring him home safe and alive, Sunndeep Sran, Thaddeuss fathers second cousin, told YourCentralValley. She added that while her children go to school with the toddlers siblings, she has not spoken to her cousin since March.

The Sran family appreciates every effort everyone is making, Sran said. We know as much as the media, what the police department is saying, so we are all in support of bringing Thaddeus home.

Lawson said that the Madera County Sheriffs Office, U.S. Marshals, and the FBI were aiding in the case. He said authorities were hopeful the toddlers parents will resume cooperating and come back in and speak with our detectives.

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As many as 29,557 COVID-19 patients have recuperated in a 24-hour span till Thursday morning, the highest recorded in a day so far, taking the recovery rate to 63.18 per cent, the Union health ministry said.

IMAGE: Union minister for health and family welfare, science and technology and earth sciences, Dr. Harsh Vardhan inaugurates "Plasma Donation Campaign, at an event co-organised by the Delhi Police where 26 police personnel who had recovered from COVID volunteered to donate their blood plasma, at AIIMS. Photograph: Press Information Bureau

The number of tests for detection of COVID-19 also crossed the 15-million mark as the number of cases surged to 12,38,635 on Thursday.

According to data updated at 8 am, total recoveries have climbed to 7,82,606 and exceeded the active cases of COVID-19 by 3,56,439 as on date.

A total of 1,50,75,369 samples have been tested up to July 22 with 3,50,823 samples being tested on Wednesday, Indian Council of Medical Research officials said.

With the highest-ever single-day spike of 45,720 cases, India's COVID-19 tally crossed the 12-lakh mark on Thursday, while the death toll mounted to 29,861 with a record 1,129 fatalities reported.

"One million tests were done in three days till Wednesday. The testing capacity has been increased to around 4 lakh per day," scientist and media coordinator at ICMR Lokesh Sharma said.

There are 1290 labs functional in the country which includes 897 government labs and 393 in the private sector.

"From a network of 13 COVID-19 labs in February 2020, the network has now expanded is about 1300 labs. The expansion of lab network has been paired with calibrated expansion of testing strategy, inclusion of newer testing platforms besides RT-PCR:- CBNAAT, TrueNat and Rapid Antigen test.

"All efforts have been made to increase access to testing even at district level. Efforts of ICMR to ramp up testing continue," said Dr Nivedita Gupta, senior scientist and coordinator of Lab Network, ICMR.

According to the health ministry, while the total number of recovered cases has jumped to 7,82,606, there has been appreciable growth in the recovery rate, which stands at 63.18 per cent.

This accomplishment can be attributed to the central government-led COVID-19 management strategies, it said.

Sustained efforts by the Centre, states and union territories are resulting in more effective containment, aggressive testing, and prompt and efficient clinical treatment strategies.

These are guided by the teams of domain experts in the Ministry of Health such as the Joint Monitoring Group and ably complemented by the technical experts at AIIMS-New Delhi, centres of excellence in various states and UTs, ICMR and the National Centre for Disease Control.

The Union government continues to coordinate with the efforts of the states and UTs by sending central teams of experts to areas witnessing increase in caseload and hand-holding of COVID hospitals in states through the tele-consultation programme led by AIIMS, New Delhi, the ministry said.

"These combined efforts have resulted in Case Fatality Rate being managed at low levels. It is 2.41 per cent, as on date, and steadily declining," it said.

This has also helped in reducing the actual caseload of COVID-19 cases which remains confined to 4,26,167 active patients only.
COMMERCIAL/RENOVATION

WASHINGTON

Photo by Benjamin Benschneider Lincoln High Schools entrance was restored with a glass entryway to meet universal access and safety codes. The auditorium was transformed into a light-filled library and media center.





Lincoln High School Modernization

Location: Seattle

Contractor: Vanderlip & Co.

Architect: Bassetti Architects

Team: International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters, Cement Masons and Plasterers Local 528, CWallA, Drywall Distributors, SCAFCO Steel Stud Co., HILTI, USG Building Systems

Lincoln High School is a historical campus in Seattles Wallingford neighborhood that remained unoccupied for 16 years. With the need to accommodate population growth, the school district decided to restore it to a 21st-century learning facility while celebrating its 20th-century roots.

The schools entrance was restored with a glass entryway to meet universal access and safety codes. The auditorium was transformed into a light-filled library and media center.

The suspended, acoustical ceiling, hiding ornamental plaster beams and original coffers, was removed, to expose and restore the historical building features. Learning spaces were organized into neighborhoods with classrooms, breakout spaces, labs, and teacher planning rooms. The new heart of the campus is a protected courtyard for socializing and learning.

Vanderlip & Co. integrated metal framing and modern drywall finishes into almost every wall and ceiling throughout the project. Extensive structural framing reinforced the 110-year-old brick structure. Spray foam provided additional thermal insulation, and newly applied fireproofing enhanced the life safety for the students and staff.

Extensive and detailed work was required to repair the long, veneer-plaster corridors, ornamental plaster stairwells, the majestic second floor, the multipurpose room, and the grand North Library with original ornamental plaster beams.

Judges comment: A spectacular renovation of a landmark building. The merger of original artistry with modern design completed by a skilled team will shine for another century.





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More crop-devastating locust swarms are expected to reach India from Somalia in the next few weeks, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said in a fresh alert, after officials managed to tackle infestations in 3,83,631 hectare of farmland in 10 states in the first wave of attacks, keeping pest population below an economically devastating threshold thus far.

Locust numbers are said to cross the economic threshold level when their numbers cross 10,000 adults per hectare (one hectare equals 2.4 acre). Beyond this limit, the pest become economically ruinous and needs aggressive control.

Using our indigenously developed technologies mounted on air force helicopters and continuous surveillance, we have been able to prevent hoppers (wingless baby locust nymphs) from reaching the immature stage of their life-cycle, which is when they are most devastating, said KL Gurjar, deputy director of the Locust Warning Organisation, the federal agency under agriculture ministry which is responsible for anti-pest operations.

Gurjar said operations to kill nymphs so that they did not reach the crop-eating stage has proven successful in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Bihar. Uttarakhand and Bihar are latest states where locusts have appeared.

Adult locusts pose considerably less threat than immature ones, which need a lot of food, Gurjar said.

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 FAO Desert Locust Information Service manual. If unchecked, locust infestations can cause a considerable drop in food output.

Two MI-17 helicopters of the air force are conducting operations at short notice after being re-purposed to fight the pest with an indigenously developed technology.

Air force pilots are using an in-house technology to spray atomised pesticides from the air, which has been able to track and kill large armies of locusts, Gurjar said.

In one of the largest containment exercises, in the intervening night of July 22-23, operations were carried out at 31 places in 9 districts, including Jaisalmer, Barmer, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Churu, Sikar, Nagaur, Pali and Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan and Kutch in Gujarat.

The choppers were needed because they have better manoeuvrability and can target large trails of pests with a special form of the pesticide malathion, which has been indigenously developed, a second official, requesting anonymity, said. A privately owned Bell helicopter has been deployed by Rajasthan government, apart from 15 drones.

The agriculture ministry signed a contract with the UKs Micron Group to modify two Mi-17 helicopters for spraying atomized pesticides. But the UK-based firms supply has now been delayed until September, a second official said.

This prompted the air force to task its no. 3 base repair depot in Chandigarh to indigenously design an airborne locust control system for Mi-17 helicopters. Atomized airborne spraying has been successfully achieved in air through a configuration of nozzles mounted on both sides on external trusses of Mi-17 helicopters, the second official said.

The focus of the operation have been largely Rajasthan, a hotspot state where swarms of immature pink locusts and adult yellow locusts are active in Jaisalmer, Barmer, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Churu, Sikar, Nagaur, Jaipur, Pali, Hanumangarh, Sriganganagar and Dausa.

Dozens of countries, from Kenya to Pakistan, are battling the worst locust outbreak in generations. The migratory insects are setting off from the Horn of Africa, where they are breeding in insurmountable numbers due to frequent cyclones, according to the FAO.

These cyclones are possibly linked to climate change, according to the FAO. The organisation has already warned the invasions pose a serious risk to Indias agriculture.

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Retired officers commend US lawmakers for speaking out against Netanyahus plan, warn of a chain of events beyond anyones control if Israel follows through





A group of 41 former Israeli security officials sent a letter to four Democrats from the US House of Representatives Tuesday, thanking them for authoring a letter opposing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus stalled plan to annex parts of the West Bank.





The Congressional missive, unveiled last month, implored the Israeli leader to halt his plan and preserve the possibility of a two-state solution, warning that Israel annexing West Bank territory would hurt the Jewish states relationship with the United States. It was signed by 191 House Democrats.





Top row: Former Mossad chiefs from L to R: Danny Yatom, Tamir Pardo, Zvi Zamir, Shabtai Shavit, Nahum Admoni and Efraim Halevy. Bottom row: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and President Reuven Rivlin host a candle lighting ceremony for of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah at the President's residence in Jerusalem on December 18, 2014. (Haim Zach / GPO)

We commend you on building such a broad coalition of Members of Congress to join you in signing this letter, the ex-officials said. We consider it a further manifestation of the broad-based support for the kind of Israel we have fought for on the battlefield and continue to strive for, one that is strong and safe, maintains a solid Jewish majority for generations to come, all while upholding the values of democracy and equality as enshrined in our Declaration of Independence.





The signatories include former Mossad chiefs Tamir Pardo, Shabtai Shavit, and Danny Yatom; and ex-Shin Bet heads Ami Ayalon and Yaakov Peri. Efraim Sneh, who was deputy defense minister under former prime minister Ehud Olmert, also signed on, along with a number of other one-time top IDF officials, such as Amos Yaron, Giora Inbar and Baruch Spiegel.





Together, they wrote that they are convinced that in any future negotiations Israel must insist on the annexation of certain settlement blocs and East Jerusalem Jewish neighborhoods within an agreed territorial swap, but that what is a just demand in negotiations is bound to prove counterproductive when done unilaterally.





Unilateral annexation, they added, could trigger a chain of events beyond anyones control, destabilizing the West Bank and Gaza, ending Israels peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, preventing Israel from normalizing relations with its other Arab neighbors, and eroding the possibility of a two-state outcome.





The letter was sent to Florida Congressman Ted Deutch, Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, Illinois Congressman Brad Schneider, and North Carolina Congressman David Price  all of whom wrote the June 25 letter.





The retired officials also alluded to a letter to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, sent by progressive lawmakers such as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, calling for aid reductions to Israel if the country annexes parts of the West Bank.





Any perceived erosion, however misconstrued, in these relations and in the ironclad US commitment to the durability of security assistance risks undermining our deterrence, they wrote.





The United States currently earmarks $3.8 billion in military assistance for Israel every year, per a memorandum of understanding forged between the Obama administration and Netanyahu government in 2016.





Netanyahu has vowed to annex the roughly 30 percent of the territory, including all settlements and the Jordan Valley, allocated to Israel under the Trump administration peace plan, which theoretically envisions a Palestinian state in the remaining territory with land swaps.





He originally hoped to begin annexing these territories as early as July 1, but the process has stalled, as the Trump administration has not approved the plan and the prime minister has faced resistance from inside his own coalition, including from Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz.





( Source: Time of Israel )
The U.S. may have fanned the flames of a new cold war this week when the U.S. State Department abruptly ordered the closure of the Chinese Consulate in Houston, an act followed by Chinese officials inside the building apparently burning documents in metal barrels.

This video shared with us by a viewer who lives next to the Consulate General of China in #Houston shows fire and activity in the courtyard of the building.

DETAILS SO FAR: https://t.co/2cOeKoap96 pic.twitter.com/0myxe6HIlC  KPRC2Tulsi (@KPRC2Tulsi) July 22, 2020

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The order mandated that all employees move out of the mission by Friday afternoon.

The State Department hasnt specified the event that prompted the consulates closure, but the order came less than 72 hours after the Department of Justice indicted Chinese hackers Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi on charges that allege theft of coronavirus-related pharmaceutical research from U.S. companies. Morgan Ortagus, a spokesperson for the State Department, said the government ordered the compound to shutter to protect American intellectual property and Americans private information. In an interview, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs David R. Stilwell vaguely described the Houston consulate as a hub for subversive behavior and research theft.

According to the New York Times, the FBI has conducted multiple investigations with connections to the consulate in Houston. They include plans to coax more than 50 people to hand over sensitive research on Chinese organizations, efforts to obtain classified medical findings, and the persuasion of wanted Chinese fugitives in the U.S. to go back to China.

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China swore retaliation immediately, leading some to fear that Beijing might shut down the U.S. Consulate in Wuhan, the so-called sister consulate of the Chinese Embassy in Houston. On Thursday, the South China Morning Post reported that Beijing is preparing to close the U.S. Consulate in the city of Chengdu. [Update, July 24 at 8:48 a.m.: China has ordered the Chengdu consulate to close.] The Chinese Embassy in Washington has described the U.S.s accusations as groundless fabrications. And Cai Wei, the Chinese consul general in Houston, told Politico that China plans to protest the closure. We think that the demand from the U.S. side  is not according to international practice or [diplomatic] norms, and it violates the China-U.S. consular treaty, Cai said. We prepared for the worst scenario but weve also launched a strong protest  so we urge the U.S. to abandon and revoke that wrong decision.

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The Chinese Consulate in Houston is one of six in the U.S. At a news conference on Wednesday, addressing the question of whether the U.S. would close more Chinese embassies, President Donald Trump said, Its always possible.

Meanwhile, federal prosecutors on Thursday charged a Chinese cancer researcher in connection with lying about her ties to the Peoples Liberation Army, and the FBI believes she is hiding out in the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco. Prosecutors say Tang Juan allegedly fudged her connection to the Chinese military in a visa application last October and lied last month in an interview with the FBI, whose agents uncovered photos of Tang sporting the uniform of the Peoples Liberation Army civilian cadre. During the conversation, Tang denied her military affiliation and claimed she didnt understand what the insignia on her uniform signified.

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On Monday, charges against Song Chen, a visiting Stanford University researcher, likewise alleged that Song concealed her membership in the Chinese military and committed visa fraud.

The U.S. has a history of indicting foreign officers and intelligence operativesbut to little avail in preventing future cyberattacks. Rep. Jim Langevin, who served on a congressionally created cyberdeterrence commission, told the New York Times, Our problem is that we have to be much more clear about what actions we wont tolerate and what the consequences will be. But instead of allaying future threats to the United States, these new actions risk elevating an already tense relationship between the two global powers.
(Natural News) A recent study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society showed that poor oral health is linked to cognitive decline.

Researchers at New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing, the University of Nevada and Rutgers University found that older Chinese adults in the U.S. who reported teeth symptoms experienced faster cognitive decline than those who reported gum symptoms.

This finding underscores the importance of dental care and the need to include oral healthcare services when developing culturally-tailored interventions aimed at mitigating cognitive decline and improving quality of life among the elderly.

Teeth problems linked to cognitive decline

For their study, the researchers drew data from the Population Study of Chinese Elderly or PINE, an epidemiological study that examined the health and quality of life of the Chinese elderly in the greater Chicago area.

The PINE researchers interviewed more than 3,000 participants between 2011 and 2013 and inquired about their health issues. Among the questions asked was whether the participants experienced teeth and gum symptoms.

In the follow-up interview conducted in 2015, only 2,713 out of the 3,157 baseline respondents agreed to participate. Those who did not complete the follow-up interview were older participants who also had worse cognitive performance, according to the researchers.

During the initial as well as the follow-up interview, the PINE researchers asked the participants to take five cognitive tests. Four of the tests covered three cognitive domains: executive function, episodic memory and working memory.

Using data from these tests as well as the participants self-reported oral symptoms, the current study examined the link between teeth and gum symptoms and changes in cognitive function.

The researchers found that 47.8 percent of the more than 2,700 participants reported having teeth symptoms, while 18.9 percent reported having gum symptoms. After adjusting for sociodemographic and health?related characteristics, they noted that participants who had teeth symptoms at baseline experienced a decrease in global cognition and episodic memory.

The same participants also displayed a faster rate of decline in global cognition for each additional year. In contrast, the researchers did not find a significant relationship between gum symptoms and changes in cognitive function. (Related: Exergaming improves cognitive function of older patients.)

According to XinQi Dong, the studys senior author, racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S., particularly older Chinese Americans, are vulnerable to the negative effects of poor oral health. Besides having less access to dental care, language barriers and a low socioeconomic status further exacerbate this problem.

Our research raises critical awareness for dental and healthcare providers, said Dong. Working collaboratively, dental and healthcare providers can better identify oral health symptoms as risk factors of cognitive decline in this fast-growing vulnerable population. The primary focus should include promoting optimal oral health and improving the quality of life.

Poor social conditions can contribute to stress, dry mouth

In another study, Dong and some of his colleagues examined the role of psychosocial factors in oral health problems by looking at how perceived stress is linked to dry mouth, a common complaint among older adults. They used baseline information from the PINE study for their analysis.

The researchers found that higher levels of perceived stress correlated to a higher likelihood of reporting dry mouth. They also noted that the effect of perceived stress on the risk of dry mouth was dependent on the amount of support the older participants received from their family and friends.

Taken together, the two studies highlight the importance of adequate dental care services and social support for maintaining the well-being of the elderly.

Efforts must be made to increase social support to alleviate stress and the resulting dry mouth issues reported by our study participants, said Dong. These efforts can help preserve older adults health and well-being and limit cognitive decline.

Sources include:

ScienceDaily.com

ChineseHealthyAging.org

OnlineLibrary.Wiley.com 1

OnlineLibrary.Wiley.com 2
Hundreds of unemployed Kentucky residents wait in long lines outside the Kentucky Career Center for help with their unemployment claims in Frankfort, Ky., on June 19, 2020 (John Sommers II/Getty Images)

Another 1.4 Million US Workers Seek Jobless Benefits

More than 1.4 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, the first increase in this closely watched barometer of the labor market since it began falling from its end-of-March peak of nearly 7 million, suggesting the economic recovery has hit a rough patch and appears to be stalling.

The Labor Departments weekly jobless claims report (pdf) released July 23 shows that 1.42 million American workers filed initial jobless claims for the week ending July 18. Thats up by 109,000 from an upwardly revised 1.31 million the prior week.

The COVID-19 virus continues to impact the number of initial claims and insured unemployment, the Labor Department said in the release, as cases of the respiratory illness have surged across the country.

Authorities in the hard-hit South and West regions have moved to shut businesses again or pause reopenings. Workers being sent back home again are joining a second wave of layoffs, triggered by lack of demand as the economy battles recession.

There are a total of 31.8 million American workers receiving unemployment benefits across all programs, the Labor Department figures show. In the comparable week in 2019, there were 1.7 million people claiming unemployment benefits in all programs.

Small-business hiring has slowed in states experiencing a COVID-19 resurgence, according to high-frequency labor market data from a recent report by scheduling firm Homebase.

States like Arizona, Florida, and Texas have seen the number of hours worked decline since cases began to spike at the end of June, wrote Ray Sandza, vice president of data and analytics at the company.

After cresting in mid-June, the measure of hours worked in Arizona, Florida, and Texas was around 17 percent higher than in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York, while now that difference appears to be around 2 to 3 percent.

States hit hardest at the beginning of the pandemic, including Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York, have steadily improved and, despite a deeper trough, are almost even with states that re-opened earlier and are now experiencing a second wave of cases, Sandza wrote.

The Labor Department figures show that the biggest increases in initial claims for the week ending July 11 were in Florida (+65,890), Georgia (+33,292), California (+20,123), Washington (+16,116), and Indiana (+6,258). The largest decreases in the same period were in Maryland (-13,728), Texas (-11,583), New Jersey (-8,577), Michigan (-6,882), and Louisiana (-5,066).

Demand has been showing signs of picking up, with retail sales increasing strongly in May and June, supported by the governments additional weekly $600 checks for the unemployed. Known as the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) program, this is the additional federal benefit of $600 per week over and above regular and state unemployment insurance payments and other forms of pandemic unemployment assistance.

Established by the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, the FPUC benefit is set to expire by July 31.

Negotiations are underway on Capitol Hill for some form of extension of the FPUC benefit, with Republicans considering a short-term extension, while Democrats are pushing for it to continue through January 2021.
A father has lost an appeal against his conviction for orally raping his daughter on the basis that she failed to notice three plastic implants he had surgically inserted underneath the foreskin of his penis.

The man's legal team had submitted that the case was "truly exceptional" by reason of the inconsistency between the presence of visible implants in the man's penis and his daughter's evidence that nothing visible was there at the time of the offences.

The Court of Appeal today found the obvious explanation was that the child, who was seeing a male adult penis for the first time in the stressful context of being abused, would not have been aware of differences between it and a penis which did not have such implants.

The 51-year-old man, whose details cannot be published to protect the victims identity, had denied 22 counts of sexual abuse, oral rape, child sexual exploitation and attempted rape in the family's Dublin home on dates between October 2009 and July 2011, when the girl was aged between 13 and 15.

He was found guilty by a Central Criminal Court jury and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment with the final six months suspended by Ms Justice Tara Burns on January 14, 2019.

Appealing his conviction to the Court of Appeal last May, Mr Giollaiosa O Lideadha SC said it was introduced during the trial that the appellant previously had three implants surgically inserted under the foreskin of his penis and these plastic objects was present at the time of the alleged offending. He submitted that the prosecution had created "a fundamental gap" in the evidence by providing no rational explanation as to how the sexual abuse had occurred without the complainant having noticed the plastic implants.

Mr O Lideadha said the complainant gave categoric evidence that the plastic objects were not present when she was sexually abused by her father. The defence had made the case at trial that it was impossible that the offences could have occurred without the complainant being aware of the said objects, he said.

The barrister submitted that the prosecution had made no effort to address how the offence could have occurred without the complainant noticing these hard objects nor did they provide any rational explanation for the contradiction, which created a fundamental gap in the evidence.

"These offences were alleged to have taken place over a very long period of time and were not isolated incidents and it defies logic to contend that she just did not notice the lumps," submitted Mr O'Lideadha. He went on to say that it could have helped the defence at trial if investigating gardai had asked the complainant for a description of her father's penis.

An application was made to the trial judge to direct the jury in her charge that there was no evidence to support a suggestion by counsel for the prosecution that the complainant had noticed the lumps but did not realise they were foreign objects, he said, adding that this application was subsequently refused.

In reply, counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Dominic McGinn SC, said the discrepancy in the evidence was a matter for the jury to assess. Mr McGinn explained that photographs of the man's penis had gone to the jury to show them what the implants looked like.

In a judgement returned electronically this morning, Ms Justice Una Ni Raifeartaigh said the most distinctive factual feature of the case was that the appellant had implants in his penis which were visible to the eye; however, the complainant had given evidence that they were not there at the time of the offences. "It is a matter of undisputed fact that the implants were not only present and visible at the time of the offences," said the judge. She also said that many of the appellant's submissions were built around this issue, which the appellant had described as a "fundamental inconsistency or discrepancy in the evidence."

The judge said the Court of Appeal were not persuaded by the appellant's submission that the trial was unfair or the verdict unsafe as the reality was that the answers given by the complainant during the trial were as beneficial to the appellant's case as they possibly could have been. "No injustice was created in this case by the failure of the gardai to take a further statement from the complainant on the issue prior to the trial," she said.

Furthermore, Ms Ni Raifeartaigh said the three judges did not accept that the case should have been withdrawn from the jury because of the conflict in the evidence. "The contrast between the objective reality and what the complainant said was indeed present; but its significance was quintessentially a jury matter," she outlined. The judge noted that the obvious explanation that would present itself to the mind of any ordinary objective person was that a child, who was seeing a male adult penis for the first time in the stressful context of being abused would not have been aware of differences between it and a penis which did not have such implants.

The judge said the Court of Appeal accepted that the discrepancy was a feature of the evidence but the trial judge very clearly directed the jury on the matter, and gave a corroboration warning. She said it would be wrong for the Court of Appeal to substitute its view for the jury, which had the opportunity to hear from all the witnesses and in particular the complainant on the core issues of fact in the case.

Ms Justice Una Ni Raifeartaigh, who sat with President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice George Birmingham and Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy said they were not persuaded by any of the grounds of appeal and dismissed it.

Passing sentence after the trial, Ms Justice Burns said the man had abused his daughter for his own sexual gratification in the atmosphere of fear and power he exercised in the house.

In a victim impact statement, the then 22-year-old woman told the Central Criminal Court that she felt like her father killed her inside. I see his face and smile every time I look in the mirror. I look at myself and my body like I'm ashamed, she said.

I see my father's face and feel his breath when I get intimate with a man, she continued.

The woman said she was not scared of her father anymore and turned to face her father in court and told him: you made me feel I was worthless and you made me feel like it was my fault. You killed me inside and I will never forgive you for that.

You didn't feel guilty and you didn't feel any remorse to me or the woman you abused for 20 years. I am no longer the powerless girl I once was, I got the justice I finally deserved. The court heard that the man physically abused the girl's mother for a number of years.

The man was arrested and interviewed in July 2014 but denied all the allegations. He claimed the girl had fabricated the story because of his physical abuse of her mother. He did not accept the jury's verdict and has not expressed any remorse.

In a letter, his lawyers said their client will never apologise for the sexual assaults, as if he did it would mean admitting all the allegations laid against him.
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By Finian Cunningham

July 22, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - The much-touted tough measures promised by the British government against China over alleged human rights violations turned out to be a damp squib. No doubt a sudden reality-check of the British economys dependence on China had a sobering effect on Downing Streets reckless antagonism towards Beijing.

Britains Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab made a much anticipated annoucement in the House of Commons this week that London was suspending an extradition treaty with its former colony Hong Kong in protest over Beijing implementing new security laws on the territory.

The United Kingdom is following the United States, Canada and Australia which have also ended extradition treaties with Hong Kong. They accuse Beijing of undermining political freedoms bequeathed to the island territory as part of a handover deal by Britain in 1997. China maintains new security laws are required to quell Western-backed unrest in the special administrative region which is ultimately under Chinese sovereignty.

However, in the end, Raabs much-vaunted punitive measures did not go far enough for more hardline Tory parliamentarians and other opposition lawmakers who were disgruntled that the government did not initiate sanctions against Chinese officials. In short, it was a climbdown.

Indeed, the London government appeared to be tamping down a political firestorm it had ignited in recent days with China. The decision last week to axe Chinese tech company Huawei from Britains telecoms network, as well as reports of a British aircraft carrier being dispatched to the South China Sea, had been met with a furious response from Beijing which accused London of hostility and starting a new Cold War.

Chinas ambassador to the Britain mockingly told the BBC that Britain was dancing to the tune of Washington. Beijing also vowed to hit back with reciprocal economic and diplomatic measures.

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On the day that Foreign Secretary Raab unveiled Britains response to the Hong Kong issue, it was notable how he toned down his erstwhile gung-ho rhetoric. In a statement to the House of Commons, Raab surprised some observers by saying Britain wanted a positive relationship with China.

He said: There is a huge amount to be gained for both countries, there are many areas where we can work productively, constructively to mutual benefit together.

On the same day, too, Prime Minister Boris Johnson also signaled a climbdown from the high-horse attitude towards Beijing.

Johnson said there was a need for balance to be struck in the UKs relationship with Beijing.

Im not going to be pushed into a position of becoming a knee-jerk Sinophobe on every issue, somebody who is automatically anti-China, he said.

Johnson said he would not completely abandon our policy of engagement with Beijing, adding: China is a giant factor of geopolitics You have got to have a calibrated response and we are going to be tough on some things but also going to continue to engage.

What this suggests is the British authorities had belatedly incurred a rude awakening from their delusions of post-colonial grandeur with regard to relations with China.

In the 21st century, Britain is no match for China, economically or militarily. Chinas economy  the second biggest in the world after the U.S.  is six times that of Britain, while China spends fivefold more on its annual military budget.

The British economy is heavily dependent on Chinese foreign direct investment. There is far greater Chinese capital investment in Britain than elsewhere in Europe or North America. After the setback to Huawei, China could hurt the British economy severely if its companies redirected capital to other Western destinations. The relocation being prompted by a loss of confidence by Chinese firms in Britain.

For example, TikTok, the Chinese social media company, is reportedly retreating from its plans to make Britain its global overseas headquarters following Londons U-turn on Huawei. Some 3,000 British jobs are at stake if TikTok cancels its plans.

Another illustration of British dependency on China is the reliance of universities on Chinese students for their income. A recent report shows that many of Britains most prestigious universities are reliant on Chinese funds for up to one-third of their earned tuition fees.

Such cold economic realities seem to have given Johnsons government pause for thought in its dalliance with Cold War posturing towards China. Its as if British ministers had momentarily forgotten that their nation is a shadow of its former imperial power. They giddily joined in Washingtons policy of ratcheting up hostility towards Beijing, only to realize that Britain is way out of its depth.

Hence the discernible attempt to soften the punitive measures that London was threatening against Beijing. Cancelling an extradition treaty is more symbolic than having any practical impact while balking at imposing sanctions on China indicates that British ministers received a briefing from Whitehall mandarins telling them to dial down the hostile rhetoric or else be prepared to face eye-watering economic repercussions.

It seems significant that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew into London within hours of Johnson and Raab expressing reticence about going down the Cold War route with China. Pompeo reportedly held talks with the British premier and his foreign minister to urge them to take a harder line on China.

This is the dilemma for Britain as a vassal of Washington. It is being pushed to do Washingtons bidding in riling up Beijing, but the British know full well that they cant afford to incite Chinas anger. Johnsons kowtowing balancing act between the United States and China is one of embarrassing weakness.
Scranton, PA (18503)

Today

Cloudy. Snow likely late. Low near 25F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 70%. Snow accumulations less than one inch..

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Cloudy. Snow likely late. Low near 25F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 70%. Snow accumulations less than one inch.
Amsterdam (Netherlands) headquartered beverage firm Schweppes International Limited (SIL) removed the Ganesha Cocktail (earlier promoted on its website), after Hindus protested calling it highly inappropriate.

Distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, who spearheaded the protest, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, thanked SIL for understanding the concerns of Hindu community, which thought name of Lord Ganesha on a cocktail was insensitive.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, further said that they were, however, still waiting for apology form SIL and its parent Suntory Holdings Limited (SHL), based in Japan.

Rajan Zed suggested that companies like SIL and SHL should send their senior executives for training in religious and cultural sensitivity so that they had an understanding of the feelings of customers and communities when introducing new products or launching advertising campaigns.

Zed had said that inappropriate usage of Hindu deities or concepts or symbols or icons for commercial or other agenda was not okay as it hurt the devotees.

Rajan Zed had stated that Lord Ganesha was highly revered in Hinduism and he was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to be converted into an alcoholic mixed drink served in a cocktail glass for sipping at the bar. Moreover, linking a deity with an alcoholic beverage was very disrespectful, Zed added.

SIL and SHL should not be in the business of religious appropriation, sacrilege, and ridiculing entire communities, Zed had indicated.

Hinduism was the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about 1.1 billion adherents and a rich philosophical thought and it should not be taken frivolously. Symbols of any faith, larger or smaller, should not be mishandled, Rajan Zed had noted.

It was deeply trivializing of immensely venerated Hindu deity Lord Ganesha to be associated with an alcoholic drink, Zed had emphasized.

In Hinduism, Lord Ganesha is worshipped as god of wisdom and remover of obstacles and is invoked before the beginning of any major undertaking.

Before removal, the recipe of Ganesha Cocktail on SIL website, suggested for anytime occasion, included Gin spiced with Schweppes Lemon and garnished with rosemary. Schweppes was founded in 1783, and SIL markets Schweppes brand in Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. SHL, founded 1899, claims to be a global leader in both the alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages industry; and Takeshi Niinami is its CEO.

Source : From Our Correspondent
For the past 68 years that Queen Elizabeth II has reigned the British monarchy, she has been known as one of the primmest leaders in history. With her positive aura and years of experience as a world leader, Her Majesty is unlikely to experience an embarrassing moment in public.

But just like the rest of us, the 94-year-old monarch is also human who makes honest mistakes from time-to-time. She may be the head of the British monarchy, but she cannot always be the iconic Queen we see on the pedestal.

Below are some of the funniest and most awkward moment of Queen Elizabeth II throughout the years.

Queen Elizabeth II Behind The Bush

The Queen once took an extreme measure to avoid entertaining a controversial guest staying at the Buckingham Palace. It was in 1978 when Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena Ceausescu visited the United Kingdom and stayed at the Palace for a while.

In the ITV documentary "Inside the Crown: Secrest of the Royals," royal experts revealed how Queen Elizabeth II hid in the Palace bushes to avoid the couple who served as her guests.

According to journalist Robert Hardman, Her Majesty spotted the couple while taking her dogs for a walk. To avoid exchanging small talk with her guests, Queen Elizabeth jumped into a nearby bush.

"The Queen puts up with having many different people, but Ceausescu was too much for her," Hardman said.

Nelson Mandela, A Gate-Crasher?

To be invited by Queen Elizabeth II in a private gathering is such a huge honor, but one leader once tried to put her in an awkward position by showing up in a dinner where he was not invited to attend.

In 1991, Her Majesty hosted a dinner for Commonwealth leaders, but Nelson Mandela suddenly showed up and put the Queen in a possible diplomatic disaster.

In the BBC documentary "The Queen: In Her Own Words," it was revealed that Queen Elizabeth II told Mandela about the conference happening in Zimbabwe, but she did not extend him an invitation to dinner because he is still considered as a leader of a terrorist organization.

Her Majesty eventually allowed Mandela to stay, which went well.

Cringey Outfit

Queen Elizabeth II always stands out with her wardrobe. But she once wore an ugly outfit that did not only caught her stylists's attention but also led to Prince Philip's harsh joke.

In the book penned by the Queen's designer Angela Kelly, she revealed a moment when Her Majesty was wearing a cringe-worthy outfit made of jacquard material with a large print. Kelly was not able to control herself and told Queen Elizabeth II how awful her dress was.

"Without hesitation, I said, 'No way! It doesn't suit you at all, and it is totally the wrong pattern," Kelly said, resulting in an awkward silence between her and the Queen.

The Duke of Edinburg also made fun of her outfit by asking her if she was wearing a new material for the sofa.

Chasing Corgis

Queen Elizabeth II once made fun of a chef after her pet corgis chased him during their first meeting.

According to Darren McGrady, he thought his first meeting with the Queen would be awesome. Nonetheless, the moment was ruined by her corgis who chased him and barked hysterically after seeing him.

"I was so scared I turned around and ran away. The Queen was laughing, she thought it was really funny," McGrady told the Insider.

After the meeting, McGrady landed his first job in the Palace kitchen but not to cook for royals, but for the dogs who chased him.

READ MORE: Princess Beatrice Wedding: A Proof Of UK Media Bias vs. Meghan Markle?
Coronavirus LIVE Updates: Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday said a complete lockdown could be imposed in the state again as over 1,000 new cases of coronavirus were reported for the first time on Wednesday.

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So far more than 140,000 Americans have died due to coronavirus and 3.8 million have tested positive. While the US economy is slowly coming back to normal, the pandemic is now spreading in the Sun Belt of the country.

The United States is leading the world in terms of COVID-19 testing and India is at second position, President Donald Trump said while giving an update on his administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Singh, who was BJP MLC from local self area constituency from Darbhanga, was undergoing treatment at the hospital since July 13 after he tested positive for COVID-19, reports PTI.

Bihar BJP MLC Sunil Kumar Singh died of the coronavirus at AIIMS on Tuesday, an official said. Singh was 66. He is survived by two sons, a daughter, and wife. He is the first lawmaker in the state to die of COVID-19.

The total number of coronavirus cases in the state reached 26,772, while the death toll increased to 64.

Assam recorded the highest single-day spike of 1,680 COVID-19 cases on Tuesday as the state crossed the 26,000 mark, Minister for Health and Family Welfare Himanta Biswa Sarma said. The state also saw six more deaths due to the infection, he said.

Dimas Covas, president of the Butantan Institute coordinating the study, said at a press conference that if the vaccine proves safe and effective, Brazil would receive 120 million doses from China at the beginning of next year, which will allow 30 million Brazilians to be vaccinated.

Brazilian health authorities on Tuesday were starting a three-month test of a coronavirus vaccine produced by Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac one of a handful around the world that are entering late-stage testing to prove effectiveness, reports AP.

With over 38.5 lakh reported cases till date, the United States is the worst-affected country in the world. The US is followed by Brazil, India, Russia and South Africa.

The total confirmed cases of COVID-19 across the world stand at 1.48 crore, according to the Reuters tracker. This figure includes COVID-19 patients who have recovered and the overall global death toll which stands at 6.1 lakh.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan accuses Opposition parties of trying to sabotage the governments mitigation methods, reports PTI. They called for protest violating COVID-19 protocol, he said. The damage it causes will not only affect them but the whole state. They have always taken a negative approach and said there was no need for following the instructions given by the state and the health workers.

As per the latest guidelines issued by the airport authority, all international passengers will have to sign an undertaking that they accept this obligation (of seven days paid institutional quarantine), which will be retained by the overseas mission/embassy before the booking is confirmed.

In view of the ongoing COVID-19 scenario, all passengers arriving by international flights at the Delhi Airport will have to undergo seven days of institutional quarantine at their own cost, followed by one-week of home quarantine, reports ANI.

India registers 37,724 new cases, taking its total count to 11,92,915. The toll increases by 648 to 28,732. The total COVID19 positive cases stand at 11,92,915 including 4,11,133 active cases, 7,53,050 cured/discharged/migrated and 28,732 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The state education department was earlier hoping to start the 2020-21 academic year by 15 August.

The Goa education department is expecting to start the new academic session from September this year, state education director Santosh Amonkar has said. The annual academic session in Goa begins in the first week of June, but it has been delayed this year due to the outbreak of COVID-19.

Everyday, 6,000 to 7,000 tests are being done and most of the citizens are following the safety protocols, additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani told PTI. The city has been daily reporting less than 1,500 COVID-19 cases since the last many days.

The COVID-19 situation "is in control" in Mumbai with the number of positive cases daily being reported below 1,500, a senior official of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has said.

With 3,27,031 confirmed cases of COVID-19 so far, Maharashtra remains the worst-affected state in the country, followed by Tamil Nadu (1,80,643) and Delhi (1,25,096).

Indias COVID-19 recovery rate now stands at 63.1 percent. The reported active COVID-19 cases in India now stand at 4,11,133 with as many as 7,53,049 COVID-19 patients have been cured and discharged so far.

India tested 3,43,243 samples on Tuesday, says the Indian Council of Medical Research. The total number of samples tested up to 21 July is 1,47,24, 546.

She tested positive after her sons performed the last rites following all customs and traditions. Soon, all the five brothers (falling in the age group of 60-70 years), who had taken part in her last rites, too succumbed to the deadly virus one after another.

The 88-year old lady, had come to Dhanbad to attend the marriage of her grand-son on June 27. She was admitted to a private hospital in Bokaro after she fell ill and died after her condition deteriorated further on 4 July, reports New Indian Express.

According to media reports, six members of a family have died due to COVID-19 in Katras in Jharkhand's Dhanbad district. The deceased include an 88-year-old woman and her five sons who died between 4 to 20 July. Now, the lady is survived by her only son who stays in Delhi.

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister did not mention any specific incident in her post. However, the Bahujan Samaj Party chief's tweet came hours after a Ghaziabad-based journalist, who was shot in the head by some assailants, succumbed to injuries early Wednesday.

"The way heinous crimes like murder and those against women are continuing unabated, it is clear that instead of law and order, jungle raj is prevailing in UP. The crime virus of criminals is more active than coronavirus in UP. People are fed up and the government must address this issue," Mayawati said in a tweet in Hindi.

BSP chief Mayawati on Wednesday said "crime virus" spread by criminals is more active than coronavirus in Uttar Pradesh.

Now the States positivity rate is second to Maharashtra.

The highest of 21.98 percent cumulative positivity rate  total positives out of the samples tested  was reached on 9 July. Nearly two weeks after the tests to detect coronavirus were ramped up using rapid antigen tests (RAT), it gradually dropped to 16.75 percent on 20 July.

The COVID-19 test positivity rate (TPR) in Telangana, which was much higher than other other states until earlier this month, is now seeing a drop, reported The Hindu.

Pune reported 56,621 COVID-19 infections on Wednesday after 205 more people tested positive for the novel coronavirus in the district in single day. The COVID-19 toll has climbed to 1,442, said Dr Bhagawan Pawar, District Health Officer, Pune.

Global coronavirus infections crossed 15 million on Wednesday, reported Reuters, with the pandemic gathering pace even as countries remain divided in their response to the crisis.

"Preparations on to start the exercise from next month. The survey conducted by NCDC and Delhi government revealed 23.48 percent COVID-19 infection," said Jain.

The Delhi government has decided to conduct sero-surveillance every month, said Satyendar Jain on Wednesday, adding it will be done from first day of the month till 5th of every month.

More than 7.5 lakh COVID-19 patients have recovered so far with recovery rate over 63 percent. Nineteen states/UTs register higher than 63.13 percent recovery rate, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

India registered highest number of recoveries on Wednesday after 28,472 patients were discharged in single day, according to the latest data released by the health ministry.

Complete lockdown has been declared in all red zone districts of Kashmir division, except Bandipora from Wednesday at 6 pm till 27 July. " Agriculture/horticulture and construction activities to continue," said Information and Public Relations, Govt of Jammu and Kashmir.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra urges government to provide assistance to family of doctor, who died after contracting coronavirus, while working with Delhis National Health Mission.

On Wednesday, 1,078 new COVID-19 cases were reported in Odisha in the last 24 hours, taking the total confirmed cases in the state to 19,835. This includes 6,387 active cases and 13,309 recoveries.

A group of junior nurses of the Sagar Dutt Medical College Hospital held a protest outside the hospital superintendent's residence in North 24 Parganas yesterday, reports ANI. The nurses alleged shortage of staff and beds in the COVID19 dedicated hospital.

According to CNBCTV-18, the Chief Justice of India has observed that a panel of seven Supreme Court judges will decide in 4 weeks, if physical hearings can resume in Supreme Court.

The total confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Pakistan have risen to 2,67,400, according to Dawn. This figure includes patients who have recovered (2,10,468) and the death toll in the country which stands at 5,675. While Punjab province has reported 90,816 cases so far, Sindh has reported 1,14,104 cases.

According to The Hindu, a 25-year-old man died of severe head injuries after allegedly being beaten up by a sub inspector at Chirala district. The man, identified as Atcherla Kiran Kumar, is from Guntur. On Sunday, he was driving on his motorcycle when he was stopped by Chirala Two Town Sub Inspector, Vijaya Kumar, and then was allegedly beaten up for not wearing a mask.

"The lockdown, which comes into effect on Wednesday evening, will be reviewed after six days, they said. There were 502 fresh cases in the Valley on Wednesday. The number of cases in Jammu and Kashmir has risen to 15,258, according to Union Health Ministry figures," the report said.

The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Wednesday imposed a six-day lockdown across the Kashmir Valley, "except for Bandipore district, to stem the spread of COVID-19", The Indian Express reported.

In the last 24 hours, 6,045 new COVID-19 cases and 65 deaths have been reported in Andhra Pradesh. Total number of cases rise to 64,713, including 31,763 active cases, 32,127 discharges and 823 deaths, the state COVID-19 nodal officer said.

Himachal Pradesh chief minister Jai Ram Thakur on Wednesday said he was going into self-quarantine after a deputy secretary in his office tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday, PTI reported.

Over 1,000 new cases of coronavirus were reported for the first time in Kerala on Wednesday, with 1,038 new patients recorded. Of these, 785 cases are from local transmission, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said.

I am not Donald Trump. I can't see my people suffering, Thackeray said in a teaser of his interview with Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana.

Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday was quoted as saying that "he is aware of the problems arising because of the lockdown, but added that he cannot let his people suffer due to the deadly coronavirus," India Today reported .

The US could buy another 500 million doses under the agreement, Azar said.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced on Wednesday that the US has signed a contract with Pfizer for delivery in December of the first 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine the pharmaceutical company is working to develop.

The Manipur government will impose a "complete" lockdown in the state for 14 days, starting from 2 pm on Thursday, ANI reported.

"We had previously implemented a complete lockdown in the state. We are aware of such viewpoints (complete lockdown).Although it has not been decided yet, I think we will have to consider it," he said.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday said a complete lockdown could be imposed in the state again as over 1,000 new cases of coronavirus were reported for the first time on Wednesday.

In the last 24 hours, 6,045 new COVID-19 cases and 65 deaths have been reported in Andhra Pradesh. Total number of cases rise to 64,713, including 31,763 active cases, 32,127 discharges and 823 deaths, the state COVID-19 nodal officer said.

Himachal Pradesh chief minister Jai Ram Thakur on Wednesday said he was going into self-quarantine after a deputy secretary in his office tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday, PTI reported.

Over 1,000 new cases of coronavirus were reported for the first time in Kerala on Wednesday, with 1,038 new patients recorded. Of these, 785 cases are from local transmission, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said.

I am not Donald Trump. I can't see my people suffering, Thackeray said in a teaser of his interview with Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana.

Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday was quoted as saying that "he is aware of the problems arising because of the lockdown, but added that he cannot let his people suffer due to the deadly coronavirus," India Today reported .

The US could buy another 500 million doses under the agreement, Azar said.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced on Wednesday that the US has signed a contract with Pfizer for delivery in December of the first 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine the pharmaceutical company is working to develop.

The Manipur government will impose a "complete" lockdown in the state for 14 days, starting from 2 pm on Thursday, ANI reported.

"We had previously implemented a complete lockdown in the state. We are aware of such viewpoints (complete lockdown).Although it has not been decided yet, I think we will have to consider it," he said.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday said a complete lockdown could be imposed in the state again as over 1,000 new cases of coronavirus were reported for the first time on Wednesday.

ICMR on Wednesday validated and approved two more antigen test kits. While one of them is Indian manufacturer - LabCare Diagnostic Ltd, other is Belgium based company- Coris BioConcept. Previously, ICMR had approved SD Biosensor, a Korean company for antigen test kits, said ICMR.

Earlier, Drinking and Sanitation Minister Mithilesh Thakur and JMM MLA Mathura Mahato tested positive for coronavirus. They are now under treatment.

Singh is the third legislator in the state to have been detected with the highly infectious disease.

The senior BJP leader, who is in home isolation, also said that he would send a list of people whom he had met to the administration.

Jharkhand BJP MLA CP Singh on Wednesday said he has been infected by coronavirus. In a tweet, the former state minister said he tested positive for COVID-19 and asked those who had been in touch with him recently to test their swab samples.

To this, senior advocate P Wilson representing DMK said that travel agents are booking the whole flight and later selling the tickets at high rates. Wilson further submitted that only because of court intervention more Vande Bharat Mission flights were provided which helped all the stranded passengers to reach their destinations till today.

"Of them, 41 will land in Chennai, 11 in Trichy, 4 in Coimbatore, and 2 in Madurai," additional solicitor general of India R Sankaranarayanan said. Recording it, a division bench of Justice M M Sundresh and Justice R Hemalatha cited a report published in an English daily. According to the article, three flights from Dubai and Abu Dhabi were reported to have landed in Chennai empty as there were no passengers to take the flights.

The Centre on Wednesday informed the Madras high court that 58 more Vande Bharat Mission flights are scheduled to land in Tamil Nadu returning stranded residents of the state from across the globe due to the COVID-19 induced lockdown.

Coronavirus LATEST Updates: Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday said a complete lockdown could be imposed in the state again as over 1,000 new cases of coronavirus were reported for the first time on Wednesday.

"We had previously implemented a complete lockdown in the state. We are aware of such viewpoints (complete lockdown).Although it has not been decided yet, I think we will have to consider it," he said.

The Manipur government will impose a "complete" lockdown in the state for 14 days, starting from 2 pm on Thursday, ANI reported.

Himachal Pradesh chief minister Jai Ram Thakur on Wednesday said he was going into self-quarantine after a deputy secretary in his office tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday, PTI reported.

The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Wednesday imposed a six-day lockdown across the Kashmir Valley, "except for Bandipore district, to stem the spread of COVID-19", The Indian Express reported.

"The lockdown, which comes into effect on Wednesday evening, will be reviewed after six days, they said. There were 502 fresh cases in the Valley on Wednesday. The number of cases in Jammu and Kashmir has risen to 15,258, according to Union Health Ministry figures," the report said.

The Delhi government has decided to conduct sero-surveillance every month, said Satyendar Jain on Wednesday, adding it will be done from first day of the month till 5th of every month.

"Preparations on to start the exercise from next month. The survey conducted by NCDC and Delhi government revealed 23.48 percent COVID-19 infection," said Jain.

At least 205 people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Pune district in single day. The COVID-19 toll has climbed to 1,442.

India registers 37,724 new cases, taking its total count to 11,92,915. The toll increases by 648 to 28,732.

Bihar BJP MLC Sunil Kumar Singh died of the coronavirus at AIIMS on Tuesday, an official said. Singh was 66. He is survived by two sons, a daughter, and wife. He is the first lawmaker in the state to die of COVID-19.

India recorded 37,148 COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, pushing its tally to 11,55,191 , while the total number of recoveries increased to 7,24,577, according to the Union health ministry's data issued at 8 am on Tuesday.

The toll due to the disease rose to 28,084 with 587 fatalities reported in a day, the data showed.

Of the total cases, based on the health ministry's figures, Maharashtra, the worst-affected state by the pandemic, alone accounts for nearly 27.5 percent, followed by Tamil Nadu (15 percent) and Delhi (10.7 percent) cases. These three states together account for more than half of India's total case load.

On Tuesday, Maharashtra's COVID-19 tally rose to 3,27,031 with the addition of 8,369 new cases, while 246 more patients succumbed, taking the fatality count in the state to 12,276, health department said.

Whereas in Tamil Nadu, 4,965 people tested positive on Friday, taking the infection count past the 1.80 lakh. Tamil Nadu on crossed 20 lakh in samples screened so far.

The state recorded 75 fresh COVID-19 deaths, including that of a 56-day old boy, during the day, taking the toll to 2,626, a health department bulletin said. The state has 51,344 active cases out of the total 1,80,643.

Delhi recorded 1,349 fresh COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, taking the caseload in the city to over 1.25 lakh, while the death toll mounted to 3,690 after 27 fatalities were recorded, authorities said.

The number of active cases stood at 15,288, marginally up from 15,166 on Monday.

Amid the rising cases, the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) on Tuesday decided to cancel this year's pilgrimage to the 3,880-metre-high cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas.

India's COVID-19 fatality rate, however, has dropped significantly to 2.43 percent from 3.36 percent on 17 June, the Centre said on Tuesday, asserting the country has handled the pandemic "relatively well".

There are 4,02,529 active cases of the coronavirus infection currently in the country, while 7,24,577 people have recovered till now. Thus, 62.72 per cent people have recovered so far, the ministry said.

In the meantime, the National Green Tribunal Tuesday said that segregation of COVID-19 waste from others is a must to avoid further contamination adversely affecting public health.

Nearly a quarter Delhiites affected with COVID-19, finds sero survey

Amid the rising cases, the results of a sero-prevalence survey in Delhi showed that 23.48 percent people in the National Capital had developed antibodies for COVID-19 with experts stating that the National Capital is still far from herd immunity against the coronavirus.

The survey results also show that remaining 77 percent are still vulnerable and the containment measures need to continue with the same rigour, National Centre for Disease Control director Dr Sujeet Kumar Singh, told a press briefing.

Delhi has a population of nearly 2 crore. Eight out of Delhi's 11 districts have more than 20 percent of sero prevalence, Singh said.

A senior Delhi government official said the government will consult with public health experts and epidemiologists to determine if the future course of Delhi's strategy against COVID-19 should change in light of these survey results or not.

The sero survey was conducted from 27 June to 10 July, during which a total of 21,387 samples were tested by the NCDC in collaboration with the Delhi government.

Cases from states

Meanwhile, coronavirus cases in Gujarat crossed the 50,000 on Tuesday with a highest one-day spike of 1,026, around 300 of them from Surat district, the health department said.

The coronavirus death toll rose to 1,229 in Uttar Pradesh after the state reported 37 fatalities, a statement issued by the state government said on Tuesday. With as many as 2,128 fresh COVID-19 cases, the state's infection tally reached 53,288.

Kerala on Tuesday reported 720 fresh cases of COVID-19, taking the number of infected people in the state to 13,994, while 1,62,444 people are under observation in the state.

Of the new cases, 528 were infected from their contacts, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said.

The state of Madhya Pradesh recorded 785 new COVID-19 caseson Tuesday, taking the state-wide infection count to 24,095, while 18 more patients succumbed to the disease, health department officials said.

With 18 more people succumbing to the viral infection on Tuesday, the death toll went up to 756, they said.

Of them, four fatalities each were reported from Bhopal and Indore, while one each patient died in Morena, Jabalpur, Sagar, Ratlam, Dhar, Barwani, Datia, Hoshangabad, Jhabua and Guna, the officials said.

Among the new cases, the highest 149 cases were reported from Bhopal, followed by 72 in Raisen, 70 in Indore, 62 in Morena and 49 in Gwalior, they said.

Jammu and Kashmir saw 608 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, raising the tally in the Union Territory to 15,258 as nine fresh fatalities pushed the death toll to 263, officials said.

"Nine persons, who were COVID-19 positive, have died over the past 24 hours in Jammu and Kashmir," they said, adding all the nine deaths took place in the Kashmir Valley.

In Goa, COVID-19 cases crossed the 4,000 with the state now having 4,027 positive cases as on Tuesday with 174 new detections, the state Health department said.

The COVID-19 tally in Manipur crossed the 2,000-mark, with the detection of 90 new cases on Tuesday, a Health department bulletin said.

The coronavirus death toll in Himachal Pradesh increased to 11 after a 75-year-old woman died in Mandi on Tuesday as 33 fresh cases surfaced, taking the state's infection tally to 1,665.

Chhattisgarh's COVID-19 count rose to 5,731 on Tuesday with the addition of 133 COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, while the death toll climbed to 29, as the sample of an elderly woman who died earlier tested positive, a health official said.

Mumbai, neighbouring districts report 2,627 new cases; 107 die

Mumbai's COVID-19 tally rose to 1,03,262 on Tuesday with the addition of 995 new cases, while the toll increased to 5,814 after 62 more patients succumbed to the infection, the city civic body said.

In enighbouring Thane district, an addition of 1,323 cases took COVID-19 count to 70,513, while the toll swelled by 40 during the day to touch 1,967, an official said.

Kalyan led the list of new cases with 268 people testing positive, followed by 254 in Navi Mumbai, he said.

"Thane and Kalyan now have over 16,000 cases each while Navi Mumbai is fast approaching the 12,000 mark. Of the 70,513 cases, 33.28 percent is active," he added.

Among those who died was a 52-year-old constable from Hill Line police station under Thane commissionerate, he said.

Neighbouring Palghar added 309 cases during the day to take its count to 12,382 while five deaths increased the toll to 223.

India doing relatively well, says Centre

Amid the rising cases, Rajesh Bhushan, officer on special duty in the Union health ministry, told a press conference in Delhi, that 30 states and Union Territories have COVID-19 positivity rate lower than that of the national average which stands at 8.07 percent.

According to PTI, stating that some states are doing more than 140 tests per million, Bhushan, said that the number of tests per million have to be brought down to a level of 140 tests per day per million, so that the "rate of positivity reduces and comes down to 10 percent first and then continue the testing process so that the rate of positivity further reduces to 5 percent or lower".

The health ministry official also said that the COVID-19 deaths per million population in India stand at 20.4 per million which is amongst lowest in the world, Bhushan said.

"There are several countries where the deaths per million is 21 times or 33 times higher than in India. The global average stands at 77 deaths per million population," he said.

"So far, the nation has managed COVID-19 relatively well," Bhushan said.

He also shared a chart showing that the COVID-19 case fatality rate has declined from 3.36 percent on 17 June to 2.43 percent now.

Punjab's first plasma bank opens at Patiala

Punjab on Tuesday got its first plasma bank at Patiala's Rajindra Hospital where those who have recovered from the novel coronavirus can donate their blood plasma to help treat COVID-19 patients.

State's Medical Education and Research Minister OP Soni inaugurated the facility through video conference and said it will play a vital role in the fight against the pandemic.

Multiple trials of plasma therapy have been successfully conducted in the state that paved the way for the establishment of the plasma bank, he said.

Karnataka won't extend lockdown, to regulate supply of Remdesivir

Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa also said that it will not be extending lockdown in Benglauru and other areas of the state, saying that "lockdown" is not the solution to control COVID-19 and stressed on social distancing and wearing of masks.

"We had been successful at the beginning in controlling the COVID, but in recent days especially in Bengaluru the COVID cases have increased.....I want to tell the people of the state that for the control of the virus, lockdown was not the solution. The solution is wearing masks and maintaining social distancing," Yediyurappa said.

In the meanwhile, amid reports of black marketing and haording of Remdesivir, a drug used in the treatment of coronavirus infected patients, Karnataka's COVID-19 task force on Tuesday decided that the state government will regulate its supply to private hospitals.

"Remdesivir which is currently available in the government hospitals will be supplied to private hospitals through the government. This will help curb black marketing of this drug," Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar's office said in a release.

The government has also fixed the rate for COVID-19 tests in private labs at Rs 2,000 for government referred cases and 3,000 for self-reporting cases.

Meanwhile, the West Bengal govt said Tuesday that there will be a complete lockdown in the state on 23, 25 and 29 July to fight the spread of COVID-19.

US accuses Chinese hackers in targeting of COVID-19 research

Days after authorities in the US, Canada and the United Kingdom accused a hacking group with links to Russian intelligence with trying to target research on the disease, the US Justice Department on Tuesday accused two Chinese hackers of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars of trade secrets from companies across the world and more recently targeting firms developing a vaccine for the coronavirus.

The indictment, says the hackers in recent months had researched vulnerabilities in the computer networks of companies publicly known for their work in developing vaccines and treatments, AP reported.

However, there was no immediate indication that the hackers had successfully obtained any COVID-19 research, despite efforts to snoop on the companies.

With inputs from agencies
While last weeks Childrens Institute marked the eighth year for the annual summer gathering of indie booksellers to discuss childrens books and meet authors, this year marked the first time the conference was held virtually, due to the ongoing pandemic. Rather than the sunny Tucson setting as participants eagerly anticipated earlier this year, CI8 took place on more than 400 booksellers computer screens and other digital devices over the course of two days, July 1516.

Despite a few technical issues, booksellers enjoyed the virtual conference too, judging by feedback received from Keryl Haussman of Words Matter Bookstore in Pitman, N.J.: I thought it was great, she wrote. I had a minor glitch now and then, but it wasnt a big deal. I'm new to bookselling. I've only attended the Childrens Institute last year and this year. Both were great. However, I enjoyed CI8 more. I wasnt fighting exhaustion, fumbling with overfilled tote bags, and scrambling to find the correct rooms.

CI8 basically featured three components: speakers and informational sessions; debut author introductions; and informal virtual hangouts at the conclusion of day one. Weve gathered a selection of highlights from the events.

Speakers and Informational Sessions

Isaac Fitzgerald (r.) holds up his debut picture book, which he created with illustrator Bridgette Barrager, How to Be a Pirate (Bloomsbury, Mar.), during his keynote presentation, while ASL interpreter Brian Truitt follows along. Image: Rachel Sipress.

A trio of authorsDhonielle Clayton, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, and Tracy Deonndiscuss representation in middle grade and YA science fiction and fantasy, with an assist from ASL interpreter Jennye Kamin. Image: Rachel Sipress.

Another day one session featured four indie booksellersHannah Oliver Depp (Loyalty Books, Washington, D.C. metro area), Javier Ramirez (Madison Street Books, Chicago), Danny Caine (The Raven, Lawrence, Kans.), and Kathy Burnette (Brain Lair, South Bend, Ind.) discussing store voice, online sales, and profitability. Image: Rachel Sipress.

Throughout the two days, there was time set aside for IndieCommerce and IndieLite one-on-one virtual appointments with ABA staff. (Clockwise from top l.), ABA IndieCommerce director Phil Davies, IndieCommerce specialist Courtney Karecki, and Finnegan Butterfield, a bookseller at Towne Center Books in Pleasanton, Calif. who is also an ABA IndieCommerce customer support specialist. Image: Rachel Sipress.

Day two kicked off with a conversation between Kwame Alexander and Jerry Craft, which touched upon their creative processes, their favorite New York City indie bookstores in the 1990s, how they met, and their recollections about receiving the phone call informing them that they had won the Newbery Medal. Alexander caused a stir among the audience of booksellers when he mentioned in passing that he has been involved in developing a musical that will debut at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Image: Claire Kirch.

Debut Authors Meet the Indies

Wednesday mornings Indies Introduce Middle Grade and YA Debuts session featured an indie bookseller presenting each author. Here, Drew Durham of Books, Inc. in Palo Alto, Calif., introduces Chris Negron, author of Dan Unmasked (HarperCollins, Aug.), a middle grade novel about two boys whose friendship is tested. Image: Rachel Sipress.

Buyer Chelsea Bauer of Union Avenue Books in Knoxville, Tenn., introduces Ash Van Otterloothe author of the middle grade novel Cattywampus (Scholastic Press, Aug.), about young witches in Appalachia. Image: Rachel Sipress.

Lauren Nopenz Fairley, operations manager at Curious Iguana childrens bookstore in Frederick, Md., introduces Caroline DuBois, author of The Places We Sleep (Holiday House), a middle-grade novel-in-verse. Image: Rachel Sipress.

After being introduced by Kathy Burnette of Brain Lair in South Bend, Ind., Tracy Deonn speaks about her YA novel, Legendborn (McElderry, Sept.), which its publisher describes as a modern-day twist on a classic legend with a lot of Southern Black Girl Magic. Image: Rachel Sipress.

Leah Johnson talks about her queer rom-com which spotlights another kind of Black Girl Magic, You Should See Me in a Crown (Scholastic Press, June). Image: Rachel Sipress.

Magic was definitely in the air on Wednesday morning. Rebecca Crosswhite of Rediscovered Books in Caldwell, Idaho, introduced Sophie Escabasse, author of a middle grade graphic novel, Witches of Brooklyn (Random House Graphic, Sept.). Image: Rachel Sipress.

Sophie Escabasse performing a dramatic reading of Witches of Brooklyn (Random House Graphic, Sept.). Image: Rachel Sipress.

Virtual Hangouts

Booksellers, authors, and other CI8 attendees were encouraged to visit a variety of virtual hangout rooms to mix and mingle as day one of CI8 wound down on Wednesday afternoon. Room One included cameo appearances by pets and assorted props, as well as reminiscences by booksellers and other participants of their past travels, including Alaskan cruises. Image: Claire Kirch.

While some virtual hangouts were lively scenes, others were more intimate gatherings of booksellers, including Room Four, where ABA education content coordinator Stephany Choi (top r.) chatted with Casey Leidig of Green Apple Books in San Francisco (top l.) and Rebecca George of Volumes Bookcafe in Chicago (bottom l.). Image: Claire Kirch.

Room Five included a few ABA staffersJoy Dallanegra-Sanger and Jess Staufferafter a successful first day (top row, c. and r.), while three indie booksellers  Valerie Koehler (Blue Willow in Houston), Paul Murufas (Books, Inc. in San Francisco), and Drew Durham (Books, Inc. in Palo Alto) look a little worn out after a full day of online programming. Image: Claire Kirch.

Newly minted ABA CEO Allison Hill (c., middle row) dropped in on Room Five of the virtual hangouts on day one of CI8, joining ABA colleagues, booksellers, and author Chris Negron, to cat and swap stories about life during the pandemic. Image: Claire Kirch.
By William Schwartz | Published on 2020/07/22

While domestic South Korean have lamented the apparent drop in drama popularity since the conclusion of "The World of the Married" internationally South Korean dramas are still maintaining a high profile. Much of this is thanks to the success of "It's Okay to Not Be Okay". The return project of Kim Soo-hyun has underwhelmed in domestic terrestrial ratings but has struck a major chord on Netflix, where it has charted in quite a few far flung countries.

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In Asia "It's Okay to Not Be Okay" has done well in the usual markets of Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore. It also has a strong following in South America, with Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru all demonstrating interest in the drama. Even Nigeria and Australia have proved demonstrations of the drama's worldwide popularity. "It's Okay to Not Be Okay" also enjoys high ratings on viewer aggregate ranking sites, beating out "The King: Eternal Monarch" and even "Crash Landing on You".

Some of the stated reasons for this popularity include the drama's deliberate emphasis on mental health issues. The titular psychopath played by Seo Ye-ji is a psychopath in the medical sense rather than the pejorative sense. The older brother of Kim Soo-hyun's character, played by Oh Jung-se, has autism. And the mental health facility where Kim Soo-hyun's character works is filled with various mental patients with relatively realistically drawn disabilities.

Such a deliberate focus narrows the drama's appeal somewhat, as many viewers have found the characters to be offputting. But "It's Okay to Not Be Okay" has offset the limits of this appeal in the domestic market by broadcasting the fairly unique concept worldwide, allowing the drama to find fans in many unusual places. This has made the drama a noteworthy success of Studio Dragon's current internationally focused strategy in spite of the drama's weak showing in traditional metrics.

Written by William Schwartz

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"It's Okay to Not Be Okay" is directed by Park Shin-woo, written by Jo Yong, and features Kim Soo-hyun, Seo Ye-ji, Oh Jung-se, Kang Ki-doong, Park Gyu-young, Kim Chang-wan. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2020/06/20~Now airing, Sat, Sun 21:10 on tvN.
Since January, laboratory scientist Jesica Jacobs has helped with testing programs in four states and the Pacific island of Saipan. Here she is on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. resize icon View Larger Close Since January, laboratory scientist Jesica Jacobs has helped with testing programs in four states and the Pacific island of Saipan. Here she is on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.

Testing is one of the biggest tools in fighting COVID-19, and thats kept CDC Laboratory Leadership Service (LLS) fellow Jesica Jacobs, a lieutenant in the US Public Health Service, hopping.

Jacobs, a laboratory scientist, has been dispatched to help with testing programs in four states and a remote location in the Pacific since January. She processed and shipped specimens from quarantined Americans returning from China in the early days of the outbreak. She later arranged testing in US hot spots like Seattle. And she recently returned from Saipan, the capital of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, where she helped the US Pacific territorys health leaders build up their testing capacity.

At the end of my first deployment, I remember the team would talk about the gravity of the situation we were in, and we felt like wed been involved in something historic, Jesica says. I thought about how lucky I was to contribute to the outbreak response. I had no idea what I was in for, and what we were all in for, and how big this would get.

CDCs Laboratory Leadership Service (LLS) fellowship program trains early-career scientists like Jesica to strengthen their laboratory expertise and leadership skills. LLS fellows conduct cutting-edge research, support disaster and disease outbreak responses through laboratory capacity building, investigate emerging health threats, and more.

Jesica is based in Boston, where she works at the Massachusetts state public health laboratory, but she grew up in San Diego. Her interest in science stemmed from what she called an embarrassingly low score on a high school aptitude test.

It just kind of annoyed me, and I was not happy with my score. It really lit a fire within me, she says. Once I got the poor score back and really started focusing, I found sciences to be really interesting  particularly biology and physics. I felt like they had the explanations to a lot of questions about life that I was really curious about.

Jesica was the first person in her family to go to college when she enrolled at Lincoln University in Missouri to study biology. A paper she wrote for a scientific writing classinspired by a television program on medical mysteriesled her instructor to recommend her for a graduate program in immunology. She got her PhD at West Virginia University and did post-doctoral work at Emory University and the University of Utah.

But during long days and nights in the laboratory, she found herself wanting to do something with a more direct impact than basic research.

That was when public health started to become much more attractive to me, she says. Joining LLS was the way I could bridge that gap between being a scientist and helping people more immediately.

Her deployments have varied widely as the COVID-19 pandemic has spread. In the Seattle area, where the first US cases were detected, much of the focus was on testing healthcare providers and patients in long-term care facilities. When helping Americans returning to US from China, she made connections with nearby public health laboratories to get large quantities of samples processed and ready to ship to CDC headquarters.

And after an outbreak in a meat processing plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, she helped set up large-scale testing for workers and their close contactsabout 3,600 peoplein a high-school parking lot.

It took the combined effort of the city of Sioux Falls, a local healthcare provider, the South Dakota National Guard, the South Dakota state government, CDC, and a myriad of local community organizations to get things up and running, she says. The fact that we kind of said Yes, lets do this on a Friday and had it all up and running on Monday still blows my mind.

Knowing the public is looking to CDC for accurate results made the responsibilities even more serious for Jesica and her fellow deployers, she says.

I know the science behind it seems really complicated, and I feel like people implicitly trust a test result that they get from a medical provider or from a lab, she says. Its been my goal and the goal of my fellow colleagues to continue to cultivate that trust by doing good, open, honest science.
Covid-19 pandemic is bringing India and the US closer than before with the two sides now looking to strengthen their strategic energy sector partnership.

A strategic energy dialogue is scheduled between the two sides this week with the agenda of more collaborations and identifying mutually beneficial investment proposals.

Sources said that under the enhanced energy sector partnership while India looking to more than double its oil imports from the US this year, it wants the US to call upon its energy industry leaders to collaborate with the Indian companies to facilitate and develop tie-ups in innovative initiatives.

The further strengthening of the Indian-US relations during the outbreak has created growth for further partnership and take the energy dialogue of the last into credible deals and cooperative ventures.

India is already expanding its oil import basket looking for a wider spectrum of global suppliers to de-risk operations. It had started importing oil from the US for last few years. But the quantity remains small.

India imported close to 10 million tonnes (Mt) of oil in FY20. This may be doubled in FY21 if official and company level negotiations yield positive results. India is looking at $3-4 per barrel discount on crude and a higher credit period of 60-90 days from the US that would bring the import cost of the US oil at par with the Iranian oil. India used to import a lot of oil from Iran before sanctions.

India's shift to the US would not be sudden as gas transportation company GAIL, oil marketing firm Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and country's largest oil refiner Indian Oil Corporation have sealed deals for supplies of the US crude earlier as well. The shale oil price there has also become very competitive in comparison to the Middle East and Gulf crude.

During a session with the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) earlier this week, oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan also emphasized the importance of the strategic energy partnership, stating that it will go a long way in advancing shared goals between the US and India, including universal energy access, strengthened energy security, and increased energy trade between the two countries.

He added, "Energy infrastructure is a key component in transforming India as a global manufacturing hub of the 21st century and achieving the goal of self-reliance. India is going to witness an investment of over US $118 billion across the oil and gas value chain in the next few years. I welcome US energy industry leaders to leverage these opportunities and also collaborate with Indian companies to facilitate and develop tie-ups in innovative initiatives."
In Burkhard C. Kosminskis production, just three chairs and a lectern represent the conference room where three widows of deposed totalitarian leaders meet for a joint press briefing. Mrs. Imelda, Mrs. Margot and Mrs. Leila share their first names with the much-reviled spouses of the Philippines Ferdinand E. Marcos, East Germanys Erich Honecker and Tunisias Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. (When Walsers play was first performed, all three of the protagonists were still alive; Margot Honecker died in exile in Chile in 2016).

The title, taken from a quote attributed to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the former Libyan dictator, signals Walsers intention to give a humorous gloss to a banality of evil theme. While waiting for the news conference to begin, the women reflect on their lives, offer justifications for the roles they played in repressive regimes, and brag about their encounters with Stalin, Mao and Castro.

Much of the plays focus is on Margot (Christiane Rossbach), unrepentant after decades of exile. She is a true ideologue and comes across as both fiercer and more bitter than the paranoid Leila (played by Paula Skorupa as something of a ditsy brat) and the boastful Imelda (Anke Schubert, withering and imperious). While her counterparts discuss which actresses should play them in a film, Margot declares that she is unrepresentable. She mocks democracys version of freedom. Is the world really any better off after the end of history? she queries. Asked about her political crimes, she flatly responds: We had enemies. I have nothing to apologize for.

Facilitating much of this dialogue is Margots German interpreter, Gottfried (a nervous and stealthy Sven Prietz), who initially tries to maintain the peace. He starts by mistranslating some of the more combative and insulting comments and ends up manipulating these master manipulators. The play goes off the rails during a screwball climax involving the mortal remains of one of the dictators. By this point, however, Walser has provided vivid characterizations of these infamous women as well as a provocative discussion of both the ideological underpinnings and banal everyday considerations of running a dictatorship. If I Love Apples refuses to paint its protagonists as arch villainesses, it doesnt exonerate them either.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler (R) stands at a fence guarding a federal courthouse as tear gas drifts by, in Portland Ore., on July 23, 2020. (Karina Brown via AP)

Portland Mayor Among Those Tear Gassed After Rioters Set Fires Near US Courthouse

Portland, Oregon, Mayor Ted Wheeler was among those tear gassed after rioters set fires near a federal courthouse in the city.

Wheeler, a Democrat who also serves as the citys police commissioner, joined a crowd of more than 1,000 people who gathered July 22 outside the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse before fires were ignited nearby. The rioters also repeatedly tried to rip down fencing that federal officers erected earlier in the day to try to protect the federal facility.

Im not going to lie, it stings. Its hard to breathe. And I can tell you with 100 percent honesty, I saw nothing that provoked this response, Wheeler told a reporter.

This is flat-out urban warfare, and its being wrought on the people of this country by the president of the United States, he said. One photograph shows Wheeler standing next to fencing with a fire raging near the courthouse in the background.

Wheeler later removed his mask while talking to a demonstrator who was inches from his face, in violation of Gov. Kate Browns mask restrictions. Brown last week ordered state residents to wear masks if they cant maintain six feet of distance from other people amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, center in black looking away, stands at a fence guarding a federal courthouse as tear gas drifts by, in Portland, Ore., on July 23, 2020. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland via AP)

Wheeler was soon escorted from the scene by a private security detail as rioters shouted at him. [Expletive] you! some yelled.

Earlier in the night, the mayor addressed the crowd. He finished speaking at around 10:30 p.m. and went to stand at the fencing.

Soon after Mayor Wheeler finished addressing the crowd, people in the group began throwing flares and other incendiaries over the fence that protects the west side of the federal courthouse. Over the next 45 minutes, people continued to throw flammable material as well as incendiary devices over the fence, eventually starting a large fire. Other people breached the fence while others kicked and shook the fence, the Portland Police Bureau stated in an incident summary.

Thats when federal officers first emerged from the building. Firing tear gas and using other crowd-control devices, they dispersed the mob and repaired the breach.

Rioters use shields as federal law enforcement officers fire tear gas after rioters set fires outside the federal courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 23, 2020. (Caitlin Ochs/Reuters)

The crowd later gathered again outside the courthouse and one individual threw a flaming item into the courthouse. Portland police declared a riot at 12:31 a.m., due to the violent conduct of the large group creating a grave risk of public alarm.

A sound truck showed up and officers inside announced the declaration of the riot over loudspeakers. The vehicle was assaulted by rioters and sped away.

The majority of the crowd ignored the warnings and stayed outside the courthouse, hurling Molotov cocktails and hundreds of other projectiles and starting more fires. Rioters committed at least one assault and multiple acts of vandalism, including on fire hydrants, wasting several hundred gallons of water, before the crowd dissipated.

Wheelers police force continued taking a stand-off stance to the riots, which unfolded near the Justice Center, a county building that includes a police precinct. Wheeler and other members of the City Council voted on July 22 to bar police officers from working with federal law enforcement.

Rioters set fire to courthouse: pic.twitter.com/JHkLFNM7gh  Bowen Xiao (@BowenXiao_) July 23, 2020

With the exception of the sound truck, Portland Police were not present during any of the activity described. Portland Police did not engage with any crowds and did not deploy any CS gas. No arrests were made by Portland Police, the bureau said in a statement.

Federal officers made at least one arrest.

The officers were sent to Portland on July 4 because the existing staffing at the courthouse was inadequate to respond to the riots, acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told reporters this week.

If the local police force was acting as forces normally dohelping protect federal buildings, dispersing large crowds, and arresting people committing crimesthen the surge in federal assets wouldnt have been necessary, Wolf said.

State and city officials are trying to get federal officers to leave, claiming theyve escalated the violence. Trump administration officials such as Wolf challenge that assertion, pointing to the fact that the violent demonstrations date back to early May.

Bowen Xiao contributed to this report.
The president's address comes on the 68th anniversary of the 1952 revolution

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said in a televised address to the nation on Thursday that "as the years and days pass carrying memories the occasion of the 23 July Revolution remains one of the most important milestones of pride in the country's history."

The president's address comes on the 68th anniversary of the 1952 revolution which secured the country's independence from British occupation and instituted wide social and economic reforms.

El-Sisi praised "the symbols of the revolution the late President Mohamed Naguib and its leader the late President Gamal Abdel-Nasser."

"Our celebration of the great July Revolution is not only because of its role in changing the reality in Egypt but it is also because of its lightning role in our African continent and the Arab region, heralding a new historical era in which the peoples enjoy their gains, and their decision stems from their pure national will," he noted.

The African and Arab liberation movements, accordingly, were launched, guided by the achievements of the Egyptian revolution, the president added.

"Time has validated the nobility of the goals of the 23 July Revolution," he said.

Egypt is moving forward with implementing a comprehensive strategic vision to build an advanced, strong state in all fields through establishing major national projects in all parts of the country, El-Sisi added.

The current generations are facing challenges Egypt has never seen before, the president said.

"What is going on around us is extremely dangerous and requires of all Egyptians to act as one man."

"The threats to our national security make us more eager to develop the comprehensive and impactful capability to preserve the rights and gains of Egyptians, and make our national unity an inevitable matter."

Egypt's ingrained doctrine is built both on respect for the other and to exert all possible efforts to prevent conflicts, but at the same time it is capable, when needed, of taking the necessary measures to safeguard its historical rights and gains," he stressed.

We have to trust our capabilities to overcome crises in a manner that preserves Egypt's security and guarantees to Egyptians their right to live in a stable homeland, the president added.

El-Sisi said he is confident of the Egyptians' ability to achieve "the desired objectives and reach the desired position to secure Egypt's present and future to be as great and glorious as its past.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll on the mental and emotional well-being of Canadians.

According to research conducted by Express Scripts Canada (ESC), there was an 11 per cent increase in the number of people who made claims for antidepressants between January and June 2020 compared to the same period last year.

In addition to this striking increase, overall Express Scripts Canadas claim volumes increased by 20 per cent in the pre-isolation period, indicating that patients may have been filling medications despite warnings that stockpiling might lead to drug shortages. This analysis suggests that Canadians were focused on the pandemic and fearful that they would run out of their medications which is further evidence of the serious impact COVID-19 is having on Canadians mental health.

The data also suggests that there was an increase of new users for medications used to treat depression and these claims continue to climb.

The pandemic has taken a psychological toll on Canadians across the country, says Dr. Dorian Lo, President, Express Scripts Canada. Our research shows that Canadians are increasingly turning to mental health medications to find some relief.

Given the depression rate is likely to continue to increase and will remain high, especially in those at-risk (for example, those who suffered a job loss, the loss of a parent due to COVID-19 and front-line workers worried they would get ill), it is evident that taking care of mental health is more important than ever.

The increased use of medications used to treat problems related to mental health is understandable given the global nature of the pandemic and there needs to be a heightened awareness on employee well-being. Mental health conditions generally require longer-term treatment so these claims will persist, and employers will need to consider holistic approaches to care. Employers need concrete plans to assist employees with mental health concerns. As well, employers must ensure employees who are experiencing mental health conditions have access to doctors, pharmacists, therapists and prescription medications, says Dr. Lo.

Other key findings from the research:

Two other key therapeutic classes of interest during the COVID-19 pandemic are asthma/COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and drugs to prevent infection. Medications for asthma and COPD saw the largest change in claims volume.

Drugs used to prevent infections (anti-infectives) saw a steep decline in claims as sites of common transmission (workplaces, schools, daycares and gyms) were closed and there was an increased consciousness about and practice of hygiene practices (such as hand washing, sanitizing, not touching the face, etc.)

Claims for chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine (commonly used for chronic illness, such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, on a long-term basis) rose prior to the pre-self-isolation period but were not sustained.

 Express Scripts Canada

 https://www.express-scripts.com/

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I know this was a difficult decision and just demonstrates and reaffirms once again his commitment to Jacksonville, the state of Florida and the people of the United States of America, he said. Im grateful for him and his leadership, and this was the right way to move forward.
Agra, July 23 : Alarmed at the fresh spike in the number of cases in July, the Agra administration has drawn up a comprehensive nine-point strategy to combat effectively the Covid-19 pandemic, in the coming weeks.

It involves effective testing, follow up, contract tracing, random monitoring of Covid hospitals, prompt transfer of Covid cases to hospitals, better ambulance service, weekend sanitisation in all areas, daily review of food supplied and cleanliness in the facilities, recording of real time admission and discharge of Covid patients.

Divisional Commissioner Anil Kumar said all government departments have been instructed to move ahead following the nine-point strategy.

District Magistrate P.N. Singh said the strategy will be monitored and directed by the Command and Control Centre, which will be operational round the clock. A six member committee that includes the CDO, ADM city, CMO, SP city, DPRO, additional commissioner, will oversee the execution of the strategy.

The district administration has already circulated the guidelines for home isolation. These will be strictly monitored. The IMA has offered a package of Rs 600 daily, for providing consultation, medicines, testing kits etc.

With one more death the Agra toll has climbed to 95. The number of fresh cases reported in the last 24 hours is 21. The number of containment zones now is 84. So far 36,947 samples have been collected. The number of active cases is 179. The recovery rate continues to remain at 82.47 per cent.

The district administration has allowed rapid antigen tests at 13 private hospitals. Camps are also being held in densely populated areas to promptly identify suspected cases. More than 60 teams of health workers surveyed 5,837 homes in hot spots.

The chief worry of the administration is to keep the infection spread in control during the rainy season, or till an effective antidote to the pandemic becomes available. The weekend lockdown is reportedly helping to contain the spread to some extent as mobility is effectively restricted and the 55 hours are used to clean up and sanitise all areas within the municipal limits.

A development office functionary said: "Effective campaign and sensitisation in the rural areas is now paying dividends. The villagers on their own are keeping a vigil and not letting strangers or outsiders enter the villages. So far the infection spread has been checked and farmers are busy with sowing operations." Activist Sonvir of Baad village on Gwalior road said, "Conditions are generally under control as villagers have now learnt how to remain safe.

"Every few days there is a health camp at the centre and all are provided medicines and consultations. Some villagers on their own have gone for testing at private laboratories in the city. The situation was bad in June but now everyone knows what to do and how. Sanitisers are common. The market is full of people but most are seen with faces covered." Reports from the rural hinterland suggest that social distancing is practical and is being followed by villagers. "It is in the cities one notes complacency and carelessness," said Subhash, a village level worker.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The incident brought no casualties as his parents, who were at home when the fire broke out, managed to escape from house.

Head of the Anti-corruption Action Center (AntAC) non-profit Vitaliy Shabunin has said his house in Kyiv has been set on fire.

"The house of AntAC Head Vitaliy Shabunin was set ablaze overnight. These photos are evidence of authorities being unable to protect public activists," the AntAC wrote on Facebook, posting the relevant photos on Facebook.

The incident brought no casualties as his parents, who were at home when the fire broke out, managed to get out of the house after a neighbor heard a blast and saw a front door flare up, AntAC says.

Vitaliy Shabunin and his family were out at the time, reads the report.

Shabunin wrote on Facebook the gas utility service checked a gas meter just two weeks ago.

"... Exactly two weeks ago, the gas service checked the meter and all connections. I invite journalists to see everything with their own eyes today at 13:00. We would like to stress once again the authorities' inability to protect public figures. (...) As a Christian, I bless perpetrators and those who stand behind this. I am grateful for yet another motivation to work even harder," Shabunin said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 15:17:25|Editor: huaxia

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SHANGHAI, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Shanghai will allow people arriving from overseas to undergo a weeklong home quarantine after finishing a seven-day concentrated quarantine in designated places starting next Monday.

The eastern Chinese metropolis previously demanded all overseas arrivals to undergo concentrated quarantine for 14 days in a bid to contain the spread of novel coronavirus.

The new decision, announced by the city's office on COVID-19 prevention and control, said Shanghai-bound travelers can enjoy the new policy if they have a residence in Shanghai and if their living condition fits the requirement of at-home quarantine.

They must receive a nucleic acid test before completing seven days of concentrated quarantine and, if their results come back negative, they will be transported to their residence to observe at-home quarantine.

The office also said Shanghai will continue to allow the elderly, minors, pregnant women and others whose condition do not allow concentrated quarantines to apply for home quarantines, as long as they test negative in nucleic acid test and fit home quarantine requirements.

On Wednesday, Shanghai reported one new imported COVID-19 case and no increase in domestically-transmitted cases, the municipal health commission said Thursday. Enditem
The depth of a hydraulic fracturing well in Oklahoma, among other factors, increases the probability that fracking will lead to earthquake activity, according to a new report in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

The researchers hope their findings, published as part of an upcoming BSSA special issue on observations, mechanisms and hazards of induced seismicity, will help oil and gas operators and regulators in the state refine drilling strategies to avoid damaging earthquakes.

During hydraulic fracturing, well operators inject a pressurized liquid into a rock layer after drilling vertically and often horizontally through the rock. The liquid breaks apart -- fractures -- the rock layer and allows natural gas or petroleum to flow more freely. A growing number of studies suggest that this process can induce seismic activity large enough for people to feel, possibly by increasing fluid pressures within the rock that relieve stress on faults and allow them to slip.

In one rock layer examined in the BSSA study, the likelihood that hydraulic fracturing triggered seismic activity increased from 5 to 50 percent as well operations moved from 1.5 to 5.5 kilometers (0.9 to 3.4 miles) deep, the researchers found.

Although the exact mechanisms linking well depth and seismic probability are still being examined, Michael Brudzinski and colleagues suggest that the overpressure of fluids trapped inside the rock may be important.

"The deeper the rock layers are, the more rock that is sitting on top of a well, and that is going to potentially increase the fluid pressures at depth," said Brudzinski, the study's corresponding author from Miami University in Ohio.

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Oklahoma has been at the center of a dramatic increase in earthquake activity over the past decade, mostly caused by oil and gas companies injecting wastewater produced by drilling back into deeper rock layers. However, a 2018 study identified places in the state where significant amounts of seismic activity were linked to nearly 300 hydraulic fracture wells.

Hydraulic fracturing is associated with a magnitude 4.6 earthquake in Canada and a magnitude 5.7 earthquake in China, although fracking-induced earthquakes tend to be smaller in magnitude than those caused by wastewater disposal. As a result, oil and gas operators and regulators would like to know more about why some wells trigger seismic activity, and how to adjust their operations to prevent damaging earthquakes.

Brudzinski and colleagues found the link between depth and seismic probability in their examination of data from 929 horizontal and 463 vertical hydraulic fracturing wells in Oklahoma. The scientists used publicly available data on injected volume at well sites, the number of wells on a drilling pad, what kind of fluid was injected, and the vertical depth of the well, among other features.

The total volume of injected liquid at the Oklahoma wells did not affect the probability of seismic activity near the wells -- a surprising finding that differs from other studies of induced seismicity. Some previous hydraulic fracturing (and wastewater disposal) studies show an increase in seismic activity with increasing volume.

Most of the wells in the current study are single wells, however, and not multiple wells clustered on a drilling pad, Brudzinski noted. In some places in western Canada and Texas, where there is a link between the injected volume and seismicity, multiple wells on a pad are more common.

"So that's where we started to think that perhaps that's the difference between what we're seeing in our study versus other studies," Brudzinski said. "We're proposing that multiple wells injecting next to each other may be why volume does matter in those cases, although we need to study it more."

"It could be that volume does still matter, but more so in a cumulative way than for any given well," he added. "An isolated well with a large volume may not have nearly as much of a [seismic] risk as a large volume well that is in close proximity to other large volume wells."

The researchers also compared the probability of seismic activity in wells where the injected liquid was a gel versus "slickwater" -- water with chemicals added to increase flow. They found a lower level of seismicity in gel operations compared to slickwater, although the difference wasn't as statistically significant as the other trends.

Simulation studies suggest that the more viscous gel may not flow as far as the slickwater, limiting its effects on faults, Brudzinski said.
A relaxed-looking peer made an appearance at a committee meeting from a moving car today after he didn't make it back in time from an 'important family engagement.'

Lord Robathan asked Liz Truss, Secretary of State for International Trade, a question in the EU International Agreements Sub-Committee via a video call as he travelled home from a lunch.

Introducing the question at around 4pm, chairman Lord Goldsmith told Ms Truss: 'Secretary of state, I'm going to go to Lord Robathan in a moment and you're going to be a little bit surprised because he's wearing a seat belt.

'That's because he's coming back from an important family engagement - he'd hoped to get home but he can't.

Lord Robathan (pictured) asked Liz Truss a question in the EU International Agreements Sub-Committee via a video call as he travelled home from a lunch this afternoon

'I don't think it's because he's expecting a very bumpy ride from your answers.'

Unsteady footage then captured Lord Robathan, sat in the passenger seat, as he asked a question about the possible effect of the result of the upcoming US presidential election on trade negotiations.

After Ms Truss answered the question, he declared himself happy and Lord Goldsmith wished him a 'safe journey home.'

An upbeat Lord Robathan, 69, then interrupted to add: 'By the way, I can recommend the restaurant'.

Introducing the question at around 4pm, chairman Lord Goldsmith told Ms Truss: 'I'm going to go to Lord Robathan in a moment and you're going to be a little bit surprised because he's wearing a seat belt'

Unsteady footage then captured Lord Robathan, sat in the passenger seat, as he asked a question about the possible effect of the result of the upcoming US presidential election on trade negotiations

The footage was shared to Twitter by BBC reporter David Cornock, who hailed the moment 'another House of Lords first.'

He said: 'Another @UKHouseofLords first as Lord Robathan asks @trussliz a question from a moving vehicle. Not so much frontbench as front seat. (Peers were told he was late returning from an important family engagement)'.

Lord Robathan's appearance prompted others on social media to call for even more unusual displays, with Alain Tolhurst writing: 'Love this - I want a peer riding a bicycle through a quad asking a question next.'

James Sibley added: 'Lord Robathan asking Liz Truss a question from a moving car has to be a first for a Lords sub-committee.'
Telugu actor Nithiin got engaged to his girlfriend Shalini Kandukuri in Hyderabad on Wednesday morning. The 37-year-old actor shared a picture from the pre-wedding celebration where he can be seen exchanging rings with Shalini in the presence of family members.

While the Bheeshma looked handsome in a white Kurta, Shalini wore a red embroidered saree for the occasion. "Aaaand ENGAGED!!" he captioned the photo along with red heart emojis.

Reacting to his tweet, actors Varun Tej Konidela, Raashi Khanna, Lakshmi Manchu, Sushanth, Payal Ghosh, Brahmaji and others posted congratulatory messages.

Nithiin and Shalini are all set to tie the knot on July 26 at Falaknuma Palace hotel in Hyderabad. The wedding will reportedly be a close-knit affair with only close friends and relatives of the couple in attendance owing to social distancing norms.

On February 15, Nithiin and Shalini kicked-off their wedding formalities with a traditional ceremony. Initially, they had plans for a destination wedding in Dubai. But due to the coronavirus outbreak, they have decided to go for a private event with limited attendees.

Nithiin, who is the son of noted Tollywood producer Sudhakar Reddy, recently celebrated three million followers on Twitter.

He tweeted a note of gratitude for his fans, "3 million strong! Feeling so blessed! A Biggg thank you to all my amazing followers for being a part of my journey and showing me soooo much love!!"
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) earlier this week introduced legislation aimed at stemming the use of forced labor by American corporations  particularly those that operate much of their supply chain through China.

Axios Re:Cap talks with Hawley about the bill, U.S. prison labor, China's persecuted Uighurs and what he sees as Corporate America's hypocrisy. Plus, he shares his thoughts on the new federal stimulus negotiations.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A tractor-trailer truck and a car collided on a winding hill in Richmond on Thursday morning.

A person was taken to Staten Island University Hospital in Ocean Breeze from the incident, which was reported at 11:14 a.m., according to a spokesman for the FDNY/EMS.

A sedan ended up underneath the truck in the crash on Richmond Hill Road near Old Mill Road, on what is commonly referred to as Snake Hill.

The FDNY also mitigated a fuel leak and Richmond Hill Road was blocked to traffic during the emergency response.

A source at the scene said injuries did not initially appear to be life threatening.
Two prominent figures in the New Zealand Chinese community have been killed in a horror three-car pile up in Tokoroa.

Auckland men Yuezhong Wang and Weiguo Xi died in the crash on State Highway 1 near Galaxy Road in Tokoroa on Tuesday.

The men have been described as 'hugely influential' members of the New Zealand Chinese community and were on their way to present a petition to parliament on the influence of the Chinese Communist Party when the accident occurred.

New Zealand Chinese community members have speculated whether the pair were victims of a sabotage attack.

Three others were seriously injured in the crash including another influential figure Yu Hongming, who was travelling in the same car as the deceased and a mother and daughter from another vehicle.

All three are recovering in Waikato Hospital, with Hongming in intensive care.

Canterbury University professor and close friend of the deceased Anne-Marie Brady told Stuff she feared there was a motive behind the tragedy.

Yuezhong Wang and Weiguo Xi died in a three-car pile up in Tokoroa (crash site pictured) on Tuesday

'These people are so important and so brave  they speak for the silent majority and the Chinese community in New Zealand,' she said.

'They feel very unsafe and have this fear it could be more than just an accident. I have asked the police to look into whether there could have been sabotage.'

Xi was chairman of the Federation for Democratic China's New Zealand branch, while Wang was part of the Independent Chinese Pen writers' association.

Dr Brady made a submission to the justice select committee discussing the possibility of Chinese political interference in New Zealand on Thursday.

She said debate of whether the activists had been targeted highlighted the level of fear expressed in the New Zealand Chinese community.

'Whether there is [sabotage] or not, the fact that that was an instant response of the people in that community shows how vulnerable they feel, how unsafe they feel,' Dr Brady said.

Police assessment of the crash site found that a northbound vehicle had glanced a southbound vehicle after crossing the centre line before a head-on collision with a third vehicle.

An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the accident.
Tesla overcame a seven-week pandemic-related shutdown at its California assembly plant to post a surprising $104 million net profit for the second quarter. (AFP Photo)

DETROIT: Tesla overcame a seven-week pandemic-related shutdown at its California assembly plant to post a surprising $104 million net profit for the second quarter.

It was the electric car and solar panel makers fourth-straight profitable quarter, qualifying it to be included in the S&P 500 index of corporate titans. That decision will be made later.

Local government restrictions forced Tesla to close its only U.S. assembly factory in Fremont, California, from March 23 to May 11. Even with no production, the company paid roughly 10,000 workers for part of the shutdown and Tesla continued health care and other benefits.

The profit, compared with a $408 million loss a year ago, pushed Teslas shares up 5.7% to 1,682.99 in after-hours trading Wednesday.

But the company likely would have lost money without $428 million it earned from selling electric vehicle credits to other automakers so they can meet government fuel economy and pollution regulations.

Chief Financial Officer Zachary Kirkhorn said he expects money from the credits to double this year over the $594 million the company made in 2019, but said Tesla is not managing its business assuming that credits will contribute significantly in the future. The company is counting on manufacturing efficiencies to increase profits, he said.

Also Wednesday, Tesla said it has picked the Austin, Texas, area as the site for its second U.S. assembly plant. Austin was the front runner, but Tulsa, Oklahoma, was a possibility.

On a conference call with analysts and investors, CEO Elon Musk said that sometime in the future, Tesla will build a compact vehicle and a higher-capacity passenger vehicle, but he didnt give a time frame. He said Tesla is on its way to making vehicles more affordable through manufacturing and design efficiencies.

The thing that bugs me the most about where we are right now is that our cars are not affordable enough, he said.

Musk also said hes confident about rolling out full self-driving technology by the end of the year and said it already works well during his drives to work. The company based in Palo Alto, California, has updated its Autopilot driver-assist software to recognize stop signs and is working on navigating intersections and city streets, he said.
Starting in the late 1950's, there was a push to have more Aggies attend schools in the Northeast. Doug was one of the first Aggies to be recruited by fellow Aggies to attend Harvard Business School. He graduated with his MBA in 1962. While in Cambridge, Doug grew to love New England and returned there often later in life when he and his wife, Maribeth, spent their summers in New Hampshire. Upon graduation, he returned to Texas Instruments in marketing and business development, where he marketed the first "computer chip". He was later recruited to manage the assets of a local business and "temporarily" (in his words) moved to Waco, Texas in 1964. Soon thereafter, he founded The Sovereign Corporation in 1971, a family-owned company specializing in real estate and oil & gas investments.
Australia's once-in-a-century economic crisis is expected to worsen as COVID-19 outbreaks caused unemployment to surge by Christmas to a 26-year high.

Melbourne's lockdowns are expected to wipe $3.3billion from the national economy during the next two months, with the Victorian capital recording 403 new coronavirus cases on Thursday - the third worst during the pandemic.

Three year's worth of wealth is forecast to be wiped out in just three months.

The deepest downturn since the 1930s Great Depression is feared as budget deficits surged to the highest level since World War II - leaving a three-decade debt legacy.

Treasury is now expecting the national jobless rate to hit 9.25 per cent by the end of December - a level unseen since September 1994 during the long aftermath of Australia's last recession.

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Australia's economy is expected to get worse before it gets better with Treasury expecting unemployment to surge to levels unseen since 1994. Pictured is Treasurer Josh Frydenberg

The renewed lockdowns in Melbourne are already expected to wipe $3.3billion from the national economy within the next two months

Without the massive stimulus stimulus spending, Treasury said Australia's unemployment would peak at 14 per cent, a level last suffered during the early 1930s, as another 700,000 jobs were lost.

Economic doom at a glance Treasury is forecasting a budget deficit of $184.5billion for 2020-21, up from an $85.8billion deficit in 2019-20 This will make up 9.7 per cent of gross domestic product - the highest as a proportion of the economy since 1945 during the end of World War II Unemployment was expected to hit 9.25 per cent by December - a level unseen since September 1994 GDP is forecast to have fallen by seven per cent in the June quarter alone - the equivalent of three years' worth of growth Source: Treasury Economic and Fiscal Update, July 23, 2020 Advertisement

Australia's unemployment rate soared to a 22-year high of 7.4 per cent in June as a record one million people were officially unemployed, with plenty more giving up looking for work.

Without JobKeeper wage subsidies, Australia last month had an effective unemployment rate of almost 11 per cent, Treasury economists said.

Treasury and the Reserve Bank of Australia both expected unemployment to rise as JobKeeper eligibility criteria was tightened and more people looked for work as the economy slowly recovered.

Australia's economy is expected to contract by seven per cent in the June quarter alone - wiping out the equivalent of three years' worth of economic activity.

Gross debt will hit $852billion by the end of this financial year as the government borrowed big to fund JobKeeper wage subsidies and a boost to JobSeeker unemployment benefits.

Economists fear it would take three decades to pay this off and return to a budget surplus for the first time since 2007, despite Australia having lower levels of government debt compared with other rich nations.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the downturn was the worst since the 1930s Great Depression.

'Australia and the world are now experiencing the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression,' he said.

Four year's worth of gross domestic product is forecast to wiped out in just three months as Australia's economy is plunged into the deepest downturn since the 1930s Great Depression and budget deficits surge to the highest levels since World War II. Pictured is a Melbourne fast food worker wearing a face mask

Treasury is now expecting the national jobless rate to hit 9.25 by the end of December - a level unseen since September 1994. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who lives in Melbourne, was given special permission to visit Canberra to deliver an economic statement

The Liberal Party's deputy leader pointed out how his home city of Melbourne was holding back Australia's economic recovery, as he was given special permission to visit Canberra to deliver a grim economic statement.

Unemployment during June amid COVID-19 Australia's unemployment rate climbed from a 19-year high of 7.1 per cent in May to 7.4 per cent in June - the highest since November 1998 Number without work climbed from 923,000 to a record-high 992,300 Close to a million people unemployed for the first time ever - surpassing 960,200 record set in December 1992 Unemployment increased even though 210,800 more people were employed as COVID-19 shutdowns eased That was because the participation rate increased from 62.7 per cent to 64 per cent as more people looked for work Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force data for June Advertisement

'These harsh numbers reflect the harsh reality we face the economic outlook remains very uncertain,' Mr Frydenberg said.

'Recent events in Victoria are a testament to this, a painful reminder, how a setback in combating the virus can impact the speed and the trajectory of our national economic recovery.'

Australia's budget deficit this financial year is expected to be the biggest since World War II as a share of the economy.

A deficit of $184.5billion is projected for 2020-21, making up 9.7 per cent of GDP, with stimulus spending more than triple the amount Labor spent at the height of the Global Financial Crisis in 2009.

That is the worst fiscal figure since 1945 when spending took the deficit to about 25 per cent of GDP.

CommSec chief economist Craig James said: 'Australia is recording war-time budget deficits for a very good reason: we are at war with a silent enemy.'

By comparison, former prime minister Kevin Rudd's Labor government in 2009 left a budget deficit of $57.7billion, or 4.7 per cent of GDP.

Australia's net debt is expected to hit $488.2 billion, or 24.6 per cent of GDP, as of June 30, 2020 and increase to $677.1 billion, or 35.7 per cent of GDP a year later.

Since March, the government has spent $164billlion alone on welfare stimulus programs including $86.6billion giving $1,500 fortnightly JobKeeper wage subsidies to 3.5million workers, which from September 28 are being scaled back to $1,200 for 1.4million Australians.

The dole, known as JobSeeker, was also doubled until September 24 with a $550 a fortnight coronavirus supplement.

The renewed lockdowns in Melbourne are already expected to wipe $3.3billion from the national economy within the next two months. Pictured are two women wearing face masksw at Birrarung Marr on the Yarra River

The unemployed have been receiving $1,115.70 a fortnight since April 27 but this will fall back to $815.70 in two months' time as the coronavirus supplement is trimmed to $250, on top of the base $565.70 a fortnight rate.

All up since March, the federal government has spent $289billion on pump priming the economy with stimulus measures, including $90billion for the Reserve Bank to finance cheap small business loans.

Those measures constituted 14.6 per cent of GDP.

Australia's world-record run of 29 years without a recession has ended very abruptly but this won't be officially confirmed until September, a month before the delayed October budget.

The Victorian government has also released its own dire set of statistics, forecasting a nine per cent jobless rate by the end of September as 200,000 jobs were lost in the state with Australia's second biggest economy.

Gross state product was expected to fall by 5.25 per cent in 2020, marking the first contraction since the early 1990s recession.
Local authorities have the power to initiate an arrest and prosecution. Under our authority to defer prosecutions, we could hold off on proceeding until after the November election. Obtaining cooperation and evidence from federal authorities would presumably revert to pre-Trump norms under a new administration. In the meantime, local prosecutors would have the authority to subpoena individuals and make them appear before a grand jury. Finally, these crimes would be offenses against the residents of our respective states  not federal offenses  and, therefore, the president would have no capacity to pardon those we might prosecute. All of this is to say, we will not stand idly by while the president illegally turns loose paramilitary forces to commit criminal acts and violate the constitutional rights of innocent Americans for the purpose of energizing his base and improving his poll numbers.
At the time of the crash, Kucharskis blood alcohol content was .031 and Kucharski showed further signs of impairment. Police found that in addition to alcohol, Kucharski also had Xanax and cocaine in his system. Authorities found two crack pipes, crack cocaine, other drugs, vodka and beer in a hotel room where Kucharski had been staying. Authorities also found Xanax, Benadryl and suboxone in Kucharskis car, a news release from the DuPage County States Attorneys Office said.
The epidemic of opioid-related overdose death persists across the United States, and people released from jails and prisons are at particular risk.

While the benefits of life-saving medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) -- such as methadone, buprenorphine and extended-release (XR) naltrexone -- has been documented across hospitals and treatment centers, its uptake has been extremely limited in U.S. prisons and jail settings.

In a new study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy on July 22, researchers from the Brown University School of Public Health led by Alexandria Macmadu, a doctoral candidate in epidemiology, found that expanding access to all three MOUD in prisons and jails can reduce overdose deaths by 31.6% in certain circumstances.

The researchers developed a microsimulation model -- a computer program that mimics the operation of government programs and demographic processes on individual members of a population -- to simulate a population of 55,000 people at risk of opioid-related overdose death in Rhode Island.

The primary calibration targets for the model were the observed overdose mortality rates in Rhode Island in 2015.

The model proceeds in two-week time-steps; therefore, incarceration was defined as being incarcerated in Rhode Island's unified prison and jail system for a period of at least two weeks.

They then studied the potential effects of providing access to all three MOUD in a combined prison and jail setting to at-risk people in Rhode Island over eight years and compared that to an XR-naltrexone-only intervention and the standard of care.

In the standard of care scenario, which accounts for limited or no access to MOUD, the model predicted 2,385 opioid-related overdose deaths between 2017 and 2024.

An XR-naltrexone intervention averted 103 deaths, for a 4.3% reduction, and access to all three MOUD averted 139 deaths, for a 5.8% reduction.

Among those with prior-year incarceration, those numbers rose to 22.8% and 31.6%, respectively.

According to previous studies, the first two weeks following release from incarceration are associated with a 129-fold increase in overdose risk relative to the general population.

During incarceration, tolerance to opioids is diminished or lost, which -- combined with disrupted social support networks, limited access to MOUD, medical comorbidities and various other socioeconomic conditions -- places individuals at a much higher risk for overdose upon release.

We found that the most overdose deaths were averted when the computer model was set up such that persons initiating therapy at release were retained in care for longer periods. This finding suggests that, to maximize public health impact, programs should ensure continuity of care by addressing known barriers to accessing treatment for opioid use disorder, such as unstable housing and medical insurance interruptions that often occur as persons are released from prison and jails." Brandon Marshall, Study Corresponding Author and Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Brown University

The findings align with similar studies conducted in other countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia that found that increased access to MOUD in prisons and jails is associated with a lower overdose rate.

The researchers say that the Rhode Island results suggest that other states would see similarly large mortality reductions with increased access to MOUD.

However, Rhode Island stands out from other states when it comes to prisons.

First, Rhode Island has one of the lowest incarceration rates in the country.

It also implemented diversion programming, which offers the dismissal of criminal charges to those with nonviolent felonies through participation in drug treatment and mental health programs.

Finally, the pre-2016 standard of care in Rhode Island allowed for the provision of methadone on a 30-day taper protocol among those who were prescribed methadone prior to incarceration -- the majority of prisons and jails in the U.S. offer MOUD only to women who are pregnant.

These characteristics likely underestimate the potential reduction in overdose mortality that would be observed if all three MOUD were implemented in correctional facilities elsewhere.

"As it stands, most prisons and jails that provide any access to treatment only offer extended-release naltrexone," Macmadu said.

"Our findings suggest that if all prisons and jails in the U.S. expanded access to MOUD to all persons who are indicated for treatment, overdose mortality in this highly vulnerable population would plummet."
A giant black cat resembling a panther 'on roids' has been spotted lurking in a suburb of Sydney's Upper North Shore.

Alec Mcdonald, 21, was 'meditating' at back of the Sydney Adventist Hospital in Wahroonga when he saw the 1.2 to 1.4-metre beast.

The Avondale University College nursing student filmed the cat walking across the grass before immediately uploading the video to social media.

He described the experience as 'very weird' and said the enormous cat was incredibly muscular and looked as though it was 'on roids'.

Mr Mcdonald's post on Wednesday, detailing the 'very, very big cat' sighting, has been shared more than 220 times and attracted more than 560 comments on Facebook.

Mr Mcdonald told Daily Mail Australia he was 'absolutely gobsmacked' when he saw the creature gliding across the grass.

He said it stopped to stare at him while he was sitting down after a day of studying.

Alec Mcdonald (pictured), 21, spotted the creature while 'meditating' on a break in Wahroonga

'I looked to my right and thought "what the hell ... what am I seeing?",' Mr Mcdonald said.

'I got my phone out and zoomed in on it. My heart was racing but it was real.

'Its body and its head was pretty big. It wasn't like a normal-size cat. It was pretty wide.'

Mr Mcdonald told Daily Mail Australia he was 'absolutely gobsmacked' when he saw the creature

The Avondale University College nursing student (pictured), said the cat was '1.2 to 1.4 metres'

Mr Mcdonald said the beast appeared to have come from a car park nearby, and the sighting was not the first he heard of.

'I've heard of the Gippsland black panther, which is in Victoria,' he said.

'I just couldn't believe I saw it and how big it actually was. It's much larger than my two domestic cats at home.'

Mr Mcdonald said the 'very, very big' cat stopped to stare at him while he was sitting down after a day of studying

Other black panther sightings across New South Wales have occurred at Pulpit Rock, a viewing point at the Blue Mountains National Park; Mount Sugarloaf in the Hunter region, and on a property near Bathurst.

Panther-sized paw prints were also found on a trail at Leura in the Blue Mountains earlier this year.

Blue Mountains resident Kobe Bryant was running through the bush when he spotted the human hand-sized paw prints in the dirt.

He shared footage of his hand next to the paw prints to his Instagram page, sparking dozens of comments from people speculating about where they came from.

There have been hundreds of sightings of big cats in NSW but none have ever been confirmed

A Blue Mountains resident was running through the bush when he spotted the large prints that measured as big as his hand

Some suggested a wallaby left the prints, while others believed it could have been from the mythical black panther.

'I thought how nice it was to be on a track with no human footprints,' Mr Bryant told Daily Mail Australia.

'We rounded the corner and I nearly fell on it because I was trying not to step on it.'

Speaking on Sunrise alongside Mcdonald on Thursday, animal tracker Jake Cassar said there had been a sighting about 65km away from the one spotted on Wednesday as well.

Four large paw prints were found in a bush track in the Blue Mountains in January 2020, with many speculating they belong to a big cat

'This area has a lot of connectivity with a large green belt going through the area. Just over our shoulder there are plenty of rabbits there. There are also bandicoots coming out at night, so a perfect environment for cats,' he said.

'I also found a really, really large cat track in this area, which is quite compelling.

'I have motion-detecting cameras which is the best way of detecting this.'
In the debate over when to reopen Texas school buildings, many advocates for resuming in-person classes have pointed to western Europe and eastern Asia, where several countries have started face-to-face instruction again and largely avoided surges of the novel coronavirus.

The comparison, however, relies on a potentially dubious assumption: that Texas, home to one of the worlds largest COVID-19 outbreaks, will get the same results as Denmark, France, Germany and other countries that curbed the coronavirus before reopening schools.

As it stands, the Lone Star States rates of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths far outpace those reported in several nations before they started reopening campuses this past spring, an analysis of World Health Organization and Texas Department of State Health Services data shows.

Public health experts said Texas dramatically higher community spread puts the state at higher risk of wider outbreaks if some of the states 5 million-plus schoolchildren and their teachers return to classrooms in August, though the exact danger to the public remains unknown.

In the past week, Texas reported a daily average of 35 new cases per 100,000 residents, among the nations highest rates to date. By contrast, leading countries that reopened schools averaged about 1 case per 100,000 residents in the week leading up to their return of school.

The gap in average daily death rates is much smaller, though still significant: about 4 per million residents in Texas this past week, compared to about 1 per million before schools reopened in other countries.

On HoustonChronicle.com: As school year approaches, spread of COVID in kids still big unknown

We do see data from other countries saying theyre safe opening schools, but they are in different scenarios than us, said Galveston Countys local health authority, Philip Keiser. We dont know what the best way to do this is in Galveston and Texas at this point.

While few children have shown severe symptoms of COVID-19 and youth deaths are rare, much debate remains about the role students may play in spreading the virus to teachers, parents and older relatives who are at higher risk of health complications.

Houston Chronicle

Some preliminary studies suggest older children can transmit the virus at rates similar to adults, while other researchers argue the evidence points to limited or nonexistent transmission. The studies to date have involved small sample sizes, complicating efforts to draw definitive conclusions.

One of the larger samples, which tracked about 150 infected children and 700 of their contacts in South Korea, concluded people aged 10 to 19 spread the virus at rates similar to adults, but children under than 10 transmitted at lower rates.

Growing debate

It also remains unknown whether lessons from school reopenings abroad will apply in places with higher coronavirus spread, such as the United States.

Theres nowhere that has had a community-wide number of cases per day that looks like many of the locations we have in the U.S. and opened schools, said Brandon Guthrie, as assistant professor at the University of Washingtons departments of global health and epidemiology. Because a lot of places havent had a huge amount of transmission, its hard to find enough cases to draw definitive conclusions.

Several countries with minimal outbreaks and well-developed testing protocols have reopened schools without any major hitches, aided by safety protocols such as mask requirements, distancing measures and sanitization schedules. Israel reported a spike in COVID-19 cases after restarting in-person classes, with some government officials tracing the spread to schools and attributing the increase to the countrys broader reopening of society.

As the new school year approaches in the United States, debates over reopening campuses have escalated in recent weeks.

At the federal level, President Donald Trump aggressively has pushed to restart in-person classes, arguing the benefits of face-to-face instruction outweigh the public health risks. A July 8 message from Trumps Twitter account reads, in part: In Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and many other countries, SCHOOLS ARE OPEN WITH NO PROBLEMS.

Trump softened his stance Thursday, saying districts in cities and states in COVID-19 hotspots may need to delay reopening for a few weeks. His comments came as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidance recommending that education leaders in areas with substantial, uncontrolled transmission of COVID-19 work closely with local health officials to make decisions on whether to maintain school operations.

On HoustonChronicle.com: How Houston-area districts are planning for the start of school

With the tacit blessing of Gov. Greg Abbott, who largely has delegated decision-making about school reopening to local officials, many of the states largest school districts will not begin in-person classes until after Labor Day at the earliest. In the past two weeks, several county health authorities in Texas have ordered campus closures into September and many school boards have pushed back their start dates due to the outbreak.

Harris County and city of Houston health officials on Friday issued a closure order for all public and secular private schools that runs through Labor Day, with County Judge Lina Hidalgo warning that an extension appears likely. Harris County reported a daily average of 28 confirmed COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents and 2.5 deaths per million residents during the past week.

Fort Bend County is experiencing the regions least-severe outbreak  daily average of 16 confirmed cases per 100,000 residents and 1.5 deaths per million residents the past week  but Health and Human Services Director Jacquelyn Minter advised the countys largest school district this week to keep its campuses closed.

When youve got uncontrolled spread the way we have right now, it takes a huge effort to put the genie back in the bottle, Minter said. Currently, we dont see any way of doing that. Weve overwhelmed our ability as a public health response team to do that with our contact tracing, with our ability to test and get the results back in time, to know whats actually going on in our community.

Montgomery County health officials also recommended  but did not order  that local campuses remain closed through Labor Day. Brazoria and Galveston county health authorities have warned about high transmission rates in their area, but they have not issued closure orders.

No easy answers

Many Texas school leaders and health officials hope the regions coronavirus curve falls in the next seven weeks, mirroring trends from this spring in New York, New Jersey, Michigan and other hard-hit states. From their peaks, those states saw case and death counts decline by roughly 70 percent to 90 percent in a seven-week time frame.

Those dramatic reductions, however, came amid widespread lockdowns and business closures.

Kim Jun-beom, SUB / Associated Press

Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered some shutdowns  bars remain closed, restaurants only can operate at 50 percent capacity  but largely staked his approach on encouraging people to stay at home and mandating the use of face coverings. Case counts and hospitalization data suggests Texas outbreak could be peaking or plateauing, though death counts continue to rise.

On HoustonChronicle.com: TEA releases new guidelines for starting school year online-only

For now, Houston-area public health leaders have said they want to see significant declines in positive cases, rates of positive tests, hospitalizations and deaths before they recommend the reopening of schools. However, they have not publicly released specific benchmarks that should be reached before in-person classes resume.

Weve got some in mind, some weve already been reviewing, but we dont have anything yet thats been final and ready to make public, Shah said. Our eventual goal is to make that clear to the community.

Without clear consensus on child-to-adult transmission, nearly all of the Houston regions largest districts expect to begin with online-only classes in August or delay the start of school until Sept. 8, then re-evaluate their plans in the coming weeks. Preliminary survey data from several school districts  including Aldine, Clear Creek, Humble and Spring Branch ISDs  suggests about one third to two thirds of families want to send children to campuses once school buildings reopen.

If there were a good answer, if there were an easy answer, we would lay it out for you and everybody would be happy, Cy-Fair ISD Superintendent Mark Henry said. But there are no perfect answers.

jacob.carpenter@chron.com
Those who come to the UK through the new pathway will be able to apply to settle in Britain permanently once they have lived in the UK for five years.

London: Britains government announced on Wednesday that it will open a new special pathway to obtaining British citizenship for eligible Hong Kongers from January 2021.

In a statement, the Home Office said holders of the British National Overseas passport and their immediate family members can move to the UK to work and study. The change to immigration rules was introduced after China imposed a new, sweeping national security law on Hong Kong.

Those eligible can access the British job market at any skill level and without a salary threshold, but will not have access to public funds.

The UK has a strong historic relationship with the people of Hong Kong and we are keeping our promise to them to uphold their freedoms, Home Secretary Priti Patel said.

Those who come to the UK through the new pathway will be able to apply to settle in Britain permanently once they have lived in the UK for five years. Then after a further 12 months, they can apply for British citizenship.

Britain handed over Hong Kong, its former colony, to Chinese rule in 1997 under One Country, Two Systems framework that was supposed to guarantee the city a high degree of autonomy and Western-style civil liberties not seen on mainland China.

Todays announcement shows the UK is keeping its word: we will not look the other way on Hong Kong, and we will not duck our historic responsibilities to its people, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said.
This year has been particularly good for 25-year-old Vignesh Sridharan. The management graduate from XLRI has joined as a trainee in the sales and marketing division of Reckitt Benckiser, a company he interned with last summer and got a job in October. The company held on to the offer even during the pandemic, and Sridharan was onboarded in June. He is currently operating out of Kolkata.

In a season of layoffs and pay cuts, Sridharan is mindful of the happy confluence of three factors - luck, choice of sector and the value of sticking to commitments that recruiters make. All three played out in his case. Among his batch of 180, the majority had no issue of any sort, either in getting a job offer or in onboarding. Sridharans choice of the FMCG sector has helped him too. Irrespective of any crisis, essential items will be in demand.

Some 2,000 km away, in her hometown in Surat, Kiran Sharda, 22, a student of IIM Udaipur, remotely concluded her first summer internship with a leading consumer and specialities chemicals company. "They call us the pioneer batch of this virtual world and it felt good," she says. Sharda is now waiting for her second-year online classes to begin. Her senior and a gold medallist from the Class of 2015, Angad Singh Abrol, after being part of two startup founding teams since 2015, chose this year "to take a pause from an entrepreneurial career and get deeper insights into product management." He recently joined as senior product manager in FarEye, a SaaS-based solutions provider for logistics players. "If you are skilled enough then every time is a good time to look for a job," says Abrol. The same applies for companies as well. If a company is good and is in a promising space, access to funds is not a challenge even in the middle of a pandemic, he adds. FarEye, he says, "raised $25 million in April 2020 and has expanded its manpower with remote hiring by over 12 per cent amidst the COVID-19 outbreak." He sees a clear trend in more hiring by tech-based solution providing startups.

So, why do some companies see sense in ramping up on quality talent instead of resorting to layoffs? How are managements, in times of cost-cutting, approaching hiring? What are they conveying to graduates, business partners and most importantly their own people? In some cases, it is driven by an expectation of a business rebound and in others, a confidence in respective brands and a simple demand-supply equation where good talent is available. There are companies from FMCG, finance, tech-based startups, healthcare and e-commerce sectors who are rejigging their businesses models to adapt to the new reality.

Much More Broad-based

Clearly, all is not lost. Those with access to deep pockets and in businesses with growth prospects are ready to hire. Amit Karna, Associate Professor of Strategy and the chairperson of placements at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, told Business Today: Generally, most of the companies adhered to the commitments made this year. "Apart from three offers by one company, all the others in the 394 accepted offers stuck to their commitments and all students are getting onboarded. Only, this time we are expecting delays by a couple of months and perhaps by October, all of them will join," he says. Normally, around 80 per cent of students join by around July end but looks like for most leading institutions it would be around 60 per cent and by the October the remaining would join.

Nestle India Chairman and Managing Director Suresh Narayanan agrees. "Broadly, the spend levels on people this year will be comparable with any other year," he says, adding, "the good part this year is that everybody has received their salaries, increments and bonuses. Whatever benefits they were to get have been given. So there has been no change between last year and this year in terms of commitment to people or what they were supposed to be getting."

So, is this year no different from any other? "All the offers we made to summer interns were fully honoured. They spent eight weeks. We usually take in 20-25 students every year, and it continued this year as well. We onboarded them virtually and some of them will be selected by the company," says Narayanan. "In all, 24 management trainees joined in early June. Usually, in a year we take in anywhere between 18 and 25 students. This is something that we had also committed in all the offers at IIMs and other institutions. Those were all completely honoured and we did not renege on a single one. All those who have been given job offers are in the process of joining, virtually at the moment."

Newer Roles

One addition to the hiring scenario is new roles getting created to cater to the changing business needs. Nitin Chugh, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Bengaluru-headquartered Ujjivan Small Finance Bank, who has been hiring at senior levels, too, in the past few months, says roles like head of digital banking are proving out to be good decisions in today's environment. "Another senior role that we have now created is head of TASC (Trusts, Associations, Societies and Clubs). Smaller entities in this are an underserved segment and we could reach out to them now. Other than that, there were at least half a dozen senior-level positions that were replacements, which we also filled in the past couple of months like the head of liabilities, taxation, operational risk and CTO, among others," he adds.

"There were management trainees, too, who normally join in June, but this time are joining us in July in multiple locations. We have not laid off. We have been hiring for the past couple of years and reached a headcount of around 17,500 across the country. We have been at that level for the past six months and as and when new positions or replacements are needed, they are done. Like, in the past few months, we have added people in front office and senior level roles," he says.

Joining The League

Even biggies in challenging business segments are hiring. Consider construction and engineering major Larsen & Toubro (L&T). "Our construction division as a whole is hiring young engineers to commensurate with business needs. We are not reneging on any offers made in campuses in spite of the difficult economic environment and challenges that the pandemic has posed. We have decided not to renege on offers made and go by the principle in hiring that 'a promise-is-a-promise'," says Yogi Sriram, adviser to CEO and MD, Group HR at L&T.

"We are recruiting healthy numbers relative to others in spite of a challenging year ahead. We have a healthy order book that exceeds Rs 3 lakh crore and we will need these young bright, energetic engineerss for the present and the future. GETs (Graduate Engineering Trainees), PGETs (Post Graduate Engineering Trainees) and Build India scholars are the main source for our talent bank," he adds. In just GETs and PGETs, there have been 1,000 and 240 additions, respectively.

More Access To Talent

While companies seem conscious of the current challenges, they also have reasons for onboarding young professionals in times of layoffs. "We understand that in the current uncertain and volatile employment environment, there is an availability of great talent across functions... Currently, we have higher access to talent than we did previously due to the disruption caused in recent months," says Deepti Varma, director HR, Amazon India. "We have recently opened 20,000 seasonal employment opportunities in customer service apart from over 2,000 open positions that we are hiring for, across locations and levels. Some of the key roles we are hiring for include software development, operations, IT and support engineering," Varma adds. "We have honoured all hiring commitments, including internship offers. In March, we started onboarding hires virtually and extended that to launch a virtual student internship programme for corporate teams this summer."

Buzz And Business Prospects

One aspect across most hirings today is the perception of healthy business prospects, says Amazon's Varma. "E-commerce is one of the fastest-growing sectors in India, and this presents a unique opportunity for firms to deliver a superior customer experience."

Agrees Nestle's Narayanan. "As a consumer goods company, the blessing that we have is that business is still coming. As a company, we have a fairly clear idea about what costs we can cut such as establishment costs or conference costs or travelling costs, which in any case have got rationalised." Instead, the company is looking to invest more on people. It has just launched a 1,000 'Nesternship' programme to reach out to young professionals. "In the last four years, we offered around 1,000 internships and now under this initiative, we intend to do this in just the next four months. Of course, we will not be recruiting the 1,000, though some might become employees. The idea is to build the capability in them to see employment," says Narayanan.

And what about added costs. More importantly, why now? "There will be the cost element to it but that we are willing to absorb and we are confident of being able to digest it," he adds. What is likely to change is the composition of compensation in packages, which would be tuned according to the changing business requirements and will factor in elements like work from home.

Narayanan sums it up. "In a people-centric organisation, I will be betraying the spirit, if I say I am not going to spend on people and cut their salaries."

That, perhaps, is a message companies bucking the trend, are happy sending out.

@EKumarSharma
A potential rise in COVID-19 cases in Manitoba linked to domestic travel can be avoided, but both travellers and locals need to play by pandemic rules, public health experts warn.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A potential rise in COVID-19 cases in Manitoba linked to domestic travel can be avoided, but both travellers and locals need to play by pandemic rules, public health experts warn.

Earlier this week, Premier Brian Pallister released the provincial governments draft Phase 4 economic restart plan, which proposes people from across Canada can enter Manitoba without having to isolate for 14 days.

Cynthia Carr, an epidemiologist and founder of Epi Research Inc., said shes still uncertain about the plan, noting its challenging to monitor and track exposures from travellers, if they occur.

"Thats obviously an area where many people are worried," Carr said. "Weve already seen that when theres gaps, quickly we can see outbreaks associated with a person travelling and bringing infection to Manitoba.

"Theres a lot of checks and balances that are going to need to be in place in going forward with that next stage of reopening," she said.

Provincial public health officials reported eight new cases of the novel coronavirus on Wednesday, seven of which are connected to outbreaks in at least three separate Hutterite communities. The case clusters have been connected to travel to Alberta.

When asked, the province would not say if additional colonies have reported cases of the virus since Monday.

The total number of confirmed and probable cases in Manitoba stood at 374 Wednesday and the active case count was 49. Other active cases have been associated with international travel and trucking. One person was in intensive care at hospital due to COVID-19.

According to the province, the five-day test positivity rate  how many tests come back positive out of all conducted  was 1.12 per cent on Wednesday and has been increasing steadily since July 17, when the rolling five day average was reported at 0.43 per cent.

Public health has begun reporting the test-positivity rate as a more accurate measure of the prevalence of COVID-19 in the community and the rate of transmission.

At a press briefing last Thursday, chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said since the arrival of the coronavirus in Manitoba, the test-positivity rate has remained low. As of July 12, the test-positivity rate for all of Canada stood at 3.1 per cent, according to the federal government.

"We keep this number certainly under 1.5 per cent, were very low, and if we started seeing test positivity rates over three per cent then that would indicate to us that were likely seeing significant community based transmission," Roussin said last week.

A spike in test-positivity rates alone wouldnt trigger reintroduction of restrictions, so long as officials are confident cases are contained and significant community spread is not occurring.

A request for comment from provincial health officials was not accommodated.

Carr said using test-positivity rates as part of public health messaging is a smart move and is a valuable metric for the public to evaluate risk  particularly the speed of percentage increase.

"We always like to use rates instead of raw numbers for comparison because even if youre trying to compare between regional health authorities or between communities, youre always going to have more from a community or area that has more people," she said.

"It will show us, too, if theres massive differences between regional health authorities in increases in positive test result percentages (if there) are steps being missed somewhere."

A Free Press tally shows across Canada, average test-positivity rates range from 1.22 per cent in Quebec to 1.63 per cent in Saskatchewan and 1.78 per cent in British Columbia.

University of Saskatchewan professor Dr. David Butler-Jones said its not unreasonable to reopen to travellers under the current circumstances, but the key is to keep the infection rate down with physical distancing, avoiding confined spaces, handwashing and mask wearing.

"Those are the things that really have made the biggest difference," said Butler-Jones, who is also Canadas former chief public health officer. "If people are diligent with their own wearing of a mask, when you cant maintain distance, and washing hands and staying home when youre sick... that significantly decreases your risk."

Available provincial data, as of July 11, shows approximately 80 per cent of recent cases were either travel-related or as a result of being in close contact with travel-related cases.

However, Manitobas premier hasnt backed away from plans to ease border restrictions.

"Were always concerned about new cases," Pallister said Wednesday. "It looks like a spike because it was zero for two weeks. Lets be fair."

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"The positivity test indicator went up because it was essentially zero... it had nowhere to go but up."

A day earlier, the premier said he doesnt accept that travel is a significant risk factor.

"The significant risk factor is that which results as a consequence of ignoring social distancing guidelines, handwashing, staying home when youre ill," Pallister said. "Those are the major risk factors you control."

Travel will continue to be a gamble, even while practising social distancing, said Carr, although she acknowledges the premier does have a point.

"The epidemic spreads because of travel the way to stop the chain of transmission applies to everyone," Carr said. "By now we should all understand the rules, so whether were travelling or live here, we still need to be cognizant of the rules."

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca
A Russia's Proton rocket, carrying Kosmos military satellite blasts off a launch pad at the Russian leased Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome, on March 30, 2012. a(STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Russia Tests Nesting Doll Anti-Satellite Weapon, Space Command Says

U.S. Space Command says Russia has carried out a test of a nesting doll anti-satellite weapon in space, using the same system that stalked a U.S. reconnaissance satellite earlier this year.

What Russia claims to be an inspector satellite injected another object into orbit alongside another Russian satellite on July 15, according to Space Command, which described the test as non-destructive.

The Russian satellite system used to conduct this on-orbit weapons test is the same satellite system that we raised concerns about earlier this year, when Russia maneuvered near a U.S. government satellite, Gen. John Raymond, Commander of U.S. Space Command and U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations, said in a statement.

This is further evidence of Russias continuing efforts to develop and test space-based systems, and consistent with the Kremlins published military doctrine to employ weapons that hold U.S. and allied space assets at risk.

The launch was similar to on-orbit activity conducted by Russia in 2017, Space Command said.

U.S. officials have previously stated that Russia in 2017 deployed a high-speed projectile from a satellite that itself was launched from inside another satellite a trick dubbed as Russian nesting doll satellites.

The U.S. State Department raised concerns in 2018, and again this year, that Russian satellite behaviors were inconsistent with their stated mission and that these satellites displayed characteristics of a space-based weapon, Space Command said in the statement.

Gen. John Raymond testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington on June 4, 2019. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Tracking information on the incident can be found on Space-Track.org, according to Space Command.

This event highlights Russias hypocritical advocacy of outer space arms control, with which Moscow aims to restrict the capabilities of the United States while clearly having no intention of halting its own counter-space programboth ground-based anti-satellite capabilities and what would appear to be actual in-orbit anti-satellite weaponry, said Christopher Ford, the U.S. assistant secretary of state currently performing the duties of the under secretary for arms control and international security.

Ford in April picked out Russias nesting doll system as an example of space weapons, describing a space object identified as Kosmos 2519, which Russia said was a space apparatus inspector.

The behavior of Kosmos 2519, however, was notably unusual, and inconsistent with anything seen before for on-orbit inspection or space situational awarenessand inconsistent, in fact, with any sort of device except an ASAT [anti-satellite] weapon, Ford said.

Once in orbit, Kosmos 2519 deployed a sub-satellite, Kosmos 2521, that displayed the ability to maneuver around another satellite in space, he said. But what happened next is the disturbing part: the sub-satellite Kosmos 2521 itself launched an additional object into space, Kosmos 2523at the high relative speed of about 250 kilometers per hour, straight off into space. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Kosmos 2521 demonstrated the ability to position itself near another satellite and fire a projectile.

Space Command said that the latest incident highlights the necessity of the newly created Space Force.

The Space Force was officially established last year, joining the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps as a distinct fighting forcethe first time a new military service has been created in more than 60 years.

The creation of the Space Force pulls space defense together under one organizational umbrella, as the United States picks up the pace in what is essentially a new space race with Russia and China.

For now, space warfare might be crudely understood as predominantly satellite warfare. That is, the protection, weaponization, and neutralization of the all-seeing, all-knowing information architecture that holds up the military and modern society.

The Space Force logo (Space Force)

The Space Force laid out its goals in the Defense Space Strategy published in June.

China and Russia each have weaponized space as a means to reduce U.S. and allied military effectiveness and challenge our freedom of operation in space, according to the unclassified version of the Space Strategy document, published on June 17 (pdf).

The document lays out the structure that is needed to achieve a comprehensive military advantage in space within 10 years.
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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has ordered Nigerians with expired visas to leave the country before August 17. In a statement on Tue...

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has ordered Nigerians with expired visas to leave the country before August 17.





In a statement on Tuesday, the Nigerian embassy in Abu Dhabi said UAE has granted waivers on fines and penalties on visas that expired before March 1.





The embassy urged affected citizens to submit their papers for emigration processing.





It said Nigerians are advised to join the evacuation flights arranged from the country before the deadline.





the statement read. The Embassy wishes to inform that the government of the United Arab Emirates has granted waivers on fines/penalties on visas that expired before 1st March 2020 to leave the country on or before 17th of August, 2020,the statement read.





Consequently, the Embassy is urging fellow Nigerians living in the UAE to avail themselves of this opportunity to return home with the impending Air Peace evacuation flight scheduled for 1st August, 2020, and or subsequent Emirates evacuation flights before the expiration of the grace period.





Accordingly, affected Nigerian nationals who are willing to return home are kindly requested to submit their names and passport numbers to the Embassy and or the Consulate for onward transmission to the UAE authorities in order to obtain the necessary clearance.





The development in the UAE is unconnected to the negative reports about Nigerians in the country.





In June, some Nigerians including Abass Ramon, popularly known as Hushpuppi, internet celebrity, were arrested by the Dubai Police for fraud.





Hushpuppi is currently being prosecuted in the US.





The UAE authorities had earlier excluded Nigeria from a list of countries permitted to fly into the Emirates.




Surge in the number of fatalities comes as restaurant owners protest against reinstated lockdown measures.

South Africa has announced 572 new coronavirus-related deaths, a record daily tally that brought its total number of fatalities to 5,940.

The announcement by Health Minister Zweli Mkhize on Wednesday came as the country  the worst-affected in Africa and among the top five in the world in terms of confirmed cases  saw its overall tally of infections rise to 394,948. Some 229,175 patients have so far recovered.

Almost half the total number of deaths have been reported in the Western Cape province, while the majority of positive cases are in Gauteng province  South Africas financial hub and epicentre of the outbreak.

The mortality rate has remained low, at approximately 1.5 percent. But late on Wednesday, the South African Medical Research Council reported a sharp rise in overall numbers of natural deaths, suggesting the actual toll of coronavirus-related fatalities might be higher than officially reported.

In the past weeks, the numbers have shown a relentless increase  by the second week of July, there were 59 percent more deaths from natural causes than would have been expected based on historical data, said a report by the council, which is a government-funded but independent body.

As of today, the total number of confirmed #COVID19 cases is 394 948, the total number of deaths is 5 940 and the total number of recoveries is 229 175. pic.twitter.com/VW2RKf6Qvk  Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) July 22, 2020

President Cyril Ramaphosa imposed one of the worlds strictest lockdown in March, restricting movement and gatherings.

He loosened some of the measures in June, allowing restaurants to reopen, initially for take-out and then for dine-in service.

But last week, as the number of infections surged, the government brought back a night-time curfew and a ban on alcohol sales.

On Wednesday, restaurateurs protested against the lockdown measures, saying they were wrecking an industry that employs an estimated 800,000 people.

What the government has put in place has been knee-capping, Sean Barber, founder of the Rockets chain of restaurants, told AFP news agency.

It has literally wiped out our dinner trade. Its decimating our industry, he said.

Waving a placard with the inscription #JobsSaveLives, 32-year-old waiter Divine Moyo remarked: Open we are, but normal is not the case.

Its just been quiet, said Moyo. Im going to bed hungry, my family is struggling.

The nations hospitality sector is one of the hardest-hit by government coronavirus restrictions imposed at the end of March [Luca Sola / AFP]

In Cape Town, a popular tourist destination, restaurant owners laid out rows of empty tables and chairs along pavements or in the middle of streets in what they dubbed a One Million Seats on the Streets demonstration.

Restaurant Association of South Africa CEO Wendy Alberts said nearly a third of restaurants had already shuttered since the onset of lockdown, and more closures were looming.

She said businesses want the government to urgently consider lifting the liquor ban and curfew, among other demands.

We want them [the government] to consider just giving us a glass or two of wine with a main meal ordered. We want them to take the curfew away, [and] to allow us to just let our businesses to survive this, said Jo-Ann Hinis, co-owner of Espresso cafe and bistro in Johannesburg.

Many employees have not received any money yet from the governments Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), which has been disbursing COVID-19 relief payments to people who cannot work as a result of the restrictions.

The Department of Employment and Labour has said the delays in payments have been due to a lengthy vetting process and adapting its systems to cope with a ten-fold increase in benefit payments.
You would think, to hear some of the advocates, that weve done nothing, Mendelson said at the council meeting before ticking off areas in which lawmakers have boosted funding. Yes, you can look at a budget and see if we are caring for the downtrodden. So look at ours. Look at these changes weve made, and dont preach to us about morality.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas each shared strong views on social media Wednesday about the United States government abruptly ordering China to "cease all operations and events" at its consulate in Montrose yesterday.

In a tweet alluding to Sundays social media scuffle between Cruz and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban over players kneeling during the anthem, one Twitter user posted, "Everyone needs to calm down. The Chinese are just moving to their new consulate in Dallas."

"Fair point," Cruz tweeted.

"China's consulate in Houston is not a diplomatic facility. It is the central node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States, Rubio said in the first of two tweets Wednesday. Now that building must close & the spies have 72 hours to leave or face arrest. This needed to happen.

"Houston consulate is a massive spy center, forcing it to close is long overdue," Rubio said in the second tweet.

Cornyn retweeted Rubio's initial tweet.

Tensions between Beijing and Washington have been growing for months over a trade war, the coronavirus pandemic, and US criticism of China's human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

Last week, China targeted four U.S. officials for sanctions, including Rubio and Cruz, in response to a similar decision made by the Trump administration in July against four officials in China.

The State Department said in a statement that the closure was in response to repeated Chinese violations of American sovereignty, including massive illegal spying and influence operations, according to the New York Times.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has called the order to close the Montrose-area Chinese consulate an "unprecedented escalation" in recent actions taken by Washington, the New York Times reported.

On Tuesday night, Houston police tweeted that they responded to reports of smoke in the courtyard outside the consulate building at 3417 Montrose Blvd., but were not allowed inside.

Local media shared video of what appeared to be consulate employees burning documents.

A spokesperson for the State Department said in a statement that China "has engaged for years in massive illegal spying and influence operations, which have increased markedly in scale and scope over the past few years, according to the New York Times.

Via its official social media platform, the Chinese Foreign Ministry reportedly said the order to close the consulate was a "political provocation unilaterally launched by the US side, which seriously violates international law, basic norms governing international relations and the bilateral consular agreement between China and the US."
Iran is reportedly in the final stages of agreeing to a $400 billion economic and security deal with China, which includes infrastructure investment, discounted Iranian oil and enhanced cooperation on both defense and intelligence. Iran, suffering from the horrific impact of COVID-19 and with its economy in free fall since the Trump administration reimposed sanctions after withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018, is in desperate economic straits.

Iran rejected the US offer to negotiate lifting sanctions in return for a new agreement that would remove JCPOA sunset clauses and address Irans state-sponsored terrorism and ballistic missile program. In an effort to induce the United States to return to negotiations, Iran began escalating attacks on the United States and its allies in the summer of 2019 by attacking oil tankers in the Gulf; seizing the Stena Impero oil tanker; shooting down a US drone; and launching a missile attack against Saudi Aramco facilities.

In July 2019, Iran began exceeding the limit on its stockpile of low enriched uranium set under the JCPOA. Iran has also nearly tripled its stockpile of enriched uranium since November 2019, also in violation of the JCPOA, according to the UN International Atomic Energy Agency. Irans current stockpile brings it dangerously close to the amount needed to produce a nuclear weapon.

US-Iranian relations reached a nadir following the US airstrike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani in January.

In 2016, Iran and China signed a strategic partnership focused on increasing investment and trade, a calculated hedge given that the US Senate never ratified the JCPOA as a treaty.

Chinas aspiration for global influence extends well beyond competing with the United States as a Pacific power. Using its One Belt, One Road initiative as cover for debt-trap diplomacy, China has set its sights on attacking the independence of nation-states from South Asia throughout the developing world.

During the past decade, China has significantly increased investments in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Chinese firms are also managing the Israeli port of Haifa, where the US Navys 6th Fleet often docks. Chinas insatiable need for energy imports dictates its interest in the Middle East. Seeking to maintain positive bilateral relationships with both sides of the Iranian-Saudi conflict, China purposely defers to the United States and regional powers to shoulder the burdens of dealing with the Middle Easts security challenges.

China predictably does not seek to promote government reform or elevate human rights issues. And Middle East nations have thus far avoided criticism of Chinas repression of its Muslim minority in Xinjiang.

China of course has long pursued a national security strategy of offering a lifeline to repressive regimes like North Korea, in the interest of economic predation.

China clearly sees Irans current economic distress as an opportunity to expand its influence.

The United States is focused on countering, deterring and defending against Chinas increasingly aggressive attacks on the United States and its allies national security interests. US freedom of navigation operations are challenging Chinas unsubstantiated claims of hegemony over the South China Sea. China is mounting a full-throttle espionage campaign against the United States and its allies; stealing intellectual property with impunity; and crushing democracy activists in Hong Kong. Deliberately concealing the outbreak and severity of the coronavirus, China ruthlessly seeks to coerce other nations to adhere to its propaganda designed to whitewash Chinas image.

Iran is on the precipice of making the most Faustian of bargains. Iran would surely welcome Chinas massive market for oil, gas and hydrocarbons; investment in Irans banking, telecommunications and transportation sectors; and Chinese technology, which would create an Iranian great firewall designed to deny its citizens cyberaccess to the outside world. But Iran would risk ceding some of its sovereignty to the point of becoming Chinas client state in violation of the principles that ostensibly guided its 1979 revolution.

At the heart of the US-Sino conflict  just as they were during the US competition with the Soviet evil empire  are democratic principles of liberty, freedom and pluralism, which are an existential threat to Chinas autocratic, communist state just as they continue to be to the Kremlins.

The United States and the Soviet Union never declared war on one another but the Cold War was known for the number of proxy conflicts in which they engaged. The US goal was to contain the spread of communism while the Soviets sought to expand their global influence.

A Chinese alliance with Iran would have immediate tactical implications in the Middle East but it would also be a bellwether for a 21st century Cold War from which neither the United States nor China would benefit.
Khiron has received all necessary licenses and authorizations allowing full spectrum, high-CBD medical cannabis products to be exported from Colombia for import and commercialization in Peru

for import and commercialization in Full spectrum high CBD medical cannabis will be supplied by Khiron Colombia and manufactured and distributed to patients under the previously announced agreement with Farmacia Universal

First patient prescriptions anticipated to be filled in Q3 2020

Receipt of import license and corresponding Colombian authorizations complete all requirements for entry into the Peruvian high CBD medical cannabis market

Entry to Peru comes as Company surpasses 1,000 medical cannabis patient prescriptions milestone in Colombia

TORONTO, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Khiron Life Sciences Corp. ("Khiron" or the "Company") (TSXV: KHRN), (OTCQX: KHRNF), (Frankfurt: A2JMZC), a vertically integrated cannabis leader with core operations in Latin America and Europe, announced today that it has received import licenses and all necessary authorizations from the Directorate General of Drug Supplies and Drugs (DIGEMID) for the import and commercialization of full spectrum, high-CBD medical cannabis products from Khiron Colombia into Peru.

"Successfully completing all licensing, import and distribution requirements allows us to bring our full spectrum, high CBD medical cannabis products into Peru. We have an experienced country management team in place in Lima and, together with our distribution partner Farmacia Universal, are now positioned to give patients in Peru greater access to medical cannabis therapies. Additionally, we anticipate fulfilling all necessary requirements to commercialize high-THC medical cannabis products in Peru during Q4 2020," comments Luis Marquez, Khiron Peru Country Manager.

In Peru, only registered pharmaceutical establishments that have received Good Storage Practices (GSP) certification are authorized to participate in the wholesale import and commercialization of cannabis products. Khiron Peru is a GSP certified, registered pharmaceutical establishment, and Farmacia Universal has all required permits, including Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) certification, to distribute medical cannabis final products to patients through pharmacies under the previously announced agreement with Khiron.

With receipt of the final licenses and authorizations from DIGEMID, Khiron Peru is now fully authorized to import full spectrum, high-CBD medical cannabis from Khiron Colombia, which is now fully authorized by the Narcotics National Fund (NNF) in Colombia for the export to Peru. The Company anticipates prescriptions can be filled commencing in Q3 2020.

"Entry to the Peru medical cannabis market continues our relentless focus on meeting patient needs in Latin America and globally. We are currently the only company in Colombia that has dispensed medical cannabis to patients and have now surpassed our first 1,000 medical cannabis patient prescriptions milestone. This, despite a global pandemic that has slowed down many of the world's economies, represents a very important achievement for us," comments Alvaro Torres, Khiron CEO and director.

About Khiron Life Sciences Corp.

Khiron is a vertically integrated medical and CPG cannabis company with core operations in Latin America, and operational activity in Europe and North America. Khiron is the leading cannabis company in Colombia and the first company licensed in Colombia for the cultivation, production, domestic distribution, and international export of both low and high THC medical cannabis products. The Company has presence in Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Brazil, UK, Spain and Germany, where it is positioned to begin sales of medical cannabis.

Leveraging its first-mover advantage, and patient oriented approach, Khiron combines global scientific expertise, product innovation, agricultural infrastructure, wholly-owned medical clinics, and online doctor education programs to drive prescription and brand loyalty to address priority medical conditions. Its Wellbeing unit launched the first branded CBD skincare brand in Colombia, with KuidaTM now marketed in multiple jurisdictions in Latin America, the US and UK. The Company is led by Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Alvaro Torres, together with an experienced and diverse executive team and Board of Directors.

Visit Khiron online at www.khiron.ca, investors.khiron.ca and on Instagram @khironlife.

Cautionary Notes

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. All information contained herein that is not historical in nature may constitute forward-looking information. Khiron undertakes no obligation to comment on analyses, expectations or statements made by third-parties in respect of Khiron, its securities, or financial or operating results (as applicable). Although Khiron believes that the expectations reflected in forward-looking statements in this press release are reasonable, such forward-looking statement has been based on expectations, factors and assumptions concerning future events which may prove to be inaccurate and are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond Khiron's control, including the risk factors discussed in Khiron's Annual Information Form which is available on Khiron's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. The forward-looking information contained in this press release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement and is made as of the date hereof. Khiron disclaims any intention and has no obligation or responsibility, except as required by law, to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

SOURCE Khiron Life Sciences Corp.

Related Links

https://www.khiron.ca/en/home


Brazil has suffered a record 68,000 new coronavirus cases while South Africa saw its biggest daily spike in deaths as the crisis continues to mount in two of the world's worst-hit countries.

In Brazil, the 67,860 new cases announced last night smash the previous record of 54,771 on June 19, taking the country's total past 2.2million.

Brazil's outbreak is the second-largest in the world while South Africa is fifth with 394,948 cases, of which 13,183 were discovered in the last 24 hours.

South Africa's death toll surged by 572, more than in the previous four days combined, bringing the total to 5,940.

BRAZIL CASES: Brazil saw a record daily spike of 67,860 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, bringing the country's total past 2.2million

BRAZIL DEATHS: Another 1,284 deaths in the country took the total to 82,771, second only to the United States

SOUTH AFRICA CASES: The country has frequently seen more than 10,000 new cases per day and now has the largest outbreak in Africa

SOUTH AFRICA DEATHS: Officials last night announced a massive spike of 572 new deaths, taking the total to 5,940

Brazil's total case load is now 2,227,514 while its death toll is 82,771 after another 1,284 fatalities were recorded in 24 hours.

Both figures are second only to the United States, and experts say under-testing means the real numbers are probably much higher.

The World Health Organization voiced optimism last week that the outbreak in Brazil had finally reached a plateau, saying the country had an opportunity to 'take control.'

But although the level of daily infections appeared to have stabilised until today's surge, it remains high with an average of more than 30,000 cases per day.

President Jair Bolsonaro has faced severe criticism for downplaying the virus and attacking social distancing measures adopted by state and local authorities.

Bolsonaro has been in quarantine at the presidential palace since July 7 after contracting the virus himself.

His office announced yesterday that he had again tested positive, saying he would continue his quarantine and suspend his upcoming travel plans.

Bolsonaro, 65, has hailed the unproven malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a remedy for Covid-19, following in the footsteps of Donald Trump.

Margareth Dalcomo, an expert at Brazil's leading public-health institute, Fiocruz, said Bolsonaro's promotion of the drug was 'deplorable.'

'This politicisation of the drug by the US and Brazilian presidents for murky reasons has no justification, and it deceives people,' she said.

Bolsonaro is on his third health minister since the pandemic reached Brazil five months ago, after falling out with two doctors who previously held the post over their recommendations on containing the virus.

The current interim minister is Eduardo Pazuello, a military general with no prior medical experience.

BRAZIL: Members of a military firefighter brigade wearing white protective suits push an isolation stretcher towards a helicopter in Belo Horizonte yesterday

SOUTH AFRICA: An undertaker wearing personal protective gear watches an excavator filling a grave during the funeral of a coronavirus victim in Johannesburg yesterday

Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro makes a heart gesture to supporters outside the Alvorada presidential palace in Brasilia last night as he remains positive for Covid-19

Meanwhile, South Africa is the worst-affected country on the continent and is now among the top five in the world in terms of confirmed cases.

The country's National Institute For Communicable Diseases announced 13,183 new cases last night after conducting nearly 50,000 tests over the previous 24 hours.

The institute offered its 'deepest condolences' after announcing another 572 deaths over the same period,.

Almost half the total number of deaths have been reported in the Western Cape province, which includes Cape Town.

Meanwhile the majority of positive cases are in Gauteng - South Africa's financial hub and epicentre of the outbreak.

The mortality rate has remained low, however, at around 1.5 per cent on Wednesday.

Almost 60 percent of the country's Covid-19 patients have recovered from the virus, according to official figures.

To add to the crisis, two South African cabinet ministers were this week hospitalised with coronavirus, the government announced on Tuesday.

Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi, 61, and Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe, 65, were separately admitted to hospital on Monday.

Cabinet spokeswoman Phumla Williams said in a statement that they were hospitalised on the advice of their doctors for 'better medical attention' and monitoring.

Defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula earlier tested positive but has since recovered, the government announced on Friday.

As well as the US and Brazil, India and Russia are also ahead of South Africa in the global league table of virus cases.

India last week became the third country in the world to record a million confirmed cases, while Russia has seen nearly 800,000 infections.
We want to live in a free state where no one is afraid to speak freely, she added, where no one is afraid, where there is the right to free meetings on the street, where you dont think about what to say because tomorrow you may be behind bars.
Australia's largest commercial employer of apprentices and trainees has collapsed putting more than 1,000 jobs at risk.

All Trades Queensland (ATQ) was place under the control of administrators John Park and Joanne Dunn of FTI Consulting on Wednesday, citing a reduction of work due to the COVID-19- induced economic downturn.

Administrators will conduct an independent assessment of the financial position and ongoing viability of the company.

All Trades Queensland has collapsed amid the COVID-19 economic crisis, putting more than 1000 jobs at risk. Pictured are two of the company's apprentices learning their trades earlier this year

All Trades trains apprentices for the construction, automotive, engineering, hospitality and trainee industries.

Businesses can then access their 'pool of apprentices' which in turn provides workers with 'real world training'.

There are 50 office staff, 414 apprentices and 638 active students employed by ATQ with their roles now on the line.

'We live in some difficult times with coronavirus,' ATQ Company director Ian Johnson told the Courier Mail.

'Its not just us, everybody is in strife.'

It is understood the company is likely to be sold.

Mr Park said ATQ's apprentices and trainees will continue in their current roles for the time being.

The company (pictured) handed control to administrators John Park and Joanne Dunn of FTI Consulting on Wednesday

'The administrators are mindful that ATQ is a major commercial employer  and plays an important role in developing the careers of many tradespeople,' he told the ABC.

'Our aim is to maximise the prospects of the business continuing via a market trade sale or recapitalisation through a deed of company arrangement.

Mr Park said the company has some attractive assets and they expect a high level of interest.

Apprentices and trainees will be updated as the administration progresses, with a creditors meeting scheduled for August 3.

If the company is sold, workers may continue to work under the new ownership or could be dismissed.

'In the event ATQ is sold, and subsequently is placed into Liquidation, employees may have their employment transferred to the buyer,' ATQ wrote in a frequently asked questions page on their website.

'If there is no successful sale or recapitalisation, employees will be terminated and able to claim their entitlements via the Governments Fair Entitlement Guarantee Scheme.'
The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, has condemned in strong terms the attack by the head of Department of State Services, DSS, at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, NAIA, Safiyanu Abba on an Aviation Security officer.

According to FAAN Abba who heads DSS at the airport deliberately obstructed airport security process and slapped an Aviation Security officer who was performing his duty.

It said, This happened on July 17 at about 15.25 hours, he breached security procedures by obstructing further searching of a visitor who had just walked through the metal dictator and activated the alarm.

FAAN strongly condemns this abuse of power and the security process in our airports. This has also been duly escalated, FAAN is committed to our core values of safety, security and comfort , it said.

Meanwhile Spokesperson for DSS, Peter Afunanya has described the allegations by FAAN against its official as false.

According to him members of the DSS are well mannered therefore cannot fight or slap personnel of agencies they are posted to work with.

The Service and DSS places premium on robust intra-agency relations needed to achieve positive outcomes in the work place, he said .
The Hanoi Peoples Committee has requested relevant agencies to make preparations for welcoming foreign tourists back when circumstances allow.

The municipal administration on July 22 issued a document on implementing the Prime Ministers conclusion on COVID-19 prevention and control.

Accordingly, it demanded district-level localities and authorised forces to push ahead with the implementation of the issued anti-COVID-19 strategy to resolutely prevent a second wave of infections in Hanoi.

It assigned the Health Department to keep a close watch on the pandemic situation so as to stay ready to respond when necessary while increasing measures to prevent diphtheria, dengue fever and other disease outbreaks.

Meanwhile, the Tourism Department was requested to work with the Health Department and district-level authorities to arrange more accommodation facilities for quarantining foreign experts, investors and skilled workers.

They were also told to ready plans to welcome international visitors when circumstances allow and the Government approves.

Besides, agencies and localities need to continue proposing solutions to tackle production and business difficulties and speed up public investment disbursement, according to the municipal Peoples Committee.

The capital city last year welcomed nearly 29 million tourists, up 10.1 percent year-on-year, including more than 7 million foreigners, increasing by 17 percent.

Between January and May 2020, Hanoi welcomed 4.13 million visitors and earned over 16.6 trillion VND (716 million USD) from them, down 64.5 percent and 59.3 percent from a year earlier, respectively.

Hanoi is prioritising the attraction of domestic travellers, aiming to serve about 11 million of them in the latter half of 2020, according the Tourism Department./. VNA
The start of the 2020-2021 school year is rapidly approaching, and school systems across Alabama are making difficult decisions about how to proceed as the coronavirus pandemic continues. Some of the states largest school systems have already announced that they will start the year with online-only courses, but others might not have much choice.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates 22 percent of Alabama households didnt have internet access in 2018. As much as 17 percent of households dont have a computer of any kind - and another 8 percent have access to a smartphone, but no other type of computer.

In many rural areas, especially in counties in and around the Black Belt, more than half of all households dont have internet access, and even more dont have subscriptions.

[Cant see the map? Click here.]

In one remote part of Monroe County, just south of what is traditionally considered the Black Belt, more than 70 percent of households dont have internet access.

But the issue isnt limited to rural areas. Several census tracts in some of Alabamas largest cities have a high percentage of homes without internet access. In one area in the heart of Birmingham, 50 percent of households dont have access. More than 60 percent of households in multiple parts of Mobile dont have access, either.

No home computers

In addition to issues with internet access, many Alabama homes dont have computers in them. A handful of rural counties in and around the Black Belt have significantly less access to computers than other parts of the state.

Monroe County again stands out - 49.6 percent of households there dont have a computer of any kind, the highest computer-less percentage in the state. And 57 percent of Monroe County households dont have an internet subscription.

[Cant see the map? Click here.]

The Monroe County school district recently received over $500,000 in federal CARES Act funding, part of the $100 million that went to all Alabama schools for purchasing digital devices and software to facilitate virtual learning. That money could help rectify the issue of computers in homes, but internet access is another issue.

Right now, Monroe County schools are planning to open for face-to-face instruction on August 17, with the option for families to opt for virtual learning. The school system also maintains that it could shift to online-only learning at any time if coronavirus cases spike in the area.

More than 44 percent of households in Greene and Perry counties, two of the smallest in the state, dont have computers in the home. More than half of households in both counties dont have internet subscriptions.

As a whole, 22 percent of the Black Belts 210,000 households dont have any kind of computer in the home.

Do you have an idea for a data story about Alabama? Email Ramsey Archibald at rarchibald@al.com, and follow him on Twitter @RamseyArchibald. Read more Alabama data stories here.
Texas recorded its highest daily death toll from the coronavirus Wednesday, while cases and hospitalizations continued to level off in a possible sign that the state is nearing an overall peak in infections.

More than 200 deaths were reported, according to a Hearst analysis of the most current state and county totals. The statewide death toll from the pandemic is now above 4,400, up from 2,500 at the beginning of July.

Public health experts predicted the rise in fatalities, given the surge in cases and hospitalizations that began last month amid holiday celebrations, public protests and the states reopening. Many cities and counties are still undergoing devastating outbreaks, particularly in Latino communities along the Gulf Coast and the Mexican border.

The state is now reporting well over 100 deaths per day.

ABBOTTS APPROVAL: Gov. Abbotts plummet in public approval depicted in yet another Texas poll

Statewide, the growth in new daily cases and hospitalizations still appears to be slowing, and may be beginning to plateau. The rate of people testing positive for the virus is now at 14.2 percent, the lowest since July 6. It has been on a downward trend since July 16.

Public health experts are still waiting to see whether the flattening holds, and many have said the positivity rate will need to drop drastically before the state can effectively manage outbreaks  or consider sending students back to classrooms in the fall.

In Houston and other hard-hit cities, local leaders again called on Gov. Greg Abbott to allow them to impose targeted, temporary lockdowns to slow their infection rates.

Until we can get that positivity rate down to 5 percent or below, our contact tracing and testing is not going to be nearly as impactful, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, a Democrat, said in an interview with CNN.

Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez also appeared on the network urging the governor to allow local lockdowns. Cortez ordered many county residents to shelter in place earlier this week, while acknowledging that it is unenforceable under restrictions currently in place by Abbott.

If I can even simply get 10 percent of people to follow it, Im 10 percent better than I was today, because yesterday we had 49 people pass away and that is certainly not acceptable, he said.

TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

Abbott has refused to allow any shutdowns, and said Wednesday that his recent statewide mask order appears to be slowing infections. He urged cities and counties to issue more citations for violators. His mandate only allows for penalties on repeat offenses, which can be hard for law enforcement to track.

We need to make sure we have enough time for this practice to be utilized by everyone, Abbott said in a TV interview.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday found that a slim majority of respondents oppose a new statewide lockdown, though a large majority say local officials should be able to issue them for their jurisdictions.

Democrats have blasted the governor for his refusal to step up restrictions as deaths rise.

The people in San Antonio are nervous, not only about contracting the virus but whether there will be space at local hospitals if they do get sick, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, said in a press conference in Washington.

Castro questioned Abbotts political courage. For whatever reason, he wont make the tough decisions. He has to step aside and let local leaders do it.

Meanwhile, health experts pressed state and federal leaders across the political spectrum to compromise and find solutions.

Local school boards are making a decision to close schools, but the bars and restaurants are still open, Scott Gottlieb, a leading expert and former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, said in a CNBC interview. We need to make a decision about whats important and what were willing to sacrifice right now, until were on the other side of this.

Dr. Peter Hotez, a professor and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said the country is currently on track to reach 220,000 deaths by October.

It doesnt have to be that way, he said in a virtual town hall with state Rep. Sarah Davis, R-Houston. We have to stop acting like this is a fait accompli, like its inevitable. There are things we can do.

Hotez has called for new national benchmarks, and has said states with large outbreaks, including Texas, will need to consider lockdowns in order to get there.

The goal should not be a bed or ventilator for every Texan, Davis said. The goal should be to prevent anybody from getting to that point.
Papua New Guinea will receive the World Health Organization's (WHO) assistance to fight the coronavirus pandemic amid a rapid increase in daily cases, the government's official information center for COVID-19 said on Thursday in a press release

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd July, 2020) Papua New Guinea will receive the World Health Organization's (WHO) assistance to fight the coronavirus pandemic amid a rapid increase in daily cases, the government's official information center for COVID-19 said on Thursday in a press release.

On Thursday, Papua New Guinea confirmed three new infections, bringing the country's total cases count to 30, up from just 11 on Sunday.

"Meantime, the World Health Organisation (WHO) is requesting assistance from the International Emergency Medical Teams (EMTs), to be deployed to the country to assist the National Control Centre and the Health Department to support COVID and non-COVID case management," the press release said.

According to the country's pandemic response controller, David Manning, given the epidemiological situation, the likelihood of expanded community transmission is high while the testing capacity is very limited, the center added.

"There is an urgent need for EMTs to support PNG prepare and manage a surge in COVID-19 cases working with the Department of Health or manage stand-alone isolation facilities," Manning said, as quoted in the press release.

Within the context, the authorities also tightened measures to combat the coronavirus. In particular, the closed clubs, banned public gatherings of over 100 people, introduced social distancing, increased hygiene measures in markets, as well as the mandatory isolation of all infected.
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: The House on Wednesday voted to repeal the Trump administration's travel ban and further restrict the president's power to limit entry to the U.S, a symbolic victory for Muslim American and civil rights groups.

The bill, which passed the Democrat-controlled House 233-183, had initially been slated for action in March, before the coronavirus forced scheduling changes on Capitol Hill.

The measure is unlikely to advance in the Republican-controlled Senate, where it has no GOP support.

But the bill's passage by the House still elated advocates who had long pushed for formal action against a travel ban that they see as discriminatory.

"This is a historic moment for Muslims," Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, one of the groups working in support of the bill, said ahead of the vote.

ALSO READ | US trade bodies file lawsuit against proclamation suspending H1B, other non-immigrant visas

Passage of the NO BAN act will "show Muslims, who have been banned and scapegoated by the Trump administration, that we deserve rights and dignity," Khera added.

Among House Democrats who voted, all supported the bill, while two Republicans among those voting crossed the aisle to vote yes: Texas Rep. Will Hurd and Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick.

The White House noted its opposition to the bill in March, saying in a statement that undoing the travel ban "would harm the national security of the United States" and that the ban has been "central to the Administration's ongoing efforts to safeguard the American people against the spread of COVID-19."

In debate ahead of the vote, Democrats repeatedly blasted the travel ban that President Donald Trump first imposed in January 2017.

They called it biased against Muslims, whose entry into the country Trump first suggested blocking during his 2016 White House run.

"It will be a proud day for this Congress when we invalidate the president's infamous and ugly attempt to scapegoat people based on their religion," Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md, said during floor debate ahead of the final vote.

The legislation goes beyond overturning Trump's travel ban, which was retooled amid legal challenges and upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.

ALSO READ | Green Card waitlist for Indians is more than 195 years: US senator

The latest version of the ban affects travel from five majority-Muslim nations - Iran, Somalia, Yemen, Syria and Libya - in addition to North Korea and by some Venezuelan government officials and their families.

In addition to overturning the travel ban, the bill the House passed also prohibits religious discrimination in the application of immigration law and constrains the executive branch's ability to limit entry to the U.S. by certain groups of people.

Conservatives defended Trump's actions. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz, said during floor debate that Trump's restrictions on travel are "not a Muslim ban" but rather a "legitimate travel restriction implemented for the safety of this nation."

He criticised Democrats for relying on a "straw man argument" about religious discrimination while crafting a bill that more broadly restricts presidential authority.

ALSO READ | Trump admin detains migrant kids in hotels near US-Mexico border for weeks before deporting them

Trump earlier this year added new immigration curbs from six other nations, including majority-Muslim Kyrgyzstan and Sudan, as well as Nigeria, which has the world's fifth-largest Muslim population, according to the Pew Research Center.

Trump's Democratic rival in the upcoming presidential election, former Vice President Joe Biden, vowed Monday to rescind Trump's travel ban, on day one, if he's elected.

He made the pledge in remarks to a summit focused on Muslim voter turnout.

Muslim American and other civil rights advocates have said Wednesday's vote in the House would help them keep the pressure on for a future rollback of the policy.

The bill's passage represents "a huge step forward for Muslims, Africans, immigrants, and everyone who wants to ensure that future presidents cannot use rank prejudice to issue discriminatory bans," said Manar Waheed, senior legislative and advocacy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, before the vote.
India

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Oneindia Staff

New Delhi, Aug 27: Three months after the stand-off at the Galwan valley, a survey was conducted on India-China relationship by the Chinese mouthpiece, Global Times, and the results show that the Chinese citizens are not happy with the actions of their leaders.

In this survey, it has been revealed that the Chinese citizens like India with more than 50 per cent holding a favorable impression of China. Almost 51 per cent respondents appreciate the Modi government.

Newest First Oldest First For India, the LAC runs along 16 districts across one union territory (Ladakh) and four states (Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh). Chinas biggest tech company Huawei is trying to woo India by running big advertisements on all leading dailies of India. More than 30 per cent feel the ties will improve, and almost nine per cent of the respondents said they see improvement in the short term, while 25 per cent feel things will improve in the long term. Nearly 70 per cent believe the anti-China sentiment in India is excessive. As efforts are on to de-escalate ongoing tension at Line of Actual Control, China on Wednesday said that it sees India as a partner instead of a rival and an opportunity instead of a threat. Relations between India and China have been tense after Indian troops clashed with PLA soldiers at Galwan Valley on June 15 leading to the death of 20 Indian soldiers, although Chinese troops also suffered casualties but China's foreign ministry has refused to divulge figures. Chinese ambassador to India Sun Weidong speaking at the China-India Youth webinar said that China sees India as a "partner instead of a rival and an opportunity instead of a threat." Darcha is 147 kilometres from Manali and lies on the highway to Leh after Jispa and Keylong across Rohtang La. The Darcha-Padum-Nimu route requires only a single 4.5 km tunnel through the 16,570 feet Shingo La between Darcha and Padum to ensure that the road is closed only for two months in winter. According to military commanders, the need to build the third axis was felt as tunnelling would be required under four more high mountain passes on the existing Manali-Leh route if the road has to be kept open throughout the year. In an effort to ensure that the project meets its two-year deadline, Gadkaris ministry has proposed that the task to build the tunnel should be given to the company that constructed the 9.02 km tunnel at Rohtang La on the condition that it meets the timeline. The project, which has been in the pipeline for a decade, is scheduled to be completed by the defence ministry within two years. Officials said the third route requires upgrading the Darcha-Padum-Nimu trekking route into a metalled road and building a 4.5 kilometre tunnel under Shingo La on the Darcha-Padum route. New Delhi perceives Beijings reluctance to disengage despite reminders as an effort to set a new normal at the border. The defence ministrys road project is being given its hardest push by road and highways minister Nitin Gadkari and his colleague Gen VK Singh after China provoked a standoff along the Line of Actual Control in East Ladakh and started mobilising troops in depth areas. Senior military commanders said the third route to feed Ladakh by road is urgently needed given how Pakistan and its all-weather friend, China were eyeing the Siachen Glacier and Daulat Beg Oldie. Nimu is 35 kilometres from Leh town and headquarters of XIV Corps responsible for the defence of East Ladakh and Siachen Glacier. Indias national security planners are pushing hard to complete an all-weather strategic route to Ladakh that will link Darcha in Himachal Pradesh to Nimu via Padum in Kargils Zanskar valley, people familiar with the matter said The Chinese ambassador also said that they will encourage language learning and communication. With the help of Indian colleges and universities, Chinese colleges and universities carry out the study of Hindi, Tamil and Bengali. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and India 70 years ago, Sun said, bilateral relations have withstood tests and become more resilient. He said Chinas President Xi Jinping has said that Beijing will neither import foreign models of development, nor export the Chinese model and ask other countries to copy its practice. On a question on support to Indians aspiring to learn Chinese language, Sun said a strong team of Chinese teachers will help cultivate more Indian students who understand Chinese and love Chinese culture. China and India, neighboring countries, should live in peace and avoid conflicts, he said. Sun said that in order to achieve development goals, both countries need a peaceful and favourable external environment. In the webinar, Sun said, As two rising major neighbours, China and India should abandon the old mindset of drawing lines by ideology, and get rid of the old game of ones gain is anothers loss and zero-sum game. The CMC, which is the overall high command of the Chinese military is headed by Chinese President Xi Jinping. On August 14, Misri met Maj. Gen. Ci Guowei, Director of the Office of International Military Cooperation of Chinas Central Military Commission, (CMC) and briefed him about Indias stance vis-a-vis the situation on the borders in eastern Ladakh Union Territory. On August 14, Misri met Maj. Gen. Ci Guowei, Director of the Office of International Military Cooperation of Chinas Central Military Commission, (CMC) and briefed him about Indias stance vis-a-vis the situation on the borders in eastern Ladakh Union Territory. In recent weeks, Misri met a senior official of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) and senior General of Chinese military and briefed them on Indias stance on the situation at the borders in eastern Ladakh Union Territory. Indian Embassy officials told PTI here that the closed-door meeting was part of the continuing outreach activities with all shades of Chinese opinion on the state of relations between the two countries. The Indian Army officer killed the clash was the commanding officer of a battalion at Galwan. There was no firing. Apparently the two sides clashed with stones and rods. There are various accounts on the number of casualties on the Chinese side. Some accounts suggest 5, while the others say it is 3. However there is no official word on the same. The visit by Army Chief General M M Naravane to Pathankot has been cancelled. National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Tuesday said if the Chinese can "shoot dead" three Indian soldiers during the 'de-escalation process', one can imagine how serious the situation must have been in the first place. Earlier in the day, the Indian Army said an officer and two soldiers were killed in a violent confrontation with Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh's Galwan Valley on Monday. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will be discussing the issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a short while from now. Singh has already met Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat, the three service chiefs and External Affairs Minister Dr. S Jaishankar. We will eventually learn about the details of what happened in Ladakh. That is our right. But right now, we must grieve with & stand by the families of our martyred soldiers. And stand solidly in support of our armed forces.  anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) June 16, 2020 Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra's tweet: Defence Minister, Rajnath Singh has briefed Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the situation along the Line of Actual Control. Mehbooba Mufti took to Twitter to say that the nation wants to know why there is no talk of retaliation. Taking to Twitter, Mufti wrote,''Seems like China has hijacked the aggressive ghar main ghuske marengay militaristic approach. Nation deserves to know why there is no talk of retaliation to avenge the death of three Indian army personnel!.'' Congrress leader Shashi Tharoor: The tragic news from Ladakh is shocking & calls for resolute handling by our Govt. Meanwhile, let us bow our heads in tribute to the three martyrs who gave their lives to protect India, and honour those who serve on our borders every day, risking their lives for our nation. Both sides have been ascertaining that pending the final resolution of the boundary issue, it is important to maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas. China has lodged solemn representations and protests to India. Here, we are sternly demanding India to earnestly abide by the relevant agreement and strictly restrain their frontline troops. They should not cross the borderlines says Zhao Lijian, the spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry Defence Minister, Rajnath Singh has met with External Affairs Minister, S Jaishankar and Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat and discussed the situation along the LAC. Zhao Lijian, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson said that China has lodged solemn representations and protests to India. Here, we are sternly demanding India to earnestly abide by the relevant agreement and strictly restrain their frontline troops. They should not cross the borderlines, Lijian said. "Chinese side also suffered casualties in the Galwan Valley physical clash", tweets Editor In Chief of Chinese Newspaper Global Times The happening in the #Galwanvalley is a continuation of violations by China. It is time now that the country stands up to these incursions. Our soldiers are not fair game that every few days officers and men are being killed and injured defending our borders. (1/2)  Capt.Amarinder Singh (@capt_amarinder) June 16, 2020 Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said the happening in Galwan Valley is a continuation of violations by China and added that it is time now that India stood up to these incursions. The talks are being held between Major General Abhijit Bapat, the commander of the Karu based HQ3 Infantry Division and his Chinese counterpart. The talks are being held at the site of the clash. Samajwadi party chief Akhilesh Yadav took to Twitter and wrote, "Received the report of a commanding officer and two soldiers of Indian Army being killed in a 'violent face-off' with Chinese soldiers in the Galwan Valley in Ladakh. Heartfelt condolences." He also said that he expects a clarification on the ground reality of situation.   



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      ?  Kapil Sibal (@KapilSibal) June 16, 2020 Congress leader Kapil Sibal slammed the Union government for failing to respond to Chinese action in Ladakh. He also took pot shot on Prime Minister's 56-inch chest. Indian troops seriously violated consensus of the two sides by illegally crossing the border twice and carrying out provocative attacks on Chinese soldiers. This resulted in serious physical clashes, Chinas Global Times said while quoting foreign minister, Wang Yi. Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda on Tuesday termed as 'disturbing' the violent clash between Indian and Chinese troops in Galwan Valley and said the government should offer a clearer picture to the nation on the border issue. He sought to know as to how Indian soldiers lost their lives during a de-escalation process and said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh should come out with a clearer picture. "Saddened by the news of the martyrdom of our boys in the Galwan Valley. I salute their indomitable courage, selflessness and sacrifice," said VK Singh. The editor of Global Times posted on Twitter,  based on what I know, Chinese side also suffered casualties in the Galwan Valley physical clash. I want to tell the Indian side, dont be arrogant and misread Chinas restraint as being weak. China doesnt want to have a clash with India, but we dont fear it. The talks between the two sides are still continuing and efforts are on to defuse tensions between India and China after a violent clash occurred. The situation still remains fluid in Ladakh. Hectic talks are on to defuse the tensions along the Line of Actual Control. The Congress has termed as "shocking" and "unacceptable" the death of an Indian Army officer and two soldiers in a violent face-off with the Chinese troops, and asked Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to confirm the development. "Shocking, Unbelievable and Unacceptable! Will the Raksha Mantri confirm," Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said on Twitter. Saddened by the news of the martyrdom of our boys in the Galwan Valley. I salute their indomitable courage, selflessness & sacrifice.



Jai Hind!!  Vijay Kumar Singh (@Gen_VKSingh) June 16, 2020 Saddened by the news of the martyrdom of our boys in the Galwan Valley. I salute their indomitable courage, selflessness and sacrifice, Union Minister, General V K Singh said. AIMIM chief and Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi took to Twitter to condemn the killings of three Indian army personnel. "India stands with the 3 brave martyrs who were killed by China today in Galwan. My thoughts are with families of Colonel & 2 brave soldiers. The commanding officer was leading from the front. The government must avenge these killings & ensure that their sacrifice was not in vain," Owaisi tweeted.
An Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court (HC) on Wednesday refused to interfere with a government resolution (GR) issued by the Maharashtra general administration department allowing the transfer of 15% of its staff.

The petitioner cannot claim a much less vested right, to assail the GR permitting 15% of its employees to be transferred, said the two-member HC division bench, comprising Justices SV Gangapurwala and RG Avachat, while dismissing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Sandip Waisal, an Aurangabad-based social worker.

It is for the authorities to consider the viability and feasibility of the transfers, the bench clarified, adding that if any employee is prejudicially affected by the GR, then that employee has the right to approach the appropriate court.

Waisal had moved HC claiming that if the GR was allowed to be implemented it would result in the disruption of government services and as a result, adversely affect the public.

It was argued, on his behalf, that if 15% of the staff was transferred in terms of the GR, it would result in a chaotic situation, as the government administration is grappling with a healthcare emergency because of the raging coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak.

HC, however, refused to entertain the PIL.

It said if the petitioner is deprived of the legitimate services or is not in a position to get documents required by him or his proposals are unattended, then he may seek redressal about his grievance with regard to his work or his claim not being attended by the authorities, but without such a cause of action, the plea cannot be entertained.

The policy decision has been taken by the Maharashtra government and an affected person may have the right to assail the GR, but not the petitioner, said HC.

The petitioner is unconcerned with the transfer of the employees, it added while dismissing the PIL.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons, BOP, has released the prison details of Ramon Olorunwa Abbas popularly known as Hushpuppi who was arrested for indulging in numerous cybercrime activities.

Newsdirect could verify that information available on the United States Federal Bureau of Prison website, shows that Hushpuppi has been released.

Hushpuppi whose registration number is 54313424 was released on the 20th of July, 2020.

See photos below:




Haiti - Covid-19 : UNFPA monitors Haitians returning from DR





They are nearly a hundred Haitians (men, women and children) to return voluntarily every day from the Dominican Republic by the border of Ouanaminthe (North-East), because of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Dominican territory and the loss of their jobs and the lack of work due to the sanitary restriction measures in the neighboring nation.



"There are a lot of people coming back through the border during this pandemic, we can't let them in like that, we are forced to do surveillance, that is to say identify suspected cases linked to Covid-19," Explains Dr Kensly Flecher, coordinator of the border control post and the border quarantine center of Ouanaminthe.



"[...] We take their temperature, if after two spaced measurements, the temperature remains high, we have an ambulance which transports them to the quarantine center" underlined Michelot Difficile, Coordinator of the Sub-Office of the International Organization for Migrations (OIM) in Ouanaminthe,



"During quarantine, every day, we check vital signs, we assess them, a team of psychologists provides them with psychological support, we follow their progress to see if there are any among them who present the signs and symptoms of Coronavirus," said Dr Flecher adding "Once the results of the screening tests are known, people who test positive are sent to an isolation center while those who test negative are sent home, after counseling sessions , awareness and education."



Due to their vulnerability to Covid-19 and the fact that they had not had the chance to visit a hospital or a health center during this period of confinement in the Dominican Republic, pregnant women who arrive at the border receive special treatment, indicated Dr. Flecher "[...] we check if there are among them who need to go to the hospital and if necessary we send them to the hospital [...] For those who present the criteria for going into quarantine, we are continuing with a follow-up of these people."



In addition to Ouanaminthe, this epidemiological surveillance system to prevent the spread in the country of Covid-19 is also in place in the other three official border points, namely Belladere (Center), Malpasse (West) and Anse-a-Pitres (South-East).



Recall that the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), implemented this project to allow a coordinated response to save lives in the face of the Covid-19 epidemic, in particular at the Haitian-Dominican border, thanks to integrated support for health, protection and socio-economic support. This coordinated response involves the participation, under the coordination of the Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP), of several actors including the IOM, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Development Centers and of health



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31312-haiti-dr-almost-100-000-haitians-return-to-the-country-in-6-months.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31249-haiti-news-zapping.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31118-haiti-dr-more-than-17-000-haitians-voluntarily-returned-to-the-country-in-2-weeks.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30859-haiti-ouanaminthe-assisted-voluntary-return-plan-for-haitians-in-dr.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















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Its become commonly recognized as critical hackwork to observe that a city acts as a character in a film, for the good reason that its almost never true. When sensuously and specifically captured on screen, however, a city can shape and alter the characters it contains. The ragged modernist maze of Sao Paulo serves exactly this purpose in Shine Your Eyes, a heady, enveloping narrative debut from Brazilian docmaker Matias Mariani: Its shown as a place where immigrants come to lose themselves and find themselves in one fell swoop, planting new roots in its geometric concrete cracks. Ostensibly a missing-person drama, following a Nigerian visitors winding search for his estranged older brother, Shine Your Eyes morphs into something far more elusive and esoteric as the stakes of its central mystery shift.

One of the more celebrated premieres of this years Berlinale Panorama sidebar, Shine Your Eyes might well have become a festival staple in a pandemic-free year. As things stand, however, it made enough of an impression in its curtailed big-screen journey to be scooped up by Netflix, where it will find the fittingly international audience it deserves from July 29. (A Brazilian-French co-production, the film skates through languages from Igbo to Hungarian.) Its an impressive outcome for an unabashedly peculiar film that isnt out to make things easy for its audience: Sparse but simple at the outset, Shine Your Eyes gets more opaque and ambiguous as it dips into magical realism and ornate philosophical musings. If the setup intrigues slightly more than the payoff, this is still a work of original, crystalline beauty, bursting with restless, refracted ideas.

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The briefest of prologues, set in the Nigerian town of Nsukka in 1988, establishes an intense childhood bond between brothers Amadi and Ikenna, as they play complex games of make-believe involving spirits and guardian angels. 30 years later, their shared cosmic fixation is the only thing obliquely holding them together. Shirking the traditional duties of the first-born son to his family, Ikenna (Chukwudi Iwuji) has emigrated to Brazil, sending his parents news of respectable employment as a statistics professor at Sao Paulo University before dropping off the radar entirely. Following a year of radio silence, gentle-natured musician Amadi (O.C. Ukeje) is sent to Sao Paulo to search for him, with only a few scraps of information that turn out to be wholly false.

It soon becomes clear that Ikenna has never been a professor: Rather, his statistics work concerns developing a complex gambling algorithm that may or may not have larger existential applications. While Ikenna remains at large, Amadi encounters a patchwork of acquaintances who fill in details of his brothers near-unrecognizable second life  including former lover Emilia (Indira Nascimento, thoroughly beguiling), with whom Amadi himself soon begins an unexpected affair, despite not a word of shared language. It isnt long before his quest is derailed by the inexorable pull of an unknown but seductive city, and the ample opportunities it permits for escape and reinvention.

Six writers are credited with the films spare, supple script; one of them, Chika Anadu, wrote and directed the impressive 2013 festival hit B for Boy, which operated in a more conventional social-realist register. Not that Shine Your Eyes removes itself from tough realities. The hardscrabble existence of Sao Paulos sizable African community is shown through sharp, tangible details, while the general social and economic disrepair of Bolsonaro-era Brazil is palpable in the films exquisitely composed but grainily lived-in urban tableaux: You need more than a guardian angel to survive these streets.

Shooting in a cramped 4:3 ratio that emphasizes the density of this urban landscape, not to mention the daunting height of its under-occupied skyscrapers, Mariani and cinematographer Leo Bittencourt create a richly evocative tribute to the city that is nonetheless no beautified valentine. The thrusting, symmetrical forms of its severe architecture often dominate the frame, swamping the characters within it; elsewhere, roaring freeways intrude on intimate domestic spaces, with nary an inch of breathing space between them. Its easy to see how newcomers wind up surrendering to the citys overwhelming sound and fury. Amid its more teasing poetic ruminations, Shine Your Eyes works quite plainly as an allegory for the immigrants thorny courtship with a new home, and ensuing breakup with past lives.

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Quarterly Report

Sydney, July 23, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - NSX Limited ( ASX:NSX ), the Company, submits the following Activities Report and Appendix 4C Cashflow Statement for the period ended 30 June 2020.Group Cash Flow Activities Report- Cash at the end of the quarter was $4.6 million.- During the quarter $2.9 million in new capital, net of costs, was raised by way of a share placement as approved by shareholders at a General Meeting held on 30 April 2020. The shares were placed at 9.1 cents per share raising gross funds of $3 million.- The cash receipts in the June quarter were down $0.1 million or 34% on the March quarter and lower than the previous corresponding period (pcp) by 41%. This was due to fewer listing applications.- Cash payments for operations in the June quarter were lower than the previous quarter by $0.09 million but higher expenditure than in the pcp by $0.15 million. Lower costs are due to a review of cost savings during the period.Business Activities ReportDuring the quarter:- As previously announced, the Company is pleased that a new director, Kelly Humphreys was appointed during the period to the Board of NSX Limited ("NSXL"). A submission has been made to ASIC for her to join the board of the National Stock Exchange of Australia.- The activities of the Company's wholly owned subsidiary, National Stock Exchange of Australia("NSXA"), involved business as usual processing of new admission applications and market operations. During the period one new issuer joined the Official List.- Directors being related parties of the Company, were paid remuneration in the amount of $117k during the June quarter. No other related party payments were made.- The NSXA Trade Acceptance Service ("TAS") project conducted testing, operational preparedness reviews, and participant liaison during the period. TAS rule changes were approved by ASIC ahead ofthe target launch date of August 2020.- The Company conducted further detailing of ClearPay DLT based DvP platform and liaising with Probanx Ltd with respect to software development.- The Company has sent shareholders a Notice of Meeting to be held on 24 August 2020. The meeting has been requisitioned by members holding 5% or more of the issued capital of the Company with a resolution to appoint Mr Craig Mason as a director. A second requisition has been received with a resolution to appoint Mr Roderick Roberts to the Board of the Company. The Board will call a meeting for this second requisition as well. The General Meetings will be held by virtual meeting while COVID-19 restrictions are in place.- COVID-19 impact on operations, during the period, has been minimal as staff have been able to successfully work remotely as and when required.To view the report, please visit:About NSX Limited

NSX Limited (ASX:NSX) via its wholly owned subsidiary National Stock Exchange of Australia Limited (NSXA) operates the Tier 1 Licensed stock exchange facility for the listing of equity securities, corporate debt and investment scheme units. The company is also involved in trading and settlement activities.
Initial and continuing jobless claims in Michigan fell last week but rose nationally as Congress considers whether to extend pandemic unemployment assistance, set to expire at the end of the month.

Nationally, 1.4 million people filed new jobless claims for the week ending July 18, up from 1.3 million the previous week, according to the latest numbers released Thursday by the U.S. Labor Department.

In Michigan, there were 21,836 new jobless claims filed, down from 27,720 the week before.

The number of continuing jobless claims in the state system lags new filings by a week. For the week ending July 11, there were 506,099 continuing claims, down from 604,846 the previous week.

Initial jobless claims in Michigan are far off the peak of 388,544 for the week ending April 4, and continuing claims are about half of the peak of 996,374 for the week ending April 25.

Even though the numbers are improving, overall unemployment in Michigan remains at historic levels at 11.75%, down from a peak of 23.14% when the effects of the pandemic first took hold.

Despite more people going back to work in Michigan, a study by the Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget found that all but four of Michigans 83 counties had unemployment rates in double digits last month in June.

The June unemployment rate was 14.7% in Oakland County, 18.2% in Macomb County, and 20.7% in Wayne County. The lowest unemployment rates were in the Upper Peninsula counties of Menominee, Iron, and Dickinson, and in Clinton County near Lansing, but only slightly below 10%.

Federal pandemic unemployment assistance added $600 a week to state unemployment benefits nationally, but thats set to expire at the end of the month, raising concerns that the loss of the extra federal assistance might strain a recovering economy struggling to get back to work.

The labor market remains in a precarious place as COVID-19 cases surge in some parts of the country and fresh lockdown measures are adopted in response, said Nancy Vanden Houten, lead economist at Oxford Economics, a consulting firm.

Members of Congress are negotiating another aid package that might extend the $600 benefit, though likely at a lower level. Because of the $600 weekly federal benefit, roughly two-thirds of the unemployed are receiving more in aid than they earned at their former jobs, research has shown  a finding thats led Republicans to argue that it is discouraging people from returning to work.

The loss of the extra federal unemployment pay at the end of the month has some economists worried that it will put the brakes on retail spending by consumers.

Though Congress is considering additional assistance, an agreement isnt likely until mid August.

Unemployment aid accounted for 6% of all U.S. income in May, a greater share than even Social Security, according to The Associated Press, and contributed to increases in retail spending in May and June after a dismal April.

Also expiring is a federal moratorium on evictions on Saturday. That moratorium bars evictions of renters who live in federally subsidized housing, and without it, about 22 million people are at risk of losing their homes.

(The Associated Press contributed to this story)
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- After seeing an uptick in coronavirus cases for people in their 20s, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced two new initiatives to encourage social distancing compliance.

Over the past two weeks, people aged 21 to 30 saw an approximate 3.3% jump in their COVID-19 positive rates -- the only age group to see such a spike, according to state data.

Cuomo pointed to a cavalier attitude about the disease among young people for the rising positive rate.

We know why. We have been talking about it. You can see it on the news. You can see it in the newspapers. You can see it in social media. It is not hard to understand whats going on, he said. There is an attitude that young people are immune -- you are not.

Overall, numbers for the virus remain low. Of the 69,698 tests conducted Wednesday, only 811 or 1.16% tested positive. In the same 24 hour period, the state saw 13 people died with the virus, and there were only 706 hospitalization, which is the lowest number since March.

To combat the uptick among young people, state police will be leading a task force with the State Liquor Authority to investigate and shut down bars and restaurants not adhering to safety practices. He also called on local governments and police forces to step up their enforcement efforts.

For more than two months, photos and videos have circulated social media showing people not abiding by virus mitigation orders put in place by the governor.

Cuomo conceded that restaurants and bars are not the only issue -- he pointed to a July 4 house party in Albany that resulted in 30 positive tests -- but referred to eating and drinking establishments as the main problem.

A video ad campaign will also be targeting young people to communicate facts about the virus, and try to show young people that they can be vulnerable. The ad features a series of young people giving reasons why COVID wont kill me, near the end of the ad a narrator refers to those reasons as famous last words.

According to the governor, the ad will be running in New York and available nationwide. Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa said there will also be a heavy online presence.

There is a total misconception of their vulnerability to this disease, and we hope that makes a difference, the governor said.
Reliance Industries Ltd is quoting at Rs 2032.9, up 1.44% on the day as on 12:49 IST on the NSE. The stock is up 62.99% in last one year as compared to a 0.66% drop in NIFTY and a 2.98% drop in the Nifty Energy.

Reliance Industries Ltd gained for a fifth straight session today. The stock is quoting at Rs 2032.9, up 1.44% on the day as on 12:49 IST on the NSE. The benchmark NIFTY is up around 0.58% on the day, quoting at 11197. The Sensex is at 38064.19, up 0.51%. Reliance Industries Ltd has risen around 17.65% in last one month.

Meanwhile, Nifty Energy index of which Reliance Industries Ltd is a constituent, has risen around 7.72% in last one month and is currently quoting at 15565.4, up 1.07% on the day. The volume in the stock stood at 140.87 lakh shares today, compared to the daily average of 215.19 lakh shares in last one month.

The benchmark July futures contract for the stock is quoting at Rs 2031.9, up 1.43% on the day. Reliance Industries Ltd is up 62.99% in last one year as compared to a 0.66% drop in NIFTY and a 2.98% drop in the Nifty Energy index.

The PE of the stock is 37.03 based on TTM earnings ending March 20.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A US judge has authorised the release of documents from a 2015 civil lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell.

The socialite is facing criminal charges that she lured girls for the late Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse.

US District Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan said the presumption the public has a right to access large portions of the more than 80 documents at issue outweighed Ms Maxwell's arguments for keeping them under wraps.

Her arguments had included that the documents, reportedly including details of her sex life, could prove embarrassing.

Judge Preska also said personal identifying information contained in the documents, as well as the names of many "non-parties," will be redacted.

The home Ms Maxwell was staying in before she was arrested / REUTERS

The documents will not be released immediately, after the judge granted Ms Maxwell's lawyer a week to file an emergency motion with the federal appeals court in Manhattan to block the release.

Ms Maxwell, 58, is being held in a Brooklyn jail after pleading not guilty to charges she helped Epstein recruit and eventually abuse girls from 1994 to 1997, and committed perjury by denying knowledge of his abuse in depositions.

The documents include flight logs from Epstein's private jets, deposition testimony in 2016 in which Maxwell's lawyers said she was asked "intrusive" questions about her sex life, and police reports from Palm Beach, Florida, where Epstein had a home.

The documents were part of a defamation lawsuit by Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre against Ms Maxwell, which was confidentially settled in 2017.

Ghislaine Maxwell is being held in a Brooklyn jail after the judge overseeing her case called her a flight risk / via REUTERS

Ms Giuffre has accused Ms Maxwell of enabling Epstein to abuse her when she was underage. However, Ms Maxwell has denied this.

The socialite is now is trying to halt the dissemination of information that she believes could impede her defence in the criminal case, including out-of-court statements by prosecutors, FBI agents and lawyers for some accusers.

US District Judge Alison Nathan said in a separate order on Thursday that a gag order was not needed now to protect MsMaxwell's right to a fair trial, but that she "will not hesitate" to act if needed.

Some records, including parts of Ms Maxwell's deposition testimony, were unsealed on Aug. 9, 2019, one day after Epstein executed his will and one day before he was found hanged in his jail cell at age 66. His death was ruled a suicide.

He reached a non-prosecution agreement with U.S. prosecutors in Miami in 2007, and later pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges rather than face federal sex trafficking charges.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has sent a congratulatory letter to the eighth national congress of the Chinese Young Pioneers (CYP), a national mass organization for Chinese children, which opened Thursday in Beijing.



Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, stressed efforts to foster a new generation of talent and make CYP members well-prepared for upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics and realizing the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.

The CYP plays a role like that of a big school where its members establish lofty aspirations and develop fine characters and various skills, and their love for the CPC, the motherland and the people is nurtured, he noted in the letter.

Xi stressed that in the new era, the CYP should continue to follow the CPC and pass on the traditions of revolution.

The organization is urged to unite, educate and guide its members to be well-prepared for upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics and realizing the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.

Xi demanded stronger Party leadership over and greater government and public support for work related to the CYP to create favorable conditions for the health and growth of children in the new era.

Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, attended the opening meeting.

Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, also a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, read out Xi's letter at the meeting and delivered a speech on behalf of the CPC Central Committee.



Sun urged efforts to earnestly study Xi's series of important statements on work related to children and the CYP and thoroughly implement in practical work promoting the healthy growth of children.

The meeting was held via video and telephone links.

Around 2,000 people, including leaders of provincial-level Party committees, principal officials from the Chinese Communist Youth League and education authorities, delegates to the eighth CYP national congress and representatives of CYP members, instructors and workers, attended the meeting.
Daily Emerald Alumni and current journalists got together for a virtual reunion to celebrate the independence and excellence of student journalism at the Emerald Media Group.
NEW YORK - A federal judge has halted the public release of police officer disciplinary records in New York, temporarily turning back a state transparency reform enacted in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd.

Judge Katherine Polk Failla granted a temporary restraining order late Wednesday barring police departments and other entities in the state from disclosing discipline records until at least Aug. 18, when shell hear arguments in a union lawsuit challenging their release.

Failla took over the case when it was transferred from state court, extending and expanding an existing stay that paused public disclosure of records concerning unsubstantiated and non-finalized allegations or settlement agreements.

The Police Benevolent Association, representing New York City police officers and other public safety unions, sued the city on July 15 to block Mayor Bill de Blasio from making good on a promise to post a database of misconduct complaints online. The unions argued that posting unproven or false complaints could sully officers reputations and compromise their safety.

The battle to protect the safety and due process right of public safety officers and police goes forward, said Hank Sheinkopf, a spokesperson for the union coalition.

A lawyer for the citys police watchdog agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, said the ruling is blocking the agency from making the public aware of complaints against the people who are supposed to be protecting them.

Matthew Kadushin, the agencys general counsel, said hes confident the city will prevail.

In issuing the temporary restraining order, Failla also barred the New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union from publicly releasing records it had already obtained in the wake of last months repeal of the law keeping them secret, finding that the organization had somehow been acting in concert with city government.

The organization, which often tangles with the city in court, said it obtained officer misconduct complaints from the CCRB under the states open records law. The NYCLU said it received the records before the unions lawsuit was filed and was not a party to it.

The federal court has no authority to bar us from making it public, and we will contest this unprecedented order as quickly as possible, said Christopher Dunn, the organizations legal director.

With the repeal of section 50-a, the public is entitled to have access to complete information about police misconduct, and we have an absolute right to share with the public the information we have.

New York lawmakers, spurred to action last month by protests over Floyds death in Minneapolis and other police misconduct, repealed the 50-a law that for decades blocked the public disclosure of disciplinary records for police officers, as well as firefighters and correctional officers.

While the law was on the books, the officers unions sued to make it even more restrictive so that the public and even the victims of police misconduct couldnt learn the outcomes of internal discipline hearings.

In the wake of the repeal, the CCRB moved quickly to respond to requests for the newly available records  a process now on hold because of the temporary restraining order. The NYPD, which also probes complaints through its internal affairs bureau, has yet to respond to requests from The Associated Press and other news media outlets for its disciplinary records.

___

Follow Michael Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak
A Montana man ccused with 60 child sex abuse counts got a deferred sentence of twelve months. This was enabled after he agreed to a plea deal.

According to New York Post, there was an intercession on behalf of the accused that altered the final judgment of the court.

Illicit photos on his phone implicated him

The perpetrator was identified as William Edward Miller Jr., 51, who was apprehended in February 2019. He was arrested after a 14-year-old high school female student informed the authorities that she was raped by him. According to the girl, it happened at her home in 2018.

The victim alleged that Miller also ordered an 11-year old boy to rape her. While this was happening, Miller was allegedly watching by the corner.

In August, the state prosecutors accused Miller of 64 instances of committing child abuse. Irrefutable evidence was discovered when investigators uncovered files of child pornography and bestiality that was stored on his mobile phone and laptop according to Great Falls Tribune.

A search warrant was issued by the courts after Miller called his acquaintances to go his home and destroy his mobile cited KFBB. Law enforcement authorities immediately searched his home for possible evidence they can use against him.

During the progress of the case against Miller, a plea deal was offered by prosecutors that would drop most of the charges against him.

In the trial, he declared himself guilty to one instance of felony sexual abuse of children. Another charge that he admitted to was one instance of misdemeanor unsworn falsification to authorities.

Also read: Jennifer Dulos Murder: American Writer Died of Violent Assault As Blood Were Found in Zip Ties, Garage

In the courts of Cascade County

The case was heard in the presence of Cascade County District Judge Elizabeth Best. On Monday, the sentence given to Miller is to stay at the Cascade County Detention Center for six months on account of a misdemeanor. About 384 days was credited to him when he was incarcerated in the detention center.

For the felony charge against him, the accused was given a one-year sentence for child sex abuse counts. Other things he was required to do was to complete sex offender treatment, according to True Crime daily. Conditions of the deferred sentence mentioned that it would be permanent on Miller's record.

The main reason for apprehending and charging the defendant was a felony count involving 17-year-old Shiloh Young. She is now 19 years old, and her photo in Miller's possession was used as evidence in the case.

She has been married to Miller for 90 days when she testified in court. She claimed that her photograph found in Miller's possession was taken with her consent. To get heat off from her husband, Young also added that she took the photo herself.

In a statement, Mrs. Miller said that her husband is a compassionate, kind, and empathetic husband. She also insisted that he never controlled or manipulated her. In addition to that, Mrs. MIller also denied allegations that she was ever victimized by her husband.

Related article: Three Friends Found Killed on a Fishing Trip Under Mysterious Circumstances

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Welsh Ambulance Service to host virtual Board meeting next week

This article is old - Published: Thursday, Jul 23rd, 2020

The Welsh Ambulance Service is preparing to host the next in a series of virtual public Board meetings.

Executive and Non-Executive Directors will convene once again via Zoom next Thursday 30 July, and the public and stakeholders are invited to attend and participate.

It will also be streamed live on Facebook, where last months meeting had 11,000 views.

Participants will get to hear from one of the Trusts Nurse Advisors, who will share her experience of working for the 111 service through the Coronavirus pandemic.

Questions for the Board can be pre-submitted in advance and posed in real time on Zoom and Facebook.

Martin Woodford, chair of the Welsh Ambulance Service, said: The Covid-19 pandemic effectively forced us into hosting our Board meetings virtually, but were actually finding that more people are engaging with us than ever before.

The Q&A session at last months meeting worked really well and allowed us to cover off all sorts of topics, including volunteering, recruitment and more.

Thats why were opening the virtual floor once again for questions, and will endeavour to answer as many as we can during the course of the meeting.

As a public service, openness and transparency is important to us, and this is our way of demonstrating our commitment to building accountability and trust.

Estelle Hitchon, director of partnerships and engagement, added: Our Board meetings also enable us to hear from first-hand from patients and colleagues to help us better understand what its like at the receiving end of our service and on the frontline of delivery.

Were fortunate to be joined at the next meeting by a Nurse Advisor, who actually left the NHS in January after 28 years but who re-joined as part of our Call to Arms for people to support us through the pandemic.

Shell be reflecting on her experience with 111 over the last couple of months, in what promises to be a really interesting and insightful session.

The Board meeting on Thursday 30 July begins at 9.30am. Click here to register your place on Zoom or watch it live on the Trusts Facebook page.

The full agenda will be available on the Trusts website in the coming days.

You can pre-submit a question by emailing AMB_AskUs@wales.nhs.uk by no later than close of play on Tuesday 28 July.
Dr. Sjon Westre named Senior Vice President of Technology, and Jason Kerver promoted to Vice President of Administration

MINDEN, Nevada, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CHEMEON Surface Technology, a global leader in corrosion protection chemistry and innovation, has promoted two of its key executives in order to further strengthen the company going forward and to recognize their valued and exceptional work for CHEMEON's customers.

Dr. Sjon Westre, a leading subject matter expert on the development and commercialization of hexavalent chromium-free corrosion protection chemistries, is named Senior Vice President of Technology from vice president. Since 2016, Dr. Westre's recent patents include CHEMEON eTCP "Dyed Trivalent Chromium Conversion Coatings and Methods of Using Same" (U.S. Pat. No. 10,533,254) and CHEMEON's "pH Stable Trivalent Chromium Coating Solutions" (U.S. Patent No. 10,400,338).

"Dr. Westre has been instrumental in the MIL-SPEC certification, scale-up formulation, and commercialization of our CHEMEON TCP-HF hexavalent free chemistries," says Dr. Madylon Meiling, Chief Executive Officer of the company. "The use of these products by the military, prime contractors, OEMs and metal finishers came as a result of extraordinary research and development supported by the team of PhD scientists and chemists that Dr. Westre has assembled."

Jason Kerver was promoted to Vice President Administration from manager of operations, a position he has held since 2013. Since 1999, Mr. Kerver has been an integral part of the CHEMEON administrative team, and is responsible for the development and customization of CHEMEON's robust and efficient Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and IT infrastructure.

"Mr. Kerver played a critical role in developing the global logistics and manufacturing process for CHEMEON which allows for seamless ordering and timely delivery of our products and services to distributors and customers," Dr. Meiling says. "Customers across North America and throughout the world benefit from the system Mr. Kerver has implemented. It provides customers with their selected chemistries in a most effective and efficient manner."

Ted Ventresca, President and Chief Operating Officer of CHEMEON, says, "The promotion of Dr. Westre and Mr. Kerver represent CHEMEON's continued commitment to innovation and customer service, and recognition of the internal talent that represents CHEMEON 's global expansion of our game-changing products and services."

"Dr. Westre and Mr. Kerver deserve this recognition as they exemplify the professional and personal approach to the scientific and business-based solutions CHEMEON provides to our partners and customers," says Mr. Ventresca.

About CHEMEON

CHEMEON Surface Technology is a global leader in advanced, environmentally responsible, surface engineering solutions including patented CHEMEON eTCP conversion coating and anodic seal that provides a distinct color for visual verification that your parts are coated and protected. CHEMEON is also licensed by the US Navy to manufacture and provide MIL-SPEC (MIL-DTL 81706 and MIL DTL 5541F) Trivalent Chromium Pre- Treatment; CHEMEON TCP-HFO (Hexavalent Free), CHEMEON TCP-HF EPA (Extended Protection Additive), CHEMEON TCP-HF SP (Spray) and CHEMEON TCP-HF Touch Up Pen. CHEMEON's patented and proprietary chemistries include CHEMEON TCP-NP (NoPrep) and patented zero chrome CHEMEON 0CP- 6800. CHEMEON also provides a full line of anodizing pre and post treatments, additives, dyes, custom R&D, consulting and university level training.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/356536/CHEMEON_Surface_Technology_Logo.jpg

Related Links

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SOURCE CHEMEON Surface Technology
Im responding to a July 21 Star-Ledger editorial, Trumps mischief may linger even after a defeat at the polls. That was the devastating conclusion by one of the hypocrites in the liberal newspaper industry about the interview of President Trump by Chris Wallace of Fox News.

Two days earlier Shawn Hannity, also of Fox News, interviewed Trump. It wasnt an aggressive attack plan like Wallaces, but a serious informative conversation that gave Trumps supporters confidence in their leader on all issues.

Wallace, knowing Trumps nature, used accusations to fight back. Wallace asked, Will you accept defeat if you lose the election?

I dont know until I see, Trump said. " I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election.

The Star-Ledger editorial said, Stop and let that sink in. An American president is warning us that he might not accept the verdict of the voters.

Media and Democrat hypocrites have never accepted the Trump presidency, refusing to print or honor good accomplishments this president has labored to get done.

Philip H. Beach Sr.

Bethlehem Township, Pa.
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SpiceJet on July 23 announced that it will be operating nine charter flights over a two month period to evacuate more than 1,500 Indian students stranded in Kyrgyzstan due to the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, pandemic.

These flights, the airline said, will be operated in association with actor Sonu Sood, who has been lauded for helping stranded migrant workers reach their home.

Calling Sood a "reel life and real life hero", Ajay Singh, the Chairman and Managing Director of SpiceJet, said both the actor and the airline have worked "non-stop to help our fellow citizens" through the nationwide lockdown.

"...I am glad that we have come together to help reunite Indian nationals with their families in these times of extreme crisis," Singh said.

In a statement, SpiceJet said it operated the first charter flight from Bishkek to bring back 135 students to their hometown of Varanasi on July 23 and that it will be operating more such flights from the Kyrgyzstan capital to various Indian cities in coming days.
By shifting to a market mechanism, the local energy industry was mobilising great resources for of all economic sectors in Vietnam, said Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung.







Solar energy can contribute to the national energy security in Viet Nam.  Photo courtesy of EVN



The deputy PM told the Viet Nam Energy Summit 2020 on Wednesday in Ha Noi that: The private economic sector is very active in investing in renewable energy development.

Dung said: As energy is both an economic and technical sector that plays an important and pioneering role to serve the country's socio-economy, its development will mark the level of industrialisation and modernisation of Viet Nam.

At the same time, Dung said the development was also closely linked with political - diplomatic activities, ensuring national defence, security and protecting the ecological environment.

Head of the Central Economic Committee, Nguyen Van Binh said: In recent years, the energy industry, especially the field of electricity, has developed rapidly and synchronously to follow the Governments targets.

However, Binh said the industry was still limited, making the goal of national energy security very challenging, adding as the local supply was not yet meeting demand, Viet Nam has been importing energy on a large and growing scale.

He emphasised: There were so many of instructions from the Government on the matter, many power projects are behind schedule while some indicators of energy security are fluctuating in an adverse direction.

Binh pointed out that the management and exploitation of energy resources was still limited and inefficient while the competitive energy market has not been developed comprehensively with low linkages among sub-sectors and high rate of State monopoly and the energy price policy was still inadequate.

Challenges also opportunities

Nguyen Tam Tien, general director of Trung Nam Group, one of the leading wind power producers with 12 current projects in Viet Nam, said: As 100 per cent of wind power equipment must be imported and depends on foreign manufacturers while local wind power producers face a lack of skilled labour in the projects, it is difficult to make products that meet low prices that the feed-in-tariff (FIT) mechanism suggests.

Under the FIT, which is expected to be applied in the near future, 8.5 US cents will be paid for a kWh of electricity from onshore wind power and 9.8 cents for a kWh of offshore products. Instead, the director asked the Government to release the FIT prices for the industry and to keep the onshore prices of 9.8 cent for the products until 2030 to attract more investment.

According to the latest study of the World Bank, the country had the highest potential for wind power among the four countries of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Viet Nam, with more than 39 per cent of the local area having an annual average wind speed of over 6m/s at a height of 65m, equivalent to a total capacity of 512GW onshore while the offshore wind power was up to 475GW.

Knowing that the country has great potential for wind and seeing the huge opportunity in the industry, Tien said his solution was to work with big domestic and international finance institutions and equipment providers and looking for investment partners to develop the opportunities.

In the next seven years, Tien wanted his group to reach total capacity of 10,000MW in energy production.

As for the offshore wind farms, the Viet Nam-Russia Joint Venture (Vietsovpetro), with the core function of supporting petroleum exploration offshore, considered itself an integral link in the supply chain.

Deputy general director of Vietsovpetro Vu Mai Khanh told the summit that with experienced and highly-skilled technicians in engineering, fabrication and installation of offshore facilities, it could be best to serve the complicated logistics and assembly activities of offshore wind farms in Viet Nam.

Apart from wind power, as the leading industrial park, DEEP C saw huge potential in the micro-grid implementation from solar energy in industrial zones.

A DEEP C representative said: Viet Nam can become a regional leader in energy by relaxing regulatory barriers for self-contained systems like solar rooftop solar systems in industries parks across the country."

DEEP C said such a system could help the country lower the impact on the environment by reducing emissions and fossil fuel use, as well as lower the countrys dependence on external energy resources.

Attending the summit, EU Ambassador to Viet Nam, H. E. Giorgio Aliberti suggested setting clear and ambitious targets for 2030 in renewable energy and energy efficiency.

He added as a destination of solar and wind power, the EU could offer experience for Viet Nam. He said putting energy efficiency first was a smart way to reduce costs for end-users, reduce the energy import bill and limit the need for new capacity and infrastructure.

He also added below-market energy prices undermine efforts to reduce energy intensity and invest in energy efficiency. Instead, he said the country should reform energy markets to ensure flexibility, predictability, consumer-centeredness and optimisation of costs.

The EU ambassador said: Making energy markets work better creates stability and predictability for the private sector and benefits consumers and taxpayers.

Deputy PM Dung said: The Government will continue to improve the draft action plan as well as mechanisms and policies to boost the development of the industry to best serve the country.

At the summit, the Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), on behalf of its fund CI New Markets Fund I, together with Asiapetro and Novasia Energy, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Binh Thuan Peoples Committee to develop the 3.5GW La Gan offshore wind project off the coast of the province.  VNS
Just over 30 years after their first 'excellent adventure, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter return as the title characters in Bill & Ted Face the Music, which Reeves recently called a 'scrappy independent movie.'

Fans have been clamoring for this sequel for nearly three decades, following 1989's Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and the 1991 follow-up Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.

After years upon years of delays and false starts, the movie will finally arrive on August 28, with both Reeves and Winter, both 55, speaking about the sequel with Total Film and shedding some new light on the project.

Reeves returns: Just over 30 years after their first 'excellent adventure, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter return as the title characters in Bill & Ted Face the Music, which Reeves recently called a 'scrappy independent movie'

The sequel picks up in present day, with Bill S. Preston Esquire (Winter) and Ted Theodore Logan (Reeves) now middle-aged dads.

The hard-rocking duo were told in the first two movies, upon visiting the future, that they would write the song that would save the world.

Years later, they still haven't done so, when they are warned by a visitor from the future that they must fulfill their destiny.

Dads: The sequel picks up in present day, with Bill S. Preston Esquire (Winter) and Ted Theodore Logan (Reeves) now middle-aged dads

Reeves said that the 'scrappy' nature of the film is, part of the charm,' adding, 'this movie is very much in the spirit of the other two films across the board.'

He added fans will get, 'Easter egg cameos, and there are other important musical figures that are prominent.'

'I dont want to give too much of it away but the spirit of it, all the way down to the soundtrack... its a Bill & Ted movie, straight up,' Reeves said.

Charm: Reeves said that the 'scrappy' nature of the film is, part of the charm,' adding, 'this movie is very much in the spirit of the other two films across the board'

William Sadler returns as Death for the sequel, though while Reeves wouldn't reveal any of the cameos, his co-star Winter added, 'People will recognize them as who they are from the get-go.'

'They havent turned into different people. But a lot of the comic conceit comes from that idea. If youve got two normally unstoppable, persevering characters like this who are faced with a pretty great challenge, and theyre older, and theyre dealing with the realities of life on top of the challenges theyre facing, then what does that do?' he added.

Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest) directs from a script by original Bill & Ted writers Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson, with Parisot admitting they didn't have a big budget to work with.

Death returns: William Sadler returns as Death for the sequel, though while Reeves wouldn't reveal any of the cameos, his co-star Winter added, 'People will recognize them as who they are from the get-go'

'I would say, for production, we probably had the amount of money wed get to make a television pilot,' Parisot joked. 'And we had to make a movie that takes place in Hell, and has the destruction of space and time, and the future prosthetics.'

The director added that a number of 'well-known artists' who have won awards for their work 'took incredible pay cuts and did anything to accomplish this project.'

'I think its because theres such a love for these characters and what they represent. We have struggled the entire time to eke out something that we loved. But its a testament to everyones commitment, because both Keanu and Alex, and Chris and Ed, never gave up. But that sort of made it all great fun,' Parisot said.

Bill & Ted Face the Music, which also stars Samara Weaving and Bridget Lundy-Paine as Bill and Ted's daughters, Jayma Mays as Princess Joanna, Erinn Hayes as Princess Elizabeth and Holland Taylor as The Great Leader, will be released on August 28.

Pay cuts: The director added that a number of 'well-known artists' who have won awards for their work 'took incredible pay cuts and did anything to accomplish this project'
On its way inbound for a Dec. 26, 2019, flyby of Jupiter, NASA's Juno spacecraft flew in the proximity of the north pole of the ninth-largest object in the solar system, the moon Ganymede.

The infrared imagery collected by the spacecraft's Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument provides the first infrared mapping of the massive moon's northern frontier.

The only moon in the solar system that is larger than the planet Mercury, Ganymede consists primarily of water ice. Its composition contains fundamental clues for understanding the evolution of the 79 Jovian moons from the time of their formation to today.

Ganymede is also the only moon in the solar system with its own magnetic field. On Earth, the magnetic field provides a pathway for plasma (charged particles from the Sun) to enter our atmosphere and create aurora. As Ganymede has no atmosphere to impede their progress, the surface at its poles is constantly being bombarded by plasma from Jupiter's gigantic magnetosphere. The bombardment has a dramatic effect on Ganymede's ice.

"The JIRAM data show the ice at and surrounding Ganymede's north pole has been modified by the precipitation of plasma," said Alessandro Mura, a Juno co-investigator at the National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome. "It is a phenomenon that we have been able to learn about for the first time with Juno because we are able to see the north pole in its entirety."

The ice near both poles of the moon is amorphous. This is because charged particles follow the moon's magnetic field lines to the poles, where they impact, wreaking havoc on the ice there, preventing it from having an ordered (or crystalline) structure. In fact, frozen water molecules detected at both poles have no appreciable order to their arrangement, and the amorphous ice has a different infrared signature than the crystalline ice found at Ganymede's equator.

"These data are another example of the great science Juno is capable of when observing the moons of Jupiter," said Giuseppe Sindoni, program manager of the JIRAM instrument for the Italian Space Agency.

JIRAM was designed to capture the infrared light emerging from deep inside Jupiter, probing the weather layer down to 30 to 45 miles (50 to 70 kilometers) below Jupiter's cloud tops. But the instrument can also be used to study the moons Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto (also known collectively as the Galilean moons for their discoverer, Galileo).

Knowing the top of Ganymede would be within view of Juno on Dec. 26 flyby of Jupiter, the mission team programmed the spacecraft to turn so instruments like JIRAM could see Ganymede's surface. At the time surrounding its closest approach of Ganymede - at about 62,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) - JIRAM collected 300 infrared images of the surface, with a spatial resolution of 14 miles (23 kilometers) per pixel.

The secrets of Jupiter's largest moon revealed by Juno and JIRAM will benefit the next mission to the icy world. The ESA (European Space Agency) JUpiter ICy moons Explorer mission is scheduled to begin a 3 1/2-year exploration of Jupiter's giant magnetosphere, turbulent atmosphere, and its icy moons Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa beginning in 2030. NASA is providing an Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument, along with also subsystems and components for two additional instruments: the Particle Environment Package and the Radar for Icy Moon Exploration experiment.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Italian Space Agency (ASI) contributed the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft.



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New Delhi, July 23 : Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said that Teams users generated more than 5 billion meeting minutes in a single day this quarter and more than 150 million students and teachers now rely on tools like Teams, Stream, OneNote as well as Flipgrid to prioritise student engagement and learning outcomes.

Nadella said that the company is seeing increased usage intensity across the platform as people communicate, collaborate and co-author content in Teams.

"Sixty-nine organisations now have more than a 100,000 users of Teams and over a 1,800 organizations have more than 10,000 users of Teams,: Nadella informed during the company's earnings call on Wednesday.

He said that Microsoft is working alongside educators as they prepare for remote hybrid and in-person scenarios this fall.

"Our new Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare is helping providers schedule, manage and conduct virtual visits using Teams and engage with patients using Dynamics 365," he informed.

Microsoft Teams is helping people be together even when they are apart.

"We are reimagining every aspect of the meetings experience with new capabilities like Together Mode and the Dynamic Stage to help people feel more connected and reduce cognitive load," said Nadella.

Microsoft has expanded the gallery view in Teams, so that people can see and interact with up to 49 participants at a time, and breakout rooms and live reactions will help people build social capital in a virtual world.

"Teams is rapidly becoming the communications backbone as customers accelerate moving voice to the cloud. And we're expanding Teams beyond the workplace, making it easy to add personal Teams accounts on mobile, so you can stay connected with friends and family across work as well as your life," informed Nadella.

Microsoft has announced new exciting features in its video conferencing app Teams including a Together Mode that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to digitally place participants in a shared background, as if they are sitting in the same room with everyone else in the meeting or class.

Together Mode will be generally available in August.
After this countrys worst mass killing, its taken three months for the Nova Scotia and federal government to launch an independent review of the events surrounding a rampage in which a gunman killed 22 people, burned houses and shot pets.

During those months, calls had mounted for an open, public inquiry.

They had come from the distraught families of 22 victims, who this week organized a public rally, urging action from the government. They had come from 37 senators, who last week signed a letter calling for a comprehensive, open and fully transparent process. They had come from 34 law professors at Dalhousie University who told Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil in a May letter that, a public inquiry would be necessary in order to promote public confidence in the Nova Scotia legal system.

In the end, none of their calls were heeded.

What federal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair and Nova Scotia Justice Minister Mark Furey revealed Thursday was a three-member independent Review Panel, which, while impressive in its composition, will be highly restricted in its mandate.

Both levels of government are now being accused of using expressions of concern for victims family as an excuse for not giving those families what theyve been seeking.

The panel wont be able to subpoena witnesses to testify under oath. Its recommendations wont be binding. All documents they use to arrive at their findings will be kept confidential. Testimonies from victims family members will not be made public.

The panel is further being tasked to not interfere with investigations. In theory, that means the RCMP could refuse to release information requested by the panel, and the panel would not have the authority to challenge that refusal. The only recourse available to it would be to write a letter to ministers Blair, a former police chief in Toronto, and Furey, a former RCMP district commander in Nova Scotia, asking them to intervene.

The panel will be required to provide an interim report laying out its findings and recommendations by Feb. 28, 2021, with a final report by Aug. 31, 2021. Both of those reports will be made public.

Gunman Gabriel Wortman carried out a 13-hour rampage in northern Nova Scotias Colchester County in April before he was shot dead by police at a gas station.

Recent calls have urged governments to include a feminist perspective in the hearings, given Wortmans history of domestic violence and the fact that his actions that night began with an assault on his partner. Leanne Fitchs appointment to the panel would seem to satisfy that call. Fitch, a former Fredericton chief of police, is currently involved in three research projects on intimate partner violence.

Officials say the review of the killings will also include a focus on the RCMPs choice to communicate with the public via Twitter during the shootings rather than using the provinces emergency alert system.

But the degree to which the announced review will be able to get real answers and safeguard public trust in the justice system was questioned Thursday.

Over and over Thursday, when asked during a news conference why they chose this review panel over a formal public inquiry, which would grant its commissioners the power to compel public testimony under oath, Furey cited expediency as the rationale.

I believe with the strength of this panel, their familiarity and awareness in this focus, we can get the same answers that we would through an inquiry. We will get those answers sooner than later and we will be able to act on those, Furey said.

At the beginning of June, Furey had explained the delay in launching an inquest  both levels of government have been accused of dragging their feet  by saying he was searching for a mechanism that would hold all agencies accountable.

At that time, he said the probe must have certain features, including the power to compel witnesses to testify and the ability to make binding recommendations.

Those two features were missing from the mandate of the review panel announced Thursday.

The fact the probe will take a restorative justice approach, with a stated goal not to re-traumatize the families of victims, consequently means the testimony of those family members will be confidential.

Lawyers Sandra McCulloch and Robert Pineo recently launched a class-action suit against the RCMP and the province of Nova Scotia on behalf of families of the victims of the Portapique shootings.

On Thursday, the lawyers said that while the choices of commissioners  particularly former Nova Scotia Chief Justice Michael MacDonald  were appropriate, the framework is wholly insufficient to meet the objectives of providing full and transparent answers to the families.

The announced independent review model, to be conducted in a so-called nontraumatic and restorative way, will prejudice the panel by restricting the evidence and information being presented, they wrote.

Most disappointingly, Ministers Furey and Blair have hidden behind their contrived notion of a trauma-free process to exclude the full participation of the families under the guise of protecting them from further trauma. This is not how the families wish to be treated.

Minister Furey has spoken with the families, so he must know that they want to participate, not to be protected by an incomplete process.

The families want a full and transparent public inquiry. Why will Minister Furey not give them this?

If the goal of the review is to re-establish trust in institutions, its framework, said Wayne MacKay, is not going to inspire confidence.

MacKay, a professor emeritus at Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University in Halifax, spoke highly of the composition of the panel, but less so of the tools it is being given.

I do think that they would have been able to do an even better job than they might do if they had the powers of the more traditional public inquiry, he said. That's the best-case scenario.

Worst-case scenario: I think that one of the important roles with this inquiry is to reassure people and to establish confidence in the justice and policing system and how they respond to these tragic events. And because of the structure that they've adopted, there's a lot of room for skepticism.

When everything is open to the public, it's much more likely to engender confidence in people than when parts of it are secretive and behind closed doors. And therefore an important objective of any public inquiry  establishing confidence in our institutions  may not be met.

Further, said MacKay, the constitution of the makeup panel, and the ministers who designed it, creates problems of perception.

Both Ministers Blair and Furey are former police officers. One member of the panel, Leanne Fitch, is a former Fredericton police chief. Another, Anne McLellan, is a former federal justice minister.

There's a whole second level to independence: the perception of independence and objectivity, said MacKay. And the fact that there is a former chief of police on the panel, the fact that there's a former federal justice minister on the panel, may well suggest to some people that this is not a completely open and independent process.

I want to be clear, I'm not suggesting that they individually will not do it the right way. But perception is really important here.

Nick Beaton, whose wife Kristen Beaton was killed, was one of the organizers  on behalf of the families of all 22 victims  of a march of more than 300 people Wednesday at the RCMPs Bible Hill detachment near Truro, calling for an inquiry to be held.

The families want hearings that are open, overseen by an independent party and include a detailed look at the police response, he said Wednesday.

We deserve answers and the truth. Were finished sitting back. Its been three months now. ... We want a public inquiry.

When contacted Thursday, following the announcement of the review, Beaton declined to comment.

With files from The Canadian Press

SM Steve McKinley is a Halifax-based reporter for the Star. Reach him via email: stevemckinley@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @smckinley1

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An IRA bomber who was living in Boston after entering the US illegally multiple times between 2000 and 2007 has been deported to Belfast.

Darcey McMenamin, 44, was deported on Monday after trying to plead his case in court in Massachusetts.

He was 18 when he took part in the 1993 mortar attack on police in Fintona, northern Ireland, on behalf of the Irish Republican Army.

He was arrested in Boston last year for trying to hire a car under fraudulent means, and was turned over to ICE shortly afterwards.

The British Army and police combine to secure the site around the devastated shop in the Shankill Road area of Belfast, Oct. 24, 1993, after it was hit by an IRA bomb attack on Oct. 23. There are no confirmed photos of McMenamin

It was then determined that he'd entered the US illegally on the visa waiver program multiple times between 2000 and 2007 by not declaring that he was a criminal.

During his time in custody, McMenamin asked to be released citing fears of COVID-19.

The judge denied that request and kept him in an ICE facility. It's unclear when he will be sent back to Ireland.

He made no secret of who he was despite being in the country illegally and even spoke of his Irish background at a Rhode Island Irish history event in 2016.

The attack that McMenamin was involved in ended the 1993 Christmas Truce

'He talked about growing up in Ireland and how hard it was as a kid,' one person who attended the event but who wished to remain anonymous told Irish Central after his arrest last year.

The 1993 attack in Fintona brought an end to the Christmas Truce that year.

No one was inside the police station when McMenamin and Dominic Pearse Darcy, who was 21 at the time, bombed it.

Two innocent by-standers were injured in the attack.

McMenamin was sentenced to eight years in prison but he was given compassionate release as part of the Good Friday Agreement.

It's unclear how long he actually spent before bars before coming to the US, where he'd retained contacts in Boston.

He entered for the last time in 2007 after being given 'port authorized parole' for the birth of a child.

He never left, according to The Boston Herald.
New research has found many of the claims made about the health benefits of native stingless bee honey are true, with tests revealing it contains a rare form of sugar.

Called trehalulose, the sugar is not found as a major component in other foods, with its main attribute being that it has a lower Glycemic Index (GI) than standard honey, which mostly contains glucose and fructose.

UQ researchers have identified the honey from native stingless bees contains a rare type of sugar which matches many of the health claims made about the honey. Credit:Tobias Smith/ University of Queensland

Having a lower GI means that it is absorbed more slowly into the bloodstream, so there isnt the spike in blood sugar caused by more common sugars.

University of Queensland organic chemist Associate Professor Mary Fletcher said the honey had initially been thought to contain a sugar called maltose, but when she and her colleagues looked closer with more advanced equipment they realised it was actually trehalulose.
Denise Richards flatly denies she ever had an affair with her former "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" castmate Brandi Glanville.

The scandal around the alleged affair has taken center stage this season on the Bravo reality show, but Richards told the Washington Post that the hanky-panky simply never happened. "I did not have an affair," the actress said in a story published Thursday.

Denise Richards, right, denies she had an affair with her former

"There's definitely consistency with the subject matter that comes up on this 'Housewives' season, and that's all I'll say," she added.

Rumors about an affair between Richards, 49, and Glanville, 47, have swirled for months. Viewers finally saw Glanville make the explosive claim on Wednesday's episode when she confessed to castmates Kyle Richards, 51, and Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave, 39, that she and Richards allegedly "hooked up" more than once.

HSH Prince Albert II Of Monaco Hosts 60th Anniversary Party For The Monte-Carlo TV Festival - Arrivals (Gregg DeGuire / Getty Images)

Glanville also told her castmates that Richards and her husband, Aaron Phypers, 47, have an open marriage  another claim Richards denies.

"If I had an open marriage, I would be open about it," Richards told the Post.

After the episode aired, Glanville took to Twitter to insist she's telling the truth about the affair. "Literally on both my boys lives I'm not f------ lying ! Why dont we ask our mutual agent !!???" tweeted the former model, who shares two sons, Mason, 17, and Jake, 13, with ex-husband Eddie Cibrian.

Richards found fame appearing in the 1998 movie "Wild Things," which included a steamy threesome scene featuring her and co-stars Neve Campbell and Matt Dillion. She later made headlines during her rocky 2005 divorce to actor Charlie Sheen.

In August 2018, Richards announced she was joining the Bravo reality series for the show's ninth season, which premiered in February 2019. The actress, who became an instant hit with viewers, commented about the size of her husband's genitalia during her first season on the show. She told the Post she now regrets her candor.

Story continues

"My openness definitely bit me in the a-- a bit," she said. "Its a learning process. I went into the show just being myself, and I never wanted to try and play a part. I am who I am. People can believe whatever they want, but 'Wild Things' was not a documentary."

Still, Richards, who has three daughters, Sam, 16, Lola, 15, and Eloise, 9, enjoyed filming her debut season "and formed genuine friendships."

As for her second season? "This season was very different, but I would never say I regret anything," she said. "I just roll with the punches."
WASHINGTON  As nations around the world race to lock up coronavirus vaccines even before they are ready, the Trump administration on Wednesday made investments yet, announcing a nearly $2 billion contract with Pfizer and a German biotechnology company for 100 million doses by December.

The contract is part of what the White House calls the Warp Speed project, an effort to drastically shorten the time it would take to manufacture and distribute a working vaccine. So far, the United States has put money into more than a half dozen efforts, hoping to build manufacturing ability for an eventual breakthrough.

Europe has a parallel effort underway. Germany recently took a 23% stake in a German firm, CureVac, that President Donald Trump once tried to lure to American shores in hopes that its vaccine, if successful, would be distributed in the United States first. A European-led fundraising effort in May brought $8 billion in pledges from the worlds governments, philanthropists and leaders for coronavirus vaccine research, even with the United States sitting out the conference.

China has militarized the effort: Researchers associated with the Academy of Military Medical Sciences have developed one of Chinas leading vaccine candidates, and another Chinese company, Sinopharm Group, announced in June that it was beginning Phase 3 trials in the United Arab Emirates.

The Pfizer contract, an agreement to ensure the pharmaceutical giant has a market for its work, is the biggest splash yet by the Americans. If the vaccine being produced by Pfizer and BioNTech, the German firm, proves to be safe and effective in clinical trials, the companies say they could manufacture those first 100 million doses by the end of the year.

Under the arrangement, the federal government would obtain that first batch for $1.95 billion, or about $20 a dose, with the rights to acquire up to 500 million more, or 600 million total. Americans would receive the vaccine free. Before it could be distributed, it would need emergency approval by the Food and Drug Administration. But the U.S. government does not pay the nearly $2 billion until the drug is approved and the first 100 million doses are delivered.

Pfizer said that large-scale safety and efficacy trials were to begin this month, with regulatory review set for as early as October, although nothing was guaranteed.

Depending on success in clinical trials, todays agreement will enable the delivery of approximately 100 million doses of vaccine being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, Alex Azar, the health secretary, said in a statement announcing the deal.

On Monday, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish drug company developing a potential vaccine with Oxford University, released data suggesting that their vaccines could stimulate strong immune responses with only minor side effects.

But unlike AstraZeneca, which has also obtained funding from the U.S. government, Pfizer did not receive a contract for its earlier research and development efforts  only for the doses and their distribution.

By refusing funding until now, Pfizer was able to avoid drawn-out contractual negotiations and get its vaccine to trials, company officials say.

We didnt accept the federal government funding solely for the reason that we wanted to be able to move as quickly as possible with our vaccine candidate into the clinic, John Young, Pfizers chief business officer, said on Tuesday at a congressional hearing with executives from five vaccine manufacturers.

Pfizer and BioNTech are developing a vaccine candidate that uses genetic material from the virus, known as messenger RNA, to stimulate the immune system without making the recipient sick. The technology can create a vaccine quickly, but has not yet produced one that has been approved and marketed.

Moderna, a Massachusetts biotech company, received $483 million from the U.S. government for its vaccine development and is also using mRNA technology. By putting the might of an industry giant behind it, Pfizer is making the technology mainstream.

The lack of a track record has prompted some skepticism about the mRNA approach, but Dr. Kathrin Jansen, a senior vice president and the head of vaccine research and development at Pfizer, dismissed the criticism.

Thats not a scientific mindset  that just because its new, it will fail, she said in an interview.

Earlier in her career, Jansen worked for Merck, where she led its development of a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, which is caused by a virus. The vaccine, Gardasil, has been successful. It, too, used a technology that was new at the time and faced considerable skepticism.

Pfizer calls its coronavirus project Lightspeed, a name that Jansen said the company picked before the administration coined Warp Speed.

Jansen said Pfizer had placed its bet on mRNA not just because the technology could produce a vaccine quickly, but also because its review of previous work by BioNTech on experimental cancer vaccines suggested the approach could cause a powerful immune response. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the two companies had been collaborating on flu vaccines.

Vaccines using mRNA consist of genetic material from part of the virus, encased in tiny particles made of fat that help it get into human cells. The mRNA then prompts the cells to churn out a tiny piece of the virus, causing the immune system to attack the real virus if the person is exposed. In essence, the patients cells become factories for a harmless fragment of the virus.

These mRNA vaccines set off several different kinds of immune responses, Jansen said, which is important because scientists do not know yet which type will be most potent against the coronavirus.

Jansen described making an mRNA vaccine as a clean, fast process that required a relatively small footprint to produce many doses.

mRNA has the potential to be fast to produce a product that is very well defined and very pure, she said.

Several other companies are also making mRNA vaccines, and each has its own formulation of the genetic material and types of fat used to encase it.

The large vaccine studies set to begin this month will each include 30,000 people, with some getting placebo shots. The Food and Drug Administration has said that to be considered effective, a coronavirus vaccine should protect 50% of the people who receive it.

Companies hope to show proof of effectiveness by the fall, but that will depend on enrolling enough volunteers in areas where the infection rate is high enough to see a significant difference between the vaccinated people and the placebo group.

We think we will see the end points, given that the infection rates are going up, up, up, Jansen said. If the stars are aligned, it could be next fall. But everything has to be right.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, said that Pfizer, unlike some smaller pharmaceutical companies that the government had contracted with, did not need research money because it was likely to have the infrastructure and early data it needed to speed its vaccine to trials without federal assistance.

Pfizer is a company that has a lot of expertise in making vaccines, he said. They knew that any negotiation with the government could have delayed the start of trials, which he said the company knew how to set up rapidly.

He added that the $1.95 billion agreement was a way to guarantee a market for the vaccine at the end of production, since prominent drugmakers have historically been hesitant to spend on infectious disease outbreaks.

Advance purchase agreements have been one way weve been able to acquire vaccines and countermeasures against certain threats that pharmaceutical companies have traditionally stayed away from, he said.

The agreement with Pfizer, which the company and the Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday morning, is the largest one yet for Operation Warp Speed. The federal government announced this month that it would pay the Maryland-based company Novavax $1.6 billion to expedite the development of a coronavirus vaccine.

Weve been committed to making the impossible possible by working tirelessly to develop and produce in record time a safe and effective vaccine to help bring an end to this global health crisis, Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizers chairman and chief executive, said in a news release.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Motorists can be fined $349 for displaying their border exemption passes on their windscreens after travelling into Queensland.

Police have so far exercised discretion and offered drivers warnings when they have been caught out doing the wrong thing, but have warned people to be aware of the road rules.

Anything that obstructs a driver's vision is punishable with a fine of $349 and three demerit points in Queensland.

New South Wales Police have a similar policy and will issue $381 fines for the same offence.

COVID-19 checkpoints have been set up in and around Victoria in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus

Barricades have been installed along some of Coolangatta's streets to help stop people crossing the Queensland-NSW border without going through the appropriate checks

One motorist, who claims she was stopped by police on Thursday, issued a 'public service announcement' to protect other drivers from getting caught out.

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'[Police] told me it is a $381 fine with 3 points off my license for displaying my border passes in my windscreen as it's an obstruction,' she explained.

The officer told her she did the right thing by displaying the pass as she crossed the border, but that she should have immediately removed it from the windscreen afterwards.

'He didn't fine me and said they were trying to let people know before issuing the fine so I thought I would share this with this group.'

Tweed Heads Senior Sergeant Chad George told Gold Coast Bulletin drivers needed to be wary of the road rules.

'They do need to come off  it's an offence if it's obscuring your vision,' he said.

Police check permits at Griffith Street checkpoint at Coolangatta on the Gold Coast. Motorists can be fined $349 for displaying their border exemption passes on their windscreens after travelling into Queensland

COVID-19 checkpoints have been set up in and around Victoria in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus

'We're encouraging people to display it on the sun visor that way they can flip it down to cross the border and flip it up once they've gone through the border.

Officers had seen examples of people driving through the streets with 'four or five' border passes stuck to their windscreen, causing significant concern for their safety.

As far as Snr Sgt George is aware, police have not yet issued a single fine relating to border passes.

The law that is broken when a person leaves their border pass up on their windscreen is 'driving a vehicle without clear view' and relates to any object with obstructs the driver's view.

Any person hoping to enter Queensland must complete a Queensland Border Declaration Pass and display it when crossing the border.

Police check drivers border exemption passes as they make their way into Queensland
As the Dan River Regions private schools prepare to open for the fall, they are seemingly in agreement that in-person instruction is the best course of action even as the country continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic.

According to school administrators, reopening schools five days a week follows the desires of most, but certainly not all, parents. Further, the decision allows children to continue to benefit from the learning environment and campus culture afforded by these selective schools.

Were also working real hard to do a thorough job of communications [with parents] so they know what a typical school day will look like, said John Cline, administrator at Westover Christian Academy in Danville. Its going to be a lot different, but we believe having students in school is the best academics that you can get.

The mindset is similar at Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, which sent a news release last week to students families detailing the plans of reopening as scheduled.

We know our cadets will achieve greater academic success with in-person instruction, the statement, signed by Hargrave President Michael Brown, read in part.

This decision comes in spite of the growing number of coronavirus cases reported in Pittsylvania County, which has seen 10 days in July with at least seven new cases.

Our sense has been that, and part of our message quite frankly has been that, were in a rural, safe environment thats had minimal impact, and we think thats a positive thing for us, said Wesley McClure, Hargraves director of admissions. A lot of families are in more challenging areas, so the opportunity to send your kid to a rural, safe, somewhat isolated environment is actually a good thing. For a lot of our families, they feel like thats a positive, and they expect that their childs safety will be prioritized and that well apply common sense.

Hargrave, Westover, Sacred Heart Catholic School in Danville and Chatham Hall, an all-girls private school in Chatham, all have plans in place for socially distanced learning environments and common spaces, in addition to mask protocols for students and teachers.

Chatham Hall, like Hargrave, houses many students on campus and will be increasing cleaning and sanitizing efforts throughout the school year in accordance with guidelines and recommendations from state and national agencies.

We remain optimistic that we will be able to welcome our students to campus safely, Rector/Head of School Rachel Connell wrote in an email.

Coronavirus cases are growing in Danville as well  with seven days this month with nine or more  but the consensus among parents, at least according to administrators, seems to be that in-person learning is the preferred method.

Kira Kania, principal at Sacred Heart, said only 10% of families for the roughly 160 students have elected to use the schools virtual learning option.

The decision to open up for five days a week was made as part of a broader decision by the Catholic Diocese of Richmond.

Part of Sacred Hearts plan includes utilizing a large outdoor space as much as possible and limiting movement among the students through the school.

Our teachers will rotate to the kids more than the kids rotating to the teachers, Kania said.

She added that the school will be able to provide a tablet or Chromebook to each child this school year regardless of whether they are learning virtually or not. Teachers also underwent training this summer to learn how to better connect with remote students.

Hargrave Military Academy hopes to test every student for COVID-19 upon arrival during the last week of August. McClure said those arrangements are still being made.

He added that in the event there is an outbreak at the school, the school is prepared to offer virtual learning on campus for boarding students. Day students will be able to learn virtually from home.

We believe we have a proper protocol in place in the event in-person learning has to cease that we can still take care of our young men, McClure said.

Connell wrote that Chatham Hall has a similar plan to test all students when they arrive in a phased move-in process between Aug. 23-30. Students will be housed in single rooms initially until a negative test is produced. Any student needing to quarantine following a positive test will be able to do so in one of two campus houses that have been left empty for this year.

Connell was not able to confirm what sort of in-person or virtual learning options would be available once students arrived on campus.

At Westover Christian Academy, Cline said the administration has not yet made a virtual learning option available for the upcoming school year, though it does have an idea of how it would function.

What were trying to do now is talk to parents and find out how big a need that is, he said.

As far as the in-person schooling is concerned, Cline said their particular school has been lucky in that it has been able to open up previously unused classrooms to create more socially distanced learning space. Two classes per grade will be capped at 15 students, helping keep small groups together and away from other groups.

There are a lot of disadvantages to being a small school, Cline said, but this is one time when being a small school is an advantage.

Parker Cotton is a sports reporter at the Martinsville Bulletin and Danville Register & Bee. You can reach him at (276) 638-8801 ext. 215. Follow @ByParkerCotton.

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Barry Freedman, who has been chief executive of Einstein Healthcare Network for 18 years, will retire at the end of the year. Read more

Barry Freedman, who has been chief executive of Philadelphias Einstein Healthcare Network since 2003, announced Thursday that he will retire from that position at the end of this year.

But he is not going away entirely. The nonprofits board of directors has asked Freedman, 71, to stay around for special projects next year, including the pursuit of a merger with Thomas Jefferson University, a deal that has been challenged by the Federal Trade Commission on antitrust grounds.

I will remain to fight the fight because I believe that the Jefferson merger is great for particularly North Philadelphia, because it will support Einstein, and Jefferson will commit to sustain programs there so that we can continue to serve vulnerable populations, Freedman said. I wont abandon that effort.

Freedman is the longest-serving health-system CEO in the Philadelphia region.

The Einstein board selected Ken Levitan, currently executive vice president and chief administrative officer, to take over as interim CEO in January. Levitan led the health systems incident command center during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During Freedmans tenure, Einstein celebrated its 150th anniversary, moved Moss Rehab from Philadelphia to Elkins Park, and built a new hospital, Einstein Medical Center Montgomery, in East Norriton, as a replacement for the former Montgomery Hospital in Norristown.

Einstein has long been in search of a merger partner, given the precarious financial position of its main hospital on North Broad Street in the Logan section of Philadelphia, where it services a financially vulnerable population. But it was unsuccessful in reaching a final agreement until 2018, with Jefferson.

Einstein and Jefferson are now gathering information to defend their deal against the FTC at a September hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, federal CARES Act aid has spared Einstein from financial devastation after COVID-19 caused demand for nonurgent health-care services to evaporate, Freedman said. The system was on track to lose $70 million from March through June, but thanks to government help, managed to get close to breakeven for the year ended June 30, Freedman said.

The system also saved money through furloughs or pay reductions for about 1,600 employees.

The health system had $1.29 billion in revenue in the year ended June 30, 2019. Financial results for fiscal year 2020 wont be public until next month.

Its too soon to say much about the current fiscal year, Freedman said. We had forecast that our volume would be a continuing challenge over the next six months because of the pandemic, he said. We are actually doing a little better than expected, but not as well as pre-COVID.
As India-China tensions soar, NSA Doval, Wang Yi set to meet

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, July 23: National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval and Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi are likely to hold a round of talks to de-escalate tensions along the Line of Actual Control.

Doval and Yi who are the Special Representatives of India and China will soon hold talks to discuss a road map ahead and reduce tensions.

India has noted that the Chinese People's Liberation Army had not yet withdrawn troops from the northern bank of the Pangong Tso lake as well as several other stand off areas. In the midst of these tensions, both Doval and Yi will review the situation and hold strategic consultations. Both will also review the process of disengagement, an official informed OneIndia.

Bluntly put: How NSA Ajit Doval got the Chinese to relent twice

Meanwhile, there is complete disengagement only in two of the four friction points. The troops from both sides have stepped back at PP 14 and PP15. However, at the PP17A there are still 50 troops on each side, less than a kilometre away from each other.

The understanding reached by the military commanders states that no side is allowed to patrol the four friction points. In the Depsang Plains China has blocked Indian access to the traditional patrolling limit in the area. At Pangong Tso although the Chinese have stepped back at Finger 5, they continue to occupy the Finger 4 Ridgeline.

The next military commander level talks between India and China will take place only after some movement on the ground is visible.

India wants China to create a buffer and has noted that at PP-17 (Gogra), the gap between the two armies is incomplete. It has been reported that the gap is narrower than the ideal 1.5 kilometres on each side.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

Further, there has not been much change at Finger 4 on the north bank of Pangong Tso and the PLA continues to sit on the Ridgeline of a mountain spur. Now a fresh physical verification of the buffer zone will be made as the previous one showed a partial pull back by China. This was unlike what was agreed at the meetings of the top military commanders. It had been decided that both sides had to move back 1.5 kilometres on each side of the approximate Line of Actual Control. However the same has not happened.

India-China stand off: No breakthrough as yet, ground situation remains unchanged

The source cited above said that if the talks were to progress then China would need to completely adhere to the agreement on creating a buffer zone.
A 200-year-old gurdwara in Pakistans restive Balochistan province, which was being used as a government high school for the last seven decades, has been handed back to the minority Sikh community after restoration by the provincial government.

The Siri Guru Singh Gurdwara on Masjid Road in the centre of Quetta was handed back officially to the Sikh community on Wednesday to use it for prayers and religious ceremonies, authorities said.

The gurdwara was used as a government high school for girls for the last 73 years.

Denesh Kumar, the provincial parliamentary secretary and advisor to the Balochistan Chief Minister on Minority Affairs, said that the gurdwara has been restored as a place of worship for the Sikh community.

Kumar said the value of the 14,000 square-foot gurdwara was in billions of rupees at the current market value due to its central location, but the Balochistan government restored its status as a place of worship for the Sikh community.

He said that the students studying in the government high school were being supported in getting admission to nearby schools.

Sardar Jasbeer Singh, the Chairman of the Sikh Community Committee in Balochistan, said that the restoration of the gurdwara as a place of worship was a gift from the government.

He said that around 2,000 Sikh families live in different parts of Balochistan and the ancient gurdwara had a special significance for them.

Earlier this year, the government also handed over a 200-year old temple to the Hindu community in Zhob in the province.
The city could more than double its support for the proposed $400-million development that would replace Portage Place Shopping Centre.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The city could more than double its support for the proposed $400-million development that would replace Portage Place Shopping Centre.

Coun. Cindy Gilroy (Daniel McIntyre), councils property and development chairperson, will raise a motion Thursday to devote up to $11.3 million of tax-increment financing to the project over 20 years.

"This is a really critical project for the community. There is affordable housing that is being asked for here I really believe that we need more people living downtown," said Gilroy.

If council approves, the motion would more than double the $5-million grant that the citys public service recommended for the mixed-use development. Councils executive policy committee supported that call after city staff warned the project wouldnt raise enough municipal taxes to justify a larger investment.

Developer Starlight Investments has asked the city, province and federal governments to each provide $20 million to support the project over the next five years, for a combined $60 million.

The province previously committed a $28.7-million education property tax rebate to the redevelopment, so the citys $11.3-million grant should be enough, if the feds opt to contribute $20 million, Gilroy said.

Its unclear if Starlight agrees with that funding breakdown. The developer declined an interview request Wednesday.

Gilroy said a large, taxpayer-funded investment is warranted, due to the project's expected social benefits. The proposal includes a $2-million community space with public washrooms, nearly 500,000 square feet of retail and office space and 500 housing units.

Gilroys motion calls for at least 10 per cent of the apartments to rent at affordable housing levels for at least 10 years.

Starlight's proposal includes a $2-million community space with public washrooms, nearly 500,000 square feet of retail and office space and 500 housing units in the downtown mall. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press)

"This is a vital project for my neck of the woods, but also I think its a citywide project. People being downtown, living downtown, I think is key," she said.

Council is expected to cast a final vote on Gilroys motion at its Thursday meeting.

Coun. Kevin Klein (Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood) plans to raise his own alternative motion instead, however, which would devote $18 million to the project and waive up to $2 million worth of permitting fees.

The councillor said the $11.3-million pledge falls short of what the company asked for, so he fears that offer would leave the city at risk of losing the project.

"I believe strongly that were at a fork in the road here. And, if the organization is telling us that it (needs) $20 million, we have to consider this," he said.

By contrast, Coun. Brian Mayes (St. Vital) said he doesnt support an increase from the $5-million commitment, arguing new developments dont get the same support from council in other neighbourhoods.

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For example, Mayes said Glenwood lot splits have created 400 housing units where 100 were once located but the community has not received city funds to support its growth.

"If we have no money to help that neighbourhood  which is going through very rapid change and the terrible existing gravel lanes are getting ground down even more  then dont come to me and say we (need investment in downtown) with new facilities," he said.

In a written statement, Brian Bowmans office said the mayor plans to support Gilroys motion, as he expects the redevelopment "would be good for our city and could be transformative for our downtown."

In an email, Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal said Ottawa "continues to review" Starlights request for federal dollars.

Joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga
HALIFAX - Ottawa and Nova Scotia have announced a review of the April mass shooting that left 22 people and the gunman dead, but the process drew criticism from victims' relatives as being too secretive and lacking the necessary legal powers.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

RCMP investigators search for evidence at the location where Const. Heidi Stevenson was killed along the highway in Shubenacadie, N.S. on Thursday, April 23, 2020. Ottawa and Nova Scotia are set to announce later today a joint review of the mass shooting that left 22 victims dead in April.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

HALIFAX - Ottawa and Nova Scotia have announced a review of the April mass shooting that left 22 people and the gunman dead, but the process drew criticism from victims' relatives as being too secretive and lacking the necessary legal powers.

Interim and final reports will be presented next year to federal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair and provincial Justice Minister Mark Furey before being made public.

However, little  if any  of the review announced Thursday will be conducted in open hearings, and lawyers for interested parties won't be able to cross-examine witnesses.

The review panel's terms of reference don't contain provisions to compel witnesses to speak under oath, and they specify that information collected in the preparation of its report "shall be kept confidential."

Despite calls from victims' relatives for the hearings to be transparent and under oath, Furey said the governments opted for a quicker process that he said will achieve a similar result.

"We heard loud and clear that people wanted early answers," Furey said. Blair said the expertise of the three panel members will provide "extraordinary capacity" to find those answers.

The panel will be led by the former chief justice of Nova Scotia, Michael MacDonald, who will be joined by former federal Liberal cabinet minister Anne McLellan, and Leanne Fitch, the former chief of police in Fredericton.

Family members of victims have called for a public inquiry that would include a comprehensive look at how the RCMP handled the shootings of April 18-19 in central and northern Nova Scotia. On Wednesday, close to 300 relatives of victims and their supporters marched to the local RCMP headquarters in Bible Hill, N.S., to support their demand.

Robert Pineo, a lawyer whose firm is working with victims' families in a legal action against the RCMP and the gunman's estate, said the review is not sufficient to get to the bottom of the tragedy or bring closure for his clients.

He said the choice of commissioners was good, but "any decision-maker can only render decisions based on the information and evidence presented to them."

In an email, he called the review "wholly insufficient to meet the objectives of providing full and transparent answers to the families, identifying deficiencies in responses, and providing meaningful lessons to be learned to avoid similar future tragedies."

Pineo said his clients had envisioned a public inquiry like the one that followed the 1992 Westray coal mine disaster, where interested parties had the opportunity to question witnesses.

"Without proper and thorough questioning, the panel will be left with incomplete and untested evidence upon which to base its decision," he wrote.

He said Furey and Blair have hidden behind their notion of a "trauma-free" process to exclude the full participation of the families under the guise of protecting them from further trauma.

"This is not how the families wish to be treated. I know that minister Furey has spoken with the families, so he must know that they want to participate, not to be protected by an incomplete process," he said.

The families along with groups that support women facing domestic violence have expressed repeated frustrations with the RCMP's handling of the shooting  and the secrecy in the months that followed.

Nick Beaton, the husband of a continuing care assistant who was killed on her way to work April 19, has questioned why emergency alerts weren't issued after the shooter left the Portapique area  where 13 people were killed on the night of April 18.

Police have said the attacker, Gabriel Wortman, had access to a handgun and long guns that he didn't have a licence for, including some weapons obtained in the United States, but they haven't released full details of how Wortman gained access to them  citing an ongoing investigation.

It's also unclear how the denturist managed to slip through a police perimeter around Portapique, or why further perimeters weren't created.

The Mounties also have not provided full details of how the attacker came to own at least four replica police vehicles, including the one with a light-bar and precise RCMP paint job he drove on the days of the killings.

In addition, there are questions about why more wasn't done to investigate previous reports of illegal gun ownership and domestic violence by Wortman. The RCMP has stated he began his massacre after a violent dispute with his girlfriend.

Archie Kaiser, a law professor at Dalhousie University, said the issues listed in the terms of reference allow the panel to explore these questions. Elaine Craig, a Dalhousie law professor who helped organize a petition calling for a public inquiry, called the issues list "appropriate," though she said it should have included a mandate to see health agency reports of intimate partner violence involving Wortman.

But both legal scholars said in emails that overall, the proposed process is deeply flawed.

"I believe it will completely fail to satisfy the public's expectations of there being a full, rigorous public inquiry," wrote Kaiser. "The review will largely be conducted in private. Everything collected and considered is required to be kept confidential."

Craig asked: "Why have the governments of Canada and Nova Scotia chosen a process that does not grant its commissioners the powers available in a public inquiry?"

In a statement, RCMP Assistant Commissioner Lee Bergerman said the force welcomes the review and will co-operate fully.

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"We owe it to the memory of those we lost to learn as much as we can from this terrible tragedy," she said.

MacDonald declined an interview, but the review panel provided a statement on behalf of the review panelists saying it will "conduct a thorough and independent review into these tragic events."

The email says panelists will meet with families, survivors, first responders, law enforcement officials and others in the coming weeks.

"We are committed to examining the contexts that played a role in these acts of violence, including gender-based and intimate-partner violence," they wrote.

The review panel is to complete its interim report by Feb. 28, 2021 and a final report by Aug. 31, 2021.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2020.
An Australian comedian has filmed himself getting dropped home by police after testing positive to cannabis, despite not smoking the drug for two days prior.

Alex 'Shooter' Williamson, 31, was filmed getting dropped home in a cop car after being pulled over after doing his grocery shopping in Adelaide on Wednesday.

'Well it's official. I think my blood has been replaced by THC over the years,' the comedian told his 498,000 Instagram followers in a video.

'I haven't smoked for two days; I ran out, I'm dry.'

THC - tetrahydrocannabinol - is the active ingredient in cannabis and is what creates the high when people consume the drug.

Alex 'Shooter' Williamson, 31, was filmed by a friend getting dropped home in a cop car after being pulled over after doing his grocery shopping in Adelaide on Wednesday

'Well it's official. I think my blood has been replaced by THC over the years,' the comedian told his 498,000 Instagram followers in a video

'When [the officer] swabbed my tongue and he looked at the [analyser] he's like "f**k I've never seen a more defined line form so f**king quick mate,' Williamson said.

'I was like "cool" and he said "that's not good".'

Williamson was filmed by his builder unloading his shopping bags from the police car after being driven home following his positive reading.

'[The officer] was good with the groceries though. He asked me 'are all your frozen things together?'

Williamson's glamorous girlfriend Gabby Goessling was heard exclaiming: 'you idiot, you f**king idiot' as he ran triumphantly up his driveway holding his groceries.

South Australia police were unable to confirm whether Mr Williamson was charged.

In April, the YouTube star was filmed skolling a beer after a rowdy heckler tried to smash the glass bottle over his head at one of his stand-up shows at a pub in Goulburn.

In footage shared to his Instagram, Williamson was seen storming off stage to confront a heckler who had been talking throughout the show.

After Williamson knocked his hat off, the crowd member fought back, smashing his beer bottle into the comedian's head.

'You gonna glass me? You gonna glass me?' Williamson said.

The comedian then stormed off, finishing the bottle of beer and throwing it onto the stage as the crowd cheered.

'I just f***king skolled the glass he glassed me with,' he said.

Williamson's glamorous girlfriend Gabby Goessling was heard exclaiming: 'you idiot, you f**king idiot' as he ran triumphantly up his driveway holding his groceries
Zambian businessmen call on Africans to view China's presence in more objective way

China's policy toward Africa demonstrates a win-win situation and Africans need to view China's presence and the China-Africa partnership in a more objective way, Zambian businessmen have said.

Dil Vashi, corporate development manager at Toronto-based CO2 GRO Inc., called on African countries and people to accept and embrace China's cooperation with Africa as it presents a win-win situation.

He rejected the "neo-colonialism" fallacy against China, saying that Africa needs to understand that China is not a threat to the continent and will never be confrontational.

According to him, China has accumulated wealth after years of high-speed growth. "Capital doesn't just sit, capital needs to work and they (Chinese companies) have identified investment opportunities in places where they can get a high return," he explained.

With Chinese investments in Africa, people there could gain more experience and learn new skills to better engage in economic activities, Vashi said, noting that it is not a zero-sum situation.

For Musaba Chailunga, founder and president of Object Oriented Development in Africa (OOD Africa), said it was a pity that some Africans view the presence of China on the continent negatively.

The OOD Africa, a market-based solution organization for economic development and social change, focuses on training developing communities on the application of social enterprise.

For some, China helping African countries build infrastructure such as railways and stadiums "is a form of colonialism, which I don't agree with," Chailunga added.
The story of Marmum, a new state-of-the-art dairy factory in the heart of the UAE, will be highlighted in a 44-minute documentary by National Geographic Abu Dhabi.

Marmum is creating a sizeable local production of dairy products to meet the growing demands of the local population and consumers abroad, while also meeting national food security goals.

The National Geographic Abu Dhabi film Marmum, takes audiences on an exciting visual journey, focusing on the challenges behind the conception of a large-scale, innovative dairy factory, delivering modern farming standards and offering a range of products such as milk, flavored milk, yogurts, laban and juices.

The film highlights the various components of the brand new project located in Nahel, a desert region in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi: from the farm to the cow feeding area to the bottling and packing areas.

Viewers will witness the building of the new modern farm which accommodates 3,700 cows as well as the feed area and the milking parlor.

The film also spotlights the new, state-of-the-art factory, spread over 30,000 sq m, which uses next generation technologies, including robotics, in the bottling and packing areas. Built to the latest international standards, the new factory will enable Marmum to significantly increase production and deliver a world-class high quality product to their customers in the UAE and abroad.

The film explores how Marmums business model is integrating sustainability as a core value. Viewers are taken on a tour of the factorys roof, which is filled with solar panels. Aligned with the nations sustainability goals, the Marmum factory and farm will have nearly half of their electricity needs powered by solar energy in the coming few years.

Viewers will see how the new farm location was selected based on where solar energy can be harnessed and where wind disruption is minimal. With cows being very sensitive to wind, viewers learn that minimal wind disruption leads to stress-free, happier cows, which in turn increases their milk production.

The film also showcases how the new Marmum factory has delivered a number of firsts in modern farming, including the first of its kind rotary in the UAE. The rotary has been designed as a milking facility providing utmost comfort and one of the finest stress-free environments for the animals, which encourages their milk production.

The film explores the cow selection process, a vital component of the project, following the farm manager as he travels to Germany to select the right milking cows to ensure a high quality dairy product. Cow selection attributes include weight and age, good functional attributes and their pedigree to understand their lineage. The documentary follows his final selection of cows as they arrive in the UAE and then enter the rotary for the first time.

The film also showcases how the factory is future proofed in its design with a whole area dedicated to growth, which will be fully equipped to meet the future needs of the countrys growing communities.

Marmum premieres on the National Geographic Abu Dhabi on July 27 at 11 pm UAE time/10 pm KSA time.  TradeArabia News Service
Covid-19 patients per 100,000

At overflowing hospitals in South Texas, patients wait hours in sweltering ambulances and on recliner beds set up in hallways. The number of patients intubated in hospital beds in Tampa, Fla., is growing by the day. In Corpus Christi, Texas, a mobile morgue has arrived.

About as many people are now known to be hospitalized with the coronavirus in the United States as during any other time in the pandemic, matching the previous peak in April.

Public health experts say detailed local data on where people are hospitalized  a real-time measure that does not depend on levels of testing  is crucial to understanding the epidemic, but federal officials have not made this data public. The New York Times gathered data for nearly 50 metropolitan areas, including 15 of the 20 largest cities in the country, from state and local health departments to provide the first detailed national look at where people are falling seriously ill.

The data, as well as interviews across the country, show a far-reaching crisis. The worst-hit areas in Texas and Florida have approached the peak rates of hospitalization that New York, New Orleans, Chicago and other cities hit in the spring. A wide and growing expanse of hot spots around the country  including Las Vegas, Nashville and Tulsa, Okla.  have worsened over the past two weeks.

Not every hospital system is overwhelmed, and new treatments have improved the chances of survival for seriously ill people. But experts say a small but significant proportion of those currently hospitalized will die, and those who survive may face serious long-term health issues.

Months ago, the endless wail of ambulances in New York City conveyed the urgency of the virus outbreak in a concentrated area. Now, the scale of the crisis is dispersed and harder to grasp.

Theres this pandemic fatigue, said Thomas Tsai, an assistant professor of health policy at Harvard University. All eyes were on New York. Houston is New York now. Miami is New York now. Phoenix is New York now. We need that shared collective urgency.

No place comes close to matching New York Citys sheer numbers: At its hospitalization peak in mid-April, more than 12,000 New Yorkers were hospitalized at one time.

Some places today look more like New Orleans, an early epicenter that at one point had about 1,000 hospitalized coronavirus patients.

This region on the southern border of Texas most likely has the worst rate of hospitalization in the country. Hospitals are full. Moving from bed to bed, medical workers wrapped in protective layers yell over blaring alarms. Nurses softly soothe dying patients. There is little time to grieve. A new patient fills an emptied bed.

At least 87 people have died from the coronavirus in the past three weeks; as recently as the end of June, only eight people had. The movie that you never wanted to be living in  thats what its like, said Annette Rodriguez, the countys public health director.

Your hospitals are drowning, Carlos Migoya, the chief executive of Jackson Health System, the largest public hospital in Miami, wrote in an op-ed in The Miami Herald. We are teetering on the edge of disaster.

Of the top 10 places we found with the most severe coronavirus hospitalization rates, six were in Texas.

Imperial County, home to many food-processing workers and farmworkers on the California-Mexico border, became the first county in California to revert to a stay-at-home order this month as cases soared with positive test rates four times the state average.

The number of coronavirus patients in Chicago is now less than a third of what it was at its peak.

Several areas in Florida, including the Fort Lauderdale region, are under nightly curfews to slow the spread of the virus.

The number of newly hospitalized patients in the Houston area is down slightly in recent days, but the county is still home to the most coronavirus patients in Texas. More than 2,200 people with the virus are in hospitals.

The number of patients who need to be intubated at Tampa General Hospital keeps growing. We've gone from single digits to double digits, basically every day, said Dr. Andrew Myers, an internist at the hospital.

Things are worse than theyve ever been, said Nelson Wolff, the county judge for San Antonios Bexar County, which had more Covid-19 patients die in 10 days this month than during the first three months of the pandemic. I had two friends die within a week.

President Trump is expected to formally accept his partys nomination at the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville next month. Of the top 20 metro regions we found with the most severe hospitalization rates, seven were in Florida.

Arizona is one of several states with hot spots that did not provide local data, making it difficult to know the precise hospital situation in Phoenix, a center of the crisis. Statewide, Covid-19 hospitalizations have leveled off in recent days, offering hope that measures like mask mandates and the closure of gyms, bars and nightclubs are working.

Inside hospitals in Orlandos Orange County this week, the number of Covid-19 patients was the highest it has been during the pandemic. Outside, Disney World had reopened, and SeaWorld was splashing again. It is one of the jarring contrasts in a crisis that is now spread widely and sometimes hard to see.

At the beginning of the crisis, New Orleans was at the center of Louisianas coronavirus outbreak. Now, New Orleans is doing relatively well, while cities like Lafayette are seeing sharp increases.

We are really worried, said Sara Kalaoram, whose mother, a guest room attendant at a Las Vegas hotel, is hospitalized with the virus and on oxygen. Ms. Kalaoram, her father and her teenage brother have also tested positive.

Covid-19 patients make up 33 percent of I.C.U. beds in Mississippi, up from 18 percent in June.

Los Angeles County has surpassed its previous peak of coronavirus patients from earlier this year, though fewer patients are in intensive care.

Every metric is heading in the wrong direction, said Dr. George Monks, president of the Oklahoma State Medical Association. Hospitalizations have been on the rise across Oklahoma, but the situation is most pressing around Oklahoma City.

The Tulsa City Council adopted a mask order last week, in part due to rising hospitalizations.

The number of coronavirus patients in Chicago is now less than a third of what it was at its peak, though recent upticks led Mayor Lori Lightfoot to close bars for indoor use once again.

We are hoping we dont see a huge spike again, said Gregory Burrell, the funeral director at Terry Funeral Home, Inc., a funeral home in Philadelphia that handled dozens of funerals for people who died of the virus in April and May. So far this month, he said he had handled about five such funerals.

New admissions for the coronavirus in New York City have dropped to a few dozen a day, down from more than 1,000 people a day in late March and early April. Statewide, hospitalizations from the virus are at their lowest since March 18.

Connecticut, like New York, has seen significant improvements since the spring, but there are still seriously ill people. Statewide, 62 people were hospitalized with the virus as of this week, down from a high of nearly 2,000 in April.
Over the past few years, news about celebrities going in and out of rehab to manage their addictions seem to be a usual scene in Hollywood.

However, while substance abuse is undoubtedly worrying, it is not the end for everyone. There might be a stigma for people -- especially celebrities -- who were once drug addicts, but there is hope of recovery and finding success.

As the five Hollywood celebrities below prove, drug addiction can be fixed and shouldn't be a hindrance in suceeding in life.

Robert Downey, Jr.

Before he became the one and only "Iron Man," Robert Downey Jr. was famous for his active drug and alcohol addiction. However, it worsened over time.

In fact, the Marvel star experienced one of the most disturbing incidents when he was under the influence of drugs. Apparently, RDJ wandered into a neighbor's house and passed out in the bed.

In 1999, he was given a three-year prison sentence. However, he only served for a year in the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, Corcoran.

After he met his current wife Susan Downey in 2003, he quit drugs for good. It helped that Susan gave him an ultimatum.

Meanwhile, according to a 2013 Daily Mail article, RDJ followed a 12-step program and did yoga, meditation and therapy to overcome his addiction.

He is currently one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood, thanks to his works in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Ben Affleck

The Academy Awards recipient had the darkest moment of his life due to his alcohol addiction.

Affleck's alcohol addiction pushed him to check into a rehab facility in 2001. His struggles with sobriety continued in the following years until he had two other rehab stints in 2017 and 2018.

Although he tried to remain as private as possible, cameras caught some of his relapses. He even failed to control himself multiple times.

In one Instagram statement, Ben opened up how his fight against alcohol addiction is a lifelong struggle. Nonetheless, despite what he will still be facing, Affleck is glad to know that he is not alone.

Zac Efron

Zac Efron's addiction proved that what goes up may one day come down.

Efron became one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood after playing the lead role in the "High School Musical" film franchise. However, as his fame skyrocketed, he found himself working his way to adulthood by taking drugs and consuming alcohol.

In 2013, the young actor went to rehab for the first time to seek treatment. He rarely speaks publicly about it, but he did so in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

"It's a never-ending struggle," Efron said as he came clean about his battle with alcohol and drug use. "I was drinking a lot, way too. There were drugs as well."

Efron joined Alcoholics Anonymous and has been seeing a therapist since last year.

Samuel L. Jackson

A young Samuel Jackson previously confessed that he was using drugs recreationally since the age of 15. However, his drug and alcohol use immediately escalated and worsened when he moved to New York in the 1970s.

This situation caused him to fail in landing huge roles in movies and shows. However, instead of changing his lifestyle, he started drinking heavily and using drugs -- like marijuana and LSD -- on a regular basis.

Although Jackson rarely talks about his past drug and alcohol addictions, he frequently tells people how he got sober. He has fortunately survived and got over his addicition, turning into the famous actor he is now -- all thanks to his decision to confine himself in rehab in 1991.

Johnny Depp

Famous for his role in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise as Captain Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp also suffered from addiction that has affected his finances, too.

For instance, in 2017, his ex-managers mentioned in one of their lawsuits that the actor has a $2 million-a-month compulsory spending disorder -- most of it was spent on wines.

"It's insulting to say that I spent $30,000 on wine," the actor disagreed. "Because it was far more."

Although it sounded like he was enjoying it, the young Depp actually had to lean on drugs and alcohol to help himself get away from his family's history of abuse.

The actor's parents, Betty Sue Palmer and John Christopher Depp Sr., were both violent that Depp suffered emotional and physical abuse at the hands of his abusive parents.

In the end, he turned his life story as his inspiration to become a better version of himself, not only as an actor but also as a human being.

READ MORE: Amber Heard Cheated On Johnny Depp? 5 Hollywood Stars Amber Allegedly Had An Affair With
PORTLAND, Ore., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research recently published a report, "Motor Monitoring Market By Offering (Hardware and Software), Monitoring Process (Oil Analysis, Motor Current Analysis, Ultrasound, Thermography, Vibration Analysis, and Others), and End Use (Oil and Gas, Energy & Power, Aerospace & Defense, Automotive and Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2019-2026". According to the report, the global motor monitoring market was pegged at $2.49 billion in 2019, and is projected to reach $4.17 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 7.3% from 2019 to 2026.

Prime Determinants of the Market Growth

Rise in usage of motor monitoring in sports, surge in adoption of motor monitoring in automotive and transportation, and increase in demand for thermal imaging applications have boosted the growth of the global motor monitoring market. However, high cost associated with motor monitoring hampers the market growth. On the contrary, surge in application of motor monitoring in intelligent transportation system and surge in adoption of motor monitoring in aerospace are expected to create lucrative opportunities for the market players in the coming future.

Download Sample Report @ https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/5799

Covid-19 Scenario

The widespread of Covid-19 has adversely affected the global motor monitoring industry.

A complete impact of Covid-19 is still unknown, the negatively affected supply chain would lead to a shortfall that would last less than a year.

According to Deloitte, China contributes to more than 50% of the global semiconductor consumption, and the country's lockdown would hamper the market growth.

The Hardware Segment Dominated the Market

By offering, the hardware segment held the largest share in 2019, nearly three-fifths of the global motor monitoring market. The advancement of hardware in terms of its structure enhances the compatibility of hardware with different software, which increases the market demand. However, the software segment is expected to register the highest CAGR of 8.6% during the forecast period. Development of AI software for motor condition monitoring is lucrative for the global motor monitoring market.

The Aerospace and Defense Segment is Expected to Manifest the Highest CAGR through 2026

The aerospace & defense segment is projected to register the highest CAGR of 10.2% during the forecast period, as the industry uses motor condition monitoring for airplanes and various other big machinery. However, the oil & gas industry held the largest share in 2019, accounting for nearly one-fourth of the global motor monitoring market. The oil & gas industry finds a major application of motor monitoring, which contributes to its major market dominance.

Asia-Pacific, Followed By Europe and North America, Held the Largest Share

The global motor monitoring market across Asia-Pacific, followed by Europe and North America, held the largest share in 2018, accounting for penetration of IoT and AI in the developed and developing countries of the region. However, the market across LAMEA is expected to register the highest CAGR of 10.0% during the forecast period, as the region is one of the unexplored regions and has great potential for the motor condition monitoring market.

Interested to Procure the Data? Inquire Here @ https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/5799

Major Market Players

Emerson Electric

Honeywell International

General Electric

ABB

Rockwell Automation

SKF Group

National Instruments

ALS Limited

Siemens

Parker-Hannifin

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The Reseaux IP Europeens Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC) has signed an agreement with Saudi-based Communication & Information Technologies Commission (CITC) to work towards a stable and innovative Internet in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East Region.

The MoU highlights collaboration in the areas of capacity building for the development of Internet infrastructure through training courses, meetings, and workshops and also includes Internet measurements using Ripe Atlas, the Ripe NCC's global Internet measurement platform.

The agreement was formalised via a first-of-its-kind online signing ceremony attended by Dr Mohamad Tamimi, Governor, CITC and Hans Petter Holen, Managing Director, RIPE NCC.

The agreement formalises the existing relationship between the RIPE NCC and the CITC, demonstrating both parties commitment to further collaborate and promote Internet coordination activities in the Kingdom.

Dr Tamimi said: "The CITC is confident that the new agreement will allow us to strengthen our partnership to achieve a more stable and resilient Internet, by sharing know-how and best practices. We are truly proud of being one of the major organisations in the region that the RIPE NCC has partnered with to realise our common vision of developing the Internet."

Dr Tamimi said this MoU is aimed at strengthening current partnerships and opening new avenues of collaboration with the Ripe NCC in other sectors, especially with academics.

Managing Director Hans Petter Holen said: "We are proud to announce the signing of a new strategic partnership agreement with the Saudi CITC, applauding its efforts to bring in world-class Internet infrastructure and best practices."

"Our partnership seeks to support our members and the Internet community by sharing expertise through trainings, meetings, and workshops. We remain fully committed to developing the Internet, a common goal that we share with CITC," he added.

Holen also revealed that both parties will focus more on e-learning especially during and post Covid-19 through the RIPE NCC Academy and RIPE Academic Cooperation Initiative, allowing students to learn about the latest technology and at the same time bridging the gap between universities and industrial needs.

Also the duo will cooperate for enhanced Internet measurements using RIPE Atlas and work together to further its deployment in Saudi Arabia.-TradeArabia News Service
WINNETKA, Ill., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In 1920, William Hadley, a Chicago area high school teacher who lost his sight at the age of 55, revolutionized the way adults facing vision loss would learn to read again when he created his Braille by Mail system. One hundred years later, the nonprofit that bears his name is again revolutionizing the way it provides support to persons throughout the world facing vision loss, especially those, like Hadley, who acquired the condition later in life.

Taking a dramatically different approach to reaching an audience that is often difficult to reachprimarily older adults facing vision loss related to diseases such as macular degeneration and glaucomaHadley has entirely overhauled its digital footprint, Hadley.edu.

Built on many months of research and development work, the new approach is entirely based on the needs, wants and desires of visually impaired adults. The ease-of-use, personalized settings, a wide selection of how-to video workshops, and live support from experts are just a few of the elements that make the new Hadley website a game changer.

"At the core of Hadley.edu is a highly personalized approach," explains Hadley President Julie Tye. "No matter the level of vision someone has, they bring with them a unique set of needs, interests, and their own preferences for how to learn new skills."

Whether the user is interested in learning how to safely use a sharp knife when preparing meals or figuring out how to get back to using a computer, phone, or digital assistant, they'll find the new Hadley.edu very intuitive.

Visitors are invited to create their own personal account and then, after adjusting the contrast and font color and text sizes to their liking, are offered different learning avenues including Daily Living, Adjusting to Vision Loss, Recreation, Technology, Braille, and working.

Best of all, every page has a help icon which connects users directly to a live Hadley team member, making the experience less daunting and assuring that Hadley is there every step of the way.

About Hadley

The mission of Hadley is to create personalized learning opportunities that empower those with vision loss to thrive --- at home, at work and in their communities. A 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, Hadley relies on contributions from individuals, foundations, and corporations to fund its programs. Watch our videos to learn more about our students, programs and donors by visiting www.hadley.edu

CONTACTS

Dave Silbar

[email protected]

(847) 845-7548



SOURCE Hadley

Related Links

www.hadley.edu


Kansas City Councilman Brandon Ellington is making a push to defund Aim4Peace, a crime prevention program lauded by local health officials. The program, which has been around since 2008, uses so-called "violence interrupters" to canvass high-crime communities and sends its workers to hospitals following non-fatal shootings to provide immediate interventions to people who have been involved in a shooting.
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - The US embassy in Libya said here Thursday "the United-States reaffirm their support for a global and credible electoral process" in Libya, a statement issued by the mission said
A report published today by a member of the International Observatory of Violence in Schools shows how despite high fees, private schools are failing to protect their students from serious bullying and cyberbullying.

A leading expert has expressed concerns that schools often prioritise their reputations by punishing victims who speak out, leaving bullies to feel validated in their actions.

Institut Le Rosey  the most expensive school in the world  is the subject of a high-profile court case in Switzerland over its failure to protect a student.

GENEVA, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dr Eric Debarbieux, Professor Emeritus University of Paris-Est and a member of the International Observatory of Violence in Schools, has warned that some private schools are failing to protect their students from bullying and uphold values of tolerance and respect.

Dr Eric Debarbieux has discussed how some schools are failing to adequately train their staff, resulting in serious bullying incidences being missed or trivialised. Victims are not taken seriously or, even worse, are punished for speaking out: the so-called double punishment.

He has subsequently called upon schools to ensure that all employees understand their duty to protect and care for students, and should be trained in how to handle serious incidences of bullying.

He has stated this is often the case in the most prestigious institutions, who are often primarily concerned with the schools reputation, and therefore the denial of harassment is strongest.

In particular, Dr Debarbieux discusses one example of this at Institut Le Rosey  the worlds most expensive school.1 Due to an alleged failure of action by the school, Radhika and Pankaj Oswal, the parents of one student, were left with no choice but to take legal action in Switzerland against the school.

Following claims of serious bullying incidents against their child, the parents raised their concerns to teachers at the school and asked that action be taken to ensure their childs safety.

Story continues

However, apparently no action was taken and staff members sought to downplay the whole issue. Commenting on the case  and providing the facts happened as presented  Dr Debarbieux noted that staff at Le Rosey did not take this issue as seriously as it should have been, causing further problems in this case.

Le Rosey showed no willingness to acknowledge there was an issue, and instead cancelled the re-enrolment of the child, without proper justification.2 The school has refused to apologise, according to the family, very recently dismissing the bullying as a banal short dispute between teenagers.

The expert has explained how this is a clear case of double punishment, in which the victim is not only punished by their bullies, but also by the people who are supposed to protect them  in this case the schools staff.

Dr Eric Debarbieux said:

Based on the facts presented to me, Le Rosey should have taken the matter more seriously, which could have avoided the continued harassment of the student. Any action taken in these cases should always seek to listen to and protect the victim. Unfortunately, instead victims can be punished by the school  allowing bullies to feel validated in their actions.

The report calls for private schools to set up clear prevention policies, to ensure there is a safe process for victims to raise any concerns and ensure that they are listened to and taken seriously. It states that this should also include adequate training for staff on how to handle school harassment and cyberbullying.

The parents of the student involved, Radhika and Pankaj Oswal, said:

Dr Debarbieux has shown how schools such as Le Rosey are failing in their responsibility towards the welfare of a child. Schools such as Le Rosey should use their resources to lead the way in creating effective policies to protect students. Unfortunately, that has not been the case.

We are pleased that he chose to look at our daughters case. Comments such as these should be used constructively to make such schools reflect on what a world-class education really looks like and take action to provide adequate training for staff, rather than serving as a playground for the super-rich.

Our daughter is adamant that this unhappy period in her life should be turned into a force for good. We hope to use this moment to build a positive legacy that will ensure that this doesnt happen to any more students in our daughters position.

Dr. Eric Debarbieux, Professor Emeritus University of Paris-Est, Member of the International Observatory of Violence in Schools.

debarbieux.antibullyingreport@gmail.com

Notes to editors

Eric Debarbieux is Professor Emeritus in Education sciences at the university Paris Est Creteil (France). He is an international expert on the topic of violence and bullying in schools. He previously oversaw public policy against school bullying and violence at the Ministry of Education in France. He was the co-founder of the International Observatory of Violence in Schools. Dr Debarbieux authored 11 books on violence in schools, bullying and school climate.

Pankaj and Radhika Oswal are a successful Indian national family residing in Switzerland. The family have numerous business interests across the globe. The case was filed with the Swiss courts on 30 September 2019.

_________________________

1 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8281345/Billionaire-parents-sue-worlds-expensive-school-claims-daughter-bullied.html

2 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/scandal-at-the-school-for-the-super-rich-r60z5x0vk




22.07.2020 LISTEN

Media personality and social media commentator popularly known as Ola Michael has brutally blasted Stonebwoy for releasing what he described as "stupid song."

According to Ola Michael, Stonebwoy has disappointed his core fans and music lovers because they never expected such trashy song from him.

As suggested by Ola Michael, Putuu by Stonebwoy can cause noise pollution because its senseless and full of noise.

Putuu is Stonebwoys second music single released in 2020.

The Tongues song is currently trending on the Ghanaian internet community and additionally topping recognized music charts .
TEL AVIV, Israel, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Vulcan Cyber, the vulnerability remediation company, today announced the release of a new eBook titled, "The Vulnerability Remediation Maturity Model." The eBook provides security and IT operations teams with a blueprint for transforming inefficient vulnerability management programs into agile, effective vulnerability remediation programs that scale to the needs of the business. The eBook is available for download here .

The Vulnerability Remediation Maturity Model

"Most vulnerability management programs are paper tigers -- they generate a mountain of data and work but have negligible benefit to enterprise security," said Yaniv Bar-Dayan, co-founder and CEO of Vulcan Cyber. "We created the vulnerability remediation maturity model after consulting with hundreds of CISOs, security and IT professionals to understand shortcomings in vulnerability management programs. The model helps companies design outcome-driven vulnerability remediation programs through a unique approach to people, process and tool alignment. We've seen it help companies like Snowflake, Comcast and Informatica get fix done."

The vulnerability remediation maturity model, combined with the Vulcan vulnerability remediation orchestration platform, is also used by managed security providers (MSPs) and consultancies to help teams improve vulnerability management program results.

"We provide managed detection and response services for a wide array of companies, and outcome-driven vulnerability management is a substantial pain point for our customers," said Cecil Pineda, Senior Director at Critical Start and former CISO of the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. "The Vulcan maturity model creates clarity and focus for vulnerability management programs while defining the best path to vulnerability remediation results. We applaud this initiative as we work with Vulcan Cyber to help our customers transition from simply managing vulnerabilities to actually remediating them."

The Vulcan Cyber eBook establishes the first vulnerability management maturity model to advance beyond simple vulnerability scanning or prioritization. Consisting of four stages, or maturity levels, it defines a results-based framework for driving vulnerability management programs to a transformative state of cyber hygiene control. This model is laser focused on end-to-end vulnerability remediation.

The four stages of The Vulnerability Remediation Maturity Model include:

Stage 1 - Reactive: Most enterprises find themselves at this maturity level, where vulnerability management programs are tactical, reactive, siloed and most often do not deliver remediation.

Stage 2 - Data-driven vulnerability management: The enterprise security team and its allies have learned to normalize diverse scanner outputs and enrich them with other data streams in order to derive prioritized, actionable vulnerability insights. The security team's data-driven, strategic vulnerability decisions are now based on a real-time understanding of asset status and criticality, compliance requirements, and threat intelligence.

Stage 3 - Orchestrated vulnerability remediation: All vulnerability remediation program stakeholders (security, IT operations, engineering, business unit owners) break down existing silos. Their processes and practices become visible and their separate tech stacks are integrated so that they can collaborate across fluid, optimized, and automated remediation workflows.

Stage 4 - Transformative cyber hygiene: Transformative vulnerability remediation unites multiple cross-functional teams in a distributed framework in which vulnerability remediation is a democratized process. While security teams are ultimately accountable for vulnerability elimination, key stakeholders across teams are given the tools, remedies and intelligent insight they need to make decisions and take action to achieve cyber hygiene.

Learn more

Download The Vulnerability Remediation Maturity Model eBook here . Or to learn about the maturity model in action attend a Vulcan Cyber webinar with cyber security professionals from Bank of America and Snowflake.

About Vulcan Cyber

Vulcan Cyber has developed the industry's first vulnerability remediation platform, built to help cybersecurity and IT operations teams collaboratively secure digital business. The Vulcan SaaS platform closes the gap between detection and remediation to reduce vulnerability dwell time and associated business risk. Vulcan Cyber orchestrates the full remediation lifecycle from identifying and prioritizing vulnerabilities to curating and delivering the best remedies, to automating processes and fixes through the last mile of remediation. It's unique ability to "get fix done" has garnered Vulcan Cyber recognition as a 2019 Gartner Cool Vendor and an RSAC Innovation Sandbox 2020 finalist. Based in Tel Aviv and San Francisco, Vulcan Cyber is privately funded by cybersecurity specialists YL Ventures and TenEleven Ventures. For more information please visit https://vulcan.io .

Contact:

Elizabeth Safran

408-348-1214

[email protected]

SOURCE Vulcan Cyber

Related Links

https://vulcan.io/


Probes will look into allegations of excessive use of force by federal agents in Portland, Oregon and Washington, DC.

The United States Justice Departments internal watchdog launched probes on Thursday into the use of force by federal agents in Portland, Oregon and Washington, DC during recent protests against police violence.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz said his office would launch an investigation into allegations that federal agents used excessive force against peaceful protesters in Portland and a separate review into actions taken against protesters both in Portland and in Lafayette Square near the White House on June 1.

Democratic legislators have asked for such an investigation about concerns Attorney General William Barr and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf were using federal agents to suppress First Amendment-protected activities. The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects the right to assemble peacefully.

The White House did not immediately comment on the announcement.

The review will look specifically at whether officers involved had proper identification and if they complied with federal policies on using force in law enforcement, Horowitz said in a statement.

President Donald Trump has been stepping up the use of federal officers to respond to a wave of protests across the United States sparked by the death in May of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.

Trump, who is seeking re-election in November, has targeted Democratic-run cities, provoking criticism that he is using law enforcement resources for political ends.





Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler was stung by tear gas early on Thursday morning after joining demonstrators, who have been protesting for nearly two months against racial injustice and police brutality.

Security forces have frequently tear-gassed and clubbed demonstrators during the unrest and Wheeler, visiting the protest site outside the federal courthouse in downtown Portland, urged that federal agents be withdrawn from the city.

But Wheeler, who is also the citys police commissioner, was jeered by demonstrators, who called on him to resign and chanted, Shame on You. Some said he should have done more to protect Portlands citizens.

The deployment of federal agents in Portland on July 4 is a flashpoint in a national debate over civil liberties that has roiled the US since Floyds death on May 25.

US Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security, has come under fire after videos surfaced online that appeared to show camouflaged officers in Portland carrying guns without clear insignia on their uniforms identifying them as legitimate law enforcement officers.

While both inquiries announced on Thursday by Horowitz involve looking at the use of force by federal law enforcement, they could lead to vastly different outcomes.

The investigation into the actions in Portland could potentially lead to a referral for criminal charges or disciplinary actions.

The reviews in both Washington and Portland are designed to assist department managers by providing recommendations to improve government operations and protocols going forward and to help learn from past mistakes.

The federal police response to the ongoing protests against racial inequality has been criticised by city and state elected officials [Nathan Howard/Getty Images/AFP]

Horowitz said he would be coordinating with the internal Homeland Security watchdog in his investigation into excessive force in Portland, a probe that was requested by the US attorney for the District of Oregon in addition to House Democrats.

The Inspector Generals Office for the Department of the Interior will be coordinating the review into the actions in Washington.

The White House did not immediately comment on the announcement, and representatives for the Justice Department and US Park Police, part of the Department of the Interior, could not be immediately reached.

A spokesman for the Federal Protective Service, part of DHS, declined to comment on a pending investigation. A spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons, which had staff at the Lafayette Square incident, declined comment.
23.07.2020 LISTEN

Cash is king! This quote is facing a serious threat as the world is making headway towards becoming a cashless economy. The increasing digitization of global payments required that Ghana aligned its payment system with global developments to facilitate secure deployment and adoption of digital payments.

The payment system in Ghana has been predominantly cash-based. With the rapid growth in digitalization, electronic payment systems have rapidly sprung up as a means of business transaction in Ghana in recent times, most institutions such as banks and insurance companies are making good use of this technology.

This is good for the economy, as it will improve productivity and facilitate a reduction in some of the longstanding inequities of a geographical nature within the population. The Bank of Ghana has introduced a number of reforms such as the launch of Universal QR code payment solution to expand the services in the payments system with the aim of achieving universal access to financial services.

The graph below shows some cashless transactions in Ghana

Data from the Bank of Ghana Payment Systems Oversight Annual Report, 2018

The upward trend clearly suggests that Ghana has made headway to become a cashless economy. However, Ghanaians have many questions in their mind like what exactly is a cashless economy? What are the different modes of cashless payments and its benefits in Ghana?

A Cashless Economy is a state where all the financial transactions are exchanged only in electronic digital form rather than physical banknotes or coins. History has made it clear to us that cashless transaction existed from the very day human beings came into existence. The barter system of trade existed when there were no cash. In Ghanas economy, cashless payments are made with debit cards, mobile wallet apps, internet banking, etc.

Different modes of cashless payment in Ghana

Mobile Wallet apps; these are mobile applications which allow the user to send, receive, and save money in your wallet. According to the Summary of Economic and Financial Data published by the Bank of Ghana in May 2020, the total value of mobile money transaction has increased from GH23.4billion recorded in March 2019 to GH33.8billion within the same period in 2020.

World Health Organization reported that exchanging of physical cash increases the risk to contracting the Covid-19 virus. This prompted the Bank of Ghana to cancel charges on mobile money transfers not exceeding GH100 and also to raise transaction limits with the aim of attracting people to adopt mobile money payment over cash. Furthermore, mobile money users can pay various utility bills like water and electricity bills and airtime recharge directly from the mobile money platform.

Universal Quick Response (QR) Code; its a two-dimensional code that has a pattern of black squares which are arranged on a square grid. Ghana became the first African country to have introduced a universal QR code after the Central Bank of Ghana launched it with HPS. The harmonization of QR codes on a national level means Ghanaians can make payments to merchants from multiple funding sources like mobile wallets, cards or bank accounts.

In Ghana, both the smart and non-smart phones users can make payment through this QR codes. Merchants can also receive payments instantly, either via a static or via a dynamic QR code.

Electronic Banking; E-banking has brought about a revolution in the functioning of banks in Ghana as it offers major opportunities to banks and their customers. This has made the transition to electronic banking a necessity for banks in order to be viable. Ghana has made progress in the adoption of electronic banking. According to the Payment Systems Oversight Annual Report 2018, the total value of Internet Banking transaction has increased from GH2,286,702,322 recorded in 2015 to GH6,267,223,830 in 2018.

Point of Sales (POS) Terminals and Banking cards; A Point of Sales (POS) Terminal is a portable machine used to accept bank cards of payments for goods and services. It allows you, as a cardholder, to have real-time online access to funds and information in your bank account through debit cards. However, the scope of Point of Sales (POS) is expanding as these services are now available on various mobile platforms via the internet. There are many reputed names like MasterCard and Visa when it comes to banking cards in Ghana.

Benefits of a cashless Payment

Its an efficient tool to fight corruption; according to Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the country loses close to $3billion to corruption annually. This is where cashless payments play a crucial role. Cashless payments can become one of the greatest means to fight corruption and organized crime in Ghana. If all the people were connected via end-to-end payment infrastructure that makes a cashless environment, then there would be complete transparency in the flow of money.

Reduced costs and business risks; cashless payments eliminate several business risks at a time such as theft of cash by employees, counterfeit money, and robbery of cash. Moreover, it also reduces the costs of security, withdrawing cash from banks, transporting, and counting.

Transaction speed; making cash payments is time-consuming for customers as well as the merchant or employee. Thats the reason why many businesses have decided to go cashless so that they can leverage faster transactions and increased efficiency. Some Retail shops in Ghana have decided to receive cashless payment and found out that it resulted in faster transactions, lower waiting times, and reduced end-of-day reconciliation time. Faster transactions also led to enhanced customer satisfaction, increased revenue, and fewer errors.

Conclusion; Ghanas fully cashless economy appears to be a mirage. But with major reforms by the government and the Central Bank involving new ideas and constant expansion in existing technologies, there might be faster, more transparent and secure cashless payments in the near future. But only time will tell when Ghana will truly become a cashless economy.

Authors;

Edmund Obeng Amaning is a researcher/consultant. His research interest includes Finance and Monetary economics, Public finance and Energy. Contact: [email protected]

Cell: +233 54 347 5499

Justice Ohemeng-Boakye is a banker with a strong knowledge in Clients and E-banking services. He is a researcher and holds a Masters degree in Economics. Contact: [email protected]

Cell: +233 24 519 2745.
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Linkedin Patrick Galey (Agence France-Presse) Paris, France  Thu, July 23, 2020 09:10 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668a7344 2 Environment Europe,environment,flood,environmental-issues,climate-change Free

Europe has been struck by more frequent and widespread flooding in recent decades than at any other time in the past 500 years, according to a sweeping analysis of the continent's flood history released Wednesday.

A pan-European team of researchers spent more than eight years poring over nearly 10,000 records of flood events stretching back to 1500.

They found that not only have the last 30 years witnessed more frequent and stronger flood events than at any other time, but the flooding was happening amid hotter temperatures than the historic average.

Authors of the research said it could help governments save billions on flood recovery and reconstruction.

"For flood forecasts of the next decades it is important to understand whether we are now in a completely new situation or whether this is just a repetition of something that has already occurred," said lead author Guenter Bloeschl, from the Vienna University of Technology.

"We found the former is the case, thus we need to make sure that the required safety margins are kept that may be bigger than what we thought before," he told AFP.

Global temperatures have already risen more than 1 degree Celsius since pre-industrial times, speeding up the water cycle and increasing the frequency and strength of flood events.

But extreme flooding is normally localized, making it difficult to draw conclusions as to how closely the phenomenon is influenced by rising temperatures.

The team identified nine periods across half a millennium where flooding was more common than average.

Whereas previous flood-rich periods tended to be colder than the intervening years, the most recent -- 1900-2016 -- was roughly 1.4C warmer.

The team noted in particular an increase in summer flooding during these years.

Writing in a linked comment piece, Francis Ludlow, assistant professor of medieval environmental history at Trinity College, Dublin, called the research "a major contribution to our understanding of European flood history".

Around 0.03 percent of the European population are thought to have been impacted each year by flooding between 1870-2016 -- representing an annual average cost of close to 1 percent of the continent's GDP.

"Increased flood hazards are widely expected in the future for a substantial area of Europe as a result of climate change, and so, without effective management and adaptation, these losses will potentially be even greater," said Ludlow.
The launch squeaks ahead of a planned U.S. mission to Mars next week, with both nations aiming to put rovers on the Red Planet. If both are successful, it will be Chinas first rover to touch Martian soil and the first U.S. rover launch in nearly nine years.
Shares is the leading weekly publication for retail investors. It is packed with investment ideas, news and educational material to help build and run portfolios and get more from your money.

Shares puts on free Investor Events throughout the year across the country. They provide an opportunity for investors to learn more about companies on the stock market and hear from a range of investment experts including fund managers and Shares journalists.
Xtalks Life Science Webinars

Join Zack Schmidt, CEO of SureClinical and Chet Ensign, Chief Technical Community Steward at OASIS in a live webinar on Thursday, August 13, 2020 at 12pm EDT (5pm BST/UK).

Digital transformation is well underway in clinical trial management as most Sponsors and CROs are moving towards electronic Trial Master Files (eTMF) and other digital solutions to manage their trials. But, there is a learning curve to ensure the most efficiency and power out of an eTMF, and it starts with a good filing structure. This webinar will explore best practices for developing an eTMF filing structure and provide practical advice on best practices to follow when developing one.

In this webinar viewers will learn:



Why standards are important to enable eTMF interoperability

How standards makes it possible to consistently and seamlessly share data with partners, vendors, Sponsors and CROs

Difference between standards and models

TMF structures and agency requirements

How an electronic filing structure differs from a paper filing plan

Introduction to eTMF content tagging using standards-based terms based on standards body definitions by NCI, FDA, HL7 and CDISC and others

This is the first of 2 webinars for eTMF best practices and standards (with the second targeted for October). Participants in both series will receive an eTMF Best Practices certificate.

Next webinar:

How to classify, structure and tag eTMF content using standards-based terms based on standards body definitions by NCI, FDA, HL7 and CDISC and others.

How to use a metadata/tagging-driven approach to simplify the eTMF hierarchy to save time and create powerful search mechanisms

Ways to allow organization-specific eTMF tags based on standards

Synonyms: If you like ther terms, how to keep them

Questions to ask when evaluating an eTMF vendor

For more information or to register for this event, visit Best Practices for Developing Your eTMF Filing Structure.

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On Wednesday, presidential candidate Joe Biden called United States President Donald Trump, the first racist elected president in what is considered to be his sharpest attack of the Republican since their race.

US Presidential war

Biden said the statement during a roundtable discussion that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) attended. The Democrat stated that Trump was engaged in the spread of racism in dealing with the citizens and criticized them by their skin color and national origin and said they were disgusting.

According to Fox News, Biden continued to note that no elected president has ever done what Trump managed to accomplish. The Democrat stressed that history had seen racists, some of which have tried to become US president and said Trump was the first successful one.

Since the beginning of his campaign, the former vice president has targeted Trump for his racism. In April of last year in a video where he announced his candidacy, Biden focused on Trump's response to the 2017 violent white supremacist rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Biden cited the US president's comments, including the one where the Republican said that there were fine people on both sides of the rally. The former vice president said those words marked a moral equivalence between the people who were fighting for and against hate.

Historically, however, there have been several leaders who were openly racist, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and several others. In 2017, the History Channel wrote 12 former US presidents owned slaves, eight of which while in office, according to Business Insider.

Also Read: Trump Pleads People to Wear a Mask, Says Coronavirus Pandemic Will 'Get Worse'

The presidential candidate stated it was the moment he knew the threat eyeing the country was unlike any he has ever seen before in his life.

Biden called Trump's tweets completely racist as he was condemning the Republican's previous posts of ordering the four freshmen progressive congresswoman of color who were collectively known as "The Squad" to go back to their countries which he called "corrupt" last month.

Additionally, last month, Biden noted Trump's racist attacks amid the coronavirus pandemic at an Asian American and Pacific Islander town hall. The Republican president has continued to dub the COVID-19 as the "China virus" or the "kung flu," as reported by Politico.

Rebuking the claims

Biden has frequently called on Trump's racist methods and statements. The Republican had occasionally come under fire of widespread criticism for his words, including when he called populations that had black majority as "shit-hole countries," while also denying travel access to multiple Muslim-majority countries.

Fueling the flames, Trump frequently gave nicknames to his Democratic oppositions, including Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, who he called "Pocahontas."

On the other hand, the White House has denied the allegations that Trump was a racist. In a Wednesday briefing, the Republican president replied to Biden's comments by saying he is the first United States president to have done plenty to support Blacks, Latinos, and Asians in history.

Trump also stressed that he had done so much more for the black community than anyone ever has, citing Abraham Lincoln as a possible exception to the statement. The Republican president also noted nobody had come close to the support he has given.

Related Article: Trump Proposes Exclusion of Unauthorized Immigrants From Apportioning Process of Congressional Seats

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Chandigarh Punjab advocate general Atul Nanda has said that civic body polls in the state can be held in October. Legally, there is no problem in holding polls as per the likely schedule discussed at the level of CM, said Nanda, adding that he had given his advisory to the local bodies department.

The elections are running a bit behind schedule due to the lockdown and movement restrictions in place due to the covid-19 pandemic. Last week, Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh after a video conference meeting with cabinet colleagues, including the local bodies minister Brahm Mohindra, announced that the polls would likely be conducted in October second week. Subsequently, the local bodies department had sought legal opinion.

The terms of nine municipal corporations and 117 municipal councils and notified area committees in Punjab came to an end between March 8 and April 26 this year, and as per the provisions of the Municipal Act, 1911, the polls should take place within six months, so all these civic bodies should go to the polls between September 7 and October 25, depending on the end of their terms. Currently, government- appointed administrators are running these civic bodies.

POLLS NEED LOT OF GROUND WORK, MOHINDRA

Mohindra added that before going into polls, lot of preparation needed to be done. We will make a formal announcement in a few days. We have to take our MLAs into confidence, make sure that delimitation within wards is done, the population variation is settled as within a municipal area the population keeps shifting. These are time consuming and laborious matters, he added.

He adds that his department would complete all work related to `wardbandi (delimitation of wards) by the end of the month. The polls would have 50% reservation for women, in line with the state governments policy, said Mohindra, adding that his department would be fully ready well in time for the polls.

NOT A GOOD DECISION: SUKHBIR

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal said the intentions of the state government were not good with their plans of holding the civic body elections in October

The government has imposed ban on public movement and yet plans to hold polls. I am sure they would not let our workers venture out and would rig the polls to ensure they win a majority in the civic bodies, added the former deputy CM, demanding that poll dates be announced, after taking all parties into confidence.

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The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to stop a verdict on a petition filed by 19 rebel Congress MLAs from Rajasthan challenging their disqualification notices. Rajasthan Assembly Speaker, Dr CP Joshi, who served the notices last week, argued that the rebels cannot petition the High Court before any action.

Senior Congress leader and lawyer, Kapil Sibal, who appeared on behalf of Rajasthan Assembly speaker CP Joshi, told the top court that courts could intervene only when the Speaker takes a decision to either suspend or disqualify a member of the House. Rajasthan High Court might announce its verdict on Friday but will be subjected to the final order of the apex court.

Here's a lowdown on top 10 developments so far in this story:

Voice of dissent in a democracy cannot be shut down, Justice AK Mishra argued while questioning the Rajasthan Assembly speaker Dr CP Joshi on the reasons behind disqualification proceedings against 19 defiant Congress MLAs, including sacked Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister and State Congress Chief, Sachin Pilot.

The Supreme Court asked Kapil Sibal, "It is the matter of just one day, why can't you wait?" The apex court told Sibal to be patient as this is a lengthy matter and people involved are democratically elected representatives. Sibal also asked HC to quash the HC order, but the top court stated that the order needs to be examined.

Supreme Court will give the final verdict on this matter on Monday, i.e., July 26. The Supreme Court has allowed the Rajasthan High Court to deliver its verdict but that will be subject to the final order of the top court.

Speaker CP Joshi had served notices to 19 diffident MLAs, including sacked Rajasthan Deputy CM, Sachin Pilot after they failed to attend two meetings of Congress MLAs chaired by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.

Rebel Congress leaders argue that they don't want to leave the party and only want a change in old leadership. As a rejoinder, Kapil Sibal stated that their act of not participating in the meetings meant giving up the party membership.

Assembly speaker Dr CP Joshi cannot take any call on the disqualification proceedings against the MLAs till the Supreme Court delivers its final verdict.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing on behalf of the Sachin Pilot camp, argued that Speaker Joshi had himself postponed the proceedings twice in the past. Further tearing into Rajasthan Assembly Speaker's arguments, Salve argued that issues of jurisdiction and maintainability have been argued before the High Court.

Rajasthan Assembly Speaker's unexpected move to seek the Supreme Court's intervention is a clear reflection of the Congress' worry that a favorable verdict for the rebels may jeopardize its own government in the state.

The Chief Minister accused his deputy, Sachin Pilot of conspiring with the Bharatiya Janata Party to bring his government down similar to what Jyotiraditya Scindia did to the Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Ashok Gehlot wrote, "At a time when our priority should be to save lives and livelihoods of the masses, the Centre has become the main conspirator in toppling a state government."

Also read: Rajasthan political crisis: Sachin Pilot should not go Scindia way, has future in party, says Digvijaya Singh
New York: Ghislaine Maxwell's only official account of her alleged role in a sex-trafficking operation run by associate Jeffrey Epstein is set to be made public in the coming days, after a judge on Thursday ruled potentially damaging files could be unsealed.

It is expected the files will expose fresh details about 58-year-old Maxwell's sex life, as well as her relation to powerful figures accused of taking part in the abuse of the late financier's victims.

Details of Ghislaine Maxwell's life are set to be revealed after a court decision. Credit:Getty Images

Maxwell's lawyers had previously claimed that information contained in the 80 documents and hundreds of pages would cause "embarrassment" as they fought to keep them secret.

The documents were part of Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre's defamation lawsuit against Maxwell, which was brought in 2015 and confidentially settled in 2017.
The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), has arrested 62 foreigners for entering the country illegally though unapproved routes in separate operations, in the Upper West and Western Regions.



According to the GIS, 28 nationals of Burkina Faso, who entered the country through unapproved routes at Hamile in the Upper West, were arrested.



However, 34 foreigners, mostly Ivorians, who were apprehended for entering the country through Half Assini, in the Western Region, were repatriated to their country.



Upper East Regional Regional Public Relations Officer for the GIS, Immigration Control Officer (ICO) Ibn Yussif Duranah Abdul-Mumin Seidu, said the migrants were arrested at an unapproved route around the main Ghana-Burkina border at Hamile in a passenger bus with registration number GN 2220-10.



ICO Seidu said preliminary investigation revealed that the illegal migrants were travelling to Kumasi in the Ashanti Region for various economic activities.



The migrants have since been handed over to authorities in Burkina Faso after a thorough screening was conducted at the Hamile border by health personnel at post, he stated.



ICO Seidu cautioned residents living along the border to avoid aiding foreigners to enter the country illegally, saying the service would deal with such persons if caught.



He said GIS would step up patrols and monitoring of the countrys borders, to ensure that the Presidents directive on the closure of the borders was strictly enforced.



The GIS said the 34 foreigners, were apprehended at the Anomatoape Inland Immigration Checkpoint of the Half Assini Sector Command, entered the country illegally with the intention of taking part in the ongoing voter registration exercise.



A statement issued by the Head of Public Affairs of GIS, Superintendent Michael Amoako-Attain, in Accra, said, Although the call for proof of identity of travelers by the Immigration officer may be inappropriate, the circumstances at the time necessitated it, and it was done in the interest of national security.



Apparently, the immigrants had been refused by the people of Newtown to register there because they claim they were not indigenes of the place and thus were on their way to Half Assini, the GIS said.



The GIS wishes to assure the public that it remains vigilant at the frontiers of the country and will endeavor to exhibit healthy doses of professionalism in the course of managing migration in the country and contributing to national security, it said.



Ghana closed its sea, land and air borders on March 22, 2020, as part of efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

Source: The Ghanaian Times









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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A 40-year-old man was tied to a pick-up truck and beaten up by a mob for allegedly stealing garlic from a vegetable market in Ratlam district, 291 km west of Bhopal on Wednesday, police said.

The man was identified as Kadar Hussain, a resident of Jaora town, about 40 kilometres from Ratlam district headquarters. He is already facing two theft cases lodged earlier, police said.

A video of the brutal beating went viral on social media on Thursday prompting the police to conduct an inquiry into it but by then Kadar had been booked under the Arms Act and sent to jail.

In the three-minute video clip Hussains hands are seen tied behind a pick-up truck and people beating him up with sticks. Those beating him are heard asking him to confess that he had stolen garlic from the market.

City superintendent of police (CSP) of Jaora P S Ranawat said, A group of people handed over Kadar Hussain to Jaora police station. They had also recovered a knife from his. After an inquiry he was arrested under section 25 of the Arms Act. Later, he was sent to jail.

Ranawat said, Since the video has come to light now I have asked Jaora police station to identify the people who beat him up. We will take action according to findings in the probe.

This is the second incident within a week in Madhya Pradesh in which people have taken the law in their hands and beat up an alleged thief in public.

Last week, a 30-year-old man was mercilessly beaten in Guna for allegedly trying to steal a pesticide packet. Later, police had registered a case against eight people who allegedly beat the man.
By Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi

ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss lender EFG International <EFGN.S> saw half-year results dampened by a settlement with Italian tax authorities related to former rival BSI Group's business.

EFG purchased BSI from Brazil's BTG Pactual <BPAC3.SA> in 2016, a deal complicated by BSI's legal troubles including links to scandal-hit Malaysian state fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), which resulted in significant client withdrawals.

EFG on Wednesday said it had set aside 9.9 million Swiss francs (8.35 million pounds) for a settlement with Italian tax authorities over former BSI clients resident in Italy, adding the agreement related to BSI's activities prior to its purchase by EFG.

Italy's tax authorities have been looking for information on Swiss banks, encouraged by a 4.5 billion euro ($5.19 billion) tax case against UBS in France and a ruling by Switzerland's highest court last year paving the way for historical client data to be handed to tax authorities.

EFG said it had reached a civil settlement with Italy's tax authority in June after the tax watchdog requested information related to the bank's activities with Italian clients between 2012 and 2017.

It said the matter also involved payments to resolve any criminal charges.

"To the extent this settlement relates to BSI, which did more business with Italian resident clients than the other Group entities, the seller of BSI has accepted responsibility to reimburse amounts related to BSI's former Italian business," it said, adding the matter was likely to be resolved within a year.

Results overall included liabilities of 26.4 million Swiss francs in amounts payable to Italian tax authorities related to BSI Group.

The wealth manager said net profit rose more than 10% in the half-year to 34.8 million francs, with the bank bringing in 4.2 billion francs in net new assets during the period.

(Reporting by Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi; Editing by Michael Shields)
Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, and their one-year-old son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor are said to be at risk in Los Angeles following their royal exit in March.

But why are Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their baby now even more at risk now?

According to Governor Gavin Newsom, California now has 413,576 confirmed cases, topping the 408,886 in New York State as of Wednesday.

That same day, 12,807 new cases were reported in California alone, which is now considered the biggest single-day increase in the US's history since the pandemic started.

Which means that California is now the epicenter of the coronavirus.

It's not like it wasn't expected since California is the most populous state in the entire US, which is as twice as many residents as the New York state.

In a report by the Sacramento Bee, one in 96 state residents have or have had the COVID-19.

In California, residents were advised to stay indoors as much as they can since March, with state health orders shutting down all but essential businesses like supermarkets.

Back in May and June, the state has reopened much of its business operations, which allowed the residents to start shopping and eat outside.

However, Governor Newsom reverted his initial plan of reopening some parts of the state.

Some indoor venues will remain close such as restaurants, bars, movie theaters, museums, and zoos.

During their time in the US, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have been mostly isolating but have been spotted outside on numerous occasions.

Recently, the 38-year-old mom and the 35-year-old dad were seen visiting Homebody Industries in Los Angeles.

It is a foundation that is working to improve the lives of people formerly incarcerated and involved with gangs.

The Sussexes wore their face masks while working in the bakery and the cafe of the organization as they were also preparing food for vulnerable people in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

In the area where Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are staying in Los Angeles County, it has been reported that younger people are the cause of the coronavirus's spread.

According to reports, more than half of the US's new cases came from people under the age of 41.

The county's death toll was at 4,154, with positive cases topping 161,670.

Maybe these numbers would make Meghan Markle change her birthday plans.

As per The Daily Mail, the almost 40-year-old former actress told her friends that she and her husband are feeling "cooped up" and wanted to celebrate her birthday in Montecito with some of her closest friends.

They also said that she would have these friends get tested for the coronavirus before they could come with her.

An insider told the British tabloid, "Whatever she ends up doing for her birthday, Meghan said it would be low-key."

They further continued, "She said she doesn't want to come across as careless and irresponsible."

As for her birthday celebrations in the UK, it has been reported that the Westminster Abbey would not ring its bells on August 4 as the bells are usually rung on the birthdays of senior members of the royal family.

READ MORE: Meghan Markle, Prince Harry Nearing Breaking Point, Escaping to The Bahamas
Vietnam has a great opportunity to receive new FDI, but it has been warned of the the other side of the coin.

According to the General Statistics Office (GSO), foreign investors registered $15.7 billion of FDI in the first six months of the year, a 15.1 percent decrease compared with the same period last year.

As many as 1,418 new investment projects were licensed with total registered capital of $8.5 billion.



This included $8.5 billion worth of 1,418 newly registered projects, which represented a decrease of 17.7 percent in number of projects and the increase of 13.8 percent in registered capital.

Singapore was the biggest investor with $4.3 billion worth of investment capital, which accounted for 51.3 percent of capital of newly registered capital, followed by China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Singapore was the biggest investor with $4.3 billion worth of investment capital, which accounted for 51.3 percent of capital of newly registered capital, followed by China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.



According to Pham Dinh Thuy from GSO, the first signs of the tendency of relocating FDI to East Asia and Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, were seen in 2018.



He agrees with analysts that Vietnam can receive investment benefits from the US-China trade war and Covid-19, but it will still need time to observe and analyze statistics to assess the movement.



Foreign invested enterprises (FIEs) receive big benefits from Vietnams policies which allow them to enjoy low taxes and access land and human resources at low costs.



However, other regional countries also have advantages like Vietnams, including Indonesia, India and Thailand. Foreign investors have a large choice of which countries to set their factories.



It is not simple to relocate investment from one country to another. Investors will have to thoroughly consider the relocation costs and incentives offered by countries where they plan to move, Thuy said.



An analyst said it takes manufacturing enterprises 2-5 years to implement the relocation, because global supply chains have been fixed for many years.



Nguyen Van Toan, deputy chair of the Vietnam Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises (VAFIEs), said that Vietnam has a great opportunity to catch the FDI relocation wave, but it needs to reform to attract high-quality investments.



However, Toan said Vietnam needs to be very cautious when attracting FDI. it may happen that foreign investors declare that their machines and technologies prices are higher than the real value to avoid tax.



This is a type of transfer pricing, a fraud that all FDI attracting countries need to be vigilant about,  Toan said.



Nguyen Xuan Phu, chair of Sunhouse Groups board of management, said Vietnam at furst had to do outsourcing for foreign businesses. However, now enterprises need to upgrade, master technologies and better understand clients to build their brands and export products.

Thanh Mai

COVID-19 outbreak to accelerate relocation wave from China to Vietnam While COVID-19 will have a negative impact on Vietnam's economic growth in 2020, it will boost the relocation of manufacturing facilities from China to Vietnam.
Even as physicians and scientists try to understand the intricacies of coronavirus, a new chapter opens up about dealing with after-effects of the ailment on patients who have recovered. One major attempt to deal with the issue is by healthcare providers who are offering services specially aimed at such patients. In a week from now, Fortis hospital will be formally launching, what it calls, its "post-COVID OPD". Speaking on its need and what patients go through after recovery from COVID-19, Dr Rahul Pandit, Director-intensive care, Fortis Hospital, Mulund, Mumbai, says, "COVID is a new disease and it has only been seven months since it has been formally announced and India has been four months into it. There were a number of concerns that came to our notice in our patients after recovery and it prompted us to have a comprehensive outpatient clinic for them. Hence, this post-COVID OPD." The idea, he says, was to address the concerns comprehensively.

Mental health issues

Some of the concerns range from lingering respiratory problems to mental health issues. "There is also unfortunately a lot of sigma that has got attached to it and therefore like in times of war, some people go through a post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD," says Dr Anita Mathew, Senior Consultant, Physician & Infectious Disease Specialist, also at Fortis along with Dr Pandit. The mental health issues and depression in some cases is also because some may be having a family member infected by the virus or perhaps have lost a family member.

Tweaking required in antidotes

"We know for instance, that many of these patients who have non-communicable lifestyle ailments like diabetes and blood pressure do need a little bit of tweaking of their blood pressure or diabetes medicines post infection and post recovery. But we still do not know if this is a sustained effect or if it will be seen only in the first few weeks," says Dr Pandit. "Or whether, it means a complete change in their requirement of medicines." Currently, he says, patients are coming back as routine follow up and it's also a standard practice to have patients in the hospital called back for a follow up after 7 or 8 days. "We have even had patients calling us up and talking about some lingering problems, especially fatigue," he says.

Fatigue and more

So, what are some of the commonly seen problems in the post-COVID patients? Fatigue seems to be a common theme. Most complain of unusually long fatigue after a corona illness as opposed to a common cold or common flu where you are up and about in a few days. This seems to linger along for a long time. The other is respiratory complaints in the form of nagging cough and an inability to do the same level of exercise. It's not about strenuous exercises but difficulty in climbing just two or three flight of stairs that they could have earlier done rather easily. But, an important point to remember, the doctor cautions, "is we still do not know if this is really needing more effort because their lung functions are altered or if it is just the contribution of fatigue. That is why you need to get a more comprehensive understanding and therefore objectively monitor if their lung functions have altered. There is a way to check the lung function and to study the lung capacity of a particular age and gender. It is still too early to say as we still do not have the data to give a proper assessment of how long these last."

Common symptoms

When do the symptoms start appearing? The fatigue element is there even when they get discharged. Patients typically say, "everything is good but feel a little bit tired". This is even as all the other health parameters return back to the baseline. However, in the post-COVID patients, there is a pattern to their illness. The first few days are symptomatic, some symptoms coming up like fever, body ache, sometimes even loss of smell, fatigue, pain in the lower limbs. Dr Mathew also talks of 30 year olds sometimes coming on a wheelchair, which perhaps underlines the element of fatigue, which cannot be ruled out. She says that while they are attending more to their patients who are hospitalised and have had a severe attack, it is not as if the others could be complacent. They all should not take any lingering ailment lightly and report to the doctor, she adds. Most, she says, tend to have fatigue. Each patient is different with the body reacting differently in each case. The nature of other ailments is usually linked to the severity of the attack. Though in some cases, there have been reports of children also ending up with post-COVID inflammation syndrome, which can be serious.

Day 5 to day 11

Generally, Dr Pandit says, "the breathing difficulties and other problems start after day 5 or day 6 since recovery and can happen anywhere between day 5 and day 11." Currently, they are being treated based on the past experience and knowledge gathered by the physicians like him over the past few months. Those with co-morbidity take time to recover. He also talks of, what he calls, "Clinico-radiological dissociation (which means the clinical picture of what the doctors see on examination, what they notice in the radiological reports or x-rays and the variance noticed). Radiological recovery takes more time than the clinical recovery," he says.

What not to ignore

His advice to patients who have recovered from COVID: "Do not ignore any lingering problem and make sure it is addressed as most are reversible and treatable and must have the masks on and social distancing . We do not have any immunity passport. Till we have a proper validated vaccine in place, people should use the mask vaccine and the social distancing vaccine." Dr Mathew adds another note of caution: "since the immunity level is down, it is important to take care of any secondary infection and to focus on better nutrition and to de-stress."

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Coronavirus cases in Kern County have shown a startling rise, from an average of around 150 new cases a day in mid-July to 1,120 new cases and 10 deaths on Wednesday, according to the county health department.

Prior to July 17, the single-day high was 220. Now, the largely agricultural countys total number of cases is 11,198 with 115 deaths out of a population of 900,000. San Francisco, which has around 880,000 residents, had 5,459 cases and 53 deaths as of Wednesday.

County officials attribute the rise in cases to both an increase in testing and a subsequent backlog in results. Kerns numbers illustrate how a belated push for more testing has made the spread of the virus more visible in areas not previously seen as hot spots.

Over the last several weeks, we have observed a significant increase in testing at our county and state testing sites. Some of our sites have experienced a fourfold increase that has been sustained over the last few weeks, county spokeswoman Michelle Corson said in a statement. She added that labs are experiencing shortages of testing supplies, extending the time it takes to get results to more than seven days in many cases.

Kern is now on the states monitoring list, which cites increased transmissions in skilled nursing facilities and prisons and more social gatherings as reasons for the surge, in addition to the expansion in testing.

The dramatic increase was not a surprise to public health officials, who said on July 16 that they were expecting an influx of test results.

We expect our numbers to increase, in fact, by likely several factors, Matt Constantine, director of public health services, said at a press briefing. We will announce greater numbers because of the significant influx of new tests that are being performed in the county.

As of Wednesday, almost 109,000 Kern County residents had been tested for coronavirus, about 12% of the population.

The testing push and backlog in results have been accompanied by a staffing shortage at the countys public health department.

This increased volume has overwhelmed our system and our staffing plan was not able to keep pace, Corson said. We have called more people within our department to assist us and have tripled the staffing in key areas. We spent early last week training and implementing the changes and are making significant progress.

This means that there will be a large increase in the number of positive tests being reported out for the next few weeks if not longer, she added.

The county is seeing a similar staffing shortage in hospitals, according to the Bakersfield Californian. Constantine told the Californian all six hospitals in Bakersfield, the countys largest and most populous city, had filed requests for more workers as of July 21.

We have beds. Beds isnt the problem. We can take anybody who comes in but now you have to look at staffing and make sure you have the staff to take care of them, Sharlet Briggs, CEO of Adventist Health, told the Bakersfield newspaper.

The county is seeking additional hospital workers from a regional network through the state office of emergency services, according to Constantine.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images

During the onset of the pandemic, Kern County, which includes most of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthys home district, wasnt as hard-hit as some of Californias more densely populated areas. As the pandemic wore on, the virus made its way to agricultural regions.

Residents of Kern County say that while the adoption of wearing masks was originally slow, people have been following guidelines and businesses have been enforcing mask policies as cases in California began to swell.

Ive noticed that the governors (mask) mandate may be causing a flurry of complaints and outright hostility  both online and in person  but the number of people wearing masks, often begrudgingly, has increased significantly in the past couple of weeks, said Crystal Huddleston, a long-time resident of Kern County. She said she avoids leaving home due to underlying health conditions that make her more vulnerable to the virus.

McCarthy has publicly urged his constituents to wear masks and follow health guidelines and has been photographed wearing a mask that reads God Bless America.

Every American has a responsibility. They should wear a mask, he said on CNBCs Squawk Box on June 29. In California, the governor has (told) everyone to wear a mask. So I think this is the appropriate place we should be  if you cannot social distance, you need to be wearing a mask, and you need to be respectful to one another.

Danielle Echeverria is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: danielle.echeverria@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DanielleEchev
National carrier Air India has started the process of identification for redundant or surplus employees in the company to be sent on compulsory leave without pay (LWP) for a period from six months up to five years.

Air India has constituted a committee for identification of redundant/surplus manpower resources. The Committee to submit its report to the regional directors office by 11th August for review, according to a letter accessed by ANI.

The board of the airlines has approved a scheme for sending employees on leave without pay for a time period ranging from six months to two years which can be extended up to five years. It has authorised chairman Rajiv Bansal to send employees on the leave without pay.

The airline has chosen a committee in which, General Manager (Personnel) Convener, General Manager (Finance), Member, Departmental Head, Member One representative of Regional Director (RD) to be co-opted, in case required on case merit. These four senior-level officers will decide and submit a report regarding the identification of redundant or surplus manpower resources to the AI regional director (RD) office and later Airline headquarter will take the final decision.

General Manager (Personnel) will share the staff list with all departments and convene the discussions/deliberations including the process of identification of surplus/redundant resources. The report is to be submitted to the RD office by 11 August 2020 for review and onward recommendations to headquarters, the letter said.

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By Sarah N. Lynch and Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. federal watchdogs on Thursday launched probes into the use of force by federal law enforcement agents in Portland, Oregon, and Washington, D.C., during recent protests against police violence and alleged racial bias in the justice system.

The probes address both the response by camouflage-clad federal agents to the Portland protests over the past month and a June incident when federal agents on horseback used tear gas to clear a square near the White House to allow President Donald Trump to pose for a photo holding up a Bible near historic St. John's Episcopal Church.

The inspectors general of the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security launched the probes, as officers from both departments were involved in the crackdowns.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said his office would look specifically at whether officers in Portland had proper identification and if they complied with federal policies on using force in law enforcement, in a case that could lead to criminal charges.

Trump, who is seeking re-election in November, has been stepping up the use of federal officers to respond to a wave of protests across the United States sparked by the death in May of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. He has targeted Democratic-run cities, provoking criticism that he is using law enforcement resources for political ends.

The White House did not immediately comment on the announcement.

"Unidentified forces in military fatigues using tear gas and weapons against peaceful protesters are scenes from an authoritarian crackdown, and have absolutely no place in America," Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon said.

The move followed a letter from Democratic lawmakers raising concerns that Attorney General William Barr and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf were using federal agents to suppress free assembly, which is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Story continues

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security, has come under fire after videos surfaced online that appeared to show camouflaged officers in Portland carrying guns without clear insignia on their uniforms identifying them as legitimate law enforcement officers.

Wolf has previously defended Homeland Security's actions, saying all federal agents had been making lawful arrests and properly identifying themselves as law enforcement.

"We are only targeting and arresting those who have been identified as committing crime," Wolf told a Tuesday news conference, noting that "all officers are identified as police law enforcement officers."

The inquiries could raise Trump's ire against agency watchdogs. In recent months, Trump has fired or demoted a number of inspectors general, including one who played a key role in his impeachment by the Democratic-led House of Representatives last December. Trump was later acquitted in the Republican-led Senate.

TWO-TRACK PROCESS

Horowitz said that in addition to the Portland investigation, his office would review actions taken against protesters in Portland and in Washington's Lafayette Square on June 1.

Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari opened an investigation into allegations that DHS officers on July 15 improperly detained and transported protesters in Portland, according to a letter he sent to congressional lawmakers.

A Customs spokeswoman on Thursday declined to comment on matters under investigation.

The Justice Department inquiries could lead to vastly different outcomes.

Its investigation into the actions in Portland, which was also requested by the U.S. attorney in Oregon, could lead to a referral for criminal charges or disciplinary actions.

The reviews in both Washington and Portland are designed to assist department managers by providing recommendations to improve government operations and protocols going forward and to help learn from past mistakes.

The Inspector General's Office for the Department of the Interior will be coordinating the review into the actions in Washington.

Cuffari said he was also forming a team to review whether DHS law enforcement had proper legal authority when it was dispatched to Portland.

Representatives for the Justice Department and U.S. Park Police, part of the Department of the Interior, could not be immediately reached.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball, Susan Cornwell and Steve Holland; Editing by Scott Malone, Rosalba O'Brien and Peter Cooney)
Islamabad:

Pakistan will give a befitting response to any ambitious and reckless move by its enemies, Prime Minster Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday warned as he witnessed a military exercise in a strategically located area in Punjab province, bordering India.

Exercise Raad ul Barq (Strike of Thunder) establishes that Pakistan is ready to confront any ambitious and reckless move by its enemies, Sharif said addressing a ceremony marking culmination of military exercise in Khairpur Tamewali in Bahawalpur in Punjab, amid growing Indo-Pak tension.

ALSO READ: (Pakistan can't be bullied by Indian tactics, capable of defending against any belligerence, says Nawaz Sharif)

These exercises reflect the preparedness of our armed forces to respond to any threat to national security, he said, adding that no country can remain oblivious to threats to its national security.

According to officials, the Prime Minister was the chief guest at the event which was also attended by powerful Army chief General Raheel Sharif, Chiefs of Staff Committee General Rashad Mahmoud and the three services chiefs.

JF-17 Thunder fighter jets, helicopter gunships and Al-Khalid tanks hit designated targets on the ground during the military exercise, which comes just days after seven Pakistani soldiers were killed along the LoC.

Sharif said his government is committed to following a policy of non-interference in other countries internal affairs and expects the same from others to enable lasting peace in the region, Radio Pakistan reported.

We cannot remain detached from recent developments in the region. Efforts to harm security and territorial integrity will be met with befitting response, Sharif said.

Referring to Jammu and Kashmir, he said it remains the core issue of contention between Pakistan and India.

It must be addressed in a sincere and comprehensively manner in keeping with aspirations of Kashmiri people and relevant UN resolutions, Sharif said.

ALSO READ: (Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh reviews security situation along LoC, asks troops to be alert)

The brutal tactics used to curb recent spontaneous and indigenous movements in Jammu and Kashmir have been counter-productive...Killing of civilians and soldiers along the LoC is another act of aggression that warrants international attention, he added.

The situation at the border remains sensitive due to Indias grave violation of the ceasefire agreement, he said.

It is extremely unfortunate that South Asia remains prone to confrontation and the security situation remains fragile, Sharif added.

The Prime Minister said enemies of Pakistan have made their intentions well known. He said terrorism is aimed at Pakistans destabilisation and the nation and armed forces are successfully countering their malicious designs.

Sharif said yesterday that Pakistan cannot be bullied by Indian tactics and its restraint should not be misunderstood as weakness, warning that his country was fully capable of defending against any belligerence.

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Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended criminal gang members who attempted to enter the country illegally, authorities said.

The first incident occurred late Tuesday, when agents from the Hebbronville Station apprehended an individual near Hebbronville. Authorities identified him as Jose Lutz-Lizarraga, a 58-year-old Mexican national.

Records revealed that Lutz-Lizarraga had a previous felony assault conviction with prior immigration removals. He also allegedly admitted to being a former member of the Surenos 13 gang.

A second case occurred within an hour. Agents from the Laredo South Station apprehended five people attempting to enter the country illegally near Laredo.

READ MORE: Man arrested with nearly $350K worth of narcotics at I-35

Records checks showed that one individual, Miguel Angel Macias-Gonzalez, a 30-year-old Mexican national, had a prior conviction of burglary of habitation with a prison sentence of one year. Agents also identified him as a member of the Paisas prison gang.

Lutz-Lizarraga and Macias-Gonzalez remain in federal custody for prosecution for their immigration violations.

To report suspicious activity such as human or drug smuggling, download the USBP Laredo Sector app or contact the Laredo Sector Border Patrol toll free at 1-800-343-1994.
Reverend Johnson Avuletey, the Deputy Volta Regional Minister, has asked political party leaders to provide copies of the Vigilantism Act to their members to guide them going forward into the general elections.



He said the Vigilantism and related offences ACT 999 of 2019, which disbanded all 26 vigilante groups, outlined various sanctions, including jail terms of between 10 to 15 years for people who contravened the law.



Rev Avuletey said these during the opening of a two-day advocacy workshop on "Code of Conduct and Roadmap for the Eradication of Vigilantism" in Ho.



It was organised by the Volta Regional Secretariat of National Peace Council (VRPC) and attended by political party representatives, state institutions, faith-based organisations, civil society and the media.



The workshop is aimed at addressing the thorny issue of vigilantism, which has become protracted and casting a slur on the countrys democratic image.



He said the vigilante law was more relevant in view of the 2020 election and asked political parties to make it a topical issue.



He said security agencies were appropriately positioned to deal with any act of violence from any political party or group of persons.



The Deputy Minister said only the security services were mandated by law to provide security at polling stations, when national electoral activities were being carried out.



He said citizens duty was to support the security services to perform their duties professionally to guard the peaceful conduct of the election without fear of intimidation or harm.



Rev Avuletey urged the NPC to continue to discharge its mandate and expressed the hope that the workshop would fashion a road map for the region in adhering to the provisions of ACT 999 for peaceful election.



Rev Seth Mawutor, the Chairman, VRPC said the National Peace Council was on track in executing its mandate and was not doing the bidding of any political party.



He said the NPCs did not depend on 'hear-say' in the performance of its duties but investigate issues thoroughly before taking a stance in the interest of peace and national cohesion.



Mr David Normanyo, Regional Executive-Secretary, said the Council was established by the NPC ACT 818 of 2011 and mandated to prevent, manage and resolve conflicts for sustainable peace in the country.



He said political parties should reject all forms of violence as a form of political expression and avoid over-excessively defending their members who violated laws.



He urged the Police administration to be firm to prosecute errant actors in the political fray.

Source: GNA









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(Reuters) - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday that President Donald Trump will not be sending federal law enforcement to New York City for now as the city deals with an increase in crime.

"The President and I had a good conversation. He said he would not be sending troops into New York City - he did not say, period, ad infinitum, but he said that we would talk before he did anything," Cuomo told a news briefing.

Trump had threatened earlier this week to send federal agents to several U.S. cities and on Tuesday the president said he would send federal law enforcement to Chicago to reinforce the prosecution of criminals in the city.

Cuomo said that if the president were to send federal agents to New York City the state would sue. "I believe it is blatantly unconstitutional," he said.

(This story adds dropped word in 3rd paragraph)

(Reporting by Maria Caspani, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Pakistan on Wednesday filed a petition in the Islamabad High Court seeking the appointment of a lawyer for former Indian Navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav.

The petition, filed by Pakistan Law and Justice Ministry, sought the lawyers appointment to enable Jadhav to file a review petition against his death sentence, which was awarded to him by a military court following his arrest on charges of espionage.

However, the main parties, including the government of India, have not been consulted ahead of the filing of the application by the Ministry of Law and Justice under a federal ordinance.

The plea stated that Jadhav has refused to file a petition and it is in national interest that a legal representative is appointed on his behalf so that review and reconsideration proceedings can be initiated and also that Pakistan can comply with the International Court of Justice ruling.

Jadhav, the 50-year-old retired Indian Navy officer, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April 2017.

India approached the International Court of Justice against Pakistan for denial of consular access to Jadhav and challenging the death sentence.

Last year, following India moving the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the case, it had ruled that Pakistan grant India consular access to Jadhav, stayed his execution and also directed Pakistan to come up with a review mechanism.

Pakistan enacted an ordinance called the "International Court of Justice Review and Reconsideration Ordinance 2020" on May 20 under which a petition for the review of a military court's decision can be made to Islamabad High Court through an application within 60 days of its promulgation.

The Pakistan government has claimed that Jadhav refused to file a review petition or an application to reconsider the verdict.

Last week, India and Pakistan locked horns over the consular access granted to Jadhav.

India claimed that the meeting was not unconditional and was held in an intimidating atmosphere where Jadhav looked visibly stressed.

They accused Islamabad of not adhering to their promise.

Though the Pakistan foreign ministry had assured India that the consular access on Thursday would be unimpeded, unhindered and unconditional, it turned out that the arrangements of the meeting were not in accordance with the assurances made by Islamabad, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said.

The first consular access under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations 1963 was earlier provided by Pakistan on September 2 last year.

In the current petition, the Advocate General Branch (AG) of General Headquarters (GHQ) and the Ministry of Defence have been made parties.

(With PTI Inputs)
In our own halting, herky-jerky fashion, human beings are becoming inhabitants not just of a planet but of a solar system.

We have scouts out there, robotic spacecraft, including a couple winging their way into the interstellar void. We have big plans for sending astronauts once again beyond low-Earth orbit. For an exploring species, one driven by curiosity and material desires, this solar system is a target-rich environment. There are places to go, things to see.

There is, for example, Titan, the great moon of Saturn, with its weather-carved landscape, its methane rain, its valleys and rivers and lakes. Too cold for liquid water and for life as we know it, it is still a chemist's paradise, rioting with the kind of carbon-based molecules that suggest that this is a universe primed for life's efflorescence.

There's Jupiter's moon Europa, covered with what look to be icebergs shifting above a deep subsurface ocean.

There's Enceladus, another Saturnine moon, a weird-looking place with part of its face smooth, part ragged, and the surface erupting in geysers of ice, like a cold Yellowstone.

Of course there's Mars, which, though chilly, rusty, nearly airless and blasted by radiation, is by comparison with Venus or Mercury a veritable Club Med. We've found water ice on Mars, and there may be some liquid stuff deep underground. The planet has just about as much land surface as Earth. A Martian day lasts about 24 hours. On the warmest days, the air temperature is about the same as at a Green Bay Packers playoff game at Lambeau Field.

Never getting much ink, but still intriguing, are the asteroids, some of them hundreds of miles across, a few of them crossing the path of Earth. They may be like giant tanker ships of exploitable resources, waiting for someone to bring them in to port.

Much closer to hand, and perhaps unfairly unfashionable these days, is our own moon. It could potentially supply raw materials to fuel fleets of spacecraft. The far side has the nice feature of being radio-quiet, protected from our wireless chatter and other electromagnetic noise. It's the perfect place to put a telescope to scan the deep universe.

This solar system is not entirely ideal - it's chockablock with hostile environments and not a single benign location apart from our own to plop down and hold a cookout. But it is a scientific wonderland and, perhaps, full of practical opportunities that we simply haven't envisioned. If nothing else, it beckons us to great adventures.

There are many people who make the plausible argument that we can't afford to throw money into space when we have so many practical problems on terra firma. Finding water on, say, Europa may seem esoteric to Earthlings who don't have clean drinking water at home.

But we already are, in our own half-interested way, a space-faring civilization. The basic principles of spaceflight are known to us. The big, overriding question is: Where do we go from here?

That question was simpler half a century ago, on the first day of October 1958, when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration began operations. At that point we just needed to get into space, up beyond the atmosphere, into that high frontier.

The how was generally understood, too: We would put people on top of rockets. Rockets had been around only for a few decades and had their first dramatic impact when the Nazis used them to bombard England during World War II. Huge new rockets were a side effect of the Cold War. What wasn't known for sure in 1958 was whether a person could survive in a weightless environment. Also, our rockets initially had a nasty habit of exploding on the launchpad.

The why was obvious: We were in a white-knuckle contest with the Soviet Union, which had a head start into space, bigger rockets and maybe (we wondered) all manner of malign purposes for orbital platforms. Maybe they'd drop bombs on us from up there.

Half a century on, NASA faces a more complicated political, budgetary and technological landscape, and its ambitions are not limited to human flight. Bigger space telescopes are coming, the search for extraterrestrial life and distant solar systems is in full swing, and robotic space probes regularly produce dramatic findings. But the public's eye tends to focus on the agency's grand plans to fly astronauts beyond Earth orbit - and no one knows if they will come to fruition.

NASA is in the process of finishing the international space station, retiring the space shuttle and building a new architecture for putting humans in space, with the Constellation program. The agency is following a road map called the Vision For Space Exploration, adopted in 2005 with President Bush's imprimatur. That plan calls for a return of astronauts to the moon and the establishment of a permanent base there as a staging ground for missions that might someday include putting humans on Mars.

But without a space race or any national groundswell of opinion in favor of ambitious human spaceflight, the Vision has to proceed in an incremental, bureaucratic manner, keeping within a flat NASA budget. That means that most of the money to build the new system will become available only when the shuttle is retired in 2010. That also means the United States will not be able to launch astronauts into space for about five years. The plan calls for us to hitch rides from the Russians. But the U.S.-Russia relationship has been deteriorating.

This makes the next few years a slippery time for NASA. At any point Congress or the White House could decide that the nation's priorities do not include sending people back to the moon. Joseph Alexander, of the Space Studies Board of the National Academy of Sciences, says he worries that NASA is being "set up to fail."

"The program is in danger of completely running aground at this point," Alexander said. "Within the constraints that this administration has put on NASA's budget, you can't get there from here."

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin knows all the challenges the agency faces, but there is no more persuasive advocate for a civilian, government-run spaceflight program.

Why go at all? Partly it's prestige, Griffin said. It's definitely a strategic move. History tends to be written by countries that explore. Griffin emphasizes that we won't know in advance how space will be useful, or even whether it will be useful at all. It could be like Mount Everest - or it could be more like one of those North Sea oil platforms. Or maybe even like North America, a resource-rich place colonized by people from around the world.

He panned back for the cosmic view of why we go.

"Fundamentally, it's about long-term human survival," he said. "If we believe that human life is worth preserving, then we have to face the fact that the history of life on Earth is the history of extinction events. Diversification of our portfolio is a good thing in the long run."
Sudan has found a mass grave that most likely contains remains of 28 army officers executed in 1990 for plotting an attempted coup against the former President Omar al-Bashir, the public prosecutor office said late on Thursday.

The officers were executed in mysterious circumstances after a quick military trial one year after Bashir himself took the power in a military coup in 1989. Their burial site was not disclosed for decades.

"The public prosecution managed to find a mass grave that data indicates that it is most likely the graveyard where the bodies of the officers who were killed and buried in a brutal manner," the public prosecutor said in a statement.

A team of 29 experts reached this result after an effort that lasted for three weeks, and more forensic and investigative measures will be taken in the site, the statement added.

The public prosecutor assured the families of the executed officers that "such crimes will not pass without a just trial".

Bashir appeared in court on Tuesday at the opening of his trial for leading the military coup that brought him to power in 1989. He was ousted by the army in April 2019, after months of mass protests.

Bashir's attorneys could not immediately be reached for comment.

Local media reports said earlier this month that prosecutors questioned Bashir over the 1990 executions. The prosecution has not publicly commented on the matter.

Last month, Sudan's public prosecutor announced the discovery of a mass grave east of Khartoum suspected to contain the remains of students killed in 1998 as they tried escaping military service at a training camp.

Bashir already was handed down a two-year sentence by a court in December on corruption charges. Bashir also faces trials and investigations over the killing of protesters.

He is also wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued arrest warrants against him in 2009 and 2010 on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudans restive Darfur region.

(REUTERS)
Pennsylvania Sen. Doug Mastriano has been taking to Facebook Live to voice his displeasure with the Wolf administrations actions to keep Pennsylvania safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Broadcasting from various locations including while driving, which seems like it must be a violation of our states distracted driving laws, and without a mask speaking to large crowds of supporters.

Sen. Mastriano spends a lot of time talking about our rights and freedoms, but like many others does not say much about the responsibilities that go along with those rights. One theme he has used a few times recently is a quote from Ben Franklin that is on a wall at the Capitol in Harrisburg. Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. It seems pretty straightforward, but as is the case with many things context matters.

The quote comes from a letter Franklin wrote on behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1755 to the colonial governor. The Assembly wanted to tax the Penn family lands to pay for defense during the French and Indian War. The Penn family did not want to pay taxes on their land and they had the Governor block the effort. The Assembly retaliated by withholding all the defense funds. As a compromise, the Penns offered to pay a lump sum of cash, if the Assembly acknowledged that they didnt have the power to tax their lands. Franklins quote was a response to this offer.

On the surface, you could draw parallels to our current situation and the clash between the legislature and Governor Wolf. Again, context matters. Franklin was objecting to the choice presented to the Assembly. Giving up their right to tax a rich landowner, for short term or temporary security via the funding. He was not referring to personal liberty, but the responsibility of the government to maintain its ability to provide for the security of its citizens in the long term.

This is the exact opposite of what Sen. Mastriano is advocating. He wants to trade the long-term health and possibly life of Pennsylvanians for short-term financial gain. The financial impact of letting the virus continue to spread will outweigh those of any shutdowns. We do not even know the long-term health effects of recovering from the virus. There is evidence of permanent heart and lung damage in 10-20 percent of people who are infected.

Ben Franklin was a scientist and Im sure would have some strong words for those who deny the severity of the COVID 19 pandemic and reject the sensible measures that are the responsibility of every citizen to follow. The following is a quote from his autobiography.

In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the smallpox taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of the parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen

Paul Yoder, Manchester, Pa.
BANGKOK - Improved DNA testing has shed new light on the unsolved murder of a female Japanese tourist 13 years ago, suggesting a link to a male of East Asian heritage, Thai officials said Thursday.

Justice Minister Somsak Thepsuthin said the Department of Special Investigation has informed Japanese officials of the finding that might help identify the killer of Tomoko Kawashita. He said a DNA sample found on the clothing of the 25-year-old victim has been identified as belonging to an East Asian man.

A Japanese man who was seen entering Thailand with Kawashita was initially a person of interest to Thai police, but left Thailand soon after the killing. He was not officially named as a suspect.

Kawashitas body was found near the ruins of an ancient temple in the northern province of Sukhothai on May 25, 2007. Police said she was stabbed and her belongings taken. They collected DNA samples from Thai men living in the area who were also interrogated.

After Sukhothai police failed to make any progress in the case, it was transferred in 2013 to the Department of Special Investigation, Thailands version of the FBI. They extended the search for the culprit, interrogating more people and doing more work with DNA.

DNA samples were taken from 379 Thai men in the course of the investigation.

But all of them did not match with the DNA found on the victims pants, therefore, we had to alter our investigative techniques, Somsak said at a news conference.

Wannapong Kocharak, director of the Central Institute of Forensic Science, explained that more advanced methods of DNA testing were then utilized.

With the new method, we can pinpoint that the DNA we found on the pants of the victim was not the DNA of Thai men. It matched with men from East Asia in the global genetic database that we can access with the help of Thai geneticists, Wannapong said.

Somsak told reporters that he wants to ask Japanese authorities to collect DNA from the Japanese man who was seen with Kawashita.

At that time, he refused to co-operate in giving tissue samples for lab tests and left Thailand one day after her body was found. We can start with checking his DNA sample in the next phase of the investigation that will be a collaboration between the two countries, Somsak said.

Tomoyuki Fujiyama, a representative of the Japanese Embassy who also spoke at the news conference, said the victims family will be informed of the development and the embassy will co-operate fully with Thai authorities.
Shares of Mattel jumped more than 4% after the closing bell on Thursday as the company posted quarterly sales that fell across the board. Results were still better than feared amid coronavirus shutdowns that lifted industry-wide sales.

The toy company reported a loss of 26 cents per share, excluding items, on revenues of $732 million. Analysts had expected a loss per share of 34 cents on revenues of $679 million, according to Refinitiv data.

The company's net toy sales declined 15% on a year-over-year basis, Mattel said.

Mattel is known for its leadership in the doll category  its flagship Barbie doll has been a welcome driver of sales over the last few quarters. During the most recent quarter, sales of the fashion doll rose 7%, but not enough to buoy the dolls category, which saw sales drop 5% from the year-ago quarter.

Mattel's other categories saw steeper sales declines:

Infant, toddler and preschool fell 21%

Vehicles fell 26%

Action figures, building sets, games, etc. fell 12%

"We entered the second quarter with extensive retail closures and distribution challenges and had to absorb a full quarter of COVID-19 impact, but we demonstrated our execution capabilities and the resilience of our brands," Ynon Kreiz, CEO of Mattel, said in a statement. "While revenues were down, they exceeded our expectations, particularly in North America, Barbie, and games, where we saw sales increases."

The company's gross margin improved on a year-over-year basis during the quarter to 43.8%.

Mattel's sluggish sales are in stark contrast to the overall success the toy industry has seen in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. For the first six months of the year, industry-wide toy sales have soared 16%, according to data from the NPD Group, as parents sought to keep kids entertained at home.
President Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the coronavirus pandemic and arms control on Thursday, the Kremlin announced and the White House later confirmed.

Why it matters: The phone call comes amid recent warnings that hackers associated with Russian intelligence services have tried to steal information from researchers working to develop a coronavirus vaccine. It also follows reports that the Kremlin paid Taliban-linked militants to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan, which the White House has insisted is uncorroborated intelligence.

What they're saying: President Trump "reiterated his hope of avoiding an expensive three-way arms race between China, Russia, and the United States and looked forward to progress on upcoming arms control negotiations in Vienna," White House spokesperson Judd Deere said in a press release.

The big picture: Russia is reporting the fourth-most coronavirus infections in the world behind India, Brazil and the U.S, although experts doubt the authoritarian regime's official tally.

Go deeper: Russia tests anti-satellite weapon in space
Pierre Guillou is pleased to be serving holiday-makers again at the beach restaurant he manages in this French seaside resort, but the COVID-19 epidemic is never far from his mind.

A restaurant 500 metres from his establishment had to close when they recorded cases of the virus, and he has had to turn away a small number of customers who refused to wear a mask.

Its heavy, said Guillou, manager of the Fils de Maman restaurant, describing the challenges of juggling the summer season and its rush of holidaymakers with the fact France is still in the grip of an epidemic.

In total, France has recorded over 30,000 deaths linked to COVID-19. Months of strict lockdown have resulted in a big drop in the numbers of people getting infected, and the numbers in hospital with the virus.

Guillous restaurant, in La Baule-Escoublac on Frances Atlantic coast, was one of hundreds of thousands of restaurants, cafes and bars allowed to re-open when restrictions were eased.

Yet there have been isolated flare-ups of the virus in parts of France, and in neighbouring Spain some lockdown restrictions have been re-imposed to contain a surge centred on the city of Barcelona.

In La Baule this week, the beaches thronged with sunbathers and tourists flocked to the shops.

The town mayor, Franck Louvrier, said he would be vigilant to make sure people were respecting COVID safety precautions, especially the wearing of masks in enclosed public spaces.

I wouldnt want COVID to return on our territory, he said. My only objective is to protect the population. So if theres a situation that gets worse, we will obviously take more drastic measures to protect residents.

(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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The NAACP is joining a coast-to-coast legal fight to prevent United States Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos from siphoning away Congressionally approved emergency COVID-19 relief funds from economically disadvantaged public schools, and giving the money to private ones.

The country's largest civil rights group filed a lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in Washington, D.C., accusing DeVos of illegally changing the rules for allocating $13.2 billion in Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) money to benefit wealthy private K-12 schools.

"You literally accelerate robbing from the poor to benefit the rich," Derrick Johnson, NAACP national president and CEO, told ABC News of DeVos' plan.

MORE: Coronavirus government response updates: Trump signs $2T relief bill after House passage

The lawsuit contends that the CARES Act, which was signed by President Donald Trump on March 27, specifically says local school departments are to distribute the funds based on the number of Title I, or low-wealth students, in a particular school. Recognizing that some students from low-income families attend private schools, Congress allowed CARES money to go to those institutions that largely depend on tuition and donations.

The lawsuit claims the share going to private schools was supposed to be based on the number of Title I students attending those schools. DeVos, however, had a different interpretation of how local school districts should distribute the money, and in her "interim final rule," said the money should be shared equally with private schools based on the total number of students in those schools, regardless of how many are Title I students.

"The pandemic has harmed all our Nation's students by disrupting their education. Nothing in the CARES Act suggests Congress intended to differentiate between students based upon the public or non-public nature of their school with respect to eligibility for relief," according to a guidance document issued by the Department of Education on April 30.

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The lawsuit claims the consequences of DeVos' guidance document would be that hundreds of millions of dollars in CARES Act funds instantly would be diverted from public schools to wealthy, private schools.

"The Rule is as immoral as it is illegal," the lawsuit states.

Addressing reporters after the policy was contested by public school officials following its announcement last month, DeVos said the funding is separate from other federal aid and was meant to support all students.

"There is nothing in the law Congress passed that would allow districts to discriminate against children and teachers based on private school attendance and employment," DeVos said in a call with reporters, according to the Associated Press.

After the lawsuit was filed on Wednesday, the Department of Education released a statement, saying, "It's a myth that private schools only serve one type of student."

"In fact, the vast majority of private schools serve a diverse student body, and 30% of private schoolers are people of color," the statement said. "Most private schools keep tuition low -- in many cases, far lower than the cost to educate a student in public school. In addition, sixteen states plus D.C. and Puerto Rico have programs specifically for low-income students or students with disabilities to access a private school education. Sweeping generalizations about public and private schools are often untrue and never helpful to the mission of keeping all students learning during and beyond this pandemic."

Johnson responded in an interview on ABC News' "GMA3" show Wednesday.

"We're saying give Title 1 funds to schools, both private and public in proportion with the percentage of Title 1 eligible students," Johnson said. "So, if only less than 1% of private school students are Title 1 eligible, their proportion of the funds should be provided to those schools. The Congress-provided money for education broadly, but they specifically provided a line item for Title 1 eligible students, and we're saying not to divert funds for Title 1 eligible students, for private schools who are not serving Title 1 eligible students."

MORE: Education secretary faces backlash after demanding schools reopen full-time amid pandemic

The NAACP joined the class-action lawsuit as a plaintiff along with a group of parents and their children, who are enrolled in economically disadvantaged public schools. The Pasadena, California, Unified School District, the Stamford, Connecticut, School District, and the Denver County School District are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit asking for an injunction to prevent DeVos from immediately instituting her change to the rule. The lawsuit is supported by the Public Funds Public Schools, a national campaign to ensure public funds are used exclusively to maintain, support, and strengthen the nations public schools.

"In this moment of crushing need for America's public schools, the Rule directs public school districts to divert desperately needed CARES Act 1 funds to affluent students in private schools or face unlawful limitations on the way that those funds can be spent -- both in direct contravention of the Act," the lawsuit reads. "The Rule harms American children and subverts the will of Congress; it cannot stand."

Johnson said that if allowed to proceed, the DeVos' rule change will change public schools, including some where "80, 90 and 99%" of the students are from low-income families.

"She's trying to increase allocation disproportionately for private schools over public schools in the midst of the debate over whether or not schools should reopen. It's horrific what she's doing," Johnson told ABC News. "What will happen is you further take money away from children who are financially in need to benefit high-wealth children."

PHOTO: NAACP President Derrick Johnson faces reporters during a news conference in Boston, Dec. 12, 2019. (Steven Senne/AP, FILE)

The latest legal action follows a similar lawsuit filed against the Department of Education by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, which was joined by his counterparts in Michigan, Maine, New Mexico and Washington, D.C. The New York City Department of Education, the Chicago Board of Education, the Cleveland Municipal School District Board of Education and the San Francisco Unified School District have also joined a growing coalition asking the federal court for a preliminary injunction against DeVos' plan.

The lawsuit was filed a day after DeVos tweeted in support of South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster's announcement that his state would be allocating $32 million of CARES Act money to fund grants for low-income students to attend private schools.

In SC today with Governor @henrymcmaster who knows students need to be able to safely return to school this fall and parents need options to make that happen. Thanks to his leadership, $32M in #CARESAct funds will go to low-income SC families to find the right fit this fall. https://t.co/h9HhciFCbo  Secretary Betsy DeVos (@BetsyDeVosED) July 21, 2020

In a press release that accompanied the announcement by McMaster, a Republican, the governor's office said, "These one-time, needs-based grants of up to $6,500 will help or subsidize the 2020-21 tuition for eligible students at participating private, parochial or independent schools in South Carolina. Approximately 5,000 grants will be funded."

DeVos triggered backlash last week by saying she was "very seriously" considering withholding federal funds from schools that fail to fully reopen in the fall despite the coronavirus still sickening Americans in record numbers. In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," Trump echoed DeVos' threat.

PHOTO: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos speaks during a briefing at the Department of Education building in Washington, July 8, 2020. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP, FILE)

"Young people have to go to school, and there's problems when you don't go to school, too," Trump said. "And there's going to be a funding problem because we're not going to fund when they don't open their schools. We're not going to fund them. We're not going to give them money if they're not going to school, if they don't open."

DeVos' rule outlines how local education departments must calculate the emergency funds to give an equitable share to students and teachers in private schools.

"There is nothing in the law Congress passed that would allow districts to discriminate against children and teachers based on private school attendance and employment," DeVos said in a statement issued with her decision.

DeVos said the new rule recognizes that CARES Act money was not exclusively meant to benefit Title I public schools, or schools with large concentrations of low-income students.

She noted that most private schools are under financial strain due to COVID-19 because they're typically dependent on tuition from families and donations from their communities. She said more than 100 private schools across the country have announced they will not be able to reopen following the pandemic because of shrinking revenue sources.

But Johnson said private schools, including charter schools, have received tens of millions of dollars in emergency COVID-relief funds, including money through the federal Paycheck Protection Program forgivable loan program.

MORE: Trump insists schools 'must open' in fall, says he'll 'put pressure' on governors to do so

The NAACP lawsuit references a May 5 letter to DeVos from Carissa Moffat Miller, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, objecting to the rule on distributing the CARES Act money, saying the move "could significantly harm the vulnerable students who were intended to benefit the most from the critical federal COVID-19 education relief funds."

Miller said under DeVos' rule, for instance, private schools in Louisiana would receive at least 267% more funding under the Department of Education distribution formula.

Chicago Public Schools, which joined a lawsuit filed by the Michigan attorney general, said in a statement that they will lose about $10 million of an estimated $205 million they expected to receive under the CARES Act if DeVos' allocation plan stands.

"The devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted low-income students of color and the Trump Administration is turning its back on these students in favor of wealthy private institutions by siphoning public funds away from the students who Congress intended to support," the Chicago Public Schools said in a written statement.

Johnson said the move by DeVos is consistent with her "mission to starve public education and resources to benefit private educational settings."

What to know about the coronavirus:

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NAACP sues Betsy DeVos over COVID-19 aid rule, claiming it benefits private schools at the expense of public ones originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Over 2,500 South L.A. Families were Provided Groceries at Community Food Bank Drive-Through

In the heart of the Crenshaw District, in South L.A., a community food distribution drive through was held at the Los Angeles Sentinel on Saturday, July 18, 2020 from 9M  Noon, to provide groceries for community members experiencing economic hardship due with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bakewell Media, Los Angeles Sentinel, Mothers In Action, AFGE, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, Labor Community Services, the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, Miguel Contreras Foundation, Teamsters National Black Caucus, Councilmember Herb Wesson of CD 10 and County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas of the 2nd District collaborated to successfully distribute groceries to 2,500 families in Los Angeles and surrounding areas.

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The president of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), Roslyn Austin-Stewart, mentioned they are striving to make a bigger footprint in South L.A, to let the people know they support the community. With the positive tests going up (Covid-19), and the community that we have struggling the way we are here in California, we felt that it was a need to contribute that much as well, she said. According to Austin-Stewart, there are predictions of a second wave of cases, so as long as the people let AFGE know there is a need, the organization is committed to supporting these kinds of causes as much as possible.

The executive editor of the Los Angeles Sentinel, Danny Bakewell, Jr., stated, As most people know, in South L.A. Black and Brown are disproportionately affected as a result of Covid-19, unemployment and various other things. Anything that we can do to help our community get through these difficult times is necessary, and something that we feel is a responsibility to do.

Bakewell, Jr. feels the next step is empowering the community with resources, so they do not have to be codependent on food drives. In order to do that, he continued, We have to continue to collaborate and work together to set our own course. The support we get from our elected officials like Herb Wesson, Mark Ridley-Thomas, and others, are greatly appreciated, in providing services and resources. We must also support our Black businesses; so that they can grow, so that they can continue to hire and empower residents in our community, so we dont have to depend upon food giveaways for our survival.

Yvonne Wheeler, national representative of AFGE District 12, says there is no national leadership at the top, so they had to come together and fill this void. Right now we are trying to save lives, we are trying to help families that we know are underserved.

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We are in an important time in history, this country, and city where people are struggling. The need to come together could not be more urgent. Councilman Herb J. Wesson said we need to become one family. Here we are helping out people today, there may be the need for somebody to help us out tomorrow. So thats the only way we are going to work our way through this situation is to come together as a community and help one another. I just love being out with the folks. It always inspires me when I see other people helping people.

Councilman Wesson reminds everyone to make sure your friends are who they say they are in times of adversity. Its during these difficult times you find out who your friends are, and who your friends are not. So, Im just impressed with the community, we have come together, weve done some remarkable things. Somehow, someway, we will find our way through this. We all have to lock arms and walk our way out of this together.

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said there is a food scarcity in the black community. Food insecurity is real. In this moment of pandemic, communities just like the one were in right now are in dire need of our support.

Supervisor Thomas acknowledged organizations such as Mothers In Action, church groups, and everyone who helped make the message clear that they will not abandon their own and they will support them in the hour of need. We are going to push for people to register to vote, so we can change conditions in our communities, change conditions in our nations. Thats the ultimate way we are going to tackle food insecurity. Thats why Im here, and Im proud to be in solidarity.

President of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, Ron Herrera, gives thanks to the volunteers. You have to give credit to the volunteers that are out here risking their own health to feed those in need. At the LA County Federation of Labor, we fed over 250,000 people in the county, and we plan to feed another 250,000. Herrera hopes this grows throughout the country, and throughout the nation.

For some people, it has been emotional. Without the food drives they would not be able to eat, says President of the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, Michael Flood. Some families, this is what they are going to eat tonight for dinner. They dont have any food. Flood proceeded, Im appreciative of all the groups, Mothers In Action, the Food Bank, LA Sentinel, and Labor Community Services. They are here to help the community.

The volunteers at the Community Food Distribution felt honored to make a difference. With smiles on their faces, they were proud to be a part of a cause bigger than themselves.

The LA Sentinel spoke to volunteer Khallifah Muhammad, who is a Professional Hurdler, and a member of the Nation of Islam. Its always good to get into the community, and be a blessing to somebody else. When you get blessed, its always important to bless other people. We just wanted to get out and help any way we can, especially in these times were living in.

Muhammad continued, You want to keep your immune system up with COVID-19 going around. You want to keep the community vibe alive, thats important. We are a part of the Nation of Islam, we seek to assist in any way possible.

Mothers In Action President Tracy Mitchell, was more than thankful for everyone involved in Community Food Distribution. She proudly stated, On behalf of Mothers In Action, The Bakewell Company, and The Los Angeles Sentinel and the 2,500 families we served, we would like to thank our village of sponsors, community partners, elected officials and volunteers who supported the Community Food Distribution on Saturday at the Los Angeles Sentinel.

Mitchell went on to say, It takes a village to take care of our families and community. We are stronger together!!!

Mothers In Action wanted to thank all of the companies and people who provided the resources necessary to put on an event like this. She acknowledged Bakewell Media, Los Angeles Sentinel, LAPD South Traffic Division, the radio partners, KJLH, and 94.7 the Wave, Quality Equipment Rentals, the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza and Fred Leeds Properties. Ms. Mitchell pointed out that this event takes hours of time and resources and also expressed appreciation for Danny J. Bakewell, Sr., Robert Turner, Roslyn Austin-Stewart, Yvonne Wheeler, Michael Flood, Ron Herrera, Elda Martinez, Armando Olivas, Councilmember Herb Wesson Jr., Supervisor Mark-Ridley Thomas, Earles On Crenshaw, the staff of Mothers In Action & LA Sentinel, Kimani Black, Steven Neal, Sharon Polk, Patrick Muhammad and sons, Jabril & Khallifah, Latisha LaRue & Family, Dr. Pat Joseph-Thomas, She Works, all the families and unions that came out and help serve the community together.
Four men were arrested on various drug charges during the multiagency drug raid along Sgt. Roy T. Damian Street in Maite on Wednesday.

Authorities seized suspected methamphetamine, prescription pills, firearms and cash during the execution of a search warrant.

Guam Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Paul Tapao said Special Investigation Division detectives conducted a raid on Wednesday afternoon at one of the apartments relative to an ongoing drug investigation.

"Officers discovered suspected drug paraphernalia, suspected methamphetamine, assorted prescription pills, US currency, firearms and an unknown white powdery substance," said Tapao.

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Out of an abundance of caution, detectives evacuated the apartment complex and called in the Guam Fire Department's Hazardous Response Team to assist with evidence collection.

Tapao said the scene was deemed safe shortly after 11:30pm.

Brandon Rufus Chandler, 31; Pierson Key Cruz, 26; Uriah Cruz Kuper, 21; and Michael Gregory Rosal Jr., 29, were arrested and charged with illegal possession of a Schedule II controlled substance.

Tapao said an investigation is still underway and tests have been conducted to identify the white powdery substance.
YEREVAN, JULY 23, ARMENPRESS. Soldier of the Armenian Armed Forces Artur Muradyan (born in 2001), who has been severely wounded recently by the Azerbaijani shooting, has died on July 23 in the central military hospital, the ministry told Armenpress.

The soldier has been in critical condition since hospitalization.

The defense ministry extends its condolences to the family, relatives and co-servicemen of the soldier.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
Nearly 100 healthcare workers have died from coronavirus in Yemen, one of the highest figures worldwide for medical staff, according to a new report.

MedGlobal, an international health charity, said in a report released on Thursday that at least 1,610 Covid-19 cases have been reported in war-torn Yemen, including 446 deaths.

This means the rate of confirmed virus deaths in Yemen  27 per cent  is five times the global average and possibly the highest in the world.

But the true number of infections is likely far higher due to a lack of testing, and there is some speculation that the real mortality rate might be lower.

The Chicago-based MedGlobal said 97 infectious disease experts, medical directors, midwives and pharmacists are believed to have succumbed to the disease, including Dr Yassin Abdul Warith, one of the countrys leading epidemiologists.

The loss of highly trained health workers deals a devastating blow to Yemen, one of the worlds most impoverished nations, in the midst of a calamitous years-long civil war.

Only half the countrys medical facilities are functioning and there are fewer than 10 medics for every 10,000 people, less than half the World Health Organisation benchmark for basic health coverage.

More than one in four patients in Yemen who contract Covid-19 will die, said Dr Zaher Sahloul, head of MedGlobal.

He explained that the high death rate could be attributed to multiple problems including crippling lack of medical personnel, healthcare facilities and supplies including personal protective equipment (PPE) and Covid-19 testing kits, oxygen and ventilators.

Dr Sahloul cautioned that the high number of health worker deaths in Yemen suggests that the true overall death toll could be 10 times higher than officially recorded.

Coronavirus is overwhelming the healthcare system and destroying what is left of it, he said. This will impact the country for decades from now.

Deaths in the medical community and an exodus of personnel, as well as disruptions in higher education, have resulted in a chronic lack of skilled medical professionals. According to MedGlobal, around 18 per cent of the countrys 333 districts have no doctors at all.

Physicians and health workers in Yemen paint a gloomy picture of doctors and nurses risking their lives to save coronavirus patients amid a crumbling health care system already ravaged by years of war. They describe chaotic scenes in virus wards with patients dying in waiting rooms.

At the start in Sanaa, the hospitals were not prepared, there were no testing kits, creating panic among doctors and nurses who were afraid they would get infected, says Asmaa Dunia, MedGlobals Yemen programme manager who has spent the last few months visiting many of the 14 hospitals the charity supports.

Three hospital doctors in the north of the country told me of cases arriving in critical condition to the emergency wards and dying within hours before they could even be tested.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) raised similar concerns. Ahmed Mahat, MSF head of mission in Yemen, told The Independent from Sanaa that they ran out of PPE last month because of restrictions on flights coming into the country.

Like Dr Arishi, Dr Mahat said among the worst problems now was the soaring cost of oxygen cylinders which have gone up six-fold in price since the start of the war.

The conflict erupted in 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized control of most of the country, ousting the recognised president Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

In March 2015 Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies launched a bombing campaign to reinstate Mr Hadi.

Disinfecting stores in Yemen amid the pandemic (MedGlobal)

Five years on, there is little hope of an end to the fighting, which has killed 100,000 people and sparked the worlds largest humanitarian crisis according to the United Nations.

Now nearly 15 million people are on the brink of famine, a number which the World Food Programme said on Wednesday could swell by at least a million more over the next six months as conditions deteriorate.

MedGlobal has called for countries across the world and the WHO to provide more testing kits and supplies to Yemen as well as back a ceasefire.

The international community should not be sending bombs and missiles but oxygen cylinders, PPE and medical volunteers who want to help, Dr Sahloul said.
A three-year-old girl was raped and killed in India by two men who dumped her body in a dam before trying to mislead investigators by claiming she had been sacrificed for 'black magic'.

The two suspects tied a cloth around the girl's face while raping her before choking her to death in the city of Chhindwara, police believe.

The girl had been reported missing on July 17 and her body was found near a dam three days later, with an autopsy showing she had died of suffocation and trauma.

Investigators told the Times of India that the attackers then tried to 'misguide police' by spreading rumours that the girl had been the victim of a dark ritual.

A three-year-old girl was raped and killed in India by two men who dumped her body in a dam after choking her to death, police believe (stock photo)

Police superintendent Vivek Agarwal said of the suspects: 'They raped the child, killed her, and disposed the body - all within one hour.

'They tried to misguide police during investigation and spread rumours that someone had probably sacrificed the girl for black magic.'

More than 300 people had been questioned over the girl's disappearance before the two suspects, aged 21 and 23, were arrested on Tuesday.

The girl's body had reportedly been stuffed in a sack before it was thrown into the dam in the state of Madhya Pradesh, central India.

India has been scarred by a series of high-profile sexual abuse cases in recent years, prompting tough new laws in an effort to crack down on rape and child abuse.

Madhya Pradesh's government approved the death penalty for child rapists and gang rape convicts in 2017.

Figures for 2018 showed that the state had issued 26 death sentences that year, more than any other Indian state.

The death penalty for raping girls under 12 was later extended across the country after a decision by the cabinet of PM Narendra Modi.

However, Amnesty International argued earlier this year that 'the death penalty doesn't end violence against women' as it called for an end to executions.

India carried out 102 death sentences in 2019 with another 378 people on death row, according to Amnesty's figures.

More than 32,500 rape cases were registered with the police across India in 2017 and many others are thought to go unreported.
Anger against Netanyahu mounted after the virus roared back following the countrys reopening in May as he seemed to turn his attention to other issues, including a push to annex Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. That proposal is now delayed. He also had a parliamentary committee grant him personal tax exemptions worth more than $200,000 related to renovations on his private home in Caesarea. With unemployment at historic levels, Netanyahu later apologized for the timing of that request.
(LR) Greece's PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez, Portuguese's PM Antonio Costa, Romanian President Klaus Werner Iohannis and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel participate in a last roundtable discussion following a four-day European summit at the European Council in Brussels, Belgium, on July 21, 2020. EU leaders approved a 750 billion euro package to revive their coronavirus-ravaged economies after a tough 90-hour summit on July 21, along with a trillion-euro budget for the next seven years. (Stephanie Lecocq/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Frugal Countries Win in European Recovery Fund

Commentary

There is no solidarity without responsibility. The European Union Recovery Fund cant be used as an excuse to perpetuate bloated political spending and create a transfer union where governments use taxpayers money to increase bureaucracy, because it would be the end of the European project.

A union based on excess spending, debt, and extractive policies would be destroyed in a few years. The strength of a unified group of countries comes from diversity and responsibility.

The leaders of the European Union have signed an agreement that shows that, despite criticism, Europe responds and does so responsibly.

The agreement reached will have conditionality, will be subject to structural reforms, has smaller amounts of subsidies than initially announced, and also incorporates a control clause (veto) by the member states.

It isnt only positive for its amount and for being subject to reforms and conditions, but because its a containment wall that avoids the counter-reforms of the radical left, thanks to the so-called emergency brake.

The 750 billion euro ($869 billion) deal is important, but we shouldnt believe that the recovery of the European Union will rely on this program. We already have the experiences of the 2009 Growth and Jobs Plan and the Juncker Plan. Both had a very low positive effect on GDP. It helps to get out of the crisis, but it doesnt guarantee it.

The subsidies have been reduced to 390 billion euros ($452 billion) from the 500 billion euros ($579 billion) initially announced, while the loan portion increases by 110 billion euros ($127 billion) to 360 billion euros ($417 billion). These cheap loans will be repaid over a long period, between 2027 and 2058. In reality, its like a perpetual debt issue, and the cost will be low because its supported by the European Commission.

The plan must be approved by the European Parliament and the parliaments of the member states, but its considered a diplomatic step that will have few obstacles.

To receive the money, countries will have to present serious and profitable projects that strengthen competitiveness. These are not blank checks for anything. This means that reforms and adjustments are unavoidable. The European Council will monitor the aid and its use. The funds will have to be approved by a qualified majority. Payments will be approved by a majority in the Economic and Financial Committee, and may be rejected and sent back for review by one or more member states if the appropriate use of funds is in doubt.

No one denies the challenges created by the COVID-19 crisis, but there are countries that have used the excuse of the pandemic to inflate political spending and now demand free money.

Spain

The Spanish government has doubled the cost of government, maintained all the spending it increased during the growth period, and increased the number of ministerial seats and advisers despite the crisis. Additionally, the government has approved a basic income plan that had no budget or fiscal space. There has been no management of costs whatsoever to allow budget room for automatic stabilizers, health, and unemployment costs.

A government that increased the deficit in 2019 by 24 percent in a year of 2 percent GDP growth and record tax revenues has doubled the cost of government in the crisis and now demands no conditions or scrutiny from other member states.

Why would a serious government oppose a detailed scrutiny of the funds received? It should welcome it. Why would a government that calls itself reformist and states its commitment to budget stability reject any structural reform proposed by other member states? They should be implementing them now. Furthermore, why would a government that talks about an unprecedented emergency prefer to receive less funds than to accept the member states monitoring of grants? One could suspect that they are not aiming to use the funds in the most effective way.

This crisis cannot be solved if governments use the money of a recovery fund to perpetuate imbalances and squander resources for political purposes. If we want the EU to survive, it can only be based on competitiveness, trust, and, most of all, credit responsibility.

If we want a united Europe, we must listen more to the most dynamic countries and stop using the bureaucratic steamroller to turn all the member states into interventionist satellites.

The European Union faces a deep crisis. It cant trigger a depression by using important funds that should boost competitiveness and strengthen the recovery to finance massive political transfer plans that serve as a political tool to keep bloated administration and political budgets.

Mistakes

The Spanish government has made serious mistakes in its objective of getting massive grants without conditionality.

The first one was not giving serious estimates of a spending ceiling, deficit, and debt for 2020 and not providing any for 2021 when Spain had already tested the patience of the European Commission in 2019 by missing an already revised deficit target in a period of record tax revenues.

The second mistake was assuming that Spains European partners were going to accept things that the Spanish government itself would not have accepted in different circumstances. Everyone knows that the government of Spain would have refused an unconditional fund if it had been only for another country, since it would mean a greater contribution to the EU budget, and a greater deficit for Spain. We know this because it was exactly the Spanish governments position in the Greek crisis, when Prime Minister Rodriguez Zapatero stated that the Greek opposition parties should agree to the agenda of reforms in order to receive bailout funds (June 24, 2011, La Vanguardia). It is easy to demand solidarity when you are the recipient of it.

Third mistake: Its not convenient to demand from the most responsible countries free money when the government goes to the negotiation table having missed the 2019 deficit target in a year of record tax revenues, with the largest deficit in the eurozone in 2020, being the only country that has not reduced nonessential expenses to accommodate the increase in health spending, and with the most expensive government, with more ministers and higher officials in four decades.

The fourth error: Its also not easy to convince others to provide tens of billions of euros, unconditionally and with greater weight of subsidies, when Spain has in the government coalition a party that has voted in Europe in favor of breaking the euro and whose leaders, including a vice president and two ministers, defended a massive default on the debt.

Podemos and Izquierda Unida voted on Dec. 14, 2015, for an amendment proposing facilitating withdrawal mechanisms from the monetary union and an alternative plan for an orderly break-up of the euro area and have never withdrawn or modified it.

The final and fifth mistake: The Spanish government constantly repeats that the economy is recovering in a V-shape and that they will not cut any spending under any circumstance, just implement massive tax hikes that will erode competitiveness, growth, job creation, tax revenues, and increase future deficit and debt. At the same time, they demand donations with no conditions.

Commitment to Reforms

Many Spanish and European citizens like me are more than happy to commit to a strong set of reforms to improve competitiveness and boost economic growth and jobs. We dont want funds to be squandered in political spending.

The failure to approve a no-condition all-grant recovery fund is not a European failure. Its the confirmation that the European project will only be strengthened if it becomes a union where solidarity is given with responsibility, and where strength comes from the prudent management of so-called frugalor rather, responsibleleaders.

The Recovery Fund is important. It has strong conditions, and this may prevent the feared malinvestment binge. However, the Recovery Fund isnt the solution for many European states structural problems. Structural reforms must be adopted to solve the long-term imbalances of European economies, and conditionality should be viewed as a positive, not a negative. If countries want to show the world theyre reliable partners committed to budgetary stability, reforms must be embraced, not rejected.

The European Union Recovery Plan is not going to be a miracle or increase potential growth. It has many diffuse elements. Whats important is that it dispels the risk of radical-left counter-reforms and that it outlines a union between member countries focused on credit responsibility and prudence.

Now the Commission must ensure that its not a tool to spend on white elephants and useless projects.

Daniel Lacalle, Ph.D., is chief economist at hedge fund Tressis and author of Freedom or Equality, Escape from the Central Bank Trap, and Life in the Financial Markets.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
London, July 23 : A renowned British expert on global health has said he did not recognize the remarks made by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who attacked the World Health Organization (WHO) during his visit to Britain.

According to British media reports Tuesday, Pompeo launched an extraordinary attack on the WHO during a private meeting with MPs in London, claiming it "is a political, not a science-based organisation" and its Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was "bought" by the Chinese government, Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

David Nabarro, the British candidate who ran against Tedros for the role of WHO director-general in 2017, told The Daily Telegraph that he has been working with Tedros on COVID-19 since January 31.

"In all the time that I've worked with him since then I've seen him being fair-minded and responsive to all nations, and concentrating on what matters the most, which is getting on top of this pandemic," he was quoted by the British newspaper as saying.

"I just don't recognize the kind of remarks made by the US Secretary of State," he added.

Having over 40 years of experience in international public health as a community-based practitioner, public servant, director and diplomat, Nabarro is now working as a special envoy of the WHO director-general on COVID-19 preparedness and response. He is also currently co-director and chair of global health at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London.

He added that it was imperative that all countries worked together to fight the massive global catastrophe of COVID-19 and he could not understand why the United States was withdrawing its support to the WHO "just at the time when the world needs it most", the newspaper reported.

Reacting to Pompeo's remarks in London, a WHO spokesperson said: "WHO is not aware of any such statement but we strongly reject any ad hominem attacks and unfounded allegations. WHO urges countries to remain focused on tackling the pandemic that is causing tragic loss of life and suffering," said the newspaper.

Earlier this month, the United States formally notified the WHO it was quitting, despite widespread criticism and an almost complete lack of international support for the move in the midst of a pandemic.

The Guardian newspaper said it is believed that Pompeo was trying to encourage British lawmakers to lobby for Britain to consider joining the ranks of the United States.

However, Chris Bryant, one of two Labour MPs present in the private meeting with Pompeo, told the Guardian "he said nothing that appealed to our side".

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Optimus Asset Management's office in southern Seoul / Korea Times file



By Kim Bo-eun



The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said Thursday that the CEO of Optimus Asset Management had embezzled money from managed funds to invest in stocks. The finding came after the regulator's in-depth audit of the investment firm that has suspended fund redemptions, and whose investors face tremendous losses.



The FSS also said it confirmed from its inspection  conducted with the prosecution  allegations that Optimus invested in assets that differed from stated investment proposals. The regulator added that Optimus had tried to obstruct its investigation.



"Optimus' CEO invested in stocks and derivative products with money taken from the managed funds," an FSS official said in a briefing held at the regulator's headquarters on Yeouido, Seoul.



The money, presumed to amount to several tens of billions of won, was transferred to CEO Kim Jae-hyun's stock account through multiple channels, according to the financial regulator. Kim has been detained for questioning.



Optimus was found to have attracted investors by pledging to invest in safe assets. It had stated it would invest in receivables of state-run institutions, but 98 percent of its investments were made in unlisted firms' speculative bonds.



In an effort to obstruct the FSS audit, Optimus submitted false paperwork and hid key documents by replacing office computers.



The financial authority has designated several officials to manage Optimus' funds and other assets. All of the company's executives and employees have left or been detained.



It has also appointed 20 officials from accounting firms to inspect the investment firm's assets. Based on the inspections, Optimus funds are set to be handed to a separate entity for management.



Redemptions have been suspended for 24 funds in which 240 billion won was invested, out of 46 funds managing 515 billion won in investments.



The FSS inspection was conducted for almost a month from June 19 through July 10, after the authority determined this was necessary for Optimus and several other investment firms following the monitoring of 10 of them beginning in March.



The authority also looked into the Korea Securities Deposit over its role as an administrator, as well as Hana Bank which was responsible for managing Optimus funds according to the investment firm's directions. The FSS is currently inspecting NH Investment & Securities, which recommended Optimus funds to investors. It is suspected to have engaged in mis-selling, by assuring investors that their investments would be safe.



Meanwhile, 69 dispute settlement cases have been filed with the FSS over the Optimus funds.



The FSS has yet to review punitive measures.


Amber Heard alleged in a British court on Wednesday that ex-husband Johnny Depp threw "30 or so bottles" at her as if they were "grenades or bombs" during a drunken and frenzied assault in Australia in March 2015 that also saw him accidentally sever part of his finger.

Taking the witness box for a third day at the High Court in London during Depp's libel case against a British tabloid, the actress refuted his allegation that it was she who lost her temper and that she had injured him.

Heard has described her stay in Australia with Depp as akin to a "three-day hostage situation," during which Depp was "completely out of his mind and out of control" following a binge on drugs and alcohol. Heard has said that she feared for her life while at the rented property on Australia's Gold Coast during a visit while Depp was filming the latest "Pirates of the Caribbean" film.

The incident is central to The Sun's labeling of Depp in an April 2018 article as a "wife-beater." The Sun's defense relies on 14 allegations made by Heard of violence by Depp between 2013 and 2016, in settings as varied as the rented house in Australia, his private island in the Bahamas and a private jet.

Depp, 57, denies abusing Heard and claims she was the aggressor during their tempestuous relationship. He was present once again to hear Heard's testimony. He is suing The Sun's publisher, News Group Newspapers, and its executive editor, Dan Wootton, over the article.

Depp's lawyer, Eleanor Laws, said Heard had worked herself "into a rage" during her stay in Australia and that she had a habit of just "losing it."

Heard, 34, said she got "angry at times but not into a rage that would cause me to throw anything at him."

She acknowledged that she broke one bottle during their second evening together in Australia, testifying that it happened as they argued about the scale of Depp's drinking.

"I regret I did that," said Heard, who also claimed that Depp often credited her for saving him by trying to get him clean and sober.

After she smashed the bottle, Heard alleges that Depp, fueled by alcohol and drugs, started throwing bottles, full enough that they broke a window behind her.

 Associated Press

Noah: Opening schools is risky

Pay attention, class: Trevor Noah is educating audiences on the potential dangers of sending kids back to school amid the COVID-19 crisis.

On Tuesday's episode of "The Daily Show," Noah weighed the risks of "adorable super-spreaders" bringing the virus home to their families or infecting their teachers and joked about how pandemic concerns might alter students' in-school interactions.

Though children appear to be less susceptible to the respiratory illness, Noah cited a study out of South Korea suggesting that minors over the age of 10 can spread COVID-19 at the same rate as adults.

As Noah notes, "parents aren't the only ones in danger here." As the country with the most COVID-19 cases in the world debates reopening schools, teachers are also facing the reality that they might contract the virus on the job.

 Tribune News Service

Kanye needs empathy, Kim says

Kim Kardashian is asking for compassion and empathy as her husband, rap mogul Kanye West, and their family deal with his recent behavioral outbursts that have called his mental health into question.

West, 43, accused the E! reality star of trying to lock him up this week after he criticized her at a campaign rally and in a flurry of tweets on Monday. Kardashian took to Instagram Stories on Wednesday morning to remind followers that West has bipolar disorder, a lifelong mental health condition that causes extreme mood swings that include emotional highs and lows.

Though West has publicly refuted his diagnosis, Kardashian asked people to be sensitive to those who struggle with mental health issues.

"Anyone who has this or has a loved one in their life who does, knows how incredibly complicated and painful it is to understand," Kardashian said in her statement.

"I've never spoken publicly about how this has affected us at home because I am very protective of our children and Kanye's right to privacy when it comes to his health," she added. "But today, I feel like I should comment on it because of the stigma and misconceptions about mental health."

The mother of four, who has been married to West since 2014, said those who understand mental illness or compulsive behavior know the family is powerless unless the person with the illness is a minor.

 Tribune News Service
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Anyone who knows Rich knows that he (thats me) will chase every last dime hes owed, even if the amount of money really isnt worth the time and effort.

So, of course, I filled out the paperwork necessary to claim $20 after my brother came across my name in Ohios searchable online database of unclaimed funds. Two mailings later (costing me a stamp each time), I recently received my $20, plus 38 cents in interest.

But if youre owed money, your check could be for a lot more.

The state has $3.2 billion on hand waiting for the rightful owners to come forward. The typical claim is close to $1,400.

Ohio cant use the money to build bridges, fund schools or pay politicians; so you might as well get your share, even if you are in a giving mood.

It stays here forever until the rightful owner comes to claim it, said Akil Hardy, superintendent of the Ohio Department of Commerces Division of Unclaimed Funds. For fiscal 2019, the state paid 36,910 claims.

Whats an unclaimed fund?

Hardy said when he first went to work for the Department of Commerce years ago that he discovered there was some money waiting for him. It was pay from a summer job he had during college. I guess I didnt think to collect my last check when I returned to university, Hardy speculated.

My money was a refund due from PCM Inc., a company unfamiliar to me. Wikipedia provided a clue, listing among PCMs businesses the mail-order electronics store MacMall.com. I used to be a regular customer, buying Apple products as recently as 2014. But I still have have no idea why PCM Inc. owed me $20 or why the company could not find me.

More common, Hardy said, is money from dormant checking or savings accounts, and sometimes stocks. Often times, someone might have moved, forgotten about a bank account and never provided the bank with a new address, he said.

Under the law, money held by businesses but owed you must be turned over to the state in most cases after set periods of time of no activity. For example, after three years for rebate checks, or a year for wages.

Businesses located in Ohio, operating in the state, or holding money due Ohioans are required to file unclaimed funds reports each year - life insurance companies in May and other businesses in November.

There is a $50 minimum for paychecks. Otherwise, there is no minimum.

A copy of my unclaimed funds check for $20.38.Ohio Department of Commerce

What if the owner is deceased?

The state wants to make sure the money is going to the right person before cutting a check. So in my case, I sent in a copy of my drivers license for ID purposes and a paystub for tax ID purposes. There were other options. Since my claim was under $1,000, the form I printed from the website to send in by mail did not have to be notarized.

But what if the person is dead?

The process for the deceased is twofold. First, you go through the normal routine to confirm the deceased was the owner of the money in question. Then you must prove you are entitled to the original owners money.

For part 2, you may have to obtain what is often called a letters of authority document from the probate court in the county where the person died.

We tell most people we are not the court; we dont decide how the estate is administered. We direct them through the probate court, Hardy said.

How to search here and elsewhere?

The search form is simple at www.com.ohio.gov/unfd/ - the homepage for unclaimed funds in Ohio. I simply searched for my last name, which isnt common, because I didnt know whether I should plug in Rich or Richard for my first name.

What you may notice when the results are displayed is that youve been redirected to a website called missingmoney.com, a third-party website that works with the individual states to aggregate unclaimed funds data across the country. From there, after reviewing the Ohio results, its easy to continue searching in just Ohio, or elsewhere.

Hardy said missingmoney.com is the primary website used by most states.

If you find your name, youll be able to click a button to begin the claim process, but - at least still in Ohio - you will have to mail in some paperwork. Thats one of the guardrails in place to ensure the right people get the money, Hardy said. But he added his that his office is exploring the possibility of an electronic process.

Hardy encouraged checking for your name multiple times a year, but especially in late fall and late spring after companies are required to make their annual filings.

And while youre on the site, you might want to check for friends and relatives as well. Remember, my brother was the one who alerted me to my unclaimed funds. I just noticed another relatives name has now shown up.

Rich Exner, data analysis editor, writes cleveland.coms and The Plain Dealers personal finance column - Thats Rich! Follow on Twitter @RichExner. Email questions to rexner@cleveland.com.

Earlier from Thats Rich!

Thats Rich! is taking questions on financial matters

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Taking college classes online this fall? Heres how students can save a lot of money

Does it make sense to pay off your mortgage early? Heres what to consider

CARES Act makes this ideal time for a student-loan payment checkup

Coronavirus and taxes: Revised July 15 filing deadline nears; IRS not yet processing paper forms

What you need to know to get an unemployment check in Ohio, plus $600 extra
Negotiations are underway with the culprit, who is believed to have been involved in carjacking.

A man wielding an RGD-5 hand grenade has taken a police officer hostage in the Ukrainian town of Poltava, Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko said.

"At 09:05 on July 23, in Poltava, outside the administrative court, detectives attempted to apprehend an individual who was reasonably suspected of car theft. During the arrest, the attacker pulled out an RGD-5 grenade, which he threatens to set off. He was holding a police operative by his arm," Gerashchenko wrote on Facebook.

Read alsoFear, irritation, distrust: difference between messages of terrorists and those of terrorist acts

According to the deputy minister, as part of negotiations, the attacker swapped the captured police officer for the local chief detective, Police Colonel Vitaliy Shyian, with whom he drove off in a Bohdan vehicle provided upon his demand.

Negotiations with the perpetrator are underway.

A local outlet Poltava.to reports that the man is heading toward Kyiv with the hostage in car.

As UNIAN reported earlier, 13 hostages held hostage on a bus in the western city of Lutsk were released at about 22:00 Kyiv time on July 21.
Spain has seen its coronavirus cases triple in recent weeks. (Getty)

Spains coronavirus rates have tripled since lockdown restrictions were eased three weeks ago, causing problems for British holidaymakers looking to book a quick getaway this summer.

New cases in the country had slowed to a trickle in June before the nationwide lockdown was lifted, but since then more than 280 clusters have been detected, with Catalonia the worst affected.

Health ministry data showed 2,615 new cases across Spain on Thursday, compared with a daily average of just 132 in June.

Spain saw one of the worst coronavirus pandemics in the world which has leftover 28,000 dead.

A waiter wearing protective face masks as a measure to help curb the spread of the new coronavirus in Mallorca. (AP)

Following local spikes, some 96,000 residents of three Catalan towns were advised to stay at home last weekend while in Barcelona locals were asked on Friday to leave their home only for essential trips.

In Catalonia, nearly 8,000 cases were diagnosed in the last 14 days - almost half of the 16,410 detected throughout the country.

Read More:

Spain tourist hotspots shut down after coronavirus cases spike

UKs air bridges decision-making shambolic, says Sturgeon

Spain was on the list of countries the UK government made exempt from its 14-day quarantine policy for foreign arrivals on July 3.

British holiday companies and the Spanish tourism sector have been eager to revive their industry which was decimated by the pandemic.

Women wearing face masks walk along La Misericordia Beach in Malaga on July 22. (Getty)

The Spanish government is struggling to find a balance between reopening its tourist attractions and enacting measures to fight the virus.

Health Minister Salvador Illa told Reuters: Where measures have been relaxed is where these clusters appear.

Were talking about gatherings of extended family and spaces associated with nightlife.

People wearing masks in Barcelona. (AP)

Popular tourist destinations like the Costa del Sol, Malaga and Almeria have seen spikes in cases in the recent weeks since Spain reopened its borders with the UK.

If the country struggles to get the virus back under control it would cause further havoc for the tourist industry which accounts for 12% of the nations output.

Story continues

The UK Government is due to review its list of travel corridors on Monday and regional air bridges that cover specific regions of a country reportedly being considered.

If Spain is placed back on the quarantine list then it would cause outrage among British holidaymakers and tourist companies.

It would mean anyone arriving from the country would be forced into a two-week quarantine when they landed in the UK.

Airlines and holiday companies have lobbied the government to ditch the 14-quarantine policy entirely saying the uncertainty is unworkable for their industry.

Wooden poles separate and divide into squares the sandbank in Sanxenxo, Galicia, Spain. (Getty)

Local authorities in Spain are all too aware of the risk posed by the virus, the Canary Islands recently launched a graphic publicity campaign urged people to be cautious.

The image showed a family party turns into tragedy when the grandfather ends up lying unconscious on a hospital bed after contracting Covid-19.

"A simple family gathering can bring you as a present 40 days in a coma, or even death," the slogan reads.

Coronavirus: what happened today

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NEW DELHI: Amid simmering border tension with China, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has decided to further boost the capabilities of its Rafael combat fighters, which are set to arrive from France soon, by equipping them with the deadly HAMMER missiles.

HAMMER (Highly Agile Modular Munition Extended Range) is a medium-range air-to-ground weapon designed and manufactured for the French Air Force and Navy initially.

The HAMMERs would give India the capability to take out any bunkers or hardened shelters in any type of terrain including the mountainous locations such as Eastern Ladakh, according to the defence experts.

HAMMER  the new generation medium-range modular air-to-ground weapon had been designed and manufactured by Sagem (Safran group) for the French Air Force and Navy.

The AASM family of missiles was first unveiled during the Paris Air Show in June 2007. The weapon system was also exhibited during the International Defence Exhibition and Conference (IDEX) held in Abu Dhabi in February 2013.

Sagem demonstrated the AASM and missile guidance during the Paris Air Show in June 2013. The AASM HAMMER laser missile was exhibited during Defexpo held in New Delhi, India, in February 2014.

The standard AASM GPS/inertial version has been deployed onboard Rafale twin-jet, multi-role combat fighters of French Air Force and Navy since 2008 and 2010 respectively. Up to six HAMMER missiles can be carried by a Rafale fighter.

Design and features of HAMMER missile system

According to the airforce-technology.com, the AASM weapon system has a length of 3m and a weight of 330kg and has a range of over 60km at high altitudes and 15km at low altitudes. It has fire and forget capability and an extended stand-off capacity.

The interoperable missile has the ability to engage multiple targets simultaneously. It can also strike fixed or moving targets with high precision. The missile is maintenance-free and has low lifecycle costs.

The missile uses single, double or triple store adaptors and uses Sagems Hemispheric Resonating Gyro, inertial / GPS hybridisation and strap-down infrared imagers and associated algorithms for conventional deep strike missions.

AASM HAMMER guidance and navigation

The AASM HAMMER missile consists of a guidance kit and a range extension kit. The kits are fitted with Mk82 warheads including Smart Bomb Unit (SBU)-38, SBU-64 and SBU-54. The easy to use missile supports operations with 125kg, 250kg, 500kg and 1,000kg bomb bodies, and can be reprogrammed during the flight.

The basic version SBU-38 HAMMER is provided with hybrid INS/GPS guidance, while the SBU-54 version is equipped with INS/GPS/IR (infrared) guidance. The latest version SBU-64 uses INS/GPS/laser guidance.

The laser terminal guidance version can be deployed to engage moving targets, while the infrared terminal guidance version minimises target coordinate errors.

The combat-proven missile can operate in all weather conditions during the day and night. It has vertical strike capability and can support deep strikes, close air support, air interdiction, and SEAD-type or anti-ship combat missions.

The propulsion system is fitted at the rear of the missile and consists of a solid rocket motor and four winglets for flight control.
Solving the mystery of why Donald Trump was elected president

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The presidency of Donald J. Trump is a grand enigma, so enigmatic that powerful opponents  and even some supporters  thought he must have had outside help to win the Oval Office. The Mueller investigators spent more than $30 million over two years searching for Russian collusion and produced almost 450 pages trying to solve the Trump enigma but found no collusion. Impeachment proceedings then feverishly sought reasons to remove Trump from office.

The maddening (to some) mystery remained: What power made Donald Trump the president of the United States of America?

How? is indeed at the heart of the Trump enigma.

Journalists, academics, celebrities, members of Congress, and a multitude of others are searching for a contemporary Alan Turing, the British savant who solved the Nazi Enigma code in the Second World War. The mystery of the covert code consumed Turing and his team, working in Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, England.

However, no cryptanalysts have been able to decipher the mystery of Trump, because they are looking in the wrong places.

Since the Democrats 2018 takeover of the United States House of Representatives, there has been a near-frantic attempt to turn the House into a political Bletchley Park, where money and energy are being spent on trying to wrest the Oval Office from a man they believe should not, by all logic, be there at all.

Who put him in office? How was it possible for a person many prognosticators said could not win the presidency to do just that? Did Russia somehow bring about the Trump victory? Were there mysterious forces at work beyond the capacities of the deep state to put Donald Trump in the Oval Office?

Some of the nations leading evangelicals believe that God put Trump in the presidency. They include people like Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham; Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr., whose father was the founder of the Moral Majority; and Robert Jeffress, pastor of Dallas First Baptist Church  a flagship for Southern Baptists, Americas largest evangelical denomination.

Nikki Haley infers that both the permissive and intentional will of God could be applied to Trumps election to the Oval Office. I think God sometimes places people for lessons and sometimes places people for change, she told David Brody, White House correspondent for the Christian Broadcasting Network.

How could she and others believe God chose Trump as president? Why would such noted leaders put their reputation on the line for a man like Trump?

Could it be that God really did select or at least permit Donald Trump to occupy the Oval Office in this critical season for the United States? If God, who is perfect in His holy character, chose Trump, whose character is regarded by many as flawed (to put it generously), why would the Lord of History grant him authority?

To answer that question, I argue in my book, Two Men from Babylon: Nebuchadnezzar, Trump, and the Lord of History, we must turn to two important passages in the Bible.

The Old Testament Scripture was written by the Hebrew prophet Daniel, who was captive in Babylon during Nebuchadnezzars reign. In fact, Daniel had much interaction with the king, who himself was such an enigma. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Daniel wrote:

Let the name of God be blessed forever and ever, For wisdom and power belong to Him. It is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings. (Daniel 2:2021)

The New Testament text that is joined to Daniels prophecy records words spoken by Jesus: This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come (Matthew 24:14).

Five principles are clear from these passages:

First, God has grand purposes for time and history: the coming of the King of kings and Lord of lords, the advance of His kingdom in the world, and ultimately, at His return, the establishment of the kingdom globally.

Second, there are manifestations of the kingdom that appear throughout finite time and history, giving hints of how the world will look when the kingdom comes fully.

Third, the biblical church established at Pentecost is the primary agent for the expansion of kingdom ministry in the world between Christs ascension and His return, and through it, all institutions are to be impacted by kingdom principles.

Fourth, nations are of strategic importance in the fulfillment of Gods plan.

Fifth, it is God who establishes and removes the leaders of those nations either by His intentional will or by His permissive will, with His purposes for time and history in view.

Human observers can only speculate about the resolution of the riddle that is Trump. However, the answer to the removing and establishing of any national leaders, whether Barack Obama, Donald Trump, or any others, can be found only in the kingdoms purposes and plans of the Lord of History.

Therefore, the Lord of History is the focus of this volume, not President Trump or any other human leader.

Adapted from TWO MEN FROM BABYLON: NEBUCHADNEZZAR, TRUMP, AND THE LORD OF HISTORY. Copyright  2020 by Wallace Henley. Published by Thomas Nelson. www.twomenfrombabylonbook.com
WASHINGTON - A House committee voted Thursday to try and rein in President Donald Trumps clemency powers, approving legislation to discourage pardons for friends and family and prevent presidents from pardoning themselves.

While the bills are unlikely to pass the GOP-led Senate, Democrats say a response is necessary after Trump used his clemency power to come to the aid of allies he says have been mistreated by the justice system, including longtime confidant Roger Stone. Trump this month commuted Stones prison sentence for crimes related to the Russia investigation.

The move to shield Stone from prison was a dramatic example of Trumps willingness to exert presidential power over criminal cases, including ones prosecuted by his own Justice Department. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the clemency for Stone an act of staggering corruption, while Republicans mostly shrugged off the move or criticized the Russia investigation.

The House Judiciary Committee approved legislation to try and dissuade Trump or any future presidents from abusing their pardon powers. The measure, by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., would clarify that promising or providing a pardon in return for a thing of value violates bribery laws. It would also require that Congress receive all of the case evidence when a president pardons or commutes in cases involving himself or his family, or those that involve lying to Congress.

The committee adopted an amendment to Schiffs bill that would clarify a president cannot pardon himself or herself. Trump has said in the past that he has the absolute right to do that.

The principle that James Madison placed at the very heart of the Constitution was that No man is allowed to be a judge in his own case, said Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, who wrote the amendment. The whole Constitution was designed to create checks and balances against runaway power and structural prohibitions against corrupt self-dealing.

Separately, the committee approved a second bill by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler that would suspend the statute of limitations for federal offences committed by sitting presidents. Nadler says thats necessary because many federal offences carry a five-year statute, and presidents could evade justice altogether if it runs out before their term is over.

Allowing complete immunity from criminal prosecution merely because of the office a person holds would make a mockery of the rule of law, Nadler said as he opened the Judiciary panels meeting.

Republicans were dismissive of both bills and voted against them. They argued that clemency is an essential presidential power and pointed out that many other presidents have made controversial pardons.

Here you go again, said Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the panel. Another day, another Democrat attack on President Trump.

Stone was sentenced in February to three years and four months in prison for lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. Trump commuted the sentence days before Stone was scheduled to begin it.

Trump has used his clemency powers to help other political allies, including Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was awaiting sentencing at the time, conservative commentator Dinesh DSouza, who had been convicted on campaign finance violations, and Conrad Black, a newspaper publisher convicted of fraud who had written a flattering book about the president.

And he has granted clemency in a host of other cases, commuting the 14-year prison sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, and pardoning former New York City police commissioner Bernie Kerik, financier Michael Milken and several others.

Trump also commuted the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, who was serving life in prison for nonviolent drug offences and who came to Trumps attention after reality star Kim Kardashian West took up her cause. Her story was featured in a Trump campaign Super Bowl ad.
In the first half of this year, inspectors in Vietnam found land violations valued at VND31.149 trillion (US$1.35 billion) and covering 3,432ha after conducting 77,000 inspections, the Government Inspectorate of Vietnam announced yesterday.

Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh addresses the meeting reviewing the Government Inspectorate performance in the first half of the year and its tasks for the second half.  VNA/VNS Photo Doan Tan

Of the inspections, as many as 3,245 were administrative inspections, a decrease of 8.7 per cent compared with the same period last year, while nearly 73,700 inspections were specialised, which were conducted in specific sectors or domains for the observance of specialised laws, professional-technical regulations and management rules of these sectors.

The number of specialised inspections fell 13 per cent compared with the same period last year.

The Government Inspectorate recommended revoking over VND13.7 trillion ($600 million) and 507ha of land. Until now, nearly VND4 trillion ($174 million) and 83ha of land has been revoked.

The inspectors also recommended giving administrative discipline to 805 groups and 12 individuals for involvement in the violations.

They recommended nearly 47,000 decisions to fine violators with total fines of VND4.225 trillion.

Inspectors transferred documents relating to 41 cases and 46 suspects to investigative agencies.

According to the Government Inspectorate, in the last six months, administrative agencies at all levels nationwide received 165,198 visits by citizens who came to report nearly 134,300 issues. Of the visitors to the States administrative offices, there were 1,642 groups, a decrease of 16.4 per cent compared with the number of groups visiting the offices in the same period last year.

As many as 1,574 visitors and 156 groups of people went to the offices of the Central Party Committee and State in Hanoi and HCM City.

Ministries and local governments in cities and provinces received 163,624 visits by citizens who raised nearly 133,000 issues of concern. The number of visitors fell 5 per cent and the issues increased 9.1 per cent compared with those of the same period last year.

The Ministry of Public Security, Vietnam Social Security, Hanoi Peoples Committee, Quang Ninh, Ha Nam, Hai Phong, Ha Tinh, Thanh Hoa, HCM City and Soc Trang were among those receiving a large number of citizens.

Administrative agencies at all levels nationwide reportedly addressed over 9,900 complaints and denunciations from citizens, accounting for over 71 per cent of total complaints and denunciations.

The Government Inspectorate detected and reported eight cases to the Prime Minister.

Ministries, agencies and local authorities addressed nearly 10,000 cases out of nearly 13,900 complaints and denunciations.

The State Bank of Vietnam, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Justice, Hanoi, Son La, Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, Thanh Hoa, Dong Thap and Hau Giang were among units that did a good job in addressing citizens complaints and denunciations.

Thanks to the authorities intervention, VND13 billion and 76ha of land was revoked and returned to the State budget and rightful owners.

Addressing the meeting on Wednesday of the Government Inspectorate to review its performance in the first half of this year, Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh praised the inspectors efforts, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. They effectively deployed information technology in conducting inspections.

Inspectors work to handle citizens complaints and denunciations helps the fight against corruption, waste and keeps socio-political order, Binh said.

However, in some cases, inspectors did not conduct prompt inspections or delayed announcing conclusions, he said, adding that some of their conclusions and recommendations to address violations were not as good as expected.

The Deputy PM called on the inspection sector to identify key contents, avoid overlaps with the State Audit and especially not cause trouble for firms production and operation.

Binh said that in the second half of this year, inspectors should focus on issues of land management, public asset purchasing, natural resources mining and anti-corruption.

From now to the end of this year, unplanned inspections would not be expanded, he said. VNS

Ex-Party official charged with land mismanagement Former Party deputy chief and chairman of Phan Thiet City Do Ngoc Diep has been charged with land mismanagement as he signed 32 unlawful decisions approving the conversion of farmland to housing land in rural areas.

Da Nang authorities at fault for several violations on Son Tra Peninsula The Government Inspectorate has released a report on land use and conservation-related violations on Son Tra Peninsula, which implicates authorities in Da Nang.
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The Dassault Rafale also known simply as Rafale is one of best known fighter jets built by the French. The name literally means burst of fire and the machine is a twin-engine fighter aircraft that was designed and manufactured by Dassault Aviation. The fighter jet is meant to display air supremacy and in-depth as well as anti-ship strikes and missions for nuclear deterrance. The aircraft is meant to have many roles in warfare.

Unlike other European fighter jets, the Rafale is distinct because its built entirely by one single country. This is about as big a deal as winning a jackpot at Lucky Nugget Casino NZ . Rafale was first unveiled in 2001 and has ever since become a part of the French Air Force having been used in combats in Afghanistan, Mali, Syria, Libya and Iraq. The jet has become so popular that it has been exported across the world to the Air Forces of nations like India, Egypt and Qatar.

Role in France

Frances air force is known to have 152 of these fighter jets with an additional 28 to come in soon. Even the French Navy has a few of these jets with about 10 of them aboard the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier. Its popularity is so immense that it has become the most preferred aircraft for buyers across the world with the close contender being Typhoon by Eurofighter.

Cockpit

The Rafale cockpit houses a hands-on throttle and stick control also known as HOTAS. Its also got a wide-angle display and the avionics are supplied by Thales Avionique. It gives all necessary data regarding aircraft control and firing cues. The fighter pilot gets a helmet-mounted sight and there is a camera and on-board recorder that records the display while the mission is being carried out.

The engines

The Rafale has twin M88-2 engines that have a thrust of 75kN each. It also has the facility for a buddy-buddy refuelling. Some of the cutting edge technology that theyve used includes single-piece bladed compressor disks and single-crystal turbine blades as well as ceramic coatings which is why its so popular that even countries like India decided to import them. However, the deal did run into some controversy which is elaborated upon in this article here.

The weapons

The Rafale (Air Force version) is known to carry payloads of more than 9t. And the naval version can carry 13t. The weapons are across the range of Sidewinder, Apache, Harpoon, ALARM, PGM100, Magic and Mica. It can carry anti-ship and air-to-air missiles and the SCALP missile can shoot targets on land over 300 kms away. It can even aim at eight different targets at the same time. Its got a twin gun pod as well as a 30mm cannon which can fire over 2500 rounds in a minute. The bird is also equipped with technology that enables laser guidance for missiles.

These are probably just some of the reasons why the Dassault Rafale is one of the most prolific fighter jets in the world today.
ABC NewsBY: JORDYN PHELPS



(WASHINGTON) -- For at least the third time this month, President Donald Trump has bragged about the results of a cognitive test he took as part of a physical exam in 2018 but now says he took "less than a year ago."



Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV, Trump said in recalling one of the memory-related questions on the test in an interview with Dr. Marc Siegel, a physician and Fox News contributor, that aired Wednesday.



And then 10 minutes, 15, 20 minutes later, they say, remember the first question, not the first, but the 10th question? Give us that again. Can you do that again? And you go, Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV, he said,



It's not that easy. There were other questions tougher than what I just did. But it's not that easy, Trump, who's 74, said, clearly pleased with his performance.



The Montreal Cognitive Assessment -- what the president was referencing -- is a screening test meant to detect cognitive impairment such as dementia or Alzheimer's disease.



It is not designed to measure or rate a patients overall intelligence.



But the president, who has referred to himself as "a very stable genius," has taken to touting his results as an impressive display of mental strength.



I got a perfect mark. And the doctors were -- they said: Very few people can do that. Very few people get that. You understand, Trump told Siegel.



I aced the test, the president said in another interview with Fox News Sean Hannity earlier this month.



When the president again raised his test performance in an interview with Fox News Chris Wallace last week, Wallace said he, too, had taken the test after he heard the president took it and observed that its not the hardest test.



They have a picture and it says whats that? and its an elephant, Wallace said.



You see, that's all misrepresentation, Trump countered. It's all misrepresentation. Because, yes, the first few questions are easy, but I'll bet you couldn't even answer the last five questions. I'll bet you couldn't, they get very hard, the last five questions.



Well, one of them was count back from 100 by seven, Wallace said and began to count backward: Ninety-three.



But as the president now touts his own perfect mark as proof of his mental fortitude, he has also taken to raising doubts about the acuity of his Democratic presidential challenger, challenging former Vice President Joe Biden to take the same test.



[Biden] should take the same exact test, a very standard test. I took it at Walter Reed Medical Center in front of doctors. And they were very surprised. They said, thats an unbelievable thing. Rarely does anybody do what you just did. But he should take that same test, Trump said.



The last time the president was known to have taken the test was during a physical exam two years ago, though he recently suggested he took the test more recently, telling Fox he asked to take the test probably a year ago, a little less than a year ago.



The president said he took the test at his own request as a means to put to rest questions of his own mental fitness that had been percolating at the time, prompted in part by anecdotes from the book Fire and Fury.



I said to the doctor -- it was Dr. Ronny Jackson -- I said: Is there some kind of a test, an acuity test? And he said: There actually is. And he named it, whatever it might be. And it was 30 or 35 questions.



Dr. Jackson, who is now a candidate for Congress running in Texas with the presidents endorsement, has not been a White House doctor since 2018.



There was no record of a cognitive test in the results of the presidents 2019 exam or in a memorandum released in January of this year, when the presidents physician Dr. Sean Conley wrote that "there were no findings of significance or changes to report."



The presidents last trip to Walter Reed for a physical examination came in November, when the president made an unannounced trip to the hospital, traveling by motorcade rather than helicopter as is standard. The White House said at the time that the president was taking "portions" of his annual physical exam.



Asked if the president took the test during that visit or at any time since 2018, the White House did not comment.

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
As we discuss his latest work screenwriter Bevan Lee makes several analogies to theme parks.

Between Two Worlds is like a rollercoaster ride: There are many loops and turns and twists and upside downs before the ride comes into the station, let me tell you.

He likens the storytelling to a narrative high-wire act: Juggling the different tones and the different genres, and actually making it work.

But he also insists, I do not want to stay too long at the fair. I dont want to become the irrelevant old fart whos still schleppin it out with everybody saying Well they used to be good.

If I went out on this Id go out in bliss land, because this is my best work by far. No question.

Lee has penned some of Australias most successful dramas: Packed to the Rafters, A Place to Call Home, All Saints, Winners & Losers, Always Greener and Home & Away.

The 10 part Between Two Worlds could be the perfect swan song to what he describes as his two trademark styles.

One is fairly heightened melodrama, and I use the term melodrama with great pride. On the other side, domestic drama.

The first hour is like two half-hour pilots of two completely different genres, occupying the same space. And then at the end, one thing happens that makes you go, Ok, whats going to happen when these two mix?'

The worlds, are inhabited by tycoon Phillip Walford (Philip Quast) and wife Cate (Hermoine Norris), and in suburbia by single mum Sophia (Sarah Wiseman). But Lee uses the title to convey several contexts.

Its also between the worlds of what you think is going on and whats actually going on

The two worlds that are the most obvious are between the worlds of Phillip Walford and Sophia Grey, but its also between the worlds of what you think is going on and whats actually going on, between the worlds of what is on the surface with the characters and what is underneath.

The whole show is really about duality.

The cast also features Aaron Jeffery, Tom Dalzell, Alex Cubis, Megan Smart, Melanie Jarnson, Blazey Best, in storylines where nothing is quite as it appears.

I have set out to slightly pull the rug out from underneath the audience

The narrative structure is such that every week I have set out to slightly pull the rug out from underneath the audience about their assumptions of whats gone on in the previous week. You suddenly come back in the second week and think, Oh ok, I didnt realise that was going on!' he explains.

Each hour finishes on a cliffhanger, and the next episode always begins timewise prior to that cliffhanger, and examines the events from a different angle.

Even Phillip Walford, who presents as a toxic tycoon ready to crush others, is given an arc where the audience is drawn to understanding.

Saint Sophia shes sort of like Julie Rafter on steroids

By the end of the 10 hours, because you get to understand him, you really feel for him. Its the same with all the characters. Thats why theres the between two worlds of the surface and whats underneath even Sophia, who in episode one I call Saint Sophia because shes sort of like Julie Rafter on steroids, Lee insists.

It came up a lot in discussions about the first hour: how likeable are those characters? Theyre not, but theyre not meant to be. I truly, truly dont think that likeability is required, otherwise Succession wouldnt be the huge success that it is.

This is what youre being presented with. Now go the journey and trust, that like in life, it will take time for you to understand the nuances and depth of these people.

Like any suburban family, theyve got their damage

He adds, The Greys look like a nice, suburban family, but like any suburban family, theyve got their damage. Thats another thing about duality: between the worlds of the health of the person and the damage within the person. We all have damage inside us and all of us to a greater or lesser degree, hide it or display it.

Producing is A Place to Call Homes Chris Martin-Jones, who I cannot speak highly enough of, and set-up director is Kriv Stenders, bringing a wonderful cinematic eye to the piece.

Im totally blessed with the cast. wonderful people who admired and respected the scripts, and challenged from that best place a place of no ego. The place of simply wanting to extract the best from the text so that they could as they embrace the truth of their own character.

Seven has such faith in the show, it was held back for a plan to launch off the back of the Olympics. But 2020s curve-balls have led to a new plan of attack, with the show now given a prime Sunday slot.

But not all of the Lee / Seven projects have been smooth sailing. Always Greener was axed when it was still rating well, while A Place to Call Home was cancelled due to costs and a desire to pursue younger viewers (it was thankfully rescued by Foxtel).

In 2020 the drama landscape is as tenuous as ever. Lee indicates a more pragmatic approach.

Nothings a slam dunk these days

Nothings a slam dunk these days. I think it would be very unfortunate if it didnt find an audience because I think it deserves one. But Im too puzzled about the landscape other than to say, self-protectively, We have made a f***ing fantastic show and if people like then I believe thats as it should be, and if they dont, were sad but we cant control anything outside that,' he observes.

I think Ive got to a point in my life where I dont want to worry about stuff I cant control.

I know what I want. But Im sensible enough to know that the world doesnt always give you what you want.

Maybe thats me finally growing up.

Between Two Worlds airs 8:30pm Sunday on Seven.
The Russia Report: Deep State reinforcing delusion to spread fear and seize power



Suppressed report should be a lesson to those who begged for its release  be careful what you wish for.



By Kit Knightly July 22, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - The Russia report is an action plan for the intelligence agencies to hand MI5 direct control over the mechanisms of British democracy, and give the government legal power to control social media. Nobody in the mainstream will tell you this. The media are going to tell you its a shocking condemnation Britains vulnerability to hostile state actors or something similar, the Remainers will tell you its cast iron evidence the Brexit vote was rigged, and Luke Harding will tell you it means they are all around us and you should buy a copy of his book. The truth is its just the latest of the Deep States plays to secure as much power as possible as quickly as possible. If anything, it already feels old-fashioned, being authored in a pre-Covid world, but that doesnt mean it cant be put to use in service of the worlds new normal. In terms of actual content, theres nothing new here. Its just a collection of familiar proven lies and unproven accusations in the service of four primary agendas: Invalidating the result of the Brexit referendum Boosting funding/resources for the UKs Cyber Offensive capabilities Ceding more powers to MI5 to oversee and protect our democratic processes Creating a protocol that empowers the government/intelligence agencies to force social media companies to censor and/or ban certain material, opinions, websites or users You can plow through the whole thing here if you really feel the need. For those outside the UK, who may not be aware of this story, sometime last year it was leaked that the UK parliaments Intelligence and Security Committee had prepared a report on Russian interference in UK politics. In a brilliant piece of PR manoeuvring, Boris Johnson refused to make the report public. No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Newsletter This decision manipulated those who consider themselves the left in British politics to clamour for the release of the Russia Report, believing there would be something in it that Boris didnt want us to see. This was an act of pure naivety by Corbynista influencers, and deliberate public manipulation by the leftist media. Yesterday Boris Johnsons government finally caved to this pressure, and released a confidential report which tells us nothing we havent been told a million times before. This apparently secret testimony has been blasted across headlines in every broadsheet and tabloid for years. Russia is accused of poisoning the Skripals, leaking the DNC emails, using bots and trolls to influence public opinionand so and so on. The witnesses called are all either actual spies (Christopher Steele), or journalists heavily involved with the Integrity Initiative (Edward Lucas). No evidence is supplied, save the tired old links to academic studies conducted by bought-and-paid-for NATO shills like Ben Nimmo and Bellingcat (whose direct funding from the likes of the Atlantic Council and National Endowment for Democracy represents a massive conflict of interest that is never once mentioned in the report). In that way, the report is massively dated. Its lies, worn smooth through repetition, are dry and stale. But thats not the point of this report. Thats the first part of the Hegelian Dialectic. The problem, long since mythologised, created by force of repetition without ever being evidenced. This report is far more concerned with generating a reaction, and the procuring consent for a pre-planned solution (the report doesnt shy away from this obvious structure  using the terms threat and reaction instead). In short, buried in the 55 pages of waffle, repetition and bureaucratic double-talk, are key suggestions to take a more warlike stance against Russia and parlay this into a simultaneous crackdown on dissent at home, all while securing shiny new powers for MI5. Firstly, the UK plans to strike a new attitude on attribution of alleged cyber attacks, claiming, apparently with a straight face: The UK has historically been reticent in attributing cyber attacks  as recently as 2010, this Committee was asked to redact mention of Russia as a perpetrator of cyber attacks, on diplomatic grounds. But the UKs reticence to blame Russia for cyber attacks is over, they now intend to name and shame foreign actors who carry out cyber attacks: there has to now be a cost attached to such activity. When attacks can be traced back  and we accept that this is in itself resource-intensive  the Government must always consider naming and shaming. [NOTE: This section on attribution would an absolutely ideal time to mention that other state player  namely the US military  have the technology to carry out cyber attacks and make it appear to have come from somewhere else. We know they know, because of the Wikileaks Vault 7 leaks, but they dont mention it.] Oh, and theyre going leverage their diplomatic relations to force those countries who would rather not start a new cold war based on the testimony of lunatics, fraudsters and underwear salesmen, to publicly blame Russia forpretty much everything: it is apparent that not everyone is keen to adopt this new approach and to call out Russia on malicious cyber activity. The Government must now leverage its diplomatic relationships to develop a common international approach when it comes to the attribution of malicious cyber activity by Russia and others. This is dishonest, and potentially dangerous, but this kind of geo-political positioning is very much the long game. Its the short term stuff, the local stuff, we should really worry about. Like handing over powers to monitor and protect the democratic processes of the country to MI5 [our emphasis]: Overall, the issue of defending the UKs democratic processes and discourse has appeared to be something of a hot potato, with no one organisation recognising itself as having an overall lead. Whilst we understand the nervousness around any suggestion that the intelligence and security Agencies might be involved in democratic processes [] that cannot apply when it comes to the protection of those processes [] Protecting our democratic discourse and processes from hostile foreign interference is a central responsibility of Government, and should be a ministerial priority. In our opinion, the operational role must sit primarily with MI5 They recommend this, based on MI5s pre-existing relationship built with social media companies. They dont mention, at this stage, how social media companies have built a relationship with MI5, or what role they might serve in protecting democracy, but its not hard to guess. Social Media is an important theme in the report, actually, being mentioned fifteen times in 47 pages. Firstly, were told that social media companies must bear the brunt of the blame for hostile state activity being at all effective: we note that  as with so many other issues currently  it is the social media companies which hold the key and yet are failing to play their part Before they add the government must seek a protocol by which social media companies remove any material the UK government deems hostile state use of their platform: The Government must now seek to establish a protocol with the social media companies to ensure that they take covert hostile state use of their platforms seriously, and have clear timescales within which they commit to removing such material Any companies who refuse to do this will be named and shamed. You might think well, this protocol could easily be used against people with no state affiliation whatsoever, and youd be right. It could. The government admits as much, but doesnt seem to have a problem with it: Such a protocol could, usefully, be expanded to encompass the other areas in which action is required from the social media companies, since this issue is not unique to Hostile State Activity This would be a good time to note that the Atlantic Council employees this report cites have, in the past, labelled people bots who are definitely, provably not bots. This includes noted independent journalists and a world-renowned concert pianist. The proposed protocol opens up an avenue for the state to silence dissident individuals by similarly mistaking them for state-backed agents. Another thing the report is keen on is boosting the UKs Offensive Cyber capabilities: this is an era of hybrid warfare and an Offensive Cyber capability is now essential. The Government announced its intention to develop an Offensive Cyber capability in September 2013, and in 2014 the National Offensive Cyber Programme (NOCP) []The UK continues to develop its Offensive Cyber capability. What their offensive cyber capabilities ARE, and how they use them, is never described. Are they used solely against other states, or against domestic politic parties, organizations and individuals too? They dont say. Is cyberwarfare even legal under international law? Well, no. In fact, the way the report dances around the idea that cyberwarfare is actually potentially illegal under international law is a thing of beauty: While the UN has agreed that international law, and in particular the UN Charter, applies in cyberspace, there is still a need for a greater global understanding of how this should work in practice [] Achieving a consensus on this common approach will be a challenging process, but as a leading proponent of the Rules Based International Order it is essential that the UK helps to promote and shape Rules of Engagement, working with our allies. The fact that people out there can even begin to cite this report in earnest when it describes the UK as a key defender of a Rules Based International Order just boggles my mind. The real scary stuff comes later though, in the legislation section. The UK is already one of the most surveilled countries in the world, and the report happily mentions that last February, the UK police/intelligence agencies got [our emphasis]: new powers to stop, question, search or detain any person entering the UK gained Royal Assent in February 2019; it is not necessary for there to be suspicion of engagement in hostile activity in order to use these powers. Following on from this, the report recommends a new Espionage Act and a Foreign Agent Registration Act, to crackdown on espionage. Hearings resulting from these acts could be closed material proceedings to protect national security. For those who dont know, in UK law a closed material proceeding is a hearing where a prosecutor presents some evidence directly to a judge which is kept secret from both the public and the defense counsel. Until this new legislation is passed, the report warns, the Intelligence Communitys hands are tied. To sum up, the long-awaited Russia report is  surprise surprise  not a trove of secrets and corruption which could bring down the Johnson government. It was never going to be that, despite what all the fake-left journalists were saying, and what all the Labour supporters who should know better were tweeting. It was actually sickening to watch so many people, especially in Corbyns camp, cry-out for this report and not realise they were getting played. Its the oldest trick in the book. Cheap reverse psychology that doesnt work on children past the age of about five, but apparently does work on the majority of the members of the Labour party. Thanks to their gullibility, no one is questioning the honesty, providence or intentions of a report which finds, in short: MI5 should have more control over our democratic systems.

We should spend more money on developing cyber attack ability.

We should investigate and maybe overturn the Brexit vote.

We should pass authoritarian new legislation

Social Media companies should take down whatever the government says they should take down. People who are supposed to guard against tyranny and hold power to account have abandoned their posts to take part in anti-Russia hysteria which endangers what remains of our civil liberties. As a result, were getting headlines like this: GUARDIAN: Report dans number 10 and spy agencies over Russia #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/iCpPx7RgrL  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) July 21, 2020 MAIL: Now tame the Russian bear #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/AiIEXOvI0D  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) July 21, 2020 And this. THE TIMES: MI5 to get more powers #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/SwGzDiT0id  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) July 21, 2020 Its the same old lies, on the same old topics, told by the same old people, for the same old reasons. The only difference is, this time, they managed to trick some of the gullible woke left into begging for it. - " Source " - Post your comment below See also The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
DUBLIN, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global Procurement Software Market - Growth, Trends, Forecasts (2020 - 2025)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global procurement software market is expected to register a CAGR of 10.2% over the forecast period 2020 to 2025.

The growth of the market is attributed to the increasing demand for centralized procurement processes and the consolidation of supply chain management (SCM). Moreover, the market also seeks opportunities owing to the growth in mobile procurement applications.



Market Highlights



The centralizing of procurement processes that ensure efficiency are also increasingly motivating the procurement software market. The need to curtail losses due to inventory control is another important factor bolstering the procurement software market considerably.

Owing to the growing need to automate the procurement processes, the materialization of the e-procurement technology will open up new opportunities for market growth in the coming years. Moreover, the requirement to avert the duplication of records is anticipated to boost the development of the procurement software market in the coming years.

The influence of governmental policies is motivating further development in the market. The rise in the flow of international transactions between nations is further inspiring the progress of the market. The synergies being created between supply and demand forces in the market are expected to induce further growth of the market.

The rising need for the automation of procurement processes, the emergence of eProcurement technology, will drive the growth prospects for the global procurement software market in the coming years.

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) with the software is likely to unleash immense developmental opportunities into the procurement software market in the years to come. Technological advancements are poised to accelerate revenue creation for market participants. On the contrary, lack of skilled personnel remains an impediment to market growth.

Software companies are currently increasing their focus on in-demand technologies and re-exploring innovative ways to serve their clients as the COVID-19 crisis is creating challenges across multiple industries and is leading to a reduction in technology spending.

Industries are still adjusting to the COVID-19 economy, from new internal logistics like WFH or building out infrastructure to cope up with new demand. Moreover, many of the heaviest spending reductions are being felt in the industries which were hardest hit by the effect of COVID-19.

Key Market Trends



Retail Industry to Witness Highest Growth

The retail segment is presumed to hold the maximum market share over the next few years. The intensified need for efficient inventory management in the retail sector is likely to aid demand generation across the forecast period.

Procurement software helps retailers to integrate business processes and improve the overall value of businesses. It facilitates transparency in financial supply chains and contract details for generating invoices to complete payments.

Procurement software tools enable retail companies to automate procurement tasks and procure best rates from vendors for their tender, making it essential for retail companies that need to procure a large volume of goods. With the implementation of procurement software solutions, companies can collaborate with suppliers, track events and get alerts, and analyze business intelligence data to gain insights into the procurement process for forecasting and planning purposes.

Moreover, this technology simplifies the decision-making process that concerns demand and sales forecast by consolidating supply chain and facilitating inventory management. Also, it offers advantages such as minimum operational cost, higher operational efficiency, etc. which are presumed to increase the growth pace of the market in the retail industry in upcoming years.

For instance, Companies like Ginesy offer POS software which is user-friendly and it supports fast billing features. It also provides a quick and easy approach to billing with continuous data synchronization and is being used by the top retail companies in India making it the best POS software in India .

North America Accounts for Highest Market Share

North America dominates in the global marketplace owing to the rising demand for centralized procurement processes. Also, the consolidation of companies incorporated in the region is expected to provide an impetus to market growth in the years to come.

dominates in the global marketplace owing to the rising demand for centralized procurement processes. Also, the consolidation of companies incorporated in the region is expected to provide an impetus to market growth in the years to come. Moreover, the presence of the market players that are involved in providing services of procurement software such as Oracle and Microsoft are located in North America which further boosts the market growth in the region.

which further boosts the market growth in the region. The growth of new business insights is contributing to the expansion of the market studied in the United States , as various data sources increases. Many companies are leveraging big data to improve customer experience, enhance marketing, identify fraud and waste, and achieve other results that directly strengthen business performance.

, as various data sources increases. Many companies are leveraging big data to improve customer experience, enhance marketing, identify fraud and waste, and achieve other results that directly strengthen business performance. According to Auburn University's Harbert College of Business, the US retailer's growth is expected to foster its investment in supply chain management and are rigorously trying to enhance the customer experience which is likely to boost the market growth.

Competitive Landscape



The global procurement software market is moderately concentrated owing to the presence of many large and small players in the market operating in the domestic as well as in the international market. Players in the market are adopting key strategies such as product innovation, strategic partnerships and mergers, and acquisitions. Some of the key developments in the market are:

In April 2020 - Epicor Software Corporation announced the launch of Epicor Commerce Connect Express (ECC Express), a new portal to its existing Epicor Commerce Connect solution. The e-commerce product is designed for businesses that need an immediate way to improve productivity, offer quality online experiences, and stay connected to their valued customers and suppliers.

- Epicor Software Corporation announced the launch of Epicor Commerce Connect Express (ECC Express), a new portal to its existing Epicor Commerce Connect solution. The e-commerce product is designed for businesses that need an immediate way to improve productivity, offer quality online experiences, and stay connected to their valued customers and suppliers. In February 2020 - Proactis announced a new partnership with global change-ready technology and implementation specialist Agilyx Group to provide a range of spend management solutions and services to Agilyx customers. This partnership means that Agilyx can identify where a customer has an unmet need or has decided to make a change, that can be fulfilled by Proactis technology, and enable that customer to leverage additional value from their current ERP solution.

Key Topics Covered



1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Study Deliverables

1.2 Study Assumptions

1.3 Scope of the Study



2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY



3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY



4 MARKET DYNAMICS

4.1 Market Overview

4.2 Market Drivers

4.2.1 Increasing Demand for Improving Supplier Discovery and Relationship Management

4.2.2 Growing Adoption of Advanced Retail Sourcing and Procurement Solutions

4.3 Market Challenges

4.3.1 Complexity Regarding Integration with Existing System and Supplier Onboarding

4.4 Industry Attractiveness - Porters Five Force Analysis

4.5 Assessment of Impact of COVID-19 on the Global Procurement Software Market



5 RELEVANT USED CASES & CASE STUDIES



6 MARKET SEGMENTATION

6.1 Deployment Type

6.1.1 On-premise

6.1.2 Cloud

6.2 End-user Industry

6.2.1 Retail

6.2.2 Manufacturing

6.2.3 Transportation and Logistics

6.2.4 Healthcare

6.2.5 Other End-user Industries

6.3 Geography

6.3.1 North America

6.3.2 Europe

6.3.3 Asia-Pacific

6.3.4 Rest of the World



7 COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

7.1 Company Profiles

7.1.1 SAP SE

7.1.2 Proactis Holdings PLC

7.1.3 Epicor Software Corporation

7.1.4 Ginesys (Ginni Systems Limited)

7.1.5 Coupa Software Inc.

7.1.6 Zycus Inc.

7.1.7 GT Nexus (Infor Inc.)

7.1.8 Ivalua Inc.

7.1.9 Microsoft Corporation

7.1.10 Oracle Corporation

7.1.11 Basware AS

7.1.12 Mercateo AG

7.1.13 GEP Corporation

7.1.14 Jaggaer Inc.



8 INVESTMENT ANALYSIS



9 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES AND FUTURE TRENDS



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/48cnhg

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

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Research and Markets

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TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - A Honduran court ordered the immediate release Thursday of former first lady Rosa Elena Bonilla de Lobo, whose 58-year corruption sentence and conviction was tossed out earlier this year.

Bonilla will not be allowed to leave the country or have contact with others involved in the case. She is awaiting a new trial.

The court also ordered the release of her personal secretary Saul Fernando Escobar whose conviction had also been annulled, but who remained in prison.

Bonilla has been jailed since 2018. In September 2019, she was sentenced to 58 years in prison for fraud and embezzlement. The prior month she was convicted of embezzling about $600,000 in government money between 2010 and 2014, when her husband Porfirio Lobo was president.

The case was originally brought forward by the Organization of American States anti-corruption mission, which began its mandate in the country in 2016 after large street protests against graft. That mission was not renewed earlier this year by President Juan Orlando Hernandez.

In March, Honduras Supreme Court ordered a new trial due to procedural problems in the original one.

Thursdays hearing came at the request of Bonillas defence team, which sought a review of her custody in light of her conviction being annulled.

Melvin Duarte, spokesman for the judiciary, said Bonillas defence argued she could not be held for more than two years. Prosecutors could have requested a six-month extension, but did not.

A new trial date has not been set.
Washington:

The research for Antarctic meteorites has been renewed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This will help NASA learn more about the primitive building blocks of the solar system. The NASA researchers will also be able to answer the questions about Moon and Mars after renewing the search for Antarctic meteorites.



An agreement to search for, collect and curate Antarctic meteorites has recently been renewed by NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Smithsonian Institution (SI). The partnership is called the Antarctic Search for Meteorites Programme (ANSMET).

After inking the new joint agreement, the programme for an additional decade will reach an advance stage and will replace an earlier agreement that was signed in 1980.

"Antarctic meteorites are posing new questions about the formation and early history of our solar system. Some of these questions are spurring new exploration of the solar system by NASA missions," Tim McCoy, Smithsonian meteorite scientist said.

In 1976, the United States started searching for meteorites in Antarctica. Since then the ANSMET programme has gathered more than 23,000 specimens, dramatically increasing the number of samples available for study from the Moon, Mars and asteroids.

These include the first meteorites discovered from the Moon and Mars and the ALH 84001 Martian meteorite. This well-known meteorite helped renew interest in Mars exploration in the 1990s.



Natural objects that fall to Earth from space and survive intact so they can be collected on the ground or on ice are called Meteorites.

According to NASA, a unique environment for the collection of meteorites is provided by Antarctica because the cold desert climate preserves meteorites for long periods of time.

Meteorites can be concentrated in certain locations due to the movements of the ice sheets. Scientists therefore find it easy to locate them.

Small field parties are deployed by ANSMET during the Antarctic summer (winter in the northern hemisphere) to hunt for the meteorites.

The conditions are harsh even in summer. The temperatures fall below minus 18 degrees Celsius.

The ANSMET teams live in tents on the ice in remote areas, where they search for meteorites using snowmobiles or on foot.



Meteorites come from a variety of places in the solar system. Most meteorites originated on asteroids, which are remnants of the materials from which planets were formed.

A few meteorites originated on the Moon and Mars and blasted off the surfaces by large asteroid impacts and later fell on Earth.

The lunar meteorites may come from parts of the Moon not visited by astronauts in the 20th century, and they extend our knowledge of

Earth's companion and how it formed.

Martian meteorites are humankind's only specimens of rocks known to be from another planet.

(With inputs from PTI)

For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Editor's note: This letter was submitted July 17.

Dear Gov. Bullock:

At Canyon Creek we have felt great sadness and heavy hearts as weve mourned the loss of 10 of our dear residents. The loss of any of our residents is devastating and we ask that you join with us in keeping the families of our residents in your thoughts and prayers.

Unfortunately, there have been reports regarding our COVID-19 policies and procedures that have, in our opinion, omitted important information. In an effort to bring to light all the facts, we have written a letter to correct misinformation about Canyon Creek Memory Care Community that has been disseminated recently. It is profoundly disappointing that the truth of what has happened and what is going on currently concerning COVID-19 in our senior housing community has been so distorted in the media.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, our staff at Canyon Creek has worked diligently and tirelessly to limit the risk that COVID-19 would enter our community. Those efforts resulted in Canyon Creek remaining COVID-19 free from the implementation of our enhanced screening and monitoring protocols in mid-February 2020 until late June 2020. During that time, Canyon Creek adhered to the guidance of the federal, state and local health authorities and continuously improved protocols to assist in the prevention of the acquisition or transmission of the virus in our community.

Also, during this time, testing of staff and residents did occur at Canyon Creek. Residents and staff were screened daily for any signs or symptoms related to COVID-19. Any staff displaying symptoms were not allowed in the community and were advised to seek advice from their health care providers. Residents who displayed signs or symptoms were immediately quarantined and tested for COVID-19. These tests were done in conjunction with RiverStone Health or at local hospitals. All of these residents tested negative during this period.

Canyon Creek is a memory care community. Many of its residents are unclear about their whereabouts and often struggle to understand why certain medical procedures are performed. The COVID-19 test is an unpleasant procedure even for persons who fully understand what is happening. For those who dont, it can be frightening. Nonetheless, we proceeded to have all residents who may have been symptomatic tested under our rigorous monitoring and screening protocols.

Given the vigorous efforts at Canyon Creek to monitor and screen against the COVID-19 infection, the limited scope of the sentinel program and the potential impact of testing on residents, Canyon Creek along with many other Montana providers declined to participate in the voluntary sentinel testing program offered on June 16th.

On June 30th, a resident of Canyon Creek began to show symptoms of COVID-19. That resident was tested immediately and the results were positive. Following the residents confirmed positive case, Canyon Creek immediately arranged for the testing of all residents. Our community also went into quarantine under our preexisting protocols, and we continue to follow all recommended procedures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and protect the health of our residents.

We continue to work closely with the local Health Department for ongoing testing. This testing has most recently been conducted on all residents and staff who had previously received negative test results and will remain a standard practice as we fight this viral enemy. Despite the recent negative headlines, families, staff, and local health providers have continued to provide strong encouragement and support for our community at Canyon Creek. Those people understand and appreciate our deep commitment to the health and care Canyon Creek has continued to show to our vulnerable residents.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a serious crisis. We tried very hard to prevent COVID-19 from entering our community. Once it did, we took immediate action to limit its impact, and continue to do so. We are a critical part of the Montana senior care system. We are proud to be in Billings and Bozeman, and prouder to serve Montanans as they age.

In closing let me state that we are vigilant and on high alert. Our attention remains focused on serving our residents to the best of our ability. I am hopeful that this part of the story will be told as well.

Aaron Koelsch is the president & CEO of Koelsch Communities, owner of Canyon Creek Memory Care in Billings.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 23)  Hundreds of caregivers of patients in a Cebu City hospital were seen camping in a park as they were not allowed to step inside the facility.

Cebu City Councilor Dave Tumulak counted 222 campers or "watchers" of patients with other diseases or receiving maternity care are at the Fuente Osmena Circle waiting for their loved ones at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center. The hospital prohibited visitors to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The watchers were initially sleeping on the sidewalk in front of the hospital before the local government ordered their transfer to the park three days ago where they were given makeshift tents.

Tumulak said the city government is providing the watchers three meals a day, water and sleeping mats, adding that 196 of them were from other towns while 26 were from the city.

Their beds are made of discarded cartons and plywood. Security guards were also deployed in the area to make sure they are observing health measures.

Staff at the City Social Welfare Department said it is the last day for them to provide meals, and they are unsure about provisions in the coming days.

Earlier, hospital management told government officials that it cannot allow just anyone to go inside the facility given the community transmission in Cebu City.

The hospital is a designated COVID-19 facility.

Tumulak said the hospital will come up with a list of watchers with only one allowed per patient.

City officials are also coordinating with the provincial government for assistance, adding that some of the patients' relatives will be brought back to their towns in government buses.

Cebu-based journalist Dale Israel contributed to this report
RedTerrano BHPian



Join Date: Jan 2015 Location: Pune Posts: 704 Thanked: 5,081 Times

Naneghat : The first toll naka Mauryan Empire (founded by Chandragupta Maurya, which zenithed under the rule of his grandson, Ashok the Great)

Chola Empire (Rajaraja/Rajendra Chola was the pinnacle of the Cholas, whose empire extended beyond India to modern day Malaysia and Indonesia, perhaps the greatest Indian ruler to have a powerful Navy)

Rani Ahilyabai Holkar

King Lalitaditya of Kashmir All these and many more have left their stamp on history as well as geography.



In Maharashtra, the word empire is synonymous to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Numerous forts stand testimony to his life work even today.

But much before the Maratha empire was established, modern day Maharashtra was ruled by other Kings and Queens. One such dynasty, were the Satavahanas, whose rule lasted almost 500 years (2nd century BCE to 3rd century CE).

The Satavahanas succeeded the Kanva dynasty and established their rule over modern day Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Telangana, with their capital at Pratishthan (Paithan, MH) and Amaravathi (AP) over the centuries.

After expanding their territories and asserting their dominance, they heavily encouraged manufacturing and trade, recognizing it as the lifeline of commerce and prosperity.

And like any other ruler, they taxed it.

Of course.



There is one very important step which links manufacturing to trade.

Transport.

Check out this image of modern day Maharashtra.



The darker green denotes Konkan, the coastal region. The lighter shade to it's right is the Deccan plateau, whose elevation ranges from 330ft - 3300ft above sea level. The Sahyadri which divides these two regions offers numerous passes which one can use to cross over the boundary.

But this is easier said than done. Trade in those days was not simple. To start with one relied heavily on bullock carts and other pack animals. The routes passed through many a thick forests and the danger of wild animals and highway robbers was very real. No proper paved roads existed back then. Chandragupta Maurya did build a highway called Uttarpath, connecting the capital Pataliputra(Patna) to Lahore, but it was, as the name suggested, in the North.



Over the centuries the Satavahanas had built a stable empire, with numerous prosperous cities like Jeernanagar(Junnar), Tagar(Ter), Nashik and of course the capital Pratishthan(Paithan)

One pass, linked all these cities to the Konkan. Here, the Satavahanas built navigable roads, deployed soldiers for protection and offered rest and water facilities at the pass itself.

All this came at a fee of course. Call it (now defunct) octroi or toll.

This toll was collected in huge stone cauldrons such as this



Thus Nane(coin) ghat(pass).



Today we know all this, thanks to one person.

Enter Queen Nayanika (also known as Naganika), wife of King Satkarni, first of his name, house of Satavahana (NOT to be confused with the climax of the dynasty, Gautamiputra Satkarni)

On the death of her husband, she commissioned the history of the dynasty as well as the ghats to be set in stone. Literally.



Thanks to her, today we know, the Satavahanas Performed Ashwamedh yagna . Twice.

. Twice. An additional 22 other yagnas .

. Thousands of cows, elephants, horses, pack animals were given as daan .

. Numerous land deeds for villages were given in perpetuity.

Clothes, ornaments, and cash donations. (Currency was the Karsharpan).

At the base of the ghat, a village was established, where the traders could halt overnight. This exists even today. It's called Vaishakhkhede (originally Vaishya(trader) khede(village). Ample facilities were created for them, their servants as well as pack animals.

The traders used the ghats to descend into Konkan. Their destination? The sea ports at Sopara and Kalyan. Ships carried their goods to as far as ancient Rome. (Fine cloth from Paithan, with delicate embroidery in hand spun threads of Gold (Jari) was in high demand even back then)



Besides all this, the inscriptions also offer a valuable insight into the culture back then. Indologists have identified the script as Brahmi, but the language as Sanskrit!

The Satavahanas revered Indra and Surya.

There is also a mention of Samkarshana (Balram) and Vasudev(Krishna)

along with Yama, and Varuna.



Samkarshana and Vasudev in Brahmi script





Samkarshana and Vasudev depicted on a coin from the reign and kingdom of...hold your breath....the Greek king Agathocles Dikaios







Immersed in the inscriptions, is also the world's oldest known numerals for the numbers 2,4,6,7 and 9.











Naneghat Entrance. Notice the cauldron on the right







From the other side







Office and resting areas















Inscriptions on the left wall





Inscriptions on the right wall Samkarshana and Vasudev in Brahmi scriptSamkarshana and Vasudev depicted on a coin from the reign and kingdom of...hold your breath....theking Agathocles DikaiosImmersed in the inscriptions, is also the world's oldest known numerals for the numbers 2,4,6,7 and 9.Naneghat Entrance. Notice the cauldron on the rightFrom thesideOffice and resting areasInscriptions on the left wallInscriptions on the right wall

Note:

While researching for this thread, I wondered how come no TBHPian had ever been to Naneghat.

Of course, I was wrong!!



Check out this travelogue by @SDP, which has many awesome pics.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/trave...-naneghat.html (Photologue: 5 BHPians conquer the Naneghat) Over the centuries, there have been numerous Kings and Queens of various dynasties who ruled over different parts of modern day India. A quick recall and some famous names pop to the mind.All these and many more have left their stamp on history as well as geography.In Maharashtra, the word empire is synonymous to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Numerous forts stand testimony to his life work even today.But much before the Maratha empire was established, modern day Maharashtra was ruled by other Kings and Queens. One such dynasty, were the Satavahanas, whose rule lasted almost 500 years (2nd century BCE to 3rd century CE).The Satavahanas succeeded the Kanva dynasty and established their rule over modern day Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Telangana, with their capital at Pratishthan (Paithan, MH) and Amaravathi (AP) over the centuries.After expanding their territories and asserting their dominance, they heavily encouraged manufacturing and trade, recognizing it as the lifeline of commerce and prosperity.And like any other ruler, they taxed it.Of course.There is one very important step which links manufacturing to trade.Transport.Check out this image of modern day Maharashtra.The darker green denotes Konkan, the coastal region. The lighter shade to it's right is the Deccan plateau, whose elevation ranges from 330ft - 3300ft above sea level. The Sahyadri which divides these two regions offers numerous passes which one can use to cross over the boundary.But this is easier said than done. Trade in those days was not simple. To start with one relied heavily on bullock carts and other pack animals. The routes passed through many a thick forests and the danger of wild animals and highway robbers was very real. No proper paved roads existed back then. Chandragupta Mauryabuild a highway called, connecting the capital Pataliputra(Patna) to Lahore, but it was, as the name suggested, in the North.Over the centuries the Satavahanas had built a stable empire, with numerous prosperous cities like Jeernanagar(Junnar), Tagar(Ter), Nashik and of course the capital Pratishthan(Paithan)One pass, linked all these cities to the Konkan. Here, the Satavahanas built navigable roads, deployed soldiers for protection and offered rest and water facilities at the pass itself.All this came at a fee of course. Call it (now defunct) octroi or toll.This toll was collected in huge stone cauldrons such as thisThus Nane(coin) ghat(pass).Today we know all this, thanks to one person.Enter Queen Nayanika (also known as Naganika), wife of King Satkarni, first of his name, house of Satavahana (NOT to be confused with the climax of the dynasty, Gautamiputra Satkarni)On the death of her husband, she commissioned the history of the dynasty as well as the ghats to be set in stone. Literally.Thanks to her, today we know, the SatavahanasAt the base of the ghat, a village was established, where the traders could halt overnight. This exists even today. It's called Vaishakhkhede (originally Vaishya(trader) khede(village). Ample facilities were created for them, their servants as well as pack animals.The traders used the ghats to descend into Konkan. Their destination? The sea ports at Sopara and Kalyan. Ships carried their goods to as far as ancient Rome. (Fine cloth from Paithan, with delicate embroidery in hand spun threads of Gold (Jari) was in high demand even back then)Besides all this, the inscriptions also offer a valuable insight into the culture back then. Indologists have identified the script as Brahmi, but the language as Sanskrit!The Satavahanas revered Indra and Surya.There is also a mention of Samkarshana (Balram) and Vasudev(Krishna)along with Yama, and Varuna.While researching for this thread, I wondered how come no TBHPian had ever been to Naneghat.Of course, I was wrong!!Check out this travelogue by @SDP, which has many awesome pics.
The Shiv Sena on Thursday said that slogan hailing Shivaji does not violate constitutional norms after a controversy erupted as Vice-President and chairman of Rajya Sabha M Venkaiah Naidu expressed his disapproval over BJP MP Udayanraje Bhosale chanting Jai Bhavani, Jai Shivaji after taking oath on Wednesday.

I have never thought that this slogan violates any constitutional norms. The slogan Jai Bhavani, Jai Shivaji was as important as Jai Hind and Vande Mataram, Raut said and added that various other slogans in the both the Houses of Parliament have been shouted by lawmakers earlier.

Raut added that Naidu is a person who follows the rules and therefore this issue should not be dragged. Rules of the House and sentiments of members are two different issues, the Sena MP said.

In a video clip of the oath ceremony, Naidu is heard telling Udayan Raje: For your future reference, no other slogans are allowed in the House.

On Thursday, Naidu tweeted making it clear that he did not mean to insult anybody. Always been a strong and vocal admirer of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and worshipper of Goddess Bhawani. Reminded members that as per conventional practice at the time of taking oath no slogans are given. No disrespect at all, he tweeted.

Former Lok Sabha MP and Shiv Sena leader Chandrakant Khaire staged a protest in Aurangabad against the insult of king Shivaji. Shiv sainiks also protested in Navi Mumbai over the issue.

Raje, a descendant of Shivaji, dismissed the issue and said there was no insult to the 17th-century warrior king. He (Naidu) said you can take the oath, but do not add anything else to it... it is not in line with the Constitution But some people have created a controversy out of it. Had (Shivaji) Maharaj been insulted, I am not the one to keep quiet. I would have resigned at the very moment, he said. Naidu did no wrong. Had he done so, I would have sought his apology, Bhosale added.

Raut added that he agrees with the BJP MP and said he merely brought up the issue after followers of Shivaji Maharaj felt that the descendants of Shivaji were insulted.

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Although steam locomotives gradually died out with technological advances, 21 of them are still exhibited and operating at a museum in Diaobingshan, Tieling, northeast Chinas Liaoning province.

The museum is transformed from an industrial heritage that bears the memories of both history and culture. The revitalized heritage has not only attracted photography and steam locomotive fanatics from both home and abroad, but also were a shooting location for many movies and TV dramas.

Yan Shi was once a driver of steam locomotives. Though he started driving diesel locomotives in 2002, he said he still remembers the vibration and noise made by the steam locomotives. Thanks to the museum, Yan is able to once again drive a steam locomotive, sending mining workers to and from their workplace near the museum.

China stopped manufacturing steam locomotives in 1988 and the vehicles gradually fell into disuse 8 years later, according to Liu Chunshan, manager of the steam locomotive museum.

Starting from 2002, the rail transport department under Tiefa Energy Co., Ltd. (Tiefa) , which now runs the museum, initiated a program to replace steam locomotives by diesel ones, and the obsolete locomotives were either sold as scrap or melt down, Liu said.

However, Tiefa came up with new ideas due to the frequent visits by both foreign and domestic enthusiasts. We realized that the retired locomotives are valuable tourism resources, Liu told Peoples Daily. To better protect and utilize the industrial and cultural heritage, the company established the steam locomotive museum.

The museum has a collection of 21 steam locomotives, including a KD6487-type vehicle produced in 1943. All the locomotives are kept in good conditions and can even run on the tracks.

Since it opened to the public in 2000, the museum has become increasingly popular and even attracted many foreign tourists, who came to appreciate the industrial charm of the vehicles.

When they run, they are composing a melodious symphony, said a tourist, adding they will be missed by many after disappearing from the tracks.

Developing tourism with steam locomotives has not only vitalized dated railway equipment, but also generated new economic drivers.

The museum has gained huge fame on the internet and more than 140 movies and TV dramas have once shot scenes there.

It has continuously improved the filming facilities and cooperated with film and television bases and studios in the recent years, which brought about a considerable amount of income, Liu said.

Steam locomotive tourism has become a landmark in Tieling, and even Liaoning province. The revenue it generated has exceeded five million yuan (about $717,115) for five consecutive years and the cumulative over 40 million yuan.

The company has also made progress in developing tourism products, including 1:4 steam locomotive models that run on special tracks, Liu noted, adding that three models are now in the museum for visitors to experience. Tourists can also take a special train converted from six carriages of the original vehicle.

All the steam locomotives in the museum could be put into operation and even piloted by tourists who can enjoy the views and take pictures of the sceneries along the rail tracks, which is rare among similar museums around the world, Liu said.
Quetta, July 23 : The government in Pakistan's Balochistan province has handed over a 200-year-old gurdwara to the Sikh community after a period of 73 years, a media report said on Thursday.

The Siri Guru Singh Gurdwara located on Masjid Road in the centre of the city has been used as APWA Government High Girls SchAool since 1947, said the Dawn news report.

"Restoring gurdwara as a place of worship for the Sikh community is a historical decision of the Balochistan government," Denesh Kumar, provincial parliaAmAeAntary secretary and AdvAiser to the Chief Minister on Minority Affairs, said on Wednesday.

The students who were studying in APWA Government Girls High School have been asked to seek admission to nearby schools.

Sardar Jasbeer Singh, chairman of the Sikh Community Committee in Balochistan, welcomed the move and described it as a "gift from the Balochistan government to the Sikh community living in the province".

"The Sikh community of the province is very pleased that our ancient gurdwara has been handed over to us by the government of Pakistan and the Balochistan High Court after 73 years and now we are able to continue our religious practice there," Dawn news quoted Singh as saying.

Around 2,000 Sikh families live in Balochistan.

Earlier in February this year, the Balochistan government had handed over a 200-year-old temple in Zhob to the Hindu community.

The temple had been converted into a government boys' school, which has now been shifted to another building.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
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SAN FRANCISCO (AP)  Workplace chatting service Slack has filed a complaint in the European Union against Microsoft, accusing the software company of anti-competitive behavior.

Slack said Wednesday that Microsoft illegally bundles its Microsoft Teams messaging product, which is similar to Slack, into Office 365, its package of email and other widely used business software. Slack says Microsoft forces companies to install it for millions and blocks its removal.





. . .
The four-month pause that has protected millions of Americans from eviction cases is set to expire at the end of this week. But that hasnt stopped landlords across the country from trying to get a head start forcing renters out.

Landlords in Tucson, Ariz., filed dozens of eviction cases last month despite the federal moratorium, which was put in place because of the coronavirus crisis. Legal aid lawyers had to go to court to stop the eviction of a San Antonio renter who had lost her job during a citywide stay-at-home order. And in Omaha, a court found that a struggling renters attempted eviction had violated the emergency law.

As the number of Covid-19 cases has surged across the country, a disturbing trend has emerged: landlords commencing eviction proceedings even though the CARES Act relief law currently protects about 12 million tenants living in qualifying properties.

Yolanda Jackson, a special-education paraprofessional in the DeKalb County schools outside of Atlanta, lost her job in March when the schools shut down. Ms. Jackson, a mother of two, has yet to receive an unemployment check, despite confirmation that she was approved, and hasnt been able to pay her rent. A charitable organization agreed to cover her missed payments, but so far the manager of her complex, LaVista Crossing Apartments, hasnt sent the necessary documentation to accept it.
Four female former employees of Alphabet Inc.s Google are trying to persuade a state court to let them represent more than 10,000 peers in a gender-pay disparity suit against the company, setting the stage for the next big battle over class-action status.

Google paid women approximately $16,794 less per year than the similarly-situated man, the women said in a filing on Tuesday, citing an analysis by David Neumark, an economist at the University of California, Irvine. Google paid women less base salary, smaller bonuses, and less stock than men in the same job code and location, they said.

The women claim the pay differences violate Californias Equal Pay Act. According to the lawsuit, Google also violated the states Unfair Competition Law with a policy from 2011 to 2017 of asking job candidates for prior salaries, perpetuating lower pay and seniority for women. They want a San Francisco Superior Court judge to let them sue on behalf of all women who have worked at Google in California since Sept. 14, 2013.

A class certification hearing is set for Dec. 2.

Granting the women class status would raise the stakes for Google. Based on Neumarks analysis, a class action could seek more than $600 million in damages.

Google analyzes pay every year to make sure salaries, bonuses and equity awards are fair, Eileen Naughton, Vice President, People Operations, said in an emailed statement.

If we find any differences in proposed pay, including between men and women, we make upward adjustments, Naughton said. Last year, we made upward adjustments for 2% of employees, across every demographic category, totaling $5.1 million.

She said the claims in the lawsuit were unfounded and the company would defend its policies and practices.

The women sued Google in 2017. The company sought to dismiss the case but a judge denied the request in 2018.

James Finberg, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, is also representing three female Oracle Corp. employees who in May won class certification for a gender-discrimination lawsuit over unequal pay. On the other hand, female engineers were denied class-action status in similar cases filed in 2015 against Twitter Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

The case is Ellis v. Google Inc., CGC-17-561299, California Superior Court, San Francisco County.

Top photo: Signage is displayed in front of Google Inc. headquarters in Mountain View, California, U.S., on Wednesday, April 25, 2018. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Lawsuits California Claims Numbers
Police found the burned body of a man that was set ablaze on May 28, at the height of the protests for the death of African-American George Floyd in the hands of law enforcement officers. A Rochester man, Montez Terriel Lee has been charged with arson.

Burned man during protests

According to KTTC, an official news release from the Minneapolis Police Department states that the Medical Examiner's Office was looking to identify the dead man and to determine the cause and nature of death.

The body was discovered on Monday as local authorities were sifting through debris at the location of a pawnshop which was approximately three miles away from where Floyd, unfortunately, lost his life.

The US Attorney's Office in Minnesota said that video footage found in June showed Lee pouring some sort of liquid from the metal container he was carrying around the pawnshop.

The case is being treated as a homicide as the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office announced that it did not have information to release the cause of death at the time.

A police spokesman, John Elder, noted that the man's injuries gave officers the reason to believe that it was connected to the case of Lee's arson, as reported by The New York Times.

A lawyer for 25-year-old Lee did not immediately answer a phone message that was left on Tuesday.

Several departments assisted the Minneapolis Police Department in searching inside the building where the dead man was found including the Minneapolis Fire Department, the Minnesota State Fire Marshal Division, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).

A spokeswoman said the ATF has been coordinating and assisting local and state authorities since June to examine more than 150 fires that have occurred across the Twin Cities. She also noted the agency and several others have returned to the scenes of the fires based on new evidence and information.

Also Read: Is George Floyd Death a Staged Event? Texas Politician Cynthia Brehm Says So

George Floyd's death

In May several protests calling out racial injustice and police brutality have broken out after a police officer knelt on Floyd's neck for nearly ten minutes during which the black man kept screaming out that he could not breathe, as reported by CNN.

The massive surge of demonstrations, some of which have escalated to be violent, overwhelmed local officials, police officers, and emergency response teams.

Multiple fires raged across the United States amid the chaos, notably focused around East Lake Street, with several violent movements occurring beside the peaceful demonstrations.

During the protests, the Third Precinct police station of Minneapolis was barricaded with fences to protect from demonstrators. The construction, however, proved to be moot as thousands of protesters dismantled it and stormed the area of the precinct while lighting it on fire.

Sara Sidner, a CNN National Correspondent who was at the area at the time noted the precinct was ablaze and did not know where the police officers were stationed. Sidner also noted that the fire alarm inside the building was going off and protesters were cheering and setting off fireworks as the precinct burned down.

Related Article: 14-Year-Old Pakistani Girl Burned Alive By Uncle After Father Refused to Wed Her to Her Cousin

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
DALLAS, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Kimberly-Clark Corporation (NYSE: KMB) today reported second quarter 2020 results.

Executive Summary

Second quarter 2020 net sales of $4.6 billion increased slightly compared to the year-ago period, including organic sales growth of 4 percent.

increased slightly compared to the year-ago period, including organic sales growth of 4 percent. Diluted net income per share for the second quarter was $1.99 in 2020 and $1.40 in 2019.

in 2020 and in 2019. Second quarter adjusted earnings per share were $2.20 in 2020, up 32 percent compared to $1.67 in 2019. Adjusted earnings per share exclude certain items described later in this news release.

in 2020, up 32 percent compared to in 2019. Adjusted earnings per share exclude certain items described later in this news release. Second quarter cash provided by operations was $1,579 million in 2020 and $609 million in 2019.

in 2020 and in 2019. The company is restoring financial guidance for full-year 2020 and restarting its share repurchase program after temporarily suspending both in April due to the uncertainty related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Net sales in 2020 are expected to increase 1 to 2 percent year-on-year, including organic sales growth of 4 to 5 percent. Diluted net income per share for 2020 is anticipated to be $6.35 to $6.90 . Adjusted earnings per share in 2020 are expected to be $7.40 to $7.60 . The company's outlook in January was for organic sales growth of 2 percent and adjusted earnings per share of $7.10 to $7.35 .

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mike Hsu said, "We continue to focus on protecting the health and safety of our employees and consumers and operating our supply chain with excellence to meet the needs of our consumers and customers during this unprecedented time period. I am extremely proud of how our teams are managing these near-term operating priorities. At the same time, our underlying business momentum is good, our market share positions are healthy overall and we are delivering excellent financial results."

Hsu continued, "We achieved very good organic sales growth and all-time record adjusted earnings and cash flow in the second quarter. We also delivered significant cost savings, helping us achieve strong margin improvements. While the environment remains uncertain, visibility has improved from three months ago and we are restoring forward-looking guidance. We have increased our 2020 outlook for organic sales and earnings compared to our original plan. We are also further increasing our growth investments to position us for future success. We continue to execute well, operate our business with a balanced approach and remain very optimistic about our opportunities to create shareholder value."

Second Quarter 2020 Operating Results

Sales of $4.6 billion in the second quarter of 2020 increased slightly compared to the year-ago period. Changes in foreign currency exchange rates reduced sales approximately 4 percent, while organic sales increased 4 percent. Volumes increased 2 percent and changes in net selling prices and product mix each improved 1 percent. In North America, organic sales increased 12 percent in consumer products but fell 3 percent in K-C Professional. Outside North America, organic sales rose 3 percent in developed markets but fell 3 percent in developing and emerging markets, driven by Latin America.

Second quarter operating profit was $925 million in 2020 and $670 million in 2019. Results in both periods include charges related to the 2018 Global Restructuring Program. Second quarter adjusted operating profit was $1,012 million in 2020 and $789 million in 2019. Results benefited from organic sales growth, $120 million of cost savings from the company's FORCE (Focused On Reducing Costs Everywhere) program and $55 million of cost savings from the 2018 Global Restructuring Program. Input costs decreased $80 million, driven by pulp, while other manufacturing costs rose year-on-year. Advertising spending increased and general and administrative costs were also higher compared to the prior year. Foreign currency translation effects reduced operating profit by $15 million and transaction effects also negatively impacted the comparison.

The second quarter effective tax rate was 23.2 percent in 2020 and 22.2 percent in 2019. The second quarter adjusted effective tax rate was 22.7 percent in 2020 and 22.3 percent in 2019.

Kimberly-Clark's share of net income of equity companies in the second quarter was $35 million in 2020 and $33 million in 2019. Results benefited from organic sales growth and lower input costs, partially offset by negative foreign currency effects.

Cash Flow and Balance Sheet

Cash provided by operations in the second quarter was an all-time record $1,579 million in 2020 compared to $609 million in 2019. The increase was driven by improved working capital, higher earnings and the timing of tax payments. Capital spending for the second quarter was $284 million in 2020 and $253 million in 2019. Second quarter 2020 share repurchases were 0.3 million shares at a cost of $39 million and occurred prior to the company temporarily suspending its share repurchase program effective April 24, 2020. The company will be restarting its share repurchase program effective July 24, 2020. Total debt was $8.1 billion at June 30, 2020 and $7.7 billion at the end of 2019.

Second Quarter 2020 Business Segment Results

Personal Care Segment

Second quarter sales of $2.2 billion decreased 2 percent. Changes in currency rates reduced sales by 5 percent. Product mix improved 2 percent and volumes and net selling prices each increased slightly. Second quarter operating profit of $519 million increased 7 percent. The comparison benefited from organic sales growth, cost savings and lower input costs. Results were impacted by unfavorable currency effects, other manufacturing cost increases, higher advertising spending and increased general and administrative costs.

Sales in North America increased 4 percent. Volumes increased 2 percent, product mix improved 2 percent and net selling prices rose 1 percent. The improved volumes and product mix were driven by baby and child care.

Sales in developing and emerging markets decreased 9 percent. Changes in currency rates reduced sales 11 percent. Product mix improved 2 percent and volumes rose slightly, while net selling prices were down 1 percent.

Sales in developed markets outside North America (Australia, South Korea and Western/Central Europe) decreased 8 percent. Changes in currency rates reduced sales 5 percent. Volumes fell 6 percent, while the combined impact of changes in net selling prices and product mix improved sales 3 percent.

Consumer Tissue Segment

Second quarter sales of $1.6 billion increased 12 percent. Volumes increased 14 percent and net selling prices rose 1 percent, while product mix was unfavorable by 1 percent. Changes in currency rates reduced sales approximately 3 percent. The volume increase was driven by increased shipments in North America and developed markets to support higher consumer and customer demand related to the global outbreak of COVID-19. Second quarter operating profit of $428 million increased 94 percent. Results benefited from organic sales growth, cost savings and lower input costs. The comparison was impacted by increased advertising spending and unfavorable currency effects.

Sales in North America increased 22 percent. Volumes rose 24 percent and net selling prices improved 1 percent, while product mix was down 2 percent. Volumes increased double-digits in all major product categories.

Sales in developing and emerging markets decreased 9 percent including a 7 point negative impact from changes in currency rates. Volumes decreased 2 percent and net selling prices fell 1 percent, while product mix improved 1 percent.

Sales in developed markets outside North America increased 8 percent. Volumes rose 7 percent, driven by South Korea and Western/Central Europe. Net selling prices rose 4 percent and product mix improved 1 percent. Changes in currency rates reduced sales 4 percent.

K-C Professional (KCP) Segment

Second quarter sales of $0.7 billion decreased 12 percent. Volumes declined 16 percent, reflecting challenging economic and business conditions globally following the outbreak of COVID-19. Net selling prices increased 4 percent and product mix improved approximately 3 percent. Changes in currency rates reduced sales 2 percent. Second quarter operating profit of $155 million decreased 4 percent. The comparison was impacted by lower volumes, other manufacturing cost increases and unfavorable currency effects. Results benefited from increased net selling prices, improved product mix and cost savings.

Sales in North America decreased 3 percent. Volumes were down 9 percent, as double-digit declines in washroom and safety products were partially offset by double-digit increases in wipers and other products. Net selling prices increased 4 percent and product mix improved 3 percent.

Sales in developing and emerging markets decreased 35 percent including a 5 point negative impact from changes in currency rates. Volumes fell 32 percent, with significant declines in all major geographies, and product mix was down 1 percent. Net selling prices increased 3 percent.

Sales in developed markets outside North America were down 12 percent. Volumes decreased 17 percent, while product mix improved 5 percent and net selling prices increased 3 percent. The changes were driven by Western/Central Europe. Currency rates were unfavorable by 4 percent.

Year-To-Date Results

For the first six months of 2020, sales of $9.6 billion increased 4 percent. Organic sales increased 7 percent, as volumes rose 5 percent and net selling prices and product mix each improved 1 percent. Changes in foreign currency exchange rates reduced sales by 3 percent and business exits in conjunction with the 2018 Global Restructuring Program reduced sales slightly.

Year-to-date operating profit was $1,829 million in 2020 and $1,325 million in 2019. Results in both periods include charges related to the 2018 Global Restructuring Program. Year-to-date adjusted operating profit was $2,009 million in 2020 and $1,596 million in 2019. Results benefited from organic sales growth, $220 million of FORCE cost savings and $80 million of cost savings from the 2018 Global Restructuring Program. Input costs decreased $195 million, driven by pulp. The comparison was impacted by unfavorable currency effects, other manufacturing cost increases, increased advertising spending and higher general and administrative costs.

Through six months, diluted net income per share was $3.92 in 2020 and $2.71 in 2019. Year-to-date adjusted earnings per share were $4.34 in 2020 and $3.33 in 2019.

2018 Global Restructuring Program

In January 2018, Kimberly-Clark initiated the 2018 Global Restructuring Program in order to reduce the company's structural cost base and enhance the company's flexibility to invest in its brands, growth initiatives and capabilities critical to delivering future growth. As part of the program, Kimberly-Clark expects to exit or divest some low-margin businesses that generate approximately 1 percent of company net sales.

The restructuring is expected to be completed in 2021, with total restructuring charges to implement the program expected to be toward the high end of the range of $1,700 to $1,900 million pre-tax ($1,300 to $1,400 million after tax). The company expects the program will generate annual pre-tax cost savings of $500 to $550 million. The company continues to target to achieve those savings by the end of 2021, although it is possible the full realization could occur in 2022 because of the uncertainties related to COVID-19. Through the second quarter of 2020, the company has incurred cumulative restructuring charges of $1,582 million pre-tax ($1,177 million after tax) and generated cumulative savings of $380 million.

2020 Outlook and Key Planning Assumptions

On April 23, 2020 the company withdrew its previous 2020 guidance because of the uncertainty related to the COVID-19 outbreak. Although uncertainty remains meaningful related to the duration and potential impacts of COVID-19 and the overall environment, visibility has improved from three months ago and the company is restoring forward-looking guidance. In addition to assuming no significant impact from potential supply chain disruptions as a result of COVID-19, the company's key planning and guidance assumptions for full-year 2020 are below:

Net sales increase of 1 to 2 percent.

Organic sales increase of 4 to 5 percent.



Foreign currency exchange rates unfavorable by 3 percent.



Exited businesses in conjunction with the 2018 Global Restructuring Program expected to reduce sales slightly.

Adjusted operating profit growth of 6 to 9 percent.

Cost savings of $510 to $560 million , including $390 to $420 million from the FORCE program and $120 to $140 million from the 2018 Global Restructuring Program.

to , including to from the FORCE program and to from the 2018 Global Restructuring Program.

Key cost inputs expected to decline $150 to $250 million .

to .

Higher other manufacturing costs, including expenses related to COVID-19.



Increased investments in advertising and commercial capabilities.



Unfavorable foreign currency translation and transaction effects.

Interest expense expected to decrease somewhat year-on-year.

Adjusted effective tax rate of 23 to 24 percent.

Net income from equity companies expected to be similar to down slightly year-on-year.

Adjusted earnings per share of $7.40 to $7.60 compared to $6.89 in 2019.

to compared to in 2019. Capital spending of $1,200 to $1,300 million .

to . Share repurchases of $700 to $900 million , subject to market conditions.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

This news release and the accompanying tables include the following financial measures that have not been calculated in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the U.S., or GAAP, and are therefore referred to as non-GAAP financial measures:

Adjusted earnings and earnings per share

Adjusted gross and operating profit

Adjusted effective tax rate

These non-GAAP financial measures exclude the following items for the relevant time periods as indicated in the accompanying non-GAAP reconciliations to the comparable GAAP financial measures:

2018 Global Restructuring Program. Mentioned elsewhere in this release.

The company provides these non-GAAP financial measures as supplemental information to our GAAP financial measures. Management and the company's Board of Directors use adjusted earnings, adjusted earnings per share and adjusted gross and operating profit to (a) evaluate the company's historical and prospective financial performance and its performance relative to its competitors, (b) allocate resources and (c) measure the operational performance of the company's business units and their managers. Management also believes that the use of an adjusted effective tax rate provides improved insight into the tax effects of our ongoing business operations.

Additionally, the Management Development and Compensation Committee of the company's Board of Directors has used certain of the non-GAAP financial measures when setting and assessing achievement of incentive compensation goals. These goals are based, in part, on the company's adjusted earnings per share and improvement in the company's adjusted return on invested capital determined by excluding certain of the adjustments that are used in calculating these non-GAAP financial measures.

This news release includes information regarding organic sales growth, which describes the impact of changes in volume, net selling prices and product mix on net sales. Changes in foreign currency exchange rates and exited businesses also impact the year-over-year change in net sales.

Conference Call

A conference call to discuss this news release and other matters of interest to investors and analysts will be held at 9 a.m. (CDT) today. The conference call will be simultaneously broadcast over the World Wide Web. Stockholders and others are invited to listen to the live broadcast or a playback, which can be accessed by following the instructions set out in the Investors section of the company's Web site ( www.kimberly-clark.com ).

About Kimberly-Clark

Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB) and its trusted brands are an indispensable part of life for people in more than 175 countries. Fueled by ingenuity, creativity, and an understanding of people's most essential needs, we create products that help individuals experience more of what's important to them. Our portfolio of brands, including Huggies, Kleenex, Scott, Kotex, Cottonelle, Poise, Depend, Andrex, Pull-Ups, GoodNites, Intimus, Neve, Plenitud, Viva and WypAll, hold No. 1 or No. 2 share positions in 80 countries. We use sustainable practices that support a healthy planet, build strong communities, and ensure our business thrives for decades to come. To keep up with the latest news and to learn more about the company's 148-year history of innovation, visit kimberly-clark.com.

Copies of Kimberly-Clark's Annual Report to Stockholders and its proxy statements and other SEC filings, including Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K, are made available free of charge on the company's Web site on the same day they are filed with the SEC. To view these filings, visit the Investors section of the company's Web site.

As more fully described in Kimberly-Clark's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2020, the company has been actively monitoring the COVID-19 situation and its impact globally. The impact of COVID-19 and measures to prevent its spread are affecting our business in a number of ways. We have experienced increased volatility in demand for some of our products as consumers adapt to the evolving environment. We have also experienced incidents of supply chain disruption and increased currency and commodity volatility. We expect the ultimate significance of the impact on our financial and operational results will be dictated by the length of time that such circumstances continue, which will depend on the currently unknowable extent and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic and any governmental and public actions taken in response. COVID-19 also makes it more challenging for management to estimate future performance of our businesses, particularly over the near term.

Certain matters contained in this news release concerning the outlook, anticipated financial and operating results, raw material, energy and other input costs, anticipated currency rates and exchange risks, including in Argentina, net income from equity companies, sources and uses of cash, the effective tax rate, the anticipated cost savings from the company's FORCE program, charges and savings from the 2018 Global Restructuring Program, growth initiatives, product innovations, contingencies and anticipated transactions of the company constitute forward-looking statements and are based upon management's expectations and beliefs concerning future events impacting the company. In addition, many factors outside our control, including pandemics (including the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak), epidemics, fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, the prices and availability of our raw materials, potential competitive pressures on selling prices for our products, energy costs, our ability to maintain key customer relationships, as well as general economic and political conditions globally and in the markets in which we do business, could affect the realization of these estimates.

There can be no assurance that these future events will occur as anticipated or that the company's results will be as estimated. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they were made, and we undertake no obligation to publicly update them. For a description of certain factors that could cause the company's future results to differ from those expressed in any such forward-looking statements, see Item 1A entitled "Risk Factors" in each of the company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2020 and the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019.

KIMBERLY-CLARK CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED INCOME STATEMENTS (Millions, except per share amounts)



Three Months Ended June 30





2020

2019

Change Net Sales $ 4,612

$ 4,594

 Cost of products sold 2,835

3,108

-9 % Gross Profit 1,777

1,486

+20 % Marketing, research and general expenses 844

811

+4 % Other (income) and expense, net 8

5

+60 % Operating Profit 925

670

+38 % Nonoperating expense (6)

(11)

-45 % Interest income 2

2

 Interest expense (65)

(67)

-3 % Income Before Income Taxes and Equity Interests 856

594

+44 % Provision for income taxes (199)

(132)

+51 % Income Before Equity Interests 657

462

+42 % Share of net income of equity companies 35

33

+6 % Net Income 692

495

+40 % Net income attributable to noncontrolling interests (11)

(10)

+10 % Net Income Attributable to Kimberly-Clark Corporation $ 681

$ 485

+40 %











Per Share Basis









Net Income Attributable to Kimberly-Clark Corporation









Basic $ 2.00

$ 1.41

+42 % Diluted $ 1.99

$ 1.40

+42 %











Cash Dividends Declared $ 1.07

$ 1.03

+4 %























Common Shares Outstanding June 30





2020

2019



Outstanding shares as of 341.0

344.2



Average diluted shares for three months ended 341.9

346.0







Unaudited

KIMBERLY-CLARK CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED INCOME STATEMENTS (Millions, except per share amounts)



Six Months Ended June 30





2020

2019

Change Net Sales $ 9,621

$ 9,227

+4 % Cost of products sold 6,053

6,313

-4 % Gross Profit 3,568

2,914

+22 % Marketing, research and general expenses 1,717

1,580

+9 % Other (income) and expense, net 22

9

+144 % Operating Profit 1,829

1,325

+38 % Nonoperating expense (17)

(22)

-23 % Interest income 4

5

-20 % Interest expense (126)

(132)

-5 % Income Before Income Taxes and Equity Interests 1,690

1,176

+44 % Provision for income taxes (396)

(275)

+44 % Income Before Equity Interests 1,294

901

+44 % Share of net income of equity companies 73

60

+22 % Net Income 1,367

961

+42 % Net income attributable to noncontrolling interests (26)

(22)

+18 % Net Income Attributable to Kimberly-Clark Corporation $ 1,341

$ 939

+43 %











Per Share Basis









Net Income Attributable to Kimberly-Clark Corporation









Basic $ 3.93

$ 2.73

+44 % Diluted $ 3.92

$ 2.71

+45 %











Cash Dividends Declared $ 2.14

$ 2.06

+4 %























Common Shares Outstanding June 30





2020

2019



Average diluted shares for six months ended 342.3

346.0







Unaudited

KIMBERLY-CLARK CORPORATION NON-GAAP RECONCILIATIONS (Millions, except per share amounts)



Three Months Ended June 30, 2020

As Reported

2018 Global Restructuring Program

As Adjusted Non-GAAP Cost of products sold $ 2,835

$ 60

$ 2,775 Gross Profit 1,777

(60)

1,837 Marketing, research and general expenses 844

27

817 Operating Profit 925

(87)

1,012 Provision for income taxes (199)

15

(214) Effective tax rate 23.2 %



22.7 % Share of net income of equity companies 35

(1)

36 Net income attributable to noncontrolling interests (11)

1

(12) Net Income Attributable to Kimberly-Clark Corporation 681

(72)

753 Diluted Earnings per Share(a) 1.99

(0.21)

2.20





Three Months Ended June 30, 2019

As Reported

2018 Global Restructuring Program

As Adjusted Non-GAAP Cost of products sold $ 3,108

$ 102

$ 3,006 Gross Profit 1,486

(102)

1,588 Marketing, research and general expenses 811

17

794 Operating Profit 670

(119)

789 Provision for income taxes (132)

27

(159) Effective tax rate 22.2 %



22.3 % Net Income Attributable to Kimberly-Clark Corporation 485

(92)

577 Diluted Earnings per Share(a) 1.40

(0.27)

1.67



(a) "As Adjusted Non-GAAP" may not equal "As Reported" plus "Adjustments" as a result of rounding.

Non-GAAP financial measures are not meant to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the comparable GAAP measures, and they should be read only in conjunction with the company's consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP. There are limitations to these non-GAAP financial measures because they are not prepared in accordance with GAAP and may not be comparable to similarly titled measures of other companies due to potential differences in methods of calculation and items being excluded. The company compensates for these limitations by using these non-GAAP financial measures as a supplement to the GAAP measures and by providing reconciliations of the non-GAAP and comparable GAAP financial measures.

Unaudited

KIMBERLY-CLARK CORPORATION NON-GAAP RECONCILIATIONS (Millions, except per share amounts)



Six Months Ended June 30, 2020

As Reported

2018 Global Restructuring Program

As Adjusted Non-GAAP Cost of products sold $ 6,053

$ 130

$ 5,923 Gross Profit 3,568

(130)

3,698 Marketing, research and general expenses 1,717

50

1,667 Operating Profit 1,829

(180)

2,009 Provision for income taxes (396)

33

(429) Effective tax rate 23.4 %



22.9 % Share of net income of equity companies 73

(1)

74 Net income attributable to noncontrolling interests (26)

2

(28) Net Income Attributable to Kimberly-Clark Corporation 1,341

(146)

1,487 Diluted Earnings per Share(a) 3.92

(0.43)

4.34





Six Months Ended June 30, 2019

As Reported

2018 Global Restructuring Program

As Adjusted Non-GAAP Cost of products sold $ 6,313

$ 227

$ 6,086 Gross Profit 2,914

(227)

3,141 Marketing, research and general expenses 1,580

45

1,535 Other (income) and expense, net 9

(1)

10 Operating Profit 1,325

(271)

1,596 Provision for income taxes (275)

58

(333) Effective tax rate 23.4 %



23.0 % Share of net income of equity companies 60

(2)

62 Net income attributable to noncontrolling interests (22)

1

(23) Net Income Attributable to Kimberly-Clark Corporation 939

(214)

1,153 Diluted Earnings per Share(a) 2.71

(0.62)

3.33



(a) "As Adjusted Non-GAAP" may not equal "As Reported" plus "Adjustments" as a result of rounding.

Unaudited

KIMBERLY-CLARK CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (Millions)



June 30, 2020

December 31, 2019 ASSETS





Current Assets





Cash and cash equivalents $ 1,448

$ 442 Accounts receivable, net 2,024

2,263 Inventories 1,825

1,790 Other current assets 607

562 Total Current Assets 5,904

5,057 Property, Plant and Equipment, Net 7,366

7,450 Investments in Equity Companies 319

268 Goodwill 1,401

1,467 Other Assets 1,183

1,041 TOTAL ASSETS $ 16,173

$ 15,283







LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY





Current Liabilities





Debt payable within one year $ 850

$ 1,534 Trade accounts payable 3,032

3,055 Accrued expenses and other current liabilities 2,252

1,978 Dividends payable 360

352 Total Current Liabilities 6,494

6,919 Long-Term Debt 7,223

6,213 Noncurrent Employee Benefits 859

897 Deferred Income Taxes 527

511 Other Liabilities 546

520 Redeemable Preferred Securities of Subsidiaries 29

29 Stockholders' Equity





Kimberly-Clark Corporation 268

(33) Noncontrolling Interests 227

227 Total Stockholders' Equity 495

194 TOTAL LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY $ 16,173

$ 15,283



2020 Data is Unaudited

KIMBERLY-CLARK CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED CASH FLOW STATEMENTS (Millions)



Three Months Ended

June 30

Six Months Ended

June 30

2020

2019

2020

2019 Operating Activities













Net income $ 692

$ 495

$ 1,367

$ 961 Depreciation and amortization 201

236

414

470 Stock-based compensation 39

32

54

48 Deferred income taxes 21

15

12

26 Net (gains) losses on asset dispositions 6

11

13

17 Equity companies' earnings (in excess of) less than dividends paid (9)

(3)

(47)

(30) Operating working capital 634

(150)

490

(525) Postretirement benefits (1)

(9)

(15)

(21) Other (4)

(18)

(5)

(20) Cash Provided by Operations 1,579

609

2,283

926 Investing Activities













Capital spending (284)

(253)

(636)

(569) Investments in time deposits (218)

(106)

(323)

(186) Maturities of time deposits 158

157

254

229 Other 13

4

15

4 Cash Used for Investing (331)

(198)

(690)

(522) Financing Activities













Cash dividends paid (365)

(355)

(722)

(700) Change in short-term debt (385)

(308)

(667)

543 Debt proceeds 

696

1,241

696 Debt repayments 

(301)

(252)

(703) Proceeds from exercise of stock options 27

134

135

160 Acquisitions of common stock for the treasury (49)

(166)

(263)

(330) Other (15)

(71)

(39)

(79) Cash Used for Financing (787)

(371)

(567)

(413) Effect of Exchange Rate Changes on Cash and Cash Equivalents 8

3

(20)

4 Change in Cash and Cash Equivalents 469

43

1,006

(5) Cash and Cash Equivalents - Beginning of Period 979

491

442

539 Cash and Cash Equivalents - End of Period $ 1,448

$ 534

$ 1,448

$ 534



Unaudited

KIMBERLY-CLARK CORPORATION SELECTED BUSINESS SEGMENT DATA (Millions)



Three Months Ended

June 30





Six Months Ended

June 30





2020

2019

Change

2020

2019

Change NET SALES





















Personal Care $ 2,229

$ 2,286

-2 %

$ 4,651

$ 4,561

+2 % Consumer Tissue 1,645

1,472

+12 %

3,368

2,998

+12 % K-C Professional 724

821

-12 %

1,572

1,638

-4 % Corporate & Other 14

15

N.M.

30

30

N.M. TOTAL NET SALES $ 4,612

$ 4,594



$ 9,621

$ 9,227

+4 %























OPERATING PROFIT





















Personal Care $ 519

$ 485

+7 %

$ 1,046

$ 969

+8 % Consumer Tissue 428

221

+94 %

793

462

+72 % K-C Professional 155

162

-4 %

336

312

+8 % Corporate & Other(a) (169)

(193)

N.M.

(324)

(409)

N.M. Other (income) and expense, net(a) 8

5

+60 %

22

9

+144 % TOTAL OPERATING PROFIT $ 925

$ 670

+38 %

$ 1,829

$ 1,325

+38 %





(a) Corporate & Other and Other (income) and expense, net include income and expense not associated with the business segments, including adjustments as indicated in the Non-GAAP Reconciliations.

PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN NET SALES VERSUS PRIOR YEAR



Three Months Ended June 30, 2020

Total(a)

Volume

Net Price

Mix/ Other

Exited Businesses(b)

Currency



Organic(c) Personal Care (2)





2



(5)



2 Consumer Tissue 12

14

1

(1)



(3)



14 K-C Professional (12)

(16)

4

3



(2)



(10) TOTAL CONSOLIDATED 

2

1

1



(4)



4





Six Months Ended June 30, 2020

Total(a)

Volume

Net Price

Mix/ Other

Exited Businesses(b)

Currency



Organic(c) Personal Care 2

4

1

2



(4)



6 Consumer Tissue 12

14

1





(2)



14 K-C Professional (4)

(6)

3

2

(1)

(2)



(1) TOTAL CONSOLIDATED 4

5

1

1



(3)



7



(a) Total may not equal the sum of volume, net price, mix/other, exited businesses and currency due to rounding. (b) Exited businesses in conjunction with the 2018 Global Restructuring Program. (c) Combined impact of changes in volume, net price and mix/other.

N.M. - Not Meaningful Unaudited

KIMBERLY-CLARK CORPORATION NON-GAAP RECONCILIATIONS OUTLOOK FOR 2020 AND 2019 RESULTS



Estimated Range ESTIMATED FULL YEAR 2020 DILUTED EARNINGS PER SHARE









Adjusted earnings per share $ 7.40



$ 7.60 Adjustment for charges related to the 2018 Global Restructuring Program (1.05)



(0.70) Per share basis  diluted net income attributable to Kimberly-Clark Corporation $ 6.35



$ 6.90



Twelve months ended December 31, 2019

FULL YEAR 2019 DILUTED EARNINGS PER SHARE



Adjusted earnings per share $ 6.89

Adjustment for charges related to the 2018 Global Restructuring Program (0.72)

Adjustment related to property sale gain 0.07

Per share basis  diluted net income attributable to Kimberly-Clark Corporation $ 6.24



[KMB-F]

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/648588/Kimberly_Clark_RGB_Blue_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Kimberly-Clark Corporation

Related Links

http://www.kimberly-clark.com


The job of the governor general is to be dignified, correct and above controversy. More importantly, its to uphold the role of the Crown in Canadas constitutional order and be trusted by all to carry that out with good judgment and respect for tradition.

The GGs job is decidedly not to invite close attention from the countrys editorial pages. Yet here we are, once again assessing the record of the current governor general, Julie Payette, and wondering what the government must do to get her back on track.

This weeks CBC News report about an allegedly toxic work environment at Rideau Hall, the governor generals residence and office, does not come as a great surprise to those who have followed her tenure.

The details come from a dozen anonymous sources, who say Payette and her principal aide, Assunta Di Lorenzo, have created what they call a house of horrors marked by bullying and harassment at its worst.

According to this version, Payette has humiliated or even yelled at many of her employees, to the point where many have left or are contemplating leaving. Its an ugly picture; if true it would be not only unfair to those on the receiving end, but illegal under laws against harassment and bullying in the workplace.

We dont know the truth of all this, and Payette does have her defenders. Some who have worked or travelled with her say she treats people well and this is all part of a smear campaign against her.

But the CBC report doesnt come out of nowhere. As soon as Payette took the job in October, 2017, there were reports about legal troubles shed been involved in that apparently came as news to those in the Prime Ministers Office who had been responsible for vetting her.

More significantly, a year into her term there were numerous reports about her difficulties adjusting to the vice-regal role.

As an engineer and astronaut she clearly had many fine qualities, but apparently chafed at following the strict rules of the office and fulfilling her many ceremonial roles. The Star reported that she had carried out a third fewer public events than her predecessors, letting down many people along the way.

At the time, we said all she has done is raise questions about whether she is up to the job. More seriously, it raises the question of whether she even wants the job any more.

Almost two years later, the questions are more serious and the government cant ignore them any longer. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the Commons this week that everyone has the right to a safe work environment, free of harassment. The Privy Council Office says its very concerned about the allegations and will be following up with Rideau Hall.

So it should. Anyone who feels mistreated should be able to air their concerns without fear of reprisal. Bullying isnt right no matter who is dishing it out. Those at the very top, indeed, have a special responsibility to model decent behaviour.

All this may seem trivial in the midst of a pandemic, when the Trudeau government is grappling with much bigger issues and under scrutiny for its own missteps (viz: the ongoing saga of the aborted WE Charity contract).

But the government picked Julie Payette for this important, albeit mainly ceremonial, role and problems at Rideau Hall reflect badly on the wisdom of its choice.

And in a minority Parliament, theres always the possibility that the governor general will actually have to exercise a degree of judgment if the government loses the confidence of the House of Commons. That judgment is very constrained, but its important that all parties and the voting public trust the GG to do the right thing. Erratic or questionable behaviour is problematic, to say the least.

At a minimum, the government must make sure Rideau Hall gets its house in order. Payettes term as GG wont be over until October, 2022. If she intends to stick around until then, she should buckle down and learn to do the job as it was meant to be done.
ATFFS, Municipalidad de Ancon y Sernanp continua labores de busqueda y rescate de fauna silvestre afectada tras derrame de petroleo 7

Ministro del Interior presenta plan de operaciones "Impacto 2022" 8

Suspenden paro anunciado en Huancabamba tras una mesa de trabajo con el ministro Silva 12
New Delhi

The finance ministry on Thursday made an important amendment in its public finance rule that barred all government agencies to procure goods and services from bordering countries such as China and Pakistan on the ground of national security, two officials said, requesting anonymity.

The Government of India today amended the General Financial Rules (GFR) 2017 to enable imposition of restrictions on bidders from countries which share a land border with India on grounds of defence of India, or matters directly or indirectly related thereto including national security, the finance ministry said in a statement. The GFR laws regulate all matters related to public finance.

The order takes into its ambit all public sector companies, autonomous bodies and public-private partnership (PPP) projects receiving financial support from the government, it said. State government and its undertakings have been also directed to follow the suit.

The Department of Expenditure, an arm of the finance ministry, issued two separate orders on late Thursday night. While the first order barred public procurements from countries sharing land-borders with India, the second gave exemptions to certain neighbours whom India offers lines of credit. According to the officials mentioned above, they could be neighbours such as Nepal and Bhutan.

But the notifications did not mention names of any particular country or group of countries.

Bidders from countries that are barred could bid in any procurement whether of goods, services, including consultancy services only if the bidder is registered with the Competent Authority, the statement said.

The Competent Authority for registration will be the Registration Committee constituted by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). Political and security clearance from the Ministries of External and Home Affairs respectively will be mandatory, it said.

Relaxation has been provided in certain limited cases, including for procurement of medical supplies for containment of Covid-19 global pandemic till December 31, 2020.

By a separate order, countries to which India extends lines of credit or provides development assistance have been exempted from the requirement of prior registration, the statement said.

The new provisions will apply to all new tenders. In respect of tenders already invited, if the first stage of evaluation of qualifications has not been completed, bidders who are not registered under the new order will be treated as not qualified, it said.
Belfast City Airport has secured six routes to Great Britain starting from August 27 under Stobart Air.

The operator will base five aircraft at Belfast City Airport, flying to Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, East Midlands, Leeds Bradford and Exeter.

Stobart Air operates 30 Aer Lingus Regional routes from bases in Dublin, Cork and Belfast.

The new routes will be introduced in a phased basis and will culminate in 200 weekly flights to and from Belfast City.

From 27 August, flights from Belfast City to Edinburgh will begin, while services to Exeter will commence on 28 August.

Flights to Manchester and Birmingham will operate from 14 September and to East Midlands and Leeds Bradford from 1 October.

The move will be a welcome boost to the airport which lost many of its routes earlier this year when Flybe went into administration.

Brian Ambrose, chief executive of Belfast City Airport said the new base would significantly enhance the Aer Lingus network, which operates Storbart Air, from Northern Ireland.

Despite an extremely challenging environment, were delighted that Aer Lingus is to establish a new base and significantly enhance its UK network from Belfast City, he said.

As an island off an island, air connectivity with the rest of UK is critical to the enabling the Northern Ireland economys recovery.

This announcement is testament to the recent investments by our shareholder in making the airport and its facilities best in class, exceeding passengers expectations in a location only five minutes form the centre of Belfast.

David Shepherd, chief commercial officer at Aer Lingus, said: Together with our up to three-times-daily service from Belfast City Airport to London, todays announcement means Aer Lingus / Aer Lingus Regional, operated by Stobart Air is the largest operator out of Belfast City Airport, ensuring connectivity between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK."

Andy Jolly, managing director at Stobart Air, said: Working with Belfast City Airport and our partners, Aer Lingus has been part of that journey and we are pleased to establish a base at Belfast City. Through six routes, we are committed to providing essential connectivity between Belfast and rest of the UK, while we will continue to be guided by the official Government guidance.

Economy Minister Diane Dodds said: Enhancing Northern Irelands air connectivity is absolutely vital to our economic wellbeing, in respect of both direct investment and inbound tourism. So todays announcement by Aer Lingus and George Best Belfast City Airport is very welcome news.

The routes announced today between the airport and various GB locations have been vacant since earlier this year so it is particularly heartening to see them restored.

"I welcome this commercial decision by Aer Lingus, which will bring new job opportunities and I am particularly pleased at the scale of the planned operation, with both ground and air staff to be deployed.

I wish everyone at Aer Lingus and George Best Belfast City Airport the very best as they proceed with this exciting project.
The rehabilitation of 1.6 kilometre WAMCO-Effiakuma road, to improve the drainage system in Coco Villa community in the Effia-Kwesimintsim Municipality of the Western Region, has commenced.



The GH5.7 million Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development initiative which includes the provision of long drain with culverts, forms part of the Ghana Secondary Cities Support Programme (GSCSP), which would be funded with the Urban Development Grant from the World Bank.



The project being executed by M/SKingspok Company Limited started July 15 this year and is expected to be completed at the end of April, next year.



Speaking at the sod cutting ceremony on Tuesday, the Project Manager of M/S Kingspok, Mr Samuel Adzie-Quainoo, pledged his companys commitment to deliver good work.



We are committed to completing the project before the nine month duration. The raining season would not pose any threat to the work as we will use various innovative ways as we get along, he assured.



The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Effia-Kwesimintsim Assembly (EKMA), Kojo Acquah, said that the project was part of the assemblys efforts to solve the flooding problem in the WAMCO-Coco Villa community.



He mentioned that the UNICON Hostel area, Effia Village, Max Media and the Takoradi Technical Institute (TTI) area, which experienced flooding during heavy rains would benefit from the five-year World Bank project.



The chief of Effia, Nana Otoo, commended the assembly for initiating development projects to ease the plight of the people of Effia-Kwesimintsim.



He noted that, already, work on the SKY FM section of the Takoradi-Accra highway had begun.



Were witnessing a living testimony of efforts to ease flooding that had been our major worry for about 25 years. Clearly, our dreams have been fulfilled, Nana Otoo stated.

Source: The Ghanaian Times









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Linkedin Carla Bianpoen (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 13:34 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668b77f0 1 Art & Culture #art,#culture,#ArtsandCulture,#artist,#Indonesia,#Bali,#exhibition,#Italy Free

Some might complain of getting bored or depressive during the pandemic, but for artist Antonius Kho, it has been a busy creative period.

Not only has he taken part in 10 exhibitions worldwide with canvases inspired by the pandemic, he is also preparing for his participation in the 4th International Bene Biennale in Italy, which opens on Aug. 25 in Benevento, a city of Campania and the capital of the province of Benevento, located some 50 kilometers northeast of Naples.

Antonius, as the only Indonesian participant, has been accepted to send two paintings for the biennale under the direction of Maurizio Caso Panza, which is themed Liberare Arte (Freeing Art).

The biennale aims to detach the artist from standard patterns and change perspectives on the value expressed. The dynamics of the art world in a social time aim at global dimensions. Art is the expression of an energy and is also the substance of life, the organizer said in a statement.

In the moment: Antonius Khos 'Physical Distancing' (2020, mixed media) is to be displayed at the 4th International Bene Biennale, Italy, which is scheduled to open on Aug. 25. (Courtesy of Antonius Kho/-)

Antonius is shipping two paintings that have been accepted by the selection committee  Physical Distancing and Social Distancing  both inspired by the pandemic.

Physical Distancing features faces painted in his typical style, with each face covered with smaller parts to create a mask-like appearance, while Social Distancing is more abstract.

Together with the works of other participants, Antonius iconic works will be displayed at the exhibition from Aug. 25 to 31.

Antonius is known as a prolific artist, painter and sculptor who has created a genre that is entirely his own.

When his health condition compelled him to stop creating his trademark wooden and bronze sculptures, he continued creating his peculiar paintings.

Into details: Antonius Khos 'Social Distancing 3' (2020, mixed media on canvas) is one of his two paintings to take part in the upcoming 4th International Bene Biennale, Italy. (Courtesy of Antonius Kho/-)

Figurative and abstract at the same time, they are reminiscent of stained glass while infused with the notion of masks. Initially, his works were exploring the issue of identity  a natural outflow of his being born to a Javanese mother and a Chinese father.

His canvasses were covered with small parts within a larger plane through which lines were drawn to shape faces of indifferent origin.

In a way, it could refer to the Indonesian motto of Unity in Diversity, while one could also be reminded of stained glass found in European churches.

But instead of the blue and red common in stained glass in churches, green and yellowish tones dominate Antonius works, with a touch of brown, colors he says are inspired by the natural environment of his home on Java Island.

Once a batik painter, the memory of patterning in batik art is also tangible, while the mask-like faces may refer to figures of wayang puppet shows. Most remarkable in his paintings is the haunting presence of eyes scattered everywhere on the canvas.

Eyes, Antonius says, reflect the inner soul.

Antonius Kho (Courtesy of Antonius Kho/-)

Born in 1958 in Klaten, Central Java, Antonius left for Germany after a stint at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and classes with painter Barli in Bandung.

In Germany he studied at the Fach Hochschule Kunst Akademie (Academy of Applied Art and Sciences) from 1984-1992, majoring in textile painting and glass painting.

Antonius explained that he was much attracted to glass painting and stained glass, but he could not get the needed glass back in Indonesia, so he painted it on canvas.

Besides painting, Antonius is also an energetic organizer, who sees it as his mission to connect Indonesian artists to artists in Asia and Africa through group exhibitions.

Settling in Bali in 2002, he established his Wina Gallery as an exhibition space cum studio cum residence; and in 2004 he created an art foundation and the ArtExchange project that have been active ever since. The artist also organizes exchange exhibitions for Imago Mundi, a Benetton initiative.

Driven by the COVID-19 outbreak, Antonius has recently embarked on a series of mask-like paintings related to issues such as social distancing, physical distancing and measures to keep the virus at bay.

Foremost is his new COVID-19 series dominated by his belief in spreading love as the most important medicine to recover from the fear and panic that hit society. Black capricious strings metaphorical of hair are the new accent in his paintings.

In my works, love is spread through the hair, he explains. (ste)
Kigali, Rwanda (PANA) - One of the senior officers of the Rwanda Correctional Services has been arrested following an investigation into favoritism towards a group of prisoners at Mageragere maximum prison in the outskirt of Kigali city during COVID-19 lockdown, a judicial source revealed Thursday in Kigali
There has been no further progress in the disengagement in Ladakh after the corps commanders meeting on July 14

With the India-China talks on the Ladakh standoff hitting a dead end as of now, defence minister Rajnath Singh told top Air Force commanders on Wednesday to stand ready to handle any eventuality.

There has been no further progress in the disengagement in Ladakh after the corps commanders meeting on July 14 at Pangong Tso, Hot Springs and the Depsang plains. India wants China to restore the status quo of April 2020 at the LAC.

The Chinese have not vacated Finger 5 in Pangong Tso and continue to hold the ridges in Finger 4 area. In the initial phase of disengagement, Chinese troops had vacated the banks of Pangong Tso lake in Finger 4 on July 9 and gone back to Finger 5. But they still have to vacate the area between Finger 5 and Finger 8, that India claims is its territory. In May, Chinese troops had occupied the area between Finger 4 to Finger 8 and prevented Indian troops from patrolling. In Hot Springs area, Chinese troops have reportedly not moved back to the extent agreed on June 6 and still has some presence. Senior Army officers said, however, that in Hot Springs and Gogra Post, the Chinese had disengaged by upto 2.5 km.

The Army is now preparing for the standoff with China to continue for a long time and has started to outline stocks and materials needed for winter deployment of troops at such a high altitude. China has brought a large number of troops, estimated to be around 40,000 soldiers, in the front and depth areas at the LAC in the Ladakh sector where they have also amassed tanks, artillery, aircraft and radars, jammers.

Opening the Air Force commanders conference, the defence minister said the professional manner in which the IAF conducted the airstrikes in Balakot as well as the rapid deployment of IAF assets at forward locations in eastern Ladakh had sent a strong message to Indias adversaries. Air Chief Marshal R.K.S. Bhadauria, Chief of Air Staff, said the IAF was well prepared to counter short-term and strategic threats and its units were evenly poised to counter any aggressive action.
The hurricanes in the Caribbean became more frequent and their force varied noticeably around the same time that classical Mayan culture in Central America suffered its final demise: We can gain these and other insights by looking at the climate archive created under the leadership of geoscientists from Goethe University and now presented in an article in "Nature" journal's Scientific Reports on 16 July.

Tropical cyclones in the Atlantic (hurricanes) are a substantial threat for the lives and property of the local population in the Caribbean and neighboring regions, such as the south-east of the USA. The storms' increasing force, described in Chapter 15 of the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC Report), raises the probability of ecological and social catastrophes, as the occurrence of such cyclones over the past 20 years, which caused devastating damage, has shown. The climate models used to date, which could help to estimate the danger better, are, however, based on data that are lacking in spatial and temporal depth. Instrumental climate data, such as regular measurement of sea surface temperatures and reliable chronicling of hurricanes, date back only to the 19th century, at most.

In the framework of a research project (Gi 222/31) funded by the German Research Foundation, the Biosedimentology Working Group at the Department of Geosciences of the Faculty of Geosciences and Geography (Professor Eberhard Gischler) of Goethe University has now been able to build up and analyze a sedimentary "storm archive" that covers almost the entire Common Era (2,000 years) with annual resolution. The archive comprises fine-grained annual layers of sediments from the 125-meter-deep bottom of the Blue Hole, a flooded karst sinkhole on the Lighthouse Reef Atoll off the coast of Belize (Central America). There, 2.5 mm of lime mud, composed of shell debris from organisms in the reef lagoon along with changing amounts of organic matter, collect year after year. Coarser layers up to several centimeters thick that constitute tempestites (storm sediments) are intercalated in these fine-grained sediments. They mostly consist of shell debris from reef organisms living on the edge of the atoll. The almost 9-metre-long drill core from the bottom of the Blue Hole, which was recovered with the help of an electrical vibracorer, spans the last 1,885 years with a total of 157 storm layers.

In the framework of extensive studies conducted by doctoral researcher Dominik Schmitt and collaboration between the Biosedimentology Working Group and colleagues at the University of Bern (Switzerland), it has become apparent that both short-term and long-term climate phenomena, such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), have influenced storm activity over the last 2,000 years and are mirrored in the new climate archive. The beginning of the Medieval Warm Period (approx. AD 900-1100) constitutes an important transition period when the activity of tropical cyclones changed substantially, presumably in conjunction with the shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (the low-pressure zone where northern and southern trade winds converge) towards the south: From AD 100-900, storm activity in the region tended to be more stable and weaker, while since AD 900 up until today it has been more variable and more vigorous. Interestingly, this change in the increase of cyclone frequency goes hand in hand with the occurrence of a few, very thick, coarse-grained storm layers and coincides with the final demise of the classical Mayan culture in Central America. It is possible that the increased impact of hurricanes on the Central American mainland, combined with extensive flooding of cultivated land in the Mayan lowlands and rainfall-induced erosion in the backlands of the Mayan Mountains of Belize -- apart from the recurring periods of drought already known -- was another environmental factor that influenced the end of the Maya's high culture.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler stood Wednesday among the front lines of protests outside the federal courthouse, where he and hundreds of other people were tear gassed repeatedly by federal officers.

Demonstrators have converged every night for eight weeks in downtown Portland to call for systemic reforms to the police bureau Wheeler oversees. The mayors appearance on Day 56 attracted attention and jeers from the crowd of more than 2,000 people.

Wheeler pledged to stand beside protesters subjected to consistent force by federal law enforcement who have made the Portland protests a national storyline.

The mayor told people he was raising alarms across the nation to warn other cities about what could unfold in their towns.

Wheeler and a team of city security guards spent nearly three hours at the demonstrations, including about an hour in front of the courthouse. Federal officers released gas on the crowd after some people threw things, walked inside a new perimeter fence and aimed fireworks toward the building.

Wearing a disposable mask and plastic goggles, Wheeler stayed at the fence through multiple rounds of tear gas. Organizers of the demonstrations had encouraged Wheeler to bear witness to federal force.

The reason I am here tonight is to stand with you, Wheeler told the crowd. If theyre launching the tear gas against you, theyre launching the tear gas against me.

Wheeler is the city police commissioner. The Portland Police Bureau has also regularly used tear gas on protesters, although that has waned in the face of scrutiny and a wave of lawsuits against the city.

Yet on early Thursday morning, Portland police warned people they might use tear gas to break up the crowd after declaring it a riot. Wheeler had left in a cloud of tear gas less than an hour earlier.

The police bureaus repeated warnings came on the same day the Portland City Council issued an immediate ban for all Portland police employees to stop cooperating with federal law enforcement.

By 2:30 a.m., Portland police had not responded in force like they had warned. But the hours-long confrontation between demonstrators and federal officers continued to periodically flare up outside the federal courthouse. The addition of a fence at the courthouse kept the crowd -- and the federal response -- contained almost entirely to the building. Officers repeatedly emerged to set off gas or shoot non-lethal projectiles toward protesters.

Protesters greeted Wheelers arrival at the start of the night by chanting his name preceded by an expletive. The crowd often shouted to drown out what he was saying. He first stood in a throng of protesters near the Justice Center, next to the federal courthouse on Southwest Third Avenue.

Some protesters asked Wheeler questions, and the conversation was captured in part by TV crew microphones. Wheeler said he does not like the use of non-lethal projectiles or gas on crowds, because they are often deployed in an indiscriminate way. He said he has directed the use of such devices to be targeted to specific incidents. He did not make clear when he issued that directive; and police force in response to the protests has sometimes extended to bystanders.

Throughout the night, both Wheeler and the crowd focused on the recent escalating force by federal police. The mayor said protesters were taking the best possible step in response to the action: Be here, be heard, be unified and be clear ... We want them to leave.

Around 10 p.m., Wheeler made his way to the steps of the Justice Center, where Black Lives Matter organizers were leading a rally and invited him to address the crowd. When one organizer asked Wheeler why he had not shown up every day, he said he had. He went on to list actions by City Council in recent weeks.

As he spoke, someone used a projector to display demands of him onto the side of the building. The demands included forcing federal officials out, freeing any jailed protesters, significantly slashing the police budget and, ultimately, resigning.

Wheeler left the stage after about 20 minutes and talked with people in the crowd.

Focus started to shift to the federal courthouse after 10:30 p.m. Officials had built a new fence bolted to steel bars that blocked people from collecting directly next to the courthouse entrance.

Some people set off fireworks toward the building and threw debris over the fence. A small fire ignited near the edge of the fence.

As the situation escalated, young Black Portlanders continued to lead the rally at the Justice Center. One person reminded the crowd about the peaceful aim of the protest. But within minutes, a speaker told parent groups who had gathered to leave to avoid confrontation with federal officers.

Most people stayed, including Wheeler. Wheeler talked to several people in the crowd by the Justice Center, including Micah Fletcher, the man who was stabbed in a 2017 MAX train attack that left two other men dead.

The federal courthouse continued to draw more attention. After some people started shaking it, the Federal Protective Service used a loudspeaker to tell the crowd not to tamper with the fence.

Around 11 p.m., a few people found a way into the fence and wandered near the courthouse entrance. Federal officers ordered those people to leave.

Wheeler navigated to the front of the fence, surrounded by reporters and at least five security guards wearing earpieces.

Federal officers emerged from the courthouse around the same time the mayor arrived. Agents appeared to detain some people, including one person who had been roller skating in the area blocked by fences.

Some officers set off tear gas and other devices to break up the crowd. Many people stayed or returned soon after. Wheeler put on goggles and remained at the fence, flanked by guards.

By 11:25 p.m., the debris fire continued to burn on the sidewalk. Portland police said on Twitter that fireworks or a similar type of device had ignited the flames.

Federal officers emerged again around 11:40 p.m. and set off devices, including some that emitted gas, smoke or sound, to break up the crowd. The situation calmed down for a few minutes, then federal officers reemerged after warning people to leave federal property.

Wheeler and his security guards left after federal officers set off more tear gas. Some people followed Wheeler back toward the Portland Building on Southwest Fifth Avenue. He retreated inside the city office with guards.

By midnight, several hundred people returned to the courthouse. Some people again set off fireworks. Other people ran into the fenced-off area to throw debris or embers toward the building. Federal officers again released a cloud of tear gas around 12:20 a.m.

Portland police soon after declared a riot at the Justice Center next door and ordered people to leave the area. It was the first audible action by police in recent nights of protesting.

Police warned the crowd that if they did not leave, they would be subject to tear gas and other types of force.

An Oregonian/OregonLive journalist who spent several hours outside the Justice Center did not see anything happen that prompted a riot declaration centered on that building. The crowds attention was fixed on the courthouse.

Portland police repeated the riot warning at least 10 times. But as of 3 a.m., police had not arrived in force.

The order to leave did not prompt demonstrators to go.

Police issued a statement around 2:45 a.m. that explained they had labeled the gathering a riot because it had created a grave risk of public alarm. Police said that some people had also damaged fire hydrants overnight, causing them to spew water into the street.

Police said they did not arrest any one over the course of the night.

Federal officers appeared to detain at least two people.

By 12:50 a.m., hundreds of people remained near the courthouse, where a few small fires burned on the pavement in front. Federal officers walked toward the crowd and shot projectiles at people while setting off tear gas.

The tense face off continued past 3 a.m. Federal officers often emerged to try to break up the crowd, and protesters stayed. Some people stood near the fence, while others milled about nearby streets. Two people waved American flags, and one person carried a city of Portland flag.

Portland police said Thursday morning that they did not engage with the crowd and were not present except for using a sound truck. They said they did not use any CS gas.

They said people had thrown Molotov cocktails and hundreds of projectiles at the courthouse and set fires in in nearby parks and trash cans on neighboring blocks.

Earlier in Wednesday evening, Wheeler issued a statement on Twitter about the use of force on protesters by federal agents.

The mayor said he had heard concerns within the community that federal officers may be approved to use lethal force on protesters. He said Oregons top federal official, U.S. Attorney for Oregon Billy Williams, assures me that the federal government has no plans to use live ammunition on Portlanders tonight, and that such an order would be unlawful.

Still, Wheeler urged people to stay safe downtown.

The mayors note of caution arrived hours after President Donald Trump announced a surge of federal law enforcement into U.S. cities to respond to radical groups, as federal officers have in Portland for several consecutive nights.

Ryan Nguyen, Dave Killen and Beth Nakamura of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report.

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh; 503-294-7632; skavanaugh@oregonian.com

-- Noelle Crombie; ncrombie@oregonian.com

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
She's expecting her first child with husband Cam Merchant.

On Thursday, Jules Robinson showed off her baby bump as she revealed her daily 'special ritual' that she uses to 'connect' with her child.

'One of the most precious parts of my pregnancy has been connecting with my gorgeous growing baby,' the Married At First Sight star, 38, wrote on Instagram, revealing that she uses a stretch mark oil and cream twice a day.

'I tell my cub each day exactly what I'm doing': Pregnant Married At First Sight star Jules Robinson showed off her growing bump on Thursday, as she revealed her daily ritual to 'connect' with her baby

She continued: 'Rubbing my bump with stretch mark oil and stretch mark cream twice a day, is such a special ritual, to really stop and have a moment between just the two of us.'

'It's so amazing to know that the baby can hear me now, so I tell #babycub each day exactly what I'm doing and why, and that I don't think my belly button will pop but who knows!'

In the images, the redhead sits in black lingerie with a white lace shawl around her shoulders.

She's glowing! In the images, the redhead sits in black lingerie with a white lace shawl around her shoulders

Earlier this month, Jules called for cyber-bullying to be recognised as a criminal offence after sharing a shocking example of the messages she receives from trolls daily.

The pregnant reality star uploaded a screenshot of a cruel message she received.

The troll said: 'Did your baby die yet? I have a feeling you just got fat again? I hope you have a painful miscarriage. Fat and ugly. Praying for your miscarriage.'

Discussing the severity of the message on Instagram Stories, she explained that it was past the point of 'freedom of speech' and was sent to purely 'hurt her feelings.'

Hitting back: Earlier this month, Jules has called for cyber-bullying to be recognised as a criminal offence after sharing a shocking example of the messages she receives from trolls daily. Pictured with husband Cam Merchant

Explaining the regulations she wanted in place to combat cyber-bullying, Jules candidly explained in a video: 'A while ago, I put up a [Instagram] Story saying how I'd like to make the changes to online bullying.

'Certain things should be a criminal offence, and some people should be banned from social media for six months - and if they keep on doing, it's a serious criminal rule that they are breaking!'

'It is completely wrong and disgusting, and this shouldn't happen.'

Jules announced her pregnancy with Cam back in April.
South Africa: Lesotho Highlands Project to deliver water to SA in 2026

Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation Minister, Lindiwe Sisulu, says the Lesotho Highlands Water Projects second phase is expected to deliver water to South Africa by 2026.

She said this when she outlined budget priorities for the Water and Sanitation Department during a virtual session of the National Assembly on Thursday.

I am glad to report that I, together with my counterpart form the Kingdom of Lesotho, did a sod turning event that marked the construction of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project Phase II.

This project is aimed at achieving water security and delivering water to South Africa by November 2026, she said.

Sisulu said, meanwhile, that since the inception of the Regional Bulk Infrastructure Grant programme in 2007, about 3.1 million households have benefitted from water and sanitation projects that have been implemented.

In this financial year, we are committing R3.0 billion (under schedule 6b) to continue with the implementation of 136 bulk water and sanitation projects, and R2 billion under schedule 5b to implement 69 projects.

Both schedule 5b and 6b are municipal grants, which fall under the regional bulk infrastructure grant. Schedule 5b is a direct grant, where the national department gives money directly to municipalities to manage; whereas, a schedule 6b is an indirect grant, whereby the national department is fully responsible for the project to be funded.

Addressing MPs, Sisulu said the department has decided to prioritise connecting its water resources to the water supply systems servicing the un-served communities.

I therefore call upon all Water Services Authorities to prioritise the operations and maintenance of grant-funded infrastructure by committing at least 10% of their operating budget to the maintenance of infrastructure under their jurisdiction.

Through the Minister of COGTA [Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs], we would like to see this amount ring-fenced. This will ensure that water services remain in an operable state, rendering a reliable service to our communities and minimising water losses.

Rooting out corruption

Sisulu said the department has heeded Parliaments call to intensify the fight against corruption.

As part of rooting out corruption, acting Director-General Mbulelo Tshangana established a Stabilisation Committee, a disciplinary unit that is dealing with 166 cases emanating from the Auditor-Generals Annual reports over a number of years.

Sisulu said the cases are at an advanced stage and are ongoing.

The committee is taking disciplinary action against officials who are implicated in forensic investigation reports, as per the recommendations that were made in those reports.

The outcomes of such cases, following disciplinary action, are as follows: 97 officials were found guilty; 16 officials were not found guilty and 24 officials resigned.

Sisulu said, meanwhile, that she has ordered investigations into the increase in irregular and wasteful expenditure, which has increased from R16 billion to R31 billion.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-07-23. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Senior NSW Minister Andrew Constance has urged Sydneysiders to stay away from the South Coast as other politicians warn their health districts would not cope with an onslaught of coronavirus cases.

Batemans Bay remains almost completely shut down after eight cases were linked to a local outbreak, while four cases linked to the Thai Rock restaurant in south-west Sydney have been confirmed in the Port Stephens area.

Batemans Bay is in a self-imposed lockdown after a cluster was found at the weekend. Credit:James Brickwood

The Thai Rock cluster in Wetherill Park grew by nine to 46 on Thursday, and the south-west Sydney Crossroads Hotel outbreak swelled to 56 as NSW recorded 19 new cases of COVID-19. NSW Health also confirmed on Thursday night that a shopper who visited the Costco outlet at Marsden Park in Sydney's north-west last Sunday has tested positive for COVID-19.

The clusters in Sydney have prompted Port Stephens MP Kate Washington to urge everyone to reconsider their need to travel. Ballina MP Tamara Smith said her region, including Byron Bay, was "open for business" but those living in hotspot suburbs should keep out.
WSOC Channel 9s School Tools Campaign is coming up again, and Cabarrus County residents have a chance to help students in need before the start of the school year Aug. 17.

This will be the third year that Cabarrus County has participated in the project, with all supplies donated going to schools in Kannapolis and Concord.

Concord-Afton Sunset Rotary Club is in charge of the event in the county, and while this year looks much different than in years past, club members said they are excited to help out as many students in the area as possible.

Its been very different this year, said Community Coordinator and Cabarrus County Board of Education member Cindy Fertenbaugh. The last few years, we relied on collections at Walmart. We passed out a shopping list as customers walked into Walmart, and then when they came out, they would just drop things in our barrels, and wed take them on the bus.

This year, we cant do that because Walmart is controlling their entrances and exits because of the virus, and we really cant hand people a piece of paper because we are trying to avoid that contact right now.
Thousands of residents who receive care at the State House Medical Centre (SHMC) in Abuja may have to look elsewhere as the presidency on Thursday announced plans to restrict public access to the facility.

The decision, which will mostly affect the Asokoro facility of the statehouse hospital, is due to dwindling resources leading to a lean budgetary allocation to the facility, the Permanent Secretary, State House, Tijjani Umar, said.

This has made this decision inevitable, he said.

Mr Umar made the announcement in his remarks at the opening of a two-day workshop on service improvement in the hospital. The event was held in Abuja.

The clinic, which was originally established to provide health care services to the president, vice president, their families, as well as members of staff of the Presidential Villa, now caters for about 32,000 patients, the official said, noting that this is no longer sustainable due to the drop in budgetary allocations.

The SHMC received one of its lowest budgetary allocations in 2019 after gulping almost N10 billion in the previous four years.

According to the budget office, about N800 million was allocated to SHMC last year. Apart from 2017 when it got N331.70 million, the 2019 figure is almost four times lower than the N3.94 billion and N3.87 billion allocated in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

It is also lower than the N1.03 billion budgeted in 2018.

In the wake of the 2019 budget cuts last April, President Muhammadu Buhari directed that the centre revert to a clinic to serve the original purpose of its establishment.

The reversal was a case of cutting ones coat according to your cloth, the then permanent secretary, State House, Jalal Arabi, had said.

Mr Arabi, who has now been moved to the humanitarian ministry, said the overstretching of facilities at the centre by patients is some of the challenges it has been going through.

It wasnt meant for that purpose.

Nobody was charging anyone for any services and relying on appropriation means we will depend on subvention when it comes to running the centre, he noted.

No More for Public Use

During Thursdays workshop, Mr Umar said the presidency has restated its decision to bar the public from using the facilitates.

He said the decision was reached after a meeting of stakeholders to bring back the clinic to its original status of efficient service to those who are entitled to access the facility.

READ ALSO:

We are going to trim down the number of unentitled people. Unentitled patients are bringing constraints to us and thats all.

This scaling down will assist us to look at those areas requiring improvement, the official said.

The permanent secretary said, the clinic used to be a yardstick for performance measurement in the medical enclave and pride of the highly trained and experienced personnel working there.

However, in recent years, it was observed that services rendered at the clinic to the privileged few, suffered a noticeable decline to almost zero service delivery. This resulted in a mockery of the facility and loss of confidence by its customers on its ability to render effective service.

In an effort to upturn this ugly trend and revive its past glory, the State House Management reversed the Medical Centre profile granted the facility, to its original status of Clinic, in order to limit the number of patients it handles and also maintain the original purpose it was created for.

Earlier in her address, the Servicom National Coordinator, Nnennna Akajemeli, said a survey conducted at the clinic identified a shortage of staff, especially doctors, and frequent power outages among others.

Low Patronage from Presidency

But while the presidency is reverting the clinic to its original status to serve those it was originally intended for, the hospital is getting little patronage from the so-called targeted patients.

President Buhari and his family are known for shunning Nigerias underfunded hospitals, including the State House Clinic, to get medication abroad. The president was widely criticised for spending more than five months in the United Kingdom in 2017 despite his repeated promise to end medical tourism.

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Mr Buharis former Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, who tested positive for the COVID-19 after a trip to Germany, also allegedly shunned the State House Clinic and the special coronavirus treatment centres in Abuja and moved to a private hospital in Lagos where he later died from the virus.

Poor Service Delivery

The State House Clinic was in the news in 2017 over allegations of mismanagement and lack of essential drugs and facilities.

President Buharis wife, Aisha, at the time, accused the hospital management of not taking care of the facility in spite of huge budgetary allocations.

Mrs Buhari called for a probe of the hospital management, saying the facility lacked basic amenities.

In 2016, PREMIUM TIMES reported that the amount proposed for the hospital was more than what was budgeted for all the 16 federal teaching hospitals in the country.

The management of the clinic, however, said that between 2015 and 2017, the facility only received N1.2 billion.
Early in 1979  just weeks after diplomatic ties were normalised between Beijing and Washington  Chinas paramount leader Deng Xiaoping donned a cowboy hat at a rodeo west of Houston during his historic state visit to the United States.

Now, more than four decades later, Houston is where Washington has taken a drastic step in the nations eroding relations, demanding that the Chinese consulate general (CG) there  Beijings first in the US  be closed.

Deng Xiaoping at a rodeo in Texas during his 1979 visit to the United States. Photo: VCG

Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China.

The Chinese foreign ministry condemned Washingtons move as state media reported on Wednesday that the CG was given just three days to shut down after Washington made its demand on Monday.

On Tuesday night, local Houston news outlets released video apparently of documents being burned in the CGs courtyard as police and fire officials responded to reports of smoke.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters that the Houston consulate had recently received bomb and death threats. The Chinese outlet The Paper reported on Wednesday that the consulate had to increase security after it received a bomb threat on Monday and threatening letters in recent days.

About 8:25 pm on Tuesday, our officers responded to a meet the firefighter call to the China Consulate General in Houston building at 3417 Montrose Blvd.







Smoke was observed in an outside courtyard area. Officers were not granted access to enter the building. 1/2  Houston Police (@houstonpolice) July 22, 2020

US State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said on Tuesday that the directive to close the CG had been made to protect American intellectual property and private information of its citizens. The same day, the US Justice Department indicted two Chinese nationals for hacking defence contractors, Covid-19 vaccine researchers and other companies worldwide.

Story continues

David Stilwell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, told The New York Times on Wednesday that the Houston consulate had been at the epicentre of subversive activities, including efforts by the People's Liberation Army to send students to US universities for its military advantage.

He said that the Houston consul general and two other Chinese diplomats were recently found engaging in questionable activity, with the diplomats found at the airport with paperwork that had false birth dates.

The closing comes as Beijing and Washington have sparred in recent months over issues of trade, technology, and Chinas actions in the South China Sea, with tit-for-tat restrictions from both sides on their diplomats and journalists.

Chinas consulate in Houston, the fourth largest city in the US, was the first of five Beijing opened in the country after relations were established in 1979, followed by ones in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

The Chinese delegation to Houston covers eight southern states in the US  Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida  as well as Puerto Rico.

China, which imports over 70 per cent of its oil, has huge trade interest in Texas, a state that is one of the largest exporters of crude oil in the US.

Under the phase-one trade agreement signed in January, China has agreed to buy US$18.5 billion more in US energy products in the first year and another US$33.9 billion in the second.

In recent years, Houston has found itself in the middle of US-China tensions when Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen made transit stops in the city in 2017 and 2018 en route to Central America. Also in 2017, a leading official in Chinas space exploration programme was denied a US visa to attend a science conference just north of Houston.

The consulate also released a statement last August condemning Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association, for a Twitter post supportive of protests in Hong Kong.

In recent months, the consulate has worked to spread goodwill by donating masks and other supplies to local hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic.

Washington also maintains five consulates in China in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenyang, Chengdu, and Wuhan, as well as a CG for Hong Kong and Macau.

Chinese state media outlets have suggested that Beijing will order a US consulate in China to close, as retaliation for Washingtons closure of its Houston office.

Purchase the 120+ page China Internet Report 2020 Pro Edition, brought to you by SCMP Research, and enjoy a 30% discount (original price US$400). The report includes deep-dive analysis, trends, and case studies on the 10 most important internet sectors. Now in its 3rd year, this go-to source for understanding China tech also comes with exclusive access to 6+ webinars with C-level executives, including Charles Li, CEO of HKEX, James Peng, CEO/founder of Pony.ai, and senior executives from Alibaba, Huawei, Kuaishou, Pinduoduo, and more. Offer valid until 31 August 2020. To purchase, please click here.

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A Michigan woman attempted to have her former husband killed for $5,000 via a fake hitman website, according to Michigan State Police. It pays to remember that not everything virtually is as it seems. Such as the case with this Michigan woman.

Wendy Wein, from South Rockwood, was taken into custody on Friday following her visit to a fake website named www.rentahitman.com. She filled up a "service request form" and requested a consultation to help her with an "issue," according to state police on Tuesday.

The 51-year-old is facing charges following her solicitation of a murder-for-hire against her former husband by hiring a hitman via the phony website. The mock website's owner notified police officials as he was alarmed that the South Rockwood woman was plotting a murder.

Other than for illegal use of a computer to initiate a crime, Wein has been indicted for solicitation to commit murder, reported Fox 2. Wein's former husband does not live in the same state.

A covert officer met up with Wein in a parking lot in South Rockwood on the 17th of July wherein Wein offered a $5,000 bounty on her former husband. She also provided the private agent with an advanced payment for travel costs, indicated Fox News.

"An undercover state trooper posing as a hitman met with Wein in a parking lot in South Rockwood," the state police said in a statement.

According to the state police in a news release, "Wein specified her ex-husband as the target of her problems. The owner of the website contacted the Michigan State Police because he was concerned that Wein may be attempting to kill her husband," reported Report Door.

The faux website's owner is named Bob Innes. Wein is being held on a bond worth $500,000. She was prosecuted after providing the payment on Friday.

Also Read: Ghislaine Maxwell Allegedly Needs to Find 3 Girls a Day to Be Sexually Abused by Jeffrey Epstein

According to Innes, since the website was first launched in 2005, he has been contacted many times by people requesting school shootings, murders, and surprisingly, a baby abduction.

Crazy America noted that the Michigan woman may have plenty of time to ruminate on her lesson after appearing to take the world online at face value. The former husband has not been named.

On the other hand, Wein was ordered to be detained at a Monroe County prison.

State police stated regarding the mock website's owner that he claims the website has prevented over 130 murders because he transfers all requests for hitmen over to police officials.

There is still an ongoing investigation regarding the actual intentions behind Wein opting to hire a hitman to kill her former husband. Due credit was given to Innes for informing the police at the right timing.

The website involves faux testimonials featuring vague depictions of problems and positive reviews that connote that the supposed hitmen killed their targets.

A review lauded the website, "Caught my husband cheating with the babysitter and resolved after a free public relations consultation. I'm single again and looking to mingle. Thanks Guido!"

Related Article: Mother Kills Daughter, Covers Up By Claiming Toddler Shot Herself With a Gun

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When China National Chemical Corp. (ChemChina) acquired Switzerlands Syngenta AG in 2017 for a blockbuster $43 billion, it paid only $5 billion of its own capital, cobbling together loans from banks and other institutions to make up the rest.

Syngenta AG, as the worlds third-largest seed supplier and top pesticides-maker, brought its rich store of seed and agrochemical patents to state-owned ChemChina. Now, with both companies deep in debt, there are concerns the lions share of the debt accrued in the acquisition could wind up back on Syngentas shoulders.

Syngenta Group is now preparing to list on the Chinese mainland by mid-2022. Various obstacles have delayed the float, the goal of which is seen by many to be paying down that debt.

The newly formed company has not yet released a financial statement, nor have IPO preparations reached the stage where it would publish a prospectus.

But an analysis of the financial situation of its related companies, weak investor sentiment during an abortive pre-IPO round last year, and its limited opportunities for growth illuminate the tough road ahead.





In the biggest ever foreign acquisition by a Chinese firm, ChemChina took over the Swiss agribusiness giant for $43 billion despite regulatory hurdles, financial concerns and even criticism from the countrys ambassador to Switzerland, that it wasnt a good deal for the Chinese side.

Others were more welcoming. Syngenta has strong research ability and vast marketing network, so the advantages of this acquisition should outweigh the disadvantages, said Niu Dun, former deputy minister of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

In June, Syngenta AG was made part of the newly formed Syngenta Group, following the merger of the domestic agricultural chemical assets of ChemChina and its state-owned peer SinoChem Group. The newly formed group is now in talks with state-owned funds over a potential stake.

In a standard practice for Chinese regulators when it comes to state-owned companies, the authorities strongly encouraged a merger between ChemChina and Sinochem to prop up Syngentas Chinese business, which could help with a domestic IPO.

Mounting debts

Syngenta Group is made up of four business units  Shenzhen-listed Israel-based crop protection company Adama Ltd., Syngenta Group China and Syngenta AGs crop protection and seeds businesses. The last two segments accounted for 58.5% of the groups $23.2 billion sales in 2019, according to its website.

However, Syngenta AGs finances remain troubled, as its own acquisition spree since it was bought by ChemChina has landed it with $22.4 billion of debt as of last year, giving it a debt-to-asset ratio of 80.04%. Its cash and cash equivalents totaled $1.9 billion.





Thats a far higher debt-to-asset ratio than its international peers. German giant Bayer AG had a ratio of 29.67% at the same year, while the worlds second-largest chemicals producer BASF SE reported a ratio of 22.9%, according to WSJ Markets data.

ChemChinas debt ballooned to 705 billion yuan ($100.7 billion) as of the first quarter of this year, taking its debt-to-asset ratio to nearly 80%.

When it borrowed some $38 billion to acquire Syngenta AG in 2017, ChemChina sold perpetual bonds worth $10 billion and $1 billion to the Peoples Bank of China and Industrial Bank Co. Ltd., while Morgan Stanley bought a $2 billion convertible bond thats set to mature this year.

There are three other syndicated loans made in the deal, with the biggest one made by China CiticBank that is worth $12.5 billion. HSBC Bank led such a loan of $6.8 billion and a $5 billion debt restructuring loan.

This debt pile and its poor financial performance mean ChemChina wont be able to give Syngenta Group a hand in its attempt to list. It has reported losses every year since 2017, sinking as much as 8.6 billion yuan into the red last year. And China National Agrochemical Corp., the ChemChina subsidiary that holds a 99% stake in Syngenta Group, also has its own debt pile it needs to pay down.

ChemChina was hoping to relist on the Chinese A-share market after it purchased Syngenta, a senior agrichemical researcher said, adding that the high valuation of the A-share stock market could be one of the few ways to pay down the debt.





ChemChina tried to raise $10 billion in a pre-IPO fundraising round for Syngenta late last year that valued the company at $40 billion, Caixin has learned. But the lack of confidence at home and abroad condemned the effort to failure. HSBC and Morgan Stanley are both understood to have rejected the offer, while the Peoples Bank of China went searching for investors in the Middle East without any luck.

The estimated valuation was too high, said a person who worked at a company involved in the effort.

At its current profit levels and given price-to-earnings ratio limitations imposed by Chinas two major stock markets, ChemChina wouldnt have been able to achieve the valuation it was seeking for Syngenta. But the newer STAR Market has no such cap on price-to-earnings ratios, letting investors decide instead, which could at least theoretically allow ChemChina to reach its desired valuation.

Tepid growth prospects

The past several years have been a hard for the agrochemical industry as a whole. Industry insiders told Caixin of the limited development space left in Chinas seed and pesticide market, and the growing costs of land alongside its shrinking profitability per acre.

China is also among the many countries that have tightened regulations on the use of agricultural chemicals like those that make up a core part of Syngentas business.

In 2015, China said it wanted pesticide use to stop growing in the years to 2020, which hit sales massively. According to the official statistics, pesticide sales shrank 44.31% from 2015 to 2018.

Fertilizer use has also been affected by the policy. Sales of the raw materials used to make fertilizers were down 22% from 2015 levels by last year.

Agrochemical consultancy firm Phillips McDougall has estimated that global pesticide sales last year dipped 0.8% to nearly $60 billion, due to abnormal weather in Europe, flooding in North America, EU regulation and the Sino-U.S. trade war. Asia, the largest consumer of such products, saw sales drop 2%.





However, there are areas of potential growth, as more efficient, less toxic pesticides may become more popular as environmental protection policies grow tougher. An agriculture analyst told Caixin that the biggest momentum for growth in so-called green pesticide sales right now is in China, as other major markets such as the U.S. and Brazil have already embraced the products.

However if Syngenta was to pursue this strategy, it will have to convince farmers to part with their cash for these pricier products, which will be difficult in a market where low-cost goods are prevalent, according to Su Yuanjie, a seed analyst at a consultancy company.

The person close to the pre-IPO deal pointed out that Chinas pesticide market is relatively small in scale and has no company monopolizing it. Huatai Securities Co. Ltd. also said in one of its reports that no company has a market share over 10%, as most produce only one type of product.

In January, Chinas Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs gave the green light for Chinas farmers to plant genetically modified corn and soybeans. This is the first time the country granted safety certificate to genetically modified food in 10 years, sending a positive signal to the agriculture industry.

The use of genetically modified crop doesnt only mean high productivity, it also means the introduction of pesticides suitable for such crops, said the senior agriculture analyst. But great uncertainty remains in China as much of the countrys population remains wary of genetically modified foods.

Contact reporter Lu Yutong (yutonglu@caixin.com) and editors Joshua Dummer (joshuadummer@caixin.com) and Flynn Murphy (flynnmurphy@caixin.com)
Settles collection ranges from antique to modern, street art. Theres Native American art and Black American art collections. Some is local and some came from across the world  a woman living in Rome sent Settle an art show after God told her she should.

Today, Metro has up to 4,000 images in its database, of which Settle is the sole proprietor. While he has bought many pieces and others were consigned by customers looking to downsize, a number come from families liquidating estates.

When grandpa dies, and the family picks what they want from the estate, they're not in the mood to have a yard sale, Settle said. They almost freeze. They won't give the art away, but they're not ready to part with it. So what do you do with it?

Settle works with these families, picking out pieces to sell at Metro. If the art doesnt sell in a year, he helps the family donate it to group homes serving people living with mental illness and disabilities.

Its worked really well, Settle said. Everybody thinks it's a good idea to keep the art moving and to ultimately place it somewhere where it will be beneficial in the community.
Zareen Khan says people still assume Salman Khan helps her find work: "I cannot be a monkey on his back"
New Delhi: Over 7.88 lakh Indians have returned from abroad after the government launched the "Vande Bharat" evacuation mission on May 7 in view of the coronavirus pandemic, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Thursday.

Under the Phase 4 of the Vande Bharat mission, a total of 1,197 flights have been scheduled so far, including 945 international flights and 252 feeder flights, MEA Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said at a media briefing.

"These flights are operated by the Air India group, IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir. They cover 29 countries. They will be reaching 34 airports in India," he said.

Of these, 694 flights have reached India as on July 22, repatriating nearly one lakh people so far, he said.

Phase 4 is expected to continue until August 2, by which time around 80,000 more people are expected to return, Srivastava said.

"As on 22nd July, 7,88,217 Indian nationals have returned. 1,03,976 Indians have returned from Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh by land borders," he said.

Noting that the Ministry of Civil Aviation had announced establishment of bilateral bubbles with some countries, the MEA spokesperson said that between July 22 and August 31, Air India will be operating 30 flights a week to the US (New York, Chicago, Washington, New Jersey and San Francisco), four flights a week to Germany (Frankfurt) and three flights a week to France (Paris).

The ministry continues to be in touch with missions on specific demands for repatriation from students completing their courses abroad, workers and other stranded Indians with compelling reasons, he said.

As regards to repatriation from Kyrgyzstan, Srivastava said India is scheduling additional flights.

"In fact, a number of such flights are scheduled and we are hopeful that with these additional flights we will be able to repatriate more and more of our students from there," he said.

Twenty-five flights have been arranged from Bishkek to 13 destinations in India from July 3 to 30, the MEA Spokesperson said.

"When the current phase of Vande Bharat culminates, we would have 88 flights which would have brought back nearly 13,600 Indian nationals and this includes students," Srivastava said.

There was a restriction on chartered flights due to the COVID situation in Kyrgyzstan, but as a result of the intervention of the Indian ambassador, India could obtain an exemption for such flights of operate, he added.
On a sweltering August afternoon in 1970, Iggy Pop arrived in Goose Lake, about 100 kilometres outside of Detroit, Michigan, to play what turned out to be the Stooges final show with their original line-up.

Formed in 67 in nearby Ann Arbour with the Asheton brothers  Ron on guitar and Scott on drums, bass player Dave Alexander and Pop strutting his stuff out front on vocals  the Stooges already had one album under their belts and another, Fun House, due for release just days after their Goose Lake appearance.

Detroit's seminal punk rockers the Stooges in a scene from Jim Jarmusch's film Gimme Danger. Credit:ACMI

Fifty years since their performance a live album capturing the Stooges  in equal parts imploding and carving a whole new scene  will be released on Jack Whites esteemed Third Man Records label. Ben Blackwell, a drummer with Detroit's own mighty Dirtbombs, works at Third Man and was on the receiving end of an email after some tapes were unearthed from the house of the sound recordist on duty that momentous day at Goose Lake in 1970.

Josh Rogers, who found the tapes in his fathers house, brought them down to Third Man, says Blackwell, still grinning about the discovery. He didnt even know if there was music on them but they were labelled and we transferred them. I didnt really care about the ones with Chicago or the James Gang labels, it was the Stooges or bust.
The rainfall and flooding that ravaged large swaths of southwestern Manitoba the week of June 28 has yet to be recognized as a disaster by the province, and thats worrying some municipalities.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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A vehicle fell into a road breach caused by heavy flows of water in the Rural Municipality of Minto-Odanah in late June. The vehicle was abandoned by the time emergency personnel were able to get through all the close roads. (Submitted)

The rainfall and flooding that ravaged large swaths of southwestern Manitoba the week of June 28 has yet to be recognized as a disaster by the province, and thats worrying some municipalities.

Until the province opens a disaster financial assistance (DFA) program, government funds are not available to assist in repairs in the many towns and villages along both the Little Saskatchewan River and Whitemud watersheds.

"I believe there were 11 or 12 (municipalities) that declared a (local) state of emergency," said Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa MP Dan Mazier, who toured the impacted area extensively.

Thats equal to the size of Prince Edward Island, Mazier added, and its all within his riding.

He said municipalities are gathering the details of the damage to present to the provinces Emergency Measures Organization, even as they work to fix roads. The province will then assess that information and decide whether to apply for assistance from the federal government, via the federal Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements (DFAA), a program that provides disaster relief through provincial and territorial governments.

The last disaster for which a DFA program was established in Manitoba was the Oct. 12-14, 2019, severe weather event, according to the province. The program was made available for municipal and private sector damages. The province announced it Jan. 23, more than three months after the event.

"Disaster" means a calamity, however caused, which has resulted in or may result in (a) the loss of life, or (b) serious harm or damage to the safety, health or welfare of people, or (c) wide-spread damage to property or the environment," according to the Emergency Measures Act.

In an email, the province said that local states of emergency declared by the local authority have no link to disaster financial assistance. It also stated people can apply for assistance any time, even when programs have not been announced. People should also try to provide photographic evidence or images of damage and save all receipts if they spend money on mitigation or repairs.

Municipalities reached by The Brandon Sun on Wednesday were in various stages in the process. Some had already submitted details of the damage in their area, while others were still working to assess damages. In all cases, residents who sustained damage were also being encourage to fill out the form for disaster financial assistance.

"Every disaster or emergency has unique aspects and impacts and must be considered individually under the broad guidelines. Applying to a program doesnt mean assistance goes ahead. DFA is determined by government after an assessment of impacts," the province stated.

The Association of Manitoba Municipalities (AMM) is also involved by offering support to municipalities.

"The AMM is aware of the June and July heavy rains and corresponding infrastructure damage experienced in many parts of Manitoba, including Westman," president Ralph Groening said by email.

"In response, the AMM proactively reached out to affected municipalities to offer support and shared information regarding disaster financial assistance (DFA). We encouraged municipalities to complete community impact assessments to help estimate losses and damages as this is a critical component in determining whether a DFA program will be established."

Groening added: "As municipal officials are on the front lines protecting local communities when responding to natural disasters and extreme weather events, we continue to call on the Province of Manitoba to establish firm timelines when announcing DFA programs as well as expedite the approval of municipal DFA applications."

The province stated by email it is working with impacted municipalities to determine the full scope of impacts.

"Once they are understood the province will determine how best to support Manitobans in their recovery from this event. Local states of emergency declared by the local authority have no link to disaster financial assistance," the province stated.

Riverdale

Riverdale Municipality Mayor Todd Gill said they have not submitted their documentation to the province, yet. He said they have completed their evaluation.

22072020 Sandbags still remain outside businesses in Minnedosa damaged by flooding in late June and early July. (Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun)

"Its a work in progress," Gill said.

He pointed out Riverdale wasnt just dealing with the aftermath of the rainfall.

"We also had the (Rivers) dam situation and the evacuation," he said.

Nevertheless, damaged sites are under repair.

Minto-Odanah

Doug Dowsett is one frustrated reeve. The wild storms battered Minto-Odanah in late June. The area had hundreds of places with washed-out roads, resulting in 27 miles of closed roads. Dowsett toured numerous provincial and federal officials around the area, including Mazier.

"I talk to Greg Nesbitt (MLA for Riding Mountain) pretty near every day," Dowsett said.

"If not him, his secretary. Im lobbying as hard as I can, but Im not seeming to be getting anyplace, which really bothers me right now,"

Dowsett said the municipality, which has a maintenance agreement with the province for provincial roads, has been spending municipal money to fix those roads.

"Which I dont think is right," he said.

"Dont get me wrong. Its not that theyre not concerned. Its just that they havent decided to do anything, yet."

But, Dowsett worried that Minto-Odanah might not getting financial help.

"But I cant see them leaving us out in the cold. The towns of Minnedosa and Neepawa have extensive damage, too," he said.

"Dont forget our tax base isnt huge to draw from. Were 1,187 people  thats all we have in Minto-Odanah. Its going to be problematic for us, the financial hit, if we dont get help. Itll be extreme."

Aaren Robertson, chief administrative officer for Minto-Odanah, said a lot of the smaller stuff is fixed up now.

"Everybody is accessible, now," he said.

"But we have a lot of damage yet to fix. Weve probably spent $100,000 on culverts. Thats just the culverts. And more to come."

Clanwilliam-Erickson

Similarly, the RM of Clanwilliam-Erickson has a gravel road initiative agreement with the province for a portion of Provincial Road 262 that is within the municipality. Clanwilliam-Erickson is responsible for the regular maintenance of that road and the province pays out a set amount.

"I would assume that in an extreme situation, where a road is completely gone.  They kind of said its our baby to fix, but Im hoping there will be some sort of provincial funding. But weve had to fix the road on the municipal dollar," said chief administrative officer Quinn Greavett.

"Fingers crossed were able to get reimbursed."

Greavett said they submitted their application immediately on July 2.

"Were just waiting to hear from them. We knew we were going to need assistance," she said.

"In the rural area, we had two very major road washouts. And in town  were hoping it (DFA) will be approved because people will have their personal claims, as well. Weve been encouraging people to do that."

For the rural area, Greavett has logged approximately 25 sites ranging from major washout to more minor damage. She said the worst washout wiped out approximately 40 feet of one road.

"Although its over, its just beginning, as far as the work that needs to be done and how it gets organized and who has to pay for it," Greavett said.

She estimates, at this point, that recuperating from the weather event will cost the municipality approximately $100,000.

"But thats really a guess. One road repair we did is to the tune of $14,000 to $15,000."

Oakview

Meanwhile, the Rural Municipality of Oakview, where Rapid City is located, has an additional worry. With all the focus on the Rivers dam, the Rapid City dam, which blew out during the storms, is seemingly forgotten. Dams are owned by the province.

Thats a problem for some residents. Ironically, despite the flooding, the wells for approximately two dozen homes are going dry. Thats because of the reservoir breach.

"Those homes rely on that water. Their wells are depleting quickly," said chief administrative officer Marci Quane.

She said the municipality has completed, to the best of its ability, its community impact assessment.

"We have no idea, with the number of bridges and roads, what the cost is going to be."

The municipality has started on repairs, but is waiting on culverts.

"Weve got so much on order," Quane said.

She estimates total costs will come to $1.5 million to repair 25 roads and five bridges.

 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.
The largest airline of the country, IndiGo, announced on Monday that it would lay off 10 per cent of its workforce due to the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. "Recent decisions of the Air India board regarding rationalization of staff cost were reviewed in a meeting at the Ministry of Civil Aviation this evening. The meeting reiterated that unlike other carriers which have laid off a large number of their ...

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Haryana home minister Anil Vij Sadar said on Thursday that Rs 7.5 crore will be spent on development projects in Sadar area of Ambala Cantonment.

Vij, who holds charge of urban local bodies in the cabinet, said 13 projects will be initiated under the special grant, mainly for strengthening of roads and drains.

After meeting officials at his residence, he said that along with repairing of roads, construction of gyms, parks and toilets will also be done in the area.

Construction of a shed in Gandhi Mandi Ground and maintenance of street lights will also be carried out under this grant.
Kerala is considering returning to a state-wide lockdown to stem the flow of new Covid 19 infections in the state and the governments final decision on this matter is expected in a special cabinet meet scheduled for Monday, reported news agency ANI.

The development follows detection of 1,038 new cases of coronavirus in the state in a single day on Wednesday, forcing the government to announce a curfew in Ernakulams Aluva region and tighten vigil across the state while deciding to increase the number of beds for treatment of infected patients.

Taking another precautionary measure, the government on Thursday announced cancellation of the assembly session scheduled from July 27, reported the news agency.

Governments consideration for a state-wide lockdown comes even as capital city Thiruvananthapuram and many parts of the district are already under lockdown for over two weeks and will continue to observe it till July 28.

Similarly, triple lockdown is in force in coastal areas of the district after a massive spurt in cases was reported recently. As cases increased, many areas in Kochi and other places were also put under triple lockdown. The state had also reported community transmission in two fishing hamlets of Thiruvananthapuram.

Also Read: Kerala: Parents booked for flouting COVID rules during KEAM exam

Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan had only sought to put up a brave face by claiming that the states situation is better when compared to other states on the front of infection and fatality rate.

In India there are 864 cases per million people while in Kerala it is 419 only. The states fatality rate is 0.31 % while the national average is 2.41%. The state situation is better, still some people cant digest it, he had said in response to criticism by the opposition over the governments handling of the pandemic.

Also Read: Kerala CM clarifies states discharge policy of Covid-19 patients

Kerala has registered a total of 15,032 positive cases so far including 8,818 cases that are currently active and 6,164 recovered patients. 47 people have died in the state due to the disease.

Complete lockdown is only being observed in the containment zones in the state, where only essential services are allowed.
Ayodhya's Ram Temple will be 161-feet tall, which is about 20 feet taller than original design prepared in 1988, its chief architect has revealed. The construction of the temple will start on August 5 and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, prominent BJP leaders and a host of VIPs will attend the groundbreaking ceremony. During the occasion, the PM will install a 40 kg silver brick as the foundation stone.

The event would be held keeping in mind maximum social distancing. The trust responsible for the construction of the Ram Mandir, the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Tirtha Kshetra has said that there would not be more than 200 people during the event. Also, there won't be more than 50 VIPS at the event. Veteran BJP leader LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti have also been invited to the ceremony.

"The earlier design was prepared in 1988. Over 30 years have passed... the footfall is likely to increase. People are also very enthusiastic about visiting the temple. So we thought its size should be increased. As per the revised design, the height of the temple has been increased from 141-feet to 161-feet," Nikhil Sompura, an architect and son of C Sompura, chief architect of the temple, told ANI.

Also read: Ram Temple: Trust to invite PM Modi for 'bhoomi pujan' in August; aims to complete temple in 3.5 years

As part of the new temple design, two more mandaps have been added. "All pillars and the stones that were carved based on the earlier design will still be used. Only two ''mandaps'' have been added," he said.

The work on the construction of the temple will start soon after the foundation ceremony and the constructions will complete in the next three years. "Once the 'bhoomi pujan' (ground breaking ceremony) is done in the presence of the Prime Minister, the construction work will start. The team of L&T, along with machinery and materials, have reached the spot and the work on foundation will start right away. It will take 3 to 3.5 years for the completion of the work," he told the agency.

The foundation stone laying ceremony for the Ram Temple in Ayodhya would be done at 12:15 pm on August 5. "Timings for the foundation stone laying ceremony for the Prime Minister has been decided according to the Hindu calendar and the most auspicious time," said Mahant Kamal Nayan Das on Sunday.

Bhoomi pujan would be done with a special offering to Lord Ganesha. The priests would perform Ramacharya Puja on the last day. The prayers would be offered by a team of 11 priests from Varanasi and Ayodhya.

PM Modi is likely to spend a couple of hours in the temple that day.

Notably, ahead of the groundbreaking ceremony on August 5, the temple authorities will hold three-day Vedic rituals. To facilitate devotees, TV screens will be installed at various locations so devotees can watch the entire event live.

Also read: Ayodhya verdict out! Now, up to Modi govt to build Ram Mandir
Iran's top security official: Harsher revenge awaits perpetrators of Gen. Soleimani's assassination

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 22 July 2020 4:29 PM

Iran's top security official says harsher revenge awaits the perpetrators of the attack that killed senior Iranian anti-terrorism commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and his companions.

In a post on his Twitter page on Wednesday, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said that US President Donald Trump had admitted that the American, upon his direct order, committed the crime of assassinating General Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) counter-terrorism force, who were two prominent figures of the anti-terrorism campaign.

"The two Iranian and Iraqi nations are avengers of blood of these martyrs and will not rest until they punish the perpetrators," read part of the tweet.

"Harsher revenge is one the way," it concluded.

The two commanders and a number of their companions were assassinated in a US airstrike near Baghdad airport on January 3, as General Soleimani was on an official visit to the Iraqi capital.

Both commanders were extremely popular because of the key role they played in eliminating the US-sponsored Daesh terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.

In retaliation for the attack, the IRGC fired volleys of ballistic missiles a US base in Iraq on January 8. According to the US Defense Department, more than 100 American forces suffered "traumatic brain injuries" during the counterstrike. The IRGC, however, says Washington uses the term to mask the number of the Americans, who perished during the retaliation.

Iran has also issued an arrest warrant and asked Interpol for help in detaining Trump, who ordered the assassination, and several other US military and political leaders behind the strike.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday Iran will never forget Washington's assassination of General Soleimani and will definitely deliver a "counterblow" to the United States.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran will never forget this issue and will definitely deal the counterblow to the Americans," Ayatollah Khamenei said in a meeting with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in Tehran.

"They killed your guest at your own home and unequivocally admitted the atrocity. This is no small matter," Ayatollah Khamenei told the Iraqi premier.

A UN special rapporteur says has condemned the US assassination and said Washington has put the world at unprecedented peril with its murder of Iran's top anti-terror commander.

Agnes Callamard, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, has also warned that it is high time the international community broke its silence on Washington's drone-powered unlawful killings.

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Fighting failed real estate deals in court can be futile  and expensive  as shown by the verdicts in two recent Ontario cases.

In February, 2020, Mohammad Jafar Haghollahi and Parvaneh Yaghoubi signed an agreement to buy a property on Lockwood Circle, in Newmarket, from Gregory and Tara Butt. The contract price was $1,755,000 with a $75,000 deposit.

The property, a two-storey home with five bedrooms and five bathrooms, a pool, cabana and above-ground hot tub, has a title subject to two usage rights, or easements, sanitary and storm sewer access by the town of Newmarket.

A standard title clause in the agreement said title had to be clear except for easements that included drainage, storm and sanitary sewers.

A building location survey of the property, clearly showing the easements, was attached to the agreement as a schedule. It also contained references to the registered easements.

Prior to closing, the lawyer for the buyers submitted a formal demand that the easements be removed from title. The sellers lawyer responded that the title objections were not valid.

The buyers applied to the court for a declaration that they could rescind the transaction and get a return of their deposit

Ruling in favour of the sellers, Justice Jill Cameron concluded on June 28 there was an inference that the existence of the easements is not the real motive behind seeking rescission of the agreement.

Cameron noted that the sellers had good title to the property and could convey substantially what the purchasers contracted to get. The sellers were awarded the $75,000 deposit that the buyers had paid.

A similar case was heard in Newmarket court this past February. In 2017, buyers Hong Phat Tran and Thu Thuy Thi Dinh agreed to purchase a house on St. Johns Sideroad W., in Aurora, for $2,130,000 from Il-Jung Joo and Hae-Sun Joo. They paid a $100,000 deposit.

The title search of the property revealed two registered sewer easements to the town of Newmarket, an easement to Bell Canada for maintenance to telecommunications facilities, and easements to Aurora Hydro and Aurora Cable TV.

A survey of the property attached to the offer depicted the easements and their locations.

The lawyer for the buyers demanded the easements be removed from the propertys title. The sellers refused and the deal did not close.

The sellers resold the property for $1,700,000  a loss of $430,000.

In awarding the sellers $430,000 plus $18,000 in costs without the need for a trial, Justice Gregory Mulligan found that the buyers had breached the contract and noted there is no indication as to how the property would be serviced by the utilities, including hydro, telephone or cable TV, if the easements were removed.

As I see it, three important takeaways from these cases are:

1. There is little point in litigating a failed real estate transaction on the basis of standard easements on title.

2. Always attach a land survey to a purchase agreement.

3. Courts do not like technical excuses for getting out of a purchase contract.

Bob Aaron is a Toronto real estate lawyer and a contributing columnist for the Star. He can be reached at bob@aaron.ca or on Twitter: @bobaaron2

July 27, 2020  Editors note: This column has been edited to clarify details of the transaction involving Mohammad Jafar Haghollahi and Parvaneh Yaghoubi and Gregory and Tara Butt.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 19:06:12|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday respectively sent congratulatory letters to the eighth meeting of the dialogue mechanism between the ruling parties of China and Russia, held via video link.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, expressed his warm congratulations on the meeting.

He said since the outbreak of COVID-19, China and Russia have supported and helped each other, and worked together to tide over the difficulties and oppose external interferences, giving new strategic connotations to bilateral cooperation, fully demonstrating the profound friendship between the two peoples, and reflecting the high level and distinctiveness of China-Russia relations in the new era. Enditem
Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews speaks to the media at the daily briefing on July 11, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. (Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)

Victoria to Run a $7.5 Billion Deficit

Victorias budget is expected to run a $7.5 billion deficit for the 2019/2020 financial year.

Treasurer Tim Pallas revealed the startling figure in an economic update on July 23.

Coronavirus, which is ravaging Victoria with a savage second wave, has been blamed for the dire financial situation.

Kaitlyn Offer in Melbourne
Nearly a year after the reorganization of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state into two union territories (UTs) including Ladakh, the Narendra Modi government has cleared the decks for the first Central University in the latter, which will also host a Centre on Buddhist Studies, people familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity.

The move is aimed at addressing the huge vacuum in higher education in the new UT, with many students having to venture out to other states.

While the formal decision will be taken after the proposal is moved by the HRD Ministry, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in favour of a separate Ladakh university, the people said, as at least 10,000 Ladakhi students have been forced to enrol in educational institutions outside the UT. Barring engineering and medical education, the proposed university will offer degrees in all courses including liberal arts and basic sciences.

In 2018, the then government of Jammu and Kashmir state set up a Ladakh University, but this was a so-called cluster university created by pooling all the resources of existing colleges of Ladakh.

The creation of Ladakh university was discussed in a meeting on July 20 to review the progress made a year after J&K was reorganized on August 5 last year. Chaired by the Prime Minister, the meeting was attended by Home Minister Amit Shah, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and other top officials.

According to the HRD ministrys proposal, the Ladakh Central University will also cater to students from Lahaul and Spiti districts of Himachal Pradesh once the Rohtang La tunnel opens this year and ensures round the year access to Leh via the Jispa-Sarchu-Upshi route. The university will have a Centre for Buddhist Studies to cater to the largely Gelug (to which the 14th Dalai Lama belongs) and Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhist population of Ladakh.

While a decision on not allowing students from the Kashmir Valley enrol in higher education institutions in Pakistan -- the country even has a quota for students from Kashmir -- is still awaited, PM Modi reviewed the development in the two UTs over the past year.

The people cited in the first instance said the Prme Minister wanted specific improvements in the UTs highlighted in the coming days. He did not want the development debate to digress into the achievements of the state police and security forces on the counter-terrorism front.

Indian parliament passed laws and resolutions on August 5 and 6 last year to scrap Article 370 of the constituton, which gave the erstwhile state of J&K special status, and split it into two UTs. The move, the government believed, would help it focus on development in the state, and also address the issue of terror.

Even though the government is clear that vested interests within and across the border will try and vitiate the atmosphere close to August 5, there was consensus in the meeting that the development agenda in both the UTs should not be derailed at any cost, the people added.

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A Senate committee investigating Joe Bidens son has secured a deposition with a high-level State Department official, George Kent, who was a star impeachment witness against President Donald Trump.

Kent, who has served as the deputy assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs since September 2018, is expected to appear before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), for an interview as soon as Friday, according to people familiar with the panels plans.

A spokesperson for Johnson declined to comment, saying we are not commenting on our ongoing discussions with potential witnesses. A lawyer for Kent did not return requests for comment.

Kent was recently promoted to a new rank in the Senior Foreign Service, and is one of the few impeachment witnesses who was not purged from government following his impeachment testimony. He told lawmakers in closed and open sessions late last year that Trumps then-personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani conducted a "campaign of lies" about the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, that led to her early recall from Kyiv.

But he also testified that he had raised concerns in 2015 about the appearance of a conflict of interest stemming from Bidens son Hunters position on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma. At the time, he emphasized that he did not witness any efforts by any U.S. official to shield Burisma from scrutiny. And asked later during his testimony whether there was any truth to Trumps theory that Biden was trying to protect his sons interests, Kent replied: None whatsoever.





Family members gather for a road naming ceremony with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, centre, his son Hunter Biden, left, and his sister Valerie Biden Owens, right, joined by other family members during a ceremony to name a national road after his late son Joseph R.

Burismas owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, has been investigated multiple times by Ukraines top prosecutor and the countrys National Anti-Corruption Bureau, but a money laundering probe against him was abruptly dropped in January 2015, raising eyebrows among U.S. officials at the time.

In early 2015, I raised questions with the deputy prosecutor general about why the investigation of Mr. Zlochevsky had been terminated, based on our belief that prosecutors had accepted bribes to close the case, Kent said in prepared remarks during his public impeachment testimony.

Story continues

Later, I became aware that Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma, Kent continued. Soon after that, in a briefing call with the national security staff in the Office of the Vice President, in February 2015, I raised my concern that Hunter Bidens status as board member could create the perception of a conflict of interest. Let me be clear, however: I did not witness any efforts by any U.S. official to shield Burisma from scrutiny. In fact, I and other U.S. officials consistently advocated reinstituting a scuttled investigation of Zlochevsky, Burismas founder, as well as holding the corrupt prosecutors who closed the case to account.

Kents deposition is part of an escalating GOP probe of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and his family. Johnson is also seeking testimony from former Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken, currently a senior foreign policy adviser on Bidens campaign; former special envoy for international energy Amos Hochstein; and former State Department officials Geoffrey Pyatt and Elizabeth Zentos.

The committee views testimony from Blinken and Hochstein in particular as critical for its forthcoming report on allegations surrounding Hunter Bidens role on the board of Burisma, and is eyeing subpoenas for the pair if they dont agree soon to voluntarily appear before the panel.

On Wednesday, Biden campaign communications director Kate Bedingfield said in a memo circulated to interested parties that Johnsons probe was a desperate taxpayer-funded smear campaign based on a farcical, long-debunked, hardcore rightwing conspiracy theory.

Trump has long urged his Republican allies on Capitol Hill to target his political enemies, and Democrats have raised concerns, including in a recent letter to the FBI, that Johnsons probe has become a vehicle for laundering a foreign influence campaign to damage Biden.

Johnson renewed his demand for transcribed interviews and documents from the former Obama administration officials days after a Ukrainian lawmaker  Andriy Derkach, who has met with Giuliani to discuss investigating the Biden family  used a news conference to make unsubstantiated corruption allegations against the Bidens and Hochstein.
ALBANY  The presidents of University at Albany and Siena College laid out how they plan to keep their students and staff safe this fall during a Thursday news conference with Albany County Executive Dan McCoy.

Both school leaders said they would depend heavily on a set of guidelines for behavior that students had to agree to before coming back to campus even as the world continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic. In addition, their schools have also have been taking steps to space out classrooms, move more classes to remote learning and build up their school's abilities to do contact tracing in case of an outbreak on campus.

Siena College President Chris Gibson said both the students and the college had responsibilities to each other to make the situation work.

"I'm confident that if our students and college comply with what our plans are, we will safely administer our academic program," he said.

Both schools are taking extra precautions with students who are coming from other countries or live in states that are currently under a state travel advisory. Those students will have to quarantine for two weeks after arriving on campus and test negative for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus, before leaving quarantine.

"The residents of Albany County should know that the individuals who you might describe as 'high risk', they will not be out in the area here until such time that they fully complete quarantine and receive a negative test," he said.

Siena will also be staggering student arrivals for its roughly 3,100 students. First-year students will arrive on Aug. 19 and 20, followed by remaining students between Aug. 21-23.

UAlbany students who don't live in states under a travel advisory will need to have a negative COVID-19 test be expected to quarantine for 14 days before returning to campus. The school typically staggers arrival dates because it has so many students. This year however students will have to reserve a two-hour window to move-in and roommates cannot move in at the same time. The university typically enrolls around 17,500 students, with more than 7,000 living on campus, but that number will be reduced this year to help spread students out.

Both schools are still unsure how many students will either stay home because all of their classes are remote or decide to attend a school closer to home.

UAlbany President Havidan Rodriguez recalled the panicked days in March when the first COVID-19 cases appeared on the campus and there was a rush to move students to remote learning. The university has been preparing since then to ensure it is able to welcome students back, he said.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

"This has been an iterative and dynamic process that is certain to change, not only based on what's going on in Albany County and New York state but indeed across the nation," he said.

Classes there will change this semester. Nearly 60 percent will be fully remote, Rodriguez said, with 15 percent a mix of online and in-person instruction. The remaining classes will be in person.

Beyond class, students will see changes in dining facilities, libraries and fitness facilities, the presidents said.

The fall semester at each campus will end with the Thanksgiving break.

And while both men acknowledged that the situation could change any day, they said they believe their plans will allow them to have a full semester. And if plans do change, they're ready, Rodriguez said.

"We want to end the semester the way we started it. We do not want to shut down again but trust me if we have to, we will," he said.
WASHINGTON - Tensions among congressional Republicans fueled by the party's diminishing electoral fortunes broke out into the open this week - as GOP lawmakers sparred over the shape of the next coronavirus aid package, how vigorously to stand behind President Donald Trump and which primaries to wade into that could help determine control of the Senate in November.

In the Senate, GOP senators continued to struggle to find consensus on a massive spending bill aimed at mitigating the pandemic and softening its economic impact - a task complicated by the president's insistence on a payroll tax cut that few in his own party want, intraparty feuding over the cost of the package and disagreements over exactly how the money should be spent.

Across the dome in the House, some of the Trump's closest allies launched a surprising attack against Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the highest-ranking Republican woman on Capitol Hill, charging her with disloyalty to the president because she has bucked him on national security issues and embraced public health advice and officials whom Trump has dismissed.

And on Wednesday, allies of Senate Republican leaders formally threw their support behind the establishment choice in a heated GOP primary in Kansas, pitting themselves against a strong supporter of the president who was an early advocate of his immigration policies.

The battles this week were a microcosm of the broader reckoning over the party's future and how strong the populist tenets of Trumpism will hold after the president leaves office. The fractures are emerging now because of worries that the party faces doom at the polls this fall owing to Trump's handling of the pandemic and his resulting falling poll numbers against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Trump came from nowhere five years ago to effectively take over the Republican Party, remaking it into a seeming cult of personality that has repeatedly violated the party's supposed orthodoxies. But this week's dust-ups are bringing into relief the fault lines and competing personalities that will define the coming war over the soul of the post-Trump GOP, whether that is after a single term or in another four years, with some appearing already to be jockeying for position in the 2024 presidential contest.

"I think a sure way to lose the Senate, and elect Joe Biden, is to allow Democratic politicians to keep the country shut down and keep 40 million people out of work," Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who ran for the party's presidential nomination in 2016, said of the coronavirus package Wednesday. "Our focus needs to be on recovery, on getting people back in their jobs."

Cruz vented his frustrations in private at a lunch Tuesday, when he questioned "what in the hell are we doing?" as Republican lawmakers continued to add costly items to the ballooning virus aid package. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was similarly vocal about spending concerns, even though others - such as Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. - argued in favor of spending a little more so that Republican senators in tough reelection races would have tangible policy wins to bring home for voters and help their chances of retaining control of the Chamber.

Cruz and Paul are reviving the traditional fiscal concerns of the Republican Party that had diminished during under the Trump presidency, which had paid very little attention to rising deficits as the GOP passed costly tax cuts and made pricey spending deals with Democrats.

Trump - who four years ago campaigned on a pledge to eliminate the national debt in eight years - has otherwise never concerned himself much with the amount of red ink dripping off the government's ledger.

During his administration, the size of the national debt has ballooned from $19.9 trillion on his inauguration to $26.5 trillion today. The Treasury Department said last week that the nation's budget deficit grew to a record-high $864 billion in June.

Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who speaks regularly with Senate Republicans, said that many GOP senators want to be much more aggressive about paring down the soaring deficit as soon as the economy recovers. Riedl also said some Republicans acknowledge that addressing fiscal issues beyond November will require putting tax increases on the table to appease Democrats.

"There is significant remorse over letting deficits rise by $9 trillion during the previous economic expansion," Riedl said. "Of course, we've heard these concerns before, so we will see if they are willing to follow through."

The administration and Senate Republican leaders are aiming for a $1 trillion coronavirus aid package, although negotiations continued throughout the day on Wednesday and senior GOP officials indicated that the earliest a plan would be released was Thursday. The main sticking point continued to be the potential inclusion of a payroll tax cut, although Republicans were also struggling to balance the push for more funding for testing and other priorities with concerns about the plan's price tag.

At the Capitol on Wednesday, Republican lawmakers acknowledged that nervousness about November was fueling the tensions.

"It always happens that way," Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., a retiring senator whose would-be GOP successors are locked in their own intraparty brawl ahead of the Aug. 4 primary in the state, said. "People fuss and feud and fight and whatever - then after the election, they love each other."

Yet the Republican infighting is spreading beyond policy disputes on the Hill

The Senate Leadership Fund, the main super PAC dedicated to electing Republican senators, formally took sides on Wednesday in a contested GOP primary to succeed Roberts in Kansas in an attempt to stifle the chances of Kris Kobach, the controversial former Kansas secretary of state who lost a gubernatorial bid in 2018, prevailing in the Aug. 4 primary.

Jack Pandol, a spokesman for the super PAC, said the group would launch a $1.2 million ad buy promoting Rep. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., buy starting Thursday, which will run through the primary. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has not officially taken sides in the race, although establishment GOP figures have made it clear both publicly and in private that Kobach would risk flipping a traditionally Republican seat into Democratic hands in November.

Kobach is an immigration hard-liner whose approach is in line with Trump's and he shares the president's belief, which is not backed up by the facts, that voter fraud is a significant issue in elections. Trump named him the head of his now defunct voter fraud commission.

A Senate primary in Tennessee is also growing more contentious, as the Trump-endorsed candidate, former U.S. ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty, went negative in his ads this week against his main competitor, Manny Sethi, an orthopedic surgeon who earned the endorsement of Cruz on Wednesday.

The internal rancor, though, this week was sharpest in the House Republican Conference and the attacks against Cheney, the scion of the prominent GOP family who is in position to potentially be the first female Republican speaker in history, appeared to catch party leaders by surprise.

In the House Republican conference's first in-person meeting since the pandemic began, members of the House Freedom Caucus chastised Cheney for defending Anthony S. Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases whose blunt talk and high profile had diminished his standing somewhat in the administration. She was also confronted with her criticism of key Trump foreign policy positions, most recently the administration's plans to reduce the number of active-duty U.S. troops in Germany.

She also took a forceful position in favor of wearing face coverings to curb the spread of the coronavirus - which the president has been reluctant to do - tweeting a photo last month of her father, former vice president Richard B. Cheney, wearing a mask with the hashtag: "realmenwearmasks."

The president's son, Donald Trump Jr., joined Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., a close ally of the president, in pushing to boot Cheney from her leadership position while comparing her to Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, the sole GOP senator who voted earlier this year to convict Trump on an abuse-of-power charge during his impeachment trial.

The White House did not return a request for comment on whether the president agrees with his son that Cheney should be ousted from her leadership post. But other House Republicans downplayed the internal dispute as a one-time fracas.

"It's gonna happen, unfortunately," said Rep. Rodney Davis R-Ill. "But in the end, I think everybody has to come together this Congress, because you have to come together in a minority."
CHANGSHA, China, July 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science & Technology Co., Ltd. (Zoomlion) has scored continuous global success in the first-half of 2020, including the record-breaking export of tower cranes to South Korea, delivery of its latest ZAT2000 all-terrain crane to Qatar, and new orders of T6515-8KC tower cranes from Slovenia.

Zoomlion has increased R&D investments to innovate and optimize products for customers worldwide, as well as providing comprehensive services that will enhance its competitiveness.

"'Localization' has always been at the core of Zoomlion's strategic global development, it's not only reflected in conducting businesses with local agents, but also developing products that would suit the local construction conditions and user habits," said Li Bin, Deputy General Manager of Overseas Company of Zoomlion.

Seizing the opportunities presented by the resumption of work in South Korea since the COVID-19 outbreak, Zoomlion has set a record number of tower cranes export to South Korea. The brand now accounts for nearly half of the market share of Chinese tower crane export to South Korea and has continued to maintain the top position.

Zoomlion has been cooperating with local South Korean agents since 2013, adjusting and upgrading the current products to meet the demands of the local market. Zoomlion now exports large-tonnage tower cranes to South Korea and covers product categories of flat-top, hammerhead and luffing-jib tower cranes. Zoomlion has launched project cooperation with top South Korean construction companies such as Lotte Construction, Daewoo Construction and Samsung Engineering & Construction Group.

"By working closely with local agents, we're looking to achieve mutually beneficial situations for all parties with excellent products and services, as well as contributing to the local construction projects," said Zhang Xin, Regional Manager of Zoomlion's Construction Hoisting Machinery Overseas Marketing Company (Asia Special Region)

ZAT2000, Zoomlion's latest 4.0 generation all-terrain crane, has been exported to Qatar together with several mid-tonnage truck cranes in June. With a lifting capacity of 200 tons, the ZAT2000 has emerged as a new player in the competitive local market of large-tonnage cranes. Zoomlion now holds the highest market share among Chinese crane exports to the Middle east.

In 2019, Zoomlion established Zoomlion CIFA Europe to develop tower crane business in the EU and has reached cooperation with the largest tower crane rental service in Slovenia to introduce the products into the local market. The T7020-12H tower crane is the first Zoomlion product to debut in Slovenia, the excellent performance of which led to another order of T6515-8KC tower cranes recently.

About Zoomlion

Founded in 1992, Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science & Technology Co., Ltd. (01157.HK) is a high-end equipment manufacturing enterprise that integrates engineering machinery, agricultural machinery, and financial services. The company now sells more than 600 cutting-edge products from 55 product lines covering ten significant categories.

SOURCE Zoomlion

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Kuwait's 91-year-old ruler Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah left for the United States Thursday to undergo medical treatment, his office said, days after he had surgery for an undisclosed illness. The emir, who has ruled the oil-rich Gulf state since 2006, had been in hospital since the weekend. Sheikh Sabah "left the country today at dawn to go to the United States to complete his medical treatment", his office said in a statement cited by state news agency KUNA. Earlier, it had said he would make the journey "based on the advice of his medical team to complete treatment following the successful surgery". The statements did not reveal the nature of his illness, the type of surgery he had undergone in Kuwait, or what treatment was planned in the US. In September 2019, he underwent medical tests shortly after arriving in the United States, leading to a meeting with President Donald Trump being called off. The emir had his appendix removed in 2002, two years after having a pacemaker fitted. In 2007, he underwent urinary tract surgery in the United States. Under Kuwaiti law, when the emir is absent, crown prince Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, 83, the emir's half-brother, is appointed acting ruler. Sheikh Nawaf is an elder statesman who has held high office for decades, including the defence and interior portfolios. Sheikh Sabah argued last year for de-escalation in the Gulf as tensions surged between the US and its arch-foe Iran. He is widely regarded as the architect of modern Kuwait's foreign policy. The Emir of Kuwait, who has ruled the oil-rich Gulf state since 2006, had been in hospital since the weekend
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 18:47:31|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Entrepreneurs have drawn inspiration from President Xi Jinping's recent interaction with executives at a symposium, gaining added confidence to make up for the losses caused by COVID-19 and strive for positive economic development throughout the year.

"We feel warm and assured in our hearts, and have gathered more strength for development," said Jiang Bin, chairman of Goertek Inc., after learning that Xi chaired the symposium and talked with executive representatives from businesses with various forms of ownership Tuesday.

At the symposium, seven entrepreneurs shared their opinions and made suggestions on the current economic situation, the protection of market entities, sci-tech innovation, the deepening of reform and the forthcoming 14th five-year plan for social and economic development.

After listening to their suggestions, Xi made a speech, calling for more efforts such as providing relief, expanding the market, improving the business environment and promoting innovation to enable enterprises to play a bigger role and achieve greater development.

MORE THAN A PEP TALK

The symposium came as the Chinese economy posted a better-than-expected recovery in the first half, with its gross domestic product expanding 3.2 percent year on year in the second quarter, following a 6.8-percent contraction in the first quarter.

But challenges remain given the continuous global spread of the virus and mounting external risks.

For entrepreneurs like Jiang, Xi's speech was more than a pep talk amid economic headwinds, as Xi has urged more direct and effective policy support to help businesses overcome difficulties concerning rent, fees and taxes, social insurance and financing.

As his company has quickened its business resumption with policy support, Jiang said he was expecting profit growth of 45 percent to 50 percent in the first half of the year.

Jiao Yuchang, owner of a roast chicken firm in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, said he was "very proud" as Xi commended the contributions made by over 82 million self-employed businesses in his speech and promised to pay close attention to the development of the business group.

With the firm's business spending expected to decrease by over 1 million yuan (about 143,000 U.S. dollars) this year thanks to government relief policies, Jiao said he had more confidence in his business and would continue to bring "the safest and most delicious food to the market."

The confidence of foreign-funded enterprises has also been shored up as Xi underlined measures to create a market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment.

Wang Tong, executive vice president of Samsung Electronics China, noted that Samsung makes more than 25 billion U.S. dollars of purchases in China each year, and the country hosts more overseas research and development subsidiaries of the firm than any other market.

"As COVID-19 spreads throughout the world and China helps spearhead the global economic recovery, President Xi reassured everyone at the symposium that China would not close its doors, but would open ever wider instead. His remarks sent a positive signal to the world economy and brought enterprises worldwide confidence in future development," Wang said.

"Since the country started its reform and opening-up over 40 years ago, China has been attracting global attention with its openness," said Zhao Bingdi, president of the board of the Panasonic Corporation of China, noting that foreign-funded enterprises are full of expectations for a better business environment.

RISE TO CHALLENGES THROUGH INNOVATION

In response to Xi's call to make up for the losses caused by COVID-19, China's state-owned enterprises are vying to bolster greater development by tapping into new opportunities.

"With crises come opportunities, and it is the innovators that will emerge victorious," said Ning Gaoning, chairman of chemical firm Sinochem Group.

To offset the fallout of the epidemic and meet corporate targets as planned, Sinochem is seeking to transform itself into a science and technology innovation enterprise boasting independent intellectual property rights and high value-added products, according to Ning.

Healthcare group Sinopharm is also aiming high, with a plan to set up an entire innovation-driven industrial chain during the 2021-2025 period, said Liu Jingzhen, chairman of the company.

In his speech, Xi encouraged entrepreneurs to advance innovation in production organization, technology and market, and suggested they prioritize technological research and development and human capital investment.

Xi also called for elevating the modernization level of the industrial and supply chains and fostering new advantages for future development.

In response, high-tech firm Futong Group said it would further explore the country's huge domestic market, seize the opportunities from 5G development and actively deploy the whole industrial chain of optical fiber communications and big data centers, according to the company's chairman Wang Jianyi.

Lenovo Group strives to promote intelligent manufacturing and plans to invest over 300 million U.S. dollars to build modern intelligent factories in Shenzhen.

Yang Yuanqing, chairman and CEO of Lenovo Group, said the company hoped to be a pioneer in the field and help more Chinese manufacturers promote digitalization, automation and intelligence in production in the future. Enditem
The US on Tuesday gave China 72 hours to close its consulate in Houston amid allegations of widespread spying.

China has said the US move to close its Houston consulate this week severely harmed relations and warned it must retaliate, without detailing what it would do.

Washington on Tuesday gave China 72 hours to close the consulate amid allegations of widespread spying  a dramatic escalation of tension between the worlds two biggest economies.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin described the United Statess allegations as malicious slander and said the unreasonable move had severely harmed relations.

China must make a necessary response and safeguard its legitimate rights, he said, declining to specify any measures.

This is tearing down the friendly bridge between the people of China and the US.

Spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry Wang Wenbin called the US spying allegations malicious slander [Tingshu Wang/Reuters]

The South China Morning Post reported that China may close the US consulate in the southwestern city of Chengdu, while a source told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday China was considering shutting the US consulate in Wuhan, where the US withdrew staff at the start of the coronavirus outbreak.

Hu Xijin, editor of Chinas Global Times tabloid, wrote that shutting the Wuhan consulate would be insufficiently disruptive.

Hu said the US had a large consulate in Hong Kong and it was too obvious that the consulate is an intelligence centre.

Even if China doesnt close it, it could instead cut its staff to one or two hundred. This will make Washington suffer much pain, he wrote.

The other US consulates in China are in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenyang.

China has four other consulates in the US  in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York  as well as an embassy in Washington, DC.

President Donald Trump said in answer to a question at a news briefing on Wednesday it was always possible other Chinese missions could be closed too.

Richard Grenell, special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo who served until recently as acting director of US national intelligence, told Reuters the US strategy was very much start with one and move on to others if need be.

Its the escalation strategy, he said.

The whole goal is to change the behavior of the Chinese  this is emerging as the Trump doctrine, which is very harsh actions, sanctions and isolation while at the same time always offering a chance to exit if the behavior changes.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaking during a news conference at the State Department in Washington, DC, US [Andrew Harnik/Pool via Reuters]

The Wall Street Journal said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would deliver a speech in California later on Thursday urging allied countries and the people of China to work with the US to change the Chinese Communist Partys behaviour.

We, the free nations of the world, must induce change in the CCPs behavior in more creative and assertive ways, because Beijings actions threaten our people and our prosperity, it quoted a draft of his speech as saying.

In spite of the tensions, a flight bound for Shanghai carrying US diplomats left the US on Wednesday night, as Washington pressed ahead with its plan to restaff missions in China evacuated due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Election gambit

US-China ties have deteriorated sharply this year over issues ranging from the coronavirus pandemic and telecommunications giant Huawei to Chinas territorial claims in the South China Sea and its clampdown on Hong Kong.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, described the Houston consulate on Twitter as the central node of the Communist Partys vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States.

#Chinas consulate in #Houston is not a diplomatic facility. It is the central node of the Communist Partys vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States. Now that building must close & the spies have 72 hours to leave or face arrest. This needed to happen.  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) July 22, 2020

Chinese state media editorials said the US move against the Houston consulate was an attempt to blame Beijing for US failures ahead of Trumps November re-election bid.

Opinion polls show Trump trailing his Democratic rival Joe Biden ahead of the November 3 election. The candidates have appeared to compete in their campaigns over who can appear toughest towards Beijing.

Separately, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has interviewed visa holders it believes to secretly be members of the Chinese military in more than two dozen US cities, the Justice Department said on Thursday.

The department said it has arrested three Chinese nationals for visa fraud, while a fourth remains a fugitive staying at Chinas consulate in San Francisco. The US believes the four were members of Chinas military posing as researchers.

In interviews with members of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army in more than 25 cities across the US, the FBI uncovered a concerted effort to hide their true affiliation to take advantage of the United States and the American people, John Brown, executive assistant director of the FBIs national security branch, said in a statement.

Court filings show that the FBI believed the San Francisco consulate was harbouring a fugitive since late June. US law enforcement cannot enter a foreign embassy or consulate unless invited, and certain top officials such as ambassadors have diplomatic immunity.

Wang said China would safeguard its citizens.

For some time, the US has held ideological bias to continuously surveil, harass and even arbitrarily detain Chinese students and scholars in the US, he said.

We urge the US to stop using any excuse to restrict, harass or oppress Chinese students and researchers in the US.
More than four million people in Latin America have now tested positive for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). As of Wednesday, the total number of coronavirus cases reported in the region has risen to 4,040,925 with 172,886 deaths.

According to Reuters, Brazil registered 67,860 additional cases on Wednesday, and the neighboring country Argentina has an additional 5,782 confirmed cases. Brazil alone has so far registered 2,227,514 million cases and 82,771 deaths, the second-most affected country after the United States.

Peru has the second-highest number of cases in Latin America behind Brazil. On Wednesday, 3,688 have been added to its uncounted people to its death toll, taking fatalities to nearly 17,500. Chile reported 4,463 new cases for the day, giving a total of 366,550 cases and has doubled the number at the start of June.

Aside from Peru and Chile, Mexico is also on the list of top 10 countries with over 300,000 total cases each.

According to AFP, the total number of deaths in Mexico has surged to become the fourth-highest in the world, at 40,400. On Sunday, Mexico also surpassed Italy and now has more victims than anywhere except the United States, Britain, and Brazil.

Meanwhile, Argentina announced on Wednesday a daily record of 5,782 confirmed cases, the vast majority of them in and around the capital Buenos Aires, taking the total number infected in the country to 141,900.

According to AFP, many Latin American countries have started implementing stay-at-home measures. However, the coronavirus is still spreading fast across much of the region.

Despite widely implemented strategies to combat the outbreak, the high numbers point to the struggles of nations across the region. The coronavirus has already infected more than 15 million people globally, and it killed 625,000 since it emerged in China last year.

Latin America Struggles to Contain the Pandemic

The number of infected people tremendously rising, and the flattening of the curve seems to be a long way off, as reported by DW. Latin America continues to fight against the novel coronavirus, especially now that the number of infected people passed four million.

Latin America has the second-highest mortality rate in relation to COVID-19. The government revealed serious shortcomings despite early and drastic restrictions. According to DW, four out of ten worst-affected countries worldwide are from Latin America.

Not yet at the peak

According to BBC news, daily reported deaths in the region of Latin America remained high, though, in most countries in Europe, it has dropped. Compared with the three of the worst-hit countries in Europe - the UK, France, and Italy - there is a difference in the trends against Brazil, Mexico, and Peru.

Dr.Carissa Etienne, head of the Pan American Health Organization, warned that COVID-19 is spreading exponentially in many areas of Latin America. The number of deaths in Latin America's countries has been doubling every three to four weeks.

Researchers noted that both deaths and cases may be under-reported like a study by the University of Sao Paulo Medical School, which estimated that the number of infections in Brazil can rise to six times higher than the official figure.

Must read:

US Signs $2 Billion Contract With COVID-19 Vaccine Makers to Reserve 100 Million Doses For Americans

How Deadly Is COVID-19? Researchers May Have Finally Found An Answer

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MEMOIR

I AM AN ISLAND

by Tamsin Calidas (Doubleday 16.99, 304 pp)

In lockdown, it seems our most difficult feelings have been given space to sink deeper than ever before. But weve also learned to cherish the small and simple things we once took for granted: the mornings birdsong and the satisfaction of perfectly pegged-out laundry.

Lockdown is easing now, but for a gruelling glimpse into what it would feel like if quarantine conditions intensified and extended for years, look no further than Tamsin Calidass devastating account of her life on a remote Hebridean Island.

Tamsin Calidas (pictured) who swapped city life for farming, reflects on her life on a remote Hebridean Island in a fascinating memoir

A happily married Oxford graduate with a successful media career, Calidas began to struggle with London life in her early 30s. First, a car accident buckled her spine, leaving her with concerns about her fertility. Then she and her husband, Rab, woke in the night to find burglars in their bedroom.

Although they had no roots in the Hebrides and no experience of farming, in 2004 they took the bold decision to swap their city home for a derelict croft on a small, unnamed island with no GP or police officer  only a small post office stocking basic groceries, a tiny primary school and one part-time nurse.

At first, they experienced much of the rural idyll they craved. Each morning they woke early, holding hands under the covers. There followed long days of toil as they grew leaner, browner and closer. There were quiet nights by a roaring fire, eating fish fresh from the surf. They bought a small stock of cows and sheep and tried not to focus on the hostility sloshing from the drunken mouths of long-term islanders who resented incomers and made vague, unsettling threats.

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The couple hoped to have a family but failed to conceive. Heartbroken, Calidas travelled to Glasgow for agonising IVF treatments that did not work, only to discover Rab had been unfaithful with a local woman.

Rab returned to London and Calidas found herself more isolated than ever.

As the only female farmer on the island she was not welcomed into the farming community. Leading her stock around the ring at an auction, the auctioneer made lewd comments as though it were Calidas, not her lambs, up for sale.

I AM AN ISLAND by Tamsin Calidas (Doubleday 16.99, 304 pp)

Men crashed violently into her home at all hours, demanding her whisky and attention. Noting her mixed heritage, one hissed about her dirty skin. The word b**** was sprayed on to the wall of her croft. At one point she was so poor she was forced to turn to the trees for more physical sustenance: It takes a surprisingly long time to eat a leaf picked fresh off a tree. The sycamore leaf is the toughest. The beech is soft, buckled with tiny hairs like downy skin. The silver birch is thin and slippery-cool.

At her lowest, Calidas admits she walked naked out into the icy sea to end her life, but her will to survive was reinvigorated by the briny waves. Finding a passion for swimming kept her afloat, and she sought bracing solace in the waves all through the winter and even at night.

Though her book charts the ragged grief she felt at the loss of both her parents and her only friend on the island, who died in a car crash, Calidas was continually revived by the wild beauty around her: the misty breath of deer at dawn, the velvet sprawl of seals on the beach and the gulls screaming above the spray.

She found a powerful outlet for her maternal instincts in the nurture of her stock, her beloved sheepdog Maude and the many injured or orphaned wild creatures she nursed back to health.

In the closing pages, Calidas attempts to build a new kind of trust with the islanders, although it may be that this book  which has offended many who deny her accounts of hostility  prevents her from reintegrating into island life after all.

She also finds herself still longing for a child: Some days I wonder if I am destined always to be here alone, an island in a sea of solitude, or if one day a small hand will reach out to hold fast to mine . . .
Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) has announced that its T-Point 2 combined cycle power plant validation facility has entered full commercial operation with an enhanced JAC gas turbine that sets the record for output and efficiency.

The T-Point 2 plant was commissioned in March at Takasago Works in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, to replace MHPS original T-Point plant and to continue MHPS approach  which is unlike any other manufacturers  to advance the limits of technology while minimizing risk to its customers.

To do this, MHPS validates its new gas turbine technologies and digital solutions under long-term grid-connected operation for a minimum of 8,000 operating hours, which is equivalent to nearly one year of normal operation and is a key insurance industry criterion for fleet reliability.

MHPS most advanced JAC gas turbine, designed for maximum efficiency and lower emissions, is now integrated with MHPS-Tomoni digital solutions for verification and validation at T-Point 2.

The gas turbine is entering commercial operation at record-setting combined cycle efficiency greater than 64 per cent and a worlds first turbine inlet temperature of 1,650 deg C.

This gas turbine reduces carbon emissions by 65 per cent versus coal-fired plants. In addition, it has the capability for conversion from natural gas to a blend of natural gas with 30 per cent renewable hydrogen to reduce emissions further. Eventually it will be capable of running on 100 per cent renewable hydrogen to completely eliminate carbon emissions.

The digital building blocks of the autonomous power plant being validated at T-Point 2 include an advanced Automatic Plant Startup package that is closely linked to the advanced analytics and diagnostics that continuously monitor the total plant.

To validate complete remote operation, operations will be transferred from the local control room to the Takasago Remote Monitoring Center. Operations and maintenance building blocks under evaluation include an advanced array of acoustic, video, and thermographic data acquisition sensors monitored by advanced analytics that are being trained to identify pattern changes.

T-Point 2 is also evaluating the first ever Netmation 4S Digital Control System to be used on an advanced class gas turbine combined cycle plant. Netmation 4S adds additional reliability, redundancy, and enhanced operator experience to the well-proven Netmation family of control systems.

Unlike other manufacturers, MHPS demonstrates new gas turbine capabilities at our own combined cycle power plant before shipping to our customers. This enables us to provide unmatched performance, such as the 99.5 per cent reliability of our J-Series gas turbines, said Paul Browning, President and CEO of MHPS Americas and Chief Regional Officer for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas.

I congratulate our dedicated team of Engineers, Procurement, and Construction personnel for achieving commercial operation on schedule, on budget, and exceeding output and efficiency expectations. This project positions us years ahead of any manufacturer in putting the latest generation of 1,650 deg C gas turbine technology into commercial operation. We are leading a Change in Power.

MHPS, headquartered in Yokohama, Japan, is a joint venture formed in February 2014 by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Hitachi integrating their operations in thermal power generation systems and other related businesses.

MHPS recently announced that its name will soon change to Mitsubishi Power.

MHPS ranks among the worlds leading suppliers of equipment and services to the power generation market, backed by 100 billion yen in capital and approximately 20,000 employees worldwide.

The companys products include GTCC (gas turbine combined-cycle) and IGCC (integrated coal gasification combined-cycle) power plants, gas/coal/oil-fired (steam) power plants, boilers, generators, gas and steam turbines, geothermal power plants, AQCS (air quality control systems), power plant peripheral equipment and solid-oxide fuel cells (SOFC). Tradearabia News Service
(Photo : Guido Coppa / Unsplash) Elon Musk unveils renders of one of the biggest projects yet of Tesla.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has unveiled in a tweet what the Las Vegas loop station's area where the passengers will soon be carted away by Teslas, Daily Mail Online said.

A project of the Boring Company at the Las Vegas Convention Center, this loop station is expected to carry passengers in high-speed autonomous products from Musk's company.

"Coming soon," was simply the caption of the tweet that the CEO wrote, with the renders attached.'

Aiming to transport people from one end of the convention center to the other, this ambitious project has been featured on Twitter to show a group of Teslas, idealistically, waiting to be brought through the tunnels in what Musk tagged as the "individualized mass transit," creating the future for infrastructure.

Nearing completion

As of press time, this project in tie up with the Boring Company is now nearing completion after this tunnelling firm completed the two main bores last May. By 2021, the area will whisk individuals around the complex in Tesla automobiles, the company pointed out.

Now, it does not end here. The beauty and the grandiosity of the project had two other casinos voicing their interest to also sport this infrastructure, away from the desert heat. Having said this, the Boring Company has reportedly proposed for the network that could link the airport with the Strip.

150 miles per hour

This underground mass transit still follows the layout of the current ones, and the selling point may probably be the fact it is underground. Interviews and Twitter question exchanges had Musk expounding on the idea, saying that there is no limit to the underground networks that his company and its partners can build.

Also Read: Las Vegas Becomes The First US City To Debut Public Needle Vending Machines

"No, it's not. But in claiming it is, you distract decision-makers from the easier, more equitable, more sustainable, more healthy, & STAGGERINGLY less publically & individually expensive solutions THAT ACTUALLY WORK, that just require political will, as smart cities are showing," Twitter netizen Brent Toderian posted. This can surpass the trains and buses in huge establishments, as Musk has expressed how public transit "sucks."

Can u share some more info about that 12-seater van? Will it look similar to old renders? pic.twitter.com/Ag58g7gY8s  Viv (@flcnhvy) July 22, 2020

It could be remembered that, back in 2017, Elon Musk stated, "Why do you want to get on something with a lot of other people, that doesn't leave where you want it to leave, doesn't start where you want it to start, doesn't end where you want it to end? And it doesn't go all the time."

The Las Vegas Convention Center is a government establishment located in Winchester. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority operate and own these convention centers, one that can host a number of participates, an estimated 200,000 people.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Michael Cohen arrives at his Park Avenue home after being released from federal prison on furlough due to medical concerns related to Covid-19 on May 21, 2020 in New York City.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the release from prison of President Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen by Friday afternoon.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein found that Cohen was taken into custody July 9 and returned to prison in retaliation for balking at a condition that he not publish a book  about Trump or anyone else  while serving the remainder of his three-year criminal sentence on home confinement.

"I've never seen such a clause, in 21 years in being a judge and sentencing people," Hellerstein said at a Manhattan federal court hearing held after Cohen sued this week to win his re-release from prison.

"How can I take any other inference but that it was retaliatory?" Hellerstein asked about the condition, which also would have barred Cohen from speaking to journalists or posting on social media.

Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to multiple felonies, was furloughed from the federal prison in Otisville, N.Y., in late May due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.

Cohen has multiple health issues that make him particularly vulnerable to Covid-19, his lawyers say.

"Any assertion that the decision to remand Michael Cohen to prison was a retaliatory action is patently false," the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement. "While it is not uncommon for BOP to place certain restrictions on inmates' contact with the media, Mr. Cohen's refusal to agree to those conditions here played no role whatsoever in the decision to remand him to secure custody nor did his intent to publish a book."

Shortly before being taken into custody earlier this month, he had been posting on social media about his upcoming book, which is going to be critical of Trump.

During Thursday's hearing, Hellerstein was highly skeptical of arguments by a federal prosecutor that Cohen was not locked up in retaliation for the book or that the book-related condition was not sought by officials for a specific reason in his case.

At one point, when another prosecutor tried to come to the aid of the prosecutor who was answering the judge's questions, Hellerstein angrily cut him off, reminding him of the rule that only one lawyer argued for each side in a case.

Hellerstein in ordering Cohen's release, said that he found that "the purpose of transferring Mr. Cohen from furlough and home confinement to jail is retaliatory, and it's retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book and discuss anything about the book or anything else he wants on social media and others."

Cohen, who has been in quarantine in Otisville since his arrival there, will be released by 2 p.m. after being tested for the coronavirus and will be driven back to his home on Manhattan's Upper East Side by his son, Hellerstein said.

After his release into home confinement, he will be subject to a number of restrictions on his movement, employment and contact with other people.

But the restriction sought by federal probation officials that he not speak to reporters, post on social media or publish a book is likely to be largely gutted.

Cohen's lawyer Danya Perry and a prosecutor said that in the next several days they will negotiate the issue of any restrictions on Cohen dealing with the media.

Hellerstein suggested it would be inappropriate for Cohen to host a press conference in his apartment with a large number of reporters to promote his book while at the same time still serving his criminal sentence.

"This order is a victory for the First Amendment and we appreciate the Judge's ruling confirming that the government cannot block Mr. Cohen from publishing a book critical of the president as a condition of his release to home confinement," said Perry in a statement issued after Hellerstein said Cohen would be freed.

"This principle transcends politics and we are gratified that the rule of law prevails," Perry said.

Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York had said that Cohen was locked up after being combative and argumentative during the July 9 meeting with probation officials about the conditions of his home confinement.

They also said that Cohen refused to sign the conditions after objecting to all of them.

Prosecutors denied that he was sent back to prison in retaliation for not agreeing to the restrictions on a book or media contacts.

But Hellerstein noted that court filings by both prosecutors and Cohen's lawyers agree on a key point: that Cohen and his lawyer Jeffrey Levine, after taking issue with at least one of the conditions, were left in a room alone for some time by a probation officer.

They then were abruptly confronted by Bureau of Prisons officials who arrived to take Cohen into custody. Levine has said the officials did so even after Cohen said he would then agree to all of the conditions.

Hellerstein repeatedly noted that probation officials had not given Cohen a warning that if he did not agree to all the conditions presented to him that he would be sent back to prison.

The judge brushed aside arguments by the prosecutor that Cohen and Levine were not allowed to negotiate the terms of the home confinement agreement.
(Newser)  President Trump had a busy morning on Twitter, issuing 49 tweets or retweets and an attack on the third-ranking Republican in the House, all before 10am ET. Trump joined Republican allies Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul in lambasting House GOP Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney, who has been critical of Trump's plan to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan and Germany. "Liz Cheney is only upset because I have been actively getting our great and beautiful Country out of the ridiculous and costly Endless Wars," Trump tweeted. "I am also making our so-called allies pay tens of billions of dollars in delinquent military costs. They must, at least, treat us fairly!!!" The president then retweeted Paul's Tuesday tweet, which claimed Cheney was "leading the fight" to stop the withdrawal.

story continues below

Paul had been commenting on a tweet from Gaetz, who said Cheney had been working against Trump's agenda and "should step down or be removed." Gaetz was among at least seven House conservatives to attack the Wyoming representative during a private meeting on Tuesday, per CNN. Texas Rep. Chip Roy criticized her public support of Dr. Anthony Fauci, while Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan accusing her of being disloyal to the president, per the Hill. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie also attacked Cheney for having backed his primary opponent. In March, Trump himself suggested Massie should be removed from the party. "That's part of having a healthy conference debate," Cheney said following the meeting, per the Hill. "We are going to be absolutely united going forward on the big issues," she added, per CNN. (Read more House Republicans stories.)
The US government has placed an initial order of 100 million doses for USD 1.95 billion and can acquire up to 500 million additional doses of the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine being jointly developed by Pfizer Inc. (New York, NY, USA) and Biopharmaceutical New Technologies (BioNTech Mainz, Germany).Pfizer/BioNTech have entered into an agreement with the US Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense to meet the US governments Operation Warp Speed program goal to begin delivering 300 million doses of a vaccine for COVID-19 in 2021. Under the agreement, the US government will receive 100 million doses of BNT162, the COVID-19 vaccine candidate jointly developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, after Pfizer successfully manufactures and obtains approval or emergency use authorization from US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The US government will pay the companies USD 1.95 billion upon the receipt of the first 100 million doses, following FDA authorization or approval, and can also acquire up to an additional 500 million doses. Americans will receive the vaccine for free consistent with US governments commitment for free access for COVID-19 vaccines.The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine development program is evaluating at least four experimental vaccines, each of which represents a unique combination of messenger RNA (mRNA) format and target antigen. Recently, Pfizer and BioNTech announced preliminary data from BNT162b1, the most advanced of the four mRNA formulations. The early data demonstrates that BNT162b1 is able to produce neutralizing antibodies in humans at or above the levels observed in the plasma from patients who have recovered from COVID-19, and this was shown at relatively low dose levels. Local reactions and systemic events were dose-dependent, generally mild to moderate, and transient. No serious adverse events were reported. The companies have also announced early positive update from German Phase 1/2 COVID-19 vaccine study, including first T Cell response data.Recently, their four investigational vaccine candidates (BNT162b1 and BNT162b2) received Fast Track designation from the FDA, based on preliminary data from Phase 1/2 studies that are currently ongoing in the US and Germany as well as animal immunogenicity studies. Further data from the ongoing Phase 1/2 clinical trials of the four vaccine candidates will enable the selection of a lead candidate and dose level for an anticipated large, global Phase 2b/3 safety and efficacy study that may begin as early as later this month, pending regulatory approval. If the ongoing studies are successful, Pfizer and BioNTech expect to be ready to seek Emergency Use Authorization or some form of regulatory approval as early as October 2020. The companies currently expect to manufacture globally up to 100 million doses by the end of 2020 and potentially more than 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021, subject to final dose selection from their clinical trial.Weve been committed to making the impossible possible by working tirelessly to develop and produce in record time a safe and effective vaccine to help bring an end to this global health crisis, said Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer Chairman and CEO. We made the early decision to begin clinical work and large-scale manufacturing at our own risk to ensure that product would be available immediately if our clinical trials prove successful and an Emergency Use Authorization is granted. We are honored to be a part of this effort to provide Americans access to protection from this deadly virus.We are pleased to have signed this important agreement with the U.S. government to supply the initial 100 million doses upon approval as part of our commitment to address the global health threat. This agreement is one of many steps towards providing global access to a safe and efficacious vaccine for COVID-19. We are also in advanced discussions with multiple other government bodies and we hope to announce additional supply agreements soon. Our goal remains to bring a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine to many people around the world, as quickly as we can, said Ugur Sahin, M.D., CEO and Co-founder of BioNTech.
MAC CosmeticsBy ZOE MOORE, ABC News

(NEW YORK) -- To mark National Lipstick Day on July 29, MAC Cosmetics is donating 100,000 lipsticks to health care workers.



The lipsticks will be sent to 54 health care organizations across North America as a thank you to health care and front-line workers for their service during the COVID-19 crisis.



The lipsticks include MAC Lustre Lipstick in Lady Bug, MAC Lustre Lipstick in Cockney, MAC Lustre Lipstick in See Sheer, and MAC Lustre Lipstick in Spice It Up.



"We are extremely grateful for the decades-long support from MAC Cosmetics, and are thrilled to gift these lipsticks as a thank you and special treat to our staff and volunteers for all of their tireless hard work," David Ludwigson, vice president and chief development officer of God's Love We Deliver, said in a statement.



Back in April, the brand announced that this year's Viva Glam 2020 initiative will be dedicating $10 million toward 250 local organizations all over the world that are on the front lines helping people at higher risk during the COVID-19 pandemic.



MAC's Viva Glam campaign initially launched in 1994 at the height of the AIDS epidemic, donating 100% of the selling price of Viva Glam lipsticks directly to organizations that support people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS.



Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Jessica-Joan Richards, a 28-year-old marketing manager working in recruitment, logged in to her LinkedIn account in early July to upload something she never thought she would share on the professional networking platform  her profile picture.

In a now-viral post, Richards, who was born in the Philippines before moving to the U.K. with her family when she was 7, explained that following an alleged body-shaming incident at a previous place of employment, she decided to delete her LinkedIn photo, in fear that her weight may ward off other professional opportunities.

I had a previous senior leader say that I was too fat for my job & that I needed to lose weight, Richards wrote. Whether true or not, this statement really affected me, so much so that I stopped allowing my photo to be taken, personally & professionally. Removed my picture from LI for fear that people wouldnt want to work with or employ me because of my weight.

I wanted my experience, energy, loyalty and passion to do the talking rather than my looks, she added. Someone [recently] mentioned how I didnt have a profile picture on LinkedIn which set off those fears again, but instead of allowing them to spiral, I thought to myself, no, I am confident in my abilities and what I can offer to the world, regardless of how I look, my weight or any other shallow opinion people have about me. I am more than what my appearance is, & so are you.

The inspiring post has since racked up more than 570,000 reactions and over 38,000 comments from supportive professionals around the world.

Credit: Jessica-Joan Richards

Richards told In The Know that the alleged incident outlined in her post began following a medical diagnosis that would require her to attend a doctors appointment four times a year.

My senior leader was frustrated that me being recently diagnosed with sleep apnea meant I needed to go to the hospital for monitoring once every three months, she explained. These visits would have to take place during work hours as the clinic was only open for a few short hours a week.

Story continues

The appointments, meant to keep tabs on her potentially-dangerous sleep disorder, were non-negotiable, and Richards said she did her due diligence to ensure she didnt have to miss work for any other reason to make up for them.

I paid more for a private dentist as it meant I could visit outside of work hours, often on weekends, so it meant I didnt have miss work for that, she shared. I knew of senior leaders taking time away from work to do beauty treatments and come back into the office much later than they should. There was so much that other people were allowed to get away with.

Still, after informing management she would have to take time off for her medical appointments, Richards claims she was subjected to a barrage of unwelcome comments about her appearance, in what she considered a hate attack.

It was not right that I was judged based on my weight and having someone insinuate that I was incapable of doing my duties because of my weight, she said. I took it personally, but never said anything because being a mixed-race employee in a predominantly white office, particularly when it came to the senior team, I didnt feel like I had any ground to complain.

Eventually, Richards says she found herself under such mental distress she decided to seek advice from her healthcare provider, who gave her the appropriate paperwork to allow for two weeks of medical leave from her job.

After a series of feeling absolutely broken by what was happening in the workplace and getting to a really dark place, I went to the doctors and updated them on what was happening at work, she explained. They signed me off of work for two weeks, I believe. I handed this sick note in and on day two of my two-week sick leave, I got a phone call from my line manager telling me that the company was sending a courier over to pick up my work equipment  a laptop and an iPad. This behavior hardly made it like I felt welcome to return.

After an allegedly ineffective experience dealing with her former companys occupational health team and human resources department, Richards says she handed in her official notice and began looking for new jobs.

Much of what I had to say felt like it wasnt really being listened to, she recalled. I felt like Id already lost before I even started. Ultimately, I had nothing more I could do.

Even so, the toxic work atmosphere impacted Richards long after she left the particular employer.

It made me so fearful of life, made me believe so much negativity I was receiving was deserved, she revealed. This person took away my confidence and made me feel like I lost the family that I had developed during my time at the workplace. Because despite the horrible experience I had with this person, I had the most amazing clients that I enjoyed working with and made some really amazing friends who didnt abandon me despite their attempt to really ruin my reputation.

Ultimately, Richards hopes that by speaking out about her past trauma, she can prevent others from enduring the same hardships she had to go through.

I would like to make it clear though that Im not interested in getting revenge on this senior leader or anyone involved, she told In The Know. My only hope is that if ever they read my post that they think back on how they behaved and be better next time. I really want people to stop tolerating this kind of behavior and the only way we can do that is to start speaking out.

If you enjoyed this article, read more of our body acceptance coverage here.

More from In The Know:

Unpacking the racist roots of fat phobia and diet culture

This $25 subscription box brings BIPOC-owned beauty brands to your door

These innovative shoelaces were created for style  but also help people with disabilities

Influencer shares side-by-side photos to prove how deluded Instagram has made us about ideal bodies

The post Woman details harrowing workplace body-shaming incident: This person took away my confidence appeared first on In The Know.
Is it better to wear an N95 or cloth mask right now?
Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, SAB de CV (NYSE:ASR)

Q2 2020 Earnings Call

, 10:00 a.m. ET

Contents:

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to ASUR's Second Quarter 2020 Results Conference Call. My name is Hanna, and I'll be your operator. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will conduct a question-and-answer session toward the end of today's conference. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's call is being recorded.

Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Adolfo Castro, Chief Executive Officer.

Please go ahead sir.

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

Thank you Hanna, and good morning everybody. Thank you for joining us our conference call to discuss ASUR's second quarter 2020 financial and operating results. I hope each of you and your families have managed to stay healthy and safe, since our previous earnings call. As a reminder, please note that certain statements made during the course of our discussion today may constitute forward-looking statements which are based on current management's expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including factors that will be beyond our company's control, including the impact from COVID-19.

For an explanation of these risks, please refer to our filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Mexican Stock Exchange. As anticipated, results this quarter were significantly impacted by COVID-19 pandemic which disrupted global travel trends starting mid March. However, we closed the quarter with a strong balance sheet, which I will discuss these in more detail shortly. Starting with related traffic conditions worldwide, since mid-March various governments mandated flight restrictions have in place to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 virus.

Consequently, airlines across the world continued to operate with severe limited capacity and people are booking flights, either due to government restrictions or out of concern for their and their families' health. At ASUR's airports, Mexico and Puerto Rico have remained open to date, although operating with significant fewer flights and much lower passenger traffic. At the same time due to government restrictions only essential commercial space in Puerto Rico are open to the public and affected our non-aeronautical revenue in this market.

Restrictions have been higher in Colombia where the government's has banned the domestic and international commercial air travel since the third week of March. With international flights expected to resume on September 1, in terms of domestic traffic on July 1 Colombia government launched a pilot program for flights between TDs with low levels of contagion. Under this program each local municipality have the authority to restart domestic bound flights, as long as their counterparts in the other municipality is also in agreement to resume the strikes.

Given the complexity of this process, our six airports in Colombia have not restarted operations. All of these factors resulted in a 94% decline in passenger traffic during the second quarter with decreases of nearly 100% in Colombia, 94% in Mexico and 86% in Puerto Rico. All three countries reported declines both in domestic and international passengers. On a cumulative basis, passenger traffic went down almost 51% year-on-year during the first 6 months of the year.

In addition, starting March, certain airlines as well as some commercial tenants that operate on our airports begun asking us for assistance either through these kinds of payments or to a store or by an extension of the payment terms. Beginning in June, we initiated some initiatives to support the recovery process. As a reminder, most of the commercial agreements with our tenants include a minimum guarantee payment to the passenger, so in those cases if no passengers, our tenants, do not have to pay back.

In addition, three of ASUR's main airline customers Aeromexico, Avianca Holdings and LATAM Airlines Group recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States. These companies have continued to make regular payments as allowed by the relevant courts. As such, we believe, as we have sufficient liquidity to meet its obligations and continue to operating normally. Let me now quickly go through the steps we have been taken so far to mitigate the value risk related to COVID-19.

Starting with health and safety; in accordance with the guidelines of the relevant health authorities, health and safety protocols remain impacted for both employees and passengers at our airports. In addition to preventive measures such as wearing face mask, and hand sanitizing practice continues. On the expense front while our cost structure is largely weak to speak, we've rapidly implemented cost reduction measures across ASUR's operation to reduce cash burn where possible with personnel and utilities representing the highest share of expenses.

We mainly focused on lowering maintenance and energy cost, for example, in Mexico, we temporarily closed Terminal 2 and 3 at Cancun airport in mid-April. In July, we reopened Terminal 2 and now operating Terminals 4 to ensure social distancing in support of the current passenger levels. We also shutted down one of the airport's runways, we take similar steps across our operations as necessary. Now moving on to ASUR's financial position. Although ASUR's performance continued to be impacted by a very weak travel demand, we are still operating from a position of financial strength with ample liquidity and very low principal payments to be paid in the near term.

In other words, we continued to meet all financial obligations, and we will be able to effectively ramp up our operations when travel demand picks up. I would like to note that even though the second quarter was ASUR's worst quarter ever, we saw a slight improvement in traffic performance in May comparison with April and June comparison with May.

We closed the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of MXN7.1 billion of 15% from the MXN6.2 billion at the end of the year. Mexico contributed to slightly over MXN650 million to the increase in our cash position while Puerto Rico and Colombia contribute nearly MXN330 million of MXN49 million respectively. Total debt at the quarter and was MXN15.5 billion, up 13% from year-end 2019. This was mainly due to the appreciation of the peso/US dollar and a drawdown of $10 million from a commitment line of credit to support CapEx projects under construction at LMM airport in Puerto Rico.

We have a healthy debt maturity profile with principal payments of only MXN388 million or 2.5% of ASUR's total debt maturing in the second half of the year. Also note that only MXN813 million and principal payments or slightly over 5% of total debt matures in 2021. The majority of our debt 54% has been denominated in US dollars, which is at the Aerostar subsidiary in Puerto Rico where nearly 26% remaining debt is denominated in Mexican pesos and 20% in Colombian pesos.

In summary, ASUR maintained a solid balance sheet with no net debt to last 12 months EBITDA at 1.1 times at the close of second quarter 2020 compared with 0.7 times reported at the close of the first quarter, mainly reflecting weaker EBITDA as a result of the impact COVID-19. I would like to emphasize once again that the current crisis affecting ASUR's performance is not the best. We have succeeded navigating and overcoming all this over the past two decades, from the impact of 9/11 to the 2008 financial crisis and the H1N1 flu, in all cases, passenger traffic eventually recovered -- in fact between 2000 through 2019, Mexico's annual traffic increased at a compound annual growth rate of 6% to a historical high over 34 million passengers in January this year.

And following each crisis, we [Indecipherable] consistent profits for our shareholders. Of course, the situation we are passing through is worst ever. While travel demand is expected to remain depressed for the foreseeable future, ASUR's maintains a strong balance sheet and we continue to manage cash and expenses prudently. Now, let me touch upon the other key highlights of the second quarter results. More details can be found in the press release issued yesterday evening. Revenues ex-construction were down 77% year on year, driven by a similar declines in our non-aeronautical revenues. Puerto Rico was the main contributor to revenues accounting for nearly 61% of the revenues this quarter, followed by Mexico with a share of almost 30% and actually Colombia, representing 5% of the total reflecting a strict travel bans in that country.

Consolidated commission revenues for passenger were slightly over MXN350 compared to nearly MXN100 per passenger in the same period last year. However, the increase mainly reflects the sharp contraction with passenger traffic supported by basically few commercial spaces with fixed rent per square meter. On the expense front operating cost and expenses excluding construction costs were down 24% year-on-year, we scaled back [indecipherable] maintenance and energy consumption -- mostly in Mexico and Colombia.

Mexico, posted a 34% decline in costs, reflecting lower maintenance and energy expenses along with a lower cost of sales related to directly operated convenience stores. The income and concession fees both, variable cost, also declined during the period. The lower costs were partially offset by high provisions -- full collection accounts that we booked, given the impact low demand levels are having on our commercial clients. Across Colombia we're down 41% mostly the result of savings in maintenance, energy and security expenses as well as lower professional fees.

By contrast, cost in Puerto Rico were up nearly 6% year-on-year mainly result resulting from the FX conversion impact, which more than offset declines in cost of services and concession fees. In dollar terms, total cost in Puerto Rico were down 17% year-on-year. Moving onto profitability reported consolidated EBITDA was down 98% year-on-year to MXN51 million impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both periods benefited from insurance recoveries related to Hurricane Maria yet in the second quarter 2020. This amounted to nearly -- the amount of nearly MXN163 million. Excluding these recoveries consolidated EBITDA would have declined 99% year-over-year to MXN16 million. EPA of MXN203 million in Puerto Rico was offset by the EBITDA losses of MXN140 million Mexico and MXN47 million in Colombia. [Indecipherable] and excluding the insurance recovery in both quarters adjusted EBITDA margin declined to 1.8% this quarter from 65.4% in the same quarter last year.

In terms of capital allocation with main capital expenditures of MXN660 million in the second quarter. Of this amount, MXN77 million was invested in Mexico to continue executing Phase 1 expansion of the Merino airport terminals. Remember that for the full year of our [Indecipherable] plan in Mexico goes for investments of approximately MXN5.3 billion.

During the first half of the year, we invested a total of MXN714 million in this country, and we remain on schedule with building the parallel taxiway to the second runway at Cancun airport and with the beginning of the first expansion phase of terminal port. We also expect to conclude Phase 1 of various terminals, and start the second phase this year.

That said, there were disruptions at each of these development projects. Due to the stay at home orders in Mexico, and we have kept the government apprised to the related delays. CapEx in Puerto Rico totaled MXN138 million this quarter, mainly reflecting some major maintenance repairs and taxes. Finally, we invested slightly over MXN1 million related to major maintenance in Colombia as our CapEx commitments for that operation was concluded that year.

Looking ahead, we only expect to invest in major maintenance in Colombia. I would like to conclude by repeating that ASUR continues to operate from a position of financial strength and that we are carefully managing cash while calibrating variable cost then as best as we can with the current demand conditions, in order to successfully navigate the credit crisis.

We remain confident that we can.

That ends my prepared remarks. Hannah, please open the line for questions.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We'll go first to Alejandro Zamacona with Credit Suisse.

Alejandro Zamacona -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Thank you. Hello Adolfo. Thank you for the call. Our first question is on the renegotiation of the NPV process. So on that context, how many time are you expecting for this renegotiation and what would be the expected CapEx for this renegotiation or the expected outcome for these in the current situation?

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

Alejandro, hi good morning. Well, as you many know, the only way to revise our maximum tariff in an extraordinary way on the great conditions is once the Mexican GDP dropped by more than 5% during the last 12 months. I estimate that, that will occur during this year and once the final number is published by the official authorities, we will be able to file -- I would request to the authorities.

Having said that, what I expect is that we will be able to file that on the first quarter next year. How much time it will take? I really don't know. There is no timeline for that, but I would expect at least 3 months. So, during the second quarter of next year, we will be able to know more or less what will be the outcome of the negotiation process.

In terms of the numbers, of course today we cannot give you a precise or an accurate number of how much the CapEx will be reduced because the CapEx is not reduced because we want to basically reduce as a result of the low demand. So, once we know the outcome of the low demand for this year, we will be able to make the necessary calculations to see which projects are no longer needed because of these low demand, and those are going to be the ones that will have to be postponed, if not canceled lease -- postpone or deferred until the demand is there again. So, one year from now, we will be able to more or less to tell you the outcome of that process.

Alejandro Zamacona -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Okay. So, I guess it's just a delay on CapEx rather than a reduction on the total amount you are willing to negotiate, right?

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

Okay. So, let me explain again. So, let's talk about the expansion today of terminal core, OK. That expansion was needed or was needed because the demand was growing. There are certain tenders that we have to comply in accordance with our concession package. So, certain amount of square meters of terminal, every peak hour passenger traffic. So, if the passenger traffic demand decreases, that work is not necessarily or for the moment is not necessary and we will have to find the point in the future where these will have to be made.

So that the origin of these process to review what is needed and what is not in accordance with the demand we have. So, once we know what is the effect on the demand, and because of the situation, we will be able to calculate these numbers again, and to say, if this is going to be deferred one year, 2 years or 3 years.

Alejandro Zamacona -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Okay, thank you. And my second question, if I may it's on the aeronautical business for Puerto Rico. So, is there any possibility for airlines to renegotiate the fixed payment contract?

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

Well, the contract has been written and the contract can be renegotiated of course, in accordance with the contract, but I do not see any chance for now to see that negotiation process.

Alejandro Zamacona -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Okay, thank you Adolfo.

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

You're welcome.

Operator

We'll go next to Mauricio Martinez with GBM.

Mauricio Martinez -- GBM -- Analyst

Hi, good morning Adolfo thank you for taking my question. My question is kind of a follow-up on the best running topic, do you expect to -- knowing that you already have some delays in CapEx deployment probably for this year, what is the amount that you expect to deploy for that site given that you committed in the current-month development plan, and if you expect any deferral pushing it forward for the next year?

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

Mauricio, hi good morning. I do not have yet a final figure that I can share with you at the moment, it's clear that, that were around three months where there were no construction in the country. And you know there was a decree issued by the government where they said that all cement, steel in class in the country, has to be used in their programs in their works. So, because of that we were not able to continue the process of our expansion. You cannot construct or you cannot expand the building without these elements, so we're in that process and I do not have a figure yet.

Mauricio Martinez -- GBM -- Analyst

But, the chances that maybe it will be lower than MXN5 billion?

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

Well, the chances that this MXN5.3 billion is lower are very high.

Mauricio Martinez -- GBM -- Analyst

Perfect. And maybe a second question if I may regarding the accounts receivables, we practically we didn't see any change -- if not reduce -- a reduction from the previous quarter. Maybe, if you can give us more color on that how reconciliations especially with the tenants at the airport -- how was that negotiation and if you can give us a color on the shape of your tenants going forward?

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

Okay. And as I said during the initial remarks, most of the commercial contracts have closed, where they have to pay the higher amount of -- a minimum guarantee payment per passenger or a percentage in sales. Because of the low traffic, of course, they were not selling too much, it's clear, know. But in that case what applies is the minimum payments to the passenger. So, as I said during the initial remarks, if there is no passengers, they do not have to pay rent because sales are zero, and the minimum guarantee payment to the passenger will have to be multiplied by the amount of passengers. So, in that sense, we have not been renegotiating or negotiating with all the commercial tenants.

So, in most cases the adjustment is automatically. It is clear that some or something -- and some of them are not paying, but the cases that they are not paying is because they are working in some other airports where they have to pay a big rend and of course, let's say, they are using the money from here to put it there. In some cases, we are renegotiating with some commercial tenants, but in some others basically the adjustment is made automatic.

Mauricio Martinez -- GBM -- Analyst

Perfect. Very helpful color, thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We'll go next to Rodolfo Ramos with Bradesco BBI.

Rodolfo Ramos -- Bradesco BBI -- Analyst

Thank you, and good morning also thank you for taking my question. My first one is on traffic. I was wondering if you can give us a little bit of color of how are you seeing traffic so far if you have the number handy, up until the 20th of the month, whether, how are you seeing the decline progress and a follow-up on the, on the previous question on Puerto Rico and a renegotiation of the contract is not on the cards at the moment, but have you seen or do you expect any airlines to stop serving Puerto Rico, which would then preclude them from making that payment or how do you see the stability of these revenues going forward. Thank you Adolfo.

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

Rodolfo, hi good morning. In the case of the traffic, the only thing that I can say to you is that, as I said during the remarks, May was better than April-June was better than May and July I believe it's going to be better than May. So, nevertheless, the amount of traffic, we are seeing today is extremely low. This situation is not going to recuperate fast. What we have seen in the PAT, going back to 2008 with the financial crisis loss, the swine flu effect plus the bankruptcy of airlines here Mexico, it took us 36 months to go back to the previous levels.

This could be worst, if the vaccine is not been found or a cure has not been found. We have seen recent developments in terms of the vaccine that's a very positive news while I believe the vaccine is going to be ready by the end of this year. So, in that sense maybe we can see some recuperation process next year. Of course the final recuperation process is not going to be there until more or less a cure has been found. So, I don't believe that the world will go back to normal just with vaccine. In terms of Puerto Rico this is not the first time, you can go back and see what has happened during the Hurricane Maria in September 2017, there was a sharp decline in passenger traffic, and of course you can trace the comparison between aeronautical revenues and these sharp decline. So, that's what we are experiencing today as well and I don't see any difference from that.

Rodolfo Ramos -- Bradesco BBI -- Analyst

Thank you Adolfo. And just if I may squeeze in a last one. We saw Cancun Aero going back to let's say a maximum red alert in terms of Covid. Cancun the services sector seems to continue operating as they have been since the middle of June. I was wondering if there is anything -- anything to update on that front and whether you're seeing any businesses or sectors in particular to follow these federal directive? Thank you.

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

Yes. What is right is the south of the state is not the case in Cancun, Cancun it's still Orange so Cancun is still in normal operation. When I'm saying south of the state, it's basically South Tulum, and just too much.

Rodolfo Ramos -- Bradesco BBI -- Analyst

Okay. Thank you Adolfo.

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

You're welcome.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We'll go next to Roberta Versiani with Citi.

Roberta Valadares Versiani -- Citi -- Analyst

Hello Adolfo thanks for the call. Just a quick question, what are your thoughts on the development of the Maya train. And just on other one, I know you mentioned this already, but could you give me some more color on international traffic? The infection rates are rising in Mexico and if you just could switch back the timetable on annualization. Thank you.

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

Hi, good morning. Well, in the case of the Maya train what I understand is, it's a project that is ongoing. In the case of the Cancun airport what it has been announced last week, it's a light train that goes from the city to the airport connecting also with the Maya train. And basically what I understand, is that this project is ongoing. In terms of the international traffic, but they were just having international traffic to and from the United States and there is some flights -- few flights from Canada.

In the case of the United States, which is the most important for us today, there is a very low factor in that sense. So, we have some flights with very low factor, because of lower demand and that of course will depend on how the situation evolves in the United States; United States, it's a very large country, not we cannot say the same in terms of what is happening today New York or in comparison with California. California today has succeeded the cases in New York, the majority basically controlled and in terms of proportion of the traffic, New York is more important for us than what California is.

So, in that sense I'm not so afraid of that situation. Of course, we really don't know what can happen there. If there is another rebound -- could affect our traffic for the third quarter.

Roberta Valadares Versiani -- Citi -- Analyst

Great. Thank you Adolfo.

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

You're welcome.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We'll go next to Alan Macias with Bank of America.

Alan Macias -- Bank of America -- Analyst

Hi, good morning Adolfo. Just one question on traffic in Colombia and what you're seeing there. Regarding the pandemic, I understand that domestic flights can renegotiate, just can you give us some color. Thank you.

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

Alan hi, good morning. Well, the process as I mentioned during the remarks is now more complicated than what it was in the past, because now even though that the federal government has said that the municipality can approve these, it has been very complicated to find two majors or [Indecipherable] of these two majors to approve the case, and the most important one is the case of Bogota, and the major of Bogota it's very reluctant to open the airport again. So, in that sense I don't know what will be the outcome, but I still believe that for some time the airports in Colombia will be closed.

Alan Macias -- Bank of America -- Analyst

Thank you.

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

You're welcome.

Operator

We'll go next to Pablo Monsivais with Barclays.

Pablo Monsivais -- Barclays -- Analyst

Hi Adolfo good morning, thanks for taking my question. I have one question, do you mind sharing your opinion on the status of Mexican airlines because we have today just receive fresh capital from private investors and on the other hand Aeromexico is going through a restructuring process, so that might lightly and meaning that they will reduce its capacity overall. What are your thoughts in the medium term of the impact of this. Thank you.

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

Hi. Good morning Pablo. Well, the most important example is to go back again to these period of June 2008 up to August 2010. If you see our presentation in Page 17, you can find the history of this. More than 50% of the aircrafts were lost during this period. So, around 8 or 9 airlines in Mexico bankrupt. So, of course, there was an impact on our passenger traffic -- there was an impact an important impact, I would say 3 months, 4 months from August to December 2010, when the large one, which was mainly or the largest one bankrupt. The situation today is different in terms of the over, because what is low is the demand. There is no demand. So, even though that we can say that in the case, we lose some of these airlines because of that situation the problem is not how many planes, they will have.

So, the problem is how many people they would like to travel and be transported with them. So today, I don't see too much trouble in the reduced capacity. The reduced capacity is the result of the low demand. What is important to recover is the demand

Pablo Monsivais -- Barclays -- Analyst

Okay, perfect. Thank you very much.

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

You're welcome.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And that concludes the question-and-answer portion of today's conference call. I would like to turn it back over to Mr. Castro for closing remarks. [Operator Closing Remarks]

Duration: 37 minutes

Call participants:

Adolfo Castro -- Chief Executive Officer

Alejandro Zamacona -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Mauricio Martinez -- GBM -- Analyst

Rodolfo Ramos -- Bradesco BBI -- Analyst

Roberta Valadares Versiani -- Citi -- Analyst

Alan Macias -- Bank of America -- Analyst

Pablo Monsivais -- Barclays -- Analyst

More ASR analysis

All earnings call transcripts
In this exclusive Q&A with Firstpost, Dark cinematographer Nikolaus Summerer talks about crafting a unique visual style for each time period.

Following the breakout global success of Money Heist in April, Netflix churned out the third season of Dark in June-end and captivated audiences with the show's mind-bending twists and turns, along with the theme of time travel. Dark emerged as a worldwide phenomenon during the pandemic and has now become one of the most loved series worldwide by consistently topping the global charts on Netflix ever since the final season dropped. In fact, Dark, which is co-created by Baran Bo Odar and Jantje Friese, marks the first German-language original series of the world's dominant content behemoth.

In this exclusive Q&A with Firstpost, cinematographer Nikolaus Summerer (Who Am I, The Siege of Jadotville) talks about the challenges he faced in putting the cinematography of this mind-bending show together and crafting a unique visual style for each time period.

Dark has topped the worldwide Netflix charts in various countries. Do you think the series has finally put Germany on the global map in terms of television content considering it is Netflix's first German-language original?

Yes, absolutely. Germany has occasionally produced excellent feature films that have raised awareness of our filmmakers in other countries; including a few Oscar nominees and winners actually. But in terms of television, there have been only very few productions that have been recognised abroad, but none as successful with such a broad global audience as Dark.

Transforming the script from paper-to-visual for a mind-bending screenplay like Dark could be very challenging. How did you achieve the cinematographic style for specific timelines mentioned in the story?

In truth, we didnt really have separate cinematographic styles for each time period (e.g. handheld only for scenes in a particular time period or others). However, Bo and I decided very early on that it was imperative that each time period has a unique visual style. So it was more a case of keeping subtle strings with a distinct look in various strengths, to separate and support each time period.

Take the post-apocalyptic future for example, where we chose a very harsh, high contrast, gritty and desaturated look. Whereas we wanted 2019 to appear more elegant and gentle, the 80s cooler in the shadows, and the 50s warmer with a more compressed colour palette - much like an old photograph that has been tinted brown with age, if you will. In season two and three, with more characters travelling to various other periods and places, we needed to establish even more looks.

How demanding was it for the cinematography team to maintain the lighting continuity across all timelines? Could you please explain how you approached the shooting structure considering the small-town set-up?



Jumping between time periods was hugely demanding but primarily because of the complexity of the story, whereby we had to give the audience a roadmap for where they were at any moment in time within the story. Overall, the lighting was relatively consistent across all time periods, and this was to meet the goal of being moody, dark, extreme.

Lighting changes were more situational, a sunny lake scene versus inside the bunker, or a rainy overcast setting in the forest versus Claudias sun-filled 80s bungalow. Ensuring continuity of visual styles across time periods was perhaps the bigger challenge. It started out simpler in season one and got progressively more complex throughout the subsequent two seasons. For instance, by the end of season three, we had ten plus different visual styles. And because of the filming schedule dictated by actor, studio, location, equipment availability, we frequently had to film several scenes within the same shooting day that werent in the same time period. You have to be really on your game to ensure nothing is missed, and fortunately, I was also supported by a very talented and committed crew throughout all three seasons.

There's a lot of scientific nuances involved in the entire screenplay. Metaphysics, philosophy, a multi-generation time-travel conspiracy etc. I used to keep a book to note down the character arcs and pause in between the episodes to recall them. How often did you get confused about the nonlinear narrative and the timelines involved while shooting?

Lets just say I went through a notebook or two myself. Because of the way the filming schedule had to be structured, we ultimately bounced around time periods even more than the audience. And there were definitely a few lunch breaks spent debating the plot amongst the crew.

How challenging was it to use different colour palettes for a particular decade in the timeline since the entire screenplay spans nearly 100 years?

During pre-production for each season, I worked in close collaboration with my colourist to create new and/or enhance existing colour palettes for each of the different time periods. In the end, Im quite happy with what we achieved. The challenge was as described before, to make sure we were using the allocated look at the right scene and nothing was overlooked.

What made you guys arrive at Alexa 65 and Alexa Mini as the camera choices for the series?

When we started pre-production for season one, Netflix stipulated filming had to be with a native 4K camera. The director and I wanted to work with an ARRI Alexa and at the time the 65 was the only ARRI camera that was producing 4K (actually 6K but we only exposed a 4K area of the sensor). Large Format is a beautiful and very artistic format and the Alexa 65 is a fantastic camera and was the perfect tool for me to create the cinematic images I wanted for Dark. The Netflix requirements allowed us to film a small percentage below 4K native, so we used the Alexa Mini for special occasions such as drone photography or action sequences.



What kind of a working relationship did you have with the creators (Baran Bo Odar and Jantje Friese), especially when it comes to creative freedom and executing a director's vision?

Bo, Jantje and I went to film school together and subsequently worked on three films prior to Dark, so we definitely have a strong working relationship and were good friends. This shared history certainly enhances our ability to communicate openly and honestly, even non-verbally and allows a healthy collaborative process to create the visual style for a project.

Since the backdrop of Dark was decided as a small-town (Winden) in Germany, what kind of conversation did you have with the creators about the visual language for the entire series?

The visual language was driven more by the story itself and the characters journeys rather than where it took place.
A federal judge on Thursday issued a 14-day order temporarily barring federal officers from using force, threats and dispersal orders against journalists or legal observers documenting the daily demonstrations in downtown Portland.

During a hearing earlier in the day, U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon quoted case law from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, saying, When wrongdoing is underway, officials have great incentive to blindfold the eyes of the Fourth Estate. The free press is the guardian of the public interest, and the judiciary is the guardian of the press.

Attorney Matthew Borden, representing the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, urged the judge to stop the federal agents occupation of Portland and submitted at least a dozen statements from journalists, photojournalists and legal observers who have suffered shots to the back, neck and legs from impact munitions fired by federal officers outside the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in the last month.

These are not accidents. These are not inadvertent shots, Borden said. These are acts of intimidation by a tyrant and they have no place in the city of Portland and they have no place in this country.'

Simons temporary restraining order for federal officers is similar to one he granted earlier this month governing Portland police, except for one major difference that allows for individual federal officers or supervisors to be held liable if they intentionally disregard his ruling.

As with Portland police, federal officers will not be liable for unintentional violations of the court order. For example, if a journalist or legal observer is incidentally exposed to crowd-control devices after remaining in an area after officers give a lawful order to leave, then federal officers wont be liable for a violation.

But the judge wrote that any willful violation'' of his order or any direction by a federal supervisor or commander to disregard or violate the order will be considered a violation of a clearly established constitutional right and therefore wont shield the officer through the legal doctrine of qualified immunity.

Qualified immunity is a 50-year-old principle from the U.S. Supreme Court meant to protect government employees from frivolous litigation but often shields police from accountability in civil suits when officers are accused of using excessive force.

The judge ordered that his 22-page ruling be widely distributed within 24 hours to U.S. Attorney General William Barr, the acting Homeland Security secretary, all federal officers deployed in Portland, including any federal personnel in Portland who are or may become part of Operation Diligent Valor or Operation Legend -- two Trump administration initiatives.

Attorney Andrew Warden of the U. S Department of Justice argued at the hearing that it would be too difficult for federal officers to distinguish peaceful demonstrators from violent ones. He represents the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Marshals Service.

Warden said the federal officers must make split-second decisions and are wearing masks, helmets and other face-coverings. They cant stop to determine whos a member of the press or a legal observer when commercial fireworks are being thrown at them and lasers shined in their eyes and everyone before them has their cellphone out filming their actions, he said.

Federal officers, he said, are facing extraordinary circumstances from violent opportunists who are threatening public safety. The press is guaranteed no special rights of access above and beyond the public, he said.

The judge disagreed.

The plaintiffs were identifiable as press, not engaging in unlawful activity or protesting, were not standing near protesters, and yet were subject to violence by federal agents, Simon wrote. Contrary to the Federal Defendants arguments, this evidence does not support that the force used on Plaintiffs were unintended consequences of crowd control.

The judge zeroed in on the argument that journalists dont have a right to stay, observe or document when the government closes public streets.

This circular logic does not help the Federal Defendants. First, the Federal Defendants are not the entities that close state public streets and parks; that is a local police function, the judge noted. Second, the point of journalists observing and documenting government action is to record whether the closing of public streets (e.g. , declaring a riot) is lawfully originated and carried out. Without journalists and legal observers, there is only the governments side of the story to explain why a riot was declared and the public streets were closed and whether law enforcement acted properly in effectuating that order.

As Warden acknowledged in court that the federal officers had no evidence of any journalists or legal observers committing crimes during the demonstrations, the judge ruled, The stated need to protect federal property and the safety of federal officers is not directly affected by allowing journalists and legal observers to stay, observe, and record events.

Attorneys from the city of Portland supported the ACLUs request for a temporary restraining order.

On July 2, Simon exempted journalists with professional or authorized press passes and observers from the ACLU, National Lawyers Guild and other legal groups from having to follow Portland police orders requiring protesters to disperse during declared unlawful assemblies or riots. The judge also directed police not to arrest, threaten to arrest or use force against a person who they know or reasonably should know is a journalist or legal observer. Officers arent to seize their cameras, audio or videotaping equipment or press passes unless they have probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, the order says.

Simon later extended the temporary restraining order against Portland police to a preliminary injunction that the city accepted in a joint stipulation with the plaintiffs. The injunction expires Oct. 30.

Denis Vannier, senior deputy city attorney, said the city backed the ACLUs move to restrict federal officers largely because of what he called the disconnect between the federal defenses legal position and really the facts on the ground.

He noted that large numbers of journalists have been struck by less-lethal munitions fired by federal officers and reminded the court that Mayor Ted Wheeler was tear-gassed among protesters outside the fence in front of the federal courthouse Wednesday night.

Vannier argued the use of force by federal officers is disproportionate to the threat they face and is happening despite the citys repeated request for them to stay inside the courthouse and ultimately leave Portland altogether.

Vannier said the use of the federal officers in Portland appears to have been a calculated decision by President Donald Trump to target largely liberal, progressive cities in a political stunt to help his election in November.

The deputy city attorney said while the restrictions placed on Portland police, in effect for 21 days, have been challenging at times, theyve been workable.

The judge asked the lawyer for the federal government: Why would it be workable for the city and the Police Bureau and not workable for the federal agents who have been deployed here?

Warden described the circumstances outside the federal courthouse as a " fairly extraordinarily chaotic situation at night and that segregating everyone in the crowd would be a difficult endeavor.

Simon also asked Warden what type of crowd-control training the federal officers have.

Warden said he wasnt aware of all the federal units specialized training but said the U.S. Customs and Border Patrols tactical unit, or BORTAC, has training in dealing with large gatherings. The unit is typically assigned to the southern border ports of entry.

Simon said he believes its critically important for the press to continue to observe and document whats happening on the street outside the courthouse. He noted the recent baton-battering of 53-year-old Christopher David, a Navy veteran trying to speak with federal agents and not threatening anyone.

David was assaulted by a federal officer despite the fact there was no probable cause he was committing a crime, the judge said.

Simon also spoke of 26-year-old Donavan LaBella, who in mid-July was shot in the head by a deputy U.S. marshal while he had his hands above his head holding a music speaker across from the courthouse.

He also referenced two accounts of federal officers in unmarked vans picking people up off the street.

Simon noted that while LaBella and David arent journalists or legal observers, accounts of what happened to them were reported by journalists.

The judge pointed to the sworn statement from photojournalist Nathan Howard, who said he was in Chapman Square near Southwest Third Avenue late Sunday into early Monday when a group of federal officers emerged from the courthouse and pushed protesters back to Fourth Avenue.

Howard said he remained in the square because he wanted to document another group of federal officers coming from the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building two blocks south. There were few people around him except other journalists, he said.

As a line of federal officers advanced, Howard said he screamed, Im press, Im press! and held up his press pass in one hand and camera in the other. Agents in the group told him to stay put and moved on.

Later, as two groups of federal agents merged and began walking between the square, Howard said he screamed that he was press! again. One officer told him to stay where you are, dont come close, but three seconds later, another federal officer fired at least two pepper balls directly at him.

And they had absolutely no probable cause to believe that person committed a crime,' Simon said. Thats what I think the plaintiffs are trying to stop here.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

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China in Focus (July 22): Houston Chinese Consulate Ordered to Close

Massive flooding in China is raising concerns that the Three Gorges Dam could collapse. But one Chinese expert refuted the claims, saying the dam is sound enough to withstand an atomic bomb.

The United States ordered the Chinese consulate to close in Houston, Texas, giving Chinese consulate staff 72 hours to get out of the country. The staff were seen burning documents in the yard at the back of the building.

Mike Pompeo said President Donald Trump has said enough over Chinas intellectual property theft. The Secretary of State will give a China policy speech tomorrow, which he says will make sure Americans fully understand the threats of the CCP and explain the new policies.

Capital outflows in China reached a 4-year high. Nearly $140 billion U.S. dollars in indirect investment funds flowed out of China in the second quarter.

And at 3 p.m., a powerful storm quickly turned day into night. Thats as unusual weather seems to be plaguing China.

Subscribe to our Youtube channel for more first-hand news from China.

For more news and videos, please visit our website and Twitter.
Switzerland has sent 17 trucks with humanitarian aid for water treatment in Donbas and for the central hospital of Sloviansk city.

President Volodymyr Zelensky stated this in a speech during a joint visit with President of the Swiss Confederation Simonetta Sommaruga to the water treatment plant 'Water of Donbas', an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

The event was broadcast live on the President's Office Facebook page.

"We welcome a new Swiss program of cooperation with Ukraine for the next three years. Out of the total funding, CHF 1.4 million has been allocated for the needs of Water of Donbas in 2020. Today, together with Mrs President, we are meeting a humanitarian cargo from the Swiss Confederation - another 17 trucks, Zelensky said.

He specified that 15 of these trucks brought chemicals and reagents for water purification, one truck would deliver personal protective equipment to the Sloviansk Central Hospital, another truck would bring hydrolysis devices for water purification in Volnovakha and Mariupol.

Zelensky thanked international partners for their assistance, which facilitates the return of the temporarily occupied territory to the control of Ukraine.

Due to this, we can show not by words but by real deeds that Donbas and Crimea are Ukraine. Ukrainians live there. We have not forgotten about them, and we are doing everything possible to return them to Ukraine as soon as possible, and thus return to a normal and safe life, he stressed.

As reported, on July 20-23, President of the Swiss Confederation Simonetta Sommaruga is on a state visit to Ukraine at the invitation of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

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ALBANY -- Mayor Kathy Sheehan and Police Chief Eric Hawkins will discuss a Reimagined Albany, including police reform, during a 6 p.m. Zoom Virtual Meeting Thursday, July 23, a community forum and membership meeting of the NAACP's Albany branch.

Topics include what is needed to improve the quality of life for all, youth programs, the police and community relationship and health and safety issues. Questions about the topics should be sent in advance to the NAACP email: albanynaacp1@gmail.com.
Laois woman Joan Fennelly has completed the final leg of a swimming relay which saw herself and four other women cross the English from England to France.

Joan Fennelly, aged 53 and originally from Mountmellick, is a sales and marketing manager for Oracle. She has been swimming in the River Thames for years. One of eight children, Joan grew up swimming in the River Owenass at the so-called Four Banks.

Living in Britain for nearly two decades, she was part of the Henley Mermaids, which swam the Channel in just under 20 hours. They had hoped to get into the water in early June but finally took the plunge on July 21.

By swimming the Channel, around 23 miles in 18 hours, Joan and her open water swimming friends have so far raised 25,000 for a local school. More below picture.

With no sleep for 40 hours, the group describe it as "the toughest challenge, both wonderful, emotional, harrowing & horrific".

Joan had the honour of swimming the final leg to France. More below picture

The swim was done to raise money for the Henley Music School local music school which gives subsidised lessons to children.

The other members of the team are Laura Reineke, Susan Barry, Jo Robb and Fiona Print.

It was some achievement for Joan who went for her first proper swimming lessons to get fit for her 50th birthday. Within no time she took on the longest river marathon in the UK when she swam the 14km Thames Marathon in August 2018 as part of a personal ongoing 100km fundraiser for the charity Kidasha.

More below pictures.

Anyone who wants to donate can go to the team's Gofundme page
Hollings researcher explores the stress that immune cells face in the tumor microenvironment in order to discover ways to overcome this challenge and invigorate immunity against tumors

Hollings Cancer Center researcher Jessica Thaxton, Ph.D., is the recipient of two grants totaling $3.4 million from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for her work in cancer immunotherapy and cell stress, one of which is part of the Cancer Moonshot Initiative on immunometabolism.

Immunotherapy is a form of cancer treatment that uses patients' own immune cells to fight their cancer. Understanding the environment inside a solid tumor, the microenvironment, is very important. Immune cells may enter a tumor in an attempt to kill the tumor, but the tumor interior is harsh. Thus, the tumor-infiltrating immune cells face a profound stress that compromises their function. It is very likely that immunotherapy is most successful in patients who have less suppressive, less harsh microenvironments, she explained.

"I like to think that we are looking at immunotherapy with a different lens" said Thaxton, an assistant professor in the College of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Thaxton's lab studies the stress that the immune cells face in the tumor microenvironment in order to discover ways to overcome this challenge and invigorate immunity against tumors. The two NCI grants are both related to investigating CD8 T-cells in the solid tumor microenvironment; however, they have different approaches.

One project, Exploitation of ER Stress Induced Immune Dysfunction to Improve Immunotherapy, investigates how the T-cell responses to stress in the tumor microenvironment undermines their ability to generate energy to fight tumor growth. The second project looks at how the stress response drives exhaustion in T-cells and the effect of the chronic exhaustion on response to checkpoint blockade therapy in sarcoma patients. This research will provide valuable information on how tumor stress changes both T-cell metabolism and function.

Cells have an intrinsic stress response, regulated by a molecule called PERK, that appears to be driving what is wrong with T-cells in the tumor microenvironment. It appears that PERK can determine how a T-cell generates energy in the stress of solid tumors. Moreover, the chronic arm of the stress response is at play in exhausted T-cells, Thaxton said. Exhausted T-cells barely function, but really, those cells should be responding and killing the tumor cells. Therefore, targeting the stress response in cancer patients holds the potential for increasing the efficacy of immunotherapy. Thaxton's team has shown that targeting the stress response can eliminate solid tumors.

For her current studies, her lab has partnered with other Hollings Cancer Center researchers in order to obtain human tumor samples. One of those collaborations is with Lee Leddy, M.D., who performs surgeries to remove sarcomas. Sarcomas are one of the most immunogenic solid tumors, which means that the tumor provokes an immune response. The Thaxton lab always has found a large number of immune cells in the more than 50 tumor samples that they have received. The immune cells are used to study the intricate stress response pathways in each T-cell. They are also starting to study oral cavity tumors in collaboration with head and neck surgeon David Neskey, M.D.

Thaxton, who uses animal models and human studies, said she prefers the combination of basic and translational sciences to ensure that the research stays clinically relevant and can be used to create new therapies for patients. As a clinical research institution, MUSC is well-suited for preclinical research, explained Thaxton, who started her lab four year ago and credits her early success to the Paul Calabresi Clinical Oncology NCI K Award. It funded her research from 2016 to 2019.

"Many research teams are studying similar components, or themes, in cancer research. The Calabresi award gave me more time to figure out what I can do differently in cancer immunotherapy research. I looked at what other researchers were doing and determined where there was a gap in research and devised a way to fill that need."

Thaxton's lab operates in a team environment, which makes it easier to facilitate connections between the various animal and human experiments. Lab manager Katie Hurst has been influential in driving the research forward, particularly since her pursuit of an MUSC Master of Public Health degree has enhanced ongoing disparities cancer research at Hollings. By recruiting researchers with a variety of skills and strengths, Thaxton said it has enabled her to develop a strong foundation for groundbreaking cancer research. "Now the lab has recruited members with molecular and biochemical expertise so that we can continue to address hard to study questions in tumor immunotherapy," she added.

Based on the early success with T-cells, the lab also will explore tumor-driven stress in other immune cells, such as macrophages and natural killer cells. This broad scope will help to piece together the growing puzzle in the understanding of patients' immune systems and cancers.

"Overall, I am most proud of the fact that we're taking a different approach to cancer immunotherapy by targeting the T-cell stress response," Thaxton said. "This work will inform drug development and holds immense promise to generate better therapies for cancer patients."

###

About the Medical University of South Carolina

Founded in 1824 in Charleston, MUSC is the oldest medical school in the South as well as the state's only integrated academic health sciences center with a unique charge to serve the state through education, research and patient care. Each year, MUSC educates and trains more than 3,000 students and 800 residents in six colleges: Dental Medicine, Graduate Studies, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy. The state's leader in obtaining biomedical research funds, in fiscal year 2019, MUSC set a new high, bringing in more than $284 million. For information on academic programs, visit http://musc.edu.

As the clinical health system of the Medical University of South Carolina, MUSC Health is dedicated to delivering the highest quality patient care available, while training generations of competent, compassionate health care providers to serve the people of South Carolina and beyond. Comprising some 1,600 beds, more than 100 outreach sites, the MUSC College of Medicine, the physicians' practice plan, and nearly 275 telehealth locations, MUSC Health owns and operates eight hospitals situated in Charleston, Chester, Florence, Lancaster and Marion counties. In 2019, for the fifth consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health the number one hospital in South Carolina. To learn more about clinical patient services, visit http://muschealth.org.

MUSC and its affiliates have collective annual budgets of $3 billion. The more than 17,000 MUSC team members include world-class faculty, physicians, specialty providers

About Hollings Cancer Center

The Hollings Cancer Center at the Medical University of South Carolina is a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center and the largest academic-based cancer research program in South Carolina. The cancer center comprises more than 100 faculty cancer scientists and 20 academic departments. It has an annual research funding portfolio of more than $44 million and a dedication to reducing the cancer burden in South Carolina. Hollings offers state-of-the-art diagnostic capabilities, therapies and surgical techniques within multidisciplinary clinics that include surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation therapists, radiologists, pathologists, psychologists and other specialists equipped for the full range of cancer care, including more than 200 clinical trials. For more information, visit http://www.hollingscancercenter.org
KYIV  Visiting Swiss President Simonetta Sommaruga and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy have visited Ukraines eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, known as the Donbas, parts of which have been under the control of Russia-backed separatists since April 2014.

On July 23, during the last day of Sommaruga's three-day visit to Ukraine, the two presidents met with the governor of the Kyiv-controlled part of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, and visited the Donbas water company, according to the Ukrainian presidents website.

Zelenskiy thanked Switzerland for humanitarian aid that was used to keep the water company functioning to help avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in the war-torn region. The company provides drinking water to about 4 million residents of the region, including people residing in separatist-controlled districts.

The presidents also inspected a Swiss humanitarian convoy of 17 trucks with equipment and chemical reagents for purifying water under the Donbas Water project and COVID-19 medical devices for hospitals in the city of Slovyansk.

Switzerland is, in fact, the only country that provides humanitarian assistance for people on both sides of the line of contact in eastern Ukraine. The main humanitarian projects are drinking water supplies in Donbas and delivery of medicines and medical equipment to the area, the presidential website said.

The two presidents laid flowers at a memorial honoring employees from the water company who were killed by shelling by Russia-backed separatists.

Since April 2014, about 13,200 people have been killed in the ongoing conflict.




The Russian and French foreign and defense ministers will hold a 2+2 meeting in Paris, the date will be announced later, a senior diplomatic source in the French capital said, TASS reports.

"The ministers will meet in Paris as part of the French-Russian Security Cooperation Council that brings together heads of foreign policy and defense agencies of France and Russia," TASS was told. According to the source," the meetings date will be revealed separately."

The senior source then recalled, "Political directors of the French foreign ministry and the armed forced ministry held consultations with their Russian counterparts in Paris on July 16 ahead of this meeting." TASS was also told that the talks focused on the issues of strategic stability and regional crises.

Earlier, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko expressed hope in an open interview with TASS First Deputy Director General Mikhail Gusman that a 2+2 ministerial meeting would take place soon.
New Delhi:

With cash crunch post demonetisation drive impacting agri sector, the government on Thursday eased guidelines for farmers by allowing them to withdraw up to Rs 50,000 cash per week from bank.

Besides, it has also extended the deadline for payment of crop insurance premium by 15 days and permitted APMC-registered traders to withdraw up to Rs 50,000 per week.

This steps will ensure that sowing takes place adequately in the Rabi season and enough cash is available to the farmers to buy fertiliser, seeds and other inputs, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das told reporters here.

"The government has decided to permit the farmers to draw up to Rs 25,000 per week against the crop loan sanctioned and credited to their accounts, subject to the limits...and this will also apply to Kisan Credit Cards," he said.

These accounts have to be in the name of the concerned farmers, the accounts will have to be KYC compliant, Das said.

Besides, if the farmers receive payments either by way of cheques or RTGS into the bank accounts, they can withdraw up to Rs 25,000 per week, Das said.

Similarly, the registered traders with the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) markets also will be permitted to draw Rs 50,000 per week to meet various cash requirements like payment of wages to workers and other sundry expenses.

"So, this will facilitate smooth procurement process and help farmers to sell their produce without any difficulty," Das said.

The government has also allowed its Group C employees, including from PSUs, defence and railways, to get salaries up to Rs 10,000 in cash in advance which will be adjusted against their November salary. "It is expected that this will relief pressure on banks," Das said.

Following the demonetisation of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes on November 8 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government allowed withdrawal of up to Rs 24,000 per week per person through cheque and Rs 2,500 from ATMs.
The Congress in Madhya Pradesh suffered yet another setback on Thursday after one more party MLA resigned from the legislative assembly, becoming the third legislator from the grand old party in the state to do so in less than two weeks.

Narayan Patel, who represented the Mandhata constituency in Khandwa district, tendered his resignation to assembly pro-tem speaker Rameshwar Sharma, who accepted it.

The pro-tem speaker said that Patel had met him on Wednesday to submit his resignation, but he gave the MLA time to once again think about his move.

He added that as Patel was firm on his decision, he finally accepted the resignation on Thursday.

With this, the Congress's strength in the house has come down to 89 now.

Last Friday, Congress MLA from Nepanagar seat in Burhanpur district, Sumitra Devi Kasdekar, had resigned from the assembly and joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

On July 12, another Congress MLA, Pradyuman Singh Lodhi, had resigned as a member of the Assembly.

Lodhi, who represented Bada-Malhera constituency, had also joined the BJP.

With Patel's resignation, 27 out of 230 assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh are now vacant, for which by-polls will have to be held.

The resignation of 25 MLAs and the death of two others earlier has brought the effective strength of the assembly down to 203.

In March this year, 22 rebel Congress MLAs, loyalists of former Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, had resigned from the party, that led to the fall of the 15-month-old Kamal Nath government in the state.

Following the rebellion of 22 MLAs, Kamal Nath had resigned as the chief minister on March 20, paving the way for the BJP to return to power.

On March 23, BJP's Shivraj Singh Chouhan took oath as chief minister for the record fourth term.

The ruling BJP has 107 MLAs.

The Bahujan Samaj Party has two legislators, Samajwadi Party one and four are independent.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg today warned that Australia faces the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The unemployment rate is forecast to peak at around 9.25 per cent between October and December as the economy struggles following restrictions and lockdowns imposed to slow the spread of the deadly disease.

The nation's gross debt will hit $850billion by the end of this financial year as the government borrows money to pay for emergency policies including subsidising wages and boosting welfare.

Experts say that amount of debt could take 30 years to pay off - but the Treasurer noted it was a lot lower as a proportion of GDP than in comparable countries.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said the way to reduce the debt was to grow the economy rather than by increasing taxes or cutting public spending.

A worker wears a protective face mask in a cafe in Melbourne after it became the first city in Australia to enforce mask-wearing in public to slow the spread of coronavirus

Melbourne's lockdown has cost the economy $3.3billion as businesses are forced to shut. Pictured: Residents wearing masks

Australian Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg gave an economic update today

Between April and June the economy shrank by seven per cent, but the Treasury said there is hope for growth in the coming months as coronavirus restrictions ease.

Real GDP is predicted to grow by 2.5 per cent in the calendar year 2021, after a fall of 3.75 per cent in 2020.

The figures are bases on the assumption that Australia's borders open in January but entrants are still required to quarantine for two weeks, meaning migration can restart but tourism will still be held back.

The budget deficit - the shortfall in the government's income compared to how much it spends - will reach $85.8 billion in 2019-20 and $184.5 billion in 2020-21, or about nine per cent of GDP.

That is the worst figure since World Word Two when spending took the deficit to about 25 per cent of GDP in 1945.

Net debt is expected to be $488.2 billion, or 24.6 per cent of GDP, by 30 June 2020 and increase to $677.1 billion, or 35.7 per cent of GDP, the following year.

The figure is so high because the government has spent $164billion on propping up businesses and individuals with new policies such as JobKeeper.

'These harsh numbers reflect the harsh reality we face the economic outlook remains very uncertain,' Mr Frydenberg said.

'Recent events in Victoria are a testament to this, a painful reminder, how a setback in combating the virus can impact the speed and the trajectory of our national economic recovery.'

The Australian economy continues to be hammered by COVID-19, particularly Melbourne. Pictured: Greville Street in the inner city suburb of Prahran

A nurse makes her way towards the COVID-19 testing zone as cars queue at Bondi Beach on Wednesday

Nurse Michelle Gibbons conducts a COVID-19 swab test on a man at Bondi Beach on Wednesday

The key numbers Gross debt: $850bn in June 2021 Net debt: $677bn in June 2021 Budget deficit: $184bn in 2020-21 GDP: Down 3.75% in 2020, up 2.5% in 2021 Tax receipts: Down $64bn in 2020-21 Unemployment: 9.25% peak before December Advertisement

At the same time, tax receipts are down because companies are making less money during the economic downturn brought on by restrictions and lockdowns.

Total tax receipts will fall by $31.7 billion in 2019-20 and by $63.9 billion in 2020-21.

Company tax receipts, which were $93billion in 2019, are expected to fall by more than $25billion over last financial year and this year combined.

The treasurer also revealed that Melbourne's fresh lockdown - imposed for six weeks on July 8 - is estimated to cost the economy $3.3billion.

Furthermore, business investment is forecast to fall by six per cent in 2019-20 and 12.5 per cent in 2020-21.

But mining investment will be positive for the first time in seven years, increasing by four per cent last financial year and 9.5 per cent this year.

It comes as iron ore exports tick up, with strong demand from China which imported 14 per cent more of the commodity in June compared to May.

Shipments of iron ore to China from the major export hub of Port Hedland in Western Australia reached a record 46.2 million tons in June, up seven per cent from the previous month.

The deficit figure of $184billion is almost four times as big as the Rudd government's budget deficit of $55billion in 2009 after the global financial crisis.

However, the treasurer said that the drastic support measures the government has taken have been 'necessary' to prevent more people losing their jobs.

In June almost one million people were officially unemployed - but this figure could have been almost twice as high at 1.7million without JobKeeper and other government support. according to the government.

Even though the number of people looking for work will go up as they come off JobKeeper and return to the labor market, the effective unemployment rate, which is close to 11 per cent, is expected to come down.

A restaurant in a food court is closed with chairs placed on top of tables during Melbourne's lockdown

Mining investment will grow the first time in seven years, increasing by four per cent last financial year and 9.5 per cent this year as iron ore exports to China soar

Mr Frydenberg said: 'The COVID-19 pandemic is a once-in-a-century shock that is placing immense pressure on health systems and economies all around the world.

'Our announced measures, together with large declines in taxation receipts, has seen a hit to the bottom line, but this has been necessary in order to cushions the blow for millions of Australians, and to keep businesses in business and keep Australians in jobs.'

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has warned that there is more uncertainty ahead after Victoria suffered a record 484 cases of coronavirus on Wednesday and outbreaks in New South Wales continued to grow.

'The economic and fiscal outlook remains highly uncertain given what is continuing to occur globally and in some parts of Australia,' he said.

It comes as JobKeeper is extended until March but two million Australians will lose access from September as the payment and the JobSeeker supplement are reduced by $300.

Scott Morrison announced the wage subsidy, which currently helps 3.5million Australians, will be reduced in phases as the economy recovers from coronavirus lockdowns.

The payment was due to end on September 27 but instead it will be decreased from $1,500 to $1,200-a-fortnight.

A lower rate of $750-a-fortnight will go to people who worked fewer than 20 hours a week in February, before coronavirus struck.

The two-tiered system has been brought in because one in four casuals are earning more on JobKeeper than when they worked.

From January 4, the payments will be reduced to $1,000-a-fortnight for full time staff and to $650-a-fortnight for those who worked fewer than 20 hours.

The JobKeeper payment will be extended until March and an increased JobSeeker rate will last until December. Pictured: The Prime Minister meeting businessmen on Monday

Fewer businesses will be eligible for JobKeeper as they must continue to prove a revenue decline of 30 per cent compared to before coronavirus.

Many will not meet this threshold because business has picked up after lockdowns ended.

This means that the number of people on Jobkeeper is expected to decline from 3.5million now to 1.4million between October and December, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said.

From January 1million people are expected to receive the payment.

Australian Council of Trade Unions boss Sally McManus said she feared the lower rates would lead to mass sackings.

'Businesses will be getting less support from the government per worker so they may decide to cut numbers,' she said.

As Melbourne approaches its third week of lockdown, residents are forced to wear masks

But Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said the extension until March meant he could keep on 15,000 employees who have been temporarily stood down.

'The extension to JobKeeper until at least March is fantastic for our people and provides them with certainty. Importantly, it will help ensure most of them stay employed with us and come back to work when flights resume,' he said.

From September 24 the JobSeeker supplement will be reduced from $550 to $250, meaning the total benefit will be worth $800-a-fortnight instead of $1,100 in total.

That level will last until December 31 and the Prime Minister expects some level of supplement to remain beyond that.

Unemployment during June amid COVID-19 Australia's unemployment rate climbed from a 19-year high of 7.1 per cent in May to 7.4 per cent in June - the highest since November 1998 Number without work climbed from 923,000 to a record-high 992,300 Close to a million people unemployed for the first time ever - surpassing 960,200 record set in December 1992 Unemployment increased even though 210,800 more people were employed as COVID-19 shutdowns eased That was because the participation rate increased from 62.7 per cent to 64 per cent as more people looked for work Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force data for June Advertisement

JobSeekers will be able to earn $300 while keeping their full benefits.

They will have to apply for four jobs a month to qualify for the benefits and must not refuse a job if offered.

The ongoing dole rate after March 2021 will be determined in the October federal budget.

The Prime Minister said the aim of extending the support was to make sure Australian economy emerges strongly from the crisis.

'Australia is a country that just doesn't look to survive these things. We don't go through challenges with our heads looking down, overwhelmed by the circumstances. That is not who we are,' he said.

'Who we are is innovative adaptive people, supporting each other, reaching out to each other, drawing us all through, not for survival, but to be on the other side in the position where we can emerge strongly.'

The JobKeeper extension until March 28 will cost $16billion, taking the total expected cost to $86billion.

The new arrangements for the Coronavirus Supplement are expected to cost an additional $3.8 billion.

The government will update the state of the nation's books on Thursday, revealing a budget deficit in the order of $200 billion.

As of July 15, JobKeeper payments totalled $29.8 billion.

As of May more than 1.6million Australians were receiving JobSeeker, which combines the old Newstart unemployment benefit along with sickness and bereavement payments.

Last month close to one million people, or 992,300 Australians, were officially unemployed for the first time ever, as the jobless rate rose to 7.4 per cent, the highest level since November 1998.

The JobKeeper package, costed at $70billion, was announced on March 30, a week after JobSeeker was effectively doubled with a temporary $550 a fortnight coronavirus supplement.
ATHENS - A wood fire fueled by string winds near Corinth, in southwestern Greece, has been devastating a vast area for the past two days and firefighters are working to extinguish the flames and contain the damage. No victims have been registered so far.



An official said strong winds and the flames damaged a few houses. More fire officials have been deployed on the ground with a total of 268 volunteer firefighters, aided by some 40 fire engines, three airplanes and six helicopters, according to the same source.



At least four areas were evacuated as a precaution yesterday, when the fire started at around midday some 80 km from Athens, in the Peloponnese. Moreover, firefighters today contained three other fires in the woods of the Peloponnese and Crete.



During the summer, fires in Greece are frequent due to high temperatures, often above 35 degrees and strong winds. Two years ago, on July 23, 2018, an unprecedented fire at the beach resort of Mati caused the death of 102 people and burned most of the houses in the area, some 30 km northeast of Athens.
Workers under lockdown have been drinking tea, scoffing ice cream and abandoning their personal grooming regimes, according to Unilever.

The British consumer goods group, which owns Marmite, Dove soap and Wall's, said sales of brands such as Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Hellman's mayonnaise have surged as families stayed at home and cooked more during the crisis.

Cleaning products including Cif and Domestos have also flown off the shelves, as households become increasingly worried about hygiene.

But the lockdown is not all good news for Unilever. Stay-at-home lifestyles have made people less bothered about their looks, which has hit sales of make-up, lipstick, hair products and even deodorant including the Lynx brand.

Despite this, Unilever said profits increased by 4 per cent to 4.1billion in the first half of 2020.

The group confirmed it plans to spin off its tea business  including the PG Tips brand  with view to a possible sale or float.

The announcements sent Unilever's shares nearly 8 per cent higher, helping it to overtake drugs giant Astrazeneca to claim the crown of Britain's most valuable listed company. Unilever had a market value of 122.2billion last night, compared with AZ at 114.8billion. Alan Jope, Unilever's boss, yesterday said there had been 'massive changes in demand, on what people are buying and consuming'.

He said he was uncertain how long the trends would last but that 'talk of a quick recovery is too optimistic'. He added: 'In a recession, the role of price, value and affordability is really important and that happens to be an area of strength for Unilever.'

Jope revealed that Unilever has rushed to ramp up production of cleaning products and hand sanitisers in recent months, as it responds to unprecedented demand during the pandemic.

He said the hand sanitiser business had previously been 'tiny' but capacity has been increased 600-fold. Home and hygiene sales grew by 'the high teens' in the second quarter, with brands such as Lifebuoy and Suave doing particularly well.

Its business supplying food to cafes and restaurants has suffered, however. Overall turnover in the first half dipped slightly from 23.8billion to 23.4billion, though profits rose from 4billion to 4.1billion.

Unilever confirmed that after a review of its tea business launched in January, it will keep operations in India and Indonesia but will separate off the rest by the end of 2021, including PG Tips. Bosses said the spun-off business could be sold or listed on the stock exchange in its own right, among other options.

Finance chief Graeme Pitkethly added: 'It is the most wonderful, wonderful business. But the results of the review told us that business is held back a little bit by being part of the very wide portfolio of Unilever, and also that Unilever is held back a little by having the tea business within its portfolio.'

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: 'In a world where investors have been obsessed with growth, one might have thought Unilever's pedestrian performance would have gone down like a cup of cold gravy.

'However, resilience is a highly-desired characteristic and the latest trading update is likely to attract a lot of interest from people who had previously dismissed the company as being too boring.'
President Donald Trump's name is seen on a stimulus check issued by the IRS to help combat the adverse economic effects of the COVID-19 outbreak, in San Antonio, Texas, on April 23, 2020. (Eric Gay/AP Photo)

Mnuchin Confirms GOP Stimulus Plan to Include $1,200 Stimulus Checks

A forthcoming Senate Republican stimulus proposal will mirror CARES Act that included a one-time $1,200 economic impact payment to some Americans, said a top White House official on Thursday.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was asked about the nature of the payments, saying it would be the same as the bill passed in March.

Were talking about the same provision as last time, so our proposal is the exact same proposal as last time, Mnuchin told reporters.

The CARES Act provided up to $1,200 payments to individuals making up to $75,000 per year, and the amount dropped until it hit an income of $99,000 per year. Children received $500 under the measure.

Couples who earn less than $150,000 a year will receive the full benefit of $2,400. And those who earn more will see their check reduced by 5 percent over $150,000.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin speaks during a meeting with restaurant industry executives about the COVID-19 response, in Washington on May 18, 2020. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

Its not clear if the bill will include the $500 for children. Other details were not provided by Mnuchin.

House Democrats in May passed the HEROES Act along party lines, which would also provide $1,200 stimulus payments but with fewer income requirements. Children would receive $1,200 payments under the bill.

The direct payment is part of a larger stimulus measure of assistance. Both Republicans in the Senate, Democrats, and White House officials including President Donald Trump have said they support the stimulus payments.

After the CARES Act was passed in March, it took around two weeks for the first payments to be distributed. A number of people received them electronically in mid-April, with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) sending them to Americans bank accounts.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in an interview this week that he does not expect the bill to be completed in July, although Democratic leaders have pushed for it to be finished by July 31, when expanded unemployment insurance runs out for many Americans.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is expected to deliver a speech shortly after the Senate opens, and then senators will begin rolling out their separate parts of the package, according to Republican granted anonymity to discuss the plans.

The $600 weekly unemployment benefit boost that is expiring Friday will be reduced, likely to $200, and ultimately adjusted according to state jobless benefits rates. Some Republicans say the boost is a disincentive to work, but others prefer a phased approach. Some Republicans are pressing for a temporary extension of the current benefit if the talks drag.

We cannot allow there to be a cliff in unemployment insurance given were still at about 11 percent unemployment, said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio).

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
EDWARDSVILLE  During District 7s board of education meeting Monday, Edwardsville High School Principal Steve Stuart got approval to change the current student ranking system.

Stuart proposed switching the high schools valedictorian and salutatorian system to a Laude system of student recognition. He proposed that the new system may better encourage students to focus on the educational value of classes, allowing students to explore a broader range of offerings. Stuart said the change will offer a more balanced and improved high school experience.

Since 1984, Edwardsville High School (EHS) has used a weighted grading system to calculate a student grade point average, or GPA. Weighted-grade systems give students an advantage for grades earned in higher-level courses, such as challenging honors courses. With the Laude system, non-weighted classes would not hurt a students GPA.

A [student] with a 4.0 and an art class, a non-weighted art class, actually hurts their GPA instead of taking a weighted class, he said.

Both Stuart and Superintendent Jason Henderson explained that students usually pick the weighted classes in order to keep their class rank elevated and compete for valedictorian. Both stressed that the change would not eliminate class rank, but promote a well-rounded education.

I dont like to look at education as a competition, I dont think we should be pitting students against [one another], Stuart said.

Students would still recieve honors and be recognized at graduation, Stuart said

According to past GPA records, about 25 percent of students would earn some type of honors (cum laude, magna cum laude or summa cum laude).

In the initial plan, those earning summa cum laude will have the chance to submit an essay for a chance to address their class at graduation. Stuart said the essays will likely be judged by a group of teachers and/or the school board, but it has yet to be decided.

The change eliminates the titles of valedictorian, but students could still put their class standing and special courts on college applications.

Stuart said the change comes as many colleges are starting to vary their acceptance standards.

Theyve gone away from class ranking and theyre using more of a holistic approach. Theyre looking at what activities students are involved in, theyre looking at essays and test scores, Stuart said. But, theyre getting away from using class rank as acceptance into college and also scholarships.

Stuart said other high schools in Illinois and Missouri have switched systems as well. He said the switch would not impact students ability to obtain scholarship money.

As there was no opposition voiced by the school board members and no vote was needed, Stuart was allowed to proceed with the change.

The first class under the Laude system will be the incoming freshmen, class of 2024. Classes 2021, 2022 and 2023 will continue schooling on a weighted system.
GRAND TRAVERSE COUNTY - The Grand Traverse County Health Department will be hosting a no cost, drive-thru COVID-19 testing event due to the growing demand for testing in the Grand Traverse Region.

The health department is partnering with Grand Traverse County, TCAPS and LynxDx to offer no-cost COVID-19 Testing on July 24 and July 25 at Traverse City East Middle School (1776 Three Mile Road Traverse City, MI 49696).

Testing will be done from 3-7 p.m. on July 24 and from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on July 25.

We wanted to expand the availability of tests in our area, and the times in which testing was available as well," said Health Officer Wendy Hirschenberger. "We know that many people want to get tested, but the capacity in our region is limited and demand is high. We have been hearing stories of residents driving down to the Lansing and Grand Rapids area for testing because some of the sites locally were booked up to a week out. As a health department, especially with our case count more than doubling in the first two weeks of July, we felt we needed to address that gap.

Testing is available to any Michigan resident regardless of symptoms, and is available on a first come, first served basis. In order to be tested, the visitor must bring a drivers license or state ID and insurance card (There is no charge to participants for testing. If uninsured, a person can still be tested and will not be charged).

A doctors order is not needed. Those interested can pre-register and fill out paperwork to expedite their experience once at the testing site by visiting this website: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeyJxTmq1ZE-csrgmnWb1- u4nTFFhvwbgYO5gONLvnejgDtgw/viewform

We learned a lot from our event that we partnered up with the Michigan National Guard for,"said Emergency Preparedness Director Mike Lahey. "Although, we had a fast throughput, we determined that the process could be made even smoother if people had an opportunity to fill out paperwork prior to arriving and getting in line. We want the experience to be as simple as possible for both those getting tested and our staff.

The two-day event will be staffed by members of the Grand Traverse County Health Department, Grand Traverse County employees, local partner volunteers and members of LynxDx, a diagnostic laboratory out of Ann Arbor
Japan will ease entry restriction for Vietnam and Thailand this month, said Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu on July 22.

Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu at a virtual meeting on COVID-19 in Tokyo

However, all citizens of the two Southeast Asian countries would be quarantined for 14 days at home or a designated location, according to Japans Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Regarding the permission for businesspeople and those with the work purpose to enter Japan, the ministry said it will continue coordinating with Vietnam and Thailand via diplomatic channels to implement this programme as soon as possible and announce immediately when reaching agreements.

Earlier, at a meeting on June 19, Minister Motegi said Japan and Vietnam have reached an agreement on gradually and partially easing travelling restriction measures between the two countries.

The two sides have been deliberating ways to carry out these measures via diplomatic channels.

Minister Motegi told Vietnam News Agencys correspondents that Japan has selected Vietnam as one of the first four nations to relax travelling restrictions, besides Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand, because of Vietnams good containment of the COVID-19 and the big travelling demand between Vietnam and Japan.

He expressed hopes the relaxation of immigration restrictions for Vietnam will contribute to the strengthening of the bilateral comprehensive cooperative partnership./. VNA

Japanese governor honoured with Vietnams Friendship Medal Vietnamese Ambassador to Japan Vu Hong Nam, empowered by the State President, presented the Friendship Medal to Seiji Hagiwara, Governor of Mimasaka city in Japans Okayama prefecture,
Twitter is exploring potential ways to further monetise its platform  including considering introducing a paid subscription model  the firm indicated today.

CEO Jack Dorsey reportedly revealed the plans during a conference call with analysts to discuss the firm's relatively disappointing second quarter earning results.

Twitter's advertising revenue has fallen by 23 per cent from the same period last year  down to $562 million  as advertisers cut back on spending amid COVID-19.

However, the firm's stock surged earlier this year when rumours of a subscription platform, 'Gryphon', first surfaced online  indicating investor interest.

It is not known what parts of the platform would potentially become subscriber-only, but Mr Dorsey indicated that this may be revealed in the coming months.

Also unclear at present is how much a Twitter subscription might end up costing.

Twitter is exploring potential ways to further monetise its platform  including considering introducing a subscription model  the firm indicated today

According to CNN Business, Mr Dorsey has said that 'you will likely see some tests this year' of new revenue-generating approaches on the Twitter platform.

However the social media firm was only in the 'very, very early phases of exploring' such measures, he added.

Mr Dorsey also said that he has 'a really high bar for when we would ask consumers to pay for aspects of Twitter.'

Until now, Twitter has offered a free service  creating revenue instead by enabling other firms to purchase targeted ads deployed to appropriate sections of the platform's millions-strong userbase.

However, the platform's advertising income has suffered financially from both the effects of coronavirus pandemic and from recent advertising boycotts linked to the racial justice protests in the United States.

'We want to make sure any new line of revenue is complementary to our advertising business,' Mr Dorsey said, according to CNN Business.

'We do think there is a world where subscription is complementary, where commerce is complementary, where helping people manage paywalls [] is complementary.'

CEO Jack Dorsey (pictured here in April 2019) reportedly revealed the plans during a conference call with analyst to discuss the firm's relatively disappointing second quarter earning results. Twitter's ad-based revenue has fallen by 23 per cent from the same period last year  down to $562 million  as advertisers cut back on spending amid COVID-19

The announcement by Mr Dorsey comes in the wake of a 'tough week' for Twitter, which saw the social media platform subjected to an attack which compromised a number of high-profile accounts to promote a crypto-currency scam.

Victims of the hack included politicians such as US presidential candidate Joe Biden and former US President Barack Obama, CEOs including Tesla's Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and celebrity Kanye West.

Yesterday, Twitter revealed that 36 individuals  including an elected official from the Netherlands  had their direct message history exposed during the attack.

According to CNN Business, Mr Dorsey today apologised for the breach, noting that the company 'fell behind' on its security obligations.

'We feel terrible about the security incident," he reportedly said.

'Security doesn't have an end point. It's a constant iteration.'

'We will continue to go above and beyond here as we continue to secure our systems and as we continue to work with external firms and law enforcement.'

Despite Twitter's recent problems, however, shares in the firm rose by 4 per cent in early trading this morning, following the release of the second quarter figures.
A cover spread of issues 1 to 3 of Marvel Comics' "Spider-Geddon" illustrated by Lee In-hyuk / Courtesy of Lee In-hyuk









By Jon Dunbar and Jung Eun-saem



jdunbar@koreatimes.co.kr



















Marvel and DC are best known in Korea for their blockbuster superhero movies, featuring popular characters like Marvel's Avengers and DC's Justice League, rather than their comic books which aren't as widely available here.







Koreans are increasingly taking notice of the capes and tights in American comic books, and illustrator Lee In-hyuk has been lighting the way with his stunning artwork for almost a decade.







"My first favorite cartoon was Dragon Ball. I also liked Korean comics, but now I can't remember any of them," Lee, an illustrator for U.S. publisher Marvel Comics, told The Korea Times. "When I visited my friend's home, I happened to see a book about Spider-Man. Unlike Asian comics, I was very surprised by the realistic painting in full color, and free composition."







He started drawing at a young age, mainly as a pastime while his parents left him home alone and went to work. He started off drawing manhwa-style illustrations, and as he grew up he developed a more realistic art style. After graduating from art school, he became a full-time illustrator, working in various fields including movie production, advertising, publishing, gaming and more. Lee has worked on character design with various game companies including NEXON and Netmarble Games in Korea, as well as Blizzard in the U.S.







Then in 2012, he had an opportunity to experience working for the U.S. comic market. His portfolio got the attention of Marvel Comics, and he's been with them ever since. He's also worked with various other publishers including DC Comics, Boom! Studios, Dynamite and IDW.







Illustrator Lee In-hyuk holds a signed copy of Marvel's "The Amazing Spider-Man" / Courtesy of Lee In-hyuk





"When I started working with Marvel in 2012, whenever I told my friends, they thought of the Korean board game Blue Marble," he said. "Even when movies like Iron Man and Avengers were released in Korea, people knew the titles, but they still didn't know Marvel. Likewise, most older people knew Batman but didn't know DC. Due to the success of Marvel movies, media have now come to talk about Marvel and the characters of Marvel Comics are known to the public."







There have been several Koreans working in the U.S. comics industry, most famously Jim Lee, the publisher and chief creative officer of DC Comics  but Lee claims to be the first Korean national to illustrate for Marvel.







He's developed an impressive portfolio in eight years working mainly as a cover illustrator, a highly prestigious job that requires especially attractive character art.







"What I think is important when doing any illustration, including comic book covers, is the story contained in them," Lee said. "It is good to understand the situation of the characters that appear and their personalities and to assimilate and express emotions. I think it's better to draw a picture with a story rather than just a good picture."







His portfolio includes artwork showing popular Marvel characters including the Hulk, Spider-Man, and Wolverine, DC characters like the Flash, Harley Quinn and the Joker, and various other characters as well, including Darth Vader, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and He-Man.







Marvel Comics' "Star Wars Darth Vader" issue 1, with Lee In-hyuk's signature visible / Courtesy of Lee In-hyuk





"I have a lot of favorite characters. I like the delightful and familiar Spider-Man, Hulk with his overwhelming power, the solitary immortal Wolverine and Magneto with his fascinating magnetic powers," he said. "But I especially like immortal characters. I like painting and I would like to draw longer. So I like Wolverine and Deadpool. But my favorite is Deadpool, because he's easier to draw than Wolverine."







His tools include pencil, ink, watercolors and Photoshop. His pieces are vivid, almost photographic, staring back at the reader with lifelike eyes  at least the ones not zombified or shooting eye lasers.







"Superheroes are just like us. Being a superhero doesn't always mean wearing a costume, helping people and protecting the world all day long. The heroes also could be hungry, sleeping, misleading, angry or jealous. Heroes in American comics have a lot of empathy and persuasive origin stories because they are closely relatable to the real world we live in."







The U.S. comics industry offers many advantages for Lee, over working in his homeland. The market is stable and large, and many of the characters already have decades of history. And despite some fantasy elements, U.S. comic books are more closely related to the real world than East Asian comics which he says emphasize emotional expression over realism, citing "Dragon Ball," "Naruto" and "One Piece" as examples.







"Asian comics are intended for storytelling, so the quality of the art is not as high. Of course, illustrations are important, but in comics, illustrations are primarily for delivering a story. So there are many omissions and exaggerations. It has the advantage of easily conveying emotions rather than realism," Lee said. "Unlike American superheroes, they have a completely different perspective from the reality we live in. So they are considered to exist in a completely different fantasy world."







He sees the value in both U.S. and Asian comic book styles, but personally he prefers working with the U.S. style.







"I enjoy webtoons but they don't match the style I like," he said.







While he isn't working in Korea's comics industry, where many of his friends are active creating and illustrating webtoons, he has been watching developments in Korea's webtoon market, which has seen rapid expansion as more and more titles are adapted as TV dramas and movies.







"Recently, the webtoon market in Korea has expanded rapidly, and the perception of comics has improved. But it's still not as big as in the U.S. I think it is related to the size of the country's economy and the resulting cultural life level," he said.







DC Comics' "Flash Forward" issue 1 illustrated by Lee In-hyuk / Courtesy of Lee In-hyuk





"I have the advantage of understanding the styles of both Asia and the U.S. I will continue to make illustrations that give joy in both Asia and America for a long time."









Lee will be appearing at

in northeastern Seoul on Sept. 6 for a

event for a fan meeting and to sign books. Free Comic Book Day is an international event that was scheduled for early May, but it has been delayed to September due to COVID-19. It's the first of its kind at Dice Latte and possibly in Korea.









Follow him on

, visit

for his portfolio, or

to watch his online art lessons.


The Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu has described as needless, the statement by the police CID, which attributed the request for Interpol to issue a red alert notice for the arrest of a brother of former president, John Mahama, over his alleged role in the Airbus bribery case, to his office.

According to Martin Amidu, the action of the police was extraordinary and unusual, as such arrest notices form Interpol already state the law enforcement agency at whose request it was issued.

The Police administration had noted that Interpol's Red Alert for the arrest and possible extradition of Samuel Adam Foster, also known as Adam Mahama, and three others, was upon the request of the Office of the Special Prosecutor.

The statement from the Police was meant to clarify earlier reports that suggested that Interpol had issued an arrest warrant for the said individuals.

But a statement published on the website of the Special Prosecutor's Office, today Thursday, July 23, 2020, clarified that:

On 17th July 200, it came to the notice of the SP that the Police/CID had usually gone out of its way to issue a news release to the media dated 16th July 2019 on the publication of Interpol Red Notice informing the public that the Red Notice was issued at the behest of this Office. this office as an independent and active agency took the view that the publication made in its behalf was unusual, extraordinary, needless and gratuitous as every Interpol red notice states its content the law enforcement agency at whose behest it is issued.

Martin Amidu also described some young legal practitioners, whom he alleges attacked his personality and called the red notice fake, as unethical lawyers.

Martin Amidu expressed shock to learn later and read online that a bunch of young, inexperienced and unethical lawyers were referring to the Red Notices as fake while at the same time heaping insults and attributing unwarranted motives to the person and character of the SP for doing his work as the Special Prosecutor to fight provable corruption.

He also took on lawyers criticising his work describing them as inexperienced.

The SP is well known in this country and amongst the community of ethical lawyers and the senior judiciary as a person who had practised the law ethically for upwards of forty years. Some of the unethical lawyers who were assaulting the person and character of the SP on the airwaves are lawyers who are in their twenties and early thirties: they have not been yet cut their teeth at the Ghana Bar. The SP refused to be drawn into the affray of turning law into politics as is the forte of those unethical and inexperienced lawyers with no or very limited distinguished courtroom practice vindicating their standing as lawyers in the Ghana Law Reports, he added.

Forgery and Impersonation

He further assured the general public that the investigation into the airbus saga has been thorough and has unearthed the commission of other related crimes.

According to the Office, its investigations have shown that some of the players in the scandal engaged in impersonation and forged documents for the acquisition of a Ghanaian passport.

The statement signed by the Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu said some of the players portrayed themselves as graduates of the University of Ghana and civil servants, and forged other documents.

The SP wishes to assure the noisemakers that the investigation into the Airbus SE bribery case in Ghana has been so thorough that it has even unearthed suspected commission of other related crimes of impersonation as graduates of the University of Ghana, a civil servant and forgeries in the application for the acquisition of a Ghanaian passport connected to this bribery case.

The unethical and touting layers ought to know better than the guarantors of the Ghanaian passport are prima facie abettors of the impersonation and forgeries, as much as the guarantor who claimed falsely to be a civil servant. The passport has relevance to documents employed in facilitating the Airbus SE (Ghana) bribery, the Special Prosecutor's office noted in a statement.

---citinewsroom
The Congress on Thursday said it was not disappointed with the Supreme Courts order related to disqualification notices issued to its 19 rebel lawmakers in Rajasthan as it was not expecting a favourable verdict and has prepared a political plan to deal with the crisis while it is confident of proving its majority.

 The legal battle is just a part of the entire political battle. Knowing and understanding fully well that the courts may not give a decision in our favour, we have prepared our political plan, said Congress leader Ajay Maken.

The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to prevent the Rajasthan high court from pronouncing its decision on Friday on the petition of the rebels, including Sachin Pilot, challenging disqualification notices issued to them by the speaker.

The Congress said there are two views in the party on holding a floor test in Rajasthan. No doubt, floor test is the only solution and we can go for it any opportune time. We are confident of our numbers and will prove majority on the floor of the House. There are two views in our party. One section feels that we should wait for the proceedings in courts to be over and the other suggests that we should immediately go for the floor test, Maken said.

But as far as the floor test is concerned, we are very confident and will easily cross the majority mark with at least a margin of 15-20 legislators in the final count, he added, without elaborating.

The Congress has the support of 101 legislators in the 200-member assembly; Pilot has the support of 22; the BJP and its allies have 75 members in the assembly; of the other two seats, one s the speaker and the other is an indisposed Congres legislator believed to be close to Pilot.

Chief minister Gehlot has claimed the support of 115 legislators.

Maken said a ruling partys legislators seeking a floor test themselves is unheard of and also sought to establish a link between the dissidents and the BJP.

 Why are Harish Salve and Mukul Rohtagi appearing for the rebel legislators? Will they ever appear for the Congress? Who is Gajendra Shekhawat? Why is [Union home minister] Amit Shahs police protecting them (the legislators)? Why is ED [Enforcement Directorate] raiding relatives of the chief minister? Isnt this the BJPs open support to rebel legislators?

The Congress has accused Union minister Shekhawat of being involved in the conspiracy to topple its government. It has alleged his voice can be heard in audiotapes of purported recorded conversations detailing a plot to bring down the government. Shekhawat has denied the charge and said he is ready for a probe.

BJP spokesman Nalin Kohli said the Congresss response to the Supreme Courts ruling shows a lack of confidence in the strength of its arguments. It is unfortunate that while invoking the honourable Supreme Court, which gave the Congress a patient hearing and is yet to adjudicate the matter, such a statement is being made. It confirms the Congress partys lack of confidence in the strength of its own arguments.
New Delhi:

President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday cautioned that a scenario opposite to job creation can spell disaster in the country.

Addressing a conference of heads of educational institutions, he said job creation figures were the lowest in past seven years and jobs creation is a priority.



Citing incidents of student unrest in institutions, the President emphasised upon a harmonious and peaceful environment for students to pursue higher studies and asked government departments concerned to facilitate academic leaders.



Mukherjee said countrys institutions must become magnets for talent by shifting from brain drain to brain rain.



In India, we have enough talent. With the largest population of the young, we are poised to leverage a low dependency ratio. But that depends on the productivity of the population in the working age bracket. If there are enough jobs in the country, there will be content, refinement and perfection. An opposite scenario can spell disaster.



The restlessness and frustration of youth manifests in unrest and upheaval. Let us not allow such a situation to appear on our horizon. We must turn our evolving demographic configuration into strength. For that, adequate job creation is a priority. The job creation figures of 1.35 lakh in 2015, which is the lowest in seven years, are not encouraging, the President said.



He said with machines fast replacing men, there is a need to have a look at a paradigm shift.



From brain drain, we must shift to abundance of brain rain, as many successful Indian professionals working abroad are keen to come back, excited by the opportunities unfolding in a changing India.



With adequate thrust on internationalisation of our institutions, we can develop brain networks, Mukherjee said, addressing the second visitors conference at Rashtrapati Bhavan.



The President said educational institutions must have a harmonious and peaceful environment.



There have been incidences of student unrest in our institutions in recent past. Our campuses must have a harmonious and peaceful environment for students to pursue higher studies and research. Vice-chancellors and directors must deal with any unpleasant situation with sagacity.



They must take help of all well-wishers including inspired teachers, who by the dint of their wisdom, conviction and conduct, can inspire confidence among students and have a calming influence. The concerned administrative ministries must also facilitate the academic leaders. he said.

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The West-Africa Competitiveness Programme in Ghana (WACOMP  Ghana), funded by the European Union (EU) and implemented by United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), organized, on 22 July 2020, online training on the national standard for hand sanitizers.

The training was organized in collaboration with the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) and aimed at promoting national requirements for alcohol-based hand sanitizers production.

Over 50 Ghanaian Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) willing to produce high-quality hand sanitizers for the national market registered for the training.

Mr. Charles Kwame Sackey, the Chief Technical Advisor of the project highlighted that many alcohol-based sanitizers are on the market but not all of them are safe for consumers.

With the EU support and our collaboration with national quality agencies like the GSA, we hope to help Ghana to produce locally high-quality alcohol-based sanitizers in large quantities, he said.

Mrs. Francisca Frimpong from the Food, Chemistry, and Material Standards Department of the GSA explained in detail the Good Manufacturing Practices, the Product Certification Requirements, and checklists for producing alcohol-based hand sanitizers. She emphasized the importance of GS 1303:2020 on the specification for alcohol-based hand sanitizer, developed through a partnership between GSA and two UNIDO implemented projects, WACOMP Ghana and the Global Quality and Standards Programme (GQSP), funded by the Swiss Secretariat of Economic Affairs (SECO).

In the concluding remarks, Ms. Joyce Okoree, the Head of Standards at the GSA, cordially invited companies to contact the GSA for any information on how to produce products compliant with the approved standard.

Due to the rising number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Ghana, WACOMP Ghana will continue to support the fight against COVID-19 by strengthening cosmetics clusters producers capacities to produce high-quality alcohol-based hand sanitizers.
Although Pennsylvania has done a relatively good job of getting a handle on the coronavirus pandemic, were not out of the woods yet, by any stretch of the imagination.

Those words were spoken Thursday morning by Benjamin Abella, who is an emergency room physician and vice chairman at the Department of Emergency Medicine at Penn Medicine.

He joined Jeanne Casner, director of Chester County Department of Health, on a telephone town hall about COVID-19 hosted by U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-6th Dist., which attracted more than 2,000 people.

COVID is going to be with us through the fall and we have to be vigilant, he said.

Abella said it will be at least three to six months before any kind of vaccine is ready for general use, and then the nation will face the logistical challenges of getting it manufactured and distributed as quickly as possible.

Houlahan said, as was seen with the production of personal protective equipment (better known as PPE) this spring, a complex supply chain can be a problem. Thats why I want to be sure we have a roll-out plan for how it will be distributed ready for when the vaccine has been finalized and manufacture begins.

Despite the economic, educational and social hardships it has caused, from a medical perspective, Pennsylvanias strategy seems to be working, but only if it continues, Abella said.

Pennsylvania has done a good job at tamping down the number of cases, but we have to keep wearing masks, the social distancing and the hand-washing, Abella said.

I know its hard. I know its annoying, especially when its raining or hot, said Casner, but the rest of us have to continue to be diligent.

The effectiveness of this strategy is evident, said Abella, at the University of Pennsylvania hospital facilities where he works.

We have had nearly no infections among the hospital staff, who are with infected patients every day, because we have really aggressive mask wearing, hand-washing, social distancing protocols in place, he said.

By contrast, the states that have not done this are really suffering, said Abella.

In fact, the outbreaks in the southern states have diverted supplies of personal protective equipment that the nation had hoped to stockpile for an expected uptick in cases in the fall as flu season gears up, said Houlahan.

Answering a question from a Kennett Square resident, Abella said it will be more important than ever to get a flu shot this year when they become available.

Were going to have a hard enough time figuring out if patients have a cold, the flu or COVID-19, so we have to stamp out as much of the flu as we can, he said.

Particularly challenging for keeping coronavirus under control will be the reopening of schools, said Casner.

Weve been working with our school districts, advising them and helping them understand what safety looks like, she said. Im confident our school districts are headed in the right direction.

Tracking the spread of the virus will also be vital, said Casner. Testing is crucial, but by itself not helpful. It has to lead to investigation first and foremost so we can break transmission of the virus.

Using contact tracing to identify those who may have been exposed is a key factor. The more people we have comply with self-quarantine, the more were going to break transmission, said Casner.

An alarming turn in the data shows that while cases and deaths in older Pennsylvanians are flattening or going down, they are rising among the 25-to-39 age group, said Casner.

And that seems to be because people are doing things like going to the beach and engaging in social interactions in a more high-risk setting, with many not wearing masks, she said.

For example, said Casner, the data shows an uptick after July 4th. You may have been to a barbecue, even if it was just family or a neighbor or two, its still an added risk.

Also worrisome, said Casner, is that the health department is getting some refusals about information on prior contacts from those who have been infected or exposed.

She urged people to talk to family and friends about the importance of cooperating with contact tracing efforts.

We cant politicize science, said Houlahan. Weve politicized something as simple as wearing a mask.

Pennsylvania needs to stay respectful and responsible to our fellow citizens, because thats what will allow us to get back to normal more quickly, said Houlahan. Weve got to hold tight and hold strong.

Houlahan also said she has proposed a bill to create a National Public Health Corps to fill the personnel gap and provide people to can help with testing, contact tracing and vaccine distribution.

Overall, the town hall attracted about 70 questions.

One of them, from a Sinking Spring resident who is also a CPA, noted that while the paycheck protection program was great and helped many of his clients, the paperwork involved is burdensome for small business owners.

He said the hoops through which small business owners have to jump in order to get the paycheck protection loan forgiven are more numerous than they should be.

Houlahan conceded the difficulty and said Congress is working to simplify the procedure and provide another stimulus relief package.
Trump and Putin in 2018: AP

Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin Thursday for the first time since the publication of a New York Times story alleging that Russia paid bounties to Taliban fighters for killing US troops.

Reports of the conversation suggest Mr Trump did not bring the bounty story up to Mr Putin.

Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, issued a statement claiming the men discussed efforts to defeat the coronavirus pandemic while continuing to reopen global economies.

Earlier this month, Russia was accused of attempting to hack coronavirus vaccine research being conducted by the US, UK and Canada.

Mr Deere did not indicate whether or not Mr Trump raised the issue of hacking, but said the leaders discussed preparations for upcoming weapons discussions involving China.

The two leaders also discussed critical bilateral and global issues. President Trump reiterated his hope of avoiding an expensive three-way arms race between China, Russia, and the United States and looked forward to progress on upcoming arms control negotiations in Vienna, the spokesman said.

A statement issued by Russias government claimed the leaders discussed strategic stability and arms control as well as the coronavirus, future economic concerns and Irans nuclear program.

The president has been under fire from various groups for his reluctance to hold Russia accountable for the alleged bounty scheme.

An ad produced by the neoconservative, Never Trump Republicans at the Lincoln Project featured a veteran calling Mr Trump a coward for not retaliating against Russia.

VoteVets, a group of veterans opposed to Mr Trump, have been especially critical of the president since the story broke.

Its been almost 4 weeks and only silence. Trump spoke with Putin TODAY, the VoteVets Twitter account wrote. Reporters, ask him if he stood up to his Russian master and questioned him about the bounties on our troops heads. Ask him if he even cares.

Mr Trump claims he was never briefed on the bounty scheme because the threats were never considered credible enough to warrant his review. At one point the president even referred to the story as a hoax.

Story continues

Republican lawmakers have maintained that there is not enough evidence that the scheme actually occurred to justify a punitive response, and rejected an amendment to the annual defence policy bill that would introduce new sanctions on Russia.

Read more

Anti-Trump ad by Republican super PAC attacks the president on Russia
South Africa: Eskom suspends services to other Western Cape areas

Eskom has suspended operations in parts of Kraaifontein and Wesbank (Delft) due to protest action.

The suspension of services in these Western Cape areas come as Eskom staff escaped with their lives when the vehicle they were travelling in was pelted with rocks in a protest in Kraaifontein.

Protest action in Wesbank has also forced Eskom to withdraw its operators.

The ongoing protest action across Cape Town is posing a significant threat to the safety of field operators working in these communities. The safety of employees is Eskoms top priority and only when these areas are declared safe, will operations resume, said the power utility in a statement on Wednesday.

Th new suspension of services follows the suspension of operations in parts of Khayelitsha and Bardale on Monday. The suspensions in these areas were also due to violent protests.

In addition, Eskom has also taken the decision to withdraw operations from Bloekombos and Wallacedene.

The power utility is working closely with the local South African Police Service (SAPS) and Eskom Security Services to ensure the safety of its staff while working in these areas.

Engagement is also taking place with community leaders to find solutions to the situation.

We emphasise our call to communities to support Eskom and report incidents by contacting the Eskom toll-free crime hotline 0800 11 27 22 or SMS Crime Line on 32211. Callers may remain anonymous, Eskom said.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-07-23. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
By Wang Yi, Li Ruijing and Wang Hailan

The Libyan National Army (LNA) launched offensives to overwhelmingly control Libya in April 2019 after gaining support from countries, including Russia, France, Egypt, UAE and Saudi Arabia, and captured 80 percent of its national territory. But the situation took a sharp downturn in November that year with the military intervention from Turkey in return for a memorandum between the Government of National Accord (GNA) and Turkish government. By June 2020, the GNA has retrieved several important cities and towns and pushed the frontline forward for more than 300km, and it is also aggressively planning for military offensives on a larger scale.

Turkey's aggressive intervention invoked strong dissatisfaction from the LNA-backing countries. Russia immediately dispatched more warplanes, France and UAE issued warnings to Turkey, and Egypt stationed large quantities of army armored troops and warplanes on the border region with Libya. In July, Egypt and Turkey held highly targeted military exercises separately. On July 14, Libyas General National Congress (GNC) formally invited Egyptian military intervention, and on July 20, Egypt's parliament authorised the deployment of troops to Libya.

The Libyan civil war has lasted nearly a decade after the collapse of the Gaddafi regime, with more direct interference from countries out of the region in recent years. When the opposing parties were locked in a standoff in Sirte and al-Jufra at the end of June, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi warned that an attempt by Turkey-backed forces in Libya to attack the strategic city of Sirte would trigger an Egyptian military intervention.

At the moment, the GNA forces are so strong and well-equipped that it will probably keep pressing ahead to expand its control area, especially Sirte, an important province of petroleum production and transportation. Early this month, top Turkish military leaders, including the defense minister and chief of general staff, visited Turkey's military base in Libya to reaffirm their support for the GNA, and crossing of the red line by the GNA may be just a matter of time.

From Egypt's point of view, it has long had a row with Turkey on issues such as the Muslim Brotherhood Emblem and the delimitation in the Mediterranean. It has good reasons to send troops to Libya, whether to crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood Emblem which it regards as a terrorist organization but has closer ties with Turkey, or to vie for resources and regional influence against Ankara. More importantly, once it dispatches troops, Egypt is sure to receive massive military and economic assistance from Arabian countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE, which is very important for the Sisi administration that's been deeply mired over recent years.

As far as military equipment is concerned, the Egyptian troops stand at no disadvantage against their Turkish counterparts. In recent years, Egypt has successively bought the Rafale fighter jet and Mistral-class amphibious assault ship from France, significantly strengthening its naval and air forces, and its army is now equipped with more than 1,000 M1A1 tanks as well as such advanced weapons as AH-64D Apache Longbow and Ka-52 Alligator Attack Helicopter. The Egyptian troops even display more advantages considering that they are fighting at their doorstep while the Turkish troops not only have to travel afar, but also fight on multiple fronts.

Therefore, the Libyan situation may once again see drastic changes with military interference from Egypt, and the possibility of direct military conflicts between Turkey and Egypt will be increased significantly. As more external forces step in, chances are rising that Libya may turn into the next Syria.
Its Wednesday evening, and the traffic on the two carriageways under Minto Bridge is smooth. A couple of men are sleeping under it on the footpaths, undisturbed by the vehicles going past them -- theres nothing at all to show that this is the place, where, on Sunday, a mini-truck driver drowned in the waterlogged rail underpass. Even earlier in the day, the carriageways were closed for an hour. For almost seven decades, Minto Bridge  a large segmental arch spanning the width of the road  gets flooded during the monsoon, becoming a metaphor for eternal civic apathy.

But Minto Bridge is not just Delhis flooding yardstick  it has many other stories to tell.

AK Jain, an architect and former commissioner (planning) at the Delhi Development Authority, says the Hardinge and Minto bridges were built by the British in 1926 as part of the realignment process of the railway line for New Delhi railway station. The British also had a larger objective in mind.

The memories of the 1857 Mutiny were fresh in their minds and they wanted the new realigned railway line to New Delhi station to serve as an embankment for the defence of New Delhi. The British felt that in case of a threat they could close the Minto Bridge and the Hardinge Bridge underpasses, the only two entry points into New Delhi and virtually seal the city, said Jain, who has written several books on Delhi.And they kept the height of Minto Bridge low to ensure an unhindered visual link between the Jama Masjid in the walled city, Central Park in Connaught Place, and Parliament.

Curiously, though Minto Bridge and Hardinge Bridge were renamed Shivaji Bridge and Tilak Bridge respectively, the first refused to shed its colonial name, unlike the latter, whose old name is known only to a few. An untold story of the Minto bridge and the man it is named after. Many believe that it has to do with Minto Bridges persistent penchant for remaining in the news  often for wrong reasons.

Minto Bridge witnessed violence during the riots at the time of Partition. There are several accounts of how those fleeing the walled city  on foot and in tongas  to refugee camps in Purana Qila and Humanyuns Tomb were ambushed and killed near Minto Bridge.

One night, a Muslim friend named Badruddin Tyabji showed up at [Jawaharlal] Nehrus door to alert him to an especially troubled area  Minto Bridge, which Muslims fleeing their Old Delhi neighbourhoods had to cross to reach the safety of refugee camps in New Delhi, reads an account in Midnights Furies: The Deadly Legacy of Indias Partition by Nisid Hajari. The book, published in 2015, chronicles Partition and the riots that followed. Many people coming from the Walled City were waylaid at Minto Bridge and massacred. We had to close our shops for a few days , says Satish Sundra, 84, who runs Ram Chander & Sons in Connaught Place, a couple of hundred metres from Minto Bridge.

Ironically, the man the bridge was named after  Gilbert John Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, the Fourth Earl of Minto and Viceroy of India from 1905 to 1910  too had a controversial legacy.

Minto received a delegation of Muslims aristocrats, led by the Aga Khan, at the Viceregal Lodge in Shimla in October 1906, and promised to meet their demand for separate electorates, which was eventually awarded under The Indian Councils Act 1909, commonly known as the Minto-Morley Reforms, enacted by the British Parliament. The act was formulated by John Morley, secretary of state for India between 1905 and 1910. This was seen as an attempt to wean away Muslims from the nationalist movement. Barely three months later, on December 30, 1906, the All-India Muslim League was founded and held its inaugural session in Dhaka.

The name of Lord Minto, who ruled India from Kolkata and Shimla, has lived on in New Delhi, thanks to Minto Bridge, which first started hitting the headlines in the early 1950s for water-logging. Back then, it would often be closed for a couple of days for traffic  usually tongas, buses, and phat phatis (three-wheeled vehicles powered by old Harley Davidson motorcycle engines )  while the water was pumped out.

In the late 1960s, Minto Bridge area became Delhis cabaret destination with the opening of Blue Star, a restro-bar. Tucked by the side of the bridge, it soon found thousands of patrons. There used to be three shows between 9pm to 12pm, which were a major hit. In fact, following Blue Stars massive success, several new restrobars offering cabaret came up in areas such as Anand Parbat and Naraina, said Kuldeep Chauhan, 68, a real estate agent and a restaurateur in Connaught Place. Its reputation ensured that not many honourable men wanted to be seen anywhere near it in the evenings, added Singh.

Not that Blue Star had introduced cabarets to Delhi. There were in fact very fine restaurants such as Alps at Janpath that offered cabarets in the 1950s, which were classy and artistic performances, but the same could not be said about the Minto Bridge cabaret destination, said Sundra.

Now abandoned, Blue Star is a derelict building with overgrown plants. There is a burnt hall inside, with a few trousers and shirts hanging from the hooks on the walls. A fire broke out inside the abandoned bar in 2010. This place is a haven for drug addicts, Rajesh Kumar, an elderly taxi driver said. He was aware of its colourful past. It made Minto Bridge a nightlife destination.

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She's been soaking up the sun in Marbella alongside her famous family as lockdown restrictions eased.

And Natalya Wright put on a stylish display as she shared a slew of snaps via Instagram during her trip in the Spanish city on Wednesday.

The younger sister of former TOWIE stars Mark and Jessica Wright, 19, looked sensational in a white satin mini dress from Revolve while posing by the sea.

Stunning: Natalya Wright looked sensational as she showed off her slender figure in a white satin dress during her sun-soaked Marbella getaway on Wednesday

Natalya's ensemble had beaded cross-body straps that highlighted her slender figure as she posed from all angles.

She boosted her height in a pair of white strap heels, and accessorised the look with a small brown handbag.

The model styled her brunette locks into loose waves and wore a light palette of make-up for the occasion.

Gorgeous: Natalya's ensemble had beaded cross-body straps that highlighted her slender figure as she posed from all angles

Chic: Natalya boosted her height in a pair of white strap heels, and accessorised the look with a small brown handbag

Stylish: The model styled her brunette locks into loose waves and wore a light palette of make-up for the occasion

The brunette was scouted by Select Model Management, who have Daisy Lowe, Sam Rollison and David Gandy on their books, at the age of just 16.

But with work commitments on hold she has made the most of recently relaxed lockdown restrictions by jetting off to Majorca for a hastily booked holiday with sister Jess, who is expected to marry fiance William Lee-Kemp on the island in June 2021.

Speaking to HELLO! magazine in June, Jess explained that Majorca has been like a second home to her as her family have a house on the island.

She said: 'I've been dreaming of a fairytale wedding since I was little, when I used to dress up in my mum's net curtains.

'Now I can't wait for the moment I've been imagining for so long, walking up the aisle in a fabulous dress to marry Will.'

Of the location, she added: 'We've enjoyed some amazing holidays here and I practically grew up on the island because it's where my family has a second home.'

It's understood that sister-in-law Michelle Keegan will serve as a bridesmaid when the couple do finally exchange vows.
More accounts of prominent personalities on Twitter are reportedly being hacked, with an unnamed Dutch politician added to the list, The Washington Post reported.

Over the last week, Twitter battled with a number of high profile accounts apparently being hacked to pursue a massive cryptocurrency scam.

pic.twitter.com/nzGXn2oMvg Hackers just took control of the Twitter accounts of Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos (& Apple), Kanye West and Mike Bloomberg. Shows you how even the world's richest & most powerful people are just as vulnerable as anyone else. It's like an episode of Mr. Robot. #Hacked  Jake Morphonios www.blackstoneintel.com (@morphonios) July 15, 2020

The company has officially stated that 130 accounts have been targetted by hackers who are using instruments available only to the website's internal support groups.

These tools paved the way for attackers to change the accounts' passwords, log in to them, and send wrong tweets carrying the name of famous personalities, such as @BarackObama.

Twitter accounts

The accounts of presidential candidate Joe Biden, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Kanye West, Bill Gates, Apple, and Coinbase are among those who fell victim to the hacking, the report further noted.

The followers of the accounts then received information that they have to forward Bitcoins over to a web wallet to have their funds multiplied. Despite this, there are now more than $100,000 that have been forwarded to these hackers or scammers.

Not just this, but what worries the owners and managers of these accounts are the private messages that could be accessed since the hackers can have information on the log-ins and passwords. These are known as DMs or direct messages.

These allegedly may be used to blackmail other people by leveraging these private messages.

Furthermore, Twitter revealed that one of these prominent personalities was an elected official in Europe, specifically in the Netherlands. However, no blackmailing or threats have happened yet as of press time.

Dutch politician

Unlike Obama, Musk, or Gates, this politician was not named in the media reports, but he or she has been part of the high-profile Twitter hack.

Earlier reports said that the hack happened to an elected politician.

Could this be the Dutch official?

However, it is later revealed that the politician is anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders. He said that Twitter informed him on Thursday that a hacker has infiltrated his account and has been sending false DMs. Wilders revealed that the hacker "indeed also got full access to my DM's which of course is totally unacceptable in many way."

He joins around 130 accounts targeted on the social networking platform. Twitter, though expressed embarrassment about the hack, which has already compromised accounts and their high profile tweets, and a massive number of followers.

pic.twitter.com/jMlwLo2fZs Pensioenen dreigen toch te worden gekort. Zorghelden kregen er nog geen cent bij. Tienduizenden nieuwe werklozen en failliete bedrijven. Boeren worden afgeknepen. En Rutte tekent bij het kruisje voor honderden miljarden  voor Italie, Spanje en andere landen. Schande! #StemPVV  Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) July 21, 2020

Also Read: Twitter to Join Bot Or Not Weekly Challenge to Resolve Millions of Fake Accounts

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Washington:

US President-elect Donald Trump and his vice president-elect Mike Pence have spoken over phone with nearly 30 key world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after the historic victory of their Republican party in the recently-held American general elections.

Modi is one of the first few leaders that the 70-year-old Trump spoke with, Trump's transition team said on Tuesday.

Some of the other global leaders are Chinese President Xi Jinping, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it said.

Trump has also spoken with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, British Prime Minister Theresa May, Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, and Australian Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull.

The list of world leaders was released hours after Trump said in a tweet that he had spoken to several world leaders.

Trump said he had received and taken calls from many foreign leaders despite what the "failing @nytimes" said.

The countries are, Russia, the UK, China, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and more.

"I am always available to them. @nytimes is just upset that they looked like fools in their coverage of me," Trump tweeted.

Trump won the US presidency on November 9 in a result which shocked many who had expected her to win following favourable opinion polls.

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SPRINGFIELD  A planned improvement project at the Watershops Pond dam, beyond enhancing safety, offers a chance to remove tons of debris including long-submerged cars, city officials said this week.

City officials met this month with design firm GZA GeoEnvironmental Inc., of Springfield, to discuss the $2.5 million project. The project, set to begin in 2021, is intended to address the dams high hazard designation and reduce the risk of flooding in the South End.

It is a critical safety issue to have this high hazard dam properly repaired, said Patrick J. Sullivan, the citys director of parks, buildings and recreation management. The GZA design plans offer the safest and most efficient means to complete the repairs, he said.

The dam improvement project and federal grant funds were announced in February.

As presented by GZA, the project will include a drawdown of Watershops Pond during much of work, officials said this week. The pond is also known as Lake Massasoit, and the dam is off Hickory Street.

The city commissioned a sonar study of the pond bottom, in which underwater debris is clearly discernible, including several automobiles, the city reported.

Noxious items such as automobiles and tornado-related debris from homes and buildings are prime targets for removal while the pond is drawn down, city officials said in a news release.

Those involved in the update meeting included Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, the Park Commission, Sullivan and various other city officials.

The repair project will include resilience improvements at the dam to provide for its continued function in a safe and effective manner in compliance with state regulations for dam safety, officials said.

The project includes replacing two sluice gates, the crest gate and the upstream left training wall; permanently closing two penstock openings at the right abutment of the dam; repairs to various components of the dam; replacement of electrical service; and vegetation and tree removal, according to a city summary of the work.

The Watershops Pond Dam is a concrete and masonry gravity dam owned by the city and believed to have been constructed around 1857, officials said. The city took ownership of Watershops Pond and the dam from the federal government in 1969, with the requirement that the pond be used and maintained as public parkland, officials said.

On June 15, the city filed an Expanded Environmental Notification Form under the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act, which gives a full description of the work planned. The state also received public input regarding environmental issues, officials said.

The city and GZA said the pond drawdown is beneficial in having the least impact on the project schedule and the least cost. It offers the greatest potential capacity for flood storage and protection of the dam, the work, workers, and downstream areas during the period of work, according to a city summary.

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President Donald Trump is doing away with a little-known rule created to prevent racial discrimination in housing that he claims is having "a devastating impact" on America's suburbs.

Just four months before the presidential election, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced on Thursday that it will end the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regulation. The rule, introduced by President Barack Obama's administration in 2015, was a provision of the 1968 Fair Housing Act. Its aim was to force cities receiving federal housing money to assess and then address local housing discrimination.

"At the request of many great Americans who live in the Suburbs, and others, I am studying the AFFH housing regulation that is having a devastating impact on these once thriving Suburban areas," Trump tweeted on June 30.

The president has accused his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, of wanting to "abolish" the suburbs. Biden supports the regulation.

HUD called the AFFH "complicated, costly and ineffective" in a press release issued Thursday.

"We found it to be unworkable and ultimately a waste of time for localities to comply with, too often resulting in funds being steered away from communities that need them most, HUD Secretary Ben Carson said in a statement. "Washington has no business dictating what is best to meet your local communitys unique needs.

The original rule, if it had been left in place, would have likely resulted in communities allowing more affordable housing to go up. It may have also led to zoning changes to allow apartment and condo buildings, as well as smaller, more affordable, single-family homes to be built. This would have affected some wealthier communities that have long fought these developments claiming they could bring down property values.

However, AFFH didn't result in any sweeping changes nationally. The Trump administration took the teeth out of the regulation in 2018 by eliminating the requirement for cities to use the government's reporting tool and granting them an extra two years to turn in their assessments.

This latest move by the administration is just the final nail in the AFFH's coffin.

This is coming at a time when were seeing the heavy price that communities of color pay when we allow segregation and discrimination to happen," says Peggy Bailey. She is the vice president of housing policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan think tank.

The impact will be, communities will be allowed to sweep housing discrimination under the rug," she says. "There will be limited, if no accountability, if communities enact policies that advance segregation and discrimination."

The replacement rule, called Preserving Community and Neighborhood Choice, is designed to ensure that housing is "affordable, safe, decent, free of unlawful discrimination and accessible under civil rights laws," according to the press release.

But some see the rule swap as a ploy in the presidential election campaign.

Trump "is trying to win back the suburban vote by scaring them and claiming he is up against an opponent who wants to destroy the suburbs through racial and economic integration," says Evan McKenzie, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "He's invoking the idea of the suburbs of the past, that were uniformly white and prosperous."

The post Will Trump Really Save the Suburbs by Cutting a Rule To Stop Housing Discrimination? appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
Australian shares finished a listless day with narrow gains, the benchmark index largely unmoved by Josh Frydenbergs dour fiscal update or the continued spread of coronavirus cases.

The ASX 200 added 19.4 points, or 0.3 per cent, to finish a choppy session at 6094.5 as investors adopted a cautious sentiment.

Australian shares closed higher on Thursday. Credit:Louie Douvis

JP Morgan Asset Managements Kerry Craig said it was clear the market had already factored in the federal governments virus support measures would saddle the nation with a ballooning debt, and that unemployment would be dire for some time to come.

So I think (this lack of movement is) the market jostling to find out what is happening, which it has been doing throughout the week, Mr Craig said.

The index is now 1 per cent ahead for the week, and 3.3 per cent ahead for the month, even though it has not strung together two positive sessions since July 2 and 3.

Mr Craig said, amid the apparent indecision, it could still be argued an economic recovery was still unfolding, even if it had been interrupted by a second surge of the coronavirus.

Investors are trying to figure out, is it a recovery? Or is it going to keep rising as quite a high number of coronavirus cases continue to come in, Mr Craig said.

But we are still seeing some surprising news come out about the economy, and around the world were seeing some strong boost to sentiment.

A mixed lead from Wall Street set the tone on Thursday as Washington and Beijing continued a tit-for-tat diplomatic brawl.

The big financials were mixed in local trade, with Commonwealth Bank down 0.5 per cent at $73.74. ANZ was flat while Westpac and NAB added 0.4 per cent and 0.6 per cent respectively.

The materials and health sectors finished flat, while property stocks outperformed with a 2 per cent rise.

Charter Hall Group was up 4.4 per cent to $10.37, Goodman rose 1.6 per cent to $16.31, Dexus added 1.3 per cent to $9.24, Scentre Group climbed 3.8 per cent to $2.17, and Vicinity finished 2.9 per cent higher at $1.41.

Energy stocks also joined the party, rising 1.2 per cent following an overnight oil price rise.

A 1 per cent rise for Wesfarmers to $46.55 boosted consumer discretionaries and toll giant Transurban lifted the industrial sector with a 0.6 per cent gain to $13.86.
In today's day and age, musicians can connect with their audience in a plethora of ways. From solo performances and chamber concerts to streaming their music online, the digital realm has brought with it endless possibilities. Award-winning pianist Vladimir Tiagunov is revered for his talent and skill as a pianist, musician, and professor. His latest classical music albums have taken streaming platforms by storm.

Vladimir Tiagunov recently announced the release of his classical music albums on all major streaming profiles such as Spotify, iTunes, and others. After having performed across the globe, Vladimir's captivating compositions will reach a whole new audience. Vladimir explained, "I look forward to interacting with an even broader audience through online streaming platforms." There is a view that classical music is only traditional. Vladimir hopes to debunk this notion and help people realize that classical music is dynamic, fluid, and eternally relevant.

Vladimir was introduced to the piano at the age of six by his father, an engineer with a love of music. Vladimir instantly fell in love with the instrument and proved to have a natural affinity with it. Realizing that this would be a love affair destined to last a lifetime, he enrolled in Russia's Nizhny Tagil College of Music. Three years later, he performed his first solo recital there. Vladimir moved to New York to further his reputation under the expert tutelage of Professor Tamara Poddubnya at the Long Island Conservatory of Music. Today, he has built a reputation that precedes him.

Vladimir is now an award-winning pianist, having won a plethora of awards and accolades. He has traveled worldwide to perform the most sublime compositions. When he's not busy performing, as a solo and chamber musician, he can be found passing on his passion to others as a revered professor.

Vladimir said, "Music has the power to change lives. It's something to share, appreciate and cherish. While Vladimir continues his prolific career as a performer and teacher, his music is reaching millions online.
Remember collecting Pokemon cards when you were a kid? Most 90s kids will remember their wad of Pokemon cards stashed in a sock or preserved carefully in boxes stowed away in the attic. But when 13-year-old Nigel Brooks has gifted the complete collection of 103 Pokemon cards, he had never imagined that one day it would earn his a fortune of Ra 33 lakh.

That's exactly what happened with Brooks, who is now 34 and a father of three.

The Birmingham resident had been gifted a pack of collectors' edition Pokemon cards by his mother at the age of 13 after he defended his little brother, who was seven at the time from bullies who tried to snatch his best cards. The present also doubled as a birthday gift. Brooks, who was not even a fan of Pokemon, stowed away the collection which at the time cost 300 (or Rs 28,000 INR approximately).

The then 13-year-old had not found the present interesting and had stowed it away at his house until he rediscovered them, years later, at age 34. Turned out, his card collection was the mother of all Pokemon card collections.

According to a report in Daily Mail, the collection was valued at an estimated 35,000 (Rs 33,28,000 approximately) and was dubbed the "holy grail" of card collections for serious Pokemon fans.

Time to dig out that old card set?
New Delhi:

The JD(U) on Wednesday appeared to be divided on the demonetisation move by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. While Sharad Yadav launched an offensive against the government over scrapping of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar expressed his total support for the move.



JD(U) Sharad Yadav, while seeking a JPC probe into the suspected leak, said in Parliament that the sudden move was akin to jumping out of a moving train.

He said unlike the rich, who the PM said were standing in queue, it was the poor, handicapped and old people who were doing so to get their hands on their hard earned money.

He alleged that while loans worth Rs 7,000 crore was written off today by banks including Rs 1,200 crore of Vijay Mallya and said the Prime Minister has made the honesty of the country to stand in queues.

ALSO READ | Oppn alleges 'leak' of information before currency ban: Here's who said what in Parliament on Day 1

On the other hand, while addressing a 'Chetna sabha' at the start of his second leg of Nishchay yatra, Nitish said, I am in favour of the decision to demonetise Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes which will help end '2 number ka dhanda' (illegal business).

I want an attack on benami properties earned through illegal means for more effective results against black money, he added.

This is the second time that Nitish has supported the demonetisation scheme.

ALSO READ | Highlights: United oppn launches attack on Govt; asks PM Modi to participate in Rajya Sabha debate

"I welcome this development. Yes people are going to face challenges initially but they only will benefit from this in the later stage, so I support the Prime Minister's step," Nitish had said on November 9.



However, the JD (U) has joined the Opposition parties in raising the issue of demonetisation in the winter session of the Parliament.



"Yesterday all the opposition parties stood together, we held a meeting and as an outcome the fact is that we all are against black money but the panic which has been created after banning of high denomination notes is worrisome.," Sharad Yadav said.

(With inputs from PTI)

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Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of Aquarion Company

Global Credit Research - 23 Jul 2020

New York, July 23, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of Aquarion Company and other ratings that are associated with the same analytical unit. The review was conducted through a portfolio review in which Moody's reassessed the appropriateness of the ratings in the context of the relevant principal methodology(ies), recent developments, and a comparison of the financial and operating profile to similarly rated peers. The review did not involve a rating committee. Since 1 January 2019, Moody's practice has been to issue a press release following each periodic review to announce its completion.

This publication does not announce a credit rating action and is not an indication of whether or not a credit rating action is likely in the near future. Credit ratings and outlook/review status cannot be changed in a portfolio review and hence are not impacted by this announcement. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.

Key rating considerations are summarized below.

Aquarion Company's (Aquarion) Baa2 rating reflects its credit profile as an intermediate holding company of low risk regulated water utilities operating in credit supportive jurisdictions in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire; and a consolidated ratio of funds from operations (FFO) to net debt in the 8-11% range. The rating considers the substantial amount of intermediate holding company debt that is structurally subordinated compared to debt residing at its largest operating utility subsidiary, Aquarion Water Company of Connecticut (A3). The rating also considers Aquarion's relatively small size, which is somewhat mitigated by its ownership by Eversource Energy (Baa1), a large and diverse regulated utility holding company.

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This document summarizes Moody's view as of the publication date and will not be updated until the next periodic review announcement, which will incorporate material changes in credit circumstances (if any) during the intervening period.

The principal methodology used for this review was Regulated Water Utilities published in June 2018. Please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.

This announcement applies only to EU rated and EU endorsed ratings. Non EU rated and non EU endorsed ratings may be referenced above to the extent necessary, if they are part of the same analytical unit.

This publication does not announce a credit rating action. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.

Jeffrey F. Cassella VP - Senior Credit Officer Project & Infrastructure Finance Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 250 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10007 U.S.A. JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Michael G. Haggarty Associate Managing Director Project & Infrastructure Finance JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 250 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10007 U.S.A. JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653

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The collapse of Heritage Bank by the Bank of Ghana was painful, Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper, Abdul-Malik Kweku Baako, has said.

The bank had Mr Seidu Agongo as its majority shareholder.

Similarly, Kweku Baako expressed qualms about the central banks collapse of uniBank and GN Bank, which, respectively belonged to the former Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Kwabena Duffuor and former presidential candidate Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom.

I felt for the three banks: Nduoms bank [GN Bank], Heritage Bank that belongs to that young man, Seidu Agongo (because of his extension into radio we met a couple of times in 2014 and 2015) and Dr Duffuors bank [uniBank], he said on Accra-based Peace FM's Kokrokoo morning show.

In reference to Mr Agongo, Kweku Baako said: He is a young man and I appreciated him and I want to see a young man like him who does great things, adding: It was painful his bank went down.

The same with uniBank, he said.

I will tell [you] honestly; Dr Duffuor is a personal friend but the action taken against the banks was not right, he added.

Kweku Baako is not the first to have spoken against the collapse of Heritage Bank, in particular.

In September 2019, the founder and CEO of the now-defunct UT Bank, Mr Prince Kofi Amoabeng, also described as unfair and unfortunate, the revocation of the licence of Heritage Bank, whose founder has always argued that the bank was collapsed despite its books being above board.

Asked directly by Accra-based TV3s Paa Kwesi Asare in an interview on Business Focus: Do you think, as many think, that some of the decisions to close down certain banks was politically motivated?, Mr Amoabeng answered thus: A few of them, specifically Heritage Bank.

I dont understand the issue because the Chairman of the Board is Dr Kwesi Botchwey. I have a lot of respect for him when it comes to finance in this country and managing Boards and he will not, in my estimation, ever accept to be Chairman of a bank that is not right and dealing in all sorts of things.

I can say that for him, so, I find it extremely odd that a bank  and it had not started doing business for it to have bad loans and all those things  and for you to say that the owner didnt have what it takes or however they put it, I mean the owner doesnt run the bank, hes a Ghanaian, hes got money, hes appointed the right people to run the bank for him, so, what is the excuse.

I find that extremely, extremely unfair, Mr Amoabeng asserted, adding: Maybe I dont have all the facts, but from where I stand, I find it really unfortunate.

The Bank of Ghana revoked Heritage Banks licence on Friday, 4 January 2019 on the basis that the majority shareholder, among other things, used proceeds realised from alleged fraudulent contracts he executed for the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), for which he and former COCOBOD CEO, Dr Stephen Opuni, are being tried, to set up the bank.

Announcing the withdrawal of the licence, the Governor of the central bank, Dr Ernest Addison told journalists  when asked if he did not deem the action as premature, since the COCOBOD case was still in court  that: The issue of Heritage Bank, I wanted to get into the law with you, I dont know if I should, but we dont need the courts decision to take the decisions that we have taken. We have to be sure of the sources of capital to license a bank; if we have any doubt, if we feel that its suspicious, just on the basis of that, we find that that is not acceptable as capital. We dont need the court to decide for us whether anybody is fit and proper, just being involved in a case that involves a criminal procedure makes you not fit and proper.

However, Mr Agongo responded with a press statement in which he said that the not fit and proper tag stamped on him by the central bank was capricious, arrogant, malicious and in bad faith.

According to Mr Agongo, In purportedly making the determination, the central bank obviously had little regard for the time-honoured principle that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction, adding that: The fact that I have a case pending before the High Court is a matter of public knowledge but my guilt or innocence is yet to be determined by the Honourable Court.

The determination that I am not a fit and proper person to be a significant shareholder of HBL because the central bank suspects the funds are derived from illicit or suspicious contracts with Cocobod is not only calculated to pre-judge the outcome of the criminal proceedings but also violative of the principle of presumption of innocence to which every individual is entitled. Since when has suspicion become a substitute for credible evidence? Mr Agongo asked.

Also, the erstwhile Prof Botchwey Board issued a statement on the matter in which it said: Heritage Bank was by the Bank of Ghanas own admission, a solvent bank. It NEVER received liquidity support from the Bank of Ghana. Its corporate governance record had never been impugned by the Bank of Ghana. We believe we have been done a grave injustice and a terrible precedent set that does not bode well for the future.

Read that full statement below:

PRESS RELEASE BY THE FORMER BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF HERITAGE BANK LIMITED (CURRENTLY UNDER RECEIVERSHIP)

The Bank of Ghana on Friday, 4th January 2019 announced the revocation of the banking licence of Heritage Bank Limited on the following grounds;

(1) Suspicions relating to the source of the bank's capital and matters related therewith including the claim that it was derived from contracts with COCOBOD which were the subject matter of an ongoing criminal prosecution;

(2) Issues around the shareholding of the bank and alleged nondisclosure of ultimate beneficial shareholders;

(3) several related-party transactions which were not above board

(4) the significant shareholder was not fit and proper.

We would have preferred not to enter into any public disputation about these matters with the Central Bank so as not to further darken the cloud that hangs over the ongoing banking sector reforms. However, we owe a duty to ourselves, our cherished customers and our dedicated staff, who, in the face of numerous challenges remained committed to the vision of the bank to the very end, and to the general public, who have been keen observers of the developments in the banking sector, to clarify certain claims in the press release by the Bank of Ghana that are either complete falsehoods or inaccurate at best. We wish, therefore, to state as follows:

(1) Suspicious source of capital and related matters

We find it puzzling that the Bank of Ghana should now be disputing the existence of a contract between HBLs main shareholder and COCOBOD, when the bank, as part of its due diligence ahead of the granting of HBLs provisional banking licence, had requested and received confirmation from COCOBOD of the existence of the contractual arrangements between COCOBOD and the said shareholder.

We also want to state on record that Heritage Bank NEVER RECEIVED, nor is the Board aware of any order from the High Court (or any other court for that matter) for disclosures relating to any contract involving Mr Seidu Agongo. Indeed, we are hearing of this matter for the VERY FIRST TIME through the Governors news conference. In any case, we are unable to fathom why the High Court would order Heritage Bank to make disclosures in respect of a contract that it is not a party to or a custodian of.

Furthermore, it is even more puzzling that the Bank of Ghana would claim it has no knowledge of Mr Seidu Agongo being a shareholder of Sarago Limited. The shareholding structure of Sarago Limited is a matter of public record since it is a registered company at the Registrar-Generals Department. More importantly, the Bank of Ghana, in its own provisional licence to Heritage Bank, stated as a condition that the concentration of HBLs shareholding in Mr Seidu Agongo and Sarago Limited be diluted within three years of the commencement of operations. Mr Agongos association with Sarago Limited was, thus, known to the Bank of Ghana at the time of the licensing.

On the issue of the transfer of an amount of GHS15.8m and the acquisition of some properties owned by the main shareholder which were stated in the Financial Statements of 2017, it will be misleading on the part of Bank of Ghana to claim that the bank and its shareholders, directors and management have failed to clarify matters. The records at the bank are very clear on these transactions and could have been very easily verified by the Banking Supervision Department if, indeed, they had any issues with the figures.

Furthermore, the Bank of Ghana, through the Banking Supervision Department WAS NOTIFIED IN WRITING about these entries. A Sale and Purchase Agreement covering the acquisition of the buildings, together with copies of the Valuation Reports from a competent property valuation firm were all duly forwarded to the Bank of Ghana. From the documents referred to above, there is, thus, no basis for any doubts about the name of the shareholder whose property was being acquired.

The valuation reports from the professional valuers also do give the basis of the valuation; and do, indeed, establish the basis for the prices agreed and captured in the Sale and Purchase Agreement that was executed between the two parties in the transaction. Even disregarding the correspondence sent to the BOG on this matter, A TEAM FROM THE BANKING SUPERVISION DEPARTMENT of the Bank of Ghana did carry out an onsite inspection in July 2018 (last year).

This team did have all documents made available to them and did express satisfaction with the explanations that were given them by management. Everything about the transaction was, thus, totally above board and made available to the Bank of Ghana.

(3) The grounds for the revocation of HBLs licence also included a claim that the bank had approved several related-party transactions, that is loans and facilities to its main shareholder. Three companies were cited in the Governors statement:

SASSH ALLIANCE: Heritage Bank gave facilities totalling GHS6m; an Overdraft of GHS3m, and a Bank Guarantee of GHS3m, which were fully collateralised, were subjected to the standard credit requirements and were duly approved by the Board in accordance with S.67 of Act 930. These are the only transactions with SASSH ALLIANCE.

MOOR COMPANY LIMITED: The company had a vehicle leasing contract with Heritage Bank by which it provided the bank with its vehicles. This contract was terminated when the bank purchased the vehicles.

KEDGE COMPANY LIMITED: The company rents out properties to some of Heritage Bank's branches.

All the above transactions were handled in a transparent manner and at arm's length. Apart from the credit facility to Sassh Alliance, Heritage Bank has no exposure to any of the companies mentioned.

(4) The significant shareholder was not fit and proper

It is not clear to us how the Bank of Ghana came to this conclusion, but this is a matter obviously best dealt with by the said shareholder in any manner that he shall deem appropriate. Suffice it to say only that neither the bank nor its directors or shareholders were afforded the statutory notice period by the Bank of Ghana, within which to have responded to the allegations made prior to the abrupt revocation its licence, contrary to the provisions of the very same law under which the licence was revoked.

(5) Conclusion

As a Board, we had engaged with the Bank of Ghana including the Governors on numerous occasions, ALL in relation to meeting the capital requirement, and at no time had the issues now being given as grounds for the revocation of the banks licence been raised. Indeed, as recently as December 24, 2018, the Bank of Ghana had given Heritage Bank clearance for a potential investor who had brought proof of funds to transfer the money. We had considered and applied for consideration under the Ghana Amalgamated Trust scheme and had received positive signals. We were literally in conversation with our prospective investor when the bank was summoned at about 12 p.m. to a meeting at 2 p.m. and handed a letter revoking the banks licence.

Heritage Bank was by the Bank of Ghanas own admission, a solvent bank. It NEVER received liquidity support from the Bank of Ghana. Its corporate governance record had never been impugned by the Bank of Ghana. We believe we have been done a grave injustice and a terrible precedent set that does not bode well for the future. We have dealt herein only with matters affecting the Boards responsibilities that needed to be clarified to set the record straight, and this, without prejudice to whatever legal options the shareholders may wish to avail themselves of in order to get justice for the even greater harm done to them.

---classfmonline
SARATOGA SPRINGS - The commissioner of the city's Department of Public works said that the Civil War soldier statue that was smashed in Congress Park will be either repaired or replaced.

Also, the city is offering a $2,000 reward for information that will lead to the arrest of the vandal who climbed up the pedestal to smash the statue overnight July 16. Those with any information can contact the Saratoga Springs Police Department at (518) 584-1800.

City police said they are reviewing surveillance video from in and around Congress Park to try and determine a suspect.

Speaking at Tuesday night's City Council meeting, Anthony "Skip" Scirocco said the cast iron and zinc statue to honor the 77th infantry will be put back up on its pedestal.

"We are going to put it back," Scirocco said. "I promise you that."

Scirocco said the statue was erected in 1875. The $3,000 depiction of a soldier was paid for by donations from members of the 77th infantry Union Army. He said it was manufactured by J.W. Fiske and Company in New York City and that many identical statues of Union soldiers were sold throughout the country. Therefore, if the statue cannot be repaired, they will laser scan one of its twin, which he said, can be found in such locations as Canton, Massachusetts and Mansfield, Ohio.

"Push comes to shove, that is what we will do," Scirocco said.

The 77th was made up of volunteers from Saratoga Springs, Wilton, Schuylerville, and other surrounding communities. When the regiment was raised, it was supposed to be numbered in the 30s, but the officers petitioned to have the unit commissioned as the 77th in honor of the Battle of Saratoga, fought in 1777.



The statue was initially in the center of Broadway at the entrance of Congress Park. In 1921, it had to be moved into Congress Park as it became an obstacle for cars.

Those monuments to the Civil War, like the one in Congress Park, appear in many rural areas too including such local places like Berlin, Hoosick Falls, Greenwich and Ballston Spa. They were built, a book by David W. Blight, "Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory," notes that the monuments meant to emphasize reconciliation between North and South.

The monument in Saratoga Springs, however, is ravaged. Scirocco said that the city has put in an insurance claim for the statue that in many spots was only "little tiny pieces."

"It was just shattered," he said. "It's unfortunate."

Scirocco said he's also received many calls from people who would like to donate to the cost of repairs or replacement. If it can't be repaired, Scirocco said, fragments of the statue will likely go to the Saratoga Springs History Museum.

"This is a resilient community and people really want to see it back," Scirocco said.
A poll administered by Ozanne Foundation revealed that a whopping 62% of the British public agreed to ban LGBTQ+ conversion therapy.

This conversion therapy was defined by Ozanne Foundation as therapy "where people seek to change someone's sexual orientation, sexual behavior, or gender identity."

The ban was only opposed by 14% of the British public

Jayne Ozanne, the founder of the Ozanne Foundation called the conversion therapy an "abhorrent practice."

Jayne has been campaigning for LGBTQ+ rights in the Church of England where they also show support for the conversion therapy ban.

"We know that this is currently still being practiced by religious groups across the UK and we urgently ask the government to act in order to safeguard young people's lives, Jayne asserted.

"A ban will ensure a clear signal is given that this abhorrent practice will not be tolerated in the UK."

The Christian Institute, Christian Concern, and Core Issues are amongst the many Christian groups that worry about the impact of the ban on gay conversion therapy on people who need the "help."

"Are we really saying that a man who is married and finds himself attracted to the same sex but wants to save his marriage and protect his children is going to be forbidden from receiving help?" Mike Davidson, founder of the Core Issues Trust asserted.

"Are we honestly saying that they cannot receive that help? Because if we are, that is inhumane. A ban will ride roughshod over a minority identity."
Vampire bats, those bloodsucking, flying critters with razor-sharp teeth, are rather social beings. They love grooming one another and sharing food supplies, which consists of regurgitated blood from some other unfortunate mammal. These bats also call out to one another when theyre apart from their group.

But when theyre ill, they call out less frequently and have fewer interactions with family and friends, new research suggests.

In 2020, such behaviour sounds a lot like social distancing. But the scientists do not think the bats self-isolation is intentional. Publishing their findings last week in Biology Letters, the researchers believe that when bats are ill, they just have trouble mustering up the energy to call out.

Its like us, said Sebastian Stockmaier, a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas, Austin, who led the study. When they are sick and feeling bad, they are not interested in social interactions.

Stockmaier and his fellow researchers say it is much like that miserable lethargy you feel when an illness settles in and all you want to do is lie in bed.

The researchers found that on average, when vampire bats are feeling sick, they call out 30 per cent less frequently than when they are healthy. And whether intentional or not, it should have a beneficial side effect of limiting the spread of whatever pathogen is afflicting them.

If they are sick, they groom others less, Stockmaier said, and that will theoretically reduce disease transmission.

To measure this, the scientists went to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, where vampire bats abound. They are generally found in Central and South America and feed off the blood of mammals, like cattle and horses.

While many people might recoil from the sight of a vampire bat  especially the terrifying close-ups of their bared teeth  Stockmaier calls them cute.

Finding, catching and keeping them in captivity is not hard, Stockmaier said, if you know where to get blood. (His team gets all it needs from local slaughterhouses.)

For the experiment, the scientists injected 18 female bats once with lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a compound that induces an immune response similar to a bacterial infection, without actually causing the illness  or threat of infection  in the bat. It usually lasts between 24 and 48 hours. Females were used because they are more social than males, engaging more often in grooming and communal feeding and maintaining bonds with their offspring for long periods.

The researchers later injected the same group of female bats with saline solution as a control. In both cases, they removed the bats from the larger group  but within hearing distance  and recorded and measured their calls.

They found that, on average, the bats made 30 per cent fewer calls, with 15 of 18 recording fewer calls compared with the control group.

In another study, Stockmaier said, the researchers discovered that bats injected with LPS produced symptoms of illness, slept more, moved around less and performed less social grooming. He also noted that previous studies have shown that many similar animals require eight times more energy to call out than not to call out.

So, they concluded that it is more likely that the bats are just feeling too lousy to call out, rather than intentionally stifling themselves as a naturally selected, personal sacrifice to prevent pathogen transmission to the group at large.

Stockmaier laments that bats are getting a lot of bad press right now, mainly because it is widely believed that the new coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, originally jumped from horseshoe bats. He is quick to point out that is a species different from vampire bats, and that all of them offer something unique to study.

I love bats, he said.

I think they are fascinating animals.
Refugees who gang-raped an 18-year-old girl after spiking her drink in an attack that sparked far-right protests against foreigners in Germany have today been jailed.

Ten men were handed down sentences at the district court in Freiburg, following the assault on the teenager outside a nightclub in 2018.

The main suspect, named only as Majd H, was jailed for five and a half years, while seven others received between three and four years in prison.

Two others received suspended sentences and one man was acquitted.

The lead defendant in the gang rape case, named only as Majd H, wore a face covering as per coronavirus guidelines but appeared to be smirking as he appeared in court. He was jailed for five and a half years, while seven others received between three and four years in prison

One of the defendants, pictured covering his face, appeared flanked by security personnel

The refugees covered their faces with folders as they were told of their fate in Freiburg today

The attacked sparked demonstrations in Germany in 2018, with AfD supporters and counter-protesters clashing with police in the centre of Freiburg

The front of the 500-strong AfD protest holding a sign which says, 'Protect borders - save lives,' in Freiburg

The court heard how the victim, who was 18 at the time, had her drink spiked at a nightclub and was then led to some nearby bushes where she was gang-raped in an ordeal that lasted more than two hours.

It emerged after the attack that police waited 13 days to apprehend the main suspect, despite there being a warrant out for his arrest which specifically warned he was dangerous.

German newspaper BILD reported at the time that an arrest warrant for the suspect, who was known to police and had a prior conviction for assault, had been issued on October 10.

According to BILD, the warrant clearly noted how dangerous Majd H is and categorized him as a multiple offender.

It went on to say that there was a high probability he might commit other significant, similar offenses, including grievous bodily harm, sexual coercion and exhibitionism.

Finally, it issued a stark warning: To prevent worse, arrest him urgently.

The police waited 13 days until October 23 to arrest Majd H. along with other criminals, at first citing investigative tactics as the reason.

Eight of the accused who appeared in court today are refugees from Syria, while the others come from Iraq, Afghanistan and Germany.

The case, one in a series of high-profile sexual crimes by immigrants in Germany, triggered huge debate about the government's liberal refugee policies.

Supporters of the anti-Islam, far-right AfD party took to the streets of Freiburg in anti-foreigner protests at the time, triggering large counter-demonstrations.

The city of Freiburg had already been shaken by the 2016 rape and murder of a young German woman by an asylum seeker who claimed to be from Afghanistan.

Two of the defendants, pictured left and right, cover their faces during today's hearing in Freiburg

One of the defendants pulls up his hood and turns away at the hearing in Germany this morning

The court heard how the victim, who was 18 at the time, had her drink spiked at a nightclub and was then led to some nearby bushes where she was gang-raped in an ordeal that lasted more than two hours

The mass sexual assault of hundreds of women by mostly immigrant men during New Year's Eve celebrations in Cologne in 2015 also stoked opposition against Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision that year to open the country's borders to those fleeing conflict.

Freiburg mayor Martin Horn told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung that the gang rape had horrified the city, but he praised the way the majority of residents had resisted casting blanket suspicions on immigrants.

'It was right and important that Freiburg, as a cosmopolitan city, took a considered stance: the perpetrators have to be punished according to the rule of law, while at the same the vast majority distanced itself from populist instrumentalisations.'
PITTSBURGH, PA  Pittsburgh Public Schools students could begin the 2020-21 school year with at least nine weeks of remote learning. School director Kevin Carter has introduced a resolution at a board meeting Wednesday that would delay the hybrid mix of learning platforms that district had detailed in favor of keeping students at home for the first quarter.

The resolution was tabled. The board will seek public comment on the plan on July 29 before voting on it Aug. 4.

The measure was introduced as coronavirus cases have risen significantly in Pittsburgh and across the state over the past few weeks. It comes a week after the Pennsylvania State Education Association asked state officials to direct public schools to plan for an online start to the year if the spread of coronavirus doesn't slow.

The resolution would require district officials to:

Prepare plans for all students to begin the school year remote-learning and equipped with the new technology chosen.

Provide a contingency plan for special education students to get access to necessary support services and resources.

Ensure that every student has access to technological devices at the start of the school year to properly implement remote-learning instruction.

Develop a contingency plan for parents of students who are essential workers and those not able to support their childs remote learning.





This article originally appeared on the Pittsburgh Patch
After the Galaxy Note20 Ultra, the specifications and press images of the Galaxy Note20 has surfaced ahead of announcement on August 5th. This reveals an upgraded S Pen 26ms response time, compared to 9ms in the Ultra. It should feature automatic Microsoft OneNote synchronization, support for range of gesture commands, Wireless DeX and Microsoft Project xCloud and Xbox Game Pass to allow users to play more than 90 games on the smartphone via cloud.

Even though US market is said to get Snapdragon 865+ SoC, Europe and Asian market is said to stick to Exynos 990 SoC for the Note20 series. It is said feature a 12MP rear camera instead of 108MP camera in the Ultra version, and the 12MP periscope lens with 50x space zoom will be replaced by 64MP telephoto lens with 30x space zoom, but it is said to retain the 12MP ultra-wide sensor. It is also missing laser autofocus that the Note20 Ultra has.

Samsung Galaxy Note20 5G rumoured specifications

6.7-inch FHD+ (2400 x 1080 pixels) Super AMOLED Infinity-O Display, HDR10+, 393 PPI

Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ 7nm Mobile Platform with Adreno 650 GPU / Octa-Core Samsung Exynos 990 7nm EUV processor with ARM Mali-G77MP11 GPU

8GB LPDDR5 RAM, 256GB storage (UFS 3.1)

Android 10 with OneUI

Single / Dual SIM

12MP rear camera with LED Flash, f/1.8 aperture, PDAF, OIS, 64MP telephoto lens with f/2.0 aperture, PDAF, 3X optical zoom, Space zoom up to 30X, 12MP 120 Ultra Wide sensor with f/2.2 aperture

10MP front-facing camera with f/2.2 aperture

Water and dust resistant (IP68)

Stereo speakers tuned by AKG, Dolby Atmos

In-display fingerprint sensor

Dimensions: 161.6 x 75.2 x 8.3 mm

5G SA/NSA, Dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ax (2.4/5GHz), HE80, MIMO, 1024-QAM, Bluetooth 5, GPS with GLONASS, USB Type-C (Gen 3.2), NFC, MST

4300mAh (typical) battery with 25W fast charging, wireless (WPC and PMA) charging, Wireless PowerShare

The Samsung Galaxy Note20 is expected to come in Mystic Bronze, Mystic Gray and Mystic Green colours. We should know the price when it goes official in a couple of weeks.

Source 1, 2
A British holidaymaker broke her back plunging more than 60ft off a balcony in Ibiza while having a nightmare.

College worker Coral Skipp, 47, from Powys in Wales, was on the last night of her sunshine break when she fell from the third floor of the building.

Her fiance John Lloyd woke at 4am to find her missing - and heard her screams of pain from outside.

She is now being treated at the Can Misses Hospital on the Spanish island for a fractured spin, broken hips and multiple stitches from the fall which she luckily survived.

College worker Coral Skipp, 47, from Powys in Wales, was on the last night of her sunshine break with fiance John Lloyd (pictured together) when she fell from the third floor of the building

Coral (left and right) is now being treated at the Can Misses Hospital on the Spanish island for a fractured spin, broken hips and multiple stitches from the fall which she luckily survived

John said: 'She does get night terrors and bad dreams at times, so this is just a horrible, horrible accident.'

'We got invited out here by a group of friends who had some spare spaces on a flight.

'We'd all had a fantastic week and went to bed early on the Thursday, and I woke to go to the toilet at around 4am, and I heard Coral shouting.

'She fell from a balcony after suffering a bad dream. It was horrible.'

The couple, who are set to get married in August next year, have appealed for further support after scans and tests revealed the injuries were more serious than first thought.

The couple (pictured), who are set to get married in August next year, have appealed for further support after scans and tests revealed the injuries were more serious than first thought

Friends and family have pulled together to raise more than 4,000 for the pair as John has been warned she faces at least 16 weeks in hospital.

Former serviceman John said: 'It's not going to be an easy recovery.

'It has been overwhelming. We would just like to give them a massive, massive thank you.

'The response from our loved ones has been phenomenal. The hospital have been absolutely brilliant too and so has the British Consulate.

Friends and family have pulled together to raise more than 4,000 for the pair (pictured) as John has been warned she faces at least 16 weeks in hospital

'The money will be there to help family come over to us, but also to help us get home eventually.

'We don't know how long we're going to be here, so money is going to come in handy. There's no work for us out here, so any money that is raised will prove to be a massive help.'

Support worker Coral's colleagues at Derwen College in Gobowen, Powys, sent a get well soon message.

Natalie Bellis, Derwen College's director of human resources, said: 'We were sorry to hear from Coral that she'd sustained some serious injuries while on holiday.

'We wish her a speedy recovery, and look forward to welcoming her back to Derwen College when she's fully recovered.'
NEW YORK, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- QEBR (OTC:QEBR) today announced that it has divested its ownership in two subsidiaries in order to focus all corporate resources to the buildout of its blockchain-based Filecoin mining operations. Filecoin raised $257 Million in a 2017 Initial Coin Offering, the largest ICO in history at the time, from well-regarded investors such as Sequoia Capital, Andreesen Horowitz, Y Combinator, Naval Ravikant, and Winklevoss Capital. Filecoin expects its mainnet to launch in the second half of 2020, opening the cryptocurrency to global access.

The QEBR technology team previously announced that it has proven its system as a valid Filecoin node with CPU, GPU, bandwidth, and storage compatibility that meets all IPFS guidelines. The QEBR test system has connected with the Filecoin main blockchain and already successfully test-mined filecoin.

Jun Liang, Chief Technology Officer of QEBR, stated, "The divesture of Sheen Boom and Jihye will allow our team to focus solely on the upcoming worldwide launch of Filecoin. QEBR's subsidiary, Shenzhen DZD Digital Technology Ltd ("DZD"), has a strong background in blockchain development, data mining, encrypted data acquisition, data processing, and researching of data technology.We strongly believe that Filecoin has the ability to be a leading blockchain-based cryptocurrency and will put all efforts into making QEBR a significant player when the Filecoin mainnet launches soon."

About Filecoin:

The Filecoin project is a decentralized storage system based in the cloud. Its InterPlanetary File System, or IPFS, requires FIL coins as payment to miners in exchange for storage space.

Filecoin, developed by Protocol Labs, is a decentralized storage network. The network is expected to give owners of unused storage a means to monetize their storage capacity. It is also expected to bring down the costs of storing data reliably. Given the large amounts of unused storage in data centers and hard drives around the world, a natural market exists for this service.

About QEBR:

QEBR is the trading symbol for Virtual Medical International, Inc., a Nevada corporation. QEBR develops or acquires promising technology companies from around the world that specialize in data processing, warehousing, encryption, and analysis.

Forward-Looking Statements

Legal Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements in this news release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements are based on current facts and analyses and other information that are based on forecasts of future results, estimates of amounts not yet determined, and assumptions of management. Forward looking statements are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "aims", "potential", "goal", "objective", "prospective", and similar expressions or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "can", "could" or "should" occur.

Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors beyond the reasonable control of the Company. It is important to note that actual outcomes and the Company's actual results could differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include misinterpretation of data, the Company's ability to raise financing for operations, breach by parties with whom we have contracted, and the possible inability to maintain qualified employees or consultant

For more information please see our website: http://www.qebr.net

Contact: [email protected]

Source: Jun Liang, QEBR Chief Technology Officer

SOURCE QEBR

Related Links

http://qebr.net


A day after issuing a yellow alert for heavy rain in isolated areas for the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), the weather bureau on Thursday downgraded its warning, predicting only light to moderate showers from Friday to Monday.

While the city could witness occasional intense rain spells between Thursday night and Friday morning, light to moderate thundershowers are expected throughout Friday, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) forecast said.

Independent meteorologists, however, said an increase in rain activity was expected, but unlikely to cause any inconvenience to commuters or waterlogging.

Meanwhile on Thursday morning, residents in the suburbs woke up to moderate thundershowers, even as light showers were reported from remaining parts of the city. The Santacruz weather observatory, representative of the suburbs and Mumbai, recorded 49mm of rain between 5.30am and 8.30am, while 0.2mm rain was recorded in Colaba, representative of south Mumbai. Parts of eastern suburbs recorded moderate showers, with Vidyavihar and Chembur receiving 45.8mm and 34.6mm rainfall. In the western suburbs, the rainfall ranged between 25mm and 33m for most locations, with Oshiwara recording the heaviest rainfall at 33mm. In the island city, Dadar and Worli recorded 33.2mm and 32.8mm of rainfall between 5.30am and 8.30am. Thane and Navi Mumbai recorded isolated moderate to heavy rain since Wednesday.

IMD classifies 2.5mm to 15.5mm as light rain, 15.6mm to 64.4mm as moderate rain and 64.5mm to 115.5mm as heavy rain.

Owing to a lack of strong weather system, monsoon conditions are not likely to be as active as expected along the north Konkan coast, and the rain activity is expected to shift towards interior Maharashtra and along south Konkan, said an IMD official.

Professor Sridhar Balasubramanian, department of mechanical engineering and IDP Climate Studies, Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay, said, Due to an offshore trough created by an Arabian Sea system, the west coast is very likely to receive moderate to heavy rain between Friday and Sunday. Mumbai may witness some heavy rain (70-80mm over 24 hours), mostly on Sunday.

Owing to an increase in moisture incursions over the city, the frequency of showers is expected to increase over the weekend, said Akshay Deoras, independent meteorologist and PhD researcher at the University of Reading, United Kingdom. It will be light rain with few moderate spells towards the suburbs, he said.

Meanwhile, both the meteorologists said that the city was unlikely to receive any more major heavy rain spells till the end of the month.

No significant weather systems would lead to weak monsoon winds and less moisture, said Deoras.

Balasubramanian added that subdued rain activity till the end of the month may be followed by heavy rainfall during August first week, if a weather system develops in the Bay of Bengal.

Mumbai received its July rainfall target on the 15th of the month, and recorded 1,300mm rainfall (154% excess) until Thursday, against the target of 840.7mm. The city received 75% of its seasonal rainfall target until now over 53 days.

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CHANGSHA, China - The United States abruptly ordered China to close its consulate in Houston by Friday, striking at what U.S. officials described as an espionage hub for Beijing and sending relations between the world's two biggest political and economic powers to a new low.

China immediately promised to retaliate for the "unprecedented escalation," raising the specter of a tit-for-tat battle that could prompt Beijing to shutter at least one U.S. consulate soon and adopt more punitive measures later.

One potential target is the U.S. Consulate in Wuhan, which closed after the coronavirus epidemic began spreading across the city in January. The diplomatic missions in Wuhan and Houston are considered "sister" consulates.

The acrimony between Washington and Beijing has been growing for months, but it was not immediately clear why the United States decided to order the Houston consulate closed now.

The consulate was notified of the order early Tuesday, according to a former senior U.S. official with knowledge of the situation. U.S. agents monitoring the consulate observed personnel going to a Home Depot to buy barrels, which they used to burn documents, the former official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity.

"The Houston consulate is well known across the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement community for its malign activities," the official said.

The out-of-a-spy-novel confrontation widens a conflict that already has spanned trade and technology, freedom of the press and religion, students and scientists, human rights principles and the race for a coronavirus vaccine.

Analysts on both sides say bilateral relations are at their worst since before 1979, when the United States formally recognized the People's Republic of China.

After the news broke, a phrase that Mao Zedong, who established the Communist-run People's Republic of China, wrote in 1949 about the China-U.S. relationship began trending on the Chinese Internet: "Cast Away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle."

"At this rate, I wouldn't even be surprised if Trump decides to sever diplomatic relations with China someday," said Chu Shulong, a professor in American politics and diplomacy at Tsinghua University, suggesting that this was part of President Donald Trump's reelection strategy.

Jessica Chen Weiss, a Cornell University expert on China's foreign relations, said that the move appeared calculated to drum up fears of China as an existential threat, rather than as indictment of specific actions.

"Closing the consulate does not appear to be part of a coherent strategy to deter or compel China to alter its behavior," Weiss said. "It looks more like a 'shock and awe' strategy to distract U.S. voters from the Trump administration's disastrous response to the pandemic."

The Trump administration ordered the consulate's closure "to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information," State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said Wednesday.

"The United States will not tolerate the PRC's violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated the PRC's unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs and other egregious behavior," she said, using the abbreviation for China's official name.

In a separate statement, the State Department accused China of having engaged "in massive illegal spying and influence operations," interfering in "domestic politics," coercing "our business leaders" and threatening "families of Chinese Americans residing in China, and more."

The Chinese Embassy in Washington condemned what it called "an outrageous and unjustified move which sabotages China-U.S. relations." The embassy said it has followed the rules laid out in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and accused the United States of unlawfully opening diplomatic pouches and searching the contents.

"Because of the willful and reckless stigmatization and fanning up of hatred by the U.S. side, the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. has received threats to the safety and security of Chinese diplomatic missions and personnel more than once," it said in a statement.

The Chinese government is suspected of using the Houston consulate as a hub for aggressive intelligence operations that U.S. officials said had gone too far, and its closure can be read as a rebuke and a warning to Beijing, said a U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

Another U.S. official said that the People's Liberation Army has been sending Chinese students to American universities, and that the Houston consulate is the epicenter of all the malign activities facilitated by China.

The closure came one day after the Justice Department unsealed indictments against two Chinese hackers, accusing them of stealing intellectual property from U.S. firms researching the novel coronavirus and other sensitive information.

The FBI is investigating clandestine Chinese activity in American research institutions, a law enforcement official said. Officers with the People's Liberation Army have come to the United States masquerading as doctors and medical researchers and embedding with universities, research facilities and pharmaceutical companies, the official said.

On Monday, for example, federal authorities arrested a Chinese woman who had claimed to be a neurologist coming to California to conduct brain disease research at Stanford University. In reality, she is affiliated with the Chinese Air Force, according to the Justice Department.

Last month, U.S. authorities arrested a Chinese scientific researcher as he tried to fly out of Los Angeles. According to court documents, he said the head of his military university lab had ordered him to observe a lab at the University of California in San Francisco, and relay information so it could be replicated in China.

The United States expects foreign governments to conduct intelligence activities within its borders, but espionage usually follows a set of unspoken rules.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the acting chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called the consulate a "central node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies" and said that closing it "needed to happen."

At a news conference in Copenhagen, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said European intellectual property had also been stolen, "costing hundreds of thousands of jobs - good jobs for hard-working people all across Europe and America stolen by the Chinese Communist Party."

"We are setting out clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave, and when they don't, we're going to take actions that protect the American people, protect our security, our national security, and also protect our economy and jobs," he added.

The first sign of the American order came when Houston NBC affiliate KPRC2 aired video showing people in the courtyard of the consulate apparently burning documents after 8 p.m. local time Tuesday. The consulate's staff had been told it would be evicted from the building at 4 p.m. Friday, the Houston Chronicle reported.

In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry responded angrily to the order. The U.S. government "abruptly informed" China on Tuesday that it had to immediately close its consulate in Houston, Wang Wenbin, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, told reporters Wednesday.

"The U.S. has far more diplomatic missions and staff working in China. So if the U.S. is bent on going down this wrong path, we will resolutely respond," he said.

In addition to its embassy in Beijing, the United States has consulates in Shenyang, Shanghai, Wuhan, Chengdu and Guangzhou. Analysts expect the Chinese government to respond by ordering one of them closed. The Wuhan consulate, evacuated in January as the coronavirus began spreading in the city, has not reopened, and the embassy and other consulates are operating with skeleton staffs, according to American officials.

Wang said the order came amid American attacks on China's political system, harassment of Chinese diplomats and intimidation of Chinese students. He said the consulate had been getting prank phone calls and even received a bomb threat on Monday.

The United States and China have battled for supremacy since the start of the Trump administration, centered on trade and technology. Both sides have expelled journalists this year and slapped sanctions on each other's officials.

But the hostilities have become much more serious with Trump's efforts to blame the Chinese government for the coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan at the end of last year and retaliatory actions over journalists in the countries.

The Foreign Ministry on Wednesday renewed its travel warning for Chinese students in the United States, advising them to be aware of arbitrary interrogations, the confiscation of personal belongings and possible detentions.

Chu, the Tsinghua professor, agreed that there was potential for further tension.

"China could always evict a U.S. consulate in retaliation, and that could go on and on," he said.

- - -

Morello, Nakashima and Harris reported from Washington. The Washington Post's John Hudson in Copenhagen and Liu Yang and Lyric Li in Beijing contributed to this report.
HARTFORD, Conn.  The Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a sanction against Infowars host Alex Jones over an angry outburst on his web show against an attorney for relatives of some of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, who are suing him for defamation.

The court issued a 7-0 decision rejecting Jones claims that his comments aimed at attorney Christopher Mattei were protected by free speech rights, and upholding a lower courts ruling that Jones violated numerous orders to turn over documents to the families lawyers.

The lower court judge barred Jones from filing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, as a penalty for his actions.

The families of eight victims of the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, and an FBI agent who responded to the massacre are suing Jones, Infowars and others for promoting a theory that the shooting was a hoax. A 20-year-old gunman killed 20 first-graders, six educators and himself at the school, after having killed his mother at their Newtown home.

The families said they have been subjected to harassment and death threats from Jones followers because of the hoax conspiracy.

Jones, whose show is based in Austin, Texas, has since said he believes the shooting occurred.

The sanction came after Jones, on Infowars last year, accused Mattei of planting child pornography that was found in email metadata files that Jones turned over to the Sandy Hook families lawyers. Jones former lawyer, Norman Pattis, who argued the case before the state Supreme Court, has said the pornography was in emails sent to Jones that were never opened.

Youre trying to set me up with child porn, Jones said on the show. One million dollars, you little gang members. One million dollars to put your head on a pike.

Jones mentioned Mattei by name and pounded on a picture of Mattei while saying, Im gonna kill  Anyway Im done. Total war. You want it, you got it.

In Thursdays decision, Connecticut Chief Justice Richard Robinson wrote, We recognize that there is a place for strong advocacy in litigation, but language evoking threats of physical harm is not tolerable.

Pattis, who withdrew as Jones attorney without explanation in May, said Thursday that he could no longer speak on behalf of Jones.

Personally, Im disappointed by the Supreme Courts lackluster commitment to the first amendment, Pattis said in an email to The Associated Press. I hope Mr. Jones seeks U.S. Supreme Court review.

An email message seeking comment was sent to Jones and Infowars on Thursday.

Joshua Koskoff, a lawyer for the families, said in a statement that the ruling was a win for the integrity of the court system.

As other branches of government show signs of cracking under the weight of threats and falsehoods, this ruling reminds us that the courtroom is still a sacred place that remains dedicated to the truth, to precedent and to long-established rules created over centuries, he said.

Sandy Hook families sued Jones and others in several states for defamation related to the hoax conspiracy.

Last year in one of the lawsuits, a Texas judge ordered Jones to pay $100,000 in legal fees and refused to dismiss the suit. And a jury in Wisconsin awarded $450,000 to one of the parents in his lawsuit against conspiracy theorist writers, not including Jones, who claimed the massacre never happened.
The Supreme Court is hearing a petition filed by Rajasthan assembly Speaker CP Joshi against a high court order directing him to defer disqualification proceedings against Sachin Pilot and 18 other dissident Congress MLAs.

The petition is being heard by a bench of Justices Arun Mishra, B R Gavai and Krishna Murari. The hearing comes a day before the Rajasthan high court is expected to given an order on a petition by Pilot and other dissidents challenging the disqualification notices.

Seeking an interim stay on the high court order, Joshi has said in his petition that it is the top courts duty to ensure that all constitutional authorities act within the Lakshman rekha drawn for each one of them.

He argued that the disqualification proceedings under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution are the business of the legislature, and cannot be interfered with.

Also Read: ED raids Rajasthan CMs brother, Congress hits out

Pilot, too, has moved a caveat in the Supreme Court to ensure that no orders are passed on Joshis petition without hearing him and his supporting MLAs. A caveat is a notice seeking that certain actions may not be taken without informing the person who gave the notice.

Joshi had said at a press conference on Wednesday that he decided to move the Supreme Court after high court sent an order to his office giving a direction to him.

The order by the court of Chief Justice Indrajit Mahanty and Justice Prakash Gupta said its proceedings will resume Friday and requested the Speaker also to put on hold any action on the notices till then, recording that we direct accordingly.

The disqualification notices were issued on the request of Rajasthan chief whip who said that the dissident MLAs did not attend the partys CLP meetings. Pilot and other dissidents, meanwhile, argued that a whip cannot be issued when the assembly is not in session.

The Congress has 107 members in the 200-member state assembly and the BJP 72.

If the 19 dissidents are disqualified, the half-mark in the House will be slashed to 91, seeming making it easier for Gehlot to retain majority support.
Hamilton police recorded 265 incidents where force was used against members of the public in 2019, an increase of nearly 30 incidents above the year before and the 10-year average.

Police in Ontario are mandated to keep track of every time a gun is drawn in public, each time a weapon is used against a person, and whenever physical force used by an officer causes an injury that requires medical attention.

The 2019 report for Hamilton police  detailing everything from shootings, to Tasers  is up for discussion by the Hamilton Police Service board on Thursday. It comes at a time of broader public discussion about appropriate use of force.

In January, the province mandated that police services begin tracking race-based data in use-of-force arrests. But that information wont be available until next years report.

Not all incidents of force are required to be tracked. For instance, handcuffing someone is considered force, but does not generate a use-of-force report if no one is hurt.

Officers are trained in a use-of-force continuum in which they are constantly assessing a situation and measuring the level of force that is appropriate. For instance, lethal force is allowed in instances where an officer reasonably perceives their life or someone elses life is in danger.

Incidents involving police in Ontario where someone is seriously hurt or killed  or if there is an allegation of sexual assault  are investigated by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU). Other service complaints are processed by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), which can dismiss a complaint, investigate or send it back to the police service for an internal investigation.

When looking at the overall number of times members of the police have contact with the public, use-of-force incidents represented 0.08 per cent of all contacts, police said.

Shootings

Hamilton police fired shots 28 times last year, the exact same number as in 2018.

In all but one incident, the shootings were to euthanize an injured animal. In one incident, a carbine rifle was accidentally fired.

That incident happened at the conclusion of a high-risk call when an officer was unloading his carbine, said police spokesperson Jackie Penman. The carbine was pointed in a safe direction and the firearm discharged into the ground.

There was no risk to the public nor any other officers, she said.

Of the 28 shootings: pistols were used twice, shotguns used 15 times and carbine rifles used 10. In 2018, the police board approved the purchase of 26 of the high-powered Colt Canada C8 guns, arguing they were needed in active shooter situations.

That initial purchase was about $95,000 and was paid out of surplus money from the previous years budget. At that time, Hamilton was the last of the big 12 police services in Ontario to get carbine rifles. Hamilton has not had an active shooter situation, but the carbine rifles are used when someone may have a gun.

Critics have called the guns a militarization of police and the rifles have been one of the areas of spending criticized by those calling to defund the police.

Initially, 48 officers were trained to use the high-power rifles, but that has expanded.

This year, police are spending just over $61,000 on 18 new carbine rifles. Again, its budgeted to come out of a $1.4-million surplus from 2019. The carbines are intended to replace shotguns.

There were no people shot by Hamilton police last year.

There were two fatal police shootings in 2018  Quinn MacDougall, on April 3, and Robyn Garlow, on Oct. 20. Both of those cases involved people in crisis armed with a knife, and in both case the SIU cleared police of wrongdoing.

And there has been one fatal police shooting so far this year. On July 7, 2020, 42-year-old Jason Peterson was fatally shot by police outside a variety store. Police had been searching for a suspect in a domestic call involving a shotgun. The SIU is investigating.

Firearm pointed and handgun drawn

Just like shootings, police are only allowed to draw or point a gun if there are reasonable grounds that its needed to protect against loss of life or serious injury.

These situations often involve high-risk arrests where someone is believed to have a weapon and what police call dynamic entries, such as forcing in the door of a barricaded person or executing a warrant involving weapons.

In 2019, firearms were pointed 128 times and handguns drawn in front of a member of the public 29 times.

Aerosol weapon

Better known as pepper spray, this is considered an intermediate weapon and allowed in instances where someone is, at minimum, actively resisting police. Pepper spray was used twice last year. Its use by police has significant decreased since CEWs (or Tasers) were introduced in 2005.

Empty-hand hard and empty-hand soft

These types of physical force only require reports when someone is hurt or if the force is combined with another act of force that requires reporting.

Empty-hand hard includes punches, kicks, elbow strikes and grounding a person. There were 16 reported incidents in 2019.

Empty-hand soft includes joint locks, some grounding techniques and using pressure points. There were 23 reported incidents in 2019.

Impact weapon soft and impact weapon hard

This includes using a baton. Soft incidents generally refer to using the baton as leverage, such as while depressing a pressure point. This is hardly ever used and there was just one report in 2019. Hard is when the baton is used to strike someone and is allowed when someone is being assaultive. There were four reported incidents in 2019.

Conducted energy weapon (CEW)

Better known by the brand name Taser, these are widely used by all front-line officers. Hamilton police have more than 700 officers trained to use CEWs.

They are used as an intermediate weapon. Since 2009, its been the Hamilton police policy to use CEWs when someone, at minimum, is assaultive or when there is the threat of serious bodily harm to themselves or others.

When deployed correctly, a person cannot move. However, in about 50 per cent of cases it doesnt work, often because one of the two prongs doesnt connect, they are too close together or the line breaks.

CEWs were used 166 times in 2019, including 61 times where it was fired. In other incidents, the CEWs were taken out of their holster and displayed. In 44 incidents, CEWs were used to control a person in crisis and in seven cases to apprehend someone thought to be armed.

In 58 incidents, the person had access to a weapon, and in most of those cases  41  that was a knife.

Who is using force and when?

Hamilton police measure the who and the when for times when force is used.

Front-line patrol officers account for 75 per cent of use-of-force incidents.

In 2019, July was the busiest month for force incidents with 40; the lowest was November with 23. Thursdays were the most common day with 74 incidents, compared to a low of 38 on Fridays. There is no obvious explanation as to why, police note.

How often are people hurt?

There were 72 incidents in 2019 where a member of the public or a police officer was hurt or required medical attention. Most were minor and some required medical treatment for more than one thing.

The most common reason for someone needing medical treatment was mental-health assessment (51 times), followed by needing CEW probes removed (35 times), injuries caused by grounding (22 times) and self-inflicted injuries or injuries before police arrived (eight times).

Weapons

There were 99 incidents where a member of the public was carrying or had nearby access to a weapon. As in past years, knives are the most common (52 incidents). However, the number of incidents in which someone had a gun or replica gun almost doubled  16 incidents in 2018 to 30 incidents last year.
Actor-turned-politician Nagma alleged Kangana Ranaut was a hypocrite by posting a collage meme, accusing her of being a product of nepotism. In her tweet, Nagma alleged that Kangana Ranaut used Aditya Pancholi, Hrithik Roshan and Mahesh Bhatt for tightening her grip in Bollywood. The politician also saw nepotism in Kangana hiring her sister Rangoli as manager and accused her of not helping Sushant Singh Rajput before his demise. However, Kanganas team on Twitter shunned the allegations and gave a swathe of clarifications, defending the actor. Take a look at what Nagma shared:

Also Read | Kangana Ranaut To Be Summoned In Sushant's Death Case Once Back In Mumbai; Not Before That

Kangana Ranaut's Twitter team issues clarification

Giving a clarification on Nagma's claim about Aditya Pancholi, Kangana's official team on Twitter revealed that Pancholi had earlier 'promised to mentor her, however, he soon turned into tormentor'. Adding to the same, the team mentioned that Aditya Pancholi used to 'beat her every time she went for auditions or film shoots'. The team clarified that 'she was never in a relationship with him' and denied rumours, which state that Pancholi had introduced her to Anurag Basu.

Also Read | Kangana Ranaut & Taapsee Pannu-Swara In Twitter War After 'B-grade' Question Taken As Dig

Nagma ji

1) Pancholi wasnt her BF, she has made it clear many times that initially he promised to mentor but soon turned tormentor, he used to beat her every time she went for auditions or film shoots no he didnt introduce her to Anurag Basu..contd.. https://t.co/DO9JZMz6na  Team Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) July 23, 2020

The post said that Kangana had given a proper audition for Gangster and there was no nepotism involved by any means. Kangana's team clarified that her career was ruined after she was 'reduced to a background actor in Kites, which is why she didnt want to work in Krrish. The team revealed that Kangana was 'forced to do the movie'.

Mr Basu doesnt even know him, he has made it clear plenty of times 2) She gave audition for Gangster, no nepotism there 3) Kanganas career was ruined aftr she was reduced to a background actor in Kites thats the reason she didnt want to do Krish she was forced to do it..contd.  Team Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) July 23, 2020

Also Read | Kangana Ranaut Calls Out 'woke Feminist Liberals' After A Comedian 'wishes COVID Upon Her'

Explaining why Kangana appointed her sister Rangoli as a manager, Kangana's team clarified that no agency wanted to hire her, as she had refused to dance at weddings where 'people threw money'. The team added that Kangana did 'what any sister would do', as she could hardly speak English & had no idea about how the movie business works. Take a look at the tweet:

4)No agency wantd to hire Kangana because she wont dance in weddings where people throw money at you & fairness creams so Rangoli ji strtd to handle her film dates, she too could hardly speak English & hd no idea abt the biz, so she did wht any sister wil do. Stop spreading lies  Team Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) July 23, 2020

Also Read | Kangana Ranaut To Be Summoned In Sushant's Death Case Once Back In Mumbai; Not Before That
He emerged victorious on Sunday after finishing in first place at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

And Lewis Hamilton showcased his hunky physique on Wednesday as he enjoyed a shirtless bike ride at an undisclosed location following his big win.

The Formula 1 world champion, 35, looked in fine form as he posed on his mountain bike for the Instagram snap before taking in the stunning view.

Champion: Lewis Hamilton showcased his hunky physique on Wednesday as he enjoyed a shirtless bike ride at an undisclosed location following his Hungarian Grand Prix win

Gazing at the camera, Lewis looked confident as he showed off his muscular frame, adding a pair of black shorts and black trainers to his look.

Staying protected during his ride, the sportsman added a neon yellow helmet, orange visor sunglasses and black gloves, while he carried his essentials in a brown rucksack.

Captioning the image, Lewis penned: 'Havent been on a bike in a while, had a great workout up the mountain and got to have fun coming down. Butt sore af but gains tho.'

His Grand Prix win comes after Lewis called for greater diversity in Formula One.

What a view: The Formula 1 world champion, 35, looked in fine form as he posed on his mountain bike for the Instagram snap before taking in the stunning view from atop the mountain

Last month, the Mercedes driver announced the creation of the Hamilton Commission to help achieve this aim.

'Despite my success in the sport, the institutional barriers that have kept F1 highly exclusive persist.'

He continued: 'It is not enough to point to me, or to a single new black hire, as a meaningful example of progress. Thousands of people are employed across this industry and that group needs to be more representative of society.

'For this reason, I have been working with the Royal Academy of Engineering to create The Hamilton Commission.

Change: His Grand Prix win comes after Lewis called for greater diversity in Formula One. Last month, the Mercedes driver announced the creation of the Hamilton Commission to help achieve this aim

'A research partnership dedicated to exploring how motorsport can be used as a vehicle to engage more young people from black backgrounds with Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects and, ultimately, employ them on our teams or in other engineering sectors.'

Meanwhile in his private life, it's been reported that Lewis had a romantic relationship with Russian model Viktoria Odintcova following his split from longterm girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger.

The 26-year-old brunette beauty has claimed that the racing driver pursued her four years ago, after parting ways with the former Pussycat Doll, 42 - though she insists they're now just friends.

Romance? Meanwhile in his private life, it's been reported that Lewis had a romantic relationship with Russian model Viktoria Odintcova following his split from longterm girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger

RT quotes her as saying: 'We had different types of relationship. At a certain period of time it was romantic. He was courting me.

'But then this relationship evolved into friendship. I live in Russia and he lives abroad. We just became friends who can message each other and send holiday greetings.'

Viktoria reportedly revealed that the pair met in Barcelona four years ago, before exchanging direct messages on Instagram, though they're not just friends.

She continued: 'It was after Nicole Scherzinger. We met in Barcelona three or four years ago. We have been on good terms since then, he's my friend.'
Historians have criticised the BBC for an 'unbalanced' News At Ten report claiming Churchill was responsible for the 'mass killing' of up to three million people in the 1943 Bengal Famine.

A section broadcast on Tuesday examined how modern Indians view the wartime prime minster as part of a series on Britain's colonial legacy, and featured a series of damning statements about his actions.

Rudrangshu Mukherjee of Ashoka University in India, said Churchill was seen as a 'precipitator' of mass killing' due to his policies, while Oxford's Yasmin Khan claimed he could be guilty of 'prioritising white lives over Asian lives' by not sending relief.

But today historians said the report ignored the complexities behind the famine in favour of squarely blaming Churchill. World War Two expert James Holland argued he had tried to help but faced a lack of resources due to the war against Japan.

It comes amid a wider campaign to trash the war hero's legacy, with his statue defaced with the word 'racist' by Black Lives Matter protesters in London and civil servants calling for the Treasury's 'Churchill Room' to be renamed.

Historians have criticised a BBC News report on Tuesday about Churchill's role in the Bengal Famine, which killed three million people in 1943 and 1944

The Bengal Famine was triggered by a cyclone and flooding in Bengal in 1942, which destroyed crops and infrastructure.

Historians agree that many of the three million deaths could have been averted with a more effective relief effort, but are divided over the extent to which Churchill was personally to blame.

Yogita Limaye, the BBC News India correspondent who led the report, said many Indians blamed him for 'making the situation worse'.

But historians suggested the report attributed too much of the blame onto Churchill when other factors were more significant.

Tirthankar Roy, a professor in economic history at the LSE, argues India's vulnerability to weather-induced famine was due to its unequal distribution of food.

He also blamed a lack of investment in agriculture and failings by the local government.

'Winston Churchill was not a relevant factor behind the 1943 Bengal famine,' he told The Times. 'The agency with the most responsibility for causing the famine and not doing enough was the government of Bengal.'

Churchill has been blamed for down-playing the crisis and arguing against re-supplying Bengal to preserve ships and food supplies for the war effort.

However, his defenders insist that he did try to help and delays were a result of conditions during the war.

They point out that after receiving news of the spreading food shortages he told his Cabinet he would welcome a statement from Lord Wavell, the new Viceroy of India, about how he planned to ensure the problems were 'dealt with'. He then wrote a personal letter urging the Viceroy to take action.

The historian James Holland weighed into the row today, insisting that Churchill faced immense difficulties supplying Bengal due to the amount of British resources tied up in the fight against the Japanese in the Pacific.

Rudrangshu Mukherjee of Ashoka University in India, said Churchill was seen as a 'precipitator' of mass killing' due to his policies

'In light of the latest furore over the Bengal Famine and people wrongly still insisting it was Churchill's fault, here's this on the subject,' he tweeted.

'His accusers don't a) understand how the war worked, or b) that his hands were tied over use of Allied shipping.'

Sir Max Hastings, the military historian, accepted that Churchill's behaviour was a 'blot on his record' but argued it should be considered against his achievements in helping to defeat fascism.

The recent Black Lives Matter protests have seen a renewed focus on Churchill's legacy, including calls for his statue to be taken down from Parliament Square.

At one point the monument was even boxed in by London Mayor Sadiq Khan to protect it from vandalism during a weekend of demonstrations. Figures of Gandhi and Mandela were also encased with wooden sheeting, at a cost of 30,000.

Threats to the statue triggered a strong reaction from defenders of the national hero who pointed out that his greatest achievement was defeating racist, anti-Semitic fascism.

At the time, Boris Johnson criticised the calls as being the 'height of lunacy'. The Prime Minister said he would resist any attempt to remove the statue 'with every breath in my body'.

Churchill's legacy has been attacked in other quarters, with a group of civil servants recently complaining that they did not feel 'comfortable' with having a room in the Treasury named after him.

The subject of Churchill's racial attitudes and whether they taint his modern legacy has become one of the most controversial areas of historical debate.

The Bengal Famine was triggered by a cyclone and flooding in Bengal in 1942, which destroyed crops and infrastructure

The historian James Holland weighed into the row today by noting that Churchill was constrained by the demands on British resources during WWII. The Conservative politician Dame Jacqueline Foster also defended the war hero

BBC historian David Olusoga controversially claimed that the prime minister was involved in activities which could today be considered war crimes, slamming both his conduct in Africa and policies towards the Bengal Famine.

Addressing the Oxfordshire Literary Festival in 2018, Mr Olusoga said Britain was entering a period of 'history wars' in which accepted versions of the country's past were being challenged.

'So while I'm personally glad that Churchill overcame Halifax in early 1940 and it was Churchill who faced the Nazis that year and the years that followed, that doesn't mean that he wasn't somebody that wasn't responsible, or largely responsible, for the Bengal famine [of 1943-44],' he said.

'It doesn't mean that he wasn't someone who took part in things we would consider war crimes in Africa. It doesn't mean that his views, the things he espoused, were shocking to members of his Cabinet, never mind to people at the time.

'Both of those things are true. Both of those Churchills exist. We're going to have to accommodate the fact that these things are true, and there are two sides to these stories and we're not good at it.'

BBC News insiders told MailOnline its report on the Bengal Famine made clear Churchill didn't cause the disaster but has been accused by some of making it worse.

A BBC spokesman said: 'The item was the latest in a series looking at Britain's colonial legacy worldwide.

'The series includes different perspectives from around the world, in this case from India, including a survivor from the Bengal famine, as well as Oxford historian Dr Yasmin Khan.

'The report also clearly explained Churchill's actions in India in the context of his Second World War strategy. We believe these are all important perspectives to explore and we stand by our journalism.'

How the Bengal Famine claimed three million lives and sparked a furious debate about whether Churchill was to blame The Bengal Famine of 1943 was one of the worst human disasters in British imperial history, claiming three million lives. The disaster was triggered by a cyclone and flooding in Bengal in 1942, which destroyed crops and infrastructure. In the early stages of the famine the local government denied it existed, and historians accept humanitarian aid was insufficient. Winston Churchill has also been blamed for down-playing the crisis and arguing against re-supplying Bengal to preserve ships and food supplies for the war effort. The Bengal Famine was triggered by a cyclone and flooding in Bengal in 1942, which destroyed crops and infrastructure Secretary of State for India Leopold Amery recorded that Churchill suggested any aid sent would be insufficient because of 'Indians breeding like rabbits'. However, despite his unsavoury comments about Indians, Churchill's defenders insist that he did try to help and delays were a result of conditions during the war. They point out that after receiving news of the spreading food shortages Churchill told his Cabinet he would welcome a statement from Lord Wavell, his new Viceroy of India, about how he planned to ensure the problems were 'dealt with'. He then wrote to the Viceroy in a personal letter: 'Every effort must be made, even by the diversion of shipping urgently needed for war purposes, to deal with local shortages. 'Every effort should be made by you to assuage the strife between the Hindus and Moslems and to induce them to work together for the common good.' According to the Churchill Project: 'There is no evidence that Churchill wished any Indian to starve; on the contrary, he did his best to help them, amidst a war to the death.' The amount of aid increased greatly after the British Indian Army seized control of famine relief from the local government in October 1943. By December, more food arrived after a record rice harvest, and deaths from starvation declined. Even so, more than half of famine-related deaths happened in 1944 after the food crisis had abated, with thousands falling victim to diseases including malaria and cholera. Advertisement

Churchill's legacy under attack: Civil servants claim they 'do not feel comfortable' with a Treasury room named after war leader

By Harry Cole, Deputy Political Editor for the Mail On Sunday

Civil servants have complained to their superiors that they 'do not feel comfortable' with a room in the Treasury being named after Winston Churchill.

Reigniting attacks by Black Lives Matter protesters and Left-wing critics on Britain's wartime hero, some staff at the vast Whitehall department have demanded that its Churchill Room be confined to history.

It was named after the former Prime Minister because he used the room's balcony to give an address to the crowds below on VE Day in 1945.

Civil servants say they 'do not feel comfortable' with a room in the Treasury being named after Winston Churchill (pictured in speaking from his balcony in 1945)

A number of junior officials raised their concerns during an official Treasury equalities team question-and-answer event, sparking panic among senior mandarins.

The Mail on Sunday understands the issue has been raised all the way up to Treasury Permanent Secretary Tom Scholar, but has been met with derision by Ministers.

An insider said: 'This has received a robust no from the politicians but there was a concerted effort to get it going.'

As Chancellor Rishi Sunak explained in a Treasury video released on the 75th anniversary of VE Day in May: 'It is called the Churchill Room because it is the balcony where Winston Churchill stood and addressed the crowds.

'He spoke to a sea of people stretching all the way down Whitehall and into Parliament Square.

'After six years of horror, hardship and grief when so many sacrificed so much, people came together in a collective moment of joy and relief.'

And comparing the situation to the coronavirus pandemic, Mr Sunak added: 'Today we are fighting a very different kind of battle but one thing is the same: we will get through this together.

'As Churchill said from the balcony 75 years ago, 'This is not victory of a party or of any class. It's a victory of the great British nation as a whole.' '

Chancellor Rishi Sunak (pictured) defended the choice of name for the room as it is the balcony where Winston Churchill stood and addressed the crowds in 1945

The row comes after calls to tear down the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square that was defaced during unrest last month.

At the time, Boris Johnson criticised the calls as being the 'height of lunacy'.

The Prime Minister said he would resist any attempt to remove the statue 'with every breath in my body'.

And he described his wartime predecessor as 'one of the country's greatest ever leaders' adding he was 'extremely dubious about the growing campaign to edit or photoshop the entire cultural landscape'.

The Treasury declined to comment.

Cost of Churchill statue madness: London Mayor Sadiq Khan spent 30,000 boarding up heroic PM as well as figures of Mandela and Gandhi

By John Stevens for the Daily Mail

London mayor Sadiq Khan spent more than 30,000 on boarding up statues in Westminster including one of Winston Churchill, it can be revealed.

The monument to the wartime leader was boxed up by Mr Khan after it was daubed with graffiti during Black Lives Matter demonstrations last month.

Underneath Churchill's name, protesters had daubed 'is a racist'.

The Greater London Authority, run by the mayor, put hoardings around three statues in Parliament Square ahead of further protests.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show it cost 10,147 to put a hoarding around the statue of Churchill.

The monument to the wartime leader was boxed up (pictured) by Mr Khan after it was daubed with graffiti during Black Lives Matter demonstrations last month

The Greater London Authority, run by the mayor, put hoardings around three statues in Parliament Square ahead of further protests

A further 21,115 was spent on protecting statues of Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi.

The GLA said it cost 3,050 to remove graffiti in Parliament and Trafalgar squares.

Churchill's statue was boxed up on June 12 but the boarding was removed six days later ahead of a visit by French president Emmanuel Macron.

Boris Johnson said it was 'absurd and shameful' that the monument was at risk of attack, saying Churchill remained a hero for saving the country from 'fascist and racist tyranny'.

Mr Khan last month defended his actions after Home Secretary Priti Patel accused him of failing to stand up to 'thuggery' and demanded the statue be set free.

He said the decision to protect the statue in Parliament Square  and the monuments to Mandela and Gandhi  was a 'wise' precaution.

He said there were fears the London monuments could become a 'flashpoint for violence' involving far-Right protesters, after the toppling of a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol.

Mr Khan has previously pointed out that the statues had been boarded up before, including while Mr Johnson was mayor.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 22, 2020 | 04:58 PM | FRANKFORT

Across the state, KSP posts will have cruisers parked at specific locations, and will be encouraging the public to cover the cruisers with custom Special Olympics Kentucky (SOKY) stickers. For a donation Kentuckians can purchase the stickers at the designated locations and place them on the Trooper's cruiser.





"Special Olympics Kentucky is a very important organization and I am proud that our state troopers are helping raise funds and awareness," said Gov. Andy Beshear. "It is critical that we continue to support non-profits during this pandemic in creative and safe ways."





The event was planned when the annual Special Olympics Law Enforcement Torch Run was canceled due to the ongoing pandemic. Every year, the Torch Run escorts the Special Olympics Flame of Hope to kick off the State Summer Games in Richmond.





"Our agency has had a long-standing partnership with Special Olympics Kentucky," said KSP Commissioner Rodney Brewer. "Even though we could not participate in the Torch Run or the annual summer games, we are excited to help raise funds for this worthwhile cause in a very unique way."





State Troopers will be participating in the effort in conjunction with national law enforcement agencies across the country in an effort to raise awareness and much needed funding for the Special Olympics.





"We're very proud of our long association with the Kentucky State Police and thankful for all of the work they have done over the years on behalf of Special Olympics," said Special Olympics Kentucky President and CEO Trish Mazzoni. "We're excited about 'Cover the Cruiser' continuing this partnership in a way that will both engage the community and help continue to change the lives of our athletes."





You can find additional information about the campaign, and make a donation at the link below.

During the last week of July, the Kentucky State Police is inviting the public to 'Cover the Cruiser' to help support the Kentucky Special Olympics.

On the Net:
Actor Janhvi Kapoor accepts her privileged background and how she has has gained from it. Speaking to journalist Barkha Dutt, Janhvi said she has been extremely lucky.

I havent had to deal with the kind of things that most women have to deal with. Because I do come from a slightly more privileged background and so I have been extremely lucky in the way that I have been treated and the opportunities that I have gotten, she said. Janhvi was joined on the interview by Gunjan Saxena, a former Air Force pilot whom Janhvi plays in her upcoming biopic, Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl.

I dont think I have anything to complain about, but hearing her story, being in a simulated environment, when knowing that shes been in probably these real situations, I dont know if I can say maybe sympathise, but it made me come close to watch it may have been like, and it, of course, broadened my horizon and perspective of what women might be going through, Janhvi added.

Talking about every day sexism that she sometimes has to deal with, Janvhi said that sometimes during narrations, the filmmaker pays more attention, makes eye contact with the male actor. Janhvi said she would earlier try to justify this to herself saying that maybe the male actor had a more important role. But then I realised that maybe its just some sort of subliminal conditioning that is making them do that, she said.

Janhvi said in the interview that she had a very different expectation of Gunjan before meeting her. She said Gunjan didnt think of herself as a hero but only said that she was doing her job. Gunjan, along with Flight Lieutenant Srividya Rajan, was the first Indian women in combat during the Kargil war. The two pilots flew the Cheetah helicopters for casualty evacuation and reconnaissance for which they often flew close to Pakistani positions. It was much before the Indian Air Force commissioned women fighter pilots.

Also read: Before Dil Bechara, did you spot Sanjana Sanghi in Hindi Medium and Fukrey Returns? Watch videos

Recently, Janhvi shared three stills from the film and wrote, Proud to bring to you the story of Indias first woman Air Force Officer to go to war. A journey that I hope will inspire you the way that it has inspired me. GunjanSaxena - The Kargil Girl is landing on 12th August to your #Netflix screens! The first still shows Janhvi standing proudly in uniform, the second still shows her giving her onscreen father Pankaj a warm hug and the third shows Angad Bedi in an army uniform.

Directed by Sharan Sharma, the film also stars Viineet Kumar, Manav Vij and Ayesha Raza in pivotal roles.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Iran's health minister said that a vaccine for the novel coronavirus developed by the Iranian scientists has "successfully" passed the initial tests, Tasnim news agency reported on Thursday.

Saeed Namaki said Iran has achieved a remarkable success in producing the COVID-19 vaccine.

"It has passed the initial tests and we hope to reach promising stages," said Namaki.

He also said that two local pharmaceutical companies will supply hospitals across the country with Remdesivir, an antiviral drug used for the treatment of COVID-19.

Namaki also expressed Iran's readiness for cooperation with regional nations in the fight against the disease.

Iran's confirmed COVID-19 cases has hit 281,413 as of Wednesday, with 14,853 total fatalities so far.

Iran announced its first cases of COVID-19 on Feb. 19.

Iran and China have offered mutual help in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. In mid-February, at the early stage of the coronavirus outbreak in China, Iran lit up the Tehran Azadi (Liberty) Tower to show its solidarity with China, and donated 3 million masks to China. In return, China has delivered several shipments of medical supplies to Iran.

On Feb. 29, a five-member Chinese medical team visited Iran for a month-long mission to help Iran fight the pandemic.
(Photo : Pixabay)

According to the study, a new photograph taken by Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory is the first image of a "very young version of our own sun" surrounded by two gaseous planets leader who took the picture.

Just 300 light-years distant, this baby sun and its two giant gas planets are relatively similar to galactic standards.

The snapshot - published Wednesday - was taken by Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory in the Atacama Desert in Chile.

Alexander Bohn of Leiden University in the Netherlands told the Associated Press that the latest research he led, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters on Wednesday, contained a photo of a "highly exciting" discovery.

What makes this group shot so appealing is that it's "a very young version of our own sun," Bohn said. "This is the first time astronomers were able to capture such a shot," he added in an email.

The observations may help scientists better understand how our solar system is evolving.

Alien multi-planet system

Astronomers usually validate worlds around other stars by observing the starlight momentarily but regularly dim, suggesting an orbiting planet. Thousands of planets in our Milky Way galaxy have been established through these indirect observations.

Observing such so-called exoplanets directly is much harder and less common for a telescope. It's even rarer to see two of them immediately around the same light. According to the observatory, only two multi-planet solar systems were discovered using the direct approach, both with stars which are very different from our own.

According to NASA figures, just 48 of the 4,183 exoplanets (or only one percent) known to date were specifically imaged.

Direct imaging offers the greatest chance for humanity to detect life outside of our solar system, if it does exist, Bohn said. By seeing the sun through the planets themselves, studying the atmospheres for the molecules and elements that may suggest life is possible.

ALSO READ: Space Mystery: Two Giant Exoplanets Seen Performing 'Gravitational Dance' Away From Earth

The research published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters on Wednesday, July 22, shows "a snapshot of an world somewhat similar to our solar system, but at a much earlier stage of its evolution," Bohn said.

The star - currently known as TYC 8998-760-1 and located in the constellation Musca, or Travel - is barely 17 million years old. Our Sun, by comparison, is 4.5 billion years old.

The two recently discovered gas giants at much greater distance around this young star orbit than Jupiter and Saturn do our planet - taking a hundred thousand years to complete one revolution, or calendar year. They also weigh in masses more massive than our outer planets.

Was it too faint?

Over the past year, the researchers took several photographs of this youthful solar system to check the results while analyzing older evidence. A disc obscured the starlight on the telescope, known as a coronagraph, revealed the two much fainter planets.

Future instruments such as the Extremely Large Telescope of ESO, which is still five years away, will be able to detect even smaller, denser planets. According to the ESO, the main mirror extends 128 feet (39 metres), more than four times the size of the Very Large Telescope, making it the "greatest eye on the sky in the world."

There's currently no proof that this young star has more planets, but "it's definitely probable and maybe they're just too faint," Bohn said.

ALSO READ: Five Unsolved Cosmic Mysteries that Scientists Has Yet To Discover

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs outrage over a Republican legislators verbal assault broadened into an extraordinary moment in the United States House of Representatives on Thursday as she and other Democrats assailed a sexist culture of accepting violence and violent language against women whose adherents include President Donald Trump.

A day after rejecting an offer of contrition from Representative Ted Yoho, a Republican from Florida, for his language during this weeks confrontation on the Capitol steps, Ocasio-Cortez and her colleagues cast the incident as all-too-common behaviour by men, including Trump and other Republicans.

This issue is not about one incident, said Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York City.

It is cultural. It is a culture of lack of impunity, of accepting violence and violent language against women, an entire structure of power that supports that, she said.

The remarkable outpouring, with several female legislators saying they had routinely encountered such treatment during recent years, came in an election year in which polls show women lean decisively against Trump, who has a history of mocking women. Trump was captured in a 2005 audio recording boasting about physically abusing them, and his disparagement of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has included calling her crazy.

Rep @AOC: "I do not need Rep. Yoho to apologize to me. Clearly he does not want to. Clearly when given the opportunity he will not & I will not stay up late at night waiting for an apology from a man who has no remorse over calling women & using abusive language towards women." pic.twitter.com/XKymFh3Oyf  CSPAN (@cspan) July 23, 2020

Representative Barbara Lee, a Democrat, said she had experienced a lifetime of insults, racism and sexism.

Pelosi weighed in at a separate news conference.

Its a manifestation of attitude in our society, really. I can tell you that first-hand, theyve called me names for at least 20 years of leadership, Pelosi said of Republicans.

Do you not have a daughter, do you not have a mother, do you not have a sister, do you not have a wife? Pelosi said.

What makes you think that you can be so, and this is the word I use for them, condescending, in addition to being disrespectful, she said.

In an encounter on Monday witnessed by a reporter from The Hill newspaper, Yoho berated Ocasio-Cortez on the House steps for saying that some of the increased crime in New York during the coronavirus pandemic could be traced to rising unemployment and poverty.

Representative Ted Yoho, a Republican, (right), offered an apology for angrily accosting Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, (left), but denied using a sexist slur [File: AP Photos]

Ocasio-Cortez, a freshman who has made her mark as one of Congresss most outspoken progressives, on the House floor on Thursday described the incident. She said Yoho, one of the Houses most conservative members, put his finger in her face and called her disgusting, crazy and dangerous.

She also told the House that in front of reporters, he called her, and I quote, a f***ing b***h.

According to The Hill, Yoho was coming down the steps on the east side of the Capitol on Monday, having just voted, when he approached Ocasio-Cortez, who was ascending into the building to cast a vote of her own.

In a brief but heated exchange, overheard by a reporter, Yoho told Ocasio-Cortez she was disgusting for suggesting that poverty and unemployment were driving a spike in crime in New York City during the coronavirus pandemic.

You are out of your freaking mind, Yoho told her.

Ocasio-Cortez shot back, telling Yoho he was being rude.

The two then parted ways, according to The Hill. Ocasio-Cortez headed into the building, while Yoho began descending toward the House office buildings. A few steps down, Yoho offered a parting thought to no one in particular.

F***ing b***h, he said, The Hill reported.

Yoho took to the House floor on Wednesday to offer an apology for the abrupt manner of the conversation but denied using a vulgarity to describe her.

Ocasio-Cortez said Yohos apology was insincere. Yohos references to his wife and daughters as he explained his actions during brief remarks on Wednesday actually underscored the problem, she said.

I want to thank him for showing the world that you can be a powerful man and accost women, she said. You can have daughters and accost women without remorse. You can be married and accost women.

More than a dozen other Democrats spoke, mostly women, in remarks that included taunts of House Republicans overwhelmingly white male membership and warnings that the numbers of women legislators will only grow, the Associated Press news service reported.

Were not going away, said Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat.

There is going to be more power in the hands of women across this country, she said.
Photo: Pexels

In what is likely one of the more unusual letters to come across health minister Adrian Dix's desk, porn website YouPorn is offering $100,000 to help build glory holes around the province.

The letter follows yesterday's tips from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, which recommended "choose sexual positions that limit face-to-face contact... use barriers, like walls (e.g., glory holes), that allow for sexual contact but prevent close face-to-face contact."

The advice itself quickly went viral.

To support the creation of more glory holes, YouPorn vice president Charlie Hughes has penned a letter to Dix.

"We applaud the BC Centre for Disease Control's guide for its recommendation of the use of glory holes during intercourse to limit face-to-face contact during sex, in the name of safety," he writes in the letter, which was released publicly.

The porn executive goes on to agree with the provincial health organization about the fact people will and should keep having sex during the pandemic.

"To help provide people with a safe option for engaging in sexual activity, we would like to offer the province of British Columbia a grant of $100K to support the building of glory holes across the province," Hughes continues.
Photo: Serial Productions

Today, the New York Times formally announced that it will be acquiring Serial Productions, the spinoff studio from This American Life led by Julie Snyder, Sarah Koenig, and Neil Drumming. You might know it as the shop that houses, well, Serial, along with the 2017 hit S-Town. (The Wall Street Journal broke this story a few hours ago.)

Thats not all. In addition to the acquisition, the Times announced that it has entered an ongoing creative and strategic alliance with This American Life. This ones a little complicated, so pay close attention: While Serial Productions will now be a New York Times property, This American Life will remain an independent operation, though this strategic alliance means that Serial Productions and This American Life will continue collaborating creatively. This arrangement is distinct for another reason: The longtime public-radio show and podcast will now be collaborating with the Times on co-marketing and advertising-sales efforts.

And thats also not all. Squeezed into the press release is word of Serial Productions latest project, slated to drop on July 30: Nice White Parents, which features Chana Joffe-Walt examining the role that white parents play in the shaping of public education.

Okay, lets go back to the acquisition. This is a stunning development, even though its been in the hopper for a while. The Wall Street Journals Ben Mullin first drew attention to the possibility back in January, when he reported that Serial Productions was shopping around for a sale. The Times was the lone company he cited as a potential buyer. The possibility was raised again in a column by the Times own Ben Smith, published in early March, which reported that the studio was for sale at a $75 million valuation, though it was expected to go for much less. (Actual details of the deal size were not disclosed at this time. Believe me, I asked.)

I was, however, able to jump on the phone a few hours ago with Julie Snyder, Serial Productions CEO; Sam Dolnick, the Times assistant managing editor; and Stephanie Preiss, the Times VP of audio and TV, to talk about the development. Heres what I learned: To begin with, the deal apparently came about organically, as the Times, working off the blockbuster successes of The Daily, sought to figure out what heights to climb next. We have been enormous admirers of This American Life and Serial for a long time, said Dolnick. He went on to say:

Over the past year or so, as audio became more important to the Times, we started thinking: What could this look like? Whats the biggest swing we could take? So we started to talk with Ira Glass about This American Life and what kind of partnership that could look like. He pretty quickly introduced us to Sarah and Julie, and we started talking about possible arrangements, and it was clear from the beginning that we had a shared sense of journalistic values, a shared sense of mission, and the same kind of drive to tell these stories right now. So we tried to figure out the right way to tell these stories together, and this ended up being the way.

When I asked if This American Life was ever on the table as an acquisition, it was a flat no. Ira made it pretty clear that it was his company, that it was going really well, and that he wasnt interested in selling, said Dolnick.

For Serial Productions, the decision to sell fit neatly into its philosophical priorities. Snyder pointed to S-Town as a starting point in the way the team thought about what it wanted to do moving forward. It felt exactly like something we wanted to be doing more of, she said. We wanted to keep on doing the Serial podcast, but we also felt like there were a lot of different types of stories that we wanted to pursue.

But Snyder also noted that the team didnt create Serial Productions with the typical intent of handling it as a conventional capitalistic enterprise. We didnt have start-up entrepreneurial visions of saying, We want to be pumping out podcasts, she said. We also werent the kind of thing where we were like, Lets set ourselves up to be acquired.

Their vision was to be a story-first company, but the managerial mechanics involved in expanding within that vision were constraining. Long having operated as a one project at a time kind of team, its members wanted to set things up such that they could publish more than one show every other year.

Beyond that, Snyder simply didnt have much interest in running a company. Its not where I come from, you know? she said. I feel like Im really good at supporting reporters and producers and helping them get the shows, but actually thinking about the company strategically was the type of thing that people would suggest to me, and I would feel like it all made sense, but I would always wonder, Isnt there someone else that could be thinking about this for us?

Hence the decision to sell to the Times, which would provide enough infrastructure so that she wouldnt have to worry about it anymore.

Once over at the Times, Serial Productions will be largely independent from the rest of the Times audio operation for now. Were thinking about Serial Productions as being adjacent to the Times newsroom, said Dolnick. Julie and her team have the next three to four projects already in flight  they have a full plate, and theyre moving fast  and their stories are going to come from the This American Life pool. The Daily and the Times audio team, on the other hand, are pulling more from the Times newsroom.

He added, Operationally, theyre going to be distinct for a while  As the partnership unfolds, I think were all excited about different kinds of collaborations that we can do, but thats not day one.

Theres one more piece worth exploring: whether this acquisition is part of an effort leading up to some sort of new paid audio product. The possibility of this was raised in Smiths column from March, when he highlighted a strategic idea among some Times executives that a Serial Productions acquisition, bundled together with The Daily, could serve as the basis for something akin to the popular and revenue-generating NYT Cooking app. An HBO of Podcasts, as it were. The fact that the Times had made another audio-centric acquisition earlier this year  of Audm, a subscription audio platform that produces high-quality performed reads of magazine articles  only further supports the possibility that we might see such a gambit.

Stephanie Preiss, the Times VP of audio and TV, suggested that the value of Times audio is being best realized as a free product  at least for now. I think what The Daily has taught us is that audio can help drive our consumer-subscription business by acting as an entry point for people to Times journalism  We are very interested in how we can add fuel to that fire, Preiss said. At the same time, audio is a great advertising business for us, and its a growing business.

So there you have it: The legendary studio behind the one of the biggest podcasts of all time is going to the company that publishes one of the other biggest podcasts of all time. And while it might not end up amounting to some sort of paid audio product, this move nonetheless deeply contributes to the Times increasing power in the space. We want to establish the Times as a real center of gravity for audio journalism, news, and storytelling, said Dolnick. Our goal is not to change Serials DNA at all. Our goal is to help them do more of what they want to do  For the people who love Serial  and there millions of them  the idea here is to have more Serials.

I should note: This deal comes during a year thats already rich with podcast acquisitions. In February, Spotify bought The Ringer, Bill Simmonss podcast-first digital-media company, in a deal reportedly valued up to $250 million. In May, the longtime celebrity-to-podcast-pipeline facilitator PodcastOne was bought by a sorta-kinda music-streaming platform called LiveXLive for $18 million in an all-stock deal. And earlier this month, Stitcher switched hands from Scripps to SiriusXM in what has been the biggest podcast deal to date, at $320 million.

The volume of acquisitions is such that, with each deal, there tends to be a wave of uneasy groans and jokes throughout the podcast community about how consolidated and corporatized podcasting is becoming.

But Id argue that acquiring Serial Productions is perhaps the most justifiable of all the recent deals. That organization occupied a complicated place within the context of the industry. Its a legendary creative studio in what has become an incredibly hot market, and while there were increasing incentives to sell in order to capitalize on what may be a fleeting moment  and Serial Productions has every right to cash in on an industry it helped forge  it was also a situation in which there werent many potential buyers who both have deep pockets and a compatible editorial culture. Who else is out there? Spotify? SiriusXM?

In the Times, it found a logical fit. The Gray Lady offered a home thats in line with Serial Productions editorial and journalistic values. The Times is a company that actually adds to Serial Productions brand, and perhaps most important, one that insulates it from the anxieties of wherever the Apple-Spotify podcast-platform war  to the extent that it exists, which it does, but not in the way I think people traditionally assume  goes.

Plus, its good validation. In our hypercapitalist American society, it is the unfortunate case that we tend to overemphasize acquisitions as successful legacy-sealing outcomes for any enterprise (whether or not its actually valuable), while flattening out the achievement of simply being successfully independent (shout-out to Radiotopia). Serial Productions  creator of a phenomenon that radically accelerated the growth of an entire medium  wanted to do more than it could independently. Now, it can.
Caleb Rodrigo never imagined starting his second year of university living at home with his parents.

The Queens University biology student, who spent his first year overseas, had planned to move into a residence building in Kingston this fall. Even as the coronavirus began to rear its head, he imagined moving into his dorm.

In the beginning of the summer, I wanted to go  like, desperately wanted to go, Rodrigo told the Star. But as the pandemic charged on, and he learned that classes would likely be entirely online, he and his parents started having tough conversations about September.

Why pay the extra thousands of dollars to go there and do the same thing that you could do at home? he asked.

As COVID-19 has forced post-secondary classes online and fears percolate about the virus spreading in congregate settings, students and schools alike face tough questions about on- and off-campus housing at the start of an unusual school year.

Schools are aiming to safeguard their residences, as many students are questioning whether or not to return. Some have been forced to adjust their housing plans, or have thorny conversations with roommates about expectations.

In Rodrigos case, his mom is a health-care worker, who is acutely aware of the risks of the virus. But if he stays home and gives away his residence spot, will he be able to move to school in January if things get better?

That question hangs overhead, as Rodrigo has resolved to stay in Ajax with his parents and study online for at least first semester. Hes asked friends if he could bunk with them in their off-campus house, if in-person labs start in the new year and he cant clinch a dormitory space.

Samuel Russell, an English student one year ahead of Rodrigo at Queens, plans to return soon to a house near campus with four roommates. After struggling to focus on an online course from his familys home in Barrie this summer, he said a deciding factor was being around his friends  other students who he hopes will keep him motivated until in-person classes resume.

The group has discussed, briefly, how theyll manage their social lives this fall. The plan is to restrict social gatherings in their house, Russell said, to avoid putting themselves or others at risk.

There probably will be some parties that I attend, because Im going to live my life still. Im torn about it. Its more depending on what other people think, people my own age, he said.

Im not that concerned. I know that I dont have a compromised immune system, Im not interacting with a lot of people that are at risk, Russell later added.

While the vast majority of deaths from COVID-19 have been among older generations, in Ontario alone, 11,545 people between the ages of 20 and 39 are known to have contracted the coronavirus as of July 22.

For students moving into residence this fall, a quintessential scene of early university years will look different than it has in past.

York University is opening residences with reduced capacity, and holding units in case they need them for self-isolation or quarantine. York and the University of Toronto are both doing away with roommates, offering rooms in most cases as single occupancy. U of Ts Mississauga campus, on its website, still says it highly encourages all students to live in residence  and assures cleaning of high touch areas will be more frequent.

Some first years are aware their cohort will have a different experience. Taissa Martschenko had been looking forward to what she called the classic first year  living with a roommate in a Queens dorm, and making a slew of new friends.

Early in the pandemic, when it was uncertain whether residences would open, she and four other first-years sought an off-campus house instead. Martschenko has faith that social media can still help connect with new friends.

Its just making the best out of what we can do, she said.

While many residences plan to open, details are being ironed out. The UTM site promises details yet to come for students who prefer to move into residence in January, as well as how early arrival and quarantine will work for international students  which constitute around 21 per cent of U of Ts overall student population.

Certain questions are beyond schools ability to answer: the federal immigration department this week said students with visas issued after March 18 wont be allowed to enter Canada yet, and those with older permits must prove their travel isnt discretionary.

Arie Verheul van de Ven, a masters student who had been studying music composition in the Netherlands, says hes putting his degree off for a year in response to COVID-19, and staying at home with his parents in Toronto.

I was enjoying living there, and learning there, but it just doesnt make sense, he told the Star, pointing out that hed still be paying full tuition though his courses would be online.

Several postsecondary schools have refunded deposits or released students from residence contracts in light of the pandemic.

But for students who forgo on-campus living for the rental market, breaking a lease can be dicier. Toronto landlord and tenant lawyer Caryma Sad said her office has fielded dozens of calls from students since the pandemic hit, concerned about their housing arrangements for the fall  most were looking to get out of lease contracts.

Im getting inquiries from people who are wanting to break leases either because schooling will now be online, or they may just prefer to stay put back at home with their parents and not go back into a student-housing type scenario, Sad said, adding that there was no blanket answer to their concerns.

She anticipates that if cases of students trying to break leases reach the Landlord and Tenant Board, a key argument may be whether their contracts were frustrated by unforeseen events outside of everyones control  a prediction that Downtown Legal Services lawyer Benjamin Ries agreed with.

While Sad noted that most frustration cases in the past have dealt with issues like fires or condemned buildings, Ries pointed to a recent board case out of London, Ont.

The case, heard in May, involved two students who argued that with classes likely moving online, they no longer needed to move to London for school.

Board member Diane Wade disagreed with their argument, which she characterized as essentially one of contract frustration. In order for a contract to be frustrated, Wade wrote in the ruling, an unexpected event must have occurred that wasnt self-induced or the fault of one of the parties  and the event in question must drastically change the nature of the contract, so its impossible to meet its obligations, not just difficult or expensive.

While residences are making plans to ensure proper distancing, some students are moving into more populated units as a result of the pandemic.

Paige Gelfer, who studies at U of T, had been living in a one-person basement suite since last September  a unit shed intended to keep at least until she completes her degree next year. But when COVID-19 restrictions took hold, she began spending more time than ever on her own  which took a toll on her mental health.

Gelfer hadnt loved living solo, but pre-COVID, said she was out of the unit enough to justify staying, given her low rent. The isolation of a pandemic changed that  shes now made plans to move in with a friend in September.

For whatever extra, a couple hundred extra a month? To keep my sanity is probably worth it.

Victoria Gibson is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star covering affordable housing. Her reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. Reach her via email: victoriagibson@thestar.ca
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The impact of Covid-19, this year, has been felt in South Africa across multiple industries. From hospitality and tourism , the shift to online education and employment, people around the world have seen how Covid-19 has changed what once was normal.

last covers, which refers to a tweet from a former Cosmopolitan SA employee sharing the first and last Cosmopolitan SA magazine covers.



great content, which refers to online users sharing their thoughts on the content and information that the magazine provided.



influencer issues, which refers to some online users sharing how the influencer edition of the magazine was one of their favourites.



love & support, which refers to a tweet from @jennifer_su who shared a post remembering special moments that she had with the team.

Trending themes on social media for #CosmoAppreciationTweet between 1 April and 14 July 2020 click to enlarge

@CosmopolitanSA helped me discover so much of my femininity and sexuality as a young, curious, growing woman. I was so scared to ask so I read. My collection of cosmo magazines at home is something I treasure. Thanks guys. Its been real. #COSMOappreciationTweet  Ncumisa Mayila (@ManandoSmiles) April 30, 2020

Global social reach on #CosmoxZozi on 22 April 2020 click to enlarge

Global heatmap of news media mentions on Vogue Italia between 1 and 30 April 2020 click to enlarge

Sentiment on global news media mentions on Vogue Italia between 1 and 30 April 2020 click to enlarge

Instagram, which refers to the magazine using their Instagram account to share how they created this particular photoshoot without Bella Hadid or the stylist physically present in the same room



FaceTime, which refers to the platform used for the photoshoot in order to still maintain social and physical distancing measures.



fashion industry, which refers to what the new normal could look like in a post-Covid time for this particular industry.

Trending themes on Vogue Italia in global news media between 1 and 30 April 2020 click to enlarge

Covid-19 also highlighted the need for change in certain sectors, and all things online and digital have been accelerated throughout the pandemic. One such sector to have experienced this rapid change is the media industry. With a number of publications announcing closures or a move to digital, Meltwater, the global leader in media monitoring, tracked and analysed news and social media to explore the impact that Covid-19 has had on this particular industry. The answer, the data seems to indicate, is not the end of print media, but rather, a new normal for the media industry.In April 2020, South Africans said goodbye to independent media house Associated Media Publishing (AMP), following challenges it faced due to Covid-19. This resulted in the closure of magazines such asandSouth Africans shared their appreciation for the much-lovedmagazine, with online users sharing their #CosmoAppreciationTweet posts after news of the magazines closure.Trending themes that emerged from online users engaging with #CosmoAppreciationTweet include:While the closure of the print magazine was a sad one for many, the overall sentiment surrounding thename was predominantly positive with 85% of social media mentions on #CosmoAppreciationTweet highlighting the positive impact the magazine had on its readers.The goodbye from the beloved magazine was a bittersweet moment as the last person to grace the magazines cover was Miss Universe 2019, Zozibini Tunzi.Shared on social media on 22 April 2020, the hashtag #CosmoxZozi garnered a global social media reach of over 28 million people, with top posters, by reach, engaging with the hashtag including @boity and @DJZinhle on Twitter and Cosmopolitan SA on Facebook.Whilewent out in fashionable style, the impact of Covid-19 on print media has seen more local magazines close their chapters or make a move to being strictly online. But with social and physical distancing measures still in place, not only in South Africa but also globally, what could be next for remaining publications?In April 2020, instead of using models and celebrities for its cover,opted to have a plain white cover for the first time in the history of the magazine.Over 1,000 global news articles mentioned Vogue Italia during the month of April, with Italy naturally dominating much of news media mentions, followed by the United States of America and Russia.Much of the global news media mentions on Vogue Italia began to question the impact that the coronavirus has had on the fashion industry, and how that has translated into fashion magazines, such as. This particular edition of the magazine, however, gained an overall positive response from the global news community. Articles mentioned how this magazine cover managed to speak volumes, using the colour white as a symbol of hope, to honour frontline workers during this time, and a blank canvas to determine the new normal in a post-Covid world.s magazine cover was not the only topic of discussion in the news during April. With self quarantine and stay-at-home regulations in place, the magazine also enlisted supermodel, Bella Hadid, for a photoshoot created and styled via FaceTime.Some of the trending themes that emerged from this particularmagazine issue include:While Covid-19 may have impacted the print industry in a way that sees a faster move to digital media, it has also created an opportunity for a new normal within the industry that sees creativity still shine in its print pages - both online and offline. Publications have been hit hard by the global pandemic, but it has also seen print media take on creativity in a fresh way that will truly change the industry.With this change, though, comes another digital innovation within the print industry. Meltwater is now providing print and broadcast content, monitoring and tracking to the African market. This allows Meltwater to provide a complete 360 solution that covers 1,150 print and 70 broadcast sources in Southern Africa, a true game changer for the remaining print publications looking to gain better insight into the impact of their content.For a free demo of the Meltwater platform and ad monitoring capabilities, click here With 20 years of experience in the field of online media monitoring, Meltwater is a global leader in media intelligence and social analytics solutions, helping to bridge the gap between public relations, communications and marketing departments with an all-in-one solution powered by AI-driven insights. Over 30,000 of the worlds most respected brands rely on Meltwater to help inform their marketing and communications strategies and executive decision making.With over 55 offices across six continents, Meltwater is a truly global partner with local customer success teams. Meltwater also supports the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST), a nonprofit organisation devoted to nurturing future generations of entrepreneurs.For more information, follow Meltwater on Twitter LinkedIn or visit www.meltwater.com


Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan tested positive for the coronavirus almost two weeks back. And soon after Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Aaradhya Bachchan too tested positive for the same. Even though Amitabh and Abhishek were shifted to the hospital instantly, Aishwarya was admitted after a couple of days. News reports earlier today suggested that Amitabh Bachchan has almost recovered and a few news articles even claimed that he has tested negative for COVID-19.





However, the actor took to Twitter to negate all such rumours and said, this news is incorrect, irresponsible, fake and an incorrigible LIE !! Well, its great how Big B is clearing the air around his health from time to time on social media keeping his fans aware of the truth.





.. this news is incorrect , irresponsible , fake and an incorrigible LIE !! https://t.co/uI2xIjMsUU  Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) July 23, 2020





Keep watching this space for the latest updates from Bollywood.




The Senate on Wednesday moved to review an agreement signed by the federal government in 2015 with some power generating companies.

The companies are Azura and ACU gas.

This was sequel to a lengthy deliberation on the report of the Senate committee on power on addressing Nigerias power sector problems.

The lawmakers set up a team of legal experts to liaise with the executive to review details of the agreement. This was after they learned that the country allegedly loses between $30 million to $33 million to Azura for power generated  whether it is distributed or not.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported how the Azura power plant was set up to benefit from billions in give funding.

There has also been apprehension in government circles over the sovereign guarantee given to Azura-Edo IPP, a power-generating private company, by the Buhari administration in 2015 to enable it secure a $237 million loan to finance its 450MW project in Edo State, The Cable newspaper had reported.

According to the report, the country will have to pay Azura $1.2 billion if it decides to exit the Pull Call Option Agreement (PCOA).

Already, Nigeria is obligated to pay between $30 million and $33 million monthly to Azura for power generated, even if not dispatched  transmitted through the national grid by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

Nigeria also reportedly pays roughly N700 million monthly as the exchange rate differential in the deal with Azura.

In addition to paying for power generated (or not), Nigeria is also footing a yearly N5 billion bill for gas supply to Azura, even though the cost of gas is already part of the tariff approved for the plant.

Concerned legislators

The chairman of the Senate committee, Gabriel Suswam, brought the details of the deal to the notice of the Senate during the deliberations.

Lawmakers took turns to condemn the deplorable state of Nigerias power sector and many called for annulment of the privatisation of the power sector. But Mr Suswam noted that the country will lose up to $1.2 billion if that is done.

He explained that President Muhammadu Buhari signed the deal with Azura to generate 450 megawatts of electricity and that the country was currently losing $30 million every month to the firms for power.

The implication of the agreement is that even if we are unable to take that 450 megawatts, we will still pay full price for that 450 megawatts and that is what has been happening. The agreement is called take or pay.

The same thing for the ACU Gas which is a gas agreement signed with Calabar Power Plant and it is guaranteed by the World Bank.

Azura has about three generators. If only one is producing, it is not their fault; it is because TCN cannot evacuate the power. They are generating; they are ready to give power but unfortunately, we are not prepared. We signed that agreement and so if they can only give 100MW, we pay for the full 450MW; the same thing for ACU gas.

The way we are so tied is that the danger in Azura and ACU gas is that if we default, they can draw down about $1.2 billion immediately from our foreign reserve.

The way out is for the Senate, the executive and the affected firms to address the injurious agreement but not breach it to avoid the scary fine of about $1.2 billion, he said.

Recommendations, resolutions

Also in his report, Mr Suswam said since the privatised power sector is currently insolvent, the government should use its 40 per cent share to get it solvent by providing meters for the DISCOs to distribute to electricity consumers .

This, he said, will help the government overcome monthly subsidies cum interventions as it has been injecting into the sector within the last seven years, totalling N1.5 trillion now .

The Senate, thereafter, adopted recommendations made by the Suswam-led Committee.

The lawmakers also resolved to review the Electric Power Sector Reform Act, 2005 to pave way for a new and more dynamic electricity Act that will consolidate all electricity related laws, consolidate the roles of the regulators and policy makers, bridge existing gaps in the legal and regulatory frameworks.

The Senate adopted a recommendation on cost reflective tariffs which should only be implemented when majority of electricity consumers have been metered .

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As a way of bridging the gap in remittances to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), the Senate urged Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government (MDAs) to make provision for payment of all outstanding debts and liabilities owed to DISCOs, as well as accommodate budgetary provision for anticipated consumption for the 2021 Appropriation year.

Kicking against the bill on criminalising estimated billing, the Senate called for the immediate removal of the increased custom duties of 35 per cent to allow Meter Asset Providers (MAP) clear meters stuck at the port.

Also, it said the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission will be empowered to carry out its functions in a way that guarantees that it is not distorted. This, it added, is to curb political interference.

It also called on the federal government to consider recruiting 320 additional officials for the Nigeria Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA) to carry out technical inspection, testing and certification of all categories of electrical installation across parts of the country, as well as provide nationwide metering inspection services.
The rise of India means a rise in trade opportunities with a nation that you can trust

In what is being seen as a veiled barb at China amid growing Indo-US strategic proximity, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday told American investors that India is a country they can trust and that both India and the United States are natural partners and two vibrant democracies with shared values , even as he donned the hat of investment salesman and made a fervent appeal for even more foreign investment from the US in various sectors in India including healthcare, energy, infrastructure, insurance, defence and space, and civil aviation.

Earlier US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo too slammed China for bullying its Himalayan neighbours obviously referring to the recent India-China standoff on Ladakh.

PM Modi reminded the American investors that in the middle of COVID, India has attracted foreign investment of more than 20 billion dollars between April and July, 2020, adding that India is country with openness in people and governance and that it was the best time to invest in India. Delivering the keynote address through video-conference at the India Ideas Summit organised by the US-India Business Council, PM Modi declared, May the India-America friendship grow further! Tongue-in-cheek, PM Modi told the US investors, I have given you a few options and that too without any consultancy fees.

But sounding a note of caution, the Prime Minister said, I firmly believe that our approach to the future must primarily be a more human-centric one. Our growth agenda must place the poor and vulnerable at the core. Ease of Living is as important asEase of Business. Recent experience has taught us that the global economy has been too focused on efficiency and optimisation. Efficiency is a good thing. But, on the way, we forgot to focus on something equally important. That is resilience against external shocks. It has taken a global pandemic to remind us how important resilience is. He reminded the audience, India is contributing towards a prosperous and resilient world through the clarion call of an Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India). And, for that, we await your partnership!

Wooing American investors, PM Modi said, The rise of India means a rise in trade opportunities with a nation that you can trust ... Today, there is global optimism towards India. This is because India offers a perfect combination of openness, opportunities and options. Let me elaborate. India celebrates openness in people and in governance. Open minds make open markets. Open markets lead to greater prosperity. These are principles on which both India and the USA agree.

He added, Investment is the best show of confidence. ... FDI inflows in Indiain 2019-20 were 74 billion dollars. This is an increase of 20 percent from the year before that. Friends in USIBC inform that pledged investment from the US has already crossed40 billion dollars this year! Also see what has happened even during the ongoing pandemic. In the middle of COVID, India has attracted foreign investment of more than 20 billion dollars between April and July 2020!

The Prime Minister further said, For this vision, there are few better partners than the United States of America. India and the USA are two vibrant democracies with shared values. We are natural partners. The US-India friendship has scaled many heights in the past. Now it is time our partnership plays an important role in helping the world bounce back faster after the pandemic. American investors often look out for the perfect timing to enter a sector or a country. To them, I would like to say: there has never beena better time to invest in India!

Making a pitch for India in the connectivity and IT sector, he said, India is emerging as a land of opportunities. Let me give you one example of the tech sector. Recently, an interesting report came out in India. It saidfor the first time ever, there are more rural internet users than even urban internet users.Imagine the scale! There are about half a billion active internet users in India now. Half a billion connected people. Does this sound huge to you? Hold your breath. Because, there are over half a billion more people who are being connected.

On the Agriculture sector, he said, The options to invest in India are extensive. India invites you to invest in the hard-work of our farmers. India has done historic reforms in the agriculture sector recently. ... the best time to tap investment opportunities in Indian agriculture sector is now! On the health care sector, Mr. Modi told US investors, India invites you to invest in healthcare. The Healthcare sector in India is growing faster than 22 percent every year. ... India and the US have already built a robust partnership in the Pharma sector. To achieve scale and speed, now is the best time to expand your investment in Indian health-care sector!

Seeking US investment in the civil aviation sector as well as defence and space, PM Modi remarked, Civil Aviation is another area of great potential growth. The top private Indian airlines plan to include over a thousand new aircraft over the coming decade. To give flight to your aviation targets, this is an ideal time to invest in the Indian aviation sector. He added, India invites you to invest in defence and space. We are raising the FDI cap for investment in defence sector to 74 percent.

On the infrastructure as well as finance and insurance fronts, PM Modi told American investors, India invites you to invest in infrastructure. Our nation is witnessing the largest infrastructure creation drive in our history. Come, be a partner in building housing for millions, or building roads, highways and ports in our nation. India invites you to invest in finance and insurance. India has raised FDI cap for investment in insurance to 49 percent. Now 100 percent FDI is permitted for investment in insurance intermediaries.
The woman has not cut her hair in 64 years

An 83-year-old Vietnamese woman Nguyen Thi Dinh from Ben Tre Province reportedly stopped cutting her hair when she was 19 and the hair now measures 6 meters in length.

The python-shaped hair came as a result of Nguyens bad hair day at a salon.

She alleges that she started experiecing severe headaches after she cut her hair for the first time at 19. The headaches were so bad her parents took her to see a doctor but even prescribed treatment didnt work.

It wasnt until when her hair started growing longer again that the headaches went away since then, she has refrained from cutting it ever since.

Since then I have stopped cutting my hair, and as it grew back, my disease gradually improved. Strangely, when I washed my hair, my head started hurting again. So I stopped washing my hair completely and didnt let my hair touch water, Dinh recently told Tinmoi.vn.

Her hair became harder to manage as it grew longer and she had to start bundling it in dreadlocks.

At over 6 meters long, the hair resembles a python. Although the hair on her head is now grey, most of the long snake is now brown, a palpable memory of her younger days.

Nguyen Thi Dinh, an 83-year-old woman from Vietnams Ben Tre Province, allegedly stopped cutting her hair when she was 19, which explains why it measures 6 meters in length and is shaped like a python.

Just a week after Indian man Doddapalliah made international news headlines with his 7.3-meter-long-hair, which he claimed he had never even trimmed, we feature the story of a Vietnamese pensioner who insists that she hasnt cut or even shampooed her locks in the last 64 years.

As it grew longer, Nguyen Thi Dinhs hair became harder to manage, so she bundled it in a thick dreadlock that now, at over 6 meters long, resembles a python. Although the hair on her head is now grey, most of the long snake is now brown, a palpable memory of her younger days.

In 1990, Nguyen Thi Dinh asked permission to move into the Buddhist Hue Phuoc temple, where she has been living ever since. She became a vegetarian and gradually eliminated all but one meal throughout the day, started reciting Buddhist mantras and adopted a very frugal lifestyle. All this has reportedly helped her maintain her health, both physical and mental, even at the age of 83.

Her hair continues to grow at a rate of about 10 cm a year but she may never break the Guinness Record for the worlds longest hair.

We reported the story of Doddapalliah, a 95-year-old man from India who has reportedly never once cut his hair and it is now 24-feet-long (7.3 meters).

At his age, his hair poses a hindrance to his movement but rather than cut it, he asks for help from people around to help him tie it.

He and many people in his home town of Molakalmuru, Chitradurga district consider him a human deity he hasnt cut his hair in nearly a century for fear of losing his status as a human god.

***

Source: TheGuardian
The palatial mansions in New York City and Florida owned by Jeffrey Epstein, where the notorious financier was accused of running an elaborate sex-trafficking scheme involving underage girls, will be listed for sale for a combined $110 million.

The homes include Mr. Epsteins townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a seven-story, 28,000-square-foot residence near Central Park that is one of the largest single-family homes in New York. On the market for $88 million, it would be the largest recorded townhouse sale in the citys history.

Along with his Florida home, a nine-bedroom property on the Intracoastal Waterway in Palm Beach, Fla., the two sites are the first in Mr. Epsteins vast real estate portfolio to be listed after he hanged himself in a Manhattan jail cell nearly a year ago.

Image Mr. Epstein hanged himself last year in a federal jail in Manhattan. Credit... New York State Sex Offender Registry, via Associated Press

The Palm Beach property is listed for sale for nearly $22 million.

The proceeds will go to Mr. Epsteins estate, which recently opened a compensation fund for his alleged victims. His estate is valued at more than $600 million.
The Robinhood investing app has taken the world by storm, attracting millions of people to start putting some money directly into the stock market. It's great news that so many Americans who had never invested before are dipping their toes in now. However, some of the choices that these new investors are making seem questionable at best, and some of the most popular Robinhood stocks are extremely risky.

Many investors who want to get greater diversification and reduce their risks do so by buying exchange-traded funds rather than solely picking individual stocks. Many of these funds are built to match major market indexes or reflect the moves of whole industries.

However, even among these diversified ETFs, there are those that can be just as speculative and risky as some individual companies stocks. If you look at the three most popular ETFs on Robinhood right now, you'll quickly see the extent to which many users of the app are making bets on a single momentum-based trend -- and leaving themselves exposed to significant losses if that trend doesn't continue.

Most Popular ETFs on Robinhood Number of Robinhood Investors Owning the ETF YTD Return Direxion Daily S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production Bull 2x (NYSEMKT:GUSH) 156,647 (97%) United States Oil Fund (NYSEMKT:USO) 154,165 (71%) ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil (NYSEMKT:UCO) 145,493 (84%)

Big bets on Big Oil

All three of these ETFs are tightly tied to the energy markets, which have experienced extremely volatile swings in 2020. Over the past several years, prices of crude oil, natural gas, and other energy products have moved sharply lower, reflecting the expanded supply created by greater production from shale oil and gas plays. Even the efforts of OPEC nations during the late 2010s to stabilize prices had limited impact, and the lower crude prices that resulted left some of the more marginal players in the industry on the brink of collapse.

The COVID-19 pandemic introduced a huge disruption into an already unstable energy market. The result was an unprecedented level of price movement, with futures prices for West Texas Intermediate crude even going negative for a brief period due to a lack of storage space for the glut of oil. Those price moves crushed most energy stocks, and left many ETF investors with substantial losses connected to the poor performance of companies across the sector.

Since then, though, oil prices have recovered somewhat, climbing back above the $40 per barrel mark. That hasn't been enough to get most energy stocks anywhere near back to where they were at the end of 2019, but the rally has nevertheless been strong. Robinhood investors who only recently got into the oil market have in some cases seen significant gains.

High risk for Robinhood investors

However, it's important to understand that all three of these ETFs carry a lot of risk. They're all related to the energy market, but are exposed to it in different ways:

The Direxion fund targets an index of oil and gas exploration and production companies. It then provides leveraged exposure, with the goal of providing double the daily return of the underlying index. With index components that include not only the biggest energy giants in the world but also small niche players in key areas, the volatility from this 2x-leveraged ETF is considerable.

United States Oil Fund has a simpler mission: to match the price changes of crude oil. Yet because of the disruptions in the futures markets, U.S. Oil Fund had to change its methodology. That introduced new potential for tracking error, and the ETF's returns year to date haven't matched up well with the behavior of spot crude prices.

The ProShares ETF is somewhat similar to U.S. Oil Fund in that it uses futures contracts to give investors exposure to the price of oil. However, the ProShares ETF is 2x-leveraged, providing even bigger gains when prices move in the right direction -- and bigger losses when they don't.

Moreover, these ETFs generally have expense ratios that are considerably higher than what you'd get from a typical index fund. Expenses of as much as 1.04% for the Direxion fund mean that the longer that Robinhood investors hold these funds, the more they lose to cover the fees paid to those who run them.

Robinhood investors: Be careful with these ETFs

As long as oil prices continue to rise, then there's a good chance that these three top Robinhood ETFs will keep gaining ground. However, investors in these funds should proceed with extreme caution. For those looking for less speculative ways to invest, there are plenty of strong ETF picks to consider instead.
A murder suspect at the center of a standoff Thursday with Harris County sheriff's deputies was found dead in a Cypress-area home with a self-inflicted wound, according to authorities.

Christopher Michael Julian, 27, was accused of gunning down a 29-year-old father inside a Magnolia home late Wednesday night. Deputies had been searching for the man Thursday at a home in the 15200 block of Vincennes Oak in the Cypress area, where an unidentified person fired multiple gunshots at deputies.

Deputies did not return fire and were not injured, a department spokesman said. It's unclear who pulled the trigger. Deputies say Julian was the only person in the home when they found his body.

Julian was last seen 11 p.m. Wednesday leaving the house in the 33000 block of Kinley Ann Court after he allegedly pulled a pistol and shot Samuel Schmitt an estimated six times in front of Schmitts 13-year-old daughter and girlfriend, Montgomery County Sheriffs Lt. Scott Spencer said.

Investigators had information leading them to think Julian was still in the area, Spencer added.

His mental capacity  he seems to be completely incoherent, paranoia, manic, Spencer said during a Thursday afternoon press conference at the sheriffs office in Conroe. People that know him the best, that have had encounters with him in the last 24 hours, theyve said that it seems his mental status may be deteriorating.

The accused shooter had spent more than an hour inside the home talking with Schmitt and others before he retrieved a pistol from his car and opened fire, Spencer said.

Witnesses inside the home told detectives Julian was often incoherent during the conversation. What led to the gunfire remains under investigation.

Those in Schmitts family are extremely distraught, shook up, Spencer said.

Spencer described the two as friends who knew each other for nearly a decade going back to high school and said Julian would visit Schmitt at his home every few weeks.

Prosecutors had issued an arrest warrant for murder with no bond on Julian.

He is also accused of shooting at his girlfriend in Tomball earlier Wednesday, although it is unclear if the two incidents are related.

At the press briefing, Tomball Police Lt. Brandon Patin said Julian was driving in his vehicle as he fired two to three shots at his girlfriend a block away from the doorsteps of Tomball City Hall.

When the police arrived, they conducted a three-and-a-half hour search of Julian by pinging his cell phone.

He was being charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for that incident, Patin said.

Julian drove away from the Magnolia home in a 2012 silver Nissan Versa with Texas license plate MPT5747, the same vehicle he was seen in at the Tomball shooting.





jay.jordan@chron.com

julian.gill@chron.com

jose.gonzalez@chron.com
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

Trend:

Armenia should know that any of its provocations will lead to heavy losses and shameful failure, Assistant to the Azerbaijani president, head of the military affairs department of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration, Colonel General Maharram Aliyev said in an interview with Trend.

"I express my condolences to the families of our soldiers and officers who sacrificed their lives defending the territorial integrity of our country and I wish them patience, Aliyev said. May Allah rest the souls of our martyrs! By heroism and courage, they once again proved that the Azerbaijani army is full of determination and is capable of properly responding to any provocations at any time."

Aliyev also spoke on Armenia's interests, following its gross violation of ceasefire and military provocation in the direction of Azerbaijan's Tovuz district on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.

Azerbaijan has previously witnessed provocative actions of the Armenian invaders in various directions of the front on the line of contact and our armed forces reacted to these actions, suppressing the attacks of the Armenian armed forces, Aliyev stressed.

"However, I would like to draw attention to one more factor. This time, by launching attacks in the direction of Tovuz district, Armenian armed forces tried to strike a blow to the energy projects in which Azerbaijan and Turkey, as well as Georgia, are engaged."

As is known, such big international projects of the world scale as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway stretch in the direction of Tovuz district and having made a provocation in this direction, the Armenians imagined that along with the prestige of the Azerbaijani army, they will also damage the country's energy policy, but it became obvious that they were fundamentally wrong, Aliyev said.

The Armenian armed forces not only retreated but were forced to flee, leaving their positions, weapons, Aliyev said. The dominant strategic heights of Tovuz district are under the control of the Azerbaijani army, from which all the actions of the Armenian armed forces are seen.

Another goal of the Armenian side was to divert attention from the political and economic crisis inside Armenia, Aliyev said. Azerbaijan's diplomatic success hastened the political fiasco of the occupying country. Therefore, by making a provocation towards Tovuz district, Armenia tried to dispel internal discontent, as well as divert the attention of the international community from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

As a result, the problem of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has become more evident for the world community while Armenia found itself squeezed as a result of the double defeat, Aliyev said. That is, if today the international political community continues to support Azerbaijans fair position, this must be considered as Armenias military and political collapse.

While commenting on the fact that Armenia is beyond all regional projects, the assistant to the Azerbaijani president described this as the result of the vicious, treacherous and aggressive policy of both the current and previous leadership of this country.

"The current authorities, which dragged the Armenian people to hunger and poverty, does not know what to do now, it has no choice, Aliyev said. I reiterate that this is one of the reasons for the provocation in the direction of Tovuz district, but Armenia's plan has failed.

On the other hand, we also know that Armenia, which has lost foreign countries confidence, has always been a victim of its own mistakes, the assistant to the Azerbaijani president added. Even the Armenians living in other countries, subsequently showed their true colors by committing betrayal and treason. We can recall the atrocities of illegal Armenian armed groups and organizations in Turkey, France, Georgia, Azerbaijan and other countries.

The factor of aggression and ultra-chauvinism is inherent in the character of Armenians, and of course, those who know, understand and are aware of this character, will never trust them, Aliyev said. This is an indisputable fact that has become an axiom of our time. Which normal country, state would want to implement a joint project with Armenia or cooperate with it, knowing all this? For this reason, Armenia and its leadership must abandon its aggressive policy, drop its unrealizable claims and overcome this difficult, hopeless situation in which it found itself.

The assistant to the Azerbaijani president also expressed opinion on the strong international support rendered to Azerbaijan during the recent events.

In particular, Aliyev stressed that Azerbaijans voice of justice was heard and supported by big international organizations, certain influential politicians and statesmen.

"In this context, I would like to emphasize that this is based on the tireless activity and strong will of Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the assistant to the Azerbaijani president added. For this purpose, the president always touches upon this issue during all his meetings, stating that our people, our state will never put up with the fact that Armenia occupied our lands.

The Azerbaijani president emphasized and continues to emphasize that if other side does not put an end to this, Azerbaijan is able to ensure its territorial integrity, liberate the occupied lands, protect, maintain the inviolability of state borders, in full compliance with the requirements of the international law, Aliyev said.

The Azerbaijani army demonstrated its might, gave a tough response to Armenia, having won the April 2016 battles and the Gunnut operation in May 2018 and this must be an unforgettable lesson for Armenia, the assistant to the Azerbaijani president said.

This time, our army also harshly suppressed the Armenian provocation in the direction of Tovuz district, making it clear that it would inflict crushing blows on Armenia as a result of appropriate measures," Aliyev added.

The unequivocal support for Azerbaijan is associated with the country's leading role both in the region and in the world, Aliyev said. The country plays a key role and acts from the position of the initiator on many issues of the international agenda.

"However, I would also like to clarify this issue from a military-political point of view, the assistant to the Azerbaijani president said. While examining the situation thoroughly, the Azerbaijani armed forces, provided with advanced military equipment, having professional, well-trained personnel and the most modern military-industrial capabilities, hold the highest positions in the international army ratings. So, it is necessary to take into account that at the negotiating table with Azerbaijan, its military strength, the factor of military power, is certainly taken into account.

However, it is obvious that while reaching a dead end, the Armenian leadership resorts to provocative actions, Aliyev said. The Armenia is well aware of Azerbaijani army's power, so it hopes for the support of international community. However the situation with attacks on Tovuz has shown that the Armenians were wrong again, and gained no support."

Even the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), where Armenia is a member, did not support it, the assistant to the Azerbaijani president said. Regardless of the demands of the Armenians, an extraordinary meeting of the organization did not take place.

The reason is that while comparing Azerbaijan and Armenia, the countries represented there see that one of these countries is influential but the other one is hollow, Aliyev said. Azerbaijan maintains close contacts with all countries, pursues a successful policy in the spirit of friendship and cooperation, while Armenia, being a puppet, continues to remain a vassal."

While touching upon the factor of Turkey amid the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the assistant to the Azerbaijani president said that the unity of Turkey and Azerbaijan added a glorious page to history of the two countries.

The colonel general added that after Armenias provocation on the border in the direction of Tovuz district, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as well as minister of defense made certain statements on this.

"They advised Armenia to come to its senses, Aliyev added. This also testifies that both Azerbaijan and Turkey are regional power centers. Both countries cooperate in different directions, in particular, in the military-political sphere and the defense industry. Azerbaijan is as close to Turkey as Turkey is close to Azerbaijan.

I would like to remind that during President Erdogans official visit to Azerbaijan, very important discussions were held with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the colonel general added. The documents that will further strengthen the relations between our countries have been signed. Each of the joint global projects which are implemented by Azerbaijan and Turkey is of great importance both in the region and in the world.

The realities of military-strategic cooperation can be cited as the significance, Aliyev said. Everybody knows that a joint military strategy base has been formed between our countries and military projects have been implemented at different periods of time. In particular, the two countries have established cooperation at the highest level in the defense industry.

"In general, the development of both countries in various fields, the strengthening of their geographical position, at the same time, military cooperation between the two fraternal countries is important from the point of view of ensuring regional security as Azerbaijan and Turkey is allies in all spheres, the colonel general said.

Therefore, any threat to Azerbaijans territorial integrity is assessed as a vicious policy towards Turkey, Aliyev said. I think that the recent statements made by fraternal Turkey are based on these factors. Of course, Azerbaijan is proud of such steps of our brothers.

I would also like to stress that President Aliyevs historical statement "Karabakh is Azerbaijan!", as well as the reasoned responses to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on other occasion, vividly demonstrated Azerbaijans superiority not only from a military point of view but also diplomatic point of view, the colonel general added.

In this context, the supreme commander-in-chief confidently declares that the conflict must be resolved within the territorial integrity, sovereignty and inviolability of borders, Aliyev said. The factor of this confidence gives grounds to say that Azerbaijan relies only on its military power, military potential. That is, while speaking about this, one must not forget the fact that the Azerbaijani armed forces are the strongest army in the South Caucasus.

The colonel general added that the support of the army by the Azerbaijani people, who demonstrated national solidarity when the incidents started, is extremely important.

Our people came out with a united position, Aliyev said.

"In particular, the Azerbaijani youth with the spirit of military patriotism expressed the desire to voluntarily join the ranks of the army, which is great, the colonel general said. Of course, we are very happy and feel an endless sense of pride in this regard.

Thousands of citizens have appealed to the local structure and departments of the Azerbaijani State Service for Mobilization and Conscription, Aliyev added. This shows that neither internal nor external enemies are able and will be able to crush such immense love for the Motherland, the spirit of patriotism. The Azerbaijani people unambiguously united around the supreme commander-in-chief. This reality is leading to our new triumphs, new victories.

But what do we see on the Armenian side? Aliyev said. The military-political circles of this country tried to hide the number of soldiers and officers killed during Armenias own provocation and people fairly protested. People demand the authorities not to turn their children into victims of the occupation policy. This is another evidence, which is the basis for their failure. That is, Armenia must know that any of its provocations will result in defeat and shameful collapse. Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani people, Azerbaijani army are capable of doing this."
Bhopal, July 23 : After the BJP took strong note of the dissidence and internal bickerings in the party in Madhya Pradesh ahead of the by-elections for 26 assembly seats and threatened action, the exercise seems to have paid off. Leaders who were openly expressing resentment against their own party have calmed down.

By-elections are to be held in 26 assembly constituencies in the state and the BJP is going to field 24 of those turncoats who switched to the saffron fold from the Congress, from March to July. Due to this, many BJP leaders are dissatisfied and have also expressed anger on different occasions at various party forums. They have been questioning the party's changing character.

Prominent among those who openly expressed anger are former minister and ex-MLA Deepak Joshi, former minister Jaibhan Singh Pawaiya and Ajay Vishnoi, former MLA from Patan in Jabalpur. All three have voiced concern and anger over the newcomers getting preference in the party. They also posed this question to the party organization.

BJP sources said that in addition to these three leaders, there are many more who have expressed disapproval about the influx of Congress leaders into the BJP. The reason for this is believed to be their concern about their political future in the party.

This prompted state BJP president Vishnu Dutt Sharma, general secretary (Organization) Suhas Bhagat and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to discuss the issues with the dissidents, giving them an assurance that they will be accommodated as per their experience and capabilities either in the government or in the organization.

Sharma denied that there is growing dissidence in the party and said that people keep on coming to meet him. They are satisfied now and there is no discontentment, he added.

Political analyst Arvind Mishra said that it is a big challenge for the BJP to manage the dissatisfaction of its long time leaders during this phase of change. The government and the organization are trying their best, but only time will tell how much success they will achieve. At the moment it seems that the party has managed to either convince the dissidents to remain silent or threatened them with action if they speak out.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Juniper Networks, Inc. JNPR is slated to report second-quarter 2020 results on Jul 28, after the closing bell. In the March-end quarter, the company posted negative earnings surprise of 8%. The bottom line missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2 cents.



The Sunnyvale, CA-based network products and services provider is expected to have recorded lower aggregate revenues on a year-over-year basis. This is likely to have resulted from supply-chain issues due to the COVID-19 crisis and related macroeconomic situation as well as challenges at some of Junipers largest service provider customers. That said, the company is expected to have benefited from changes in its go-to-market structure to better align its sales strategies with each of the core customer verticals.



Lets discuss the factors that are likely to get reflected in the upcoming quarterly announcement.

Factors at Play

During the quarter under review, Transports Vervaeke, a leading international chemical and fuel logistics provider, chose the Wireless LAN platform from Junipers Mist Systems to streamline network operations and improve employee productivity in its garages, warehouses and office locations across Europe. Also, Juniper partnered with T-Systems  one of the leading cross-manufacturer digital service providers  to deliver a managed SD-WAN infrastructure as part of a service overlay solution for companies with complex network and connectivity requirements.



Mist Systems launched several new solutions that assist enterprises as they welcome employees, customers and guests back onsite after stay-at-home restrictions are lifted. Further, Junipers Contrail Enterprise Multicloud was selected as the common services management platform by Net One Systems, one of Japans largest network integrators. Such developments are likely to have had a positive impact on the companys top line.



The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues in the Product segment (comprising Routing, Switching and Security), which contributes for the lions share of total revenues, is pegged at $653 million. The projection indicates a decline of 8.5% from the year-ago quarters reported figure. Revenues in the Service segment are estimated at $396 million, which suggests an increase from $389 million reported in the year-ago quarter.



For the June-end quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for total revenues is pegged at $1,053 million that indicates a decline of 4.5% from the year-ago quarters reported figure. Adjusted earnings per share are pegged at 35 cents, which calls for a decline of 12.5% from the prior-year quarters recorded figure.

Story continues

What Our Model Says

Our proven model doesnt conclusively predict an earnings beat for Juniper this season. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the odds of an earnings beat. But thats not the case here. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.



Earnings ESP: Junipers Earnings ESP, which represents the difference between the Most Accurate Estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate, is 0.00% as both are pegged at 35 cents.



Juniper Networks, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise

Juniper Networks, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise

Juniper Networks, Inc. price-eps-surprise | Juniper Networks, Inc. Quote

Zacks Rank: Juniper currently has a Zacks Rank #3.

Stocks to Consider

Here are some companies that you may want to consider as our model shows that these have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat this quarter:



Community Bank System, Inc. CBU is slated to release second-quarter 2020 results on Jul 27. It has an Earnings ESP of +26.47% and currently carries a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.



NXP Semiconductors N.V. NXPI is scheduled to release second-quarter 2020 results on Jul 27. The company has an Earnings ESP of +11.90% and a Zacks Rank #2, at present.



Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc. LECO has an Earnings ESP of +5.50% and a Zacks Rank of 2. The company is set to report second-quarter 2020 results on Jul 27.

The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All

Last year, it generated $24 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $77.6 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early.



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BEIJING  China has revised its state-subsidized student loan policy in a bid to further reduce the debt burden of college student borrowers, according to an official circular.

State-subsidized student loans are priced at 30 basis points below the loan prime rate (LPR)  a market-based benchmark lending rate  of the same class and same term, said the circular, made public on Tuesday on the website of the Ministry of Education (MOE).

The latest rate applies to contracts dated from Jan 1, 2020, said the circular.

Moreover, the grace period for principal repayments has been extended from three years to five years after graduation, said the circular. Students only need to pay the interest in this period.

Borrowers need to pay off all the principals and interest within 15 years after graduation, and the maximum term is 22 years, it added.

The last time China adjusted its student loan policy was in 2015 when it extended the repayment period to 13 years after graduation, with an upper limit of 20 years.

The circular, dated July 3, was jointly issued by the MOE, the People's Bank of China, the Ministry of Finance, and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.

(Source: China Daily)
Global survey reveals sharks are functionally extinct on many of the world's reefs, but hope lies in key conservation measures

Though many people find them intimidating, menacing or just plain scary, sharks are vital to the health of the world's oceans.

These often misunderstood creatures are found in just about every ocean habitat around the globe, but their populations are plummeting. Indeed, the true extent of their decline is not fully known.

To better understand the level of shark disappearance across tropical, coastal reefs, an international team of scientists, including researchers from UC Santa Barbara, conducted a landmark study under the Global FinPrint organization. Their findings, published in the journal Nature, reveal that sharks are virtually absent from many of the world's coral reefs.

The results indicate that sharks are too rare to fulfill their normal role in these ecosystems -- otherwise referred to as "functionally extinct." Of the 371 reefs surveyed in 58 countries, sharks were not observed on nearly 20%, suggesting a widespread decline that has gone undocumented on this scale until now.

"Things aren't good for sharks," said coauthor Darcy Bradley, co-director of the Ocean and Fisheries Program at UC Santa Barbara's Environmental Market Solutions Lab. Scientists have known this for a while, she added, but this study shows it in robust, empirical detail.

Essentially no sharks were detected on any of the reefs of six nations: The Dominican Republic, the French West Indies, Kenya, Vietnam, the Windward Dutch Antilles and Qatar. Among these, a total of only three sharks were observed on more than 800 survey hours.

Bradley and UCSB research biologist Jennifer Caselle conducted surveys at Palmyra Atoll, a small American territory smack in the center of the Pacific Ocean. Their contribution to the project was particularly important because the atoll is a protected area. The data they gathered helped to establish what a healthy shark population looks like. And since all of these surveys measure relative abundance, without baselines from pristine reefs like Palmyra, there's no context for the data from other locations.

This first-ever benchmark for the status of reef sharks around the world, funded by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, reveals an alarming global loss of these iconic species that are important food resources, tourism attractions and top predators on coral reefs. Their decline is due in large part to overfishing of sharks and their prey, with the single largest contributor being destructive fishing practices, such as the use of longlines and gillnets.

"Although our study shows substantial negative human impacts on reef shark populations, it's clear the central problem exists in the intersection between high human population densities, destructive fishing practices and poor governance," said Demian Chapman, Global FinPrint co-lead and associate professor at Florida International University. "We found that robust shark populations can exist alongside people when those people have the will, the means and a plan to take conservation action."

The study revealed several countries where shark conservation is working and the specific actions that seem promising. The best performing nations, in comparison to the average of their region, included Australia, the Bahamas, the Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia, the Maldives and the United States.

These nations reflect key attributes that were found to be associated with higher populations of sharks. They are generally well-governed, and either ban all shark fishing or have strong, science-based management limiting how many sharks can be caught.

"These nations are seeing more sharks in their waters because they have demonstrated good governance on this issue," said Aaron MacNeil, lead author of the Global FinPrint study and associate professor at Dalhousie University. "From restricting certain gear types and setting catch limits, to national-scale bans on catches and trade, we now have a clear picture of what can be done to limit catches of reef sharks throughout the tropics."

The FinPrint team is wrestling with the fact that conservation action on sharks alone can only go so far. Researchers are now looking at whether recovery of shark populations requires management of the wider ecosystem to ensure there are enough reef fish to feed these predators.

"Now that the survey is complete, we are also investigating how the loss of sharks can destabilize reef ecosystems," said Mike Heithaus, Global FinPrint co-lead and dean of the College of Arts, Sciences & Education at Florida International University. "At a time when corals are struggling to survive in a changing climate, losing reef sharks could have dire long-term consequences for entire reef systems."

Launched in the summer of 2015, Global FinPrint's data were generated from baited remote underwater video stations (BRUVS). These consist of a video camera placed in front of a standard amount of bait -- a "Chum Cam." Standardizing the BRUVs across all the sites made data much easier to compare between locations. Coral reef ecosystems were surveyed in four key geographic regions across the tropics: the Indo-Pacific, Pacific, the Western Atlantic and the Western Indian Ocean.

Over the course of four years, the team captured and analyzed more than 15,000 hours of video from surveys of 371 reefs in 58 countries, states and territories around the world. The work was conducted by hundreds of scientists, researchers and conservationists organized by a network of collaborators from Florida International University, the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Curtin University, Dalhousie University, and James Cook University.

"This work doesn't just document the demise of sharks," said UC Santa Barbara's Caselle. "It provides hope, and more importantly, it provides actionable solutions that countries can follow to protect and rebuild their shark populations."

###

For more information and a new global interactive data-visualized map of the Global FinPrint survey results, visit https://globalfinprint.org.
A disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico formed into a tropical depression late Wednesday and is expected to bring flash flooding to the Houston area Friday and Saturday, forecasters say.

The storm system was gradually becoming better defined throughout Wednesday, but shower and thunderstorm activity still remained poorly organized, according to the National Hurricane Center. As of Thursday morning, the storm's center is tracked to make landfall somewhere between Brownsville and Matagorda  although projections could change as the storm develops.

The primary threat to Houston is heavy rainfall, which could bring up to 6 inches of rain to coastal communities from South Texas to the eastern border of Louisiana. Some communities close to Rockport could see as much as 10 inches of rain, according to rainfall projection maps compiled by the National Hurricane Center.

Inland Houston communities could still see close to 4 inches of rain and possible flooding.

The system on Wednesday night was moving west-northwestward at about 6 miles per hour. Maximum sustained winds were recorded at 30 mph.

The first round of storms associated with the depression may arrive in southeast Texas, including Houston, as early as Thursday afternoon, when the forecast predicts a 20 percent chance of thunderstorms. Rain chances will increase toward the weekend. Friday brings a 60 percent chance for showers and Saturday a 90 percent chance.

Meteorologist Eric Berger of Space City Weather predicts localized flash flooding in the coastal counties in the greater Houston area, including Brazoria, Galveston, Chambers and southeastern Harris counties. Flooding in those areas could be comparable to the May 2019 floods in Sugar Land and Kingwood, according to Space City Weathers flood scale.

Further inland, Space City Weather expects nuisance street flooding on frontage roads with more minor impacts, similar to May 2018 flooding in Harris and southern Montgomery counties. As of Wednesday, the depression was not expected to strengthen beyond a tropical storm.

The seven-day forecast shows at least a 30 percent chance of showers and possible thunderstorms through Monday. On the bright side, the late-week rainfall will bring cooler temperatures, with highs in the upper 80s.

In the southern Atlantic Ocean, Tropical Storm Gonzalo formed by Wednesday and is expected to move into the Caribbean Sea later in the week. That storm, which recorded maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, is on a path toward the southern Windward Islands.

julian.gill@chron.com
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Some Southern California tide pools have been besieged by people who take home any edible animal they can find. Above, beachgoers at tide pools in La Jolla. (Los Angeles Times)

To the editor: We are officially in hell. The pandemic has triggered an overwhelming panic to hoard everything in sight  toilet paper, food, hand sanitzer, you name it.

Now people are swarming the tide pools of the Palos Verdes Peninsula and risking permanent destruction of the fragile ecosystem there. Most of what is being harvested can't even be safely eaten.

This is the "gatherer" part of our DNA run amok.

I wanted to go down there recently to confront these people and get them to stop. But then I remembered that some folks are getting violent over being asked to wear a mask. I started to question whether this need to rescue was a response by an entitled white Baby Boomer, thinking that I might actually be able to help save some part of the planet as I did in my youth.

I felt old, helpless and disconnected from society. How can people be so stupid, so greedy?

I keep calling the mother ship to get me out of here, but it isn't answering.

Jeanne Jackson, Rancho Palos Verdes

..

To the editor: We in California love the idea that our beaches belong to everyone. To appreciate this gift, visit places on the East Coast where you must belong to a club (Rhode Island) or have a village sticker on your car (Long Island) to go to the beach.

But people can ruin beaches. Tide pools were once alive; now they're just rocks with anemones if you're lucky.

Californians needs to fight for their right to access beaches, but the beaches need protection too.

Louise Nussbaum, Los Angeles
The Capitals decades-old drainage system is unable to keep pace with unplanned construction, and much of its stormwater management features are either blocked or have disappeared, leading to a few hours of heavy rain triggering widespread chaos, according to several urban experts.

On Wednesday, Delhi Traffic Police updates showed there were at least five cave-ins on key roads, and long traffic jams due to heavy waterlogging was reported from at least 13 major localities or stretches.The mayhem, which exposed the fragile civic infrastructure in the Capital, was the consequence of around four hours of heavy rain in the morning.

AK Gosain, professor of civil engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, said the problem lies in three distinct issues: increase in paved area means less volume is absorbed by the ground and rains lead to heavier water run-off; stormwater drains are being used for sewage; and most of these stormwater drains do not let water flow freely.

Gosain presented a master plan to the government in 2018 identifying the issues that made the problem most acute and suggested a road map of how the drainage network  which still follows the 1976 master plan  can be revamped.

Waste water from rains are meant to follow a system separate from the one that carries sewage from homes and industries.

This includes a network of streams, natural and seasonal water bodies, and urban stormwater channels that are meant to further drain into the Barapullah canal, the Najafgarh canal, or the Yamuna.

The report by Gosains team found many of these were either encroached upon, blocked with waste, or were disappearing. Around 19 out of the 201 natural drains mentioned in the 1976 Master Plan could not be traced.

Last drainage Master Plan for Delhi was prepared in the year 1976, when the population of Delhi was 60 lakh. Population of Delhi as per Census 2011 stands at 167 lakh (1.67 crore) and the projected population as per projection in Master Plan Delhi 2021 is 250 lakh (2.5 crore), said a release from the chief ministers office on August 1, 2018, when the Gosain panels report was submitted.

According to the release, the main recommendations were to ensure there are no encroachments on such drains, sewage is routed through separate sewage channels, dumping of construction and demolition debris is stopped, effective de-silting is carried out and that new stormwater drains are designed and built in such a way that existing run-off estimates and architecture are taken into account.

The document is circulated among various departments who pass their judgment and drainage work is given in bits and pieces by the government to contractors. The drainage plan is ahead of its time and cannot be comprehended by contractors, said Gosain in an interview to HT.

Representatives of the Delhi government did not respond to requests sent on Thursday for comments on the status of the plan.

Two other experts supported Gosains assessment of the situation.

Delhis groundwater recharging area has reduced drastically because of concretisation in the form of roads, paved pedestrian paths, buildings. Where will rain water from a very large surface area go? It will come on to the highways where underpasses dont have proper drainage. Where they have drainage, its not cleaned, its choked with plastic, said CR Babu, professor emeritus at the Centre for Environment Management of Degraded Ecosystems at Delhi University.

Tree cover along highways can help. They can slow the way rain water falls on the ground and open ground can then be recharged with it, he added.

Manu Bhatnagar, principle director, Natural Heritage Division, INTACH, said: Unusual flooding is because of very poor engineering and too much paved hard surface. The converse of waterlogging is water harvesting. Even on top of the Barapullah elevated road, water was standing after rain. This shows poor planning and maintenance.

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Vietnam and New Zealand established a strategic partnership on Wednesday on the 45th anniversary of their bilateral diplomatic ties.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern agreed to formally elevate the two countries comprehensive partnership to a strategic level during their virtual summit on Wednesday.

The strategic partnership was set up as the countries observe the 45th anniversary of their bilateral diplomatic ties, given the positive and sustainable development of the comprehensive partnership established in 2009.

It is based on the common interest and growing mutual trust between the two nations, the official Vietnam News Agency wrote.

The new partnership is hoped to create momentum for bilateral relations to further develop across all spheres, for the sake of the two peoples and for peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.

PM Phuc praised the comprehensive development of the two countries friendship and cooperation over the past decades and expressed appreciation for New Zealands official development assistance, which has boosted Vietnams socio-economic development.

He suggested that both sides maintain the growth of bilateral trade and strive for an annual trade turnover of US$2 billion in the near future.

Bilateral trade reached $1.3 billion in 2019, representing a year-on-year rise of 13 percent.

PM Ardern congratulated Vietnam on its success in coping with the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, noting that both countries effective control of outbreaks has created favorable conditions for them to soon resume connectivity and cooperation in all aspects.

Regarding the situation in the East Vietnam Sea, both government leaders affirmed the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, safety, and freedom of navigation and overflight in the maritime area.

All disputes must be resolved via peaceful measures and on the basis of international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The two PMs emphasized that UNCLOS provides a solid legal framework for all activities in the oceans and seas.

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Police are investigating a shooting at Silver Falls State Park on Wednesday that injured a 23-year-old man.

The shooting occurred between 10 p.m. and 11:15 p.m., officials said, and when Oregon State Police arrived at the north trailhead parking lot, they found the wounded man, Billy Gardner of Portland. He was treated at Salem Hospital and released, police said.

Police said they are investigating what led to the shooting.

Gardners silver 2016 Ford Fusion was stolen, police said. Gardner had borrowed the car from a family member, police said.

Police believe the car thief left the park and went north on Highway 214, police said.

Silver Falls, about 20 miles east of Salem, is a popular destination and home to the famous Trail of Ten Falls, which winds past some of Oregons most picturesque waterfalls.

Police asked anyone with information about the shooting to call 1-800-442-0776 and reference case #SP20-205764.

--Alex Hardgrave | ahardgrave@oregonian.com | @a_hardgrave

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Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin Thursday for the first time since the publication of a New York Times story alleging that Russia paid bounties to Taliban fighters for killing US troops.

Reports of the conversation suggest Mr Trump did not bring the bounty story up to Mr Putin.

Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, issued a statement claiming the men discussed efforts to defeat the coronavirus pandemic while continuing to reopen global economies.

Earlier this month, Russia was accused of attempting to hack coronavirus vaccine research being conducted by the US, UK and Canada.

Mr Deere did not indicate whether or not Mr Trump raised the issue of hacking, but said the leaders discussed preparations for upcoming weapons discussions involving China.

The two leaders also discussed critical bilateral and global issues. President Trump reiterated his hope of avoiding an expensive three-way arms race between China, Russia, and the United States and looked forward to progress on upcoming arms control negotiations in Vienna, the spokesman said.

A statement issued by Russias government claimed the leaders discussed strategic stability and arms control as well as the coronavirus, future economic concerns and Irans nuclear program.

The president has been under fire from various groups for his reluctance to hold Russia accountable for the alleged bounty scheme.

An ad produced by the neoconservative, Never Trump Republicans at the Lincoln Project featured a veteran calling Mr Trump a coward for not retaliating against Russia.

VoteVets, a group of veterans opposed to Mr Trump, have been especially critical of the president since the story broke.

Its been almost 4 weeks and only silence. Trump spoke with Putin TODAY, the VoteVets Twitter account wrote. Reporters, ask him if he stood up to his Russian master and questioned him about the bounties on our troops heads. Ask him if he even cares.

Mr Trump claims he was never briefed on the bounty scheme because the threats were never considered credible enough to warrant his review. At one point the president even referred to the story as a hoax.

Republican lawmakers have maintained that there is not enough evidence that the scheme actually occurred to justify a punitive response, and rejected an amendment to the annual defence policy bill that would introduce new sanctions on Russia.
NEWTOWN  The sanctions a Connecticut judge imposed on extremist Alex Jones after his profanity-laden call-to-war against his enemies behind the Sandy Hook defamation lawsuit were upheld by the states highest court on Thursday.

The Connecticut Supreme Courts denial of Jones appeal means the host of the Texas-based Infowars internet show is stuck with the 2019 ruling of Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis, who threw out Jones motion to dismiss the Sandy Hook families defamation lawsuit for crossing the line too many times.

The lead attorney for the first responder and eight families suing Jones for calling the 2012 massacre of 26 first-graders and educators staged, synthetic, manufactured, a giant hoax, and completely fake with actors with inside job written all over it, said the Supreme Court ruling was a victory for civility.

As other branches of government show signs of cracking under the weight of threats and falsehoods, this ruling reminds us that the courtroom is still a sacred place that remains dedicated to the truth, to precedent and to long-established rules created over centuries, attorney Josh Koskoff said in a prepared statement. The same families that Alex Jones has abused since the day after the Sandy Hook massacre now look forward to proceeding towards trial to hold him accountable for the compounded pain and suffering he has caused.

Jones attorney Jay Wolman was not immediately available Thursday to comment on the ruling, which sets the stage for jury selection in November.

Jones appeal stemmed from a ruling last summer by Bellis that threw out his motion to dismiss the families lawsuit. Bellis had warned Jones that she would do just that if Jones kept missing court-imposed deadlines to turn over information to the families.

Bellis ruling followed Jones profanity-laden broadcast on the internet show Infowars, in which Jones claimed someone had embedded child pornography in his emails that were turned over to the Sandy Hook families as part of the pretrial discovery process.

The Supreme Court ruling quotes several pages of transcripts from Jones rant, including:

And Im just asking the Pentagon and the patriots that are left, and 4chan and 8chan, and Anonymous, anybody (whos) a patriot, I am under attack, and if they bring me down, theyll bring you down. I just have faith in you. Im under attack. And I summon the mean war. I summon all of it against the enemy.

In another excerpt, the court quotes Jones as saying:

I pray for divine intervention against the powers of Satan. I literally would never have sex with children. I dont like having sex with children. I would never have sex with children. I am not a Democrat. I am not a liberal. I do not cut childrens genitals off like the left does. And so, if they want war  you know, its not a threat. Its like an AC/DC song. If you want blood, youve got it. Blood on the streets, man. . .

The Supreme Court ruled Bellis was well within her discretion to sanction Jones.

[T]he sanctions did not run afoul of the First Amendment because they addressed speech that was an imminent and likely threat to the administration of justice, the Supreme Court said in its ruling. Accordingly, it was not an abuse of the trial courts discretion to sanction the defendants for their discovery violations and Jones vituperative speech.

rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342
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Justin L. Fowler | AP

Illinois Congressman Rodney Davis has joined others  mostly Republicans  calling on House Speaker Michael Madigan to resign after his implication in a bribery scheme involving utility giant ComEd.

Davis said Madigan, who is a Democrat, must be held to higher standard as an elected official.
Private equity firm FranBridge Capital, the owners of several Atlanta-area businesses in the home services sector, recently expanded their portfolio by signing a 10-unit deal with Buzz Franchise Brands, including a six-unit deal with Home Clean Heroes and four Pool Scouts territories to serve the Greater Atlanta area, with plans to launch Pool Scouts in August and Home Clean Heroes in October.

This is the first multi-brand franchisee for Buzz Franchise Brands and Home Clean Heroes second-ever franchisee. Since the start of the year, Pool Scouts has signed six deals for 17 territories (including the recent Atlanta signings) and opened four locations.

Led by CEO Jon Ostenson, Chairman Allan Young and Operating Partner Christian Pillat, FranBridge Capital brings years of entrepreneurship, corporate leadership and franchise experience to the venture.

The three entrepreneurs all met each other through mutual acquaintances. Ive always had the idea to create a collection of home service companies that utilize data, similar customer demographics and technology to our advantage, said Pillat. At the same time, Jon and Allan were approaching the same problem from another angle, so we thought it would be best to join forces.

Based on their backgrounds, Pillat, Young and Ostenson knew there was a strong opportunity to be a strategic private equity firm in the franchise industry. The trio debates and bounces ideas off each other in order to create a three-way partnership that leverages their experience as franchisors, franchisees, vendors and consultants.

We provide a different avenue of capital and equity for new franchisees, said Ostenson. Our model allows investors to participate in franchising without having to operate a store or put all of their eggs in one basket.

Now, the firm is excited to join Buzz Franchise Brands as the first multi brand franchisee.

When we met with the Buzz Franchise Brands team, their leadership was very impressive, said Pillat. We have a tremendous amount of respect for their Chairman and CEO Kevin Wilson and his previous experience in the franchising space. The leadership of a franchise brand is a team youll spend the next 10 years working with, and you have to be comfortable with their expertise and decision-making.

According to Wilson, the excitement is mutual. FranBridge Capital is the perfect partner for Buzz Franchise Brands, and as the first multi-brand franchisee, they will usher in a new era of growth for the company, he said.

Home Clean Heroes President Joe Delatte notes that this is a huge step for the brand. FranBridge Capital observed that people are spending less on vacations and travel and spending more money and time in their homes, said Delatte. Because FranBridge has some experience in home services already, they will be able to quickly adopt and take advantage of our highly efficient systems, operating tools and marketing to make Home Clean Heroes a household name in Atlanta. We look forward to working with their local team to support continued growth in the years ahead.

Pool Scouts President Michael Wagner also agrees that this is a great opportunity. We are very excited to welcome FranBridge Capital to the Pool Scouts team and we look forward to working with their team to bring our expertise and high-quality pool maintenance to homes in the Atlanta area.

FranBridge Capital specifically recognized Atlanta as a strong growth market for a couple of reasons. First, the city is growing rapidly and attracting top talent and big name brands. Georgia is currently the fifth fastest-growing franchise state. With the home services market being so fragmented, there is a massive opportunity within Atlanta to become the premier home service provider by leveraging technology to provide safe, punctual and professional experiences. For Pool Scouts specifically, Atlanta is currently the number-one growing pool market in the nation according to the number of pool permits being issued. From a Home Clean Heroes perspective, its a market with a high density of target customers in which many are in need of their high demand home cleaning services.

Pillat also notes that one of the most encouraging factors that led to this partnership was Buzz Franchise Brands transparency on the drivers of success from a financial point of view. The transparency of the Item 19 from Buzz Franchise Brands made us very comfortable and allowed us to forecast various revenue scenarios for our investors, he said. They have a better grasp on their KPIs than most other franchise brands do. They know what the margins need to look like. Another highlight is that they are forward-thinking when it comes to technology. We look forward to executing their systems and maintaining the highest level of service in a market that is fragmented and historically unreliable.

According to Pillat, the goal is to become a recognized brand name in the Atlanta area for house cleaning and pool services. As a private equity firm, we also want to return strong funds to our investors, he said. One of the things that is near and dear to our heart at FranBridge Capital is the ability to promote young and diverse leaders. We believe that giving young people the guardrails they need to be successful business owners, leaders and employees is incredibly important. We will have brand managers for Home Clean Heroes and Pool Scouts that will allow them to serve as the CEO of their small business.

Ostenson also noted how important this aspect was in their decision to franchise with Buzz Franchise Brands during a time of record unemployment. The biggest thing in todays environment is that we are creating jobs and economic opportunities to get people back on their feet, said Ostenson. Our goal is to provide people with diverse backgrounds the opportunity to thrive within our growing organization.

In the Greater Atlanta area, there are approximately eight to 10 territories still available with Home Clean Heroes. Nationwide, the brand would like to sign nine more franchisees before the end of the year. Moving forward, Home Clean Heroes goal is to identify multi-territory operations that can become sizable businesses in cities like Chicago; Pittsburgh; Nashville, Tennessee; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Charleston, South Carolina.

Pool Scouts has two remaining territories in Atlanta across Columbus and Macon and hopes to sign 10 deals for a total of 26 territories nationwide by the end of 2020. They are targeting Dallas; Houston; Nashville; San Antonio; Greensboro, North Carolina; Columbia, South Carolina; Las Vegas; New Orleans; Baltimore; and Columbus, Ohio for growth.

There are a lot of brands that have processes, but there are few brands that have the systems and support to ensure that the processes are followed every time, said Pillat. We believe Buzz Franchise Brands has the right systems in place to operate successful businesses in each category they operate in, and that is why we are excited to partner with them and bring Home Clean Heroes and Pool Scouts to Atlanta.

ABOUT HOME CLEAN HEROES:

Virginia Beach-based Home Clean Heroes is part of the Buzz Franchise Brands family of brands and is rapidly growing as an essential residential cleaning service franchise. Founded in 2017, the residential cleaning business has set itself apart by providing a tech-savvy approach to the $6 billion cleaning segment, utilizing proprietary technology for operational efficiency including field management software, in-vehicle GPS and data tracking. The brands commitment to providing convenient, customizable and trustworthy home cleaning services has earned it recognition from Franchise Dictionary's Top 100 Game Changers for 2019. For more information on franchise opportunities, visit https://homecleanheroesfranchise.com/.

ABOUT POOL SCOUTS:

Virginia Beach, VA-based Pool Scouts is a premier pool service franchise focused on delivering a quality, consistent brand experience while providing pool cleaning, maintenance and minor repair services at residential properties. Technicians are trained in testing, monitoring, treating and servicing pools and can provide ongoing service as well as pool opening or closing services throughout the year. With over 50 territories across 8 states, Pool Scouts offers a great opportunity as a low cost franchise in the pool services industry with territories available across the United States. For more information or franchising opportunities, visit https://poolscoutsfranchise.com.


New Delhi, July 23 : The latest joint coordinated naval exercises carried out by United States Navy Carrier Battle Group with Indian Navy warships off the strategically important Andaman and Nicobar Islands two days ago would have passed off unnoticed if it was not for the signalling by the two nations.

The warning of a joint operation was clearly aimed at the irresponsible and expansionist China that has been troubling its neighbours both in the Himalayan mountains and in the South China Sea. And that's the significance.

All along, India has held that stand that it will not become part of any military alliance globally and would exercise its strategic independence. But that would now change, as China exhibits its military aggressiveness along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh and its challenge to the freedom of navigation by other maritime nations, particularly the US, and the littoral countries in South China Sea.

The import of the passage exercise that the Indian Navy had with the US Navy's Carrier Strike Group led by its flagship USS Nimitz was the two nations expressing intent to jointly meet the maritime challenge that China is posing them. Clearly, Indian Navy has the levers to the two key choke points to the Indian Ocean Region: The Straits of Malacca Straits on the East and the Straits of Hormuz on the West. China is also obviously dependent on the sea lanes of communication for its crude imports to perforce pass through these two key choke points to reach its destinations and thus, ensuring China's energy security.

No wonder, the joint maritime exercise and the wide publicity it got has irked China and has come as a torpedo to its plans to dominate the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean Region, to which it began sending its warships and placing them permanently since 2007 on the pretext of anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden. The growth in ties between India and the US navies is being seen as unprecedented.

However, murmurs within the security establishment demands significant enhancement of the Indian Navy capabilities for long-term strategy, and any slackness in maritime approach at this point would become costly at a later stage. "A small exercise between US and Indian navies has irked China. And when India enhances its naval capabilities, the Chinese threat would be thwarted effectively," said a senior government officer.

The recent exercise when the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group (CSG), consisting of US Navy's largest aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, guided missile cruisers and destroyers participated in 'PASSEX' or 'Passage Exercises' with four destroyers or frigates of the Indian Navy's Eastern Fleet this week. The Nimitz Carrier Strike Group Commander stated that the Nimitz CSG was deployed to support a free and open Indo-Pacific, clearly sending the message to the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army-Navy.

The officer went on to state that the PASSEX improved interoperability and is a testimony to the flexibility of the US and Indian Navies. "High-end exercises towards achieving interoperability were conducted including air defence, flying operations, communication procedures and close manoeuvres," the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group Commander stated.

The Chinese side was quick to get the implied message emanating from these exercises. The presence of a Carrier Strike Group in the Indian Ocean Region has visibly affected the Chinese Communist Party. Their mouthpiece claimed that pressurising China with US-India naval drills is "pure vanity". They assumed that the Indian Navy may now also join the US Navy in challenging the CCP's belligerence in the South China Sea.

The ability of a single aircraft carrier and its attendant battle group to shape the strategic environment has been displayed yet again. "The Indian Navy has also been operating Carrier Battle Groups and aircraft carriers for nearly six decades and this would be an opportune moment to delve on the relevance of aircraft carriers in shaping the current strategic environment, especially in the Indian Ocean Region," said a senior government officer.

China's focus on naval power In 1996, the US Navy positioned two of its aircraft carriers along with their Carrier Strike Groups (CBGs) between Taiwan and China during the Taiwan Straits Crisis. It was a wakeup call for China; enough to accelerate its focus on naval force structure complemented with regular pruning of the most massive standing army in the world. Now, less than a quarter of a century later, the CCP's navy boasts of two operational aircraft carriers in its inventory, one under construction and two more in the pipeline.

It also has two Type 075 landing platform/docks under construction with an eventual three as ultimate strength. Bigger than most aircraft carriers in the world, the Type 075 LPDs could also perform the role of a light aircraft carrier if push comes to shove.

The spotlight on aircraft carriers and what they could achieve was back in mid-June this year, when for the first time in recent history, USN positioned, not one, but three of its carriers in the Western Pacific with two in South China Sea (SCS). This relatively shallow water body supports one-third of global maritime trade, with over $5.3 trillion annually passing through it.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Groups (CSG) conducted dual carrier flight operations, long-range strike drills, defensive air combat training, air defence drills, sea surveillance, replenishment at sea, coordinated manoeuvres and other exercises in the Philippines Sea. At the same time, the Yokosuka, Japan-based USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group were also conducting operations in the Philippines Sea. It was not a one-off event.

In the first week of July, the US Navy was back with USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Regan CSGs in South China Sea. The messaging is unmistakable and unmissable.

Fight Within "Yet, until recently, it was fashionable in some circles to write obituaries on aircraft carriers. Some authors spilt a lot of ink over the past few years on the carriers' supposed easy detection by satellite-based imagery and vulnerability to cruise and ballistic missiles as fatal to its continued utility," said a retired top Indian Naval officer.

The officer also pointed that others went on to even compare submarines and aircraft carriers in terms of the former's stealth and absolute undetectability and the threat they posed to the enemy. "It was akin to comparing a sniper hidden in the jungle with an armoured tank. Each has its unique capability and role. What one can do, the other cannot. And yet, both are required for the niche capabilities they bring to the table." Another oft-cited counterpoint in all countries, which operate aircraft carriers, is how it would be a better option to increase the number of combat aircraft for the Air Force. "This option pitched as an alternative to investing in a floating airfield with its integral air assets is an imperfect narrative, which is quite myopic," the Naval officer explained.

As can be seen now in the South China Sea, carriers free the country from the problems and political compromises linked to diplomatic authorisations necessary to operate from a land-based airport abroad or for that matter the clearances to overfly other countries' airspace. It is good to invest in air power and not aircraft carriers when you have friendly neighbours. When you have two of a kind neighbours -- Pakistan and China, evidently that air assets would be wholly preoccupied and justifiably so, in their support of the action across land boundaries.

It would perhaps be imprudent to expect significant land-based air power over the seas -- precisely why Carrier Battle Groups would be inescapable capabilities to deliver the needful in the Indian Ocean Region. Further, the maritime battle space now extends thousands of kilometres into the deep remote oceans, far beyond the reach of any land-based air power.

Naysayers have even given their perspective about how expensive carriers are in terms of their construction and maintenance. But because they bring a unique unparalleled capability, operating countries or those aspiring to be one continue to invest even when their purse strings are tight.

Aircraft carrier status world over Little wonder then that the US Navy continues to not only maintain 11 carriers but is inducting the bigger and larger Ford-class carriers as replacements. The Royal Navy has built two Queen Elizabeth class carriers. France operates one and has already announced a plan for its replacement by the year 2037 even as their Mistral-class larger than usual LPDs can up-swing to a light carrier.

The Italians are refurbishing the ITS Cavour to enable it to operate the F-35. The Japanese are converting their Izumo class helicopter carriers into F-35 operating carriers. Republic of Korea has announced construction of two medium-sized carriers possibly to operate the F-35. Turkey meanwhile is constructing its first light assault carrier, the TCG Anadolu, which was intended to carry the F-35, till the deal turned sour. Egypt recently showcased operations of its French Mistral-class LPDs while Russia is not only constructing LPDs but has also announced replacement carriers for its sole Kuznetsov.

Spain and Australia operate the San Juan class LPDs which with minor modifications could be converted to launch the F-35s. The number of countries aspiring and willing to operate carriers or carrier like capability platforms is only on the rise. Surely, all these countries with mighty air forces have realised the unmistakable and unparalleled capability that an aircraft carrier brings to the table.

Aircraft Carriers in India Aircraft Carriers in India today are a unique opportunity like no other. The first three carriers of the Indian Navy were all hand-me-down imports from the United Kingdom and Russia. The under-construction and soon to be inducted maiden Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC) at Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL), Kochi though, is a symbol of growing India and its industry. Indigenous warships and in particular the aircraft carrier, which is a project like no other, fits in perfectly with the Prime Minister's clarion call for 'Atmanirbharta'.

Indeed, amongst all the services, the Indian Navy has been at the forefront of indigenisation. What the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier has done is not only boost Cochin Shipyard Limited's confidence and capability in undertaking complex shipbuilding but has spawned a plethora of MSMEs within the country while generating employment for thousands. Some of these MSMEs -- from hardware to software -- took birth only because of the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier and have the potential to grow into the next big thing for India.

The IAC has also been an opportunity of self-discovery for the Navy. Many of the MSMEs involved in the project have now become a primary source of spare supply to the Indian Navy, not just the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier. In contrast, the same spares were earlier being procured through either more expensive or less efficient alternatives.

A second Indigenous Aircraft Carrier would only be a booster dose propelling such MSMEs, generating employment in thousands while filling in an inescapable capability deficiency. A win-win situation indeed. However, carriers take time to build. They are complex in construction and challenging to integrate. A decision now would affect the geopolitical environment a decade later. Likewise, indecision now would result in history taunting today's decision-makers a decade later.

An aircraft carrier is the most potent sea-based asset in any modern Fleet. It offers an incomparable military instrument with its ability to project air-power over long distances, including Air Interdiction, Anti-Surface Warfare, offensive and defensive Counter-Air, Airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare and Airborne Early Warning. The carriers in the foreseeable future shall continue to be the key to the operating country's ability to deter, to punish, and to defeat aggression.

Aircraft Carriers support capabilities The Carrier Battle Group is centred around a carrier, and the usual discourse is how the carrier needs the support of other destroyers and frigates. Yet, while the offensive component of a carrier -- its fighter wing -- is the unchallenged prima donna in all discussions, the carrier's less glamourous but distinctive support capabilities make it an asset to any fleet.

Its in-house repair facilities are often availed by the ships of the fleet in company. In its absence, such repairs have to wait till the accompanying frigate or destroyer pulls up into a harbour. Similar is the case with helicopters embarked onboard such accompanying ships. Instead of waiting to get to port, the defective component could be repaired in the hangar of a carrier, which is a repair bay like none other.

With a dedicated hospital complex ranging from CT Scan to X-Ray machines, from a purpose-built operation theatre to a dentistry complex, the medical facilities available on a carrier extend the sustenance of ships at sea even in case of causalities. One could consider the carrier as a field hospital in itself.

Aircraft Carriers a diplomatic tool A floating airbase, aircraft carriers combine operational flexibility and speed of intervention; to project force of a relevant maritime nation. The biggest mistake one could make is to classify an aircraft carrier as a military platform or option. A carrier is a diplomatic tool like no other. Its ability to influence outcomes by its mere presence in an area, and to deliver strategic political messages cannot be achieved by any submarine or aircraft. Yet, the nature of messaging itself is exceptionally flexible. If the first image of CBG within striking distance is that of a threat to a hostile country, it is equally deft as a symbol of strengthening alliances and forging coalitions.

China threat at IOR The Indian Ocean Region is no small bay or landlocked sea. Its expanses are paralleled only by the traffic volumes it witnesses, especially China-bound traffic. With Djibouti and now even Gwadar likely to become a CCP Navy base, the ability of China to influence the Indian Ocean Region has graduated from theory to naked reality. Chinese naval ships are increasingly establishing sustained patrols in the Indian Ocean Region.

While this is viewed rather naively as a complement to their growing maritime trade route dependence, the same patrols also provide for ready offensive capabilities. "With five carriers likely to be in its force by 2030, permanent deployment of Chinese carriers in the Indian Ocean Region shall be a hypothesis only for a short duration," said a top Intelligence officer.

Operational necessity For India, whose trade is overwhelmingly dependent on maritime routes - 85 percent by value and 90 percent by volume; whose crude oil imports and dependence by sea routes are only increasing by the day, sea control is not an option, but a necessity.

While the argument of submarines versus carriers can continue till the cows come home, what is apparent is that to undertake sea control -only a Carrier Battle Group can deliver. The Galwan incident in June this year has refreshed memories of the Kargil war since the situation is approaching a potential stalemate. Yet, historical records remind us that it was the deployment of the Navy at the doorsteps of Karachi that brought a swift end to the conflict.

"If there is one lesson that must not be missed from the Galwan incident, it is of how a Carrier Battle Group could dominate the oceans and the Sea Lanes of Communication," said the officer. The capability to operate, and availability of one each Carrier Battle Group in the western Indian Ocean Region and eastern Indian Ocean Region throughout the year would be an operational necessity to the planners in New Delhi.

Yet, such an obligation could be met only if there are three carriers in the kitty, since one would be under maintenance at any given time. India, as a maritime nation, is driven by the vision of SAGAR or "Security And Growth for All in the Region".

It is also a preferred security partner in Indian Ocean Region, ensuring its Sea Lines of Communication are stable and are usable as a global common. Carrier Battle Groups would therefore allow New Delhi to calibrate diplomatic or military actions to optimise the management of a crisis or conflict.

The Carrier Battle Group shall continue to constitute any maritime force in the world in the foreseeable future, a highly adaptable instrument of power to control a threat in an early stage, while facilitating crisis prevention at considerable distances from home. In any conflict, the enemy too has a vote.

It is time that our vote is more weighted -- a weight that cannot be achieved in the Indian Ocean Region without round-the-year CBG capabilities. China can be tamed effectively if the tools in the arsenal are utilised properly.

(Sumit Kumar Singh can be reached at sumit.k@ians.in)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Mike Pompeo says abortion isn't a human right, tries to honor God's calling

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made it clear at a recent event that the Trump administration disagrees with the international push to make abortion a human right. He also stated that he tries to make decisions based on Gods truth.

Abortion quite simply isnt a human right, Pompeo declared during an appearance at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa last week. It takes a life. He maintained that this administration appreciates and knows that our rights come from God, not government.

America sets the tone for the rest of the world in this respect, and our administration has defended the rights of unborn like no other administration in history.

Citing Psalm 139 (You knit me together in my mothers womb), he stated, This is when life begins, full stop.

Pompeo highlighted the administrations 100% pro-life foreign policy, including the reinstatement of the Mexico City policy, which ensures that not a single dime of American taxpayer money will ever go to a foreign NGO that performs active abortions anywhere in the world. Trumps predecessor, former President Barack Obama, repealed the Mexico City policy upon succeeding pro-life President George W. Bush in 2009.

Pompeo also brought up the State Departments collaboration with the Department of Health and Human Services to mobilize 20 countries to deliver a joint statement at the U.N. criticizing pro-abortion language in U.N. documents. This effort came ahead of the 74th Session of the U.N. General Assembly last September. Countries who signed the statement included Brazil, Poland, Saudi Arabia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

At the time, President Trump slammed the global promotion of abortion orchestrated by the intergovernmental organization.

We are aware that many United Nations projects have attempted to assert a global right to taxpayer-funded abortion, right up until the moment of birth, he said as he addressed members of the U.N. General Assembly. Global bureaucrats have absolutely no business attacking the sovereignty of nations that wish to protect innocent life.

Months later, the Trump administrations efforts to reframe the international abortion debate continued. In May, the United States issued a statement pushing back against the inclusion of language pertaining to sexual and reproductive health in a resolution drafted by members of the World Health Assembly related to the coronavirus.

There is no international right to abortion, nor is there any duty on the part of the state to finance or facilitate abortion, the statement read. We do not accept references to sexual and reproductive health, or other language that suggests or explicitly states that access to abortion is included in the provision of population and individual level health services.

During his speech in Iowa last week, Pompeo also spoke of their work to defend religious freedom, noting that his department has instituted new religious freedom training programs for thousands of our foreign service officers and hosted the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom.

He frequently referenced his Christian faith, stressing that God has entrusted this position to me for this time. And I feel every day the duty to honor that calling.

I think too about my responsibilities in light of the biblical call to be a good steward of whatever you have. 1 Corinthians 4 says that: 'Those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.

Stewarding my position well also means making decisions based on the truth. Our God is indeed a god of truth. And we should every day seek to reflect His character in that regard.
Comvita, New Zealands largest producer of UMF Manuka honey, has today announced a new multi-year partnership with wildlife charity Saving the Wild, which will see the two organisations work together on global projects to help protect nature in need.

As the major Sponsorship Partner of Saving the Wild, Comvita will be acting upon its founding values, with the mission to connect people to nature at the heart of the partnership.

Established in 1974, Comvita and came to life in a counter-culture movement built on respect for nature and humankind. Saving the Wild was founded in 2014 by Jamie Joseph, with a mission to protect endangered African wildlife and ultimately the priceless biodiversity of the planet.

Todays announcement cements a partnership that was formed out of needing to help nature in crisis; firstly in 2018 in Africa when Saving the Wild used Comvitas Manuka honey to treat rhinos and elephants wounded by poachers; and again in 2020 when Saving the Wild founder Jamie Joseph took Comvitas Manuka Honey Wound Gel to the frontline of the Australian bushfires, to help treat koalas and other native wildlife burned or injured fleeing the fires.

David Banfield, Chief Executive Officer of Comvita, describes the powerful impact of seeing Comvita products used to help wounded animals.

When we saw the Saving the Wild team using our (Comvita) topical Manuka honey products to make a difference to the survival of creatures that are crucial to the planet, we knew we wanted to do more, says Banfield. By forming this long-term partnership with Jamie and the Saving the Wild team, we can truly bring our shared values of caring for nature in need to life in sustained and tangible ways; from product donation, like we saw with the koalas, through to training and resource-sharing with communities, globally.

The first major project earmarked for the new partnership will see Jamie taking Comvitas beekeeping expertise to Kenya, where local tribes will be trained in beekeeping and honey production. This program will support both environmental biodiversity and the local community, through social enterprise development.

Saving the Wild and Comvita believe the key to protecting biodiversity is protecting the planets bee population. Nearly 90% of the worlds flowering plant species depend entirely on the pollination of plants and bees play an important role in sustainable agriculture, biodiversity, climate change and a healthy environment.

Bees are what connect our entire eco-system and they are so important to the biodiversity of our planet, says Banfield. We dont take for granted the responsibility we have as guardians of the land and nature. The more we can do to find holistic solutions to empower communities to embrace and nurture nature the better.

Jamie describes how this new major partnership will go beyond funding to connect nature and people in a harmonious way.

Saving the Wild have been working with the Big Life Foundation on a tented camp project, positioned between Kimana Sanctuary and Amboseli National Park, in Kenya. Bees are an essential part of the eco-system but more knowledge of how they increase, and support biodiversity will empower the people, says Joseph.

We will work with Comvita to bring Beekeeping skills to Kenya and provide training for local communities to increase jobs and ultimately support the local economy. Whats more, elephants fear bees, so with managed bees in the area, elephants are less likely to encroach on the communities, ultimately reducing the potential for trampling or danger to the animals. It is circular in this way: to save the wild, we must first save the people."

Under the three-year funding agreement Jamie and the Saving the Wild will work alongside their global networks to raise awareness of wildlife endangerment and environmental conservation and deliver on-the-ground solutions to help protect our precious biodiversity.

Its never been more important to do our bit to help people and nature in need,says Comvita Global Head of Marketing David Bathgate.

Comvita is a global brand used in homes all over the world. Were proud to be embarking on this new partnership with Saving the Wild. To celebrate the launch of the partnership.

"Were donating an additional 5% from all online sales, on top our sponsorship funds, to the partnership for the month of July.






(from left) Kelvin Lau, Senior Economist, Greater China, Standard Chartered and Nicholas Kwan, Director of Research, HKTDC at the online press conference of "Standard Chartered GBA Business Confidence Index".

Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited Gabriel Kwan / Daniel Ip Tel: +852 2820 3036 / +852 2820 3871 Email: gabriel.kwan@sc.com / daniel.ip@sc.com Hong Kong Trade Development Council Beatrice Lam Tel: +852 2584 4049 Email: Beatrice.hy.lam@hktdc.org

HONG KONG, July 23, 2020 - (ACN Newswire) - Standard Chartered and Hong Kong Trade Development Council ("HKTDC") released the inaugural "Standard Chartered GBA Business Confidence Index" ("GBAI"), the first forward-looking quarterly survey in the market that looks at the business sentiment and synergistic effects across cities and industries in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area ("Greater Bay Area" or "GBA"). The index suggests that respondents expect an evident easing of contractionary pressure in Q3 after a challenging Q2 due to COVID-19 disruptions.According to the survey, the GBAI's 'current performance' index for business activity stood at 37.0 for Q2-2020, below the neutral line of 50. This reflects the impact of a COVID-related global recession on the export-oriented region. However, the 'expectations index' stood at a much better 47.0, suggesting an expectation of a broad-based improvement in Q3 versus Q2. In particular, the 'new orders' sub-index stood above the neutral 50 mark, reflecting an optimistic view about the new orders in Q3. Although the GBAI current performance index for credit was at 45.3, the sub-components indicate lower borrowing costs from both banks and non-bank financial institutions as well as improvement in banks' attitude towards lending.Kelvin Lau, Senior Economist, Greater China, Standard Chartered said: "The survey result indicates that companies in the Greater Bay Area expect a better Q3, likely a reflection of the continued normalisation of activity within China, boosted by aggressive monetary and fiscal policy easing. This pick-up is driven by domestic more than external demand, matching the general perception that China is the first country to begin recovering from COVID-19."The GBAI also includes industry and city sub-indices - by industry, 'innovation and technology' is expected to improve the fastest, followed by 'financial services'; by city, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are seen to lead the way in the post-COVID rebound, while Hong Kong is seen to lag. Among companies that plan to expand to other GBA cities, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Hong Kong are the top preferred destinations."Shenzhen proved the most resilient in Q2 and is expected to return to economic expansion in Q3 along with Guangzhou. These cities' encouraging performance may be because these finance- and technology-centred cities provide a base for larger companies with greater sustainability and more cash flow. For intra-GBA expansion, Shenzhen and Hong Kong are favourable because they are well-established core cities with high spending power, and Zhuhai is the closest city to Macau and well connected to Hong Kong via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge," Mr Lau added.The GBAI is compiled based on a quarterly survey conducted by the HKTDC in collaboration with Standard Chartered. Every quarter, at least 1,000 enterprises in key business sectors across the Greater Bay Area provide valuable feedback on a range of subjects, including their current business situation and credit conditions as well as their outlook on these subjects for the coming quarter. The survey also asks respondents thematic questions about what drives their business decisions and plans, and how this might shape the Greater Bay Area's future.Nicholas Kwan, Director of Research, HKTDC, said: "We are seeing strong policy support from the central government for turning the Greater Bay Area into a global business and innovation centre, by expediting infrastructure connectivity, building advanced manufacturing and modern services industries, and developing a high-quality 'living circle'.""We expect demand for information on this region to continue to ramp up and the GBAI seeks to fulfil this need by offering timely and valuable insights into the region's transformation, which will better equip businesses and policy makers for future planning," Mr Kwan added.To download the report of the "Standard Chartered GBA Business Confidence Index", please visit the website: https://sc.com/hk/gba/gba-index/.About Standard Chartered GBA Business Confidence IndexStandard Chartered GBA Business Confidence Index (GBAI) is the first forward-looking quarterly survey in the market that looks at the business sentiment and synergistic effects across cities and industries in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). In collaboration with the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, the GBAI is based on information drawn from quarterly surveys of over 1,000 companies operating in the GBA across different industries, including manufacturing and trading, retail and wholesale, financial services, professional services, and innovation and technology.The GBAI offers a unique look at a range of subjects in the GBA, including current business situation and credit conditions, and outlooks for the coming quarter. It enables investors and businesses to better understand the current business climate, gauge future performance and formulate their market strategies in the GBA.About Standard CharteredWe are a leading international banking group, with a presence in 59 of the world's most dynamic markets, and serving clients in a further 85. Our purpose is to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, and our heritage and values are expressed in our brand promise, Here for good.Standard Chartered PLC is listed on the London and Hong Kong Stock Exchanges as well as the Bombay and National Stock Exchanges in India.The history of Standard Chartered in Hong Kong dates back to 1859. It is currently one of the Hong Kong SAR's three note-issuing banks. Standard Chartered incorporated its Hong Kong business on 1 July 2004, and now operates as a licensed bank in Hong Kong under the name of Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Chartered PLC.For more stories and expert opinions please visit Insights at sc.com. Follow Standard Chartered on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.About HKTDCThe Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) is a statutory body established in 1966 to promote, assist and develop Hong Kong's trade. With 50 offices globally, including 13 in Mainland China, the HKTDC promotes Hong Kong as a two-way global investment and business hub. The HKTDC organises international exhibitions, conferences and business missions to create business opportunities for companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in the mainland and international markets. The HKTDC also provides up-to-date market insights and product information via trade publications, research reports and digital news channels. For more information, please visit: www.hktdc.com/aboutus.Source: Standard CharteredHKTDCContact:Copyright 2020 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
Mumbai:

A day after Centre outlawed for five years Islamic Research Foundation promoted by controversial preacher Zakir Naik, Maharashtra government has decided to keep a close watch on those locals and organisations who continue to fund the NGO and would treat them as "anti-social elements".

"Banning IRF has dealt a strong blow to the organisation. Its anti-national activities can now be controlled. Though it (IRF) cannot receive funds from international organisations, there is a strong suspicion they will continue to receive funds from locals," state's Minister of State for Home, Deepak Kesarkar, told reporters here.

The Union government yesterday declared IRF as an outlawed organisation under the anti-terror law for its alleged terror activities. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Kesarkar said the state government was keeping "very close watch on local people and organisations who continue to back IRF. They will be treated as anti-social elements and will be booked accordingly."

The minister said the government wanted to send a strong message to other local organisations, which might be discreetly engaged in "anti-national" activities, that they are under the scanner and would face "serious consequences" if even a slight evidence is found against them.

He said the government was also simultaneously monitoring Naik's school here to check if it is carrying out any indoctrination activities.

IRF Educational Trust of Naik-runs Islamic International School (IIS) at Mazgaon in South Mumbai and also has a branch in Chennai.

"We have to make sure children are not being taught what the IRF is known for. The curriculum being taught to students should be as prescribed by the government. Children cannot be allowed to be radicalised in the school," the Minister said.

Meanwhile, Education Minister Vinod Tawde tweeted the ban on IRF would not affect the students studying under the ambit of the organisation and that measures for rehabilitation of students will be taken.

Tawde had earlier said the government will consider transferring the reigns of the school to respected foundations like Anjuman-i-Islam that have been working in education field for long.

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The Baltic states and the United States have declared the application of the principles of the Welles Declaration to the policy on the non-recognition of Russia's illegal occupation of the Ukrainian Crimea, according to a statement posted on the website of the U.S. Department of State.

The U.S. Secretary of State and the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania made a joint statement on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Welles Declaration.

"We stand firmly against any attempts by Russia to rewrite history in order to justify the 1940 occupation and annexation of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union. [] The Welles Declaration's historic importance remains highly relevant in the 21st century, when some countries challenge the key principles and norms of a rules-based international order  notably sovereignty and territorial integrity. The principles of the Welles Declaration were rightly invoked again on July 25, 2018, when the United States confirmed its refusal to accept the attempted annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation," the document reads.

In their statement, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the United States reaffirmed their position in support of a rules-based international order that ensures security and prosperity for every nation.

Earlier, in July 2018, the U.S. Department of State released the Crimea Declaration, which is the basis of U.S. policy on the non-recognition of the illegal annexation of the peninsula. "In concert with allies, partners, and the international community, the United States rejects Russia's attempted annexation of Crimea and pledges to maintain this policy until Ukraine's territorial integrity is restored," the 2018 Declaration said.

op
The Election Commission of India on Thursday ordered an inquiry into the Maharashtra chief electoral officers (CEO) selection of a particular company, with alleged links to BJP, in the run-up to the 2019 assembly elections.

BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya was unreachable for comment.

Regarding tweet of Mr Gokhale @SaketGokhale, Commission has sought detailed factual report in this matter from CEO Maharashtra with respect to alleged locale of the incidence immediately, the ECI spokesperson said.

The ECIs decision came after a series of tweets by Saket Gokhale where he alleged that the CEO of Maharashtra appointed a company, Signpost India, which he alleged was empaneled by the Devendra Fadnavis-led government in 2017.

The CEO hired the company for the Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation, better known as SVEEP. As part of the program, the Commission puts out advertisements on social media, in newspapers and hoardings to promote a healthy attitude among the electorate and encourage them to work.

According to a CEO in a northern state, each state can choose its own method to hire an agency.

Some states decide to issue a tender, other can choose from companies empaneled with the government, the CEO said on the condition of anonymity. However, it strange that this has happened. Normally in the tender itself it is mentioned that the company should not be associated with any political party.

The CEO added that in a large state like Maharashtra a tender would easily be worth over 15 crores. It is at the time of elections when there is a certain amount of money involved; otherwise its not that expensive.

The procedure does not require approval from the Chief Election Commission or the Election Commission of India; in our state most of it is handled by the district level officers.

A CEO from a north-eastern state added that only the list of celebrities involved in the campaign has to be approved from the national capital.

We do most of our advertorial work in-house or in collaboration with institutions, said the CEO on condition of anonymity.

Gokhale has alleged that the demographic data of the electorate was at risk since a BJP officer bearer was involved.

The address 202 Pressman House was also used by a digital agency called Social Central. This agency is owned by Devang Dave who is the national convener of IT & social media for BJPs Youth Wing @BJYM. Guess who shows up on his client list on his website, Gokhale wrote on Twitter.

Devang Dave is also the founder of websites and pages like The Fearless Indian, I Support Narendra Modi etc. His agency lists the BJP (naturally) as a client along with other govt. entities, he added.

Gokhale said it was Facebooks policies about political advertising that helped locate the address of the agency.

Its not like a suo moto disclaimer was made by the Commission, Gokhale said.

Gokhale also raised concerns about data privacy. ECI uses very detailed demographic data. How do we know this wasnt passed along to the BJP by one of its office bearers. 

The Maharashtra BJP unit confirmed that Dave is a BJP member but said there was nothing wrong with him taking other contracts. Dave has his own digital marketing company and services various clients. Just because he is associated with BJP, that does not mean he cannot take up other assignments. He must have taken Election Commission contract through proper procedure, said BJP spokesperson Bhalchandra Shirsat.

Dave was not available for comment despite several attempts to reach him.

Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said it raised a very serious issue regarding the functioning of an independent agency like the Election Commission. How can someone who is involved with a political party be given a contract of a non partisan agency which conducts polls? This is serious case of conflict of interest and there should be an independent probe.
Bari Weiss is a sincere voice on "our side." Having been myself pilloried by the what-I-now call the pond scum leftists in my poetry group (!), I know whereof she speaks. I know from work, where my boss said to me, after working at her firm for close to nine years or so, "I just realized  you are a Republican," as if she were describing a species of poison snake that got loose somehow in her living room.

I am even now, when I decided not to return to the group once they called me a racist and other extreme and uncalled-for names on the basis of one poem that spoke of the looting and burning and violence of the squads of blm (they don't warrant uppercase letters, frankly, as black, like white, ought not be capped, per grammar rules) thugs torching our cities and laying waste to lives and livelihoods, told that I was "correctly censored" and not apologized to. These are people I have laughed with and shared my editorial insights with, brought in candy  unasked, of course  every week, and attended publishing parties with. These people jumped on me and called me a racist because they did not like the tenor of my correct criticism of the knights errant ruining our days and nights all over the country. Killing, stoning, knifing, car-ramming, torching shops and edifices. Downing historical monuments. Burning. Looting. Murder.

Howling about their rights. But not howling when they kill their own. Howling about their need for "diversity," but excluding the decent respect for others that they demand for themselves from people cowed into terrified silence, or, sometimes, beaten to death.

Bear in mind that most people not married to the left now know of the existence of a sub-rosa group active in Los Angeles and New York City has come into being precisely because "creatives" in the movies, TV, and media in general are under the gun and in proximal danger of being fired or retired if their affiliation outside the harbor of horribles (what some call the radical socialist underbrush) becomes known. In an abundance of caution, I omit naming the group in recognition of their adamant (and cautious) effort to remain under the radar.

The membership is hundreds strong for each venue. Their meeting places are not publicized, and their meetings do not welcome anyone not thoroughly vetted. Even so, one such monthly gathering was breached by Antifa-like thugs, who started actual fist fights with attendees. Though they were ejected  the membership has several brawny males always in attendance, just in case  the upshot of that unnerving set-to was that the meeting placeowners ousted the paid group from any future get-togethers at that location.

So we are well aware of the gift to public exposure that Bari Weiss was, but which shall obviously be no more from the Gray Lady, because those left at the Times are all fearful for their hard-fought jobs, tenuously holding on and pretending to a progressivism they do not hold.

This is analogous, in my eye, to the mob-confronted St. Louis couple, the McCloskeys, who defended their lives and property with their legal firearms, as a ragtag of what the reports said was between 300 and 500 burst the steel gate of that gated community, threatened their lives and their dog's life, and tacitly their home, as the astonishingly tone-deaf and venal partisan mayor now threatens to indict them  for defending their home with legal weapons.

We do not yet know on what bogus charge, because it is beyond Orwellian not to pursue the gangsters traipsing with hollers and waving guns in their usually peaceable private property where no trespassing is the signage. The mob that had been marauding in downtown St. Louis, proving their bona fides by looting, crashing, and destroying public buildings and enterprises, get no accounting. The mob gets no upbraiding. The victims of threat? They are threatened with indictment. Even if and when they are wholly exonerated, the McCloskeys will have had to expend thousands or more of their savings to defend themselves from this spurious assault on their constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Former top executive editor Jill Abramson, dispatched or gone of her own accord in 2014, was hauled out to hawk harmony back on the range at the flagging New York Times stock, asserting that Bari Weiss was little more than a disgruntled "junior writer" and that the paper is doing "very well" in subscriptions and every other way.

Really? My floor has 35 apartments. Time was, there'd be a fresh daily Times on the welcome mat on at least 25 of those doorways. Now? Nary a one. Even the refuse room features just the less glamorous segments of the elephantine Sunday avoirdupois  once in a while. No dailies.

Instead of tamping smoldering embers and burying two dead citizens, the couple are still able to plead their just cause. They stood up for themselves, as Bari Weiss stood up for the individual in a bullying, illiberal, intolerant left-culture that will brook no alien opinion or voice. The still-breathing McCloskeys have their home and their canine, still wagging his tail, and their plot of green protected by a stone wall no higher than a shin guard, their grass still vibrant in the sultry summer glisten.

Indeed, these are the non-nuances of my fealty to the current president. These are the reasons, because of his spine and pluck in the face of ceaseless haranguing and legal chicanery, that I am a staunch defender and supporter of this man they disparage and "hate," because he has the temerity not to fold under their blathering hatred and evil tantrums.
Lebanon's Assyrians Confront Severe Economic Crisis

Chicago -- In late 2019, amid a wave of anti-corruption protests, Lebanon turned witness to what would become its worst economic crisis in modern history.

People in Lebanon are facing the dire impacts of their economy's drastic decline: rocketing unemployment rates, severe devaluation of the Lebanese pound and a cyclical decline in both food production and consumption.

Among those facing the consequences are Assyrians who, in some form, call the country home.

On Saturday, the Assyrian Policy Institute (API) held an urgent community-wide meeting to discuss the situation in Lebanon as it relates to Assyrians -- both refugees and non-refugees -- present in the country. The meeting, moderated by API Director Reine Hanna, featured presentations from Beirut-based Cor-Bishop Yatron Koliana, Acting Head of the Assyrian Church of the East in Lebanon; and Jack Jendo, Board Member of the Assyrian Support Committee.

Here is what you missed.

Crisis impacts range of Assyrians in Lebanon

The Assyrian Policy Institute describes refugees as people who move from their country of origin to a "transit country," where they await eventual repatriation at a "resettlement country," their final destination.

Refugees can remain in transit countries for an unspecified amount of time, ranging from a few months to several years. According to Hanna, many refugees' transitional phases in Lebanon have lasted more than five years.

Non-refugees whose families settled in Lebanon after the 1915 genocide today live in communities situated around Beirut. According to Hanna, vulnerable Assyrians in these communities are those who live "just above the poverty line."

Currently, refugees who planned on returning to their home countries either have nothing to return to or are unable due to travel restrictions related to COVID-19 and financial insecurity. Likewise, those who anticipated a prompt transition to their resettlement countries are restricted by pandemic-related travel bans.

Assyrian refugees face unique problems

Unlike many refugees, Assyrian refugees in Lebanon don't seek shelter in refugee camps. According to API, many Assyrians rule out refugee camps, citing fear of discrimination and attacks targeting Christians, a minority within Lebanon's camp populations.

In an effort to avoid such attacks, Assyrian refugees in Lebanon seek other forms of shelter, often renting spaces in private homes in Beirut. Private rentals introduce rent costs which, combined with added costs of food, water, utilities and healthcare, have become unmanageable for many Assyrian refugees.

Money receipt presents obstacles

Whereas displaced Assyrians had previously relied on remittances from friends and family abroad, that stability now wavers as a result of increased unemployment across the globe related to the pandemic.

Money transfers are also less reliable than they used to be; Jendo explained that the Lebanese Central Bank instituted regulations that require money be exchanged at a lower rate. This means, in many cases, when U.S. dollars are sent inside Lebanon, people are receiving approximately 40% of the value of the initial amount in U.S. dollars that was transferred. According to Jendo, many in Lebanon are unaware of this regulation. "You have to tell everyone -- even if you are sending directly to families -- that they are getting it at a lower rate," he said.

Efforts to help are ongoing
By Laman Ismayilova

Young sculptor Tabriz Soltanli has created a bust of Major General Polad Hashimov who was killed in armed clashes on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border.

The work on the bust in clay lasted four days. The artist will transfer it to plaster in a few days.

"I was most struck by the fact that an officer of such high rank, a general, was fighting on the front line, repelling enemy's aggression together with other soldiers. Polad Hashimov is a true Azerbaijani commander and warrior. He was only 45 years old ... He also participated in Karabakh's April War and was one of the heroes of these battles against the Armenian invaders. He was awarded with the Order 'For Service to the Fatherland' and received an apartment from the state. However, while living in a rented apartment, he presented this apartment to the martyr's family. He came to Baku in an official car, handed it over to the ministry, and used public transport. His nobility, education, bravery and care for the soldiers should serve as an example for everyone. That is why I decided to create this bust. May the memory of our heroes and be a blessing ", the artist told Trend Life.

"When I graduated from the Azim Azimzade Art School, my diploma work dedicated to the National Hero of Azerbaijan Mubariz Ibrahimov. I was only 16 years old back then. Over the years, besides other art works, I also created several busts of our poets Mikayil Mushfig and Ahmad Javad as well as actor Samandar Rzayev. After graduation, I am planning to continue my work in this direction. I will try my best for the development of national culture and art," he added.

The cross-border clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia started on July 12 noon after Armenian troops fired artillery at Azerbaijani military post in Tovuz region. Three Azerbaijani servicemen died while thwarting the Armenian attack.

Azerbaijani armed forces retaliated destroying a stronghold, bombshells, vehicles and servicemen on the territory of the Armenias military unit by using artillery, mortars and tanks during the night leading to July 13. Azerbaijan has also downed three Armenian UAVs.

Azerbaijan lost 12 servicemen, including an army general, during cross-border clashes from July 12 till July 16.

Armenian forces have also been shelling civilians in villages in Tovuz. An Azerbaijani civilian in Tovuzs Aghdam village was killed as a result of artillery shelling by the Armenian armed forces on July 14.

---

Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz




WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Crude oil futures settled lower on Thursday, extending losses from the previous session, amid rising concerns about concerns over excess supply in the market and outlook for energy demand. Lingering worries about the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic and possibility of fresh lockdown measures have resulted in increased concerns about energy demand. An escalation in U.S.-China tensions is also adding to the concerns. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures settled at $41.07 a barrel, losing $0.83 or about 2%. Brent Crude futures declined $0.98 or 2.2% to $43.31 a barrel. Data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday showed that crude inventories in the U.S. increased by 4.9 million barrels last week, nearly 2.5 times the expected increase. The EIA data also showed that oil stored at the Cushing, Oklahoma, facility rose 1.37 million barrels last week. That was nearly two times the expected surge. In geopolitical news, the Trump administration's decision to close China's consulate in Houston over concerns about spying has sent U.S.-China relations to a new low. China vowed to retaliate and said the unilateral closure within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China. 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.
Dantri transfers donations to war invalids and martyrs

Dantri/DTiNews readers have donated VND50m to families of war invalids and martyrs on the occasion of the 73rd anniversary of Vietnam's War Invalids and Martyrs Day on July 27.

Deputy Editor-in-chief of Dantri Nguyen Xuan Toan

Deputy Editor-in-chief of Dantri Nguyen Xuan Toan and the family of Colonel Au Van Hung who was given the title of the Hero of the People's Armed Forces, transferred 50 presents each worth VND1m to the families that have meritorious services in the wars, war invalids and martyrs.Gifts were given to 20 families in Phu Luong District, Thai Nguyen Province. On behalf of the delegation, Nguyen Xuan Toan wished the family members health and continue to be the role models for younger generations."The party and the people remember the contribution and sacrifices have been made so that we can have the freedom today to protect and develop our country. Dantri Newspaper and our readers and kind people want to pay tribute to your sacrifices," Toan said.

Party Secretary of Phu Luong District Bui Thanh Hai, Deputy Editor-in-chief of Dantri Nguyen Xuan Toan and Colonel Au Van Hung transfer the donations to the families





Bui Thanh Hai, party secretary of Phu Luong District, said, "This is a meaningful yet practical gift. On behalf of the localities authorities, I want to thank the readers, Dantri and Colonel Au Van Hung for their love to our community."70-year-old Nong Thi Loan said she was very moved. "My husband died in 1973. He would be happy if he knew how much love he received. I don't know what to say but thank you."Dantri Newspaper representatives and Colonel Au Van Hung later went to pay tribute and offer incense at the Uncle Ho Temple in Dinh Hoa District, Thai Nguyen Province. They also visited and gave gifts to 30 families in Dinh Hoa District."When the July 27 comes, us veterans are filled with memories of the times that we risked our own lives for our country. Now that we can witness the new era and development, we don't have any regret. These small gifts are my tribute to my fellow veterans," Colonel Au Van Hung said.Dang Thai Binh, vice chairman of Dinh Hoa District, thanked the veterans, war invalids and martyrs and their families for all the sacrifices. He also thanked Hung the readers and Dantri for their support and tribute.
Targeting Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Tuesday said the audio clips which indicate an alleged plot to topple his government can be sent abroad for forensic tests.

Without taking the minister's name, Gehlot questioned why he is not coming forward to give a voice sample.

Rejecting the charge that the audio clips are fabricated, he said they can be sent to any forensic science laboratory for examination.

"We can send it for FSL testing to America if they have no trust in the Rajasthan government, he said, adding that the Congress also did not trust the Centre.

"Why is he not giving a voice test? He should come forward for it," the chief minister said, in an apparent reference to Gehlot whom the party has accused of trying to lure Congress MLAs. Shekhawat has denied the charge that it his voice on tape.
Newswire's team of experts is committed to helping customers find ways to stay in front of industry media during the new reality brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 23, 2020 / With the financial world rocked by the negative impact of the COVID-19 crisis, financial outlets and media organizations have been quick to cover companies that are finding unique ways to push through and offer valuable services to their customers. As a part of the Earned Media Advantage Guided Tour (EMA GT), Newswire's team of Earned Media Advantage Strategists work hand-in-hand with in-house marketing and communications teams to help brands align themselves with trending industry stories in order to maximize their potential for earned media mentions.

Trending stories in the financial world present key opportunities to brands looking for coverage during the pandemic. A Newswire strategist acts as extensions of in-house teams to help brands align their messaging to industry trends; this has proven to be effective during the crisis, as many major media outlets have provided coverage to brands that have been able to address issues in the industry that impacted customers over the past few months. As a result, Newswire EMA GT customers have been mentioned on CNBC, Business Insider, Forbes, CheddarTV and NBC affiliates in markets throughout the country.

"Consumers turn to financial media to find out what to expect and who to trust," said Charlie Terenzio, Newswire's VP of Earned Media Advantage Business. "If a brand can help consumers in a unique way, whether that be through a free consultation, a discounted service, or a special program that offers interesting benefits, it can really boost the company's perception in the eyes of the media."

The Earned Media Advantage Guided Tour is designed to help businesses educate and influence media simultaneously. With content that is both well-presented and informative, financial brands can establish themselves as authorities in their respective sub-industries. In the financial services space, this can range from accounting, to banking, to insurance, and beyond. Regardless of industry, the Guided Tour offers a tailored approach to media and marketing communications as EMAS team members work to expand publicity through targeted distribution channels and strategic outreach campaigns.

"Staying relevant and up-to-date is important for any campaign, and that reality has only been emphasized during the coronavirus pandemic," said Anthony Santiago, Newswire's VP of Marketing. "Customers are reading and hearing about the recession and financial setbacks that the U.S. economy is experiencing on a daily basis. When it comes to working with financial firms, they want to be certain in the brand's ability to deliver, and they will evaluate its messaging when making that assessment."

"That's why the Earned Media Advantage Strategists dedicate so much effort into the concept development process. If the content is relevant and persuasive, it provides the brand with an excellent opportunity to stand out within their respective industries."

Newswire's Earned Media Advantage Guided Tour empowers financial companies with its best-in-class science, processes and technology as they look to increase their earned media potential. Through the implementation of consistent comprehensive campaigns, brands can elevate their presence in their respective industries and excel in their market expansion efforts.

To find out how Newswire's Earned Media Advantage Guided Tour can help communication efforts during the COVID-19 crisis, navigate to the official program page for more information.

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To learn more about how Newswire can help you, visit http://www.newswire.com.

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View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598678/Newswires-Guided-Tour-Helps-Financial-Services-Firms-Secure-Media-Coverage-During-COVID-19
Oorja cleantech has launched VirusKiller which neutralizes 99.9999 percent of viruses through a combination of filters and air sterilization and is tested for coronavirus, adenovirus, influenza virus and poliovirus.

Hyderabad based company Oorja Cleantech LLP, a pioneer in providing cleantech solutions, has launched VirusKiller in India that neutralizes certain viruses and bacteria including coronavirus SARS CoV1, in a single air pass. Single-air pass kill rates are instrumental in minimizing the risk of cross-contamination.

World Health Organisation (WHO) also recently confirmed that viruses can be transmitted through aerosols combined with droplet transmission in public settings like in very specific conditions, crowded, closed, poorly ventilated settings. VirusKiller has been tested on the coronavirus (SARS CoV1) in the Institute of Medical Sciences, School of Medicine National Kangwon University, South Korea. The test confirms that the air is completely sterilized, and no virus survived when it was passed through the machine.

Oorja is importing the air sterilizers from South Korea-based INBair and Radic8. VirusKiller is also being tested in a lab in India for 15 different viruses & bacteria including the Covid19 virus. VirusKiller uses a two-stage process of filtration followed by sterilization.

Oorja is launching three types of air sterilizers in India: Hextio, VK- 401, and VK-102 designed for both personal and commercial use. VK 102 is a high-end air sterilizer that provides complete negative pressure sterilization, which ensures that the contaminants from one room do not escape to another. All the three air sterilizers require a simple installation process and maintenance and are available across India.
Florida is seemingly reconsidering its narrow 2016 vote for President Trump.

While Trump won the state by just a percentage point in 2016, former Vice President Joe Biden has pulled ahead of Trump 51-38, a Quinnipiac University poll out Thursday indicates. Approval for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is also down 31 points since the last Quinnipiac Florida poll in April, suggesting rampant COVID-19 spread in the state is at least partially to blame.

Quinnipiac's April poll gave Biden only a 46-42 lead over Trump, but he has since won over 4 percent of independents in the state to widen his lead. Voters overwhelmingly say Biden would also handle the coronavirus better than Trump, 58-38, as well as racial equality, 58-38. Just 37 percent approve of Trump's handling of the coronavirus.

Meanwhile voters give DeSantis, who has been a vocal supporter of Trump since before his election in 2018, a negative approval rating of 41-52, and give his handling of the coronavirus just 38 percent approval. Those are DeSantis' lowest approval numbers since his election, Quinnipiac notes.

The candidate who wins Florida has also won the presidency for the last six elections, adding to the national polls that already put 2020's election in Biden's favor.

Quinnipiac surveyed 924 registered voters in Florida via landline and cell phone from July 1620, with a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points.

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Jeju Air Co., South Korea's biggest low-cost carrier, said Thursday it will scrap a deal to acquire Eastar Jet Co. amid the fallout from the new coronavirus pandemic.







In a regulatory filing, Jeju Air said that Eastar failed to meet demands required to seal 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 ($45.53 million) as part of its expansion strategy despite the COVID-19 pandemic.







But the deal had been on the verge of breaking down, as Jeju Air and Easter have been making little progress in talks over debt payments amid the losses incurred by the virus outbreak. (Yonhap)


Liverpool fans taking photos with replica EPL trophy in Singapore. (PHOTO: Chia Han Keong/Yahoo News Singapore)

SINGAPORE  In a nondescript corner of Woodlands, far from the Liverpool home ground of Anfield, some Reds fans savoured the experience of lifting the English Premier League (EPL) trophy just hours after their beloved club were awarded that title on Thursday (23 July).

Granted, the trophy is a replica version, and there were no accompanying fireworks and pulsating music like the award ceremony at Anfield when captain Jordan Henderson lifted the coveted EPL trophy. That did not stop the fans from sporting wide grins as they posed for photos with the replica trophy.

The idea to share the joyous occasion with fellow Reds came from die-hard fan James Lim, who once headed the official Liverpool fan club in Singapore.

The 55-year-old had purchased the replica EPL trophy from an online source to commemorate Liverpool winning the title for the first time in their illustrious history and ending a 30-year wait to be crowned domestic league champions again.

When it arrived on his doorsteps on Sunday, he decided that the best thing he could do is to share his passion for the club with other Reds fans in his community in Woodgrove Zone 5 in the Marsiling-Yew Tee constituency.

I mean, theres no point keeping the trophy at home for no one else to see, he told Yahoo News Singapore. I know that many of my neighbours are Liverpool fans, so I wanted to give them a chance to hold up the trophy and feel happy.

He went into action straightaway, securing the permission of the owner of a provision shop next to his flat to set up a small podium to put the hefty trophy. Then he got a printer company to print out a banner proclaiming Liverpool as the champions of this EPL season. Finally, he used social media to inform his neighbours and community acquaintances to come down on Thursday afternoon if they wanted to take photos with the trophy.

By Tuesday, everything was settled, and on Thursday afternoon, Liverpool fans living around the provision shop began trickling down to the shop corner and cheerfully posed with the trophy.

Story continues

As the fans wore wide grins while snapping their photos, Lim said, Its a good feeling to see the smiles on their faces. The club is all about being part of a family, and Im just a resident who wants to share my love for Liverpool.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

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American Companies Shouldnt Aid Communist China in Religious Suppression: Experts

U.S. companies should know what values they stand for and stop supplying technologies to an authoritarian Chinese regime that is increasingly using surveillance to suppress religions, Gary Bauer, commissioner at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, told The Epoch Times.

Tech companies need to remember that they are American tech companies. And they should be sensitive to the values that we stand for, he said in an interview. When we see some of these companies willing to cooperate with a communist authority, its not acceptable.

Experts at a July 22 online hearing hosted by the commission described a dystopian surveillance state under Chinese communist rule, where authorities deploy high-tech cameras, facial recognition, phone apps, GPS tracking, and DNA collection to spy on and suppress religious communities.

A popular underground church in Beijing was shut down for refusing to install security cameras inside. In Tibet, people have been arrested for sharing photos of the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader Dalai Lama on social media. Most recently, the regime has imposed a national security law on Hong Kong, which empowers officials to censor online content and intercept communications, prompting fears among local faith groups of mainland-style persecution.

No authoritarian state has leveraged digital technologies more successfully than modern China, said Chris Meserole of Washington-based think tank Brookings Institution during the hearing. For religious groups targeted by the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], the result has been as devastating as it is tragic.

Some U.S. companies have played a part in fueling the regimes surveillance industry or complying with its censorship.

Apple, for instance, has removed or rejected thousands of apps from the Chinese version of its App Store at the behest of the Chinese regime, despite the companys recent call for a more just world for everyone, noted Lobsang Sither, a Tibetan-in-exile who heads the digital security program at the Tibet Action Institute, a human rights advocacy group.

Tech giants such as Intel and Nvidia have sold artificial-intelligence chips to surveillance equipment maker Hikvision, one of nearly 50 Chinese companies on a U.S. sanctions list for their involvement in human rights violations in Chinas far-western region of Xinjiang, according to a November 2019 report by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Chinese authorities have detained an estimated 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities inside concentration camps, under the banner of combating religious extremism.

File photo showing a man checking security cameras at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Oct. 31, 2013. (Ed Jones/Getty Images/AFP)

The California State Teachers Retirement System, the second-largest pension fund in the United States, owned about $24.4 million worth of shares in Hikvision as of June 30, 2018.

In May this year, the U.S. administration blocked further investment by U.S. federal retirement funds into Chinese equities, citing present significant national security and humanitarian concerns.

In a July 16 speech highlighting communist regimes threat to U.S. freedoms, Attorney General William Barr had similarly called out corporate America for kowtowing to Beijing, saying Hollywood and U.S. tech firms have been too eager to access the Chinese market and thus allowed themselves to become pawns of Chinese influence.

For the sake of short-term profits, American companies have succumbed to [Chinese] influence, even at the expense of freedom and openness in the United States, he said.

For multinational companies that are already facing scrutiny, its time to step back and reassess their stakes in China, said Bauer.

If theyre concerned about their brand, they need to understand that if it becomes obvious that theyre cooperating with the Chinese communists to oppress, discriminate against people, that that is going to hurt their brand and their profits a lot more than if they irritate the Chinese Communist government, he said.

The proliferation of Chinas intrusive surveillance technologyalready used in over 80 countries worldwidehas become difficult to ignore during the current virus pandemic, as Beijing began actively exporting its health surveillance software in the name of tracing virus patients, said Sheena Greitens, an associate professor in public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

Global regulations on the use and export of Chinese-manufactured surveillance tools are sparse, if any, with Chinese companies largely writing the rules, said Greitens. Left unchecked, such developments could further bolster global reliance on Chinese technology and normalize mass high-tech monitoring, especially in countries where civil liberties are already at risk, she added.

On July 21, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee issued a report decrying Beijings concerted campaign to export its digital authoritarianism, which, according to UC Berkeley researcher Xiao Qiang, has created systemic competition with the United States and other democracies.

At its core, this competition is over the value of basic human freedom and dignity, said Xiao during an online forum unveiling the report.
Qatar National Cement reports 32% fall in profit

23 July 2020

Qatar National Cement has reported a 31.8 per cent YoY decline in net profit to QAR68.3m (US$18.76m) for the first half of 2020, compared to QAR100.1m in the year-ago period.



The company also saw revenue fall 23 per cent YoY to QAR290.6m from QAR377.3m.

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Linkedin Sausan Atika (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 13:10 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668b63bb 1 City dki-jakarta,social-assistance-funds,disbursement,COVID-19 Free

The government has committed to assisting citizens hit hardest by the COVID-19 outbreak until the end of the year, but persistent issues of data reliability have complicated efforts in the capital and other regions.

In a recently published study by the SMERU Research Institute conducted between late April and mid-May in five cities and regencies of the country, researchers found instances where government social assistance ended up in the wrong hands.

The study found that 400 of the 2,000 listed recipients surveyed in a certain district should have been ineligible for aid, either because they had escaped poverty or were already deceased.

The study did not specify which region this data was from.

Jakarta began its social assistance program on April 9 and committed to support the 2.2 million households most affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. The program, which will continue to disburse monthly aid until December, involves the central government, which has committed to supporting the majority of potential recipients, roughly 1.3 million people.

Pepen Nazarudin, the Social Affairs Ministrys director general for social empowerment, said the number of recipients was fixed and could not be changed. He said it was the city administrations responsibility to determine which recipients should be prioritized.

Early on in the program, the lack of reliable recipient data caused a number of logistical problems, including mistargeted aid, which Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan complained about in April.

After four months of running the program, the city has seen improvements in its services, although shortcomings remain.

Social aid disbursement for stages two to four [conducted from May to mid-July] has reached 100 percent, which means that all of the assistance has been disbursed, said Ika Yuli Rahayu, the Jakarta Social Agencys head of social security protection, on Wednesday.

Ika acknowledged that some ineligible recipients had been discovered during the disbursement process and that local authorities usually looked for the next eligible person to give the aid to.

There were still one or two [ineligible recipients] that we found, but this didnt occur in every subdistrict, she said.

The official said that when the recipient was deceased or had been registered to the wrong address, the next recipient would be determined based on the recommendation of the neighborhood unit (RT), community unit (RW) or subdistrict head.

People who were not registered as recipients but were eligible for social assistance could also be considered, she said.

Jakarta RT/RW Forum chairman Muhammad Irsyad said that human error was one reason why aid still ended up with ineligible recipients despite an updated database.

Jakarta Deputy Governor Ahmad Riza Patria said last month that data problems had occurred because different institutions employed different methods to process recipient information.

But Irsyad also said that the implementing authorities had improved since the early days of the program and that officials would try to quickly resolve outstanding cases.

There is no more of the turmoil that we experienced at the outset, he said.

The National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) recently revealed that only 113 of the countrys 514 municipalities and regencies had updated their data on the Social Affairs Ministry's Integrated Data for Social Welfare (DTKS) site, a database of poor and vulnerable families.

The regions with updated data were predominantly located on the island of Java, as well as the Bangka Belitung islands and Nusa Tenggara.

Semarang in Central Java, Bojonegoro in East Java and Pariaman in West Sumatra were among the few other regions that had provided new data, Bappenas director of poverty alleviation and social welfare Maliki told The Jakarta Post.

In Jakarta, some municipalities have managed their data well, but that datas accuracy  whether the listed recipient is eligible in real life  is a different topic altogether, Maliki said.

The government relies on the National Social and Economic Survey (Susenas) to evaluate data accuracy. The Susenas in September of this year will be a good opportunity to evaluate the accuracy of social aid programs, as the survey will include disbursements for the previous four months, he said.

About 1.63 million Indonesians fell into poverty between September 2019 and March of this year as the COVID-19 outbreak took a toll on the nations poor, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data shows.

Jakarta recorded that 1.11 percent of its population had fallen into poverty, the highest percent increase of any province. Now, 4.53 percent of its citizens are considered poor.

Jakarta's poverty rate is the highest in the past decade and even approaches Jakartas condition 20 years ago [4.96 percent], the Jakarta Statistics Agency wrote.

In addition to social assistance for poor families in the capital, the city administration has also distributed staple food to people thought to have the illness and people who are self-isolating in RWs declared "red zones".

More than 6,000 families from the 48 subdistricts in mainland Jakarta and the four islands of the Thousand Islands that had been declared red zones as of July 13 were listed as eligible recipients of social assistance.
276pp, 599; HarperCollins Publishers India

What must a poem do to make itself worthy of a place in a queer anthology? Should it be dressed in rainbow colours, soothe a broken heart, or scream resistance from the rooftops? Can it be quiet or does it have to speak to the other poems in the collection? Would it qualify as a queer poem only if the poet is out and proud? Does a poem become queer only in the act of reading?

These questions came rushing forth as I read The World That Belongs To Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia. Edited by Aditi Angiras and Akhil Katyal, this is an ambitious undertaking, and a delightful confluence of poetic voices across geographies, languages and identities -- Gee Semmalar, Kazim Ali, Leah Piepzna-Samarasinha, Vikram Seth, Ruth Vanita, Chanchal Kumar, Phurbu Tashi, Hoshang Merchant, Santa Khurai, Vqueeram Aditya Sahai, Ramchandra Srinivas Siras, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and more. This is a remarkable feat.

In 2018, when Angiras was interviewed by poet Chandramohan S for a literary blog called Cafe Dissensus Everyday, she had said, Many a times anthologies, actually most times, are like birthday parties. You send out an invitation to those you know and those you think you wanna hang out with. It becomes a bubble; the possibility of striking conversations with strangers gets rare.

This realization made the editors walk down a different path when they began to assemble their own book. They issued an open call for submissions, which took a life of its own in online queer communities. Apart from circulating it far and wide, people wrote back to the editors with suggestions that challenged, expanded and deepened their understanding of what it means to be queer. The experience of queerness is shaped by race, ethnicity, religion, caste and the nation-state. It is not merely about having a non-normative sexual orientation or gender identity.

Aditi Angiras (HarperCollins)

In the poem Queer As In, Riddhi Dastidar writes, Tomorrow Ill come with you to Dokkhinneshwar, Ma,/ but its going to take more than flowers-prayers-proshaad because/ I am never going to be any less abnormal, Ma,/ sorry I couldnt be more normal, Ma. In What Does It Take to Belong? Raqeeb Raza writes, My Mallu friend, Ive been told,/ is now a Pakistani too,/ as are all the cow eaters,/ or even those, who do not pray/ to the Gau Mata, they say,/ are now Pakistani. These poets compel the reader to think about queer identity in the context of religious beliefs and traditions instead of believing that everything is hunky dory after Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code was read down by the Supreme Court.

Read more: Excerpt: The World That Belongs to Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia Edited by Aditi Angiras and Akhil Katyal

An anthology that brings together desi and diasporic poets from Chennai, Lahore, Varanasi, Kolkata, Kathmandu, Dhaka, Colombo, Karachi, Vancouver, Dublin and various other places is certainly something to celebrate at a time when jingoistic sentiments are making cross-border dialogue in South Asia almost impossible. Many of the poems featured in this collection were originally written in Bangla, Urdu, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Punjabi, Malayalam, Marathi and Nepali and later translated into English. It also benefits from the labour of an impressive set of translators including Mamta Sagar, Maaz Bin Bilal, Somrita Urni Ganguly, Dhiren Borisa, NP Ashley, Rohan Chhetri, Jasdeep Singh, Anish Gawande and others.

In their preface, Angiras and Katyal write, ...this thing many of us know as queer was only an odd, lovely but tentative bridge between us and for all the entries that would come to us in the coming months. People live their lives through a maddeningly complex slew of names, identities and gestures. Queer only pretends to signpost them all, but it is precisely that, a convenient pretence, meant for book covers, not for all its contents.

Akhil Katyal (Courtesy HarperCollins)

In the poem Body/ Lost in Translation, Fatema Bhaiji writes, Body, I am trying to come home to you/ but you are a country my passport does not recognize. In This World Isnt for You, Phurbu Tashi writes, Why would I embrace desires that make life harder for me? In the poem Love in the Time of Dysphoria, Minahil Abideen writes, A need to be hugged. It must count/ as the simplest of needs, to be comforted, and told  and each of us/ must be told  that everything would be fine. In Old Men, R Raj Rao writes, He prefers old men/ To Hrithiks and Salman Khans./ Old men have breasts.

Podcast: In conversation with Akhil Katyal and Aditi Angiras, editors of The World That Belongs To Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia - Books and Authors

Each poem has its own flavour, emotion and smell. I remember fondly the two that made me laugh. Shakti Milan Sharmas Hinglish poem Laga Jockey Mein Daag is a raunchy response to the hit Hindi film song Laaga Chunari Mein Daag written by Sahir Ludhianvi and sung by Manna Dey. Hadi Hussains poem Fat Talk makes a jibe at the NGO which instantly starts shitting/ rainbows, every time there is someone significant/ from the western neo-liberal funding machine around,/ shows them through graphs and numbers,/ how many condoms and lubes, they have distributed/ among the community members so/ they can fuck safely.

A lot of effort seems to have gone into the curatorial process. While Angiras and Katyal might receive criticism for focusing mostly on Indian and Pakistani poets, and hardly giving a platform to poets from Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and the Maldives, let us applaud what they have accomplished. They have created a home for diverse forms including ghazals, sonnets, free verse, prose poems, list poems and multilingual poems. They have also ensured that trans, non-binary, Dalit and Muslim voices, which are often marginalized in mainstream queer spaces, get to have their say loud and clear.

In the preface, the editors state, ...we know taste (or its close friend merit) in South Asia is a loaded thing. It replicates social hierarchy. It unhears caste. And class. It pretends cultural capital does not exist. It ignores linguistic diversity and odd hierarchies which creep in between languages. It is not able to digest that each poem has an echo and a vagitus, each of it is a conversation, a meditation, a quarrel. Which different readers are poised to hear differently.

Chintan Girish Modi is a writer, educator and researcher. He is @chintan_connect on Twitter.
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When you accept Babar was an aggressor, the Babri case itself becomes obsolete, sena said

As the date for the bhoomi pujan ceremony for the proposed Ram Mandir at Ayodhya approaches nearer, the Shiv Sena has demanded dismissal of the Babri Masjid demolition case before the event takes off. It would be a true homage to martyrs of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, the party has said.

Its an irony that while the foundation for the Ram Mandir is being laid, the Babri Masjid demolition case is still going on against several people including Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. Even after the Supreme Court has delivered the verdict on Ram Janmabhoomi, the CBI continues with the Babri case and Advani, who was the prime leader of Ayodhya movement, appears in it as an accused, the Shiv Sena said in an editorial in party mouthpiece Saamana on Wednesday.

When you accept Babar was an aggressor, the Babri case itself becomes obsolete. If the Babri mosque demolition case is dismissed before the bhoomi pujan of the Ram Mandir, it would be a homage to the martyrs of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, the Sena said.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led party claimed that the Mughal emperor Babar was connected with Ayodhya only through invasion. Babar, who came from Uzbekistan, demolished several Hindu temples. He did not even spare Ram Janmabhoomi. The Babri encroachment was demolished by lakhs of Karsevaks, who were from Shiv Sena and others, it added.

Had the domes of Babri not been razed, the Ram Janmabhoomi premises would have never been liberated. The day Babri Masjid was pulled down, the world saw that faces of many warriors turned black with fear. We haven't done this, this is the job of Shiv Sena, the then BJP vice president Sundar Singh Bhandari had said. On this, Balasaheb Thackeray thundered in Mumbai that if his Sainiks had indeed done it, he was proud of them. Since then, he was adored by people as Hinduhridaysamrat, said the Sena.

The Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was demolished on December 6, 1992 by Karsevaks. A special CBI court has charged BJP leaders Mr Advani and Mr Joshi, who were leading the Ram Mandir movement at that time, with criminal conspiracy in the Babri Masjid demolition case. It has set July 24 for recording the statement of Mr Advani in the case through video conferencing.
COLUMBUS, OhioGov. Mike DeWine reversed himself and called for the repeal of the House Bill 6 on Thursday, saying Speaker Larry Householders alleged bribery scheme forever tainted the $1.3 billion nuclear bailout law.

DeWine, who signed HB6 a year ago Thursday, reiterated that he supports the policy laid out in the bailout, saying its needed to preserve jobs at the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants and keep carbon-free sources of energy.

While the policy in my opinion is good, the process by which it was created stinks. Its terrible, its not acceptable, DeWine said during his televised coronavirus briefing.

The governors announcement marks a reversal from just the day before, when he stood by HB6 despite the federal charges against Householder and four allies regarding their acceptance of more than $60 million from FirstEnergy Corp. to get HB6 passed and thwart an anti-HB6 referendum effort.

On Wednesday, DeWine said: The policy is good policy, Because people did bad things does not mean that the policy is not a good policy.

At his Thursday briefing, DeWine opened by saying he had been thinking a lot about this and struggling to process everything. Asked to elaborate during the question-and-answer section of the briefing, DeWine said he had to let the whole story sink in. It takes awhile to really get it, I guess. Basically, it came down to a matter of public trust, he said, and the public will not trust a tainted process.

He said HB6 should be revisited and repealed and replaced through an open process.

FirstEnergys political action committee donated a total of $25,207.79 to DeWines 2018 campaign for governor, state campaign-finance records show. The companys PAC also contributed an additional $20,000 to DeWines transition fund after he was elected, and it gave $12,532.34 in campaign donations to Lt. Gov. Jon Husted.

On top of that, individual FirstEnergy executives gave DeWines gubernatorial campaign at least $27,000, according to state records.

On Wednesday, some Republican and Democratic lawmakers announced separate plans to introduce legislation to repeal HB6, though its still unclear whether there are enough votes in the Ohio House and Senate to pass such a measure.

Under HB6, which DeWine signed last July just hours after it cleared a final legislative vote, every Ohio electricity customer will have to pay a new monthly surcharge that ranges from 85 cents for residential customers to $2,400 for large industrial plants, from 2021 until 2027.

In addition to the massive nuclear bailout, the law also provides subsidies for coal plants in Ohio and Indiana, and it effectively guts the states green-energy mandates for utilities.

DeWine said Thursday that restoring the green-energy standards could be on the table as part of the repeal and replacement.

Read more coverage:

Top aide to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine once led political non-profit identified as money conduit in federal racketeering complaint

Who is Team Householder, the candidates Larry Householder recruited to help him become Ohio House Speaker?

Is Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine really standing up for a corrupt billion-dollar-plus nuclear bailout? This Week in the CLE

Gov. Mike DeWine stands by billion-dollar nuclear bailout authorities say was forged in corruption
Indian Def Minister Asks Air Force to Stand Ready, Despite De-escalation Efforts Along China Border

Sputnik News

11:53 GMT 22.07.2020

New Delhi (Sputnik): A month after violent skirmishes involving the armies of India and China in eastern Ladakh, the commanders of the Indian Air Force (IAF) met in New Delhi to "review the operational scenario and deployments" and to discuss "building the IAF capabilities in the next decade to tackle all emerging threats."

Opening a three-day commanders' conference of the Indian Air Force (IAF) in New Delhi on Wednesday, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said air strikes at terror camps in Balakot in February 2019 and the rapid deployment of assets to forward locations in Eastern Ladakh during the recent standoff with China have sent strong messages to potential adversaries.

Alluding to the ongoing efforts for de-escalation on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China, Rajnath Singh asked the Air Force to stand ready to handle any eventuality.

Indian Air Force Chief Air Marshal Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria said, the force was well prepared to counter short-term and strategic threats and that the units were evenly poised to counter any aggressive action by an adversary.

In one of the worst border incidents with China in recent years, India saw 20 soldiers, including an officer, killed on 15 June. There were also unverified casualties on the Chinese side.

Both countries have held several rounds of discussions at both the commander and the diplomatic level, but both sides remain in forward positions along the LAC, the loosely demarcated de facto border between the two sides..

Lingering border disputes between the two Asian giants have resulted in several clashes  the first Indo-Chinese war in 1962 and a limited war in 1967 and two standoffs, the first in Doklam in 2017 and the latest one in eastern Ladakh.

The India-China border covers the 3,488 km-long LAC, which is mainly a land border, but in Pangong Tso in Eastern Ladakh it passes through a lake. India controls the western portion of the 45-km long lake, while the rest is under Chinese control. Most of the clashes between the two countries have taken place in the Galwan Valley.

A Sputnik

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 11:24:16|Editor: huaxia

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SHANGHAI, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Shanghai reported one new imported COVID-19 case and no increase in domestically-transmitted cases on Wednesday, the municipal health commission said Thursday.

The imported case was a Chinese national working in the United States. The passenger departed from the United States on July 17 and arrived at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport via Germany on July 19.

The passenger was put under quarantine upon arrival and showed symptoms during the isolated observation period and was later confirmed as a COVID-19 patient.

All the 43 close contacts of the patient have been put under quarantine.

As of Wednesday, Shanghai had reported 396 confirmed imported cases and 342 locally transmitted cases. Enditem
A 20-year-old Ohio man has been arrested after he was pictured pressing his knee against a crying child's neck in a scene that evokes the slaying of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Isaiah Jackson was taken into custody by the Clark County Sheriff's Office on a parole violation this week and is facing possible felony charges for the image which circulated on social media with a caption 'BLM now MF', in a reference to the Black Lives Matter Movement.

Investigators located Jackson Tuesday after they said they were notified about the image circulating online.

The Clark County Sheriff's Office in Ohio says the man in a social media post pressing his knee against a young child's neck (pictured) is Isaiah Jackson, 20

Jackson, pictured in a previous arrest photo, was held on a violation probation. Prosecutors are weighing possible felony charges for the social media image, which evokes the killing of George Floyd

The unnamed child, who has their arms held behind their back by a second person whose face is not visible in the image, was taken to a hospital and found not to have been injured, authorities said.

Officers, who also found the mother with the child when they located Jackson, said she claimed she was not aware of the photo being taken, or what it showed. Cops did not say what her relationship to Jackson was.

The Clark County Sheriff's Office reported the incident to local prosecutors, who are currently weighing felony charges against Jackson.

Clark County Prosecutor Dan Driscoll told DailyMail.com Thursday that Jackson remained held on a parole detainer and that the matter is under investigation.

Similar images have been posted online, but of people participating in a 'George Floyd challenge', mocking the image of the 46-year-old black father of five when he died during an arrest on Memorial Day.

The picture taken from footage shot by a bystander shows officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, pressing his knee against Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes, leading to his death.

Chauvin lost his job and was charged with Floyd's murder over the incident, which sparked Black Lives Matter protests across the country calling for an end to police brutality and systematic racism.

Officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee against George Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes, leading to his death

The challenge that emerged on Snapchat showed dozens of teenagers sickeningly mocking the fatal arrest. The participants, who are mostly white males, are seen smiling in the photos and kneeling on the necks of their friends.

Jackson's post appears to be a critical response to the challenge, although authorities are still investigating the motive, and who else may be involved.

'Detectives continue to investigate, and are continuing to compile evidence related to several other persons who were directly involved,' the deputies said the released sheriff's office statement.

'The Investigations Bureau of the Clark County Sheriff's Office has prepared the case against the male subject shown in the photo,' authorities explained.

Detectives said they are now 'awaiting the Office of the County Prosecutor to provide a determination on the scope and breadth of the felony charges that will be supported by that office for presentation in court'.
State Sens. Tim Kearney, D-26 of Swarthmore, and Anthony Williams, D-8 of Philadelphia, are slated to host a virtual discussion on racial equity July 28 at 4 p.m.

In June, Senate Democrats announced a statewide Racial Equity Tour focused on solutions to end systemic racism. Kearney and Williams will be joined by a panel of criminal justice experts and racial justice advocates.

We do have systemic racism in this county, and in this state. As a legislative body, we need to commit to dismantling the systems that have allowed Black people to be overpoliced, unfairly targeted, and over incarcerated for generations, Williams said in a statement.

The panel includes Swarthmore College political science professor Keith Reeves, who is department chair and director of the Urban Inequality and Incarceration program at the Colleges Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility; Stefan Roots, a journalist and activist who is the founder and author of the popular Chester Matters Blog; civil rights lawyer Jonathan Feinberg; and Hans Menos, who is the head of the Philadelphia Police Advisory Commision.

Individuals wishing to attend the discussion can register at Kearneys website.

We are going to have community-driven discussions that focus on solutions to end systemic racism and reimagine public safety, Kearney recently said in a statement. I am hopeful the tour will lead to meaningful action, because this moment in history offers us a real chance to live up to our ideals and meet the promise of liberty and justice for all.

The state Senate recently unanimously passed two bills that ban chokeholds, require police to adopt use-of-force standards, and mandate reporting of use-of-force incidents. Gov. Tom Wolf signed the police reform bills into law on July 14.

The bills were pushed by state legislatures in response to the nationwide protests in the aftermath to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on May 25.

Systemic racism is a complex issue, Gov. Tom Wolf said last week. Its ingrained in our society. Im not going to downplay the challenges we all face in eradicating it, but we have to find a way to eradicate it. We need to end racism.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- As expected, AMC Theatres said it would not reopen cinemas on July 30 as planned. Instead, the largest theater chain in the U.S., with locations in Brooklyn, Rocky River and Solon, would welcome moviegoers back sometime in mid-to-late August.

This new timing reflects currently expected release dates for much anticipated blockbusters like Warner Bros.' Tenet and Disneys Mulan,' as well as release dates for several other new movies coming to AMCs big screens.

Regal, originally scheduled to reopen July 31, said on its website that a new date would be announced soon. Cinemark, which was supposed to resume operations Friday, said on Tuesday it would hold off reopening, too.

Earlier this week, Warner Bros. pulled Christopher Nolans time-bending spy thriller Tenet from its August 12 release date amid spikes in COVID-19 cases in some places across the country. Disney followed suit Thursday, postponing the release of its live-action Mulan indefinitely.

Over the last few months, its become clear that nothing can be set in stone when it comes to how we release films during this global health crisis, and today that means pausing our release plans for Mulan as we assess how we can most effectively bring this film to audiences around the world, a Walt Disney Studios spokesperson said in a statement, according to CNBC.

Disney also pushed back the release of the upcoming Avatar sequels and the next Star Wars movies by a year. Avatar 2 is now due on December 16, 2022. The next film set in the galaxy far, far away is scheduled for release on Dec. 22, 2023.

Atlas Cinemas, with six area locations, is currently the only indoor movie theater chain operating in Northeast Ohio.
Pangilinan: Who profits in COVID-19 test kit trade during pandemic?

IMMEDIATELY after the Department of Health (DoH) announced the approval of the commercial release of the Filipino-developed test kits for COVID-19, prices of imported test kits significantly dropped, Senator Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan said Wednesday.

"Long-time DoH insiders have told us that some distributors of imported COVID-19 test kits have lowered their prices by 26 percent after the announced commercial release of the much cheaper test kits developed by the University of the Philippines-National Institutes of Health (UP-NIH)," Pangilinan said.

"Ang laki ng ibinaba at napakalaki ng tubo sa presyo dati. Sino ang kumikita at nananamantala sa panahon ng pandemya?" he asked.

Filipino scientists and doctors have started developing the test kits as early as January this year when reports about the coronavirus surfaced.

In May, the UP-NIH test kits were recalled by its manufacturer due to the alleged contamination of the reagents, which may have been the reason why 30 percent of the test kits yielded "indeterminate" results.

Citing DoH sources, Pangilinan said the contamination was not due to lab facilities but contaminated imported raw materials. "We were told all stock was immediately pulled out and destroyed when the contamination was detected," he said.

On July 18, Pangilinan, together with opposition senators Franklin Drilon and Risa Hontiveros, slammed Health Secretary Francisco Duque III for his supposed inaction that led to the locally manufactured COVID-19 testing kits getting stuck in warehouses instead of being put to good use.

The following day, July 19, the DOH announced that the GenAmplify version 2 test kits of UP-NIH are ready for commercial use.

"If the UP-NIH test kits had been approved earlier, then mass testing could have been achieved earlier at lower cost to the government and the public," said Pangilinan, noting the continuing rise in the number of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines.

On Tuesday, July 22, the country breached 70,000, second to Indonesia with the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia.
July 23 (Reuters) - Ascena Retail Group, owner of Ann Taylor and Lane Bryant, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday, succumbing to the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic that has already pushed some of the biggest retailers to the brink.

Shares of Ascena plunged 20% in morning trading after the company also said it plans to close a number of stores and exit its plus-size apparel brand, Catherines.

The company, like many apparel retailers, has seen its business crumble due to the pandemic, as it was forced to close its stores and furlough employees during the lockdown period.

The company, which also owns apparel brands LOFT and Lou & Grey, has about 2,800 stores in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Even as lockdown restrictions have eased in many states, demand for apparel in the United States has remained weak.

This has added to the troubles at Ascena, which has been struggling for years with declining sales and a mounting debt pile, due to strong online competition.

Since the beginning of March, a number of iconic retailers, including Neiman Marcus, J. Crew and J.C. Penney have filed for bankruptcy.

Ascena said on Thursday its restructuring agreement was supported by more than 68% of its lenders and has received $150 million in funding from existing lenders.

The company, which filed for chapter 11 in the bankruptcy court for the Eastern District of Virginia, also said it expects to reduce its debt by about $1 billion. (Reporting by Aishwarya Venugopal in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
Rallies In Khabarovsk Continue As Protesters Demand Putin's Resignation

By Siberia Desk, RFE/RL's Russian Service July 22, 2020

KHABAROVSK, Russia -- Hundreds of supporters of the arrested ex-governor of Russia's Far Eastern Khabarovsk Krai region, Sergei Furgal, have rallied for a 12th day, this time demanding the resignation of the country's president, Vladimir Putin.

The demonstrators gathered on the central square in the regional capital, Khabarovsk, on July 22, chanting "Putin must resign" and "No trust in 20 years," referring to Putin's ruling the country as president or prime minister since 1999.

Police were present at the rally but did not interfere as the protesters made their way across the city chanting slogans denouncing the newly appointed acting governor of the region, Mikhail Degtyaryov.

Degtyaryov was appointed by Putin, on July 20. He arrived in Khabarovsk on the morning of July 21, but did not meet with the protesters, who were demonstrating at the time against his appointment.

Degtyaryov posted a video statement on his Instagram account on July 22 saying that he eas not going to leave Khabarovsk and that he wished Furgal all the best in his upcoming trial. He added that there "must be someone" behind the ongoing protests, though he did not specify who.

Degtyaryov's statement on Instagram sparked a huge wave of criticism online.

Putin fired Furgal on July 20 before appointing Degtyaryov to the post. Both are members of Vladimir Zhirinovsky's nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR).

On July 21, two local lawmakers, Pyotr Yemelyanov and Aleksandr Kayan, quit the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia to protest Furgal's dismissal from office.

Furgal, who was arrested in Khabarovsk on July 9 and transferred to Moscow, is charged with attempted murder and for ordering two murders in 2004-2005. He denies the allegations.

He was elected governor of the Khabarovsk region, which borders China, almost two years ago in an upset for the longtime incumbent who represented the ruling United Russia party.

The Khabarovsk rallies have attracted thousands of people on the weekends and are the largest protests in the city since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Such sizeable demonstrations far from the Russian capital are a rare public show of defiance against the Kremlin and come following a controversial nationwide vote that set the stage for Putin to remain in power until 2036.

Authorities have been unnerved by the protests, with the regional capital's mayor calling for calm and saying such rallies were illegal and could help accelerate the spread of the coronavirus.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) had also warned of an alleged terrorist threat involving explosives, which it claimed to have already foiled.

Authorities in Khabarovsk region have also said they were considering a return to strict quarantine measures and attributed this to the "difficult situation with the spread of coronavirus infection."

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-khabarovsk-rallies- protesters-demand-putin-resignation/30741732.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Shareholders of Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc (NYSE:SKT) and Gannett Co Inc (NYSE:GCI) have seen their holdings underperform the S&P 500 index over the past one-year, three-year and five-year periods.

Furthermore, these two stocks have negative recommendation ratings on Wall Street, which means that their share prices are foreseen to keep on performing poorly in the months ahead.





Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc

Shares of the Greensboro, North Carolina-based real estate investment trust company have declined 59% in the past year, 75% in the past three years and 79% in the past five years through July 22. The stock has underperformed the S&P 500 by 68.1%, 106.7% and 135.6%, respectively.

Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc has suspended the distribution of dividends.

Shares were trading at a price of $6.82 per unit at close on July 22 for a market capitalization of $637.45 million and a 52-week range of $4.05 to $19.91.

The 14-day relative strength index of 50 suggests that the stock is still far from oversold levels despite the sharp decline suffered.

Wall Street sell-side analysts recommend an underweight rating for this stock.

Gannett Co Inc

Shares of the McLean, Virginia-based media and marketing solutions operator in the U.S. have fallen by almost 87% over the past year, 90% over the past three years and 92% over the past five years through July 22. The stock has underperformed the S&P 500 by 96.1%, 121.7% and 148.6%, respectively.

Gannett Co Inc decided on April 1 to stop the distribution of dividends.

Shares were trading at a price of $1.35 per unit at close on July 22 for a market capitalization of $178.33 million and a 52-week range of $0.63 to $11.35.

The 14-day relative strength index of 48 indicates that the stock is still far from oversold levels although the share price fell significantly.

Story continues

Wall Street sell-side analysts recommend an underweight rating for this stock and have established an average target price of 50 cents per share.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any securities mentioned in this article.

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The Ascena Retail Group Inc., operator of the Ann Taylor, Loft, Lane Bryant, Justice and Lou & Grey chains, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the company disclosed today.

Ascena, yet another retail victim of COVID-19 and insurmountable debt piled up through a string of acquisitions over the years, said it entered into a restructuring agreement with over 68 percent of its secured term lenders. Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, Ascena liquidated Dressbarn and sold off the Maurices chain. The company now plans to close all its Catherines stores.

The pre-arranged financial restructuring plan is expected to reduce Ascenas debt by about $1 billion and provide increased financial flexibility to enable the company to continue its focus on generating profitable growth and driving value for customers and stakeholders.

Ascena said it worked out $150 million in funding from existing lenders. With that, plus cash flow from existing operations, the company feels it has sufficient funds to meet its needs.

The company also said that it will reduce its footprint by closing a significant number of Justice stores and certain Ann Taylor, Loft, Lane Bryant and Lou & Grey stores. This includes the exit of all stores across brands in Canada, Puerto Rico and Mexico and the closure of all Catherines stores, the company said. The total number of stores to close depends on negotiations with landlords and bankruptcy court permission. Bankruptcy allows retailers to vacate leases without penalties.

The company filed the Chapter 11 petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Currently, Ascena is operating with about 95 percent of its stores reopened after shutting down temporarily earlier this year due to the coronavirus.

The meaningful progress we have made driving sustainable growth, improving our operating margins and strengthening our financial foundation has been severely disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, we took a strategic step forward today to protect the future of the business for all of our stakeholders, said Carrie Teffner, interim executive chair of Ascena.

Story continues

The RSA (restructuring agreement) formalizes our lenders overwhelming support for a comprehensive plan to deleverage our balance sheet, right-size our operations and inject new capital into the business. With the cash generated from our ongoing operations and the new money financing commitments we received from our lenders, we expect to have sufficient liquidity to meet our operational obligations during the court-supervised process. We expect to move through this process on an expedited timeframe as our talented leadership team, established over the last year, stays focused on generating profitable growth and driving value for customers and stakeholders.

Gary Muto, chief executive officer of Ascena, commented, Ann Taylor, Loft, Lane Bryant, Justice and Lou & Grey have incredibly loyal customers who are at the center of everything we do. These iconic brands have significant long-term potential and we continue to deliver on their mission to provide all women and girls with fashion and inspiration to live confidently every day. This comprehensive restructuring, as well as the actions we are taking to optimize our brand portfolio and store fleet, mark a new start for our company and will allow us to expand our customer-focused strategies across her mobile, online, and store experiences.

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CAMEROUN :: Human bones traffickers to appear at the Foumbot court :: CAMEROON

Two people shall appear at the Foumbot Court of First Instance in connection with the trafficking of human bones. The charges were brought against them following their arrest by the Foumbot Gendarmerie brigade on June 26 with two almost compete human skeletons.

The trial that shall be in its second hearing shall take place on the July 27, Foundikou Fakoue Aminou 26 years old and 40 years old Lontsi Saint-Clairwere arrested during an operation that was carried out by Gendarmerie officials and the Foumbot Forestry and Wildlife Control Post, with technical assistance from LAGA  a wildlife law enforcement body. They were found in possession of human bones in two suitcases.The case opened on July 13 and was postponed by the presiding judge to July 27 to enable both parties prepare for the trial to begin in earnest with arguments and presentations.

The trafficking in human body parts is reportedly on the rise in the Noun Division, despite efforts by law enforcement to track and punish traffickers. On May 20, 2020, three human skeletons traffickers were arrested still in Foumbot and sentenced to 5 years in prison by the Foumbot Court of First Instance. It has often been found that these trafficking networks are linked and form part of an even larger network.The two cases of human bones trafficking were uncovered by wildlife trafficking investigations,indicating the connection between wildlife trafficking and human bones trafficking.

Authorities are therefore stepping up enforcement against wildlife trafficking and in this light the hearing againstthree ivory tusks traffickers shall hold on July 28, at the Court of First Instance of Ndokoti for the third time. The three were arrested with 26kg of ivory tusks by the Littoral Regional Delegation of Forestry and Wildlife in collaboration with the Police.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 22:17:14|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping's visit to northeast China's Jilin Province shows that the country is firmly committed to ensuring grain security amid COVID-19 pandemic and a complex international situation.

For a country with 1.4 billion population, ensuring food security is an unending task for China, and efforts must not be slackened at any time. Northeast China is the country's most crucial commodity grain base, and Jilin is one of the leading corn production areas. Xi's inspection of the province delivered an important message as China strives to finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by the end of this year.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has stressed the importance of food security on many occasions, reiterating that "the rice bowl of the Chinese people, in any situation, must be firmly held in our own hands."

The COVID-19 pandemic has further underlined the importance of grain security. In the first half of the year, China's spring plowing and agricultural production encountered setbacks due to difficulties in transportation, circulation and grain processing.

Restrictions on food exports and panic hoarding in some countries and regions, and rampant desert locust, have adversely affected food production.

"The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020" report released by five agencies, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), projected that COVID-19 could push up to 132 million people into starvation globally this year.

China has adopted timely measures to respond to emerging challenges. The central authority convened the national work conference on spring plowing in February, one month earlier than usual, to draw this year's roadmap for spring plowing and agricultural production.

When China was hit hard by the coronavirus, the country's top leadership urged all-out efforts to organize spring plowing while taking differentiated anti-epidemic measures, so that farmers don't miss the farming season and a good summer harvest could be guaranteed. Stable grain production has been listed as one of the nation's top priorities as measures conducive to agriculture are adopted across the country.

A bumper harvest is in the offing. China's summer grain output reached a historic high of 142.81 million tonnes this year, up 0.9 percent from last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The record-breaking harvest has paved the way for another bumper year.

Geopolitical conflicts, coupled with rising protectionism, unilateralism and hegemonism, have made the global situation increasingly complicated, thus posing grave challenges to China's development.

Despite the obstacles, the Chinese people will not flinch, they will deal with their affairs unswervingly. The most pressing issue is to provide food for 1.4 billion people. In the face of volatile and complicated international situations, China's bottom line of safeguarding food security can never be crossed. With this bottom line protected, China's confidence and composure will be boosted enabling it to tide over the internal and external challenges. Enditem
Not only phone tapping, Govt hacking Instagram accounts of my children: Priyanka Gandhi

UP Polls: Priyanka in Firozabad to continue women centric campaign

Help family of doctor who died of COVID-19, urges Priyanka Gandhi

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, July 23: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra urged the government to provide all assistance to the family of a doctor, who died after contracting COVID-19 while working with Delhi's National Health Mission.

Javed Ali, a contractual doctor with Delhi government's National Health Mission, died on Monday of coronavirus. Ali had been on the frontline in the fight against coronavirus since March.

"Dr Javed Ali and all other doctors offer their services during this crisis by risking their lives. Sad news was received about Dr Javed. He was serving on contract," Priyanka Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi.

Biggest single day surge in southern states, over 17K COVID-19 cases reported

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

"It is time to stand with the families of these martyrs. The government should provide all possible help to Dr Javed's family," she said.
Kate Langbroek has implored Australians to wear face masks as the coronavirus pandemic worsens.

In an editorial for the Herald Sun on Thursday, the 54-year-old radio host spoke about the importance of covering up after witnessing the effects of the virus in Italy.

Kate explained that what was supposed to be a two-week lockdown lasted for four months, as the European country struggled to get a handle on the situation.

Covered up: Kate Langbroek has implored Australians to wear face masks as the coronavirus pandemic worsens

She said she knew five people who had contracted the virus, with one person dying, while the others were all hospitalised.

Describing the extreme measures Italy put into place to combat the pandemic as 'hard', Kate acknowledged that 'it was also effective'.

'I wear a mask because, once you get used to the extra level of preparation in leaving the house (wallet/phone/mask) it is a relatively small price to pay for the freedoms I was denied for four months,' she wrote.

Advocate: In an editorial for the Herald Sun on Thursday, the 54-year-old radio host spoke about the importance of covering up after witnessing the effects of the virus in Italy

Kate said she could understand why some Aussies were 'resentful' about being made to wear a face mask, believing it's due to 'an underlying lack of faith in government'.

But she insisted the importance of covering up amid the pandemic went beyond politics.

'Right here, right now - my right not to wear a mask is not the hill I am prepared to die on,' she said.

Whatever it takes: Describing the extreme measures Italy put into place to combat the pandemic as 'hard', Kate acknowledged that 'it was also effective'

'And I don't expect anyone else to die on it, either.'

While she's currently based in Bologna, Italy with her husband of 17 years, Peter Lewis, and the couple's four children, Kate briefly returned to Melbourne last month with her 16-year-old son, Lewis.

After completing their 14-day hotel quarantine, Kate revealed they had returned to visit her father, Jan, who is gravely ill.
Psoriasis, a chronic skin condition that causes itchy, red, scaly patches, afflicts more than 8 million Americans and 125 million people worldwide.

Small molecule-based drugs like steroids can penetrate the skin to treat the condition, but they can cause skin irritation and thinning and their efficacy can decrease over time.

Antibodies that target specific inflammation-related molecules associated with psoriasis have been developed, but because they cannot be delivered via the skin, they are injected using needles and syringes, which limits their acceptance and can have negative systemic side effects.

A team of researchers at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) has circumvented these limitations by using an ionic liquid (IL) combination to successfully deliver a small interfering RNA (siRNA)-based treatment directly to the skin in a mouse model of psoriasis, significantly reducing levels of inflammatory cytokines and symptoms of psoriasis without systemic side effects. The research is published today in Science Advances.

Compared to other technologies that have demonstrated delivery of nucleic acids to the skin, our IL platform offers unique opportunities in terms of tunability, an excellent safety profile, and economical scale-up. We think that effective topical delivery of macromolecules will revolutionize the treatment options for debilitating dermatological disorders like psoriasis." Abhirup Mandal, Ph.D., Study First Author and Postdoctoral Fellow, Senior Research Scientist, Wyss Institute

Running simulations to predict real success

Synthetic siRNAs are non-coding double-stranded RNA molecules that are routinely used in biological research to "silence" a target gene by destroying the gene's RNA transcripts.

This ability also makes them very attractive candidates for treating diseases and disorders without modifying the DNA in a patient's cells.

However, their use in medicine has been hampered because RNAs are large, hydrophilic molecules, and therefore have a hard time crossing cells' hydrophobic membranes.

The team at the Wyss Institute and SEAS tackled that challenge using a recently discovered class of material called ionic liquids (ILs), which are essentially salts that are liquid at room temperature.

Based on earlier research investigating the interactions of ILs with lipids, the researchers had a hunch that ILs could stabilize siRNAs and improve their penetration across lipid-based cell membranes, enabling localized gene silencing.

The team first created a library of different ILs, then tested combinations of them to see which had the physical and chemical properties they were looking for.

They settled on a mixture of two -- CAGE (choline and geranic acid) and CAPA (choline and phenylpropanoic acid) -- that helped associated siRNA molecules retain their structural integrity and led to increased siRNA penetration into pig skin in vitro.

When they applied the CAGE+CAPA mixture as a thick topical liquid to the skin of living mice, they observed no inflammation or irritation, indicating that it was non-toxic.

Because ILs are a fairly new material, predicting their interactions with the cargoes they are meant to deliver is challenging.

The researchers collaborated with co-author Charles Reilly, Ph.D., a Senior Staff Scientist in the Bioinspired Therapeutics & Diagnostics platform at the Wyss Institute, to perform molecular dynamics simulations to model and understand how the CAGE+CAPA solution would interact with siRNA and cell membranes at the molecular level.

The observations from those simulations predicted that this IL-siRNA complex had superior stability due to its component ions' strong chemical interactions with the RNA base pairs.

The model also suggested that it led to higher penetration of cell membranes because the ions in the IL were able to pack closely together, forming aggregates that augmented the complex's ability to disrupt the membrane and allow the siRNA's entry.

Breaking down barriers

Armed with an effective delivery vehicle, the team then coupled it with a specific siRNA designed to silence a gene called NFKBIZ, which has been implicated in the upregulation of a number of inflammatory molecules that are involved in psoriasis.

They applied the CAGE+CAPA mixture along with the siRNA to the skin of mice with a psoriasis-like condition for four days, then compared those mice to others that had received CAGE+CAPA with a control siRNA, CAGE+CAPA alone, or no treatment.

The mice that were given the NFKBIZ siRNA treatment had reduced epidermal thickening, skin discoloration, and keratin overgrowth compared to the other experimental groups, as well as less redness and scaling.

They also displayed a significant reduction in the expression of NFKBIZ and other psoriasis-related gene products in their skin cells, demonstrating for the first time that IL-siRNA complexes can induce a therapeutic effect at both molecular and macroscopic levels by silencing a target gene in vivo following topical administration.

"Topical creams have been used to treat skin conditions for hundreds of years, but the skin is a very effective barrier against most substances, which limits their effectiveness."

"Being able to bridge that barrier to deliver nucleic acid therapeutics directly to skin cells is a huge accomplishment in the quest for targeted, effective therapeutics," said corresponding author Samir Mitragotri, Ph.D., who is a Core Faculty member at the Wyss Institute and the Hiller Professor of Bioengineering and Hansjorg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at SEAS.

This IL-based delivery platform can be easily scaled up and tuned to interface with a variety of therapeutic molecules, including DNA and antibodies.

It could also empower transdermal drug delivery for the treatment of other dermatologic skin conditions including eczema, and improve the long-term efficacy of therapies by targeting genes that mediate multiple disease pathways.

Based on the encouraging results from this study, Mitragotri's lab is initiating new collaborations with researchers at various institutions focusing on understanding local and systemic mechanisms associated with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases in the skin.

"Many of the innovations that biologists have been using in research for years have significant clinical potential, but most haven't achieved it because of fundamental limiting factors such as, in this case, the barrier posed by the skin."

"This creative solution to this drug delivery problem holds great promise for enabling a new class of effective treatments that are long overdue," said the Wyss Institute's Founding Director and co-author of the paper Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital, and Professor of Bioengineering at SEAS.
Staff Reporter  The Zimbabwe Daily

Ekhurhuleni, South Africa  SADCs first car, the Mureza Prim8 has suffered a huge setback due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

By now the Mureza Prim8 should have made its way into the market but due to the COVID-19 pandemic those plans have had to be rescheduled.

COVID-19 has impacted the whole world. Nations have not been spared. We are adjusting to the new situation and finding the opportunities.

Moreso, an announcement will be made about our official launch soon. Its hard to fore-tell as the governments are battling to balance economy and saving humanity.

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However, prices will be available on our website as well as an online ordering system for the different models.

Moreover, we have plans of launching in all SADC countries including Zimbabwe. Again, details will be published on our website and social media, read a statement from Mureza.

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Reporting to a supervision mission from the National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee, the MOIT said that aside from Australia and Singapore, exports to other CPTPP markets in 2019 increased sharply compared to the previous year.

Of the six partners that have implemented the CPTPP, Vietnamese exports to Canada enjoyed the highest number, at 29.8%, followed by Mexico at 26.3%, according to the report delivered at a meeting on July 22.

The MOIT assessed that the effect on Vietnam of the trade pact within a year of its unveiling was positive, affirming its consistency with previous predictions and assessments.

Regarding the implementation of free trade agreements (FTAs), the MOITs report showed that Vietnam's total exports to markets it has signed FTAs with in 2019 stood at US$123.11 billion. Meanwhile, in 2004, Vietnam had only two FTA partners, ASEAN and China, with total export turnover of nearly US$7 billion.

In terms of the average export growth rate to FTA partner markets, India has averaged at 35.7% a year, the Republic of Korea 29.2%, Chile 28.9% and China 20.9%.

Given the results regarding FTA implementation as reported by the MOIT, participants at the working session agreed with a proposal from the ministry on the selection of partner countries to supplement Vietnam's economy through negotiations and the signing new FTAs.

They also suggested the Government, the MOIT and other concerned ministries and agencies find solutions to exploit the existing FTAs as best as possible in the interest of the economy and the people.
Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Philip Lowe, makes a speech on March 19, 2020 in Sydney, Australia. (Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)

Reserve Bank of Australia Welcomes JobKeeper Extension, Encourages Government Spending

Australian Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe has welcomed the federal governments $20.4 billion Jobkeep and JobSeeker scheme extension as being key to bolstering the economic recovery from the crisis-induced by the CCP virus.

During his annual speech to the Anika Foundation on July 21, Lowe supported the governments decision to keep borrowing money against future income to continue its economic stimulus measures.

Continuous government spending during the crisis and recovery stage is essential to smooth out and reduce the large fiscal blows households and firms were experiencing due to the severity of the downturn, according to Lowe.

The deeper and more protracted a downturn, the more severe are the economic scars, he explained.

By smoothing things out, the government is helping people right now and also limiting the longer-term damage to the economy, he said.

Lowe said programs like JobKeeper, JobSeeker, and government investment in infrastructure and public health were vital to generating an economic recovery:

They assist with a return to more normal patterns of spending and consumption, without the need for ongoing fiscal stimulus.

Government In a Good Position to Borrow to Spend

Acknowledging the record-high budget deficit, Lowe said the government was in an excellent position to keep borrowing to support a sustainable economic recovery.

Currently, Australia has several favourable economic factors working for it. These include the lowest borrowing rates since 1901, good demand for Australian government bonds, and overall gross debt to GDP at less than 50 percent, which is lower than in many countries and likely to remain so.

For a country that has got used to low budget deficits and low levels of public debt, this is quite a change, Lowe said, referring to the governments need to borrow to deliver unprecedented stimulus schemes. But it is a change that is entirely manageable and affordable, and its the right thing to do.

However, he rejected the suggestion that the central bank should finance government spending by printing money, saying it is only relevant to a high government debt situation, which does not apply to Australia.

I want to make it very clear that monetary financing of fiscal policy is not an option under consideration in Australia, nor does it need to be.

Furthermore, this option comes with high costs.

The reality, though, is there is no free lunch, he said. The tab always has to be paid, and it is paid out of taxes and government revenues in one form or another.

Confidence is The Key to Strong Economic Growth

In addressing the concern over the staggering budget deficit, Lowe said the best solution to the build-up of public debt would be economic growth.

Given that we are borrowing against future income, we will be better placed if that future income is strong, he said.

He highlighted the need for Australia to be a great place for businesses to expand, invest, innovate, and hire people.

To achieve this, Lowe said the key is restoring confidence in health and financial security, adding that this is the prerequisite for people to resume their normal activities and for firms to hire and invest.

The other element is people being confident about their own finances and jobs, and businesses being confident about future demand.

Looking forward, Lowe warned that the recovery could be bumpy and drawn-out and the jobless rate could go up unless theres a vaccine.
ALGONAC, MI  Another boat parade is being held for the nations 45th president, Donald J. Trump near the Detroit area.

On Aug. 1, organizers are holding the TrumpTilla Boat Parade on Lake St. Clair in Algonac.

Bring your flags, signs, costumes and lets do it right Michiganders! Come by Boat, Jetski, Motorcycle, Jeep, Lifted Truck, Classic Car, Exotic Cars or The All American Family Vehicle. Join together for what might be one of the LOUDEST Summer Rally events in Michigan! the Facebook post says.

In June, organizers held a boat parade for Trumps 74th birthday. The flotilla made its way from Harrison Township in Macomb County to the Ambassador Bridge near Downtown Detroit, with participants blasting patriotic music and waving flags all the way.

RELATED: MAGA boat parade to Downtown Detroit celebrates Trumps 74th birthday

Some of the signs sported the slogan from Trumps winning 2016 campaign when he promised to Make America Great Again and his current slogan to Keep America Great.

The rundown of events is as follows:

11 a.m.  The Trump Unity Bridge Parade Float will be in attendance for the Algonac Trumptilla, along with many more Republican groups and supporters.

11:30 a.m.  Cruisin Trumptilla Rally Downtown Algonac along the boardwalk, come by motorcycles, flashy car show vehicles, lifted trucks, classic cars and any type of motorized vehicles are welcome. Park along the boardwalk (not on the boardwalk) on the grass, under the trees. Overflow and all-American family vehicle parking available at the old Algonac elementary school grass area behind Dairy Queen and side streets. Be courteous and do not park in front of hydrants, sidewalks or driveways or on homeowners property.

12:45 p.m.  Pre-parade boaters line-up. Gather in front of the Algonac State Park Campground. Line-up and stay behind the lead tugboat with the big blue Trump flag. Boaters do your best to maintain controlled chaos to get into place.

1 p.m.  Trumptilla Boat Parade begins at the sound of the long-loud tug boat blow horn. Follow each boat slowly to begin the boat parade. Stay behind the lead tugboat with the big blue Trump flag. The parade route will be down the St. Clair River north channel. Expect a 12-14 mile route. Turn marine radios to channel 20 for parade info and updates throughout the boat parade. If an emergency occurs, switch to channel 16 to report it.

1:30 p.m.  Loudest Sound of Freedom: All together honoring our law enforcement, healthcare workers, firefighters and emergency responders. Boaters and cruisin rally attendees combined. Rev your engines. Blow your horns as the lead tugboat of the parade passes along the downtown Algonac boardwalk and cruising rally, and all the way to the end of the north channel on Lake St. Clair.

3 p.m.  Trump Unity Bridge departure. When the tail end of the boat parade passes by downtown Algonac, follow The Trump Unity Bridge west out of Algonac on M-29 alongside the St. Clair River, as the Trump Unity Bridge departs by escort to an evening rally in Macomb County, where everyone is welcomed to be part of the Trump Unity Bridge escort and attend the evening event in Macomb County.

3:30 p.m.  Cruisin Trumptilla Rally ends. All vehicles that attend the rally in the park and that are parked on the grass and side streets are requested to please depart slowly, with caution and without tearing up the park grass. Please proceed out of town peacefully and respectfully.

4:30 p.m.  Trumptilla Boat Parade ends.

4:30 p.m.  Wherever we end up during our Trumptilla Boat Parade of Trump Train of boats. Please keep your marine radio on channel 20 for parade updates during the parade.
Gov. Phil Murphy has spent the last two days pushing Senate Republicans to support another round of federal aid for state and local governments in the next the coronavirus stimulus bill, saying New Jersey would face devastating cuts without it.

So far, his pleas have gone unheard.

As Senate Republicans struggle to draft their own legislation, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has refused to include such aid among his priorities. And some GOP lawmakers claim the aid is nothing more than a bailout of Democratic-run states.

This is a slap in the face of every governor across the country  Republican and Democrat  who have shouldered the responsibility of responding to this pandemic, said Murphy, a Democrat, in his Wednesdays coronavirus press briefing.

McConnells office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Democrats, however, say the Senate Republican leader may not be able to get any new stimulus package passed without some kind of aid for state and local governments.

Murphy noted that McConnell only came around to supporting aid for state and local governments in the first round of stimulus funding because of just unrelenting facts and unrelenting pressure.

Helping to apply that pressure Wednesday was the National Governors Association, led by Republican Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, which called on the Senate to approve $500 billion in state aid.

Given the sharp drop in economic activity as a direct result of the pandemic economic shutdown and the corresponding reduction in tax receipts, state budgets are in tatters, Hogan and NGA Vice Chair Andrew Cuomo, a New York Democrat, said in a statement.

Without Senate action, we will need to make steeper cuts and reduce payrolls even more, at precisely the time when these services are needed most.

While Republicans and President Donald Trump remain unable to craft their own stimulus bill, House Democrats included $875 billion in state and local aid in their $3 trillion stimulus bill, and U.S. Sens. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., have introduced bipartisan legislation providing provide $500 billion in federal aid to states and localities.

Menendez told NJ Advance Media that more Republicans may be willing to support federal help for state and local governments as their states are forced to shut down to combat the pandemic the way New Jersey was months earlier.

It clearly has made it a far more compelling issue for them to embrace, Menendez said. The virus doesnt discriminate.

But Trump has threatened to veto the House bill, and some Republican senators said such aid would be a bailout for states with pension problems, even though the House legislation restricts the money to coronavirus-related expenses, such as costs of responding to the pandemic and the drop in tax revenue.

Meanwhile, not only cant Republicans agree on a bill, but it wont have enough support to pass without a package of state and local aid, Menendez said.

I just cant see it happening, Menendez said. There is no way, I think, a bill in the Senate can pass without assistance to states and municipalities.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

The House bill also would extend the extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits past its July 31 expiration date to Jan. 31, 2021, provide another $1,200 per person stimulus payment up to $6,000 per household, and would suspend for two years the Republican tax laws $10,000 cap on deducting state and local taxes.

The Senate Republican priorities include protecting reopening businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits.

Trump has championed a payroll tax cut, which would not help those currently without jobs under the pandemic-induced recession nor assist states in balancing their budgets. Almost two-thirds of the benefits of a payroll tax cut, 64%, would go to the richest 20% of Americans, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a progressive research group.

Murphy said the $2.4 billion the state received to date under the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus law known as the CARES Act is a drop in the bucket compared to our needs. Moreover, you would be hard-pressed to find a state that would say differently, Murphy said.

Because of the dropoff in state and local tax collections as businesses shut down to curb the spread of the coronavirus and millions of Americans lost their jobs, states are facing a combined deficit of $555 billion through 2022, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive research group.

New Jersey, one of the states hardest hit by the pandemic, would get $16.5 billion over two years under the House bill, CBPP estimated. Just through next June, the state projected a $9.9 billion budget gap, Murphy said.

And without any aid, New Jersey could lose 152,500 public and private-sector jobs by the end of next year, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive research group.

While Republican U.S. Sens. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi and Susan Collins of Maine have co-sponsored legislation to provide state and local assistance, other GOP lawmakers claim the aid is a bailout of Democratic-run states.

For months, I have been fighting to make sure Congress doesnt bail out states for their poor fiscal decisions, said U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.

I have worked aggressively to stop bills that would backfill states lost revenue or give poorly-run, liberal states like New York and Illinois a blank check to pay for their years of fiscal mismanagement, Scott said.

Many of the states in question send billions of dollars more to Washington than they receive in services. New Jersey received $11.5 billion less and New York received $22 billion less from Washington than they paid in federal taxes, according to the State University of New Yorks Rockefeller Institute of Government.

Florida received $24.9 billion more.

Rick Scott is doing his ideological thing, Menendez said. It is a view full of hypocrisy given the fact that theyre a moocher state, not a giving state.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com.

Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com.
Touted by many as the most beautiful library in the world, the Klementinum in the Czech Republic is a bonafide work of art. Nestled in the historical center of Prague, the baroque architectural masterpiece has inspired awe since the early 18th century. Its ornate interior must be seen to be believed.

The library was originally an 11th-century chapel but eventually expanded into 2 hectares and became a Jesuit university in 1556. Empress Maria Theresa recognized its official status as an observatory, library, and university in 1777.

The baroque library hall of the Klementinum in Pragues old town, Czech Republic. (Bruno Delzant/CC BY 2.0)

According to the Klementinums official website, the library holds over 20,000 books, most of which are foreign theological tomes. It became known as the countrys national library in 1781 when Klementinum director Karel Rafael Ungar put together a collection of literature for the people of the Czech Republic.

Some books, aged almost 300 years, have been lovingly preserved since the inauguration of the library; these volumes are identifiable by their white painted spines.

The librarys iconic interior boasts breathtakingly colorful ceiling frescoes by the artist Jan Hiebl. The murals comprise portraits of Jesuit saints, patrons of the university, and various allegorical motifs pertaining to education and learning.

The Klementinum is so widely renowned for its beauty that the library was even mentioned in a novel by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, The Secret Miracle. In the book, the protagonist dreams of the library and its librarians looking for God between the pages of the books.

The balcony and ornate decorations in the interior of the Klementinum. (Screenshot/Google Maps)

The ceiling of the Klementinum, decorated with frescoes by Jan Hiebl. (Screenshot/Google Maps)

Beside its collection of 20,000 books, the library is home to a vast collection of astronomical globes and numerous theological tomes rescued from abolished monasteries. A portrait of Emperor Joseph II in the main hall pays homage to the man who orchestrated the shipment of these books to the Klementinum.

Starting in 2020, some of the librarys books are being digitized and will eventually appear in a digital library on Google Books. But while the librarys collection is moving with the times, the buildings interior is still celebrated for its original 18th-century splendor.

The general reading room at the Klementinum. (Screenshot/Google Maps)

A brand-new Czech National Library building was proposed by the architect Jan Kaplicky and his firm, Future Systems, in 2007. However, the design was widely criticized by the public, who referred to the modernist structure as the blob or octopus, according to the Prague Post.

Then-President Vaclav Klaus also dismissed the design as being inappropriate for Prague, while then-Mayor Pavel Bem felt it would diminish the beauty of the city skyline. Kaplicky passed away in 2009 at the age of 71 while controversy surrounding his design persisted.

In 2005, the beloved library was honored with the UNESCO Memory of the World prize. As the crown jewel of Pragues rich architecture, the Klementinum will be lovingly preserved for future generations.

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New Delhi: Flipkart on Thursday announced the acquisition of Walmart India for an undisclosed amount, and said it will launch Flipkart Wholesale next month, as the homegrown e-commerce major looks to tap into the USD 650 billion B2B retail market in India.

Walmart India runs 28 Best Price wholesale stores in the country.

The announcement comes a week after Flipkart had said it had raised USD 1.2 billion in funding from a Walmart-led investor group. In 2018, Walmart Inc had invested USD 16 billion for acquiring 77 per cent stake in the group.

Flipkart Wholesale is a new digital marketplace focusing on addressing the business-to-business (B2B) segment in India.

This marketplace is going to effectively link sellers and manufacturers on one end and kiranas and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) on the other end, Flipkart Senior Vice President and Head - Flipkart Wholesale Adarsh Menon told PTI.

The acquisition will help strengthen the capabilities to address the requirements of kirana and MSMEs, he said.

The move will further intensify competition with Flipkarts rival Amazon that has a similar offering for the B2B segment.

The B2B market for finished goods is estimated to be worth USD 650 billion. To start with, we will be focusing on USD 140 billion of that USD 650 billion, which is largely the categories of fashion, grocery, general merchandise, large and small electronics, Menon said.

Walmart, the worlds biggest retailer, had entered India through a partnership with Bharti Enterprises for a cash-and-carry business that allows small businesses, kirana stores and hotels to buy in bulk.

In 2013, the two companies went separate ways and Walmart continued to scale the cash-and-carry business in India on its own.

Flipkart Wholesale will launch its operations in August, and will be headed by Menon.

Sameer Aggarwal, Chief Executive Officer at Walmart India, will remain with the company to ensure a smooth transition, after which he will move to another role within Walmart.

Employees of Walmart India business will join the Flipkart Group and the home office teams will integrate over the next year, the companies said in a statement.

Walmart India was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Walmart Inc, and is estimated to have about 3,500 employees.

The Best Price cash-and-carry business will continue to serve its over 1.5 million members via its omnichannel network of 28 stores in nine states and e-commerce operations. Walmart India has a new cash-and-carry store coming up in Tirupati in the next few months.

A thing we saw through COVID-19 (outbreak) was kiranas are shopping in more omnichannel ways than before. In our Best Price business, we had a 4X increase in e-commerce within our business, which is primarily brick and mortar. What that tells us is that kiranas are very open to shopping both online and offline, Walmart India CEO Sameer Aggarwal said.

He added that kiranas will remain big, and organised B2B will account for a bigger part of retail.

...Within that, online will get a disproportionate share of growth. The capabilities are complimentary. This move recognises the critical role that kiranas and MSMEs play towards Indias economic prosperity and growth, he said.

These businesses will have one-stop access to an extensive selection of products with attractive schemes and incentives, supplemented with data-driven recommendations for stock selection, delivered through a fast and reliable network to drive greater efficiencies and better margins, Menon said.

Kiranas and MSMEs will also benefit from access to easy credit options and opportunities for new income generation through various Flipkart initiatives, creating new ways to catalyse growth, he added.

At the same time, partners will benefit from broader reach across the country, micro-market insights to enable effective inventory planning and new product development, and cost-effective distribution.

Meanwhile, Walmart Inc continues to operate a separate technology unit in the country under Walmart Labs India.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
A lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union in Oregon claims federal agents and local police have violated the civil rights of volunteer medics by using force against them as they've attempted to render aid to injured protesters in Portland.

The suit filed in U.S. District Court in Portland on Wednesday alleges multiple incidents in which medics faced rubber bullets, tear gas and pepper spray as well as pushing and shoving. The ACLU said one clash captured on video was an egregious example.

The civil rights organization states that the July 11 video shows two of four plaintiffs being "attacked" by unidentified federal agents while attempting to provide aid to an "incapacitated bystander."

Image: Feds Attempt To Intervene After Weeks Of Violent Protests In Portland (Nathan Howard / Getty Images)

It was terrifying, medic Savannah Guest said in the statement. "Every human being deserves help, but the federal agents showed no humanity or concern."

The suit said Guest was kneeling to help the protester when she kicked away an active tear gas canister and an unidentified agent fired rubber bullets at her in response. "They hit her several times, leaving abrasions and bruises on her feet and ankles," it states.

The ACLU said that Guest and other plaintiffs were clearly working as medics and had on identifying markings.

The suit names the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Marshals service and Portland police as defendants.

The Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Portland Police Bureau did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

One plaintiff, Christopher Wise, says he has been attacked multiple times while volunteering at protests that have erupted since the May 25 in-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The ACLU noted in the filing that he's "a former EMT and one of the few Black men serving as a protest medic in Portland."

The suit states that Portland police shot him with a rubber bullet as he volunteered at a protest June 2. It says the wound on his shin became infected, he lost seven days' work, and he still hasn't fully recovered.

Story continues

The filing says the attacks violated multiple constitutional rights, including freedom of speech and assembly, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures and states' rights.

Plaintiffs attorneys, including outside counsel Shane Grannum, blamed the violence in part on the administration of President Donald Trump, who has encouraged the use of federal agents against demonstrators.

On Wednesday, Trump expanded the initiative by announcing federal officers would be deployed to Chicago, which has been experiencing violent crime.

"Our clients have been tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, beaten and shot with rubber bullets, even while administering care to injured protesters," Grannum said in a statement. "This lawsuit seeks to ensure that the Trump Administration and Portland Police will be held accountable for their violent, lawless and unconstitutional actions."

The ACLU said it would seek a court order prohibiting police and federal forces from using force against law-abiding medics.

The suit seeks attorney's fees, "costs" and "other relief the Court deems proper."

It's the second ACLU suit against authorities since demonstrations erupted in Portland on May 29. On Thursday, a court is expected to hear arguments in the organization's request to add federal agents to its successful suit prohibiting law enforcement in Portland from attacking journalists.
"Infrastructure Minister of Ukraine Vladyslav Kryklii held a working meeting with President of the Swiss Confederation Simonetta Sommaruga in Kyiv on July 22. The parties discussed prospects for further cooperation between the two countries in various areas, in particular in the railway industry," the press service of the Infrastructure Ministry reports.

Kryklii welcomed the bilateral cooperation between Ukraine and Switzerland in the transport sector and noted that the Ministry is looking for a strategic foreign partner to renew the rolling stock of Ukrzaliznytsia JSC. It is planned that, in cooperation with a national manufacturer, it would be able to achieve the localization of production in Ukraine by at least 40%, as well as to introduce modern integrated solutions for service and repair.

In addition, the possibility of launching a large-scale project in the capital is being considered. The Kyiv City Express project provides for the development and modernization of the region's railway infrastructure and the purchase of new rolling stock for suburban service.

The parties also discussed possible further cooperation between the two countries in the aviation and maritime industries. In addition, they raised the issues of digitalization of the transport system, introduction of electronic documents and creation of digital corridors.

ish
We live in an age of viral videos that often can be deceiving.

Thats certainly the case in Portland, where the hyperbolic charges of federal stormtroopers hunting down peaceful protesters first began based on videos that didnt tell the whole story. Now that Department of Homeland Security officials have explained the operation, theres no excuse for the continued Nazi references  not that there ever really was.

The DHS deployment in Portland is plainly legal, justified, and proportionate.

There are no random arrests, and as of Tuesday, there had only been about 40 arrests total since the beefed-up presence began around July 4 weekend, when there was intelligence  that turned out to be correct  of the prospect of escalating attacks on the federal courthouse.

The officers are operating under clear legal authority. 40 U.S. Code  1315 says that the DHS secretary shall protect the buildings, grounds, and property that are owned, occupied, or secured by the Federal Government (including any agency, instrumentality, or wholly owned or mixed-ownership corporation thereof) and the persons on the property.

Furthermore, officers protecting the property may conduct investigations, on and off the property in question, of offenses that may have been committed against property owned or occupied by the Federal Government or persons on the property.

The sense of isolated protesters getting picked off the streets on the videos arises from the tactics of the federal officers, in keeping with this provision. When they identify someone who, say, may have attacked an agent, they dont immediately wade into the crowd to go arrest him.

Thats dangerous for our law enforcement officers, it is dangerous for those individuals as well, acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf explained at a DHS press conference on Tuesday. Instead, they try to track the suspect until hes separated from rioters.

Also, it would be ridiculous to let a suspect simply walk away once hes no longer in the immediate vicinity of the courthouse.

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As Mark Morgan, the acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, put it at the press conference, Were not going to allow somebody to walk up to the federal property, assault a federal officer, or agent, and then, because then they walk off federal property, then were going to say, Oh, we cant go arrest you, that doesnt make sense. Of course, were going to arrest you, and we have the authority to make that arrest, and we will continue to do that. What this means is, we are not patrolling the streets of Portland, as has been falsely reported multiple times in the past few days.

In an interview, Ken Cuccinelli, the acting deputy secretary of DHS, describes the viral video from an arrest late last week that jump-started a lot of the outrage: The video starts one or two blocks after a foot pursuit where the officers in question had approached an individual who appeared to match the description of someone who had assaulted two federal officers about an hour beforehand. So it wasnt a day ago, it was an hour before. And [they] identified themselves as federal agents verbally. And of course theyre wearing the same uniforms theyve been wearing for weeks with . . . Department of Homeland Security indicia on both shoulders and police on front and back, and the guy took off running.

So they ran after him, he continues, and he stopped running. Ironically, he ran to the courthouse, and at that point they caught up with him, detained him.

These arent rogue arrests, but are made in keeping with all relevant procedures. The U.S. Attorneys office is consulted on every engagement that our officers are doing, explained Kris Cline, the principal deputy director of the Federal Protective Service (FPS) at the same press conference. The U.S. Attorneys office is also at our roll call every evening to make sure that officers and agents are aware of the use of force, rules of engagement, authority, jurisdiction. They spend a lot of time on that.

What about the optics of officers in camouflage without name badges operating from unmarked cars?

The background is that the FPS is charged with protecting federal buildings, but, according to Cuccinelli, lacks the manpower to respond to the current threats. So it, also in keeping with the 40 U.S. Code  1315, is being supplemented with officers from CBP and ICE.

As it relates to CBP officers deployed in Portland, Acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf said at the presser, these highly trained officers are in multi-camouflage wear, because they work on the southwest border and they work in an environment that demands that. That is their everyday uniform and it is completely appropriate.

This is a standard uniform, Cuccinelli says, noting that everyone on the ground is familiar with them at this point. Theyve seen them in their uniforms for weeks now. They all recognize what those uniforms are. And theyre all clearly visible, and have been for weeks. Theyre readily identifiable.

Indeed, given whats happening at the courthouse, its not as though the rioters dont know they are confronting federal officers  they are throwing projectiles at them and pointing lasers at them. Does this person who broke through the security fence last night have any doubt who is making the arrest?

Rioters broke the barrier protecting the Portland federal courthouse again. They rush inside but are chased out by federal law enforcement. However, one person is arrested and dragged inside. #antifa pic.twitter.com/WdgD4LnyIc  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) July 23, 2020

Cuccinelli explains that the officers dont wear name badges because of the threat of doxing, of which he says there have been more than 30 instances. The point is to intimidate and threaten, he says of these incidents, and it imposes a danger to the officers; not just individually, but their families as well.

He notes that individual officers can be identified by individual badge numbers on their uniforms that are right next to, really above, their DHS identifiers.

As for unmarked vehicles, he says, I love listening to Speaker Pelosi gripe about that among other things. Maybe she should go check and see if the San Francisco police department uses unmarked vehicles. Oh yeah, they do. Because every law-enforcement organization in America of any size whatsoever, uses unmarked vehicles. Its completely acceptable law-enforcement practice, and for very good reasons.

In light of the attacks on marked law-enforcement vehicles around the country, he adds, it would be foolish of us not to use unmarked vehicles.

(Here, by the way, is a marked Portland police car getting objects thrown at it after officers make literally their twelfth warning that tear gas might be used:)

Emboldened by police hatred stoked by the city, rioters attack a @PortlandPolice vehicle giving off audio warnings. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/nJX8LxyKuI  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) July 23, 2020

Cuccinelli insists that the officers arent clashing with or arresting protestors, but rather with a violent rabble that shows up late every night. On Monday night, according to Cuccinelli, there were peaceful protesters, about 75 to 100 of them in front of the courthouse until about 11:00 p.m., and they left. And a short while later, 1,000 people or so surrounded the courthouse and commenced attacking it. So 75 to 100 peaceful protestors, and a few minutes later over 1,000 violent rioters, criminals, and terrorists show up.

Welcome to Portland.

More from National Review
A federal police officer takes cover behind a shield while clashing with rioters at the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 23, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Portlands City Council Bars Police From Working With Federal Law Enforcement

All Portland police officers are barred from working together with federal officers under new policies the City Council passed late July 22.

The resolutions state that any member of the Portland Police Bureau who provides, requests, or willingly receives operational support from militarized federal forces will face disciplinary measures. They also block police from using force against or arresting journalists or legal observers.

Unanimously passed by Commissioners Chloe Eudaly, Ted Wheeler, Amanda Fritz, and Jo Ann Hardesty, the new rules went into effect immediately.

Wheeler, the citys mayor and police commissioner, said after the vote that he was proud to cosponsor the resolutions, affirming that Portland will not coordinate with federal troops occupying our city, and that journalists will not be targeted.

The mayor later in the day joined a crowd that included rioters attacking the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse, a federal building.

The Portland Police Association, a police union, and the bureau didnt respond to requests for comment on the resolutions.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said in a statement that the decision to stop cooperation with federal law enforcement was dangerous and irresponsible and called local and state leaders to denounce the action.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler speaks to Black Lives Matter demonstrators in Portland, Ore., on July 22, 2020, shortly before some of the demonstrators attacked a federal courthouse. (Noah Berger/AP Photo)

Portlands governmental system has a group of commissioners on the City Council, each with a different role. All the current commissioners are Democrats.

Eudaly and Hardesty claimed that demonstrators gathering each night have been peaceful, despite video evidence and photographs showing the groups have each night engaged in criminal conduct before federal officers respond. They also said federal officers are using disproportionate force. At least one federal officer is under investigation.

It is really clear that we as a council must take a strong stand against Portland Police Bureau collaborating and cooperating with this federal goon squad that has been sent to Portland to stymie people who are demanding changes in our policing efforts, Hardesty said during the council hearing.

During a separate virtual event on July 22, Hardesty claimed that the bureau has been sending saboteurs and provocateurs, who set fires and commit crimes that lead to a response against peaceful crowds. Hours later, she issued an apology for spreading unfounded claims and misinformation.

Hardesty is attempting to wrest control of Portland police from Wheeler, who has so far resisted those efforts. She released a plan this month that calls for defunding the police.

A rioter throws a flaming item at the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 22, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

The City Council has placed limitations on the police force, including limiting the use of tear gas and other crowd control munitions. Federal officers are under no such restrictions. Wheeler has called on them to abide by them.

The Trump administration sent federal assets to Oregons largest city on July 4 after rioters attacked the courthouse.

Acting Homeland Security Chad Wolf told reporters at the White House on July 22 that Portland has seen nearly two months of coordinated violent attacks by anarchists against a federal courthouse and federal law enforcement officials sworn to protect it.

The secretary has said the federal government doesnt need an invitation from cities to protect federal property. He has also asserted that a surge in federal assets to Portland wouldnt have been necessary if local law enforcement officers were doing their job.

Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell told reporters last week that his officers at times would take action near federal officers but neither group directed the actions of the other.

Rioters use shields as federal law enforcement officers fire tear gas after rioters set fires outside the federal courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 23, 2020. (Caitlin Ochs/Reuters)

We do communicate with federal officers for the purpose of situational awareness and deconfliction. Were operating in a very, very close proximity to one another, he said.

Wheeler recently ordered federal agents to remove themselves from the Portland police command center, while the citys fire bureau, which Hardesty oversees, is no longer letting any law enforcement officers use fire stations.

Portland police officers were noticeably absent in recent days even as riots raged in the area of the courthouse, which sits blocks away from a police precinct.

Federal agencies and officials, meanwhile, are facing a flurry of action in courts and elsewhere as local and state elected officials, along with members of Congress, search for legal avenues to oust them from Portland.

Oregons Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum filed a lawsuit this month that seeks to prevent federal forces from arresting people. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) introduced an amendment that would limit the use of federal officers for crowd control. A bicameral group of Congress members are pushing the inspector generals of the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice to investigate the use of federal force to quell violent demonstrations, and Democrat senators demanded details of the operation.

A different group of federal lawmakers wrote to the White House this week urging the Trump administration to block taxpayer funding from going to states and cities that are allowing anarchists to run rampant.
A drink-driving mother has been caught behind the wheel while six times over the legal limit at lunchtime.

Sherri Ann Durston, 39, blew a blood-alcohol reading of 0.298 after being pulled over by police for her 'manner of driving' on Old Bay Road in Burpengary, north of Brisbane, at 12.30pm on June 23.

That is six times the open license limit of less than 0.05 percent.

Durston was disqualified from driving for a year and fined $1,600 for drink driving at Caboolture Magistrates Court on Thursday, according to 9News.

Sherri Ann Durston (right), 39, and her partner (left) return home after she was disqualified from driving for a year and fined $1,600 for drink driving at Caboolture Magistrates Court on Thursday

When confronted in front of her home by a 9News reporter, Durston said: 'I don't want to be on the news.'

Refusing to speak, Durston's partner confronted the reporter, urging him to leave.

'That's got nothing to do with you or anyone else. Can you go, please?' he said.

Durston was just metres away from her house when she was spotted swerving in a Nissan X-Trail by police at lunchtime on June 23.

Durston's partner confronts a reporter in front of their house while she stayed inside the car refusing to speak. She blew a blood-alcohol reading of 0.298 on June 23, which is six times above the open license limit of less than 0.05 percent

The 39-year-old initially blew a blood-alcohol result of more than 0.30 per cent, police said.

Durston was taken to Deception Bay police station where she recorded a second blood-alcohol reading, this time from a specimen sample, of 0.298 per cent.

Deception Bay Road Policing Unit acting officer-in-charge Ken Sands said it was the highest reading he had seen in the last decade.



'The highest one I've seen in my service is mid point-threes, but certainly in the last decade this is the highest reading I've seen,' he told the Brisbane Times.

'It's pretty scary.'

Police were shocked to find Durston blew six times above the legal limit. Deception Bay Road Policing Unit acting officer-in-charge Ken Sands said it was the highest reading he had seen in the last decade. Pictured: stock image of an RBT

According to the Australian Government's Department of Health, blood alcohol readings of greater than 0.30 per cent can lead to alcohol poisoning, coma and death.

Blood-alcohol concentrations What alcohol does to your body Up to 0.05 percent feeling of wellbeing, talkative 0.05 to 0.08 percent impaired judgement and movement reduced inhibitions 0.08 to 0.15 percent slurred speech impaired balance, coordination, vision and reflexes unstable emotions, nausea, vomiting 0.15 to 0.30 percent unable to walk without help sleepy, difficulty breathing memory loss loss of bladder control possible loss of consciousness over 0.30 percent coma, death Source: Australian Health Department Advertisement

Although the Durston's blood-alcohol concentration was shockingly high, it is not the highest ever seen across Australia.

In January, 2016, a 52-year-old woman recorded a reading of 0.486 percent after a crash near Coffs Harbour, NSW.

In late 2015, a 42-year-old Queensland woman blew 0.48 percent after being found passed out in her car in front of a Runaway Bay cafe.

Shocked police and alcohol experts said at the time that they thought it to be the highest blood-alcohol reading ever recorded in Australia.

Queensland's Moreton Bay district, which includes Deception Bay, recorded 19 drink-drivers over the past week, police said.

One of those charged was a 28-year-old Caboolture man who allegedly recorded a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.102 percent.

He has been charged and is expected to appear in Caboolture Magistrates Court on July 22.

According to the Queensland Government, 55 people are killed each year on the state's roads due to drink-driving and a further 550 are seriously injured.

Having no alcohol is safer than having just a small amount, as it is easy to exceed the 0.05 percent minimum, according to the Queensland Government's StreetSmarts website.

Blood alcohol concentrations can continue to rise after you stop drinking, and it can be difficult to monitor levels due to different alcohol contents and the size and shape of glasses.

Other variables can also affect your blood-alcohol concentration making it difficult to guess, including your weight, gender, metabolism, how often you drink and how long it has been since you have eaten, the website says.

Coffee, sleep, vomiting or exercise will not reduce your blood-alcohol levels.
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Dublin (Ireland) 21 July 2020 (SPS)- The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade of Ireland, Simon Coveney, reaffirmed his countrys support to the right of the people of Western Sahara to self-determination and to UN-led process of decolonisation in this last colony in Africa,.

In his written answer last 14 July 2020 to a question by Irish member of Parliament, Deputy Patrick Costello, who asked if Ireland will use its membership of the United Nations Security Council to push for resolution in respect of Western Sahara, Irish Minister affirmed that Ireland position on the situation in Western Sahara remains one of support to the UN-led process and the Secretary-Generals efforts to reach a definitive political settlement on this issue. We support the right to self-determination of the people of Western Sahara, but we do not have a view on the outcome of that decision  be it independence, integration, autonomy, or some other solution  so long as it is decided in a genuine exercise of self-determination.

He further indicated that this stand will remain our position when we take up our seat on the Security Council, and we will be ready to support all efforts to advance the UN-led process and reach a lasting settlement.

With regards to the stalled efforts of the UN, the Irish Minister expressed Irelands desire to see the appointment, as soon as possible, of a new UN Special Envoy, to take forward that process and build on the momentum which had been developing under the previous Special Envoy, Horst Kohler, before his departure last year.

Ireland, he adds continues to support the important work of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), where two members of Defence Forces personnel are currently deployed. On 30 October 2019, the Security Council adopted Resolution 2494, which extended the mandate of the Mission by 12 months. In extending the mandate of the Mission, the Security Council reaffirmed its commitment to assist the parties to achieve a just, lasting, and mutually acceptable political solution, based on compromise.

Simon Coveney finally recalled that Irelands approach on the Security Council will be informed by our record as a country that has a consistent, principled and independent foreign policy. Ireland is now working on preparations for taking up our Security Council seat in January, including by reviewing all items on the Councils agenda, which includes the situation in Western Sahara. (SPS)

090/500/60 (SPS)
The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, embarked on monitoring of the ongoing WASSCE practical examinations in schools in the Eastern Region.



The Director General who was accompanied by Seth Nkatiah, of the Office of the Senior Minister, observed that candidates and invigilators were in strict compliance with the Covid- 19 protocols. Students were masked up as they busily went about their practical examination.



The team visited Akim Aperade SHS, Akim Achiase SHS, Akim Swedru SHS, Attafuah SHTS, Akim Oda and St. Francis SHTS, Akim Oda, located in the Achiase, Birim South and Birim Central districts.



Prof Opoku-Amankwa, in a short message congratulated the candidates for their zeal and determination to defy the odds of the Covid-19 threats as they prepared adequately for the 2020 WASSCE.



Posterity would be kind to your year group as Covid-19 pandemic nearly ruined your academic aspirations



The Good Lord will bless your energy and reward you handsomely with good results.



The team also took advantage to inquire on the receipts of PPEs supplied by government to schools and the general campuses reactions to the observance of the social distancing, (in the classrooms, dormitories and dining halls), display of Veronica buckets, the daily checking of students temperatures and Covid-19 protocol notices placed at vantage points.



The schools visited were very responsive to the Covid-19 protocols. The general school atmosphere was calm and steady.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Two women charged with the murder of a pensioner in Derry have appeared at the citys Magistrates Court.

Sharon Harland, 44, of Baltimore House in the city and Rhona Gracey, 33, of Chobham Street in Belfast are jointly charged with murdering Daniel Guyler and robbing him of 400.

The 75-year-old victim was found with serious injuries in the Termon Street area of Derry on July 23, 2018.

He later died in hospital on May 1, 2019.

Outlining details of the case, Judge Magill said an ambulance called police to the scene on July 23, 2018, and Mr Guyler was transported to Altnagelvin Hospitals Intensive Care Unit after he was attacked.

The two defendants were identified as suspects and after interview charged with grievous bodily harm with intent and robbery.

The defendants appeared in court after the incident on July 25 where it was decided that the case would be dealt with by way of a report.

Following police investigations the defendants were re-arrested on July 22, 2020, on suspicion of murder.

Exactly two years on from the alleged attack the two defendants appeared in court.

The court was told that both defendants deny the charges and both have considerable criminal records.

A detective objected to bail saying police feel very strongly about the prospect of interference with witnesses and the possibility of reoffending.

She said that Harland appears to know most civilian witnesses as there are links to family members.

Harland was said to have called witnesses liars, accused them of stealing from her and believes they are out to get her after fall outs.

The detective said that after the alleged assault she asked witnesses are you going to tout?, and are you going to squeal?

The PSNI detective also told the court that the forensic evidence is quite strong with a number of items of clothing and shoes suggesting proximity to projected blood.

Judge Magill asked if it was correct to say that since the alleged attack both defendants have been at large. That was affirmed.

The unfortunate gentleman died in May 2019, he said, and the defendants werent re-arrested at that time.

He added that murder cases are extremely complex and require considerable resources.

It was established that there has been no interference with witnesses in that time and they are not deemed a flight risk.

Representing Harland, defence barrister Sean Doherty said that after the alleged assault the prosecution made the decision to withdraw the charges and proceed by way of a report.

Two years after the incident there has been no attempt at interference, he said.

With the exception of one or two witnesses, he said, they are all familiar with the criminal justice system and the idea that his client would pose a risk to them lacks credibility.

The court was told that in the last ten years his client has a limited criminal record.

She is a woman on the fringes of society, he added, who has mental health issues and poly-substance abuse issues for which she is now on a programme.

The defendant has been homeless for many years but now has a permanent address.

She is the mother of five and is pregnant with a sixth child.

Mr Doherty believed her to be a suitable candidate for bail.

Defence barrister for Gracey, John Keown, echoed comments from Mr Doherty and said that at the time of the alleged assault his client had just been released from prison.

She was then recalled on license and served an extra 12 months in prison.

The defendant has been at liberty for 13 months residing in Belfast far away from witnesses where she is on a methadone programme, the defence barrister added.

Mr Keown said she appears to have turned her life around and added that the cause of death was pneumonia.

The barrister told the court that these issues will have to be looked at in great detail and said his client doesnt know any of the witnesses as she had only been in the city a couple of weeks at that time.

Judge Magill granted the defendants their own bail of 500 to reside at addresses approved by the PSNI.

Conditions imposed by the court include a prohibition on drugs and they were warned that they will be under police scrutiny.

The PPS appealed the decision to grant bail and they remain in custody until that hearing.

Their case will appear before the court again on August 20.
A homicide victim whose body was found in a wooded area in London, Ont. has been identified as a business partner of slain Hamilton mob boss Pat Musitano.

Grant Edward Norton, 59, of Oxford County, is believed to have been killed in London, local police said Wednesday.

They did not release a cause of death.

Norton was reported missing by his family on July 12, two days after Musitano was shot to death in a Burlington parking lot while meeting with two other men.

There have been no arrests in Musitanos killing.

Norton and Musitano were partners in a hauling company that was accused of illegally dumping gravel in the Niagara Region. The company was also in the midst of a bitter dispute with truckers over alleged nonpayment of wages.

Norton was arrested by Niagara Regional Police in June 2019 as part of an ongoing theft and fraud investigation near St. Catharines connected to a business that hauled soil from construction sites.

A post-mortem examination was conducted on Nortons body at the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto after suspected human remains were found Sunday found in a wooded area near Ada and Jacqueline Sts.

London Police Service members became involved in the investigation during the week of July 13, 2020, and confirmed that Mr. Norton had been last seen in this city, London police said Wednesday in a written statement.

Given the condition in which the remains were found, it was not possible to confirm whether they were human without a forensic autopsy conducted over the course of two days, beginning on July 20.

On July 22, 2020, the West Region Coroner confirmed the identity of the remains, and determined Mr. Nortons death was a homicide.

Investigators are conducting a forensic examination at a residence on Adelaide St. S., police said.
L.A. Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas Tackles Racial Inequality within Los Angeles County

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas orchestrated a six-page measurement addressing institutionalized racism among the county walls of Los Angeles. It is a call for a recourse and a movement for Antiracist sensibility. Supervisor Ridley-Thomas held a virtual briefing, accompanied by Senior Deputy for Human Services and Child Welfare Emily Williams and Chief Deputy Dorinne Jordan to break down the benchmarks of the Establishing an Antiracist Los Angeles County Policy Agenda. During the wake of health and wellbeing, the time is now to act on the need for equality for people of color in Los Angeles.

Supervisor Ridley-Thomas opens his measurement from a quote from Professor Cornel West, Race Matters (1993) describing an ideology of not just addressing Black people problems but facing the flaws within American society. There has not been a formal address, acknowledging the blood spilled among the road to the creation of this country. The current motion is looking to cut through the callus that grew over the incomplete work to eradicate the residue that was left behind due to the chattel slavery conducted in this country.

This movement was made to dive into a serious conversation about race. In order to see meaningful change among the community, structural and systemic racism must be ripped out from the root. The principle of this measurement stands on the accountability of handling racism from an institutional level and creating an action to solve the inequities among underserved communities. This measurement carries the weights of the community into a place where it can be lifted and those who are in need can be supported.

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Supervisor Ridley-Thomas described the all-inclusive motion as a bit dense, he stated, In terms of the directives, because of the intent, we have to go deep into the bureaucracy to magnify transparency and to build more avenues for accountability. The Policy Agenda of Establishing an Antiracist Los Angeles County will be up for consideration among all the board members July 21. The community can voice their opinion about the motion by calling 844-767-5651 and the extension is 9676434.

Past efforts are working as steppingstones for this motion to come to pass. Much of the research surrounding the unsheltered population in relation to race was conducted in 2018, it brought sobering data to light; 34% of the unsheltered population are Black people. The measurement included other studies such as African Americans account for 11% of COVID-19 related fatalities; (County Department of Public Health, July 2020), 27% of LAPD cases in 2017 where someone was shot or seriously injured in the county were people of color; (California Department of Justice, 2018.) Supervisor Ridley-Thomas addressed that this should not be.

Sr. Deputy Williams and Chief Deputy Jordan broke down the benchmarks within the motion and some noted directives are the following: Recognize, affirm, and declare that racism is a matter of public health in Los Angeles County and that racism against Black people has reached crisis proportions. Direct the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to establish an eighth Board-directed priority to address the elimination of racism and bias in the county. Direct the CEO and other departments to evaluate existing county policies, practices, operations, and programs through a lens of racial equity

There are nine benchmarks in total that calls for accountability and action among the lines of public leadership. This motion is a flag planted to change the course of history and hold Los Angeles elected officials accountable to what is happening within the community. Department heads will be expected to look at their branches, search for areas of weakness due to inequality or imbalances and develop a goal to strengthen equality and eradicate any sense of misconduct with a racial lens.

This is a moment of unprecedented consequence and unusual global realities and therefore we need to act accordingly. Ridley-Thomas further explained within the backdrop of a global pandemic and heightened sense of awareness of racial inequality, those in seats of monitoring the health and wellbeing in all communities, need to address the division in disproportioned resources that are being seen clear within the affects of COVID-19.

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Ridley-Thomas used other grass roots organizations as example of bodies of people under the same goal of equality and what can be accomplished under a racial lens. He described many outright disparities within the Black Community and expressed this should not be looked at as normal or simple data. These are livelihoods that do not share the same human rights as their neighbors.

This measurement is to bring racial issues into the walls of power and create energy around investigating and resolving these issues in a real way. Ridley-Thomas expressed this motion as a self-examination among the L.A. Board of Supervisors, the first of its kind within 150 years of governance. The goal is to create no area to run away from the inequities that are blatantly visible within underserved communities.

Supervisor Ridley-Thomas stated, We need explicit action against institutionalized inequities and or inequality in this region. The motion along with its data is on the table on July 21, it is a pilot to a new chapter of equality and hopefully serve as an example for the rest of the world to follow.
The thing Ive got confidence in Joe is  is your heart and your character and the fact that youre going to be able to reassemble the kind of government that cares about people and bring people together, Obama said at one point. For all the specific policies that were going to need, more than anything, its just that basic decency and understanding about whats best in America that I think people are going to be hungry for.
The inspector general for the Justice Department announced Thursday that his office has opened an investigation into the recent use of force by federal law enforcement agents against protesters in Portland, Oregon and Washington, D.C.

The probe was started in response to a referral from the U.S. Attorney in Oregon, Billy Williams, according to a statement from DOJ Office of the Inspector General Spokeswoman Stephanie Logan. The office also had received public complaints and congressional requests for an investigation.

The statement said the investigation would be conducted in coordination with the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security,

"In addition, in response to requests from Members of Congress and members of the public, the DOJ OIG is initiating a review to examine the DOJs and its law enforcement components roles and responsibilities in responding to protest activity and civil unrest in Washington, DC, and in Portland, Oregon over the prior two months," the statement said.

Portland protests: What you need to know about the federal response and the legal questions it raises

"The review will include examining the training and instruction that was provided to the DOJ law enforcement personnel; compliance with applicable identification requirements, rules of engagement, and legal authorities; and adherence to DOJ policies regarding the use of less-lethal munitions, chemical agents, and other uses of force."

President Donald Trump has threatened to use federal resources to quell unrest in cities since demonstrations against police brutality erupted around the nation following the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed in the custody of Minneapolis police officers. Many of the protests included violent clashes with police, vandalism, arson and looting.

On June 1, after several nights of protests outside the White House, federal officers from various agencies forcible cleared Lafayette Square of peaceful protesters before Trump walked with top administration officials to a nearby historic church that had been vandalized the night before.

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Horowitz said that incident would be investigated with the Interior Department inspector general's office, which already began a review of the events.

Protests in Portland have continued for nearly two months, with almost nightly clashes between police and protesters. Last week, Trump dispatched federal agents to the city over the objection of Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, Gov. Kate Brown and Oregon's two U.S. senators.

Trump said the officers were sent to restore order to the city. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said the primary mission was to secure federal building, including the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse which had become a target for protesters.

But critics said the federal agents were going beyond that mandate as videos shared on social media showed officers in undesignated camouflaged uniforms putting demonstrators into unmarked vans.

In addition to looking into the use of force in Portland and Washington, Inspector General Michael Horowitz said his office, if "circumstances warrant," will "consider including other issues that may arise during the course of the review.

Democratic critics of Trump's deployment of federal agents celebrated the news of the investigation.

"Congress will continue to check this reckless Administration, but it is deeply important that these independent inspectors general get to the bottom of President Trumps use of force against his own citizens," said Reps. Jerry Nadler, Bennie Thompson and Carolyn Maloney  the respective chairs of the House Judiciary, Homeland Security and Oversight committees  in a joint letter.

"These investigations are critically important as the President and his chief enablers, including the Attorney General and Acting Homeland Security Secretary, have announced plans to send federal law enforcement authorities to additional cities in the coming days," they said.

The lawmakers said the federal agents "have occupied the streets of American cities against the express wishes of state and local officials" and that nearly "everywhere they have deployed, their presence has increased tensions and caused more confrontation between demonstrators and police. And they have done all of this on the flimsiest of legal pretext."

Both of Oregon's senators and two of its U.S. House members had sent a letter requesting such an investigation on Wednesday.

"The violent tactics deployed by Donald Trump and his paramilitary forces against peaceful protesters are those of a fascist regime, not a democratic nation," said Sen. Ron Wyden in a statement. "This gross abuse of power demands intense scrutiny to put an end to what Donald Trump is doing in my hometown against my neighbors and friends, and make sure it doesn't happen anywhere else."

"We have demanded not only that these acts end, but also that DOJ and DHS remove their forces immediately from Oregon," said Sen. Jeff Merkley. "In the meantime, full investigations by the Inspectors General of these departments will help provide critical information and public accountability at a time when the Trump administration would rather operate like a dictatorship than employees of the people in a democratic republic."

Contributing: Kristine Phillips, Kevin Johnson and Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Inspector general investigates feds' use of force in Portland protests
R. wanted to tell his story: How as a young man he came to work for the Shin Bet, was exposed, tortured, successfully rehabilitated, yet lives in limbo





by Yossi Melman





R. couldnt care less if hes dubbed a traitor or a collaborator. Now 57 years old and working in a shop in Tel Aviv, he still feels he made the right choice, even though it led him to interrogation, torture, financial hardship and cost him his family. He contacted me at his own initiative, saying he wanted to talk about about the many years he worked as an agent for the Shin Bet security service, and that his decision to reveal himself, to some extent, comes at the end of a successful rehabilitation process.





Agent R

Its only a partial success, of course. Not a few former Shin Bet agents find themselves in limbo: shunned by Palestinian society and Israeli-Arab society and not embraced by Jewish society either. Those stories that reach the media usually involve agents and collaborators whose rehabilitation has failed either partially or completely, often after theyve sunk into crime and drugs. Many are bitter, and are sharply critical of the red tape involved in the rehabilitation directorate run jointly by the Shin Bet and the other arms of the intelligence community.





To put the complaints into proportion, the Rehabilitation Directorate has been around for 25 years and has spent billions of shekels handling thousands of cases over the years. The directorate is run by the Shin Bet but caters to agents of the entire intelligence community. It employs social workers, educators and Hebrew teachers, and despite the challenges, has had substantial success: some rehabilitated former agents even serve in the Israeli armed forces.





R. was born in the village of Sebastia, near Nablus. His father served in the pre-state Mandatory police, then turned to growing olives and fruit trees. His mother was a housewife who raised 10 children. In the 1980s the Shin Bet sent R. to infiltrate Naif Hawatmehs Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and during the first intifada and in the early 1990s he was a familiar figure in the organization in the West Bank, and in Ketziot Prison in the Negev. Then he was exposed, and suffered torture but with immense resourcefulness managed to free himself and went on to participate in more special operations on behalf of the Shin Bet.





After the Six-Day War, Shin Bet intelligence operatives and case officers became Israels eyes and ears in the occupied West Bank, each allocated a specific area. R. was trained to learn the identities of all the village residents, by their real names, while they knew him only by his nom de guerre. In 1985 he met Abu Ali, the Shin Bet case officer for Sebastia and other villages in the area. The whole village knew who he was and he didnt hide it, R. says. He would come to the coffee shop, talk with the people, and was much in contact with the mukhtar (the village leader). When I saw him, I waited for him to leave the coffee shop and then I went up to him and started talking to him. I dreamed of attending university abroad, and up to then Id been helping my father in the fields with the tractor. He asked me, Is there something you want? And I told him, Yes, I want to study abroad.





Several days later, R., along with a few other residents of Sebastia, was summoned to the military administration building in Nablus. They took our ID cards and brought us in one by one. When it was my turn, Abu Ali started asking me all kinds of questions about the village and again asked what I wanted. I said that I wanted what I told him when we met. He understood immediately and said, Great, well start working and well arrange for your studies abroad. I was a little nervous and told him I was afraid that people would know. He told me not to worry and said, Well protect you.





A while later R. was told to meet with the case officer in Netanya, a place hed never visited. He traveled to Tul Karm and according to the instructions he was given, waited next to the post office and a hair salon. The Shin Bet operative picked him up in a car and drove him to the Netanya apartment of a pair of Holocaust survivors who had agreed to put up Shin Bet agents on a regular basis.





He always asked me to tell him what was happening in the village. He wanted to know who was talking to whom, who belonged to what organization and, especially, who was traveling abroad. He told me, Whatever you want, you will get.





Like what?





Youll get money and permits for your family. He gave me some money and said, Dont talk to anyone and take a taxi back now. His code name in the Shin Bet was King.





How would you communicate with each other?





There were no phones then so youd spray an X on the wall. Above it was the date and below it the time. Then someone in the village picked up on the system so they changed the numbers.





You didnt realize that you were betraying your family, your friends, your village, your people?





I was young, stupid and stubborn. I didnt think it through. I wanted to study abroad, and for me, it was mostly just a kick. I enjoyed it. It was like a game. Wed go, walk around Netanya, meet at a hotel. Sometimes they took me along on arrests and then theyd disguise me in other clothes.





And then things went wrong





The Shin Bet wanted to keep R. close, so instead of studying abroad he was asked to go to school in the West Bank. R. wanted to attend Bir Zeit University in Ramallah, where a lot of his friends went. However, the case officer ordered him to study at An-Najah University in Nablus, but then in 1987 the first intifada erupted, the university was shut down and all the plans went awry. Abu Ali instructed me to infiltrate Hawatmehs Democratic Front because I had ties there from Bir Zeit, says R.





During the intifada, R. headed a three-member cell and gradually moved up in the organization and in the popular committees that were established throughout the West Bank. He oversaw the distribution of fliers, rock-throwing at Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers, waving of PLO flags  activities that typified the Palestinian struggle in those days, for the most part avoiding the use of live weapons and bombs.





Eventually, R. was arrested by the Border Police in the course of an operation and he and his cohorts were sent to Ketziot Prison. The Shin Bet warned him not to get in touch. He spent six months in detention, where he and his companions soaked up Hawatmehs Marxist indoctrination. Upon being released, he smuggled out 16 letters  in his stomach. When he excreted them, they were first shown to the Shin Bet. Then he swallowed them again on the way to their destination in Nablus and abroad. It wasnt anything too interesting. Problems between Fatah and the Democratic Front, he says drily. Yet such feats enhanced his standing further and he became a member of the organizations national committee.





The Democratic Front paid him 800 dollars a month. The Shin Bet paid him about half that. Together it made for a decent living.





Two major operations in which R. took part involved revealing grenades that terrorists planned to use in attacks. The Shin Bet congratulated him on his accomplishments and rewarded him too, with a handsome bonus.





I believed I was working with the best people in the world, he says. But it turns out he was mistaken. In 1992, after one encounter, a Shin Bet operative drove him in a car with Israeli license plates and let him off by his village near dawn. One of the locals noticed and R. was taken in for questioning by Fatah.





I was invited to a meeting  I was told there were some problems with Hamas and we had to arrange a sulha (reconciliation). When I showed up, I was in for a shock. Five guys with guns arrested me. For three days I was interrogated in a cave. They beat me with sticks. They choked me until I couldnt breathe. They hung me upside down from a tree, naked. It was February so I also got frostbite, but I didnt confess. I claimed that I was involved in theft but that I didnt work with the Shin Bet. Luckily, my interrogators were illiterate. Eventually, my brother came with two armed men from the Front and freed me, he says. Only later did he learn that he had been exposed because the Shin Bet screwed up, he explains.

A doctor friend treated R.s injuries and once he had recovered somewhat, he found a way to contact the case officer who quickly extracted him and had him housed at a hotel in Tel Aviv for some months.





The Shin Bet questioned me for a long time because they suspected I might have become a double agent. They repeated the same questions dozens of times. It caused me to have a nervous breakdown, R. says. Ultimately, they cleared me.





He underwent a lengthy rehabilitation process through the Shin Bet which included a monthly modest salary, new identity, Israeli residence and a work permit. Then he went back to taking part in special operations to recruit agents and collect information, R. says. He is emphatic that he never participated in any assassination missions.





Since then, R.s life has had its ups and downs. He opened a restaurant, went bankrupt, fell into debt and was living from hand to mouth until a case officer and social workers from the Rehabilitation Directorate came to his aid several months ago. They helped him handle his debts and buy an apartment in south Tel Aviv that will be his until his death.





However, he has no contact with most of his family, except for a younger brother and two sisters. His parents have both died. My father never talked to me about what happened. He kept it to himself. My mother talked a lot and said to me, Its okay. The important thing is that you marry an Arab woman and have a child.





Did you fulfill her wish?





I never married.





Why?





No one would let a good Arab woman marry me, and having a child wouldnt be good because his life would suffer. Arabs would call him son of a traitor and Jews would call him son of an Arab.





Do you regret what youve done in life?





Not really. Im only sorry that I hurt my family. My sisters divorced because of me. I know the Arab people  theyll forgive anything, but what I did is unforgivable. Still, I feel that I did contribute to Israel.





Yossi Melman writes for Haaretz, where this piece first appeared.
Beyond Meat Inc. (BYND) has announced a new veggie burger which will be produced locally in Canada. Made with simple, plant-based ingredients without GMOs, the Beyond Burger is designed to meet, if not exceed, the nutritional profile of its animal protein equivalent- and boasts 35% less saturated fat.

The California-based vegan brand says that its newest burger offers 20g of protein derived from simple, plant-based ingredients like peas, mung beans, and rice, and features marbling made from cocoa butter that is designed to melt and tenderize like beef.

In a July 22 press release, Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown said, We look forward to providing the Canadian consumer with our latest burger iteration and to furthering our commitment to this important market by investing in local production. He added, Our process of rapid and relentless innovation in service of the consumer, and making investments in the markets we serve, are key pillars in our companys strategy to provide delicious and nutritious plant-based protein with a lower environmental footprint.

Meanwhile, Beyond Meat has expanded its geographical footprint into China this past April, with its menu items being available at 4,200 Starbucks locations. Earlier this month, the company launched its food products- Beyond Beef, Beyond Burger, and Beyond Sausage in Brazil at 19 Sao Paulo locations through the retail chain, St. Marche.

Our Brazil market entry marks an important step in furthering our mission of increasing accessibility to plant-based meat globally. As the third-largest market in the world in terms of animal meat consumption, Brazil offers significant opportunity for plant-based meat adoption, said Brown, in a July 15 company news release.

Bernstein analyst Alexia Howard says that according to her estimates, BYND will record a sales increase of 52% for Q2 for about $102 million, which is well below the 141% year-over-year gain Beyond Meat reported in Q1. She noted, This significant slowdown in sales growth could shock some retail investors, who tend to move the stock.

Story continues

Howard added, Beyond Meats strong sales velocities may provide a high barrier to entry for other brands into the refrigerated section of the store which could limit competition. The analyst reiterated a Hold rating on the stock and raised her price target from $118 to $133, which implies 3% upside potential.

Also, Citigroup analyst Wendy Nicholson anticipates near-term pressure as a result of its exposure to the foodservice segment, in addition to longer-term pressure as the [alternative meat] category becomes more competitive. She assigned a Sell rating on the shares and set her price target at $123 (5% downside potential).

Beyond Meats stock is up 72% year-to-date. The Moderate Sell analyst consensus breaks down into 2 Buy ratings versus 5 Hold ratings and 6 Sell ratings. The $112.38 average price target suggests 13% downside potential for the shares in the coming 12 months. (See Beyond Meats stock analysis on TipRanks).

Related News:

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Sean Stewart had been quarantining during the earlier months of the COVID-19 pandemic with his rocker father Rod Stewart, and other family members, at his mansion in Florida.

But now, back at home in Los Angeles, television personality has been seen out in public in recent days spending some quality time with a mystery woman.

And on Wednesday the pair were spotted packing on the PDA when they waited for an ice cream order outside an establishment in West Hollywood.

Out and about: Sean Stewart, 39, enjoy some ice cream with a mystery female companion during a stroll in West Hollywood on Wednesday

The loved-up couple shared a number of passionate hugs before enjoying their tasty cold treat.

Sean, who's known for his works in the television shows like Sons Of Hollywood and Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, kept it casual in sporty black shorts, a black t-shirt and white sneakers.

In adherence to the still ongoing virus, the 39-year-old also donned a protective mask that he kept on with the exception of when he ate his ice cream.

PDA: Stewart and his lady shared some passionate hugs as they waited for their tasty treats

Rock royalty: The TV personality is best known as the son of legendary rocker Rod Stewart

His companion looked casual but stylish in a black pants, a matching top and white sneakers.

She too covered her face with a blue mask and had her light brown hair styled long, straight and with a part in the middle.

It didn't take too much time before the pair got their individual ice cream cups and continued on with their afternoon stroll.

Family support: Sean had been quarantining with family at his dad's mansion in Florida during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic; he is pictured with his mother Alana Hamilton, his dad, and Rod's current wife Penny Lancaster in August 2019

Just two days earlier, Sean and his mystery lady were spotted in Malibu meeting up with friends that included the likes of a very pregnant Ashlee Simpson and her husband Evan Ross.

Sean is one of eight children, Rod Stewart, now 75, has fathered with five different women.

His mum is former model Alana Hamilton, who's also the mother of Kimberly Stewart, 40.

Rod The Mod, as he's been called over his legendary career, is one of the best-selling musical artists of all time, selling more than 120 million records worldwide since the early 1960s.
Limited democracy but high living standards and stability form a trade-off that most Singaporeans seem willing to live with -- and some now suggest rival Asian finance hub Hong Kong can emulate the model as China tightens control. The two trading centres have long been compared but recent events have brought the issue into sharper contrast as Hong Kong faces a new era of curtailed civil liberties following China's imposition of a wide-ranging national security law. Supporters argue that after months of often violent pro-democracy protests the law should bring the stability needed to retain business confidence in the commerce hub. But opponents insist it will undermine sentiment if Hong Kong morphs into a clone of many mainland cities where there is less legal and regulatory transparency. Hong Kong lawyer Antony Dapiran said Chinese control was robbing the territory of the autonomy it needed to keep investor confidence intact. "Singapore is different not least because it is not subject to CCP (Chinese Communist Party) intervention," said Dapiran, who has written books on Hong Kong's recent protest movement. "Singapore is a sovereign state and so it behaves consistent with its sovereign interests which are very different -- in both nature and scale -- to China's sovereign interests," he told AFP. - 'Right side of markets' - The new security law -- imposed in the wake of anti-China protests that convulsed Hong Kong for months last year -- targets subversion, sedition, terrorism and foreign collusion. Advocates argue Singapore has prospered with equally tough legislation covering offences ranging from sedition to contempt. It is illegal to hold a demonstration without police permission in the city-state, except in the corner of one downtown park. While these stringent laws have been criticised by rights groups, they have been largely tolerated domestically and escaped global scrutiny. "Singapore has always made a point of cultivating and staying on the right side of the global markets and the Americans in particular," Michael Barr, an expert on the country at Australia's Flinders University, told AFP. In Hong Kong however, many people have reacted to China's security law with anger and dismay. And there has been widespread criticism from Western nations that say Beijing is stripping away the territory's cherished freedoms. A number of countries have suspended their extradition treaties with Hong Kong, citing concerns about the legislation. "Beijing has pushed the Americans to cut Hong Kong off from markets," Barr said. - 'Trickle of departures' - On the rule of law, analysts say foreign firms will now feel safer operating in Singapore than Hong Kong. The new legislation has toppled the legal firewall that existed between Hong Kong and mainland China's Communist Party-controlled courts and opaque legal system. "Which foreign companies will dare to bring legal cases against Chinese state-owned companies or influential private entities?" said Ben Bland, a political analyst from the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank. Singapore has also established itself as one of the world's leading centres for international arbitration -- a process whereby parties settle disputes privately outside the court system. That said, there has been little sign as yet of a corporate exodus from Hong Kong amid renewed speculation that Singapore may benefit if businesses decide to exit the Chinese city. Hong Kong will likely "see a trickle rather than a flood of departures", Bland said. "But this could accelerate if Beijing steps up its interventions." burs-sr/axn
Amidst the steepest, deepest, and fastest recession in history, it looks like the Manitoba economy will perform in its traditional, reliable fashion.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Amidst the steepest, deepest, and fastest recession in history, it looks like the Manitoba economy will perform in its traditional, reliable fashion.

In the BMO Blue Book, published Wednesday by BMO Economics and BMO business banking, the banks forcaecasters believe the Manitoba economy will be one of the least hardest hit this year  GDP decline of 4.8 per cent this year compared to 6.0 per cent nationally -- and will experience one of the most modest recoveries in 2021  5.5 per cent compared to 6.0 per cent nationally.

According to the BMO forecasters, the unemployment scenario will not be much different with Manitoba producing the lowest rate in the country this year with 7.9 per cent unemployed. But whereas just about every other province will lower their UE rate by one-to-two percentage points in 2021, Manitoba is expected to only go down to 7.2 per cent.

Were lucky the province took some of the steps it did and our numbers are low and hopefully will continue to stay low. And hopefully it will mean a speedy recovery for some of the small businesses."  Danny Menard, BMOs vice-president, commercial banking in Winnipeg

Danny Menard, BMOs vice-president, commercial banking in Winnipeg, makes the point that if Manitoba does not lead the pack in the recovery it is only because it does not get hurt as badly during the decline, thanks, as always, to the diversified economy that features solid contributions from manufacturing, agriculture, financial services as well as the tech sector.

The fact that the province has fared better than most in limiting COVID-19 infections has also helped.

"Were lucky the province took some of the steps it did and our numbers are low and hopefully will continue to stay low," said Menard. "And hopefully it will mean a speedy recovery for some of the small businesses."

With the province already prepping for stage four of the re-opening of the economy it is not surprising that the overall decline this year will likely be shallower than the larger provinces that had more challenging pandemic curves.

(MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES) Doug Porter, chief economist with BMO Financial Group on Manitoba's economic recovery: "It will undoubtedly be a bumpy road."

Doug Porter, chief economist with BMO Financial Group, said, "Even with a forceful recovery, the challenge will be to get the economy back to full health. It will undoubtedly be a bumpy road but, as key drivers of Canadas economy, its vital to understand how businesses will be affected over the coming months."

The bank notes the number of multi-family residences under construction in Winnipeg and a casual drive just about anywhere in the city will show theres plenty of infrastructure work underway.

Menard pointed out the solid housing market in the city with June sales coming out of the lockdown generating the most sales in a single month in the past 40 years.

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Like everywhere else the hospitality sector in the province has taken a severe body blow that will be hard to recover from but BMO officials said theyve seen a number of companies restructure their operations, diversify their business operations or focus just on core areas of their industries.

The report states, "Manitoba is relatively well positioned for coming out of COVID, compared to other provinces, which may attract business to the province."

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca
The coronavirus pandemic isnt done wreaking havoc on the oil and gas industry as two more energy companies released dismal earnings reports Wednesday, prompting executives to speculate that some aspects of the downturn wont reach their nadir until the fall.

Houston oil-field services company Baker Hughes on Wednesday said it lost $201 million in the second quarter compared with a $9 million loss in the same period a year earlier. Houston pipeline operator Kinder Morgan also said Wednesday it lost $637 million in the quarter.

Baker Hughes, which attributed its loss to the pandemic, low oil prices and shrinking drilling activity, has cut its capital spending budget by 20 percent and reduced the value of its assets by more than $16 billion. But in a Wednesday morning call, Chief Financial Officer Brian Worrell told investors that while there are signs of improvement, an industry recovery isnt in the offing during the third quarter.

Although some shale operators in North America are reopening wells amid renewed drilling activity, Worrell said, the number of operating drilling rigs in the field continues to decline. The company is also bracing for shutdowns in the Middle East and offshore projects.

For the full year 2020, we continue to expect U.S. drilling and completion spending to be down more than 50 percent versus 2019, Worrell said. And now, we expect international spending to decline 15 percent to 20 percent versus 2019.

Michael Wyke, Houston Chronicle / Contributor

Earnings: Baker Hughes posts $201 million second quarter loss

Baker Hughes isnt alone.

Houston oil-field services giant Halliburton this week said it lost $1.7 billion in the second quarter compared with a $75 million profit during the same period a year earlier. Its quarterly revenue declined 46 percent to $3.2 billion from $5.9 billion.

Halliburton CEO Jeff Miller told investors Monday that the company is only expecting a modest uptick in the number of wells it starts up during the third quarter followed by the traditional decline in work over the holidays.

Drilling activity declines have slowed and we believe the rig count should find a bottom sometime in the third quarter, but a meaningful inflection point in drilling seems further out, Miller siad.

Fuel Fix: Get energy news sent directly to your inbox

Houston pipeline operator Kinder Morgan, a company that handles 40 percent of the natural gas consumed in the United States, is taking a different approach to the downturn.

Kinder Morgan lost $637 million in the second quarter compared with a profit of $518 million in the same period a year earlier. Facing a significant reduction in energy demand during the second quarter, the companys second-quarter revenue declined by 20 percent to nearly $2.6 billion from $3.2 billion one year earlier.

The company attributed the second-quarter loss to reducing the value of some pipelines by $1 billion. Without that impairment, the company would have made a $363 million profit in the second quarter.

Annie Mulligan, Freelance / Annie Mulligan / For the Houston Chronicle

Despite the second-quarter loss, Kinder Morgan is maintaining its 26.5 cent dividend. As part of a plan to maintain that dividend, the company is cutting $660 million of a $2.4 billion budget marked for expansion projects this year.

The companys billionaire co-founder Rich Kinder told investors Wednesday that the pipeline operator also has paid down $10 billion of debt since 2015. Although the company has access to nearly $8 billion of credit and loans, Kinder said, the company plans to pay for dividends and expansion projects through the cash it makes from operations.

We're fortunate to have assets that throw off substantial cash flow even under adverse circumstance, Kinder said. We need to live within that cash flow by funding all dividends and expansion capital expenditures from those -- from these internally generated funds. We're doing that today and expect to accumulate cash in excess of our dividends and our capital expenditures even in the challenging year of 2020.

Earnings: Kinder Morgan posts $637 million second quarter loss

sergio.chapa@chron.com

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With any future plans of his signature rallies on indefinite hold and Biden's Basement Blathers now in place of any public rallies for the former V.P., President Trump's solo press conference Tuesday was a welcome and needed event.

He also announced that this would be a frequent occurrence for the foreseeable future. While it lasted only less than 30 minutes, there were some elements of note:

1. This was Trump, Trump, and nothing but the Trump. Gone (seemingly for the time being, anyway) are the days of Trump vs. the establishment doctors, including the now highly discredited Dr. Anthony Fauci (or, as I like to call him, "Dr. Fauxci") as well as the recent fawning over Governor Andrew ("Adolf") Cuomo's handling of the coronavirus in the state of New York  which led to the death sentencing of thousands of nursing home patients.

2. Trump leveled with the American people. He said the situation with the coronavirus will probably get worse before it gets better. Although, he wasn't clear on just how it would. But rest assured: the anti-Trump media (and yes, as well as some governors, mayors, and local prosecutors) will do their level best to make this Trump prediction come to fruition.

3. Most Trump pressers feature their customary share of "snarks" in the peanut gallery. And just as customary as "Heeeeeeeere's Johnny" on the old Tonight Show, this did not disappoint their Trump-hating fans. A little more than halfway through the presser, a reporter asked about the coronavirus and Trump's assertion that it would get worse, before it gets better, with "... if it does get worse and Americans keep dying, are you responsible?" This one was on the level of "How many deaths are acceptable to you?" Somehow, I highly doubt this same reporter would ask the same question to Barack Obama or "President" Hillary Clinton.

4. Trump reporting good news as only he can and only he will. Since he is not part of the media "clickbait" apparati, he reported statistics that the media will never touch except to dissect and delegitimize and discredit. For example, the U.S. holds the lowest case fatality rate, or CFR (3.7%), among nearly all major developed counties such as France, Spain, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom and against collective countries classified in the graphic shown as "European Union," "Europe," and "world," according to the European CDC. In addition, he announced that two vaccine candidates are in their final stages of testing and that the U.S. military is ready to take the reins in the distribution of the ones that become publicly available, making the prospect of a vaccine in our bloodstreams and a "return to normal" just that much more anticipatory.

5. Leaving without lingering. In the past, President Trump was notorious for lingering at his press conferences to take the questions yelled at him, which happens to any president. When he concluded the presser, it was a simple "thank you," a turn, and exiting the room. This is much more effective (IMO) than lingering to catch "one more question." It shows the reporters just who is boss.

President Trump needs more of these solo pressers. These will serve multiple purposes.

1. Level with and inform the American people as to the latest U.S. dealings with the coronavirus that the media will not report.

2. Everyone will see him "front and center" while Joe Biden remains hunkered down and gaffes his way to the finish line.

3. Many media prognosticators predict that no debates will actually occur between Biden and Trump (as Biden can only "lose" from them), and one of the Democrat surrogate advisers, Thomas Friedman (no self-relation) has advised against any debate before a condition happens he knows will never occur. This is in spite of Biden's public assurance that he will take part in such debates. In this light, these pressers may be the closest we will see to a presidential debate.

4. It will only help his (allegedly) sagging poll numbers.

Image credit: Fox News shareable YouTube screen shot. Enhanced with FotoSketch.
Main Street Lofts Phase II We are excited to close our second development project during these unique times and are enormously thankful to our investors who have supported our decision to move forward, knowing that when this property is delivered, it will be exceptionally well-positioned.

South Florida real estate firm PointOne Holdings has partnered with Realty Capital Management to develop a 266-unit multifamily community in Mansfield, a suburb of Dallas Fort Worth, Texas.

Main Street Lofts Phase II will be built on an eight-acre site and will be comprised of four midrise buildings featuring exceptional amenities, including a fourth floor indoor/outdoor lounge, a resort-style pool, clubhouse with mezzanine area, and a state-of-the-art fitness center.

The property will have direct access to an expanded trail system that connects under Main Street to the Mansfield Town Park, which includes a 600-seat amphitheater, playgrounds, picnic areas, trails and sport courts. The community will be within a short walk from the recently revitalized Mansfield downtown which features new restaurants, bars and a major renovation of the historic Farr Best Theatre.

Mansfield is experiencing significant growth, driven primarily by its employment opportunities, top-rated school system, proximity to major medical and healthcare centers, and convenient access to Dallas, Fort Worth, and DFW International Airport.

We are honored to partner with Realty Capital Management on this unique residential development project, said Leo Peicher, PointOne Holdings managing partner. We are also excited to close our second development project during these unique times and are enormously thankful to our investors who have supported our decision to move forward, knowing that when this property is delivered, it will be exceptionally well-positioned.

We are excited to develop a multifamily property in Dallas/Fort Worth, the fourth largest metro area in the country with an estimated population of 7.2 million residents and tremendous population growth expected in the coming years, said David Lewin, PointOne Holdings managing partner. We are bullish to deliver this fabulous property on the back end of the Covid-19 pandemic and expect that it will be met with pent-up renter demand.

Tim Coltart, Managing Director of Realty Capital, stated of the development, Having witnessed the exceptional growth of Mansfield and expansion of its Historic Downtown over the recent years, we could not be more excited to deliver a project in the heart of the City. With direct access to public trails and Downtown, and with proximity to excellent public schools, Main Street Lofts Phase II is truly one of the best development sites in the D-FW metroplex. We are grateful for this opportunity to inaugurate our partnership with PointOne Holdings, and to continue our partnership with the City of Mansfield, in the development of a successful project.

About PointOne Holdings:

PointOne Holdings is a real estate investment firm headquartered in South Florida and Atlanta with properties located throughout the Southeastern United States and Texas. The firm owns and manages a diversified portfolio of residential and commercial assets valued in excess of $730 million. PointOne Holdings principals are seasoned professionals with over 40 years of combined experience who have collectively conducted over $2 billion in real estate transactions. Learn more by visiting http://www.pointoneholdings.com.

About Realty Capital Management:

Realty Capital Management, a Dallas Fort Worth-based development firm, was founded in 1987 and has since developed nearly 200 projects around DFW and in Colorado, including over 3,500 residential units and more than one million square feet of commercial buildings. Realty Capital currently has over $200 million worth of projects under development and holds approximately 2,000 acres of prime residential and commercial tracts in various stages of development throughout the Dallas Fort Worth area. For additional information, visit http://www.realtycapital.com.
Churches sue Calif. Gov. Newsom over COVID-19 order banning in-home Bible studies

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A multicampus church has filed a complaint in federal court against California Gov. Gavin Newsoms COVID-19 executive order that it believes effectively bans church members from holding Bible studies and other small group meetings in their homes.

The new lawsuit was filed last Saturday on behalf of the Pasadena-based Harvest Rock Church, which has campuses throughout the state, and Harvest International Ministries, a nonprofit corporation with 162 member churches statewide and over 65,000 affiliates worldwide.

Both organizations are led by Che Ahn, an author and international chancellor of Wagner University who has been seen on networks like Trinity Broadcasting Network and GodTV.

The legal complaint says the governors order earlier this month that bans all indoor worship services in as many as 30 counties on the states COVID-19 county monitoring list also bans members from gathering at each others homes for Bible studies in those counties.

As part of the exercise of its sincerely held religious beliefs, Harvest Rocks Church campuses also have numerous Life Groups, which meet in the homes of members of the Church to worship together, engage in Bible study, fellowship with one another, and minister to the needs of each other, the complaint explains.

Harvest Rock has and exercises a sincere religious belief that Life Groups are an essential way for the church to fulfill its mission and to foster a healthy, vibrant, and growing Church community such that its members can gather together to grow in the Lord, mature in their faith, and understand the Scriptures better.

The legal filing, filed by the conservative Christian legal nonprofit Liberty Counsel, calls for an injunction that would not only allow home fellowship and Bible study gatherings but also end the governors prohibition on indoor worship services entirely.

Harvest International has 162 member churches in California, and each of these churches has and exercises the sincere religious beliefs that the church is to minister the Gospel of Jesus Christ to its members and attendees at its facilities, the complaint reads, adding that the churches cant fulfill this ministry without gathering together in person.

[It] cannot effectively engage in its constitutionally protected free exercise of religion on the internet.

In March, churches were closed in California in an attempt to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Restrictions were eased in May to allow indoor services at limited capacity provided they followed the states health guidelines.

But Newsoms new order at the beginning of the month retightens those guidelines in several counties amid a resurgence of the virus in the state. The first lockdown that many states enforced in late March was put in place solely so that hospitals were not overwhelmed with novel coronavirus patients at the same time.

A question-and-answer page on the California governments COVID-19 website says that state public health directives prohibit professional, social and community gatherings.

Gatherings are defined as meetings or other events that bring together persons from multiple households at the same time for a shared or group experience in a single room, space, or place such as an auditorium, stadium, arena, large conference room, meeting hall, or other indoor or outdoor space, the webpage explains. They pose an especially high danger of transmission and spread of COVID-19.

On May 25, the state made an effort to balance First Amendment interests with public health by allowing mass gatherings for faith-based services, cultural ceremonies and protests. The state allowed those types of gatherings to occur indoors as long as the gatherings did not exceed 100 people or 25% of space capacity.

But restrictions are more firm in over 30 counties on the states COVID-19 monitoring list. Under the updated order from Newsom this month, worship facilities in counties on the monitoring list are prohibited from holding in-person services.

Gov. Newsom encourages thousands of protesters to gather in the streets but bans in-person worship and home Bible studies and fellowship. This discriminatory treatment is unconstitutional, Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver said in a statement. Governor Gavin Newsom cannot disregard the First Amendment and ban all in-person worship in private homes and churches. Nor can the state micromanage the form of worship by banning singing or chanting.

The churches contend that the states actions violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that protects the exercise of religious beliefs. They also say that the order violates the 14th Amendment, which bars states from denying citizens equal protection of the law.

On Monday, a U.S. District Court in Los Angeles ordered an expedited brief, requiring Newsom to file a reply to the churches request for a preliminary injunction by Aug. 3.

We are pleased that the court has set an expedited briefing schedule on the request for a preliminary injunction, Staver said.

Harvest Rock Church is among the churches that have defied Newsom's order as it held a service Sunday at its Pasadena location.

I want us to pray right now that we will win that court case, Ahn was quoted as saying by CBS Los Angeles. No one is above the Constitution. No one is above the law. ... As a pastor, I believe weve been essential for 2,000 years."

The new lawsuit is one of many that have been filed against Newsoms orders restricting worship services.

Last week, three other churches filed a lawsuit against Newsoms order represented by the American Center for Law and Justice, Tyler & Bursch, The National Center for Law and Policy and Advocates for Faith & Freedom. The lawsuit contends that state restrictions on singing during worship services violates the Constitution.

Those plaintiffs are Calvary Chapel in Ukiah, Calvary Chapel Fort Bragg, and the River of Life Church in Oroville.

Singing in church is a biblical mandate, Kevin Green, pastor of Calvary Chapel in Fort Bragg, told The Los Angeles Times.

The U.S. Supreme Court in May rejected a California churchs request for an emergency injunction against Newsoms health guidelines that only allow indoor services at 25% capacity or 100 people, whichever is lower. The court's denial of emergency relief was not a denial on the merits of the case, according to a statement from Liberty Counsel.
Two women have been charged.

Two women aged 33 and 44 have been charged with the murder of 75-year-old Daniel Guyler.

Daniel Guyler (75) was found with serious injuries in the Termon Street area of Londonderry on July 23 2018.

He later died in hospital on May 1 2019.

The women have also been charged with robbery and are expected to appear at court in the city on Thursday.

As is normal procedure all charges will be reviewed by the PPS.
Just weeks after Kristian Alfonso announced she was leaving the long-running soap opera Days of Our Lives, another cast member, Greg Vaughan, announced he's leaving as well.

Vaughan, 47, spoke with Steve Burton and Bradford Anderson on their That's Awesome podcast, where he revealed his time on Days has come to an end.

Vaughan joined the cast of Days in 2012, playing Eric Brady, winning Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series at the Daytime Emmy Awards in 2018.

No more Days: Just weeks after Kristian Alfonso announced she was leaving the long-running soap opera Days of Our Lives, another cast member, Greg Vaughan, announced he's leaving as well

No more Days: Vaughan, 47, spoke with Steve Burton and Bradford Anderson on their That's Awesome podcast, where he revealed his time on Days has come to an end

'Ive finished my reign at Days,' Vaughan said on the podcast, before referring to a controversial move by NBC with the soap opera.

Back in November, NBC released all of the Days of Our Lives cast members from their contracts as a cost-cutting measure, just before they renewed the show.

Vaughan referred to their decision, adding, 'Im taking a break, if you will. Days was going through a renewal negotiation and not knowing where they were going to go.'

Finished reign: 'Ive finished my reign at Days,' Vaughan said on the podcast, before referring to a controversial move by NBC with the soap opera

He did give a shout-out to his fans on Days Of Our Lives, hinting that there's still a chance he might come back.

'I love you all, and it's never over, so I'm not gonna say it's over,' Vaughan said, adding he had a 'great opportunity' to star as Calvin on Queen Sugar.

Greg added that he thought his time on Days of Our Lives, 'was coming to an end, anyway' but he still has episodes 'airing out.'

Chance: He did give a shout-out to his fans on Days Of Our Lives, hinting that there's still a chance he might come back

He added he was back to film Queen Sugar Season 5 for a week but they had to shut down production after just one week due to COVID-19.

'We were in full production and we had a conference call with the cast and Ava (DuVernay),' and they said there weren't enough cleaning supplies to keep the set safe so production was shut down.

There is no indication when production will resume in New Orleans on the new season of Queen Sugar just yet.

Shut down: He added he was back to film Queen Sugar Season 5 for a week but they had to shut down production after just one week due to COVID-19

The actor proposed to his actress girlfriend Angie Harmon on Christmas Day last December, sharing the happy moment on Instagram.

He added that he's 'never been happier' than he's been with Harmon.

Vaughan's announcement came just a few weeks after Kristian Alfonso announced she was leaving the soap opera after a 37-year run.

Christmas proposal: The actor proposed to his actress girlfriend Angie Harmon on Christmas Day last December, sharing the happy moment on Instagram
Welcome to The Usual, an irregular column about regulars in their restaurants  and the roles such places play in the lives of the people they feed.

Framed outside the front door of Puerto Rican restaurant Sol Food in San Rafael, is a complaint. Not a Yelp review, but a real-live letter, handwritten in cursive, from 2006: Dear Mrs. Hernandez, The lime green color you selected for your new restaurant is garish and ugly. That color may be appropriate for Puerto Rico, but it isnt for Marin County.

It makes Christopher Adam Williams laugh, like a lot of things do. People who dont understand culture will complain about color, says the Sol Food regular. When I saw the green, I was, like, OK, this food has personality. You expect a colorful restaurant to be good! He admits his theory isnt foolproof. (Ive been hoodwinked before.) Still, as someone who paints canvases that measure nearly 7 by 6 feet and celebrate Black joy in purples and pinks, bright, bold color calls me in, he says. Its a sign of hope.

As was his first date with Nakeyshia Kendall, in 2018. It wasnt a date, Nakeyshia says, rolling her eyes. I was just hungry.

An educator-entrepreneur, she was looking for an artist to lead a group of middle-schoolers in painting a mural. He was a recent graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute. They met up at the annual Art Market in Fort Mason, where he proposed coffee at Starbucks. She suggested a drive across the bridge to Sol Food instead. The wait for a table was the same as it always was: long. So, they got takeout, drove up to the Marin Headlands, and talked art and music and relationship status (single), as they watched the sun dip into the bay. We had slow jams going in the car, Christopher adds. (Date.)

Nakeyshia learned about Sol Food the way most outdoorsy, food-loving locals do  googling for somewhere to eat after biking or hiking in Marin. In a county with a restaurant scene about as diverse as its population (affluent, 85 percent white), Sol Food stood out back when Marisol Hernandez opened the restaurant in 2004. It still does. She expanded to a larger location, then opened a second, in Mill Valley, in 2013. People come from all over the Bay Area  and everywhere from India to Italy  for her tender bistec encebollado and pescado frito Friday special, and garlicky, oregano-spiked pollo al horno (three pieces for Christopher, two for Nakeyshia). As Hector Lugo, a longtime Oakland regular, puts it: Marisols menu is honest. She doesnt try to do fancy things like all the Nuevo Latino cuisine bulls I cant stand, he says. Who are these chefs who think they can improve upon generations of delicious dishes?

Even Nakeyshias Guyana-raised mother  who considers all restaurant food junk food  is a fan. It reminds her of her own cooking, says Nakeyshia. Though she grew up in Florida eating plantains and rice, its not so much Sol Foods food that reminds Nakeyshia of home as its soul. The way it feels. The people she shares it with.

Christopher, whod been living off mostly fast-food as a student, fell hard for Nakeyshia and her favorite restaurant. It was real food, he says recalling the Cubano. A month after that first meal together, Christopher and Nakeyshia took off on a cross-country road trip to Maine, to drop Christopher at graduate school. Their last stop before leaving town: Sol Food. Everything was downhill from there, he says.

It started with really bad barbecue in Idaho. (All of a sudden he turned serious and went on this tirade against the baked beans! recalls Nakeyshia. I had no idea he was this barbecue connoisseur.) The other thing about Idaho: There were very few Black people. We tallied how many we saw in each state, says Nakeyshia. Three in Idaho. Zero in South Dakota, where they were served pasty mashed potatoes out of a can and some dude asked Christopher if he was on the Oakland As. (For the hell of it, Christopher said he was and signed his autograph.) They ate passable macaroni and cheese in Wisconsin, and a world-famous meatball in upstate New York, but they missed Sol Food. And more.

In Maine, Christopher faced racist cops and hate-emails, as well as stares every time he walked into a restaurant. I was literally the only Black guy around. I felt like I was on display, he says. The lobster rolls were decent, but not the people serving them. He remembers once ordering two  and the lady goes, Thats going to cost $40, you know. I was, like: Yeah, I know. It mightve been summer in Maine, but the state felt cold. Within six months, he drove West. First stop in California: Sol Food. I was back where I belonged, Christopher says.

He was also back with Nakeyshia. Eleven months later, they got married at Fort Mason. (Wedding catered by Sol Food, naturally.) Before COVID-19, Bianca, a server in Mill Valley, would find them a table, and gift them flan. Salt n Straw always gives them free ice cream, too. We dont know why! Nakeyshia says with a laugh. I think they just like our vibe. You dont see a lot of Black couples in San Francisco.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

As a Black couple walking around San Francisco, theyre also often asked: Are you lost? And then theres the time Christopher was accused of breaking into his own car. As a Black man, he encounters more racism when hes not with Nakeyshia, he says. Its been better during quarantine, she says, Because were always together.

As they are on this summer day, chatting in camping chairs with purple masks around their necks and to-go containers in their laps. Its easy to see, from 6 feet away, why Christopher and Nakeyshia get free flan. The virus is surging, unemployment is rising, systemic racism remains, and yet: This couples contentment with lunch and life and each other is contagious, in a good way. Early in the lockdown, Christopher and Nakeyshia rarely left their Russian Hill neighborhood. They shopped locally, took 6 a.m. walks, watched Trevor Noah. Until one day in May, they decided to take a road trip of a different sort.

They donned their matching masks and cruised over a Golden Gate Bridge devoid of traffic. It felt like such an adventure, recalls Nakeyshia. The sun was beaming. The line wasnt bad. Bianca waved. They collected their collective five pieces of baked chicken and pink beans and white rice and extra maduros and headed for the headlands. Damn COVID, it was closed. No matter. They ate their Sol Food somewhere else appropriate, shelter-in-place or not: home.

Rachel Levin is a freelance writer. Email food@sfchronicle.com George McCalman is an artist and creative director in S.F. His Observed column appears in The Chronicle. Email: food@sfchronicle.com
I have more than enough money in the campaign account to cover the return donation to ATU, and after fulfilling my commitment to return the contribution, we had no need to monitor when they deposited it, Dorsey said in a text message, in response to a series of questions.
Sanjana Sanghi, who will be seen opposite late actor Sushant Singh Rajput in Dil Bechara, was first a part of Ranbir Kapoor starrer 2011 film Rockstar. Wishing her luck for her new film, Imtiaz Ali, who directed her in Rockstar took to Instagram to share some pictures.

The filmmaker shared two pictures. One was a BTS still of the two from Rockstar, another was the poster of Dil Bechara. "Little Mandy from Rockstar is a big girl now!!! looking fwd (sic)," he captioned them, referring to Sanjana's character Mandy, Nargis Fakri's sister in the film.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Imtiaz Ali (@imtiazaliofficial) on Jul 22, 2020 at 9:51am PDT

Recently, Sanjana spoke about the same and recalled her experience of being spotted by casting director Mukesh Chhabra at the age of 13. She also called A.R. Rahman's music magical. Rahman had composed the music of Rockstar. The noted composer has also created music for Sanjana's forthcoming film Dil Bechara which marks her debut as a lead actress in Bollywood. "At age 13, Mukesh found me performing on stage in my school in Delhi, asked me to 'audition' then and there itself, and went on to cast me as 'Mandy' in Rockstar. Many magical things happened during Rockstar, but one of the biggest was AR Rahman Sir's music." "If you'd have told me 10 years later he'd bless my debut film as a lead actor Dil Bechara, would be based on my favourite novel The Fault in Our Stars - with his music on our album and background score with Mukesh directing me? That would not even be a dream I'd have ever dared to dream." "Thank you @arrahman sir, for this eternal blessing, this is an absolute honor. I've pinched myself a million times since I first performed to your tunes almost two years ago, yet it just doesn't sink in," Sanjana had shared on Instagram.

Directed by Mukesh Chhabra, Dil Bechara is the official remake of 2014 Hollywood romantic drama The Fault in our Stars, based on John Green's popular novel of the same name.

The film will be remembered as the last one of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput, who passed away just a month before its release.

The film is slated to release on an OTT platform on July 24.
Just as the Martians in HG Wells novel The War of the Worlds are finally slain by disease bacteria on Earth, scientists now suggest humans and other mammals could struggle to fight germs from other planets.

Given the right conditions and mixture of elements, it is conceivable that microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses could exist beyond Earth, and there are plans to search for signs of them on Mars and some of Saturn and Jupiters moons.

Alien life forms could theoretically be composed of different amino acids to those familiar to us on Earth.

Amino acids are the fundamental organic compounds which form the basis for all life as we know it, and are made up of nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.

Scientists from the universities of Aberdeen and Exeter tested how mammal immune cells responded to peptides containing two amino acids that are rare on Earth but are commonly found on meteorites.

The amino acids isovaline and -aminoisobutyric acid were introduced to mice, which have immune systems similar to humans.

They found that those mices immune systems responded to the alien peptides in a way that was less efficient than to germs from this planet.

The research team examined mammalian T cells, which normally work to kill pathogenic bodies, and can recruit other cells to fight off invading diseases.

But when the scientists introduced the amino acids found on the meteorites, the T cell response was less efficient, with activation levels of 15 per cent and 61 per cent  compared to 82 per cent and 91 per cent when exposed to peptides made entirely of amino acids that are common on Earth.

Life on Earth relies on essential 22 amino acids, said lead author Dr Katja Schaefer, of the University of Exeter, in a statement. Our investigation showed that these exo-peptides were still processed, and T cells were still activated, but these responses were less efficient than for ordinary Earth peptides.

We therefore speculate that contact with extra-terrestrial microorganisms might pose an immunological risk for space missions aiming to retrieve organisms from exoplanets and moons, Dr Schaefer added.

The world is now only too aware of the immune challenge posed by the emergence of brand new pathogens, said Professor Neil Gow, a Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Exeter.

The research will be published in in the journal Microorganisms, with the title, A weakened immune response to synthetic exo-peptides predicts a potential biosecurity risk in the retrieval of exo-microorganisms.

The discovery of liquid water at several locations in the solar system raises the possibility that microbial life could have [also] evolved outside Earth, and could therefore be accidentally introduced into the Earths ecosystem.

The issue of alien germs is a rising priority, as missions to other planets are becoming more common.

The UAE recently launched its first mission to Mars, sending The Hope Probe from Japan for a seven-month journey.

China also sent the Questions to Heaven rover for a 90-day exploration of the Red Planet.

Nasa recently gave the Seti Institute a contract to ensure that alien life does not contaminate Earth.

The contract covers the Mars 2020 mission and the Europa Clipper mission, which will send probes to a moon of Jupiter.

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Mystic Mountain, a pillar of gas and dust standing at three-light-years tall, bursting with jets of gas from fledgling stars buried within, was captured by Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope in February 2010 Nasa/ESA/STScI Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures The first ever selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by Nasa's Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012 Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Death of a star: This image from Nasa's Chandra X-ray telescope shows the supernova of Tycho, a star in our Milky Way galaxy Nasa Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, pictured here on 1 January 2019 by a camera on Nasa's New Horizons spaceraft at a distance of 4.1 billion miles from Earth Getty Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures The first ever image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving Nasa, and released on 10 April 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth Getty Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Pluto, as pictured by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015 Nasa/APL/SwRI Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun Nasa Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks running downhill on the surface Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary flowing water. It has since been suggested that they may instead be formed by flowing sand Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015 Nasa/Scott Kelly

Researchers now say there could be more than 30 alien civilisations in our galaxy. That estimation comes from the assumption that life would develop on other planets as it does on Earth.

Scientists than matched the conditions on Earth to other planets that could have similar histories.

The idea is looking at evolution, but on a cosmic scale. We call this calculation the Astrobiological Copernican Limit, Christopher Conselice of the University of Nottingham said at the time.
A logo is pictured in front of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva

GENEVA/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - World Trade Organization members are considering eight candidates competing to replace Brazil's Roberto Azevedo, who is stepping down as director-general on Aug. 31, a year early.

The new WTO chief will need to steer reform and negotiations in the face of rising protectionism, a deep recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and growing trade tensions, notably between the United States and China.

Candidates, including three women vying to be the WTO's first female boss, were vetted by members last week. Campaigning continues until Sept. 7 with a final decision expected later this year, possibly after the U.S. election in November.

In the meantime, a temporary caretaker director-general will be chosen from among four current deputies from China, Nigeria, Germany, and the United States.

Below is a summary of the eight permanent candidates by order of their candidacy:

Jesus Seade (Mexico), 73, senior trade official in Mexican government

Seade helped found the WTO in the early 1990s and led his government's negotiating team to rework the North American Free Trade Agreement. The veteran negotiator also previously worked at the International Monetary Fund and at universities in Hong Kong.

He said the next chief needed to combine depth of understanding of trade issues with the political clout needed to "get the WTO out of the hole" it is in. While there is no formal regional rotation requirement, some say that coming from Mexico might be a disadvantage since Azevedo was from the Americas.

Hamid Mamdouh (Egypt), 67, currently Geneva-based lawyer

Former trade negotiator for Egypt and ex-WTO official who helped draft an agreement on trade in services in the landmark Uruguay Round deal - an experience that he said gave him essential "bridge-building" skills.

Mamdouh, who was officially endorsed by the African Union, is currently advising G20 president Saudi Arabia on trade matters and vows to "immediately revive the negotiating function of the organisation" if chosen. Some delegates say a lack of political experience could be a handicap but he denies this.

Story continues

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Nigeria), 66, board chair of the global vaccine alliance Gavi

Okonjo-Iweala, one of three women and three Africans in the race, is an economist and development specialist who has served as Nigeria's foreign minister and finance minister and as a managing director of the World Bank. Branding herself a "do-er", she points to her strong negotiating skills including a deal to cancel billions of dollars of Nigerian debt.

Described by some as one of top candidates, she told Reuters she has "strong support" from the continent.

Tudor Ulianovschi (Moldova), 37, former minister of foreign affairs

Ulianovschi, the youngest candidate, was foreign minister in 2018-2019 and formerly a diplomat, with a 2016-2018 posting as Moldovan ambassador in Switzerland, covering also the WTO.

He said his immediate priority as chief would be to work towards a multilateral trade deal at the 2021 ministerial conference.

Yoo Myung-hee (South Korea), 53, trade minister

South Korea's first female trade minister previously led the renegotiation of a trade deal with the United States and worked on Seoul's trade pacts.

Yoo vows to make the WTO more "relevant, resilient and responsive" and rebuild trust in the body.

Amina Mohamed (Kenya), 58, sport and culture minister

Mohamed is a former Kenyan ambassador to the WTO who in 2005 was the first woman to chair the WTO's General Council.

She ran for the top post unsuccessfully in 2013 although she says she has gained key skills since, including through chairing a Nairobi ministerial conference where deals were struck.

She has advocated broad participation in the WTO reform process and expressed some sympathy with U.S. criticism of the body. Some delegates see her as a frontrunner.

Mohammad Al-Tuwaijri (Saudi Arabia), minister advising the royal court

Al-Tuwaijri, who studied aeronautics and business, was a Saudi Air Force pilot before working for a number of banks. He became minister of economy and state planning from 2017 until he was relieved of his post in March. He has also been on the board of directors at Saudi Aramco, Saudi Railways and Saudi Arabian Airlines and says his private sector experience allows him to take a "fresh look" at the WTO.

Some delegates say political tensions with Qatar might prevent him earning broader support.

Liam Fox (Britain), 58, member of parliament

A former defence minister as well as an ex-doctor and staunch Eurosceptic, Fox campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union and, after the Brexit vote, became secretary of state for international trade, but lost his position a year ago.

Fox, who was given early odds of 33/1 by betting agency Ladbrokes before the vetting process began, says this is a job for a politician "and probably one who has been around for a while and carries the scars of the most difficult battles."

(Reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva, Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels, Andrea Shalal in Washington, William James in London, Belen Carreno in Madrid, Katharine Houreld in Nairobi and Frank Jack Daniel in Mexico City; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
According to court records, investigators were able to document Chauvins off-duty work schedule and other financial information after executing a June 25 search warrant at his former home in Oakdale, which was recently put up for sale. The complaint says the home was mostly empty, but investigators discovered a box of financial and tax documents, work schedules and other correspondence that had been left behind in the garage.
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has ordered his department to remind GPs and state-employed testing doctors of the correct advice on when patients must self-isolate, amid confusion over who must stay home after a COVID-19 test.

"The advice is very clear  if you have symptoms, if you have been tested, or if you have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive, you do need to isolate," Mr Hunt said on Thursday.

Patients are being given conflicting advice on whether they need to self-isolate after a COVID-19 test. Credit:Getty

"We will make sure that this afternoon, the national advice and Victorian advice are reaffirmed."

Australian Medical Association President Mukesh Haikerwal, who runs a GP-led, Commonwealth-funded respiratory clinic in Melbourne, said official advice on which patients must self-isolate was far from clear and called for detailed, nationally consistent guidance to help doctors navigate grey areas.
Speaking in the Dail yesterday, Wednesday, July 22, Martin Kenny, TD for Sligo-Leitrim raised the issue of adults with intellectual disability who are at home with elderly parents since lockdown without any of the usual supports.

Deputy Kenny said: I want to raise with the Taoiseach the issue of adults with intellectual disabilities who are at home with elderly parents who, in many cases, are unable to cope.

This situation has continued through the pandemic. Many people around the country are at their wits end in regard to what to do. Day care services and respite care services have been taken away.

Across my constituency, and I am sure across the country as a whole, carers and families who are caring for adults in such circumstances need to see efforts being made by Government to put these services back in place immediately.

Later in the day, commenting on the HSEs Framework for the Resumption of Adult Disability Day Services, Martin Kenny said:

I appreciate that care and planning has to happen to resume services, but surely with adequate testing of both the carers and those being cared for, adaption of premises and perhaps hours of service, this can be done more speedily.

There are people at their wits end and close to burnout with the lack of daycare or even respite services. We all realise the care that must be taken before resumption of services, but there is a shocking lack of urgency about this and the government, like on many other issues, seems to be unaware or uncaring of the crisis in which many families find themselves.

I am calling on the Minister and the HSE to treat this crisis with the urgency it deserves and restore services as soon as possible.
When Shinjiro Koizumi went to Madrid last December, the golden child of Japanese politics found himself cast as the worldas whipping boy for a collective failure to act on climate change.

Attending the COP25 round of climate talks as Japanas environment minister, Mr Koizumi a the 39-year-old son of former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi a was met by protesters in Pikachu costumes calling on Japan to stop burning coal, and stop financing new coal plants in developing countries.

Twice during the conference, the Climate Action Network gave Japan its aFossil of the Daya award. The distinction drew widespread attention back in Tokyo a not least because it clashed so vividly with Mr Koizumias reputation as a smooth, young moderniser.

Coal is one of the dirtiest fuels, with coal-fired electricity accounting for about 30 per cent of energy-related carbon emissions worldwide. Building new coal power stations fixes countries on a path of high emissions for decades to come. The COP25 meeting, however, has helped to trigger a rethink in Japan.

aJapan began to rely on coal after the oil shock [in the 1970s],a says Taishi Sugiyama, research director on energy and environment at the Canon Institute for Global Studies in Tokyo. aUntil then, oil was Japanas main energy source. After that, Japan started to explore all other possibilities.a

The most promising of those other possibilities was nuclear a until 2011, when a tsunami hit the coast of Tohoku and three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant went into meltdown. The subsequent trauma means most of Japanas reactors are still switched off.

With nuclear power unavailable, Japan went back to fossil fuels: coal rose from 28 per cent of electricity supply in 2010 to 32 per cent in 2018, even as other countries went in the other direction. Japanas planned energy mix calls for renewables to increase from 17 per cent of electricity to at least 22 per cent by 2030, allowing coal to fall back to 26 per cent, but even that relies on bringing a lot of nuclear plants back on line.

Mr Sugiyama sees little alternative to continued reliance on coal, because it is cheap and Japan has secure supplies from friendly Australia. Liquid natural gas, the obvious alternative, costs much more. Renewables are not only intermittent, but Japanas dense population and rugged terrain make wind and solar difficult to deploy at sufficient scale.
Customers wear protective masks as they order food outside a restaurant in New York City, N.Y., on July 21, 2020. (Jeenah Moon/Getty Images)

Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota Impose Mask Mandates to Curb CCP Virus Spread

Indiana, Ohio, and Minnesota have become the latest states to mandate face coverings when in public settings, in efforts to curb the spread of the CCP virus.

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, said he will sign an executive order on Thursday to require state residents older than eight years old to wear masks inside and outside when they cannot social distance, starting Monday. Masks are also strongly recommended for children who are two to seven years old.

We know youre probably tired of hearing it, but that doesnt make it any less true. Its time to #MaskUpHoosiers. The statewide mask mandate goes into effect on Monday. Visit https://t.co/T741dQaJv1 for more info. pic.twitter.com/9pbwkcGcpr  Indiana State Department of Health (@StateHealthIN) July 22, 2020

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced Wednesday that those who are 10 years or older in the state must wear a mask when in public settings starting Thursday, 6 p.m. local time. The mask mandate also applies to people taking or operating public transportation or a ride-sharing vehicle.

This order only requires those who are 10 years old or older to wear a mask. In addition, the following do not need to wear a mask: pic.twitter.com/xv9CX8itYi  Governor Mike DeWine (@GovMikeDeWine) July 22, 2020

DeWine, a Republican, also announced a travel advisory, where people coming into Ohio from states that have reported positive COVID-19 testing rates of 15 percent or higher will be recommended to self-quarantine for 14 days.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said people will need to wear masks in indoor businesses and at other public settings starting on Saturday, as outlined in his executive order (pdf).

Right now the best way to demonstrate those Minnesota values is by wearing a mask to protect our neighbors, keep businesses open, and get us back to the activities we love, Walz, a Democrat, announced on Twitter.

The Minnesota Department of Health reiterated the message, saying on Twitter: Wearing a mask and staying 6 feet apart can help prevent you from spreading your germs to others. The department also posted an update to clarify mask requirements on its website.

Help stop the spread! You may have #COVID19 without showing any symptoms. Wearing a mask and staying 6 feet apart can help prevent you from spreading your germs to others. #MaskUpMN https://t.co/wWcb6wDWQT pic.twitter.com/WX1W7ZMDxY  mnhealth (@mnhealth) July 22, 2020

More than half of U.S. states now mandate masks. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had in April recommended that Americans wear face coverings in public settings. The recommendation came after new evidence showed that people who had COVID-19the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virushad the potential to spread the virus before showing any symptoms.

President Donald Trump holds a face mask as he speaks during a news conference at the White House in Washington on July 21, 2020. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

President Donald Trump on Tuesday called on Americans to wear protective masks.

Americas youth will act responsibly, and were asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask, get a mask, Trump said. Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact. Theyll have an effect. And we need everything we can get.

He added later that the administration is asking Americans to use masks, socially distance, and employ vigorous hygiene, and asking young Americans to avoid packed bars and other crowded indoor gatherings.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in late June said in a release that it predicted 179,106 COVID-19 deaths in the United States by Oct. 1, but added that the numbers drop to 146,047  if at least 95 percent of people wear masks in public, which translate to a reduction of nearly 33,060 in forecasted deaths.

People need to know that wearing masks can reduce transmission of the virus by as much as 50 percent, and those who refuse are putting their lives, their families, their friends, and their communities at risk, IHME Director Dr. Christopher Murray said in a statement.
Photo taken on July 16, 2020 shows a container dock in Tangshan City, north China's Hebei Province.(Xinhua/Yang Shiyao)

BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- By renewing its pledge to further protect market entities and spur their vitality in times of difficulty and uncertainty, China has given its economy and all market players a fresh shot of confidence.

Chairing a symposium with entrepreneurs Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping listened to their opinions and advice on the economic situation, assuring them that policy support will be enhanced so that market entities can "not only survive but also thrive."

The pledge comes as China, through the combined efforts of the whole nation, has achieved strategic results in epidemic containment and started to see a bounce-back in the epidemic-battered economy.

China saw its gross domestic product expand 3.2 percent year on year in the second quarter, following a 6.8 percent contraction in the first quarter, official data shows.

The better-than-expected recovery has been a result of effective virus control and heavy macro-policy backing, as well as the arduous efforts of all market entities.

However, given the continuous global spread of the virus and mounting external risks, enterprises and individual businesses are still facing challenges, and ensuring their well-being is crucial for sustaining the hard-won rebound.

Workers check a production line at Lianyungang Economic and Technological Development Area in Lianyungang, east China's Jiangsu Province, July 16, 2020. (Photo by Geng Yuhe/Xinhua)

To protect market entities is to protect productivity. By 2019, China had around 123 million market entities. They have played a major role in the country's development by participating actively in economic activities, creating jobs and pushing technological progress.

Their roles will be increasingly essential as China works to create a new development pattern in which domestic and foreign markets boost each other, with the domestic market as the mainstay.

To provide true support, the symposium touched upon issues of great concern, including relief measures, business-environment improvement and the government-business relationship. Opinions and suggestions from entrepreneurs will also be taken into account in the formulation of policies, such as China's 14th Five-Year Plan.

Xi promised that the Chinese government will provide more high-quality public services to help entrepreneurs take root in China and cultivate the Chinese market.

With such support and solidarity, China's market entities are expected to make greater contributions to the country's economic restoration and the pursuit of socialist modernization. Their hard work and strength will serve to bolster the long-term resilience and vitality of the Chinese economy and beyond.
A dental company supported by Vogue Williams which promises perfect teeth has gone bust, owing angry online customers thousands of pounds.

Your Smile Direct, who used the model to tout their success, had been troubled by debt since 2018.

The Made in Chelsea reality star and husband Spencer Matthews were guests at a glitzy celebratory lunch last May when the company boasted of fixing the teeth of 10,000 people with their clear aligners.

Documents lodged with Companies House in Dublin show the company went into liquidation earlier this month - leaving those who have paid for treatment fearing they have lost their money.

One customer told MailOnline: 'They have just taken the money and will not reply to any calls or emails and I have not received anything from them.

A dental company supported by Vogue Williams (above) which promises perfect teeth has gone bust, owing angry online customers thousands of pounds. Your Smile Direct, who used the model to tout their success, had been troubled by debt since 2018

They have conned people and should not be allowed to get away with this.

Your Smile Direct offered a cut price way for people to have their teeth straightened without using a registered dental practice and orthodontist.

After sending off a mould of the shape of their mouth, customers would be sent clear aligners  or braces as they are commonly called - by post every two weeks to straighten their teeth.

The cost of treatment was up to 2,000 and lasted up to five months or longer.

Patients who use an orthodontist often pay more than 3,000 for a course of treatment.

Many of the patients signed credit agreements or were asked to pay the full amount up front prior to treatment.

The Dublin based company stopped returning calls and emails a month ago, according to angry customers.

One woman from Southampton, Hampshire, said: When I saw how much they were charging I thought it was too good to be true, and thats what its turned out to be.

I was able to have most of my treatment but I did not receive my final alignment. If I do not get that then all the previous months treatment will be wasted. I feel very let down and I know there must be many others in my position.

Another customer found out about the company after seeing an Instagram post by Vogue.

In May 2019 she and Spencer Matthews were interviewed about Your Smile and were happily photographed at the lunch in Dublin.

The Made in Chelsea reality star and husband Spencer Matthews were guests at a glitzy celebratory lunch last May when the company boasted of fixing the teeth of 10,000 people with their clear aligners

Documents lodged with Companies House in Dublin show the company went into liquidation earlier this month - leaving those who have paid for treatment fearing they have lost their money

The couple posed with balloons containing the slogan 10,000 smiles  the number of people the company claimed to have successfully treated.

At one point Vogue pointed at husband Spencer and joked that that company would soon be fixing 10,001, before he replied with a smile: 'My teeth are perfect'.

MailOnline has approached Vogue Williams for comment.

The quest for perfect teeth in recent years has been fuelled by the explosion in reality stars with companies using social media to promote the DIY treatment.

On its Instagram page Your Smile Direct carried the slogan: Invisible Aligners delivered to you; less time in waiting rooms, more time for YOU and all at a winning-grinning price!

Consumer review sites have been flooded with complaints from people who have been let down by their treatment.

Writing on the Trust Pilot consumer website Beth Beckerly said: 'I could not be any more disappointed, i paid a large deposit in may and have since been unable to get a response regarding a refund. i have not even had a treatment plan yet. Personally I would not recommend at all.

One 24-year-old woman from Essex, who with her sister paid 2,500 for treatment, said:I was promised the clear braces, but they never arrived. I would be fobbed off with excuses and promises that they would arrive in a few days.'

Another customer found out about the company after seeing an Instagram post by Vogue. In May 2019 she and Spencer Matthews were interviewed about Your Smile and were happily photographed at the lunch in Dublin

Another customer added: 'I heard about the company from an Instagram post by Vogue Williams. I was sceptical and did some research on the company and they appeared genuine, but obviously not.

Those still seeking answers who search online for Your Smile Direct were immediately directed to a new company called Alignerly offering identical treatment. This website stopped working yesterday.

Both Your Smile Direct and Alignerly are registered at the same Dublin address with a husband and wife named as the sole directors of each company.

Graham Byrne was the director of Your Smile Direct while his wife is director of Alignerly, a company that was formed in March.

A spokesman for Your Smile Direct and Alignerly did not respond to emails and calls from MailOnline.

A spokesman for the General Dental Council, which regulates dentists and orthodontists in the UK, said it is gathering evidence about the potential risk of harm to patients from direct-to-consumer orthodontics.
An Ontario resident was met with an uninvited guest. A hungry black bear was caught on security cameras raiding Sean Atkinsons garbage, looking through pizza boxes for any leftovers.

Footage shows the black bear used its paws to pull open the front door. It then rummaged through three pizza boxes on the floor near the entrance. After ripping through the cardboard with its teeth and finding zilch, the bear looked around the small room.

Then it becomes fascinated and frustrated by the door. The sturdy bear taps the door but it swings close, confusing the animal. It goes back to the door, stands on its hind legs, pushes it open, then rushes through.

Dont leave garbage out in Canada. This is entirely my fault, although Ive never seen a bear open a front door like this before, Atkinson told Newsflare.

With the black bear population increasing in North America and more humans moving into bear habitats, encounters are rising. Black bears have a sense of smell seven times stronger than Bloodhounds. That means they can detect most food sources -- and theyll always remember where its located once found.

While most black bears will avoid humans, if they can find food without being steered away, theyll keep coming back. Labeled nuisance bears, these guys are easy to thwart with a few precautions. The most important one is making trash inaccessible, along with keeping outdoor grills free of food remnants and possibly ditching the birdfeeder.

If you enjoyed this story, you might also like reading about this bear that can open a car door.

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The post Black bear breaks into Ontario mans house looking for pizza appeared first on In The Know.
The effects of the forced deportation of over 10 million African people during the transatlantic slave trade remain entrenched in the DNA of people from North, Central, and South America as well as the Caribbean. Now, in a paper appearing July 23 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, researchers have compiled genetic data from consenting 23andMe research participants to paint a more complete picture of African ancestry in the New World. By linking genetic data with historical records of the slave trade, the findings reinforce harsh truths about slavery in the Americas and uncover new insights into its marked history. These insights include the regions of Africa from which enslaved people were taken and the methods used to suppress and exploit Africans once they disembarked in the Americas.

"Our study combined the genetic data of more than 50,000 people on both sides of the Atlantic with historical records of enslaved people to create one of the most comprehensive investigations of the transatlantic slave trade," says first author Steven Micheletti, a population geneticist at 23andMe. "One of the disturbing truths this research revealed was how the mistreatment of people with African ancestry shaped the current genetic landscape of African ancestry in the Americas."

The researchers found that the genetic contributions from major African populations into the Americas match well with what they expected based on historical records, with most Americans of African descent having roots in Angola and Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, a closer look at precise African regions occasionally revealed a mismatch from what the researchers expected.

For instance, Nigerian ancestry is over-represented in African Americans in the U.S., likely due to the intra-continental slave trade, which the scientists say has only recently received attention for its impact on genetic variation. "By examining the Intra-American Slave Trade database, we concluded that much of the inferred Nigerian ancestry in the United States derives from transport of slaves within the Americas, primarily from the Caribbean," says senior author Joanna Mountain, Senior Director of Research at 23andMe.

In contrast, researchers found that the genetic connections between African Americans and Senegambians were much lower than expected, given the number of Senegambians who disembarked in North America. "Because Senegambians were commonly rice cultivators in Africa, they were often transported to rice plantations in the US. These plantations were often rampant with malaria and had high mortality rates, which may have led to the reduced genetic representation of Senegambia in African Americans today," Micheletti says.

Both slave-owner and government practices across the Americas had tremendous impacts on the distribution of African genetics as well. "Many slave-owners in the United States promoted enslaved people having children with one another for the purpose of maintaining a workforce, and even after slavery, they tended to segregate people of African descent," says Micheletti. This is in contrast to practices in parts of Latin America, which supported "dilution" of the African populace after slavery was abolished. "In the early 1900s, sources state that the Brazilian government implemented immigration laws seeking to bring more Europeans into the country, presumably to have children with darker-skinned females and reduce African ancestry." This practice of "dilution" is one reason the researchers believe that the proportion of people with greater than 5% African ancestry is five times lower in Latin America than in the US, despite Latin America receiving roughly 70% of all disembarked African slaves.

In Latin America, this dilution practice also partially explains why African women are found to have contributed substantially more to the gene pool than did African men. "Our analysis estimated about 15 African women had children for each African man in Central and South America, as well as the Latin Caribbean," says Micheletti. This female gene bias is found in North America as well, concordant with reports of generations of sexual exploitation of African women occurring ubiquitously across the Americas. Mountain points out that, "The female bias is particularly shocking given that the majority of enslaved individuals were male."

The researchers hope that, with this study, they can help those of African descent not only to find their roots, but also to understand how the experiences of their ancestors have shaped the genetic makeup of their communities. "This paper conveys how the racist and dehumanizing acts endemic to the slave trade led to different patterns of African ancestry across the Americas that we can see in the DNA of people living today. We hope readers grasp not only the impact of the slave trade but also the deep contributions enslaved Africans made to the history, economy, and culture of the Americas," says Micheletti.

###

Funding for this research was provided by 23andMe

American Journal of Human Genetics, Micheletti et al.: "Genetic Consequences of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Americas" https://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297(20)30200-7

The American Journal of Human Genetics (@AJHGNews), published by Cell Press for the American Society of Human Genetics, is a monthly journal that provides a record of research and review relating to heredity in humans and to the application of genetic principles in medicine and public policy, as well as in related areas of molecular and cell biology. Visit: http://www.cell.com/ajhg. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.
Mawson Details Mining History of the Redcastle High-Grade Gold Project in Victoria

Posted by Publisher Internet

Mawson Resources Limited (?Mawson?) or (the ?Company?) (TSX:MAW) (Frankfurt:MXR) (PINKSHEETS: MWSNF) (https://www.commodity-tv.com/play/mawson-resources-gold-cobalt-exploration-in-finland-and-australia/) is pleased to announce an historical summary of the Redcastle epizonal gold project in Victoria, Australia following the recently released overview and work plans for the project.

Highlights:

Redcastle, located in Victoria, Australia is one of the most significant historic epizonal goldfields in the state, with high-grades and common visible gold in a quartz (+/- stibnite association);

The first mined of three historic central Victorian goldfields (ca. 1859). Mining at the nearby Costerfield and Fosterville began later in ca. 1860s and 1890s respectively (Figure 1);

Extremely high gold grades were mined over a 4.5 x 7 square kilometre area containing over 24 historic mining areas that extend over a combined 17 kilometres of combined high-grade vein strike;

Mawson to commence a detailed geophysics programme during July, followed by a diamond drilling campaign in at both the Sunday Creek and Redcastle projects in Victoria, commencing from mid-August.

Mr. Hudson, Chairman and CEO, states, ?The extremely high grade, free and visible gold associated with quartz and stibnite at Redcastle developed over a significant area make it one of the key high grade epizonal gold fields in Victoria, along with the Swan Zone at Fosterville and the Costerfield Mine, which lies immediately along strike to the south. It remains astounding that the project remains untested below the water table (50 metres average depth). Mawson will commence geophysics at Redcastle during July, followed by a diamond drilling program in late August/early September.?

Redcastle History

Redcastle was discovered in 1859 at the Staffordshire Flat alluvial field. The first hardrock gold discovery was Clarke?s Mine in 1859 by a party of Italians and Austrians, led by Antonio Geronovitch, then named the Balmoral Diggings. ?Redcastle? a name of Scottish origin, displaced Balmoral (also of Scottish origin) in 1860. In Bailliere?s Victorian gazetteer?(1865), it was reported that Redcastle had police and court facilities, a post office, two hotels and three quartz-crushing mills. Mining was most active between 1859 ? 1865 and to a lesser extent from 1866-1896. The last hotel closed in 1913, the school closed in the 1930s, and by 1972 the district?s population was estimated to be three people.

Exploration and development of the Redcastle goldfield was earlier than that of Costerfield gold-antimony field to the south. Many of the Redcastle mines were already abandoned prior to the development of the Costerfield mineralization in the 1890?s. The Redcastle mines were documented to have closed in the 1800?s through a combination of factors, including inadequate pumping to dewater the mines below the water table and continual water shortage for crushing and treatment issues associated with iron oxide coating of gold in the oxide zone and stibnite in the hypogene zone. Faulting of mineralization, with difficulty extending workings across fault zones, and a lack of geological knowledge (only 3 mines in the field were investigated by geologists) also led to abandonment. The rush to pay dividends versus appropriate capitalization of the mines, and the high cost of mining in hard rock and the transportation costs to offsite batteries (only 3 mines had their own crushing plants), combined with a transient labour force and the rush to Bendigo in 1871 also led to further demise at the time.

Redcastle Economic Geology

During the 1800?s the average mining width was approximately one metre on quartz veins with visible gold (individual reef widths were less than 0.6 metres). The length of workings combined is 17 kilometres with several reef systems extending for kilometres. Spurs off the main reef systems were recorded to have been worked for distances between 15-33 metres. It is a characteristic of Redcastle that reefs are closely spaced, on the western side of the field 14 reefs are recorded to occur in a cross-strike distance of 900 metres.

At?Redcastle,?the key historic targets were narrow but continuous thin (0.3-1 metres) very high-grade structures continuing to depth. Historical records however, continually reference gold found marginal to reefs in the country rock (wall-rock of quartz-vein structures) with shallow modern-day reverse circulation drilling and trenching confirming that gold extends beyond these high-grade quartz-vein structures. Beyond the high-grade visible gold in quartz-veins, additional targets included vein stockworks in sandstones and dyke-hosted mineralization. The largest dyke was mined to a depth of 27 metres and was 11.5 metres wide at 25-120 g/t gold from 160 tonnes suggesting the dyke may have been selectively mined, although the width of the dyke suggests scope for a larger scale and lower grade target. Wider zones in stockworks (2.4-4.8 metres wide) and breccia zones at Beautiful Venus have been recorded up to 20 metres in width.

A selection of the more notable mining areas at Redcastle, none of which have been tested below old workings by drilling, include (Figure 2):

Welcome or Clarkes Reef: A reef system covering 800 metres in strike length, traced for 4.8 kilometres between workings along the same trend and reefs close spaced with 14 reefs recorded in a cross-strike distance over 900 metres. The final mining depth was 125 metres and reports state that 21.8 g/t gold was left at the base of the mine. The group produced 35,000oz of gold of which 28,850oz were produced from 8,669.5 tonnes at a grade of 103.6 g/t gold. The water table ranged between 42-76 metres depth which restricted deeper mining.

The McIvor Times reported that 60.9 tonnes of quartz for 969 oz at 446 g/t gold were mined within a year of its discovery in 1860. The Clarke mine went on to produce 20,583oz at 254.6 g/t gold in the following six years from 1859 to 1865. Sporadic mining continued until 1896. In 1885 Forbes and Murray reported the line of workings had exceeded 3 kilometres in length at surface and the mineralized zone as 1.2 metres wide with individual laminated veins from 5-7cm wide to 35cm wide. The quartz was described as ?very-rich in gold ? every piece knocked out from either side containing fine gold well disseminated not only in the seamy portions but in the solid stone itself?. Murray (1894) reported the main shaft had reached about 76 metres depth and the lode mined for nearly 800 metres in strike length, and ceased at the water-table level. Adjacent to the main shaft yields were stated as being up to 1,171 g/t gold. Forbes in 1898 reported the shaft had reached 110 metres and the reef had been stoped out from surface to 73 metres depth for 36.5 metres to the north and considerably further to the south and averaged 20 cm to 38 cm in width. In this zone a shoot of ?golden stone? over 53 metres in length, 0.2-0.4 metres wide, averaged 167 g/t to 558 g/t gold and pitched 25 degrees to the north. The mine passed through 15 owners because of uncoordinated efforts between of the companies working the trend, unnecessary shaft duplication, plant and machinery and hungry shareholders.

Why-Not Reef: The McIvor Times reported in 1879 that the reef was 4.9 metres wide and the last crushing produced 128.3 oz at 21.6 g/t gold from 188 tonnes. In 1885 Forbes and Murray, although they did not visit the mine, stated that the mine is said to contain a formation of mullock and quartz veins (stockworked) 3.6 metres thick from which bulk crushings of about 279 g/t gold were obtained. The shaft reached 61 metres deep with reef width from 2.4 to 3.6 metres and yielded 85 ozs gold at 29.1 g/t gold from 90.7 tonnes.

Mitchel Reef: In 1893 the McIvor Times reported the Mitchel line of reef was in parts 1.2 to 2.4 metres thick and yielded from 5.6 g/t to 111.6 g/t gold. Thousands of tonnes of mullock was on surface and graded 8.5 g/t gold.

Beautiful Venice Reef: Murray (1894) stated that there are four reefs located about 2.5 kilometres east of the Welcome Group. ?The deepest shaft was 76 metres and good stone was left underfoot. Yields of up to 418 g/t gold are reported and thickness from the old stopes is from 0.6 metres to 0.9 metres. ?Another reef here known as Chapmans line was worked for 366 metres in length and down to 61 metres, auriferous the whole way and only abandoned because of water. Forbes (1898) reported workings over 61 metres at surface down to 30 metres at the bottom of the shaft, with the reef between 0.6-0.9 metres thick, antimony associated with it and yielded between 23 g/t and 42 g/t gold. Another reef about 55 metres west of Chapmans was worked for 21 metres in length and 46 metres in depth over 0.23 metres to 0.46 metres width and yielded from 223 g/t to 279 g/t gold.

Mary-Ann Reef: Hird 1976 reported that both his father and grandfather had worked their entire lives in the mines at Redcastle, Costerfield, Mount Wills and Bendigo. His father said that the Mary-Ann reef was in his opinion the best mine in Redcastle and the reef left in the bottom of the winze was good in both antimony and gold and a very good size lode.

Hit and Miss Reef: Hird 1976 reported it was worked to about 46 metres depth, the reef very broken but very rich. A new shaft sunk to 76 metres missed the ore but, it is believed that it was sunk too far to the south as the ore probably dipped to the north, as is common on the Redcastle line. Hird believed this reef ?a good bet for anyone with a diamond drill?.

Burgess? Mullocky Reef was opened in 1898 with a shaft to 18 metres depth. Lidgey (1898) described the reef to consist of folded and contorted beds of slate and fine-grained sandstone, traversed by innumerable small quartz veins. Forbes in 1898 described the reef to be a crushed sandstone with fine threads of quartz and bulging from 0.3-2.4 metres thick.

Chapman and Babbage: In 1893 the McIvor Times reported a new reef discovered about 1.6 kms north of Why-Not that produced 6.3 tonnes of ore from a 3 metre thick zone yielding 30 g/t gold. Forbes in 1898 described a shaft was sunk to 24 metres with only a 7.6cm wide reef and coarse gold evenly distributed. Two shoots were worked from surface to 12.1 metres deep, and a second from 15.2 to 18.3 metres.

Union Reef: ?Murray (1894) reported that this reef is located about 1.6 kms eastward from Clarkes and the shaft was 30 metres deep. Rich antimony shoots in pipes from surface were mined up to 3.6 metres long and 0.61 metres thick. The stibnite ore was very pure and contained considerable amounts of visible gold.

Modern Exploration

The first modern exploration at Redcastle took place in 1985. Previous workers have exclusively focused on heap leachable near-surface gold at Redcastle. No prior explorer has searched for high-grade gold beneath and along strike from existing mines. Apart from a ground magnetic survey in 1988 on a 400 by 40 metre grid, no systematic geophysical coverage of any type has been undertaken at Redcastle.

A total of 270 of reverse circulation (?RC?) and rotary airblast (?RAB?) drillholes have been drilled at Redcastle since 1985. The deepest hole is 81 metres and average drill hole depth is 38 metres. All drilling tested for low-grade oxide halos around old workings. None tested for high-grade extensions below the historical high-grade gold mines. Selected drill results at Redcastle included: 10 metres at 2.5?g/t gold from 22 metres (RRC26), 2 metres at 10.7?g/t gold from 39 metres (RRC41) and 2 metres at 6.3?g/t gold from 26 metres (PR16). None of the drill data have been independently verified at this time. The true thickness of the mineralized intervals is not known at this stage. Significant soil rock-chip sampling and costean sampling have taken place on the project.

All mining areas are within areas of outcrop however, approximately 50% of the tenement area lies underneath thin alluvial cover within extensive gullies (Figure 2).

Mawson?s Plans

Mawson plans a twofold approach at Redcastle. Initially the Company will systematically collect \tenement-scale\ data to understand the broad mineral system and allow it to also explore beneath the significant alluvial cover. This includes ground magnetics, gravity and gradient array induced polarization (\IP\) to test the entire Redcastle mineralizing system.

Secondly the company plans to start drilling from late August 2020, to test beneath the high-grade old mines by combining the \tenement scale\ data with dipole-dipole IP and detailed analysis of historic mine records.

A geophysical contractor will mobilize to site over the next week, followed by a drill contractor from mid-August, 2020.

Victoria

Victoria hosts one of the giant orogenic goldfields in the?world with more than 80?Moz extracted since 1851. The State is now experiencing its third gold boom with the discovery of the Swan Zone at Fosterville (current proven and probable reserve 3?Mt at 21.8 g/t gold for 2.1 Moz). There are?two distinct sub-types of orogenic gold?mineralization in Victoria (mesozonal and epizonal), formed during different metallogenic/orogenic?events: the first recorded from the ~445 Ma Benambran Orogeny, and the second from the ~370-380 Ma Tabberabberan Orogeny occurring within distinct regional geological?domains. The majority of gold recovered from the Victorian goldfields has been produced from the older, Benambran-aged mesozonal gold-quartz vein systems, targeted by the old-timers in the Bendigo and Stawell?zones. More recently, Fosterville has rewritten the Victorian geological opportunity for epizonal gold deposits. We now understand that epizonal systems can develop extremely high-grade, free gold deposits, as the miners in 1859 demonstrated at Redcastle.

Redcastle Option and Joint Venture

Mawson has the option to earn an up to 70% joint venture interest in the Redcastle project from Nagambie Resources Ltd (ASX:NAG) (?Nagambie?) by incurring the following exploration expenditures: A$100,000 in the first year and an additional A$150,000 in year 2 to earn 25%, an additional A$250,000 in year 3 to earn 50% and an additional A$500,000 by year 5 to earn 70%. Once Mawson earns 70% a joint venture between the parties will be formed. Nagambie may then contribute its 30% share of further exploration expenditures or, if it chooses to not contribute, dilute its interest. Should Nagambie?s interest be reduced to less than 5.0%, it will be deemed to have forfeited its interest in the joint venture to Mawson in exchange for a 1.5% net smelter return royalty (?NSR?) on gold revenue. Should Nagambie be granted the NSR, Mawson will have the right to acquire the NSR for A$4,000,000. Mawson is also a major shareholder of Nagambie and owns 10% of the company.

Technical and Environmental Background

Michael Hudson, Chairman and CEO for the Company, is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 ? Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects and has prepared or reviewed the preparation of the scientific and technical information in this press release.

None of the drill data have been independently verified at this time. These historical data have not been verified by Mawson and are quoted for information purposes only. Assay techniques for gold and antimony are unknown at this stage.

About Mawson Resources Limited (TSX:MAW, FRANKFURT:MXR, PINKSHEETS:MWSNF)

Mawson Resources Limited?is an exploration and development company. Mawson has distinguished itself as a leading exploration company with a focus on the flagship Rajapalot gold-cobalt project in Finland and its Victorian gold properties in Australia.

Forward-Looking Statement

This news release contains forward-looking statements or forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws (collectively, \forward-looking statements\). All statements herein, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. Although Mawson believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate, and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. Mawson cautions investors that any forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, capital and other costs varying significantly from estimates, changes in world metal markets, changes in equity markets, the potential impact of epidemics, pandemics or other public health crises, including the current outbreak of the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 on the Company?s business, planned drill programs and results varying from expectations, delays in obtaining results, equipment failure, unexpected geological conditions, local community relations, dealings with non-governmental organizations, delays in operations due to permit grants, environmental and safety risks, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed under the heading \Risk Factors\ in Mawson\-\-s most recent Annual Information Form filed on www.sedar.com. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Mawson disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise.
Bill Gates has warned that any vaccine against coronavirus could take several doses to be effective, as he described 'serious mistakes' made by the Trump administration and said some schools may not be back to normal until the fall of 2021.

The Microsoft founder, who now directs much of his time and energy to his global health foundation, said that the closure of schools was, after deaths, the 'biggest cost' of the pandemic.

And, in an interview with Norah O'Donnell on CBS News, aired on Wednesday night, the Seattle-based billionaire was critical of Donald Trump's handling of the crisis.

'Some of the policies were a mistake,' said Gates.

Bill Gates appeared on CBS News on Wednesday evening to discuss COVID-19

'Opening up bars - the economic benefit versus the infection risk - a lot of policies like that made it a mistake.'

Gates, 64, emphasized that key to combating the virus was social distancing, wearing masks, and developing a vaccine.

His foundation has donated $300 million to support the efforts.

And Gates said that the closure of schools was among his biggest concerns.

'I'd put that, after the deaths, as the next biggest cost,' he said.

'This next academic year does hang in the balance, he continued.

'It's extremely important. You want the staff to feel safe, that you're taking measures on their behalf. You want the learning to resume.

'Sadly the suburban and private schools are doing a lot better at putting learning online.

'It's the inner cities that don't have the resources.'

Gates said that the closure of schools was, after deaths, the biggest cost to society

He said policies should be put in place to help inner city schools, and younger children, get back to the classrooms.

'The big challenge is how to get the teachers and staff in, and avoid them being a source of infection when they go back to their households,' he said.

Almost four million people in the United States have been infected by COVID-19

'If you're in a hotspot, sadly in this fall, it won't be normal. By fall 2021 we'll hopefully have this under control enough.'

Asked whether he would send his children to a public school, if he was in that situation, he replied: 'If a school is being careful, then yes. If they live in a multi-generational household, then you have to look at how hard it is to reduce the grandparents' exposure to the kids.'

On the issue of a vaccine, Gates said he had faith in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finding a safe and reliable vaccine.

But he warned that it would take 'unbelievably big numbers' of doses to wipe the virus out.

Gates warned that any vaccine may well take multiple doses to be effective

The Microsoft founder said that the world needed huge numbers of doses for efficacy

'None of the vaccines at this point appear like they'll work with a single dose,' Gates said. 'That was the hope at the very beginning.'

Gates, who has been warning about the threat of a global pandemic since 2015, admitted that 'there will be a lot of uncertainty' about the efficacy of any vaccine, but stressed that it's a solution 'that will improve over time.'

Gates said that he was dismayed by the response from the Trump administration, although he conceded that some of the 'serious mistakes' were made 'because we didn't understand the virus very well.'

Among those mistakes was not encouraging people to wear face masks, and reopening too quickly, he said.

He said Europe, in general, responded better.

'Their leadership communicated with a clear voice; their scientists were encouraged to go on tv rather than banned; and their population benefited,' he said.

'Just the idea that the CDC isn't being heard from, and that Fauci is being limited - you'd never have predicted that. It's really unexpected that you'd not have the experts able to share.'

The number of new infections of COVID-19 is soaring in the majority of U.S. states

Trump, pictured at Wednesday's briefing, was accused by Gates of 'serious mistakes'

Gates said the gagging of experts was 'holding us back' from receiving 'the benefit of their expertise'.

The U.S. on Wednesday reported more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths for the first time since May.

With 142,677 deaths in total, the U.S. has had the most deaths of any country by far, according to data gathered by Johns Hopkins University.

Trump, however, said this week that the U.S. has the lowest mortality rate in the world.

Gates said that the president's statement is not factually correct.

'Not at all, not even close,' Gates said. 'By almost every measure, the U.S. is one of the worst.'

He added: 'We actually had criteria for opening up with cases declining, and we opened up with cases increasing.'

He said the campaign by anti-vaxxers, worried about a COVID vaccination was 'always a concern'. He emphasized that vaccines had halved childhood deaths over the last 20 years.

Asked about conspiracy theories that he was responsible for creating the virus, or implanting microchips within a potential vaccine, Gates, with a wry smile, said he had no idea where that baseless suggestion came from.

'No, there is no connection between any of these vaccines and any tracking type thing,' he said. 'I have no idea where this came from.'

He continued: 'Dr Fauci and I are the two most mentioned. Some of these are deeply ironic. Our foundation is about reducing death and bringing equity to health. The idea that we get accused of creating chips, or the virus - I think we need to get the truth out there, and explain our values, and why we are willing to put billions towards accelerating the progress.

'It's a little unclear to me, but I hope this will die down as people get the facts.'

Asked whether Facebook should do more to remove the conspiracy theories, he said: 'They are willing to take down anti-vaxxer posts. But you don't want to surpress normal dialogue. The conspiracy theories they are starting to step up on.'
Colombo, July 23 : Former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara has delivered a powerful message recently with regards to the 'Black Lives Matter' movement which has been going across the world for sometime now.

The movement has been raging on since the death of African-American George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police personnel in May. Athletes around the world have also taken part in the movement by taking a knee before start of their respective matches.

While Sangakkara said education is the most potent weapon against racism, he stated that children should be taught about the real history and not a filtered version of it. He also said that change isn't going to happen instantly but it's a long fight and the entire world will have to take part in it.

"If you take Black Lives Matter, if you take racism and discrimination in the world, I think one of the most important things is to teach our children history as it should be, and not the sanitised version of it," Sangakkara told Cricbuzz.

"Once one understand what real history is, we will find changes in attitude.

"We are all taught to love our country but sometimes we follow that blindly and that stops up from appreciating other cultures," he added.

"Change won't happen overnight, it's not the flavour of the month where you protest about it and forget it. It's a slow and tedious process involving everyone in the world."




TENSION has gripped Zimbabwe after President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew amid fears the Zanu PF leader, who is failing to proffer solutions to deepening socio-economic problems, is using COVID-19 to contain a possible uprising.





Mnangagwa on Tuesday announced new lockdown measures he said were meant to contain the spread of COVID-19 after positive cases soared to more than 1 800 this winter, with at least 26 deaths.





The opposition MDC Alliance said Mnangagwa was desperate to deal with his political problems and using COVID-19 as his shield by justifying unleashing the security forces on civilians ahead of the planned July 31 protests.

Why impose a curfew? Is he saying that COVID-19 is spreading between 6pm and 6am? MDC Alliance deputy spokesperson Clifford Hlatywayo asked rhetorically in an interview with NewsDay yesterday.





The measures announced by Mnangagwa are political, especially the curfew part. We dont support political leaders who abuse the COVID-19 pandemic to pursue their political agenda.





Government has intensified its crackdown on critics and on Tuesday arrested journalist Hopewell Chinono and July 31 protests organiser Jacob Ngarivhume, who are being charged with promoting violence.





There are reports that activist #Tajamuka/Sesijikile leader Promise Mkwananzi, who has been actively mobilising for the protests, and MDC Alliance deputy chairperson Job Sikhala were on the police wanted list for the same.





You must not abuse the poor to gain what you want politically and wanting to politicise COVID-19. Why is he quiet on COVID-19 funds and equipment looting if he is sincere? This is a strategy used by political cowards to survive, but the people know all that now, Hlatywayo said.





However, the MDC-T led by Thokozani Khupe said though Mnangagwa had shown leadership in addressing the COVID-19 crisis, it would be sad if it turns out he has other motives.





The whole point, we are told, is to address the COVID-19 threat so whatever it takes, as long as it will help to address that, then it is fine, but it will be sad if it turns out to be what it is not, party deputy spokesperson Khalipani Phugeni said.





Community Working Group on Health executive director Itai Rusike said the action by Mnangagwa was an unnecessary impediment on peoples freedoms and avoided areas that needed immediate attention.





The government should avoid taking actions that unnecessarily impede freedoms and socio-economic activities. The COVID-19 lockdown restrictions should be informed by the reality on the ground and evidence from the public health experts, he said.





The general public should be fully engaged and informed on COVID-19 health literacy response so that they know which activities or contacts are most likely to spread the virus in order to identify what will have most impact on stopping it.





Rusike said government was supposed to effect lockdown in hotspots, arguing the move would also affect the informal traders who constitute more than 95% of the working population.





The new lockdown measures should have fully addressed the issue of porous borders, border jumpers and haulage trucks that continue to smuggle people, especially from South Africa, thereby increasing the number of unexplained local transmission figures. Hundreds of Zimbabweans are coming back home using unauthorised entry points and without going through the quarantine procedures, thereby putting the lives of their relatives and fellow citizens at risk of infection, he said.





Ironically, soldiers, who are supposed to be enforcing the curfew mainly in residential areas, are embroiled in corruption along the borders, where they are reportedly demanding money to allow passage for returnees.





Defence minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri attributed the corruption to hunger and lack of resources.





Political analysts said the new measures had nothing to do with COVID-19, but were a political statement.





The measures have little to do with COVID-19 because they lacked substance on how the government is going to increase access to healthcare facilities on those that are infected and the growing numbers of Zimbabweans who are coming from outside the country who are now in quarantine, analyst Rashweat Mukundu said.





In fact, what we got is the reversal of our rights as citizens, which are the rights to association. It is unacceptable that under COVID-19, certain limits to citizens right have to be implemented, but it appears that COVID-19 is now an excuse by Mnangagwas government to simply clamp down on its rivals and also manage the threats of protests that have been planned by opposition groups and political activists.





One gets a sense that the pronouncement by the President has more to do with the politics of the country than managing COVID-19.





University of Zimbabwe political science lecturer Prolific Mataruse said a lot was bound to happen under the guise of the announced curfew, including harassment of ordinary people and in some instances, taking over of a government.




A wildfire which has destroyed more than 9,000 acres in California has created a 'firenado'.

'Firenados', or Fire tornadoes, happen when a gust of hot air rises up through the fire, swirling it up into the air.

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said yesterday that the fire, burning in Lassen County west of Susanville, has already scorched 9,420 acres and remains active five miles from Susanville.

'The Hog Fire remained active throughout the night and still remains five miles from Susanville,' the agency told Fox News.

'Firefighters continued to take suppressive action and construct fire containment lines.'

A fire whirl shoots into the sky as flames from the Hog fire jump highway 36 about 5 miles from Susanville, California on Monday

Flames rip through trees as the Hog fire jumps highway 36 about 5 miles from Susanville, California on Monday

A tree stump keeps burning as hail covers the ground as it fell directly on the Hog fire near Susanville, California on Tuesday

Despite their best efforts Cal Fire said the Hog Fire is only nine per cent contained.

The blaze, which began Saturday afternoon, had spread 6,000 miles by Monday, and was said to have generated its own weather system, including thunder, lightning and rain.

Photographer Josh Edelson captured what is known as a 'firenado' rising up from the ground and forking its way into the sky, as the blaze tore through Highway 36 on Monday.

Last year, a tornado of flames emerged from a fire and swirled several meters into the air on a farm in Brazil.

A collection of hail pellets are displayed as firefighters wait in their vehicles during a hail storm that falls on the Hog fire near Susanville, California yesterday

A log keeps burning as hail falls directly on the Hog fire near Susanville, California on Monday

Smoke of the Hog Fire seen from Hamilton Mountain in Lassen County, California, U.S. in this still frame obtained via social media video dated Sunday

In the US, two years ago, the Californian Carr fire produced a 'firenado' with a wind speed of 143mph, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

A fire cloud can form if there is enough moisture in the atmosphere, usually when moisture is released from the burning foliage.

Photographer Edelson said he saw the fire explode before the thunderstorms started.

'The #HogFire was extremely erratic for a brief moment when a pyrocumulonimbus [sic] (fire cloud) ash plume enabled it to create its own weather - including lightning, thunder, and rain! It rained hard and the fire raged on creating multiple Fire whirls as it jumped across highway 36 near #Susanville, CA.

A CalFire aircraft drops fire retardant over the Hog fire, about 5 miles from Susanville, California, on Tuesday

'Not my best work. I got a little scared so I stayed back a bit,' Edelson wrote on social media.

Cal Fire told Fox News the fire had also caused communication problems after it tore through a fiber optic cable. More than 1,340 people have responded to the fire, some of whom are working on restoring communications in Susanville.

Some of those responding are firefighters using 'air tankers' to put out the blaze.

Lassen County Sheriff's Office has issued mandatory evacuation for the affected areas.
Five months after the Supreme Court ruled that women officers, who have joined the Indian Army through Short Service Commission (SSC), are entitled to a permanent commission, the defence ministry on Thursday issued a formal sanction letter in this regard. The order will pave the way for empowering women officers to shoulder larger roles in the organisation, an army spokesperson said.

In anticipation, the Army Headquarters had set in motion a series of preparatory actions for conduct of the Permanent Commission Selection Board for affected women officers, the army said in statement. The board will be scheduled as soon as the SSC women officers exercise their option and complete the requisite documentation. The statement said the army is committed to providing equal opportunities to all personnel including women officers to serve the country.

The Supreme Court in February ruled that women should be considered for command roles and that all women officers are entitled to permanent commission. It asked the army to give them permanent commission within three months in a major boost to gender parity.

The Centre got a one-month extension on July 7 to implement the Supreme Courts verdict after it moved an application before the apex court seeking the extension of the deadline by another six months citing the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown imposed to check its spread from March 25.

The army, in May, made the Battle Physical Efficiency Test (BPET) mandatory for all women officers including those commissioned before 2009 and over the age of 35 (these officers were previously exempt). In March, it made a junior command course at Army War College, Mhow mandatory for women officers. There are around 600 women officers eligible for permanent commission, and a third of them are over the age of 40. Both moves have come in for criticism for women officers who have pointed to their timing -- after the SCs verdict.

The Supreme Courts judgment was hailed for creating a new equality paradigm in the armed forces. It upheld a 2010 Delhi high court verdict. The Supreme Court ruled that women officers, who joined the Indian Army through SSC, are entitled to permanent commission even if they have more than 14 years of service. It also held that there cannot be an absolute bar on women officers being considered for command appointments, paving the way for their elevation to such roles. The case before the Supreme Court was only about permanent commission and command roles in the armys non-combat streams.

The defence ministrys sanction specifies grant of permanent commission to SSC women officers in 10 streams--Army Air Defence, Signals, Engineers, Army Aviation, Electronics and Mechanical Engineers, Army Service Corps, Army Ordnance Corps, and Intelligence Corps in addition to the existing streams of Judge and Advocate General and Army Educational Corps.

Advocate Aishwarya Bhati, who represented women officers in the Supreme Court, said it was wonderful to finally see the defence ministrys sanction. I am elated, said Bhati.

Wing Commander Anupama Joshi (retd), who is from the first batch of women officers commissioned into the Indian Air Force (IAF) in the 1990s, said the government should be lauded over the defence ministrys move. As they say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The government needs to be lauded for this leap. The equity has been achieved. However, equality still remains a goal to strive for, said Joshi. She said the army should allow women in combat roles too.

The Supreme Court in February ruled the armys SSC women officers are entitled to permanent commission and they have to be considered for it irrespective of their service length. It held the Centres policy of restricting the permanent commission to SSC women officers with less than 14-year service as violative of the right to equality.

The judgement was delivered on defence ministrys petition challenging the 2010 Delhi high court verdict that ruled that SSC women officers in the army and IAF should be granted permanent commission on par with male SSC officers.

The Centre issued a notification in February 2019 granting permanent commission to SSC officers of the army. However, as per its proposal, only SSC women officers with up to 14 years of service were to be considered.

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The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Akin Abayomi, said on Thursday that the state may experience the peak of coronavirus by August.

Speaking at a press briefing on Thursday, Mr Abayomi said that the COVID-19 prediction model of the state holds that the pandemic will soon reach its peak, followed by the flattening of the curve and a gradual decline in the number of cases.

We believe that in the next week or two, we are going to see an increase in both the private sector testing and public laboratory testing.

We are still seeing a gentle increase in the number of cases overtime cumulatively. Lagos will theoretically peak in the month of August, it will flatten out and over some time, we will see a decline, Mr Abayomi said.

The commissioner earlier said the state will record between 90,000 to 120,000 positive cases by July or August.

When asked whether the state is still going by the model, the commissioner said the model is already playing out.

For every one person that tested positive, there are probably 10 people that are positive and have not been tested.

The commissioner said Lagos having about 13,000 confirmed cases as of July shows that there are 130,000 overall going by the calculation.

As of Thursday, Lagos has conducted over 56, 276 COVID-19 tests, out of which 13,543 came back positive.

The commissioner said the state currently has 2,476 active cases of coronavirus, 9,066 cases recovered in communities, 2079 discharged cases and 192 deaths within the isolation facilities and communities.

Testing

The commissioner disclosed that the state is currently conducting 1,000 tests per day but is planning to increase testing to between 2500 and 4000 per day.

Mr Abayomi said the public sector will conduct tests for those that need to be tested while the private sector will focus on those that want to be tested.

The commissioner said the state has not approved rapid testing due to its inaccuracy.

Rapid testing is not reliable, it shows patients to be negative when they are positive and positive when they are negative.

The government has not been able to pass or accredit any of these rapid diagnostic tests because they do not have accuracy, he said.

Mr Abayomi said it is illegal of private facilities to conduct COVID-19 testing without government approval, adding that two facilities have been shut down during COVID.

He advised private practitioners not to perform COVID-19 tests because they risk their facilities being shut down by the government.

The commissioner said the state will increase sampling in local governments by increasing sample collection centres from 20 to 57, one per local government development area.

The state will also set up oxygen kiosks in the decentralised sample collection centres, he added.

Management of COVID-19 Patients

Meanwhile, to increase its capacity in COVID-19 management, the Lagos State Ministry of Health has commenced management of COVID-19 cases electronically.

We manage asymptomatic or mild cases of coronavirus electronically. We keep in touch through telephone, telemedicine, phone calls, zoom calls, and other ways of monitoring people who are self-isolating at home, including home visits if possible, he said.

Mr Abayomi said the state will formally activate the home-care management in the coming weeks.

He added that two new isolation centres will go active in the coming weeks: a 70-bed capacity isolation centre and a 150-bed centre at Yaba.

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The Trade Remedies Authority of Vietnam under the Ministry of Industry and Trade on Wednesday confirmed that the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) had initiated an anti-dumping investigation on seamless refined copper pipes and tubes from Vietnam.

The investigation is being instituted in response to a petition filed on June 30 by the American Copper Tube Coalition and its constituent members.

In the probe, the DOC will determine whether imports of seamless refined copper pipes and tubes from Vietnam are being dumped in the U.S. market at less-than-fair value.

The alleged dumping margin is 111.82 percent.

The investigated period is from October 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020.

The Trade Remedies Authority of Vietnam said the DOC would select mandatory respondents within 20 days from July 7, when it published the notice of the initiation of the investigation.

The DOC will then send a questionnaire to the selected respondents, who will have the next 30 days to make a full response.

In line with U.S. regulations, if relevant Vietnamese firms fail to cooperate with the investigating agencies or do not submit complete responses in a timely manner, the DOC will use existing data to reach a conclusion on the matter.

A preliminary anti-dumping determination by the DOC is expected in December this year.

According to data from the DOC, imports of seamless refined copper pipes and tubes from Vietnam were valued at approximately US$146.5 million in 2019.

This is Vietnams fifth export item to have faced trade remedy lawsuits in the U.S. since the beginning of 2020, after tires, mattresses, hardwood plywood, and lawn mowers.

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The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has directed landlords and property owners and agents to ensure that they charge six percent stamp duty on all tenancy and lease agreements.

FIRS position is contained in a recent circulation of a stamp duty clarification guide by its Executive Chairman, Mr. Muhammad Nami.

According to Nami, property-related transactions like tenancy or lease agreement fall under the Ad Valorem category of the stamp duty which attracts six percent duty payable in percentage of the total value or sum of the tenancy or lease.

He said the burden of payment of the six per cent lies on the beneficiary of the tenancy or lease agreement, whom the Stamp Duty Act identified as the tenant or renter while the responsibility of collection and remittance falls on the landlord or agent in charge of the property for lease or rent.

Nami stressed that in any case, the party making the payment shall have the obligation to account for the applicable stamp duties.

Some other Stamp Duty types and their rates are Appraisement or Valuation of Property, 1.5 per cent; Certificate of Occupancy, Partnership, N1,000 flat rate; Gift of Land, 1.5 per cent; Legal Mortgage, 0.375 per cent; Legal Mortgage (Upstamping), 0.375 per cent, and Deed of Conveyance or Transfer on Sale of Property, 1.5 per cent

Others are Gift of Land, 1.5 per cent; Memorandum of Understanding (Related to Land, Sales, Joint Venture, Surrender, Subdivision Agreements, 1.5 per cent; Power of Attorney (Irrevocable/Land Related), 1.5 per cent; and Sales Agreement, 1.5 per cent.

In Other News: A certain landlord, who happens to be a Deeper Life church member, has banned wearing of trousers by his female tenants and their female visitors in his house.
A New Jersey man is under arrest after authorities say he attacked an Alabama deputy.

Cullman County sheriffs deputies were called Wednesday to a location in Holly Pond on a report of a disturbance. When they arrived on the scene, 27-year-old Moshe Issakov refused to leave and became enraged when deputies insisted he do so.

Issakov, sheriffs officials said, then attacked a deputy and tried to disarm him. He also bit the deputy several times.

Issakov, who is from Lakewood, N.J., continued to resist arrest but was eventually taken into custody. He is charged with second-degree assault on a law enforcement officer, attempt to disarm a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest and third-degree criminal trespass.

First of all I am glad that the deputy is safe and only has minor injuries and nothing serious. During this time when law enforcement officers are coming under attack all over the nation, I will work with the Cullman County District Attorneys Office to make sure this suspect, who is not even from Alabama, is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,' said Sheriff Matt Gentry. " I know District Attorney Blaylock feels the same way as I do and we do not appreciate people coming to Cullman County to attack our deputies., said Sheriff Matt Gentry.

Issakov is currently being held in the Cullman County Detention Center on a $50,000 bond.
President Donald Trump's aide Stephen Miller's maternal grandmother died of the 'late effects' of COVID-19, his uncle revealed, blasting the Trump administration for mishandling the pandemic.

Mother Jones first published the blockbuster allegations and the White House's response: that 97-year-old Ruth Glosser was not killed by COVID-19 and rather 'died peacefully in her sleep from old age.'

Miller's uncle David Glosser, a Trump critic who has been estranged from his nephew since the 2016 election, painted a different picture of Glosser's demise and gave Mother Jones a copy of her death certificate that says 'respiratory arrest' due to 'COVID-19' killed her.

White House aide Stephen Miller's grandmother died of the 'late effects' of COVID-19 his uncle revealed

David Glosser, Miller's uncle on his mom's side, took to Facebook to report that his mother and Miller's grandmother had died of COVID-19 on the Fourth of July. Glosser then showed Mother Jones reporter David Corn his mother's death certificate

Proof: The White House claimed that Miller's grandmother did not die from COVID-19 - despite the death certificate listing it

David Glosser described his mother and Stephen Miller's grandmother Ruth Glosser in a July 4 Facebook post, calling her a 'scholar, a social worker and the teacher of a generation of social work students in Western Pennsylvania'

'She had what might be regarded as a weak case,' David Glosser told Mother Jones' David Corn. 'She survived the immediate acute effects but lost 20 pounds within a few weeks and was very much weakened.'

'She lost the will to eat because of enormous fatigue, enormous confusion, and the loss of her sense of smell and taste, and her lungs continued to deteriorate,' he continued. 'Finally, she could not sustain a level of oxygen to remain conscious. In accordance with her living will, the oxygen was withdrawn.'

'She basically fell asleep and died,' Glosser said.

She had been living in an assisted living facility outside Los Angeles, after spending most of her life in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a small city east of Pittsburgh.

The White House lashed out when Corn asked for comment.

'This is categorically false, and a disgusting use of so-called journalism when the family deserves privacy to mourn the loss of a loved one,' an unnamed White House spokesperson said. 'His grandmother did not pass away from COVID. She was diagnosed with COVID in March and passed away in July so that timeline does not add up at all.'

'His grandmother died peacefully in her sleep from old age,' the statement continued. 'I would hope that you would choose not to go down this road.'

But Glosser had posted a note about his mother's death publicly to his Facebook account, indicating she had died 'of the late effects of COVID-19' the morning of July 4.

'She was a scholar, a social worker, and the teacher of a generation of social work students in Western Pennsylvania. She founded and administered a foster parents program for children with special needs in Johnstown, and was a pillar of the community,' Glosser wrote.

Glosser also made reference to the family's immigrant past - which he has called attention to previously when publicly criticizing Miller, his nephew.

'Her passion was the careful documentation of the Glosser family and its flight from Czarist persecution in what is now Belarus to life and freedom in the USA,' Glosser wrote on Facebook.

He asked people to donate in his mother's honor to HIAS, a Jewish group dedicated to helping refugees.

Talking to Mother Jones, Glosser said that while the Trump administration is not to blame for his mother being 97-years-old, the president 'and his enablers bear tremendous responsibility for the failure to respond and their continued unwillingness to do what public health experts say must be done.'

Glosser said an effective response might have seen 20,000 U.S. deaths.

'So Trump bears substantial responsibility for the deaths of over 100,000 Americans who didn't need to die, including my mother,' Glosser said.

Miller's role in the COVID-19 crisis was to help Trump draft an Oval Office speech, delivered on March 11. Trump announced a travel ban from Europe that caused chaos and confusion for American travelers who believed they wouldn't be let back in the U.S. Miller, an immigration hard-liner, has seemingly influenced Trump to continue pressing anti-immigrant policies throughout the pandemic.

Miller's wife, Vice President Mike Pence's spokeswoman Katie Miller, who is pregnant with the couple's first child, tested positive for COVID-19 in May. She's fully recovered and back at work.

Glosser told Corn he hadn't spoken to Miller since the 2016 campaign and described him as an 'ambitious kid' who 'for some reason decided to become infatuated with the idea of white supremacy.'

Miller, Glosser said, 'sees Trump as a useful idiot in his quest to advance his white power agenda ... He has been able to use Trump to advance his political vendetta against the world.'

Glosser also told Mother Jones that he wasn't surprised Miller had a role in the administration's coronavirus failure.

'He has no ability to demonstrate empathy,' Glosser said.

Ruth Glosser, according to David Glosser, was highly 'disturbed' when Trump became president.

'She was terribly torn between the normal love for grandchildren and horror at the racist content of Trumps policies and Stephens role in it,' David Glosser said.
Christian girl kidnapped in Pakistan now pregnant, confined to 1 room: lawyer

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A Pakistani Christian teenager who was kidnapped and forced into an Islamic marriage last year is now pregnant and confined to one room by her abuser, an attorney representing her family has said.

Tabassum Yousaf, a lawyer representing the parents of 15-year-old Huma Younus, told the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need International that the teenager informed her parents by phone that she is pregnant after being repeatedly raped by the man who abducted her.

Asked by her father if she could leave her abductors house and return to her parents' home, she told him that she is not allowed to leave the house and that her life has become still more difficult, Yousaf explained. [S]he is now imprisoned within the walls of one room.

Younus was taken from her home on Oct. 10, 2019, at the age of 14, and later forcibly married to a radical Muslim man named Abdul Jabbar. She was also forced to convert to Islam.

Younus parents have declared the marriage between their daughter and her captor to be invalid because she's not of legal age to consent to the marriage (which is 18) under the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act.

According to Yousaf, Jabbars brother, Mukhtiar, is a member of the Pakistani security forces Rangers branch and has threatened to kill the teenagers parents if they intervene.

This man has contacted Humas parents via video telephone calls and threatened them directly, showing them his weapons and telling them he would kill them if ever they should come looking for their daughter, Yousaf said. This same man, Mukhtiar, has added in audio messages that even if all the Christians should band together to bring Huma back, he would kill both her parents and anyone who tried to help them.

According to the pontifical foundation, the familys case had previously been closed by the Third Judicial Magistrate for Karachi East on the grounds of a lack of proof even though the family submitted a sworn statement from Humas school and a baptism certificate from St. James Church in Karachi showing the childs date of birth was in May 2005.

The family appealed the decision. Upon appeal, the magistrates were said to have contacted Pakistans official public records authority to obtain the girls birth certificate.

The familys appeal was set to be heard before the Sindh High Court last Monday. However, the court is closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to the charity, the court is unlikely to reopen until August.

Yousaf states that the lawyer representing Jabbar is using legal maneuvers in an attempt to further delay the case. Once Younus turns 18, Yousaf said that it's highly likely that the case will be halted indefinitely.

Since Pakistan is a majority Muslim country, Yousaf stressed that there is a tendency for long delays for court cases involving religious minorities.

Justice delayed is justice denied, hence every delay in reaching judgement on the defense of the rights of religious minorities represents a denial of these rights, Yousaf said. The court has delayed and continues to delay justice on behalf of Huma, solely because she is an underage Christian girl.

Yousaf contends that if Younus was a Muslim girl, authorities would act immediately.

As a lawyer, I am certain that the president of the Pakistani Supreme Court could grant justice to the parents of the girl and to Huma herself, Yousaf added. However, at every other lower level of the judicial system justice for the minorities will not be possible.

Yousaf stressed that while estimates vary, there are likely 2,000 cases per year of underage girls in Pakistan who've been abducted in similar circumstances as Younus. She warned that many of those cases go unreported.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reports that several independent institutions recognize that an estimated 1,000 young women are forcibly converted to Islam each year, many of whom are kidnapped, forcibly married, and subjected to rape.

Open Doors USA, a leading international Christian persecution watchdog organization, ranks Pakistan as the fifth-worst country in the world for Christian persecution.

The U.S. State Department also lists Pakistan as a country of particular concern that has engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing, [and] egregious violations of religious freedom.

Christians report that their girls are often abducted, raped, forced to marry their abductor, and converted by force, an Open Doors USA dossier on Pakistan reads. The authorities do not take any action; on the contrary, usually they side with the Muslim families abducting the girls. Consequently, parents of such victimized women and girls begin to feel it is pointless to take legal action. Even when a case comes to the courts, the girls are forced to testify that they converted voluntarily.
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Asklepios BioPharmaceutical, Inc. (AskBio), a leading, clinical-stage adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapy company, announced today that Libbie Mansell, PhD, MBA, RAC, has joined the company as a senior vice president to lead its regulatory affairs operations.



Libbies career has spanned the development of small molecules and biologics. She has overseen nine global approvals for significant products, and she has created and led hundreds of registration and development strategies for advanced technologies that include gene and cell therapies, said Sheila Mikhail, JD, MBA, AskBio CEO and co-founder. Her experience will be invaluable as we continue to advance our clinical programs for Pompe disease and congestive heart failure and lay the groundwork for our preclinical portfolio in neuromuscular, CNS and other diseases. I am delighted to welcome Libbie to AskBio and look forward to her contributions.

Dr. Mansell is an influential executive in regulatory, quality and product development who excels at translating innovative science and technology into high-quality, commercially attractive medicines for serious and rare diseases. Most recently, she was managing director and founder of White Oak BioPharma Solutions, a global regulatory strategy and operations consulting firm she established in 2006 to serve executive teams at a full range of companies, from startups to large companies. She has more than 30 years experience in strategy and product plan development, dossier and submissions development, FDA and ex-U.S. health authority negotiations, leadership of RA/QA departments, and project management. Prior to consulting, she held positions of increasing responsibility in regulatory affairs, pharmacovigilance, quality affairs and chemistry, manufacturing and controls (CMC) with several biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, including Curis, Sigma-Tau Research, Genzyme, CombinatoRx, Millennium Pharmaceuticals and Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals.

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Dr. Mansell earned a PhD in pharmacokinetics and biopharmaceutics with a graduate minor in applied statistics from Oregon State University and an MBA in finance and international business from New York University. She has a certificate in entrepreneurship and technology commercialization from the University of Maryland and maintains a regulatory affairs certification through the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society. She is also active in several scientific and healthcare-related organizations, including the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy, the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, and the Drug Information Association.

I am thrilled to join AskBio, a leader in gene therapies for rare and life-threatening diseases and a pioneer in AAV-based vector technology, said Dr. Mansell. Its an honor to become part of the team and its patient-focused, science-driven approach to developing new treatments that hold the potential to fundamentally change the lives of patients and their families.

About AskBio

Founded in 2001, Asklepios BioPharmaceutical, Inc. (AskBio) is a privately held, fully integrated AAV gene therapy company dedicated to developing life-saving medicines that cure genetic diseases. Its pipeline includes clinical-stage programs in Pompe disease and congestive heart failure and a diverse preclinical portfolio of therapeutics targeting neuromuscular, CNS and other diseases, as well as out-licensed clinical indications for hemophilia (Chatham Therapeutics, acquired by Takeda) and Duchenne muscular dystrophy (Bamboo Therapeutics, acquired by Pfizer). AskBios gene therapy platform includes Pro10, an industry-leading proprietary cell line manufacturing process, and an extensive AAV capsid and promoter library. With global headquarters in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and European headquarters in Edinburgh, UK, the company has generated hundreds of proprietary third generation AAV capsids and promoters, several of which have entered clinical testing. An early innovator in the space, the company holds more than 500 patents in areas such as AAV production and chimeric and self-complementary capsids.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements." Any statements contained in this press release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Words such as "believes," "anticipates," "plans," "expects," "will," "intends," "potential," "possible" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include statements regarding AskBios pipeline of development candidates; AskBios goal of developing life-saving medicines aimed at curing genetic diseases; the potential benefits of AskBios development candidates to patients; and Dr. Mansell being well-positioned to help advance AskBios clinical programs.

These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond AskBios control. Known risks include, among others: AskBio may not be able to execute on its business plans and goals, including meeting its expected or planned regulatory milestones and timelines, clinical development plans and bringing its product candidates to market, due to a variety of reasons, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, possible limitations of company financial and other resources, manufacturing limitations that may not be anticipated or resolved in a timely manner, potential disagreements or other issues with our third-party collaborators and partners, and regulatory, court or agency feedback or decisions, such as feedback and decisions from the United States Food and Drug Administration or the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Any of the foregoing risks could materially and adversely affect AskBios business and results of operations. You should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. AskBio does not undertake any obligation to publicly update its forward-looking statements based on events or circumstances after the date hereof.

CONTACT: Contact: Robin Fastenau Vice President, Communications +1 984.275.2705 rfastenau@askbio.com




A 14-year-old boy lost his life June 15 in a workplace accident at Atelier PJB in Saint-Martin, a village 125 km south of Quebec City. The young worker was crushed by his forklift truck when it overturned. The minimum legal age to drive such a machine in Quebec is 16. Terrible as it was, this eventwhich highlighted the growth of child labor in Quebec and across Canadais not an isolated case.

In fact, the accident was only the latest in a series in which very young workers have been seriously injured or killed. Last year, a 13-year-old was dragged by a conveyor belt at Bardobec, a cedar wood manufacturing company in Saint-Just-de-Bretenieres, a city in southeastern Quebec. The young boy escaped with his life, but suffered a punctured lung, broken ribs and third-degree burns. In another 2019 case, a 17-year-old from Alma, Quebec died after being crushed by a 3,000 kg concrete panel just two weeks after starting work at Beton Prefabrique du Lac.

These tragic events underscore that young people who work are not just doing odd jobs like mowing their neighbours lawn. Often, they are performing adult jobs with all the responsibilities and risks that come with them. This finds expression in the large numbers of injuries suffered by young people in various industries. Just in 2017, 2,656 young people under the age of 19 were involved in a workplace accident in Quebec.

The situation is particularly serious in the agricultural sector. Children are often involved in farm work at a very young age, even as young as 7 or 8 years old, and they are quickly tasked with driving large and powerful machinery, leading to injuries and deaths.

As evidenced by the employment statistics for high school youth, the ruling class is increasingly using teenage labor. According to data from the Centre detude des conditions de vie et des besoins de la population (Center for the Study of the Living Conditions and Needs of the Population), one out of every two high school students (aged 12 to 17) in Quebec works during their studies, an increase of 10 percent in just 6 years. Even among those in junior high aged 12 to 13, 46 percent have a paid job during the school year.

While the proportion of employed high school students is around 36 percent in the Montreal metropolitan area, this figure skyrockets outside of Quebecs major urban centers. In Abitibi-Temiscamingue, two-thirds of young people have to balance work with high school study, while in five other Quebec regions the number of youth who are working while studying is close to or exceeds 70 percent.

There is no minimum age for working under Quebec law, but parental authorization is required until the age of 14. While some restrictions prohibit working at night, during school hours, or activity that is harmful to a young persons health before the age of 16, these standards remain largely on paper.

Quebec is the province with the highest student employment rates, and one of the most legally flexible. But the rest of Canada is not far behind. In fact, more than half of Canadas ten provinces do not have a minimum working age. Even in those that do, a waiver can be obtained if parental permission is provided. While some provinces have formal restrictions (on allowable hours in Quebec or types of employment in Nova Scotia), others such as British Columbia and Alberta allow the exploitation of youth in dangerous environments as young as 12 years of age.

As part of a gamut of anti-worker measures, Albertas United Conservative Party introduced legislation (Bill 32) earlier this month that will make it legal to employ 13- and 14-year-olds without their parents permission.

Across Canada, many businesses rely on a minimum-wage workforce largely made up of young people to remain competitive and rack up large profits. For some large companies, such as McDonalds or Tim Hortons, teenagers and young adults represent more than 50 percent of their workforce.

Child labor, which is far from being a thing of the past, has historically been condemned and opposed by the working class for several reasons.

Child labour can exact long-term physical and psychological consequences on an immature human body. Also, young people are particularly vulnerable to occupational accidents. Generally they are employed to do regular work, with little to no supervision and preventive measures. This puts them at greater risk than adults, since they lack experience and training, and tend to be ignorant of potential dangers.

Employers also pressure teenagers to work more hours, which can have long-term consequences on their learning. Employers take advantage of young peoples fear of losing their jobs to put more and more demands on them. Since the government monitoring system operates on the basis of complaints rather than inspections, such abuses are only detected where there is an industrial accident or when they are just too blatant.

Working at a young age also hinders the ability to access higher education, in particular limited-enrollment programs. It is recognized that when youth work more than 15 hours per week, their school performance drops markedly. In addition to causing burnout in children and teenagers, work accentuates the school drop-out rate. Sometimes employers who want their young workers to work full-time encourage then to abandon their studies.

Child labor only underscores the extent of the social crisis across Canada. Children do not work for fun but to meet basic needs, such as helping to cover family expenses. According to Campaign 2000, 1.35 million children live in poverty, or nearly 19 percent of the countrys children. The use of food banks has increased in recent decades. In Beauce, the region where St. Martin is located and the June 15 tragedy occurred, foodbank use increased by 500 percent between 2006 and 2018. This crisis has been further exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
BAY CITY, MI -- An Oscoda man who received a 40-month prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI regarding a threat against an attorney, may receive a shorter sentence thanks to a government error. According to the Associated Press, an appeals court ruled last week the sentence -- which exceed guidelines because of the cost to the federal government -- could not exceed those guidelines because the government failed to provide detailed proof of the costs.

Michael Bourquin, 64, was convicted after he admitted to telling the FBI that a motorcycle gang had targeted former Detroit U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade in 2017. The FBI took the threat seriously and as a result interviewed a prisoner in North Carolina regarding the claim and provide personal protection to McQuade at a cost to the government.

It was determined fairly quickly the threat wasnt real according to defense attorney James Piazza.

Even though the government took on costs for the investigation, the failure to provide detailed proof of cost means U.S. District Judge Thomas Ludington committed procedural error according to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said when applying the harsher sentence . When the case goes back to Ludingtons courtroom for resentencing, the government will not be allowed to supplement the record with evidence, the appeals court also ruled.

I believed a credible threat, Bourquin said while addressing Ludington in 2019 to explain his actions. Theres something  look on the internet  psychic dreams. Ive had them before. The little voice in your head. ... But I realize now how insane that was.

READ MORE

Suspect in triple murder at Detroit restaurant to be arraigned, shoe comment may have led to shooting

Victim in fatal Muskegon County moped crash identified as 74-year-old man

16-year-old girl fatally shot in Jackson, police say
Electromagnetic Geoservices ASAs (EMGS or the Company) financial report and market presentation for the second quarter of 2020 are attached.

Highlights:

* The Company recorded revenues of USD 7.5 million, down from USD 14.5 million in the second quarter of 2019 and down from USD 11.3 million in the first quarter of 2020.



* Adjusted EBITDA (including capitalised multi-client expenses and vessel and office lease expenses) of negative USD 2.0 million, down from USD 2.1 million in the second quarter of 2019.



* Free cash decreased with USD 6.2 million during the quarter, to USD 9.8 million.



* A renegotiated charter party agreement for the Atlantic Guardian has been agreed. Amongst other changes, as part of the renegotiated charter party agreement, the day rate applicable while the vessel is cold stacked (for a period not to exceed 12 months) is significantly reduced, leading to an aggregate reduction in the Companys operational cost base for the period June through December 2020 of more than USD 1.5 million. The firm period of the charter party agreement is extended by 12 months, with a new expiry of the firm period in October 2022.



* During the quarter, the Petrel Explorer completed acquisition of two multi-client surveys on the Norwegian continental shelf. Following completion of these surveys, the vessel was demobilised and returned to the vessel owner. The Atlantic Guardian completed transit to Norway for cold stacking.



The results will be presented at 10:00 (local time Norway) today. The presentation will be held by CEO Bjrn Petter Lindhom and CFO Anders Eimstad and will be broadcasted live over the Internet. The webcast can be accessed on www.emgs.com . It will be possible to post questions through the webcast.



Contact

Anders Eimstad, Chief Financial Officer, +47 94 82 58 36



About EMGS

EMGS, the marine EM market leader, uses its proprietary electromagnetic (EM) technology to support oil and gas companies in their search for offshore hydrocarbons. EMGS supports each stage in the workflow, from survey design and data acquisition to processing and interpretation. The Company's services enable the integration of EM data with seismic and other geophysical and geological information to give explorationists a clearer and more complete understanding of the subsurface. This improves exploration efficiency and reduces risks and the finding costs per barrel.

Story continues

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 the Norwegian Securities Trading Act

Attachments




Brisbane has some of the most expensive parking fees in the world, according to data from UK car maintenance company Fixter.

Of 65 major cities around the world, Brisbane has the fifth-priciest parking fees, with an average of $17.82 at airports, $16.88 at shopping centre car parks, and $46.43 for stadium parking per hour, according to Fixter's data, collected this year.

Brisbane is the fifth most expensive city for parking fees, according to a new study.

On-street parking near shopping districts is an average of $4.69, while city hall parking is a flat rate of $16.88.

Only New York, Boston, Sydney and London have higher parking fees.
(Natural News) Antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters in Portland, Oregon, have once again besieged the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse in the downtown Portland neighborhood. Not only did they commit more acts of vandalism, the repairs of which will no doubt be paid for by innocent taxpayers, but they also tried to break into the building.

Reports that came in from that evening show that a large crowd of organized and relentless Antifa and BLM rioters gathered on the steps of the Federal Courthouse. They were yelling and goading federal officers inside the building to come out and face them. They used cars, motorcycles and even bicycles to block off the streets surrounding the main chunk of rioters. (Related: Black man with American flag tries to stop rioters from damaging Federal Courthouse in Portland, says None of you guys represent Black lives.)

At one point during the evening, the rioters began charging towards and assaulting the Federal Courthouse. They broke pieces of plywood covering one side of the building using tools such as hammers and crowbars.

By 12 a.m. on Tuesday, July 21, the violent mob was finally able to break through the courthouses first line of defenses. They tore off the plywood and started pounding on the windows. Reports state that at least one window was broken.

Around this time, federal agents holed up in the building began rushing out and charging down the protesters. They used tear gas and other crowd-control munitions such as rubber baton rounds and pepper spray rounds to disperse the violent mob.

Listen to this episode of the Health Ranger Report, a podcast by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, as he talks about the mainstream media and their on-the-ground reporters in Portland and in other cities are attempting to gaslight the whole of the United States into believing that the demonstrations led by Antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement are peaceful, when in fact they are mostly the opposite.

Standoff between rioters and federal agents ensued

All throughout the night, until around 3 a.m., the federal agents protecting the Federal Courthouse engaged in small skirmishes with rioters all around the building and in the nearby parks. They had to use pepper spray rounds and throw flashbangs and tear gas just to keep the rowdy and organized rioters away for long enough so that they could repair the damage done to the courthouses boarded up door.

Police reports from that nights events say that the rioters, who were not only wielding pry tools like hammers and crowbars, but also an assortment of other improvised weapons such as bats. They were also carrying shields and wearing gas masks and helmets.

At one point, a group of around 75 people lined up with shields towards the building, but were luckily broken up before they made their way there.

Even though the rioters no longer tried to get too close to the federal agents right outside the courthouse, they did continue attacking the officers by throwing bottles, rocks and other projectiles at them.

Fortunately for the federal officers, by 1:30 a.m. the damages done to the doors to the Federal Courthouse had been repaired, and they all proceeded to return to its confines, where they stayed for the rest of the night. KOIN 6 News reported that as soon as the federal agents withdrew, the rioters started cheering and throwing even more items at the retreating officers, to which the federal officers responded by shooting at the violent mob with pepper spray rounds through holes built into the plywood and in other parts of the building.

Federal officers have the peephole open and its a back and forth right now. Protestors keep trying to throw stuff in (donuts, fire crackers, etc) and officers respond with pepper ball rounds. #portland #PortlandProtest #portlandprotests #PortlandOregon #PortlandOR #oregon #PDX pic.twitter.com/QrULnzBvIA  Clypian (@Clypian) July 21, 2020

The rioters continued to harass the officers inside the courthouse by trying to throw items into the building through the peep holes, such as rocks, bottles and even fireworks. However, the federal agents mostly stayed inside for the rest of the night.

Rioters also started several fires  some that threatened to burn down the Federal Courthouse

To try and get the federal officers to come out of the building, the rioters began lighting fires right outside the Federal Courthouse, as well as in the surrounding vicinity.

The first fire was lit at around 2:30 a.m. on the side of the building. According to police reports, federal officers came out to try and extinguish the fire, but as soon as they left the arsonists simply continued to feed the fire with accelerant and other flammable materials such as the plywood used as the buildings makeshift armor.

By 3 a.m., another significant fire was started right outside the Multnomah County Courthouse. Here, the arsonists once again kept feeding the fire as people, this time from the Portland Fire & Rescue Bureau, tried to put it out.

Police reports say that several smaller fires had been lit around the area, and the Fire Bureau was required to come and put out at least one other fire.

Shortly after 3 a.m., one nearby jewelry store, H & B Jewelry & Loan Company, was also broken into and robbed. When officers from the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) arrived, several windows were broken and a lot of the stores merchandise had been stolen.

Antifa and their allies in the Black Lives Matter movement are domestic terrorists. Learn about their latest criminal activities in the United States at DomesticTerrorism.news.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

KOIN.com

KATU.com
CALGARY - Two of Canada's biggest oilsands producers are taking different approaches to restoring production that was shut down during the pandemic lockdowns as signs of an economic recovery and higher oil prices emerge.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Cenovus Energy logo is shown at the company's annual meeting in Calgary, April 25, 2012.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

CALGARY - Two of Canada's biggest oilsands producers are taking different approaches to restoring production that was shut down during the pandemic lockdowns as signs of an economic recovery and higher oil prices emerge.

Both Cenovus Energy Inc. and Suncor Energy Inc. reported millions of dollars in losses in the second quarter as they throttled back oil production amid a global crude market awash in surplus barrels.

However, while Cenovus brought back 60,000 barrels a day in June to take advantage of higher bitumen prices, Suncor signalled Thursday the shutdown of one of the two production trains at its 194,000-bpd Fort Hills oilsands mine could remain in place for some time.

"In response to the sharp decline in oil prices in April, we quickly reduced production volumes at our oilsands operations while continuing to steam and store the mobilized oil in the reservoir," said Cenovus CEO Alex Pourbaix on a Thursday conference call.

"When the market price for Western Canadian Select (bitumen-blend oil) increased almost 10-fold in June compared with April, we acted fast to ramp our oilsands production back up to take advantage of the improved pricing."

The increase in WCS to an average of C$46.03 per barrel in June from C$4.92 in April prompted a boost in production to record levels at Cenovus's Christina Lake operations in northeastern Alberta, the Calgary-based company said.

Pourbaix said Cenovus is currently producing more oil than allowed under Alberta's crude curtailment program by buying credits from other companies who have been producing less than their quota either because of voluntary reductions or maintenance work.

Although some of the industry's nearly one million bpd of production taken offline in Western Canada has been restored, Cenovus chief financial officer Jon McKenzie estimated about 500,000 bpd is still not being produced.

On a separate conference call Thursday, Suncor CEO Mark Little reiterated his contention that the energy sector recovery will be led by consumers of refined products, with higher demand for fuel translating into more demand for oil.

"The pace of demand recovery will be influenced by a number of factors," he said, listing risks including a possible second wave of virus outbreaks, offset by government stimulus spending.

"We won't bet the financial health of our company on the pace of recovery, which is outside of our control."

Suncor's production was 655,500 boe/d during the second quarter ended June 30, down 11.4 per cent from 739,800 boe/d in the first quarter of 2020 and 18.5 per cent from 803,900 boe/d in the same quarter of 2019.

Little said bringing back production from the second train at Fort Hills depends on oil prices, the ongoing Alberta oil output curtailment program which has prevented full production there and Suncor's ability to control costs.

"Given the high level of global crude inventories and the return of production which was shut in during the second quarter, we expect (oil) pricing and crude spread volatility to remain through 2020, although obviously not as extreme as we saw in the second quarter," he said.

Cenovus production in the second quarter was 465,415 barrels of oil equivalent per day, down from 482,600 boe/d in the first quarter when it took advantage of an Alberta program to allow higher quotas for producers who employ crude-by-rail options.

Since then, Cenovus has halted its rail shipping, which moved as much as 100,000 barrels per day, because it has been able to find sufficient pipeline capacity. McKenzie estimated not using its rail terminal is saving Cenovus about $60 million a month.

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Neither Cenovus nor Suncor said they plan immediate changes to their 2020 capital budgets which were reduced in March and April.

Suncor reported late Wednesday a second-quarter net loss of $614 million or 40 cents per share, down from net earnings of $2.73 billion or $1.74 per share in the same period of 2019.

On Thursday morning, Cenovus reported a net loss of $235 million or 19 cents per share for the period ended June 30, compared with a profit of $1.45 per share or $1.78 billion a year earlier.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2020.

Companies in this story: (TSX:CVE, TSX:SU)

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version contained incorrect Cenovus production numbers.
Laboratories across the U.S. are buckling under a surge of coronavirus tests, creating long processing delays that experts say are undercutting the pandemic response.

With the U.S. tally of confirmed infections passing 4 million and new cases surging, the bottlenecks are creating problems for workers kept off the job while awaiting results, nursing homes struggling to keep the virus out and for the labs themselves as they deal with a crushing workload.

New shortages of tiny plastic pipette tips are once again stymieing efforts to track and curb the spread of disease. Some people are waiting days or even weeks for results, and labs are vying for crucial materials. Fed into automated devices, pipette tips can help researchers blaze through hundreds of tests in a matter of hours, sparing them grueling manual labor.

Moreover, dwindling stocks of machines, containers and chemicals needed to extract or amplify the viruss genetic material have clogged almost every point along the testing workflow.

FLORIDA

Trump calls

off convention

President Trump announced Thursday that he has canceled segments of the Republican National Convention scheduled for Jacksonville, Fla. next month, citing a flare-up of the coronavirus.

To have a big convention is not the right time, Trump said. GOP delegates will still gather in Charlotte, N.C., to formally renominate Trump on Aug. 24. Trump said he would deliver an acceptance speech in an alternate form.

FACE MASKS

Majority in U.S.

back coverings

Three out of four Americans, including a majority of Republicans, favor requiring people to wear face coverings while outside their homes, a new poll finds, reflecting fresh alarm over spiking coronavirus cases and a growing embrace of government advice intended to safeguard public health. The survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research also finds that about two-thirds of Americans disapprove of how President Trump is handling the outbreak, an unwelcome sign in an election year.

WHITE HOUSE

2 cafeterias shut down

Two White House campus cafeterias have been closed after a person involved in food service tested positive for the coronavirus. Pamela Pennington, a spokeswoman for the U.S. General Services Administration, says the White House Medical Unit performed contact tracing and determined the risk of transmission to others is low.

The White House and the presidents re-election campaign have seen numerous positive cases, including one of the presidents personal valets, the vice presidents press secretary, Secret Service agents and campaign events staff.

NORTH CAROLINA

Touchscreen voting risk

The state NAACP asked a judge to bar the use of touchscreen voting machines in several counties due to what it says are heightened risks associated with the coronavirus pandemic.

The request to a Wake County judge says the machines create unique and substantial risks to the lives and health of voters because they will be touched by many people.

Chronicle News Services
By Caitlin Johnstone

July 22, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - My social media notifications have been lighting up the last few days with virulent Chinagaters sharing a video which purports to show Uighur Muslims being loaded onto a train to be taken to concentration camps. Its actually an old video that had already surfaced last year, but it is magically making the rounds again as a new and shocking revelation in 2020 now that western China hysteria has been officially kicked into high gear, at exactly the same time the US enacts one of the most dangerous and incendiary escalations of recent years in the South China Sea.

So this old video from #Xinjiang of inmates transfer from Kashgar to Korla is making rounds on social media again. It 1st surfaced in Sept, 2019 but appeared to be older video from 2018 based on image analysis. Thread: pic.twitter.com/qhY6jhVopp  Carl Zha (@CarlZha) July 17, 2020

Everyone tagging me in this video presents it as a self-evident gotcha moment, in exactly the same way Russiagaters spent years tagging me in every HUGE BOMBSHELL WALLS ARE CLOSING IN item of thinly sourced narrative fluff in their debunked conspiracy theory that the Kremlin had infiltrated the highest levels of the US government.

They are one hundred percent certain that the video shows Uighurs being loaded onto a train to go to a concentration camp, solely because that is what the bit of text over the video tells them they are seeing. They arent looking at the actual data and thinking critically about it, theyre looking at the narrative and believing it on blind faith. Which, in a post-Iraq invasion world, is an absolutely insane thing to do when presented with information about a nation that is targeted by the US-centralized empire.

In reality theres nothing in the video which tells us that these are Uighur people being sent to a re-education camp and not merely a conventional prison transfer of convicted criminals, the likes of which take place in the far more populous US prison system all the time. Its an unknown. We are told by the BBCs Andrew Marr (the same Andrew Marr whose phony journalism Noam Chomsky derided years ago) that it has been authenticated by western intelligence agencies and by Australian experts, which in practice are the same thing, and thats really the extent of the evidence. Again, this is an insane source to take on faith in a post-Iraq invasion world.

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There are in fact an abundance of reasons to be highly skeptical of the establishment narrative about what is happening to Uighurs in Xinjiang. But that isnt the point that I am trying to make here.

This thread is a reproduction for posterity of a good thread by @OohTheChilliOil, an account deleted by Twitter for unknown reasons, on the "Uighur Genocide". The only archives I've been able to find of this thread are damn near unreadable, so I'm piecing it back together here: pic.twitter.com/4ET5fjnjz9  Caitlin Johnstone  (@caitoz) July 8, 2020

The point I am trying to make here is that the only sane response to any narrative that is being promoted by western intelligence agencies and their media stenographers about governments which have resisted absorption into the imperial blob is intense and unrelenting skepticism. These organizations have such an extensive and well-known history of lying about exactly this sort of thing that they have left us no choice but to withhold belief from anything they say absent a mountain of independently verifiable evidence if we want to have a fact-based relationship with reality.

None of this means that China has a wonderful government. It doesnt even mean that all the bad things were being told about what the Chinese government is doing are false. Its entirely possible that that video shows exactly what were being urgently told to believe it shows. Theres simply no way to be sure one way or the other in an information ecosystem that is so severely tainted by propagandistic narrative manipulation.

Surely the Chinese government is far from sinless. It seems to be a constant that power structures which keep secrets and use propaganda will always wind up doing ugly things. But this doesnt mean you go believing whatever cold war-facilitating story we are fed by western power structures about it. Not if we want to avoid being duped into serving as pro bono CIA propagandists, unwitting tools of a murderous war machine.

There is a slow-motion third world war underway between the US-centralized power alliance and the nations like China which have resisted being absorbed into it, and that war is being largely facilitated by propaganda. If one doesnt wish to become a propagandist themselves, one ought to withhold belief from the stories they are told about the terrible, awful things the unabsorbed nations are doing which require extensive sanctions, subversion and interventionism in response.

This doesnt mean you believe the opposite of what youre told, it simply means you refrain from believing either way and remain agnostic until presented with hard verifiable proof. Believing damaging narratives about US-targeted governments is exactly as stupid as believing the words of a known compulsive liar about someone you know he hates.

China is such a curious anomaly in the narrative matrix. Many who are normally skeptical of claims by western governments immediately swallow anything theyre told about China. They not only believe all such claims, it never even occurs to them to seriously question them. Like they seem to be genuinely unaware that skepticism of establishment China narratives is even an option. The claims just slide right into the believe file in their mind, completely unchecked by anything resembling critical thought.

I argue with people all over the political spectrum about China online, and an astonishing percentage of them have clearly put exactly zero research into critically examining these claims, even if theyre people who are normally relatively critical of western foreign policy. Theyre often completely unaware that whatever claims theyre advancing are not just disputed but have large amounts of evidence against them. This is because theyve done no research whatsoever into finding out what they were told is even true. Theyll do that research on Iran, theyll do it about Russia, theyll do it about Syria, but with China all skepticism immediately goes right now the window. Its the weirdest thing.

Always be intensely skeptical of claims made about governments targeted by the known liars who run the US-centralized empire. Always, always, always, always. If you advance imperialist propaganda, then you are just as culpable for the bloodshed and suffering they help facilitate as the people who are actually launching the missiles.

Stay skeptical, my friends.

Caitlin's articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her antics on Twitter, checking out her podcast, throwing some money into her hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying her book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. https://caitlinjohnstone.com

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The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Bridalveil Fall and Cathedral Rocks in Yosemite National Park, one of many parks that will receive needed funds for infrastructure upgrades under the new Great American Outdoors Act. (Los Angeles Times)

It is, in truth, a moment to savor. The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a Senate-passed measure to spend $9.5 billion over five years on national parks, enough to clear out most of the nation's $12 billion in deferred park maintenance projects. The bill would devote an additional $900 million a year to the Land and Water Conservation Fund to restore and add acreage to federal parks, national monuments and other public land holdings, as well as to provide matching grants for state and local governments' park projects and similar work. The measure is still waiting for President Trump's signature, but he has vowed to sign it.

So yes, Washington managed to work the way it is supposed to. Some conservatives  particularly westerners who think the federal government already controls too much land  dismiss the Great American Outdoors Act as a federal land grab, while others decry its impact on the federal deficit. On the other side, public lands proponents undoubtedly would have preferred a more expensive measure to address the entire maintenance backlog. But thats what political compromise looks like  overcoming differences to advance the public good.

Of course, its not all kumbaya. Some Republicans, in hopes of retaining control of the Senate in the November elections, backed the measure to help out Republican Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Steve Daines of Montana, two proponents of the bill who face stiff reelection challenges. Democrats could have blocked the measure in a bit of election-year gamesmanship, but that would have been foolish given the broad support among Democrats for national parks and federal lands. Ultimately, the act passed with broad bipartisan support in both houses.

Its dispiriting that such a legislative success is notable for its rarity, but well focus on the positive. The measure devotes long-overdue spending to preserve and improve our national parks through a wide range of projects, including repairing leaky water pipes, updating inadequate sewer systems, restoring hiking trails, improving roads and upgrading visitor service centers. Here in California, Yosemite National Parks backlog totals $646 million, and Death Valley National Parks backlog totals $129 million. And its no small consideration that projects under the Great American Outdoors Act could provide jobs at a time of staggeringly high unemployment due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Also, creating a permanent line of funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund fulfills a too-long-delayed promise. Congress established the fund in 1964 and later designated revenues for it from offshore oil and gas drilling royalties. But Congress also has repeatedly siphoned off most of that money for other purposes; this measure should end that practice.

But the funding source itself is problematic. Offshore drilling poses enhanced risks to the environment. In fact, an underwater blowout off Santa Barbara more than a half-century ago spewed 3 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean, despoiling up to 100 miles of coastline, killing mass amounts of wildlife and giving rise to the modern environmental movement. We oppose President Trumps policies extending lease sales for offshore drilling in part because of that risk. So using federal royalties from offshore wells to support parks is at once poetic and ironic.

More broadly, as the world experiences increasing effects from climate change, we must wean ourselves from our reliance on fossil fuels for energy because of the vast amounts of carbon and other greenhouse gases they produce when burned. Again, the unavoidable irony  polluting the planet and feeding global warming produces revenues to help protect some of the natural expanses that those practices imperil. It is in the interest of humankind that this particular revenue source for the fund dry up as soon as possible, and we urge Congress and environmental advocates to find more elegant funding solutions for these vital projects.

But for the moment, this is good for the nations parks and public lands, and by extension for the American people. And it may be quixotic, but we hope that the two major factions in Washington see the passage of the Great American Outdoors Act as a blueprint for future progress in conducting the peoples business.
Facebook employees will be able to move from the hyper-expensive San Francisco Bay Area  but it will come with a pay cut. Photo: Getty

Earlier this year, Facebook (FB) made two major announcements. The first was that the social media giant would permanently embrace remote hiring, with around half of its workforce expected to work remotely over the next five to 10 years. Secondly, how much it will pay its remote workers depends on where they are located.

Our policy here has been for years  is already  that [compensation] varies by location, Mark Zuckerberg said. We pay a market rate, and that varies by location. We're going to continue that principle here.

Senior employees or those with strong performance reviews will be able to request remote work and relocate away from Facebooks Silicon Valley base. In other words, they will be able to move from the hyper-expensive Bay Area to the Midwest  but it will come with a pay cut.

How much employees pay will be docked is not yet known. But Zuckerberg said the company will take a measured approach with existing employees and said workers would have to update the company on their new locations from 1 January 2021. He added they would rely on employees being honest, but Facebook will also check their IP addresses to check people arent lying about where they are living.

READ MORE: How modern distractions are preventing us from 'deep thinking'

But is it right for companies to pay remote workers differently, depending on where they live?

Theres no denying that allowing workers to move away from tech hubs and metropolitan areas is a positive thing that expands opportunities. We also know that many jobs can be carried out successfully remotely, as evidenced further by the COVID-19 pandemic  and that an increasing number of employees are ditching the traditional office 9-5.

When you limit hiring to people who either live in a small number of big cities or are willing to move there, that cuts out a lot of people who live in different communities, different backgrounds or may have different perspectives, Zuckerberg said. Certainly being able to recruit more broadly, especially across the US and Canada to start, is going to open up a lot of new talent that previously wouldnt have considered moving to a big city.

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There is a business justification for determining an employees wage on their location. After all, living costs in certain areas are higher. However, critics argue that paying remote workers based on their location is unfair.

If someone who lives and works in Birmingham is providing the same work and the same value as a worker in London, they argue, the right thing to do is to pay them the same salary. Significantly cutting their wages may amount to penalising them based on where they were born or where their family lives.

If two people are creating the same value for a company, they should be paid the same wages regardless of where they are located, says Dr Shainaz Firfiray, associate professor of human resource management at Warwick Business School.

Paying someone lower wages on the basis of where they live amounts to penalising them for their lifestyle choices. If there is a business justification for an employee to live in a more expensive location, then the company should offer these employees locally competitive wages.

READ MORE: What is permalancing  and what are the pros and cons?

Differentiating remote workers salaries on the basis of where they live can have a serious impact on businesses too. It can demoralise lower paid workers and heighten perceptions of inequitable treatment, which can have a knock-on effect on productivity and engagement.

Its true that employers will have to take into consideration things like commuting costs that will no longer be necessary to a remote workforce, unless they have to travel to meetings or visit clients. However, employers should focus more on negotiating salaries based on market trends, regardless of location. Salaries are based on a number of factors pertaining to the job at hand, including experience, skills, reputation and performance.

As more organisations begin to adopt permanent remote working arrangements, they will need to develop sophisticated compensation models and consider a range of factors to establish pay equity, says Firfiray.
DANVILLE  A Florida woman has been accused of slitting the throat of an elderly Montour County man who had let her use the bathroom in his home.

Kathleen Susan Reed, 36, of Pembroke Pines, was charged Wednesday with killing W. John Ditzler, 83, whose body was found in his Bloom Road home about five miles east of Danville on Tuesday evening.

I killed him is what Reed is alleged to have said to state police in Centre County, where she had been taken into custody on an erratic driving complaint.

When asked at her arraignment if she had any addictions, her only response was Jesus. She also said she could not understand how she could be charged with homicide since it was self-defense.

The arrest affidavit provides this summary of what Reed said during a recorded interview with state police:

She left her parents home in Florida last Saturday with her dog Barney heading to Canada because she believed her mother was trying to poison her.

She recalled stopping at hotels in Georgia and Virginia but by the time she reached Pennsylvania she was running low on money and would ask people at gas stations if they would give her some for gas and food.

She did not know anyone in Pennsylvania, was driving around the mountains and stopped in front of Ditzlers home to get out and stretch.

She walked up the driveway, encountered Ditzler and asked him if he had a gas can. He replied he did not but allowed her to use the bathroom.

When she came out of the bathroom he told her to leave with her dog and they struggled in the kitchen. She grabbed a knife and stabbed Ditzler in the left shoulder causing the knife to break.

She grabbed another knife and stabbed or slashed Ditzler, who had fallen to the floor during the struggle, she believes three times in the throat.

She panicked and dragged Ditzler across the floor because she did not know what to do with him.

She washed off the second knife, put it in the dishwasher, washed her hands, found the keys to Ditzlers Sonic and drove off in it.

Reed was taken into custody later Tuesday at a Sheetz near Interstate 80 in the Wingate area of Centre County. She was sitting in the Sonic initially appearing to be unresponsive, state police said.

Investigators said they do not believe her claim she was driving Sonic because a woman who was traveling with her took her car while she was buying a dog harness in a Walmart. The name she gave of the other woman does not check out, they said.

When asked about a dark-colored substance on her jeans and sneakers, Reed is alleged to have told troopers it was blood from a cut on her hand.

Police said they discovered Ditzlers body lying in blood between his living room and kitchen with his throat slashed and cuts and scratches on its hands and arms.

A broken knife was found on the kitchen floor, a Mazda with Florida registration was parked outside and footprints matching shoes that Reed was wearing were observed, they said.

Reed is being held without bail on an open count of homicide, theft and possession of an instrument of crime. Her preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 31.

An autopsy is scheduled Thursday on Ditzlers body, Montour County Coroner Scott E. Lynn said.

District Attorney Angela L. Mattis said it is premature to make a decision whether to seek the death penalty although Reed was advised it is the maximum sentence.

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BENGALURU, India, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Infosys (NYSE: INFY), the global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting today announced its #1 ranking in the HFS Top 10 Agile Software Development 2020 report. In the research, Infosys is positioned as an agile delivery heavyweight and an execution powerhouse supported by a well-stocked talent pool leading the charge in the competitive agile development services market.

The report highlighted Infosys' technical expertise and the ability for innovation, evolved toolsets, and investments in localization programs to bring highly technical solutions to client engagements. Infosys' distributed agile solution portfolio, contextualized to clients' specific needs is helping them accelerate their digital transformation journey. Additionally, the research provides insights into the latest market trends of agile and DevOps, particularly how enterprises and providers are working to develop a culture that ensures true agile delivery.

Ollie O'Donoghue, Research Vice President at HFS Research said, "Infosys has been recognized by clients for its proven capability to build innovative and high-value solutions that deliver real results, giving the firm the top overall position in this study. Notably, the firm also received the highest ranking in the critical voice of the customer criteria, emphasizing Infosys' industry leading satisfaction levels in the agile software development market."

HFS assessed 18 global service providers on three key dimensions  voice of the customer; ability to execute; and innovation capability. The report acknowledged Infosys' strengths along the following parameters:

Well-stocked talent pool: Infosys has one of the largest talent pools in the agile software development market. Clients also attested to Infosys' technical expertise, ability and highly innovative solutions that it brings to client engagements.

Infosys has one of the largest talent pools in the agile software development market. Clients also attested to Infosys' technical expertise, ability and highly innovative solutions that it brings to client engagements. Talent development: Infosys has shown a strong track record of investing in its talent through organization-wide training initiatives and development efforts supported by the Wingspan platform.

Infosys has shown a strong track record of investing in its talent through organization-wide training initiatives and development efforts supported by the Wingspan platform. Evolved toolsets: Infosys, along with its in-depth experience and exposure in the space, leverages a powerful set of accelerators, including evolved testing automation to deliver optimal business results.

Infosys, along with its in-depth experience and exposure in the space, leverages a powerful set of accelerators, including evolved testing automation to deliver optimal business results. Localization: Infosys has invested heavily in localization programs to bolster client relationships with an emphasis on building onshore and nearshore delivery capabilities.

Ravi Kumar S, President at Infosys, said, "As enterprises grapple with a rapidly evolving landscape, achieving resilience and agility are the top priorities for organizations across industries. Infosys is well positioned to help clients navigate their digital transformation journey, leveraging new ways of working with agile and DevSecOps. This #1 ranking is a testament to our thought leadership, capabilities and the effectiveness of our strategy to drive business outcomes for them."

To download the full report please click here: https://www.infosys.com/services/agile-devops/insights/agile-software-development-rating-2020.html

About Infosys Ltd.

Infosys is a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. We enable clients in 46 countries to navigate their digital transformation. With nearly four decades of experience in managing the systems and workings of global enterprises, we expertly steer our clients through their digital journey. We do it by enabling the enterprise with an AI-powered core that helps prioritize the execution of change. We also empower the business with agile digital at scale to deliver unprecedented levels of performance and customer delight. Our always-on learning agenda drives their continuous improvement through building and transferring digital skills, expertise, and ideas from our innovation ecosystem.

Visit www.infosys.com to see how Infosys (NYSE: INFY) can help your enterprise navigate your next.

Safe harbor:

"Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects and financial expectations are forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the 'safe harbor' under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding Covid-19 and the effects of government and other measures seeking to contain its spread, risks related to an economic downturn or recession in India, the United States and other countries around the world, changes in political, business, and economic conditions, fluctuations in earnings, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, industry segment concentration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks or system failures, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which Infosys has made strategic investments, withdrawal or expiration of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability and regional conflicts, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry and the outcome of pending litigation and government investigation. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2019. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. Infosys may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the Company unless it is required by law."

For further information, please contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Infosys
SABB, a leading corporate and institutional international bank in Saudi Arabia, has announced the successful completion of its SR5 billion ($1.333 billion) Tier II sukuk.

This marks the first transaction of the merged bank in the debt capital market, which was oversubscribed by a broad range of investors, once again confirming SABBs leading position in the capital markets, and its continued strength and resilience in todays challenging economic conditions.

SABB and Alawwal bank legally completed their historic merger on June 16, 2019. This was a transformational event for the financial services sector and the first banking merger in Saudi Arabia for a generation.

The transaction marks the joint largest Tier II issuance by a Saudi bank in history, the largest local issuance by a bank since the introduction of the kingdoms national growth agenda under Vision 2030, as well as the largest non-government transaction in the Saudi Arabia debt market since 2018.

SABB is proud to support the continued development of the local debt capital markets, the bank said.

SABBs Chair Lubna Olayan commented: We are very pleased with the success of the issuance in such a challenging environment and would like to express our thanks to the investor community for their trust and confidence in the SABB franchise. We would also like to express our sincere gratitude for the continued support of the Saudi Arabia Monetary Authority and the Capital Market Authority.

The structure of the sukuk was fully compliant with SAMAs Basel III requirements and was approved by SABBs Shariah committee.

HSBC Saudi Arabia was the sole Programme Arranger, sole Lead Manager and sole Bookrunner for the transaction.  TradeArabia News Service
President Donald Trump has announced that he will send federal agents to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to help combat rising crime in an expansion of his governments intervention into local law enforcement.

Using the same alarmist language he has employed to describe illegal immigration, Mr Trump painted Democrat-led cities as out of control and lashed out at the radical left, which he blamed for rising violence in some cities, even though criminal justice experts say it defies easy explanation.

In recent weeks there has been a radical movement to defund, dismantle and dissolve our police department, Mr Trump said at a White House event, blaming the movement for a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence.

This bloodshed must end, he said. This bloodshed will end.

The decision to dispatch federal agents to American cities is playing out at a hyperpoliticised moment when the president is grasping for a new reelection strategy after the coronavirus upended the economy, dismantling what his campaign had seen as his ticket to a second term.

With less than four months until Election Day, Mr Trump has been warning that violence will worsen if his Democratic rival Joe Biden is elected in November.

Crime began surging in some cities like Chicago, New York and Philadelphia when stay-at-home orders lifted.

Meanwhile criminal justice experts seeking answers have pointed to the unprecedented moment: a pandemic that has killed over 140,000 Americans, historic unemployment, a mass reckoning over race and police brutality, intense stress and even the weather.

Compared with other years, crime in 2020 is down overall.

The plan Mr Trump announced on Wednesday expands an existing program that sent hundreds of federal agents to Kansas City, Missouri, after a four-year-old boys shooting death to help quell a record rise in violence.

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Sending federal agents to help localities is not uncommon; Attorney General William Barr announced a similar surge effort in December for seven cities with spiking violence.

But this effort will include at least 100 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers who generally conduct drug trafficking and child exploitation investigations, in addition to personnel under the Justice Department umbrella.

A federal officer pushes back demonstrators in Portland (Noah Berger/AP)

DHS officers have already been dispatched to Portland, Oregon, and other localities to protect federal property and monuments as Mr Trump has lambasted efforts by protesters to knock down Confederate statues.

Local authorities there have complained that agents have exacerbated tensions on the streets, while residents have accused the government of violating their constitutional rights.

Indeed, civil unrest escalated after federal agents were accused of whisking people away in unmarked cars without probable cause.

Attorneys for Oregon argued on Wednesday for a restraining order against the federal agents deployed in Portland.

A federal judge heard arguments from the state and the US government in a lawsuit accusing federal agents of arresting protesters without probable cause, whisking them away in unmarked cars and using excessive force.

Smoke fills the sky as federal officers try to disperse Black Lives Matter protesters (Noah Berger/AP)

Federal authorities have disputed those allegations.

Since the racial justice protests began, the presidents campaign has leaned heavily into a pledge to maintain law and order.

The campaign believes the push can help Mr Trump by drumming up support from suburban and older voters who may be rattled by violent images, which have been broadcast often by conservative media outlets.

In Chicago, Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who had initially blasted the news, said the US attorneys office will supervise the additional agents joining existing federal law enforcement offices.

If those agents are here to actually work in partnership on support of gun violence and violent cases, plugging into existing infrastructure of federal agents, not trying to play police in our streets, then thats something different, she said.

In New Mexico, Democratic elected officials had cautioned Mr Trump against sending in federal agents, with US Senator Martin Heinrich calling on Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales to resign for attending the White House event.

Instead of collaborating with the Albuquerque Police Department, the Sheriff is inviting the Presidents stormtroopers into Albuquerque, Mr Heinrich said in a statement.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf drew a distinction between the mission in Portland  to protect federal property  and the surges in Kansas City, Chicago and Albuquerque to help stop violence.

In Kansas City, the top federal prosecutor said any agents involved in an operation to reduce violent crime in the area will be clearly identifiable when making arrests, unlike what has been seen in Portland.

These agents wont be patrolling the streets, US Attorney Timothy Garrison said.

They wont replace or usurp the authority of local officers.
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Despite the critical global situation, OLG Onward Luxury Group continues to invest in enlarging its portfolio.

The luxury group  which controls a range of brands, including Jil Sander and Joseph, and produces under license the accessories collections of JW Anderson, See by Chloe and Proenza Schouler, among others  has signed a new five-year licensing agreement with Elie Saab. Starting from the spring 2021 collection, OLG will manufacture and distribute the footwear and leather goods lines of the Lebanese luxury brand.

From the fall/winter 2020 collection, we started producing Elie Saab ready-to-wear collections in our factory in Bergamo, explained OLG chief executive officer Fabio Ducci. During several dinners with Elie we started discussing the possibility to develop a new collaboration for accessories and bags and we signed this deal, which is aimed at further boosting the business of this successful, prestigious brand.

OLGs expansion plan doesnt stop there. Ducci said that with the fall 2021 seasons, OLG will introduce two new important licenses in the footwear segment, while he is also negotiating another high-profile deal in the ready-to-wear arena. This might be more than a license, Ducci hinted.

At the same time OLG, which operates two physical stores in Milan and Paris, is launching next week a new retail project: a digital platform called Blancah offering the accessories collections of a selection of both its house and licensee brands. For the launch, Blancah will carry the lineups of Joseph, See by Chloe, JW Anderson, Proenza Schouler, Brock Collection, and Federico Curradi, as well as emerging labels F_WD, Carlotha Ray and Maria Luca.

With the launch of this online retail project we are also defining the restyling of our stores concept, said Ducci, who added that the company is looking for two new retail locations, in New York and London. Compatibly with the current situation of the markets, we plan to open in the first quarter of 2021.

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In terms of wholesale distribution, Ducci expects spring 2021 orders to be down by between 20 and 25 percent compared to the same season last year. I have to say that I feel pretty happy with the results of the sales campaign, my expectations in the past few months were much darker, said Ducci, who praised the efficiency of the companys wholesale e-commerce platform developed in collaboration with NuOrder.

Asked about the most critical issues the company is facing, Ducci cited the increased price of shipping goods, as well as the worrying situation of the U.S. market, which accounts for 30 percent of OLGs total business.

We expect to close 2020 down 15 percent compared to 2019, said Ducci, citing the non-delivered spring 2020 goods and the cancellation of many fall 2020 orders as the causes of this years revenue decline.

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Female leaders have done a better job than their male counterparts during the coronavirus pandemic, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB) has suggested.

Christine Lagarde said it was quite stunning to see the policies and communication style used in countries led by women as the world faced the global Covid-19 outbreak.

The ECB boss was asked by The Washington Post what she thought Europe has learned about political leadership during coronavirus, and what has helped the continent as it emerged from lockdowns.

I would say that for myself Ive learned that women tend to do a better job, she replied.

Germany, led by Angela Merkel, has seen around 9,000 fatalities  in comparison with death tolls in the tens of thousands in nearby Italy, France, UK and Spain.

Norway, Denmark and Finland  European countries with female prime ministers  have recorded hundreds of coronavirus deaths. Meanwhile Sweden, which decided not to lockdown its economy as other Nordic countries did, has seen more than 5,600 deaths to date.

Speaking about female leaders response to coronavirus, Ms Lagarde said it was quite fascinating.

When you look at those countries that were led by women, and the path that they took and the policies that they adopted, and the communication style that was in play was quite stunning, she said.

She added: This is my womans bias and I indulge in ceding to this bias.

In March, as coronavirus started sweeping through Europe, Norways prime minister, Erna Solberg, held a press conference just for children so they could ask questions about the Covid-19 outbreak.

Elsewhere in the world, Jacinda Arden, New Zealands president, has been praised for imposing an early lockdown. The country has seen 22 deaths to date.

Tweeting a clip of her Washington Post interview, Ms Lagarde said she spoke about the incredible role women leaders have played amid this pandemic.
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A 12-year-old girl was killed in a shooting Wednesday evening at her home in Fountain, a police spokeswoman said.
Pita Dream Restaurant in Armory Square has only been open a few days, but its going to celebrate the end of its first week in style.

The Mediterranean Halal eatery will be one of six restaurants participating Friday through Sunday in the second weekend in which Walton Street in Armory Square is closed to traffic but open to expanded outdoor on street dining.

This weekend will also include a dedicated retail vendor area on part of the 200 block of Walton Street. (See more below.)

Brothers Fahed and Nas Saada plan to set at least four tables on the street outside Pita Dream at 214 Walton St., to match the four indoor tables theyre limited to under current state coronavirus rules.

Its going to be great to greet people out on the street and introduce them to our food,' said Fahed Saada. His brother, dubbed Chef Nas, runs the kitchen, which serves filled pitas, gyros, Mediterranean platters and more.

Pita Dream joins the five restaurants that also participated in the Walton Street outdoor dining pilot program last weekend: The Blue Tusk and The Hops Spot in the 100 block of Walton Street and Margaritas Mexican Cantina, Kasai Ramen and Sakana-Ya, all in the 200 block between South Franklin and Onondaga Creek.

To accommodate and promote the expanded outdoor seating, the city has closed the entire length of Walton from South Clinton Street past South Franklin Street and around the curve along Onondaga Creek to West Fayette Street.

Walton is closed to all but emergency traffic from 9 a.m. Friday until about 8 a.m. Monday, although the cross streets remain open. Tables are set up along the curb near each participating restaurant, with a 20-foot lane left open in the center for emergency vehicle access.

Restaurants can serve until 10 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and must have their tables cleared away by 10:30 p.m. each night.

The goal is to expand restaurants serving space at a time when theyre limited to 50% occupancy and many diners are reluctant to eat indoors anyway.

The city tested the concept last weekend, and it was successful enough that it will continue on Walton this weekend and likely beyond that this summer, said Eric Ennis, the citys director of business development. The city is also considering bringing the idea to streets in other neighborhoods.

The feedback we got was positive from both the visitors and the businesses, Ennis said. People told us there was an energy and vibrancy in Armory Square last weekend that they hadnt seen since before (the coronavirus pandemic).

Ennis also noted there were no incidents and no crime or safety issues. The street closing is monitored by Syracuse Police and there are also security patrols from the Downtown Committee of Syracuse.

Fahed Saada said hes been grateful for the assistance of city officials in both their opening and their participation in the outdoor dining weekend.

The city reached out to us to be part of this and it seems like such a great idea, said Fahed Saada, who is a physician at St. Josephs Hospital Health Center. The city has been very helpful.

The Saadas also heard from their new neighbors, including Alejandro Gonzalez, owner of Margaritas across the street.

He came over and welcomed us and encouraged us to do the outdoor seating,' Fahed Saada said.

Chef Nas Saada operated Pita Dream as a food truck in California and Florida before the coronavirus pandemic. His brother invited him to come to Syracuse to operate it as a brick-and-mortar restaurant. Its food is halal (the Muslim equivalent of kosher) and it does not serve alcohol.

It occupies the space that was most recently home to Goodies Mediterranean.

A RETAIL AREA

During last weekends test of the Walton Street closing, some non-restaurant vendors took advantage by setting up displays on the curb. James Horan, owner of Vagabond Clothing in the 200 block, set out mannequins to draw attention to his shop, for example.

This weekend, the part of Walton that curves up along Onondaga Creek toward West Fayette Street will be dedicated for retailers. (There are no restaurants directly facing that part of the street.)

It was sort of a gap there last week and we wanted to so something make that area more inviting, said local entrepreneur Michael John Heagerty, who is helping coordinate the retail area.

There will be six available kiosk spots, each 10-by-10 feet, and separated by at least 20-feet.

Heagertys shop, Wildflowers Armory at the corner of South Salina and Easts Fayette, will take one of the spots. City Market, which typically sets up near the Everson Museum on Harrison Street, will take another.

Both offer such items as antiques, local arts and crafts and gifts.

Heagerty and Block are looking for other vendors to take part.

Its a sort of pop-up for non-restaurants to be part of the Walton Street event, Heagerty said.

Heagerty is also working to line up music acts to play outdoors near Kasai Ramen during the weekend. Acts include, Mark Turley, Shawn Maurice Seals, Unity Street Band, Tim Forbes and Cojo the Great.

The city welcomes more activity, but Ennis also wants visitors to remember that all coronavirus health and safety precautions will be enforced. That includes masks for diners except while theyre seated, masks for servers at all times, and social distancing. Tables are set at least six feet apart.

We have cancelled all our outdoor festivals this year and this is not a festival, Ennis said. People should not gather together and mingle like theyre at a party. These rules need to be followed so we can continue to offer this opportunity."

MORE ON FOOD AND DRINKS

Dining out on Walton Street: How it went on the first day

More than 30 restaurants sign up for summer version of Downtown Dining Weeks

Armory Squares Walton Street to close for traffic, open for outdoor seating

From chips with booze to walk-up service: State clarifies Cuomos new bar rules

Whats a PARKlet? The latest idea for expanded outdoor dining in Syracuse

Winery, brewery, and distillery tasting rooms: Open, but different

Don Cazentre writes for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.
Viking raiders were responsible for spreading the deadly smallpox to Britain and around the globe, genetic information extracted from ancient teeth has revealed.

The teeth samples contained extinct strains of smallpox  different to the modern virus that was declared eradicated in 1980  that dated back to the 7th Century.

The findings indicate that smallpox was widespread in northern Europe during that period  pushing back the disease's first known case by some 1,000 years.

Smallpox is a viral infection that causes a fever, vomiting, headaches and a rash which turns into disfiguring sores and pustules that could leave permanent scars.

In around 30 per cent of cases, smallpox infection proved fatal.

The international research team said that it is unclear if the ancient smallpox strains were as deadly  but that the Vikings likely helped the spread of the disease.

Knowing more about the evolutionary history of viruses such as smallpox, they added, may help in the battle against new and emerging infectious diseases.

Viking raiders were responsible for spreading the deadly smallpox to Britain and around the globe, genetic information extracted from ancient teeth has revealed. Pictured, a 1,200-year-old, smallpox-infected Viking skeleton unearthed from Oland, an island in the south of Sweden

'Knowledge from the past can protect us in the present,' said paper author and computational biologist Terry Jones of the University of Cambridge.

'When an animal or plant goes extinct, it isn't coming back. But mutations can re-occur or revert and viruses can mutate or spill over from the animal reservoir.'

'So there will always be another zoonosis  a disease which can be transmitted to humans from animals,' he explained.

Caused by the variola virus, smallpox was one of the most hostile human diseases, killing more than 300 million people in the 20th century alone.

This virus became the first human disease to be eradicated  with the last natural case reported in Somalia in 1977  following an extensive global vaccination effort.

However, concerns remain that the virus could re-emergence, with the possibility of another strain spilling over from animals at any moment.

Scientists say that the exact origin and evolution of smallpox in humans remains a mystery  however, some virologists believe that the variola virus may have been first transmitted to humans from rodents thousands of years ago.

To find out more, Dr Jones and colleagues searched for evidence of ancient smallpox at various archaeological sites.

The teeth samples contained extinct strains of smallpox  different to the modern virus that was declared eradicated in 1980  that dated back to the 7th Century. Among the specimens examined by Dr Jones and his colleagues were massacred 10th-century Vikings, pictured, found in a mass grave located within St John's College, Oxford

The team found extinct strains of the variola virus in the skeletons of humans at 11 different burial sites  located in Denmark, Norway, Russia and the UK  and all from the Viking era.

More evidence of these viral strains was found in human remains from Oland, an island that lies off of the southeast coast of Sweden.

Analysis revealed that the genetic structures of the ancient smallpox strains were 'remarkably' different from their modern counterpart  suggesting the virus evolved, the researchers said.

SMALLPOX: THE HISTORY OF THE KILLER VIRUS The first known victim of smallpox was Pharaoh Ramses V of Egypt, who died in 1157BC and whose mummy still bears the scars of the disease.

When the Spanish took it into Hispaniola - now Haiti and the Dominican Republic - which they settled for sugar cane plantation in 1509, it killed every one of the 2.5 million natives within a decade.

More than 200 years ago, physician Edward Jenner made a crucial-discovery which led to the first vaccine. He found that milkmaids who developed cowpox through working close to the animals day after day seemed to be protected from smallpox, the human form of the disease.

In Britain, the disease was endemic until 1935.

The last major outbreak in Europe was in 1972 when 20 million were vaccinated after a pilgrim returning to Yugoslavia from Mecca infected 175 people.

Doctors waged a vaccination campaign to wipe out smallpox which succeeded by the late 1970s.

All nations were asked to destroy stocks of the virus or hand them to high-security installations in the US or Russia. It is feared terrorists may have got supplies from Russia in the 1980s. Advertisement

The findings indicate that smallpox was widespread in northern Europe during that period  pushing back the disease's first known case by some 1,000 years. Among the specimens examined by Dr Jones and his colleagues were massacred 10th-century Vikings, pictured, found in a mass grave located within St John's College, Oxford

'We discovered new strains of smallpox in the teeth of Viking skeletons and found their genetic structure is different to the modern smallpox virus eradicated in the 20th century, said paper author and St John's, Cambridge zoologist Eske Willerslev.

'We already knew Vikings were moving around Europe and beyond  and we now know they had smallpox.'

'People travelling around the world quickly spread COVID-19  and it is likely Vikings spread smallpox. Just back then, they travelled by ship rather than by plane.'

'We don't know for sure if these strains of smallpox were fatal and caused the death of the Vikings we sampled,' added paper author and evolutionary historian Martin Sikora of the University of Copenhagen.

However, he added, these Vikings 'certainly died with smallpox in their bloodstream for us to be able to detect it up to 1,400 years later.'

The full findings of the study were published in the journal Science.
Georgia Democrats are close to tipping the state their way for the first time in years this November, and they want Joe Biden to give it a nudge with a home-grown running mate.

Retirements, resignations, the political calendar and the coronavirus pandemic have all conspired to load up Georgias ballot with key races this fall, including two Senate seats that could decide control of the chamber, a state House that could flip just before the legislature kicks off redistricting, competitive House races and 16 Electoral College votes that are up for grabs for the first time since the 90s. And two of Georgia Democrats highest-profile leaders  Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and 2018 gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams  have been a part of the monthslong conversation about Bidens vice presidential pick.

A half-dozen Georgia Democrats granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly conceded that both women's lack of prior federal experience could make them long shots for the vice presidency. Some noted that Abrams has noticeably faded from public VP speculation in recent weeks, while Bottoms has enjoyed an elevated profile as she battles Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp over the response to the coronavirus. But they also said that Biden has a rare chance to tip a long-coveted state into the Democratic column with a surge of attention, investment and enthusiasm that would come with picking a running mate from Georgia.

Given that Georgia is so, so competitive, and itll be the hardest fought battleground in the country this year, I think thats a compelling argument for adding someone from Georgia to the ticket, said Democrat Jon Ossoff, a former congressional aide and documentary filmmaker who is challenging Republican Sen. David Perdue.

Rev. Raphael Warnock, who is running in a special election for Georgias other Senate seat held by appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler, said a Georgian on the ticket could only help, though he and Ossoff noted that Biden will have to decide who he thinks is the best candidate for him.

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Itd take an already supercharged Democratic electorate up to the next level, said Bob Trammell, the state House Democratic minority leader, whos drawn multimillion-dollar spending commitments against him from the GOPs national state legislative campaign committee.

Earlier this week, Biden said in an interview on MSNBC that four Black women are on his vice presidential shortlist. In addition to Abrams and Bottoms, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Reps. Val Demings (D-Fla.) and Karen Bass (D-Calif.) and former national security adviser Susan Rice are all potential picks for Biden.

When Biden has disclosed some of his own requirements for the job, he has focused on things like day-one readiness, a strong working relationship and a simpatico worldview. Winning particular states hasnt figured in those public criteria, and those considerations have rarely played a big role in running mate selections, said Joel Goldstein, a scholar of the vice presidency and a professor emeritus at St. Louis University School of Law.

A boost in a particular state tends to be the icing on the cake for a pick that youre making for other reasons, Goldstein said.

But apart from winning their state, Democrats noted that picking a vice president from Georgia would send a clear message about the evolution of the Democratic Party, both in terms of Bidens 2020 strategy and where the partys strengths will lie in the future. The South and Sun Belt have largely been abandoned by Democrats in recent years, said Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of BlackPAC.

It would be a signal that Democrats are no longer ceding the South, and it would also send a signal about the importance of Black voters to the Democratic Party, Shropshire continued.

More immediately, selecting a VP from Georgia would be an indicator that theres real investment in the states potential which creates a real opportunity for a cascading effect down ballot, said Abigail Collazo, a Georgia-based strategist who managed Sarah Riggs Amicos Democratic Senate campaign earlier this year. If you invest in Georgia, there are so many opportunities here, so many competitive races here, it could have a huge ripple effect.

Republicans are already preparing for a fight to maintain their hold on the state. President Donald Trumps campaign has started airing TV ads in the state, while Senate Leadership Fund and One Nation, the super PAC and nonprofit aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have reserved more than $20 million combined ahead of November.

The Republican State Leadership Committee, which directs national money into state-level races, has called Trammell, the Democratic state House leader, a top national target. Democrats are 16 seats away from flipping the chamber, which would give them a seat at the table when state legislative and congressional districts are redrawn following the 2020 census.

Democrats, too, have spending planned in the state. Majority Forward, a nonprofit aligned with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, recently started a $3 million ad campaign against Perdue, while the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has reserved $2 million in Atlanta, which could defend Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) and go after a neighboring open congressional district. (The National Republican Congressional Committee has also booked $1.4 million in Atlanta ads.) But Biden's campaign hasn't yet booked airtime in the state, though the campaign has called Georgia part of its expansion battleground map.

As much as I could tell you about how good our prospects are, nothing I could say would testify more strongly to it than their own investment, Trammell said. If one of them were VP, itd bring even more attention to the state.

Abrams narrow loss in the 2018 gubernatorial race opened eyes nationally to Democrats progress in Georgia, and she has since built a strong national profile, nearly matching the name recognition enjoyed by Harris and Elizabeth Warren in recent public polls, despite the fact that Abrams has not run for national office.

But Bottoms was one of Bidens earliest backers, endorsing him a day after he suffered tough blows on his record over federal busing from Harris during the first presidential primary debate. She also campaigned for him in Iowa. That early loyalty is a big deal and goes a long way in Biden world, said one Georgia Democrat, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly.

Bottoms  who drew strong, early praise from House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), a key Biden ally  gained serious traction over the summer, as she faced twin crises: squaring off against Kemp in a lawsuit over municipalities mandating mask orders and addressing nationwide protests over police accountability and racial injustice.

This moment has created a unique space for [Bottoms] to get national coverage around Covid-19 and around all the uprisings, and dealing with two high-profile killings of Black men has [showed] her ability to react as local leader and drive a message thats galvanizing the country, said Glynda Carr, president and chief executive of Higher Heights, citing the killings of both Ahmaud Arbery and Rayshard Brooks.

After the death of George Floyd, Bottoms delivered an impassioned plea to protesters, telling them that if they burn down this city, youre burning down our community. She urged them to register to vote and added that she hurt like a mother would hurt when she saw the video of Floyds death.

Ive watched you like millions and millions of Americans have on television of late, Biden said of Bottoms during a campaign roundtable. Your passion, your composure, your balance has been really incredible.

Last month, Abrams said in an interview with CBS' Stephen Colbert that although shes said many times that if called, I will answer, but I have not received any calls." In subsequent interviews, Abrams directed questions to the Biden campaign for comment, adding that she believes she has demonstrated my capacity to lead and Ive shown my interest in the job, but fundamentally and ultimately, it is Vice President Bidens decision.

In the meantime, Abrams has built a political organizing machine devoted to registering and turning out voters in the state, an infrastructure that already helped to deliver record high participation in the June primary.

In 2018, she came within a hairs breadth of winning [the governorship], which surprised everyone, said former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes, the last Democratic governor to serve the state. She earned the most votes of any Democrat in Georgias history, as well as tripling turnout among Asian American Pacific Islanders and Latino voters over the previous midterm year. Her machinery was on display during the June primary, when Democrats outvoted Republicans and set a new record for turnout.

Either of them would increase the enthusiasm, and enthusiasm always brings out higher voter turnout, Barnes said.
Italian prosecutors have requested a 10-year jail sentence for Dan Etete, a former Nigerian petroleum minister, over alleged fraud in the controversial Malabu Scandal.

Reuters reports that the prosecutors proposed eight years in prison for both Claudio Descalzi, former chief executive of Eni and Paolo Scaroni, his predecessor.

They also proposed a seven-years-and-four-months jail term for Malcolm Brinded, Shells former head of upstream.

The prosecutors also prayed the court to issue a fine of 900,000 euros ($1.04 million) each against Eni and Shell and to confiscate a total of $1.092 billion from all the defendants in the case, the equivalent of the bribes alleged to have been paid.

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported how Sergio Spadaro, the Public Prosecutor of Milan, told a Milan court that the major parties mentioned in the controversial Malabu scandal were involved in sundry corrupt activities, adding that major Nigerian officials named in the controversial deal all had long-standing relationships.

OPL 245 is an old story, but we focused on a period from autumn 2009  when Shell and Malabu were still discussing a possible settlement, said Mr Spadaro. Then late 2009, ENI steps in with Emeka Obi joining the negotiation. Two offers filed. Goodluck Jonathan becomes (sic) president in May 2010.

Explaining further, the prosecutor alleged that Mr Jonathan, a former Nigerian president; Dan Etete, who allocated OPL 245 to Malabu Oil and Gas even when he had stake as Nigerias minister of petroleum; Diezani Alison-Madueke, minister of petroleum when the oil block was sold to Shell and Eni by Malabu in 2011; Mohammed Adoke, Nigerias attorney-general at the time; and other parties all had long-standing relationships.

For instance, he explained that Mr Adoke was once a lawyer to Mr Etete before he was appointed by Mr Jonathan in 2010. It was also reiterated that Ednan Agaev, another witness and former Russian diplomat, had claimed that Mr Etete told him that Mr Jonathan was a teacher to his (Etetes) sons. Similarly, Aliyu Abubakar, the middleman at the centre of the agreements, was said to have a long-time relationship that was not occasional with Mr Jonathan.

Background

The Malabu scandal involves the transfer of about $1.1 billion by oil multinationals, Shell and ENI, through the Nigerian government to accounts controlled by a former Nigerian oil minister, Dan Etete.

From accounts controlled by Mr Etete, about half the money ($520 million) went to the accounts of companies jointly controlled by Abubakar Aliyu, popularly known in Nigeria as the owner of AA oil, and Mr Etete.

Anti-corruption investigators and activists suspect Mr Aliyu fronted for top officials of the Goodluck Jonathan administration as well as officials of Shell and ENI.

The transaction was authorised in 2011 by Mr Jonathan through some of his cabinet ministers, and the money was payment for OPL 245, one of Nigerias richest oil blocks.

Although Shell and ENI initially claimed they did not know the money would end up with Mr Etete and his cronies, evidence has shown that claim to be false.

Shell later admitted it did know the money would go to Mr Etete.

Shell, Eni, Mr Etete, Mr Aliyu and several officials of the oil firms are being prosecuted in Italy for their roles in the scandal.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how Mr Etete acquired luxury properties in Dubai with funds believed to have been sourced from the controversial deal. In April, the EFCC was urged to seize a private jet bought by Mr Etete from money he allegedly made from the Malabu deal.

On June 6, this newspaper also reported how Nigeria tracked down and grounded the luxury private jet purchased by Mr Etete, with some of the alleged proceeds of the notorious $1.3 billion Malabu OPL245 oil deal. Asset recovery lawyers acting for the Nigerian government swooped after the Bombardier 6000 jet, tail number M-MYNA, touched down at Montreal-Trudeau International Airport in Canada on May 29.

Eni Reacts

But on closing their arguments on Tuesday, the prosecutors sought to jail parties involved in the deal.

In its reaction Wednesday, Eni said the Public Prosecutors requests for conviction of the Company, its former and current CEOs and the managers involved in the Opl245 proceeding is completely groundless.

During its indictment, in the absence of any evidence or tangible reference to the contents of the trial investigation, the Public Prosecutor has told a story based on suggestions and deductions as already developed during the investigation. This narrative ignores both the witnesses and the files presented within the two years long and more than 40 hearings proceeding, that have decisively denied the prosecutorial hypothesis, the oil giant said.

Defence lawyers are going to show to the Court that both Eni and its managements conducts were correct in the Opl245 transaction.

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Eni and Shell paid a reasonable price for the license directly to the Nigerian Government, as contractually agreed and through transparent and linear means. Furthermore, Eni neither knew nor should have been aware of the possible destination of the money subsequently paid by the Nigerian government to Malabu. Moreover, the payment was made after an inquiry carried on by the UKs Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).

So, there can, therefore, be no bribes from Eni in Nigeria, no existence of an Eni scandal. Eni recalls the decision of the Department of Justice and the US SEC, which decided to close its own investigations without taking any action against the company. The multiple internal investigations entrusted to international third parties by the companys supervisory bodies have long since highlighted the absence of unlawful conduct.

Eni trusts that the truth can finally be re-established following the defensive arguments that will be presented at the end of September, pending the Milan Courts forthcoming verdict.

Over the years, Shell and Eni have argued that their dealings with Malabu Oil and Gas were approved by the federal government.

The court has fixed September 9 for the next hearing.
Gov. Tom Wolf on Thursday signed into law legislation that gives school districts the option to extend property tax filing deadlines in the coming school year.

The legislation, which passed the state House and Senate by unanimous votes, gives school boards the ability to extend the 2 percent discount period and waive a 10 percent late penalty for taxpayers. The discount and removal of the late penalty would be extended through June 30, 2021.

The law, however, doesnt mandate that school districts ultimately vote to extend the property tax deadline.

Sen. Scott Martin, R-Lancaster County, who sponsored the bill, said it gives school districts the authority to help struggling taxpayers due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

There are still many Pennsylvanians who are waiting to receive money from unemployment, and many others are dealing with the fallout of reduced hours, closed businesses and other uncertainties created by COVID-19 and the governments response to the virus, Martin said. This law provides an avenue for school districts to lend a helping hand to families that are struggling to recover from the economic devastation of the past several months.

The new law mirrors another law that Martin sponsored in April that allows counties and municipalities to provide property tax relief to taxpayers affected by the pandemic. That law gave county and municipal governments the option to extend deadlines for property tax discount rates to any date up until August 31, and waive any fee or penalty for late payments of property taxes if paid in full by the end of the year.

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By Huw Jones

LONDON, July 23 (Reuters) - A new derivatives rule should clear up any uncertainty about U.S. regulators' role in transactions involving foreign banks and foreign counterparties and so avoid clashes with other watchdogs, a senior U.S. regulatory official said on Thursday.

The rule is due to be formally adopted later on Thursday and reflects seven-year old guidance on regulating cross-border derivatives transactions.

It also marks completion of implementing fundamental reforms set out in the U.S. Dodd Frank Act passed in the aftermath of the 2007-09 global financial crisis that was fuelled by opacity in the multitrillion-dollar derivatives market.

"This week is a big bullet for us to fire in the sense we will have closed the book on Dodd Frank," said Joshua Sterling, director of swap dealer and intermediary oversight at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

"I am optimistic that we will have a period of less rule writing and more oversight," he told Reuters.

The new rule will clear up any confusion over to what extent the CFTC will regulate a transaction involving traders at a foreign bank in New York in a swap that has both its counterparties outside the United States.

"We are now very clear that the involvement of those folks in New York will not result in that trade triggering more of our swap dealer requirements," Sterling said.

"I am optimistic that will provide great certainty to non-U.S. financial services companies that have a real presence in New York."

It is a sign of how the U.S. regulator is willing to defer to regulators outside the United States, such as in Europe and Japan.

It follows a decision by the European Union to avoid trapping U.S. clearing houses in the crosshairs of new rules on EU derivatives investors using foreign clearers. The original rules had provoked a threat of retaliation by the CFTC.

"We are optimistic that all international issues are being handled appropriately and with good intentions on all sides, and we believe that will continue," Sterling said. (Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Mark Potter)
First year college and university students should be prioritised and allowed to spend as much time as possible on campus from this autumn, the Higher Education Minister has said.

Simon Harris was speaking as he announced a 168m package of supports for the further and higher education sector to allow institutions to open safely under social distancing guidelines from September.

"I am not sure you can introduce somebody to college through Zoom.

"So I think for first year students there needs to be a particular focus on them attending on site as much as possible," he said.

The former health minister added that "college life - like all life - is going to be a bit different" as a result of Covid-19, with restrictions to include the two-metre social distancing rule that will limit the amount of lectures and graduation ceremonies.

The new package includes 41m to put in place necessary health protection measures at colleges and universities.

Mr Harris said an element of blended learning would be needed as long as the virus is present in Ireland.

Meanwhile, a new study shows that more than half of students and parents have concerns over academic issues, while almost one in three said health and well-being were a source of anxiety due to the fear of contracting coronavirus at school.

More than 11,000 students, parents and guardians were surveyed for the study. Students said they felt they have lost out due to being out of school and fear for their education.

"I have fallen behind massively due to Covid-19 and I worry that I may struggle with finishing coursework on time as well as properly being able to understand the coursework," one student said.

A quarter of respondents said they were concerned about transitioning back into a school routine and feared it would be difficult to make new friends in an environment where you had to social distance.

Of the 75pc who said their mental health was affected, almost half (45pc) said the impact was mild, nearly a quarter (23pc) said the impact was moderate and 7pc described it as severe.

The survey was conducted online by the Irish Second-Level Students' Union, the National Parents' Council Post-Primary and the Institute of Guidance Counsellors, supported by Unicef Ireland.
A special flight of Israeli scientists is heading to India this week to work with their counterparts to finalise four breakthrough pandemic-related technologies to detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 pathogen that causes coronavirus. These include two Covid-19 tests that could give results in minutes from a saliva sample. A third that could tell if a person has incipient Covid by listening to their voice. And a fourth, a virus detector that uses radio waves on a breath sample.

The Israelis will work out of AIIMS in the national capital Delhi. The first phase of testing of these technologies was done in Israel. The last stage will now be carried out in India, said Israels ambassador to India, Ron Malka.

One technology is a new Covid test that uses polyamino acids to produce a result in 30 minutes, said Dani Gold, head of Israels Directorate of Defence Research and Development.

This will mean you can be tested as you enter an airport, a mall or anywhere and be cleared. Real-time testing would allow the economy to open again.

A second, inexpensive biochemical test that can be used at home and gives a result in 30 minutes. Both can work with a saliva sample.

The third technology uses artificial intelligence (AI) to listen to a persons voice and determine if he or she has first stage Covid. It plays on the fact Covid attacks the respiratory system. One could even do the diagnosis through a cell phone, said Gold.

The third method is a breath analyser. One would breathe into a tube. We put the tube into a machine which uses terahertz radio frequencies and an algorithm to tell if you have the virus.

The project is led by Gold and K VijayRaghavan, principal scientific advisor to Prime Minister Modi. The funding, logistics, cooperation and results are mutual, said Malkin.

The Israeli and Indian scientists will carry out 4,000-5,000 tests of each technology in India to determine if they can work. Indian scientists will also be contributing on the algorithm side.

India is an AI (artificial intelligence)) superpower, said Gold. With these tests, hopefully we will be able to mature the technology and deploy it across the board.

The airplane will also bring cutting-edge technologies and equipment to help India, including robots, telemedicine, special sanitising equipment and so on.

Noting that India had helped in evacuating thousands of Israelis and provided emergency medical supplies in the early days of the pandemic, Malkin said, the new cooperation was part of our strong bilateral friendship. PM Modi and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu have spoken three times since the viral crisis broke out.

Gold said the Israeli team would be in India for about a week and a half.

Gold is famous in Israel for having invented the vaunted Iron Dome anti-missile defence system that provides a city-sized coverage against Katyusha-style rockets and mortar bombs, shooting down the incoming threats with small interceptor missiles.

Malkin, in response to a question, said he was unaware of any special arms purchases by India from Israel because of the border clashes between India and China.

The two countries have had long-standing defence relations, he said. Relations have grown rapidly across many sectors, ranging from agriculture to defence, and now health.
Two people were injured in shootings that occurred around the same time late Wednesday afternoon.

A man was taken to the hospital for a non-life-threatening injury after a shooting at the 500 block of Curtin Street early Wednesday evening, FOX43 reports.

Police responded to the area at about 5 p.m. on Wednesday. Harrisburg Police Commissioner Thomas Carter told ABC27 that the incident was a shoot-out.

The second shooting happened in the area of 17th and Swatara Streets at 5 p.m. One man suffered a non-life-threatening injury, according to FOX43, which said police have not identified a suspect in either shooting.

These incidents follow a shooting Monday afternoon in the area of 16th and Hunter street that left one man dead and another person injured.

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CALGARY, Alberta, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- This news release contains forward-looking information and statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. For a full disclosure of the forward-looking information and statements and the risks to which they are subject, see the Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information and Statements later in this news release. This news release contains references to Adjusted EBITDA, Covenant EBITDA, Operating Earnings (Loss), Funds Provided by (Used in) Operations and Working Capital. These terms do not have standardized meanings prescribed under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and may not be comparable to similar measures used by other companies, see Non-GAAP Measures later in this news release.



Precision Drilling announces 2020 second quarter financial results:

Revenue of $190 million was a decrease of 47% compared with the second quarter of 2019.

Net loss of $49 million or negative $0.18 per diluted share compared with a net loss of $14 million or negative $0.05 per diluted share in 2019.

Earnings before income taxes, gain on repurchase of unsecured senior notes, finance charges, foreign exchange, impairment reversal, gain on asset disposals and depreciation and amortization (Adjusted EBITDA, see NON-GAAP MEASURES) of $58 million as compared with $81 million in the second quarter of 2019.

Generated cash and funds provided by operations (see NON-GAAP MEASURES) of $104 million and $27 million, respectively.

Second quarter ending cash balance was $175 million, an increase of $78 million from March 31, 2020.

Second quarter capital expenditures were $24 million.

Reduced our unsecured senior notes balance by $5 million and drew $5 million under our Senior Credit Facility.

In U.S., recognized US$8 million of idle but contracted rig revenue and US$8 million of contract cancellation fees of which US$2 million pertained to second quarter contracted days.

Recognized restructuring charges of $6 million and Government of Canada wage subsidies of $9 million.

To secure our liquidity position, on April 9, 2020, we amended our Senior Credit Facility to provide temporary covenant relief through March 31, 2022.

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Precisions President and CEO Kevin Neveu stated:

The immediate and decisive steps the Precision team has executed during this pandemic and economic crisis have delivered very strong financial and operational results. Our actions have further strengthened and positioned the company both financially and competitively for an eventual industry recovery. During the second quarter we generated $58 million in Adjusted EBITDA and cash from operations of $104 million with our results further supported by field performance and operational excellence in all parts of our business. Also during the quarter, we improved our liquidity position by increasing our cash balance to $175 million bringing our total liquidity available to nearly $900 million, which supports our ability to persevere through a prolonged market downturn and capture value in a market recovery.

During the quarter, we executed structural cost reductions beyond those previously announced, which we expect will lead to an additional $14 million in annualized savings. We now expect our total annualized fixed cost reductions to be 35%, an increase from our previous target of 30% and our normalized general and administrative expense savings to exceed $30 million. We expect these cash preservation measures, combined with capital expenditure reductions and Canadian wage subsidy program, will reduce total 2020 cash outflows by up to $150 million, an increase from our previously communicated target of over $100 million. We will continue to explore every avenue to reduce our costs and spending and conserve cash to keep Precision on track to meet long-term debt reduction goals and support our High Performance, High Value competitive strategy.

Second quarter U.S. operating results reflected improved field margins delivered with tightly managed expenses and strong contract book performance, both critical in this challenged environment. While industry activity appears to be flattening, visibility remains limited for the second half of the year. In Canada, Precision achieved 36% market share during the second quarter driven by our Super Triple rig fleet, which is well-positioned for pad style development drilling activity in the Montney and Duvernay. We expect the third quarter seasonal rebound in Canada to remain muted with limited visibility into long-term customer demand. While global international rig activity is contracting sharply, we expect Precisions six rigs under long-term contract in Kuwait and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to remain stable sources of revenue. Additional rig deployment and re-contracting opportunities will be delayed until the customers in these regions fully return to work.

Precisions Alpha technologies continue to demonstrate exceptional field results, driving strong customer interest and field adoption of our broad portfolio of digital solutions. During the second quarter, we commercialized two additional drilling apps for a total of six commercial apps this year and we have 12 more under development. This year we have utilized AlphaApps on over 110 wells throughout North America, generating 890 AlphaApp days. Additionally, we are utilizing AlphaAnalytics for an integrated oil company in the Delaware basin and reduced drilling time on a 28-day horizontal well by 4.1 days, setting a new efficiency benchmark. In the Haynesville basin, we applied AlphaAnalytics to a separate customers full fleet of rigs and delivered an 8% improvement in drilling times compared to results achieved in the first quarter. AlphaAnalytics, AlphaApps and the AlphaAutomation platform are functioning on over half of our active North American fleet today and the drilling performance enhancements are inarguable. We believe the Alpha digital enablement of the drilling rig process to be the single most important technology transformation our customers can leverage to reduce their well construction costs and we believe this may be the ideal market to capitalize on these initiatives.

We will remain focused on the continued execution of our strategic priorities, including our 2020 deleveraging targets while preserving our strong liquidity position. We will concentrate on maximizing cash flow, stringently managing costs, leveraging our high-quality fleet and collaborating with our customers to utilize our Alpha portfolio to maximize efficiencies and deliver predictable, repeatable results concluded Mr. Neveu.

IMPACT OF COVID-19

In March 2020, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Governments worldwide, including those countries in which Precision operates, have enacted emergency measures to combat the spread of the virus. These measures, which include the implementation of travel bans, self-imposed quarantine periods and social distancing, have caused a material disruption to businesses globally resulting in an economic slowdown and decreased demand for oil. Governments and central banks have reacted with significant monetary and fiscal interventions designed to stabilize economic conditions; however, the long-term success of these interventions is not yet determinable.

As a result of the decrease in demand, worldwide inventories of oil have increased significantly. However, in the second quarter voluntary production restraint from national oil companies and governments of oil-producing nations along with curtailments in the U.S. and Canada have shifted global oil markets from a position of over supply to inventory draws. The situation remains dynamic and the ultimate duration and magnitude of the impact on the economy and the financial effect on the Corporation remains unknown at this time.

SELECT FINANCIAL AND OPERATING INFORMATION

Financial Highlights For the three months ended June 30, For the six months ended June 30, (Stated in thousands of Canadian dollars, except per share amounts) 2020 2019 % Change 2020 2019 % Change Revenue 189,759 359,424 (47.2 ) 569,243 793,467 (28.3 ) Adjusted EBITDA(1) 58,465 81,037 (27.9 ) 160,369 189,004 (15.2 ) Operating earnings (loss)(1) (19,189 ) 5,569 (444.6 ) 3,410 67,643 (95.0 ) Net earnings (loss) (48,867 ) (13,801 ) 254.1 (54,144 ) 11,213 (582.9 ) Cash provided by operations 104,478 106,035 (1.5 ) 179,431 146,622 22.4 Funds provided by operations(1) 26,639 40,950 (34.9 ) 107,956 136,943 (21.2 ) Capital spending: Expansion and upgrade 12,111 33,595 (63.9 ) 13,764 99,712 (86.2 ) Maintenance and infrastructure 11,816 9,874 19.7 21,648 14,719 47.1 Intangibles - 26 (100.0 ) 57 464 (87.7 ) Proceeds on sale (5,021 ) (24,575 ) (79.6 ) (10,711 ) (82,452 ) (87.0 ) Net capital spending 18,906 18,920 (0.1 ) 24,758 32,443 (23.7 ) Net earnings (loss) per share: Basic (0.18 ) (0.05 ) 256.4 (0.20 ) 0.04 (600.0 ) Diluted (0.18 ) (0.05 ) 256.4 (0.20 ) 0.04 (600.0 )





(1) See NON-GAAP MEASURES.





Operating Highlights For the three months ended June 30, For the six months ended June 30, 2020 2019 % Change 2020 2019 % Change Contract drilling rig fleet 227 232 (2.2 ) 227 232 (2.2 ) Drilling rig utilization days: U.S. 2,743 6,994 (60.8 ) 7,727 14,117 (45.3 ) Canada 834 2,413 (65.4 ) 6,603 6,757 (2.3 ) International 687 728 (5.6 ) 1,415 1,448 (2.3 ) Revenue per utilization day: U.S.(1) (US$) 29,370 23,425 25.4 25,828 23,312 10.8 Canada(2) (Cdn$) 22,940 21,613 6.1 21,633 22,490 (3.8 ) International (US$) 54,779 51,542 6.3 54,529 50,746 7.5 Operating cost per utilization day: U.S. (US$) 14,172 14,803 (4.3 ) 14,406 14,584 (1.2 ) Canada (Cdn$) 13,898 17,414 (20.2 ) 14,196 15,840 (10.4 ) Service rig fleet 123 123 - 123 123 - Service rig operating hours 4,702 29,540 (84.1 ) 39,067 72,438 (46.1 )





(1) Includes revenue from idle but contracted rig days and contract cancellation fees. (2) Includes lump sum contract shortfall revenue.





Financial Position

(Stated in thousands of Canadian dollars, except ratios) June 30,

2020 December 31,

2019 Working capital(1) 237,867 201,696 Cash 175,125 74,701 Long-term debt 1,450,900 1,427,181 Total long-term financial liabilities 1,521,067 1,500,950 Total assets 3,204,233 3,269,840 Long-term debt to long-term debt plus equity ratio 0.49 0.48





(1) See NON-GAAP MEASURES.

Summary for the three months ended June 30, 2020:



Revenue this quarter was $190 million which is 47% lower than the second quarter of 2019. Our decreased revenue was primarily the result of lower activity across all operating segments. Industry drilling activity steeply declined in the second quarter of 2020 as customers reduced drilling programs in response to the global economic slowdown. Compared with the second quarter of 2019, our activity, as measured by drilling rig utilization days, decreased by 61% in the U.S., 65% in Canada and 6% internationally.

Adjusted EBITDA (see NON-GAAP MEASURES) of $58 million for the quarter was a decrease of $23 million from the previous year and was primarily due to lower activity. As a percentage of revenue, Adjusted EBITDA was 31% compared with 23% in the comparative quarter. The improved percentage was primarily due to U.S. contract cancellation fees, increased idle but contracted rig payments and Canadian wage subsidies partially offset by higher restructuring costs and share-based compensation charges. See discussion on share-based incentive compensation under Other Items later in this release for additional details.

Operating loss (see NON-GAAP MEASURES) this quarter was $19 million compared with operating earnings of $6 million in the second quarter of 2019. Our operating earnings in the prior year quarter were positively impacted by higher activity levels.

General and administrative expenses this quarter were $18 million, $8 million lower than in 2019. Our lower general and administrative costs in 2020 were primarily due to lower overhead costs as we continued to align our cost structure to reflect reduced global activity and the impact of Canadian wage subsidies.

Restructuring charges were $6 million as compared to nil in 2019.

Net finance charges were $28 million, a decrease of $2 million compared with the second quarter of 2019 and primarily due to reduced interest expense related to retired debt, offset by the impact of the weakening of the Canadian dollar on our U.S. dollar denominated interest.

In the second quarter of 2020, revenue per utilization day in the U.S. increased to US$29,370 from US$23,425 in 2019. The increase was primarily the result of higher revenues from contract cancellation fees, idle but contracted rigs and turnkey drilling. We had second quarter revenue from contract cancellation fees, idle but contracted rigs and turnkey projects of US$8 million, US$8 million and US$3 million, respectively, as compared with nil, US$1 million and nil, respectively in 2019. Operating costs on a per day basis decreased to US$14,172 in the second quarter of 2020 compared with US$14,803 in 2019. The decrease was mainly due to lower repairs and maintenance partially offset by increased turnkey activity. On a sequential basis, revenue per utilization day, excluding revenue from contract cancellations, idle but contracted rigs and turnkey activity were in line with the first quarter. Operating costs per day decreased by US$362 due to lower repairs and maintenance partially offset by turnkey drilling costs.

In Canada, average revenue per utilization day for contract drilling rigs was $22,940 compared with $21,613 in the second quarter of 2019. The higher average revenue per utilization day in the second quarter of 2020 was primarily due to rig mix partially offset by lower contract shortfall revenue. During the quarter, we did not recognize any contract shortfall revenue compared with $1 million in 2019. Average operating costs per utilization day for drilling rigs in Canada decreased to $13,898 compared with the prior year quarter of $17,414. The decrease was mainly caused by the impact of the Canadian wage subsidy programs partially offset by fixed operating overheads being spread over fewer utilization days. During the quarter, we recognized Canadian wage subsidies of $4 million which lowered our operating costs per utilization day by $5,173.

We realized revenue from international contract drilling of US$38 million in the second quarter of 2020, consistent with the prior year quarter. Average revenue per utilization day in our international contract drilling business increased 6% to US$54,779 from the comparable prior year quarter, primarily due to rate increases from the commencement, renewal and extension of drilling contracts.

Cash and funds provided by operations (see NON-GAAP MEASURES) in the second quarter of 2020 were $104 million and $27 million, respectively, compared to $106 million and $41 million in the prior year comparative.

Capital expenditures were $24 million in the second quarter, a decrease of $20 million over the same period in 2019. Capital spending for the quarter included $12 million for upgrade and expansion capital and $12 million for the maintenance of existing assets, infrastructure spending and intangibles.

Summary for the six months ended June 30, 2020:

Revenue for the first half of 2020 was $569 million, a decrease of 28% from the comparative 2019 period.

Operating earnings (see NON-GAAP MEASURES) were $3 million, a decrease of $64 million from the same period in 2019. As a percentage of revenue, operating earnings were 1% compared with 9% in 2019. Operating results this year were negatively impacted by lower activity.

General and administrative costs were $38 million, a decrease of $19 million from 2019. The decrease was due to lower overhead costs as a result of our restructuring activities and lower share-based compensation.

Net finance charges were $56 million, a decrease of $6 million from 2019 primarily due to a reduction in interest expense related to retired debt partially offset by the weakening of the Canadian dollar on our U.S. dollar denominated interest expense.

Cash provided by operations was $179 million in 2020 as compared with $147 million in 2019. Funds provided by operations (see NON-GAAP MEASURES) in the first half of 2020 were $108 million, a decrease of $29 million from the prior year comparative period of $137 million.

Capital expenditures were $35 million for the first half of 2020, a decrease of $79 million over the same period in 2019. Capital spending for the first half of 2020 included $14 million for upgrade and expansion capital and $22 million for the maintenance of existing assets, infrastructure spending and intangibles.

STRATEGY

Precisions strategic priorities for 2020 are as follows:

Generate strong free cash flow and reduce debt by $100 million to $150 million in 2020  In the second quarter of 2020, Precision generated $104 million of cash provided by operations (see NON-GAAP MEASURES) and $5 million of cash proceeds from the divestiture of non-core assets. We increased our cash balance by $78 million during the quarter, exiting with a cash balance of $175 million, compared to $97 million at March 31, 2020. We will place a high priority on maintaining a strong liquidity position and will continue to reduce debt levels once visibility improves. Demonstrate operational excellence in all aspects of our business  In Canada, we continued at record level market share of 36% and reported operating margins (revenue less operating costs) of $9,042 per utilization day. In the U.S., we lowered field costs and leveraged our contract book to generate reported operating margins of US$15,198 per utilization day. Internationally, we maintained stable activity, averaging eight active drilling rigs, and recorded average day rates of US$54,779. Leverage our Alpha Technology platform as a competitive differentiator and source of financial returns  As at June 30, 2020, we have 38 field-deployed rigs equipped with our AlphaAutomation platform which have drilled 316 wells in 2020. Since 2017, we have drilled approximately 1,500 wells with AlphaAutomation and currently have 18 AlphaApps available, of which six are commercial. In 2020, we have drilled over 110 wells with AlphaApps, generating 890 AlphaApp days, further allowing us to differentiate our High Performance, High Value offering. We are currently utilizing AlphaAnalytics for an integrated oil company in the Delaware basin and have reduced drilling time on a 28-day horizontal well by 4.1 days, setting a new drilling efficiency benchmark. With a separate customer in the Haynesville basin, we applied AlphaAnalytics to their full fleet of rigs and delivered an 8% improvement in drilling times compared to results achieved in the first quarter. AlphaAnalytics, AlphaApps and the AlphaAutomation platform are functioning on over half of our active North American fleet today.

OUTLOOK

The energy industry continues to have a challenging outlook as the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in significant global oil supply imbalances and near-term crude oil price volatility. Our customers have responded by materially reducing capital spending leading to a rapid reduction in global oilfield service activity levels. In this reduced-activity environment, our customers remain focused on operational efficiencies. We anticipate this will accelerate the industrys transition towards service providers with the highest performing assets and competitive digital technology offerings. Pursuit of predictable and repeatable results will further drive field application of drilling automation processes to create additional cost efficiencies and performance value for customers.

Precision continues to closely monitor announcements of available government financial support and economic stimulus programs. We are encouraged by the Government of Canadas $1.7 billion well site abandonment and rehabilitation program, which will support industry activity levels and provide thousands of jobs throughout western Canada. The program is expected to run through to the end of 2022 with government funds being provided in stages. As the use of service rigs is an integral part of the well abandonment process, we believe our well servicing business is well positioned to capture these opportunities as a result of our scale, operational performance and strong safety record.

On April 1, 2020, the Government of Canada announced the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) program, which would subsidize 75% of employee wages for Canadian employers whose businesses have been affected by COVID-19. The program is intended to help employers re-hire previously laid off workers, prevent further job losses and better position Canadian businesses to resume normal operations. Under this program in the second quarter of 2020, we recognized $9 million of CEWS subsidies that were presented as reductions to operating and general and administrative expense of $6 million and $3 million, respectively. The Government of Canada recently indicated its continued support of this program through to the end of the year. We expect to participate in the third and fourth quarter of 2020 and receive similar levels of wage subsidies as recognized in the second quarter.

Contracts

Year to date in 2020 we have entered into ten term contracts. The following chart outlines the average number of drilling rigs under contract by quarter as of July 22, 2020. For those quarters ending after June 30, 2020, this chart represents the minimum number of long-term contracts from which we will earn revenue. We expect the actual number of contracted rigs to vary in future periods as we sign additional contracts and certain customers elect to pay contract cancellation fees.

Average for the quarter ended 2019 Average for the quarter ended 2020 Mar. 31 June 30 Sept. 30 Dec. 31 Mar. 31 June 30 Sept. 30 Dec. 31 Average rigs under term contract as of July 22, 2020: U.S. 56 52 49 41 41 32 26 22 Canada 8 5 5 5 5 4 3 3 International 8 8 9 9 8 8 6 6 Total 72 65 63 55 54 44 35 31

The following chart outlines the average number of drilling rigs that we had under contract for 2019 and the average number of rigs we have under contract as of July 22, 2020.

Average for the year ended 2019 2020 2021 Average rigs under term contract as of July 22, 2020: U.S. 49 30 6 Canada 6 4 2 International 9 7 6 Total 64 41 14

In Canada, term contracted rigs normally generate 250 utilization days per year because of the seasonal nature of well site access. In most regions in the U.S. and internationally, term contracts normally generate 365 utilization days per year.

Drilling Activity

The following chart outlines the average number of drilling rigs that we had working or moving by quarter for the periods noted.

Average for the quarter ended 2019 2020 Mar. 31 June 30 Sept. 30 Dec. 31 Mar. 31 June 30 Average Precision active rig count: U.S. 79 77 72 63 55 30 Canada 48 27 42 43 63 9 International 8 8 9 9 8 8 Total 135 112 123 115 126 47

According to industry sources, as of July 22, 2020, the U.S. active land drilling rig count is down 74% from the same point last year and the Canadian active land drilling rig count is down 73%. To date in 2020, approximately 82% of the U.S. industrys active rigs and 58% of the Canadian industrys active rigs were drilling for oil targets, compared with 81% for the U.S. and 58% for Canada at the same time last year.

Capital Spending

Capital spending in 2020 is expected to be $48 million and includes $34 million for sustaining, infrastructure and intangibles and $14 million for upgrade and expansion. We expect that the $48 million will be split $45 million in the Contract Drilling Services segment, $3 million in the Completion and Production Services segment and less than $1 million to the Corporate segment. At June 30, 2020, Precision had capital commitments of $113 million with payments expected through to 2022.

SEGMENTED FINANCIAL RESULTS

Precisions operations are reported in two segments: Contract Drilling Services, which includes our drilling rig, directional drilling, oilfield supply and manufacturing divisions; and Completion and Production Services, which includes our service rig, rental and camp and catering divisions.

For the three months ended June 30, For the six months ended June 30, (Stated in thousands of Canadian dollars) 2020 2019 % Change 2020 2019 % Change Revenue: Contract Drilling Services 184,738 334,475 (44.8 ) 531,287 713,739 (25.6 ) Completion and Production Services 5,525 26,145 (78.9 ) 39,188 81,964 (52.2 ) Inter-segment eliminations (504 ) (1,196 ) (57.9 ) (1,232 ) (2,236 ) (44.9 ) 189,759 359,424 (47.2 ) 569,243 793,467 (28.3 ) Adjusted EBITDA:(1) Contract Drilling Services 74,613 93,295 (20.0 ) 185,346 211,750 (12.5 ) Completion and Production Services (1,220 ) 2,781 (143.9 ) 2,015 13,299 (84.8 ) Corporate and Other (14,928 ) (15,039 ) (0.7 ) (26,992 ) (36,045 ) (25.1 ) 58,465 81,037 (27.9 ) 160,369 189,004 (15.2 )





(1) See NON-GAAP MEASURES.





SEGMENT REVIEW OF CONTRACT DRILLING SERVICES For the three months ended June 30, For the six months ended June 30, (Stated in thousands of Canadian dollars, except where noted) 2020 2019 % Change 2020 2019 % Change Revenue 184,738 334,475 (44.8 ) 531,287 713,739 (25.6 ) Expenses: Operating 101,498 231,422 (56.1 ) 323,827 477,937 (32.2 ) General and administrative 6,083 9,758 (37.7 ) 14,853 21,006 (29.3 ) Restructuring 2,544 - n/m 7,261 3,046 138.4 Adjusted EBITDA(1) 74,613 93,295 (20.0 ) 185,346 211,750 (12.5 ) Depreciation 74,062 75,155 (1.5 ) 149,786 153,154 (2.2 ) Gain on asset disposals (3,091 ) (4,271 ) (27.6 ) (5,933 ) (39,272 ) (84.9 ) Impairment reversal - - n/m - (5,810 ) (100.0 ) Operating earnings(1) 3,642 22,411 (83.7 ) 41,493 103,678 (60.0 ) Operating earnings(1) as a percentage of revenue 2.0 % 6.7 % 7.8 % 14.5 %





(1) See NON-GAAP MEASURES. n/m Not meaningful





United States onshore drilling statistics:(1) 2020 2019 Precision Industry(2) Precision Industry(2) Average number of active land rigs for quarters ended: March 31 55 764 79 1,023 June 30 30 378 77 967 Year to date average 42 571 78 995





(1) United States lower 48 operations only. (2) Baker Hughes rig counts.





Canadian onshore drilling statistics:(1) 2020 2019 Precision Industry(2) Precision Industry(2) Average number of active land rigs for quarters ended: March 31 63 196 48 183 June 30 9 25 27 82 Year to date average 36 110 37 132





(1) Canadian operations only. (2) Baker Hughes rig counts.



SEGMENT REVIEW OF COMPLETION AND PRODUCTION SERVICES



For the three months ended June 30, For the six months ended June 30, (Stated in thousands of Canadian dollars, except where noted) 2020 2019 % Change 2020 2019 % Change Revenue 5,525 26,145 (78.9 ) 39,188 81,964 (52.2 ) Expenses: Operating 5,558 21,823 (74.5 ) 32,184 64,956 (50.5 ) General and administrative 915 1,541 (40.6 ) 2,394 3,252 (26.4 ) Restructuring 272 - n/m 2,595 457 467.8 Adjusted EBITDA(1) (1,220 ) 2,781 (143.9 ) 2,015 13,299 (84.8 ) Depreciation 4,119 4,341 (5.1 ) 8,402 9,290 (9.6 ) Gain on asset disposals (262 ) (3,546 ) (92.6 ) (1,001 ) (3,602 ) (72.2 ) Operating earnings (loss)(1) (5,077 ) 1,986 (355.6 ) (5,386 ) 7,611 (170.8 ) Operating earnings (loss)(1) as a percentage of revenue (91.9 )% 7.6 % (13.7 )% 9.3 % Well servicing statistics: Number of service rigs (end of period) 123 123 - 123 123 - Service rig operating hours 4,702 29,540 (84.1 ) 39,067 72,438 (46.1 ) Service rig operating hour utilization 4 % 26 % 17 % 31 %

(1) See NON-GAAP MEASURES. n/m Not meaningful

SEGMENT REVIEW OF CORPORATE AND OTHER

Our Corporate and Other segment provides support functions to our operating segments. The Corporate and Other segment had negative Adjusted EBITDA (see NON-GAAP MEASURES) of $15 million, slightly lower than the second quarter of 2019 primarily due to Canadian wage subsidies offset by higher share-based compensation expense and increased restructuring charges. During the second quarter of 2020, we incurred $3 million of restructuring charges and recognized $2 million of Canadian wage subsidies.

OTHER ITEMS

Share-based Incentive Compensation Plans

We have several cash and equity-settled share-based incentive plans for non-management directors, officers and other eligible employees. Our accounting policies for each share-based incentive plan can be found in our 2019 Annual Report.

A summary of amounts expensed under these plans during the reporting periods are as follows:

For the three months

ended June 30, For the six months

ended June 30, (Stated in thousands of Canadian dollars) 2020 2019 2020 2019 Cash settled share-based incentive plans 5,372 515 (1,021 ) 6,319 Equity settled share-based incentive plans: Executive PSU 2,959 3,024 5,694 5,396 Stock option plan 168 506 554 1,237 Total share-based incentive compensation plan expense 8,499 4,045 5,227 12,952 Allocated: Operating 1,987 798 1,014 3,227 General and Administrative 6,512 3,247 4,213 9,725 8,499 4,045 5,227 12,952

Cash settled shared-based compensation expense increased by $5 million in the current quarter primarily due to our increasing share price. Our total equity settled share-based compensation expense for the second quarter of 2020 was $3 million, slightly lower than 2019 due to vesting of stock options granted in prior years.

Finance Charges

Net finance charges were $28 million, a decrease of $2 million compared with the second quarter of 2019, primarily due to reduced interest expense related to retired debt, offset by the impact of the weakening of the Canadian dollar on our U.S. dollar denominated interest.

Interest charges on our U.S. denominated long-term debt in the second quarter of 2020 were US$19 million ($26 million) as compared with US$21 million ($28 million) in 2019.

Income Tax

Income tax expense for the quarter was $4 million compared with a recovery of $6 million in the same quarter in 2019. The higher income tax expense in the second quarter of 2020 was the result of not recognizing the benefit of $14 million on Canadian deferred tax assets.

LIQUIDITY AND CAPITAL RESOURCES

Liquidity

Amount Availability Used for Maturity Senior credit facility (secured) US$500 million (extendible, revolving

term credit facility with US$300 million accordion feature) US$4 million drawn and US$32 million in outstanding letters of credit General corporate purposes November 21, 2023 Operating facilities (secured) $40 million Undrawn, except $8 million in

outstanding letters of credit Letters of credit and general

corporate purposes US$15 million Undrawn Short term working capital

requirements Demand letter of credit facility (secured) US$30 million Undrawn, except US$2 million

in outstanding letters of credit Letters of credit Unsecured senior notes (unsecured) US$63 million  6.5% Fully drawn Capital expenditures and general

corporate purposes December 15, 2021 US$344 million  7.75% Fully drawn Debt redemption and repurchases December 15, 2023 US$303 million  5.25% Fully drawn Capital expenditures and general

corporate purposes November 15, 2024 US$368 million  7.125% Fully drawn Debt redemption and repurchases January 15, 2026

As at June 30, 2020, we had US$1,080 million ($1,467 million) outstanding under our Senior Credit Facility and unsecured senior notes as compared with US$1,113 million ($1,445 million) at December 31, 2019. During the first half of 2020, we redeemed US$25 million principal amount and repurchased and cancelled US$3 million of our 6.50% unsecured senior notes due 2021, repurchased and cancelled US$5 million of our 5.25% unsecured senior notes due 2024, US$2 million of our 7.125% unsecured senior notes due 2026 and US$1 million of our 7.75% unsecured senior notes due 2023 and we drew US$4 million on our Senior Credit Facility. The weakening of the Canadian dollar resulted in $64 million of additional stated debt such that at June 30, 2020, we had $1,462 million of outstanding unsecured senior notes and $16 million in unamortized debt issue costs.

The current blended cash interest cost of our debt is approximately 6.7%.

Covenants

Following is a listing of our applicable Senior Credit Facility financial covenants and the calculations as at June 30, 2020:

Covenant At June 30, 2020 Senior Credit Facility Consolidated senior debt to consolidated covenant EBITDA(1) < 2.50 (0.23 ) Consolidated covenant EBITDA to consolidated interest expense(1) > 2.50 3.39





(1) For purposes of calculating the leverage ratio consolidated senior debt only includes secured indebtedness.

At June 30, 2020, we were in compliance with the covenants of our Senior Credit Facility.

Senior Credit Facility

On April 9, 2020 we agreed with the lenders of our Senior Credit Facility to reduce the consolidated Covenant EBITDA to consolidated interest expense coverage ratio for the most recent four consecutive quarters greater than or equal to 2.5:1 to 2.0:1 for the period ending September 30, 2020, 1.75:1 for the period ending December 31, 2020, 1.25:1 for the periods ending March 31, June 30 and September 30, 2021, 1.75:1, for the period ending December 31, 2021, 2.0:1 for the period ending March 31, 2022 and 2.5:1 for periods ending thereafter.

During the covenant relief period, Precisions distributions in the form of dividends, distributions and share repurchases are restricted to a maximum of US$15 million in 2020 and US$25 million in each of 2021 and 2022, subject to a pro forma senior net leverage ratio (as defined in the credit agreement) of less than or equal to 1.75:1.

In addition, during 2021, the North American and acceptable secured foreign assets must directly account for at least 65% of consolidated Covenant EBITDA calculated quarterly on a rolling twelve-month basis, increasing to 70% thereafter. Precision also has the option to voluntarily terminate the covenant relief period prior to its March 31, 2022 end date.

The Senior Credit Facility limits the redemption and repurchase of junior debt subject to a pro forma senior net leverage covenant test of less than or equal to 1.75:1.

NON-GAAP MEASURES

In this release we reference non-GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) measures. These terms do not have standardized meanings prescribed under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and may not be comparable to similar measures used by other companies.

Adjusted EBITDA

We believe that Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before income taxes, gain on repurchase of unsecured senior notes, finance charges, foreign exchange, impairment reversal, gain on assets disposals and depreciation and amortization), as reported in the Interim Consolidated Statement of Net Earnings (Loss), is a useful measure, because it gives an indication of the results from our principal business activities prior to consideration of how our activities are financed and the impact of foreign exchange, taxation and depreciation and amortization charges.

Covenant EBITDA

Covenant EBITDA, as defined in our Senior Credit Facility agreement, is used in determining the Corporations compliance with its covenants. Covenant EBITDA differs from Adjusted EBITDA by the exclusion of bad debt expense, restructuring costs, certain foreign exchange amounts and the deduction of cash lease payments incurred after December 31, 2018.

Operating Earnings (Loss)

We believe that operating earnings (loss) is a useful measure because it provides an indication of the results of our principal business activities before consideration of how those activities are financed and the impact of foreign exchange and taxation. Operating earnings is calculated as follows:

For the three months ended June 30, For the six months ended June 30, (Stated in thousands of Canadian dollars) 2020 2019 2020 2019 Revenue 189,759 359,424 569,243 793,467 Expenses: Operating 106,552 252,049 354,779 540,657 General and administrative 18,449 26,338 37,984 57,368 Restructuring 6,293  16,111 6,438 Depreciation and amortization 81,124 83,327 164,038 170,080 Gain on asset disposals (3,470 ) (7,859 ) (7,079 ) (42,909 ) Impairment reversal    (5,810 ) Operating earnings (loss) (19,189 ) 5,569 3,410 67,643 Foreign exchange (928 ) (3,763 ) 1,763 (5,886 ) Finance charges 28,083 30,385 55,663 61,688 Gain on repurchase of unsecured notes (1,121 ) (1,085 ) (1,971 ) (1,398 ) Earnings (loss) before income taxes (45,223 ) (19,968 ) (52,045 ) 13,239

Funds Provided By (Used In) Operations

We believe that funds provided by (used in) operations, as reported in the Interim Consolidated Statements of Cash Flow, is a useful measure because it provides an indication of the funds our principal business activities generate prior to consideration of working capital, which is primarily made up of highly liquid balances.

Working Capital

We define working capital as current assets less current liabilities as reported on the Interim Consolidated Statement of Financial Position.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION AND STATEMENTS

Certain statements contained in this release, including statements that contain words such as "could", "should", "can", "anticipate", "estimate", "intend", "plan", "expect", "believe", "will", "may", "continue", "project", "potential" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (collectively, "forward-looking information and statements").

In particular, forward looking information and statements include, but are not limited to, the following:

our strategic priorities for 2020;

our capital expenditure plans for 2020;

anticipated activity levels in 2020 and our scheduled infrastructure projects;

anticipated demand for Tier 1 rigs;

the average number of term contracts in place for 2020 and 2021;

anticipated cash outflow savings and liquidity;

potential commercial opportunities and rig contract renewals; and

our future debt reduction plans.

These forward-looking information and statements are based on certain assumptions and analysis made by Precision in light of our experience and our perception of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments and other factors we believe are appropriate under the circumstances. These include, among other things:

the fluctuation in oil prices may pressure customers into reducing or limiting their drilling budgets;

the success of our response to the COVID-19 global pandemic;

the status of current negotiations with our customers and vendors;

customer focus on safety performance;

existing term contracts are neither renewed nor terminated prematurely;

our ability to deliver rigs to customers on a timely basis; and

the general stability of the economic and political environments in the jurisdictions where we operate.

Undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking information and statements. Whether actual results, performance or achievements will conform to our expectations and predictions is subject to a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to:

volatility in the price and demand for oil and natural gas;

fluctuations in the level of oil and natural gas exploration and development activities;

fluctuations in the demand for contract drilling, directional drilling, well servicing and ancillary oilfield services;

our customers inability to obtain adequate credit or financing to support their drilling and production activity;

the success of our response to the COVID-19 global pandemic;

changes in drilling and well servicing technology, which could reduce demand for certain rigs or put us at a competitive advantage;

shortages, delays and interruptions in the delivery of equipment supplies and other key inputs;

liquidity of the capital markets to fund customer drilling programs;

availability of cash flow, debt and equity sources to fund our capital and operating requirements, as needed;

the impact of weather and seasonal conditions on operations and facilities;

competitive operating risks inherent in contract drilling, directional drilling, well servicing and ancillary oilfield services;

ability to improve our rig technology to improve drilling efficiency;

general economic, market or business conditions;

the availability of qualified personnel and management;

a decline in our safety performance which could result in lower demand for our services;

changes in laws or regulations, including changes in environmental laws and regulations such as increased regulation of hydraulic fracturing or restrictions on the burning of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions, which could have an adverse impact on the demand for oil and natural gas;

terrorism, social, civil and political unrest in the foreign jurisdictions where we operate;

fluctuations in foreign exchange, interest rates and tax rates; and

other unforeseen conditions which could impact the use of services supplied by Precision and Precisions ability to respond to such conditions.

Readers are cautioned that the forgoing list of risk factors is not exhaustive. Additional information on these and other factors that could affect our business, operations or financial results are included in reports on file with applicable securities regulatory authorities, including but not limited to Precisions Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2019, which may be accessed on Precisions SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com or under Precisions EDGAR profile at www.sec.gov. The forward-looking information and statements contained in this release are made as of the date hereof and Precision undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.



CONDENSED INTERIM CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF FINANCIAL POSITION (UNAUDITED)

(Stated in thousands of Canadian dollars) June 30, 2020 December 31, 2019 ASSETS Current assets: Cash $ 175,125 $ 74,701 Accounts receivable 192,645 310,204 Inventory 31,502 31,718 Income tax recoverable 1,194 1,142 Total current assets 400,466 417,765 Non-current assets: Deferred tax assets 6,011 4,724 Right of use assets 63,412 66,142 Property, plant and equipment 2,704,377 2,749,463 Intangibles 29,967 31,746 Total non-current assets 2,803,767 2,852,075 Total assets $ 3,204,233 $ 3,269,840 LIABILITIES AND EQUITY Current liabilities: Accounts payable and accrued liabilities $ 148,139 $ 199,478 Income taxes payable 4,285 4,142 Current portion of lease obligation 10,175 12,449 Total current liabilities 162,599 216,069 Non-current liabilities: Share-based compensation 4,785 8,830 Provisions and other 9,655 9,959 Lease obligation 55,727 54,980 Long-term debt 1,450,900 1,427,181 Deferred tax liabilities 26,152 25,389 Total non-current liabilities 1,547,219 1,526,339 Shareholders equity: Shareholders capital 2,291,796 2,296,378 Contributed surplus 70,503 66,255 Deficit (1,023,600 ) (969,456 ) Accumulated other comprehensive income 155,716 134,255 Total shareholders equity 1,494,415 1,527,432 Total liabilities and shareholders equity $ 3,204,233 $ 3,269,840



CONDENSED INTERIM CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF NET EARNINGS (LOSS) (UNAUDITED)

Three Months Ended June 30, Six Months Ended June 30, (Stated in thousands of Canadian dollars, except per share amounts) 2020 2019 2020 2019 Revenue $ 189,759 $ 359,424 $ 569,243 $ 793,467 Expenses: Operating 106,552 252,049 354,779 540,657 General and administrative 18,449 26,338 37,984 57,368 Restructuring 6,293  16,111 6,438 Earnings before income taxes, gain on repurchase of unsecured senior notes, finance charges, foreign exchange, impairment reversal, gain on asset disposals and depreciation and amortization 58,465 81,037 160,369 189,004 Depreciation and amortization 81,124 83,327 164,038 170,080 Gain on asset disposals (3,470 ) (7,859 ) (7,079 ) (42,909 ) Impairment reversal    (5,810 ) Foreign exchange (928 ) (3,763 ) 1,763 (5,886 ) Finance charges 28,083 30,385 55,663 61,688 Gain on repurchase of unsecured senior notes (1,121 ) (1,085 ) (1,971 ) (1,398 ) Earnings (loss) before income taxes (45,223 ) (19,968 ) (52,045 ) 13,239 Income taxes: Current 2,116 1,403 3,175 3,013 Deferred 1,528 (7,570 ) (1,076 ) (987 ) 3,644 (6,167 ) 2,099 2,026 Net earnings (loss) $ (48,867 ) $ (13,801 ) $ (54,144 ) $ 11,213 Net earnings (loss) per share: Basic $ (0.18 ) $ (0.05 ) $ (0.20 ) $ 0.04 Diluted $ (0.18 ) $ (0.05 ) $ (0.20 ) $ 0.04



CONDENSED INTERIM CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE LOSS (UNAUDITED)

Three Months Ended June 30, Six Months Ended June 30, (Stated in thousands of Canadian dollars) 2020 2019 2020 2019 Net earnings (loss) $ (48,867 ) $ (13,801 ) $ (54,144 ) $ 11,213 Unrealized gain (loss) on translation of assets and liabilities of operations denominated in foreign currency (71,311 ) (42,846 ) 85,697 (91,364 ) Foreign exchange gain (loss) on net investment hedge with U.S. denominated debt, net of tax 53,920 29,859 (64,236 ) 68,873 Comprehensive loss $ (66,258 ) $ (26,788 ) $ (32,683 ) $ (11,278 )



CONDENSED INTERIM CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (UNAUDITED)

Three Months Ended June 30, Six Months Ended June 30, (Stated in thousands of Canadian dollars) 2020 2019 2020 2019 Cash provided by (used in): Operations: Net earnings (loss) $ (48,867 ) $ (13,801 ) $ (54,144 ) $ 11,213 Adjustments for: Long-term compensation plans 6,324 3,612 5,621 10,924 Depreciation and amortization 81,124 83,327 164,038 170,080 Gain on asset disposals (3,470 ) (7,859 ) (7,079 ) (42,909 ) Impairment reversal    (5,810 ) Foreign exchange (1,718 ) (3,880 ) 1,154 (6,118 ) Finance charges 28,083 30,385 55,663 61,688 Income taxes 3,644 (6,167 ) 2,099 2,026 Other (823 ) (281 ) (763 ) (159 ) Gain on repurchase of unsecured senior notes (1,121 ) (1,085 ) (1,971 ) (1,398 ) Income taxes paid (3,128 ) (3,550 ) (3,948 ) (3,887 ) Income taxes recovered    1,071 Interest paid (33,548 ) (40,263 ) (53,043 ) (60,496 ) Interest received 139 512 329 718 Funds provided by operations 26,639 40,950 107,956 136,943 Changes in non-cash working capital balances 77,839 65,085 71,475 9,679 104,478 106,035 179,431 146,622 Investments: Purchase of property, plant and equipment (23,927 ) (43,469 ) (35,412 ) (114,431 ) Purchase of intangibles  (26 ) (57 ) (464 ) Proceeds on sale of property, plant and

equipment 5,021 24,575 10,711 82,452 Changes in non-cash working capital balances (1,880 ) 2,536 (5,406 ) (727 ) (20,786 ) (16,384 ) (30,164 ) (33,170 ) Financing: Proceeds from senior credit facility 5,030  5,030  Repurchase of unsecured senior notes (4,911 ) (107,161 ) (45,465 ) (123,833 ) Share repurchase (15 )  (5,259 )  Lease payments (1,897 ) (1,685 ) (3,625 ) (3,357 ) Debt amendment fees (647 )  (668 )  (2,440 ) (108,846 ) (49,987 ) (127,190 ) Effect of exchange rate changes on cash (3,129 ) (1,255 ) 1,144 (2,308 ) Increase in cash 78,123 (20,450 ) 100,424 (16,046 ) Cash, beginning of period 97,002 101,030 74,701 96,626 Cash, end of period $ 175,125 $ 80,580 $ 175,125 $ 80,580



CONDENSED INTERIM CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CHANGES IN EQUITY (UNAUDITED)

(Stated in thousands of Canadian dollars) Shareholders

Capital Contributed

Surplus Accumulated

Other

Comprehensive

Income Deficit Total

Equity Balance at January 1, 2020 $ 2,296,378 $ 66,255 $ 134,255 $ (969,456 ) $ 1,527,432 Net loss for the period    (54,144 ) (54,144 ) Other comprehensive income for the period   21,461  21,461 Share repurchases (5,259 )    (5,259 ) Redemption of non-management director DSUs 677 (502 )  175 Share-based compensation reclassification  (1,498 )   (1,498 ) Share-based compensation expense  6,248   6,248 Balance at June 30, 2020 $ 2,291,796 $ 70,503 $ 155,716 $ (1,023,600 ) $ 1,494,415





(Stated in thousands of Canadian dollars) Shareholders

Capital Contributed

Surplus Accumulated

Other

Comprehensive

Income Deficit Total

Equity Balance at January 1, 2019 $ 2,322,280 $ 52,332 $ 162,014 $ (978,874 ) $ 1,557,752 Lease transition adjustment    2,800 2,800 Net earnings for the period    11,213 11,213 Other comprehensive loss for the period   (22,491 )  (22,491 ) Share-based compensation expense  6,633   6,633 Balance at June 30, 2019 $ 2,322,280 $ 58,965 $ 139,523 $ (964,861 ) $ 1,555,907



SECOND QUARTER 2020 EARNINGS CONFERENCE CALL AND WEBCAST

Precision Drilling Corporation has scheduled a conference call and webcast to begin promptly at 12:00 noon MT (2:00 p.m. ET) on Thursday, July 23, 2020.

The conference call dial in numbers are 1-844-515-9176 or 614-999-9312.

A live webcast of the conference call will be accessible on Precisions website at www.precisiondrilling.com by selecting Investor Relations, then Webcasts & Presentations. Shortly after the live webcast, an archived version will be available for approximately 60 days.

An archived version of the webcast will be available for approximately 60 days. An archived recording of the conference call will be available approximately one hour after the completion of the call until July 29, 2020 by dialing 855-859-2056 or 404-537-3406, passcode 5483895.

About Precision

Precision is a leading provider of safe and High Performance, High Value services to the oil and gas industry. Precision provides customers with access to an extensive fleet of Super Series drilling rigs supported by an industry leading technology platform that offers innovative drilling solutions to deliver efficient, predictable and repeatable results through service differentiation. Precision also offers well service rigs, camps and rental equipment and directional drilling services, all backed by a comprehensive mix of technical support services and skilled, experienced personnel.

Precision is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Precision is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the trading symbol PD and on the New York Stock Exchange under the trading symbol PDS.

For further information, please contact:

Carey Ford, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

713.435.6100

Dustin Honing, Manager, Investor Relations and Corporate Development

403.716.4500

800, 525 - 8th Avenue S.W.

Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2P 1G1

Website: www.precisiondrilling.com




RICHMOND, Va. - A Richmond judge heard arguments Thursday but said he would not immediately issue a ruling in a lawsuit over Virginia Gov. Ralph Northams plans to remove an enormous statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Attorney Gen. Mark Herrings office asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit and dissolve an existing injunction barring the removal of the statue from historic Monument Avenue.

The lawsuit was filed by William C. Gregory, a descendant of signatories to a 1890 deed that transferred the statue, pedestal and ground they sit on to the state. His complaint argues that the state agreed to faithfully guard and affectionately protect them.

Richmond Circuit Court Judge W. Reilly Marchant said the matter was of great importance and deserves a written opinion.

The judge decided an injunction will remain for another 30 days but said he expects to issue a ruling well before then.

Gregorys attorney, Joseph Blackburn Jr., argued that Gregory has legal standing to challenge the governors decision to remove the statue and criticized Herring for describing him in a legal brief as a heckler.

He has a very strong attachment to the Lee monument and to describe him as such things is insulting, Blackburn said.

Blackburn also criticized Northam as tyrannical, saying as the governor he doesnt have the right to establish public policy and tear down the statue.

He executes the laws; he doesnt make them, Blackburn said.

Virginia Solicitor General Toby Heytens said Gregory was arguing that he has the perpetual right to veto a states right to decide what to display on its own property.

No one can require a sovereign Commonwealth to do something in perpetuity, forever, he said.

Northams administration has been readying plans to remove the enormous statue  should the court clear the way from a soaring pedestal. He announced plans to take it down in early June, citing the pain felt across the country about the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

The statue was unveiled before a massive crowd in May 1890, at a time when the Civil War and Reconstruction were over and Jim Crow racial segregation laws were on the rise.

Now cloaked in graffiti, it and other nearby monuments have become a rallying point during social justice protests and occasional clashes with police.

The 21-foot-high (6.4-meter-high) equestrian statue, which the state has said weighs about 12 tons (11 metric tonnes), sits atop a pedestal nearly twice that tall.

Gregory testified Thursday that its removal would cause him emotional distress and would be a a slap in the face to his family.

He said he is not a member of any Civil War groups and considers flying the Confederate flag a racial act, but considered the Lee statue a tribute to a great Southern gentleman.

The state called nationally recognized historian Edward Ayers as an expert witness.

Ayers discussed the history of post-Civil War America, how the effort to establish statues to Confederate leaders emerged and the development of Monument Avenue as a prominent residential district.

He said the Lee statue was more than just a tribute, it was part of an effort to improve the image of the Confederacy at a time when whites were also stifling Black political power.

By its very size you can see that this is not about remembering a lost man, Ayers testified.

Richmond Circuit Court Judge Bradley Cavedo, who issued an initial injunction in June and later extended it, dismissed Gregorys initial complaint but allowed him time to amend it, saying he wanted Gregorys attorney to have another shot at addressing issues of legal standing.

Cavedo recused himself earlier this month, citing the location of his home in the vicinity of the Lee monument. He wrote that he was unaware at the outset of the case that he lived in the Monument Avenue Historic District, a 14-block area that contains the Lee statue.

The judge also heard arguments on a request for a temporary injunction in a separate lawsuit over Northams removal plan. That lawsuit was filed by five plaintiffs, four of whom own property in the vicinity of the statue and a fifth who is identified as the trustee of a property owner. Marchant did not immediately rule on the injunction request, but said he plans to issue a written decision soon.

The lawsuit alleges that removal of the statue could result in the loss of the National Historic Landmark designation, which will have a substantial adverse impact  on the plaintiffs, including the loss of favourable tax treatment and reduction in property values.

After the hearings, Herring said hes hopeful the judge will conclude that the governor has the authority to remove the statue.

This monument is a divisive, antiquated relic and it needs to come down, Herring said.
KALAMAZOO, MI -- Students and staff will have to do their part this fall in order for in-person education to be safe and successful at Western Michigan University, according to the university president.

Wearing a mask when indoors and avoiding large parties and gatherings will be key to keeping the entire WMU community safe when students and faculty return to Kalamazoo for the fall semester, President Edward Montgomery said in an interview this week with MLive.
The dispute over seabed mineral rights has led to increased navy deployments by both NATO members in the region, where a Turkish research vessel, the Oruc Reis, is being prepared for a survey mission

Greece warned Thursday it will do ``whatever is necessary'' to defend its sovereign rights in response to plans by neighboring Turkey to proceed with an oil-and-gas research mission south of Greek islands in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The dispute over seabed mineral rights has led to increased navy deployments by both NATO members in the region, where a Turkish research vessel, the Oruc Reis, is being prepared for a survey mission.

Greek government spokesman Stelios Petsas described the mission as a direct violation of Greek sovereignty.

``The government is underlining to all parties that Greece will not accept a violation of its sovereignty and will do whatever is necessary to defend its sovereign rights,'' Petsas said.

Greece and Turkey have been at odds for decades over sea boundaries but recent discoveries of natural gas and drilling plans across the East Mediterranean have exacerbated the dispute.

Turkey argues Greek islands should not be included in calculating maritime zones of economic interest - a position that Greece says is a clear violation of international law. Greece has around 6,000 islands and smaller islets in the Aegean and Ionian Seas, more than 200 of them inhabited.

The survey ship Oruc Reis remains anchored at the port of Antalya, in southeastern Turkey, but a navigational telex issued by the port says the mission planned through Aug. 2 remains ``valid and effective.''

In Ankara, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the country's Supreme Military Council and said he had full confidence in the capability of his country's military.

``Historic successes on different fronts, from Syria to Libya, from the Eastern Mediterranean to the fight against terrorism, demonstrate the strength of our country and the capabilities of our armed forces,'' Erdogan said.

The European Union and the United States have called on Turkey to halt its survey plans.

``I want to echo the clear message from Washington and elsewhere in Europe, urging Turkish authorities to halt operations that raise tensions in the region, such as plans to survey for natural resources in areas where Greece and Cyprus assert jurisdiction in the Eastern Mediterranean,'' said Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Greece.

``This is a complex strategic space. We want our friends and allies in the region to approach resource development in the spirit of cooperation that provides a foundation for durable energy security and shared economic prosperity. Unilateral provocative actions were against this aim.'' Pyatt spoke in the northeast Greek port of Alexandroupolis, where around 2,000 U.S. service members, dozens of helicopters and hundreds of vehicles disembarked. They were to take part in multinational training exercises and be sent to several NATO countries as part of regular troop rotation.

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Scandal was in the air, yet the Illinois Commerce Commission failed to call a hearing focused on ethics at ComEd. And when it did finally inch into action following the feds bombshell announcement, the commission decided to take up only the narrowest of tasks: making certain ComEds $200 million federal fine doesnt come out of ratepayers pockets.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 22:47:45|Editor: huaxia

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by Pankaj Yadav

NEW DELHI, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The total number of COVID-19 cases surpassed the 1.2-million mark in India reaching 1,238,635, as the death toll reached 29,861, according to the latest data from the health ministry on Thursday.

The health ministry said 1,129 new deaths due to COVID-19, besides fresh 45,720 positive cases, were reported during the past 24 hours across India.

This is the highest single-day jump in terms of both fresh COVID-19 cases and deaths in the country so far.

"As on 8:00 a.m. (local time) Thursday, 29,861 deaths related to novel coronavirus have been recorded in the country," reads information released by the ministry.

On Wednesday morning, the number of COVID-19 cases in the country was 1,192,915, and the death toll 28,732.

The health ministry claimed that India was witnessing a significant rise in the number of cases recovered from COVID-19.

"For the second day in a row, recoveries in a single day continue to post significant rise," said a ministry statement, adding that the last 24 hours saw the highest ever single day number of patients cured and discharged.

It further stated that there has been appreciable growth in the recovery rate, which stands at 63.18 percent. Higher number of patients getting cured and discharged has contributed to increasing gap between recovered and total active cases, it added.

According to the ministry, the progress in the recovery rate could be attributed to the government-led COVID-19 management strategies.

"Sustained efforts by the Centre and States and union territories are resulting in more effective containment, aggressive testing, and prompt and efficient clinical treatment strategies. These are guided by the teams of domain experts in the ministry," said the statement.

According to ministry officials, 782,607 people have so far been discharged from hospitals after showing improvement.

"The number of active cases in the country right now is 426,167," reads the information.

The government of northeastern state of Manipur has decided to reimpose a strict two-week lockdown with effect from 14:00 Thursday. Similar decisions are being taken in a few cities and towns considering a spurt in COVID-19 cases.

The administration of Bhopal, the capital city of central state of Madhya Pradesh, has also announced a complete lockdown for 10 days from Friday.

Presently the country has entered Unlock 2.0 phase, though restrictions remain in full force inside the COVID-19 Containment Zones.

As the COVID-19 cases continue to rise, human trials of vaccine- COVAXIN, developed by Bharat Biotech, started at the government-run hospital PGI Rohtak in northern state of Haryana on Friday.

"Three subjects were enrolled today. All have tolerated the vaccine very well. There were no adverse effects," tweeted the state's health minister Anil Vij on July 17. Enditem
COLONIE  The town of Colonie will be introducing legislation Thursday night that would allow individuals to be fined for aggressive panhandling.

People would be prohibited from coming close to people and asking for money in front of places like ATMs, bus stops, parking lots, overpasses and if panhandlers block cars or are in roadways. According to the legislation, the purpose of the new rule is to promote tourism, business and preserve the quality of suburban life.

For the last month, Colonie has seen a spike in panhandling complaints, Town attorney Michael Magguilli said.

Were receiving quite a few complaints from residents and it got to the point where we wanted to take action, Magguilli said. I dont think its ever been on this level before.

Colonie Police Chief Jonathan Teale said nuisance calls are typically far higher in the warmer months. He said its hard to determine how many of the calls are specifically panhandlers because all nuisance calls are classified as person annoying. Teale said the department gets about 400 to 500 of those calls a year.

The law would call for violators to be fined between $25 - $250. A second violation within the same year could lead to up to 15 days of jail time. In lieu of a fine, the court may impose an appropriate alternative sentence.

However, there could be some First Amendment issues with the proposed law, Cameron Macdonald, Executive Director of the Government Justice Center, said.

He said the law could be seen as an infringement of free speech because it targets a specific type of speech. Many panhandlers stand at traffic signals holding signs. In Colonie, common locations for panhandling are at the traffic lights to the entrance to Target on Central Avenue and at the I-87 off ramp to Wolf Road.

For instance, on election day you see people on a corner waving candidates signs and honking, Macdonald said. They are certainly singling out one type of speech.

A similar law in Sacramento was struck down by the district court in 2018 because it limited certain types of speech in public places, similar to the Colonie law. Macdonald said panhandling legislation like this often gets struck down by the courts across the country.

The ATM, public areas and all those public place restrictions get shut down regularly all over the country, Macdonald said.

Magguilli said he did his research to make sure the law was constitutional.

What we tried to do is target specific behavior, Magguilli said. Thats why this targets aggressive and unsafe panhandling and not all forms of panhandling.

The town has a page-long definition of aggressive behavior or manner in the law, which includes the following actions: touching someone, coming within six feet of them, following them, blocking passage of an individual or vehicle, and threatening them.

However, there are other laws on the books that address those behaviors, Macdonald said.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

When asked, if approaching someone at an ATM was aggressive behavior, town attorney Magguilli said he felt it was inherently aggressive.

If youre in a place where people feel alone or vulnerable, the last thing you want is someone coming up to you and asking for money, Magguilli said.

I feel bad for the people calling in, Magguilli continued. They are truly afraid.

Liz Hitt, the executive director of Homeless and Travelers Aid Society, said panhandling laws like these dont do anything for the homeless, but create obstacles and give tickets.

It just means another court date and another barrier for them as they work toward income stability and housing instability, Hitt said. They dont help the homeless and the hungry, they make the people driving by feeling better.

She does contend she understands why people may be uncomfortable with panhandling. She does hear sometimes that people believe the panhandlers are scammers. There have been previous reports of panhandlers being organized and going from location to location. She said while this does happen, its rare.

Its pretty miserable, Hitt said about panhandling. I dont think anyone does this because they have other options.

A public hearing regarding the law will be held August 13 at 7:00 p.m. in Colonie Memorial Town Hall.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 22:58:46|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian Interior Ministry released on Thursday 2,130 prisoners in memory of the 68th anniversary of the Egyptian July 23 Revolution in 1952, according to a ministry statement.

A total of 1,909 prisoners were released upon a presidential pardon, while 221 others were released conditionally.

According to the Egyptian Constitution, the President can issue pardon decrees for prisoners who had received final court rulings that cannot be appealed.

The President usually issues a pardon decree on public holidays, including two religious Muslim feasts, the holy month of Ramadan and the July 23 Revolution Day.

In June, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi issued a decree pardoning 399 prisoners, including young people and those with health problems. Enditem
YEREVAN, JULY 23, ARMENPRESS. The European Court of Human Rights satisfied the application on taking urgent measures over Narek Sardaryan's case on July 22. Sardaryan has been kept in captivity in Azerbaijan since July 8, ARMENPRESS reports Artak Zeynalyan, representative of Narek Sardaryans legal successor, wrote on his Facebook page.

According to Zeynalyan, the European Court demanded Azerbaijan to take the following measures  give information about the location and living conditions of Narek Sardaryan, give information about his health situation (with approved medical certificate), give information if the medical examination has been done by an independent specialist and also give information if a criminal case has been initiated. If yes, the ECHR demands Azerbaijan to provide details and documents concerning the case.

The European Court of Human Rights may, under Rule 39 of its Rules of Court, indicate interim measures to any State party to the European Convention on Human Rights. Interim measures are urgent measures which, according to the Courts well-established practice, apply only where there is an imminent risk of irreparable harm.

Farmer Narek Sardayan, born in 1990, a resident of Nerkin Khndzoresk village of Armenias Syunik province, was working in the fields and caring for his livestock on July 8. He went to retrieve his farm animals but lost orientation, getting lost and accidentally crossing into the territory of Nakhijevan where he was captured.

Armenias National Security Service earlier said that measures are being taken to return the Armenian citizen from the Azerbaijani captivity.

Editing and Translating by Tigran Sirekanyan
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Market Analysis

Global Potato Chips Market is witnessing a boom fueled by the changes in food patterns of the masses. Potato chips is one of the most easily available snacks in the market that appeals to consumers belonging to all age groups. Although the market has already penetrated the target segment, it is anticipated to attract a larger consumer base in the years to come. Also, the rising demand for convenience food in conjunction with a sedentary lifestyle is expected to augment the potato chips market over the next couple of years.

Flavor innovation is one of the key areas of focus for the market players. In order to capitalize on the market growth, the industry leaders are emphasizing on the introduction of new flavors to satiate the taste buds of the consumers and gain an edge over competitors. In addition, the emphasis is also placed on the packaging of the product. Investments are projected to increase in packaging for attracting the consumers. It is expected to have a positive influence on the revenue acceleration of the market participants over the next few years.

Competitive Dashboard

The prominent players studies in this MRFR report on Potato Chips Market Size are PepsiCo, Inc. (U.S.)., Diamond Foods, Inc. (U.S.), CALBEE, Inc. (Japan), Herr Foods Inc. (U.S.), Intersnack Group (Germany), Lorenz Bahlsen Snack-World Group (Germany), and Snyders-Lance (U.S.)

Industry News

In April 2019, Vlasic, an American brand for pickles, has announced the launch of a range of snacks including pickle flavored potato chips to Bigs Vlasic Dill Sunflower Seeds.

In March 2019, PrimoHoagies, a United States east coast-based, fast casual restaurant chain, revealed its plan of introducing Italian hoagie-flavored, potato chips by the end of this year.

In January 2019, Potato supplier Albert Bartlett has announced the launch of its branded chilled Rooster Homestyle Chips at UK retailer Sainsbury.

Market Segmentation

By flavor, the global potato chips market has been segmented into salt & pepper, barbecue, cheddar & sour cream, classic potato chips, cheese & onion, spicy jalapeno, and others. Among these, the salt & pepper segment is expected to maintain its dominant position over the assessment period.

By product type, the potato chips market has been segmented into salted, chili, plain, flavored, and others. The salted and chili segments are expected to dominate the growth trajectory of the market in Asia Pacific over the next couple of years.

By specialty food type, the global potato chips market has been segmented into gluten-free, GMO- free, vegetarian, kosher, organic, and others.

By distribution channel, the potato chips market has been segmented into supermarket/hypermarket, convenience store, e-commerce, and others.

Access Full Report Details and Order this Premium Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/potato-chips-market-2991

Regional Analysis

Global Potato Chips Market by Region, has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and rest of the world (ROW). North America is presently holding the maximum share of the market and is projected to retain its prominence over the assessment period. The efforts directed towards the production oh healthier potato chips are anticipated to augment the regional market in the upcoming years. Asia Pacific is poised to hold the second spot and maintain it through the forecast period. Increasing population in conjunction with rising purchasing power is expected to have a favourable impact on the growth of the potato chips market in the region.

Related Covid-19 Analysis on FnB Reports:

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/report/covid-19-impact-a2-milk-market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/report/covid-19-impact-alternative-sweeteners-market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/report/covid-19-impact-artisan-bakery-market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/report/covid-19-impact-rtd-beverages-market

NOTE: Our Team of Researchers are Studying Covid19 and its Impact on Various Industry Verticals and wherever required we will be considering Covid19 Footprints for Better Analysis of Market and Industries. Cordially get in Touch for More Details.
Kalyanaraman said the county would prefer to move in concert with other jurisdictions but cannot wait to do so, given an uptick in hospitalization numbers. The rate of transmission in Anne Arundel, which indicates how many people are infected by each newly infected person, has gone from below 1 in June to 1.28 this week.
Premier Doug Ford insists he was blindsided by a Progressive Conservative MPPs vote against the government on key COVID-19 legislation that forced him to eject her from caucus.

In his first public comments on the defenestration of Belinda Karahalios, Ford Wednesday said he had a phenomenal relationship with the Cambridge MPP.

I was with her for two days last week. Never said a word to me. Didnt mention anything to me, the premier said.

Karahalios stunned him Tuesday by voting against Bill 195, which expands the governments emergency authority and is opposed by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Ontario Federation of Labour.

It easily passed 60-28.

One hour later, Ford turfed Karahalios from caucus, dispatching her to sit as an Independent with other defrocked Tories, Randy Hillier (Lanark-Kingston-Frontenac) and Jim Wilson (Simcoe-Grey).

The premier said he was left with no choice.

This is one piece of legislation that is absolutely critical, he said of the bill that enables the government to impose emergency orders like closing public places or restricting large gatherings without being in a declared state of emergency.

But Karahalios, who was not available for comment, is not the only Tory concerned about the law she described as an unnecessary overreach on our parliamentary democracy.

PC sources said as many as a dozen MPPs and cabinet ministers privately expressed reservations about the bill.

Even though it was not a confidence motion that could topple the government, Tory MPPs were whipped to support it.

While Ford admitted there are some good heated discussions behind closed doors in caucus, at the end of the day, you come out united.

Asked if he were worried about dissension in the ranks, the premier said: Not at all. Anyone can call me and thats the first Ive heard about it.

Government house leader Paul Calandra suggested Karahalios could be allowed back into the Tory fold before the 2022 election.

If Ms. Karahalios indicates at some point time in the future that she would like to return to the Progressive Conservative caucus, that is something that we would bring to the caucus and allow a vote from the full caucus on, said Calandra.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said Karahalios had a moment of principle, daring to contradict Ford, like MPP Amanda Simard (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell), who quit the PC caucus in 2018 to protest cuts to French-language services and now sits as a Liberal.

He simply cannot tolerate a difference of opinion, Horwath said of the premier.

Because Ontarios state of emergency, which began March 17 and was extended numerous times, expires Friday, the government wanted to pass Bill 195 quickly in order to keep emergency orders on the books.

Karahalios warned the bill essentially silences every single Ontario MPP on the most important issue facing our legislature today.

The Ontario Federation of Labour, which represents 1 million workers in 54 unions, said the new law is anti-democratic and overrides the rights of Ontarians.

Legislative decisions must not be made behind closed doors. The people have a right to know about and respond to government actions, said OFL President Patty Coates.

Bill 195 is a blatant overreach by Doug Ford and an assault on democracy, said Coates, warning a legal challenge is certainly in the cards, and increased labour action is also clearly on the table.

There are now 72 Tory MPPs in the 124-member legislature, including Speaker Ted Arnott, who does not caucus with the government, 40 New Democrats, eight Liberals, the three ex-PC Independents, and Green Leader Mike Schreiner.

Robert Benzie is the Stars Queens Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has extended his condolences to Prime Minister Modi, over the deaths caused by the Assam floods. At current estimates the death toll has reached 89 people, and around 26 lakh have been affected by it.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday (local time) extended condolences to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the loss of lives due to floods in various parts of India. Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his deepest condolences to President of India Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi over the tragic consequences of the floods in several states of the country, the Russian Presidents office said in a statement. Russia shares the grief of those who lost their loved ones to the rampant elements, and hopes for a speedy recovery of all those injured, Putin said in the message.



As per the India Meteorological Department (IMD) reports, northeastern states will continue to experience heavy downpour while parts of north India will experience heavy to moderate showers in isolated locations.

The flood situation in Assam again deteriorated on Wednesday as two more persons died in Barpeta and districts, taking the death toll to 89. Around 26.32 lakh people in 26 of the states 33 districts have been affected by the floods, as per the states disaster management authority.

Also Read: After Houston, U.S hints at closing additional Chinese diplomatic missions

Also Read: China engaged in massive illegal spying for years, U.S raises alarm bells on peeping tom China

Several parts of Bihar have been submerged in floodwaters with Director-General of NDRF Satya Pradhan had said that a total of 19 teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) are being deployed in the state to deal with the floods situation.

Several people have been forced to set up camps along the national highway (NH-27) after their homes got partially submerged in floodwaters in Muzaffarpurs Kanti area of the state.

Also Read: Unacceptable behaviours: U.S chides China on Galwan clash

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The magic that allows Pero to learn, read, and execute gesture commands is through its IMU sensor which is located within the top portion of the device. The in-house developed GR algorithm synergizes with existing Palmcat technology without the need for third-party hardware or software.

After Pero was first conceptualized in 2017, Palmcat Corp CEO, Jung-Mo Kim and his team worked to bring Pero to life. After years of development, the team decided that its product launch would be best for Kickstarter. Now, the company is proud to announce that Pero has surpassed its initial funding goal of $10,000 and is on track to become one of the top 1% of all Kickstarter campaigns.

While most existing computer accessories are beneficial for the average user, these accessories are not necessarily classified as intuitive. Pero, is a wearable device that allows its user to gain total UI control through gesture commands. The device comes with pre-set gestures, but can be customized on the Pero app which is available on both Windows and Apple products.

The magic that allows Pero to learn, read, and execute gesture commands is through its IMU sensor which is located within the top portion of the device. The in-house developed GR algorithm synergizes with existing Palmcat technology without the need of third-party hardware or software.

As of now, Pero can recognize up to 48 unique gestures, but the team is working on increasing that number after its Kickstarter campaign comes to an end. These gestures are also unique for separate platforms which include, but are not limited to Windows and YouTube.

Pero is still available for pre-order through its Kickstarter campaign. Kickstarter exclusive prices, which are limited in amount, start at $79 plus shipping. This reflects a 39% discount off its MSRP value. To learn more about Pero and its features, please visit Pero's Kickstarter page. Any editors, journalists, or influencers interested in receiving a sample for review are encouraged to submit an inquiry through the Kickstarter page as well.
A three-year-old boy from South Carolina has died after officials say he accidentally shot himself in the head at a Columbia apartment complex.

Deputies with the Richland County Sheriff's Office were called to the Wyndham Pointe Apartments on Brighton Hill Road at around 6pm for a report of a shooting.

By the time they arrived, the toddler's family had already rushed him to the hospital.

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Liam Myers, 3, has been identified as the child who accidentally shot and killed himself in Columbia, South Carolina, on Wednesday evening

The three-year-old fatally shot himself in the head at an apartment on Brighton Hill Road

Officers at the scene were told by a witness that the boy, identified by the county coroner on Thursday as Liam Myers, had accidentally fired a gun, with the bullet striking him in the head, WISTV reported.

Liam was pronounced dead at the hospital an hour after the incident.

It is unknown at this time how the boy was able to gain access to the loaded firearm, described in a redact incident report obtained by DailyMail.com as a Glock 45.

Police later found the 9mm semi-automatic handgun stashed under a mattress in the blood-spattered apartment.

According to the report, several adults, including Liam's 22-year-old mother, were in the apartment talking when they heard a gunshot go off in another room.

Officials said the boy did not live at the apartment complex where he was shot. He lived with his family at another apartment complex in northwest Columbia, reported WISTV.

Deputies were told by a witness that the child fired the gun accidentally at the Wyndham Pointe Apartments

Officials said Liam did not live in the apartment where the shooting happened. It is still unclear how he got his hands on the loaded gun

Family members took to Facebook on Thursday to mourn the child's tragic death.

His aunt shared multiple photos of Liam laughing and playing with his young cousins, and wrote in a status update that he was her younger brother's only son.

'Rest In Heaven Young King I love you baby boy,' she added.

Liam's father, Devin Myers, also expressed his grief in a separate social media post, revealing that an hour before the shooting, the toddler called him on the phone and asked to come stay at his house.

'Now you can always be at daddys house and watch over and protect me,' Myers wrote.

As of Thursday afternoon, no one has been arrested or charged in connection to the boy's death, but officials are still investigating, according to WLTX.

Devin Myers, who is black, made national headlines in August 2019 when he was seen in a viral Facebook Live video being detained by Michigan police officers for 20 minutes after a white woman called 911 to report that he was looking at her 'suspiciously' while she was parking her car in Royal Oak.

Liam's father, Devin Myers, made headlines last year when he was seen in a viral video being detained in Michigan after a white woman called the police on him

Myers, who remained calm throughout the ordeal, could be heard apologizing to the officers for wasting their time. He was eventually allowed to leave after a supervising officers arrived on the scene.

The traffic stop sparked a civil rights investigation by the state attorney general and led to the resignation of one of the officers who stopped Myers.

A month later, Myers was arrested in Michigan on a charge of fleeing state police stemming from an incident that took place in July of last year, in which the 20-year-old allegedly led police on a chase with speeds reaching 124mph.
WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT

A Perth mother says the states mental health system failed her gravely ill teen daughter who was hit by a car after walking into traffic in Bentley on Tuesday.

Meron Savage is preparing to turn off the life support for her 13-year-old daughter Kate, who suffered critical injuries after being hit by a car on Albany Highway just moments after leaving an appointment with the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service.

She stopped at the curb and she turned around to look at us, and she smiled, and she leapt in front of a car, and she hasn't woken up since, Ms Savage told Nine News Perth reporter Jerrie Demasi.
ARLINGTON, Va., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Leonardo DRS, Inc. announced today that the company has raised $80,000 to support the American Red Cross in the organization's efforts to continue to deliver their lifesaving mission and help individuals, families and communities amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company donated $50,000 and its employees $30,000 during an ongoing campaign that began just less than two months ago. Leonardo DRS chose the American Red Cross because of its wide reach to communities across the country and the specific support and relief provided to Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, including support for the U.S. military and members of their families.

"We are thankful to our employees across the country for participating in this campaign to raise funds for this essential cause," said Leonardo DRS CEO William J. Lynn. "We are honored to help the Red Cross as they continue their critical mission during this public health crisis, and hope that our gift helps the wide range of people in need across the United States," he added.

"The Red Cross is grateful for the support of Leonardo DRS in ensuring that we can continue to serve the people of this community, while in the midst of a global pandemic," said Jessica Adams, Executive Director, American Red Cross of the National Capital Area. "The donations they have raised help ensure that the Red Cross is able to provide its lifesaving mission during this public health emergency. This includes helping patients in need of blood and providing critical relief services to people affected by disasters big and small."

Communities across the country count on the American Red Cross for help every day  and their work never stops, even during this coronavirus crisis. The Red Cross continues to deliver its lifesaving mission each day, including supplying blood products for patients in need, collecting plasma from individuals who are fully recovered from COVID-19 to help with treatment, helping families after disasters of all sizes by making sure they have a safe place to stay and food to eat, offering CPR and first aid courses (both online and in-class where permitted), and supporting military families and veterans with emergency communication messages and online workshops.

Leonardo DRS employees have a strong history of stepping up to the challenge of helping communities during natural disasters and other crises.

About Leonardo DRS

Leonardo DRS is a prime contractor, leading technology innovator and supplier of integrated products, services and support to military forces, intelligence agencies and defense contractors worldwide. The company specializes in naval and maritime systems, ground combat mission command and network computing, global satellite communications and network infrastructure, avionics systems, and intelligence and security solutions. Additionally, the company builds power systems and electro-optical/infrared systems for a wide range of commercial customers. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, Leonardo DRS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Leonardo S.p.A. See the full range of capabilities at www.LeonardoDRS.com and on Twitter @LeonardoDRSnews.

About the American Red Cross:

The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies about 40 percent of the nation's blood; teaches skills that save lives; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a not-for-profit organization that depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, please visit the American Red Cross of the National Capital & Greater Chesapeake Region's page at redcross.org/ncgc, or find us on social media at @RedCrossNCGC.

For additional information please contact:

Michael Mount

Senior Director, Public Affairs

571-447-4624

[email protected]

Twitter: @LeonardoDRSnews

SOURCE Leonardo DRS, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.drs.com


New Delhi, July 23 : The ruling Communist Party of China has taken yet another step to reboot the stature of its General Secretary Xi Jinping at par with Mao Zedong, the founding father of the Party State, whose tempestuous rule, marked by loss of millions of lives, brought China to the brink of collapse around the time of his death in 1976.

On Tuesday, a book on Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy was released in Beijing. The publication amplified a key dimension of Xi Jinping Thought for a "new era", unveiled in October 2017 during the 19th party congress of the CPC.

During that twice-a-decade assemblage, Xi was elevated to Mao's stature, as he became the only Chinese leader after PRC's founding patriarch, whose Thought was enshrined in the Party's constitution. Even the status of the architect of China's reforms, Deng Xiaoping, compared to Xi, was symbolically dwarfed. The Party constitution has only recognized the contribution of Deng's Theory-a rung below that of Mao and Xi's Thought.

In 2016, Xi had also been designated as "core" leader-a title that was reserved only for select Chinese leaders with near absolute power including Mao and Deng.

Yesterday, the mandarins in Beijing decided that reaffirming Xi's unchallenged authority on top of the China's ruling tree, at par with Mao-the unrivaled strongman that the People's Republic of China (PRC) has produced so far-had become urgent, following the Covid-19 pandemic.

China has been facing a tsunami of accusations that it had either deliberately or inadvertently spread the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing the CPC to make a fundamental choice. The Party could either dig into the trenches and defend against the global onslaught. Conversely, it could go on the offensive, by demonstrating its raw military power as a deterrent, backed by a demonstration of complete political cohesion under Xi.

Faced with the dilemma, Beijing decided to mount a raging-bull approach. It began flexing its muscles in two geographic theaters simultaneously. The People's Liberation Army (PLA), headed by Xi as the commander-in-chief, intruded into Ladakh in a face-off with a resurgent India. In the West Pacific, the PLA Navy (PLAN) began to show the flag to enforce its maritime claims in resource rich South China Sea. While the Indian armed forces have stood up to the PLA in Ladakh, the Americans sent in two aircraft carrier task forces in the South China Sea after unambiguously rejecting all Chinese claims in these waters, which are contested by key Asean countries including Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Brunei.

In the back-and-forth play, the Chinese decided to institutionalize Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy, with the formation of Xi Jinping Diplomatic Thought Research Center. This was to let the world know that current CPC leadership under XI was rock solid-perhaps even stronger after the onset of Covid-19.

During the inaugural of the Center, Chinese Foreign Minister and state councilor Wang Yi also made it astonishingly transparent that Xi's China continued to harbor ambitions of a Middle Kingdom 2.0. Under the refurbished doctrine, Beijing, as in imperial China, aspired to become the principal "universal" hegemon, replenished by several tributary states which, in turn, will be offered protection by the "suzerain" residing in Beijing .

"China today is approaching the realization of the dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation as never before, and approaching the center of the world stage as never before," Wang declared emphatically, echoing Middle Kingdom aspirations.

He also made it plain that in the era of Xi Jinping's Diplomatic Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era, China had arrived at a stage where it would exercise leadership in shaping the global agenda. "We take the initiative to lead the reform of the global governance system, promote the development of globalization in a more inclusive and inclusive direction, and promote the evolution of the international order in a more just and reasonable direction," Wang observed.

In the "two centenary goals" encapsulating China's Middle Kingdom dreams, Xi had declared during the 19th Party Congress that China would become a "moderately prosperous society" in 2020 and an unrivaled fully developed country by 2050, marking the centenary of PRC's formation.

"It now seems evident that the Chinese President is essentially seeking to return China to the traditional position it has exercised in Asia through much of its long history as the dominant regional power, to which other countries must defer or pay tribute," observed Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times in an article in the LSE IDEAS special Report.

He added: "When the process of reform and opening began in China in 1979, the country found itself in a historically unfamiliar and deeply humiliating situation... Under these circumstances, China was forced to adopt a historically unfamiliar posture of humility. Throughout the first years of the policy of reform and opening, which began in the late 1970s under Deng Xiaoping, China made every effort to be friendly and co-operative with its booming capitalist neighbours." Under the "Zhongguo" or Middle Kingdom imagination, which can be traced to the Zhou dynasty, Chinese imperial dynasties had combined trade and commerce with ruthless military force, enabling them to forge a tributary system that intruded into parts of Central Asia, the Korean Peninsula, and throughout Southeast Asia, with the intent of consolidating the central heartland.

In China's calculus of achieving complete regional, in fact, global dominance, India, a rising economy, whose geo-cultural heft collides, and often overwhelms, Chinese soft power on either side of the Malacca straits, presents a formidable obstacle.

By the second half of the 21st century, our biggest opponent will definitely be India, acknowledges Xilu.com, a Chinese website, which is part of the media universe of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

With Xi's reaffirmation as leader at par with Mao, India confronts a "reality check" presenting the unvarnished truth that the contest between two rising civilizational states, with comprehensive national power, may have only just begun.

(This content is being carried under an arrangement with indianarrative.com)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Work From Home

New Delhi: The Department of Telecommunications said that it has extended connectivity norms for work from home for information technology and business process outsourcing companies till December 31.

It is said that around 85% of the IT workforce in India is currently working from home.

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Work From HomeDoT has further extended the relaxations in the Terms and Conditions for Other Service Providers (OSPs) upto 31st December 2020 to facilitate work from home in view of the on going concern due to #Covid19, the department tweeted.

The government imposed a nationwide lockdown in March to combat the spread of the coronavirus. Following this, the Department of Telecommunications had relaxed certain norms for IT/ITes companies to permit employees to work from home till April 30, and then extended the deadline to July 31.

CoronavirusIndia on Thursday recorded nearly 46,000 cases, taking the total number of cases to above the 12-lakh mark while death toll in the country is nearly 30,000.
Lockheed Martin and Fincantieri Marinette Marine marked the beginning of construction on Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) 29, the future USS Beloit, with a ceremony in Marinette.

Lockheed Martin and Fincantieri Marinette Marine marked the beginning of construction on Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) 29, the future USS Beloit, with a ceremony in Marinette.

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During the ceremony, the ships sponsors initials were welded onto a keel plate that will travel with the ship throughout its life. (Picture source: Lockheed Martin)

As part of a shipbuilding tradition dating back centuries, a shipyard worker welded into the ships keel plate the initials of Major General Marcia M. Anderson (U.S. Army, Retired), USS Beloit ship sponsor and a Beloit, Wisconsin, native. This plate will be affixed to the ship and travel with Beloit throughout its commissioned life.

LCS 29 will be the 15th Freedom-variant LCS and will join a class of more than 30 ships. To date, four Freedom-variant LCS have deployed to support U.S. Navy presence and peacekeeping missions. In May, LCS 7 (USS Detroit) partnered with a U.S. Navy destroyer and Coast Guard teams to serve interdiction missions in the U.S. Southern Command Area of Responsibility.

In total, there are more than 500,000 nautical miles under the keel of Freedom-variant LCS. The ship delivers advanced capability in anti-submarine, surface, and mine countermeasure missions, and was designed to evolve with the changing security environment. As near-peer competition from large nation-states increases, Lockheed Martin is partnering with the Navy to evolve LCS to meet these threats. Targeted upgrades are already underway with naval strike missiles being installed in support of upcoming deployments. Future installs of improved electronic warfare and decoy launching systems are under development.

USS Freedom (LCS 1), the lead ship of the U.S. Navys Freedom-class of littoral combat ships. (Picture source: USN photo by MC1 James R. Evans)

LCS 29 is the first Navy ship to be named after Beloit, Wisconsin, and the ships sponsor has personal ties to Beloit. During a long career with the U.S. military, Major General Anderson became the first African American woman to obtain the rank of major general in the U. S. Army and U. S. Army Reserve. As a citizen-soldier, Anderson was employed for 28 years by the United States Courts, where she served as the Clerk of the Bankruptcy Court, Western District of Wisconsin, located in Madison, Wisconsin, until her retirement in late 2019.

Beloit is one of six LCS in various stages of construction and test at the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard.
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Linkedin Marlowe Hood (Agence France-Presse) Paris, France  Thu, July 23, 2020 09:40 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668aa17d 2 Science & Tech ancient,artifacts,human Free

Tools excavated from a cave in central Mexico are strong evidence that humans were living in North America at least 30,000 years ago, some 15,000 years earlier than previously thought, scientists said Wednesday.

Artefacts, including 1,900 stone tools, showed human occupation of the high-altitude Chiquihuite Cave over a roughly 20,000 year period, they reported in two studies, published in Nature.

"Our results provide new evidence for the antiquity of humans in the Americas," Ciprian Ardelean, an archeologist at the Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas and lead author of one of the studies, told AFP.

"There are only a few artifacts and a couple of dates from that range," he said, referring radiocarbon dating results putting the oldest samples at 33,000 to 31,000 years ago.

"However, the presence is there."

No traces of human bones or DNA were found at the site.

"It is likely that humans used this site on a relatively constant basis, perhaps in recurrent seasonal episodes part of larger migratory cycles," the study concluded.

The stone tools -- unique in the Americas -- revealed a "mature technology" which the authors speculate was brought in from elsewhere.

The saga of how and when Homo sapiens arrived in the Americas -- the last major land mass to be populated by our species -- is fiercely debated among experts, and the new findings will likely be contested.

'Clovis-first' debunked

"That happens every time that anybody finds sites older than 16,000 years -- the first reaction is denial or hard acceptance," said Ardelean, who first excavated the cave in 2012 but did not discover the oldest items until 2017.

Until recently, the widely accepted storyline was that the first humans to set foot in the Americas crossed a land bridge from present-day Russia to Alaska some 13,500 years ago and moved south through a corridor between two massive ice sheets.

Archeological evidence -- including uniquely crafted spear points used to slay mammoths and other prehistoric megafauna -- suggested this founding population, known as Clovis Culture, spread across North America, giving rise to distinct native American populations.

But the so-called Clovis-first model has fallen apart over the last two decades with the discovery of several ancient human settlements dating back two or three thousand years before earlier.

Moreover, the tool and weapon remnants at these sites were not the same, showing distinct origins.

"Clearly, people were in the Americas long before the development of Clovis technology in North America," said Gruhn, an anthropology professor emerita at the University of Alberta, in commenting on the new findings.

In a second study, Lorena Becerra-Valdivia and Thomas Higham, researchers at the University of Oxford's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, used radiocarbon -- backed up by another technique based on luminescence -- to date samples from 42 sites across North America.

Using a statistical model, they showed widespread human presence "before, during and immediately after the Last Glacial Maximum" (LGM), which lasted from 27,000 to 19,000 years ago.

Megafauna wiped out

The timing of this deep chill is crucial because it is widely agreed that humans migrating from Asia could not have penetrated the massive icesheets that covered much of the continent during this period.

"So if humans were here DURING the Last Glacial Maximum, that's because they had already arrived BEFORE it," Ardelean noted in an email.

Human populations scattered across the continent during an earlier period also coincide with the disappearance of once abundant megafauna, including mammoths and extinct species of camels and horses.

"Our analysis suggests that the widespread expansion of humans through North America was a key factor in the extinction of large terrestrial mammals," the second study concluded.

Many key questions remain unanswered, including whether the first of our species to wander across the frozen tundra of Beringia made their way south via an interior route or -- as recent research suggests -- by moving along the coast, either on foot or in boats of some kind.

It is also a mystery as to "why no archaeological site of equivalent age to Chiquihuite Cave has been recognized in the continental United States," said Gruhn.

"With a Bering Straits entry point, the earliest people expanding south must have passed through that area."

Topics : ancient artifacts human
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NEW DELHI/PATNA: Nafis Faizi teaches community medicine at Aligarh Muslim University and hails from Bihar, known for having one of the weakest healthcare systems in the country. About 10 days ago, Faizi got a frantic call from his 70-year-old aunt in Bihars Samastipur, who was gasping for breath and needed his counsel.

She managed to see a doctor, her relative, who immediately advised her ICU support, seeing her alarmingly low oxygen levels but she could not find a facility in town where she could get it and was dead within hours.

What happened to my aunt is happening in different parts of Bihar, said Faizi.

I am afraid the state is just not equipped to handle thousands of infected patients who will need urgent medical care.



Although Bihar ranks low in terms of the total cases and also fresh daily cases, the Covid-19 situation in Bihar is considered alarming.

The reason is not far to seek. In the last 12 days, the state has seen the number of active cases nearly tripling.

On July 10, the active cases was 3,929 but stood at 10,220 on Wednesday morning, the 9th highest in the country.

The states growth rate of Covid 19 cases is 10% while the national average is 4.1%.

The growth rate of deaths is 3.2% as against a national average of 2.4%. In the last 11 days, the state has recorded 106 more Covid 19 deaths.

The worsening situation forced the state to enforce a two-week long complete lockdown starting July 16.

A central team which visited the state last week insisted that the measure, in itself, was not enough.

For the authorities at the Centre and public health specialists, it is the limited capacity of the state that is a major worry.

With an estimated population of 9.9 crore, Bihar has only 44 testing facilities in the government sector and 20 in private and very limited resources to help those who need treatment.

A research paper published by Princeton University, US, sometime back said the state, at 30,857 hospital beds and 1,543 ICU beds in both public and private sectors, had the worst health infrastructure.

The pandemic is bound to sweep in each and every state and unless particularly backward states like Bihar do some smart planning and quickly identify and treat Covid 19 patients who are elderly and have co-morbidities, the death rate cannot be managed well, said Dr Amitabh Banerjee, an epidemiologist at the D Y Patil Medical College in Pune.

State health minister Mangal Pandey, while conceding that the state has seen a rapid surge in new infections over the last two weeks, claimed that the testing capacity has now been raised to about 10,000 a day.

The numbers of isolation centres are also being increased and 365 new ventilators have also been provided by the Centre, he said, stressing that Bihars case fatality rate was only 0.71% against the national average of 2.43%.

But the spurt did not surprise some experts.

This was expected and states like Assam, Bihar, Odisha are now seeing cases distributed across many districts, said public health expert Oommen C Kurian.

The difference is that now we have masks, PPEs, more ventilators and wards on wheels waiting on call. And we also know better what works and what doesn't. I'm optimistic that we'll be able to keep deaths low.
The Cato Institute has released a poll on self-censorship conducted by the highly respected YouGov survey unit that finds 62 percent of Americans say they have political opinions they are afraid to speak because they fear giving offense or losing their jobs. Moreover, as the reports notes, this represents an increase from the last such poll taken in 2017: The share of Americans who selfcensor has risen several points since 2017 when 58% of Americans agreed with this statement.

The internals of this poll are more striking than the headline 62% number, as this first chart reveals. Notice that it is only strong liberals (these would be college faculty and far-left activists and young media types) who say they do not fear giving offense from their views:

Significant that even a majority of liberals now say they practice self-censorship. And as indicated, even strong liberals have seen an increase in self-censorship since 2017, as this chart shows:

One error of the construction of this survey is obvious from the categories here. It is clearly wrong to think of liberalism as a continuum: the people described here as strong liberals are not liberal at all, but are profoundly ill-liberal. This is what weak-minded moderate liberals either dont understand or are too cowardly to admit or do anything about.

A number of people the last few weeks and months have been drawing our attention not only to Orwells 1984, but specifically Lionel Trillings perceptive review of the book in The New Yorker back in 1949 (when The New Yorker was worth reading). This passage is worth putting down in your copybook:

Orwell tells us that the final oligarchical revolution of the future, which, once established, could never be escaped or countered, will be made not of men who have property to defend but by men of will and intellect, by the new aristocracy . . . of bureaucrats, scientists, trade-union organizers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists, and professional politicians.

Then Trilling quotes directly from 1984:

These people [says the authoritative Goldstein, in his account of the revolution], whose origins lay in the salaried middle class and the upper grades of the working class, had been shaped and brought together by the barren world of monopoly industry and centralized government. As compared with their opposite numbers in past ages, they were less avaricious, less tempted by luxury, hungrier for pure power, and, above all, more conscious of what they were doing and more intent on crushing opposition. The last difference was cardinal.

Today monopoly industry would be our increasingly censorious tech oligarchs and the major media along with our uniform universities.
RSS-affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) on Thursday said President Ram Nath Kovind has rejected ordinances proposed by Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat to suspend majority of labour laws.

Labour is a concurrent subject and states can change or make new laws as per their requirements but those need to ratified by the President of India. During the coronavirus-induced lockdowns, the three states had proposed suspension of labour laws and had sent proposals to the central government for approval.

"Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh had brought proposals in the form of ordinance to suspend majority of labour laws in their states. The President of India has rejected those proposals. We commend this decision of central government," BMS Zonal Secretary Pawan Kumar said. The labour ministry, however, did not confirm it.

Meanwhile, the BMS celebrated its 66th foundation day on Thursday. Kumar also said that the BMS would go ahead with its "Sarkaar Jagaao Saptah" (Government Awakening Week) from July 24 to July 30.

During this one week, the union would press the government for ensuring wages and jobs to workers during lockdown, a national register for migrant workers, withdrawal of orders by states to increase working hours from 8 hours a day to 12 hours and to immediately stop the privatisation in railways and defence.

Kumar also said that as many as 17 states had diluted labour laws to increase the working hours on the pretext that they want to make up for production loss during the lockdown.

However, recently, the union labour ministry top brass told the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour that states cannot make changes such as increase in working hours, in the existing legal framework. The states' proposals to dilute labour laws during the lockdown faced flak from trade unions in the country.
The Jammeh2Justice Ghana Coalition has called on government to demand for a new international investigation and seek justice for the victims and families of the murder of Ghanaians and other migrants in the Gambia.



The Campaign said the call for new investigation was necessary because the chain of events leading to the killings of the affected persons were unclear despite the confession of several Gambian soldiers who participated in the act in 2005.



Madam Regina Amanfo, the Project Manager for the Coalition made the call in Accra to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the massacre and disappearance of 44 Ghanaians in the Gambia.



The event was in collaboration with Human Right Watch, New York; Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative; Ghana Center for Democratic Development; and Amnesty International.



In 2019, two Gambian soldiers working for a hit squad allegedly controlled by former President Yahya Jammeh admitted to participating in the 2005 execution of 56 West African migrants, including; 44 Ghanaians on the orders of the President.



Lieutenant Malick Jatta and Corporal Omar A. Jallow revealed to Gambias Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission that the migrants were executed by the Junglers squad, a paramilitary force that took orders from Former President Jammeh, across the Gambian border in Senegalese territory.



Madam Amanfo said since the killings, civil society organisations and international groups had called for justice for the victims and their families, but nothing had been done.



She called on the government to seek the extradition of Mr Jammeh to face justice in Ghana for the 2005 massacre of 44 Ghanaian migrants in The Gambia.



We need to bring closure to this case, we cannot allow impunity to reign. Perpetrators of such heinous crimes must be brought to book. Those who committed these crimes, investigations must be done and they should be prosecuted, she said.



Mr William Nyarko, the Coordinator for the Coalition said the primary objective of the Coalition was to persuade the government to extradite Yahya Jammehs from Equatorial Guinea in order to prosecute him in Ghana.



The campaign was part of a larger effort to seek accountability for Jammehs alleged crimes and human rights violations.



The Coalition, he said, followed a wider campaign effort by The Gambia Center for Victims of Human Rights Violations and other local and international human rights organizations to ensure that Jammeh and members of his regime are brought to trial in a court of competent jurisdiction.



He commended Professor Aaron Mike Ocquaye, the Speaker of Parliament for referring the matter to the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee for discussion hoped action would be expedited to bring justice to the victims.



Mr Martin Kyere, the Spokesperson for the Survivors and Victims families recounting the incident said about 56 West African migrants including; 44 Ghanaians who were using an unapproved route through the Gambia to seek greener pastures in Europe were killed in The Gambia.



He said their bodies were dumped by the road in front of Brufut Forest, near Ghanatown, a town predominantly inhabited by Ghanaians living in the Gambia.



The remaining migrants were shot over several days in Cassamance in Senegalese territory.



He called for justice and compensation for the victims and their families, saying life is meaningless when there is no justice.

Source: GNA









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>>> Various activities pay gratitude to national contributors

On behalf of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the Ministry of Defence, and officers and soldiers of the Vietnam Peoples Army (VPA), Gen. Lich asked after Gen. Thanh and extended his best regards to the former ministers family members.

He informed Gen. Thanh of some of the outstanding results from the implementation of military and defence tasks in recent times, especially the work of preparing for and organising the all-level Party congresses towards the 11th Party Congress of the VPA and the 13th National Party Congress.

Gen. Ngo Xuan Lich asks after and talks with Gen. Phung Quang Thanh. (Photo: qdnd.vn)



For his part, Gen. Thanh expressed his pleasure at the VPAs achievements, asking the officers and soldiers of the whole Army to continue promoting the fine tradition and nature of Uncle Hos Soldiers, fostering revolutionary ethics, ensuring combat readiness, and successfully fulfilling the tasks entrusted by the Party, State and people.

* On the same day, Gen. Luong Cuong, Director of the VPAs General Department of Politics (GDP), visited former Politburo member and former Party General Secretary Le Kha Phieu, and former GDP Directors Gen. Nguyen Quyet and Sen. Lieut. Gen. Pham Thanh Ngan.

Gen. Cuong informed the former leaders of the current state of affairs and tasks of the Army, as well as the gratitude work of the whole Army in recent times, affirming that Vietnamese army officers and soldiers will improve themselves and promote the heroic revolutionary traditions of their predecessors to meet the requirements and tasks in the new situation.

He wished the former senior officials good health and asked that they continue contributing to the Partys revolutionary career and the development of the Army.

Gen. Luong Cuong (third from left) visits Gen. Nguyen Quyet, former Director of the VPA's General Department of Politics. (Photo: qdnd.vn)



For their parts, the former officials highly appreciated the Armys gratitude activities and care for revolutionary contributors, calling on the GDP to continue effectively performing its advisory role for the Politburo, the Party Central Committee Secretariat, the CMC and the Ministry of Defence, while directing the whole Army to successfully implement the Resolution of the 12th National Party Congress and other resolutions of the CMC.

* Thai Binh Provincial Youth Union recently organised delegations to visit and present gifts to families of war invalids and ex-youth volunteers in Le Hong Phong Ward, Thai Binh City.

The youth union of the Provincial Agencies Bloc offered free-of-charge medical examinations and medicine to 150 ex-youth volunteers, national contributors and their relatives, and presented gifts to 15 policy beneficiaries in Thai Thinh Commune, Thai Thuy District.

* Grassroots youth unions and young people in Nam Dinh Province have been implementing specific activities to show gratitude to national contributors.

The youth union of Xuan Truong District visited and presented gifts to 31 families of policy beneficiaries and national contributors in the locality. Earlier, Nam Dinh Provincial Youth Union cooperated with the Nam Dinh branch of the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development to present two gratitude houses to needy ex-youth volunteers in Giao Thuy District.

* On July 22, the Dong Thap Provincial Peoples Committee held a memorial service to rebury 54 sets of remains of Vietnamese volunteer soldiers and speicalists who laid down their lives on the battlefields in the country and in Cambodia.

General view of the memorial service at the Tam Nong martyrs' cemetery in Dong Thap Province. (Photo: qdnd.vn)



* On July 21-22, Lang Son provincial authorities organised delegations to visit and present gifts to heroic Vietnamese mothers, policy beneficiary families, national contributors, and families of sick and fallen soldiers living in difficult circumstances in the locality.

* On the occasion of the 73rd anniversary of War Invalids and Fallen Soldiers Day, the Hai Duong Provincial Peoples Committee has decided to spend more than VND31.8 billion (US$1.37 million) to present gifts to policy beneficiary families, national contributors and some units nursing war invalids and sick soldiers in the locality.
Nick Cordero passed away on 5 July, after spending more than 90 days in a hospital battling the coronavirus

Nick Cordero, the Broadway actor who spent more than 90 days in a hospital fighting for his life after contracting coronavirus, will have an album released posthumously.

Broadway Records said Wednesday it will release Nick Cordero: Live Your Life on 17 September  what would have been his 42nd birthday.

Corderos album is named after one of his songs and captures his cabaret performance in April 2019 at the Broadway supper club Feinsteins/54 Below.

Cordero was in many stage productions, including Bullets Over Broadway in New York, which earned him a Tony Award nomination. He died on 7 June.

His wife, dancer and personal trainer Amanda Kloots, said shed never seen Cordero work so hard on something as his cabaret show.

I was so proud of him and absolutely loved watching him onstage these two nights, she said Wednesday in a post on her Instagram account. He created this show from scratch, choosing songs to tell a story... his story.

Guest performers on the album include Kathryn Gallagher, Drew Gehling, Sara Chase, and Zach Braff. Proceeds will go to benefit Kloots and their 1-year-old son, Elvis.

Kloots described the album line-up as Broadway tunes with fun guest stars, some pop, standards, a little Latin and, of course, the encore is Live Your Life, the song many covered while Cordero was in the hospital.
Jeff Bezos is currently one of the richest people in the world. But, what was his life look like before he became the big CEO of Amazon? Before They Were Famous' Youtube video explained the life of Jeff Bezo before he became one of the tech CEO giants. After he changed how people shopped across the world, he became one of the most influential and richest men currently alive.

Jeff Bezos made $13billon just yesterday alone. That's Dangote d richest black man in d world life time savings. the only thing we now have in common is d fact that we'll all die some day & will all be put beneath the ground,so sad but this life is just a long story of how we die pic.twitter.com/rsjC44ZNb7  MOHNICE #BBNaija (@Official_mohnyc) July 21, 2020

Also Read: Kanye Rants on Twitter: Did Kim Try to Bring a Doctor to Lock Him Up?

His mother, Jaclyn Jorgensen, gave birth to him when she was just a high school student on January 12, 1964. His mother divorced his biological father, Ted Jorgensen, who was a bike shop owner. After they were separated, her mother married a Cuban immigrant named Miguel Mike Bezos, then later adopted the 14-year-old Jeffery Preston Jorgensen, changing the soon-to-be Amazon CEO's name Jeffery Preston Bezos.

Also Read: Elon Musk-Backed AI Company Launches New Tool that Writes Naturally Like Humans

Jeff attended River Oaks Elementary School after they moved into Texas. Soon after, they moved out of Texas and went to Florida where Jeff attended Miami Palmetto High School. While studying, he applied for a job at McDonald's as a short-order line cook.

The awards that he received, including National Merit Scholar, a Silver Knight Award, and became a high school valedictorian--these only prove he was a smart kid at that time. Years later, he decided to pursue his dream by creating the world's first online bookstore in New York. Jeff decided to expand his business in 1990, offering not just books, but also home videos, music, and anything under the sun.

How did the Bezons power couple ended in divorce?

The divorce of Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Bezos shocked many followers of Amazon's CEO. Speculation that Jeff was having an affair with the former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez, was released by the National Enquirer.

However, Vox reported that the CEO was already separated from his ex-wife before he and Sanchez started dating.

Jeff Bezos' face was reconstructed from a 14th century skull found at the bottom of the Thames. pic.twitter.com/16ApGPudEL  Wondering (@stillwondering1) July 22, 2020

"He and Mackenzie have been working on this for a long time, and they worked very hard to fix it," said the source of Vox, who wanted to be anonymous.



"Then they became separated, and then Jeff started dating Lauren," the source further explained.



The divorce may create major impacts on Amazon since MacKenzie could have been entitled to half of Jeff's assets, stated under the law in Washington state. If this happens, the Amazon CEO would have to sell some of his stock, which will reduce his company's control.

Also Read: Dr DisRespect: How the Man Behind the Mustache Became a Twitch Legend

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
WASHINGTON  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested Thursday the U.S. had created a "Frankenstein" by opening diplomatic and economic ties with China and called for a sharp break with decades of American policy first pioneered by the Nixon administration in the 1970s.

"President Nixon once said he feared he had created a 'Frankenstein' by opening the world to the Chinese Communist Party. And here we are," Pompeo said in a much-touted, hardline speech outlining a dark vision of China global ambitions.

"The old paradigm of blind engagement with China simply won't get it done. We must not continue it," he said.

Pompeo delivered the speech at the Nixon Library in California, and he was careful not to rebuke Nixon himself or the former president's secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, who made a secret trip to China in 1971 before Nixon's own historic trip the following year.

Nixon's 1972 meeting with Mao Zedong led to formal relations between the U.S. and China after more than two decades of hostility.

"The world was much different" in Nixons era," Pompeo said. "We imagined engagement with China would produce a future with bright promise, comity and cooperation."

"But today we're all ... wearing masks and watching the pandemics body count rise because the CCP failed in its promises to the world," the Trump administration's chief diplomat said, continuing with a laundry list of China's wrongdoing: repression in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, trade abuses, and an expanding "and more menacing" military.

As the United States grapples with rising cases of COVID-19 and job losses stemming from pandemic-related shutdowns, Trump and his aides have cast China as the villain behind the growing U.S. crisis.

Trump's critics  in Washington and Beijing  have accused the president of attacking China to distract from his own administration's failure to take the coronavirus threat seriously and respond to it adequately.

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Jia Qingguo, a professor at Peking University's School of International Studies, said Trump and his advisers are trying to blame other countries for America's problems.

"(Trump's) dwindling chance of re-election has contributed to the recent intensification of the Trump anti-China campaign," he said in a briefing hosted by the National Press Club on Thursday. "Trump appears to believe that the only way for him to get reelected is to provoke all-out confrontation with China."

Pompeo is one of the Trump administration's most vocal hawks when it comes to China. In his remarks Thursday, he said Chinese president Xi Jinping "is a true believer in a bankrupt totalitarian ideology" and harbors a "decades-long desire for global hegemony" that threatens America's way of life.

"If we dont act now, ultimately the CCP will erode our freedoms and subvert the rules-based order that our societies have worked so hard to build. If we bend the knee now, our childrens children may be at the mercy of the CCP," he said ominously.

But even as Pompeo slammed America's longstanding policy of engagement, he did not say the U.S. would break diplomatic ties with China.

"To be clear, well keep talking. But the conversations are different these days," he said.America's dealings with China should be based on "distrust and verify."

Since Nixon's policy of rapprochement, successive American presidents have grappled with a rising China  engaging with the country as a rival and competitor while maintaining diplomatic and economic ties.

President Donald Trump, right, talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Nov. 9, 2017.

Pompeo's speech came after three other top advisers to President Donald Trump made similarly harsh remarks in recent weeks blasting China for its aggressive espionage efforts and its theft of American intellectual property.

U.S.-Chinese tensions have escalated sharply in recent weeks amid the coronavirus pandemic, Beijing's decision to restrict freedoms in Hong Kong, and the ongoing trade tensions.

But this week, the Trump administration took hostilities to a new level when the U.S. notified Chinese officials on Tuesday it would have to close its Houston consulate within 72 hours, prompting an immediate threat of retaliation from China. Experts said that move was nearly unprecedented and signaled a sharp deterioration in US-China relations.

On Thursday, Pompeo said the Houston facility was "a hub of spying and IP theft." He did not elaborate further, but he cast the Trump administration's increasingly aggressive confrontation with China in stark terms.

Chinese officials have rejected that assertion and said the Houston facility was operating normally.

Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, described the U.S. action as an "unprecedented escalation" and said China would "react with firm countermeasures" if the United States does not revoke the decision.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pompeo likens China threat to 'Frankenstein,' says engagement failed
In what the Chinese Foreign Ministry called an "unprecedented escalation," the United States government released a directive telling China to immediately halt their operations at the Chinese Consulate in Houston, Texas.

According to Morgan Ortagus, spokeswoman of the US State Department, the shutting down of the consulate was ordered to protect intellectual property and private information of Americans. However, she refused to go into detail on what prompted the call to cease the operations of the consulate. Based on reports by Chinese media, the consulate was only given 72 hours to completely close down, CNN reported.

It has been apparent that the relationship between China and the US has not been smooth sailing since the beginning of 2020. The relations between the countries have further been strained by the coronavirus pandemic, the trade war, and the US reacting to the reported human rights abuses in Hong Kong.

Also, a spokesperson for the State Department also said that China has been engaging in massive spying and influence operations in the country for years. He also added that the said activities have significantly increased over time. It was not, however, clarified on what triggered Washington to order the closure of the consulate or when the directive was given.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who just came from Europe after meeting with Chinese dissidents who were exiled refused to give any details about the decision to shut down the embassy. On Thursday, Pompeo is set to give his remarks on China at the Richard Nixon Museum and Library in California.

Read also: China Blows Up Dam to Release Flood Waters, Aims to Reduce Further Damages and Loss of Lives

Closure order came a day after Chinese hackers were charged

The order for the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston happened only a day after two Chinese nationals were charged by US prosecutors for allegedly using technology to steal information about the treatment and vaccine development for coronavirus. It was also the first time that America has accused hackers of working for Beijing.

In response to the allegations, Wang Wenbin, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry accused the US of being involved in the largest cyberattacks in the world. He also said that the indictment of the alleged hackers was the US acting like a thief passing the blame.

China warns of retaliation

On Wednesday, China responded to Washington's orders to shut down its consulate in Houston by saying that the actions of the US will be retaliated. This move has further increased the growing tensions between the two countries.

Wang also stated that China will be taking firm countermeasures taken if the US does not take back its order to the consulate to cease all operations, USA Today reported.

In addition, the Foreign Ministry of China also released a statement of social media calling out the order to shut down the consulate as a form of political provocation by the US. It also stated that the move is a violation of international laws and the US and China bilateral consular agreement.

Related article : Hong Kong's New Security Law Threatens Political Freedom, Teacher Arrested Over Differing Views

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Migration to the latest technology and digital transformation will play a crucial role in shaping the future of the $275.4 billion retail sector in the GCC countries, experts told an audience at a webinar organised by RetailME, a dedicated retail sector market intelligence provider.



Consumer behaviour in the GCC countries has seen a drastic shift towards online payment following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.



A recent survey conducted by Ernst & Young in May 2020 found that 92 percent of the consumers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia have changed their shopping habits  including shifting to online purchase.



Despite being under pressure, the GCC retail sector was earlier projected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of (CAGR) of 4.0 per cent from $253.2 billion in 2018 $275.4 billion in 2020 and to $308 billion in 2023, according to a report published by Alpen Capital in 2019.



Data will not be oil, but soil for the retail sector, they say, as apps will track consumer habits to generate sales leads.



Data will be the new soil  the new engine for growth in the retail sector, said Piyush Kumar Chowhan, Group Chief Information Officer, Lulu Group International, the largest retailer in the GCC. Technology will drive digital initiatives. Good customer experience will come from an innovation mindset, driven using different technology tools. How can data be used as the new soil in the digital transformation agenda is the big question, and technology will facilitate the process.



In the coming days, customers will make purchase order based on experience. So, retailers need to ask how can they make data the engine for the digital transformation. Data and artificial intelligence will nurture the growth of the retail sector.



Ashish Panjabi, Chief Operating Officer of Jackys Retail LLC & Jackys Business Solutions, said: Business is being right-sized. A shrinkage now means in changes now but when things get better, we will surely re-think how we adapt to growth as we will make use of all available routes to market (online and physical) and maximizing our returns on it instead of over-expanding. This market had a massive over-supply of everything which is now being corrected.



Changes that were long due had and will get accelerated. Technology will enable changes, but we also have to rethink the fundamentals of doing business. Technology adaptation and deployment of robots could be a game-changer in retail business. We might see this happening soon.



The retail industrys ability to adapt is the first step towards recovery. However, the road to retail recovery will need to pass through many signal posts. Indicators show that Mastercard recorded a 40% rise in contactless payments during the first quarter of 2020, amid Covid-19 pandemic.



The Visa CEMEA Impact Tracker points to a shift to online commerce, with cash transactions being replaced by digital payments. The survey found many consumers in the UAE started shopping online for the first time, during the pandemic.



Two-thirds of UAE consumers (68%) surveyed said that Covid-19 led to their first online grocery purchase, while 70 percent have made their first online purchase from pharmacies. In Saudi Arabia, Danube Online and the Danube App registered an increase in average daily sales by over 200 percent and average order value was up 50 percent by end of March 2020, compared to February 2020.



Saudi Arabias Bin Dawood Group reported 400 percent jump in app downloads while online sales jumped 200 percent in just a few weeks!



Meanwhile, an Accenture Digital survey in 2019 indicated that only 40 percent of retailers globally are leveraging data to their best use. Hence, while technology is the enabler, retails transformation journey entails a much broader roadmap.



Retailers have indeed faced different challenges during the pandemic but have found ways to adapt to the shifts caused by Covid-19. The smarter use of data and real-time analytics will play a leading role in optimising business processes and in delivering improved customer experiences, states moderator Mark Thomson, Director  retail & hospitality, Zebra Technologies.



Retail is still an exciting industry despite Covid-19 that caused a sort of an electric shock over the past few months. It is the most severe impact on retail globally, since the great depression of the 1930s, said Thomson.



But there is a positive amidst the challenges  Covid-19 might act as a catalyst for positive changes in retail.



Justina Eitzinger, COO, Images RetailME, said: At Images RetailME, we have closely monitored the impact of Covid-19 on the retail industry. The recent months are evidence of the industrys ability to adapt, and in many ways, this has been the first step towards its recovery.



Staying true to our mission to share retail intelligence and knowledge, we brought to the table an insightful and diverse panel of speakers from across the region. The panellists shared their experience on how to recover fast and prepare for both a more digitally connected and safer world.  TradeArabia News Service
The T. Rowe Price Japan Fund (Trades, Portfolio), part of Baltimore-based T. Rowe Price Group Inc. (NASDAQ:TROW), disclosed this week that during the second quarter, the fund exited its position in NTT DOCOMO Inc. (TSE:9437) and slashed its stake in Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (TSE:4519). With the majority of the proceeds, the fund boosted its holding in the following four companies: Hoshizaki Corp. (TSE:6465), Suzuki Motor Corp. (TSE:7269), Fast Retailing Co. Ltd. (TSE:9983) and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (TSE:6503).





Managed by Archibald Ciganer, the fund seeks long-term capital appreciation through investments in the common stocks of companies with primary operations in Japan. Ciganer looks for companies with the ability to achieve and sustain above-average, long-term earnings growth.

As of quarter-end, the $810-million equity portfolio contains 57 stocks with a turnover ratio of 18% for the quarter. The top three sectors in terms of portfolio weight are industrials, technology and communication services, with weights of 34.71%, 15.59% and 13.64%, respectively.

NTT DOCOMO

The fund sold 849,400 shares of NTT DOCOMO, trimming 3.72% of the equity portfolio. Shares averaged 3,086.72 Japanese Yen ($28.89) during the second quarter.

GuruFocus ranks the Japanese wireless telephone operator's financial strength 8 out of 10 on the heels of debt ratios outperforming over 81% of global competitors. Other positive investing signs include a strong Altman Z-score of 4.53 and an operating margin that has increased approximately 4.50% per year on average over the past five years and is outperforming over 77% of global competitors.

4de369e9b5d160a074e8e8c758261ea8.png

Chugai

The fund sold 571,800 shares of Chugai, reducing the position 61.44% and reducing the equity portfolio by 3.08%. Shares averaged ?4,818.65 during the second quarter.

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A subsidiary of Roche Holding AG (XSWX:ROG), Chugai develops medicines for the Japanese oncology and renal markets. GuruFocus ranks Chugai's financial strength 10 out of 10 on several positive investing signs, which include robust interest coverage, a high Piotroski F-score of 7 and a strong Altman Z-score of over 28.

e579d7a1ee97f130b085f1291737c6fe.png

Chugai's profitability ranks 8 out of 10 on the back of expanding operating margins and high returns on equity. Despite this, the company's valuation ranks 1 out of 10 as price valuations are near 10-year highs and underperforming over 70% of global competitors.

262b07e8ae81453275c7e941e708c165.png

The Vanguard Health Care Fund (Trades, Portfolio) also has a holding in Chugai.

2a48653976f801124b2aaa2f9795d36c.png

Hoshizaki

The fund added 265,500 shares of Hoshizaki, increasing the position 108.41% and the equity portfolio by 2.81%. Shares averaged ?8,438.77 during the quarter.

0441e3773cbcbbe7a789a20eb95d4aa7.png

Hoshizaki manufactures and sells a wide range of food service equipment, including automatic ice machines, refrigerators, dishwashers and beer dispensers. GuruFocus ranks the company's financial strength 10 out of 10 on several positive investing signs, which include no long-term debt and a strong Altman Z-score of 6.

a9c28bbc483f61a380068336a5576f13.png

Suzuki

The fund added 601,400 shares of Suzuki, increasing the position 131.86% and the equity portfolio 2.54%. Shares averaged ?3,428.42 during the second quarter.

2136eb86e0568a5b00f82eee57fd9429.png

GuruFocus ranks the Japanese auto manufacturer's financial strength and profitability 7 out of 10 on the heels of debt ratios outperforming over 71% of global competitors and margins and returns outperforming over 65% of global auto manufacturers.

e06ad7fb596f306c424a0e101a90e8b0.png

Fast Retailing

The fund added 25,700 shares of Fast Retailing, increasing the position 221.55% and the equity portfolio 1.83%. Shares averaged ?54,293.90 during the second quarter.

0e34ed7fd461eb332e6e770b2a50b405.png

Fast Retailing sells quality functional apparel items through its UNIQLO retail chain. GuruFocus ranks the company's profitability 9 out of 10 on several positive investing signs, which include expanding operating margins, a 4.5-star business predictability rank, and three-year revenue and earnings growth rates that outperform over 80% of global competitors.

665eee903b95db1daa9cb399fb6db281.png

Mitsubishi

The fund added 1,021,700 shares of Mitsubishi, increasing the position 79.12% and the equity portfolio 1.65%. Shares averaged ?1,356.58 during the second quarter.

9e011ce191e9009d077d152898b01e24.png

GuruFocus ranks the Japanese electrical equipment company's financial strength 7 out of 10 on the back of interest coverage and debt ratios outperforming over 73% of global competitors.

2b48829c4b0d4548761e2aee669e5c39.png

Disclosure: No positions.

FPA Capital Fund Buys 1, Trims 4 Positions in the 2nd Quarter

New GuruFocus Feature: Warren Buffett's Baskets

Top 5 Buys of the Royce International Premier Fund in the 2nd Quarter







Not a Premium Member of GuruFocus? Sign up for a free 7-day trial here.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 09:25:01|Editor: huaxia

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LHASA, July 23 (Xinhua) -- No casualties have been reported as of 8 a.m. Thursday after a 6.6-magnitude earthquake jolted southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

The quake struck Nyima County at 4:07 a.m. Thursday, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center. The epicenter was monitored at 33.19 degrees north latitude and 86.81 degrees east longitude, with a depth of 10 km.

The county has launched an emergency response. Telecommunication, electricity and water supply remain normal in the county. The epicenter was less than 20 km away from Rongmar Township where the quake was strongly felt.

Rongmar, at an average altitude of over 5,000 meters, administers two villages. In 2018, most of the township residents were relocated to the regional capital of Lhasa thanks to an ecological program. Enditem
(Newser)  The Chinese consulate in Houston was a "massive spy center," lawmakers sayand the fact that officials were seen burning documents at the Texas facility after the government ordered it to close seems to confirm it. The Houston Fire Department, which was praised by Chinese officials after putting out a fire at the consulate three years ago, was denied entry to the facility after nearby residents reported the fires on Tuesday, NBC reports. Lawmakers including Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio praised the decision to close the consulate, with Rubio describing it as the "central node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies" in the US, reports the Houston Chronicle. The consulate "is a massive spy center, forcing it to close is long overdue," he tweeted. More:

A "hot spot" for espionage. Officials tell NBC that the Houston consulate has long been considered a "hot spot" for Chinese espionage, including attempts to access medical research and infiltrate the oil and natural gas industries.

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Madhya Pradesh Congress MLA from Mandhata, Narayan Patel, on Thursday resigned from the state Legislative Assembly. His resignation was later accepted by Protem Speaker Rameshwar Sharma.

Patel is expected to join the BJP later in the day. With his departure, the number of Congress MLAs who have so far resigned from the assembly has risen to 25. A total of 22 MLAs had quit the party under Jyotiraditya Scindia in March.

Just last week, Sumitra Devi Kasdekar, an MLA from Nepanagar in Burhanpur, had resigned from the membership of the state assembly and joined the BJP. Before that, Bada Malhera MLA Pradyumn Singh Lodhi had also resigned.

With the persistent exodus, the strength of the Congress party in the state assembly has been reduced to 89.

The BJP is on a spree to buy MLAs and they are investing public money into this, said Congress spokesperson Bhupendra Gupta, alleging the mafia and corporates will soon join the nexus.

On being asked why the BJP is behaving like a magnet for Congress MLAs, BJP spokesperson Rajneesh Agrawal claimed the query should be directed to those leaving the Congress and the opposition needs to introspect.

Earlier on Thursday, former BJP minister KL Agrawal joined the Congress in the presence of senior leader Digvijaya Singh in Bhopal. He made it clear that the party could opt for anyone in assembly polls but his sole aim is to defeat Mahendra Singh Sisodia who recently joined the BJP.

Accepting that he was feeling ignored in the BJP, Agrawal alleged that "saleable items" left with Scindia. Over 400 of his supporters also joined with him.
Organisers of a planned Black Lives Matter protest in Sydney on Tuesday have vowed the march will proceed regardless of the outcome of a Supreme Court application by police for a prohibition order.

Protest organiser Padraic "Paddy" Gibson is co-ordinating the rally on behalf of the family of David Dungay jr, a Dunghutti man who died in Long Bay prison in December 2015 after guards pinned him down when he refused to stop eating biscuits.

Paul Silva, nephew of David Dungay, is supporting a new bid for a Black Lives Matter protest in Sydney. Credit:Janie Barrett

Shortly before his death, Mr Dungay gasped for air and repeatedly said "I can't breathe".

The NSW Police Commissioner has applied to the Supreme Court for an order prohibiting the march on public health grounds. Justice Mark Ierace started hearing the application on Thursday afternoon before adjourning the proceedings to Friday morning.
Ukraine signed a memorandum with the European Union of understanding and a loan agreement between Ukraine, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) and the EU on the country's receipt of macrofinancial assistance in the amount of EUR 1.2 billion.

On the Ukrainian side, the documents were signed by Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko and NBU Governor Kyrylo Shevchenko.

According to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, the memorandum on the fifth macrofinancial assistance program provides for a 12-month period. The loan itself is issued for 15 years (until 2035), the interest for the use of funds is 0.125% per annum.

According to the prime minister, macrofinancial assistance will be spent in two areas: support for macrofinancial stability in Ukraine, continuation of structural reforms.

The first tranche of EUR600 million will be received by Ukraine immediately after the ratification of the memorandum by the parliament.

As for the conditions that Ukraine must fulfill in order to receive the second tranche, they are divided into four blocks.

The first one is public finance management. The second block is public administration and the rule of law. The third block is improving the business climate. The fourth block is sectoral reforms and state enterprises.
WASHINGTON, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Recent articles in Experimental Biology and Medicine highlight new advances in COVID-19 biology and treatment. In an effort to provide the scientific community with important information on COVID-19, at the rapid pace required to protect our global health care workers and bring useful therapies to end the pandemic, manuscripts are being handled at an accelerated rate. To accomplish this our EBM Editor-in-Chief is handling all COVID-19 manuscripts to make sure they receive a thorough but accelerated review. The Publisher of EBM, SAGE, is making sure that accepted COVID-19 manuscripts are processed rapidly, immediately available via Online First, and are open access. EBM will continue to inform the scientific community and the public of these published articles through Press Releases.

EBM has recently accepted three Minireviews on Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 genome structure, clinical trials, and outstanding issues. The Minireviews cover the value of chest computed tomography (CT) (Wong et al, 2020), the multiple organ pathology found in COVID-19 patients (Aferwerky, 2020), and the host immune response and its dysregulation caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) (Upadhyay et al, 2020). We have also recently published an important Commentary regarding the possibility of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 via sweat (Propper, 2020).

The Corresponding Authors of these articles had the following comments on the importance of their contribution. Dr. Hong Liu in the Advanced Medical Imaging Center and School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK (USA) speaking of his article 'The role of chest computed tomography in the management of COVID-19: A review of results and recommendations (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1535370220938315)' said, "The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been felt worldwide. This mini-review compiles the various agency and expert recommendations, together with studies published thus far to provide a thorough understanding of the role of chest CT in the detection and management of COVID-19."

Dr. Henok Afewerky in the Department of Neurobiology at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan (China), discussing his article ' Pathology and pathogenicity of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1535370220942126)' said, "The coronavirus pandemic is having an unprecedented impact on lives across the world. To assist efforts to contain and mitigate the rapidly evolving COVID-19 either-or should a similar viral plague occur in the future, a continuous critical survey of studies will be vital to addressing the global crisis."

Dr. Mohd Nazam Ansari in the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology, College of Pharmacy, at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University (Saudi Arabia), speaking of his article 'Role of inflammatory markers in corona virus disease (COVID-19) patients: A review (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1535370220939477)' said, "This review provides a short overview on the pathophysiology of COVID-19 and role of activated inflammatory markers. Cytokine storm syndrome in critically ill COVID-19 patients presented with high inflammatory mediators, systemic inflammation, and multiple organ failure. Among various inflammatory mediators, the level of interleukins (IL-2, IL-7, IL-10), G-CSF, MIP1A, MCP1, and TNF- was reported to be higher in critically ill patients. Understanding this molecular mechanism of ILs, T cells, and dendritic cells will be helpful in designing vaccines and novel drugs for the treatment of COVID-19 infection."

Dr. Ruth Propper in the Department of Psychology at Montclair State University in Montclair, NJ (USA) discussing her article entitled 'Is sweat a possible route of transmission of SARS-CoV-2? (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1535370220935409)' said, "Given the high health burden of Sars-CoV-2 and the many unknowns associated with the disease, research on how it transmits is important for public health. Ultimately, knowledge of how transmission occurs - by ruling out or including routes - can be translated into practical action to help people be safe."

Dr. Steven R. Goodman, Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Biology and Medicine, said, "EBM will continue to inform the scientific community and the public of our published COVID-19 articles through Press Releases. To do their best work for the Global Community, researchers need rapid dissemination of COVID-19 studies and ideas from the worldwide scientific community. The public needs the same to make safe choices for themselves and their family members, during the Pandemic."

Experimental Biology and Medicine is a global journal dedicated to the publication of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research in the biomedical sciences. The journal was first established in 1903. Experimental Biology and Medicine is the journal of the Society of Experimental Biology and Medicine. To learn about the benefits of society membership, visit www.sebm.org. For anyone interested in publishing in the journal, please visit http://ebm.sagepub.com.

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Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Occasional snow showers. Quite windy. High 22F. Winds NNW at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of snow 60%..

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Considerable clouds this evening. Some decrease in clouds late. Low 9F. Winds NNW at 15 to 25 mph.
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Marvel has sent out solicitations for their October 2020 titles, including 5comics and 3 trades!CHARLES SOULE (W)  RAMON ROSANAS (A)Cover by CARLO PAGULAYANEMPIRE STRIKES BACK VARIANT COVER BY CHRIS SPROUSE -APR201054VARIANT COVER BY AARON KUDER - APR201055SHE WILL HAVE REVENGE! The terrifying DARTH VADER has tasked COMMANDER ELLIAN ZAHRA with tracking down theremnants of the REBEL FLEET, scattered since the BATTLE OF HOTH. From the bridge of her flagship the TARKINS WILL, Zahra hunts the galaxy, eradicating all resistance, her secret goal to destroy LEIA ORGANA. But why does Grand Moff Tarkins prize pupil have such hate for the PRINCESS OF ALDERAAN? The truth...will be revealed!32 PGS./Rated T $3.99Order using APR201053GREG PAK (W)  RAFFAELE IENCO (A)  Cover By Inhyuk LeeEmpire Strikes Back Variant COVER by CHRIS SPROUSETHE PUNISHMENT! DARTH VADER failed to turn his son, Luke Skywalker, to the dark side of the Force. No Luke was too weak to join his father in overthrowing EMPEROR PALPATINE. Vader sought revenge against those who hid Luke from him for all of these yearsand in doing so nearly betrayed his master. It did not go unnoticed by Palpatine time for Vaders next lesson.32 PGS./Rated T $3.99ETHAN SACKS (W)  PAOLO VILLANELLI (A)Cover by LEE BERMEJOEmpire Strikes Back Variant COVER by CHRIS SPROUSEACTION FIGURE VARIANT COVER BY JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHERTWO AGAINST ONE! With precious cargo and a price on his head, VALANCE must go to the only person in the galaxy he can trust. But the UNBROKEN CLAN has sent a deadly and unique pair of bounty hunters after him! No one in the galaxy can escape the combined cunning of 4-LOM and ZUCKUSS!!!32 PGS./Rated T $3.99ALYSSA WONG (W)  MARIKA CRESTA (A)Cover by VALENTINA REMENARVariant COVER by TERRY DODSONPOWER TO RULE THE GALAXY? RONEN TAGGE has the legendary RINGS OF VAALE. Will he destroy the priceless artifacts or fall to their temptation? If they truly give him the power to rival the EMPEROR, what hope do APHRA and crew have to stop him?32 PGS./Rated T $3.99Written by JASON AARON & DASH AARONPenciled by SIMONE BIANCHI, MIKE MAYHEW, SALVADOR LARROCA & ANDREA SORRENTINOCover by JOHN CASSADAYLost tales of the Jedi revealed! Obi-Wan has slowly adjusted to his life of exile on Tatooine, secretly protecting young Luke Skywalker. But now, injustice reigns as villainous scum run rampant, extorting moisture farmers and wreaking havoc. Will Old Ben risk revealing himself to do whats right? And when Jabba the Hutt hires a bounty hunter to find out whos been thwarting his men, Obi-Wan must take on the galaxys deadliest Wookiee, Black Krrsantan! Plus, years earlier, when Obi-Wan was still a Padawan, Master Yoda found himself trapped on a savage world with a hidden power. Yoda must learn the secret of the stones  and his struggle in the past will affect Luke in the present! And can Obi-Wan save a young Tusken Raider? Collecting STAR WARS (2015) #7, #15, #20, #26-30 and material from STAR WARS (2015) #37.192 PGS./Rated T $19.99trim size: 6-5/8 x 10-3/16ISBN: 978-1-302-92528-4Order using APR201115Written by CHARLES SOULEPenciled by JESUS SAIZCover by R.B. SILVAIt is a dark time for the galaxy in the wake of The Empire Strikes Back. The rebel fleet is scattered following a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Hoth. Han Solo is frozen in carbonite and lost to the bounty hunter Boba Fett. And Luke Skywalker is wounded and reeling from learning the horrible truth about his past. Darth Vader did not kill Lukes father  he is Lukes father! Now Luke, Princess Leia, Lando Calrissian, Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2 must fight their way back to the rest of the Rebel Alliance. But this ragtag band of freedom fighters doesnt realize theyve only traded one imperial trap for another! Theyre about to cross paths with the captain of the Tarkins Will: the cunning and vengeful Imperial Commander Zahra! Collecting STAR WARS (2020) #1-6.136 PGS./Rated T $17.99trim size: 6-5/8 x 10-3/16ISBN: 978-1-302-92078-4Order using APR201087Written by ETHAN SACKSPenciled by PAOLO VILLANELLICover by LEE BERMEJONever betray a bounty hunter  especially if its Boba Fett! Years ago, Valance and Bossk joined Fett on a mission that went sideways in a bad way  thanks to a violent betrayal by Valances mentor, Nakano Lash! The trio barely escaped with their lives. Now Lash has finally resurfaced under mysterious circumstances, and every bounty hunter in the galaxy wants a piece. Valance is hell-bent on getting to the prize first  after all, he has a score to settle. But so does Boba Fett! What could have possibly made Lash break her word and betray her protege? The truth could shake the foundations of the galaxys criminal underworld! The biggest, baddest bounty hunters of all clash in a rip-roaring tale of scum and villainy, Star Wars-style! Collecting STAR WARS: BOUNTY HUNTERS #1-5.136 PGS./Rated T $17.99ISBN: 978-1-302-92083-8trim size: 6-5/8 x 10-3/16Written by GREG PAKPenciled by RAFFAELE IENCOCover by InHYUK LEEA new chapter in the Sith Lords saga begins here! Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son! In the shattering climax of The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader revealed his true relationship to Luke Skywalker and invited his son to stand at his side. But a horrified Luke chose to plunge into the abyss beneath Cloud City rather than turn to the Dark Side. Now Vader embarks on a bloody mission of rage-filled revenge against everything and everyone who helped to hide and corrupt his only son. But Vader must overcome shocking new challenges from his own dark past, including a hauntingly familiar face that will challenge everything he knows! Collecting STAR WARS: DARTH VADER #1-5.128 PGS./Rated T $15.99ISBN: 978-1-302-92081-4trim size: 6-5/8 x 10-3/16
Although Joseph Peterson wore many hats during his career, those who knew him best say his life could be summed up as one dedicated to public service.

Friends, family, coworkers and military veterans gathered to remember Wyandottes beloved mayor at a memorial service held Thursday afternoon at Our Lady of Hope Cemetery in Brownstown Township.

Peterson died May 17 of an apparent heart attack, but he had been ill for a number of years due to complications of exposure to Agent Orange, during the time he served in the Vietnam War.

His oldest son, Joseph Peterson, said he misses his dads leadership the most.

His life was dedicated to public service, he said. Me being a veteran also, the best thing about being a veteran is that it doesnt matter when you served, it doesnt matter where you were, we are all brothers. And we still are. He wasnt just my father, but he was my brother. I see a lot of veterans around here and a lot of police officers and I want to thank everyone for their tributes to him, he would truly be touched.

Charlie Kennedy, a longtime friend of the late mayor, called him a great man who was more than simply the citys mayor.

Ill miss his support, Kennedy said. He was so supportive of everything and everyone, and he did a lot for everyone he met. He was family.

Friend and fellow veteran, Phil Smith, agreed that Peterson was a great guy.

We were friends for about 10 to 12 years, Smith said. I met him at the Wyandotte Street (Art) Fair one year and then we came in contact again through different veterans organizations. He was a good man. No, he was one hell of a man. He was very loyal and very dedicated to his family and to his city.

Petersons wife, Janice, said that while her husband died in May, they would have celebrated their 47th wedding anniversary on June 2.

We met through one of my girlfriends, she said. In fact, I still yell at her for it to this day. He grew up poor and then went to Vietnam. We got married in 1973 and the day I found out I was pregnant with our oldest son, he got laid off from Chrysler and I told him he better get a job that cant be replaced by robots.

Janice said it was at that point when she encouraged him to join the police force.

He had mentioned it for some time after Vietnam about wanting to be a police officer, she said. And I told him that was the perfect opportunity, so I pushed and pushed and he went and applied and became a police officer. But what people dont know is that he hid his pain for a very long time. He suffered for over 10 years, but it was like a switch. When the phone would ring or he would walk into any of those meetings, he was a completely different person. But as soon as the phone call or meeting ended, he was back to suffering in pain. He just loved the people so much and he would help anyone that he could.

Joseph Peterson, the late mayors son, had a special message to the people of Wyandotte.

To the people from the city of Wyandotte, city officials, police, he said. My father loved all of you like you were family. My father was honored to sit in that mayors seat. And our whole family was honored at the treatment he received. God bless you all and God bless the United States of America.
Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) has announced that one of its clients is undertaking a ground-breaking capital raise.

Investment banking and wealth management firm GRIP (DIFC) will conduct a multi-million dollar capital raise for Lead Real Estate, a Tokyo headquartered residential and commercial developer focused upon the planning, acquisition, renovation and repurposing of real estate assets this month, through the innovative issuance of digital securities representing Investor Shares.

The issuance is the first major globally compliant digital securities offering in Middle East and Africa and South Asia, marking a key milestone for DIFC and Dubai.

GRIP is leading the capital raise for Lead Real Estate with some of their projects being developed to leverage on the opportunities arising out of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Lead Real Estates assets are spread across Japan, America, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

GRIP is also on course to establish a private securities marketplace within the Centre - a first for the region.

The announcement reinforces DIFCs vision to drive the future of finance. The issuance also cements the DIFCs position as the leading financial hub in the region, thanks to its robust, yet innovative legal and regulatory framework which helps nurture innovation and adoption of technology.

DIFCs regulations, laws and structures have enabled GRIP to become the first company in the MEASA region to establish, manage and distribute an international capital raise using Digital Securities as a medium of issuance.

Lauding GRIP for its initiative, DIFC Authority CEO Arif Amiri said: "We are pleased that DIFCs robust yet forward looking legal and regulatory framework is providing GRIP with a platform to deliver a first for the Centre and MEASA region."

"Innovation like this will propel economic development in the region and illustrates how DIFC is driving the future of finance," he stated.

GRIP Chairman Tony Pettipiece said: "We are excited, and believe this will be the first of many issuances to come to market using this innovative technology."

The offering involves a collaborative effort by reputed lawyers, service providers, technology providers and regulated firms from across the world, including UAE, the US, Japan, Hong Kong and the Cayman Islands.

"At GRIP we are keen to be involved with cutting edge investment opportunities, and our pipeline is made up of Green Bonds and Impact investments from clients that range from Japan, Mexico, Georgia and the GCC region," said its CEO Gowribalan.

Dubai continues to be recognised on the global stage as a dynamic business environment where innovation thrives.

DIFC offers all the elements found in the worlds most successful financial industry ecosystems. This includes an independent regulatory and judicial system, a global financial exchange, access to funding, an enabling sector environment, and the regions best talent pool.-TradeArabia News Service
Journalist Sunil Tiwari had posted a video on social media two months ago about a threat to his life and had named three men

Niwari: A journalist was shot dead in Madhya Pradesh's Niwari district after he was allegedly attacked by a group of seven men over an old rivalry, the police said on Thursday.

According to the police, the incident took place near Putri Khera village on Wednesday evening. The journalist has been identified as Sunil Tiwari.

"I have visited the spot. Prima facie it appears to be a case an old rivalry over a land dispute. We also had a complaint related to the land dispute. We have taken action on that," Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Pratibha Tripathi told reporters.

She said that a case has been registered against seven people under Section 302 (murder) and other relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and further investigations are underway.

Reportedly, Tiwari had posted a video on social media two months ago anticipating a threat to his life and naming three men, who had allegedly threatened to kill him.
John C. Stokes, 70, of Haddonfield, a former planner and executive who played a leading role in the preservation of the 938,000-acre Pinelands in South Jersey, died July 14 of an aneurysm at Cooper University Hospital in Camden.

Stokes was executive director of the New Jersey Pinelands Commission from April 2003 until his retirement in early 2011. He took the top post after serving for 23 years as assistant director.

An original member of the commissions staff, he was one of the chief authors of the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan, the rules that govern land use, development and natural resource protection of the tract. Under his guidance, the plan was updated with 15 amendments.

Johns service to New Jersey as executive director of the Pinelands Commission was invaluable, said former Gov. James J. Florio, who chaired the commission from 2002 to 2005.

When I served as chairman of the Pinelands Commission, I observed his practical, wise and environmentally sensitive work in action. His approach was key to protecting and preserving a fragile part of New Jersey that constitutes 20% of the state. New Jersey has lost one of its most valuable citizens, Florio said.
Two estranged business partners who co-own the popular Turkey Leg Hut restaurant filed explosive lawsuits against each other earlier this month involving allegations of fraud, theft, embezzlement and self-dealing.

In a July 8 filing in Harris County state district court, Turkey Leg Hut co-owner Steve Rogers alleged that the restaurants majority owner, Nakia Price, is diverting funds, customers, and supplies to her other food trucks and catering businesses without compensating Rogers and other shareholders.

Price countered a week later with a lawsuit of her own, accusing Rogers of going to court in a desperation move to squeeze money out of Price to settle what she described as heated negotiations over a buyout of Rogers stake in the Third Ward eatery.

Rogers and Price last week agreed to a temporary restraining order that bars Rogers from interfering with the restaurants business operations, withdrawing funds from its bank accounts or transacting any business on its behalf. Price, meanwhile, is prohibited from using Turkey Leg Hut funds, supplies and staff for her other businesses.

They are set to appear in court July 29 for a temporary injunction hearing.

The court proceedings mark the second legal battle for Turkey Leg Hut within the last eight months. The restaurant came under fire late last year from residents who alleged that its outdoor cookers were producing excessive smoke that posed health risks. The residents later dropped the lawsuit.

In his court filing earlier this month, Rogers alleged that Price in late June asked Turkey Leg Hut investors for more money, citing the financial strain COVID-19 has caused, despite records that he said show the restaurant generated more than $1.1 million in net sales that month. Rogers said he suspects the financial strain stems from Prices alleged use of Turkey Leg Hut profits to support her personal projects, such as her nearby food truck that often draws customers who want to avoid the restaurants famously long lines.

Rogers said he does not have a stake in Prices other businesses, which had served food prepared at the Turkey Leg Hut using the restaurants supplies and staff prior to the restraining order.

Price, in her counter suit, said Rogers has embezzled thousands of dollars in payments made by a third-party company to the restaurant and stolen funds to pay for rent and equipment at two of his other business ventures or for a residence. Rogers filed the lawsuit in attempt to gain negotiating leverage and mask his own misdeeds, Price alleged.

Price also issued a blanket denial to Rogers allegations. In her court filing, she said a provision of Turkey Leg Huts company agreement expressly allows Members to engage in their own business ventures, whether or not such ventures compete with TLH, with no obligation to offer TLH or any other Member the right to participate in such ventures.

Sherrie Handrinos, a spokeswoman for Price, said Rogers court filing includes malicious and hurtful accusations that lead one to completely misunderstand the facts in this situation.

The dueling lawsuits, first reported by Eater Houston, came about a month after Bar 5015  the Third Ward establishment owned by Rogers  suffered more than $750,000 in damage from an early morning explosion. Video that surfaced days after the incident showed four men dousing the bar with flammable liquid and lighting the place on fire.

Price said Rogers stole Turkey Leg Huts $27,000 payment system and installed it at Bar 5015, which is located about two blocks south of Turkey Leg Hut on Almeda Road. The system was destroyed in the explosion, Price alleged in her court filing.

Bar 5015 reopened July 14, the day before Price filed her counterclaim against Rogers.

Price was embroiled in separate litigation last year when six nearby residents sued Turkey Leg Hut for producing what they said was noxious wood smoke that emanated from the restaurants outdoor pit area. Price and her husband, Lynn Price, cast the lawsuit as an attempt to force the black-owned restaurant out of the gentrifying neighborhood. The plaintiffs  who are Asian, Black, Hispanic and white  refuted the claim, citing concerns about carcinogens and other alleged health hazards.

Even after the residents dropped the lawsuit, other neighbors continued to file formal complaints with the Houston Health Department over the smoke. City health inspectors also issued 28 citations to Turkey Leg Hut between August and November last year, which a department spokesman described as out of the ordinary.

A Turkey Leg Hut spokeswoman said the Prices were working to create an enclosure and filtration system to deal with the smoke.

In this months lawsuit, Rogers contends that he built his initial 15 percent interest in Turkey Leg Hut into a 29 percent stake by using his personal funds to (buy out) other partners at Prices request. Price said Rogers received a portion of previous co-owners interests that leaves him with an 18.75 percent stake in the restaurant.

Price in her court filing accused Rogers of making financial moves for Turkey Leg Hut without her consent, citing a case in which Rogers allegedly signed Wells Fargo to process credit card payments for the restaurant. Price said the agreement left the restaurant on the hook for $40,000 in processing fees that it would not have had to pay under its existing credit card system.

jasper.scherer@chron.com
This job has been one of the most rewarding at times, and also the cause of many sleepless nights, he said in a statement. I have enjoyed working side-by-side with some of the most talented and dedicated men and women I have ever met, and I know the Department is in a very good place and will not miss a beat moving forward with its mission of keeping Oak Lawn safe.
The Muslim Students Society of Nigeria has donated a contactless handwashing machine to the Lagos State Government as part of efforts to boost the fight against coronavirus in the state and Nigeria.

The locally-made machine is multifunctional and dispenses soap, water and hand sanitiser with no contact.

The student-body presented the machine to officials of the Lagos State Ministry of Health on Thursday.

During the donation, the Amir (president) of MSSN in Lagos State, Saheed Ashafa, commended the efforts of the state government in its fight against the deadly virus.

He cautioned residents in the state to adhere to the guidelines given by the Ministry of Health and Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

Ashafa, who was represented by MSSNLagos Vice President, Yusuf Temim, lamented the effect of COVID-19 on academic activities in the state.

He said "the efforts of the state government in curbing COVID-19 and its management strategy are worthy of emulation by many other states".

He added, This donation was made possible through contributions from our members. We are worried about the increasing cases of COVID-19 in the state and we wish we can do more.

"It is important that we all keep safe at this moment and complement the worthy efforts of the Lagos State Government in curbing the pandemic."

L-R: President of MSSNLagos Graduate Members Association, Temim Yusuf; and representative of the Lagos State Ministry of Health, Mrs Abidakun Olubosola and MSSNLagos female head's representative, Hajia Bushrah Olagunju-Matemilola, during the donation of a contactless COVID-19 Machine to Lagos State Government at the Lagos State Secretariat, Alausa on Thursday, July 23, 2020

Ashafa said with a deep sense of responsibility and utmost demand of this period, the group had launched a Social Responsibility Project tagged COVID-19 Incident Volunteers.

It has become glaring that the ravaging coronavirus pandemic requires conscious synergy at this sensitive period. The current efforts of the government must be complemented without delay.

Our Incident Volunteers have been embarking on continuous enlightenment, facilitation of grassroots support in terms of information and other appropriate volunteering services as may be complementary of the government strides.

We have positioned standby volunteers across the state who are meant to facilitate this important task as they are also to coordinate welfare services deemed necessary by the initiative as at when due.

The Lagos State Commissioner For Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, commended the students for the donation.

Abayomi, who was represented by the ministrys Director of Administration and Human Resources, Mrs Abidakun Olubosola, urged the students to always keep safe.

He added, We appreciate the MSSN, Lagos State Area Unit that brought this fantastic contactless handwashing machine/stand. They are contributing to society. They are contributing to ensuring that COVID-19 goes totally in our clime.

By donating this, I believe we are also keeping safe at home. We will continue to collaborate in everything that has to do with keeping everyone safe.

SIGNED:

Saheed Ashafa (PhD),

Amir (President),

Muslim Students' Society of Nigeria, Lagos State Area Unit.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 18:39:58|Editor: huaxia

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HONG KONG, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong's Hospital Authority announced on Thursday to start using a community isolation facility to receive mild patients of COVID-19 as the daily additional cases hit another new high of 118.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government's Center for Health Protection (CHP) reported 111 additional local infections and seven imported cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in Hong Kong to 2,250.

Out of the new local cases, more than 60 are related to previously confirmed outbreak clusters, Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the CHP's Communicable Disease Branch said at a media briefing on Thursday afternoon.

The seven imported cases involve persons with travel history to the Philippines, India and Japan, according to Chuang.

Linda Yu, a chief manager of the Hospital Authority, said at the briefing that as of Thursday afternoon the death toll of COVID-19 in Hong Kong has risen to 15.

Currently 716 confirmed patients are hospitalized in 14 hospitals across Hong Kong, including 33 in critical condition and 14 in serious condition. The occupancy rates of negative pressure rooms and isolation beds in public hospitals are 76.9 percent and 74.6 percent respectively, Yu said.

At a press conference on Thursday morning, the Hospital Authority said it had decided to start using the community isolation facility at Lei Yue Mun Park and Holiday Village to receive suitable patients with particular clinical conditions in order to alleviate the demand for the isolation beds in public hospitals.

About 30 COVID-19 patients who are in the process of recovery will be admitted to the facility on Friday.

This is the first time since the COVID-19 outbreak in Hong Kong that a community isolation facility is used to receive mild patients. Enditem
ABCBy KRISTOFER RIOS, MARJORIE MCAFEE, NEIL GIARDINO, ZOE LAKE, JOHN KAPETANEAS, and ANTHONY RIVAS



(PORTLAND) -- Garrison Davis, a 17-year-old videographer and citizen journalist in Portland, Oregon, has documented the city's Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality nearly every night since they began more than 50 days ago following the death of George Floyd.



Over the weekend, he posted images on Twitter of a group of moms who had created what they called a "Wall of Moms" to protect protesters. On the other side of their barrier, however, were not the city's own police force, but rather federal authorities. A few hours after they'd formed the wall, the moms were among protesters who were tear gassed by these agents during violent clashes.



Some of the federal agents in Portland are part of a Department of Homeland Security task force established to respond to the growing protests and acts of civil disobedience that have occurred across the country. The U.S. Marshals Service, which operates under the Department of Justice and partners with the DHS Federal Protective Service to protect federal properties, had also been sent to the city. The DHS said these forces were there to protect the federal properties from criminal acts of violence and vandalism.



But as violence between the federal authorities and protesters increases, questions about their use of force and whether federal agents should be there in the first place have emerged.



"What's going on here isn't the federal government coming in to address real needs," said Vera Eidelman, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. "There are real needs elsewhere. It's the government miscasting protesters as violent criminals and trying to scare people from going out and protesting police brutality."



Davis told ABC News the federal agents began arriving around the Fourth of July and that within days he "saw Portland police pull back and the federal officers really take over trying to quell the protests."



Those on the ground, however, say the federal agents have only inflamed tensions.



"The federal response, I think, caught a lot of people off guard," said Davis. "A lot of people here were not ready for that. Protesters weren't ready for that. Journalists were not expecting this to happen. So I think that definitely caught a lot of people off guard."



Daryl Turner, president of the Portland Police Association, told ABC News that "every night we have violence -- we have rocks, bottles, bioweapons thrown at us. ... And we are showing great restraint." He also called for the federal authorities to work "in concert with local police."



"Right now, that's not happening and that concerns me," he said.



"I heard the impact. I heard him fall. I was standing like 10 feet away," said Davis. "I immediately turned to the side and I saw his body just on the ground, just blood pouring from his head. People were grabbing him, pulling him into the park to get medical treatment. ... His body was limp. His head bobbing around. He was taken to the hospital. His skull was fractured. ... It's that kind of unnecessary display of violence that didn't accomplish anything and wasn't a response to anything."



Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon also raised alarms last week when he tweeted a video that had circulated online showing agents pulling up to arrest a protester in what appeared to be an unmarked van.



Mark Pettibone, another protester, says he too was taken by federal agents in an unmarked van and that he still doesn't know why he was detained.



"We were stopped by a smaller group of protesters ... and they warned us that there had been some vans that they saw driving around, basically snatching up protesters that were by themselves, away from larger crowds -- kind of vulnerable," Pettibone, 29, said. "And within seconds of them warning us about that, sure enough, one pulled up right in front of us. So I fled."



Pettibone said he ran because he had "no idea who these people were." They were dressed in unmarked military gear and they did not state why they were stopping the protesters, he said.



"So I feared for my life and I ran. They eventually caught up with me and pulled me into the van," Pettibone said, adding that the men who grabbed him pulled his hat down over his eyes as they searched for weapons.



Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli said Tuesday that federal agents had been deployed to Portland after 35 to 40 straight days of violence during which "we obtained intelligence that the federal facilities there were going to be targeted and were going to see directed violence."



He said that officers were sent to help the base officers already present at these facilities and claimed the intelligence was correct. "Over the Fourth of July weekend, when we had advanced other officers to Portland, there were additional assaults on the individuals and the facilities themselves."



Cuccinelli said that "as long as the violence continues at that level associated with federal facilities, we'll have to maintain our elevated presence." He also said all federal agents are in uniform.



"The same protesters are coming night after night. They all recognize them as uniformed and all of our agents that you've seen interact with any of these crowds have their insignia on their sleeves -- they're identified as police front and back -- so Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection or Federal Protective Service. They are all clearly marked. They all identify themselves to individuals with whom they are interacting. For instance, if they are seizing somebody because they match the description of someone who assaulted a law enforcement officer, they identify themselves as federal agents immediately upon addressing that person. So that's going on on a regular basis -- that's standard procedure."



The incidents involving protesters being pulled into unmarked vehicles caught the attention of 53-year-old Christopher David, a U.S. Navy veteran, who said he was shocked by the agents' actions.



"I saw the video of the men in combat fatigues with no insignia abducting citizens off the streets of Portland and stuffing them into unmarked vans," David said. "And I was very concerned about that because if the federal government can do that, anybody can go to the store and ... acquire used combat fatigues ... get an unmarked minivan and then go off and abduct people off the streets. And we don't know whether that's the federal government or just a bunch of civilians playing dress up."



David dressed in his old Naval Academy sweatshirt Saturday night when he attended the protests. He said he had hoped to start a dialogue with the federal agents, and remind them of their responsibility to defend American citizens and the Constitution.



"I took the oath of office -- the oath of the Constitution -- extremely seriously, and I know that all federal employees do as well, including those men who are down there attacking people and gassing people in downtown Portland," David said. "And I wanted to ask them why they were no longer honoring their oath of office, why they were no longer honoring the Constitution, because what they were doing was blatantly unconstitutional."



David wouldn't see federal agents for most of the night, during which he said the protests were mostly peaceful. However, just as he was thinking about going home, he said eight to 10 of them came "rushing" out of the courthouse to confront a group of protesters.



"I had been standing in the park across from the courthouse when that happened," he said. "So I walked into the street right in front of the courthouse. ... And after they got done with that group, chasing them off, they came to me and surrounded me, and I started trying to talk to them. I said, 'Why are you dishonoring your oath to the Constitution? Why are you doing unconstitutional things?'"



MORE: Oregon attorney general announces lawsuit against federal agents for their tactics on protesters

David said that as the officers approached him, one of them "about 3 feet away" pointed a semiautomatic weapon at his chest.



"Then another officer came and plowed into me ... he knocked me off balance," David said. "Then I plant myself right there. I'm going to stand my ground right there."



David said he knew the federal agents were going to beat him. "So I put my hands down and I just took it," he said. He suffered a broken hand in two places and was treated by medics on site before being taken to the hospital, he said.



"I wasn't a real person. I was a target with that guy," he said. "When that little dude started whacking me with his baton, I really wonder what he was thinking at that moment."



David said he still doesn't know who they are or what agency they're from, and that he only saw alphanumeric codes on a little patch on their clothing.



Richard Cline, deputy director of the DHS' Federal Protective Service, said during a press conference Tuesday that the incident involving David was being investigated.



The U.S. Marshals, whose officers were involved in the incident, told ABC News in part that their actions were based upon the circumstances at the time of the incident and that the deputies believed that the force used was necessary to protect themselves and others from physical harm.



Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler was among six mayors from across the U.S. on Monday who signed a letter demanding the federal government remove its agents from their cities, calling their deployment to the protests "unacceptable" and "chilling" and accusing Trump of "terror tactics."



Wheeler told ABC News he wants federal authorities removed before the violence goes too far.



"Your presence here isn't wanted," he told ABC News of the federal agents. "It is clearly ratcheting up the violence and the vandalism. Local and state law enforcement can handle this, and we need you to leave right now before somebody dies."



After months of unrest, the clashes in Portland seem far from over. But there is still hope about where the movement will lead next.



"I want to use my 15 minutes to put out a message to my fellow vets," David said. "I also want to use my 15 minutes to try to refocus this whole discussion back to Black Lives Matter."

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Vote Democrat... and Watch U.S. Burn By Mike Whitney This is the most dangerous time in the history of man. The seriousness of this plot cannot be underestimated. It is not due to any threat of conventional war or nuclear decimation, it is based on the fact that this is a psychological war waged by psychopaths against all mankind, and it is being advanced by a small group of monsters that have taken control of the minds of the masses through long-term indoctrination and policies meant to breed dependency. Gary Barnett July 22, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - Which political party supported the protests, riots and looting that spread to over 400 cities across the country? Which party supported the toppling of historical monuments and statues across the country? Which partys elected officials think that the government does not have the right to defend federal property from vandals, rioters and thugs in Portland? Which party allowed a vicious mob to seize control of an area in central Seattle and declare its own sovereign nation? Which party looked on approvingly while the country descended into a society-wide upheaval that included.. mass riots  the magnitude of which have not been seen in the U.S. since at least the 1960s. (Michael Tracy) Which partys governors imposed lockdowns that pushed the economy into freefall destroying millions of jobs and businesses? Which partys governors issued edicts mandating the wearing of masks without a vote by the representatives of the people? Which partys leaders conducted a 3 year-long coup claiming the President of the United States was a Russian agent? Which party launched impeachment proceedings based on spurious claims that were neither serious nor verifiable? Which party has stubbornly refused to accept the 2016 presidential election results and has done everything in its power to deepen political antagonisms and polarization? Which party worked with members of the elite media and the intelligence community to infiltrate the Trump campaign with confidential informants, electronic surveillance, and other illicit skulduggery aimed at sabotaging the election and derailing Trumps political agenda? Which party is using a public health emergency to perpetuate a state of hysteria aimed at exerting greater control over the population? Which party is deliberately prolonging the Covid restrictions in order to destroy whats left of the eviscerated US economy? Which party has shown time and again that it does not serve the interests of the people but the cadres of elite globalists that now have the Constitutional Republic in their crosshairs and plan to erase our history, our icons, our traditions, our culture, our identity and even our most heartfelt ideals in order to establish a new order governed by technocrats, financiers and plutocrats? Which party is not a party at all but a fifth column determined to subvert the elected government and divide the country into warring factions? The Democrats cannot be trusted. They have already implemented their anti-worker trade policy and their pro-war foreign policy, and theyre now bent on imposing their own pro-business immigration policy that will further erode the living standards of working people struggling to make ends meet in a post-industrial hardscrabble America. Who supports these policies? Certainly not the people in the center of the country whove seen their jobs outsourced, their businesses off-shored and their prospects for the future go up in smoke as Democrats Clinton and Obama transformed the country into the hollowed out, service sector-dependent basketcase that it is today. Isnt that the real reason the Democrats are so supportive of racial justice and BLM? Isnt it just a way of concealing their contempt for the mainly-white working class people who used to vote Democrat until the party threw them under the bus in order to better serve their deep-pocket corporate donors and Wall Street honchos? No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Newsletter Of course it is. African Americans are not going to benefit from their support for the Democrats. No way. As far as the Dems leadership goes, Black Lives Matter until November 5 when the ballots are counted. After that, all bets are off. This is an excerpt from an article at RT: Black Lives Matter is using black pain to cash in on white liberal guilt, dividing American society in pursuit of a Democratic political agenda, St. Louis activist Nyota Uhura told RT. Having witnessed BLMs rise up close as the nascent organization swooped into Ferguson amid the calls for justice triggered by Browns killing, Uhura has fought to warn others of what the organization really represents  leveraging black activism into a boost for the Democratic Party. White liberal and progressive groups use the energy of our movement to push their agenda In order to mobilize people, they need those black faces out front  because what are they going to look like protesting? Just in terms of optics itll look like a Klan rally, Uhura joked. Like all controlled opposition movements, one of BLMs primary functions is to derail meaningful change, Uhura explained: They always march us back into the voting booth. Well-heeled movement activists consistently divert money and energy into electing Democratic Party candidates .billionaire currency speculator George Soros alone has given over $33 million to BLM, its founders, and associated groups, and the Ford Foundation pledged to raise $100 million for the BLM-affiliated Movement for Black Lives Coalition in 2016. (Veteran activists have called out BLM as a tool of the Democrats from day 1, RT) BLM is a prop the Dems are using to take-back the White House, nothing more. The proof of this couldnt be more obvious. While Pelosi and her pals bowed down in Kente cloth for a well-rehearsed photo op, her recent bill on police reforms did not include even one of BLMs demands. Like we said, the Dems are great at public relations but never veer from their corporate agenda. In the last four years, the Democrats have engaged in one seditious misadventure after the other all of which helped to reveal that the real levers of state power are not under the control of the president but of agents operating in the intelligence community, law enforcement (FBI) and the media all of who are now owned by scheming billionaires whose tentacles extend to every corner of the permanent bureaucracy, akathe deep state. The Democrats have joined this sketchy alliance and are presently executing a plan that will irreversibly change the country by decimating its economy, increasing poverty and destitution by many orders of magnitude, and strengthening the grip of tyrannical oligarchs who dont simply want to rule by force, but by wearing down the population with one hysteria-soaked psyops after the other. The recent surge in suicides and mental health issues attests to the success of their strategy just as the wearing of masks illustrates how easily fearful people can be whipped into conformity. Mission accomplished! Is it any surprise that the Dems joined the Intel agencies to spy on members of the Trump campaign or that the Dems are actively enlisting members of the intelligence community to join their ranks? Take a look: An extraordinary number of former intelligence and military operatives from the CIA, Pentagon, National Security Council and State Department are seeking nomination as Democratic candidates for Congress in the 2018 midterm elections. The potential influx of military-intelligence personnel into the legislature has no precedent in US political history. Democratic Party leaders are actively recruiting candidates with a military or intelligence background for competitive seats where there is the best chance of ousting an incumbent Republican or filling a vacancy, frequently clearing the field for a favored star recruit. (The CIA Democrats, Part One, World Socialist Web Site) Did you know that the drive to impeach Trump was spearheaded by former CIA agents that had just been elected to Congress? The media said that leftists pushed Pelosi to impeach, but that simply isnt true. It was former spooks acting on behalf of unknown constituents. (John Brennan??) Heres he scoop: Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) announced Monday that they would vote for the impeachment of President Trump on Wednesday when it comes before the House of Representatives. Both women had decade-long careers in the CIA before they won Republican-held seats in the House in the 2018 election.With the pro-impeachment declarations by Slotkin, Spanberger and, also on Monday, Jason Crow of Colorado, a former Army special forces operative, ten of the eleven CIA Democrats have now said they will vote for the impeachment articles. (CIA Democrats back CIA-led Impeachmen t, World Socialist Web Site) What does it mean when a nations foremost intelligence service (CIA) enters the political realm and assumes a central role in governing the country? Is that a positive development or a national security threat? And how should we judge the political party that allows itself to be subsumed by an agency that conducts all manner of anti-democratic and criminal activity around the world including kidnappings (rendition), drug trafficking, covert wars, electronic surveillance, torture and regime change operations? Heres a question for you: Was the CIA under John Brennan directly involved in the campaign to frame Donald Trump as a Russian agent and have him removed from office? Yes, they were. Were leaders at the DNC involved in the same plot? Yes again, just as they were involved in the impeachment fiasco, the George Floyd foofaraw and now the Covid hoax. What lessons can we draw from the way the Democrats have conducted themselves over the past four years? Are they willing to use the accepted, traditional means for opposing the incumbent government or are they more inclined to engage in subversive, covert and likely illegal scorched earth tactics designed to inflict maximum damage on their political enemies through relentless character assassination, illicit surveillance, divisive racial violence and even the cover of a global pandemic manipulated to prosecute the war on Trump? We all know the answer to that question. Is this how the Democrats plan to govern the country, by setting aside principle and the issues that people really care abouthealth care, immigration, jobs, the environment and the economy and, instead, using public health emergencies and other contrived diversions to justify the further evisceration of the economy, the further imposition of onerous mandates, and the further tightening of their grip on the levers of state power? Check out this excerpt from an article by Charles Burris: What we have been seeing played out on the streets of America, particularly in large Blue State metropolitan areas and dense urban cities is classic planned chaos and the Strategy of Tension. Unable to dislodge Donald Trump by the Russiagate hoax or the malicious soft coup impeachment process, his sworn enemies, using COVID-19 as their pretext, have turned to the destruction of the economy by repressive lockdowns, creating mass unemployment and annihilation of small businesses, thus fracturing civil society. The Democrats, elements of the deep state, and their complacent, compliant regime media pawns, have turned to an age-old psy/war strategy to be wielded as an ax against the president, insidiously using the weaponized corpse of the slain George Floyd as the new rationale for these riots and insurrections. The willfully ignorant nihilistic mobs and savage looters are simply acting as pawns, the unwitting tools of the deep state strategy of tension 2020 in creating the pretext for the elites technocratic New World Order . (The Elites End Game Lew Rockwell) Bingo. It is, in fact, the elites endgame and the Dems have put themselves right at the heart of that operation. But the Democrats are not steering the ship of state nor will they. They are merely lackeys for the meddling do goodie billionaires who want to save humanity by branding us like cattle, reducing us to abject poverty, and eliminating the useless eaters who stand in the way of their glorious New Order. Check out this quote from World Economic Forum (WEF) founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab at a June 3rd event titled The Great Reset: The world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a Great Reset of capitalism. According to author Matthew Ehret-Kump, the gathering included elites from the IMF, World Bank, UK, USA, corporate and banking sector all looking to take advantage of COVID-19 to shut down and reset the world economy under a new operating system entitled the Green New Deal. Is it true? Is the Covid pandemic actually part of a broader plan to break down the economy, destroy tens of millions of jobs, decimate thousands of businesses, and force the reduction of carbon by intensifying the suffering of half of humanity? Heres more from Peter Koenigs article: These obscure individuals are running, The World Economic Forum (WEF  representing Big Industry, Big Finance and Big Fame), the Group of , G-7, Group of 20  G20 (the leaders of the economically strongest nations). There are also some lesser entities, called the Bilderberg Society, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Chatham House and more. The infamous Agenda 2021 which coincides with and complements the so-called (UN) Agenda 2030, will be duly inaugurated by the WEFs official declaration of The Great Reset, in January 2021. Similarly, the implementation of the agenda of The Great Reset began in January 2020, by the launch of the corona pandemic  planned for decades with the latest visible events being the 2010 Rockefeller Report with its Lockstep Scenario, and Event 201, of 18 October in NYC which computer-simulated a corona pandemic, leaving within 18 months 65 million deaths and an economy in ruin, programmed just a few weeks before the launch of the actual corona pandemicThe ruling elite used the lockdown as an instrument to carry out this agenda. (The Global Reset  Unplugged. The Deep State, Peter Koenig, Global Research) The Democrats are working with the establishment media and elements in the intelligence community to effect the transformational changes that will actualize the elitist vision. There is no falsehood or act of terror so heinous that it cannot be justified in terms of the ultimate goal which is the emergence of a repressive police state ruled by voracious elites and their power-mad accomplices. Mike lives in Washington state. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com. - " Source " - Post your comment below See also The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Big Brother Australia's Chad Hurst is feeling slightly worse for wear after being crowned the winner during Wednesday night's finale.

The 27-year-old model cracked open a beer as soon as the cameras stopped rolling as he celebrated with the cast and crew at Channel Seven headquarters.

He told Daily Mail Australia the morning after the festivities that he'd partied with 'the boys' until 2am.

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Looks cramped! The cast and crew of Big Brother ignored social distancing rules at the after-party on Wednesday. Pictured: winner Chad Hurst with Channel Seven executive Michael Pell

Chad said that all the housemates attended the official after-party to celebrate his win, before they split up and went off with their own friends.

The after party appeared to break COVID-19 social distancing rules, as cast, crew and guests were packed tightly into the Channel Seven studio.

Earlier in the evening, the contestants had mingled, hugged and kissed each other on stage during the live broadcast.

Cheers! Chad told Daily Mail Australia that all the housemates attended the official after-party to celebrate his win, before they split up and went off with their own friends

Where's Sophie? Chad was seen mingling with the other housemates, but didn't appear to be spending time with his girlfriend and fellow finalist, Sophie Budack

However, the network did make sure all the guests had health checks beforehand.

After being declared the winner, Chad told host Sonia Kruger that he intended to use a portion of the $230,000 prize to fund a boys' trip.

'We had the after-party with the housemates, and then the boys [Chad's friends] were at the pub waiting for me, so I went around there and had a few beers with the lads. It was nice,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

Too close for comfort? The after party appeared to break COVID-19 social distancing rules, as cast, crew and guests were packed tightly into the Channel Seven studio

Bless you! Finalist Daniel Gorringe's girlfriend, Ana Cannon, politely sneezed into her elbow

House divide? Chad celebrated with 'the boys' at the pub after leaving Seven's after party, while the majority of his housemates hit up a Sydney bar without him

'I think the housemates went somewhere after that, but I just went to catch up with my mates because I knew I had to get up early.

'So I just went out with them, had some beers, and pulled the pin,' he said, adding that he got home at about 2am.'

Wrapping things up, Chad told Daily Mail Australia that he was feeling a little hungover after his night on the town.
New York, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Allovate Therapeutics , a New York-based biotechnology company, announced today that it has extended its free Allerdent program. Allerdent is a specialized, fully-functional toothpaste which allows people to self-administer allergy immunotherapy at home by simply brushing their teeth, instead of going into the doctors office for weekly shots. This program was launched in May 2020 to provide Allerdent without charge to allergy professionals facing difficulties bringing a high volume of patients into their office because of new safety requirements and patient apprehension during the pandemic.

As we witness the continuing, and in some cases increasing, impact of COVID-19, we are proud to extend our program providing free Allerdent to physicians, said Robert Pomrenke, CEO, Allovate. Upon request, we are making free supplies of our Allerdent product available for physicians who can provide treatment to patients unable to travel to their offices.

A survey conducted April 28, 2020 by Advanced Data Management (ADM) on behalf of Allovate found that 95% of physicians who responded (including allergists, otolaryngologists, and other physicians who treat patients with allergies) were having difficulty providing treatment to their patients suffering from respiratory allergies.

Oral mucosal immunotherapy (OMIT) is administered by the user from home using the proprietary Allerdent platform, which is formulated to incorporate and stabilize immunotherapeutic agents. OMIT delivers biologically active compounds to the areas lining the oral cavity that have the highest likelihood of initiating allergy desensitization.

Allerdent can be personalized by physicians for respiratory allergy sufferers, mixing the base paste from a kit with any combination of the allergens which are the underlying cause of the problem. The final toothpaste can be easily and conveniently used at home as part of the everyday tooth-brushing routine.

We continue to witness the increasing challenge faced by physicians trying to help their allergic patients achieve long term relief with immunotherapy, said William Reisacher, MD, Associate Professor of Otolaryngology and the Director of Allergy Services at Weill Cornell Medical College/NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. COVID-19 has limited the ability of many patients to continue their allergy shots. Limited ability to travel and limited financial resources for office visits and co-pays all play a role.

Under this special program, physicians can visit this website to request samples of Allerdent for a limited time during this pandemic crisis. Any patient who would be adversely impacted by a discontinuation period in their subcutaneous immunotherapy (SCIT aka allergy shots) is eligible.





About Oral Mucosal Immunotherapy (OMIT)

Respiratory allergies affect at least 60 million people in the United States, resulting in 11.1 million visits to the doctor in 2010. 100 million Europeans suffer from allergic rhinitis and 70 million suffer from asthma. Symptomatic treatment, at a global cost of over $25 billion yearly, keeps symptoms at bay temporarily but does not offer a long-term solution. Allergen-specific immunotherapy is the only treatment method that targets the root cause of allergies, consistently exposing the allergy sufferer's immune system to sufficient amounts of allergenic proteins to desensitize them to allergens over time. Oral mucosal immunotherapy (OMIT) uses a proprietary, specially formulated toothpaste to incorporate and stabilize allergenic proteins that are administered while users brush their teeth. OMIT simplifies long-term daily adherence to immunotherapy for patients, while delivering key agents to broad areas of the oral cavity, including those with the highest density of the immune cells responsible for effecting immunotherapy.

About Allovate Therapeutics

Allovate Therapeutics is a New York-based biotechnology company founded in 2012 with the goal of improving allergy treatment for all patients. Allovates mission is dedicated to improving the delivery of medical therapy. Allovates lead product, Allerdent, is designed to deliver proteins, such as immunotherapeutic agents, to the immune system while the user brushes their teeth. Allovates licensee, Intrommune Therapeutics, is exploring allergy immunotherapy for life-threatening food allergies.

For more information, please visit www.allovate.com .



About ADM

Advanced Data Management LLC (ADM) is a privately held market research and sales support firm focusing on healthcare. ADM regularly surveys and conducts market research studies for clients including pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device, healthcare IT (including EHR, mobile health, and venture investment in healthcare IT). We regularly survey thousands of physicians currently practicing in the United States from our registered proprietary database of 520,000+ U.S. based physicians. www.adm-health.com .





Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Statements



This release may contain "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements are identified by certain words or phrases such as "may," "will," "aim," "will likely result," "believe," "expect," "will continue," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "plan," "contemplate," "seek to," "future," "objective," "goal," "project," "should," "will pursue" and similar expressions or variations of such expressions. These forward-looking statements reflect the company's current expectations about its future plans and performance. These forward-looking statements rely on a number of assumptions and estimates which could be inaccurate and which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could vary materially from those anticipated or expressed in any forward-looking statement made by the company. The company disclaims any obligation or intent to update the forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release.
A top Lockheed Martin executive sidestepped questions Wednesday on whether the aerospace firm would pay back $183 million to the government for failures in supplying spare parts for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.

Citing government watchdog agency reports, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York, charged that air crews incurred $183 million in labor costs devising workarounds to track and ensure the reliability of spare parts for the F-35.

Read Next: 'I Never Looked Back': Goldfein Says Trump's Joint Chiefs Chairman Pick Wasn't Personal

"This is unacceptable," Maloney told Greg Ulmer, Lockheed's vice president and general manager of the F-35 Lightning II program, at a hearing of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

According to a Defense Department Inspector General's report, Lockheed refused in 2018 to reimburse the government, Maloney said. Ulmer was noncommittal when she posed the question again Wednesday.

"We don't need further delays or excuses from Lockheed Martin about these problems," Maloney said.

She asked whether Ulmer would commit to paying the Defense Department back" for defects in the electronic logs for spare parts.

"It's a complex program," Ulmer replied, adding that not all of the fault rested with Lockheed. His only commitment was "to sit down and reconcile the concerns and adjudicate the costs appropriately."

Maloney said "a contract is a contract," adding "I hope you will change your mind."

Air Force Lt. Gen. Eric Fick, program executive officer for the F-35 program, said negotiations with Lockheed on resolving the spare parts problems and possible paybacks began in April. The issue of reimbursement "offered or demanded has not been agreed to," he said.

Fick and Ellen Lord, the undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment at the Defense Department, said spare parts problems could be traced to software issues in the antiquated Autonomic Information Logistics System, or ALIS.

They said ALIS will be replaced later this year with a new system less prone to errors, called the Operational Data Integrated Network, or ODIN.

The long-term solution will come from replacing ALIS "with a more stable, capable system," Lord said, but Fick noted that the transition "will not be quick and will not be easy."

Both Lord and Fick said they are "keenly aware" of the concerns with the F-35 program, the most expensive weapons system ever procured by the DoD with current costs well over $420 billion and estimates for the 60-year life cycle of the program running at more than $1 trillion.

Fick said it is crucial that maintenance crews "spend their time keeping aircraft available" rather than wrestling with software issues arising from the electronic logs for spare parts.

According to Government Accountability Office and DoD Inspector General reports, the spare parts were not considered inadequate for installation on the F-35s because of safety or reliability, but rather because they lacked the electronic data on the history of the parts and their remaining useful life.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

Related: Air Force Will Get F-35 Jets Denied to Turkey After Russian Missile Buy
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits the memorial hall for the Siping battle in the Chinese People's War of Liberation and pays his tribute to revolutionary martyrs in northeast China's Jilin Province, July 22, 2020. Xi Jinping inspected Jilin Province on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)

CHANGCHUN, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, has stressed upholding the great socialist cause founded by the CPC and carrying it forward from generation to generation.

Xi made the remarks Wednesday afternoon during his visit to the memorial hall for the Siping battle of the Chinese People's War of Liberation in northeast China's Jilin Province.

During the war, the people's army, led by the CPC, emerged victorious from the Siping battle at the cost of nearly 20,000 lives.

From the Nanchang Uprising to the fighting in the Jinggang Mountains, from the extraordinarily formidable Long March to the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and from the Chinese People's War of Liberation to the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, it was the lives of revolutionary martyrs that ensured the success of the revolution, Xi noted.

"We must keep firmly in mind that New China did not come easily," Xi said.

The 1.4 billion people in the country, including over 90 million CPC members and leading cadres at all levels in particular, should earnestly study the history of the CPC and that of New China, Xi added.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits the memorial hall for the Siping battle in the Chinese People's War of Liberation and pays his tribute to revolutionary martyrs in northeast China's Jilin Province, July 22, 2020. Xi Jinping inspected Jilin Province on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 08:05:17|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Senior UN officials, Nobel laureates and eminent academic experts gathered virtually on Wednesday for the launching of a new UN report and reached a consensus that new approaches must be taken while the world is grappling with the worst recession in decades due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Titled Recover Better: Economic and Social Challenges and Opportunities, the report analyzed economic trends critical to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and recovery from COVID-19.

PARALLEL THREATS

"Parallel threats linked to health, economic and social crises have crippled countries and left us at a standstill," said Liu Zhenmin, UN Undersecretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, as he presented the new report by the High-Level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs.

Among the recommendations that the report proposes is a greater focus on the environment, he said, as well as promotion of research and development, investment in infrastructure and education, and improvement in economic equality.

"Overcoming the crisis and getting back on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals will require a strengthened multilateralism," he said, adding that COVID-19 has laid bare how much leadership, foresight and collaboration among all governments and stakeholders, matter.

In a video message, UN deputy chief Amina Mohammed said as many as 100 million people are expected to be pushed back into extreme poverty in 2020, the first rise in global poverty since 1998.

"We need all hands-on deck if we are to rebuild our economies sustainably and inclusively," she said.

Noting that the report calls for better international tax cooperation and more equitable access to digital technologies, she said the sustainable management of natural resources, and value-added approaches to trading goods, will also be critical.

The 2030 Agenda remains the agreed framework for recovering in ways that accelerate progress on climate change, poverty and gender inequality, and address the fragilities exposed or exacerbated by the pandemic. "We must all do more," she added.

EQUALITY, STRUCTURAL REFORM

During two policy dialogues held at the launching event, 12 experts wrestled with whether the world is currently in a recession and if so, what it will take to recover in ways that can thoroughly reform underlying vulnerabilities.

"There is no trade-off between economic efficiency and equality," said Alicia Barcena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), who contributed a chapter on the topic.

During a panel on the theme, "Ensuring a sustainable recovery through more inclusive and strengthened multilateralism," Barcena underscored the urgent need for structural change.

Between 2000 and 2010, 60 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean moved out of poverty. Now, 45 million risk being pulled back in.

"The market is not going to equalize society. We need a new social and political compact altogether," she said, pointing out that Costa Rica, Uruguay and Cuba - societies that have high trust in government - have fared better during the pandemic than others.

She also called for a progressive tax system, as countries in the region have a 23 percent tax burden, lower than those in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), as well as more regional integration. "The post-pandemic world is going to be a world of regions, a world of blocs."

Ricardo Lagos, former President of Chile, suggested the creation of an internationally binding agreement on pandemics, forged under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Along similar lines, Marcel Fratzscher of research institute DIW Berlin, said that on July 21, European countries agreed to establish a 750 billion euros (850 billion U.S. dollars) recovery fund, transferring resources from stronger to weaker countries with the goal of rebuilding Europe.

"There is an institutional framework being put into place that could ultimately lead to fiscal union help strengthen capital market union," he said.

ECONOMIC WOES

Others drew attention to the significant drop in global trade, which Merit Janow, Dean of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, said was occurring in the context of growing nationalism, geopolitical tensions and strain around multilateral institutions - all of which underscores the vulnerability of global supply chains.

The first priority should be to keep the global trading system open, she said. Practical, problem-solving approaches will be needed, which countries might undertake regionally or through "coalitions of the willing."

Broadly speaking, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said that at a moment when more global cooperation is badly needed, strong forces are fraying the global economy.

He said the deeper problem is that supply chains have not been resilient and instead made countries more vulnerable.

Stiglitz said the global economic downturn will be the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s - and in many dimensions, worse than that seismic failure of the global system. "We should use the massive amount of government intervention in countries ... to create a new world that is more in accordance with our views of what our societies should be."

Countries that have done well, he said, have high trust in government, high social solidarity, an understanding of the externalities associated with disease spread, and trust in science, he added. Enditem
Washington, D.C. , July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- For the third presidential cycle, DemList, the country's most comprehensive free resource for up-to-date information on events surrounding the Democratic Party, the Presidential and Democratic Convention, is pleased to announce the launch of the DemList 2020 Democratic Convention Calendar.

DemList also publishes the DemDaily political column, dedicated to educating, informing and engaging Democrats and allies. The column is followed by Party, public and elected officials, progressives, labor, lobbyists, donors, media, celebrities, activists and voters in every state, DC, the territories and by Democrats abroad in over 50 countries.

Founded and Published by longtime Democratic Political Consultant Kimberly Scott, the quadrennial calendar grew out of an informal calendar of events Scott produced for clients at the 2008 Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado. "The List" went viral and quickly became the 'go-to' source for Democratic Party insiders.

In 2012, the formally-branded "DemList" Convention Calendar reprised its role and served as the Party-recommended resource for the Democratic Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina -- as profiled in the LA Times, Politico, National Journal, Huffington Post, The Pittsburg-Post Gazette, Charlotte Observer and other publications, blogs and media outlets nationwide.

The DemList Convention calendar was again the source for the 2016 Democratic Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with more than 500 events posted.

"Democratic success at the polls is people-driven, and providing a free, informative, effective platform for connecting people to the resources, issues and players goes to the heart of DemList's mission," said Scott.

For the already historic 2020 Democratic Convention, anchored in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, DemList is opening up the calendar to state and national trainings, webinars and meetings leading up to, as well as during, the August 17-20 convention.

Story continues

"We look at this as a exceptional opportunity for state parties and allied organizations, companies, unions and others in the states and nationally to host a virtual event and promote, for free, their brand or cause in a way they wouldn't have been able to do in Milwaukee."

Scott said most people are now just finalizing plans and expects most virtual events to go up in the next two weeks. In the interim, DemList is working with the Democratic party and convention officials to provide the most current updates as they become available.

DemList is proud to serve as the only central hub for all information regarding the country's first virtual political convention. Contact us for sponsorship and advertising opportunities on the calendar.

DemList

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The on Thursday agreed to hear within the next two days a plea challenging a (UGC) circular and seeking cancellation of final year examination in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.

A bench of Justice Nageswara Rao posted the matter for hearing before a bench of Justice Ashok Bhushan after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted that a bench led by Justice Bhushan had already dismissed a similar plea on July 18.

As many as 31 students from different universities across India approached the apex court to quash the circular dated July 6 whereby all universities all across India have been asked to wrap up the final term examinations before September 30.

The students, in their petition, urged that the exams should be canceled and the results of such students should be calculated on the basis of their internal assessment or past performance.

The petition filed by students from 13 states and one union territory requested that the students' marksheets should be issued before July 31.

One of the students, among the 31 petitioners, has tested positive for COVID-19 and prayed for directions to the to adopt the CBSE model and conduct an examination at a later date for the students who are not satisfied with the marks awarded on the basis of the assessment.

That the planned examinations be canceled in the interest of justice for the students as the number of COVID-19 cases is on the rise, the plea said.

As per the UGC, universities were approached to inform the status of the conduct of examinations and responses received from 818 universities (121 deemed universities, 291 private universities, 51 central universities, and 355 state universities).

Out of the 818 universities, 603 have either conducted the examination or are planning to conduct. Meanwhile, 209 others have already conducted examination (on-line/off-line), 394 are planning to conduct examination (on-line/off-line/blended mode) in August or September.

The commission has also said that for 35 universities, of which 27 are private, seven state-run, and one deemed university, the first batch is yet to become eligible for the final exams.

Another petition on the issue, filed in the apex court by final year law student Yash Dubey, also sought cancellation of mandated final year exams. Shiv Sena leader Aditya Thackeray has also moved the apex court on behalf of Yuva Sena, the youth wing of Shiv Sena, against the mandated final year exams in the wake of rising COVID-19 cases.

(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 millionaire businessmen whose 'rough sex' excuse for why he killed his girlfriend led to the legal defence being banned in the courts will be free from jail less than halfway through his sentence.

John Broadhurst, 41, was convicted of the manslaughter of his partner Natalie Connolly, but cleared of murder after using the 'rough sex' defence, in December 2018.

But Broadhurst, of Wolverley, Worcestershire, is set to be released in the coming weeks, less than halfway through his 44-month sentence, the Express and Star reported.

Miss Connolly, a 26-year-old mother, bled to death on December 18, 2016, after an alcohol-fuelled S&M sex session with her boyfriend John Broadhurst.

Campaigners held up Miss Connolly's death as an example of why the 'rough sex' defence should be banned in the Domestic Abuse Bill.

Justice minister Alex Chalk also made reference to Ms Connolly's ordeal during a debate on the Bill earlier this month.

John Broadhurst, 41, (pictured) is set to be freed from prison less than halfway through his 44-month sentence for the manslaughter of Natalie Connolly, 26

Natalie Connolly bled to death on December 18, 2016, after a cocaine and alcohol binge with the multi-millionaire property developer

Miss Connolly's MP Mark Garnier was part of a cross-party campaign to stop violent attackers using the 'rough sex defence'.

Referencing Mr Garnier's role in the campaign, Mr Chalk said: 'They have run a formidable campaign and have engaged closely and constructively with the Government. I pay tribute to them for that.'

Birmingham MP and former Labour leadership contender Jess Phillips said: 'Not only did Mr Broadhurst kill Natalie, but he was able to entirely shape the narrative around her death, as she was not there to speak for herself.

'I have become a bit of an old hand at some things, but the Connolly case is so harrowing that I cannot imagine how her family have coped with it.

'The law should be clear to all: a person cannot consent to serious injury or death. But the case law is not up to the task. When a woman is dead, she cannot speak for herself.'

An amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill now prevents 'consensual rough sex' from being a defence to harming or killing a victim.

MPs voted in favour of the bill on July 6 in the House of Commons. The new bill rules out 'consent for sexual gratification' as a defence for causing a person any serious harm.

Miss Connolly was found in a pool of blood following an alcohol and cocaine binge in their 600,000 home in Kinver, Staffordshire.

Miss Connolly was discovered in a pool of blood in their 600,000 home in Kinver, Staffordshire after an S&M sex session (pictured)

Broadhurst was jailed for three years and eight months after admitting manslaughter by gross negligence, a sentence which was slammed as 'unduly lenient'

The multi-millionaire property developer was jailed for three years and eight months after admitting manslaughter by gross negligence.

But Wyre Forest MP Mark Garnier confirmed that Broadhurst is set to be released from prison in the coming weeks, adding that he was seeking clarification around the terms of the release.

What is the 'rough sex defence' and how has it changed? The so-called 'rough sex defence', also known as the '50 shades of grey' defence, was seen in UK courts in cases of sexual violence. It was used in cases that end in murder or serious harm, to explain why the violence occurred. The defence was highlighted in the case of of 21-year-old Essex backpacker Grace Millane in New Zealand. Her killer was eventually sentenced to life in prison but Louise Perry, who co-runs We Can't Consent To This, a group that raises awareness of the 'rough sex' defence, said sentencing is often reduced. An amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill has prevented 'consensual rough sex' from being a defence to harming or killing a victim. MPs voted in favour of the bill on July 6 in Commons. The new bill now rules out 'consent for sexual gratification' as a defence for causing a person any serious harm. The bill still needs to be debated in the House of Lords, where it is widely expected to pass. Advertisement

Miss Connolly's death attracted national attention and led to the 'rough sex defence', which claims that the victim consented to the injuries which caused their death, being banned earlier this month.

Broadhurst was initially charged with murder but he claimed he had only hurt her 'within the boundaries of her masochistic desires'.

Among her injuries was a blow-out fracture to her left eye, said by the prosecution during the trial to be consistent with 'punch or toe-poke kicks', as well as facial bruising.

Miss Connolly had also suffered horrific internal injuries which it was claimed were inflicted during a grisly sex game involving a bottle of 1001 Carpet Cleaner.

At the time, Broadhurst's sentence was blasted as 'unduly lenient' by prominent figures, including Labour MP Harriet Harman.

Miss Connolly's family had also slammed Broadhurst for being 'callous' after he was jailed for just under four years.

Campaigners have supported Miss Connolly's family in trying to extend Broadhurst's sentence, but it has now emerged that he will soon go free.

Mark Garnier said he was concerned the millionaire was being released back into society.

He also added that Broadhurst's release proved that Miss Connolly's family got no justice and said mistakes were made in the December 2018 trial.

He said: 'There is no justice in this. There never has been for Natalie. She was deprived of her life and of her reputation by this man and he got 18 months for it.

'Natalie Connolly was not someone who was into rough sex. This was Broadhurst using it. She was a just a fairly normal, fun-loving mother who, like most people, wanted a nice, happy relationship with someone she loved.'

Mr Garnier called the trial 'maybe the perfect storm of inadequacy' and said it was an error for the prosecution to drop the murder charge, which could have seen Broadhurst instead serve a 15 or 20 'year stretch'.

Miss Connolly's death attracted national attention and led to the 'rough sex defence', which claims that the victim consented to the injuries which caused their death, being banned earlier this month

He added that Ms Connolly's family were 'going to be gutted' at this latest blow.

At the time of Broadhurst's sentencing, Miss Connolly's relatives said: 'Natalie was a loving and caring daughter, granddaughter, and sister, but above all she was a loving mother to her 10-year old daughter, who now has to grow up without her Mummy by her side.

'She will to have to live a life sentence without her Mummy. Natalie was, and still is at the centre of our world, and we will all try to rebuild our lives knowing we will no longer have the beauty, the joy and the happiness of having Natalie by our side.'

During the trial, members of Miss Connolly's family, who wore pink roses in memory of her, wept with relief as Broadhurst was jailed.

MP Harriet Harman says ban on 'Fifty Shades rough sex defence' will force men to 'take responsibility' after killers used the 'grizzly opportunity' to 'twist women's empowerment'

By Monica Greep for MailOnline

Harriet Harman says the ban on the so-called 'Fifty Shades defence' to counter murder charges will force men to 'take responsibility' for women's deaths.

An amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill will prevent 'consensual rough sex' from being a defence to harming or killing a victim and MP Harriet, 62, London appeared on Loose Women with campaigner Fiona Mackenzie, 36, to discuss the new law.

The politician and solicitor told how the defence gave men 'the grizzly opportunity to twist women's empowerment of their on sexuality' and insisted that 'if their hands killed someone', it's murder.

MPs have previously raised the death of Natalie Connolly in 2016, who bled to death after 'rough sex' with her boyfriend John Broadhurst after an alcohol and cocaine binge, as an example of where the 'consent defence' has been used.

Multi-millionaire property developer Broadhurst was jailed for three years and eight months after admitting manslaughter by gross negligence.

It also follows criticism by police of the 'rough sex defence' in the trial of the murder of 21-year-old Essex backpacker Grace Millane in New Zealand.

The comments come following criticism by police of the 'rough sex defence' in the trial of the murder of 21-year-old Essex backpacker Grace Millane (pictured)

Harriet said: 'What it says, this law, if you're a man who inflicted these injuries which caused her death, you have to take responsibility for that, even if she did want it.

'You have to take responsibility because it's your hands that killed her, it's not about changing sexual behaviour, it's about responsibility.

'If it's his hands doing the strangulation, he is responsible and it's murder.'

Harriet went on to argue that the 'rough sex defence' was a reflection on women's liberation, and women 'defining themselves as sexual beings', which she believes was 'encapsulated' by the 50 Shades of Grey book series.

She told that while in the past women have been perceived as 'submissive' females owning their sexuality gave men the 'opportunity to twist their empowerment' as a means of escaping justice.

Harriet told: 'I think 30-or 40 years ago if a defence barrister said 'Yes my client did strangle this woman, but it's part of rough sex gone wrong' a jury wouldn't have believed it.

'Women were submissive, they were not seen as sexual and that defence would not have run.

'But with the women's liberation moment, women wanting to own their sexuality and to define themselves as sexual beings, encapsulated by the 50 Shades books, the idea became normalised that some women want pain inflicted on them in sex .

'This gave the grizzly opportunity for men to twist women's empowerment of their on sexuality and say, 'I inflicted those injuries because she wanted rough sex'. And it's impossible for the women, or anyone else to challenge him.'

Harriet spoke on the now abolished common law defence of 'provocation', which defence lawyers would refer to as the 'nagging and shagging' defence

Fiona, who started campaign group, We Can't Consent To This, told of the women who have informed her of violent sexual assaults taking place during sex

She spoke on the now abolished common law defence of 'provocation', which defence lawyers would refer to as the 'nagging and shagging' defence.

The controversial defence could occur when a person was considered to have committed a criminal act partly because of a preceding set of events that might cause a reasonable person to lose self control.

Harriet explained: 'I think there has been a horrible tradition of men blaming women for their own death, saying: 'Yes I killed her, but it was her fault'.

'He would stand in the docks presenting himself as a victim, and that was called provocation and that used to mean murder was dropped to manslaughter.

'This was abolished, but only as recently as 2009 and that was called the 'nagging and shagging defence' by defence lawyers, it was literally blaming her for her own death.'

MP Harriet, 62, London appeared on Loose Women with campaigner Fiona Mackenzie, 36, to discuss the new law. Pictured with host Kaye Adams

Harriet, a long-time advocate of women's rights, told how she became interested in the issue following the use of the 'rough sex' defence in the death of Natalie Connolly.

She went on: 'Then in the Natalie case, he was saying 'I was only doing what she wanted. Yes, those injuries were what I inflicted but it's not my fault, it's her fault she died, it's what she wanted'.

'She can't speak for herself and her poor relatives need to listen to this, so i's really important we ban this defence.'

Fiona, who started campaign group, We Can't Consent To This, added: 'I set up this campaign after Natalie Connolly's killing and immediately started hearing from women who had been violently assaulted by their sexual partners.

'This is often really serious violence and in particular strangulation, the idea you can go on a date with a guy and be strangled to the point you're unconscious and that not be treated as a serious crime is horrifying. '
The book "Too Much and Never Enough" by Mary Trump is pictured in a bookstore in New York, July 14, 2020.

A tell-all memoir by President Donald Trump's niece  who claims he has world-endangering emotional problems stemming from childhood trauma inflicted by his parents  has sold 1.35 million copies in its first week, according to publisher Simon & Schuster.

Mary Trump's "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man" is in its 17th printing, the publisher said Thursday. It has been sold in five languages. The sales figure, which includes all formats, puts the book on track to being one of the most popular books of the year.

"Mary Trump's memoir has transcended the usual ceiling for political books to reach a larger audience of people who want to read stories about unusual families," Simon & Schuster CEO Jonathan Karp said in a statement.

The publisher said the book was ranked No. 1 in Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States, and No. 2 in Australia.

The memoir was published ahead of schedule after litigation brought by the president's brother Robert failed to halt its release. Simon & Schuster said it published the book early because of extraordinary demand.

In the memoir, Mary Trump, trained as a clinical psychologist, writes that the president's father, Fred, "perverted his son's perception of the world and damaged his ability to live in it."

Mary Trump also accused Trump of paying someone else to take his SATs while in high school.

"Lying was primarily a mode of self-aggrandizement meant to convince other people he was better than he actually was," she writes.

The White House has said the allegations in the book are false. A spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the book's sales.

Mary Trump is the daughter of Fred Trump Jr., the president's older brother, who died of a heart attack in the 1980s that the family has said was related to alcoholism. Robert Trump claims that publication of the book violates a nondisclosure agreement that bound members of the family from publicly discussing their relationships to each other following a dispute over Fred Trump Sr.'s will. President Trump has also said that Mary Trump was forbidden from publishing the book.

Books written by those critical of the president have effectively spawned their own genre, with many coming from former members of his administration. But Mary Trump's book is unique in that it was written by a family member. It also appears to have outdone many of the previous books' sales figures.

Earlier this month, Simon & Schuster said a book by former national security advisor John Bolton, "The Room Where it Happened," sold 780,000 copies in all formats in its first week on sale.

Former FBI director James Comey's book "A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership" sold about 600,000 copies in its first week on sale in 2018.

Both of those books were relative blockbusters for political memoirs.

For instance, Hillary Clinton's "What Happened," which detailed her loss to Trump in 2016, was considered a success after selling about 300,000 copies in its first week in all formats.
SIU Journalisms 1857 Project tells history of racism in the Midwest

by Christi Mathis

CARBONDALE, Ill.  The Gateway Journalism Review, a Southern Illinois University Carbondale School of Journalism publication that analyzes mass media in the Midwest, has marked its 50th anniversary with an eye-opening and timely issue, The 1857 Project.

The edition offers a historical retrospective on slavery, segregation and other aspects of racism in the St. Louis metro area and Illinois. SIU students and faculty are joined by many others in telling the true stories seldom heard before.

Extensive historical perspective

The issues name is a reference to the landmark 1857 Dred Scott decision that denied Blacks constitutional rights, including citizenship and freedom. That Supreme Court decision was a focus during the Lincoln-Douglas debates the following year and a prelude to the Civil War.

What many people dont realize is that significant chapters in the nations race story played out in St. Louis and Illinois, according to William Freivogel, SIU journalism professor and Gateway Journalism Review publisher.

For instance, he notes that prior to the Dred Scott lawsuit, although Illinois was considered a free state, Lydia Titus, a slave, had to fight in court in the early 1800s for freedom for herself and for her family. St. Louis was the site of some of the nations biggest housing discrimination battles, won by Blacks, and was the home of the countrys most expensive court-ordered school desegregation program. Illinois was also an important part of the Underground Railroad.

But there are many very dark spots in the history of racism in the Midwest, including the lynching of about 200 Black people, the murder of 100 during East St. Louis race riots, and more recently, the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Freivogel said.

Eye-opening

Amelia Blakely, who graduated in May with dual bachelors degrees in journalism and philosophy, spent many hours researching the life experiences of enslaved and freed African-Americans up until the end of the Civil War and learning details of the 200 recorded lynchings that happened between the mid-1800s and 1945, she said.

A native of Anna, Blakely has connections with the surrounding area and an appreciation for the oral traditions of Pulaski and Alexander counties.

There is a rich, deep history but a lot of it had only been written about a few times, she said. She suggested that any discussion of race in St. Louis must also incorporate the historically significant connections to Cairo and the Mississippi River. As a journalist, shes most accustomed to interviewing living people but for this project, she perused historical documents, old newspapers and oral histories.

A lot of the historical figures we idolize were actually just men of their time, in a messy and dangerous way, she said. Reading accounts of white residents parading down streets with a Black humans head on a pike illuminated the historical cognitive dissonance that many people feel today about racism and American freedoms. Until we, as white Americans, come to terms with what our ancestors consented to, we as a nation will not have true reconciliation and progress when it comes to race. This project pushed that claim deeper into my American consciousness, and Im deeply grateful for being afforded the opportunity to be a part of it.

Abbey La Tour, who graduated in 2019 with bachelors degrees in journalism and communication design, also believes the magazine is transformative. She handled all of the design duties, including creating the graphics and mapping the site of each lynching in Missouri and Illinois, a sobering experience.

I think that anyone who can should get their hands on the magazine, La Tour, a Peoria native now residing in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, said. Learning more about our local history is really important in order to make sure we can continue to improve as a community moving forward. I think this edition came out at the right time because it is amidst COVID and Black Lives Matter protests and it shows how actions of the past are still affecting people in this moment.

History comes alive

Among the other highlights of the 1857 issue are:

A review of the Lincoln-Douglas debates by Freivogel and Kayla Chamness, a senior journalism major.

A story about how J. Edgar Hoover's Cointelpro project covered up a civil rights investigation in Cairo.

A look at how a neighborhood in St. Louis is more vulnerable to COVID-19 and lower life expectancies for residents.

An unmasking of the Veiled Prophet.

The Clayton Conundrum.

A look back at how a legacy of slavery limited opportunities.

These and many other stories are told by SIU students and faculty, by civil rights activists from the Midwest, by black journalists, and by students from Kirkwood High School and University City High School in the St. Louis metro area. Freivogel brings to the project some 50 years of experience as a journalist, including 34 years as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. During that time he covered countless stories where race played a role. He said the other writers offer a variety of perspectives in the essays and historical tales they present.

This issue features some very well-written stories exploring the history of race in this region, a place where very important chapters in the nations history occurred, Freivogel said.

Pulitzer sponsorship

The Gateway Journalism Review, originally known as the St. Louis Journalism Review before SIU took it over a decade ago, is published quarterly. The Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting sponsored this issue of the magazine, providing grant funding to print additional copies of the magazine for distribution.

The grant is in conjunction with education outreach for the New York Times 1619 Project, which is an outgrowth of Nikole Hannah-Jones 1619 essay in the New York Times Magazine. The 2019 essay, which won a Pulitzer Prize in May, sets forth that race, segregation and racism are central to what America is.

Valuable experience

Currently working as a copy editor and paginator for The News-Enterprise, a daily Kentucky newspaper, La Tour found the magazine project gave her the chance to grow professionally, expand her skills and gain new perspectives. Shes learned to be more creative, wrapping type, incorporating photos and quotes within layouts and much more, while also working under a tight deadline. With just a month to finish, she did the bulk of the work in a week and a half while also working full-time.

But, she said because of her appreciation for the editors and writers and how they inspire me and push me to grow more as a journalist and designer, she continues to work for the magazine even after graduation. This issue was especially important, she said, because of the partnership with the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, which means the magazine will reach a wider audience and perhaps even result in some name recognition. But, most important, she said, are the lessons she learned via the stories of race in the Midwest.

Working for Pulitzer

Currently living in Nashville, Tennessee, Blakelys career goals include working in public radio or with non-profit journalism centers to report on underreported/rural areas of America. She began working on another project for the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting shortly after graduation. Originally intended to be an international project in Sweden, the pandemic and travel restrictions resulted in a modification and now, shes reporting on acknowledgement and racial inequalities in the cleanup of toxic contamination caused by metal and chemical refining industries. Shes focusing on a former lead smelter in Herculaneum, Missouri, and the site of a former railroad tie plant in Carbondale.

Both sites are remediated by the EPA but their conditions are in stark contrast to each other, she said.

She said the 1857 project has had a major impact on her in many ways.

I was so impassioned about this project because growing up in Southern Illinois, none of the history in this edition of GJR was ever told to us in schools or in the community, she said. Frankly, I think its a disservice to hide and cover up history that is unfavorable or horrible because it inhibits future generations from having a more complete understanding of where they originate. With the historical understanding of racism that Ive gained, and continue to seek, I intend to continue writing honestly about race in America.
Microsoft announced new innovations at the conclusion of its Inspire Conference, a two-day digital event that brought together its partner community from across the world.



The company, as well as enhancements to existing offerings during the conference with the aim to empower its partner ecosystem, to better serve customers, and manage their business amid changing work environments.



Our partner ecosystem is essential to deliver transformative solutions for our customers, said Gavriella Schuster, Corporate Vice President, One Commercial Partner at Microsoft.



Each year, we hear countless success stories from customers across industries around the world who depend on our partners innovation, dedication, and service. But in the past year  and in the past few months especially  we have seen firsthand exactly what our partner community offers in a dramatically changing world: unlimited potential. The potential to adapt, to connect, to innovate, and to achieve more.



Some of the key announcements made during the event include enhancements to Azure Lighthouse by bringing Multi-Factor Authentication and Privileged Identity Management support; Azure Stack HCI, the latest in Microsofts hybrid portfolio and now in public preview, that brings hybrid capabilities to customers datacenters while enabling them to leverage existing skills and investment; and new bundled services for Lenovo Managed Services that are designed to help small- and medium-sized businesses support Microsoft software productivity, security, and collaboration.



Microsoft also added new capabilities to its Teams platform in the companys efforts to empower Firstline Workers connect and engage with information, apps and co-workers while enabling organizational agility.



The new Communities feature provides access to Yammer announcements, updates, discussions and events directly from Teams; Walkie Talkie, now in public preview, enables secure push-to-talk communication; and new features streamline shift scheduling and task publishing for Firstline Managers. Additionally, to deliver a more secure workplace, the new Microsoft Endpoint Data Loss Prevention in Microsoft 365 will help customers identify and protect information on endpoints.



At Inspire, Microsoft reiterated its commitment towards environmental sustainability by announcing a new coalition with eight leading corporations. The cross-sector initiative known as Transform to Net Zero, aims to deliver guidance and business plans to private sector and enable a transformation to net zero emissions, but also deliver meaningful emissions reductions and economic success.



The company also launched a private preview of the Microsoft Sustainability Calculator that provides cloud customers with transparency into their total carbon emissions.  TradeArabia News Service
A Brexit trade deal is now looking "unlikely" because of British intransigence on key issues, the EU's chief negotiator has warned.

Speaking on Thursday after a round of negotiations in London Michel Barnier said told reporters that "the time for answers is quickly running out".

"By its current refusal to commit to open and fair competition and to a balanced agreement on fisheries, the UK makes a trade agreement, at this point, unlikely. Until the very last day of this negotiation and despite the current difficulties the EU will remain engaged, constructive, and respectful," he said.

"In any case the UK has chosen to leave the single market and customs union on 1 January next year in little more than 5 months. This will bring inevitable changes. On our side we are getting ready."

Mr Barnier warned that not signing a deal by October would have serious economic consequences.

"If we do not reach an agreement on our future partnership there will be far more friction  for instance on trading goods in addition to new customs formalities there will be tariffs and quotas," he said.

"This is the truth of Brexit and I will continue to tell the truth. If we want to avoid this additional friction we must come to an agreement in October at the latest so that our new treaty can enter into force on 1 January next year. This means that we only have a few weeks left and that we should not waste time."

Taking questions from journalists after his statement, the EU's chief negotiator said progress had to be made: "You don't do that with ultimatums or threat, I've never seen negotiations being carried forward in that sort of way. I don't think we've got time for these games."

Mr Barnier's UK counterpart David Frost issued a statement warning that "considerable gaps remain" in talks and accepting that a deal would not be reached in time for the end of July, when Boris Johnson had said he wanted one to be signed by.

But he was more up-beat on the prospects of an eventual trade agreement, adding: Despite all the difficulties, on the basis of the work we have done in July, my assessment is that agreement can still be reached in September, and that we should continue to negotiate with this aim in mind. Accordingly we look forward to welcoming the EU team back to London next week as planned for informal discussions and to the next negotiating Round beginning on 17 August.

He added: "Considerable gaps remain in the most difficult areas, that is, the so-called level playing field and on fisheries. We have always been clear that our principles in these areas are not simple negotiating positions but expressions of the reality that we will be a fully independent country at the end of the transition period.

That is why we continue to look for a deal with, at its core, a free trade agreement similar to the one the EU already has with Canada  that is, an agreement based on existing precedents. We remain unclear why this is so difficult for the EU, but we will continue to negotiate with this in mind.

Looking forward, there are large areas of convergence in many of the areas on which we are negotiating and ample precedents and texts on which we can base our work. We will keep working hard to bridge the gaps and find a way through."

The next round of formal negotiations is in mid-August, with further discussions expected in London next week.

The main stickingpoints in talks are on fisheries, where Mr Barnier says the UK "is asking for near-total exclusion from the UK's waters" of EU vessels  and on regulatory alignment.

"On important areas such as climate, environment, labour, and social law the UK refuses effective means to avoid undercutting by lowering standards," the EU's chief negotiator said.

Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Show all 66 1 /66 Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU A message projected onto the White Cliffs of Dover Sky News/AFP via Getty Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Getty Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Big Ben, shows the hands at eleven o'clock at night AFP via Getty Images Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Nigel Farage speaks to pro-Brexit supporters PA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Pro-Brexit demonstrators celebrate on Parliament Square REUTERS Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU The Union flag is taken down outside the European Parliament in Brussels PA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Pro-EU campaigners outside the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh PA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU A pro-Brexit supporter jumps on an EU flag in Parliament Square PA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU EU Council staff removed the Union Jack-British flag from the European Council in Brussels, Belgium EPA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU A pro-Brexit supporter pours beer onto an EU flag PA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Pedestrians pass in front of the Ministry of Defence Building on Whitehall, illuminated by red, white and blue lights in central London AFP via Getty Images Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU A Brexit supporter shouts during a rally in London AP Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Pro-EU campaigners outside the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh PA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Pro-EU campaigners take part in a 'Missing EU Already' rally outside the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh PA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU A large pro-EU banner is projected onto Ramsgate cliff in Kent PA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Pro-EU supporters light candles in Smith Square in Westminster PA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU A man waves Union flags from a small car as he drives past Brexit supporters gathering in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Images Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU The five-year old Elisa 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 group New Europeans outside Europe House, central London AFP via Getty Images Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU People celebrate Britain leaving the EU REUTERS Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU A Pro Brexit supporter has a Union Jack painted onto his face at Parliament Square Getty Images Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Men hold placards celebrating Britain leaving the EU REUTERS Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Pro Brexit supporters dance in the street draped with Union Jack flags at Parliament Square Getty Images Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU An anti-Brexit demonstrator spreads his wings during a gathering near Downing Street AP Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Pro EU supporters display a banner ' Here to Stay, Here to Fight, Migrants In, Tories Out' from Westminster bridge EPA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Pro-Brexit supporters burn European Union flags at Parliament Square Getty Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU A man poses for a picture on Parliament Square in a 'Brexit Day' t-shirt Reuters Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU People celebrate Britain leaving the EU Reuters Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU AFP via Getty Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU A man wears a pro-Brexit t-shirt Reuters Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Anti-Brexit demonstrators visit Europe House to give flowers to the staff on Brexit day Reuters Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Pro Brexit supporter wears a novelty Union Jack top hat outside the Houses of Parliament Getty Images Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Customers Scott Jones and Laura Jones at the Sawmill Bar in South Elmsall, Yorkshire, where a Brexit party is being held throughout the day PA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU AP Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Getty Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Getty Images Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Pro-EU activists protest Getty Images Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU A pro-Brexit demonstrator burns a European Union flag AP Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Pro Brexit supporters Getty Images Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Pro Brexit supporters Getty Images Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU A Brexit supports holds a sign in Parliament Square AP Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU A man carries an EU themed wreath Reuters Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Ann Widdecombe reacts with other members of the Brexit party as they leave en masse from the European Parliament PA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Anti-Brexit demonstrators in Parliament Square PA Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Pro EU supporters let off flares from Westminster Bridge Getty Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU British MEPs Jonathan Bullock, holding the Union Jack flag and Jake Pugh leave the European Parliament, in Brussels on the Brexit day AFP via Getty Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Newspapers and other souvenirs at a store, near Parliament Square Reuters Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU Brexit supporters hold signs in Parliament Square 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 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

"The UK wants to maintain its regulatory autonomy: OK, we respect that. But can the UK use this new regulatory autonomy to distort competition with us? We have to answer this question as we commit to a new economic partnership. We want to trade with the UK free from tariffs, free from quotas, but also free from unfair competition. I am sure that UK businesses want that too. The UK tells us it needs certainty for its businesses, but that cannot be at the price of long-term uncertainty and disadvantages for our business in the EU. We respect the UK government's political choice and we are ready to work on solution. But the EU will not accept to foot the bill for the UK's political choices."

Mr Frost said the UK had "always been clear that our principles in these areas are not simple negotiating positions but expressions of the reality that we will be a fully independent country at the end of the transition period".

"We continue to look for a deal with, at its core, a free trade agreement similar to the one the EU already has with Canada  that is, an agreement based on existing precedents. We remain unclear why this is so difficult for the EU, but we will continue to negotiate with this in mind," he added. UK sources say both sides engaged on the level playingfield and that the UK had proposed a robust legal text. On fishing the UK says the EU wedded to the status quo.

Downing Street said on Wednesday that the UK was now looking for the "outline" of a free trade agreement by the end of the year, hinting that a full agreement may not be possible.
Iran to strike back at U.S. over assassination of General: Supreme Leader

ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency

Wed / 22 July 2020 / 11:51

Tehran (ISNA) - The Prime Minister of Iraq, Mustafa al-Kadhimi met with the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

Speaking in the meeting, Ayatollah Khamenei described Iran-Iraq relations as being truly brotherly due to the existence of many similarities in history, religion, culture and traditions between the two countries.

He stressed, "What is of great importance to the Islamic Republic in its bilateral relations with Iraq are the interests, security, dignity, and regional authority of Iraq in addition to the improvement of circumstances in that country."

The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution stressed that Iran has never wanted and never will want to interfere in the internal affairs of Iraq, saying, "Iran wishes to see an Iraq which is dignified and independent with its territorial integrity and internal unity and cohesion protected."

Ayatollah Khamenei added, "Iran is definitely opposed to anything that weakens the Iraqi government. Of course, the Americans' outlook concerning Iraq is the exact opposite of ours due to the fact that the US is an enemy, in the true sense of the word. That is why it does not wish to see an independent, strong Iraq that enjoys a government formed on the basis of the people's votes."

His Eminence stated, "The Americans do not care who the Prime Minister of Iraq is. They only want to establish a government like the one formed by Paul Bremer, the former American ruler of Iraq just after Saddam's downfall. Iran does not interfere in Iraqi-American relations, but it expects its Iraqi friends to know the US and to bear in mind that the presence of the US in any country will bring about corruption, ruin and destruction."

He emphasized, "The Islamic Republic expects the decision made by the Iraqi government, nation and parliament to expel the Americans to be implemented because their presence leads to insecurity."

Referring to the assassination of General Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis as one of the consequences of the presence of the US in the region, Ayatollah Khamenei stated, "They killed your guest in your home, and they blatantly confessed to this crime. This is not a trivial matter. The Islamic Republic of Iran will never forget this, and it will definitely strike a reciprocal blow to the Americans."

The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution spoke of the consensus between various political groups and parties in Iraq in establishing Kadhimi's administration, saying, "The Americans and their agents are always seeking to create a power vacuum in regional countries in order to cause a chaos and prepare the ground for their own intervention. This is what they did in Yemen. Everyone can see the appalling circumstances in Yemen today."

Offering Iran's support to Kadhimi's administration, Ayatollah Khamenei said, "Wisdom, religion and experience dictate that Iran-Iraq relations be reinforced in all areas. Obviously, there are some countries which are opposed to the expansion of Iran-Iraq relations. The US is at the top of the list. But, we should not fear the US at all because it cannot do a single thing."

Ayatollah Khamenei added, "The Americans cause trouble and create some hurdles, but the Iraqi government should continue its path with strength and without heeding these interferences. It should also protect the Iraqi people who are a source of support for it."

The Leader described the Religious Authority and person of Ayatollah Sistani as being a great blessing for Iraq and stated, "Hashd al-Shabi is another great blessing in Iraq, which should be safeguarded."

During the meeting, which was also attended by Iran's First Vice President, Eshagh Jahangiri, the Prime Minister of Iraq called the meeting with the Leader of the Islamic Revolution a great blessing.

Al Kazemi appreciating Iran's positions and support at various times, especially during the war with ISIS and the Takfiris, said: "The Iraqi people will never forget Iran's support, and the fact is that the blood of Iraqis and Iranians is mixed in the war against the Takfiris terrorists."

The Iraqi Prime Minister emphasized that Iran-Iraq relations are a deep, historical, cultural and religious relationship with the support of love and devotion to Prophet's Household (Ahl al-Bayt) AS.

Mustafa al-Kazemi also addressed the Leader of the Islamic Revolution and said: "Your Excellency's guidance and advice is key to solving problems, and I thank and appreciate these guidelines."

End Item

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Linkedin Josh Smith (Reuters) Seoul, South Korea  Thu, July 23, 2020 16:30 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668c499a 2 People North-Korea,Swedish,ambassador,yoga,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-lockdown,pandemic,SARS-CoV-2,coronavirus-restrictions Free

Barefoot and blonde, Swedish Ambassador Joachim Bergstrom makes an unlikely sight in North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, as he practices yoga poses near some of its most iconic landmarks.

One of the few Western diplomats who has not evacuated from North Korea amid coronavirus restrictions, Bergstrom has relied on yoga to endure the deepening sense of isolation. Bergstrom, who has been in North Korea as an ambassador since September 2019, came prepared to use the exercise regimen as a way to stay healthy and unwind in a country where foreigners and residents are under constant restraints.

But the sense of isolation deepened when the coronavirus began to spread in neighboring China in January, prompting North Korea to shut its borders, cancel most flights and train service, and send foreign residents into more than a month of quarantine.

North Korea says it has zero confirmed cases of the coronavirus, but has taken significant measures to prevent the spread of the disease.

Several foreign delegations arranged to temporarily leave, including officials from Germany, France, and Britain, while others were locked out of the country by the sudden border closings.

Bergstrom has stayed on, and teaches occasional yoga classes to a dwindling number of international diplomats and aid workers.

Foreigners were allowed out of their compounds at the beginning of March, but still face restrictions on travel and movement around the city, he said.

Occasionally, Bergstrom says, he rides his bicycle and practices yoga in parks or other public spots, often prompting smiles and stares from residents, who he says are curious and friendly.

"Some get bewildered looks when I go upside down in head-stand," he told Reuters by messaging app from Pyongyang. "Connecting  even peripherally  through folks smiling or talking about my yoga practice among themselves  has been a very rewarding experience."

He has posted photos on social media of him striking yoga poses in front of some of Pyongyang's landmarks, including the Juche Tower, the unfinished Ryugyong Hotel, and the Arch of Triumph.

Above all, yoga has given him something to rely on during uncertain times that include power cuts, water shortages, limited communication and now, coronavirus lockdowns.

"A physical practice totally independent of all these factors is an amazing thing in a place like this," Bergstrom said. "No matter what happens around me, I can do my thing."
Charles Evers, the brother of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, in a still image from video. (Screenshot/CNN)

Charles Evers, Brother of Medgar Evers and Civil Rights Icon, Dies at 97

Charles Evers, the older brother of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, died at home of natural causes on Wednesday at the age of 97.

Evers was surrounded by relatives at his daughters home in the Jackson, Mississippi, suburb of Brandon when he died, according to Rankin County Coroner David Ruth.

His death was confirmed by his granddaughter Courtney E. Cockrell. Everss death marked the third death of a prominent civil rights leader within a week, following Rev. C.T. Vivian and Rep. John Lewis. The pair, who both marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., died on Friday.

Born on Sept. 11, 1922, in Decatur, Mississippi, Evers served in the U.S. military during World War II, and made history in 1969 when he became the first black mayor of the southwestern Mississippi town of Fayette, since Reconstruction.

He ran several businesses in Mississippi and Illinois, and became a candidate for governor in 1971 and United States senator in 1978, although he lost those elections.

Rest In Peace, Charles Evers. He was a civil rights leader and a true friend to me and so many Mississippians. His memory will always be cherished and honored.  Tate Reeves (@tatereeves) July 22, 2020

Evers took over for his brother as state field secretary for the Mississippi civil rights organization NAACP (the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) after his assassination in June 1963.

Five years later, Byron De La Beckwith, a former fertilizer salesman and self-avowed white supremacist, went on trial twice in his brothers killing, but all-white juries deadlocked and did not convict him. The case was reopened in 1994 and Beckwith was convicted of murder. That conviction was upheld by the Mississippi Supreme Court 3 years later.

Before, the killer of a black man would go free. Now we know you just cant go out and kill a black man or woman and nothing is done, Charles Evers said at the time. Justice finally came.

Studio portrait of slain American civil rights activist Medgar Evers (1925-1963) in the early 1960s. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

During his time at the NAACP, Evers organized economic boycotts against white businesses, began drives to register black voters, and challenged the racial structure of Mississippis Democratic Party.

A 1969 profile of Evers described the progress made by the NAACP under his leadership as spectacular.

Particularly in the predominantly negro counties in the southwest corner of the state, where Evers, an insurgent Democrat, has for the first time mobilized black voting power and effectively challenged the traditionally all-white state party structure, it said.

Rest In Peace, Charles Evers, tweeted Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves. He was a civil rights leader and a true friend to me and so many Mississippians. His memory will always be cherished and honored.

I am deeply saddened by the loss of my friend Charles Evers. Charles was a trail blazer in politics and a fearless leader, alongside his brother Medgar, for Civil Rights. pic.twitter.com/rL4bLbCY1D  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2020

President Donald Trump remembered Evers as a fearless leader in a heartfelt Twitter post. Evers endorsed Trump for president in 2016.

I am deeply saddened by the loss of my friend Charles Evers, the president wrote. Charles was a trail blazer in politics and a fearless leader, alongside his brother Medgar, for Civil Rights.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

The export of leather goods from Turkey to Kyrgyzstan dropped by 7.95 percent from January through June 2020, compared to the same period of 2019, having made up $3.1 million, the Turkish Trade Ministry told Trend.

The ministry noted that Turkeys export of leather goods to Kyrgyzstan rose by 23.46 percent in June 2020 compared to the same month of last year, amounting to $293,000.

In 1H2020, the export of leather goods from Turkey to the world markets decreased by 24.1 percent compared to 1H2019, having amounted to $630.5 million.

Turkeys export of leather products accounted for 0.8 percent of the country's total export volume during the reporting period.

Turkey exported $101.5 million worth of leather goods to the world markets in June 2020, which is 15.8 percent more compared to the same month of 2019. During this month, the countrys export of leather goods accounted for 0.8 percent of its total export volume.

Turkey exported the leather goods worth $1.5 billion from June 2019 through June 2020.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
DENVER, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- EnerCom, Inc. is pleased to announce that the 25th Anniversary of The Oil and Gas Conference will include a panel of speakers exploring the effects of ESG on the energy industry. Members of the panel have diverse backgrounds and will discuss how ESG affects companies in ways ranging from access to capital, company culture and technological innovation.

EnerCom will host the panel Monday, August 17th, starting at 11:45am MT.

"There is growing evidence to support the theory that companies that adopt an effective ESG strategy can gain competitive advantages, including a more stable investor base, lower cost of capital, broader access to financing, improved employee engagement and deeper customer loyalty," said EnerCom Director Dan Genovese. "These benefits are vital to companies seeking to strengthen their corporate performance, maximize shareholder returns and maintain their social license to operate.

"Growing public expectations around corporate responsibility has been increasing the pressure on institutional investors to invest in sustainable businesses. Moving forward, a CSR strategy will become a requirement for access to low-cost capital for the oil and gas industry."

Confirmed panel participants include:

Ross Campbell with Barrow Hanley  Barrow Hanley is an asset management company with a long history of delivering client value through their research-driven, bottom-up investment approach to active security selection. Mr. Campbell background includes managing sustainability and investor relations at Denbury Resources Inc. and Mr. Campbell has also earned the Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting credential from the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board and is versed on a number of responsible investing topics and ESG best practices.

 Barrow Hanley is an asset management company with a long history of delivering client value through their research-driven, bottom-up investment approach to active security selection. Mr. Campbell background includes managing sustainability and investor relations at Denbury Resources Inc. and Mr. Campbell has also earned the Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting credential from the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board and is versed on a number of responsible investing topics and ESG best practices. David Preng with Preng and Associates  Preng & Associates is the world's leading executive search firm totally dedicated to the energy industry with a focus on Board, CEO, and C-Suite level positions. Mr. Preng's industry experience includes financial, managerial and executive positions within oil and gas and he currently serves as a Board Director of Cal Dive International and, was a Director at Remington Oil and Gas.

 Preng & Associates is the world's leading executive search firm totally dedicated to the energy industry with a focus on Board, CEO, and C-Suite level positions. Mr. Preng's industry experience includes financial, managerial and executive positions within oil and gas and he currently serves as a Board Director of Cal Dive International and, was a Director at Remington Oil and Gas. Chris Hughen , Associate Professor University of Denver  Chris regularly teaches graduate courses in security analysis and international finance. Hughen holds a PhD in finance from the University of Missouri , and his specialties include investment performance measurement and GIPS. His research has won awards from the CFP Board of Examiners, Academy of Financial Services and the Daniels College of Business. His current research includes international finance and investment performance analytics related to ESG.

 Chris regularly teaches graduate courses in security analysis and international finance. Hughen holds a PhD in finance from the , and his specialties include investment performance measurement and GIPS. His research has won awards from the CFP Board of Examiners, Academy of Financial Services and the Daniels College of Business. His current research includes international finance and investment performance analytics related to ESG. Susan Fakharzadeh , Vice President of Corporate Communications & Government Affairs Great Western - Great Western is Colorado born and Colorado built with a company mission is to produce energy in a safe and responsible way to improve people's lives. Great Western does this by operating on a set of core values, combined with the nation's most rigorous regulatory standards, and collaborative, transparent relationships with the communities where we live and operate. Our management team and board both share these commitments and direct our company's business plan and policies in a way that reflects our values in every angle of our operations.

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.

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Government has established a Guarantee Scheme of up to GH2 billion to enable businesses to borrow from banks at more affordable rates and a longer tenor. This was announced by the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta during the mid-year budget review and supplementary estimates on Thursday, July 23, 2020.



Speaking on the floor of Parliament, the Minister noted that the establishment of the GH2 billion Guarantee Scheme is to help businesses to access loans from banks at affordable rates in order to retain jobs and to save businesses who have been impacted negatively by the coronavirus pandemic.



It takes a caring government to establish a Guarantee Scheme of up to GH2 billion to enable businesses to borrow from banks at more affordable rates and a longer tenor to save their business and retain jobs, he said.



Additionally, Mr. Ofori-Atta disclosed that government has taken steps to further cushion businesses amidst the coronavirus pandemic by increasing the Coronavirus Alleviation Programme Business Support Scheme (CAPBuSS) by GH100 billion. According to him, the increment of the CAPBuSS for businesses will make funds available to businesses and help them operates smoothly despite the adverse effects of the pandemic.



It takes a caring government to hear the distress of business and respond with support to small and medium businesses to the tune of GH600 million in order to help them survive and thrive in these uncertain times. The CAPBuSS will be increased by GH150million to help many more MSMEs, including GH50million for the creative arts industry and the media he added.

Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a Mountain View, California-based technology start-up and its chief executive officer with defrauding investors by making false and misleading statements about the companys finances and sources of revenue.

The SECs complaint alleges that from 2018 to 2019, Shaukat Shamim, the founder and CEO of YouPlus, a private company that purported to have developed a machine-learning tool to analyze videos on the internet, raised funds from investors while repeatedly misrepresenting the companys financial condition. According to the complaint, Shamim falsely told investors that YouPlus earned millions of dollars in annual revenue and had more than 100 customers, including Fortune 500 companies. When one investor pressed Shamim for information substantiating those claims, Shamim allegedly provided the investor with falsified bank statements in an effort to conceal the fraud. The scheme allegedly unraveled in late 2019 when Shamim confessed to certain investors that YouPlus had in fact earned less than $500,000 and obtained only four paying customers from the companys inception in 2013.

As we allege in our complaint, Shamim and YouPlus drummed up interest in the company by providing false information about its financial performance and customer base, said Erin E. Schneider, Director of the SECs San Francisco Regional Office. Private companies engaged in early-stage fundraising must tell the truth when selling securities to investors.

The SECs complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, charges YouPlus and Shamim with violating the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws and seeks permanent injunctions, civil money penalties, disgorgement with prejudgment interest, and an officer-and-director bar against Shamim.
Infinet Wireless further cements West African presence with new Cameroon HQ and localised training programmes

Posted by Publisher Telecommunication

Yaounde, Cameroon, 23 July 2020 ? Infinet Wireless, the global leader in fixed broadband wireless connectivity, has opened a new regional office in Cameroon as the company expands its operations in one of the world?s fastest growing economic regions.

This new presence will be initially managed by Ludovic Thierry Takam, a Yaounde native and Technical Engineer, who has been with Infinet Wireless since 2013. Thierry will oversee the establishment of a new platform to enable mutually beneficial exchanges of technology expertise between the Infinet Wireless management teams and their African counterparts. This will include setting up technological programs and qualifications in several universities as part of the Infinet Wireless Academy.

This presence will also be used to deliver Infinet Wireless? latest technological breakthroughs, supporting its customer base with all their current and future wireless projects involving the company?s solutions. Specific focus will be given to verticals such as new infrastructures for service providers of all types, homeland security, mobile connectivity, energy and mining applications, as well as solutions for smart cities.

?Infinet Wireless? cost effective and market leading solutions can make a significant contribution to the economic development of the sub-Sahara region. Our presence much closer to the end users represents a win-win partnership for all stakeholders in the region, allowing us to react much quicker to market demands but also to make available our technological know-how and innovative solutions in the delivery of wireless infrastructures. Africa is a rapidly developing continent, both economically and technologically, and we are committed and excited to be a part of a history in the making,? said Kamal Mokrani, Infinet?s Global Vice President.

Takam will also assist the company?s African partners more closely by supporting their design and deployment efforts often needed for large-scale projects. This was initially discussed at a forum held in the city of Sochi, Russia, in October 2019, as part of the first Russia-Africa Economic Forum and Summit, during which the company?s credentials were shared with many high level African decision makers.

?Our African partners will particularly be able to take advantage of our global experience and latest technological achievements, thanks to our brand new Software Defined Radio (SDR) family of products in the 5, 6, 28 and 70Ghz frequency bands. As an example, our new Quanta family is highly suited to the environment of the African market, delivering maximum capacity, requiring a much lower power consumption ? an important benefit when national grid resources are often unreliable or simply non-existent ? all achieved at a lower total cost of ownership than traditional microwave solutions. Our main objective is to reduce, if not eliminate altogether, the digital gap between urban and rural areas,? added Mokrani.

The new office launch comes just ahead of the Infinet Wireless Conference 2020, which will explore and showcase the latest and upcoming product innovations in the world of fixed broadband wireless connectivity. Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, this conference will be held online for the first time on Tuesday, July 28, and will be broadcast simultaneously in English, Spanish and French. Delegates will also be able to take part in live Q&A sessions and polls.

To connect with Infinet Wireless? management team, other professionals and global partners at the Conference, please visit https://academy.infinetwireless.com/en/conf for further information and to register free for the event.
The pandemic will exact a heavy toll on Arab countries, causing an economic contraction of 5.7% this year, pushing millions into poverty and compounding the suffering of those affected by armed conflict, a UN report said on Thursday. The UN's Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia expects some Arab economies to shrink by up to 13%, amounting to an overall loss for the region of 152 billion.

Another 14.3 million people are expected to be pushed into poverty, raising the total number to 115 million a quarter of the total Arab population, it said. More than 55 million people in the region relied on humanitarian aid before the COVID-19 crisis, including 26 million who were forcibly displaced.

Arab countries moved quickly to contain the virus in March by imposing stay-at-home orders, restricting travel and banning large gatherings, including religious pilgrimages. Arab countries as a whole have reported more than 830,000 cases and at least 14,717 deaths. That equates to an infection rate of 1.9 per 1,000 people and 17.6 deaths per 1,000 cases, less than half the global average of 42.6 deaths, according to the UN.

But the restrictions exacted a heavy economic toll, and authorities have been forced to ease them in recent weeks. That has led to a surge in cases in some countries, including Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories. Wealthy Gulf countries were hit by the pandemic at a time of low oil prices, putting added strain on already overstretched budgets. Middle-income countries like Jordan and Egypt have seen tourism vanish overnight and a drop in remittances from citizens working abroad.

War-torn Libya and Syria have thus far reported relatively small outbreaks. But in Yemen, where five years of civil war had already generated the world's worst humanitarian crisis, the virus is running rampant in the government-controlled south while rebels in the north conceal its toll.

Rola Dashti, the head of the UN commission, said Arab countries need to turn this crisis into an opportunity and address longstanding issues, including weak public institutions, economic inequality and over-reliance on fossil fuels. We need to invest in survival, survival of people and survival of businesses, she said.

Also read: Coronavirus: India's GDP to contract 6% in FY21, says DBS
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 23:12:08|Editor: huaxia

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BAGHDAD, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto on Thursday held meetings with top Iraqi officials over means to boost bilateral relations and the reopening of his country's embassy in the Iraqi capital after 30 years of closure.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein welcomed the reopening of the Finnish Embassy in Baghdad at a joint press conference.

"Finland has offered assistance to Iraq in its war against the Islamic State. It is helping us in rebuilding the war-ravaged areas and provides assistance to confront the pandemic," Hussein told reporters.

During his meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, the visiting Finnish minister conveyed Finland's great expectation of Iraq's balanced relations with its neighbors, the region and the world, according to a statement by prime minister's media office.

Haavisto also highlighted his country's desire to build the best relations with Iraq, and to enhance cooperation between the two countries in various fields.

Al-Kadhimi praised Finland's positive stances in supporting Iraq in the political, economic and security fields, and expressed Iraq's desire to continue security cooperation with Finland within the international coalition against terrorism, according to the statement.

The Finland's top diplomat arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday night on an official visit to discuss bilateral relations between the two countries. Enditem
Fourteen staff at a Northern Ireland health trust contracted coronavirus after having been incorrectly fitted for a protective mask.

The chief executive of the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust said it was working on the assumption that the staff could have contracted Covid-19 as a result of their failed FFP3 masks.

Seamus McGoran told the Assemblys Health committee that all affected staff had recovered from the virus and were back at work.

Northern Irelands chief nursing officer Charlotte McArdle later told committee members that none of the other four trusts in the region had recorded Covid-19 infections among staff who required refitting for FFP3 masks.

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Last month, the Public Health Agency revealed that an audit review of fit testing had been ordered after it emerged that an independent contractor had not applied UK requirements when fitting some masks.

At the time, the PHA insisted the risk to staff was low.

Mr McGoran was one of three trust CEOs questioned about the audit during their appearance before committee members on Thursday.

Sinn Fein MLA Pat Sheehan said 3,000 of 37,000 fit testing certificates issued had been identified as needing a refit.

Mr McGoran said 464 staff in his trust required a refit.

Virtually all of those have been retested for an alternative mask and are working with that mask, he said.

Out of that number actually we had 14 staff who had contracted Covid-19.

One of the challenges for us is to try and understand the extent that related to the wearing of masks in the workplace or whether it was in respect of something else.

Were taking the view that we have to make assumptions that it could well have been in respect of their failed mask.

So were working with the staff there, theyve all had support from their managers, from occupational health, from psychology services, the staff are very happy, and those who have contracted Covid-19 have recovered and are back at work.

Western Health and Social Care Trust Dr Anne Kilgallen said around 500 staff in her organisation required a re-test.

There was no instance of infection, she said.

Northern Health and Social Care Trust chief Jennifer Welsh said around 200 staff required a retest and she was not aware of any of them having contracted Covid-19.

Expand Close Chief Nursing Officer Charlotte McArdle said the incorrectly fitted masks provided some protection, just not full protection (Presseye/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Chief Nursing Officer Charlotte McArdle said the incorrectly fitted masks provided some protection, just not full protection (Presseye/PA)

Mr Sheehan later asked Ms McArdle why the risk to staff had been assessed as low.

The chief nursing officer said: The risk to staff was low because the mask provided some coverage, it just didnt provide the tight seal.

Its my understanding, and this is a complicated process, that there are various steps in the process of fit testing  up to, I think, seven steps.

And the majority of staff would have passed elements of the seven but not all seven steps, which meant that they did have some protection from the mask but not just full protection and that is why we established that the risk was low.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday alleged that "India's captured institutions" are all busy building the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.





"Prime Minister is 100 per cent focused on building his own image. India's captured institutions are all busy doing this task. One man's image is not a substitute for a national vision," he tweeted while posting a video on the microblogging site. In continuation of his video series focusing on border tension with the neighbouring country and other issues, the Congress leader posted another video on Twitter today and attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not having a vision and said this is the reason "why China is in there", indicating Chinese troops are still inside Indian territory.





Congress leader Rahul Gandhi suggested that India has to "psychologically" deal with Chinese from a position of strength and said that the country needs to have a global vision.





"Psychologically you have to deal with Chinese from a position of strength. If you deal with them from a position of strength, you can work with them, you can get what you need and it can actually be done. If they sense weakness, then you had it. The first thing is you are not going to take on China without a vision and I don't mean a national vision, but an international vision," the Congress leader said in the video.





He said that a huge opportunity is being lost at this moment.





"India has to have a global vision. India has to become an idea and it has to become a global idea. The thing that is going to protect India is actually to think big. Of course, we have this border issue and we have to resolve this border issue. But we have to change our approach and thinking. This is the point at which the road parts if we go this way we become a major player and if choose another way we become irrelevant. That is why I am aggravated because I can see that a huge opportunity is being lost. Why because we are not thinking long term and thinking big because we are disturbing our internal balance," he said.





Attacking the PM, Gandhi said: "We are fighting amongst each other. Just look all-day Indian is fighting Indian. It is because there is no clear vision going forward. I know the Prime Minister is an opponent. My responsibility is to question him, ask questions and put pressure on him so he does his work. His responsibility is to give the vision. But it is not here that's why China is in there today."

The former Congress president termed China's Belt and Road initiative as an "attempt to change the nature of the planet".





This is the fourth video Gandhi has posted as part of his video series attacking the Centre over its handling of the ongoing tussle with the Dragon. Earlier, he released videos on June 17, June 20 and July 23.
Congress voted Wednesday to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol as part of a broader national reckoning on symbols still present across the country commemorating the Confederacy. The legislation passed through the House with bipartisan support 305 to 113, including 72 GOP lawmakers joining a unified Democratic Party in voting for the statues removal, while 113 Republicans opposed the measure. While states and communities grapple with how to remove or contextualize statues in different parts of the country, the legislation targeted the iconography specifically in the Capitol and directed the removal of all statues of individuals who voluntarily served the Confederate States of America. The bill also specifically called for the removal of five statues, including a bust of former U.S. Chief Justice Roger Taney, who authored the odious majority decision in the 1857 Dred Scott case that defended slavery. The bill proposes replacing the Taney figure with a statue of Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court justice.

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The measure comes shortly after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered the removal last month of four portraits of former House speakers who served in the Confederacy from the Speakers Lobby outside the House chamber. Despite substantial Republican support in the House, the legislation faces predictable Mitch McConnellled GOP opposition in the Senate. McConnell has insisted that decisions on the statues be left to the states. Under current federal law, statehouses, not members of Congress, have the authority to choose the statues sent to the National Statuary Hall collection. Each state is allowed to display two figures in the hall, which is frequented by thousands of visitors each day during normal times. The history of this nation is so fraught with racial division, with hatred, said Republican Rep. Paul Mitchell of Michigan, who supported the bill. The only way to overcome that is to recognize that, acknowledge it for what it is.

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In addition to the Taney statue, the New York Times notes, also targeted for removal are the statues of John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, the former vice president who led the pro-slavery faction in the Senate; John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, a former vice president who served as the Confederate secretary of war and was expelled from the Senate for joining the Confederate Army; Charles Brantley Aycock, the former governor of North Carolina and an architect of a violent coup detat in Wilmington led by white supremacists; and James Paul Clarke, a senator and governor of Arkansas who extolled the need to preserve the white standards of civilization. 
(Newser)  America's oldest conservation group is owning up to its racist past and that of its founder, John Muir, the so-called "father of the national parks." Sierra Club leader Michael Brune on Wednesday acknowledged the 128-year-old organization's "substantial role in perpetuating white supremacy" through leaders such as Muir, reports the Washington Post. Muir's writings about nature and his push to preserve land inspired generations, but he also referred to Native Americans as "dirty" and African Americans as lazy "sambos." In a letter, Brune said Muir's views "evolved later in life." He added that David Starr Jordan, an advocate of white supremacy and eugenics, served on the board of directors during Muir's presidencya time when membership came through sponsorship from existing members, "some of whom screened out any applicants of color."

story continues below

Such actions "continue to hurt and alienate Indigenous people and people of color," but the Sierra Club, counting 3.8 million members, has a new goal of "becoming an actively anti-racist organization," Brune says. For starters, "Black, Indigenous, and other leaders of color" will now "make up the majority of the team making top-level organizational decisions." The club will also consider renaming or removing some of its monuments. There are more than 50 memorials to Muir just in California, per the San Francisco Chronicle. Other environmental groups have vowed to address racial bias, per the Post. Ken Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, acknowledged a culture of white supremacy after a Black employee penned a 17-page resignation letter describing various issues. Brune said the letter was "heartbreaking and familiar," per the Post. (Read more racism stories.)
KYODO NEWS - Jul 23, 2020 - 16:28 | All, World, Coronavirus

Singapore on Wednesday launched a campaign to get citizens to take local holidays in the hope of throwing a lifeline to the city-state's tourism industry that has been suffering from a lack of visitors due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Keith Tan, chief executive officer at the Singapore Tourism Board, hopes to inspire Singaporeans and other residents to take what he has dubbed a "Singapoliday" or a mini holiday in the country. It is part of the nine-month, S$45million (US$32 million) campaign, which includes the promotion of local hotels for staycations.

"In terms of domestic campaign, it's something that we need to do," Tan said. In "countries like Japan and Australia...a large chunk of their tourism industry in a normal year is already supported by their domestic tourism. We don't have that, so we have to work extra hard to support the domestic industry."

Noting that Singaporeans splurged more than S$34 billion on overseas travel in 2018, Tan said during a virtual press conference on Tuesday, "Since they can't spend that overseas this year...we hope to capture some sliver of that here."

Singapore hotels have seen business dry up after the city-state banned the entry of short-term visitors and the holding of large gatherings such as conferences to curb the spread of the virus earlier this year.

Currently, more than half of the nearly 67,000 hotel rooms in Singapore are being used for COVID-19-related purposes, such as isolation and quarantine, Tan revealed at the news conference.

The campaign is being introduced as the board announced plans this week for the gradual resumption of business for hotels and event organizers, which had been frozen earlier this year due to the restrictions on social gatherings and business activities.

Tan said the reopening of hotels for staycations "has to be balanced against making sure that we have enough of a buffer of hotel rooms that are still required in case there is any subsequent surge of infections."

"We haven't given carte blanche to the entire hotel industry to reopen for staycations, we do it on a case-by-case basis," he said.

The board also announced Wednesday that it has developed a risk management framework that will be tested as early as next month to help pave the way for the resumption of business gatherings of up to 50 attendees, in a sign that the city, which has been a major hub for big conferences and trade shows in Asia, is ready to jumpstart the sector.

Singapore, which has one of the largest outbreaks of COVID-19 in Southeast Asia with more than 48,000 infections so far, is currently going through the second phase of a three-stage plan for a gradual exit from a two-month-long semi-lockdown as infections in the wider community has remained low and under control.

The government has said that this second stage, which began last month, could last several months.

The pandemic has dealt a big blow to the tourism industry in Singapore, which welcomed about 19 million visitors, who spent a total of S$27.1 billion last year. Big-ticket events such as the Shangri-La Dialogue, scheduled for June this year, and the Formula One Grand Prix night street race, originally planned for September, have been canceled.

Visitor arrivals in Singapore in the first quarter of this year plummeted 43 percent over the same period last year to 2.7 million, while tourism revenue declined 39 percent to S$4 billion.

Related coverage:

Japan to grant re-entry to foreign residents stuck abroad

Travelers cautious of virus as Japan 4-day weekend starts

Single-use masks, coronavirus waste end up polluting ocean
A few years ago on the American television show Saturday Night Live, actor Jerry Seinfeld answered questions from the audience. However, the people who asked them were not ordinary showgoers, but Hollywood stars.

The questions were jokes that made fun of other actors. Tim Meadows asked if he could read from a magazine list of the worst actors to ever appear on the show.

But let me just read who is dead last. And do we have a camera ready to cut to Robert Downey Jr.?

No, let's not do this, let's not do this! This is not a good idea. Other questions.

Oh! Bob Odenkirk here. Bob!

Jerry, when are we doing a tribute to the writers of SNL...?

That short discussion provides examples of two of the most common kinds of questions in English - yes/no questions and wh- questions.

What are question words?

A yes/no question is one that can be answered simply with a yes or a no.

And do we have a camera ready to cut to Robert Downey Jr.?

No, let's not do this...

The wh- question requires a more detailed answer:

Jerry, when are we doing a tribute to the writers of SNL...?

That question includes the word when, which starts with wh-. The words what, where or why are also used for wh- questions. This is where the wh- name comes from.*

Wh- questions follow a pattern. The question word comes first. Then come the subject and main verb. In some cases, there is a helping verb, such as do, have, or can, in between the question word and the subject.

The pattern is Question word + (helping verb) + subject + main verb

Here are two examples, one in the present and one in the past:

Where does he work?

What did she say?

Question words in answers

You might be thinking that this is all you need to know about question words. But question words are important for another reason: they can be used in answers.

Question words often begin noun clauses - groups of words with a subject and a verb. These clauses act like a noun in the sentence.

Think back to our examples:

Where does he work?

What did she say?

In response to these questions, a person might say:

I dont know where he works.

I didnt hear what she said.

In the first example, where he works is a noun clause.

In the second example, what she said is a noun clause.

Notice that the question word order is not used in the answer. The verb do does not appear in the noun clause in the answer.

Where does he work?

I dont know where he works.

Closing thoughts

The next time you are listening or reading, try to find examples of question words  both in questions and in answers. Also pay attention to how speakers use intonation and word stress with question words.

Then practice using them a lot.

There are only a small number of question words, and they are useful in almost any situation you can think of. If your goal is to improve your speaking skills, then you must use question words with ease.

I'm John Russell.

John Russell wrote this story for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.

* Not all so-called wh- questions begin with wh-. 'How' is one example.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

tribute  n. something that you say, give, or do to show respect or affection for someone

pattern  n. the regular and repeated way in which something happens or is done

intonation  n. the rise and fall in the sound of your voice when you speak

word stress  n. greater loudness or force given to a syllable or a word in speech

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Bronx resident Dennis Rivera didnt act alone as originally thought when he held up four Staten Island banks  one at gunpoint  earlier this year, prosecutors allege.

An investigation disclosed he had a wheelman in each instance, prosecutors said.
This man earns Rs 16,000 a day by standing in line for rich people

UK welcomes efforts by India, China to de-escalate tension in eastern Ladakh

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, July 23: The UK on Thursday welcomed efforts by India and China to de-escalate tension along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

British High Commissioner Sir Philip Barton also expressed concern over Chinese action in Hong Kong as well as cases of human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

The UK, he said, is aware of the challenges presented by "some Chinese actions" and has been working with its close allies like the US to deal with them.

"I would like to say that the progress we have seen in managing the tensions and the commitment the two special representatives made on boundary question on July 5 to disengage and de-escalate is welcome," the newly-appointed envoy said during an online media briefing.

He said the Chinese actions in Hong Kong as well as along the LAC are "concerning".

The British envoy also talked about the "tragic loss of lives" of Indian soldiers along the LAC and hoped that both sides would be able to achieve de-escalation of tensions through talks.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

Twenty Indian soldiers were killed in a violent clash in Galwan Valley on June 15, triggering massive escalation of tensions between the two sides.

However, both sides agreed to de-escalate tension by withdrawing troops from friction points following a series of diplomatic and military talks.

China launches first Mars mission

The disengagement process between Indian and Chinse militaries began on July 6 after a telephonic conversation between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi the previous day.

Doval and Wang are Special Representatives for the boundary talks.

"We do not have a border with China but we do have particular responsibility for Hong Kong. The new national security law which China imposed is a very clear and serious violation of UK-China joint declaration," Sir Barton said.

"We have also got great concerns around human rights abuses, in particular against the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang," he said.
A new study found that vampire bats with infection self-isolate from their friends but still care for their family. Bats in colonies plagued with viruses limit their interactions with sick colony mates, but still continued caring for their close relatives. (Photo : Wikimedia Commons)

A new study found that vampire bats with infection self-isolate from their friends but still care for their family. Bats in colonies plagued with viruses limit their interactions with sick colony mates but continued caring for their close relatives.

Lead study author and University of Texas Ph.D. student Sebastian Stockmaier say that family bonds have been less affected by simulated disease than lesser social relationships. According to the study, sick mothers continued to take care of offspring, while healthy mothers also continued to care for sick offspring. Meanwhile, social interactions in unrelated bats decreased. For relatives, social interactions were retained.

Bats are social mammals who live in tightly interconnected colonies with up to thousands of individuals. This is why infections quickly spread.

Stockmaier worked with Panamanian and Texan researchers on a captive bat population in Panama. He says bats have bonds comparable to human friendships and are highly involved in hygiene, grooming and preening both relatives and neighbors. They also share food. Such behavior helps the colony survive but also increases susceptibility to disease outbreaks.

The Panamanian Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute research team captured wild bats, injected them with bacterial extract to mimic viral disease symptoms, not making the bats ill but keeping them lethargic to groom or hunt. Some bats were taken away from the colony periodically for 24-hour periods, and food was withdrawn.

The "sick" bats still socialized, grooming with those outside their family stopped. Sick individuals begging for food are fed, and familial relations were retained. Mothers fed the young regardless of sickness. Grooming lessened, but the sharing of food was retained.

READ: Humans are to Blame for Coronavirus, Not Bats Says Scientists

Amazing Bat Facts

Scientists have identified 1,100 bat species worldwide. They comprise one-fourth of all mammals on Earth. Below are some surprising facts about them.

They live over 30 years, and flying speed reaches 100 mph.

Research from the University of Tennessee found Mexican Free-tailed bats are the fastest mammals in the world.

They do not need light to find food.

They can navigate and find prey by echolocation, a high-pitched inaudible sound, and listening for returning echoes.

They can consume 1,200 mosquitoes in one hour.

They can eat their weight in insect food each night.

Over 50% of US bat species are severely declining or endangered. Habitat loss and white-nose syndrome decimated bat populations all over North America.

They can survive being frozen.

Some bat species can hibernate and survive freezing conditions and even encasement in ice.

Most bat species give birth to only one pup per year

This makes them very vulnerable to decline. Mothers can find their young in a million-member colony through their unique scents and voices.

Guano is among the most nutritious of fertilizers.

Bat droppings were the largest mineral export of Texas next to oil. Austin, Texas, has North America's most significant urban Mexican free-tailed bat population, living below Congress Avenue Bridge, where roughly 1.5 million bats live.

The giant bat in the world is found in the South Pacific.

The flying fox has a 6-foot wingspan. Conversely, the smallest species of bat is Thailand's bumblebee bat. A thumbnail is bigger than this animal, and a penny is heavier.

Scorpion-eating bats exist.

Pallid bats are immune to stings from even the Arizona bark scorpion, North America's most venomous scorpion species.

Texas' Bracken Bat Cave has the largest bat colony in the world.

Mexican free-tailed bats in the millions roost here around March to October.

READ ALSO: The Only Flying Mammal: Why Bats Are One of Evolution's Greatest Mysteries
Jack Spielman has been a Republican his whole life. But over the past four years, he has come to two realizations.

Increasingly upset by President Donald Trumps appalling behavior, his cozy relationships with dictators and the ballooning national debt, Spielman says his first epiphany was that he couldnt cast a ballot for Trump again. But for the retired Army cybersecurity engineer, the final straw was the Presidents retaliation against impeachment witness Lieut. Colonel Alexander Vindman, who retired in July after Trump fired him from the National Security Council in February. Spielman decided he had to do more than just vote for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden; he had to persuade others to do the same. So Spielman filmed a video for a group called Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT), explaining his views. I want to do some part, Spielman tells TIME, to try to correct the wrong that I did in voting for this man.

RVAT, which launched in May, is among a growing number of Republicanled groups dedicated to making Trump a one-term President. Since December, longtime GOP operatives and officials have formed at least five political committees designed to urge disaffected conservatives to vote for Biden. The best known of these groups, the Lincoln Project, has since forming late last year gained national attention for its slick advertisements trolling the President. Right Side PAC, led by the former chair of the Ohio Republican Party, launched in late June; a few days after that, more than 200 alumni of George W. Bushs Administration banded together to form an organization called 43 Alumni for Biden. Theres also the Bravery Project, led by former GOP Congressman and erstwhile Trump primary challenger Joe Walsh. And plans are in the works for a group of former national-security officials from Republican administrations to endorse Biden this summer.

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Since 2015, pockets of the party have bemoaned Trumps Twitter antics, his divisive rhetoric and key elements of his platform, from the Muslim travel ban to his trade tariffs to his family-separation policy at the U.S.-Mexico border. But with the Presidents approval rating in the party consistently around 90%, and GOP lawmakers terrified to cross him, the so-called Never Trump faction has proven largely powerless, with a negligible impact on federal policy.

Now, in the final stretch of the Presidents term, the Never Trumpers could finally have their revenge. Four years ago, Trump won the Electoral College by some 77,000 votes scattered across Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. If even a small slice of disillusioned Trump voters or right-leaning independents defect to Biden in November, it could be enough to kick Trump out of office. They are the constituency that can swing this election, says Sarah Longwell, a longtime Republican operative and founder of RVAT.

This constituency now appears more willing to vote for Biden than they were six months ago, in no small part because of Trumps faltering response to the corona-virus, which has killed more than 140,000 Americans and ravaged the economy. Between March and June, according to a Pew Research poll, Trumps approval rating among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters dropped seven percentage points, to 78%. A June 25 New York Times/Siena College survey found that Biden has a 35-point lead over Trump among voters in battleground states who supported a third-party candidate in 2016. Any small percentage of voters who no longer support him could be critical in closely matched swing states, says Republican pollster Whit Ayres.

Its too early to gauge how effective the raft of Never Trump groups will be. Theyre dismissed by many Republicans as self-serving opportunists profiting off the polarization Trump has exacerbated. Trump also remains hugely popular among Republicans. President Trump is the leader of a united Republican Party where he has earned 94% of Republican votes during the primariessomething any former President of any party could only dream of, says campaign spokes-woman Erin Perrine.

Even if the Never Trump activists are able to help oust the President, its unclear what will become of a party thats vastly different from the one they came up in. Trump has transformed todays GOP into a cult of personality rooted in economic nationalism and racial division. And while the small anti-Trump faction wants to return to the conservative ideology that reigned for decades before Trump, many Republicans believe Trump has changed the party forever.

Sitting in front of a packed book-case, Rick Wilson looked surprised as he peered over hornrimmed spectacles at an overflowing screen: Theres 10,000 people on here, the onetime Republican operative marveled of the Zoom audience assembled for the Lincoln Projects first town hall on July 9.

The Lincoln Projects ads criticizing the Presidents performance have helped it raise nearly $20 million | Grant LancasterAM New York

Wilson formed the Lincoln Project in December, along with lawyer George Conway, the husband of Trumps senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, and veteran political strategists Steve Schmidt and John Weaver, among others. The Republican stalwarts had grown disgusted with the Presidents behavior and their partys acquiescence to it. The launch met little fanfare, but in the months since, the group has demonstrated a knack for quickly producing memorable videos and advertisements that get under Trumps skin. In early May, with the unemployment rate soaring toward 15%, the group released an ad dubbed Mourning in America, a play on the upbeat Ronald Reagan classic, which depicted the woes of sick and unemployed Americans under Trumps leadership. If we have another four years like this, the ads narrator intones as dead patients are wheeled out of hospitals on stretchers, will there even be an America? The President took notice. Their so-called Lincoln Project is a disgrace to Honest Abe! Trump tweeted. I dont know what Kellyanne did to her deranged loser of a husband, Moonface, but it must have been really bad.

Irritating the President is part of the point. Its not trolling if you get a fish in the line, says Reed Galen, a veteran of George W. Bushs presidential campaigns and one of the projects co-founders. We kept dropping a hook in the water, and eventually the President bit. The attention has been a boon to the groups finances. The Lincoln Project raised nearly $17 million between April 1 and June 30.

If the Lincoln Project tries to needle the President, other groups in the Never Trump ecosystem have found complementary roles. Instead of using polished editing and ominous music to make a splash online, RVAT has gathered more than 400 testimonials from disheartened Republicans like Spielman. I did only vote for Donald Trump because I couldnt believe someone who acted as goofy as he did on TV actually meant it, Monica, a self-described evangelical Christian from Texas, says in one video. Since that time, I have been riddled with guilt.

Longwell, RVATs founder, believes hearing from people like Monica will show waffling conservatives that theyre not alone in their dislike of the President, and encourage them to break away. The thing that people trusted wasnt elites, it wasnt Republican elites, it certainly wasnt the media, Longwell says of her focus-group research. But they did trust people like them. The group says it plans to showcase those voices in an eight-figure ad campaign in five swing states before Election Day.

RVAT identified recalcitrant Republicans through email lists Longwell had built at Defending Democracy Together, its parent organization. Founded in 2019, Defending Democracy Together created online petitions whose signatories often offered clues of their disillusionment with Trump. Petitions supporting Vindman and thanking Utah Senator Mitt Romney for voting to convict Trump of abuse of power during the impeachment trial proved especially fruitful in finding former Trump supporters, according to Tim Miller, RVATs political director and a veteran Republican communications strategist.

To test new video messages, Longwell held a Zoom focus group on July 15 with seven Florida voters and allowed TIME to watch. Each participant voted for Trump in 2016 but was now dissatisfied with his leadership. Several mentioned his handling of COVID-19 in the meeting, noting Floridas dramatic spike in cases. Long-well showed the group a few of RVATs testimonials. It resonates with me, one woman who works in the travel industry in Orlando said. It does make me feel less alone. But while three people on the call said theyd likely vote for Biden, two said they were unsure and two said they would still vote for Trump again. I dont think theres any hope for him, the Orlando woman said. But I dont see Biden doing a good job either.

Matt Borges of Right Side PAC recognizes that Republican voters uncertainty about Biden needs to be addressed. As the former chair of the Ohio Republican Party watched Never Trump groups roll out advertisements, he worried there was too much focus on why Trump was bad and not enough on why Biden was a good alternative. We need these people who know they are not [going to] vote for Trump but are not sold on Joe Biden to hear some messaging from fellow Republicans that says, No, its O.K. to vote for this guy,' says Borges, a lifelong Republican who disavowed Trump three years ago. In an unrelated development, Borges was arrested on July 21 for allegedly participating in a $60 million bribery scheme involving top political officials that the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio decried as the biggest money-laundering effort in the states history.

In June, Borges teamed up with former Trump communications director Anthony Scaramucci to form Right Side PAC, which plans to spend up to $7 million targeting these voters through mailings, digital ads and phone banks. Their first focus is Michigan, where Borges commissioned a pollster to conduct research on Republican voters in swing districts. After spending more than a week in the field, the pollster delivered the results to Borges and Scaramucci on a Zoom call, which TIME observed. Support for Trump among Republican voters in Michigans Eighth Congressional District had dropped from 80% in January to 67%, the pollster said. The district had swung for Trump in 2016, then voted for a Democratic Congresswoman, Elissa Slotkin, two years later. Voters who ranked the coronavirus as their top concern were seen as more likely to break for Biden. While the group had planned to target all white Republican women over the age of 50 in Michigan, the pollster said the data suggested those over 65 were immovable in their support for Trump. These insights, Borges says, will form the basis of Right Side PACs final sale to voters on Bidens behalf.

As the presidential race heads into its final months, another group of Republicans aims to help Biden in a different way. A group of more than 70 former national-security officials from GOP administrations, led by John Bellinger, the senior National Security Council and State Department lawyer under George W. Bush, and Ken Wainstein, Bushs Homeland Security Adviser, plans to endorse Biden and publish a mission statement describing the damage they say Trump has done to Americas national security and global reputation. They will also fund-raise for the former Vice President and do media appearances in battleground states when the group launches later this summer. Some of the same people wrote an open letter denouncing Trump in 2016. But, says Wainstein, our effort this time is going to have some staying power throughout the campaign.

How much impact these groups will ultimately have on voters remains unclear. As they try to unseat an incumbent with a massive war chest, their first hurdle is money. Right Side PAC raised just over $124,000 in the first two weeks, disclosure filings show. The bulk of that haul came from one person, New York venture capitalist Peter Kellner, a long-time Republican donor who began giving to Democrats in 2018 and who has forked over the maximum amount to Bidens campaign, according to Federal Election Commission filings. The groups prospects were also clouded by Borges July 21 arrest. Borges did not respond to requests for comment.

43 Alumni for Biden, the group of former George W. Bush officials, announced its formation on July 1, which means it doesnt have to file disclosure reports until October; had it announced a day earlier, it would have had to publicize its finances in mid-July. A member of the group declined to provide specific figures but said it had received contributions from more than 500 individuals. The Bravery Project officially launches July 23, and a representative declined to provide any fundraising figures.

Longwell tells TIME that RVAT has raised $13 million this year. As a 501(c)4, or political nonprofit, the group does not need to disclose its donors or exact figures. But the number she provides puts the group on par with the Lincoln Project, whose biggest donors are primarily prominent Democrats. While disclosure filings show that nearly half of the Lincoln Projects donations were unitemized or under $200, it raked in $1 million from billionaire hedge-fund manager Stephen Mandel and $100,000 apiece from business mogul David Geffen and Joshua Bekenstein, the co-chairman of Bain Capital.

This influx of cash has enabled the Lincoln Project to ramp up advertisements against vulnerable Republican Senators like Susan Collins of Maine, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Steve Daines of Montana. We made it very clear that this is not just about Trump but Trumpism and its enablers, says Galen. The Republican Senators we have held to account are the Presidents greatest enablers.

The strategy of going after Senators has provoked the ire of many Republicans, who say the group is prioritizing profit over party. Its purely grifting and making a name for themselves. Its not based on principle at all, says Matt Gorman, a Republican strategist who worked for Jeb Bushs and Romneys presidential campaigns. The Lincoln Project, he says, is essentially meant for raising money off the resistance and lining their own pockets.

The groups finances have also raised some eyebrows among government watchdogs. Two consulting firms, one run by Galen and another by co-founder Ron Steslow, received nearly a quarter of the $8.6 million the group spent between January and July. While other committees use similar methods, it is not at all standard, says Sheila Krumholz, executive director at the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. It raises red flags about whether the operation is taking advantage of a situation where donors are giving to what they think is supporting one effort, but there are other patterns at play.

Krumholz notes that the Lincoln Project does not publicly disclose all of the vendors who have done work for them, which suggests they are funneling money to organizations that then hire subcontractors. This method is not unheard-of, but the lack of transparency makes it difficult to discern who is ultimately profiting. The public doesnt know the extent to which Lincoln Project operatives may be profiting, or if theyre profiting at all, Krumholz says. When asked about the groups finances, Galen says, We abide by all reporting requirements laid down by the FEC. No one at the Lincoln Project is buying a Ferrari.

For now, the Never Trump Republicans say they arent looking beyond November. Were all in a grand alliance to beat a very big threat, says Miller of RVAT. Well see how the chips fall after. But regardless of the elections outcome, Miller and his cohorts face challenges ahead. They will either be failed rebels, cast out by a party taken over by its two-term President, or facing down a Biden Administration, which would bring unwelcome liberal policies and perhaps Supreme Court vacancies.

If Biden wins, Trumpism wont disappear with Trump. The Presidents rapid rise revealed the extent to which many of the ideological pillars of modern conservatismits zeal for unfettered free markets, its devotion to deficit reduction, its attachment to global alliances, its faith in a muscular foreign policywere out of step with actual Republican voters. Many of the ambitious lawmakers rising in the party, like Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, have seen in Trumps political success an example to emulate. The next generation of Republican leaders may try to replicate his policies without the self-defeating behavior.

Its led many to wonder whether traditional conservatives will have a home in the GOP after Trump is gone. There is a growing feeling that we need to burn the whole house down to purify the party of Trump enablers in the Congress, says a former White House official in George W. Bushs Administration. Some see the prospect of a rupture, with disaffected Republicans cleaving off and either forming a new party or making a tenuous peace with the moderate wing of the Democratic Party. Theres a very real possibility  that the party will split, says Richard Burt, former ambassador to Germany under President Reagan.

The modern Republican Party was always an uneasy alliance in some ways, with fiscal conservatives, religious conservatives and neoconservatives jostling for influence, and a white working-class base voting for policies that often favored the wealthy. Steven Teles, co-author of Never Trump: The Revolt of the Conservative Elites, envisions a Republican Party in which Trumpism dominates but the dissenters make up a vocal resistance faction. I dont think anyone is going to have control of the Republican Party the way weve seen in the past, he says.

The irony of the Never Trumper activists is that while they are encouraging Republicans to vote Democratic for the first time in their lives, that is bringing some Republicans back into the party by creating a community of the disaffected. Spielman, the retired Army cybersecurity engineer, had become so disenchanted with Trump that he turned his back on the party altogether, voting for Democrats in Michigans 2020 primaries. But the Never Trump groups are giving me hope that there are still some people out there with some decency that want to go back and save the party, Spielman says. Its allowed me to come back and say, Yeah, Im a Republican. Im not leaving the party, but I want to fight for whats right for the party.

With reporting by Leslie Dickstein, Mariah Espada, and Josh Rosenberg
Naturalist John Muir (Library of Congress)

Memorials to revered naturalist John Muir are strewn throughout the United States  and far beyond. In California alone, 18 public schools are named after him, five of them in Los Angeles County. Not to mention a redwood forest and the 217-mile trail that begins in Yosemite Valley, a place he wrote about with rapture. There are lodges and a rock and an inlet and, oddly, highways. The honors stretch into Canada, across the sea to Scotland and even into outer space, where a tiny planet was dubbed Johnmuir in 2006.

What could be unlovable about a man who directly helped preserve Yosemite and Sequoia as parks, who co-founded the Sierra Club and is considered the father of the national parks system because of the admiration for wilderness that he inspired?

The answer: his overt racism toward Black people and Native Americans, including the Miwok tribe that inhabited Yosemite Valley long before the arrival of the white men who expelled them. Muirs racism hasnt exactly been a secret, but its not well known, either. Hey, hes the guy we put on our states quarter in 2005, not a man famous for hateful viewpoints.

That is, until this week, when the Sierra Club openly acknowledged the truth about Muir. And it didnt stop there; the environmentalist organization also called out the white supremacists and eugenicists who were prominent early members of the group, and reminded us that people of color were at times excluded from the club.

Though the Sierra Clubs announcement didnt go into detail, its known that Muir supported ejecting Native Americans from their lands to make way for people-free open spaces. He described the Miwok people, most of whom had been killed or driven from Yosemite by the time he arrived in 1868, in the ugliest of terms, writing that they were dirty, altogether hideous and seem to have no right place in the landscape.

This land may have been made for you and me, but to Muir and other early conservationists, you and me meant the class of white gentlemen who made occasional forays to what Muir saw as the untouched beauty of wilderness.

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Muir actually misunderstood the untouched part as well. The open meadows he admired that afforded broad views of the geological splendors of Yosemite werent the hand of nature; they were the result of strategic fires set by the Miwok to prevent undergrowth and catastrophic forest fires. Forty years after the Miwok were gone, so were the meadows.

Of Black people, Muir infamously wrote, One energetic white man, working with a will, would easily pick as much cotton as half a dozen Sambos and Sallies."

This hateful viewpoint wasnt confined to the early leadership of the Sierra Club. Its long past time for the conservation movement in general to confront the ways in which its early history was entwined with the eugenics movement, the idea being to protect the finest of nature along with what these supremacists saw as the finest of humankind.

Among others was Gifford Pinchot, head of the U.S. Forest Service under President Theodore Roosevelt (who himself held racist viewpoints). Pinchot saw land preservation as naturally linked to continued dominance by white people. A conservation report written under his authority called for forced sterilization or prohibition of marriage for criminals and other elements seen as undesirable. If our nation cares to make any provision for its grandchildren and its grandchildrens grandchildren, this provision must include conservation in all its branches  but above all, the conservation of the racial stock itself.

Good for the Sierra Club for beginning the process, openly admitting and rejecting the unacceptable aspects of its beginnings and vowing to remake itself, including bringing on racially and ethnically diverse leadership.

This doesnt have to mean stripping Muirs name from the dozens of sites that honor him, a man who felt more affinity for bears than for people regardless of their skin color. Its far more important to take meaningful steps toward cultivating wider interest in and access to open lands. The National Park Service, to its credit, has worked in recent years to bring more diverse groups of visitors to the parks.

As for Muir, he eventually came to learn more about Native Americans, to openly admire them and to decry cruel treatment of them. He was flawed in a terrible way, he showed himself capable of learning at least somewhat, and he left a rich legacy, an incredible trove of natural beauty. Now its time to make sure it was made for all of us.
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North Belfast MP John Finucane said he would continue to represent everyone in his constituency despite receiving a hostile reception when he attended a protest against an illegal dump in a loyalist area.

The Sinn Fein MP arrived unannounced on at the protest site on the Crumlin Road on Tuesday.

Residents in the area had been forced to leave their homes due to an infestation of rats and flies.

"There were some people there who were making it very clear that I wasn't to be there. It wasn't my area," the MP told Radio Ulster.

"It was unfortunate that that happened. It's language that may not be surprising, but it's disappointing. I don't really care where people come from. I want to be doing what I can to help them."

Loyalist community worker Winston Irvine said that while Mr Finucane's support was welcome, his unannounced arrival had caused concern.

"The measured approach to the situation is very welcome," he added.

"In terms of the context of north Belfast, we haven't reconciled these communities. Awareness was lacking."
The Control and Anti-Corruption Authority Announces Issuance of Judicial Rulings for a Number of Corruption Cases

Saudi Press Agency

Wednesday 1441/12/1 - 2020/07/22

Riyadh, July 22, 2020, SPA -- An official source in the Control and Anti-Corruption Authority stated that preliminary rulings were issued for a number of financial and administrative corruption cases, the most prominent of which were as follow:

The first case: the arrest of a judge red handed in the general court at one of the regions, and was accused with bribery. upon referring him to the competent court, a ruling was issued for (4) years in prison and a fine of (130000) one hundred and thirty thousand riyals. Also a ruling against a mediator for 5 months imprisonment and a fine of (20000) twenty thousand Riyals.

The second case: an appeal judges in one of the courts took advantage of his position influence and received sums of money (bribery). Upon referring him to the competent court, a ruling was issued against him for (4) years in prison with a fine of (100,000) one hundred thousand riyals, and imprisonment of a citizen (briber) for a period of (4) years with a fine of (100,000) one hundred thousand riyals.

The third case: one of the citizens deluded two expatriates of the possibility of abolishing the deportation penalty issued against them in exchange for a financial amount of (800,000) eight hundred thousand riyals, and by accusing them of paying a sums of money in the form of bribery, money laundering and commercial concealment. Upon referring them to the competent court, rulings were issued against them to imprison the citizen for two years and imprison the two expatriates and their employer for two and a half years, and fining each one of them an amount of (20,000) twenty thousand riyals and confiscating the amount of (799,500) seven hundred and ninety nine thousand five hundred riyals, with the deportation of the two expatriates from the country after the end of their sentences.

The fourth case: two employees of the Education Department in one of the regions were accused of forgery, embezzlement of public funds, money laundering, and administrative misuse. Upon referring them to the competent court, a ruling was issued against them as for the first he was sentenced for ten years in prison and a fine of (1,020,000) one million and twenty thousand riyals, and he has to return the embezzled amount of (13,202,485.25) thirteen million two hundred two thousand four hundred and eighty five riyals and twenty five halalas, and prevent him from traveling for a period of four years after the execution of the ruling, and the second one was sentenced for 9 months in prison, and fine him (20,000) twenty thousand riyals, as well as return the embezzled amount of (19,319.20) nineteen thousands three hundred and nineteen riyals and twenty halalas.

The fifth case: The investigation procedures included two employees of the Ministry of Housing and the brother of one of them and a businessman. They were accused of committing bribery crimes, money laundering, and exploiting the influence of the public office for personal interest, and upon referring them to the competent court, they were sentenced to imprisonment for the first of a period of eight years, and fined him an amount of ( 2,000,000) two million riyals, expropriating the land owned by him given as a bribe, as well as confiscating a financial sum of (617.819) six hundred and seventeen thousand eight hundred and nineteen riyals, preventing him from traveling for a period of (4) years. As for the second one was sentenced for imprisonment of a period of (8) years, and fining him an amount of (2,000,000) two million riyals, confiscating an amount of (1.007.709), and preventing him from traveling for (4) years, and sentencing the third to imprisonment for (4) years, and fining him an amount of (1,000,000) one million riyals, confiscating the house registered in his name, preventing him from traveling for a period of (4) years, and sentencing the businessman to one year in prison, and fining him an amount of (500,000) five hundred thousand riyals.

The sixth case: a number of violations and abuses on some of companies executing a number of projects in the city of Riyadh were detected, and after completing the investigation procedures, (23) persons were accused of bribery crimes, embezzlement and squandering of public money, money laundering and administrative misuse. They were referred to the competent court and rulings have been issued against (17) Persons, including (10) employees in the Municipality of Riyadh and two businessmen for imprisonment of periods ranging between six months to five years and financial fines totaling (1,385,000) one million and three hundred and eighty five thousand riyals, and confiscation of the amounts of money subject to the lawsuit amounting to (130,000) one hundred and thirty thousand riyal.

The seventh case: investigation procedures included charging an officer with a rank of Major and a non-commissioned officer with a rank of a sergeant in the Ministry of Defense for committing embezzlement of (3,600,000) and having a side business. Upon referring them to the competent court, a ruling was issued against them, the first person was sentenced for five years and a fine of (20,000) twenty thousand riyals, and the second for imprisonment of (2) years, and a fine of (30,000) thirty thousand riyals.

The eighth case: an employee of the Ministry of Interior was accused for the crime of forgery and administrative misuse, resulting in public harm by disbursing sums not due to him, and by referring him to the competent court, he was sentenced for (3) years, and a fine of (120,000) one hundred and twenty one thousand riyals, and confiscate an amount of (67,941) sixty-seven thousand nine hundred and forty-one riyals, and oblige him to return the sums illegally obtained which amounts to (70,898) seventy thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine riyals.

Several rulings were issued for other defendants regarding administrative and financial corruption cases that require imprisonment ranging from three months to a year as well as financial fines.

The Authority reaffirms its continuation to monitor anyone who embezzles on public money or exploits their job to achieve hisher personal gain or harm the public interest, and that it will continue to apply the law on violators.

--SPA

22:30 LOCAL TIME 19:30 GMT

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In December 2019 an operation targeted the 'Ndrangheta families based in the southern Italian city of Locri in the Calabria region - the rural, mountainous and under-developed 'toe' of Italy's boot and the heartland of the worldwide crime group.

As a result of the swoop, Italian police arrested 334 people, including a police colonel and a former MP from Silvio Berlusconi's party.

Despite intense police attention and frequent arrests, the 'Ndrangheta - which derives its meaning from the Greek word for 'heroism' - has continued to extend its reach.

Notoriously ruthless, the 'Ndrangheta has surpassed Sicily's Cosa Nostra and the Naples-based Camorra to operate on all continents thanks to the wealth it has amassed as the principal importer and wholesaler of cocaine produced in Latin America and smuggled into Europe via north Africa and southern Italy.

That trade is worth billions and previous police operations have indicated that the 'Ndrangheta has well-established links with Colombian producer cartels, Mexican crime gangs and mafia families in New York and other parts of North America.

In 2016, a suspected 'Ndrangheta boss, Ernesto Fazzalari (left), was arrested after two decades on the run, fleeing a life sentence for murder. A year later, another suspected boss of the crime clan, Santo Vottari (right), was detained in Calabria having been on the run for a decade

The organisation's tight clan-based structure has made it hard to penetrate but police have made some in roads in recent years.

In 2015, 163 people were arrested in a major crackdown on the notorious mafia gang, which by that time had become the most powerful crime organisation in the country.

In another sting that year, police snatched assets worth 1.4billion from the 'Ndrangheta, which included more than 1,500 betting shops, 82 online gambling sites and almost 60 companies.

In 2016, one of Italy's most wanted mafia bosses Ernesto Fazzalari was arrested after two decades on the run, fleeing a life sentence for murder.

The 'Ndrangheta member was captured in an apartment in a remote part of the southern region of Calabria.

On the run since 1996, he was convicted in absentia in 1999 of mafia association, kidnapping, illegal possession of weapons and a double homicide linked to a bloody 1989-91 feud which left 32 people dead in his home town of Taurianova.

His arrest was hailed by the government as a significant victory for the state in its battle against the powerful mafia group.

In 2018, another suspected boss of the crime clan, Santo Vottari, was detained in Calabria having been on the run for a decade.

He was arrested hiding behind a trap door of a bunker having gone to ground over a 2007 massacre in Germany.

Vottari was convicted in absentia in 2009 of being one of the heads of an 'Ndrangheta clan whose feud with local rivals culminated in the Duisburg killings.

He was given a prison term of 10 years and eight months, two years after he went on the run.

Vottari was one of 31 people sentenced to prison terms in 2009 in connection with the Duisburg killings, which happened after a vendetta between two clans based in the same village, San Luca, spiralled out of control.

The feud between the Nirta-Strangio and Pelle-Vottari clans reportedly began with an egg-throwing prank in 1991.

Reprisals escalated after the killing, on Christmas Day, 2006, of Maria Strangio, the wife of clan leader Giovanni Nirta.

The feud was blamed for at least 16 deaths in total, with the killings in Germany bringing it to international attention.

Giovanni Strangio was convicted in 2011 of being the mastermind and one of the authors of the Duisburg killings.

He was sentenced to life in prison. Seven others were given life sentences linked to the feud at the same trial.

Notoriously ruthless, the 'Ndrangheta has surpassed Sicily's Cosa Nostra and the Naples-based Camorra in influence thanks to its control of Europe's cocaine trade.

The organisation is made up of numerous village and family-based clans based in the rural, mountainous and under-developed 'toe' of Italy's boot.

The name 'Ndrangheta comes from the Greek for courage or loyalty and the organisation's secretive culture and brutal enforcement of codes of silence have made it very difficult to penetrate.
Dublin, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "CBD Oil Market Research Report: By Product Type - Global Industry Analysis and Growth Forecast to 2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



In numerous countries, starting with the U.S. and Canada, cannabis is being legalized for medical, recreational, and research uses. Following them, the U.K., Japan, Norway, Thailand, South Korea, Spain, Mexico, South Africa, and Brazil have also given the stamp of approval on the cultivation of marijuana and hemp, extraction of cannabidiol and usage of the chemical in various end products.



As a result, the global CBD oil market revenue is predicted to rise at a 24.3% CAGR between 2020 and 2025, from $1,735.1 million in 2019.



This is being further supported by the promotion of the chemical as having numerous wellness advantages, by companies, which is helping increase the demand for it among the masses, primarily recreational users. Moreover, as cannabidiol has been claimed to treat depression, movement disorders, anxiety, and pain, its usage among people suffering from these issues is also rising.



Demand for Cannabidiol Tinctures to Burgeon in Coming Years



In the years to come, the popularity of tinctures of cannabidiol is predicted to mushroom rapidly, on account of these products being the most widely used for medical purposes. This is because tinctures can be taken sublingually (placed under the tongue), rather than via inhalation, which helps the capillaries absorb the cannabinoid instantly. Moreover, a lower dosage of tinctures is required compared to that of other forms of the chemical, which reduces the risk of the harmful effects related to overdose. Further, tinctures can be easily bought through e-commerce websites, pharmacies, and specialty and retail stores.



North America has dominated the consumption of cannabidiol till now, on account of the early legalization of the chemical in the U.S. and Canada, which has drastically increased the sale. In addition, the availability of cannabidiol-containing drugs, including Epidiolex and Sativex, and successful marketing of the compound as a wellness and lifestyle-enhancing product are other reasons for the high demand for cannabidiol in the continent.



In the region, the U.S. is the larger CBD oil market, because of the increasing efforts of companies to license the cultivation of hemp and marijuana and manufacturing and supply of end-products, increase marketing activities, and make people aware about cannabis' medical benefits. In the coming years, Asia-Pacific (APAC) is predicted to experience the fastest growth in the market, due to the rising requirement for the chemical in South Korea, Japan, and Australia.



Aphria, Isodiol International, CV Sciences, Canopy Growth Corporation, Aurora Cannabis, Endoca, Tilray, CBDfx, Folium Biosciences, and Gaia Botanicals are the key companies in the global CBD oil market.



Companies Engaging in Mergers and Acquisitions to Strengthen their Hold on Industry



Mergers and acquisitions are being initiated by the market players to strengthen their presence in the industry, as such moves allow them the opportunity to:

Story continues

Use the acquired companies' portfolio to expand their geographical reach

Utilize additional revenue streams

Enter new markets with cannabidiol-containing products

Advance their research and development (R&D) activities

Expand their product portfolio for core markets

Key Topics Covered



Chapter 1. Research Background



Chapter 2. Research Methodology



Chapter 3. Executive Summary



Chapter 4. Introduction

4.1 Definition of Market Segments

4.1.1 By Product Type

4.1.1.1 Cartridges

4.1.1.2 Capsules

4.1.1.3 Topicals

4.1.1.4 Tinctures

4.1.1.5 Others

4.2 Market Dynamics

4.2.1 Trends

4.2.1.1 Increasing Investment Across CBD Value Chain

4.2.2 Drivers

4.2.2.1 Legalization of CBD for Research, Medical, and Recreational Usage

4.2.2.2 Brand Positioning of CBD-based Merchandize as Lifestyle and Wellness Products

4.2.2.3 Impact Analysis of Drivers on Market Forecast

4.2.3 Restraints

4.2.3.1 Non-Standardization of Regulations and High Degree of Competition

4.2.3.2 Impact Analysis of Restraints on Market Forecast



Chapter 5. Policy and Regulatory Landscape



Chapter 6. Global Market Size and Forecast

6.1 By Product

6.2 By Region



Chapter 7. North America Market Size and Forecast



Chapter 8. Europe Market Size and Forecast



Chapter 9. APAC Market Size and Forecast



Chapter 10. RoW Market Size and Forecast



Chapter 11. Competitive Landscape

11.1 Global Strategic Developments of Key Players

11.1.1 Mergers and Acquisitions

11.1.2 Product Launches

11.1.3 Partnerships

11.1.4 Geographic Expansions

11.1.5 Facility Expansions

11.1.6 Other Developments



Chapter 12. Company Profiles

12.1 Aphria Inc.

12.1.1 Business Overview

12.1.2 Product and Service Offerings

12.1.3 Key Financial Summary

12.2 CV Sciences Inc.

12.3 Endoca B.V.

12.4 Isodiol International Inc.

12.5 Aurora Cannabis Inc.

12.6 Canopy Growth Corporation

12.7 Tilray Inc.

12.8 Folium Biosciences

12.9 Gaia Botanicals LLC

12.10 CBDfx



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/6dvgo4

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

CONTACT: CONTACT: ResearchAndMarkets.com Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager press@researchandmarkets.com 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




The former financial controller of Moriah College has been ordered to repay $7.3 million to the Sydney school, which he admitted to stealing from over more than a decade by transferring money to his personal accounts and spending much of it on poker machines.

Augustine "Gus" Nosti, 57, worked for the Jewish independent school in Sydney's east between January 2004 and March 2019, in a role which gave him control over the school's bank accounts and access to its tax portal.

Moriah College in Sydney's east. Credit:Louise Kennerley

The first amount of money he took was $5000 in December 2004. Over the next 15 years he stole $7,337,282, including $3,965,892 of tax refunds which were diverted to his accounts after he changed the bank details online.

When the thefts were uncovered, Moriah sued Mr Nosti and his wife Melynda in the NSW Supreme Court in an attempt to recover the money. The school alleged Mrs Nosti had knowledge of her husband's actions, which she denied.
Following a career that spanned more than half a century -- from the depths of the Cold War to his final commentary posted on the Radio Svoboda website on June 12 -- longtime RFE/RL Russian Service journalist Semyon Mirsky passed away on June 30, 2020 at his home in France. Mirsky was 81 years old.

Born on January 28, 1939 in the Polish (now Belarusian) city of Stolbtsy, Mirsky spent World War II as an evacuee in what was then Soviet Kazakhstan. Following the war, he returned to Stolbtsy before moving to Vilnius and ultimately being allowed to repatriate to Poland in 1957. From Poland, Mirsky moved on to Israel, where he graduated from the philosophy faculty of the University of Jerusalem.

Mirsky joined Radio Liberty (RL) and its Russian Service as an editor in Munich in September 1964, transferring to the RL bureau in London in 1967 and then spending two years as an RL correspondent in Israel. In 1972, he began post-graduate work at the University of Munichs history and philology faculty, where he defended a thesis on the works of Russian poet Velimir Khlebnikov. From 1977 to 1992, Mirsky served as chief editor of RLs Paris Bureau, where his expertise in contemporary Russian literature made him a sought-after consultant to major French publishing houses.

In the early 1990s, Mirsky worked at RFE/RLs headquarters in Munich before becoming a freelance correspondent for the Russian Service in France in 1995 -- a status he maintained with distinction until his passing.

Mirsky was fondly remembered by many RFE/RL colleagues, such as former Radio Liberty Director Enders Wimbush, who writes that [Mirskys] programs were among the most often cited by our listeners for their sophistication and nuance. He certainly ranks near the top of RL greats from that service who had real impact. Former RFE/RL Russian Service Associate Director Mark Pomar called Mirsky a remarkable person -- kind, erudite, charming, and fun to be with. And former RFE/RL Soviet Area Audience and Opinion Research Deputy Director Charles Allen recalled that During [Mirskys] tenure as chief editor the Paris bureau consistently produced high quality programming...To me he will always personify the best attributes of a dedicated journalist and accessible human being.

On learning of Mirskys passing, Russian novelist Lyudmila Ulitskaya wrote, I owe him a lot. He was the person who defined my very successful writing biography. And I'm not alone. My first book was published in France at a time when my books were not yet published in Russia, and this is thanks to Semyon, who dug up the manuscript of an unknown author from the literary stream that he read constantly. I owe him that my name did not get lost in this stream.

RFE/RL expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Semyon Mirsky on the passing of this Russian Service legend.
The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) has issued two separate advisories, asking users to update the Apple Safari and Google Chrome browser, citing their vulnerability to malware attacks.

CERT-IN has found multiple vulnerabilities in Apple Safari browser which could be exploited by a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code, perform cross-site scripting attacks or cause URL Unicode encoding on a targeted system.

The vulnerability exists in Safari browser prior to version 13.1.2. Fortunately, Apple has fixed the bug and an update is available on its website.

The CERT-IN also warned that multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in Google Chrome which could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code, bypass security restrictions, access sensitive information, contact spoofing attack and denial of service (DoS) attack on the targeted system.

CERT stated that a remote attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities by creating a specially crafted webpage on the targeted system.

The government body has asked users to update Google Chrome to version 84.0.4147.89. The update has been released for Windows and Mac operating systems.

You can check the current Google Chrome version by clicking on the options menu, selecting Help and clicking About Google Chrome.

For Safari, click on the Safari option in the Menu tab and then click on About Safari.
The Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta has disclosed that dry food packs and hot cooked meals distributed by the government to mitigate the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic cost GH54.3 million.



Additionally, Mr Ofori-Atta stated that the government transferred an amount of GH50.2 million to 400,000 beneficiaries under the the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) Programme.



Addressing Parliament today, the Minister stated that government through the Gender Ministry and NADMO provided 1,827,581 and 917,142 cooked food packs to vulnerable persons within Accra and Kumasi respectively.



READ ALSO: COVID-19: Hot meals costing GH2m per day  NADMO reveals



He said: "In collaboration with Faith-Based Organizations (FBO's), Government also distributed dry food packages to about 470,000 families. Let me extend my deepest gratitude to the Faith-based organisations for this unique partnership with Government and may the Lord count this as righteousness for the FBOs and Government.



"Mr Speaker, the support to households, in terms of supply of dry food packs and hot cooked meals cost Government GH54.3 million to enable them mitigate the impact of the pandemic. This was in addition to an amount of GH50.2 million transferred to the 400,000 most-vulnerable individuals under the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) Programme".



He added that, in response to the plight of an estimated 3,212 Ghanaians stranded abroad due to the disruptions caused by the pandemic, the government has also rolled out Operation Return Home Programme.



He said as at end-June 2020, a total of 2,250 individuals had been evacuated with Government bearing the full cost of flight and mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine services for 1,116 persons, most of whom are students.











Source: Daily Graphic









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
As panicked parents across the country grapple with uncertainty about the upcoming school year, some are drawing inspiration from one-room school houses of the past. To reduce the risks of the coronavirus pandemic, theyre turning to an alternative form of education called micro-school, where small groups of children learn together in private homes.

Micro-school is a broad term used to describe small neighborhood schools that usually enroll fewer than 10 children. In the age of COVID-19, many parents are taking the micro-school approach into their own hands and creating pandemic pods. In some pods, parents are planning to share supervision of students during periods of remote learning; in others, theyre pooling the money needed to hire a full-time teacher to come to them and work directly with a small group of students the same age.

Depending on the region and the experience level of the teacher, this approach can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars a month per family  raising concerns about even more academic inequities for low-income families during the coming school year. But, after struggling with the limitations of remote learning last year, the parents who are creating such alternatives say theyre desperate.

Related: Parents and teachers have to make decisions, but have no answers: "It feels like an impossible choice."

Their desperation is palpable on social media, where moms and dads are scrambling to find ideas for the fall. Lian Chang, a 39-year-old mother from San Francisco, had been thinking a lot about child care during the pandemic, and she decided she wanted to help inform people about their options. With help from her friend Carey Knecht, she started a Facebook group called Pandemic Pods  and membership soared to more than 22,000 people in less than a month.

It became clear that this is real. This is not just a niche interest anymore, Chang told TODAY Parents. Were proud of what were doing, and were really energized by all the people in our group and excited about how we are able to help people.

Story continues

In this group and others like it, people can ask questions, share resources and connect with teachers, caregivers and parents.

Two members of the Pandemic Pods group, Melissa and Lorin Munchick, are considering a micro-school for their 4-year-old daughter, Aria, in Miami Beach, Florida. They said finding a teacher hasnt been easy and they still have a lot of unanswered questions, but they are willing to put in the work.

"We just felt like we needed to come up with a viable option that was going to give her the routine and the learning of school but also with the socialization of being around other kids in a safe way," Melissa Munchick explained.

Download the TODAY app for the latest coverage on the coronavirus outbreak.

Shauna Causey founded a company called Weekdays in 2018 to help former teachers, nannies, child care providers and parents find and create micro-schools across the country. Since the pandemic took hold in the spring, Causey said she became inundated with requests for information about micro-schooling.

Its been extraordinary, Causey said. Were seeing parents just not comfortable having their children in a bigger school setting, mostly for health reasons.

Weekdays is helping to set up more than 100 micro-schools across the country. (Courtesy of Shauna Causey)

Causeys own 4-year-old, Connery, is in a micro-school, and she said it has provided him with personalized and unique opportunities to learn. However, she said parents should understand that setting up a micro-school is not always as simple as it may sound.

Weekdays runs background and reference checks on all of its teachers, and it helps them to set up their payroll, liability insurance, licenses and any other business support they may need. Causey said interested parents also should consider local regulations for child care and schooling, the duration of their desired program and setting clear health and safety guidelines with the other parents involved.

Related: The uncertainty of schooling during a pandemic made it the best choice for these families.

Parents also need to decide what they want their micro-school curriculum to look like. Causey recommends basing programs after local public school curriculums, then supplementing with other specific areas of interest. For instance, Weekdays is in discussions with the Pacific Science Center in Seattle to help supplement students science education with virtual field trips and non-screen-based experiences.

Parents also are finding  or creating  other at-home learning options that dont involve as many logistics. Ivan Kerbel, a father of two in Seattle, decided to create a group of nano-schools with no more than about five or six students at each location. The nano-schools will supplement whatever traditional schools end up offering in the fall.

Kerbel said he wanted to create a way for kids to enhance their learning opportunities without having to become a licensed legal entity or small enterprise.

"This is a part-time tailored model that will help boost and augment whatever amount of time families' kids are spending in school," he said. "Having three to five kids come to your house two to three times a week for music instruction or math or puzzle play or Spanish immersion doesn't require meeting any special regulatory requirements in Washington state, and I'd imagine that probably holds true for a large number of states as well."

Many micro-schools have special focuses that cater to the personal interests of students and families. (Courtesy of Shauna Causey)

Watch TODAY All Day! Get the best news, information and inspiration from TODAY, all day long.

Chang said parents have been discussing issues of equity and accessibility at length in her Facebook group, and though they do not have all the answers, she thinks connecting with others and having these conversations is a good first step.

Its a real question for people  I mean, people want to take care of their own problems and they want to be a good neighbor and citizen, she said. I think it just poses real challenges for families in how to navigate both those things.

Related: Should you stay or should you go?

Kerbel has created a Facebook group for parents interested in nano-schools in the greater Seattle area, and he said discussions about equity are taking place there as well. Parents in his group are thinking about encouraging and expecting families to pool their resources in order to provide at least one spot in each nano-school for a student in need.

"I think positive peer pressure can be a really powerful thing," Kerbel said. "If we do it, other people will do it."

Even though much uncertainty remains, Lorin Munchick said hes approaching alternative schooling opportunities for his daughter Aria with optimism.

Shes going to have ... a teacher thats really going to understand her strengths and opportunities for growth, he said. Shell be super prepared for the next stage.

For more on the reopening of the American education system, watch Pandemic: Back to School anchored by Craig Melvin every Monday through Labor Day at 11 a.m. ET on MSNBC. Viewers can submit their own questions via Twitter with #MSNBCAnswers or sent to talk@msnbc.com.
Ivan Black worked as a trainer in three different big-box gyms in New York City and Washington, D.C., before a former client inspired him to pursue the dream of opening his own gym.

The client owned a pilates studio, where he gave Ivan the opportunity to teach some classes. Watching the client in action made Black realize the freedom he could have if he struck out on his own.

He left his job at Reformation Fitness in Washington, D.C., in 2015 to start his venture. Hed originally planned to open his own gym in the nations capital, but his wifes pursuit of her dream job changed those plans.

He founded Next Step Performance in Harrisburg in July 2015 at 1100 N. Third St., building the business from the ground up. When he first opened, he said, he had only some kettlebells, some medicine balls and his own expertise. The client base has always been small, according to Ivan. At its height, he had around 70 clients, but after the novel coronavirus shutdown, he is still waiting to see who will be coming back and when.

In its first years, the business was growing, and last year he moved in a larger space in the 1500 block of North Sixth Street. He said the gym puts a high value on group fitness. Black is assisted by one other trainer, Andrea Black (no relation). His mission has been to help build a community  making them feel safe due to the pandemic  and to encourage clients to have a good time while working out.

What we do, we do group fitness. Over the years, Ive tried to adapt it to the clientele and given my skill set, I have been very involved in group fitness throughout my career.

I do a lot of body weight work, but weve also started to incorporate different tools like dumbbells, kettlebells, a number of different fitness equipment. With the current situation, we kind of got away from that. What we do through fitness, we get folks together. Try to build community around fitness, like-minded individuals that are looking to take their fitness serious, but not take it too serious. Were friends and we work out on hard.

As part of PennLives series Black-owned businesses: Stories of struggle and success, we spoke to Ivan Black to get some insight about what it takes to run Next Step Performance:

What motivated you to start your own business?

I started out as a trainer in big box setting and I met one of the people that I used to train. I met him in that same setting, and he ultimately opened his own line of studios. After he did that, I found an opportunity to go in and start teaching some classes with him. I just loved watching him in action, the freedom he had to make decisions for his business, take it in whatever direction so it suited him and suited his clients.

So, in moving here to Harrisburg, I was able to find cheaper rent than Washington, D.C., where I lived previously. So given that I said, Man, why cant I do it, why cant I have my own business where I can make decisions about what equipment we use and just how we train, and all that seemed just really attractive to me. The freedom that came with that was a chance to build something that you could call your own.

Has it been the success youd hoped?

I always say Im people rich.' The relationships Ive built are valuable. I can talk forever about the connection I have with the people that Ive trained with and friendships that Ive built. So, its definitely something thats been a challenge along the way. Now with people coming out of quarantine, were still here. So I think we do have something of value and I think its been a success as far as Id say.

What is the most significant factor in your success? What has been the factor most hindering the growth/success of your business?

I think the biggest successful factor of the business goes right back to those relationships and community in particular. Thats where the value is, in the community, in folks knowing that youre true to the cause and they are in an environment where they feel safe, where they feel that they are bettering themselves, and where they feel like theyre having a pretty good time for the most part. Not when the workouts really, really tough.

But if there was something holding me back, that revelation came to me later. It came to me in the process of building the business as opposed to me seeing that as the most valuable part of the business before building. So I think I wasted time and energy and money and putting effort into things that add value to me, but they werent valuable from the standpoint of the community.

I was always looking for the best machines and looking for the best apps and the best tools, but really when you are fostering the environment, where community is in the forefront, thats where the value comes through, and thats regardless of what machines you are using, the people kind of show up. They dont care about that. I care about it and thats my problem, but I realized that and its helped me to build something real.

Were you prepared for the demands of running your own business?

No, not at all. It was a learn on-the-fly kind of thing. But I think I inadvertently did some things right where I think people saw how dedicated I was to it and they saw how much I wanted it to succeed and that put people on my side, if you will. I think I definitely could have been a little more prepared, but not from the training side. Just more for the business side.

What would have better prepared you?

When I was in the big box gym setting I worked primarily as a trainer. That was the only title I held and I was good at it. When I was ready to leave, I was confident in my abilities as a trainer but I think back and Im like Man I should have grabbed one of those managerial positions when they were offered a couple times.' That, I think, would have had some real value to learning, just maybe like the number sides of things.

With regard to owning and operating business, certainly would have saved me a couple bucks instead of bringing in consulting.

What was the effect of the pandemic on your business?

It was just something that you could have never seen coming. When I think about maybe some of the things I thought, or imagined could happen, that would be negative towards the business worldwide, pandemic certainly wasnt one. I mean, I think that just puts me in the same boat as everybody. No one saw this coming.

Its been a real challenge. You shut down operations completely. You have to transition to an online platform in an effort to just maintain that sense of community, continue to try to provide fitness services to your member base. You try to create value in that.

Essentially, you work really hard to build a business and then on a whim, to close it and begin building a new one overnight. You know thats been a challenge for any business owner going through this situation. Its been a real test of your will and your mental sanity, but I think we can find the way out of it. I think especially now that doors are opening back up, theres an opportunity to get back to business, not as we know it but to create a new normal.

What resources would have helped you in building your business?

I did a lot of connecting with individuals and thats something that comes natural to me. There were a number of people in the industry that I sought out that I didnt have a relationship with and I peppered them with questions about opening a similar type of business that was really good research. I learned a lot from that and doing more of that would certainly have been valuable. I was spending a lot of time doing that, diving into these individuals lives if you will. Even traveling to go into their studios and take classes, take them out to lunch. I could have done more of that.
The burial of Nigerias first female helicopter combat pilot, Tolulope Arotile, has commenced at the National Military Cemetery in Abuja.

Arotile, who died on July 14 in Kaduna, is being buried in strict compliance with COVID-19 guidelines, Nigerian Air Force spokesman, Air Commodore Ibikunle Daramola, said.

She died from severe injuries following a road traffic accident at the NAF base in Kaduna, the Air Force has said.

The driver that hit her was reportedly a former secondary school classmate who, in the process of reversing his car to give her a lift knocked down the deceased.

President Muhammadu Buhari and other national leaders paid homage to the young military star after her demise and the Air Force promised she would be buried with full military honours.

Eight months before her death, she had been commissioned as Nigerias first female combat helicopter pilot.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Gov. Mike DeWine says the billion-dollar-plus nuclear bailout bill is good public policy, even though federal authorities say its passage was the result of a massive corruption scheme. Were talking about DeWines reasoning on This Week in the CLE.

Listen online here.

Editor Chris Quinn hosts Thursdays daily half-hour news podcast, with help from criminal justice editor Kris Wernowsky and politics editor 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:

1) Is Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine really standing behind the billion-dollar plus bailout of FirstEnergys nuclear plants even though federal authorities say FirstEnergy paid $60 million in bribes to get the bailout through the legislature? The policy is good policy, the governor said Wednesday, asserting that without the bailout, the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants would have closed. Because people did bad things does not mean that the policy is not a good policy.

2) Why did Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine say he was ordering a statewide mask mandate that starts tonight? DeWine said the rate of increase in new cases has slowed in the high-risk counties where masks are already mandated, and he believes that requiring masks statewide will make a significant difference.

3) What are the states affected by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWines coronavirus travel advisory, and what does it mean? Ohio has issued an out-of-state travel advisory for states with above a 15% test positivity rate to protect against spread of the virus.

4) With contact tracing for the coronavirus going on for months, have health departments really determined that the virus is spreading in backyard barbecues, parties and bridal showers? DeWine says local health departments have told the state that informal gatherings where people are letting their guard down are a big reason the virus is spreading.

5) What do we know about the Florida house owned by Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, a house that gets some attention in court records about the $60 million bribery scheme federal prosecutors say Householder orchestrated? Householder is accused of using more than $100,000 in bribe money from FirstEnergy to pay costs related to the Florida home.

6) Can we talk about a good news milestone we passed earlier this week on the coronavirus, one having to do with the 21-day average in the number of cases we have? It might have gone unnoticed, but twice in the last week, new cases in Ohio have been below the 21-day average.

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.
Perth, Australia, July 23, 2020 - (ABN Newswire) - Cardinal Resources Limited (ASX:CDV) (HAM:C3L) (OTCMKTS:CRDNF) (TOR:CDV) advises that it has received a revised and improved proposal for an off-market takeover offer from Shandong Gold Mining (HongKong) Co., Limited (Shandong Gold), pursuant to which Shandong Gold will offer to acquire all of the shares in Cardinal it does not presently own at a cash price of A$0.70 per share ("Improved Shandong Gold Offer").



The Improved Shandong Gold Offer is now being considered in detail by the board, together with the Special Committee and its financial and legal advisers. The Company will also be engaging with Shandong Gold in respect of the revised proposal.



Cardinal notes the Improved Shandong Gold Offer remains subject to a number of conditions, including regulatory approvals in Australia (FIRB) and in China. Shandong Gold has advised that it expects to receive certain of the Chinese regulatory approvals imminently. These conditions are set out in Cardinal's announcement of the Bid Implementation Agreement announced on 18 June 2020.



In light of the Improved Shandong Gold Offer, and noting the competing on-market takeover offer for Cardinal at A$0.66 cash per share from Nord Gold SE (Nordgold Takeover Bid) announced on the ASX on 15 July 2020, shareholders are advised to TAKE NO ACTION in relation to their shares at this time.



The Company will provide an update to shareholders as soon as practicable.



Cardinal's joint financial advisors are Maxit Capital LP, BMO Capital Markets, Hartleys Limited and Cannacord Genuity Corp. and its legal advisors are HopgoodGanim Lawyers (Australia) and Bennett Jones LLP (Canada).





About Cardinal Resources Ltd:



Cardinal Resources Ltd (ASX:CDV) (TSE:CDV) (OTCMKTS:CRDNF) is a West African gold exploration and development Company that holds interests in tenements within Ghana, West Africa.



The Company is focused on the development of the Namdini Project with a gold Ore Reserve of 5.1Moz (0.4 Moz Proved and 4.7 Moz Probable) and a soon to be completed Feasibility Study.



Exploration programmes are also underway at the Company's Bolgatanga (Northern Ghana) and Subranum (Southern Ghana) Projects.



Cardinal confirms that it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affects the information included in its announcement of the Ore Reserve of 3 April 2019. All material assumptions and technical parameters underpinning this estimate continue to apply and have not materially changed.



Contact:



Archie Koimtsidis

CEO / MD

Cardinal Resources Limited

P: +61-8-6558-0573



Alec Rowlands

IR / Corp Dev

Cardinal Resources Limited

P: +1-647-256-1922



Andrew Rowell

Cannings Purple

E: arowell@canningspurple.com.au

P: +61-400-466-226



Peta Baldwin

Cannings Purple

E: pbaldwin@canningspurple.com.au

P: +61-455-081-008



Source:



Cardinal Resources Ltd



Copyright (C) 2020 ABN Newswire. All rights reserved.
The Delhi High Court on Thursday granted bail to former promoter of Fortis Healthcare Shivinder Mohan Singh in a money laundering case related to misappropriation of funds at Religare Finvest Ltd.

However, Shivinder, who is currently lodged in Tihar jail, will not be able to walk out as he has been booked in another case of fraud by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW).

Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani granted bail to Shivinder, saying that there is "no rationale" in continuing his custody as undertrial. Pronouncing the order through video conferencing, the judge granted the relief to the former Religare Enterprises promoter on furnishing a personal bond of Rs 1 crore and two sureties by family members of Rs 25 lakh each.

The judge has asked the investigating officer of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to request the Bureau of Immigration to open look out circular (LOC) in Shivinder's name to prevent any unannounced exit from the country.

Meanwhile, the court rejected the bail plea of former CMD of Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL) Sunil Godhwani and former CEO of REL Kavi Arora.

Shivinder Singh, his brother Malvinder, Sunil Godhwani, Kavi Arora and Anil Saxena were arrested by the EOW of Delhi Police in October last year over charges of fund siphoning filed by Manpreet Singh Suri of Religare Finvest. The complaint alleged that the accused had taken loans while managing Religare Finvest, but had invested these funds in other companies.

"They put RFL in a poor financial condition by disbursing loans to companies with no financial standing and controlled by them. The companies to which the loans were disbursed willfully defaulted in repayments and caused a loss to RFL to the tune of Rs 2,397 crore," the police had alleged.

On July 16, the High Court had reserved its order on the bail plea after hearing arguments from the counsel for Shivinder and the ED.

Shivinder's bail plea was opposed by the ED, contending that in the present case, money was diverted through a complex web of transactions and finding the trail was not easy.

Earlier in April, Shivinder had applied for interim bail for eight weeks in view of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was rejected by the court saying that he does not fulfil criteria to be released.

Also Read: Ex-Fortis promoter Shivinder Singh seeks bail on coronavirus ground; HC rejects plea
CEOs at San Antonios biggest public companies took home hefty pay packages in 2019  in some cases, more than 100 times the median pay of their employees.

But the COVID-19 pandemic has put a crimp in executive compensation this year  and going forward, its likely to accelerate a shift in C-suite pay packages to give greater weight to employee satisfaction, environmental sustainability and other nonfinancial measurements, experts say.

In 2019, median CEO compensation for S&P 500 companies was $12.3 million, up 4 percent from the year before, according to Equilar. The data firm looked at the compensation of 329 CEOs who had held their positions for longer than two years.

Joseph Gorder was the only San Antonio executive to make the list. Hes been chairman and CEO of Valero Energy Corp. since 2014.

Gorder collected $28.2 million in total compensation last year, according to the companys filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The median salary for Valero employees in 2019 was $113,770. When benefits and other compensation are included, the median was $272,000. A change in pension value accounted for 40 percent of that figure.

Still, Gorders total compensation was 103 times greater than the median for employees.

More Information Compensation gap Here is total 2019 compensation for the CEOs of the largest publicly traded companies in the San Antonio metro area, compared with their employees' median compensation. Robert Pittman, iHeartMedia: $22.9 million, 408 times employee median William Eccleshare, Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings: $10.6 million, 225 times employee median Joseph Gorder, Valero Energy: $28.2 million, 103 times employee median W.M. "Rusty" Rush, Rush Enterprises: $7.1 million, 94 times employee median Phillip Green, Cullen/Frost Bankers: $4.8 million, 84.7 times employee median Bradley Barron, NuStar Energy: $4.4 million, 36 times employee median Source: Securities and Exchange Commission filings See More Collapse

That was a modest gap compared with other big energy companies. Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods made 135 times the median compensation of employees at his company in 2019, SEC filings show. Michael Wirth, chairman and CEO of Chevron, took home 236 times the median.

On ExpressNews.com: The highest paid CEOs in Texas make 100 times the average worker  or more

Robert Pittman, CEO of San Antonios iHeartMedia Inc., had one of the widest gaps. He collected $22.9 million in total compensation last year  408 times the median earnings of iHeart employees.

William Eccleshare, worldwide CEO of the advertising firm Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc., made $10.6 million last year  225 times the median employee compensation.

At Rush Enterprises Inc., which operates a chain of Peterbilt truck dealerships from its headquarters in New Braunfels, chief executive W.M. Rusty Rush was paid $7.1 million in 2019, according to SEC filings. That was 94 times the median for his employees.

At Cullen/Frost Bankers Inc., CEO Phillip Green made $4.8 million in 2019  about 85 times the median compensation for the companys employees.

NuStar Energy, an oil pipeline and storage company, paid CEO Bradley Barron $4.4 million in 2019  36 times the employee median.

The six companies are the metro areas largest publicly traded firms.

In 2020, the pandemic has taken a bite out of executive pay.

Pittman gave up his base salary and his annual incentive bonus from iHeart. In 2019, Pittmans base was $1.4 million  6 percent of his total compensation

The board of directors at Rush Enterprises temporarily took 25 percent out of Rushs base salary, which was $1.55 million in 2019. Other top Rush Enterprises executives took a 10 percent haircut.

As of mid-June, CEOs at 111 companies in the S&P 500 had taken salary reductions, according to consulting firm Compensation Advisory Partners.

Executive pay typically is set by a companys board of directors. Theyre supposed to start by measuring pay at comparable companies in similar industries.

On ExpressNews.com: Compensation climbs for USAA execs in 2019

Firms weigh that data, along with an executives record, to come up with a pay package, said Chris Earnest, a Houston-based partner at Compensation Advisory Partners.

Earnest said that once a total compensation figure is determined, firms often divide it into buckets  base salary, a performance bonus and longer-term compensation such as shares of company stock.

Generally speaking today, in the executive compensation landscape, most companies have allocated at least 50 percent of that last, long-term bucket to performance-based awards, Earnest said. Meaning, I might tell you that Im going to grant you 1,000 shares of stock, but youre going to have to achieve X before those vest and you actually receive them.

So a CEO such as Pittman who forgoes his base salary is likely giving up only a fraction of his total pay. But the austerity likely wont end there: Many companies are expected to skip executive bonuses in 2020.

The volatility in the stock market is likely to further erode CEO compensation, Earnest said.

Executive pay was controversial before the pandemic. The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute said in a report last year that CEOs incomes had grown 940 percent since 1978, while workers median wages rose just 12 percent.

Earnest said those figures may be misleading, because a CEOs compensation is made up largely of awards of stock and stock options, which can fluctuate wildly in value. He said it would be a mistake to assume CEOs and executives dont also experience the cycles of the market.

Valeros Gorder, for instance, held around 488,000 shares of company stock as of Feb. 26. The value of those shares has dropped $34.9 million to $27.9 million.

But Gorder shouldnt expect any sympathy from the rank-and-file. Employees have not seen their incomes grow at the same pace as economic productivity in recent years, said Natasha Burns, a professor of finance at the University of Texas at San Antonio who researches executive pay.

Efficiency has increased because of technology, and workers dont seem to be able to capture the gains from that increase in efficiency. A lot of that is going to shareholders, and since CEOs are paid in part with equity, CEOs benefit from that, Burns said. It certainly has to do with the fact that workers dont seem to have the power to command higher wages.

Now that many companies have furloughed employees and taken other cost-cutting measures, a reckoning could be in the works.

From Tomlinson: Wanted: CEO to fight income inequality by cutting executive pay

Analysts at Semler Brossy, an executive compensation consulting firm, said that post-pandemic, they expect government policy and consumer sentiment to move firms toward a stakeholder model, distinct from a shareholder model.

Stakeholders refer broadly to a companys employees, customers, suppliers and local community. The conventional corporate strategy that prizes creating value for shareholders will be tempered by the new approach, Semler Brossy said.

The consistent growth and returns mantra will still be a voice in day-to-day operations, but it will now be complemented by a number of balancing voices that represent other stakeholders in the economic-individual-environmental dynamic, the analysts wrote. This evolution is unknown, but it is reasonable to expect a shift to a safer business model with broader input from various stakeholders.

New regulations  or investor preferences  could push firms to take into account employee satisfaction or pay relative to the local cost of living when determining executive pay packages.

Certain financial measures are important for the survival of a company, for a company to enhance its profits over time, said Robert Scherer, dean of the School of Business at Trinity University.

But what we really need to look at as well in compensating executives right now is their ability to be innovative in terms of  how theyre working toward the health and safety of their staff, how theyre working toward health and safety of their customers, and what theyre doing to ensure the business adapts to not only survive but thrive in the new era.

Pegging that to executives compensation, bonuses and equity to me would seem appropriate prior to COVID-19 and going forward, Scherer said.

Earnest said COVID-19 forced companies to hit the pause button on changing the structure of executive compensation. But he said performance measures tied to such goals as environmental sustainability are making their way into exec comp programs.

Most compensation packages are set with three-year goals that are reassessed every year.

Theres some argument that perhaps a longer period of time should be used, Earnest said. As you start to talk about stakeholders and longer-term sustainability types of measures, I dont know that a three-year period is long enough to be meaningful. So that could be a change that we see.

Diego Mendoza-Moyers covers manufacturing, the automotive industry and the energy sector. To read more from Diego, become a subscriber. diego.mendoza-moyers@express-news.net | Twitter: @dmendozamoyers
She has been spending a lot of time on the beaches of Malibu summer these recent summer days over the last couple of weeks.

But on Wednesday Alessandra Ambrosio took a break from all the fun in the sun to do a little shopping by herself near her home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles.

During her afternoon excursion she stopped by a bank to pick up money before heading off to buy flowers and other items at the Brentwood Country Mart.

Out and about: Alessandra Ambrosio, 39, put on a leggy display in a light brown shorts romper during a shopping excursion in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles on Wednesday

The former supermodel, 39, showed off her fabulous legs in a light brown, one-piece shorts romper that was cinched-in at the waist.

She also wore a lavender sweater, a pair of traditional flip-flops and had her long brown tresses partially pulled back off her with a loose ponytail.

Always one to keep safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Brazilian-born beauty also donned a protective mask along with dark sunglasses.

The former supermodel made sure to wear a protective mask when she bought flowers and several other items at the Brentwood Country Mart

Later, in the early evening, Ambrosio teased her 10.2 million followers by posting a short video of herself lounging in her backyard pool.

She spiced up the clip by using a popular app to give the illusion of bubbles coming off the gorgeous blue pool water and a drum-heavy beat playing in the background.

The mother of two also wished her fans a 'good night' with a photo of her pool and gorgeous home, which is situated in Brentwood, not too far from the beaches of Santa Monica.

Later, in the early evening, Ambrosio teased her 10.2 million followers by posting a short video of herself in her backyard pool

She spiced up the clip by using a popular app to give the illusion of bubbles coming off the gorgeous blue pool water and a drum-heavy beat playing in the background

Ambrosio has been been trying to make the best of the coronavirus lockdown by spending quality time her son Noah, and 11-year-old daughter Anja, whom she shares with former fiance Jamie Mazur.

She has also been spending time with her beau, Italian businessman beau Nicolo Oddi, that she's dated since 2018.

During her career on the catwalk, Ambrosio was among the highest paid models several years over, which included being among the most popular Victoria's Secret Angels.

Beach bunny: Ambrosio has been spending recent summer days on the beach in Malibu
Chairman of EuroCham Nicolas Audier (Photo: VNA)

HCM City  European businesses are more positive about Vietnams trade and investment environment in the first few months after COVID-19, the Business Climate Index (BCI) unveiled by the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (EuroCham) on July 22 showed.

Accordingly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when social distancing and travel restrictions brought normal business operations to a halt, the EuroCham BCI fell to its lowest-ever score of 27 percent in the first quarter of 2020.

However, after the Government implemented a world-leading public-health and economic response, Vietnam was able to return to business-as-usual much sooner than other countries, who continue to struggle with the impact of the virus.

As a result, the positive sentiment of European business leaders began to bounce back, recording a 7 percent jump between February and April to reach 34 percent.

The BCI also found that more than 25 percent of European enterprises had benefitted from the Governments postponement of tax, while around one-in-five had benefitted from a reduction in rent and a suspension of social insurance contributions.

Despite these positive signs, however, challenges remain for European enterprises, according to the survey.

A large proportion, 88 percent of the interviewed businesses, felt negative effects as a result of the pandemic in the three months to April. Meanwhile, more than 50 percent said that a reduction in taxes such as corporate income tax, personal income tax and value added tax would help them emerge stronger from the crisis.

Chairman of EuroCham Nicolas Audier said: This data is further evidence that Vietnam is one of the international success stories of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also shows that the Governments effective and sure-footed handling has had a tangible impact on the confidence of European business leaders.

The next challenge will be adapting to the new normal where COVID-19 is present in other countries but where global trade remains essential to domestic economic growth. This will require imaginative solutions to address issues such as the return of foreign experts on whom many international companies depend, he added.
A major stumbling block for long-delayed intra-Afghan peace talks has been a dispute over the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners. The Afghan government has refused to release about 400 of them, saying they are criminals or hardened combatants who would immediately return to battle. The Taliban has insisted that all the individuals on its original list must be freed before talks can start.
When Crisis Inspires Change

The Future of Alaska IT

In the history books, COVID-19 will likely be portrayed as a gargantuan disruptor that took away lives, jobs and seemingly any sense of normalcy. But the record should also show that the global health crisis accelerated the role of technology. For the state of Alaska, the pandemic marks a point where a process of IT centralization, after a years-long rocky start, made a significant leap forward.In the longer game, in the longer picture, it was actually a scenario where we showed the worth of centralized IT because we were able to take a few things off the plates of [state] departments  as we continue to move forward, I see more and more willingness to engage and more and more trust develop between our organizations, said Alaska Chief Information Officer Bill Smith.Alaskas centralization journey began in April 2017, when then-Gov. Bill Walker signed an order for the state to move away from its federated IT structure. The order established a new agency, the Office of Information Technology (OIT), under the Alaska Department of Administration (DOA). This concept has been years in the making, Walker said at the time.A little more than a year after that historic moment for Alaska IT, progress looked like a mixed bag. Bill Vajda, whom Walker appointed as CIO to lead the consolidation, resigned in August 2018. Given that Alaska agencies were used to controlling their own IT, Vajda had remarked that he was a necessary evil of sorts, according to then-deputy CIO Dan DeBartalo.Bill acknowledged that he was here to be the one that absorbed the fire, whats sometimes called friendly fire, DeBartalo recounted. The friendly fire meant that some agencies played ball, while others didnt keep the same pace.The CIO position in Alaska became a revolving door of interim leaders. Between August 2018 and November 2019, the state saw four people become the temporary head of OIT.To an outsider, the situation might have looked like chaos. From the inside, Kelly Tshibaka, who was appointed DOA commissioner in January 2019, was assessing the situation and developing a plan to advance the states technological capabilities and increase buy-in for the consolidation effort across the state.I found a history of IT making a lot of promises and not keeping them and posing a lot of mandates that did not work for the departments, Tshibaka said. Additionally, the states tech lagged behind modern standards. When we rolled into the end of 2019, we identified 3,000 computers that were still on Windows 7, she said.Smith was hired as permanent CIO in November 2019. He found that agencies resistance to centralization wasnt merely personal.As I walked around, there was a lot of dissatisfaction with the central IT model, and the deeper I looked, I realized its because we didnt really centralize, Smith said. People thought, Oh, were done. Were centralized. But we really hadnt. We had done one or two steps, but there was no centralized IT governance. There was no pooled resources in a lot of ways. And so it became clear to me why there was dissatisfaction.Before COVID-19, roughly 100 state employees were teleworking in Alaska. But for months now, the state has had more than 6,000 employees working remotely. Tshibaka said that any staff member who is able to perform remote work has the capability to do so today.This massive shift started with an analysis of the states IT chokepoints, Smith said. The most significant chokepoint was the virtual private network (VPN) concentrator throughput. The network and VPN access capacity hadnt ever been sized, which meant that Alaska employees werent in position to respond to social distancing concerns.State employees would not have been able to make the choice to work remotely.  They would have been much more concerned about their own health and safety, but also it wouldve forced us to make some pretty expensive and time-consuming facility changes, Smith explained.In Smiths eyes, the VPN issue was solved in part due to a partnership with company Cisco that the state had nurtured for years  a relationship that amounts to more than a transactional approach to vendor support. During March, Smith received a phone call from the company about the issue before he even had a chance to reach out. From there, a team consisting of Cisco engineers, state of Alaska engineers and local Internet service providers delivered incremental increases in capacity before landing on a longer-term solution.That team was able to design, build, test and implement virtual appliance VPN concentrators that gave us an increase of capacity of ten-fold  Literally within a week we went from being at 70, 80, 90 percent throughput at any given part of the day, making me pretty nervous, to being at 10, 20 percent throughput, Smith said.Tshibaka said the team performed miracles that allowed Alaska to rapidly transform in response to the pandemic. Once the tech was ready, staff training cemented the new norm.We went from nobody using [Microsoft] Teams to over 6,800 daily users in three weeks, Tshibaka said.After all of this progress, both Tshibaka and Smith started hearing praise about the consolidated IT model from new directions.For the first time, I heard commissioners complimenting the central structure because of the ability to deliver things like VPN access  they thought very highly of it, Smith said.Tech-wise, the state may have taken a big jump ahead within the last few months, but Tshibaka believes if you look at Alaska IT two years from now, it will be substantially different from the present. Smith added that the state is only about one-third of the way done with its centralization effort.Smith said the recent IT improvements are about much more than helping the state of Alaska be prepared for crises in the future. Equally important to the states vision is advancing service delivery for Alaska residents.Where I would like to see us go and where I think were going to end up is just a really simple interface with the state of Alaska for our employees, Smith said, and there are ways that we can do that with technology that would allow Alaskans to interface and jump into the state of Alaska in a remote manner that doesnt result in having to go through five or six different Web pages, or doesnt result in having to go through a bunch of different hoops to get services.Alaska is also in the middle of a pretty large cloud migration  but not simply for the sake of utilizing the cloud. Smith subscribes to a cloud-smart mentality, meaning that he envisions a hybrid system where data centers still play a role.You pick your provider, and [cloud] can be an amazing, amazing tool provided you use it the right way, Smith said. It doesnt make sense just to take things that are sitting in your data center and lift and shift it in all cases. You might not be anymore efficient than you are today. You might not save any money. But if you look at the right applications and put them in the cloud in the right manner, you can have some real savings.
Boisar MIDC police on Thursday arrested four members of a family for murdering Bulbul Jha, 20. The accused are Jhas husband Deepak, 21; his father Pawan Jha, 50; mother Bachudevi, 45; and his sister Nitu Mukesh Thakur, 30. The four were arrested from Gurugram, Haryana, where they were allegedly living under false identity, said senior inspector Pradip Kasbe of Boisar MIDC police station.

The four arrested accused have confessed to the crime but are not revealing how they murdered Jha in February 2019. They will be produced before Palghar court on Friday, said Kasbe.

The murder came to light after the landlord of their chawl in Ganesh Nagar, Boisar broke open the door of their room following non-payment of rent for three months, and found the remains of Jha stuffed in a plastic drum.

Kasbe said the murder took place in February 2019 and the room has since been locked. The accused had allegedly told the landlord not to rent out the room to anyone else and paid rent for March through money transfer.

We traced the money transfer shop in Gurugram and sent a team of four policemen there. The accused somehow learnt about police coming to arrest them and were planning to leave, but were caught, said Kasbe.

In February 2019, Deepak had attempted to set Jha on fire, following which he was arrested and then released on bail.
Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Affairs Josep Borrell and Armenian FM Zohrab Mnatsakanyan held phone talks, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry's press service reported.



Bayramov informed Borrell about the military provocation of the Armenian armed forces on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border and the suppression of the attempted attack with the use of artillery installations, as well the ongoing tension in the region. He noted that during the recent provocation, the Armenian side shelled and deliberately targeted Azerbaijani border settlements, resulting in death of a 76-year-old civilian.



The Azerbaijani FM brought to Borrell's attention that the Armenian side also aims at creating a threat to geostrategic projects located close to the mentioned area. It was stressed that the tension roots from the aggressive policy of Armenia against Azerbaijan.



Borrell noted the importance of stopping the conflict escalation, including the creation of threats to important infrastructure in the region. He pointed out the need to restore substantive negotiations on the settlement of the conflict through the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group.



Bayramov noted that Azerbaijan remains committed to the peaceful settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but stressed that the negotiations should be conducted in essence and aimed at a specific result.



Borrel was informed that the Azerbaijani side does not participate in the negotiations for the sake of negotiations, as they have been going on for many years, but there are no concrete results to eliminate the consequences of the conflict.



Armenian side's attempts to prolong negotiations under various pretexts, instead of solving the issue, were highlighted.



Azerbaijan's foreign minister stressed the importance of withdrawing the Armenian forces from all the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, restoring the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan within the internationally recognized borders, fulfilling the demands of the international community led by UN Security Council resolutions and the decisive position of the EU on resolving the conflict.
ARCHIVED - 281 active outbreaks in Spain on Thursday



The average age of positive cases is starting to show a slight rise again

"I appeal to the responsibility of people of all ages, if we do not make an effort we will not control the transmission. The measures are very clear and it is worth making an effort".

Maria Jose Sierra

In Spain on Thursday there are 281 active outbreaks of coronavirus with 3,200 linked cases, Catalonia and Aragon being the autonomous regions that "cause the most concern" to the Ministry of Health, as Barcelona, Lleida and Zaragoza are all experiencing community transmission, ie there are so many outbreaks they cease to be isolated and become a generalised transmission of the virus.

Click to see Spain figures for Thursday; nearly 1,000 new cases reported on Thursday



The acting head of the area of the Coordination Center for Health Alerts and Emergencies of the Ministry of Health, Maria Jose Sierra, explained this Thursday at a press conference that "practically all the autonomous communities" are experiencing outbreaks in recent days and that related cases are increasing, with nightlife the principal protagonist.



Since the end of the de-escalation, 369 outbreaks with 5,000 cases have been detected in Spain, although many of the 281 outbreaks currently recorded are now under control.



In the last two weeks, she said, the accumulated incidence of infections has tripled.

She stressed that there are more and more outbreaks associated with leisure and discos, some affecting more than one hundred people.



There are 15 outbreaks with more than 350 cases related to family gatherings and parties and 27 outbreaks that affect workers in the agricultural sector.



Not all outbreaks are of the same magnitude; 70% have ten cases or less.



She stated that the health service is "concerned" about the epidemiological situation, although the health system is not experiencing stress despite the increase in cases, as 50% of positives are asymptomatic. "There are still very few cases hospitalized and in the ICU compared to those diagnosed. In places where there is a higher incidence, the numbers of hospitalized patients are beginning to increase, but without putting stress on hospital services, because half are asymptomatic and the vast majority are mild cases and young people ", she explained.

The Health Ministry considers that all the measures adopted by the autonomous communities to stop transmission are adequate.

Average age of cases is 45, but starting to increase again

The average age of positive cases diagnosed this Thursday is 45, although the Health Ministry is starting to see a rise in the age of the latest patients, something which she said: "worries us because age is the factor that is most associated with the severity of the disease. "
China has moved to block the UKs offer of citizenship to Hong Kong residents, warning it may not recognise their passports as valid documents.

Beijing hit out after the government said it would welcome warmly any of 2.9 million Hong Kongers with British National Overseas (BNO) status, who fear its crackdown in the territory.

The move appears to confirm the fears of Dominic Raab, who said last weekend: Ultimately, if they follow through on something like that, there would be little we could do to coercively force them.

It comes after the UK suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong in response to Chinas draconian new national security law which it called a clear and serious violation of the agreement for the territory.

Mr Raab, the foreign secretary, warned the arrangement  which has been in place for more than 30 years  would lead to dissidents being sent on to China.

The warning that UK passports might not be recognised came in an announcement by Chinas foreign ministry.

A spokesman said the UKs visa offer meant its previous assurances are no longer valid and accused it of politically manipulating the issue.

It has broken its promises and violated international law and basic norms, the spokesman said, adding: So China will consider not recognising BNO as aa valid travel document.

London is offering the ability to come to Britain to anyone who received BNO status at the time Hong Kong was handed over from the UK to China in 1997.

China destroying Uighur burial grounds Show all 6 1 /6 China destroying Uighur burial grounds China destroying Uighur burial grounds Teywizim cemetery in Hotan (before and after) China is destroying burial grounds where generations of Uighur families have been laid to rest, leaving behind human bones and broken tombs in what activists call an effort to eradicate the ethnic group's identity Earthrise/AFP/Getty China destroying Uighur burial grounds A cemetery in Xayar (before and after) Earthrise/AFP/Getty China destroying Uighur burial grounds A graveyard in Aksu (before and after) An image of a graveyard in Aksu in 2015, where Uighur poet Lutpulla Mutellip was buried and the same view in 2018 and then again in 2019 showing a new park called "Happiness Park" Earthrise/AFP/Getty China destroying Uighur burial grounds A cemetery in Xayar (before and after) Earthrise/AFP/Getty China destroying Uighur burial grounds Sulanim cemetery in Hotan (before and after) Earthrise/AFP/Getty China destroying Uighur burial grounds A cemetery in Xayar (before and after) Earthrise/AFP/Getty

They will be entitled to move with their spouse and any children living at the same home as them, even if the children are over 18.

They will not need to have a job offer or demonstrate a particular skill level, but once in the UK they will have to support themselves without being eligible for benefits.

And Priti Patel, the home secretary, has been criticised because no-one under the age of 23  including many who have led anti-Communist protests  will be able to come to the UK.

She told MPs: BNO citizens will need to ask themselves whether coming to the UK to put down roots here is the right choice for them. It is a choice I am making available and I welcome warmly all those who decide to take it..

The cost of the new visa  coming into force in January  has not been set but is likely to be many hundreds of pounds.

And all those who claim it will also have to pay the new, higher 624-a-year charge for the immigration health surcharge, supposedly to use the NHS.

After five years, they can apply for settled status at a cost of 2,389, then after another year they can pay 1,206 for citizenship.
Chef Kobe has 2.5 million followers on Instagram, and it was featured on national news shows. Now, this adorable social media influencer collaborated with Hello Fresh, the best-selling meal kit delivery company. Let's give a standing ovation to this fun toddler!

Meet Chef Kobe

Tune into one of Chef Kobe's Instagram video posts, and it's obvious the kiddo loves cooking. With the support of his parent, of course.

Is there any doubt about what to look out for after dinner? Chef Kobe already has 97,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, and TikTok has more than 15 million views.

He stuffs about half of the ingredients enthusiastically into his mouth. He adds generous laughter to help throughout the fast-cooking segments. From pasta salad and pizza to helping mom make a cake to celebrate hitting 100,000 followers on Instagram, he has tackled everything. That messy one was back some time ago, but not so long ago.

Chef Kobe's arrival seems like pretty perfect timing for the tiny chef with pandemic-weary people seeking delicious distractions. Chef Kobe delivers as if he were a manager. A supervisor who still doesn't talk in full sentences.

"There is so much more than just cooking when Kobe is in the kitchen," Ashley Wian, chef Kobe's mom, describes. Ashley told Forbes that Kobe investigates new ingredients, feels new textures, learns practical skills like pouring, scooping, and measuring. "It brings us together as a family," she added.

Hello Fresh connection

Not unexpectedly, it is during the COVID-19 crisis that sales of meal kits are up. Hello Fresh has seen an 88 percent spike in revenue since last year, with 2.6 million clients getting monthly meal kit deliveries.

Linking to Chef Kobe promotes the company's aim of bringing more people to the kitchen. Hello Fresh allows you and your family to make sumptuous meals if you're starting to make a culinary journey.

"Chef Kobe and his family embody the purpose while bringing passion and excitement to the experience of cooking," according to the brand's influencer team.

Kobe's mom said people have reacted to this collaboration only in a positive way! Ashley said many Kobe-inspired families want to get their kids in the kitchen but often find it hard to figure out recipes or new things to try.

"HelloFresh looks [to provide] meals with every ingredient you will need," Ashley explained. She added the meals bring the family together, and provide many benefits for everyone.

ALSO READ: [VIRAL VIDEO] Woman With COVID-19 Posts Harrowing Video While in ICU to Send a Stark Warning

Why social media influence matters for food, beverage brands

Food is one of the most popular social media topics, owing much to its universal visual appeal across cultures, languages, and audiences. Food and beverage companies are starting to realize the impact of social influence, exploiting their controlled and paid advertising campaigns, and earning attention.

By selecting a message that matters to your target audience and finding the right audience of influencers to represent it, social media can raise engagement and brand recognition. It also encourages product experiences and discussions offline filled with positive feelings.

ALSO READ: [VIRAL] Boss Video Calls Her Team With Potato Filter Turned On; What Happens Next Will Make You Laugh!

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VICTORIAA jump in COVID-19 infections in British Columbia has prompted a tightening of restrictions by health officials for bars and nightclubs.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said the rise in cases, including 34 more on Wednesday, is a wake-up call and health officials, businesses and residents need to pay more attention to areas where transmission is spread.

The amended health order prohibits liquor self-service and dance floors, while all patrons of bars and clubs must be in designated seats and measures need to be in place to reduce lineups.

This is not a failure of anything weve been doing, Henry said at a news conference Wednesday. Weve always said that we will tweak things, we will manage things, we will make changes as we need to.

The additional measures will make it easy for bars and nightclub operators to ensure safe distancing and that people arent bending and disobeying rules, particularly after theyve had a few drinks and its late at night, she said.

She does not believe the province opened too soon, she said.

Weve done it in a very measured, and I believe, a thoughtful way. Well adjust and well manage as we go, she said.

People need to remember that every time they meet a new group, they are exposing themselves to a new risk, she said.

It is not surprising that there has been an uptick in cases considering an increased amount of travel and partying especially among young people, she said.

About 1,000 people are in self-isolation after being in close contact with those who tested positive in the outbreak in Kelowna, Henry said.

Health officials have said many of the infections that started in Kelowna, then spread through the province, were related to private parties.

In the last few weeks were seeing an increase in younger people who tend to have milder illness that recover more quickly, but there are some people, even young people, who get very sick and end up in hospital, she said.

Young people who may be asymptomatic or have mild enough symptoms that they dont notice they are sick, and potentially pass it on to parents or grandparents, she said.

Weve seen a couple of people related, who are now in hospital.

So far, 3,362 people have tested positive for COVID-19, while 2,888 have fully recovered. There have been no new deaths and the toll remains at 189.

A pediatric critical care and infectious diseases specialist at the University of British Columbia said the uptick in cases can be attributed to a few large spreading events.

Dr. Srinivas Murthy said if the ultimate goal is to keep the curve flat, limit hospitalizations, and get kids back in school then people need to prioritize what they think is more important than others.

Were watching it very closely and thinking about it very carefully, and not panicking just yet.

Henry said even those who have had relatively mild illness have a prolonged recovery that may take weeks.

People who are in their 20s, 30s and 40s have died from this disease, while others are sick for a long period of time.

They describe feelings of profound fatigue that can last for a long time, shortness of breath with even minimal exertion, she said.

And this happens to young people so this really can knock you flat on your back for a long time.

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By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR/CUTTACK: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday appreciated Odisha Police personnel for coming forward to donate plasma after recovering from Covid-19. Appreciate Odisha Police personnel for coming forward to donate plasma to treat serious patients. Such humane gesture will encourage others who have recovered to donate plasma and save precious lives, said Naveen in a tweet.DGP Abhay also appreciated the police personnels commitment to public service.

The CM and DGPs remarks came after 31 personnel in Ganjam police district recovered and decided to donate their plasma for treatment of serious patients. Besides, two personnel of Odisha Fire Service will donate plasma on Thursday. At least 190 personnel of Fire Service were infected by coronavirus and all of them have recovered.

In the first phase, we have given the list of 10 personnel who will donate plasma. At least 160 recovered personnel have given their consent to donate plasma, said a senior officer of Odisha Fire Service.

Meanwhile, Athagarh SDPO Alok Ranjan Ray and IIC of Badamba police station Pravat Ranjan Mallik resumed duty on the day after recovering from the disease.A total of 17 police personnel in Cuttack Rural police were infected by the deadly virus. The rest 15 cops have also recovered and are likely to join duty soon.
KENAI, Alaska - The Holy Assumption of the Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox Church in Kenai, Alaska will undergo a major renovation for its 125th birthday.

The church, which was erected in 1896, will get a new roof, cupolas and crosses. Construction began Monday and is estimated to last until September, the Peninsula Clarion reported Tuesday.

The Russian Orthodox Sacred Sites in Alaska group dedicated to preserving the states Russian Orthodox monuments is $170,000 for the renovations in conjunction with other individuals and organizations.

The project will improve the exterior appearance of the church and prevent further leaking into its interior, which has caused problems over the last 10 years.

John Wachtel, a National Park Service historical architect who is leading the renovations, told the Peninsula Clarion that much of the leaking seems to be coming from the cupolas, making the restoration practical and cosmetic.

The church is considered a National Historic Landmark, of which there are only roughly 2,500 in the United States. There are 50 National Historic Landmarks in Alaska, according to Grant Crosby, a National Park Service historical architect who is providing technical assistance for the renovations.

Dorothy Gray, a treasurer for the Russian Orthodox Sacred Sites in Alaska, said the church plays an important role on the Kenai Peninsula.

Theres easily 200 people through the church every day during a normal year in the summer, Gray said.

A 2010 renovation replaced rotten logs in the church and installed a fire prevention system and ramps for those with disabilities.

Gray said that the churchs short distance to Blazy Construction in Soldotna meant the logistics for the plan worked out well. Typically, Gray said, projects like this require companies to travel through remote villages, which is unfeasible during a pandemic.
A B.C. man whose unruly behaviour onboard a Toronto-bound flight caused it to be diverted to Winnipeg is now facing automatic deportation to his native India.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A B.C. man whose unruly behaviour onboard a Toronto-bound flight caused it to be diverted to Winnipeg is now facing automatic deportation to his native India.

Balvir Singh, 59, pleaded guilty Thursday to smoking on a plane  a violation under the Canadian Aeronautics Act  and mischief to property and was sentenced to five days time served.

Court heard Singh was on a WestJet flight June 14 when his "belligerent" behaviour, including repeated refusals to comply with demands he wear a face mask, became a concern for the flight crew.

Flight attendants were discussing what to do with Singh when another passenger ran to the back of the plane to report Singh was smoking a cigarette in his seat, Crown attorney Kirsty Elgert told court.

The pilot was notified "and the decision was made to divert the plane mid-flight to Winnipeg," Elgert said.

According to WestJet, the cost of the diversion, which did not involve a lengthy delay, was under $5,000.

"Obviously, it could have been much more expensive," Elgert said.

Singh, who came to Canada 12 years ago, is now subject to automatic deportation and has exhausted all avenues of appeal.

Singh came to Canada for a better life, but has struggled since his arrival and most recently became homeless, his lawyer Gagandeep Kahlon told court.

He is diabetic, and prior to his WestJet flight had been hospitalized. At the time of his flight, Singh was suffering from low blood sugar and had been drinking, a combination that left him "not in a good place," Kahlon said.

Singh was granted bail shortly after his arrest but spent 40 days in custody because he could not satisfy his release requirements, Kahlon said.

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Provincial court Judge Kusham Sharma said she was satisfied deportation was a "significant consequence" for Singhs actions.

Its very dangerous to not follow what the flight crew is saying or create a situation that distracts the pilot," Sharma said. "I understand you werent feeling well when you got on the plane. Drinking did not help that (and) created a scary situation for everybody."

Court heard Singhs deportation will be delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He was ordered released to live with family in Toronto.

Winnipeg is a frequent landing point for diverted flights, given the citys distance from other major airports, Winnipeg Airport Authority spokesman Tyler MacAfee previously told the Free Press.

In February, a man and woman from the United Kingdom were sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $100,000 each after their drunken escapades aboard a plane bound for Los Cabos, Mexico, forced pilots to divert to Winnipeg.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca
Kim Kardashian-West, the reality television star, yesterday appealed for "compassion" for her husband Kanye West, the rapper running for US president, as she says he is suffering from a bipolar episode.

West has made a number of troubling social media posts since announcing his plan to run for office in the November election, prompting fears for his mental health.

He held a rally in South Carolina at the weekend under his self-styled Birthday Party banner and wept as he talked about the shame he felt over wanting to abort his eldest child.

Since the appearance he has posted rambling remarks on subjects ranging from politics to his marriage.

"As many of you know, Kanye has bipolar disorder," Kardashian-West wrote on her Instagram page.

West (43), known as "Ye" to his fans, announced he had the illness in 2018 and received psychiatric treatment in hospital in 2016.

Bipolar disorder is a mental illness characterised by mood swings between extreme energy and depression, according to the HSE.

The Grammy award-winning artist claimed on Twitter he was trying to divorce his wife Kim (39), who was trying to have him committed to an institution.

"Those that understand mental illness or even compulsive behaviour know that the family is powerless unless the member is a minor," said Kardashian-West.

She said her husband, with whom she has four children, was "a brilliant but complicated person who on top of the pressures of being an artist and a black man, who experienced the painful loss of his mother, and has to deal with the pressure and isolation that is heightened by his bi-polar disorder".

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"Those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words sometimes do not align with his intentions," she added. ( The Daily Telegraph)
By PTI

SRINAGAR: A woman has been injured in a ceasefire violation by the Pakistani side along the Line of Control (LoC) in Tangdhar sector of Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district, the Army said on Thursday.

She was rushed to a hospital and her condition was stated to be stable, an Army official said.

"Pakistan army targeted civilian villages in forward areas along the LoC last night. It resulted in bullet injury to a woman of Hajitra village of Tangdhar sector (in Kupwara district)," he said.

The Army gave a befitting response to the Pakistani aggression, the official added.
WASHINGTON, July 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today welcomed a Maryland federal court's decision to advance the Muslim civil rights organization's broadest challenge to the terror watchlist to date.

That decision paves the way for CAIR's legal team to depose agency officials and obtain documents throughout the federal government and highlights the role played by the shadowy, supra-agency body called the Watchlist Advisory Council, which oversees the federal government's watchlisting system.

READ: Judge's Decision

https://www.cair.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/ELALI.pdf

The court refused government efforts to dismiss most of the legal violations CAIR asserted, including violations of the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act, and the Administrative Procedures Act.

In her decision, Judge Paula Xinis criticized the government's watchlisting processes, finding that "existing procedural protections are inscrutable, opaque." She noted that many people on the No Fly List who appeal to the government to be removed end up in an administrative "black hole."

Judge Xinis also explained that "[p]robing interrogations about travel to Muslim-majority countries, religious pilgrimages, learning Arabic, attending mosques, affiliations with Muslim organizations, religious donations, and associations with other Muslims" raise an inference that decisions to target Muslims are tied "directly, and perhaps solely, to Plaintiffs' race, alienage, religious, and national origin."

"Each time a court has closely examined the watchlisting system, it has found this program illegal in some significant way," said CAIR National Litigation Director Lena Masri. "We believe that this time will be no different."

"Judge Xinis' opinion is the latest sign that the era of the federal government's extrajudicial targeting of innocent Muslims will not go on forever," said CAIR Senior Litigation Attorney Gadeir Abbas.

"The decision confirms the watchlist raises a host of constitutional questions," said CAIR Trial Attorney Justin Sadowsky. "Discovery will prove that the watchlist illegally targets Muslims for punishment and second-class status."

CAIR is currently defending on appeal a Virginia federal court's decision declaring the database at the heart of the watchlisting system illegal.

SEE: Secret Terrorism Watchlist Found Unconstitutional in Historic Decision

Just last month, a large coalition of advocacy organizations from across the political spectrum filed amicus briefs in support of CAIR's efforts to defend the Virginia federal court's decision on appeal.

Those groups include: the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the CATO Institute, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Korematsu Center, among others.

SEE: Diverse Coalition Files Amicus Briefs in Support of CAIR's Watchlist Challenge

CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.

La mision de CAIR es proteger las libertades civiles, mejorar la comprensian del Islam, promover la justicia, y empoderar a los musulmanes en los Estados Unidos.

CONTACT: CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, [email protected]; CAIR Senior Litigation Attorney Gadeir Abbas, 720-251-0425

SOURCE Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

Related Links

http://www.cair.com


FILE PHOTO: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, the interior minister, arrives to a military parade in preparation for the annual Haj pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca

LONDON (Reuters) - Saudi Twitter users have sent thousands of tweets accusing the kingdom's former crown prince and his long-time aide of corruption, in what two Saudi sources said was a campaign to discredit him ahead of a possible indictment, as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman moves to sideline rivals to the throne.

The tweets against Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who was ousted and replaced as heir to the throne by the crown prince in a palace coup in 2017, began on Friday and also targeted his aide, ex-intelligence official Saad al-Jabri.

The Twitter storm comes as King Salman, 84, was admitted to hospital in the capital Riyadh on Monday, suffering from inflammation of the gall bladder, according to state news agency SPA. The government's media office declined to comment further on his condition.

The two Saudi sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the campaign by apparent pro-government Twitter users was aimed at swaying public opinion ahead of an expected announcement of corruption charges against bin Nayef.

"They have been preparing documents against him since March," said one of sources, who is familiar with the matter, adding that those behind the Twitter campaign wanted to "smear his image domestically".

The second Saudi source said the campaign clearly had government backing since prominent Saudis close to the crown prince -- known by the initials MbS -- were amplifying the tweets.

Prior to his ouster, bin Nayef was seen as the most significant rival for the throne. He controlled the country's security forces, developed close ties to Western intelligence agencies, and remains popular among conservatives sidelined by the crown prince.

The Saudi government's media office did not respond to a request for comment.

Reuters could not reach bin Nayef, his lawyers, or Jabri for comment.

Saudi authorities detained bin Nayef in March and he is being held along with two other senior royals in an undisclosed location. Jabri is in exile in Canada, while his two adult children were also detained by Saudi authorities in March.

Story continues

Jabri's son Khalid said in a text message to Reuters that the Twitter campaign was a "deflection from the actual story: hostage taking of my brother and sister, unlawful persecution and false allegations".

In June, well-connected Saudi sources told Reuters that MbS was seeking to press charges against bin Nayef relating to allegations of corruption during his time at the interior ministry and wanted documents to which Jabri had access. Saudi authorities did not respond to Reuters requests for comment at that time.

The moves against bin Nayef are the latest in a series of measures seen aimed at consolidating MbSs strength within the ruling Al Saud family and removing perceived threats to his power ahead of an eventual succession upon the kings death or abdication.

"ACCELERATING THE CAMPAIGN"

Several influential Saudi newspapers on Sunday carried a Wall Street Journal report published on Friday that cited Saudi officials and government documents as saying Jabri led a network of officials who misspent $11 billion in government money from an interior ministry fund during bin Nayef's time there.

Jabri's son Khalid strongly denied the Journal report, saying in a text message that his father never controlled the fund and that bin Nayef "had the sole and full discretion" over it "with a clear and undisputed mandate from King Abdullah."

Reuters could not independently confirm who controls the fund.

Thousands of Twitter accounts used the Arabic hashtags "the fugitive Saad al Jabri" and "Saad al Jabri's corruption" over the weekend.

One high-profile account which frequently tweets pro-government content and has more than 1.2 million followers, Al Radaa al Saudi, tweeted: "Mohammed Bin Nayef allowed the corruption network run by al-Jabri to operate."

A well-connected diplomat said the tweets paved the way for the Saudi authorities to accuse bin Nayef of involvement in Jabri's alleged corruption.

The first Saudi source said MbS's aides were "accelerating the campaign" against bin Nayef and Jabri ahead of November's U.S. presidential election in case President Donald Trump, who has publicly voiced support for MbS, loses.

Trump's opponent, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, has taken a tougher stance towards MbS, promising to make him "pay the price" for the killing in 2018 of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and vowing to end arm sales to Saudi Arabia.

Twitter has been a favourite tool of Saud al-Qahtani, a former top aide to MbS, who ran the royal court's media center and formed an electronic army tasked with protecting the kingdom's image and attacking its enemies online. (https://reut.rs/3fMAoSS)

Qahtani was fired in 2018 for his alleged involvement in the killing of Khashoggi and was investigated but not charged. Several sources have told Reuters that he remains in the crown prince's inner circle.

(Editing by Nick Tattersall)
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By SALLY HO

Associated Press

Seattle's school district superintendent has decided against having students return to the classroom in the new year school, saying the prospect of in-person learning is impossible amid rising coronavirus infection rates.

Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Denise Juneau announced Wednesday that she's recommending a fully remote learning model when school resumes in the fall. The school board is expected to vote on how to proceed during the pandemic at its next regularly scheduled board meeting on Aug. 12.





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Linkedin Dian Septiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 15:48 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668c2580 1 World #Indonesia,Indonesia,Indonesia-US-relations,#United-States,united-states,Indo-Pacific,#Indo-Pacific,diplomacy,#diplomacy,#China,China Free

With the United States renewing its campaign against China in the Indo-Pacific theater, Defense Secretary Mark Esper expressed his intention to visit Indonesia to strengthen the cooperation through arms sales despite recent reluctance from the Indonesian side.

Speaking in a virtual briefing organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Esper said his department encouraged all allies and partners to purchase American equipment.

Why? Because first and foremost it brings us together, secondly it improves our interoperability in case something does happen and third we think they are a better alternative to anything else out there. So for those reasons we continue to talk about arms sales between our countries, he said.

Earlier this month, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), an agency under the US Department of Defense, announced the possible sale of eight V-22 Osprey aircraft and related equipment worth some US$2 billion to Indonesia. However, Indonesian officials appeared to be backtracking from the deal, with one saying the purchase was not included in the plan for the development of the primary defense system.

The last US weapon systems Indonesia acquired was the Boeing AH-64E Apache Guardian attack helicopters with naval capabilities. The contract value was US$1.42 billion for eight helicopters and related equipment. All eight helicopters have been delivered to the Army Aviation Center in Semarang.

Esper and Prabowo had a phone call discussion on bilateral defense priorities, including military readiness and defense acquisitions in late March.

My view is that we can continue to meet and have discussions. Ive done it several times with the defense minister and I hope to visit Indonesia during my tenure as well, Esper said.

He said his country had good relations with Indonesia and he had spoken to Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto several times this year.

As we talk, he understands that we fully support Indonesias sovereignty, that we support as partners trying to push back against Chinas malign behavior in the region particularly as they contest Indonesias EEZ [exclusive economic zones] there, he said.

Earlier this year, President Joko Jokowi Widodo had to visit Indonesias Natuna regency and deploy coast guard patrol boats and Navy warships to ward off Chinese fishing vessels assisted by its own coast guard operating in Indonesias EEZ.

A country can exercise its sovereign rights within 200 nautical miles of its EEZ and full sovereignty within 12 nautical miles of its territorial seas.

Indonesia has no overlapping territorial claim with China, but the Natuna Sea is located adjacent to the South China Sea, a highly disputed body of water, a majority of which is claimed by China based on historic rights that were invalidated by a 2016 international tribunal ruling.

The South China Sea issue remains a thorn in Chinas relations with its Southeast Asian neighbors, who are increasingly concerned over Chinas apparent militarization in the disputed waters. Its aggressive claims have led to clashes with Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia, some of the countries located around the waters.

The US has reasserted its position over the South China Sea maritime dispute in the last weeks by calling out Beijings activities in the disputed waters as completely unlawful.

Speaking about the US Indo-Pacific priorities, Esper said the US military was emphasizing the three pillars of the Indo-Pacific strategy: preparedness, strengthening partnerships and promoting a more networked region.

He asserted that the military played a role in the whole-of-government approach in the region. "We are not only prioritizing the development and deployment of game-changing technologies such as hypersonic weapons, 5G and artificial intelligence, but we are also investing in platforms critical to the Indo-Pacific and transforming the way we fight," the secretary said.

He also welcomed the growing trend in multilateral cooperation in the region, including talks between defense ministers under the Five Eyes, an intelligence alliance between the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as well as other multilateral discussion with Japan and Australia.

"We are encouraging Indo-Pacific nations to expand their own intra-regional security relationships and networks of like-minded partners," he said.
Mosana Khan - Business Development, Canada

Mosana Khan - Business Development, Canada

BOSTON, MA, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gordon Brothers, the global advisory, restructuring, and investment firm, announced that Mosana Khan has been honored as a recipient of its 40 Under 40 Award for 2020 by the Secured Finance Network.

Mosana has done an extraordinary job of helping us reach new business milestones in our appraisal business throughout Canada. He is a consummate professional and a pleasure to have on our team. We are honored that he has been named as a member of the 40 Under 40 class of 2020, said Frank Grimaldi, Senior Managing Director and North American Sales Manager for Valuations at Gordon Brothers. We are grateful to the Secured Finance Network for recognizing him and his contributions to the industry, he added.

Mosana Khan is responsible for all valuation business development initiatives for Gordon Brothers across Canada. Prior to joining the sales team, Mosana was a senior analyst in the Valuations Division, where he worked on appraisals for Canadian and U.S. manufacturers and wholesalers. He has expertise across a wide array of industrial assets, including aircraft parts and equipment, automotive inventory, forestry and related products, construction and building supplies, and mills and primary metals. With his unique background in valuations, Mosana provides lenders with specialized insight across all value propositions and helps them to underwrite loans on all types of tangible and intangible assets.

About Gordon Brothers

Since 1903, Gordon Brothers (www.gordonbrothers.com) has helped lenders, operating executives, advisors, and investors move forward through change. The firm brings a powerful combination of expertise and capital to clients, developing customized solutions on an integrated or standalone basis across four service areas: valuations, dispositions, operations, and investments. Whether to fuel growth or facilitate strategic consolidation, Gordon Brothers partners with companies in the retail, commercial, and industrial sectors to put assets to their highest and best use. Gordon Brothers conducts more than $70 billion worth of dispositions and appraisals annually. Gordon Brothers is headquartered in Boston, with 25 offices across five continents.

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CONTACT: Nicole Trice Gordon Brothers 617-422-6569 ntrice@gordonbrothers.com




Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has encouraged the development of farmers' cooperatives suited to local conditions across the country.

Xi made the remarks Wednesday afternoon during his inspection tour to a farmers' cooperative in Lishu County, Siping City, in northeast China's Jilin Province.
Washington:

US President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday demolished reports of infighting among advisers in his transition team over key Cabinet appointments, saying a "very organised" process is taking place to select the finalists.

"Very organised process taking place as I decide on Cabinet and many other positions. I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!" Trump said in a tweet.

Trump's tweet came as media reported that differences have come up within his camp on finalising his Cabinet.

A week after Trump, 70, was elected in a historic election, the President-elect is yet to name a member of his Cabinet.

So far he has named Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus as his chief of staff and his campaign CEO Stephen Bannon as chief strategist.

The CNN reported that Trump's son-in-law and close adviser Jared Kushner is at the center of the "infighting" inside his transition team.

Trump has already replaced New Jersey Governor Chris Christie with Vice-President-elect Mike Pence as head of the transition team.

Christie was New Jersey attorney general when Kushner's father was tried and jailed in the state for tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions and witness tampering in 2004.

An International Daily reported the Vice President-elect Mike Pence on Tuesday ordered removal of all lobbyists from the transition team.

Former Congressman Mike Rogers, who was considered for the post of CIA Director, was among those ousted from the presidential transition team's national security unit.

Rogers said he parted ways with Trump's transition team, removing an establishment national security voice from the planning process of the next president's cabinet.

Rogers was told on Monday on the phone that he was out, according to a source familiar with the transition. The source said this was part of an effort to replace the transition team members associated with Christie, who previously headed up the transition team's efforts until being replaced by Pence.

"Sometimes in politics ... there are people who are in and people who are out. And the people who have been asked to move on have some relationship with Chris Christie," Rogers told.

Pence on Tuesday provided to the White House the necessary paper work that would facilitate smooth transition.

Trump transition team must now provide the Obama administration with the "names of individuals they have authorised to represent the transition effort across the government", Brandi Hoffine, a White House spokesperson said.

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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC on Thursday that any new government assistance to combat the economic slowdown from the coronavirus pandemic will not be a bailout for states.

"On the state issue, the president is not going to bail out Chicago and New York and other states that prior to the coronavirus were mismanaged," he said on "Squawk Box."

"We're going to have the Kennedy bill which basically says that the states that have the money can use the money for lost revenues. That's going to take care of virtually every single state. I think that's a very fair compromise," he added.

The legislation, sponsored by Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., wouldn't provide any additional funding for states but would give state and local governments greater flexibility over how they use funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.

"There's a lot of Republicans who feel like, and I agree with this, that states have their own ability to tax. ... It's unfair for states like Florida to be bailing out states like New York. But having said that, we're going to go with a compromise solution which is the Kennedy bill," Mnuchin added.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, often has been at odds with the Trump administration over the handling of the virus. Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has been aggressive in reopening the state despite a persistently high level of cases.

Mnuchin's comments came shortly after Senate Republicans and the Trump administration said they reached a tentative deal on legislation that would serve as a starting point in talks with Democrats. As the number of infections rise, and with the extra $600 per week in unemployment assistance set to expire at the end of next week, Congress is facing mounting pressure to pass an aid package.

Mnuchin said the Republican coronavirus relief plan will extend enhanced unemployment insurance "based on approximately 70% wage replacement," although it was unclear how such a plan would be structured.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the GOP was considering slashing the extra benefit from about $600 to $100 a week through the rest of the year, sources told CNBC's Kayla Tausche. Negotiators had not made any final decisions at that time.

The GOP will need Democrats to sign off on any plan because they control the House and have the ability to block the Republican proposal in the Senate.

Republicans want the package to cost roughly $1 trillion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has called that level of spending insufficient to address the health and economic crisis created by the pandemic.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 23)  Two framers of the 1987 Constitution, opposition lawmakers, veteran journalists, and several human rights defenders on Thursday filed the 12th petition before the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the Anti-Terrorism Act and calling for a halt to its implementation.

The petitioners include Constitutional Commission of 1986 members Dr. Florangel Rosario-Braid and Professor Edumundo Garcia, Senators Leila de Lima and Francis Kiko Pangilinan, Rep. Kit Belmonte, former Senators Sergio Osmena III and Wigberto Bobby Tanada, former Deputy Speaker Erin Tanada and former Akbayan party-list Rep. Etta Rosales.

Journalists Maria Ressa, Maritess Vitug, John Nery, Chay Hofilena, Jo-Ann Maglipon, Ceres Doyo, Lilibeth Frondoso, Rachel Khan, Beatrice Puente; former Senate secretary Lutgardo Barbo and law professor Chel Diokno complete the list of petitioners.

Their 73-page plea asked the Supreme Court to declare the entire law unconstitutional. They also urged the court to issue a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction or both while the case is pending, to halt the implementation of the law, including the crafting of the implementing rules and regulations.

Aside from the unconstitutionality of the recently-signed law, the petitioners said Republic Act 11479 removes several constitutional powers of the high tribunal.

"The Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 nevertheless hands to government a sledgehammer, a blunt instrument that may easily be wielded to batter down the constitutional guardrails protecting the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of the press and the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances, and ultimately, terrorize the sovereign people into silence and servility, the petition read.

The anti-terrorism law formally took effect on Saturday, or 15 days after its publication on July 3.

Its implementing rules and regulations (IRR), however, are still being finalized by the Anti-Terrorism Council. The Anti-Terrorism Act will not be enforced without the IRR for as long as there is no terrorist threat to the country, Cabinet officials said.

The measure, which repealed the Human Security Act of 2007, will give more surveillance powers to government forces. It will also implement stricter penalties for suspected terrorists including a longer detention period without judicial warrant of arrest.
BuzzFeed Inc. laid off 50 of the 74 employees who were furloughed this spring as the digital media company struggles to replace lost revenue during the pandemic.

The cuts include 10 employees in BuzzFeeds news division, as well as staff involved with its studio, sales and administration, the company said.

BuzzFeed lost some custom advertising deals in areas like hospitality and travel at the start of the pandemic, costing the company tens of millions of dollars in revenue. In addition, Amazon.com Inc. paused some affiliate deals. That meant that when BuzzFeed readers bought a beauty product via the site, for instance, the media company was no longer getting a cut of the sale.

The 50 jobs eliminated represent 5.7 per cent of BuzzFeeds U.S. staff. The New York-based company is covering health insurance through Sept. 30 for the former employees.

BuzzFeeds efforts to reduce costs have also included pay cuts through the end of the year and breaking real estate leases in certain locations. The measures are expected to keep the companys losses for the year under $20 million. At the start of the year, the company expected to turn a profit of about $30 million.

Many media companies are struggling during the pandemic with the sudden loss of revenue from advertising and other businesses, like live events.

While some turned to furloughs and pay cuts, layoffs have become unavoidable as the crisis drags on. Last week, Vox Media, home of the Verge, Eater and New York magazine, cut about 72 jobs, while the Guardian said it will dismiss about 180 employees. In June, the New York Times cut 68 jobs, largely in advertising. In May, Vice Media culled 155 employees, while the Atlantic cut 68 positions, including many who worked in live events.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday defended his decision to agree to a hostage-taker's bizarre demand that he post a movie recommendation to end a 12-hour stand-off. Zelensky described how he negotiated personally on Tuesday evening with a gunman who was holding 13 hostages on a bus in the western city of Lutsk. "We have a result - everyone is alive. We are not fighting for (approval) ratings - we are fighting for life," Zelensky said in a statement of his decision, as some criticised him for giving in to the gunman's demands. The SBU security service said all 13 hostages were released unharmed after a police stand-off with the man, who had threatened to detonate an explosive device. The tense hostage situation ended after the president agreed to post a recommendation of a 2005 US documentary narrated by actor Joaquin Phoenix called "Earthlings," which condemns humans' mistreatment of animals. Zelensky said he agreed with the hostage-taker, identified as 44-year-old Maksym Kryvosh, that "he would release three people, and after that I would record a video." - 'This is a mistake' - The armed man complied and freed three hostages: a man, a pregnant woman and a child. In response, the president posted a video message on Facebook and Kryvosh agreed to release all his captives half an hour later, Zelensky said. The gunman is currently being held in a temporary detention centre, police reported. The president later deleted the short video from his account. The SBU security service classed the incident as an "act of terror" and "hostage-taking" and Kryvosh could face up to 15 years in prison. Some Ukrainians criticised Zelensky for the move, which many compared to an episode of the popular British television series "Black Mirror" where a British prime minister fulfils the grotesque demands of a kidnapper holding a member of the British royal family. Natalia Delgyado, a Kiev-based Facebook user, wondered "whether Zelensky would have fulfilled the terrorist's demands if he had demanded public sex with a pig like in the plot of the Black Mirror episode". "This is a mistake. We should not negotiate with terrorists," Kiev-based lawyer Igor Pashnev wrote on Facebook. But another Facebook user, Eduard Runin, from Kharkiv, praised Zelensky for choosing the option of "fulfilling the demands of a terrorist and keeping people alive."
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The Ascena Retail Group bit off more than it could chew and  in a desperate attempt to streamline  ran out of time.

COVID-19 cut short Ascenas bid to remake itself as a smaller, more viable company, forcing it to file for bankruptcy on Thursday. The company has $1.3 billion in long-term debt and operates about 2,700 stores.

More from WWD

Ascena, which piled up its debt through a string of acquisitions over the years, said it entered into a restructuring agreement with more than 68 percent of its secured term lenders to reduce the debt by about $1 billion and provide $150 million in funding from the lenders, which, with cash flow from existing operations, would provide sufficient funds to continuing operating.

The company also said it will reduce its footprint by closing a significant number of Justice stores and certain Ann Taylor, Loft, Lane Bryant and Lou & Grey stores. This includes the exit of all stores across brands in Canada, Puerto Rico and Mexico and the closure of all Catherines stores, the company said Thursday. Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, Ascena liquidated Dressbarn and sold off the Maurices chain.

The total number of stores to close depends on negotiations with landlords and bankruptcy court permission. Bankruptcy allows retailers to vacate leases without penalties. Ascena is operating with about 95 percent of its stores reopened after shutting down temporarily earlier this year due to the coronavirus.

Ascenas Chapter 11 petition was filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Its just the latest in a string of bankruptcies this year by several major retailers including Neiman Marcus Group, J. Crew, J.C. Penney, RTW Retailwinds, Pier 1, Brooks Brothers, Modells, Stage Stores and Muji USA. More are expected, potentially J.Jill and Tailored Brands among them.

The meaningful progress we have made driving sustainable growth, improving our operating margins and strengthening our financial foundation has been severely disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, we took a strategic step forward today to protect the future of the business for all of our stakeholders, said Carrie Teffner, interim executive chair of Ascena.

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The RSA [restructuring agreement] formalizes our lenders overwhelming support for a comprehensive plan to deleverage our balance sheet, right-size our operations and inject new capital into the business. With the cash generated from our ongoing operations and the new money financing commitments we received from our lenders, we expect to have sufficient liquidity to meet our operational obligations during the court-supervised process, Teffner added. We expect to move through this process on an expedited time frame as our talented leadership team, established over the last year, stays focused on generating profitable growth and driving value for customers and stakeholders.

Gary Muto, chief executive officer of Ascena, commented, Ann Taylor, Loft, Lane Bryant, Justice and Lou & Grey have incredibly loyal customers who are at the center of everything we do. These iconic brands have significant long-term potential and we continue to deliver on their mission to provide all women and girls with fashion and inspiration to live confidently every day. This comprehensive restructuring, as well as the actions we are taking to optimize our brand portfolio and store fleet, mark a new start for our company and will allow us to expand our customer-focused strategies across her mobile, online, and store experiences.

Ascenas woes weave a tale of how management failed to execute on a vision to grow through aggressive acquisition and lead the mid-tier womens specialty sector, which for years has been among the most troubled and competitive in retailing.

Originally, there was just Dress Barn, founded in 1962 by Elliot and Roslyn Jaffe in Stamford, Conn., around when women started entering the workforce in bigger numbers. The store was so named because of its rather unrefined setting. As the story goes, Elliot worked at Macys but grew disillusioned and decided to open a business. But Roslyn told him, Keep your day job. Ill start the business.

A year later, with the store up and running, Elliot quit his job and joined his wife in the new venture. The entrepreneurial couple opened a second store in 1963, operated a warehouse literally in a former barn, and the path to growth began with a winning merchandise formula. Its off-price offering of modest, inexpensive wear-to-work clothes had a lasting appeal to working women who needed to dress tastefully without turning heads. Dress Barn and its founders knew their customers well and successfully expanded the business at a steady rate, took the company public in 1983 when there were more than 50 stores, and maxed out the chain at almost 800 units, which were located mostly in strip centers and malls.

The founders son, David, a Stanford University MBA and former general partner at J.P. Morgan Chase Capital Partners, eventually joined his familys business, bringing a different perspective on growing the company. The amiable and low-key scion took on wide responsibilities for store operations, marketing, real estate, store planning, leases, strategic planning and other functions, and led it in a strategic repositioning from an off-pricer to a vertically structured specialty retailer selling its private brand.

In 2002, David rose to ceo, succeeding his father. Seeing limited growth ahead for Dress Barn, and battling sluggish sales trends and tougher competition from the likes of Kohls, Target and Walmart, he orchestrated a buying spree, first with the acquisition of the Duluth, Minn.-based Maurices womens sportswear chain in 2005, then the New Albany, Ohio-based Justice girls chain in 2009.

The Dress Barn division was renamed Dressbarn to reflect a younger appeal and merchandising changes to catch up to the nations casualization. In an interview with WWD at the time, David Jaffe said, We intend to promote Dress Barn as a brand and a lifestyle, not just a label, to differentiate ourselves from our competition.

In 2011, the company changed its name to Ascena Retail Group to reflect its transformation from owning a single brand to owning several. A year later, Ascena purchased Charming Shoppes, the holding company for Lane Bryant, Cacique and Catherines Plus. Three years later, the company bought Ann Inc., the parent of Ann Taylor, Loft and Lou & Grey, becoming a $5 billion retail conglomerate.

It was one acquisition after another, aimed at achieving economies of scale and pursuing a goal to become an industry force.

But instead of achieving dominance, the company mostly plodded through seasons of uneven performance across its divisions, as they catered to different demographics. Ascena was hampered by execution missteps, fashion misses and insufficient earnings to both support the debt and adequately update the apparel chains.

In May 2019, in a clear sign that the strategy had failed, Jaffe, under pressure, stepped down as ceo and chairman. He was succeeded by Muto, who was president and second-in-command, and earlier ran Ann Taylor and Loft. In the management upheaval, chief operating officer Brian Lynch also stepped down.

Davids idea was to have a stable of businesses where each would retain its own front-of-the-house identity and be leveraged by back-of-the-house shared services. But the two biggest issues for Ascena was that it incurred so much debt to acquire these businesses and secondly, the portfolio eventually became the least desirable place to be in retail  mostly mall-based, mid-tier, apparel specialty retail  no mans land, observed Kirk Palmer of Kirk Palmer Associates executive search.

Ascena has been experiencing accelerated headwinds due to COVID-19, workwear being an out-of-favor category, and having a [high] percentage of their physical retail locations located in malls, said Melissa Gonzalez, ceo of The Lionesque Group. We have seen a strong swing to loungewear and/or dressing from the waist up, which didnt bode well for their portfolio of brands. Per COVID-19, they needed to make significant investments into strengthening their digital business to better serve evolving consumer needs and expectations.

It was all good intentions, but at the end of the day there were too many brands and leadership that didnt fully understand what it takes to manage that kind of portfolio, said one retail expert who has been close to the business.

After the acquisitions, they were able to get economies of scale, but they didnt buy companies that were stellar. They took advantage of a softer market to add to their portfolio, the retail source said. But if you dont update and modernize both brick-and-mortar and digital operations, its just not going to work. If you walked into their stores, you saw that they hadnt changed much over the years.

According to another source, Jaffe once said, Im fine with the businesses nobody else wants.

Muto came on strong, launching a battery of turnaround efforts, including a tighter test and react approach to more quickly respond to shoppers, prospecting new customers, advancing personalization, adjusting styles at Ann Taylor with more day-into-evening looks for versatility, adjusting styles at Loft to be less serious and more playful, and at the kids division, amplifying digital marketing, adding better values and some omnichannel capabilities.

In the past year, Ascena liquidated Dressbarn, which had been struggling to update its image for some time and had already begun closing stores. A majority stake in Maurices was sold, and the company attempted to sell Lane Bryant, Catherines and Justice. It even tried to sell its 20-acre headquarters in Mahwah, N.J. Mutos mission was to downsize the company into something smaller and more viable, and survive with Loft, the most consistent performer in the portfolio, and Ann Taylor.

It was too little too late. The hit of the pandemic gave them no breathing room to turn things around, said the source close to the company.

In its second fiscal quarter which ended Feb. 1, Ascena moved deeper into the red, but Muto cited progress in the streamlining with Dressbarn liquidated and a majority stake in Maurices sold off, as well as margin improvement, cost reductions and inventory reductions. The company reported a net loss from continuing operations of $132 million, compared with a net loss from continuing operations of $81 million in the year-ago period. Net sales dropped 2 percent to $1.22 billion compared with $1.27 billion in 2018. Comparable sales declined 2 percent. The worst-performing segment was Justice, while the plus-size chains did the best.

Last year, Ascena had a net loss of $661.4 million and total sales of $5.5 billion. In fiscal 2018, the company reported a loss of $39.7 million and $5.57 billion in sales.

The company also said it was no longer in active discussions to sell off any brands. Its believed there were no takers at prices deemed acceptable to Ascena.

Coming into the new year, Ascenas interim executive chair, Carrie Teffner, insisted that bankruptcy was not an option. The company had sufficient liquidity, she said.

In mid-March, Ascena temporarily closed all of its stores due to the outbreak, as did all other non-essential retailers. And by May, as the company began reopening stores when local and state governments gave the OK, Teffners tone had dramatically changed. COVID-19 has significantly disrupted our business, she said. Despite aggressive actions to preserve liquidity, the pandemic has significantly reduced our earnings and cash flow, resulting in increased levels of debt and deferred liabilities. With retail stores making up the majority of our revenue and cash flow, the uncertainty created by COVID-19 requires us to evaluate all options available to protect the business and its stakeholders.

I still think Lane Bryant, Loft and Ann Taylor each has their place [in the industry], Palmer said. The rest, not so much. The Ascena model was one thats been used by other retailers such as L Brands, Gap Inc. and Chicos, with early success, although none have been doing very well for the past several years.

THE TEN UNSECURED CREDITORS ASCENA OWES THE MOST

Simon Property Group, $31.7 million

Brookfield Properties, $16.6 million

Boston Properties, $8.8 million

Tanger Properties, $7.2 million

Pan Pacific Co., $6.8 million

MGF Sourcing, $6.7 million

SAE A Trading, $6.3 million

Orient Craft, $5.3 million

The Macerich Co., $5.3 million

HIP Sing China Industrial, $5 million
A COVID-19 outbreak at San Quentin State Prison has killed more than a dozen inmates. (Eric Risberg / Associated Press)

A federal judge overseeing litigation concerning the treatment of California inmates has ordered the state to set aside at least 100 beds at each of its 35 prisons to handle potential coronavirus outbreaks and prevent a repeat of the devastating spread at San Quentin.

U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar on Wednesday ordered the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to identify space at 30 of its facilities that can be used to isolate prisoners who test positive for the virus.

The state must give inmate lawyers and federal receiver J. Clark Kelso  who was appointed by the court to protect inmates' medical rights and had previously pushed for more space for prisoners to be isolated  a list of available accommodations by next week. Within two weeks, the remaining five prisons also must identify space.

"No one disputes that setting aside space for isolation and quarantine in the event of an outbreak is necessary," Tigar said in the order.

The judge implemented what he describes as a modified version of a proposal from lawyers representing inmates.

"Plaintiffs expert, for example, states that '[p]eople with confirmed cases or who have symptoms of the virus must be separated from those in quarantine as suspected cases, and both groups must be separated from people who are asymptomatic and not suspected of infection. Without adequate space to accomplish this separation, minor outbreaks can quickly flare up to a disastrous level,' " Tigar said.

He gave the state until early September to complete any needed work.

Four prisons have already seen major COVID-19 outbreaks, and the judge noted that without action, other outbreaks could occur elsewhere. Tigar has become a major decision maker in how California prisons are handling the pandemic.

More than 7,200 inmates have tested positive statewide, and the disease has killed 42 inmates  including 15 at San Quentin State Prison and 19 at the California Institution for Men in Chino.

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"This should have happened long ago," said Michael W. Bien, the lead lawyer for inmates in a separate medical case. "Everyone agrees 100 beds is not really adequate."

Bien said the important aspect is that Tigar is opening the door to many more beds and the potential release of inmates to create space.

Current and recently released inmates have described the fear as the virus rages and, one by one, prisoners have gotten sick and in some cases died. Several said they felt helpless because they could not easily practice social distancing or take other precautions.

As the crisis at San Quentin escalated, Gov. Gavin Newsom made a decision to release up to 8,000 inmates on top of 3,500 he had already set free. Tigar had first suggested the move after touring the prison with the governor at his side.

With about 50,000 medically vulnerable inmates behind bars, the Prison Law Office and other lawyers for inmates have repeatedly pushed for releases, but both Tigar and a three-judge federal panel have so far rejected motions seeking the mass release of inmates.

In his most recent order, Tigar told the state that space must be vacated as soon as practically possible.

"In planning for effective isolation and quarantine space, each institution must take into account unique factors that may impact where an incarcerated person can be housed. Examples of these factors include disability, mental health and restricted housing needs," he said.

As the virus spread through the dormitory-like barracks at the Chino prison, the state struggled to keep inmates socially distanced and eventually put up tents outside and moved beds into other facilities.

Kelso pushed for pods of inmates to be established, but inmates said no arrangement provided any true distancing that would help prevent the spread of the illness.

Tigar approved a plan in May by the state and prisoner lawyers to transfer 700 of the most medically vulnerable inmates out of Chino. But some inmates had not been tested for more than three weeks before the move, Kelso said, and ultimately the transfer of 121 inmates to San Quentin and 66 to Corcoran State Prison launched the virus in those facilities.

More than 2,100 inmates have since tested positive at San Quentin, and more than a dozen have died, including eight on death row. In the wake of the outbreak, the state medical director overseeing prisoner health was removed from his position.
Jharkhand Cabinet approved on Wednesday the Jharkhand communicable disease Ordinance in which fines of up to Rs 1 lakh and a prison sentence of up to two years can be levied on offenders of measures in place to deter COVID-19 from spreading. Under the current legislation anyone who doesn't wear masks in public spaces and speaks in public will be charged.

Jharkhand Cabinet on Wednesday approved the Jharkhand Contagious Disease Ordinance under which penalty up to Rs 1 lakh and a jail term of up to two years can be imposed against violators of measures in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Anyone not wearing masks in public places and spitting in public can be booked under the new law. The state has reported 6,485 coronavirus cases including 3,397 cases and 64 deaths.

With the highest single-day spike of 45,720 cases, Indias coronavirus count crossed 12 lakh mark on Thursday. The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare informed that 1,129 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours.

The total number of coronavirus cases stand at 12,38,635 including 4,26,167 active cases, 7,82,606 cured/discharged/migrated. The cumulative toll has reached 29,861 deaths.

Also Read: Jharkhand imposes coronavirus lockdown till July 31

The Jharkhand government on Friday decreed that every person who comes to the state will have to stay in a 14-day home quarantine from the date of his/her arrival.

Every person coming/returning to Jharkhand by air/rail/road shall register his/personal details on the website of Government of Jharkhand preferably before his/her departure for Jharkhand and in any case not later than the day of arrival in the state, Jharkhand Government said.

Every person coming/returning to Jharkhand by air/rail/road shall stay in home quarantine for a period of 14 days observing guidelines issued by Department of Health & Family Welfare and Medical Education in this regard, it added.

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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) London  Thu, July 23, 2020 11:03 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668ad405 2 Entertainment amber-heard,johnny-depp Free

US actress Amber Heard on Wednesday said her ex-husband Johnny Depp threw dozens of bottles at her "like grenades", as she gave evidence for a third day at his London libel action.

Heard, 34, said Depp, 57, had lobbed "all the bottles in reach" towards her during an explosive 2015 row on a trip to Australia.

Depp is suing the publishers of British tabloid The Sun, News Group Newspapers (NGN) and the author of a 2018 article that labelled him a "wife beater" at London's High Court.

The "Pirates of the Caribbean" star has emphatically denied 14 claims of violence that NGN said proves its story, and sought to portray Heard as calculating and dishonest.

The article in The Sun caused him serious reputational damage, he argues.

But Heard has accused Depp of sustained verbal and physical abuse, as well as displaying "extremely controlling and intimidating behavior".

The couple met on the set of the 2011 film "The Rum Diary", married in 2015 but divorced two years later.

Read also: Amber Heard denies affairs with Elon Musk, James Franco

'Violent nights'

Wednesday's cross-examination focused on Heard's allegations that Depp repeatedly assaulted her in Australia, fueled by drink and drugs, as well as other incidents in the US.

"He started picking them (bottles) up one by one and throwing them like grenades," she said during questioning by one of the actor's lawyers, adding he lobbed around 30 in total.

"He threw all the bottles that were in reach, all except for one which was a celebratory magnum-sized bottle of wine."

The court has previously heard that Depp's finger was severed during the alleged incident. The Hollywood star blamed his ex-wife for the injury, which she denied.

"I don't think he meant to sever the finger but yes he did continue the attack," she told the court.

Heard admitted that she got angry "at times" but "not to the extent where I would throw anything at him offensively".

Depp's lawyer Eleanor Laws also asked her about an alleged December 2015 incident of domestic violence in Los Angeles, which Heard has described as "one of the worst and most violent nights of our relationship".

She defended claims Depp slapped her, dragged her by the hair through their apartment -- pulling clumps of her hair out -- and then repeatedly punched her in the head.

"I had two black eyes, a broken nose, a broken rib... I had bruises all over my body," she said, after Laws argued a nurse who had examined her shortly after the row said she found no bruises.

Laws told Heard that the account was "just nonsense", adding that the only blood the nurse could find was fresh and on her lip.

"You had just bitten your lip because there was fresh blood on it. Had you just done that for (the nurse's) benefit?" Laws asked.

"Of course not," Heard replied.

The three-week trial is expected to run into next week, with a judge expected to rule on the case at a later date.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A man is in critical condition after being shot on Wednesday night in Mariners Harbor, according to the NYPD.

The incident took place at 3400 Richmond Terrace, which is the Holland Deli, an NYPD spokesman said.

Cops received the call at 9:30 p.m.

The 34-year-old male was shot in the chest, the NYPD spokesman told the Advance/SILive.com.

He was transported to Richmond University Medical Center in West Brighton in critical condition, the spokesman said.

NYPD is currently searching for the perpetrator, who fled the scene.

Both the deli and part of Holland Avenue, next to the store, were roped off.

A large group of police was seen outside of the deli, surveying the area with flashlights. They also appeared to be questioning deli staff.

A cop car sits in front of police tape blocking off Holland Avenue in Mariners Harbor. (Staten Island Advance/Rebeka Humbrecht)

The shooting is the second to occur within 12 hours on Staten Island.

Wednesday morning, a 35-year-old man was fatally shot on a West Brighton street corner.

The incidents mark the continuation of an alarming trend of gun violence on Staten Island and the rest of the city this year.

Through July 19, there have been 21 shooting incidents on the borough, according to the most recent NYPD CompStat data. That is up from 10 during the same time last year, a jump of 110%.

The most recent shooting before Wednesday occurred on July 19, when an 18-year-old man was shot in the groin in Castleton Corners. He was transported to the hospital in stable condition.

Further information will be posted as it becomes available.
ROCK AND ROLL

In response to Diamond Jim from Darby, Trump will not throw out the first pitch because he might hear the boos from the crowd. Are you just against Trump or you must live under a rock. You are aware that the no one is at these ball games. So there is no one there to boo him. Yeah, you must live under or a rock or is that just what CNN told you to was the reason?

T FROM NORWOOD

THE FOLLY OF  OLD AGE

Its quite amusing that someone called Sound Off to state that AOC is an imbecile because of her statement about violence in New York. Well, thats fair enough. If she is indeed an imbecile, she is young. She at least has the excuse of youth. At least she never said that the virus would go away on its own like magic before doing any significant damage. For imbecilic statements, its very difficult to trump that one. And the ignorant, delusional moron who said it, along with other similarly stupid and ignorant statements, is in no way a young man. So  what is his excuse?

JB

QUAKIN JOE

Im still waiting for Joe Biden to condemn the violence in our cities. I guess he approves of all these shootings. He and the Democrats are a disgrace. They dont care if people are losing their lives. Biden is afraid to speak out.

RULES ARE RULES

I would like to know what it is with the convenience store in my neighborhood. My wife was in there and there were a lot of people in there not wearing masks and none of the employees did anything about it. Why are they not going to enforce their mask-wearing rules? Then I am going to encourage all of my friends all of my relatives to not go there any more because theres no reason having a sign up saying you must wear a mask if you are going to allow people in the store without masks.

RELIVING HISTORY

Im over 80 years old. My mind fails me sometimes but some images bring to mind older days. I remember when I see federal troops in Oregon. I remember Germany and the 1930s. They were called storm troopers. America better wake up. This is a democracy, not a dictatorship. Wake up, America.

AMERICA IS A DEMOCRACY

BELIEVE YOUR EYES

Donald Trump is constantly saying one thing and then doing the opposite. Look at now where hes telling everybody to wear masks, but he still refuses to wear one himself. He reminds me of the quote from the late author James Baldwin, that I cant believe what you say because I see what you do.

THE SWAMP RAT

WRONG AGAIN

Jay from Upper Providence is wrong again. You say Trump refuses to say he will accept the results of the presidential election. Thats not true. He cannot do that. You also say the same federal troopers who are arresting peaceful demonstrators in Portland should drag Trump out of the White House. Do you show me how they are peaceful demonstrators when theyre throwing bricks and bottles and hurting police> They should all be put in jail. They are nut cases that are hurting our police and disrespecting our whole country. But you say theyre peaceful demonstrators. You got another thought coming because you are so wrong.

DONT NEED NO EDUCATION

Schools should be closed forever. We can get rid of the corrupt teachers unions. Parents wont have to pay high taxes on the schools. Children can learn everything they need from YouTube. Thank you.

WOE TO JOE

I have just a few questions for Joe Biden. He wont talk to the press. How much money did his brother make from his contracts with Iraq? How much did his son make from China? And the Ukraine? How much does Joe charge the Secret Service to live in a house on his property and provide him with protection down in Delaware? Joe is a very rich man. What percentage of income does he get the charity? Does he remember the mechanic who fixed his Corvette and when Joe tried to get out of paying him?

YOUNG MEDIA MUSTANG
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PHH Mortgage , a subsidiary of Ocwen Financial Corporation (NYSE: OCN) and a leading non-bank mortgage servicer and originator, announced an expanded partnership with the NAACP to host more than 30 regional virtual borrower outreach events for PHH Mortgage customers who have been negatively impacted by COVID-19 and are having trouble making their mortgage payments. Virtual borrower outreach events have been held in New York, Maryland, Central Florida, Tennessee and Ohio, and the next three events will be held in Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C. and Illinois.



The virtual events provide attendees with information regarding mortgage assistance options and feature speakers from a local HUD-certified counseling agency and PHH Mortgage. After the event, homeowners can schedule a virtual one-on-one meeting with a housing counselor and PHH Mortgage Home Retention Agent to discuss their unique situations and receive information about mortgage assistance options available to them.

In response to the pandemic, PHH Mortgage was quick to reinforce its commitment to creating positive outcomes for its customers, particularly those who have been financially impacted by COVID-19. Our expanded partnership with the NAACP and local housing counseling agencies is just one of the ways we are working to help borrowers get through this difficult time period, said Tamara Gifford, Director of Community and External Relations at Ocwen.

In these unprecedented times of COVID-19, we are appreciative for this continued partnership with PHH Mortgage to further ensure that our constituents have an equal opportunity to save their homes, said Jacquelyne Ward-Richardson, National Fair Housing Manager of Economic Programs at the NAACP.

Since March 2020, PHH Mortgage has helped more than 130,000 borrowers with mortgage forbearance due to financial hardships related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past 12 years, PHH Mortgage has completed more than 800,000 loan modifications nationwide, many of which included a principal reduction for borrowers whose mortgage exceeded the current value of the home.

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For a list of dates and locations of upcoming events, please go to www.ocwencares.com/events .

About Ocwen Financial Corporation

Ocwen Financial Corporation (NYSE: OCN) is a leading non-bank mortgage servicer and originator providing solutions through its primary brands, PHH Mortgage and Liberty Reverse Mortgage. PHH Mortgage is one of the largest servicers in the country, focused on delivering a variety of servicing and lending programs. Liberty is one of the nations largest reverse mortgage lenders dedicated to education and providing loans that help customers meet their personal and financial needs. We are headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida, with offices in the United States and the U.S. Virgin Islands and operations in India and the Philippines, and have been serving our customers since 1988. For additional information, please visit our website ( www.ocwen.com ).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Dico Akseraylian T: (856) 917-0066 E: mediarelations@ocwen.com




HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board ("Regional Board") issued a Staff Report recommending approval of a Tentative Order making amendments to and renewing its operating permit first issued in 2006 for the proposed Huntington Beach Desalination Project ("Project"). The Regional Board is scheduled to consider its staff-prepared permit and recommendation beginning on Thursday, July 30, 2020.

The Regional Board staff's proposed permit amendment and renewal considered all requirements of the California Ocean Plan's new seawater desalination policy and finds that there is an identified need for the 50 million gallons per day of desalinated water the Huntington Beach Desalination Project will provide. The amended Project will comply with all state laws and regulations by using the best available site, design, technology and mitigation measures feasible to protect and preserve all forms of marine life.

The Regional Board staff's draft permit also incorporates Poseidon Water's proposal for the long-term preservation, enhancement and restoration of the 1,500-acre Bolsa Chica Wetlands.

Like Poseidon's Carlsbad facility, the proposed Huntington Beach Desalination Project will include 1 mm (1/25th inch, or approximately the thickness of a credit card) slot width seawater intake screens with a through-screen water velocity of less than 0.5 feet per second. The plant will also include state-of-the-art diffuser technology that will ensure that the salinity level in the plant's seawater discharge meets the State Water Board's stringent new "receiving water" quality requirements within 100 feet from the point of discharge.

In addition, as a leader in the industry, Poseidon has voluntarily committed to offsetting 100% of the proposed Huntington Beach Desalination Plant's direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the electricity grid through either the purchase of renewable power or the purchase of carbon offsets. While the reverse osmosis process to be used by Poseidon's seawater desalination facility does not emit greenhouse gases, energy purchased from the grid may incur a carbon footprint for which Poseidon has developed and is committed to a protocol for identifying, securing, monitoring and updating measures to eliminate GHG impact.

California's Regional Water Boards administer the United States Environmental Protection Agency's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits, which are 5-year operating permits regulating discharges to the waters of the State of California. The Regional Board first issued the Project's NPDES permit in 2006 and again in 2012, at which time the Regional Board first found the proposed facility complied with California Water Code section 13142.5(b) and was using the best available site, design, technology and mitigation measures.

In 2019, the long-term, stand-alone operation of Poseidon's Carlsbad plant was approved by the San Diego Regional Board, making it the first seawater desalination facility permitted under the California Ocean Plan's new desalination policy. Under the new policy, the Huntington Beach facility is the second proposed large-scale desalination project recommended for approval by the state's primary water regulatory agency staff.

After releasing the draft permit on November 22, 2019, the Regional Board held public workshops on December 6, 2019, and May 15, 2020, and will consider adoption of the amended and renewed permit on July 30 and July 31, 2020.

About Poseidon Water

Poseidon Water is a private company that partners with public agencies to deliver water infrastructure projects. The company's primary focus is developing large-scale reverse osmosis seawater desalination plants implemented through innovative public-private partnerships in which private enterprise assumes the developmental and financial risks. For more information on Poseidon's Carlsbad Desalination Plant, visit carlsbaddesal.com, and for more information on Poseidon's Huntington Beach desalination plant, visit HBfreshwater.com.

Contact: Scott Maloni Poseidon Water (858) 663-8838 [email protected]

SOURCE Poseidon Water
MANISTEE  Several city leadership positions have an added measure of reassurance that did not exist in the roles before this week's Manistee City Council meeting.

The Manistee city clerk, department of public works director and chief financial officer positions will now have specific agreements in place for severance pay among other details.

The measure passed 4-3 on Tuesday after several council members asked for more details on why the item was on the agenda, why it had not been given dedicated time to discuss during a council work session and the purpose for adding employment agreements for the three positions.

Thad Taylor, Manistee city manager, said when the council approved the role of police chief and fire chief at a previous meeting in lieu of the public safety director position  it also approved employment agreements for both positions in the same action.

Taylor said those agreements offer severance pay as well as assurance of stability for both chiefs. He said it would be fair to offer the same types of agreements to the remaining city department leaders.

The reason that we forwarded employment agreements for those two positions is because they were coming out of the unions, they have a different retirement, they dont get social security  so both were very concerned about retaining their current retirement systems, Taylor said.

He said both chiefs were also concerned about maintaining stability in their positions as chiefs.

So, once those were approved, because those two (chiefs) are department directors, I thought it not only appropriate but fair to offer an employment agreement to the remaining three department directors, Taylor said.

He explained that the agreements basically show their current compensation, retirement program and provides for severance pay if they are terminated without a cause.

Basically, the only thing different or new in any of these employment agreements is just the termination and severance pay, Taylor explained. And Im of the opinion that the city manager and department directors are probably more susceptible to change in attitudes in the community and at the council level and require a little extra level of protection for those positions.

George Saylor, attorney for the city, clarified that all other city staff are considered at-will employees and that they can be terminated with or without a reason.

However, those staff usually have the right to apply for unemployment except in certain circumstances such as something like theft where their unemployment application could be denied.

Saylor added that in the case of the directors, the severance package typically is replacing unemployment.

The agreement went into place for city clerk Heather Pefley, Manistee Department of Public Works director Jeff Mikula and city Chief Financial Officer/Treasurer Ed Bradford.

The agreements in the council packet from Tuesday, show an annual salary of $69,326 for Pefley, $91,137 for Mikula and $95,693 for Bradford, among other details.

See the full agenda packet with the agreements linked here.

Mayor Roger Zielinski voted in favor of the action and said it will give a level of comfort to our department heads.

Council members Erin Martin Pontiac, Mick Szymanski, Jermaine Cipcic and Zielinski voted in favor of the agreements.

Mayor Pro-Tem James Grabowski, council members Dale Cooper and Lynda Beaton voted against the measure. Both Grabowski and Beaton commented on the measure as feeling rushed and that a work session to discuss the agreements was necessary.
Gazans are thronging beaches and crowding markets filled with holiday sweets and clothes as they prepare to celebrate Eid al-Adha largely free of the coronavirus restrictions affecting the Muslim festival elsewhere.

The 360 sq. km. coastal strip has had little access to the outside world for years due to an Israeli-led blockade which many Palestinians say is like living in permanent lockdown.

No cases have been recorded in the towns and refugee camps where its two million Palestinian population live, although 75 infections and one death have occurred in quarantine centres.

Arrivals spend 21 days in the centres on orders from Hamas, the armed Islamist group that has controlled Gaza for over a decade, but other coronavirus measures, such as restaurant and school closures and bans on large gatherings, have been lifted.

The result is that Gazans are preparing much as normal ahead of Eid, which begins at the end of July, with few people wearing masks in shopping centers that are packed after sunset.

The scenes contrast with restrictions elsewhere: Saudi Arabia has capped the number of its own citizens attending the upcoming haj pilgrimage; Oman has implemented a nightly curfew and Iraq has said its curfew will last through the holiday. [nL5N2ES2UO] [nL5N2EN6F5]

"God protected us from the virus," said Malkeya Abdallah, 62, as she relaxed on the beach near Gaza City.

But medics are alarmed by the risks inherent in Gaza's potentially disastrous combination of poverty, densely packed refugee camps and limited hospital capacity.

"We see total relaxation within the communities, the malls, the supermarkets, wedding halls, the mosques, everything is working as normal with no precautionary measures whatsoever," said Abdelnaser Soboh, director of the World Health Organization's Gaza office, calling for more precautions.

"The virus will eventually get (in) ... you can't isolate Gaza from the world forever."

On Saturday, Hamas's health and interior ministries staged a COVID-19 drill, cordoning off a busy area of Gaza City and halting traffic between towns.

The economic impact of the coronavirus is already being felt.

Eighty percent of Gazans, who have seen three wars in a dozen years, already rely on humanitarian aid. Palestinians blame the closures, which neighbouring Israel and Egypt say are needed due to security concerns.

The World Bank expects poverty in Gaza to increase from 53% to 64% due to decreased consumer demand led by potential cuts in public sector wages across the Palestinian Territories, and the potential for losses from the Strip's earlier shutdown.

Meat merchants say far fewer Palestinians buying sheep to slaughter during the four-day Eid festival.

"We would have sold 500-700 sheep by this time last year... so far, we have only sold 30-35," said Mahmoud Abu Warda, a livestock breeder.
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If this is the issue, then Govt. officials giving Indian Citizenship and other facilities to Christians coming from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan should thoroughly scrutinize all cases !  Editor, Hindujagruti

Since the Citizenship Amendment Act has come into effect, there has been a sudden spike in the number of Afghan Muslims and Rohingya Muslims, who are illegal immigrants in India, wanting to convert to Christianity so as to become eligible for Indian citizenship.

According to a report by The Economic Times, the central agencies, aware of this development, have apprised the government that almost 25 such cases of Afghan Muslims converting to Christianity has come to the fore.

Adib Ahmed Maxwell, who heads an Afghan church in south Delhi, told ET: Post CAA, there has been a spurt in the number of Afghan Muslims wanting to convert to Christianity.

CAA does not provide to accept Rohingya Muslims as India citizens

It is pertinent to note here, that the historic Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which came into force from January 10, 2020, seeks to provide Indian Citizenship to the persecuted minorities belonging to six non-Muslim communities, namely Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Since Rohingyas are illegal immigrants who have unduly entered the Indian soil through Bangladesh, the Indian government has refused to accept them and give them Indian citizenship. As such, India is not bound even by international norms to accept Rohingyas.

During the Citizenship Amendment Bill (now an act) debate in December last year, Home Minister Amit Shah had categorically refused to accept Rohingyas in the country. He had clearly pointed out that India has not ratified any international convention on refugees and as such, international laws on refugees were not binding upon India as a sovereign country.

India not bound to accept Rohingya Muslims

India is not a party to the 1951 Convention on Refugees and neither the 1967 Protocol. Therefore, no international convention is binding on India. Even if we take into account the international conventions, the Rohingyas are clearly bypassing a safe haven in the form of Bangladesh to reach India for the purpose of gaining material benefits. Thus, quite clearly, it makes them economic migrants when they enter India and not persecuted minorities.

Afghan Muslims and Rohingyas continue to illegally live in India

Since these illegal immigrants are aware that they will not be granted Indian citizenship, they are now deviously adopting Christianity. According to official data, there are 150,000-160,000 Afghan Muslims living in Delhi. Besides, official estimates suggest there are nearly 40,000 Rohingya Muslims illegally living across India, with the highest number in Jammu and Kashmir. A large number of these migrants have been residing in India prior to 2012 and are now claiming to be from Bangladesh while taking up Christianity.
Security analyst, Adam Bonaa has called on President Akufo-Addo to sack the Minister of Special Development Initiatives, Mavis Hawa Koomson after she admitted firing a gunshot at a registration centre in Kasoa.



According to the minister who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Awutu Senya East Constituency, she gave the warning shot to defend herself after feeling threatened while touring registration centres in the constituency on Monday, July 20, 2020.



Im a Member of Parliament, I need to protect myself. It was at dawn; my police escort had not started work yet. So, that is the modus operandi I engaged in his absence, she told Accra-based Adom FM.



Reacting to the development on Starr FM on Tuesday, Mr Bonaa said the minister has shown poor judgment and must be removed.



For me, she saying her life was in danger was an afterthought and shes a disgrace to womanhood. The president should fire her.



Why did she go to a registration centre with a firearm and not in the company of her personal protection? Also if she knew her life was going to be in danger, why didnt she call on the police for protection? She should have known that wielding a gun doesnt give you the right to discharge it, he 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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The US government has accused China of espionage and visa fraud and has ordered the Houston Consulate to close down within 72 hours. The announcement comes amid the rising tensions between the two countries whose relationship has been rapidly deteriorating.

US-China tensions

According to the Wall Street Journal, on Wednesday, US officials stated that the Houston Consulate of China has long been a focus of rising concerns for the country. They announced it had until 4:00 p.m. Friday to close down voluntarily.

David Stilwell, the assistant secretary of state, was responsible for calling the order during an interview and said it had been long overdue. Stilwell stated the order followed several malicious activities conducted by the consulate, including research theft and visa fraud.

The secretary also noted that the illegal activities have since accelerated amid the coronavirus pandemic.

On Wednesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry first acknowledge the shutdown order after a Houston news media reported several people setting documents on fire within the building in what is considered to be an attempt at preparing to vacate the agency. A spokesman for the ministry called the order outrageous and threatened that Beijing would surely retaliate.

In recent years, the relationship between the US and China has slowly but steadily been dwindling, and Trump's administration has increased its aggression towards Beijing in the past few weeks. The US president issued visa bans and sanctioned several Chinese nationals over several international issues.

Similarly, in 2017, Trump's administration ordered the Russian Consulate in San Francisco to close down along with two annexes found near New York and Washington. The announcement was made in retaliation for Russian restricting several American diplomats residing in Moscow, as reported by The New York Times.

Replying to questions of if he plans on closing down other Chinese diplomatic missions, Trump said there was always that possibility and that his administration believed there was a fire within the one they ordered closed.

Also Read: US Officials Accuse 2 Chinese Hackers of Conspiring With Beijing to Steal Coronavirus Research Data

Espionage and research theft

Stilwell noted one of the factors that led to the order was due to a recent incident where a Chinese diplomat conspired with Air China Ltd. to bring unidentified passengers that aimed to bring Chinese students away from Houston amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Stephen Biegun, the deputy secretary of state, cited on Wednesday commercial espionage and stealing of trade secrets and research information from the US as parts of the issues that haunt the country's relationship with China.

According to CNN, the shutdown order comes a day after the US government accused two Chinese hackers of stealing coronavirus research information and giving it to China.

Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, called the accusations absurd and considered it a "thief accusing others to be the thief," during a Wednesday press briefing and alleged the US had been part of the largest cyberattacks around the world.

US officials stated that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) investigations into espionage accusations have frequently led back to China's Houston Consulate. A former agent said that for years, the FBI had monitored individuals believed to have been intelligence officers working for the Houston consulate.

Related Article: US Sanctions 11 More Chinese Companies Over Human Rights Violations as Tensions Between Giants Rise

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Mumbai: A Maharashtra government-appointed committee will decide on the possible rehabilitation of tigers and leopards that have been captured from the wild due to man-animal conflict and submit their recommendations to the state forest department.

Nitin Kakodkar, chief wildlife warden, Maharashtra, on Wednesday issued directions to this effect to the state-level committee, which was constituted on May 31, 2016.

The panels original mandate was to monitor the rearing, training, and take a decision on release of an abandoned or orphaned tiger or leopard cub back to the wild.

Nitin Kakodkar, principal chief conservator of forest (PPCF), (wildlife), Maharashtra, said, Apart from assessing the re-wilding of cubs, the committee has been tasked to submit recommendations to me on a case-to-case basis for tigers and leopards rescued under section 11 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 (captured due to human-animal conflict), how they are coping post-capture and the possibility of their release back to the wild. The panel will also suggest locations, where such big cats are safe to be released.

Maharashtra has reported a spurt of human-animal conflict cases, involving tigers and leopards, especially in Chandrapur and Nashik districts.

Altogether, 27 people have been killed in tiger attacks, while 42 people have lost their lives across Maharashtra due to conflict with other animals this year to date.

While four tigers have been captured from Chandrapur over the past two months and sent to the Gorewada Rescue Centre in Nagpur.

But two of the four tigers died at the rescue centre because of old age and septicaemia, respectively.

Also, three leopards were trapped in Nashik and sent to a rescue centre in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Mumbai. While the rules have specified tigers, now the committee is allowed to take decisions on the release of leopards as well, said Kakodkar.

The Gorewada Rescue Centres capacity to rehabilitate tigers has reached its maximum capacity of 10.

At present, all 10 tiger enclosures are occupied. We have some capacity at Maharajbagh Zoo, Nagpur, and a few additional cages (holding areas or night shelters), where some rescued animals can be relocated, said Kakodkar.

The state committee is headed by the additional principal chief conservator of forest (wildlife-east) BS Hooda, while the other members include Dr. Shirish Upadhye from the Wildlife Research and Training Centre, Gorewada, retired veterinary officer Dr. AD Kholkute, state wildlife board members Kishor Rithe and Kundan Hate, retired forest officer GK Vashishtha, and Nandkishore Kale, divisional manager, Gorewada project.

Kishor Rithe, a member of the committee and also the state board of wildlife (SBWL), justified the formation of the panel and its new mandate.

Vidarbha landscape has more than 300 tigers, including 200 in Chandrapur district alone. We get many abandoned tiger cubs, when they lose their mothers to accidents, natural causes, etc. Some cubs are even fit to be released soon after the capture. However, in the absence of such an expert committee, their release into the wild used to be delayed. This led to the formation of this committee. However, the panels composition and its mandate have been tweaked in the new order such as the inclusion of captured big cats as well, said Rithe.

The panel has also been tasked to investigate cases of orphaned tiger and leopard cubs in Maharashtra, make necessary recommendations regarding the decision to relocate them, where to send them and for what duration, and based on their rearing, training etc. whether they are fit for release back into the wild.

The additional responsibility of the committee comes at a time, when the state has decided the post-monsoon release of the female cub (T1C2) of the alleged man-eater tigress T1 or Avni, which was shot dead in November 2018.

The state forest department authorities are expected to submit a proposal to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) by end-July.

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People look on as the Houston Fire Department responds to reports of a fire inside the Chinese Consulate in Houston. Houston police and fire officials responded to reports that documents were being burned in the courtyard of the consulate Tuesday night, according to the Houston Police Department. China says the U.S. has ordered it to close its consulate in Houston in what it called a provocation that violates international law. (AP)

Washington: The United States gave China 72 hours to close its consulate in Houston amid accusations of spying, marking a dramatic deterioration in relations between the worlds two biggest economies.

The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday the Chinese mission in Houston was being closed to protect American intellectual property and Americans private information.

President Donald Trump said in answer to a question at a news briefing it was always possible other Chinese missions could be closed too.

We thought there was a fire in one that we did close, Trump said. I guess they were burning documents, or burning papers, and I wonder what thats all about.

Overnight in Houston, firefighters went to the consulate after smoke was seen. Two U.S. government officials said they had information that documents were being burned there.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the consulate was operating normally.

The ministry said Washington had abruptly issued the demand to close the consulate on Tuesday and called it an unprecedented escalation.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington had received bomb and death threats because of smears & hatred fanned by the U.S. government, spokeswoman Hua Chunying wrote in a tweet.

The U.S. should revoke its erroneous decision, she said. China will surely react with firm countermeasures.

Communist Party rulers in Beijing were considering shutting the U.S. consulate in the central city of Wuhan in retaliation, a source with knowledge of the matter said.

U.S.-based China experts said Beijing could also opt to target more important consulates in Hong Kong, Shanghai or Guangzhou, something that could hurt American businesses.

Richard Grenell, who served until recently as acting director of U.S. national intelligence, suggested the United States could close the Chinese consulate in tech-heavy San Francisco.

Its a close call. I would have done both (Houston and San Francisco) but it also makes sense to start with one, he told Reuters by text.

The Houston move comes in the run-up to the November U.S. presidential election, in which Trump and his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, have both tried to look tough towards China.

Speaking on a visit to Denmark, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo repeated accusations about Chinese theft of U.S. and European intellectual property, which he said were costing hundreds of thousands of jobs.

While offering no specifics about the Houston consulate, Pompeo referred to a U.S. Justice Department indictment on Tuesday of two Chinese nationals over what it called a decade-long cyber espionage campaign that targeted defense contractors, COVID-19 researchers and hundreds of other victims worldwide.

Pompeo also referred to recent speeches by the head of the FBI and others that highlighted Chinese espionage activities.

President Trump has said: Enough. We are not going to allow this to continue to happen, he told reporters.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, described the Houston consulate on Twitter as the central node of the Communist Partys vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States.

The New York Times quoted the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, David Stilwell, as saying that the Houston consulate had been at the epicenter of the Chinese armys efforts to advance its warfare advantages by sending students to U.S. universities.

We took a practical step to prevent them from doing that, Stilwell told the Times.

Stephen Biegun, the State Departments number two diplomat, told the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee the decision was made in response to longstanding areas of concern.

He said these included intellectual property theft and commercial espionage, as well as unequal treatment of U.S. diplomats, exporters, investors and media in China and abuse by Chinas security services of the welcoming U.S. posture toward Chinese students and researchers.

A Chinese diplomat, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, denied the spying allegations and said the Houston mission acted like other Chinese consulates in the United States - issuing visas, and promoting visits and businesses.

RACE TO THE BOTTOM

U.S.-China ties have worsened sharply this year over issues ranging from the coronavirus and telecoms-gear maker Huawei to Chinas territorial claims in the South China Sea and clampdown on Hong Kong.

Jonathan Pollack, an East Asia expert with the Brookings Institution, said he could not think of anything remotely equivalent to the move against the Houston consulate since the U.S. and China opened full diplomatic relations in 1979.

The Trump Administration appears to view this latest action as political ammunition in the presidential campaign... Its part of the administrations race to the bottom against China, he said.

A source with direct knowledge of the matter said China was considering closing the U.S. consulate in Wuhan, where the State Department withdrew staff and their families early this year due to the coronavirus outbreak that first emerged in the city.

Chinas foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it would shut the consulate.

Wang said the U.S. government had been harassing Chinese diplomats and consular staff for some time and intimidating Chinese students. He said the United States had interfered with Chinas diplomatic missions, including intercepting diplomatic pouches. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment on the Chinese accusations.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs outrage over a Republican lawmakers verbal assault broadened into an extraordinary moment on the House floor Thursday as she and other Democrats assailed a sexist culture of accepting violence and violent language against women whose adherents include President Donald Trump.

A day after rejecting an offer of contrition from Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., for his language during this week's Capitol steps confrontation, Ocasio-Cortez and more than a dozen colleagues cast the incident as all-too-common behavior by men, including Trump and other Republicans.

This issue is not about one incident. It is cultural, said Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. She called it a culture of accepting a violence and violent language against women, an entire structure of power that supports that.

The remarkable outpouring, with several female lawmakers saying theyd routinely encountered such treatment, came in an election year in which polls show women lean decisively against Trump, who has a history of mocking women. Trump was captured in a 2005 tape boasting about physically abusing them, and his disparagement of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has included calling her crazy.

The lawmakers joining Ocasio-Cortez represented a wide range of the chamber's Democrats, underscoring the party's unity over an issue that can energize their party's voters.

Those speaking up included the three other members of the squad of progressive freshmen Democratic women of color  Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

On the establishment side was No. 2 House leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, a moderate and 20-term veteran. His appearance, along with supportive words at a separate news conference by Pelosi, D-Calif., were a noteworthy contrast to occasional clashes Ocasio-Cortez has had with party leaders.

No Republicans spoke. But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., at a separate appearance defended Yoho, 65, one of his party's most conservative members and who will retire in January.

When someone apologizes they should be forgiven, McCarthy said. He added later, I just think in a new world, in a new age, we now determine whether we accept when someone says Im sorry if its a good enough apology.

Pelosi herself weighed in a separate news conference.

Its a manifestation of attitude in our society really. I can tell you that firsthand, theyve called me names for at least at least 20 years of leadership, 18 years of leadership, Pelosi said of Republicans.

Pelosi, who has five children, recounted that during a debate years ago on womens reproductive health, GOP lawmakers said, on the floor of the House, Nancy Pelosi think she knows more about having babies than the Pope.

In an encounter Monday witnessed by a reporter from The Hill, Yoho berated Ocasio-Cortez on the House steps for saying that some of the increased crime during the coronavirus pandemic could be traced to rising unemployment and poverty.

Ocasio-Cortez, a freshman who has made her mark as one of Congress most outspoken progressives, described it on the House floor Thursday. She said Yoho put his finger in her face and called her disgusting, crazy and dangerous.

She also told the House that in front of reporters, he called her, and I quote, a fucking bitch. That matched The Hills version of what Yoho had said. Ocasio-Cortez was not there for that remark.

Ocasio-Cortez said Yoho's references to his wife and daughters as he explained his actions during brief remarks on Wednesday actually underscored the problem.

.@RepTedYoho on confrontation with @RepAOC @AOC: "I rise to apologize for the abrupt manner of the conversation I had with my colleague from New York...The offensive name calling words attributed to me by the press were never spoken to my colleagues." pic.twitter.com/0Q1ZC71Vfh  CSPAN (@cspan) July 22, 2020

Having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man, she said. She added that a decent man apologizes not to save face, not to win a vote. He apologizes, and genuinely, to repair and acknowledge the harm done, so that we can all move on.

More than a dozen other Democrats also spoke, mostly women, recalling their own experiences, taunting House Republicans' overwhelmingly white male membership and warning that the numbers of women lawmakers will only grow. Eighty-eight House Democrats and 13 Republicans are women.

I personally have experienced a lifetime of insults, racism and sexism, said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif. And believe me, this did not stop after being elected to public office.

Were not going away, said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. There is going to be more power in the hands of women across this country.
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Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday announced the investment of $66 million for 11 drinking water, wastewater and stormwater projects across nine counties through the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority (PENNVEST).

Ensuring that Pennsylvanias citizens have access to safe and secure infrastructure is a fundamental responsibility of government, Wolf said in a press release.

The funding for these projects originates from a combination of state funds approved by voters, Growing Greener, Marcellus Legacy funds, federal grants to PENNVEST from the Environmental Protection Agency and recycled loan repayments from previous PENNVEST funding awards, according to the release. Funds for these projects are disbursed after expenses for work are paid and receipts are submitted to PENNVEST for review.

A list of project summaries follows, per the press release:

Drinking Water Projects

Bedford County

Bedford Township Municipal Authority  received a $5,223,140 loan to replace 8,500 feet of existing waterline and connect new service with 10,150 feet of additional water line, while also replacing the finished water storage tank. The project will increase reliability by eliminating water service interruptions and ensuring stable connections to underserved communities in the service area.

Berks County

Fleetwood Borough  received a $3,500,000 loan to replace approximately 8,250 feet of ductile iron and cement-lined piping. The project will replace service lines that are at the end of useful life and increase reliability for nearly 1,800 residents.

Mifflin County

Allensville Municipal Authority  received a $371,950 loan to make improvements to a filtration plant, install flow meters and data acquisition systems and provide disinfection contact piping. The project will bring the system into compliance with a Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) consent order and reduce the risk of Giardia throughout the community.

Perry County

Penn Township Municipal Authority  received a $1,450,000 loan to replace deteriorating water tanks with a new 150,000-gallon, ground-level tank. The project will reduce exposure to iron and manganese and improve water reliability for customers in the service area.

Somerset County

Addison Area Water Authority  received a $575,120 loan to install a chlorination system and water tank, which will eliminate the dependency on existing well pumps. The project will improve reliability of drinking water and significantly reduce water loss through transfer, which is currently estimated at 70 percent.

Wastewater Projects

Cambria County

**City of Johnstown  received a $6,517,110 grant and a $4,382,890 loan to replace approximately 26,000 feet of sewer line. The project will reduce wet weather overflows into the Stonycreek and Little Conemaugh Rivers, decreasing public exposure to untreated effluent.

Lawrence County

**New Castle Sanitation Authority  received a $19,132,800 grant and a $12,867,200 loan to make significant improvements to an existing wastewater treatment plant, including construction of a new anoxic tank and renovation of an activated sludge system. The project will meet mandated permit effluent limits and improve aquatic life in the Shenango River.

Westmoreland County

City of Arnold  received a $117,555 loan to up-size existing piping used to convey wastewater to regional sewage treatment plant. The project will reduce wet weather sewage overflows into the Allegheny River and reduce impact to aquatic life.

**Western Westmoreland Municipal Authority  received an $11,025,000 loan to install approximately 18,000 feet of sanitary sewer line and manholes, while also stabilizing streambanks along local waterways. The project will eliminate regional stream pollution and address a DEP consent order.

Stormwater Projects

Northampton County

Borough of North Catasauqua  received a $618,229 loan to install 5,010 feet of new storm sewer line and associated inlets. The project will alleviate significant residential, business, and traffic flooding conditions.

Westmoreland County

Penn Township  received a $1,106,811 loan to install approximately 1,400 feet of new stormwater piping and retrofit work to existing retention ponds and spillways. The project will provide adequate drainage for a currently undersized system and reduce an estimated 5,916 pounds of sediment into Bushy Run each year.

* denotes projects that are funded with Drinking Water State Revolving Funds

** denotes projects that are funded with Clean Water State Revolving Funds
New Delhi, July 23 : After India recorded the highest single-day spike of 45,720 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the IANS-CVoter Covid-19 Tracker said that more than 91 per cent of Indians have not come across any Covid positive cases so far.

As per the survey with a sample size 1,723, 91.44 per cent of the respondents said that no one in their family or in their surroundings has been infected by coronavirus.

Being the third-worst hit country, India is now adding a lakh cases every three days. On Thursday, the country crossed the 12-lakh mark.

As per the survey, approximately 6.8 per cent of the respondents came across Covid cases, either in their family or in their surroundings. Of these, only 2.11 per cent were hospitalised while 0.47 succumbed to the dreaded virus, which has claimed 29,861 lives in the country so far.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
YARDLEY, Pa., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Crown Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CCK) (Crown) (www.crowncork.com), has had its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) as consistent with reductions required to keep warming to 1.5C, the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement. Specifically, Crown has committed to reduce absolute Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50% by 2030 (using a 2019 baseline), as well as decrease absolute Scope 3 GHG emissions by 16% over the same target period.



The approval follows a stringent validation process by SBTi, which defines and promotes best practice in science-based target setting and independently assesses companies' goals. A collaboration between CDP, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the initiative champions science-based target setting as a powerful way of boosting companies' competitive advantage in the transition to the low-carbon economy.



"As a Company, we are taking serious, deliberate steps to accelerate our sustainability commitments," stated Timothy J. Donahue, President and Chief Executive Officer of Crown. "Receiving approval on our emission reduction objectives from the Science Based Targets initiative serves as a major proof point that we are on the right track. We are proud to secure this distinction, which is only held by seven other companies in the global containers and packaging sector, and be part of an elite group of organizations fighting against climate change."



Crown is committed to advancing climate protection and helping achieve a worldwide transformation, previously demonstrating these priorities through strides in renewable electricity use and a set of 2020 sustainability goals focused on emissions and energy consumption. The Company's SBTi-approved emission reduction targets are a crucial part of a robust sustainability strategy to be announced this month. The strategy includes a series of measurable environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals to be achieved in the next decade.



More information about Crown's approach to sustainability is available at www.crowncork.com/sustainability.



About Crown Holdings, Inc.



Crown Holdings, Inc., through its subsidiaries, is a leading global supplier of rigid packaging products to consumer marketing companies, as well as transit and protective packaging products, equipment and services to a broad range of end markets. World headquarters are located in Yardley, Pennsylvania. For more information, visit www.crowncork.com.



For more information, contact [email protected].



For editorial inquiries: Mallory Schindler, Senior Account Executive, FINN Partners; Tel: (212) 529-2634; Email: [email protected]



SOURCE Crown Holdings, Inc.

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http://www.crowncork.com


China's GDP growth returned to modest growth in the second quarter this year after the Q1 GDP experienced a 6.8% contraction.

According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on July 16, China's GDP stood at 45.66 trillion yuan (about $6.53 trillion) in the first six months this year, down 1.6% year on year. However, the Q2 figure registered a growth of 3.2%, 10 percentage points higher than that in Q1.

NBS spokesperson Liu Aihua noted that the national economy gradually overcame the adverse impact of the epidemic in the first half of the year and demonstrated a momentum of restorative growth and gradual recovery, further manifesting its development resilience and vitality.

COVID-19 has brought unprecedented impacts since the beginning of this year, plunging the world economy into the worst recession after the World War II. Facing challenges, the whole Chinese nation coordinated efforts to advance both the prevention and control of the epidemic and socioeconomic development, and the national economy shifted from slowing down to rising in the first half of 2020 with economic growth in the second quarter changing from negative to positive and main indicators showing restorative growth. The national economy recovered gradually

The total value added by industrial enterprises above designated size grew by 4.4% in the second quarter and after declining by 8.4% in the first quarter, and the total value added by the tertiary industry grew by 1.9% in the second quarter after dropping by 5.2% in the first quarter.

In the April-June period, the decline of the total retail sales of consumer goods narrowed by 15.1 percentage points compared with that in the first quarter, while the decrease of the investment in fixed assets (excluding rural households) was 13 percentage points lower compared with that in the first quarter.

The monthly figures indicated more obvious signs of picking-up. The total value added by industrial enterprises above designated size grew for the third month in a row, and the Index of Services Production experienced growth for two consecutive months. Besides, the total value of exports also increased for the third straight month.

When China's economy is accelerating its recovery, the basic livelihood of the Chinese people is ensured effectively and new growth drivers are replacing old ones.

In the first half, the newly increased employed people in urban areas totaled 5.64 million, accounting for 62.7% of the whole-year target. In June, the surveyed unemployment rate in urban areas was 5.7%, falling for two consecutive months. Specifically, the surveyed unemployment rate of population aged 25-59 was 5.2%, 0.5 percentage points lower than that of the surveyed unemployment rate in urban areas.

The increase of consumer prices showed a downward trend. In the first half-year, consumer price went up by 3.8% year-on-year, 1.1 percentage points lower than the first quarter figure.

The poverty alleviation drive has achieved outstanding results. In the first half of the year, in places with a large number of poor people such as Sichuan, Guizhou, and Guangxi, the nominal annual growth of per capita disposable income of rural resident was between 5.5% and 7.6%. The per capita old-age pension and retirement pensions increased by 9.3%, and social assistant grants and subsidies per capita increased by 13.2%, as China continued to strengthen social security and assist those most in need.

New growth drivers have become stronger in various emerging fields. In the first half, the added value of high-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing grew by 4.5% year-on-year, accounting for 14.7% of the added value of industries above designated size, an increase of 0.9 percentage points from the same period last year. Investment in the high-tech sector continued to increase. Online retail sales reached 5.15 trillion yuan, growing by 7.3% year on year, while that fell by 0.8% in the first quarter.

"The recovery of economic indicators in the first half of the year, especially in the second quarter, shows that the economy's sustained recovery in the second half of the year has foundations," said Liu, who's also the director general of the Department of Comprehensive Statistics at NBS.

Since March, many indicators have seen significant gains or narrower declines, and the stable economic recovery in the first half of the year has laid a solid foundation for a sustained recovery in the second half of the year, which indicates that the impact of the pandemic is generally controllable, and the Chinese economy has a strong capacity for self-adjustment.

"China has a perfect industrial system, increasingly sophisticated infrastructure and the advantages of a super large market, which will continue to help respond effectively to the impact of the pandemic in the next stage," Liu said.

During the first half of the year, new business models, such as working from home, online education, intelligent construction, and driverless delivery, have efficiently resolved some problems in people's lives. New technologies, such as cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence, are developing rapidly. New industries, such as the digital economy, smart manufacturing and life and health, have become new growth poles.

The investment in high-tech manufacturing industries and high-tech services went up by 5.8% and 7.2% respectively. In terms of high-tech services, the investment in services for e-commerce services and commercialization of scientific and technological research findings grew by 32% and 21.8% respectively. The growth of new businesses and industries will continue offering strong support for China's economic recovery.

During the first half of this year, to deal with the pandemic's impact, China has provided fiscal and taxation support, financial support and comprehensively strengthened the policy of giving top priority to employment. All these policies have paid off so far. Meanwhile, the epidemic has exposed some problems, which prompted the country to further address problems and reinforce weak links. China will step up innovation to strengthen the basis for sustained growth and vitality of the economy.

"Given these favorable conditions, we are confident of a sustained economic recovery in the second half of the year. Meanwhile, economic recovery has its foundations, potential and conditions to be realized," Liu remarked.
As a poet and aspiring published writer, Weed wanted to find a position in the publishing world to learn how the industry works.

She started working for Small Press Distribution (SPD), a nonprofit literary book distributor in Berkeley, California, in February, during a leave of absence from Bowdoin. Initially her position was in person, and she spent a few blissful weeks helping to restock the press's warehouse, as well as assisting the office's marketing arm.

It was fun being around books all day, Weed reflected recently, with a bit of nostalgia. Because, when the pandemic hit, she had to stop working for the company.

To make it financially possible to continue working for the distributor remotely, she decided to apply for a funded internship* from Bowdoin. I wanted to preserve those relationships and keep working at this place, she said.

After being awarded a Robert S. Goodfriend Summer Internship grant from Bowdoin Career Exploration and Development, Weed returned to SPD as an intern this summer. This time, she's based in Colorado, and she's focused on publicizing new books through social media channels.

Weed was drawn to SPD because it specializes in boosting voices often overlooked by mainstream book publishers.

SPD is the only distributor that works with independent publishers and small presses, so they work with publishers that mostly publish writers who are queer, women, or people of color, Weed said. They've been doing this work for fifty years and have a big following.

She's also getting a glimpse into a sector vitally important to writers. She herself is a poet and writer of nonfiction.

I feel way more tapped into the poetry world by knowing what poets are publishing and when theyre publishing, she added. And seeing more of what the poetry and literary landscape looks like is inspiring. Being around writers is really exciting, because it shows you what it would be like to be a writer and working in the literary world. It is pretty encouraging!

*This summer 102 students have funded internshipswhich are small grants from the Bowdoin Career Exploration and Developmentto work for nonprofits or businesses that could not provide their own internship stipends.
Rating Action: Moody's changes Northern Oil and Gas' rating outlook to stable

Global Credit Research - 22 Jul 2020

New York, July 22, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service (Moody's) changed Northern Oil and Gas, Inc.'s (NOG) rating outlook to stable from positive. Concurrently, Moody's affirmed NOG's B3 Corporate Family Rating (CFR), B3-PD Probability of Default Rating (PDR) and Caa1 second lien secured notes rating. NOG's Speculative Grade Liquidity (SGL) rating remains SGL-3.

"The stable outlook reflects Northern Oil & Gas' reduced debt balances and its commodity hedges that should help endure low oil prices following the coronavirus outbreak and deteriorating global economic outlook," said Amol Joshi, Moody's Vice President and Senior Credit Officer. "Capital spending flexibility and spending restraint should provide free cash flow in 2020-21, supporting its liquidity."

Affirmations:

..Issuer: Northern Oil and Gas, Inc.

.... Probability of Default Rating, Affirmed B3-PD

.... Corporate Family Rating, Affirmed B3

....Senior Secured 2nd Lien Notes, Affirmed Caa1 (LGD5) from (LGD4)

Outlook Actions:

..Issuer: Northern Oil and Gas, Inc.

....Outlook, Changed To Stable From Positive

RATINGS RATIONALE

NOG's commodity hedges and significantly lower capital spending than 2019 should help protect its 2020 credit metrics in a low oil price environment following the coronavirus outbreak and deteriorating global economic outlook. The stable outlook reflects this as well as the company's ability to generate free cash flow and its resilience if the oil price downturn extends into 2021.

The rapid spread of the coronavirus outbreak, deteriorating global economic outlook, low oil prices, and high asset price volatility have created an unprecedented credit shock across a range of sectors and regions. We regard the coronavirus outbreak as a social risk under our ESG framework, given the substantial implications for public health and safety. Today's action reflects the impact on NOG of the deterioration in credit quality it has triggered, given its exposure to a period of low oil prices and lower production volumes, which has left it vulnerable to shifts in market demand and sentiment in these unprecedented operating conditions.

Story continues

NOG's B3 CFR is supported by the company's moderate leverage and high oil-weighted production mix benefitting its unleveraged cash margins and cash flow. Significant reinvestment of capital and acquisition of producing assets in the Williston Basin has allowed NOG to deliver growth in production volumes that have more than doubled from 2017 levels, although 2020 production is expected to fall materially because of production shut-ins and lower drilling of new wells. The company also hedges a meaningful portion of its oil production about two years into the future, which should reduce volatility in its revenue and cash flow. Moody's expects NOG's retained cash flow (RCF) to debt ratio to remain robust relative to its rated peers into 2021, and the company should generate positive free cash flow in 2020, which may be used to modestly reduce high borrowings under the revolver. NOG's credit profile is challenged by its relatively modest scale and high geographic concentration in a single basin. While the company manages a well-diversified portfolio of non-operated working interests in numerous producing assets, it relies on the operating performance of its partners. NOG growth strategy is focused on participating in operator-initiated wells and executing bolt-on acquisitions, requiring a high degree of financial flexibility. Its sizeable 2019 acquisition had constrained the company's financial flexibility, but issuing preferred shares and reducing its debt balances has supported NOG's flexibility. Free cash flow generation should support liquidity in the near-term, despite NOG's borrowing base being cut to $660 million in July from $800 million previously.

The company's debt is comprised of borrowings under its first lien secured revolving credit facility, about $297 million of second lien notes pro forma for modest debt for common equity exchanges completed in the second quarter, and a $130 million senior unsecured promissory note (unrated). NOG's second lien secured notes are rated Caa1, one notch below the company's B3 CFR because of the priority claim of the first lien revolver on its assets. Moody's views the Caa1 rating for the second lien notes as more appropriate than the rating suggested by Moody's Loss Given Default for Speculative-Grade Companies Methodology because of sound asset coverage and modest expected decline in debt balances.

The SGL-3 Speculative Grade Liquidity Rating reflects adequate liquidity supported by NOG's ability to generate positive free cash flow in 2020. At March 31, NOG had $8.5 million of cash and $590 million of revolver borrowings, while revolver borrowings were reduced to $568 million at June 30. The company's revolver borrowing base was cut to $660 million in July, significantly reducing availability under the revolver. NOG's secured revolver is due in November 2024, but would mature 91 days prior to the scheduled maturity date of the earlier of the second lien notes or the unsecured promissory note, if such notes remain outstanding at that time. The revolver's financial covenants include a maximum net debt to EBITDAX ratio of 3.5x (with cash netting limited to $50 million), and a minimum current ratio of 1x. NOG was in compliance with its financial covenants as of March 31. The current ratio calculation allows certain adjustments and the inclusion of unused amounts of the total bank commitments. The company's next debt maturity is on January 1, 2021 when $65 million of the senior unsecured promissory note is due which can be repaid through available liquidity. Substantially all of the company's assets are pledged as security under the credit facility, which limits the extent to which asset sales can provide a source of additional liquidity.

FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE OR DOWNGRADE OF THE RATINGS

The ratings could be downgraded if production volumes materially decline, RCF/debt falls below 20% or liquidity deteriorates. The ratings could be upgraded if NOG continues grows its production to approach 50 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day in an improving commodity price environment, its RCF/debt is sustained over 30% and the company's liquidity is adequate or better.

Northern Oil and Gas, Inc., headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota, owns non-operated working interests in oil and gas wells and acreage primarily in the Bakken and Three Forks formations within the Williston Basin in North Dakota and Montana.

The principal methodology used in these ratings was Independent Exploration and Production Industry published in May 2017 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1056808. Alternatively, please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.

REGULATORY DISCLOSURES

For further specification of Moody's key rating assumptions and sensitivity analysis, see the sections Methodology Assumptions and Sensitivity to Assumptions in the disclosure form. Moody's Rating Symbols and Definitions can be found at: https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_79004.

For ratings issued on a program, series, category/class of debt or security this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series, category/class of debt, security or pursuant to a program for which the ratings are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the credit rating action on the support provider and in relation to each particular credit rating action for securities that derive their credit ratings from the support provider's credit rating. For provisional ratings, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation to a definitive rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance of the debt, in each case where the transaction structure and terms have not changed prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a manner that would have affected the rating. For further information please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective issuer on www.moodys.com.

For any affected securities or rated entities receiving direct credit support from the primary entity(ies) of this credit rating action, and whose ratings may change as a result of this credit rating action, the associated regulatory disclosures will be those of the guarantor entity. Exceptions to this approach exist for the following disclosures, if applicable to jurisdiction: Ancillary Services, Disclosure to rated entity, Disclosure from rated entity.

The ratings have been disclosed to the rated entity or its designated agent(s) and issued with no amendment resulting from that disclosure.

These ratings are solicited. Please refer to Moody's Policy for Designating and Assigning Unsolicited Credit Ratings available on its website www.moodys.com.

Regulatory disclosures contained in this press release apply to the credit rating and, if applicable, the related rating outlook or rating review.

Moody's general principles for assessing environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks in our credit analysis can be found at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1133569.

At least one ESG consideration was material to the credit rating action(s) announced and described above.

The Global Scale Credit Rating on this Credit Rating Announcement was issued by one of Moody's affiliates outside the EU and is endorsed by Moody's Deutschland GmbH, An der Welle 5, Frankfurt am Main 60322, Germany, in accordance with Art.4 paragraph 3 of the Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 on Credit Rating Agencies. Further information on the EU endorsement status and on the Moody's office that issued the credit rating is available on www.moodys.com.

Please see www.moodys.com for any updates on changes to the lead rating analyst and to the Moody's legal entity that has issued the rating.

Please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for additional regulatory disclosures for each credit rating.

Amol Joshi, CFA Vice President - Senior Analyst Corporate Finance Group Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 250 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10007 U.S.A. JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Steven Wood MD - Corporate Finance Corporate Finance Group JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 250 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10007 U.S.A. JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 19:29:11|Editor: huaxia

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JAKARTA, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The COVID-19 cases in Indonesia rose by 1,906 within one day to 93,657, with the death toll adding by 117 to 4,576, the Health Ministry said on Thursday.

According to the ministry, 1,909 more people were discharged from hospitals, bringing the total number of recovered patients to 52,164.

The virus has spread to all the country's 34 provinces.

Specifically, Jakarta recorded 470 new cases, making the total number of the confirmed cases in the capital city to 18,068.

East Java reported 357 new cases, Central Java 295, South Sulawesi 120, South Kalimantan 116 and North Sumatra 100.

At present, the government is prioritizing the COVID-19 tests in eight provinces, namely North Sumatra, South Kalimantan, Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java, South Sulawesi and Papua, which contributed about 74 percent of the total COVID-19 cases in the country. Enditem
The two sides must find creative ways to reengage and should not let this centurys most consequential major power relationship degrade into free-fall.

Lu Zhenhua is a senior editor at Caixin Global.

In the first 40 years after the China and the United States committed to each other in 1979, the two countries have dealt with multiple diplomatic crises  including the Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1995 and the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999  but never before has either one taken unilateral action to close the others embassy or consulate. That would be a clear sign that the relationship is in a downward spiral, or even an ominous prelude to a break-up. Unfortunately, history is at a turning point, and has created a precedent for such closure in 2020, just as the relationship enters its 41th year.

The U.S. abrupt closure of Chinas consulate in Houston may not have been foreseen by Beijing. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Wednesday that the U.S. demanded Tuesday that the consulate close by Friday  within 72 hours. On Tuesday evening, a fire was reported inside the consulate, apparently caused by people burning classified documents in the courtyard. The Houston consulate was Chinas first consulate-general in the U.S., established in November 1979, right after the establishment of the Chinese embassy in Washington that March.

For Washington, the timing of the closure seems well-calculated. On Tuesday, when the Chinese side was ordered to close the consulate, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was on a trip to London, where he praised the U.K. for being tough on China in last weeks decision to bar Chinese telecom giant Huawei from the countrys 5G market  an apparent effort to form an alliance against China.

On the same day, the U.S. Department of Justice charged two Chinese nationals with theft of intellectual property and private information by hacking into high-tech companies and individuals in more than a dozen countries, including the U.S. and U.K. A similar allegation also appeared in the State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus Wednesday statement on the decision to close the Houston consulate: Protect American intellectual property and Americans private information.

Also on Wednesday evening in Taipei, shortly after Ortagus statement about the closure, Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwans newly appointed representative to America, boarded a U.S.-bound red-eye flight to start her success-is-the-only-option journey in Washington. In response to media questions about Beijings so-called wolf-warrior diplomacy, Hsiao said before boarding that she can be a cat warrior  flexible, persistent and practical. Under the Trump administration, Washington has been increasingly supportive of Taiwan. Thus in the same week that Taiwans new representative lands in the U.S., Washington orders the closure of a Chinese consulate in Texas  coincidence?

From the White House to Congress, from the State Department to the Pentagon, the Trump administrations whole-of-government approach on China is running on all cylinders regarding Chinas core-interests: Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang, the South China Sea, as well as Chinese scholars, students and media organizations in U.S. It seems unstoppable.

But where there is a problem, there is usually a solution. The two sides must find creative ways to reengage and should not let this centurys most consequential major power relationship degrade into free-fall, with no turning back.

For the Chinese side, if Washington loses interest in engaging through established dialogue mechanisms, then Beijing should creatively lure Washingtons attention and actively engage in results-oriented talks through fresh channels and occasions.

It was a good start last week that in a press conference, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying invited Pompeo to visit Xinjiang. She said: If Mr. Pompeo has the sincerity, he is welcome to visit Xinjiang, talk with the people living there and also get a grasp on how people in Xinjiang feel about him.

In a speech earlier this month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also expressed urgency in resuming dialogue with the U.S. as soon as possible to review of red lines that the two countries have little chance to agree on in the near future. The world will be assured if the two sides could begin to talk again after the uneventful Hawaii meeting last month.

For the U.S. side, it will also be wise to slow down a bit and check to see if it still has its crisis management toolbox. Given the substantial degree of existing interdependency between the two nations and the profound weight of the worlds two largest economies, any out-of-control escalation  such as further cuts to diplomatic links  could push the relationship into a free-fall and cause unbearable pain to the world, particularly the Indo-Pacific region. A small military incident in the South China Sea could quickly develop into a regional one. Thus it was also a good gesture that U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper was reportedly going to visit China within the year. Maintaining mature and effective communications between the two militaries is indispensable in stabilizing this 41-year-old relationship.

Contact author Lu Zhenhua (zhenhualu@caixin.com) and editor Michael Bellart (michaelbellart@caixin.com)
Retaliation isnt the violent revenge picture its title promises. When this movie, directed by the brothers Ludwig and Paul Shammasian, had its premiere three years ago, it was called Romans. Anyone who expects Orlando Bloom in Charles Bronson mode will instead get a serious-minded, if heavy-handed, British drama about a man coping with the trauma of having been sexually abused as a child by a priest.

Bloom plays Malky, a construction worker whose current job  typical of the films blunt symbolism  involves tearing down a church. At a pub, Malky spots the priest (James Smillie) who abused him. The sighting brings Malkys 25 years of silent suffering to a boil. That torment has already affected his relationship with the bartender (Janet Montgomery), whom hes been seeing on and off; his best friend (well-played by the raffish Alex Ferns); and his mother (Anne Reid), whose own guilt makes her reluctant to acknowledge the abuse.
The World Health Organization and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have launched an effort to explore the role of traditional medicine in the coronavirus pandemic.

The new advisory panel will support countries in clinical trials, other re

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

Confirmed cases on the continent have nearly reached 750,000, more than half of them in South Africa.

A WHO statement says traditional medicine has many benefits and the continent has a long history of its use.

WHO Africa chief Matshidiso Moeti says the research must be grounded in science. Several countries showed interest after Madagascars president promoted a local herbal concoction as part of the island nations pandemic response.
Misfits Market, the e-commerce platform that sells "ugly" produce (among other things), has today announced the close of an $85 million Series B financing round. The funding was led by Valor Equity Partners, with participation from Greenoaks Capital, Third Kind Venture Capital and Sound Ventures.

Misfits Market started as a subscription box that allowed folks to buy ugly or misshapen produce on the cheap each week. This produce would have been thrown out at the farm, before ever heading to a distributor or grocery store, because it usually goes to waste sitting on a grocery store shelf.

There's nothing actually wrong with this produce, except for the fact that shoppers wouldn't normally choose it from a pile of fruit or vegetables that look more pleasing.

Since raising its Series A, Misfits Market has been working to expand its selection, which now includes chocolate, snacks, chips, coffee, herbs, grains, lentils, sauces and spices. Users can add these products to their usual weekly produce box on an a la carte basis, and they're priced 20-25% below retail. These products are available to "add to box" once a week (on Thursdays).

At its core, Misfits Market looks at any structural inefficiencies in the food supply chain and capitalizes on them, getting the product at a discount and passing those savings on to the customer. These inefficiencies may include issues with sell-by date  some products must be on store shelves nine months before their sell by date  or an ineffectual mistake (like the olive oil company that works with Misfits Market and has a bad habit of attaching its labels upside down on the cans).

Where timing is concerned, Misifts Market doesn't have to play by the same rules as a distributor or grocery store, as it sends products directly to consumers, benefiting from a much faster logistical operation.

Alongside the funding announcement, Misfits Market is also announcing a new warehouse in Delanco, New Jersey that will allow the startup to double its capacity across the East Coast, the South and into the Midwest. This expands Misfits Market's delivery footprint to Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana, and the company has plans to launch in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Michigan soon.

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Image Credits: Misfits Market

Image Credits: Misfits Market

Obviously, the food industry doesn't want to be inefficient to the point of massive food waste. We've seen startups like Crisp look to solve these problems on the data science side. I asked Misfits Market founder and CEO Abhi Ramesh if improvements to supply chain efficiency and the continued growth of Misfits might create challenges ahead.

"Despite these technological advancements that are happening, the amount of product that goes to waste in absolute and relative terms is increasing every year," said Ramesh. "When you look at food waste over the past five years and compare that to the amount of food that went to waste in the prior five years, it's increased. It's one of those super long-term risks, but at least what we're seeing, and what the data is showing directionally around food waste, is that it's growing in magnitude, which means there will always be opportunities for us, or a version of us, to go in there and eliminate waste and provide affordability for customers."

A study by Boston Consulting Group expects food waste to increase in the next 10 years to 2.1 billion tons, worth $1.5 trillion, which represents a one-third increase in the next decade.

On the heels of the funding, Misfits will continue to build out the team, which has been growing rapidly in the midst of the pandemic. The company has hired 400 people since March, compared to 150 in the three-month period prior. The total team is 750 people, with an even split (51% male, 49% female) on gender. The executive team is 30% women and 20% racially diverse.

Misfits Market has raised a total of $101.5 million.
Kin Man Hui, San Antonio Express-News / Staff photographer

Since July 15, 17 H-E-B employees in San Antonio have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the grocery store's website. Some stores have also reported multiple infections since the start of the month.

So far in July, H-E-B has reported 86 employees who have contracted the coronavirus in San Antonio. Last month, more than 120 H-E-B employees were infected with COVID-19.
Madar said the college chose those programs because it felt students enrolled there had some of the best chances to get a good-paying job after leaving the program. That, and it was what WNCC could offer in the short timeframe the grant offers.

To basically be done spending the grant money by the end of the calendar year, and then to have all of the training done by March of 2021, thats pretty intense, Madar said. It came together really fast.

Students who receive the scholarship will go through the office of Career Pathways & Advising Director Tonya Hergenrader.

Hergenrader said that incoming students sometimes struggle with managing a career transition. She said that typically looks like a student having to balance going to class and working the job theyre trying to leave.

In this case, most of these people coming in who qualify for this scholarship have been laid off or furloughed or had a reduction in wages so it may not be as much of an issue for them, Hergenrader said.
Intel shares plunged Thursday after the company reported serious manufacturing problems with its next generation of microprocessor. The company suggested it might turn to its rivals to make new chips if Intel cannot make them in its own factories.

Intel said it is a year behind in developing its forthcoming 7-nanometer processors, an ominous sign after the company suffered years of delays producing its current generation of 10nm chips. The latest problems will result in a six-month delay in bringing the 7nm technology to market, according to Intel, which is now due late in 2022 or early 2023.

Investors were blindsided and Intels stock slid 10% in after-hours trading.

Intel touted strong second-quarter results  sales were up 20% despite the pandemic, well ahead of Wall Street expectations. But investors focused on the bad news about the 7nm chips and nearly every question on the companys quarterly analyst call was about Intels manufacturing woes.

Ross Seymore, who follows the chip industry from Deutsche Bank, told the company investors are frustrated by how long Intels manufacturing problems have continued.

Were not happy. Im not pleased with our 7nm process performance, CEO Bob Swan acknowledged at the end of Thursdays call after an hour of browbeating from investment analysts.

Earlier in the call, Swan said Intel had identified a defect mode in our 7nm process and insisted there are no fundamental roadblocks to the new technology.

Intel develops each new generation of chip technology at its Ronler Acres campus in Hillsboro, advancing computing power on a regular cadence called Moores Law.

The term, coined by Intel founder Gordon Moore, predicts exponential growth in computing power on a dependable timetable  driven by improvements in manufacturing technology that enable smaller features on each new generation of chips.

As those features approach the atomic level, though, it becomes more difficult to deliver those regular improvements. Its a challenge every company has been facing but Intel competitors  especially contract manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.  dont seem to have run into the same problems Intel has.

Last month, Apple announced it is dumping Intel chips from its Mac lineup of PCs and laptops. Continued production problems could prompt other manufacturers and data center operators to do the same.

On Thursday, Swan said Intel has developed contingency plans to outsource production of new chip designs to other manufacturers if it cannot deliver its own technology. Its a humbling admission from a company that long cherished its title as the worlds most advanced chipmaker.

Its not clear what that might mean for Oregon, where the company is one year into a multibillion-dollar expansion of its D1X research factory in Hillsboro. Intel is Oregons largest corporate employer, with 20,000 people working at its Washington County campuses.

But outsourcing production would certainly be less profitable for Intel and it could cost the company technical advantages it has historically enjoyed by coordinating its architecture design and manufacturing.

To the extent that we need to use somebody elses process technology, and we call those contingency plans, we will be prepared to do so, Swan said Thursday.

-- Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
The CIA has started delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, making good on a pledge made months ago. Rep. Adam Schiff (R-Calif.) tells On Background that doing so pulls the U.S. further into the conflict and diverts focus from national security interests. (The Washington Post)

The CIA has started delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, making good on a pledge made months ago. Rep. Adam Schiff (R-Calif.) tells On Background that doing so pulls the U.S. further into the conflict and diverts focus from national security interests. (The Washington Post)

The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials and Syrian figures. The shipments began streaming into the country over the past two weeks, along with separate deliveries by the State Department of vehicles and other gear  a flow of material that marks a major escalation of the U.S. role in Syrias civil war.

The arms shipments, which are limited to light weapons and other munitions that can be tracked, began arriving in Syria at a moment of heightened tensions over threats by President Obama to order missile strikes to punish the regime of Bashar al-Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons in a deadly attack near Damascus last month.

The arms are being delivered as the United States is also shipping new types of nonlethal gear to rebels. That aid includes vehicles, sophisticated communications equipment and advanced combat medical kits.

U.S. officials hope that, taken together, the weapons and gear will boost the profile and prowess of rebel fighters in a conflict that started about 21 / 2 years ago.

Although the Obama administration signaled months ago that it would increase aid to Syrian rebels, the efforts have lagged because of the logistical challenges involved in delivering equipment in a war zone and officials fears that any assistance could wind up in the hands of jihadists. Secretary of State John F. Kerry had promised in April that the nonlethal aid would start flowing in a matter of weeks.

Timeline: Unrest in Syria Two years after the first anti-government protests, conflict in Syria rages on. See the major events in the country's tumultuous uprising.

The delays prompted several senior U.S. lawmakers to chide the Obama administration for not moving more quickly to aid the Syrian opposition after promising lethal assistance in June. The criticism has grown louder amid the debate over whether Washington should use military force against the Syrian regime, with some lawmakers withholding support until the administration committed to providing the rebels with more assistance.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who has pressed the Obama administration to do more to help the rebels, said he felt embarrassed when he met with Syrians along the Turkish border three weeks ago.

It was humiliating, he said in an interview Wednesday night. The president had announced that we would be providing lethal aid, and not a drop of it had begun. They were very short on ammunition, and the weapons had not begun to flow.

The latest effort to provide aid is aimed at supporting rebel fighters who are under the command of Gen. Salim Idriss, according to officials, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because part of the initiative is covert. Idriss is the commander of the Supreme Military Council, a faction of the disjointed armed opposition.

U.S. officials, speaking about the provision of nonlethal aid, said they are determined to increase the cohesion and structure of the rebel fighting units.

This doesnt only lead to a more effective force, but it increases its ability to hold coalition groups together, said Mark S. Ward, the State Departments senior adviser on assistance to Syria, who coordinates nonlethal aid to rebels from southern Turkey. They see their leadership is having some impact.

U.S. officials decided to expand nonlethal assistance to Syrias armed rebels after they delivered more than 350,000 high-calorie U.S. military food packets through the Supreme Military Council in May. The distribution gave U.S. officials confidence that it was possible to limit aid to select rebel units in a battlefield where thousands of fighters share al-Qaedas ideology, U.S. officials said.

Khaled Saleh, a spokesman for the Syrian Opposition Coalition, said Washingtons revamped efforts are welcome but insufficient to turn the tide of the civil war between rebels and forces loyal to Assad.

The Syrian Military Council is receiving so little support that any support we receive is a relief, he said. But if you compare what we are getting compared to the assistance Assad receives from Iran and Russia, we have a long battle ahead of us.

Its better than nothing

While the State Department is coordinating nonlethal aid, the CIA is overseeing the delivery of weaponry and other lethal equipment to the rebels. An opposition official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss covert arms transfers, said U.S. intelligence personnel have begun delivering long-promised light weapons and ammunition to rebel groups in the past couple of weeks.

The weaponry doesnt solve all the needs the guys have, but its better than nothing, the opposition official said. He added that Washington remains reluctant to give the rebels what they most desire: antitank and antiaircraft weapons.

The CIA shipments are to flow through a network of clandestine bases in Turkey and Jordan that were expanded over the past year as the agency sought to help Middle Eastern allies, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, direct weapons to moderate Syrian rebel forces.

The CIA declined to comment.

The distribution of vehicles and communications equipment is part of an effort to direct U.S. aid to Syrian rebels in a more assertive, targeted manner. Before Ward established a team of about two dozen diplomats and aid workers in southern Turkey, Washington was doing little more than paying for truckloads of food and medicine for Syrian rebels. U.S. officials concede that the shipments often went to the most accessible, and not necessarily the neediest, places.

Boosting moderate factions

In addition to boosting support for rebels under the command of Idriss, who speaks fluent English and taught at a military academy before defecting from the Syrian army last year, U.S. officials in southern Turkey are using aid to promote emerging moderate leaders in towns and villages in rebel-held areas. Across much of the north, Syrians have begun electing local councils and attempting to rebuild communities devastated by war.

Wards team  working primarily out of hotel lobbies  has spent the past few months studying the demographics and dynamics of communities where extremists are making inroads. Targeted U.S. aid, he said, can be used to empower emerging local leaders who are moderate and to jump-start basic services while dimming the appeal of extremists.

We feel were able to get these local councils off to a good start, said Ward, a veteran U.S. Agency for International Development official who has worked in Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan. We vet individuals who are getting our assistance to make sure they are not affiliated with terror organizations.

The assistance to local communities includes training in municipal management as well as basic infrastructure such as garbage trucks, ambulances and firetrucks. The areas receiving this aid are carefully selected, U.S. officials said, noting that extremist groups, including Jabhat al-Nusra, are delivering services to communities newly under rebel control.

If you see new firetrucks and ambulances in places where al-Nusra is trying to win hearts and minds, this might not be a coincidence, said a U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to explain details of a sensitive strategy.

The initiatives are part of a $250 million effort to support moderate factions of the Syrian opposition. Of that, the United States has earmarked $26.6 million in aid for the Supreme Military Council. The delivery that began this week does not include items that the rebels have long identified as priorities: night-

vision goggles and body armor.

Mohammed Ghanem, director of government relations at the Syrian American Council, which supports the opposition, said the U.S. initiatives are steps in the right direction after years of inaction and misguided policies.

Weve definitely seen a structural and conceptual evolution in terms of their understanding of whats going on on the ground, he said in an interview. On the other hand, were always lagging behind. Were not leading. Developments are always like six months ahead of us.

Ghanem said the effect of U.S. assistance is limited by the number of proxies that Washington must use to deliver it. U.S. officials in Turkey rely on a network of contractors and subcontractors to deliver the aid.

Ward said he hopes the assistance efforts will position the United States to have strong relationships in a postwar Syria.

When you finally have a free Syrian government, you will know them and they will know us, Ward said. We will have been working with them week after week, month after month. These wont be strangers.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 11:06:11|Editor: huaxia

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LONDON, July 22 (Xinhua) -- London's recent moves concerning Hong Kong reflect Britain's colonial attitude towards the city and its misconception of "one country, two systems" principle, a British expert has said.

"The problem, I think, with the British attitude is ... it still thinks of itself as having some stake in Hong Kong," British scholar and political commentator Martin Jacques told Xinhua in a recent phone interview.

The China expert, who is also a historian, noted that it was the colonial mentality that made Britons believe "we have some kind of responsibility for Hong Kong."

"To some extent, it's not just responsibility," and the attitude is not new, not only with Hong Kong but also with other former British colonies, said Jacques, senior fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge.

In recent weeks, London has repeatedly accused Beijing of violating the "one country, two systems" principle and the Sino-British Joint Declaration by passing and imposing the national security law for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).

China has sovereignty over Hong Kong after it was handed over in 1997, and the "one country, two systems" principle, which is set out in HKSAR Basic Law, was introduced by China on its own territory, he stressed.

"In any case, the idea of 'one country, two systems,' which I think is a brilliant idea, had nothing to do with Britain," the scholar said.

"But they still seem to think that they have a right to determine what should happen in Hong Kong," he added.

Jacques said the enactment of the national security law for Hong Kong would never be the end of "one country, two systems," but rather the end of the era that other countries could try and undermine it.

Commenting on the situation in Hong Kong since last year, he said, "The riots were really damaging Hong Kong and damaging China as well. I don't think any country in the West would tolerate that level of violence and instability."

"Eventually, this was the only solution to try and restore some order and stability in Hong Kong," Jacques continued, referring to China's recent enactment of national security for the city.

The scholar, also the author of the best-selling "When China Rules the World," believes the effect of the legislation has been "immediately a calm of the situation."

He also said that after the order is restored in Hong Kong, the financial city will continue to prosper and even do better.

"Hong Kong's future lies not in looking westwards," Jacques said on his Twitter account, noting that Hong Kong also needs reform based on the lines of China's economic transformation: being competitive, innovative, and broad-based. Enditem
Gehlot said that though he hopes some of the dissident Congress MLAs will be present in the Rajasthan Assembly, without them too, his government has a majority in the House

Jaipur: Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday said his government will soon prove its majority in the assembly, hours before he met the Governor with whom he is said to have discussed calling a session of the House.

"The assembly session will take place soon. The majority is with us, all Congress MLAs are united," Gehlot told reporters.

He hoped that some of the dissident MLAs, who are led by sacked deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot, will also attend the session when it is called very soon.

"Without them too, we have a complete majority and will go to the House on the basis of this majority, and we will prove it," he added.

About three hours after this interaction with the media, Gehlot met Governor Kalraj Mishra at the Raj Bhawan. Congress sources said the two discussed the possibility of calling a session of the Vidhan Sabha.

The indication that the Gehlot government is preparing for a floor test in the Assembly comes a day ahead of the expected pronouncement of a high court order on the disqualification notices sent by the Speaker to the rebel MLAs.

But any high court order will be subject to the outcome of a petition by the Rajasthan Speaker that the Supreme Court is now hearing, the three-judge bench has made it clear.

The 19 dissident MLAs had filed a petition in the high court, challenging the disqualification notices.

Gehlot said those who went to court are the ones who were wrong and had been misguided.

They are calling us and saying that they are unable to come out, he said, hinting at reports that the rebel MLAs are camping together, just like the ones in his camp. Bouncers are deployed, he alleged.

"I hope that some of them, when they come out, will vote with us," the chief minister said, adding that his government is in majority even without their support.

Gehlot said the coronavirus pandemic and political issues will be discussed in the assembly session.

Including the dissidents who face the possibility of disqualification, the Congress has 107 MLAs in the 200-member state assembly and the BJP 72.

Targeting Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, the chief minister said the audio clips which indicate an alleged plot to topple his government can be sent abroad for forensic tests.

Without taking the minister's name, Gehlot questioned why he is not coming forward to give a voice sample.

Rejecting the charge that the audio clips are fabricated, he said they can be sent to any forensic science laboratory for examination.

"We can send it for FSL testing to America if they have no trust in the Rajasthan government," he said, adding that the Congress also did not trust the Centre.

Shekhawat has rejected the Congress charge that it is his voice in one of the three clips. The party has accused the BJP of engineering a plot to lure Congress MLAs away.

When asked about the raids in the state, Gehlot claimed that the central agencies were acting on the directions of Union Home Minister Amit Shah under Modi raj .

The Enforcement Directorate recently searched the premises of his brother as part of a nationwide investigation into an alleged fertiliser export scam. "We are not afraid of the raids and our mission is not going to stop," he said.

"The BJP policies and programmes are going to ruin the country," he said, adding, "They are fascist people and are murdering democracy."
The COVID-19 National Trust Fund has mobilised GH53,911,249.87.

Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, the Minister of Finance said this at the 2020 mid-year budget review in Parliament on Thursday.

He said a total of GH32,820,564.97 was utilized out of the amount and expressed gratitude to the donors for the support.

The Minister said the Fund transferred GH10,257,360.00 into the COVID-19 Private Sector Fund for acquisition of Personal Protection Equipment (PPEs) and other medical items to resource the country's frontline workers.

Mr Ofori-Atta said the National Commission for Civic Education was also supported with GH2,500,000.00 to enhance COVID-19-related public sensitisation.

To improve decision making, he noted that the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) was provided with GH297,920.00 to conduct studies on the impact of the pandemic in 80 districts across the country.

Mr Ofori-Atta said further funds were released to purchase food items, vehicles, PPE, and medical supplies to 32 other key institutions.

He said,A significant quantity of the PPE were distributed to the Ghana Health Service, the COVID-19 Care Management Team, and five health institutions to support the fight against the pandemic.

The Fund also distributed food items to the aged, vulnerable, and needy persons through Help Age Ghana, and five care homes and shelters. In addition, 10 saloon cars and two pick-up vehicles were provided to four Treatment/Isolation Centres, six Laboratories and COVID-19 Care Management Teams to enhance surveillance, testing, contact tracing, and management of cases.

The Minister said to address the peculiar needs of Pantang Hospital, PPE and one ventilator were also provided.

GNA
Bloomberg photo by Mark Kauzlarich.

President Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, was ordered freed from prison after a U.S. judge ruled he was locked up in retaliation over a planned book criticizing Trump.

Cohen, who pleaded guilty in August 2018 to crimes tied to his work for Trump, sued the government on Monday alleging his deal to serve the rest of his three-year term at home due to the coronavirus pandemic was withdrawn because he refused to sign away his right to communicate with the media, including through books.
After more than three years evading French prosecutors, Chilean police on Wednesday began the extradition to France of Nicolas Zepeda, accused of murdering his Japanese ex-girlfriend in the French city of Besancon in 2016.

Police escorted the 29-year-old from the seaside resort of Vina del Mar, 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of Santiago, where he had been under house arrest, at 8:41 pm (0041 GMT Thursday) to begin the journey to the airport ahead of schedule.

He is expected to be handed over to French authorities at the Santiago international airport, and is due to board an Air France flight at 2:55 pm (1855 GMT) Thursday bound for Paris.

Narumi Kurosaki, then 21, vanished from her university in Besancon, near the French Alps in December 2016 after eating with Zepeda.

He had returned to Chile by the time her disappearance was reported days later.

French investigators believe he killed Kurosaki in a jealous rage -- but her body was never found, despite extensive searches.

Zepeda has been under house arrest with police surveillance in Vina del Mar.

His extradition will end a legal process in Chile that began in March when authorities finally accepted a request from French prosecutors to hand him over.

The process was delayed and complicated by the novel coronavirus pandemic and the closing of borders.

This will be the third extradition of a Chilean to France, and comes even though French authorities refuse to send former Chilean guerrilla Ricardo Palma Salamanca back to his homeland to stand trial for the 1991 murder of right-wing senator Jaime Guzman, who was close to several members of President Sebastian Pinera's cabinet.

"The Zepeda case is of a criminal nature and gender violence is not a political trial nor does it compromise the political relations between Chile and France," analyst Rene Jara, from Santiago University, told AFP.

"The priorities have changed and what's given preference now is maintaining relationships with strategic partners," added Jara.

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'We will never forgive'

The plane is expected to land at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris at 10:55 am (1255 GMT) on Friday.

Zepeda, the only suspect in the case, will then be transferred to Besancon to stand trial.

"Three years have passed since my beloved daughter disappeared ... I pray that Nicolas will be tried in France, I would give my life for this," said Kurosaki's mother Taeko in a moving letter presented to the court in Chile.

"We will never forgive Nicolas, who took Narumi's life and her from the whole family."

According to investigators, Zepeda went to Besancon at the beginning of December 2016 to see his former girlfriend.

On the evening of December 4, the pair entered her residence together.

French prosecutors say several students heard "howls of terror, cries" that night, but nobody called the police.

Zepeda, the son of a wealthy Chilean family, met Kurosaki in Japan in 2014.

At the time of her disappearance, the pair had broken up and she was in a new relationship, which prosecutors said angered Zepeda, who threatened Kurosaki in an online video he later removed.

Investigators said that in the days before her disappearance, Zepeda flew to France, hired a car and drove to Besancon to meet her.

On the way, they said he stopped to buy matches, flammable liquid and bleach at a supermarket.

Zepeda was questioned in April last year by a Chilean judge in the presence of French investigators. He denies any hand in Kurosaki's disappearance.

While the case has generated little interest in Chile it has been followed closely in both France and Japan.

Zepeda is due to be represented in France by Jacqueline Laffont, who once defended former France president Nicolas Sarkozy in a corruption case.

(AFP)
Less than a year after closing Dressbarn stores in Connecticut and nationally, Ascena Retail Group declared bankruptcy on Thursday, with plans to shutter its Catherines apparel chain and with additional closures to come across some 2,700 locations spanning the Ann Taylor, Justice, Lane Bryant, Loft and Lou & Grey brands.

Ascena has its headquarters office in Mahwah, N.J., with the companys history dating back to the 1962 launch of Dress Barn in Stamford by Roslyn Jaffe. David Jaffe and Elise Jaffe are still among its largest shareholders.

In 2015, the company took on additional debt for its $2.1 billion acquisition of Ann Inc. which dates to an initial Ann Taylor store that opened in 1954 in New Haven. Ann Taylor maintains a store to this day on Chapel Street in downtown New Haven, as well as at the Danbury Fair mall, the Westfarms mall in Farmington, and on Elm Street in New Canaan.

With its own offices on Elm Street, the New Canaan fund Stadium Capital Management is listed in bankruptcy documents as the largest shareholder of Ascena with nearly 10 percent of the companys stock. Ascena shares plunged nearly 20 percent Thursday to 64 cents, having entered the year trading at about $7.50.

Ascena indicated Thursday it has yet to get all of its secured lenders on board with its bankruptcy plan which would eliminate $1 billion of some $12.5 billion in debt it owed at last report, with assets totaling $13.7 billion.

Bankruptcy documents list mall giant Simon Property Group as the largest holder of unsecured debt, at $31.6 million, with Brookfield Properties owed about half that amount. Other creditors include Tanger Properties, which has an outlet center at Foxwoods Resort Casino; Macerich, which runs Danbury Fair; Stamford Town Center co-owner Taubman Centers; and Westfield, whose malls include Westfield Trumbull.

Ascena indicated it is negotiating with landlords for new lease terms that in turn will determine how many other stores are to close, but promised a significant impact on its Justice chain that has more than 800 locations nationally including at the Connecticut Post mall in Milford, Danbury Fair, Stamford Town Center and Westfield Trumbull, as well as the Westbrook Outlets.

An Ascena spokesperson did not respond immediately Thursday to a query on how many employees the company has brought back from furloughs for stores that have reopened. The company completed in February the closure of some 650 Dressbarn locations nationally, including stores in Danbury, Norwalk, Shelton, Orange, Branford, Wallingford, Westbrook and Southbury.

Australia-based City Chic Collective submitted a bid to acquire the rights to the Catherines brand in an auction process that is ongoing.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Munich, Germany  Thu, July 23, 2020 09:00 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668a7013 2 World Wirecard,Fraud,fraud-cases,fraud-suspect,payment-service-providers,payment-system Free

German prosecutors said Wednesday they have arrested the former chief executive and two board members of Wirecard for "commercial fraud", saying investigations show that trickery was already happening in 2015.

The widening probe suggests that banks in Germany and Japan as well as other investors were conned into providing funds of up to 3.2 billion euros ($3.7 billion) to Wirecard, said prosecutors, adding that the sums are now "very likely lost because of the insolvency of Wirecard".

Described by Germany's finance minister as an "unparalleled scandal", the collapse of the payments provider in June shocked the nation and has since snowballed into a political hot potato for the government.

Ex-CEO Markus Braun, who had already been arrested before being freed on bail over market manipulation, and the board members were detained on Wednesday in Munich, prosecutors said.

All three, plus another suspect who was identified only as the managing director of Cardsystems Middle East FZ-LLC, a Dubai-based subsidiary of Wirecard, are suspected of "inflating the balance sheet and volume of revenues by falsifying the company's intake."

"The company was to be presented as financially strong and attractive to investors and clients, so that loans could be obtained from banks and other investors on a regular basis, as well as keep it generating its own income," said Munich prosecutors.

"In reality, it was already clear to the accused by the end of 2015 at the latest, that Wirecard group was making losses with its actual businesses."

Urging other participants in the massive fraud to come forward in exchange for leniency in sentencing for any convictions, prosecutors warned however that "the value of information" is diminishing as the investigations progress.

The huge scam had unraveled in June when auditors Ernst & Young said they were unable to find 1.9 billion euros of cash in the company's accounts.

The missing cash makes up a quarter of the balance sheet.

The sum was supposedly held to cover risks in trading carried out by third parties on Wirecard's behalf and was meant to be sitting in trustee accounts at two Philippine banks.

But the Philippines' central bank has said the cash never entered its monetary system and both Asian banks, BDO and BPI, denied having a relationship with Wirecard.

The German-based group was finally forced to admit the sum likely did not exist.
Anyone who is interested knows in their heart that the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, on behalf of the government, bugged the cabinet room and other offices of the Timor Leste government in 2004 to give Australia a major edge over our impoverished neighbour in negotiations for the ownership of massive underwater oil and helium reserves. The two countries had solemnly agreed to negotiate in good faith.

Pressing for an open trial: lawyer Bernard Collaery. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Coyly, the federal government has neither confirmed nor denied the bugging. But if there was no bugging, it would not breach official secrets laws to say there was. The operation was conducted under cover of an aid project  a cruel, modern take on the Trojan horse. The bugging was almost certainly a crime in Timor Leste and, according to written advice of a former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Nick Cowdery, it was likely also criminal under Australian law.

Yet the government is prosecuting a former ASIS officer, Witness K, who was troubled by the operation, for disclosing secret information. It is also prosecuting his lawyer, the former ACT attorney-general Bernard Collaery, for using the information provided by K to help Timor Leste overturn the deal on the boundary line, on the basis that the negotiations with Australia were tainted by the bugging.

A certificate was needed from the federal attorney-general for the prosecutions of Collaery and K to proceed. For over two years, the former attorney-general, George Brandis, had sat on the request for the certificate. His successor, the current Attorney-General, Christian Porter, was not so squeamish. Collaerys case is now moving to trial in the ACT Supreme Court. Ahead of that, Porter has issued certificates to court seeking that much of Collaerys trial be held in secret. And the government recently passed laws requiring the judge to give greatest weight to the Attorney-Generals view on the secrecy issue.
Russia's militarization of annexed Crimea provokes tension in the Black and Azov Seas.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Taran said this during the last meeting of the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation (FSC) under the countrys Chair on Wednesday, July 22, Crimea.Realities reports.

"I would like to put a clear and decisive emphasis on one issue - Russia's aggression against Ukraine remains the main problem of our national and regional security," Taran stressed.

He also recalled that Russia creates obstacles to free navigation in the region.

In addition, the OSCE participating States reaffirmed their unwavering support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. They expressed concern over the sudden large-scale military exercises conducted by Russia on July 17-21 this year.

As reported, Russias armed aggression against Ukraine began on February 20, 2014, when the armed forces of the Russian Federation seized part of the territory of Ukraine - the Crimean Peninsula. Subsequently, Russian regular troops and Russian-controlled militants occupied certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine.

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A Queensland doctor who gave false information on his return from Victoria to get around mandatory quarantine requirements has been fined thousands of dollars.

The detail comes as Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young declared a further NSW hotspot in response to a growing cluster of cases.

Police allege the 38-year-old Rockhampton doctor had travelled from Victoria into Queensland on July 12, after the entire state was declared a hotspot, and gave "untrue" details on his border declaration.

The man, who a police spokesperson confirmed flew in via Brisbane Airport, was fined $4003 the following day and directed into hotel quarantine for 14 days.
Graphic: Yahoo Finance/Verizon

The world of work has changed forever. From the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, to the overdue focus on gaining racial equality in business and wider society, the way in which we live and work will no longer be the same as before.

These huge sea changes in society have rapidly escalated over 2020 and have forced business leaders across the world to navigate challenging conversations on what corporate social responsibility (CSR) looks like today.

Its for this reason Yahoo Finance and Verizon Business have teamed up to present a six-part podcast series designed to inform and educate professionals with alternative perspectives on CSR in times of crisis.

Hosted by Lianna Brinded, head of Yahoo Finance UK and Xavier White, CSR and innovation marketing manager for Verizon Business, each episode will be a courageous conversation on topics such as how businesses need to understand and help support the mental health of black, indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) staff as well as the importance of fostering an environment of diversity, inclusion, and ultimately belonging.

The first episode is with Tricia Driver, founder of diversity and inclusion consultancy A New Normal, who gave her insights in a wide-ranging conversation in the new #ChamberBreakers podcast series.

Quite often people think of inclusion and diversity as being interchangeable and synonymous with one another,  says Driver in the new episode, while also talking at length about fostering a sense of belonging.

For me, diversity is all of the richness and that difference that we bring as human beings and inclusion is how you make that mix work. Those two things don't work in a business or in society without one another. There is a tendency to think that inclusion is exactly the same thing as an absence of exclusion. And that is just not the case in any world.

READ MORE: #ChamberBreakers: How business leaders can navigate CSR during a crisis

At the heart of this is understanding how in any situation  including the coronavirus pandemic  people may be going through the same event but are experiencing it hugely differently.

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For example, those from ethnic minority backgrounds are disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and racial inequality has also been put in the spotlight, particularly for the Black community, following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in the US. This could have a huge mental health impact on staff and if companies do not have a great sense of inclusion or belonging, this could hit staff mental health further.

Theres an enormous impact to that and some of the marginalised groups that we talk about. If you dont see visible role models at work, its hard to be yourself, said Driver. You can check out her practical tips for business leaders on how to tackle this on the podcast.

Understanding privilege and the power of advocacy

The lack of diversity in workplaces, particularly in more senior roles, means that allies and advocates are more important than ever to bring about change. The key is understanding how to move from being an actor, to an ally, and then an accomplice for change. Understanding privilege is the first step in becoming an ally and advocate in order to effect change in a company.

The first and most important thing is listen to the groups that you say you want to support but also dont think about how it impacts you (personally), said Driver. As a straight, white woman, Driver says its important to recognise what privilege you have but not get hung up in your own guilt otherwise youre not truly listening to others that need help.

Dont dispute what they are saying and dont doubt what they are telling you  you just need to listen and be guided by those people in those groups on what they need, she added.

The industry gold standard report on diversity by global consultancy McKinsey looked at data from more than 1,000 large companies, across 15 countries, and it showed that the business case remains robust but also that the relationship between diversity on executive teams and the likelihood of financial outperformance has strengthened over time.

However, gender and ethnic diversity in leadership teams has slowed over the last five years, meaning those who are at the top and generally in a position of power are still predominantly white men. Companies that were in the bottom quartile for both gender and ethnic diversity were 27% more likely to underperform on profitability than all other companies.

Chart: McKinsey

So not only is addressing, diversity, inclusion, and belonging essential for CSR, it is a business imperative too.

She adds, if companies dont build out incisive CSR plans, the knock-on effect will be felt imminently.

People will not forget how you made them feel during this crisis, says Driver. It might be an employer's marketplace for a while. But at some point we will get back to a place where the employees are the ones that have the choice  and they will choose to vote with their feet.



The six-part podcast #ChamberBreakers is out every Thursday, so dont forget to check out Yahoo Finance UK for the accompanying article, as well as clicking, subscribing, and rating to the podcast here.

Next weeks episode with feature Suki Sandhu OBE, founder and CEO of executive search firm Audeliss and diversity and inclusion membership organisation Involve, about the importance of understanding intersectionality and CSR.
OAKLAND, Calif.  The FBI believes that a Chinese researcher, accused of visa fraud for hiding her affiliation with the Chinese military, has been holed up in the Chinese consulate in San Francisco for a month, according to court filings.

The filings in U.S. District Court in San Francisco said that Juan Tang, who worked at University of California, Davis, falsely claimed on her visa application that she had not served in the Chinese military.

But investigators found photos of her in a Chinese military uniform and discovered she had worked as a researcher at Chinas Air Force Military Medical University.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation questioned her on June 20 and afterward she went to the consulate where the FBI believes she has remained.

She was charged with visa fraud on June 26. U.S. law enforcement cannot enter a foreign embassy or consulate unless invited, and certain top officials such as ambassadors have diplomatic immunity.

The Chinese consulate in San Francisco and Tang could not be immediately reached for comment.

The U.S. State Department did not reply to a request for comment.

The news, first reported by Axios, comes as U.S.-China tensions flare, with the United States giving China 72 hours to close its consulate in Houston amid accusations of spying.

Prosecutors have argued against bail for another Chinese researcher, Chen Song, also arrested for visa fraud.

Song worked at Stanford University conducting neurological research, the court filings said.

The court filings also mention two other recently charged Chinese researchers who worked at University of California, San Francisco and Duke University.

The FBI has warned universities for years about the risk of intellectual property theft by foreign researchers, and the United States has tightened restrictions on student visas as well.
A heart stopping video of two brothers jumping from a burning building is going viral. Thankfully, they were caught by rescuers.

The two reportedly jumped from the third-storey window of a burning apartment building in France. The dramatic footage of the rescue comes from the city of Grenoble; the incident took place on Tuesday.

Twitter

Also Read: Woman Seems 'Stuck In The Air' For A While Before Falling And People Are Trying To Guess Why



According to CTV News, a neighbour in a nearby apartment complex made a video of the incident. The children, three and 10, were apparently locked in the apartment by the parents who left them without keys.

The video starts with the outside view of the apartment, engulfed in thick smoke. First the 10-year-old lowered his brother, trusting the army of his neighbours to catch him. He eventually leaves the brothers arm who falls dramatically but is thankfully caught by the neighbours. One can hear a woman scream as the boy dropped. The moment is heart stopping. Then the elder brother got out of the window and trusting his neighbours again, jumped and was caught in the arms.

Dozens of firefighters also rushed to the scene to extinguish the fire. Seventeen people were injured during the incident, according to local media. The cause of the fire is not known yet.

#COVID19 #accident #grenoble ( Ce mardi il a ya quelques heures dans lapres midi 2 enfants ont saute par la fenetre rattraper par les habitants  pic.twitter.com/xzIYpL4b3Y  oumse-dia (@oumsedia69) July 21, 2020

25-year-old student named Athoumani Walid, a rescuer, suffered a broken arm while catching the children. He rushed to the building when he heard shouting.

"I saw the two children screaming. They were at the window on the third floor. There was a lot of smoke, flames, explosions, even inside the building. The children were scared. They were crying, he reportedly said.

Also Read: Woman Hiker Gets Caught By Helicopter Rescuer After Falling Down Cliff In California

Twitter

Grenoble's mayor, Eric Piolle, thanked the people who made the heroic rescue. In a Facebook post he wrote, I would like to congratulate the inhabitants of Villeneuve who made a heroic rescue of two children trapped in their burning apartment today. Hand in hand, they allowed the two little ones to get out unharmed from this drama. True to the tradition of solidarity and mutual aid of Grenoble, particularly perennial at Villeneuve all year long as we saw during the lockdown (food distribution, neighbourhood mutual assistance, concert on the balcony...), it was together that they were able to rescue the kids. Wishing a very good recovery to those who were slightly injured during this impromptu rescue.

The rescuers really need to be lauded for their efforts in saving the kids.
NEW YORK, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Energy Harbor Corporation ("Kingold" or the "Company") (OTCMKTS: ENGH). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at [email protected] or 888-476-6529, ext. 7980.

The investigation concerns whether Energy Harbor and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices.

[Click here for information about joining the class action]

On July 21, 2020, the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrested Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder in connection with an alleged illegal scheme involving bribery in return for Householder's championing of a state-funded bailout of two nuclear power plants operated by Energy Harbor.

On this news, Energy Harbor's stock price fell $7.35 per share, or 20.79%, to close at $28.00 per share on July 21, 2020.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com.

CONTACT:

Robert S. Willoughby

Pomerantz LLP

[email protected]

888-476-6529 ext. 7980

SOURCE Pomerantz LLP

Related Links

http://www.pomerantzlaw.com


Representative image

Bharti AXA General Insurance July 23 said it has bagged Rs 800-crore crop insurance mandate from the governments of Maharashtra and Karnataka to insure their farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY).

The insurer has a three-year period mandate to implement PMFBY in six districts of Maharashtra and three districts of Karnataka.

Farmers in the districts of Ahmednagar, Nashik, Chandrapur, Solapur, Jalgaon and Satara in Maharashtra and Dharwad, Mysuru and Kodagu in Karnataka can insure their Kharif crops till July 31 through their respective banks or authorised representatives of the company.

Sanjeev Srinivasan, Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director, Bharti AXA General Insurance said, We aim to provide insurance coverage and financial support to the farmers in the failure of any of the notified crop as a result of natural calamities. Apart from implementing crop insurance for farmers in both the states, we will also capitalize on innovative technologies and digital capabilities for sharing relevant information about the PMFBY and ensure speedy and hassle-free claim assessments in the respective districts.

Bharti AXA General Insurance is a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and global insurance firm AXA.

Launched in 2016, PMFBY compensates farmers if any of the notified crops fail due to natural calamities, pests and diseases. The scheme seeks not just to insulate farmers from income shocks, but also encourage them to adopt modern agricultural practices.

Under the partnership with the state governments, the crop insurance would cover the farmers in these districts of Maharashtra and Karnataka against any losses in crop yields on area approach basis arising out of a wide range of external risk.

These risks include flood, dry spells, drought, landslides, cyclones, hurricane, pest and diseases and localized calamities among others. It offers insurance cover for all stages of the crop cycle including pre-sowing to harvesting and post-harvest risks.

Bharti AXA General Insurance has been participating in the government sponsored crop insurance schemes even in the past and has insured 2.84 million farmers from different states Bihar, Karnataka, Gujarat, Jharkhand and Maharashtra.

Unlike previous schemes, PMFBY is open for both farmers who have taken loans (loanee) as well as those who have not (non-loanee). The scheme covers food crops (cereals, millets and pulses), oilseeds as well as horticultural crops.

Here, farmers pay 2 percent of sum insured as the premium for Kharif crops while it is 1.5 percent of the sum insured for Rabi crops.
Obsession: Our attachment to our mobile phones is dominating our lives

RESEARCHERS have raised concerns that data concerning Android users who have downloaded Covid-19 tracing apps is not being adequately protected.

A report by Prof Doug Leith and Dr Stephen Farrell, at Trinity College Dublin, has found Android users may be vulnerable to having their information shared due to a Google Play Services component of the apps.

The researchers described this as extremely troubling from a privacy viewpoint after discovering that Google Play Services contacts Google servers roughly every 10-20 minutes, allowing fine-grained location tracking via IP address.

Prof Leith, Chair of Computer Systems at Trinity College Dublin, said the contact-tracing app for Android phones are far from private.

This is the first study of its type on the privacy of contact tracing apps actually deployed in the 'wild'. We found that the public health authority component of these apps generally shares little data and is quite private.

However, on Android devices we found that the Google component of the apps is far from private and continuously shares a great deal of data with Google servers.

The report examines data transmitted to back-end servers by contact tracing apps deployed by health authorities in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Spain, Poland, Latvia and Ireland.

The researchers explained that the apps consist of two separate components: a client app managed by the national public health authority and the Google/Apple Exposure Notification service, which, on Android devices, is part of Google Play Services.

They found Google Play also shares the phone IMEI, hardware serial number, SIM serial number, handset phone number and user email address with Google, together with fine-grained data on the apps running on the phone.

Dr Farrell and Dr Leith have deemed the app to be incompatible with a recommendation for population-wide usage.

They say the Irish app sets a type of supercookie that allows connections made by the same phone to be linked together.

The experts said other European apps do not this and are recommending it be removed.

Prof Leith added: "Unlike most other apps the HSE app also encourages people to opt in to collection of metrics. Thats not necessarily a problem in itself but these metrics include a mix of operational and health-related data and we recommend that these different types of data be kept securely separate from one another so that access can be separately controlled.

"When first installed the HSE app uses Google's SafetyNet service and so shares data with Google, including the phone hardware serial number. Most of the other European apps dont do this (the Polish app is the exception) and we recommend the HSE app should avoid it too.

We also found that the Danish app fails to verify it is securely communicating with the correct server and so, for example, the act of uploading keys following a positive test phone call might be logged by an employer's network security devices.

"We recommend that they fix this and also that they make their app open source (only the Danish and Latvian apps are closed source). We also found the Latvian and Polish contact tracing apps make use of Googles Firebase service and so share data with Google. We recommend that this be discontinued."

Prof Leith and Dr Farrell say they had informed Google, the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the developers of SmitteStop, Apturi Covid and ProteGO Safe, of the findings and delayed publication to allow them to respond.

Dr Farrell said if there were a European league of Covid-19 tracing apps, "Ireland might be near the middle of the table at the moment," but that Google "deserve a yellow card for the privacy-invasive way in which they seem to have implemented their part of the overall tracing system."

In a statement responding to the researcher's claims, the HSE said it welcomes any evidence based research and opportunities to improve the app, adding that "it is also very important not to conflate issues noted by researchers with how Google or Apple enable all their users apps through their stores, with the functionality of the HSEs COVID Tracker app."

The HSE said that the app "puts users privacy and security first and foremost."

It added: "We have been guided by feedback from the Data Protection Commission on Data Protection throughout development of the app. The data processors are listed in the DPIA. We have and will continue to take this advice to ensure the app is compliant with European data protection legislation.

"Google and Apple have provided assurances to governments and health services around the world that they do not have access to personal data through the Exposure Notification System that they co-developed. They have further committed to decommission this functionality once the pandemic is over."

A spokesperson for Google said: "In keeping with our privacy commitments for the Exposure Notification API, Google does not receive information about the end user, location data, or information about any other devices the user has been in proximity of.
July 26 marks the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Starting on that date, Disability Network of Mid-Michigan will join a consortium of disability organizations in and around Michigan in hosting daily online events that examine disability rights, disability justice and accessibility. The celebration, "ADA30," will continue through Sept. 27.

"We are thrilled to be a part of this wonderful series of events from its conception," said DNMM Executive Director Kelly PeLong. "The disability community has leveraged their creativity and many talents to overcome tremendous hurdles during the COVID-19 pandemic. Similar to how we've adjusted our service provision by incorporating virtual events and meetings, the original in-person celebration of the ADA's anniversary has been transformed into a virtual 'ADA Every Day' event that we hope will offer participants a unique and safe way to learn about and celebrate the advances in accessibility and inclusion we've made since the passage of the ADA."
Company captures value by leveraging flexibility of its operations

Cenovus SAGD project

View of a Cenovus steam-assisted gravity drainage oil sands project in northern Alberta.

View of a Cenovus steam-assisted gravity drainage oil sands project in northern Alberta.

Wolf Lake natural gas plant

Cenovuss Wolf Lake Natural Gas Plant in the Deep Basin in west central Alberta.

Cenovuss Wolf Lake Natural Gas Plant in the Deep Basin in west central Alberta.

Cenovus's Foster Creek project in northern Alberta

Steam generators at Cenovuss Foster Creek project in northern Alberta.

Steam generators at Cenovuss Foster Creek project in northern Alberta.

CALGARY, Alberta, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cenovus Energy Inc. (TSX: CVE) (NYSE: CVE) remained focused on financial resilience in the second quarter of 2020 and used the flexibility of its assets and marketing strategy to adapt quickly to the changing external environment. This positioned the company to weather the sharp decline in benchmark crude oil prices in April by reducing volumes at its oil sands operations and storing the mobilized oil in its reservoirs for production in an improved price environment. While Cenovuss financial results were impacted by the weak prices early in the quarter, the company captured value by quickly ramping up production when Western Canadian Select (WCS) prices increased almost tenfold from April to an average of C$46.03 per barrel (bbl) in June. As a result of this decision, Cenovus reached record volumes at its Christina Lake oil sands project in June and achieved free funds flow for the month of more than $290 million.



We view the second quarter as a period of transition, with April as the low point of the downturn and the first signs of recovery taking hold in May and June, said Alex Pourbaix, Cenovus President & Chief Executive Officer. That said, we expect the commodity price environment to remain volatile for some time. We believe the flexibility of our assets and our low cost structure position us to withstand a continued period of low prices if necessary. And were ready to play a significant role in helping to lead Canadas economic recovery.

Financial & production summary (for the period ended June 30) 2020

Q2 2019

Q2 Financial ($ millions, except per share amounts) Cash from (used in) operating activities -834 1,275 Adjusted funds flow1, 2 -462 1,082 Per share diluted -0.38 0.88 Free funds flow1, 2 -609 834 Operating earnings (loss)1 -414 267 Per share diluted -0.34 0.22 Net earnings (loss) -235 1,784 Per share diluted -0.19 1.45 Capital investment 147 248 % change Production3 (before royalties) Oil sands (bbls/d) 373,189 344,973 8 Conventional liquids3,4 (bbls/d) 26,861 26,417 2 Total liquids3,4 (bbls/d) 400,050 371,390 8 Total natural gas (MMcf/d) 392 432 -9 Total production4 (BOE/d) 465,415 443,318 5

1 Adjusted funds flow, free funds flow and operating earnings/loss are non-GAAP measures. See Advisory.

2 The prior period has been reclassified to conform with the current period treatment of non-cash inventory write-downs.

3 Includes oil and natural gas liquids (NGLs).

4 Cenovuss Deep Basin segment has been renamed the Conventional segment and now includes the companys Marten Hills asset. For a description of Cenovuss operations, refer to the Reportable Segments section of Management's Discussion and Analysis.



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Response to COVID-19

In the first quarter of 2020, Cenovus responded quickly to the COVID-19 pandemic to protect the health and safety of its workforce and ensure the continuity of its business. In mid-March, the company moved to essential staffing levels at its field operations and directed the vast majority of its office staff to work from home. Cenovus continues to implement special measures and protocols to protect its workers. Some additional staff have recently started returning to field locations to address work that needs to be performed over the summer and fall while the return to offices is happening at a slower rate. Cenovus is monitoring the COVID-19 situation closely and will not compromise on the health and safety of its workers.

Business flexibility and balance sheet strength

In the second quarter of 2020, Cenovus remained focused on disciplined spending, maintaining its low cost structure and protecting its balance sheet. Capital investment in its oil sands and conventional segments decreased on a quarterly and year-over-year basis as a result of the decisive steps the company took in the first quarter of 2020 and in early April to respond to declining commodity prices and the rapid weakening of the business environment. During the second quarter, the company completed the previously announced temporary ramp-down of its crude-by-rail program.

In response to a 45% drop in the average price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), to US$16.70/bbl, and a more than 70% decline in the average price of WCS, to C$4.92/bbl in April compared with March of 2020, Cenovus took additional steps to preserve value and protect its balance sheet by proactively managing its oil sands volumes. In April, the company voluntarily reduced oil sands production to just under 344,000 barrels per day (bbls/d), down 11% or approximately 44,000 bbls/d compared with March volumes. When WCS prices rebounded to C$46.03/bbl in June, Cenovus used the flexibility of its oil sands assets to quickly ramp up production and leveraged its range of transportation and marketing options, including storage and pipeline capabilities, to capture value from the higher prices. The company achieved average oil sands production of 405,658 bbls/d in June, which included a production record at Christina Lake.

We made the strategic decision to use the flexibility of our business and relied on the collaboration of our upstream and marketing teams to manage the timing, storage and sales approach for our oil production, said Pourbaix. We are maximizing value for our shareholders even in this challenging economic environment.

Second-quarter financial results

Cenovuss second-quarter adjusted funds flow shortfall of $462 million and free funds flow shortfall of $609 million were significantly impacted by losses of $529 million related to product sold in the quarter that was written down at the end of March. During the second quarter, essentially all the inventory that Cenovus wrote down in March was sold, and the company realized the inventory write-downs. The recovery in benchmark commodity prices and the ramp-up of production during the second quarter resulted in Cenovus achieving free funds flow of more than $290 million for the month of June.

The company recorded cash used in operating activities of $834 million in the second quarter compared with nearly $1.3 billion in cash from operating activities in the same quarter of 2019. Cenovus had a second-quarter operating loss of $414 million and net loss of $235 million compared with operating earnings of $267 million and net earnings of almost $1.8 billion in the same period in 2019. The net loss was due to the lower operating earnings and unrealized risk management losses of $120 million, partially offset by non-operating unrealized foreign exchange gains of $273 million and a deferred income tax recovery of $131 million.

At the end of the second quarter, Cenovus had net debt of approximately $8.2 billion compared with net debt of about $7.4 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2020. The company continues to aim for a net debt level in the range of $5 billion or lower over the longer term.

Cenovus has $5.6 billion in committed credit facilities, a further $1.6 billion of uncommitted demand facilities and no bond maturities until late 2022. As of June 30, 2020, the company had drawn almost $1.5 billion against the committed credit facilities, $299 million against the uncommitted demand facilities, and there were outstanding letters of credit totaling $434 million. As at June 30, 2020 no amounts were drawn against the uncommitted demand facilities available to Cenovuss refining partnership co-owned with Phillips 66.

Operating highlights

Cenovuss upstream and refining assets continued to deliver safe and reliable operational performance during the second quarter.

Health and safety

Cenovus remains focused on delivering industry-leading safety performance through its focus on risk management and asset integrity. The company continued its excellent safety performance in the first half of 2020 with zero significant incidents and strong results in the prevention of recordable injuries and process safety events. This included a significant milestone by the Deep Basin conventional team, which achieved one year with zero recordable injuries.

Oil sands

For the second quarter, Christina Lake had average production of 207,157 bbls/d, while Foster Creek had average production of 166,032 bbls/d. The company achieved combined oil sands production of 373,189 bbls/d in the second quarter, compared with 344,973 bbls/d in the same period a year earlier. In May and June, Cenovus was able to produce above the government of Albertas mandatory production curtailment limit for industry due to the purchase of low-cost production credits from other companies. As a result, Christina Lake volumes increased from an average of 175,957 bbls/d for the month of April to an average of 242,964 bbls/d for the month of June, a record, underscoring Cenovuss flexibility in managing through the volatile price environment.

Second-quarter oil sands operating costs were $7.36/bbl, down 15% from the same period a year earlier and 5% below the first quarter of 2020. The year-over-year decrease in oil sands operating costs was primarily due to higher sales volumes and the deferral of activity to manage costs in the low-price environment and limit field personnel due to COVID-19. The decrease in second-quarter operating costs from a year earlier was partially offset by higher fuel costs related to an increase in natural gas prices. In addition, Cenovus benefited from a nearly 60% decrease in overall second-quarter transportation and blending costs compared with the first three months of 2020. The reduction was due to the suspension of the crude-by-rail program and associated variable costs as well as lower-priced condensate used for blending compared with the first three months of the year.

While Cenovuss oil sands facilities were producing at reduced rates early in the second quarter, the company maintained normal steam production levels. This allowed Cenovus to continue operating the reservoirs effectively but also contributed to temporarily higher steam-to-oil ratios (SOR). At Christina Lake, the SOR was 2.1 in the second quarter, compared with 2.0 in the same period a year earlier. The SOR at Foster Creek was 2.8, up slightly from 2.7 a year earlier. The SORs are expected to track lower again as production increases.

Conventional

Cenovuss conventional segment was previously referred to as the Deep Basin segment and now includes the Marten Hills asset. The comparative period has been restated to reflect this change.

Conventional production averaged approximately 92,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOE/d) in the second quarter, a 6% decrease from the same period in 2019. The year-over-year decrease was due to natural declines from limited capital investment, partially offset by lower turnaround activity and fewer shut-ins in response to natural gas pricing compared with the same period in 2019 as well as the addition of Marten Hills heavy oil production starting in 2020. As previously announced, Cenovus has deferred the remainder of its 2020 drilling program in the conventional segment.

Total conventional operating costs declined 7% to $81 million in the second quarter of 2020 compared with the same period in the previous year. These cost savings are a result of the continued optimization of operations, focusing on critical repair and maintenance activities and increased use of Cenovuss infrastructure. Per-barrel operating costs remained relatively flat at an average of $9.05/BOE compared with $9.01/BOE in the second quarter of 2019, as lower sales volumes and higher seasonal chemical purchases were offset by decreased property tax and lease costs as well as lower costs for repairs and maintenance. Second-quarter per-barrel operating costs remained flat from a year earlier even as production declined 6% over the same period.

Refining and marketing

Cenovuss Wood River, Illinois and Borger, Texas refineries, which are co-owned with the operator, Phillips 66, had safe and reliable performance in the second quarter of 2020, while crude runs were affected by the economic slowdown due to COVID-19. Crude runs averaged 325,000 bbls/d in the second quarter, a 31% decrease from the same period in 2019.

Cenovus had refining and marketing operating margin of $134 million in the second quarter compared with $198 million in the same period of 2019, primarily due to reduced market crack spreads, lower crude oil runs and crude advantage, partially offset by higher margins on the sale of fixed-price products and lower operating costs.

Cenovuss refining operating margin is calculated on a first-in, first-out (FIFO) inventory accounting basis. Using the last-in, first-out (LIFO) accounting method employed by most U.S. refiners, operating margin from refining and marketing would have been $139 million lower in the second quarter, compared with $11 million higher in the same period in 2019.

While access to markets through new pipelines remains uncertain, Cenovus continues to look for opportunities to add value by finding new ways to get its products to new customers. In early July, the company announced its first-ever shipment of oil sands crude to Irving Oils refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick. Cenovus used its existing capacity on the Trans Mountain pipeline to ship oil to Burnaby, B.C., where it was loaded onto a tanker for a month-long voyage of approximately 11,900 kilometres south along the U.S. West Coast, through the Panama Canal and north to Saint John. Cenovus will continue to work with industry partners like Irving Oil to find innovative market-based solutions aimed at refining more Canadian oil in Canada, providing job opportunities and strengthening Canadas economy.

Sustainability

On July 14, 2020, Cenovus released its 2019 environmental, social and governance (ESG) report. With the 2019 report, Cenovus has transitioned its approach to further align with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) and, new this year, to follow the standards established by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). The report also incorporates references to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Cenovuss ESG report highlights the work the company has done to establish bold targets in four key ESG focus areas that are most impactful to its business: climate & greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, Indigenous engagement, land & wildlife, and water stewardship. Cenovus continues to work on its plan for achieving its ESG targets over the next decade.

Conference Call Today

9 a.m. Mountain Time (11 a.m. Eastern Time)



Cenovus will host a conference call today, July 23, 2020, starting at 9 a.m. MT (11 a.m. ET). To participate, please dial 888-231-8191 (toll-free in North America) or 647-427-7450 approximately 10 minutes prior to the conference call. A live audio webcast of the conference call will also be available via cenovus.com. The webcast will be archived for approximately 90 days.

ADVISORY

Basis of Presentation

Cenovus reports financial results in Canadian dollars and presents production volumes on a net to Cenovus before royalties basis, unless otherwise stated. Cenovus prepares its financial statements in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

Barrels of Oil Equivalent

Natural gas volumes have been converted to barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) on the basis of six thousand cubic feet (Mcf) to one barrel (bbl). BOE may be misleading, particularly if used in isolation. A conversion ratio of one bbl to six Mcf is based on an energy equivalency conversion method primarily applicable at the burner tip and does not represent value equivalency at the wellhead. Given that the value ratio based on the current price of crude oil compared with natural gas is significantly different from the energy equivalency conversion ratio of 6:1, utilizing a conversion on a 6:1 basis is not an accurate reflection of value.

Non-GAAP Measures and Additional Subtotal

This news release contains references to adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), adjusted funds flow, free funds flow, operating earnings (loss) and net debt, which are non-GAAP measures, and operating margin, which is an additional subtotal found in Note 1 of Cenovus's Interim Consolidated Financial Statements for the period ended June 30, 2020 (available on SEDAR at sedar.com, on EDGAR at sec.gov and Cenovus's website at cenovus.com). These measures do not have a standardized meaning as prescribed by IFRS. Readers should not consider these measures in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of the company's results as reported under IFRS. These measures are defined differently by different companies and therefore are not comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers. For definitions, as well as reconciliations to GAAP measures, and more information on these and other non-GAAP measures and additional subtotals, refer to Non-GAAP Measures and Additional Subtotals on page 1 of Cenovus's Management's Discussion & Analysis (MD&A) for the period ended June 30, 2020 (available on SEDAR at sedar.com, on EDGAR at sec.gov and Cenovus's website at cenovus.com).

Forward-looking Information

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively referred to as forward-looking information) within the meaning of applicable securities legislation, including the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, about our current expectations, estimates and projections about the future, based on certain assumptions made by us in light of our experience and perception of historical trends. Although Cenovus believes that the expectations represented by such forward-looking information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information as actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied.

Forward-looking information in this document is identified by words such as achieving, aim, believe, committed, continue, ensure, expect, focus, opportunities, plan, position, protect, target and will or similar expressions and includes suggestions of future outcomes, including, but not limited to, statements about: our expectations regarding the volatility of commodity prices and our ability to withstand an extended period of low oil prices; SORs expected to track lower as production increases; preserving the strength of our balance sheet; attaining long-term net debt level in the range of $5 billion or lower; uncertainty surrounding access to markets through new pipelines; opportunities to add value by finding new ways to get our products to new customers; working with industry partners to find innovative market-based solutions to refine more Canadian oil in Canada; delivering industry-leading safety performance through our focus on risk management and asset integrity; our four ESG focus areas and related targets and ambitions; COVID-19-related special measures and protocols to protect workers and our approach to increasing staffing levels in the office and at field sites.

Developing forward-looking information involves reliance on a number of assumptions and consideration of certain risks and uncertainties, some of which are specific to Cenovus and others that apply to the industry generally. The factors or assumptions on which our forward-looking information is based include, but are not limited to: forecast oil and natural gas, natural gas liquids, condensate and refined products prices, light-heavy crude oil price differentials and other assumptions identified in Cenovuss 2020 guidance (dated April 1, 2020), available at cenovus.com; global demand for refined products will resume and prices will rise; continued access to short-term capital such as credit and demand facilities; continued impact of measures implemented to enhance the companys resilience; applicable royalty regimes, including expected royalty rates; future improvements in availability of product transportation capacity; increase to our share price and market capitalization over the long term; future or continued narrowing of crude oil differentials; the ability of our refining capacity, dynamic storage, existing pipeline commitments and financial hedge transactions to partially mitigate a portion of our WCS crude oil volumes against wider differentials; our ability to adjust production while maintaining reservoir integrity; availability of new ways to get our products to new customers; opportunities to work with industry partners to find innovative market-based solutions aimed at refining more Canadian oil in Canada; estimates of quantities of oil, bitumen, natural gas and liquids from properties and other sources not currently classified as proved; accounting estimates and judgments; our ability to obtain necessary regulatory and partner approvals; the successful and timely implementation of capital projects, development programs or stages thereof; our ability to generate sufficient liquidity to meet our current and future obligations; our ability to obtain and retain qualified staff and equipment in a timely and cost-efficient manner; our ability to develop, access and implement all technology and equipment necessary to achieve expected future results, and that such results are realized.

2020 guidance, dated April 1, 2020, assumes: Brent prices of US$39.00/bbl, WTI prices of US$34.00/bbl; WCS prices of US$18.50/bbl; Differential WTI-WCS of US$15.50/bbl; AECO natural gas prices of $2.00/Mcf; Chicago 3-2-1 crack spread of US$8.30/bbl; and an exchange rate of $0.70 US$/C$.

The risk factors and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to: volatility of and other assumptions regarding commodity prices, including the extent to which COVID-19 impacts the global economy and harms commodity prices; the extent to which COVID-19 and fluctuations in commodity prices associated with COVID-19 impacts our business, results of operations and financial condition, all of which will depend on future developments that are highly uncertain and difficult to predict, including, but not limited to the duration and spread of the pandemic, its severity, the actions taken to contain COVID-19 or treat its impact and how quickly economic activity normalizes; a resurgence in cases of COVID-19, which has occurred in certain locations and the possibility of which in other locations remains high and creates ongoing uncertainty that could result in restrictions to contain the virus being re-imposed or imposed on a more strict basis, including restrictions on movement and businesses; the success of our COVID-19 protocols and safety measures to protect workers; maintaining sufficient liquidity to sustain operations through a prolonged market downturn; the duration of the market downturn; excessive widening of the WTI-WCS differential; unexpected consequences related to the Government of Albertas mandatory production curtailment; the effectiveness of our risk management program; the accuracy of cost estimates regarding commodity prices, currency and interest rates; product supply and demand; accuracy of our share price and market capitalization assumptions; market competition, including from alternative energy sources; risks inherent in our marketing operations, including credit risks, exposure to counterparties and partners, including ability and willingness of such parties to satisfy contractual obligations in a timely manner; our ability to maintain desirable ratios of net debt to adjusted EBITDA as well as debt to capitalization; our ability to access various sources of debt and equity capital, generally, and on terms acceptable to us; our ability to finance sustaining capital expenditures; changes in credit ratings applicable to us or any of our securities; accuracy of our reserves, future production and future net revenue estimates; accuracy of our accounting estimates and judgments; our ability to replace and expand oil and gas reserves; potential requirements under applicable accounting standards for impairment or reversal of estimated recoverable amounts of some or all of our assets or goodwill from time to time; our ability to maintain our relationships with our partners and to successfully manage and operate our integrated business; reliability of our assets including in order to meet production targets; our ability to access or implement some or all of the technology necessary to efficiently and effectively operate our assets and achieve expected future results; unexpected cost increases or potential disruption or unexpected technical difficulties in developing new products and manufacturing processes and in constructing or modifying manufacturing or refining facilities; refining and marketing margins; cost escalations; potential failure of products to achieve or maintain acceptance in the market; risks associated with fossil fuel industry reputation and litigation related thereto; unexpected difficulties in producing, transporting or refining of bitumen and/or crude oil into petroleum and chemical products; risks associated with technology and equipment and its application to our business, including potential cyberattacks; risks associated with climate change and our assumptions relating thereto; our ability to secure adequate and cost effective product transportation including sufficient pipeline, crude-by-rail, marine or alternate transportation, including to address any gaps caused by constraints in the pipeline system or storage capacity; possible failure to obtain and retain qualified staff and equipment in a timely and cost efficient manner; changes in the regulatory framework in any of the locations in which we operate, including changes to the regulatory approval process and land-use designations, royalty, tax, environmental, greenhouse gas, carbon, climate change and other laws or regulations, or changes to the interpretation of such laws and regulations, as adopted or proposed, the impact thereof and the costs associated with compliance; changes in general economic, market and business conditions; the impact of production agreements among OPEC and non-OPEC members; the political and economic conditions in the countries in which we operate or which we supply; the occurrence of unexpected events, such as pandemics, fires, severe weather conditions, explosions, blow-outs, equipment failures, transportation incidents and other accidents or similar events, and the instability resulting therefrom; and risks associated with existing and potential future lawsuits, shareholder proposals and regulatory actions against us.



Statements relating to reserves are deemed to be forward-looking information, as they involve the implied assessment, based on certain estimates and assumptions, that the reserves described exist in the quantities predicted or estimated and can be profitably produced in the future.

Readers are cautioned that the foregoing lists are not exhaustive and are made as at the date hereof. Events or circumstances could cause our actual results to differ materially from those estimated or projected and expressed in, or implied by, the forward-looking information. For a full discussion of Cenovuss material risk factors, refer to Risk Management and Risk Factors in the Corporations annual 2019 MD&A and the MD&A for the period ended June 30, 2020, and to the risk factors described in other documents Cenovus files from time to time with securities regulatory authorities in Canada, available on SEDAR at sedar.com, and with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on EDGAR at sec.gov, and on the Corporations website at cenovus.com.

Cenovus Energy Inc.

Cenovus Energy Inc. is a Canadian integrated oil and natural gas company. It is committed to maximizing value by sustainably developing its assets in a safe, innovative and cost-efficient manner, integrating environmental, social and governance considerations into its business plans. Operations include oil sands projects in northern Alberta, which use specialized methods to drill and pump the oil to the surface, and established natural gas and oil production in Alberta and British Columbia. The company also has 50% ownership in two U.S. refineries. Cenovus shares trade under the symbol CVE, and are listed on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges. For more information, visit cenovus.com.

Find Cenovus on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram.

CENOVUS CONTACTS:



Investor Relations

Investor Relations general line

403-766-7711





Media Relations

Media Relations general line

403-766-7751

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at



https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/beca83e2-dcc0-4fd4-938c-b78b5e7f1273

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f91d4c79-d551-4fe3-98f8-0ceb0589e604

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On 21 July 2020, EU leaders announced a ground-breaking and highly anticipated plan, the Next Generation EU, to jointly borrow 750 billion to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. The EUs new recovery plan, which will be composed of grants and loans attached to the new Multiannual Financial Framework, is the culmination of what many consider a painfully slow and uncoordinated European response to the COVID-19 crisis and the far-reaching effects it has had on the European economy. While a crisis of this magnitude could threaten the EUs very existence, deepening divides and sewing the seeds of anti-European sentiment, it may conversely also be an opportunity for the EU to address some of the fundamental flaws that exist in the euro area architecture. The pandemic response is a chance for Europe to reboot by focusing on a number of mechanisms at hand, including state aid, taxation and labour reallocation, among others. The EU should not lose sight of broader societal goals such as climate neutrality and digitisation but rather prioritise them. Ultimately, if handled correctly, the coronavirus pandemic has the potential to bring the EU together like no other event since its foundation.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Raising concerns about New York Citys economic recovery, Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged action against on Thursday quality-of-life issues like crime and graffiti.

The governor said during a press conference that the city will need longterm efforts to get back to where it was before the coronavirus pandemic adding that large numbers of people left the city at the height of the pandemic, and that he is concerned about changes to business practices.

So this is a very delicate moment that were in. You put on top of that the crime increase, put on top of that the scenes of looting that weve seen, put on top of that issues with the homeless, issues with graffiti. Its a bad combination that were going to have to address, Cuomo said.

Early Wednesday morning, city officials cleared an encampment that had been established outside City Hall since June.

Originally, protestors set up Occupy City Hall to call on the City Council to include a $1 billion NYPD budgetary cut in the city budget.

That cut came, but the encampment remained outside City Hall. Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that it had become clear the occupation had become less of a protest and more of a homeless encampment.

The city also began to take action Wednesday against graffiti, including anti-cop phrases, scrawled on landmarks like the Tweed Court House and David N. Dinkins Municipal building around City Hall.

In April, the city announced it would be postponing its $3 million contribution to the New York City Economic Development Corporations Graffiti-Free NYC program as part of budget reductions necessitated by the coronavirus revenue shortfalls.

On Thursday, de Blasio said the city plans to address all the graffiti concerns on government buildings around City Hall, and urged against fear mongering about a return to the bad old days of the 1970s and 1980s.

We are never going back to the 1970s. I think there are some people who live through that time who were deeply affected by it, but its just not part of our lives anymore, he said during a press conference. We have left that behind, were an entirely different city. Were never going back.
The White House is carrying out contact tracing after an employee of a cafeteria in the neighboring Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB) tested positive for coronavirus.

The two closed cafeterias are run by a government contractor - unlike the cafeteria beneath the West Wing of the White House, which is run by the U.S. Navy.

Three Trump administration officials confirmed the tracing effort to NBC News.

They said Ike's Eatery and the New Executive Office Building's cafeteria were closed this week after the case was discovered.

They could remain closed for two weeks.

The Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, houses many offices

Among those to have their offices in the EEOB are members of the COVID task force

An email sent to staff, obtained by CNN, read: 'There is no reason for panic or alarm.'

The EEOB houses the offices of many senior members of the White House staff, including officials from the coronavirus task force, the vice president's office, the National Security Council and several economic policy offices.

Some White House staff members preferred Ike's Eatery to the facility inside the White House, CNN reported.

There have been almost four million cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the United States

'All proper protocols were in place by the vendor including masks, gloves, plastic shielding at check out, and no dine-in service,' said a spokesman for the General Services Administration, speaking to NBC News.

'The White House Medical Unit has done contact tracing and determined that the risk of re-transmission is low.'

The GSA did not say how many staffers might have been potentially exposed at the commissary or how long it will remain closed.

Those working in the EEOB were sent an email on Wednesday telling them not to worry

Several high-profile figures within the White House have tested positive for COVID-19, including, in May, Katie Miller, the press secretary to Mike Pence, the vice president.

Eight members of the Trump campaign tested positive following Trump's rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma - his official return to the campaign trail.

Donald Trump Jr's girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle tested positive while in South Dakota to attend a Trump rally.

Those coming into contact with the president are regularly administered COVID tests.

Trump, who has tested negative for the infection, has resumed daily briefings about the virus, in light of an increasingly worrying picture nationwide.

On Wednesday he tried to issue a note of reassurance.

'We are working with very talented people, very brilliant people and it's all going to work out and it is working out,' he said.
In John Cheevers short story The Swimmer, the protagonist makes his way home by lapping through pools in a thinly disguised Fairfield County (the film version starring Burt Lancaster was shot here).

If the character were to attempt to do the same along the Long Island Sound shoreline, he wouldnt face opposition as long as he swam past the high tide line. These waters, after all, belong to everyone.

But if he paused to step onto the sand in, say, Fairfield or Norwalk these days, hed better have packed cash in his trunks for hefty fees or fines for crossing the line in the sand.

If considering the glass half-full of salt water, the pandemic has certainly elevated appreciation of one of Connecticuts most precious resources. Unfortunately, as Gov. Ned Lamont accurately observed, our beaches are being loved to death.

Mayors and first selectmen are testing the waters of policies to reduce the number of out-of-towners at their beaches. Its understandable given the desire to enforce social distancing, but it also collides with an ugly history of exclusion.

Its been more than two decades since Stamford lawyer Brenden Leydon sued the Town of Greenwich after being turned away while trying to jog into Greenwich Point. Leydon ultimately prevailed in 2001 when the state Supreme Court ruled that municipalities could only block out nonresidents during an emergency.

If you dont think the pandemic is an emergency, you likely also side with local leaders in some communities who refuse to bust open their Rainy Day Fund piggy banks because they cant tell its pouring.

The ACLUs Connecticut branch is already questioning the legality of Fairfield, Norwalk, East Haven and other towns declaring full-on bans of nonresidents.

Because policies are left in the hands of each municipality, they shift with the sands. Stamford is struggling with complaints from residents that hiking fees to limit out-of-towners only led to more non-Connecticut license plates showing up on local roads.

Stamford raised the parking fee for out-of-towners from $25 a day to $40 on weekdays and $65 on weekends, and the nonresident seasonal pass $50 to $275.

Its more in line with towns such as Norwalk, and still a bargain compared with Westport, which drew accusations of racism two years ago when Compo Beach seasonal passes for nonresidents soared from $490 to $775.

Fairfields sale of 5,000 more passes than last year is an indicator of just how easy it is for the beaches to become dangerously overcrowded on steamy days.

We agree  for the most part  with municipal leaders taking tough stands, such as Greenwich First Selectman Fred Camillo threatening to shut his beaches to everyone if visitors cant follow protocol.

But COVID-19 cant become a long-term excuse to penalize nonresidents, who not only are paying fees that boost shrinking budgets but may choose to respond by declaring their own bans on local businesses and restaurants.

When temperatures drop, cool heads must prevail.
Photo credit: FILIPPO MONTEFORTE

From ELLE

How do you bring life to a virtual fashion show?

If you're Maria Grazia Chiuri, you seek the human craft behind the clothes. You transport your audience dotted singly all over the world from their two-dimensional laptop screens to the almost tangible golden poppy fields of Puglia, Italy in a united (and much-needed) 15 minutes of escapism. You fill an Italian set with carnival-esque lights, local dancers and a collection brimming with artisan technique and whimsical detail. You take the city-dwellers AFH (away from home) to a place where magic, soul and seriously good clothes reign. You give your audience a good dose of fashion catharsis.

In short, you do as Dior Cruise 2021 just did.

Photo credit: Stephane Cardinale - Corbis

'Without an audience, but live streamed to the world, Maria Grazia Chiuri presented Diors Cruise 2021 show last night in Lecce  the beautiful Baroque capital of Puglia's Salento, the southernmost point of Italy,' says ELLE's Fashion Director Avril Mair.

'It was, undoubtedly, her strongest statement yet. This was more than just a fashion show for the designer, whose father was born in Puglia and who has a home here  it was an emotional return to her roots and an effort to support artisans in one of the countrys poorest regions. In fact, as the [Coronavirus] pandemic broke out in February, Chiuri was here commissioning local craftspeople to make the collection.'

Photo credit: Stephane Cardinale - Corbis

Almost lost techniques such as Tombolo - a traditional and highly technical form of embroidery that creates an ultra delicate lace-like finish - took pride of place in a flurry of butterfly and bloom exoskeletons adorning Chiuri's signature tulle dresses.

'It was very important to me to emphasise how much craftsmanship there is in Puglia and reinvest in it,' Chiuri explained. 'So many people depend on our work.'

Presented in the Piazza del Duomo and lit by luminarie  traditional Pugliese coloured light shows used at local festivals  models were surrounded by a troupe of tarantella dancers, an evocative folk tradition which speaks of strength and magic. This ancient mysticism runs throughout the region and somehow infused the show with a primal power.

Story continues

Photo credit: Getty Images

'The clothes themselves were beautiful, with a folkloric quality  handmade lace dresses, embroidered pinafores and linen headscarves that felt honest and homespun, imbued with an almost rustic sensibility but created with great skill and love,' says Mair.

'They showed a side to Chiuri that was passionate and inspired, in a collection that was her most personal to date.'

Photo credit: Stephane Cardinale - Corbis

Hand-sewn wheat motifs marked a move towards more rural iconography, and marked a second appearance for the grain in recent fashion history following Jacquemus' SS21 collection that stormed a snaking runway submerged in vast fields.

Elsewhere, scarlet poppies replaced the French roses that have become a Dior token, while the universally-loved monogrammed tote bag was re-invented in floral print and overflowing with ears of corn.

Photo credit: Stephane Cardinale - Corbis

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In need of more inspiration, thoughtful journalism and at-home beauty tips? Subscribe to ELLE's print magazine now and pay just 6 for 6 issues. SUBSCRIBE HERE





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The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Ms Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, has told Parliament that 22 Ghanaians are currently in the process of being deported from the United States of America (USA) for breaching the immigration laws of that country.



She said they were part of 100 Ghanaians on the list of persons who were at different stages of removal from the USA.



Ms Botchwey disclosed this when she answered a question from the Member of Parliament (MP) of North Tongu, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, about the terms of the agreement reached with the USA leading to the lifting of visa restrictions and how many Ghanaians were to be removed from the USA.



The MP also asked the minister if Ghana was still going by the deportation of some 7,000 Ghanaian immigrants who were at various stages of being deported or the US authorities had amended that figure as disclosed by the immediate former US ambassador to Ghana.



Deportees number uncertain



Responding, Ms Botchwey said 7,000, and at some point 3,000 had been bandied around, but unfortunately the request by her ministry for a list of Ghanaians who had flouted immigration laws had not been provided.



So I cannot speak to these numbers because they have not been provided; at one point we were given a list of probably 100 as people who were being processed in different stages of the removal process.



But since then, nothing has been given to us and as we speak we have 22 persons who are in the process of being removed, but nothing like the numbers that were mentioned at first, she said.



125 Ghanaians removed



Ms Botchwey said during the period of sanctions, 125 Ghanaians who had been ordered to be removed from the USA were deported.



She told Parliament that currently, interviews for persons cited for deportation were ongoing as agreed between Ghana and the US.



However, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the issuance of emergency travel certificates to facilitate their removal has been deferred until borders are re-opened.



It should be noted that both sides put in place modalities intended to facilitate and ensure that a procedure was followed in the identification and issuance of the appropriate travel documents in accordance with Ghanas obligation under international protocols, she said.



Robust process



Touching on the identification process, Mr Ablakwa questioned the robustness of the series of actions that had been put in place to ensure that other citizens who might have acquired Ghanaian passports were not lumped together with Ghanaians and deported to the country to affect the security of the country.



Responding, the minister said a robust system had been put in place to ensure that those to be deported were thoroughly interviewed for their true identities to be established.



We are particularly ensuring very thorough interviews and the names of people are sent to Ghana and the relevant authorities of immigration, the Interior Ministry and the National Security also do their checks and they give us feedback.



If indeed they are Ghanaians, then we can proceed with our part, which is to issue the travel documents, she said.



Lifting visa restrictions



Ms Botchwey, who is also the MP for Anyaa-Sowutuom, recalled that on February 1 last year, the present US Ambassador to Ghana, Mrs Stephanie Sullivan, announced that on the advice of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State and pursuant to Section 243 (d) of the US Immigration and National Security Act, visa restrictions had been instituted on some categories of Ghanaians effective February 4, 2019 on the basis of claims that Ghana was unreasonably delaying the return of its nationals ordered to be removed from the USA.



During the meeting, I proposed a road map for the consideration of the US authorities to resolve all issues related to the Ghanaians cited for deportation to Ghana, she said.









Source: Daily Graphic









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Europol have seized 117 tonnes of illegal horse meat from European countries as part of an EU-wide project looking to remove illegal foods off the market.

Europol and Interpol coordinated operation Operation Opson 2020 which targeted trafficking of counterfeit and substandard food and beverages.

The ninth operation of its kind, it ran from December 2019 to June 2020 and involved law enforcement authorities from 83 countries.

A dedicated project was launched to support governments in combating the sale of illegal horse meat, led by Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands.

The operational activities focused on checks of documents of more than 157,000 horses from eight countries and about 117 tonnes of horse meat.

Live animals and horse meat were seized from several slaughterhouses in Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.

Inspections of slaughterhouses in several countries showed that about 20% of the foreign passports used for these horses showed signs of forgery.

Competition horses with forged documents were also sent to slaughterhouses.

Catherine De Bolle, Europols executive director, said criminals look for 'new ways' to abuse customers in times of crisis.

"Counterfeit and substandard food is not only deceitful to consumers but can also pose a significant threat to their health," she said.

"Our annual Operation Opson shows in its ninth year that cooperation between law enforcement, regulatory authorities and the private sector is crucial to protect both consumers and businesses from the harm criminals try to put on our plates."

Since its creation, the total seizures of illegal food and beverages made during operations Operation Opson VI, VII, VIII and IX are worth around 450 million.

It follows the 2013 horse meat scandal, which affected the UK. Foods were advertised as containing beef, but were found to contain undeclared or improperly declared horse meat  as much as 100% of the meat content in some cases.
Geraldo Rivera has claimed Donald Trump is a 'civil rights leader' in an appearance on Fox & Friends: Fox News

Fox News contributor Geraldo Rivera defended Donald Trump's well-wishes to alleged child sex trafficker and Jeffery Epstein confidante Ghislaine Maxwell on Twitter Wednesday.

During Mr Trump's coronavirus press briefing on Tuesday, he was asked about Ms Maxwell and offered his sympathies to her.

"I don't know, I haven't really been following it too much," Mr Trump said. "I just wish her well, frankly."

Mr Trump went on to say he'd met her numerous times over the years, especially when he was living in Palm Beach, Florida.

"But I wish her well, whatever it is," Mr Trump said.

Ms Maxwell is facing federal charges for allegedly helping Epstein recruit and sexually abuse girls.

The president's comments generated considerable backlash from media outlets and the public. Mr Rivera took exception to the pile-on and defended Mr Trump.

"When asked @realDonaldTrump said he wished #GhislaineMaxwellArrested well. With media mob eager to see her lynched it was brave to weigh in. Fact: cases vs her are for crimes allegedly committed more than 25 years ago. She deserved bail & got solitary confinement: woke politics," Mr Rivera wrote.

When asked @realDonaldTrump said he wished #GhislaineMaxwellArrested well. With media mob eager to see her lynched it was brave to weigh in. Fact: cases vs her are for crimes allegedly committed more than 25 years ago. She deserved bail & got solitary confinement: woke politics.  Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) July 22, 2020

It wasn't the first time Mr Rivera spoke up to defend Ms Maxwell. On Tuesday, Mr Rivera appeared on Fox News and suggested the judge's denial of bail for Ms Maxwell was a move to appease the "mobs."

Story continues

"I think these are charges that are wobbly on their face," Mr Rivera said. "For this judge to chicken out and not give this defendant bail, I think is copping out to the mob."

He continued his line of defence on Wednesday, suggesting Ms Maxwell should have been granted bail.

"Wake up woke folk. Bail is not a finding of guilt or innocence. The only question for judge is whether accused will show up for trial, at which guilt or innocence is adjudged. #GhislaineMaxwell Has the right to a trial," he wrote.

Ms Maxwell evaded federal investigators for a year following the arrest and death of Epstein. She is considered an extreme flight risk, which often influence's a judge's decision on whether or not to grant bail.

Contrary to Mr Rivera's insinuation that Ms Maxwell is being denied a trial, her trial is scheduled to begin on 12 July, 2021.

Mr Rivera claimed Ms Maxwell was hiding from the media, rather than federal prosecutors.

"She was hiding from The Daily Mail. She was hiding from The New York Post. She was hiding from The National Enquirer," he said. "Everybody, every reporter that works for one of these tabloids, whether it's People or the National Enquirer, they wanted ... to get into that and show her million-dollar hideaway in the woods of New Hampshire."

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Trump says he wishes accused sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell well
We have the skillset to run a successful production plant and can use our experience and knowledge to help reopen the Trickling Springs Creamery plant." - Tony Brusco, Owner, South Mountain Creamery

South Mountain Creamery, a thriving family-owned farm and creamery in Middletown, MD known for its glass-bottled milk and home-delivery services, announced the acquisition of Trickling Springs Creamery in Chambersburg, PA. The acquisition of Trickling Springs Creamery and its processing plant, which closed its doors in September of 2019, will allow South Mountain Creamery to keep up with rapid growth when most of the countrys dairy farms are experiencing falling demand.

When Trickling Springs closed, farmers had to scramble and find a new home for their milk, said Tony Brusco, Owner, South Mountain Creamery. We have the skillset to run a successful production plant and can use our experience and knowledge to help reopen the Trickling Springs Creamery plant. At the same time, were reaching capacity at our current plant in Middletown. Best of all, well also be able to offer a truly local, grass-fed, organic bottled milk to our customers. Its a win-win-win.

Under the ownership of South Mountain Creamery, the business will be relaunched as Trickling Springs Organic, and the retail storefront will be known as The Market at Trickling Springs. Trickling Springs Organic will produce organic milk as well as South Mountain Creamery productsall of which will be available for purchase at The Market at Trickling Springs. The Market at Trickling Springs is expected to reopen in August 2020, and the plant, Trickling Springs Organic, will begin bottling operations in October 2020.

Moving Mountains in the Local Economy and in the Pennsylvania Dairy Industry

Plants like Trickling Springs Organic can make a significant difference for Pennsylvania farmers. Small farmers are often supported by local operations, such as Trickling Springs, and their sales, including both wholesale and retail. It's an opportunity for local farmers to flourish again.

Pennsylvania is the seventh-largest producer of milk in the United States. In 2019, the average herd size in the United States was 273 cows; however, the average herd size of Pennsylvania farms is only 85 cows. Despite smaller herd sizes, Pennsylvania remains a top dairy producer in the nation given its abundance of small farm operations.

According to a recent article from Penn State News, Demand for dairy products  has been increasing, even as fluid milk consumption has plunged. However, American dairy farmers have been pushing more milk on the market than needed. As a result, low milk prices in recent years have put many Pennsylvania dairy farms out of business.

In addition, the plant and storefront will employ 25 to 30 people at opening and increase to about 50 over the next six months. Many of these positions will be filled by returning Trickling Springs employees in both the plant and The Market.

Were a family dairy farm, so we treat our employees like family. Full transparency, dedication to hard work, being bold in our decisions and actions, adds Brusco. Thats the culture were planning to establish here, too. Together, weve been able to move mountains in Middletown, and we expect to do the same thing in Chambersburg.

What to Expect from the New Trickling Springs

Wholesale customers can expect a return of the high-quality organic milk, great service, and personal attention from the Trickling Springs Organic sales staff. While the Chambersburg community can look forward to The Market at Trickling Springs reopening with a new interior appearance. It will offer customers local fare like dairy products, produce, baked goods and a sandwich shop, with the addition of South Mountain Creamery products.

Since the spread of COVID-19, South Mountain Creamery has grown their home delivery service as the demand for local products and customers desire to know where their food comes from has increased.

When buying food close to the source, you gain a deeper appreciation for how its made and produced, said Brusco. Buying your food straight from the source tastes better, is healthier, and doesnt have to go through so many hands, which in todays world, brings a lot of peace of mind.

A Community of Support

Steve Christian, President, Greater Chambersburg Chamber of Commerce said, The Chamber is excited to welcome The Market at Trickling Springs to the Chambersburg area! We are delighted to have locally-sourced, organic and farm-fresh items offered once again at the previous location of Trickling Springs Creamery. Join us in celebrating the launch of this ice cream and lunch destination, sure to return as a community favorite.

South Mountain Creamery started in 2001, and since then, has been family owned and operated. When the creamery began, the family sought stability for their farm and a predictable income which they could rely on. Now theyre providing that same opportunity to 150 produce and dairy family-owned farms like their own in Pennsylvania.

Dairy farmers are sticking together. Its an opportunity for us, for the community, and for these other farmers to get back to our roots. The previous owners of Trickling Springs built a solid brand backed by quality, organic products, said Brusco. We want to return to a sense of wholesomeness. When customers come into The Market, and when wholesalers work with our salespeople, theyll see that and feel that.

South Mountain Creamery is Marylands first on the farm dairy processing plant starting operation in 2001. They own and farm roughly 3,000 acres in Frederick County where they milk around 600 dairy cows including Holstein and Jersey breeds. The main farm milks the cows 50 feet from the processing plant where the milk is minimally processed and bottled or made into ice cream, yogurt, and butter. Milk can be in glass bottles ready for customers 12 hours after coming from the milking parlor. South Mountain Creamery welcomes the public to see their operation first hand with an open milking parlor and tours around the farm. This is an exciting time for the local dairy as it comes alongside more new ventures. South Mountain Creamery, though expanding, remains loyal to its mission of providing locally and sustainably sourced food to the community. The second generation, Tony & Abby (Sowers) Brusco and Ben & Kate Sowers, now own and run the operation, although you can often find three generations at work on the farm. Ben and Kate Sowers were also one of four couples in the country to be named National Outstanding Young Farmers for 2019. South Mountain Creamery provides a home delivery service consisting of an online farmers market that delivers to nearly 10,000 customers in a 35,000 square mile area stretching most of Maryland, DC, Northern Virginia, and parts of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. You can also find South Mountain Creamery products in over 800 stores in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.
By CLAUDIA LAUER, Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP)  The Philadelphia district attorney announced criminal charges Wednesday against a police officer seen on video lowering the masks of protesters to douse them with pepper spray as they knelt on a city interstate during a protest.

Charges were filed against Philadelphia SWAT Officer Richard Paul Nicoletti, including simple assault, recklessly endangering another person and official oppression.

A video of Nicoletti dressed in riot gear approaching three protesters kneeling on Interstate 676 on June 1, pulling down at least one protester's mask or goggles, then pepper-spraying them was circulated widely on social media and has been included in several news stories about the national police response to demonstrators.

"The complaint alleges that Officer Nicoletti broke the laws he was sworn to uphold and that his actions interfered with Philadelphians' and Americans' peaceful exercise of their sacred constitutional rights of free speech and assembly," District Attorney Larry Krasner wrote in an emailed news release. "The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office will not make excuses for crimes committed by law enforcement that demean the democratic freedoms so many Americans have fought and died to preserve."

Nicoletti's attorney, Fortunato Perri Jr. said the officer, who is a combat veteran, was following orders to clear the highway.

"Richard Nicoletti is being charged with crimes for simply following orders. His unit was ordered by commanders to clear the highway with the approved use of tear gas and pepper spray," Perri said. "The city's leadership was given the opportunity to apologize for approving the orders and use of force but Nicoletti finds himself fired and charged with crimes."

Krasner said Nicoletti was aware the charges were coming and that he had arranged to turn himself in early Wednesday. Nicoletti was released on his own recognizance without bail.

Krasner called statements that Nicoletti was following orders or that his actions were needed to clear protesters from the highway weak justifications for the actions seen in the multiple videos and still photographs the office reviewed before filing charges.

Just before 5 p.m. on June 1, protesters had climbed onto the section of center city interstate, shutting down traffic during a demonstration over police brutality and racial injustice sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Video of officers launching tear gas, smoke and other projectiles at protesters clambering to get over a steep embankment and fence to get off the highway during the same encounter also have been widely circulated.

Krasner said his office interviewed the protesters as well as other witnesses to the encounter between Nicoletti and three protesters who were doused with the irritant. He noted a protester had thrown back a tear gas canister to get it away from the kneeling protesters and that it had not hit or injured any officers.

Krasner also alleged that the video showed that Nicoletti "reached down, grabbed and violently threw the protester onto his back, continually spraying him" with pepper spray. He said the three protesters who were sprayed at close range were left to find their way off the highway and were not offered medical attention.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw suspended Nicoletti with the intent to fire him last month after reviewing the video, and referred the investigation to the district attorney's office to decide whether criminal charges were merited. During a news conference, both Outlaw and Mayor Jim Kenney said the actions were unacceptable.

Outlaw said she was "disgusted" after watching some of the videos. Both she and Kenney apologized for the use of tear gas on the highway.

Fraternal Order of Police President John McNesby said the Philadelphia police union would help Nicoletti with his defense. The union has had a confrontational relationship with Krasner's office, and McNesby criticized the district attorney in a statement released Wednesday.

"Once again DA Larry Krasner is only charging Philadelphia police officers following the recent unrest in the city," he wrote, saying Krasner "had an anti-police agenda."

In June, Krasner filed aggravated assault charges against Philadelphia police officer Joseph Bologna, who was seen on video hitting a protester in the head with a metal baton in a separate incident.

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Health Minister Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, has disclosed that government plans to construct new hospitals across the country in the quest to provide quality healthcare for Ghanaians.



He made this assertion when the President, Nana Akufo-Addo cut the sod for the construction of the Eastern Regional Hospital in Koforidua.



Addressing the gathering, Mr Agyemang-Manu indicated that, it is of much value that the Eastern Region with 11.5% of the countrys population and the third most populous region after the Ashanti and Greater Accra be provided with a befitting state of the art ultra-modern health facility to meet the ever-increasing healthcare needs of residents.



He stated that, the 94-year-old regional hospital constructed in 1926 has seen two major structural changes in 1972 and 1998 when additional functional areas were added to expand the scope of services and for that matter, expressing joy about the construction of the new Koforidua regional hospital for the fact that the current functional area of the hospital is woefully inadequate.



He explained that the hospital serves as a referral point for about 16 districts hospitals in the Region with a population of about 3.3 million which is on record that the average daily attendance for 2019 was 927 which suggests the need for the reconstruction to cope with the huge numbers of Ghana.



According to him, the Ministry of Health has made significant progress in addressing the infrastructural gap in the health sector with massive support from the president, Nana Akuffo-Addo.



He said the reconstruction of the Koforidua regional hospital is in fulfilment of government commitment to ensure universal health coverage to all citizens in Ghana in line with government vision under the sustainable development goal.



It is imperative to mention that all these projects are not part of the agenda 88 projects promised by the government to initiate in districts without hospitals. My ministry has full support from the president he said.



He affirmed that government has completed works on a number of health facilities: 10 polyclinics in the central, five in Greater Accra, Upper West regional hospital, and Ga-East district hospital which coincidentally is the current treatment centre for the battle against coronavirus pandemic.



He also revealed district hospitals that have been slated for completion by October this year including, Somanya, Weta in Volta, Akaba, Dupe and Kolon, Bekwai, Tepa, Nsawkaw and Twifo Praso Hospitals respectively.



He added that the retooling and reequipping of four health facilities in Eastern region including, Aburi District Hospital, Tetteh Quarshie memorial hospital in Mampong, Kyebi Government hospital and Atibie hospital are ongoing.



Mr Agyemang-Manu stressed that construction of five health facilities in the Western and Western-North region  Akontomra, Elubo, Bogoso, Tarkwa Nsuaem, Wasa Tarkwa, and the upgrade of Mpohor health facility is on course.



He said, there is a progress in the construction of 15 CHPS compounds and another 26 located in some selected district in regions such as Bono, Central, Eastern, Ashanti, Western-North, Greater Accra and Volta.



He indicated that to further address the infrastructural deficit of the health sector, the government has secured funding to implement a number of projects in 2020 one of them is the sod-cutting ceremony to herald its commencement of the new eastern regional hospital.



He said, aside from the sod-cutting ceremony in the Eastern Region, there would be a similar ceremony in the course of the year to herald the construction and equipping of 12 maternity at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, La General hospital, Sub-regional hospital at Tema, reconstruction of the central medical store, construction of trauma hospitals in Anyinam and Obuasi, refurbishment and reequipping of Enyiresi and Obuasi hospitals, construction of accident and emergency centre at Dormaa hospital, and the Nkoranza district hospital.



He opined that there will be construction of 12 new hospitals in Jumapo, Kwabeng, Nkwatia, Adukrom, Achease, Suame, Drobonso, Sabronom, Manso  Nkwanta, among others.



He added that the government has started the construction of nine comprehensive infectious disease centres in the country which started to fight Covid-19.

Source: Daily Guide









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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A bipartisan group of New Jersey lawmakers approved a proposal Thursday that could free thousands of inmates early, while slamming how Gov. Phil Murphys administration has handled the coronavirus behind bars.

The state Senate commerce committee unanimously voted for a bill (S2519) that would reduce sentences for some prisoners, in light of a pandemic that infected thousands of inmates and staff, killed more than 50 people and given New Jersey prisons the highest coronavirus death rate in the nation.

The committee includes three Democrats and two Republicans. The full Senate and state Assembly must approve the proposal before it can head to the governor.

This bill takes a very, very mild approach, state Sen. Gerald Cardinale, R-Bergen, said at the hearing. We should be looking very seriously at changing the whole administration of our prison system, because they just cant get it right.

New Jersey failed to protect its prisoners, said state Sen. Nellie Pou, D-Passaic, who sponsored the bill with Democratic colleagues.

Early releases would not only give them security, she said in a statement, but provide for a greater ability to socially distance, and keep everyone, guards included, safer.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

Victims would be notified of an early release, according to amendments made since the bill was first debated. Victims would also have the option of blocking contact with a former inmate for the length of the original prison sentence.

Nobody testified against the proposal Thursday. A lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey was the only person to give a statement in favor, although others noted their support.

The ACLU estimates thousands of people set to be released within a year could benefit. Under the bill, for every month spent behind bars during a public health emergency, someones sentence would be reduced four months, although eight months is the maximum reduction.

Juveniles would be eligible, while repetitive, compulsive sex offenders would not.

Prison representatives did not attend this or a previous hearing. A spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A similar bill in the Assembly (A4235) was also approved by a committee earlier in the week.

Fewer than 300 people have been temporarily released to their homes because of the pandemic, according to state data, although the prison population overall has dropped by almost a tenth since March, according to an analysis of national data by the nonpartisan news organizations The Associated Press and The Marshall Project.

While there were more than 18,400 inmates four months ago, there were 16,613 on June 16, according to the data.

An NJ Advance Media investigation found systemic failures to contain the virus in the early days of the pandemic.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Blake Nelson can be reached at bnelson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BCunninghamN.

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In the new study, Dr. Michelettis team compared this genetic database with a historical one, Slave Voyages, which contains an enormous amount of information about slavery, such as ports of embarkation and disembarkation, and numbers of enslaved men, women and children.

The researchers also consulted with some historians to identify gaps in their data, Dr. Mountain said. Historians told them, for example, that they needed representation from critical regions, like Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The team worked with academics connected to West African institutions to find that data.

The size of the projects dataset is extraordinary, said David Reich, a professor of genetics at Harvard who was not part of the project.

Because it drew participants from a direct-to-consumer database of millions of people, the study was able to ask and answer questions about the past and about how people are related to each other that could not be asked by academics like himself, he said. At best, academic projects are able to study hundreds or a few thousand people, and generally that data does not also include the genealogical information that the 23andMe research participants provided.

The findings show remarkable alignment with the historical record. Historians have estimated, for example, that 5.7 million people were taken from West Central Africa to the Americas. And the genetic record shows a very strong connection between people in West Central Africa and all people with African ancestry in the Americas.

Historians have also noted that the people who were taken to Latin America from Africa disembarked from West Central Africa, but many were taken originally from other regions like Senegambia and the Bight of Benin. And the new genetic evidence supports this, showing that the descendants of enslaved people in Latin America generally carry genetic connections with two or three of these regions in Africa.

Historical evidence shows that enslaved people in the United States and the British Caribbean, by contrast, were taken from a larger number of regions of Africa. Their descendants today show a genetic connection to people in six regions in Africa, the study found.
Leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko has said there is no way former President John Dramani Mahama can unseat President Akufo-Addo in the December polls considering his abysmal performance in office.

Mr. Mahama is leading the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to recapture power after losing miserably as incumbent to the then candidate Akufo-Addo and his NPP by over one million votes in 2016, and he has said several times that he is determined to correct his mistakes when given another mandate.

However, Gabby said on Citi TV 'Face to Face' programme on Tuesday that Mr. Mahama and the NDC were wasting their time in that the performance of the Akufo-Addo administration would earn it a second term.

You have a candidate who just lost the last election to his successor. This is the third time they will be meeting. It is not about what they promised the voters, but it is about the candidates. The promise must be measured against what one did when he was given the opportunity to serve, Gabby said.

If Akufo-Addo comes today and he says he will deliver free SHS, you will have to find out what he promised and whether he delivered. If John Mahama comes today and he says he will manage the economy better, I will ask him some serious questions because he inherited an oil-rich economy and within a matter of two years, he had sent us to the IMF for rescue, he added.

He stated that the NPP administration had performed far better than the then Mahama-led NDC administration, and Ghanaians would renew the NPP's mandate to continue its good performance.

Family & Friends

Gabby parried claims that President Akufo-Addo is running a family and friends government as the President's opponents have continuously pushed a charge of cronyism and nepotism, saying all those the President has appointed are doing their best to help develop the country

He downplayed a widely-held view that he is hugely influential in the Akufo-Addo administration despite having no official portfolio, describing it as pure propaganda.

He said my critics had to create something for me because they expected that Akufo-Addo was going to appoint me when the NPP assumed office.

He further said those who follow his influence in governance do so because they think I merit it, adding that any political appointment granted him would have been justified because he is competent.

He did not also deny the fact that he had been influential in the political space with different presidents over the past two decades, saying it just happens that this time, the President (Akufo-Addo) is someone that I am known to be very close to.

If I had been offered an appointment, would it have been fair for any Ghanaian to say it was due to nepotism? No, I would have merited it, he indicated.

He defended the appointment of Lauretta Asante as one of the Directors General at SSNIT and the purported beneficiary of nepotism because she is also the sister of Nana Bediatuo Asante, the President's Executive Secretary.

Look at SSNIT and look at the gains it has made  in terms of increasing the number of people who are actually paying contributions, he said.

Though the current government made similar accusations against the Mahama administration, Gabby Otchere-Darko said he never went that route.

As the President, you have the right to choose the people that you think can deliver for you. Are they delivering or not? he asked rhetorically.

---Daily Guide
Despite being inseparable in the house, Big Brother couple Chad Hurst and Sophie Budack appeared somewhat distant during Wednesday's live finale.

And winner Chad has now revealed the real reason why there wasn't a loved-up reunion between the pair on stage.

The 27-year-old model told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday that the contestants had been instructed to limit physical contact as a safety precaution.

Scroll down for video

Big Brother EXCLUSIVE: Winner Chad Hurst (right) has revealed the REAL reason there was no romantic embrace with Sophie Budack (left) on stage at Wednesday's live finale

'We were all told not to touch each other because of coronavirus,' he said.

In addition to social distancing among the housemates, Seven also made everyone involved in production get health checks before the finale.

While Chad did what he was told and avoided hugging Sophie on camera, the other contestants weren't so cautious and flocked towards him.

Explained: The 27-year-old model told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday that the contestants had been instructed to limit physical contact as a safety precaution. Pictured: Sonia Kruger

Chad said that his victory took him by surprise and he didn't have time to process what was going on as his co-stars rushed in.

'The adrenaline is running and you don't know what's going on,' he said.

'We were all told not to touch each other, but Shane [Vincent] coming over was not my fault.'

No firework finish? Chad gave Sophie a brief kiss and a hug after his winner announcement

Earlier in the episode, Chad and Sophie had dodged host Sonia Kruger's awkward questions about their relationship status.

At one stage, they both squirmed when she asked if they'd 'done it' yet.

Interestingly, Sophie wasn't exactly jumping for joy when her boyfriend was crowned the winner of Big Brother.

Chad only gave her a brief kiss and a hug after the announcement, and she seemed to keep her distance on stage while he enjoyed his moment of glory.

Distant lovers? Sophie was third from left on the stage when Chad (third from right, with his mother) spoke to host Sonia (far right) about how much winning meant to him

Hmm! When asked what he was going to spend the prize money on, Chad revealed he would go on a boys' trip and pay off his mother's bills - but he didn't reference Sophie at all

When asked what he was going to spend the prize money on, Chad revealed he would go on a boys' trip and pay off his mother's bills - but he didn't reference Sophie at all.

He had previously promised he would split the prize money 50-50 with his girlfriend, but made no mention of this deal during the live broadcast.

The pair later posed for a series of happy photos together, with Sophie planting a friendly kiss on Chad's cheek.
Carlos Ghosn's son made about $500,000 in cryptocurrency payments to one of the two American men accused of helping the former Nissan chairman escape criminal charges in Japan, U.S. prosecutors said.

Anthony Ghosn made the payments to Peter Taylor via the cryptocurrency platform Coinbase after the auto executive escaped in a box smuggled aboard a private plane in December, prosecutors said in a court filing Wednesday. Together with an earlier wire transfer, Taylor and his father, ex-Green Beret Michael Taylor, received at least a combined $1.36 million from the Ghosn family, government records show.

Carlos Ghosn, who fled to Lebanon, has claimed his family played no part in his escape from Japan, where he faced charges of financial misconduct. But prosecutors in the U.S. and Japan have gathered evidence indicating his son and one daughter, Maya, played some role in the operation.

The Taylors were arrested by U.S. authorities in May at the request of the Japanese government, which is seeking to extradite them. In its formal extradition request to the U.S. in June, Japan included security-camera images and a witness interview showing Maya Ghosn met with her father, and later with Peter Taylor, in Tokyo on the day of the escape. She arrived at Taylor's hotel in a car carrying some of Ghosn's luggage, prosecutors said.

No one in Ghosn's family has been charged with aiding the escape. A spokeswoman for the family didn't immediately respond an emailed request for comment Thursday.

The cryptocurrency transfers, made in installments from January through mid-May, are the second set of payments that prosecutors have identified between Ghosn and the Taylors. In the extradition request, Japanese investigators said that Ghosn himself had wired more than $860,000 to a company run by Peter Taylor.

The Taylors, who have been in custody since their arrests in Massachusetts, are now on their third attempt to win bail, after separate judges rejected their previous pleas for release. U.S. prosecutors argued in the court filing on Wednesday that the payments from Ghosn's family showed that the Taylors were "paid handsomely" and have the resources to flee the country.

Earlier this month, Ghosn told Al Arabiya TV that he was "helping everyone who helped me...helping them with my means," the prosecutors said in the court filing.

Lawyers for the Taylors didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Taylors have never denied that they were involved in Ghosn's escape. But in court, their lawyers have argued that Japan's extradition request is baseless because it does not actually accuse the Taylors of a serious enough offense to warrant extradition.

They have also argued that the Taylors have strong ties to Massachusetts and do not constitute flight risks.

At a bail hearing in June, the lawyers said that both men voluntarily returned to the U.S. from Lebanon this spring, even after Japan issued arrest warrants. If the Taylors had wanted to circumvent the judicial process, the lawyers said, they could simply have stayed in Lebanon, which does not have an extradition agreement with Japan.

"There is no chance that these guys flee," said Paul Kelly, a lawyer for the Taylors.
Getty Images / iStockphoto

Californias child care facilities, including our after-school programs, have been struggling to provide care and services for our young people for many years. For millions of Californians, returning to work will require they have safe places to send their children when they are not in school. Existing child care and after-school programs are absolutely essential for working parents, and they are also vital for the well-being and safety of our young people, as well as their transition from being children to becoming young adults. An especially dire situation confronts the most invisible households: the families of farmworkers, service workers, janitors, sanitation workers and many others.

Our state will pay a huge cost if we cannot restore these programs quickly. Surveys of child care providers before 2020 described a world of low wages and financial distress, and COVID has devastated these programs. In less than two months, our schools will be reopening, in some fashion, and parents are gradually returning to their jobs outside of the home. Child care and after-school programs must receive adequate funding to reopen right now. For Californias children  especially those living in our most vulnerable communities  the future appears grim.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 15:16:13|Editor: huaxia

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PHNOM PENH, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia on Thursday confirmed one more imported COVID-19 case, raising the total number of infections in the kingdom to 198, said a Health Ministry's press statement.

The latest case was found on a 28-year-old Cambodian man, who arrived in Cambodia on July 19 from Russia, with a connecting flight in Malaysia, the statement said, adding that he was on the same flight with the 20 positive cases detected on Monday.

"The man's samples were tested for the second time (by the Pasteur Institute of Cambodia), and the result available on Wednesday indicated that he was positive for COVID-19," the statement said.

Currently, the new patient is receiving treatment at the Chak Angre Health Center in southern Phnom Penh, it said, adding that the remaining 118 passengers on the same flight are still undergoing a 14-day mandatory quarantine at a quarantine center in Phnom Penh.

The Southeast Asian country has so far recorded a total of 198 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 142 patients cured and 56 remained in hospital. Enditem
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People who are still waiting to receive the first round of stimulus payments  also called Economic Impact Payments or EIPs  have a lot of questions about why they still dont have their money.

The payments were part of the CARES Act, a coronavirus relief package.

Theres been a lot of confusion, including among people who used the IRS Get My Payment tool and were told they were getting a paper check. Instead, many received a pre-paid debit card. Some people threw away the cards, thinking they were junk mail or a scam.

Now the IRS says some were never issued.

Due to a system error, EIPs scheduled to be mailed as a pre-paid debit card on 05/22/2020 were not all issued, said a post on the IRS Frequently Asked Questions page.

So if you checked the Get My Payment tool on March 22, the money is still coming, but we dont know how long it will take.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

If you live in New Jersey, youre one of the lucky ones. The IRS said for those in New Jersey and 21 other states, no action is needed for you to receive your payment.

We are working to issue the payment as a paper check to your address on file for you, the IRS said. Get My Payment will provide a new date once your payment by check has been scheduled.

The other states that dont need to take action are Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont and Virginia.

Those who dont live in one of those 22 states should request a payment trace, the IRS said. You can do that by submitting Form 3911, Taxpayer Statement Regarding Refund or by calling (800) 919-9835. The IRS said you may experience long wait times because of limited staffing.

If you think you may have thrown away the debit card, you can call Money Network Services, the company that handles the cards, at (800) 240-8100.

Congress is negotiating a new stimulus package that could include new payments to individuals. No decisions have been reached at the time of publication.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com.
A fire inside the sanctuary of a Delaware church was started by an act of arson, authorities said.

State Fire Marshal Chief Deputy Robert Fox said multiple fires were started inside Reach Church, in Glasgow, news outlets reported.

Fox said the fire was caused by an unknown subject igniting combustible material.

Firefighters arrived at the church around 11 p.m. Monday and had to cut holes in the churchs steeple to ventilate the building.

No one was injured. The fire caused approximately $250,000 in damages.

Reverend Chuck L. Betters said the church was planning to reopen for in-person services on Aug. 2, months after hosting outdoor and online services due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Perseverance is finishing its work on Reach Church, and I am 100 percent convinced that we will emerge more complete than ever, Betters said. Jesus said, I will build my church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Arson
Details added: first version posted on 13:02

BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

Trend:

Armenians living in Los Angeles surrounded the building of Azerbaijan's Consulate General and held an action with aggressive and provocative anti-Azerbaijani slogans on July 21, Trend reports referring to the consulate.

However, to their surprise, members of the Azerbaijani community living in California opposed the Armenians, preventing their provocation.

Members of the Azerbaijani community held posters with "Karabakh is Azerbaijan!", "Stop the aggression of Armenia!", "Justice for Khojaly!", "During the COVID-19 pandemic, Armenia started a war against Azerbaijan - Shame!" and other slogans exposing the Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan and the ethnic cleansing policy.

All employees of the consulate, guided by the consul general, being in the consulates office, constantly kept in touch with members of the community.

Enraged by this courage of Azerbaijanis who came out to the crowd of Armenians, as well as by the fact that they could not achieve the desired results, the Armenians initiated a scuffle with the Azerbaijanis.

The representatives of the Armenian community started to insult Azerbaijanis from cars, even tried to run them over. Los Angeles police had to be involved to ensure the safety of the members of the Azerbaijani community.

Seeing the growing aggression of the Armenians, the Consulate General, having contacted the local bus companies, asked for a bus to take the Azerbaijanis to a safe place. But, the Los Angeles police officers, stating that they must ensure the safety of the members of the Azerbaijani community, began themselves to escort them to the safe place.

As a result of the scuffle, seven of the Azerbaijanis, including a woman, received various injuries. Moreover, the police officer who protected this woman received a head injury. Four of the injured Azerbaijanis had to be admitted to a hospital.

Consul General Nasimi Aghayev met with the Azerbaijanis in the hospital, taking all necessary measures to bring the Armenian criminals to justice. Immediately after the incident, he contacted the Head of the Los Angeles Police Department, Michel Rey Moore, bringing his attention to the incident seriousness and expressing him utter discontent with the polices failure to prevent the violent actions of the Armenians.

He noted that the Consulate General pre-notified the Los Angeles police about the Azerbaijani communitys responsive demonstration, and received from it a full guarantee on the security of the demonstrators.

Moore has apologized to the Consul General for the incident, saying that the incident will be seriously investigated, in connection with which a special investigation team has been created. The group has already begun the investigation.

The Consulate General raised the issue of this atrocity of Armenian criminals before the Los Angeles City Hall and other senior officials, demanding the immediate identification of the criminals, bringing them to justice and taking appropriate measures against them.
Expanding on its hemp exchange, cryptocurrency and cooperative farming program, Swissx is offering microloans for land and equipment in the Golden State

Swissx has launched the California arm of its Bank of Cannabis, which is giving microloans to local farmers involved in its cooperative hemp farming program. Swissx is the leading CBD brand, available at swissx.com.

Swissx has launched the California arm of its Bank of Cannabis, which is giving microloans to local farmers involved in its cooperative hemp farming program. Swissx is the leading CBD brand, available at swissx.com.

Malibu, CA, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Swissx has launched the Swissx Bank of California, an extension of its Swiss-based Bank of Cannabis, it was announced today. The bank will work in tandem with Swissxs cooperative farming program, which is based on centuries old agricultural traditions in Switzerland, and on recent experience developing cooperative hemp farms with the Rastafarian community in Antigua. Microloans will help participating farmers with supplies and structures, and even in some cases with land leases and purchases. The Swissx farming program already has 200 acres planted in California, along with thousands in Switzerland, Puerto Rico and Antigua.

We are leading a sustainable, healthy, revolution right now in California, said Swissx founder and CEO Alki David. Our Bank of Cannabis is now helping farmers get in at ground level on the business of the future, across the Caribbean and now in California. As our slogan goes, its For the Higher Good. And we want to bring our farming brothers and sisters with us.

Swissx is known for its CBD product line, the first to go mainstream in the U.S (available online at swissx.com). The companys genetics division is advancing research into hemp and cannabis, and Swissx is breaking ground on a joint project with the University of Antigua for further research. A nearby clinic and resort will offer plant-based and other bio-medicine therapies.

Swissx is now meeting farmers on their own turf by operating at the SoCal regions best farmers markets, including the famous Malibu Farmers Market. At the markets, Swissx seed and CBD products will be sold and representatives can create bespoke loan plans for farmers on the spot. The Swissx team can also help farmers navigate regional tax incentives and specialized USDA loans.

Story continues

Known for its incredibly pure quality, developed at its global headquarters in Gstaad, Switzerland, Swissx has become a favorite of people like Scott Disick, Snoop Dogg, Donatella Versace, Tommy Chong, Jonathan Rhys Myers, Chief Keef, Mike Tyson and other stars.

For more information about Swissx and its farming program, visit Swissx.com

For photos, press info, or to request an interview with Alki David: press@swissx.com

Attachment

CONTACT: Swissx press@swissx.com




The developer is working with ESD and a spinoff of the company, smart-building technology firm Cohesion, to improve air flow and quality and limit high-touch areas. Using an app, tenants at 150 N. Riverside soon will be able to view measurements of pollutants in the building. The app will show readouts for several aspects of air quality, ranging from specific toxins in the air to ventilation and humidity levels, within a particular floor or room.
America has ordered China to close its consulate in Houston "to protect US intellectual property" and Americans' private information.

China strongly condemned the move, the latest in a series of steps by the Trump administration as it ratchets up pressure on the world's second-largest economy over trade, technology, human rights and security.

In Houston, firefighters responded to reports of papers being burned on the consulate grounds on Tuesday night but were barred from entry, according to news reports.

The US, in a brief statement, did not provide any details on why the consulate in Texas was targeted.

"The United States will not tolerate (China's) violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated (its) unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs and other egregious behaviour," said the statement, which was attributed to State Department spokesman Morgan Ortagus. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration is taking action to halt long-running intellectual property theft, noting indictments announced on Tuesday against two Chinese individuals accused of hacking.

"President (Donald) Trump has said, 'Enough, we're not going to allow this to continue to happen,'" he said.

The US has also decided not to reopen its consulate in the city of Wuhan, which was closed in January at the height of the coronavirus outbreak in China. A US official, who was not authorised to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the closure of the Wuhan consulate might mitigate China's response to the Houston shutdown.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called it "an outrageous and unjustified move that will sabotage relations between the two countries".

"The unilateral closure of China's consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China," he said, and warned of firm countermeasures if the decision stands.

Mr Wang accused the US of opening Chinese diplomatic pouches without permission multiple times, confiscating Chinese items for official use and imposing restrictions on Chinese diplomats in the US last October and again in June. He also claimed that American diplomats in China engage in infiltration activities.

Mr Trump, his re-election prospects damaged by the coronavirus outbreak, has blamed China repeatedly for the pandemic. Almost every day brings a fresh US action against what Trump has called the rising Asian superpower's exploitation of America.
While most bars in the Bay Area remain closed while awaiting a loosening of shelter-in-place orders, some are rolling with the punches, working on creative ways to open up to customers again.

In many counties, current rules dictate that bars must sell food to patrons at outdoor spaces to remain open. Thats presented an issue for dives, cocktail bars and breweries without kitchens or food programs.

Modern Times, a San Diego-based brewery with an Oakland taproom, managed a work-around. They partnered with a neighboring restaurant, alaMar Kitchen & Bar, to feed guests according to the ABCs rules.

This shows that unity that we have in Oakland  the restaurant community where we all know each other and help each other behind the scenes, said Nelson German, chef at alaMar.

But not all breweries have been able to work out such an arrangement. And to many, the idea that they even need to is unfair. In 30 California counties, wineries dont need to serve food with tastings, but breweries (and distilleries) still do, as the North Bay Business Journal reported.

Its a mystery, said Tom McCormick, executive director of the California Craft Brewers Association, about the regulatory discrepancy. My confidence in the governors ability to issue guidance and orders  at least around our industry  is not only confusing, but at times makes no practical sense whatsoever.

Certainly brewers and bar owners could do well with a little more consistency from the state, but even that may be too lofty an ask in an uncertain present. So what's next for breweries? It's anyone's guess.

Alyssa Pereira is a culture editor at SFGate. Email: alyssa.pereira@sfgate.com | Twitter: @alyspereira


Not just humans, but wildlife too has severely suffered from the detrimental impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns as revealed by a recent survey. While the disease claimed over half a million human lives, it also wreaked havoc on the global economy. The negative outcomes of the latter directly affected the funding of critical species conservation activities and fieldwork. Hard-earned successes in wildlife conservation work now stand threatened and push the species further to the brink.

What The Survey Revealed

The survey covering over 300 conservationists in 85 countries was conducted by the Abu Dhabi-based Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund or MBZ Fund. It is a philanthropy that provides grants to threatened species conservation projects across the globe. Conducted in April and May 2020, here are some of the most major findings of the study:

Of those surveyed, 83% claimed that their conservation fieldwork was adversely affected by the pandemic.

Over 70% of planned conservation activities had to be either canceled or postponed.

The pandemic also negatively affected the careers or jobs of 40% of surveyed conservationists.

The pandemic also had negative consequences on operations at the organizational level. 66% reported that their organizations were impacted while 58% claimed that financial difficulties had struck their organization due to the pandemic. 50% of the respondents also mentioned that donations to their organizations have decreased.

Unfortunately, 22% of conservation organizations covered by the survey are also planning to eliminate jobs.

There is little evidence to prove that species and their habitats have benefited from the lockdowns.

According to the MBZ Fund report, the closure of zoos, wildlife parks, aquariums, and a general decline in ecotourism are some of the factors leading to the financial setbacks plaguing many of the conservation organizations during this time of crisis.

Also, reports of enhanced poaching in the absence of tourists and restricted movements of protected area staff, have surfaced. Loss of income and rising unemployment levels appear to have attracted many to kill wildlife for monetary gain during this time.

Lockdowns also prevented many conservation teams from carrying out their fieldwork activities that were urgently needed leaving the wildlife protected by them vulnerable to threats.

MBZ Fund: Funding Conservation During The Pandemic

Razan Al Mubarak, Founding Managing Director of The MBZ Conservation Fund

Despite the COVID-19, the MBZ Conservation Fund continued to invite grant applications for the current year, providing an opportunity to many conservationists struggling to meet up with the deadlines to receive funds to continue with their work. The MBZ Conservation Fund was established in 2009 to provide small grants of $25,000 or less to individual species conservation initiatives worldwide.

"The Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund (MBZ Fund) supports boots-on-the-ground, get-your-hands-dirty species conservation projects worldwide for all types of species, including amphibians, birds, fish, fungi, invertebrates, mammals, plants, and reptiles. To-date, the MBZ Fund has supported more than 2,100 projects in over 160 countries targeting around 1,350 species and subspecies," Razan Al Mubarak, Founding Managing Director of The MBZ Conservation Fund, informed World Atlas.

"The conservationists we support are the first line of defense against the extinction crisis. Their dedication, passion, expertise, and presence in the field help prevent species from further decline. So we strongly support their efforts, as well as the species for which they work so tirelessly, across the world. The MBZ Fund has provided support for projects ranging from Proyecto Titis efforts in Colombia for the Cotton-top Tamarin to the amphibian work of South Africas frog lady, Dr. Jeanne Tarrant. The support of the MBZ Fund is truly global in its reach and very supportive of the conservationists who continue to do great work," she further stated.

A flying black-capped petrel. Image source: MBZ Conservation Fund

Over the years since its inception, the MBZ Fund has supported many projects that went on to become a grand success, restoring nearly lost species to viable populations. Ms. Al Mubarak mentioned some of the most inspiring projects funded by the organization in recent years:

"We are particularly excited about the recent discovery of the breeding and nesting grounds of the black-capped petrel, the rediscovery of the Cave Squeaker frog in Zimbabwe after almost 60 years, and the rediscovery of the Cropans boa in Brazil after almost 65 years. Also, our small grants can be leveraged into even more support: a $25,000 grant provided to a freshwater fish project in Mexico project secured an additional $250,000 in funding, while another small grant of $12,000 for pangolin DNA research led to the recipient winning the $250,000 USAID WIldlife Tech Challenge in 2016. For every one of these success stories, there are literally hundreds more. While it does say a lot about the effectiveness of the MBZ Fund, it says even more about the innovation, hard work, and dedication of our grant recipients around the world."

Cropan's boa in Brazil rediscovered after almost 65 years. Image credit: Bruno Rocha Image source: MBZ Fund

She also provided an important note for all aspiring to apply for the MBZ Fund grant in the future:

"Anyone can apply for a grant from the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund. We provide support to individuals, community groups, students, academics, government officials, and people from all walks of life and professions. We are particularly interested in direct, boots-on-the-ground species conservation efforts for the worlds most endangered or less well known or understood species. It doesnt matter if you are interested in fungi or lichen or mammals or reptiles. We will potentially support projects for all species types, particularly those that dont typically receive conservation attention or funding. In many ways we are more interested in providing support for a small elephant shrew than we are for the elephant because the shrew typically receives fewer opportunities for funding than the African or Asian elephant," she said.

In the end, it is hoped that with the help of MBZ Conservation Fund and other concerned organizations, wildlife conservation work will continue unabated and be restored to pre-pandemic levels. Like all other "essential activities," the well-being of the natural world around us is vital to our survival.

"All of our grant recipients give us hope for a better, more natural and abundant world. As a result, we are conservation optimists. We know that the world is a beautiful place with many amazing creatures, and effective conservation work is all around us. We can and we will overcome the challenges we face through the great work, innovation, and persistence of our grant recipients, even when faced with seemingly hopeless situations," Ms. Al Mubarak gave us hope for a brighter future.
A customer wears a face mask while shopping in Iceland. (Getty)

Eating and drinking are among the reasonable excuses for not wearing a mask indoors in public, new laws published today say.

Face coverings will be mandatory in shops, supermarkets, takeaways, railway stations, and airports from Friday.

The rules do not apply restaurants, gyms, and pubs, which means you will need to wear a mask when buying food in a takeaway like Greggs, but not when having a sitdown meal in a pub.

The new laws are the governments latest attempt to bring life back to normal while also attempting to control the spread of coronavirus.

The guidelines spell out a number of reasonable excuses for not wearing a mask, including when it is reasonably necessary to eat or drink.

Disney World Florida recently had to tighten its rules around wearing masks and eating after customers subverted the guidelines by constantly snacking while walking.

Read more:

What will happen if I don't wear a covering in a shop?

R rate range goes above 1 in Northern Ireland for first time in seven weeks

Generally, in places where face masks arent required for customers, like in a pub, then the guidelines say staff should wear a face covering.

Face masks in supermarkets will be mandatory from Friday. (Getty)

The opposite is true in the new laws for shops, where customers will need to wear a face covering and the government is not requiring them for staff, although they strongly recommend employers use them.

Other places where masks are mandatory are banks, building societies, and post offices.

Police, security, and regular staff at the listed places may ask people to remove their mask in order to prove the person's identity.

People who fail to cover their face risk a fine of up to 100. (Getty)

There are also exemptions for children under 11 and people unable to wear them because of physical or mental illness.

This rule applies if you are accompanying a person who relies on lip reading to communicate.

The full guidance on wearing face coverings was published less than 12 hours before the rules came into force.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said "everyone must play their part" by following the new guidance.

Story continues

The new measures are the latest attempt by the government to return life to normal while also attempting to control the virus.(Getty)

"As we move into the next stage of easing restrictions for the public, it is vital we continue to shop safely so that we can make the most of our fantastic retail industry this summer," he said.

The law also says it is okay to not wear a mask if you are avoiding injury and you did not have a mask with you at the time, or if you remove your mask in order to avoid harm.

Healthcare professionals and pharmacists may also request a person removes their mask in order for them to provide care.

Coronavirus: what happened today

Click here to sign up to the latest news and information with our daily Catch-up newsletter
The Ghana Police Service has pledged to deal with anyone who forments trouble at the registration centres.



"Any person or group of persons, political or not, who has been arrested or will be arrested will face the consequence of the law, as far as police powers are concerned," it said

in an official statement.



It expressed the concern of the Administration about reports of violence in the ongoing Voters Registration Exercise, which had created tension, alarm, fear and insecurity among the populace.



"However, Police assures all that the necessary police actions have been taken or are being taken to bring all culprits to book".



The Police Administration said every complaint of violence reported to Police was being investigated with some already in Court and emphasised that due process would be followed in all the cases.



These were contained in a statement signed by Superintendent of Police, Mrs Sheilla Kessie Abayie-Buckman, Director of Public Affairs and copied to the Ghana News Agency.



It has, therefore, warned that per the Public Elections (Registration of Voters) Regulations, 2016 (C.I. 91), persons and groups outside the list provided under regulation 10 are barred from entering any Registration Centre.



"A person who disrupts proccedings at a Registration Centre or in any way interferes with the work of an official connected with registration of voters commits an offence," it said.



The statement said the threat or intimidation by a person to further that person's interest or an affiliate related to a political party or office holder, among others, also amounted to offence under the Vigilantism and Related Offences Act, 209 (Act 999).



"The Police Administration finally cautions all to adhere to the rules and regulations laid down for the registration exercise, including following the EC's challenge procedure for ineligibility," it added.



It asked political actors, individuals and groups to stop unwarranted movement to or at Voters Registration Centres, the busing of people or blockage of routes to such Centres.



The statement, therefore, asked those who claimed to have been receiving calls or reports of illegality from representatives assigned to Registration Centres should promptly contact local Police Officers for action, instead of proceeding to the

centres as their presence contributed to the alleged illegality.



Police Administration identified some of the causes of the violence as movements of politicians to Registration Centres in groups, under the guise of familiarising themselves with the process or responding to calls of illegal actions from party representatives assigned to the Centres, the blockage of routes to Registration Centres and allegations of busing or transporting of applicants from one Electoral Area to the other.



These acts, it said, had resulted in physical and verbal attacks on Registration Officials.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The flood situation in Assam and Bihar remained grim on Thursday with four more deaths reported from the northeastern district, while the UNICEF said 2.4 million children have been affected across the country and need immediate support.

IMAGE: A boy with his goat wades through the floodwater as he moves to a safer place in Bihar's Gopalganj district. Photograph: PTI Photo

Also, several rivers in North Bengal, including Teesta, Kaljani, and Mansai are in spate owing to heavy rains in the catchment areas over the past several days, causing people in low-lying areas to take shelter at safer places.

Meanwhile, the India Meteorological Department said Delhi has already recorded 50 per cent more than normal rainfall for July with spells of heavy downpour this week.

According to the IMD data, the Safdarjung Observatory, which provides representative figures for the city, has recorded 225 mm rainfall in July so far, which is 50 per cent more than the normal of 149.8 mm.

The Lodhi Road weather station has gauged 246 mm rainfall which is 64 per cent more than the normal of 149.8 mm.

The Palam weather station has recorded 37 per cent surplus precipitation -- 224 mm against the normal of 164.1 mm.

In the northeastern state of Assam, four more people died in flood-related incidents while 28.32 lakh people in 26 of the state's 33 districts have been affected, a government report said on Thursday.

The fresh deaths took this year's flood toll in the state to 93.

Governor Jagdish Mukhi made an aerial survey of flood-hit areas and said he would request the Centre to find out a permanent solution to the problem.

Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal also visited affected areas in Darrang and Kamrup districts.

The Assam State Disaster Management Authority said in a bulletin on Thursday that one person each died in Bongaigaon, Kokrajhar, Morigaon and Golaghat districts.

Nearly 1,19 lakh hectares of crop areas have been damaged across Assam, ASDMA added.

Till Wednesday, a population of more than 26 lakh were suffering in 26 districts.

The mighty Brahmaputra is flowing above the danger marks at Dibrugarh, Dhubri and Goalpara cities, besides at Neamatighat in Jorhat and Tezpur in Sonitpur districts.

IMAGE: A team of medics provide medicines to the flood-affected people in Morigaon district of Assam. Photograph: PTI Photo

The Flood situation remained grim in Bihar as well where 7.65 lakh, up from under five lakh the previous day, are affected even though no loss of life is reported, the disaster management department said.

The districts affected by the floods, caused by heavy rainfall in the catchment areas along the border with Nepal, are: West Champaran, East Champaran, Sitamarhi, Sheohar, Supaul, Kishanganj, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Khagaria and Gopalganj.

Thirteen teams of the NDRF and eight of the SDRF are involved in the rescue operations as part of which 36,448 people have been evacuated from the marooned areas so far.

Meanwhile, the UNICEF said an estimated 2.4 million children have been affected by the recent floods in the country.

"In India, over 6 million people across Bihar, Assam, Odisha, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have been affected by the floods, including an estimated 2.4 million children," it said in a statement.

Immediate support, more resources and innovative programmes are urgently needed to address the challenges that these threats represent to the region's children, said Jean Gough, UNICEF Regional Director for South Asia.

The IMD said in a tweet around 2 pm that moderate to severe thunderstorm and lightning is very likely at isolated places over south Bihar, Jharkhand, Vidarbha, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and Telangana during next 12 hours.

About the positioning of monsoon, it said the western end of the monsoon trough at mean sea level lies close to the foothills of the Himalayas and eastern end is near its normal position.

In West Bengal, sub-Himalayan districts of Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Coochbehar are likely to receive heavy to heavy rain till Friday morning and heavy rain till July 28 morning, the IMD said.

In South Bengal, the weatherman has forecast heavy rain in the coastal districts of North and South 24 Parganas and heavy to very heavy rain in East Midnapore till Saturday morning.

Up north in Uttarakhand, 53 families of Dhapa village in Pithoragarh were evacuated to safety after a huge ditch started to develop in the middle of the village, following torrential rains over the past few days.

"The families have been shifted as a precautionary measure to nearby safe locations like anganwadi centres, primary schools and government buildings, where they are being taken care of by the district supply officer and revenue officials," Pithoragarh District Magistrate V K Jogdande said.

Meanwhile, the death toll in the Monday cloudburst in Bangapani sub-division of the district rose to 12 on Thursday with the recovery of two more bodies from Tanga village.
WALWORTH  Big Foot High School will offer in-person classes this fall with sanitation and social distancing practices, while also giving students the option of taking classes from home.

The Big Foot school board July 20 unanimously approved a reopening plan drafted by the schools administration to give students a choice this fall during the coronavirus pandemic.

The plan does not require students to wear face masks in most circumstances, except in classrooms where students move around rather than remain seated, like shop class or cooking.

Board members, however, said they hope students will wear face masks voluntarily to control the spread of coronavirus.

School board president Ed Hayden said employees will encourage students to wear face masks through leading by example.

We will all be modelling mask-wearing, Hayden said.

Board vice president Jim Brost said that if students refuse to wear a face mask, there may not be much the school can do, but that the value of mask wearing will be impressed on everyone.

We are talking a fine line between required and highly recommended," Brost said. "And I think we do more than encourage them to wear a mask; we expect them to wear a mask.

Few parents spoke up during the school board meeting.

Rebecca Decker, mother of an incoming freshman, said later she was pleased to see in-person instruction returning, and she was satisfied with the school's public health safeguards.

I really hope we put enough faith in our students that they will be able to follow the guidance, Decker said.

School district administrator Doug Parker presented the plan to parents and school staff in attendance, as well as others following a livestream on Facebook.

Parker said the plan was built with consideration for results of a survey sent to parents. The survey of more than 300 parents showed that 90 percent said they would be "comfortable" having their middle or high school student return to in-person instruction.

The survey also showed that while 61 percent of parents preferred in-person learning, 30 percent favored a combination of at-home and in-school learning. Another four percent favored remote learning entirely.

Its pretty obvious from the respondents that our community wants our kids back in school, Parker told school board members.

Under the approved plan, Big Foot will continue to offer a virtual learning option, but will also open the building for in-person classes. So far, four students have registered for a full schedule of online classes to continue learning remotely.

Students choosing to appear in class will notice a number of safety measures aimed at combating the spread of coronavirus.

All desks will face the same direction and will be spaced six feet apart so that once students sit down for classes they will be socially distanced. Teachers will also remain at the front of the room throughout the class period.

Water fountains will be turned off and only bottle filling stations will be active. Parker said students will be given reusable water bottles at the beginning of the school year.

Another health room has been created that will be designated an isolation room to treat and evaluate students or staff displaying flu-like symptoms.

While all field trips and events outside of the school have been canceled, clubs and activities will resume with social distancing requirements.

Plexiglas dividers will be built on top of the schools circular lunch tables, allowing four students to sit at a table at a time without exposing themselves to one another. Students will also have the option to eat outside during good weather or to sit in a classroom with a teacher present.

Any way we can reduce exposure and risk and make kids and staff feel more comfortable and safe in the environment, thats what were trying to do, Parker said.

Other safety measures include directional signs in hallways to discourage cross traffic, hand sanitizer stations and frequent reminders to students about the importance of hand washing, sanitation and social distancing practices. The use of lockers will also be prohibited to prevent crowding in the hallways during passing periods.

Masks will be recommended throughout the day, but only required for situations where students cannot socially distance themselves, like in cooking or shop classes, where students are moving throughout a room rather than seated at a desk.

Were asking that everybody wear masks if they are breaking someone elses social distance, to be respectful of other people, Parker said.

Parker said teachers and staff will have masks to distribute to students as needed.

Parker said while the school will recommend face masks, he said a school board association attorney has advised that schools cannot legally require students to wear face masks under some circumstances, including when students are at least six feet apart from one another.

Asked by one parent about plans for a confirmed coronavirus case in the school, Parker said the student would be quarantined at home for 14 days while the county health department investigated with help from the school. He added that the school would put out a statement about the infection.

With coronavirus cases rising in the county, Parker said the school will maintain virtual classroom options in case in-person instruction no longer is an option later.

As it happened in the spring, we may at some point for various reasons, have to go completely virtual as a school or partial virtual or reassess our daily school day as time goes on, Parker said.

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A giant 23-metre whale briefly washed up near a beach in Indonesia but it was unclear how the enormous marine mammal died, a conservation official said.

Curious onlookers crowded the shore of coastal Kupang city as officials scrambled to figure out what to do with the bloated carcass, which was first spotted on Tuesday.

But the giant creature was washed back to sea on Wednesday before it could be brought to shore for an examination.

Curious onlookers crowded the shore of coastal Kupang city in Indonesia as officials scrambled to figure out what to do with carcass before it floated back out to sea

'We think that it's a blue whale but we don't know what caused its death,' said local conservation official Lidya Tesa Saputra.

'It looks like it didn't die here and may have been deceased for some time,' she added.

Blue whales are the largest animals in existence, weighing up to 200 tons and growing as long as 32 metres.

The creature, whose tongue alone can weigh as much as an elephant, has an average lifespan of 80 to 90 years, according to National Geographic.

The carcass of the blue what floated back out to sea before experts could determine how it died

Seven pilot whales were found dead near Kupang last October.

Cross-currents off the beach pose a danger to whales as they can get caught between reefs close to shore.

In 2018, a sperm whale was found dead in Indonesia with more than 100 plastic cups and 25 plastic bags in its stomach, raising concerns about the Southeast Asian archipelago's massive marine rubbish problem.
President Nana Akufo-Addo left the country this morning for Mali.

He is there at the request of the Chairperson of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) , Mahamadou Issoufou who is also the President of Niger, to help mediate in the ongoing political crisis in Mali, as part of a delegation of ECOWAS leaders who have been assembled.

It is the first time President Akufo-Addo is travelling outside the country since the outbreak of the corona virus pandemic and the closure of the Ghanas air, land and sea borders.

A statement from the presidency said President Akufo-Addo will be joined in Mali by His Excellency Muhammadu Buhari, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; His Excellency Alassane Ouattara, President of the Republic of Cote d'Ivoire; and His Excellency Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal. They are expected to hold stakeholder consultations with the President of the Republic of Mali, His Excellency Boubacar Keita, the Imam of Mali and Co-ordinator of the Opposition, Mahmoud Dicko, and Civil Society groups, with a view to resolving the impasse.

He was accompanied by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Anyaa Sowutuom and officials of the Presidency and Foreign Ministry.

President Akufo-Addo is expected back home later today, Thursday.

In his absence, Vice President Bawumia is acting as President in accordance with Article 60(8) of the Constitution.

Daily Guide
Karnataka's octogenarian farmer Kamegowda, whom Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently praised for digging 16 ponds around his village to conserve water in Mandya district, has tested Covid positive, his son Krishna said on Wednesday.

"As my 85-year-old father (Kamegowda) is an asthama patient and was having breathing problem, he was admitted to the state-run hospital in Mandya on Tuesday where his swab sample tested positive," Krishna told IANS over phone.

Kamegowda's village Dasanadoddi is 27 km from Mandya and 120 km southwest of Bengaluru.

"The district officials sent an ambulance to our home on Monday night and took my father and admitted him to the district hospital. As Covid test is mandatory for all patients, especially the elderly, his swab sample was taken on Tuesday and its result returned positive," Krishna said.

Kamegowda's family, including his two sons and daughters in-laws, have also given their swab samples for testing.

"We are under home quarantine awaiting our test results. As my father is asymptomatic and responding to the treatment, we hope and pray to god that he recovers soon," said Krishna.

Mandya Deputy Commissioner M.V. Venkatesh also told reporters that Kamegowda was asymptomatic and was responding well to the treatment.

Meanwhile, the district healthcare personnel are doing contact tracing to isolate and quarantine people besides Kamegowda's family members.

In his monthly radio programme "Mann Ki Baat" on June 28, Prime Minister Modi had said that with the onset of southwest monsoon in many parts of the country, people should practice rain-water harvesting to protect the environment, just like Kamegowda was doing in Karnataka even though he was over 80 years old.

"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 the others. At his age, Kamegowda takes cattle for grazing and has dug ponds in his village. When asked about his feat, he said as there was water shortage in his area, he was digging more ponds to conserve water for the people," Modi had said.

Though the ponds dug by Kamegowda may not be big, his efforts were huge, Modi said.

"Kamegowda is an inspiration for the people in the country, as he has been forming water bodies for over four decades, which have turned the Kundinibetta hillock green, providing water for drinking and farming," an official had said then.

The state government had honoured Kamegowda with the Rajyotsava award in 2019 in recognition of his yeomen community service.
1. More than four million people in the U.S. are now known to have been infected with the coronavirus, according to a Times database.

And its not just cases that are rising. The numbers of hospitalizations and deaths reported in the U.S. each day have also been increasing. Cases are trending upward in 39 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and are decreasing in only two.
Churches that suspended in-person gatherings during the pandemic have pledged not to welcome their congregations back until theyre sure they can be safe. While the risk of coronavirus spread is the major concern right now, LifeWay Christian Resources is urging leaders to use their reopening plans as a chance to also revisit their policies to prevent sexual abuse.

Most pastors see their churches as safe places that protect against abuse and offer healing to victims, but protocols vary by congregation.

At the Family Empowerment Center, a church in Chicagos Rogers Park neighborhood, pastors and staff are trained to pay attention to new faces. During one Sunday gathering before the pandemic, they noticed a visitor intently watching children in the congregation. They met him, learned his name, and later found him listed on a sex offender registry. His Facebook page also turned up unsettling posts about children.

The church had a plan in place for cases like his, developed based on conversations with the local alderman, police officials, and other church leaders. Tony Silker, an associate pastor at the Christian and Missionary Alliance congregation, had a conversation with the man on his next visit, explaining what they found. Silker said he could not return; if he did, the staff would call the police.

Silker gave the man information about another church in the neighborhood that ministers to people struggling with sexual addiction and urged him to get the support he needed.

The staff at Family Empowerment Center are trained to interact with registered sex offenders because they expect sex offenders to enter their church. The church works with the homeless and other vulnerable populations in the high-crime crevices of the neighborhood.

The churchs after-school program is called Safe Haven for a reason. People who live in our neighborhood know what its like outside of our doors, and they send their kids to us because they know we have procedures set up to deal with it, Silker said.

But not all churches expect sex offenders to walk in the doors, and not all offenders will show signs of suspicious activity, a criminal background, or unsettling behavior. In fact, many groom churches to let their guard down.

A prominent Southern Baptist congregation in Memphis is currently being sued by the parents of a teenage volunteer they say was abused by a former staff member when the church ignored the red flags and concerns raised against him. The former Bellevue Baptist Church employee is currently in prison for sexual battery by an authority figure.

Over the past decade, LifeWays OneSource program has reviewed 416,000 ministry staff members and volunteers through its partnership with BackgroundChecks.com, which screens for appearances on the national sex offender registry as well as other criminal records. About 1 in 5 of those checks have discovered a misdemeanor or more serious crime, but far fewer reveal sexual offenses.

Taking a holistic approach is important. A church that just does a background check is a little bit more at risk because less than 10 percent of predators have ever been caught, said Steve Case, senior corporate counsel for Brotherhood Mutual. He recommends church screenings start with a background check but also include an application, personal and professional references (that the church actually contacts), and an in-person interview.

So what happens when screenings, independent research, or self-disclosure uncover a registered sex offender? (While individuals can land on the sex offender registry for other crimes, this article uses the term to refer to those who have been convicted of crimes involving minors.)

In many cases, like at the Family Empowerment Center, church leaders will have to instruct the person not to return. Some states prohibit sex offenders from attending church. Many more ban sex offenders from being on the premise of schools or childcare facilities, which could include a church with a daycare, preschool, or after-school program.

In Tennessee, which currently bars its 13,000 offenders from houses of worship, a proposal to allow offenders to participate in church if they had a pastors written permission failed to advance in the state legislature this year. Over the past few years, lawsuits filed in North Carolina and Indiana have challenged state restrictions, saying its unconstitutional and an unfair burden on free exercise of religion to keep sex offenders out of churches altogether.

Even if theyre legally permitted on the church property, not every congregation is the right place for ministering to a registered sex offender. Experts agree that no church should permit an offender to attend unless its leaders have received training specifically around legal requirements, childrens safety, and the habits of abusers. Churches must prioritize protecting the congregation.

Boz Tchividjian, a lawyer and the founder of Godly Response to Abuse in a Christian Environment (GRACE), suggests obtaining the offenders court file, talking to the parole officer assigned to the case, and verifying whatever the sex offender tells the church leadership.

Tchividjian said the way sex offenders talk about the crimes they committed can reveal the state of their heart and if they are ready to participate in worship or ministry.

If they marginalize and minimize their behavior, [the sex offender is] not in a position to even be served, he said. If you get to the point where the person is sorry and an open book, thats a different story. They are teachable.

Experts also recommend having offenders agree in writing to submit to a set of guidelines, such as not speaking with children in the congregation or avoiding the childrens ministry space. The congregation must also be informed of their presence and the terms of their attendance.

Jimmy Hinton, a pastor and abuse survivor advocate whose father is serving time in prison for abusing children, said this kind of transparency and disclosure are crucial. Without it, he said, church leaders have the benefit of being in the know and the power of keeping everyone else in the dark.

A decade ago, most churches supported the idea of allowing sex offenders to attend. In a 2010 Christianity Today survey of pastors, church leaders, staff, and members, nearly 80 percent of respondents agreed that sex offenders belong in church as attendees, with supervision, and subject to limitations.

While Christians may believe that sex offenders should be given an opportunity to change and see their lives transformed in Christ in the context of a local congregation, the reality is that many churches lack the manpower and resources to provide adequate support and safety, according to attorney Rob Showers, an advisor at large with Church Law & Tax, a fellow CT publication.

Churches that already have an addiction support program like Celebrate Recovery may be better suited to help, as would large churches with large staffs, which could help supervise a sex offender every time he or she is on the premises. Some congregations or ministry programs are established specifically to disciple those living in on the margins.

Sonrise Church in Hillsboro, Oregon, welcomes people who are homeless, previously incarcerated, or in recovery at its Light My Way campus. According to the church website, about 10 percent of attendees are registered sex offenders.

Leading the ministry is Clifford Jones, a former convict who earned a degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminarys Bible college program in Angola Prison, where he served a 13-year sentence. He later pastored in Angola and served at two churches in Louisiana before moving to Oregon to lead Light My Way.

Everybody needs a safe place to worship where they dont feel like outsiders and outcasts. We created this church to help people who feel ostracized to feel the goodness of God without wondering whos looking at them, Jones said.

But Light My Way relies on more than goodwill to help attendees. The church is only open to adults, and it has specific entrances, exits, and restrooms to keep attendees away from other parts of the building. It also meets for worship on Saturdays when no one else is using the building.

The engine of ministry at Light My Way is committed mentors and volunteers who walk alongside former inmates and sex offenders. Jones has developed relationships with the Washington County Department of Correction, parole officers, and court officials. He said the church works hand in hand with parole officers during a parolees probationary period. Its website notes that offenders who actively participate in social environments focused on healing and recovery reduce their risk of recidivism.

Whether or not a church welcomes a sex offender can depend both on its resources and the severity of the offenders crimes as well as the offenders attitude toward recovery.

One church planter told CT that he had to turn away a sex offender since his young St. Louis congregation lacked the resources to monitor him and keep children safe. The pastor, himself a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, was particularly concerned that the sex offender downplayed the potential threat and risk of relapse.

Though the sex offender was hurt, he complied with the pastors request and moved on to another small church. The church planter notified the pastor of the new church about the mans sex offender status.

As more stories of sex abuse and coverups come to the forefront, GRACE has seen its caseload grow from one or two investigations at a time to more than 10.

Brotherhood Mutuals Legal Assist helpline receives at least one call a week from a church seeking guidance about a sex offender in the church. Hinton also gets more consultation requests.

Only the churches that can delve in and get good legal counsel that walks through this should undertake it, Showers said. Its a wonderful ministry that can go wrong in so many ways.
Former General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Koku Anyidoho has descended on social media commentator cum Journalist, Kevin Ekow Baidoo Taylor, describing him as a scoundrel.



"The Bible refers to such people as scoundrels...and the place for them is the hottest part of hell" he slammed, adding "while President Atta Mills (late) and I are enjoying heaven, scoundrels like you will rot in the hottest part of hell".



It is however not known what triggered this reply but reports have it that Kevin Taylor made some remarks against him (Koku). Kevin hosts the "With all due respect" programme on his social media channel or platform.



Speaking in an interview on Kumasi-based Hello FM, the founder and CEO of the Atta Mills institute said since his heart is clean, he will be going to heaven and the 'scoundrels' against him will go to hell.



"People who tell lies about Koku Anyidoho are equal to the scoundrels in the Bible. you are just doing the bidding of your paymasters; even though you don't know me; you have been paid to insult me; scoundrel, you will rot in the hottest part of hell...as for me, my heart is clean and God is on my side. I will be laughing at them in heaven while they rot in hell," he vowed.



Listen to him in the video below







Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Students study in a library on the campus of California State UniversityLong Beach in Long Beach, Calif., on Oct. 19, 2012. (Jae C. Hong/AP Photo)

California State University Board Approves Ethnic Studies Requirement

The California State University (CSU) Board of Trustees voted on July 22 to require all students to take an ethnic studies or social justice class in order to get their undergraduate degrees.

The proposal passed by a 13 to 5 vote with one abstention, despite concerns by some board members that giving students the option to choose a social justice class over an ethnic studies class overshadows the original intent of the requirementoutlining the history of four ethnic groups who have faced hundreds of years of systemic oppression.

Ethnic studies really is a movement where we should hold the fidelity to four groups in particular: African Americans, Latinos, Indigenous people, and Asian/Pacific Islanders, said California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond.

Under the new stipulations, all students would be required to take a course in ethnic studies concerning one of those four core groups, or could instead choose a social justice course option. These courses would focus on the LGBTQ community, the disabled, the Jewish community, womens studies, gender studies, and other marginalized populations.

Thurmond said the approved proposal watered down the original objective of the measure by adding the social justice option, but acknowledged that oppression exists beyond the scope of the four ethnic groups he thought should be the focus of the mandate.

At this time, our country needs healing, as it relates to racial justice, and Im grateful that many of our students have been so vocal about the need for ethnic studies as a way of helping to foster that healing, Thurmond said.

Other board members said that including other groups is more reflective of the current U.S. population and engages more communities that have also faced historical oppression.

To me, it is better to have the broader lens, board member Rebecca Eisen said.

Eisen, who voted in favor of the proposal, said the new requirement will help students acquire the knowledge and skills that will help them comprehend the diversity and social justice history of the United States, and of the society in which they live, citing a previous motion.

CSU Chancellor Timothy White insisted the traditional ethnic studies courses remain the anchor of this proposal and for the course offerings, but said the social justice choice offers a diverse student population a more diverse array of options to meet the requirement.

The new mandate marks the first modification to the state universitys general education requirements in 40 years. It would take effect beginning in the 2023-2024 school year.

The boards vote could ultimately wind up being moot, however, depending on the actions of the state Legislature, which is expected as early as next week to give final approval to legislation (Assembly Bill 1460) mandating that the CSU require students to take a traditional ethnic studies course in order to graduate.

If Gov. Gavin Newsom signs the legislation, it would override the Board of Trustees vote, and take effect beginning in the 2021-2022 school year.

The CSU system is home to 23 campuses statewide and provides education to approximately 482,000 students each year.

City News Service contributed to this story.
Chile's Senate on Wednesday approved a measure allowing citizens to withdraw up to 10 percent of their pension funds to help mitigate the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The bill, approved by a 29-13 vote with one abstention, will now return to the lower house Chamber of Deputies where it has already been given the green light for a final and decisive vote. The change has been opposed by the government of President Sebastian Pinera but is supported by several senators from the country's governing coalition. It would be the first major reform of the privatized pensions system that was installed under late former dictator Augusto Pinochet. The program obliges workers to pay 10 percent of their salaries into an individual account that is managed by administrators of private pension funds. These AFPs, as they are known, are deeply unpopular in Chile and were one of the focal points when widespread anti-government protests erupted in October 2019. Many people had seen their pensions fall to below the minimum wage of 301,000 pesos ($390) even though their pension plans were supposed to guarantee them 70 percent of their last salary. When the Chamber of Deputies first approved the new measure last week, the sound of pots and pans being banged -- a popular method of both protest and celebration in Latin America -- could be heard throughout Santiago and other cities. If the bill passes the final hurdle, 10.9 million people will be able to withdraw up to 4.3 million pesos ($5,400) from their pension funds. A similar measure in Peru passed in May saw hundreds of thousands of people withdraw up to $3,700 from their pension funds. Pinera has opposed the Chile law and tried to resist it by announcing a package of measures to support the middle classes including a $630 bonus and low-interest loans of $1,900. But he failed to sway a number of rebel legislators from the ruling coalition whose political futures depend on the middle classes, many of whom feel abandoned by the government. Senators in Chile give the thumbs up as they vote on pension reform
Hearst Magazines president Troy Young resigned Thursday following a report from The New York Times that alleged he fostered a toxic workplace environment, according to an internal memo obtained by Axios.

The big picture: Young is the latest high-level media executive to resign after employees complained about inappropriate behavior. From 2017-2019, many executives were ousted due to complaints of sexual harassment. This year, several business leaders have resigned amid allegations of insensitivity around race and diversity.

What they're saying: The memo, written to employees from Hearst President & Chief Executive Officer Steven R. Swartz, said he and Young "have agreed that it is in the best interest of all of us that he resign his position as president of Hearst Magazines, effective immediately."

"I recognize that the incidents cited in the NYT article are particularly offensive to women and I want to make clear they do not represent who I am as a person," Young said in response to the Times' reporting.

Catch up quick: A New York Times report published Wednesday found that, in conversations with current and former employees at Hearst, Young repeatedly made lewd remarks to employees.

Go deeper:
With contactless delivery to curb the spread of coronavirus, she added, you can't tell servers...
The Pound Sterling US Dollar (GBP/USD) exchange rate was remained flat on Thursday, leaving the pairing trading at around $1.2717.

The British currency was able to hold steady today against the US Dollar as the UK headed into its final day of Brexit negotiations.

Traders will be looking for any headlines that may uncover signs of whether or not London will be walking away from the European Union with a deal by the end of the transition period.

However, media reports have largely suggested Britain has given upon reaching a trade deal with the bloc. Marshal Gittler, head of investment research at BDSwiss Group noted that investors should watch the tone of the statements coming out of todays final meetings to see if they are of a conciliatory or confrontational nature.

Meanwhile, the US Dollar continued to remain under pressure, and traded at around its lowest levels in four months.

Traders continued to see value in the Euro thanks to the European Unions 750 billion coronavirus recovery fund. This saw the US Dollar index fall back to its lowest level since March.

The Greenback could continue to fall as sentiment could improve as traders are now expecting the Fed to expand its stimulus programme once again.

Added to this, traders took a wait and see approach to the resurgence in tensions between the United States and China.

The US has now given China until Friday to close its consulate in Houston, Texas after claims and allegations of spying.

Tensions heated up as Beijing vowed to respond, and in a note to clients, UBS strategists wrote:

Retaliation for the Houston closure is now widely expected - the relative severity of which will offer markets some guidance on Beijings engagement strategy into the 2020 elections.

US-China tensions generate volatility, but it is the stimulus and recovery dynamic that we expect will prove more dominant.

US-China relations have deteriorated over the course of the year due to a number of factors, from the coronavirus pandemic to Chinese telecoms giant, Huawei, to Hong Kong.

The US State Department announced that the consulate in Houston was being closed in order to protect American intellectual property and Americans private information.

Meanwhile, China argued this was politically motivated as the US presidential elections ate coming up in November. An anonymous source has even told Reuters that in retaliation, Beijing is considering closing the US consulate in Wuhan.

According to Marshall Gittler, head of investment research at BDSwiss Group:

If China does limit its retaliation to closing the Wuhan consulate, the market will probably take it in stride, but if China instead decides to do something that escalates the tensions between the two countries, we could quickly switch to a risk-off mood.

Pound US Dollar Outlook: Traders Eye Jobless Claims and PMI Surveys

Looking ahead to this afternoon, the US Dollar (USD) could edge lower against the Pound (GBP) following the latest US initial jobless claims data.

If initial claims do not rise as high as expected, it will offer markets some relief and boost risk appetite.

Meanwhile, Sterling could receive an upswing of support on Friday morning following the release of the latest flash PMI surveys.

If flash data shows that both Britains services and manufacturing sectors return to growth in July, it will offer the Pound support. This could see the Pound US Dollar (GBP/USD) exchange rate rise higher on Friday.
Heathrow bosses are furious with Border Force staff for putting holidaymakers in danger by flouting rules requiring everyone at Britains biggest airport to wear masks.

Although travellers and airport and airline staff are required to wear masks at all times, sources say Heathrow Border Force staff are walking around terminals and even searching passengers luggage without a mask on.

The situation has triggered a row between Heathrows executives and the Home Office, which runs Border Force.

Passengers are seen wearing masks at Heathrow. Masks have been compulsory in airport buildings for some weeks. Early in the crisis two Border Force staff at Heathrow were confirmed to have died from coronavirus

According to a senior aviation source, Heathrow boss John Holland-Kaye is outraged at Border Force for ignoring the rules. Other airports are said to have similar issues.

The source said: At Heathrow, Border Force staff are cavorting around the terminal buildings without masks as if they are invincible. Although they are checking passports behind a screen, they are not wearing their masks while carrying out other duties, including passenger and luggage searches.

Masks have been compulsory in airport buildings for some weeks. Early in the crisis two Border Force staff at Heathrow were confirmed to have died from coronavirus.

Although the staff, who carry out immigration and customs controls, must wear full protective gear to interview anyone, they do not need to wear masks or gloves for day-to-day work according to Government guidance.

The source said Heathrow has offered masks and gloves to Border Force staff but has yet to receive a response.

The agency said its policies are based on Public Health England guidance and advice.

A Home Office spokesman said: We have installed protective screens at the border and are implementing social distancing measures, where possible. Where these cannot be put in place, Border Force officers are provided with the necessary personal protective equipment, including face masks.
Gabriel F. Boykins, 40, has been arrested in Knoxville for the deaths of Tamara Church, 40, and her daughter, 8.

Boykins was located and taken into custody without incident at approximately 11:45 a.m. on July 23, 2020. Law enforcement from six agencies, including the Chattanooga Police Department, worked together to locate Boykins in the 400 block of Black Oak Drive in Knoxville.

The bodies of Ms. Church and the child were found on July 9 in woods near Greenwood Road.

The Chattanooga Police Department appreciates the assistance received from the following agencies:



United States Marshals Service Smoky Mountains Fugitive Task Force

Anderson County Sheriff's Office

Blount County Sheriff's Office

Knoxville Police Department

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation





Boykins will remain in custody at the Knox County Jail until a later date. He is charged with two counts of criminal homicide and two counts of abuse of a corpse.
Good police do not need defending. You can be pro-police and still support accountability to a police system that perpetuates inequities in Black communities. Theyre not mutually exclusive.

JOEL ACEVEDO, president of the Brooklyn Young Republican Club, explaining why his group turned down an invitation to a rally supporting the police.
MENLO PARK, Calif., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Robert Half International Inc. (NYSE: RHI) today reported revenues and earnings for the second quarter ended June 30, 2020.

For the quarter ended June 30, 2020, net income was $46 million, or $.41 per share, on revenues of $1.108 billion. Net income for the prior year's second quarter was $115 million, or $.98 per share, on revenues of $1.516 billion.

For the six months ended June 30, 2020, net income was $136 million, or $1.20 per share, on revenues of $2.615 billion. For the six months ended June 30, 2019, net income was $224 million, or $1.91 per share, on revenues of $2.985 billion.

"Robert Half's second-quarter results were clearly affected by the economic crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, most acutely in our staffing business," said M. Keith Waddell, president and CEO of Robert Half. "Protiviti had an outstanding quarter and continues to benefit from strong solutions offerings and pipeline. We are encouraged by recent signs of week-on-week sequential growth in our staffing operations, and, although significant uncertainty continues, we approach the third quarter with optimism."

Robert Half management will conduct a conference call today at 5 p.m. EDT. The prepared remarks for this call are available now in the Investor Center of the Robert Half website (www.roberthalf.com/investor-center). Simply click on the Quarterly Conference Calls link. The dial-in number to listen to today's conference call is 877-814-0475 (+1-706-643-9224 outside the United States). The password is "Robert Half."

A taped recording of this call will be available for replay beginning at approximately 8 p.m. EDT today and ending at 11:59 p.m. EDT on August 6. The dial-in number for the replay is 855-859-2056 (+1-404-537-3406 outside the United States). To access the replay, enter conference ID# 9295939. The conference call also will be archived in audio format on the company's website at www.roberthalf.com/investor-center.

Founded in 1948, Robert Half is the world's first and largest specialized staffing firm and a recognized leader in professional consulting and staffing services. The company's specialized staffing divisions include Accountemps, Robert Half Finance & Accounting and Robert Half Management Resources, for temporary, full-time and senior-level project professionals, respectively, in the fields of accounting and finance; OfficeTeam, for highly skilled administrative support professionals; Robert Half Technology, for project and full-time technology professionals; Robert Half Legal, for project and full-time staffing of lawyers, paralegals and legal support personnel; and The Creative Group, for creative, digital, marketing, advertising and public relations professionals. Robert Half also is the parent company of Protiviti, a global consulting firm that provides clients with consulting solutions in finance, technology, operations, data, analytics, governance, risk and internal audit.

Robert Half has staffing and consulting operations in more than 400 locations worldwide.

Certain information contained in this press release and its attachments may be deemed forward-looking statements regarding events and financial trends that may affect the company's future operating results or financial positions. These statements may be identified by words such as "estimate", "forecast", "project", "plan", "intend", "believe", "expect", "anticipate", or variations or negatives thereof, or by similar or comparable words or phrases. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the statements.

These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the following: changes to or new interpretations of U.S. or international tax regulations; the global financial and economic situation; the duration and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to mitigate its spread; changes in levels of unemployment and other economic conditions in the United States or foreign countries where the company does business, or in particular regions or industries; reduction in the supply of candidates for temporary employment or the company's ability to attract candidates; the entry of new competitors into the marketplace or expansion by existing competitors; the ability of the company to maintain existing client relationships and attract new clients in the context of changing economic or competitive conditions; the impact of competitive pressures, including any change in the demand for the company's services; on the company's ability to maintain its margins; the possibility of the company incurring liability for its activities, including the activities of its temporary employees, or for events impacting its temporary employees on clients' premises; the possibility that adverse publicity could impact the company's ability to attract and retain clients and candidates; the success of the company in attracting, training, and retaining qualified management personnel and other staff employees; the company's ability to comply with governmental regulations affecting personnel services businesses in particular or employer/employee relationships in general; whether there will be ongoing demand for Sarbanes-Oxley or other regulatory compliance services; the company's reliance on short-term contracts for a significant percentage of its business; litigation relating to prior or current transactions or activities, including litigation that may be disclosed from time to time in the company's SEC filings; the ability of the company to manage its international operations and comply with foreign laws and regulations; the impact of fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; the possibility that the additional costs the company will incur as a result of healthcare reform legislation may adversely affect the company's profit margins or the demand for the company's services; the possibility that the company's computer and communications hardware and software systems could be damaged or their service interrupted; and the possibility that the company may fail to maintain adequate financial and management controls and as a result suffer errors in its financial reporting.

Additionally, with respect to Protiviti, other risks and uncertainties include the fact that future success will depend on its ability to retain employees and attract clients; there can be no assurance that there will be ongoing demand for Sarbanes-Oxley or other regulatory compliance services; failure to produce projected revenues could adversely affect financial results; and there is the possibility of involvement in litigation relating to prior or current transactions or activities.

Because long-term contracts are not a significant part of the company's business, future results cannot be reliably predicted by considering past trends or extrapolating past results. The company undertakes no obligation to update information contained in this release.

A copy of this release is available at www.roberthalf.com/investor-center .

ATTACHED :

Summary of Operations Supplemental Financial Information Non-GAAP Financial Measures

ROBERT HALF INTERNATIONAL INC. SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS (in thousands, except per share amounts)



Quarter

Ended June 30,

Six Months

Ended June 30,

2020

2019

2020

2019

(Unaudited)

(Unaudited)















Service revenues $ 1,108,326



$ 1,516,385



$ 2,615,017



$ 2,984,915

Costs of services 685,249



878,844



1,581,223



1,739,786

















Gross margin 423,077



637,541



1,033,794



1,245,129

















Selling, general and administrative expenses 364,828



478,139



844,401



939,498

Amortization of intangible assets 330



341



668



683

Interest income, net (105)



(1,042)



(1,062)



(2,538)

















Income before income taxes 58,024



160,103



189,787



307,486

Provision for income taxes 11,828



45,491



53,676



83,076

















Net income $ 46,196



$ 114,612



$ 136,111



$ 224,410

















Diluted net income per share $ .41



$ .98



$ 1.20



$ 1.91

















Shares:













Basic 112,865



116,381



113,026



116,722

Diluted 113,121



116,988



113,489



117,475



ROBERT HALF INTERNATIONAL INC. SUPPLEMENTAL FINANCIAL INFORMATION (in thousands)





Quarter

Ended June 30,

Six Months

Ended June 30,



2020

2019

2020

2019



(Unaudited)

(Unaudited) SERVICE REVENUES:































Accountemps

$ 322,596



29.1 %

$ 486,992



32.1 %

$ 803,037



30.7 %

$ 970,465



32.5 % OfficeTeam

132,730



12.0 %

261,034



17.2 %

371,766



14.2 %

513,069



17.2 % Robert Half Technology

151,542



13.7 %

179,375



11.8 %

334,965



12.8 %

351,303



11.8 % Roberth Half Management Resources

146,518



13.2 %

175,311



11.6 %

335,738



12.9 %

352,502



11.8 % Robert Half Finance & Accounting

71,030



6.4 %

140,894



9.3 %

191,519



7.3 %

272,456



9.1 % Protiviti

283,910



25.6 %

272,779



18.0 %

577,992



22.1 %

525,120



17.6 % Total

$ 1,108,326



100.0 %

$ 1,516,385



100.0 %

$ 2,615,017



100.0 %

$ 2,984,915



100.0 %

































GROSS MARGIN:































Temporary and consultant staffing

$ 279,302



37.1 %

$ 420,837



38.2 %

$ 692,298



37.5 %

$ 833,302



38.1 % Permanent placement staffing

70,906



99.8 %

140,638



99.8 %

191,186



99.8 %

271,946



99.8 % Risk consulting and internal audit services

72,869



25.7 %

76,066



27.9 %

150,310



26.0 %

139,881



26.6 % Total

$ 423,077



38.2 %

$ 637,541



42.0 %

$ 1,033,794



39.5 %

$ 1,245,129



41.7 %

































OPERATING INCOME:































Temporary and consultant staffing

$ 28,390



3.8 %

$ 105,238



9.5 %

$ 122,154



6.6 %

$ 211,256



9.7 % Permanent placement staffing

(248)



(0.3) %

25,344



18.0 %

10,663



5.6 %

46,901



17.2 % Risk consulting and internal audit services

30,107



10.6 %

28,820



10.6 %

56,576



9.8 %

47,474



9.0 % Total

$ 58,249



5.3 %

$ 159,402



10.5 %

$ 189,393



7.2 %

$ 305,631



10.2 %

































SELECTED CASH FLOW INFORMATION:































Depreciation

$ 15,596







$ 16,088







$ 31,509







$ 31,740





Capital expenditures

$ 7,988







$ 15,955







$ 22,264







$ 28,625





Open market repurchases of common stock (shares)









1,031







983







1,812







ROBERT HALF INTERNATIONAL INC. SUPPLEMENTAL FINANCIAL INFORMATION (in thousands)





June 30,



2020

2019



(Unaudited) SELECTED BALANCE SHEET INFORMATION:







Cash and cash equivalents

$ 501,485



$ 269,440

Accounts receivable, less allowances

$ 665,409



$ 842,294

Total assets

$ 2,402,377



$ 2,239,419

Total current liabilities

$ 977,167



$ 909,510

Notes payable, less current portion

$ 122



$ 350

Total stockholders' equity

$ 1,156,706



$ 1,109,227



ROBERT HALF INTERNATIONAL INC.

NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES

The financial results of Robert Half International Inc. (the "Company") are prepared in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America ("GAAP") and the rules of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). To help readers understand the Company's financial performance, the Company supplements its GAAP financial results with revenue growth rates derived from non-GAAP revenue amounts.

Variations in the Company's financial results include the impact of changes in foreign currency exchange rates, billing days, and certain intercompany adjustments. The Company provides "as adjusted" revenue growth calculations to remove the impact of these items. These calculations show the year-over-year revenue growth rates for the Company's lines of business on both a reported basis and also on an as-adjusted basis for global, U.S., and international operations. This information is presented for each of the six most recent quarters. The Company has provided this data because it focuses on the Company's revenue growth rates attributable to operating activities and aids in evaluating revenue trends over time. The Company expresses year-over-year revenue changes as calculated percentages using the same number of billing days, constant currency exchange rates, and certain intercompany adjustments.

The non-GAAP financial measures provided herein may not provide information that is directly comparable to that provided by other companies in the Company's industry, as other companies may calculate such financial results differently. The Company's non-GAAP financial measures are not measurements of financial performance under GAAP and should not be considered as alternatives to actual revenue growth derived from revenue amounts presented in accordance with GAAP. The Company does not consider these non-GAAP financial measures to be a substitute for, or superior to, the information provided by GAAP financial results. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is provided on the following pages.

ROBERT HALF INTERNATIONAL INC. NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES

REVENUE GROWTH RATES (%) (UNAUDITED):





Year-Over-Year Growth Rates

(As Reported)

Non-GAAP Year-Over-Year Growth Rates

(As Adjusted)



2019

2020

2019

2020



Q1

Q2

Q3

Q4

Q1

Q2

Q1

Q2

Q3

Q4

Q1

Q2 Global















































Accountemps

2.5

1.3

2.1

0.6

-0.6

-33.8

5.6

2.8

1.6

1.1

-1.3

-33.1 OfficeTeam

-3.5

-2.7

0.3

-3.8

-5.2

-49.2

-0.4

-1.2

-0.1

-3.2

-5.9

-48.9 RH Technology

7.4

4.6

4.9

6.4

6.7

-15.5

10.7

6.4

4.8

7.2

5.7

-15.2 RH Management Resources

2.1

4.6

9.2

6.1

6.8

-16.4

14.3

12.0

12.9

9.4

6.3

-15.7 Temporary and consultant staffing

1.7

1.4

3.2

1.3

0.7

-31.7

6.2

3.7

3.4

2.2

0.0

-31.2 Permanent placement staffing

8.4

4.3

3.8

0.4

-8.4

-49.6

12.3

6.2

3.4

0.9

-9.0

-49.1 Total staffing

2.4

1.7

3.3

1.2

-0.3

-33.7

6.9

4.0

3.4

2.1

-1.0

-33.2 Protiviti

21.5

16.6

18.3

15.7

16.5

4.1

17.3

13.8

14.6

14.1

15.5

4.5 Total

5.2

4.1

5.9

3.8

2.6

-26.9

8.5

5.6

5.4

4.3

1.9

-26.4

















































United States











































Temporary and consultant staffing

3.4

3.5

5.7

3.0

2.0

-31.7

5.1

3.8

4.5

3.2

0.5

-31.7 Permanent placement staffing

10.0

6.6

6.5

3.0

-4.9

-51.6

11.8

6.9

5.3

3.2

-6.3

-51.6 Total staffing

4.0

3.8

5.8

3.0

1.3

-33.7

5.7

4.1

4.5

3.2

-0.2

-33.7 Protiviti

14.9

14.7

17.5

17.3

21.3

6.4

16.8

15.1

16.2

17.5

19.5

6.3 Total

5.7

5.6

7.9

5.6

4.7

-26.5

7.4

6.0

6.6

5.7

3.2

-26.5

















































International











































Temporary and consultant staffing

-3.7

-5.9

-5.0

-4.8

-3.8

-31.8

10.2

3.1

-0.2

-1.0

-1.9

-28.9 Permanent placement staffing

4.9

-0.6

-2.1

-5.3

-15.9

-45.0

12.8

4.4

-0.6

-4.1

-14.6

-43.2 Total staffing

-2.5

-5.1

-4.6

-4.8

-5.6

-33.8

10.5

3.3

-0.3

-1.5

-3.7

-31.1 Protiviti

48.8

23.2

21.2

10.4

1.3

-3.9

18.9

9.4

9.3

3.3

2.4

-1.5 Total

3.7

-1.0

-0.7

-2.2

-4.4

-28.4

11.9

4.4

1.4

-0.6

-2.7

-25.7

The non-GAAP financial measures included in the table above adjust for the following items:

Foreign Currency Translation. The "As Reported" revenue growth rates are based upon reported revenues, which include the impact of changes in foreign currency exchange rates. In order to calculate "Constant Currency" revenue growth rates, as reported amounts are retranslated using foreign exchange rates from the prior year's comparable period.



Billing Days. The "As Reported" revenue growth rates are based upon reported revenues. Management calculates a global, weighted-average number of billing days for each reporting period based upon inputs from all countries and all lines of business. In order to remove the fluctuations caused by comparable periods having different billing days, the company calculates "same billing day" revenue growth rates by dividing each comparative period's reported revenues by the calculated number of billing days for that period to arrive at a "per billing day" amount. The "same billing day" growth rates are then calculated based upon the "per billing day" amounts.



Intercompany Adjustments. The "As Reported" revenue growth rates are based upon reported revenues. In order to remove the fluctuations caused by the impact of certain intercompany adjustments, applicable comparative period revenues are reclassified to conform with the current period presentation.

The term "As Adjusted" means that the impact of different billing days, constant currency fluctuations, and certain intercompany adjustments are removed from the revenue growth rate calculation. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP year-over-year revenue growth rates to the "As Reported" year-over-year revenue growth rates is included herein on Pages 8-10.

ROBERT HALF INTERNATIONAL INC. NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES

REVENUE GROWTH RATE (%) RECONCILIATION (UNAUDITED)

Year-Over-Year Revenue Growth  GLOBAL



Q1 2019

Q2 2019

Q3 2019

Q4 2019

Q1 2020

Q2 2020 Accountemps































As Reported

2.5



1.3



2.1



0.6



-0.6



-33.8

Billing Days Impact

1.4



0.3



-1.3



0.0



-1.5



-0.1

Currency Impact

1.7



1.2



0.8



0.5



0.8



0.8

As Adjusted

5.6



2.8



1.6



1.1



-1.3



-33.1

OfficeTeam























As Reported

-3.5



-2.7



0.3



-3.8



-5.2



-49.2

Billing Days Impact

1.3



0.2



-1.4



0.0



-1.3



0.0

Currency Impact

1.8



1.3



1.0



0.6



0.6



0.3

As Adjusted

-0.4



-1.2



-0.1



-3.2



-5.9



-48.9

Robert Half Technology























As Reported

7.4



4.6



4.9



6.4



6.7



-15.5

Billing Days Impact

1.4



0.3



-1.4



0.1



-1.5



-0.2

Currency Impact

1.2



0.9



0.6



0.3



0.5



0.5

Intercompany Adjustments

0.7



0.6



0.7



0.4









As Adjusted

10.7



6.4



4.8



7.2



5.7



-15.2

Robert Half Management Resources























As Reported

2.1



4.6



9.2



6.1



6.8



-16.4

Billing Days Impact

1.5



0.2



-1.5



0.0



-1.5



-0.2

Currency Impact

2.8



2.0



1.3



0.8



1.0



0.9

Intercompany Adjustments

7.9



5.2



3.9



2.5









As Adjusted

14.3



12.0



12.9



9.4



6.3



-15.7

Temporary and consultant staffing























As Reported

1.7



1.4



3.2



1.3



0.7



-31.7

Billing Days Impact

1.4



0.2



-1.3



0.0



-1.4



-0.1

Currency Impact

1.8



1.3



0.9



0.5



0.7



0.6

Intercompany Adjustments

1.3



0.8



0.6



0.4









As Adjusted

6.2



3.7



3.4



2.2



0.0



-31.2

Permanent placement staffing























As Reported

8.4



4.3



3.8



0.4



-8.4



-49.6

Billing Days Impact

1.4



0.2



-1.4



0.0



-1.4



-0.1

Currency Impact

2.5



1.7



1.0



0.5



0.8



0.6

As Adjusted

12.3



6.2



3.4



0.9



-9.0



-49.1

Total staffing























As Reported

2.4



1.7



3.3



1.2



-0.3



-33.7

Billing Days Impact

1.4



0.3



-1.4



0.0



-1.4



-0.1

Currency Impact

1.9



1.3



0.9



0.5



0.7



0.6

Intercompany Adjustments

1.2



0.7



0.6



0.4









As Adjusted

6.9



4.0



3.4



2.1



-1.0



-33.2

Protiviti























As Reported

21.5



16.6



18.3



15.7



16.5



4.1

Billing Days Impact

1.5



0.3



-1.4



0.1



-1.6



-0.1

Currency Impact

1.7



1.2



0.8



0.3



0.6



0.5

Intercompany Adjustments

-7.4



-4.3



-3.1



-2.0









As Adjusted

17.3



13.8



14.6



14.1



15.5



4.5

Total























As Reported

5.2



4.1



5.9



3.8



2.6



-26.9

Billing Days Impact

1.4



0.2



-1.4



0.0



-1.4



-0.1

Currency Impact

1.9



1.3



0.9



0.5



0.7



0.6

As Adjusted

8.5



5.6



5.4



4.3



1.9



-26.4



ROBERT HALF INTERNATIONAL INC. NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES

REVENUE GROWTH RATE (%) RECONCILIATION (UNAUDITED):

Year-Over-Year Revenue Growth  UNITED STATES



Q1 2019

Q2 2019

Q3 2019

Q4 2019

Q1 2020

Q2 2020 Temporary and consultant staffing

































As Reported

3.4



3.5



5.7



3.0



2.0



-31.7

Billing Days Impact

1.7



0.3



-1.2



0.2



-1.5



0.0

Currency Impact























As Adjusted

5.1



3.8



4.5



3.2



0.5



-31.7



























Permanent placement staffing























As Reported

10.0



6.6



6.5



3.0



-4.9



-51.6

Billing Days Impact

1.8



0.3



-1.2



0.2



-1.4



0.0

Currency Impact























As Adjusted

11.8



6.9



5.3



3.2



-6.3



-51.6



























Total staffing























As Reported

4.0



3.8



5.8



3.0



1.3



-33.7

Billing Days Impact

1.7



0.3



-1.3



0.2



-1.5



0.0

Currency Impact























As Adjusted

5.7



4.1



4.5



3.2



-0.2



-33.7



























Protiviti























As Reported

14.9



14.7



17.5



17.3



21.3



6.4

Billing Days Impact

1.9



0.4



-1.3



0.2



-1.8



-0.1

Currency Impact























As Adjusted

16.8



15.1



16.2



17.5



19.5



6.3



























Total























As Reported

5.7



5.6



7.9



5.6



4.7



-26.5

Billing Days Impact

1.7



0.4



-1.3



0.1



-1.5



0.0

Currency Impact























As Adjusted

7.4



6.0



6.6



5.7



3.2



-26.5



ROBERT HALF INTERNATIONAL INC. NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES

REVENUE GROWTH RATE (%) RECONCILIATION (UNAUDITED):

Year-Over-Year Revenue Growth  INTERNATIONAL



Q1 2019

Q2 2019

Q3 2019

Q4 2019

Q1 2020

Q2 2020 Temporary and consultant staffing

































As Reported

-3.7



-5.9



-5.0



-4.8



-3.8



-31.8

Billing Days Impact

0.4



-0.2



-1.6



-0.4



-1.4



0.0

Currency Impact

8.1



5.7



3.8



2.4



3.3



2.9

Intercompany Adjustments

5.4



3.5



2.6



1.8









As Adjusted

10.2



3.1



-0.2



-1.0



-1.9



-28.9



























Permanent placement staffing























As Reported

4.9



-0.6



-2.1



-5.3



-15.9



-45.0

Billing Days Impact

0.3



-0.2



-1.5



-0.4



-1.1



-0.1

Currency Impact

7.6



5.2



3.0



1.6



2.4



1.9

As Adjusted

12.8



4.4



-0.6



-4.1



-14.6



-43.2



























Total staffing























As Reported

-2.5



-5.1



-4.6



-4.8



-5.6



-33.8

Billing Days Impact

0.3



-0.2



-1.6



-0.6



-1.3



-0.1

Currency Impact

8.0



5.6



3.7



2.3



3.2



2.8

Intercompany Adjustments

4.7



3.0



2.2



1.6









As Adjusted

10.5



3.3



-0.3



-1.5



-3.7



-31.1



























Protiviti























As Reported

48.8



23.2



21.2



10.4



1.3



-3.9

Billing Days Impact

0.3



-0.1



-1.8



-0.6



-1.4



0.0

Currency Impact

7.1



5.0



3.5



1.4



2.5



2.4

Intercompany Adjustments

-37.3



-18.7



-13.6



-7.9









As Adjusted

18.9



9.4



9.3



3.3



2.4



-1.5



























Total























As Reported

3.7



-1.0



-0.7



-2.2



-4.4



-28.4

Billing Days Impact

0.4



-0.1



-1.6



-0.5



-1.3



0.0

Currency Impact

7.8



5.5



3.7



2.1



3.0



2.7

As Adjusted

11.9



4.4



1.4



-0.6



-2.7



-25.7



SOURCE Robert Half

Related Links

http://www.roberthalf.com


Rice is one of the staple foods in Ghana and is used to prepare different kinds of dishes. It is usually the dominant food on the menu of most restaurants and roadside eateries in the county.

As such, there is a high demand for the crop in the crop in the country and in the sub-region in general.

However, the country is unable to produce enough to meet the local demands and has to import to make up for the shortfall.

Even though Ghana produces rice, the level of production has not been able to match with the demand and there are many issues militating against the local production of the commodity.

Aside from the climate playing a role in the low production of rice in Ghana, the farmers also lack the required technology and seedlings adaptable to the climate.

According to a Research Associate with the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) Dr. Paul Boadu, the CSIR- Crop Research Institute is in the process of developing a GM rice variety called Newest rice, which, is been engineered to have nitrogen use and water use efficiency traits as well as a salt-tolerant trait.

The new rice variety is also drought-resistant and suitable for the two agricultural climates of the country.

Rice is one of the major food staples consumed in Ghana with consumption outstripping domestic production and 66% of rice consumed being imported, he said.

He indicated that government of Ghana imports rice to the tune of $151m to $1.2bn primarily from Thailand, Vietnam, and India.

There is a cultural preference in Ghana for imported rice, as it is seen as being better quality he added.

Sharing his views on Ghanas Rice Sector, Challenges Smallholder farmers are facing and the role of modern technology in improving Agricultural productivity and livelihood, Dr. Boadu said adopting this rice would offer a lot of benefits to farmers as their incomes would improve whiles consumers also pay less for the commodity as prices would reduce.

He said an economic assessment by a research consultant showed that the country would gain GH 230 million annually if she adopted the nitrogen efficient rice as the crop was drought resistant and utilized its nitrogen from the atmosphere making it to do well.

We observe that most of the rice produced in the country is lowland rice but due to climate change and effects of drought, they are not able to do well but the nitrogen efficient rice is actually a highland rice that does well in lowland areas as well, he said.

Professor Walter Alhassan, Former Director-General of CSIR said the nitrogen efficient rice variety is good to revolutionize the countrys agricultural sector urging government to adopt them as part of the Planting for Food and Jobs programme to help boost food production and nutrition of the people.

According to a report released last week by Graham Brookes, director of PG Economics, farmers who planted genetically modified (GM) crops increased their incomes by almost $19 billion in 2018 and reduced carbon emissions by 23 billion kilograms or the equivalent of removing 15.3 million cars from the roads that year.

The report adds that the higher income represents $4.42 in extra income for each extra dollar invested.

GM crop technology continues to make an important contribution to reducing the environmental footprint of agriculture and securing global food supplies in a sustainable way. It has also helped lift many small, resource-poor farmers and their families in developing countries out of poverty said Graham Brookes.

The Director-General of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Dr. Kodjo Essien Mensah-Abrampa said that the NDPC is developing a policy document on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) for Ghanas agriculture sector.

He indicated that the long-term policy document on GMOs will be launched in the coming months.

Anywhere agriculture has developed in the world, you have excellent crop biotechnology policy he added.
ALBANY  Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, who unleashed hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars to keep his incumbents safe, saw two more of his Democratic colleagues go down to primary defeat on Wednesday.

The results, centered in New York City races, put a number of more left-of-center Democrats into seats in the party that already controls all branches of government in Albany.

Assemblyman Joseph Lentol, who was first elected to the Assembly in 1972, on Wednesday morning conceded defeat to Brooklyn activist Emily Gallagher.

The voters in the 50th Assembly district voted for change," Lentol said in his concession statement. Lentol is a third generation lawmaker; his grandfather was elected to the Assembly in 1918.

A few hours later, Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas, a Queens Democrat, gave up in her primary fight against housing counselor Zohran Kwame Mamdani.

Before nightfall, Assemblyman Walter Mosley, a Brooklyn Democrat, conceded his defeat to Phara Souffrant Forrest, a nurse, union activist and Democratic Socialist candidate.
Vietnam and New Zealand established their diplomatic ties in 1975. Over the past 45 years, the two countries relations have witnessed fine and sustainable development. New Zealand has attached great importance to its relationship with Vietnam and considers Vietnam as an important factor in its policy towards the Asia-Pacific region. In September 2009, the two nations established a comprehensive partnership, creating a milestone to boost their extensive, substantive and effective relations in many fields. On July 22, 2020, Vietnam and New Zealand decided to upgrade their bilateral relations to a strategic partnership. The decision showed the two sides strong determination to bring their relations to new heights. This is also consistent with the spirit of their joint statement on enhancing the comprehensive partnership, towards the strategic partnership, which was issued during Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phucs official visit to New Zealand in 2018.

In recent years, the trade relations between Vietnam and New Zealand have constantly developed with two-way trade turnover increasing steadily every year. In 2019, trade turnover between the two countries reached nearly US$1.1 billion, a year-on-year increase of 10%. In the first three months of 2020, their bilateral trade revenue was US$268.7 million. The two nations are trying to reach the target of bringing two-way trade to US$1.7 billion in 2020. In terms of investment, as of February this year, New Zealand has had 41 valid direct investment projects in Vietnam, with total registered capital of US$209.44 million. New Zealand ranked 47th among 132 countries and territories with foreign direct investment in Vietnam. In contrast, Vietnam currently has ten investment projects worth total US$32.7 million in New Zealand, focusing on processing, manufacturing, wholesale and retail industries. New Zealand ranked 27th among 76 countries and territories receiving investment from Vietnam.

In addition, the cooperation in the fields of security, defence, education-training, transportation and agriculture has witnessed fine development. Vietnam stood ninth among the countries with students studying in New Zealand. New Zealand has provided many Masters and PHD scholarships for Vietnam students as well as promoted English training programmes for high-level Vietnamese officials. The Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training and New Zealand's Educational Agency have recently re-signed a strategic cooperation plan on education for the 2020-2023 period, creating a foundation for the educational cooperation between the two nations to go further. Regarding agriculture, Vietnamese mango, dragon fruit, rambutan and tra and basa catfish have been exported to New Zealand. The two sides also agreed to prioritise the consideration of market access requirements for New Zealands potatoes and green mussels as well as daisy, rose, tuberose, grapefruit, lemon, star apple and longan of Vietnam.

In term of multilateral cooperation, both Vietnam and New Zealand are members of important regional and international organisations and forums such as United Nations, World Trade Organisation, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Asia-Europe cooperation forum and several ASEAN regional cooperation mechanisms. The two countries have provided mutual support and closely coordinated in the implementation of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the acceleration of the conclusion for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.

The upgrade to a strategic partnership provides a good impression of Vietnam  New Zealand relations after nearly a half of a century of cooperation for development. With the success of bilateral relations in all fields, this turning point has become an important basis on which to open a new page in the cooperation between the two countries in the coming time.
Telkoms wholesale division Openserve recently notified ISPs that it would terminate DSL and copper services in areas which were already covered by its fibre network.

We will be upgrading all copper broadband services to fibre broadband services in areas where Openserve Fibre Connect (OFC) is already available, Openserve told ISPs.

To this end, we will therefore also be discontinuing all existing DSL and Openserve Copper Connect (OCC) services in these areas.

The company said this move was part of its continued drive to upgrade services to next-generation technologies and reduce infrastructure duplication.

Openserve assured ISPs that in instances where there was still an open order for fibre for the customer, it would not terminate DSL connections.

In order to keep providing Internet connectivity, ISPs who still offer ADSL services in the affected areas will have to migrate their customer bases to fibre before 1 September 2020.

Telkom recently issued a statement telling customers not to panic over the shutdown of ADSL connections in fibre-lit areas.

Telkom agents are contacting customers directly to inform them regarding what to expect from the upgrade, and when.

All representatives insist that there is no need to panic about a sudden cut-off, Telkom said.

There is some concern over the short notice provided to customers regarding this migration, however, as in certain cases, fibre installation teams may take longer than this to install the required infrastructure.

Other concerns include the requirement to change infrastructure during a period where social distancing is encouraged and customers who may not be happy with installers entering their homes.

MyBroadband asked major South African ISPs about the timeline of this migration process, how many customers they would have to move, and what customers can expect to pay for their new services compared to ADSL.

MWEB

MWEB confirmed that it received a notification of the termination of ADSL services and that customers would need to move to Openserve fibre products to avoid loss of connectivity, but that it was worried about the short notice period given.

MWEB is deeply concerned that Openserve is enforcing this change at this time, giving ISPs and customers only two months to change over and doing this during the COVID-19 national crisis, where social distancing is encouraged and customers are concerned about having installers in their homes, MWEB said.

We are currently engaging with affected customers and will assist them to move, MWEB added.

It said Openserve provided MWEB with a list of affected all-inclusive customers, and that it was in the process of identifying data-only customers by affected suburbs.

For the migration of customers, it said it was following the standard Openserve fibre application process, which could take 7 to 10 working days, with some customers up and running in two workdays.

MWEB said Openserves lowest fibre line speed of 10Mbps was cheaper than the equivalent ADSL package.

RSAWEB

RSAWEB said it was working closely with Openserve to identify affected DSL customers and switch them over to fibre with minimal impact.

Fortunately, we have been switching customers from DSL to fibre where possible as an ongoing strategy. For this reason, the impact on our customer base is minimal, RSAWEB said.

It said customers will find the migration process is seamless  the customer simply places an order for Openserve fibre with RSAWEB and a zero-rated installation will be scheduled.

Once the fibre goes live, the ADSL is cancelled. The customer experiences no down-time, RSAWEB noted.

RSAWEB said its DSL and fibre pricing was more or less on par.

Vox

Vox said Openserve had already notified the ISP of its plans to discontinue DSL in its fibre footprint on 18 June.

As such, Vox is busy communicating with customers in the affected areas, of which there is a substantial amount.

Customers will need to sign up on one of our available FTTH service offerings (Openserve or other FNOs) on our website vox.co.za, Vox stated.

It said installation times range from one to four weeks depending on what infrastructure needed to be put into place.

Vox currently runs a free installation promotion, so customers dont have to worry about additional costs, it added.

With regards to monthly costs, Vox said fibre prices are very similar to Openserves Pure DSL, which no longer requires the R210 landline rental fee.

Webafrica

Webafrica said that a few thousand of its DSL customers would have to be migrated to fibre.

We already cater for a seamless transition from ADSL to fibre in our Customer Zone  a click of a button and your order is placed in under two minutes  while double billing of services is completely avoided, Webafrica said.

There are no installation costs involved and Webafrica provides a free-to-use fibre router.

Theyll end up paying less as our fibre pricing starts at R399 per month for a 10Mbps Uncapped package on Openserve, Webafrica said.

It noted customers can expect to be up and running on Openserve fibre within 7 days from the placement of their order.

Additionally, customers who wish to keep their fixed landline number can port this number for free and use Webafricas VoIP service instead.
Donald Trump won office in 2016 partly on his accusations that China was exploiting the countrys trade relationship with the United States by selling the country far more than it purchased

Tensions between China and the United States have reached the most acute levels since the countries normalised diplomatic relations more than four decades ago, with the US governments order that China close its Houston consulate being just the latest example.

In defence, trade, technology, human rights and other categories, actions and reprisals by one side or the other have escalated sharply under President Donald Trumps administration, despite his repeated expressions of admiration for President Xi Jinping of China.

The administration is even weighing a blanket ban on travel to the United States by the 92 million members of Chinas ruling Communist Party and the possible expulsion of any members currently in the country, an action that would likely invite retaliation against American travel and residency in China.

I think were in a dangerous and precipitous spiral downward, not without cause, but without the proper diplomatic skills to arrest it, said Orville Schell, director of the Center on US-China Relations at the Asia Society. The severity of the confrontation, he said, has jumped the wall from specific and solvable challenges to a clash of systems and values.

Craig Allen, president of the US-China Business Council, said he was alarmed by the increasing invective from two superpowers that together represent 40 percent of global economic output. If we are yelling at each other and slamming doors, then the world is a very unstable place, and businesses are not able to plan, he said.

Here is a look at what has happened in the past few years to exacerbate the tensions:

The coronavirus and anti-Chinese racism

Trump and his subordinates have blamed China for spreading the coronavirus, which first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. They have repeatedly described the virus in racist and stigmatising terms, calling it the Wuhan virus, China virus and Kung Flu.

On 4 July, Trump said China must be held fully accountable. The administration also has defunded and ordered a severing of ties with the World Health Organisation, accusing it of having abetted shortcomings in Chinas initial response to the outbreak. On Tuesday, the Justice Department accused Chinese hackers of attempting to steal information about American research on a virus vaccine.

For its part, China has rejected the administrations attacks over the virus and has criticised the poor US government response to the outbreak. Chinese propagandists also have promoted the counter-theory, with no evidence, that U.S. soldiers may have been the original source of the virus during a visit to Wuhan last October.

A severe test on trade ties

Trump won office in 2016 partly on his accusations that China was exploiting the countrys trade relationship with the United States by selling the country far more than it purchased. In office, he decreed a series of punitive tariffs on Chinese goods, and China retaliated, in a trade war that has now lasted more than two years. While a truce was effectively declared in January with the signing of what the administration called a Phase 1 trade deal, most tariffs were not eased.

Showdown in the South China Sea

The Trump administration has increasingly challenged Chinas assertions of sovereignty and control over much of the South China Sea, including vital maritime shipping lanes. Just last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has described China as a major security threat, decreed that most of Chinas claims in the South China Sea are completely unlawful, setting up potential military confrontations between Chinese and US naval forces in the Pacific.

A widening battle over technology

China has long been accused by successive US administrations of stealing American technology. The Trump White House has escalated the accusations by seeking an international blacklisting of Huawei, Chinas largest technology company, calling it a front for Chinas efforts to infiltrate the telecommunications infrastructure of other nations for strategic advantage.

The companys chief technology officer, Meng Wanzhou, has been detained in Canada since December 2018 on an extradition warrant to the United States on fraud charges. Last week, Britain declared it was siding with the United States in barring Huawei products from its high-speed wireless network.

Expulsions of journalists and other media workers

Accusing Chinas State-run media outlets of fomenting propaganda, the Trump administration sharply limited the number of Chinese citizens who could work for Chinese news organisations in the United States. China retaliated by ordering the expulsions of journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, and took other steps that suggested further impediments to American press access in China were looming. The Times, concerned about the possibility of further limitations on journalists working in China, announced last week that it was relocating much of its major news hub in Hong Kong to the South Korean capital of Seoul.

Expulsions of students

The Trump administration has taken steps to cancel the visas of thousands of Chinese graduate students and researchers in the United States who have direct ties to universities affiliated with the Peoples Liberation Army, according to US officials knowledgeable about the planning. Such expulsions portend possible further educational restrictions, and the Chinese government could retaliate by imposing its own visa bans on Americans.

Suppression of democratic freedoms in Hong Kong

Last November, Trump, with bipartisan support, signed legislation that could penalise Chinese and Hong Kong officials who suppress dissent by democracy advocates in Hong Kong, the former British colony and Asian financial centre that was guaranteed some measure of autonomy by China.

In May, Trump said he was taking steps to end Hong Kongs preferential trading status with the United States after China passed a sweeping security law that could be used to stifle any form of expression deemed seditious by China. Chinese authorities have denounced the measures and vowed to retaliate.

Repression of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang

This month the Trump administration imposed sanctions on a number of Chinese officials, including a senior member of the Communist Party, over human rights abuses by China in the Xinjiang region against the countrys largely Muslim Uighur minority.

Beijing promised retaliation against American institutions and individuals it deemed guilty of egregious conduct in issues concerning Xinjiang, a vast western expanse in China where the authorities have placed a million people in labour camps and imposed intrusive surveillance on others.

Other long-standing grievances: Taiwan and Tibet

For the Chinese government, US actions taken in the name of defending people living anywhere in China constitutes blatant interference in its internal politics  a grievance with deep-seated roots going back to its struggles with imperialist powers in the 19th Century.

In May, the Trump administration approved a $180 million arms sale to Taiwan, part of a far bigger arms deal that has angered Chinese authorities, who regard the self-governing island as part of China. Another long-standing source of Chinese anger is the US deference to the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader-in-exile of Tibet, the former Himalayan kingdom in Chinas far west.

In 2018, Trump signed a bill that penalises Chinese officials who restrict US officials, journalists and other citizens from going freely to Tibetan areas. Last November the state departments ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, Samuel Brownback, warned that only Tibetans could choose the successor to the Dalai Lama, who turned 85 this month, setting up a new clash with Beijing, which contends it will choose his successor.

Rick Gladstone c.2020 The New York Times Company
D ramatic video footage shows the mayor of Portland coughing and covering his face after being tear gassed during another night of protests in the US city.

Ted Wheeler was confronted by angry protesters as he insisted he was "doing everything in his power" to remove federal officers from the streets.

Hundreds gathered for another night of protests in the Oregon city as tensions mounted over President Donald Trump's decision to dispatch federal agents to a number of American cities to fight "rising crime".

Speaking to a New York Times journalist as the crowd was being tear gassed, Mr Wheeler said: "It stings. It's hard to breathe. I can tell you with 100 per cent honesty I saw nothing that provoked this response."

It is not clear who is responsible for deploying the tear gas into the crowd where Mr Wheeler was speaking to protesters.

Democratic mayors of 15 cities, including Portland, have condemned the "politically motivated" use of the agents in a letter to the US attorney general.

Far from taming the unrest in the Oregon city, the presence of federal agents has energised the nightly protests sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Earlier this week, dramatic images and footage showed federal agents spraying tear gas into large crowds of protesters.

Mr Wheeler joined the demonstrations on Wednesday night to create "some form of dialogue", but he was met by angry crowds who chanted "tear gas Ted has got to go".

Ted Wheeler is pictured in the crowd of protesters as tear gas is set off / AP

The mayor insisted he was doing "everything in his power" to remove the federal officers from the streets.

"I will absolutely do everything in my power to go get rid of the federal troops and to reform the Portland Police Bureau. We need to do both," he told protesters, as he thanked them for "showing out to support racial justice".

"It is an unconstitutional occupation," he added, referring to the federal agents.

"The tactics that have been used by our federal officers are abhorrent. They did not act with probable cause, people are not being told, who they are being arrested by, and you're been denied basic constitutional rights."

Ted Wheeler wanted to open "some form of dialogue" with protesters / AP

Mr Wheeler spoke into a microphone telling protesters he was there to hold a "listening session".

But he was met with furious crowds, who started swearing at him and called for his resignation.

Before arriving at the scene, one group which has been prominent in the protests, the Pacific Northwest Youth Liberation Front, had told the mayor to stay away.

It comes as attorneys for Oregon argued on Wednesday for a restraining order against federal agents deployed to quell the protests in Portland.

A federal judge heard arguments from the state and the US government in a lawsuit filed by Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, who accuses federal agents of arresting protesters without probable cause, whisking them away in unmarked cars and using excessive force.

Federal authorities have disputed the allegations.

The court hearing focused on the actions of more than 100 federal agents responding to protests outside Portland's Mark O Hatfield Federal Courthouse, which has been a target for more than 50 nights of demonstrations against racial injustice following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Ted Wheeler pictured during a protest against racial inequality and police violence / REUTERS

The state acknowledged that federal agents have the right to defend the courthouse, but argued that they had overstepped.

Federal authorities have defended their response, saying officials in Oregon had been unwilling to work with them to stop the vandalism against the the US courthouse and violence against federal officers.

Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad Wolf said agents have been assaulted with lasers, bats, fireworks, bottles and other weapons.

While he said federal agencies have made 43 arrests since July 4, he disputed they were done by unidentified agents, noting they have the word "police" on their uniforms.

The lawsuit is one of several filed over authorities' response to the Portland protests.

Ted Wheeler speaks to protesters during a "listening session" / REUTERS

On Thursday, a judge will hear arguments in a legal challenge that the American Civil Liberties Union filed on behalf of journalists and legal observers who say they were targeted and attacked by Portland police while documenting demonstrations

Meanwhile, Mr Trump announced he will also send federal agents to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to help combat rising crime, expanding the administration's intervention in local enforcement as he runs for re-election under a "law and order" mandate.

He painted Democrat-led cities as out of control and lashed out at the "radical left," which he blamed for rising violence in some cities.

"In recent weeks there has been a radical movement to defund, dismantle and dissolve our police department," Mr Trump said on Wednesday at a White House event, blaming the movement for "a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence".

"This bloodshed must end," he said. "This bloodshed will end."
Gal Pissetzky, the legal representative of suspected Internet fraudster, Ramon Abass, aka Hushpuppi, has said the suspect is on his way to California, United States of America, for trial.

He told The PUNCH on Wednesday night that Hushpuppi had not been released as being speculated in some quarters.

Pissetzky, a Chicago lawyer, also noted that he was still his lawyer.

He has not been released and I am still his lawyer. He is on his way to California. Not everything you see on court documents is accurate.

Just because the jail record says released does not mean he has been released. He is being transferred to California, he told our correspondent on the phone.

Hushpuppi is facing trial for alleged Internet fraud.

He was initially taken to a Chicago court, where he was denied bail, before the case was transferred to California.

The matter is being handled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which took over the case from the Dubai Police.

The Dubai Police alleged that the 37-year-old and his gang defrauded 1,926,400 people from different parts of the world and stole about 1.6bn Dirham (N168bn).
Closing more Chinese consulates in US always possible: Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump said he could order closure of more Chinese consulates in US. United States told China to close its consulate in Houston on July 22. The State Department confirmed the decision and said the move was made to protect American intellectual property and American's private information. Trump also said that a fire was spotted on the Houston consulate's ground. Watch the full video for more details. ...read more
The Christian Council of Ghana has condemned the violent firing of gunshots at a voter registration centre in the Awutu Senya East Constituency of the Central Region by the Minister of Special Development Initiatives Mavis Hawa Koomson.

A statement from the Eminent Persons Group of Religious Leaders signed by its Chairman Rt. Rev. Prof. J.O.Y. Mante, who is also the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, said the Council had qualms about the admission of the state minister to the incident, even though contrary to several eyewitness accounts, there were some other armed persons present with her who fired the shots.

Such high-profile incidents should not be countenanced by our state security, the council said, adding: Acts or threats of coercion, intimidation or physical harm perpetrated to affect the electoral process, all in the context of electoral competition, should have no place in these worrying times with COVID-19 hanging over us.

The Eminent Persons Group of Religious Leaders noted that violence by powerful incumbents like the minister, should be totally condemned by all well-meaning Ghanaians.

The group said: Addressing the current situation involving Hawa Koomson will assure confidence and trust in our society and the security ahead of the 2020 elections, adding that: Pre-election violence itself, can damage the credibility of elections as much as flawed elections may spark violence.

Apart from the Christian Council, the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC) has also called for the resignation of the minister, as, according to GPCC, she is no longer tenable to hold office.

The GPCC also wants President Akufo-Addo to dismiss the minister if she fails to resign.

The GPCCs statement, signed by its President, Rev Prof Paul Frimpong-Manso, said it has followed the incident with great concern and more worrying is the involvement of the Member of Parliament for the area.

The GPCC called on the Ghana Police Service not to relent in their efforts in bringing all perpetrators of the shooting incident, including the Minister to book by ensuring that justice and fair play is manifestly seen to be done in this matter.

The Council rehashed that: The Ghana Police Service has the capacity and is capable of dealing with crimes of this nature without fear or favour and we wish to encourage them to rise up to this challenge in dealing with this and the earlier one reported at Banda Ahenkro in the Bono East Region no matter whose ox is gored so as to assure us that we can trust them to deal with all forms of violence ahead of the 2020 general election."

The GPCC is also of the view that the Minister of state is no longer tenable and she must resign or be fired by the President without prejudice to any criminal actions that may be taken against her by the Police and called on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to take immediate action on this matter to safeguard the peace and security of this nation and to assure all Ghanaians that we can trust him to keep this nation together in unity ahead of the General Elections in December.

The GPCC also urged Ghanaians, especially aggrieved individuals and parties at every stage of the electoral process, to resort to the time tested electoral laws and conflict resolution mechanisms and institutions to resolve their grievances rather than violence.

It reminded citizens that: It pays to use non-violent means to resolve our differences than the violent approaches, which could deprive us of our liberties, relations and even our lives."

GPCC urged the youth to channel their energies, talents and skills into very productive endeavours and refuse to be used by unpatriotic politicians for their greedy parochial interests saying today and the future belongs to you so jealously guard it!

The Council further reminded Ghanaians that we have only one Ghana to live in with nowhere else to go in the event of any escalated violence, though it is an open secret that the politicians we are willing to die for have their passports and that of their families ready to fly out of this country should violence erupt.

Lets be prudent and act responsibly to maintain the peace and security of Ghana for the future of our children and generations yet unborn.

Additionally, the Chairman of the National Peace Council, Rev Prof Emmanuel Asante, has said Mrs Hawa Koomson must resign for acting dishonourably.

Speaking in his personal capacity rather than for the National Peace Council, which he chairs, Prof Asante described the incident as very very very worrying.

I saw this very late last night before I slept and really, I was disturbed about the whole thing, he told Benjamin Akakpo in an interview on Class91.3FMs Executive Breakfast Show on Tuesday, 21 July 2020.

Why? For the simple reason that we have an honourable minister, an honourable member of parliament also, and I believe that shes also the NPPs parliamentary candidate for Awutu Senya East Constituency. We would expect that such honourable people would provide leadership, no matter the provocation, he explained.

And, for her to have said that she felt threatened, so, she pulled a gun and fired it and created chaos in that place; what if, in pulling the gun, others, whoever the detractors may be, even if they were around, ... also pulled a gun? What would have happened? he asked.

Prof Asante wondered if pulling a gun was the only option the minister and MP had under the circumstances.

Even if her bodyguard was not around, couldnt she have gone to the police station to inform the police about what was happening? As far as Im concerned, it cannot be justified in any sense, he said.

She should do the honourable thing, and for me, resign, Prof Asante demanded.

Apart from that, he said the police must also investigate the matter and let the law take its course for that matter, especially, the context within which this was done  in a situation where tension is rising and were doing all we can, people from different angles are doing all they can to ensure that there would be peace and tranquillity in what we are doing; we will not expect our leaders, honourable people to do things of this nature.

We expect our honourable people to do honourable things, not dishonourable things, he added.

If Im an honourable person and Ive done a thing of this nature, then I need to sit back and consider what I have to do. As for her being a minister, can she still maintain that dignity of an office? This is the thing.

Beyond asking for her resignation and the police taking her on, Prof Asante said Parliament must also sanction the MP for her dishonourable action.

Parliament must also have a say on such matters. Parliament cannot sit down and think that parliamentarians can do whatever they like and there will be no sanctions whatsoever. I would think that parliament, the executives, the speakers and all the leadership of parliament, will have something to say to this person because she brings the name of parliament into disrepute by her action. I mean, so, in any panicky situation, you pull a gun and shoot it? If an ordinary citizen does that, what is going to happen?

---classfmonline
China hopes India will safeguard regional peace and stability through concrete actions and play a constructive role in international affairs, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Wednesday.

Wang made the remarks at a regular press briefing when asked to comment on Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar's recent statement that India will never be part of an alliance system.

According to media reports, S. Jaishankar said at a meeting that "non-alignment was a term of a particular era and geopolitical landscape," but India will never be part of an alliance.

"We hope and believe that India, as an important force as we head toward a multipolar world, will be able to maintain its independent foreign policy and safeguard regional peace and stability through concrete actions, and play a constructive role in international affairs," Wang said.
ATLANTA, July 22, 2020 -- U.S. customers have rated Porsche highest among all automotive brands in the J.D. Power 2020 U.S. Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study. It was the second year in a row that Porsche took the top position in the annual study of customer experience with owning and driving a new vehicle.

"I am gratified at how excited our customers are with their new dream cars," said Klaus Zellmer, President and CEO of Porsche Cars North America, Inc. "Porsche believes in continuous improvement and winning the top spot again just encourages us to find new ways to delight our drivers."

The 2020 U.S. Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study measures owners' emotional attachment and level of excitement with their new vehicle across 37 attributes, ranging from the sense of comfort and luxury on climbing into the driver's seat to the power they feel when they step on the gas. These attributes combine into an overall APEAL index score measured on a 1,000-point scale.

Porsche earned 881 points on the 1,000-point scale, compared to the premium brand average of 861. The study, now in its 25th year, is based on responses gathered from February through May of this year from more than 87,000 purchasers and lessees of new 2020 model-year vehicles who were surveyed after 90 days of ownership.

About Porsche Cars North America, Inc. | One Porsche Drive, Atlanta, GA 30354 USA

Established in 1984, Porsche Cars North America, Inc. (PCNA) is the exclusive U.S. importer of the Porsche 911, 718 Boxster and 718 Cayman; Macan and Cayenne; Panamera; and Taycan. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, since 1998, PCNA is also home to the first Porsche Experience Center in North America featuring a module-based 1.6 mile driver development track, business center, and fine dining restaurant, 356. The company operates a second Porsche Experience Center near Los Angeles. That 53-acre complex features a driver development track with eight educational modules totaling 4.1 miles, a business center, and Restaurant 917. PCNA supports 193 independently owned and operated Porsche dealerships in the U.S., including supplying parts, service, marketing, and training. They, in turn, work to provide Porsche customers with a best-in-class experience that is in keeping with the Porsche brand's 70-year history of leadership in the advancement of vehicle performance, safety, and efficiency. PCNA is an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Porsche AG, which is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany.

At the core of this success is Porsche's proud racing heritage that boasts some 30,000-plus motorsport wins to date.
The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on two Venezuelans over accusations they helped support the government and son of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the latest actions by Washington targeting the socialist leader.

The US Treasury Department in a statement said brothers Santiago Jose Moron Hernandez and Ricardo Jose Moron Hernandez, members of a family of "trusted partners" of Maduro and his son, help distribute assets for the Venezuelan president and his family.

The Treasury also said that the two brothers are central figures in Venezuela's gold industry and oversee the financial mechanism of an illicit gold scheme involving the Venezuelan president's son, also named Nicolas Maduro, who has previously been blacklisted by Washington.

Thursday's action freezes any US assets of the brothers and generally prohibits Americans from doing business with them.

"The United States is committed to targeting individuals who facilitate and enable this corrupt regime as they continue to ignore the welfare of the Venezuelan people," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said.

The United States and dozens of other countries have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuelas legitimate president, regarding Maduros 2018 re-election as a sham. But Maduro has remained in power, backed by the countrys military and by Russia, China and Cuba.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau would have us believe that he was so caught up in the financial plight of students that it never dawned on him that he might have a conflict of interest in the question of whether to award a contract to the WE Charity to administer a $900-million program.

It slipped his mind that he had taken a couple of family trips connected to WEs projects in developing countries and rung up more than $40,000 in expenses that he hadnt reimbursed.

He had forgotten that his wife had donated generously to the charity, and he just didnt think that his daughters connections and employment with the organization would look odd to the general public.

I didnt see it as a conflict, he said Wednesday.

But if Morneau is so ignorant of how his involvement with the charity that was granted a $43-million contract would be perceived, he is painfully out of touch with the public he aims to serve.

Even as thousands of dollars slide through his hands without him heeding where they are going or bothering to make sure he is playing by the rules of ethical behaviour, there are millions of people who are pinching every single penny right now because they dont know where the next one will come from.

In the blocks around Morneaus office near Parliament Hill, the lunch spots are empty and the store fronts are dark. The odd cafeteria still open has no staff left, because there are no customers. The neighbourhood dentist has started seeing clients again, but he handles everything himself because his assistants are too scared to come to work for fear of catching the virus.

The pandemic economy is desolate, and its still very much with us despite some tentative reopenings. And it is hitting the working class and small business hardest and longest.

Its also hitting parents, who are facing great uncertainty and a shortage of safe places to send their children in September, sidelining many a mother from the prospect of returning to work. The federal government put $625 million toward that problem last week, but its a pittance against the need.

Does Morneau see that?

Of course, theres no rule saying a wealthy and connected businessman like Morneau cant be a solid finance minister and become an effective champion for spreading the wealth around. But in this case, Morneau appears to be so blinded by his own privilege that he cant see the conflicts staring back at him.

There are many.

In testimony that the Liberals had hoped would clear the air on Thursday, Morneau told the Commons finance committee that he had had occasional contact with WE leaders because their organization is based in his Toronto riding. One of his daughters interned there, eventually getting a longer-term position in administration. Another daughter spoke at WE events about her book.

The family travelled to Ecuador to see what WE was doing there and pitch in, and took another trip to Kenya.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a parallel history of family ties with the organization.

It was against that backdrop that Morneau and Trudeau spoke by phone one evening in early April to hash out their thoughts on how to help students and youth in the pandemic. The conversation, Morneau said, turned to volunteering and service  long a personal interest for Trudeau, who had taken part in the Katimavik youth corps formed by his father, eventually headed up the organization and made no secret of longing for its revival.

At the same time, WE was actively circulating proposals to be involved in the pandemic effort.

So its not surprising that the WE proposals floated quickly to the surface in the civil service and eventually carried the day. Morneaus department framed the idea and started the bureaucratic process to make it real. Morneau was kept in the loop throughout and signed off on it.

What is surprising is that it took from June 25 till now  four weeks less a day  for Morneau to realize this arrangement just stinks.

At least at the committee, he seems to have been more forthcoming about his connections with WE than Diversity and Inclusion and Youth Minister Bardish Chagger, who omitted to mention earlier this week that she had met with WE right before Trudeau announced the youth aid package in April.

Despite the disclosure, we still dont know exactly how the WE proposal ended up in the right hands, or what happened to it during the months of May and June when it was supposed to have been up and running.

But its enough to make you suspect that what was on the Liberals minds was not actually the fate of students scrounging to pay their tuition, but the promotion of an idea that boosted the brand of the We Charity as well as the brand of the Liberal party and its appeal to youth.

For a finance minister to be unable or unwilling to see the difference between boosting a brand and actually helping the pandemics young victims is troubling indeed.

Note- July 23, 2020: This article was edited from a previous version that referred to the Morneau family travelling to Africa.
As the state of Assam been hit with the annual floods causing devastation to life and property, Republic TV has taken an initiative to be the voice of the aggrieved people of the state. The citizens of Assam have appealed to the Centre to declare this devastation a national calamity. Speaking to Republic TV, several citizens of Assam including students, actors, and other civilians expressed their disappointment on the failure of the government to address the issue and find a solution to the crisis that hits the state every year.

Speaking over the issue, Stuti Choudhury, an actor by profession also called for declaring Assam floods as a national calamity and urged the Centre to come up with a solution.

"Every year during the monsoon and the Assam flood, we see a lot of fundraising campaigns and a lot of people coming forward to help the flood-affected victims, but that cannot be the solution. It cannot happen every year. There has to be a way out of this. So it's about time, the Government of India declares Assam Floods as a national calamity," Stuti said while speaking with Republic Media News Network.

Subhrangshu Sharma, a second-year masters student from Assam said that the country cannot be ignorant to the plight of the state of Assam while reiterating the call to term the floods a national calamity.

"Declaring Assam floods as a national disaster would help the state in getting more help from the NDRF and Bharat Mata can't be ignorant to the 70-year long plight of her daughter Assam. It's about time we bring greatest technical expertise of the world to help reduce the impact of Assam floods which ravages life, livelihood and financial resources of the state," said Subhrangshu.

READ | Assam Flood Misery Worsens As Toll Nears 90; Rain-related Incidents Kill 5 In UP, Ukhand

READ | Assam Floods: Centre Announces Rs 346 Cr As First Installment To Tackle Flood Situation

Centre to take up flood matter to Bhutan govt

In order to help the state cope up with the deluge, the Centre will soon release Rs 346 crore as an initial amount for handling the flood situation in Assam, which has so far affected 56 lakh people in the northeastern state, the Assam CMO said in a statement. The statement further added that the Centre has also decided to take up the issue with the Bhutan government in order to address the flood in the Lower Assam districts as reports claim the release of excess water from the dams of Bhutan leads to flooding in the Lower Assam districts especially Barpeta, Nalbari and Kokrajhar.

According to the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA), 115 people have lost their lives in floods and landslides so far this year, out of which 89 were killed in flood-related incidents and 26 died due to landslides.

The flood situation in Assam worsened with two more persons losing their lives, even as over 26 lakh people remain affected in 26 districts. Cumulatively, nearly 56 lakh people have been affected by the deluge across the state this year, the ASDMA said.

READ | Flood Relief Work In Assam, Bihar To Be A Long Haul: NDRF Director General SN Pradhan

READ | Assam And Bihar Grapple With Floods Amid COVID; 28 Lakh People Affected
The UK cannot give a timeframe for the extradition of fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya though the British government and courts are clear on their roles in preventing people from avoiding justice by moving across national borders, UK high commissioner Philip Barton said on Thursday.

Barton declined to answer a question during a virtual news briefing on whether Mallya had sought asylum in the UK, saying the British government never comments on individual asylum cases.

The UK government and the courts, [which] are independent of the government, are absolutely clear about their roles in preventing people avoiding justice by moving to another country. We are all determined to play our part in any case, and to make sure that were working together to ensure that criminals cant escape justice by crossing national borders, he said.

Mallyas extradition was ordered in February but there is an ongoing legal case and I cant comment any further on that and I cant say anything at all about timescales, Barton said. The UK government understands the importance of the case, he added.

Last month, India said it had asked the UK not to consider any asylum request from Mallya, currently on bail pending his extradition, as there are no grounds for his persecution in the country. India has also said it has sought the early extradition of Mallya from the UK.

The UK has so far only said a confidential legal issue was holding up Mallyas extradition but that it was trying to deal with the matter as quickly as possible. Britains stance gave rise to speculation the 64-year-old businessman, wanted in India to face charges of financial irregularities, could have applied for asylum.

Mallya lost his appeal in the UK high court in April against the 2018 order to extradite him. Last month, the high court also refused Mallya permission to appeal in the UK Supreme Court.

He is wanted in India to face charges of financial offences involving Rs 9,000 crore borrowed by his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines from several Indian banks.

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A Queensland doctor has been fined for lying about returning from a coronavirus hotspot on his border declaration form.

The 38-year-old from Rockhampton, central Queensland, returned home from a personal trip to Melbourne on July 12.

The doctor, who thought he was exempt due to his profession, was handed an infringement notice the next day, fined $4003, and sent to hotel quarantine.

A Queensland doctor has been fined for lying about returning from a coronavirus hotspot on his border declaration. Pictured: Border set up on the Gold Coast

Queensland's Health Minister Steven Miles said the behaviour wasn't acceptable from anyone 'let alone a health professional'.

He said the doctor should have known the rules are in place to keep Queenslanders safe.

'This should send a strong message to the community that the police are checking and if you break these restrictions, the penalties are very significant,' Mr Miles said, Courier Mail reported.

'I know that having to go into quarantine is an inconvenience for some, but nobody is above these rules, no matter what their profession.'

Those travelling to Queensland from Victoria or the local government areas of Campbelltown or Liverpool in New South Wales must quarantine in a hotel for 14 days.

The same rules apply to returning overseas travellers.
Actor-turned-politician and JanaSena Party chief Pawan Kalyan on Thursday said the ruling YSR Congress Party, when campaigning in opposition, should have promised to set up three capitals for Andhra Pradesh.

At an interview of the JanaSenas social media unit, Kalyan said farmers would not have given thousands of acres of their land for the development of the capital city and their tears are not good for rulers.

"Development through decentralisation is just a concept. It is like the Telugu Desam Partys Singapore model of development. We should live in reality. People who gave land for the capital are crying now. Their tears are not good for rulers, he said, adding if there is any irregularity in land pooling, it should be rectified.

Kalyan alleged there is a lot of manipulations in acquiring land for distribution of house site pattas in the state.

If the government wants to buy private land for Rs 7 lakh and Rs 8 lakh per acre, the government purchased it for four to seven times more. The extra amount went to the pockets of middlemen. It has come to my notice that such manipulations have taken place in many parts of the state, he alleged.

Reacting to the coronavirus pandemic, Kalyan said the state government did not take advantage of the lockdown.
A Texas mother and her two young daughters who vanished Wednesday on their way to a play date have been found dead, police have revealed.

The bodies of Natalie Chambers, 31, and her daughters Isabel, 4, and Elise, 2, were tragically found by police just after 10am Thursday inside a blue 2008 Ford Escape in the Farmers Branch, Dallas.

The Kauffman County Sheriff's Office has not yet confirmed how the mother and her children died, or what led to their disappearance.

Chambers and her girls were last seen alive around 8am on Wednesday when they left their home in Forney to attend a park playdate with friend in Grapevine, but failed to show.

Natalie Chambers (above), 30, and her daughters Isabel (right), 4, and Elise (left), 2, were tragically found dead by police on Thursday morning

They were found inside a blue 2008 Ford Escape in a Farmers Branch parking lot just after 10am on Thursday

Chambers and her girls had last been seen alive at around 8am on Wednesday when they left their home in Forney to attend a park playdate with friend in Grapevine, but failed to show

In the hours that followed, after friends and family of Chambers failed to get a hold of her, a missing persons report was filed with the sheriff's office at 2:30pm Wednesday.

Investigators pinged Chamber's cellphone, which traced to the intersection of I-635 and Midway Road near the Dallas and Farmers Branch city limits.

Her car was later found in the area on Thursday morning in a parking lot near Freed's Furniture, which is situated close to the highway.

The Farmers Branch Police Department is investigating the deaths and awaiting autopsy results.

'At approximately 10.11am Farmers Branch Police Officers were dispatched to the area of 13300 Midway Road at the request of the Kaufman County Sheriff's Office to assist in attempting to locate a missing person, Natalie Chambers, and her two children ages two and four,' Detective Steven Rutherford told DailyMail.com

'Upon arrival at the location, responding officers located Chambers' vehicle, blue 2008 Ford Escape, in the parking lot of 4300 LBJ Freeway. Officers approached the vehicle and discovered that the three occupants of the vehicle were deceased.

Investigators are working to subpoena cell records to yield any additional information that may help to explain the reason for their disappearance and deaths.

No suspects were identified as of Thursday afternoon, Rutherford said. He was unable to confirm what condition the bodies were in, pending an investigation from the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office.

The Kauffman County Sheriff's Office has not yet confirmed how the mother and her children died, or what led to their disappearance

Posts to Chambers' Facebook page indicate that she married Corey Chambers, 37, in 2017. It's unclear if the couple were still together at the time of her death

The Farmers Branch Police Department is investigating the deaths and awaiting autopsy results

Rutherford told the Star-Telegram this case has been 'devastating' for the department and especially the officers who found the family.

'This morning's very, very tragic events where we've lost three precious lives ... officers have to respond to that situation. That's a lot. That's a lot to see that,' he said.

'But we do have a job to do. You do your job and then you have to move forward. And we'll check on our guys and make sure everybody's OK.'

Police remain at the scene of where the bodies were found as an investigation continues.

A white forensics tent has been erected in the parking lot next the Chamber's car, footage shot by WFAA shows.

Concerned family members had taken to social media in a desperate attempt to locate Chambers and her daughters.

'My sister Natalie Chambers and her two daughters Izabel and Elise have been missing since around 8am this morning. If you or anyone you know has heard from them or seen them, please contact me immediately,' her sister, Jessica Purcell, wrote on Facebook Wednesday afternoon.

Investigators are working to subpoena cell records to yield any additional information that may help to explain the reason for their disappearance and deaths

In the hours since the news of her death was made public, Purcell remembered her sister as 'hilarious and charismatic and never met a stranger.'

'She fiercely loved her girls and was an inspirational mother. I always used to tell her I'm glad she did it (motherhood) first so I can steal parenting tips from her,' Purcell told CBS Dallas.

'Izabel and Elise were happy and so very smart and witty. Izabel got that her mom's sassiness and Elise got her humor. They were beautiful and perfect. Our hearts are completely shattered.'

Posts to Chambers' Facebook page indicate that she married Corey Chambers, 37, in 2017. It's unclear if they couple were still together at the time of her death.

A caption displayed underneath her profile picture reads: 'Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations.'
Before Teresa Romero led the United Farm Workers union, she was a businesswoman in a mans industry. Her company managed school district construction projects.

Then 35, Romero was usually the youngest person in every room. The only other women present were secretaries and assistants.

So, lets just say others failed to recognize who, exactly, was in charge.

At one such gathering, Romero stood up in the middle of the room and waited for silence. Once they stopped talking, I said, I was speaking, and you interrupted me, and I dont appreciate it.

Courtesy photo / Courtesy photo

So, lets just say, again, that Romero  who took the reins of the UFW in late 2018  knows how to get undivided attention when she needs it.

When she thinks of that moment, Romero hopes people now see how hard shes willing to work and how determined she is about reaching her goal.

Today, at 62, she has one objective. Its to help farmworkers, she said.

Romero, only the third person to hold the job, succeeded San Antonian Arturo Rodriguez as president, who followed co-founder Cesar Chavez. Co-founder Dolores Huerta never served as the unions president but was a key leader throughout its history.

As the UFWs first woman president, Romero also holds the distinction of being the first immigrant to head an organization that serves as the leading voice for farmworkers, many of them undocumented immigrants.

She manages about 65 employees and served as the unions chief administrative officer and secretary-treasurer before becoming president.

Romero began 11 years ago as Rodriguezs executive assistant. Her business collapsed in the Great Recession, and she found the UFW job opening online. She hoped to ride out the downturn and then get back to her business.

Related: Ayala: Making Mexican American civil rights history part of a national conversation

But almost immediately, I saw the people and those willing to fight for others and knew this was exactly where I belong.

Born in Mexico City, both her parents worked. Her maternal grandmother helped care for her and her siblings. She recalls the womans strength and resolve and that she taught her grandchildren words from her native Zapotecan language.

Romero graduated from the University of Guadalajara with a degree in business administration and came to the United States in the early 1980s to live with an aunt. Relatives followed.

She learned English in Mexico but studied it with vigor once here, memorizing 10 to 15 sentences a day.

She worked for an attorney who handled all sorts of cases, including immigration. She learned how to assist people applying for visas.

The work stuck with her, as did seeing the fear of deportation in immigrants and the impact on their U.S.-born children. Were raising a generation of traumatized kids, she said.

Ayala: San Antonio voting rights leader among NOWs Sisters in Suffrage

At the UFW, she advocates for members but for farmworkers collectively in matters of health, safety and employment.

From that viewpoint, she sees documented and undocumented workers who pay taxes but dont receive benefits such as overtime pay, sick leave and health insurance. She says the UFW has had to push some growers just to provide cool water and shade for their workers lunch and rest periods.

They are in the field right now, Romero said. Theyre out there working in 100 degrees. They are essential workers.

The word essential bothers her. When the Trump administration speaks of the nations needs, thats how farmworkers are identified.

When we talk about what farmworkers need, the administration doesnt give a damn. They talk about lowering their pay and removing sick days.

The union has stepped up its work outside of collective bargaining to state houses and Congress and in direct services to farmworkers and immigrants.

It lobbied the U.S. House of Representatives to pass an immigration bill that provides legalization to farmworkers. The bill got bipartisan support but hasnt been introduced in the Senate.

The union has worked on sick leave benefits, which it sees as crucial to stop the spread of COVID-19, Romero says. Its something that you think we dont need to fight for, but we need to fight for it.

The UFW also has worked in Mexico to halt those defrauding workers by charging thousands of dollars to process H-2A temporary work visas, Romero said.

In the most surprising trend, UFW has reached out to growers, changing the dynamic between once-bitter adversaries. Meetings with them have been awkward, and Romero says the union has been accused of selling out.

But nothing has changed, she said.

The unions work has grown and changed only slightly.

Its not about the growers, she said. Its about the workers.

eayala@express-news.net
President Akufo-Addo yesterday flagged off commencement of work on the phase one of a 600-bed teaching hospital for the Eastern Region in Koforidua, with sod-cutting at the site.

The President said the first phase would entail the construction of a 285-bed facility, part of the 600. This will position the Eastern Region on the right side of the healthcare map of our country, with teaching and learning facilities, he added.

The project is expected to be completed within 36 months.

As a regional hospital, the facility will deal with acute care and referral cases and provide primary healthcare facilities, including ensuring the development of mutual health insurance organizations within the region and its districts.

The seventy million Euros project is being funded by Standard Chartered Bank, US, with credit guarantee support from the United Kingdom Export Financing (UKEF) to the tune of 7,920,000.00.

Ghana continues to be grateful to UKEF for their continued support in our infrastructure development programme for all sectors of our economy. I am happy to state that the entire funding amount of seventy million Euros (70 million) has already been secured for Tyllium U.K. Ltd, the contractors for this project. They must, therefore, ensure that this project is completed within the 36-month period and on budget, the President pointed out.

The 20,000m square hospital will contain administration, training, conference and teaching facilities; out-patient department; accident and emergency services; adjunct clinical services (pharmacy, imaging with MRI); pathological services; surgical services, including the provision of seven (7) theatres and endoscopy; obstetrics and gynaecology; in-patient wards; burns care unit; ICT installations and provision of Health Information Management System (HIMS); medical waste management system; and provision of mixed type accommodation units for hospital workers.

The President said Covid-19 had brought to the fore the unequal distribution of healthcare facilities in the country, with the nation focusing its infrastructure more on Accra and one or two other cities. Epidemics and pandemics, he said, could spread to any part of the country.

He announced that eight districts in the region would have hospitals, naming the places as Akyemansa, Asene/Manso/Akroso, Asuogyaman, Atiwa, Ayensuano, Birim South, Kwahu Afram Plains South, and Upper West Akyem each of which facility will be a quality, standard design, 100-bed hospital, with accommodation for doctors, nurses and other health workers.

Six new regional hospitals, the President announced, would be constructed in the new regional capitals alongside the rehabilitation of the Effia-Nkwanta Hospital in Sekondi, and the construction of a new regional hospital for the Western Region.

The President praised the Omanhene of New Juaben Traditional Area, Prof Emeritus Daasebre Oti Boateng, for donating land for the project.

President Akufo-Addo assured all that this project is a sign of greater things to come for Koforidua, the Eastern Region and, indeed, for the whole nation. Government's commitment to the total development of Ghana is absolute.

---Daily Guide
A police officer who chopped off a 14-year-old boy's rat's tail has been sanctioned by the force's watchdog over the 'culturally disrespectful' act.

New Zealand Police's Constable Michael Hammond, 26, cut of the boy's hair with a seatbelt cutter after the boy was arrested following a car chase in Auckland in 2018.

Hammond had thrown road spikes on the ground to stop the car the teenager was inside, according to Stuff.

New Zealand Police's Constable Michael Hammond, 26, cut off the teenager's hair with a seatbelt cutter after the boy was arrested following a car chase in Auckland in 2018 (stock)

The teenager was searched and arrested by another police officer, which is when Hammond pulled out the cutter and sliced off the boy's hair.

Hammond pleaded guilty to common assault in court last year however the charges were dismissed on appeal and his conviction and sentence was set aside.

An investigation by the Independent Police Conduct Authority agreed with the decision to sanction the officer at work.

Hammond and the police force as a whole both apologised to the child.

'Police expressed remorse for the officer's actions, and acknowledged the assault was culturally disrespectful,' the authority said.

Hammond said he had cut the teenager's hair without thinking because he 'saw cords'.

The teenager was searched and arrested by another police officer, which is when Hammond pulled out the cutter and sliced off the boy's hair (stock)

Justice Hinton, a High Court judge, said Hammond's offending was 'moderate' during his appeal.

'Offending undertaken by a sworn police officer on a member of the public in the execution of that police officer's duty is a significant aggravating factor,' she said.

'He has hopefully learnt a very significant lesson. He has written a letter of full apology to the victim.'

Hammond is still a member of the police.

Superintendent Karyn Malthus, Auckland City District Commander, said Hammond's conduct was 'inappropriate and unprofessional'.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book "A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living." She is also chair of Cardinal Dolan's pro-life commission in New York. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.
Site of future Tesla factory.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture alliance via Getty Images

Photos show early construction on Tesla's planned factory outside of Berlin.

The factory has been subject to controversy over environmental impact, though construction is moving ahead.

The factory will be the site for building Tesla's Model Y, according to CEO Elon Musk.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Tesla's factory in Germany, its first major one in Europe, has had a bumpy ride. Environmental challenges led to some minor holdups, and then COVID-19 shut down much of the world, and US travel bans brought many US Tesla workers home.

Finally, in June the company broke ground on the factory outside of Berlin. New drone photos show what seems to be quick progress with cranes and foundation going up fast. Here's a brief history of the background on the new Tesla Gigafactory, and photos of the construction progress.

In November, Elon Musk announced that Tesla's first major European factory near Berlin.

Site of future Tesla factory.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture alliance via Getty Images

Source: The New York Times

Tesla began clearing the area in preparation for construction.

Site of future Tesla factory.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture alliance via Getty Images

In February, a Germany court ordered Tesla to stop deforestation for the new factory over environmental concerns.

Site of future Tesla factory.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture alliance via Getty Images

Source: Business Insider

Environmental group Grune Liga (Green League) claimed Tesla didn't meet its legal requirements of disclosing building plans.

Site of future Tesla factory.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture alliance via Getty Images

The group also claimed that Tesla's plans could be a danger to area drinking water.

Site of future Tesla factory.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture alliance via Getty Images

On its website, Tesla says it plans to plant an area three times the size of the factory, with potential to become an old growth forest.

Site of future Tesla factory.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture alliance via Getty Images

Source: Tesla

The company also says it is "working to ensure plenty of clean drinking water through water-saving measures in the factory."

Story continues

Site of future Tesla factory.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture alliance via Getty Images

Less than a week after the complaint, a German court gave Tesla permission to continue.

Site of future Tesla factory.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture alliance via Getty Images

In March, Tesla, like most companies, faced coronavirus setbacks. It withdrew US employees because of the virus and travel bans.

Site of future Tesla factory.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture alliance via Getty Images

Source: Electrek

"We are absolutely continuing our Model Y capacity expansion at full speed at both Giga Berlin and Giga Shanghai, and here in Fremont when they will let us continue," Musk told analysts in April.

Site of future Tesla factory.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture alliance via Getty Images

Source: Business Insider

Based on new photos, Tesla is moving forward with construction on the site.

Site of future Tesla factory.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture alliance via Getty Images

In May, Germany's economic minister said that he didn't expect any delays in the factory's timeline, despite COVID-19.

Site of future Tesla factory.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture alliance via Getty Images

Source: Reuters

Drone photos show cranes and support structures, with construction well under way.

Site of future Tesla factory.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture alliance via Getty Images

Source: Business Insider

Production is still slated to begin in 2021.

Site of future Tesla factory.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture alliance via Getty Images

The factory is expected to produce not only the Model Y but also batteries and powertrains for electric vehicles.

Site of future Tesla factory.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture alliance via Getty Images

With construction moving along, Musk shared a rendering of the completed factory, with solar panels and and plenty of green space.

Source: Business Insider

Read the original article on Business Insider
Speaking at an event organised by industry body Ficci, Bajaj said that based on tax collections so far, Indias economic contraction in this fiscal year might be less severe than anticipated and that the proposal of a bad bank had been discussed internally, but no decision had been taken. Currently, there is no proposal for debt monetisation on the table. Questions on fiscal position and ...

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MANILA, Philippines  The Bureau of Customs (BOC) on Wednesday (July 23) announced the conviction of an importer who tried to illegally sneak in 63 reptiles into the country.

According to the BOC, Judge Allan Ariola of Pasay City Metropolitan Trial Court Branch 48, sentenced the importer a penalty of three to six months imprisonment for violation of Republic Act No. 9147 or the Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act of 2001.

The imported exotic wildlife include 54 Iguanas; two Basilisk; four Veiled Chameleon and three Bearded Dragon.

The importer, who flew in from Bangkok, Thailand, was intercepted in February 2019 by BOC personnel at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 2 through an after-flight screening upon arrival.

The animals, which were concealed inside his luggage, had no import permits from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

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When the auto king fled house arrest, he captivated the world. Now, the guy who helped him is in jailaand never got paid a dime.

In the spring of last year, a former Green Beret named Michael Taylor was in between jobs when he received a call from an old friend.

aHey, we got a guy,a said the friend, a Lebanese businessman. aHeas close to us. Heas getting railroaded over in Japan. Is there something you can help us with?a Ali, the pseudonym Taylor gave him, wouldnat provide any more specifics, not even a name.

aItas possible,a Taylor told his friend. But he would need a lot more information.

The call wasnat that unusual. Taylor had once run American International Security Corporation, a private military contractor specializing in risk assessmentaand in spiriting people out of complex situations. Over two decades, he had established a reputation in certain circles for dramatic recovery missions conducted all over the world. Most were unofficial referrals from the FBI or the State Departmentaa young girl abducted by her Lebanese father amid a custody dispute, or a teenager who had gotten into a car accident over spring break in Costa Rica and was facing jail time. During his career, he has completed nearly two dozen such operations, charging clients anywhere from $20,000 to $2 million per job. The missions, some of which took years to plan and execute, earned Taylor the nickname Captain America. He lived in a binary world populated by, as he saw it, patriots or traitors, aour guya or the abad guy.a True to superhero style, the tales Taylor recounts from this career are outsize, epic, including the escape of Carlos Ghosn.
Scott Morrison has admitted he has no plan for how Australians will be able to travel overseas if scientists fail to develop a coronavirus vaccine.

The prime minister was grilled by A Current Affair's Tracy Grimshaw on Thursday about his 'plan' to reopen the nation's borders.

'Right now, the opportunity for large scale travel beyond our borders is not foreseeable,' he said.

Ms Grimshaw asked if Australians would ever be allowed to holiday overseas again or visit family abroad without a vaccine.

The prime minister was unable to answer Ms Grimshaw's questions but encouraged Australians to look for 'opportunities' instead of simply waiting for the jab.

'Australians can focus on that, ''what if there's never a vaccine?'' and that means your head is to the floor,' he said.

'And when your head is to the floor, you can't see what your opportunities are ahead.

'That's where I need Australians heads, I need them looking up.

'I need them looking forward, because when they're doing that, they're going to be encouraging each other, they're going to be opening their businesses, they're going to be doing whatever it takes to keeping people in jobs.'

Mr Morrison said Australia will 'crack this' whether there is a vaccine or not.

The prime minister was grilled by A Current Affair's Tracy Grimshaw on Thursday about his 'plan' to reopen the nation's borders

'We will deal with whatever circumstance that confronts us because that's what Australians do,' he said.

Mr Morrison is hopeful Australia and New Zealand will be able to agree on a travel zone between the two nations before the end of the year.

He continues to chat regularly to New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and said there had been interest from other Pacific nations and Japan about 'safe travel'.

As the world continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic, Mr Morrison encouraged Australians to continue to follow the health advice.

'You keep washing your hands, you keep your 1.5 distance, you keep your health system's capacity strong, you, you keep ensuring people book and sit at tables,' he said.

'That's what you do [without a vaccine]. You run your country, you run your society, in a COVID-safe way.'

Pictured: A coronavirus social distancing sign is seen at Sydney Airport during the pandemic

Australia and New Zealand have for months been plotting easing border restrictions for travel across the ditch, but the plans were dealt a blow after Victoria was overwhelmed by a second wave of coronavirus infections.

Late last month, Ms Ardern said the reopening of borders would come down to Australia's leaders.

'Ultimately it's up to Australia to decide whether or not they'll go for a whole of country approach, or a state-by-state approach,' she said at the time.

'Obviously where there is community outbreak that is a no-go for New Zealand.

'Where they have border controls in place and where they've had no community transmissions for sustained periods of time that may be a different scenario.'

Victoria recorded 403 fresh COVID-19 infections on Thursday - the state's third highest tally since the pandemic begun - and five additional deaths.

NSW recorded 19 new cases in the 24 hours to 8pm on Wednesday, including three in hotel quarantine, with almost 25,000 COVID-19 tests conducted.

A cluster associated with the Crossroads Hotel in Casula has grown to 56 after three new cases were reported on Thursday.

'Right now, the opportunity for large scale travel beyond our borders is not foreseeable,' Mr Morrison said

The government has also halved international flight arrivals into Australia to ease pressure on the hotel quarantine program.

Australia first barred entry for foreign nationals travelling from mainland China on February 1 in a bid to stem the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

The incoming travel ban was gradually extended to several countries that became virus hotspots before borders were shut to all non-residents from March 21.

Overseas arrivals dropped slumped 60 per cent in March, and have nearly collapsed since.

Australia's tourism industry is likely to cop continued economic damage from the coronavirus lockdown, with international travel bans expected to remain until July 2021.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Hinting at the possibility of community transmission in Telangana, Dr G Srinivas Rao, director of public health, has asked residents to stay on high alert for the next four to five weeks.

In addition to this, Dr K Ramesh Reddy, director of medical education, also assured people that the expenses for COVID-19 treatment are fairly affordable in government hospitals and would not be in lakhs and crores as charged by private hospitals.

Addressing a press conference, Dr G Srinivas Rao said, We have noticed transmission of the virus in communities. And therefore citizens need to stay on high alert for the next four to five months. We are studying community transmission. However, we have arrested the spread of the virus largely. People also need to take precautions.

Adding to this, Dr K Ramesh Reddy said, I request people to approach government hospitals for tests and treatment as soon as they get the mildest symptoms of COVID-19. With mild symptoms, the cost of medication will not cross Rs 350-400. Basic antibiotics and vitamin treatment can cure the disease. However, as the prognosis becomes more severe, injections can vary between Rs 10,000-35,000. But under no circumstances does the treatment go up to lakhs or crores as charged by private hospitals. All the government hospitals in the state are equipped with proper infrastructure. I urge people to visit government hospitals.
One of my most popular columns since the pandemic struck was Good news for Ontario wine lovers who are self-isolating. It ran in early April and recommended a mixed case of delicious wines to buy online with free shipping anywhere in Ontario. Ever since, readers have been asking me to write similar columns.

Ive done so  including two columns on outstanding Ontario wines to buy online. But my last mixed case of international finds ran in early June, so its time for another curated case.

This weeks smart six-pack contains three whites, a rose and two reds, each of which offers excellent value for the money. The mixed case costs $92 including tax and delivery, and is only available online at LiffordWine.com. So its a good deal for wine lovers.

For the door of the fridge is the 2019 Alario Sauvignon Blanc from the Central Valley in Chile (LCBO 638239 $8.95). This sassy white by the respected producer Vina Carmen delivers a juicy hit of pink grapefruit while fluttering delicately with lime, snow pea and a touch of elderflower that persists on the finish. Score: 92

This dry, medium-bodied wine is a fabulous choice to serve with a plate of chicken empanadas at happy hour to channel Chile. Or add a tossed salad and make it a meal.

Of course, its hard to beat a brilliant white Burgundy. So a bottle of the 2018 Saint Martin Chablis from Domaine Laroche in France (LCBO 289124 $26) is tucked inside. This pure Chardonnay offers the beautiful fragrance of wet stones and lemon zest before arresting the senses with glossy-cool flavours of sliced lemons, green apples and sea salt. After the initial attack, toasted meringue, chalk and almond flavours emerge and linger. Great value for money. Score: 92

Uncork this bottle to elevate any fish dish or a nicoise salad. Its also a marvellous match for oysters in the half shell, poached prawns or pan-fried cod.

Also inside is a Riesling from the Mosel region of Germany, which is one of most underrated wine styles in the world. The bottle is the 2017 Clean Slate Riesling (LCBO 286237 $13), which starts with cool granite, white peach and a touch of candied lime peel on the nose. Then the entry is off-dry and crisp with tingling acidity that seems to electrify the generous flavours of grapefruit, peach and lime. Great purity and freshness here along with the low level of alcohol for which Riesling is known  this bottle clocks just 10.5 per cent ABV. Score: 90

Pour this wine with spicy Thai dishes such as mango salad, pad kee mao or tom kha gai. The wine cools the palate and complements the flavours of these dishes.

Since most wine lovers  me included  like to keep dry rose on hand in the summer, this case includes the 2019 Ogier Ventoux Rose from the Rhone Valley of France (LCBO 134916 $13.05 till Aug. 15, reg. $14.55). Its a shatteringly fresh charmer with a quiet perfume of apricot and pomegranate that bathes the palate in what feels like soft light as it unspools with strawberry and stone fruit and a hint of nougat. This is a crisp, wispy wine with a certain romanticism about it. Score: 91

Enjoy this pale, French rose on its own in the setting sun with a bowl of salted almonds or some olive tapenade and toast.

Of course, grilling season is upon us. So find inside a bottle of the 2017 Pepperwood Grove Old Vine Zinfandel from California (LCBO 308163 $15). It packs an eruption of dark, robust flavour that starts with dark cherry and melting chocolate then shifts to reveal subtler notes of cherry cola, blackberry jam, blueberry and a light lift of raspberry. Lots going on in this dry-tasting, saturated red with a polished mouth feel. Score: 90

Let this Californian Zin inspire you to grill some pork ribs with a sticky-smoky sauce. Also works well with grilled veggie dogs.

Also good with grilled meat  especially burgers  is the 2017 Smoking Loon Cabernet Sauvignon from California (LCBO 55517 $16). This classic-tasting Cabernet starts with aromas of muddled berries and cassis, then drenches the palate with mouth-filling fruit. Lots of bright red cherry-rhubarb flavours make this a crisp, refreshing style of Cabernet with undertones of black plum and white pepper. Score: 89

Six wines for summer. And theyre only a click away.
WASHINGTON  Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez forcefully rejected a Republican colleagues words of contrition on Wednesday after he declined to apologize for referring to her with a vulgar and sexist expletive, denying he had uttered the words.

Representative Ted Yoho, Republican of Florida, appeared on the House floor on Wednesday to express regret for injecting strife into Congress and being abrupt in a confrontation this week with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York.

I rise today to apologize for the abrupt manner of the conversation I had with my colleague from New York, Mr. Yoho said. It is true that we disagree on policies and visions for America, but that does not mean we should be disrespectful.

But a short time later, he added, The offensive name-calling words attributed to me by the press were never spoken to my colleagues, and if they were construed that way, I apologize for their misunderstanding.
2005-12-24 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- The unwelcome but indisputable revelation that some of the most exciting biomedical claims of the past few years were the product of scientific fraud settled like a cloud over the American scientific community Friday.

Stem cell researchers said they were depressed and discouraged to learn that an investigatory panel at Seoul National University had found that most of the precious human embryonic stem cell colonies that its scientists had touted were fakes.

The star scientist at the heart of that deception -- Hwang Woo Suk -- resigned Friday from his university post, his meteoric rise to fame coming to a wrenching end.

Many researchers said they are worried about the political impact of the debacle in the United States, where the Senate is poised to consider several bills that could boost or restrict stem cell research. Although controversial because it involves the destruction of human embryos, the science has had generally high approval ratings with the public because of all the medical promise the cells are thought to hold.

Yet scientists pledged Friday to learn from the experience and move ahead with renewed vigor, saying they still see the field as extremely promising.

"Although it hurts, I think we have to say that if there is fraud of any kind ... it has to be exposed, no matter what the cost. The truth is of more value than anything else," said John Gearhart, a stem cell researcher at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore.

"We'll have to deal with the cynicism and anything that comes our way politically from the policymakers," Gearhart added. "But people should realize that anything that is wrong with the science is of no value to us either."

Dr. Zach Hall, president of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, said it was too soon to say whether Hwang's failure would prove a political setback for stem cell research, but that it was evidently a scientific reverse. "It's a technological setback," he said, "and ground we thought we had won must now be rewon."

The investigation continues at the Seoul university, but a panel there announced late Thursday it had found overwhelming evidence that at least nine of 11 colonies of stem cells described in a high-profile report this spring either never existed or were never proved to be stem cells. The colonies were said to have been derived from embryos that were clones of 11 patients, marking the first alleged proof that it might be practical to create custom-designed stem cells to treat disease.

Embryonic stem cells, which have the potential to become -- and perhaps repair -- virtually every kind of ailing organ, had been made before, but never from cloned embryos. Scientists suspect that clone-derived cells are less likely to be rejected by a patient's immune system.

With Congress out for the holiday break, there was no immediate reaction from Capitol Hill. But opponents of the research clearly saw the disaster as a political plus, and they said it reveals how little evidence there is for stem cells' value.

"It's all very well to say one scandal shouldn't set back the field, but Hwang's team was the field," Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in an e-mail. "If his results are false, then after seven years of attempts worldwide, no one has succeeded in getting even the first step in 'therapeutic cloning' to work on a practical scale. At what point do legislators stop throwing away good money after bad?"

Others took the opposite tack, saying that although fraud can happen anywhere and anytime, it would be less likely to occur in the stem cell arena if that field were not so heavily restricted in this country.

"Probably the strongest research oversight system in the world is at the National Institutes of Health, but they are pretty much on the sidelines" because of restrictions imposed by President Bush in 2001, said Sean Tipton, president-elect of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, which supports stem cell research. "If you don't allow the best American scientists to do the best -- and best overseen -- research, you force it overseas and into the private sector, and this is the result."

The research journal Science, which published this year's headline-making paper by Hwang as well as a similarly historic stem cell study by Hwang in 2004, said Friday that it is continuing in its effort to get a full explanation from all the newer paper's authors -- a crucial step toward officially retracting the paper.

The journal said it is also checking the 2004 paper for possible fraud. And the journal Nature said it is doing the same for an August 2005 report in which Hwang claimed to have cloned an adult dog, a major first -- if true.

Scientists and journal publishers are also reassessing the wisdom of allowing a researcher to append his or her name to a report as a "senior author" without having been an integral participant in the research.

That was the case with Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh, who was the sole American on the 2005 report. Schatten did not contribute to the science but was listed as senior author and shared in the ensuing fame for serving as an "adviser" to the Koreans. He recently tried to extricate himself from the disaster by asking Science to take his name off the paper.

Science declined, saying that senior authors have a responsibility to know what is going on, and the university has initiated an investigation of its own.
As expected, deal volume in the second quarter was adversely impacted by the coronavirus epidemic, said Lisa E. Phillips, editor of HealthCareMandA.com. Every healthcare services sector felt it."

Health care merger and acquisition activity fell 19% in the second quarter of 2020, to 327 transactions, compared with the previous quarters 404 announced deals. M&A in the second quarter of 2020 was 33% lower than the same quarter in 2019. Combined spending in the second quarter totaled nearly $12.8 billion, based on disclosed prices, down 63% compared with the previous quarters $34.6 billion. Spending in the second quarter was 91% lower than the $138.9 billion reported in the same quarter in 2019, according to HealthCareMandA.com and Deal Search Online.

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare M&A can be seen in the quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year decline for most of the services sectors. Healthcare services transactions made up 61% of the second quarters deal volume, lower than the previous quarters. The Behavioral Health Care, Home Health & Hospice, Long-Term Care and Physician Medical Groups sectors all showed double-digit declines in M&A activity compared with the first quarter of 2020 and the second quarter of 2019. However, Hospital M&A increased by 11% compared with the first quarter of 2019. Combined spending on the services side accounted for 44% of the quarters total, approximately $5.7 billion, based on disclosed prices.

Healthcare technology deals accounted for 39% of the second quarters deal volume, with 127 transactions. The Biotechnology sector posted a significant year-over-year increase, up 18%, with 39 deals. The race for a COVID-19 vaccine was the focus of several transactions in the second quarter of 2020, giving the sector a boost in activity. Combined spending for all the technology sectors was $7.1 billion.

As expected, deal volume in the second quarter was adversely impacted by the coronavirus epidemic, said Lisa E. Phillips, editor of HealthCareMandA.com. Every healthcare services sector felt it. For hospital M&A, there was a gain in deals as some small rural hospitals closed due to the financial strains of closing down elective surgeries and dealing with critically ill COVID-19 patients.

Some analysts were hoping for a rebound in deal activity in Q3 and we are seeing that in some areas, Phillips added. But with the virus surging in some of the largest states, it will likely be another soft quarter for healthcare deals.

For more information on the HealthCareMandA.com investment research source, or for a membership in any of Irving Levin Associates services, please call 800-248-1668. Irving Levin Associates, Inc., established in 1948, is headquartered in New Canaan, Connecticut, and is online at http://www.levinassociates.com. This privately held corporation publishes annual and quarterly research reports, monthly and weekly newsletters, and maintains merger and acquisition databases on the health care and senior housing markets. If you would like to receive future releases, please email pressreleases@levinassociates.com.
On July 16, the Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to save lives by establishing 9-8-8 as the simple three-digit number that will redirect people looking to harm themselves to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

The hotline currently operates 24 hours a day, every day, and takes more than 2.2 million calls annually through its 10-digit 800 number, which is substantially more difficult to remember than the simple 9-8-8. The move makes access to telehealth counseling simpler and is expected to dramatically increase the likelihood that those struggling in their most vulnerable moments will seek help.

And in rural America, that struggle is all too real.

Suicide disproportionately impacts rural communities.

All over rural America, loss of life is felt deeply, with ripple effects in our interconnected communities that go far beyond just family and friends. While urban areas see nearly just over 11 deaths by suicide per 100,000 people and falling according to statistics by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, rural communities are more than 20 per 100,000 and growing.

Montana ranks near the top of the list with 24.9 suicides per 100,000.

Suicide is the end of a winding road of mental distress and finding resources during ones darkest hours is imperative to ending the war some wage on themselves. Thats exceedingly difficult, however, when most rural counties do not have an adequate number of mental health providers, and many lack even adequate numbers of general practitioners who could offer some assistance or referrals.

For members of the Montana State Grange, an even more concerning trend is being seen in the agriculture industry, where farmers, ranchers and agricultural workers are more likely to commit suicide than those working in nearly any other profession. After a high-profile story in 2018 about an 82-year-old farmer who died of suicide in Montana, the rural suicide crisis was brought to the attention of people around the United States. Suicides in rural communities have been linked to many different factors, such as long work hours, economic hardships and social isolation. These factors often go unchecked in the community, because of stigma and the lack of trained professionals readily available to handle mental distress, leaving farmers, ranchers and agricultural workers left to deal with their hardships alone.

Veterans in Montana account for 1 in every 5 suicides, many of them related to PTSD.

And in our state, Indigenous youth, who often live in rural areas, experience suicide at the rate of 42.82 per 100,000. These numbers are exceptionally large when only 6% of our states population identifies as Indigenous.

Voting to establish 9-8-8 was a simple way to connect people with necessary services that already exist. With every person who dials the number and is dissuaded from ending their life, the legacy of this program will grow.

As carriers connect the technological dots necessary to route 9-8-8 crisis calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, each of us should save into our phones and our memory the three-digit code that can save a life and commit to promoting its availability.

For our regulators and legislators, we also urge a commitment  to the continued innovation and expansion of quality telehealth programs that will combat the crisis of suicide in Montana and beyond.

Marilyn Johnson is president of Montana State Grange, the oldest rural advocacy organization in the state.

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Si Quey Sae-Ung was returned today to the same place he was shot to death by a firing squad 61 years ago.

Executed for murdering children and eating their organs, Thailands infamous cannibal killer and bogeyman to generations of children was laid to rest at a temple next to the Bang Kwang prison in northwest metro Bangkok in the wake of doubts about the extent of his crimes.

At his funeral and cremation were corrections officials and medical workers from Siriraj Hospital, where Si Quey spent the last 61 years slumped against the glass wall of a display case at a medical museum unofficially named after him. Also on hand to pay their respects at Wat Bang Phraek Tai were dozens of residents who traveled from Prachaup Kiri Khans Tab Sakae district, where he had once lived.

I saw him before, when he was alive. We were neighbors, and although he couldnt speak Thai at all, he seemed like a decent man, said 83-year-old Wipa Kitichotekul, who departed Tab Sakae early in the morning to attend the funeral.

She, like others from the community, said she is certain of his innocence.

I prayed for him to go to heaven, Wipa said.

Wipa Kitichotekul

Monks chanted and Buddhist rituals observed next to the temples crematorium, where Si Quey rested in a closed white coffin. Next to it, brightly colored joss paper to be burned to honor him spoke to his Chinese origins.

Regarding the warning many Thai parents have delivered to generations of misbehaving children  Si Quey will eat your liver!  Wannapa Thongchin, a 68-year-old retired teacher from Tab Sakae, said she is living counterevidence, as she was about the age of his alleged victims.

Growing up, my mom never said that Si Quey would eat my liver. She only told me that Si Quey was innocent, and a good guy from our hometown, Wannapa told Coconuts Bangkok.

Thai cannibal killer to be unboxed, given proper funeral

Wannapa Thongchin

A Corrections Department official said his ashes would remain at the temple.

In or around 1927  his age is disputed  Si Quey was born in the southeastern city of Shantou. Along with many others, he migrated to Thailand in 1946. He briefly worked in Tab Sakae as a laborer.

Story continues

It was 1958 when a young boy in the eastern province of Rayong went out for produce and disappeared. His father tracked him to Si Queys ramshackle shop, where he found him preparing to burn his sons body. Several organs were missing.

Over the years, a number of other children had been killed and reportedly had their organs removed in several provinces including Prachuap Kiri Khan, Nakhon Pathom and Bangkok.

But in the early Cold War climate of anti-communism, Chinese migrants like Si Quey were viewed suspiciously, and the boys murder soon led to lurid, xenophobic tabloid stories that he not only killed them all, but ate their organs to gain supernatural powers.

Si Quey, who could not speak Thai, was said to have confessed to it all. He entered a guilty plea at his trial, which in Thailand will usually avoid a death sentence. The prosecution challenged that, and Si Quey reportedly fainted upon learning he was to die. He was executed at Bang Kwang in 1959.

Human Rights Activist Angkhana Neelapaijit, who attended the ceremony, said justice was done today.

It all happened so fast, just one year, she said, referring to a flurry of renewed interest that led to a growing consensus that he was likely innocent of some or all of the crimes.

She credited Siriraj Hospital administrators for having a change of heart and doing the right thing by letting go of him.

Wannapa said she had always believed Si Quey was a scapegoat and victim of anti-Chinese sentiments, but couldnt express it openly since formerly as a civil servant.

This morning, she said she came with her friends and family, including her daughter, to pay respect to Si Quey and, in her words, celebrate.

Today I came here to celebrate the reclamation of human rights and pride, she said.

This article, Thailands Cannibal Killer, six decades a museum oddity, laid to rest with prayer, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. Want more Coconuts? Sign up for our newsletters!




How the US president's salesmanship trumps his statesmanship.



By Marwan Bishara

July 22, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - Listening to US President Donald Trump tell Fox News on Sunday that "We won two world wars, beautiful world wars, that were vicious and horrible," one does not know whether to laugh or cry.

It is certainly a shocking statement, but the fact that it is no longer surprising to hear such crudity from the American president is, in itself, disturbing.

The president boasts of having an Ivy League education and knowing the "best words", but his poor and slurred speech and repetitive use of a very few words like "tremendous", "amazing" and "beautiful", tell a different story.

The use of "beautiful" in this context of world war may be another slip of the tongue, caused by dementia - something psychologists have claimed he may have.

But this is different from "Belgium is a beautiful city" which slipped Trump's tongue in 2016.

It signals something more sinister.

Regardless of whether Trump meant it or not, the record shows his use of "beautiful" may rather be associated with his long history of salesmanship. Well, "used-cars"-style salesmanship to be precise.

In other words, it is linked to deception.

Trump has boasted of reviving "beautiful clean coal" and called the environmentally controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline "beautiful" as well. He has lamented the taking down of "beautiful" Confederate statues that are associated with the dark past of fighting to maintain slavery in the South, and bragged about his appointment of "brand new, beautiful conservative judges".

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Trump has spoken of a "beautiful" healthcare bill to replace Obamacare, although it is yet to materialise as the administration continues its assault on what is left of the much-needed programme amid a pandemic.

Trump has also committed to building a real, high and "beautiful" wall along the border with Mexico, which Congress and most Americans have opposed, prompting the president to declare a national emergency for the sole purpose of paying for it.

Trump has justified his extraordinary decision to build his "beautiful wall" on the grounds of ending undocumented immigration, stopping drugs from coming into the US, and making Mexico pay for it. He has even warned of threats to national security.

In reality, the construction of the border wall has not curbed border crossings, which have recently increased. It is also unlikely to have much effect on drug trafficking, as drugs are mostly smuggled through legal ports of entry. And, last but not least, Mexico is a trade partner, not an enemy - it has not and will not pay for the wall.

Nowhere is the use of "beautiful" more disturbing than in association with weapons and the Middle East.

During his first foreign trip in 2017, Trump boasted in Riyadh of his eagerness to sell "beautiful weapons" worth tens of billions of dollars to Qatar and other rich Gulf countries to create more American jobs and better Gulf security.

But a few days later, Trump sided with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain when they imposed a blockade on Qatar based on false pretexts and fabricated pretences.

Trump soon reversed his position, but has not been able to pressure his Gulf allies to end their siege on Qatar and cease the unnecessary divisions and instability.

Instead, the Trump administration has inflamed regional instability by walking away from the Iran nuclear deal and, along with Israel, escalated tensions with Tehran.

After the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Al Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Trump boasted of spending $2 trillion on arms and threatened to target Iran with "brand new beautiful" weapons.

Trump bragged about these and other Middle East policies to the Israeli American Council, which is subsidised mainly by his own "patron-in-chief", casino owner Sheldon Adelson.

There, he sang the praise of a "beautiful and mighty" Israel and ridiculed Arab and other leaders, who appealed to him not to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel or recognise its annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights.

And to top it all off and take it to a whole new level of absurdity, Trump later described the happy reaction of his once personal lawyer and present US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, as that of a "wonderful, beautiful baby".

The preposterousness of the image is matched only by the farcicality of the story behind the decision on the Golan Heights. As Trump tells it, he asked for a "quickie" explanation about the Heights, then "I went Bing! - it was done".

This has all been part of the "big, big beautiful difference" between his and his predecessor's commitment to Israel - one which comes at the expense of its Palestinian and Arab neighbours, and which ended up torpedoing decades of US Middle East diplomacy.

Trump's beautiful policy failures in the Middle East are only matched by his failures in East Asia.

Trump praised and mused about his "love" relationship with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, who apparently sent him "beautiful letters". After their 2018 summit, he declared that Americans can "sleep well at night" knowing that North Korea was prepared to give up its nuclear weapons.

The following year, Trump praised Kim's "great and beautiful vision" for his country which, as anyone who knows anything about the totalitarian regime knows, is a big lie, a political heresy, an utter humbug.

And soon enough, it turned out his buddy Kim has been using their bromance to perfect his vision of North Korea as a nuclear power with long-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

For the record, Trump also said he received "beautiful" letters from Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader, Xi Jinping.

Need I say more?

Trump even got a "beautiful birthday card" from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the latter cracked down on royal family members, journalists and human rights advocates.

And so the president with the "beautiful temperament" and "beautiful [some say small] hands" promises to continue to work for a "bright and beautiful" future for the new generations across the Middle East and beyond.

A beautiful man indeed.

The question is: Would you buy a beautiful used car from him?
More snow on the way in Pennsylvania; here's how much to expect
WESTON  Milkweed is the name assigned to the paint color that covers the exterior of the colonial house at 284 Newtown Turnpike. Milkweed is a wildflower vital to pollinators, particularly Monarch butterflies.

Monarch caterpillars feed exclusively on the leaves of milkweed, the only host plant for this iconic butterfly species. As such, milkweed is critical for the survival of monarchs, according to the non-profit National Wildlife Federation.

Those prospective homebuyers who have been flitting around Fairfield County in recent months ought to land on this 10-room, 4,530-square-foot blossom. It will sustain their daily lifestyle and entertaining choices for years, and perhaps decades to come.

Although this house was built in 1997, its as though the architect anticipated the needs of todays families. In addition to having traditional formal living and dining spaces, the back of the house offers the open floor plan that todays buyers want, the listing agent said. Some rooms have flexible use, and among this homes 10 rooms there are not one but two large family rooms, both with fireplaces.

This turnkey home has an address on the well-traveled Newtown Turnpike (Route 53) but it is actually located on a private lane off of that roadway. The listing agent said this location on a cul-de-sac affords its residents the best of both worlds; quiet serenity, yet only a mile to Weston center and award-winning schools. It is also only about 12 minutes to the Merritt Parkway and 15 minutes to the center of Westport and the Metro-North Railroad station to New York City.

Extending the backyard of this 2.15-acre property are several local recreational amenities, including Devils Den Nature Preserve, Lachat Town Farm, the Weston Racquet Club and Weston Field Club. Although the nature preserve and farm are currently closed to the public for the time being, they will eventually reopen and will add significantly to the list of possible activities.

The front door opens into a grand foyer with wainscoting and dentil crown molding. It is perfect for welcoming guests, while the covered porch side entrance, adjacent to the laundry room, is perfect for dropping backpacks and leaving muddy cleats at the door, the agent said. In the living room there is a brick fireplace, and the living, dining and music rooms all feature dentil crown molding. The music room, which could also be used as an office, has French doors to the wood deck.

In the first of the two family rooms there is a tall vaulted ceiling, a wall of antiqued red brick with a fireplace, and doors to the patio and yard. This family room is open to the eat-in kitchen, which features a center island, a separate breakfast bar, built-in desk area, pantry, and a casual dining area with doors to the patio that is covered by a pergola. Also in this eat-in area there is a half flight of stairs to the second family room, which also has a tall vaulted ceiling, antiqued red brick fireplace, a built-in window seat, and a long wall of floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelves.

More Information ABOUT THIS HOUSE STYLE: Colonial ADDRESS: 284 Newtown Turnpike PRICE: $849,900 ROOMS: 10 FEATURES: 2.15-acre level, sloping and lightly wooded property; located on a cul-de-sac, two-tiered bluestone patio, pergola, deck, exterior lighting, underground utilities, covered porch, open floor plan, two large family rooms, Thermopane windows, pre-wired for cable, close to Lachat Town Farm and Devil's Den Nature Preserve; only minutes to the center of Weston, public schools, public library, markets; only about 12 minutes from the Merritt Parkway, Westport beach rights, three fireplaces, full partially finished walk-out basement, attic, ridge vents, zoned central air conditioning and oil heat, 100-gallon water heater tank, attached three-car garage, laundry room with utility sink, private well, septic system, stone wall, four bedrooms, three full and one half baths SCHOOLS: Hurlbutt Elementary, Weston Middle, Weston High ASSESSMENT: $657,550 MILL RATE: 32.37 mills TAXES: $21,285 See More Collapse

Upstairs, there are four bedrooms. The master suite features an adjacent sitting area and recently renovated master bath with two ample walk-in closets. One other bedroom is also en suite. The other two share a hall bath.

The finished walkout lower level has sliding doors to its own patio, and could be further expanded into the unfinished side to create additional living or recreational spaces.

For more information or to make an appointment to see the house, contact Kathleen OConnell of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage at 203-858-2590 or kathleen.oconnell@cbmoves.com.
WASHINGTON - The Senate passed its version of a $740 billion defense bill Thursday by a veto-proof majority, in the latest sign that Congress is undeterred by President Donald Trump's threat to reject legislation mandating that the Pentagon rename bases honoring Confederate generals.

The 86-to-14 Senate vote follows the House's 295-to-125 vote earlier in the week on parallel legislation. Both bills instruct the Defense Department to come up with new names for the problematic bases; the Senate gives the Pentagon three years to make the changes, while the House bill instructs officials to finish the process within one year.

The White House objected to the inclusion of any mandate earlier in the week in a 13-page memorandum threatening that Trump would veto the House bill if it passed in its current form. The House and Senate will have to negotiate a compromise between the two versions of the defense bill before sending it to the president's desk.

There is bipartisan support for ordering the Pentagon to change the names of bases honoring Confederate generals in both chambers of Congress, suggesting that a final version of the bill would include a mandate in some form. But Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla., has stated that he personally opposes ordering the Pentagon to make the base name changes, and House Armed Services Committee ranking Republican Mac Thornberry of Texas - who is retiring after 2020 and after whom the House measure is named - has also advocated the softer approach of commissioning a study on Confederate names without directing the Pentagon to reach a proscribed conclusion.

There is also bipartisan support in both chambers for limiting Trump's ability to withdraw about 9,500 troops from their station in Germany. But while that provision appears in the House bill, efforts to add it to the Senate's version never received a vote. The provision is one of several additional items in the House bill that the White House listed earlier in the week as grounds for a presidential veto.

It is not clear when negotiations will be completed - or how forcefully Trump will lobby Congress on the base names issue and other matters in the meantime. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., guessed earlier in the month that Congress would not complete its work on a final defense bill until November, a timeline that would delay votes on such legislation until after the election. The outcome of the November elections could affect any negotiations or votes that take place in its aftermath.

At this juncture, however, the veto-proof majorities in both the Senate and the House suggest that there would be enough support to pass a defense bill that includes an instruction to change the base names, even over Trump's veto.

Congress has passed the annual defense authorization bill for each of the past 59 years.
New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Tuesday directed the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) to file an affidavit within a week in response to a plea challenging the requirement of a doctors prescription to undergo Covid-19 testing. It asked ICMR to clarify its stand on the matter.

Utsav Sindhu has filed the plea citing the need for professionals to produce Covid-19 negative reports to travel to several states for work. The plea cited ICMRs July 1 order asking states to ensure that laboratories are free to conduct tests without the prior requirement of a doctors prescription. It added the order was not being complied with.

The Delhi government on Monday told the court that ICMRs Specific Referral Form of Covid-19 makes a doctors prescription mandatory for testing. On Tuesday, Sindhus lawyer, advocate Manish Tiwari, told the court that Himachal Pradeshs travel advisory requires a person travelling to the state for tourism to produce a Covid-19 negative report issued by ICMR authorized/certified lab report before undertaking such travel.

The lawyer added the requirement of the prescription for the Covid-19 test has been done away with for travel to Chandigarh and Mumbai presumably based on ICMRs advisory issued on July 1. He contended states were following different criteria that leads to confusion and restricts the peoples inter-state movement.

Following this, the court said, The respondent no 2 [ICMR] is directed to file an affidavit stating its stands on the requirement of a prescription for testing of Covid-19 especially in light of the submissions of the petitioner. Such affidavit be filed within one week.

The matter would be now heard next on July 31.
About 30 people gathered outside Niagara Falls city hall Thursday afternoon to call attention to what they say is ongoing bullying and gaslighting of councils two female members.

The group, many wearing T-shirts that read I am the fringe, held signs with sayings including Dont Gang Up, and Crush the Curve, Not the Councillors.

Angela Peebles, co-organizer of the event dubbed Not My Mayor  Peaceful Demonstration 4 Women in Politics, said she decided to organize a demonstration after observing what she said is the dismissive treatment of Couns. Lori Lococo and Carolynn Ioannoni by the mayor and several male council members.

Its really important to continue to expose the control that is going on at city council, she said.

Peebles, who ran for council in the 2018 municipal election, said she hopes the event will spark discussion and encourage residents to pay close attention to what goes on at council meetings.

I think that part of the next step will be watching very closely the city council meetings and exposing every time theres abuse and gaslighting. We need an orchestrated effort to undermine any of that bullying thats going on.

Mayor Jim Diodati said he welcomes community members to put council under the microscope.

We welcome constructive criticism, he said.

When someones objective is to make things better, its very much welcomed. But when haters just want to hate and critics just want to criticize, that doesnt help the city, especially in a time of crises that were dealing with right now. We need to come together as a community.

Diodati said he has worked with a number of female politicians during his career, with no issues, and that his family has been taken aback by recent online attacks.

Disagreeing is perfectly OK, he said Thursday. Disrespect is not.

While she did not attend the rally as she is being treated for a rare form of cancer, Ioannoni said she echoes Peebles concerns.

As elected officials, Lori and I are so far out of the loop of the Old Boys Club it is remarkable, she said.

Im doing my best to be a good councillor and Im getting nothing but stonewalled by the mayor. I want to be a good councillor, and so does Lori. So let us.

Lococo, who also did not attend the rally, said she admires the demonstrators passion and drive and appreciates their support.

It is important that councils prime focus always be the needs of our residents, she said. That is what I was elected to do and that is what I will do. Its a team effort. Everyone on council must always approach the job with decorum and respect for one another.
This one shocked even the district attorney:

This is just not something that we see in Montour County or in Danville so I think everyone is kind of blown away by what transpired here, Montour County DA Angela Mattis told the media.

The statement comes in wake of a routine traffic stop that led to a gruesome and seemingly senseless discovery of a 83-year-old man with his throat fatally slashed inside his home.

Police are calling it a random act of violence perpetrated by accused killer, 36-year-old Kathleen Reed of Florida, who was driving through Pa. when she needed gas Tuesday night.

Thats when Reed allegedly stopped at the Cooper Township home of 83-year-old Walter John Ditzler.

BREAKING:

In wake of what happened next, Reed is now being called the Cooper Township killer, FOX 56 WOLF-TV reports, adding:

Reed, who state police say has since confessed, claims she was driving from the Sunshine State to Canada and moving through Pennsylvania when she needed gas.

According to Reed, she stopped at Ditzlers house, asked for some gas, and when he said no, she asked to use his bathroom.

She says he let her in, but there was a scuffle. Reed admits to slashing the 83-year-olds throat, police say.

She then took off in his car.

But a traffic stop would unravel it all, state police say.

Troopers in Centre County responding to an erratic driver complaint found Kathleen Reed slumped over in a car registered to Ditzler, PaHomePage reports.

Police also noticed a large amount of blood on Reeds clothes and a small cut on her hand, PaHomePage writes, adding:

Shes giving a story that didnt add up very clearly so thats what prompted them to contact local PSP barracks here in Milton and request a welfare check for the individual who owns the vehicle, Mattis was quoted as saying.

That led to the gruesome discovery, with state police finding Ditzler dead in his home at around 1 a.m. Wednesday.

Reed was arraigned Wednesday night on a criminal homicide charge in Montour County.

There is no bail.

More details of Reeds appearance in court are here.

READ MORE:

Pa. teacher shot dead as she slept: Stray bullet or intentional?

Pa. boy, 4, drowns in backyard pool during birthday party: state police

Cape May to Lewes, Del., ferry gets 1st female captain in long-awaited sea change

All Walmart stores will be closed on Thanksgiving 2020, ending Black Friday shopping head start

Pa. Walmart shopper accused of spitting in womans face for asking him to wear face mask: state cops

Babysitter arrested, charged in death of missing 2-year-old Pa. boy: report

Pa. cocaine ring dispute leaves 2 dead, 2 arrested in double-shooting: cops

Coroner Graham Hetrick says masks should be a choice, not a mandate, putting him at odds with medical consensus

Family of missing Pa. boy, 2, say their son is dead and suspect is arrested, but cops are mum

National neo-Nazi group holds illegal protest in Pa. park: cops

Friends watched helplessly as 2 teen boys drowned in Susquehanna River

Bodies of 2 teen boys pulled from Susquehanna River: Just how crazy it is

4 people struck by lightning, 2 killed in violent Pa. storm
Australia could miss out on a coronavirus vaccine if richer nations like the United States and Germany engage in a bidding war to access doses first.

The US has already bought most of the world's supply of antiviral drug Remdesivir, the world's first recommended treatment for COVID-19, from manufacturer Gilead.

The American government has also invested heavily in a University of Oxford experimental jab that has been proven to provoke an immune response that lasts for two months.

Scroll down for video

Australia could miss out on a coronavirus vaccine as richer nations like the United States and Germany compete in a bidding war to access doses first. The US and Europe have already reserved the first doses of a promising Oxford University vaccine (publicity image pictured)

Its Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority gave pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca $US1billion ($A1.4billion) to provide 300million doses of the first possible vaccine doses being developed with the University of Oxford in the UK.

Europe has reserved another 400million doses, through the Inclusive Vaccines Alliance formed between Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands.

The German government also invested 300million Euros ($A486million) in biopharmaceutical company CureVac which is also developing a promising coronavirus vaccine.

The Gavi Vaccine Alliance, which partners with billionaire philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates to promote global childhood immunisation, warned a bidding war could deprive Australia of access to a new COVID-19 vaccine.

'If these countries now form engagements, when they start bidding against each other, one it will drive up the price,' the group's chief executive Dr Seth Berkley told the ABC's 7.30 program.

'The vast majority of countries in the world including wealthy countries, small wealthy countries will not be able to compete.'

The US has already bought most of the world's supply of antiviral drug Remdesivir, the world's first recommended treatment for COVID-19, from manufacturer Gilead

Australia's hope is securing vaccines first lies with the University of Queensland this month starting trials with pharmaceutical giant CSL involving 120 volunteers in Brisbane.

CSL is continuing to negotiate a formal national supply agreement with the federal government.

Clinical trials will run until the middle of next year - but, if successful, the vaccine could be rolled out at the start of next year for emergency use among the wider population.

There are 17 human trials for a potential vaccine happening around the world, including in the US, UK and China.
Chennai:

CPI(M) on Wednesday staged protests across Tamil Nadu against the 'unplanned move' of demonetising high denomination currency.

The party cadre led by state unit said alternative arrangements should be made for smooth availability of currency. CPI (M) secretary G.Ramakrishnan held a demonstration near Parry's Corner on NSC Bose Road. Stating that its Polit Bureau has given a call for nation-wide agitations to permit using scrapped notes, CPI(M) State Secretary G Ramakrishnan said that the party also undertook a meeting at Tirunelveli. "CPI(M) appeals to people to support the agitations to be held forsafeguarding the people's interests," he said in a statement.
Of about 3,500 mosquito species around the world, only a few have taken to specifically targeting people for biting, making them important spreaders of infectious diseases. To predict and help control the spread of those mosquito-borne illnesses, it's important to know where and why, evolutionarily speaking, certain mosquitoes got their taste for biting humans in the first place. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on July 23 have identified two major factors: a dry climate and city life. Based on these findings, they predict that increased urbanization in the coming decades will mean even more human-biting mosquitoes in the future.

"Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are invasive across the global tropics, where a strong preference for human hosts and habitats makes them important disease vectors," says Carolyn McBride of Princeton University. "We found that in their native range of sub-Saharan Africa, they show extremely variable attraction to human hosts, ranging from strong preference for humans to strong preference for non-human animals."

"Mosquitoes living near dense human populations in cities such as Kumasi, Ghana, or Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, showed increased willingness to bite human hosts," adds Noah Rose, also of Princeton. "But they only evolve a strong preference for human hosts in places with intense dry seasons--in particular, in the Sahel region, where rainfall is concentrated in just a couple months out of the year. We think this is because mosquitoes in these climates are especially dependent on humans and human water storage for their life cycle."

People tend to think of all mosquitoes as major pests to people. But, in fact, the researchers explain, mosquitoes are quite diverse. Some of them won't bite humans at all. Only a few species specialize in biting people. In the new study, the researchers focused their attention on Aedes aegypti, the primary spreader of dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and Chikungunya virus.

"Many people have speculated about why this species evolved to selectively bite humans, but our study is the first to address this question directly with systematic empirical data," McBride says.

To do this, the researchers took advantage of the fact that this species came from Africa and that many populations in Africa still don't like to bite humans. They asked a simple question: where specifically do the mosquitoes like humans? And, where do they prefer to bite other animals instead?

The researchers used special traps to collect Ae. aegypti eggs from multiple outdoor sites in each of 27 locations across sub-Saharan Africa. Back in the lab, they tested the preferences of each of those mosquito populations for the scent of people versus other animals, including guinea pigs and quail.

Their studies led to two main findings. First, they show that mosquitoes living in dense urban cities were attracted to people more than those from more rural or wild places. However, the researchers note that this only applied to especially dense modern cities and therefore isn't likely to be the original reason that certain population of Ae. aegypti mosquitoes evolved to specialize in biting humans.

Their second discovery was that mosquitoes living in places with longer and hotter dry seasons showed a strong preference for a human versus animal scent.

"I was surprised that immediate habitat didn't have much of an effect--mosquitoes in forests and nearby towns had similar behavior," Rose says. "We thought that maybe moving into human landscapes would be a key driver of attraction to human hosts. But it seems like mosquitoes fly back and forth too readily between these habitats for their behavior to diverge in many cases.

"When we took a more regional view of things, we saw that regions with dense human populations had mosquitoes with a greater attraction to human hosts, but this wasn't dependent on the precise habitat we collected them from within each region," Rose continues. "I was also surprised that climate was more important than urbanization in explaining present day behavioral variation. Many mosquitoes living in fairly dense cities don't particularly prefer to bite human hosts."

"I think it will be surprising to people that in many cities in Africa, this species actively discriminates against humans," McBride says. "It is only when the cities become extremely dense or are located in places with more intense dry seasons that they become more interested in biting humans."

The researchers show that many genes concentrated in a few key parts of the genome drove this evolutionary shift in mosquitoes' biting preferences. Based on their findings, the researchers asked how near-term climate change and urban growth are expected to shape mosquito behavior in the near future. And, it's not good news.

The researchers say that climate change in the next few decades isn't expected to drive major changes to the dry season dynamics they found were important to mosquitoes. But, they say, rapid urbanization could push more mosquitoes to bite humans in many cities across sub-Saharan Africa over the next 30 years.

The researchers will continue to study the interplay between mosquitoes' biting preferences, climate, and urban life. They'd also like to understand why mosquitoes specialize on certain hosts to begin with and which specific genes and genetic changes are most important.

###

This work was supported by Pew Scholars, Searle Scholars, Klingenstein-Simons, and Rosalind Franklin/Gruber Foundation awards, the National Institutes of Health, a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellowship, undergraduate thesis funding from the Princeton University Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and African Studies Program, Verily Life Sciences, and the New York Stem Cell Foundation. C.S.M. is a New York Stem Cell Foundation-Robertson Investigator.

Current Biology, Rose et al.: "Climate and Urbanization Drive Mosquito Preference for Humans" https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)30978-7

Current Biology (@CurrentBiology), published by Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that features papers across all areas of biology. Current Biology strives to foster communication across fields of biology, both by publishing important findings of general interest and through highly accessible front matter for non-specialists. Visit: http://www.cell.com/current-biology. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.
Half of close contacts of Covid-19 confirmed cases are failing to turn up for their second test which is conducted seven days after the first.

And as many as quarter of those who have made appointments for voluntary Covid-19 testing are not presenting.

HSE chief executive Paul Reid described the news of non-attendance as concerning, adding that in most cases, people are committing to an appointment and then they are a no-show.

Its really important, even if you dont have symptoms, to come forward for a test  for yourself, for your family, for the wider public, to stop the surge from happening, he said.

Asked whether the conversation has changed between health officials and close contacts due to the non-takeup of appointments, Mr Reid said there is a longer dialogue now in each instance between the two, with the person reminded of the possible impact to their own healthcare ... and the impact of the potential contagion.

The HSE has also revealed that Ireland now has a positivity rate of about 5.6 cases per 100,000 population, up from just 2.5 over the previous fortnight. Close contacts for confirmed cases have increased from just over two a fortnight ago to a current average of 5.4.

Anthony Staines, professor of public health with the school of nursing at Dublin City University, described the news of non-attended appointments as shocking and very worrying, and said people should be compelled to take their test by law.

Read More Passengers from high Covid-19 level countries to be randomly tested

He said there is authority of the public health legislation to require people to either quarantine or to have tests.

We need to use it, he said. It has been used in the past to compel people to have treatments for tuberculosis, for example.

Nobody wants to be calling the gardai to confine someone to a hotel room for two weeks. But it is about explaining to people that this really matters, and there are sanctions.

Asked what sanctions are available for those who miss tests, the Department of Health would only say the strongly recommended public health advice is that those who are a close contact of a confirmed case should present for a test and a follow-up test seven days later.

A barrister specialising in medical law, Simon Mills, said there would be nothing to stop the Oireachtas creating a situation where people could be required to attend a test.

Its conceivable that legislation could be enacted to compel compliance. The question is what do you do if they still dont respond?

"Do you use jail time, or a fine? You have to make sure it isnt overly draconian and that the response is proportionate, he said.

The National Public Health Emergency Team last night confirmed one further death and 17 new cases of Covid-19.
Judge says asylum seekers arriving in Canada from US soil face detention as a penalty if they are turned back.

A Canadian court threw out the countrys asylum pact with the United States on Wednesday, ruling that the 2004 agreement was invalid because Washington violates the rights of refugees and asylum seekers.

Under the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), people who want to seek refuge in Canada and present themselves at a formal Canada-US border crossing are returned to the US and told to first seek sanctuary there.

Amnesty International, the Canadian Council for Refugees and the Canadian Council of Churches challenged the pact last year, saying the US does not qualify as a safe country under President Donald Trump. They cited the widespread detention of asylum seekers who are turned back from Canada as well as the separation of migrant parents from their children by the Trump administration.

In Wednesdays ruling, Federal Court Justice Ann Marie McDonald said the STCA violated Canadian constitutional guarantees of life, liberty and security, due to the risk of detention that returned asylum seekers face in the US.

She cited the compelling case of a Muslim female immigrant from Ethiopia named Nedira Mustefa, who was held in isolation for one week at a US detention centre after being sent back by Canadian authorities.

Mustefa described her time in solitary confinement in the US as a terrifying, isolating and psychologically traumatic experience, according to the court ruling.





Canada cannot turn a blind eye to the consequences that befell Ms Mustefa in its efforts to adhere to the STCA, the judge wrote in her decision. The evidence clearly demonstrates that those returned to the US by Canadian officials are detained as a penalty.

McDonald suspended her decision for six months to give Parliament a chance to respond.

No one deserves to be mistreated

The Canadian government said it was currently reviewing the ruling, with Mary-Liz Power, a spokeswoman for Public Safety Minister Bill Blair noting that the STCA remains in effect until January 2021.

The ruling can be appealed to the Federal Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court if necessary.

There was no immediate comment from the US Department of Homeland Security and State.

Mustefa, among those on whose behalf the legal challenge was launched, told Reuters news agency she was relieved.

At the end of the day, we are all humans, she said. No one deserves to be mistreated in such a way.

Huge victory for @downtownlegal clients! The Federal Court found that the Safe Third Country Agreement with the US violates section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms Read the full decision here https://t.co/SvbxX1twWh  Downtown Legal Services (@downtownlegal) July 22, 2020

The three groups that filed the lawsuit said they welcomed the decision and urged the government of Canada not to appeal. The groups also urged Canada to stop returning refugee claimants to the US immediately.

The Safe Third Country Agreement has been the source of grave human rights violations for many years, unequivocally confirmed in this ruling, said Alex Neve, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada.

That cannot be allowed to continue one more day.





Since Trump took office in 2017, more than 50,000 people have crossed the Canada-US border to file refugee claims. Many of them came to the US from Syria, Congo, Haiti and elsewhere, and would cross over to Canada by travelling to upstate New York and then to Roxham Road in the town of Champlain, a backroad that ends at the border.

Under special rules set up by the US and Canada to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, most of those who cross illegally in either direction are now immediately returned to the other country.

The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers said Canada should revisit that decision, given Wednesdays ruling, and also revoke a 2019 rule that makes individuals ineligible for Canadian asylum if they had already filed for asylum in the US.
Most Russians are currently focused on their declining economic conditions and the major reason why; covid19. Russia continues to have one of the highest totals of confirmed covid18 cases in absolute terms. In relative terms Russia has 5,400 cases per million population (up from 1,700 two month s ago) and 87 deaths per million (up from 15 two months ago ). In relative terms Russia is way down the list in cases, at about the same level as Italy. In terms of deaths Russia is even farther down in the rankings. Russia attributes the relatively low number of cases to the fact that it is a big country and much of the population is normally isolated. The lower death rate is another matter and Russia explains that it does not automatically classify each death in which the deceased had covid19 as a covid19 death. Most covid19 deaths are people who already have other serious health problems and covid19 comes along and becomes one too many. Russian medical statistics rank the medical problems that contribute to a death and give the main one as the cause. Often there are multiple causes of death, especially among the most common covid19 victims; the elderly and chronically ill.

Meanwhile Russian media are full of news about the foreign wars Russia is participating in. Even more troublesome are the allies Russia has in their foreign wars. The worse of these is Turkey. Turkey seems to be at war with everyone, officially or unofficially. The reality is that Turkey has some priorities in this area. Turkey wants to avoid war with Israel yet portrays Israel an enemy of Islam and tried to ignore the fact that Russia and Israel have long been friends and that relationship continues. Turkey and Russia agree with Israel when it comes to Iran in Syria. Turkey would prefer that Iran go home. Many Iranians and Syrians openly agree with Russia and Turkey on this point. The Iranian government responds with Israeli airstrikes are killing people in Syria. Syrians note that most of the dead are Iranians or mercenaries (Arabs or Afghans) on the Iranian payroll. The Iranian government deliberately keeps as few Iranians as possible in Syrian bases likely to be hit. Iranians getting killed in Syria, even if they are IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) Iranians, is very unpopular back in Iran. Russia also keeps its military personnel as far away from the actual fighting as possible.

Syrians just dont like all these Syrians who are working for Iran or Turkey as mercenaries and getting killed by whoever. Similar situation with Russia and Turkey. Both nations keep as few of their own troops in Syria as possible. Russia and Turkey both have the majority of voters back home hostile to their soldiers getting killed in Syria. Russia uses a lot of Russian military contractors; whose deaths are less of an issue in Russia. The Turks, as they have done for centuries, use Arab mercenaries to fight other Arabs. There are lots of Turkish troops in Syria providing support, and ensuring that Turkish mercs do what they are paid for.

Turkey and Syria are also angry at Russia over the poor performance of Russian air defense systems. The Syrians frequently claim to have intercepted Israeli air-launched, often from inside Lebanon or Israel, missiles but the reality is that few of the Israeli missiles fail to hit their targets. Commercial satellite photos are available to determine damage and there is always a lot of it. Iran and Syria complain that the formidable Russian air defense system in Syria is not used to stop the Israelis. The Russians dont want a fight with the Israelis, if only because the Israelis might publicly demonstrate the ineffectiveness of Russian air defense systems. These systems are a major export item for Russia and the Israelis could reduce those export sales with demonstrations of how Israelis get past the Russian air defenses.

Russia and Turkey are actually fighting each other in Libya, where Turkey recently (late 2019) intervened on the side of the UN backed government there. That government is weak and backs Islamic rule, which is why it was about to be eliminated by the Russian backed Libyan government and its more capable LNA (Libyan National Army). This force was backed by Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Turkey intervened in return for a signed agreement giving it the right to drill for oil in disputed waters between Libya and Turkey. In Syria Russian airstrikes have killed Turkish troops while the Turks have killed Syrian troops. Turkey, Russia and Iran continue to pretend they are all friends and allies of Syria but the reality is different and becoming more visible and violent.

There are still tensions between Turkey and Russia. For example, Russia has refused to explain why they have been sending daily air patrols along the Turkish border for over a week. The Russian jets stay inside Syria but if those jets are equipped for aerial recon they could be taking detailed photos of any Turkish forces on both sides of the border.

Russia and Turkey are more interested in avoiding a larger war and more damage to Libya. Turkey, Russia and Iran continue to pretend they are all friends and allies of Syria but the reality is different and becoming more visible and violent. To further complicate matter the Assad government of Syria has declared itself an ally of the LNA. The Syrians have sent, with Russian assistance, some equipment and weapons to the LNA. This was all a the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

July 22, 2020: The OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) brokered a new ceasefire agreement between Ukraine and Russia. Germany and France have always taken the lead in these negotiations because they represent the largest economies in Europe. Russia wants the sanctions lifted but first it has to convince France and Germany that the Russian aggression against Ukraine is over. The new ceasefire goes into effect on July 27th. OSCE observer teams have been operating in eastern Ukraine since 2014 and keep reporting violations (of ceasefire and other agreements). There are often thousands of violations a week. Russia simply denies it, calling the photos and witness accounts contrived. The OSCE personnel are still targets for rebel fire. The 600 OSCE staff (most of them roving monitors) in eastern Ukraine and Donbas, whose job is to oversee the 0riginal 2015 Minsk (where it was negotiated and signed) Ceasefire have seen that ceasefire agreement renegotiated several times since 2015. OSCE staff have been complaining since 2015 that they are being restricted by Russian-backed rebels and, less frequently Ukrainian forces from carrying out inspections. There are satellite photos available as a backup as well as local sources on the ground. Russia believes that because the front lines have not moved much since late 2014, they can do what they want with no consequences. Despite that attitude the Russian operation in Donbas is falling apart. Morale among the Ukrainians who agreed to keep the rebellion going is bad and getting worse. More and more of the rebel activity in Donbas is carried out by Russians pretending to be Ukrainian rebels. The Russian government apparently believes it will ultimately win but does not have a clear idea of when or how.

Ukraine also reported that over 3,100 of their troops have died fighting the Russians since 2014. Nearly all these deaths occurred in eastern Ukraine (Donbas) where Russian forces have been stalled in their efforts to seize all the territory of the two provinces that comprise the Donbas region. Earlier in 2014 the Russians were successful in grabbing all of Crimea and that area is considered, by most of the world as illegally under occupation by Russian forces.

In southern Syria Israel launched another series of airstrikes on Damascus as well as in central Syria. This time more of the targets were Syrian air defense facilities (radars and missile launchers). Israel is doing this in preparation for Iranian efforts to bring in and use air defense systems similar to the ones Syria already has. Up to a point Israeli air strikes can evade Syrian air defenses but if there are too many air defense systems operational there is more risk of Israeli aircraft being shot down or forced to abort their attack. To deal with that Israel has to carry out a sustained (weeks or longer) SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) operations and repeat that as needed if Iran and Syrian keep bringing in replacement air defense systems. Another new complication was Russia sending a jet fighter to intercept, but not interfere with an incoming Israeli strike force. This was to make the point that Russian radars can track Israeli air operations and intercept them. The Israel strike force did not include any F-35s.

July 18, 2020: The covid19 crises has accelerated the Russian population decline. Since 2014 that decline had been half a percent per year. Covid19 not only disrupted the economy and lowered the average standard of living but it also discouraged more women from having children. Population decline means that the population of Russia, which was nearly 148 million when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, shrank to 143 million in 2010 after which the decline was reversed until 2014 when lower oil prices and sanctions over the Ukraine invasion brought back the decline. Since then the decline has been steady until 2020 and possibly 2021 as well. The longer-range trend has Russian population shrinking to about 110 million in 2050. Thats a 26 percent decline since 1991.

All this accelerated population decline is not just about birthrates but also migration. Since 2018 the number of people moving to Russia declined by nearly half and the number who left went up over 25 percent. More people are leaving than arriving. Add that to more people dying than being born and the shrinking population becomes more visible. Even expatriate Russians who send money to kin still in Russia are less active. Before the 2014 sanctions expats sent nearly $20 billion a year back to Russia. Those amounts have since declined by nearly half and continues to shrink.

Russia has another major, and very embarrassing, population problem. This begins in the former parts of the Soviet Union that were not mainly Slavs. This means Central Asia where the locals (mainly Turkic and other non-Slavs) always resented Russian domination. The ethnic Russian minority soon left and now the number of locals who can speak Russian is rapidly shrinking. Since the early 1990s, these unwilling areas of the Russian empire have lost between a third and half of their Russian speakers. In the West (the Baltic States) the favorite second language is now English while in the east it is Chinese (mainly) and English. During the Soviet years the majority of the locals could speak or at least understand some Russian. The speed with which that disappeared was amazing, and demoralizing for Russians.

Russia still has a lot of non-Slav minorities and these minorities have higher birth-rates than the ethnic Russians. For centuries Russia (rebranded as the Soviet Union in the early 1920s) was considered a threat to its neighbors in part because of its larger population. But since the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991 and half the population broke away to form 14 new nations, the remaining Russian population has been in decline. Twenty years after the Soviet Union collapsed, the Russian population implosion was getting worse. While in the 1990s the population was shrinking at a rate of .1 percent a year, in the first decade of the 21st century that increased to .2 percent a year. This was because the non-Slav Russians are having fewer children, just as the Slavs have been doing (or, rather, not doing) for decades. The Russian population had declined three percent since 1989, from 147 to 142.9 million in 2017. The proportion of the population that is ethnic Russian (Slav) declined from 81.5 percent to 77 percent in that same period. The Russian slide could have been worse had it not been for the fact that millions of ethnic Russians in the 14 new states felt unwelcome with government controlled by the locals, not Russians in far off Moscow. Often the locals wanted the ethnic locals in their midst gone and Russia made it easy for ethnic Russians to return to the motherland. This prevented the Russian population decline from being closer to ten percent.

Until the 2014 invasion of Ukraine, sanctions and lower oil prices, the Russian birth rate was growing again. That has stopped since the invasion of Ukraine and more Russians are seeking to emigrate as are many foreigners working in Russia. The extent of this can be seen in Moscow where rents for high-end (Western) apartments (for wealthy Russians and foreign professionals) have declined by nearly half since 2014

Russian leaders admit that the sanctions plus the covid19 recession are forcing the government to adjust its economic goals. In 2018 the government announced an economic recovery plan that would move Russia to fifth place (from sixth) in the world economic rankings bb 2024. This would be measured using the "purchasing power parity" (PPP) method. This is a concept that recognizes, and calculates the different costs, for the same things, in each country. Most people know this by the more familiar term, "cost of living adjustment." It's more expensive to live in Moscow. GDPs are also measured in nominal (dollar) terms. In nominal terms the Russian GDP is 11th worldwide. Russian leaders now say it will take until 2030 to improve GDP so that in PPP terms it is number five worldwide.

That may be too optimistic because the rest of the world is not standing still. In nominal terms (ignoring PPP and just counting everything in dollars, which is the standard for international trade and especially for the oil market) smaller nations like Australia will pass Russia in GDP over the next decade, if not over the next few years. Currently the Russian nominal GDP is slightly larger than Australias, a nation with a much smaller (25 million) population. Australia is handling the covid19 crises more effectively than Russia which means Australian economic prospects are much brighter than Russian ones.

July 17, 2020: In eastern Syria (Hasaka province) a Russian convoy was stopped by American forces. This is the eighth time so far this year that American troops have blocked Russian efforts to move into Kurdish controlled parts of Hasaka and Deir Ezzor provinces. Russian and American forces interact regularly in Hasaka and most of the time there are no problems. Russians have even fewer problems with the Turks. Joint patrols with Turkish troops in Idlib province, to prevent fighting between Islamic terrorist forces and Turkish or Syrian forces, have been a success. American-backed Kurdish forces control most of Hasaka province, where the local population is largely Kurdish. Russian. Turkish and Syrian forces are trying to move troops into Hasaka and gradually displace the Kurdish forces. In some cases the Syrians, Russians or Turks are, via negotiation with the Kurds , allowed to base troops or patrol certain areas. The Americans have more surveillance capabilities than the Kurds and more frequently spot Russian troops moving into areas they are supposed to stay away from.

July 16, 2020: American media revealed that the U.S. president had secretly given the CIA permission to take more aggressive action against hacker groups that have been responsible for attacks on the United States. This seems to explain a number of unexplained incidents were hacker groups had identities of members revealed or their operations sabotaged or disrupted. The CIA, NSA and Department of Defense had long been asking for this authority. Granting it to the CIA allowed the CIA to bring in NSA and Department of Defense experts for joint operations. Russian hackers have been responsible for a lot of the successful hacking operations inside the United States. Chinese, North Korean and Iranian hackers have also been active and they are also on the CIA target list.

July 15, 2020: In northwest Syria (Idlib province) Russian airstrikes supported Syrian ground forces attacking Islamic terror groups that were believed responsible for a failed attack on the main Russian Hmeimim airbase, which is not far from Idlib province. Syrian forces used artillery against Islamic terrorist bases identified Russian aerial reconnaissance.

July 14, 2020: For the third time since 2016 Russia has revised its loan terms for Venezuela. In 2011 Russian lent Venezuela $4 million for the purchase of Russian commercial and military items. By 2016 Venezuela had paid off nearly half the loan but was unable to continue making payments. Since 2016 the Russian loan has been kept out of default via changing the terms. Accrued interest increased the debt to $3.2 billion. Russia appears ready to continue this renegotiation until Venezuela gets its economy working again. So far there has not been a lot of progress and Russia remains a friend of Venezuela if only to look after its overdue loans.

July 12, 2020: Syria is not getting along with its patrons Russia and Iran. This tension does not express itself violently but there have been confrontations. Iran has been hiring Syrian militiamen by offering higher pay. While Iran is having financial problems, Syria is in even worse shape. Syria still cooperates with Iran. For example, Syria, with Russian help, discovered that three senior intel officers (two generals and a colonel) were selling information to a foreign power (apparently the CIA). Some of this intel was apparently used to track the movements of IRGC general (and Quds Force commander) Qassem Soleimani just before he was killed by an American Hellfire missile attack in January 2020. Soleimani was also in charge of the Iranian military buildup in Syria and Iraq. Iran has declared the death of Soleimani a crime against humanity and is seeking international cooperation to arrest senior American civilian and military personnel involved with killing Soleimani. This allows the Syrians to score some points with the Iranians by agreeing with this effort to avenge Soleimani.

July 11, 2020: In western Syria (Latakia province) Islamic terror groups based in neighboring Idlib province once more tried to carry attacks on the Russian Hmeimim airbase using explosive armed UAVs. The attack failed. This airbase was built by Russia in 2015 near the port city of Latakia, which is 85 kilometers north of the main port of Tartus and 50 kilometers from the Turkish border. Part of the Tartus port has become a long-term foreign base for Russia, along with Hmeimim. As long as the rebels are active in Idlib they will try attacking the Russian bases.

July 10, 2020: Russia and China both vetoed UN efforts to extend aid shipments to Islamic terrorist held Idlib province in northwest Syria via Turkey. Russia, Syria and Iran want the Islamic terror groups in Idlib destroyed. Turkey opposes this because many of those Islamic terrorists as well as civilians seen by Syria as supporters (and subject to punishment or death) will seek asylum in Turkey. Russia is willing to allow aid to come in via Syria but that would enable the Syrians to manipulate aid deliveries to favored factions and make it easier for Syria to shut down all rebel/Islamic terrorist activity in Idlib. Russia already got the Idlib aid coming in via Iraq and Jordan halted. Shutting down the aid via Turkey means air groups have to deal with the Syrian government, which is considered an outlaw operation and guilty of war crimes. Russia believes that if it becomes the most useful foreign supporter of the Assad government Russia will have a reliable foothold in the Middle East for a long time. That only happens if Russia can work things out with Turkey and maintain their traditional good relations with Israel.

The UN is not pleased with this Russian strategy and reported that people in refugee camps are dying from a lack of food and medicine. The UN refuses to give detailed data on losses. Syria prefers that pro-rebel civilians leave the country. The Shia Assads are suspicious of any non-Shia Syrian civilians. These potential enemies than prove their loyalty in various ways. For example, in the northeast (Hasaka province) Arab residents of the Kurd dominated province can prove their loyalty to the Assads by staging demonstrations against American patrols or convoys in the areas like Tell Tamer near the Turkish border. In the last week these civilians have cooperated with Syrian troops to block two American convoys. The U.S. has about a dozen small bases in Hasaka province. There are a growing number of Syrian troops in Hasaka as the Assads negotiate a peace deal with the SDF (Kurdish led rebels) and some autonomy for Syrian Kurds. As usual the Kurds are not as united as they should be. There have always been factions within the Syrian Kurdish community and now Russia, Syria and the Americans are all trying to sort out which Kurds they can trust the most.

Sporadic fighting continues in southern Idlib where Syrian troops and rebels confront each other. Russian UAVs continually patrol the front line and are occasionally shot down. Russian artillery and airstrikes are used when Syrian forces are trying to advance, or to disrupt another Islamic terrorist effort to launch rockets or armed UAVs at nearby Russian bases near the Mediterranean coast.

July 9, 2020: In the Far East (Khabarovsk region) Sergei Furgal the popular region governor was arrested on orders of the national government and flown to Moscow where was ordered held in prison for two months as murder and other charges against him were investigated, Meanwhile, back in Khabarovsk there were large and repeated public demonstrations to protest the arrest of the popular governor. Locals believe the national government was angry at the fact that Frugal defeated the Moscow-backed candidate in the 2018 governor election and has since done what the locals, and not what the national government demands. The Russian Far East was always full of independent minded people who live in a sparsely populated and rich (in raw materials) territory. Furgal was a popular and successful local businessman who was equally popular and successful as governor. The national government was not pleased and arresting Furgal has triggered more popular unrest than expected. Khabarovsk region includes about half of the Russian Pacific coast but the region contains only 1.3 million people.

July 8, 2020: Iran signed a deal with Syria to upgrade Syrian air defense capabilities. Iran has not got access to the latest air defense tech and this deal appears to be an effort to test new Iranian air defense gear in Syria and make improvements based on the results. Syria is desperate to obtain air defense capabilities that can stop Israeli airstrikes. Older Russian weapons (S-200 and S-300) are all that Syria has and not very effective at all. Russia refuses to use its S-400 system, used to defend Russian bases in western Syria, for fear of discovering that Israel can defeat the S-400 as well.

July 5, 2020: In Libya Russia suggested that Turkey allow the two Libyan factions, the Turk backed GNA and Russia-backed LNA/HoR, work out a ceasefire and eventually a peace deal. Turley is under a lot of pressure from NATO (which threatens to expel Turkey) and the EU (which is angry at the Turks for a growing number of reasons). A further incentive for the Turks to leave is the Egyptian threat to send troops into Libya to help its old friend the LNA. Other North African nations are angry at Turkey for invading Libya. The huge expense of the Libya operations has already caused Turkey to send several thousand of its Syrian mercenaries back to Syria and lower paying jobs.

July 4, 2020: In eastern Syria (Deir Ezzor province) near the Iraq border and the Al Bukamal crossing into Iraq, Russian troops took control of a Syrian oilfield by surrounding it with combat vehicles and demanding that the Syrian security force leave. The Syrians did so and the Russians later brought in their own Syrian mercenaries to guard the oilfield.

In Libya unidentified jets attacked the al Watiya airbase, which had been a major LNA base south of Tripoli. The Russian-backed LNA lost a lot of Russian equipment when the Turkish mercenaries led the attacks that captured the al Watiya airbase on May 18. Now there is this mysterious counterattack. At first Turkey accused Egypt or the UAE of carrying out the attack. That soon changed as Turkey declared Russia was the prime suspect because no Turkish or captured Russian equipment at al Watiya was hit. Russia has brought in several MiG-29 fighters and Su-24 fighter-bombers since al Watiya was lost. In mid-July the Russian fighters and bombers were still at a LNA airbase in central Libya.

July 2, 2020: India has ordered 21 more MiG-29s and twelve more Su-30 jet fighters from Russia. This will increase the Indian fighter force to 80 MiG-29s and 284 Su-30s. The Su-30s will be built under license in India while the MiG-29s are cheaper used aircraft that will be refurbished in Russia.

June 29, 2020: In the northwest (Idlib province) there are growing incidents of violence between HTS (Hayat Tahrir al Sham) group and smaller Islamic terror groups that refuse to obey. HTS was once an al Qaeda supporter but renounced its al Qaeda connection in 2016. At the time this was seen as a political move to make HTS more acceptable to the Turks. Back then HTS was already a coalition of coalitions and many of the factions still did not trust each other. The major fear is that another faction, or even HTS leadership, has made a better deal with Turkey which, so the story goes, wants to control HTS as a sort of Sunni Hezbollah and use it to drive Shia Iran and its Lebanese Hezbollah out of Syria. Many HTS leaders do have a history of working with the Turks. Russia and Syria have reason to believe the Turks are actually supporting some of the HTS factions in Idlib. The Turks do support moderate Islamic terror groups but refuse to outright admit it. This policy is unpopular with Israel and Western nations as well as Syria, Iran and Russia. Many Turks also oppose any pro-terrorist policy but the current Turkish government is controlled by an Islamic party that favors cooperation with some Islamic terror groups to protect Turks from the more rabid Islamic terrorists. Syria used to play that game and it did not work out well. It rarely does but for many shortsighted politicians it is still an attractive option. Since 2016 HTS has frequently had to crack down on uncooperative Islamic terrorist factions in Idlib. This is difficult and not completely successful. HTS wants to do this without triggering a major armed resistance. In the last few years, the worst resistance has been a few bombings. This is a favorite tactic for Islamic terror groups who are feuding. That and assassination of each others leaders.

June 24, 2020: In Moscow a delayed and somewhat reduced World War II Victory Parade was held. There were fewer troops and spectators that originally (before 2020) planned. One feature of the original parade that remained intact was the prominent display of new and improved Russian weapons.

One system that had failed numerous times in Syria and Libya was displayed. This was the new Pantsir Air Defense System version. Pantsir S1M was shown in public for the first time at the parade. S1M was announced over a year ag0 at the Dubai (UAE) IDEX 2019 trade show. S1M systems wont be delivered to customers until 2021.

It was specifically noted that the S1M model had changes based on combat experience in Syria and Libya. That combat experience was disastrous with over twenty Pantsir S1 vehicles destroyed by Turkish and Israeli aircraft and electronic countermeasures. Most of the losses were incurred in Libya where Russia supplied one of the two factions (the LNA or Libyan National Army) fighting a civil war there with over 20 Pantsir S1 vehicles. Most were lost to Turkish Bayraker TB2 UAVs firing laser guided missiles after the Pantsir S1 had been blinded by Turkish Koral jammer. Israel used similar tactics in Syria.

The Pantsir S1M is equipped with a new, 75-kilometer range, radar plus an advanced electro-optical target tracking system. Electro-optical systems cannot be blinded easily and certainly not by electronic jammers. The S1M is now equipped to detect and take down all manner of UAVs, no matter what their size or operating capabilities. S1M now uses a new missile with a range of 30 kilometers and an improved internal guidance system. At the same time there has been a less publicized effort by the Russian army and navy to obtain a new system to replace Pantsir, which they have lost confidence in. Given the dismal state of the defense budget it may be a while before a Pantsir replacement can be developed and delivered. Meanwhile Russia is apparently going to put the S1M model to the test in actual combat. While Turkey and Russia are allies, they avoid killing each others personnel in Syria and Libya and the new Pantsir S1M would be out to destroy Turkish UAVs. That will cost Turkey some hardware and reputation if S1M works but wont do the kind of diplomatic damage Russians killing Turkish troops does.

All Pantsirs are mobile, truck-mounted, systems. Each Pantsir vehicle carries a radar, two 30mm cannon and twelve Tunguska missiles. The original 90 kg (198 pound) missile had a twenty-kilometer range and the radar a 30-40-kilometer range. The missile can hit targets at up to 8,400 meters (26,000 feet). The new Tunguska is heavier, has a longer (30 kilometers) range and presumably can hit targets at higher altitudes.

The 30mm cannon is effective up to 3,200 meters (10,000 feet). The vehicle can vary, but the most common one carrying all this weighs 20 tons and has a crew of three. Each Pantsir-S1 vehicle-mounted system costs about $15 million, the S1M costs about a third more.

June 19, 2020: A 57E6 missile, fired from a Russian Pantsir air defense vehicle in Syria, landed largely intact in the Israeli Golan Heights. Syria has over two dozen Pantsir vehicles and says this missile had been fired at an incoming Israeli cruise missile. The 57E6 missile is supposed to self-destruct, using its 20 kg warhead, if no target is found. The one that fell in Israel was seen being examined, apparently disarmed, for further examination. Pantsir has been an embarrassing failure in Syria and Libya although Russia revealed a new version of Pantsir at the end of June.
Greg Laurie to host cinematic crusade featuring Mercy me, Jeremy Camp

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Harvest Christian Fellowship and its Senior Pastor Greg Laurie are not allowing COVID-19 to stop them from hosting the annual Harvest Crusade this year. Instead, they've decided to reinvent it.

Last year, the evangelistic event celebrated its 30th anniversary over three nights where SoCal Harvest hosted 100,000 attendees, according to figures released by the ministry. The crusade was held at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California, and featured top Christian music artists and messages from the famed evangelist. Additionally, over 8,677 people made professions of faith throughout the three nights.

This year, however, due to state lockdown orders in response to the coronavirus, people will experience Harvest Crusade in the form of a "cinematic crusade that will be available to "watch anywhere and on just about any screen youd like," Harvest said in its announcement.

Titled A Rush of Hope, the cinematic crusade produced by Laurie and Kingdom Studio was announced via a trailer.

"Life is like a movie, Laurie says in the event trailer. There's a beginning, middle and end, full of surprises. The twists and turns, the storm clouds, the darkness, the beauty and lights, still exist.

We all have questions about this movie that we're in, he continues. Is this movie a tragedy, is it a love story, is it a comedy? Do we win in the end? Why am I here? What is the meaning of my life? What happens after I die?

"There are answers to these questions," Laurie adds.



The crusade, known as SoCal Harvest, has been described by Laurie as the longest-running, large-scale evangelism event in American history.

This years event will feature performances from popular Christian music artists for King & Country, Mercy me, Jeremy Camp and will also feature the Erwin brother films I Still Believe and I Can Only Imagine.

For more information visit harvest.org




China's participation will be one of the key ingredients to the success of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement, some experts have said.

Speaking with Xinhua, international trade expert Francis Kofi Korankye-Sakyi said the critical role China has played in Africa's economic and political evolution made it one of the key partners in helping the continent implement the free trade area agreement successfully.

He said China's support for African countries in the past and present was born out of its long-standing relationship with Africa.

Through its long-term collaboration with the continent, China played a critical role in the development of the continent's Agenda 2063, Africa's development blueprint, which gave birth to the AfCFTA idea.

Korankye-Sakyi, also chief executive officer of African and Investment Policies Ghana, said China has made itself easier for Africa to work with through its demonstration of solidarity with Africa's needs and a pragmatic approach to financing without the unnecessary conditions applied by the West.

"China and Africa have more mutual benefits to derive from a partnership in the implementation of this agreement with wide markets of consumers. China has the market, and Africa has the market. So it will be mutually good to trade," he said.

Bright Simons, president of mPedigree, a web technology company based in Accra, projected that the existing relations give China a head-start in trade relations with the continent under the new free trade area program.

"This situation gives a strong signal to Chinese investors to consider setting up industrial clusters in Africa. With this, they can absorb intermediate goods and convert them into finished items for bigger markets across the continent," he added.
A Hispanic leader upset with the removal of an Onate statue is calling on the University of New Mexico president to remove certain courses because he said students are being taught "propaganda."



Ralph Arellanes, the chair of the Hispano Round Table of New Mexico and the executive director of the New Mexico League of United Latin American Citizens, said that some UNM staff are teaching wrong and hateful propaganda about the Spanish soldiers.

"I got examples of students being called genocidal, and that their ancestors were killers," said Arellanes. "The hate I'm talking about is that... is being taught that the Spanish committed genocide. Now there were atrocities, but they went both ways, but the Spanish did not commit genocide."

Arellanes sent the letter to UNM President Garnett Stokes calling on the school to remove the courses teaching hate. He said this comes after a UNM professor was allegedly involved in the removal of the Onate statue in Albuquerque.

"Students coming home crying cause they're being called a lot of bad names, and I receive letters and I receive calls," he said.



But UNM Chicano studies professor Patricia Perea said they don't teach self hate.



"He's taking out the fact that we're researchers, we're leaders, we're critical thinkers, we're informing our students," said Perea. "So we're not teaching things without having some substance behind them; it's all documented things. So there's a reason to it, and it's not about convincing students one way or another, it's about educating them."

Perea said that wanting to remove certain courses because they highlight the crimes committed by the Spanish is dismissive to the violence indigenous people in New Mexico experienced.

"The way he's spinning it to try to make it look like, 'Hey, not that it's not so bad, but it's an equal playing field,' and it just wasn't," Perea said. "He's trying to justify what real is an act of genocidal violence, by saying, 'well the Acoma did it first, and it's not really about it. It's power structures, and he doesn't address that people were enslaved."

Arellanes is hoping to have a roundtable discussion with Stokes, the UNM president, about which courses to remove, and he believes that the community should be involved on which courses should be available at the university.

A spokesperson for UNM sent us a statement about the letter saying, "Our academic enterprise supports that we can embrace our cultural identities and turn them into a source of power for building a shared future when we are fully aware of the past. The historical record of the Southwest is one of centuries of contact between peoples covering periods of violence and subjugation mixed with acts of creation and renewal. If we ignore pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial history, and if we reject what careful peer-reviewed historical research tells us about the past, we abandon our opportunity to build better communities in the present."


Former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh Kamal Nath has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleging the federal structure of the country is being hit with attempts to topple governments in opposition ruled states.

The Indian republic has a special place in the world due to its federal structure but for some time now, Baba Sahebs (Ambedkar) feelings are getting hurt as Indias federal structure is being attacked. The governments in opposition ruled states are being brought down immorally, the letter put out by ANI says.

Kamal Naths letter comes in the backdrop of alleged attempts to topple the Congress government in Rajasthan amid allegations of BJPs involvement in the purported plot to fan dissidence in state Congress led by former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot. The BJP has, however, said the allegations were aimed to distract from an internal crisis in the Congress party.

Also Read: Ashok Gehlot asks for testing horse trading audio clips in US, escalates attack on BJP minister

In his letter, Kamal Nath also refers to his governments fall in Madhya Pradesh earlier this year and alleges senior BJP leaders from the state took Congress rebels to Bengaluru with an aim to topple his government even as the state was busy fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

The act of pulling down Madhya Pradesh government is one of the most despicable events in Indias democratic history, the letter says.

He also alleges that BJP continues to entice opposition MLAs into resigning from their parties before inducting them. He further suggests that the present political turmoil could have a link with the Centre.

My worries are not limited to the falling of the Congress government in the state. Countrys democratic system is undergoing a turmoil today and it is suspected that it could be centered in the capital. But I hope that this suspicion is proven to be without a basis and that you will come forward to save the falling prestige of Indias democracy, he says in the letter.

Kamal Naths letter comes on a day when another Congress MLA quit the party and joined the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, taking the total number of party MLAs to have quit the party in the last two weeks to three.

Also Read: Another MP Congress MLA joins BJP, Congress accuses saffron party of dirty politics

Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, too, had written to PM Modi last Sunday suggesting senior BJP leader and Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat was involved in attempts to overthrow his government with the help of Congress rebels.
T he FTSE 100 has risen modestly after a rally in US stocks yesterday boosted stock markets, and concerns over escalating tensions between the West and China were brushed off.

The blue chip index rose 33.21 points to 6240.31  reversing yesterdays losses.

Neil Wilson, chief markets analyst at Markets.com, said: There are some concerns with US-China tensions after the closure of the consulate in Houston, with China retaliating by closing the US consulate in Chengdu.

But this kind of tit-for-tat is nothing new - we have been dealing with a trade war for years and I think the market is fully expecting friction to increase, particularly as the US presidential election looms and domestic strife makes it all too convenient for the White House to bash China. UK-China tensions are something a little fresher and have led to Chinese authorities taking the English Premier League off air.

Unilever was the biggest riser on the FTSE 100 this morning, gaining 345p, or nearly 8%, to 4675p as it posted better than expected second quarter sales, boosted by consumers stocking up on store cupboard staples.

For investors desperate for positive signs on Britains economic performance, todays update from software giant Sage would have made cheerful breakfast reading.

The FTSE 100 companys lifeblood is providing accounting software for small and medium-sized firms, many of which will have been dented as the Covid lockdown shuttered entire industries.

But Sage said it had experienced a lower-than-expected churn among such customers and, coupled with cost- cutting measures, it is in good shape, with access to 1.2 billion of funds.

Revenues in the nine months to June 30 rose 4.1% to 1.4 billion, aided by growth in North America and Northern Europe, where cloud contracts boosted recurring revenues.

The shares rose 4% to 736p, recovering to near pre-UK lockdown levels.

A discounted fundraising by housebuilder Countryside Properties was met with a share price fall, down 26.4p, or 7%, to 332.8p. It priced the placing, which raised 250 million, at 335p, a 6.7% discount to last nights close.

The company, which was advised on the placing by Barclays and Numis, will use part of the funds to invest in its partnerships arm that creates affordable homes for housing associations, councils and the private rented sector.

Chief executive Iain McPherson said the proceeds will also be used on speeding up the completion of projects, including on a number of London sites.

Outsourcer G4S was also making gains  up 6% to 145p. The company has put its dividend on hold and earlier this month revealed it plans to cut 1,100 jobs. But it struck a more upbeat tone today, posting a 4.6% fall in first-half profits to 187 million, outstripping analysts expectations. G4S is moving away from cash handling  amid weak demand for physical money  to focus on its security arm.

Shares in kitchens supplier Howden Joinery were off 2% at 544p as it swung to a first-half loss and said it was cautious on its financial outlook.

Small-cap spotlight

Oil tiddler Mosman is following the trend set by the majors, hanging on to cash and cutting back exploration. Chairman John Barr told the market today: The current pandemic and the oil price fluctuations have all resulted in Mosman focusing their attention and operations on cashflow and costs rather than maximising production. The companys production levels are down sharply in the half year. The shares edged up slightly on AIM to stand at 0.11p.
Several factors such as improvements in the agricultural sector, seed production, trade, and international agreements, along with the developments in seed technology that have increased the momentum of the industrys growth.

New York, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "South and South-East Asia Seed Market - Growth, Forecasts and Trends (2020 - 2025)" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05934744/?utm_source=GNW

Six countries, namely India, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Bangladesh are considered as the seed hubs, based on the concentration of production, breeding and processing activities by index companies in these countries, among the Southeast Asian region. The Non-GM/Hybrid Seeds? segment has been witnessed to dominate the market owing to the increased demand for food over the past years. To meet this growing demand, the enhancement of crop yield has become a necessity.



The major players in the market are Bayer Crop Science SE, Syngenta International AG, Corteva AgriScience, BASF SE, and Nuziveedu Seeds Ltd among others.



Key Market Trends

Increasing Adoption of Hybrid Seed and Government Support



The willingness and interest to grow hybrid crops are, to a large extent, governed by government legislation and policy in many of the countries studied. Pakistan is both a producer and importer of hybrid crops and products. The Pakistani seed sector is dependent on two key regulations, the Seed Amendment Act 2015 and the Plant Breeders Rights Act 2018. In 2016, the Pakistan National Assembly adopted a Plant Breeders Rights Act to encourage the development of new plant varieties and to protect the rights of breeders of such varieties. The Act provides protection for new plant varieties while at the same time respecting the right of farmers to save, use, exchange, and sell farm-saved seeds. This ensures farmers get access to high-quality hybrid seeds alongside being able to use ingeniously produced ones. The rising import of hybrid seeds is a direct impact of these measures. The National Assembly Standing Committee on National Food Security and Research banned the import of genetically modified (GM) seeds of maize, owing to health and environmental issues, in 2019. This may act as a driver for the use of hybrid seeds as an alternative to these GM seeds for keeping the yield constant.



The Non-GM/Hybrid Seeds? Segment Dominate the Market



In the South and Southeast Asian region, the demand for food has increased exponentially over the past years. For the purpose of meeting this demand, enhancement of crop yield has become a necessity by maintaining the safety standards by governments. The Philippines is home to the International Rice Research Institute and is one the most prolific users of hybrid rice seed in the region to meet rising demands. Green Revolution in India has promoted the use of hybrid seeds in India. The fast-growing population in the country has increased the demand for domestically produced hybrid seeds compatible with the climate conditions.



Hybrid rice seeds imported to Pakistan are expensive than that produced locally. The limited landholdings of farmers reduce their ability to purchase these hybrid seeds. The Agricultural Innovation Program launched by the government is expected to increase the adoption of hybrid maize seeds by farmers. This is expected to further increase the domestic hybrid seed production in the country. The use of hybrid seeds has been increasing over the years in the south and southeast Asian region with the increasing global demand for organic products and the need for enhanced crop yield in the region. This continued trend is expected to increase the market for hybrid-non-GMO seeds in the region.



Competitive Landscape

South and South-East Asia seed market is fragmented, because of the presence of a large number of local players marketing certified seeds. However, there are segments within the market, which are consolidated such as in maize and vegetables. The major players in the market are Bayer Crop Science SE, Syngenta International AG, Corteva AgriScience, BASF SE, and Nuziveedu Seeds Ltd among others.



Furthermore, increasing investments in the seed market by prominent companies, are further intensifying the growth of the seed market. For instance, in 2016, Sakata Seed Corporation, a Japan-based company, invested USD 138 million in India, to expand its business operations, which helped in escalating the market share in India.



Reasons to Purchase this report:

- The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format

- 3 months of analyst support

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05934744/?utm_source=GNW



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



__________________________

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CONTACT: Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001




The 2020 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye with its 797 horsepower is the winner of the New England Motor Press Association's (NEMPA) Pure Power Award, at its annual Ragtop Awards.

"The Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye easily earned the NEMPA Pure Power Award, with nearly 800 horsepower on tap, quarter-mile times just over 10 seconds and a top speed over 200 miles per hour, this is one unique ride," said John Paul, NEMPA President. "In a world of powerful four-cylinder engines, there is still no substitute for cubic inches and torque. To steal the title from Ray Bradbury, 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' describes the 6.2 liters of supercharged performance of the Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye and why it deserved the title of NEMPA Pure Power."

Designed and engineered with more power to appeal to an even broader muscle car enthusiast audience, the heart of the Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye comes from its limited-production big brother  the SRT Demon. The supercharged 6.2-liter HEMI high-output V-8 engine is rated at 797 horsepower and 707 lb.-ft. of torque and is mated to a TorqueFlite 8HP90 eight-speed automatic transmission.

The 2020 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye delivers:

0-60 miles per hour (mph) acceleration of 3.4 seconds

Quarter-mile elapsed time of 10.8 seconds at 131 mph

203 mph top speed

Dodge is taking the Pure Power Award and adding even more performance for 2020 with the new 808-horsepower Challenger SRT Super Stock, the newest Dodge drag-racing machine.

From the new Challenger SRT Super Stock to the "Demon-possessed" 797-horsepower Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye to 303-horsepower V-6 efficiency and class-exclusive all-wheel-drive (AWD) capability, Challenger is unrivaled when it comes to sheer horsepower, all-weather capability and overall interior roominess. Dodge Challenger is a true GT car. Its heritage design, unmatched power and everyday livability combine to make this authentic but modern Dodge muscle car every bit as beloved and relevant to today's consumer as the first generation was 50 years ago.

NEMPA members evaluated a wide variety of vehicles from various manufacturers that covered several categories. Journalists cycled through each vehicle throughout New England leading up to the official day of testing and scoring that took place in February at NEMPA headquarters in Middleborough, Massachusetts.

New England Motor Press Association (NEMPA)

The New England Motor Press Association was founded in 1987 to coordinate professional media coverage of the auto industry in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, whose 14.5 million citizens have unique demographics and automotive preferences. NEMPA's media members appear on network and cable TV, on the Internet and radio, and in regional and national newspapers and magazines. For more information, please visit www.nempa.org.

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 shifts into high gear with muscle cars and SUVs that deliver unrivaled performance in each of the segments where they compete.

2021 marks the year that Dodge is distilled into a pure performance brand, offering Hellcat-powered, 700+ horsepower SRT versions of every model across the lineup. For the 2021 model year, Dodge delivers the drag-strip dominating 807-horsepower Dodge Challenger SRT Super Stock, the new 797-horsepower Dodge Charger SRT Redeye, the most powerful and fastest mass-produced sedan in the world, and the new 710-horsepower Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat, the most powerful SUV ever. Combined, these three muscle cars make Dodge the industry's most powerful brand, offering more horsepower than any other American brand across its entire lineup.

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

SOURCE FCA

Related Links

http://www.fcanorthamerica.com


By Ayya Lmahamad

A mission from the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe arrived in Azerbaijan to support the country's fight against COVID-19, Health Ministrys press service reported on July 22.

The purpose of the mission is to assess the current situation in the country and make recommendations accordingly.

As part of the mission, a meeting was held with Health Minister Ogtay Shiraliyev and other officials of Health Ministry.

During the meeting, the current situation in Azerbaijan and measures taken against COVID-19 were discussed.

Besides Baku, the mission plans to conduct epidemiological assessment in Shamakhi and Ganja.

In turn, the Health Minister recommended participation of specialist from Republican Center of Hygiene and Epidemiology.

Additionally, the current sanitary and epidemiological situation, the fight against hospital-acquired infections, the mechanism of the disease, chronic course and other issues were also discussed at the meeting.

The mission was also accompanied by Deputy Health Minister Nigar Aliyeva, Chief State Sanitary Inspector Victor Gasimov, Head of International Cooperation and Public Relations Department Samir Abdullayev, Head of WHO Country Office Hande Harmanci, Head of Mission David Novillo Ortiz, members of the mission Shahin Huseynov, Elsa Maria Negro Calduch, Anna Borshchevska and others.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
US State Department has ordered China to close its consulate in Houston, Texas by Friday over accusations that it engaged in massive illegal spying and influence operations in the US for years.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday (local time) that his administration does not rule out closing additional Chinese diplomatic missions in the United States. As far as closing additional embassies, its always possible. We thought there was a fire in the one we did close, I guess they were burning documents and papers. I wonder what that is all about, Trump said during a daily press briefing at the White House when asked if he planned to close more Chinese diplomatic missions in the country.

Earlier on Wednesday, the US State Department ordered China to close by Friday its consulate in Houston, Texas, over accusations that it engaged for years in massive illegal spying and influence operations in the US.

Regarding the same, State Secretary Mike Pompeo said, Its not just American intellectual property been stolen, its been European intellectual property too, causing hundreds  costing hundreds of thousands of jobs, good jobs for hard-working people all across Europe and America stolen by the Chinese Communist Party.

Also Read: Amid reports of documents burning, US orders closure of Chinese Houston Consulate General

Also Read: Covid outbreak likely to get worse before improving: Trump

We are setting out clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave, and when they do not, we are going to take actions that protect the American people, protect our security, our national security, and also protect our economy and jobs. Thats the actions that youre seeing taken by President Trump. We will continue to engage in those, Pompeo told reporters further.

On Tuesday, the US Department of Justice convicted two Chinese nationals of spying charges for targeting computer networks of biotech firms around the world working on coronavirus vaccines, technology and treatments.

The 11-count indictment alleged that the two former computer engineers, identified as Li Xiaoyu, 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 33, conducted a hacking campaign lasting more than ten years to the present, targeting companies in countries with high technology industries, including the US, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

It was also alleged that the two had hacked companies engaged in high-tech manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and gaming software development, and with targeting dissidents, clergy and human rights activists in the US, China, and Hong Kong.

Relations between the US and China have worsened in recent times over a range of issues. Chinas move to impose national security law in Hong Kong, its human rights violation in Xinjiang and territorial aggression in the South China Sea have all drawn fierce criticism from Washington.

Accusing China of bullying smaller countries, US Defence Secretary Mark T Esper on Tuesday vowed to deter against Chinas coercive behaviour in the South China Sea.

Also Read: US calls world to unite against China, says China using Covid to bully neighbours

For all the latest World News, download NewsX App
Da Nangs Ho Nghinh Street is a popular spot among local people and tourists alike, as its home to a host of popular seafood restaurants.

SUPERB SURROUNDS: The Temptation sits in a French villa boasting tranquillity and elegance. Photo courtesy of the restaurant

Ive been to the central city many times and every visit make sure I head to Ho Nghinh at least once for seafood.

On a recent trip, however, I was introduced to The Temptation Restaurant, where French cuisine is mixed with quintessential Vietnamese cuisine.

The Temptation looks elegant and tranquil underneath a green canopy. Indoors is well-decorated with posh furniture, old wine bottles, and a European architectural style.

Luckily, I was at the restaurant when chef La Thua An had introduced his latest creations of Western delicacies mixed with tropical fruit - a summer gift for guests.

Chef An was born in Hue and inherited a passion and care for cooking from his mother.

The capital city of the Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945), Hue is known for its sophisticated and refined gastronomy. An learned his cooking in France and worked for 30 years at restaurants around Europe and at five-star hotels in Vietnam.

He has now established The Temptation, where he presents a fusion of European fine-dining and exquisite Vietnamese cuisine as well as the Hue royal culinary style.

A CUT ABOVE: Australian beef tenderloin and pan-fried foie gras served with baked vegetables and mascarpone cream cheese sauce.

My culinary journey began with an exciting canape: a bite-sized bread and French duck liver parfait and a cup of eye-catching gazpacho made from beetroot.

The finger-sized pieces were arranged on the plate like a work of art, expressing the care, imagination, and aesthetic of chef An. A glass of white wine from Cotes du Rhone was seductive and created a match made in heaven.

To bring a perfect experience to guests, all main courses are served on hot plates so the food remains warm for up to 10 minutes.

After being advised to try the special summer dishes marking an experiment by chef An with tropical fruit, I asked the waiter if I could indeed try them. I wasnt disappointed. The menu so impressed my friends and I that we spoke about The Temptation many times later.

We began with a mesclun salad with sautee prawns and a raspberry dressing. Mesclun is originally a mix of assorted small young salad greens from Provence. Here, the chef used slightly bitter baby greens, buttery avocado, and a sweet and sour raspberry dressing to strike a balance.

Next, we tried the pumpkin soup with vanilla and coconut milk, which was extraordinarily aromatic and nutty sweet. The soup was viscous and squashy, its texture velvety, helping us prepare for the high-protein courses to follow.

SET TO IMPRESS: Mesclun salad with sautee prawns, raspberry dressing, and caviar. VNS Photos San San

The selection of main courses was diverse, with grilled seabass with thyme and olive oil served with grilled vegetables; pan-fried scallops marinated with Cajun spices, pumpkin puree, and sauteed asparagus; Australian beef tenderloin served with pan-fried foie gras and mascarpone cream cheese sauce; and grilled salmon served with baked vegetables.

We skipped those classic delicacies and tried Challans duck, which most top chefs recommend as the best duck in the world for its lean and tender flesh.

The chef made a great combination between French duck and a lychee sauce. Lychee is a signature fruit of Vietnam this season. A whole Challans duck is about 1.5kg (VND1.2 million), enough for four to six people and served with sauteed potatoes, raisins, garlic, honey, and, of course, a lychee sauce. The special sauce made the duck meat even richer and more delicious and its a must-try dish if you ever visit The Temptation in summer.

One plus point for restaurant is its beautiful corners, where wonderful photos can be taken. All dishes are decorated with edible fresh flowers, so youre sure to have a memorable dining experience while in Da Nang. VNS

The Temptation Restaurant Add: 125 Ho Nghinh Street, Son Tra District, a Nang Tel: 081 795 2552 Facebook: www.facebook.com/thetemptationrestaurant/

Foodwise: Cuon dap Da Nang and its Hanoi brother are must-try dishes Differing from spring rolls in the north, cuon ap a Nang (boiled pork and other ingredients wrapped in rice paper) is well-known nationwide for its unique taste and aroma, said culinary expert Le Kim Chi.
At a time when doom and gloom has descended upon the world, renowned astrologer, Dr. Sohini Sastri, spoke to us about the importance of astrology during the Coronavirus pandemic. Known for her accurate predictions, Dr. Sohini Sastri who has been felicitated by the Vice-President, and former President of India, for excellence in her field spoke to us how she has been addressing and assuaging fears emanating from the economic fallout of lockdown,Lockdown has been here for almost 3 months, and people are asking questions like, What will happen in the future? Because many of them have lost their salaries, their incomes. The global economy is down, and we are seeing many young people get depressed at the same time. I try to give people a mental boost during these times with my work. Thats why astrology is really important during this period.

Dr. Sastri who has been interested in spirituality since childhood, and used to read the Vedas and the Bhagvaad Gita as a child, which sparked her interest in Astrology, also spoke to us about how she started the practice initially. When I graduated from school, Id buy books of astrology, and after reading them, Id make predictions to my relatives, and my friends, and most of those those predictions would come true, she said. She believes that astrology is crucial for humans, and should hold deep importance in our lives. From the day we are born, all the events in our lives are controlled by planetary positions, the stars, and lunar positions. This is why astrology is meaningful for us as humans.

Dr. Sastri feels she helps people, and improves lives, by offering profession, marital, and life advice to those in need. Often, she is approached by those who are lost, and require some form of guidance. Most people who come to me, want to know about their future, about their married life, about their careers. Sometimes, students will come to me, wanting to know which field they should go into. I analyze their horoscopes, and offer advice based on that. Often, people who have worked extremely hard but have not had any success will approach me. Those are the people whom I can help the most with my work.

Also Read: Tejashwi Yadav will be CM, Lalu will be king-maker, predicts astrologer Ritu Singh

Also Read: Tejashwi Yadav will be CM, Lalu will be king-maker, predicts astrologer Ritu Singh

In spite of the increased skepticism that astrology faces in the modern world, Dr. Sastri remains undeterred. She feels that astrologys detractors have not paid enough attention to the subject. Yes, I think the skepticism is wrong. If you look at astrology, its an ancient subject, and its a scientific subject. It predates science, and it will continue into the future as well, because whether or not someone believes in astrology, that is a personal matter, but someone who does believe will definitely experience some benefits.

Speaking on the career improvements caused by astrology, Dr. Sastri feels strongly that astrological career advice can aid someone in their professional life. She talks about the 10th house technique for analyzing career paths. Career astrology is a part of astrology. In it, we analyse, the placement of the lagna from the 10th house to determine optimal career paths. Astrology can offer a kind of job security, according to her. Some people would be better as doctors, some as engineers, some as actors, etc. In astrology, we can perfectly determine this, and as a result, people get a kind of security with regard to their jobs and their careers through astrology.

We asked her to share some advice for parents, who are concerned about their childrens future, and career paths. Dr. Sastri feels that many parents simply force their children to take up Science in 11th standard, and as a result, many students perform poorly, and face undue pressure. She advises parents to instead send children to an astrologist, after the 10th grade, to determine what career choice they should make. In any study, you need your mental faculties to support you. Not every childs mind will work in every field, so you need to make sure that their mind is well-equipped for the file they enter. An astrologist should be consulted on this matter, as they can offer good guidance on what career would be well suited for the child. That would be my advice to parents.

Also Read: Running a successful business in times of Covid, Adel Singh shares his vision

For all the latest A List News, download NewsX App
Schroders has so far raised 425m of equity commitments for its debut hotel fund, the Schroder European Operating Hotels Fund I. The closed-end, Luxembourg domiciled Fund is targeting 500m of total equity. The majority of capital to date has been committed by some of Europes largest insurance companies.

[]
I said to the doctor, it was Dr. Ronny Jackson. I said, Is there some kind of a test, an acuity test? Mr. Trump recalled on Wednesday. And he said, There actually is, and he named it, whatever it might be.

Then the president elaborated for several minutes.

It was 30 to 35 questions, Mr. Trump said. The first questions are very easy. The last questions are much more difficult. Like a memory question. Its, like, youll go: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV. So they say, Could you repeat that? So I said, Yeah. Its: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.

OK, thats very good. If you get it in order you get extra points, Mr. Trump said a doctor told him. OK, now hes asking you other questions, other questions, and then, 10 minutes, 15, 20 minutes later they say, Remember that first question  not the first  but the 10th question? Give us that again. Can you do that again?

And you go: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV, Mr. Trump said. If you get it in order, you get extra points.

They said nobody gets it in order, Mr. Trump said. Its actually not that easy, but for me, it was easy. And thats not an easy question. In other words, they ask it to you, they give you five names and you have to repeat em. And thats OK. If you repeat em out of order, its OK, but, you know, its not as good. But when you go back about 20, 25 minutes later and they say go back to that  they dont tell you this  Go back to that question and repeat em, can you do it? And you go: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.

They say, Thats amazing. How did you do that? Mr. Trump continued. I do it because I have, like, a good memory, because Im cognitively there. Now, Joe should take that test, because somethings going on. And, and, I say this with respect. I mean  going to probably happen to all of us, right? You know? Its going to happen.

Dr. Siegel did not ask follow-up questions.

In an interview broadcast on Sunday, when told that Mr. Biden was chosen in a Fox poll as the more mentally sound candidate, Mr. Trump disputed that finding and defended his cognitive test results to Mr. Wallace, who said he had taken the same test that the president had boasted about acing. Mr. Wallace pointed out that one of the questions asked to identify an elephant.
Washington: In a significant backflip, US President Donald Trump has been forced to cancel plans to hold the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville, Florida, next month because of a surge of coronavirus cases in the key swing state.

The convention was originally scheduled to be held in Charlotte, North Carolina, but Trump ordered it to be moved to Florida after North Carolina's Democratic governor declined to guarantee that the Republican Party could fill an indoor arena with thousands of people.

In a significant concession, US President Donald Trump has had to announce the cancellation of the Republican National Convention. Credit:AP

Coronavirus cases have subsequently surged in Florida, throwing plans to hold a traditional convention into disarray.

Florida recorded a record high 173 coronavirus deaths on Thursday (Friday AEST) as well as 10,249 new positive cases. A total of 5517 people have died in the state where Trump narrowly defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016.
WASHINGTON  Two of the British ISIS terrorists dubbed the Beatles further incriminated themselves in the mistreatment of Western hostages in Syria, including Americans Kayla Mueller and James Foley, in interviews obtained exclusively by NBC News.

In the interviews, the two men, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, for the first time admitted their involvement in the captivity of Kayla, an aid worker who was tortured and sexually abused before her death in 2015.

Kotey said, "She was in a room by herself that no one would go in."

Elsheikh got into more detail, saying, "I took an email from her myself," meaning he got an email address the Islamic State militant group could use to demand ransom from the family. "She was in a large room, it was dark, and she was alone, and  she was very scared."

Watch Richard Engel tonight on Nightly New with Lester Holt for more on this story.

In one email reviewed by NBC News, ISIS demanded the Muellers pay 5 million euros and threatened that if the demands werent met, they would send the family a picture of Kayla's dead body.

Image: Kayla Mueller, 26, an American humanitarian worker from Prescott, Arizona with her mother Marsha Mueller. (Reuters file)

Elsheikh also implicated himself in the abuse of American James Foley. I didn't choke Jim, he said. If I choked Jim I would say I choked him. I mean, I've  I've hit him before. I've hit most of the prisoners before.

He said that sometimes Foley would let himself become a target to make sure hostages got enough food. Said Elsheikh, If the guard would ask, Is the food enough?" some of the other prisoners were very timid. It was always him who would say, It's not enough and take the risk of retaliation from guards.

Kotey and Elsheikh are both in U.S. military custody in Iraq amid questions over how and when they will face justice. U.S. and British authorities say the so-called Beatles were responsible for 27 killings, including the beheadings of Americans Foley, Steven Sotloff and Peter Kassig, and British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning.

The families of American hostages murdered by ISIS tell NBC News they are urging the Trump administration to try them in a U.S. civilian court.

Story continues

"They did so much horror to so many people," Kayla's mother, Marsha Mueller, said. "They need to be brought here. They need to be prosecuted. The other thing that's really important to me about this is I need information about Kayla. We know so little about what happened to her."

She added, "I believe these two have more information than they're sharing with us. And I believe that we would find out more if they were brought here."

"They're admitting that they were there," Kayla's father, Carl Mueller, said. "And of course, they're not going to tell the dark side of the story.

Image: Marsha Mueller and Carl Mueller (NBC News)

The U.S. families published an opinion piece in The Washington Post on Thursday imploring the Department of Justice to bring the two men to the United States for prosecution.

In captivity, Kayla was taken to live with a senior ISIS official, and was raped by the former ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, U.S. officials have said. Baghdadi killed himself with a suicide vest as he was being chased last fall by American commandos during a raid in northwest Syria.

Kayla is believed to have died in 2015 in what ISIS said was a Jordanian airstrike. How she was killed has never been confirmed.

In a 2018 interview with the BBC, Kotey and Elsheikh had denied ever meeting Kayla.

Who? Elsheikh responded when asked if hed ever met her.

We didn't meet any foreign non-Muslims, Kotey added.

In the new interviews, both Kotey and Elsheikh sought to distance themselves from the torture and killings attributed to them as prison guards, calling themselves "liaisons" to the hostages. But each admitted beating captives and playing a role in facilitating communication with their families in an effort to extract ransoms.

"I never denied that they was ever hit," Kotey said of the hostages. As an example, he talked about striking a Danish captive in the chest to make a mark that would be visible in a photo that would be sent to his family.

Image: James Foley (Nicole Tung / AP file)

Elsheikh and Kotey were captured in Syria in 2018 by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

The Kurds handed them to the U.S. military, and President Donald Trump was considering a plan to send Kotey and Elsheikh to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, NBC News reported.

American officials tell NBC News that the U.S. is determined to arrange for the two men to face charges in an American courtroom and the efforts to get them here from Iraq continue. A U.S. official said the government is committed to getting justice for these victims in a way that provides the strongest ability to prove in a court of law that they committed the crimes theyre alleged to have committed.

That effort was dealt a setback in March, when Britain's Supreme Court ruled that the United Kingdom could not share evidence with American prosecutors as long as the pair were in jeopardy of the death penalty.

The four Beatles

Former hostages who made it out of ISIS detention say all four members of the Beatles," given that nickname because of their British accents, were cruel and sadistic captors, including Kotey and Elsheikh.

Mohammed Emwazi, the black-clad terrorist known as Jihadi John who beheaded many of the hostages on camera, was vaporized by Hellfire missiles from a CIA drone in 2015. The fourth Beatle, Aine Lesley Davis, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison in Turkey in 2017.

According to a Department of State narrative designating him as a terrorist, "Elsheikh was said to have earned a reputation for waterboarding, mock executions, and crucifixions while serving as an ISIS jailer."

Image: Diane and John Foley, the parents of journalist James Foley (CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP - Getty Images, file)

The State Department said Kotey, as a jail guard, "likely engaged in the group's executions and exceptionally cruel torture methods, including electronic shock and waterboarding."

The two men denied that in the new interviews.

"Everyone is talking about the rights of these two Beatles," Art and Shirley Sotloff said in a statement. "What about the rights of our kids, Steven and Jim and Peter and Kayla? Don't they have the right to have justice served?"

"I think they should be held accountable," said Diane Foley, whose son James was the first U.S. hostage to be beheaded by Emwazi on video, told NBC News. "They definitely should go on trial."

A criminal court is the best place to get to the truth, Chuck Rosenberg, a former federal prosecutor and an NBC News legal analyst, said.

"We've had great success in the federal courts of the United States on terrorism cases," he said. "That is absolutely where they belong. Not in Guantanamo Bay, not before military tribunals, but in the federal courts of the United States."
This column is an opinion from Max Fawcett, a freelance writer and the former editor of Alberta Oil magazine.

CBC

When Jason Kenney tabled the report from his "fair deal panel" last month, it effectively opened a new front in his own long-running conflict with the federal Liberal government.

But the latest results from a long-running survey on Canadian attitudes from the Environics Institute suggests he might want to reconsider this particular fight.

After all, the proportion of Albertans who feel so mistreated by the rest of Canada that they support independence dropped from 56 per cent to 43 per cent  and that's from a survey that was conducted before COVID-19 hit.

Kenney's government has yet to really thank Ottawa for its numerous interventions. Those include spending $1.7 billion to help Alberta address its growing orphan well problem and a series of loan guarantee programs for the oil and gas industry as well as national programs like the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) or the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS).

Even so, it's hard to imagine that Albertans will be totally blind to the contributions that Ottawa is making right now  and that they'd somehow be more enthusiastic about the idea of separating from Canada as a result.

But if Justin Trudeau wants to bring western alienation to heel once and for all, he should do something even more radical: actually address the concerns of western Canadians.

Orphan Well Association

No, that doesn't mean changing the equalization formula, if only because there is no possible change that would make Alberta a beneficiary of the program.

Despite a downturn in oil and gas prices that has been going on for almost six years now, Albertans still earn far more than other Canadians. According to Statistics Canada, the median household income in Alberta was $72,700 in 2018  more than $10,000 higher than the national figure.

If those incomes do eventually drop down below the national median, the minutiae of the equalization formula will be the least of Alberta's concerns.

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But it does mean acknowledging that Albertans have been massive net contributors to confederation this century, and doing something to recognize that investment.

Yes, the federal government bought and is building the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, but that's as much about protecting its financial interests as it is about advancing Alberta's.

And while Ottawa has expressed a willingness to reconsider the terms of its fiscal stabilization program, which effectively acts as an insurance policy for provinces that experience major decreases in their revenues, the figures being discussed amount to a rounding error on Alberta's historical contributions.

That's why the federal government should make Alberta's political leaders an offer they almost certainly couldn't refuse.

A program to acknowledge Alberta's contributions

It should acknowledge those historical outflows, and offer to create a program that would prevent them from happening in the future.

Above a certain threshold  say, $4,000 per capita  any surplus contributions by a province's taxpayers would be rebated to them by the federal government, on an equal basis to everyone over the age of 18.

For example, Alberta taxpayers kicked in $22.4 billion more than they received back in federal program spending in 2015. Using that $4,000 per capita threshold, that would leave $5.8 billion to distribute to the approximately three million adults in Alberta  or a cheque for nearly $2,000.

This would have a few obvious advantages.

First, it would more closely bind Albertans to the federal government, and remind them of their relationship with Ottawa and the benefits that come from it.

Second, it would help reduce income inequality within the province, as those who paid more in federal taxes would receive proportionately less back in rebates. For a federal government that's clearly interested in fighting poverty and growing the middle class, this would be an obvious win.

And third, it's a program that might never actually send much money back to Albertans, given that the days of $100 per barrel oil (and, just as importantly, $5 per mcf natural gas) are pretty clearly behind us.

Gabriel Brown/CBC

As such, it might ultimately end up as a bluff that never gets called  but one that could still defuse tensions and shore up support for federalism in the regions where it's most often under attack.

By acknowledging the historical contributions that Albertans have made to confederation, and creating a program that would ensure that they're repaid in kind in the future, the federal government could permanently take the wind out of the sails of western alienation.

It would be a fitting legacy for a prime minister whose father both defeated one separatist movement while in office and potentially laid the groundwork for another.

Ironically, the biggest hurdle here might be the prime minister's own partisan interests in Alberta.

Wexit vote split could help Trudeau more

While sending voters cheques with a Canadian flag on them could theoretically help the Liberals win back a few seats in Alberta, allowing the Wexit party to split the federal conservative vote would help far more.

Even a modest splitting of that vote would put a handful of seats in Edmonton and Calgary in play, and possibly position the Liberals to improve on their record four-seat showing in 2015.

Jason Kenney isn't necessarily safe from any Wexit-related blowback, either.

As University of Alberta political scientist Jared Wesley noted on a recent episode of the West of Centre podcast, "Calling a 'strategic referendum' can have unintended consequences. We've seen that most recently in the UK a few years ago, when [then prime minister David] Cameron thought he knew what the outcome of the Brexit referendum would be. So they're playing a very dangerous game."

That's a game the federal Liberals may well be tempted to let play out, given the possible upside.

Then again, they may look at the disastrous outcome of Brexit and decide that the risk isn't worth any partisan reward.

If that's the case, they should move forward with a promise to return any excess contributions to confederation that Albertans might make in the future.

Yes, that could theoretically cost the federal treasury billions of dollars. But losing Alberta would surely cost much, much more.

This column is an opinion. For more information about our commentary section, please read this editor's blog and our FAQ.
At a time when COVID-19 impact is squeezing workforce across industries and many businesses are resorting to pay cuts, NoBroker.com, Indias leading real estate tech platform is looking to hire professionals to expand operations further. The companyhas 300 open positions across all its verticals- business, marketing, and technology.

The company has four product lines, NoBroker, NoBrokerHood, NoBroker Pay and Home Services, which cater to end to end of customers property search journey in buying or renting. It is the only platform in India that is 100% brokerage free. The strong value proposition made it a leader in the cities it is present- Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Delhi-NCR.

Over the last few months, NoBrokerHood, the visitor, society and payment management app by NoBroker partnered with BigBasket and ITC to help residents order groceries and essentials from the comfort of their homes. It also partnered with HDFCs Payzapp and SBI to make rent and maintenance payments more rewarding. The product line has grown exponentially over the last few months. With the 8x growth in NoBrokerHood, combined with a 100 percent growth in its Packers & Movers business, NoBroker believes it is the best time to hire.

On the technology side, the company is looking for data scientists, engineers, robotic process automation experts, UX designers, architects, and frontend and backend developers. We are looking for people with skills in open source Java, React, Elastic, Kafka, and Metabase. We treat each of our four verticalsas startups. We are creating our own data lake, and hence we need a good combination of data scientists and engineers," says Akhil Gupta, Co-founder and CTO, NoBroker.

Saurabh Garg, cofounder and Chief Business Officer of NoBroker said, With the lockdown lifted, we have seen the demand coming back to pre-Covid levels across cities. Our data also indicated that 65% of consumers believe that it is the best time to buy a property as prices are low and many developers are offering attractive discounts. So, we are recruiting at all levels to address the pent-up demand to help our customers inch closer to their dream of owning a home. The company is also looking for Corporate Sales, Loyalty Management and Social Media roles on the marketing front.

Open positions in business and operations include vertical heads, business function heads, associate managers, and customer care executives.
The global bovine pericardial valve market is expected to reach US$ 4,134. 40 million by 2027 from US$ 1,959. 71 million in 2019;the market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 9. 9% from 2020 to 2027. Increasing incidence of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and congenital heart diseases (CHDs), and advantages of tissue-based heart valves over mechanical valves are among the major factors boosting the growth of the market.

New York, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Bovine Pericardial Valve Market Forecast to 2027 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis by Valve Type, Alloy, End User, and Geography" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05932660/?utm_source=GNW

However, the limitations associated with tissue-based valves restrain the market growth.

CHDs are a major cause for mortality and morbidity worldwide.These conditions are usually acquired by birth and are defined as clinically significant structural heart diseases.



However, with the advancements in medical science, people suffering from CHDs are now able have longer and healthier lives. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), these diseases affect ~1% of newborns,i.e., ~40,000 births, in the US. Among these, ~25% of patients exhibit severe symptoms and require surgery or other procedures in the early stages of their lives. According to the Mended Hearts, a US-based non-profit organization, in the US,~100-200 newborns die due to unrecognized heart diseases each year. The incidence of these diseases is also greater in various other countries worldwide. For instance, according to a survey published by the International Open Access Journal Covering Cardiovascular Medicine and Surgeryin 2018, in Germany, ~5-8 newborns per 1000 births suffer from CHDs.

Similarly, CVDs also pose a significant threat to human health and lead to a remarkable burden on the heath systems of developed as well as developing economies worldwide. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), CVDs are the major cause of death across the world as the diseases accounted for ~17.9 million deaths in 2018. Access to essential care for noncommunicable diseases such as CVDs through medications and surgical treatments helps save millions of lives every year. The increasing incidence of these diseases worldwide is expected to augment the demand for bovine pericardial valvesin the coming years.

The global bovine pericardial valve market is segmented on the basis of valve type, alloy, and end user.Based on valve type, in 2019, the aortic segment held the largest share of the market and is expected to register the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. Themarket for this segment is likely to witness lucrative growth owing to continuous developments in transcatheter aortic valve implantation procedures, leading to progressively large number of patients undergoing the surgery. Moreover, these surgical procedures are now been reimbursed by the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) in the US.The expected introduction of such reimbursement policies in other countries in the world would contribute to the growth of the market for aortic valves in other countries in the coming years. On the basis of alloy, the market is segmented into cobalt-chrome, titanium, nickel-molybdenum and others. Based on end user, the market is segmented into hospitals, cardiac centers, and ambulatory surgical centers.

The CDC, WHO, CMS, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Texas Heart Institute, and National Institute of Healthcare a few of the essential secondary sources referred to while preparing this report.

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05932660/?utm_source=GNW



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



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CONTACT: Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001




A 77-year-old native Laredoan was reunited with his family Tuesday after overcoming long odds of surviving COVID-19 which included being put on a ventilator twice.

Over the course of three months, Jesus Rivera  who is living with family in Indiana  toed the line between life and death when at times it looked as if he had almost no chance at survival. After a lenghty hospital stay followed by time at a rehibilation facility for physical therapy and speech therapy, he finally came home this week.

Im glad Im home, and I feel a lot better, Rivera said. Im not all there, but I am 98% there, so we are working on it.

Although Rivera said he does not feel completely right, he is almost back to normal as he is finally home after the biggest fight of his life against a virus that almost took it twice. He warns people that do not believe the virus is dangerous to think twice as he never experienced any symptoms before suddenly becoming extremely ill.

First of all, if you want to put up a fight you had to begin with wearing a mask since yesterday, Rivera said. Be alert. To me it happened so quick that I didnt even know that I was in the hospital. Be healthy and stay alert, listen to what they say as there are also many side effects like I didnt even know I had it, and before you know it, Im at the hospital.

Rivera is now well aware of the side effects and the potential long-term concerns. According to his daughter-in-law Juany Perez, he is still on the tracheostomy using the oxygen. He is on a size 7, and doctors will be reducing the size until he will not need it anymore as the lungs and the body respond better to being off a ventilator.

At the height of his fight with the virus, Rivera needed a ventilator with 100% use of oxygen from the machine meaning his lungs were not working at all. It was during this time that doctors asked the family to think of the possibility in disconnecting him from life support. However, the family persisted, and Rivera can now thank all those who donated to his cause and sent him thoughts and prayers.

I thank them all from the bottom of my heart, and I wish there were more people like that because there are some of us who need economical help, Rivera said. The insurance does help a lot, but sometimes they leave you hanging with some expenses and then you have to face it.

According to the family, the expenses accrued were mostly from life support as the insurance doesnt always pay that in full. The family had to consider that while being asked at least twice if they wanted to disconnect Rivera.

Members of the Rivera family also thank the public for their support in what once seemed impossible of seeing their oldest relative get better after a hard-fought battle with the virus.

Even though all of the donations are for Riveras medical expenses, Perez notes he was not the only one infected with the virus as the whole family was infected with COVID-19 and the money can help them all get back on their feet. They had to quarantine and could not work while they dealt with the virus.

While the family is celebrating Riveras successful recovery, it is also mourning a loss as Perezs mother died from complications with COVID-19. The family, especially Rivera, wants the public to know that. He believes it is important because many people continue to believe the virus is not as bad as it is portrayed in the media.

Dont mess with it, because it will kill you as I have been there, Rivera said. I thank God, I thank my wife and everybody back home. I just want everyone to enjoy their life.

He hopes people continue getting tested and seeking medical help whenever they believe they might be infected or came in contact with someone infected as the virus is serious and it is something he does not want to experience again.

As of Monday afternoon, the family had collected $1,098 out of a $10,000 goal on Rivera's GoFundMe page.
In another blow to Al Jazeera, Malaysia now wants all media companies to obtain film licensing to produce any video content, be it documentaries, TikTok clips, or even Instagram stories.

Companies, and possibly even social media personalities, will soon need to apply for licensing at least a week before filming begins. Such rules were previously applicable only to dramas, telemovies, and advertisements.

All filming requires a license from the National Film Development Corporation (Finas), even for personal social media, Communications and Multimedia Minister Saifuddin Abdullah announced in parliament this morning.

All filmmakers, whether theyre film agencies or social media channels, are required to seek approval from Finas at least seven days prior to the date of filming, he added.

The shocking announcement came amid an ongoing probe by the Communications and Multimedia Ministry into whether the Qatari news channel had obtained a license to film the Locked Up In Malaysias Lockdown documentary that drew backlash from the government.

Not having a license would risk losing its media accreditation, Saifuddin had said previously. The documentary focused on the lives of migrant workers under lockdown due to COVID-19.

Last night, the Qatari news channel criticized the governments probe, saying that it was contradicting itself as the documentary in question had not required a filming license based on existing rules.

Al Jazeera asserts that, according to the Malaysias National Film Development Corporations own definition, the 101 East weekly current affairs show does not fall into the category of film requiring a license, a statement by Al Jazeera English Managing Director Giles Trendle read.

Unable to contest the integrity of our journalism, we believe the authorities are now attempting this new gambit of claiming we did not have a proper license, it added.

We do not believe this is a credible line of argument. In fact, we believe it is contradicted by the very own published guidelines of the relevant authority.

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Statement by Al Jazeera regarding licensing in Malaysia. Photo: Al Jazeera PR /Twitter

Saifuddin said that the new film licensing rule will also apply to personal content on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, covering all types of video content of any duration including documentaries and short films.

Filmmakers are required to apply for the license. It doesnt matter whether theyre film agencies for traditional platforms, or personal accounts that publish film content on social media, he said.

He did not clarify when the new rule would take effect. There are no updates on amendments to the Communications and Multimedia Act on the online Federal Gazette.

The 26-minute Locked Up In Malaysias Lockdown aired on July 3 and after that drew criticism from the government for being misleading.

Yesterday, the Communications and Multimedia Commission, or MCMC, announced that the Astro television network was fined RM4,000 (US$940) over the 2015 broadcast of a documentary about the murder of Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu via the Al Jazeera news channel.

The commission said that the documentary was offensive under the Communications and Multimedia Act.

Other stories to check out:

Astro slapped with RM4,000 fine for offensive 2015 docu on Altantuyas murder

Probe into Al Jazeera undermines freedom of speech: CIJ

Keyboard warriors in online war with Al Jazeera over COVID-19 documentary

This article, Malaysia now wants all media companies (and vloggers) to obtain licensing for any video content, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. Want more Coconuts? Sign up for our newsletters!
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 14:36:03|Editor: huaxia

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ROME, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The earliest coronavirus strains spreading in Italy's Lombardy region did not come directly from China, according to a new study.

After analyzing more than 300 blood samples of COVID-19 patients from Lombardy between February and April, researchers found that the variant of the virus is observed frequently in European countries, such as the Netherlands, Switzerland and France, but seldom observed in China, said a non-peer-reviewed paper published Monday on medRxiv.org, a preprint server for health sciences.

Italy was the first country in the world that suspended all flights from China after its outbreak of COVID-19 in December last year. But the genome sequencing suggested "a transmission chain not directly involving China," researchers led by Professor Carlo Federico Perno of Milan University said in the paper.

The researchers analyzed the whole genome sequencing of 371 samples collected from 371 patients with varying disease symptoms, ranging from mild to severe, residing in all 12 provinces of Lombardy, which has reported more than a third of COVID-19 cases in Italy.

They found the strains belong to two separate lineages, each playing a dominant role in some provinces, but they "did not contain viral strains isolated in the first months of the outbreak in China."

There could have been "multiple introductions" of the coronavirus to the Lombardy region, said these researchers, adding that these strains formed relatively isolated clusters in different areas. The viruses may have come from Central Europe, where strains with similar mutations had been detected, according to the study.

The paper suggested that these strains may have entered Italy in the second half of January, one month before the first COVID-19 case was found in Codogno, Lombardy on Feb. 20.

According to a report by Sputnik also released on Monday, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) found that there were at least 67 coronavirus strains spreading in different Russian cities between late February and early March.

After analyzing the genome sequencing of collected samples, the researchers found that the viruses causing COVID-19 outbreak in Russia were mainly from Europe instead of China, Skoltech said to Sputnik. Enditem
Hamburg (AFP) - A German court will give its verdict Thursday in the high-profile trial of a former Nazi concentration camp guard, 93, accused of complicity in the murder of thousands of people during World War II.

In what could be one of the last such cases of surviving Nazi guards, Bruno Dey stands accused over his role in the killing of 5,230 people when he was a SS tower guard at the Stutthof camp near what was then Danzig, now Gdansk in Poland.

If convicted, he could face several years in prison, a sentence which his defence lawyer said he "would not survive".

In his last statements to the court, Dey apologised to victims but underlined that he had been forced into his role at the camp.

"Today I would like to apologise to those who went through the hell of this madness, as well as to their relatives. Something like this must never happen again," he said from the dock.

He said he was "shaken" by witness accounts from Stutthof, where tens of thousands of people died from illness, malnutrition and murder by gas chamber and surprise execution.

But he added that he only became aware of the "extent of the atrocities" upon hearing witness testimonies and reports.

Chief prosecutor Lars Mahnke demanded a three-year prison sentence for the 93-year-old, saying he knew about the "state-organised mass murder" happening around him and should have climbed down from the tower and handed in his weapon.

Dey's defence lawyer Stefan Waterkamp has sought an acquittal or a suspended sentence.

- 'No escape' -

Dey is standing trial at a juvenile court because he was aged between 17 and 18 when he served at the camp between April 1944 and April 1945.

Waterkamp, his lawyer, pointed out that such a young man could hardly have been expected to break ranks, and that the teenaged Dey "saw no escape".

He added that as a tower guard, Dey would not have known the extent of the "sadism" and "inhumane conditions" of the camp.

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Dey acknowledged last year that he had been aware of the camp's gas chambers and admitted seeing "emaciated figures, people who had suffered", but insisted he was not guilty even if he expressed regret over the atrocities.

One Stutthof survivor dismissed Dey's apology.

"I'm speechless. I don't want his apology, I don't need it," Marek Dunin-Wasowicz, a 93-year-old camp survivor told AFP via telephone from his home in Warsaw.

- 65,000 deaths -

The Nazis set up the Stutthof camp in 1939, initially using it to detain Polish political prisoners.

But it ended up holding 110,000 detainees, including many Jews.

Some 65,000 people perished in the camp, around 4,000 of them murdered in the gas chambers.

Dey, who now lives in Hamburg, became a baker after the war.

Married with two daughters, he supplemented his income by working as a truck driver, before later taking a job in building maintenance.

He came into prosecutors' sights after a landmark 2011 ruling against former Sobibor camp guard John Demjanjuk on the basis that he was part of the Nazi killing machine.

Since then, Germany has been racing to use that precedent against surviving SS personnel rather than trying to find evidence that they directly committed murders or atrocities.

Courts have since convicted Oskar Groening, an accountant at Auschwitz, and Reinhold Hanning, a former SS guard at the same camp, for complicity in mass murder.

Both men were found guilty at the age of 94 but died before they could be imprisoned.
Advocacy groups are suing the Boston Police Department and Boston Public Schools to make them disclose what student information they have shared with federal immigration authorities.

The Center for Law and Education, Inc., the Multicultural Education, Training, and Advocacy, Inc. and Lawyers for Civil Rights filed two companion lawsuits in Suffolk Superior Court Thursday, one against the police department and another against the school district.

The coalition of organizations submitted public records requests in early February seeking copies of incident reports, intelligence reports and other records sent by the school district to Immigration and Customs Enforcement or to the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, a gang database that has made information available about schoolchildren suspected of gang affiliation. They sought six years forth of records.

The complaint argues both entities failed to fulfill public records requests months after theyre required to under state law. Boston Public Schools Superintendent Brenda Cassellius is also named in the lawsuit.

We want transparency. This is vital, especially given the urgent conversations around BPS Student Privacy Policy, Janelle Dempsey, an attorney at Lawyers for Civil Rights, said in a statement. The Cassellius administration has an opportunity here to solidify its commitment to addressing the deeply-rooted systemic racial issues the Superintendent inherited when she took office last year.

The latest lawsuits accompany an original legal battle between Lawyers for Civil Rights and the school district. Through that lawsuit, Boston Public Schools turned over 135 incident reports that the district shared with the BRIC.

Advocates say school attorneys instructed them to submit a new public records request after saying only the police department had custody of certain records.

The public has a right to know the extent to which schools are sharing information of school children via the BRIC, particularly in this new era of national heightened public scrutiny of police, with urgent calls for accountability to the public which they serve, said Kathleen Boundy, co-director of the Center for Law and Education.

The last response from the city came from Shawn A. Williams, director of public records, on April 30, saying he was reviewing the outstanding requests for records and hopes to get as many resolved as possible.

The department has multiple outstanding public records requests regarding the BRIC, including one from MassLive.

The role of the database came under scrutiny after an East Boston High School student named Orlando was detained by ICE agents following a lunchroom fight. Accused of being an MS-13 member, Orlando was deported to El Salvador in 2017.

Sarah Sherman-Stokes, who represented Orlando, told MassLive that Orlando had no gang ties and entered the United Stares in 2014 to join his father.

In the complaint filed Thursday, advocates argue the delay of the public records is not only illegal, but it prevents the public from understanding how student information ends up in the hands of federal immigration agents.

It is critical that the students rights groups receive the public records requested in a timely fashion as funding of BRIC and the BPS policy relating to the sharing of student information are both under review, the complaint states. Absent this information, the students rights groups and the public at large lack the ability to participate in the discussion of these issues in any meaningful way.

Massachusetts lawmakers are debating police reform bills that would limit what information school employees and school resource officers can share.

The House and Senate bills, including the provisions limiting student data sharing, have sparked criticism from law enforcement officials, their loved ones and other opponents. In testimony submitted to lawmakers last week, several submitted letters stating the bill was packed with hidden provisions to protect drug dealers, human traffickers, gang activity in minority neighborhood schools, organized retail theft and terrorists.

Seeing what appears to be a form letter come up a few times now in the testimony over S.2800/now S.2820, saying the bill would protect drug dealers, terrorists and, among other things, organized retail theft. #mapoli pic.twitter.com/njyttBhAwS  Steph Solis (@stephmsolis) July 18, 2020

Related Content:
London: American actress Amber Heard texted her mother in 2013 that she was heartbroken to discover her then-boyfriend, Johnny Depp, became violent and abusive when high on drugs and alcohol, likening him to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

The texts were read to the High Court in London, where Heard was giving evidence on behalf of the publishers of British tabloid The Sun, who are being sued for defamation by Depp over a 2018 article that labelled him a "wife beater".

Amber Heard outside the High Court in London this week. Credit:AP

Depp, who gave evidence last week, denies all Heard's allegations of violence and abuse and says she assaulted him.

"He's nuts mum. Violent and crazy. I am heartbroken that THIS is who I love," Heard said in one of a series of texts she sent to her mother on a single day in March 2013, which were read out by a lawyer.
23.07.2020 LISTEN

MTN Ghana on Wednesday encouraged its customers to update their Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) details to ensure customer particulars are captured accurately.

In line with this, MTN Ghana will send messages via SMS to enable customers to update their SIM registration details.

Customers would receive messages with a URL link to effect the update.

The SIM update process commenced from June 1st to the end of December 2020, a statement issued and signed in Accra by Samuel Koranteng and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, said.

The statement said the Regulations on SIM registration required a subscriber, for the purpose of registering a SIM, to furnish the network operator or service provider with certain details and an identification document.

It said to ensure that the existing details in MTN's data base were accurate and up-to-date, MTN was inviting both new and existing customers to voluntarily provide their information for identification and validation purposes.

The information being updated includes the customer's name, date of birth, gender, residential or occupational address (physical address), valid ID number and details of a valid national identification document of the customer, it said.

It said to complete the process, a Ghanaian customer would have to provide a valid National ID (e.g. Voter ID, Passport, Driver's License and Ghana Card) whilst a foreign national would be required to update details with their National passport.

The statement said customers, who wished to register or update their details with the National identification card, are advised to do so only at MTN service centers.

The statement said, This exercise is an important regulatory requirement. It will also help us update our customer records to enable us design solutions to suit their needs.

It said MTN Ghana assures customers that their information was safe and protected.

Data privacy and protection is of greater importance to us, the statement added.

---Daily Guide
The former son-in-law of Rolling Stone Keith Richards has died after being hit by a train just two days after he was faced with accusations that he 'tried to look up girls' skirts' in a park.

Dominic Jennings, 45, who was once married to the guitarist's daughter Dandelion, had been arrested by police two days before the tragedy.

He was allegedly confronted by locals in Bognor Regis for 'trying to look up little girls' skirts' and 'coax them away from their parents' in a park.

A picture purportedly of Mr Jennings was also shared online.

Dominic Jennings, 45, who was once married to Keith Richards' daughter Dandelion (pictured on their wedding day), had been arrested by police two days before he died after being hit by a train

Mr Jennings, a carpenter, married Angela (together, centre), the daughter of Richards and his then lover Anita Pallenberg (second left, back row), in a ceremony in 1998

Mr Jennings was killed on the railway track at Chichester station at 7am on Wednesday - just two days after the accusations were made.

Mr Jennings' parents Cyril and Carole and his twin sister Kirsty, known as Koo  who has a daughter Chay  were too devastated to comment about the incident, which occurred on the line between Havant in Hampshire and Barnham in West Sussex.

Dominic Jennings, 45, was allegedly confronted by locals in Bognor Regis for 'trying to look up little girls' skirts' and 'coax them away from their parents' in a park. A picture purportedly of Mr Jennings (pictured) was also shared online

It comes three months after Dandelion, 48, who now uses her middle name Angela, became engaged to Graham Whitney, the father of her children Ava, nine, and Otto, six.

Facebook posts - which have since been deleted - read: 'Old man sat watching the children for over half an hour, was then seen trying to look up little girls' skirts and trying to coax them away from their parents and over to him.

'I confronted him, he then moved to a group of teenage girls at the other end of the park telling them how hot and sexy they were.

'Myself and a mum from the park confronted him again asking if he knew any of the children and what was he doing? He stumbled some b******* about knowing it was wrong.

'We then told him we were calling the police, he then rode off before the police arrived.'

Another post said a man was 'looking under' girls' dresses and 'speaking to them sexually'.

This post featured an image purportedly of Mr Jennings and another of a police car.

Robin Clapton - a friend of Mr Jennings - told The Sun: 'He never, ever, ever displayed any inclination towards young children.

'If he had a problem, he would speak to one of us about it. He didn't have those kinds of problems.'

Mr Jennings, a carpenter, married Angela, the daughter of Richards and his then lover Anita Pallenberg, in a ceremony in 1998. The Rolling Stone paid more than 250,000 for the blessing at his 2million 20-acre home in West Wittering, West Sussex, and walked his daughter down the aisle.

Facebook posts - which have since been deleted - read: 'Old man sat watching the children for over half an hour, was then seeing trying to look up little girls' skirts and trying to coax them away from their parents and over to him'

Another post said a man was 'looking under' girls' dresses and 'speaking to them sexually'

Guests included Ronnie Wood, Jerry Hall, Kate Moss and Marianne Faithfull. The marriage is believed to have disintegrated about a decade ago.

After Mr Jennings' death, Miss Richards posted on Facebook: 'Been laying [sic] awake for hours reflecting on the last 48 hours.

'I will not be hypocritical as my friends and family know that Dominic and myself have been separated for over 10 years and not on pleasant terms but my heart breaks for one of my closest friends Koo Violet and for my goddaughter Chay.

After Mr Jennings' death, Miss Richards posted on Facebook: 'I wasn't going to comment but unfortunately he has been on a downward slope for the last 15 years. I know his family have desperately tried to help but he hasn't accepted it'

Miss Richards (right, pictured in 1998) was known as the 'baby who almost broke up the Stones' after Richards accused Mick Jagger of being her father at a time when both men and Miss Pallenberg were heavy heroin users

'We have been friends for years and we have always supported each other through everything and she has always stuck by me. Dominic was a son, brother and an uncle. My condolences go out to his family and friends.'

She added: 'I wasn't going to comment but unfortunately he has been on a downward slope for the last 15 years.

'I know his family have desperately tried to help but he hasn't accepted it.

'It's a shame it has come to this all over social media but he is not the man you all once knew.

'I must add I meant for his drink and drug problems.'

Miss Richards was known as the 'baby who almost broke up the Stones' after Richards accused Mick Jagger of being her father at a time when both men and Miss Pallenberg were heavy heroin users. She was brought up by her grandparents  Richards' parents Doris and Bert  in Dartford, Kent, because her mother was too hooked on drugs to care for her.

Miss Pallenberg died in 2017.

Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones perform live on stage at Old Trafford in 2018

British Transport Police said of Mr Jennings' death: 'Officers were called to the line in Chichester...following reports of a casualty on the tracks.

'Paramedics also attended, however, sadly, a man in his 40s was pronounced dead at the scene.

'The incident is not being treated as suspicious and a file will be prepared for the coroner.'

Sussex Police has referred Mr Jennings' death to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

A spokesman said yesterday: 'This incident has been the subject of a mandatory referral by the force to the IOPC as there had been some previous recent contact between the man and the police before the incident. We await the IOPC response.'

The IOPC said: 'We have received a referral from Sussex Police regarding a man who died following contact with police.

'The referral will now be assessed to determine if IOPC involvement in any investigation is required.'

If you have been affected by this story, you can call the Samaritans on 116 123 or visit www.samaritans.org

'The baby who almost broke up the Stones': Keith Richards' daughter Dandelion's controversial start to life

By Jemma Carr For Mailonline

Dandelion Richards, the daughter of Rolling Stone Keith Richards and his then lover Anita Pallenberg, was notoriously dubbed the 'baby who almost broke up the Stones'.

She was given the title after Richards accused fellow rolling stone Mick Jagger of being her real father at a time when both men and Miss Pallenberg were heavy heroin users.

Around the time she was conceived  in the summer of 1971  Miss Pallenberg was seriously addicted to heroin, shooting up three times daily while on tour with the band.

Dandelion Richards, the daughter of Rolling Stone Keith Richards (pictured together) and his then lover Anita Pallenberg, was notoriously dubbed the 'baby who almost broke up the Stones'

The Rolling Stone paid more than 250,000 for the blessing at his 2million 20-acre home in West Wittering, West Sussex, and walked his daughter down the aisle (pictured)

When she discovered she was pregnant, Miss Pallenberg asked her rockstar boyfriend's PA to arrange for an abortion.

She asked several times for flights to be booked so she could have a termination back home  but never took them.

Extraordinarily, Richards  who was a doting father when sober  also apparently believed that the baby was fathered by Mick Jagger while he was too fuddled under the influence of heroin to notice.

Dandelion Richards, the daughter of Rolling Stone Keith Richards (left), now uses her middle name Angela

The fall-out from that argument between Jagger and Richards would go on for years.

But in time, everyone accepted that the child was Richards's and after she was born in Switzerland in April 1972, she was placed in the care of his mother Doris and was raised in Dartford, Kent.

In 1998, Miss Richards wed carpenter Dominic Jennings.

The Rolling Stone paid more than 250,000 for the blessing at his 2million 20-acre home in West Wittering, West Sussex, and walked his daughter down the aisle.

Guests included Ronnie Wood, Jerry Hall, Kate Moss and Marianne Faithfull. The marriage is believed to have disintegrated about a decade ago.
Any white historian who writes a book that touches on the history of Indigenous peoples in the midst of the biggest racial reckoning in generations had better be prepared to defend their qualifications.

Ken McLaughlin, veteran local historian and former University of Waterloo prof, knew this while cowriting Preserving Our Past: The Ormston Heritage House  about the settler origins of Waterloo Region  with Murray Brooksbank.

With history revealed through the prism of a stone heritage dwelling built for Brooksbanks British descendent in the 1840s, he could hear outraged critics in his head, telling him its not the right moment, to back off, Jack.

The purpose of the book is not to tell history merely through the eyes of white settlers, he points out, determined to follow the local history muse that has fuelled his research since 1970.

Its to allow readers to better understand the challenges and decisions that were made by Indigenous leaders and people like Sir Frederick Haldimand, John Graves Simcoe and Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) in another place and another time.

Politics, he says, isnt the point.

Yes, his book dutifully records that in 1784 the Six Nations Haudenosaunee were recipients of the Haldimand Tract, a swath of government-purchased land that included 10 kilometres on each side of the Grand River, to acknowledge the loss of their traditional lands and role as British allies.

But thats because when Mohawk leader Brant sold portions of it to white settlers, with 60,000 acres to Mennonite pioneers, it defined Waterloo Township for generations.

In its own way I believe the book offers a window into other lives in other times, notes the respected heritage advocate. And it does so from their values, not ours.

As he sorted through two centuries of documents, photos and archival letters, it became clear that despite his desire to stick to historical accounts untethered from modern-day realities, there was no way to avoid them completely.

The most challenging aspect was to look beyond the current political debates and to understand the past as it was lived by real people facing decisions consistent with their needs and worries, insists McLaughlin.

I was particularly fond of the letters from the Petworth (British) immigrants  men and women  as they described their experiences, challenges and dreams. At no time did I seek to evaluate the larger success or failure of this scheme of assisted emigration, but to understand the lives first hand of those families who came here.

His particular focus: the Ormston Heritage House on New Dundee Road, which serves as a touchstone for generations.

In the case of the Ormston home and property we can follow its history from this tract of land being set aside for the Six Nations Haudenosaunee and their difficult decision to offer it for sale, to the lives of those who settled here in the early 19th century, to its recognition in the 21st century as a heritage site.

McLaughlin, a dispassionate man who weighs his words carefully, understands that in the era of Black Lives Matter, perceptions (and descriptors) matter.

When you asked about telling history through the eyes of white settlers, it reminded me of how easily we use certain words and the bias they unconsciously reflect about our own time, he emails me a day after our initial interview.

In days past, we would have described the people coming to establish new lives in Upper Canada as settlers. It never occurred to me to question that the adjective white is loaded with unfair and unfounded implications.

History, he says, is a complicated muddle, and attempts to depict it otherwise ignore the nuances of human behaviour.

I often lament that so few people try to understand the complexity of life in another period and instead try to impose their own values on people who lived at other times.

I tried to give insight into how people made decisions, not whether they were good or bad.

Case in point: the troubled relationship between Upper Canadas Lt. Gov. Simcoe and Mohawk leader Brant, engaged in an ongoing dispute over Six Nations rights to sell their own land (and determine their own fate).

When we came to Black Lives Matter, I recalled reading the entire set of Simcoes papers to understand the issues he faced trying to resolve his relationship with Brant and his understanding of the plight of the Six Nations seeking to build new lives here, notes McLaughlin.

What no one seems to mention is that in 1793  almost as its first legislative act  Simcoes newly established and very formative government also passed legislation prohibiting the importation of slaves into this province, probably the first government in the English-speaking world to do so.

Not the abolition of slavery, but in a province with so few inhabitants this is a remarkable step.

The 77-year-old award-winning scholar, who built his reputation writing books about lived local history, is less interested in arcane facts than the way they shaped the communities that arose in their wake.

We tried to let the house tell its own stories, to see the community through the window offered by this historical property, he insists of the classic Ormston property.

This is a unique focus for a history book, but it allows a non-controversial and non-political way to see and understand history.

He pauses reflectively. This is not an impersonal story. The book is replete with life stories of the people we were writing about, so people who live now can understand the community theyre a part of.

Preserving Our Past: The Ormston Heritage House is available at Words Worth Books in Waterloo.
Presidential hopeful Kanye West shared a secret with his audience during a campaign speech in Charleston, South Carolina, tearfully revealing that he and his wife, Kim Kardashian, had considered aborting their first-born daughter.

The 43-year-old rapper claimed that their daughter North West, now 7, was saved when Kanye received a message from God.

Sporting a bulletproof vest and the 2020 shaved into his hair at the July 19 rally, West explained that he was still living the rappers lifestyle when then-girlfriend Kim revealed that she was pregnant in 2013.

She called me screaming, crying, he said, as quoted by Right to Life. For one month, and two months, and three months, we talked about her not having this child. She had the [abortion] pills in her hand.

Kim and Kanye on the red carpet at the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Feb. 9, 2020 (JEAN-BAPTISTE LACROIX/AFP via Getty Images)

Kanye then recalled working on his laptop in Paris when a divine message arrived.

My screen went black and white and God said, If you f*** with my vision, I f*** with yours, the rapper shared. He called Kim and told her that they were going to proceed with the pregnancy together.

The rapper acknowledged the potential backlash from his frank public admission to the gathered crowd. Even if my wife were to divorce me after this speech, she brought North into this world when I did not want to, he said, before breaking down in tears.

She had the pills in her hand, he added. I almost killed my daughter!

Kim carries her daughter, North West, as she and Kanye arrive at the Armenian St. James Cathedral in Jerusalems Old City on April 13, 2015. (AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images)

Kim appeared to endorse her husbands presidential bid when she retweeted his July 4 announcement. But according to a source close to the family, Kim was furious to learn that Kanye had spoken of their daughter at his campaign rally for fear that North would read the comments one day.

Kim is shocked that Kanye spoke about North at the rally, the source told People. She is furious that he shared something so private.

Kim, who shares four children with Kanye, North, 7; Saint, 4; Chicago, 2; and Psalm, 14 months, loves her kids tremendously and wants to protect them, said the source.

Kanye West carries his daughter, North, following a reported baptism ceremony at the Armenian St. James Cathedral in Jerusalems Old City on April 13, 2015. (AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images)

Before leaving the speech, Kanye offered yet another revelation from the West family archives: his father had wanted to abort him, he said, but his mother saved his life.

My dad wanted to abort me. My mom saved my life, he shouted through tears, as quoted by Right to Life. There would have been no Kanye West because my dad was too busy.

Kanye devoted a sizeable portion of the rally to sharing his pro-life, Christian platform, adding that he believed women should be given money by the government as an incentive to bear children. Everybody who has a baby gets a million dollars or something, he suggested. No more Plan B  Plan A.

After Kanye first announced his bid to run in the 2020 presidential election, a source told People that the rapper had suffered both manic and depressive episodes related to bipolar disorder in the past. Right now, he is struggling again, they said.

Kim is concerned, as well as her whole family, the source added. The episodes usually last for a few weeks and then things go back to normal; Kim hopes it will be the same this time.

We would love to hear your stories! You can share them with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.nyc
SEATTLE, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CancerConnect a leading online destination for cancer patients and their caregivers seeking information and support in the wake of a cancer diagnosis experienced a doubling of patient traffic during first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic to over 80,000 unique monthly visitors

Cancer patients often feel alone and isolated following a cancer diagnosis and the pandemic has exacerbated this experience and increased this isolation and anxiety. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly altered how existing cancer patients interact with the health care system. Clinic visits are often postponed, treatment is altered or delayed, and patients are uncomfortable visiting their doctor.

Cancer care like many other parts of the economy will be transformed by the Pandemic  perhaps ultimately for the better. Both Telemedicine and Provider offered social support networks have been in existence for several years and the pandemic has created an explosion in their use.

The CancerConnect social network has provided cancer patients a thriving, physician moderated community with in-depth information and support to meet individual needs related to a cancer diagnosis since 1997. Patients need for support has become even more evident as access to traditional resources has been limited during the COVID at the exact time that support and information was most needed.

As the chief moderator of the community it has been inspiring to see how CancerConnect has provided a safe environment for patients to share information, support and solve problems during the COVID. Problems being solved by doctors in one part of the U.S. are being rapidly shared to the rest of the country by their patients via a network of over 50,000 cancer patients in the community. Patients in Boston describe solutions being offered to individuals in Georgia who share them with other patients and their doctors. Patients share practical information about where to get prescriptions filled, strategies to stay on treatment, how to interact with a doctor via Telemedicine, where to access masks and testing, and where virtual second opinions are being offered. Most importantly they provide emotional support, encouragement, and inspiration to each other. As one individual from Tennessee recently shared with a woman in New York;

"Having the opportunity to engage with you and others on cancerconnect has helped me beyond belief and provided the support and inspiration I need to carry on during this lonely and isolated time."

In addition to providing cancer patients and their caregivers CancerConnect publishes daily cancer news and offers interactive programs like The Ask The Expert Series in partnership with The Personalized Medicine Foundation where patients can interact directly with leading care providers to learn about their treatment options.

About CancerConnect

CancerConnect has been providing support and information to over 1 million cancer patients annually for 21 years. As a physician moderated online support community and rich information resource, CancerConnect provides patients and caregivers a trusted destination to learn about the management of cancer and a community where cancer patients both derive and provide support. CancerConnect can be accessed directly or through leading cancer care providers including Harvard  Dana Farber, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, UCSF, Beth Israel Deaconess, The Ohio State James Cancer Inst, NYU Perlmutter and a number of community clinics and advocacy groups.

Contact [email protected]

SOURCE CancerConnect
Uttar Pradesh police arrested a 'Love Jihad' accused named Shamshad after a brief encounter in Meerut on Thursday (July 23). Police have recovered a pistol, two live bullets and a motorcycle from Shamshad's possession.

Shamshad is accused of murdering a mother-daughter duo was murdered and burying then at their home in Meerut. The incident came to light after the woman's friend Chanchal filed a missing complaint with the local police station. Chanchal went to the police after she failed to get in touch with her friend for over three months.

Shamshad is accused of marrying the woman identified as Priya by changing his name and hiding his religious identity from the woman. According to police, Shamshad fooled Priya by claiming that he is a Hindu remained in a live-in relationship with Priya and her daughter Vanshika for around five years. Shamshad told Priya that his name was Amit but when Priya realised that Shamshad is actually a Muslim she started drifting away from him. The couple started fighting continuously and on March 28, Shamshad killed both Priya and Kashish. Shamshad then buried the bodies of Priya and Kashish in the courtyard of their home.

It is learnt that police had questioned Shamshad in this case and was taking him to a place for further probe when Shamshad had escaped from police's custody. Police had announced a reward of Rs 25,000 on Shamshad. It is learnt that Shamshad's first wife has also been named as an accused in this case and she is also absconding. Police is conducting raids to nab her. Shamshad belongs to Meerut.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday called upon the US industry to take advantage of the scale, opportunities and recent reforms in India by investing in sectors as diverse as space and healthcare.

Addressing the India Ideas Summit hosted by the US-India Business Council via video conferencing, Modi said that there has never been a better time to invest in India.

"India is contributing towards a prosperous and resilient world through the clarion call of 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat'. And for that, we await your partnership," he said.

"Today, there is global optimism towards India. This is because India offers a perfect combination of openness, opportunities and options. Let me elaborate. India celebrates openness in people and in governance. Open minds make open markets. Open markets lead to greater prosperity. These are principles on which both India and the US agree," the Prime Minister said.

Modi also said that India is emerging as a land of opportunities.

"Recently, an interesting report came out in India. It said that for the first time ever, there are more rural internet users than even urban internet users. Imagine the scale. There are about half a billion active internet users in India now. Half a billion connected people. Does this sound huge to you? Hold your breath.

"Because, there are over half a billion more people who are being connected. Opportunities in technology also include opportunities in the frontier technologies of 5G, Big data analytics, Quantum computing, Block-chain and internet of things," the Prime Minister said.

Modi also pointed out the extensive options to invest in India.

He cited sectors such as agriculture, aviation, insurance and finance, defence and space, among others, which offer long-term sustainable returns and scale.

Exhorting investors, he said that tapping into the country's food processing, aviation and power industry can be beneficial for them as key reforms have been carried out in these sectors.

"India has done historic reforms in the agriculture sector recently. There are investment opportunities in agricultural inputs and machinery, agriculture supply chain management, ready-to-eat items, and fisheries and organic produce. India's food processing sector is expected to be worth over half a trillion dollar by 2025.

"To grow more streams of revenue, the best time to tap investment opportunities in Indian agriculture sector is now. India invites you to invest in healthcare. The healthcare sector in India is growing faster than 22 per cent every year," he said.

Modi also talked about investment opportunities for US companies in the country's energy sector as India evolves into a gas-based economy.

On a lighter note, the Prime Minister said: "I have given you a few options and that too without any consultancy fees."

In terms of FDI inflows, the Prime Minister revealed that India attracted $20 billion in foreign capital during April-July despite the Covid pandemic.

FDI inflows in India in 2019-20 were $74 billion, he said.

"But, India offers many more opportunities. We have what is needed to power the global economic recovery," Modi said.

"The rise of India means a rise in trade opportunities with a nation that you can trust, a rise in global integration with increasing openness, a rise in your competitiveness with access to a market which offers scale, and a rise in your returns on investment with the availability of skilled human resources,"m he added.

In addition, the Prime Minister said that the US and India are natural partners as both are vibrant democracies with shared values.

"Now it is time our partnership plays an important role in helping the world bounce back faster after the pandemic," he said.

"American investors often look out for the perfect timing to enter a sector or a country. To them, I would like to say: There has never been a better time to invest in India," the Prime Minister added
Opening up an entirely new angle amid the explosive revelations of actor Kangana Ranaut on nepotism in Bollywood and Sushant Singh Rajput's suicide case, BJP Vice president Baijayant Jay Panda said that some Bollywood celebrities have verifiable links to ISI and Pakistan army. Urging the Bollywood stars to renounce such links, he on Thursday said that their funding also used to come from Pakistan. Terming it as mafia, the BJP leader said that there is a 'mafia operating with Pakistan' and it looks like these connections still exist. Moreover, he added that friends of many celebrities have pictures with Pakistan Generals & ISI.

Bollywood had connections with mafia operating with Pakistan, their funding also used to come from there. It looks like these connections still exist. Friends of many celebs have pictures with Pak Generals & ISI. They should renounce such links: BJP National VP Baijayant Panda pic.twitter.com/zEKfpaMrkZ  ANI (@ANI) July 23, 2020

READ | BJP's Jay Panda urges Bollywood to renounce celebs with 'verifiable ISI, Pakistan links'

Speaking exclusively with Republic Media Network's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami on Wednesday, Panda urged Bollywood personalities to cut links with individuals having ISI links. Elaborating on his tweet which created a buzz on social media, Panda mentioned that he had received feedback on the connection of people having ISI and Pakistan Army links with Bollywood. He added that there were multiple threads on Twitter containing photographic evidence of persons urging people to commit violence in Jammu and Kashmir. According to him, such individuals were seen partying with Bollywood personalities.

READ | BJP's Jay Panda opens up on Bollywood personalities' alleged links with 'ISI handlers'

He added, "There is more than one thread that gives some photographic evidence of some NRIs and some Pakistani people living in Western countries. They have two kinds of track records- one, on social media, they are urging people to commit violence, and secondly, have been shown in Pakistan Army camps. And, they are shown partying and having business links with Bollywood personalities."

Panda refuted the notion that Bollywood stars can be insulated with cultivating such relationships at a juncture when the Pakistani military establishment was sending terrorists to kill Indians. Giving them the benefit of doubt, he asserted that the Bollywood personalities are patriotic. At the same time, he asked them to dump these "ISI handlers" and cut all links with them.

READ | Kangana Ranaut shows 'Chhichhore' smashed 'Gully Boy'; asks Police to probe 'flop' verdict

READ | Anubhav Sinha says, 'I hereby resign from Bollywood'; Hansal Mehta, Sudhir Mishra react


Ranvir Shorey Opens Up About Going Through Professional And Social Isolation In The Film Industry

On being asked by a Twitter user to take inspiration from Kangana Ranaut and publicly name the saboteurs of the industry, Ranvir replied, "I don't take any names cause I have no evidence to prove their complicity! But the reason I speak is, I went through the same professional & social isolation, bad mouthing & lies in the press, and psychological trauma from 2003 to 2005 with the same people who are now involved."

Ranvir Shorey Claims He Was Even Forced To Leave India

He said that things got so bad that he was even forced to leave India at one point. He said that the only reason he was not completely broken was because he had the support of his friends and family.

Ranvir tweeted, "The despair I went through at the time was enough to break me, but I survived thanks to my family and a few friends. I even had to leave the country because of how toxic the environment got for me. Coincidence? No. Modus operandi? Yes," further adding that he was around 33 years old at that time.

Earlier, In An Interview, Ranvir Had Revealed That He Felt Like Quitting The Hindi Film Industry Many Times

While speaking with Siddharth Kanan, the actor had admitted that he has considered quitting the film industry many times, and added, "What keeps me going is that this is the work that I love the most. You sometimes work without money too, for the work itself, like doing theatre and zero-budget films. What keeps you going is the love and passion for the work."

Ranvir Shorey Had Also Spoken About Being Ignored At Award Shows

"You get an idea. When you talk to the audience, you get a feeling of how well the film had done, how well your role was received. For awards shows, I don't exist. Barely. Only when they absolutely cannot hide their faces, they nominate me," the actor was quoted as saying.
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Bail for ex-Fortis Healthcare promoter Shivinder Singh in money laundering case

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, July 23: The Delhi High Court Thursday granted bail to former Fortis Healthcare promoter Shivinder Mohan Singh in a money laundering case related to alleged misappropriation of funds at Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL).

Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani, who pronouced the order through video conferencing, granted the relief to Shivinder in furnishing of a person bond of Rs one crore and two sureties by family members of Rs 25 lakh each.

ED arrests Shivinder Singh in RFL PMLA case

The judge also directed the investigating officer of the ED to request the Bureau of Immigration to open LOC in Shivinder's name to prevent any unannounced exit from the country.

The high court imposed various other bail conditions on him, including that he shall not tamper with the evidence or influence witnesses, directly or indirectly.

He was arrested in the money laundering case last year.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

The high court had reserved its order on the bail plea on July 16 after hearing arguments from the counsel for Shivinder and Enforcement Directorate (ED).

ED had opposed the bail plea saying that in the present case, money was diverted through a complex web of transactions and finding the trail was not easy.

RFL is a group firm of REL - Religare Enterprises Ltd, which was earlier promoted by Malvinder Singh and his brother Shivinder Singh.

The EOW registered an FIR in March last year after it received a complaint from RFL's Manpreet Suri against Shivinder, Godhwani and others, alleging that loans were taken by them while managing the firm but the money was invested in other companies. ED lodged a money laundering case based on this.
Burma Myanmar Military to Investigate Soldiers for Rape of Rakhine Woman

The rape victim. / Min Aung Khine / The Irrawaddy

SITTWE, RakhineThe Myanmar military is conducting an internal investigation into the alleged rape of a woman in Rakhine States Rathedaung Township by three military personnel, according to Major General Tun Tun Nyi of the militarys Tatmadaw True News Information Team.

The 36-year-old woman from Uga Village in Rathedaung filed a complaint with Sittwe Police Station on July 10, reporting she was raped by three Myanmar military soldiers at gunpoint. The police station accepted the complaint and opened cases for rape, abduction with the intent to rape and aiding and abetting rape.

We are conducting an investigation according to procedures and the police station that has accepted the complaint of the victim will also do police work according to their procedures, Maj-Gen Tun Tun Nyi told The Irrawaddy.

He added that the military will cooperate fully with relevant organizations to find out the truth.

Police Major Zaw Naing, head of the Sittwe Township Police Force, said an investigation is underway.

What I can say for the time being is that we are carrying out an investigationthis is all we can say. We cant say how many witnesses we are interviewing, the police major told The Irrawaddy.

Lawyer Daw Mya Thuzar from the Sittwe branch of Legal Clinic Myanmar is acting on behalf of the victim and called for an impartial investigation into the case.

Only the police can do an investigation, but outsiders arent allowed. Outsiders cant monitor the investigation. We want the truth to be established impartially, said Daw Mya Thuzar.

According to Rakhine Womens Network chair Daw Nyo Aye, police have questioned around 20 people in Uga.

Local residents of Uga said that Myanmar military troops arrived in their village around 6 p.m. on June 29 and stayed overnight. When the soldiers arrived, male villagers fled, fearing that they might be arrested on suspicion of having ties to the Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic armed group fighting the Myanmar military in northern Rakhine.

The victim hid in her house together with five other women and three children. Three soldiers were staying the night at her neighbors house. They summoned her for interrogation and then raped her at gunpoint, she said.

The Myanmar military has denied the accusations of rape. In its statement on July 2, the Tatmadaw True News Information Team said Myanmar military troops arrived at Uga Village around 7 p.m. on June 30 and left the village around 8 p.m. to stay overnight in the mango plantations some 250 m north of the village.

It added that troops then entered the village around 6 a.m. the following day, asked for information about the AA and left for the mountains to the north of the village around 8 a.m.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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FORMER President of the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA), Bice Osei Kuffuor, popularly known as Obour, has joined force with some leading members of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) who lost in the just ended primaries to campaign for president Akufo Addo in the forthcoming December general elections.

In June this year, Obour contested in the party's primaries and lost to the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) for the Asante Akyem South Constituency, Asante Boateng.

He has joined other candidates who also lost in the primaries to launch a movement aimed at mobilizing grass root supporters of the party across the country to campaign for the party and help in its bid to retain power at the December polls.

The movement, dubbed, Aspirants Unite for Victory (#AspirantsU4Victory), has some influential party members spearheading it. They include Kennedy Kwasi Kankam (Nhyiaeso Constituency), Ben Abdallah Banda (Offinso South Constituency), Abibata Shanni Mahama Zakariah (Yendi Constituency), Ken Kuranchie (Okaikoi North Constituency), Mark Assibey-Yeboah (New Juaben South Constituency) and Seth Kwame Acheampong (Mpraeso Constituency).

In an interview with DAILY GUIDE, Bice Osei Kuffour noted that many big names in the party including sitting MPs with huge following, all lost their seats at the primaries and not everyone had come to terms with the defeat, saying, it was not good for the party as it prepared to go into elections.

He therefore urged followers of the party to register in the ongoing voters' registration exercise and vote massively for the NPP come December 2020.

Speaking on the need to retain President Akufo-Addo in power, Mr. Kankam, who ran and lost at the Nhyiaeso Constituency, explained that Ghana was on the verge of tremendous turnaround which would give rise to an economic renaissance.

We are on the verge of tremendous turnaround in Ghanas development, especially on the economy, education, agriculture, etc. In the next few years everyone will see an economic renaissance. The more reason for continuity, he stressed.

Recounting how the movement was birthed, Mr. Kankam said a number of the defeated aspirants had so many calls in their respective constituencies pushing for them to go independent.

A lot of their keen followers also threatened to vote for the opposition in a skirt-and-blouse manner, a situation which led to the formation of #AspirantU4Victory Movement

---Daily Guide
For the families of people who died in nursing homes and assisted living facilities in New York, the political friction overshadowed the importance of seeking accountability for deaths that they believe were preventable.

Many were outraged when the state included the immunity provision in the budget. Advocates called it among the most restrictive protections against lawsuits in the country.

Having liability can cause a facility to be more diligent and prevent incidents occurring that will cost them money, said Susan M. Dooha, the executive director of the Center for Independence of the Disabled. The preventive power of liability has been muted.

Under the budget provision, health care facilities and their employees were protected from civil or criminal liability for the duration of the coronavirus emergency, which Mr. Cuomo declared on March 7 and is still in force.

The legal immunity did not cover gross negligence or intentional criminal misconduct, but would most likely cover a variety of other scenarios, including harm that arose from a shortage in staffing or protective equipment.

The provision was fought for and celebrated by industry lobbyists like the Greater New York Hospital Association, which has close ties to Governor Cuomo and has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic campaign committees in Albany in recent months (as well as lesser amounts to committees for Republicans, who sit in the minority in both legislative chambers).

Under Mr. Kims bill, that immunity would be modified to allow legal action if it could be argued that a health care facility or health care professional had failed to prevent a patient from contracting the coronavirus, or had not tried to safeguard them from infection.
23.07.2020 LISTEN

Some aggrieved customers of First Allied Savings and Loans in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region, who have their funds locked up, have besieged the premises of Otec FM, a private radio station in Kumasi, to protest against the Receiver, who has been mandated to pay them.

They said the receiver, whom the government has given the money to pay, has refused to honour his payment promise at the end of June this, a situation the customers believe the Receiver "wants to use his intelligence to cheat them.

The customers, who were in their furious mood, said they have been validated by the Bank of Ghana (BOG), the receiver has admitted been paid by the government and wondered why the receiver is playing hide and seek and have thus threatened to picket at the BOG in Accra for their money.

The customers, numbering about a hundred, were at the Otec FM premises to intervene in what they described as the receivers failure to pay them back their investment.

The receiver promised to pay us our investment at the beginning of July this year but till now we havent gotten our money. I invested GHC90, 000, I have been validated but havent gotten any sign of recovering my investment. I will go to Accra and sleep there, a customer swore.

As a waitress, I have been able to deposit GHC7, 642 in these times of economic hardship. President Nana Akufo Addo has not been fair to us at all. He is sound, eating and sleeping while we are suffering. If indeed he has given the receiver money to pay us, he should order him immediately to pay us, else, we will be joining him at the Jubilee House, a crying customer threatened.

Watch video below:
The Bono regional minister has lapped praises upon the ministry of local government and rural development (MLGRD), following the latters ongoing second phase disinfection, fumigation and cleaning of markets, lorry parks and other public places across the country.



According to the minister, the exercise  a collaboration between MLGRD and Zoomlion Ghana Limited (ZGL) -- will go a long way to help fight the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in the region, and the country as a whole.



Mrs Evelyn Ama Kumi-Richardson made the commendation while addressing the media during the launch of the exercise at the Sunyani Municipal Assembly, Sunyani, in the Bono Region on Thursday.



The regional minister was particularly happy that the MLGRD had heeded their plea for a periodic disinfection to be carried out in their markets.



We are happy the local government ministry has heard our cry and come to disinfect and fumigate our markets for the second time which we are witnessing today [July 23, 2020]. We believe the disinfection of our markets will go a long way to combat the coronavirus pandemic, she said.



Mrs Kumi-Richardson indicated that though the virus has come to stay, the region would do everything humanly possible to curb it from further spread.



"...beacuse if we are healthy that is when we experience development and progressiveness," she noted.



Against this background, she encouraged the residents to cooperate and lend their support to make sure that the markets, lorry parks and public toilets were safe and healthy.



She also used the opportunity to remind people in the region to continously observe the COVID-19 safety protocols.



The exercise was carried out simultaneously in the 12 districts of the region, and witnessed the disinfection and fumigation of over 100 markets.



To ensure a successful execution, Zoomlion deployed fogger atomisers, spraying gangs, boom atomisers, drones among other logistics. The military participated by providing security for the workers.



From the Everyday Market and the Main Lorry Station through to the Wednesay Market and Nana Bosoma Market in Sunyani, the Zoomlion disinfection crew sprayed the markets, their open spaces and lorry parks.



The exercise, which began at exactly 7:30 a.m., would end today (Friday, July 24, 2020,) with a huge clean-up operation in all the markets, lorry stations and public toilets.



For his part, the Commanding Officer of the 3BN, Sunyani, Lieutenant Colonel John Yaw Kwarteng, who took part in the exercise, said the military was part of a task force comprising other security personnel and "as part of our job we educate the residents on the need to observe the COVID-19 preventive protocols."



"In our patrols, we also give nose masks to residents who do not have them, all in an effort to ensure compliance with the protocols," the Lt. Col. Kwarteng disclosed.



However, it was observed that many of the market women, petty traders and taxi drivers were not aware of the exercise.



According to them, the municipal assembly did not communicate any such exercise, leaving many of them unprepared, and for that matter unhappy.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The country has recorded over 400,000 coronavirus cases, fifth-highest in the world, and more than 6,000 deaths.

South Africas public schools will close again for a month from Monday to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus as the country grapples with surging infections, President Cyril Ramaphosa has said.

The country has now recorded 408,052 coronavirus cases, the fifth-highest in the world, and more than 6,000 people have died from the virus.

Rising infections have caused concern among teaching staff, with unions calling on the government to revoke its decision to reopen schools for certain grades in June.

Cabinet has decided today that all public schools should take a break for the next four weeks, Ramaphosa said on Thursday during an address to the nation, adding that the academic year that is due to end in December would be extended.

Schools will be closed from 27 July and are provisionally scheduled to reopen on August 24.

We have taken a deliberately cautious approach to keep schools closed during a period when the country is expected to experience its greatest increase in infections, Ramaphosa said.

The president also announced an historic 500 billion rand ($30bn) social relief and economic support package to fund the health response and assist those in greatest need.

Africas most industrialised economy is expected to contract by between 6.3 and 7.5 percent due to the pandemic, according to the African Development Bank.

Excess deaths

Meanwhile, Africas top health official said South Africa was seeing a huge discrepancy between confirmed COVID-19 deaths and an unusually high number of excess deaths from natural causes, while the coronavirus is spreading there like wildfire.

A new report by the South African Medical Research Council, released late on Wednesday, shows more than 17,000 excess deaths from May 6 to July 14 as compared with data from the past two years.

The numbers have shown a relentless increase  by the second week of July, there were 59 percent more deaths from natural causes than would have been expected, the report says.

The councils president, Glenda Gray, said the excess deaths could be attributed to COVID-19 as well as other widespread diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis while many health resources are redirected towards the pandemic.

Some South Africans are thought to be avoiding healthcare facilities as fears of the new virus spread and public hospitals are overwhelmed.

The coronavirus storm has indeed arrived, Ramaphosa said on Thursday.

Health workers

One of the countrys nurses was buried on Thursday, the latest of more than 5,000 infected health workers across South Africa.

Duduzile Margaret Mbonane died just a month before her retirement, her husband said. She was 59. Colleagues dressed in white stood at her outdoor memorial and recited the nurses pledge of service.

Some were scared. As I speak now, most of our colleagues are so infected, fellow nurse Lindiwe Yeni said. We looked after people not knowing. We only find that after two or three days. She wants a rapid test for the virus.

The government must assist our nurses with protective clothing, said Duduziles husband, Herbert Mbonane. Maybe my wife wouldnt have died if personal protective equipment were made available in time.

Those on the front lines have been hit hard: The World Health Organization said on Thursday more than 10,000 health workers have been infected in its African region, which is largely sub-Saharan Africa.

WHO Africa chief Matshidiso Moeti said she was not able to say how many health workers, the majority of them nurses, have died. She said 41 million items of personal protective equipment are set to begin shipping from China this weekend.
The Japanese government plans to ease travel restrictions for Vietnam and Thailand as early as late this month as the two Southeast Asian countries have brought their coronavirus outbreaks under control.

The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Wednesday that Japan has held talks with Thailand and Vietnam regarding phased measures toward the resumption of cross-border travel.

As early as late July, Japan will introduce the Residence Track which will restore travel between Japan and the two ASEAN countries.

All incoming travelers are required to spend a fortnights quarantine at home or another designated area to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the Japanese ministry said.

Flights to and from Thailand and Vietnam are set to resume this month with 14-day quarantine periods to be imposed on travelers, Kyodo News quoted Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi as saying at a press briefing on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Business Track, which allows business travelers to conduct business activities in Japans limited areas during the 14-day quarantine period, will be considered later.

We will continue to coordinate with Thailand and Vietnam through diplomatic channels toward commencing this scheme as early as possible and will make an announcement as soon as the arrangement is ready, according to the Japanese ministry.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was quoted by Japanese media as saying on Wednesday that Japan would commence negotiations to resume business travel with 12 Asian countries and territories, including China, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Abe also indicated his government would begin considering conditions of entry for athletes and other individuals involved with the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, due to kick off next year.

Japan has an entry ban in place for 129 countries and territories.

Moving forward, Tokyo plans to progressively ease entry bans for employees of foreign companies in Japan and overseas students who have a status of residence.

The re-entry of foreign residents irrespective of their specific visa status will take place gradually, Abe said.

Roughly 88,000 people, including students and skilled workers who left Japan before the travel ban took effect, will be given priority, with around 11 percent of them being Vietnamese citizens.

As of Thursday, the number of people diagnosed with COVID-19, the respiratory caused by the novel coronavirus, in Vietnam has amounted to 408.

The Southeast Asian nation has recorded no locally-transmitted infection for over three months.

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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin gestures for questions during the daily briefing in Beijing on Thursday. China said "malicious slander" is behind an order by the U.S. government to close its consulate in Houston, Texas, and maintained Thursday that its officials have never operated outside ordinary diplomatic norms. AP-Yonhap



China said Thursday that "malicious slander" is behind an order by the U.S. government to close its consulate in Houston, Texas, maintaining that its officials never operated outside ordinary diplomatic rules.



Foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said the move against the consulate, the first one China opened in the U.S. after the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1979, goes against the basic norms of international relations.



"This is breaking down the bridge of friendship between the Chinese and American people," Wang told reporters at a daily briefing.



He dismissed U.S. allegations of espionage and intellectual property theft, calling them "completely malicious slander."



The U.S. on Tuesday ordered the consulate closed within 72 hours, alleging that Chinese agents had tried to steal data from facilities in Texas, including the Texas AM medical system and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.



The move was a dramatic escalation of the growing tensions between the world's two largest economies as President Donald Trump directs blame and punitive measures at China ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.



Wang did not comment on speculation about whether a U.S. consulate in China would be ordered closed in response, and which one might be targeted.



"China will surely take necessary measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests," he said, without elaborating.



The U.S. has an embassy in Beijing and consulates in five other mainland cities: Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenyang and Wuhan. It also has a consulate in Hong Kong, a Chinese territory.



Relations between the U.S. and China have nose-dived in recent months over the coronavirus pandemic and disputes over trade, human rights, Hong Kong and Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea.



China's relations with Britain have also become increasingly strained, in part over Hong Kong, a former British colony returned to China in 1997.



Wang criticized the U.K. for opening a pathway to citizenship for up to 3 million residents of the city of 7.5 million people. He said China might stop recognizing the British National Overseas passport that those 3 million hold or are eligible to get.



Britain on Wednesday announced a January start date for new rules that will allow holders of the passport to live and work in the U.K. and eventually obtain citizenship.



China says Britain pledged in an agreement between the two that it would not grant residency to holders of the passport.



"Since the British side violated its commitment first, China will consider stopping recognition of the British National Overseas passport as a valid travel document," Wang said.



Britain adopted the new immigration rules after China imposed a new national security law on Hong Kong at the end of June. U.K. officials said the country would not abandon its responsibilities to the people of its former colony. (AP)




LANSING, MICH. -- Shopping for gear, beer and other Michigan-made goodies now comes with a potential perk: giving back to Michigans great outdoors.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources These Goods Are Good for Michigan campaign features partnerships with businesses seeking to sell products specially designated to raise funds for state parks, trails and waterways.

Since launching in 2017 with its first partner, Traverse City-based winery Chateau Grand Traverse, the campaign has raised more than $100,000 for state park facilities and programs. Over the years the campaign has grown to include other Michigan-made products like beer, outdoors gear and apparel, coffee beans, and even insect repellent.

Its kind of just been an organic growth, said Maia Turek, resource development specialist for the DNR. Every time we add a new partner, several more partners connect with us.

Turek said each partnership begins with a conversation between the DNR and that particular business to find out what aspect of Michigans parks are important to them, such as trail maintenance or accessibility.

Every one of those businesses has chosen something different that they or their staff are passionate about, she said. It feels like matchmaking.

These Goods Are Good products right now include vintage-inspired state park stickers from Yooper Shirts, specialty coffee from M36 Coffee Roasters, and Bob Ross Happy Little Trees themed T-shirts from the company Peninsulas.

Courtesy Michigan DNR

The most recent addition to the line-up was the service Arrive, an outdoors gear rental company now donating 10 percent of its affiliate-link proceeds to Michigan state parks.

The program aims to be a win-win not only for the DNR and their partnering businesses, but also for consumers who love Michigans state parks.

You can feel good about knowing where youre spending money, Turek said. You can feel good about knowing where those funds are going, and that it helps something that youre passionate about as well.

Shoppers can find a list of current partners, which can change from year to year, or even seasonally, on the DNRs These Goods Are Good for Michigan page.

RELATED:

New program lets you rent outdoors gear while supporting Michigan state parks

Safari tents, tiny cottages, geodesic domes join lodging options at Michigan state parks
The Forsyth County Sheriff's Office did not publicly acknowledge Neville's death until June 26, after getting questions from the Winston-Salem Journal. Video of the incident has not been publicly released. The News & Observer of Raleigh has filed a petition for the video, and a hearing is scheduled for July 29 in Forsyth Superior Court.

Kris Neville is the youngest of Neville's three children. Sean Neville is the administrator of his father's estate. Sean Neville and Brienne Thornton, John Neville's daughter, attended a news conference on July 8, along with their attorneys, Michael Grace and Chris Clifton, when Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O'Neill announced the criminal charges.

"I'm one of the three people whose opinions can make legal decisions regarding this entire thing," Kris Neville said on Instagram. "I feel like my opinion and my voice matter substantially and I'm ready to say more. It's important to have the discussion and to make people uncomfortable, especially considering I'm a black person who exists in a lot of white spaces. ... This is not absent from your life as a white person or just a person in general who has not dealt with it. It's important to have the discussion and continue to fight the fight."
Abdul Malik Kweku Baako, Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper, has dismissed reports that the judges who were dismissed following a judicial corruption scandal expose by investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas have been reinstated.



It will be recalled that Anas Aremeyaw Anas, during one of his investigative missions, unearthed a rot in Ghana's judicial system.



Anas' undercover work showed some judges taking bribes to skew their verdict while others also conducted themselves in a manner that brought the judiciary into dispute.



The former Chief Justice, Georgina Wood, instituted a Committee of Inquiry into the issue and found the judges guilty, therefore dismissing them from the courts they presided over.



Kweku Baako, speaking on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo'', stated that he has stumbled on a report recently circulating on social media which claims the judges have been reinstalled to their positions.



According to him, the reports are ''fake news peddled by bogus informants''.



''My checks, specially with the General Legal Council, showed that was actually fake story. And the bloody truth is that the Chief Justice doesn't have the power, authority or mandate to have done what was attributed to him. The truth is none of those dismissed judges has been reinstated'', he added.



He however disclosed a petition was made to the Chief Justice after the judges were dismissed to ascertain if they could practice as lawyers because their dismissal doesn't affect their role as lawyers.



He told host Kwami Sefa Kayi that, after examining the petition, the Chief Justice reissued ''their certificates to practice as lawyers'' and not as judges.



Watch his full submissions below:





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Health Minister Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, has disclosed that government plans to construct new hospitals across the country in the quest to provide quality healthcare for all Ghanaians.

He made this assertion when the President, Nana Akufo-Addo cut the sod for the construction of the Eastern Regional Hospital in Koforidua.

Addressing the gathering, Mr Agyemang-Manu indicated that, it is of much value that the Eastern Region with 11.5% of the country's population and the third most populous region after the Ashanti and Greater Accra be provided with a befitting state of the art ultra-modern health facility to meet the ever-increasing healthcare needs of residents.

He stated that, the 94-year-old regional hospital constructed in 1926 has seen two major structural changes in 1972 and 1998 when additional functional areas were added to expand the scope of services and for that matter, expressing joy about the construction of the new Koforidua regional hospital for the fact that the current functional area of the hospital is woefully inadequate.

He explained that the hospital serves as a referral point for about 16 districts hospitals in the Region with a population of about 3.3 million which is on record that the average daily attendance for 2019 was 927 which suggests the need for the reconstruction to cope with the huge numbers of Ghana.

According to him, the Ministry of Health has made significant progress in addressing the infrastructural gap in the health sector with massive support from the president, Nana Akuffo-Addo.

He said the reconstruction of the Koforidua regional hospital is in fulfilment of government commitment to ensure universal health coverage to all citizens in Ghana in line with government vision under the sustainable development goal.

It is imperative to mention that all these projects are not part of the agenda 88 projects promised by the government to initiate in districts without hospitals. My ministry has full support from the president he said.

He affirmed that government has completed works on a number of health facilities: 10 polyclinics in the central, five in Greater Accra, Upper West regional hospital, and Ga-East district hospital which coincidentally is the current treatment centre for the battle against coronavirus pandemic.

He also revealed district hospitals that have been slated for completion by October this year including, Somanya, Weta in Volta, Akaba, Dupe and Kolon, Bekwai, Tepa, Nsawkaw and Twifo Praso Hospitals respectively.

He added that the retooling and reequipping of four health facilities in Eastern region including, Aburi District Hospital, Tetteh Quarshie memorial hospital in Mampong, Kyebi Government hospital and Atibie hospital are ongoing.

Mr Agyemang-Manu stressed that construction of five health facilities in the Western and Western-North region  Akontomra, Elubo, Bogoso, Tarkwa Nsuaem, Wasa Tarkwa, and the upgrade of Mpohor health facility is on course.

He said, there is a progress in the construction of 15 CHPS compounds and another 26 located in some selected district in regions such as Bono, Central, Eastern, Ashanti, Western-North, Greater Accra and Volta.

He indicated that to further address the infrastructural deficit of the health sector, the government has secured funding to implement a number of projects in 2020 one of them is the sod-cutting ceremony to herald its commencement of the new eastern regional hospital.

He said, aside from the sod-cutting ceremony in the Eastern Region, there would be a similar ceremony in the course of the year to herald the construction and equipping of 12 maternity at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, La General hospital, Sub-regional hospital at Tema, reconstruction of the central medical store, construction of trauma hospitals in Anyinam and Obuasi, refurbishment and reequipping of Enyiresi and Obuasi hospitals, construction of accident and emergency centre at Dormaa hospital, and the Nkoranza district hospital.

He opined that there will be construction of 12 new hospitals in Jumapo, Kwabeng, Nkwatia, Adukrom, Achease, Suame, Drobonso, Sabronom, Manso  Nkwanta, among others.

He added that the government has started the construction of nine comprehensive infectious disease centres in the country which started to fight Covid-19.

---Daily Guide
(TNS)  About 50 computers at SUNY Erie Community College were disabled by a malware attack early Wednesday, interim President Bill D. Reuter said. The attack knocked the college's website offline.No ransom was demanded in the attack that Reuter said was discovered in the early morning hours.He said the attack seems to have affected only "individual Windows-based staff computers" that were connected to the on-campus network, affecting all three ECC locations.Erie County Central Police Services and Emergency Management were contacted after Reuter arrived at his office at 6:45 a.m. He said another law enforcement agency, which he wouldn't identify, also was added to the investigation.Although the damage is still being checked, Reuter said he doesn't believe student data was hacked or lost."The malware has been here for quite a while, lying dormant," Reuter said. "We had a problem (Tuesday) night that they thought was solved."The investigation disclosed that student data was safe because it was in backups, either in servers or in the computer cloud, and those files were not affected by the attack, Reuter said."We believe it's only been affecting our staff computers on campus," he added.Reuter said the college's campuses were closed to everyone except security, maintenance and information technology personnel during the investigation, which will try to determine the source of the malware."I think we're in a pretty good position," Reuter said. "I'm cautiously optimistic we'll have full service by (Thursday) afternoon."He said the State University of New York central office and the University at Buffalo offered assistance after learning of the ECC problem.Three years ago, Erie County Medical Center was hit by a ransomware attack, in which the hackers demanded the equivalent of $44,000 in Bitcoin, an online currency, to unlock the hospital's files.Like the ECC attack, the ECMC computers were hit in the predawn hours.Hospital officials later told The Buffalo News it took six weeks to rebuild their computer system, which was restored through use of an old-school tape backup and access to the regional health care computer network HEALTHeLINK. More than 6,000 computers had been wiped clean of data.But ECMC did not pay the ransom."If you have no backup, you have no choice," ECMC CEO Thomas Quatroche said at the time.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 23, 2020) - After 22 years on the air, BTV-Business Television is proud to be the longest running business program in Canada and thrilled to celebrate its 350th episode.

On national TV Sat. July 25 & Sun. July 26, 2020 -BTV-Business Television features companies in mining, retail cannabis and PPE products sure to pique investors' interest.

Discover Companies to Invest In Click company name to watch their TV feature:

Galiano Gold Inc. (TSX: GAU) (NYSE: GAU) - BTV learns how this precious metals producer was able to transform its balance sheet in Q1 to just under $54 million and no debt.

Inner Spirit Holdings Ltd. (CSE: ISH) - BTV visits this focused cannabis company boasting the largest number of retail cannabis stores in Canada.

Champion Iron Ltd. (TSX: CIA) (ASX: CIA) (OTC Pink: CHPRF) - A company well positioned to meet the soaring demand for iron ore with its high-grade mine in Quebec.

Victoria Gold Corp. (TSX: VGCX) (OTC Pink: VITFF) - BTV follows Canada's newest gold mine now launched into official commercial production.

Maritime Resources (TSXV: MAE) - BTV discovers how this company is advancing the historic Hammerdown gold mine in Newfoundland & Labrador.

Unisync Corp. (TSX: UNI) - BTV finds out how this leading uniform and protective garment provider pivots to meet the soaring demand for PPE products.

BTV-Business Television is Canada's longest running business show. With Hosts Taylor Thoen and Jessica Katrichak, BTV features emerging companies across the country to bring viewers investment opportunities.

BTV BROADCAST TIMES:

CANADA: BNN Bloomberg - Saturday July 25 @ 8:00pm EST, Sunday July 26 @ 4:30pm EST

Bell Express Vu - Saturday July 25 @ 8:00pm EST, Sunday July 26 @ 4:30pm EST

Air Canada: TV Seatback: Business Channel

US National:

Biz Television Network - Sun Aug 2 @ 5:30am, 6pm & 9:00pm PST, Tues Aug 4 @ 5:00pm & 8:00pm PST

Submit a Company for upcoming BTV episodes:

Contact: (604) 664-7401 x3 info@b-tv.com

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To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60333
Bengaluru, July 23 : Shantharam Budna Siddi, a 55-year-old African-origin Siddi tribal, is elated on being nominated as a Karnataka Legislative Council (MLC) member by Governor Vajubhai Vala.

"It is an honour to represent our tribal community in the legislative council but to serve everybody. Service to people is service to God," a beaming Siddi told IANS on phone in Kannada and Hindi from his village Hitalahalli near Yallapur taluk in Uttara Kannada coastal district.

Yellapur is 425 kms northwest of Bengaluru in the southern state.

Siddi is among 5 persons nominated on Wednesday to the upper house to fill vacancies caused after the term of the incumbents lapsed in the 75-member legislative council.

The four others are former ministers A.H. Vishwanath and C.P. Yogeeshwar, academician Talwar Sabanna and BJP women's wing president Bharathi Shetty.

"I am grateful to the state government for giving our community a voice in the legislature and an opportunity to make laws for the benefit of all," said Siddi.

First in the community to graduate in BA, Siddi is the secretary of Vanavasi Kalyana Ashram, which he joined as a young cadre in 1989.

"Though I had an offer to join as a school teacher on graduating, I preferred to do farming in our agriculture field and work for the welfare of my community," Siddi recalled.

Siddi, however, runs a common hostel for tribal boys and girls in his village so that they could study well and become independent.

"The Siddis are an ethnic group who descended from the Bantu-speaking people of South-East Africa and were brought to India by Portuguese merchants 400 years ago," Yellapur local body official D.G. Hegde told IANS.

Though they are a small community of 6,000 people, with a majority of them dwelling in the forest fringes across the Western Ghats, the Siddis have their own identity, language (Siddi bhasha), culture and food habits.

"Like their ancestors, Siddis sport thick curly hair and are dark in complexion. They are strong and healthy. Many of them work as labourers in plantations and agricultural fields," pointed out Hegde.

The state government has recognised the Siddi community as a Scheduled Tribe for extending its benefits, including reservation in education and jobs, besides voting rights.

"As a member of the Western Ghats conservation task force, Siddi has been working for the welfare of other tribal communities like Gaulis and Lambanis in rural and forest areas over the years," added Hegde.
Bruno Dey is convicted for his role in the killing of 5,230 people when he was a teenaged guard at a concentration camp.

A 93-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard has been handed a suspended sentence of two years in prison after a court in Germanys Hamburg found him guilty of complicity in World War II atrocities.

In what could be one of the last such cases of surviving Nazi guards, Bruno Dey was convicted on Thursday for his role in the killing of 5,230 people when he was a teenaged SS tower guard at the Stutthof camp near what was then Danzig, now Gdansk, in Poland.

Judge Anne Meier-Goering said Dey had helped to dehumanise human beings and turn them into numbers.

You still see yourself as a mere observer, when in fact you were an accomplice to this manmade hell, she told him on Thursday.

In his last statements to the court, Dey apologised to victims but underlined that he had been forced into his role at the camp.

Today I would like to apologise to those who went through the hell of this madness, as well as to their relatives. Something like this must never happen again, he said from the dock.

Dey said he was shaken by witness accounts from Stutthof, where tens of thousands of people died from illness, malnutrition and murder by gas chamber and surprise execution.

But he added that he only became aware of the extent of the atrocities upon hearing witness testimonies and reports.

Chief prosecutor Lars Mahnke demanded a three-year prison sentence for Dey, saying he knew about the state-organised mass murder happening around him and should have climbed down from the tower and handed in his weapon.

Juvenile court

Dey stood trial at a juvenile court because he was aged between 17 and 18 when he served at the camp between April 1944 and April 1945.

Deys defence lawyer Stefan Waterkamp pointed out that such a young man could hardly have been expected to break ranks, and that the teenaged Dey saw no escape.

He added that as a tower guard, Dey would not have known the extent of the sadism and inhumane conditions of the camp.

Dey acknowledged last year that he had been aware of the camps gas chambers and admitted seeing emaciated figures, people who had suffered, but insisted he was not guilty even if he expressed regret over the atrocities.

One Stutthof survivor dismissed Deys apology.

Im speechless. I dont want his apology, I dont need it, Marek Dunin-Wasowicz, a 93-year-old camp survivor, told the AFP news agency via telephone from his home in Warsaw.

The Nazis set up the Stutthof camp in 1939, initially using it to detain Polish political prisoners. But it ended up holding 110,000 people, including many Jews.

About 65,000 people perished in the camp, approximately 4,000 of them murdered in the gas chambers.

The precedent

Dey became a baker after the war. Married with two daughters, he supplemented his income by working as a truck driver, before later taking a job in building maintenance.

He came into prosecutors sights after a landmark 2011 ruling against former Sobibor camp guard John Demjanjuk on the basis that he was part of the Nazi killing machine.

Since then, Germany has been racing to use that precedent against surviving SS personnel rather than trying to find evidence that they directly committed murders or atrocities.

Courts have since convicted Oskar Groening, an accountant at Auschwitz, and Reinhold Hanning, a former SS guard at the same camp, for complicity in mass murder.

Both men were found guilty at the age of 94 but died before they could be imprisoned.
This fishing report, provided by Dustin Berg of Go Unlimited (supporting disabled anglers) and the Department of Game & Fish, has been generated from the best information available from area officers and anglers. Conditions encountered after the report is compiled may differ, as stream, lake and weather conditions alter fish and angler activities.

Valid April 1 to March 31; 2020-2021 New Mexico fishing licenses are on sale

A MESSAGE FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF GAME & FISH

The department is continuing to adapt our ways of working to conserve wildlife for all New Mexicans. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, department biologists and conservation officers continue to conduct wildlife surveys; contact anglers and off-highway vehicle recreationists; and stock fish in open waters throughout the state.

Teams are wearing personal protective equipment for everyones safety while working in small groups for maximum social distancing. We ask for your help by following the New Mexico Department of Health public health emergency order by wearing PPE while staying at least six feet away from staff and equipment.

In this weeks report, Berg introduces New Mexico angler and weekly fishing report contributor Eric Ockerhausen.

Ockerhausen likes distancing himself from the crowds while enjoying the solitude of being on the lake. Social distancing has always been high on Ockerhausens priority list, even long before COVID-19. This week, he shares some of his kayak fishing tips and tricks.

Ockerhausen emphasizes that a kayak is good for social distancing and good exercise. He says the nice thing about fishing in a kayak is that as you paddle around and get great exercise while enjoying a day outdoors. Rather than paddle around, then float and cast, Ockerhausen prefers to troll a lure.

There are two types of kayaks that people can buy, hardshell and inflatable. Hardshell kayaks are ridged whereas inflatables can be deflated and folded. You will still need to get a life vest and Ockerhausen insists he would not go kayaking alone. Also, a lanyard is a good purchase to make so that you do not lose your paddle. Ockerhausen uses an inflatable kayak and can fold his deflated kayak and transport it in his car. Once at the lake, he can setup his kayak and be ready to get in the water in about 10 minutes.

Trout fishing was new to Ockerhausen when he moved to New Mexico. Through trial and error, Ockerhausen has found that small Rapala lures, yellow spinners and Pistol Pete flies work well for trolling for trout.

Ockerhausen says not to go out and do the same thing all day. If you are not having any luck after 20 to 30 minutes, change lures, change depth or do both. Keep doing things differently until you find out what works for you. He also suggests that you change the speed you are trolling.

Once out onto the lake, Ockerhausen makes a cast to his side or behind him. He then places the end of the spinning rod and reel between his feet. He lets out fishing line until he has enough line out to reach his desired depth. The fishing rod points towards the rear of the kayak and rests under his arm so that is does not interfere with his ability to paddle. The line is then trolled directly behind the kayak.

Ockerhausen says that it does take a little while to get accustomed to and you must pay close attention to your fishing rod. But eventually, knowing when you have a fish on the line becomes natural. It is also a little different landing a fish from the kayak. This all gets easier the more you do it.

Give kayak fishing a try. Ockerhausen thinks you will enjoy it.

Closure Information

The department reminds anglers it is their responsibility to be aware of closures and contact land managers for properties of interest when restrictions are lifted.

Bureau of Land Management (BLM)  blm.gov/new-mexico

U.S. Forest Service (USFS)  fs.usda. gov/about-agency/covid19-updates

New Mexico State Lands  nmstatelands.org/resources/ recreational-access/

New Mexico State Parks  emnrd.state.nm.us/SPD/

New Mexico Open Gate Properties  wildlife.state.nm.us/hunting/maps/ open-gate-program/

New Mexico Wildlife Management Areas  wildlife.state.nm.us/conservation/ state-game-commission-lands/

Consult local government websites for information regarding specific city and town fishing access.
A 33-year-old Oxford Township man, who faced decades in jail after being convicted of seven of 14 charges against him last August on allegations he sexually abused a child over several years, will serve 15 years in a New Jersey state prison, Warren County Judge H. Matthew Curry ruled on Tuesday.

Justin D. Williams, of the first block of Cambridge East, was convicted of two counts of first-degree aggravated sexual assault when the victim was younger than 13, two counts of second-degree sexual assault when the victim was younger than 13 and three counts of second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, the Warren County Prosecutors Office said in a news release.

While he was actually sentenced to 65 years in prison -- 15 years for each first-degree count and seven years for each second-degree count -- the sentences will run concurrently -- at the same time -- the prosecutors office said. Due to the No Early Release Act applying to all sexual assault counts, Williams must serve the full 15 years, the prosecutors office said.

The sexual assault crimes took place between June 2008, when the child was 6, and 2013 in Washington, Oxford Township and Washington Township, Warren County, the prosecutors office said. The endangering charges cover sexual conduct from June 2013 to June 2015, the prosecutors office said.

Defense attorney Jason Seidman said they are pleased the judge made the sentences concurrent. He also said an appeal is planned due to issues at trial. They believe they can succeed on appeal and are prepared to retry the case, Seidman said.

Williams was being held Thursday morning at Warren County jail, records show. He will be moved at some point to a state prison.

When released after 15 years, he will be on a lifetime of parole supervision -- and have up to 50 years more years behind bars to serve if he violates that status, authorities say. He will also be required to register for life as a Megans Law offender, the prosecutors office said.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting lehighvalleylive.com with a voluntary subscription.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com.
Meet the three women striving to put an end to 26 years of rule by authoritarian Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. They're taking a great personal risk. Hundreds of opposition activists have been arrested and presidential candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya has moved her children out of the country amid concerns for their safety.
With the multilateral trading system facing critical challenges, now could be the time for an African to be the next director-general of the World Trade Organisation

On 14 May, World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General Robert Azevedo announced that he would step down on 31 August, cutting short his second term in office by exactly one year. The organisation then opened the door for respective governments to nominate their candidates between 20 June and 8 July for its new director-general.

Eight candidates have been nominated for the position. The list covers most continents of the world, Africa having three candidates (Egyptian, Kenyan and Nigerian nationals), Asia two (Saudi Arabian and South Korean), Europe two (British and Moldavian) and North America one (Mexican).

While commentators continue to have high expectations of the WTO as a negotiating forum, there are some shortcomings that affect its position as the sole guarantor of the multilateral rules-based trading system. These shortcomings include, inter alia, (1) the increase in regional and bilateral trading agreements and the continued erosion of the rules underpinning the multilateral trading system, an indication of frustration with the WTO; (2) the slow progress of the Doha Round of trade negotiations to the extent that some consider them to be a failure; (3) the standstill of the Dispute Settlement Mechanism and (4) the trade war between the US and China, which no one knows the legal basis of at the moment.

All these shortcomings indicate that there is a lack of adequate capacity to respond to such challenges. The global economic system is also facing critical challenges as a result of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, and Josh Lipsky, director of the global business and economics programme at the Atlantic Council in the US, has stated that there is a broken global trading system, and it needs leadership to fix it.

The Global Governance Programme at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Italy has conducted a survey on Stakeholders Preferences and Priorities for the next WTO Director-General to specify the criteria required for the next director-general of the WTO and areas urgently needing reform.

The respondents gave the greatest weight to four desirable attributes in the organisations next director-general, including (i) management experience; (ii) political experience; (iii) economics training and (iv) experience as a WTO negotiator. Furthermore, the survey concluded that a potential director-general of the WTO should have personal connections and recent professional experience with three types of players, namely (1) international organisations; (2) the capitals of the largest trading powers (Beijing, Berlin, Brussels (EU) and Washington) and (3) international business.

As for areas of reform, the survey indicated that the Dispute Settlement Mechanism is the highest priority issue facing the next director-general of the WTO. There are calls for reforming the settlement of disputes and making the relevant Appellate Body operational again and revisiting the role of appellate review. Improving compliance with notification obligations, resolving differences on special and differential treatment for developing and least-developed countries, and strengthening the trade-policy monitoring process are also areas of concern.

The conclusions reached by the Global Governance Programme are in line with some of the areas of reform called for at a meeting of the full WTO membership on 19 July 2019, in which Azevedo reported that reforms should focus on the three areas of (i) the Dispute Settlement Mechanism, including the impasse in appointments to the Appellate Body; (ii) strengthening the work of the WTOs regular bodies and (iii) improving the WTOs negotiating work.

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has drawn attention to the importance of digital trade or e-commerce, particularly after supply chains and trade logistics suffered paralysis as a result of the lockdowns introduced to slow the spread of the virus nationally and internationally.

Digital trade is one of the most important areas the next WTO director-general should give priority to, in coordination with the organisations member states, particularly as there are agreements that necessitate the use of electronic communications such as the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA). This makes available, through the Internet, descriptions of procedures on importation, exportation and transit, the advance lodging of documents in electronic format for pre-arrival processing, and electronic payments of duties, taxes, fees and charges collected by customs and incurred on imports and exports.

To come back to the key question posed above  will the WTOs next director-general be an African?

Why is Africas chance of winning this position high? There are many reasons that make Africas chance a good one, among them that Africa has not occupied this post since 1948, and it has the second-largest free-trade area in terms of the number of participating countries after the WTO itself in the shape of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Moreover, most least-developed countries (LDCs) are located in Africa, meaning that an African candidate would help to make their voices heard, and the three African candidates (Egyptian, Kenyan and Nigerian nationals) are highly competent and have vast experience.

In short, the multilateral trading system is facing a critical moment that needs two key issues to be addressed, first, the appointment of a new and very highly qualified director-general of the WTO, and second, the reform of the current Dispute Settlement Mechanism and the introduction of new agreements, such as a Digital Trade Agreement as a response to recent developments associated with the Covid-19 pandemic that have harmed the global economic system.

An active and efficient World Trade Organisation is in the interests of all.

The writer is an expert on international trade.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 23 July, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Korea Times President-Publisher Oh Young-jin, left, Gender Equality and Family Minister Lee Jung-ok, sixth from left, and Indian Ambassador to Korea Sripriya Ranganathan, seventh from left, pose with other women ambassadors during a roundtable at The Korea Times office in Jung-gu, central Seoul, July 15. From left are Oh, Adalgisa M. S. Ximenes of Timor-Leste, Mumtaz Zahra Baloch of Pakistan, Rommanee Kananurak of Thailand, Dalila Yasmin Amri Sued of Rwanda, Lee, Ranganathan, Abida Islam of Bangladesh, Dinara Kemelova of Kyrgyzstan and Wendy Carolina Palma De Beckford of Nicaragua. The meeting was organized in cooperation with the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and the Embassy of India in Korea. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



This is the second in a series of articles on roundtables with ambassadors to mark the 70th anniversary of The Korea Times.  ED.



By Yi Whan-woo



"The bulk of responsibility at home still falls on women while they may be in important or powerful positions (in society.)"



That comment from Indian Ambassador to Korea Sripriya Ranganathan had other female envoys burst into spontaneous laughter during lunch, after a roundtable hosted by The Korea Times last week on women's leadership in the COVID-19 era.




NEW YORK, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. ("Oppenheimer")  a leading investment bank, wealth manager, and a subsidiary of Oppenheimer Holdings (NYSE: OPY)  today congratulated five of its financial advisors for their inclusion on the Forbes / SHOOK list of Top Next-Generation Wealth Advisors for 2020.

This prestigious recognition spotlights up-and-coming advisors across the country, representing the future of the industry, who were nominated by their firms. Advisors were selected and assigned a rank according to an algorithm of qualitative and quantitative criteria that included in-person interviews, industry experience, compliance records, revenue and assets under management. Nominees for the Forbes ranking, developed by SHOOK Research, must have a minimum of four years of industry experience.

The Oppenheimer advisors included in the 2020 rankings are:

Christopher Lazos , of New York, N.Y.

, of Andrew Lerner of Boca Raton, FL

of Logan Shalmi , of Boca Raton, FL

, of Justin Gelbman , of Princeton, N.J.

, of Joshua Hayes , of Chicago, IL

Ed Harrington, Executive Vice President of Oppenheimer's Private Client Division, said, "Oppenheimer is pleased to congratulate these five outstanding advisors for their well-deserved inclusion on the 2020 Forbes / SHOOK list of Top Next-Generation Wealth Advisors. Oppenheimer is firmly committed to supporting the growth of our rising financial advisors across the country. They are, in a literal sense, the future of our industry, and our success in serving rising generations of clients is closely related to their ongoing development. We are proud to count Chris, Andrew, Logan, Justin and Joshua as part of our team, and we look forward to continuing to support them and all of our next-generation advisors in the years ahead."

Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.

Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. (Oppenheimer), a principal subsidiary of Oppenheimer Holdings Inc. (OPY on the New York Stock Exchange), and its affiliates provide a full range of wealth management, securities brokerage and investment banking services to high net-worth individuals, families, corporate executives, local governments, businesses and institutions.

Media Contacts:

Joseph Kuo / Michael Dugan

Haven Tower Group

424 317 4851 or 424 317 4852

[email protected] or [email protected]

SOURCE Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.
<! The aid workers executed by Boko Haram gunmen the ISIS way >

By Abankula

President Muhammadu Buhari has confirmed the execution of five aid workers in Borno State, by issuing a statement condemning it.

The executed aid workers were kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists on 29 June.

The Presidents confirmation followed the release of a video by the terrorists showing the killing of five humanitarian workers, the ISIS way.

The workers, who represented the State Emergency Management Agency, Action Against Hunger, Rich International, and International Rescue Committee, were all executed, the video showed.

The insurgents had earlier demanded about 500,000 U.S. dollars ransom before the abducted workers could be released.

Buhari on Wednesday condemned the murder, assuring the government would continue to do all it could to ensure that every remaining vestige of Boko Haram would be wiped out.

The president, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, in Abuja on Wednesday, sympathised with the families of the five aid workers.

He prayed that God would comfort them for their irreplaceable loss.

He assured that the government would continue to do all it could to ensure that every remaining vestige of Boko Haram is wiped out completely from North Eastern Nigeria and that the perpetrators of this atrocity face the law.

Buhari also condoled with the State Emergency Management Agency, Action Against Hunger, Rich International, and International Rescue Committee, whose staff have suffered this gruesome fate.

He thanked them for their continued dedication and service to the victims of Boko Haram in North Eastern Nigeria.

He also assured them that security agencies in the state would work closely with their organisations to implement measures to ensure that no such kidnapping of staff occurs again.

The aid workers were kidnapped while travelling between Maiduguri and Monguno, in Borno State.

They were Lucas Philibuz, who was working with the International Rescue Committee, IRC, Abdulrahman Dungus, of REACH International Initiative and Ishaku Yakubu the Action Against Hunger, AAH.

Others are Abdulrahman Bulama, a camp manager with state emergency management agency, SEMA and Joseph Prince, a local guard with Halogen Security.

The terrorists reportedly demanded a ransom of $100,000 on each of the captive.

Related
A revealed SAS: Who Dares Wins' Ant Middleton bought her a new iPhone 11 after he knocked her mobile out of her hand while they were taking a selfie.

Alice Dickson, a make-up artist from Edinburgh, was out for dinner when she spotted Ant Middleton, 39, and approached him to ask for a picture.

However after taking the picture together Ant accidentally knocked the phone from her hand causing it to smash on the floor.

Alice Dickson, a make up artist from Edinburgh, was stunned when Ant Middleton bought her a new iPhone after he knocked her own mobile out of his hand when taking a selfie (pictured, shortly before her phone was smashed)

Alice took to Twitter to share pictures of the incident and called the SAS: Who Dares Wins star a 'mentally lovely guy'

But soon after the make-up artist said she received an email notifying her that the ex-soldier had purchased her a brand new iPhone 11 with 256GB of storage, which costs up to 880 when bought outright.

The Channel 4 star also bought Alice a case to keep it from smashing again.

Alice shared the story in a Twitter post that has since gone viral, garnering over 120,000 'like's and almost 5,000 retweets.

Calling Middleton a 'mentally, mentally lovely guy', she wrote: 'Met Ant Middleton the other night so I went and asked for a photo.

'He accidentally knocked my hand which smashed my phone (my fault didnt have a case).

'He asked for my email address and has just BOUGHT a brand new iPhone 11 w 256GB. What a mentally mentally lovely guy.'

After taking the picture together Ant accidentally knocked the phone from her hand causing it to smash on the floor (Pictured with her broken phone)

Soon after the incident the make-up artist received an email notifying her that the ex-soldier had purchased her a brand new iPhone 11 with 256GB of storage (pictured)

She added that he had also bought her a phone case and said he was 'so so lovely! Very nice guy'.

Ant joined the British Army aged 17 in 1997 and served in the Royal Marines from 2005 until 2012 before becoming a media personality following SAS: Who Dares Wins.

Other Twitter users were quick to comment with one tagging her friend and asking: 'Why do we never fall lucky like this?'

'Cue everyone that meets him loosely holding their phones as they greet him,' another added.

Other Twitter users were left stunned by the generous move by the television tough guy, with one calling him 'amazing'

'Ant!' another wrote, 'No way, always thought he was a belter on SAS. Was he nice?'

Another added: 'Dont because this reminds me of my fella who knocked mine out my hands in Tenerife.'

One person wrote, 'What a guy,' while another tweeted: 'I love him even more now.'

Meanwhile another cheeky user replied: 'He can smash my phone any day.'
Charlotte McKinney graces the cover of the August issue of Hamptons Magazine, showing off her bikini body while opening up about her life in quarantine.

The 26-year-old model and actress shared the cover shot of the issue on Instagram, showing off her toned body in a unique knit one-piece swimsuit while holding a surfboard on the shore.

She also showed off more casual beach looks while discussing how she approaches the pandemic, her relationship with social media and more.

Monokini: Charlotte McKinney graces the cover of the August issue of Hamptons Magazine, showing off her bikini body while opening up about her life in quarantine.

Beach looks: She also showed off more casual beach looks while discussing how she approaches the pandemic, her relationship with social media and more.

The supermodel was photographed for the cover shoot by Mark Squires, with styling by Ashley Pruitt, makeup by Carly Fisher and hair by Dallin James.

McKinney flaunted her beach body in a green strapless knit bikini from Hunza G while straddling a swing by the beach.

She also rocked a white strapless bikini from Tori Praver Swimwear and jeans from We Wore What during the playful shoot.

Bikini bod: McKinney flaunted her beach body in a green strapless knit bikini from Hunza G while straddling a swing by the beach

Playful: She also rocked a white strapless bikini from Tori Praver Swimwear and jeans from We Wore What during the playful shoot

Another smiling shot featured McKinney rocking a white crop sweater from Ronny Kobo which exposed her midriff.

She also sported a Sicilian Sky suede cropped utility jacket ($3,500), and Sicilian Sky suede elasticated-waist shorts ($1,990) while relaxing on the beach.

The blonde beauty also opened up about how the pandemic has changed her daily routine in an interview.

Smiling Charlotte: Another smiling shot featured McKinney rocking a white crop sweater from Ronny Kobo which exposed her midrif

Fashionable Charlotte: She also sported a Sicilian Sky suede cropped utility jacket ($3,500), and Sicilian Sky suede elasticated-waist shorts ($1,990) while relaxing on the beach

'The pandemic has definitely changed a lot for mefrom my day-to-day routine to looking at the bigger picture,' she began.

'Its really made me understand less is more, and that you dont need that much to be happy. Ive simplified my life over the last few months, and Ive taken this time to learn how grateful I am,' she added.

McKinney added she is still doing her best to stay active and fit, turning her guest room into a 'hot yoga studio' and picking up a mini-trampoline for 'indoor cardio.'

Pandemic: 'The pandemic has definitely changed a lot for mefrom my day-to-day routine to looking at the bigger picture,' she began

She also spoke about her relationship with social media, stating she grew up with Instagram when she used to just post modeling pictures, but now fans want so much more.

'They dont care just about pretty pictures - they want to see everything. What Im eating, what Im doing, me looking perfect and also me not looking perfect,' she said.

'I am trying to adjust because now its not just about a pretty Instagram picture. Im trying to grow with how the internet is growing, which is kind of scary, and I definitely have trouble with it,' she added.

Aside from her work as a model, McKinney has starred in a number of films such as Baywatch, Flatliners and most recently Fantasy Island, with The Argument, starring Danny Pudi and Maggie Q coming soon.
Millions of children forced into labor as COVID-19 creates global hunger crisis: World Vision

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The COVID-19 pandemic has caused at least 110 million children to go hungry and pushed 8 million others into child labor and begging, according to assessments in 24 countries across Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia by evangelical Christian humanitarian aid organization World Vision.

Other international groups like the United Nations and World Food Programme have warned that the economic impact of the new coronavirus is bound to increase child hunger, violence and poverty at alarming levels, and those predictions were confirmed by World Visions assessments.

COVID-19 is already affecting parents and caregivers ability to meet the needs of their children, says the World Vision report, titled Out of Time: COVID-19 Aftershocks.

Without urgent action, this will only get worse given that every second child, out of 2 billion children in the world, is living in poverty, it adds.

The report shows that a third of the 14,000 households in nine countries in Asia have already lost jobs or income since the coronavirus outbreak. Sixty percent of these families depend on casual (daily) labor as a crucial source of income, it says, adding that a quarter of all families surveyed did not have any food stocks on hand, and one third had only one weeks supply left.

In Cambodia, 28% of households facing loss of jobs and income were sending children out to work, and in Bangladesh, 34% were sending children to beg, the assessment found.

In urban slums in India, 40% of respondents reported a spike in domestic violence due to travel restrictions and a reduction in family income.

In Africa, 59% of respondents from communities World Visions works with reported spending less on healthy and nutritious food.

In Latin America, refugees are severely affected by the loss of income and one-third of children are going to bed hungry, the report says.

In Chile, 82 percent of the interviewees report having serious problems obtaining food, and in Venezuela, 70 percent have no access to food, which means that children under age five are at high risk of being malnourished. The report also shows 28 percent of the children surveyed are at risk of eviction from their homes, with seven percent already having been evicted.

According to a projection by the United Nations, up to 66 million more children could fall into extreme poverty because of the pandemic, adding to the estimated 385 million children who were already living in extreme poverty as of last year.

Health journal The Lancet has predicted that in the most severe scenario, reduced access to nutritious food could lead to an additional 1.15 million child deaths over six months.

The World Food Programme has warned that the number of people requiring life-saving food assistance could double to 265 million people worldwide.

In May, World Vision launched a $350 million campaign to help some 72 million people globally with pastors as key players.

[This is] the largest ever global response in our 70-year history  largest ever, Edgar Sandoval, president of the development organization, told The Christian Post at the time. We are aiming to reach 72 million people, including 36 million children. To do this, we need to raise $350 million and thats what everyone is working really hard to do  to raise the funds that we need to serve the most vulnerable.

He added, We know that pastors and other faith leaders can be a real power, force, in stopping COVID-19 because they have the position of trust in their communities and they can.
By Ernest Scheyder

(Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Defense has resumed funding for two projects to process rare earth minerals for military weapons after a review found the grants are in the best interest of the U.S. government, according to documents seen by Reuters.

The Pentagon on April 22 awarded Australia's Lynas Corp <LYC.AX> and privately held MP Materials funding for rare earths separation facilities in Texas and California, respectively. Those decisions were put on hold on April 29, the Pentagon said, pending "further research."

Reuters reported in late April that a Chinese company's minority stake in MP Materials, which owns the only U.S. rare earths mine and is majority-controlled by a Chicago hedge fund, had prompted concerns from U.S. government scientists.

Several U.S. senators have pushed the Pentagon to fund only domestic rare earth projects.

After a legal and program review was completed by a third party, the Pentagon determined the award process was followed fairly and decided to resume funding for Lynas and MP, according to the documents, which were dated July 10.

Officials at the Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment, nor did MP Materials. Lynas declined to comment.

The amount awarded to both companies was not published by the U.S. government, though the funds were allocated for planning work for the construction of processing facilities.

Lynas has said it does not require U.S. government funds to move forward on its Texas project with privately held Blue Line Corp.

Reuters has reported the Pentagon is also reviewing applications for other rare earth-related funding projects. Applicants have said they expect decisions in the coming months.

Separately, Nevada-based MP said last week it would go public later this year in a $1.47 billion deal by merging with a private-equity-backed blank-check company.

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Additional reporting by Melanie Burton; Editing by Leslie Adler)
New Delhi: Former chief justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, has been made a member of Parliaments standing committee on external affairs while NCP leader Sharad Pawar has entered another key House paneldefencein a major restructuring of the panels, largely to accommodate 65 MPs of the Rajya Sabha.

Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu also nominated former union minister and BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, who is now in the human resource development panel which will also have BJPs Vinay Sahasrabuddhe as the new chairman. The shuffle in the HRD panel comes at a crucial time when the Covid-19 pandemic has altered the traditional education landscape, forced millions of students to go online, deferred key competitive exams and also when the NDA government is set to unveil its new education policy.

The newly-elected Rajya Sabha members were distributed seats in 23 of 24 department-related standing committees of Parliament on Thursday, months before its monsoon session is set to start.

Indian Parliament has 24 standing committees of which eight are headed by Rajya Sabha members while the remaining 16 are led by lawmakers from the Lok Sabha. Every member is entitled to be a member of a standing committee.

Seven panelshome affairs, agriculture, external affairs, finance, petroleum, science and technology and industrygot one new member each. The energy panel got the most (6), followed by 5 members each in the urban development and social justice panels.

Nominated MP Gogoi is the lone new entrant in the foreign affairs panel, Pawar is accompanied by RJDs Prem Chand Gupta and Congress Rajiv Satav in the defence committee which also has Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as its member.

Former Rajya Sabha deputy chairman Harivansh got agriculture panel, former union coal minister Shibu Soren, who stepped down from the Manmohan Singh cabinet is in the coal and steel committee. CPIMs Elamaram Kareem is in the finance panel and former railway minister and senior Trinamool Congress leader Dinesh Trivedi is in home affairs panel.

While all new MPs (barring minister Ramdas Athawale), have been given berths in different panel, 16 MPs including former prime minister HD Devegowda will be allowed to participate in the panels only after taking their oath.

Along with Scindia, BJPs Bhubneswar Kalita, GK Vasan of Tamil Maanila Congress(M) and AIADMKs M. Thambi Durai are in the HRD panel.

Among the prominent BJP MPs, Sudhanshu Trivedi is in the energy panel, Ashok Gasti in social justice and empowerment, Arun Singh in water resources, Roopa Ganguly in food and consumer affairs and Sanajaoba Leishemba in science and technology panel.

Among the prominent Congress leaders, Mallikarjun Kharge is in commerce, Digvijaya Singh in urban development, KC Venugopal is in transport, tourism and culture, Shaktisinh Gohil in Information Technology and Deepender Singh in law and justice committee.

Shiv Senas Priyanka Chaturvedi is in the commerce panel.

Even as the pending vacancies in the panels are filled up, the industry committee will not be able to sit as its chairman, K Kesava Rao, could not take oath on Wednesday, when 45 of 61 new members including 36 first timers were administered oath. A senior Rajya Sabha official said, if a member has not taken oath, he cant participate in the business of the House and panels are an extension of the House.

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During the closed-door discussion held as part of the governments previous session, we held a discussion, and without going into details, I must say that we came to the conclusion that Armenia needs to change the concept paper on the policy that the country is leading in borderline villages. This is what Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan declared during todays government session.

One might get the impression that there is a context according to which those villages are always targeted for shelling and the repair works are being carried out with this logic. We need to change the logic. Not only do we need to repair the villages, but we also need to have a specific policy and strategy for development of those villages. The policy in borderline villages needs to be the major indicator of the combat readiness and competitiveness of our country, the Prime Minister said, adding that this is a time-consuming process.

Pashinyan said acting head of the Urban Development Committee Armen Ghularyan has left for the villages to get acquainted with the situation. In his turn, Armen Ghularyan stated that seven houses are already being repaired in the villages. According to him, there is a house in Chinari where there are five children and five adults, and it would be preferable to build a house on the land near the house.

We offered the head of the village to launch activities to allocate lands on which we will design districts with a new architectural style and consider which groups of needy people need houses, he said.

Pashinyan added that the houses to be built are the houses that were destroyed after the shelling and couldnt be repaired and that out of the three destroyed houses, people were living in only one of them.
With the nation gripped by an alarming resurgence of coronavirus cases and new rounds of lockdowns, weekly new claims for unemployment have risen for the first time since March.

The Department of Labor said on Thursday that 1.416 million Americans filed for unemployment in the week ended on July 18, an increase of 109,000 from the prior week.

All told, the Labor Department said Thursday that roughly 32 million people are receiving unemployment benefits, though that figure could include double-counting by some states. Some economists say the figure is likely closer to 25 million.

It followed 15 straight weeks of declining weekly claims after a massive surge in layoffs in late March, and the latest string of layoffs comes just before a $600 weekly federal aid payment for the jobless is set to expire at the end of this week.

The Department of Labor said on Thursday that 1.416 million Americans filed for unemployment in the week ended on July 18, an increase of 109,000 from the prior week.

Junior Volcy joins other demonstrators participating in a protest asking Senators to support the continuation of unemployment benefits on July 16, 2020 in Miami Springs, Florida

Last week's pace of unemployment applications - the 18th straight week it's topped 1 million - was up from 1.3 million the previous week. Before the pandemic, the number of weekly applications had never exceeded 700,000.

An additional 975,000 applied for jobless aid under a separate program that has made self-employed and gig workers eligible for the first time. That figure isn't adjusted for seasonal trends, so it's reported separately.

The pace of applications for unemployment benefits had stalled at roughly double the record high that existed before the virus sent the economy spiraling into a deep recession.

Now, as many states and localities reimpose lockdowns in response to the spreading virus, businesses face renewed struggles that are forcing some to impose further job cuts or to shut down permanently.

The federal governments $600 weekly benefit for laid-off workers - which is in addition to whatever jobless aid a state provides - is the last major source of economic help from the $2 trillion relief package that Congress approved in March. A small business lending program and one-time $1,200 payment have largely run their course.

Members of Congress are negotiating another aid package that might extend the $600 benefit, though likely at a lower level. Because of the $600 weekly federal benefit, roughly two-thirds of the unemployed are receiving more in aid than they earned at their former jobs, research has shown - a finding that's led Republicans to argue that it is discouraging people from returning to work.

Protesters in Florida ask Senators to support the new Schumer/Wyden legislation that extends federal unemployment supplements for all laid-off Americans

Yet the additional money has also been a key source of support for people who lost jobs that no longer exist or who fear being infected by the virus if they return to work.

The federal jobless aid has also helped buttress the overall economy. Unemployment aid accounted for 6 percent of all U.S. income in May, a greater share than even Social Security. Economists say it's one reason why retail spending rebounded as quickly as it did in May and June, helping fuel a modest economic rebound.

With confirmed cases of the coronavirus having risen in 46 states compared with two weeks ago, economists say theyre increasingly worried that any recovery is now in jeopardy. Twenty-two states have paused or reversed the re-opening of businesses, according to economists at Bank of America.

Real-time measures of the economy suggest that companies are pulling back on hiring and that more small businesses are closing permanently. Credit card spending has been stuck at about 10 percent below year-ago levels for nearly a month, according to JPMorgan Chase, after having risen steadily from mid-April to mid-June.

And a weekly survey by the Census Bureau found that the number of people with jobs dropped 6.7 million in mid-July compared with a month earlier, a sign that employers imposed layoffs, suspended hiring or both.

In May and June, businesses had rehired enough to more than offset the wave of layoffs. But the Census data now suggests that the economy is losing jobs again.

Data from the consumer-review website Yelp, which tracks millions of small businesses, shows that more such companies are permanently shutting down. Nearly 73,000 small businesses have closed for good since the pandemic intensified in March, up 28 percent from mid-June.

'Every time a business closes, that makes the recovery longer and harder, so that worries me,' said Ernie Tedeschi, an economist at the investment bank Evercore ISI.

Many of the unemployed say they fear that a slow and prolonged recovery would be hard to survive without the $600 weekly aid from the federal government. If that payment were eliminated, total unemployment benefits would shrink by one-half to two-thirds, depending on a recipients state.

Jobless claims before the pandemic in February hovered around 200,000 a week before jumping to 6.87 million in the week after states issued stay-at-home orders

Melissa Bennett has been using the federal jobless benefit to help pay her $1,900 monthly health insurance bill, which she's paid on her own since losing her employer-sponsored plan in June.

That's when she was laid off from her front desk job at a vacation time-share rental in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a beach town that has become a COVID-19 hotspot.

Without the $600, her unemployment benefit will fall to just $200 a week in state benefits, and she'll have to decide whether to pay her mortgage or her utilities first.

Many analysts say they worry that the expiration of the federal payments will cause a wave of evictions of renters who won't be able to afford their monthly payments.

On Friday, a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions from homes with federally backed mortgages is set to expire.

Even before the pandemic, spiking rents in most major cities were squeezing the finances of lower-income families.

One in four renters -- 11 million households -- were spending more than half their income on rent before the recession, said Priscilla Aldomovar, CEO of Enterprise Community Partners, a nonprofit group focused on affordable housing.

Enterprise owns 13,000 rental units, and Aldomovar said that so far, the renters have largely kept up with their payments, which she attributes to the federal aid.

'It's very precarious, but it's been held together by the stimulus,' she said.
Kansas BOE rejects governor's order to delay reopening schools WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) - The Kansas Board of Education did not approve Gov. Laura Kelly's order to delay the opening of schools until after Labor Day. In a split decision on Tuesday, board members voted 5-5 on the executive order, but a simple majority was needed to affirm the order.

A stern smackdown of the Guv's public health policies shocked parents today . . . Here's the note and just a bit of the political fallout as the pandemic becomes more of a political hot potato. Read more:
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 21:52:22|Editor: huaxia

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KUWAIT CITY, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Kuwait on Thursday reported 687 new COVID-19 cases and four more deaths, raising the tally of infections to 61,872 and the death toll to 421, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Currently, 9,204 patients are receiving treatment, including 124 in ICU, the statement added.

The ministry also announced the recovery of 727 more patients, raising the total recoveries in the country to 52,247.

Kuwait and China have been supporting each other and cooperating closely in combating the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kuwait donated medical supplies worth 3 million U.S. dollars to China at the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak.

On April 27, a team of Chinese medical experts visited Kuwait to assist the Gulf country's anti-coronavirus fight, through sharing their experience and expertise in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19. Enditem
Federal agents disperse protesters near the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 20. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)

To the editor: I am scared. First it was Washington, then Portland, Ore.,  with federal agents in unmarked cars  and soon it will be Chicago.

Trump has been compared to Hitler in the past, and this is no different. This sounds, smells and looks like storm troopers on our streets, and it is escalating.

Under the guise of "law and order," our authoritarian leader thinks he will win votes. That is all he cares about. We should all be scared.

Esther Friedberg, Studio City

..

To the editor: It is telling and of profound concern that Trump finds reason for a federal role in harassing and violating the civil rights of protesters in Portland and Chicago, but saw no reason for substantial federal action in supporting these cities in fighting a serious pandemic that was killing people and raging across state borders.

Surely the proper role of the feds is to support the cities and states in confronting a national disease contagion, not to interfere with local policing.

Stephen Rountree, Sierra Madre

..

To the editor: I am reminded of the authoritarian beginnings in Argentina in 1976 when the military overthrew the government of Isabel Peron. From that point on, the military waged the "dirty war," in which roughly 30,000 Argentines disappeared. They were tortured, shot and buried in large pits or taken out over the ocean and dropped to drown.

The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, similar to how the mothers in Portland stood up to the federal agents, made a public outcry and statement about their missing children and grandchildren.

The use of Gestapo-like armed federal agents to round up protesters and rush them away in unmarked vans is a reminder of those times. I fear for the people who are being abducted  not arrested, abducted.

The authoritarian acts of a weak and threatened president scare me. I fear for what new criminal acts he will perform between now and November.

Peter Ambrose, Claremont

..

To the editor: So, the federal government has sent unmarked troops of dubious legal authority to Portland to disrupt and suppress protesters exercising their 1st Amendment right to free speech.

Story continues

Where are all the eastern Oregon militias that have always claimed they exist to protect citizens against government overreach? Where are Cliven Bundy and his cowboy vigilantes? Do they really believe in liberty and free speech, or are they just gun-toting hypocrites?

I thought so.

Michael Hynes, Northridge
Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army who retired in 2015 after 21 years, including four combat deployments. Follow him @DanielLDavis1.

The premiers of four German states sent a letter July 19 to members of the U.S. Congress pleading for them to block President Donald Trump's tentative plan to withdraw nearly 10,000 American troops from Germany. The plea was based on their perception of what's good for their country, however, and certainly not based on what's best for America.

The German politicians claimed the removal of any U.S. troops would be alarming, because they form the backbone of "NATO's ability to act." If this were the 1950s or 1960s, such concerns might be entirely valid. At that time, there was a mammoth conventional and nuclear threat from a powerful USSR and its satellite countries of the Warsaw Pact. Germany was still divided and weak both militarily and economically.

The conditions that existed at the height of the Cold War, however, are now to be found only in history books. The situation today is radically different, both in terms of the nature of the threat and the nature of the friendly countries.

In the late 1950s, the USSR and its allies posed a significant threat to Germany and the other 12 members of European NATO boasting ground combat power, naval capacity, air power and a massive nuclear arsenal. Western Europe was still staggering from losses sustained during the Second World War and in no condition to resist the Red Army should the Russians attack.

The USSR imploded in the1990s and no longer exists. NATO has now expanded to 30 countries -- including most of those formerly in the Warsaw Pact--outgunning and outmanning the Russian military in most categories. Both the U.K. and France have nuclear stockpiles of their own, deterring Moscow from ever attempting a western conquest.

Russia President Vladimir Putin may have fantasies of a resurrected Soviet Union, but he's neither stupid nor suicidal: he would never embark on an offensive crusade guaranteed to result in his destruction. Germany is keenly aware of this reality. Whatever Berlin may say, it is their actions in two key areas that confirm they regard the threat from Russia to be relatively low.

First is the area of friction between the German government and U.S. government for decades: the Bundeswehr's unwillingness to spend an adequate amount on its own self-defense or NATO support. In 1973, then-West Germany spent 3.1 percent of its GDP on national defense. In 2019--nearly 30 years since the demise of the Soviet Union--Germany's spending is stalled at a paltry 1.3 percent. If Germany genuinely believed its security was at risk from a resurgent Russia, they would not be spending such an anemic amount.

Secondly, the troubled Nord Stream 2 pipeline deal between Berlin and Moscow exposes that Chancellor Angela Merkel does not consider Putin to be a substantial security risk to Germany. The last thing any country would do if it considered a country to be a risk to its national security would be to make financial and energy deals that would give their adversary an easy opportunity to cut off their energy supplies, essentially holding their economy hostage. Germany clearly believes the chances are slim that Russia would exploit that advantage.

This is not to suggest Germany is wrong in making a pipeline deal with Russia, however. Even after absorbing the former East Germany in 1993, Berlin has built its economy into one of the world's most powerful economies (number 4 in 2019). A strong and independent Germany should be something the United States encourages and affirms. Along with the other strong nations of NATO, Germany should take more responsibility for their own national security and spend whatever percentage of their GDP their people believe is necessary to keep them safe.

The question for American policymakers and lawmakers should not be about what's best for Germany, or even what's best for NATO. It should be about what's best for the United States. Far too often, in far too many locations, the debate has always centered on what's good for the government where our troops are located.

Whether it's Berlin, Warsaw, Baghdad, Kabul, Tokyo, Seoul, or any other location or group, America needs to shift its focus to ensuring we provide the best, most cost-effective security for our country, and encourage other capitals to do the same for their populations.

-- The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Military.com. If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to opinions@military.com for consideration.
In Poltava, terrorist with grenade exchanges police officer taken hostage for head of regional police department, is trying to leave city

In Poltava, a terrorist with a grenade released a police officer taken hostage in exchange for the head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the National Police of Ukraine in Poltava region, after that he demanded a car and is currently driving it towards the exit from the city.

"On July 23 at 09:00 on Ostapa Vyshni Street, near the building of the administrative court, during the arrest of the hijacker by police officers, the latter took out an RGD-5 grenade, which he threatened to blow up," the Criminal Investigation Department of the National Police said.

According to the information, the situation was aggravated by the fact that the terrorist had taken a criminal investigation officer as a hostage.

"After talks, the terrorist changed a detained officer of the criminal investigation department for Head of Criminal Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the National Police of Ukraine in Poltava region, police colonel Vitaliy Shyian, with whom he drove in a vehicle provided due to his requirements in the direction of leaving the city, for a detained employee of the criminal investigation department," the department said.

At present, a special operation is underway to detain the terrorist.

Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Anton Geraschenko said that talks with the terrorist were continuing, and the police had launched a special operation "Hrim" (Thunder).

"The talks are continuing, the purpose of which is to force the terrorist to surrender to the police without harming himself or others. Police special operation "Hrim" (Thunder) has been launched, Geraschenko wrote on his Facebook page.
Rod Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general, told US attorneys that there was no categorical exception for children under five under the then-active Trump Administration child separation policy for immigrants caught crossing the border illegally.

The discussion occurred in 2018 on a conference call meant to clarify the "zero-tolerance" implementation of the Trump Administration's policy.

A source told the Guardian that the call shocked some of the border-state prosecutors involved because it meant that children under five could be separated from their families.

Prosecutors feared that children under five might not know their own names or the names of their parents, which would increase the risk that they'd get lost in the system.

During the duration of the order  which lasted from 6 April 2018 to 20 June 2018 and was only ended by executive order after mounting public and legal pressure was applied to Donald Trump and his administration  immigrant parents were separated from their children and deported to their home countries.

While the order was in place, 2,814 children were separated from their parents, with 105 of those being under the age of five, and 1,033 being under the age of 10.

Under the Barack Obama administration, children were allowed to stay with detained parents unless the children were believed to be in danger.

Mr Trump's orders were part of a crack-down on illegal immigration and are considered by human rights experts to be among the worst human rights violations to occur during his presidency.

Mr Rosenstein said the only exception prosecutors could make to the order was in the event that a child only spoke an indigenous language or if they had an intellectual disability and even then only on a case-by-case basis.

"Federal prosecutors did not separate parents from children. The policy the attorney general adopted for the Department of Justice in April 2018 was unambiguous: every defendant the Department of Homeland Security [DHS] arrested and referred for prosecution would be evaluated by federal prosecutors without any categorical exemption," Mr Rosenstein said in a statement to The Guardian.

The policy was eventually ruled unconstitutional by federal Judge Dana Sabraw, who called the practice "brutal" and "offensive" in its intention to sever the "sacred tie between parent and child."

Recommended Thousands of migrant children to be reunited with parents in US

A former US Department of Justice official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Guardian that the DoJ only prosecuted cases sent to it by the US Department of Homeland Security.

"DHS repeatedly complained to the White House that DoJ was not prosecuting enough cases. They were driving the train," the former official said.

Though Mr Rosenstein is not considered the driving force behind the child separation practice  which is attributed to then-US Attorney General Jeff Sessions  he has publicly defended the zero-tolerance policy.

During an American Bar Association conference in August 2018, Mr Rosenstein said he believed the policy was consistent with the law and was proportionally appropriate to the severity of illegal immigration into the US.

"It would be wrong to say we're prosecuting everyone without regard to the law," he said.

He claimed that the DoJ at the time was using its resources to ensure everyone was "treated equally under the law."
The European Court of Human Rights requests the Government of Armenia to ensure adequate medical treatment to illegally detained former statesman Gagik Khachatryan

Yerevan - The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has satisfied on 21st July the application no. 54684/19 of the former Minister of Finance of Armenia Gagik Khachatryan, and has published its decision by which it granted an interim measure under the rule 39. The ECHR requested the Government of the Republic of Armenia to ensure immediate medical treatment of Gagik Khachatryan as well as right to be examined and treated by doctor of his choice, including foreign doctors.

The 64-year old prominent politician who has illegally been detained for already 11 months needs immediate surgery. The failure or delay to perform medical treatment contains serious and irreversible threats posed to his future health and life. Khachatryans attorney group has claimed this issue in all competent authorities of Armenia, including the investigation, prosecution authorities and courts of the Republic of Armenia. They have consistently ignored these claims depriving Khachatryans fundamental rights to receive an adequate medical treatment. The attorney group has also referred to the Human Rights Defender of Armenia and other human rights organizations, which have voiced their concerns regarding Khachatryans case.

Armenian authorities under government of Nikol Pashinyan refuse to ensure Gagik Khachatryans adequate medical treatment. There is no doubt that this is a politically motivated case. We are sorry that even in case of existence of explicit threat to the life and health of the citizen of the Republic of Armenia, we have to ensure the exercise of the right to medical treatment on the request of the European Court of Human Rights Khachatryans attorney Yerem Sargsyan said.

The former Minister of Finance Khachatryan is charged with the abuse of authority and misapplication of property during his post in state activity from 2008 to 2014. Khachatryan does not plead himself guilty for the charges brought against him and his attorney group has voiced dozens of cases of offences and pressure within the last 11 months, including the illegal and out-of-legal-logic prosecution against members of Gagik Khachatryans family.

Gagik Khachatryan is a prominent Armenian politician and government official who retired in 2016. While at the office, he was considered as one of the wealthiest government officials in the country according to his annual declarations. After the political changes in 2018, a series of criminal charges were filed against many former politicians. This includes presidents of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan and other senior officials. Politically motivated charges have been also filed against the current parliamentary opposition leader Gagik Tsarukyan. Despite the abundance of investigations and criminal cases, there is not a single judicial act having entered into force on any trumpeted criminal case. Instead, the country has plunged into turmoil of bitter debates, fraught with risks of forming unfavorable perception on the domestic stability along with tensions in Armenia-Azerbaijan state border.

Picture is available at AP Images (http://www.apimages.com)

Photo credits: State Revenue Committee of the Republic of Armenia, Official Archive, 2015

khachatryan.legalteam@gmail.com

Eleonora Araratyan

+374 95 917741
More recently, several companies worldwide are racing to develop vaccines for COVID-19 based on messenger RNA, or mRNA  the molecule that puts DNA instructions into action  that essentially trick the body into producing proteins that mimic those produced by a pathogen.

Reparvis approach is different still.

Our take is that its possible to engineer virus-like particles to program a cell to make all the parts you need for the virus, Agrawal said, adding that also includes engineering the bioparticles to shape the immune response for broad protection and long-lasting response.

Agrawal said he and Bantock expect the UACI program to help prepare the company to raise initial capital to further develop the gene-delivery technology, with an initial focus on perfecting methods to produce bioparticles on a large scale.

He said he decided to launch Reparvi in Tucson after doing some work here about a decade ago and because of the reception he received from UACI.

Agrawal said a mutual friend introduced him to Bantock, who was winding down his work at Roche and provided deep and much-needed biotech business experience.
Last weekend, we chased down the comet Neowise. It was past our boys bedtime, but once I explained that it wouldnt return for almost 7,000 years, they had to join the hunt. Because trees blotted out the view around our deck, we drove to a darker patch of the neighborhood with clearer sight lines. We found the Big Dipper and then searched closer to the horizon. Was it  could it be  ?

Through our binoculars, we found the snowball, trailing a tail that had the look of a bridal veil. When the boys shouted with excitement, we shushed them. Youll scare the neighbors.

I see smoke! Gege said, after he spotted the tail.

Thats it, we said.

When it comes back, maybe humans wont be on Earth anymore, Didi said. Like in Wall-E, referring to the animated Pixar film in which people have retreated onto a spaceship after they polluted the planet.

Maybe, I said. I didnt want to share my dark thoughts: At the rate were going, our species may be extinct long before then. Yet I also felt connected to everyone turning their gaze to the heavens, at a time when we spend our days at a distance from one another. Thats part of the pleasure of celestial sightings: the phenomena above, and the humanity below, united in our curiosity and wonder.

During the solar eclipse in 2017, at a writing conference in Vermont, I hiked to a lake and swam in its chilly waters with friends while taking in the show in the sky. In 1986, I peered through a telescope at Halleys Comet at the Chabot Space and Science Center, solemnly thinking how it would return in three-quarters of a century.

These memories are bittersweet now that its unclear when Americans might gather again. Worldwide, even countries where strong, smart leaders quelled the coronavirus have to remain vigilant against another wave.

Though the recent results from the Oxford vaccine trials are encouraging, Im trying not to get my hopes up too much  not in a week that has felt unrelentingly dark: the heartbreaking, utterly preventable catastrophic outbreak at San Quentin State Prison that has continued, as well as federal agents swooping into Portland, Ore., that make me fear what will happen elsewhere now and after Novembers presidential election.

Id wondered what the summer would hold, and at first, our family ventured out cautiously, joyfully  masked up, outfitted with hand sanitizer, wipes and groceries from home.

Then, as COVID-19 case numbers rose here and around the country, I second-guessed myself, wondering if we should have stayed home.

Now, as schools finalize their distance-learning plans, the news has been crushing  as much as I anticipated it, as much as I tried to steel myself.

In our district, the proposed schedule will divide each class into two groups, toggling between live instruction and independent work time. It seems much more rigorous than the crisis learning we collectively slogged through in the spring.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

But the greater rigor comes with long stretches of necessary parental oversight, monitoring when and where my fourth-graders will have to log on, helping them stay on track in class and understand concepts.

Parents have been debating whether to form pods with other families, raising questions about how to address the needs of their children without exacerbating educational inequalities that have left many further behind. Im furious and frustrated by the lack of coherent national leadership that resulted in the rampant spread of the coronavirus.

The gender divide has deepened amid the pandemic. This past spring, in the depths of the shutdown, among heterosexual couples with two working parents, mothers of young children reduced their work hours four to five times more than fathers. According to the new study, the gender gap in work hours grew by 20% to 50%.

Such setbacks have long-term career consequences, especially as the economy falters, and Im already dreading the difficulties ahead.

Neowise is passing out of view. In ancient times, comets were considered a message from the gods, a possible harbinger of doom. In the days ahead, Ill try to remember what it felt like to look up at the brightness, steady in the gloom.

Vanessa Hua is the author of A River of Stars. Her column appears Fridays in Datebook. Email: datebook@sfchronicle.com
Portuguese police have reopened their investigation into the unsolved rape of an Irish woman after 16 years.

Hazel Behan, 37, believes her attacker may have been drifter Christian B, the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann .

He was convicted of a similar rape a year after Ms Behan was attacked and two years before Madeleine vanished.

This week detectives collected their own archived case files from the court in Portimao to see if they could build a case against the suspect.

One problem they will face is that vital forensic evidence with potential DNA was destroyed on the orders of a judge, a common practice in Portuguese cases where no suspect is identified.

A source told Sky News: "Detectives are looking again for new evidence and the investigation is reopened."

Ms Behan was a 20-year-old holiday rep who arrived in Praia da Rocha on the Algarve coast in April 2004.

Two months later, a masked man climbed the balcony to her apartment and attacked her as she slept in the early hours.

He held a knife to her throat, tied her up and gagged her, then raped her repeatedly.

During the attack he threatened to kill her and left her bleeding before fleeing over the balcony.

Last month, when German drifter Christian B was named as the main suspect in the Madeleine case - and Ms Behan read about his conviction for raping an American woman in strikingly similar circumstances - she contacted the Scotland Yard Madeleine squad.

She told the Guardian newspaper: "My mind was blown when I read how he had attacked a woman in 2005, both the tactics and the methods he used, the tools he had with him, how well he had planned it out.

"I puked, to be honest with you, as reading about it took me right back to my experience."

Scotland Yard detectives interviewed Ms Behan and later told her they had contacted Portuguese police. It appears that has prompted the reopening of her case.

She has said she was badly treated by the Portuguese detectives, who abandoned their investigation after eight months without identifying a suspect.

Story continues

Ms Behan described her attacker as white, slim, with blonde hair, blue eyes and possibly German.

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According to the case files, detectives were unable to find anyone in their records who matched the description, but that was wrong.

In another Portuguese police file seen by Sky News, there are photographs of a young Christian B who does fit the description.

They were taken by police in 1999, five years before Ms Behan was raped, after he was arrested and deported to Germany for child sex crimes.

If police do find evidence against Christian B for Ms Behan's attack it is unlikely he would be charged as Portugal has a 15-year statute of limitations on rape investigations.
EDMONTONTop advisers to Albertas environment minister were cautious about the governments plans to shrink the provinces parks system and made recommendations he didnt follow.

An access-to-information request by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society asked for correspondence, briefing notes and emails between Jason Nixon and senior civil servants in his department. They cover January through March of this year.

Nixon announced in March that the United Conservative government plans to fully or partially close 20 provincial parks and hand off another 164 to third-party managers. Sites for which no managers can be found are to lose park status and revert to general Crown land.

We are using a successful model that has existed in the province for decades to leverage partnerships on public lands to keep a vast majority of facilities accessible to Albertans, Environment Department spokesperson John Muir said Thursday.

Ecologically sensitive areas of the province will continue to be protected. All of those protections will continue and parks will not be sold.

The briefing notes show that as recently as last December park sell-offs were at least considered. Possibilities for small day-use areas included lease/sell to an external body.

Another page refers to the option to remove facilities and revert to vacant public land (or sale in the white zone).

The white zone refers to the provinces agricultural area. Nixons department has already sold an unprotected patch of native grassland in southern Alberta for potato farming.

The minister has said the parks decision was made to save money, but notes marked confidential, advice to minister suggest achieving that is unlikely.

Our experience suggests divestment comes with a price tag (i.e. capital grant/operating subsidy), they say.

The department has never released a figure for how much shrinking the park system  referred to in the documents as weeding out the chaff  would save. Nor do the notes provide one.

The documents also show that Nixon ignored advice to consult the public. High-level department officials in December recommended that there be two sets of consultations  a broad, high-level consultation/engagement followed by a second phase for specific sites.

A later update advising cabinet says: As recommended by (the ministers office) and communications, recommended option is to not do consultation. No explanation is given.

The duty to consult with Indigenous people is referred to as a very live question.

Nixon has previously told The Canadian Press that no consultation was necessary because the partys intentions were in its 2019 election platform. In 114 pages, there is one vague sentence on parks policy.

During and before the campaign, Nixon criticized the New Democrats for not consulting enough on parks.

The briefing notes also show that Nixon was warned that getting rid of parks might conflict with other goals. He was told there was a risk the changes wouldnt make sense or align with broader system outcomes.

Bureaucrats noted that Alberta Environment has been trying to promote recreational fishing. They called park closures a potential misalignment.

Decisions could impact (the departments) ability to enhance fishing, if parks are closed/divested ... Magnitude of (the) impact (is) currently unknown.

Nixon has suggested the parks slated for closure are rarely visited.

The documents contain no information on visitation, although the access request asked for criteria used to select parks for closure.

The files refer to getting rid of the parks as an economic development opportunity. Parks should fit within government and ministry goals: financial sustainability, engage in partnerships, enable economic opportunities, reduce stakeholder irritants.

The documents describe a shift in how Alberta manages its wild spaces. Some are to be managed by Alberta Parks as provincial Crown jewels, while the rest are to be deregulated and managed by the departments Lands Division.

Its suggested that change could be phased in to give the public time to get used to it.

(It) could even phase that in so ... (the) public doesnt see massive reorganization AND massive deregulation at once.

Chris Smith of the wilderness society says the briefing notes fail to spell out a rational reason for the parks changes.

It does seem to be more of an ideological decision with the veneer of fiscal prudence, he said.

Smith points out the documents say that implementing the plan will take five years.

Theres definitely opportunity for the government to slow down on this and walk back a bit and have a discussion, he said.

We just want them to be honest about what theyre doing.

Read more about:
Top economy officials of Turkey and Spain on Thursday agreed to enhance bilateral trade to $20 billion (TL 136 billion) from the current $12.6 billion, Daily Sabah reports.

Speaking at a virtual meeting of the Joint Economic and Trade Committee, Trade Minister Ruhsar Pekcan said the two countries are seeking to cooperate and encourage mutual investments in countries where they are separately active.

"We can boost joint trade in various sectors such as automotive, clothing, iron and steel, electronic, furniture and food," Pekcan said.

Noting that their ties date back a one-and-a-half century, Pekcan praised Spain's bonafide approach and trust regarding cooperation with Turkey.

She underlined the importance of tourism and health sectors for the two countries.

"It is very important to increase bilateral investments and cooperate in other countries' construction services."

Pekcan also called on Spanish companies to bid for high-speed railway and metro line tenders in Turkey, praising their know-how and experience.

For her part, Spanish Industry, Commerce and Tourism Minister Maria Reyes Maroto expressed her willingness to deepen trade and investment ties with Turkey.

"Our previous online meetings during the pandemic show the solidness of our ties," she said.

She highlighted that green and the digital economy are vital for the transformation of the two countries.

"Our companies can share their know-how in those fields," Maroto noted.
UN agencies warned Wednesday that food shortages will rise sharply in parts of war-torn Yemen in the next six months, mainly because of the overall economic decline and the pandemic that has ripped through the Arab worlds poorest country.

A report by the World Food Programme, the UN Childrens Fund and the Food and Agriculture Organisation said the number of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity is expected to increase from 2 million to 3.2 million in the countrys south.

Yemen has been the site of the largest food crisis in the world, mostly because of the war that pits the countrys Houthi rebels against a Saudi-led coalition fighting on the side of the internationally recognized government.

Economic shocks, conflict, floods, desert locusts and now Covid-19 are creating a perfect storm that could reverse hard-earned food security gains in Yemen, the report said.

Yemen is facing a crisis on multiple fronts, said Laurent Bukera, the WFP director for Yemen. We must act now. In 2019, thanks to a massive scale-up, WFP and partners were able to reverse the deterioration in the worst hit areas of Yemen.

Yemens conflict has killed more than 100,000 people and created the worlds worst humanitarian disaster, with more than 3 million people internally displaced and two-thirds of the population reliant on food assistance for survival.

Donor countries recently cut back on aid to Yemen amid the coronavirus pandemic and also due to concerns that the aid might not be reaching intended recipients in territories controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis.

Yemen is again on the brink of a major food security crisis. ... Unless we receive the funding we need now, we wont be able to do the same this time, said Lise Grande, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen.

She said the UN agencies faced the similar situation 18 months ago, but they were generously funded and prevented a famine. Some 24 million Yemeni people, which is 80% of the countrys entire population, require some form of assistance or protection, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA. And 75% of UN programmes for the country, covering essentially every sector, from food to health care and nutrition, have already shut their doors or reduced operations.
President Trump said he is canceling the Jacksonville, Fla., portion of the coming Republican National Convention due to safety concerns over the increasing coronavirus cases in the state. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The Obama administration did not initially raise objections when Qatar began shipping arms to opposition groups in Syria, even if it did not offer encouragement, according to current and former administration officials. But they said the United States has growing concerns that, just as in Libya, the Qataris are equipping some of the wrong militants.

The United States, which had only small numbers of C.I.A. officers in Libya during the tumult of the rebellion, provided little oversight of the arms shipments. Within weeks of endorsing Qatars plan to send weapons there in spring 2011, the White House began receiving reports that they were going to Islamic militant groups. They were more antidemocratic, more hard-line, closer to an extreme version of Islam than the main rebel alliance in Libya, said a former Defense Department official.

The Qatari assistance to fighters viewed as hostile by the United States demonstrates the Obama administrations continuing struggles in dealing with the Arab Spring uprisings, as it tries to support popular protest movements while avoiding American military entanglements. Relying on surrogates allows the United States to keep its fingerprints off operations, but also means they may play out in ways that conflict with American interests.

To do this right, you have to have on-the-ground intelligence and you have to have experience, said Vali Nasr, a former State Department adviser who is now dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, part of Johns Hopkins University. If you rely on a country that doesnt have those things, you are really flying blind. When you have an intermediary, you are going to lose control.

He said that Qatar would not have gone through with the arms shipments if the United States had resisted them, but other current and former administration officials said Washington had little leverage at times over Qatari officials. They march to their own drummer, said a former senior State Department official. The White House and State Department declined to comment.
India is the second-most populous country and the worlds largest democracy. While aiming for economic stability in these trying times, the country faces significant social and environmental challenges too. Among the numerous problems, lack of education around sex and safe sexual practices among youth continues as it is the most controversial and tabooed subject. Given the forbidden nature towards the subject in India, it becomes imperative to address and bring change in attitude towards sex and relationship among the youth.

Drawing on the evidence on the need to edify, SHOPS Plus was instituted to promote the adoption of safer sexual practices, including delaying sexual debut and using modern contraception to avoid unintended pregnancies. Sustaining Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS) Plus is USAIDs flagship initiative in private sector health. The SHOPS Plus project in India is a four year (Incepted in May 2016) initiative to increase the use of family planning (FP), child health (CH), and tuberculosis (TB) treatment products and services among the urban poor through the private-sector approach. To connect with the local youth community Abt Associates launched 50 Shades of Ishq under SHOPS Plus in India.

Recognizing that nothing is more authentic and persuasive than what one friend says to another, SHOPS Plus digital campaign on Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) will now leverage the most used expression medium among Millennial & Gen Z  conversational Stickers, GIFs & emojis. To harness the power of messaging, Abt Associates has partnered with Bobble AI, the worlds most powerful conversation media platform, enriching everyday conversations with expressive and personalized content. Bobble has designed and developed an idiosyncratic series of rich visuals (stickers & GIFs) around safe sexual practices which can be used as part of everyday conversations on chat messaging apps including WhatsApp. Each GIF and Sticker narrates and encourages safe sexual behaviour with quirky messages to reinforce the adoption of contraceptives and concept of consensual sex like Condom Sense Nahi Hai Kya?, Wear Condom if You Care, and No Means No, such that they are easy to relate and fun to share!

Tanmay Guha Roy, Manager  New Media, Abt Associates said, Private conversations are at the heart of every intimate relationship. Bobble AIs powerful conversation media marketing solutions will allow us to communicate to the youth in their own visual language on their chosen platform. These will help normalize the conversation around safety in sexual practices and the media of stickers and GIFs will make difficult conversations easier.

On the collaboration, Anika Tanwar, Head  Brand Marketing Solutions at Bobble AI, said, To reach the hearts and minds of the Millennial and Gen Z: one needs to be where they spend the most significant amount of time and dig into their needs and likes. Messaging platforms including WhatsApp allow the youth to have intimate conversations, and are driven to check it more than a hundred times a day. We at Bobble have the right technology to build powerful solutions to connect with the targeted audience across socio-demographics in the most impactful way.

As per the recent report by Bobble AI, there has been an increase of 57.64% in time spent on WhatsApp, with a 49% increase in engagement as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. During the lockdown itself, overall emoji usage increased to 58% making it an ideal time and platform for conversation-based engagements.
New Delhi, July 23 : In a shocking incident, a 14-year-old girl, undergoing treatment at a Covid Care Centre in south Delhi's Chhattarpur, has alleged that she was sexually assaulted by another coronavirus patient in the washroom, police said on Thursday. Two accused have been arrested.

According to the police, the incident is said to have taken place on the night of July 15, when the girl had gone to the washroom.

The 19-year-old man, who allegedly sexually assaulted her, was arrested along with one of his associates, the police said.

"We have arrested both the accused under relevant sections of law, including POCSO, and both have been sent to judicial custody," said a senior police officer.

The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) is the nodal agency operating the centre, which also serves as a centre for those who are asymptomatic but cannot afford home isolation.

According to the police, the girl and the accused, who lived in a slum cluster here, were admitted at the centre, along with their relatives.

The girl narrated her ordeal to one of her relatives, who is also undergoing treatment at the centre. The matter was then reported to an ITBP official, who informed the police, an official at the centre said.

According to the police, in her complaint, the girl also accused the man's associate of capturing the act of sexual assault on a mobile phone. The police said the associate, also aged 19 years, might not have sexually assaulted the girl and they are verifying the claims of the girl.

Based on her complaint, a case was registered against the two men under section 376 (punishment for sexual assault) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the relevant provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, a senior police officer said.

After the incident, the two accused, who are currently under judicial custody, were sent to another centre, and the victim was also shifted to another Covid care centre, the officer said.
Mumbai, July 23 : Actor Amit Sadh on Thursday made an appeal on behalf of helpers at shooting sets, who have started working amid the ongoing Covid pandemic.

"I know we have started to work and from home ... but guys ... big people ... please pay hair , make up , spots ...( helpers ) they need to start and revive ... !! I will be fighting fr them .. and their wages," he tweeted.

Amit also requested his followers to come up with ideas on how he could help the workers.

"We can do it by setting up some trust or building an organisation. What's your thought? How are you planning it?" a user wrote.

Responding to it, Amit tweeted: "I don't know ... I want to find a way or someone who can help .. I also want to give a percentage of what ever I make to that Eco system .. hoping to finish the releases and the work related around it and start looking for a path way." Amit, whose latest release is the web series "Breathe: Into the Shadows", will soon be seen in the digitally-released films, "Shakuntala Devi" and "Yaara".

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The Supreme Court on Thursday (July 23) heard Rajasthan Assembly Speaker CP Joshis petition challenging Rajasthan High Court order barring Joshi from conducting disqualification proceedings against Sachin Pilot and 18 other rebel Congress MLAs, till July 24 (Friday) and deferred the case for Monday (July 27).

The SC, however, passed no stay order on the proceedings of the Rajasthan HC and directed both sides to submit concise written submissions on their case. Kapil Sibal, counsel for Rajasthan Speaker, has urged the SC to stay HC decision.

The matter was heard by a three-judge bench of Justice Arun Mishra, Justice Krishna Murari and Justice B R Gavai.

Harish Salve, appearing for Sachin Pilot, objected to Sibal's argument saying the Speaker has been participating in the proceedings before the HC. He added that Speaker Joshi also argued his case in HC and should have raised objection on Day 1 itself.

Earlier, during the hearing, the SC had asked Rajasthan Speaker, "On what grounds disqualification was sought?"

Sibal responded saying that the dissident MLAs failed to attend party meet and indulging in anti-party activities. The MLAs are in a Haryana hotel, incommunicado and called for floor test against their own party.

Sibal had started the argument by saying, The court cannot direct the Speaker to extend the time to file their replies to the anti-defection notices. Its not in the jurisdiction of the court. Rajasthan HC was wrong in issuing a direction to the Speaker. This is against settled law on this point.

Sibal said that sweeping discretion is available with the Speaker and his decision on disqualification may be subject to judicial review, but the Court has no power on anything that happens before the disqualification process.

The SC asked Sibal, "Can't the court interfere if the Speaker disqualifies an MLA?" Sibal responded saying, "Yes, but intervention can only be after the decisions are taken."

Sibal also said that the Speaker cannot be directed to extend the time to file their replies to the anti-defection notices. He argued that this is beyond the the jurisdiction of the court.

Sibal said, "The argument is that prior to the decision of the Speaker, no intervention by court can be done unless there is a suspension by the Speaker or an interlocutory disqualification happens."

The top court also asked Sibal's view on intra-party democracy. Sibal responded saying, "It is for the MLAs to explain. They should come back and say they were in a vacation. They are exercising free speech, etc. The apex court asks if a whip can be issued for attending a party meeting. Sibal denies Speaker CP Joshi issued a whip for the meeting and says, it was only a notice not a whip."
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Since 2017, more than one million Central Americans have made their way to the U.S. southwestern border, triggering a disjointed but brutal crackdown by the administration of President Donald Trump. Although the combination of tighter border controls and the coronavirus has reduced these flows, they will resume when the Covid-19 lockdowns lift.

Only this time, Mexicans are likely to join the exodus. The resulting tensions could destabilize one of the worlds most tightly woven bilateral relationships, jeopardizing cooperation on everything from counternarcotics to water rights and the prosperity that closer ties have underpinned on both sides of the border.

Mexican migration to the U.S. peaked at the turn of the last century. At the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans moved north every year, many evading border sentries along the way. They fanned out across the nation, drawn to enclaves in California, Texas, Illinois, and Arizona, but also to newer locations: Colorado, Florida, Georgia and Idaho. And many switched from seasonal work in the fields to more permanent year-round jobs in childcare, landscaping, hotels and car services.

By the mid-2000s, the exodus slowed. For the past 15 years, more Mexicans have left the U.S. than come each year. This shift reflects economic progress at home, not least an end to the financial booms and busts of the 1980s and 1990s. Beefed-up enforcement at the U.S. border has also discouraged circular migration, with workers now rarely returning home for a few months between planting seasons.

Better schooling also helped. With the number of years of education nearly doubling since 1990, the average Mexican 16-year-old is in class, not the workforce. So have changing demographics: Starting in the 1980s Mexican families have had fewer kids, now averaging just over two per household. Compared with the 1990s, fewer Mexicans are turning 18 every year and searching for work either at home or in the U.S.

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But in place of Mexicans came a swelling wave of Central Americans, driven by poverty, violence and devastating droughts due to climate change. The majority have been women and children, pulled, too, by the presence of family, friends and economic ties in the U.S.

The Trump administration has made aggressive efforts to stop them. It changed asylum rules, attempting to disqualify those fleeing gang or domestic violence, to limit the right to apply to those arriving at official border crossings, and to otherwise make it more difficult to seek protection. Those families who did enter the U.S. system were often subjected to inhumane living conditions, with children separated from parents and placed in detention pens resembling cages.

The U.S. leaned hard on Central American governments to stop these would-be migrants from leaving in the first place. Under pressure, Mexico also acquiesced to holding tens of thousands of Central Americans for months or more as they waited to have their claims heard in U.S. immigration courts.

The number of Central American migrants did decline. In the start of 2020, flows fell almost by half compared with the year before. With Covid-19 restrictions, the movement nearly ceased in April and May. Yet the reasons pushing families to leave havent changed. Instead, the pandemic is making them all the worse. And not just in Central America, but also in Mexico.

The biggest factor driving a resurgence of Mexicans north is economic desperation: Mexicos economy is expected to shrink by more than 10% this year. Even before the pandemic, both public and private investment had fallen to historic lows. Since then more than 12 million Mexicans have lost their livelihoods, as the government is doing little to keep companies going or preserve jobs. And in addition to the consequences of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obradors misguided economic policies, his reversal of education reforms has made it less important and likely that students will stay in school. Those who do will be less likely to learn the skills needed in a 21st-century Mexican economy.

Rising violence is also driving hundreds of thousands of Mexicans from their homes and communities. Last year homicides topped 34,000. The first half of 2020 has been even more deadly.

As these factors push Mexicans to leave, economic and familial ties pull them north. Mexicans represent the biggest migrant population in the U.S. (the majority here legally). Even with a soft U.S. economy, these fellow citizens can provide a contact, a first place to stay, and a lead on a job for future aspiring migrants.

If the past is any guide, many more Mexicans will head north. Their numbers are already ticking up: Since January, more Mexicans than Central Americans have been apprehended at the border.

The Trump administrations methods to discourage Central Americans wont work with Mexico. Lopez Obrador and his National Guard arent able to stop citizens who have a constitutional right to leave their country. Mexican migrants are less likely to be asylum seekers (even as many flee incredible violence), so the rule changes wont dissuade their journeys. And Mexicans are also more likely to succeed in making it into the U.S.; the nations proximity means that those who have been deported can easily try their luck again.

A migration surge could be a game changer for U.S. politics and policy. On the foreign policy side, it could rupture the bonhomie between Lopez Obrador and Trump, as migration becomes a defining electoral campaign issue. Mexicos president has so far ignored or endured U.S. slights, but a full frontal attack on his citizens would be harder to take given his long-standing (and popular) defense of Mexican migrants.

For the U.S. presidential race, a surge in Mexican migration would mobilize both sides. It would provide anti-immigrant fodder that Trump could use to feed his base. But his tirades could also motivate more of the tens of millions of Mexican-Americans, weary of the ugliness directed at them by association, to turn out to vote. With Latinos representing 13% of the electorate, Democrats could benefit.

The hardest part will come later. Whoever wins in November wont have the policy tools to manage this migration effectively or humanely. Outdated laws and an already strained immigration system provide little recourse, and political polarization makes it all the harder to fix them. Mexican migration could easily become the new administrations first big crisis.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Shannon O'Neil is a senior fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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A Mars probe is launched on a Long March-5 rocket from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China's Hainan Province, July 23, 2020.

WENCHANG, Hainan, July 23 (Xinhua) -- China launched a Mars probe on Thursday, designed to complete orbiting, landing and roving in one mission, taking the first step in its planetary exploration of the solar system.

A Long March-5 rocket, China's largest launch vehicle, carrying the spacecraft with a mass of about 5 tonnes, soared into the sky from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the coast of southern China's island province of Hainan at 12:41 p.m. (Beijing Time).

About 36 minutes later, the spacecraft, including an orbiter and a rover, was sent into the Earth-Mars transfer orbit, embarking on an almost seven-month journey to the red planet, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

China's first Mars mission is named Tianwen-1, which means Questions to Heaven and comes from a poem written by Qu Yuan (about 340-278 BC), one of the greatest poets of ancient China. The name signifies the Chinese nation's perseverance in pursuing truth and science and exploring nature and the universe, said the CNSA.

"The successful launch is only the first step of China's Mars mission, and we hope each of the many key steps of the long journey is completed successfully," said Geng Yan, an official at the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the CNSA.

The key steps include slowing down when close to Mars, orbiting, separating the landing platform and the rover from the orbiter, landing softly and roving.

The craft is expected to enter the orbit of Mars around February 2021. Afterwards, it will spend two to three months surveying potential landing sites using a high-resolution camera to prepare for the landing in May.

The most challenging part of the mission will be the soft landing, an autonomous process of the probe lasting seven to eight minutes. The probe will use its aerodynamic shape, parachute and retrorocket to decelerate and buffer legs to touch down, said Geng.

After the landing, the rover will be released to conduct scientific exploration with an expected lifespan of at least 90 Martian days (about three months on Earth), and the orbiter, with a design life of one Martian year (about 687 days on Earth), will relay communications for the rover while conducting its own scientific detection.

Chinese space engineers and scientists have chosen a relatively flat region in the southern part of the Utopia Planitia, a large plain, as the potential landing zone.

"The reason we selected this place is that it has both the conditions for a safe landing and scientific research value. The place has not been investigated by other countries, so the scientific data can be shared with other countries to enrich the world's understanding of Mars," Geng said.

Earlier research showed the potential landing site might be the edge of an ancient ocean or lake in the early history of Mars. Chinese scientists are looking forward to finding more evidence of water-ice.

The scientific goals include mapping the morphology and geological structure, investigating surface soil characteristics and water-ice distribution, analyzing the surface material composition, measuring the ionosphere and the characteristics of the Martian climate and environment at the surface, and perceiving the physical fields and internal structure of Mars.

The orbiter is equipped with seven kinds of scientific instruments: two remote-sensing cameras, Mars-Orbiting Subsurface Exploration Radar, Mars Mineralogy Spectrometer, Mars Magnetometer, Mars Ion and Neutral Particle Analyzer, and Mars Energetic Particle Analyzer.

The six-wheel solar-powered rover, looking like a blue butterfly with a mass of 240 kg, carries the Terrain Camera, Multispectral Camera, Mars-Rover Subsurface Exploration Radar, Mars Surface Composition Detector, Mars Magnetic Field Detector and Mars Meteorology Monitor.

Mars is at the forefront of international deep space exploration, Geng said. Mars exploration could help improve human ability to go deeper into space and provide first-hand data for major scientific research such as the origin and evolution of the solar system and life.

"Previous explorations have found evidence of water on the planet. Does this indicate there is or was life on Mars, or Mars is the past or the future of Earth? These questions are key goals of Mars research and are of great significance in understanding life and the evolution of Earth," Geng said.

Mars is also a priority target for manned landing missions other than the moon, as it can be reached using existing space capabilities and its environment is closest to Earth in the solar system, Geng said.

The mission will spur the enthusiasm of Chinese scientists to study other planets and make unique contributions to scientific progress, he said.

Pushing forward deep space exploration with Mars as the starting point could help promote China's development through innovation, he added.

Mars exploration is innovative and challenging. It needs basic technologies concerning materials, components, structures and instruments for extreme environmental conditions. It needs breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, autonomous navigation, precise control, as well as remote measurement, control and communication technologies.

Through transformation and application, these new technologies will help improve human life, and set new frontiers for social development by driving leaps in fields such as science and technology, ideology and culture, he said.

"Earth is the cradle of humanity, but we cannot stay in the cradle forever. It's important we have the ability to get out. Only by learning to fly, can we have a better future," said Li Dapeng, a spaceflight enthusiast from north China's Hebei Province.

"The mission requires tens of thousands of steps operated correctly for complete success, quite a test for engineers and technicians. It might fail on the first try, but let's hope we're lucky," Li said.

Han Hongxu, a tourist from Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, brought his son to Wenchang to watch the launch.

Han believed flying to Mars is the most courageous and romantic human achievement. "Like loving a person, you run to the lover, regardless of the difficulties and dangers, regardless of how far and whether you have a future together," he said.

China is a latecomer in planetary exploration. Chinese space experts believe the goal of exploration should be reachable, although not easy. China's Mars exploration doesn't repeat the paths of other countries and starts at a high level.

"We hope the mission will be innovative and help push forward scientific and technological development," Geng said.

However, the challenges are also unprecedented.

Although China has achieved a series of successes in lunar exploration with four probes to the moon, Mars poses new difficulties for Chinese spacecraft designers.

More than 40 Mars missions have been launched since the 1960s, but only about half have succeeded. The success rate for landing is even lower, and only the United States has succeeded in a soft landing on Mars.

"We only have a limited understanding of Mars. There are still many uncertainties about the environment and great risks," said Geng.

If China can succeed in orbiting, landing and roving with Tianwen-1, it will take the challenge of collecting and bringing back samples in the next Mars mission, as well as exploring asteroids and the Jovian system, Geng added.
July 23 (Reuters) - Iran's foreign ministry said on Thursday foreign governments may have been behind recent cyberattacks on Iranian facilities, but played down the possibility of them having a role in a series of fires and explosions at military and other installations.

Since late June, several fires or explosions have been reported at military, industrial and nuclear sites in Iran as well as at oil refineries, power plants, factories and businesses.

Some Iranian officials have said a fire at the underground Natanz nuclear facility this month may have been caused by cyber sabotage. Other incidents have gone unexplained.

"There are thousands of cyberattacks on the country's infrastructure on a daily basis - which is nothing new - most of which are repelled by our defence systems," Iranian media quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi as telling reporters.

In recent months, there have been several cyberattacks with wider dimensions, and technical and forensic analyses have identified "governments or groups" who were behind the attacks, he said without naming them.

But Mousavi also said fires in forests, refineries and other locations were common in summer.

An article this month by Iran's state news agency IRNA addressed what it called the possibility of sabotage by enemies such as Israel and the United States although it stopped short of accusing either directly.
The protesters in Portland, Ore., known as the Wall of Moms are among self-identified mothers willing to take lead positions during demonstrations. They're not the first. In recent decades, mothers across the globe have played significant roles in a variety of conflicts. Whether in opposition to their national governments or challenging other forms of authority such as law enforcement, these women have often been at the forefront of key moments.

Here are a few notable examples:





United States

Norma Lewis holds a flower while forming a "Wall of Moms" during a Black Lives Matter protest in Portland, Ore., on July 20, 2020. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)

While then-Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee onto George Floyd's neck, Floyd repeatedly called out for his mother, later prompting signs that read "All mothers were summoned when George Floyd called out for his momma" at protests across the United States .

In Portland, where Black Lives Matter uprisings have continued unabated since Floyd was killed in police custody in late May, hundreds of women clad in yellow formed a "Wall of Moms" between demonstrators and agents this week following reports that federal agents in unmarked vehicles were apprehending activists.

The women were joined at the demonstrations by some husbands and dads who used leaf blowers to help keep tear gas away from protesters.





Cuba

Members of the Cuban female dissident group Ladies in White demonstrate during their weekly march in Havana in 2010. (Javier Galeano / Associated Press)

Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White) was founded in 2003 by the wives and female relatives of 75 dissidents sentenced to prison on treason charges during Cubas Black Spring," including doctors, journalists and teachers.

For almost a decade, the women protested the incarcerations by attending Mass at St. Ritas Church in Havana each Sunday dressed in white. Then, they silently walked through the streets carrying gladiolas.

The last of the 75 imprisoned dissidents were freed in 2011, and most went into exile in Spain. Nevertheless, the damas continued to agitate for the release of all political prisoners, sometimes facing violence and harassment at the hands of government police. In 2018, the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Washington, D.C., presented the group with the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, a $250,000 award presented to a group or individual who has made a significant contribution to advance human freedom.

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Argentina

The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group made up of women whose children disappeared during the 1970s war against subversion, protest in front of the Government House in Buenos Aires on Dec. 8, 1983, during the last march under military dictatorship. (Eduardo Di Baia / Associated Press)

Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo began demonstrating in pairs at a public square outside the government palace in Buenos Aires in 1977. Wearing white headscarves to symbolize the diapers once used by their missing children, these mothers (and grandmothers) demanded to know what happened to their loved ones during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship a regime that killed an estimated 30,000 people and tortured thousands of others in clandestine detention camps.

The mothers and grandmothers, some of whom were Holocaust survivors, marched for four decades, putting their own lives at risk. In December 1977, three of the groups members were abducted, drugged and loaded onto a plane, then thrown into the Atlantic ocean .

Because hundreds of babies were taken from the disappeared and raised by military families, Las Madres de La Plaza de Mayo also helped reunite the children of kidnapped people with their living relatives. Their advocacy also helped bring former military officials to trial for their role in the abductions. In 1986, the group split into two, each with its own objectives.

The symbolism of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo remains strong: In 2017, tens of thousands of demonstrators raised white headscarves in protest against the early release of those convicted of crimes against humanity.





Ukraine

Mothers and widows of dead Ukrainian servicemen hold a memorial rally in front of the Russian Embassy in Kyiv 2019. (Sergei Supinsky / AFP via Getty Images)

Shortly after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, Russian-backed groups seized parts of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, prompting a military operation to reclaim them. In August of that year, Ukrainian officials came to an agreement with the rebels, who pledged to provide a humanitarian corridor to allow Ukrainian troops to retreat. But the agreement was not fulfilled. Ukrainian troops were shot at while trying to exit, resulting in hundreds of deaths. Though Ukrainian veterans maintain the presence of the Russian military in the conflict, Moscow has denied that its forces took part in the battle.

Since then, the mothers and widows of Ukrainian servicemen killed at the Battle of Ilovaisk hold memorial rallies in front of the Russian Embassy in Kyiv. Every August, they carry their countrys yellow and blue flag, along with photos of their loved ones, and hold memorial rallies to mark the anniversary of the battle. At the demonstrations, the women tie red balloons representing the bloodshed to the gates of the Russian Embassy. Theyve also created mutual aid groups to support the families of military personnel.

Russia

Mothers of Russian soldiers carry a protest banner in Nazran, Ingushetia, Russia, in 1995. The banner says: "The March of Mothers' Compassion." (Shakh Aivazov / Associated Press)

As the Soviet Union disintegrated, Chechen separatists declared independence from Russia in the early 1990s. The first Chechen war broke out in 1994, and after less than two years of fighting, Russian forces withdrew from the region. Russian troops were accused of torching and pillaging houses, as well as raping and executing civilians. Chechen forces held captured Russian soldiers, some of whom refused to fire on the civilians who surrounded their tanks. Tens of thousands of people were killed in the conflict.

A group that formed as the Soldiers Mothers Committee to protect young Russian conscripts from hazing and other forms of army brutality years before the war broke out decided to take additional action during the conflict. Some 100 members of the committee, undeterred by snow and strong winds, participated in a 56-mile antiwar march to Chechnyas capital. They carried placards that read War in Chechnya Is a Shame and Bring Our Sons Home," along with signatures collected throughout Russia in opposition to the campaign against Chechen separatists.

As the conflict dragged on, hundreds of women poured into the region to seek the release of their sons from Chechen prisons, or to find their bodies.

Mexico

Mothers call for justice in the "March of Dignity" on Mother's Day 2014 in Mexico City. (Yuri Cortez / AFP via Getty Images)

In Mexico, Mother's Day events now typically involve marches led by the mothers and wives of tens of thousands of people who have gone missing since former President Felipe Calderon launched a "war on drugs" in 2006.

Wearing T-shirts emblazoned with enlarged photos of their missing children or other relatives, the mothers march through the capital and other parts of the country. Aside from the annual marches, many have banded together to form collectives, taking it on themselves to find their missing loved ones by combing through mass graves.

At a recent seminar on Mexico's disappeared, social anthropologist and psychoanalyst Elena Azaola Garrido said that although fathers participate in the search collectives, the vast majority of these groups are led by and composed of women.

Azaola Garrido said the mothers who search for the missing suffer tremendously. Aside from threats from organized crime and corrupt government officials, "their own family members sometimes criticize them fiercely, telling them 'let it go already' and 'Why are you so hung up on that?' "
An award-winning charity boss who was sacked for criticising the Left-wing agenda of Black Lives Matter has today been reinstated by a new board of trustees.

Nick Buckley was last month dismissed by the trustees of Mancunian Way, a ground-breaking charity he founded nine years ago, after an online mob accused him of 'inappropriate' and 'insensitive' views and demanded his removal.

He described BLM's policies as 'neo-Marxist' and said they risked dividing communities in a blog published in June 6 after protests erupted in the UK following the killing of black American George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Campaigners branded his post racist and set up an online petition demanding he be removed. Within a week, Mr Buckley was sacked by the trustees.

Mr Buckley was supported by the Free Speech Union, which got behind a counter-petition and found him top lawyer Geoffrey Davies.

Speaking to MailOnline, Mr Davies of Keystone Law said: 'In their anxiety to be politically correct the trustees simply ignored their contractual obligations.

'When they were drawn to their attention the trustees realised the dreadful mistake they had made and agreed to resign and reinstate Nick as CEO.'

In tweets published this morning Mancunian Way, which helps young people in Manchester avoid a life of crime, said the trustees have resigned and a new board has asked the 52-year-old to return to his former role.

Nick Buckley was last month dismissed by the trustees of Mancunian Way, a ground-breaking charity he founded nine years ago, after an online mob accused him of 'inappropriate' and 'insensitive' views and demanded his removal. He described BLM's policies as 'neo-Marxist' and said they risked dividing communities in a blog published in June 6 after protests erupted in the UK following the death of black American George Floyd in Minneapolis

In tweets published this morning the charity Mancunian Way said the trustees have resigned and a new board has asked the 52-year-old to return to his former role

The outgoing board denied removing Mr Buckley because of his social media posts or because of the online petition, and said he had been sacked in order to 'protect the charity's reputation following legal advice and Charity Commission guidance'.

Speaking to The Critic magazine, Mr Buckley said: 'It has been a difficult five weeks, but common sense prevailed in the end.

'We have rights in the UK that our forefathers fought for, we cannot allow them to be eroded for the sake of a quiet life.

'I would urge everyone to stand up for their rights.'

He added: 'The FSU is a much-needed organisation and without it I would have not stood a chance of righting an obvious wrong.'

Toby Young, general-secretary of the FSU, told Guido Fawkes: 'I'm delighted Nick has been reappointed to the charity that he founded and which has done so much to help disadvantaged young people in Manchester.

'No one should lose their livelihood at the behest of a Left-wing outrage mob.

'Nick's sacking was an example of cancel culture at its worst and I'm pleased that the FSU and Geoffrey Davies have been able to get him his job back.'

Mr Buckley wrote his blog after protests organised by BLM UK following the killing of black man George Floyd by police in the US. Writing on Medium.com on June 6 Mr Buckley said its slogan 'is far too simple but is perfect for our modern age of social media and the willingness of social justice warriors to take up another cause' (pictured, demonstrators in London, July 10)

The response was immediate and furious. Writing on Mr Buckley's LinkedIn page, Reece Williams, a poet who works for a mental health charity in Manchester, said: 'Please know that we will be doing everything in our power to have you removed from your position. Expect us.' A few days later, an online petition calling for Mr Buckley's removal was posted on Change.org by Karlet Manning (pictured, BLM protest in London, June 3)

What did Nick Buckley's 570-word blog say? 'Of course black lives matter. Let's get this obvious point over and done with at the beginning. In fact, I would be interested if anyone can be found in the UK today who does not believe this point. It's a pointless phrase, it like saying we are against evil! 'The phrase is far too simple but is perfect for our modern age of social medial and the willingness of social justice warriors to take up another cause, buy another wristband or ribbon, to scream about something they have no understanding and to virtual signal that they are amazing individuals by taking a knee - such a powerful act of self sacrifice, it puts out D-Day veterans to shame! 'What is happening in the UK over the last few days has very little to do with the horrendous incident in the USA. It is better described as part new fashion craze and part opportunity for anarchy. Do you know who BLACKLIVESMATTER are? Do you know what this self prescribed political movement wants? According to their website they want to end white supremacy, disrupt the western prescribed nuclear family and dismantle the patriarchal practice. These are fancy words, what do they mean? They are exactly what post modern, neo-marxist use when they call for the destruction of Western Democracy and our way of life. Didn't we learn our lesson from the last century when these same ideologies lead to the deaths of 100m people. 'If it really was about valuing UK black lives then we would have demonstrations about hundreds of young black kids being stabbed to death by other young black kids in London or riots about young black girls having their labia or clitoris cur off by parents. Are these issues not worth fighting against? Instead we have to import a particular incident and be outraged at the death of a career criminal. 'The UK is not perfect, we have our own issues, my suggestion is that we fight horrendous acts committed in this country. How about we fight against UK male babies having their sexual organs mutilated? How about we fight against UK women being murdered in so called honour killings or having acid thrown in their faces? How about we fight against the lack of house building in the UK, which affects every single one of us and our children and our grandchildren? 'We are allowing ourselves to be split into groups: black/white, straight/gay, muslim/christian, male/female etc. No good can come from this only conflict. 'We have spent the last 70 years trying to move away from seeing the innate differences in people and trying to see only the character of the individual and judging them on their actions. It is the Martin Luther King way. It is the right way. 'We are the luckiest individuals in the history of the world. No one has ever had it better than we do right now. There has never been a time or place where humans have lived in such comfort, with good health, with plenty of resources, with hardly any crime and long lives. Yet some people act as it has never been worse, needs tearing down and building again. Only one word describes these people: lunatics. 'So please think on before you give your support to doctrines that only divide us and ultimately destroy us. Do not be a useful idiot'. Advertisement

A statement from Mancunian Way published on Twitter said: 'Mancunian Way, its trustees and Mr Buckley have confirmed a mutually acceptable statement to avoid litigation. The relationship between the parties irretrievably broke down following Mr Buckley's recent public and private statements.

'All trustees have made the decision to step down. A new board of trustees have been appointed and they have chosen to ask Mr Buckley's company, BNB services Ltd, to resume the provision of its support services'.

Mr Buckley worked for Manchester City Council for seven years before setting up Mancunian Way in 2011, which has helped thousands of BAME youngsters to secure jobs and spot the signs they are being groomed by criminal gangs.

He previously told The Mail on Sunday that the charity's trustees had been put in a 'terrible situation' by the pressure on social media to axe him.

'That's why the mob wins. They make people take a step backwards and once you take one step backwards, they know you'll take another,' he said.

Mr Buckley wrote his blog after protests organised by BLM UK following the killing of George Floyd by police in the US.

Writing on Medium.com on June 6 - the day protesters clashed with mounted police in London - Mr Buckley said its slogan 'is far too simple but is perfect for our modern age of social media and the willingness of social justice warriors to take up another cause.'

He wrote: 'What is happening in the UK over the last few days has very little to do with the horrendous incident in the USA.

'It is better described as part 'new fashion craze' and part 'an opportunity for anarchy. Do you know who Black Lives Matter are? Do you know what this self-proscribed political movement wants? According to their website, they want to end white supremacy, disrupt the Western prescribed nuclear family and dismantle the patriarchal practice. These are fancy words, what do they mean?

'They are exactly what post-modern, neo-Marxists use when they call for the destruction of Western democracy and our way of life.'

Referring to Floyd's criminal convictions, he questioned why the demonstrations were focused on the 'unlawful death of a career criminal' in the US rather than UK issues including knife crime, female genital mutilation, honour killings and a lack of house-building.

The response was immediate and furious. Writing on Mr Buckley's LinkedIn page, Reece Williams, a poet who works for a mental health charity in Manchester, said: 'Please know that we will be doing everything in our power to have you removed from your position. Expect us.'

A few days later, an online petition calling for Mr Buckley's removal was posted on Change.org by Karlet Manning, who also works for a mental health charity.

The petition claimed his views 'undermine the Black Lives Matter movement whilst working in a diverse community' and were 'inappropriate, insensitive and have since been deleted'.

On June 13, the row exploded on Twitter when the petition and Mr Buckley's comments began to be tweeted by Left-wing campaigners and anonymous accounts. Two days later, Mr Buckley received an email from the charity's trustees informing him their relationship with him was 'terminated'. A red flag and the word 'victory' was later posted on the Change.org petition page.

Mr Buckley said he stands by what he wrote, although he accepts he could have better conveyed some of his arguments. He said he had declined an offer from his trustees to issue an apology for the blog.

'That's the coward's way and I'm not a coward,' he said. 'If I had the guts to say what I said, then I need the guts to stand up and continue to say what I said.'

He holds no ill-feeling towards the trustees. 'They are lovely people but they weren't ready for a fight. They found themselves in a terrible situation not of their making - pressure online. Did I think it was controversial?

'Well, I knew it was going to upset some people because everything you put on social media upsets somebody. But it is not racist. I am not a racist.'
Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton is disappointed with the way that former F1 champions Jackie Stewart and Mario Andretti are viewing his push to end racism.

Hamilton is the only black driver in Formula 1 and is the only black driver to win an F1 world title. He has been outspoken against systemic racism in the wake of George Floyds death and has worn a shirt that says Black Lives Matter ahead of races.

The six-time champion has led driver demonstrations against racism before races and has pushed the FIA to make a stronger stance against racism.

Andretti, 80, said in an interview with a Chilean newspaper last week that he wondered why Hamilton had become so militant against racism. Stewart, 81, said that the problem of systemic racism in F1 and racing wasnt as big of a deal as Hamilton was making it out to be.

From Reuters:

The American great also spoke, in comments translated into Spanish, of creating a problem that doesnt exist and added that in motor racing colour doesnt matter; you have to win your place with results, and thats the same for everyone..

Triple champion Stewart, 81 and Britains most successful driver until Hamilton came along, had told ITVs Good Morning Britain that he did not think Formula One had as big a problem as it might seem.

As you can imagine, Hamilton responded to both F1 legends comments. He said on Instagram in a story on Monday that this is disappointing but unfortunately a reality that some of the older generation who still have a voice today cannot get out of their own way and acknowledge there is a problem.

He also said the ignorance would not stop him from continuing to speak out.

Hamilton has won 2 of 3 races in 2020

Hamilton is now the F1 points leader after he won in Hungary on Sunday. The victory was his second-straight win after he took the checkered flag at the Styrian Grand Prix. He raised his fist on the podium after winning in Austria and took a knee on the podium after winning in Hungary.

Story continues

He wrote on Instagram after his victory on Sunday that he wasnt happy that drivers and teams didnt make a stand against racism ahead of the race like had been done at both race weekends in Austria.

Today I raced for everyone out there who is pushing to make positive change and fight inequality, however, sadly, as a sport we need to do so much more. It is embarrassing that many teams have not made any public commitment to diversity or that we couldnt properly find time to make a symbolic gesture in support of ending racism before the race. Today felt rushed and massively lacked organisation and effort, which in turn dilutes the message and makes it seem like there was something more important. It doesnt matter if you stand or kneel, but we should be showing the world that F1 is united in its commitment to equality and inclusivity. F1 and the FIA need to do more. There is no quick fix for racial inequality, but it is certainly something that we cant just acknowledge once and then move on. We have to stay focussed [sic], keep highlighting the problem and hold those with the power accountable.

Hamiltons Mercedes team has painted its cars black for the 2020 season in a show of support for the Black Lives Matter movement. The automaker also said that it needed to do a better job committing to diversity within its workforce as just 3 percent is made up by non-white workers and just 12 percent of its workforce are women.

      

Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

More from Yahoo Sports:
By Trend

An Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR) mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will arrive in Uzbekistan in December 2020, Trend reports with reference to Foreign Ministry of Uzbekistan.

Deputy Foreign Minister of Uzbekistan Sherzod Asadov met with IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi in Vienna to discuss the matter.

According to message of the Uzbek Foreign Ministry, the agency "is very satisfied with the work progress on the Uzbekistan's nuclear program."

We believe that for the new nuclear states, your country is a model for building relations with the IAEA, the press service of the Foreign Ministry quoted Rafael Grossi as saying.

According to the Uzatom agency, a program has been developed for the country with the assistance of the IAEA to build capacity and create nuclear infrastructure as part of the nuclear power plants construction project for 2020-2021.

As part of its technical cooperation program, IAEA approved four projects worth more than one million euros for implementation in Uzbekistan for the period 2020-2021.

The program provides for strengthening nuclear and radiation safety in the operation of nuclear energy facilities in Uzbekistan, development and introduction of modern nuclear technologies in medicine and other sectors of the economy, as well as dissemination of knowledge about nuclear energy.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Georgetown, SC (29440)

Today

Partly cloudy early with increasing clouds overnight. Low 43F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy early with increasing clouds overnight. Low 43F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
Landlords and property agents have been asked to charge six percent Stamp Duty on all tenancy and lease agreements by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

Landlords and property agents were given this directive by the tax agencys Director, Communications and Liaison Department Abdullahi Ahmad on Wednesday July 22. They are expected to remit such collections to FIRS so that they do not run foul of the Stamp Duty Act.

Ahmad said;

Property-related transactions like tenancy or lease agreement fall under the Ad Valorem category of the stamp duty which attracts six per cent duty payable in percentage of the total value or sum of the tenancy or lease. The burden of payment of the six per cent lies on the beneficiary of the tenancy or lease agreement, whom the Stamp Duty Act identified as the tenant or renter. The responsibility of collection and remittance fall on the landlord or agent in charge of the property for lease or rent. The party making the payment shall have the obligation to account for the applicable stamp duties.

Other Stamp Duty types and their rates include Appraisement or Valuation of Property , 5 per cent; Certificate of Occupancy and Partnership, N1,000 flat rate; Gift of Land, 1.5 per cent and Legal Mortgage, 0.375 per cent, Legal Mortgage (Upstamping), 0.375 per cent; Deed of Conveyance or Transfer on Sale of Property, 1.5 per cent; Memorandum of Understanding (Related to Land, Sales, Joint Venture, Surrender, Subdivision Agreements, 1.5 per cent; Power of Attorney (Irrevocable/Land Related), 1.5 per cent and Sales Agreement, 1.5 per cent.

The Stamp Duties payment is backed by the Stamp Duties Act (SDA) 1939 as amended by numerous Acts and various resolutions contained in the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria. The SDA also provides a list of documents in its schedule and the duty payable on each.
Home Minister Narottam Mishra on Wednesday said that will be imposed in from July 24 to August 2 in wake of the increasing COVID-19 cases in the city.

"A decision has been taken to implement 10 days in from the night of July 24 to August 2. This decision has been taken in view of the situation of the infection in the capital," Mishra tweeted in Hindi.

According to the Health Department, a total of 4,669 COVID-19 cases have been registered in so far.

Mishra said that during the in the state capital, only essential services be allowed to function.

"During the 10-day lockdown in Bhopal, only medicines, milk, vegetables and government ration shops will remain open. Therefore, all the people of Bhopal are requested to make arrangements for the necessary goods in two days. Like the earlier lockdown for commuters, only e-pass will be allowed," he wrote in his second tweet.

The Home Minister urged the people not to panic and said the order for the availability of essential items has been issued.

"The lockdown will end on the morning of August 4. There will be the availability of essential goods, directions have been given to provide ration to the poor, so there is no need to panic. We all have to work together to control the infection," he said in a subsequent tweet.

As per the Union Health Ministry, Madhya Pradesh has a total of 24,095 COVID-19 cases.

(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.)
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Linkedin Mardika Parama (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 16:46 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668c69e4 1 Business tourism,tax-incentive,loan,COVID-19,working-capital Free

Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Wishnutama Kusubandio has proposed a full exemption from corporate income tax for all firms in the tourist and creative economy sectors, as well as the provision of additional working capital loans, to aid the hard-hit industry during the global health crisis.

Wishnutama said he was currently in talks with Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati regarding the proposal. The tourist sector is currently eligible for a 30 percent discount on corporate income tax to cushion the COVID-19 pandemic impact.

We have proposed an additional tax cut of PPh Article 25 [corporate income tax] from the previous 30 percent to 100 percent. However, it is still under negotiation with the Finance Minister, he said in a discussion held at the Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Ministry on Wednesday.

The minister also proposed to increase the limit for working capital loans from state-owned banks for tourism businesses from the current cap of Rp 10 billion (US$684,000), adding that the plan was being discussed with the Finance Ministry and the Association of State-Owned Banks (Himbara).

The government has guaranteed working capital loans worth Rp 100 trillion for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that cover loans with a ceiling of Rp 10 billion and a tenor of three years, as part of the COVID-19 relief package, aside from loan restructuring.

So far, the governments debt-restructuring program for pandemic-hit firms has led to Rp 124 trillion of restructured bank loans for tourism firms, while the restructured loans from the lending and multifinance sector amount to Rp 3.1 trillion, according to Wishnutama.

Indonesias tourist sector has seen its revenue dry up amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as fears of the disease and international border closures brought the industry into a screeching halt. According to Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI) data, the pandemic had wiped out an estimated Rp 85 trillion of Indonesias tourism revenue as of mid-July.

Foreign visitor arrivals to the country plunged by 86.9 percent year-on-year (yoy) in May to 163,646, according to Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data. From January to May, Indonesia recorded just 2.9 million foreign tourist visits, a 53.56 percent drop from the same period last year.

In total, the government has allocated Rp 695.2 trillion as part of its COVID-19 response. This includes Rp 120.61 trillion allocated by the government to provide tax relief for individuals and businesses affected by the pandemic.

Meanwhile, in addition to the financial stimulus, the government is also attempting to kickstart the industry by instructing government institutions and agencies to resume their business trips and set up meetings in tourist destinations.

The Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Ministry issued a letter on July 6 instructing agencies and ministries under its leadership to spend their remaining business trip budget of Rp 4.1 trillion in eight designated tourist destinations starting from July to November.

The designated destinations are Banyuwangi, East Java; Bali; Borobudur Temple in Central Java; Toba Lake in North Sumatra; Riau Islands; Labuan Bajo in East Nusa Tenggara; Likupang in North Sulawesi; and Mandalika in West Nusa Tenggara.

The business trips could help spur national economic growth and have a positive impact on the regions relying on tourism, the letter reads.

In the same event, Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan encouraged stakeholders to boost domestic tourism in the third quarter of the year.

Lets work together to increase the number of domestic tourists by 70 percent in the third quarter, he said.

He acknowledged that so far, more than 180,000 workers in the tourist sector had been affected by the pandemic, while an estimated 2,000 hotels have stopped operating.

PHRI chairman Hariyadi Sukamdani previously told lawmakers during a hearing on July 14 that the governments tax incentives were not sufficient to stop the bleeding.

Banks will need to extend the debt-restructuring program and they will need to provide working capital loans to rescue businesses in the tourist sector, he said.

Read also: Pandemic erases $5.9b of Indonesias tourism revenue as businesses seek help
NEW YORK, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP, a leading national securities law firm, is investigating potential misconduct at Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation (Cabot Oil & Gas or the Company) (NYSE: COG).

The investigation focuses on whether the Companys Board of Directors and/or officers breached their fiduciary duties.

Request more information now by clicking here: www.faruqilaw.com/COG. There is no cost or obligation to you.

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If you currently own Cabot Oil & Gas stock, have continuously owned Cabot Oil & Gas stock and would like to discuss your legal rights, please visit www.faruqilaw.com/COG. You can also contact us by calling Alex B. Heller or Christopher M. Lash toll free at (877) 247-4292 or by sending an e-mail to aheller@faruqilaw.com or clash@faruqilaw.com. Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP also encourages anyone with information regarding the Companys conduct to contact the firm, including whistleblowers, former employees, shareholders and others.



Attorney Advertising. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP (www.faruqilaw.com). Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your particular case. All communications will be treated in a confidential manner.



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With the number of coronavirus cases on the rise in India and globally, a Kashmiri newspaper came up with an innovative way to distribute free, disposable face masks to the people of the Valley in times of pandemic. On Tuesday, the Urdu newspaper, Roshnis edition had a free mask attached to it and was praised all over social media for taking social responsibility to the next level.

The newspaper, one of the oldest in Kashmir, is priced at a mere two rupees, advised its readers to wear masks as they are essential in times of Covid-19. The Urdu text next to the mask read, mask ka istemal zaroori hai (using a mask is necessary). It went on to assert, With this, not only you but those around you can also stay protected from coronavirus.

A Kashmiri newspaper is being praised for taking social responsibility to next level after it distributed free face masks with Tuesdays edition of the paper. Photos of the Urdu newspaper are being widely shared on social media and is receiving praise.

In an interview with Free Press Kashmir, the Editor-in-Chief of Daily Roshni, Zahoor Ahmad Shora said that they decided to take up the innovative idea as they had seen that a lot of people were still moving around without masks, and not taking the threat of the coronavirus seriously. He added that the newspaper had hired more people in order to ensure the masks were packed and ready with the newspapers Tuesday edition.

The newspaper was lauded on social media for its noble efforts in creating awareness, and several people pointed out how the newspaper cost a lot less than the price of a disposable face mask.

Such a great initiative by our Urdu newspaper Roshni to affix a mask on the front page of the paper. It drives home the message about mask usage & also takes away the excuse about a mask not being readily available. Well done to who ever came up with this idea. #COVID19 #COVID pic.twitter.com/M9p2WoTsic  Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) July 21, 2020

Omar Abdullah tweeted, Such a great initiative by our Urdu newspaper Roshni to affix a mask on the front page of the paper. It drives home the message about mask usage & also takes away the excuse about a mask not being readily available. Well done to who ever came up with this idea. #COVID19 #COVID

This is a local newspaper "Roshni" from Kashmir



They have taken "social responsibility" to next level.

Not only have they encouraged their readers to use a mask but also attached a mask for them in the paper!

Superb effort Roshni!  pic.twitter.com/dzfkCXVGK7  Parminder Singh Brar (@PSBrarOfficial) July 22, 2020

While one Twitter user wrote, Roshni, an Urdu newspaper in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir, send its readers a free mask with this message: Wearing mask is necessary. This will protect you and those around you from coronavirus. Brilliant idea #COVID19 #Kashmir (sic), another tweeted, This is a local newspaper from Kashmir. Its called Roshni. They have taken  social responsibility to another level. Not only have they encouraged their readers to use a mask but also attached a mask for them in the paper!

This is such a brilliant idea, worth emulating by other media outlets! This is one of the best ways they can display their role in fighting the #CoronaPandemic! #facemasks https://t.co/juQoWu0U24  Ananth Rupanagudi (@rananth) July 22, 2020

Complimentary mask for readers.



That's Kashmir Journalism, wear mask and stay safe. pic.twitter.com/zWMvpnb9mF  Salman Nizami (@SalmanNizami_) July 21, 2020

People were very impressed with the newspapers innovative idea to spread awareness.

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The enormous Hynix chip factory in Eugene, vacant for a dozen years, could spring back to life next year building video display technology for its new owner, an Ohio company called Stratacache.

Stratacache expects to start a pilot line in Eugene by summer of 2021, with more than 100 workers slowing ramping up production. The privately held company hopes to begin full manufacturing, with several hundred employees, sometime the following year.

Hynix spent $1.5 billion building and equipping the 1.2-million-square-foot facility but operated there for only a decade. It walked away in 2008 amid a downturn in the memory chip market, throwing 1,400 people out of work.

In the ensuring years a pair of manufacturers acquired the facility, Broadcom and Corning, but neither followed through plans for the site. Stratacache bought the 200-acre property at auction in March for just $6.3 million.

Privately held Stratacache makes technology for digital signs used as highway billboards, fast-food menu boards, airport ticket kiosks and retail displays. The 21-year-old company has 1,100 employees and says it has sold 3.3 million digital signs.

CEO Chris Riegel said he hopes to make MicroLEDs, the next generation in video display technology, in Eugene.

Visiting Oregon this week for the fourth time since his company bought the Hynix factory, Riegel said the factory is in arguably pristine condition after a decade in mothballs, with a large cleanroom and other systems suited for high-tech manufacturing.

What were doing is basically getting it back into shape pretty rapidly for bringing back production, Riegel said.

Stratacache is now performing mechanical upgrades and preparing to reroof the production area, he said. Ultimately, Riegel said his company expects to spend somewhere between $150 million and $350 million resurrecting the facility and adapting it for Stratacaches technology.

Oregon has a long history of both innovation and disappointment in video display technology. Inventions at Tektronix spun off into companies including InFocus and Planar Systems, which were briefly among the states largest businesses. Those spinouts ultimately lost out to rivals overseas and the industry migrated to Asia, closer to low-cost production facilities.

Hillsboro-based Planar, now owned by a Chinese company called Leyard Optoelectronic, is among Stratacaches competitors.

While Stratacache has factories and suppliers in Asia, too, Riegel said the availability of the Eugene factory and Oregons tax exemptions for tech manufacturers made the Hynix facility an attractive choice for expansion.

And he said the states expertise in electronics manufacturing  Intels largest operations are in Hillsboro  provides a skilled pool of workers and suppliers to draw from as Stratacache works to revive the Hynix site.

Theres definitely a tribal knowledge base thats interesting to us here in Oregon, Riegel said.

-- Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 22:03:10|Editor: huaxia

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HELSINKI, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Finland-based forestry giant UPM (United Paper Mills) on Thursday reported a 20 percent decline in turnover and a 41 percent decline in profits in Q2 2020, year-on-year.

UPM's profit reached 203 million euros (235 million U.S. dollars) in Q2, compared with 345 million euros in the corresponding period last year. The turnover of Q2 2020 was 2,077 million euros, down from 2,605 million euros in Q2 2019.

In its report, UPM said besides diminished deliveries of graphic paper, the decline was caused by lower price levels of both paper and pulp.

Jussi Pesonen, president and CEO of UPM, noted in the press release on Thursday that demand for graphic paper declined in Europe by 32 percent during Q2 2020, due to anti-COVID-19 measures. "UPM Communication Papers reported a loss for the first time in five years," said Pesonen. UPM Communication Papers is the world's leading producer of graphic papers.

UPM made savings in costs, but could not offset the bad market development, said Pesonen, adding that demand for special papers had increased.

This summer UPM closed the Saynatsalo plywood plant in Jyvaskyla, central Finland and the Chapelle paper plant in France. The plywood plant in Jyvaskyla had been in production since 1914.

Meanwhile, during the first half of 2020, UPM turnover declined by 18 percent to 4,364 million euros from 5,298 in the same period of 2019, while profit dropped by 33 percent, from 719 million euros to 482 million euros. (1 euro = 1.16 U.S. dollars) Enditem
FILE PHOTO: The Wider Image: Australia's drought - the cancer eating away at farms

By Swati Pandey

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A 23-year-old student has filed a lawsuit against Australia's government alleging it has failed to disclose climate change-related risks to investors in the country's sovereign bonds, in the first such action.

According to the litigation filed on Wednesday, Kathleen O'Donnell claims investors who buy Australian government bonds should be made aware of the risks due to climate change that might make it difficult for Australia to pay back its debt.

A spokeswoman for Australia's Treasurer told Reuters the government was aware of the lawsuit.

"Legal representatives are considering the matter. As it concerns current court proceedings the government will not make any comment," the spokeswoman said.

The litigation comes amid a global call for a "green" recovery in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic and as many large investment managers pledge their commitment for net zero carbon emissions by 2050 across their entire portfolio.

Climate change has long been a hot button issue in Australia, becoming even more so since last summer when intense wildfires raged for about four months across large parts of the country, killing 33 people and millions of animals.

"Australia is materially exposed and susceptible" to climate change risks, according to the statement filed with the Federal Court of Australia in Victoria state.

"Accordingly, (a) those risks are material to an investor's decision to trade in exchange-traded Australian government bonds (e-AGBs) and (b) an investor is entitled to be informed of those risks."

O'Donnell is seeking declaration that the government breached its duty of disclosure and an injunction restraining further promotion of e-AGBs until it complies.

Australia has more than A$600 billion (336.19 billion pounds) of sovereign bonds on issue, enjoying a coveted 'AAA' rating from all three major ratings agencies.

Story continues

The country contributes only 1.3% of the world's carbon emissions but is the second-largest emitter per capita behind the United States and is a leading exporter of coal.

Climate change-related disclosures have become more mainstream globally in the past couple of years, with stake holders expecting better disclosures and transparency on climate risks.

Global financial authorities are also pushing banks to improve transparency on their exposure to climate-change risks, arguing that disclosures on climate exposure are a prerequisite for market participants - an issue referenced in O'Donnell's litigation.

"As a promoter, the Commonwealth (government) owes a duty of utmost candour and honesty to investors who acquire or intend to acquire e-AGBs," according to the statement filed in court.

"The Commonwealth breached its duty as a promoter by ... failing to disclose any information about Australia's climate change risks."

($1 = 1.4031 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Robert Birsel)
The group, branded 'Boris' Babies' when they entered Parliament in 2019, are now being called 'f***ing nobodies' by Mr Johnson's allies. Senior party sources have pointed the finger at Bishop Auckland MP Dehenna Davison and fellow Tory Alicia Kearns as ringleaders. As many as 20 recently-elected MPs are believed to have gathered at 1pm in the office of one of their number, Alicia Kearns (right), which swiftly became known as the 'Pork Pie Putsch' because she represents Melton Mowbray. Whips suspect three other relatively new backbenchers - Ms Davison from Bishop Auckland, Gary Sambrook (inset left), a freemason and MP for Birmingham Northfield and Chris Loder, a former train guard (inset right) from West Dorset - of being among the ringleaders. They are now being called the 'grey wolves' by some allies of the Prime Minister because 'they were not socialised in Parliament during the pandemic', according to Sky News. One Cabinet source was furious at the lack of loyalty, telling The Times: 'They were only elected because of him. Most of them are a load of f****** nobodies. It's nuts.' Downing Street is understood to be particularly annoyed about Miss Davison. Carrie Johnson, along with Dilyn, the PM's dog, and Rishi Sunak had campaigned for her in 2019 (left). And in a sign that all is not well, Nimco Ali, Carrie's best friend tweeted today: 'Honestly can't believe the audacity of @DehennaDavison. Girl get a grip'. Christian Wakeford, the first Tory to represent Bury South in more than 20 years, became the seventh MP known to have written to the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee. Last year he admitted he approached Owen Paterson and called him a 'c***' after the government instructed MPs to vote to change parliamentary sleaze rules. Today he defected to Labour.
WASHINGTON, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) issued the following statement on President Trump's recent memorandum blocking undocumented immigrants from being counted in the Census:

Louisville (KY) Mayor Greg Fischer, USCM President

"The U.S. Constitution is clear: a census shall be taken of the 'whole number' of persons in the nation. That means everyone: citizens and non-citizens, including those who are undocumented. The memo the President recently issued suggests otherwise and is misguided.

"Undocumented people are important members of our communities. They work; they pay taxes; they provide essential services; and despite financing obstacles, frequently start their own businesses contributing over $15 billion to our economies and to our nation as a whole. The President's memo is a cynical tactic that stands to undermine not only the success of the Census, but the very fabric of our country. The nation's mayors will continue to work to ensure that everyone in our communities can come forward without fear and be counted."

Atlanta (GA) Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Chair, USCM's Census Task Force

"Despite this exclusionary tactic by the Trump Administration, Atlanta joins with other cities around the country in ensuring that everyone is counted in the 2020 Census, including undocumented immigrants."

San Antonio (TX) Mayor Ron Nirenberg, Vice Chair, USCM's Census Task Force

"The Constitution clearly states that everyone living in the United States should be counted in the Census. Every person residing in our communities requires services regardless of their immigration status. Blocking any resident from being included in the Census for reapportionment is unconstitutional and offensive."

Providence (RI) Mayor Jorge O. Elorza, Co-Chair, USCM's Immigration Reform Task Force

"The Administration's latest attempt to weaponize the Census by deliberately targeting immigrants and communities of color is unconscionable and will be found unconstitutional. The cultural, economic and social contributions of immigrants cannot be overstated; particularly during a global pandemic where many are employed in roles essential to our economy and society. They are disproportionately risking exposure to the virus to continue contributing where needed and they deserve to be counted and their voices heard."

El Paso (TX) Mayor Dee Margo, Vice Chair of Border Policy, USCM's Criminal and Social Justice Standing Committee

"It is imperative all residents be counted in the 2020 Census. All residents, irrespective of immigration status, use our streets and all other available services. The census is critical for our communities to meet future needs for all segments of our population."

About the United States Conference of Mayors -- The U.S. Conference of Mayors is the official nonpartisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. There are more than 1,400 such cities in the country today, and each city is represented in the Conference by its chief elected official, the mayor. Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/usmayors , or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/usmayors .

SOURCE U.S. Conference of Mayors

Related Links

www.usmayors.org


New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Thursday asked Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan to file an affidavit mentioning apology for his alleged remark in Bulandshahr gang-rape case. Next hearing will take place on December 7.

Azam Khan had allegedly termed the gang-rape of a woman and her daughter a political conspiracy. His remark was examined by the Supreme Court.

A family from Noida was stopped on the highway near Bulandshahr by an armed gang on July 29. The woman and her 14-year-old daughter were dragged to fields and were raped.

The teenager had moved the Supreme Court requesting a police complaint against Azam Khan for his comment.

Khan had said: "We need to investigate whether this is a conspiracy by opponents who want to defame the government."

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CPP Acting General Secretary, James Kwabena Bomfeh says it's too early for any person to make a judgement call on the Minister for Special Development Initiatives and Awutu Senya East MP, Mavis Hawa Koomson.



James Kwabena Bomfeh, popularly called Kabilla held that Hawa Koomson, like any Ghanaian, must have a fair hearing before one can suggest a punitive measure should be meted out to her.



The Minister has incurred the wrath of the public after she instigated a shooting incident at a registration centre in her constituency on Monday, July, 20, 2020.



She had gone to the Step to Christ registration centre following a tip-off that some people who were not residents in the constituency have been bused to register their names in the ongoing voter registration exercise.



According to her, her police escort had not started work yet'', so she went to the centre in the absence of her bodyguard but took a gun for protection.



She further claimed her life was threatened by some people at the centre, hence triggering her to fire gunshots to scare her attackers.



I realised the lives of my people were in danger. So I wanted to scare the people. I fired the warning shots. I didnt direct it at anybody."



Some people have translated her action as self-defence but there are others who want her removed from her position.



Both the Majority and Minority in Parliament have also condemned her action.



Addressing the issue on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo', Kabilla stressed ''it's not enough at this stage to call for a punitive measure against her immediately if you believe that no matter how grievous an offence, the individual involved deserve a hearing, that rule must apply regardless who''.



To him, Hawa Koomson must be given the benefit of the doubt till the Police have launched and concluded their investigations into the incident.



''What if after investigations, it's proven the incident is not how it appears? What if the investigations show she wasn't the one who fired the gunshots but rather she wants to carry someone's sins, so admitting she did it? What if the investigations show the shots didn't come from her gun?'' he questioned.



''Even in war, I want to believe that there are rules of engagement and pulling a weapon, and moving to the extent of firing that weapon; I don't think it's ordinary thing to do. There must be cause. There must be grounds to do that.



''This is the reason why there should be investigations before judgement. On that note, I want to suggest as I always do, no matter what you know, no matter how much you know; there may be a little more out there unknown to you. Be measured!'' he advised her critics.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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By PTI

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan police on Thursday said that they have not received any "evidence" to confirm the media reports that the wife of one of the Easter suicide bombers may have fled to India to avoid arrest.

Police spokesman Jaliya Senaratne made the comments while responding to questions on the media reports that the Presidential Commission of Inquiry on the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings was told that Pulasthini Rajendran alias Sarah, the wife of bomber Achchi Mohammdu Mohammadu Hasthun, had fled to India by sea in September last.

"We have detained two people...but we have not received any acceptable evidence that the person had fled the country," Senaratne said.

On April 21, 2019, nine suicide bombers belonging to the local extremist group National Thawheed Jamaat (NTJ) linked to ISIS carried out a series of blasts that tore through three churches and as many luxury hotels in Sri Lanka, killing 258 people, including 11 Indians, and injuring over 500 on the Easter Sunday. Hasthun blew himself up at St. Sebastians Church in Negombo.

Sri Lankan police have arrested over 200 suspects in connection with the bombings.

Chief Inspector Arjuna Maheenkanda told the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) that the person who assisted her to flee had been arrested.

Maheenkanda said that in October 2019, he was assigned to investigate the attacks carried out by the NTJ.

He told the PCoI that on July 6, 2020, he received a tip-off from an informant that Sarah, who was in the NTJ hideout in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, had escaped and was hiding in Mankadu in the eastern town of Batticaloa.

"When we were in Batticaloa, we met another person who had seen a woman, whom he believed was Sarah. This informant said he had seen a cab parked along Batticaloa-Kalmunai main road, near Beach Road, Mankadu area around 3 AM in September 2019.

"He felt suspicious and slowed down. Then he saw Sarah and two other men walking towards the main road. There was a street light there and that''s how the informant saw them. This informant had lived near Sarahs house for a long time. He also saw that she got into the back seat of the cab parked near the road," Maheenkenda told the PCoI.

Maheenkanda said that there was information that Sarah had fled to India by boat from the Mannar area. The husband of Sarah''s aunt and his brother had helped her escape.

"One of the suspects is currently in custody. The other person has gone abroad. Investigations have also revealed that a person in the Mannar area helped her flee," the officer said.

The blasts targeted St Anthony''s Church in Colombo, St Sebastian''s Church in the western coastal town of Negombo, and a church in the eastern town of Batticaloa when the Easter Sunday mass was in progress.

Three explosions were reported from three five-star hotels - the Shangri-La, the Cinnamon Grand, and the Kingsbury in Colombo.
The Electoral Commission (EC) has described as unfortunate, former president John Mahamas decision to end his tour of some registration centres for his claim of gross disregard for the coronavirus safety protocols.



Mr Mahama on his official Facebook post, announced his decision to stop his visits to some voter registration centres in the countrys capital, Accra due to the disregard for Coronavirus safety protocols.



I have cut short my unannounced visit to some voter registration centres in Accra and Tema this afternoon. This is because of the very low awareness of the #COVID19 protocols including physical distancing and the wearing of masks.



We have to step up public education on Covid-19 so that people can appreciate the risk, he wrote.



The flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress started his tour in the Volta region where he spoke to chiefs and elders in the region after his rounds.



Reacting to this, the EC Commissioner, Mrs Mensa, noted that her outfit has put in place stringent measures to ensure that registrants observe the safety protocols and that despite the measures put in place, it was incumbent on registrants and all stakeholders to adhere to the protocols.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Excessively wet field conditions at harvest throughout the North Central and upper Midwest regions resulted in many fields with deep wheel-traffic compaction as evident by deep ruts from combines and grain wagons. Although this is a common occurrence during years with excessive moisture at harvest, the subsequent economic costs are rarely, if ever, projected for large regions.

In an article recently published in Agricultural & Environmental Letters, researchers review the scientific literature on the persistence and quantity of yield reductions due to deep wheel-traffic compaction and then project the state-level economic costs to farmers that may be expect for the upcoming 2020 and 2021 crops in North Dakota and Minnesota.

The researchers estimate a median of 21% yield reduction to the upcoming 2020 and 2021 corn and soybean crops on lands impacted by deep wheel-traffic compaction during the 2019 harvest. Based on these reductions, they project a minimum economic cost of $587 million USD to farmers for every 10% of lands that were compacted during harvest. Moreover, the actual land area may extend up to 30%, resulting in a range of $0-to-$1.76 billion USD of actual costs to North Dakota and Minnesota farmers.

The findings have implications for government policies incentivizing conservation practices, such as diversified crop rotations and inter-seeding cover crops, to either reduce the occurrence of field traffic on wet soils or promote drier soils at harvest.

###

Adapted from Daigh, ALM, DeJong-Hughes, J, Acharya, U. Projections of Yield Losses and Economic Costs Following Deep Wheel-traffic Compaction During the 2019 Harvest. Agric Environ Lett. 2020.
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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 07:33:49|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, on Wednesday announced an additional 19 million U.S. dollars in education emergency response funding to the COVID-19 pandemic across 10 crisis-affected countries.

With this new funding, ECW's total COVID-19 response now spans 33 countries and crisis-affected contexts, with 43.5 million dollars in funding approved so far, according to an ECW press release obtained by Xinhua.

"The time has come for decisive and game-changing measures to ensure that every refugee child accesses a quality education. Education Cannot Wait is taking such measures and we must scale up our support for this effort," said Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of ECW's High-Level Steering Group.

This new funding will be delivered in partnership with national governments, UN agencies and a significant number of civil society organizations in Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Iraq, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, South Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia, the press release said.

These First Emergency Response (FER) grants focus on refugee, internally displaced and host community children and youth: 876,392 in total, of whom 461,706 are girls and 405,886 are boys. In all, 25 grantees will implement the second phase of ECW's COVID-19 education in emergency response. In the majority of countries, this response is being coordinated by respective governments and the UN Refugee Agency.

"Children and youth displaced by armed conflicts and climate-induced disasters are especially at risk and doubly affected by COVID-19. This investment is dedicated to them, but much more needs to be done. We call on partners to contribute substantive financial resources for those left furthest behind as a result of brutal conflicts and punishing crises," said ECW director Yasmine Sherif.

ECW is the first global fund dedicated to education in emergencies. It was launched by international humanitarian and development aid actors, along with public and private donors, to address the urgent education needs of 75 million children and youth in conflict and crisis settings. ECW's investment modalities are designed to usher in a more collaborative approach among actors on the ground, ensuring relief and development organizations join forces to achieve education outcomes.

ECW is hosted by UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). The fund is administered under UNICEF's financial, human resources and administrative rules and regulations, while operations are run by the fund's own independent governance structure. Enditem
About a year ago, I was at the peaceful bedside of a close friend, Tony, who was being delivered from his excruciating and long-endured cancer pain by MAID, Medical Assistance in Dying.

Tony was reconciled with his two daughters, from whom he had been estranged. He was 66 years old, a man alone. He had had a Catholic childhood. I asked him: Would you like me to read you from the New Testament? He smiled weakly. No, thank you, he said, from Richard Wagamese Embers, please.

The physician-provider of MAID arrived with an assistant, and asked Tony softly for his final consent. The family lit candles and sang. The implementation was moving and complete.

It must also be realized that the provision of MAID involves a complex human, emotional, spiritual and medical experience for the individual, for his or her family and for the whole community.

In Peterborough, we are fortunate to have individuals and institutions who collaborate closely in offering a nuanced and flexible set of circumstances of choice for people who are contemplating or planning MAID.

It was in June 2016 that the Parliament of Canada passed Bill C14, an act to amend the Criminal Code to satisfy the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. MAID providers, either a physician or a N.P, can provide assistance in dying to eligible adults, namely those of sound mind who have a grievous irremediable medical condition, whose natural death has become reasonably foreseeable, who have made a written request and who have been independently assessed by two doctors.

By this new law, MAID providers were exempt from the criminal laws prohibiting the ending of human life. The request would have to be a signed one, with two independent witnesses who did not stand to benefit and who were not involved in the care. A ten-day reflection period was required. Doctors whose conscience prevented their taking part were excused. Counselling about other options was required.

This, of course, is a sensitive and complex area of ethics. Canadians have showed how much they care about the issue from all sides. Responding to an online invitation to comment, 300,000 Canadians did so. Some religious groups objected, believing life to be sacred from conception to natural death. Disability advocates have sounded alarms. The debate has been passionate but respectful.

Careful statistics have been kept. Between 2016 and 2020, a little over 9000 Canadians have died by MAID, 5445 in Ontario. Sixty-four per cent of those deaths were cancer- related, and 12 per cent from neurodegenerative illness. Fifty-one per cent were male and 49 per cent female.

About 62 per cent of those seeking MAID were over age 71. MAID accounted for 1.1 per cent of all deaths in Canada over that period. There is an ever-growing public dialogue about end-of-life decision-making. Many Canadians are coming forward to share their stories.

Good palliative care and access to effective pain control are crucial factors in any fruitful discussion. Hospice in Peterborough, a stand-alone facility, has rooms for 10 people in palliative care. It does not provide MAID, but supports people in their journey and decision-making. It pays special attention to family members, left with the permanent loss of a loved one.

A group which also works to make end-of-life choices more available to Canadians is the advocacy group Dying with Dignity, with 65,000 members. It has lobbied the government to amend the phrase, reasonably foreseeable death. The bill, C7, is before Parliament.

Peterborough Regional Health Centre has a co-ordinator of MAID, Jane Mark, RN. Since 2016, there have been 126 MAID deaths, 99 in hospital. Peterborough has enough medical providers, and a robust, collaborative system of care. The hospital also has a palliative care unit.

People can approach their family doctor or nurse-practitioner for more information.

The purpose is to help society more openly consider and act upon, all aspects of a good death.
Kuwaits ruler Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah is to travel today July 23 to the U.S for medical treatment after being admitted to hospital late last week.

State-run news agency KANU Wednesday said the medical team of 91-year old leader advised him to to fly to the US so he could complete treatment after a successful surgical procedure.

The agency did not elaborate on the Sheikh Sabahs condition but the one who has been ruling the Gulf country since 2006 was admitted to hospital for medical checkup.

The state, via KTV1, one the countrys public TV channels broadcasted a prayer for the emirs safety and exit from the hospital, The New Arab reports.

The medical trip to the U.S will be the second in less than a year by the Kuwaiti leader. He travelled to the U.S last year in September for medical tests which forced him to cancel his meeting with President Trump at the White House.

He went under knife and had his appendix removed in 2002, two years after having a pacemaker implanted. In 2007, he also underwent urinary tract surgery in the US.

Saturday the royal court announced that the Emir has vested some power temporarily upon his chosen successor crown prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.
GO 2 Foundation is recognizing Professor Swanton for his ground breaking work in leading a study analyzing how lung cancer genes change over time. Specifically, Professor Swanton and his team are working to understand how lung cancer cells evolve and become resistant to treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The results of the TRACERX clinical study will determine how tailored treatments, based on a deeper understanding of lung cancer genetics, can transform treatment of the disease.

"As an organization committed to saving lives through innovation and cutting-edge research, we are proud to present Professor Swanton with this award recognizing his diligence and commitment to solving the mysteries of lung cancer evolution," said Bonnie J. Addario, co-founder and chair of GO 2 Foundation. "Professor Swanton's work is helping us understand how lung cancer can be treated more effectively, helping to ensure that one day, lung cancer will be survivable for all."

Professor Swanton and his team are using the latest DNA sequencing technology to read the genetic makeup of cancer cells within tumors in greater detail, identifying patterns of evolution and cancer diversity. They are also investigating the processes that cause lung cancer cell mutations and accelerate tumor evolution so they may soon bring immune and targeted therapies to benefit patients.

What his colleagues are saying:

" Charles Swanton is an internationally recognized translational researcher in lung cancer. But more than that, he is a visionary in every sense of the word. He pioneered the concept of evolution in cancer genomics, explaining how cancers become resistant to therapy as a survival mechanism. The results of his TRACERX program are transforming our understanding of this process and are leading to new treatment approaches. We are honored to have him as our 2020 Bonnie J. Addario Lectureship award winner." - David R. Gandara , M.D., director, Thoracic Oncology Program, professor and senior advisor to director, UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center and 2010 recipient of the Bonnie J. Addario Lectureship Award



is an internationally recognized translational researcher in lung cancer. But more than that, he is a visionary in every sense of the word. He pioneered the concept of evolution in cancer genomics, explaining how cancers become resistant to therapy as a survival mechanism. The results of his TRACERX program are transforming our understanding of this process and are leading to new treatment approaches. We are honored to have him as our 2020 Bonnie J. Addario Lectureship award winner." - , M.D., director, Thoracic Oncology Program, professor and senior advisor to director, UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center and 2010 recipient of the Bonnie J. Addario Lectureship Award "Professor Swanton's tireless work to advance the understanding of lung cancer so that we may implement new treatment approaches sooner than later, can make a big difference in the lives of people we serve." - Luis E. Raez , M.D. FACP FCCP, president of the Florida Society of Clinical Oncology (FLASCO) and chief scientific officer and medical director of the Memorial Cancer Institute/Memorial Health Care System



, M.D. FACP FCCP, president of the Florida Society of Clinical Oncology (FLASCO) and chief scientific officer and medical director of the Memorial Cancer Institute/Memorial Health Care System "As a former award winner myself, I am so impressed and grateful to the GO 2 Foundation for all they do to fight against lung cancer. Professor Swanton is a pioneer in understanding and using the genetic profile of a lung tumor to more precisely target and eliminate the disease. He is an amazing choice for this year's award." - Roy S. Herbst , M.D., Ph.D., ensign professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) and professor of Pharmacology; chief of Medical Oncology, Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital; associate cancer center director for Translational Research, Yale Cancer Center

Professor Swanton completed his PhD in 1998 at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Laboratories on the UCL MBPhD program before completing his medical oncology and Cancer Research UK (CRUK) funded postdoctoral clinician scientist training in 2008. He was appointed CRUK senior clinical research fellow and Group Leader of the Translational Cancer Therapeutics laboratory at the London Research Institute (now part of the Francis Crick Institute) and consultant medical oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital in 2008. Charles was appointed Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Chair in Personalised Cancer Medicine at the UCL Cancer Institute and Consultant Thoracic Medical Oncologist at UCL Hospitals in 2011.

Professor Swanton has published more than 210 papers in publications such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, Nature Genetics, Cancer Discovery, Cancer Cell, Science, and the Lancet Oncology. His work has led to insight into genomic diversity within cancers (intratumor heterogeneity) and molecular mechanisms driving cancer branched evolution.

Past Bonnie J. Addario Lectureship Award recipients:

2019  Solange Peters , M.D., Head of Medical Oncology and Chair of Thoracic Oncology at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV) in Lausanne, Switzerland

 , M.D., Head of Medical Oncology and Chair of Thoracic Oncology at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV) in Lausanne, 2018  Vassiliki A. Papadimitrakopoulou, M.D., Chief of Thoracic Medical Oncology, Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

 Vassiliki A. Papadimitrakopoulou, M.D., Chief of Thoracic Medical Oncology, Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, MD Anderson Cancer Center 2017  Frances A. Shepherd , M.D., FRCPC, Senior Staff Physician, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre; Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine

 , M.D., FRCPC, Senior Staff Physician, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre; Professor of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine 2016  Giorgio Vittorio Scagliotti , M.D., Professor of Oncology, University of Torino ; Head of the Department of Oncology and Chief of the Division of Medical Oncology, San Luigi Hospital, Torino, Italy

 , M.D., Professor of Oncology, University of ; Head of the Department of Oncology and Chief of the Division of Medical Oncology, San Luigi Hospital, 2015  Fred R. Hirsch , M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine

 , M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Medicine, School of Medicine 2014  Roy S. Herbst , M.D., Ph.D., Ensign Professor of Medicine and Chief of Medical Oncology, Yale Cancer Center

 , M.D., Ph.D., Ensign Professor of Medicine and Chief of Medical Oncology, Yale Cancer Center 2013  Tony Mok , M.D., Professor in the Department of Clinical Oncology, Chinese University of Hong Kong,Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong

 , M.D., Professor in the Department of Clinical Oncology, Chinese University of Hong Kong,Prince of Wales Hospital in 2012  D. Ross Camidge , M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Thoracic Oncology Clinical Program and Associate Director for Clinical Research, Colorado University Cancer Center

 D. , M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Thoracic Oncology Clinical Program and Associate Director for Clinical Research, Cancer Center 2011  William Pao , M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Medicine, Ingram Associate Professor of Cancer Research; Director, Personalized Cancer Medicine, Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center

 , M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Medicine, Ingram Associate Professor of Cancer Research; Director, Personalized Cancer Medicine, Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center 2010  David R. Gandara , M.D., Associate Director, Clinical Research, UC Davis Cancer Center

 , M.D., Associate Director, Clinical Research, UC Davis Cancer Center 2009  Harvey Pass , M.D., B.A., Director of the Division of Thoracic Surgery and Chief of Thoracic Surgery, New York University Medical Center

 , M.D., B.A., Director of the Division of Thoracic Surgery and Chief of Thoracic Surgery, Medical Center 2008  Paul A. Bunn, Jr. M.D., Principal Investigator and Director, University of Colorado Cancer Center

About GO 2 Foundation for Lung Cancer

Founded by patients and survivors, GO 2 Foundation for Lung Cancer transforms survivorship as the world's leading organization dedicated to saving, extending, and improving the lives of those vulnerable, at risk, and diagnosed with lung cancer. We work to change the reality of living with lung cancer by ending stigma, increasing public and private research funding, and ensuring access to care.

About the International Lung Cancer Congress

For 21 years, Physicians' Education Resource (PER) International Lung Cancer Congress has brought together medical, surgical, and radiation oncologists to foster awareness of state-of-the-art treatments for patients with lung cancer. This year's two-day virtual webcast features cutting-edge lectures, panel discussions, multidisciplinary tumor boards, and interactive question-and-answer sessions from leading international and national experts. Faculty share their perspectives and personal experiences on the clinical challenges and ongoing controversies in lung cancer management.

About Physicians' Education Resource, LLC (PER)

Since 1995, PER has been dedicated to advancing cancer care through professional education and now advances patient care and treatment strategies on a wide variety of chronic illnesses and diseases. In 2016, PER initiated continuing medical education (CME) programming in the cardiovascular and endocrinology areas. While expanding into topics outside of oncology, PER stands as the leading provider of live, online, and print CME activities related to oncology and hematology. The high-quality, evidence-based activities feature leading distinguished experts who focus on the application of practice-changing advances. PER is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education and the California Board of Registered Nursing. PER is a brand of MJH Life Sciences , the largest privately held, independent, full-service medical media company in North America dedicated to delivering trusted health care news across multiple channels.

Find PER on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. #gotoILCC

SOURCE GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- "Z-ONE", the name of SAIC Motor's software subsidiary, was officially unveiled on July 21. The announcement came after local media outlets exposed several months ago that the automaker was building its own software hub and recruiting relevant talents.

The newly-unveiled branch will primarily work on the development of intelligent driving engineering, software architecture, underlying software platform and data factory. To be specific, the products and services will contain SOA (service-oriented architecture) software platform, the new-generation centralized electronic architecture, the computing chips, the platform of automobile big data, the edge AI applications, the intelligent cockpit system, the data as well as the cybersecurity.



(Photo source: Z-ONE's WeChat account)



Z-ONE aims to help clients develop the differentiated data-driven intelligent driving experience and innovative business models, the company said via its WeChat account. Besides, it is dedicated to becoming a competitive supplier and partner in the domain of the intelligent driving-related basic technology.

The talent recruitment is still moving ahead. The posts related to intelligent driving business include experts or engineers of route planning & control, HD map technology, vehicle control, intelligent driving big data platform, simulation system and data analysis, etc.

Z-ONE said it attempts to offer user the ICV-related cloud-application-device basic technology architecture and solutions that boast leading technologies, services and great cost effectiveness by gathering the global ICV elites.

During this year's two sessions, Chen Hong, chairman of SAIC Motor Corporation Limited and a deputy to the 13th National People's Congress, proposed supporting the eligible regions in speeding up the development of ICVs.

He proposed the Chinese government to break through the restriction of laws and regulations in some designated routes and regions under administrative control first to meet ICVs' road testing demands. The eligible regions like the Yangtze River Delta should be encouraged to build the pilot zones for highly automated (Level 3 or above) autonomous driving applications in places with favorable development conditions such as Shanghai's Donghai Bridge and International Automobile City at Jiading District.

By coordinating with relevant state's departments, local governments should allow the pilot zones to have highly automated cars tested and applied on expressways or viaducts, and take the lead in conducting in specific areas the commercial trial of passenger-/goods-carrying autonomous vehicles without human safety guard, he said. These moves are beyond limitations of current laws and regulations.
2-Hour Limit on Partners of New Vic Mums

The partner of a new mother in Victoria can spend just two hours in hospital with their newborn under new government guidelines, but experts are calling for the decision to be reviewed.

Health Minister Jenny Mikakos announced the changes to visitor rules on Wednesday in a bid to prevent the further spread of coronavirus across the state.

An expectant mother will be able to have her partner or support person with her for the labour and birth.

But afterwards, the partner or support person can only stay with her for two hours under new restrictions in force from Thursday.

That two-hour limit will also apply to each subsequent hospital visit.

Most other hospital visits also will be capped at one person per patient for one hour per day, with exceptions for parents with children in hospital and visitors of patients in palliative care.

We are trying to strike a balance there between compassion and safety. We ask for Victorians understanding at this challenging time, Mikakos told reporters.

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has called for the government to consider changing the rules in order to protect the mental health of new parents.

There has necessarily, and appropriately, been an emphasis on the physical implications of the COVID-19 infection on the health of the community, RANZCOG president Vijay Roach said.

However, we must remain aware that pregnancy and parenting are associated with anxiety and depression, and these new rules potentially place women, their partners and families at increased risk.

Roach said pregnancy and childbirth were an important time in a womans life, and it was important to safeguard their mental health while supporting parents connection with their newborns.

The time after birth is a unique opportunity for family bonding with long term benefits for parents and their baby, Roach said.

RANZCOG believes that the needs of new mothers can be met within existing frameworks, with heed to appropriate infection control and protection of healthcare workers.

We call on the Victorian Government to urgently review these restrictions.

By Benita Kolovos, Christine McGinn and Carly Waters
Verner said grandparents who live with their grandchildren would be especially at risk at reopening. Deaver later said more than half of the grandparents living in the county are responsible for caring for their grandchildren, adding to the risks involved with reopening.

While its important to recognize that children act as carriers of the virus to health-vulnerable individuals, children themselves, for the most part, are not the most at risk for severe disease, Family Health Center Director Dr. Jackson Griggs said.

Griggs said children who are less than 1 year old are the most likely to become severely ill.

Deaver said since June 1, new cases peaked on July 6 and 7, but the rolling average number of new cases has dropped from 150 to 100 since then.

In reality we probably are slowing it, but what we dont need right now is some new event that would cause that to reverse, Deaver said. We need to get it under control as quickly as we can.

He said the decrease is a good sign since changes in the number of hospitalizations and deaths tend to mirror the number of cases on a seven to 10 day delay, but shouldnt be considered a trend yet.
Six-year-old Madelyn Sloans eyes lit up as she greeted Riverside Lodge residents during a window walk Wednesday afternoon.

Have a good day, Madelyn told the residents as she held up a sign reading the same.

Madelyn said she enjoyed seeing the residents, showing them her sign and waving at them outside their windows.

They all seemed happy to see her and she was happy to see their smiles.

Kaleigh Hinrichs, a staff member at Third City Christian Church, said 18 kids and six church staff members participated in the window walk. They split into three groups and made their way around the retirement community to visit residents with handmade signs.

Madelyn said her teacher made her sign, but she and her fellow Kids Quest members made a number of the signs prior to the window walk.

Cathy Roark, life enrichment director at Riverside, said the residents had a good day.






This is not my first encounter with a Ford Mustang Shelby GT500. I was once fortunate enough to lay hands on a spanking new 2103 Shelby GT500 for the express purpose of unleashing it on a cross-country road trip from Atlanta to Los Angeles. That car was a 662-horsepower blunt instrument that was made all the more beastly by a balky six-speed manual gearbox that could complete a 0-to-60 mph speed run in first gear.

But the powertrain was not the most knuckle-dragging aspect of that car. No, that would be the solid-axle rear suspension, which only reminded me how much I resented the Mustang for its stubborn reliance on such truckish underpinnings. Oh sure, the 1999-2004 SVT Cobra had independent rear suspension, but that was a low-volume special with a clumsy IRS adaptation. It hardly counts.

My opinion utterly changed when the Mustang underwent its sixth-generation redesign. The 2015 Ford Mustang came standard with a well-conceived IRS system that was equally impressive on autocross courses and high-speed circuits alike. Now, finally, this latest generation gains its own GT500, complete with IRS, plus 760 horsepower, a seven-speed DCT and an optional Carbon Fiber Track Pack suspension and tire upgrade. I cannot wait to have a look.

This initial view of the GT500s front suspension is largely hidden behind a massive set of brakes, but a strut suspension (yellow) is still discernible over the top.

At just over 16.5 inches in diameter, these pizza-sized front rotors are a full inch bigger than those found on a GT350. These are composite rotors made by German supplier SHW , so named because the 40mm-thick cast-iron friction ring is connected to the central aluminum hub via a series of stainless steel pins. This construction allows the rotor to float somewhat to curb vibration, but the aluminum center section also trims unsprung weight. Thats going to be a theme with this car.

All sixth-generation Mustangs have a dual-pivot lower linkage instead of a single lower control arm, but I saw nothing but cast iron and steel the last time I crawled under a 2015 Mustang GT. Here its plain to see that the GT500s knuckle (yellow) and the forward link (green) have switched to aluminum. As for the lateral link (red), its still made of steel.

Story continues

The steel lateral link takes up the lions share of the cornering loads. These will be immense in a performance-focused car like the GT500, so this links inner pivot (green) employs a ball joint for maximum lateral stiffness. But the world isnt smooth, so the angled aluminum tension link has a high volume rubber bushing (red) at its inner connection point. Pothole strikes and other big hits will tend to shove the hub rearward, and this bushing is there to take the edge off.

But the central idea behind a dual ball joint arrangement is to move the lower steering pivot point outward to a spot that would otherwise be physically impossible with a wishbone and a single ball joint. The steering pivot point here is a virtual one that resides at the intersection of lines drawn through the center of each links bushings. If you project that point down to the tires contact patch youll get a small scrub radius that enhances steering precision and direct feel.

I scrubbed the steering back and forth before I got started, and these marks are the result. They converge at a point that is slightly inboard of the midpoint of the tires contact patch. The scrub radius isnt zero, but it is quite small -- which is no mean feat considering the GT500s massive 305 mm-wide front tires. A Ford engineer reminded me that the virtual pivot point does migrate somewhat as the two links move about each other, and that makes it important to not get too greedy in your attempts to create a zero-scrub radius. You dont want the scrub radius to switch from positive to negative as the virtual point moves about.

The GT500 uses magnetorheological dampers front and rear. This patented adjustable damping system appears on several high-end vehicles under the name MagneRide, and its theory of operation differs from other adjustable dampers in a fundamental way. Here the damper valving is fixed while the viscosity of the special magnetorheological damper fluid is altered. MagneRide does this by continuously adjusting an electromagnet within the damper via this input wire.

But theres something odder still about all of this. Why is the wire coming out the bottom?

The wire comes out the bottom because the Mustangs MagneRide front struts are inverted struts. Not following me? Think of a regular monotube shock absorber. It has to be a monotube shock so itll work in the inverted position. Lets make it a Bilstein, too, because their monotube shock bodies are famous for being yellow. A MagneRide damper is most definitely not a Bilstein, but stay with me.

Turn your shock upside down so the yellow body is on top instead of down below. Drop your upside-down shock shaft-first into the strut housing and connect the shaft to the bottom. Because this is an electronically-controlled damper, the control wire that runs through the shaft will exit out the bottom. The polyurethane bump stop will be hidden down toward the bottom, too.

Why do this? Inverted struts are immensely strong. You can instantly SEE how theyre able to handle heroic cornering loads. But the GT500 isnt the only Mustang that has them. Any Mustang with the MagneRide option will use inverted struts. The GT500s are tuned differently, but theyll look the same up under the dust boot.

Magnetorheological dampers are continuously variable dampers, so the computer that controls them needs to monitor the position of the wheels with suspension height sensors (yellow) at all four wheels, as well as a few g sensors.

High cornering loads demand a stiff strut mounting structure, and this elaborate K-shaped strut tower brace provides that by tying both shock towers to the firewall, as well as each other.

The GT500s hollow front stabilizer bar (green) is larger than whats fitted to any other Mustang. It has a 36 mm-diameter bar with 4.8 mm wall thickness whether you buy the Carbon Fiber Track Pack or not. The car delivers all of that, too, because its ends are connected directly to the strut housing via a drop link, a familiar setup that produces a 1-to-1 motion ratio.

The GT500s six-piston Brembo calipers have a fixed bridge for extra stiffness, so youll be removing them entirely to change brake pads. Thats done by removing these radial mount bolts (yellow), which is a brake engineering choice that emphasizes caliper mounting stiffness.

Apart from that, you may have noticed that the GT500s wheel studs are uncommonly long. I wasnt able to confirm it, but I think theyre here because the Carbon Fiber Track Packs carbon fiber wheels have an uncommonly thick hub center section.

These wheels dont weigh much at all, which represents a significant reduction in unsprung mass. That is clearly a strong point, but a Ford engineer I spoke with said that wheel stiffness is the more significant benefit. You may not realize it, but wheels can flex under high cornering loads, a scenario that reduces camber and alters the load across the tires contact patch. These carbon wheels are much more rigid in that regard, and that enables the GT500 to take best advantage of its very sticky (and very wide) 305 mm front tires.

These front wheels are 11-inches wide, and yet the entire assembly weighs just 50.5 pounds. How good is that? Extraordinarily good. I once measured a Mustang GT of the same generation. Its 255/45ZR19 front tires were mounted on 19-by-9 inch wheels, and that combination weighed 56.2 pounds. This GT500s carbon front wheel assembly is nearly 6 pounds lighter DESPITE having 2 inches more tread width, one extra inch of rim diameter and 2 extra inches of rim width.

The front rim does have a coating inside, but its not structural in the least. Its a deposition coating thats been applied on top of the carbon to protect adjacent surfaces from the immense heat generated by the brakes. The material is similar to what youd find on vulnerable spacecraft re-entry surfaces.

Meanwhile, at the rear, brakes once again dominate the scene and block our view. This time its because the tricky composite rotors are gripped by two calipers. The GT500 is the only Mustang set up this way, and it required additional changes well see later on.

Like all sixth-generation Mustangs, the GT500 uses whats called Integral Link rear suspension, a type of multilink suspension that is uncommonly good at enabling high lateral cornering stiffness and torque resistance while still offering a fair bit of longitudinal compliance.

The main component that draws your eye is the big lower arm (yellow) that operates like a lower wishbone. From here it looks like an A-shaped arm, but well see later that it is more complicated than that. Just in front is a shorter toe link (green) that has an eccentric for toe adjustments at its inner end. Both are attached to a massive aluminum knuckle (red) that carries the rear wheel bearing and drive flange.

Im attempting to show how the forces flow through these links. Green represents cornering forces, while yellow represents the longitudinal backward pulse of sharp impacts. You can see how the bushings on the green paths can be optimized for cornering, while the lower arms elevated inner pivot can be optimized to absorb the backward pulse as a diagonal tug across the arm.

Compared to whats going on down below, the upper link (yellow) lives a comparatively boring existence. Its there to brace the camber angle at the upper reaches of the suspension, which isnt a terribly difficult job because the contact patch is far enough away that it can get away with a single-shear mount (green). The dip in its shape is there to clear the body structure at full compression.

But theres an issue. How does the upper end of the suspension resist torque loads? Wouldnt this just flop about when you stood on the gas?

It works because our lower A-arm is in fact an H-arm. It has this extra extension (yellow) thats there to provide a mounting point for the integral link (green) that gives this suspension type its name. And this is how this suspension takes up torque loads, its why the upper camber link can operate independently as a mere camber link.

Sharp-eyed sixth-gen Mustang fans may notice a bigger difference. Remember that second brake caliper we saw a few images back? Well, the knuckle had to be remade so the second brake caliper (red) had something to mount to. But that led to more changes. Mustangs without the second brake caliper have a longer integral link that extends up from the H-arm. But here the secondary brake caliper eats up that space, so the GT500 has a shorter aluminum integral link that extends down from its H-arm. The knuckle isnt just different because it must provide caliper mounting points, it also must provide a lower integral link anchor point.

The GT500 track packs coil spring has very soft upper coils that are meant to go into bind (yellow) to essentially allow the car to sit lower on stiff springs while still maintaining the normal free length common to all Mustangs. Notably, this corner of the car is jacked up in this image and is even drooping somewhat compared to what it looks like sitting on the ground.

But it's not dropping all that much because the Track Pack version of the GT500 has a very large 1-inch hollow stabilizer bar (green) with hollow section walls that are 4.5 mm thick.

The rear ends magnetorheological damper is not inverted, and so its voltage control wire (yellow) comes down from the top. Theres a urethane bump stop hidden behind the dust boot (green) but youll have to trust me on that.

Like the front, the rear suspension has a height measurement sensor that feeds into the MR damper ECU.

The image angle is less than ideal to make any concrete estimates, but you can at least see that our H-arm has even more work to do. It must shoulder every load associated with vertical suspension movement. Comparing its innermost pivot on the right to its ultimate attachment point on the left, the spring settles in about 45% of the way out, give or take. The stabilizer bar linkage is next in line at about 65% of the way out, followed by the shock absorber (green) at around 75% of the way out. These *very approximate* motion ratios represent how much less the various components will compress for a given amount of wheel travel.

The GT500s rear brake hub is uncommonly thin, and Im going to guess thats because the carbon fiber wheel hubs are so thick. The carbon fiber wheels design isnt exactly deep-dish, so the extra thickness of the tricky wheels had to project inward. This wheel thickness business may be why the second caliper was needed in the first place because the GT350 has a normal-looking rotor hat with a drum parking brake built in. No room for that here.

The rear wheel and tire assembly weighs 51 pounds, which is only a half-pound more than the fronts despite wider 315/30ZR20 wheels and wider 11.5-inch rims. Why is the difference so small? At first I thought it might be the coating, but the Ford engineer I spoke with said that didnt amount to much. He suggested that the front tires might be heavier than the rears because theyre built to steer the car and are subjected to higher cornering loads.

As for my 2015 Mustang GT comparison, its 275/40ZR19 tires and 9.5-inch wheels weighed 60.8 pounds back in the day. These much bigger shoes weigh almost 10 pounds less because they use carbon fiber.

You can see why the 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 impresses me far more than the 2013 example I drove cross country seven years ago. This car isnt just a big honking engine enveloped by skunk stripes and Shelby badges. It still is that, but the GT500 is now ALSO a serious well-rounded track weapon that maximizes the full potential of the sixth generation Mustangs long overdue shift to independent rear suspension.

Contributing writer Dan Edmunds is a veteran automotive engineer and journalist. He worked as a vehicle development engineer for Toyota and Hyundai with an emphasis on chassis tuning, and was the director of vehicle testing at Edmunds.com (no relation) for 14 years.

You can find all of his Suspension Deep Dives here on Autoblog.

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A view of the Capitol's Rotunda is seen reflected in an ambulance as negotiations on a COVID-19 economic bailout continue on Capitol Hill March 24, 2020, in Washington, DC. Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images

Congress is expected to make some big decisions that will affect how much money flows to Americans in the coming weeks. That includes possibly extending enhanced unemployment benefits and cutting a second set of stimulus checks. But its actions could also have big consequences for payments Americans receive years down the road, namely Social Security. President Donald Trump and the White House so far have taken a hard line on including a payroll tax cut in the next round of stimulus legislation. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have pushed back on including it in the bill. Tweet Workers typically pay a 6.2% tax from their wages to fund Social Security. A payroll tax holiday would halt those contributions, at least temporarily. Meanwhile, one side effect of the coronavirus is that individuals born in 1960 could see reduced retirement benefits over their lifetimes, a glitch that some lawmakers are looking to fix.

How Covid-19 affects Social Security

Allison Shelley | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Social Security's trust funds, which help support the system, already have an expiration date. The question is when. The government's latest estimate in April found that the combined Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASI and DI) Trust Funds will run out in 2035, at which point 79% of promised benefits will be payable. But other research has pointed to a quicker depletion of the funds, stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic. Data from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania estimates the funds could run out as soon as 2032. Meanwhile, the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington, D.C., think tank, has said the reserves could be depleted in 2028.

The issue will likely prompt Congress to either raise taxes, cut benefits or a combination of both in order to shore up the system. To date, lawmakers have mostly put the issue on the back burner. However, there is talk that some Republicans are pushing to include one proposal  the TRUST Act  in the coming stimulus legislation. The TRUST Act would allow bipartisan committees to fast-track decisions to shore up Social Security's trust funds, in addition to the Medicare and highway trust funds, which also face funding shortfalls. Some Social Security advocates worry that would lead to slashed benefits, if the committees decide cut payments in order to keep the trust funds afloat. "Like payroll tax cuts, the TRUST Act is bad medicine for everyday Americans struggling to stay financially afloat, especially during the COVID crisis," said Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

What a payroll tax cut would mean

President Donald J. Trump signs the Tax Cut and Reform Bill in the Oval Office at The White House in Washington, DC on December 22, 2017. President-elect Joe Biden ran on a platform of repealing some of those cuts and raising the corporate tax rate to 28%, but the post-election political reality may make that difficult. Brendan Smialowski | AFP via Getty Images

Despite Social Security's looming shortfall, experts say they aren't worried a payroll tax cut would negatively impact the system. "The payroll tax in and of itself shouldn't change the trajectory for Social Security," said Rachel Greszler, research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Social Security would be patched with general revenues, which means the ability to pay benefits wouldn't be affected. But it would increase the nation's debt. "That is going to lead to, at some point in the future, a smaller economy and that's going to mean lower contributions into Social Security," Greszler said. Many are against the payroll tax cut proposal for another reason: While it would help pad paychecks for those who are working, it wouldn't help those who are not. High earners would stand to benefit the most. "It doesn't really target the people who are most in need of support right now, people who are unemployed who have been hit by a serious financial shock," said Shai Akabas, director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Why some retirees could see reduced benefits

Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., speaks during an event to introduce legislation called the Social Security 2100 Act. which would increase increase benefits and strengthen the fund, on Capitol Hill on Jan. 30, 2019. Mark Wilson | Getty Images News | Getty Images

The unprecedented pandemic has created an unforeseen consequence for one particular group of near retirees  those who were born in 1960. This is the year that benefits will be indexed for that particular cohort, despite the fact that they will not be eligible for retirement benefits until they turn 62. The Average Wage Index used to make that calculation will decline this year, leading to lower benefits. "What that's going to mean is that all of the years of their income, of their earnings, over their career, is going to be indexed in a way that disadvantages them," Akabas said. Their benefits could be as much as 10% lower, Akabas said. Those born in years before and after would not be affected. More from Personal Finance:

Will there be a second $1,200 stimulus check? Here's what we know

That extra $600 unemployment benefit may end sooner than many think

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SmartHop, a Miami, FL-based tech-enabled dispatch solution empowering small trucking companies to grow their businesses, closed a $4.5M seed funding round.

The round was led by Equal Ventures, with participation from Greycroft, Las Olas VC.

The company intends to use the funds to scale operations and its business reach.

Founded by CEO Guillermo Garcia, SmartHop provides a platform designed to be a truckers trusted copilot, which is a solution that provides strategic analyses of carriers for seamless digital booking, load suggestions based on location, date, hours of service and preferred trip type, and detailed performance reports supported with strategies for improvement. Angels in the company also include Alex Yeager, director at Redwood Logistics, Andrew Leto, founder of GlobalTranz and Emerge TMS, and Jett McCandles, founder of logistics company, Project44.

FinSMEs

23/07/2020
COMMERCIAL/ICONIC RESTORATION

WASHINGTON

Photo by Megan Braemore A main challenge of the Century Project was that the jobsite was only accessible by elevators, one of which was designated for the public.





Century Project

Location: Seattle

Contractor: Performance Contracting Inc.

Architect: Olson Kundig

Team: International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, Cement Masons and Plasterers Local 528, Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters, CWallA, Drywall Distributors, GTS Interior Supply, Salmon Bay Sand & Gravel, Armstrong World Industries, GC Products, SCAFCO Steel Stud Co.

The Space Needle is Seattles most iconic and distinguished landmark. It was originally built for the 1962 Worlds Fair as a Space Age example. It stands 605 feet tall and can withstand 200-mph winds. Its best known for its 360-degree panoramic views of the Cascade and Olympic Mountains, Mount Rainier, and downtown Seattle.

A main challenge was that the jobsite was only accessible by elevators, one of which was designated for the public. PCI Seattle Interior managed a plethora of scopes, including fireproofing, drywall, light-gauge steel-framing assemblies; Fellert acoustical plaster; custom- manufactured GFRG wave panels; exterior air- and moisture-barrier; and a unique, radial wood wall surrounding the stairway.

Each phase of work was carried out in extremely tight spaces, requiring creative problem-solving by all trades. Since the Space Needle was still open to the public, construction areas were divided into pie-shaped sections with temporary wall barriers to separate work from the public eye.

A panelized soffit around the entire exterior had to come together perfectly as did the wood wall surrounding the inside stairway. On the Observation Level, new floor-to-ceiling glass walls, glass barriers, and floating glass benches allow visitors to lean into the city below. At the 500-foot level, The Loupe is now the worlds only rotating glass floor. The Oculus Stair connects the top three levels with a glass-floored round oculus at its base.

Judges comment: The restoration of this iconic Seattle landmark required tremendous planning and exacting skills. The amazing work completed in the interior space fully captures the Space Age spirit.





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Roche said on Thursday that first-half sales and profit fell as patients cut down on trips to hospital amid the Covid-19 pandemic although the Swiss drugmaker maintained its full-year outlook.

Net income fell 5% to 8.5 billion Swiss francs ($9.16 billion) from 8.9 billion francs in 2019, as the strong Swiss franc also impacted results. Sales slipped 4% to 29.3 billion francs from 30.5 billion francs. At constant exchange rates, profit rose 3% and sales rose 1%, Roche said.

Sales are still seen growing in the low- to mid-single-digit percentage range at constant exchange rates. Core earnings per share are targeted to grow broadly in line with sales, and the company expects to increase its dividend.

Hospitalisations and out-patient visits decreased during the period, hitting sales of multiple sclerosis drug Ocrevus, haemophilia treatment Hemlibra, eye drug Lucentis and blood cancer treatment Rituxan.

Rival Novartis this week reported similar declines related to patients staying away from the doctor as it trimmed its sales outlook, which had been more optimistic than Roche's to start the year.

And while Roche did benefit from increased sales of diagnostic tests for Covid-19, routine testing decreased significantly due to a decline in regular health checks.

CEO Severin Schwan told CNBC Thursday that the company had mostly seen consistently modest growth, but a "strong decline" in sales in May weighed on earnings.

"This was at the height of the lockdowns when many hospitals literally closed down except for Covid-19 patients, and that has impacted our sales," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe."

"The good news is that since June and now also into July, hospitals have opened again, patients are returning to hospitals and we see our sales recovering, and that is the reason why we also confirmed our initial outlook and guidance for the full year."
The Crops Research Institute (CRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), is developing six improved cassava varieties for planting by Ghanaian farmers.



The project, a brainchild of the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), is being executed under the Ghana Cassava Industrialization Partnership Project (GCIPP).



Professor Moses Brandford Mochiah, Director of the CSIR-CRI, said the new cassava varieties aimed at increasing farmers yield significantly to improve their livelihood and also boost food sufficiency.



In line with the Institutes vision, about fifty acres of six cassava varieties had been established to serve as foundation seeds that will be multiplied to generate five hundred acres worth of certified stem cuttings, he told the Ghana News Agency (GNA), in an interview at Fumesua near Kumasi.



This was on the sidelines of a working visit by representatives of the AGRA and Agri Impact Consult, to inspect the project and also observe vegetative growth stages for the different cassava varieties.



The team, as part of the visit, interacted with research scientists at the CSIR-CRI, toured the Institutes tissue culture and molecular biology laboratories, the aeroponics and hybrid hydroponics sites for yam, as well as various cassava fields.



Cassava is a staple food crop accounting for about 152.9 kilogrammes per capita consumption in Ghana.



It is one of the most processed crops in the country - gari, fufu powder and kokonte, to increase its shelf life.



Additionally, it can be used as an industrial crop because of its high starch content.



Prof Mochiah indicated that in addition to cassava, the CRIs biotechnology laboratory also produces seeds for yam and orange sweet flesh potatoes.



He welcomed further collaborative work with AGRA in the area of research, technology transfer and sharing of experiences for the benefit of the Ghanaian farmer.





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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Local stocks are trading higher in early trade. At 9:25 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 66.51 points or 0.18% at 37,938.03. The Nifty 50 index was up 32.95 points or 0.3% at 11,165.55. Asian stocks are trading mixed.

The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was up 0.69%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index was up 0.61%.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, is strong. On the BSE, 1016 shares rose and 489 shares fell. A total of 66 shares were unchanged.

Rossari Biotech listing:

Shares of speciality chemical maker Rossari Biotech will debut on bourses today, 23 July 2020. Shares were issed at Rs 425 per share in public issue which was subscribed over 79 times.

Stocks in news:

Larsen & Toubro (L&T) rose 1.48%. L&T reported a 68.37% decline in consolidated net profit to Rs 536.88 crore in Q1 June 2020 from Rs 1697.62 crore in the same period last year. Profit was impacted mainly due to lower revenue, credit provisions in financial services business and under recovery of overheads. The company reported exceptional gain of Rs 224.72 crore in Q1 June 2020 on divestment of wealth management business.

Rallis India gained 5.68% after the company reported 35.58% rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 91.87 crore on 6.85% rise in total income to Rs 674.45 crore in Q1 June 2020 over Q1 June 2019.

Bajaj Holdings & Investment rose 0.43%. The company reported 1.47% rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 679.13 crore on 0.79% rise in total income to Rs 740.26 crore in Q1 June 2020 over Q1 June 2019.

HeidelbergCement India fell 1.65% after the company reported 38.07% fall in net profit to Rs 48.94 crore on 30.54% fall in total income to Rs 417.48 crore in Q1 June 2020 over Q1 June 2019.

ICICI Securities gained 3.01% after the company reported 69.71% rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 193.08 crore on 35.88% rise in total income to Rs 546.40 crore in Q1 June 2020 over Q1 June 2019.

Satin Creditcare Network fell 1.61%. Satin Creditcare Network said that meeting of Working Committee of the Board of Directors of the company is scheduled on 25 July 2020 for the issuance of Non-Convertible Debentures up to the amount of Rs 25 crore through private placement.

Global Markets:

Overseas, Asian stocks are trading mixed on Thursday as fresh diplomatic tensions between Washington and Beijing heightened investor jitters. Markets in Japan are closed for a public holiday.

In the latest deterioration in Sino-U.S. ties, the United States ordered China to close its consulate in Houston, saying it was to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information. China strongly condemned the move, and it was considering shutting the U.S. consulate in Wuhan in retaliation.

South Korea's central bank released advanced estimates of the country's gross domestic product for the three months that ended in June. Growth declined 3.3% for the quarter compared with the prior three months that ended in March and was down 2.9% from last year, Bank of Korea said. While private consumption rose 1.4% as people spent more on durable goods, exports dropped 16.6% due to declines in motor vehicles as well as coal and petroleum products.

In US, stocks closed higher Wednesday ahead of corporate results from Tesla and Microsoft, but with buying seen in utilities and other sectors viewed as defensive as Sino-American tensions rise. Dow ended above 27,000 for first time in six weeks as defensive stocks rose amid latest China-U.S. tussle.

Congressional Democrats and Republicans remained divided on the details of a new stimulus package expected to cost $1 trillion or more, less than two weeks before extended benefits are due to expire for millions of unemployed Americans.

On the economic front, sales of existing homes jumped by a record 20.7% in June, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Back home, domestic equity benchmarks ended with minor cuts after a volatile session. The barometer S&P BSE Sensex lost 58.81 points or 0.16% at 37,871.52. The Nifty 50 index shed 29.65 points or 0.27% at 11,132.60.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth Rs 1,665.57 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs), were net sellers to the tune of Rs 1,138.83 crore in the Indian equity market on 22 July, provisional data showed.

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Washington, July 23 : US President Donald Trump announced that his administration is sending a "surge" of federal agents to Chicago as part of a plan to drive down what he called "violent crime." "Today I am announcing a surge of federal law enforcement into American communities plagued by violent crime," Trump said in remarks from the East Room of the White House on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, US Marshals Service and Department of Homeland Security will send hundreds of agents to the city, according to the administration.

Federal agents will also be deployed to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a Democrat, has urged the federal government not to send agents into the city.

"In the end, we very much want to partner with an executive branch that respects our city, inclusive of all our resident," Lightfoot wrote in a letter to Trump earlier this week. "Partnership includes respect that you have not shown our residents as of late in mocking the level of violence that challenges Chicagoans." Trump has called for "law and order" as demonstrations raged in some cities against police brutality and racism.

His administration has also recently sent Department of Homeland Security personnel to Portland, Oregon in the wake of continued protests there triggered by the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American, in Minneapolis police custody late May.

State leaders have called for the removal of federal officers from Portland.

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
Unfair attacks on the president

Because the time is getting closer to voting for President Trump or for Biden, notice how Trump is blamed for climate change. One person is to solve that issue? I believe every one of us has a role to play in improving the climate. By the way, what did Obama do for control of the climate?

Can you believe that Trump is being blamed for the ongoing COVID-19 situation? Really? How about the thousands of people who dont wear masks nor keep social distance of 6 feet, like the protesters everywhere or even the countless people in grocery stores without masks?

Also, Democrats are back to requesting Trumps tax returns. What else can they come up with? Before considering voting, ask yourself: What has Biden done for the United States, and what is he capable of doing? Listen carefully to his speeches and it will make you wonder.

Sister Mary Hlas, Omaha

Climate change, racial justice
MBABANE  A total E119 746 was allegedly paid as exam fees for pupils who were never enrolled at Ekukhanyeni High School.

According to the Report of the Auditor General, the examination fees were paid through the Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (OVC) Grant. The AG reported that during inspection, the class register and the list of pupils who had their examination fees paid through the OVC Fund by government did not correspond. The AG, Timothy Matsebula, said this was an indication that the pupils were never enrolled at the school. This is according to the first Compliance Audit Report for the Financial Year ended March 31, 2019, which was tabled by the Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg in the House of Assembly on Monday.

The report is yet to be debated and adopted. The AG reported that about 55 of the said pupils were never in the class register. He highlighted that a pupil who was eligible to benefit from the fund was one who had been assessed and further attending school, where he or she had been admitted. I am disturbed by the wastage of resources which could have been used for other government purposes had the controlling officer and the school head teacher been vigilant in their duties, submitted the AG. Ekukhanyeni High School is not the only institution which was found to have allegedly paid fictitious pupils under the OVC Fund as similar cases were found at Mhubhe High School, Moyeni High School and Ngcoseni High School.

Inspection

The AG further reported that during the audit inspection, he discovered that there was also an overpayment of examination fees of E15 911 to the Examination Council of Eswatini (ECESWA). He said the fees paid for Junior Certificate (JC) examinations amounted to E89 388 although the statement allegedly from ECESWA allegedly showed that there was E86 826. He said similarly an amount of E233 089 was paid for Form V pupils yet ECESWAs statement allegedly showed E219 740. I am concerned that there seems to be no reconciliation of examination fees paid and pupils who were registered by the school for examination purposes, he said. Matsebula submitted that it appeared that there was no accountability at the Social Welfare Department. The AG reported that the entire amount reported to have been irregularly used was E365 968. At Mhubhe High School, the AG reported that OVC funds amounting to E4 318 were allegedly paid for pupils not enrolled at the school.
Roman Wolfli wants to raise the voices of those too young to vote so they can still be heard by politicians, and the 13-year-old from Calgary is working hard to make that happen.

He was one of three young MCs for last months inaugural session of the Young Canadians Parliament, where around 75 young people from across the country got together in small groups to discuss mental health and how to handle the pandemic before presenting their ideas to federal MPs, including Families, Children and Social Development Minister Ahmed Hussen.

Wolfli drips charm when asked if he is considering a career in politics.

Right now, my goal is just to make Canada the best place in the world for kids to grow up, he said. What I do later, well see. Im not sure.

The parliament is a government-backed effort to help children learn about their specific rights (as defined by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child) and to advocate on their own behalf about decisions that affect them.

Camila King from Toronto also attended the virtual event and was selected to share her breakout groups ideas with the minister.

I was worried at first. It was kind of scary because I kept thinking, What if I mess up? But I pushed that away and said, Its important for kids to be heard and I should do this, the 11-year old said.

King said her own ideas about how to make life more bearable for kids during the pandemic included installing hand sanitizing stations in playgrounds and providing kid-sized gloves, and teaching younger kids how to make space bubbles to maintain social distance.

Theres no minimum age for involvement in the youth parliament  the first session had an eight-year-old participant  but no one 18 or older is invited.

Younger children who have strong opinions and want to be engaged were being excluded from important decisions that affect them, said Sara Austin, the executive director of Children First Canada, whose youth ambassadors and advisory council helped design and develop the concept and lead its execution.

Wolfli has been working with Children First Canada for several years already, invited to attend a summit in Ottawa in late 2017 that led to the creation of a Canadian Childrens Charter a year later.

Hes particularly concerned about the mental health struggles of youth and said he hoped hearing directly from children would give politicians the impetus to take action that would lower youth suicide rates.

When a child tells you what theyve seen in their community or what they know to be true, that is such a powerful and important tool in achieving change in these fields, Wolfli told National Observer this week.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for children and youth, Children First Canada says, and Canada is ranked in the top five countries for the highest child suicide rates globally.

Wolfli said youth mental health challenges stem from a broad variety of other societal issues that can be tackled.

It speaks to a sense, and, of course, I cant speak to what actually mental illness is like, but from my perspective, it speaks to a sense of hopelessness, he said. There are so many issues; so much food insecurity and poverty and abuse, and bullying. Bullying is a big one.

Its a testament to how serious the other problems are and how serious they are in combination, he said.

An hour after our video interview, Wolfli was due to jump on a training call to learn how to facilitate the parliaments second session, which is taking place Thursday and will focus on the environment  in both the larger biosphere sense and the more personal version.

The group plans to hold a national virtual forum every month in the lead-up to National Child Day on Nov. 20, with topics to include the need for a national childrens commissioner, inequity, the top 10 threats to childhood in Canada, and anti-Black racism.

Austin from Children First Canada said the plan for the parliament had been in the works well before the pandemic, but that funding from Canadian Heritage was expedited to develop the online version.

The parliament delivered a long list of recommendations to the politicians who attended the first session, which also included health minister Patty Hajdus parliamentary secretary and MPs from the NDP and Conservatives.

Hussens office said his focus during the first session was on the importance of youth leadership and how to navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic.

The important feedback from the group ensures how our government can provide and ensure children have the best mental and physical support they need, spokesperson Jessica Eritou said.
The Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) has advised politicians from the South-East not to waste their funds on the 2023 presidency.

MASSOBs National Director of Information, Mr. Sunday Okereafor, who stated this during a telephone interview with Punch on Wednesday, insisted that having a President of Nigeria from the South East region is impossible.

According to him, the plot to ensure that no Igbo would ever assume the position of President began after the civil war. He added that any Igbo who decided to run for the presidency in 2023, would only be wasting his or her money.

Those people calling them to be ready for the presidency are not sincere. We know that it will turn out to be a waste of funds and a waste of time. The Igbo will never rule Nigeria; so, the Igbo politicians should avoid wasting their money. Alex Ekwueme tried it and failed, Rochas Okorocha went and failed, Ogbonnaya Onu went there and failed. Also, Odumegwu Ojukwu tried the presidency and failed; a lot of Igbo tried it and failed, he said.

Okereafor urged Igbo youths to engage themselves in meaningful ventures and shun any politician from Igbo extraction seeking their support for Igbo presidency.

He pointed out that some Igbo in government only went there to get money, saying nobody will take them seriously when the time to occupy critical positions in government comes.

KanyiDaily recalls that Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide had disclosed that the organization is working for the emergence of Igbo presidency in 2023, noting that there is no going back on that decision.
Running an online campaign against the controversial Draft EIA 2020, FridaysforFuture.in was blocked by the Delhi Police, saying it depicted 'objectionable contents and unlawful activities or terrorist act, which are dangerous for the peace, tranquillity and sovereignty of the India'

Update: On Friday, the Fridays for Future website appeared to be back online.

A website campaigning against the Indian governments new draft law for environment clearance was blocked suddenly on 10 July, 2020 after instructions from the Delhi Polices Cyber Crime Unit. It has now emerged that the websites actions, according to the cyber crime unit, are a cognizable and punishable criminal offence under Section 18 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

FridaysforFuture.in, or FFF India, was started in May 2019. On 4 June 2020, the website launched an online campaign to protest against the Ministry of Environments Draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2020 issued on 23 March. Environmental activists have called out the draft for diluting the green law and favouring rich builders. The initial deadline for the consultation process of this draft was 11 June, 2020, which was extended to 11 August, 2020 after Delhi High Court's orders.

To mark their protest, FFF India, an informal collective of volunteers and climate change activists, launched an online campaign to draw attention to the EIA 2020 and enabled concerned citizens to express their objections. It uploaded a draft email and email addresses for Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, the Environment Minister, Prakash Javdekar, and the email address for the EIA consultation process, which were already in public domain.

The draft email read, Dear Shri. Prakash Javadekar, In March 2020, during the COVID pandemic and under your leadership, the MOEFCC had released the Draft EIA 2020 Notification, and I am writing to you today to unequivocally request that this draft be withdrawn on account of how destructive it can prove to be for the ecology and the people of our great nation.

It goes on: "The Draft EIA 2020 caters purely to the ease of doing business in India and does not address these larger looming issues. This also comes at a time when the Government is opening up all its sectors to private companies  entities neither elected by or directly accountable to the people. This takes power away from the people, which goes against our democratic ideals.

"The proposed notification considerably relaxes various guidelines, restrictions and safeguards, which legally exist for our wilderness and local people. This is in contravention to the scope and spirit of Section 3 of the Environmental Protections Act (1986) itself. It seems to make circumstances strongly favourable to industrial and corporate interests. Pertinent examples of this are the allowance of post-facto clearances and the non-requirement of EIA for B2 projects, which include potentially harmful ones like river valley projects, tanneries, many chemical manufacturing units, petrochemical industries, expansion of national highways, etc. How can we expect the perpetrators of ecological crimes to keep themselves accountable?," the draft noted further.

"There is, as such, nothing in the notification, which is for the protection and conservation of the environment itself and/or for public welfare. Clearing this draft would be an untold disaster for the long-term welfare of our nation and the world.

Following the campaign, Javdekar received thousands of emails, according to volunteers associated with FFF India. It prompted Javdekar to lodge a complaint with Delhi Polices Cyber Crime Unit. On 8 July 2020, the unit sent a notice to Big Rock, the domain name registrar, under section 79(3)(B) of the IT Act 2000 to block FFF India. Along with FFF India, ThereisnoEarthB.com and LetIndiaBreathe, two more initiatives involved in similar campaigns were also blocked.

In the above mentioned complaint of Honble Cabinet Minister Shri Praksh Javadekar regarding the incident of getting multiple emails on his email address with the subject name similar to 'EIA 2020', the notice regarding FFF India read. After the investigation mainly below mentioned website is sending emails to him. Their unlawful activities on this website may disturb peace, sovereignty of India.

The notice further said, The above website depicts objectionable contents and unlawful activities or terrorist act, which are dangerous for the peace, tranquillity and sovereignty of the India. The publication and transmission of such objectionable contents is a cognizable and punishable criminal offence under Section 18 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

Two days later, FFF India, which is also the India chapter of a movement led by Greta Thunberg, was blocked. Volunteers with FFF India called it "web emergency.

Delhi Police Notice by Devparna Acharya on Scribd

Section 18 of the UAPA, a law which has been criticised for being draconian and misused by the State to silence dissent, reads, Whoever conspires or attempts to commit, or advocates, abets, advises or incites or knowingly facilitates the commission of, a terrorist act or any act preparatory to the commission of a terrorist act, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than five years but which may extend to imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.

On 22 July, FFF India sent a representation to Anyesh Roy, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Cyber Crime Unit, Delhi Police. The representation pointed out that since the campaign was launched, the need for extensive consultation and publicity regarding this process has been underscored by the orders of the Delhi High Court, and the Court of Karnataka dated 8 July and 16 July respectively. The orders have directed the Central Government to give wide publicity to the notification so that citizens will be in a position to submit objections prior to 11th August 2020.

The representation further points out that FFF India did not actually send any emails, and only provided content to help other concerned persons draft their own representations. A basic scrutiny would show that no emails were ever sent from the FFF Website but from private email addresses of concerned citizens of India. Furthermore, the content that was available on the FFF Website was only suggested text, subject to any modification that the sender of the email might so desire to make.

In response to the UAPA allegations made by the Delhi Polices Cyber Crime Unit, the FFI India said, It begs belief that in the worlds largest representative democracy, merely facilitating citizens in asking questions of their elected representatives can be termed as an objectionable activity and facilitating religious hatred.

Roy, however, said the notice was inadvertent. "There is no charge of UAPA," he said. Notice was issued under a section that was not appropriate to the matter. And it was immediately withdrawn, and we sent a notice under the relevant section of 66 under IT Act. The moment the issue got resolved, the notice was also withdrawn. Presently, if the website is not running, it is not because of us."

FFF India, however, said they have not received any intimation as claimed by the Delhi Police, for it wouldnt have sent a reply to that notice on 22 July. M Yuwan, a volunteer with FFF India, said they didn't receive any communication after the 8 July notice.

"The domain owner said there has been no communication since the 8 July notice," Yuwan said. If the Delhi Police claims the notice has been withdrawn, then it is not reflecting anywhere. There is some kind of miscommunication somewhere. The website is still blocked."
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Hail the South Korean recession.

Only in the world of Covid-19 is a poor economic report card something to cheer. Gross domestic product shrank 3.3% in the second quarter from the previous three months, the Bank of Korea said Thursday. That was worse than forecast and followed a decline of 1.3% for the January-March period. No matter: The performance is streets ahead of many industrialized countries. Japan, for example, will show a contraction of more than 20%, according to economists. Global GDP is likely to have dipped about 10% in the second quarter from a year earlier, according to Bloomberg Economics.

Korea is doing well, by comparison. Moreover, indicators suggest activity bottomed toward the end of the quarter. Thats consistent with signs of a bounce in many economies as lockdowns were eased. Consumer sentiment is healing and exports, which were hammered early in the year, are showing much smaller declines. Korea is well placed to benefit from a prolonged stretch of work-from-home. Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. have enjoyed increased demand for their memory chips. The shift to kitchen-table commutes coupled with an uptick in video calls and streamed content spurred corporations and internet companies to boost installation of servers, which are heavy users of DRAM.

The numbers are testament to a skillful pandemic response. Korea is one of the few developed economies that refrained from shutting down huge chunks of the economy. Seoul leaned instead on mass testing and contact tracing. On the face of it, the shallow nature of this recession is a direct consequence of that choice. Not that the government was remotely passive, pledging stimulus worth about 14% of GDP. Without the increase in fiscal spending, the slump would have been greater.

While President Moon Jae-in could be forgiven for exhaling after Thursdays numbers, the country isnt out of the woods. Exports account for more than a third of GDP and its awfully hard to enjoy a meaningful recovery when the rest of the world is struggling to climb out of the deepest hole since the 1930s. Global activity isnt likely to return to its pre-pandemic level until at least 2022. The International Monetarys Funds projection of a 4.9% dip in world growth is dependent on no big return of viral infections. With renewed outbreaks roiling the U.S. and some restrictions reimposed in parts of Asia, that assumption looks vulnerable.

Story continues

Its also important to remember that as good as Koreas outcome is, its still disappointing for some officials. The central bank indicated last week that it will lower its forecast of a 0.2% annual decline in the economy. Prolonged support from both the BOK and the Blue House will be necessary. The passage of a third fiscal-stimulus bill at the start of this month will help.

Korea is showing the benefits of keeping malls and restaurants open when other nations put them in mothballs. But it would be unwise to assume this strategy is set in stone. We learned a few months ago that when it comes to infectious disease, what leaders say one week may cease to apply the next. A country that has generally done a good job tackling the pandemic can quickly be placed on the defensive, as has been the case in Australia recently with a surge in cases in Melbourne.

Caveats aside, South Koreans shouldnt feel too beaten up by this recession. It could have been a whole lot worse. GDP numbers rolling in over the next few weeks are likely to show dire circumstances in many places. Korea hasnt quite dodged the bullet, but it has ducked a cannon ball.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Daniel Moss is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian economies. Previously he was executive editor of Bloomberg News for global economics, and has led teams in Asia, Europe and North America.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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A medical worker wearing a mask walks near the AMC movie theater in Times Square amid the coronavirus pandemic on May 7, 2020 in New York City.

AMC will wait until August to reopen its movie theaters in the U.S., the company said Thursday.

The largest exhibitor in the U.S. had planned on reopening in July, a few weeks before the release of Warner Bros. "Tenet" and Disney's "Mulan." However, after "Tenet" was delayed for a third time, AMC is shifting its strategy.

Other big movie theater chains could also delay their July openings.

"Mulan" is currently slated for release on Aug. 21, although there is speculation that if coronavirus cases continue to spike, Disney could postpone that release in the U.S., as well. "Tenet," which had been used as an anchor for movie theater reopenings, does not have a new release date, though Warner Bros. is expected to announce one in the coming days.

AT&T CEO John Stankey assured movie theater owners that "Tenet" would not skip its theatrical release during an earnings call Thurday.

AMC reached a debt agreement earlier this month that should help the chain remain solvent through 2021. The exhibitor has been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak and all of its locations in the U.S. have been shuttered since mid-March. In June, the company acknowledged that the pandemic could push it into bankruptcy.
Wearing a face mask to reduce the chance of transmission of the novel coronavirus, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema arrives at the U.S. Capitol for a vote May 18, 2020, in Washington, D.C.

PHOENIX  It's not only the social media calls and the press statements.

It's the wigs.

U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is reminding people to social distance while bringing back an age-old congressional tradition.

The Democratic senator from Arizona, a platinum blonde with the help of hair dye, has sported bob-length wigs in mint green and lavender in the course of her public duties during the pandemic.

The hairpieces help cover her own hair's natural darker hues while reminding her constituents that it is impossible to safely dye hair at a salon under the CDC's recommendations of remaining six feet away from others.

Sinema is walking her own talk, her Senate staff said.

Kyrsten is continuing to call attention to the need for all of us to stay home as much as possible and practice social distancing  which she is diligently practicing, including from her hair salon," said her spokeswoman Hannah Hurley.

Sinema, who is in her first term in the Senate after representing the 9th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, is no stranger to standing out from her colleagues' more toned-down fashion choices. She is known around Capitol Hill for pairing colorful, patterned dresses with standout heels, her signature glasses, and lipstick.

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During the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, for example, she wore a sleeveless white dress with a short cape and silver heels.

While wigs might feel like a departure from current Senate norms, it's a tradition that's rooted in Congress' history.

Wigs, hairpieces, and hair transplants have played a fairly prominent role in the institution throughout history  although theyve usually been sported by men, said Don Ritchie, the Senates former historian.

Its been male vanity, bald men wearing wigs, he said in a phone interview Wednesday.

Painting of Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania. He served as a House Republican between the years of 1859 and 1868.

Wigs were used by federal lawmakers to disguise hair-related problems, not to flaunt them.

Story continues

Ritchie said the most famous to don a wig was Thaddeus Stevens, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania who emerged as a leader of the Radical Republicans and spent much of his political career fighting for the abolition of slavery. After working successfully as a lawyer and local elected official, Stevens ran for Congress in 1848 as part of the Whig party, which he later left to join the GOP.

He assumed office in 1849, according to his biography in House archival records.

In his House portrait, a gaunt-looking Stevens has a shock of medium-length dark hair. Though he was badly bewigged, said a blog accompanying the portrait online, he inspired major characters in three movies, including Lincoln, the 2012 movie by Steven Spielberg that tracked the passage of the 13th Amendment that banned slavery.

He had a very obvious wig, he was quite bald, Ritchie said. Most men wore more discreet wigs.

Then there was James Hamilton Lewis, a senator from Illinois early in the 20th century who had been a Shakespearean actor before going into politics. A Democrat in the Wilson era, he was the first official whip of an official party, selected by party members to gather votes on major issues.

Lewis' portrait hangs outside of the Senate chamber, Ritchie said. In it, Lewis was clearly wearing a wig, he said.

He had rather pinkish colored whiskers  a beard, but he wore a different wig apparently, every day, so it was very obvious, Ritchie said. He wore many different wigs.

Others lawmakers wore toupees and other types of hairpieces but tended to do so to disguise that they had thinning hair, or no hair at all. Then there were senators who had hair transplants, Ritchie said, including Wisconsins former Democratic Sen. William Proxmire and former Vice President Joe Biden, who represented Delaware in the Senate.

Hair is a sensitive issue for a lot of members -- its not exactly like Sen. Sinema is making a political statement, Ritchie said. In most cases, it was a personal statement, which was, Im not really as bald as I am.

Sinema's wigs have drawn some criticism, generally from men, such as conservative political consultant Matt Mackowiak.

This is a sitting female US Senator https://t.co/B7yVvOVhCz  Matt Mackowiak (@MattMackowiak) July 21, 2020

His tweet elicited hundreds of replies supporting Sinema.

ICYMI: Today I heard Sen. Kristen Sinema was being dragged for wearing a wig.



I immediately decided to make a delightful thread of some of the notable Toupees of current and former male members of the house and Senate.



The issue is bipartisan. Bad toupees on both sides folks https://t.co/R8kIrp5YRu  John Wesley (@Factnotfiction8) July 22, 2020

Have news to share about Arizona's U.S. senators or national politics? Reach the reporter on Twitter and Facebook. Contact her at yvonne.wingett@arizonarepublic.com and 602-444-4712.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona draws attention with her wigs
Ghanaians have taken to social media to commend Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia for coming to the aid of an 80-year old destitude, Dari Poga in Gurungu in the Upper West Region.



Joy News filed a report on the plight of the homeless octogenarian, who has lost all ten fingers and eight toes to leprosy from childhood.



The emotion-filled Joy News documentary revealed the sad story of how the old woman has lost four of her ten children and how the remaining children have completely abandoned her.



Following the broadcast of the report on Joy News, Vice President Bawumia was touched, and swiftly intervened by sending emissaries, led by the Upper West Regional Minister Hafiz Bin Sallih, to deliver food items and cash to the old woman.



Not only that, Vice President Bawumia is also funding the construction of a two-bedroom house for the old woman at Gurungu.



It was this remarkable gesture by Dr. Bawumia which has got people unimpressed on social media and many showering the Vice President with praises and God's more blessing.



Pictures of building materials at the site for the construction of the two bedroom house for the old woman which was posted online by Asempa FM, got people commending Dr. Bawumia for his magnanimity.



Below are some comments:

Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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KYIV, Ukraine - A criminal suspect brandishing a hand grenade forced a senior police officer to drive him for hours through the Ukrainian countryside Thursday, chased by police, officials said.

More than six hours after the pursuit began, the man left his hostage in the car and fled into a forest, police said. They said the officer was unharmed and the operation to detain the assailant is under way.

The incident started when officers tried to detain the man accused of stealing a car outside a court building in Poltava. He took one of them hostage and threatened to blow up the officer and himself with a hand grenade.

He then agreed to swap the officer for the chief of regional criminal police, who took the wheel of a car provided by police at the kidnappers request.

Police vehicles chased the car for several hours along country roads. Officials identified the man as 32-year-old Roman Skripnik, who had three criminal convictions for theft, fraud and drug possession.

The incident in Poltava comes two days after another armed man in Ukraine seized 13 hostages on a bus in the western city of Lutsk and held them for more than 12 hours before surrendering to police. All hostages were freed unharmed.

The assailant agreed to release the hostages following a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who agreed to post a video urging all Ukrainians to watch Earthlings, a 2005 American documentary exposing humanitys cruel exploitation of animals.
An entire plane applauded and cheered as a 'Karen' who refused to wear a mask was removed from an American Airlines flight.

Passenger Jordan Slade took video of the moment the woman, who was not wearing any face covering in defiance of flight guidelines, was kicked off the flight traveling from Ohio to North Carolina on July 19.

Slade, of North Carolina, said the woman claimed she wasn't wearing a mask because of a medical condition.

As the woman gathered her items and angrily walked off passengers clapped and hollered with joy.

When the applause broke out the woman angrily turned around and snapped back: 'You can clap all you want.'

Jordan Slade filmed the moment a woman dubbed a 'Karen' was kicked off an American Airlines flight for refusing to wear a mask on July 19 on a trip from Ohio to North Carolina. As she walked away the passengers on board clapped and she snided by: 'You can clap all you want'

The woman claimed she wasn't wearing a mask because of a medical condition. She demanded to be boarded on the flight first, was argumentative with flight attendants when asked to put her phone away, and refused to put on a mask

The woman was filmed gathering three very large bags before she walked off the fight

Two masked American Airlines employees were seen at the head of the plane waiting to escort the woman out as she indignantly gathered her three giant bags.

'Just leave. We have flights to get on,' one passenger yelled back.

'She was argumentative from the gate. She demanded to be boarded first and was causing an obvious scene. Once boarded she was making phone calls and arguing with the attendant when asked to put her phone away,' Slade said to DailyMail.com.

'She also refused to wear a mask putting others on the flight at risk... Another passenger even got up to confront her about her behavior with no mask,' she revealed.

'Just leave. We have flights to get on,' one passenger yelled as the woman walked off

The woman's back and forth with attendees and refusal to wear a mask took up so much time that after she was kicked off the flight the plane had to go back to the airport to refuel.

'A woman in the back got up from her seat and sort of confronted the attendant saying she was going to miss her connection and then directed the conversation back to the woman saying if she misses her flight because of her...' Slade said.

'Karen' justified not wearing a mask to the angry customer saying she had a medical condition.

Slade said she and her friends filmed the incident because it was such a disruption to the flight. She uploaded the clip onto her Tik Tok, where it went viral.

'Hopefully she made it to her destination and had a better day,' Slade added.

Social media users were quick to slam the woman and call her a 'Karen' for ignoring the mask mandate and jeopardizing the health of people on board

Due to the coronavirus crisis airlines have created new travel measures to prevent the spread of the contagious respiratory virus that has already infected over 3.9 million in the country and killed over 143,000.

American Airlines instated a new policy for requiring all passengers to wear face coverings except for children under two years old.

Starting July 29 passengers will be required to wear a face covering in the airport where the trip begins and where it ands and during flight connections.

'Be sure your face covering is on before you board the plane and wear it during your flight. If you decline to wear one, you may be denied boarding and future travel on American,' the policy says.

American Airlines instated a new policy for requiring all passengers to wear face coverings except for children under two years old due to the coronavirus crisis

American Airlines is yet to reply to DailyMail.com's request for comment on the incident.

Social media users were quick to slam the woman and call her a 'Karen' for ignoring the mask mandate and jeopardizing the health of people on board.

'She thinks rules and common sense dont apply to her. She has THREE carry on bags on a small express jet. She should have been denied boarding for that reason alone, if not denied for not wearing a mask. When she stops being a part of the solution she becomes the problem,' one Twitter user said.

'Three carry-ons and no mask. Why was she even allowed on board,' another Twitter user added.
Browse through Arabic-language social media pages and you could walk away thinking Covid-19 is an American hoax, isn't deadly and can be swiftly cured with a garlic clove.

Arabic pages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are brimming with fake news stories on the novel coronavirus, from benign inaccuracies to full-throated conspiracy theories.

As authorities work to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, civic platforms across the Middle East are stepping up to combat the Arabic "infodemic" they say is as dangerous as the infection itself.

"We correct the news and save lives," said Baher Jassem, an Iraqi activist from the Tech 4 Peace collective, which switched from its four-year campaign against fake political and economic news to setting the record straight on Covid-19.

Follow latest updates on the Covid-19 pandemic here

Every few hours, the collective's Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages publish screenshots of fabricated news stories about the virus, from claims about new remedies to celebrity deaths from the illness or a reassuring wave of recoveries.

The pictures are marked with a red stamp reading "fake post", accompanied by a correction and links to more accurate information. Their accounts reach more than one million followers.

"We don't just want to expose lies. We want to spread awareness about the coronavirus, the right way to protect yourself, the wrong remedies that are circulating," Jassem told AFP.

The corrections campaign could not have come sooner: the region appears to be experiencing a long-feared Covid-19 spike.

Lebanon, Oman and Algeria saw peaks of daily new cases in mid-July, while Saudi Arabia and Jordan witnessed crests in late June but appear to be stabilising.

Doctors in Iraq blame online misinformation: their patients have insisted coronavirus is an American conspiracy, or people are actually dying from a sarin gas attack, or that Iraq's blistering heat would halt the virus's spread.

Medics say such false information could make people less likely to wear masks in public, abide by social distancing or wash their hands regularly.

Misinformation about Covid-19 has been spreading in various languages since the pandemic's early days, but the proliferation in Arabic is particularly dangerous because of the lack of quality reporting, activists told AFP.

Indeed, Reporters Without Borders has noted authorities' tightening control over media in the Middle East in 2020, specifically over information relating to Covid-19.

As a result, activists said, news consumers are suspicious of the information they find in traditional outlets and more likely to entertain conspiracy theories.

"Media literacy is non-existent. Iraqis can go on Facebook and Twitter but are not really equipped to see 50 different sources and differentiate what's fact and what's fiction," said Faisal al-Mutar, a US-based Iraqi activist and founder of Ideas Beyond Borders.

IBB has partnered with Wikipedia to translate more than 250 detail-rich pages on Covid-19's origins and spread into Arabic.

It's no easy task given the Arabic language's diverse dialects, said volunteer translator Issam Fawwaz, based in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.

"The scientific terms aren't standardised. A term used in Syria, Lebanon or Jordan is totally different from Egypt or Morocco," while some English terms have no Arabic equivalents, 33-year-old Fawwaz told AFP.

But conviction in the impact of his work has kept him going.

"This is personal for me. I was one of those people that used to believe fake news, but I was lucky to have people who pushed me to use my brain," he said.

"One person persuaded by a fake news story can spark a calamity in his community."

AFP's own fact-checking service, which includes an Arabic platform, has busted dozens of online myths about the coronavirus -- like rumours that wearing masks causes a dangerous drop in oxygen intake or that the World Health Organization was wrapping up its work on the pandemic.

Fatabayyano, a Jordan-based platform founded in 2014 whose name translates to "Verify", is fighting fire with fire.

"Fake news spreads faster than real news -- and the amount of misinformation on WhatsApp is absolutely huge," said Motaz al-Thaher, Fatabayyano's media manager.

WhatsApp boasts 75 percent penetration among internet users in the Middle East, according to a 2019 study by the Northwestern University in Qatar.

People use it to stay in touch with friends and family, but also to share links, photos and audio messages on current affairs, often unverified.

There are few regulations to fight misinformation on WhatsApp, Thaher said, as messages are encrypted and the platform can't flag suspicious messages the way Facebook and Twitter can.

So Fatabayyano created its own channel, sending fact-based coronavirus reporting, videos and graphics to thousands of WhatsApp users simultaneously.

"Rumours are viruses too!" reads the new caption under the campaign's logo.
A former Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan, will on Thursday return to Bamako in continuation of his mediation mission as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) intensifies efforts towards resolving the ongoing socio-political crisis in the Mali.

As ECOWAS Special Envoy to Mali, the former president will be accompanying a High-Level Mission of five west African Heads of State who are visiting Mali as a follow-up to Mr Jonathans last week mediation mission to Bamako. The High-Level Mission includes Nigerian President Muhamadu Buhari, Mahamadou Issoufou, President of the Republic of Niger and Chair of ECOWAS Authority, Macky Sall, President of Senegal, Alassane Ouattara, President of Cote dIvoire and Nana Akuffo-addo, President of the Republic of Ghana.

The regional leaders are expected to meet with key stakeholders in the Malian political crisis with a view to helping them to find common ground in the search for solution.

After a three-day mission to Mali last week which ended last Sunday, Mr Jonathan and his mediation team recommended the formation of a government of national unity with members drawn from different interest groups in the country, including the ruling coalition, the opposition parties and the civil society.

It also recommended the establishment of a technical committee to be set up by ECOWAS to monitor the implementation of the proposed measures which also include the reconstitution of the dissolved constitutional court as well as the resolution of the dispute over 31 legislative seats recently set aside by the defunct constitutional court.

Many stakeholders and interest groups have so far welcomed the proposed unity government as a means of resolving the political impasse. However, the opposition backed M5 coalition are yet to come on board, as they have continued to insist on the resignation of President Keita among other tough demands, even after meeting with the Jonathan-led team many times.

While in Bamako, the Jonathan-led mission which was in Mali one month after the visit of ECOWAS Ministerial Mission held consultations with different stakeholders including President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Prime Minister Boubou Cisse, Imam Mahmoud Dicko, members of the M5-RFP collation , the majority coalition in Parliament, judges, heads of international agencies, diplomats, members of Civil Society as well as women and youth groups.
By Laman Ismayilova

The Republican Youth Library continues to share education materials to audience through its online activities.

A new virtual travel video dedicated to the world's most unique libraries has been launched. The project is organized by the head of the "Library-bibliographic process automation" Department Saadat Shafiyeva.

The video features world-famous libraries such as Louis-Nusser in France, Sandro Penna in Italy, National Library of Minsk in Belarus, Geisel Library of the University of California, the Royal Library of Denmark and others. The video is available on social networks.

A book is like a best friend who will never walk away from you. It helps you to answer the most important questions in life. Reading books give us a chance to immense into the wonderful world of knowledge. They can bring joy to our lives.

The library science in Azerbaijan stepped into the stage of a turning point in the 11th century.

The creation of many libraries in the country has been associated with a number of prominent persons.

Abulhasan Bahmanyar, philosopher and a student of Ibn Sina, played a major role in the development of librarianship in Azerbaijan.

Bahmanyars private library was considered one of the most beautiful libraries of that time.

This library was full of books and Bahmaniyar turned it into the center of the scholars exchange of ideas.

One of the main places in the library was occupied by the books of Bahmanyar himself.

The Book of Education translated into Arabic and Farsi brought him a great fame not only in Azerbaijan, but throughout the world.

One of the Persian duplicates copied in following years is kept in the Institute of Oriental Studies named after Biruni in Uzbekistan, while Arabic manuscript copies of the work are being protected in a number of libraries around the world in Beirut, Istanbul, Cairo, London and Vatican City.

He also established libraries in Tabriz, Gazaniya and other cities. In the city of Rashidiya named after him in the north-west of Tabriz there were two libraries, as well as a library as part of the university.

It is also difficult to overestimate the importance of the works of Nasreaddin Tusi in the matter of preserving and transmitting to future generations samples of the Azerbaijani and world books.

Tusi had arranged a library in the Maragha observatory built by order of Hulaki khan. The library stored over four hundred thousand books.

Nowadays, libraries and publishing houses in Azerbaijan are of great importance. There are also over 150 publishing houses that are engaged in printing.

The Mirza Fatali Akhundov National Library of Azerbaijan is a central state library of Azerbaijan. Its facades feature the statues of various writers and poets: Nizami Ganjavi, Mahsati, Uzeyir Hajibeyov, Shota Rustaveli, Alexander Pushkin and several others.

Founded in 1922, the library houses books, printed materials, newspapers, maps, dissertations and records. The hall has been provided with alphabetical catalogs of the books in different languages. The rare books, as well as the books about Azerbaijan covering the period until 1920 are stored in the rare book and library museum.

The country is also home to the Museum of Miniature Books. Located within the oldest part of Baku city - Icherisheher, the museum is included in the Guinness Book of Records as the museum with the largest number of miniature books.

The museum opened its doors in 2002 and owns one of the world's great collections of miniature books.

The creator of the museum, Zarifa Salakhova has made a unique contribution to the world of small books.

The main objective for the establishment of the Museum was to revive love for books among the youth.

One of the worlds first miniature books museums is home to over 6,500 books published in 71 countries.

The collection contains "Flower Alphabet", "Pictures of English History", Pushkins "Yevgeni Onegin", "La Fontaine Fables" and the 24-volume "One Thousand and One Nights" a seminal work in Arabic literature.

---

Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
- Ken Gichoya aka Njoro said management pulled the plug on their show four months ago

- He added that the stars of the popular local comedy said their goodbyes and wished each other well in their future endeavours

- Njoro claimed the TV station settled for reruns for the time being but assured his fans that Papa Shirandula was not coming back

Deceased Papa Shirandula actor Charles Bukekos friend and castmate, Ken Gichoya aka Njoro, has disclosed the show was cancelled four months back.

According to the thespian, he and his fellow actors were informed production had been halted and they all chose to go their separate ways.

READ ALSO: Papa Shirandula actor Njoro shows off handsome, grown sons in lovely photo

Njoro at his friend Papa Shirandula's grave. Photo: Ken Gichoya

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Dont gather at Anfield: Liverpool fires warning to fans ahead of trophy-lifting ceremony

While remembering the late Papa with Jalango and Otoyo over a drink, an irate Njoro said he was at first heartbroken when the plug was pulled on the show he worked on for years.

He had to swallow the bitter pill of finally bidding farewell to his castmates who had turned into family over the years.

The actor further added that the management said reruns of the show would appear on TV every week.

READ ALSO: Aliyekuwa mume wa Gloria Muliro, Eric Omba adai Gloria alimshinikiza ampe talaka

READ ALSO: Like father like son: Size 8 shows off stunning resemblance between hubby, her son

The show was cancelled four months ago after Kenya started recording coronavirus cases. The management just told us the show was over and we were not going to record any more episodes. They said they planned to air reruns, he said.

Njoro said he chose to thank the management for believing in him and giving him a chance to blossom on the airwaves.

Speaking on his best friends death, the thespian said it would take him long to come to terms with Papas demise.

READ ALSO: Joyce Omondi flaunts spectacular figure in beautiful kitenge fit

To Njoro, the fallen actor was not just a workmate, he was like a brother and his death caused the entertainer sleepless nights and bouts of grief.

It will take time for me to accept I will never see him again but one day I will rise above the pain. I do not know when but I know it will take some time, he added.

Papa died on Saturday, July 18, a week after traveling back to Nairobi from Kakamega.

He had tested positive for COVID-19 and agreed with doctors to isolate from home.

Days after his diagnosis, Papa developed breathing problems and was rushed to The Karen Hospital by his wife.

The actor died in the parking lot.

Njoro was pictured dejected during the actors burial in Busia and Kenyans became worried.

His face had grief written all over it and he held onto Papas cross with so much disbelief and sadness.

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.

I did not sacrifice Ayeiya, family wants 21 million as compensation - Wakimani of Churchill Show /TUKO TV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Sydney (AFP) - Papua New Guinea has asked for World Health Organization help after a rapidly spreading new coronavirus outbreak sparked preparations for large-scale community transmission in the under-resourced country.

Having mostly dodged the COVID-19 pandemic until now, Papua New Guinea reported Thursday it had detected three new cases in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total to 30 -- up from just 11 on Sunday.

With limited coronavirus testing and many positive cases found in health workers, there are fears the virus may have a stronger foothold than those detected cases indicate.

National pandemic response controller David Manning expressed "serious concerns on the alarming rate of increase of COVID-19 cases in Port Moresby and the likely spread to the other provinces", saying there was a "high likelihood of expanded community transmission".

Papua New Guinea is one of the poorest countries in the Pacific. Its rickety health system is already under severe pressure from the widespread transmission of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, as well as one of the world's few remaining outbreaks of polio.

Port Moresby resident and mother of five Christine Tameta told AFP that the number of cases among health workers had caused deep concern.

"We are afraid to move around in case we contract the virus, especially when there is no social distancing being observed," she said, adding that her family would be staying at home as much as possible.

Against the growing threat Manning said that the WHO was in the process of mobilising international emergency medical teams to deploy to the country.

He said in a statement there was "an urgent need" for emergency health workers to help the country manage a surge in cases and administer isolation facilities.

"We are also discussing with the PNG Defence Force to assist... the Health Department. We have always said we don't have adequate facilities."

Story continues

Senior health department official Esrom Doani told AFP that plans were already being drawn up for the police and Papua New Guinea Defence Forces to aid the effort.

He added that the positive cases among medical workers had prompted an investigation into whether the cause was transmission or a possible bio-security breach.

Manning admitted testing had been "very limited" in areas outside the capital, and "while there is no evidence of hospitals being overwhelmed", that could "be due to delayed reporting or poor health checking behaviour".
Novartis announces Phase III study of Jakavi in chronic graft-versus-host disease met primary and key secondary endpoints

Details Category: Small Molecules Published on Thursday, 23 July 2020 14:14 Hits: 1457

Jakavi  demonstrated superior overall response rate in patients with chronic graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) compared to best available therapy, building on previous positive findings in acute GvHD 1

demonstrated superior overall response rate in patients with chronic graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) compared to best available therapy, building on previous positive findings in acute GvHD Study also met key secondary endpoints, significantly improving failure-free survival and patient-reported symptoms 1

GvHD is a serious and common complication of stem cell transplants with no widely approved treatment options for patients who do not respond to steroids2,3

BASEL, Switzerland I July 23, 2020 I Novartis today announced that the Phase III REACH3 study evaluating Jakavi (ruxolitinib) in patients with steroid-refractory or steroid-dependent chronic graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) met its primary endpoint of superior overall response rate (ORR) at Week 24 versus best available therapy (BAT)1. The study also met key secondary endpoints, significantly improving failure-free survival and patient-reported symptoms assessed by a validated chronic GvHD-specific score1. These topline results build on positive data from the previously reported REACH2 trial, which demonstrated that Jakavi improved outcomes across a range of efficacy measures in patients with steroid-refractory or steroid-dependent acute GvHD2.

These positive topline results of the pivotal Phase III trial in chronic GvHD show that treatment with Jakavi results in superior overall response and failure-free survival compared to alternative treatment options and will help to inform treatment decisions among patients refractory to steroids following bone marrow transplantation, said David Feltquate, Head Hematology Development Unit, Novartis. We look forward to sharing further details of the data, which complement the previous findings for Jakavi in the acute form of the disease, and plan to initiate regulatory filings for steroid-refractory GvHD in Europe and other ex-US countries.

REACH3 (NCT03112603) is a Phase III, randomized, open-label, global multicenter study to evaluate Jakavi compared to BAT in patients with steroid-refractory or steroid-dependent chronic GvHD following allogeneic stem cell transplant4. Data from this study are expected to be presented at an upcoming major medical congress.

About Jakavi (ruxolitinib)

Jakavi (ruxolitinib) is an oral inhibitor of the JAK 1 and JAK 2 tyrosine kinases. Jakavi is approved by the European Commission for the treatment of adult patients with polycythemia vera (PV) who are resistant to or intolerant of hydroxyurea and for the treatment of disease- related splenomegaly or symptoms in adult patients with primary myelofibrosis (MF) (also known as chronic idiopathic MF), post-polycythemia vera MF or post-essential thrombocythemia MF. Jakavi is approved in over 100 countries for patients with MF, including EU countries, Switzerland, Canada, Japan and in more than 85 countries for patients with PV, including EU countries, Switzerland, Japan and Canada. The exact indication for Jakavi varies by country. Additional worldwide regulatory filings are underway in MF and PV.

Novartis licensed ruxolitinib from Incyte Corporation for development and commercialization outside the United States. Ruxolitinib is marketed in the United States by Incyte Corporation as Jakafi for patients with PV who have had an inadequate response to or are intolerant of hydroxyurea, for patients with intermediate or high-risk MF, and steroid-refractory acute GvHD in adult and pediatric patients 12 years and older5.

The recommended starting dose of Jakavi in PV is 10 mg given orally twice daily. The recommended starting dose of Jakavi in MF is 15 mg given orally twice daily for patients with a platelet count between 100,000 cubic millimeters (mm) and 200,000 mm, and 20 mg twice daily for patients with a platelet count of >200,000 mm. Doses may be titrated based on safety and efficacy. There is limited information to recommend a starting dose for MF and PV patients with platelet counts between 50,000/mm and <100,000/mm. The maximum recommended starting dose in these patients is 5 mg twice daily, and patients should be titrated cautiously5.

Jakavi is a registered trademark of Novartis AG in countries outside the United States. Jakafi is a registered trademark of Incyte Corporation. The safety and efficacy profile of Jakavi has not yet been established outside of its approved indications.

About Novartis

Novartis is reimagining medicine to improve and extend peoples 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 worlds 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 110,000 people of more than 145 nationalities work at Novartis around the world. Find out more at https://www.novartis.com.

Novartis is on Twitter. Sign up to follow @Novartis at https://twitter.com/novartisnews

For Novartis multimedia content, please visit https://www.novartis.com/news/media-library

For questions about the site or required registration, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

References

1. Novartis data on file.

2. Zeiser R, M.D., et al. Ruxolitinib for Glucocorticoid-Refractory Acute Graft-Versus-Host Disease. New England Journal of Medicine. 2020. 382:1800-1810

3. Ferrara JL, Levine JE, Reddy P, Holler E. Graft-versus-host disease. Lancet. 2009;373(9674):1550-1561.

4. A Study of Ruxolitinib vs Best Available Therapy (BAT) in Patients with Steroid-Refractory Chronic Graft vs. Host Disease (GvHD) After Bone Marrow Transplantation (REACH3). ClinicalTrials.gov, 2017, clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03112603.

5. Jakavi (ruxolitinib) tablets: EU Summary of Product Characteristics. Novartis; May 2020

SOURCE: Novartis
Chief Executive Officer of the Atta Mills Institute, Mr. Koku Anyidoho has dismissed suggestions that his loyalty to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) waned following the death of ex-President Atta Mills and his (Koku's) subsequent defeat in his quest for the General Secretary position.



Some Ghanaians, including elements within the opposition party, questioned Koku's support to the NDC in the wake of the excruciating blow he suffered in his bid to become the NDC's General Secretary.



To clear all doubts, the former NDC Deputy General Secretary stressed that he is still a card-bearing member of the opposition party who loyally served the late President Atta Mills and the NDC, even more strongly after the death of the former president.



Speaking on Okay FMs Ade Akye Abia Morning Show, Mr. Anyidoho revealed that he had juicy offers both local and international after the demise of the ex-president, but turned them down to serve his party.



I am still a card-bearing member of the NDC and as you said, President Mills became President on the ticket of the NDC and I served him as a loyal NDC member and when he died, I didnt turn my back on the party in spite of the fact that I had offers at that time, very juicy offers both locally and internationally and I didnt turn my back on the party, he hinted.



I stayed on till after the 2012 election; it entered in 2013-2014 and I weighed the options and I went and contested to become the Deputy General Secretary of the party and I won overwhelmingly. I served the party in that capacity for four solid years at the Headquarters, he stressed.



He was also quick to drive home the point that, during his stewardship as the NDC's Deputy General Secretary, Mr Mahama was the flagbearer and President; but his allegiance never faltered.



I served loyally for four years and within those four years, I am sure that the NDC was in a very comfortable lead when I was doing the work in the heat of the election, the NDC was in a comfortable lead and at that time, who was the President? Was it not John Mahama? That time, President Mills was not the President and so I served loyally and this was in 2016, he mentioned.



He reiterated that his loyalty for the NDC went beyond the point where we lost 2016 election and that was what happened; and then 2017 I was still the Deputy General Secretary as well as 2018 to the extent that I ended up in BNI custody just still working for the party.





Watch Video Below





Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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An Australian couple have been forced to buy a boat and fish for food to survive after the coronavirus pandemic left them stranded on a far flung island.

Warrick Alston, 49 and his wife Aime are stuck in Iloilo on Panay Island in the Philippines after their flight home on March 18 was cancelled due to COVID-19.

The pair had travelled over in February to help out the disadvantaged including volunteering with an orphanage.

But the trip turned into a nightmare when the country's president Rodrigo Duterte ordered police to shoot troublemakers who breached health orders.

Warrick Alston, 49 and his wife Aime Alston are stuck in Iloilo on Panay Island in the Philippines after their flight home on March 18 was cancelled due to COVID-19

The couple were forced to buy a boat (pictured) and fish for food as a means to survive

The two have been trapped in the Philippines for five months as a result of strict border closures due to COVID-19 (Pictured: a message in the sand written by the pair)

Mr Alston told Daily Mail Australia it wasn't simply a matter of booking another flight home.

Warrick Alston is living off freshly caught seafood including fish and crabs

'The Australian public and government believe we had time. But when you have 7,000 islands to get out of and a president that has given orders to shoot, you don't take the risk,' Mr Alston said.

'I don't think travel insurance covers you getting shot by police in a COVID-19 pandemic.'

The couple are still there five months later as they struggle to live off their savings and face difficulties accessing funds through Paypal and Australian bank accounts.

Mr Alston also had his Centrelink payments cut off while he was over there and can't re-apply from overseas.

With no more repatriation flights and an end to government subsidised hotel quarantine, the two simply can't afford to return home to Australia.

Mr Alston spent $1200 on a fishing boat

Mr Alston estimates it could cost him around $16,000 in total for repatriation. This is money him and his partner don't have.

Even if the couple could afford it domestic travel is not operating within the Philippines.

Their island home is also 600km south of the capital of Manila, so the logistics are nearly 'impossible', he says.

Instead, the couple are trying to make the most of their circumstances, 'learning to adapt' to life with the local community.

'I bought a boat for $1200. And we catch fish with a net. Then we dry them out and sell or swap for a chicken or goat. And if we have lots we give to others,' Mr Alston said.

They are surviving off a bounty of fish which they also sell off to locals in exchange for other food like chickens or goats

The fish are caught, dried and then sold

Aime sits with a number of locals as they prepare fish for trading

The two are trying to make the most of a tough situation

A dish prepared by Aime prepared using local ingredients

While he is adapting to a 'new normal' he is critical of the lack of support for residents who remain stranded overseas without government support.

He believes the government should extend COVID-19 support payments to Australians who are stranded outside the country.

'Older Australian citizens cannot get help or medical help and can't afford to pay Quarantine or the planes back,' he said.

'The Australian Navy is in Philippines at the moment. All they have to do is pick 4 ports pick everyone up in 3 days [then put] everyone on Christmas island for quarantine.

'We need help. If they can't get us - give us emergency payments.'

Despite storm season on the horizon, Mr Alston is trying to stay upbeat about his circumstances.

'You still have to live and remain positive and don't let life get you down,' he said.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs for comment.

People arrested for not wearing face masks are detained at a stadium on July 8, 2020 in Quezon city, Metro Manila, Philippines
Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys insisted the welfare benefit must be kept in place until next year. (Photo: Julien Behal/PA)

The Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) will be reduced and split into three separate rates in September but will be extended until April next year, Independent.ie can reveal.

Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys has secured substantial concessions in the July Stimulus Package to extend the payment for those who lost their jobs during due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, the payment will be reduced for most people who receive the payment from September 17.

The scheme will be closed to new applicants from September 17 also.

From this date the three rates of the payment will be:

 203 for those who earned less than 200 before the Covid-19 pandemic.

 250 for those who earned between 200 and 300

 300 for those who earned over 300 All three rates

All three rates will be tapered back to the standard jobseeker payment of 203 in April 2021.

Meanwhile a new Employment Wage Support Scheme will replace the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS) and run until April 2021.

The new scheme will see businesses, whose turnover has fallen below 30pc, receive a state subsidy of 205 per week per employee and this includes seasonal workers and new employees.

New companies operating in sectors badly impacted by the virus will also be eligible for the payment .

Meanwhile, Higher Education Minister Simon Harris will announce a new subsidy for employers who hire apprentices. There July Stimulus will have a major focus on encouraging people to take up apprenticeships.

There will also be a commitment to give more funding to the Help to Buy scheme which helps first time buyers get on the housing market.

Housing Minister Darragh OBrien has also secured funding to refurbish vacant homes.

There is also expected to be major investment in infrastructure projects including schools, greenways and cycle paths.

A significant retrofitting scheme is expected to be announced by Climate Action Minister Eamon Ryan.

The key measure in the stimulus will be tax back scheme on hotel and restaurant bills.

The Irish Independent revealed today couples will be able to claim back as much as 250 on hotel and restaurant bills under the Government's staycation subsidy.

The tax-back scheme is to run from October this year until April 2021 and will apply to hotels, food and non-alcoholic drinks.

Holidaymakers and diners will have to spend up to 625 to claim back the maximum 125 tax rebate. A couple can claim 250.
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The pandemic is a lie. I will not wear someone elses fear. This is all fake news. It is remarkable to see these statements littered across the news and social media. Individuals with a fairly decent level of understanding and intelligence pandering to these ideas just go to show how strong anti-science culture has become. We forget so quickly how it started, forget those who comforted us in times of uncertainty, and those who heeded the call when so many didnt.

On January 19, 2020, a 35-year-old would test positive for the novel coronavirus in Snohomish County, Washington. Shortly thereafter, Seattle would become the first U.S. epicenter, Wuhan, China would go into lockdown, and the WHO would declare a global health emergency. By early February, the hysteria would start to set in, while local spread would be confirmed in California, Oregon, and New York. Social media would start increasing speculative reporting, and this invisible enemy would be given a new name, COVID-19. On February 5, the death toll would pass that of the SARS pandemic of 2003. Even still, it wasnt until mid-February when it became real for me. My colleagues from California to New York began reporting their experiences, and I knew it would only be a matter of time before the virus landed on our doorstep. I did what I always do in times of uncertainty: immerse myself in the science and search for an answer. Much to my dismay, the reports being published were anecdotal at best, and most were not yet peer-reviewed.

By late February, the stress and arguments about who should take responsibility began to boil over. Then there was the increase in fear among health care exposure rates, conflicting case fatality reports, the impending disaster in Italy. Frustrations began with the CDC on the flip-flopping in guidelines; was it airborne or droplet, how long did it survive on surfaces, what should we use to treat it, and mostly why couldnt we test more or everyone? That was probably the worst part, the unknown. Today we forget that the CDC only lifted restrictions on testing on March 3, 2020.

We became tired of the complaining, the fear, and misinformation, so we decided to pen a guideline for our hospital. The first draft was sent for review on March 14, 2020. At this time, there were 153,523 cases worldwide, 5,789 confirmed deaths, and the president had declared a national emergency.

Within two weeks, we had a patient transport plan, admission criteria, treatment algorithms, surge plans, ventilator back-up plans, COVID-19 specific cardiac resuscitation plan, cohorted units, orders placed on protective equipment, and EMR power plans up and ready to go. For the next month, we would meet two to three times daily. By March 17, COVID 19 had spread to all 50 states, and by the 20th, New York had become the outbreak epicenter in the US.

Georgia went on lockdown April 3. Throughout March and April, the world seemed to trust us as the scientific community to lead them through this crisis.

By April, we saw our algorithms were working, and we had some of the best outcomes in the state. Our teams were acting fast and stabilizing our patients even faster. We had specialized teams that functioned like a symphony. There were no vacations. Every intensivist was always available if needed. We developed a camaraderie that will translate to life-long friendships. People were adhering to the guidelines by staying home. Businesses had shut down, the spread was contained, and we could see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

Then on April 24, 2020, with 892 deaths and 22,147 infected in GA, the lockdown restrictions were eased in our state. We were one of the last to close but the first to reopen. We knew the world needed to open; we just didnt know our world would open like this.

I remember wondering why we couldnt mandate masks, contact tracing, and social distancing when we reopened. Suddenly, the virus became political.

While the world argued with experts, we were working hard to make a finite resource seem infinite. We created units out of hallways, shifted resources, brought in, and trained health care workers. When we ran out of one medication, we made do with alternatives. When we got busy, we choose to increase our risk of exposure over delaying care to our patients. Administrators are quite literally trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents, wondering how the system will survive. We dont know how to help the millions that are uninsured, or the millions more that have insurance which covers only a fraction of their medical bills.

When I started writing this, I was upset at a social media comment I read from a friend that read, This pandemic is a joke, I will not wear a mask because I will not wear their fear. Now I see that he was afraid and uninformed. People, in general, are still afraid, if not of the virus, then of loneliness, poverty, or even subjugation. When people exhibit these fears, and if their voices are loud, the politicians must bend to their will. If our politicians are afraid and their voices alleviate our fears, then we bend to their will. My point is, it is OK to be afraid. I am a pulmonary and critical care doctor, my wife is a pediatric intensivist, we have a small child, and we are afraid. But to wear a mask is to be brave. To social distance is to be brave. To trust your doctors is to be brave. To those with doubts, know that you are correct in your feeling that the system is broken. I dont know how to fix it, but I know that it has to be done soon. Help us get through this so we can build a better world: a world built from understanding and not from fear.

Abubakr Chaudhry is a pulmonary and critical care physician.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
2005-11-06 04:00:00 PDT Pavia, Italy -- Such is the supply of miracles in Italy that if a month goes by without one, it's, well, a miracle.

Weeping Madonnas, sacred blood that goes from solid to liquid and back again, lottery numbers divined by gazing on a photo of a deceased pope, sudden cures after contact with a holy relic: Miracles are old, old phenomena in Italy, the land where St. Francis tamed a wolf and wild doves and a veil taken from St. Agatha's tomb stopped lava in its tracks.

But this is also the land of science par excellence, the home ground of Galileo, Leonardo, Fermi and Marconi. So there are also voices that say, "Hold on a minute."

Luigi Garlaschelli is a chemist who from his perch at Pavia University skeptically eyes Italy's parade of miracles. He belongs to a group called the Italian Committee to Investigate Claims of the Paranormal, made up of Italian scientists, including two Nobel Prize winners, who use science to try to explain the inexplicable.

"Miracles are just paranormal events in religious clothing," he says. "I'm a chemist. I look for the substance behind things."

In his work, he does not often tangle with the Vatican. Officials there generally take a benign, arms-length stance toward the many events traditionally celebrated as miracles in its churches, neither questioning nor embracing them.

"Some of these things are medieval in origin. I stay away from them," said the Rev. Peter Gumpel, an official at the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, which investigates reports of miracles by candidates for sainthood.

"Our belief, however, is that there is a personal God who intervenes in history," he said.

Garlaschelli is a bearded man in a white lab coat who smokes a pipe. He studies not only religious phenomena, but also plain trickery. He has written a book about sorcerers and levitation and one about an ancient Italian sword stuck in a stone that may be the precursor of the King Arthur legend. It is a far cry from his usual research, which produces academic papers with such titles as "Recent Progress in the Field of N-acylalanines as Systemic Fungicides."

He recently completed a periodic imitation of the miracle of San Gennaro, an event that has been celebrated in Naples since the 14th century. The city's archbishop pulls out a vial containing a maroon-color solid substance from a case, then rotates and shakes the container until the contents liquefy.

The liquid is said to be the blood of San Gennaro, a pious bishop who was beheaded in A.D. 305 by the Roman emperor Diocletian. Liquefaction promises a peaceful future for Naples -- a pledge popular with residents of a city that sits in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, the only active volcano on the European mainland. The shaking of San Gennaro's vial draws crowds of frenzied spectators.

Keepers of the relic have not provided a sample of the material for thorough testing. Garlaschelli put together a cocktail of material available near Naples -- which would have been obtainable in the Middle Ages -- to try to replicate the miracle. His mixture of limestone powder, iron and pigments was solid when left still, but turned fluid when stirred or shaken. The process is called thixotropy. Ketchup is a thixotropic substance, Garlaschelli explained.

In the 1990s, Garlaschelli took on one of the most revered relics in Christendom, the Shroud of Turin. It bears an image of Jesus that believers say was miraculously acquired when the cloth covered his body after the crucifixion. Carbon dating found that the fabric dates from around the 14th century, but defenders say the tests were inaccurate because the cloth could have picked up pollutants in its travels through various European cathedrals.

Garlaschelli runs experiments with a cloth of his own that he thinks provide plenty of reasons for skepticism. For one thing, if the shroud were wrapped around a face, the features should have been distorted, much like the map projection of continents from a globe onto a flat surface -- Greenland appears larger than South America, though in fact it's much smaller. On the shroud, the face is in perfect proportion.

To prove his point, Garlaschelli put a student in a bathing suit, had him lie on a slab, cover himself with paint and then pull a shroud over himself. The image left on the cloth looks similar to the Turin shroud's, except that it has a distorted face.

For the past decade, Garlaschelli has been grappling with reports of a plaster Madonna that wept blood in Civitavecchia, a town north of Rome. He has produced several weeping plaster figures. They are based on the principle that red liquid can be filtered through glazed plaster, flowing out only in the spot where the glaze is scraped away. Another method is simply to add a little red dye beneath an eye. Leave the statue out in the dew and the dye begins to run, like mascara.

Garlaschelli thinks that the blood on the Civitavecchia Madonna was simply dabbed on. The person who reported discovering the blood declined to provide some of his own for DNA sampling, he says.

Gumpel, the Vatican official, distinguished between miracles attributed to objects and those linked to candidates for sainthood, which overwhelmingly feature individuals recovering from extreme illness. Such reports are investigated by boards of physicians to see whether there is a purely medical cause for the recovery.

"We don't ask physicians to declare a miracle. We ask them if there is any other explanation for a cure," Gumpel said. But he cautioned, "What seems like a miracle now may not be one in a hundred years. Such are the advances of science. Declarations of miracles are not infallible teachings."

For his part, Garlaschelli is philosophical about the popular reaction to his investigations. People like miracles and are not likely to be easily swayed. "You see these television shows. Even when they investigate the paranormal, they leave a little room for mystery. Drama requires a question mark," he said. "Still, I think that science wins out in the end."
Bishop Paul Aleenan is urging both the UK and French governments to address underlying reasons why people risk their lives crossing the English Channel

By Vatican News

The Lead Bishop in the UK for Migrants and Refugees, Bishop Paul McAleenan, is calling on the British and French governments to collaborate in order to eliminate the underlying reasons that see many migrants risking their lives in an attempt to cross the English Channel to get to Britain.

Recently, the Home Secretary Priti Patel met with her French counterpart, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, to discuss ways to tackle illegally-facilitated Channel crossings by small boats.

As a result, both Ministers signed a Declaration of Intent.

The document agreed that a Franco-British Operational Research Unit would target the network of criminal gangs behind migrant smuggling.

Bishop McAleenan said in his message released on Tuesday that, Their focus must be in determining why so many choose to flee their home country and use their influence to eradicate the underlying reasons why these same people are willing to risk their lives in the open sea.

Bishop McAleenan also underlined that the protection of the vulnerable must be a priority.

Surely two countries which pride themselves on being progressive and enlightened will see that the welfare of those who are destitute is vital. Protection of people should be foremost in their thinking.
New York, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Artificial Intelligence in Accounting Market Research Report by Component, by Technology, by Deployment, by Application - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05913257/?utm_source=GNW



On the basis of Component, the Artificial Intelligence in Accounting Market is studied across Services and Solutions. The Services further studied across Managed Services and Professional Services. The Solutions further studied across Platforms and Software Tools.



On the basis of Technology, the Artificial Intelligence in Accounting Market is studied across Machine Learning and Deep Learning and Natural Language Processing.



On the basis of Deployment, the Artificial Intelligence in Accounting Market is studied across Cloud and On-Premises.



On the basis of Application, the Artificial Intelligence in Accounting Market is studied across Automated Bookkeeping, Fraud and Risk Management, Invoice Classification and Approvals, and Reporting.



On the basis of Geography, the Artificial Intelligence in Accounting Market is studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas region is studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The Asia-Pacific region is studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The Europe, Middle East & Africa region is studied across France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom.



Company Usability Profiles:

The report deeply explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Artificial Intelligence in Accounting Market including AppZen Inc, AWS Inc, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, IBM Corporation, Kore.ai, Inc., KPMG International Cooperative, Microsoft Corporation, OneUp, OSP Labs, Sage Group, SMACC, UiPath, Vic.ai, Inc, Xero Limited, and YayPay Inc.



FPNV Positioning Matrix:

The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Artificial Intelligence in Accounting Market on the basis of Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape.



Competitive Strategic Window:

The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies. The Competitive Strategic Window helps the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. During a forecast period, it defines the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth.



Cumulative Impact of COVID-19:

COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, so for and, the long-term effects projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlaying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report is delivering insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecast, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market.



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The report answers questions such as:

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4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Artificial Intelligence in Accounting Market?

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Tunis, Tunisia (PANA) - The Assembly of Representatives of the Tunisian people (Parliament) Wednesday unanimously approved the fundamental draft bill related to the agreement establishing the African continental free-trade area (AfCFTA), PANA reported here
WASHINGTON - The president's maskless appearance at Trump International Hotel this week - in apparent defiance of District of Columbia coronavirus regulations - caught the attention of local authorities, who inspected the hotel on Wednesday to check forcompliance with city rules.

The investigator found no violations at the time of the visit, but the agency pledged to continue monitoring the hotel.

District Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, this spring ordered people to cover their faces while in the lobbies and common areas of hotels and to maintain six feet of distance from others, in an effort to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus.

But President Donald Trump did not wear a mask while greeting GOP congressional candidate Madison Cawthorn on Monday at his downtown Washington hotel, according to video of their interaction. Nor did multiple guests standing near one another in the lobby, the video shows.

ABC News reported Tuesday that guests at Trump properties have repeatedly flouted face-covering mandates. A Facebook invitation for a birthday party scheduled for Saturday at the District hotel featured a "NO MASKS ALLOWED" disclaimer, the network reported. The invitation did not appear to be visible on the social media site Wednesday.

An inspector from the District Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration, which fines businesses with liquor licenses that don't comply with city regulations, visited the hotel on Wednesday afternoon. Inspectors can only issue fines or warnings for violations that they see in person, and all hotel staff members and visitors during the inspection were wearing masks, ABRA said.

Representatives of the hotel and the Trump Organization did not immediately return requests for comment.

A spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee said organizers took precautionary steps before a GOP fundraiser at the hotel on Monday that the president attended, including requiring those present to pass coronavirus tests that day and undergo temperature screenings and wellness questionnaires.

The campaign of Cawthorn, the North Carolina congressional candidate who shared the clip of the president's maskless appearance at the hotel, did not return requests for comment.

Despite overwhelming support from public health experts, masks have become a political litmus tests of sorts, with many Republicans eschewing them.

As virus cases have spiked in the South and the West, however, a growing number of Republican elected officials have taken to wearing face coverings and calling them necessary.

Trump has recently softened his long-standing resistance and hostility to the use of masks to reduce coronavirus transmission. On Monday, he tweeted a photo of himself wearing a mask and called it patriotic - hours before he showed up at his hotel without one.

He urged Americans to wear masks the next day, at his first daily virus briefing in months.

Bowser has worn a mask in public and urged Washingtonians to cover their faces for the past several months. She expanded her mask mandate Wednesday to include any time outdoors when people are likely to come into contact with others.

Penalties for violating social distancing rules remain rare in the capital, however, with four establishments fined in the past month.

Trump International Hotel has posted dozens of images on social media with employees wearing masks in recent weeks. The hotel also attempted to open its outside sidewalk cafe, as other restaurants and hotels have done during the pandemic, but closed it again after guests were being bothered by passersby on the street.

The hotel's compliance with the city's mask regulations came under scrutiny after Cawthorn, the congressional candidate, shared the video of him meeting Trump on social media.

The clip showed Trump, accompanied by his attorney Rudy Giuliani, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., greeting an enthusiastic Cawthorn. Among that group, only Giuliani wore a mask.

Other people visible in the video did cover their faces.

Greg Aselbekian, who was listed on the Facebook invitation as the host of the "NO MASKS ALLOWED" birthday party Saturday at the hotel, did not return requests for comment made through his social media channels.

- - -

The Washington Post's Jonathan O'Connell and David A. Fahrenthold contributed to this report.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan announced on July 22 Japan will introduce the Residence Track to allow the resumption of travel for citizens from Vietnam and Thailand as early as late July.

Passengers lining up for check-in service at an airport in Japan (Photo: Kyodonews)

However, it said Vietnamese and Thai citizens, upon entering Japan, will be required to undergo a 14-day quarantine period at home or another designated area.

For businesspeople who enter Japan for business activities in a limited areas during the 14 day quarantine, Japan will continue to coordinate with Vietnam and Thailand through diplomatic channels, to soon reach an agreement on the issue.

According to Japanese media, discussions are moving ahead to allow businesspeople from the two countries into Japan on the condition that they test negative for the novel coronavirus and agree to retain GPS data on their smartphones to aid in contact tracing.

Vietnam is one of the first four countries Japan wants to ease travel restrictions it has imposed due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The other three countries are Thailand, Australia and New Zealand.

However, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on July 22 Japan will lift the restrictions on Vietnam and Thailand first as Australia and New Zealand are prioritizing the resumption of travel across the Tasman Sea.

At a press briefing on June 16, Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said Japan and Vietnam had agreed to ease travel restrictions partially and gradually and that it won't take long before travel between the two countries resumes.

Vietnam has brought COVID-19 under control for many days, and the lifting of the restrictions will help consolidate the comprehensive cooperation partnership between the two countries, the minister explained.

Japan has imposed travel bans on 11 countries and territories worldwide.

Vietnam has gone through nearly 100 days in a row without new locally transmitted coronavirus infections. VOV
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Alliance Data Systems Corporation (ADS) said the company anticipates to realize additional cost savings in the second half of the current year derived primarily from ongoing operating and procurement efficiencies. Also, the company reaffirmed its expectation to remain EBT and cash flow positive in 2020, with sufficient liquidity. Second quarter core earnings per share declined 51% year-on-year to $1.86. Consolidated revenue decreased 27% to $979 million. The company said its results were lower than the prior year due primarily to lower revenue driven by lower volumes attributable to COVID-19. 'Expense management continues to play a large role in our quarterly results and will continue to do so for the remainder of the year. This is clearly illustrated with the approximately $50 million of cost savings from continuing operations across all of our business segments, resulting in positive earnings in the quarter,' said Ralph Andretta, CEO of Alliance Data. 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.
Children tumble off a yellow school bus, where every other seat is marked with caution tape. Wearing whimsical masksone has whiskers, another rhinestonesthey wait to get their temperatures checked before filing into the one-story school building. Inside Wesley Elementary in Middletown, Conn., plastic shields rise from desks, and cartoon posters exhort children to   . In the middle of a lesson, teacher Susan Velardi picks up her laptop and pans it so her students can see the screen. Look, she tells them, I have a friend thats joining us at home!

Theres a new set of ground rules in Velardis classroom. Your mask is on, and your mask stays like this. If we go outside if its nice, we have to sit apart, she tells the students, who will enter third grade in the fall. When one tries to high-five her, she compromises with an air high five. Other teachers pepper their lessons with reminders to wear face coverings and to wash hands. We have to be safe, a teacher says as she sits on a rug, teaching incoming first-graders how to draw letters.

This is what school can look like amid the coronavirus pandemic. About 130 students in grades 1 through 4 are enrolled in Middletowns public summer school. They attend classes four days per week, with groups of students alternating weeks of in-person and online instruction. Its a pilot program the school district designed to catch kids up on reading and help iron out the kinks for the fall, when millions of Americans hoped to send their children back to school. Kids would be able to learn, see friends and be with their classmates; their parents would be able to go to work. Even in a raging global pandemic, public-health experts say in-person schooling is possible, and classrooms have reopened successfully in countries across Europe and Asia.

Story continues

But in much of the U.S., thats not what will be happening. In recent weeks, more and more districts have announced that schools will reopen only remotely this fall. Money and time are too short to sort out the complicated logistics as the pandemic worsens in many states, spreading at rates that make in-person instruction too dangerous.

Parents and teachers overwhelmingly back the decisions, saying they are not comfortable sending kids back to classrooms under current conditions. Im just afraid that theyre really pushing schools to be this thing that saves us, that allows us to get the economy going again and get things back to normal, says Megan Ake, a high school English teacher in Fenton, Mich. I want to be done too. But Im just so worried that were going to be like a giant test case. Parents left to their own devices are struggling to find work-arounds, making informal arrangements with friends and neighbors or turning to a burgeoning array of service providers to supplement online learning, like tutors offering group instruction at $80 per hour for pods of families.

Nurse Sarah Ladd takes 5-year-old Nova Wright's temperature as shes dropped off at school | Gillian Laub for TIME

And so as the pandemic continues its rampant spread, childrens education is shaping up to be yet another avoidable tragedy of Americas dismal response. Without in-person schooling, the economy will remain stalled, families will lack crucial support, kids will fall further behind, and inequality will deepen. But until the virus is under control, many school districts say, theres just no other way.

For kids already in precarious situations, the result could be an irrevocable loss. Time is wasting for these kids. It really matters how quickly we catch them up, says Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. They can fall into an academic death spiral if they cant engage in the lessons being put in front of them. Some of them will just check out and never come back.

AS AMERICAN STATES go, Connecticut is doing pretty well. Its coronavirus caseload has declined and stayed low since peaking in April, averaging less than 100 per day in July. Governor Ned Lamont, a Democrat, asked school districts in the state to create plans for remote and hybrid learning but said they should aim for a fully in-person reopening and issued guidance that includes requiring masks and keeping desks 6 ft. apart when feasible.

To prepare, the Middletown district, which serves about 4,600 students, bought 15 thermal temperature scanners to be used at school entryways, disinfectant spray to clean classrooms daily and bathrooms every two hours, and hand sanitizer for each classroom. It even purchased more musical instruments so students wont have to share tubas or bassoons. So far, it has spent more than $1 million. Going back face to face is going to be tough, says superintendent Michael Conner, but after months of remote learning disrupting the lives of students and their families, he feels he has to try. Nothing replaces a teacher. Nothing replaces the everyday interaction with students, he says. Remote learning cant deliver that.

It will cost nearly $1.8 million for the average school district to buy enough masks and cleaning supplies, and to hire the custodians, nurses and additional staff to disinfect campuses and take temperatures daily, according to an analysis by the School Superintendents Association. That may be doable for a smaller suburban district like Middletown. Its a harder lift for nearby Hartford, a poverty-stricken city where 78% of the nearly 20,000 students are eligible for free and reduced-price meals. To maintain 6 ft. between children, as many as 14 students would need to be removed from each class, according to Hartford superintendent Leslie Torres-Rodriguez. And thats just classroom space, she says. That doesnt get into transportation and busing and all the other dynamics.

Teacher Lorrie Tine and fourth-grader Egan Anderson work on a reading lesson | Gillian Laub for TIME

Districts across the country are facing the same agonizing calculations. Its the most complicated issue weve faced in generations as a school system, says Derek Turner, head of operations for Marylands Montgomery County Public Schools, the states largest district. How do you get kids to school when a bus that would normally transport 50 or 60 can take only 12 because of distancing? Where should students eat to avoid having them shoulder to shoulder in a crowded cafeteria? How do you make sure there are no more than two kids in the bathroom while requiring everyone to continually wash their hands? The districts schools were already overcrowded, and the pandemic has led to a budget freeze. Its like a Rubiks Cube with 60 sides, Turner says. Every time you change something, it creates more difficulties down the line.

Montgomery County delayed the start of school until September, and it will be online-only for the remainder of 2020. (The district has distributed 70,000 Chromebooks and wi-fi hot spots and 3.6 million free meals since shutting down in-person instruction in March.) More and more large districts are making similar decisions: Los Angeles, San Diego, Atlanta, Oklahoma City and Houston are among the many that have recently announced they will not have in-person classes for at least the first weeks of school. Marylands Prince Georges County, next door to Montgomery, also announced it wouldnt resume in-person instruction until 2021.

The nations largest school district, New York City, is tentatively planning to offer one to three days per week of in-person instruction, with the rest administered virtually. In Floridathe current epicenter of the pandemicstate leaders ordered all schools to offer in-person classes five days a week, but some of the states largest districts, including Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, say they cant do that until infection rates fall. On July 20, the Florida Education Association teachers union sued Republican Governor Ron DeSantis to block the order.

Many smaller districts are still debating what to do, leaving students and parents in limbo. But a clear trend toward delaying in-person instruction has taken hold as the virus advances. It really comes down to the infection rate, says Dan Domenech, executive director of the superintendents association. The guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say schools can safely consider reopening when states reach Phase 2, meaning their infection rate has been declining for two weeks. (President Donald Trump and some experts have criticized the federal school reopening guidelines as overly restrictive, but the agency has yet to issue new ones.) Most states are seeing it going up, and in that environment, districts are saying its not going to happen, Domenech says. Unless we begin to see a reduction in infection rates, the majority of schools are going to open online.

Thats devastating news for students who have already endured months of idleness or worse, separated from friends and classmates and denied the sports, camps, vacations or jobs that might constitute a typical summer. Public-health experts are concerned about the emotional toll of this extended isolation, as well as the potential for abuse and food insecurity among the kids for whom school is a social safety net. When millions of children saw their schools abruptly come to a halt last spring, many struggled to follow classes online because of a lack of internet access or computer equipment at home, and many special-education students lost the hands-on support they needed. Some were thrust into caring for siblings while their parents worked frontline jobs; others experienced trauma in families hit hard by the pandemic.

6-year-old Raziah Williams sits at her work station at Wesley Elementary | Gillian Laub for TIME

A McKinsey study projected the average student would fall behind seven months if schools remain closed until 2021a number that grows to nine months for Latinos, and 10 for Black students. When I was a kid, the thing that saved me was school, says John King Jr., who served as Secretary of Education under President Obama and now heads the nonprofit Education Trust. It was a place that was safe and nurturing. This is an educational and economic crisis as a result of the mismanagement by this Administration.

Its also bad news for parents and their employers. When schools are closed, many workers have no choice but to stay home to take care of their children, which may make holding down a job at the same time impossible. While politicians debate whether increased unemployment benefits are preventing adults from returning to the workforce, childcare actually poses a bigger obstacle, according to a survey of 1,500 unemployment recipients conducted by Morning Consult for the Bipartisan Policy Center and provided exclusively to TIME. The survey found that about a quarter of unemployment recipients8 million workersprimarily spent their time caregiving, and looking after children was the main reason parents were not searching for new jobs. Across the country, we havent really been having a meaningful conversation about what families are dealing with, says Adrienne Schweer, who leads the centers research on paid family leave. Were not really talking about how stretched they are by the pandemic and the effect of job loss and fear on family finances.

The need to get workers back on the job appears to be the Presidents preoccupation. Schools have to open, Trump said in a Fox News interview that aired on July 19. He reiterated his threat to deny funding to schools that dont fully open, accused Democratic governors of purposely keeping their schools closed for political reasons and waved away questions about safety, claiming young people below the age of 18 virtually never get sick. (People under 18 represent about 2% of COVID-19 cases in the U.S., according to the CDC. Childrenespecially young onesseem to be far less likely than adults to get sick or die from the virus, and early evidence suggests they are unlikely to infect others, scientists say. For now, the major public-health risks associated with schools stem from adults such as teachers and other staff spreading or catching the disease.)

But critics charge that the federal government under Trump is doing the opposite of what it should: seeking to impose a one-size-fits-all policy on a diverse, locally controlled system. Instead of offering support and detailed guidance, hes threatening punishment. At some point, we need to see common sense break out here, says Margaret Spellings, who served as Education Secretary under President George W. Bush. The federal government has the ability to gather experts of all kindsschool architects, mental-health and health professionals, online learning and technology expertsand aggregate that expertise, not as a mandate but as best practices, so school districts can figure it out on their own. But local leaders should be the ones in charge, says Spellings. We Republicans used to be big local-control types.

Congressional Democrats included $60 billion in emergency K-12 education funding in the $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill the House passed in May, but the measure has languished in the Senate, where majority leader Mitch McConnell pronounced it dead on arrival. Senate Republicans intend to unveil their own relief package allocating $105 billion in education funding, including $70 billion for K-12. Half of that funding would be designated for schools reopening in person, according to Missouri Senator Roy Blunt, because theyre going to have more expenses, transportation and partitions and different ways to have meals than theyve had in the past and other things. Negotiations on the relief package were ongoing as of July 22.

Teacher Judy David reads to first-graders. When possible, some lessons are held outside | Gillian Laub for TIME

The Administration has sought to pin blame for school closures on teachers unions. But the unions say teachers cant go back to classrooms that arent safe. We pushed very hard to reopen schools with the appropriate safety guardrails, because we knew how important it was, says Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers. The union first put out a detailed reopening plan in April, and Weingarten served on the commission that drafted guidelines for New York State. But the combination of rising caseloads, congressional inaction on funding and an absence of national leadership has dimmed those prospects, she says. Were seeing more and more districts revert to remote because of the case surge and the lack of resources, Weingarten adds. Its devastating for children. Its not good. But safety has to come first.

Parents seem to agree. Polls in recent weeks have shifted markedly against the idea of reopening classrooms. In a July Quinnipiac University poll, 62% said they believed it would be unsafe to open K-12 schools, and a similar percentage disapproved of Trumps handling of the issue. An Axios/Ipsos poll found 71% of parents viewed sending children to school as somewhat or very risky. A poll by the progressive Navigator project found just 20% supported fully reopening schoolsand the share of those who opposed reopening schools increased 20 points since June. Opposition to school reopening was most pronounced among minority groups hit hardest by the virus: a National Parents Union poll of 500 K-12 parents found 34% of white parents but just 19% of nonwhite parents thought theyd feel comfortable sending their kids back to school in August or September.

Torres-Rodriguez, the Hartford superintendent, says that while mitigating learning loss is a moral imperative, safety has to be a priority. When we think about the disproportionality, and the impact that COVID is having on communities of color, thats a backdrop of all of these challenges, says Torres-Rodriguez, whose district is majority Black and Latino. COVID is real. Its a pandemic, and we have families that have told me, Superintendent, I am afraid. I am deeply afraid. I want to keep my children home, and I have to go to work.

WITH ALL THIS fear and confusion, many parents arent sure what to do. Some Middletown parents whose kids are part of the summer-school pilot program are cautiously optimistic. Karalee Kolpak says her 8-year-old daughter struggled with online learning, falling behind on reading when the March closures disrupted her normal routine. In-person learning is really more effective, she says. If in-person school is an option this fall, she plans to take advantage of it.

But the uncertainty of the situation has spurred many others to make alternative arrangements. In Hurley, Miss., a state where cases have spiked, Angie Yawn, a nurse practitioner who works at a drive-through COVID-19 testing site, is considering homeschooling her two children this fall, having seen the toll of the virus firsthand. Shell have to pay someone to supervise the children during school hours while she works but says its worth the safety of her family. I dont want my kids to be a guinea pig, she says.

Other parents have tried to supplement their childrens education on their own when school districts fall short. LaShawn Robinson, who has three children in Hartford public schools, says it took weeks after schools closed in March for the district to give them laptops and learning packets. She showed them documentaries about constitutional amendments and civil rights leaders in the meantime. When the school-provided laptop that her 8-year-old daughter was using for summer classes stopped working, she improvised by buying a world map, a reading primer and books about space to keep her on track. I just have to try to teach her something, she says. But as challenging as distance learning has been, Robinson says she doesnt want her children to return to a school building this fall. It has been a headache, she says. But I prefer dealing with the headache than my kids being sick.

Children line up for school at Wesley Elementary in Middletown, Conn., on July 20 | Gillian Laub for TIME

In Arlington, Va., Amanda Hawkins wishes her two children were headed back to school in person. But Arlington Public Schools is offering only distance learning at least for September. After struggling to juggle work and remote learning this spring, Hawkins and her husband started Friendly Minds LLC, a business that matches parents with learning pods of four to 10 children and connects them with educators who can supplement the online curriculum offered by the school district. The pods have exploded in popularity, she says. Theres a huge demand for it. Families pay about $250 to get into a pod, then jointly pay up to $80 an hour to employ educatorsthe estimated rate for those with masters degrees and other certifications. Hawkins is aware that such solutions, available only to those who can afford them, threaten to widen the opportunity gap. She hopes to offer participants the option of inviting a student from a low-income family to join their pod, free of charge. About 40% of her customers said they would consider doing that or offering a scholarship, she says.

Some community groups are working to ensure that help is available to poor families too. The Oakland Reach, a grassroots educational advocacy group for low-income Black and brown families, started a cash relief fund when the California city shut its schools in March, raising and distributing more than $300,000 in two rounds of assistance. There were a lot more tears when we gave out the second round in May, says Lakisha Young, the groups co-founder and executive director. By that time, more people had lost jobs or run out of benefits. The organization launched a virtual school hub that connects kids and families with both instruction and resources, from courses in literacy and martial arts to computers and wi-fi hot spots. It hopes to scale up when the district begins all-virtual school in the fall. As hard as this tragedy is hitting our families, theres still a lot of passion and hope, Young says. Peoples fire, their desires and aspirations for their childrenthat hasnt died.

Education experts fret that with all the attention on the logistics of public-health requirements, the equally tricky matter of devising an effective virtual curriculum has gotten short shrift. Barbara Kukuchek, a second-grade teacher in San Diego, spent a lot of time this spring talking to her students parents. Her elementary school serves a large number of English-language learners and a significant homeless population; it sits in a ZIP code that has seen some of the highest rates of coronavirus cases in the county. Many of the parents worked in food service, health care or custodial jobs and werent always home to log their child into online learning exercises in the middle of the day. Kukuchek was prepared to go back to her classroom until the San Diego Unified School District announced it would be online-only this fall. I think the governor and the district made the right call that its not safe at this point, she says. I just feel like its a terrible choice we have to make for our kids.

Now that remote learning is going to continue, shes preparing by researching online learning, hosting a weekly read-aloud on Zoom of the childrens book The Tale of Despereaux to stay in touch with her students and communicating with parents about their needs. I just think that we have to find a way to bridge that gap for our students because it was hard enough before, and I think it needs to be seen as everybodys problem. Were all in this together, she says. These kids are our future, and we want to invest in that. And I think theyre worthy of our investment.

IT DIDNT HAVE to be this way. On April 15, after a month of lockdown, Denmark was the first Western country to reopen schools. Its teachers unions, local authorities and central government worked together to decide how schools would operate, though municipal councils (much like U.S. school districts) were allowed to develop their own plans based on guidelines from the National Board of Health. The Ministry of Children and Education created a coronavirus hotline for schools to receive support and guidance on COVID-19-related issues.

Parents with children between the ages of 2 and 12 had the option of sending them back to classrooms. In the first week of reopening, 51% returned to primary school and 26% returned to day care, according to reporting by The Local, a European digital news publisher. By the third week, 90% of students were back in primary school and 66% were in day care.

Plastic shields surround the desk where 6-year-old Aven Mullins works | Gillian Laub for TIME

The safety guidelines were sensible, not extreme. Schools broke students into groups of around 12called protective bubbles or microgroupsthat arrive at school at staggered times, eat lunch separately and have their own zones on the playground. Students arent forced to wear masks, but they are required to follow rigorous handwashing protocols. Desks are socially distanced, and classes are held outside when possible. Parents are not allowed on school property. On May 18, children ages 12 to 16 were allowed to return to secondary school, following similar measures. Teachers who are at greater risk of COVID-19 infection are permitted to teach from home. Six weeks after secondary schools reopened, cases in the country were trending down, according to figures from the World Health Organization.

European countries that followed similar protocols have not seen significant spikes in COVID-19 cases, with Finland, Norway and Germany among those reopening with success. In Asia, Japan, Singapore and South Korea have reopened or kept schools open largely without incident. Even in Wuhan, Chinathe city where the pandemic originatedstudents and teachers at 121 schools returned to classrooms on May 6, wearing masks and filing past scanners that display their body temperatures in yellow blocks on LCD monitors.

But all those countries have something in common: their governments brought the virus under control. A cautionary tale about what can happen if schools reopen without adequate precautions unfolded in Israel. While the country initially kept the virus under control, that changed when Israels new government took office in May and reopened the economy quickly. Israeli schools began opening on May 3, following a bubble model like Denmarks, over the objections of some local authorities who said they had not had enough time to prepare. On May 17, limitations on class sizes were lifted. By early June, many schools had to close because of outbreaks. By then, thousands of students and educators were in quarantine as a result of possible exposure to the virus. Nationwide, daily COVID-19 cases hit 2,000 on July 22, compared with fewer than 100 a day in May, when schools reopened. Government data found that schools were the second most common places of infection in July.

If Trump wanted schools to be in a position to reopen, he should have done more to contain the pandemic over the past several months, experts say. Instead, the U.S. faces skyrocketing caseloads and death tolls, hospitals near capacity, new shortages of protective equipment and long delays for test results. To expect schools to reopen during a pandemic thats been brought to heel is tricky enough. To do it when one is raging out of control is impossible.

If we were serious about prioritizing school reopening so people could go back to their jobs, we really should have created the stability of health conditions so schools can reopen, says Lake, at the University of Washington. But we chose to open tattoo parlors over schools, and it created a vicious cycle. With reporting by Alana Abramson and Abby Vesoulis/Washington, Laignee Barron/Hong Kong, Charlie Campbell/Shanghai, leslie dickstein and julia Zorthian/new york, Melissa Godin/London, and Stephen Kim/Seoul
Twitter CEO and Co Founder, Jack Dorsey addresses students at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), on November 12, 2018 in New Delhi, India.

The hackers who took over the accounts of around 130 people last week in an apparent bitcoin scam were able to access direct messages, Twitter said on Wednesday.

The hackers accessed 36 direct message inboxes, including one for an elected official in the Netherlands, Twitter said. Direct messages are similar to phone text messages, and are generally presumed to be private. The disclosure could cause users to lose faith in the service's ability to keep confidential messages from being read by outsiders.

Twitter's disclosure on Wednesday complicates an already murky picture about who the hackers were and what they were after.

The hackers were able to tweet from accounts for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, among other notable figures.

Although many of the most high-profile hacked accounts tweeted a scam asking for bitcoin, an analysis of cryptocurrency transactions showed that the account mentioned by the hackers only collected $121,000, which appears to be a low sum for what a historic hack that included inside access to a major social network.

Twitter said it did not believe that the hackers looked at DMs for any other elected official aside from the politician in the Netherlands.

Still, direct messages from these accounts and other prominent victims could contain non-public information or photos sent from or to major figures, which the hackers could choose to use or publicize at a later point in the future.

Twitter said last week that the attackers had downloaded takeout information using the "Your Twitter Data" tool for eight accounts.

Tweet

The FBI is reportedly investigating the hack.
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

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Cloudy early with partial sunshine expected late. Much colder. High 17F. Winds N at 15 to 25 mph..

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Bitterly cold. Mostly clear skies. Low -4F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph.
(TNS)  In light of the recent cyberattack that left the city of Florence paying close to $300,000 in ransom, the city of Athens is working to make sure a similar event does not happen to its system.Dale Haymon, information technology director for Athens, gave a presentation on ransomware and how to combat it during the work session preceding the Athens City Council meeting Monday.The Council later voted to approve spending $21,600 from surplus funds left over from fiscal year 2019 to purchase backup software, storage devices and support items for the IT department.Haymon said these funds should be eligible for reimbursement through the state CARES Act.As part of the presentation, Haymon asked the Council members to imagine a room full of files in filing cabinets, and that those files contained every piece of data ever entered into the city's system. This included things like business licenses, police reports, permits, employee records and business records. He said to then imagine city employees arrive one morning to find all those important files are missing and someone has put a vault in place inside the room.On that vault is a note that says, 'All your records have been placed in this vault,' Haymon said. 'You have 24 hours to pay us a million U.S. dollars, and when we receive a million dollars, you will receive the combination to the vault. If you do not pay within 24 hours, all your records will be destroyed. Any attempt to access the records will result in all of your data being destroyed.' That's basically what ransomware is.According to Haymon, the offender encrypts the data and makes it unusable. If the victim has no off-network data backup, they will likely lose everything unless they pay the ransom. He said in 75% of cases, those who pay receive what is needed to recover their files.Haymon said the entity who coordinates the attack is generally in a foreign country. According to The News Courier's news partners at WAFF 48, the cyberattack in Florence resulted in the city paying the aforementioned ransom in bitcoins, as per demands. The city was warned of a potential threat in late May.We began taking every precaution we could possibly take, and then on June 5, it actually hit us, Florence Mayor Steve Holt told WAFF-48. It appears they may have been in our system since early May  over a month going through our system.Florence is not the only entity that has been hit over the last several months. DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa was among a series of network hospitals hit by ransomware attacks in 2019.Haymon said 104 attacks in 2019 against cities around the country, large and small, have been made public.As a manager for IT, this is what keeps me up at night now, he said.Haymon said one method hackers use to get into a system is to send out an email with a link hoping someone on the network will click without thinking. This is known as phishing.One method of protecting a system's data is to create an air gap backup, meaning the information is stored offline and generally on a physical medium such as a disc. These discs could potentially be stored in multiple locations to further increase the safety of the backup data.Haymon said so long as those discs are kept safe and no one enters the building and tampers with them, they will always be available as a data backup.That way, the backups couldn't be deleted remotely, he said.Athens Mayor Ronnie Marks said the thought of a potential cyberattack on Athens like the one that hit Florence is a bit scary.During difficult times, people take shots at you because you are a little more vulnerable, he said. We need to be guarded.
A devoted Palestinian man climbed up the side of a hospital building so he could sit on the window ledge of his mother's hospital room to be with her while she suffered from coronavirus.

Jihad Al-Suwaiti, 30, was not allowed to visit his mother Rasma Salema in person after she tested positive for coronavirus and was admitted to a hospital in Hebron, in the West Bank.

Despite the visiting ban, Jihad used a drainpipe and another window ledge to climb up the hospital building so he could sit with his mother, who also had leukaemia, behind the safety of her window.

A moving photo shows Jihad sitting on the window ledge. He returned each day until his mother sadly passed away last Thursday, Bored Panda reported.

Palestinian man Jihad Al-Suwaiti, 30, climbed up the side of a hospital building so he could sit on the window ledge of his mother's hospital room to be with her while she suffered from coronavirus

Jihad Al-Suwaiti, 30, was not allowed to visit his mother in person after she tested positive for coronavirus and was admitted to a hospital in Hebron, in the West Bank. Despite the visiting ban, Jihad climbed the outside of the building and used another window ledge to get to his mother's

A hospital official was quoted in local media as saying: 'He spent most of his day there, observing his mother's condition from outside the window, before coming down when he was convinced that his mother was fast asleep.'

Jihad was reportedly the woman's youngest son and had lost his father 15 years previously.

His brother was quoted as saying: 'Our mother was also battling leukaemia prior to being diagnosed with COVID-19 a few weeks ago.

'When Jihad was informed about our mother's death, he was angry and in shock.'

He added: 'Now he seems to have accepted the fact.'

Jihad was reportedly the woman's youngest son and had lost his father 15 years previously

His brother was quoted as saying: 'Our mother was also battling leukaemia prior to being diagnosed with COVID-19 a few weeks ago'

The image of him sitting on the window ledge was shared by Twitter user Mohamed Safa.

One person commenting on the video said: 'This made me shed a tear. Lost my mum in 2014 and life hasnt been the same.

'I dont celebrate my birthday because hers is just 9days before mine.

'The feeling of not hearing her voice anymore is totally devastating. Love and light to everyone who has lost a parent.'

Another wrote: 'Can this become any more sad when we are only able to comfort our loved ones through a window, phone or tablet?

'Then I am also so thankful that we can even do that. She saw her sons face one last time - I pray she is in peace now.'
ST LOUIS  A 14-year-old boy was wounded in the foot during a drive-by shooting in Midtown on Wednesday afternoon, marking at least the 30th child age 17 or younger to be shot in St. Louis this year.

The teen told officers he was walking in the 30 block of South Grand Boulevard about 3 p.m. when two males he knew pulled up in an SUV and shot at him.

He was struck in the foot, but walked to a nearby hospital and was stable, police said.

The Post-Dispatch has reported that at least 30 children and teens 17 or younger have been shot in the city this year, including 11 classified as homicides by police. Across the metro area this year, at least 57 children 17 or younger have been shot, including 21 deaths.

In 2019, there were 13 homicides in that age group in the city. The issue of child homicides became a focal point in St. Louis after a devastating string of child killings last summer.

The areas largest childrens hospitals have also reported an unsettling number of juveniles seeking treatment for gunshot wounds.

From January through July, St. Louis Childrens Hospital has treated 76 youths for gunshot wounds, compared with 50 by the end of July in 2019 and 52 in 2018. Those injuries include accidents and some cases of self-harm, according to the hospital.

If you average out our total numbers for May, were right now seeing a patient being shot every other day, Dr. Lindsay Clukies, a Washington University pediatric emergency medicine physician at St. Louis Childrens Hospital, told the Post-Dispatch in May.

Clukies told the Post-Dispatch that the pattern could be related to children staying at home because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Accidental shootings often happen in the home, Clukies said. And during the pandemic, kids are spending more time in their houses or apartments.

With school and extracurricular activities moved online or canceled, some outreach programs cant provide safety nets in the same way they normally would, including in-person counseling and mentorship.

Violence affecting children is a longstanding problem here. A Post-Dispatch analysis of FBI homicide data last fall found that children in St. Louis have been killed at 10 times the national rate for decades.

Some of the shooting deaths of children in St. Louis this year include:

 David Birchfield III, age 6: On Feb. 22 the kindergartner was killed when a gunman opened fire on his family as they drove through the Kingsway East neighborhood. His 9-year-old sister was critically wounded.

 Timothy Lucas, age 14: Timothy, a middle school student from Washington Park, was shot in the chest while walking to a store in the Baden neighborhood Jan. 18.

 Ean McMiller, age 16: Ean, who lived in the Baden neighborhood, was found bleeding from a gunshot wound March 24 on a sidewalk in the Carondelet neighborhood. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

 Larry Jordan, age 17: Larry was found fatally shot April 1 in the Bevo Mill neighborhood.

 McKenzie Murphy, age 3: He was killed in an accidental shooting May 14 at a home near Fairground Park, police said.

 Dorian Perkins, age 16: Dorian was killed May 14 in The Gate District neighborhood.

 Malik Valley, age 15: Malik was shot in the chest May 23 near his home in the Vandeventer neighborhood.

 Alani Hutchins, age 16: The Florissant teenager was one of two people found shot June 7 in the Bevo Mill neighborhood. She had been missing for over two months before her death, according to the Missouri Highway Patrol.

 Jaquelle Brown, age 17: Jaquelle was shot and killed June 21 in the Dutchtown neighborhood.

 Michael Goodlow III, age 4: Michael was shot and killed on July 4 in the Vandeventer neighborhood.

A 6-year-old boy was killed July 15 in an accidental shooting in south St. Louis, but has not been publicly identified. A 15-year-old has been charged with involuntary manslaughter.

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The Central team, which visited Patna and Gaya earlier this week on a two-day trip, has shared its inputs about the spiralling coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases with the state government and has warned that the very low testing ratio, as compared to the national average, might impact its case fatality rate (CFR) of the viral outbreak.

Bihar has clocked the lowest testing ratio at 3,423 per million population, while the mortality rate stands at 0.69% to date.

The three-member Central team expressed concern about the spike in Covid-19 positivity rate and cautioned the Nitish Kumar-led government that low testing could lead to a spread in the infection. Besides, it has warned that late detection of the pathogen might lead to a spike in CFR.

The team, headed by Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoH&FW), which also included Dr. SK Singh, director, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and Dr. Neeraj Nischal, associate professor in the department of medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, visited Bihar on July 19 and 20 (Sunday and Monday) following an alarming rise in Covid-19 cases.

The state has been reporting over 1,000 Covid-19 cases daily since July 12 and 90% of the active cases have been reported in the past seven days  July 16-23  as there is a 6% daily uptick of new infections.

On Wednesday, Agarwal suggested to the state government to ensure maximum capacity utilisation of existing RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, a confirmatory test for Covid-19 patients) laboratories and also ramp up the daily testing ratio in a bid to flatten the viral curve.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the nodal body under MoH&FW, has approved nine laboratories, including six and three in government and private sectors, respectively, to conduct the conventional RT-PCR tests in the state.

The visiting delegates also urged the state government to conduct rapid antigen detection (RAD) tests in containment zones and hospitals in Bihar and also monitor all symptomatic negative results of RAD tests through RT-PCR.

EMERGING COVID-19 HOTSPOTS

East Champaran, Gaya, Rohtas, and Muzaffarpur districts have been identified as emerging Covid-19 hotspots in the state. While Patna, Nalanda, Nawada, Siwan, West Champaran, Jamui, Bhagalpur, Begusarai, and Munger districts are also under the lens because of the growing number of viral outbreak cases.

The Central team has suggested setting up of temporary field hospitals, as the existing infrastructure was found to be less than adequate.

The recommendations have been made as the case doubling rate in Bihar is at 11 days, and the state could be staring a million cases in another two months if the existing curve holds the line.

The state has reported 30,066 Covid-19 cases until Wednesday.

Covid-19 HOSPITAL MANAGEMENT

The Central team has recommended that dedicated Covid-19 hospitals in the state must ensure capacity building of all healthcare personnel, who are the frontline workers battling the pandemic, and also put in place a mechanism for patient management.

It also asked the state to ensure infection prevention practices, including triaging and effective segregation of suspect and Covid-19 patients in hospitals.

The state authorities have been directed to give attention to logistics management such as an adequate supply of oxygen cylinders in hospitals and enough in their inventory.

We have written to the Centre for support in providing us with oxygen cylinders, said Deepak Kumar, chief secretary (CS), Bihar, who was debriefed by the Central team ahead of its departure for Delhi on Monday (July 20).

Special emphasis is being given, as per the Central teams directive, to motivate doctors and other healthcare personnel, Kumar said.

Plans are afoot to conduct training programmes for doctors by experts from AIIMS, New Delhi, and also to mentor all state-level health facilities via video-conference links, the CS said.

The state government, as per the Central teams advice, is also institutionalising a process for seamless admission of Covid-19 patients in healthcare facilities that would also include the back-up support of ambulances and call-centres, he added.

STRESS ON BETTER MONITORING

One of the most critical inputs shared by the Central team is keeping a weekly tab on CFR for better management of the pandemic.

Death audit may be taken up to provide inputs to the healthcare professionals for better case management, said a team member.

The Central delegates have urged the state authorities to keep a strict vigil on a section of the vulnerable population living in containment zones such as senior citizens and those suffering from comorbid conditions.

In a containment zone, access control and strict curbs must be maintained within a kilometre-long radius.

Door-to-door surveillance must be scaled up and healthcare teams have been directed to visit houses on alternate days for improved case management.

Contact tracing of all positive cases must be done within 72 hours.
KYODO NEWS - Jul 23, 2020 - 22:49 | All, Coronavirus, Japan

Travelers in Japan were cautious Thursday as they set out on excursions on the first day of a four-day holiday, even amid persistent concerns over rising novel coronavirus infections in the country.

The national holidays began a day after the "Go To Travel" subsidy campaign was launched to help revive the domestic tourism industry affected by the virus, but with Tokyo being excluded due to a spike in new cases in the capital. The government covers part of the cost of the trips, but the initiative has stirred worries it could worsen the outbreak.

Japan reported Thursday more than 980 new daily coronavirus infections, marking a record for a second straight day. The figure brings the nationwide tally to more than 28,900, including some 700 cases from the Diamond Princess, the cruise ship quarantined in Yokohama in February.

While Tokyo Station was busy with people dragging suitcases, shinkansen bullet trains saw vacancies in both their reserved and non-reserved seats.

"I decided to travel because I'm not sure until when I should be refraining from taking trips," said Seiya Noro, 32, who was traveling to Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, from Kisarazu, Chiba Prefecture, to see his older brother.

Hakone in Kanagawa Prefecture, known for its hot springs, also fully reopened the Hakone Tozan Railway for the first time in nine months following the resumption of the part connecting Hakone-Yumoto and Gora. The line had been closed after a typhoon caused a landslide on the tracks last October.

"I'm happy to see many people riding the train," said Masashi Kashiwada, 57, from Tokyo. Seeing the fallen trees and remnants of the disaster, Kashiwada said, "It made me realize just how serious the disaster was."

At Tokyo Disneyland, another popular spot for vacationers, near Tokyo, Sakae Nagai, 56, was among the visitors. "I think people should enjoy going out while taking precautions," Nagai said.

Ayano Nakayama, 30, came to visit Universal Studios Japan in Osaka Prefecture with her daughter on an overnight trip. "I'm worried, but the park has measures against the virus, so I'd like to have fun," she said.

Travelers also gathered at popular hot spring resort Yufuin in Oita Prefecture, which was recently battered by torrential rainfall earlier in the month.

"I'm grateful that people are here because the number of customers plunged due to the heavy rain," said souvenir shop owner Koei Hino, 42.

"But I'm worried about the spread of the virus with so many people traveling during the long weekend," he added.

Under the 1.35 trillion yen ($12.6 billion) travel campaign, the government will eventually subsidize up to half of travel expenses, including accommodation and transport fees. Initially, it will provide discounts worth 35 percent of total costs.

The remaining 15 percent will be covered by coupons to be issued after September for food, shopping and other travel activities offered at destinations.

However, the tourism push was thrown into disarray recently when the government decided to remove trips to Tokyo and by its residents from the campaign as the number of daily cases in the capital continues to hit record-highs in July.

Tourism minister Kazuyoshi Akaba initially said the government had no plans to compensate for cancellation fees incurred by the decision to exclude Tokyo at the last minute but reversed the stance on Tuesday amid a public outcry prior to the launch.

The subsidy scheme was initially slated to begin in August before Japan's summer holidays around the middle of the month, when many people living in major cities return to their hometowns. But it was moved forward in time for the current four-day weekend.

Related coverage:

Tokyo reports over 300 new daily virus infections, record figure

Baseball: NPB to maintain cap on spectator numbers till end of August

Single-use masks, coronavirus waste end up polluting ocean
Cathy Areu, a liberal who used to provide comic relief on Tucker Carlsons show, has accused the Fox News host of sexual harassment. In a lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York, Areu claims that after her final 2018 appearance on Carlsons show in December of that year, one of his producers or writers told her that Carlson wanted her to stay until the very end of the show to chat with him. After the show, Carlson allegedly told her he would only be attending that nights office Christmas party for about ten minutes. He added that he was alone in New York City, and would be staying in his hotel room without his wife or kids.

Areu infers that Carlson was probing to see whether [she] was interested in a sexual relationship. Areu did not go to Carlsons hotel room (nor, according to her account did he ask her to).

Areu rounds out her allegations against Carlson by complaining that she only featured on his show three times in 2019 and not at all in 2020. This, she wants the court to believe, was retaliation for not taking Carlson up on his invitation (non-invitation, actually) to his hotel room in December 2018.

There two major problems with Areus allegations. First, as set forth in this report from The Spectator, they appear to be inconsistent with certain facts. Second, even if true, they dont state a claim for unlawful conduct.

At the factual level, Areus only appearance on Carlsons show in December occurred on December 28, several days after Christmas, when the Mark Steyn hosted the program. Fox News 2018 Christmas party occurred on December 10. Areu wasnt on Carlsons show that night and Carlson was in Washington, not New York.

Addressing this problem, Areus attorney told The Spectator that the alleged incident took place on November 30. Carlson did have a small Christmas party for his staff that evening. However, his wife reportedly attended the party. If true, this fact cannot readily be reconciled with Areus claim that Carlson said he would be alone that evening.

Its even more difficult, I think, to reconcile Areus claim that Carlson said he would be at the Christmas party for only ten minutes with the fact that Carlson was hosting the party for his small staff. Reportedly, Carlson attended the entire party, as one would expect him to.

Finally, Areus claim that she appeared on Carlsons show only three times in 2019 appears to be false. A review of Grabien shows that Areu appeared on the program at least five times in 2019: March 1, March 21, May 24, August 20, and November 6.

The other problem with Areus claim is that it doesnt describe sexual harassment. Its not sexual harassment to tell an employee (or a non-employee like Areu) that one is alone in a city and will be alone in ones hotel room. Nor, even if Carlson had asked Areu to come to his room, would this be unlawful, unless he conditioned some employment benefit on her willingness to comply.

Areu doesnt allege that Carlson told her he would reward or punish her based on whether she came to his room (which he didnt even ask her to do). She does say she appeared less often on his show after December. However, she continued to appear in 2019. If Carlson had wanted to punish her, she wouldnt have appeared at all. Areu had no God-given right to appear more than three (or five) times per year on Carlsons show.

Nor is there is a reason to link any diminution of appearances by Areu to her not coming to Carlsons hotel room. If the two things were linked, Carlson likely would have stated the connection at the time he allegedly told her he was alone in New York, when it might have had the potential to persuade.

I was always puzzled by Areus appearances on a serious news show. Her persona was that of a liberal airhead. I understood that, during this time period, part of Carlsons schtick was to have liberals come on and be made by the host to look foolish. However, Areu looked foolish without any effort by Carlson. She provided little more than comic relief.

With the events of late 2019 and 2020  impeachment, pandemic, economic meltdown, crime waves, and anarchy in some precincts  Carlson has moved away from having fun with liberal guests. Hes more consistently serious and, indeed, grim these days. Theres no more room for Areus act. Thus, its not surprising that she no longer appears.

Areus complaint also contains an allegation of harassment by Sean Hannity. Areu claims that Hannity once threw a $100 bill on his desk and asked which man in the room would take Areu out for drinks. Allegedly, Hannity repeatedly asked, Who wants to take her on a date?

According to Areus complaint, there were no takers. Thereafter, she alleges, she was hardly ever, if ever at all, invited back to appear on [Hannitys show]. (Shouldnt Areu and/or her lawyer know whether she appeared at all on Hannitys show after this alleged incident?) In fact, she appeared on his show less than a month later.

If Areus allegations against Hannity are true, they describe boorish behavior, but not actionable sexual harassment. One alleged instance of such teasing isnt enough to state a claim.

Rewarding going on a date (or punishing refusal to do so) would be legally problematic. But Areus suggestion that this happened to her is incoherent. It was the males on Hannitys staff who, allegedly, declined to take up the hosts offer, not Areu. Apparently, she just sat there.

Moreover, as with the allegations against Carlson, Areu doesnt claim that Hannity offered any benefit or threatened any punishment when he tried to find her a date. In fact, she appeared on his show not long after the alleged incident.

Ill say this for Areus complaint against Carlson and Hannity. It may be inconsistent with the facts, but its consistent with the ditz persona she used to display on Fox News.

I should add that the complaint filed on behalf of Areu and Jennifer Eckhart, a former Fox News employee, contains very serious allegations against former Fox News reporter Ed Henry. These allegations are beyond the scope of what already is a very long post.
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According to a new study published by Polaris Market Research the global magnetic sensors market is anticipated to reach USD 4,680.3 million by 2026. The growing acceptance of e-compasses owing to their competence to improve the navigation experience of the users is anticipated to mount the application of magnetic sensors in automobiles during the coming years. Moreover, the implementation of these sensors is rising in consumer electronics application such as smart phones, and tablets, which is expected to propel the opportunities of magnetic sensors in the consumer electronics segments during the forecast period

In the end-user segment, for consumer electronics market for magnetic sensors is anticipated to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. This growth is attributed to its wide usage for navigation purpose in smartphones as in the modern day, almost every smartphone is integrated with e-compass. In smartphones, e-compass acts as a digital compass providing positioning of the smartphone concerning Earths magnetic field thus, facilitating the smartphone to sense the precise direction.

Get sample copy of this report @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/magnetic-sensors-market/request-for-sample

The market in Asia Pacific and Europe together contributed the highest share. The presence of large automotive sector in European countries and consumer electronics manufacturers in Asia Pacific is bolstering the market growth. The emerging economies of Asia Pacific region such as China, India and other Southeast countries are contributing to the market growth with the increasing spending capability of population resulting in increased demand for consumer electronics, cars, gaming devices and others. For instance, sale of cars in China surpassed the sales of US. Also, the semiconductor industry of Asia Pacific region is growing at a high pace thus, propelling the market growth for magnetic sensors.

Major companies profiled in the report include Elmos Semiconductor AG, Baumer Ltd., Honeywell International, Inc., Robert Bosch GmbH, NVE Corporation, Allegro Microsystems, Inc., Infineon Technologies AG, Melexis Corporation, austriamicrosystems AG (AMS), and NXP Semiconductors among others. However, the constant decrease in the average selling price of magnetic sensors components is restricting the entry of new players in the market.

Complete Summary with TOC Available @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/magnetic-sensors-market

Key Findings from the study suggest Asia Pacific and European region is expected to command the market over the forecast years. APAC is presumed to be the fastest growing market, developing at a CAGR of more than 38% over the forecast period. The magnetic sensors market is presumed to develop at a CAGR of over 8.2% from 2018 to 2026. The consumer electronics and automotive segment is presumed to display the speediest development. The increasing implantation of magnetic sensors in several consumer electronics including budget smartphones, as well as growing demand for smart watches and fitness bands is driving the growth in APAC region.

Magnetic Sensors Market Size and Forecast by Type Anisotropic Magneto-Resistive (AMR) Magnetometer Giant Magneto Resistance (GMR) Magnetometer Tunnel Magneto Resistance (TMR) Magnetometer Hall Effect

Magnetic Sensors Market Size and Forecast by Technology Low Field Sensor Earth Field Sensor Bias Magnetic Field Sensor

Magnetic Sensors Market Size and Forecast by End-user Automotive Aerospace & Defense Consumer Electronics Healthcare Energy & Power Industrial Others

Magnetic Sensors Market Size and Forecast by Regions North America U.S. Canada Europe Germany UK France Italy Asia Pacific China South Korea Japan India Latin America Brazil Mexico Middle East & Africa



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About Polaris Market Research

Polaris Market Research is a global market research and consulting company. We provide unmatched quality of offerings to our clients present globally. The company specializes in providing exceptional market intelligence and in-depth business research services for our clientele spread across different enterprises. We at Polaris are obliged to serve our diverse customer base present across the industries of healthcare, technology, semi-conductors and chemicals among various other industries present around the world. We strive to provide our customers with updated information on innovative technologies, high growth markets, emerging business environments and latest business-centric applications, thereby helping them always to make informed decisions and leverage new opportunities.

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Group A, as Cody called them, will attend class in-person Monday and Wednesday and learn remotely on Tuesday and Thursday. Group B will do the reverse, according to the plan. Cody said students had not been assigned to either group as of the publication of this article.

The bifurcation allows for resources to be divided for the hybrid model and allows the district to apply social distancing in its buildings, according to Cody.

We dont want to take out the whole classroom or the whole building, Cody said.

Parents can also keep their students out of school entirely and learn remotely.

The district had acquired enough Chromebooks for every student using the $75,000 the district received from the CARES act, according to Cody. He added that the district would foot the internet bill for students without access.

Cody also said the after-school program would stay in place. He said the district was still figuring out what it would look like but said that the same rules for social distancing and masks would be enforced.

Minatares reopen plan is one of the more drastic in the Scotts Bluff County area so far.
Infor announced that it is partnering with DBS Bank, Southeast Asias largest bank, to integrate digital trade financing capabilities into the Infor Nexus global network of more than 68,000 businesses. The two companies first joint program recently went live with one of the worlds largest global apparel companies, providing faster and more cost-efficient digital trade financing to suppliers in the apparel companys supply chain ecosystem, which comprises mostly small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Gary Schneider, Vice President of Sales for Infor Financial Supply Chain Management, said, This is an important relationship for Infor, where a common vision of data-driven financing bonds us and presses us forward. DBS is a digital bank, based in Asia, focused on supplier funding and liquidity. Its pursuit of digital innovation and delivering greater value to supply chains, combined with our cloud-based platform and local support team around the globe, makes for a powerful partnership at a time when liquidity is a top priority for everyone.

Sriram Muthukrishnan, Group Head of Trade Product Management, DBS Bank, said, We continue to accelerate the deployment of our market-leading supply chain financing and digital capabilities to ensure steady financing to SME suppliers during these times of stress. Data forms the backbone of a successful digital strategy and its impact across multiple industries globally has been growing exponentially. Our collaboration with Infor enables greater transparency into complex supply chains and provides insights into the transaction patterns between an anchor and its ecosystem of suppliers. We leverage these insights to provide quicker and more cost-efficient financing to suppliers much earlier in the cycle, as compared to conventional post-shipment supplier financing programs. This is especially relevant today, as we continue to operate in an environment characterized by prolonged trade disruptions and tighter credit lines, where optimal working capital management is key to survival.

The two companies next joint program for pre-shipment finance, expected to launch in late 2020, will utilize supply chain data as the primary conduit to assess risk and credit worthiness, as opposed to traditional models that result in the majority of suppliers being under-funded or facing challenges to access necessary capital. Infor provides extensive supply chain data, including historic and real-time milestone information on the physical movement of goods, to enable a data-driven representation of a suppliers performance and credit risk.

According to a research report from Aite Group analyst Enrico Camerinelli (The Supply Chain Bank, 2018), In the next three years, the competitive frontier in corporate lending and supply chain finance will be the creation of innovative credit risk models that banks will use to leverage corporate supply chain process data. Banks will capture and analyze events in the physical supply chain (source-to-pay, order-to-cash) in order to generate a more comprehensive and realistic representation of a companys risk profile.
Union Township Board of Trustees have approved multiple new business items at the July 23rd meeting.

The meeting took place at 7 p.m. via Zoom, which community members could view through the internet or listen to through their phones.

The first item was approval of a bid from Mt. Pleasant Heating and Air Conditioning for the replacement of two five-ton air conditioning units and one heating unit at the Township Hall. The bid is in the amount of $12,129.

The heating and cooling units would service the front offices, lobby and front restrooms of the hall.

According to the request for board action form from Public Services Director Kim Smith, The two original air conditioning units are currently leaking freon. One of which is leaking worse than the other and requires that freon be added approximately every two to three weeks. The other unit has a smaller leak that is filled each year as part of the yearly HVAC inspection and service. These units are outdated, not efficient, and we are no longer able to get parts for the units.

The furnace is the same age as the air conditioning units and, though its still working, the unit is considered outdated and inefficient.

The bid was approved unanimously by the board.

The next item on the agenda was to approve a Township Participation Contract with Isabella Road Comission (ICRC) for the Broadway and Isabella Roads Intersection Design Phase and to authorize Township Manager Mark Stuhldreher to sign the contracts.

The project is part of plans from the ICRC to enhance the intersections of Isabella/ High Street, Isabella/Broomfield Road, and Isabella/Bluegrass Roads.

According to the request for board action form from Smith, At the completion of this project, the Broadway at Isabella Road intersection will be the only remaining intersection on Isabella Road, south of Pickard/M20 that has not been improved. The Broadway at Isabella Road intersection is being done as an independent project due to project complexity, cost, and availability of MDOT Safety Grant Funds.

The scope of services for the design phase of the project includes topographical mapping, initial field meeting, utility coordination, geo-technical investigation, prepare preliminary roadway and traffic design plans, prepare final roadway and traffic signal design plans, and ICRC review of preliminary and final plans.

The board unanimously approved the contract and the signing of the contract by Stuhldreher.

Next, the board considered approval the Township Participation Contract with the ICRC for the Mary McGuire School zone signal and signage upgrades and to authorize Stuhldreher signing the contracts.

The project is meant to upgrade existing school zone speed limit signs currently attached to utility poles in the road right-of-way.

According to the request for board action form from Smith, New freestanding signs will be installed on the south bound and north bound lanes of Isabella Road. The signs will include the speed limit, enforcement hours, and a yellow flashing light on the top that will be activated during enforcement hours to alert drivers of the zone. In addition to new signage crosswalk markings will be painted at the intersection of Isabella Road and Cross lanes to designate the crosswalk.

The contract is in the amount of $19,669.94 with the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe providing $15,669.94 in funding, Union Township providing $3,000, and Mt. Pleasant Public School (MPPS) providing $1,000. The ICRC will be providing $3,000 which brings the project total to $22,669.94.

Funding for the project shows $30,000 coming from Union Township, with the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe providing $20,000 of the $30,000 as a part of 2% funding for the project and Union providing $10,000 from their own funds. ICRC will be providing $10,000 for the contract which brings the project total to $40,000.

The contract and contract signing by Stuhldreher were approved unanimously by the board.

For more information, visit uniontownshipmi.com.
By Alexander Cornwell, Lisa Barrington and Davide Barbuscia

DUBAI, July 22 (Reuters) - When Kapil left his Nepali village for an airport job packing cargo in the United Arab Emirates, he thought he was securing a future for himself and his family.

But less than a year after arriving in the Middle East trade and tourism hub, he questions whether it was the right decision after learning there would be no work this month.

"I'm totally hopeless," said 29-year-old Kapil, whose wife and five-year-old son are in Nepal.

The coronavirus crisis has taken a heavy toll on the economies of the oil-rich Gulf, heavily reliant on low-paid foreign workers.

They are the backbone of the Gulf economies, taking jobs in construction, services and transport, and are now facing the realities of the pandemic.

Reuters spoke to over 30 workers like Kapil in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, who all said they are now enduring hardship due to coronavirus.

Many have racked up debt and would go hungry without the help of charities as they wait for work and to be paid.

Some said they found little reason to stay without work and wanted to return to their home countries despite being owed months of wages; hundreds of thousands have already left.

The treatment of migrant workers in the Gulf has come under greater scrutiny, with human rights groups saying conditions have deteriorated because of the pandemic.

In the UAE, most attractive because of the economic opportunities it offers, there is no social safety net for foreigners, who make up about 90% of the population.

A laundry service worker from Cameroon told Reuters he had not been paid in months and was now selling fruit and vegetables on the street earning 30 to 40 dirhams a day ($8-$11).

The UAE government communication office did not respond to emailed questions about migrant worker welfare.

In May, the UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan said the Gulf state was committed to protecting the rights of all workers, state news agency WAM reported.

Story continues

DEBTS

Those in blue collar jobs are the most vulnerable. They are paid low wages, work long hours and often live in cramped dormitories that have been coronavirus hotbeds.

Many also pay fees to recruiters in their home country, a practice common for low paying jobs in the Gulf.

Kapil, who said he paid a recruiter 175,000 Nepali rupees ($1,450) for his UAE job, is not sure when he will work again.

His employer told staff they would only be paid when they worked and it was unclear whether there would be any work next month, he said.

Kapil said he had been earning around $600 a month - six times more than his teacher salary in Nepal - working up to 12 hours a day, six days a week at the airport.

He said not working had left him stressed and unable to provide for his wife, child and elderly parents in Nepal.

Kapil, who showed his employment contract and other documents to Reuters, asked that his full name not be published and his employer not identified over fears he could face repercussions.

Arriving in the UAE last October, Kapil thought he would work at the airport for a few years before finding a better job, possibly using his teaching skills.

Now he just hopes to work until the end of the year to pay back his loans.

"The global economy is getting worse and it's affecting each and every business ... I think during this time it's hard to find any other job."

UNPAID WAGES

No official statistics of how many people have left the UAE are available. But at least 200,000 workers, mostly from India but also from Pakistan, the Philippines and Nepal, have left, according to their diplomatic missions.

Sectors like construction and retail were struggling even before the crisis, which exacerbated hardship for workers already exposed to payment delays.

Mohammed Mubarak has not been paid for around 11 months for security work at a Dubai theme park.

"The company doesn't know when they'll be able to pay us, and we are suffering," the Ghanaian said.

Government coronavirus restrictions that forced many businesses to shutter for weeks began to ease in May. Shopping centres, water parks, bars and restaurants - all staffed by migrant workers - are once again open, raising hopes.

Zulfiqar, a Pakistani in Dubai for 12 years, sent his family home early in the outbreak but stayed on hoping for work, sharing a room and what cash he has with a dozen other unemployed men.

"Things in Pakistan are also not good," he said. (Reporting by Lisa Barrington, Davide Barbuscia, Aziz El Yaakoubi; Reporting and writing by Alexander Cornwell; Editing by Giles Elgood)
MELBOURNE/SINGAPORE, July 23 (Reuters) - Australia's Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (DMIRS) said on Thursday it plans to inspect Chevron's Gorgon liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant "as soon as possible" following calls by a trade union to shut the plant.

"The Department ... is aware Chevron Australia discovered issues with propane kettles at its Gorgon LNG plant during routine maintenance and understands the company is investigating," the department's Director Dangerous Goods and Petroleum Safety Steve Emery said in a statement.

"While DMIRS does not have any immediate concerns for worker safety, the department is taking the matter seriously and is in discussion with Chevron about the findings from its maintenance inspections and the assessment of the results to date."

"The department will conduct a joint ... inspection of the LNG plant as soon as possible."

The Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union (AMWU) has called for Chevron to shut down the Gorgon plant for immediate safety inspections by the government regulator, and for a report to be made public, it said in a statement on July 20.

Cracks up to 1 metre long and 30 millimetres deep on between eight and 11 kettles on Train 2 have been discovered by the non-destructive testing team, AMWU said.

"If multiple kettles are showing cracks in testing on Train 2, there is a high risk there are cracks in the vessels on other trains" and these would need to be replaced immediately, said Steve McCartney, AMWU's state secretary.

"Chevron needs to put workers' safety first, and shut down for an independent investigation. If something goes wrong it would be catastrophic."

Chevron said on Wednesday it is inspecting propane heat exchangers on Train 2 which has been shut for maintenance since May. (Reporting by Melanie Burton and Jessica Jaganathan Writing by Florence Tan Editing by Robert Birsel)
A man in his 70s has been trapped underneath a giant bell which fell on him while he was working underneath it.

The worker was underneath the two tonne bell at the Geldmacher House Museum, in Nimmitabel on the far south New South Wales coast, when it fell from its post about 2.30pm on Thursday.

The bell landed directly on top of the 77-year-old man, trapping him inside.

The man suffered injuries to his leg in the incident, but was able to communicate with emergency services when they arrived on the scene minutes later.

A spokeswoman for New South Wales Police told Daily Mail Australia officers from the Monaro Police District arrived on the scene along with SES workers shortly after the incident.

A man in his 70s has been trapped underneath a giant bell which fell on him while he was working underneath it

The man was promptly freed and treated by paramedics before being airlifted to Canberra Hospital.

Authorities claim the bell narrowly avoided crushing the worker, instead trapping him inside.

The local Lions Club had organised for the man to be at the site, and he was being paid for his services.

It is not yet clear what he was tasked to do.

An inspector from SafeWork New South Wales will attend the site on Friday morning.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted SafeWork New South Wales for further information.
Gemma Brean introduced inmate Stuart Mark Davies as her 'boyfriend' to her teenage daughter before the romance was uncovered. (Wales News Service)

A prison officer who was pictured cuddling with an inmate who was on day release from an open prison has avoided being jailed herself.

Gemma Brean, 35, was in a relationship with convicted drug dealer Stuart Mark Davies for six weeks and even introduced him as her "boyfriend" to her teenage daughter before the romance was uncovered.

Cardiff Crown Court heard the single mother-of-two met Davies, who was serving a five-year sentence for possession of class A drugs, while she worked at the Category D HM Prison Prescoed in Monmouthshire.

She used email accounts of friends to send messages to the prisoner, who she had direct control of in her employment training and education role, and arranged to meet up with him when he was allowed out on home leave.

Gemma Brean met Stuart Mark Davies, who was serving a five-year sentence for possession of class A drugs, while she worked at HM Prison Prescoed in Monmouthshire. (Geograph)

Prosecutor Steven Donoghue told the court their relationship was revealed on 1 November last year when Davies's ex-wife was directed to a photo of him and his "new girlfriend" after it was posted online.

Donoghue said: "That photograph is of the prisoner with the defendant, reclining on a settee, and they've got their arms around each other.

"That photograph was taken on that weekend when he was out of the prison.

MORE: Thief uses broom to steal pints of milk from nursery

The ex-wife, having found out who the woman was, reported the photo to her own probation officer, who in turn reported it to the prison and an investigation was launched.

Brean was suspended from duty before being arrested by police, and claimed in an interview with them that the encounter on the settee had happened "by accident" after the pair turned up at the same place.

But messages found on her phone showed they had been in a relationship since the beginning of October, with a series of messages sent to him from the phone using the email account of her father's girlfriend.

Gemma Brean was pictured on a sofa with inmate Stuart Mark Davies. (Wales News Service)

Gemma Brean was given a suspended sentence at Cardiff Crown Court. (Wikipedia)

Brean sent one message to her 15-year-old daughter to say she had a "new boyfriend" with a man called "Mark", sent on a weekend when Davies was on home leave and the prison officer was off duty.

Story continues

Donoghue said there was no evidence the relationship was sexual, nor had it been used for financial gain or to bring illicit items into the prison.

MORE: Labour MP hits out at completely fake viral article

Brean eventually resigned from her job on 1 December last year, before pleading guilty to misconduct in a public office.

Brean, from Cwm, Ebbw Vale, was sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended for 18 months, and given a 9pm to 7am curfew order on an electronic tag for four months.

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The leader of the INRI Evangelical spiritual church, Primate Elijah Ayodele has advocated for intensified prayers for Governor Kayode-Fa...

The leader of the INRI Evangelical spiritual church, Primate Elijah Ayodele has advocated for intensified prayers for Governor Kayode-Fayemi of Ekiti State.





Primate Ayodele said he wished the governor a quick recovery while calling on Nigerians to pray for him.





He explained that the country has lost so many prominent Nigerians during this season which is quite sad, hence, the need for prayers to be intensified for those who have contracted the virus.





It would be recalled that Primate Ayodele had earlier prophecied that except God is involved, COVID-19 will kill so many people of which the prominent people will dominate.





Ondo: Akeredolu will treat people like animals if re-elected - Pastor Giwa NEWS:Ondo: Akeredolu will treat people like animals if re-elected - Pastor Giwa

He also made it known that the presidential villa in Abuja wont be free from COVID-19 until proper spiritual cleansing is done.





Fayemi announced yesterday that he tested positive for COVID-19.





The Governor made the announcement on his Twitter page.





He said he is self-isolating and has dedicated critical tasks to his Deputy.





He wrote, I took my third COVID-19 test yesterday and it came back positive.





Im generally ok and Im already self-isolating at home and receiving the best of care from my medical team.




Actor Bhagyashree, who will soon be seen with Prabhas in their upcoming film Radhe Shyam, has only nice things to say about him. In an interview with Mumbai Mirror, Bhagyashree said she had different expectations from him after the success of Baahubali but found him to be a humble man.

After watching Bahubali, I had a certain image about him. But he turned out to be a soft-spoken gentleman rather than a flamboyant personality. Hes a team player and likes to bond with everyone, she said.

Bhagyashree has shot for Radhe Shyam in Georgia and Hyderabad so far. The shoots will commence after the coronavirus situation gets better.

RadheShyam is set to release in 2021. A trilingual, the big-budget film will be simultaneously shot in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu like his last few outings. It is being speculated that Prabhas will play a fortune teller in the film. It is directed by Radha Krishna Kumar and will get a pan-India release. It also stars Pooja Hegde opposite Prabhas.

Also read: Before Dil Bechara, did you spot Sanjana Sanghi in Hindi Medium and Fukrey Returns? Watch videos

Apart from Radhe Shyam, Bhagyashree will also be seen with Kangana Ranaut in Thalaivi. The film is a biopic on later Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa. Bhagyashree has worked in multiple Tamil and Telugu projects. Our audience has now evolved and is open to all kinds of content, which is inspiring the writers, she said in the Mumbai Mirror interview.

Bhagyashree recently said that it was her son Abhimanyu Dassani who motivated her to join movies and be an actor again. I have been convincing her for the last two years. After I signed Mard (Ko Dard Nahi Hota), I was like mom, let this film come out, I need you to come out and do movies and enjoy yourself. I am glad she is on the same page as me. The world has opened up so much. It will be amazing to see her back in action, he said. When the children were younger, they wanted their mom to be around, but now that he is working and knows how it feels, so he wants me to get back, she had said in an interview to Pinkvilla.

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KEY FACTS 10:45 a.m.: Big jump in people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Ontario

7:40 a.m.: Tory says apartment masking bylaw could be brought in

Read The Stars live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here. This story is no longer updating.

5 p.m. Ontarios public health units are reporting 40,281 confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19, including 2,789 deaths, an increase of 143 new cases in 24 hours, according to the Stars latest count. They reported no new fatalities.

This is the third day this month in which Ontarios 34 public health units have reported no new deaths.

The rate of deaths has fallen sharply in the province over the summer, down from a peak of 90 deaths in a single day, seen in early May, to an average of just less than two a day over the last week.

Earlier Thursday, the province reported 154 patients are hospitalized with COVID-19, including 35 in an intensive care unit, of whom 21 are on a ventilator.

After falling steadily over the last few months, the number of hospitalized patients has risen slightly in recent days.

The Province says its data is accurate to 4 p.m. the previous day. It cautions its latest count of total deaths, 2,755, 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.

1:30 p.m.: Premier Doug Ford says $12 billion to be spent over the next decade to build new schools and refurbish school buildings in Brampton.

More than $500 million will be allocated to build 30 new schools and make permanent additions to 15 existing facilities supporting more than 25,000 student spaces across the province. One school in Peel will be named after Malala Yousafzai, an announcement that was made last March.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce says Ontarios back to school plan will be revealed next week.

12:45 p.m.: Quebec is reporting 142 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, but no new fatalities.

The total number of deaths in the province remains at 5,662, and total cases rose to 58,080.

Health authorities said today hospitalizations dropped by 14 to 221. Of those, 14 patients are in intensive care, a reduction of two.

Health officials completed 14,725 tests July 21, the last day for which data is available. At least 50,505 people have recovered from the disease.

12:22 p.m.: The federal Liberals and Albertas United Conservatives have agreed on a one-year extension to child-care funding that will also help offset costs related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

For Alberta, the one-year deal will mean more than $45 million this fiscal year to create new licensed child-care spaces through capital and program grants and subsidies for more lower-income families.

The provincial government is also planning to use the money for training and help offset costs for centres associated with COVID-19 closures and reopening to help programs remain financially viable.

The money is part of a 10-year, $7-billion funding pledge the Trudeau Liberals unveiled in 2017  not the $625-million, eight-month pledge the Liberals have made under a safe restart agreement with provinces.

11:55 a.m.: Several unions are calling for an end to for-profit companies in long-term care.

They point out COVID-19 has hit for-profit homes harder than their non-profit or municipally run counterparts. For example, 13 of the worst-hit facilities in Ontario are owned by money-making businesses.

Studies have attributed that in part to lower staffing levels.

While the unions campaign is initially aimed at the Ontario government, the plan is to take it nationally.

The Progressive Conservative government under Premier Doug Ford has previously said a commission will review long term care.

The Stars Rosa Saba has a story on a new study looking at COVID-19 cases and deaths in long-term care homes has reinforced the Stars earlier analysis showing that for-profit homes were more likely to have wider and more deadly outbreaks than non-profit or municipal homes.

11:15 a.m.: The Tokyo Olympics have hit the one-year-to-go mark  again. But few are in a mood to celebrate.

Tokyo observed the original date a year ago. That was before the COVID-19 pandemic postponed the Olympics and pushed back the opening to July 23, 2021. Fireworks cascaded over Tokyo Bay back then, and local celebrities unveiled the medals in a highly choreographed show. Theres none of that this time.

Organizers produced a 15-minute, no-fans event on Thursday inside the new national stadium; screening a video to promote next years opening. They also teased the presence of the Olympic flame, which arrived in Japan in March and had been hidden away ever since.

The low-key event on a rainy day captures the local mood.

A poll a few days ago from Japanese news agency Kyodo repeated the results of recent surveys: Japanese are skeptical the games should go ahead, and doubtful they will. The poll showed 23.9 per cent favoured holding the Olympics, 36.4 per cent said the Olympics should be postponed again, and 33.7 per cent said it should be cancelled.

10:45 a.m. (updated): The number of people requiring hospital care for COVID-19 has suddenly jumped to the highest level since early July as the number of new cases fell to 103 after topping 200 in recent days.

Figures reported Thursday by the Ministry of Health showed 26 new patients admitted to hospitals, raising the total to 154. The increase is in addition to eight new patients reported the previous day and, while well within capacity, is a level that has not been since since July 3 when there were 155 people in hospital for the virus.

The province says 35 people are in intensive care and 21 on ventilators.

The total number of cases now stands at 38,210, which includes 2,755 deaths and 33,963 resolved cases. There were 151 resolved cases newly reported today.

The province says it was able to complete more than 26,000 tests the previous day.

Health Minister Christine Elliott says 28 of the provinces 34 public health units are reporting five or fewer cases.

The Stars Rob Ferguson has the full story.

10:05 a.m.: The opposition Conservatives are calling for Bill Morneaus resignation after revelations the finance minister accepted two expenses-paid trips and donated $100,000 to WE Charity.

Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre asked how Morneau could have possibly missed that WE Charity covered as much as $52,000 in travel and hotel costs for him and his family.

We have identified at least five sections of the Ethics Act  that Bill Morneau has violated, Poilievre said.

8:17 a.m. The operator of Ann Taylor and Lane Bryant filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. on Thursday, the latest retailer to do so during the pandemic.

Mahwah, New Jersey-based Ascena Retail Group Inc., which operates nearly 3,000 stores mostly at malls, had been dragged down by debt and weak sales for years.

As part of its bankruptcy plan, the company said Thursday that it would close all of its Catherines stores and a a significant number of Justice stores and a select number of Ann Taylor, Loft, Lane Bryant and Lou & Grey stores.

The company said it has reached an agreement with its creditors to reduce its debt by $1 billion. It received $150 million in new financing to continue operating during its reorganization.

Ascena joins a growing list of retailers that have filed for Chapter 11 in recent weeks, including Brooks Brothers, Neiman Marcus, J.C. Penney, J.Crew and Stage Stores. These retailers were already struggling with weak sales but the forced closure of non-essential stores in March to reduce the spread of the coronavirus put them further in peril.

8:15 a.m. Its too soon to start counting down the days to playgrounds reopening in Toronto  on July 17, 24 of the 34 public health districts in the province moved into Stage 3 of reopening, which means playgrounds can once again be put into use, but Toronto was not among them. Nor will Toronto be among the seven more regions that will enter Stage 3 on July 25, including York and Durham.

Only Toronto, Peel Region and Windsor-Essex will remain in Stage 2 past Friday.

The city estimates that when Toronto is allowed to enter Stage 3 it will take two to three days to remove caution tape and signage at its more than 800 playgrounds, install physical distancing signage where required and undertake general cleanup.

Toronto Public Health (TPH) has also recommended that where possible, the parks department move benches to ensure they are at least two metres apart and to remove picnic tables from playground areas to discourage people from congregating.

Read the full story from the Stars Francine Kopun

8 a.m. Loblaw Companies Ltd. says its net income plunged in the second quarter despite surging revenues because of COVID-19 related costs including a temporary pay boost for employees.

Canadas largest grocer says its earnings attributable to shareholders fell 41 per cent to $169 million or 47 cents per diluted share from $286 million or 77 cents per share a year earlier.

Excluding one-time items, adjusted profits were $266 million or 74 cents per share, compared with $373 million or $1.01 per share in the prior year.

Revenues for the three months ended June 13 increased 7.4 per cent to nearly $12 billion, from $11.1 billion in the second quarter of 2019.

Loblaw was expected to report 71 cents per share in adjusted earnings on $11.9 billion in revenues, according to financial markets data firm Refinitiv.

The company says demand shifted during the quarter towards conventional store formats with the market divisions same-store sales increasing 18.8 per cent and the discount division up 4.9 per cent, while same-store drug division sales declined 1.1 per cent.

It spent $282 million during the quarter on safety measures for staff and customers with about $180 million in temporary pay premiums which included a one-time bonus for store and distribution centre colleagues of $25 million.

7:43 a.m. Beginning July 22, up to two people  family or friends  are able to schedule a visit inside long-term-care homes if they can attest to a negative COVID test within the previous 14 days. Homes must also have the staff and personal protective equipment to accommodate visitors. Outdoor visits started a month ago and no longer require a COVID test.

After the government banned visitors in mid-March, except for residents who were dying, families connected with their loved ones through window or virtual visits. As the months progressed and many homes struggled with the loss of workers, residents locked inside declined from isolation, losing weight, growing dehydrated and depressed.

Read the full story from the Stars Moira Welsh

7:40 a.m. Mayor John Tory said hes prepared to extend the citys mandatory masking order to shared spaces inside apartment and condominium buildings if management companies refuse to do it voluntarily.

Current mandatory masking bylaws in cities such as Toronto apply only to indoor public spaces such as grocery stores, commercial businesses and public transit, leaving multi-unit dwellings exempt.

We were hesitant to move on private property because its better if people who own that private property do that, and also because our legislative options are slightly more limited, Tory said Wednesday.

But I will just tell you we will have no hesitation  notwithstanding what I just said  to move forward and do whatever we could, by way of a bylaw if that seemed to be necessary.

Earlier this week, Tory called on an industry group, the Greater Toronto Apartment Association, to require masks in hallways, elevators, and common rooms in its 140,000-plus units.

I believe implementing these rules in buildings will help residents protect each other from the spread of COVID-19, especially when you take into account the number of Torontonians who live in residential apartment buildings, Tory said in a statement Monday.

Thursday 6:23 a.m. Long-haul carrier Emirates now says it will cover the costs of passengers coronavirus-related medical expenses in an effort to encourage more travellers to fly on the airline.

In a statement Thursday, Emirates said passengers can claim medical expenses of up to 150,000 euros and quarantine costs of 100 euros per day for 14 days if they are diagnosed with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.

Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the chairman and CEO of the government-owned airline, said: We know people are yearning to fly as borders around the world gradually reopen, but they are seeking flexibility and assurances should something unforeseen happen during their travel.

The airline said the coverage is good for passengers flying until Oct. 30.

Wednesday 8:53 p.m. Senate Republicans prepared to roll out their opening offer for a fifth coronavirus relief package after ironing out differences with the White House, setting up high-stakes negotiations with Democrats just days ahead of the expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits.

A group of top Senate Republicans finished a meeting with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Wednesday evening, with participants saying the two sides had resolved their outstanding issues. Senate Republicans and the White House had struggled in recent days to agree on a series of proposals, including a payroll-tax cut and new funding for coronavirus testing, in crafting the package, estimated at $1 trillion.

Weve now had three days of meetings and were completely on the same page, Mnuchin said.

The plan will include $16 billion in new funding for testing, a compromise between Senate Republicans who had sought more money and the White House, which had opposed any new funding. More than $100 billion will go toward schools, with some of that money only available to K-12 schools that plan to physically reopen. It wasnt immediately known if a payroll-tax cut would be included in the GOP plan.

Lawmakers are racing to reach an agreement before a $600 weekly supplement to the unemployment benefits expires on July 31. Republicans on Wednesday were looking at several options, including continuing the federal supplement at a lower flat rate until states can scale the benefit based on previous income.

Wednesday 6:23 p.m.: As of 6 p.m. Wednesday, Ontarios public health units were reporting 40,138 confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19, including 2,789 deaths, according to the Stars latest count.

After several days of rising case totals, the units reported a lower total of 133 new infections in the last 24 hours, slightly below the recent average.

From June 29 to July 5, the health units reported 153 new infections per day. The next week, that average fell to 117 cases daily. Last week, it rose slightly to an average of 149.

Ontario saw just one new fatality reported Wednesday, in Toronto.

Earlier, the province reported 128 patients are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, including 37 in an intensive care unit, of whom 19 are on a ventilator  numbers that are near the lowest the province has reported since first publishing hospitalization data 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 may be incomplete or out of date due to delays in the reporting system, saying that in the event of a discrepancy, data reported by (the health units) should be considered the most up to date.

The Stars count includes some patients reported as probable COVID-19 cases, meaning they have symptoms and contacts or travel history that indicate they very likely have the disease, but have not yet received a positive lab test.

Wednesday 8:19 p.m. As nations around the world race to lock up coronavirus vaccines even before they are ready, the Trump administration on Wednesday made one of the largest investments yet, announcing a nearly $2 billion contract with Pfizer and a German biotechnology company for 100 million doses by December.

The contract is part of what the White House calls the Warp Speed project, an effort to drastically shorten the time it would take to manufacture and distribute a working vaccine. So far, the United States has put money into more than a half dozen efforts, hoping to build manufacturing ability for an eventual breakthrough.

Europe has a parallel effort underway. Germany recently took a 23 per cent stake in a German firm, CureVac, that President Donald Trump once tried to lure to American shores in hopes that its vaccine, if successful, would be distributed in the United States first. A European-led fundraising effort in May brought $8 billion in pledges from the worlds governments, philanthropists and leaders for coronavirus vaccine research, even with the United States sitting out the conference.

China has militarized the effort: Researchers associated with the Academy of Military Medical Sciences have developed one of Chinas leading vaccine candidates, and another Chinese company, Sinopharm Group, announced in June that it was beginning Phase 3 trials in the United Arab Emirates.

The Pfizer contract, an agreement to ensure the pharmaceutical giant has a market for its work, is the biggest splash yet by the Americans. If the vaccine being produced by Pfizer and BioNTech, the German firm, proves to be safe and effective in clinical trials, the companies say they could manufacture those first 100 million doses by the end of the year.

Wednesday 2:15 p.m.: Toronto medical officer of health Dr. Eileen de Villa said there have been 58 new cases over the last two days, and expressed concern that younger people are getting infected. More 20 to 39 years olds getting the virus.

Im very concerned about this de Villa said.

She said residents must remain vigilant or theres a risk of resurgence.

I have heard many people say they believe that COVID-19 is over ... this is simply not true.

Read more of Wednesdays coronavirus news
A general view shows the Bulgarian parliament during voting on a no-confidence motion against the government of Prime Minister Boyko Borissov in Sofia

By Tsvetelia Tsolova

SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov's centre-right government survived a no-confidence vote in parliament on Tuesday that was called during a wave of anti-corruption protests.

Thousands of Bulgarians have taken part in rallies in the past two weeks, saying the government has only been going through the motions in fighting corruption while state institutions get weaker to the benefit of private interests.

Some 124 lawmakers in the 240-seat parliament opposed the fifth no-confidence motion against the coalition government since it took office in 2017, and 102 lawmakers were in favour of the motion brought by the oppositions Socialists.

Borissov, 61, has said he will consider an overhaul of his cabinet but has ruled out a snap election, saying the government must remain to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The coalition will meet in the next few days to discuss ways to address the protests in the European Union's poorest member state.

"Every voice will be heard. Will there be changes? Yes." Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev told reporters. "It is not enough to be better than the others. We need to be as good as the people want."

Protesters blocked roads in front of parliament chanting "Resign" and "Jail" and vowing to continue rallies until Borissov and Bulgaria's chief prosecutor quit.

"I want to live in a normal country that respects the rule of law, where the laws are the same for all and all can have equal opportunities," said Veronika Florova, 28, holding a national flag.

Defending the government's handling of the anti-corruption fight, Borissov said last week he had asked his finance, interior and economy ministers to step down to end speculation that they were under the influence of a media magnate and businessman from another political party. But he said he would not accept their resignations yet.

Borissov's junior coalition partners have suggested one way out of the crisis would be to form a government not led by him.

(Reporting by Tsvetelia Tsolova; Editing by Timothy Heritage)
Australia's finance minister has delivered a fiery response after a journalist questioned him about the country's grim economic forecast.

The Federal Government revealed that the country's debt was to predicted to reach $850billion by the end of the financial year as Australia battles the COVID-19 crisis.

During the press conference Matthew Cranston, from The Australian Financial Review, asked what feedback he had been getting from 'ordinary Australians' about the enormous figure and if he would be comfortable increasing it if needed.

Senator Mathias Cormann fired back, cutting the journalist down by questioning what the alternative was.

'You asked about the level of debt...I ask you, what is the alternative?' he said during the press conference.

'Are you suggesting that we shouldn't have provided the support we did to boost our health system, to protect jobs? In the circumstances, what was the alternative?'

Victoria's economy is heading towards the worst recession it has seen in 30 years as unemployment rates soars amid the coronavirus pandemic

A lone shopper walks past empty rows of shops with no customers on the main road in the hotspot suburb of Glenroy in Melbourne in July

His comments came after the Federal Government delivered a grim economic forecast on Thursday as the country battles to repair the damage caused by the COVID-19 crisis.

Treasury is now expecting the national jobless rate to hit 9.25 per cent by the end of December - a level unseen since September 1994 during the long aftermath of Australia's last recession.

During the press conference Matthew Cranston, from The Australian Financial Review, asked what feedback he had been getting from 'ordinary Australians' about the enormous figure and if he would be comfortable increasing it if needed

Economists fear it will take decades before the government can pay off its debt after borrowing big to fund JobKeeper wage subsidies and a boost to JobSeeker unemployment benefits.

Australia's economy is expected to contract by seven per cent in the June quarter alone - wiping out the equivalent of three years worth of economic activity as part of the steepest downturn since the 1930s Great Depression.

Gross debt will hit $850billion by the end of this financial year.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg pointed out Australia had lower government debt as a proportion of GDP compared with most other advanced nations.

Australia's budget deficit this financial year is expected to be the biggest since World War II as a share of the economy.

A deficit of $184.5billion is projected for 2020-21, making up 9.7 per cent of GDP, with spending more than triple the amount Labor spent at the height of the Global Financial Crisis in 2009.

By comparison, former prime minister Kevin Rudd's Labor government in 2009 left a budget deficit of $57.7billion which was 4.7 per cent of GDP a little more than a decade ago.

Australia's finance minister delivered a fiery response after a journalist questioned the country's spiralling debt

Four year's worth of gross domestic product is forecast to wiped out in just three months as Australia's economy is plunged into the deepest downturn since the 1930s Great Depression and budget deficits surge to the highest levels since World War II. Pictured is a Melbourne fast food worker wearing a face mask

The renewed lockdown in Melbourne are already expected to wipe $3.3billion from the national economy within the next two months

Australia's net debt is expected to hit $488.2 billion, or 24.6 per cent of GDP, as of June 30, 2020 and increase to $677.1 billion, or 35.7 per cent of GDP the following year.

Since March, the government has spent $164billlion alone on welfare stimulus programs including $86.6billion giving $1,500 fortnightly JobKeeper wage subsidies to 3.5million workers, which from September 28 are being scaled back to $1,200 for 1.4million Australians.

Australia's economy is expected to get worse before it gets better with Treasury expecting unemployment to surge to levels unseen since 1994. Pictured is Treasurer Josh Frydenberg

The treasury is now expecting the national jobless rate to hit 9.25 by the end of December - a level unseen since September 1994. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who lives in Melbourne, was given special permission to visit Canberra to deliver an economic statement

The dole, known as JobSeeker, was also doubled until September 24 with a $550 a fortnight coronavirus supplement.

The unemployed have been receiving $1,115.70 a fortnight since April 27 but this will fall back to $815.70 in two months as the coronavirus supplement is trimmed to $250, on top of the base $565.70 a fortnight rate.

Australia's world-record run of 29 years without a recession has ended very abruptly but this won't be officially confirmed until September, a month before the delayed October budget.
Turkey is looking to reduce further its reliance on Russian gas, and for the first time in almost two decades, Turkey may not receive gas at all from Russian gas giant Gazprom for at least two weeks.

According to Turkish state-owned Botas, cited by Interfax, the Turkish Stream pipeline will stop completely on July 27. Botas is the purchaser of all gas through the pipeline, which started up this year in January.

The pipeline will remain down for a couple of weeks until mid-August due to repair work on the pipeline. But the Turkish Stream pipeline was stopped last month too for planned maintenance.

Another gas pipeline from Russia to Turkey, the Blue Stream, was also shuttered in May, and even though it was only supposed to be down for a couple of weeks, the pipeline is still shuttered today.

In the end, Turkey is taking 70% less gas from Russia compared to this time last year, pushing the gas giant down on the list of Turkeys main gas suppliers, behind Azerbaijan and Iran. Turkey has also been substituting LNG for the Russian gas, now that LNG prices have fallen.

The Presidents of Russia and Turkey, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, respectively, officially launched in the beginning of January the TurkStream natural gas pipeline to ship Russian gas to Turkey and markets in southeastern Europe.

At the time, Gazprom said that the TurkStream pipeline would improve energy security in the region.

Critics of Russias energy policy, however, including the United States, the Baltic states, Poland, and several other EU countries, say that it is Moscows gas supply dominance that undermines Europes energy security.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Chennai, July 23 : A 37-year-old driver in a private company in Tiruppur district of Tamil Nadu live streamed his suicide on Facebook, police said on Thursday.

"He hanged himself at his residence on Wednesday. His wife said Ramkumar was an alcoholic and had attempted suicide earlier but was saved," a police official at Anupparpalayam in Tiruppur district told IANS over phone on Thursday.

According to police Ramkumar had returned home drunk, opted for the live option on Facebook and hanged himself from the ceiling fan.

Prior to his hanging, he had called and informed his father about his decision to commit suicide and requested him to take care of his son.

His friends called his wife Susasini and informed her who in turn informed the landlady to try and save him.

Ramkumar's wife Suhasini is working in a knitwear unit in Tiruppur.

Police said the houseowner and others rushed to save Ramkumar who was found hanging.

He was taken to the government hospital where the doctors declared him 'brought dead'.

The police official said a suicide note by Ramkumar has been recovered wherein he had said that nobody was to be blamed for his death and he was not interested to live in this world.

Ramkumar is survived by his wife and a young son.

Police have registered a case.
French English

MONTREAL and TORONTO, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nexus Real Estate Investment Trust (the REIT) (TSXV: NXR.UN) announced today that it intends to release its financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2020 before the opening of the TSX Venture Exchange on Friday August 14, 2020.



Management of the REIT will host a conference call at 1:00 PM Eastern Standard Time on Friday August 14, 2020 to review the financial results and operations.

To participate in the conference call, please dial 416-915-3239 or 1-800-319-4610 (toll free in Canada and the US) at least five minutes prior to the start time and ask to join the Nexus REIT conference call.

A recording of the conference call will be available until September 14, 2020. To access the recording, please dial 604-674-8052 or 1-855-669-9658 (toll free in Canada and the US) and enter access code 5006.

July and August Distributions

The REIT announced today that it will make a cash distribution in the amount of $0.01333 per unit, representing $0.16 per unit on an annualized basis, payable August 14, 2020 to unitholders of record as of July 31, 2020.

The REIT will also make a cash distribution in the amount of $0.01333 per unit, representing $0.16 per unit on an annualized basis, payable September 15, 2020 to unitholders of record as of August 31, 2020.

The REITs current distribution per unit continues to be $0.01333 per month. The REITs distribution reinvestment program (DRIP) entitles eligible unitholders to elect to receive all, or a portion of the cash distributions of the REIT reinvested in units of the REIT. Eligible unitholders who so elect will receive a bonus distribution of units equal to 4% of each distribution that was reinvested by them under the DRIP.

TSX Graduation Update

The REIT had previously announced its intention to graduate to the TSX. Earlier this year, as COVID-19 impacts began to intensify, the decision was made to temporarily postpone graduation. Now that economic reopening is underway across the country, the REIT intends to again work towards graduating to the TSX and expects that it will make a formal TSX listing application by the end of the third quarter. Listing will ultimately be subject to the approval of the TSX in accordance with its original listing requirements. The REIT anticipates that, subject to Exchange approval, it may undertake a unit consolidation at or around the time of graduation to the TSX.

COVID-19 Update

On May 29, 2020, the REIT mortgaged 4 previously unencumbered properties. The aggregate principal amount of the mortgages was $14,270,000, providing additional liquidity should it be required to endure the impacts of COVID-19.

The following table provides a breakdown of the REITs rent collections to date by asset class:

April 2020 May 2020 June 2020 July 2020 Total Industrial 88% 89% 85% 89% 88% Mixed Use 94% 83% 82% 81% 85% Office 97% 95% 93% 94% 95% Retail 75% 72% 83% 85% 79% 87% 86% 86% 88% 87%

Rental deferrals with 4 of the REITs larger tenants account for approximately 4% of the uncollected rents for the period. The remaining 9% is attributable to tenants that are either expected to be included in the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance (CECRA) program or that the REIT has offered deferrals to or that the REIT is currently in discussions with.

CECRA eligibility requires that a tenant has experienced a 70% reduction in average revenues during April, May and June 2020. The REIT is currently coordinating with its tenants to determine their eligibility and to complete documentation required to proceed with applications for the CECRA program.

About Nexus REIT

Nexus is a growth-oriented real estate investment trust focused on increasing unitholder value through the acquisition, ownership and management of industrial, office and retail properties located in primary and secondary markets in North America. The REIT currently owns a portfolio of 72 properties comprising approximately 4.0 million square feet of rentable area. The REIT has approximately 107,925,000 units issued and outstanding. Additionally, there are Class B LP units of subsidiary limited partnerships of Nexus REIT issued and outstanding, which are convertible into approximately 24,107,000 REIT units.

Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking statements which reflect the REITs current expectations and projections about future results. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as plans, expects or does not expect, is expected, estimates, intends, anticipates or does not anticipate, or believes, or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the REIT to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Actual results and developments are likely to differ, and may differ materially, from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements contained in this news release. Such forward-looking statements are based on a number of assumptions that may prove to be incorrect.

While the REIT anticipates that subsequent events and developments may cause its views to change, the REIT specifically disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements except as required by applicable law. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the REITs views as of any date subsequent to the date of this news release. 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, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The factors identified above are not intended to represent a complete list of the factors that could affect the REIT.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For further information please contact:

Kelly C. Hanczyk, CEO at (416) 906-2379; or

Rob Chiasson, CFO at (416) 613-1262.
India is likely to witness one million active Covid-19 cases by August 15 when the tricolour will be unfurled at the Red Fort.

Two sets of mathematical modelling studies by Indian researchers hint at 10 lakh active cases by the Independence Day as the pandemic has begun to spread far and wide in the areas that reported low numbers so far.

Follow latest updates on the Covid-19 pandemic here

If the present trend holds, we will breach 1 million active cases around August 15, Sitabhra Sinha, a senior researcher at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai told DH.

Sinhas forecast is based on a mathematical model that he was running for months to look at the Covid-19 trends all over the country. The latest run is for the July 11-20 period.

Going by the ICMRs National Institute of Epidemiology, Chennai India currently has 4.26 lakh active cases.

As per Sinhas model, the national R value at the moment stands at 1.19  a drop from the R value of 1.9 in April.

Reproduction number or R is the number of persons, one infected person can spread the infection. An R value of 1.9 means that 10 infected persons will on average cause 19 new infections whereas an R value of 1.19 means 10 infected persons can cause 12 new cases.

If containment measures stay at current levels then we are likely to reach close to 100,000 active cases by August 15, said Dibyendu Nandi, a physicist at the Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research, Kolkata who leads a team of researchers operating a Covid-19 disease tracking model.

While a lower R value is good news from a national perspective, state-wise estimation of the trends reveals a different story altogether.

It shows the outbreak is increasing steeply in Bihar (R: 1.62) and the three southern states Kerala (1.44), Karnataka (1.41) and Andhra Pradesh (1.51). The disease curve is moving north in West Bengal (1.38) and Uttar Pradesh (1.28) too.

Delhi is the only state with a sub-exponential growth rate (0.85) but there are doubts on the Delhi data due to widespread use of the rapid antigen test that has poor accuracy.

Among the big cities, Bengaluru is the worst with R value of 1.4 followed by Kolkata (1.3). For Mumbai and Chennai, the value is close to 1.
Credit: Magdalena WosinskaA chance to meet The 1975 is among the prizes included in a new fundraising campaign by War Child UK in support of vulnerable children affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to saying hi to Matty Healy and company, the winner of the prize draw will receive two tickets to a 1975 show of their choosing in 2021, as well as a handwritten lyric sheet.

Each entry into the contest costs five British pounds, which is just over $6, and you can purchase as many entries as you like.

Other prize draws include drum lessons from Bastille's Chris "Woody" Wood, and a microphone used by Yungblud on his first headlining tour in 2018.

Additionally, a number of experiences and items are up for auction, such as a private Zoom gig with Mumford & Sons frontman Marcus Mumford.

For more info, visit WarChildCrowdFunder.co.uk.

By Josh Johnson

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
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WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump announced he will send federal agents to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to help combat rising crime, expanding the administrations intervention into local enforcement as he runs for reelection under a law and order mantle.

Using the same alarmist language he has employed to describe illegal immigration, Trump painted Democrat-led cities as out of control and lashed out at the radical left," which he blamed for rising violence in some cities, even though criminal justice experts say it defies easy explanation.

In recent weeks there has been a radical movement to defund, dismantle and dissolve our police department, Trump said Wednesday at a White House event, blaming the movement for a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence."

This bloodshed must end," he said. This bloodshed will end.
"Get out! We'll come to visit you in jail!" shouted a group of young Bulgarians at a recent rally, demanding not only the end of the government but a whole corrupt system. Thirteen years after joining the European Union, Bulgarians are still among the bloc's worst-off citizens, and patience is running thin with the shadowy oligarchs seen as pulling the political and economic strings. Two weeks of sustained protests have been brightened by vuvuzelas, weird hairstyles and witty slogans -- but they belie the anger of young protesters over a string of graft scandals in recent years. Their numbers have been swelled by those forced to return from abroad after losing their jobs or seeing their universities shuttered under the impact of the new coronavirus. The resignation of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and the chief prosecutor are just the beginning of their demands, said Boris Lukanov, a 23-year-old medical student who came to the protests straight from the airport after returning from Germany. "We need an interim cabinet and new elections with machine voting," he told AFP, a reference to allegations of vote-rigging. Like him, hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians have left to work and study abroad in recent years, and been horrified at how their native country compares. "The young, who have lived in the West, experience a culture shock when faced with the vicious, blatant practices (back home)," said Parvan Simeonov, Bulgaria director for Gallup International. Bulgaria has the worst scores in the European Union for corruption and the rule of law. Simmering anger ignited earlier this month over the government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, with cases spiking after an abrupt end to its lockdown last month and many fearing its struggling health system will not cope. "Our tolerance for scandals has a limit," fumed 29-year-old finance worker Krasimir. "We are an EU country, even if we are the poorest one." He studied in the Netherlands where he was impressed to find "public institutions that serve the best interests of the citizens." Bulgarians still abroad have also joined the movement, with solidarity protests in several German cities, as well as in Brussels, Vienna and Copenhagen. - Borisov stands firm - Borisov has already had to resign twice during his 11-year dominance of Bulgarian politics, but he has refused to throw in the towel this time. He has announced a sweeping cabinet reshuffle, but said he would not step down with a further virus-related crisis possibly around the corner. In any case, critics want much more. "It's not a question of their resignation but of the mode of governing," 34-year-old IT entrepreneur Pasko Paskov told AFP, blaming stifling bureaucracy and poor leadership for Bulgaria's failure to win foreign investment, which has collapsed in recent years. For some, however, the protests are a sign of hope. Nikola Dimitrov, a 29-year-old who returned from his studies in London four years ago to work in a clinical trials company, says he is determined to stay despite asking himself numerous times: "Why am I still in Bulgaria?" He says the protests show that many feel the same. "Among the protesters there are many people with doctorate degrees from foreign universities or with professional experience in international institutions, ready to take over," added opposition MEP Radan Kanev. Moreover, the government may be a victim of its own relative success in recent years. Pre-pandemic growth of 3.4 percent in 2019, fuelled partly by a fledgling tech sector, has helped create a new cadre of voters who compare Bulgaria to the West and are demanding representation, Boriana Dimitrova, head of the Alpha Research institute, told AFP. "Even if these protests fizzle out, this new generation will carry on searching for their place in the system, their energy won't disappear," she said. Borisov as a clown at a Sofia protest. Thousands have marched against corruption in recent weeks. Borisov has already had to resign twice in his political career.
This story was originally published by Undark and has been republished here with permission.

This piece has been republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Across the United States, people are pushing for the removal of Confederate officers names from buildings, schools, and army bases, as protests against racial injustice continue in the wake of George Floyds death at the hands of Minneapolis police in May.

Something much smaller has also elicited debate over its Confederate name: McCowns longspur, a bird that lives in the Great Plains and looks a bit like a sparrow. It was named after John Porter McCown, who was involved in forcible relocations of Native Americans during the 1840s and who left the United States Army to serve as a Confederate general during the Civil War.

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By memorializing someone who fought to defend slavery, the longspurs name, some birders and scientists say, adds further barriers to inclusion in the world of bird researchers and enthusiastsan overwhelmingly white community where people of color have repeatedly reported feeling ignored, excluded, and even deeply unsafe.

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The names of various animals, plants, and natural features have faced criticism over the years.

Naming and language have power. The way that you use language tells people whether they belong or not, said Earyn McGee, a Ph.D. student in conservation biology at the University of Arizona and an organizer of Black Birders Week, an online campaign to celebrate and increase visibility of Black birders and nature enthusiasts. When scientists refuse to stop using terms that are steeped in racism, she added, that tells Black people and other people of color that they dont matter, that theyre not important.

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Last year, the North American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society (AOS), passed on a chance to rename McCowns longspur, citing the importance of maintaining stability in bird names. More recently, after Black Birders Week, the AOS proclaimed that it would be increasing efforts for inclusivity. Many birders and scientists say that these efforts should include renaming bird species saddled with names that are racist relics of the past. Their advocacy has spurred a petition and social media campaign, brought new scrutiny to AOS naming procedures, and, in the process, launched debates about how scientific communities should reckon with the racist and colonial history embedded in nomenclature.

In response, the AOS has announced that it is revisiting the name of McCowns longspur this summer. In a recent blog post, the organization expressed appreciation for the outpouring of sentiment, writing that the opposition to such names has highlighted the need to address potential relics of systemic oppression.

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Ive been an AOS member for two years now, and I think that this should be their utmost priority, said Juita Martinez, a Ph.D. student at the University of LouisianaLafayette and a fellow Black Birders Week organizer. Multiple people in high-up positions in neighboring ornithological groups have spoken out with their thoughts and have given really, really great solutions to this problem. So, they really have no excuse for not changing these names.

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Ornithology is not the only field confronting these issues. The names of various animals, plants, and natural features have faced criticism over the years, including a beetle named for Hitler; a lizard named for surveyor Howard Stansbury, who was involved in massacring people of the Timpanogos Nation in Utah; and a lily with a common name containing a deeply offensive racial slur.

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Species receive a Latinized scientific name (e.g., Felis catus) as well as a common name (e.g., domestic cat). Among birders, naming rights have historically gone to the scientist who discovered a speciesmeaning the first person to publish a description in a scientific journal. Those researchers often named birds in honor of another naturalist or after the person who collected the bird. McCown, for example, shot his eponymous longspur in 1851 and sent the specimen to an amateur naturalist, who then described it in a scientific journal and named it in his honor.

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The dustup over the longspurs name began in 2018, when Robert Driver, a graduate student studying birds at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, submitted a proposal to the North American Classification Committee (NACC) of the AOS to change the birds name, citing McCowns position in the Confederate Army. McCown, Driver wrote, fought for the right of states to preserve slavery. All researchers, he argued, should be able to conduct future research on any bird without feeling excluded, uncomfortable, or shame when they hear or say the name of the bird.

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The NACC maintains the Check-List of North American Birds, an authoritative catalog that is widely used by ornithologists, birders, museum curators, field guide writers, and government officials. A taxonomic philosophy, outlined in the preface to the checklist, explains that the NACC will avoid hasty declarations that risk quick reversal and follow the time-honored tradition of previous Committees in being conservative and cautious when judging new proposals.

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The nine-person committee rejected Drivers proposal by a vote of 71, with one abstention. In anonymous written responses, several committee members argued that the group should favor stability in names as much as possible, reflecting the checklists taxonomic philosophy. Some worried about making the change without having a clear policy in place for other ethically fraught names. It is widely known that judging historical figures by current moral standards is problematic, unfair to some degree, and rarely black-and-white, one wrote.

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Others questioned whether renaming birds was the best way to promote inclusion: While I fully appreciate and promote our need to increase diversity in the sciences, in my view this is not a particularly effective way to do so, another committee member wrote.

Some comments argued that McCowns contributions to ornithology deserved recognition, and one pointed to his later disavowal of the Confederacy as a damned stinking cotton oligarchy. One committee members remarks also suggested that serving in the Confederate Army simply wasnt that bad. In the case of McCown, the only negative I really see for him is that he chose to go with the Confederates rather than the Union when the Civil War broke out, the member wrote. But I see no evidence he was involved with slavery. (Decades of historical work have documented that the Confederate Army primarily existed to defend the institution of slavery.)

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The NACC membership is all white. An AOS spokesperson confirmed to Undark that the committee did not consult any Black scientists before making its ruling.

The committee did not consult any Black scientists before making its ruling.

Many birders found the committees arguments unconvincing. Regarding stability, McGee said, the idea that we should do things a certain way because thats how theyve always been done isnt a good enough excuse.

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Sara Lipshutz, a postdoctoral fellow in biology at Indiana UniversityBloomington, wrote in an email to Undark that she was frustrated with the value placed on stability. Yes, it is confusing to learn new bird names, and would take more money and energy to make new field guides, she wrote. But this already happens when we learn new genetic information leading to species being split or collapsed. To me, changing names is worth it, if it means a more inclusive birding community.

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Many in the birding community also questioned the assertion that renaming the bird was an ineffective way to promote inclusion. Jason Ward, host of the documentary series Birds of North America and founder of the group Black AF in STEM, an online community of Black scientists, said that birding is not really the most accessible hobby, for a lot of different reasons, including the cost of gear like binoculars and cameras and accessibility of green spaces: I dont think we should make that road even tougher by having names that evoke bad memories or horrible times in our country.

Drivers longspur proposal did instigate some changes. In 2019, after the ruling, NACC developed a new naming policy, in consultation with the AOS Committee on Diversity and Inclusion, in which it acknowledged the possibility of changing offensive names. The policy states that a name could be changed because of the namesakes involvement in reprehensible events and that the Committee strives to strike a balance that recognizes the principle of nomenclatural stability while respecting circumstances in which names should be reconsidered to reflect present-day ethical principles or to avoid ongoing harm.

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When nationwide protests against racial injustice began this May, though, the longspur still had its name. A petition calling for the renaming of McCowns longspur and other species, led by birders Jordan Rutter and Gabriel Foley with the help of others in the birding community, soon collected hundreds of signatures. The #BirdNamesForBirds Twitter campaign drew additional attention to honorifics associated with racism and colonialism.

On June 30, the AOS announced that it was preparing to reevaluate the name of the longspur. Members of the NACC, the AOS leadership team, and the AOS Committee on Diversity and Inclusion did not respond to interview requests from Undark, but, in an emailed statement provided on behalf of the NACC, Christine Schmidt, a spokesperson for AOS, explained that this decision had been motivated by a change in social perception on racial issues, particularly in recent weeks.

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Regardless of McCowns ornithological accomplishments and the fact that the bird name predates the Confederacy, to many, McCown is perceived as a symbol of slavery and racism for the simple reason that he resigned his officers commission in the U.S. Army to fight for the Confederacy, the NACC explained in their statement. This perception feels more important now than it did even six weeks ago, let alone in 2018.

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Many birders and researchers believe that renaming shouldnt be limited to the longspur. In interviews with Undark, Martinez, Driver, and others pointed out that McCown is certainly not the only figure associated with racist violence whose memory is honored by a bird name.

The Townsends warbler, for example, is a pleasantly round-looking bird with a black and yellow face, named for the 19th century American naturalist John Kirk Townsend, as is another bird, the Townsends solitaire. Its very well documented that he robbed the graves of Native American tribes, says Martinez. The pioneering birder John Audubon, whose legacy is memorialized in two bird names and by the National Audubon Society, also raided Native American graves, Martinez points out: So, if youre going to change the McCowns, you need to change the Townsends, the Audubonshe was trafficking human remains as well. Changing one name does not solve the whole problem.

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Other bird experts have questioned the very practice of naming North American birds after the white men who supposedly discovered them. The whole act of naming [an organism] after a personthis happens obviously outside birds tooits inherently a really colonial act, says Jess McLaughlin, a Ph.D. student studying neotropical birds at the University of Oklahoma. In a way, its implicitly being like the most important thing for you to know about a bird is that this white guy saw it.  But, McLaughlin said, many people already had an intimate knowledge of these birds.

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McLaughlin and some other researchers suggest that birds shouldnt be named after people at all. The landscape of birding is changing, says Ward. Why not change these bird names as well? I say throw them all out the window and rename all the birds named after old, dead, white ornithologists.

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Instead, Ward points out that many birds are named after their behaviors, their preferred habitat, or their physical features, and these characteristics could be used to rename birds like the longspur as well. [McCowns longspur] is common in the Great Plains, so we could call this bird the prairie longspur, says Ward. If you look at the bird, it also has a beautiful, red-colored, chestnut-colored patch on its wings. Birders have so many different names for red. So, we could call this bird the rufous-winged longspur or the chestnut-winged longspur.

McLaughlin says another option would be to use Indigenous names, noting that in some places, including Hawaii and New Zealand, birds have common names that are in Indigenous languages, not English.

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There are signs that naming conventions are changingamong bird people, and in scientific and geographic classification more broadly. In 2015, ornithologists in Sweden officially renamed several birds whose original names had racist connotations. Across Canada, First Nation names for natural features like rivers are being restored. After 40 years of efforts, Mount McKinley was officially restored to its Alaska Native name, Denali, in 2015.

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Many birders hope they will not have to wait 40 years for McCowns longspur to get a new name. An AOS spokesperson said the committee will announce its decision on renaming later this month or in early August. The committee indicated that it would consider any future name changes on a case-by-case basis. It will likely do so under continued pressure from many birders, who in the past have been disappointed by what they see as a lukewarm response from the NACC.

Those kinds of scientific names are ignoring other peoples lived experiences and culture and ignoring the historical background of this country, says McGee. Its important to make sure that the way we say things and what we call things is inclusive to everybody.
The ministry continues to be in touch with missions on specific demands for repatriation from students.

New Delhi: Over 7.88 lakh Indians have returned from abroad after the government launched the "Vande Bharat" evacuation mission on May 7 in view of the coronavirus p andemic, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Thursday.

Under the Phase 4 of the Vande Bharat mission, a total of 1,197 flights have been scheduled so far, including 945 international flights and 252 feeder flights, MEA Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said at a media briefing.

"These flights are operated by the Air India group, IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir. They cover 29 countries. They will be reaching 34 airports in India," he said.

Of these, 694 flights have reached India as on July 22, repatriating nearly one lakh people so far, he said.

Phase 4 is expected to continue until August 2, by which time around 80,000 more people are expected to return, Srivastava said.

"As on 22nd July, 7,88,217 Indian nationals have returned. 1,03,976 Indians have returned from Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh by land borders," he said.

Noting that the Ministry of Civil Aviation had announced establishment of bilateral bubbles with some countries, the MEA spokesperson said that between July 22 and August 31, Air India will be operating 30 flights a week to the US (New York, Chicago, Washington, New Jersey and San Francisco), four flights a week to Germany (Frankfurt) and three flights a week to France (Paris).

The ministry continues to be in touch with missions on specific demands for repatriation from students completing their courses abroad, workers and other stranded Indians with compelling reasons, he said.

As regards to repatriation from Kyrgyzstan, Srivastava said India is scheduling additional flights.

"In fact, a number of such flights are scheduled and we are hopeful that with these additional flights we will be able to repatriate more and more of our students from there," he said.

Twenty-five flights have been arranged from Bishkek to 13 destinations in India from July 3 to 30, the MEA Spokesperson said.

"When the current phase of Vande Bharat culminates, we would have 88 flights which would have brought back nearly 13,600 Indian nationals and this includes students," Srivastava said.

There was a restriction on chartered flights due to the COVID situation in Kyrgyzstan, but as a result of the intervention of the Indian ambassador, India could obtain an exemption for such flights of operate, he said.
India's Ambassador to Russia Venkatesh Varma on Thursday said that New Delhi has made it clear it will not do business with China as usual until there is a complete disengagement of military forces along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and de-escalation in Eastern Ladakh.

"While India seeks to resolve these problems through dialogue, we have made it clear that we will not do business with China as usual until there is a complete disengagement of military forces along the Line of Actual Control and de-escalation in the border areas in accordance with bilateral agreements and protocols. As Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi noted, this is an era of development, and the era of expansion has come to an end," Varma said in an interview to Izvestia newspaper.

"India and China are negotiating through diplomatic and military channels about the situation on the LAC in border areas between the two countries," he said. "Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and NSA Ajit Doval have conducted talks with their Chinese counterparts."

Varma said that India does not believe in trade war with any country. "The ban on some Chinese apps is a measure to ensure digital security," he added.

India has banned 59 mobile apps with links to China, including TikTok, on the grounds of compromising national security, integrity and defence.

Varma said India and Russia share common interests, so that the Indo-Pacific region becomes a region of peace, stability and economic prosperity and prevents any country from seeking unilateral advantage at the cost of the entire region.

We believe that the Indo-Pacific Concept is aimed at promoting cooperation, connectivity and compliance with international law and norms, in one of the most significant parts of the world," he added.
US President Donald Trump sees China as a threat, Republican leader and Indian American Nikki Haley said, adding that she would campaign and work "very hard" to get him re-elected in the November elections.

Addressing the virtual India Ideas Summit organized by US India Business Council, Haley said on Wednesday that the threat China poses to the US would be one of the factors in the November presidential elections. "I think that (security threat from China) will be one factor (in the elections). I think that you have president Trump who very much sees China as a ...
BIG RAPIDS  A Stanwood woman arrested for possession of methamphetamine was bound over to Mecosta County's 49th Circuit Court on Wednesday.

Tara D. Zuern, 42, pleaded guilty to one count of possession of methamphetamine Wednesday in Mecosta County's 77th District Court, and her case was subsequently bound over to circuit court.

According to court records, Zuern is scheduled to appear again in court for sentencing at 9:15 a.m. on Aug. 31.

Codefendent Amy L. Panek, a Mecosta County-based attorney, also faces one count of delivery of methamphetamine and one count of possession of methamphetamine. She was also charged as a second-time habitual offender.

Panek, 44, was bound over to Mecosta County's 49th Circuit Court in June, but a sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled in her case.

The charges stem from an ongoing investigation conducted by the Central Michigan Enforcement Team.

Det. Lt. Joel Abendroth told the Pioneer his department arrested Panek on March 5 after pulling her over during a traffic stop and accompanying her to her home in Colfax Township, where she was subsequently arrested.

Abendroth declined to comment on the alleged amount of methamphetamine found in Panek's possession at the time of the arrest.

Zuern was arrested during a traffic stop a few days after Panek's arrest, Abendroth said.

Panek is a defense attorney at Panek Law Office PC in Rodney. She was sworn in to the State Bar of Michigan in 2016.

Zuern is being represented by Mount Pleasant-based attorney Dan O'Neil and Panek is being represented by Cadillac-based attorney Ravi R. Gurumurthy.

Both codefendants are free on bond. Zuern is continuing daily reporting as a condition of her personal recognizance bond.
Jaipur, July 23 : At a time when Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has been accusing the BJP of horse trading and making all efforts to topple his government amid the Covid-19 crisis, the state BJP chief has also showered a barrage of questions on the CM saying that his party should set its own house in order before pointing fingers at others.

As the political back-and-forth continues, IANS spoke exclusively to BJP state president Satish Poonia who brushes aside allegations of BJP helping Sachin Pilot who was sacked as PCC chief and Deputy CM recently, claiming that leaders of such cadre have their own influence and fan following. Poonia says that Pilot can be Chief Minister if the situation allows.

A few excerpts from the interview: Q: Your party has been accused of giving political shelter to Sachin Pilot who has been sacked as Deputy CM and PCC chief by Congress. What is your take on these allegations? A: Sachin Pilot has been the Deputy CM of the state since last one-and-a-half years. He has also been the PCC chief of Rajasthan since last six years. He has his own stature. In fact, political leaders of his rank have their own influence and following. Why should BJP be blamed for giving him patronage? Allegations made by CM are beyond reality.

In fact, the CM himself has been giving patronage to his own MLAs from Gujarat and MP and has been playing resort politics in Rajasthan since last many months.

Now, why can't Pilot too have his own support from his own party workers in other states? In fact, he is a national leader who has a strong support of people around.

Q: Which side is Rajasthan politics going? Can Mr Pilot be the CM of the state? A: If the situation allows, Sachin Pilot can become the Chief Minister. In fact, he has taken a big step with this goal in mind. Meanwhile, the matter is subjudice in present conditions and hence it will be too early to judge the facts.

Firstly, he is the one who needs to decide what will be his next step and then we will take a call.

But one fact is clear that the Gehlot government stands on verge of collapse as they will be left with wafer-thin majority if 19 MLAs including Pilot and 3 independents who are out from Congress camp, leave the government.

Q: What shall be the BJP's role in such circumstances? A: BJP is monitoring all developments. As we are the party with the highest mandate after Congress, we will definitely discuss the issue with our central leaders and parliamentary board and then take a call.

Q: Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat has been accused of horse trading MLAs. What is BJP's stand in the issue? A: Vendetta politics is being played by the CM against Shekhawat to avenge the defeat of his son during Lok Sabha elections from his home constituency Jodhpur. He wanted his son to settle down, however, he failed to garner votes even from his home seat which once stood undefeated.

Now, the state government is playing all illegal means to prove him as accused. The phone tapping audio which has been released by the party has smashed all legal norms. Did they follow legal process before tapping phones of their own leaders and ministers? Surprisingly, the ACS Home said he has no information about any tapping instance.

So there are questions raised why they were surveilling their own leaders. It's clear that they don't trust them.

Q: What all norms seem to be flouted here? The Congress leaders speak of democracy but themselves flout all norms. In Rajasthan, as per the law, people representatives can be investigated by CID, CB officials and not by SOG. But the Gehlot government is flouting norms by letting SOG chase public representatives.

Even when one state government SOG team enters another state, certain norms need to be followed. However, here, no coordination was made with Haryana police.

Further Congress in its 2019 manifesto has proposed to remove Section 124 (a) which finds reference in British era and was slapped on freedom fighter Lokmanya Tilak. Now, it is using the same section in its own state.

In third contradiction to norms, Congress officials have made the FIR filed by SOG public naming Congress MLA Bhanwarlal Sharma, Rajendra Singh and a broker Sanjay Jain even at a time when the norms say that the FIR in sexual offences, POCSO and sedition charges cannot be disclosed in public.

Surprisingly, Randeep Surjewala read the transcript of tapping in public going against the norms. CM OSD Lokesh Kumar also released the phone tapping audio on social media going against the norms and hence they have been trapped in the biggest criminal offence.

Q: Mr Gehlot says he has a majority on his side and he shall call the house soon? What is your view in this regard? A: Mr Gehlot would not have been herding his MLAs in Fairmont Hotel over last one week if he had the majority numbers. During the first CLP meeting at his residence, the party said that they have 109 MLAs with them, however, 19 MLAs were camping in Haryana at that time which came out later. So they have been lying.

Out of 125, (101 Congress, 1 RLD, 13 Independents, 2 BTP, 2 CPM), 19 Congress MLAs and 3 independents are already showing support to Pilot. The ruling govt tortured BTP MLAs, packed them in a car, took away their keys and next day, they have had to stand with Gehlot showing their support. This is how they are bringing support in their favour.

CPM has already announced that it shall stand apart in floor test while one of their MLAs has been suspended by party for casting vote towards Congress in Rajya Sabha polls. One of the Congress MLAs is unwell. Out of 199-membered house, they have 99-100 members as of now which is a thin margin. However, we are waiting for things to unfold.

Q: They are blaming BJP for running the show from behind? A: It's sad that they failed to check the family dispute on time and now are blaming us for the same. Soon after the party came in power, the differences were clearly seen between CM and Deputy CM. However, no one tried to remove those differences. Recently the CM also accepted that since last one-and-a-half years, he was not on talking terms with Pilot.

Surprisingly, he also says that if he comes back, he shall hug him. So such contradictions have made things worse and surprisingly we are being blamed. We are nowhere in the picture. Basically, it is a mistake of high command who preferred sitting with folded hands instead of taking any action. Surprisingly, even now, AICC leaders including Randeep Surjewala, Avinash Pandey, Ajay Maken are camping here, but it is unclear how they are resolving the present crisis in the party.

The CM flashes a victory sign when his own house is collapsing. Isn't it a contradiction which should be checked by Congress high command?
Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the September 19 governorship election in Edo State, has fired back at a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Captain Idahosa Wells Okunbo, known as Captain Hosa, over the accusation that the Edo governor is behind the misfortunes that have befallen his businesses after he had assisted Obaseki to become governor.

Obaseki in a long letter to Capt. Hosa, acknowledged the three-page advertorial he sponsored in some Nigerian newspapers of Monday July 20, 2020, entitled: An Open Letter to President Muhammadu Buhari and The Good People of Edo State: Please Urge Governor Obaseki to Leave me Alone.

The governor declared: In your lengthy and convoluted missive, you accused me of being the mastermind of all your recent misfortunes, which range from the sublime to the ridiculous.

I sincerely empathise with you over these unfortunate and negative incidents but hereby state without equivocation, that I am innocent of all you have accused me of.

Obaseki stated: those who have worked with me can attest to the fact that I do not have the propensity to inflict evil or pains, especially, of the scale you alleged, on any man or woman.

I couldnt have been shopping for businesses abroad while at the same time destroying the ones owned by Edo sons and daughters like you. My background and record bear witness to the fact that all my working career have been devoted to creating, supporting and sustaining businesses and investments.

Obaseki further said: Even beyond my personal policies, I am under oath as Governor to guarantee the security and safety of persons and property and ensuring the greatest level of happiness to the greatest number of Edo citizens.

Governor Obaseki, thereafter, provided corrections on some of Hosas allegations, as follows:

I. As Chairman of the National Executive Council Ad-Hoc Committee on Crude Oil Theft Prevention and Control, the records would indicate that the eventual report actually favoured you and your company, despite the strong complaints from the competition and some clients about the astronomical cost of the services offered by your company.

II. On the Secure Anchorage Area Ltd (SAA) operations, your accusation against me in this regard is blatantly false and without foundation. The Honourable Minister of Transport, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, is alive today to bear witness to the extensive effort I made on your behalf to resolve your problems with the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).

III. On the complaints regarding the non-commissioning of your farm project by Mr. President, it would appear that you are not aware that the President had a mere five-hour visit to Edo State and his itinerary was entirely put together by the Presidential Protocol Team and further vetted by the Department of State Services (DSS). They came to the conclusion that the commissioning of your farm project could not be included on the Presidents visit. Neither I nor the Edo State Government had anything to do with that decision.

The Governor remarked that as a brother, he has been struggling to situate the probable source of the retired Captains outlandish claims and wrong assessment of his character. The attributed that Capt. Hosas perception to relating with the wrong people who misled him.

Without a doubt, I am convinced that you must have been talking and consulting with the wrong people in your search for an honest assessment of my personality.

It is disappointing that despite our close family relationship, you could allow yourself to be convinced that I would do anything to hurt you or your business interests.

You will recall that over a year ago in my house (at the early stages when the intrigues of the godfather began to manifest), I had advised you to steer clear of the battle which was going to be an epic one to get rid of the choking influence of the godfather from our political life. I knew at that time that the godfather was desperately shopping for allies of Edo South extraction to assist him in his obsessive quest to continue his choking and unproductive dominance in the affairs of our state.

It is unfortunate that you fell prey to the recruitment drive of the godfather and you have now found yourself in the position where you are actively working against the interest of your own people.

Governor Obaseki disclosed that he had received a fair share of attacks for undertaking to serve the people and develop Edo State. He added that ae has been humiliated, undermined and his age-old business and family name ridiculed by the godfather and his agents, simply because he refused to do his bidding, and deprive millions of Edo people the good life that they rightfully deserve.

Obaseki noted: this is what comes with the terrain when any person involves himself in politics and the consequences that follow.

In all of these, I have no regrets whatsoever. I am certainly not paranoid about anybody. I remain committed and focused because the wellbeing and gratitude of the people, on whose side I have chosen to fight, namely; civil servants, pensioners, traders, the youths, farmers, drivers and the millions of other professionals and non-professionals in our state, are sufficient rewards.

The governor, however, expressed sadness that Hosa have made himself the face of the forces that seek the continuous dominance of the godfather in Edo politics and has, thereby, exposed himself to charlatans and opportunists who are now preying on his inner fears and insecurities to distort the real issues on ground.

Governor Obaseki said he is not opposed to Hosas decision to align with any political interest; he advised him to be conscious of the dynamics of politics.

Obaseki, accordingly, declared: I respect your right to make your political choices and to support any political interests you consider appropriate. I also acknowledge your freedom to freely associate with any political tendencies that you find acceptable.

But you must recognise that the world of politics is not a tea party and the choices that we make in life always come at a cost and we should all have the courage to bear and accept the consequences associated with those choices we have freely made.
Congressman Jim Costa has urged immediate actions condemning the Azerbaijani disgraceful actions amid the escalation of tensions on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

"The topic I rise today to call attention to the escalating violence that is occurring in the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

Beginning July 12th, the Azerbaijani soldiers approached the Armenian border, a place that has been one of contention and opened fire on Armenian civilians," he noted. "The Azerbaijani armed forces have been indiscriminate in attacking Armenian schools, factories, factories producing personal protective equipment that are essential during this pandemic."

"Azerbaijan must be held accountable," he added. "It is critical now more than ever that we work towards peace with Artsakh."

"We must reevaluate US security assistance to Azerbaijan immediately. They are not being appropriate in their actions, as well as increased aid Armenia to counter this aggression."

"I urge immediate actions condemning the Azerbaijani disgraceful actions," the congressman concluded added.
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PRO Unlimited is a pioneer in purely vendor-neutral contingent workforce management software and services. What companies see on-site is just the tip of the iceberg. Our teams consistently use an army of subject matter experts behind the scenes to seamlessly drive delivery and best practices.

PRO Unlimited, a pioneer in purely vendor-neutral contingent workforce management software and services, has been named a finalist by The British Quality Foundation (BQF) UK Excellence Awards for providing an exceptional customer experience. The award recognizes PROs team members  ranging from IRS auditors, labor attorneys and economists to staffing industry and procurement veterans  for their commitment to outstanding client service.

PROs MSP assimilates into each organizations culture to ensure it is communicating and delivering effectively in each unique environment. The company provides high-touch, white-glove service to every stakeholder involved with the sourcing, management, reporting and analysis of contingent labor.

Were proud to have an MSP team that is recognized by the BQF UK Excellence Awards for our clients continued success, said Andrew Popler, Executive Vice President at PRO Unlimited. What companies see on-site is just the tip of the iceberg. Our teams consistently use an army of subject matter experts behind the scenes to seamlessly drive delivery and best practices.

Popler added, Clients comment that their experience with PRO includes both daily excellence and total long-term reliance to author and execute a progressive vision for their programs.

The BQF UK Excellence Awards celebrate companies that represent superior customer support, employee engagement and leadership. The finalists of each award category are identified through a robust assessment by an experienced team of trained evaluators using the EFQM Excellence Model, one of the highest accolades any company in the United Kingdom can achieve. PRO was recognized for its domain expertise and key program wins, including cost savings, worker quality and risk management.

About PRO Unlimited

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The BQF is the premier membership organization that represents excellence and performance improvement in the UK. It is an independent nonprofit with an extensive track record of helping companies learn from best practice, improve their performance and achieve sustainable excellence. It uses tools such as the EFQM Excellence Model and Lean Six Sigma. As EFQMs primary partner in England and Wales, it is the official assessor training provider that offers the full range of EFQM products and services.

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Bengaluru, July 23 : Defiant opposition Karnataka Congress on Thursday harped on corruption charges against the BJP government in purchase of medical equipment for COVID-19 treatment across the state.

"Though Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa denied our charges, we have evidence of corruption in purchase of masks, personnel protection equipment (PPE) kits, oxygen cylinders and ventilators by the state government since April," thundered Congress legislature party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah, releasing a set documents in Kannada at a news conference here.

Refuting the state government's claims of spending only Rs 333 crore till date on buying medical equipment and supplies, including medicines, the former Congress Chief Minister (2013-2018) told reporters that as per documents he has, the state government spent a whopping Rs 4,167 crore, with at least Rs 2,000 crore pocketed by some ministers and officials.

"According to information and official documents I have, the state government has procured medical kits at a higher rate than others states spent on them.

aThe state has purchased hundreds of ventilators at exorbitant rate ranging from Rs 5.60 lakh per unit Rs 12.32 lakh and Rs 18.20 lakh on three occasions, while the central government got 50,000 ventilators at Rs 4-lakh per unit and Tamil Nadu paid Rs 4.78 lakh pet unit," asserted Siddaramaiah.

Accusing the nearly year-ago BJP government of foul play in buying PPEs,A party's state unit president D.K. Shivakumar said 3.5-lakh kits were bought from a Maharashtra firm for Rs 2,117 per kit when their market price was Rs 330 per unit and 1.25 kits were withdrawn as they were of poor quality.

The opposition leaders also alleged that the Chief Minister approved importing 3 lakh PPE kits from China for Rs 94.2 crore when Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been talking about self-reliance (atmanirbar) and 'Made in India'.

Similarly, about 10-lakh masks were purchased at Rs 250 per each by the health department while the social welfare department paid Rs 600 for the same quality mask.

"About 300 oxymetres were purchased for Rs 13.10 crore at a cost of Rs 4.36 lakh for each, while Kerala spent Rs 2.86 lakh for the same quantity," claimed Siddaramaiah.

As per the documents, Siddaramaiah said the health department expenditure in April was Rs 1,554 crore and Rs 1,768 crore in May, totaling Rs 3,322 crore.

"We demand a judicial inquiry by a high court judge in the purchases of medical kits by the state government since April," asserted Siddaramaiah.

State Deputy Chief Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan and Revenue Minister R. Ashoka, however, denied the graft charges by the Congress. Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai ruled out an inquiry into the charges, terming them baseless and irresponsible.
CHICAGO - President Donald Trump offered few details when he announced this week that the government will dispatch hundreds of extra federal agents to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to fight an uptick in violent crime.

The absence of a clear, publicly available plan has left city leaders, residents and even federal agencies to speculate about exactly what will happen and when. Heres a look at whats known so far:

Q: WHAT DO TRUMP AND OTHER FEDERAL OFFICIALS SAY?

A: Trump said hundreds of agents will be drawn from the Justice Department, which includes the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The number of agents involved is not clear. Attorney General Bill Barr suggested at one point that around 200 new agents could end up in Chicago.

A Justice Department press release said Chicago would receive 100 new federal investigators. It also said 100 officers from the U.S. Marshals Service and 100 from the Homeland Security Department would be reassigned to the Chicago portion of a crime-fighting effort known as Operation Legend, which was launched last month in Kansas City, Missouri. Many of those agents are already based in and around Chicago. The release said Albuquerque would get more than 25 new federal investigators.

On Thursday, the Justice Department said it also planned to send agents to Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee in coming weeks.

Q: IS THIS DEPLOYMENT SIMILAR TO THE ONE INVOLVING PORTLAND, OREGON?

A: It doesnt seem so. Federal agents wearing camouflage without clear identification hit the streets in Portland to protect federal property amid demonstrations against police brutality. Some of the agents were accused of beating unarmed protesters, even throwing some into unmarked vehicles.

For now, the plan for Chicago and Albuquerque does not seem to include federal agents engaging with protesters. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and Barr both said the mission in Chicago and Albuquerque would differ from the mission in Portland.

Q: WHATS TRUMPS MOTIVATION?

A: Thats not entirely clear. He said Wednesday he wanted to quell what he called a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence. He added: This bloodshed will end.

But he didnt shy away from trying to score political points. He blamed Democrats who lead cities like Chicago and Albuquerque for the spikes in violence.

The federal intervention seems to be part of a campaign strategy to claim the mantle of law-and-order president. His administration last week also resumed federal executions after a 17-year hiatus, potentially providing Trump further grounds for the claim.

Democrats have accused the president of trying to distract attention from his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Q: WHERE WILL THE AGENTS COME FROM?

A: Its not clear yet. But the number of agents and their agencies will be telling. If more agents come from the ATF, that suggests the governments focus is on solving gun crimes. More agents from the DEA would indicate an emphasis on trafficking, cartels and drug-dealing street gangs.

It also isnt clear how many agents will be assigned to U.S. attorneys offices to help investigate gun crimes and gang conspiracies that underpin much of the violence.

Q: IS THIS PART OF AN EXISTING PROGRAM?

A: Yes. The Trump administration announced July 8 that it was sending more than 200 agents to Kansas City, Missouri, under Operation Legend, which was named after 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was fatally shot while sleeping in a Kansas City apartment last month.

The agents in Kansas City were to investigate homicides, shootings and violent crime in co-operation with local law enforcement agencies, officials said.

Operation Legend has no relationship whatsoever to protests, marches and demonstrations, Don Ledford, spokesman for the U.S. attorneys office for the western district of Missouri, said earlier this week.

Q: HAS THIS HAPPENED BEFORE?

A: Yes. For decades, administrations have dispatched extra federal agents to cities during surges of violence, natural disasters and other crises.

In December, the Trump administration launched a crime-fighting initiative called Operation Relentless Pursuit, which boosted federal resources for seven cities. It also committed more than $70 million in federal grants to hire new officers and purchase new equipment, among other things.

Q: WHATS THE DIFFERENCE THIS TIME?

A: An obvious difference is that agents are being sent during historic protests over police brutality. The deployments are also happening amid criticism that the Trump administration is already being too heavy handed.

If the administration dispatches hundreds of agents at a time, that is far greater than previous deployments.

In 2017, for instance, the administration dispatched around 20 extra ATF agents to Chicago to help address gun violence months after the president tweeted that, If Chicago doesnt fix the horrible carnage going on  I will send in the Feds! The new agents joined around 35 ATF agents already based in the city.

Q: IS TRUMP RIGHT THAT VIOLENT CRIME IS OUT OF CONTROL?

A: Its true that violent crime has jumped in some cities in the wake of protests and as stay-at-home orders eased. Chicagos homicide rate is up 51%, with 414 killings this year compared to 275 over the same period last year, according to police department data.

But crime overall is down in most U.S. cities. In Chicago, criminal sexual assaults have fallen 19% and thefts 26% so far this year compared to the same period last year.

Q: HOW HAVE CITIES REACTED?

A: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot sounded alarmed in recent weeks as the Trump administration raised the prospect of more aggressive federal intervention.

But since this weeks announcement about sending additional federal agents, shes struck a cautiously optimistic chord, saying she was encouraged that the U.S. attorneys office would supervise at least some of the agents.

If those agents work in partnership with existing federal efforts to curb violence, not trying to play police in our streets, then thats something different, she said.

She also said that if there are steps out of line, she will take the president to court.

__

Associated Press writers Colleen Long and Jill Colvin in Washington, Don Babwin and Kathleen Foody in Chicago and Margaret Stafford in Kansas City also contributed to this report.
NEW HAVEN  Mayor Justin Elicker wants it to be clear: New Haven is a welcoming city.

That means protecting all residents, including undocumented immigrants and other vulnerable residents.

This will make a big difference for our community, said John Lugo, who founded Unidad Latina en Accion, an advocacy group in New Haven more than a decade ago.

Lugo and other advocates attended a press conference in front of City Hall where Mayor Justin Elicker introduced a strengthened pledge to protect those groups being targeted by the administration of President Donald Trump, which in addition to the undocumented, include Muslims.

The executive order is an update of one signed in 2019 by former Mayor Toni Harp.

Lugo said the next step is to ask the Board of Alders to turn this into a law. The alders were noticeable by their absence, with the exception of Alder Kampton Singh, D-5.

We are an immigrant community, forging this multicultural identity from years and years of many ethnic enclaves coming here to make the Elm City their home. It is in the spirit of that unique identity that makes me so proud to sign this executive order so that we can continue to protect all residents regardless of their background, Elicker said.

The order prohibits the New Haven Police Department from asking about ones immigration status unless required by state or federal Law. It ;also prohibits city employees from engaging in activities designed to determine ones immigration status and using city resources to enforce or assist in the investigation or enforcement of any federal program.

Additionally, it prohibits city employees from disclosing confidential information such as a Social Security number, or any information regarding ones sexual orientation, status as a crime witness, public assistance status or immigration status.

It also requires the citys Office of Human Resources to conduct necessary training and education to ensure all city employees and departments know of the executive order. If anyone is in violation of the order, they are subject to discipline in accordance with union contract, civil service rules or department work rules.

It further prohibits local law enforcement, school police, and security departments from using their resources to inquire about the immigration status of crime victims, witnesses or others who call or approach local law enforcement personnel, school police or security personnel seeking assistance.

It also does not allow the detaining or arrest a person solely on the belief that she or he is not present legally in the United States, or that she/he has committed a civil immigration violation; detain or arrest a person, based on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer requests or administrative warrants entered by ICE into the FBIs National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database, unless required by law.

The speakers said the purpose of the executive order is to not only benefit New Haven, but to serve as a template for other cities to emulate.

The citys move comes two days after President Donald Trump Tuesday issued a memorandum clarifying that illegal aliens are not to be included for the purpose of apportionment of Representatives following the 2020 census, a move that is expected to be challenged in the courts.

New Haven has a record of protecting the undocumented.

Following the introduction of municipal ID cards in 2007, an idea that stemmed from local immigration activism to allow IDs for undocumented residents, then-Mayor John DeStefano Jr. also issued the first order to police forbidding them from inquiring about the immigration status of people reporting crimes, effectively a dont ask, dont tell order.

Soon after the introduction of the ID card, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers conducted raids in New Haven, arresting 32 residents. Eventually, with the help of the Workers and Immigrant Rights Clinic at Yale Law School, 30 of them were able to come home.

Elicker announced plans to officially enshrine the citys status as a sanctuary city and further strengthen protections for undocumented immigrants during the mayoral campaign.

Elicker, speaking generally about New Haven, previously noted that the vast majority of undocumented immigrants here are living in the city peacefully and paying taxes. The city, in turn, strives to treat them fairly, he said.

Among the many speakers was Kica Matos, a longtime immigrant advocate, who is now the director of the Center on Immigration and Justice at the Vera Justice Institute.

This executive order could not come at a better time now more than ever we need to step up and fight back. We are facing an unprecedented economic crisis, a public health crisis  and an administration that has stoked the flames of racism and xenophobia. It feels like every week, there is another anti-immigrant, anti-refugee executive order being issued. This is an executive order  our executive order, is one of the ways that we as a city are standing up for social justice, for immigrant rights and against the scapegoating of immigrants," Matos said.

william.lambert

@hearstmediact.com. moleary@hearstmediact.com








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The Harper government has been making it difficult for safe-injection sites to continue operating, by increasing legislative road blocks. Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq tabled a bill called Respect for Communities Act, in the House of Commons June 6th which would require police, provincial minsters, and local governments to weigh in on the issue of safe-injection sites, before granting licenses for the sites to be allowed to operate legally.Aglukkaq recently stated the governments concerns with the existence of the safe injection sites, and the possible harm she believes it may cause communities who exist around these sites.Our government believes that creating a location for sanctioned use of drugs obtained from illicit sources has the potential for great harm in the community, Aglukkaq said in a statement.The Health Minister also discussed her desire for multiple parties to be included in the discussion process, which will ultimately decide if individual cities will be able to operate safe injection sites.Accordingly, we believe that the application process needs to be changed to create formal opportunities for local voices to be heard and their views considered before an exemption would be granted.It is no secret that the Conservative government has long opposed the existence of safe injection sites. In 2011, the supreme court ruled that it was unconstitutional, and a violation of section 7 rights to liberty and security of the person, in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. All nine judges involved recognized the possibility for the increase of disease and death should a ban of safe injection sites take place.The ruling also had a caveat giving the Health Minister the ability to consider a number of factors when opening safe injection sites, such as the impact on crime rates. Dr. Julio Montaner, director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, is concerned about the speed at which safe injection sites can be opened.What we need is a mechanism to facilitate the opening of safe injection sites, which is what the Supreme Court of Canada actually intended with the ruling, he said. The fact is that nothing has moved and I am very concerned that we have raging epidemics in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, for example, predominantly driven by injection drug use, said Montaner in a statement to the Globe and Mail.There is no problem with members of the community in which safe-injection sites are being placed, to have a say and allow for their voices to be heard and for discourse to take place, however the alternative to safe injection sites must also be considered. The reality for drug users without access to clean, safe sites, is to be forced to do drugs in the open community, perhaps with unclean needles putting them at risk for Hepatitis, HIV and other preventable health concerns.In addition, other members of the community such as children, may find the dirty needles and injure themselves. Regardless of whether one approves of the act of using drugs is irrelevant. Safe injection sites provide drug users with safety and security, as well as the opportunity for help with their drug addictions. The Conservative government needs to understand that the existence of safe injection sites does not necessarily correlate to the approval of drug use, it is simply to promote public health and safety for everyone.
SafetyWallet  Overview

SafetyWallet, in partnership with OHS Online and MAKROSAFE, provides employers with a membership programme which makes them privy to rewards in their compliance to the following:

Occupational Health and Safety Act

Other relevant legislation and regulations

Standards, and

Metropolitan and/or Municipal Bylaws that relate specifically to Occupational Health and Safety within the workplace.

SafetyWallet has a mission and vision dedicated towards the encouragement and through that, the rewarding, of employers who are committed to compliance with the Health and Safety of employees.

This is done through dedication in supporting employers and providing the business with a total Health and Safety solution, regardless of whether it is internal or done through the SafetyWallet Partners Programme.

SafetyWallet aims to provide a Health and Safety environment which is cost effective, compliant, and benefits all employers spread across all the different industries present within the South African economy.

SafetyWallet employer support

In collaboration with its partners, SafetyWallet supports and rewards employers according to the following components comprised in the Health and Safety in Industry and Commerce:

Health and Safety Training

Health and Safety Programme

Health and Safety Compliance Grading Audit, and

Member Advertising

SafetyWallet already has thousands of members within South Africa, with this number steadily increasing, expanding SafetyWallets reach across Southern Africa in offering its services to more employers across numerous industries.

As a focal point for supporting and assisting employers in both Health and Safety compliance in an array of industries, SafetyWallet provides support in every facet in the business through the creation of a safer and healthier working environment.

Health and safety matters are supported by a competency framework which consists of SafetyWallets professional staff, despite the changes that the workplace may be subjected to, along with adaptions that have to be made by the employer to keep up with these.

Health and Safety training

Through the partnership with MAKROSAFE, SafetyWallet provides the highest quality health and safety training to aid employers in obtaining health and safety compliance by providing formal training along with E-learning training.

The training that SafetyWallet provides is aligned with the unit standards along with the curriculum online as per SAQA with subsequent accreditation and endorsement with DoEL, QCTO, HWSeta, and SAIOSH.

Health and Safety programme

The aim of this programme is to act as a driving force behind Health and Safety compliance with the main objective focused at the protection of employers and employees against criminal and civil liability and minimizing the likelihood thereof.

In addition to this, the aim is also on reducing Health and Safety related incidents in the workplace to ensure that employees are able to return to their loved ones healthy and safe.

This partnership between OHS Online, MAKROSAFE, and SafetyWallet stems from this objective along with offering members the ideal platform through which their Health and Safety programmes can be managed.

This provides members with efficient and adequate support in implementing and maintaining their Health and Safety programme.

Photo Credit: Forex Suggest

Health and safety compliance grading audit

This pillar of support involves a SafetyWallet audit process which consists of an in-depth examination of the entire Health and Safety Management System of the member.

With the focus of the audit on the key aspects of managing the Occupational Health and Safety in a particular workplace, it in turn offers a path structured along continuous and efficient improvement towards Health and Safety compliance and the best practice status.

The audit is hosted with the purpose of driving Health and the Safety Cloud Based Management System, OHS Online, through the utilisation of industry experience which is not only extensive, but worldwide.

The process also involves the acknowledgement of aspects surrounding internationally recognised Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems along with Standards.

SafetyWallets audit process can be broken down as follows:

The reviewing of all aspects surrounding the Health and Safety Programme of the member against the requirements of OHSA and regulations along with other applicable legislation.

The assessing of the effectiveness of the implementation of these arrangements

Inspection of the members premises.

Sampling of operational activities.

Interviewing of management, staff, and SafetyWallet Partners.

Discussion of relevant participants roles and responsibilities.

The provision and presentation of the audit report to the SafetyWallet Member arrangement team.

Provision of observations and recommendations.

Action planning for consideration.

Member advertising

SafetyWallet addresses concerns surrounding any financial and cost implications through the provision of a rewards discount and especially when utilizing the SafetyWallet contractors and suppliers.

By making use of this, members are provided with a maximum return on investment, or ROI, on the Health and Safety Programme of the member.

In addition to this, SafetyWallets marketing team is dedicated towards its members in providing support to grow and brand the members business through the following marketing efforts:

SafetyWallet and OHS Online Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, keywords.

Awareness pertaining to contractor and supplier compliance along with rewards awareness.

The analysing of both analytics and data to enable the member to use what they learn to improve their campaigns.

Basic reporting and analytics.

Provision and support of referrals and networking.

The provision of a rewards discount to advertise on SafetyWallets website along with members vendors portal.

The ability to use the SafetyWallet logo on the members website and to brand stationary.

SafetyWallet rewards  How it works

To become eligible for the SafetyWallet rewards, businesses can opt to become a member of one of the four SafetyWallet membership circles, namely:

Friend Circle  should the business have 1  50 employees per branch

Family Circle  should there be 51  100 employees per branch

Champion Circle  should there be 101  300 employees per branch, and

Pinnacle Club  when there are more than 300 employees per branch.

Despite the circle that the member joins, they are immediately eligible for the specific rewards discount pertaining to the circle they join.

Members are, in addition, automatically rewarded with a discount for excellent ROI, subjected to the circle that the member joins, with the rewards discounts per circle as follows:

Friend Circle  1  50 employees  25%

Family Circle  51  100 employees  30%

Champion Circle  101  300  35%, and

Pinnacle Club  more than 300 employees  40%

Should members show increased Health and Safety Compliance, there are additional rewards, specifically when Health and Safety compliance is above 89%, qualifying the member for the following discounts:

Compliance of 89% to 92%  additional 5% compliance reward discount.

Compliance of 93% to 96%  additional 7.5% compliance reward discount.

Compliance above 97%  additional 10% compliance reward discount.

Due to the importance of contractor and supplier management in any robust programme relating to Health and Safety, SafetyWallet further rewards members who have additional contractors according to the number of contractors who register on OHS Online.

These reward discounts are as follows according to the number of contractors:

5 Contractors/Suppliers  additional 2.5% rewards discount.

10 Contractors/Suppliers  additional 5% rewards discount.

15 Contractors/Suppliers  additional 7.5% rewards discount.

20 Contractors/Suppliers  additional 10% rewards discount, and

25 Contractors/Suppliers  additional 12.5% rewards discount.

Final thoughts

Ensuring that Health and Safety compliance is continuously and consistently maintained in a working environment is mandatory, but SafetyWallet offers businesses that sign up for a membership with a substantial amount of rewards.

This initiative not only encourages employers to ensure and improve compliance but attracts more businesses to join with the knowledge that continuous compliance, and the improvement thereof reaps grand rewards.

Not only does SafetyWallet reward its members generously, but it provides continuous, extensive support to members in their journey to obtain the highest level of compliance achievable.

Visit SafetyWallets website now.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 23:21:12|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), visits the aviation museum of the Aviation University of the Air Force in northeast China's Jilin Province, July 23, 2020. Xi inspected the Aviation University of the Air Force in Jilin on Thursday, in the run-up to China's Army Day. On behalf of the CPC Central Committee and the CMC, Xi extended Army Day greetings to the personnel of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the Armed Police Force, the militia, and the reserve force. China's Army Day falls on Aug. 1. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

CHANGCHUN, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping inspected the Aviation University of the Air Force in the northeastern province of Jilin on Thursday, in the run-up to China's Army Day.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), stressed further reform and innovation, as well as continuous efforts to improve teaching.

On behalf of the CPC Central Committee and the CMC, Xi extended Army Day greetings to the personnel of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the Armed Police Force, the militia, and the reserve force. China's Army Day falls on Aug. 1.

After a visit to the university's aviation museum, he went on to watch a training course of student pilots and talked with them.

At the university's laboratory for drone technology, Xi inspected teaching facilities for drone operating systems and learned about the training of drone operators.

He said with the emergence of a large number of drones of different kinds, unmanned combat has brought about profound changes in warfare.

Xi stressed strengthening research into unmanned combat, enhancing drone education as a discipline, stepping up training in real combat conditions, and cultivating professionals who can use drones and take command in such warfare.

He stressed the need to transform the strategy of "strengthening the military through talent cultivation" into development plans and practical measures.

Highlighting the strong connection between military education and the battlefield, Xi demanded the bolstering of research on modern warfare, especially modern air combat, and upgrading education and training as a whole.

He stressed the need to keep up with the global trends of a new military revolution, be better prepared for emerging fields, conduct work in frontier disciplines and the training of new types of talent, while accelerating the incubation and generation of new combat capabilities.

Xi also spoke of the need to adhere to the correct political orientation in every aspect of school work. Enditem
Bhagyashree Calls Prabhas A Team Player

Bhagyashree was quoted as saying by Mumbai Mirror, "After watching Bahubali, I had a certain image about him. But he turned out to be a soft-spoken gentleman rather than a flamboyant personality. He's a team player and likes to bond with everyone."

Bhagyashree On Radhe Shyam

The actress revealed that she has already shot for the Prabhas-starrer in Hyderabad and Georgia, and will resume filming once the COVID-19 situation gets better.

Earlier, Bhagyashree Had Revealed Why She Gave Her Nod To Radhe Shyam

"There's a wow factor that surrounds the role, something which I haven't played yet. A different skills set and a lot of practice is needed to pull off such a character, which is why I said 'yes' to the film. I feel like there wasn't a right follow up after Maine Pyar Kiya; hopefully, this Prabhas' film does the job. Having said that, Maine Pyar Kiya created history and it is difficult to surpass such a film. I feel blessed that people remember me with that same affection over years," the actress had said in an interview.

The Actress Also Couldn't Stop Raving About The Grandeur Of Radhe Shyam's Sets

She was quoted as saying, "Believe me, it's like heaven on earth! I'm sure the audience will experience the opulence while watching the film."
IRVINE, Calif. (AP) _ CoreLogic Inc. (CLGX) on Thursday reported second-quarter net income of $59 million, after reporting a loss in the same period a year earlier.

On a per-share basis, the Irvine, California-based company said it had net income of 73 cents. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, came to $1.02 per share.

The data analytics and business services provider posted revenue of $477.5 million in the period.

For the current quarter ending in October, CoreLogic said it expects revenue in the range of $485 million to $515 million.

The company expects full-year earnings in the range of $3.60 to $3.75 per share, with revenue ranging from $1.86 billion to $1.9 billion.

CoreLogic shares have increased 56% since the beginning of the year. The stock has climbed 48% in the last 12 months.

_____

This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on CLGX at https://www.zacks.com/ap/CLGX
Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday called for more efforts to strengthen the development of a new urbanization model, improve weak links, and expand domestic demand to improve people's livelihoods.



Li made the remarks while presiding over an executive meeting of the State Council.

The meeting worked out supportive measures for flexible employment through multiple channels in a bid to boost employment and increase the income of residents.

Promoting a new kind of urbanization that puts people first is where the greatest potential of domestic demand lies, and it will help keep the fundamentals of the economy stable, the meeting said.

The meeting urged more efforts to improve public facilities and services in county seats to meet the growing work and settlement needs of rural residents.

The meeting said efforts should be made to enhance the public health system and strengthen related infrastructure in a bid to improve the comprehensive capacity of cities to prevent and respond to major epidemics.

Efforts should also be made to push forward the renovation of old urban residential communities, intellectualized reconstruction, and the building of environmental protection facilities and public parking lots to improve people's living standards.

Authorities will do more to improve transportation, garbage and sewage treatment facilities in county seats and build housing to meet the rigid demand of rural residents who want to work and settle there.

It is imperative to introduce diversified investment to support the construction of the new urbanization model, and develop labor-intensive industries so that rural residents can seek employment in places close to their homes, said the meeting.

The meeting also urged more support for flexible employment as an important approach to stabilize employment amid the difficult job market this year.

Individually-owned businesses should be encouraged, with more support to key groups, including college graduates, migrant workers and the unemployed regarding loans, taxes, and so on, the meeting noted, while calling for social security subsidies for those holding part-time jobs.

Efforts should be made to spur internet platforms to create more flexible jobs, and implement prudent and tolerant oversight for emerging forms of employment, including online retail, ride services, as well as online education and medical care, it said.

Public services will be improved to suit companies' needs for flexible posts and protect the wages, safety, and other interests of flexible workers, while the public will be updated with information on new jobs, and trained to be more skillful at flexible employment, said the meeting.
One of three security companies linked to Melbourne's hotel quarantine fiasco has been operating on an expired security licence since June 21 after its permanent licence expired and Victoria Police extended its assessment process until the end of August.

Unified Security Group has confirmed the polices licensing and registration division will spend an extra month assessing its licence renewal application amid disagreement between the company and police about whether the application was made in time.

The Rydges hotel in Carlton in April. Credit:Penny Stephens

Under Victorian law, Unified can continue to operate on its expired licence until police make a decision on its new application. Unified Security finished working in hotel quarantine on July 11.

An inquiry into the role of security guards at quarantine hotels, which seeded Victoria's present surge of infections, named Unified as one of the companies under scrutiny. Public hearings begin on August 6, and the inquiry is due to report in September.
Before 2011, German courts had to present specific evidence connecting a former Nazi officer or guard with the death of one or more individuals. The 2011 conviction of John Demjanjuk, a former guard at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, set a different legal precedent. The court convicted Demjanjuk on the basis of the broader evidence that he worked at a Nazi death camp. (Demjanjuk, an American citizen, died before his appeal could be heard.)
The Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine has issued a warning after it emerged that a number of farmers are receiving phone callsfrom a person purporting to represent the Department, seeking bank details.

They state that they need these details to allegedly offer refunds or seek due payments.

In a statement issued this morning, the Department of Agriculture said: "This Department never seeks bank details or any other personal information by phone or by text message.

"If you receive a telephone call purporting to be from this Department and seeking this type of information, please do not share your information. None of our staff will mind you taking their name and ringing back on one of the official numbers listed on our website  do not use the number such a caller gives you. You can also report such phone calls to our Quality Service Unit us at 076 1064468.

"Anyone who mistakenly provides personal information in response to these types of fraudulent phone calls should contact their bank or credit card company immediately and alert the Gardai.

"It is important to point out that these types of scams do not involve this Departments systems or security, they are designed to get your bank details."
By Ayya Lmahamad

The volume of Azerbaijans trade operations amounted to $12.6 billion in the first half of 2020, local media reported with reference to the State Customs Committee on July 22.

According to the statement, $4.9 billion trade transactions accounted for imports, while $7.6 billion accounted for exports.

Moreover, during the reporting period, Azerbaijan exported goods worth $3.7 billion to the European Union.

The value of goods imported to Azerbaijan from European Union for six months amounted to $1.3 billion, which is by $131.7 million less than in the same period last year.

Furthermore, Azerbaijan exported goods worth $710.83 million to CIS countries during the reporting period.

For the first six months of this year, the value of goods imported by Azerbaijan from CIS countries amounted to $1.3 billion.

Earlier it was reported that, in January- May 2020, legal entities and individuals in Azerbaijan carried out trade operations with partners across 166 countries. Products were exported to 98 countries and imported from 155 countries.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Air Astana, the national air carrier of Kazakhstan and A320neo launch customer in the CIS, announces the expansion of its GA Telesis Flight Hour support contract for its fleet Airbus A320neo and A321neo aircraft. The support program entails warranty administration, repair management, 24/7/365 AOG support, a large main-base stock placed at Air Astana's hub, and a greatly expanded pool access of inventory that will be used to support the airlines' flight operations. Additionally, Air Astana will have access to GA Telesis' extensive inventory of A320-family rotable components and GA Telesis' MRO capabilities for both components and aerostructures.

"A new fleet type always brings with it new challenges and risks, but GA Telesis' support from day one has been substantial in making our new A320neo operation a smooth experience," said Director Supply Management of Air Astana Procurement Yerbol Baimbekov.

"Our Flight Hour and Lease programs at GA Telesis ensure Air Astana low maintenance costs with minimized down-time. We understand that dispatch reliability is key to all of our operators. Globally, our team's efforts have provided Air Astana with a great startup experience with a new fleet," said Mehmet Dogan, SVP Eurasia Sales at GA Telesis' Component Solutions Group.

With its expanded scope of product lines, sales, and service offerings globally, as well as significant growth in the region via its Istanbul sales center of excellence, GA Telesis has quickly become the largest independent aftermarket provider in Eurasia.

About GA Telesis

GA Telesis is a global leader providing integrated solutions to the aviation and aerospace industries. Built on the premise of "Customer Success" being the goal, GA Telesis serves over 3,000 customers, including airlines, OEMs, MROs, and suppliers worldwide, with 31 leasing, sales, distribution, and MRO operations in 19 countries. At GA Telesis, the Company's core business is integrated aviation solutions, and their mission is customer success.

About Air Astana

Air Astana, the national carrier of Kazakhstan, operates flights to over 60 domestic and international routes from hubs in Almaty and Nur-Sultan. The company was incorporated in late 2001 and commenced operations on May 15, 2002. The Air Astana fleet consists of Boeing 767, 757, Airbus A320, A320neo, A321, A321neo, A321LR, and Embraer 190 and E2 aircraft.

Air Astana became the first carrier from Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Eastern Europe to be awarded a prestigious 4-Star rating by Skytrax at its World Airline Awards 2012. It was also named 'The Best Airline in Central Asia and India' that year. Both achievements were repeated for eight consecutive years. Air Astana was named Winner in the TripAdvisor 2018 Travelers' Choice Awards.

Air Astana is a joint venture between Kazakhstan's national wealth fund, Samruk Kazyna, and BAE Systems, with respective shares of 51% and 49%.

For further information: please contact: [email protected]

SOURCE GA Telesis, LLC

Related Links

www.gatelesis.com


In recent months violence has soared in Afghanistan, with the Taliban carrying out near-daily attacks against security forces (AFP Photo/WAKIL KOHSAR)

Eight civilians were killed when an Afghan air strike hit a group of people gathered to celebrate a Taliban commander's release from prison, an official said Thursday.

The strike in the western province of Herat on Wednesday drew condemnation from a top US diplomat and underscores the worsening violence in Afghanistan's war even as the Taliban and Kabul are supposed to be preparing for peace talks.

According to Ali Ahmad Faqir Yar, the district governor in the area where the strike took place, a group had gathered to welcome the Taliban commander.

"An air strike was carried out during the ceremony and civilians who participated were among those killed," he told AFP, putting the toll at eight civilian dead and 16 wounded.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special envoy to Afghanistan, said photographs and witness accounts indicated that many civilians, including children, had been killed.

"We urge all sides to contain the violence, protect civilians, and show necessary restraint as the start of intra-Afghan negotiations is so close," he said on Twitter.

The defence ministry, however, disputed both accounts and said none of those killed were civilians.

Afghan forces had carried out the strike "based on intelligence photos and videos", the ministry said.

"The defence ministry's investigation is ongoing, but initial information shows that no civilians were killed," it said.

It was not immediately clear if the commander had survived the attack or how many insurgents were killed or wounded.

On their website, the Taliban said the insurgent had been released from Bagram prison outside Kabul on Tuesday.

He had been freed under a contentious prisoner swap that is seen as a crucial step toward eventual peace talks.

The exchange, outlined in a deal between the Taliban and the US in February, will see the Afghan government release 5,000 insurgents while the Taliban free 1,000 Afghan security force captives.

Story continues

Kabul has protested that many among the Taliban inmates being released are dangerous fighters who will return to the battlefield.

In a separate incident in the eastern province of Nangarhar on Wednesday, at least 31 Taliban fighters were killed in clashes with security forces, the defence ministry said.

In a series of tweets, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan warned of a "spiralling cycle of violence", and mission head Deborah Lyons called for a ceasefire over the upcoming Eid festival.

In recent months, violence levels have soared in Afghanistan, with the Taliban carrying out near-daily attacks against security forces.

strs-mam-jds/wat/fox
The US will work with countries like India, Japan, and South Korea to tackle the threat of Chinese surveillance, a top American Senator, who has made Congressional legislation to make New Delhi a strategic defence partner of Washington on a permanent basis, has said.

Democratic Senator Mark Warner, Chairman of Senate Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in an interaction with members of the US India Security Council said China had emerged as a major problem for the US companies doing businesses in that country and intellectual theft was a big concern.

Warner, who is also co-chair of the Senate India Caucus, said he has sponsored an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) act to make India a strategic defence partner on a permanent basis.

Expressing grave concerns over Chinese surveillance on every aspect of the organisations doing business with Beijing, Warner said the US will work with countries like India, Japan, and South Korea to tackle the threat from China.

Eminent Indian-American Ramesh Kapur, from the US India Security Council, said that in view of the present scenario, it would make better sense to shift all manufacturing back to America.

He said in areas where there were issues of cost due to labour and other issues, it would make sense to shift the manufacturing to India for all US companies which are at present in China.

Bharat Barai, from Chicago, said that many medium and small-scale electronic companies in the US and India have suffered due to unfair trade practices of China. He also offered the Senator his services in arranging a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to a statement.

Koty Krishna said he did a lot of business with China earlier and was always worried about getting back his money and is glad that he has moved out of that country.

Krishna Srinivasa said it was time for the US and India to forge a long-lasting defence partnership that will sustain for at least 40-50 years and requested the senator to pursue the defence partnership with his friends in the senate like Senator Robert Menendez and others.

Nar Koppula told Senator Warner that the Indian American community has always helped him in his elections and will continue to do so and asked him to be favourable to a stronger US-India partnership.

Rajendar Dichpally expressed concerns over the Chinese aggression against India and warned that Beijing's attitude will not be limited to the South Asian and Pacific regions, asserting that it will expand its ambitions and will be a threat to the US in the future due to its vast ambitions.

"All the members agreed that it is absolutely necessary to rein in China with partnerships with other friendly countries," said the statement issued by US India Security Council.
WASHINGTON, D.C.  President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that Cleveland is among the cities that will see a surge of federal law enforcement agents in the coming weeks that he said aim to restore safety and peace in U.S. cities.

Trump announced during an event at The White House the expansion of a program, Operation LeGend, to support high crime communities to the greatest extent possible.

The administration intends to send agents to several cities, including personnel from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Department of Homeland Security. Neither the president nor the other participants specifically mentioned Cleveland during the event, though The White House did in an email and in a summary of events on its website.

A source familiar with planning for the initiative in Cleveland said it dovetails with Operation Relentless Pursuit, which U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman announced in December during a news conference flanked with local and federal law enforcement.

The source differentiated the surge from the agents recently sent to Portland, which raised the alarm of civil rights advocates who said the agents did not identify themselves on their uniforms and detained people without cause before later releasing them without charges.

In Cleveland, were talking about traditional crime fighting, the source said, adding that its not guys in body armor dealing with protesters.

Cleveland officials contacted Wednesday said they were not aware of the anticipated surge.

Trump said the Justice Department-led new program was named in honor of LeGend Taliferro, a 4-year-old boy from Kansas City who was killed in his bed when a gunman opened fire in his apartment complex. Officials launched the initiative there.

The Justice Department will first send more agents to Chicago and Albuquerque. Federal officials plan to send more agents to Cleveland, along with Detroit and Milwaukee, within the next three weeks, according to The White Houses website.

The White House said the program would provide more than $61 million in Justice Department money to help local police departments hire more officers and will permanently reassign roughly 200 agents and deputy marshals to the cities it covers.

This is a different kind of operation, obviously, than the tactical teams we use to defend against riots and mob violence. , U.S. Attorney General William Barr said during the event. And were going to continue to confront mob violence, but the operations were discussing today are very different. They are classic crime fighting.

The presidents announcement comes amidst his campaign for re-election with polls showing him trailing Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Federal law enforcement under Trump has frequently and often misleadingly touted higher crime rates in many major cities in the U.S. that are led by Democratic mayors, in an effort to portray them as lawless war zones.

Cleveland, which has seen higher-than-average homicide rates in recent years, has interestingly not been the target of Trumps public ire like Chicago and other cities, though the Justice Department has devoted resources to combating violent and drug crime in the region. It also remains involved in a court-enforced effort to reform the Cleveland police department.

This rampage of violence shocks the conscience of our nation, and we will not stand by and watch it happen. Cant do that, Trump said Wednesday. The citizens of Chicago are citizens of America, and they have the same right as every other American to live in safety, dignity, and peace. No mother should ever have to cradle her dead child in her arms simply because politicians refuse to do what is necessary to secure their neighborhood and to secure their city.

The source familiar with Clevelands plans said the new surge will temporarily fill the number of positions called for under Operation Relentless Pursuit, the initiative Herdman and others previously announced. The latter includes the addition of more people from several agencies  including the FBI, DEA, ATF and the marshals  to address violent crimes in seven cities, including Cleveland. It also involves having more local police officers serve on federal task forces and offering grants for participating cities to hire additional cops.

While the goal of Operation Relentless Pursuit is to permanently place more federal law enforcement in certain areas, that was not fully completed because of the coronavirus pandemic, the source explained. Thats where Operation LeGend comes in, and the surge of additional agents will address the gaps in the short term for the positions the Justice Department has not filled, the source explained.

Still, without a formal announcement about Cleveland, some local officials appeared taken aback.

Mayor Frank Jacksons administration said in a statement that it has not been made aware of any additional federal law enforcement resources coming to the city.

The Cleveland Division of Police has in the past and will continue to partner with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to combat violent crime in our neighborhoods, the statement continues. In (December), the Division of Police announced the Relentless Pursuit initiative, which is designed to combat violent crimes in our neighborhoods with our federal, state and local partners.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael OMalley also said he wasnt aware of Clevelands involvement in the new federal initiative.

Cleveland Police Patrolmens Association President Jeff Follmer, who represents the rank-and-file officers, said that we werent expecting this.

We have to process the idea of federal agents being sent to Cleveland, he added.

U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, a Warrensville Heights Democrat, blasted the plan.

The deployment of militarized agents to Cleveland and cities across the country is unconstitutional and reminds us of the actions of dictators and despots of old, Fudge said in a statement. It disregards the right of our cities and states to govern and protect their residents. The President is not trying to protect Americans. Instead, he is attempting to intimidate and silence those who disagree with his policies. These unlawful actions must stop!

Reporters Adam Ferrise and Robert Higgs contributed to this story.
Boris Johnson has pledged to lead the way on buying British by replacing the crockery in Chequers with products made in this country.

The Prime Minister gave the commitment yesterday after being quizzed by Tory backbenchers on rumours the current plates were produced abroad.

At a meeting of the 1922 committee, Stoke-on-Trent North MP Jonathan Gullis said he had heard they were cheap crocks from Ikea.

Mr Johnson promised to look at replacing them with items made in the North Staffordshire Potteries, but warned he also had been lobbied by Mid Derbyshire MP Pauline Latham who had suggested rivals at Royal Crown Derby.

Mr Johnson may also be able to turn to Gavin Williamson for advice before making a purchase. The Education Secretary was appointed managing director of Staffordshire pottery firm Aynsley China aged just 28 before entering politics.

Boris Johnson (pictured) has pledged to lead the way on buying British by replacing the crockery in Chequers with products made in this country

The end-of-term 1922 gathering in Parliament came as MPs prepared to leave Westminster at the start of the almost six-week summer recess.

Backbenchers presented the Prime Minister with a signed cartoon that is understood t be a gift following the birth of his son Wilfred.

Mr Johnson vowed to 'throttle the life out' of coronavirus but warned MPs that he fears a second spike of infections.

He told the behind-closed-doors meeting he is worried there will be a rise in cases if the country loses it focus.

At a meeting of the 1922 committee, Stoke-on-Trent North MP Jonathan Gullis said he had heard they were cheap crocks from Ikea (stock image)

Mr Johnson promised to look at replacing the plates inside Chequers (pictured) with items made in the North Staffordshire Potteries

Mr Johnson said: 'That is something we really don't want to see. We cannot be complacent, if we lose our discipline and focus it could happen here. Covid is the biggest single challenge any government has faced in 70 years.

'It is a hugely challenging time, but slowly and steadily thanks to the massive common sense of the British people we will get through this.

'Now we are getting done the things we said to the public we would do, we have a plan and we are sticking to it.

'We are doing our best to throttle the life out of this virus. We are getting on with our plan to build back better, we are getting on with our agenda.'
Federal officers in military gear   clouds of tear gas   crowd control munitions  [shots fired]  and locals who want those officers gone. What are you guys protecting? Get the [expletive] out of our city! In just over a week, the chaotic scenes in Portland grabbed the nations attention and raised questions about whether the U.S. government is exceeding its authority and violating civil rights. The officers came because of an executive order signed by President Trump in late June to protect federal property from destruction. If we didnt take a stand in Portland, you know, weve arrested many of these leaders. If we didnt take that stand, right now you would have a problem like  they were going to lose Portland. So whats going on here? And what methods are the officers using to protect federal sites? Crowd: Breonna Taylor! The protests against racism and police brutality, which started in May, had largely been peaceful and were held across Portland. But after federal officers arrived in the city on July 4, demonstrations became centered around this U.S. District courthouse and this building housing federal agencies. Both are property of the U.S. government. The buildings have clearly been vandalized, and the Department of Homeland Security has a mandate to protect them. Thats usually done by officers from the Federal Protective Service. But on the ground in Portland, we have seen a new task force, including U.S. Marshals   BORTAC, a unit of Customs and Border Protection   and a special response team from ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. According to a government memo leaked to The Times, these units are insufficiently trained to perform crowd control. But that hasnt stopped them from trying. Night after night, videos show these officers emerging from the two federal buildings as protesters draw near. Hundreds of videos reviewed by The Times show that although protesters were antagonistic, officers often responded with disproportionate force. [shouting] They blanketed streets with tear gas. Are you OK? They struck protesters with batons   and used flash bangs, pepper balls and other less-lethal munitions to clear the streets. [chanting] Their actions often appeared to escalate rather than de-escalate matters. And in some instances, they attacked when there was no apparent threat. On July 11, protester Donavan La Bella was at the federal courthouse when an officer appears to have fired at his head in retaliation for tossing a spent tear gas canister. [expletive] you! [shot fired] La Bellas mother told local media he suffered skull fractures and needed surgery. Later that night when field medics sought officers help for a wounded protester, they were aggressively cleared away. On July 18, a Navy veteran was batoned and pepper-sprayed in another unprovoked attack. His right hand was broken, and he needs surgery. Sometimes members of the press were hit. He got shot in the back, obviously, and hes wearing press  This photographer, Mathieu Lewis Rolland, told The Times that a volley of 10 projectiles were fired into his back. Ow, ow, ow! In the middle of all this, protesters were detained in ways that alarmed civil rights advocates and former Homeland Security officials. Can your people identify themselves as law enforcement? On July 15, several federal officers were filmed driving in unmarked vehicles in the blocks around the courthouse. How are we supposed to know who you are? How are we supposed to know youre not kidnapping us and youre civilians kidnapping us? One protester was detained at this location nearby. What are you doing? Federal officers wouldnt identify themselves  Use your words!  but patches on the right and left sides of their uniforms match those used by members of BORTAC, the tactical unit from Customs and Border Protection. They drove the protester away in an unmarked car. D.H.S. says federal officers have made 43 arrests since July 4. Agents do have the authority to make arrests if they believe that a federal crime has been committed, like damaging federal property or attacking officers. Crowd: Hey, hey, ho, ho, these racist cops have got to go. In recent days, the controversy mobilized a larger and more diverse crowd of protesters. [chanting] A so-called wall of moms led marches through Portlands streets and to the federal courthouse where officers cleared them away. The federal presence has also inflamed tensions. Some demonstrators damaged paneling on the courthouse and tried to set them alight. Others threw water bottles and fired fireworks toward the building. On Wednesday, July 22, Portlands mayor joined the protests and was caught in a cloud of tear gas. This is a egregious overreaction on the part of the federal officers. This is not a de-escalation strategy. This is flat-out urban warfare. At around the same time, a Customs and Border Protection plane was spotted circling overhead. C.B.P. officials told The Times it was sending a live video feed of the crowd to law enforcement on the ground. Crowd: No justice, no peace! Protesters and local officials say this is all a case of federal overreach. Oregons attorney general has sued the federal government to stop arresting people. Gas! Gas! Gas! The president has doubled down, promising to send more federal officers to cities governed by his political rivals. Because were not going to let New York and Chicago and Philadelphia, Detroit and Baltimore, and all of these  Oakland is a mess  were not going to let this happen in our country. All run by liberal Democrats. The results could look like a national police force acting under presidential orders, able to ignore local demands and arrest residents. In Portland, it has been a recipe for chaos. [explosion]
The Republic of Ireland on July 23 released a green list of 15 countries that travellers can go to and not self-isolate on their return. According to a press note, the United States and the United Kingdom are not included in the list, however, the 15 countries that are included are Malta, Finland, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia, Greece, Greenland, Gibraltar, Monaco and San Marino. The Irish officials said that the list will be reviewed every fortnight.

Currently, travellers arriving in the Republic of Ireland from anywhere other than Northern Ireland are required to self-isolate for 14 days. However, the countries that are included in the green list are those whose coronavirus levels are similar to or lower than Ireland, hence posing low risk to the country. While the Irish officials announced the green list, they also advised avoiding non-essential travel to all other countries.

READ: Ireland PM Warns Of Delay In Full Reopening Of Bars As Thousands Gather Outside Pubs

The Irish government said, "Anyone arriving into Ireland from these countries will not have to restrict their movements. Passengers from any other country outside of those with a Normal Precautions advisory are asked to restrict their movements for 14 days. There is no change to the current policy in respect of travel from Northern Ireland".

READ: Kissing Of Blarney Stone Resumes As Ireland Eases Lockdown

Irish govt strengthens existing measures

While speaking about the plans to strengthen the existing measures for monitoring passengers who arrive into the country, the officials said that the government will be introducing Electronic Passenger Locator Form, enhanced follow-up procedure, a call centre operated by the Dublin Airport Authority and a proposed testing regime for symptomatic passengers at airports and ports. The Irish government also plans to explore processes to restrict flight or passenger travel in certain circumstances.

The announcement of the green list comes after the Irish Department of Health reported 17 new confirmed case of COVID-19 in the country and one new death related to the virus. According to the Johns Hopkins University tally, currently, Ireland has over 25,800 confirmed coronavirus cases and the deadly virus has claimed nearly 1,754 lives in the region.

READ: Ireland Plans To Lift 14-day Quarantine Measure For Some Countries From July 9

READ: Bruno Fernandes Lives Next Door To Ex-Man City Star Ireland, Promised Kick-about With Son
Press Release

July 23, 2020 Villar reminds public to follow guidelines against COVID-19 As quarantine restrictions relax in many areas, Sen. Cynthia Villar reminded the public not to be complacent and stressed the need to continue to practice protocols prescribed by the health department to stop the spread of COVID-19. "As we begin to adjust to the new normal way of life, we should not put our guards down. Alalahanin natin na nandyan pa rin ang virus at wala pang bakuna laban sa COVID-19 kaya kailangang sumunod sa health protocols," Villar said. Villar also said the growing body of evidence saying that face masks and cloth face coverings help prevent the spread of the virus proves that we can defend ourselves against the virus while waiting for the vaccine. Together with her daughter Camille, who sits as Representative of the lone district of Las Pinas, Villar distributed 2,000 tarpaulins in the different barangays of the city to remind residents of the needed health protocols such as the wearing of face mask, practice of physical distancing and frequent hand-washing. "We have to be reminded that stopping the spread of the disease is not just the work of the medical workers and our frontliners. It is the duty of everybody to help fight COVID-19 by wearing face masks properly and observing 1-meter physical distancing when outside our homes. Lapses in health protocols endanger the well-being of our families and co-workers," Villar said. Villar also cited the signs of economic recovery that resulted in the partial re-opening of businesses and establishments. She said she hopes the progress would continue so that employment will be generated for the estimated 7.5 million who lost their jobs due to the pandemic.
There is nothing in the name Bill 197, the provinces COVID-19 Economic Recovery Act, that should have worried Geordie Walker, chief executive officer of Walker Industries.

When the details were unveiled, Walker was aghast when learned it had a provision that he said effectively gives veto power to surrounding municipalities when it comes to expanding or opening landfills.

The extra piece, contained in Schedule 6 of the bill, makes an already an arduous process, with millions in sunk costs years before any return on the investment, much more difficult.

It is effectively taking a science-based provincial process, which is primarily focused on a safe site, and changes it into a political process driven by your municipal neighbours, Walker said.

You would require multiple municipal councils to agree on something as controversial as a landfill. It effectively will stop any landfill proposals from going forward.

Under the new legislation, waste disposal costs will increase as local options will disappear, Walker said.

The unintended consequences of this new legislation are significant. Its disappointing, and it makes the current landfill crisis much worse.

Going forward, we will continue to work with the government. The bill passed. Its here now. We will have to all work together in a way that keeps the intended good effects, and lessens some of the negative ones.

The Ontario Waste Management Association said at the current rate of waste generation and a disposal capacity of 122 million tonnes, Ontario will run out of landfill space by 2032  unless new space is constructed.

They estimate Ontario will need as many as 16 new or expanded landfills by 2050, the association said.

Without that space Ontario will end up relying more on trucking waste to landfills in Michigan and other U.S. states  a waste disposal option that is politically precarious, becoming more so when Ontario is shown to be unwilling to build new landfills, the association said.

Walker said he isnt opposed to giving communities more say when it comes to establishing landfills, which is the goal of the legislation.

We want it to be a hard process, he said. Making an investment in a landfill is something we take extraordinarily seriously. The science behind it better be spectacular because by law, when you close a landfill, you are required to monitor and do testing for 80 years. By opening a new landfill, I am effectively providing a liability to the family business for my grandchildren.

Walker said he believes the process can be done in a way thats fair to the industry and the public.

This needed separate legislation so it could go through the proper committee process and the economic impacts can be heard and the context can be understood, Walker said.

It was part of an omnibus bill and we had exactly 11 days to provide comment. Many of the municipalities we approached werent even aware of it or were coming up to speed.

I havent slept much since we became aware of the problem.

In Niagara alone, Walker said the new legislation puts 400 jobs at risk and it has enormous cost implications for taxpayers.

I know it is not a tangible issue for most people, but more than four-million tons a year of Ontarios waste is exported to Michigan, Walker said.

Toronto will run out of landfill space in the next 10 years and produces a million tons of waste every year.

Hundreds of trucks filled with trash rumble daily down the QEW from Toronto to Highway 402 and through Sarnia. From there they travel across the Bluewater Bridge into Port Huron, Mich., and beyond.

When there is a snowstorm that closes the stretch of highway to Sarnia, we get three-kilometre lineups at our landfill in Niagara, Walker said.

The situation in Ontario is every landfill is operating to capacity with no room for error. Within hours, not days, things become problematic when the border closes. If our landfill was closed for a week here in Niagara, I dont know what the ramifications would be.

Walker said his company spent 10 years and $14 million to get a new landfill project off the ground in Oxford County. That investment is in jeopardy.

It took two years to find the location with enough available land that was close to the GTA and a good highway system. It could not be situated on good farmland, or endanger significant wetlands. The fewer neighbours the better.

Walker Industries opened a local project office in 2012 in the Oxford County, and held nine public events and 38 community liaison committee meetings. They also consulted with representatives from the Indigenous nations and met with all the neighbours within five kilometres.

Its a monumental process, but with the new legislation, we are entering into the range of lottery ticket probabilities, Walker said.

It feels like we are the kid with his finger in the dike who is telling everyone we have a real problem here  and nobody is listening.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 00:32:40|Editor: huaxia

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Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee, attends a special consultative conference on promoting innovation cooperation in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in Beijing, capital of China, July 22, 2020. (Xinhua/Gao Jie)

BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- China's top political advisor Wang Yang on Wednesday called for further reform, opening up, and institutional innovation to promote the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Wang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee, made the remarks while attending a special consultative conference in Beijing on promoting innovation cooperation in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

He called for efforts to remove the barriers to the flow of innovation factors, and build the area into a hub of inclusive and coordinated innovation.

More than 100 political advisors and experts attended the conference on site or via video link, and more than 200 political advisors expressed their opinions on the matter via mobile platforms.

They suggested efforts to improve the spatial layout for innovation cooperation in the area, open up fast tracks for transporting scientific research equipment, and explore new ways for cooperative supervision of the financial sector.

They also called for widening market access for the education and healthcare sectors as well as encouraging new business modes in the area. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 02:40:44|Editor: huaxia

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AMMAN, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Jordan on Wednesday decided to ease travel restrictions and extend daily working hours until midnight for all economic sectors, the state-run Petra news agency reported.

The government also decided to allow citizens to shop outside until 1 a.m. instead of midnight, Minister of Industry and Trade Tariq Hammouri was quoted by Petra as saying.

"The decision to extend hours for movement aims to serve the public interests and was taken after a thorough study of the epidemiological situation in Jordan," added the minister.

Also on Wednesday, Jordan's Tourism Ministry allowed all restaurants and cafes to serve waterpipe tobacco under necessary precautions.

Jordan's Health Ministry on Wednesday reported seven imported coronavirus cases, raising the total number in the kingdom to 1,120.

China has supported Jordan's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. On May 31, China donated a batch of medical supplies to Jordan to help combat the coronavirus. Enditem
Theres a limit to how much revenue United Airlines expects to see without a widely available vaccine: about half of last years haul.

Our best guess is demand, as measured by revenue, will recover over time to be down approximately 50 percent and then plateau at that level until a vaccine is widely distributed, Andrew Nocella, the airlines chief commercial officer, said in a call Wednesday with analysts and reporters.

Scott Kirby, the airlines chief executive, was reluctant to forecast when that might come to pass, but said on the call that United was conservatively planning that a vaccine wont be widely available until late next year.

The airline expects passenger revenue in July, August and September to be down about 83 percent from the same period last year, a slight improvement over the nearly 94 percent decline the airline reported for the second quarter on Tuesday. United suffered a $1.6 billion loss during the quarter, compared with a $1 billion profit a year ago.
While school districts all over the country grapple with how to best educate youth this upcoming academic year during a global pandemic, one Michigan teen sits in a juvenile detention center with no prospect of returning to in-person or remote learning anytime soon. The 15-year-old, identified only as Grace, has been in jail since May because she violated the terms of her probation by not completing her online coursework, according to a new report co-authored by ProPublica Illinois and the Detroit Free Press.

Grace, who is Black and has diagnosed ADHD, was on probation for fighting with her mom and stealing a cellphone from a classmate. After her school transitioned to remote learning on April 15, Grace said she felt unmotivated and overwhelmed by the work for her school, located in the predominantly white community of Beverly Hills, Mich.

Thats true of many students displaced from their schools, but, calling Grace a threat to [the] community,Judge Mary Ellen Brennan, the presiding judge of the Oakland County Family Court Division, sentenced the teen to Childrens Village juvenile detention on May 14. Now, Graces mother, Charisse, and advocates accuse the courts of racial bias.

It just doesnt make any sense, Charisse told ProPublica. Every day I go to bed thinking and wake up thinking, How is this a better situation for her?

That's just a total devaluation of Black lives, Shaun Gabbidon, professor of criminal justice at Penn State Harrisburg told Yahoo News. We see this in countless other areas of the justice system.

Police barricade with children in the background. (Getty Images)

Graces teacher, Katherine Tarpeh, has also come to the teens defense. Tarpeh argues that Graces performance during the pandemic was not out of alignment with most of my other students.

Last Thursday, the Michigan Supreme Court said it is reviewing the circumstances of Graces case, after attorneys filed a motion in court seeking an emergency review.

That evening, in a rally organized by the Michigan Liberation organization, more than 200 people stood outside the Oakland County Court chanting, Grace for Grace and held signs that read #FreeGrace.

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Their message was, while they fight for Grace, this is bigger than any one teen. No child should be treated like this.

Racism doesn't have a ZIP code, Rai LiNear, Wayne County director for Michigan Liberation told Yahoo News. Bad judicial and prosecutorial practices dont show how much money you make, how many languages you speak, nor all the places you've been. We have a real deep divide when it comes to the way that we treat our Black youth, and it starts in the schools.

Many students have struggled with the adjustment to remote learning. The average student could begin the upcoming school year having lost as much as a third of the expected progress from the previous year in reading and half of the expected progress in math, according to a working paper from NWEA, a nonprofit organization, and scholars at Brown University and the University of Virginia.

The learning gap is wider in districts where the wealth and economic gap is greatest. There are relaxed expectations on teachers and students in poorer neighborhoods and districts and disparities in computer access and home internet access. In another analysis of 800,000 students reported by the New York Times, researchers at Brown and Harvard looked at how Zearn, an online math program, was used both before and after schools closed in March. It found that through late April, student progress in math decreased by about half in classrooms located in low-income ZIP codes, by a third in classrooms in middle-income ZIP codes and not at all in classrooms in high-income ZIP codes.

(Getty Images)

The struggles with remote learning extend beyond high school and beyond just Black students. Ojmarrh Mitchell, an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at Arizona State University, said his undergraduate and PhD students last semester had their own issues adjusting to virtual learning. These are the students who were the most motivated, and they had problems adjusting, Mitchell told Yahoo News. I had problems adjusting. It was a fiasco, but we constantly changed what we were going to do to fit the situation and make the best situation.

Even apart from the strains imposed by remote learning, Black students are disciplined and arrested at school at disproportionately high levels, an analysis of federal data from 2017 by the Education Week Research Center finds. In 28 states, the share of arrested students who are Black is at least 10% higher than their share of enrollment in schools with at least one arrest, the report found. In 10 of those states, that gap is at least 20%.

According to a 2018 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Black youth are 15.5% of all public school students, but represented about 39% of students suspended from school.

Black children are forced to understand at a young age that the world may view them as a threat. I think many Black children realize once they become older that their childhoods ended around 10 years old, LiNear said. The ending of that period of childhood was through a lot of cases introduced through the school environment, like getting detentions, getting suspended  or a child being separated and having to stand out in the hallway. These are ways that we are starting to, you know, introduce the idea of policing within our schools.

An analysis of 4,800 cases that were referred to the Oakland County Circuit Court from January 2016 to June 2020 found that 42% involved young Black people, who make up just 15% of the countys population.

The school-to-prison pipeline has been well documented as a reality for many young students of color, particularly Black students. A National Juvenile Justice Network report notes, students find themselves on a fast track to jail due to school policies such as zero-tolerance disciplinary policies, in which many youth are pushed out of school (suspended or expelled) as well as sent to the juvenile justice system for petty disciplinary matters. Black students are three times more likely to be suspended or expelled than white students, according to the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights.

(Getty Images)

The pipeline is often enforced by school resource officers, or SROs, who are assigned to schools to play the role of school police. But for many critics, there is too much ambiguity in their daily assessments. Policing of schools is very skewed, said Kerrison. Having a school resource officer is not a remarkable thing  but the way they respond is where you see variation. This variation was on display in October 2015 when a South Carolina high school SRO was caught on video slamming and dragging a young Black girl from her desk for refusing to stop using her cellphone and leave the classroom as her teacher had directed. The officer was fired after the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office had opened a civil rights investigation into the incident.

None of this is surprising despite how disappointing and unsettling it is, said Erin Kerrison, assistant professor at the University of California at Berkeley. It lays bare that this is a chronic issue.

Kerrison added, If [Grace is] missing class  wouldnt you want to find out why? The leap to truancy court as opposed to identifying why this child isnt coming to school is a special kind of punishment reserved for Black students.

The issues dont stop there. A Washington Post column written by two university professors last week suggest that schools dont act as a pathway to prison, but in many ways they are prisons for Black youth. We are witnessing a school-prison nexus: Schools work within a web of institutions, policies, and practices that funnel Black youth into prisons, Subini Annamma of Stanford University and David Stovall of the University of Illinois at Chicago note. Whats more, depending on where you attend school, it no longer operates as a pathway to prison but instead as a de facto prison.

Mitchell adds that there is too much discretion given to judges when it comes to sentencing juveniles. Unlike the criminal justice system for adults, there are relatively well drawn out, well-prescribed characteristics that determine how your case will be handled, he said. But in the juvenile justice system, they have all the same concerns as the criminal justice system and then this nebulous squishy idea of best interests of the child. And that's where a lot of the drama comes in.

Shaun Gabbidon, professor of criminal justice at Penn State Harrisburg, left, and Ojmarrh Mitchell, associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at Arizona State University. (Screenshots: Yahoo News)

Gabbidon says this contributes to a vicious cycle for many Black youth. We know that the more people have contact with the system, the more there's likely to be a bad outcome, he said. It doesn't necessarily help them. We should be doing everything we can to keep people out of the system, especially in a pandemic in which prisons are breeding grounds for coronavirus.

Michigan Liberation is mobilizing against racism in the school and justice systems, using Grace as an example. It promotes comprehensive criminal justice reform, including courts, prosecutors, policing, prisons, juvenile systems, re-entry and diversion programs, and parole. Folks will have to continue to organize together, come out to the streets, put public pressure on the judge, on the prosecutor's office and stand in solidarity with Grace, LiNear said. I think that there is also a couple of weeks of very real-time action that folks can take, [before] the Michigan primaries, which will be held on August 4.

On Monday, the Oakland County Court held a special hearing for Grace. Supporters gathered outside the courthouse hoping for her release. Instead, Judge Brennan chose to hold the case in review until September.

Cherisie Evans, a Michigan Liberation core member leader, was present outside of Mondays hearing. She says that she believes if Grace were white, she wouldnt be in jail that long or at all. As a lifelong resident of Michigan, Evans, 43, cant make sense of why this is happening. At 14, Evans said she stuck up a pizza delivery man and was sentenced to two months in juvenile detention. Grace is going on three. I dont understand, said Evans, who is now a home-owner, college graduate and entrepreneur.

For many academics and policy experts, stories like Graces are the stories of many Black youth across the country.

It was already hard to show up to chemistry [for young people], said Kerrison. When you add remote learning, its harder to equitably provide learning and unless we reckon with this, we will have a Grace over and over again.

_____



Read more from Yahoo News:
Swedish automaker Volvo was not spared from ill effects brought by the COVID-19 pandemic as it also rode on the downtrend train affecting the automotive industry around the globe.

Volvo Cars recorded a 14.1 percent loss of revenue, earning only SEK 111.8 billion (more than P621.16 billion) during the first six months of the year.

Despite the massive loss, the global brandwhich is under the ownership of the Zhejiang Geely Holding since 2010is still optimistic of a rebound come second half of the year, as markets are now trying to stabilize.

The downturn we saw in the first half is a temporary one, chief executive Hakan Samuelsson said. We expect to see a strong recovery in the second half of the year and our Recharge range of electrified cars puts us in a strong position to meet the emerging trends we are seeing.

Samuelsson Volvo Car Group

In terms of sales volume, Volvo Cars was down by 20.8 percent with only 269,962 units rolled out for the January-June period, as key markets implemented lockdowns and other restrictions, thereby affected economic activity for the company.

Volvo Cars suspended manufacturing facilities and implemented work time reductions with the support of government programs. But with the quick implementation of various safety measures, the company safely welcomed back employees to work in a very short time. The Torslanda plant in Sweden lost only 15 days of production during the period.

This pandemic has strengthened our confidence that our strategic ambitions are the right ones and that an accelerated transformation of our business will lead to long-term growth, Samuelsson said. We will continue to focus on and invest in electrification, online sales and connectivity.

If the market recovers as we expect, we anticipate sales volumes to return to the levels we saw in the second half of 2019 and it is our ambition return to similar profit levels and cash flow.

Volvo Cars is said to be the sole car maker to offer a plug-in hybrid variant on every model in its lineup. The brand is also set to start producing the XC40 P8 Rechargeits first fully electric modellater this year.

Story continues

To note, Volvo Philippines has the T8 Plug-in Hybrid engine fitted in three of its models, namely the Volvo XC60 compact crossover, the Volvo S90 estate, and the midsize premium SUV Volvo XC90.

Photos from Volvo

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Lean, Mean, Green: Volvo XC60 Twin Engine Hybrid

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Volvo Cars Launches Plan to 'Radically Reduce Carbon Emissions'
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump on Thursday reluctantly dropped his bid to cut Social Security payroll taxes as Republicans stumbled anew in efforts to unite around a $1 trillion COVID-19 rescue package to begin negotiations with Democrats who are seeking far more.

Frustrating new delays came as the administration scrambled to avert the cutoff next week of a $600-per-week bonus unemployment benefit that has helped prop up the economy while staving off financial disaster for millions of people thrown out of work since the coronavirus pandemic began.

Trump yielded to opposition to the payroll tax cut among his top Senate allies, claiming in a Twitter post that Democratic opposition was the reason. In fact, top Senate Republicans disliked the expensive idea in addition to opposition from Democrats for the cut in taxes that finance Social Security and Medicare.

"The Democrats have stated strongly that they won't approve a Payroll Tax Cut (too bad!). It would be great for workers. The Republicans, therefore, didn't want to ask for it," Trump contended.

"The president is very focused on getting money quickly to workers right now, and the payroll tax takes time," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said at the Capitol. Only Sunday, Trump said in a Fox News interview that "I would consider not signing it if we don't have a payroll tax cut."

The long-delayed legislation comes amid alarming new cases in the virus crisis. It was originally to be released Thursday morning by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. But the Kentucky Republican instead hosted an unscheduled meeting with Mnuchin and White House acting chief of staff Mark Meadows and delayed the planned release of the proposal until next week.

The rocky developments coincide with a higher-profile role by Meadows, a former tea party lawmaker from North Carolina with a thin legislative resume. The delays increase the chances that efforts to pass the COVID rescue, the fifth coronavirus response bill this year, could drag well into August as both parties are formally nominating their presidential candidates.

Mnuchin claimed there was "fundamental agreement" on the GOP side, but irritation was growing among Republicans with the Trump negotiating team, which floated the idea of breaking off a smaller bill that would be limited to maintaining some jobless benefits and speeding aid to schools. Democrats immediately panned that idea, saying it would strand other important elements such as aid to state and local governments.

"We cannot piecemeal this," declared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.

As a practical matter, Democrats say, the only way to prevent a cutoff of the pandemic jobless benefit next month is to simply extend it in full, at least in the short term. Balky and ancient state unemployment systems can't be adjusted in time to immediately implement a new compromise.

"Due to ancient technology, states need between one and four weeks to adjust the $600 boost. At this late hour, the only option to guarantee benefits do not lapse is the Democratic plan to extend the $600 weekly benefit," said top Finance Committee Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon. "Republicans rejected that plan outright. They were never serious about preventing a lapse in benefits."

McConnell scrapped a choreographed rollout that would have featured Republicans with tough reelection races claiming credit for provisions like a $15 billion appropriation for child care assistance for parents trying to go back to work while many schools will remain closed this fall.

McConnell now says the rollout won't come out until next week.

"Our Republican colleagues have been so divided, so disorganized and so unprepared that they have to struggle to draft even a partisan proposal within their own conference," said Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.

The must-have centerpiece for McConnell is a liability shield to protect businesses, schools and others from coronavirus-related lawsuits.

The still-unreleased GOP measure does forge an immediate agreement with Democrats on another round of $1,200 checks to most adults.

The $600 weekly unemployment benefit boost that is expiring Friday would be cut back, and Mnuchin said it would ultimately be redesigned to provide a typical worker 70% of his or her income. Republicans say extending it in full would be a disincentive to work.

"You can't continue to pay people more to not work than to work," said Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming.

The Republican package will also include tax breaks for businesses to hire and retain workers and to help shops and workplaces retool with new safety protocols. A document circulating among lobbyists claims the package would increase the deduction for business meals to 100%, offering help to the restaurant industry.

Mnuchin said there is bipartisan agreement on changes to a popular subsidy program for businesses called the Paycheck Protection Program that would permit businesses especially hard hit by the pandemic  companies with fewer than 300 workers and revenue losses of 50%  to receive a second PPP payment.

A breakthrough on $25 billion in virus-testing money was key after days of wrangling between Republicans on the powerful Appropriations Committee and the White House. There will also be $26 billion for vaccines and $15 billion for research programs at the National Institutes of Health.

At the White House, Trump touted the GOP plan's massive $105 billion to help schools and universities reopen. It contains $70 billion to help K-12 schools reopen, $30 billion for colleges and $5 billion for governors to allocate. Trump said he wants the school money linked to reopenings. In McConnell's package, the money for K-12 would be split between those that have in-person learning and those that don't.

If local public schools don't reopen, the money should go to parents to send their children to other schools or teach them at home, Trump said. "If the school is closed, the money should follow the student," he said.

Democrats back a much more sweeping package, including almost $1 trillion for state and local governments. They also want a fresh round of mortgage and rental assistance and new federal health and safety requirements for workers  ideas strongly opposed by Republicans.

Congress in March approved a massive $2.2 trillion CARES package, the biggest of its kind in U.S. history. The current effort, once Democratic priorities are added, is likely to total almost $2 trillion.

GOP conservatives are already squirming at the price tag, signaling that this bill wont have anywhere new the unanimous support that the CARES Act had in March. The deficit for the 2020 budget year is already topping $2.7 trillion.
How Books and Buckets program in Long Beach aims to keep kids away from gang violence
Drake has been hard at work in the recording studio, working on his next album, as well as some collabs with DJ Khaled.

But the four-time Grammy winner has recently been enjoying some rest and recreation, during a getaway to Barbados.

He showed off his tattooed guns Wednesday in a white tank top, as he enjoyed a chill day with friends for a sunset cruise aboard a luxury yacht in the Caribbean Sea.

Gun show: Drake showed off his tattooed guns Wednesday in a white tank top, as he enjoyed a chill day with friends for a sunset cruise aboard a luxury yacht in Barbados

The 33-year-old finished the casual boating look with a pair of shimmering green gym shorts and black flip flops.

He also showed some Barbadian pride, as he sported a blue bandanna around his head, featuring the Barbados flag.

Drake took to Instagram with some selfies, as he enjoyed the gorgeous sunset with his vacation entourage.

He was also spotted stripping off his tank top and revealing his inked torso, as he caught some sun.

Boat style: The 33-year-old finished the casual boating look with a pair of shimmering green gym shorts and black flip flops

Barbadian pride: He also showed some Barbadian pride, as he sported a blue bandanna around his head, featuring the Barbados flag

Sunset cruise: Drake took to Instagram with some selfies, as he enjoyed the gorgeous sunset with his vacation entourage

The Scorpion artist took a dip in the Atlantic Ocean, as he and his friends took turns jumping off the back of the boat.

He recently paid a visit to the childhood home of longtime pal and ex-girlfriend Rihanna, on a street now named Rihanna Drive.

Drake was in an on-again, off-again relationship with the 32-year-old from 2009 to 2016, and they remain friends.

Take it off: He was also spotted stripping off his tank top and revealing his inked torso, as he caught some sun

Work trip: Drake and his crew were reportedly on the Caribbean island to shoot a music video. They flew in on July 11, the first day Barbados opened its airport to international travelers amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Taking a dip: The Scorpion artist took a dip in the Atlantic Ocean, as he and his friends took turns jumping off the back of the boat

When in Barbados: He recently paid a visit to the childhood home of longtime pal and ex-girlfriend Rihanna, on a street now named Rihanna Drive

Although RiRi was reportedly not on the island for his visit, her brother Rorrey Fenty joined his entourage for a tour of Barbados.

A source told HollywoodLife of the visit: 'Drake became friends with both of Rihannas brothers [Rorrey and Rajad Fenty] through Rihanna, and theyre still cool with him.

'Theyre actually both really big fans of his and would love to see their sister settled down with him. They all still make jokes about him being their brother-in-law someday.'

According to another source, Drake and his crew were on the Caribbean island to shoot a music video.

Baby bro: Although RiRi was reportedly not on the island for his visit, her brother Rorrey Fenty joined his entourage for a tour of Barbados (Rorrey pictured on the left)

Like family: A source told HollywoodLife of the visit: 'Drake became friends with both of Rihannas brothers [Rorrey and Rajad Fenty] through Rihanna, and theyre still cool with him' (pictured in August, 2016)

Still friends: He was in an on-again, off-again relationship with the 32-year-old from 2009 to 2016, and they remain friends (pictured in February, 2011)

They flew in on July 11, the first day Barbados opened its airport to international travelers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and they all reportedly tested negative within 72 hours before traveling.

It comes after he appeared on DJ Khaled's new tracks Popstar and Greece, from his upcoming 12th studio album Khaled Khaled.

Drake also appeared to tease his sixth studio album earlier this month, posting to his Instagram Story from the recording studio, and writing '80 percent,' possibly referring to his progress on the new album.
Chicago:

A Muslim student's hijab was allegedly ripped off and her hair pulled down by a classmate at a school in Minnesota. The incident is the latest in a series of assaults and threats reported against headscarf-wearing women in the US following Donald Trump's win.

The incident took place at Northdale Middle School in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, prompting Anoka-Hennepin School District to launch an investigation into what Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is calling an assault.

CAIR's Minnesota chapter released a statement on Tuesday expressing concern over the school district's response to the incident that took place on Friday.

The family of the student reported to CAIR that a classmate came up behind the student, removed her hijab and threw it on the ground, then pulled her hair down in front of other students.

CAIR alleged the school district did not respond to the incident until Tuesday, an International Daily reported.

"School officials must take immediate actions to ensure that all students, regardless of their faith or ethnicity, are provided a safe learning environment," CAIR-MN Executive Director Jaylani Hussein said in a statement.

"It should not take days to respond to an apparently bias-motivated assault on a student," Hussein said.

Hussein added that the aggressor was also targeting other Muslim female students.

The district confirmed the incident and is working to find out where the breakdown of communication between the parent and the school took place, district spokesman Jim Skelly was quoted as saying.

District officials have reached out to CAIR, Skelly said.

The district released a statement stating that CAIR's description of the incident "is inconsistent with the district's understanding."

"The preliminary findings of the investigation indicate that this was isolated and not motivated by bias," the statement said.

"However, the concerns of the family reflect similar concerns around the metro and align with the need in our communities to find ways to talk about race and culture constructively and respectfully," it said.

The Northdale incident is one of several cases of harassment reported at Minnesota schools following the election.

Racist graffiti mentioning President-elect Trump by name was reported in November's first week at Maple Grove high school.

Also a slew of incidents of intimidation and assaults have been reported across the country against hijab-clad women post election.

A Muslim student of Michigan University in November's first week was approached by an unidentified man who yelled at her and threatened to set her on fire if she did not remove her hijab, prompting police to probe the hate crime incident.

The woman, who was not named, complied and left the area.

Also in the same week, a Muslim high-school teacher in Georgia was told to hang herself with her headscarf in a handwritten anonymous note she received in her classroom.

The CAIR believes the surge in Islamophobia could be attributed to the President-elect's victory.

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SFU political science professor Andy Hira suggests more enforcement and transparency will help local workers and help consumers make more ethical product choices

The economic restart prompted by COVID-19 provides an opportunity to innovate and change how companies conduct business.

For instance, companies that practice corporate social responsibility (CSR) could ensure more positive outcomes by tackling "real change on the ground" rather than focusing on single projects and budgets, according to Simon Fraser University political science professor Andy Hira.

Hira's paper, published this month in the journal Global Affairs, analyzes the impact of CSR in three industries: forestry, mining and textiles.

"When you look at CSR reports they're talking about expenditures and these great one-off projects they've built for communities,'" he says. "But there also needs to be a willingness to tie themselves to real changes that will have broader and lasting impact."

Hira also analyzed initiatives and programs designed to help consumers make sustainable product choices. He found that overall, few approaches translate into improvements for local communities.

In terms of the bigger picture, Hira suggests there is a need for increased global pressure on firms to be transparent and enforce CSR practices.

"Consumers need to let retailers and politicians know that they are concerned about these issues," Hira says. "Canada has ethical standards on the domestic level but we turn a blind eye to all the goods that we import. If we could extend those standards and say we're not going to allow imports on unethically produced goods everything would change."

Hira notes that government procurement could lead the way by ensuring ethical production and that Canada could coordinate with markets in Europe and U.S. to adopt standards, using market access as a lever to push for developing country standards enforcement.

Hira's assessment included the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which offers a certification program to help consumers choose sustainably sourced wood products from their local hardware store.

In the mining sector, he focused on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which aims to encourage transparency in government revenues received from oil, gas and mining. Many mining companies are headquartered in Canada but conduct exploration and mining projects all over the world, without the protections that Canadian regulations provide. Based on his first-hand research and data analysis, mining shows no real improvement for local communities or diminution of conflicts, despite a plethora of global CSR efforts.

The flaws he identifies in these programs makes it difficult for consumers to make ethical product choices.

"If anyone buys a gold ring to get married they can't guarantee that gold hasn't been produced by conflict or child labour in Sub-Saharan Africa," he says. "They can't guarantee that people involved in that gold mining are getting a fair wage, or that their communities are benefiting from the mining project or that the environmental effects won't last for generations once the mining project ends."

He is critical of the textile industry, which has a number of competing standards and frequently contracts factory auditing to Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) or consulting firms. This practice creates an inherent conflict of interest and widespread reports have highlighted major flaws in the monitoring process include a clear bias towards factory owners.

Hira's research on the textile industry builds on the book he wrote about CSR in the wake of the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh. Thousands of workers at the factory were producing clothing for major western brands and were killed when the building collapsed.

He notes that increased consumer and investor awareness prompted companies to engage in reporting and auditing but more changes are needed. In addition to conflicts of interest, there are no consequences for companies that fail these audits and no required remediation.

To improve audit neutrality, he suggests creating an international organization funded through a taxation system of member organizations to avoid the conflict of interest that arises from receiving a contract from one particular company.

Hira says companies could eliminate competing standards by working with international organizations, NGOs and governments on a harmonized label for consumers. This would improve consumer confidence that the products they are buying were produced ethically and sustainably.

Organizations can also work with local unions and activists to put pressure on local governments to improve conditions for workers. Better Work Cambodia is one example of this approach.

###

He is also editing a forthcoming special edition of the Journal of Developing Societies on the subject of developing country capacity, to be published this fall.
The Pioneer Woman star Ree Drummond lives an extremely busy life. Drummond is married to cattle rancher Ladd Drummond, whose family owns an estimated 433,000 acres of land in Oklahoma. Besides living on a farm and caring for thousands of animals, Drummond is a home-cook-turned-celebrity chef. And of all the ingredients she cooks with, there is one she always keeps in her pantry.

Ree Drummond | Monica Schipper/Getty Images for The Pioneer Woman Magazine

Food Networks The Pioneer Woman premiered back in 2011

When Drummond started her Pioneer Woman blog back in 2006, she never could have expected what it would become. Drummond was originally planning a career as a lawyer, but when she came back to Oklahoma from California to spend time with family, she met Ladd at a bar, and it changed her life. Soon, Drummond was marrying a cattle rancher and raising four kids in her home state of Oklahoma  a place from which she had once imagined moving far away.

Eventually, her readership grew, and people loved her recipes. A show was picked up by Food Network in 2011, and from there, Drummond was a household name. She has since continued filming the show all while opening up The Mercantile (her restaurant, bakery, and store) as well as a boutique hotel. Drummond now has a cookware line and a magazine, too.

RELATED: The Pioneer Woman Ree Drummonds 10 Most Popular Dishes on the Food Network

Drummond always keeps one versatile ingredient in her pantry

Anyone who has watched Drummonds show knows that her recipes are relatively easy. With such a busy life, they have to be. The mother of four often uses pantry staples in her dishes to create plenty of flavor without breaking the bank or adding elements that are too complex.

In Drummonds 2017 cookbook The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Come and Get It! Drummond reveals that she has 20 favorite items she always keeps in her pantry. The first one on the list? Canned tomato products. Whole, diced, stewed, tomato sauce, tomato paste, tomatoes with green chiles, she wrote. I cant survive without them. Other pantry staples of Drummonds include canned beans, pickled jalapenos, and roasted red peppers.

RELATED: The Pioneer Woman Ree Drummonds Favorite Chicken Salad Recipe

Drummonds ability to relate to fans is what helped make her so famous

When Drummond launched her blog, she didnt set out to become a household name. In a short time, though, she was headed that way, and it was largely due to her ability to relate to her fan base. Drummond had a sense of humor in her posts, mostly stemming from the trials and triumphs of being a mother to four kids.

Most of Drummonds recipes have a simplicity to them that viewers like to see; theyre often no-frills ingredients that dont require a trip to a specialty store. She keeps her image lighthearted, which has helped her build a reputation as a friend rather than just a celebrity.

Drummond has been hard at work despite the pandemic

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has hit the television industry hard, and many celebrity chefs have taken it upon themselves to film upcoming shows. Drummond has recruited her kids to help film episodes of The Pioneer Woman while on lockdown. She has continued to bring recipes to her viewers, and, despite slightly lower camera quality, shes the same amusing home cook in the new episodes as she is when the official production crew is filming.
The coronavirus caseload in the country surged to 12,38,635.

Ranchi: BJP MLA CP Singh steps out of an ambulance as he arrives at the Trauma Centre of Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) after he was found positive with coronavirus, in Ranchi, Wednesday. (PTI)

With the highest-ever single-day spike of 45,720 cases, India's COVID-19 tally crossed the 12-lakh mark on Thursday, while the death-toll mounted to 29,861 with a record 1,129 fatalities in a day. The country crossed the 12-lakh mark just three days after it crossed the 11-lakh milestone.

The coronavirus caseload in the country surged to 12,38,635, while 7,82,606 people have recovered so far in the country. There are 4,26,167 active cases of coronavirus infection presently in the country. Thus, 63.18 per cent people have recovered so far.

Of the 1,129 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, 518 are from Tamil Nadu, 280 from Maharashtra, 65 from Andhra Pradesh,55 from Karnataka, 39 from West Bengal, 34 from Uttar Pradesh, 29 from Delhi, 28 from Gujarat, 14 from Madhya Pradesh and 10 from Jammu and Kashmir. Telangana and Jharkhand have reported nine fatalities each followed by Haryana with eight deaths, Assam, Punjab and Rajasthan six each, Odisha five, Goa and Uttarakhand two each while Kerala, Puducherry, Tripura and Chandigarh have registered a fatality each.

In Maharashtra, fifth minister in the Uddhav Thackerey Government  Abdus Sattar, MoS Animal Husbandry  has tested positive for COVID-19. NCPs Rajya Sabha MP Fauzia Khan has also tested positive. In view of rising cases, Kerala has imposed curfew in Aluva Municipality and 7 panchayats from Wednesday. Similarly, Chhattisgarh has re-imposed a seven-day total lockdown in several districts. Jammu and Kashmir administration has imposed a fresh six-day lockdown in view of the novel coronvirus situation.

Haryana Government has decided to declare one Central Jail and three District Jails in the state as Special Jails (Temporary Jails) for confinement of new male prisoners remanded to judicial custody in Haryana till the receipt of their COVID-19 reports.
Canadas largest grocer saw its revenues continue to rise during the second quarter despite COVID-19 lockdowns, but profits fell due to high pandemic-related costs  including the recently ended hero pay for its workers.

Revenue for Loblaw Companies Ltd.s most recent quarter, ending June 13, rose 7.4 per cent over last year to almost $12 billion, compared to $11.8 billion during the first quarter.

However, the company that owns the Loblaws supermarket chain and Shoppers Drug Mart saw its net earnings drop 29 per cent over the same quarter last year to $266 million, or $26 million more than last quarter.

This was attributed to pandemic-related costs, including $180 million spent on a temporary pay boost for employees, so-called hero pay, which included a one-time bonus for store and distribution centre workers of $25 million. Overall the company spent $282 million on safety measures including the temporary pay raise.

Significant investments in the safety and well-being of everyone in our stores delivered against customer expectations, despite negatively impacting earnings, said Loblaw executive chairman Galen Weston in a statement Thursday.

The temporary pay boost ended on the last day of Loblaws second quarter  June 13  as did the pay boosts at Empire Company Ltd., which owns the Sobeys grocery store chain, and Metro Inc., a move that was met with public outcry.

Earlier this month, the House of Commons standing committee on industry, science and technology asked Loblaw president Sarah Davis as well as executives from Empire and Metro to defend their decision to end the program.

Loblaw saw its e-commerce business grow 280 per cent during the second quarter; so far this year Loblaw has made $1.2 billion in e-commerce sales, compared to $1 billion in all of 2019.

We are on a run rate of sales that we did not expect for years, said Davis during a conference call with analysts Thursday.

Retail analyst Lisa Hutcheson had predicted the profit boosts from the first quarter would begin to narrow into the second quarter, as Canadians shifted from panicked stockpiling to less-frenzied shopping. However, she said, it makes sense that grocery sales are still up, as people continue to purchase items they would normally put their money toward elsewhere  buying a box of hair dye instead of going to the salon, for example, or cooking at home rather than going out.

But that comes at a cost for grocers, she said. Besides the hero pay, which she noted has ended in conjunction with the gradual reopening of the economy, e-commerce has exploded and will continue to grow in the months to come, said Hutcheson.

What may have been a three- to five-year plan is happening now, she said.

Hutcheson said having a solid e-commerce strategy in place will be key for the anticipated second wave.

They dont want to have this crisis again. They want to be well prepared.

With files from Bloomberg and Canadian Press
Manufacturer Dyson has announced it will cut 600 jobs in the UK and 300 more in rest of the world due to Covid-19 as the jobs bloodbath continues.

The company, which employs 14,000 people globally, 4,000 of whom are based in Britain, said impacted staff are in retail and customer service roles, adding it was working to redeploy people to alternative jobs where possible.

A Dyson spokesman said: 'The Covid-19 crisis has accelerated changes in consumer behaviour and therefore requires changes in how we engage with our customers and how we sell our products.

Manufacturer Dyson has announced it will cut 600 jobs in the UK and 300 more in rest of the world due to Covid-19 as the jobs bloodbath continues (pictured: Sir James Dyson)

'We are evolving our organisation and reflecting these changes to make us faster, more agile, and better able to grow sustainably.

'We are fully supporting those who are impacted, finding alternative roles where possible.'

The company has not furloughed any staff, drawn on public money nor the British government's job retention scheme during the pandemic.

Most of the staff impacted by today's announcement are in retail or customer service roles, and the company said employees will be redeployed to different jobs where possible.

It follows the company's founder, Sir James Dyson, topping the Sunday Times Rich List for the first time in May with an estimated wealth of 16.2billion.

He recently unveiled the sole prototype of his company's electric car that was cancelled for being 'too risky'.

Most of the staff impacted by today's announcement are in retail or customer service roles and employees will be redeployed to different jobs where possible (pictured: Dyson's UK campus)

Singapore's most expensive penthouse, which was bought by the company's founder. Dyson unveiled plans in January last year to relocate its head office from the UK to Singapore

The interior of the Wallich Residence super penthouse in Singapore, bought by Sir James, which sits above the city's tallest skyscraper Guoco Tower

Britain's richest man scrapped his bold plan to market the Tesla-rivalling electric car last October after years of development work by his private company.

The company also developed a medical ventilator from scratch at the start of the pandemic, which the founder later said the government did not need.

An employee from Dyson told The Sun: 'It's their whole customer service team that are being made redundant.

'We're all due to receive redundancy packages later today. They have said that they are planning on outsourcing all of our roles as it's cheaper.

'The whole thing is incredibly out of the blue, and just last month we were all told that we were hitting record figures in relation to sales.'

In January last year Dyson, a Brexit-backing businessman, unveiled plans to relocate the manufacturer's head office from the UK to Singapore, where he also owns an apartment.

Sir James demonstrating his hoovering invention in March 2005 - a vacuum cleaner which replaced the traditional four wheels with one ball to guide it across the floor

The company's Singapore headquarters, pictured. Sir James was one of the loudest business supporters of Brexit at the 2016 referendum

At the time, Remain supporters criticised the founder for 'staggering hypocrisy' and warned it was 'damning for the Government', despite the firm's insistence the relocation was not to do with Brexit.

Sir James was one of the loudest business supporters of Brexit at the 2016 referendum and when the talks stagnated in 2017 he urged Theresa May to 'walk away' and embrace leaving Europe.

Today's announcement is one of the latest casualties in a series of job cuts to hit Britain's high streets, after Marks & Spencer said they will axe 950 staff in the first wave of a cull that will hit thousands of workers.

Meanwhile John Lewis and Boots have already shed thousands of staff in the wake of the pandemic, with at least 65,000 jobs currently at risk across the country.

Millions of shoppers have moved to online shopping, with experts predicting there will eventually be 250,000 redundancies across the sector.
United Benefit Advisors (UBA), the nation's leading independent employee benefits advisory organization, welcomes CBS Insurance to our community of Partners.

Based in Abilene, Texas, CBS Insurance is a full-service firm that has forged close, long-term relationships with their clients. Their team-based consultative approach draws on a diverse knowledge base to create personal and commercial coverage programs designed to fit their clients individual insurance needs.

"CBS Insurance is known for being a firm committed to meeting their clients insurance needs by utilizing the combined knowledge of the CBS team" said UBA Board Chairman, Gary Jurney. "Their level of dedication to collaboration and sharing is a key to what makes UBA Partners so successful in serving their clients."

Our team at CBS Insurance, LLP is excited to join United Benefit Advisors, to help strengthen our benefits department while utilizing the combined wisdom and resources from across the country. This relationship will help us to stay ahead of our local competition and provide the most up-to-date resources to help our clients navigate the ever-changing health care environment in West Texas, said CBS Insurance Partner Kevin Goodman.

CBS Insurance is one of the newest Partners to join the UBA community of independent employee benefits advisory firms that serve employers of all sizes globally. As a combined group, UBA's annual employee benefit revenues rank it among the top ten employee benefit advisory organizations globally.

About CBS Insurance

CBS Insurance was established in 1992 by a group of insurance professionals who envisioned a better way to provide quality insurance services and products to their clients. Since then, CBS Insurance, LLP has devoted its knowledge and combined experience in the industry to deliver quality coverage programs to individuals and businesses. To learn more about CBS Insurance, visit http://www.cbsins.com

About United Benefit Advisors

United Benefit Advisors (UBA) is the nations leading independent employee benefits advisory organization with more than 200 offices throughout the United States, Canada, England and Ireland. UBA empowers more than 2,000 Partners to both maintain their individuality and pool their expertise, insight, and market presence to provide best-in-class services and solutions. Employers, advisors and industry-related organizations interested in obtaining powerful results from the shared wisdom of our Partners should visit http://www.UBAbenefits.com.
Beijing:

Chinese websites are censoring Kim Fatty the Third, a nickname widely used to disparage North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, after officials from his country reportedly conveyed their displeasure in a meeting with their Chinese counterparts.

Searches for the Chinese words Jin San Pang on the search engine Baidu and microblogging platform Weibo returned no results this week.

The nickname pokes fun at Kims girth and his status as the third generation of the Kim family to rule the worlds only hereditary communist dynasty. Its especially popular among young, irreverent Chinese who tend to look down on their countrys would-be ally.

Relations between China and North Korea have been strained by the Norths nuclear weapons program.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Everyone originally registered for the September exam  itself previously postponed from July because of the pandemic  will automatically be registered for Octobers exam and has until Aug. 7 to withdraw or defer taking the exam until February 2021, according to the announcement. Registration will also be open for others who want to take the remote exam.
Buffalo Bills defensive tackle Ed Oliver took to Twitter on Wednesday shortly after the news broke that all charges against him stemming from a DWI arrest in May were dropped.

Oliver posted an article from ABC Houston from the day after his arrest and asked people to go back and read the article again with the knowledge that his blood work came back clean.

READ MORE: DWI, unlawful weapon charges dropped against Bills Ed Oliver stemming from May arrest

WATCH: Police in Texas arrest Buffalo Bills DT Ed Oliver

Now yall go back and read this article knowing that all my blood work came back clean!!! Oliver wrote. but (SIC) I had a beer can between my legs get the f*** out of here. (How) does a 58 officer (see) inside a window above his head anyway. (How) do 5 cop cars show up before I take a sobriety test?

Now yall go back and read this article knowing that all my blood work came back clean!!!but I had a beer can between my legs get the f*** out of here how does a 58 officer se inside a window above his head anyway  how do 5 cop cars show up before I take a sobriety test huh https://t.co/ITKSdaUz8I  Ed Oliver (@Edoliver_11) July 22, 2020

Oliver was charged with driving while intoxicated and unlawfully carrying a weapon after another motorist saw a car swerving through lanes and called 911. Police made Oliver perform a sobriety test and he was arrested.

According to Aaron Wilson from the Houston Chronicle, Olivers attorney Gary Patterson said Oliver wasnt intoxicated nor was he drinking.

The report that there was a beer can between his legs was totally inaccurate, Patterson told Wilson. He blew a triple-zero on breathalyzer. Blood tests were all negative.

Gary Patterson, @Edoliver_11 attorney 'We feel the cops didn't do a good job w/ this investigation. Ed is thankful for the fans that didn't rush to judgment and believed in his innocence. He feels vindicated, but he also feels somewhat violated because he had to go through this'  Aaron Wilson (@AaronWilson_NFL) July 22, 2020

The Bills released a statement on Wednesday in support of Oliver.

We are pleased with the ruling today regarding Ed Oliver, the statement read. We supported and worked with Ed throughout the offseason program as it was a priority for us to allow the legal process to play out. We appreciate Eds honesty and communication with us. With his name cleared of all charges, he can now turn his full attention on the upcoming training camp and season.

Patterson said that Oliver experienced significant frustration during the legal process and didnt think the investigation in his case was performed to high standard.

We feel the cops didnt do a good job with this investigation, Patterson said. Ed is thankful for the fans that didnt rush to judgment and believed in his innocence. He feels vindicated, but he also feels somewhat violated because he had to go through this.

MORE ON THE BILLS

DWI, unlawful weapon charges dropped against Bills Ed Oliver stemming from May arrest

10 Buffalo Bills cut candidates for proposed 80-man training camp roster

Buffalo Bills training camp preview 2020: Is Josh Norman the answer opposite TreDavious White?
TD Jakes implores people to take COVID-19 seriously: easier to wear a mask than wear a ventilator

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Bishop T.D. Jakes has called on West Virginians to get tested during the pandemic and to wear face masks, declaring that it's easier to wear a mask than wear a ventilator.

A native of South Charleston, Jakes brief message was posted to Facebook last Friday by the Herbert Henderson Office of Minority Affairs. It included a link to a government website that listed where free COVID-19 testing was available.

You need to get tested for COVID-19. It's running rampant. Its hurting a lot of people. Its killing them, said Jakes in the video message.

Wear a mask. Its so much easier to wear a mask than to wear a ventilator. Wear a mask. Social distance yourself, even from people you know and love. If they dont live with you, keep your distance.

Jakes went on to say that West Virginia was in my prayers and in my thoughts and that were going to get through this together. Hang in there, be smart!

West Virginia currently has over 5,000 coronavirus cases and 101 deaths, according to the state Department of Health and Human Resources. The overall positive rate is 2.16%.

The senior pastor of The Potter's House in Dallas, Texas, has been critical of those who refuse to adhere to guidelines aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus.

In a Facebook Live broadcast made back in May, Jakes said that Christians who spurned social distancing guidelines were engaging in unbiblical foolishness.

When the Bible said Jesus was tempted in the wilderness for 40 days and Satan said, if thou be the Son of God cast yourself off of this mountain for it is written that the angels will bear you up,' Jesus did not throw Himself off the mountain just to see if angels would catch Him. Thats not faith, thats foolishness, he stated at the time.

To put yourself in a situation where you disregard common sense, disregard it just to see if God has got you, please dont do that. Im on here talking to you today because Im concerned and Im worried, and I love you and Im scared for you.

For their part, The Potters House has been holding online services in light of the pandemic until further notice.

Jakes message about getting tested comes days after Andy Stanley, head of Atlanta, Georgias North Point Community Church, interviewed a friend of his who survived COVID-19.

The survivor, named Stuart Hall, explained to the megachurch pastor that his ordeal taught him that the coronavirus must be taken very seriously and that it is not a mere conspiracy theory.

This is not a political agenda. And more than anything, Andy, its incredibly disrespectful to the medical community. Men and women who are risking their own life to save lives, said Hall.

Put a mask on  Care about your neighbor.
By Associated Press

KABUL: Witnesses say a government airstrike has killed at least 14 people in Afghanistan's western Herat province, many of them women and children.

Hundreds of people had gathered in Herat's Adraskan district to welcome home a former Taliban fighter freed from jail when aircraft pounded the gathering, said Noor Rahmati, a witness who lost three members of his family in the airstrike.

Government officials said Thursday the airstrike a day earlier was being investigated.

Ghulam Nabi had been released, apparently as part of a prisoner exchange aimed at moving intra-Afghan negotiations forward, a second and critical phase of a peace deal between the US and Taliban.

District elders and well wishers had arrived to welcome Nabi when the attack began, the witnesses said.

Nabi's 9-year-old son was apparently wounded in the attack.
Around 4,000 Asha workers, deployed at the front lines in the fight against Covid-19 in the national capital, have been on strike since Tuesday, demanding incentives and better wages. Despite the Delhi government on Thursday promising them more incentives, Asha workers said they will continue their strike till they are not paid Rs 10,000 per month as fixed salary, up from the Rs 4,000 monthly remuneration they have been paid since April.

A Majority of the Accredited Social Health Activists (Asha) in Delhi are currently engaged in pandemic management work, such as conducting door-to-door surveys, especially in the containment zones, putting up posters outside Covid-19 patients' homes, keeping tabs on people in home isolation and supplying medicines at their doorsteps.

Usha Thakur, general secretary of Delhi Asha Workers Association (DAWA), said, Most Asha workers are on covid-19 duty and are not able to do other work. Normally, every month, we managed to earn between Rs 7,000 and Rs 9,000 through incentives. Now we are being paid Rs 3,000 as core incentive and Rs 1,000 for Covid-19 duty per month. Many Ashas are sole bread-earners for their families. They are struggling to make ends meet even after working for hours, she said.

Asha workers are community health workers who work with state health missions constituted under a Union health ministry programme. Apart from the fixed Rs 3,000 as core incentive, these workers are given incentives for every health activity such as immunisation, hospital delivery, routine checks. They are mostly assigned to local government-run dispensaries.

The association members on Thursday evening were invited by state health minister Satyendar Jains office for a dialogue. Sonu, president of DAWA, said, We have been promised some incentives, but they have not accepted the demand of Rs 10,000 per month as fixed salary. We have decided to continue our strike until our demands are met. We will not report to work on Friday as well.

The Delhi government refused to comment on the matter.

The protesting Asha workers on Thursday also wrote to MLAs and councillors of their localities, requesting them to intervene and also held protests in different areas across the city including Sagarpur, Sudarshan Park and Qutub Vihar.

Kavita Yadav, state coordinator for Asha workers, All India United Traders Union Centre (AITUC), said that by Thursday around 4,000 Asha workers had joined the strike. The government has paid Rs 5,000 as compensation to those who lost their work amid the pandemic. But, they are giving us Rs 4,000 per month even after working for 12-13 hours. Some Asha workers are not even paid the full amount of Rs 4,000, she said.

Officials at several district magistrate offices said the Covid-19 services in their districts will get affected if the strike continues. There have been complaints from some dispensaries in my district that Asha workers are not reporting to work. Even though we have trained teachers and civil defence volunteers, there will be a staff crisis if Asha workers continue the strike. It will be difficult to continue surveillance work, said a district magistrate, who wished not to be named.

An official at the west district magistrate office said, Asha workers have not been reported to work at several dispensaries in our district for the last three days due to which we had to deploy teachers at their place. Their incentive issue should be resolved as soon as possible to avoid any crises.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Fareeha Iftikhar Fareeha Iftikhar is a principal correspondent with the national political bureau of the Hindustan Times. She tracks the education ministry, and covers the beat at the national level for the newspaper. She also writes on issues related to gender, human rights and different policy matters. ...view detail
New York lawmakers have passed a moratorium that would ban the use of facial recognition in schools until 2022. Their decision comes a month after the New York Civil Liberties Union sued the State Education Department for approving Lockport City School Districts facial recognition system.

If youll recall, Lockport started testing a facial and object recognition technology called "Aegis" in June 2019, and the district officially activated it in January this year. The bill mandating the moratorium still needs Governor Cuomos approval, but once its official, the New York education department will also be compelled to study and craft regulation around the technologys use.

Education Policy Center deputy director Stephanie Coyle issued a statement for the NYCLU, explaining how facial recognition can affect Black and Brown students experiences. Facial recognition technologies can still be woefully inaccurate when it comes identifying PoCs and women, leading to mistaken identities and potentially false charges. Putting them in schools with students who are still growing and changing rapidly could therefore be a recipe for disaster.

She said:

...Schools should be an environment where children can learn and grow, and the presence of a flawed and racially-biased system constantly monitoring students makes that impossible. This is especially important as schools across the state begin to acknowledge the experiences of Black and Brown students being policed in schools and funneled into the school-to-prison pipeline. Facial recognition is notoriously inaccurate especially when it comes to identifying women and people of color. For children, whose appearances change rapidly as they grow, biometric technologies accuracy is even more questionable. False positives, where the wrong student is identified, can result in traumatic interactions with law enforcement, loss of class time, disciplinary action, and potentially a criminal record.

The Lockport City School District, as youd expect, is disappointed in the lawmakers decision. Superintendent Michelle Bradley told Lockport Union-Sun & Journal that that the district believes theres no valid basis to prevent it from using technology thats already been approved. She said facial recognition is even more important now that schools have to use multiple entrances to enable temperature screening as a safety measure against COVID-19.

Bradley also defended Aegis and downplayed critics security concerns: Contrary to the constant misrepresentations by opponents of the AEGIS System, the AEGIS System does not in any way record or retain biometric information relating to students or any other individuals on District ground.
An SDLP councillor has resigned from the party so she can have an "independent, inclusive voice" for the whole community.

Causeway Coast and Glens Councillor Angela Mulholland told the party on Thursday that she was quitting.

The move follows Councillor Stephanie Quigley who resigned from the party earlier this month over its stance on abortion.

Independent Councillor Angela Mulholland said: "The recent lockdown has caused many changes for our local Council, local businesses, and local people within our communities.

"Indeed, the lockdown has made many of us reassess our lifestyles and our lives. Throughout lockdown and indeed beforehand I have been reflecting upon my role as a councillor.

"I want to be a voice for everyone in the Borough and to serve the interests of all in a truly inclusive and open way.

"In this time of reflection, I have made the decision to become an Independent Councillor. Taking this step as an Independent Councillor will afford me the opportunity to be an Independent Inclusive Voice for the whole community.

Councillor Mulholland concluded I owe so much to party colleagues who have been truly supportive and. I would like to thank everyone in the community who voted for me last time and I hope to represent everyone in my new role without any affiliation to any political party.

"I look forward with renewed ambition and determination to playing my part in building a better future for everyone here in Causeway Coast and Glens."

Responding to Councillor Mulholland's decision an SDLP spokesperson said: "The SDLP has received Cllr Angela Mulhollands resignation. We regret Cllr Mulhollands decision.
A United States court has dismissed the case against Olalekan Ponle, a Nigerian accused of multi-million dollar wire fraud, PremiumTimes...

A United States court has dismissed the case against Olalekan Ponle, a Nigerian accused of multi-million dollar wire fraud, PremiumTimes reports





Mr Ponle, popularly known as Woodberry, was arrested, alongside Ramon Abbas (Hushpuppi) in the United Arab Emirate on June 10 for multiple fraud charges after a raid by operatives of the Dubai crime unit.





The duo were extradited to the U.S. on July 2.





According to the complaint against Mr Ponle, an unnamed Chicago company was tricked into sending wire transfers totalling $15.2 million. Companies based in Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, New York and California also were victims of the fraud, prosecutors say.





The 29-year-old was facing charges bordering on wire fraud conspiracy at a United States District Court in Illinois.





In fact, a report of the grand jury, a group of lawyers empowered to conduct legal proceedings and investigate potential criminal conduct, indicted him.





The jury summed up the allegations against him to an eight-count charge of wire fraud, which violates section 1343 of the United States Codes.





Dismissal

The United States government on Monday filed a motion through its attorney, John R. Lausch, requesting that the case against Mr Ponle should be dismissed without prejudice.





Counsel for the government has spoken with counsel for the defendant and defendants





counsel has no objection to this motion.





Respectfully submitted, Mr Lausch stated.





He said it is in pursuant with Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 48, which states that the government may, with leave of court, dismiss an indictment, information, or complaint.





Also, the government may not dismiss the prosecution during trial without the defendants consent.





A court order issued by Judge Robert W. Gettleman on Tuesday, said the governments motion to dismiss complaint without prejudice was granted.





Without objection the complaint against defendant Ponle is dismissed without prejudice. Motion presentment hearing set for 7/23/2020 is stricken, Mr Gettleman ruled.





When a case is dismissed with prejudice, it is over and done with, once and for all, and cant be brought back to court.





However, when it is dismissed without prejudice, like in the case of Mr Ponle, the dismissal is temporary as the prosecutor can refile the case within a certain period of time.





According to PremiumTimes, the probable causes of dismissal range from unavailability of sufficient evidence, an improper criminal complaint or charging document, to loss of evidence necessary to prove the defendant committed the crime.





As of now, the reason for the dismissal against Woodberry isnt known but there are indications that the prosecutor will re-file a case against him as he is yet to be released from detention.
The brother of Australia's most notorious terrorist has been acquitted of brutally bashing a woman in an attack that left her 'soaking in blood' with a fractured left eye socket, broken ribs and two fractured vertebrae.

Arken Sharrouf, 33, was found not guilty on the grounds he was mentally ill at the time of the savage attack.

NSW District Court Judge Philip Ingram SC dismissed the charges of intimidation, choking and grievous bodily harm after Sharrouf pleaded not guilty to the July 2019 assault, which left the woman in hospital for nine days.

Arken Sharrouf, the younger brother of Australia's most notorious terrorist Khaled Sharrouf (pictured) has been acquitted of brutally bashing a woman in an attack that left her 'soaking in blood' with a fractured left eye socket, broken ribs and two fractured vertebrae.

The NSW District Court (pictured) dismissed the charges of intimidation, choking and grievous bodily harm after Sharrouf pleaded not guilty to the July 2019 assault, which left the woman in hospital for nine days

But while the unemployed Sydney father will not serve any time in prison, Judge Ingram ordered him to be detained in a secure psychiatric facility until the Mental Health Review Tribunal are satisfied he is safe for release.

The court heard Sharrouf was 'like a monster,' on the day of the vicious attack, The Daily Telegraph reported.

'With one punch I fell to the floor  I was very dizzy, I was under his feet. All I could feel was the pounding of his fist on my face,' the woman said.

'My clothes were soaking wet. But it wasn't water, it was blood.'

Despite her screams, Sharrouf continued to beat the woman who drifted 'in and out of consciousness'.

She said Sharrouf, who was a steroid user, then casually got dressed and he went to the gym.

ISIS terrorist Khaled Sharrouf is pictured in this disturbing image holding up a severed head while in Syria

Just one day earlier, Sharrouf cut off the woman's hair after complaining it had become too long.

'It was like he had a mask on, it wasn't him,' she said.

'I was crying and I was shaking from the way Arken was looking at me.'

The court heard that Sharrouf had stopped taking his schizophrenia medication weeks before the incident.

He refused to take the anti-psychotics because it make him gain 20kg and deflated his sex drive, psychiatrist Dr Martin Reading said.

Sharrouf raised both of these issues with his GP who prescribed him an anti-obesity amphetamine.

Khaled Sharrouf and his two sons were killed in a coalition air strike in August 2017 near the war-ravaged city of Raqqa

Dr Reading said such a drug would 'significantly worsen schizophrenia symptoms'.

Sharrouf claims he cannot remember the incident.

Arken Sharrouf is the younger brother of the infamous ISIS terrorist Khaled Sharrouf who travelled to Syria in 2013.

Khaled was once pictured holding up two severed heads and even encouraged his young children to pose with the mutilated corpses.

Khaled Sharrouf and his two sons were killed in a coalition air strike in August 2017 near the war-ravaged city of Raqqa.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton once said that Sharrouf's death would be nothing to mourn.
The 1,200-degree inferno that roared aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard for four days caused 'extensive' damage to 11 of the assault ship's 14 decks, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday has revealed.

The admiral visited the warship at Naval Base San Diego last Friday, just one day after the Navy announced that all known fires aboard the vessel had finally been extinguished, after a tireless near-92 hour battle.

'I wanted to see the ship firsthand, the extent of the damage,' Gilday told reporters Wednesday. 'The damage is extensive. There is obvious electrical damage to the ship. There is structural damage to the ship. There is mechanical damage to the ship that we need to assess in much more detail before we make a final determination of next steps.'

Gilday added that the fate of the 22-year-old ship remains uncertain, hinting that it may not be worth restoring the vessel considering it is already half-way through its service life.

The 1,200-degree inferno that roared aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard for four days caused 'extensive' damage to 11 of its 14 decks

Smoke is seen rising from the USS Bonhomme Richard following an explosion aboard the vessel on July 12

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday (right) conducted a first-hand summary aboard the ship on July 17, one day after the flames were extinguished

In his summary report of the ship's state, Gilday noted: 'There is fire and water damage, to varying degrees, on 11 of 14 decks,' as first reported by Defense News.

'The island is nearly gutted, as are sections of some of the decks below,' Gilday continued, adding that 'sections of the flight deck are warped/bulging.'

The blaze first broke out aboard the ship on July 12 at 8:30am. The conflagration erupted on USS Bonhomme Richard's lower decks, sending temperatures as high as 1,200 degrees and triggering several explosions as the flames tore through the ship.

Gilday wrote in his summary that although sailors' efforts to combat the flames were 'rapid', a wind that swept through the vessel and the series of explosions caused the situation to spiral out of control.

His investigation determined the fire spread 'quickly up elevator shafts, engine exhaust stacks, and through berthing and other compartments where combustible material was present.'

'The explosions, some were intense, and the uncertainty of their location and timing, led to a situation, that might have been under control late Sunday night, but expanded into a mass conflagration.'

The Admiral also acknowledged that the ship's Halon fire suppression system  which could have extinguished the initial fire  was not activated because it was undergoing maintenance.

'I wanted to see the ship firsthand, the extent of the damage,' Gilday (right) told reporters Wednesday. 'The damage is extensive.'

Pictures from inside the charred amphibious warship HSS Bonhomme Richard after a fire tore through it

More than 160 people had been aboard when the blaze erupted at 8:30am last Sunday. It had been undergoing maintenance when the fire was first reported in a lower cargo area where seafaring tanks are parked

Pictures taken by @Osinttechnical show the 'extensive damage' caused by the blaze which burned for more than four days off San Diego harbor. It is not yet known if the ship will sail again

The blaze first broke out aboard the ship on July 12 at 8:30am. The conflagration erupted on USS Bonhomme Richard's lower decks, sending temperatures as high as 1,200 degrees and triggering several explosions as it tore through the ship

Four days after the initial spark, the fire on the USS Bonhomme Richard was still burning Wednesday, as firefighters inched their way deeper into its compartments in a search to find every smoldering hot spot

Hundreds of federal and Navy firefighters rotating on 15-minute shift patterns battled to save the burning warship for four straight days before the flames were put out on July 16.

Amid the unrelenting fight, firefighters blasted the ship with hoses on its interior and exterior, with helicopters dropping more than 1,500 buckets of water on the flames from above.

The US Navy reported that the ship had taken on so much matter that it began pitching onto one side in port.

In his letter, Gilday praised the work of Bonhomme Richard's crew, as well as the hundreds of sailors who rushed to the scene, many without orders to do so.

'There were Sailors from across the San Diego waterfront who responded to this fire  hundreds of them; many without receiving direction to do so,' Gilday wrote, adding that a number of sailors and firefighters 'had to be ordered  and re-ordered  to go home at some point and get some rest.

'I also met with the air crews of HSC-3; the aerial bucket brigade who dropped nearly 700K gallons of water on the blaze, day and night, from their helos,' he continued.

'Their efforts were critical in helping get the fire under control; and they used their IR [infrared] capability to locate hot spots and vector fire teams to the source. Awe inspiring teamwork.'

In his letter, Gilday praised the work of Bonhomme Richard's crew, as well as the hundreds of sailors who rushed to the scene, many without orders to do so

The Bonhomme Richard had been docked since 2018 and was nearing the end of an estimated $250 million upgrade so it could start being used to deploy the Marine Corps' F-35Bs in the Pacific

More than 60 sailors and civilians have been treated for minor injuries, heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation

It could cost an estimated $4 billion to replace the ship if it is deemed un-salvageable

In total, officials have reported that more than 60 people were injured by the blaze. The injuries were not life-threatening, and included heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation.

Rear Adm. Philip Sobeck, who is commander of the strike group that includes the Bonhomme Richard as its flagship, routinely voiced optimism during the firefight that the ship could be saved and would return to duty.

However, following his first-hand assessment, Gilday hinted that it may not be worth attempting to repair the ship, which was already half-way through its service life, having been commissioned in 1998.

'I am 100% confident that our defense industry can put this ship back to sea,' Gilday said. 'But having said that, the question is should we make that investment in a 22-year-old ship. I'm not going to make any predictions until we take a look at all the facts.'

The Bonhomme Richard is capable of carrying more than 1,000 sailors, in addition to helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. The cost of the ship has been estimated $761 million, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

It had been homeported at Naval Base San Diego since its last deployment in spring 2018, when it returned from a six-year port switch to Sasebo, Japan.

The Bonhomme Richard been homeported at Naval Base San Diego since its last deployment in spring 2018, when it returned from a six-year port switch to Sasebo, Japan

In a photo provided by the U.S. Navy, sailors aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard talk about a fire aboard the ship at Naval Station San Diego last Sunday

Teams of sailors rotating on 15-minute firefighting shift patterns poured water into the ship from the pier and from tugboats tirelessly for four days

Sailors enter the USS Bonhomme Richard to combat a fire aboard the amphibious assault ship

Firefighting efforts involved personnel from Naval Base San Diego (right) and the City of San Diego Fire Department (left), along with Harbor Police fire boats and fire teams from other ships

The Bonhomme Richard was undergoing maintenance when the fire was first reported in a lower cargo area where seafaring tanks are parked

Prior to the fire breaking out, the Navy had been working to modernize the Bonhomme Richard, refitting the older Wasp-class amphibious assault ship to carry the short take off, vertical landing F- 35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.

Gilday closed his summary by pledging to learn from the fire - the Navy's worst U.S. warship fire outside of combat in recent memory  and draw positives from it.

'We will thoroughly look into and learn from the fire on BONHOMME RICHARD,' he wrote. 'We will be committed to doing that together. I have no doubt about that.

'As we look hard into recent events  and revisit and assess what we've learned from previous incidents, I am relying on you to reinforce those aspects of our culture demonstrated on BONHOMME RICHARD and across the Navy right now. Focus on the positive attributes  that will overcome the negatives we want to avoid.'
Two Hells Angels and a member of Satan's Soldiers have been charged with the murder of 51-year-old father whose assassination was caught on surveillance camera in May.

Video showed Francisco Rosado being gunned down in the parking lot of a Bronx, New York property where he held a role as a building super.

On Tuesday, Frank 'Loose Cannon' Tatulli, 58; Anthony Destefano, 27, and Sayanon Thongthwath, 29, were arrested and on Wednesday they were arraigned.

The gang members were charged with murder, manslaughter and weapon possession in the killing of Rosado, who was head of the Pagans Motorcycle Club's Bronx chapter.

Frank 'Loose Cannon' Tatulli, 58; Anthony Destefano, 27, and Sayanon Thongthwath, 29, (not pictured) were arrested on Tuesday for the killing of Francisco Rosado (pictured left and right)

Two men are seen on May 2 as Rosado was fatally shot in the head and chest in the Bronx, New York

'I give all the glory to Jesus,' his widow Jeannie Rosado cried to the New York Daily News. 'It's bittersweet. It's good that they were caught, but it doesn't bring him back.'

'We are still very much grieving,' she added. 'I pray that they get everything they deserve.'

In January, several shots were reportedly fired at the new Hells Angels headquarters in the Bronx. However its unknown whether Rosado's killing was connected to that incident.

Jeannie said she didn't know of any rivalry between her husband and the group.

'I wasn't aware of any feud,' she said. 'We still don't know why. It just goes to show you the evil we have in the world right now.'

Two of the defendants belong to Hells Angels but Destefano is a member of the Satan's Soldiers biker gang, according to the New York Post.

The suspects are seen getting back into the Jeep after the shooting in Allerton where the victim worked as a building super

The leader of the Pagans Motorcycle Club gang's Bronx chapter died at the scene of the crime

The gang has been linked to the production and smuggling of meth, cocaine, heroin and PCP and is also believed to have deep ties to organized crime

Rosado was talking to people in a parking lot on Hollard Avenue near Boston Road in the Allerton section of The Bronx at around 3.20pm on May 2 when he was accosted by a pair of masked suspects and shot dead.

Surveillance video captured the moment the killers jumped out of a blue Jeep Cherokee and ran with their silencer-topped guns drawn toward Rosado standing out of the frame. The footage did not show the victim getting hit.

The assassins returned moments later, got back in the Jeep and sped away.

In an interview with the New York Daily News at the time, Jeannie Rosado said she and her entire family, including her and Francisco's three grown children and five grandchildren, were devastated by his death.

'He had a short temper, but a heart of gold,' the widow told the newspaper of her partner of 27 years. 'He was a hard-working man who provided for many people.'

Rosado worked as a building superintendent in Allerton, and in his free time ran the club in The Bronx.

The Pagan Motorcycle Club has more than 1,300 members across at least 100 chapters in several states along the East Coast.

The gang has been linked to the production and smuggling of meth, cocaine, heroin and PCP and is also believed to have deep ties to organized crime.

The Pagans are one of four major outlaw motorcycle gangs in the US - with rivals being the Hells Angels, the Bandidos and the Outlaws.

'I give all the glory to Jesus,' his widow Jeannie Rosado (pictured right) cried. 'It's bittersweet. It's good that they were caught, but it doesn't bring him back'
Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, listens during a Senate Small Business Committee hearing on coronavirus relief aid and "Implementation of title I of the CARES Act.", in Washington, U.S., June 10, 2020.

Sen. Mitt Romney plans to vote against the controversial nomination of Judy Shelton to the Federal Reserve, the Utah Republican told reporters Thursday.

Speaking just two days after Shelton secured key Senate banking committee approval, Romney said he won't join his party in supporting President Donald Trump's nominee.

"I'm not going to be endorsing Judy's Shelton's nomination to the Fed," Romney told reporters, according to an account in The Hill. "I will be voting against her."

Romney's opposition means that if three more GOP senators defect, that would kill the nomination to the central bank's board of governors.

Romney's office did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.

Shelton received committee approval by a razor-thin 13-12 party-line vote. Her nomination, which Trump announced more than a year ago, ran into trouble over past views she has espoused on the gold standard, Fed independence and insurance of bank deposits, among other things.
HONOLULU - Hurricane Douglas gathered strength as it barrelled west toward the Hawaiian Islands on a track to potentially bring strong winds and flash flooding to the island chain over the weekend, weather forecasters said.

The storm had maximum sustained winds of 100 mph (155 kph), making it a Category 2 hurricane as of late Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center said.

Its expected to become a Category 3 hurricane on Thursday, said John Bravender, warning co-ordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Honolulu.

Cooler waters east of Hawaii and wind shear were expected to weaken the storm before it reaches the islands. The weather service said its likely to be either at hurricane or near-hurricane strength when it arrives.

Its too early to predict the precise path of the storm in the islands. Bravender said any part of the state could be affected.

Douglas was 1,570 miles (2,530 kilometres) southeast of Hawaii as of late Wednesday.

In the Gulf of Mexico, Tropical Depression Eight formed and a tropical storm warning was issued for much of the Texas coast.

The depression was located about 530 miles (852 kilometres) east-southeast of Port OConnor, Texas, with maximum sustained winds of 30 mph (48 kph). It was moving west-northwest at 9 mph (14 kph).

The centre of the depression is expected to move across the northwestern Gulf of Mexico on Thursday and Friday and make landfall along the Texas coast on Saturday. Slow strengthening is expected and the depression could become a tropical storm in a day or so.

The storm is expected to produce 2-4 inches (5-10 centimetres) of rain with isolated totals of 6 inches (15 centimetres) along the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the lower Texas coast, and inland through south-central Texas and the Rio Grande Valley. The depression is expected to generate swells that produce life-threatening surf and rip conditions that will affect much of Texas and Louisiana.

Meanwhile, recently formed Tropical Storm Gonzalo was strengthening in the Atlantic and the centre said it was expected to become a hurricane by Thursday.

As of Wednesday evening, Gonzalo was centred about 1,045 miles (1,681 kilometres) east of the southern Windward Islands with maximum sustained winds of 60 mph (96 kph). It was heading west at 12 mph (19 kph).

The Hurricane Center said that interests in the Windward Islands should monitor the storm as it is expected to approach the islands late Friday and Saturday. A hurricane watch has been issued for Barbados.

Gonzalos strengthening breaks a record set by Tropical Storm Gert, which formed on July 24, 2005. So far this year, Cristobal, Danielle, Edouard and Fay also set records for being the earliest named Atlantic storms of their respective place in the alphabet.
Iran urged to release rights activist with COVID-19 symptoms 'before it is too late'

22 July 2020 - A group of independent UN human rights experts has called for Iran to urgently release an activist who reportedly is ill with COVID-19 symptoms "before it is too late".

They said Narges Mohammadi appears to have contracted the virus in Zanjan Prison, located in the capital, Tehran, where she is serving a 16-year sentence stemming from her work on human rights.

She has been in detention since 2015 and was sentenced in May 2016.

'Life-or-death consequences'

"We are extremely concerned for Ms. Mohammadi's well-being. We previously raised concerns that she and other individuals in Iranian prisons are at great risk if they contract COVID-19 and we called for their immediate release", the experts said on Wednesday.

"For those with underlying health conditions, such as Ms. Mohammadi, it may have life-or-death consequences. The Iranian authorities must act now before it is too late."

Ms. Mohammadi showed the first symptoms of COVID-19 on 29 June, according to the experts. Her condition deteriorated and she suffered a loss of consciousness on 5 July.

Check-up video 'violation'

The rights experts said Ms. Mohammadi should receive the results of the COVID-19 test she took, three days later, and she also should be moved to a hospital for proper care. One of her cellmates has tested positive for the disease and others have displayed symptoms.

"We also deplore the publishing of a video by State-affiliated media which claims to portray Ms. Mohammadi receiving a medical check-up by a doctor, reportedly to suggest that she is in good health. This video represents a violation of Ms. Mohammadi's privacy rights and has no value as its content cannot be verified in any way", they added.

Fear of more cases

The UN experts are also concerned that there may be more COVID-19 cases in Iranian prisons, as inmates previously released on furlough have returned to prison, amid a second wave of COVID-19 in the country.

While they had previously commended a government policy granting temporary release to prisoners, as a means to reduce the disease's impacts in jails, the experts were worried that human rights activists and others held without sufficient legal basis, had not benefited.

"Ms. Mohammadi should not be in prison in the first place", they said. "The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that her detention is arbitrary and called for her immediate release in 2017. Not only do the Iranian authorities continue to imprison her, they have in the past year denied her contact with her family and are also seeking to prosecute her under new charges in order to continue her unlawful imprisonment."

"We yet again call on Iran to immediately release Ms. Mohammadi, as well as all others who are currently denied their right to liberty in contravention of Iran's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."

The 16 experts calling for her release were appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. Their mandates cover specific country situations or thematic issues.

They are neither UN staff, nor are they paid by the Organization.

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In a new study published in the journal Microorganisms, a team of researchers from the UK, the Netherlands and Germany tested how mammalian immune cells responded to peptides containing two amino acids that are commonly found in carbonaceous meteorites. The immune response to these alien peptides was less efficient than the reaction to those common on Earth. The findings suggest extraterrestrial microorganisms could pose an immunological risk for space missions aiming to retrieve samples from planets and moons.

The discovery of liquid water at several locations in the solar system raises the possibility that microbial life may have evolved outside Earth and as such could be accidentally introduced into the Earths ecosystem, said study senior author Professor Neil Gow from the Medical Research Council Centre for Medical Mycology at the University of Exeter and the Aberdeen Fungal Group in the Institute of Medical Sciences at the University of Aberdeen, and colleagues.

Unusual sugars or amino acids have been found in high abundance on carbonaceous meteorites.

It is therefore conceivable that extraterrestrial microorganisms might contain proteins that include rare amino acids.

We asked whether the mammalian immune system would be able to recognize and induce appropriate immune responses to putative proteinaceous antigens that include these rare amino acids.

In the study, conducted in mice, the scientists examined the reaction of T cells, which are key to immune responses, to peptides containing amino acids commonly found on meteorites: isovaline and -aminoisobutyric acid.

The response was less efficient, with activation levels of 15% and 61%  compared to 82% and 91% when exposed to peptides made entirely of amino acids that are common on Earth.

Life on Earth relies on essential 22 amino acids, said study lead author Dr. Katja Schaefer, also from the Medical Research Council Centre for Medical Mycology at the University of Exeter and the Aberdeen Fungal Group in the Institute of Medical Sciences at the University of Aberdeen.

We hypothesized that lifeforms that evolved in an environment of different amino acids might contain them in their structure.

We chemically synthetized exo-peptides containing amino acids that are rare on Earth, and tested whether a mammal immune system could detect them.

Our investigation showed that these exo-peptides were still processed, and T cells were still activated, but these responses were less efficient than for ordinary Earth peptides.

_____

Katja Schaefer et al. 2020. A Weakened Immune Response to Synthetic Exo-Peptides Predicts a Potential Biosecurity Risk in the Retrieval of Exo-Microorganisms. Microorganisms 8 (7): 1066; doi: 10.3390/microorganisms8071066
WASHINGTON, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The White House Historical Association has released the July episode of The 1600 Sessions podcast, "Women's Suffrage and the White House." This episode features the Senior Vice President and Director of the David M. Rubenstein Center, Colleen Shogan, and journalists Elaine Weiss and Rebecca Roberts for a discussion on the women's suffrage movement and its interactions with the White House.

Rebecca Roberts said, "The 1913 suffrage parade was the first march on Washington. It was the first time that a civil rights issue had been taken to the court or to federal power."

"You see a procession of suffragists writing to the presidents or trying to visit the presidents or ambushing the presidents when they could find them in public and confronting them with the idea of  'will you support women being able to vote?'" noted Elaine Weiss.

Colleen Shogan commented, "Alice Paul understood the importance in politics of spectacle, she felt like the more attention she drew to the cause, ultimately the better success they would have. Because she truly felt that most Americans would be sympathetic to women having the right to vote, especially as time progressed."

The 1600 Sessions

In this podcast series, White House Historical Association President Stewart McLaurin interviews luminaries, historians, and eyewitnesses to history about America's most famous residence and officethe White House. Each episode includes a prominent guest or guests to discuss varying facets of White House history, including insights from former staff and many other topical issues.

The 1600 Sessions is available on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. To hear the full episode, visit The1600Sessions.org.

About The White House Historical Association

First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy envisioned a restored White House that conveyed a sense of history through its decorative and fine arts. In 1961, the White House Historical Association was established to support her vision to preserve and share the Executive Mansion's legacy for generations to come. Supported entirely by private resources, the Association's mission is to assist in the preservation of the state and public rooms, fund acquisitions for the White House permanent collection, and educate the public on the history of the White House. Since its founding, the White House Historical Association has contributed more than $50 million in fulfillment of its mission. To learn more about the White House Historical Association, please visit www.whitehousehistory.org.

SOURCE The White House Historical Association

Related Links

https://www.whitehousehistory.org


The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), journalists from Rappler, ABS-CBN, artists and cultural workers filed a petition for certiorari and prohibition of the controversial Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) supports its affiliate NUJP urging the court to overturn the law.

A protester holds up an anti-terror bill placard as others march at a university campus in Manila on June 12, 2020. Credit: Miggy Hilario / AFP

On July 23, 2020, journalists, artists, cultural workers and others whose professions and existence depend on freedom of expression, filed a petition for certiorari and prohibition before the Supreme Court against Republic Act 11479 also known as the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020. The petition was filed as GR No. 252747 and is the 13th to be filed in the Supreme Court.

Other organisations including the National Union of Peoples Lawyers (NUPL), labour groups, senators, and youth groups filed similar petitions to the Supreme Court seeking the court to declare the Anti-Terror Law unconstitutional. Since Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte signed the anti-terror bill into law on July 15, the Supreme Court has received 15 petitions seeking to declare the law unconstitutional.

The anti-terror bill has been widely criticised by freedom of expression organisations for suppressing press freedom and freedom of expression allowing police to detain individuals, including journalists through a vague definition that would class journalists and human rights activists as terrorists without a warrant.

NUJP said section 9 of the law, which criminalises the offence of "inciting to commit terrorism," definitely includes free expression as an element of the crime, in direct contravention of Article III, Section 4 of the 1987 Constitution: "No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, expression, or of the press, or of the right of the people to peaceably assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances."

It is clear that the Terror Law is anathema to democracy. For all Filipinos who cherish liberty, there can only be one response: Resistance! added NUJP.

The IFJ said: The repressive anti-terrorism law in the Philippines grants authorities unfettered power to detain activists and journalists without consideration for the essential role of the media to protect democracy and free expression. The IFJ hopes the court will recognise the dangers of the law and declare the law unconstitutional promptly.
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has refused to comment on whether he was involved in Kerry Stokes April hotel quarantine exemption, despite emails revealing an unnamed federal minister sent medical notes and flight itineraries on behalf of the media mogul to the West Australian Premiers office.

When pressed on Perth radio station 6PR about whether he was the federal minister behind the emails, Mr Cormann deflected by saying it would be "inappropriate" to discuss constituent inquires.

Minister for Finance Mathias Cormann refused to be drawn on his involvement in Kerry Stokes' quarantine exemption application. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

"You can ask me that question as many times as you like in as many ways as you like," he told presenter Oliver Peterson.

"Ive answered the question, I get lots of constituent inquiries and I do not publicly comment on constituent inquires.
New Delhi: Tamil superstar Suriya celebrates his birthday 45th birthday today and on his special day, his fans and well-wishers have set a buzz on social media with pictures and posters of him. The fan army has also dedicated a special birthday poster for Suriya. Since last evening the star is trending on social media.

Suriya enjoys a massive fan following. He is loved by all for his choice of films, for being a great co-star and the family man he is.

Born as Saravanan Sivakumar, actor Suriya made his acting debut in 1997 release 'Nerukku Ner'. However, his 2001 hit 'Nandha' earned him the star status, followed by 'Kaakha Kaakha' in 2003 and several other films.

Hence, on his birthday, let's take a look at some of the best performances of the Tamil star:

'Nandha'

This film remains to be his all-time successful project of his early days in the movie business. 'Nandha' was directed by Bala. It narrated the story of a young man trying to fit in the society after he comes out from a juvenile center. 'Nandha' was a critically acclaimed film and also starred Laila, Rajkiran, Karunas and Saravanan in pivotal roles.

'Pithamagan'

'Pithamagan', an action-drama film, was also directed by Bala. It starred Suriya and Vikram. Suriya played conman with a silver tongue. It is arguably one of his best performances while some thought it was Vikram's show. While Vikram won a National Award for 'Pithamagan', Suriya fetched a Filmfare Award for it.

'Kaakha Kaakha'

Filmmaker Gautham Vasudev Menon directed Suriya in this 2003 action-thriller. He played a sauve police officer Anbuselvan opposite his wife Jyothika. 'Kaakha Kaakha' released to a blockbuster status and it was during the making of this film when Suriya and Jyothika fell in love.

'Ghajini'

'Ghajini', the 2005 action-thriller was directed by AR Murugadoss. It was based on Christopher Nolan's 'Memento'. 'Ghajini' remains to be Suriya's one of the biggest blockbusters of his career. He played the role of a man suffering from short term memory loss after the murder of his girlfriend. Asin starred as his love interest.

'Vaaranam Aayiram'

'Vaaranam Aayiram' marked Suriya's second collaboration with Gautham Vasudev Menon. It starred him in a double role opposite three actresses - Simran, Divya Spandana, and Sameera Reddy. It emerged as the biggest blockbuster for Suriya after 'Ghajini' and is one of the 10 best Tamil films of 2008. 'Vaaranam Aayiram' captured the essence of a father-son relationship.

'Rakht Charitra 2'

Suriya's role in Ram Gopal Varma's 'Rakht Charitra' remains to be his most under-rated performance but it deserves a mention. It was a sequel to the crime drama of the same name and marked the debut Suriya into the Telugu and Hindi film industries. His role as Yeturi Suryanarayana Reddy was way more convincing.

'24'

'24' is a science fiction action film written and directed by Vikram Kumar. It starred Suriya in a triple role, along with Nithya Menen and Samantha Ruth Prabhu. The National Award-winning film saw Suriya as also a convincing antagonist.

Apart from the aforementioned films, other notable performances of his are in films such as 'Perazhagan', 'Ayan', 'Singam' trilogy, '7aum Arivu' and others.

Happy birthday, Suriya!
In Indore, locals were stunned when a woman fruit seller, who was disappointed with repeated lockdowns in the city, expressed her displeasure in fluent english. She later identified herself as a former research scholar of Devi Ahilya University, Indore.

The video of the same went viral on social media on Wednesday. The woman, who has a fruit shop at Malwa Mill area in the city, complained to the authorities' move to impose restrictions in the city given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the rise in the number of cases.

The woman identified herself as Raeesa Ansari and said that the repeated curbs in Indore's markets have left the fruit and vegetable sellers penniless.

Screengrab/Twitter

At times, one side of the market is closed and on others, the second one is shut by the administration and there are hardly any buyers. What we are supposed to feed our families, Raeesa was quoted as saying by News 18.

She added that most of the fruit sellers in the area are second or third generation shopkeepers.

She said that she inherited the shop from her father, adding that she is upset with the district collector, municipal corporation and Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the prohibitive measures, which per her has severely impacted the income of the poor vendors.

Screengrab/Twitter

When asked about her qualification, Raeesa claimed she has done Master of Science in Physics and completed PhD in Material Science from Devi Ahilya Vishwa Vidyalaya in the year 2011.

She said that she could not secure a better job and hence continued to sell fruits.

The first question is who will give the job to me. The perception that coronavirus is being generated from Muslims has become common now. Because my name is Raeesa Ansari, no college or research institution is willing to give me a job, she told News 18.
Addressing the India Ideas Summit hosted by US-India Business Council, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India has what is needed to power the global economic recovery. He added that India is emerging as a land of opportunities.

Calling for greater US investments in areas such as agriculture, defence, civil aviation, healthcare, energy, infrastructure and finance and insurance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said there has never been a better time to invest in the country and rise of India will lead to a rise in trade opportunities with a nation that you can trust.

Addressing the India Ideas Summit hosted by US-India Business Council, the Prime Minister said that India has what is needed to power the global economic recovery. He said India is emerging as a land of opportunities. The rise of India means a rise in trade opportunities with a nation that you can trust, a rise in global integration with increasing openness, a rise in your competitiveness with access to a market which offers scale, he said.

When the markets are open, when the opportunity is high and the options are many, can optimism be far behind. You can see the optimism when India rises in key business ratings, particularly the Ease of Doing Business ratings of the World Bank, he added.

He said options to invest in India are extensive. India invites you to invest in the hard work of our farmers. India has done historic reforms in the agriculture sector recently. There are investment opportunities in agricultural inputs and machinery, agriculture supply chain management, ready-to-eat items, fisheries and organic produce, he said, adding that Indias food processing sector is expected to be worth over half a trillion dollars by 2025.

To grow more streams of revenue, the best time to tap investment opportunities in Indian agriculture sector is now, he said.

India invites you to invest in healthcare. The Healthcare sector in India is growing faster than 22 per cent every year. Our companies are also progressing in production of medical-technology, tele-medicine and diagnostics, he said.

Noting that India and the US have already built a robust partnership in the pharma sector, he said now is the best time to expand your investment in Indian health-care sector to achieve scale and speed. Calling for investment in the energy sector he said there will be big investment opportunities for US companies as India evolves into a gas-based economy.

There are also big opportunities in the clean energy sector. To generate more power for your investment, this is the best time to enter the Indian power sector, he said.

Referring to infrastructure, he said India is witnessing the largest infrastructure creation drive in its history. Come, be a partner in building housing for millions, or building roads, highways and ports in our nation.

The Prime Minister said Civil Aviation is another area of great potential growth. The number of air passengers is expected to more than double within the next eight years. The top private Indian airlines plan to include over a thousand new aircraft over the coming decade. This is a huge opportunity for any investor who chooses to set up manufacturing facilities in India, which can become a base for supplying regional markets, he said.

A similar case is obvious for setting up Maintenance Repair and Operations facilities. To give flight to your aviation targets, this is an ideal time to invest in the Indian aviation sector, he added.

Referring to defence and space sectors, he said India is raising the FDI cap for investment in defence sector to 74 per cent. India has established two defence corridors to encourage the production of defence equipment and platforms. We offer special incentives for private and foreign investors. A few weeks ago, we cleared path-breaking reforms in the space sector. Come, be a part of these upcoming sectors, he said.

Pointing to finance and insurance, he said India has raised FDI cap for investment in insurance to 49 per cent.Now 100 per cent FDI is permitted for investment in insurance intermediaries. The insurance market in India is growing at a rate of more than 12 per cent and is expected to grow to USD 250 billion by 2025, he said.

The Prime Minister said that with the success of Ayushman Bharat, health assurance scheme, PM Fasal Bima Yojna, our crop insurance scheme and Jan Suraksha or social security schemes, the government has laid the ground for quick adoption and acceptance of insurance products.

There are large untapped opportunities for increasing insurance cover in health, agriculture, business and life insurance. To generate long term and assured revenues, the Indian insurance sector is one of the best investment options right now, he said. I have given you a few options and that too without any consultancy fees, he quipped.

The Prime Minister said there are about half a billion active internet users in India now.

India is emerging as a land of opportunities. Let me give you one example of the tech sector. Recently, an interesting report came out in India. It said for the first time ever, there are more rural internet users than even urban internet users. Imagine the scale! There are about half a billion active internet users in India now. Half a billion connected people. Does this sound huge to you? Hold your breath. Because, there are over half a billion more people who are being connected, he said.

The Prime Minister said opportunities in technology also include opportunities in the frontier technologies of 5G, big data analytics, quantum computing, block-chain and Internet of things.

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Kuwait's 91-year-old ruling emir left Thursday morning for the United States to seek further medical care after recently undergoing surgery, its state-run news agency reported.

Kuwait has yet to elaborate on what required Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah to seek a previously unannounced medical treatment beginning Saturday and a surgery Sunday. However, Sheikh Sabah's sudden surgery could inspire a renewed power struggle within Kuwait's ruling family.

The state-run KUNA news agency quoted a statement from the country's royal court saying Sheikh Sabah left "based on advice from the medical team treating His Highness to complete his treatment after a successful surgical procedure."

"We ask the Almighty to aid his recovery and sustain His Highness, who is healthy and well taken care of, and to protect him from all harm," the statement said.

A statement attributed to Sheikh Ali Jarrah Al Sabah, the country's royal court minister, did not elaborate or say where in the U.S. Sheikh Sabah will receive treatment.

However, an Airbus A340 flown by Kuwait's government left Thursday morning flying west. That same Airbus had flown to Rochester, Minnesota, and New York City before returning to Kuwait just days before Sheikh Sabah's surgery. That Airbus A340 is believed to be a medical transport aircraft.

Rochester is home to the flagship campus of the Mayo Clinic, one of America's best hospitals, and has treated Sheikh Sabah in the past. The Mayo Clinic did not respond to a request for comment early Thursday.

Kuwait earlier announced that 83-year-old Crown Prince Nawaf Al Ahmad Al Sabah had assumed some of Sheikh Sabah's powers temporarily, without explaining why that was necessary.

A copy of the ministerial decree posted by Kuwait's official gazette, Kuwait Al-Youm, and seen by The Associated Press on Sunday, said the crown prince would be empowered for "the duration of a surgical procedure until the health event is over."

The decree did not elaborate. Kuwait's Information Ministry has not responded to requests for comment.

Sheikh Sabah, a widely beloved ruler in this OPEC-member nation, took power in 2006 just nine days into the rule of the ailing Sheikh Saad Al Abdullah Al Sabah. Concerns mounted during Sheikh Saad's brief reign as he was seen in public only in a wheelchair and did not speak.

However, Sheikh Sabah's ascension upset an informal power-sharing arrangement between branches of Kuwait's ruling family. While Kuwait has since remained politically stable with the most-empowered parliament of any Gulf Arab nation, there have been internal power struggles behind the scenes of his rule.

Kuwait, a nation home to 4.1 million people that's slightly smaller than the U.S. state of New Jersey, has the world's sixth-largest known oil reserves.

It has been a staunch U.S. ally since the 1991 Gulf War expelled the occupying Iraqi forces of Saddam Hussein. Today, Kuwait hosts some 13,500 American troops, many at Camp Arifjan south of Kuwait City, which is also home to the forward command of U.S. Army Central.

Sheikh Sabah, a longtime foreign minister for Kuwait, has drawn praise during his rule for hosting donation drives for both war-torn Iraq and Syria. He also has been the lead negotiator in trying to resolve a yearslong boycott of Qatar by four Arab nations over a political dispute.

He previously cancelled a White House visit last November while in the U.S. and visited a hospital there for medical checks.
A Knightsbridge property developer who 'bombarded a Game of Thrones actress with gifts and 928 roses after dumping her when she refused to pose for compromising photos', has been cleared of harassment today in court.

George Philippedes, 43, who lives in Belgravia, even paid for actress Katie Alexander Thom, 31, to have acting lessons at a top drama school in the US as he tried to win her back.

The Greek property developer sent her one rose for every day of their relationship - without leaving a name or a note.

However, the magistrates found that his conduct did not breach the criminal threshold, and that he was therefore not guilty.

George Philippedes, 43, pictured left, arriving at Brighton Magistrates Court this morning for his trial on harassment charges involving Game of Thrones actress Katie Alexander-Thom

The court was told the huge bunch of roses sent to Miss Alexander Thom, pictured above - one for every day of their relationship - had no sender name and no message

Today Philippedes appeared before Brighton Magistrates accused of 'pursuing' the actress with 'unwanted and unwelcome' attention amounting to harassment without violence between May and December last year.

The businessman - who recently renovated a luxury art deco apartment in Sloane Square now worth up to 8m - pleaded not guilty to the charge at an earlier hearing.

Magistrates in Brighton were told Philippedes, who lives in a 1.5m apartment in Belgravia, and Miss Alexander-Thom had met in 2016 and been in a two and a half year relationship.

Due to their lifestyles they had never lived together but in February last year Philippedes asked the actress to send him compromising pictures of herself.

Roger Booth, prosecuting, said: 'The defendant asked her to send a photo or video in a compromising position which she was not happy about doing so.'

The court heard Philippedes subsequently dumped her by text which made her feel 'worthless.'

The pair rekindled their romance but after she finally called time on their relationship in April he continued to bombard her with texts, emails, gifts and letters up to 16 pages long.

Appearing in court via video link the HBO Game of Thrones actress, who also stars in Sky One's Brave New World, said: 'He was phoning, texting, sending emails and letters. He sent me 57 text messages, a handful of voice notes.

'He sent 10 emails without me responding. He sent four or five letters between 4 - 16 pages long and he sent me self help books in the post.'

Brighton Magistrates Court was told Miss Alexander Thom had wanted to attend an acting course in the US but was concerned about how much it would cost.

But when she contacted the acting school they told her she had been awarded a grant to cover the fees of the course.

She flew over and attended the course but when she returned she discovered she had not been awarded a scholarship or grant and the fees had instead been paid by Philippedes.

Miss Alexander-Thom, left, arriving at court this morning as a witness for the trial. She said she once came home from work and found 928 roses waiting for her

Miss Alexander Thom, who appears in the seventh episode of Game of Thrones' season six, 'The Broken Man', said she came home from work and found 928 roses waiting for her.

The court was told the huge bunch of roses - one for every day of their relationship - had no sender name and no message.

The actress said: 'It scared me I knew it wasn't from my boyfriend so I contacted the florist and they eventually told me they were from Aristo Homes which is George's company but sent by a different name. It was then I contacted the police the first time.

'The roses were a real tipping point in what was a continual stream of invasion into my privacy. I felt very targeted and was distancing myself from my friends and it was having a negative impact on work and my relationship.'

Asked what she did Miss Alexander Thom said: 'I'm an actress.'

Brighton Magistrates Court was told Miss Alexander-Thom had wanted to attend an acting course in Los Angeles but was concerned about how much it would cost.

But when she contacted the acting school they told her she had already been awarded a grant to cover the fees of the week-long course.

She flew over and attended the course but when she returned she discovered she had not been awarded a scholarship or grant and the $1,300 fees had instead been paid by Philippedes.

Miss Alexander Thom, left, pictured with Gemma Whelan, who plays Yara Greyjoy in Game of Thrones' sixth season, episode seven, 'The Broken Man'

She told the court: 'I felt deeply deceived. I felt annoyed that I'd been lied to. I felt very nervous - like someone was playing the master puppeteer in my life without me having any knowledge of it and it made me feel like I couldn't trust anyone.'

The court heard Philippedes also sent her a message saying he sent a message claiming she was 'possessed by a spirit.' She said: 'I felt very threatened by that.'

Miss Alexander-Thom said she once came home from work and found 928 roses waiting for her.

The court was told the huge bunch of roses - one for every day of their relationship - had no sender name and no message.

The actress said: 'It scared me. I knew it wasn't from my boyfriend so I contacted the florist and they eventually told me they were from Aristo Homes which is George's company but sent by a different name. That was very alarming to me. It was then I contacted the police the first time.

'The roses were a real tipping point in what was a continual stream of invasion into my privacy. I felt very targeted and was distancing myself from my friends and it was having a negative impact on work and my relationship.'

Asked what she did Miss Alexander-Thom said: 'I'm an actress.'

The court heard after the couple split up Philippedes delivered a repaired bowl - a family heirloom which had earlier been broken by his two sons, aged eight and nine - to her home in Sussex.

Miss Alexander-Thom said that although he left the bowl at the gate she felt unnerved by his delivering the bowl to her property.

When he continued to bombard her with emails she replied to him saying: 'George, enough is enough. There is nothing more for you to say to me. I have moved on and I'm in relationship with someone else.'

She demanded he stop emailing and writing to her and told him to move on with his life and wished him 'Good luck.'

Under cross examination Miss Alexander-Thom said she did meet up with Philippedes after their relationship ended because she was worried about his deteriorating mental health.

After meeting him she admitted inviting him to have dinner with her and her friends at the luxury boutique hotel, The Mandrake, because he was so distressed.

She said: 'He was crying and very emotional and I felt very sorry for him so I invited him. He was saying he could not eat or drink or take care of himself.'

Miss Alexander-Thom said she wanted him to stop messaging her adding: 'You're driving me f***ing crazy. I don't want you to messaging me telling me you're horny.'

She told him she was sick of his selfish ways and wanted nothing to do with him until he could see past his own nose.

Miss Alexander-Thom is a model turned actress who appeared in a series of films, and commercials and TV productions including the popular HBO series and Sky One's Brave New World.

Philipeddes, a Greek-born property developer and director of Aristo and Decorim, recently oversaw the major refurbishment of the three-bedroom Sloane Square apartment.

The property, situated at the heart of Knightsbridge, is now being offered for rent to the super-rich at more than 17,000 a month.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Scientists have described a new native Hawaiian land snail species, sounding a rare, hopeful note in a story rife with extinction.

Pacific island land snails are among the world's most imperiled wildlife, with more recorded extinctions since 1600 than any other group of animals. Hawaii's once-teeming land snail scene of more than 750 species has shrunk by more than half, ravaged by habitat loss and invasive species such as rats, Jackson's chameleons and the carnivorous rosy wolf snail.

Auriculella gagneorum, a small candy-striped snail from Oahu's Waianae Mountains, represents the first new species of a living Hawaiian land snail described in 60 years. The species "brings that little glimmer of hope that this isn't all a depressing story," said the study's lead author Norine Yeung, malacology curator at the Bishop Museum.

A team of researchers found A. gagneorum during a large-scale, decade-long survey of land snails that spanned 1,000 sites throughout the Hawaiian Islands. They then used the Bishop Museum's collection of land snails to match individuals collected during the survey to unidentified specimens from the 1940s.

"This is a happy story where we discovered a snail that is still around," Yeung said. "There are so many things in our collection that we can no longer find in the wild. But in this snail's case, we can finally put a name to it and describe it, which is huge for the conservation of this species."

The tree-dwelling snail shows pronounced variation in coloring, from burnished tiger's-eye patterning to dramatic sable and white stripes. At less than two-tenths of an inch long, "you might be able to fit a dozen on your fingernail," said study co-author John Slapcinsky, collection manager of invertebrate zoology at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Land snails play a crucial role as decomposers and fungivores in Hawaii's ecosystems, essentially "our first recyclers," Yeung said.

The researchers deposited a selection of A. gagneorum snails in Hawaii's captive breeding program, with the goal of increasing their numbers and returning them to the wild. They named the species in honor of the late Hawaiian naturalists Betsy and Wayne Gagne, who were "powerhouses for conservation," Yeung said. "They cared about the whole ecosystem, whether it was a tiny little bug or plants or one of Hawaii's charismatic, beautiful forest birds."

The team's survey also produced new records of three snail species last documented in the 1950s and others feared extinct, as well as nearly 30 new species. The researchers failed to find two species, A. auricula and A. minuta, whose populations may have died out.

But while the status of Hawaii's land snails is dire, it's too early to despair, said Slapcinsky, who gamely struggled through skin-ripping raspberry thickets and nearly slid off a cliff while sieving for snails.

"People used to think it wasn't even worth studying Hawaiian land snails because they were all extinct. Now we know they're not," he said. "If we work at it, there's still a chance to do something about it. That's why it's important to be out there surveying, finding the remaining populations of these species."

Yeung said previous reports estimated that 90% of Hawaii's land snails were extinct, but the team's survey shows that about 300 species still survive in remote, isolated parts of the Hawaiian Islands.

"The challenge now is trying to identify all of these because we have lost a lot of experts, and a lot of these snails are super tiny," she said. "If you're not a trained malacologist, the small brown snails might all look the same to you. But when you take a closer look at their shells, bodies and genetics, these little things are all different and can be tied to different valleys and ridges. When one species turns out to be three, we can run into problems with conservation."

The researchers used a combination of physical characteristics and DNA to describe the new species. While its shell size and shape mimic A. perpusilla snails from the Koolau Range on east Oahu, molecular evidence shows A. gagneorum is more closely related to A. tenella, a slender, high-spired snail from the Waianae Range in the west.

A. gagneorum belongs to a long-overlooked group of snails known as Auriculellinae. The majority of attention and conservation efforts have focused on the larger, more colorful snails in the subfamily Achatinellinae, Lonesome George, the last known snail of its species, being the most famous example. While an entire genus of Achatinellinae is listed under the Endangered Species Act, the smaller, less obvious snails in the subfamily Auriculellinae remain understudied and unprotected, Slapcinsky said.

"We're not bemoaning that Achatinellinae are getting attention. They do need help," he said. "What we're concerned about is that these other things are getting ignored."

Meanwhile, the team pushes forward in its analysis of a decade's worth of data and many new species descriptions. Afterwards, the researchers can turn their attention to the evolution and ecology of Hawaii's land snails, traditionally considered by native Hawaiians as important symbols and good omens that represent change, romance and song.

"The diversity is amazing, the species are amazing, and there are so many evolutionary stories you could tell," Yeung said, describing malacology as a "wide-open frontier."

"But first we have to identify these snails. If you ask about their habitat and life history, it's like, I wish I could tell you. Right now, I can just tell you this is a different species and put a name on it. It's hard work, but it's so gratifying."

###

The researchers published their findings in ZooKeys.

Ellen Strong of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and the Bishop Museum's Jaynee Kim and Kenneth Hayes also co-authored the study.
" " Yoga provides health benefits for adults of all ages and fitness levels, and seniors can especially benefit from the increased flexibility and balance it offers. See more healthy aging pictures. iStockphoto.com /aabejon

As a form of exercise, yoga has become all the rage, spawning yoga studios, clothing lines and for some proponents, an entire lifestyle. What's the magic behind this discipline of poses and controlled breathing? Is yoga truly a beneficial form of exercise, or is it just some swami mumbo jumbo?

Yoga can, in fact, be good for adults of all ages, especially seniors. Studies have shown that yoga can be extremely helpful when it comes to combating stress, fatigue and pain. Some yoga poses increase core strength and balance, which reduces the risk of fall-related injuries. Other poses can alleviate senior-related health issues such as menopause. Above all, yoga is a form of exercise that can help seniors feel younger.

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Even though you may never be able to bend yourself into a pretzel, learning some simple yoga poses can improve your overall quality of life. If you're just starting out, look for a beginning class taught by a certified yoga instructor. Good instructors will help you attain correct body positioning and encourage you to learn your body's limits. You may not able to perform all the poses or hold them for very long, but good teachers understand that and encourage you to do your best. Yoga books and DVDs are other tools that can help you reap the benefits of yoga.

What types of yoga poses should you learn to help battle common senior ailments? Read on to learn more about exercises that can improve your health.
Montgomery County Republican nominee Vince Santini was appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott Thursday to fill the interim bench of the new 457th state District Court.

With all precincts reporting, Santini had secured 18,767 (78.06 percent) votes over The Woodlands attorney Eric Yollick with 5,274 (21.94 percent) in the GOP primary runoff election July 14. Santini will face Democratic challenger Marc Meyer in November.

Its an honor to be appointed and it is an honor to represent the Republic party as their nominee and now going to be the incumbent judge for this court, Santini said. We are going to waste no time getting the court up and running and functioning to put a dent in the case log backup.

Santini is expected to be sworn in the first part of August.

Meyer, who currently serves and the Democratic party chairman, is an attorney and former firefighter and paramedic.

According to Meyers website, he said what sets him apart from other candidates is his wide range of experience.

it comes down to my wide range of experience outside of the law that brings a fresh perspective on the conflicts that a judge is charged with aiding to decide, Meyer stated on his campaign website. Having been a firefighter and registered nurse, I have dealt with people in extremely difficult situations for most of my adult life. Judges are also exposed to people dealing with the aftermath of their most difficult times as well, and when combined with my experience as a litigator in the administrative courts, I have an uncommon and fresh perspective on the judiciary.

Introduced in February by state Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands, Toth said he requested the new judicial district at the behest of the Montgomery County Commissioners Court in light of a caseload growth.

In a unanimous vote in June, Montgomery County commissioners allocated $131,560 for personnel, benefits and operational services for the upcoming budget year for the new court. The court will strictly handle civil cases.

cdominguez@hcnonline.com
The Supreme Court on Thursday observed out loud that the voice of dissent cannot be suppressed, or else democracy will shut down. It also wanted to know whether there was democracy within the Congress party.

The apex court was hearing a plea by Rajasthan Assembly Speaker C.P. Joshi challenging the Rajasthan High Court decision extending the time for Sachin Pilot and 18 rebel Congress MLAs to reply to the anti-defection notice of July 14.

A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra and comprising Justices B.R. Gavai and Krishna Murari took up the matter up through video conferencing.

"Voice of dissent cannot be suppressed ...then democracy will shut. After all they have been elected by the people. Can they not express their dissent?" Justice Mishra queried senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who is representing Joshi.

Sibal argued that if MLAs want to voice their opinion they should do so before the party.

To which, Justice Mishra asked, "Is there democracy within the party or not?"

The bench asked Sibal, can a whip be issued for attending a party meeting?

Sibal denies Joshi issued a whip for the meeting and said "It was only a notice not a whip."

Justice Mishra asked Sibal isn't this is a case where party members cannot raise voice against their own party?

Sibal contended before the bench that it is for the Speaker to decide whether not attending meetings outside the House is grounds for disqualification. "But it is about a lot more than not attending a meeting. It is about their anti-party activities," argued Sibal.

The bench noted that whether a valid Whip can be issued to attend party meeting. "Is Whip valid only for attending Assembly or for a meeting outside?"

Sibal insisted that this is not a Whip, instead it is a notice issued by the Chief Whip of the party.

The bench replied so it's a request to attend the meeting? If someone doesn't attend the meeting is it ground for disqualification?

Sibal said: "Neither any court nor any other body can decide that. Your lordships cannot presume that disqualification will be ordered."

The bench said what Speaker will decide nobody can say. The hearing on the matter will continue.

The Rajasthan Speaker moved the apex court on Wednesday and sought urgent hearing in the matter. "It is respectfully submitted that the impugned order passed by the High Court is in effect a stay on the powers of the Speaker under the Tenth Schedule to adjudicate on a disqualification petition," said the plea through advocate Sunil Fernandes.

The plea urged the apex court to pass an interim ex-parte order staying the July 21 order of the Rajasthan High Court.
The United States surpassed four million known infections of the coronavirus on Thursday, with many more cases undetected, and at least 143,000 deaths  leading the world in confirmed cases and deaths and ranking near the top on a per-capita basis.

As the tally of coronavirus infections continues to climb, state and local governments have tried to find a balance between restrictions intended to limit the viruss spread, such as closing bars and indoor dining at restaurants, and getting workers back on the job after many businesses were idled and millions of people were left jobless by the initial stay-at-home orders.

A new poll found that three out of four Americans favour requiring people to wear face coverings while outside their homes, reflecting fresh alarm over spiking coronavirus cases and a growing embrace of government advice intended to safeguard public health.

The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research also found that about two-thirds of Americans disapprove of how President Donald Trump is handling the outbreak, an unwelcome sign for the White House in an election year shaped by the nations battle with the pandemic.

A teacher wearing a face mask during a protest in Westminster, California, US [Mike Blake/Reuters]

More than four months after government stay-at-home orders first swept across the US, the poll spotlights an America increasingly on edge about the virus. The federal governments response is seen as falling short, and most Americans favour continued restrictions to stop the virus from spreading even if they might hamstring the economy.

The poll was conducted before Trump, who for months was dismissive of masks, said this week that it is patriotic to wear one.





Not wearing a mask, to me, poses a greater risk of spreading the COVID, said Darius Blevins, a 33-year-old from Christiansburg, Virginia, who works in bank operations. Blevins said he wears a mask in public because its much more effective than not wearing the mask.

It is an opinion echoed by data analyst James Shaw. If you understand the facts, there is really no issue, said Shaw, 56, of Noble, Illinois. The data is crystal clear.

For months health officials have said several simple steps could save lives  washing hands frequently, staying away from crowds, especially while indoors, and pulling on a mask when heading out to the supermarket, the office or a restaurant.

About half of Americans now say they are extremely or very worried about themselves or someone in their families being infected with the virus  about the same as in March, but a steep increase from June, when just 32 percent said they were that concerned.

US President Donald Trump wearing a mask while visiting Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, US [Tasos Katopodis/Reuters]

There were other signs of continued unease. Support for limiting the size of gatherings ticked back up to 66 percent, after sliding for several months to a low of 59 percent in June. Eighty-five percent of Americans say they are avoiding large groups.

About half say they favour requiring people to stay in their homes except for essential trips. That number remained about steady since June. About half also favour requiring bars and restaurants to close.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans said restrictions to slow the spread of the virus should override concerns about damaging the economy, but California retiree Kimberly Greenan said she favours relaxing rules and allowing people to get back to work. Greenan says she wears a mask on trips to the grocery store and at church, but not if she is walking in a park, away from other people.

If people are vigilant, if they do whats right, this economy could come back, said Greenan, 67, a former accountant and teacher from Santee, in the San Diego suburbs.

While tough steps were needed initially, for the most part people are ready to get on with their lives, she said. I dont think tying everyone down is the right move.

The poll found that only 24 percent of Americans approve of the federal governments response to the outbreak, with disapproval hitting 55 percent, ticking up 7 percentage points from May. The remainder did not have an opinion either way.

Trumps recent endorsement of masks came after he said in April that I just dont want to wear one. The president was not seen wearing a mask in public until July 11, months after the coronavirus took hold in the US. Trump has recently suggested the virus is under control, but he changed course on Tuesday, saying it will get worse before it gets better.

The same day he encouraged people to wear masks in public, Trump was seen speaking to others without wearing one in a public space of his hotel in Washington, DC.
East Aurora will start the school year Aug. 24 with full remote learning, Board President Annette Johnson told The Beacon-News. On Sept. 8, students will be allowed to return to school under a hybrid model. Students using the hybrid model will attend two days a week on rotating schedules so they can be properly socially-distanced and remote learning for the rest of the days, she said.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that Republicans want to give jobless Americans unemployment 'based on approximately 70 per cent wage replacement' as part of the fourth economic stimulus bill responding to the coronavirus crisis.

Mnuchin appeared Thursday morning on CNBC and then spoke to reporters at the White House and didn't say how the scheme would work with states' outdated unemployment disbursement systems.

He and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows are leading negotiations for the Trump administration on the new bill, with bargaining beginning in earnest this week with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Republicans are trying to come up with a plan before sitting down with Democrats, a tactic panned by both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who addressed reporters Thursday morning.

'Democrats are ready to work,' Schumer said. 'Republicans need to pull their head out of the sand, get their act together, sit down with Speaker Pelosi and me and start negotiating a real package.'

Schumer and Pelosi played up the fact that the 70 per cent figure amounts to a pay cut for American workers.

'That's right America, if you lost your job through no fault of your own and can't go back to work because this administration has mismanaged the crisis, Republicans want you to take a pay cut of 30 per cent or even more,' Schumer said.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday on CNBC that Republicans want to replace the $600-a-week unemployment benefit with a 'approximately 70 per cent wage replacement' plan

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (left) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (right) said at a Thursday morning press conference that the plan floated by Mnuchin would amount to a pay cut for American workers

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also said that the Democrats had not received any language on paper from the Republican side on what the GOP plan entailed

Steven Mnuchin confirmed to reporters that the payroll tax, which President Trump (pictured) wanted, would not be in the new package, a blow for the White House

Pelosi said she'd like to keep the current dollar amount.

'I go to the table with the commitment to the $600,' Pelosi said at the morning presser.

But both Democratic leaders said the Republicans didn't have an actual plan down on paper yet.

Pelosi answered 'no' when asked if she'd received any kind of documentation.

'We learned some of it early this morning, is what we learned from K Street,' she said, referencing the D.C. street where lobbying shops are located.

Playbook reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was supposed to rollout the Republican plan Thursday morning, but GOP lawmakers and the White House couldn't come to an agreement.

Mnuchin and Meadows had to rush to Capitol Hill to deal with an angry McConnell, Playbook said.

Schumer hinted at the drama by pointing to McConnell's no-show status on the Senate floor.

'Look, Leader McConnell didn't even show up and make a speech this morning,' the New York Democrat told reporters. 'I had it all to myself - rare moment.'

Schumer said he hoped Republicans could come up with a plan before the unemployment benefits expire.

'They're so divided and there's no leadership from the president. At the same time that they know the president has no leadership they're afraid to buck him on anything and he doesn't know how to solve this problem,' Schumer said.

The CARES Act had afforded unemployed Americans a $600-a-week unemployment insurance boost, which is set to expire at the end of the month.

That benefit looked to be on the chopping block due to Republican resistance.

As of Wednesday afternoon, CNBC reported that Republicans were considering changing it back from $600 to $100-a-week.

In the Oval Office Monday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had voiced concerns about giving Americans too much unemployment - essentially paying them more to not work than work.

'We don't think any federal money should be spent it gives you a disincentive to work,' he said in a meeting with President Donald Trump, Mnuchin, Meadows and McConnell.

It would be unclear how structuring a 70 per cent wage replacement would work.

CNBC pointed out that lawmakers chose the $600-a-week figure, in part, because state's systems to disburse unemployment funds are outmoded and couldn't handle a 100 per cent wage replacement scheme, which had been discussed.

Democrats were immediately wary of the figure.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told CNBC after Mnuchin made his comments that 70 per cent wage replacement was not 'the policy we ought to pursue.'

Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said 'if we're going to ratchen that down, it ought to be over time.' But he also added that, 'it's not a dealbreaker.'

Mnuchin told reporters at the White House that the payroll tax cut, which Trump had peronally pitched, was not going to be in the new bill, a blow for the White House.

Another round of direct payments to Americans, like the $1,200 checks given out by the federal government earlier in the coronavirus crisis, will likely be in the bill, with McConnell and the White House signaling support.
YEREVAN, JULY 23, ARMENPRESS. The planned exercises of the Armenian-Russian joint air defense system have kicked off during which new ways of fighting against the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) will be developed, Armenian defense ministers spokesperson Shushan Stepanyan said on Facebook.

The planned exercises of the Armenian-Russian joint air defense system launched today aimed at studying the methods of counterattacking reconnaissance-attacking UAVs. During the exercises new ways of fighting against UAVs will be developed aimed at improving the counterattacking system, she said.

The commanders of Armenian and Russian zenith-missile complexes, fighter aviation are attending the exercises.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
First Bank of Nigeria Ltd. has offered to give financial support to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the education sector to cushion the effects of the COVID -19 pandemic .

Mr Bankole Adediran, Head, Transaction Banking Products, FirstBank, made this known at the banks SMEConnect webinar with theme: Managing Your School through the Pandemic: Engagement and Retention Strategies.

Adediran said that the bank was ready to partner with SMEs in the education sector through the period of the novel coronavirus pandemic to sustain their businesses.

Also, Post-Coronavirus: Adopt new methods of teaching, Lagos govt. urges teachers .

FirstBank, as an institution, is very passionate about education, and will continue to support the sector, he said.

He said that the bank would continue to reinforce its leading role at enabling the growth of the educational sector in the country.

Adediran said that the bank had an array of financial products that could be accessed by SMEs in the educational sector in the period of COVID -19.

He said SMEs in the sector could key into FirstEdu Loan targeted at private nursery, primary and secondary schools to assist the schools in achieving their desired growth in medium and long terms.

According to him, the product provides funding advancement of up to N20 million for schools with a minimum of 100 students with school fees collection domiciled at FirstBank.

Adediran said that, with the product, school owners/proprietors could stay ahead to make learning easy and conducive for students.

He said the bank had launched various interventions and initiatives to support the sector to navigate through challenges occasioned by COVID -19.

He noted that FirstBank recently launched an e-learning initiative aimed at reaching out to one million students across the country to ensure they would be academically engaged while at home .

Adediran also said that the bank supported 10 universities and three secondary schools across the country with major infrastructure projects.

He added that the bank donated 20,000 e-learning devices to the Lagos State Government to promote online learning for students in the public schools.

Adediran urged schools must learn from the COVID -19 pandemic by embracing automation to plug leakages in the sector.

Mrs Folasade Adefisayo, Commissioner for Education, Lagos State, who was a panelist at the webinar, commended the bank for donating 20,000 devices with six months data, to the state for e-learning.

Adefisayo said the state reached out to many companies for support at the wake of the pandemic and that FirstBank came to its aid.

She disclosed that all the schools were not prepared for the situation, noting that most children in public schools did not have device and data for online learning.

This pandemic has been a terrible thing, and one lesson from it is that we have not invested enough in solutions we can deplore at a time like this, Adefisayo said.

She said that the pandemic had forced Nigerians to be more creative and innovative, adding that schooling would no longer be the same again.

Adefisayo called on teachers to change their teaching and learning strategies, saying that COVID -19 had changed learning.

Also, Dr Yomi Otubela, President, National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools ( NAPPS ), said the association had responded greatly by interfacing between government and its agencies since the beginning of the pandemic.

Otubela said the Central Bank of Nigeria was working out modalities for palliatives for schools and teachers who had not been receiving salaries since the pandemic started.

He noted that there had been an increase in rape, kidnapping and robbery as a result of COVID -19.

Mr Wale Abioye, Team Lead, Customer Practice in Management Consulting ( KPMG ), said the pandemic had impacted negatively on many sectors of the economy , especially education.

Abioye highlighted some of the negative impacts of the pandemic to include financial/economic, structural, social and policy challenges.

He said many SMEs in the educational sector could be out of business due to the pandemic, thereby increasing unemployment rate.

Mr Babatunde Vaughan, Education Lead, Modern Classroom, Microsoft Nigeria, said the company had introduced a lot of products to make online learning easy and interesting.

 COVID -19 is a very unique period for everyone, change has come and we will continue to experience change.

We must be more proactive than reactive, Vaughan urged.
French Ambassador to Ukraine Etienne de Poncins has said he believes in the success of the French-Ukrainian contract for the construction of patrol boats.

He said this at a ceremony to sign the contact in Mykolaiv on Wednesday, July 22, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's press service reported.

"The first talks began two years ago and we hope that the first boats will be delivered to customers in 2021," de Poncins said.

He said the contract was a follow-up to another major project - the supply of 55 Airbus helicopters.

"These two contracts fit into the context of France's political support for Ukraine," the diplomat said.

Oleksiy Vadaturskyi, CEO of Nibulon, stressed that the company was ready to fulfill the terms of the contract as soon as possible.

"For us, this is a great challenge and recognition by the French company. We are reviving Dnipro, building the Ukrainian fleet and doing everything to make Ukraine a maritime country, not a country by the sea. It is a great honor for us to build Ukraine's security sector. We are ready to do the work as soon as possible," he said.

On July 22, Ukraine's State Border Guard Service and France's OCEA signed a contract for the construction of 20 patrol boats under the Ukrainian-French intergovernmental framework agreement on official support for strengthening Ukraine's maritime security and defense.

Chairman of the State Border Guard Service Serhii Deineko and OCEA CEO Roland Joassard signed the contract.

Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who was also present at the signing ceremony, noted that the project envisages the construction of 20 modern patrol boats within three years.

He also noted that OCEA had chosen the Nibulon plant as a partner based on its high level of professionalism and competence.

Commenting on the signing of the contract, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal called the agreement a successful example of support for the national producer.

op
Watertown, NY (13601)

Today

Cloudy. A few flurries or snow showers possible. Low 4F. Winds W at 15 to 25 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy. A few flurries or snow showers possible. Low 4F. Winds W at 15 to 25 mph.
Ghislaine Maxwells testimony about her sex life could soon be released
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila has threatened to take legal action against Minister of Niger Delta Affairs Godswill Akpabio over defamation of character of members of the House of Representatives.

A decision he took as Akpabio failed to publish names of lawmakers he alleged benefited from contracts in the NDDC in the period of the 48 hours ultimatum given to him by the Speaker.

Gbajabiamila during plenary on Thursday said he has asked the Clerk of the House of Representatives to engage the services of legal counsel, and instruct them to initiate a criminal complaint of perjury against the Minister.

Akpabio had during an investigative hearing to probe alleged corruption in the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, at the House of Representatives accused lawmakers of being the biggest beneficiaries of contracts in the NDDC.

An allegation that prompted the Speaker of the House to issue a 48 hours ultimatum to Akpabio to publish names and other details of National Assembly members who benefited from contracts in the NDDC.

He said, Last Tuesday I issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs to substantiate his allegation that over 60% (sixty per cent) of contracts awarded by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) went to members of the National Assembly. I said then that the Honourable Minister owed it to himself and the country to provide evidence to support these serious allegations.

The Honourable Minister has failed to respond to my request. Therefore, I must conclude that his statement intended solely to gaslight the nation to avoid accountability for the evident maladministration and malfeasance in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

In my time in the House of Representatives, I have held every leadership position from Minority Whip, through to Minority Leader, Leader of the House (Majority Leader) and now Speaker. I recognise that the House has not always lived up to the high expectations of the Nigerian people.

As much as we still have a lot to do in that regard, I refuse to sit here in good conscience and allow anyone to assassinate the character of the House in an attempt to deflect accountability for their conduct in office. Such mendacity as was witnessed at the public hearing will not be tolerated from anybody no matter how highly placed.

This morning, I asked the Clerk of the House of Representatives to engage the services of legal counsel, and instruct them to initiate a criminal complaint of perjury against the Minister. At the same time, we will instruct counsel to explore the possibility of a civil defamation suit against the Minister.

The House of Representatives is a public trust placed in our care for the duration of our term in office. We must prove ourselves worthy of this public trust or risk the censure of history.

Therefore, we will resist every attempt to undermine this institution, whether such attempts come from within or from outside. This House will live up to the highest expectations of the Nigerian people. This is our commitment, and we will not fail.
A mother has been inundated with people roaring down the phone like Chewbacca after her ex-boyfriend plastered her number around Cairns.

The 29-year-old found out that her boyfriend was cheating on her after she signed into his Facebook account on her phone and found messages he sent to other women.

The couple had been together for three years before the woman ended the relationship earlier this month after seeing the messages.

The 29-year-old found out that her boyfriend was cheating on her after she signed into his Facebook account on her phone and found messages he sent to other women (stock)

But her bitter ex decided to get her back for dumping him and put up posters around Cairns challenging people to a Chewbacca roaring contest.

The advertisement tells people to leave a voice message with their 'best impression' of the Star Wars character, promising a $200 prize for the best one.

The infuriating calls began two weeks ago with people trying to imitate the fictional character.

'Someone called and said they thought it might have been done as a joke because they watched (a man) put up the poster,' the woman told Cairns Post.

'It hurts my feelings.'

She said the phone calls are also waking up her children because some people phone at 1am.

'I thought when we first met he was mature, but it just goes to show having a job doesn't mean you're mature,' the woman said.

She has since taken the matter to police who said that if the allegations are true, then her ex-partner could be charged with harassment or even stalking.

Daily Mail Australia have contacted Queensland Police for further comment.
(TNS)  A moratorium on facial recognition in education may soon become a reality, as both chambers of the state legislature now have passed bills mandating a temporary ban, with the state senate passing the bill on Wednesday after the assembly passed its own bill on Tuesday.The bills sponsored by Assembly Member Monica Wallace and State Sen. Brian Kavanagh, both Democrats, await Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's signature.We will review any bill that passes both houses of the legislature," Jason Conwall, a Cuomo spokesperson said on Tuesday.The legislation will temporarily ban facial recognition in state schools and require the New York State Education Department to study the issue and craft regulations. This comes a month after the New York Civil Liberties Union launched a lawsuit to force the state education department to turn off Lockport's system.Both legislators have told the newspaper that the moratorium applies to Lockport's system, which was the first in the state, to use such technology.Superintendent Michelle Bradley released a statement on Wednesday afternoon after the bill's passage saying the district is "profoundly disappointed at the legislative effort to prohibit the operation of the district's Aegis system."The Lockport superintendent pointed out in the statement that the system has been approved on two occasions by New York state and the New York State Department of Education has "confirmed that the district's thoughtful implementation of the AEGIS system has addressed student data privacy concerns.""Contrary to the constant misrepresentations by opponents of the AEGIS System, the AEGIS System does not in any way record or retain biometric information relating to students or any other individuals on District grounds," Bradley wrote.Bradley observed that the system has been operated in a manner consistent with district policy since Jan. 2, 2020.She concluded the statement by saying the "legislative effort would result in over $1 million of taxpayer money being committed to an approved system that cannot be used to protect the district community from sex offenders and others who present a threat.""The district does not believe that there is any valid basis on which it should be prevented from utilizing this available, approved and operating technology to enhance the safety and security of the districts students, staff and visitors, and to respond to real world threats. This is especially so given the security implications of State recommendations on school reopening such as keeping doors and windows open to increase ventilation, and temperature screening of all people before entering the building leading to the utilization of multiple entrances," Bradley added.Stefanie Coyle, the deputy director of the Education Policy Center, celebrated the passage on Wednesday afternoon."Weve said for years that facial recognition and other biometric surveillance technologies have no place in schools, and this is a monumental leap forward to protect students from this kind of invasive surveillance. Schools should be an environment where children can learn and grow, and the presence of a flawed and racially-biased system constantly monitoring students makes that impossible," Coyle said."This is especially important as schools across the state begin to acknowledge the experiences of Black and Brown students being policed in schools and funneled into the school-to-prison pipeline. Facial recognition is notoriously inaccurate especially when it comes to identifying women and people of color. For children, whose appearances change rapidly as they grow, biometric technologies accuracy is even more questionable. False positives, where the wrong student is identified, can result in traumatic interactions with law enforcement, loss of class time, disciplinary action, and potentially a criminal record."Coyle reiterated the organization's belief that New York should never have dedicated funds to the technology, and urged the governor to immediately sign the bill."We urge Governor Cuomo to sign this bill immediately and as is, to make sure that if students return in person to schools in Lockport in the fall they wont be exposed to the collection of their student data or the dangers of school surveillance," she said.Lockport administrators had announced their intentions to begin testing the Aegis system in late May 2019 and were told by the state education department to not use the system while privacy concerns lingered. After months of back and forth with the state, the Lockport school board changed its system use policy and removed students from the list of persons eligible for inclusion in the Aegis database of individuals whose presence on school property would trigger an alert.NYSED approved of the policy revision and signed off on the districts use of the system in November. The district activated the system on Jan. 2.The school district used $1.4 million of the $4.2 million allocated to it through New Yorks Smart Schools Bond Act to acquire and install one of the first facial and object recognition security systems in an American school. The system relies on the Aegis software suite created by Canadian-based SN Technologies. The facial recognition software works by using a database of flagged individuals and sending an alert to district personnel when a flagged person is detected on school property. The object recognition feature would reportedly detect 10 types of guns and alert certain district personnel, as well as law enforcement, if a weapon is detected.
A jogger getting in a morning run along the Wildwood shoreline Tuesday helped save a father struggling in the water after the father rescued his daughter from the rough surf, officials said.

Aaron McCoy and his sister were jogging shortly before 9 a.m.  a few minutes before lifeguards go on duty  near Creese Avenue when they heard people yelling for help, the Wildwood Fire Department said in a statement.

McCoy grabbed a nearby boogie board and began paddling toward the man while his sister called 911. When firefighters arrived they saw McCoy and the man at least 75 yards offshore clinging to the small board, visibly exhausted and unable to make it back to the beach, fire officials said.

Firefighters quickly took a rescue board and raced toward the two men. Then, using the rescue board and a boogie board, they brought McCoy and the other back to land.

The man who McCoy reached had managed to rescue his own child before himself getting swept away, fire officials said.

The WIldwoood Fire Department lauded McCoy for risking his life to save a stranger.

Mr. McCoys heroic and selfless actions prevent a tragedy from occurring, the department said. This is the second time in as many weeks a civilian has risked his life to save another.

A hometown and age for McCoy was not provided, though the fire department said he is from North Jersey.

Officials again implored people to only swim when lifeguards are on duty.

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Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
The "Europe Data Protection-as-a-Service Market Growth, Trends, Forecasts (2020-2025)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The European data protection-as-a-Service market was valued at USD 1.51 billion in 2019 and expected to reach USD 3.81 billion by 2025, registering a CAGR of 17.41% during the forecast period of 2020-2025.

The factors driving the European market for data protection-as-a-service are increased focus on third-party risk management coupled with stringent regulations such as GDPR prompting the adoption of data protection solutions. Many Europe-based market vendors are also innovating their product offerings by penetrating various industries, to gain competitive advantage, further contributing to the growth of the market.

Key Highlights

In Europe, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the primary legal framework that structures guidelines for the collection of personal data and information. The compliance with the core tenets of GDPR, relating to personal information collected, accessed, and stored, is a hard take for companies. Therefore, data protection services can play a critical role in enabling business self-service analytics while ensuring enterprise governance and compliance.

Cloud migration is also very high among the end-user industries in the region. With more amount of mobile data generating, more data sources are likely to be added. Hence, the region requires more advanced data preparation solutions.

Even though the numbers of data breaches and cyberattacks are increasing in several European countries, customers in this region have been reluctant in sharing their data with third party companies. For instance, as per the data provided by Kaspersky, on May 30, 2020, Germany has observed 502,424 number of web threats. With these increasing numbers of threats in the European countries are driving the adoption of data protection services.

With the increasing incidence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the necessity for safe, simple avenues for data exchange between public bodies and healthcare professionals has made it way much more transparent than previously to fight against the virus.

For instance, in March 2020, England's digital data opt-out scheme was put on hold due to the ongoing crisis. The deadline for compliance with the new data opt-out has extended by six months. The policy has extended so as not to put pressure on healthcare services, which is currently dealing with the coronavirus's unexpected impact.

In April 2020, the United Kingdom's Information Commissioner (ICO) declared significant modifications in the data regulations, where the rules have been made flexible upto a certain extent.

However, the market is facing uncertainties owing to the Brexit effect in the European Union. For instance, in February 2020, Google is planning to move its British customer's accounts out of the control of EU privacy regulators and placing them under the United States jurisdiction. The shift, prompted by Britain's exit from the European Union, will leave the sensitive information of millions of customers with less protection and within more comfortable reach of British law.

Market Trends

BFSI Industry Expected to Grow at a Significant Rate

With the increasing digital initiatives taken by banking financial services industry players, it is crucial to protect the enterprise information from data security threats. Modernized bank data centers with hybrid cloud infrastructure backed by a digital foundation technology and powered by self-driving operations are assuring a significant level of improved customer experiences. On the other hand, modernization created different security loopholes, resulting in data breaches and other information losses.

Technology service providers such as Eurobits help banks work together so that their customers can quickly pay and manage their bank accounts at more than one banking provider. The company migrated to VMware vSphere on IBM's cloud technology in two data centers to containerize its secured banking applications.

Many European banks are looking for cloud computing providers with higher security standards than they can find in the United States. The European banks are opting for three major United States cloud providers, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.

Presently, French and German government officials are in talks with major players in technology, telecommunications, and finance to create a competitive continental cloud service run by regional technology provider companies. However, banks like Germany's Commerzbank AG have teamed up to present joint cloud requirements to United States providers to increase the flexibility of data-related regulations.

Players operating in the market are continually investing in the development of innovative solutions to tackle down problems in an efficient way. For instance, in September 2019, Fortinet, a significant provider of cybersecurity solutions, announced the launch of FortiGate-VM, which is extending its native support of VMware NSX-T to provide advanced security for East-West traffic.

United Kingdom Expected to Hold a Significant Share

The increasing preferences of big data, blockchain, and other initiatives across the United Kingdom market landscape have contributed to market growth.

According to the SAS Institute, retail banking organizations in the United Kingdom are expected to lead in the Big Data adoption, by 2020, by a staggering 80%, which is likely to positively contribute to the market's growth.

Recently, the fashion retailer, H&M, started using Big Data to tailor its merchandising mix in its brick-and-mortar stores. The fashion retailer is using algorithms and different customer data sources to gain insights from receipts, returns, and data from loyalty cards, to enhance its bottom line.

In the United Kingdom, the blockchain users can refer to the guidance developed in France to help them comply with data protection laws. The United Kingdom's data protection authority has ignored the significant legislature related to cryptocurrency mining and related technologies. The guidance developed by CNIL, the French data protection authority, has been considered efficient for people working in the blockchain field.

Furthermore, the increasing number of cyber-threat incidents is also driving the growth of the United Kingdom country segment in the coming years. For instance, as Kaspersky stated, on May 30, 2020, the country has observed 855,206 network attacks, which was 496,804 on May 1, 2020.

Competitive Landscape

The Europe data protection-as-a-service market is moderately competitive and consists of several significant players. These players account for a substantial share in the market and are focusing on expanding their customer base across the European region. These vendors are focusing on the research and development investment to introduce new solutions, strategic alliances, and other organic inorganic growth strategies to capture a significant share over the forecast period. Some recent industry developments include:

In May 2020, VMware Inc. announced the development of the Astrolabe Data Protection framework dedicated to complex applications. The newly developed data protection framework offers the discovery and replication of data and the restoration of complex applications. The framework provides a data protection-centric approach for applications with APIs for data extraction, recovery, and copying.

In February 2020, Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced advancements in its data protection services in partnership with Veeam, a European software vendor. Veeam and HPE have teamed up to protect customer data for the past decade, and the newly developed support for HPE Primera ensures customer data is always recoverable and protected.

Key Topics Covered

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Study Assumptions and Market Definition

1.2 Scope of the Study

2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

4 MARKET INSIGHTS

4.1 Market Overview

4.2 Industry Stakeholder Analysis

4.3 Industry Attractiveness Porter's Five Forces Analysis

5 MARKET DYNAMICS

5.1 Market Drivers

5.1.1 Growing Focus on Third-party Risk Management

5.1.2 Stringent Regulations such as GDPR Prompting the Adoption of Data Protection Solutions

5.1.3 Increasing Awareness among EU Institutions

5.2 Market Challenges

5.2.1 Uncertainty Regarding Data Protection Landscape due to Brexit

6 IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON THE EUROPE DATA PROTECTION-AS-A-SERVICE MARKET

7 MARKET SEGMENTATION

7.1 Service

7.1.1 Storage-as-a-Service

7.1.2 Backup-as-a-Service

7.1.3 Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service

7.2 Deployment

7.2.1 Public Cloud

7.2.2 Private Cloud

7.2.3 Hybrid Cloud

7.3 End-user Industry

7.3.1 BFSI

7.3.2 Healthcare

7.3.3 Government and Defense

7.3.4 IT and Telecom

7.3.5 Other End-user Industries

7.4 Country

7.4.1 United Kingdom

7.4.2 Germany

7.4.3 France

7.4.4 Rest of Europe

8 COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

8.1 Company Profiles

8.1.1 IBM Corporation

8.1.2 Amazon Web Services Inc.

8.1.3 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company

8.1.4 Dell Technologies

8.1.5 Cisco Inc.

8.1.6 Oracle Corporation

8.1.7 VMware Inc.

8.1.8 Commvault Systems Inc.

8.1.9 Veritas Technologies UK Ltd.

8.1.10 Quantum Corporation

8.1.11 Quest Software UK Ltd.

8.1.12 Hitachi Vantara Corporation

9 INVESTMENT ANALYSIS

10 FUTURE OF THE MARKET

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/qdwz6o

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200723005550/en/

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Italy's health minister calls on people to follow three "essential" rules.

Italy's health minister Roberto Speranza has said that a "second wave" of covid-19 in Italy is "possible," reports Italian news agency Adnkronos.

"We can try to contain the second wave if we know how to be fast and determined in isolating cases, locating outbreaks and containing them immediately."

The minister, speaking on the 24 Mattino programme on Radio24 on 23 July, said: "It is clear that we cannot have certainties about September, October. In some countries the second wave occurred, it occurred in previous epidemics. It is not certain, but we must consider it as possible. And therefore we must keep ourselves ready".

Speranza said that Italy is in a stronger place than it was in early February because it knows the "opponent" better and acquired knowledge in how to confront the virus.

The minister said that three "essential" rules remain: the use of masks; social distancing and staying clear of crowds; and the frequent washing of hands.

Asked about extending Italy's state of emergency - to grant authorities special powers to tackle the fallout from the coronavirus crisis quickly - Speranza said that the government was in talks last night ahead of announcing the next move.

It has been widely reported in the Italian media that the government is expected to extend the state of emergency until 31 October.

In an interview published in Il Mattino newspaper on Sunday the minister said: "Italy is out of the storm. But it is not yet in a safe port."

In recent days the health councillor of the Lazio Region, Alessio D'Amato, warned of fresh lockdowns in Rome and threatened fines for those who did not wear masks while in company, reports Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

However this was later played down by Lazio Region president Nicola Zingaretti who called on people to respect the rules and urged mayors to "issue orders, where necessary, to limit and avoid gatherings."

On 21 July the island of Capri, in the Campania Region, introduced an order requiring tourists to wear masks in public at weekends, reports Italian news agency ANSA.

Today, 23 July, it was announced that three young people from Rome have tested positive for covid-19 after a holiday on the island in recent days.

Health authorities are now attempting to retrace the movements of the holidaymakers.
The king, 84, will stay in hospital for some time to receive treatment, state media reports.

Saudi Arabias 84-year-old ruler, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, is recovering after a successful operation to remove his gallbladder, state news agency SPA has reported, after he was admitted to hospital this week.

The king, who has ruled the worlds largest oil exporter and close United States ally since 2015, will stay in hospital for some time to receive treatment, SPA reported on Thursday.

King Salman, the custodian of Islams holiest sites, was admitted to hospital in the capital Riyadh on Monday after suffering from inflammation of the gallbladder.

He has since chaired a cabinet meeting via video call from his hospital room on Tuesday and could be seen in a video behind a desk, reading and leafing through documents.

King Salman was crown prince and deputy prime minister for more than two and a half years from June 2012 before becoming king. He also served as governor of the Riyadh region for more than 50 years.

Saudi Arabias de facto ruler and next in line to the throne is the kings son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), who has launched reforms to diversify its oil-dependent economy.

The 34-year-old prince, who is popular among many young Saudis, has won praise at home for easing social restrictions in the conservative Muslim kingdom, giving more rights to women and pledging to diversify the economy.

To the kings supporters, this boldness at home and abroad was a welcome change after decades of caution, stagnation and dithering.

But state control of the media and a crackdown on dissent make it difficult to gauge the extent of domestic enthusiasm.





The crown princes reforms have been accompanied by a purge of top royals and businessmen on charges of corruption, and a costly war in Yemen, which have all unnerved some Western allies and investors.

He came under intense international criticism over the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdoms Istanbul consulate, which the CIA has reportedly said took place on the crown princes orders.

MBS has denied ordering Khashoggis killing but said he ultimately bears full responsibility as the kingdoms de facto leader.
New Delhi: Ahead of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) meet on Friday, India has said it expects "Chinese side will sincerely work with us" for complete disengagement, de-escalation and "full restoration of peace and tranquillity in the border areas at the earliest".

This will be the third round of virtual WMCC in last one month--the first on June 24 and the second on July 10. The remarks come amid the disengagement by the Chinese side which has reportedly slowed. While in the first phase, disengagement happened at Galwan valley, Hot springs and Gogra, Chinese continue to maintain positions at Finger 5 of Pangong Lake. The government sources said that the Chinese movement appears to have halted.

Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Anurag Shrivastava said, "respecting and strictly abiding by the LAC is the basis of peace and tranquillity in the border areas." Shrivastava explained, "The conduct of Chinese forces this year, including the deployment of a large body of troops and changes in behaviour, accompanied by unjustified and untenable claims, has been in complete disregard of all the mutual agreements."

He also reiterated that India is "fully committed to observing and respecting the LAC" and "will not accept any unilateral attempts to change the status quo along the LAC."

Ties between the two nations have deteriorated after June 15 violent clashes between Indian and Chinese forces that led to the death of 20 Indian soldiers. China also suffered casualties, but never came out with the details. India called the Chinese action, "premeditated and planned action".

Since the incident, three rounds of military talks and one Special Representative of India and China on the boundary question led by National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi took place to defuse the tensions.
100 Years Ago  1920: A loss exceeding $50,000 was sustained in the burning of the barn, dwelling house and springhouse yesterday at Red Gables, the country home of the Forstburg family in the Village Green section of Aston Township, according to John Forstburg, one of the occupants of the place. The fire started from spontaneous combustion in the grain storage part of the barn. A large quantity of new cut hay was stored in the barn a few days ago. John Forstburg was preparing to go to Baltimore when he saw flames shooting up from the top of the big barn. The heavy fire damage was fully covered by insurance, according to a family member.

75 Years Ago  1945: A 48-year-old Fifth Ward laborer hanged himself in a cell at Chester police headquarters this morning an hour after he had been charged with stabbing a waitress at the Russian Club, Morton Avenue above Sixth Street, last night. Detective McKinney said the man had been refused a drink by a bartender because of his condition, but it was not known whether that was responsible for the attack on the waitress.

50 Years Ago  1970: Delaware Countys personal property assessments tumbled nearly $68 million in 1969. The decline will result in the loss of about $264,000 in county revenue this year, according to Budget Director William Parsons, saying we can economize in certain areas to that the revenue loss will not seriously affect county operations. Assessment Appeals Board Chairman Richard S. Krick said that the decline in stock market prices was largely responsible for the significant drop coming from the 4-mill personal property tax.

25 Years Ago  1995: Pennsylvania Department of Community Affairs Secretary William Bostic announced an emergency $1 million state loan designed to keep the financially strapped city of Chester solvent until a recovery plan can be enacted. Chester, declared a financially distressed municipality on April 6, ran a $4.3 million deficit in 1994. Aided by the recovery team, the city will be in court next month to seek approval for at least another $3.4 million in an unfunded debt loan.

10 Years Ago  2010: With Chesters state of emergency expiring today, Mayor Wendell N. Butler Jr. is set to announce his initiatives for moving the city forward and curbing its violence today at Calvary Baptist Church. The historic church, home of Dr. Martin King Jr. during his time at Crozer Theological Seminary, is a fitting venue. Butler previously revealed a gun buy-back program. A radio commercial for that program began running Thursday, he said.

 COLIN AINSWORTH
Mumbai: The application of ElgarParishad-Maoists links case accused Varavara Rao for bail on health grounds was a mere "ruse" and he was trying to take

undue benefit under the garb of the COVID-19 pandemic situation and his old age, the NIA has told the Bombay High Court.

His health condition was stable and he did not require treatment in a multi-speciality hospital, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said in its affidavit on July 16, the day the 81-year-old poet and activist tested positive for

coronavirus.

Rao's application of bail on health grounds thus, was a mere "ruse" and he was "trying to take undue benefit under the garb of current situation on account of global pandemic and his old age," said the NIA, which is probing the Elgar Parishad-Maoists links case.

The NIA also said in its affidavit that otherwise Rao won't be eligible for bail only on merits of the case.

"The prison authorities have responded timely and provided necessary medical aid to the appellant accused Rao. The applicant accused was admitted to JJ Hospital for the complaint of giddiness on May 28 and after medical treatment, he was discharged on June 1 as he was found asymptomatic and haemodynamically stable," it said.

Rao's medical record and the report submitted by JJ Hospital's superintendent did not suggest he was suffering from any such ailment which necessitated that he immediately obtain treatment in a multi-speciality hospital, the probe agency further said in its affidavit.

Rao is currently currently undergoing treatment for COVID-19 and other ailments at Nanavati Hospital in Mumbai.

On July 20, the Bombay High Court heard Rao's bail plea briefly. His lawyer Sudeep Pasbola told the court that Rao was "almost on his deathbed" and even the NIA could not dispute the fact that his health was very critical.

"His condition is very serious. He hit his head against the hospital bed while he was at the JJ hospital and sustained severe injuries. Besides COVID-19, he suffers from several ailments, he is hallucinating and is delirious," Pasbola said.

"His days are numbered and if he is to die, at least let him die in the presence of his family members," the lawyer said while seeking that Rao be granted bail.

However, NIA's counsel Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh told the court on July 20 that the state was "taking good care" of Rao and he had been admitted to one of the "best super speciality hospitals in the city". The NIA is supposed to inform the court on Thursday if Rao's family can be permitted to see him.

Last month, the NIA filed an almost similar affidavit opposing the bail application of Rao's co-accused Sudha Bharadwaj, in the case.

It said the bail application "pleading with regard to the medical condition of the petitioner is merely a ruse to obtain an order of interim relief which is not available to her otherwise on merits of the case".

Rao and nine other activists have been arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, which was initially probed by the Pune Police and later transferred to the NIA in January this year.

The case related to alleged inflammatory speeches made at the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, which the police claimed triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial. The police have also claimed the conclave was organised by people with alleged Maoist links.
Britain's government announced Wednesday that it will open a new special pathway to obtaining UK citizenship for up to 3 million eligible Hong Kongers as of January, taking another step toward solidifying a policy denounced by China.

In a statement, the Home Office said holders of the British National Overseas passport and their immediate family members can move to the UK to work and study. The change to immigration rules was introduced after Beijing imposed a new, sweeping national security law on Hong Kong.

"Today's announcement shows the UK is keeping its word: We will not look the other way on Hong Kong, and we will not duck our historic responsibilities to its people,'' British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said.

Britain announced in early July it was extending residency rights for some 2.9 million people eligible for the British National Overseas passport in Hong Kong, stressing that it would uphold its duty to the former British colony after the new law was imposed.

Eligible individuals from Hong Kong currently can come to the UK for six months without a visa. With the rule change, they will have the right to live and work in the country for five years. After that, they will be allowed to apply for settled status and then again for citizenship.

Those eligible can access the British job market at any skill level and without a salary threshold, but won't have access to public funds.

The UK introduced a special, limited type of British nationality in the 1980s for people who were a ``British dependent territories citizen by connection with Hong Kong.'' The passports did not confer nationality or the automatic right to live and work in Britain, but entitled holders to consular assistance from UK diplomatic posts.

Britain handed over Hong Kong, its former colony, to Chinese rule on July 1, 1997 under a "One Country, Two Systems'' framework that was supposed to guarantee the city a high degree of autonomy and Western-style civil liberties not seen on mainland China.

The new national security law, enacted just ahead of the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong becoming a special administrative region of China, criminalizes subversive, secessionist or terrorist activities and collusion with foreign forces to intervene in the city's affairs.

In some cases, mainland China will assume legal jurisdiction and suspects could be sent there for trial.

The changes are seen by many as Beijing's boldest move yet to erase the legal firewall between the semi-autonomous territory and the mainland's authoritarian Communist Party system.

Beijing has said that Britain's move to offer refuge to Hong Kong residents constitutes interference in internal matters.

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A settlement between a developer and Jersey City will transform Summit Avenue, paving the way for the construction of a 42-story residential tower, a community center, and nearly an acre of public park.

Two years ago, New York developer HAP Investments sued the city, claiming that the city had intentionally blocked its development at 500 Summit Ave. The proposal calls for 856 units, 191 parking spaces and 8,800 square feet of retail on the ground floor.

In April, HAP reached a settlement with the city, allowing it to move forward with the tower under on the condition that it provides a slate of neighborhood amenities.

Jersey Digs first reported the settlement.

Under the terms of the agreement, HAP will construct a 0.8-acre park at the location, as well as a $2.5 million community center, both of which will then be transferred to city ownership. The settlement calls for HAPs development to be built first, followed by the park and community center.

Katrina Boggiano, a co-leader of the Hilltop Neighborhood Association, praised the settlement terms. The community group was heavily involved in negotiations over the development, according to court documents.

Were happy with what the community is getting, said Boggiano, who is the daughter of Ward C Councilman Rich Boggiano. Overall, it did wind up being relatively fair to the community.

Under the terms of the agreement, HAP will reserve 24 parking spots in the buildings parking garage for the community group and build 40 parking spots for the community center and park. HAP will also contribute $500,000 to the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency to increase green spaces in the Hilltop neighborhood, though there are no plans as of yet for how that money will be spent.

Councilman Boggiano, a longtime head of the community group and an opponent of the development, declined to comment.

HAP Investments could not immediately be reached for comment.

The settlement terms also grant HAP automatic approval for plans it submitted in 2017 to the Jersey City Planning Board. But on June 11, the developer posted what appear to be new renderings of the project on Facebook and Instagram.

This 42-story luxury rental building will have sweeping views of NYC and include a brand-new community park, the developer wrote. We look forward to unveiling more details about the project as we continue into the design development phase.

The project has been in the works for 10 years. The sites previous owners sued the city in 2010 when the city did not include the property in the Journal Square redevelopment zone. The two parties settled in 2012, with the city agreeing to change zoning rules to allow the owner to build a tower up to 42 stories high and the owner agreeing to fund a nearby public park.
KHABAROVSK, Russia -- Russian law enforcement have questioned a Khabarovsk activist for the first time since mass protests broke out in the Far East region two weeks ago following the arrest of the local governor.



Meanwhile, the new acting governor has refused to meet with protesters, saying doing so would be disrespectful to Russian President Vladimir Putin.



Khabarovsk police on July 23 summoned local activist Artyom Mozgov for questioning on suspicion of organizing an unsanctioned mass rally on July 11 in support of Governor Sergei Furgal, who was arrested days before on charges of murder and attempted murder.



Local residents have rallied for 13 consecutive days to protest the arrest, accusing Moscow of removing their popularly elected governor on political grounds.

The Khabarovsk rallies have attracted thousands of people on the weekends and are the largest protests in the Far Eastern city since the fall of the Soviet Union.



Such large, spontaneous demonstrations far from the Russian capital are a rare public show of defiance against the Kremlin and follow on the heels of a controversial nationwide vote that set the stage for Putin to remain in power until 2036. The protests have unnerved Moscow.



Putin, though, has remained firm, officially firing Furgal on July 20 and appointing Mikhail Degtyaryov as his acting replacement. Local residents have given Degtyaryov a cold welcome since his arrival on July 21, protesting outside the government building the past three days.



More than 100 demonstrators gathered on the central square in front of the regional administration office in Khabarovsk on July 23, chanting "Degtyaryov! Come out!" and "We are the power here!"



Degtyaryov told journalists earlier in the day that he was not going to meet the protesters.



"I will not come out... It is disrespectful. Disrespect to myself, to the president [Putin] for whom the majority of Russians voted, and mostly it is disrespect toward [the protesters] themselves. Those who do such things, they do not respect themselves," Degtyaryov said.



Khabarovsk Krai residents overwhelmingly voted for Furgal, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), in the 2018 gubernatorial elections. His surprise victory was a blow to the ruling United Russia party.



After picketing the administration building, the protesters marched across the city, chanting slogans denouncing Degtyaryov as more and more people joined them. Police did not interfere.

On July 21, two local lawmakers, Pyotr Yemelyanov and Aleksandr Kayan, quit the LDPR to protest Furgals dismissal from office. Both Furgal and Degtyaryov are members of that party.



Furgal, who was arrested in Khabarovsk on July 9 and transferred to Moscow, is charged with attempted murder and ordering two murders in 2004-2005. He denies the allegations.



Authorities have been unnerved by the protests, with the regional capital's mayor calling for calm and saying such rallies were illegal and could help accelerate the spread of the coronavirus.



Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) had also warned of an alleged terrorist threat involving explosives, which it claimed to have already foiled.



In addition, the authorities in Khabarovsk region said they were considering a return to strict quarantine measures and attributed this to the difficult situation with the spread of coronavirus infection.
The Queen's 2million royal barge that led the Diamond Jubilee flotilla down the Thames in 2012 will get a new sumptuous home on the Greenwich peninsula.

The 88-foot-long vessel will be moved from St Katharine Docks in the borough of Tower Hamlets to a boathouse on the Greenwich Peninsula.

It comes as part of a proposal from developer U+I to build the 1,500-home Morden Wharf, for which a planning statement was submitted last month.

The Queen's 2million royal barge Gloriana leading manpowered craft towards Westminster Bridge during Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee Pageant on the Thames in June 2012

An artist's impression of the Gloriana boathouse, above, facing east with the Parkside towers in the background, submitted as part of a proposal to build the 1,500-home Morden Wharf

An artist's impression showing an aerial view of the proposed boathouse. The 88-foot-long vessel will be moved from St Katharine Docks in Tower Hamlets to the Greenwich Peninsula

Gloriana, built with ornately carved wood and decorated with gold leaves, is set to be rehomed on a jetty which is currently unused and restricted from the public.

Canary Wharf, the Isle of Dogs and the Old Royal Navy College can be viewed from the jetty, which is reached from a path running along the Thames.

In the planning application, developers cite 'significant maintenance costs' as one of the reasons behind the request to move the barge.

It says: 'The lack of shelter and protection is causing significant maintenance costs and so a permanent residence is urgently required.'

The document adds: 'The main function of the boathouse is to provide shelter and adequate storage for when the Gloriana is not in use.

'The boathouse will also provide space for a programme of continuous maintenance and conservation. When the boat is required for an event, the integrated lifting mechanism allows the boat to be safely transported into and out of the water.'

It comes as part of a proposal from developer U+I to build Morden Wharf, artist's impression above, for which a planning statement was submitted last month

An artist's impression showing a view from the jetty looking west of the boathouse and the Gloriana. The jetty is currently unused and restricted from the public

The Queen pictured visiting the Gloriana. The 88-foot-long barge will be moved from St Katharine Docks in the borough of Tower Hamlets to a boathouse on the Greenwich Peninsula

The pageant for the London 2012 Olympic Games is led by the royal barge Gloriana, which arrived at its final destination at Tower Bridge after making its way up the Thames

Pictures from Pixelflakes show an artist's impression of the boathouse, for which planning permission from Greenwich Council is expected to be given later this year, with building work for the development set to begin in 2023.

The boathouse is designed by architects Carmody Groarke and will be glazed on either side, allowing it to be viewed by visitors.

Andy Groarke, from Carmody Groarke, told The Times: 'The new boathouse will provide a permanent shelter dedicated to the long-term protection and public exhibition of Gloriana.

'The fully glazed walls of the pavilion will open-up uninterrupted views of the Queen's row barge from both the Thames and the river path, whilst the existing jetty will be rehabilitated and extended to enable the Gloriana to be safely launched on to the Thames, as well as providing a public belvedere.'

The 18-oared vessel, which is stored at St Katharine Docks in the summer months and in Essex during the winter, harks back 200 years to when kings and queens travelled by water in opulent style.

Gloriana moored at St Katharine Dock in the borough of Tower Hamlets in 2012. Developers requested the barge to be moved due to a 'lack of shelter and protection'

The 18-oared vessel is rowed on the River Thames and passes beneath Westminster Bridge during celebrations for the Queen's record of years as Monarch in September 2015

The Queen, accompanies by Prince Philip, visits Gloriana, which was built to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, for the first time at Greenland Pier, Greenland Dock on the Thames

Gloriana pictured moored on St Katharine Docks. Edward Burnett's design saw the exterior of the Gloriana marked by 3ft golden rampant lions, and the interior with grey-green cushions

The design, inspired by the boats from Canaletto's famous 18th Century painting of a Thames pageant, incorporates sweet chestnut wood taken from the Duchy of Cornwall estate.

It was initially set to carry the Queen or the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, but in the final stages of preparation it was decided the Royal Family would not embark on the Gloriana and would instead board the Spirit of Chartwell.

The boat did, however, carry the Olympic flame along the Thames on the final day of the Torch Relay ahead of the London Games that same year.

And in September 2015 it took to the river again as part of a royal salute to celebrate the Queen becoming the longest reigning British monarch.

Edward Burnett's design saw the exterior of the Gloriana marked by 3ft golden rampant lions, and the interior decked out with grey-green brocade cushions.

The wooden floor was covered in a grey-green rug with the Queen's cipher woven in old gold on a fretwork pattern, specially designed by Emily Todhunter and handwoven in Nepal.
Irish people feel less threatened by the risk of terrorism than citizens of any other EU member state, a new EU-wide survey shows.

Research carried out by the EU's Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) on the security concerns and experiences of EU citizens also revealed that Irish people reported one of the highest levels of being victims of online banking fraud in the past five years.

It showed only 3pc of Irish people said they were worried about being caught up in a terrorist attack in the next 12 months compared with the EU average of 19pc.

The figure was as high as 52pc among Spaniards, while other countries whose citizens believed there was a high risk of terrorist attacks in the near future included France and Italy.

The survey of more than 35,000 people across the EU's 27 member states, as well as the UK, was conducted last year before restrictions were introduced to combat the spread of Covid-19.

Online

It revealed that 77pc of Irish people said they were not worried about the threat of a terr-orist attack in the following year, compared with the EU average of 53pc.

The survey showed that the fear of someone gaining illegal access to their online data is the key concern of European citizens, with 55pc stating it was a worry.

Nearly three in five Irish people were worried about their online data being accessed without their knowledge or being shared on the internet.

Two-thirds expressed concern about their online data being misused by fraudsters and criminals, while a quarter of Europeans said they were worried that their online bank account or payment card details would be misused.

However, fewer than one in 10 EU citizens had actually been the victim of such crimes in the previous five years.

Irish people reported the fourth highest level of being the victim of cyber crime, with 14pc claiming they had experienced an incident where their online bank account or payment card had been used without their permission to defraud or steal from them.

People in the UK, France and Denmark reported the highest levels of having experienced online banking fraud.
New Delhi: The UK cannot give a timeframe for the extradition of businessman Vijay Mallya though the British government and courts are clear on their roles in preventing people from avoiding justice by moving across national borders, British high commissioner Philip Barton said on Thursday.

Barton declined to answer a question during a virtual news briefing on whether Mallya had sought asylum in the UK, saying the British government never comments on individual asylum cases.

The UK government and the courts, [which] are independent of government, are absolutely clear around their roles in preventing people [from] avoiding justice by moving country. We are all determined to play our part in any case, and to make sure that were working together to ensure that criminals cant escape justice by crossing national borders, he said.

Mallyas extradition was ordered in February but there is an ongoing legal case and I cant comment any further on that and I cant say anything at all about timescales, Barton said. The UK government understands the importance of the case, he added.

Last month, India said it had asked the UK not to consider any asylum request from Mallya, currently on bail pending his extradition, as there are no grounds for his persecution in the country. India has also said it has sought the early extradition of Mallya from the UK.

The UK has so far only said a confidential legal issue was holding up Mallyas extradition but that it was trying to deal with the matter as quickly as possible. Britains stance gave rise to speculation the 64-year-old businessman, wanted in India to face charges of financial irregularities, could have applied for asylum.

Mallya lost his appeal against the 2018 order to extradite him in the UK high court in April. Last month, the high court also refused Mallya permission to appeal in the UK Supreme Court.

He is wanted in India to face charges of financial offences involving Rs 9,000 crore borrowed by his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines from several Indian banks.

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Belagavi: Angry relatives of a deceased COVID-19 patient set fire to an ambulance and resorted to stone pelting in Karnataka's Belagavi on Wednesday (July 22, 2020).

The incident took place at the Belagavi Institute of Medical Science and Hospital when a 55-year-old patient died on Wednesday while being treated for COVID-19.

According to information, G. Gali was admitted to the hospital on July 19 with severe breathing problems. A COVID-19 test was conducted on the patient which turned out to be positive.

The patient died during treatment, upon receiving the information angry relatives of the deceased created a ruckus accusing the hospital of negligence and set the ambulance on fire.

A constable present on the spot was also injured.

The police have registered a case and is on the lookout for the accused.
Election 2020 Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to Run for Seat in General Election, Myanmars Ruling Party Says

NLD lawmakers and members welcome Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to a celebration of her 74th birthday in Naypyitaw in 2019. / Myanmar State Counselors Office / Facebook
More people are wanting to migrate from larger cities to smaller ones like Peterborough following the COVID-19 pandemic, driving a need for more housing in the Peterborough area, developers say.

Paul Bennett, owner of Ashburnham Realty in Peterborough, said places like Peterborough, Kingston and Guelph are growing due to people wanting to leave more densely packed places like Toronto for the safety of smaller cities.

All we have seen and heard in the past few months are more people becoming keen on places like Peterborough that allow for a sense of community, a little safer, more space, walkable, with all those kind of things people have slowly been moving to over time, Bennett said.

Amit Sofer, founder and president of the TVM Group, said he knows a few people who have chosen to exit Toronto for more hospitable places to live.

Bankers we deal with in Toronto actually took up residence at their cottage north of Peterborough and now have become virtually full-time residence in their cottage and their Toronto residence has become their weekend residence, Sofer said.

The Highway 407 extension to Highway 35/115, just north of Kirby, opened last December, easing access to the Kawarthas for GTA residents isolating at their cottages during the pandemic.

The impact of the 407 is huge, Bennett said. But I think it is heightened even more by the events of what has happened in the last five months.

Sofer also said he believes the 407 will play a larger role in bringing people to the area to live or stay for the foreseeable future.

I believe the 407 extension to the 115 only further cemented both my reasoning and the convenience for someone in that sort of circumstance, Sofer said.

Bennett said one of the big issues fuelling the influx of people to the area is the price of the houses and condos, compared to the Toronto markets that are steadily trending upwards.

We are in a high demand area, he said. We dont have a ton of supply yet and that really skews rent, as little supply and high demand equals higher rents.

The average price of homes sold in Peterborough city and county hit a record $545,942 in May, the Peterborough and the Kawarthas Association of Realtors reported.

The supply and demand issue is due to what he believes is people such as hipsters, who are highly interested in getting away from the city, Sofer said.

The idea is hipsters are becoming more interested in moving away from the city, then to move into the city, Sofer said. I am a very big believer in that.

Bennett said he is seeing noticeable trends in people coming from the city as well, from availability in the core of the city to being close by in neighbourhoods just outside the core as a way of feeling like a member of a community.

We are finding a lot of people wanting to live closer to the core, he said. Just to be walkable and have a good sense of community, like places like East City, around little lake, places you are a part of a community, but you can still walk to areas.

Bennett said there is a trend to live in smaller more modern and affordable dwellings in cities the size of Peterborough compared to Toronto and larger cities.

If those people can reinvent their lives and live from the lakes or places like Peterborough or the Kawarthas you are going to see a whole lot of people moving this way, Bennett said.

You know where before it might have been a 10-year uptake, it might have gone to a two- or three-year uptake because of everything that has gone on.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

Trend:

The Azerbaijanis living in Houston, Texas held a rally as a sign of protest against the military provocations committed by Armenia against Azerbaijan, the continuation of the aggressive policy, Armenian barbarism and atrocities against the Azerbaijanis, Trend reports on July 23 referring to the Azerbaijani State Committee on Work with Diaspora.

About 100 cars were involved in the rally organized by the Azerbaijan-American Cultural Alliance under the slogan "Stop the occupation policy of Armenia!" the message said.

The flags of Azerbaijan and the US, the slogans "Stop the aggressive policy of Armenia!", "Karabakh is Azerbaijan!" were stuck on these cars, the message said.

These cars were moving along the streets of Sugar Land, Katy, Memorial and Houston cities during more than two hours, bringing the truth about the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the atrocities of the Armenians to Texas people, the message said.

At the end of the rally, the protesters sang the Azerbaijani national anthem in the city center, chanted the patriotic slogans, expressing support for Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani people and army and our compatriots who raised their voices these days against the fascist actions of Armenians in foreign countries, the message said.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The 25-year-old man who was gunned down inside a deli in Mariners Harbor late Wednesday night had returned home from prison just days ago, and detectives are investigating whether his killer waited for him to return to the community to strike, according to a law enforcement source.

Detectives believe Kaseem Scott, who lived around the corner from the scene of his slaying, was targeted by an individual as a result of a long-standing dispute, one source said.
By Express News Service

The Nehruvian policy of non-alignment was drawn up in an era which was very different from today and Indian foreign policy should evolve according to the present day circumstances, said Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.

Participating in a conversation with Prabhu Chawla, Editorial Director, The New Indian Express, and author and senior journalist Kaveree Bamzai on TNIEs Expressions, a series of live webcast with people who matter. He said Nehru himself would not follow the rules he drew up in an era which was very different from today.

Excerpts:

With regard to the stand-off with China, do you think it is a moment in history where India can look at adversity as an opportunity.

The border issue is a major setback for India. We were caught napping by the Chinese adventure in the Galwan Valley and across the LAC. There was clearly an intelligence failure. The Chinese are indulging in a much bigger game than we in India have woken up to.

They seem to be thinking long term. The idea seems to be each time there is a flash point, India will try diplomacy and at the end of the disengagement, China is in a better position than before.

Before we ask whether it is an opportunity, let us face the fact that it has been a very serious setback. There is a theoretical opportunity but the building blocks of that opportunity have not been put in place.

The Nehruvian model of non-alignment seems to be dead. Do you think it is strategically desirable for us to join an alliance against China?

I am not pushing for an alliance. I am raising the question. We can create an environment of relationships and a network of partnerships by which we can do something about China. But it cant be the containment game that the US would like us to play. We should think about a policy of constraining China.

Do you think the Nehruvian model is obsolete and it has to be relooked?

I think Nehru himself would not follow the rules he drew upon in an era which was very different from today. So, clearly Indian foreign policy has to evolve.

The Chinese are rising as a superpower and they are going to overtake the US well before the midpoint of the century.

The template of the Nehruvian era wont apply here. China is an expansionist power, though they pretend otherwise. China really like to stretch their elbows at the expense of others. They see themselves as the centre of the whole world. Their ideology is hostile to us.

There is something about the way Chinese civilisation is manifesting itself today, ideologically, geopolitical and militarily, which will bring clash with others.

This opportunity should be taken as an opportunity by India to lead or catalyse a group of countries that could form a partnership to constrain China. For example, with countries like Australia, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore and South Korea. We can leverage our strengths to limit how much damage they can do to the rest of the world.

The difference between the Modi government and the previous government with regard to the relationship with China?

The restrictions on Chinese investments in power, port and telecom sectors were lifted by the Modi government. Tomorrow, we have to examine whether to allow Chinese companies bidding for the nations 5G contracts. My party feels there has been a major setback which the government is unwilling to acknowledge. If it is an ongoing process, let us see whether we can restore the status quo and that will be the acid test.

How did the Centre handle Covid-19 and the lockdown?

We were given only a three-and--half-hour notice for the lockdown which eventually became a four-month lockdown. Everyone faced massive difficulties.
Mumbai, July 23 : Actor Ajay Devgn, who played the legendary Tanaji Malusare in his latest release, says the 17th century Maratha warrior must be celebrated even today.

" 'Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior' is my 100th film. So, it's a landmark. The film is significant because it's the story of an unsung hero who played an important part in Indian history," said Devgn.

"This is a movie that every Indian should watch. I know Tanaji's bravery and his dedication to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj will resonate. He was a warrior who must be celebrated even today," he added.

"Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior" released in January and so far continues to be the biggest Bollywood hit of 2020, a year when cinema business has been paralysed by the Covid pandemic.

Directed by Om Raut, the film also stars Saif Ali Khan, Kajol, Sharad Kelkar, and Luke Kenny.

Raut, who made his Bollywood directorial debut with the film, said he was fascinated by Maratha warriors since childhood.

"I worked on the story for almost five years and Mr. Devgn was my first and only choice for the titular role. Nobody could have pulled off the historical character better than Mr. Devgn. There is depth in his performance," he said.

The film is set to air on Star Plus.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Check out the companies making headlines after the bell:

Intel  Intel's stock dropped 8% in extended trading after the company offered disappointing third-quarter guidance. Intel released its second quarter earnings, beating predictions of analysts surveyed by Refinitiv. The company reported second-quarter earnings of $1.23 per share excluding some items on revenues of $19.73 billion compared to estimates of earnings per share of $1.11 on revenues of $18.55 billion. After Intel said the company's 7nm-based CPU product timing is delayed, shares of Advanced Micro Devices climbed 7% in after hours.

Mattel  Shares of the toy company jumped 5% after the market closed as Mattel released its second-quarter financial results. The company reported a second-quarter loss of 26 cents per share excluding some items on revenues of $732 million, while analysts polled by Refinitiv expected a loss of 34 cents per share on revenues of $679 million. Mattel's second-quarter net sales of $732 million declined 15% compared to the prior year.

Skechers  Shares of Skechers surged 9% after the closing bell. The company released second-quarter financial results that beat estimates by Wall Street analysts polled by Refinitiv. The shoe company posted a loss of 44 cents per share on revenues of $730 million. Analysts had expected a loss per share of 66 cents on revenues of $660 million. The company's owned e-commerce sales grew 428.2%.

Moderna  Moderna's stock dropped 2% in extended trading after falling 9.49% earlier in the day. The drop comes after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled Moderna does not have a claim to a patent held by a rival company. The patent concerns technology focused on delivering messenger RNA treatments and is held by Canadian firm Arbutus, according to Stat News. The ruling could potentially delay Moderna's race to produce a coronavirus vaccine. Shares of BioNTech jumped 2% while Novavax's stock fell 1% in after hours.

Ascena Retail Group  Shares of Ascena soared 26% in extended trading after falling more than 25% during the day. Earlier, the retail company parent of Ann Taylor filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and said it plans to close a "significant" number of Justice stores and some Ann Taylor, Loft, Lane Bryant and Lou & Grey stores while it restructures.

Disney  Disney's stock fell 1% after the closing bell. The company announced Thursday afternoon that its movie "Mulan" is delayed indefinitely and all Star Wars films and Avatar sequels have been pushed back a year due to theater closures and production shutdowns spurred by the coronavirus pandemic.
In his virtual keynote address to the annual 'India Ideas Summit' of the US India Business Council (USIBC), Pompeo said he was happy to report that India is a 'rising' US defense and security partner in the Indo-Pacific and globally.

New York : Describing India as one of the few trusted like-minded countries, United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that New Delhi is an important partner and a key pillar of President Donald Trump's foreign policy.

The United States, he said, 'desires a new age of ambition' in its relationship with India.

Asserting that the US has never been more supportive of India's security, he said New Delhi too, is an important partner and a key pillar of President Trump's foreign policy.

"We don't just interact on a bilateral basis. We see each other for what we are great democracies, global powers and really good friends. India is one of the few trusted like-minded countries whose leaders I call on a regular basis for counsel and collaboration on issues that span continents," Pompeo said.

"I'm confident that our relationship is only getting stronger. Let's emerge from this current challenge more resilient and innovative than before.

"And let's seize this moment to deepen cooperation between two of the world's greatest democracies," he added.

Pompeo said the US has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the next G7 meeting to be hosted by President Trump.

"We will advance the economic prosperity network. It is the group of countries and organisations that we consider natural partners with we share values like democracy, transparency and rule of law," Pompeo said.

The Group of Seven (G-7) is an international intergovernmental economic organisation consisting of seven major developed countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, which are some of the largest IMF-advanced economies in the world.

Pompeo also said that he was happy to report that India is a rising US defense and security partner, in the Indo-Pacific and globally.

"I'm confident that with our concerted efforts, we can protect our interests," he said.

"We've revived the so-called quad that comprised the US, India, Japan and Australia. India is also part of a group of likeminded nations that I've convened regularly to advance shared interests," he said.

Navies from the US, India, Australia, Japan and France have been deepening their mutual cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region in view of China's growing attempt to expand military influence in the resource-rich region.

On Monday, a US Navy carrier strike group led by nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz carried out a military drill with a fleet of Indian warships off the coast of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Four frontline warships of the Indian Navy participated in the 'PASSEX' exercise when the US carrier strike group was transiting through the Indian Ocean Region on its way from the South China Sea.

The USS Nimitz is the world's largest warship and the exercise between the two navies assumed significance as it took place in the midst of tensions between India and China in eastern Ladakh as well as in China's military assertiveness in South China Sea.

'Recent clashes initiated by PLA latest examples of unacceptable behaviour of CCP'

Pompeo said the recent clashes 'initiated' by the Chinese military against India in eastern Ladakh are the latest examples of the 'unacceptable behaviour' of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Pompeo also praised India's recent decision to ban 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok, which he said presents 'serious security risks' to the Indian people.

"It's important that democracies like ours work together, especially as we see more clearly than ever the true scope of the challenge posed by the Chinese Communist Party.

"Our infrastructure projects, our supply chains, our sovereignty, and our people's health and safety are all at risk. If we get it wrong," Pompeo said in his virtual keynote address.

"The recent clashes initiated by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) are just the latest examples of the Chinese Communist Party's unacceptable behaviour. We were deeply saddened by the deaths of 20 Indian service members. I'm confident that with our concerted efforts, we can protect our interests," he said.

The troops of India and China are locked in a standoff in several areas along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh since May 5.

The situation deteriorated last month following the Galwan Valley clashes that left 20 Indian Army personnel dead.

Pompeo's remarks came a day after US Defence Secretary Mark Esper described the Chinese military's aggressive activities in the region as 'destabilising'.

Esper also said the US was 'very closely' monitoring the situation between India and China along the Line of Actual Control.

In his virtual address, Pompeo commended India's recent decision to ban 59 Chinese mobile apps, including TikTok, that he said present 'serious security risks' for the Indian people.

Pompeo said he was happy to report that India is a 'rising US defense and security partner in the Indo-Pacific and globally'.

Asserting that the United States has never been more supportive of India's security, he said New Delhi too, is an important partner and a key pillar of President Donald Trump's foreign policy.

"We work closely together to make sure that the world intellectual property organisation election was won by someone who respects property rights. It seems pretty basic," Pompeo said amidst Washington's growing dispute with Beijing over intellectual property rights.

Relations between the US and China have taken a turn for the worse in recent months over Beijing's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Fresh concerns over China's crackdown of its Uigur Muslims in Xinjiang and Beijing imposing a controversial national security law in Hong Kong have also raised bilateral tensions.

Pompeo noted that the so-called Quad, comprising the US, India, Japan, and Australia, has been revived.

"India is also part of a group of like-minded nations that I've convened regularly to advance shared interests," he said.

The US and China are at odds over Beijing flexing its military muscles in the strategic South China Sea.

He also noted that the US has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the next G-7 Summit where the leaders will advance the economic prosperity network.

The G-7 is a group of countries and organisations that the US considers natural partners because they share values like democracy and transparency and the rule of law.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has appointed a Limestone County prosecutor to replace Doug Patterson, the now-former indicted district judge who recently resigned from the bench.

Russell Gray West was sworn in this morning as district judge for Place 1 in Limestone County.

West, a 31-year-old lawyer, began his legal career at the District Attorneys Office after graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law in 2014. He still worked in the DAs office until after he got a call from Gov. Ivey on Wednesday letting him know he was appointed to the judgeship.

Its still a bit surreal, West told AL.com by phone after he was sworn in this morning. Its slowly but surely sinking in that its happening.

In a letter appointing West, Ivey called for the new judge to be a good steward of taxpayer money and to instill public trust in state government.

As one of my appointees, you will be making important decisions that directly affect the citizens of Alabama, says the letter, which was signed by Ivey and released to AL.com by the governors office. I have made honesty and integrity a priority in my Administration, and I know that you will embody these two virtues while serving the people of Alabama.

West said hes excited to start hearing cases from the bench, which will happen as soon as next week.

He acknowledged that part of his role in replacing Patterson could include repairing the communitys trust in the local district court.

I hope and pray Ill be able to restore it by being myself and continuing to put the community first, he said. My intent is always to put the county first and do what I think is right.

Patterson resigned from the judgeship about three weeks ago, just before he was to face a trial at the Alabama Court of the Judiciary. Patterson also faces a criminal trial on felony charges of theft and abuse of power. Hes accused of using the judgeship to steal from a juvenile court funds and faces allegations of theft from his time as an attorney. Patterson has pleaded not guilty.

Patterson had been suspended from the bench since last year but because he still held the position, a replacement could not be named.

With West now appointed, Limestone County District Attorney Brian Jones said, the case load in district court will improve.

Were excited for Gray, said Jones. Hes going to do a good job for the county.

In the past the Place 1 district judge has handled juvenile and family court issues. West will serve the remainder of Pattersons term, which extends until 2022. West can then seek election to the position.

Im really excited about getting to continue serving Limestone County, he said.
McEnany Offers Explanation of Trumps Comments on Epstein Associate Ghislaine Maxwell

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said President Donald Trumps comments about Ghislaine Maxwell were intended to convey that he wants to see justice served.

Maxwell was arrested earlier this month before pleading not guilty to sex crime and perjury charges. Prosecutors alleged that she helped entice and transport minors for sexual acts in the early 1990s along with notorious financier Jeffrey Epstein.

What the president was noting is that the last person who was charged in [Epsteins] case ended up dead in a jail cell, and the president wants justice to be served for the victims in this case, and he prefers this to play out in a courtroom, McEnany said on Fox News, referring to Trumps comments about Maxwell at a White House press briefing.

This president is the president that banned Jeffrey Epstein from coming to Mar-a-Lago, she said after a Fox News anchor said Trump gave an unusual answer.

This president was always on top of this, ahead of this, noting banning this man from his property long before this case was even being played out in a court of law, McEnany told the program.

Ghislaine Maxwell attends day 1 of the 4th Annual WIE Symposium at Center 548 in New York City on Sept. 20, 2013. (Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Images)

During Trumps first CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus briefing in months, he was asked about Maxwell.

I havent really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly. Ive met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever it is, he said in the press conference. Some said his comments were inappropriate.

Trump said that he once knew Epstein but has since said the two were not close and hadnt seen or spoken to each other in many years. Epstein was found dead of what medical officials say was a suicide in his Manhattan jail cell last August.

Jeffrey Epstein on March 28, 2017. (New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP)

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.

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 Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Scenia Bay Complex became the first housing project in Khanh Hoa Province allowed to sell apartments to foreigners, according to a recent announcement of the provincial Department of Construction.

Scenia Bay Complex became the first housing project in Khanh Hoa Province allowed to sell apartments to foreigners.  Photo baodautu.vn

Located at No. 25, 26 Pham Van Dong Street, Vinh Hai Ward, Nha Trang City, the project was developed by Nha Trang Bay Joint Stock Company covering an area of more than 7,660sq.m with 42 storeys and 704 apartment units raining from 40sq.m to 107sq.m each.

Foreigners were allowed to own a maximum of 30 per cent of the total apartment units at Scenia Bay Complex, meaning that a maximum of 211 apartment units could be sold to foreigners.

The provincial Department of Construction banned foreign buyers from reselling their properties at Scenia for profits. Any transactions with foreigner buyers must be reported to the provincial construction department the day of signing the contract via email or paper documents.

Tran Nam Binh, deputy director of the provincial Department of Construction, said that some commercial housing projects in Khanh Hoa were conducting procedures for the permission of selling apartments to foreigners.

He said that the provincial department would study the projects legality carefully together with agreement from relevant ministries and agencies to allow sales of apartments to foreigners.

In October last year, two companies, one headquartered in Long An and one in Khanh Hoa, were found to have illegally sold a total of 65 apartments at Gold Coast and Napoleon Castle projects in Nha Trang to foreigners.

The two above projects were located in areas which had not been clarified whether foreigners could own homes or not.

The provincial construction department asked these two companies to terminate the illegal contracts with foreigners. VNS

Construction Ministrys proposal on low-cost apartments heats up market The Ministry of Construction (MOC) has proposed offering preferences to real estate firms that develop low-cost housing with the selling price of no more than VND20 million per square meter.
The backlog for an Indian national to get permanent residency or Green Card is more than 195 years, a top Republican senator has said, urging his Senate colleagues to come out with a legislative resolution to address this problem.

A Green Card, known officially as a Permanent Resident Card, is a document issued to immigrants to the US as evidence that the bearer has been granted the privilege of residing permanently.

Senator Mike Lee said on July 22 that the current Green Card policy did nothing for the child of an immigrant whose dead parent's Green Card application was ultimately denied because his or her job was no longer available.

"Someone from India entering the backlog today would have to wait 195 years to receive an EB-3 green card. Even if we give their children this limbo status, none of them will have a prayer of becoming a US citizen," Lee said on the Senator floor.

In fiscal year 2019, Indian nationals received 9,008 category 1 (EB1), 2,908 category 2 (EB2), and 5,083 category 3 (EB3) Green Cards. EB1-3 are different categories of employment-based Green Cards.

Lee, the senator from Utah, was speaking on the legislation moved by Senator Dick Durbin that seeks to protect immigrant workers and their children who are stuck in the green card backlog.

"Green cards are critical in the lives of so many who are here on temporary work visas. The backlog puts families at risk of losing their immigration status as they wait year after weary year to finally make it through this green card backlog," Durbin said.

"Our bipartisan agreement would add critical protections that were not in the original bill for immigrant workers and their immediate family members who are stuck in the backlog. They would be able to switch jobs and travel without losing immigration status. And children of immigrant workers would be protected from aging out so they will not face deportation," he said.

The Lee-Durbin agreement would make three changes to the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act. First, it would immediately protect immigrants and their families who are stuck in the backlog by allowing them to "early file" for Green Cards.

This would allow workers to switch jobs and travel without losing immigration status and prevent the children of immigrant workers from "aging out" of Green-Card eligibility so they will not face deportation while they are waiting for a Green Card.

Second, the amendment would create a green-card set aside for immigrant workers who are unable to "early file" because they are stuck in the backlog overseas.

Finally, the amendment would crackdown on abuse of H-1B temporary worker visas by outsourcing companies by prohibiting a company from hiring additional H-1B workers if the company's workforce is more than 50 employees and more than 50 per cent temporary workers.

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. Companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.

"While we continue to debate the best way to fix the Green Card backlog, let's make sure that no children of the affected families are harmed or deported. Just that simple. I offered a new bill, very simply stated, to protect children of immigrant workers act. This brief three-page bill would ensure that children do not age out while waiting for a Green Card," Durbin said.

"Imagine if you brought your children to the United States, worked on an H-1B visa and your children are waiting for you for the Green Card, you are paying for them to go to college because they don't qualify as American Citizens for any type of federal financial aid. You're making great sacrifices for them and then the day comes when they reach the age of 21 and they can be deported and your family divided," he said.

"Why would we want to let that happen?" Durbin asked.

Noting that he has met many of these young people, the senator said it breaks his heart to hear their story that they may reach a point where they age out and be deported.

"That's why I wanted to offer this specific single provision. There is no reason these children should be punished for a broken immigration system. It's not beyond our control to help them," he added.
People could need multiple vaccine doses to immunize themselves against the coronavirus and deploying a vaccine will require a global effort, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said on Wednesday.

"None of the vaccines at this point appear like they'll work with a single dose," Gates told CBS Evening News. "That was the hope at the very beginning."

He noted that the multiple doses could require more than 7 billion vaccinations to be administered worldwide if necessary.

Gates has been warning about the threat of a global pandemic since 2015, and has donated 300 million U.S. dollars towards the global effort to combat COVID-19 through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He admitted that "there will be a lot of uncertainty" about the efficacy of any vaccine, but stressed that it's a solution "that will improve over time."

On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump resumed his press briefing on the coronavirus pandemic, admitting that the situation in the country will "get worse."

On development of vaccines and therapeutic cures, the president signaled willingness for international cooperation on vaccines, saying that "we're willing to work with anybody that's going to get us a good result" when asked if the administration would collaborate with China.

As of late Wednesday night, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States neared 4 million with more than 143,000 deaths, according to the latest tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Donald Trump has yet again boasted of his performance on an elementary test designed to screen for early signs of dementia  this time demonstrating one of the easier tasks during a White House interview.

Speaking to Fox News medical contributor Dr Marc Siegel, Mr Trump described asking a doctor if there was some kind of cognitive test he could take to dispel fake news about his mental health. He then described one of the exercises he was given, a memory test.

Its like youll go person, woman, man, camera, TV. So theyll say could you repeat that? So I said yeah. So its person, woman, man, camera, TV. Okay, thats very good 

If you get it in order you get extra points. He said nobody gets it in order, its actually not that easy, but for me, it was easy. And thats not an easy question.

Continuing his monologue about the exercise, Mr Trump described the examiners saying thats amazing! How did you do that?, answering I do it because I have, like, a good memory. Because Im cognitively there.

Mr Trumps demonstration of the test was roundly mocked on social media, with Daily Show host Trevor Noah rendering the presidents list of words as a parody of the Meredith Brooks song Bitch.

The test Mr Trump took is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which is commonly used for people thought to be at risk of cognitive decline. While Mr Trump took the test some time ago now, his fixation on his supposedly exceptional performance appears to have intensified of late  paralleling the release of two books separately challenging his psychological integrity and intelligence, as well as a persistent failure to make up ground lost to rival Joe Biden.

Mr Trump has been polling well behind his Democratic opponent for months, and his campaign is struggling to generate effective new lines of attack. The Sleepy Joe epithet the president coined months ago may not have helped him regain ground, but he is evidently still comfortable using it as he ridicules Mr Bidens supposed senility.

The president dug into the theme in the Wednesday interview, insisting somethings going on with Mr Biden and that the US president needs to be sharp to deal with the likes of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

You dont have any non-sharp people that youre dealing with, and we cant have somebody thats not 100 per cent.

The president met some head-on resistance to his narrative of cognitive primacy last Sunday, when he sat for an interview with another Fox News host, Chris Wallace.

Mr Wallace mentioned to him that in a recent Fox News poll, Mr Biden had outpolled him on competence and soundness of mind. When Mr Trump responded by again trumpeting his test results, Mr Wallace pointed out that the questions included identifying a picture of an elephant and counting back from 100 in increments of seven.

Mr Trump was unmoved: Ill guarantee you that Joe Biden could not answer those questions.

For his part, Mr Biden has declined to engage in any debate over his own mental faculties. Asked earlier this month whether he has taken a similar test, he said he has  and brushed any concerns aside.

Look, all you gotta do is watch me, he said, and I can hardly wait to compare my cognitive capability to the cognitive capability of the man Im running against.

This piece originally misstated one of the questions on Mr Trump's cognitive test. The question asks the subject to count backwards from 100 in increments of seven.
The coronavirus stimulus package: What you need to read

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Tell the Post: Are you waiting on a stimulus check, loan or unemployment assistance from the latest economic relief plan?
Vaccine. Such a sweet word and the most sought after in this time of pandemic. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins asked helped from the National Academy of Medicine last month to help them in developing guidelines as to who gets first the COVID-19 vaccine.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently announced that there are 24 candidate vaccines in clinical evaluation as of July 21. Meanwhile, while waiting for the results of these trials, many are also having questions on their minds as who gets the vaccine first once it becomes available.

Last month, NIH Director Francis Collins asked helped from the National Academy of Medicine to help them craft and develop guidelines as to who gets the first doses of the vaccine once it is available. Dr. Victor Dzau, the academy's president, told the NIH Director that his organization was up to the task, according to CNN News.

Dr. Victor Dzau said that this will allow the public to know that it is transparent and not political. He also wants to let Americans know how they did the guidelines and why they cannot prioritize everybody. These are just few of the answers while waiting for the vaccine.

Once the vaccine is approved, not all Americans will get it first. This will lead them to decide that the most vulnerable for the virus and essential workers will be prioritized. However, categorizing these groups are very difficult.

Dr. Collins told the Senate panel earlier this month, "People are a little uneasy about the government calling the shots here."

There are many things that experts need to consider in developing the guidelines. They have to consider the most vulnerable groups like those who lived in the assisted-living facilities including prison cells, meatpacking plants or those who work in close quarters, and how to assess Americans who have pre-existing medical conditions.

Meanwhile, the National Academy of Medicine hopes to address these concerns and have their recommendations publicly available in August or September.

Additionally, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the second panel of vaccine advisers for CDC will also come up with their guidelines. However, it is not clear if the government will adopt the recommendation of one panel or take both into account in making their final guidelines.

ACIP convened last month through digital teleconferencing and decided as to who counts as essential workers. In their meeting, they included teachers in the priority list. Meanwhile, vaccinations for pregnant women were also put into consideration.

Dr. Jose Romero, the panel's chairman, said that "If we fail to address this issue of racial and ethnic groups as a high risk in prioritization, whatever comes out of our group will be looked at very suspiciously and with a lot of reservation."

However, even if the vaccines will be available and guidelines will be released soon, many are still skeptical about the safeness and effectiveness of the vaccine. A senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services said that people need to believe in the safety and efficacy of these vaccines.

Check these out!
South African High Commissioner to Ghana Lulu Xingwana says South Africa is ready to give Ghana visa-free entry into the country.



Ghana has been selected as part of the countries to receive a visa-free access to South Africa.



South Africa has been ready for more than a year to give Ghanaians visa-free entry into the country."



Other countries have responded positively and now we have implemented visa-free for those countries. We are waiting for Ghanas response.



Speaking to Alfred Ocansey on Sunrise on 3FM last Monday, the High Commissioner also disclosed that the COVID-19 vaccine trials ongoing in her country is still at the testing stage.



South Africa was selected by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as part of the COVID-19 vaccine development project.



We will hear a few months down the line how the virus is progressing, she assured.



South Africa has become the country with most Covid-19 cases on the continent.



She explained that President Cyril Ramaphosa has imposed more restrictions relating to the spike in cases.



President Ramaphosa has also called on the IMF and World Bank to assist African countries in funding with regard to the pandemic, she added.



South Africa commemorated Mandela Day last Saturday, July 18.



This years Mandela Day was addressed by the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, in New York, touching on the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Source: 3news









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Linkedin Deepakshi Rawat (The Jakarta Post) Singapore  Thu, July 23, 2020 12:12 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668b250c 3 Opinion smart-city,COVID-19,adaptation,App,traffic,PublicServices Free

While there are numerous definitions of what constitutes a smart city, the crux of the concept lies in using digital technologies to better the lives of its citizens  through improved public service delivery and increased efficiency in governance systems via interconnecting of data portals and bringing uniformity across government data management platforms.

As Indonesians in large numbers move to the cities, there has been an increase in adoption of smart-city technologies and approaches across many local cities. At the national level, the 100 Smart Cities Plan has been announced, which aims to deal with the scores of issues this rapid urbanization will bring about such as waste management, transportation and law enforcement.

Cities like Jakarta, Bandung and Makassar have established command rooms to obtain solutions to real-time urban problem such as traffic congestion through a more synchronized traffic monitoring system.

Another example is the Jakarta Smart City Program that was launched in 2014. The program aims to promote the use of digital solutions, such as public transportation app Trafi and citizen grievance portal Qlue, among residents as well as city bureaucracy.

With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, the governments plans to enable smart cities has had to shift gears. The pandemic has put unforeseen pressure on the state machinery and caused important resources to be diverted toward increased health expenditure and economic stimuli to counter a decrease in economic growth.

Furthermore, in an attempt to slow the spread of the pandemic across the country, local authorities have showcased agility by repurposing smart city infrastructure in both disease-monitoring as well as recovery efforts. New research by the Future Cities Lab show that, command centers across the country have been swiftly mobilized into COVID-19 War Rooms to analyze and monitor COVID-19 hotspots.

The impact of the pandemic is unprecedented. Previous attempts to digitalize cities in developing countries focused on reorganizing state machinery with the help of technology. However, citizen adoption has often been lacking, thus reducing the effect of smart city initiatives.

The pandemic, however, is not only changing the manner of working at the state level, but also is bringing a more fundamental shift in the attitude and mindset of citizens toward adopting technological solutions.

COVID-19 has forced people from all walks of life to become comfortable with technology playing an integral role in their daily lives as they are compelled to work, study and collaborate from home. Cashless transactions are becoming du jour, virtual meetings are the new normal and food deliveries are on the rise. Even in the most social of cultures, the manner in which festivals and special occasions are celebrated has radically changed to allow for social distancing rules.

On a global level, the international scale of the pandemic has also called for an increase in cross-border flows of information and increased collaboration  an important aspect of establishing smart cities. As countries look toward their regional neighbors to learn from their experiences, the ASEAN Smart Cities Network is a platform that could accelerate the building of smart cities within the country by increased cooperation in the form of sharing best practices.

However, while there is urgency in adopting technical solutions to the problems at hand, countries should avoid rushing into half-baked digital governance tools. Due to the accelerated response rate required by the pandemic, most governments have been forced to employ quick-fix solutions. While these responses have been effective in the short-term as temporary remedies for the problem at hand, it is dangerous for them to become long-term fixtures without proper planning and research. For example, to have a better idea regarding the geographic spread of the virus, many countries have employed contact tracing apps. While these apps are beneficial in the current situation, without data privacy laws to control the usage of these apps, the results could be unfavourable in the long run.

While the pandemic has helped governments understand the importance of digital technology in governance and its benefits for citizen-centric public service delivery, countries should be aware of their digital maturity and avoid implementing rushed solutions without proper infrastructure and full analysis of their consequences.

***

The writer is a masters candidate in public policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
Saudi Arabia's ageing King Salman chairs cabinet meeting from hospital

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 22 July 2020 8:01 AM

Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz has held a cabinet meeting via video call from a hospital in Riyadh, a day after he was admitted to the facility for "medical check," giving rise to speculation about succession plans by the kingdom's controversial figure Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).

The Saudi state-run television network aired a video of the 84-year-old monarch on Tuesday evening, showing him sitting behind a desk reading and leafing through documents.

Three Saudi sources earlier told Reuters news agency that the king was in stable condition.

The kingdom's Royal Court had said in a statement Monday that the monarch was undergoing medical tests as a result of cholecystitis, inflammation of the gall bladder, without providing further details.

King Salman last spoke publicly on March 19 in a five-minute televised address about the coronavirus pandemic.

The aging king's health condition postponed a key visit to Riyadh by new Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.

The hospitalization sparked new speculation of succession and regime change plans by the ambitious crown prince and even rumors of the monarch's death on social media platforms.

The king succeeded his half-brother King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in 2015. Bin Salman became Saudi Arabia's crown prince on the back of a 2017 palace coup that ousted the then heir to the throne, Mohammed bin Nayef.

Under bin Salman's watch, Saud Arabia has launched a bloody war on Yemen and intensified a crackdown campaign on dissidents both at home and abroad, among other rights violations.

MBS  seen as the kingdom's de facto leader  has been under harsh international criticism over the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

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US to support Vietnamese fishermen against intimidation at sea

Fishing vessels are seen off the coast of Mui Ne Town, Binh Thuan Province, south central Vietnam, February 23, 2020. Photo by Shutterstock.

The U.S. and Vietnam have signed a memorandum of understanding, which includes support against illegal intimidation of the latters fishermen at sea.

The MOU, which aims to strengthen Vietnams fisheries management and law enforcement capabilities, was signed by U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, Daniel J. Kritenbrink, and director general of the Directorate of Fisheries (DFISH), Tran Dinh Luan. It did not specify any third party.

"The United States has a great deal of experience in managing fisheries and enforcing regulations, which we are more than happy to share," Kritenbrink said at the signing ceremony in Hanoi.

"We look forward to working together with Vietnam to strengthen the sustainability of its fisheries and support its fishers against illegal intimidation."

The MOU would foster greater cooperation between Vietnam, U.S. and international law enforcement agencies to ensure sustainable use of marine resources and combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, the embassy said.

Technical assistance from the U.S. would also enhance the capacity of DFISH and the Department of Fisheries Resources Surveillance (DFIRES), both agriculture ministry agencies, through information sharing, best practices and implementation of relevant technical programs and projects.

The U.S. also plans to transfer a training facility in Phu Quoc in southern Vietnam to DFIRES next February, significantly improving the human resources capacity of the agency and fisheries enforcement units in coastal provinces.

The MOU came a week after the U.S. released statements affirming its stance in supporting Southeast Asian nations including Vietnam in disputes with China at sea.

"Beijing uses intimidation to undermine the sovereign rights of Southeast Asian coastal states in the South China Sea, bully them out of offshore resources, assert unilateral dominion, and replace international law with might makes right," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a press statement.

The statement rejected China's claims to most of the South China Sea, which Vietnam calls the East Sea, including waters surrounding Vietnam's Vanguard Bank, Luconia Shoals off Malaysia, waters in Bruneis EEZ, and Natuna Besar off Indonesia.

It dismissed China's action to harass other states' fishing or hydrocarbon development in these waters as unlawful.
Image: Twitter/@ZohranKMamdani

Zohran Kwame Mamdani claimed victory over incumbent Aravella Simotas in the Democratic primary for the New Yorks 36th Assembly District.

While the result has not been made official by the Board of Elections yet, Simotas conceded her loss on social media.

"I congratulate @ZohranKMamdani for his win and a well-run election. I wish you the best as you begin your legislative career and fight for the 36th AD," Simotas tweeted on July 22.

Simotas is a nine-year incumbent from the seat and had run unopposed in each of her primaries so far.

"We are still at the BoE waiting for them to officially scan the ballots, but the absentee count in our race is over. And based on our internal tally, we finished ahead by over 300 votes - more than enough to avoid a recount & ensure our victory," Mamdani tweeted.

"Socialism won," he added.

New York State is heading for the Assembly election on November 3  along with the US presidential elections. It is one of the 86 state legislative chambers holding elections this year. Primaries were held by political parties to determine their candidates for Assembly seats. In-person voting happened on June 23, but absentee ballots were counted this week.

Mamdani, who is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), defeated Simotas in the Democratic Party primary for the 36th District seat. The primary for the rival Republican Party was cancelled. This nearly assures Mamdani a seat in the state Assembly.

The result assumes significance as New York State has never had a South Asian representative in the Assembly. It is also significant as Mamdani won despite the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee (DACC) reportedly donating a large sum of $125,000 to Simotas re-election campaign.

Who is Zohran?

Mamdani, an Indian-Urgandan, is a Foreclosure Prevention Counselor and a DSA party member.

He was born to noted Ugandan scholar Mahmood Mamdani and international film director Mira Nair, in Kampala, Uganda. But, he was raised in New York since he was 7 years old. His family moved to the United States after being expelled from Uganda in 1972. He has Kwame as his middle name, after the first prime minister of Uganda.

Mahmood Mamdani is a political scientist and anthropologist who is also the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University. Nair is famous for her films that include Salaam Bombay!, Vanity Fair, The Namesake and The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

He graduated from Bronx Science before becoming a housing counsellor to help immigrant families.

The 28-year-old is now one of the many DSA-backed candidates to have performed well in Western Queens since the election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the congressional Representative in 2018.

Pushing for guaranteed housing to all New Yorkers

Mamdani has been advocating housing as a guaranteed human right and has called for universal, state-wide rent control. His election campaign revolves around these promises, which find great resonance in an expensive area like New York.

During her time in the district, Simotas reportedly fought for the rights of survivors of sexual abuse and harassment. She also voted in favour of tenants rights legislation in the past. However, Mamdani and his supporters claim that her support was inadequate.

Mamdanis campaign also pushes for elimination of cash bail and solitary confinement. He is further seeking increased funding for public transport under the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).

I am running for State Assembly because it's time to guarantee housing to all New Yorkers as a right, regardless of ability to pay. It's time to desegregate our schools, fully eliminate cash bail, ban solitary confinement, fund and fix the MTA, end workplace discrimination, and fight for social, racial, economic, and environmental justice for the many, not the few, he told Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey earlier in 2020.

Energy to be a public resource and a not a for-profit commodity, Mamdani feels.

Tweaking the classic political slogan "Bread and Roses", Mamdanis team have been campaigning with #RotiandRoses.

And the reason it's roti and roses is because we are both fighting for something universal and something specific, and the specificity is about being an Indian-American, a desi Muslim American running to represent our communities which have been shut out of the conversation for far too long, he told journalist Lavina Melwani earlier this year.
Meerut : , July 23 (IANS) Shamshad, the main accused in the murder of his live-in partner and her daughter in Partapur area in Meerut, has been arrested after a brief encounter with the police.

Shamshad had been absconding after the police dug up his house and recovered the skeletons of his partner and her 10-year-old daughter on Wednesday.

The accused was in a live-in relationship with a woman by concealing his religious identity.

He had murdered the woman and her daughter on March 28 and buried the two bodies in his own house.

The murder came to light when a friend of the woman informed the police that the woman had been missing for long.

Acting on the complaint, the police dug up a portion of Shamshad's house and recovered the skeletons which have been sent for DNA tests.

Shamshad managed to escape and was later intercepted near Noor Nagar. He received a bullet injury in the leg and has been admitted to the hospital.

A firearm, cartridges and a motorcycle have been recovered from his possession.

Akhilesh Narain Singh, SP City, said that the accused had concealed his religious identity in his relationship.

Meanwhile, Hindu Yuva Vahini activists told reporters that this was a case of 'love jihad' and if the police had acted on time, the murders could have been averted.
Kolkata, July 23 : A 26-year-old student of the state-run Dr R Ahmed Dental College and Hospital was found hanging in her hostel room in Kolkata on Thursday, police said.

Manasi Mondal was a second-year post-graduate trainee of the dental college and hailed from Raghunathpur in Purulia district.

Police said that an investigation has already been initited. A suicide note was also recovered from the spot.

The body was sent for post mortem. Preliminary investigation suggested that the girl was under some mental pressure and might have committed suicide, officers of Kolkata's Entali police station said.

According to hospital sources, Manasi, who was married, spoke to one of her friends this morning over phone and told that she would be late in attending college today.

She reportedly told her friend that she was unwell and needed some rest. But when her friends did not see her turned up in college they started calling Manasi on the phone. But there was no response and the calls went unanswered.

When Manasi's friends came to her hostel room, they saw the door was locked from inside. They immediately informed the hospital super who subsequently called the police. Her family members have been informed by the police.
For the second time this week, the Midland Health Department reported 82 confirmed coronavirus cases in a single day.

The 82 cases reported Thursday helped the city reach two new standards during the pandemic. First, the number of cases this week rose to 351. That is already 16 more than the previous high for a week (335 from July 5-11), and there is still one reporting day left in the week.
A Peterborough resident was arrested after City of Kawartha Lakes OPP investigated an altercation at Emily Provincial Park, northwest of Fowlers Corners.

The park warden called in police on Tuesday.

Corey Beeke, 23, of Peterborough was charged with assaulting a peace officer.

He is scheduled to appear in the Ontario Court of Justice in Lindsay on Oct. 1.
Executive ministers are set to discuss how to significantly increase the wearing of face coverings inside shops in Northern Ireland.

It is understood some ministers are reluctant to make face coverings mandatory inside retail outlets and would rather focus on persuading people to take the infection control measure.

Face coverings are already mandatory in shops in Scotland while they will become compulsory in England on Friday.

The issue is expected to be raised when Stormont ministers convene at Parliament Buildings at 2pm for the meeting of the devolved executive.

Health Minister Robin Swann acknowledged there were differences among both politicians and members of the business community.

Expand Close Robin Swann said he favoured making the wearing of face coverings inside shops mandatory (Niall Carson/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Robin Swann said he favoured making the wearing of face coverings inside shops mandatory (Niall Carson/PA)

Mr Swann, who said he favoured making coverings mandatory, said there was agreement on the need to increase the numbers wearing them.

The question is how best do we actually achieve that, he told BBC Radio Ulster.

Is it by law and enforcement or is it by persuasion and a public campaign or a mixture of the two approaches?

The executive meeting will see ministers undertake their three-week review of Northern Irelands coronavirus regulations and some further relaxations are anticipated.

Opening dates for indoor swimming pools and spa facilities are anticipated, as is a move to allow some spectators to watch outdoor sporting events.

Ministers are also set to consider when indoor bars that do not serve food can reopen.

Expand Close Ministers are to discuss changes to advice to those travelling overseas (Niall Carson/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Ministers are to discuss changes to advice to those travelling overseas (Niall Carson/PA)

The executives advice on travel overseas is due to be reviewed amid claims of mixed messaging by the administration.

While the executive has published a list of around 60 countries deemed safe for travel, the official guidance to the public remains that non-essential trips should be avoided.

Earlier this week, Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill suggested that people arriving in the region from Great Britain should self-isolate for 14 days.

The proposal was dismissed as a non-starter by her DUP partners in government.

Ahead of the executive meeting, major meat processing company Moy Park confirmed that a Covid-19 cluster had been identified at its plant in Ballymena.

On Thursday, the Public Health Agency announced that a total of 16 clusters have been identified in Northern Ireland since the start of contact tracing in late May.

A cluster is defined as two or more laboratory-confirmed cases among people associated with a workplace, school or similar setting within 14 days.

Expand Close Moy Park said a very small number of employees at its Ballymena plant had tested positive for Covid-19 (Liam McBurney/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Moy Park said a very small number of employees at its Ballymena plant had tested positive for Covid-19 (Liam McBurney/PA)

A total of 133 cases were associated with the 16 clusters, and six involved more than five cases.

A Moy Park spokeswoman said: We have been informed that a very small number of our employees in the Ballymena site have tested positive for coronavirus.

The individuals affected have been self-isolating on full pay in line with our Covid sick pay scheme and we are in contact with them to ensure they have the support they require.

We continue to work closely with the Public Health Agency and other government agencies, following their advice and protocols.

As coronavirus has spread across the communities in which we live, we are doing all that we can to help keep the virus out of our facilities and help prevent its spread.

Staff safety is our number one priority and we continue to strictly follow all safeguarding procedures across our sites, such as enhanced cleaning and hygiene regimes, thermal temperature scanning, Perspex screens, additional PPE and social distancing measures.
UPDATE: The overturned trailer has been cleared.

----

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- An overturned tractor-trailer on the Outerbridge Crossing is blocking traffic heading to Staten Island Thursday afternoon.

The trailer is blocking all lanes on the span heading to the borough, according to a spokeswoman for the Port Authority.

The Port Authority Police Department and the Perth Amboy Police Department are on the scene.

The driver was taken to an area hospital for evaluation after reporting chest pains, the spokeswoman said.

The Outerbridge Crossing to NY is held due to an overturned tractor trailer. Please use an alternate route. [92]  OBX. Wear a Face Covering. (@PANYNJ_OBX) July 23, 2020

Traffic is being directed to the Goethals and Bayonne bridges.

The Port Authority began posting alerts on Twitter about the crash around 1:40 p.m.

The Google traffic map is showing heavy delays on both sides of the span as a result -- in particular, a build-up in New Jersey approaching the bridge.

The Port Authority warned on Twitter of rubbernecking delays of up to 30 minutes on the span heading toward N.J.
Were delighted to continue our relationship with Phillips & Cohen on their growth journey. Phillips & Cohen are at the forefront of their industry due to their innovative approach to technology combined with their unique service and were proud to be part of their customer experience.

Noble Systems Corporation, a global leader in omnichannel contact center technology solutions, is pleased to announce that our longstanding customer, Phillips & Cohen Associates, Ltd, is continuing its global expansion with an additional contact center site in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Phillips & Cohen Associates have been pioneers in the Deceased Account Management market, managing over $30 billion in specialty portfolios since 1997. They are the global leader in their industry, combining state of the art technology with highly trained and experienced Estate management professionals.

The Noble Contact Center platform offers Phillips & Cohen a state-of-the-art contact center solution that enables them to seamlessly integrate with their FICO Debt Manager system. It supports their need for account ownership with intelligent routing for both inbound and outbound communications and ensures that their advisors are able to successfully achieve their clients financial goals whilst supporting and preserving the dignity of affected individuals.

James Riley, Noble VP Sales & Marketing EMEA & APAC, said, Were delighted to continue our relationship with Phillips & Cohen, which has gone from strength to strength for over a decade, and were honored to continue with them on their growth journey. Phillips & Cohen are at the forefront of their industry due to their innovative approach to technology combined with their unique service and were proud to be part of their customer experience, which is consistently recognized by the credit industry for Treating Customers Fairly.

Nick Cherry, Chief Operating Officer of Phillips & Cohen Associates, said, Noble Systems has helped us recognize our potential in providing a distinctive approach to customer engagement with a strong focus on compliance and compassion. We feel it provides the ideal platform to fuel the growth of our German business. The Noble technology provides a unified platform with a robust solution that helps our advisors successfully manage complex Estate situations and resolve them in a manner that achieves our clients goals. Noble Composer is a powerful and intuitive desktop solution that ensures that we adhere to all FCA and other relevant compliance regulations, whilst providing the flexibility to be productive while respecting the impact on the individuals involved.

About Noble Systems

Noble Systems Corporation is a global leader in the customer communications industry, providing innovative solutions for Contact Center, Workforce Engagement, and Analytics technologies. Tens of thousands of agents at client installations worldwide use Noble platforms to manage millions of customer contacts each day. Noble offers a unified suite of inbound, outbound, and omnichannel contact processing, strategy planning, resource management, and compliance tools for companies of all sizes. Our premise, cloud, and innovative premise/cloud hybrid platforms include ACD, predictive dialing, blended processing, recording and monitoring, IVR, messaging, interaction analytics, robotic process automation and decisioning, workforce management, and gamification. With a portfolio of more than 210 patents and growing, Noble leads the way in pioneering solutions for the contact center market. For more information, contact Lee Allum at 1.888.8NOBLE8 or visit http://www.noblesystems.com.

About Phillips & Cohen Associates, Ltd.

Phillips & Cohen Associates, Ltd. is a specialty receivable management company providing customized services to creditors in a variety of unique market segments. Phillips & Cohen Associates, Ltd is domestically headquartered in Wilmington, DE, with additional offices in Colorado and Florida as well as international offices in the UK, Canada, Spain, Germany and Australia. For more information about Phillips & Cohen Associates visit http://www.phillips-cohen.com. PCA provides Equal Employment Opportunity for all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, gender, age, national origin, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, veteran status, genetic information and any other basis protected by federal, state or local laws.


A Navy veteran who was hit with batons and sprayed with tear gas in Portland by federal agents has said he fears their actions will inspire copycats across the country.

Christopher David, 53, was thrust into the limelight after a video went viral on Saturday evening showing himself being attacked by federal agents.

"I was enraged simply because I did not think they were taking their oath of office seriously or they were compromising their oath of office," Mr David told The Independent previously. "So I actually went down because I wanted to talk to them about it."

Federal agents repeatedly hit Mr David with batons while he stood in front of them, with one hit even landing right on the knuckles of his right hand. The man, who served in the Navy for over eight years, was then sprayed with pepper spray before he finally stepped away from the agents.

When speaking to ABC News, Mr David showed the cast now on his right hand after he sustained two fractures from the hit. But the man confessed to feeling slightly embarrassed by the injury and how much attention he's received from news outlets.

"I was an old white guy that got beaten down," he told the network. "If I had been a black veteran that had gotten beaten down, do you think I would have gotten as much attention as I did?"

One concern Mr David had was that the footage showing federal officers using violent force against protesters could inspire copycats.

"I was very concerned about that because if the federal government can do that, anybody can go to the store and buy... used combat fatigues, get an unmarked minivan, and then go off and abduct people off the streets. And we won't know if that's the federal government or just some civilians playing dress-up," he told the network.

Multiple sources confirmed to The Independent that federal officers driving unmarked vans have seized people off the streets. People have also been arrested without being read their rights or officers identifying what federal office they were representing.

State and local officials raised concerns about these federal officers in the city because there appeared to be no rules about what force they can and cannot use against demonstrators.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, who was pepper sprayed at a protest on Wednesday evening, even ordered the Trump administration to remove the officers, calling them "a direct threat to democracy". But the administration has not budged.

Now Donald Trump has threatened to deploy federal officers to other parts of the country where protests continue, including Chicago and New York.

"You bet that what is happening in my hometown won't stop at my hometown," US Senator Ron Wyden told Business Insider. "Trump has already made clear he wants to expand this gross abuse of power into other cities."

The Trump administration called for 35 federal agents to be deployed to Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Wednesday.
London, July 23 : A major road in London had to be closed for over 11 hours after ammunition fell off the top of a police vehicle.

The items had been placed on the roof of an armed response vehicle and subsequently fell into the road as officers drove off to support colleagues on a firearms operation on Wednesday, the Metro newspaper reported.

Police were called at about 10.15 a.m., to the eastbound A13, close to Prince Regent Lane, to reports of items on the carriageway.

Officers attended the scene and recovered a "quantity of ammunition and ancillary items" from the carriageway, a spokesman for the Met Police said.

The road remained closed off till about 9 p.m.

The Met's Directorate of Professional Standards established that the incident was due to "human error".
Newark, NJ, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As per the report published by Fior Markets, the global flue gas desulfurization market is expected to grow from USD 18.92 billion in 2019 and to reach USD 26.09 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 4.1% during the forecast period 2020-2027.

The flue gas desulfurization systems market is witnessing significant growth in the past years. This growth is attributed to a rise in the number of refinery products, proliferating demand for electricity with investments in thermal power generation capacity expansion, and strict government regulations. Other factors influencing the market growth are increasing concerns regarding environmental pollution, enforcement of environmental laws and regulations, and rise in the prevalence of airborne diseases. For instance, in July 2020, NTPC Limited and General Electric Steam Power signed an agreement for the supply of wet flue gas desulfurization systems for three coal-fired power plants.

Flue Gas Desulfurization Systems is a wet scrubber that removes sulfur dioxide from emissions of coal combustion. This technology is generally used in power plants to extract SO2 from the exhaust combustion gases. Common methods used for removal of sulphur dioxide from flue gases are, wet scrubbing, spray dry scrubbing, SNOX flue gas desulfurization, and dry sorbent injection systems. Flue Gas Desulfurization systems use acid control system or acid rain interchangeably to segment a wide range of control system design. Increasing demand for flue gas desulfurization systems form iron and steel, cement and manufacturing, and chemical industries, increasing use of coal for power generation, and growth in captive power plant development across heavy industries influences the market growth. However, flue gas desulfurization wastewater disposable and its associated cost is a factor constraining the market growth.

The global flue gas desulfurization system market is expected to witness significant growth, owing to the requirement of technology for discontinuation of conventional fuel like natural gas, oil, coal from emitting harmful gases and eliminate hazardous pollutants, rising demand for greenhouse gases, and rising population and developing industries. Increasing technological upgrades in designs, rising demand for electricity, and stringent government regulations possess market growth opportunities. Easy availability of alternative methodology for flue gas treatment, and decline in the number of coal plants constraints the market growth. However, increasing research and development for the improvisation of flue gas desulfurization technology to lower energy consumption, enhance cost-effectiveness, and increase absorption efficiency will propel the flue gas desulfurization system market.

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Key players operating in global flue gas desulfurization system market include General Electric Company, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., FLSmidth & Co., Andritz AG, Doosan Lentjes GmbH, Ducon Technologies Inc, Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises Inc., Hamon Group, Thermax Ltd., Chiyoda Corporation, Environmental Technologies, Marsulex, Rafako S.A., China Boqi Environmental (Holding) Co. Ltd, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., Ducon Technologies Inc are some of the leading manufacturers of flue gas desulfurization market.

The wet flue gas desulfurization system segment dominated and held the largest market share in the year 2019

On the basis of type, the global flue gas desulfurization system market segment is classified into dry, semi-dry, and wet. The wet flue desulfurization system dominated and held the largest market share in the year 2019. This was attributed to its early commercial deployment and high efficiency in terms of SO2 removal.

The power consumption segment dominated and held the largest market share in the year 2019

On the basis of end-user, the global flue gas desulfurization system market segment is classified into chemical, power generation, and iron and steel. The power consumption segment dominated and held the largest share in the year 2019. This was attributed to increased power generation and usage of high sulfur content coals in power plants.

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Regional Segment of Flue Gas Desulfurization Systems Market

North America (U.S., Canada, Mexico)

Europe (Germany, France, U.K., Italy, Spain, Rest of Europe)

Asia-Pacific (China, Japan India, Rest of APAC)

South America (Brazil and Rest of South America)

Middle East and Africa (UAE, South Africa, Rest of MEA)

On the basis of geography, the global flue gas desulfurization systems market is classified into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and South America. The Asia-Pacific region accounted for the major share in the year 2019. This was attributed to increased demand from the power generation industry and the increasing power production in the region. In the region, India and China are witnessing significant growth due to the increase in the level of pollution, the imposition of emission norms, and rising investment towards capacity expansion. Europe is anticipated to witness significant growth due to initiatives taken by the European Government in the field of agriculture like green growth, agroecology, and sustainable intensification. The market in North America is witnessing significant growth owing to the strict government regulations and growing demand for electricity.

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The global flue gas desulfurization system market is analyzed on the basis of value (USD billion). All the segments have been analyzed on global, regional and country basis. The study includes the analysis of more than 30 countries for each segment. The report offers in-depth analysis of driving factors, opportunities, restraints, and challenges for gaining the key insights of the market. The study includes porters five forces model, attractiveness analysis, raw material analysis, and competitors position grid analysis.

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A Scotland Yard commander has slammed the selective recording of arrests by passersby after a 30-second video was uploaded to social media today showing a black man shouting 'I can't breathe' while being detained after attacking police.

North West Area Commander Roy Smith said police 'need our support' as he revealed the man was detained after he attacked the officers and 'did not want to cooperate' with them 'in any way' in Wembley, north-west London yesterday.

Footage of the incident at around 11am shows two Met police officers struggling to detain the black man as his friends stand by and film the arrest.

As the man falls to the ground with both officers, a passerby shouts: 'Officer! Don't put your f***ing knee on his neck! Don't f***ing put your knee on his neck!'

The group continues filming the arrest as the black man then rolls on his back and puts one of the Met officers holding handcuffs in a headlock.

Footage of an incident in Wembley, north-west London at 11am yesterday shows two officers struggling to detain a man as his friends film the arrest

As the man falls to the ground with both officers, a passerby shouts: 'Officer! Don't put your f***ing knee on his neck! Don't f***ing put your knee on his neck!' As the officers pin him to the ground and attempt to put handcuffs on the suspect, the man complains 'I can't breathe'

One man can be heard scolding the policemen: 'You lot did this you know. You lot escalated it. You lot did this you know.'

As the two officers appear to pin him to the ground and attempt to put handcuffs on the suspect, the man complains 'I can't breathe'.

A passerby shouts at the officers 'there's two of you and one of him' before a third policeman arrives and pushes people out of the way.

The end of the video, which captured just 30 seconds of the 15-minute incident, then shows police searching the man's parked car.

But the video does not show the man attacking officers who want to search him for drugs before the arrest, according to Scotland Yard.

It also does not show the injuries suffered by the police, with one officer requiring hospital treatment after being spat at in the eye.

Responding to the footage today, North West Area Commander Roy Smith defended police actions in Wembley yesterday as 'lawful' and 'proportionate' and slammed 'partial footage of incidents' recorded by passersby during arrests.

The commander also cast doubt on the man's inability to breathe, pointing out that 'he was able to resist the officers and communicate with them clearly'.

North West Area Commander Roy Smith of the Metropolitan Police today defended police actions in Wembley yesterday morning as 'lawful' and 'proportionate' and slammed 'partial footage of incidents' recorded by passersby during arrests

The end of the video, which captured just 30 seconds of the 15-minute incident, then shows police searching the man's parked car. But the video does not show the man attacking officers who want to search him for drugs before the arrest. It also does not show the injuries suffered by the police, with one officer requiring hospital treatment after being spat at in the eye

In a statement, Commander Smith said: 'I am aware of the footage, which shows approximately 30 seconds of an encounter which lasted over 15 minutes; and have personally viewed the body worn video taken by my officers.

'Officers were on routine patrol when they stopped the driver of a vehicle, who was informed that he was being detained for the purposes of a search under Section 23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act. He was not handcuffed.

'The driver pushed one of the officers in the chest and grabbed at the second officer's PAVA spray. Officers subsequently detained the man and a Taser was deployed due to his behaviour.

Responding to the footage, North West Area Commander Roy Smith said police 'need our support' as he revealed the man was detained after he attacked the officers and 'did not want to cooperate' with them 'in any way'

'The officers were struggling on the ground with the man and surrounded by a crowd, some of whom filmed the incident.

'The man was arrested for obstruction of a drugs search and assaulting an emergency worker. He was taken to Colindale Police Station and later released under investigation.

'At one point in the social media footage the arrested man can be heard to comment that he could not breathe. It is not clear to me why this might be the case, given he was able to resist the officers and communicate with them clearly. In line with their training, the officers moved the man onto his side at the earliest opportunity ensuring his airways were not obstructed.

'Two officers suffered minor injuries during the incident, with one requiring hospital treatment having been spat at in the eye.

'Partial footage of incidents and related commentary can cause concern for everyone. In this case, having seen the footage, I am of the opinion that the officers were trying their best with a man who did not want to cooperate with them in any way. Officers need our support.

'We expect them to police our streets without fear or favour; to uphold the law and act with professionalism and restraint. Despite being assaulted and subjected to completely unnecessary abuse, I believe these officers did just that.

'When we get it wrong we are committed to listening and learning and officers accept that they should be subject to appropriate scrutiny. Where they act lawfully and proportionately to uphold the law it is only right that we defend those actions.'
Most properties managed by Homeowners Collection have internet access, allowing guests to have a change of scenery while taking working vacations or remote learning courses.

Homeowners Collection Vacation Rentals, one of Seasides largest vacation rental companies, has announced a new Fall Colors special savings event, available on visits August 8, 2020, through November 6, 2020. The promotion provides guests 20% off a consecutive three-night stay at one of their relaxing cottages off the Florida Gulf Coast.

All cottages managed by the Homeowners Collection are located in the picture-perfect community of Seaside, which has rallied together to give visitors the Seaside atmosphere they love while practicing social distancing and implementing other health and safety best practices. All residential private beaches remain open to Seaside owners and guests, restaurants continue to expand their outdoor dining as part of whats known as Seaside Al Fresco, and masks are required in stores.

Most properties managed by Homeowners Collection have internet access, allowing guests to have a change of scenery while taking working vacations or remote learning courses.

The Fall Colors savings is available now on a wide selection of more than 40 cottages, ranging from units with one bedroom up to six. Visitors can book online with the promo code FALL. It excludes the Labor Day Weekend travel dates September 4-7, 2020. To see available cottages and other details, visit https://homeownerscollection.com/special/fall-colors-20-savings

Private vacation homes continue to be a safe travel lodging option, since visitors do not have to be with other guests in crowded public spaces. Homeowners Collection has implemented new cleaning procedures, as well as other operations protocols to protect guests and staff, such as its no-contact check-in. The organization is vigilantly monitoring and following all local, state and federal guidelines. For full details, visit the COVID Disinfecting and Operations Procedures page: https://homeownerscollection.com/covid-19-operations-disinfecting

About Homeowners Collection Vacation Rentals

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With the global pandemic still in full swing, scientists are working to develop a vaccine in record time. While everyone wants an effective vaccine, they don't all agree on how to get there and what "effective" really means.

Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, spoke with researchers, doctors and business leaders to shed light on some of the challenges vaccine developers are facing.

As of mid-July, the World Health Organization reported that over 160 vaccine programs were in progress, an unprecedented effort toward a common goal, writes Associate Editor Ryan Cross. Although traditional vaccines are made with weakened or killed virus, many modern vaccines use part of the virus itself to teach immune cells what to home in on.

For SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, that part is the spike protein, which the virus uses to attach itself to human cells. Both types of methods can be time-consuming, and traditional approaches are potentially dangerous because companies need to grow large amounts of virus.

This has caused some scientists to turn to experimental gene-based vaccines. Researchers put the genetic code for the spike protein into harmless viruses that act as vessels, or simply use DNA or RNA to deliver the genetic information to human cells.

Human cells would use these instructions to make the spike protein, which would trigger an immune response. These types of vaccines are very fast for scientists to design and make, but the technology is largely unproven, and it remains to be seen whether these kinds of vaccines are effective.

Furthermore, there are many different modifications that scientists can make to the spike protein, which could change how our immune systems respond to the real virus.

Vaccine makers are focusing on the ability of candidates to produce high levels of neutralizing antibodies that would prevent the virus from entering cells. But this area of vaccine research also faces challenges. For example, the methods for quantifying the antibody response in the laboratory are not ideal.

In addition, it's unclear just how much neutralization is good enough and for how long the effect would last. If antibody levels aren't high enough, a person might only be left with partial immunity, which could prevent severe symptoms but still leave them with the ability to infect others.

And what works in one person might not work well in another. Questions about safety still loom, and experts warn that moving too fast with an unsafe vaccine could shake public confidence. In the end, vaccine developers note that no single company can do this alone, and several types of vaccines will likely be needed.
Details added (first version posted on 14:23)

BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

By Asif Mehman  Trend:

A rally against Azerbaijan was jointly held by a group of radical Armenian organizations, including the Armenian Youth Federation and the Armenian National Committee of America in front of the building of the Consulate General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles on July 22, Consul General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles Nasimi Aghayev said, Trend reports.

During the rally, about 3,000 Armenians surrounded the consulate building and began to shout anti-Azerbaijani slogans, consul general added. Then about 50 activists of the Azerbaijani community with Azerbaijani flags and slogans approached the Armenians.

While chanting slogans, our compatriots informed the local community about the occupation policy of Armenia against Azerbaijan, the policy of ethnic cleansing, more than one million Azerbaijani refugees, the military provocation committed by Armenia last week and the murder of Azerbaijani civilians, Aghayev said.

For the first time, Azerbaijani activists in Los Angeles came out with a protest against the rally held by the Armenians, consul general said. As far as the Azerbaijanis continued to fairly protest, the aggression of the Armenians was growing and one of their groups attacked our compatriots.

The consul general said that despite the Los Angeles policemen tried to prevent the attack, they failed, as a result, seven Azerbaijanis were injured.

Four of our compatriots were hospitalized, one was severely injured, Aghayev said. Later the injured persons condition stabilized and our compatriots were discharged from the hospital.

Immediately after the incident, I contacted Head of the Los Angeles Police Department, Michel Rey Moore, bringing his attention to the incident seriousness and expressing him utter discontent with the polices failure to prevent the violent actions of the Armenians, the consul general said.

The mayor of Los Angeles was also informed about the incident, Aghayev added. This issue must be investigated, we strongly demand that those who have resorted to violence, to be identified and to be brought to justice."
In May this year, Arjun Kumar Das, 18, was arrested on charges of pickpocketing passengers on a train at Sarai Rohila railway station. That was the first time he had committed a crime, according to Delhi Police records, and was to become a turning point in his life. Two months later, Das is out on bail and has enrolled in the Delhi Polices self-sufficiency programme, Yuva, and will soon be assisting the Covid-19 front-line workers to fight against the pandemic.

By August, when he completes his classroom as well as practical training, Das will be given a chance to work at nursing homes and private hospitals in the capital as a clerical assistant to the medical staff.

Recalling what he calls his biggest mistake, Das, who had come to Delhi in January, says all he wanted to do was earn enough to take care of his family of three in Kishanganj, Bihar.

I used to work as an electrician, but in April, the owner of the electronics shop where I was employed asked me to leave as the shop was shut due to the lockdown. Left penniless, one day, I boarded a train at Sarai Rohila railway station along with a group of six other men I knew. After some time, a few of them were caught by the public for trying to pickpocket passengers and all of us were handed over to the police. After spending a week in the lock-up we managed to get bail. My crime was that I was in the wrong company. I am not a criminal and I will regret that incident for the rest of my life, Das said.

Das now lives in central Delhis Anand Parbat and he got himself enrolled in the Yuva programme in June, with the help of the beat constable in his area. We are being trained in managing files and clerical work and are being made familiar with the work at a nursing home or a small hospital. Weve been told that after a month of classroom training, because of the coronavirus outbreak, we will attend a few days of practical training. After that, we will be employed in nursing homes or private hospitals with the help of the police, said Das, a class 8 drop-out.

Delhi police commissioner SN Shrivastava said, We believe that first-time offenders must be given a chance to reform. As a crime control strategy, we are segregating them from repeat offenders and arranging for their vocational training to make them self-reliant.

Another candidate, Deepak Goswami, 18, lives in Baljeet Nagar and is currently out on bail in a case of cell phone theft. Goswami said he used to work in Shakurpur at a garments factory when the lockdown started.

I and many others who were employed for sewing sherwanis were suddenly laid off. I was desperate to earn money. I started working as a carpenter at a furniture shop but early May, the owner made me quit. A week later, I was caught trying to steal a mobile phone and was jailed for theft. When I came out on bail, I got in touch with our beat policemen who helped me enrol for Yuva programme, Goswami said.

He said the training not only teaches them how to work efficiently but also educates them about how to keep away from anti-social elements and lead a healthy and safe life.

Deputy commissioner of police (central) Sanjay Bhatia said, We have roped in a few nursing homes and private hospitals that are willing to hire such persons once they complete the training.

Currently, we have around 10 first-time offenders enrolled in the Yuva programme. They all lost their livelihood due to the pandemic. These men are undergoing training in a batch of 50 along with others who come from different backgrounds, he said.

Amit Kumar, 22, who has a gambling case registered against him, said this training will not only give his life a direction but also help him earn a good living. Kumar is out on bail and supports a family of five, including his parents and two siblings.

DCP Bhatia said the idea of enrolling first-time offenders in such a programme came when it was noticed that many labourers, contractual employees and those involved in similar jobs have lost their livelihood due to lockdown.

At the same time, there was also a spurt in the number of first-time offenders. Analysing the situation, we directed our beat staff to keep a record of such offenders in the central district and get in touch with their families. We made sure that as soon as they were released on bail, they were made aware about Yuva scheme and persuaded them to enrol, he said.

Amita Baviskar, sociologist, Ashoka University, said in order to find a permanent solution to unemployed people resorting to crime, a basic income programme is much needed.

Training is not the issue. Since even skilled workers are out of work, we need more jobs and income support. This calls for a much bigger initiative which wont be possible with the efforts of the police alone, she said.
A former Finance Minister, Mr Seth Terkper, has said the energy crisis that bedevilled Ghana during the Mahama administration was externally-generated just like COVID-19, and has, therefore, downplayed Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumias claim that the Akufo-Addo government is a better manager of crises, even global ones, compared to Mr Mahamas handling of dumsor.

Dr Bawumia, in response to Mr Mahamas comments in early May this year that COVID-19 has sent the Akufo-Addo governments oft-touted resilient and robust economy into the ICU, said President Akufo-Addos management of the situation is unparalleled.

The flag bearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) had said in one of his Facebook interactions with Ghanaians that: Unfortunately, this government has used a lot of propaganda saying the economy has been the best that we have ever had since independence. Unfortunately, just one month of coronavirus the economy is in ICU. If we didnt run to the IMF for the one billion rapid credit facility, it is possible that in the next month probably salaries would not have been paid and so our economy is on ventilators, and it needs thinking to rescue it from the ICU.

But speaking at a media interaction after a COVID-19 response team meeting on 4 May 2020, Dr Bawumia noted that: If you want to test the robustness of an economy, you test it in a time of crises. Thankfully, weve had two crises.

Under the NDC, there was an internally-generated crisis, which was dumsor. Under the Presidency of Nana Akufo-Addo, theres been an externally-generated crisis, which is the global coronavirus pandemic. I just want you to ask yourselves how have these two crises been managed? The dumsor crisis, which crippled this economy for four years, what were the mitigating measures offered to businesses and individuals during dumsor which was an internally generated crisis?

We saw that even during dumsor, electricity prices were being increased, fuel prices were being increased, teacher training allowances were being cancelled, nurse training allowances were being cancelled; all of that was happening during that particular crisis.

He continued: You look at the coronavirus crisis and you look at the difference in terms of what has happened. The President has reduced electricity prices, made it free for lifeline consumers, given free water to all Ghanaians for three months, has made sure theres a stimulus package of GHS600 million for businesses and we have seen domestic production of PPE for our health workers.

So, the difference couldnt be [clear] during a leadership under the crisis of dumsor and under the coronavirus pandemic. So, I ask a simple question: Who will you trust in a time of crisis? The answer, I will say is very clear  Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has shown leadership and concern for ordinary Ghanaians.

Speaking to the issue in an interview with Blessed Sogah on Class91.3FMs State of the Nation programme on Wednesday, 22 July 2020, Mr Terkper said: [About] dumsor, he [Dr Bawumia] says is internally-generated; what is the source of dumsor?

Was it not the pirate ship that damaged the pipeline? Did it happen on our shores? It happened in Nigeria. Since when did Nigeria become a region of Ghana to say that the cause of the thing is in Ghana? Or is it because its not a financial crisis from the US or from China?, he asked.

The cause of dumsor [was external], he insisted, adding: Ghana did not annex Nigeria to become part of Ghana for you to say that the cause of dumsor was internally-generated. No. Internally-generated means the thing is self-made by Ghanaians or at least, its happening in Ghana, like our bushfires and the rest. So, the premise itself is wrong. Because it affected Nigeria itself, it affected Benin, he said.

Mr Terkper added: You can beat your chest, at the time he [Bawumia] did this, when you have gone to borrow $1 billion.

Remember [that] within the month of the declaration of the pandemic for an economy we are told was performing so well, how many African countries  Im not talking about Europe  rushed to the IMF for $1 billion; 100 per cent of our quota. And, we were told that we were performing  one of the best in Africa, he said.

---classfmonline
A spate of COVID-19 tests in New York prisons found a low positivity rate among older incarcerated individuals.

The state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision finished testing 3,922 asymptomatic inmates who are age 55 and older, Gov. Andrew Cuomo revealed at his press briefing Thursday. Seventy-seven inmates tested positive for COVID-19. The positivity rate among the group was 1.9%.

DOCCS told The Citizen in early July that expanded testing eligibility to include older inmates. Older people tend to be at a greater risk of serious illness because of their age and they are more likely to have underlying health conditions.

On July 9, DOCCS posted an update that indicated there were 1,118 pending tests in its prisons. At Attica Correctional Facility, there were 142 pending tests. Clinton Correctional Facility reported 112 pending tests.

For two weeks, DOCCS didn't release a new report informing the public of the test results and any further testing in the facilities. Before Cuomo's briefing, the Release Aging People in Prison Campaign chided Cuomo for the lack of disclosure.

"The Cuomo administration has made clear their ability to easily turn around test results in one to three days, yet more than a thousand older and sick New Yorkers in prison have been waiting for their test results for weeks," the group said. "There cannot be two standards of COVID-19 care in New York state."

Hours later, Cuomo released the results of the tests.

Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa said that the tests found "there had been no outbreak" in New York state prisons. That was a concern, as Cuomo explained, because prisons have congregate populations.

According to the new data on DOCCS' website, 601 inmates and 1,307 employees have tested positive for COVID-19. While facility-level data isn't available for employees, the latest report shows that there have been 103 positive cases in Fishkill Correctional Facility  the most of any state prison. Green Haven Correctional Facility had the second-highest case total with 72.

There has been at least one positive case in 27 of the 52 correctional facilities operated by DOCCS.

Cuomo recalled watching national news networks and seeing reports of outbreaks at other prisons across the country. Just this week, there have been outbreaks reported at jails and prisons in California, Colorado and Texas.

"In some ways, it's worse than any other congregate facility because people are really on top of one another," Cuomo said. "You've had prisons that have had serious outbreaks and that's when we decided to go test everybody."

Politics reporter Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or robert.harding@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @robertharding.

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When a small company sought a licence to dispose of waste on the island of Teshima, the local government was happy to say yes. Job creation and waste disposal were always a problem on the hundreds of islands dotted across Japanas Inland Sea.

The company, Teshima General Tourist Development, was duly given permission to handle sludge and wood waste on the tiny island, which has a population of just 1,000. Five years later, in 1983, that licence was expanded to include metal waste.

For more than a decade, as Japanas economy boomed in the 1970s and 1980s, the company continued to operate quietly on the western tip of the island. Then in 1990, the local community was shocked by a raid from the police in distant Hyogo prefecture.

The company, it turned out, was importing tonnes of toxic waste from across the west of Japan, including Hyogo, and dumping it on the island. aBasically, the waste came from across the Kansai area, including oil, shredded cars and chemical byproducts,a says Kunihiko Saegusa, mayor of Tonosho, a town on a nearby island, whose administrative boundaries include Teshima.

The case of Teshima highlights a broader problem for the Japanese archipelago. Among more than 6,000 islands, there are many with populations of just a few hundred. These islands are remote and fragile ecosystems. Yet at the same time, they must provide sustainable water, electricity, transport and waste disposal.

With the population on many islands in decline, it is becoming ever harder to invest in sustainable local services. Some islands are also popular tourist destinations, which creates further problems of sustainability, and they are directly affected by plastic waste dumped in the ocean.
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Gov. Tom Wolf, whose hardline leadership during the COVID-19 crisis features both missteps and sound judgement, these days could do with a chill pill.

Yes, he still draws favorable ratings: 67 percent of voters approve his handling of the outbreak, according to last weeks Monmouth University Poll.

Yes, Wolf has (so far) kept us from becoming the virus triage area seen in other states. And thats of paramount import.
Could a holiday in Greenland save the summer? The world's largest island, located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, was a surprise inclusion on both the UK and Ireland's green lists.

More than 80% of the island is covered by an ice cap which is melting because of global warming.

The island caught the interest of US President Donald Trump, who was said to have discussed the idea of purchasing Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, during dinners and meetings with advisers.

The country has vast natural resources, including rare minerals, and the melting ice has opened new shipping lanes.

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Most people travel by plane to Greenland, though unsurprisingly there are no direct flights from Belfast or Dublin.

Air Greenland operates from Copenhagen, and Reykjavik in Iceland. Air Iceland also flies from Reykjavik.

If Greenland does appeal, here are 10 great things to do...

Ilulissat Ice-fjord: Greenland's most visited area and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2004, this berg-strewn section of coast in Disko Bay is where huge glaciers float out into the coastal waters.

Whale Watching: One of the top things to do for visitors. Most of the fjords melt by May, so June and July are usually the best months for this.

Nuuk and the Greenland National Museum: Nuuk, the capital, has a population of 16,000 and is popular because of the Greenland National Museum. The 500-year-old mummies of women and children discovered in 1978 are so well preserved that some of the facial tattoos are still recognisable.

Aurora Borealis: The Northern Lights are often referred to as the biggest light show on earth, and during your visit to Greenland you shouldn't miss this incredible natural spectacle.

Hot Spring Bath: On the uninhabited island of Uunartoq the springs are the perfect temperature for bathing. Three naturally heated springs merge into a small pool, where you can immerse yourself surrounded by icebergs and stunning mountain peaks.

Qaqortoq fishing village: Qaqortoq is a rock-bound fishing village of brightly painted houses climbing a hillside above the picturesque harbour.

Viking trail: Trace the remnants of Eric the Red's 1,000-year-old Norse colonies. At their peak, it's estimated that something around 5,000 Norsemen lived throughout Greenland. Why the settlements died out remains a mystery, but Viking ruins can be found throughout the country.

Sermermiut Eskimo Settlement: This is two kilometres from the town of Ilulissat and has some of the best-preserved 2,000-year-old remnants of indigenous Eskimo cultures.

Cruise the glaciers: Whether you take a short afternoon cruise among the icebergs to a glacier or a multi-day cruise into the bays and fjords, boats are the best way to get a look at most parts of Greenland. Most of these walls of ice are visible only from the sea.

Take a dog sled: The best way to experience the country's unique and wild natural environment when snow is on the ground is on a tour by dog sled or a snowmobile excursion.
SOUTH HAVEN, MI -- The National Blueberry Festival, which usually draws an estimated crowd of 50,000 people over the course of four days, is still a go.

The festival has, however, been drastically reduced to accommodate COVID-19 restrictions, festival director Megan Cairns said. Its scheduled for Aug. 6-9 in South Haven.
SBC leaders Albert Mohler, Russell Moore criticized for honoring John Lewis due to liberal record

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After civil rights icon and Democratic Congressman John Lewis death was announced Friday, Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear honored his memory by sharing one of his tweets from 2015. The tweet, which included a smiling mug shot of the late congressman, said: Even though I was arrested, I smiled bc I was on the right side of history. Find a way to get in the way #goodtrouble.

While other SBC leaders like Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Russell Moore, president of the SBCs Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, also noted Lewis passing as a great loss for the nation in fuller statements, some from the evangelical Christian community are unhappy with their praise of Lewis because of his support for issues like abortion and LGBTQ rights.

Rep John Lewiss story is integral to telling the American story. His courage and suffering in the Civil Rights movement are inspirational to all Americans. He will be honored in the American memory. We dare not extend honor only to those with whom we are in political agreement.  Albert Mohler (@albertmohler) July 18, 2020

What a loss to this country. Grateful for John Lewis courage and endurance and patriotism. I agree, with the many who have said so, that theres a bridge in Selma that needs a new name, Moore tweeted on Saturday.

Rep John Lewiss story is integral to telling the American story. His courage and suffering in the Civil Rights movement are inspirational to all Americans. He will be honored in the American memory. We dare not extend honor only to those with whom we are in political agreement, Mohler also noted in a statement on Twitter.

Lewis, the son of sharecroppers, suffered beatings at Selma and throughout the Jim Crow South in the fight for racial equality. He died at the age of 80 after battling Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

A number of Christians, including pastors responding to both Mohler and Moore, refused to celebrate Lewis life.

Get your mind away from the fog of academia and back into simple biblical truth. This is more than a small political disagreement. To bestow honor upon one whose political positions funded and endorsed the killing of millions of innocent babies is shameful leadership in the SBC, Byron Williamson, senior pastor at First Baptist Pampa in Texas, noted in a reply to Mohler late Monday.

Lewis had a 100% pro-baby slaughter record with NARAL. Let that sink in. Every single time he was presented with the option to advance the slaughter of the pre-born, he voted yes. Every. Single. Time, wrote Pastor Derin Stidd of Harmony Baptist Church in Frankfort, Indiana, along with a link to Lewis voting record.

Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, noted, however, that it isnt unreasonable to praise someone you disagree with on some issues.

Look people, there will be a time to examine Rep. Lewis' flaws. Not now, though. Now is a moment to honor him for his virtues, for the good he did. That's why we honor flawed (like all of us) men like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, King--not for the flaws, but for the good, he noted on Twitter.
Members of the Independent Decommissioning Body inspect weapons turned over by former Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels at a government facility in southern Maguindanao province, July 9, 2019.

The Philippines has decommissioned thousands of firearms controlled by former Muslim separatist guerrillas in the south as part of a historic peace deal, the countrys defense chief said, adding the entire process of silencing their weapons is to be completed by 2022.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, in a presentation to fellow cabinet members on Wednesday, said 12,000 or about 30 percent of the estimated 40,000 firearms estimated to be held by members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have been recovered.

He lauded the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) because he said it has led to peace in the south and the election of former MILF guerrillas to lead a transitional authority that would govern its own areas.

Part of the organic law is the decommissioning of the MILF combatants, Lorenzana said referring to the Bangsamoro Organic Law which paved the way for the BARMM. Thirty percent of them have already been decommissioned and the remaining 70 percent will be decommissioned in the next two years.

Those efforts are expected to eventually lead to partnerships within their own community and with the government or other countries ahead of realizing the MILFs dream of self-rule, Lorenzana said.

The phased handover of weapons is part of the peace deal with the government that led to the establishment of BARMM. Each combatant who hands over weapons is expected to receive a cash payment, including money for education.

In September 2019, more than 1,000 former MILF forces turned in their weapons during a decommissioning ceremony that occurred hours after a bomb attack injured eight people at a Southern Philippine marketplace.

Other groups blamed for attacks

Philippine military officials blamed members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) for the bombing at a market in Isulan, a town in Sultan Kudarat province. The BIFF splintered from MILF and aligned with the Islamic State (IS).

Agakhan Sharief, a local Muslim leader, said that despite MILFs peace agreement, pro-IS groups including BIFF and Abu Sayyaf continue to launch attacks against government forces in the south.

Sharief served as a negotiator at the height of five-month battle when Abu Sayyaf members and other militants took over the city of Marawi in May 2017. He said the governments decommissioning approach has not been effective.

A rebel will surrender his old gun in exchange for money. After receiving the money, he will buy a new weapon. It does not make sense, Sharief told BenarNews.

The MILF split from the larger Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in 1978 after the latter dropped its fight for independence. The MNLF signed a peace deal in 1996 and was awarded a self-rule region which the government called a failed experiment.

The government later looked at including MILF in peace negotiations and the MNLF group fractured into smaller groups which would become the forerunners of present day militants in the region.

Filipino security analyst Rommel Banlaoi told BenarNews on Thursday that the MILFs decommissioning is an essential part of the peace agreement to transform combatants from armed fighters to peace builders.

The decommissioning process can only be successful in building lasting peace in Mindanao if there is dismantlement of private armed groups, common in BARMM, said Banlaoi, who heads the Philippine Institute for Peace Violence and Terrorism Research.
Jets are parked on runway 28 at the Pittsburgh International Airport on March 27, 2020 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

American Airlines on Thursday posted a net loss of $2.1 billion in the second quarter, the latest carrier to outline the financial damage to travel demand from the coronavirus pandemic.

Revenue dropped more than 86% in the quarter to $1.6 billion from close to $12 billion a year earlier.

The stock rose 0.5% in premarket trading.

American has restored more capacity than some of its large competitors like Delta or United as it aimed to capitalize on an uptick in air travel demand that bottomed in April.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based airline did slash its daily cash burn rate from $100 million a day in April to $30 million a day in June after it cut flights and idled planes and thousands of employees took voluntary time off.

"We have moved swiftly to improve our liquidity, conserve cash and ensure customers are safe when they travel," CEO Doug Parker said. "There is much uncertainty ahead, but we remain confident we will emerge from this crisis more agile and more efficient than ever before."

American and other airline executives are warning that demand has softened due to a spike in coronavirus cases and travel restrictions abroad and quarantine orders. American said it expects its capacity in the third quarter to be down 60% from last year.

The pandemic has been particularly painful for airlines because a resurgence in cases comes during what is normally the most lucrative time of year, the peak summer travel season.

"The current environment is more unpredictable and more volatile than anything we ever could have imagined," Parker and the airline's president Robert Isom, said in an employee note.

On an adjusted per-share basis, American posted a loss of $7.82, slightly more than analysts were expecting.

American Airlines' executives will hold an analyst call at 8:30 a.m. EDT.

Also Thursday, Southwest Airlines said it lost $915 million in the second quarter compared with $741 million in net income a year earlier. It also warned that travel demand will likely remain depressed until there's a vaccine or treatment for the coronavirus.

This is breaking news. Check back for updates.
There is no doubt that Armenia emerges from this challenge as winners, confident in Armenian strength, confident in the resilience of Armenian people and society, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this at a government meeting.

According to him, however, certain conclusions must be drawn.

We cannot ignore what happened. We cannot ignore the fact that after April 2016, Azerbaijan used force for the second time, despite the fact that the peace process is underway, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs called on to refrain from provocative actions and rhetoric. Azerbaijan used force at a time when the whole world concentrated its forces on the fight against the pandemic. misfortune of humanity. But, nevertheless, we have strengthened our position after the July clashes, and they are expressed in the following:

1. It is necessary to further strengthen the common security system of Armenia and Artsakh. From this point of view, I attach particular importance to our close cooperation with Artsakh and giving new content to this cooperation in accordance with the existing threats.

2. Artsakh should become a full-fledged party to the negotiations.

3. Azerbaijan must publicly renounce the use of force and take reliable steps to end anti-Armenian rhetoric.

4. Talks must be meaningful. Azerbaijan's approach, in which talks are the continuation of the war, and their purpose in solving military problems, deprives the whole negotiation process of meaning. Talks make sense if Azerbaijan is ready to abandon maximalist rhetoric and is ready to compromise. Without any restriction of the right of the people of Artsakh to self-determination, in terms of the security of Armenia and Artsakh, in no case can there be concessions.

5. In recent days, Azerbaijan has targeted the civilian population and infrastructure of a number of villages in the Tavush province, border villages. The countries supplying weapons to Azerbaijan should clearly realize that the use of these weapons is a crime against the civilian population since it seems that it is not Azerbaijan that is fighting against the armed forces and civilians of Armenia, but international corporations producing ultra-precise lethal weapons with their specialists. For the third decade, the conflict has been causing serious damage to the border settlements of Armenia and the people living in Artsakh, violating their political, economic, and environmental rights. The approach that these rights can be realized only after the settlement of the conflict is unacceptable. The problems of people living in the conflict zone should become a priority part of the negotiation agenda.

6. Pre-pandemic monitoring of compliance with the ceasefire is, in fact, very limited. It is necessary to introduce effective international monitoring, which will be permanent, have control mechanisms that will record when and which side violated the ceasefire. Such monitoring activities can be carried out by the office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, who has many years of experience in the region and can ensure the permanent presence of permanent OSCE observers in the region both on the state border and on the line of contact. Liaison between the military on the spot is an effective tool for preventing and clarifying incidents.

7. Armenia will continue to work with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs with the aim of a peaceful settlement of the conflict. We have resolutely rejected and will reject Turkeys attempts to destabilize the region by speculating in the conflict, Pashinyan said.
A COVID-19 outbreak involving 22 nursing home residents and staff members has been reported in a Richmond nursing home, according to a city of Richmond alert.

Richmond city officials were notified Wednesday that TDEM will deploy the Texas Rapid Assessment Quick Reaction Force to the Cambridge Health and Rehabilitation Center to conduct a site assessment and administer additional COVID-19 test to all nursing home residents, healthcare workers and staff members. The testing is scheduled for Thursday.

Related: Fort Bend County hospitals battle COVID-19 as ICU units near capacity

Director Shelia Eapen said there had been no positive cases of their 88 residents and 87 staff members at the facility before now. Testing was conducted of all nursing home residents and staff last May. However, a new round of tests revealed 17 residents and five staff members were COVID-19 positive, despite the fact all are currently asymptomatic.

Eapen said notifications were sent to state and county officials, and families were notified.

The family members of our residents have been very supportive throughout this time, Eapen said. They trust us.

Richmond city leaders notified residents via email Wednesday. Due to health privacy laws, positive cases among Fort Bend County area nursing homes, long term care facilities and the Richmond State Supported Living Center are not made public.

However, state reports show 177 nursing homes in the greater Houston and Fort Bend County area currently have at least one positive COVID-19 resident and with an overall total of 3,027 cases, 309 deaths and 899 recoveries, according to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services.

Richmond COVID-19 cases on the rise

The number of COVID-19 cases in Richmond has seen significant increase in recent weeks. Statistics provided by Fort Bend County Health and Human Services Department indicate Richmond currently has a total of 145 cases, an increase of roughly 50 percent over the last two weeks with 51 new cases since the July 7 total of 94 cases. Countywide, there are 6,130 confirmed cases currently, a 38.9 percent increase (1,717 cases) since July 7.

Related: Second COVID-19 related death reported at Richmond State Supported Living Center

The city of Richmond is committed to working with our local community partners, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, the Texas Division of Emergency Management, and the Texas Department of State Health Services to help mitigate the spread of the coronavirus in our community and surrounding areas, city officials said in an email.

knix@hcnonline.com
Former Communications Director at the Presidency during the erstwhile late Prof. Evans Atta Mills' era, Koku Anyidoho has eulogized his former boss, describing him as "a good man".



To him, "the country will never have a president cast in the mould of Prof Mills" ever again.



Speaking on Okay Fms Ade Akye Abia program, he pointed out that it is for such a reason he left behind his well paying job to take up a leading role beside the learned Professor in politics.



"I have also decided to honor him with the Atta Mills Institute where his legacy would be remembered. Though the institute has been in operation for some time now, we are rolling out programs that will help nurture our youth who desire to do clean politics.



"The movement will on Friday hold its first lecture series to mark the 8th Anniversary of Prof. Atta Mills demise and we will continue to hold these types of lectures in honor of the late president," he added.



The National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Friday, July 24, will commemorate the eighth anniversary of the death of late President Professor John Evans Atta Mills.



A wreath-laying ceremony will be held at Asomdwee Park, near the Osu Castle in Accra at 0800 hours.



A statement issued by the partys Director of Communications, Kraka Essamuah said the ceremony would be conducted in accordance with the Covid-19 protocols.



Further details of the program will be communicated in the course of the coming week, it said.





Watch Video Below





Source: Isaac Kwame Owusu/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine has issued a warning after it emerged that a number of farmers are receiving phone calls from a person purporting to represent the Department, seeking bank details.

Also read: You've got to be pigging as 20 piglets born to sow in Longford

They state that they need these details to allegedly offer refunds or seek due payments.

In a statement issued this morning, the Department of Agriculture said: "This Department never seeks bank details or any other personal information by phone or by text message.

"If you receive a telephone call purporting to be from this Department and seeking this type of information, please do not share your information. None of our staff will mind you taking their name and ringing back on one of the official numbers listed on our website  do not use the number such a caller gives you. You can also report such phone calls to our Quality Service Unit us at 076 1064468.

"Anyone who mistakenly provides personal information in response to these types of fraudulent phone calls should contact their bank or credit card company immediately and alert the Gardai.

"It is important to point out that these types of scams do not involve this Departments systems or security, they are designed to get your bank details."
Despite the coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout, people still need to travel, for family, work and nonessential reasons like to take a camping trip or get married.

Or maybe they need to shop to outfit a first apartment?

Here are ways to make life changes easier during a pandemic:

A downtown Portland apartment has been outfitted to be comfortable.Stay Alfred

Get Your First Apartment

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.

Read>Best deals on dorm room, apartment essentials for those going back to college for fall term in midst of coronavirus

Take a Road Trip

Staying safe during a road trip means having the vehicle checked out before the drive starts and, while away from home, adhering to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines for face coverings, social distancing to limit exposure and simply practicing smart hygiene: Wash and sanitize hands often; keep hands out of your mouth, nose and eyes; cover your mouth when you sneeze or cough, and put used tissues in no-touch disposal receptacles.

The most important action to take: Stay home and isolate if youre sick.

Read>What youll need to take a safe, relaxing road trip: Hand sanitizer to coolers

Get Married

Couples who flock to Oregon find romanic places. Proposal Rock beckons people in love to the beach at Neskowin. The state also has vineyards and other scenic spots to tie the knot, even during the coronavirus pandemic when most family members and friends will watch the ceremony live streamed from afar.

Whats next? A romantic honeymoon.

Read>Wild, romantic honeymoons: Start a marriage off right or rekindle your relationship

Go Away on Vacation

Summer weather has arrived and theres probably no better way to cool off fast than by jumping into water. In this getaway guide, we look at Oregon vacation homes with a splashy pool.

Or maybe youd like 10 tempting, crazy Oregon getaways when youre ready to get out there. If so, Oregon has an amazing collection of eclectic places to stay, from the coast to the Wallowa Mountains, tiny Tiller to populated Portland, a beach cottage to a cabin. And then there are some weird rentals in alluring locations.

Read>Oregon getaways for any occasion

Create a Summer Camp

Kids look forward to summer camp. Fresh air, fun times and lots of games. The coronavirus has crushed camp time for some, but there are ways to bring the experience to any-size backyard.

The High Desert Museum, which is south of Bend, has online links to virtual hikes and resources to encourage families to explore nature around their home. Dicks Sporting Goods has a webpage dedicated to creating a summer camp on the lawn.

Read>Create summer camp at home, with or without a waterslide

 Janet Eastman | 503-294-4072

jeastman@oregonian.com | @janeteastman

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories
By PTI

SHIMLA: Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Thursday hit out at the opposition Congress for criticising the Himachal Pradesh government over the recent hike in bus fares and for allowing tourists to the hill state during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thakur said it is the need of the hour to jointly bear the burden of handling COVID-19 and several other states, including Punjab, have also hiked the bus fare.

The chief minister was addressing BJP workers of the Doon assembly segment in the Shimla parliamentary constituency online from his official residence here.

He is in self-quarantine since Wednesday afternoon after a deputy secretary in his office tested positive for coronavirus.

Though Thakur, his wife Dr Sadhana Thakur and their two daughters tested negative around 9 pm on Wednesday, they will remain quarantined for a week and tested again, Additional Chief Secretary (Health) R D Dhiman said.

The opposition Congress, Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) had on Tuesday demanded an immediate rollback of the 25 per cent hike in bus fares in Himachal Pradesh.

On Monday, the state government decided to increase the bus fare by 25 per cent.

It also decided to hike minimum bus fare for the first three kilometres from Rs 5 to Rs 7 in view of the fund crunch due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On criticism by the opposition for allowing tourists in the state during the pandemic, he said most of the states, including Uttarakhand, Goa and Kerala, had allowed tourists after banning them due to the coronavirus lockdown in March.

The state government has allowed their entry with strict preconditions, he added.

The chief minister said that not a single tourist has been found COVID-19 positive.

He alerted people that COVID-19 cases might increase in the rainy season.

Thakur said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed fear of a spike in cases in rains during a video conference with him about three-four days ago.

The chief minister, however, said there is no need to panic as the state government is fully prepared to tackle the situation.
Intravenous indomethacin is more effective than intravenous acetaminophen in treating hemodynamically significant PDAs (hsPDAs) in very low birth weight (VLBW) infants, according to new Le Bonheur Children's Hospital neonatology research published in the Journal of Perinatology.

Le Bonheur and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center neonatologists, led by Jennifer M. Davidson, DO, conducted a randomized trial for the treatment of hemodynamically significant PDAs (hsPDAs) in very low birth weight (VLBW) infants. Echocardiogram criteria before and after treatment showed that IV indomethacin was more effective.

"We have several options for PDA closure in these very low birth weight infants with varying levels of effectiveness including intervention by medication therapies," said Davidson.

Commonly used medical therapies are indomethacin and ibuprofen, but these have variable success and notable side effects. Surgical PDA ligation and transcatheter PDA closure can be used if medical therapies fail to close the PDA, but each comes with risks and lack of access for some hospitals. Studies have shown that, for some neonates, acetaminophen may be equally effecting for treating hsPDAs with minimal side effects. Le Bonheur neonatologists wanted to examine this option of IV acetaminophen for treating hsPDA in VLBW infants.

To be included in the trial, infants met specific criteria including gestational age at birth between 22 and 32 weeks, birth weight less than 1500 grams, 21 days of age or less and no previous pharmacologic treatment for PDA. Infants also had to meet strict echocardiogram criteria including left to right ductal flow and two out of three of the following: ductal size greater than or equal to 1.5 mm at smallest diameter, reversal of flow in descending aorta or left atrial size to aortic root ratio greater than or equal to 1.5.

Seventeen infants received 15 mg/kg dose of IV acetaminophen every six hours for 12 doses. Twenty infants received 3 doses of IV indomethacin every 12 hours with the amount of medication based on age. Each infant had a follow-up echocardiogram within seven days of the initiation of treatment. Successful PDA treatment was defined as no longer meeting the echocardiogram inclusion criteria for hsPDA.

Results of the study showed that IV indomethacin was more effective in successful treatment of hsPDA. The rate of successful PDA closure was 55 percent when using IV indomethacin and 6 percent when using IV acetaminophen.

"Through our study of very low birth weight infants, we were unable to show successful treatment of hsPDA with IV acetaminophen when compared to IV indomethacin in preterm infants born prior to 32 weeks," said Davidson. "In addition, many of our babies in the study treated with acetaminophen required interventional closure later on."

If acetaminophen continues to be used as a primary treatment of hsPDA, future studies should include a different dosing strategy or route of administration to learn more about its efficacy in PDA closure.

###

About Le Bonheur Children's:

Le Bonheur Children's Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., treats children through community programs, regional clinics and a 255-bed state-of-the-art hospital. Le Bonheur serves as a primary teaching affiliate for the University Tennessee Health Science Center and trains more than 350 pediatricians and specialists each year. Nationally recognized, Le Bonheur is ranked by U.S. News & World Report as a Best Children's Hospital.

For more information, please call (901) 287-6030 or visit lebonheur.org. Connect with us at facebook.com/lebonheurchildrens, twitter.com/lebonheurchild or on Instagram at lebonheurchildrens.

About University of Tennessee Health Science Center:

As Tennessee's only public, statewide, academic health system, the mission of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center is to bring the benefits of the health sciences to the achievement and maintenance of human health through education, research, clinical care, and public service, with a focus on the citizens of Tennessee and the region. The main campus in Memphis includes six colleges: Dentistry, Graduate Health Sciences, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy. UTHSC also educates and trains medicine, pharmacy, and/or health professions students, as well as medical residents and fellows, at major sites in Knoxville, Chattanooga and Nashville. For more information, visit http://www.uthsc.edu. Find us on Facebook: facebook.com/uthsc, on Twitter: twitter.com/uthsc and on Instagram: instagram.com/uthsc.
ROCHESTER, N.Y. - A man convicted of terrorism-related crimes, who served his sentence and was then detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has been deported after a legal battle to hold him indefinitely stalled.

Federal immigration authorities held Adham Amin Hassoun until Tuesday at a detention facility in Batavia, New York, since his release from prison in 2018. Previously, they had argued in court that they had the authority to detain him indefinitely under the Patriot Act until they could find a country willing to accept him.

Hassoun, 58, is a Palestinian born in Lebanon. In 2007, he was convicted along with Jose Padilla, who is still imprisoned, of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people in a foreign country.

Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was initially detained as an enemy combatant in 2002 on suspicions he planned to set off a radioactive dirty bomb, but those allegations were ultimately dropped in favour of charges that he, Hassoun and another conspirator sent money, recruits and supplies to Islamic extremist groups.

Prosecutors said Hassoun recruited Padilla at a Florida mosque to attend a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan.

Authorities did not disclose Hassouns destination after he left the country on Tuesday, the Democrat and Chronicle reported.

Padillas expected release date from prison is 2026.

Earlier this summer, federal prosecutors had argued at a hearing that Hassoun remained a threat to national security, but ultimately withdrew testimony from another detainee at the Batavia detention facility, who claimed Hassoun told him about plans to commit crimes upon his release. Hassouns attorney said the claims were fabricated, the Observer Dispatch reported.

U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Wolford ruled against the government and ordered Hassouns release.

Hassoun immigrated to the Florida in 1989, married and had three children, all of whom are American citizens. His family moved to Lebanon after his arrest, the Buffalo News reported.

One of Hassouns attorneys, Jonathan Manes, told the Democrat and Chronicle in an email: After 18 years of imprisonment and nearly 1 1/2 years detained unlawfully under the Patriot Act, he is now a free man.
Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Co.Ltd (II)

Global Credit Research - 22 Jul 2020

London, 22 July 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Co.Ltd (II) and other ratings that are associated with the same analytical unit. The review was conducted through a portfolio review in which Moody's reassessed the appropriateness of the ratings in the context of the relevant principal methodology(ies), recent developments, and a comparison of the financial and operating profile to similarly rated peers. The review did not involve a rating committee. Since 1 January 2019, Moody's practice has been to issue a press release following each periodic review to announce its completion.

This publication does not announce a credit rating action and is not an indication of whether or not a credit rating action is likely in the near future. Credit ratings and outlook/review status cannot be changed in a portfolio review and hence are not impacted by this announcement. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.

Key rating considerations are summarized below.

Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Co.Ltd (II)'s (the Issuer) A1 senior secured ratings reflect (1) the standalone credit quality of the Issuer which operates in conjunction with its affiliate Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Co. Ltd (II), (together, RL II-3), with Moody's baseline credit assessment (BCA) in the baa1-baa3 range, and (2) Moody's assessment of a high probability of support from the Government of Qatar (Aa3), should it become necessary.

RL II-3's BCA reflects (1) compelling commercial and industrial rationale and strong competitive position, (2) very strong financial metrics, even in a low oil price environment, (3) generally beneficial project finance structural features, although lacking certain security interests and subject to limitations on the likely effectiveness of certain creditor protections, (4) event risk considerations, including asset concentration risk and geopolitical risk and (5) exposure to commodity price risk, although such risks are substantially mitigated by strong financial metrics.

Story continues

Moody's considers RL II-3 as a single entity from a credit perspective since all senior secured debt raised by RL 3 is unconditionally and irrevocably guaranteed by RL II, and vice versa.

This document summarizes Moody's view as of the publication date and will not be updated until the next periodic review announcement, which will incorporate material changes in credit circumstances (if any) during the intervening period.

The principal methodologies used for this review were Generic Project Finance Methodology published in November 2019 and Government-Related Issuers Methodology published in February 2020. Please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of these methodologies.

This announcement applies only to EU rated and EU endorsed ratings. Non EU rated and non EU endorsed ratings may be referenced above to the extent necessary, if they are part of the same analytical unit.

This publication does not announce a credit rating action. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.

Christopher Bredholt VP - Senior Credit Officer Project & Infrastructure Finance Moody's Investors Service Ltd. One Canada Square Canary Wharf London E14 5FA United Kingdom JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454 Kevin Maddick Associate Managing Director Project & Infrastructure Finance JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service Ltd. One Canada Square Canary Wharf London E14 5FA United Kingdom JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454

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Ibrahim Magu, the suspended acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Thursday opened his defence before...

Ibrahim Magu, the suspended acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Thursday opened his defence before the Presidential Panel probing allegations of corruption against him with 34-page documents submitted to the panel.





Magu was with his lawyer, Wahab Shittu when the 34-page document with 100 annexure were presented for his defence.





The Justice Ayo Salami-led panel is probing Magu for various corruption allegations, one of which was his inability to explain the whereabouts of interest accrued to N550bn recovered funds.





Magu reportedly appeared before the Justice Ayo Salami-led panel around 1pm and was still there as of 6pm, as he is explaining to the panel how recovered assets were disposed of and how monies seized from looters were kept.





The Punch quoted a top source at the EFCC as saying that Magu arrived at the Presidential Villa along with his lawyer and some aides. However, only Magu and his lawyer were allowed inside the main hall. They have been there for the last five hours.





Magu presented a 34-page letter which was spiral bound with 100 annexure including pictures. We are hopeful that he will be able to convince the panel that all the allegations levelled against him are trumped up.





It earlier gathered that Magus attempt to to submit the same documents earlier on Monday was rejected by the panel.





Magu had said some of the recovered vehicles were auctioned to the Presidential Villa, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, the Federal Inland Revenue Service and others.




HENSOLDT UK, manufacturer of Kelvin Hughes SharpEye radar systems, is pleased to announce that the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service (SBGS) has selected variants of the companys SBS-900 X-band SharpEye long-range coastal surveillance radar to ensure the safe management and monitoring of vessels in the coastal waters of Lithuania.

HENSOLDT UK, manufacturer of Kelvin Hughes SharpEye radar systems, is pleased to announce that the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service (SBGS) has selected variants of the companys SBS-900 X-band SharpEye long-range coastal surveillance radar to ensure the safe management and monitoring of vessels in the coastal waters of Lithuania.

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The Kelvin Hughes' stand at DIMDEX 2018. (Picture source: Navy Recognition)

HENSOLDT UKs shore-based radars were specifically developed to meet the stringent operational requirements of port, harbour and river traffic operators as well as government agencies responsible for the protection of coastal and littoral zones.

Working with the local integrator, Telekonta, the mast mounted SBS-900 were selected to meet the requirements of the Lithuanian SBGS for detection of small targets at long ranges. This is in line with IALA Guideline No. 1111 (May 2015) for advanced level detection.

HENSOLDT UKs SBS-900 X-band SharpEye radar monitoring vessels in Lithuania. (Picture source: Telekonta)

About the SharpEye radar:

The advantage of the HENSOLDT UK solution is that the coastal radar does not require an air-conditioned enclosure at the top of the mast. Compared to competitor solutions, the SBS-900 thus comes at reduced system integration and infrastructure costs.

The navigational crew are able to visualise land, air and seaborne targets  unique to SharpEye  thanks to low Radar Cross Section (RCS) and advanced doppler processing capabilities. Together clutter is removed giving significantly improved visibility without reducing picture quality, providing superior situational awareness at all times.

SharpEye also helps reduce maintenance costs through the lifecycle of the unit, as well as significantly cutting down on training requirements thanks to its simple and easy to use design. The Type Approved multifunction sensor, designed to meet MIL-STDs, can be configured to address the unique needs of those using it.
Clings Aerospace is an important acquisition for ARCH, enabling us to further expand our aerospace and defense capabilities in support of our customers ...

ARCH Global Precision (ARCH) has acquired Clings Aerospace (Clings) located in Tempe, Ariz. Clings Aerospace manufactures machined parts, custom-fabricated tubes, weldments, and assemblies for the aerospace and defense industries. Clings joins the ARCH Precision Components Segment, strengthening the companys position as a leading and growing supplier to the global aerospace and defense markets. With wide-ranging capabilities in precision tube bending, 3-axis, 4-axis and 5-axis precision machining, and welding projects along with value-added services such as engineering CAD/CAM design support, assembly, subassembly, and kitting, Clings bolsters and augments the existing precision-machining and manufacturing capabilities at ARCH Precision Components Segment locations across the United States.

Were excited to welcome the Clings Aerospace team and its customers to the ARCH family, said Andy Spiering, Divisional President of the ARCH Precision Components Segment. Clings Aerospace is an important acquisition for ARCH, enabling us to further expand our aerospace and defense capabilities in support of our customers, and broadens our footprint in the Phoenix area to supplement our existing Mesa location. We are excited to add a company of Clings caliber that possesses a high level of engineering expertise, as well as extensive capabilities in complex manufacturing, custom-fabricated tubing, weldments, and assemblies.

Doug Cling, former owner and President of Clings Aerospace, worked with ARCH over several years and became convinced the partnership was the right thing to do for his company, his employees, and his customers.

As the market continues to change and consolidate and as a number of different parties showed interest in Clings, I ultimately chose ARCH because of their strong track record in closing on acquisitions, their presence in and knowledge of the aerospace and defense market, and their stellar reputation in the marketplace, Cling said. Having known ARCH President and CEO Eli Crotzer and several ARCH team members, when it came time to move forward, it was an easy choice for me to make. I am looking forward to partnering with ARCH as we mutually work to grow the business. My employees and customers can confidently anticipate the future knowing that I am committed to staying on to run the business post-closing.

About ARCH

ARCH, a Jordan Company platform company based in metro Detroit, manufactures high-quality cutting tools, medical instruments and implants, and precision-machined components for a range of critical applications. ARCH has dozens of facilities strategically located across the country serving the medical, aerospace, defense, energy, semiconductor, surgical robotics, and progressive industrial markets. The teams at ARCH are metalworking professionals with industry-leading tight-tolerance manufacturing expertise. ARCH provides innovative and practical solutions to the complex manufacturing challenges of its customers.
In recent weeks, Netanyahu's official house has been the focal point of many protests amid seemingly growing dissatisfaction with the government

Israeli police are on high alert Thursday, hours before major protests are scheduled to begin in Jerusalem.

The demonstrations, with voices in favor and against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will be held in front of his residence.

In recent weeks, Netanyahu's official house has been the focal point of many protests amid seemingly growing dissatisfaction with the government.

Those opposing the government are against Netanyahu's response to the COVID-19 crisis. Drawing criticism for a lackluster program to combat the economic fallout of the pandemic, anti-Netanyahu protestors are also wary of a new law that allows the government to bypass the parliament when enforcing anti-virus measures.

The longest serving Israeli prime minister is also under criticism for running the country while on trial for corruption charges.

On Thursday evening, Netanyahu's supporters are also slated for showing up in front of the same place. Although his approval ratings have dropped in recent weeks, Netanyahu still has loyal followers.

Coupled with the growing civil unrest is political instability. The wobbly coalition government sworn in this May after over a year of political paralysis and three elections appears to be hanging on a thread.

If a budget is not approved by the end of August, the parliament will be dissolved automatically, leading to another election. Meanwhile, the coalition partners engage in daily squabbles on an array of topics, wearing down confidence in the ability of the government to survive.

Netanyahu and his partner, also rival, Defense Minister Benny Gantz would both lose a lot in another election. With the crisis in Israel widespread, the prime minister would take a huge risk at holding a referendum when the public is increasingly dissatisfied with his performance.

Gantz had sacrificed much of his political credibility when he entered the partnership with Netanyahu despite an election promise not to do so.

Members of parliament and municipal leaders have called Netanyahu and Gantz to put their differences aside and combat the major crisis Israel is facing.

"In the short term, the government will probably not fall even though the breaks are screeching," said Eran Vigoda-Gadot, a professor of political science and governance at the University of Haifa. "Once the COVID-19 crisis is over, the divisions will become even more visible."

Some Israeli media have reported that Netanyahu is set on breaking-up the coalition and heading to the ballots in November.

In the past weeks, the feeling of a looming crisis has emerged from the streets. Frequent demonstrations and scenes of Israelis clashing with police forces signal a breaking point in society.

"This is one of the most complex situations the country has ever dealt with," Vigoda-Gadot told Xinhua.

"Israelis feel that the government is not operating in a clear consistent manner with their welfare at the top of the agenda," said Jonathan Rynhold, a professor with the Political Studies Department at Bar Ilan University.

The last time Israel witnessed widespread social protests was in 2011, against the high cost of living in the country. Netanyahu consequently approved a series of reforms.

Critics of the government say its response to the fallout of the pandemic has been inadequate and slow. With an alarming unemployment rate and inconsistent decisions on how to battle the virus, the public is growing impatient.

"The protests are underestimated. The government does not understand the depth of the crisis and the wave of protests will not subside, but rather will intensify as people's despair grows," said Vigoda-Gadot.

Hours before demonstrators arrive in Jerusalem, Israeli president tweeted to the members of the coalition.

"Get your act together! Our citizens need you focused and working to find a solution to this unprecedented crisis Israel has found itself in," wrote Reuven Rivlin.

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Memphis, TN -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/23/2020 -- Watson Burns, PLLC is a law firm that was established by Frank L. Watson, III and William F. Burns. They created the law firm with a vision of creating a trial firm focused on winning high stakes civil litigation in the most efficient manner. To achieve the goal, the firm has maintained a strict policy of accepting and litigating only a handful of cases at any given time. The strategy used has enabled the firm to win a vast majority of clients' cases defended by some of the most aggressive law firms in the country.



Responding on an inquiry on whether a lawyer can retain client's files upon the termination of representation, the company spokesperson said, "In case clients are not happy with their lawyers, they can terminate their services. After the termination, the lawyers should stop working on the case immediately, and they are supposed to surrender all the files related to their clients' case. All these are in regards to the American Bar Association, which states that an attorney has an ethical duty to hand over the entire file to his or her client after the termination of the representation."



Watson Burns, PLLC is among the top legal malpractice law firms in Memphis. The law firm has a team of legal malpractice lawyers who prepare every case brought forward to them with the utmost expertise. They also hold their negligent attorneys accountable when there is a breach of the standard of care for their actions. The law firm has substantial experience with legal malpractice cases. They offer a free assessment of the potential cases brought to them by clients. For those who think they have a legal malpractice claim, they can contact the firm for a consultation with their malpractice lawyers.



Offering insight on how clients can terminate their lawyers, the company spokesperson said, "Terminating a lawyer is costly since a client will have to pay for the services the lawyer offered up to the time of termination. Again, a client will also need to hire another lawyer to move on with his or her case. Clients can terminate a lawyer by sending a certified letter to the lawyer notifying him or her of their intentions to terminate the relationship. The lawyer should, later on, submit all the relevant files he or she created since they started working on the case. Clients should also notify the court as this will make the lawyer file a motion to withdraw."



Watson Burns, PLLC offers experienced, focused and aggressive legal representation. They provide civil litigation services in Tennessee. The firm focuses on protecting the rights of consumers, individuals or companies harmed by the actions of others. They have 41 years of combined trial experience in complex litigation matters in Tennessee and throughout the United States. The firm has achieved substantial success in prosecuting class action litigation, legal malpractice claims and many more.



About Watson Burns, PLLC

Can I Sue my attorney? Yes, the attorneys at Watson Burns, PLLC have assisted many people to recover losses due to the negligence of another lawyer. The firm assists their clients in proving that a lawyer is accused of malpractice in the courtroom. Clients can contact the firm for legal advice and representation.
Coronavirus spread so quickly through a convent in Michigan that it claimed the lives of 12 nuns in one month, beginning on Good Friday.

They were all members of the Felician Sisters convent in Livonia, outside of Detroit, ranging in ages from 69 to 99, the executive director for mission advancement, Suzanne English, confirmed to CNN on Tuesday. A 13th sister initially survived the virus but passed away from its effects in June.

The women were long-time members of the convent and leave behind a legacy of service, according to their obituaries supplied by English. They all served others through different roles, from teaching to helping at-risk children to playing music to publishing a 586-page book about the history of the convent.

One sister won a commercial script-writing contest for Campbell's Soup with her second-grade class. Another was assigned to the Felician Generalate in Rome twice and worked as secretary in the English section of the Vatican Secretariat of State.

"We grieve for each of our sisters who has passed during the time of the pandemic throughout the province, and we greatly appreciate all of those who are holding us in prayer and supporting us in a number of ways," said Sister Mary Christopher Moore, provincial minister of Our Lady of Hope Province.

The women all lived and worked on the 360-acre campus that was once home to 800 sisters, according to the Global Sisters Report, an independent, non-profit Catholic news publisher. Now, only around 50 reside there, according to English.

English said the Livonia convent is one of 60 convents in the US and Canada, plus a mission in Haiti, where the 469 Felician Sisters of North America reside.

The Global Sisters Report said the death of the 13 nuns in Livonia may be the worst loss of life to a community of religious women in the US since the 1918 influenza pandemic.

At the beginning of the pandemic in March, the convent, like other long-term housing residences, implemented a no-visitors rule and placed restrictions on group activities to help curb the spread of the virus, according to Global Sisters Report.

'It kind of shattered our faith life a little bit'

But the virus spread through the convent and on Good Friday, April 10, came the first death: Sister Mary Luiza Wawrzyniak, 99.

Her death was followed by Sister Celine Marie Lesinski, 92, and Sister Mary Estelle Printz, 95, who both died on Easter Sunday, April 12.

The convent grappled with how they were able to care for each other and only 10 people could attend each funeral, according to Global Sisters Report.

"The faith we share with sisters as they are dying, the prayers we share with sisters as they are dying: We missed all that. It kind of shattered our faith life a little bit." Sister Joyce Marie Van de Vyver told the publication.

At the end of June, the convent lost Sister Mary Danatha (Lottie) Suchyta, 98, to Covid. In total, at least 30 sisters in Livonia were infected with the virus and 17 recovered, English said, citing Sister Noel Marie Gabriel, director of clinical health services for Our Lady of Hope Province.

"Some of our sisters who have had COVID-19 are struggling to recover from a variety of effects, including continuing weakness, respiratory issues and more," a statement released by Felician Sisters in early July read.

In the United States, nearly 142,000 have died from the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally of cases on Tuesday. More than 3.89 million people have been infected with the virus in the US.

The Livonia convent is not the only religious order that has seen the devastating effects of the virus. Sister Mary Ramona (Florence) Borkowski, 93, died of Covid on April 18 at a convent located in Lodi, New Jersey. In 1971, Borkowski founded and became the director of the Felician School for Exceptional Children in Lodi, a position she held until 2018, according to her obituary.

Between April and May, six sisters of different religious orders that lived at Our Lady of the Angels Convent in Greenfield, Wisconsin, died from Covid-19.
The disengagement between India and China hit a roadblock in eastern Ladakh as Chinese troops have not moved back from the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in line with the consensus arrived at during the disengagement talks between both the countries. Seeing this, the Indian Army prepares for a long haul and harsh winter for the high-altitude region.

A massive logistical exercise has started to provide adequate rations and other supplies to its soldiers as the friction areas still remain volatile.

China is not complying with the roadmap for a complete pullback, which was drawn out during the Corps Commander level meet on July 14. The Chinese People's Liberation Army troops have not moved back.

The Indian security establishments said that the Chinese retreated a bit and then returned; so there is a need for "constant verification" of the consensus achieved during the meetings between the Indian and Chinese military delegates.

It has been found that the Indian and Chinese troops have pulled back at Pangong Lake by 2km and Finger 4 is empty. However, the Chinese are still camping on the ridge line. This clearly indicates that the Chinese had camped at Finger 4 that had traditionally been under the Indian control.

The Chinese had come in eight kms into the Indian territory, all the way till Finger 4 from Finger 8. India maintains that the LAC runs through Finger 8. Mountain spurs jutting into the lake are referred to as fingers.

In Galwan Valley, which is called Patrolling Point 14, distance between Indian and Chinese troops is three kms. At Patrolling Point 15, the distance between troops is around 8km.

But in Hot Springs, that is Patrolling Point 17, 40-50 troops on both sides are just 600-800 meters apart. The Chinese Army had retreated as per the consensus, but again returned.

Seeing the Chinese approach, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh while reviewing the Indian Air Force's operational capabilities and deployments at forward locations on Wednesday urged the force to stand ready to handle any eventuality on the border with China.

Singh had said during his address at the inaugural session of the three-day Air Force Commanders' Conference in New Delhi that started on Wednesday.

The minister, during his visit to Ladakh last week, said that India wants peace but there is no guarantee of the final outcome of talks with China. Singh also reviewed the ground situation in the hostile border areas.

India and China are engaged in military and diplomatic deliberations to de-escalate the tense situation in the border areas in Ladakh. The countries are locked in a 10-week-long stand-off at multiple points, hitherto unprecedented along the border.

The Indian delegation's main agenda at the meet was the complete PLA pullback from the Pangong Lake, Depsang and other areas in eastern Ladakh.

China had changed the status quo on the LAC at various places, moving inside the Indian territories. India has objected to it and is taking up the matter with China at all levels.

On June 15, as many as 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese troops were killed in a violent clash in the Galwan Valley.
San Antonio attorney Jon Christian Chris Amberson won a huge arbitration award in 2012 for now-former father-in-law James McAllen Sr. against an oil and gas company that illegally dumped radioactive materials on his Hidalgo County ranch.

Now, though, Amberson could be on the hook to McAllen after an arbitrator in April found the lawyer fraudulently billed millions of dollars in charges, received hourly fees despite claiming he had a contingency fee arrangement and used the attorney-client relationship for his own benefit.

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McAllens lawyers wanted a state district court judge in Hidalgo County to confirm the arbitration award  valued at more than $15 million  at a Tuesday hearing via video conference. The proceeding, however, didnt happen because Ambersons lawyers moved the case to bankruptcy court after an Amberson company involved in the arbitration filed for Chapter 11 Monday.

Amberson and his attorney, Jason Davis, did not respond to requests for comment. The State Bar of Texas website shows Amberson has no public disciplinary history.

We look forward to having the arbitration confirmed by the appropriate court, said San Antonio attorney David Prichard, who represents McAllen in the dispute with Amberson.

Amberson represented McAllen and his various entities in litigation against Forest Oil Corp., which was later acquired by Houstons Sabine Oil and Gas Corp.

McAllen sued in 2005 claiming that a decade earlier, Forest Oil, which extracted natural gas from his 27,000-acre ranch near Linn, had knowingly given him contaminated oil field pipe.

The resulting exposure to radiation, he alleged, caused the loss of part of his right leg to bone cancer and the mysterious death of a black rhinoceros, whose pen was made from the pipe.

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An arbitration panel decided 2-1 for McAllen in 2012. The oil company repeatedly appealed, but the Texas Supreme Court in 2017 upheld the award for $16 million in actual and punitive damages and $6.7 million in attorneys fees, a May court document stated. In addition, a remediation order for the removal of mercury contamination amounted to about $56 million.

Fight over fees

File art

Less than four months after the Supreme Court ruling, Amberson asked the state district court in Hidalgo County to compel McAllen to arbitrate a dispute over attorneys fees. A mediation had been unsuccessful.

The court appointed Austin attorney Tom Collins as arbitrator in 2018. He conducted 10 days of hearings in June and July of 2019 and issued a 54-page decision April 30.

Arbitration awards typically are confidential. But Ambersons lawyers filed a copy of the decision with the court in May when they asked a judge to set aside part of the award or modify it.

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Amberson argued he had a contingency fee agreement with McAllen in the Forest Oil litigation. Under a contingency fee, a lawyer only gets paid if the client is compensated.

Collins concluded that Amberson initially had an hourly fee arrangement before he had McAllen sign a contingent fee agreement. Collins called it a mid-stream change that didnt comply with Texas law.

Despite the change, Collins determined that Amberson continued to collect hourly fees. McAllen paid him more than $2.3 million in fees, Collins said. Amberson said the fees he received were closer to about $1.7 million.

The Amberson Firm thus was not at risk of recovering no fee, Collins wrote, dismissing Ambersons after-the-fact offer to credit the contingent fee claim with the hourly fees paid. Collins, in denying Ambersons claim for a contingency fee, called it unconscionable and unenforceable.

Made-up expenses

McAllen had filed his own claims against Amberson to recover non-existent bonds, retainers and other charges.

Amberson had billed McAllen almost $1.7 million in reimbursable expenses to retain 38 experts for the Forest Oil litigation.

These were made-up expenses, Collins wrote, adding that almost 100% percent of the expert retainers were not paid.

There were other questionable charges billed to McAllen. A month after the filing of the Forest Oil lawsuit, Amberson told McAllen the Hidalgo County district court required a $250,000 bond for the granting of a motion. No such payment was reflected in court records, Collins said in his decision.

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Just days after the Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that an arbitration provision was enforceable, Amberson billed McAllen for a $300,000 appeal bond. There was no such bond, Collins wrote.

In total, Collins found almost $2.6 million in fraudulent charges.

During the arbitration, the decision stated, Amberson agreed that McAllen was entitled to a credit of those charges. The attorney claimed that he and McAllen had an understanding and arrangement that funds were necessary to support Ambersons law firm and family during the litigation with Forest Oil, but Collins found no special understanding.

Secret divorce

In 2005, Ambersons firm took out a line of credit with a bank. McAllen provided the collateral after Amberson said the credit line for almost $2 million would fund expenses in the Forest Oil arbitration. Collins, though, found no evidence the credit was used for that purpose.

McAllen borrowed $2 million to pay off the note in 2012. He also reimbursed Amberson almost $653,000 in interest charges.

McAllen borrowed the money three days before Amberson secretly filed for divorce from McAllens daughter, Collins wrote. Amberson used their initials rather than names in the petition, the court docket shows. The petition would have been a relevant, material fact to McAllen in assessing whether to borrow the $2 million to pay off Ambersons line of credit, Collins added.

Amberson also borrowed $545,000 from McAllen that was never paid back, Collins found. The arbitrator deemed it an improper self-interested transaction by a fiduciary.

Collins determined Amberson should pay McAllen almost $3.6 million for the loan and note.

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In another transaction, Amberson asked McAllen to provide collateral on a loan from Jefferson Bank. Amberson said the loan would help fund the Forest Oil arbitration. McAllen pledged more than $2.2 million in certificates of deposit as collateral.

The transaction breached Ambersons fiduciary duties, Collins said. Amberson had a duty to refrain from self-dealing or to use the attorney-client relationship to benefit his own interests, Collins wrote.

McAllen wanted the arbitrator to award him more than $2.2 million so that he could pay off the Jefferson Bank loan. Collins determined that Amberson was liable to McAllen but couldnt award damages because McAllen still held the collateral.

On June 17, about a month and a half after Collins decision, Jefferson Bank took possession of the collateral, a court document showed.

A Monday court filing refers to McAllen receiving a supplemental award of more than $1.7 million in connection with the Jefferson Bank loan.

Real estate deal

Amberson and McAllen also entered into a complex real estate deal in 2009 as a way for McAllen to defer capital gains taxes, according to Collins.

Amberson created a company called Amberson Natural Resources LLC (ANR) to purchase a 90 percent interest in the entity that owned property, which was not described in Collins decision. ANR paid $4.5 million for the stake. The money was provided by McAllen. A McAllen entity owned the remaining 10 percent, valued at $500,000.

McAllen said the $4.5 million was a loan, while Amberson called it a gift. Collins noted that in Ambersons divorce case, ANR was listed as an asset belonging to the lawyer but assigned no value to it.

Collins declared the $4.5 million a loan and said it would be deemed repaid once ANR returned the 90 percent interest in the property to McAllen. Amberson contends the arbitrator had no authority to decide the dispute.

Amberson put ANR into bankruptcy Monday in San Antonio, filing a bare-bones petition. The litigation in Hidalgo County subsequently was removed to bankruptcy court in the city of McAllen. Its expected to eventually be transferred to San Antonio.

James McAllen is listed as the largest unsecured creditor in the bankruptcy petition, holding claims totaling more than $4.8 million. The claims are marked as disputed.

Excluding ANRs 90 percent interest in the company that owns the property, Collins determined that McAllen and his entities should recover nearly $11.1 million from Amberson.

Patrick Danner Patrick Danner covers banking, insurance, business litigation and bankruptcies. To read more from Patrick, become a subscriber. pdanner@express-news.net | Twitter: @AlamoPD
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

Trend:

The Zionist Federation of Bulgaria has issued a statement about the military provocation committed by the Armenian army on the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border in the direction of Azerbaijans Tovuz district, Trend reports.

The position of the Zionist Federation of Bulgaria reflects the position of Jews and representatives of other nationalities who oppose aggression and oppression, who stand up for democracy, human rights, who support the sovereignty and dignity of all peoples, the statement said.

Concern about the latest act of violence against the sovereign territories of Azerbaijan, the attack of the Armenian army on Azerbaijan in the Tovuz direction, as a result of which 12 Azerbaijani servicemen and one civilian resident of Azerbaijan were killed, was expressed in the document.

Profoundly concerned about the latest provocations of Armenia on the border with Azerbaijan, we, the Zionist Federation of Bulgaria and supporters of the Israeli state, demand an immediate cessation of all military operations and the withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. The aggravation of the struggle in the region in recent days is the result of the fact that the international community cannot influence the resolution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Armenia has violated international humanitarian law by showing disrespect for peace and stability in the region, noted the statement.

We look forward to the end of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the restoration of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan within the internationally recognized borders, the statement said.

Following continuous ceasefire violations of Armenia's armed forces, the country launched another military provocation against Azerbaijan on July 12. Grossly violating the ceasefire regime, Armenian armed forces opened fire in the direction of Azerbaijan's Tovuz district.

As a result of the appropriate measures, the Armenian armed forces were silenced. The tensions continued on the border, July 12 night. During the night battles, by using artillery, mortars and tanks, the Azerbaijani armed forces destroyed a stronghold, army vehicles.

The fighting continued in the following several days as well. Azerbaijan lost several military personnel members, who died fighting off the attacks of the Armenian armed forces. As a result of the shelling, many houses in the Tovuz district's border villages were damaged.

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.
A Marine assigned to President Donald Trump's helicopter squadron has tested positive for the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.

The member of the Virginia-based Marine Helicopter Squadron One was tested for COVID-19 on Tuesday and received positive results on Thursday, Capt. Joe Butterfield, a Marine spokesman at the Pentagon, said. The Marine was on detachment in Bedminster, New Jersey, in support of the White House, he said.

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Trump is scheduled to visit Bedminster this weekend. Politico first reported on the Marine testing positive for COVID-19 ahead of the president's visit.

"Out of an abundance of caution, Marines who may have had contact with the infected Marine have been removed from the detachment," Butterfield said. "The infected Marine was never in direct contact with the president's helicopter, Marine One."

The helicopter squadron routinely tests its members, Butterfield added, performing between 80 and 100 random and targeted tests each month. The infected Marine is asymptomatic, he added, and the Marine Corps and White House Medical Unit are conducting contact tracing to identify anyone else who might have had contact with the Marine.

The helicopter squadron is also sanitizing all its aircraft in New Jersey, following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, Butterfield said.

"No impact is expected to the president during his trip to Bedminster," he added.

This isn't the first time those serving around the president have tested positive for the new coronavirus.

Earlier this month, Kimberly Guilfoyle tested positive for the illness ahead of one of the president's Independence Day events in South Dakota. Guilfoyle works for the Trump campaign and is the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr.

In May, a service member assigned as one of the president's personal valets tested positive for COVID-19, and Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary also had the virus.

-- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.

Related: Military Member Serving as Trump Valet Confirmed to Have Coronavirus
A Texas woman in her 20's caught the coronavirus after she went to a party with friends and unknowingly infected her grandfather, who later passed away from the deadly virus.

Dr. Joseph Chang, the chief medical officer at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas, has revealed the heartbreaking stories that hes seen unfold in the hospitals COVID-19 patient units.

He said the hospital treated 55 percent more COVID-19 patients in July than in June. The spike in infections, a more than 200 percent jump from May, is overwhelming local hospitals.

'There are stories behind each of those statistics,' Chang said to WFAA. 'The human toll of COVID is really the untold story.'

'20-something year old girl went to a party with a friend, got COVID. Before she was symptomatic visited her 80-year-old grandparents and they got sick.'

A Texas woman in her 20's caught the coronavirus after she went to a party with friends and unknowingly infected her grandparents and all three ended up in the ICU unit at Parkland Hospital in Dallas (above). Her grandfather, 80, passed away from the deadly virus while the granddaughter was unconscious and intubated

Chang said all three ended up at the UCI unit.

Dr. Joseph Chang, the chief medical officer at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, said: 'The granddaughter who brought COVID to her grandparents was admitted to the ICU and intubated. Ten days later woke up, but her grandfather had passed a day before'

'The granddaughter who brought COVID to her grandparents was admitted to the ICU and intubated,' he said.

'Ten days later woke up, but her grandfather had passed a day before she woke back up,' he added.

Chang says that stories like these arent only heartbreaking for families, they take a monumental mental and emotional toll on hospital workers scrambling to save lives.

'Ive started mandating people to take time off. I just told them, Im not letting you work today. You need to go home,' he said.

As of July 21 Parkland Hospital was treating 170 patients.

Overall, 75 percent of Parklands patients are Hispanic, 60 percent are under the age of 45 and the hospital has had to open a fourth specialized coronavirus unit.

In Texas 351,600 cases have been reported in the state, and more than 4,300 people have died, as per government data from Wednesday. Registered Respiratory Therapist Niticia Mpanga walks into a Covid patients room in the ICU at Oakbend Medical Center in Richmond, Texas on July 15 above

Dr. Joseph Varon enters a patient wing inside the Coronavirus Unit at United Memorial Medical Center, Monday July 6

Chang says Texas' statewide mask mandate, initiated July 3, has helped level off hospitalizations for the virus and made the community more active and aware in stopping the spread. A couple pictured self swabbing fot COVID-19 at a Parkland Hospital walk-up testing site

In Texas 351,600 cases have been reported in the state, and more than 4,300 people have died, as per government data from Wednesday.

Nationally, there are more than 3.97 million COVID-19 cases and over 143,100 deaths.

But Chang says theres hope as the coronavirus death rate at the hospital is just one percent.

'Only one percent. Thats far lower than nationally reported rates. But behind those numbers are people. And you really dont want it to be you.'

Chang explained that although the hospital is seeing a surge in COVID-19 patients, about the same number of people overcome the virus and leave the hospital.

He attributes this to the Texas statewide mask mandate which went into effect on July 3. He says hes more oprtimistic about the virus now thtat the state seems to be taking the contagious respiratory disease more seriously.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 17:32 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668c9d04 1 People Sheila-Timothy,BenihBaik,street-children,Lifelike-Pictures,donation,fundraising Free

As the country commemorates National Children's Day on Thursday, celebrated producer Sheila Lala Timothy has teamed up with crowdfunding platform BenihBaik.com to raise funds to help street children in Indonesia.

According to a statement, Lala became interested in social issues in the country, especially those related to children, after working on the 2009 film Pintu Terlarang (Forbidden Door), which features child abuse scenes.

Ive seen a high number of child abuse [cases] such as bullying, which always ends up in violence, said Lala in the statement, adding that she hoped to find a solution that could allow all children to grow and live a decent life.

The public can contribute to the initiative by donating through bank transfers, credit cards, Gojeks digital wallet GoPay or other digital payment services.

By Thursday, the funds collected had reached Rp 630,002 (US$43.16) of the Rp 40 million target.

Proceeds from the crowdfunding will be donated to various BenihBaik.com campaigns that focus on the welfare of street children and provide children with nutritious food, school supplies and a learning center.

The donations would also be given to street children communities across Greater Jakarta, Bandung in West Java and Surabaya in East Java.

BenihBaik.com founder Andy F. Noya said street children required special attention. We all also wish to give them valuable activities for their future instead of living on the street, Andy said.

Lala, who cofounded production house Lifelike Pictures in 2008, was featured in Varietys 2020 International Women Impact Report alongside other influential women figures. The company itself has produced several iconic titles, including Pintu Terlarang, Modus Anomali (2012), Tabula Rasa (2014) and Wiro Sableng: Pendekar Kapak Maut Naga Geni 212 (212 Warrior) (2018). (wir/kes)
The U.S. officially surpassed 4 million recorded COVID-19 cases on Thursday, adding 1 million new cases in just the last 15 days, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The actual number of cases is likely much higher, according to federal health officials.

Our best estimate right now is that for every case that was reported, there actually were 10 other infections, Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said last month.

More than 143,700 people have died from the virus in the U.S.  nearly twice as many as Brazil, the country with the second highest number of fatalities.

The milestone comes as 59,600 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the U.S. on Wednesday, roughly 300 short of the countrys peak recorded in mid-April, according to the Covid Tracking Project. While New York was the countrys hotspot early in the pandemic, California, Texas and Florida have emerged as new problem areas, with California surpassing New York as the state with the most cases.

Weve rolled back essentially two months worth of progress with what were seeing in number of cases  in the United States, Dr. Ali Khan, dean of the University of Nebraska Medical Centers College of Public Health, told CNN.

The reported count is accelerating, with the national seven-day average of new daily cases hitting a record 67,429 on Wednesday. It took the country nearly 100 days to count its first 1 million cases, from January 21 to April 28, though many cases went undiagnosed when testing was more sparse in the early days of the pandemic.

President Trump on Tuesday said the virus is likely to get worse before it gets better. He also urged mask wearing, as at least 41 states have now mandated face coverings.

Americas youth will act responsibly, and were asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask. Get a mask, Trump said. Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact, theyll have an effect, and we need everything we can get.

Story continues

At least 27 states have paused or rolled back their reopening plans, while some states hope mask wearing, social distancing, and limiting gatherings can replace second lockdowns.

Masks will help, but I think we need a lot more than masks to contain this epidemic thats running through our country like a freight train, William Haseltine, the chair and president of global health think tank ACCESS Health International, told CNN.

Until we see major changes of behavior and until we see the public health services here stepping forward with many more resources, we arent sure of containing this.

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State Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa has requested a more detailed explanation of why Springfield Technical Community College plans to lay off 21 staff members as part of a plan to cut seven technical programs.

The first-term Democrat from Northampton says that while STCC is not in the First Hampshire District she represents, some of the affected faculty are. She described the technical schools influence as regional.

Sabadosa has sent her request to the college administration and also contacted the office of Carlos Santiago, the state commissioner of higher education.

Faculty contracts expire August 29. Sabadosa said the elimination of degree programs bothers her, but that her main focus at this time is employment.

Were talking about a loss of jobs. In this climate, even one more job loss is devastating. Id like to understand why the college is making these decisions  thats important,' she said.

College president John Cook cited two reasons for the cuts. One was what he described as the ruthless economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which he says will force deep cuts in state financial support, once the 2020-21 Massachusetts state budget is finalized.

The other reason, he said, was low enrollment in the affected programs. Sabadosa said she was disturbed that some of these programs are not offered anywhere else in proximity.

Its continued frustration for us in Western Massachusetts, whenever were told, you can go to Boston or Hartford.' Thats not fair, she said.

Sabadosa met with representatives for the staff and faculty earlier in the week.

As this evolves, we hope to get other legislators involved. Were just getting underway,' she said.

Only a few weeks remain before school begins, but Sabadosa said she is not giving up on a more favorable resolution before the fall semester begins.

This is an unusual year. Colleges are still figuring how how they will handle the fall semester. Theres a lot of room for nimbleness, I would hope, she said.

Cook said the 95 students who are in process of finishing degree work in the seven affected programs will be allowed to finish. It was not clear how that would happen if faculty were eliminated, unless they came back at an adjunct level, which at least one faculty member said he could not afford.

STCC will no longer offer automotive technology, biomedical engineering technology, biotechnology, civil engineering technology, cosmetology, dental assistant training and landscape design and management technology.

Cook and advocates of the programs disagree on the level of interest. Supporters say enrollment, registration and inquiry numbers have remained stable or increased. The president said they still remain low in comparison to other programs they are being kept.

Advocates also say that while state budget cuts are anticipated, the absence of a final state budget means jobs and programs are being lost without specific numbers to justify it. Cook said he had to finalize a college budget and that expecting anything less than deep cuts in state funding was unrealistic.

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Kansas, which hasn't elected a Democratic senator since the 1930s, is an unlikely battleground. But President Donald Trump's slide in the polls and a potential Kobach nomination would give Democrats their clearest shot at a seat there in decades - all at a time when Republicans are increasingly concerned about the security of their three-seat majority in the chamber.
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: 23 July 2020 Number of Public Shares purchased: 26,441 Shares Highest Price Paid Per Share: 1,988 pence 25.36 USD Lowest Price Paid Per Share: 1,960 pence 25.00 USD Average Price Paid Per Share: 1,972 pence 25.15 USD Ticker: PSHD Date of Purchase: 23 July 2020 Number of Public Shares purchased: 8,145 Shares Highest Price Paid Per Share: 25.13 USD Lowest Price Paid Per Share: 25.13 USD Average Price Paid Per Share: 25.13 USD Trading Venue: Euronext Amsterdam Ticker: PSH Date of Purchase: 23 July 2020 Number of Public Shares purchased: 28,265 Shares Highest Price Paid Per Share: 25.40 USD Lowest Price Paid Per Share: 25.00 USD Average Price Paid Per Share: 25.11 USD

PSH will hold these Public Shares in Treasury. The net asset value per Public Share related to this buyback is 36.08 USD 28.33 GBP which was calculated as of 21 July 2020 (the "Relevant NAV"). After giving effect to the above buyback, PSH has 194,673,420 Public Shares outstanding, or 200,645,811 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 16,283,330 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/20200723005784/en/

Contacts:

Media Contact

Camarco

Ed Gascoigne-Pees Hazel Stevenson +44 020 3757 4989, media-pershingsquareholdings@camarco.co.uk
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After Ali's demise, the family has sought compensation, asserting that contractual workers are not provided with help despite being at the forefront in the fight against the disease.Meanwhile, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra took to twitter and said, "Dr. Javed Ali and all the doctors offer their services during this crisis by betting on their lives. He was serving on contract."She further demanded, "It is time to stand with the families of these martyrs. The government should help Dr. Javed's family in every way possible."Source: IANS
Izuchukwu Madubueze, a Nigerian entrepreneur, shot himself dead in Florida over an allegation of sexual assault, US police has revealed....

Izuchukwu Madubueze, a Nigerian entrepreneur, shot himself dead in Florida over an allegation of sexual assault, US police has revealed.





The Punch reports that Travis Sibley, spokesman for the Pinellas County Sheriffs office, confirmed the development while speaking on the circumstances surrounding Izus death.





Sibley noted that the Nigerian died after what seemed a self-inflicted gunshot wound last week in a suspected case of suicide.





Izuchukwu Madubueze was the victim of what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound on July 16, 2020. The case is open and active and no further information will be provided at this time, he said.





The 23-year-old creative designers death comes after Nanichi Anese, a self-acclaimed female rights activist, had included him in a list of sexual offenders which she published on her Twitter page in June.





Izu, worried by the allegation, was said to have contacted Anese for clarification on whom his accuser was, noting he had not sexually abused anyone before.





The self-acclaimed influencer, however, declined to reveal the identify of Izus accuser, claiming she had promised not to divulge the details.





The development was said to have culminated into frustration for the young Nigerian who would later announce in a scheduled tweets that he had taken his own life.





on Twitter with many calling on appropriate authorities to ensure those behind his death were brought to book. His death had provoked outrageon Twitter with many calling on appropriate authorities to ensure those behind his death were brought to book.





Izus family, in a statement on Wednesday, expressed sadness over his death, adding that the unproven allegation had negatively affected him and Uhuru Designz, his company.





Sincerely, a part of us has been chipped away forever. Izu was a truly inspiring and kind-hearted young man, who always tried to positively impact the lives of everyone he came across. He was accused of non-physical sexual assault and his name added to an unauthorised sex offenders/rape list, the statement read.





Pleading his innocence, Izu tried his best to reach out to his anonymous accuser and the peddler of this list, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. He battled with the unimaginable pain of seeing his credible name and brand, which he laboured to build for six years, go to waste over these questionable allegations, which go against his family and societal values. Broken by the stigma of these events, he chose to depart this world.





The family also called for investigation into Izus death, noting such would serve as a deterrent to people who accuse others of sexual assaults with sinister motives.




It's comprehensive de-escalation, withdrawal of foreign troops and weapons, disarmament of illegal armed groups, restoring control of the border.

The Ukrainian President's Office has named conditions that must be met for local elections to be held in certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, now being occupied by Russia-led forces.

That's according to a statement by the press service of the President's Office issued following a regular meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group (Ukraine, Russia, and OSCE) on Donbas settlement held via video conference Wednesday.

Within the political subgroup, it was emphasized that a complete and comprehensive ceasefire is a basic prerequisite for political settlement.

Read alsoZelensky approves amendments to Electoral Code: main points

"Elections in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine are possible only under the following conditions: after a comprehensive de-escalation, withdrawal of foreign military units and equipment, disarmament of illegal armed groups, and restoring Ukrainian government control over the Ukrainian-Russian border," the statement reads.

Elections must be held exclusively in accordance with Ukrainian legislation, the Office said, adding that they must also be in line with the OSCE Copenhagen standards.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

Trend:

Azerbaijanis living in Atlanta, the administrative center of the US Georgia state, held a protest against Armenias military provocations on the state border in the direction of Azerbaijans Tovuz and the occupation of Azerbaijani lands by this aggressive country, Trend reports with reference to the State Committee on Affairs with Diaspora of Azerbaijan.

The protest was held with the organizational support of Azerbaijanis living in Atlanta and Alabama cities. The act took place in front of the Congress building, where the members of the Legislative Assembly (Senators) of Georgia state sit, the message said.

Posters prepared by our compatriots with the slogans "End of Armenia's occupation policy!", "Karabakh is Azerbaijan!", "Armenia is a terrorist!" and others, as well as with photographs of martyrs who died during military provocations in the Tovuz direction were demonstrated at the action. The protesters demanded to put an end to the occupational and aggressive policy of Armenia, said the message.

The memory of Azerbaijani soldiers and civilians who died as a result of military provocations was honored. During the action, support was expressed for the Azerbaijani state and army, and an appeal was made to the members of the Congress to take decisive steps to liberate Nagorno-Karabakh and seven neighboring regions from the Armenian occupation and restore the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, the message noted.

Following continuous ceasefire violations of Armenia's armed forces, the country launched another military provocation against Azerbaijan on July 12. Grossly violating the ceasefire regime, Armenian armed forces opened fire in the direction of Azerbaijan's Tovuz district.

As a result of the appropriate measures, the Armenian armed forces were silenced. The tensions continued on the border, July 12 night. During the night battles, by using artillery, mortars and tanks, the Azerbaijani armed forces destroyed a stronghold, army vehicles.

The fighting continued in the following several days as well. Azerbaijan lost several military personnel members, who died fighting off the attacks of the Armenian armed forces. As a result of the shelling, many houses in the Tovuz district's border villages were damaged.

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.
Photo: The Canadian Press

A judge on Thursday ordered the release of President Donald Trumps former personal lawyer from prison, saying the government retaliated against him for planning to release a book critical of Trump before November's election.

Michael Cohen's First Amendment rights were violated when he was ordered back to prison on July 9 after probation authorities said he refused to sign a form banning him from publishing the book or communicating publicly in other manners, U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said during a telephone conference.

Hellerstein ordered Michael Cohen released from prison to home confinement by 2 p.m. on Friday.

How can I take any other inference than that its retaliatory? Hellerstein asked prosecutors, who insisted in court papers and again Thursday that Probation Department officers did not know about the book when they wrote a provision of home confinement that severely restricted Cohen's public communications.

Ive never seen such a clause in 21 years of being a judge and sentencing people and looking at terms of supervised release, the judge said. Why would the Bureau of Prisons ask for something like this ... unless there was a retaliatory purpose?"

In ruling, Hellerstein said he made the finding that the purpose of transferring Mr. Cohen from furlough and home confinement to jail is retaliatory. He added: And its retaliatory for his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish the book.

Cohen, 53, sued federal prison officials and Attorney General William Barr on Monday, saying he was ordered back to prison because he was writing a book: Disloyal: The True Story of Michael Cohen, Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump.

The Bureau of Prisons issued a spirited defence of its intentions after the ruling Thursday, calling any assertion that the reimprisonment of Cohen was a retaliatory action is patently false.

It said the terms of his home confinement were determined by the U.S. Probation Office, which is run by the courts, rather than the bureau.

During this process, Mr. Cohen refused to agree to the terms of the program, specifically electronic monitoring. In addition, he was argumentative, was attempting to dictate the conditions of his monitoring, including conditions relating to self-employment, access to media, use of social media and other accountability measures, the statement said.

The Bureau of Prisons also said it was not uncommon for it to place restrictions on inmates' contact with the media. Still, it said Cohen's refusal to agree to those conditions or his intent to publish a book played no role whatsoever in his return to prison.

In a written declaration, Cohen said his book will provide graphic and unflattering details about the Presidents behaviour behind closed doors, including a description of anti-Semitic and virulently racist remarks against Black leaders including President Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela, South Africas first Black president.

He said he worked openly on his manuscript until May at Otisville's prison library and discussed his book with prison officials. He said he was told in April that a lawyer for the Trump Organization, where he worked for a decade, was claiming he was barred from publishing his book by a non-disclosure agreement. Cohen disputes that.

Cohen has been in isolation at an Otisville, New York, prison camp, quarantined while prison authorities ensure he does not have the coronavirus.

Prosecutors declined through a spokesperson to comment on Hellerstein's ruling.

Cohen's attorney, Danya Perry, said in a statement that Hellerstein's order was a victory for the First Amendment and showed that the government cannot block a book critical of the president as a condition of release to home confinement.

This principle transcends politics and we are gratified that the rule of law prevails," she said.

Cohen was initially released in May along with other prisoners as authorities tried to slow the spread of the COVID-19 in federal prisons.

He was one year into a three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to campaign finance charges and lying to Congress, among other crimes.

Campaign finance charges stemmed from his efforts to arrange payouts during the 2016 presidential race to keep the porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal from making public claims of extramarital affairs with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs.
Iran urged to release rights activist with COVID-19 symptoms 'before it is too late'

07/23/20

Source: UN News

A group of independent UN human rights experts has called for Iran to urgently release an activist who reportedly is ill with COVID-19 symptoms "before it is too late".

 #Iran must release human rights defender #NargesMohammadi, reportedly ill with #coronavirus symptoms, and other arbitrarily detained individuals before it is too late - UN experts.



Ms. Mohammadi should not be in prison in the first place.



Learn more: https://t.co/V3g7kZpIBl pic.twitter.com/hYaoj9mCKa  UN Special Procedures (@UN_SPExperts) July 22, 2020

They said Narges Mohammadi appears to have contracted the virus in Zanjan Prison, located in the capital, Tehran, where she is serving a 16-year sentence stemming from her work on human rights.

She has been in detention since 2015 and was sentenced in May 2016.

'Life-or-death consequences'

"We are extremely concerned for Ms. Mohammadi's well-being. We previously raised concerns that she and other individuals in Iranian prisons are at great risk if they contract COVID-19 and we called for their immediate release", the experts said on Wednesday.

"For those with underlying health conditions, such as Ms. Mohammadi, it may have life-or-death consequences. The Iranian authorities must act now before it is too late."

Ms. Mohammadi showed the first symptoms of COVID-19 on 29 June, according to the experts. Her condition deteriorated and she suffered a loss of consciousness on 5 July.

Check-up video 'violation'

The rights experts said Ms. Mohammadi should receive the results of the COVID-19 test she took, three days later, and she also should be moved to a hospital for proper care. One of her cellmates has tested positive for the disease and others have displayed symptoms.

"We also deplore the publishing of a video by State-affiliated media which claims to portray Ms. Mohammadi receiving a medical check-up by a doctor, reportedly to suggest that she is in good health. This video represents a violation of Ms. Mohammadi's privacy rights and has no value as its content cannot be verified in any way", they added.

Fear of more cases

The UN experts are also concerned that there may be more COVID-19 cases in Iranian prisons, as inmates previously released on furlough have returned to prison, amid a second wave of COVID-19 in the country.

While they had previously commended a government policy granting temporary release to prisoners, as a means to reduce the disease's impacts in jails, the experts were worried that human rights activists and others held without sufficient legal basis, had not benefited.

"Ms. Mohammadi should not be in prison in the first place", they said. "The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that her detention is arbitrary and called for her immediate release in 2017. Not only do the Iranian authorities continue to imprison her, they have in the past year denied her contact with her family and are also seeking to prosecute her under new charges in order to continue her unlawful imprisonment."

"We yet again call on Iran to immediately release Ms. Mohammadi, as well as all others who are currently denied their right to liberty in contravention of Iran's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."

The 16 experts calling for her release were appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. Their mandates cover specific country situations or thematic issues.

They are neither UN staff, nor are they paid by the Organization.
Wrexhams playgrounds and outdoor gyms to re-open from Friday

This article is old - Published: Thursday, Jul 23rd, 2020

Childrens playgrounds and outdoor gyms across Wrexham are set to re-open to the public from tomorrow.

The facilities have been closed since March due to the coronavirus outbreak and lockdown restrictions.

However last Friday First Minister Mark Drakeford confirmed that playgrounds, funfairs and community centres in Wales will be able to re-open from this week.

In line with Welsh Government lifting of restrictions there will be rules that must be adhered too for everyones safety, all of these will be sign posted around these facilities.

The following guidance has been issued by Wrexham Council:-

 If the play area facility you visit has not yet officially opened, please do not attempt to use, or access the equipment or area

 Do not remove any temporary barriers to the play area or remove cable ties that may have been used to secure an entrance or equipment  this must be done safely by WCBC staff

 Follow the current social distancing guidelines when visiting and encourage your children to do the same

 If the play area is busy, consider coming back at a later time. Talk to your children about this possibility before you arrive to avoid disappointment

 Wash your own and your childrens hands before and after visiting the play area. Take hand sanitiser with you and consider taking a bottle of water if your childs hands get muddy

 Follow and adhere to all current government advice in addition to the above guidance and pay attention to all information signage placed at the entrance gates.

Lead member for the Environment and Transport, Councillor David A Bithell said: Re-opening the play areas will be welcomed by parents particularly as the summer holidays are now upon us, however, I would urge everyone to be cautious and follow the guidelines in order to keep everyone safe.

Please be aware that all buildings related to these sites will remain closed until further notice.
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KIEV, Ukraine  Rather than backing down after last weeks downing of a civilian passenger jet, Russia appears to be intervening more aggressively in the war in eastern Ukraine in what American and Ukrainian officials call a dangerous escalation that will almost certainly force more robust retaliation from the United States and Europe.

Russia has increased its direct involvement in fighting between the Ukrainian military and separatist insurgents, moving more of its own troops to the border and preparing to arm the rebels with ever more potent weapons, including high-powered Tornado rocket launchers, American and Ukrainian officials said on Friday.

The officials, citing satellite images and other military intelligence, said that Russia had positioned heavy weapons, including tanks and other combat vehicles, at several points along the border where there has been intense fighting. On Thursday, Russia unleashed artillery attacks on eastern Ukraine from Russian territory, officials in Washington and Kiev said. While Russia flatly denied accelerating its intervention on Friday, American and Ukrainian officials said Moscow appeared anxious to stem gains by government forces that have succeeded in retaking some rebel-held territory.

The reported Russian moves raised the prospect of a new and more perilous chapter opening in a conflict that has already inflamed the region and, with the destruction of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 with 298 aboard, stunned the world. American officials blamed a Russian-provided surface-to-air missile for the explosion and hoped the shock of the episode would prompt the Kremlin to rethink its approach, but they are increasingly convinced it has not.
BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - German consumer confidence is set to improve in August, survey data from market research group GfK showed Thursday. The forward-looking consumer sentiment index rose to -0.3 points from revised -9.4 in July. The expected reading was -5.0. Gfk said German consumers are gradually putting the coronavirus shock of earlier this year behind them. A V-shaped trend is currently emerging for the consumer climate. While economic expectations gained slightly, income expectations and the propensity to buy increased significantly for the third consecutive time. The economic expectations index rose 2.1 points to 10.6 in July. At the same time, the income expectations indicator climbed to 18.6 in July from 6.6 in June. The propensity to buy climbed 23.1 points to 42.5 in July. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
The impact of the strained relations between India and China in the wake of Galwan valley faceoff is apparent on the Nalanda University, an international institution funded by the Central government in the foothills of Rajjgir, around 100 kms from Patna, to recreate the glory ancient Nalanda epitomized.

Since the end of term of the Chinese representative on the Nalanda governing board Prof Wang Bangwei in November 2019, there has been no replacement or extension. Sources said it was unlikely in the present atmosphere.

Prof Wang Bangwei is professor and director of the Institute of Oriental Studies and Oriental Literature Research Center at Peking University. He had been the member of the Nalanda University governing board since its inception and had been involved with the setting up of the institution.

His term ended November, 2019. At present, there is no Chinese representative. It is not decided at the university level. We have representatives from other Asian countries, said Nalanda University VC Sunaina Singh.

Ancient Nalanda had profound influence of China. The Chinese traveller Hieun Tsang (now Xuan Zang) stayed here in the 7th century AD and left a detailed description of the excellence of educational system and purity of monastic life practiced here. He also gave a vivid account of both the ambience and architecture of this unique university.

It was the reason China was involved with the evolution of New Nalanda University. The NU governing board had also held its third meeting in Beijing, October 14-15, 2011. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had hosted the stay of the governing board in Beijing and arranged for their visit to Xian.

Bangweis research included textual studies of Buddhist literature (of Sanskrit and its Chinese translation), history of Buddhism (both of China and of India), Sino-Indian cultural interactions particularly those topics related to Buddhism, accounts of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to IndiaFaxian, Xuanzang and Yijingand the historical and religious sources related to these accounts.

The proposed Xuanzang centre for Asian Studies with the Chinese collaboration also remains a non-starter. Former Nalanda University Chancellor George Yeo had signed an MoU with Peking University president Lin Jianhua on May 26, 2016 during Pesident Pranab Mukherjees China visit.

Later, the Consulate General of Peoples Republic of China in Kolkata Ma Zhanwu had also visited the university to work out the modalities, but after that nothing happened, while China came up with its own version of Nalanda University, Nanhai Buddhist College on Nanshan Mountains in Hainan Province in 2017.

Nothing has happened on the Xuanzang centre. It remained still born since its inception. We are starting two new centres - Centre for Bay of Bengal Studies and Centre for Conflict Resolution this year, said the VC, adding the university did not have any student or faculty member from China, though there were quite a few from East Asian Asian countries and even Cambodia and Romania.

China had also initially pledged $1miilion for the library. However, with Singapore coming forward to fund the library, the money was to be used for the Xuanzang centre.

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Congress MLA from Bhopal Central, Arif Masood, on Thursday (July 23) opposed the Madhya Pradesh government decision to impose a 10-day lockdown in the state capital. The lockdown in Bhopal will come into effect from 8 AM on Friday (July 24) and will remain in force until 8 AM on August 4.

Masood said that the decision reminds him of German dictator Hitler's regime, adding that the state government is trying to scare people in the name of coronavirus COVID-19. Masood added that he will launch a protest against the government's decision. The Congress MLA also urged the people to protest against the state government's decision on social media.

Masood said that he had also met Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra to register his protest against the lockdown decision in Bhopal. The Congress leader added that he had also submitted a letter to Mishra expressing his displeasure over the government's decision to impose lockdown at the time of Eid ul Adha and Rakshabandhan without consulting the local leaders.

Masood asserted that Eid ul Adha will be cleebrated across the country and people will definitely sacrifice the animals. The Congress leader launched a direct attack on the BJP-led government in the state and said that he condemns the government for trying to stop the people from celebrating Eid ul Adha. Masood added that this is dictatorship and he opposes this decision.
Dhaka, July 24 : Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday inaugurated the worlds biggest rehabilitation project for the climate refugees in Coxs Bazar.

While opening the project, the Prime Minister said to the dwellers, largely comprising the fishermen community, "I love to eat 'shutki' (dry fish) and will come to enjoy it with you all." The Prime Minister reiterated her steadfast commitment to ensure housing for all, including the people hit by flood and river erosion.

"We're celebrating the 'Mujib Barsho', marking the birth centenary of the Father of the Nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Our aim in his birth centenary is that not a single person will remain homeless. We'll construct a house, even a 'chala' (shed), for every person. That is our goal," Hasina said.

The Prime Minister on Thursday opened special structures built under the 'Khurushkul Ashrayan Project' in Cox's Bazar for 600 climate refugees.

At the inauguration function, some of the beneficiaries were handed over the keys to the 456 sq ft flats.

The beneficiaries were mostly the fishermen's family members, the victims of the devastating cyclone of 1991 which forced them to take refuge at the crammed shanties in the Cox's Bazar airport area.

Each family will get a 456.07 sq ft flat in exchange of 1,001 Bangladeshi taka. All the buildings are equipped with ramp system for people with disabilities, solar panels, safe drinking water facility, electricity, sanitation, waste management, drainage and gas connection.

The ground floor of the new buildings has been kept vacant so that floodwater and tidal surge can damage nothing. The accommodations also include tube-wells and rainwater harvesting system.

A total of 4,409 climate refugee families will be rehabilitated at the site in 139 five-storied buildings under the Khurushkul Ashrayan scheme being implemented by the Bangladesh Army on 253.59 acres of land at a cost of 1,800 crore taka as part of the Ashrayan Project-2.

Since the Ashrayan Project was launched in 1997, the Khurushkul scheme has emerged as the country's largest rehabilitation project.

The Khurushkul project will have 4 zones -- residential, tourism, dry fish processing zone or 'shutki mahal' and a buffer precinct with greenery.

Referring to the ongoing flood situation in the country, Hasina said, "We know that the menace of flood is being seen a little bit more (this season). This is the Bengali month of 'Shraban' and more water will come in 'Bhadra', meaning that the country may witness more flooding in August-September." The Prime Minister said that her government has allocated money separately in the budget for constructing houses for the homeless people so that no single person remains homeless.

"We're working in this way and I would like to tell the people of entire Bangladesh that not a single person will stay homeless," she said.
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What are the new rules on face masks in England? You must already wear a face mask on: Public transport (since June 15) You must wear them from tomorrow in: All shops

Banks

Coffee shops (if getting takeaway)

Restaurants (if getting takeaway)

Takeaways You do not have to wear one in: Restaurants (if eating in)

Open spaces Advertisement

British hospitality chiefs have today slammed the Government for flip-flopping on face masks after being given a day's notice that customers must wear them when collecting food or drink in takeaways - not just in shops - from tomorrow.

Thousands of stores in England are not expected to enforce the rules, with No 10 facing a possible U-turn amid confusion and mixed messages from ministers over where Britons will have to wear the coverings.

There was added confusion when Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss were photographed in Pret wearing masks - shortly after Michael Gove picked up his lunch without one.

In the latest advice, Northern Ireland minister Brandon Lewis said today that masks must be worn in shops, banks and when picking up a takeaway - but not if eating in at a restaurant offering takeaways.

Kate Nicholls, chief executive for UK Hospitality, told BBC Breakfast this morning: 'When the measure on making face masks and face coverings mandatory was announced ten, 11 days ago, we did have two different messages coming out.

'The Health Secretary suggested that you would need to have a face covering if you were going in for a takeaway. Number 10 later in the day said that you would not, and that they would be treated as hospitality businesses, because they are hospitality, they're not retail.

'We've now got a different message coming out from a Government minister today, which is 24 hours before the industry needs to act.

'So we will of course do everything we can in our power to get ready in that time, to make sure that the messages are communicated, but we haven't had that gap to get ready because we were told ten, 11 days ago that you're hospitality, not retail.'

It comes nine days after Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on July 14 that wearing a face mask in shops and supermarkets will be compulsory from tomorrow, with anyone failing to comply facing a fine of up to 100.

But the new rules will only be published today, less than 24 hours before they come into effect, with hospitality chiefs accusing ministers of 'two different messages coming out' and not providing enough clarity.

Conservative MP and Cabinet minister Brandon Lewis told BBC Breakfast this morning that masks will be required in supermarkets, banks and when picking up a takeaway - but not if eating in at a restaurant offering takeaways

Prime Minister Boris Johnson talks with a paramedic as he visits headquarters of the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust last week on July 13 while wearing a mask

A woman wears a protective face mask in a McDonald's restaurant in London yesterday after more than 700 restaurants of the fast-food chain reopened with a dine-in service

A woman wearing a mask walks among other shoppers - some wearing masks - on London's Oxford Street yesterday

He added: 'If you're going into an outlet, even if they've got areas where you can sit and eat, if you're eating at the outlet then obviously you don't need a facemask.

Q&A: What you need to know about face masks Face coverings will be mandatory in shops and supermarkets from tomorrow. Under the new rules, people will need to have their nose and mouth covered or face a fine of up to 100. People with certain disabilities will be exempt. This comes after rules requiring people to wear face coverings on public transport became mandatory last month. Initially many experts and authorities, including the World Health Organisation (WHO), suggested face coverings were not effective in preventing the spread of Covid-19 but are now recommending wearing them in indoor spaces. - Has there been confusion over the new rules? Yes, opposition MPs have said it needs to be clarified whether customers have to wear face coverings in takeaways and sandwich shops in England. The criticism came after days of mixed messages with the Health Secretary and Boris Johnson's official spokesman contradicting each other on the matter. The Daily Telegraph reported early today that people using sandwich shops and takeaways will be required to wear a mask, and buying food from the counter and then sitting down to eat inside the shop will be banned. But the Government refused to confirm the report ahead of the formal announcement. - What does the science say about face coverings? A report recently published by the Royal Society suggests that even basic homemade face coverings can reduce transmission if enough people wear them when in public. The study, based on mathematical modelling, showed that if an entire population wore face coverings that were only 75% effective, it would bring the R value, which is the number of people an infected individual passes the virus on to, from 4.0 to under 1.0, without the need for lockdowns. Another Royal Society report suggests the use of cotton masks is associated with a 54% lower odds of infection in comparison to the no mask groups, when tested in a healthcare setting. Melinda Mills, Nuffield professor of sociology, at the University of Oxford, told a webinar: 'So that should suggest that when you're generally in the public that it should offer you some, not 100 per cent, but it does offer you some protection.' Meanwhile, another study which looked at coronavirus deaths across 198 countries found that nations which had policies favouring mask-wearing had lower death rates. In another piece of scientific research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last month, scientists calculated that wearing face coverings prevented more than 78,000 infections in Italy between April 6 and May 9, and more than 66,000 infections in New York City between April 17 and May 9. - What are the benefits to wearing them? Experts say the risk of coronavirus transmission appears to be higher in poorly ventilated indoor spaces and wearing face coverings in small shops or enclosed shopping centres could help reduce the spread. Keith Neal, emeritus professor of the epidemiology of infectious diseases at the University of Nottingham, said: 'Lack of strong evidence of their effectiveness should not be considered a problem but the evidence is accumulating that they have a part to play in reducing transmission and also in protecting the wearer.' In addition, there is also increased evidence which suggests that many people with the virus who do not have symptoms can still be contagious. - What do people need to know about wearing masks? Ideally the face coverings should be made of multilayer high quality cotton. Where possible they should be should be worn in indoor confined spaces and crowded spaces, especially where social distancing cannot be maintained. Japan follows the three Cs, closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact settings. When wearing a face covering, it should cover the mouth and nose with no gaps. - Are some face coverings better than others? The Who advises a three-layer face covering in the community - the outer layer should be water resistant, the inner should be water absorbent and the mid-layer acts as a filter. It emphasises that a face covering alone cannot protect people from Covid-19, and must be combined with social distancing of at least a metre and regular hand washing. The Government has said coverings can be made from scarves, bandanas or other fabric items, as long as they cover the mouth and nose. But scientists at the Leverhulme Centre, who studied different types of face coverings used by members of the public, say some coverings are not as effective as others, with loosely woven fabrics, such as scarves, shown to be the least effective. Prof Mills, director of the Leverhulme Centre, said: 'Attention must also be placed on how well it fits on the face; it should loop around the ears or around the back of the neck for better coverage.' - What are the main messages about face coverings? Prof Mills says cloth coverings are an effective way to protect the wearer and those around them. She says that face masks and coverings cannot be seen in isolation and are part of a package that involves hand hygiene and social distancing. Consistent and effective public messaging is vital, she concluded. Advertisement

Mr Lewis, who is the Northern Ireland Secretary, told BBC Breakfast this morning: 'What changes from tomorrow is we are saying people from tomorrow, you should wear face masks if you are in shops or supermarkets.

'The difference that people may not have been aware of, and what will be outlined in the regulations today, is if you are going into a takeaway, and you are eating in somewhere that has got a takeaway, then that is like hospitality, you are eating, it's not practical to wear a face mask, we recognise that.

'But if you're going in to buy a product and leaving again, then you are treating it like a shop, and you should be wearing a face mask.'

'If you're buying your sandwich or whatever it is and leaving again, you're treating it like a shop and you should be wearing a face mask.'

Asked about wearing masks in banks, Mr Lewis said: 'Yes, because the idea with wearing a face mask and the point around retail outlets and takeaways and supermarkets as of tomorrow, it's this balance.

'It's about looking at where you come into contact in a confined or more enclosed space for a longer period of time.

'When you're outside, when you're in fresh air, when you're moving around, obviously the virus is less likely to transmit.

'When you're in a more enclosed environment, like public transport, like retail, and you're in that space with other people, strangers for a bit longer, then it is right and appropriate to wear a face mask.'

Pressed on whether face masks were definitely required in banks, Mr Lewis said: 'That's my understanding, yes.'

BBC presenter Charlie Stayt then asked him: 'OK, so you're not sure about that?'

Mr Lewis replied: 'As I say, it's all retail outlets, and yes, retail banks on our high streets are retail outlets effectively as well.'

It is understood that the Government is aiming to clear up the confusion on food establishments later and confirm takeaways with seating indoors will be treated the same as other shops and customers will have to wear a mask.

A Government source told the Telegraph that only eateries with table service will not require masks, adding: 'You have to sit down straight away if you are going to eat in. If you can sit at a table you don't need to wear a mask.'

Under the new regulations, people will need to have their nose and mouth covered or be liable for a fine of up to 100. However, those with certain disabilities will be exempt.

They will bring bring England into line with Scotland, where face coverings are already mandatory in shops.

However the rules on face masks came after days of confusion in Government last week about where and when they should be used, with Mr Hancock and the Prime Minister contradicting each other on the matter.

The Health Secretary said last week: 'You do need to wear a face mask in Pret because Pret is a shop. If there's table service, it is not necessary to have a mask.

'But in any shop, you do need a mask. So, if you're going up to the counter in Pret to buy takeaway that is a shop.'

But the Prime Minister's official spokesman later said: 'We will be publishing the full guidance shortly but my understanding is that it wouldn't be mandatory if you went in, for example, to a sandwich shop in order to get a takeaway to wear a face covering.

'It is mandatory ... we are talking about supermarkets and other shops rather than food shops.'

Despite changes to the law, stores have said they will not enforce the rules themselves, as reported by the Daily Mirror.

Since the lockdown violence against retail workers have risen by an alarming 40 per cent, with shop bosses fearing that asking unruly shoppers to put on a mask could exacerbate the situation.

The Association of Convenience Stores chief executive James Lowman said: 'We are helping retailers to communicate the rules around face coverings as widely as possible to customers, but have advised our members not to challenge customers who are unwilling to wear one.

'The safety of retailers and their colleagues is our number one priority and we are keen to avoid any potential flashpoints of abuse in stores.'

The ACS is issuing posters with the words 'thank you for wearing a face mask' and signs explaining why some people may be exempt. '

Metropolitan Police chief Dame Cressida Dick has already said she hoped shoppers will instead be 'shamed' into wearing face masks in stores.

Speaking to LBC radio yesterday, Dame Cressida urged shoppers to take the initiative and wear a mask, but said if shop keepers are concerned and 'have tried everything else', her officers will try to assist.

'Calling the police should be a last resort for dealing with a mask issue. But of course the law is the law,' she said.

Sadiq Khan welcomes blanket use of face masks Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has welcomed the Government's 'U-turn' in making face coverings compulsory in shops. He told the PA news agency: 'I've been lobbying the Government since early April on the importance of wearing face coverings on public transport and in confined spaces indoors, I'm pleased they finally moved, I welcome the U-turn. 'For more than a month now it's been mandatory to wear face masks on public transport, we've got more than a 90% compliance rate, fantastic. 'From the 24th of July, at long last, it's compulsory to wear a face covering in shops, long overdue. 'The evidence is quite clear, wearing a face coverage stops you passing the virus on particularly if you're pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic. 'I think it's really important, everyone across the country follows this advice, and in fact it's the law now, and us doing so will keep the virus under control'. Advertisement

'My hope is that the vast majority of people will comply, and that people who are not complying will be shamed into complying or shamed to leave the store by the store keepers or by other members of the public.

'If somebody is concerned about what is going on in their store, yes, of course they should call the police and we will try to assist.'

British Retail Consortium chief executive Helen Dickinson said: 'While retailers will play their part in communicating the new rules on face coverings, they must not be the ones enforcing them.

Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Munira Wilson said that with just a day to go to the new rules being enforced, the Government was in a mess.

She said: 'People need a Government that can offer genuine reassurances and steer the country to safety.

'After all, clear communication is critical in a public health crisis. Instead, this confusion on guidance shows Ministers simply could not organise a bun fight in a bakery.

'All this stinks of ministers making it up as they go along instead of listening to the experts.

'The Government must urgently provide the clarity businesses need to operate and people need to feel safe.'

Passengers have been required to wear face coverings on public transport in England since last month.

Former head of the civil service Lord O'Donnell told peers on Wednesday the Government needed to improve its communications.

Giving evidence to the Lords Public Services Committee, he said: 'If anyone knows what the clear message on masks is, please tell me.'

An employee wearing PPE including a mask and visor serves a customer at a Greggs bakery in London on June 18

Conservative MP Michael Gove finally fell into line by wearing a mask in Westminster last week (left, on July 15) - after being pictured going into a Pret in London with a bare face one day earlier (right, on July 14)

Chancellor Rishi Sunak posted a picture of himself on July 15 wearing a covering while getting a takeaway from Pret

Last week ministers caused chaos with a serious of contradictory statements and actions regarding face coverings.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak and International Trade Secretary Liz Truss, for example, were pictured wearing masks at a Pret a Manger in Westminster  while Michael Gove was photographed in the sandwich shop without one.

Then last Wednesday morning Matt Hancock announced coverings would be compulsory in sandwich shops such as Pret a Manger.

The response sparked anger from Mayor of London Mr Khan, who tweeted: 'This is frankly ridiculous. The virus doesn't know if you're in a take-away or a supermarket.

'The Government is risking the health of the public to cover the back of a Cabinet Minister. Please wear a face covering in all shops and takeaways.'

Mr Gove finally fell into line by wearing an NHS-branded face covering in Whitehall - having sparked a furore by publicly making clear he did not think they should be required by law, and being spotted in a sandwich shop without one.

Later last Wednesday the Health Secretary was contradicted by Downing Street when the Prime Minister's spokesman insisted this was not the case.

It was then contradicted by Department of Health officials who confirmed masks would be mandatory from July 24 in line with all other shops.

The next day, Business Secretary Alok Sharma told Sky News masks would not be necessary when buying food to takeaway. 'It won't be compulsory but we would certainly encourage it,' he said.

UK announces 79 more coronavirus deaths as daily number of victims continues to drop  but official figures show outbreak may be growing with average new cases 10% higher than last week

by Sam Blanchard for MailOnline

Another 79 people have died of Covid-19 in Britain as official figures released today reveal the daily number of victims is still dropping but cases are still rising in a sign the outbreak is growing.

Department of Health statistics show 64 Britons are succumbing to the illness each day, on average. By contrast, the rate last Wednesday was 75.

Face shields worn by hairdressers and salon workers DON'T protect against Covid-19 but masks DO, Swiss health officials say Face shields worn by hairdressers are not protective against Covid-19  but masks are, health chiefs in Switzerland have claimed. Swiss officials investigated an outbreak of 'several' coronavirus cases that occurred at a hotel in a village in the Alps  even though employers took precautions. Experts revealed only those who wore plastic visors were infected. But no-one who wore a mask, either alone or in addition to a face shield, caught the coronavirus, according to the study. Clear visors are recommended by the UK Government for hairdressers, barbers, nail technicians and tattooists as a barrier between them and the customer. But it claims no other protection needs to be worn by either the worker or customer in order to protect against the coronavirus. Experts say there is a lack of strong scientific evidence to support face shields and virus-laden droplets may still be able to enter the mouth. Advertisement

Today marked the seventh day in a row that no deaths have been recorded in Scotland and only one death has been counted in the past fortnight, showing the country is on the way to being free of coronavirus.

The number of cases, however, seems to be rising. A further 560 people have been diagnosed with coronavirus, up from 440 yesterday, and the seven-day average has been risen 9.2 per cent in the last week.

There are now an average 638 people diagnosed each day, up from 584 seven days ago and from 546 a week before that on July 8.

The increasing average may be a sign the infection has started spreading again, confirming fears of top scientists that 'Super Saturday' would trigger a surge in cases  or it could be a result of more targeted testing.

As Britain's Covid-19 outbreak continues to fade away, ministers today announced care homes in England will be allowed to reopen for visits for the first time.

Homes now have the green light to work with local authorities and set up visiting systems that allow residents to have one 'constant visitor' each who will be able to pop in regularly provided they book in advance and wear face coverings.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: 'I know how painful it has been for those in care homes not being able to receive visits from their loved ones throughout this period.'

Yesterday's data comes as:

Care homes in England are now allowed to reopen to visitors for their residents, as long as they keep social distancing and PPE rules in place';

An outbreak in Spain is worsening so much that officials may be forced to rethink the rules allowing Brits to holiday there without quarantining on return;

Public health experts say hand-shakes could be a thing of the past because of long-term social distancing rules;

A Government SAGE adviser has claimed that there is no proof of children passing Covid-19 to their teachers anywhere in the world;

A top epidemiologist in Sweden said it is likely that anyone who catches coronavirus will not get it again within six months;

The UK Government is considering 'air bridges' to specific regions which have low levels of coronavirus even when a country as a whole has not been deemed safe;

Swiss health officials say the face shields worn by hairdressers and salon staff do not prevent Covid-19 and are no replacement for masks.

Department of Health figures released this afternoon showed 140,000 tests were carried out or posted the day before. The number includes antibody tests for frontline NHS and care workers.

HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE REALLY DIED OF THE CORONAVIRUS IN THE UK? Department of Health: 45,501 Department of Health's latest death count for all settings (as of 9am, July 22) stands at 45,501. The daily data does not represent how many Covid-19 patients died within the last 24 hours  it is only how many fatalities have been reported and registered with the authorities. It also only takes into account patients who tested positive for the virus, as opposed to deaths suspected to be down to the coronavirus. National statistical bodies: 56,113 Data compiled by the statistical bodies of each of the home nations show 56,113 people died of either confirmed or suspected Covid-19 across the UK by the end of May. The Office for National Statistics yesterday confirmed that 51,096 people in England and Wales died with confirmed or suspected Covid-19 by July 10. The number of coronavirus deaths was 824 by the same day in Northern Ireland, according to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA). National Records Scotland  which collects statistics north of the border  said 4,193 people had died across the country by July 19. Their tallies are always 10 days behind the Department of Health (DH) because they wait until as many fatalities as possible for each date have been counted, to avoid having to revise their statistics. Excess deaths: 65,249 The total number of excess deaths has now passed 65,000. Excess deaths are considered to be an accurate measure of the number of people killed by the pandemic because they include a broader spectrum of victims. As well as including people who may have died with Covid-19 without ever being tested, the data also shows how many more people died because their medical treatment was postponed, for example, or who didn't or couldn't get to hospital when they were seriously ill. Data from England and Wales shows there has been an extra 59,324 deaths between March 15 and June 12, as well as 4,924 in Scotland between March 10 and June 22 and 1,001 in Northern Ireland between March 28 and June 26. Advertisement

But bosses again refused to say how many people were tested, meaning the exact number of Brits who have been swabbed for the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been a mystery for a month  since May 22.

Health chiefs also reported 560 more people had tested positive for Covid-19. Government data shows the official size of the UK's outbreak now stands at 296,377 cases.

But the actual size of the outbreak, which began to spiral out of control in March, is estimated to be in the millions, based on antibody testing data.

It means the rolling average of daily cases has risen to 638  9 per cent higher than the mean of 584 recorded last Wednesday.

The daily death data does not represent how many Covid-19 patients died within the last 24 hours  it is only how many fatalities have been reported and registered with the authorities.

The data does not always match updates provided by the home nations. Department of Health officials work off a different time cut-off, meaning daily updates from Scotland as well as Northern Ireland are always out of sync.

And the count announced by NHS England every afternoon  which only takes into account deaths in hospitals  does not match up with the DH figures because they work off a different recording system.

For instance, some deaths announced by NHS England bosses will have already been counted by the Department of Health, which records fatalities 'as soon as they are available'.

The Department of Health has temporarily paused the count on its website after discovering that Public Health England was counting the deaths of everyone who has ever had coronavirus, regardless of their real cause.

Matt Hancock last week ordered a review of how the data is collected because scientists pointed out the daily death tolls were too high because people who were dying of other causes were being included.

Dr Yoon Loke, a pharmacologist at the University of East Anglia, discovered the error and told MailOnline: 'Because of this major flaw in the statistics, and the fact that tens of thousands of older people are being monitored, there is going to be a very very long tail of daily deaths.

'The death toll will go down exceedingly slowly. It's certainly not going to get to zero for months to come yet, because older people who have recovered from Covid-19 will unfortunately still succumb to other illnesses.'

Government figures show the rolling seven-day average of daily deaths now stands at 64  a 15 per cent drop on the mean of 75 this time last week.

NHS England today registered 10 deaths of patients who tested positive for the infection in hospitals across the country. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales announced no new victims.

It comes after data from Office for National Statistics yesterday showed that nearly three times as many people are now dying from the flu and pneumonia than coronavirus in England and Wales.

Covid-19 fatalities have dropped to the lowest levels since well before lockdown, with 283 people succumbing to the life-threatening infection in the week ending July 10.

By contrast, 418 coronavirus deaths were recorded in England and Wales in the seven-day spell before that, and more than 8,000 were registered during the worst week of the crisis in April.

Yesterday's was the lowest figure since the week ending March 13, 10 days before Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the draconian measures to curb the spread of the virus.

For comparison, 917 influenza and pneumonia deaths were registered in the same week. The number of Covid-19 deaths registered  which is always slightly higher than how many occurred  in the same time-frame was 366.

Most recent data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) also show the number of fatalities has fallen in all regions of England and Wales as the virus continues to peter out in the UK.

And deaths of any cause are now the lowest they have been all year, with promising statistics showing the number of fatalities has been below average for the past four weeks in a row.

ONS experts explained that Covid-19 likely sped up the deaths of people who would have died of other causes, meaning the year's fatalities have been front-loaded. As a result, fewer people are now dying of causes such as heart disease and dementia because they have already succumbed to the coronavirus.

Separate data last week showed infection levels in the UK have stabilised and scientists suggest the death rate may fall because of warmer weather. There are growing concerns, however, that the virus could return and cause more death and disease in the winter when people are more susceptible.

The Government today announced that people living in care homes in England will be allowed family visits again for the first time since lockdown started in March - but residents will be limited to just one visitor each.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has given care homes the green light to start arranging visits as long as social distancing and protective equipment rules are followed.

But each resident will only be allowed a single nominated visitor who can visit regularly as long as they book in advance and wear a mask and extra PPE if required.

The much-anticipated move brings England in line with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which have been allowing visits in care homes for weeks.

Local councils and public health officials in England will decide on a case-by-case basis which homes will be able to reopen, depending on levels of coronavirus in the area.

Mr Hancock said: 'I know how painful it has been for those in care homes not being able to receive visits from their loved ones throughout this period.

'We are now able to carefully and safely allow visits to care homes, which will be based on local knowledge and circumstances for each care home.

'It is really important that we don't undo all of the hard work of care homes over the last few months while ensuring families and friends can be safely reunited so we have put in place guidance that protects everyone.'
New Delhi, July 24 : Amid the buzz of a cabinet reshuffle in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government, former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath in a letter to Modi has said that he hopes the defectors will be not be given a place in the cabinet and asked him to save the democratic values.

The letter is an indirect attack on BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, who took oath as Rajya Sabha MP on Wednesday, and is likely to be inducted in the Union Cabinet after he led a successful revolt against Kamal Nath, which led to the fall of the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh.

Attacking the Central government, Kamal Nath said, "It's not a matter of the Congress government only, but the whole democratic setup has been shaken. There is a kind of earthquake in the democratic setup and I doubt that at the centre of this is the Centre (Union government). I hope my doubts are baseless." He further alleged that there is always an attempt to destabilise the government through unfair means wherever the opposition is in power.

On Thursday, another Congress MLA resigned from the party, dashing the hopes of Congress of making a comeback in the state after the by-elections.

The Congress is facing a similar revolt in Rajasthan where 18 MLAs along with former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot have rebelled and the matter is pending at the Rajasthan High Court.
UK considers adopting new 'espionage' law to counter Russian influence

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 22 July 2020 5:58 PM

Following the publication of the Russia report there is growing clamor in the British political establishment for a new espionage law that takes stock of both actual and potential national security threats.

Home Office Minister, James Brokenshire, has proposed an American-style register of "foreign agents" in the UK as part of a broader strategy of containing the threat from foreign spies and agents of influence.

Brokenshire told the House of Commons that the proposed register and additional "new offences and powers" for dealing with hostile intelligence services were being considered.

Brokenshire's apparent agreement with the Intelligence and Security Committee (which produced the Russia report) on the need for a new Espionage Act is likely to attract cross-party support.

The Labor party leader, Keir Starmer, has already indicated his support for additional powers by accusing the government of "complacency" and leaving a "serious gap in our defenses".

Currently the UK's main judicial weapon against espionage is the Official Secrets Act (OSA), which was first enacted in 1911 prior to the outbreak of the First World War, and which was subsequently amended 1989.

The OSA is sometimes considered to be deficient as it can only be used in prosecutions where the suspected spy has acquired secret and classified information with a view to transmitting it to a foreign intelligence service.

But in recent years the UK has adopted a raft of formal and informal measures to deal with a wide range of national security threats, notably espionage and terrorism.

The most controversial of these is citizenship stripping powers where suspected foreign agents (who are also British citizens) are arbitrarily deprived of British nationality by the Home Secretary (often on the advice of the Security Service MI5) once they have left the UK.

This power is deeply controversial as the people who are deprived of British citizenship find it extremely difficult  if not impossible  to overturn the decision through the highly secretive national security court known as the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).

In view of the government's already expansive powers and the apparent alignment of the judiciary with the British intelligence community (as embodied by SIAC), it could be argued that a new Espionage Act is superfluous.

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Complementing local acute care services, the hospital will care for patients recovering from debilitating illnesses and injuries including strokes and other neurological disorders, brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, amputations and complex orthopedic conditions. The hospital will provide physical, occupational and speech therapies that aim to restore functional ability and quality of life and 24-hour care by registered nurses, many of whom are certified in rehabilitation nursing.

The medical staff will be comprised of physicians experienced in physical medicine and rehabilitation as well as other specialties such as internal medicine, cardiology, infectious disease and nephrology to assist in the medical management and support a complex patient population.

"This future hospital will help support the growing need for intensive rehabilitation services provided in a hospital setting in the Clermont area," said Linda Wilder, president of Encompass Health's southeast region. "As Clermont's population continues to grow, this hospital will allow for individuals to receive exceptional rehabilitative care closer to home after a life-altering illness or injury. We look forward to supporting the needs of the community and becoming an integral provider in Clermont's growing healthcare system."

The hospital will feature all private patient rooms, a spacious therapy gym with advanced rehabilitation technologies and an activities of daily living suite, cafeteria, dining room, pharmacy and therapy courtyard.

The planned hospital, once opened, will become part of Encompass Health's national network of inpatient rehabilitation hospitals and home health and hospice agencies. The Company's Florida footprint currently includes 12 inpatient rehabilitation hospitals, a hospital under construction in north Tampa and 19 home health locations. A construction timeline for the hospital has not yet been established.

About Encompass Health

As a national leader in integrated healthcare services, Encompass Health (NYSE: EHC) offers both facility-based and home-based patient care through its network of inpatient rehabilitation hospitals, home health agencies and hospice agencies. With a national footprint that includes 136 hospitals, 245 home health locations, and 83 hospice locations in 39 states and Puerto Rico, the Company is committed to delivering high-quality, cost-effective, integrated care across the healthcare continuum. Encompass Health is ranked as one of Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For. For more information, visit encompasshealth.com, or follow us on our newsroom, Twitter and Facebook.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements contained in this press release which are not historical facts, such as those relating to the likelihood, timing and effects of the completion of this hospital project, are forward-looking statements. In addition, Encompass Health may from time to time make forward-looking public statements concerning the matters described herein. All such estimates, projections, and forward-looking information speak only as of the date hereof, and Encompass Health undertakes no duty to publicly update or revise such forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Such forward-looking statements are necessarily estimates based upon current information and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Encompass Health's actual results or events may differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors. While it is impossible to identify all such factors, factors which could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated include, but are not limited to, the regulatory review and approval process, any adverse outcome of various lawsuits, claims, and legal or regulatory proceedings that may be brought by or against the Company; the possibility this project will experience unexpected delays; the ability to successfully complete and integrate this project consistent with Encompass Health's growth strategy, including realization of anticipated revenues, cost savings, and productivity improvements arising from the related operations and avoidance of unforeseen exposure to liabilities; the continued spread of COVID-19, including the speed, depth, geographic reach and duration of the spread; the actions to be taken by Encompass Health in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; changes in the regulation of the healthcare industry at either or both of the federal and state levels; competitive pressures in the healthcare industry and Encompass Health's response thereto; the hospital's ability to maintain proper local, state and federal licensing; potential disruptions, breaches, or other incidents affecting the proper operation, availability, or security of Encompass Health's information systems; Encompass Health's ability to attract and retain nurses, therapists, and other healthcare professionals in a highly competitive environment with often severe staffing shortages and the impact on Encompass Health's labor expenses from potential union activity and staffing shortages; changes, delays in (including in connection with resolution of Medicare payment reviews or appeals), or suspension of reimbursement for Encompass Health's services by governmental or private payors; general conditions in the economy and capital markets; and other factors which may be identified from time to time in Encompass Health's SEC filings and other public announcements, including Encompass Health's Form 10-K for the year ended Dec. 31, 2019 and Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2020.

Media Contact:

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Italian coast guard divers and biologists were working Sunday to free a sperm whale that was entangled in a fishing net near a tiny Mediterranean island.

In a coast guard video, a diver can be seen slicing away some of the net in the waters surrounding the Aeolian Island archipelago. Boaters on Saturday had spotted the struggling sperm whale in that stretch of the Tyrrhenian Sea off Italys west coast and contacted the coast guard.

The operation to free the sperm whale was particularly difficult due to its state of agitation that didnt allow for continual intervention near the whale, the coast guard said Sunday.

Three weeks ago, the Italian coast guard freed another sperm whale ensnared in a fishing net, also in the sea off the Aeolian Islands.

Since the start of the year, the coast guard has sequestered illegal fishing nets totaling more than a 100 kilometers (62 miles) in length.. The coast guard says it has stepped up its efforts this year to combat illegal fishing.
Dhruvastra is the helicopter version of Nag Helina with several new features and is meant to be fired from air to destroy enemy bunkers, armoured vehicles, and main battle tanks.

Balasore: India has successfully conducted three flight tests of its indigenously developed anti-tank guided missile ''Dhruvastra'' from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur in Odisha, defence sources said on Wednesday.

Developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the helicopter-launched anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) is one of the most advanced anti-tank weapons in the world.

The sophisticated missile was test-fired twice on 15 July and once on 16 July from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) as part of the developmental trials conducted by DRDO, they said.

All the three developmental trials of the state-of-the-art anti-tank guided missile, carried out in a direct and top attack mode, were successful and the data was being analysed, they said.

It was ground tested from a launcher to evaluate some of its major parameters, the sources said.

Dhruvastra is the helicopter version of Nag Helina with several new features and meant to be fired from air to destroy enemy bunkers, armoured vehicles and main battle tanks.

During the trial, the weapon system released smoothly from the ground launch platform at launch pad-3 of the ITR, and the missile successfully tracked the target all through its course before hitting it with high precision, they said.

#WATCH Trials of Helicopter-launched Nag Missile (HELINA), now named Dhruvastra anti-tank guided missile in direct and top attack mode. The flight trials were conducted on 15&16 July at ITR Balasore (Odisha). This is done without helicopter. pic.twitter.com/C8hMj0VhDE  ANI (@ANI) July 22, 2020

The ATGM is guided by an infrared imaging seeker (IIS) operating in the lock-on before-launch mode and helps in further strengthening the defence capabilities of the country.

All parameters of the flight test have been monitored by telemetry stations, tracking systems and helicopters deployed by the Army, the sources said.

Three round trials of Helina were conducted on 13 July 2015, at a firing range at Jaisalmer in Rajasthan. Again on August 19, 2018, Helina was successfully test-fired from a Rudra helicopter at Pokhran test range.

The ground-based Nag missile was also successfully tested 12 times between 7 and 18 July 2019, under extreme weather conditions during day and night successfully, the DRDO sources said.
The unique characteristics of this pandemic may not allow people to completely eradicate it, but public health measures and good vaccines should bring "very good control," NIAID director Anthony Fauci said Wednesday.

Driving the news: "We are living, right now, through a historic pandemic outbreak. And, we are, right now, in a situation where we do not see any particular end in sight," Fauci told a panel hosted by the not-for-profit TB Alliance.

"It's the perfect storm," Fauci says. "We often talk about outbreaks and pandemics, be they influenza or other pathogens, that have to have a few characteristics that make them particularly formidable. Well, this particular virus has that."

For a public health official, this is "almost your worst nightmare," Fauci adds.

He points out that SARS-CoV-2 jumps species, is a new pathogen with no known innate human immunity, and is a respiratory-borne virus that is "spectacularly efficient" at spreading from human to human and has a "substantial degree of morbidity and mortality, particularly in certain populations of people."

Plus, "the spectrum of involvement with the same pathogen is very unique," Fauci says.

"I've never seen an infection in which you have such a broad range  of literally nothing, namely no symptoms at all, in a substantial proportion of the population; to some who get ill with minor symptoms; to some who get ill enough to be in bed for weeks and have post-viral syndromes; [to] others [who] get hospitalized, require oxygen, intensive care, ventilation and death."

From what doctors can tell right now, Fauci says the pathogenesis of the disease indicates "you want to block the virus and keep the immune systems intact early on. But, you want to block inflammation later on, because that assumes a much greater role."

What to watch: Several vaccines are in or will soon be entering phase 3 clinical testing, Fauci says. While the FDA gave a 50% efficacy benchmark for the vaccine, "they're shooting" for a vaccine with 70% or higher effectiveness.

One safety concern they're watching for during phase 3 trials are for possible "vaccine-induced immune enhancement" that can sometimes occur if there's suboptimal antibodies in a vaccine that actually enhance the infection once you're exposed later.

While there is no "particular reason" to believe this will happen with COVID-19 vaccines, there had been issues before with animals tested with the SARS vaccine, so "we want to pay attention to it."

Fauci says he's "cautiously optimistic" a good vaccine will be available soon.

"I don't really see us eradicating it. I think with a combination of good public health measures, a degree of global herd immunity, and a good vaccine ... I think we'll get very good control of this. Whether it's this year or next year, I'm not certain," Fauci says.

Meanwhile, other panel members also expressed concern that the pandemic may cause an uptick in diseases like tuberculosis, HIV and malaria.

Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist for the World Health Organization, pointed out that there's a need to continually address those devastating diseases as well as work on developing new antibiotics.

TB Alliance founding board member Ariel Pablos-Mendez, who has worked with both COVID-19 patients and multidrug resistant TB patients, says "I have seen firsthand how deadly diseases are, and the threats they pose to global health and stability."

"But I also see signs of hope," Pablos-Mendez added, such as with India's recent approval of TB Alliances pretomanid drug, commercialized by Mylan, to be included in a regimen to fight multidrug-resistant TB.

Editor's note: This piece was updated to clarify pretomanid is TB Alliances drug that Mylan will commercialize.
ISTANBUL  Turkey and Russia said they will push for a cease-fire in Libya, where they support opposing sides in a civil war, while tensions continue to escalate between Ankara and Europe elsewhere in the Mediterranean, exposing a tangle of competing alliances across the region.

Turkish and Russian officials meeting in Turkeys capital on Wednesday agreed to continue working toward a truce for the North African state as well as facilitate dialogue between the warring parties and improve the humanitarian situation, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Turkey entered the Libyan conflict in January on the side of the internationally recognized Government of National Accord, swiftly turning the fight against rebel commander Khalifa Hifter in the GNAs favor despite Hifters support from Russia, France, Egypt and others.

In exchange for its military assistance, Turkey inked lucrative energy deals with the GNA last year that create an exclusive economic zone that stretches from Turkeys Mediterranean shore to Libyas coast, infringing on Greek and Cypriot territorial waters.

This week, a Turkish ship began surveying near the Greek island of Kastellorizo, which is less than five miles off the Turkish coast. Greece accused Turkey of violating its sovereign rights. Turkey is also exploring for hydrocarbons in waters claimed by Cyprus.

While Russia and Turkey fell short of agreeing to a cease-fire, their cooperation may be troubling others in Europe. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have promoted their close ties in recent years despite a spate of strategic differences from the Mediterranean to the Middle East to the Caucasus.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who has repeatedly blasted Turkeys Libya policy, warned on Thursday the European Union must not cede the Mediterranean Sea to other actors and demanded the bloc impose additional sanctions on Ankara for violating Greek and Cypriot maritime boundaries this week.

Whats at stake is a power struggle, in particular of Turkey and Russia, which are asserting themselves more and more and in the face of which the EU is still doing too little," Macron said before talks with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, pledging full support for both Cyprus and Greece.

Turkey appears to be calling Macrons bluff, Timothy Ash, a senior strategist at Bluebay Asset Management, said in a research note to clients. Can Macron secure unanimity for such actions within the EU, when many countries still see bigger strategic interests demanding engagement with Turkey [including] migrants, counter-terrorism, countering the threats from Russia and Iran and trade?

US President Donald Trump, who has largely watched the Libyan quagmire from the sidelines, appears to now be exercising some diplomatic muscle. Trump and Erdogan pledged last week to work closely on Libya in a phone call, and on Monday, the US leader spoke with Erdogans foe, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Trump and Sisi agreed to work for a Libyan cease-fire, even as the Egyptian Parliament voted to send troops next door.

Turkey, and possibly the United States, may prefer to see a cease-fire after the GNA gains more ground. The GNA could soon take the strategic town of Sirte, the gateway to Libyas eastern oilfields. Erdogans adviser Ibrahim Kalin told Reuters after talks with Russia that a cease-fire would require Hifters forces to pull back from Sirte, as well as the town of Jufra.

The process is shifting in Libya, with the United States intervention. The US is trying to mediate between Turkey and Egypt and encourage Turkey to progress further, while trying to convince Egypt not to intervene. It appears the initiative in Libya is being taken away from Russia, said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, director of the German Marshall Fund in Ankara.

Turkey remains attuned to pressure from Moscow. The two sides are also at odds in Syria, where Putin supports President Bashar al-Assad and Erdogan backs opposition fighters, and have been drawn into occasional confrontations. But they have also put aside differences to secure a series of cease-fire arrangements in Syria.

Last week, fighting in Syrias Idlib province, including Russian airstrikes, prompted some speculation that Moscow was endangering a four-month truce to send Ankara a message on Libya.

Tensions also flared in the Caucasus this month, when fighting broke out between Turkeys close ally Azerbaijan and its foe Armenia, traditionally backed by Moscow. On Thursday, Armenia conducted joint air defense exercises with Russia, said the Defense Ministry spokesperson in Yerevan.

Erdogan and other Turkish officials pledged full support, including weaponry, to Azerbaijan in a departure in tone from their cautious stance on its long-running conflict with Armenia.

As the United States changes its position on Libya and moves closer to Turkeys, while still maintaining a mediation position, Turkey has accepted this role, likely angering Moscow, said Unluhisarcikli. If you ask me, Russia is giving its response in the Caucasus.
Crowley is proud to continue and expand our support of DLA Energy and the men and women in uniform that serve our nation both at home and abroad.

Crowley Solutions government services group, a leading provider of energy, maritime, technology and supply chain services for the U.S. government, announced today that it has been awarded a multi-year contract from the Defense Logistics Agency Energy. The company will build and operate a 500,000-barrel, contractor-owned / contractor-operated bulk fuel storage facility in support of strategic and tactical requirements at Eielson Air Force Base and Fort Wainwright, Fairbanks, Alaska. The initial contract is for four years, with an additional five-year option. Engineering, permitting and site surveys have begun, with groundbreaking expected in August and substantial completion expected by January 2022.

Crowleys facility will provide 500,000-barrels of fuel storage with dedicated product pipelines, including a tie-in into the government-owned fuel pipeline currently servicing Eielson AFB. Additional infrastructure providing increased operational resiliency include, a tank truck loading facility, rail car loading facility and on-site product additization.

This new government-dedicated facility will be the second of its kind for Crowley in Alaska. Crowley acquired a facility used as Defense Fuels Support Point Anchorage, in 2011. Then in 2015, the company expanded that terminal over a 12-month period adding nearly 500,000-barrels of new storage. The company also installed on site product additive storage and injection infrastructure, as well as a state-of-the-art TTLF between 2017 and 2018. Today, Crowley provides more than one million barrels of dedicated product storage under a long-term contract with DLA Energy in support of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The original five-year contract began in 2015 and was recently extended through 2025 through DLA Energys exercising of a second, five-year option.

Crowley is proud to continue and expand our support of DLA Energy and the men and women in uniform that serve our nation both at home and abroad, said Sean Thomas, vice president, Crowley Solutions. Crowleys fuel storage, supply and distribution capabilities enable DLA Energy to receive valuable energy services and ensure a robust government supply chain.

About Crowley Solutions

Crowley Solutions provides global supply chain solution services including truck, rail, air, and ocean transportation as well as global freight forwarding; maritime solutions comprised of naval architecture and marine engineering services, vessel management, chartering, towing, port and range operations, and foreign military sales; energy services including petroleum storage, distribution by sea and land, fuel over the shore and liquified natural gas solutions, and technology solutions that move customers to the forefront of transportation management, data analysis, automation and cyber security.

About Crowley

Jacksonville-based Crowley Holdings Inc., a holding company of the 128-year-old Crowley Maritime Corporation, is a privately held family- and employee-owned company that provides marine solutions, energy and logistics services in domestic and international markets. Crowley operates under four business units: Crowley Logistics, a logistics supply chain division that includes ocean liner services; Crowley Shipping, which encompasses ownership, operations and management of conventional and dual fuel (LNG) vessels, including tankers, container ships, multipurpose, tugboats and barges; engineering; project management; and naval architecture through its subsidiary Jensen Maritime; Crowley Fuels, a fuel transportation, distribution and sales division that also provides liquefied natural gas (LNG) and related services; and Crowley Solutions, which focuses on global government services and program management, government ship management, expeditionary logistics and government-oriented freight transportation services. Additional information about Crowley, its subsidiaries and business units may be found at http://www.crowley.com.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: As it inducts a first batch of five Rafale jets in the midst of the border row with China in eastern Ladakh, the Indian Air Force is looking at integrating the fleet with new generation air-to-ground missile systems having a strike range of up to 60 KM, people familiar with the development said.

The aircraft is capable of carrying a range of potent weapons. European missile maker MBDA's Meteor beyond visual range air-to-air missile, Scalp cruise missile and MICA weapons system will be the mainstay of the weapons package of the Rafale jets.

The people cited above said the IAF is zeroing in on procuring new generation medium-range modular air-to-ground weapon system Hammer to integrate with the Rafale jets, using the emergency financial powers provided by the government to the armed forces for faster acquisition of key weapons and platforms.

Hammer (Highly Agile Modular Munition Extended Range) is a precision-guided missile developed by French defence major Safran. The missile was originally designed and manufactured for the French Air Force and Navy.

In view of the border row with China, the defence ministry this month granted special powers to the three services for individual capital procurement programme worth Rs 300 crore to meet emergent operational requirements.

There will be no cap on the number of procurement programmes and that each acquisition under the emergency requirement category should not cost more than Rs 300 crore, according to officials.

They said the first batch of Rafale jets is likely to be deployed in the Ladakh sector by the second half of next month.

India will receive a total of 36 Rafale jets under a Rs 58,000 crore contract. The Meteor, Scalp and MICA weapons system will be the mainstay of the Rafale jets.

The Meteor is the next generation of BVR air-to-air missile (BVRAAM) designed to revolutionise air-to-air combat. The weapon has been developed by MBDA to combat common threats facing the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Sweden.

The Meteor is powered by a unique rocket-ramjet motor that gives it far more engine power for much longer than any other missile, said an official.

The Scalp is a deep-strike cruise missile known for having pinpoint terminal accuracy through its highly accurate seeker and target recognition system.

The Rafales will also be equipped with MICA weapon system which is integrated into IAF's Mirage 2000 aircraft.

Besides the missile systems, the Rafale jets will come with various India-specific modifications, including Israeli helmet-mounted displays, radar warning receivers, low-band jammers, 10-hour flight data recording, infra-red search and tracking systems among others.

The IAF has already completed preparations, including readying required infrastructure and training of pilots, to welcome the fighter aircraft.

The second squadron of Rafale will be stationed at Hasimara base in West Bengal.

The IAF spent around Rs 400 crore to develop required infrastructure like shelters, hangers and maintenance facilities at the two bases.

Out of 36 Rafale jets, 30 will be fighter jets and six will be trainers.

The trainer jets will be twin-seater and they will have almost all the features of the fighter jets.
British Ambassador in Ankara, Sir Dominick Chilcott visited Fethiye this week as part of the coastal tour that takes place every year.

The visit was one of many stops on the tour which, this year, followed a route from Ankara to Izmir, Aydn, Bodrum, Mugla, Marmaris, Dalaman, Milas, Fethiye and Antalya.

Fethiye Times caught up with Sir Dominick at the Ece Saray Marina and resort in Fethiye for a chat on Tuesday afternoon.

Ece Saray Marina and Resort. Photo by Norman Clark

Can you give us a general outline of the responsibilities of the British Embassy towards British nationals living in Turkey.

We dont see ourselves as the people who interfere in the lives of the British community. Were there for the British community if they get into trouble, have difficulties or if they need very specific things they cant get through the Turkish system. An example would be they might want to register a birth and we can point them in the right direction.

Essentially our view is that when British people go and live overseas, they abide by the laws of the country in which they live and, so long as everything goes well, they dont need to have contact with the British Embassy or local British Consulate.

If they have particular enquiries about whats going on in the UK or between the UK and Turkey, they can ask us and well do our best to help.

That changes when there is a crisis. When theres a crisis we are no longer hands-off and then, as the representation of the British government in Turkey, we do our best to provide the information that the community needs in the crisis. I hope that what weve done in the last few months is do our best to let people know how the laws and regulations have been changing in Turkey with the introduction of the lockdown and, for those visitors who may have property in Turkey and came here for a couple of weeks and got stuck here, weve been doing our best to help them if theyve wanted to find a way to return to the UK. Its that sort of relationship, were there if you need us but were not looking to direct you or steer you or manage you or bother you when things are going normally.

HMA Sir Dominick Chilcott

Were you able to help Britsh people who are resident in Turkey who were trapped in the UK?

We did hear from some of the British residents trapped in the UK. On the whole, we had to direct them to the Turkish authorities because they made the decisions on who could come into the country and when and how. If they had Residence Permits to be in Turkey then, through the Turkish Embassy in London, they could apply for a rescue flight that the Turkish government organised with Turkish Airlines. We werent really involved with that process other than saying that these were the people you need to talk to.

How has the Embassy worked with the Turkish authorities during the COVID-19 crisis to assist British nationals?

When we were aware of the crisis in the middle of February, we changed the way we worked with our Consulate in Istanbul and the Embassy in Ankara. We formed a team that met every morning to go through what needed to be done in terms of reporting back to London on the progress of the pandemic and the measures being adopted in Turkey.

A big part of the daily meetings was the decision as to what to put out in public, a decision based on what we were sure about and what we needed to investigate more.

Our first consular responsibility was to respond to and help people get home to the UK. In order to do that we had to work with the airlines and airports and, in some cases with the Turkish authorities to support the airlines that wanted to operate flights in the first instance.

We worked with the Provincial and District Governors offices when the lockdown was first imposed and there were restrictions on whether people could travel. Sometimes there were flights going out but people werent sure whether they could get to the airport in the first place and, in some cases, they needed letters to allow them to travel to the airports. We worked with the Turkish authorities to deal with those issues. Where there were questions about what do the rules mean for us, we went to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Turkish Ministry of Health and asked for clarification. We used our Travel Advice web page as the main vehicle of communication however that wasnt the only way we communicated. We realised that we could talk directly to the British people in Turkey if they registered with us, let us know who they were and gave us an email address. We ran an operation to encourage people to register if they would like information from us. Over 800 people registered which meant that when there was an important piece of news about a change in circumstances, or in particular if there was a flight in an area where people were saying they want a flight where they dont have to go to Istanbul, we could let people know quite quickly through this scheme. That was new to us because, up until that point, there was a general invitation that if people wanted to register with us, they could, but we werent pushing them to do so. It was another way that the crisis changed things, we felt we needed to have more direct communication with people.

How difficult was it to keep flight information up to date?

Information about flights was changing hour by hour so we would hear something but we wouldnt put any information out until we could confirm there was going to be a flight. Once we got confirmation from the airline and authorities, and we knew that the airline had put the flight on their own website, we would then, as quickly as we could, publicise it. Frustratingly sometimes, even as we were putting the information out, things were changing, flights were being withdrawn or dates were changing. It was a battle to keep up.

What is the situation in Turkey now and what might be expected?

The situation in Turkey now in terms of the disease is that the number of new cases daily, as reported, is now under 1,000, which is, for a population of 82 million, a very low number. The number of people in intensive care is around 1,200 a number that is creeping up in ones and twos suggesting that the way the disease is affecting the population seriously is flatlining at the moment.

There seems to be outbreaks in parts of the country that are a bit more traditional, like the southeast where they may be driven by cultural habits of large scale gatherings for weddings, funerals or ceremonies held to wave people goodbye as they go off to do their National Service. I think it is quite hard for people to give that up even though they provide circumstances where the disease can spread.

In the tourist areas, here in Mugla, Antalya and Aydn, the instances of the disease is so low, the likelihood of bumping into somebody who has the disease is almost negligible, which is excellent.

The next issue is whether, as tourism restarts and all these new people start coming in from countries with a higher rate of the disease and the chance that they bring it with them, causing new outbreaks in areas that were almost disease free. Thats the risk, but this part of the world has to find a balance between a healthy population and a healthy economy. We must hope that the rigorous Safe Tourism Certification Programme that has been introduced with its 130 plus standards, measures and regulations, means that the airports, hotels and restaurants, first of all make a big effort to qualify and be certified and then be sufficiently regularly inspected to maintain those high standards. The standards provide for social distancing and hygiene routines which, properly implemented, are the best defence. Even if people come in with the virus, they prevent it spreading further.

At the airports, temperature checks are carried out on anyone coming in and anyone showing any symptoms is given a PCR test at the airport where they have new facilities to do the tests. If the PCR test is positive, they take you to a hospital where the doctors will decide whether you need to stay in the hospital or if you can self-isolate at your hotel or house. Hotels have to provide quarantine areas and, if you have paid for a weeks holiday but have to stay for two weeks, the hotel is obliged to pay for the other week so youre not out of pocket. You lose your holiday as you have to spend it in a room but, given that youve got Covid, wherever you are in the world youd have to be in a room. Its a pretty well-organised and quite generous scheme and for British tourists, or indeed any visitors, theres a special Covid related health insurance policy that covers your Covid treatment up to approximately 70,000. The Minster for Tourism was explaining to a group of Ambassadors recently that the average price of the most sophisticated Covid treatment you get in a Turkish hospital is about 4,000 so the cover should be plenty. As far as possible, theyve thought this through well to provide for safe tourism.

Theyre also good in Turkey at tracking and tracing with plenty of volunteers to make the phone calls. Weve all filled our forms in as we arrived at the hotel so, if somebody gets the disease at this hotel, Im sure well all get a call asking if we were in contact with the person and asking how we are feeling.

Turkey makes a tremendous investment in terms of hospital capacity. There are a lot of intensive care beds in this country and the hospitals have never been under pressure for space for Covid-19 patients, theyve always had more capacity than needed so that side of things is very reassuring.

We have to wait and see how the reintroduction of international tourism affects their ability to control the illness. So far, theyve done well.

One other point is, a lot comes down to individual peoples behavior and, Im not saying this about any particular group, but when people are on holiday, part of that holiday is to relax a bit and sort of kick back. They just need to be reminded that there is a global pandemic going on and to kick back responsibly.

Do you have any message for the British nationals living in Turkey?

Firstly Id say read Fethiye Times because youve taken on this role of being a big information source for the community which is really important.

I think secondly, wed encourage everybody, wherever you are, to please obey the local laws and rules  and make a point of finding out what they are as they will be changing. Dont be passive about it, go out and make some friends who are tuned into whats going on and do your best to keep up with things. Thats your best protection  in a pandemic or not  and thats what you should be doing. When things are difficult, we in the Embassy will do our best to help. In normal circumstances, well expect people to come to us and ask for help as we dont go out checking up on how youre doing. In a crisis we will be more active and I would remind people that the best vehicle we use for providing information to people in Turkey is our Travel Advice that contains all sorts of information about conditions of living and rules and regulations in Turkey. Please read it.

Is there anything about Fethiye you would like to know more about?

One of the things I havent done personally is had a lot of contact with the British community in Turkey as they tend not to live in Ankara. Youre quite a long way from us and, although there is a concentration here of around 8,000, you are spread out a lot around this coastline. I suppose the question is, if people would like to see the Ambassador from time to time, Im very happy to turn up and be present. Maybe in conjunction with Fethiye Times, we could set something up. The risk is, if we try to set it up ourselves from a distance, it might not get much traction and that would be a pity. If we had local community organisers, which is what you are effectively, then maybe we could do something as a partnership.

Lastly, what is the purpose of the coastal tour?

The coastal tour has a very specific purpose. In order for Turkey to be a safe destination for British visitors, we want to be sure that everything is being done to make it safe. The main issues in the past have been whether certain groups may see Turkey as a soft target for some spectacular act which, in the beginning, was the spur for these tours. They were used to reinforce the cooperation that takes place on a day-to-day basis with the local police and jandarma in applying protocols and generally making sure that were doing everything we can do to avoid any such act. We talk to the Governors and Chiefs of Police and review how things are going. It is also an opportunity for us to say thank you very much for the effort being put into looking after British visitors to Turkey.

As the tours have gone on, weve also included a thank you for the support and help from local authorities for things like the collapse of Monarch airlines and, more recently, Thomas Cook where we had to evacuate nearly 30,000 British people from Turkey whod lost their return flights. There was an enormous effort put into that and it involved British Consular staff working at airports helping to direct people, some of who were tired and angry about how, where and when they would get a flight back home. We were only allowed to be at the airports because the airport authorities gave us permission. So now we say thank you for that sort of cooperation.

This year, weve had another layer because, as well as Monarch, Thomas Cook and counter-terrorism, were now saying thank you very much for all the help thats been given to enable us to provide information and other support, like the letters of permission to travel, that weve been able to give to British people whove been in Turkey.

Its the moment when the work were doing throughout the year, comes together at a senior level and we acknowledge that were doing it and recognise how important it is. We make a firm purpose of carrying this on for the good of the British people that come here and who are also making a big contribution to the Turkish economy. As importantly, they are also making a big contribution to British  Turkish people to people links. I think we have a strong relationship between the UK and Turkey at the moment which is strong because there is a good government to government relationship and its strong because theres a good business relationship. I think what will really sustain it in the future is if we have a myriad of people to people connections between our two countries that will mean we are not strangers to each other. Well have some understanding of what each country is going through and thats good for us.

We would like to say a big thank you to Sir Dominick for taking time out of his busy schedule to talk with Fethiye Times.



Cente: HMA Sir Dominck Chilcott. Right: Liz Moriarty, HM Consul.





Photographs by Norman Clark

British Ambassador to Turkey  Sir Dominick Chilcott

Sir Dominick Chilcott is a career diplomat who joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1982. He has served as:

High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and Maldives (2006 to 2007)

Deputy Ambassador to the United States (2008 to 2011)

Ambassador to Iran (for six weeks only in late 2011  the posting was ended by the attack on the embassy)

Ambassador to Ireland. (2012 to 2016)

He is now serving as the UKs ambassador to the Republic of Turkey.

Useful Links:

GOV.UK Turkey Travel Advice

Facebook: UKinTurkey

Twitter: UKinTurkey
Due to the continued progression of Covid-19 and related decisions of various government, health authorities, and airlines regarding travel restrictions, Princess Cruises is extending its pause in cruise operations impacting the following voyages:

 All cruises sailing in and out of Australia on Majestic Princess, Regal Princess, Sapphire Princess, Sea Princess, and Sun Princess through October 31

 All sailings in Asia, Caribbean, California Coast, Hawaii, Mexico, Panama Canal, South America & Antarctica, Japan, and Tahiti/South Pacific through December 15

We share in our guests disappointment in cancelling these cruises, said Jan Swartz, Princess Cruises president. We look forward to the days when we can return to travel and the happiness it brings to all who cruise.

Guests currently booked on these cancelled voyages who have paid Princess in full will have the option to receive a refundable Future Cruise Credit (FCC) equivalent to 100 per cent of the cruise fare paid plus an additional non-refundable bonus FCC equal to 25 per cent of the cruise fare.

For guests who have not paid in full, Princess will Double the Deposit, providing a refundable FCC for the money currently on deposit plus a matching bonus FCC that can be used on any voyage through May 1, 2022. The matching bonus FCC is non-refundable, will not exceed the base cruise fare amount of the currently booked cruise, and will have a minimum value of $100 per person.

To receive the above FCCs, no action is required by the guest or their travel advisor. Alternatively, guests can request a full refund for all monies paid on their booking through an online form. Requests must be received by August 31 or guests will be registered for the Future Cruise Credit option.

Princess will protect travel advisor commissions on bookings for cancelled cruises that were paid in full in recognition of the critical role they play in the cruise lines business and success. - TradeArabia News Service
The PA House GOP Caucus tweeted on May 11: "It is never wrong to lift the voices of concerned constituents. In fact, it is the duty of every elected official."

House Majority Leader Bryan Cutler stated on the House floor while debating HR836 on June 9, I know what I have consistently heard from my constituents. They want their voices heard.

This is the epitome of hypocrisy! While the context of these quotes concern the governors response to containing the pandemic, it is clear that Pennsylvania majority leaders (Sen. Corman, Sen. Scarnati, Rep. Cutler, Rep. Turzai) and majority caucuses pick and choose what voices are heard and what bills to move forward.

Commissioners from 24 counties (15 with Republican majorities) and municipal officials from 359 municipalities with Democrat and Republican majorities have adopted resolutions asking their legislators to work towards passage of redistricting reform legislation. They represent 9.2 million Pennsylvanians, 70 percent of our population.

The voices of constituents were further confirmed with a September 2019 Franklin & Marshall College poll of more than 900 registered voters throughout the state. It showed 67 percent supported an independent commission to draw district lines. Thats a majority of Democrats (66 percent), independents (78 percent) and Republicans (63 percent).

Redistricting reform is proven to not be a red or blue issue.

These leaders have ignored redistricting reform bills introduced in the House and Senate. Rep. Garth Everett, chair of the House State Government Committee explained, This does not seem to be an issue of high concern to my colleagues in the House of Representatives except when they have Fair Districts people in their office, prodding them. (The Morning Call, February 11)

Our powerful leaders have been successful at running the clock out for a redistricting reform constitutional amendment. Ultimately the voters would have had a voice with a ballot question. But now their voice is silenced.

Jodi Reese, Harrisburg, Pa.
KENNETT SQUARE, Pa., July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As part of an effort to reduce avoidable hospital readmissions along with gaps in care coordination both within and across settings, and to improve outcomes for patients, the American Heart Association has awarded the first Post-Acute Care Heart Failure Center Certification to eight Genesis HealthCare (Genesis) skilled nursing facilities.



The Post-Acute Care Heart Failure Center Certification is the first of its kind to recognize skilled nursing facilities committed to following current evidence-based guidelines to reduce hospital readmissions for heart failure patients. It was piloted with Genesis, one of the nations largest providers of skilled nursing and long-term care.

The certification builds on the Associations Get With The Guidelines - Heart Failure by providing skilled nursing facilities with tools to implement quality improvement in heart failure treatment tailored to specific needs of a skilled nursing facility.

On average nationally, 22.8% of skilled nursing facility patients return to the hospital within 30 days. By adhering to the guidelines and standards of the Post-Acute Care Heart Failure Center Certification, facilities can optimize patient outcomes and decrease the likelihood of readmission. Facilities also receive staff and patient education resources and individualized professional evaluation assistance.

Heart failure patients and caregivers are faced with the major decision of selecting a post-acute facility after surviving a cardiac event. Patients can select a certified facility with confidence because of the best practices and evaluation criteria designed by the American Heart Association that are implemented onsite, said Michaelle Callihan, DNP, FNP-BC, CHFN, service line director for heart failure and electrophysiology at Allegheny Health Network and an Association volunteer on the Post-Acute Care Heart Failure Writing Committee.

Were proud to be providing impactful quality care for cardiac patients after hospital discharge. Participating in this pilot and achieving this certification across eight of our facilities illustrates the commitment weve made to patients living with heart failure, said Richard Feifer, MD, MPH, FACP, chief medical officer at Genesis.

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The skilled nursing facilities achieved the certification by meeting specific standards based on current evidence-based guidelines focused on treating heart failure and its comorbidities, within a system of care. The eight facilities receiving the certification are:

Bear Canyon Rehabilitation Center, Albuquerque, NM

Kent Regency, Warwick, RI

St. Joseph's Center, Trumbull, CT

Kimberly Hall South, Windsor, CT

West Bay of Tampa, Oldsmar, FL

Lopatcong Center, Phillipsburg, NJ

PowerBack Rehabilitation, Voorhees, NJ

Salisbury Rehab and Nursing Center, Salisbury, MD

Participation in this certification benefits the patient and the facility by standardizing care coordination practices between discharge and the skilled nursing facility, said Ileana L. Pina, MD, MPH, FAHA, regional and national director of Heart Failure Detroit Medical Center who helped develop the criteria for the certification. When there is clear communication between every phase of care, patients have the best opportunity for positive outcomes.

The certification establishes a relationship with the skilled nursing facility and discharging hospital or healthcare system to bridge the gaps of delivering of post-acute between these different settings.

About Genesis HealthCare

Genesis HealthCare is a holding company with subsidiaries that, on a combined basis, comprise one of the nation's largest post-acute care companies, providing services to more than 350 skilled nursing facilities and assisted/senior living communities in 25 states nationwide. Genesis subsidiaries also supply rehabilitation therapy to approximately 1,200 healthcare providers in 44 states, the District of Columbia and China. References made in this release to "Genesis," "the Company," "we," "us" and "our" refer to Genesis Healthcare, Inc. and each of its wholly-owned companies. Visit our website at www.genesishcc.com .

CONTACT: Lori Mayer, Media Relations 610-283-4995 lori.mayer@genesishcc.com




Daniel Craig as James Bond in Jamaica during 'No Time to Die'. (Credit: Instagram/007)

The James Bond franchise returned to the idyllic environment of Jamaica for No Time to Die  and new images provide a glimpse of the sun-baked setting.

A pair of pictures shared via the official 007 Instagram account showcase Daniel Craig soaking in the sun in his final outing as Ian Flemings super-spy.

Read more: New photo shows Bond cornered in No Time to Die

The first Bond movie, Dr No, shot most of its story in Jamaica, within touching distance of Flemings Goldeneye estate.

Bond production returned to Jamaica for Roger Moores 1973 outing Live and Let Die, with the island doubling for the fictional Caribbean nation of San Monique.

No Time to Die filmed on the island last year as part of a globe-trotting production that also visited Matera in Italy as well as, of course, Pinewood Studios in the UK.

No Time to Die will see Daniel Craig say goodbye to the role of James Bond, having played the character since 2006s Casino Royale marked a soft reboot of the franchise.

Cary Joji Fukunaga directed the movie, replacing original filmmaker Danny Boyle, who left the project due to creative differences.

Read more: Actors who could replace Daniel Craig as James Bond

The plot sees 007 retired from active service after the events of Spectre, until a request from his CIA buddy Felix Leiter pulls him back into the world of espionage.

Rami Malek is set to play the mysterious villain Safin, with Christoph Waltz returning to portray Bonds archenemy Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Other new additions to the cast include Captain Marvel star Lashana Lynch and Knives Out standout Ana de Armas.

Lashana Lynch and Daniel Craig in a still from 'No Time To Die'. (Credit: Eon/Universal)

No Time to Die was delayed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, with its original April release pushed to November.

Fukunaga pledged not to alter the movie during the delay, insisting he was mentally finished with the film before COVID-19 scuppered the release plans.

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He said: You could just fiddle and tweak and it doesnt necessarily get better.

Read more: Bond and M meet in new look at No Time to Die

No Time to Die is currently set to arrive in UK cinemas from 12 November, though it has been rumoured that there may be a further delay.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 09:29:27|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, July 22 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday urged the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to solve their border dispute through peaceful means.

"Today, the secretary-general held separate calls with President Ilham Heydar oglu Aliyev of Azerbaijan and with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia. In both calls, the secretary-general expressed his ongoing concern over the hostilities that have been reported along the Armenia-Azerbaijan international border as well as prevailing tensions," Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for Guterres, said at the regular briefing.

The secretary-general reiterated his call for immediate and full de-escalation, refraining from provocative rhetoric, and a return to negotiations, said Dujarric.

"To that end, the secretary-general repeated our full support for the important efforts of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group Co-Chairs and his expectation that both leaders will continue to work towards a peaceful resolution of the longstanding conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh," said the spokesman.

The international community has expressed serious concern over the recent escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war over Nagorno-Karabakh in the late 1980s and early 1990s as they transitioned into independent countries amid the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Enditem
Chinese spies who hacked COVID-19 research also behind pastor's imprisonment

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Two Chinese cyber thieves accused of targeting U.S. firms involved in coronavirus research also hacked the private emails of a Christian house pastor and shared them with communist officials, leading to his arrest.

Department of Justice spokesperson Kerri Kupec told Martha MacCallum on Fox News' The Story Tuesday night that Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi, who worked in tandem with Chinas state intelligence bureau to steal hundreds of millions of dollars in sensitive information from companies around the world, also wreaked havoc within their own country.

For instance, the Chinese government shut down a Christian house church, and within a week, these two individuals were hacking into this Chinese Christian pastors email account, gathered those emails, and submitted it to the Chinese government, Kupec said. The Chinese government then arrested that pastor.

So these two individuals are doing quite the damage, she added.

On Tuesday, U.S. prosecutors charged the two Chinese nationals for their alleged involvement in the massive global hacking operation that spanned over a decade. Officials described the suspects as a "blended threat" who sometimes worked on behalf of Chinas spy services and sometimes to enrich themselves.

According to the 11-count indictment, unsealed on Tuesday, the hackers gave China's Ministry of State Security the personal data of dissidents, pastors, and human rights activists in the United States, China and Hong Kong.

For example, they provided the MSS with email accounts and passwords belonging to a Hong Kong community organizer, the pastor of a Christian church in Xian, and a dissident and former Tiananmen Square protestor, the indictment reads. The Defendants also stole email account contents of obvious interest to the PRC Government, such as ... emails belonging to a Chinese Christian house  pastor in Chengdu, who was later arrested by the PRC government; and emails from a U.S. professor and organizer, and two Canadian residents, who advocated for freedom and democracy in Hong Kong.

Li and Dong reacted quickly to Chinas perceived desires, the indictment notes, targeting the Chengdu house pastor just days after the provincial government banned his church.

The indictment also alleges the former engineering students stole hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of trade secrets, intellectual property, and other valuable business information. Specifically, they stole terabytes of data from high-technology companies around the world, including the U.S.

Recently, the pair targeted the networks of over a dozen U.S. biomedical research firms in Maryland, Massachusetts, and California that are developing vaccines and treatments for COVID-19.

The indictment says the two men recently researched vulnerabilities in the networks of biotech and other firms publicly known for work on covid-19 vaccines, treatments, and testing technology.

China has been stealing this kind of research for years and years and years, but the Department of Justice really drew a line in the sand today and saying look, this has got to stop. This is enough and we will hold you accountable, Kupec said Tuesday.

The indictment is part of the Justice Departments China initiative, launched in 2018, notes The Washington Post. The initiative prioritizes countering Chinese national security threats in line with the administrations national security strategy.

Earlier this year, Open Doors USA CEO David Curry warned that China, under President Xi Jinping, was building a "blueprint for persecution" as Christians have been under constant surveillance.

Its implications are not just for Christians within China but for every country and for religious freedom generally, Curry said. Let me put it together. It is like a puzzle. The pieces are there but it is not until you put it together that you see it clearly. When you see it clearly, it is frightening.

I saw with my own eyes the surveillance on the street but also in the churches, watching their congregation, he said. Facial scans when you come in and then tracking you and generating reports [with] assumptions built into their artificial intelligence system that is tracking Christian behavior.

Curry said that the more often a person is seen going to church, the more often they are to be labeled a radical.

They are shutting down house churches at a massive rate  5,596 churches shut down, many because they refuse to put surveillance cameras up to watch their congregation.

In April, several members of Chinas heavily persecuted Early Rain Covenant Church were arrested by communist authorities for participating in an online Easter worship service on Zoom and ordered to cease all religious activity.

China is ranked No. 23 on Open Door USAs World Watch List of 50 countries where Christians face the most persecution.
MEMPHIS, Tenn., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. George Flinn, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, is asking that the Party of Personal Responsibility start acting responsibly by canceling all in-person events.

The Party of Personal Responsibility is seen as self-reliant and determined, not to be told what to do. As a Party of Personal Responsibility, why are we having to be told to wear masks? Dr. George Flinn, candidate for U.S. Senate, believes that it is the duty and personal responsibility of Republicans to wear masks, and stop putting its senior members at risk.

Recently, four members of the Flinn team contracted the novel coronavirus at state and county GOP events. Fortunately, these were younger team members who are otherwise healthy. That said, Flinn believes too many of the senior members of our Party are putting themselves at risk.

"Fortunately, my team members are young and able to heal quickly. But as a doctor, I am not willing to support the potential loss of life in order to attend in-person events," said Flinn. "We should not let politics, especially primary politics, get in the way of combating the virus. So, to protect life, my team and I will not attend any events that do not follow proper social distancing or mask guidelines. It's just the right thing to do."

It is Dr. Flinn's view that we should not have to institute a mask mandate, because Republicans are the Party of Personal Responsibility and wearing a mask is the right thing to do. He is calling on all Republicans to wear masks and stop having in-person events.

Since the COVID-19 Pandemic, organizations and businesses across the state have gone virtual in all types of ways. Tennessee has proved to be resilient, but now Flinn believes, it's time to be responsible.

Stopping events is only temporary. Dr. Flinn has a real solution on how to get us back to normal. He believes that begins with testing, specifically antibody testing. In April, Dr. Flinn put out a webinar explaining the testing differences and why it is so important. Flinn asks fellow Republicans to stop having events, to stop allowing the spread of COVID-19, and to allow the party to once again be the Party of Personal Responsibility.

To learn more about Dr. Flinn's stance and Real Solutions for Tennessee, visit www.flinnforsenate.com .

SOURCE Dr. George Flinn for U.S. Senate

Related Links

https://www.flinnforsenate.com


President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a surge in the deployment of federal law enforcement officers to cities, mostly ruled by Democrats, struggling with spiraling cases of violent crimes.

Trump has projected himself as a law and order president and struggling in polls against his presumptive Democratic rival Joe Biden, he has fallen back on portraying a grim and scary situation of lawlessness that he is committed to addressing.

This rampage of violence shocks the conscience of our nation, and we will not stand by and watch it happen; cant do that, President Trump said at a White House event, accompanied by his top federal law enforcement officials, such as Attorney General William Barr, acting head of homeland security Chad Wolf and FBI director Christopher Wray.

Today, Im announcing a surge of federal law enforcement into American communities plagued by violent crime.

In New York City, over 300 people were shot in the last month alone, he said, which was a 277% -- at least -- rise over the same point a year ago. Murders have spiked 27% in Philadelphia and 94% in Minneapolis compared to the same period in 2019.

Perhaps no citizens have suffered more from the menace of violent crime than the wonderful people of Chicago -- a city I know very well, Trump said.

Chicago will be the first recipient of additional federal enforcement personnel under the surge, which is taking place as part of the justice departments recently launched Operation Legend. Other cites targeted include Portland, Oregon, where federal agents are already on ground to protect federal properties from anti-racism protests (but the surge is not about the protests, but rising violent crimes); and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Chicago officials have said they welcomed federal help but cautioned against federal agents operating on their own, and not under the guidance of local officials.

But New York mayor was more forthright. It is clear that the presidents proposed actions threaten the safety of New Yorkers, the rights of New Yorkers and the fundamental principles of our nations constitution, Mayor Bill de Blasio wrote in a letter to Attorney General Barr.

Two days ago, Portland mayor Ted Wheeler called for federal agents to leave. Theyre not wanted here. We havent asked them here. In fact, we want them to leave, he told CNN.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP)  A Tennessee inmate scheduled to be executed in December asked a Shelby County court on Wednesday to order DNA testing of the evidence in his case.

Pervis Payne has always maintained his innocence in the 1987 stabbing deaths of Charisse Christopher and her 2-year-old daughter, Lacie Jo. Christophers son, Nicholas, who was 3 at the time, was also stabbed but survived. Payne told police he was at Christopher's apartment building to meet his girlfriend when he saw a man in bloody clothes run past him. Payne, who is African American, has said he found and tried to help the victims, who were white, but panicked when he saw a white policeman and ran away.

Prosecutors said Payne was high on cocaine and looking for sex when he killed Christopher and her daughter in a drug-induced frenzy. At the time of his trial, DNA testing of evidence was unavailable, and no testing has ever been done in his case. A previous request for DNA testing in 2006 was refused based on a Tennessee Supreme Court ruling that has since been overturned.

Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich issued a statement Wednesday saying that her office is reviewing the allegations in the petition and preparing a response.

Payne's Wednesday petition says police focused almost exclusively on him as a suspect, although nothing in his history suggested he would commit such a crime. He was a minister's son who never caused problems either as a child or a teenager.

Mr. Payne was close with his family and active in his church. He was a respected young man in his neighborhood, and although he struggled academically in school on account of his intellectual disability ... he never had any disciplinary issues, according to the petition.

The petition also questions the assertion that Payne used cocaine on the day of the murder, saying the police report detailing his arrest made no mention of suspected drug use.

Moreover, the perpetrator and Charisse Christopher engaged in a close-range violent struggle, the petition states. The kitchen where the victims were found was covered in blood, including on the walls and doors. The minor amount of blood present on Mr. Paynes clothing is inconsistent with him being the perpetrator.

The petition states there were other people with both the motive and opportunity to kill Christopher including a drug dealer to whom Christopher allegedly owed money and Christopher's abusive ex-husband.

The court must order the DNA testing, the petition argues, because Payne's case meets the requirements for testing under the law, including that evidence is available that has never been tested. The evidence includes the murder weapon and numerous blood-soaked items. Payne is also seeking to have fingerprints from the crime scene checked against FBI and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation databases.
In the time of war or a pandemic, each country looks out for its own first. It comes as no surprise that the rules of global trade went out of the window between February and April this year with nations fighting one another to secure supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE).

India faced an acute crisis in the early weeks of Covid-19 as it was hugely dependent on imports for critical supplies of medical products, including PPEs. Much has changed since then.

The coronavirus pandemic has spawned a cottage industry in PPEs, hand sanitisers, masks, etc. India is now the second largest manufacturer of PPEs, after China.

Amid a global shortage and the worlds strictest lockdown that ground all production to a halt, barring that of essential items, many garment makers, for example, sensed a big opportunity and got into the protective wear space.

Now, there is an oversupply of indigenous PPE kits. Many are unsold. And prices have dipped.

Worryingly, there is another more serious problem. Atmanirbharta, or self-reliance, is facing a quality challenge in the protective gear market.

There has been a flood of complaints about low-quality PPEs, sanitisers, gloves and so on, raising concerns about the impact on Indias public health response to Covid-19 and infection control strategies.

This week, the Directorate-General of Foreign Trade issued a notification which said that the government had not found any applications from July 1 to 3 seeking to export PPE medical coveralls meeting the necessary criteria, and all applications therefore have been found ineligible for allocation of export quota. Last month, the government had decided to shift the export of PPEs from the prohibited to restricted category, with a permissible limit of 50 lakh kits.

Till the time of writing, no export licence has been issued. The Centre has given a new deadline to local PPE makers to put in their applications for approval of exports.

What is happening? What exactly is the problem?

Several health professionals I spoke to said while it was very creditable that India had managed to shed its import dependence on protective wear and certain medical products in barely two months, the mad rush to step up production had opened the floodgates to many fly-by-night operators who had skipped all quality norms. This, they said, posed a serious challenge for the domestic and export markets.

At the heart of the matter is the lack of standards.

The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation has not defined any classification of PPE components intended for medical use, says Dr Sanjeev Relhan, chairman of the Preventive Wear Manufacturers Association of India (PWMAI).

Without classification under Medical Device Rules, it is not possible for the industry to understand the applicable regulatory requirements.

There are additional challenges. There are few testing laboratories to validate quality and even after an increase in their number, these labs are not sufficient to enable manufacturers to follow global standards, says Dr Relhan.

What needs to be done?

Even in a healthcare setting, everyone is not at equal risk. Dr Relhan and many others are seeking guidelines for choosing the right PPE after risk assessment for various levels of protection.

Another looming challenge is disposal of protective gear. Currently, there is no formal standard for the safe disposal of soiled PPEs. This can lead to a further spread of infections. Hence, a standard for safe disposal of bioprotective PPEs is required on an urgent basis, says PWMAIs head.

What about exports?

Sections of the local protective gear industry want to tap the export market now that domestic demand has been met, but many insiders strike a cautionary note. Dr Relhan points out that the regulations of the importing countries are stringent, and the industry first needs to meet these quality standards. He says the government should allow the export of PPEs meant for medical use only after regulating the quality protocols required for manufacturing.

Since a large number of PPE manufacturers are in the MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises sector), the MSME ministry and state governments should support them financially by bringing in a scheme for funding technology upgradation, counselling and training for both the Medical Devices Rules 2017 (Indias new rules for medical devices) as well as global regulations, especially those of the United States and Europe, and the certification costs.

What about strict quality norms for domestic sales?

No doubt, we cant afford to risk our reputation in the export market by sending out products which dont meet international quality norms. The cautionary note struck by the DGFT is welcome. But it is equally important to ensure that Indian doctors, health workers and ordinary citizens are not at risk through use of low-quality protective wear, sanitizers, etc.

Prof. Arvind Baronia, head of critical care, Sanjay Gandhi Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, said the facility returned 60-70 per cent of the PPEs supplied. It is difficult to spend even a few minutes in those made from cheap non-woven fabric with polyethylene lamination a recent report in the Indian Express noted.

Established manufacturers of infection-prevention clothing say that a regulatory mechanism must be in place for purchases by healthcare establishments to check the practice of buying substandard products. Hospitals should not become amplifers of infection.

Last year, the Niti Aayog, the governments think tank, proposed bringing all medical devices under one regulatory regime in a phased manner and to have a separate Medical Devices Administration with four divisions. That plan is yet to materialise.

Arguably, low quality in protective wear is not just an Indian problem. Last month, Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres), which won the Nobel Prize in 1999, publicly urged for better regulation to ensure that personal protective equipment is distributed in an equitable and transparent manner during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The market for personal protective equipment is dominated by a lack of transparency about what is being produced and where, its quality, the amount in stock, and how they are allocated, said MSFs Thierry Allafort-Duverger.

The bottomline is that regulation cant be a cuss word if PPE makers in India wish to nurture a reputation for quality and plug into global supply chains. The global PPE industry is expected to touch $92.5 billion by 2025. There may be a ready market for protective wear.

But to get a juicy slice of that, Atmanirbharta and Make in India must meet its quality challenge at home as well as abroad.
Thiruvananthapuram, July 23 : Crucial days lie ahead for Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan as his former principal secretary and ex-Kerala IT secretary M. Sivasankar presented himself before the NIA on Thursday evening in the sensational gold smuggling case.

The Customs department which began the probe in the case last week had questioned Sivasankar for over nine hours.

The gold smuggling case which has large scale political ramifications, first surfaced when P.S. Sarith, a former employee of the UAE consulate here, was arrested by the Customs on July 5 when he was facilitating smuggling of 30 kgs of gold in diplomatic baggage to Thiruvananthapuram from Dubai.

It turned murkier when the name of Swapna Suresh, a former employee of the UAE consulate and employed with the state IT Department, surfaced. The case turned full circle when their links with senior IAS official Sivasankar, who has been suspended and booted out from two key posts, were unearthed.

On Wednesday the NIA had completed a joint questioning session with the three arrested - Sarith, Swapna and Sandip Nair and it was only a matter of time when Sivasankar was told to appear.

Though Vijayan has been trying to wash his hands off Sivasankar as his stock statement has been "None will be spared, whosoever he is." With the news of Sivasankar appearing before the NIA, state BJP president K. Surendran said that the time is up for Vijayan and he must quit.

"With each passing moment of you sticking to your post, you are challenging the basic principle of democracy. The country is expecting that you would show the example of resigning as that's what is expected to uphold the political morality," wrote Surendran on Facebook.

But young Congress legislator K.S. Sabarinath said all know what Vijayan will say now and it will be his routine reaction - "those who have done wrong will not be protected or spared," and added that the visuals what one saw is the most shameful scenes of the most powerful official appearing before the NIA.

Earlier in the day the NIA officials served Sivasankar a notice at his residence here, asking him to appear before them.

Around 3.55 pm, arriving in his personal car he reached the Police Club and when newsmen asked him if it was the NIA or the Customs, he walked away without saying anything.

CPI-M legislator A.M. Shamseer said this was expected and the CM had made his position clear.

"I don't find anything wrong in the questioning and the NIA is doing their duty. It's only natural that the opposition will cry for the resignation of the CM, as it's common in politics," said Shamseer.
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Linkedin Darren Walker and Alexander Irwan (The Jakarta Post) New York/Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 10:32 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668acaf3 3 Opinion endowment-fund,disability,disability-equality,social-aid,COVID-19,emergency-aid Free

Across the globe, we are experiencing the unprecedented. The world we knew before COVID-19 has been permanently upended. Our lives are forever split in two: before coronavirus and after. In these extraordinary times, philanthropy must respond with extraordinary measures.

The Indonesian organizations on the frontlines that champion essential workers and build the systems that will be central to an equitable recovery are at risk. Civil society is the central pillar of Indonesias democracy and is at the forefront of the work to reduce the inequality that threatens the future of the country.

Though being impacted themselves, our civil society organization (CSO) partners continue to work tirelessly to serve the community they work with such as disability communities, laborer, farmers and indigenous people, women and children.

Konsorsium Pembaruan Agraria (Consortium for Agrarian Reform) for example, has initiated a solidarity-based economic action that connects small-scale food producers (farmers, indigenous communities, local farmer organizations, unions) with priority consumers. Current priority consumers include laborers, urban poor, fishermen and informal workers who were affected by COVID-19. By connecting producers directly to priority consumers, the high-cost food distribution is reduced, thus, enabling vulnerable communities to get what they need.

Aside from farmers and laborers, people with disabilities in Indonesia are also among the most impacted population groups and they are not in the same boat when it comes to accessing relief and social protection assistance programs.

Based on the latest survey, in 2015 there were 21.84 million people with disabilities in Indonesia, equivalent to 8.56 percent of the Indonesian population. The absence of a unified national database has limited disabled peoples access to the US$49.63 billion COVID-19 emergency fund provided by the government.

The National Coalition for the Implementation of the Disability Law, of which our grantee the Indonesian Association of Women with Disabilities (IAWD) is part of, has decided to enhance their advocacy on the need for national disability data. IAWD will help develop a data collection system that will involve the national and district/city governments, village administrations as well as disability organizations and communities in identifying and registering people with disabilities into the population and civil registration system, which would provide them with a citizen ID number.

In pursuing this work, IAWD is working together with the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), the Social Affairs Ministry and the Home Ministry. This collaboration will be a big step in realizing the integration of disability data at the local and national levels to ensure more effective targeting of social and economic protection programs and the exercise of civil rights for people with disabilities.

Another CSO partner, Kemitraan, is working with the Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry to develop a guide on how to safely run a business, while Himpunan Serikat Perempuan Indonesia (Hapsari) is working to educate the public on COVID-19 related gender-based violence against women, children and persons with disabilities.

As we can see, civil society organizations in Indonesia are significant contributors in responding to social and economic inequality and the negative impacts of the pandemic. However, because of COVID-19, civil society faces an overwhelming need paired with an existential threat. Many organizations do not have cash reserves and already, furloughs and layoffs are hitting the sector  hard. The worlds vital nonprofits are in jeopardy.

If we do nothing, the economic toll, alone, will be devastating. Losing civil society organizations would hurt Indonesias economy as well as its social and political fabric. Our challenge is not to save any particular organization; it is to save the soul of civil society itself.

The Ford Foundation recognizes that this once-in-a-century crisis  and the overwhelming need to emerge from it with a more just and equitable society  requires a once-in-a-century response.

For the first time in our foundations history, we have authorized $1 billion  financed through the sale of social justice bonds  to help stabilize and strengthen civil society in the 10 regions where we work around the globe. These funds are in addition to our annual grantmaking budget and will be dispersed over the critical years of 2020 and 2021.

Together with the government and the private sector, we must assess the damage caused by inequality laid bare and exacerbated by the pandemic. And as we fund these vital recovery efforts, we must reimagine our systems, our economy and our culture for the better.

We have heard from civil society organizations about their concerns around the sustainability of future funding. And in response, we are exploring how to use the newly released funds to create an Endowment Fund for Civil Society strengthening in Indonesia. The goal would be to increase the institutional capacity and financial resiliency of the organizations that are vulnerable due to the impact of COVID-19.

It is our hope that the fund will support the long-term growth of civil society organizations by helping to strengthen institutional governance and build financial independence. The fund will support efforts to increase and diversify funding sources from donor agencies, develop revenue from services to third parties, create social enterprise business units and conduct public fundraising.

For our vision to be successful we need the partnership of multiple actors to help create and support the fund and empower Indonesian civil society. We are inviting our partner philanthropic institutions, bilateral and multilateral donors, the private sector as well as the government to cocreate this critical infrastructure to develop the capacity of civil society organizations. Only together will we recover from the pandemic and establish a resilient and resourceful Indonesia.

We recognize the need to act with fierce urgency to support our nonprofit partners as they support the individuals and communities hit hardest by the impacts of this pandemic.

***

Darren Walker is the president of the Ford Foundation and Alexander Irwan is the regional director of the Ford Foundation in Jakarta.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
The Juno spacecraft of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was flying in proximity to the North Pole of Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, and its moon, Ganymede. New imagery has been released showcasing a space phenomenon never seen before, CNET reported.

For the first time, astronomers, onlookers, and space enthusiasts were able to see the North Pole of Ganymede with Juno's Jovian Infrared Aurora Mapper (JIRAM), an instrument that offers historic infrared mapping into the largest planet's moon's frontier at its north pole.

Now Ganymede is the only moon within the solar system that's bigger than Mercury, and through consistent studies, it consists primarily of water ice. The composition paves the way for astronomers to understand and impact how Jupiter's many moons came into existence in what it is today.

Ganymede's magnetic field

This moon is also phenomenal since it is the only moon around the solar system that features its very own magnetic field. Compared to Earth, this field offers an avenue for the plasma to get through the atmosphere and produce aurora.

CNET's correspondent Jackson Ryan wrote, "The images show an unusual form of ice exists at the pole, a type that we don't encounter on Earth because the magnetic field filters particles from the sun -- plasma -- toward it. Without a decent atmosphere, it's basically raining plasma down on Ganymede's ice."

Also Read: Near-Earth Object Alert: NASA Warns of 144 Feet Asteroid Capable of Ending Human Civilization Fastly Approaching

The moon has no atmosphere that impedes its progress since the surface around its poles is stormed by plasma from the planet's spacious atmosphere. This might have given the effect on the ice caps as seen in the images.

Alessandro Mura, a co-investigator at the National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome, said, "The JIRAM data show the ice at and surrounding the precipitation of plasma has modified ganymede's north pole. It is a phenomenon that we have been able to learn about for the first time with Juno because we are able to see the north pole in its entirety."

The ice nearby the moon's poles is considered "amorphous."

Media invites

Meanwhile, in the latest NASA news, the space administration and SpaceX are opening media accreditation to witness the Crew-1 mission to the International Space Station, touted as the first operational flight of Dragon spacecraft on Falcon 9 rocket.

The launch is happening in late September, following the return of NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley.

The commander of Crew Dragon, Michael Hopkins, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialist Shannon Walker, all from NASA, collaborated with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency mission specialist Soichi Noguchi to launch the Crew-1 mission from Florida's Kennedy Space Center, operated by NASA.

For members of the media who are not U.S. citizens, they must do so before 4:00 p.m. EDT on Aug. 10. The U.S. Media can apply until Aug. 24, 4: 00 p.m. They can submit their applications here.

Also Read: NASA May Have Accidentally Discovered Faster-Than-Light Travel

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The federal government has based its economic forecasts on the assumption that Australia's borders re-open in January.

The Treasury assumes that non-citizens will be able to enter the country from the start of next year - but anyone coming in will still have to quarantine for two weeks.

The predicted levels of debt and unemployment, released today by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, were also based on the assumption that the border between Victoria and New South Wales will be closed until 19 August.

The federal government based its economic forecasts on the assumption that Australia's borders re-open in January. Pictured: Bali

The government's economic statement says: 'From 1 January to 30 June 2021, it is assumed that the travel ban is lifted, but that a two-week quarantine period is required of arrivals to Australia.

'This leads to the resumption of arrivals by temporary and permanent migrants, but at lower levels overall than normal.

But Mr Frydenberg stressed Treasury's forecasts about travel restrictions were made in dynamic conditions and that 'no decisions have been made'.

'The assumptions are that it very gradually starts to come back, that quarantine is applied, that you start potentially bringing in international students,' he told reporters in Canberra on Thursday.

'Of course the environment with respect to the coronavirus is very fluid. Decisions haven't been taken about the start date for that.'

Australia banned all non-resident international arrivals on March 21, a key measure in preventing outbreaks of the disease.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg (pictured) said that no date had been set for when travel can resume

Mr Frydenberg today warned that Australia faces the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The unemployment rate is forecast to peak at around 9.25 per cent between October and December as the economy struggles following restrictions and lockdowns imposed to slow the spread of the deadly disease.

The nation's gross debt will hit $850billion by the end of this financial year as the government borrows money to pay for emergency policies including subsidising wages and boosting welfare.

Experts say that amount of debt could take 30 years to pay off - but the Treasurer noted it was a lot lower as a proportion of GDP than in comparable countries.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said the way to reduce the debt was to grow the economy rather than by increasing taxes or cutting public spending.

A worker wears a protective face mask in a cafe in Melbourne after it became the first city in Australia to enforce mask-wearing in public to slow the spread of coronavirus

The key numbers Gross debt: $850bn in June 2021 Net debt: $677bn in June 2021 Budget deficit: $184bn in 2020-21 GDP: Down 3.75% in 2020, up 2.5% in 2021 Tax receipts: Down $64bn in 2020-21 Unemployment: 9.25% peak before December Advertisement

Between April and June the economy shrank by seven per cent, but the Treasury said there is hope for growth in the coming months as coronavirus restrictions ease.

Real GDP is predicted to grow by 2.5 per cent in the calendar year 2021, after a fall of 3.75 per cent in 2020.

The figures are bases on the assumption that Australia's borders open in January but entrants are still required to quarantine for two weeks, meaning migration can restart but tourism will still be held back.

The budget deficit - the shortfall in the government's income compared to how much it spends - will reach $85.8 billion in 2019-20 and $184.5 billion in 2020-21, or about nine per cent of GDP.

That is the worst figure since World Word Two when spending took the deficit to about 25 per cent of GDP in 1945.

Net debt is expected to be $488.2 billion, or 24.6 per cent of GDP, by 30 June 2020 and increase to $677.1 billion, or 35.7 per cent of GDP, the following year.

The figure is so high because the government has spent $164billion on propping up businesses and individuals with new policies such as JobKeeper.

'These harsh numbers reflect the harsh reality we face the economic outlook remains very uncertain,' Mr Frydenberg said.

'Recent events in Victoria are a testament to this, a painful reminder, how a setback in combating the virus can impact the speed and the trajectory of our national economic recovery.'
Some supposedly inert ingredients in common drugs -- such as dyes and preservatives -- may potentially be biologically active and could lead to unanticipated side effects, according to a preliminary new study by researchers from the UC San Francisco School of Pharmacy and the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR).

Most medications include only a relatively small amount of their active pharmaceutical ingredient by mass (for instance, the acetaminophen in Tylenol and other medications). The rest of any given pill, liquid or injectable can be composed of ingredients including preservatives, dyes, antimicrobials and other compounds known as excipients. These ingredients play critical roles in making sure a drug's active ingredient is delivered safely and effectively, as well as conferring important qualities like shelf stability and the ability to quickly distinguish pills by color.

Excipients are generally accepted to be biologically inactive based on their long history of use, or because they don't produce any obvious toxicity in animal studies. But few studies have looked for more subtle effects of long-term exposure to these compounds or how they might interact in people who take multiple different medicines that include these ingredients.

Researchers Brian Shoichet, PhD, of the UCSF Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Laszlo Urban, PhD, Global Head of Preclinical Safety Profiling at NIBR, had begun to wonder about whether all of these substances were really inert, and joined forces to investigate them. They began the work in 2017 with a database documenting most readily accessible pure excipients, which the UCSF group had compiled in an easy-to-use excipients browser, itself drawing on a more specialized FDA inactive ingredients database (IID), with support from the FDA-funded UCSF-Stanford Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (CERSI).

As reported in their new study, published July 23, 2020 online in Science, the researchers have now systematically screened 3296 excipients contained in the inactive ingredient database, and identified 38 excipient molecules that interact with 134 important human enzymes and receptors.

The research team emphasizes that their study, which did not look for actual effects on human patients, is only intended to flag molecules with the potential to pose negative health effects, and the examples they list will need to be further studied to understand how they might contribute to side effects of drugs in which they are found.

"These data illustrate that while many excipient molecules are in fact inert, a good number may have previously unappreciated effects on human proteins known to play an important role in health and disease," Shoichet said. "We demonstrate an approach by which drug makers could in the future evaluate the excipients used in their formulations, and replace biologically active compounds with equivalent molecules that are truly inactive."

The team used a couple of different approaches. At UCSF, Shoichet's team computationally examined excipient molecules that physically resemble the known biological binding partners of 3117 different human proteins in the public ChEMBL database. The team then computationally pared down 2 million possible interactions of these excipients and human target proteins to 20,000 chemically plausible interactions. Based on visual inspection, the researchers identified a subset of 69 excipients with highest likelihood of interacting with human target proteins, and tested these interactions experimentally in laboratory dishes, in collaboration with the groups of Bryan Roth, PhD, a professor of pharmacology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Kathy Giacomini, PhD, a professor of bioengineering at UCSF and co-director of the UCSF-Stanford CERSI center.

These experiments identified 25 different biological interactions involving 19 excipient molecules and 12 pharmacologically important human proteins.

In a complementary set of experiments at NIBR, the researchers screened 73 commonly used excipients against a panel of human protein targets involved in drug-induced toxicity and regularly used to test drug candidates for safety. They identified an additional 109 interactions between 32 excipients and these human safety targets.

"Our study was meant to expand on anecdotal evidence that excipients may be the culprits of unexpected physiological effects seen in certain drug formulations," said study lead author Joshua Pottel, PhD, a former postdoctoral researcher in the Shoichet lab who is now President and CEO of Montreal-based Molecular Forecaster Inc. "It was not so surprising to find new properties of understudied compounds that have been grandfathered in as 'inactive' for decades, but it was surprising to see how potent some of these molecules are, especially considering the fairly high quantities sometimes used in typical drug formulations."

The biologically active excipients the study identified in laboratory dishes merit further study in animal models to establish whether any of them may in fact produce unwanted side effects in human patients, the authors said. Many should be readily interchangeable with truly inert excipients of similar function, they said, but for others, new replacement compounds may need to be developed.

"After decades with little innovation in how drugs are formulated, we see this as an opportunity for a public-private partnership between academic, regulatory, and pharmaceutical communities to seek new and better excipients, and we demonstrate an approach to doing so," Shoichet said. "Given the challenge this work presents to the pharmaceutical status quo, we are grateful for the forward-thinking support the project has received primarily from the FDA and through our collaboration with Novartis, in addition to the National Institutes of Health."

###

Authors: Joshua Pottel, formerly of UCSF, is the study's lead author. Brian Shoichet of UCSF and Laszlo Urban of NIBR are joint corresponding authors.

Other authors include Ling Zou, Hayarpi Torosyan, John J. Irwin, and Kathleen M. Giacomini of UCSF; Duncan Armstrong, Alexander Fekete, Dallas Bednarczyk, Steven Whitebread, Barun Bhhatarai, Guiqing Liang, Hong Jin and Nassir Ghaemi of NIBR; Xi-Ping Huang, Samuel Slocum and Bryan L. Roth of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Katalin V. Lukacs of the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College, London; and Ellen L. Berg of Eurofins DiscoverX in South San Francisco.

Funding: The research was supported by US National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants GM122481 and GM71896, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Psychoactive Drug Screening Program, and FDA grants U01FD004979 and U01FD005978 which support the UCSF-Stanford Center of Excellence in Regulatory Sciences and Innovation. The study's contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the US Department of Health and Human Services or FDA.

Disclosures: The authors declare no relevant conflicts of interest.

About UCSF: The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes UCSF Health, which comprises three top-ranked hospitals, as well as affiliations throughout the Bay Area. Learn more at ucsf.edu, or see our Fact Sheet.

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The pedestrian bridge will be a massive undertaking, but Bohl said it is a welcome addition.

It will be really, really nice to see the pedestrian bridge connect the north part of town to the south part of town safely, he said. We can get pedestrians across, kids across. Much needed, and way too long.

The project is scheduled to be completed by July 2021.

Ive heard nothing but good comments, Bohl said. I think everybody is really anxious to watch the pedestrian bridge go in, but its the safety reasons, to be able to access and just get one side to the other without trying to cross a four-lane highway. Theyre anxious, and so am I.

There were bumps in the proverbial road to get to the literal pathway.

We worked through the issues that we had, and it takes time, Bohl said. We understand concerns, so we had come back to (city) council a few times, and we changed things. We got through all the right-of-way issues, all the easements are purchased, so were just ready to go.
Kim Kardashian's post comes after Kanye West caused a stir this week with a series of explosive social media posts.

Kim Kardashian West is asking the public to show "compassion and empathy" to husband Kanye West, who caused a stir this week after fulminating in a series of social media posts. She says he is bipolar.

The reality TV star and beauty mogul posted a lengthy message Wednesday on her Instagram Live feed, explaining that life has been complicated for her family and West, who ranted against historical figure Harriet Tubman and discussed abortion on Sunday while he declared himself a presidential candidate. His comments earned him backlash.

As many of you know, Kanye has bipolar disorder, she said, calling him a brilliant but complicated person.

Ive never spoken publicly about how this has affected us at home because I am very protective of our children and Kanyes right to privacy when it comes to his health. But today, I feel like I should comment on it because of the stigma and misconceptions about mental health, she wrote.

I understand Kanye is subject to criticism because he is a public figure and his actions at times can cause strong opinions and emotions. He is a brilliant but complicated person who on top of the pressures of being an artist and a black man, who experienced the painful loss of his mother, and has to deal with the pressure and isolation that is heightened by his bi-polar disorder, Kardashian West continued. Those who are close to Kanye know his heart and understand his words some times do not align with his intentions.

Kardashian, a cosmetics businesswoman who first found fame on the TV reality show Keeping Up With the Kardashians, said she and her family were trying to get help for West, and spoke about the stigma and misunderstandings around mental health.

Kardashian did not mention Wests stated plan to run for the White House in the November 2020 election. West held a rally in South Carolina at the weekend under his self-styled Birthday Party banner but has not outlined any coherent political policies.

Kardashians comments followed another late-night series of tweets from West, including one where he said he was trying to divorce Kardashian. His tweet was swiftly deleted.

In another post, he called out Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner. On Monday, he claimed his wife tried to lock him up. And on Sunday at his political rally, the 21-time Grammy winner became tearful while talking about his mother, who died following plastic surgery complications in 2007. West also claimed his family was trying to get him committed to a psychiatric institution.

West and Kardashian West were married in 2014. They have four children.

Kardashian West thanked fans and friends for expressing concern about West.

We as a society talk about giving grace to the issue of mental health as a whole, however, we should also give it to the individuals who are living with it in times when they need it the most. I kindly ask that the media and public give us the compassion and empathy that is needed so that we can get through this, she wrote. Thank you for those who have expressed concern for Kanyes well being and for your understanding.

Bipolar disorder is a form of mental illness characterised by unusual mood swings between extreme energy and activity and depression, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. It can be treated with a combination of medication and therapy.

(With inputs from agencies)
DUBLIN, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Lubricants Market by Base Oil (Mineral Oil, Synthetic Oil, Bio-based Oil), Product Type (Engine Oil, Hydraulic Fluid, Metalworking Fluid), Application (Transportation and Industrial lubricants), Region - Global Forecast to 2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Global Lubricants Market Size is Projected to Reach USD 182.6 Billion by 2025 from USD 157.6 Billion in 2020, at a CAGR of 3%.

The growth is anticipated primarily due to development in the Asia Pacific and the Middle East & Africa region post-COVID-19 recovery, coupled with the rise in the Industrial sector. The factors restraining the growth of this market are the high cost of synthetic and bio-based lubricants.

Mineral oil was the largest segment of the lubricants market.

Mineral oil was the largest segment in the global lubricants market in 2019. The easy availability and low cost of mineral oil-based lubricants are expected to drive the market in the transportation application. Moreover, this segment is expected to be driven by the increasing demand from Asia-Pacific and the Middle East & Africa. However, the mineral oil-based lubricants segment in North America and Europe will register low growth due to a change in demand patterns and government regulations.

Engine oil to be the largest type segment in the global lubricants market.

Engine oil was the largest segment in the global lubricants industry, by product type in 2019. Its wide usability coupled with the rising demand from the transportation industry, construction & mining industry, especially from construction & mining vehicles and equipment drives the growth of the segment. However, the metalworking fluid segment is projected to grow at higher CAGR during the forecast period. This high growth is attributed majorly to the rising demand for the metal in various industrial sectors.

Transportation was the largest end-use industry in the global lubricants market.

The need for lubricants is high in the transportation sector. The rising number of on-road vehicles, especially in China, India, and ASEAN, are the major factors contributing to the growth of this segment. Another factor associated with this growth is the growing emphasis on logistics and supply chain requirements for various industrial units. Thus, the growth of the industrial sector will also drive the market for transportation lubricants, especially from the commercial vehicle segment.

APAC is expected to be the fastest-growing market during the forecast period, in terms of both volume and value.

APAC is the largest lubricant market. The high growth of the emerging economies and the increasing disposable income in the region make APAC an attractive market for lubricants. The tremendous growth of production and increased trade are primarily responsible for the high consumption of lubricants, thus, driving market growth.

Research Coverage

This report segments the market for lubricants based on base oil, product type, end-use industry, and region, and provides estimations for the overall market size across various regions. A detailed analysis of key industry players has been conducted to provide insights into their business overviews, products & services, key strategies associated with the market for lubricants.

The key players profiled in the report include as Royal Dutch Shell (Netherlands), ExxonMobil (U.S.), BP PLC (U.K.), Chevron Corporation (U.S.), Total S.A. (France), Petrochina Company Limited (China), Idemitsu Kosan Co. Ltd. (Japan), Sinopec Limited (China), Fuchs Petrolub AG (Germany), Valvoline (U.S.), Lukoil (Russia), Petronas (Malaysia), Gazprom Neft (Russia), and Pertamina (Indonesia), among others.

The report provides insights on the following pointers:

Market Penetration: Comprehensive information on lubricants offered by top players in the global market

Market Development: Comprehensive information about lucrative emerging markets - the report analyzes the markets for lubricants across regions

Market Diversification: Exhaustive information about new products, untapped regions, and recent developments in the global lubricants market

Competitive Assessment: In-depth assessment of market shares, strategies, products, and manufacturing capabilities of leading players in the lubricants market

Impact of COVID-19 on the Lubricants Market

Market Dynamics



Drivers

Increased Demand for High-Performance Engines Leading the Lubricants Industry to Evolve and Grow

Expansion of Refinery Capacities Driving the Market for Group II and Group III Base Oil

Emission and Fuel Economy Norms to Drive Demand for Lubricants in Emerging Markets After COVID-19

Lower Crude Oil Prices will Benefit Lubricants Suppliers After COVID-19

Restraints

Shift Toward Synthetic Lubricants Causing Shrink in the Overall Demand for Lubricants

Growth in Demand for Hybrid Vehicles and Increasing Battery Price Parity

Opportunities

Leveraging E-Commerce Industry to Increase Customer Reach

Demand for Renewable Energy to Positively Impact the Lubricants Market

Challenges

Stringent Environmental Norms and Continuous Reforms by Governments

Companies Profiled



Royal Dutch Shell

ExxonMobil Corporation

BP PLC

Chevron Corporation

Total SA

Petrochina Company Limited

Idemitsu Kosan Co. Ltd.

Sinopec Limited

Fuchs Petrolub AG

JXTG Group

Valvoline

Lukoil

Petronas

Pertamina

Gazprom Neft

Indian Oil Corporation Limited

Phillips 66

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL)

Petrobras

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/d88jk5

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



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Ashanti Regional Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Sam Pyne has stoutly come to the defense of Hon. Mavis Hawa Koomson, Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya East and Special Development Initiatives Minister, over her shooting incident at a registration centre in the Central Region.



Hon. Hawa Koomson fired shots from a gun she had carried to the Step to Christ registration centre at the Awutu Senya East constituency.



She claims was necessitated after percieving her life was under a threat.



I realised the lives of my people were in danger. So I wanted to scare the people. I fired the warning shots. I didnt direct it at anybody'', she said in an interview on Adom News.



She further explained her reason for taking a gun to the centre saying ''Im a Member of Parliament, I need to protect myself. It was at dawn, my police escort had not started work yet. So that is a mechanism I have adopted in his absence''.



Following her action, the National Peace Council, civil society groups, political party members and a section of the general public have called on her to resign or President Nana Akufo-Addo to exercise a punitive measure against her.



The Chairman of the National Peace Council, Most Reverend Dr Emmanuel Asante says the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) should take a disciplinary action against her.



"One would expect that an honourable person like her would have done the honourable thing. Even if your bodyguard is not there what stops you from calling the police to provide protection? Look at the situation she has created. There is no justification to what she did as a lawmaker; breaking the law'', he asserted.



But speaking on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo'', Sam Pyne says Hon. Hawa Koomson didn't act in contravention of the laws of Ghana.



According to him, "the country's laws make provision for people to defend themselves when they sense their lives are under threat" that could lead to death.



''Does she have the right to defend herself from the people she felt threatened by their actions? he quizzed.



He further wondered if those calling for her resignation would have acted differently in her shoes.



''Who among the critics will not protect him or herself if somebody threatens to do something lethal against him or her?''



Sam Pyne told host Kwami Sefa Kayi that ''Ghana's laws support that if you're human or a Ghanaian and you perceive terror which could lead to your death, you have the right to protect yourself. It's a legal provision; you have the right to protect yourself. Secondly, if she indeed fired the gunshots, did she direct it at a human being or rather shoot into the air to warn her attackers? Also, does she have the right to own a gun? Yes, she has the right because the government has made provision through the security agencies for the Ministers and other appointees to have some sort of protection."







Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Derek Chauvin and his wife, Kellie, were each charged in Washington County District Court with nine counts of felony tax evasion. The complaint accuses the couple of underreporting and underpaying Minnesota taxes dating back to 2014. The complaint also accuses the couple of not filing taxes at all for the tax years 2016 to 2019.
LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / July 23, 2020 / NQ Minerals Plc (AQSE:NQMI, OTCQB:NQMLF, US ADR OTCQB:NQMIY) ("NQ" or the "Company") announces that the Tasmanian Government has now formally transferred the Mining Lease ML 1767 P/M, that covers the Beaconsfield Gold Mine, to NQ's 100% subsidiary Pieman Resources Pty Ltd.

About the Beaconsfield Gold Mine

The Beaconsfield Gold Mine has historic recorded production of c.1.8 million ounces of gold averaging c.15 grams per tonne (c. ounce per tonne). The Company plans to re-open the mine as soon as practicably possible.

On May 7, 2020, NQ also announced a new JORC (2012) compliant Mineral Resource Estimate of the lower section of the Beaconsfield Gold Mine of 1.454 million tonnes grading 10.3 grams per tonne (g/t) for 483,000 ounces of gold. Significant additional gold potential is still to be assessed in the upper section of the old Beaconsfield Mine workings, plus the orebody remains open at depth.

David Lenigas, NQ's Chairman, said: "I'm pleased to announce that the Beaconsfield Mining Lease have now been formally transferred by the Tasmanian Government to NQ Minerals, and work has already commenced on site with respect to the gold treatment plant refurbishment and the deployment of geologists to site to commence a detailed sampling programme of surface stocks potentially available for start-up plant feed."

Competent Person's Statement (NQ Minerals Plc)

The information in this report that relates to the Beaconsfield Gold Mine is based on information compiled by Roger Jackson, an Executive Director of the Company, who is a 25+ year Member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (MAusIMM) and a Member of Australian Institute of Company Directors. Mr. Jackson has sufficient experience which is relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposits under consideration and to the activity which he is undertaking to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the 2012 Edition of the "Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves". Mr. Jackson consents to the inclusion of the data contained in relevant resource reports used for this announcement as well as the matters, form and context in which the relevant data appears.

-END-

About NQ Minerals

NQ Minerals Plc is listed on London's Aquis Stock Exchange (AQSE) under the ticker NQMI and has it's 1:100 ADR traded on the US OTC QB under ticker NQMIY and its ordinary shares are dual traded on the US OTC QB under the ticker NQMLF.

NQ Minerals operations are in Australia. NQ commenced base metal and precious metal production in 2018 at its 100% owned flagship Hellyer Gold Mine in Tasmania. Hellyer has a published JORC compliant Mineral Resource estimated at 9.25 Mt which is host to Gold at 2.57 g/t Au for 764,300 oz Au, Silver at 92 g/t Ag for 27,360,300 oz Ag, Lead at 2.99% Pb for 276,600 tonnes and Zinc at 2.57% Zn for 217,400 tonnes. In addition to these resources, the Hellyer assets include a large mill facility and full supporting infrastructure, including a direct rail line to port. The Company is also planning to re-open the historic high-grade Beaconsfield Gold Mine in Tasmania, which has a JORC (2012) compliant Mineral Resource Estimate of 1.454 Mt at 10.3 g/t Au for 483,000 ounces of gold. Regular updates on the progress of the Hellyer Gold Mine and Beaconsfield can be viewed on NQ's website at www.nqminerals.com.

For more information, please contact:

NQ Minerals plc

David Lenigas, Chairman

lenigas@nqminerals.com

Colin Sutherland, Chief Financial Officer

colin.sutherland@nqminerals.com

Tel: +1 416 452 2166 (North America)

Media Enquiries

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Graham Herring / Tim Metcalfe

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The United States Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") permits US Mining companies, in their filings with the SEC, to disclose only those mineral deposits that a company can economically and legally extract or produce. Any estimates of mineral resources shown in this press release or on NQ Minerals PLC's website have been prepared in accordance with definition standards of the Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves produced by the Australasian Joint Ore Reserves Committee, which may differ from definition standards of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") Industry Guide 7. We may use certain terms which the SEC guidelines strictly prohibit US registered companies from including in their filings with the SEC.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

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The White House has dropped a bid to cut Social Security payroll taxes as Republicans unveil a $1 trillion COVID-19 rescue package on Thursday, ceding to opposition to the idea among top Senate allies. It won't be in the base bill," said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, speaking on CNBC about the payroll tax cut, killing the idea for now.

The legislation, set to be released Thursday morning by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., comes amid alarming developments on the virus crisis.

McConnell's package is an opening GOP bid in talks with top Capitol Hill Democrats in a negotiation that could be rockier than talks in March that produced a $2 trillion rescue package.

GOP senators and President Donald Trump are at odds over priorities, and Democrats say it's not nearly enough to stem the health crisis, reopen schools and extend aid to jobless Americans.

The Republican leader is expected to deliver a speech shortly after the Senate opens, and then senators will begin rolling out their separate parts of the package, according to a Republican granted anonymity to discuss the plans.

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 centerpiece of the GOP effort remains McConnell's liability shield to protect businesses, schools and others from coronavirus-related lawsuits.

The package is not expected to provide any new money for cash-strapped states and cities, which are clamoring for funds, but Republicans propose giving $105 billion to help schools reopen and $15 billion for child care centers to create safe environments for youngsters during the pandemic.

But the GOP measure forges an immediate agreement with Democrats on another round of $1,200 checks to most American adults.

The $600 weekly unemployment benefit boost that is expiring Friday will be reduced, likely to $200, and ultimately adjusted according to state jobless benefits rates. Some Republicans say the boost is a disincentive to work, but others prefer a phased approach. Some Republicans are pressing for a temporary extension of the current benefit if the talks drag.

We cannot allow there to be a cliff in unemployment insurance given we're still at about 11 per cent unemployment, said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio.

The bill is likely to be silent on the potential housing crisis as a federal eviction moratorium on millions of rental units expires in days.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

The export of carpets from Turkey to Azerbaijan decreased by 8.64 percent from January through June 2020, compared to the same period of 2019, amounting to $2.6 million, Turkeys Ministry of Trade told Trend .

In June 2020, the export of Turkish carpets to Azerbaijan grew 3.4 times percent compared to June 2019 and amounted to $601,000.

In 1H2020, Turkeys carpet export to foreign markets dropped by 10.9 percent compared to the same period last year, having equaled $1 billion.

Turkeys export of carpets accounted for 1.4 percent of the country's total exports during first half of this year.

In June 2020, Turkey exported $195.1 million worth of carpets to world markets, which is 47.3 percent more compared to the same month of 2019. Meanwhile, export of carpet products accounted for 1.4 percent of the country's total exports.

From June 2019 - June 2020, Turkey exported the carpets worth $2.4 billion abroad.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
By Azernews





By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov has discussed bilateral cooperation and the recent Armenian provocation with the Secretary-General of the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking Countries Baghdad Amreyev, the ministry said on July 22.

During the telephone conversation, the sides expressed satisfaction with the current level of cooperation between Azerbaijan and the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking Countries (Turkic Council) and exchanged views on future prospects of this cooperation.

Regarding that, Baghdad Amreyev commended Azerbaijan's active role within the organization and its contribution to the work of the organization and expressed confidence that cooperation with Azerbaijan will continue at a high level.

In his turn, Minister Jeyhun Bayramov informed the Secretary-General about the military provocation committed by the Armenian armed forces on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border and the ongoing tension in the region.

The minister expressed gratitude the Secretary-General for the statement made by the Turkic Council on the recent military provocation of the Armenian armed forces and the tension on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border, based on the norms and principles of international law.
NASA has released a stunning image captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of Saturn and its ring system.

Hubble was used to observe Saturn and its rings on July 4, 2020, when the gas giant was approximately 1.35 billion km (839 million miles) from Earth.

The new image was taken during summer in Saturns northern hemisphere as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) project.

Hubble found a number of small atmospheric storms, said lead investigator Dr. Amy Simon, an astronomer at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, and colleagues.

These are transient features that appear to come and go with each yearly Hubble observation.

The atmosphere of Saturn is mostly hydrogen and helium with traces of ammonia, methane, water vapor, and hydrocarbons that give it a yellowish-brown color.

Hubble photographed a slight reddish haze over the northern hemisphere in this color composite, the researchers said.

This may be due to heating from increased sunlight, which could either change the atmospheric circulation or perhaps remove ices from aerosols in the atmosphere.

Another theory is that the increased sunlight in the summer months is changing the amounts of photochemical haze produced.

Its amazing that even over a few years, were seeing seasonal changes on Saturn, Dr. Simon said.

Conversely, the just-now-visible south pole has a blue hue, reflecting changes in Saturns winter hemisphere.

The rings of Saturn are mostly made of pieces of ice, with sizes ranging from tiny grains to giant boulders.

Just how and when the rings formed remains one of our Solar Systems biggest mysteries.

NASAs Cassini spacecraft measurements of tiny grains raining into Saturns atmosphere suggest the rings can only last for 300 million more years, which is one of the arguments for a young age of the ring system, said team member Dr. Michael Wong, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley.

_____

This article is based on a press-release provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
P&O Cruises Extends Pause in Operations in Australia and New Zealand

MIAMI, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- P&O Cruises today announced it was extending its rolling pause in operations across Australia and New Zealand to October 29, 2020 in response to the current impact of the global pandemic on the way we travel and holiday.

P&O Cruises President Sture Myrmell said while everyone hoped sailings would resume soon, it had become increasingly clear that more time was needed for society to reinstate many modes of travel and community gatherings.

"The path to society reopening fully is continuing to evolve - and cruising will return when science and public health align and people again feel comfortable to meet. With this in mind, we have reviewed the current end date of our pause in cruise operations," Mr Myrmell said.

"We will continue to use this time to liaise with authorities, public health experts and others in the industry to develop enhanced public health measures for when the time is right to resume sailing.

"This is by far the most challenging time the travel sector has ever experienced. However, like so many of our loyal guests and partners, we look forward to better times ahead when we can cruise again. We thank everyone for their unswerving loyalty, patience and goodwill."

The latest changes in operations are:

Australia

In Australia, P&O Cruises will extend its pause in operations to October 29, 2020 (inclusive) - an extra 42 days to what had previously been announced.

It will affect the following cruises:

Pacific Explorer: X040, X041, X042, X043, X044N, X045N, X045P and X046

Pacific Dawn: W047, W048, W049, W050, W051, W052 and W053

Pacific Aria: A048, A049, A050, and A051

New Zealand

In New Zealand, P&O Cruises will return for its next season of sailings departing from Auckland in 2021. Additional cruises affected by this new pause are:

Pacific Aria: A042, A043, A044, A045, A046, and A047

Other cruises

As a result of the extended pause in operations and international travel restrictions, P&O will cancel Pacific Adventure's inaugural 18-night cruise (V059) from Singapore to Sydney.

Compensation for cancelled cruises from July 23, 2020

P&O will make direct contact with guests whose cruises have been affected to let them know of this development and to apologise for the disruption. All guests are entitled to a full refund or bonus onboard credit if they choose a future cruise credit. P&O will pay refunds back to travel agents for guests who booked through that channel.

P&O will protect travel agent commissions on all bookings for cancelled cruises that were paid in full and for the total amount of the future cruise credits.

Guests with bookings affected by the pause in operations, can track the progress of their future cruise credit or refund request via a new tracking tool found on P&O's website.

CONTACT: Lyndsey Gordon, P&O Cruises, M: 0468 521 799, E: lyndsey.gordon@pocruises.com.au
Rabobank, Embassy of Kingdom of Netherlands (EKN) and dfcu Bank have signed a tripartite agreement to enhance financial and digital inclusion in Uganda.

The partnership implemented through a three-year Technical Assistance (TA) program was announced during a virtual signing ceremony attended by the Head of Rabo Partnerships Advisory, Mr. David Gerbrands, deputy Ambassador of the Netherlands to Uganda, Joris van Bommel and dfcu Banks Chief Executive Officer Mathias Katamba this morning.

According to Rabo Partnerships CEO, Mrs. Marianne Schoemaker, Rabo Partnerships strongly believes in the opportunity and responsibility of financial institutions to foster sustainable economic development.

Stories Continues after ad

We are happy to extend our technical assistance program for another three years. As a strategic partner dfcu has demonstrated its dedication to playing an integral role in increasing access to financial services for all customer segments. This is supported by its strategic ambition to be a universal bank, leading the market and using modern technologies going forward, said Mrs. Schoemaker.

This partnership builds on the long-term association between Rabo Partnerships and dfcu Bank which started in 2014 with a five-year Technical Assistance program valued. The objective was to achieve structural improvement in access to financial services, deepening of agriculture-finance and increasing deposit mobilization in Uganda. The program was supported by The Embassy of the Kingdom of The Netherlands.

dfcu Banks Chief Executive Officer Mathias Katamba noted that through the initial TA program dfcu made significant steps towards positioning itself as the bank of choice for agri-finance while consolidating its position as the leader in the SME market segment.

We will be building on the achievements of the previous Technical Assistant program focusing on supporting the entire food and agriculture value chain by increasing access to finance, exploring digital ways to enhance distribution, build products and services for agri-business and also focus on enhancing digital inclusion by delivering value to customers through innovation, added Mathias Katamba.

Deputy Ambassador Joris van Bommel underlined the strategic importance of this collaboration. The Netherlands is supporting and investing tremendously in the Food and Agricultural sector in Uganda. We do see an important role in stimulating the linkages between the increase of productivity and access to finance in the agricultural sector in Uganda.

While financial inclusion, as driven by digital financial services, through formal relationships with banks remains relatively low at 11% of all adults, it is a key driver to reducing income inequality and poverty while boosting household livelihoods, productivity, development and economic growth.
China to Respond With 'Necessary Actions' If Houston Consulate Decision Not Reversed

Sputnik News

20:01 GMT 22.07.2020(updated 20:22 GMT 22.07.2020)

The Embassy of the People's Republic of China to the US said on Wednesday that Washington's sudden decision to close the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas, was "erroneous" and "a political provocation unilaterally launched by the US side," pledging to respond.

"We strongly condemn and firmly oppose the abrupt demand for closure of Chinese Consulate-General in Houston," the embassy said in a Wednesday tweet. "This is a political provocation. We urge the US to immediately revoke this erroneous decision. Otherwise, China will have to respond with legitimate and necessary actions."

The statement notes that Chinese diplomats in the US "have been performing duties in strict accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations," calling the accusations "groundless fabrications" and dismissing the US' justification as "far-fetched and untenable."

On Tuesday, the US State Department ordered Beijing to close down its consulate in Houston in 72 hours, with department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus saying the move was motivated by the need to "protect American intellectual property" and "private information."

Unconfirmed rumors have swirled that Beijing may be considering shutting down the US consulate in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in retaliation.

The embassy further notes that in contrast to Chinese treatment of US diplomats in China, "the US [has] imposed unjustified restrictions on Chinese diplomatic personnel last October and in June, unscrupulously and repeatedly opened China's diplomatic pouches and seized China's official goods. Because of the willful and reckless stigmatization and fanning up of hatred by the US side, the Chinese Embassy in the US has received threats to the safety and security of Chinese diplomatic missions and personnel more than once."

"At the same time, the US side has more diplomatic and consular missions and personnel in China than China has in the US, another area where the principle of reciprocity is not reflected," the embassy noted. "The move of the US side will only backfire on itself."

A Sputnik

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James Watson, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA, announced his retirement Thursday after controversy erupted over comments he made suggesting that black people are less intelligent than whites.

"The passing on of my remaining vestiges of leadership is more than overdue," he wrote in a statement about his departure from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island, which he joined as director in 1968 and helped build into one of the world's leading genetic research institutes. "The circumstances in which this transfer is occurring, however, are not those which I could ever have anticipated or desired."

Watson, 79, was quoted in the Sunday Times Magazine of London on Oct. 14 as saying he is "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa," because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really."

He subsequently issued a statement saying, "There is no scientific basis for such a belief."

Bruce Stillman, president of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, said at the time that the comments had no connection with research at the lab, whose faculty members "vehemently disagree." The lab swiftly suspended Watson's administrative responsibilities as chancellor.

Under Watson's direction, the laboratory has investigated the genetic causes of cancer, plant biology, neuroscience and computational biology, according to a statement the lab issued Thursday about Watson's retirement.

In his own statement, which amounted to a professional biography, Watson described coming to the lab 49 years ago to give his first course, and he noted the contributions to scientific understanding that the research center has made since then.

He also wrote that the Human Genome Project - whose U.S. branch he had helped initiate and run - had produced possibilities for better understanding of mental illness and cures for illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, which have affected his own child and his sister's.

He also said he had learned moral values from his parents, who taught him of the need "for social justice, especially the need for those on top to help care for the less fortunate."

"As an educator, I have always striven to see that the fruits of the American Dream are available to all," Watson wrote.

Over his career, he had become known for periodically making offensive public comments. In 2000, he said at a lecture at UC Berkeley that heavy black people have more sex drive than skinny white people. He has said that women should be able to abort homosexual fetuses and speculated that eugenics could be used to "cure" stupidity or make all girls pretty.
Chilean Nicolas Zepeda was charged with murder shortly after being extradited to France over the 2016 disappearance of his Japanese ex-girlfriend, prosecutors said on Friday. Zepeda, 29, is the only suspect in the disappearance and alleged murder of Narumi Kurosaki, whose body has not been found, in a case that has gripped Japan and France. Kurosaki, then 21, vanished from her university in Besancon, near the French Alps, in December 2016 after having dinner with Zepeda. By the time her disappearance was reported days later, Zepeda had returned to Chile. France has been fighting for more than three years to have him extradited, and local prosecutor Etienne Manteaux confirmed he had been charged shortly after touching down in France. A judge later ordered him to be detained. French investigators believe Zepeda killed his ex in a jealous rage. He had been under house arrest in the Chilean seaside resort of Vina del Mar, 120 kilometres (75 miles) west of Santiago. The handover was delayed and complicated by the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent border closures. Narumi should have celebrated her 25th birthday on Thursday, Sylvie Galley, lawyer for Kurosaki's family said, but the day had instead been one of "mourning". Her mother and father "beg Nicolas Zepeda to reveal the whereabouts of Narumi", she added, "because Narumi's place is near her parents". - 'We will never forgive' - Zepeda's extradition marks the third Chilean suspect sent to France, even though French authorities refuse to send former Chilean guerrilla Ricardo Palma Salamanca back to his homeland to stand trial for the 1991 murder of right-wing senator Jaime Guzman. "Three years have passed since my beloved daughter disappeared... I pray that Nicolas will be tried in France, I would give my life for this," Kurosaki's mother Taeko wrote in a letter presented to the court in Chile. "We will never forgive Nicolas, who took Narumi's life and her from the whole family." According to investigators, Zepeda, the son of a wealthy Chilean family, met Kurosaki in Japan in 2014. After a breakup, he went to Besancon at the beginning of December 2016 to see her again, and on the evening of December 4 the pair entered her residence together. French prosecutors say several students heard "howls of terror" that night, but nobody called the police. At the time of her disappearance, Kurosaki was in a new relationship, which prosecutors said angered Zepeda, who allegedly threatened her in an online video he later removed. Investigators allege that after arriving in France in 2016, Zepeda hired a car and drove to Besancon, stopping on the way to buy matches, flammable liquid and bleach at a supermarket. Zepeda, who was questioned in April last year by a Chilean judge in the presence of French investigators, has denied involvement in Kurosaki's disappearance. Chilean Nicolas Zepeda, centre, being escorted by police at Santiago international aiport ahead of his flight to Paris Prosecutors believe Nicolas Zepeda, seen here in Santiago in March of 2020, killed his ex-girlfriend Narumi Kurosaki in the French city of Besancon in a jealous rage in 2016
On banning full-face coverings, The western German state of Baden-Wurttemberg on Tuesday said that the full-face Islamic covering does not belong in a free society.

The western German state of Baden-Wurttemberg on Tuesday banned full-face coverings, often known as burqa or niqab, in schools, saying that the full-face Islamic covering does not belong in a free society. This new regulation comes at a time when the topic of Muslim face coverings has been hotly debated in Germany and follows a ruling by a court in Hamburg that reversed that citys own ban, reported Deutsche Welle.

State Premier and prominent politician Winfried Kretschmann conceded that cases of full-face coverings in schools were rare. But he said that a legal ruling was necessary for the rare cases which existed. Kretschmann said that using full-face veiling measures did not belong in a free society.

He also added that such a ban at the university level, where students are adults, was a more complex question. For now, the rule in Baden-Wurttemberg will only apply to primary and secondary education.

Also Read: After Houston, US hints at closing additional Chinese diplomatic missions

Also Read: China not de-escalating? 40,000 troops still present near LAC

Advocates of full-face covering bans in Germany argue that forcing girls to wear them infringes on their rights. Prominent members of conservative parties, which includes Angela Merkels Christian Democrats (CDU), have called for a nationwide full-face veil ban.

It was ruled in 2004 that it was similar to wearing a religious symbol like a cross, which is also banned in the country. The law in France does not apply to religious schools. Currently, full-face veils have been banned in neighboring countries such as The Netherlands, France, Denmark and Austria.

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Protesters use umbrellas to block pepper balls while clashing with federal officers on July 22, 2020 in Portland, Oregon Protesters use umbrellas to block pepper balls while clashing with federal officers on July 22, 2020 in Portland, Oregon (AFP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Los Angeles (AFP) - The US Justice Department's independent watchdog announced Thursday it was launching probes into the use of force by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, and the US capital.

The move comes following outrage by members of Congress, as well as rights activists and the public, over daily violent clashes in Portland between federal forces and demonstrators protesting against racism and police brutality.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz said his office has opened an investigation into the civil unrest, which escalated in the past week following reports of camouflaged federal agents using force and snatching people from the streets of the western city and putting them into unmarked cars.

A separate review is being conducted over a crackdown against protesters in the US capital's Lafayette Square on June 1 near the White House, ahead of a photo op by President Donald Trump in front of a church.

The Department of Homeland Security, whose law enforcement agents have come under fierce criticism for their behavior in Portland, said its internal watchdog was also conducting a probe.

Horowitz said investigators will "examine the DOJ's and its law enforcement components' roles and responsibilities in responding to protest activity and civil unrest in Washington, DC, and in Portland, Oregon over the prior two months."

"The review will include examining the training and instruction that was provided to the DOJ law enforcement personnel; compliance with applicable identification requirements, rules of engagement, and legal authorities; and adherence to DOJ policies regarding the use of less-lethal munitions, chemical agents, and other uses of force," Horowitz added.

- "Reckless administration" -

He said his office will coordinate its probe with the Department of Homeland Security's watchdog.

US lawmakers welcomed the investigations with the chairs of the Judiciary, Homeland Security and Oversight demanding answers to the use of federal forces to "suppress, teargas and beat peaceful protesters and American citizens exercising their First Amendment rights."

Story continues

"Congress will continue to check this reckless Administration, but it is deeply important that these independent inspectors general get to the bottom of President Trumps use of force against his own citizens," they said in a statement.

Early Thursday morning, the mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler, was teargassed in the downtown area as he met with the protesters.

Video footage showed Wheeler wearing goggles and a face mask surrounded by a large crowd. He held his nose and closed his eyes amid clouds of gas and fireworks exploding nearby.

"This is an egregious overreaction on the part of the federal officers," Wheeler told The New York Times.

"This is flat-out urban warfare."

He said he had seen nothing that justified the police response.

"I'm not afraid but I am pissed off," he said.

The protests were initially sparked by the killing of George Floyd, an African American man who died at the hands of Minnesota police on May 25. Similar demonstrations have taken place across the country.

Trump has justified the deployment of the federal officers, saying they were needed to protect federal property and to restore order.

He has described the protesters as "anarchists and agitators" and has vowed to send federal officers to more US cities.
Private schools in Gujarat have suspended online classes for an indefinite period from Thursday, after a state government order said they should not collect fees from students until the schools reopen.

In a notification issued last week, the Gujarat government directed self-financed schools in the state not to collect tuition fees from students as long as they remain shut in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It also asked these schools not to hike fees for the academic year 2020-21.

Unhappy with the move, a union of representing nearly 15,000 self-financed schools in Gujarat decided to put on hold online classes, an alternative arrangement started earlier this month for students.

Majority of these schools informed the parents through SMS on Wednesday night that there will not be any online classes for their wards from Thursday.

Self-financed School Management Associations spokesperson Dipak Rajyaguru on Thursday said almost all the self-financed schools in the state refrained from imparting online education.

If the government believes online education is not real education, then there is no meaning of imparting such unreal education to our students. Online education will remain suspended until the government withdraws that notification, Rajyaguru said in a statement.

He said the association will also approach the high court against state governments decision.

Jatin Bharad, a prominent educationist and member of the association, said there is no alternative to online education in the present scenario.

Self-financed schools need to pay salaries to the teachers and other staff. No state in India has taken such decision that fees cannot be collected despite conducting online classes. If we adhere to the state notification, it will be impossible for us to pay salaries and run the school.

Thus, we have decided to suspend the online classes, said Bharad said.
NEW HAVEN  The Police Department is investigating a series of Facebook posts by a New Haven officer for potentially violating departmental policy, Chief Otoniel Reyes confirmed Thursday.

The New Haven Independent first published an article Wednesday about Officer Jason Bandys Facebook presence. In the story, local residents and a right-wing extremism expert flagged a number of his posts as examples of alleged right-wing extremism.

Among other statements on the social media site, Bandy endorsed the ideas that the coronavirus pandemic is a planned hoax and that elite members of society are regularly involved in child sex rings.

I need an opportunity to review the alleged posts, Reyes said in a statement, as he did to the Independent. The NHPD has clear policies that govern communication on social media. If department polices were violated, we will take appropriate action.

Bandy said Thursday he was expressing his views as a private citizen and an everyday human being in the posts  not attempting to tell people what to think or pretend he knows everything, but just to be a part of the conversation like other people.

He questioned why that speech would affect his standing as an officer, even if others disagree with his views, noting he has served the community and worked with residents for 14 years.

Bandy called for people to pause before attempting to sum him up as a person, saying he strives to give people the benefit of the doubt as an officer.

In most circumstances, he said, a person should want as complete a view of the situation as possible before making a judgment.

He called on people to open up dialogue with one another, recognizing that people can exchange views without agreeing on everything, and treat one another with greater care and compassion.

Bandy said the virtues of connecting with one another, of treating each other with compassion, are meaningful to him. He said he would not change his life to date, in part, because his experiences have helped shape him in that way.

Society right now is reacting on emotions rather than logic. Society is jumping to conclusions instead of connecting with individuals, said Bandy. We need to start connecting as individuals.

Bandy, hired as a city officer in 2008, was brought up for potential termination in March 2019 over his facial tattoos. A hearing before the Police Commission ended after he agreed to cover them while working.

He said Thursday, as he did in a lawsuit over the matter, that the idea of firing him for his tattoos was discriminatory.

At the time, Reyes suggested the tattoos might prompt people to question Bandys mental stability or create a distraction for residents.

Were not supposed to be a distraction to the people we serve. Were supposed to be comforting; were someone whos going to provide direction and stability to those people, the chief has said.

Bandy previously had been fired by the Board of Police Commissioners after calling out sick but then causing a scene at a downtown club in 2010. He won back his job through arbitration.

william.lambert@hearstmediact.com
China has hit back at Washingtons claims that its consulate in Houston is stealing US intellectual property, calling it malicious slander.

The US has ordered China to close the consulate by Saturday to protect American intellectual property and Americans private information, while Beijing has threatened retaliation.

A spokesman for Chinas foreign ministry, Wang Wenbin, also denied claims that a Chinese reacher accused of visa fraud and concealing ties to the military was now holed up in Chinas consulate in San Francisco.

Speaking at a daily news conference in Beijing, Mr Wang said China urged the US to stop using any excuse to limit, harass or crack down on Chinese scholars in the country.

Federal prosecutors had on Wednesday alleged that a biology researcher, Tang Juan, concealed her connections to the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army when applying for a US visa.

She was said to have fled to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco following an interview with the FBI, said the bureau, to avoid arrest.

It comes after prosecutors charged two Chinese hackers over attempts to steal data from facilities in Texas, including the Texas A&M medical system statewide and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston.

The ensuing row marks a dramatic escalation in fraught relations between the worlds two largest economies amid disputes on trade, Hong Kong, military assertiveness and the Covid-19 pandemic.

In a statement on Thursday, Chinas embassy in Washington accused the US of groundless fabrications about the actions of Chinas diplomatic missions and urged it to immediately revoke this erroneous decision.

Its time to step on the brakes and return to the right direction! the embassy added on Twitter.

Recommended Democratic and Republican parties warn staff using TikTok

Chinese state media, meanwhile, said the US was attempting to pin the blame on Beijing for its own failures ahead of Novembers presidential election.

The official English-language China Daily newspaper described the Houston consulate closure as a new gambit in the US administrations bid to paint China as a malevolent actor on the world stage, and thus make it an outlaw to the international community.

It continued: The move shows that lagging behind his presidential election opponent in the polls ... the US leader is going all out in his attempts to portray China as an agent of evil.

The US president, whose popularity has slumped since the coronavirus pandemic struck in March, was seen trailing his Democratic rival Joe Biden by eight percentage points in a recent Reuters/IPSOS latest poll.
Mark Curran, the former Lake County sheriff whos challenging incumbent U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, called the shooters evil, and went on say that crime and politics have been interwoven for decades. Saying mobster Al Capone once owned the elected officials in Chicago, Curran suggested that today its the Black Gangster Disciples  before rattling off the names of a few other street gangs. He then accused Durbin of standing on the floor of the U.S. Senate and saying he doesnt want President Trump to send in any help with regards to the streets of Chicago. You can watch the news conference, where several candidates said expanding the police force was among the solutions to tamping down crime, here.
Two cafeterias used by White House staff members were closed and contact tracing was conducted after an employee tested positive for the coronavirus, a Trump administration official said on Wednesday night.

The cafeterias are in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and the New Executive Office Building, which are part of the White House complex and are next to the West Wing.

It was not immediately clear whether the employee was a cafeteria worker, and the White House did not say what kind of symptoms the person showed.

The White House notified employees about measures in an email and said that there was no need for them to self-quarantine, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly about the situation.
As Ghislaine Maxwell sits in a federal detention center in Brooklyn, New York, facing allegations that she conspired with the late Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse three minor girls, her attorney is vowing an emergency appeal of a federal judge's decision Thursday to make public a cache of sealed court documents from a civil lawsuit against Maxwell that was settled three years ago.

Citing "great concerns" about Maxwell's ability to get a fair trial if the records are released, Maxwell's lawyer, Laura Menninger, asked for a delay of two weeks to file an appeal of the ruling. The judge gave her one week.

"We are in a vastly different position," now that Maxwell has been criminally charged, Menninger said, "and certainly have great concerns about our client's ability to seek and receive an impartial and fair trial and jury, given the intense media scrutiny around anything that is unsealed," she said.

MORE: Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers want a court order to muzzle prosecutors and lawyers for accusers

The court filings in the case -- a civil defamation lawsuit filed by Virginia Roberts Giuffre against Maxwell in 2015 -- are said to contain the names of hundreds of people, some famous and some not, who socialized, traveled or worked with Epstein over the span of more than a decade. The late financier has previously been linked to a coterie of high-profile business leaders, scientists, royalty and politicians, including former President Bill Clinton and current President Donald Trump.

Senior U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Preska ruled Thursday during a remote court hearing that the public is legally entitled to access dozens of previously sealed records of the case, including transcripts and excerpts from depositions of Maxwell and Giuffre. Maxwell's lawyers had previously argued to keep those records under seal.

"This series of pleadings concerns [Giuffre's] attempt to compel Ms. Maxwell to answer intrusive questions about her sex life," Maxwell's attorney, Jeffrey Pagliuca, wrote last month. "The subject matter of these [documents] is extremely personal, confidential, and subject to considerable abuse by the media."

Story continues

PHOTO: Lawyer David Boies arrives with his client, Virginia Giuffre, for hearing in the criminal case against Jeffrey Epstein, who died in August 2019, at federal court in New York, Aug. 27, 2019. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters, File)

In her ruling Thursday, Preska said that Maxwell's team had failed to raise objections sufficient to overcome the presumption of public access to judicial documents.

"In the context of this case, especially its allegations of sex trafficking of young girls," Preska said, "the Court finds that any minor embarrassment or annoyance resulting from disclosure of Ms. Maxwell's mostly non-testimony about behavior that has been widely reported in the press is far outweighed by the presumption of public access."

"The sealed testimony or summaries may inappropriately influence potential witnesses or alleged victims," Pagliuca wrote last month.

But Preska rejected those arguments, too.

"Ms. Maxwell has not explained how this sealed material, if released, could, as she posits, 'inappropriately influence potential witnesses or victims,'" Preska said. "Again, the Court finds that this interest is entitled to little weight under the facts of this case."

MORE: Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's alleged recruiter, pleads not guilty

Among the items Preska ordered unsealed are transcripts and excerpts from at least one of Maxwell's multi-hour depositions in the case, which Maxwell's attorneys argued were given under an expectation of confidentiality that had been agreed to by both sides in the dispute, according to Maxwell's court filing objecting to the records release. Limited excerpts of those depositions were released last year.

Giuffre's attorneys have long argued for near-total disclosure of the sealed records and have characterized Maxwell's objections as a "blatant attempt to stall the unsealing process by creating unjustified obstacles ... that will ensure the documents in this case, which are clearly subject to a presumption of public access, never see the light of day," according to a filing last month by Giuffre's lawyer, Sigrid McCawley.

McCawley contended that Maxwell's arguments in favor of continued sealing are "especially jarring in light of the public's interest in this litigation, which involved voluminous documents and testimony about Jeffrey Epstein's transcontinental sex-trafficking operation and documents concerning various public agencies' utter failure to protect and bring justice to his victims."

PHOTO: Audrey Strauss, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, speaks during a news conference to announce charges against Ghislaine Maxwell, on July 2, 2020, in New York. (John Minchillo/AP)

The sealed records also contain the identities of people who provided information in the case under an expectation of confidentiality, plus the names of alleged victims and individuals accused of enabling Epstein or participating in the abuse.

Earlier this year, notification letters were sent to two "John Does," anonymous individuals whose names are among several dozen that appear in just the first batch of hundreds of sealed and redacted documents, according to court records. Neither of the "John Does" filed any objections to the potential unsealing of the records, and Preska ordered documents relating to those two people unsealed.

Exceptions to Preska's unsealing order will be made for personally identifiable information, medical records and the identities of any third parties whose names are contained in the records. Those names will remain at least temporarily sealed or redacted, pending a process Preska established to provide notification -- and an opportunity to object to unsealing -- to the dozens of people who are mentioned in the court record.

Maxwell, 58, is the daughter of the late British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, who died in 1991 in what was ruled an accidental drowning incident off the coast of the Canary Islands. She met Epstein in New York following her father's death, and the two were closely linked for more than a decade.

In unsealed excerpts from her depositions previously released in the case, Maxwell derided Giuffre as an "absolute liar." She has also denied allegations from Giuffre and other women who contend in court filings that Maxwell recruited and trained girls and young women for Epstein and facilitated their abuse.

MORE: Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's alleged recruiter, under investigation in US Virgin Islands

Federal prosecutors have alleged in Maxwell's criminal case that she made false statements during her depositions in the Giuffre case, leading to two perjury charges in the indictment against her.

Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against her and is scheduled for trial next year.

Included in the records that have been reviewed by Preska are documents from June 2016 associated with an effort by Giuffre's lawyers to get court approval for additional witness depositions beyond the 10 that had been allotted to each side. In a series of court filings surrounding the request, redactions conceal the name of one of the proposed witnesses and the descriptions of the information sought from that person.

But a review by ABC News of the public portions of the records, coupled with a transcript of a hearing that took place nine months later, reveal that Giuffre's lawyers were then seeking court approval to depose Clinton about his prior relationship with Epstein.

"All of the people Ms. Giuffre seeks to depose have discoverable and important information regarding the elements of Ms. Giuffre's claims," McCawley wrote in a filing seeking the additional depositions.

While there have been no allegations of wrong-doing on the part of Clinton, Giuffre's claim that she met the former president at a dinner with Epstein and Maxwell on Epstein's private Caribbean island, Little St. James, emerged as a critical and contentious issue in the litigation.

Maxwell had argued in court filings that Giuffre's claim was a fabrication that shattered her credibility. Personal flight logs kept by Epstein's pilots showed that Clinton had traveled extensively on Epstein's private jet to destinations in Africa, Asia and Europe in 2002 and 2003, but none of the available records showed the former president on a trip to Epstein's island.

"This is utter nonsense and nothing more than a transparent ploy by [Giuffre] to increase media exposure for her sensational stories through deposition side-show. This witness has nothing relevant to add," Maxwell's attorney Laura Menninger wrote in opposition to the proposed deposition.

PHOTO: Ghislaine Maxwell, longtime associate of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, speaks at a news conference on oceans and sustainable development at the United Nations in New York, June 25, 2013. (UNTV/Handout via Reuters)

According to that filing by Maxwell's lawyer, Giuffre's legal team initiated informal discussions with attorneys for the then-unnamed witness on June 9, 2016.

Giuffre's lawyers did contact Clinton's attorneys about a potential deposition, a person familiar with the situation told ABC News. Clinton's lawyer responded that it would not be helpful to Giuffre, the person said, because the president was never on the island. For whatever reason, her lawyers dropped the matter, the person said.

But according to a publicly-available transcript of a hearing in the case -- Giuffre's lawyers continued to pursue the court's permission to take Clinton's deposition until their request was ultimately denied by the judge, in a still sealed ruling in late June 2016

Giuffre's lawyers pressed the Clinton issue with the judge at a hearing in March 2017, six weeks before the trial was scheduled to begin. According to the transcript, Giuffre's legal team was then seeking to prevent Maxwell's side from presenting testimony at trial suggesting that Clinton hadn't been on Epstein's island, arguing it would be "inherently unfair" to Giuffre because they had not been permitted to question Clinton.

"You did not allow us to depose him because you said it was irrelevant," McCawley argued before U.S. District Court Judge Robert Sweet. "So now we're in a position where at trial they want to put forth that information against my client, and I don't have an under-oath statement from that individual saying whether or not he actually was," she added.

MORE: Epstein's alleged recruiter vows to fight charges: 'Ghislaine Maxwell is not Jeffrey Epstein'

"What we know is [Clinton] flew with Jeffrey Epstein at the same time 19 different times internationally and nationally, but we don't have him with respect to this particular allegation under oath," she added. "So we would say it would be highly prejudicial for them to be able to introduce evidence saying he wasn't there or that they have some proof or some expert saying he wasn't there when, in fact, we weren't able to ask him directly, the person who is at issue, under oath, whether or not he did, in fact, go there."

Maxwell's attorneys, according to the transcript, told the court Maxwell was prepared to take the stand and testify that Clinton was never on the island.

But because the trial never occurred, Giuffre's motion to exclude testimony about Clinton was left unresolved. More information about the debate over the issue may eventually become public as additional documents from the case are unsealed.

Following Epstein's arrest last July, a spokesperson for Clinton, Angel Urena, said in a statement that the former president "knows nothing" about Epstein's crimes.

"He's not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade," the statement adds, "and has never been to Little St. James Island, Epstein's ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida."

PHOTO: Ghislaine Maxwell appears via video link during her arraignment hearing in Manhattan Federal Court, in the Manhattan borough of New York, July 14, 2020. (Jane Rosenberg via Reuters)

Giuffre, now a 36-year old mother living in Australia, alleges she was sexually abused as a teenager by Epstein and Maxwell between 2000 and 2002. She also claims to have been directed to have sex with some of their prominent friends, including Britain's Prince Andrew. Both the Prince and Maxwell have denied Giuffre's allegations. She made no allegations of wrong-doing by Clinton.

Giuffre filed the action against Maxwell in September 2015, alleging that the former British socialite defamed her when her publicist issued a statement referring to Giuffre's allegations as "obvious lies."

Previously unsealed records from the case have already generated headlines around the world after a federal appeals court ordered the release of more than 2,000 pages of documents last August, a month after Epstein's arrest by federal authorities in New York. The Miami Herald spear-headed the legal challenge to make the filings public.

MORE: Ghislaine Maxwell wrapped cellphone in foil to 'evade detection,' prosecutors allege

Included in that collection were excerpts from Giuffre's depositions naming several prominent men she alleges Epstein and Maxwell directed her to have sex with, including Prince Andrew, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell and former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. All of those men, and others accused by Giuffre, have denied the allegations.

"The documents and exhibits should be carefully examined for the vivid, detailed and tragic story they tell in the face of cursory, bumper-sticker-like statements by those accused," Giuffre's attorney McCawley wrote in a statement on the day of the document's release. "Virginia Roberts Giuffre is a survivor and a woman to be believed. She believes a reckoning of inevitable accountability has begun."

The morning after that first set of documents was made public, Epstein was found unresponsive in his jail cell in Manhattan, where he was being held pending trial on charges of child sex-trafficking and conspiracy. The cause of death was determined by the New York City medical examiner as suicide by hanging, though that ruling has been challenged by a forensic pathologist hired by Epstein's brother, the sole-surviving heir to an estate valued at more than $600 million.

Following those initial disclosures, a federal appeals court ordered the review of thousands more sealed court filings to determine which records should be made public. Preska was selected to oversee the process because Sweet, the original trial court judge, died last year at the age of 96.

Ghislaine Maxwell to appeal judge's order unsealing records in civil case originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
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A friend of mine told me recently that some people seem to know God but they dont know themselves. Its a controversial statement, if Ive ever heard one. I mean, how can one trace the ins and outs of the master of the universe but not be in touch with their little old self. Come on. How hard can it be? Apparently, for many, very hard.

The typical Christian has been taught to hide behind a veneer of godliness. Now, this is not taught overtly. It is more of an indirect, subtle indoctrination of keeping up appearances. If you say you follow the teaching of the greatest man who ever lived, then you should look the part, right? Seems fair.

But, what does that mean for the average Christian:

If Im having a bad day, then I shouldnt say it or show it.

If Im struggling with same-sex attraction, then Ill pretend that Im straight.

If my kids are running the streets, then Ill say theyre not feeling well and cant come to church this Sunday.

Simply stated, if Im a Christian, then I must trade self-awareness for self-denial.

To be honest, this school of thought is  for the most part  well-intentioned.

We usually think these approaches are best:

1. We should be more preoccupied with God than ourselves because hes our only hope to becoming our best self.

2. We need to be more focused on the not-yet-realized promises of God than on our current messy circumstances so we can stay sane.

3. Other people need to be inspired by us, not let down by us, and thats how theyll start believing in the power of Christ, too.

Id like to challenge those three notions with a vote for self-awareness in ones Christian walk.

Christians and self-denial

Ive known about this self-denial practice for much of my life, yet found it particularly problematic in dealing with the opposite sex.

I would meet Christian guys who, for the sake of maintaining their Christian reputation with me, would not tell me the whole truth about their past and even present experiences. They would tell me tall tales.

I got so fed up with their half-truths that I became resigned to the fact that Christian men were, I hate to say it  frauds. They had big talk but no action. They had their nose buried in the Bible, yet their lives were unproductive. They could prophesy, pray, speak in tongues, and preach the Word, yet they were so far removed from self that I couldnt trust them with my heart. They wouldnt be real with me or, even God, about their weakness.

The question is: Why is it so hard for Christian men and women to practice self-awareness?

Perhaps it is largely due to a real desire to do what Galatians 5:24 instructs: crucify the flesh with its passions and desires.

We use this scripture and many others like it to distance ourselves from our sin but this becomes a very sticky situation when these areas of flesh show up in ways that we didnt expect. I say, do not get caught off guard. Deal with it!

Why Christians should practice self-awareness

St. Augustine, an early Christian theologian who developed much of Western Christian thought, knew the importance of self-reflection.

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering, he wrote.

I get it. Its the absent-minded professor syndrome. One becomes so engrossed in the study of a subject like anthropology, biology or Christian hermeneutics that you forget what day it is or that you have to brush your teeth or that you need to get some dinner.

The study of God and his scriptures can be so overwhelming that you can get lost in it. I understand.

But, if youve not stopped to meditate on what your frailties are, then  even after youve studied God and His Word  you may still be stuck. Why? You are not making a habit of bringing these frailties to the God of the universe who is able and also willing to heal you.

We think that Apostle Pauls main teaching of having died to sin (Romans 6:2) and to consider yourselves dead to sin (Romans 6:11), means that we shouldnt think of our weaknesses at all. But the teaching about death is actually death to sin, not death to your present self.

And, Paul was a man who was aware of his own weaknesses and even boasted in them because it was through his weakness that Gods strength was perfected in his life. His weakness left room for God to work.

Sam Storms, pastor and author of the blog post "Self-Awareness and the Sufficiency of Christ," writes:

To be aware of oneself in the way that I have in mind is to be conscious and forthright about our tendencies and inclinations. To be self-aware is to possess a keen sense of the way we impact other people. To be self-aware is to have a clear grasp on why we react the way we do when we encounter adversity or threatening circumstances. It is to be in touch with how we think and what we value and why we make the choices we do.

Do you know what makes you tick?

Do you know what triggers anger in you?

Do you know how you react to pain?

Do you know how you learn best?

The Proverbs also speaks of self-awareness.

The purpose in a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out (Proverbs 20:5).

The Psalms of David are classic examples of frequent self-awareness, perhaps no more so than Psalms 42 and 43 where he speaks to himself.

Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? (Psalm 42:5,11, Psalm 43:5)

Weve been silently indoctrinated to think that if we divorce ourselves from selfish desires, then we will become more godly.

I suggest that we bring those selfish desires to the altar and let God deal with them. Be honest with Him. But, it starts with identifying those fears, hurts, pains, frustrations, and sins.

The more we become in touch with self, the more we will be grateful for the love of God and, all the better we will serve Him.

Perform a self-awareness check

So, in an effort to become more self-aware, why dont you start here? Ask yourself the following questions:

What makes you happy?

What is your greatest strength and weakness?

What irritates you about other people, and how do you deal with it?

How do you define doing a good job?

What is your greatest fear?

What three character traits would your friends use to describe you?

What's the last book you read?

What's the best movie you've seen in the last year?

What do you do in your spare time?

What are your lifelong dreams?

What top 5 qualities are you looking for in a life mate?

Listen, really be honest with yourself. If youre forced to give a preachy answer like, God hasnt given me the spirit of fear, know that that will not get you any closer to conquering fear.

Its okay to be weak. Because thats when youre able to give God the power to make you stronger.
The goal wasnt just racial integration. It wasnt enough to say we need to create diverse neighborhoods. We needed to create neighborhoods of opportunity  to really focus it for the first time on race and opportunity, he said. Part of this is, if you build more affordable housing in good neighborhoods, that means the suburbs have to open up.
After swirling economic uncertainties saw large-scale sell-off in the first quarter, small banks have now moved swiftly to raise capital from investors to bolster their balance sheets. Among these, RBL Bank is the top gunner  looking to raise as much as Rs 1 lakh crore.

Overall, small banks such as RBL Bank, DCB Bank and Federal Bank have fared far better than bigger banks such as Axis Bank and ICICI Bank when it comes to reviving investor interest via share sale, The Economic Times reported.

RBL Bank raised Rs 2,025 crore via a qualified institutional placement (QIP) in December 2019. It may likely be the first to raise another Rs 1,000 crore via preferential allotment this year as it looks to offset impact from the COVID-19 pandemic, it added.

A source told the paper that preferential issue was the method of choice as the process was quick and required fewer investors.

Not all existing investors may be ready to put money today hence a preference issue is under serious consideration  and could be completed in the next couple of months. The idea is to take capital when it is available as many large lenders are shoring up their base and global liquidity is also benign," the source added.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the report.

They added that the bank wants to ensure preparedness amid uncertainties due to the COVID-19. Notably, RBL has capital adequacy at 16.5 percent, double the mandated 9 percent.

RBL Bank did not respond to ETs queries.

Among the other small players, Federal Bank Executive Director Ashutosh Khajuria said the bank has capital adequacy of 14 percent, but wants to be prepared for any eventuality. It has gotten the green light from shareholders to raise up to Rs 12,000 crore via debt-equity mix.

DCB Bank CEO Murali Natrajan told the paper the capital raise is for stressed times and future growth. The bank has an enabling resolution from shareholders to raise Rs 500 crore equity. He however added that there is no hurry as the bank's capital adequacy is at 17.75 percent.

Sector analysts say the sector has learnt from experiences of foreign banks during the great financial crisis of 2008, where banks that delayed capital raising suffered more as the economic shock was prolonged.

The true impact of COVID and moratoriums will only be known by third quarter FY21 and therefore important that banks create sufficient capital reserves for any stress scenario, Abhinav Bharti, head of India ECM, JP Morgan said.
By PTI

KARACHI: A 200-year-old gurdwara in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province, which was being used as a government high school for the last seven decades, has been handed back to the minority Sikh community after restoration by the provincial government.

The Siri Guru Singh Gurdwara on Masjid Road in the centre of Quetta was handed back officially to the Sikh community on Wednesday to use it for prayers and religious ceremonies, authorities said.

The gurdwara was used as a government high school for girls for the last 73 years.

Denesh Kumar, the provincial parliamentary secretary and advisor to the Balochistan Chief Minister on Minority Affairs, said that the gurdwara has been restored as a place of worship for the Sikh community.

Kumar said the value of the 14,000 square-foot gurdwara was in billions of rupees at the current market value due to its central location, but the Balochistan government restored its status as a place of worship for the Sikh community.

He said that the students studying in the government high school were being supported in getting admission to nearby schools.

Sardar Jasbeer Singh, the Chairman of the Sikh Community Committee in Balochistan, said that the restoration of the gurdwara as a place of worship was a gift from the government.

He said that around 2,000 Sikh families live in different parts of Balochistan and the ancient gurdwara had a special significance for them.

Earlier this year, the government also handed over a 200-year old temple to the Hindu community in Zhob in the province.
The reward for a 10-year-old girl reported missing in Iowa two weeks ago was increased to $10,000, authorities announced at a news conference Wednesday.

"Our number one goal is to find the person responsible for the disappearance of Breasia and bring that person to justice," said FBI special agent in charge Kristi Johnson during an update on missing Breasia Terrell.

"We're also, obviously, working very hard to make sure that the family is supported and that we can do everything that we can to bring this case to a successful conclusion," she said.

Johnson works with the agency's Omaha, Nebraska, office which covers Nebraska and Iowa.

Breasia was reported missing on July 10. She was last seen at a home in Davenport earlier that morning, according to a missing person flyer. She was last seen wearing a white t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops.

The same day she was reported missing, she was entered into the National Crime Information Center database and the FBI got involved.

Breasia Terrell. (Davenport Police Department)

During Wednesday's news conference, Johnson said the FBI was increasing the reward to $10,000 for any information that helps authorities locate Breasia or that leads to the arrest of anyone involved in her disappearance.

Breasias mother, Aishia Lankford, told NBC's "Dateline" that her 8-year-old son spent the night of July 9 with his father, Henry Dinkins, and Dinkins' girlfriend. Breasia also spent the night after Dinkins offered to watch her, Lankford said.

Shes close with her brother and wanted to hang out with him, the mother said. We had no reason to worry that anything bad would happen.

Lankford said she checked on her children that night and received a text message from her daughter saying, "Good night, Mama, I love you."

When Lankford got to work the next morning, Dinkins called her and said that Breasia was gone.

At first I laughed because it sounded like a joke. It didnt make any sense. Its not like her, Lankford told "Dateline." She would never walk out, especially in the middle of the night. In the dark? No. Never.

Story continues

According to a criminal complaint obtained by "Dateline," a search warrant was executed at Dinkins' home the day Breasia was reported missing and he was arrested and charged with a second-offense sex offender registration violation and a probation violation. He remains in jail.

A statewide Amber Alert was issued for Breasia five days after she vanished and it named Dinkins as her alleged abductor. Davenport police have since classified him as a person of interest in the case but have not said he is a suspect.

Dinkins, 47, has not been charged with a crime related to Breasia's disappearance. It's not clear if he has obtained an attorney.

Police Chief Paul Sikorski said Wednesday that authorities are seeking information about Dinkins' vehicles and his whereabouts from 10 p.m. on July 9 to noon on July 10. It's believed that Dinkins' primary car is a maroon Chevy Impala, the chief said.

"This investigation is still full-force ahead, ongoing with great assets and resources here as we continue our search for Breasia," he said.

Lankford told "Dateline" that she thinks her daughter is being held against her will and is holding out hope that she'll be found safe.

Shes out there somewhere and when shes home safe, thats when the story begins. Thats when shell tell us what happened, Lankford said. But we just have to find her. Thats what were focused on now.
As part of a personal protection equipment allocation by the Texas Education Agency, pallets and large boxes of PPE were delivered to LISD in preparation for the start of the school year on Aug. 24, which will be virtual-learning only until parents can decide for the traditional method sometime in October.

According to Oscar Perez, the Assistant Superintendent for Accountability, Compliance and School Safety, 2,508 gallons of hand sanitizer, 150,000 surgical masks, 119,350 non-surgical masks, 3,350 face shields and 178 thermometers were delivered to the LISD warehouse. LISD was not charged for the additional equipment as the allocation is meant to supplement the supplies Texas school districts already have.

However, this is not the final total of PPE, as the district made a $1.3 million investment in securing PPE prior to the allocation, according to Angel Velazquez, the Assistant Superintendent of Plant Facility and Support Services.

Additional protective measures were part of the hefty investment as the district works to cover every angle come time for on-campus instruction. From plexiglass, dividers, handwashing soap and signage, protective measures are being developed and planned for before the start of the school year, Velazquez said.

According to Perez, the TEAs PPE allocation is only expected to last until November as the district will provide students masks throughout the school year. He added that once finished, the district will continue to find ways to provide students with PPE.

READ MORE: Laredos Dr. Cigarroa beats COVID-19, to return traveling to treat patients at homes

The COVID-19 LISD task force is working on a comprehensive guidebook that will be presented to the board of trustees in August. It will highlight standard procedures for staff and faculty and provide the best course of action of a situation.

Perez said that the guidebook will deal with situations including attendance, positive COVID-19 cases and more. Prior to the start of the school year, teachers will be trained for situations outlined in the guidebook to make the best decisions as the school year continues into 2021.

The task force is working on the book to provide clear and concise information for students, staff and parents, all of which who will be able to view the guidelines before the start of the school year. With the task force plan, the additional PPE and instruction from the TEA and the local health authority, LISD is preparing for October, when parents can choose to send their children to on-campus instruction.

The flu season will begin in mid-October and will present more challenges to students and staff on-campus, but both Perez and Velazquez believe that the guidebook will be able to address the concerns, and the investment of protective material will help LISDs soft reopening.

In some campuses, wide-range wifi routers are being installed to provide internet connectivity to surrounding homes. The effort is to provide families who prefer to keep their child at home for fear of infection, with the ability to continue with online instruction.

The reopening guide and task force guidebook are still in development but are expected to be presented in August. The following months are crucial for districts around the state as student attendance is monitored by the TEA the same as any normal year. Perez emphasized that students, whether they are remote-learning or on-campus, must participate.
Using Twitter in Japan just got a lot more complicated. The countryas Supreme Court has ruled that users who retweet copyright-infringing images can have their details passed onto rightsholders a whether they knew the pic was in violation or not.

In a decision handed down yesterday, the court ordered Twitter to turn over the email addresses of three users who allegedly retweeted a copyright-infringing image on the platform, TorrentFreak reports.

The ruling dates back to a case from 2014, when a photographer spotted one of his photos had been scraped from his website and posted to Twitter without his consent. He was also irked that retweeting the image automatically cropped his name out a a result stemming from Twitteras own algorithm and not the actions of its users.

Still, the photographer decided to take the matter to court, seeking to find not only the identity of the original poster but also those of retweeters. The Tokyo District Court concluded the original poster clearly violated the rights of the photographer, but ultimately dismissed the claims against retweeters.

That wasnat good enough for the photographer, so he took the case to the High Court handling intellectual property. That court agreed with the low courtas assessment that the original poster breached the artistas rights, but also added that retweeters had violated the photographeras moral rights, since his name was cropped out of the posts.

As a result, the High Court ordered Twitter to divulge the email addresses of both the original poster and the retweeters. That ruling didnat sit right with Twitter, which appealed the decision, claiming its users had no control over the cropping algorithm. The argument didnat fly in court, though.
NEW YORK, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lowey Dannenberg P.C., a preeminent law firm in obtaining redress for consumers and investors, has filed a federal securities class action in the Southern District of New York on behalf of its client and all similarly situated investors who purchased or otherwise acquired common stock of Wells Fargo & Co. ("Wells Fargo" or the "Company") (NYSE: WFC) from February 2, 2018 through March 10, 2020, inclusive (the "Class Period"). The class action is titled Perry v. Wells Fargo & Co. et al, No. 1:20-cv-04494 (S.D.N.Y.).



If you are a shareholder who purchased Wells Fargo securities during the Class Period, you have until August 14, 2020 to ask the Court to appoint you as the Lead Plaintiff for the Class. Any member of the proposed Class may move to serve as the Lead Plaintiff through counsel of their choice. To obtain a copy of the complaint or to discuss this lawsuit, contact Christian Levis at clevis@lowey.com or by calling 914-733-7220 or Andrea Farah at afarah@lowey.com or by calling 914-733-7256.

Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Wells Fargo provides a range of financial products and services, including banking, consumer finance, credit cards, investments, leasing and mortgages. The Complaint alleges that Wells Fargo made false and misleading statements to the public throughout the Class Period, repeatedly touting its efforts towards compliance with consent orders issued by the Federal Reserve, Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and other government agencies.

On March 4, 2020, a 113-page-report told the true story of Wells Fargos compliance. The report stated that the Company had submitted insufficiently developed and inadequate remediation plans, struggled to meet deadlines, and failed to implement meaningful reforms. The government agencies overseeing the reform threatened supervisory and/or enforcement actions and additional penalties. Wells Fargos stock declined from $41.40 to close at $37.09 on Friday, March 6, 2020, a decline of $4.31 or just over 10%.

On March 10, 2020, the U.S. House Financial Services Committee requested that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate Wells Fargos former CEO for providing false statements directly related to the Companys compliance while giving public testimony in 2019. On this news, Wells Fargos shares fell from $34.63 per share to $27.20, a decline of $7.43 or more than 20%.

About Lowey Dannenberg

Since its inception in 1967, Lowey has specialized in the prosecution of complex civil class action lawsuits and has grown into one of the most successful shareholder litigation firms in the field. Its investor litigation group has recovered billions of dollars in the aggregate and has achieved landmark, long-term corporate governance changes at public companies. Over decades of zealous advocacy, Lowey has developed a profound knowledge of securities and antitrust class action litigation.

Contact

If you have any questions or want to discuss this lawsuit, contact Christian Levis at clevis@lowey.com or by calling 914-733-7220 or Andrea Farah at afarah@lowey.com or by calling 914-733-7256.

Lowey Dannenberg P.C.

44 South Broadway, Suite 1100

White Plains, NY 10601

Tel: (914) 733-7256

Email: investigations@lowey.com
LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - Italy's borrowing costs fell to their lowest levels since early March on Wednesday, extending recent declines a day after European Union leaders reached agreement on a 750 billion euro COVID recovery fund.

Italy's 10-year bond yield fell to 1.107%, its lowest since early March. It is down almost 13 basis points this week and on track for its biggest weekly drop in two months.

Two-year Italian bond yields also hit new recent lows at -0.05%, after falling back in into negative territory earlier this week. (Reporting by Dhara Ranasinghe; editing by Marc Jones)
Hamilton mobster Pat Musitano and his business partner Grant Edward Norton were both killed this month, but police say its too early to say if the murders are linked.

At this time, there does NOT appear to be a connection between the two homicides, London police Det. Supt. Chris Newton said in an email to The Star.

The body of Norton, 59, of Ingersoll, was found in a wooded area in east London earlier this month.

Police havent released the cause of death for Norton, who London police said was likely killed in London.

Norton was reportedly last seen on July 6. He was reported missing by his family on July 12, two days after Musitano was shot to death in a Burlington parking lot while meeting with two other men.

There have been no arrests in Musitanos murder.

Norton was a partner with Musitano in a gravel hauling company accused of illegally dumping gravel in the Niagara Region. The company was also in the midst of a bitter dispute with truckers over alleged non-payment of wages.

Norton was arrested by Niagara Regional Police in June 2019 as part of an ongoing theft and fraud investigation near St. Catharines connected to West Lincoln business Havana Group Incorporated, which was involved in hauling soil from construction sites.

London police said that a post-mortem examination was conducted on Nortons body at the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto, after what were reported by police as suspected human remains were recovered Sunday.

London Police Service members became involved in the investigation during the week of July 13, 2020, and confirmed that Mr. Norton had been last seen in this city, London police said late Wednesday in a written statement.

Nortons body was found in a wooded area of London near Ada Street and Jacqueline Streets, police said.

Given the condition in which the remains were found, it was not possible to confirm whether they were human without a forensic autopsy conducted over the course of two days, beginning on July 20, London police said in a written statement.

On July 22, 2020, the West Region Coroner confirmed the identity of the remains, and determined Mr. Nortons death was a homicide, the statement continued.

Investigators are now conducting a forensic examination on a two-story residence at 20 Adelaide St. S., about two blocks from where his remains were found, London police said.

The backyard of the residence was filled with trash and debris, which was photographed by police forensics officers on Wednesday.

Musitano and Norton were both involved with Havana Group, whose principal officer, Steve Sardinha, pleaded guilty to fraud in March 2020.

Sardinha, 47, received a suspended sentence in March, along with three years of probation and an order to pay $40,000 in restitution to a Grimsby property owner who was scammed through a lease agreement, the Hamilton Spectator reported.

Sardinha was originally facing nine charges and had already paid the property owner $200,000 in restitution, the Spectator reported.

Meanwhile, Norton failed to appear in court in March and the judge issued a warrant for his arrest. Police in London, Waterloo Region and Niagara Region were seeking to arrest Norton for breaching a bail condition, the Spectator reported.

Norton was facing seven charges, including fraud, theft, uttering threats, conspiracy and obstructing a peace officer.

A Spectator investigation last year showed Havana Group Supplies, Sardinha, Norton and their associates had suggested they had received construction-related contracts from Metrolinx, CN Rail and three casinos worth $110 million per month.

However, Metrolinx, CN Rail and the three casinos all indicated to The Spectator they had not awarded any such contracts to Havana Group Supplies, related companies or their principals.
According to intelligence reports, one member of Russia-led forces was killed and another three were wounded.

Russia's hybrid military forces on July 22 mounted 15 attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, with four members of the Joint Forces reported as wounded in action.

"The Russian Federation's armed formations violated the ceasefire 15 times on July 22," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation Headquarters said on Facebook in an update as of 07:00 Kyiv time on July 23. "As a result, four servicemen of the Joint Forces were wounded in enemy shelling."

Russian-led forces opened fire using proscribed 120mm mortars, cannons installed on infantry fighting vehicles, grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns, UAVs, and small arms.

Read alsoVolunteers launch huge Ukrainian flag into the sky over occupied Donetsk (Photo, video)

Under attack came Ukrainian positions near the town of Maryinka, and the villages of Mayorsk, Khutir Vilny, Krymske, Lebedynske, Vodiane, Pyshchevyk, Starohnativka, and Talakivka.

The Joint Forces returned fire to each enemy attack. According to intelligence reports, one member of Russia-led forces was killed and another three were wounded on July 22. The enemy's prior casualties on July 21 included two killed fighters, according to updated data.

The enemy did not attack Ukrainian positions from 00:00 to 07:00 Kyiv time on July 23.

No casualties have been reported since Thursday midnight.
WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Donald Trump said he spoke with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, about an arms agreement and fighting the coronavirus in their first call since explosive allegations emerged last month that Moscow had put bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.



Neither the White House nor Kremlin readouts of the July 23 call mentioned the Afghanistan bounties, which have not been confirmed.



The two leaders discussed the expiring New START nuclear agreement and combating the coronavirus pandemic, according to both readouts. Trump and Putin also discussed Iran's nuclear program, the Kremlin statement said.



The New START treaty, which expires in February, limits the number of U.S. and Russian deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 each.



Trump wants China to be part of the treaty, a move that Beijing has rejected, raising concerns that the deal -- the last bilateral nuclear-arms agreement between Washington and Moscow -- could fall apart.



U.S. and Russian envoys held talks in Vienna last month to discuss a replacement for the pact and are scheduled to meet again to continue discussions.



Trump "reiterated his hope of avoiding an expensive three-way arms race between China, Russia, and the United States," adding that he "looked forward to progress on upcoming arms control negotiations in Vienna," the White House statement said.

Iran Nuclear Deal



The Kremlin readout did not give any details about their discussion regarding Iran's nuclear program.



The Trump administration in 2018 pulled out of an international nuclear agreement with Iran, claiming it paved the way for Tehran to develop weapons-grade uranium in a few years and that it did not stop Iran's missile program. Russia is among the parties to the pact.



Trump and Putin have held at least seven calls since March 30 amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has ravaged the global economy and sent the price of oil, Russia's main export commodity, tumbling. Trump and Putin spoke several times in April to negotiate a global oil production cut to shore up prices.



The White House readout of the call said Trump and Putin "discussed efforts to defeat the coronavirus pandemic while continuing to reopen global economies."



The July 23 call comes a week after the United States, Britain, and Canada accused a Russian military intelligence unit of trying to steal COVID-19 vaccine research and as Washington announced it would sanction any company helping build the Kremlin's natural gas pipeline to Germany.



The New York Times reported at the end of June that U.S. intelligence officials concluded months ago that Russian military intelligence offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill American soldiers. The paper went on to claim that Trump was briefed on the matter, but did nothing in response.



The White House has said neither Trump nor Vice President Mike Pence had been briefed on the alleged intelligence. The House of Representatives has held several hearings on the topic about how the U.S. should respond if the allegations are substantiated.
New York:

Your smartphone may soon be able to give honest answers to your queries, thanks to a new machine learning algorithm designed to learn directly from human instructions, rather than an existing set of examples.

The algorithm designed by researchers from University of Toronto in Canada outperformed its own training by nine percent. It learned to recognise hair in pictures with greater reliability than that enabled by the training, marking a significant leap forward for artificial intelligence.

Researchers Parham Aarabi and Wenzhi Guo from University of Toronto trained their algorithm to identify people's hair in photographs - a much more challenging task for computers than it is for humans.



"Our algorithm learned to correctly classify difficult, borderline cases - distinguishing the texture of hair versus the texture of the background," said Aarabi. "What we saw was like a teacher instructing a child, and the child learning beyond what the teacher taught her initially," he said.

Humans "teach" neural networks - computer networks that learn dynamically - by providing a set of labelled data and asking the neural network to make decisions based on the samples it is seen. For example, you could train a neural network to identify sky in a photograph by showing it hundreds of pictures with the sky labelled. This algorithm is different: it learns directly from human trainers.

With this model, called heuristic training,humans provide direct instructions that are used topre-classify training samples rather than a set of fixed examples.

Trainers programme the algorithm with guidelines such as "sky is likely to be varying shades of blue," and "pixels near the top of the image are more likely to be sky than pixels at the bottom." This heuristic training approach holds considerable promise for addressing one of the biggest challenges forneural networks: making correct classifications of previouslyunknown or unlabelled data. This is crucial for applying machine learning to newsituations, such as correctly identifying cancerous tissuesfor medical diagnostics, or classifying all the objectssurrounding and approaching a self-driving car.

"Applying heuristic training to hair segmentation is just a start," said Guo. "We are keen to apply our method to other fields and arange of applications, from medicine to transportation," Guo added. The study was published in the journal IEEE Transactionson Neural Networks and Learning Systems.

For all the Latest Business News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
The European Union used to support and will continue to support Ukraine, said Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commission Executive Vice President.

He told reporters in Brussels on Thursday after a meeting with Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal that the EU continues to support Ukraine politically, supporting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country, financially, and through sectoral cooperation. He said the EU will continue fruitful cooperation with Ukraine.

Dombrovskis emphasized that the first foreign visit of the Ukrainian Prime Minister was to Brussels, adding that this demonstrates very strong ties and cooperation between Ukraine and the EU.

The Executive Vice President noted that during the meeting, the parties discussed in detail the financial support which the EU has already provided, urgent assistance related to the COVID-19 crisis, and also signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the provision of macro-financial assistance of EUR 1.2 billion, which is, in his opinion, a strong signal of continuing close cooperation between Ukraine and the EU.

According to Dombrovskis, the issue of the agenda of reforms of the Ukrainian government was also discussed. He said the EU welcomes its (government's) commitment (to carry out reforms). From the EU side, the issue of the independence of the Central Bank of Ukraine, which is important not only for the financial stability of Ukraine, but also for further joint successful cooperation, was noted.

Speaking about the conditions that Ukraine must fulfill in order to receive the second tranche of macro-financial assistance, the Executive Vice President expressed confidence that they can be fulfilled by the end of this year, and said that they are related to the continuation of the reforms that Ukraine has undergone in previous years. As an example, Dombrovskis named reforms in the field of governance and the rule of law, public funding, and entrepreneurship.
An Australian expat has suffered devastating injuries after a motorbike accident in Bali.

Byron Bay man Neil Goldsmith, who now lives in Jawa Tengah, Indonesia, was found paralysed in a ditch in Bali with critical injuries to his spine and face on July 17.

He had been surfing before the accident and was in the ditch for four hours before being found.

Byron Bay man Neil Goldsmith (pictured) is paralysed from the chest down in an intensive care unit in Bali after a horrific motorbike crash left him with devastating injuries to his spine and face

Mr Goldsmith (pictured), an avid surfer, has a one-in-three chance of never walking again and still requires more surgery including facial reconstruction

Mr Goldsmith was rushed to hospital where he remains in the intensive care unit facing a one-in-three chance of never being able to walk again.

Despite already having several operations, the avid surfer still requires further treatment including facial reconstruction.

His sister Louise Webber said they were hopeful he would start to regain some feeling in his body soon.

'At this point Neil is paralysed from the chest down but were hoping that once the swelling in his spinal cord subsides he may regain some feeling,' she wrote.

'He only has a one in three chance of walking again.'

Ms Webber also set up a GoFundMe to help cover the massive medical costs which have already exceeded $40,000 in four days.

She said it was breaking her heart that she couldn't be by her brother's side but the family were grateful for his friends in Indonesia who are offering him support.

'I know hes in incredible pain. I know he needs us. I know going forward this will be a tough journey for him,' she wrote.

'Neil is not someone who normally asks for help, but his family and friends are asking for your help now.'
Way back in January (its been a long year) Hallburton was already souring on shale. Way before the novel coronavirus put the final nail in the coffin of the West Texas shale revolution, the multinational corporation and one of the largest oil field service companies in the world had very publicly been going through a rough patch with shale oil. January 2020 marked the posting of Halliburons third straight quarterly loss during the national shale slump that also caused the corporation to take a $2.2 billion charge to its earnings. As a result of this massive shale slump, Halliburton laid off a whopping eight percent of its North American staff in the middle of last year, before dismissing even more employees in the Western U.S. The charge for asset impairments was centered on hydraulic fracturing and legacy drilling equipment units, and employee severance costs, Reuters reported that the company had said in late January.

Shale profitability was already under pressure in 2019, and, in 2020, nothing could have prepared the U.S. shale sector for the COVID-19 pandemic. As the novel coronavirus was spreading across the world and key international industries were hitting the pause button, global oil demand took a huge hit. This was then exacerbated (to say the least) by a dispute between the leading OPEC+ members of Saudi Arabia and Russia, which soon escalated into an all-out oil price war resulting in a massive oil glut that international markets still have not come close to bouncing back from. But while the Brent international crude benchmark took a big hit from the plunging oil demand, skyrocketing supply, and dire deficit of oil storage space around the world, the West Texas Intermediate crude benchmark took the heaviest blow, making history when it plunged below zero, ending April 20 at nearly negative 40 dollars per barrel.

Related: Oil Prices Hit Four-Month High On Vaccine Hopes



This was, quite possibly, the coup de grace for the U.S. shale sector. It certainly was as far as Halliburton is concerned. This week Bloomberg reported that Halliburton Co. is looking away from its traditional North American heartland for sales growth as the fracking behemoth works its way through an historic oil bust. The report suggests that Halliburton is pursuing a course going forward that may not include U.S. shale, once a major cash cow for the company, to a large degree, if at all. Shares for one of the worlds biggest oilfield service providers surged more than 8% on Monday after it posted $456 million in second-quarter free cash flow -- more than double expectations. Halliburton also told investors its charting a fundamentally different course after slashing jobs and the dividend in recent months, reported Bloomberg on Tuesday.

With oil and gas markets as they are, many shale companies have essentially taken a frac holiday throughout this years second quarter, and while U.S. shale prices have now recovered to a level hovering around their breakeven price of $40 per barrel, that may not be enough to pay off a mountain of debt thats coming due in the next couple of years. With U.S. oil prices hovering around $40 a barrel, shale explorers are starting to open up idled wells and chewing into a backlog of partially finished wells that were halted before they were fracked, writes Bloomberg, but a company the size of Halliburtons decision to pivot away from shale could certainly be seen as a harbinger of doom.

As oil demand recovers, I expect the international business will continue to be a more meaningful contributor to our revenue going forward, Chief Executive Officer Jeff Millerwas quoted this week. North America production is likely to remain structurally lower in the foreseeable future and has slower growth going forward.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
SEOUL, South Korea  One of South Koreas most notorious fugitives was arrested in the United States this week on  embezzlement charges at home stemming from the 2014 sinking of a ferry that killed more than 300 people, many of them high school students.

Yoo Hyuk-kee, 48, was arrested on Wednesday without incident at his home in Westchester County, N.Y., in response to an extradition request that South Korea submitted to the United States, a Justice Department spokeswoman said.

Mr. Yoos arrest ends a prolonged mystery over the whereabouts of the man South Korean investigators consider to be a central figure in the scandal surrounding the ferrys sinking, which traumatized the nation. Prosecutors have said that rampant embezzlement by the Yoo family helped create unsafe conditions and practices on the Sewol ferry.

Image Yoo Hyuk-kee, also known as Keith Yoo. Credit... Jamie McCarthy/WireImage

Mr. Yoo, also known by his English name, Keith Yoo, is a son of Yoo Byung-eun, whose family controlled the Chonghaejin Marine Company, the operator of the Sewol. The overloaded ferry capsized off the southwestern tip of South Korea in April 2014 in the countrys worst disaster in decades.
TDT | Manama

For the first time since its launch, 29 students from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland-Medical University of Bahrain (RCSI Bahrain) have received the RCSI Bahrain International Citizenship Award (ICA). The ICA programme is a twoyear, mentored platform open for students from the School of Medicine and School of Nursing and Midwifery, and is organised and managed by the Department of Student Development and Wellbeing, in conjunction with the Careers and Alumni Office.

The winners of the award are referred to as RCSI International Citizens, and they are students who have exhibited the necessary skills and knowledge to work successfully in the world of healthcare while demonstrating the ability to be reflective and to interact effectively with people from different cultural backgrounds.

RCSI Bahrain president Professor Sameer Otoom commented: Congratulations to the first recipients of the RCSI Bahrain International Citizenship Award on your terrific achievement. You have exceptionally displayed your ability to be creative, analytical, ethical, and culturally aware leaders, who will soon be ready to enter and thrive in the field of healthcare.

In RCSI Bahrain, we take pride in our students and we are committed to nurturing outstanding healthcare professionals who will differentiate themselves as leaders in the healthcare field. Aqsa Patel, one of the awardees, addressed her fellow award recipients, saying: A huge congratulations is in order to all of us for reaching the completion of this two-year long journey.

Over the past couple of years, we have developed and honed skills such as focus, discipline, time management and collegiality, which we gained throughout our experience in the ICA programme. To be eligible to take part in the ICA programme, students attend compulsory workshops on cultural competency and reflective writing along with a series of other requirements and tasks as they are guided by their ICA mentors.

They are also expected to submit a portfolio and a final reflective essay on what makes them an RCSI International Citizen. At the end of the two years, the students work will be assessed by the appointed ICA Board and those who successfully complete the programme will receive an award.
Criticizing China for human rights abuses against religious minorities in Xinjiang, the French Foreign Minister on July 21 urged that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights be given free entry to Xinjiang. As per reports, Jean-Yves Le Drian joined the US and the UK as he demanded that Michelle Bachelet must be allowed to investigate China's western province where over one million Uighurs resided.

"All of the practices in the area are unacceptable because they go against all the global human rights conventions and we condemn them strongly," the top French diplomat was quoted as saying by ANI. Further, he said that Paris was closely monitoring the situation in Xinjiang and wants international independent observers and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to navigate the region and take strict actions against China over the atrocities it committed on Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in the province. Further, on July 21, the Muslim Council of Britain urged the UK government to "take strong action" against china for "ethnic cleansing of Uighur Muslims".

Read: British Cycling Team Changes Name Again For Tour De France

Read: France: Health Minister Warns Circulation Of Coronavirus Is 'increasing'

US sanctions 11 Chinese firms

Earlier, in a drastic measure over Hong Kongs new security legislation, the UK suspended the extradition treaty with Hong Kong "immediately and indefinitely" citing Chinas behaviour in Hong Kong and its ethnic communities human rights abuses in Xinjiang, UK Foreign Minister Dominic Raab was reported saying in an address with the House of Commons in a live-streamed conference. Moreover, the US announced sanctions against 11 Chinese firms over human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region. US Commerce Department blacklisted these companies as it accused China of "campaign of repression" against the Uighurs minority group. New addition now has at least 50 Chinese companies in total on the US Entities List which is restricted to avail US technology and other goods, according to reports.

US Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, said in a statement that the Chinese companies were added on the list maintained by the Departments Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). Accusing China of human rights violation, he added, "Beijing actively promotes the reprehensible practice of forced labour and abusive DNA collection and analysis schemes to repress its citizens.

Read: Iran Sends Down Ukrainian Plane's Black Box To France

Read: France Mandates Mask-wearing In All Indoor Places Frequented By Public

(With ANI Inputs)

(Image Credit: AP)
When it comes to understanding a novel virus during a pandemic, doctors and researchers want as much data as they can get their hands on.

But for many of us non-medical professionals, it can be challenging to determine what each data set means and what information to track.

Sorry, but your browser does not support frames.

Browser does not support frames.
The Board of Supervisors voted 25-2 against a resolution that would declare Barron County to be a constitutional county at its July 20 meeting. Supervisors Bill Effertz and Steve Johnson were for it, and Supervisors Pam Fall and Don Horstman were absent.

Before the boards discussion and vote, resident Susan Brooks of Almena reminded the supervisors that they had already taken an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution and said there would be great confusion among citizens of the county if supervisors felt the need to make a statement on something they have already sworn to uphold.

Former county supervisor Keith Hardie said there is more to the U.S. Constitution than the first two amendments, including lots of checks and balances assuring legislators do their jobs correctly. He urged the supervisors not to pass the resolution.

In a discussion by the supervisors before the vote, Chairman Louie Okey said he has had several calls on why the County Board is taking up a national issue. He explained that the request, with 4,011 signatures of county residents, was respectfully submitted and the board was asked to take action on it.

They were respectful and followed the procedures, Okey said.

Supervisor Terry Lee said he if they pass it, they are doing what the Constitution says they cannot do. He said the county has neither the right nor authority to change nor amend what they have already sworn to uphold.

Supervisor Bob Rogers noted if the County Board starts playing games with the Constitution, it has an excellent Corporation Counsel to advise them and set them straight. I urge my compatriots to vote no, he said.

Supervisor Gary Taxdahl wondered why it was presented to the County Board in the first place. I wish someone would have been here, or those who signed the petition, he commented. Itd be nice to hear the argument to pass it from those who petitioned it.

Supervisor Bill Schradle said, Im a strict constitutionalist, and Im very much opposed to it.
In the 1990s of the 20th century, the Quang Tri provincial authorities restored the citadel. Nowadays, the citadel becomes a place to mark immortal victories of the Vietnamese army and people, and to educate youths about the nation's revolutionary tradition and its patriotism (Photo: VNA)
Fair organizers have been forced to apologize after a fire chief dressed as woman for a fundraising dunk tank and they then compared to Pennsylvania's transgender heath secretary.

Bloomsburg Fair Association shared pictures of fire chief of Main Township, David Broadt, taking part in the fundraiser and wrote: 'Dr. Levine? Thank you. You were a hit and raised a lot of money for the local fire companies. Wonder why so many were trying to dunk you?'

Broadt said he was 'going for a Marilyn Monroe look' and it was 'just in fun', reported NBC News. He said 'it wasn't done to disrespect her.'

But others, including the Bloomsburg Fair Association, compared Broadt to transgender health secretary Dr Rachel Levine, who has been leading the state's coronavirus response, prompting anger from LGBTQ groups.

A now-deleted Facebook post that joked 'wonder why so many were trying to dunk you' was shared by the Bloomsburg Fair Association

David Broadt is seen dressed in a dress, wig and glasses at the event at the weekend

Randy Karschner, the president of the Bloomsburg Fair Association, which ran the carnival to raise money for firefighters last weekend, said 'we apologize' for sharing the post.

He added: 'Somebody walked by and said it resembled the doctor and it just went from there. It was a good time until it hit social media, and as 20/20 hindsight goes it's not as clear in front sometimes as it is behind.'

In a statement, Levine's spokesperson, Nate Wardle, said the secretary 'remains laser-focused on protecting the health and well-being of Pennsylvanians as we navigate this ongoing pandemic.'

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said Levine is owed an apology for the carnival incident.

The fire chief of Main Township, David Broadt, was compared to Pennsylvania's Secretary of Health Dr Rachel Levine (pictured in May) after he dressed up as a woman for a fundraising dunk tank

'Dr. Levine is an honorable public servant whose tireless work to keep PA safe and healthy has saved countless lives,' he wrote on Twitter on Monday. 'The members of the Pennsylvania transgender community are our neighbors and friends. Treat them that way.

Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims, a Democrat from Philadelphia, wrote a series of tweets praising Dr Levine.

He said: 'Pennsylvania has been blessed with the world-class leadership & public health expertise that our Secretary of Health brings to the table.

'Her actions have saved tens of thousands of lives and she continues to be a leader during this global pandemic.'
Dire official forecasts for Australia's unemployment rate to reach 9.25 per cent have prompted urgent calls for the Morrison government to create a plan to stop hundreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs before Christmas.

Another 240,000 people are expected to be out of work by the December quarter bringing the jobless rate to the highest in more than two decades, the federal government's economic update shows.

Josh Frydenberg has warned the unemployment rate will get higher in 2020. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the government's actions, including the introduction of the wage subsidy scheme JobKeeper, had so far saved about 700,000 jobs. More than 870,000 people left the workforce between March and May and one million had their hours reduced.

"Without the government's economic support measures, unemployment would have peaked at five percentage points higher," Mr Frydenberg said. These support measures include schemes like the $86 billion wage subsidy program JobKeeper and new JobMaker plan, which includes wage subsidies for apprentices and trainees.
Former Trump lawyer Cohen was put back in jail as retaliation for plans to publish a book on the president, judge says.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered United States President Donald Trumps former lawyer Michael Cohen released from prison on Friday and returned to home confinement after suggesting during a court hearing that prosecutors sent Cohen back to prison as retaliation for planning to publish a book about the president just before the November election.

Cohen was sent home from prison in May because of the coronavirus pandemic. He was shackled again on July 9 after he questioned an agreement that barred him from publishing his book, engaging with news organisations and posting on social media.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein said he had never seen in his 21 years on the bench a provision barring a prisoner from speaking to the media. How can I take any other inference but that it was retaliatory?

Cohen has been in solitary confinement in a federal prison in Otisville, New York, about 110km (70 miles) northwest of New York City.

Cohens lawyers said in court papers the US Bureau of Prisons (BOP) violated his First Amendment rights.

Michael Cohen, a longtime personal lawyer and confidante for President Donald Trump, was sentenced in 2018 for directing hush payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal [File: Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFP]

Michael Cohen is currently imprisoned in solitary confinement because he is drafting a book manuscript that is critical of the President of the United States  and because he recently made public that he intends to publish this book shortly before the upcoming election, Cohens lawyers, who include attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, wrote in seeking an order for his immediate release.

Prosecutors on Wednesday said in court papers that Cohen was antagonistic during the July 9 meeting with probation officers and should remain behind bars.

Cohen took issue with nearly every provision of an agreement that would have let him finish his sentence at home, prosecutors said. Among the provisions were the media ban, electronic monitoring and approval for employment.

Jon Gustin, a BOP official, said in a court filing that he made the decision to send Cohen back to prison.

In my view, Cohens behavior and, in particular, his refusal to sign the conditions of home confinement was unacceptable and undermined his suitability for placement on home confinement, Gustin wrote.





Gustin said he was not aware of Cohens book.

Adam Pakula, the probation officer who drafted Cohens agreement, said he based it on terms for the supervision of high-profile inmates that he got from a fellow officer, including the provision on media contact.

Pakula also said he was not aware of Cohens book at the time.

Cohen, who once said he would take a bullet for Trump, was sentenced in 2018 for directing hush payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claimed they had affairs with Trump. Trump has denied having the encounters.

Cohen served a year of his three-year sentence before being released in May.

In a friend-of-the-court filing,10 law professors said the government cannot jail a critic for exercising his right to free speech under the US Constitution.

The professors noted the Trump administrations disparate treatment of its allies and prior attempts to silence or retaliate against critics of the President.
Here are some of todays top stories.

These American mercenaries were the heroes of China A few hundred of Americans became the heroes of China in 1941 flying warplanes featured a tooth-filled shark on their nose, destroying nearly 500 Japanese planes during World War II.

Fact check: At his first coronavirus briefing since April, Trump repeats a handful of classic false claims In his first coronavirus briefing since April, President Donald Trump got a little more accurate about the state of the pandemic in the US  but also continued to make some of the same false claims and promote some of the same misleading narratives of his previous moments in the White House briefing room.

Texas Covid-19 hot spot is facing a tsunami of patients, overwhelming hospitals Jessica Ortiz said she and her twin brother, Jubal, were inseparable. Even when Jubal lay dead in an open casket with plexiglass over his body  out of fear he could still be contagious with coronavirus  she couldnt help but lean down and touch him at his viewing earlier this month.

Nearly one in four people in Delhi may have contracted Covid-19, study reveals Nearly one in four residents in the Indian capital of New Delhi may have been infected with the novel coronavirus, antibody tests on a random sample of people has shown.

Trump blasts Beijing in public, but privately Trump org imports tons of Chinese goods President Donald Trump has cast himself as tough on China and promised that his trade negotiations with Beijing would economically benefit everyday Americans, even as Trump-owned properties have continued to contribute to the trade deficit with the country he rails about.

Joe Biden says he is considering four Black women to be his running mate Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said Monday he was considering four Black women to be his running mate, and has been receiving extensive vetting briefings about each potential candidate.

Mars is the latest arena in the US-China rivalry Two years after humans last landed a probe on Mars, both the United States and China are launching missions to the red planet this month and setting up a new arena for their growing rivalry.

One of the oldest businesses on the internet just got sold for $9 billion One of the webs oldest businesses has a new owner.

Scientists are one step closer to delaying aging Scientists at the University of California San Diego may be one step closer to being able to delay the aging process.

Chinas latest starfish-shaped airport set to boost tourism in northeast Qingdao, a Chinese coastal city famous for being the headquarters of (CNN)  Tsingtao Brewery, is poised for a major tourism boost with the completion of the new Qingdao Jiaodong International Airport. Construction wrapped up on June 24, according to Chinese state media, but an official opening date has not been announced.

Trump predicts pandemic will get worse Share this with Facebook Share this with Messenger Share this with Twitter Share this with Facebook Share this with WhatsApp Share this with Messenger Share this with Twitter Share this with These are external links and will open in a new window Copy this link https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53494766?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Bbbc.news.twitter%5D-%5Bheadline%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D&at_custom4=95949358-CB9B-11EA-B269-06A84744363C&at_medium=custom7&at_custom3=%40BBCWorld&at_custom2=twitter&at_custom1=%5Bpost+type%5D&at_campaign=64 Read more about sharing.

Cheetahs and gorillas but few tourists to see them With its game parks, beaches and historic sites, Africa attracts a huge number of foreign tourists but numbers are sharply down because of the coronavirus outbreak, writes Larry Madowo. Maria Maile has been cooking lunches and hosting overnight guests at her home in South Africas coastal city of Cape Town since her first three guests checked in nearly 22 years ago.

Whole Foods in Black Lives Matter legal claim Workers at Whole Foods are suing the US supermarket for punishing them for wearing Black Lives Matter masks. The federal lawsuit says the firm discriminated against black staff by selectively enforcing its dress code. Whole Foods, owned by tech giant Amazon, forbids staff from wearing clothes with messages that are not company-related.

Twitter cracks down on QAnon conspiracy theorists Twitter has announced sweeping measures aimed at cracking down on the QAnon conspiracy theory, including banning thousands of accounts. The social media giant said it would also stop recommending content linked to QAnon and block URLs associated with it from being shared on the platform.

Coronavirus: What I learnt in Oxfords vaccine trial Im sitting in a hospital reception, and my breath is fogging my glasses. Minutes ago, I had been running through humid streets, late for my appointment. As doctors and nurses stroll past on their way to work, Im aware that I dont look particularly well.

Why Arctic sea ice just crashed to an extreme, record low Where there should be ice-clad seas, there is vast, open ocean. Arctic sea ice  declining now for decades  has plummeted to a record-low for this time of year. The oceans above Russia and Siberia have a particularly glaring lack of ice.

Amazon rolls out little delivery robot to more cities Amazon is rolling out its robot delivery trial to more cities. The e-commerce giant launched its delivery system, Amazon Scout, in January 2019 using electric, autonomous vehicles that can navigate sidewalks to deliver packages. They were first developed and tested in Snohomish County, north of Seattle, then rolled out in Irvine, California in August of that year.

Chinese hackers counted on no one clicking update in decade-long spree Uh, maybe stop asking your computer to remind you tomorrow. The Department of Justice unsealed an indictment Tuesday alleging two hackers worked in collaboration with the Chinese Ministry of State Security to steal everything from video game source code to weapons designs from hundreds of companies around the globe.
Loading "The only thing thats changed is a pregnant woman giving birth can now have one visitor when before it was two," she wrote on Twitter just before 11pm on Thursday. "Her partner/support person can stay for as long as they wish during labour and birth and after the baby is born." Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton was also forced to clarify the rules in a press conference on Friday. He said that "there is no limit" on the amount of time a partner or support person can stay with a woman following childbirth. "If a support person or partner stays continuously, there is no limit to the amount of time they can stay," Mr Sutton said.

"In relation to visits to pregnant women and during the labour and birthing process, I think there has been some confusion. The direction states that a support person or partner can stay as long as is desired and needed for the labour and birth process, as long as is required. That is not limited at all. "For subsequent days post-delivery, there is a visit limit of one person for two hours. That is a change. It was previously two people for up to two hours." Elena Bruno-Scott and her husband Gideon Scott feel confused by the advice on birth rules. Credit:Joe Armao He said he understood the stress the mixed messaging had caused. "I absolutely understand the distress. Someone who feels like they can't be there for the most critical time in their partner's life and indeed in their life, it must be a distressing element," he said.

On Friday evening, Labor MP Tim Richardson said he would write to Mr Sutton to ask him to reconsider the ruling altogether and remove all limits on partner visits for a 72-hour period after births. "You can go to the supermarket whenever you want for as long as you want, but you cant see your baby," he said. "This risks the mental health of mothers." Mr Richardson and his wife are expecting a child of their own, and the MP said he had been inundated with responses on social media from expecting parents over the restrictions. "I hope we can find a way forward that is safe at a time when our community's mental health is so fragile," he wrote on his Facebook page.

Elena Bruno-Scott, who is 41 weeks pregnant and expecting the arrival of her first-born any day now, said the changing advice was stressful. "It's definitely concerning, the contradicting and fluctuating information. That's definitely not helping," she said on Friday morning. "I think it's a good thing, I don't think someone should be kicked out of the birthing suite." Ms Bruno-Scott is booked to give birth at the Mercy Hospital for Women in Heidelberg but wants to see if she can be sent home early, instead of spending the majority of her first days as a mother alone.

Because her family are all overseas, Ms Bruno-Scott's husband Gideon - who also has no relatives in Melbourne - is her only support in Melbourne. "These confusing and frantic changes to hospital regulations ... I struggle to see the value. Aside from stressing me out beyond belief," she said. "Pregnancy is already exhausting, we really don't need to be messed around with, not at this stage." She said she had "recurring anxiety" that the rules could change again in the next few days.

'There doesn't seem to be a great deal of thought and consideration. People should not be frantically checking the news at 7.30am in the morning when they are literally due to give birth any second to know if the hospital is going to let their partner in." Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians president Dr Vijay Roach said on Friday morning he was glad the rules had been clarified. "We were concerned and had interpreted the advice as after a woman had given birth that her partner might need to leave the hospital within two hours after the birth," he told ABC Radio National. "We have just been told that the Health Minister from Victoria has issued a statement making it very clear now that a partner or support person can stay for as long as they wish for labour and birth and after the baby is born."

He said the concerns he expressed on Thursday had been alleviated. "It's just changed in 12 hours so I think that's a really positive thing, and kudos to the government to responding to the concern and it's possible it was a misinterpretation. These things are sometimes very difficult to understand. "When we are talking about pregnancy and pregnant woman they have particular needs, there is increased anxiety and it's a really important bonding time when someone gives birth, so we felt it was important to emphasise after the birth their partner was able to stay with them for as long as appropriate." Victorian shadow treasurer Louise Staley said the change had created "more unnecessary distress".

"Public administration is breaking down. Who is running the pandemic response in Victoria?" she said on Twitter. Visiting restrictions will be tightened across Victorian hospitals and aged care facilities as case numbers continue to rise among healthcare workers, nursing home staff and residents.

Loading Only one person can visit hospital patients and aged care home residents for one hour a day, but there will be exceptions for parents with children in hospital and visitors of patients in palliative care. Other exceptions include nominated mental health supporters, people providing language support and people visiting patients in life-threatening situations.
Derek Chauvin, the former Minnesota police officer charged with the death of George Floyd, and his wife Kellie have been charged with felony tax crimes after an investigation into their finances undertaken by the Minnesota Department of Revenue.

According to the charges, the Chauvins repeatedly failed to file yearly tax returns for over $460,000 in income.

Mr. Chauvin and his wife, Kellie Chauvin were each charged with a summons in Washington County District Court for nine felony counts of aiding and abetting false or fraudulent tax returns, or failing to file returns.

From 2014 to 2019, the Chauvin's underreported $464,433 in joint income and owed a total of $21,853 in taxes, according to the charges. Accounting for interest, late filing and fraud penalties, they owe the government $37,868, the complaints said.

INCREASED BAIL: Officer charged in Floyd's death held on $1 million bail

Per the Washington County's attorneys office:

"The Chauvin's knew of their obligation to file state income tax returns due to their filings in previous years and from multiple correspondences sent in 2019 by the department regarding their missing 2016 individual income tax return. The complaints detail that the Chauvin's, both employed and domiciled in Minnesota, failed to file income tax returns and pay state income taxes, underreported and underpaid taxes on income generated from various jobs each year, and failed to pay proper sales tax on a vehicle purchased in Minnesota."

According to a Minnesota lawyer, each charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

The filing of the charges included a laundry list of allegations. According to the Minnesota Reformer, among them, prosecutors say the Chauvins bought a new BMW X5 in January 2018 for $100,230 from a Minnetonka dealership and registered the vehicle in Florida, where they own a condo in Windermere, near Orlando. They paid $4,664 in taxes in that state.

Washington County Attorney Pete Orupt was also quoted in the statement as saying that no one is above the law.

"When you fail to fulfill the basic obligation to file and pay taxes, you are taking money from the pockets of citizens of Minnesota," Orput said in a statement. "Our office has and will continue to file these charges when presented. Whether you are a prosecutor or police officer, or you are doctor or a realtor, no one is above the law."

During his tenure as a police officer, Chauvin was at the center of at least 16 misconduct complaints. His wife, Kellie Chauvin, also filed for divorce days after the news broke about the death of George Floyd.

The three other ex-officers -- Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao -- are charged with aiding and abetting Chauvin.

Chauvin remains in custody at Oak Park Heights state prison on second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in connection with the death of George Floyd. Chauvin is charged with murdering Floyd by kneeling on his neck during an arrest over a counterfeit $20 bill.
The map showing the spread of zebra and quagga mussels is far too fast turning an ugly red for high-risk.

Currently, New Mexico is one of just five states in the continental United States slowing a clean slate from the invasive species that have been wreaking havoc in bodies of water across the country.

And state officials are doing everything possible to make sure it stays that way, for the first time installing bilingual billboards at Elephant Butte and Caballo lakes warning of the dangers posed by the pervasive mussels.

Theyre threatening from an economy and an environmental standpoint, said Jamie Dominguez, aquatic invasive species (AIS) coordinator for the New Mexico Department of Game & Fish.

They have the ability to reproduce on a large scale and when they do that, the can clog infrastructure, overtake native species and attack recreational activities like swimming and boating.

Signs inform boaters to clean, drain and dry their watercraft and that watercraft need an inspection when they come to an open inspection station.

Officials are stepping up inspections at lakes across New Mexico, he said, something that has actually been going on for some time.

Since 2013, the state has conducted 198,993 inspections, Dominguez said, including 42,526 in 2019 alone. Over that time, the state has been force to complete 978 decontaminations, with 209 of those occurring last year.

The critters originated in the Black and Caspian seas and first made their way into the U.S. in the late 1980s through commercial ships, Dominguez said, then have been spreading across the country ever since.

If you dont completely drain your boat, theyre residing in the water, he said. Then they get into the next water body and start spreading from there.

Although New Mexico is a desert state, its bodies of water are popular draws for out-of-state boaters.

Among the measures implemented:

 Mandatory watercraft inspection and, if necessary, decontamination of out-of-state registered watercraft or watercraft re-entering New Mexico.

 Mandatory watercraft inspection required any time an inspection station is set up and in operation.

 Fourteen-day advanced notification of intent to transport watercraft 26 feet or longer into New Mexico.

 All watercraft are required to pull the plug and drain watercraft when transporting in New Mexico.

 Implementation of a voluntary watercraft seal program to expedite boater access to a water body with limited need for inspection.

Inspectors are at Elephant Butte and Navajo lakes full time, year-round, and at Conchas and Ute lakes fulltime during the summer. Inspectors are also hitting the states other lakes on a rotating basis.

Were really trying to get the education message out there to the public, Dominguez said. There are so many boaters and so many boats. What we do is ask them to be responsible and we take care of it from there. We do it free of charge, it just takes a little of their time.

Longtime boater Rudy Chavez, an Albuquerque attorney, said hes been undergoing the inspections for some time.

Ive done a bunch of them, pretty much at every lake in New Mexico, he said. At Elephant Butte, they just have you lined up and they check you real quick. When youre done, you can get checked again, get a seal on your boat hitch and when you come back, if the seal isnt broken you dont have to wait for an inspector.

The process is very smooth and quick, Chavez said.

You lower your outdrive and pull the plug at the back of the boat to see if there is any water, he said. It doesnt take long at all.

It makes sense to try and combat the issue before the waterways have been struck, Dominguez said.

New Mexico water is very scarce so we dont want to put another impact on it to make it harder to use, he said. Outreach and education are the primary activities to get people to buy in on why were doing this. Were fighting on all fronts. Thus far weve been successful. States that do have them, it becomes preventative and containment of the water bodies and you end up spending more time and effort.
WASHINGTON  A top Democrat leading an antitrust investigation into the nations top technology companies said Wednesday his committee will release a report by the end of August with recommendations on legislation that Congress could pass into law as soon as next year.

Theres no reason to not expect a new administration to take this up in their first year, said Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., in an interview on The Long Game, a Yahoo News podcast.

Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Andrew Harnik/AP, AP)

Antitrust laws were developed during the railroad monopolies and the oil barons. Its a very different economy now. The question is, do we need to update and modernize our antitrust statutes to ensure that in the digital marketplace we have real competition? I think its pretty clear we dont have real competition, partly because of the size of these platforms, and partly because of the fact that they have essentially been unregulated, Cicilline said.

On Monday, the CEOs of the four biggest technology companies  Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet and Tim Cook of Apple  will testify before the House Judiciary Committees antitrust subcommittee, chaired by Cicilline. Their testimony will occur via video link, though Cicilline and some members of the committee will physically be in a hearing room in Washington.

This hearing is the last in a series held by Cicillines subcommittee over the past year, and the stakes for the major tech companies are high, with significant implications for their businesses and revenues.

Cicilline indicated that he and other members of the committee will be asking the CEOs about aspects of their companies and business models that lawmakers suspect are suppressing competition from smaller companies and competitors. He said he wants to hear directly from the CEOs about decisions they might have made that have impacted competition, that may have favored their own goods and services, that bullied consumers or small businesses.

Story continues

The big tech companies are taking their monopolies in one market and leveraging them to take over new markets that depend on their platforms, making competition impossible, said Sally Hubbard, an antitrust expert at the Open Markets Institute, a think tank and advocacy group formed in 2017 to push for greater government oversight of big tech.

From left, Sally Hubbard of the Open Markets Institute, Matthew Schruers of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, David Pitofsky of News Corp. and Kevin Riley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing in June 2019. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

In the process, these platforms crush entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes, Hubbard said in testimony before a Senate committee in March. Employees of those businesses lose jobs or get paid less. And this monopoly dynamic degrades the quality of offerings to consumers, who should get the most relevant product search results, not results that prioritize Amazons or Googles profits.

Hubbard said that Google, which is owned by parent company Alphabet, uses its dominance of the search market to box out competitors that might eat into its huge digital advertising revenues. Likewise, she said, Amazon uses its massive size and reach to identify products that are selling well online, put its own version of those products up for sale and then manipulate search results so customers buy its products and not the competitions.

Like Google, Amazon can also take other peoples businesses and ideas almost at will. Amazon can see that a product is selling well because Amazon has all the data on product sales and customers, so Amazon can easily cut innovators out of the equation and make the product itself, Hubbard said.

The other tech giants face similar allegations. Apple has been accused of discriminating against competitors to its Apple Music program, such as Spotify. And Facebook, while often the company that attracts the most attention, is probably the most complicated when it comes to antitrust law and regulation in general.

One of the biggest complaints against Facebook is that its business model prioritizes engagement, and the algorithms it uses to promote and demote content higher and lower in users feeds has a bias toward posts that are often untrue, misleading or incendiary and hateful, because those often provoke the strongest emotional responses among users. That emotion fuels longer stays on the page and increases Facebooks advertising revenue, critics say.

Cicilline and another Democrat, Rep. Anna Eshoo of California, have both introduced legislation that would prohibit tech companies like Facebook from using details about users to micro-target political advertisements to select niche audiences.

Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. (Greg Nash/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Usually if you do a fake ad thats false against me, I can do an ad in response to it, because I know its been shown to people on television or radio and I can do the same to respond to it. With micro-targeting, where all the information is so granular and so collected, so they send it to specific individuals, I dont actually have any way to know who saw that ad. I cant respond in the kind of normal marketplace of ideas where I can just do my own ad, Cicilline said. Thats what makes it so dangerous.

Cicilline has talked about removing protections from liability for tech companies under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, but has not yet done so. The law says online platforms are not publishers and are not liable for the content posted to them. Eliminating that protection would potentially open them up to lawsuits.

Conservatives like Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., have also targeted Section 230, but for different reasons, arguing that Facebook, Twitter and Google are censoring conservative voices. In late May, President Trump signed an executive order that, while largely symbolic, sent a signal that he might push for the tech companies to lose their Section 230 protections.

Cicilline dismissed the Republican complaints. I dont have any evidence to show that Facebook is discriminating against conservatives on speech at all, he said.

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee have asked that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey also testify on Monday, because much of the rights ire about content moderation is directed at that platform, even as Facebook has been accused of giving preferential treatment to Trump in particular. Dorsey has not been invited, a committee source confirmed.

Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey. (Matt Crossick/PA Images via Getty Images)

The potential actions by Congress or regulatory agencies to deal with antitrust issues range from breaking up some of the companies into smaller pieces to imposing whats known as common carrier rules that try to cut down on discrimination against certain customers, to more aggressive enforcement of antimonopoly laws and greater scrutiny of mergers to prevent monopolies.

Cicilline said that in this area, European governments have provided elements of a road map.

I think some of our European allies have been sort of much further ahead on this issue and sort of recognized some of the privacy issues and competition issues, he said.

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Read more from Yahoo News:
I cant stop thinking about how our bodies truly matter. Most recently Ive been pondering how a poor theological understanding of God as a predominantly wrathful, angry being contributes to a gnostic view of our bodies and our embodied lives. Instead of focusing on the fact that we were created out of the loving relationship of the triune God, that we were made a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor (Psalm 8:5), many times we view ourselves first and foremost as vile, wretched people who live in sinful body suits. Only our spiritual selves seem to actually matter and what happens in our bodies must be fleshly and sinful. Even though were saved by grace, if we dont live up to the often-times unwritten expectations of What Christians Do and Dont Do 101, there is a strange and scary tendency to believe God will zap us, punishing us until we fall back into line.

We dont hesitate to sing worship songs about God as a Good, Good Father, but juxtaposed to this Good, Good Father is a not-so-good father who views us not as his beloved children but as juvenile delinquents who deserve whatever comes our way. Yet, the truth of the matter is, the love of God is so vast he calls us his own. He claims us as his children. Its a love so incomprehensible he stooped low to be with us, to become one of us, to die a criminal's death on a cross in pursuit of us.

As I think about my own children, of course I recognize there are times they have disappointed me. There have been times when Ive been frustrated and even angry with them. However, I first and foremost think of the fierce motherly love I have for them, which is like no other. I would go to the ends of the earth for them. I would scale the highest mountain and ford the widest river for them. I love them to the very core of my being. I dont compartmentalize my love for them, picking and choosing which parts to love. When I say I love, I love the totality of who they are. Imagine how God the Father feels about us, his children. His love for us goes beyond simply the spirit part of who we are and encompasses the full person he created us to be.

Perhaps youre looking for proof of this deep and abiding love of the Father. Perhaps when you look in the mirror you still see a reviled sinner instead of a cherished one. I could fill page-upon-page with examples from Scripture but why not start with one of the first verses many of us learned in Sunday School? John 3:16 starts out, For God so LOVED the world Not For God so loathed the world or For God was so angry with the world. He loved the world. Full stop. The Psalms also sing of Gods great love. He is compassionate (Psalm 103:13), a refuge (18:30), the bearer of our burdens (68:19), close to the brokenhearted (34:18), faithful (89:1)  I could go on, but Ill finish with Psalm 86:15, which in The Message says, But you, O God, are both tender and kind, not easily angered, immense in love, and you never, never quit.

I am no longer here for the "vile, wretched sinner" takes. For far too long we have attempted to scare people into the Kingdom with talk of fire and brimstone and a Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God posture. As if talking of an embodied suffering is a loving means of drawing people to embrace a beautiful Savior. Perhaps one of the only times we stress our bodies matter.

Please hear what I am NOT saying. I am not saying sin doesnt matter. What we do, say, and think in our bodies has the capacity to hurt others as well as ourselves. Sometimes, Im ashamed to admit, Ive hurt others very deeply with my selfish words and ways. I have at times done the opposite of contributing to the flourishing of my community and the Way of Christ. There are ramifications and consequences for sinful actions. The breaking of Shalom in our world moves us away from the reconciliation God desires to have with us and the reconciliation he desires we have with others.

As a member of the new-covenant family, Gods grace should compel me to live both rightly with God and rightly with my neighbor. It goes without saying, then, if my neighbor is loved by God, am I not also compelled to view them through the eyes of love? A kind of love which is not merely about their spiritual well-being but about their physical well-being, also. A kind of love which looks beyond political differences, religious differences, or any other thing which might separate us as embodied people, things which may cause me to see them as other.

I am so thankful my sin does not define me, and it is not first and foremost how God sees me. Knowing I'm loved deeply by the God of the Universe makes all the difference. Im loved in the totality of who I am. God knit me together (Psalm 139:13) and knows me intimately, which means he cares about the intricacies of what makes me, mebody, mind, and spirit. Perhaps this theological reframing can help you today. And perhaps it is a needed reminder as we look at others, as well. You are loved!
Joey Bunch: "My nephew Josh Morgan died last weekend in Alabama. He was a 38-year-old construction worker with an Alabama Crimson Tide tattoo on his arm. He didnt feel well one day and died in his bed at home the next. ... He is just another of the 135,991 coronavirus deaths to you."
New Delhi

Chinas actions around the globe, including imposing a national security law in Hong Kong and the border standoff with India, are a challenge for the world community and Britain will work with partners to call out violations of international law, UK high commissioner Philip Barton said on Thursday.

Following its exit from the European Union (EU), the UK will focus on health care, a long-term agenda for green growth and recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, and trade and investment while strengthening its ties with India, Barton said during his first news briefing after presenting his credentials.

There are challenges around the world on all sorts of Chinese actions, for us Hong Kong particularly is a focus, clearly for India the LAC (Line of Actual Control) is a particular focus, he said.

These are concerning things and our hope would be that there can be de-escalation, and tensions do seem to have eased over the last week or two after the tragic loss of lives, he said, referring to the death of 20 Indian soldiers in a clash with Chinese forces along the LAC on June 15.

Barton welcomed progress by India and China in managing tensions and the commitment by the two Special Representatives on the border issue to disengage and de-escalate. I hope were not about to see a change in that, he said.

Britain, he said, has its own concerns about a range of Chinese actions and has decided to remove Chinese technology giant Huaweis equipment from all its telecommunications networks by 2027 because of concerns highlighted by the UK National Cyber Security Centre.

We dont have a border with China but we have particular responsibilities for Hong Kong and the new national security law which China has imposed there, we see this as a very clear and serious violation of the UK-China joint declaration, he said, referring to the agreement that laid out the administrative arrangement for Hong Kong when the former British colony was handed over to China in 1997.

We are very clear sighted about the challenges China presents in the region and around the world. We in the UK want to work with China and hope for positive, constructive engagement and strive for that...We welcome all partners who join us in calling out what is a serious violation of the UK-China joint declaration..., Barton said.

The UK also has grave concerns about human rights abuses, particularly against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, he added. Pointing specifically to Huaweis role in 5G, he said the UK and India can work together to resolve such wider global issues and to diversify markets.

Asked about the activities in the UK of Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), a pro-Khalistan group banned by India, Barton declined to go into details but said Britain would act if any of its laws were violated.

In the UK, you have the right to protest and the right to freedom of speech is there but there are limits to it. Where people clearly break the law, we will take action. We have a dialogue with the Indian government across a range of issues of mutual interest and extremism of all kinds is one of those, he said.

Barton said there was no inconsistency between the Indian government projecting the country as an open destination for trade and investment while also working for self-reliance through the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative. The two countries, he said, can work on making critical supply chains more resilient.

Its perfectly possible for India to be an open trading economy and open to investments and international cooperation while also pursuing the [Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative] and wanting to manufacture in India and wanting to build manufacturing and other capacities and capability...I dont see any inconsistency, he said.

Barton, a career diplomat with long experience of South Asia and India, advised the need for caution while responding to questions about the two countries cooperating on Covid-19 vaccines, including the Oxford-AstraZeneca backed vaccine that has shown encouraging results.

He said it wasnt known for certain if any of the vaccines would work, and the world community needs to keep backing a suite of potential vaccines till research reaches a stage where experts can be confident. Distribution of any successful vaccine would also be based on the ability of countries to pay for it and those needing subsidies, he added.

Indias fantastic vaccine capability and the tie-up between the Serum Institute of India and AstraZeneca represent a clear partnership with India in this field, Barton said.

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As many as 29,557 COVID-19 patients have recuperated in a 24-hour span till Thursday morning, the highest recorded in a day so far, taking the recovery rate to 63.18 per cent, the Union Health Ministry said.

The number of tests for detection of COVID-19 also crossed the 15-million mark as the number of cases surged to 12,38,635 on Thursday.

According to data updated at 8 am, total recoveries have climbed to 7,82,606 and exceeded the active cases of COVID-19 by 3,56,439 as on date.

A total of 1,50,75,369 samples have been tested up to July 22 with 3,50,823 samples being tested on Wednesday, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) officials said.

With the highest-ever single-day spike of 45,720 cases, India's COVID-19 tally crossed the 12-lakh mark on Thursday, while the death toll mounted to 29,861 with a record 1,129 fatalities reported.

"One million tests were done in three days till Wednesday. The testing capacity has been increased to around 4 lakh per day," scientist and media coordinator at ICMR Lokesh Sharma said.

There are 1290 labs functional in the country which includes 897 government labs and 393 in the private sector.

"From a network of 13 COVID-19 labs in February 2020, the network has now expanded is about 1300 labs. The expansion of lab network has been paired with calibrated expansion of testing strategy, inclusion of newer testing platforms besides RT-PCR:- CBNAAT, TrueNat and Rapid Antigen test.

"All efforts have been made to increase access to testing even at district level. Efforts of ICMR to ramp up testing continue," said Dr Nivedita Gupta, senior scientist and coordinator of Lab Network, ICMR.

According to the health ministry, while the total number of recovered cases has jumped to 7,82,606, there has been appreciable growth in the recovery rate, which stands at 63.18 per cent. This accomplishment can be attributed to the central government-led COVID-19 management strategies, it said.

Sustained efforts by the Centre, states and union territories (UTs) are resulting in more effective containment, aggressive testing, and prompt and efficient clinical treatment strategies.

These are guided by the teams of domain experts in the Ministry of Health such as the Joint Monitoring Group (JMG) and ably complemented by the technical experts at AIIMS-New Delhi, centres of excellence in various states and UTs, ICMR and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

The Union government continues to coordinate with the efforts of the states and UTs by sending central teams of experts to areas witnessing increase in caseload and hand-holding of COVID hospitals in states through the tele-consultation programme led by AIIMS, New Delhi, the ministry said.

"These combined efforts have resulted in Case Fatality Rate being managed at low levels. It is 2.41 per cent, as on date, and steadily declining," it said. This has also helped in reducing the actual caseload of COVID-19 cases which remains confined to 4,26,167 active patients only.
Stephen Jones, who worked in Barclays' investment banking division, made the comment about Amanda Staveley (pictured) in a telephone call with another then bank boss in October 2008, a High Court judge was today told

A financier who is fighting a 1.6billion legal battle with banking giant Barclays has accepted an apology from a former bank boss who called her 'thick as s***', a court has today heard.

Stephen Jones, who worked in Barclays' investment banking division, made the comment about Amanda Staveley in a telephone call with another then bank boss in October 2008, a High Court judge was today told.

The details emerged as part of a High Court trial involving Ms Staveley, who once dated Prince Andrew.

The 47-year-old claims the bank owes her up to 1.6billion after edging her out of a major deal in 2008.

During the trial in London today, a transcript of the 2008 call in which Mr Jones criticised Ms Staveley was made available to journalists when he began giving evidence on Thursday.

The transcript showed that Mr Jones had said: 'She's thick as s*** as well. Anyway, there you go. You can't have everything.'

His then colleague, Stephen Morse, who was Barclay's head of compliance at the time, had replied: 'Well, you know she dated Prince Andrew...'

Mr Jones had said: 'Yeah, that's it. That's the one. She's got large breasts, so, you know, sorry...'

At the time of the call, the pair were discussing Barclay's 7billion deal with Abu Dhabi which saved the bank from seeking a humiliating government bailout during the 2008 financial crisis.

Judge Mr Justice Waksman was told by a lawyer, who has been given instructions by Ms Staveley, that the financier had accepted an apology made privately by Mr Jones.

Judge Mr Justice Waksman was told by a lawyer, who has been given instructions by Ms Staveley, that the financier had accepted an apology made privately by Mr Jones (pictured at the High Court today)

Ms Staveley, who in recent months has been involved in brokering a deal which could see a Saudi consortium take control of Newcastle United FC, has made complaints about the behaviour of Barclays bosses when negotiating investment deals during the 2008 financial crisis as part of the High Court battle.

Earlier in the trial, Roger Jenkins, another former Barclays boss, who had referred to Miss Staveley as 'the tart' in a phone call, had apologised.

Mr Jenkins, and another former Barclays boss, Richard Boath, had discussed Ms Staveley during a telephone call in October 2008, a judge has been told.

Mr Jenkins referred to Ms Staveley as 'the tart' and Mr Boath referred to her as 'that dolly bird'.

Ms Stavely claims her firm PCP Capital was given unfair terms for work done in relation to the to the Middle-East finance deals in 2008.

She claims she got a worse deal that the investors involved for her work.

Ms Staveley has made complaints about the behaviour of Barclays (pictured: The bank's building at Canary Wharf in London) bosses when negotiating investment deals during the 2008 financial crisis as part of the High Court battle.

Ms Staveley says PCP introduced Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour to Barclays and he 'subscribed' to invest 3.25 billion.

She says Barclays agreed to provide an unsecured 2 billion loan to Qatari investors, but the loan was 'concealed' from the market, shareholders and PCP Capital Partners.

PCP is suing the bank and wants 1.6 billion in damages, while Barclays disputes the claim and says it should be dismissed.

Mr Jones resigned as head of lobby group UK Finance last month after the High Court case heard of the 'deeply unpleasant personal comments' by him about Miss Staveley.

He apologised for the remarks, saying they 'do not meet the standards of language and behaviour we rightly expect'.

Mr Jones is giving evidence in the High Court trial today. The trial continues.
President Trump, citing safety concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic, abruptly canceled the big crowded portion of the Republican National Convention that had been scheduled for Jacksonville, Fla., in late August, reversing his insistence on a high-profile speech to a full arena.

Instead, the party will hold official business in North Carolina  perhaps just one day, Trump indicated  with a skeletal group of attendees. Other festivities, including Trumps nominating speech, will move online, much as Democrats have planned, although Trump made clear that the party does not yet have a plan for what it will do.

I have to protect the American people, Trump said, reading from a prepared statement.

A few minutes later, answering questions from reporters, he offered what was perhaps a more candid assessment: I could see the media saying, Oh, this is very unsafe. I dont want to be in that position, he said.

Florida has become one of the country's worst hot spots for the virus, reporting more than 10,000 new cases Thursday, bringing its total to nearly 400,000. The state's deaths, now more than 5,500 according to the health department, have also been increasing.

The lack of the traditional election season rituals this year for the two major political parties marks another major shift wrought by a pandemic that has upended nearly every aspect of American life.

Trump was vague about what would replace the convention. "Well have a very nice something, he said.

And he made clear his disappointment: There can be nothing like having 25,000 people," he said.

Trump's reversal, after weeks of insisting on an in-person convention, appeared to catch campaign officials by surprise. Almost an hour passed before they issued a statement praising the decision.

Just Thursday morning, California delegates received their instructions on when to arrive in Jacksonville.

Although Trump insisted that the convention could have gone ahead as planned, it was already facing multiple problems. Many delegates had expressed reluctance to go, fundraising had been a challenge, and some high-profile Republican officials had not committed to attending.

Story continues

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had called the convention plans a "challenging" situation, putting off a decision on whether he would attend. More than half a dozen of his Republican colleagues, including several of the chamber's oldest members, had already said they would not go.

As Florida's caseload rose in recent days, party and campaign officials expressed increasing concern on conference calls about following through with the Jacksonville events, according to a person involved in planning the convention who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Officials worried not just about their own health  roughly half of the more than 150 RNC members were unlikely to attend, the person said  but also about the likelihood that Democrats would benefit politically from the juxtaposition of the two back-to-back events, showcasing them as cautious and the GOP as insisting on going ahead with a potentially risky event.

Trump did not mention those problems, but said he needed to set an example for the public, noting that health officials have been telling Americans to stay away from crowded facilities.

Theres nothing more crowded than a convention  and even though you try to keep people away from each other, its just not that kind of a thing," he said.

That, of course, was precisely the argument that North Carolina officials made last month when they insisted on health precautions in Charlotte, where Trump was originally scheduled to hold his convention. The president rejected those restrictions and, citing frustration with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, announced that he would pull the main convention events out of the state and move them to Jacksonville.

Since then, aides have scrambled to come up with a plan to meet the president's wishes, including the possibility of holding convention sessions in an outdoor stadium, despite Florida's summer heat and risk of storms.

Democrats had already announced a scaled-back convention set for earlier in August; it had initially been scheduled for July in Milwaukee.

The loss of a large-scale convention is a much bigger letdown for Trump, who delights in adoring crowds, seeing their enthusiasm as a prime source of power for his campaign. The cancellation is also a blow to his insistence that the country is getting back to business as usual and that the virus itself is down to embers.

In announcing the decision from the White House, Trump insisted that Floridas problems were isolated, and that his political advisors told him they could still stage a big event with a tremendous list of speakers and a long waiting list of attendees.

But Trumps attempts to return to the campaign trail have been troubled. His first rally since the pandemic shutdown, in Tulsa, Okla., last month, suffered from low attendance and some reports of viral spread among attendees. He had to cancel a subsequent rally scheduled for earlier this month in Portsmouth, N.H.; aides insisted that bad weather was to blame.

Trump's reluctant decision to scrap most of the festivities is the latest sign that he is accepting, at least for now, that the virus is fundamentally changing American life and that the risk of spread needs to be taken more seriously. This week, he posted a picture of himself on Twitter wearing a mask and has begun telling Americans to follow suit, though he did not wear one during Thursday's briefing.

Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, a Republican who was on the host committee, had voiced concerns this week about hosting the convention, echoing the county sheriff, Mike Williams, who said he was worried he lacked the resources to ensure safety and security, given the short notice and rapid spread of the virus in the region.

Curry and Williams released a statement thanking Trump after Thursday's announcement "for considering our public health and safety concerns in making this incredibly difficult decision."

As GOP officials scrambled in recent weeks to come up with a workable plan, the Republican National Committee had announced plans to limit the number of people in event venues and deny access to guests brought by delegates and alternates, another frustration for would-be attendees.

Many delegates were reluctant to come to Jacksonville for a variety of reasons, the person involved in planning said, raising the prospect that Trump might not have gotten the large crowd he sought.

Hotels, the person said, were only offering discounted rates for four-night stays, but many delegates wanted to stay in Jacksonville for only two nights, minimizing their exposure.

Some delegates, however, said they were eager to attend.

Jennifer Beall, a 57-year-old delegate from Rancho Santa Margarita who has a heart condition, said despite the risks, I was going to go no matter what.

"Im a huge supporter of Trump's, she said. "I would have been there because my commitment to his reelection is that strong.

My kids do get worried about me, she added. Theyre going to be so relieved that Im not going to be down there.

Times Staff Writer Seema Mehta in Los Angeles contributed to this report.




Vietnam is entering a level playing field in which efficient solutions to maintain economic development always causes headaches for experts and business leaders.







Inside a smartphone production factory of Vingroup. The firm's Vsmart phones are expected to be on shelves in US supermarkets at the end of this year.  Photo Vingroup



Data released by the General Statistics Office recently showed that Viet Nams 10-year consecutive export growth declined in the first half of this year, with only US$238.4 billion in value, down 2.1 per cent year-on-year.

However, there are several bright spots, including the export turnover of goods to the US reaching $30.3 billion, up more than 10 per cent.

The US was still Viet Nams largest export market in the first half of this year, outstripping China at $19.5 billion.

Talking about exports to the US, a market of more than 300 million people and the highest purchasing power and expenditure in the world, Dinh Viet Anh, Chairman of Hoang Gia Investment and Trading Joint Stock Company  the second largest manufacturer of floor tiles in Viet Nam  said people in the US people change the interior of their houses whenever they change tenants. They are also likely to renovate their own houses after a few years.

Therefore, the consumption of materials in the US market usually ranks first in the world, Anh said.

Anh said this is one of the reasons that Royal Crystal Joint Stock Company, a joint venture between Hoang Gia and Crystal Plastic Manufacturing and Technology Joint Stock Company (PLP)  a listed company on HOSE  decided to pour capital into the production of SPC plastic bricks, with export-oriented focus on the US.

PLP currently owns a quarry in the central province of Nghe An with reserves of more than five million tonnes of PVC, a plastic material.

Plastic bricks have just appeared on the world market in the last two years with a core layer of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) stone powder.

In the US market, this material has accounted for 50 per cent of the flooring market share, reaching an unexpected growth rate for the material distributors.

According to Chairman of FPT Corporation Truong Gia Binh, the domestic market with nearly 100 million people is important, but Vietnamese businesses can only grow if they reach out.

In the first five months of this year, while FPTs domestic revenue sharply decreased compared with the same period last year, its foreign market still maintained growth, with 20 per cent in the EU, 18 per cent in the US and 15 per cent in Japan.

Economic expert Phan Van Truong, a trade advisor to the French Government, said to help Vietnamese businesses reach out to the global market, it needed a strategy supported by the Government at the national level.

In the field of international trade, Truong said most advanced countries have their economic and trade counsellor teams located in the embassies in the host country. These people, most of them technical or commercial specialists, rather than administrative officials, help every citizen of their homeland who wish to export to the host country, providing them with full of information, facts, statistics, contacts, as well as historical and geographical knowledge for quick success.

Even with that information, there is the stage of market analysis, competitors, prices, and directories of intermediaries or distributors, Truong said.

Many countries also have safe trade insurance mechanisms for businesses who want to export. And yet, their banking system is very popular in foreign countries  this is a very beneficial stage for export businesses because the bank is an effective support point, he added.

It is difficult to rely on support policies, so many businesses have decided to list on the stock market, taking advantage of opportunities to mobilise investment capital in the global market.

Vicostone Joint Stock Company, an affiliate of Phenikaa Group, is one firm that has shifted its strategy from production of normal products to luxury ones, and from domestic consumption to exports.

Success in the international market has brought Vicostone to the top four largest artificial stone manufacturers in the world, joining the club of listed companies with trillions of dong in profit.

Many others including Vingroup, Hoa Phat, Vinh Hoan, Viglacera and FPT have increasingly expanded production with big investment thanks to the mobilisation of capital through the stock market. This is also the core value for businesses to attract more investors.

Truong said Vietnamese businesses need a mindset to create more value and more profits. If you want a sustainable profit policy, there is only one roadmap: rapid technological change, adding value and quality.

Ho Xuan Nang, Vicostone's Chairman, said that R&D is a mandatory condition to ensure sustainable development and growth. Without R&D, enterprises, no matter how successful, can only be a short-term business.

However, in order to do effective R&D, businesses must have determination, vision, and long-term financial and human resources, Nang said.

Chairman of PLP, Mai Thanh Phuong said after more than two years of investment in R&D with support from the countrys leading professors and doctors, the company has mastered the formula of mixing CaCO3 stone and additives, conducting technology in the creation of the core layer of SPC bricks.

We will continue investing in R&D to improve labour efficiency, creating differentiated products with competitive advantages and high added value, Phuong said.

Economic expert Truong said Vietnamese businesses do not lack ambitions and aspirations.

It is important that we must further disseminate the spirit of going abroad, encouraging and providing them with an effective export policy, a robust and organised personnel and information, as well as a competitive tax code.

Then we will see how dynamic and effective Vietnamese businesspeople are, Truong said.  VNS
UPDATE: N.J. schools to get state guidance Friday to develop new remote-only options for students, Murphy says

The Woodbridge school district was looking at dividing students into three groups and having all attend in-person classes one day per week starting in September.

Then Gov. Phil Murphy announced on Monday that parents leery of sending their children to school buildings amid the coronavirus pandemic would be allowed to choose an all-remote learning option.
RSH Global, under the aegis of its brand Joy, recently added to its bouquet of skincare products with the launch of Joy Mineral Sunscreen with natural chemical-free SPF. The personal care company has also rolled out an integrated campaign to support the launch, featuring its newly appointment brand ambassador, actor Mithila Palkar.

Poulomi Roy, Chief Marketing Officer, RSH Global, has been instrumental in revamping the strategy for Brand Joy. She manages brand communication across platforms  ATL, Print, Radio, Outdoor, BTL, activations, events and sponsorships.

Also read: Joy ropes Mithila Palkar as its brand ambassador for the Sunscreen category

On the choice of Mithila Palkar as the new brand ambassador, Roy told Adgully that Palkars biggest strength is that she is aspiring and relatable. We wanted somebody who connects with the working young tribe of the Indian population. Some of the roles that she has aced and is recognised for are on similar lines and that is what makes this association seamless and meaningful, Roy added.

Elaborating on the core target audience for the brand, Roy said that it comprised females in the age group of 20 to 35 years, who are conscious about skincare and need skin protection daily. The brand will primarily focus on West, North and East India markets.

When asked about the competition in the market and how Joy plans to create differentiation, Roy replied, Our innovative product offering in sunscreen makes our product a preferred choice. A mineral sunscreen with natural SPF is the safest sunscreen for your skin, however, this kind of product formulation is available in only high-end brands. Our R&D team has worked very hard to bring this offering to the mass segment. We are very happy and satisfied with the launch of this product and we are certain that this will be the future of sunscreen and we will have a first-mover advantage in the mass segment.

As far as the media strategy is concerned, Joy will be looking at digital and social media push for this campaign.

While acknowledging that the supply chain has been a challenge for everyone, Roy said that the company has taken steps to strengthen its e-commerce and online channels.
Branch, an insurtech startup focused on bundling digital home and auto insurance, is eying national expansion through 2021 after nailing down $24 million in new financing. The managing general agent (MGA) also plans to add a reciprocal exchange to its business plan.

While the Ohio-based company began life as an MGA, it will shortly convert to a reciprocal insurance exchange  Branch Insurance Exchange  initially in the states where it currently operates  Arizona, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio and Texas.

Steve Lekas, a former Allstate and Esurance executive, is a co-founder and CEO. He described a reciprocal exchange as an insurance association made up of its members. Branch will serve as a manager that facilitates the communitys funds and enables the membership to insure one another.

Lekas described the approach as an esoteric model, though he noted there are some well known reciprocal exchanges including PURE, Farmers and Erie Insurance.

Greycroft and HSCM Bermuda co-led the Series A funding round. Returning investors American Family Ventures and Revolutions Rise of the Rest Seed Fund also participated, along with new investors SignalFire, SCOR Global P&C, Elefund, Foundation Capital, and individuals from Stone Point Capital.

Lekas and tech entrepreneur Joe Emison launched Branch in 2018. Branch insurance is underwritten by General Security National Insurance Co.

Bundling and Binding

The company bills itself as having revolutionized the experience of bundling home and auto insurance with a streamlined process that takes seconds to complete, by asking clients for just their name and address. Branch explains its technology as integrating data to the point where a traditional application and quote estimate are no longer needed. Its system is designed to give clients an instant purchasable price rather than just an estimate. The company said its technology can be integrated into home financing and car-buying websites, adding that customers complete their purchase without having to dig up additional information to apply or wait for a quote.

Ian Sigalow, co-founder and a partner at Greycroft, said in prepared remarks that Branchs instant-bind capability has never been possible before.

Beyond its basic cover, Branch has incentive programs such as My Community Discount, where customers invite friends to check out Branch, and then get a $25 Amazon eGift Card once they request a price. Both customers and their friends earn discounts on their insurance as long as theyre customers.

Theres also Community Pledge, which involves an app. Customers ask other Branch customers to pledge that they believe they would not commit insurance fraud, and then both can earn discounts between 1 percent and 5 percent as long as theyre both customers.

Branch has also launched the non-profit SafetyNext, which is designed to help qualifying customers who have suffered home or auto loss and dont have enough of insurance to fully cover the damage.

Source: Branch

Topics Auto Insurance Wholesale
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has failed to come up with a vision to deal with China even as he advocated a changed approach to resolve the border standoff.

He said that as an opposition leader, it is his responsibility to question the prime minister, who in turn has to give a vision.

And I know that the prime minister is an opponent. My responsibility is to question him. My responsibility is to ask questions and to put pressure on him so he does his work. His responsibility is to give the vision. Its not there, Gandhi said in a video message issued on Thursday.

I can tell you, guaranteed, its not there and thats why Chinas is in there today, he contended.

The short video is the third in a series on the India-China border face-off. Through the brief videos, Gandhi wants to share his thoughts on national issues.

Also read: Security agencies red-flag Chinese fronts in education, not just power and telecom

In the first video issued on Friday, he said Indias troubled economy, foreign policy and neighbourhood had prompted China to take an aggressive stand against the country.

In the second video titled Chinas Strategic Game Plan, Gandhi talked about how the Chinese had triggered the border issue to pressure Modi.

In one of the sharpest attacks on Modi over the India-China border standoff, he said the Chinese are attacking his image as they understand that for him to survive as a politician, he has to protect the idea of Chhapan Inch (56-inch). Gandhi added that if [Modi] allowed the Chinese to understand that they can manipulate him because of his image, the prime minister will no longer be worth anything for India.

In the third video titled How should India respond to China?, Gandhi listed different measures to deal with the Chinese.

Also read| Encouraging: UK welcomes steps taken by India and China to ease border tensions

Psychologically you have to deal with the Chinese from a position of strength. If you deal with them from a position of strength, you can work with them, you can get what you need and it can be actually done. But if they sense weakness then you [have] had it, he said.

The first thing is you not going to take on China without a vision. And by that I dont mean a national vision. I mean an international vision, added Gandhi.

The former Congress president said Chinas Belt and Road Initiative is an attempt to change the nature of the global order.

India has to have a global vision. India now has to become an idea. And it has to become a global idea. So thats the thing thats going to protect India, it is actually thinking big, he said.

Gandhi has been repeatedly targeting Modi and his government over Chinese transgressions and has said the prime minister was not being transparent on the issue. The Congress has been demanding that status quo ante be restored at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and Chinese troops be pushed to their side.

Gandhi sought a changed approach to deal with the border issue with China.

Of course we have this border issue and we have to resolve this border issue. But we have to change our approach, we have to change how we think, he said.

That is why Im aggravated. Because I can see a huge opportunity is being lost. Why? Because we are not thinking long term, because we are not thinking big, and because we are disturbing our internal balance.

Gandhi lamented that Indians were fighting among themselves. Just look at the politics. All day long, all day long, Indian is fighting Indian. And it is because there is no clear cut vision going forward, he said.

He also tweeted, PM is 100% focused on building his own image. Indias captured institutions are all busy doing this task. One mans image is not a substitute for a national vision.

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Farmer said all veterans will be referred to them by the VA Clinic in Crown Point as female veterans looking for a new start. He said none will be substance abusers. Some children will be allowed, but they must be of elementary school age and there is a maximum of 16 occupants per building. No adult men are allowed.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-24 05:12:27|Editor: huaxia

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PRAGUE, July 23 (Xinhua) -- A video conference was held here on Thursday to promote the 3rd China International Import Expo (CIIE) and to attract Czech exhibitors and visitors. Participants from China and the Czech Republic agreed that the CIIE could become a long-term platform for Czech companies to explore the Chinese market.

During the conference, Yang Bo, an official with the China International Import Expo Bureau, introduced the preparations for the 3rd CIIE, which will be held in Shanghai from Nov. 5 to 10 this year.

Lukas Martin, director of the International Relations Department at the Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic, said that by participating in CIIEs in the past two years, Czech companies have extended their contacts with Chinese partners and expanded their operations in China.

He said he had full confidence in China's economic development prospects and market potential. He noted that in the past years, the consumption expenditure of Chinese households has greatly increased, which means a large market potential for Czech companies. China's interest in high and advanced technology also provides more opportunities for the Czech innovative companies.

Wang Jinsong, economic and commercial counselor of the Chinese Embassy in the Czech Republic, said he hoped that more Czech companies will participate in the CIIE, making full use of this important platform for international cooperation.

Miroslav Scheiner, an official with the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade, said that his country had already participated in two consecutive CIIEs, and that the Czech companies had benefited a lot.

"I hope that the CIIE will become bigger and better and become a long-term platform for Czech companies to explore the Chinese market," said the official.

The Czech Republic attended last year's expo as a guest country of honor. Enditem
SEAL Team actor John Savage gave his opinion on the ongoing social unrest in the movement against racism and police brutality, saying that people 'need to respect each other and come together' amid the troubled times.

'A lot of people were doing the finger on these marches; OK, but it didn't hurt anybody, but there are some people who are emotionally really feeling frustrated,' the 70-year-old actor told Fox News on Wednesday. 'They don't feel a part of the world they're demonstrating in. White or Black.'

The venerated actor said that 'whatever people's opinions are, that's their opinion.'

The latest: SEAL Team actor John Savage, 70, gave his opinion on the ongoing social unrest in the movement against racism and police brutality, saying that people 'need to respect each other and come together' amid the troubled times

He continued: 'In the meantime, look what's happening in our world around us. We need each other. You know, we need to respect each other and come together.'

Savage, who's appeared in The Deer Hunter, Hair and Do The Right Thing, told the outlet that growing up in Brooklyn has helped him appreciate diversity in his life.

He said that 'a lot of times people want to give me direction and I want to hear it, I want to think about it. It means a lot.'

Savage advised people that they have 'got to let go of' mistakes they've made and move forward: 'I stopped some areas of my behavior which gave me courage or strength when I was younger. I really enjoyed it.

Taking a stand: Protesters were snapped in Copenhagen Wednesday at the US embassy

Veteran actor: Savage plays the role of Emmet Quinn on SEAL Team with David Boreanaz and A.J. Buckley

'I enjoyed the drama around me and I mean, I'd gotten all my young friends in New York City, man - some of them lived in a lot of different neighborhoods, all different races.'

He said, 'We were invincible. It was all new but it scared me.'

Savage plays the role of Emmet Quinn on SEAL Team with David Boreanaz and A.J. Buckley, which airs on on CBS.

Ensemble cast: Savage appeared with Christopher Walken and Robert De Niro in 1978's The Deer Hunter
The new patients are Russian citizens coming to Vietnam to work as experts for an oil and gas company.

The group, aged between 42 and 55, landed at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in southern Ho Chi Minh City on Flight IO4405 on July 11 and were quarantined in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province immediately upon arrival.

They are all being treated at Ba Ria Hospital.

Earlier, Vietnam recorded 10 imported cases who are passengers on the same flight and being quarantined in Ba Ria-Vung Tau.

The country has gone through 97 days without new community transmissions. Among the total, 268 were imported and quarantined upon arrival.

More than 12,480 people having close contact or entering from pandemic-hit areas are under health monitoring and quarantined at hospitals, concentrated quarantine establishments, homes and accomodations.

The committees treatment subcommittee reported that 365 patients have been given all-clear and there is zero death. Most of the patients treated at health facilities nationwide are in stable condition.
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For the past 20 years, William & Mary Associate Professor of History Gerard Chouin has studied pandemics in the context of sub-Saharan Africa (see his latest research). Living in the current crisis makes him feel "vulnerable," he admits, but he suggests that historians do have context that proves the "resiliency" of affected populations. Recently, he spoke about it to W&M News.

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This is a long story that started in 2001 when I discovered that a particular type of settlement site in southern Ghana had been abandoned at a regional level in the second half of the 14th century. That triggered a long process that resulted in gradually exploring a set of methods that could help us to make the invisible pandemic visible.

What leads you to postulate the Black Plague reached that far? One is a vast process of change in settlement patterns, including the abandonment of regionally important sites that had been previously occupied for a very long time. We also looked at changes in mortuary practices and political structure. We also had a fresh look at written sources, where they exist, particularly in Ethiopia, and found mention of plague saints and of a disease that fits quite well what we know of the plague. One of the most exciting finding was the survival in East Africa of a strain of the plague that is a direct descendant of the pathogen involved in the disease in Europe and Eurasia in the 14th century. It is distinct from strains of the pathogen that circulated during the third plague pandemic that started in the late 19th century and is still a source of the disease in the area, especially in Madagascar. Recently, I started a new project with a new team, and we are looking at other threads such as a technological hiatus in metallurgy and glassmaking. We are also looking at changes in occupation density with the discovery of ancient abandoned agrarian landscapes.

You suggest archaeology will be determinant; what do you mean? In most of sub-Saharan Africa, there are no written records of the plague, and we need to look for evidence of the plague in the archaeological landscape. This is not an easy task, as archaeological features that would result from a pandemic could also result from a range of other processes. We are working at strengthening our hypothesis by demonstrating that the archaeological record was affected by a depopulation process at a very large scale, and that such a process cannot result from any other known cause that a pandemic. The silver bullet will be to find DNA in human remains in mass burials connected with the event. We are not yet there, but we are working on it, with the discovery of a new site in Gabon by Richard Oslisly. Results of analyses will be available when labs get to work again.

How could your research transform our understanding of the history of the region? There is much we do not understand about African history before the 15th century. The grand African pre-modern historical narrative was written in the 1960s and has not changed much since. It needs a deep revision, and the plague hypothesis enables us to make sense of large-scale changes that are taking place between the 14th and the 15th century, for instance, the end of the leadership of Mali on a vast mosaic of polities we often call Mali Empire or the end of Great Zimbabwe. In a recent article I co-authored with Ph.D. candidate Olanrewaju Lasisi (in Anthropology), we looked at the root of Atlantic slavery in the processes of political fragmentation that we believe took place after the pandemic... Indeed, we believe the Atlantic history could have been different if it had not been built on the ruins of a much older political landscape.

Have you experienced pushback? I experienced pushback at the very beginning of my quest. I was not yet very well equipped intellectually to understand the complexity of a pandemic and of the plague. It took me time to get a good grasp of the literature and find the appropriate scholars who were ready to engage. My best response is that we need to take into account the 'pan-' dimension in a pandemic. Africa was very well connected to the rest of the Old World in the 14th century, through the Sahara, the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean. In this condition, how could a pandemic remain at the door of the African continent? We saw a bit of this with COVID-19. Some people predicted a catastrophic impact on the continent (which is not yet clear - but potentially related to problems of visibility), while others thought the disease would not enter Africa because of its climatic and environmental specificities. Because COVID-19 has the attributes of a pandemic, it did not spare Africa, although the impact of the disease on the continent remains challenging to assess.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump waded into an intensifying battle within the GOP Thursday by swiping at Republican Rep. Liz Cheney and retweeting a post that called on her to step down from her leadership post in the House "or be removed."

Cheney, the chair of the House Republican Conference and the highest-ranking Republican woman in Congress, has faced attacks from some of the president's staunchest Republican allies after she publicly pushed back on Trump's reluctance to wear a mask and questioned his foreign policy.

"Liz Cheney is only upset because I have been actively getting our great and beautiful Country out of the ridiculous and costly Endless Wars," Trump posted Tuesday. "I am also making our so-called allies pay tens of billions of dollars in delinquent military costs. They must, at least, treat us fairly!!!"

Trump went on to tweet a post from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who was retweeting a message from Trump ally Rep. Matt Gaetz, who said Cheney should be removed from her post. Gaetz, a Florida Republican, has been an outspoken critic of Cheney.

Liz Cheney is only upset because I have been actively getting our great and beautiful Country out of the ridiculous and costly Endless Wars. I am also making our so-called allies pay tens of billions of dollars in delinquent military costs. They must, at least, treat us fairly!!!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2020

Cheney told Politico later Thursday, "It's no secret the president and I disagree on some foreign policy issues," but she was obligated as a member of the House Armed Services Committee to "provide for the defense of the nation."

She would not back down on speaking out on foreign policy, she added.

Trump lashed out at Cheney as he faces rising tensions with Republicans on Capitol Hill. The GOP-led Senate is moving ahead with legislation to require the Pentagon to rename military bases honoring Confederate figures, despite his objections. Senate Republicans are also resisting his calls for a payroll tax cut in the next round of coronavirus stimulus.

Story continues

President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at the White House, Tuesday, July 21, 2020, in Washington.

The president, meanwhile, continues to lose ground in battleground polling against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

After Trump refused to wear a face mask in public, Cheney tweeted a photo of her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, in a mask with the hashtag #realmenwearmasks. As senior White House officials criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Cheney posted a message calling him "one of the finest public servants we have ever had."

Dr. Fauci is one of the finest public servants we have ever had. He is not a partisan. His only interest is saving lives. We need his expertise and his judgment to defeat this virus. All Americans should be thanking him. Every day.  Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) May 13, 2020

Cheney had supported and donated to Todd McMurtry, a primary challenger against incumbent Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., after Massie had forced members of Congress to return to Washington for a vote on the coronavirus stimulus package. Cheney later demanded the donations be returned after racist tweets from McMurtry resurfaced.

As Trump heads toward an election showdown with Biden cracks are deepening within the party as a host of Republican lawmakers distance themselves from the White House. Republicans have increasingly split with Trump on racism and the removal of Confederate statues, the wearing a face masks and questions over intelligence reports of a Russia-backed bounty program on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Contributing: Courtney Subramanian

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump weighs into GOP debate over Liz Cheney, retweets calls for her removal
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - July 23, 2020) - FenixOro Gold Corp (CSE: FENX) (OTC Pink: FDVXF) (FSE: FD8) is pleased to announce results of its first phase soil sampling program at the Abriaqui project in Antioquia, Colombia. As previously reported, FenixOro has discovered three significant gold mineralization types at Abriaqui. The primary target is a sequence of more than 80 high grade, "Buritica style" mesothermal veins outcropping over 800 vertical meters with areas of intervening lower grade stockwork mineralization. FenixOro has also discovered additional targets: Manto-style replacement mineralization up to 25 meters thick; as well as a zone of gold-mineralized, porphyry-style, potassic alteration.

FenixOro VP Exploration Stuart Moller stated: "These preliminary soil results clearly indicate that we are identifying significant new areas of vein/stockwork potential. These results appear to confirm our hypothesis that the veins in the northwest, while faulted off in the center, continue in a significant northwest-southeast trend within the Abriaqui project boundaries. We are extremely encouraged and are aggressively advancing the next steps of the program." The remaining soil grids will cover the majority of the project area where they will test for additional veins as well as replacement and porphyry style gold mineralization.

The prospect area is densely vegetated with minimal rock exposure and the expectation has always been that there was additional mineralization to be found. To this end FenixOro has undertaken a ground magnetics program to further map the porphyry-style alteration and has begun a program of project-wide soil sampling. The magnetics program is complete and the Company is awaiting those results. These first results from the soil program are considered highly promising and positively confirm many aspects of the exploration program model.

The initial grid area in the southeast part of the project has several known veins including some with small scale historical workings. The known vein density, as currently mapped, is significantly lower than that in the main vein zone in the northwestern license. A significant fault offsets the two areas (inset, Figure 1). The intent of the soil study is to identify areas of shallowly buried additional vein sets.

To date over 800 samples have been taken out of a planned project-wide total of 1300. The soil program was begun in the relatively undeveloped southeastern vein area, as the main vein area in the northwestern block is much more developed and better understood. 221 samples were taken on a 25 x 100 meter spacing. Of the 178 results received to date 28% carry over 100 parts per billion gold and are considered to be significantly anomalous. Significant anomalies also exist in copper and silver. Seven samples contain over 1 g/t gold with a maximum value of 41 g/t gold.

This 400m high grade trend is interpreted to represent strike extensions of known veins from the northwestern block and new veins parallel to them. Multi-sample anomalies in the 100-1000 ppb gold range on lines 22, 24, and 28 are unexplained. They most likely represent additional high grade veins and/or lower grade interstitial stockwork type mineralization as seen in the main vein zone. Given the widespread nature of the anomalies it is considered likely that the southeastern area will eventually rival the main vein zone in vein density and economic potential.

To date there are no cases of the Covid-19 virus in the Municipality of Abriaqui and FenixOro crews continue to work normally. The Company continues to anticipate that it will receive the final water use permit that will allow for the commencement of its planned 6000 meter drill program in the very near term.





Figure 1



To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6188/60350_Soils%20PR%5B2%5D.jpg

About FenixOro Gold Corp.

FenixOro Gold Corp is a Canadian company focused on acquiring gold projects with world class exploration potential in the most prolific gold producing regions of Colombia. FenixOro's flagship property, the Abriaqui project, is located 15 km west of Continental Gold's Buritica project in Antioquia State at the northern end of the Mid-Cauca gold belt, a geological trend which has seen multiple large gold discoveries in the past 10 years including Buritica and Anglo Gold's Nuevo Chaquiro and La Colosa. As documented in "NI 43-101 Technical Report on the Abriaqui project Antioquia State, Colombia" (December 5, 2019), the geological characteristics of Abriaqui and Buritica are very similar. The report also documents the high gold grade at Abriaqui with samples taken from 20 of the veins assaying greater than 20 g/t gold. Abriaqui has not yet been drilled but surface and underground geological mapping and sampling as well as a preliminary magnetometry survey have been completed. The property is drill-ready pending finalization of the government permitting process.

Fenix's VP of Exploration, Stuart Moller, led the discovery team at Buritica for Continental Gold in 2007-2011. The Buritica Mine currently contains measured plus indicated resources of 5.32 million ounces of gold (16.02 Mt grading 10.32 g/t) plus a 6.02 million ounce inferred resource (21.87 Mt grading 8.56 g/t) for a total of 11.34 million ounces of gold resources. Buritica is scheduled to commence production in 2020 with annual average production of 250,000 ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of approximately US$600 per ounce. Resources, cost and production data are taken from Continental Gold's "NI 43-101 Buritica Mineral Resource 2019-01, Antioquia, Colombia, 18 March, 2019"). Continental Gold was recently the subject of a takeover by Zijin Mining in an all-cash transaction valued at C$1.4 billion.

Corporate Office:



FenixOro Gold Corp

350 Bay St. Suite 700

Toronto, ON

Telephone: 1-833-ORO-GOLD

Email: info@FenixOro.com

Website: www.FenixOro.com

Technical Information

The comparison between Abriaqui and the nearby Buritica project is meant only to indicate the similarities between the two in terms of geological setting. FenixOro does not imply that exploration results and/or economic characteristics of a potential future mine at Abriaqui will be similar to those seen at Buritica. The sampling done at Abriaqui is in the form of rock chip and channel samples on surface and in shallow underground workings on vein exposures. The samples were prepared and analyzed at ALS laboratories in Medellin and Lima respectively. Samples were taken, prepared, shipped and analyzed following, industry standard QA/QC protocols and were submitted with certified reference standards.

Stuart A Moller, P. Geol. (British Colombia) Vice President of Exploration of FenixOro and a Qualified Person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical information contained within this press release. Mr, Moller is a geologist with over 40 years of experience in world-wide mineral exploration including 10 years in Colombia.

Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation and may also contain statements that may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking information and forward-looking statements are not representative of historical facts or information or current condition, but instead represent only the Company's beliefs regarding future events, plans or objectives, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of FenixOro's control. Generally, such forward-looking information or forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "will", "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 may contain statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "will continue", "will occur" or "will be achieved". The forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained herein include, but are not limited to information concerning the Abriaqui. Although FenixOro believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing, and the expectations contained in, the forward-looking information and statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information and statements, and no assurance or guarantee can be given that such forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information and statements. In particular, there is no guarantee that Abriaqui will be drilled or produce viable quantities of minerals, that the Company will pursue Abriaqui or that any mineral deposits will be found.. The forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this press release, and FenixOro does not undertake to update any forward-looking information and/or forward-looking statements that are contained or referenced herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60350
Dinner in the Trump household was a hierarchical affair. Fred Trump, the patriarch, sat at the head of the table, with son Donald on his right and daughter Maryanne on his left. Other family members took their places in descending order of assigned importance.

But one Thanksgiving, the eldest son, Fred Jr, found himself relegated to the junior end of the table with his daughter Mary. During the course of the meal, my grandmother choked, Mary Trump recalls. My dad had been a volunteer ambulance driver in the late 60s and early 70s so he knew the Heimlich manoeuvre and he very gently manoeuvred her into the kitchen and gave her the Heimlich, and that basically saved her from choking.

Nobody else moved; everybody kept eating. It was a sort of awkward, embarrassing thing that Gam [her nickname] choked. When they came back in, it was literally like my dad had just taken out the garbage: Oh, yeah. Good job, Freddy. He couldnt do anything at that point to garner any respect or get credit for anything, even if it was saving their mother.

There is no understanding Donald Trump without understanding his malignantly dysfunctional family, according to Mary, the first member of the clan to publish a Trump biography and question his fitness for office. Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the Worlds Most Dangerous Man sold nearly a million copies on its first day of publication last week, after a failed attempt by the US presidents younger brother Robert to block it in court.

He learned that being humiliated was the worst thing that could happen to a person and he would do everything in his power to avoid that feeling

The book is a portrait of something rotten at the heart of a white suburban familys rapacious pursuit of the American dream. When I speak to Mary, 55, over the phone from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, she describes how her sociopath grandfather made Trump the man he is today, reflects on the burden of carrying the Trump name and warns against the prospect of the presidents children running for political office.

Story continues

Fred Trump is the villain of the piece. This ruthless New York workaholic slept about four hours a night and was driven by money. Mary writes that he showed little interest in his five children other than grooming an heir for his property business. Spurning his eldest son, Freddy, he settled on Donald, deciding that his second sons arrogance and bullying, and willingness to lie and cheat, were just what the office needed.

If you met him, says Mary of her grandfather, you would think he was cheerful and positive, but also intimidating and not a warm person. But deep down I have no problem describing him as a sociopath. He had no real human feeling and he treated his children variously with contempt.

Certainly, in the case of my dad, who was the oldest son, heir apparent and namesake, there was harsh discipline and humiliation which Donald, seven and a half years younger, was able to witness and learn very specific lessons from: dont be like Freddy, dont be kind, dont be generous, dont have frivolous interests. The other lesson he learned was that being humiliated was the worst thing that could happen to a person and he would do everything in his power to avoid the feeling of humiliation.

It does not take much imagination to picture torturous family dinners with giant clashing egos. Racist and antisemitic language was common, Mary has said during media interviews to promote the book, noting the Trumps lived in what was then an all-white suburb in Queens, New York. Can she remember a specific example of Trump using the N-word?

Honestly, no, because it was just this thing that happened. If my dad had said it outside of the house when we were with him that would have stood out, but he never did. In my grandparents house, it was just commonplace and there was nothing, unfortunately, remarkable about it.

Mary is convinced that her uncle is racist. Would she also use terms such as fascist and white supremacist? I dont think he has any political ideology. For him, this is just expedient. I would say he behaves like a white supremacist, certainly. Hes acting on his own racism. Hes doing racist things that are endangering people of colour in this country. Thats much more important, so whether he would describe himself as a white supremacist or not, hes certainly acting like one.

In 2016, the Nation magazine ran an article headlined: Have You Ever Seen Donald Trump Laugh? It pointed out that almost no one has. What about Mary, a licensed psychologist? No, and my grandfather didnt laugh either. When you are able to laugh youre also letting your guard down and that was frowned upon. My dad had a great sense of humour; he was a very funny guy and did know how to laugh. I think with my grandfather it was also because he was not a fully human being.

Her book alleges that Trump paid someone to take a university entrance exam on his behalf; the White House has denied this. Freddy briefly went into the family business but loathed it, quitting to become an airline pilot. He died alone in hospital at 42 after a struggle with alcoholism, which runs deep in the family.

Mary holds her grandfather responsible. The worst thing my grandfather did, starting from very early on, was just not accept my father for who he is. As soon as he realised that my dad wasnt the right kind of person  he wasnt a killer, he wasnt tough  he dismissed him out of hand and quickly found a replacement in Donald.

Trump now finds himself in the role of patriarch. He, too, was a distant father who did not, for example, involve himself in changing nappies but encouraged his children to join the family property empire. His sons, Don Jr and Eric, have become two of his most aggressive campaign surrogates, while his elder daughter, Ivanka, is a senior adviser at the White House.

Mary, who is more than a decade older than her cousins and does not know them, says: It seems pretty clear to me they believe the way to get their fathers attention is through cruelty and subservience, and its a quite awful thing to see.

Both Don Jr and Ivanka have been, half-jokingly, half-deadly seriously, touted as potential future candidates for president. If a shudder can be felt down a phone line, it comes now. If that were allowed, that would be wrong, Mary says. Theyre unqualified. Ivanka is the only one technically in the government and shes unqualified to be an aide, let alone run for political office.

None of them has ever done anything on their own. Theyve worked in their dads business and, from what I can tell, they really havent done anything else except continue to take advantage of family money. So I think that would speak to an enduring bankruptcy in the Republican party if that were to come to pass.

Indeed, perhaps a more interesting question than Trumps narcissism is what his ascent says about the US. He has shone a harsh light on the nations divisions, inequalities, insecurities, negative partisanship, neuroses and prejudices  and how far some are willing to go for a taste of power.

That is the one thing I didnt anticipate, Mary goes on. One of the reasons I was so devastated by what happened in November 2016 was because, while I knew that he was categorically unfit and incompetent and cruel, I never foresaw that 100% of Republicans in office would just enable him to the extent they have.

Its been horrifying because, in that sense, hes not the problem. If he were being held to the same standards other people in his position have been held to, if they had cared about the transgressions hes made, the lines hes crossed, then he would have been neutralised, at least reined in. But theyve given him permission to keep going and doubling down.

She has also witnessed Trumps lies, exaggerations and salesmanship up close. When she first met his wife, Melania, Trump said to his niece: You dropped out of college, right? He then commented: It was really bad for a while  and then she started doing drugs.

Mary says she has never taken drugs in her life, but Trump relishes a good comeback story. Its just a power play. He knew he was lying. He knew I knew he was lying. But he enjoys that kind of thing. It is a telling anecdote about Trumps dont let the facts get in the way of a good story attitude that seeks to make his audience, and the media, complicit.

Mary and her brother engaged in a protracted legal fight over Freds estate after his death in 1999 but she otherwise maintained a low profile, despite sharing her last name with a man who spent decades as a star of New York tabloids, reality TV and now the Washington swamp.

I have always flown under the radar up until recently; I guess thats not the case any more, she muses. When I was really young, it wasnt an issue because nobody knew who my grandfather was outside of New York.

It became more of a complicating factor when I was in college and I learned very early on that if somebody asked me  which happened 100% of the time when I paid with a cheque or used a credit card  if I was related, I just said no because it was so much easier. So even people I became friends with didnt know for a long time. Its been a burden simply knowing that its been my uncle who is doing these awful things but, for me personally, not really.

Mary voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and senator Elizabeth Warren in the 2020 Democratic primary but is fully behind presumptive nominee Joe Biden for November. I will do whatever I can do to help him get elected. Asked if she would accept an invitation to speak at next months Democratic national convention, she says simply: That would be an honour.

Biden currently has a significant lead in opinion polls but what if, despite everything, Trump wins re-election? I have a very difficult time thinking about that but I think the simplest and most clear way to put it is that it would be, in my view, the end of the American experiment. The fact that people were willing to do it four years ago was devastating; that anybody would think that its a good idea to continue along the lines were going now is unthinkable.

Donald Trump with father Fred, first wife Ivana and son Donald Jr. Photograph: Time Life Pictures/The Life Picture Collection/Getty Images

Mary last spoke to the president at her aunts birthday party at the White House in April 2017 and has no interest in doing so again. In 2018, she secretly helped New York Times reporters on an investigation that outlined how Trump and his siblings avoided millions of dollars in taxes.

Does she love her uncle? No, I dont, she says without hesitation. I used to feel compassion for him. I really did. But then that became impossible when I started learning about things that he had done and seeing what hes been doing since January 20, 2017.

Marys guidebook to the Trump psychological labyrinth is an argument for the notion that the child is father of the man. If we are all products of our circumstances, does Trump deserve some pity? She is adamant again. No, he does not. I completely understand having sympathy and empathy for the child who did suffer mightily but its no excuse for his behaviour.

Hes an adult human being who knows the difference between right and wrong, even though he doesnt think the rules apply to him. He knows what hes doing and one of the reasons were in this position is because hes never been held accountable for anything. So his transgressions become more egregious over time and he needs to be held to account.

 Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the Worlds Most Dangerous Man by Mary Trump is 17.40 (RRP 20) at guardianbookshop.com
(Natural News) At least 38 law enforcement officers who have been responding strongly to the endless rioting in Portland have been doxed, according to Richard Cline, the deputy director of the Federal Protective Service (FPS).

Doxing is a cyber attack that involves the release of an individuals personal and private information over the internet. What is leaked during these attacks can vary, but they usually include a persons full name, home address, cell phone number and even his social security number and credit card information.

The extent of what information regarding the 38 officers was released has not been made clear, but Cline said that federal agents working in Portland have now been ordered to hide their names, which are usually displayed on their uniforms, to reduce the risk of future doxing attacks. Cline also said that, from now on, the officers will instead be displaying their badge numbers. This allows them to be identified, but only internally.

Other law enforcement departments in Portland have also started hiding the identities of their officers. The Portland Police Bureau (PPB) began the practice in June, when former chief of police Jami Resch authorized the police officers to cover their names on their uniforms with tape.

Demonstrators reacted to this decision at the time negatively by saying that this makes it difficult for Portlanders to hold their officers accountable, especially when they want to file complaints about police actions such as police brutality.

At the time, spokeswoman for the PPB Terri Wallo-Strauss told Oregon Public Broadcasting that Reschs decision was informed by the doxing of several officers, emphasizing that their safety and the safety of their families was of the utmost importance.

Listen to this episode of the Health Ranger Report, a podcast by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, as he talks about how communist China has been providing the Black Lives Matter movement with weaponized drones that can kill people with aerosolized fentanyl. They may use these weapons to try and kill President Donald Trump.

Antifa has history of terrorizing law enforcement through doxing

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has federal officers in Portland, has previously stated that violent anarchists, most likely a reference to Antifa, have previously released personal and private information about federal agents on multiple occasions.

According to DHS officials, federal officers in Portland are identifiable through their status as law enforcement agents as well as members of the specific agency that they represent.

The acting commissioner of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), Mark Morgan, said that the repeated doxing attacks are putting not just the officers in danger, but their families as well. This is why the name tags of their officers in Portland have now been replaced with personal identifiers so that they can all identify each other easily, but the Antifa rioters that they have to battle every night will not. (Related: Federal agents stand off with rioters in Portland who lit fires and tried to break into the Federal Courthouse.)

Some of the doxing attacks against CBP officers in Portland include publicizing their home addresses, with messages that threateningly suggest that the officers should go home instead of trying to fight back against the rioters.

So yes, as acting commissioner, I have authorized and supported removing their names from their uniforms, said Morgan.

A previous report published by the DHS in June even warned their officers that their personal information is in danger of being leaked through social media websites, especially if they have participated in protecting peoples lives and property during the nationwide rioting and civil unrest.

While doxing does not in and of itself constitute a threat to law enforcement and their families, doxing might result in the downstream threat of violence by violent opportunists or domestic violent extremists (DVEs), or otherwise prevent DHS personnel or law enforcement partners from executing their lawful mission, said the report.

The local and federal officers in Portland are not alone in being doxed. Reports show that law enforcement agencies in Washington, D.C., New York City, Kentucky, Boston and Atlanta have all had some of their officers personal information leaked to the public through social media.

Law enforcement not alone in getting doxed by Antifa

Mason Lake, a photographer who had been covering the riots in Portland, was threatened by Antifa militants through social media. Some of the primary instigators even used the opportunity to dox him by publishing the address to his home as well as his phone number.

Give him a call and let him know how you feel about him keeping a file of [Black Bloc] folks that he turns over to pigs, one person wrote online after publishing Lakes phone number. Whats that saying, snitches get

Upon seeing him taking pictures of rioters at one demonstration, members of Antifa quickly began physically assaulting him. He took at least a dozen hits to the head during this altercation.

Antifa black bloc militant beats up BLM supporting photographer @MasonLakePhoto. Mason Lake was accused of communicating with Portland Police and a bounty had been put on him on social media by #antifa. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/pwvtWMpUeC  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) July 22, 2020

Antifa has made their hostility to Lake well known despite the fact that the photojournalist has made his support for the Black Lives Matter movement known. In fact, he has blamed the incident on federal officers for stoking divisions between members of Antifa and BLM.

The feds are taking us journalists out one by one with any means at their disposal, Lake wrote on his social media page.

Why are they trying to eliminate the media? Lake further wrote. What do they have to hide? It is war crimes. Pure and simple, they are trying to hide their war crimes against Portland citizens by censoring the press.

Stay updated on what Antifa is doing in Portland and all over the country to try and get police departments everywhere abolished at AntifaWatch.news.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

Computer.HowStuffWorks.com

Newsweek.com

FoxNews.com

ThePostMillennial.com
Andhra Pradesh: Srikakulam town under lockdown again, 60000 migrants return home in total

July 23,2020 | Source: Yahoo

With coronavirus numbers on the rise, lockdown has been enforced in Srikakulam town of Andhra Pradesh from Saturday. The Collector declared that for 14 days, Srikakulam district will be under lockdown. Only essential and emergency services will remain open. Shops will be open from 6 am to 1 pm. In the second week of this month, a partial lockdown was announced in Srikakulam town. There were restrictions in timings and shops were allowed to be open only until 1 pm. With the support of the public, partial lockdown was earlier enforced in Ichchapuram, Palasa, Mandasa, Tekkali, Narasannapeta, Ranasthalam, Rajam and Srikakulam.



Srikakulam district had made it to the news for being coronavirus-free until late April. It is in the last two months that the district has seen a spike in the number of cases. Speaking to TNM, Collector J Nivas said, Our first case in the district was reported as late as April 24. There was no case before that. Once the lockdown was lifted in June, we had around 700 cases and now in July presently, we have around 2,000 positive cases.



According to the medical bulletin released on July 18, Srikakulam district has recorded a total of 2,034 COVID-19 cases and 16 people have lost their lives in the district due to the pandemic. When asked what is the biggest challenge that the district is facing, Collector Nivas said, The migrant population is our biggest challenge. Srikakulam district has the highest number of people working as migrant labour in other states. 60,000 people have already reached Srikakulam from states like Telangana, Tamil Nadu and also from other districts in the state. This is the official number, based on those who have crossed through the checkpost. There may be various other means by which they have reached the district, too. Even now, every day, people are returning to Srikakulam from Telangana.



The Collector mentioned that the district has a high migrant population because a lot of people travel to neighbouring states and districts in search of livelihood. Nivas added, The agriculture pattern in the district is that they do single-crop cultivation due to lack of water resources for a second crop. From December, they have no work, and that is when they move to other states for work. A lot of people go to Gujarat and other states for fishing by around September. A big chunk of the migrant workers are fishermen returning from Chennai and Gujarat. Speaking about the arrangements in the district, the Collector said the administration is well prepared. He said, We have three COVID Care Centres, we are increasing that to four now. These can accommodate around 3,000 people. Around 200 people are in home isolation. We have 1,700 beds in hospitals out of which 1,100 are beds with oxygen lines and 164 ICUs. We want hospitals to cater to only critical patients. Currently, we have around 20-30% vacancy in hospitals, ideally it should be 50%. The pressure is building and hence we want to reduce the inflow into hospitals. Arranging for beds in hospitals is not the challenge, arranging medical staff and doctors is the real challenge. Srikakulam town is following a 50:30:20 strategy to tackle the virus. 50% of the patients are in home isolation. 30% are in COVID Care Centres and 20% are admitted in hospitals. The administration is hoping to ramp up testing and has introduced various surveys and schemes to detect cases early and help people recover fast.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 23:07:51|Editor: huaxia

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HELSINKI, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Kesko Group, one of Finland's largest retailers, achieved its record best second-quarter results, despite the exceptional circumstances caused by the COVID-19 epidemic, announced the group in its half-year financial report published on Thursday.

Earlier in April, the group recorded its all-time best results in the first quarter this year, when grocery sales grew increasingly amid the epidemic. Kesko's earnings continued to improve in the second quarter when it gained another record best results.

Kesko's net sales between April and June this year totaled 2,814.5 million euros, increasing by 2.2 percent in comparable terms, compared to 2,781.4 million euros in the same period of 2019.

The operating profits was 155.2 million euros in the second quarter of this year, compared to 122.5 million euros the same quarter last year, rising by nearly 27 percent.

Consumer demand for food remains good despite negative effects of the COVID-19 epidemic, retail sales of food grew by 12.3 percent between April and June from last year.

Furthermore, in the building and technical trade, consumer sales have developed better than anticipated during the epidemic, said Kesko.

"Our fast response, well-functioning strategy and good market for the building and technical trade enabled a good result under exceptional circumstances," said Mikko Helander, president and CEO of Kesko, in the financial report.

In the car trade division, however, the net sales decreased clearly, as demand for new cars weakened significantly during the reporting period, while sales of servicing and spare part services remained good.

"Although conditions surrounding the COVID-19 have improved in Kesko's operating countries, it is still difficult to predict the development of the epidemic situation and its economic impact," noted Helander.

A couple of weeks ago, Kesko raised its outlook for the whole year of 2020. The group forecasted that the comparable operating profit for continuing operations will be in the range of 430-510 million euros in 2020. Previously, Kesko estimated that the comparable operating profit for continuing operations would be in the range of 400-450 million euros. (1 euro = 1.16 U.S. dollars) Enditem
President Trump announced this afternoon a surge in the federal effort to quell the violent crime that is spiking in major American cities.

The effort is along the lines of what Rich Lowry and I discussed on The McCarthy Report podcast last week, and in a column I wrote earlier this month about potential federal approaches to violent crime.

As weve noted, there was no need to re-create the wheel here. There is abundant law that gives federal agencies jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute violent crime. Just as significantly, the federal government (the U.S. attorneys offices, the FBI, DEA, other federal agencies, and the U.S. courts) not only has a longstanding presence in our nations biggest cities. For decades, weve also had federal-state task forces, which are joint investigative efforts involving the police and prosecution agencies of the federal, state, and municipal governments to combat gang crime and its staples  street-level narcotics trafficking and gun crimes.

The president, with elaboration from Attorney General Bill Barr, explained that the new effort is called Operation Legend, in honor of LeGend Taliferro, a four-year-old boy who was senselessly shot to death in his sleep last month when a still-unidentified gunman opened fire on his familys apartment in Kansas City.

Barr detailed that Operation Legend had already commenced with a ramp-up of federal agents in Kansas City. The initiative is now being expanded to two other cities with soaring crime, Chicago and Albuquerque. Amid a litany of bloody statistics, Trump noted that 23 people were shot in Chicago just yesterday  15 of them at a funeral home, where respects were being paid to a man whod been killed in an earlier drive-by shooting.

Given the demagogic media commentary portraying federal law-enforcement agents in Portland as stormtroopers and militia, administration officials are understandably stressing that the new initiative is simply an augmentation of existing federal-state collaborations. As Barr put it, these are standard anti-crime activities we have been carrying on for decades.

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The additional federal agents sent to high-crime cities will be drawn from the FBI, DEA, ATF, the U.S. Marshals Service, and HSI (i.e., the Homeland Security Investigations division, a component of DHS that concentrates on criminal organizations that exploit the immigration system, as well as U.S. financial and travel facilities). These are agencies that regularly coordinate with state and local police. A vital part of the federal effort will be financial support for states and municipalities so that, like the feds, they will be able to contribute more police personnel to the task forces.

A big part of what is envisioned appears to be along the lines of what I described as Federal Day, in the aforementioned column. The feds and the state police will work with the local U.S. attorneys office as well as the state district attorneys. Because there is a broad array of federal and state criminal law that can be applied to violent criminal activity, from isolated assaults to coordinated gang violence, the collaboration will enable law enforcement to bring those arrested to either the federal or state system  whichever makes sense under the circumstances, in terms of efficient processing and an appropriately severe sentence.

Barr recalled that the Justice Department had spearheaded a similar effort several months back, which it called Relentless Pursuit, but that it was aborted as governments turned their attention to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Critics will be quick to note that there was a political edge to the White House announcement. The president asserted that lawlessness was being pushed by the radical Left, that the far Left is pushing to break up and defund police departments, and that city governments almost uniformly run by Democrats had adopted policies that contributed to the rise in crime. These, Trump said, included sanctuary city practices, which impede the federal enforcement of the immigration laws and have resulted in aliens, who have committed serious crimes, being released back onto the streets rather than being deported. Trump bemoaned deadly policies and deadly politicians.

For his part, Barr observed that crime had begun to creep back up toward the end of the Obama administration, and that initiatives such as Relentless Pursuit aimed to push it back down. To be sure, violent crime has edged up in some areas over the past five years (homicide rates, in particular, increased in 2015 and 2016); but even so, it was not nearly at the levels of the early 1990s.

While stressing that the federal government intended to what it could to reverse the alarming rise in crime that followed George Floyds killing in Minneapolis and the subsequent demonization of police, Trump and Barr emphasized that local elected political leadership is primarily responsible for keeping law and order. The president repeated his ongoing theme that cities in need of federal help should call to ask for it. But he also made clear that the federal government is obliged to act to protect citizens, whether asked to do so or not.

Editors Note: This article has been emended since its initial publication.

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The ground-breaking ceremony planned in Ayodhya on August 5 for a grand Ram temple will be reminiscent of the Howdy Modi event, Hindustan Times sister publication Hindustan reported.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone of the temple in that ceremony, said Swami Govind Dev Giri, Treasurer of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Tirtha Kshetra Trust.

The grand event will be telecast live, Hindustan reported. A member of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Tirtha Kshetra Trust told Hindustan that they have made arrangements for every devotee to feel and experience the event, even though the physical presence of people will be curtailed.

Also Read: All chief ministers to be invited for Ayodhya Ram Temple stone laying ceremony

Hindustan reported that apart from live telecast, dozens of giant LED screens will be installed in the twin cities of Ayodhya and Faizabad so that people can watch the ceremony on a grand scale.

Giri had earlier said that social distancing norms will be ensured at the programme, with not more than 200 people attending the ceremony.

The Prime Minister will visit Hanuman Garhi, Ram Lalla temple, plant a tree and later do the bhoomi pujan, he had said.

The trust was formed by the government for the construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya in line with the Supreme Courts ruling on November 9 last year.

Also Read: Uddhav Thackeray to attend Ram Mandir bhoomi pujan in Ayodhya

A five-judge Supreme Court bench led by then Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi ruled in favour of Ram Lalla and said the entire disputed land spread over 2.7 acres will be handed over to a trust formed by the government, which will monitor the construction of a Ram Temple at the site.

Giri said the main saints from Ayodhya and across the country, social workers and political leaders will be invited for the event.

He said that the temple will be ready within three and a half years.
The daughter of a Texas heathcare worker who died from COVID-19 says her mom's life could have been saved if Gov. Greg Abbott had issued his mask-wearing mandate sooner.

In a stinging op-ed for The Statesman, Fiana Tulip says Abbott's 'poor policy and terrible leadership' are responsible for the death of her mother, respiratory therapist Isabelle Papadimitriou.

Papadimitriou, 64, succumbed to the novel coronavirus at a Dallas hospital on July 4, despite having no underlying conditions.

In late April, Gov. Abbott defend an individual's right to refuse to wear a mask by issuing an executive order which stated 'no jurisdiction could impose a civil or criminal penalty for failure to wear a face covering',.

However, he abruptly reversed course on July 2 as coronavirus cases soared across the state. In a new executive order, Gov. Abbott instructed Texans in almost all counties to wear masks in public spaces.

In her op-ed in The Statesman on Tuesday, Tulip attacked Abbott for his about-face, saying his reversal was too little too late.

Fiana Tulip (right is pictured with her mom, Isabelle Papadimitriou, who died from COVID-19 earlier this month. Tulip blames Gov. Greg Abbott's 'poor policies' for her mother's death

Respiratory therapist Isabelle Papadimitriou (left and right), 64, died from COVID-19 on July 4

Gov. Greg Abbott initially stated that jurisdictions could not impose penalties on people who refused to wear masks. He did a backflip earlier this month as cases soared across the state

'My mother likely contracted the virus at the hospital where she worked during the period when your Executive Order No. GA-18 forbade local governments from implementing their own safety measures, such as mandating the wearing of masks, to protect the public and healthcare workers from the spread of COVID-19,' she wrote.

'As hospital beds filled up across the state, you finally issued a statewide mask order on July 2, too late to help my mother. There will be far more deaths of Texans than there needed to be.

'Your inaction and active denial of the devastation from COVID-19 has made it clear that the people dying, and the families theyre leaving behind, are just numbers to you,' Tulip blasted.

The distraught daughter invited Gov. Abbott to her mother's funeral - set to be held in Texas today - so he could see firsthand the impact of his policies.

'I invite you to her burial to witness our family mourning this incredible woman who gave her life to save others. You will see that we are unable to even hug each other in our grief because my brother tested positive for COVID-19 the day my mother died,' she wrote.

Papadimitriou is pictured with her 10-month old granddaughter in a recent social media snap

In an interview with CNN on Wednesday night, Tulip stated that she had not received a reply from Gov. Abbott's office as to whether he would attend her mother's funeral

Texas is currently struggling to contain soaring numbers of COVID-19 cases.

On Wednesday, the state reported an additional 9,879 cases, taking the total number of infections above 367,000.

More than 4,550 Texas residents have died from the disease.

In an interview with CNN on Wednesday night, Tulip stated that she had not received a reply from Gov. Abbott's office as to whether he would attend her mother's funeral.

The Gov's media team failed to reply to the news network on Thursday.

During her interview, Tulip again hit out at Gov. Abbott and other officials, stating: 'I looked at the way that Texas' leaders were handling the virus and it just seemed reckless and careles.

'I couldn't understand why they opened up so early and as cases continued to spike, they continued to open up.'

Texas has become one of the country's coronavirus hot spots, with more than 340,000 cases and 4,000 deaths

Tulip previously praised her mom as 'fun and fearless' in an interview with NBC.

She detailed the days that led up to her sickness, and said her mother started to feel ill on June 27.

Two days later, Papadimitriou received her positive test results for the virus. Less than a week later, she was dead.

Tulip set up a GoFundMe account to lay her mother to rest. Her memorial will take place at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Dallas.
BLOOMINGTON  The July increase in COVID-19 cases in many Central Illinois counties isn't a surprise because more people are out and about and getting tested for the novel virus, public health professionals said Wednesday. But it doesn't have to be this bad, they said.

"It's a concern," said Sara Sparkman, a spokeswoman for the health department in Tazewell County, where nine new cases were confirmed on Wednesday.

That brings the county's new total to 239. The increase in cases began during the week of June 12 with 23 new cases reported. Last week, 44 new cases were reported.

"We are seeing more testing but we are seeing more interaction among people ... and we are concerned about people not social distancing and not wearing masks," Sparkman said. "We know that can slow the spread."

"We did anticipate a rise in cases, as we moved into a period where more things were opening and more people are out and about," said Jenny Barrie, health educator and public information officer with the LaSalle County Health Department. LaSalle County announced 14 new COVID cases on Wednesday, bringing their new total to 364.

Said Barrie: "We are currently heading in the wrong direction and we need everyone to do their part too so we can slow down our number of positive cases."

Wednesday also had the highest number of new cases in the month of July statewide, with 1,598. Twenty-three deaths were reported.

"This (increase) is propelled by the spread of COVID-19 from infected individuals, who do not realize they are sick, to people they know," Barrie said. "All of us need to be willing to...wear a mask in public, maintain social distance and wash hands frequently."

"I see people in gas stations and grocery stores not wearing masks," said David Remmert, administrator of the DeWitt-Piatt Bi-County Health Department. "I know that hasn't been a part of our culture but there are a number of studies that have confirmed now that masking is important."

Gov. J.B. Pritzker, at a news conference in Chicago, said "COVID-19 has not gone away and it remains a serious threat."

While Illinois' COVID positivity rate  positive cases has a percent of total tests  is half that of neighboring states, COVID has "no boundaries" and the state's progress against COVID could be reversed, Pritzker said.

"This virus is not a blue state virus or a red state virus ... going without a mask is not a political statement," he said.

In Tazewell County, many recent cases have been household contacts of people who have tested positive and people who have traveled "and when they come back, they test positive," Sparkman said.

In McLean County, nine new cases were confirmed on Wednesday, meaning 41 people have been diagnosed so far this week, 146 since the surge began on July 3 and 411 since the first case was announced on March 19.

Of the 411, 326 have recovered, 68 are isolating at home, two are hospitalized and 15 have died, said McLean County Health Department Administrator Jessica McKnight. The most recent death was two weeks ago.

Increased testing and more people out in public  but not keeping 6 feet away from others and not wearing a mask  are primary reasons for the increase, McKnight said.

"We are not just testing the sickest of the sick as we were at the beginning of the pandemic," McKnight said. "Now, anyone can be tested, including people who are asymptomatic."

"We want the public to be aware that there are asymptomatic cases that we aren't aware of," McKnight said. "We don't know necessarily what COVID looks like. It may not look like a sick person.

"So, every person we interact with, we should assume they have COVID and vice versa," McKnight continued. "And that's why we're wearing our masks or face coverings and we're keeping our distance at least 6 feet away from others."

Sparkman urged people who have tested positive and who are contacted by their health department to provide them with names of their close contacts  people who have been within 6 feet of them for more than 15 minutes without a mask for the two days prior to them testing positive.

Those close contacts have been exposed to COVID and need to quarantine for 14 days so they don't expose others to the virus.

In DeWitt County, which has had 24 confirmed cases, and in Piatt County, which has had 30 cases, the "spike" began about a week and a half ago, Remmert said. Recent cases include household contacts of people who had tested positive and people without symptoms who tested positive before a scheduled surgery.

New mobile test sites In addition to the COVID-19 test site at the McLean County Fairgrounds, 1106 Interstate Drive, Bloomington, open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, McLean County Health Department and Chestnut Health Systems are starting new mobile testing in rural communities. Mobile testing sites are open 9 a.m. to noon and those scheduled as of Wednesday evening were: July 23, Aug. 13, Sept. 3 and Sept. 24 at 307 N. Harrison St., Colfax.

July 30, Aug. 20 and Sept. 10 at 201 N. Chestnut St., LeRoy.

Aug. 6, Aug. 27 and Sept. 17 at 103 S. Buchanan St., Heyworth. Anyone may be tested by drive up or walk up. Face coverings must be worn. People must be able to do a nasal self-swab test although parents may do it for children who can't do it themselves.

"We've gotten into the habit of looking at the number of cases," Remmert said. "I'm more interested in the seriousness of the cases. The number of hospitalizations are a truer indication of the seriousness of the disease and I feel fortunate that we've had only one hospitalization in DeWitt and none in Piatt. Most of our cases have had very mild symptoms and some have had no symptoms at all."

While numbers of tests and cases are increasing in Central Illinois, positivity rates are remaining steady or increasing slightly.

In McLean County, where 19,600 tests have happened, the cumulative positivity rate is 2.1% and the rolling seven-day positivity rate through July 21 is 2.2%.

In Tazewell County, the rate has fluctuated between 1 and 2%, Sparkman said. In DeWitt County, the rate is 1.3%, Remmert said.

Statewide, the rate for the seven-day period ending July 21 is 3.2%.

Remember these? 20 Bloomington-Normal places of the past

Contact Paul Swiech at 309-820-3275. Follow him on Twitter: @pg_swiech.

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BAY CITY, MI  One of two Bay City men accused of killing a man in Florida in 2019, then returning north where he was arrested, has been extradited back to Florida.

The two suspects, ages 27 and 22, were arrested at separate locations in Bay City on June 15 on charges related to the October shooting death of 30-year-old Michael Briles in Bradenton, Florida. They have been lodged at the Bay County Jail ever since.

On Monday, July 20, however, the younger of the two suspects was picked up from the jail by Florida authorities. Jail records indicate the suspect is now in custody at the Manatee County Central Jail.

The older suspect remains held in Bay County.

The suspects names are being withheld pending arraignment.

Police in Bradenton, located in Manatee County south of St. Petersburg on Floridas Gulf Coast, responded to Briles apartment about 10 p.m. on Oct. 17 after receiving reports of gunfire. They arrived to find Briles already deceased.

Police subsequently released surveillance camera footage of a suspect driving up to Briles apartment, walking up to its door, then running from it about a minute later.

Media reports indicate Briles worked two jobs, employed by UPS and a Bradenton pizza parlor. He had apparently just returned home from his job at the pizza parlor when the shooting took place.

In February, the Bay City Department of Public Safetys VIPER/FBI Mid-Michigan Safe Streets Task Force began working with Bradenton police on the case, as it was believed two Bay City men were involved in Briles death during a robbery attempt. After a lengthy investigation, police arrested the two men on June 15, recovering evidence in the process.

The older suspect is charged with first-degree felony murder and armed burglary. The younger codefendant is charged with principal to both of those offenses, according to media reports.

Police have not commented on what led them to develop the Bay City men as suspects or what connection they may have had to Briles, though the suspects Facebook pages place them in Florida in October 2019.

Related:

2 Bay City men arrested on murder charges in connection with homicide in Florida

Police arrest two men in Michigan accused of murdering a Bradenton man in October 2019

One of two suspects in Bradenton murder case is back in local custody
They revealed the exciting news last week that they are expecting a baby girl.

And Gianluca Vacchi and his girlfriend Sharon Fonseca were clearly still revelling in the joy as they shared a fun dancing video on Wednesday.

The Italian playboy millionaire, 52, and his pregnant model girlfriend, 25, showed off their best moves in their swimwear.

Best moves: Gianluca Vacchi and his girlfriend Sharon Fonseca shared a fun dancing video on Wednesday

In the fun video, shared on Instagram, Gianluca donned a pair of colourful trunks and slippers for the routine.

Meanwhile Sharon looked stunning as she performed in a black swimming costume and a black sunhat.

He captioned the video: 'Just a quick dance.'

Routine: The Italian playboy millionaire, 52, and his pregnant model girlfriend, 25, showed off their best moves in their swimwear

Soon-to-be mother: Sharon showed off her growing bump as she turned to the side in the dance

Stylish: In the fun video, shared on Instagram, Gianluca donned a pair of colourful trunks and slippers for the routine

Fashion: Meanwhile Sharon looked stunning as she performed in a black swimming costume and a black sunhat

It comes after the couple announced that they are expecting a little girl during a showstopping gender reveal video.

In the playful video, Gianluca is seen holding Sharon's bare baby bump as he jokingly asks: 'Amor, who is your favourite person in the world?'.

He then takes out a stethoscope and holds it against Sharon's stomach in which to suggest he is going to get a reply.

Keen dancer: Gianluca became popular on social media with his fun dance routines

Pregnant chic: Sharon covered up her growing bump after they revealed they are expecting a girl

Loved-up: The couple met two years ago on the set of one of his music videos and the Italian millionaire admitted he was struck by the 'incredibly sexy' Sharon

As a suit-clad Gianluca listens in, a babyish voice is then heard saying: 'Papa, papa!'

The delighted businessman then jumps up and punches the air with glee as he shouts 'yes!'

In a spectacular video shared to both of their social media accounts, the couple can be seen excitedly holding hands as a helicopter flies overhead.

Congratulations: It comes shortly after the Italian playboy millionaire, and his model girlfriend, 25, announced that they are expecting a little girl during a showstopping gender reveal video

As the helicopter got closer, it released a cloud of pink smoke, confirming the pair will have a baby girl.

The delighted couple, both clad in white, then hugged one another as their friends and family cheered in the background.

It then cut to an emotional Sharon wiping away her tears as her partner comforted her.

The sweet video ended in a cloud of pink smoke alongside the message: 'We are waiting for you little princess. Mom and Dad.'

Last month Gianluca said his 27-year age gap with pregnant girlfriend Sharon doesn't 'concern' him.

The businessman and stunning model candidly discussed their romance in a new interview where he revealed he has the energy of a 15-year-old boy and Sharon made him 'suffer' at the start of their relationship to win him over.

The couple spoke from their lavish mansion in Bologna, Italy, which boasts three swimming pools and 38 acres of land, after returning from their penthouse in Miami, Florida.

Asked about whether the 27-year age gap concerns him, Gianluca told HELLO! magazine: 'Not at all, if it doesn't bother her. Even though I have this white beard, my enthusiasm is that of a boy of 15.'

Gender reveal: In a spectacular video shared to both of their social media accounts, the couple can be seen excitedly holding hands as a helicopter flies overhead

She's coming! As the helicopter got closer, it released a cloud of pink smoke, confirming the pair will have a baby girl

While Sharon added: 'Gian is an open book, a man from whom I can learn something different every day. And then there's his spirit and energy [like a 15-year-old's].'

To which Gianluca joked that they should increase it to 18-years-old as he can drive at that age.

The couple met two years ago on the set of one of his music videos and the Italian millionaire admitted he was struck by the 'incredibly sexy' Sharon.

Although Gianluca revealed that the model played hard to get at the start of their romance, he joked: 'She made me suffer a lot, that's for sure. I thought that same night she would fall into my net, but I was wrong!'

Happy tears: It then cut to an emotional Sharon wiping away her tears as her partner comforted her
An Ethiopian Airline 777F freighter aircraft caught on fire at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport on Wednesday. Evident from a few videos that were shared on Chinese social media, the fire looks to have originated from the main cargo deck and has burnt through the upper fuselage.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to cripple major carriers around the world, Ethiopian Airlines has pivoted to a vital income stream  the transportation of cargo. The decision, as per the company, has helped it to avert financial ruin by maintaining half of its income while 90 per cent of the passenger fleet is grounded.

Here is a video circulating on Chinese social media of the burning @flyethiopian 777F at Shanghai Pudong Airport. It's most definitely a hull loss at this point. #BreakingNews #AvGeek pic.twitter.com/FN98d6QNrJ FATIII Aviation (@FATIIIAviation) July 22, 2020

Going from growth mode to survival mode, the airline built on its existing cargo fleet of 10 Boeing 777s and two Boeing 737 by converting 25 passenger aircraft to cargo flights. Since the shift, Ethiopian Airlines has shipped cargo to 70 destinations as against the 10 at the start of the pandemic.

Airfreight rates saw a surge in price during the crisis and have dropped off as capacity returns, but remain about 40-50% above their usual levels. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) speculates that cargo will contribute 26 per cent of airline industry revenue in 2020, up from 12 per cent in 2019.

Also Watch:

The airline has helped to shuttle Covid-19 equipment throughout Africa and beyond in Europe, the US and South America. All three shipments of healthcare equipment donated by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma passed through Addis Ababa and were distributed to 52 African countries.
Carla Juri and Alec Secareanu in the movie "Amulet." (Nick Wall)

Forward is not the only way, a nun remarks early on in Amulet, sounding a bit like a character out of Lewis Carroll. As played with a chipper smile by the great Imelda Staunton, her face beaming out from under a light blue wimple, Sister Claire looks a bit like a Carroll creation too: less committed to a particular notion of good or evil than to the cultivation of her own eccentricity. If youve seen Staunton as Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter movies and in the title role of Vera Drake, you know she can do impish malevolence and saintly warmth with equal ease. Rarely, though, does she get the chance to balance the two as deliciously as she does here.

If forward is not the only way, then this zigzagging booby trap of a thriller is shrewd enough to prove it. Sister Claire isnt the main character in this story; that would be Tomaz (Alec Secareanu), whom we first encounter as a soldier in some unspecified European country. Theres a war on, and Tomaz has been sent to a remote outpost in some misty green wilderness. Soon enough, the story will leap forward to find him living in London, but it will also keep leaping back, returning to that outpost in scenes that insistently blur the line between past and present, flashback and nightmare.

An agreeably nerve-jangling feature writing-directing debut from English actor Romola Garai, Amulet barrels through its hectic, harrowing plot with an intensity that can seem feverish and mechanical by turns. It starts throwing details at you almost immediately, each one building on yet also undermining the last, as if it were deliberately trying to confound your sense of what kind of movie youre watching.

Imelda Staunton in the movie "Amulet." (Rob Baker Ashton/Magnet Releasing)

This is a refugee story, as we see from Tomazs routine around London, where he does construction jobs by day and sleeps in a crowded shelter by night. Its also a tale of war and repressed trauma, as we soon gather from those woodland flashbacks, where Tomaz huddles in his lonely quarters with just a rifle and a suggestive copy of Hannah Arendts On Violence for company. And when Tomaz discovers a mysterious tchotchke  a stone figurine carved in the shape of a woman, her head crowned by a large shell  the movie seems to be sliding, with a wink, into sinister realms of ancient folklore.

Story continues

Back in London, Amulet starts to take on the familiar contours of a slow-to-boil romance, when Sister Claire swoops in and leads Tomaz to the home of a woman, Magda (Carla Juri), who looks both wary and weary. Magdas home is a marvelous ruin; the walls are cracked and moldy, theres no electricity and the less said about the plumbing, the better. (The expertly grotty production design is by Francesca Massariol, the atmospheric cinematography by Laura Bellingham.) Howls of agony issue forth from some upstairs bedroom; thats Magdas mother on her deathbed, Sister Claire explains, right before telling Tomaz that hes welcome to stay, so long as he helps out with odd jobs around the house.

Some jobs are odder than others, and after making a few gruesome discoveries  one of them in perhaps the freakiest backed-up-toilet scene since The Conversation  Tomaz concludes that Something Very Wrong is afoot and that Magda is in desperate need of rescue. Notably, this isnt the first time Tomaz has cast himself as a potential savior. Cue those wartime flashbacks, in which we see Tomaz offering aid to Miriam (Angeliki Papoulia), an anxious runaway whos desperate to slip across the border. Tomaz gives Miriam food, shelter and company, plus a few lingering glances that suggest his motives for helping her might not be entirely altruistic.

Alec Secareanu and Carla Juri in the movie "Amulet." (Rob Baker Ashton/Magnet Releasing)

Who is Tomaz, what does he want and what has he done? Its clear from the beginning that he has his demons, which doesnt make him any less sympathetic at first. Secareanu, a Romanian actor who costarred in the splendid romantic drama Gods Own Country, is a naturally involving screen presence, something Amulet uses to its sly advantage. Garai finds ways to undermine everything we think we know and trust, starting with a few extreme closeups that directly reference Hitchcocks Psycho, another movie about a guilty visitor, an oppressed host and a domineering mother.

Psycho isnt the only horror classic to which Amulet tips its hat. Garai, whose work as an actor includes English period dramas like Atonement, Suffragette and the BBC series adaptation of Emma, is an enthusiastic devotee of the bump-in-the-night canon. This is a haunted-house movie whose phantoms seem both supernatural and psychological, and whose horror inspirations run the art-house gamut from Jennifer Kents The Babadook to David Cronenbergs Spider. The influence of Italian master Dario Argento, best known for Suspiria, can also be felt in the pictures increasingly outlandish flesh-and-blood imagery and, most pointedly, its shifting focus toward the women in the story.

To say more about what Amulet is really about would rob the movie of its element of surprise; it would also deflate the power of a second act that seems alternately too concrete and a little vague in its subversions of the genre template. That said, a second viewing of the movie pays its own fascinating dividends: Watch it again and youll notice how much of the drama plays out not in the frenzied shrieks and memorably grotesque effects, but rather in the wordless, watchful expressions of the female characters inhabiting the margins of Tomazs psychodrama. Garai gives voice to their silent fury and unmistakably adds her own, building a howl of rage that before long has come to sound like a chorus.
New Delhi, July 23 : The banned Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) group is learnt to have been trying to establish a base in Jammu and Kashmir. Intelligence inputs have suggested that the outfit recently gave a call for Sikhs residing in the valley to support its online 'Referendum 2020' campaign, which seeks secession of Punjab from India.

After it's failed attempts at getting support for 'Referendum 2020' voter registration in Punjab and Delhi, the SFJ's next target is Jammu and Kashmir, where it plans to launch voter registration for the illegal campaign on July 26.

The move followed inputs that the Sikh community across India has rejected the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) sponsored propaganda of 'Referendum 2020'. Pakistani intelligence agency ISI has been backing the malicious campaign launched by the SFJ as a large number of Pakistani Twitter handles have started tweeting in favour of the so-called 'Referendum'.

Dubbing Sikhs in Kashmir as "freedom fighters and Sikh soldiers", the US-based Khalistani radical outfit has urged them to support its most infamous agenda 'Referendum 2020'.

Intelligence reports suggest that the secessionist group has given a call to the Kashmiris in the valley to support the July 26 opening of voter registration in Jammu and Kashmir.

The attempt is to get the support of the estimated three lakh Sikh population residing across Jammu and Kashmir.

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the head of SFJ, had claimed that the group has planned to launch the July 26 voter registration for Punjab Independence Referendum in Jammu and Kashmir with "Ardaas" ceremonies from Gurudwara Chhati Patshahi in Srinagar and Gurudwara Simbal Camp in Jammu.

Pannu is among the nine pro-Khalistanis who were designated as terrorists by the Indian government earlier this month. US-based terrorist Pannu has been playing a major role in the 'Referendum 2020' campaign.

Pledging the SFJ's full support to the cause of holding a UN approved plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir, Pannu has urged the Kashmiri Sikhs to support Referendum 2020.

The group claims that an "independent Khalistan will pave the way for freedom of Kashmir".

The SFJ launched similar voter registration on July 4 and 19 in Punjab and Delhi respectively through Russian and Canadian portals to propagate its anti-India agenda to demand Khalistan, a separate homeland for Sikhs in Punjab.

The Ministry of Home Affairs had in July last year banned the SFJ for advocating Referendum 2020.

The SFJ is supported by Pakistan-based handlers to provide money and logistical support to radical Sikh elements in Punjab to carry out subversive activities.

The SFJ is headed by Avtar Singh Pannun and Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who have started advocating Khalistan as well as the online secessionist campaign for Referendum 2020.

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader and former minister Bikram Singh Majithia in a statement on Wednesday said that Punjabis are a patriotic community and there is no support whatsoever for the Referendum 2020. He said that Punjabis had rejected the divisive agenda earlier as well.

(Rajnish Singh can be contacted at rajnish.s@ians.in)

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
Security forces in Portland, Oregon used flash grenades and dispersent to drive crowds away from the federal courthouse and Justice Center late Wednesday.

A large group had gathered to protest police brutality.
I followed the South Carolina 7 expedition during its first five days as the trek made its way over mountain lands in the Jocassee Gorges owned and managed by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR).

Day 3 (July 3) was a walk to the top of Sassafras Mountain, billed as the Roof of the Palmetto State, since it is the highest point in South Carolina at 3,553 feet above sea level.

The hike to summit Sassafras Mountain in northern Pickens County was taken on the Foothills Trail, a 77-mile footpath running between Table Rock and Oconee state parks.

The hike began at Chimneytop Gap on the Foothills Trail, which is 2.7 miles below the top of Sassafras.

And as most of the group of 25 or so discovered during the next couple of hours, most of that 2.7 miles is UPHILL, since we are heading, after all, to the highest point in South Carolina.

Heyward Douglass, executive director of the Foothills Trail Conservancy (www.foothillstrail.org), walked at the front of the pack with expedition leader Tom Mullikin.

Douglass, in addition to being a great cheerleader for the Foothills Trail, is also a serious naturalist.

He pointed out the stunning pink-and-white wildflowers of rosebay rhododendron, demonstrated the spearmint-deliciousness of a sweet birch, and had hikers listening intently for the high-pitched zee-zee-zee-zee-ZEET call of the black-throated green warbler, which conveniently happened to be migrating through from South America.

After a mile or so of uphill hiking, the group was glad to take a break when it arrived at the locally famous landmark Teeter-Totter Rock. Douglass had one of younger members of the party climb on top of the rock and jump up and down, which actually does cause the rock to begin swaying back and forth slightly, thus the Teeter-Totter name.

As we got closer to the Sassafras Mountain Overlook, we heard overhead an unusual buzzing noise, which turned out to be a drone that is helping to film the expedition. Soon we emerged from a rhododendron tunnel and into the clearing around the overlook.

The intrepid hikers were met by a crowd that had already gathered to take in the breathtaking view of surrounding mountain peaks in North Carolina and Georgia from the highest point in South Carolina.

Lieutenant Governor Pamela S. Evette of Travelers Rest, who helped kick off South Carolina 7 at Oconee State Park on July 1, stood on top of the overlook with Mullikin and perhaps best summed up the uniquely Palmetto State expedition.

Its like Gods medicine, she said, coming out here and breathing fresh air, Vitamin D is healthy for everybody, and you can social distance on the trail. These are not crowded spaces, and these are beautiful places to bring your family and enjoy your time together.

SCDNR is one of many partners in the South Carolina 7 Expedition, some of the others being South Carolina State Parks, Palmetto Trail and South Carolina National Heritage Corridor.

The mission of South Carolina 7, according to Mullikin, is first to raise awareness of floodwater prevention across South Carolina; and then to engage leaders and residents in the protection and enjoyment of South Carolinas natural resources.

Having traveled and been awed by the length and breadth of this amazing planet for most of my adult life, I am never far from my first love, South Carolina, Mullikin wrote in a recent edition of South Carolina Wild.

As a means of showcasing the states treasures, lawyer, conservationist and world explorer Mullikin put together the 30-day South Carolina 7 Expedition, running from the mountains to the sea, roughly (but not exactly) following the route of the Palmetto Trail (palmettoconservation.org.)
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

Trend:

Working Group, consisting of representatives and specialists of the relevant public authorities, have started to assess the damage caused to Azerbaijan's Tovuz district as a result of the recent military provocation from Armenian side, Trend reports on July 23.

The group was set up in accordance with the decree of Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev "On measures to eliminate damage caused to the civilian population, state property, including infrastructure facilities as a result of the intensive shelling of the Tovuz district of Azerbaijan by the Armenian armed forces".

Currently, the specialists are studying the state of public facilities, properties of citizens, and respective expertise work is being carried out.

Three groups of the specialists have already inspected 61 private houses and household plots in the district's Aghdam, Dondar Gushchu, Alibeyli, Vahidli, Yukhari Oysuzlu and Ashaghi Oysuzlu villages.

Six houses and outbuildings have fallen into disrepair and need to be rebuilt, 15 houses and outbuildings were seriously damaged, as well as 40 houses and households underwent minor damages.

Moreover, as a result of the artillery shelling, serious damage was caused to private households. So, 20-25 heads of small cattle, 70-75 heads of poultry were destroyed, 300-350 haystacks collected for the winter were completely burned; personal cars of some citizens were seriously damaged by shell fragments; household items and household plots of the citizens were damaged in 15 houses.

The members of the working group examined state property, including infrastructure facilities. After the full establishment and assessment of the damage caused, the government will draw up an Action Plan, and proposals on the complete elimination of the consequences of the provocation will be submitted to Azerbaijans president.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has called a visit by the new prime minister of Iraq a turning point in relations between the countries and vowed to continue supporting the neighbouring nation.

Mustafa al-Kadhimi arrived on his first official visit abroad since taking office more than two months ago, Iranian media reported.

State television showed footage of Mr al-Kadhimi landing at Tehrans Mehrabad airport. The TV outlet said he would meet top Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Mr Rouhani.

The official website of the office of the Iranian presidency later released a photo of Mr Rouhani and Mr al-Kadhimi at a welcome ceremony in Tehran, showing both wearing protective face masks to help prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Expand Close The two men wore face masks during their meeting (Iranian Presidency Office via AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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We are certain that the visit will be a turning point in relations between the two countries, Mr Rouhani said after meeting the Iraqi premier. We still remain ready to stand by the Iraqi nation and apply efforts for stability and security in Iraq and the region.

Mr Al-Kadhimi replied: Iraq will not allow the posing of any threat from its soil against Iran.

The visit came after Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif travelled to Baghdad over the weekend.

It was Mr Zarifs first visit to Iraq since a US air strike in January killed top Iranian general Qassim Soleimani outside Baghdads international airport. The strike catapulted Iraq to the brink of a US-Iran proxy war that could have destabilised the Middle East.

In Baghdad, Mr Zarif paid a visit to the site where Mr Soleimani was killed, saying Iran-Iraq relations will not be shaken despite the generals death.

Mr Soleimani led Irans expeditionary Quds Force and was the architect of its regional military activities.

Expand Close Mustafa al-Kadhimi was making his first official trip abroad (Iranian Presidency Office via AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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In Tehran, Mr al-Kadhimi said Iraqs foreign policy is based on balance and avoiding any alignment. The Iraqi premier said his country seeks to improve relations with Iran based on non-intervention in domestic affairs of the two countries.

Mr al-Kadhimi took office in May after he had played a significant part for years in the war against so-called Islamic State, which was declared defeated in Iraq in 2017.

Iran sees Iraq as a possible route to bypass US sanctions that President Donald Trump reimposed on Tehran in 2018 after pulling America out of the 2015 nuclear deal.
ManpowerGroup Inc. MAN reported mixed second-quarter 2020 results, with earnings beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate but revenues missing the same.

Quarterly-adjusted earnings of 18 cents per share beat the consensus mark by 38.5% but declined more than 100% year over year. Revenues of $3.74 billion missed the consensus mark by 1.5% and declined 30.4% year over year on a reported basis and 28% on a constant-currency basis. Declines in both top and bottom lines reflect impact of the coronavirus-related reduction in hiring activity.

The stock has depreciated 20.4% over the past year, compared with the 31.5% decline of the industry it belongs to.

Lets delve deeper into the numbers.

Segmental Revenues

Revenues from America totaled $836.6 million, down 21.7% year over year on a reported basis and 16.7% on a constant-currency basis. In the United States, revenues came in at $515.9 million, down 21%, both on reported and constant-currency basis. In the Other Americas subgroup, revenues of $320.7 million decreased 22.8% on a reported basis and 10% on a constant-currency basis. Americas contributed 23% of total revenues.

Revenues from Southern Europe were down 38.6% on a reported basis and 37.7% on a constant-currency basis to $1.5 billion. Revenues from France came in at $736 million, down 48.4% on a reported basis and 47.5% on a constant-currency basis. Revenues from Italy were $268.5 million, down 31.9% on a reported basis and 30.7% on a constant-currency basis. The Other Southern Europe subsegment generated revenues of $466.3 million, down 18.9% on a reported basis and 18.2% on a constant-currency basis. Southern Europe contributed 39% of total revenues.

Northern Europe revenues slid 27.5% on a reported basis and 24.2% on a constant-currency basis to $865.7 billion. The segment accounted for 23% of total revenues in the quarter.

APME revenues totaled $569.1 million, down 20.6% on a reported basis and 19.1% on a constant-currency basis. The segment contributed 15% of total revenues.

Story continues

Operating Performance

Gross profit in the quarter was $576.7 million, down 33.8% year over year on a reported basis and 31.9% on a constant-currency basis. Gross profit margin came in at 15.7%, down 30 basis points (bps) year over year.

The company incurred operating loss of $50 million in the quarter against operating profit of $130.8 million in the year ago quarter.

Balance Sheet and Cash Flow

ManpowerGroup exited the second quarter with cash and cash equivalents balance of $1.4 billion compared with the prior quarters $1.1 billion. Long-term debt at the end of the quarter was $1.01 billion, compared with the $995.6 million witnessed in the preceding quarter.

The company generated $415.1 million of cash from operating activities, and Capex was $9.8 million in the quarter. It paid dividends of $63.8 million in the quarter.

Q3 Guidance

The company expects revenues to be down 18% to 20% on a constant-currency basis. Earnings per share is anticipated to be in the range of $0.59 to $0.67, the midpoint (63 cents) of which is lower the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 64 cents

ManpowerGroup currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Upcoming Releases

Investors interested in the broader Zacks Business Services sector are awaiting second-quarter 2020 earnings of key players like S&P Global SPGI, Avis Budget Group CAR and Waste Management WM. While S&P Global and Avis Budget Group are slated to release their results on Jul 28, Waste Management is scheduled to release the same on Jul 30.

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(Natural News) Due to unrelenting pressure from thousands of rioters, many of whom are armed with improvised projectile weapons, federal agents in Portland have decided to retreat to their main base: the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse.

Taskforce agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other federal departments believed that they were going to spend most of their night similarly to all the other nights. They would be assaulted by organized but relatively small groups of rioters throwing rocks, bottles, fireworks and other improvised projectiles while they, in turn, would fire back using tear gas and other crowd-control munitions such as flash-bang grenades and pepper balls.

For the federal agents, these running battles almost always occur at the Federal Courthouse. For members of the Portland Police Bureau (PPB), its usually at the nearby Multnomah County Court House. Both these locations are at the downtown Portland neighborhood, right in the heart of the city. These nightly skirmishes have been going on without ceasing since May 28. (Related: Federal agents stand off with rioters in Portland who lit fires and tried to break into the Federal Courthouse.)

Listen to this breaking news episode of the Health Ranger Report, a podcast by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, as he talks about how the Chinese Communist Party is complicit in trafficking illegal firearms into the United States in order to arm the Black Lives Matter movement and their Antifa allies. Their goal is to sow enough chaos and destruction in the country that, one day, the nation will implode into a Second American Civil War.

Rioters gaining ground on outnumbered federal agents

On the evening of Tuesday, July 21, and the early morning hours of Wednesday, federal agents in Portland were forced to fight a new enemy. As they did their routine of pushing back demonstrators, many of whom have started arming up by wearing helmets and gas masks and wielding shields and improvised clubs, the federal agents were forced to retreat into the courthouse as the rioters found a new protector: middle-aged women.

The Wall of Moms, as they are called, are a group of mostly middle-aged women clad in yellow who show up to riots to form a human barrier so that law enforcement wont be able to reach the Antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters they have been fighting for nearly two months without having to go through the Wall of Moms.

During that evenings rioting, this large group of women linked arms and began chanting slogan such as Whose streets? Our streets! This forced the federal agents to fall back.

The back-and-forth between the federal agents and the rioters and their supporters, the Wall of Moms, played out at least three times by the end of that nights battle. Like with most nights, it ended with a stalemate, as the federal officers were not only unable to make any significant progress in fighting back the rioters, but were also forced to retreat and remain inside the Federal Courthouse.

The feds dont have control of the streets, said a member of the Wall of Moms. I think theyre more scared than us. Theyre hiding in there. They dont know what theyre doing.

The federal task force remained within the confines of the Federal Courthouse for the remainder of the night, except for several brief appearances wherein agents left the courthouse to fire tear gas into the violent mob. Otherwise, they remained inside despite the fact that the rioters were actively attempting to burn down the courthouse by lighting several fires.

Several fires were started inside the fence line that surrounded the courthouse building. While some of the rioters pried open sections of the fence and others lit fireworks and aimed them at the building, several groups were dedicated to stoking the fires and making them grow. According to the PPB, these would-be arsonists used flares and other improvised incendiary devices and threw them over the fence, which started small fires closer to the building.

The inability of the federal task force to quell the uprising in Portland heavily suggests that a larger presence is needed, and given President Donald Trumps willingness to send more federal agents into other crime-ridden cities, notably cities run by the Democratic Party such as Chicago, its likely that, if the situation doesnt get resolved soon, the president will have no choice but to increase the presence of federal officers in Portland.

Catch up on the latest events in Portland and in other parts of the country related to the Black Lives Matter movement and their Antifa allies at Rioting.news.

Sources include:

TheGuardian.com 1

KOIN.com

TheGuardian.com 2
A supply convoy to US troop in Iraq was hit Wednesday in two roadside bomb attack in the southern province of Dhi Qar province, reports say.

The attacks which occurred on the Al-Bathaa road targeted trucks carrying logical support for US troop. The blasts according to a police captain unauthorized to talk, blew up a tire and damaged some of the trucks and their load.

No group claimed responsibility of the attacks. This is the second attack of its kind in less than two weeks after unknown gunmen set fire to three trucks carrying equipment and military vehicles for US forces and the international coalition in the southern Al-Diwaniyah province, Middle East Monitor reports.

US troops and international forces stationed in the Arab country have been under increasing pressure to leaving the country after US airstrikes killed to Shia paramilitary commander and Irans top military commander Qasem Soleimani early January this year Qasem Soleimani.

Iraq condemned the act and demanded the withdrawal of US and international forces. Pro-Iran Shia forces have stepped up attacks against US positions in the country including the US embassy in the highly guarded green zone area.

Several rockets and projectiles have landed near the embassy on multiple occasions in the reprisal of the January assassinations.
China will roll out a host of measures, including encouraging self-employed businesses and supporting part-time employment, to bolster flexible employment through multiple channels, boost job creation and people's income, the State Council's executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang decided on Wednesday.



The Chinese government places great importance on flexible employment. Premier Li pointed to the important role of multiple forms of flexible employment in underpinning employment stability.

"Sustaining employment is our top priority in maintaining stability in the six key areas and enhancing protections in another six priority areas. Flexible employment is of particular importance," Li said, "The situation this year is particularly challenging, as the number of migrant workers staying in or returning to rural areas keeps increasing. Income and employment are closely related. Our people have infinite creativity. This is what makes the Chinese economy resilient," Li said.

It was decided at the Wednesday meeting that self-employed businesses will be encouraged. All relief policies introduced must be effectively implemented. Key populations including college graduates, rural migrant workers and laid-off workers who engage in self-employed businesses will receive start-up subsidies, guaranteed loans, tax relief and other support, according to regulations.

Part-time employment will be supported. Social insurance subsidies will be extended to those having difficulty finding jobs or college graduates yet to be employed two years after graduation when they engage in part-time work.

"Unwarranted restrictions on flexible employment must be removed, and the proportion of part-time employment needs to expand. New forms of industry and business models have played an effective role in our COVID-19 containment," Li said, "Government departments should exercise the accommodating yet prudent regulation, abolish unreasonable charges and offer more convenient services."

Accommodating yet prudent regulation will be applied to new forms of employment, including online retailing, smart mobility, online education and training, and telemedicine. Online platforms will be encouraged to create more flexible jobs.

"Flexible employment has enormous potential. To meet the overall employment need this year, relevant support policies already introduced, such as tax and fee cuts, must be delivered on the ground as quickly as possible," Li said.

The meeting underscored the need to strengthen public services for employment. The gig work market will be developed to meet employers' need for flexible workers. The rights and interests of those flexibly employed must be protected, including remuneration and occupational safety. No delinquent payment is allowed. Policies protecting platform workers will be developed.

Information on new professions in demand will be released whenever available. Targeted training programs will be carried out to enhance people's capacity for flexible employment.

"Local governments, especially those at city and county levels, must earnestly fulfill their due responsibilities in protecting the lawful rights and interests of flexibly-employed workers. At the same time, businesses should be allowed certain flexibility, so that more jobs will be created. Governments should work to bring down business costs and help increase income for those working flexibly," Li said.
Iran, Russia to devise long-term strategic cooperation agreement: FM Zarif

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 22 July 2020 2:43 PM

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says Tehran and Moscow have agreed to devise and conclude a long-term strategic cooperation agreement.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Zarif said the agreement was made during his Tuesday visit to Moscow, where he met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and talked with President Vladimir Putin on the phone for one hour due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Describing his talks with Russian officials as fruitful, Zarif said he held intensive negotiations with the authorities in Moscow for four and a half hours that resulted in the agreement.

He pointed to a 10-year agreement initially inked between Tehran and Moscow two decades ago, which has been extended twice for five years each time and is due to expire in eight months.

"If no one has any objection, the agreement will be extended automatically for another five years, but we decided it would be better to devise a long-term comprehensive strategic treaty and update it," he added, noting the agreement will be sent to Iran's Parliament for approval.

Zarif traveled to Moscow to hold talks with senior Russian officials on issues of bilateral and regional significance and to convey President Hassan Rouhani's "important" message to Putin.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi also accompanied Zarif in his third visit to Russia in the past six months.

US concerned about emergence of new powers like Iran

Elsewhere in his remarks, the top Iranian diplomat commented on a recent article by US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook, in which the American official expressed skepticism at a recent strategic partnership announced by Iran and China.

In a joint opinion article published in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, Hook and the US Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Keith J. Krach took aim at a 25-year strategic partnership recently announced between China and Iran.

They noted in the article other parts of the partnership between Iran and China that they claimed could cause their alliance more harm than good and praised companies and countries that have sought to cut business ties with Iran and China.

In response to the article, Zarif described Hook as the "architect of the maximum pressure" campaign against Iran.

He has definitely never been benevolent towards the Iranian people or he would not have imposed economic terrorism against them under conditions that the people are grappling with the novel coronavirus pandemic, the minister said.

"The 25-year cooperation agreement between Iran and China is completely transparent. Nothing has been finalized yet, but we are very close to an agreement," Zarif said.

He dismissed rumors about the agreement and noted that the US is making hue and cry as it is concerned about the emergence of new powers like Iran, China and India.

Due to COVID-19, face-to-face negotiations have not yet taken place, so no document is currently valid, Zarif said, but stressed that so far, all the steps taken have been transparently announced.

"There are no hidden points in the Iran-China cooperation document," he concluded.

Zarif said earlier the agreement is at the "negotiation" stage, noting that the Foreign Ministry has obtained the required permission from the government to engage in the relevant talks.

Speaking to ICANA News Agency, the Iranian Parliament's news outlet, last Thursday, he dismissed rumors and anti-Iran reports that the 25-year agreement with Beijing entails cession of some parts of the Iranian territory to Chinese contractors.

"These allegations are not true. There is not even a particle of truth to these allegations, which have been put forth," he added.

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In an effort to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, Israel and India will join forces for research and development of rapid testing tools, which can give results within 30 seconds, the Israeli Embassy in Delhi said on July 23.

"In the coming weeks, Israel's ministries of foreign affairs, defence and health will lead an unprecedented anti-COVID-19 cooperation operation between India and Israel," an Israel Embassy statement said.

"A special planned flight from Tel Aviv to New Delhi is set to carry a high ranking Israeli defence ministry research and development team which has been working with India's chief scientist K VijayRaghavan and Defence Research and Development Organisation to develop rapid testing for COVID-19 in under 30 seconds," it said.

"Merging Israeli technology with Indian development and production capabilities aims to allow a swift resumption of normal life alongside the virus," the Israeli Embassy 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 flight will also bring breakthrough emerging Israeli technologies for combatting COVID-19, which have been donated by Israel's foreign ministry and private sector meant to bolster India's response to the outbreak.

"Finally, the plane will deliver mechanical ventilators which were given special permission by the Government of Israel for export to India," the statement said.

"The past few years have cemented the strategic relations between India and Israel and have included two historical visits of the prime ministers in Israel and in India," the Embassy said.

Since the outbreak of the global pandemic, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have held three telephonic conversations in which they promised mutual assistance in dealing with the virus and committed to joint technological and scientific research between the countries, the statement said.

Noting that India is currently facing over one million COVID-19 positive cases, the Israeli side said India seeks to integrate advanced technologies in its hospitals as they prepare to treat massive waves of COVID-19 patients on an Indian scale.

"The Israeli companies chosen by the three ministries to be sent to India are potentially given unique access to one of the largest economies in the world to provide monitoring and treatment technologies while significantly reducing contact between patients and medical staff," the statement said.

"By opening the door to India's market with its development and production capabilities, these Israeli technologies can be mass produced at a lower cost and could in future be jointly exported to third countries," it said.

At the outbreak of COVID-19 in Israel, India gave Israel special authorization to acquire medicine, masks and protective gear, the embassy noted.

"Now, Israel is proud to reciprocate this significant gesture and grant authorisation for purchasing of respirators to its great friend in the east," it said.

The unique cooperation between India and Israel has allowed both countries to better deal with the COVID-19 threat and could potentially change the way "we live beside the virus", the Embassy said.

Israeli Ambassador to India Ron Malka said, I am proud to lead this Israeli delegation to India. It is at times like this that our friendship is tested, and the State of Israel is happy to lend a helping hand to India in this complicated and difficult time."

"I am confident that India and Israel can work together to find innovative and cheap solutions to help the world overcome this crisis. he said. The COVID-19 pandemic is a global challenge, so it is only right that the solution be a global scientific cooperation between countries, Malka said.

India and Israel's military R&D cooperation is well known for its success, he added.

"I have no doubt the same will be seen in the private sector joined by brilliant scientific minds from both countries to introduce a breakthrough in swift and simple testing procedures. Malka said.

(With PTI inputs)

Follow our full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Massachusetts, will be discussing police accountability and the role of police reform at an event Thursday evening.

The virtual Future of Police Reform event, hosted by the Commonwealth Club of California, is free to the public.

The event comes in the wake of the killing of unarmed Black man George Floyd by Minneapolis police, which prompted nationwide protests and calls for police reform. Boudin and Pressley will be discussing how elected officials can effectively respond to a pivotal moment in American culture and the calls for reform.

Boudin was elected in 2019 on a platform of criminal justice reforms with the goal of ending mass incarceration and eliminating cash bail.

Pressley, who was elected during the 2018 midterm elections, has also been a proponent of criminal justice reform. In late 2019, she introduced the People's Justice Guarantee, a people-centered and decarceration-focused legislation to transform the country's legal system.

The event will be hosted online at 6 p.m. To register, people can visit: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2020-07-23/future-police-reform-sf-da-chesa-boudin-and-rep-ayanna-pressley?fbclid=IwAR3b57FAuxk5clUCcLwTugJQIu3OMyDelRmo-NB5SvEQwVc022JE3g-FyLA.

Registration will end one hour before the event.

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.
Zimbabwean authorities are demanding the countrys biggest mobile money platform to give up half of all transaction files for 2020 to law enforcement agents under a crackdown the operator says violates telecom user data privacy rights. It comes as the beleaguered government clamps down on anti-government economic protests and the media, including the arrest of a well-known anti-corruption journalist.

The EcoCash platform, with 7 million active users as at the end of March this year, is the most used mobile money service in Zimbabwe but the government now alleges EcoCash has been complicit in money laundering activities which resulted in foreign currency mopped up from the streets through agents and bulk payer lines being externalized from Zimbabwe.

On Friday (July 17) , police agents descended on the companys head office in Harare armed with a search and seize warrant to confiscate data files containing subscriber and transaction details for the period January to June 2020. This has raised concerns over data privacy and protection of subscriber details as well as transaction information that is now in the hands of police and could be publicly used as evidence against EcoCash in court.

The government has been at odds with the EcoCash for several months as its currency crisis and economic woes have spiraled out of its control. Last month Zimbabwes central bank slammed EcoCash for running, what it called, a Ponzi scheme.

EcoCash, which has been a solution to the countrys cash shortages for a long time, is alleged by the government to be fueling street market foreign currency rates. The authories says these functionalities were being abused by street currency dealers who were covertly abusing overdrafts and airtime credit facilities to devalue the Zimbabwe dollar.

Story continues

Full subscriber details of each user means they have your name, cellphone number, address and all EcoCash records. This is a far reaching breach of privacy.

The July 17 raid has forced Econet, the mobile operator which holds the EcoCash subscribers, to challenge the governments search and seize warrant in Harare courts, where it has argued that the warrant be set aside. In a country where people are sensitive about private information falling into the wrong hands, ordinary Zimbabweans, opposition activists and data privacy campaigners are against the latest move by the government and the Harare High Court now has to determine on government having access to such personal data. Econet argued in its court filing on Monday that the directive by the government for it to hand over sensitive subscriber and transaction data was unlawful and constituted a violation of the applicants right to privacy and also the right of privacy of its subscribers.

Full subscriber details of each user means they have your name, cellphone number, address and all EcoCash records. This is a far reaching breach of privacy. Imagine what Zimbabwe police can do in this authoritarian environment with such extensive data, says Fadzai Mahere, law lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe and spokeswoman for the main opposition MDC Alliance party.

The political temperatures are boiling over in Zimbabwe ahead of opposition backed anti-government protests scheduled for July 31. The pressure around this has seen Zimbabwean authorities arrest the lead organizer of the protests, Jacob Ngarivhume and prominent journalist, Hopewell Chinono who is also an anti-corruption whistleblower on social media. Zimbabwean police said the two had been arrested for incitement to participate in public violence.

Even as health workers protested this month on over economic hardship during coronavirus, Mnangagwas administration says any future protests and demonstrations should be put on hold as coronavirus cases have been spiking, with local infections also rising and bringing total number of infected to nearly 2000 amid more than 25 deaths.

The arrests of Chinono and Ngarivhume are designed to intimidate and send sending a chilling message to journalists, whistleblowers and activists who draw attention to matters of public interest in Zimbabwe, said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International director for East and Southern Africa.

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Antidote du jour. mgl thinks this is a moth, found on Park Strip in downtown Anchorage:

And a bonus (guurst). So handsome! Enough to make me think I should run a banana plantation so I could have birds like these.

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police Crime Branch has arrested a 25-year-old man for allegedly posing as a personal secretary of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and calling up the labour ministers of Haryana and Rajasthan to get someone employed, officials said on Thursday.

Sandeep Choudhary is a resident of Teh Mundawar in Alwar district of Rajasthan, they said.

He was arrested after the Crime Branch registered a case based on a complaint by the home ministry, police said.

According to the complaint, a man posing as a personal secretary of Shah had called up the labour ministers of Haryana and Rajasthan to get somebody employed.
AIIMS Nagpur in collaboration with IIT Nagpur and IIT Jodhpur has designed and developed a model for tracking and monitoring Covid-19 suspects. Know all the details about the device here.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Nagpur, has designed and developed a prototype for tracking and keeping a record of Covid-19 suspects. AIIMS Nagpur did this in collaboration with Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jodhpur and IIT Nagpur. The device has been developed to work on those aspects also, where the existing Coronavirus tracing apps didnt reach.

The device is physically a smart wrist band. The current coronavirus tracing apps have certain limitations. These apps require a stable internet connection, and also they require for the infected person to continuously use their phone. These mobile apps use GPS and methods like cell tower triangulation. The locations tracked by these apps may vary up to a diameter of 1km. Hence, they do not tell the accurate location.

The app does not give updates on the real-time health condition of the infected person. The symptoms and updates given are based on the infected persons own self-assessment. Dr Prathamesh Kamble, Assistant Professor of Physiology at AIIMS Nagpur shared that, The novel device can provide mobile free operation, using a geofencing technology which will provide a real-time alert on any breach in the quarantine zone.

Also read: Facebook announces new privacy features for Messenger, including App lock

Also read: Netflix tests low cost plans to take on competition

The device designed by AIIMS and IITs indigenously will not only provide accurate movements but also the real-time symptoms of the person wearing it. It will show complete data of the person, including their pulse rate, temperature, oxygen saturation, and, respiratory rate. This information will be stored on a cloud, overseen by health workers far away. This is developed by Dr Mayur Parate and Dr Ankit Bhurane, pass outs from IIT Nagpur. The device will work on a system much better than GPS.

Also read: Samsung Galaxy M31s to launch on July 30

For all the latest Education and Jobs News, download NewsX App
The report described how British politicians had welcomed Russia's oligarchs to London, allowing them to launder their illicit money through what it called the London laundromat

London: Russia has mounted a prolonged, sophisticated campaign to undermine Britains democracy and corrupt its politics, while successive British governments have looked the other way, according to a long-delayed report released Tuesday by a British parliamentary committee.

From meddling in elections and spreading disinformation to funnelling dirty money and employing members of the House of Lords, the Russians have tried to coopt politicians and corrode institutions, often with little resistance from law enforcement or intelligence agencies that ignored years of warning signs.

The report, in many ways harder on British officials than the Russians, did not answer the question of whether Russia swayed one of the most consequential votes in modern British history: The 2016 referendum on leaving the European Union. But it was unforgiving about who is protecting British democracy.

No one is, said the reports authors.

The outrage isnt if there is interference, said Kevan Jones, a Labour Party member of Parliament who served on the intelligence committee that released the report. The outrage is no one wanted to know if there was interference.

The release of the report came more than seven months after Prime Minister Boris Johnsons Conservative Party racked up an 80-seat majority in Parliament and almost 18 months after the end of the inquiry by the Intelligence and Security Committee, a parliamentary body that oversees the countrys spy agencies.

Still, it was eagerly awaited in Britain, where anxieties about Russias behaviour range from influence-peddling with oligarchs in London to the poisoning of a former Russian intelligence agent and his daughter in Salisbury, England.

The report also landed in the heat of a US presidential election, shadowed by questions about ties between President Donald Trump and Russia, as well as fears of renewed foreign tampering, not just by Russia but also by China and Iran.

The committees account characterised Russia as a reckless country bent on recapturing its status as a great power, primarily by destabilising those in the West.

The security threat posed by Russia is difficult for the West to manage as, in our view and that of many others, it appears fundamentally nihilistic, the authors said.

Experts said the report showed parallels between Britain and the United States in the failure to pick up warning signs, but also important differences. The FBI and other US agencies, they said, had investigated election interference more aggressively than their British counterparts, while the British were ahead of the United States in scrutinising how Russian money had corrupted politics.

This is one of the pieces that is not really well understood in the US, said Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, which tracks Russian disinformation efforts in the United States. Whether there is dirty Russian money that has flowed into our political system.

The report described how British politicians had welcomed oligarchs to London, allowing them to launder their illicit money through what it called the London laundromat. A growth industry of enablers  lawyers, accountants, real estate agents, and public relations consultants  sprang up to serve their needs.

These people, the report said, played a role, wittingly or unwittingly, in the extension of Russian influence which is often linked to promoting the nefarious interests of the Russian State.

Several members of the House of Lords, the report said, had business interests linked to Russia or worked for companies with Russian ties. It urged an investigation of them, though it did not name any names. That information, as well as the names of politicians who received donations, was redacted from the public report, along with other sensitive intelligence.

The most disturbing thing is the recognition of what the Russian government has gotten away, under our eyes, said William F Browder, a US-born British financier who has worked extensively in Russia and provided evidence to the committee. The government, and particularly law enforcement, has been toothless.

The report painted a picture of years of Russian interference through disinformation spread by traditional media outlets, like the cable TV channel RT, and by the use of internet bots and trolls. This activity dated to the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, but it was never confronted by the countrys political establishment or by an intelligence community with other priorities.

Focused more on clandestine operations, the spy agencies were anxious to keep their distance from political campaigns, regarding them as a hot potato, the report said. Nor was it clear who in the government was in charge of countering the Russian threat to destabilise Britains political process.

It has been surprisingly difficult to establish who has responsibility for what, the report said.

Despite pressing questions, the report said the government had shown little interest in investigating whether the Brexit referendum was targeted by Russia. The government responded that it had seen no evidence of successful interference in the EU referendum and dismissed the need for further investigation.

But the committee suggested that the reason no evidence had been uncovered was because nobody had looked for it.

In response to our request for written evidence at the outset of the inquiry, MI5 initially provided just six lines of text, the committee said. Had the intelligence agencies conducted a threat assessment before the vote, it added, it was inconceivable that they would not have concluded there was a Russian threat.

Among the reports most politically salient conclusions might be about a Russian influence campaign during the Scottish independence referendum. Nationalist sentiment is surging again in Scotland, partly because many voters consider the Scottish authorities to have handled the coronavirus pandemic better than the government in England. Based on its previous behaviour, some experts said, Russia would try again to encourage the fracturing of the United Kingdom.

That obviously has implications for next years Scottish elections, and the polling on referendums, said Bronwen Maddox, director of the Institute for Government, a research institute in London. All this is very, very relevant.

Concerns about Russian meddling and aggression stretch back more than a decade to the death in 2006 of Alexander V Litvinenko, a former KGB officer and critic of the Kremlin, who was killed in London using a radioactive poison, polonium-210, believed to have been administered in a cup of tea. An inquiry concluded that his killing was probably approved by President Vladimir Putin.

In 2018, another former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, and his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia, were found seriously ill on a bench in Salisbury, after a poisoning attack that left them hospitalised for weeks. Britain accused two Russians of using a rare nerve agent to try to kill Skripal and expelled 23 Russian diplomats in retaliation.

Although the report was approved by Downing Street in 2019, its release was held up before the election that gave Johnson his decisive parliamentary majority. Critics said he had been compromised by donations to his party from wealthy Russians living in Britain and they argued that the report was delayed unnecessarily.

After the election, there was a second delay while Downing Street agreed on the membership of a new Intelligence and Security Committee.

While the publicly available part of the report unearthed little new material, one expert said that it underscored the need to widen the focus and improve the coordination of Britains intelligence apparatus.

We did know most of this, said Martin Innes, director of the Crime and Security Research Institute at Cardiff University, but people were not joining the dots and seeing that quite a serious situation was developing.

What Russia wants is to be able to play great power politics, Innes said. And one of the ways of doing that is by destabilising the UK and some of its close allies to create that space to manoeuvre.

Mark Landler and Stephen Castle c.2020 The New York Times Company
Negotiations for a trade and investment pact between the two regions has stalled for years over differences in securing market access and enabling the free movement of professionals.

Despite no major changes in these positions on the part of India and the EU  both Delhi and Brussels are keen to ease their dependency on Chinas supply chains and prefer an international order based on multilateralism.

Both sides make mention of economic sovereignty and strategic autonomy as vital to their economic and security policy agenda and an alignment of interests in this regard could bring fresh impetus to restart India-EU FTA talks.

India and the European Union (EU) held their annual summit this week after a gap of two years due to unresolvable differences.

This year, the 15th India-EU summit was held virtually, on July 15, and attended by the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, Charles Michel, president of the European Council, and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission. The European Council shapes the political direction and policy priorities of the EU and the European Commission is the EUs executive branch.

India-EU virtual summit 2020  key takeaways

On Wednesday, India and the EU announced a five-year roadmap to build a wider strategic partnership.

A key aspect of this roadmap is likely to be the setting up of a high-level dialogue to address long-standing trade irritants that have come in the way of the 27-member union signing an FTA with India. The dialogue will include discussions on improving conditions for traders and investors on both sides as well as supply chain linkages. According to Indias External Affairs Ministry Secretary Vikas Swarup, the two sides are hoping to restart trade talks in the next few months.

Swarup also said that PM Modi invited European companies to invest in India, given the efforts made by his government to improve ease of doing business, regulatory environment and its aim to integrate the country with global value chains.

At the end of the virtual summit, a joint declaration was released, which included a commitment to achieving resource efficiency by working towards a circular economic model. Such a model envisions the reduction in primary resource consumption and enhancing the use of secondary raw materials.

A post COVID-19 economic recovery can potentially accelerate this transition to sustainable patterns of economic growth and development. That in turn will open up greater opportunities for bilateral trade and investment.

Another frontier for future trade and investment will be the digital economy  India values the EU states as a source of high-tech, including artificial intelligence and 5G, besides the innovation and investment needed to expand the countrys infrastructure, tackle climate change, and upgrade cities with smart architecture. While COVID-19 has pushed the shift towards a digital economy with more urgency than ever seen before, the new normal will require massive and secure technology upgradation. This is going to necessitate a closer partnership between India and the EU as new priorities may reset the tone of future trade negotiations.

Sticking points in India-EU FTA talks

The EU launched talks with India to establish a broad-based free trade agreement (FTA) back in 2007 after discussions at the seventh India-EU summit held at Helsinki the year before. However, negotiations over the proposed Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) broke down in 2013 after no significant progress was made and talks were suspended in May that year. Talks resumed at a technical level in October 2017 but reached another impasse.

Major sticking points in the India-EU trade and investment negotiations have been over tariffs on automobiles, wines and spirits and the restrictions on free movement of professionals. Here, it would appear that Indias position is similar to why it ultimately refused to join the RCEP  New Delhi seeks to protect the extensively lobbied interests of its domestic players in the goods trade but wants greater relaxations for Indias services exports.

Further, India has previously asked for a smaller trade agreement with the EU first before negotiating a wider FTA. The EU, on the other hand, desires a full-fledged trade agreement and slashing tariffs on 90 percent of the goods traded.

EU officials have complained that India is increasingly favoring economic protectionism over market openness as evidenced in the recent Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) and Make in India programs.

The European Commission also clearly states that Indias trade and regulatory environment is restrictive: Technical barriers to trade (TBT), sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) measures, deviation from international standards and agreements, as well as discrimination based on legislative or administrative measures by India, affect a wide range of sectors, including goods, services, investment and public procurement.

Factors impacting India-EU trade and investment talks

The US-China trade war, a resurgent China, and a pandemic does plenty to shift ground realities for negotiators on both sides. The worlds dependency on Chinas highly integrated supply chain suffered during the initial days of the pandemic but as China stabilized, other concerns came to the fore. Meanwhile, foreign firms based in China were already expanding or relocating operations to lower cost regions, with countries in Southeast Asia proving early winners. Regardless, India has a lot to offer EU businesses in terms of manufacturing and sourcing as well as cheap and surplus labor  but it will need to back up its material commitments through regulatory easing and transparent bureaucracy.

Tariff protections have also been a pain point for all parties negotiating trade deals with India as it does not want domestic firms to become uncompetitive in the Indian market. At the same time, India aspires to be a manufacturing hub and integrate into the global supply chain, all of which will require extensive foreign investment and an open market. To balance these outcomes, New Delhi will need to make compromises and the nature and extent of those is what market analysts are waiting to see. Under the Modi government, various agriculture and industry lobby groups have continued to wield influence over policymaking despite the departure expected by foreign governments who assumed India would be now open for business. That is because the current regime is essentially a nationalist one.

Yet, as Indias economy continues to suffer from successive years of slow economic growth due to external headwinds and rising levels of bad debt in the country, and now the impact of COVID-19  it cannot afford to be self-reliant on its own. A mere glance at funding for new capital-intensive projects and startups will show just how dependent India is on foreign capital, which  additionally  has been dominated by Chinese players and associated VC firms.

As Indias border tensions continue to impact Chinese-funded sectors in the country, the Modi government will want to diversify sources of FDI  irrespective of the propaganda-bound nationalist narrative. Just earlier this week, Google announced it would be investing US$4.5 billion (Rs 33,737 crore) in Reliance Jio Platforms Ltd for a 7.73 percent stake over the next five to seven years through a mix of equity investments, partnerships, and operational, infrastructure, and ecosystem investments to accelerate the development of Indias digital economy and improve affordable internet access. EU manufacturers and businesses in key sectors relating to technology and renewables could tap into the emerging priorities in the Indian economy.

India-EU trade and investment profile

Trade in goods between India and the EU increased by 72 percent over the last decade, according to data published by the European Commission. The Commission reported the following breakdown of bilateral trade and investment:

The EU is Indias largest trading partner and last year accounted for trade in goods worth 80 billion (US$91.07 billion) or 11.1 percent of total Indian trade  on par with the US and ahead of China (10.7 percent). For Indian exports, the EU is its second largest destination (over 14 percent of total Indian exports) after the US.

India is the EUs 10th largest trading partner, accounting for 1.9 percent of the EUs total trade in goods in 2019, well behind the US (15.2 percent), China (13.8 percent), and the UK (12.6 percent).

Trade in services between the EU and India is steadily rising, going from 22.3 billion (US$25.38 billion) in 2015 to 29.6 billion (US$33.69 billion) in 2018.

The EUs share in foreign investment inflows to India also more than doubled from eight percent to 18 percent in the last 10 years. Nevertheless, foreign direct investment (FDI) from the EU to India amounted to just 68 billion (US$77.41 billion) in 2018, much below its FDI stocks in China (175 billion or US$199.22 billion) and Brazil (312 billion or US$355.19 billion).

Around 6,000 European companies, involved in a broad range of sectors, have their presence in India, generating 1.7 million direct jobs and indirectly providing 5 million jobs.

Indian companies invested just over 50 billion (US$56.92 billion) in Europe since 2000.
Producer and writer Alan Yang partnered up with The Ad Council, the non-profit organization, to release a public service announcement about the surge in anti-Asian sentiment brought on by COVID-19. The campaign features an all Asian American cast, including essential workers like a firefighter, a grocery store worker, a nurse and a doctor, detailing their experience with COVID-related harassment and discrimination.

Known for "Master of None" and "Parks and Recreation," Yang said this project was not only relevant for this moment in time but it also felt personal.

When Yang was doing press for his film "Tigertail" in April, he recalled social media users leaving hateful comments like "go back to China" and "coronavirus." One of the lead actors in "Tigertail," Tzi Ma, shared with Yang about his encounter with a racist man in a Whole Food's parking lot in California.

Calling these incidents eye-opening, Yang said this behavior is fundamentally un-American. "This country is built on acceptance," Yang told ABC News, adding, "Sadly, this PSA couldn't be more timely."

PHOTO: Alan Yang speaks onstage at the HRTS Hosts Annual Hitmakes Luncheon at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Oct. 31, 2017, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Earl Gibson III/Getty Images, FILE)

Celebrity chef Melissa King, who also participated in the PSA, told ABC News she felt the need to speak up as her family and friends have also been targets of racial slurs and discrimination.

Its extremely upsetting to hear that, King said. We are in 2020, yet it feels like were moving very backwards.

PHOTO: Chef Melissa King competes on the June 4, 2020, episode of Bravo's 'Top Chef.' (Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

In the most recent Stop AAPI Hate report released by a coalition of civil rights organizations, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have been the target of more than 2,000 discriminatory incidents.

(MORE: Advocates demand action after coronavirus spurs 2,000 reports of anti-Asian bias)

When it became widely known that the novel coronavirus originated from Wuhan, China, xenophobia against Asian Americans was immediately on the rise in the U.S., experts said. Though the story dominated headlines in the beginning, it has largely resulted in little federal and state response.

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Most efforts addressing this untoward trend have come from online campaigns led by Asian American organizations and celebrities, spurring hashtags like #WashTheHate, #AllAmericans, #UnapolegeticallyAsian, #TakeOutHate etc.

(MORE: How coronavirus hate crimes changed focus for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month this year)

As part of Ad Councils Love Has No Labels campaign the PSA ends with this plea, Fight the virus, fight the bias.

Sheri Klein, Vice President of Group Campaign Director at Ad Council, said they hope the campaign is more than just a hashtag.

PHOTO: The Ad Council's 'Love Has No Labels' campaign released a new PSA addressing anti-Asian sentiment stoked by the coronavirus pandemic. (The Ad Council)

This is not a one and done deal, were really in the long-term fight to educate the public, in the fight against racism and bias, Klein told ABC News.

(MORE: After barraging an Asian American family with a racist rant, tech CEO apologizes)

According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, Asian adults in the country are the most likely to say they have been subject to slurs or jokes because of their race or ethnicity since the outbreak began, compared with 21% of Black adults, 15% of Hispanic adults and 8% of white adults.

Beyond the personal experiences however, about four-in-10 U.S. adults say it is more common for people to express racist or racially insensitive views about people who are Asian than it was before the coronavirus outbreak, the survey finds.

We still think 40% is not that much given how rampant it truly is, Klein said, they hope their national reach and platform of resources can help increase the publics awareness in order to stop the spread of racism.

In the latest fight against Anti-Asian sentiment, Ad Council releases PSA originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Joe Biden arrives to speak at a campaign event Tuesday in New Castle, Del. (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)

The team behind the Economists 2020 election forecast designed their model to consider lots of factors: polls, economic conditions, presidential approval ratings, political polarization, the presence of an incumbent.

What didnt get factored in?

We dont try to model the probability of a meteor strike, said Andrew Gelman, a professor of statistics and political science at Columbia University who helped design the model.

Of course, the likelihood of a meteor strike radically disrupting the electoral landscape between now and November is pretty slim. But then again, not too long ago, few would have guessed that the campaign would be crescendoing amid a global pandemic.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has a big lead over President Trump in polls nationally and in key swing states. But with memories of Trump's upset victory in 2016 still fresh, professional pollsters as well as average voters are spending a lot of time wondering whether something unexpected might trip up forecasts again this year. Many of the uncertainties involve the impact of the worldwide health crisis.

Four years ago, a mix of methodological mistakes and political circumstance led many analysts to confidently predict a Hillary Clinton presidency, only for Trump to win instead.

That error came after an election cycle that seemed unique at the time: a political outsider and former reality show host on one hand, the first female nominee of a major political party on the other. This time around, circumstances feel equally novel, albeit for very different reasons.

But Gelman notes that his model, which currently gives Biden a better than 9-in-10 probability of winning, is less concerned with whats special about the current moment than with the general range of specialness that can occur, as captured by the historical data.

People have said, Well, 2020 is special, he explained. But you go back every election: 1948 was the first election without Franklin Roosevelt running in a really long time, right? 1952 had Dwight Eisenhower, who was a uniquely non-partisan figure. 1960 had [John F.] Kennedy, who was the first Catholic .... You can keep going; just about every election, theres been something special and unusual.

Story continues

The pandemic, then, might be unusual  but historically speaking, being unusual is the usual.

Even if forecasters did want their models to explicitly account for the coronavirus, there doesnt seem to be an empirical way to incorporate whatever extra error the pandemic introduces, said G. Elliott Morris, the Economist data journalist with whom Gelman worked.

You [would] have to make assumptions about how much error youre going to add," Morris said. "Those assumptions are really hard to make in a way that makes your model better.

But with months to go until election day, theres plenty of time for things to change.

Courtney Kennedy, director of survey research at Pew Research Center, said she doesnt know what impact the coronavirus will have on the ability of polls to forecast the outcome of the election, but its reasonable to expect some sort of effect.

I think its one of the big reasons why folks really cant take [a poll], especially a national poll, in June or July right now, and assume that that translates into votes, she said.

Beyond whatever uncertainty the pandemic adds, polls still have the hard job of estimating who is really going to vote. In hindsight, experts think a lot of the problems in 2016 involved state polls overrepresenting college graduates, who were disproportionately pro-Clinton.

Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll in Wisconsin, said that the vast majority of pollsters now weight their results to make sure the share of college-educated voters in their polling sample matches the share in the population. But, said Kennedy, not all do.

This time around, Morris said, problems with polling accuracy could arise if the virus produces a systematic gap between the people whom pollsters believe to be likely voters and those who actually turn out.

If a difference were to affect one party significantly more than the other  if Biden supporters disproportionately failed to vote because they were more worried about the virus, for example  polls that failed to take that into account would give inaccurate results.

Morris is skeptical that will happen.

I think you kind of start to get into conspiracy-theory land if youre going to say that the coronavirus is going to kill 30 million more Democrats than Republicans, or make them more afraid to vote, he explained.

Nathaniel Rakich, an elections analyst for prominent forecasting outlet FiveThirtyEight.com noted the virus could disrupt the electoral process in other ways.

Youve seen it in primaries: There have been voters who havent been able to vote because of problems with absentee ballots, there have been long lines at some primaries," he said.

The economic impact of the pandemic could also complicate polling, Franklin said. One problem would be if large numbers of people  lose their homes and have to move, because that can involve re-registering to vote, which isnt always easy, he said.

Ironically, the pandemic has also yielded benefits for polls. Marquette is seeing more people agree to participate in polls, Franklin said, attributing that to more people being at home when the phone rings. Theres also indication that more men are responding than usual.

And as pandemic conditions make mail-in ballots increasingly common, polls might enjoy a bump in accuracy. When the election nears, the fact that a higher-than-usual number of people already will have voted could reduce the risk that late-deciding voters swing the outcome.

In 2016, late-deciding voters disproportionately broke to the right in key states.

This time around, when Trump is now a known commodity, Kennedy said, theres good reason to question whether another such a buzzer-beater pivot would occur. But early voters could turn out to be consistently different from election-day voters.

I dont think we have good empirical tests about how much [early voting] matters, because weve never been in a situation like this, with such a big increase, Franklin said. Pollsters will be watching "to see whether those whove already voted are in any ways different from those who have yet to make up their minds, or yet to vote in-person.

A final question that hovers over survey research is whether the errors of 2016 augured a permanent shift toward less accurate polling. In general, however, pollsters remain cautiously optimistic.

In the 2018 midterms, polling proved highly accurate, Kennedy noted. My big takeaway from 2018 was that it demonstrated  that fundamentally, polling is not broken, she said. Despite how things may have felt after 2016, polls that are done carefully can still perform well.
York Region police have laid charges against a Hwy. 407 tollway employee after the theft of 60,000 customers personal data linked to the resignation of a Progressive Conservative candidate.

Varun (Bobby) Saini, 37, of Toronto was arrested Thursday and charged with mischief to data and unauthorized use of a computer.

Sainis LinkedIn profile lists him as working as a manager of projects and analytics at 407 ETR since 2009.

York Regional Polices financial crimes unit laid the charges after an investigation dating back to May 2018, which was right in the middle of the last Ontario election campaign.

Police launched the probe after learning from 407 ETR that customer data had been accessed without authorization by an employee.

After a lengthy investigation, evidence revealed that an employee had used a company computer to access and compile a list of names, addresses and phone numbers of 60,000 customers in specific geographic regions, police said.

Saini is scheduled to appear in court in Newmarket on Nov. 5.

Calls and emails from the Star to 407 ETR seeking comment were not immediately returned.

The missing data led to the resignation of Brampton East Tory candidate Simmer Sandhu  who had worked at 407 ETR  during the election.

During a campaign-style stop in Brampton on Thursday, Premier Doug Ford said he didnt have anything to do with that and noted the Tories are not pursuing any investigation within the party.

We got rid of the person, didnt run for us, said Ford.

NDP MPP Taras Natyshak (Essex) said the premier has left questions unanswered in the affair.

We asked during the 2018 election whether the PC Party or any of their candidates used even a single name from that stolen customer data to try to win votes, said Natyshak.

Premier Ford and the PCs have never answered if their candidates improperly used any of that data, he said.

Ontarians deserve answers to these outstanding questions about whether that stolen data may have entered their campaign databases or voter outreach tools, or that of anyone seeking a PC party nomination.

During the 2018 campaign, Sandhu took to Twitter to say he was not running because totally baseless anonymous accusations had been made pertaining to both my work life and my nomination campaign.

Sandhu was replaced by Sudeep Verma as the Tory candidate in Brampton East, which was won by New Democrat Gurratan Singh.

PC party insiders, speaking confidentially in order to discuss internal deliberations, said there were concerns that the data could have been used to win as many as a dozen candidate nominations before Ford became leader in March 2018.

Robert Benzie is the Stars Queens Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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In these still images from video, rioters in Seattle set a fire with items they looted from nearby businesses, early July 23, 2020. (Katie Daviscourt via The Epoch Times)

Seattle Rioters Break Into Businesses, Loot, and Set Fires

A group of about 150 rioters in Seattle gathered late July 22 to cause significant damage in the former so-called autonomous zone, setting fires, breaking into businesses, and looting, police said.

Video footage and photographs showed rioters breaking into the Rove Vintage clothing store before dragging clothes onto the street and setting them on fire. Protesters said they targeted the store because its owned by the wife of a police officer.

Seattle officials had tolerated the autonomous zone, known as CHAZ or CHOP, for weeks before clearing occupiers earlier this month.

Video from Katie Daviscourt.

Other businesses that were damaged included Starbucks, Chase Bank, Whole Foods, Uncle Ikes, and Blue Dot. The owners of Likelihood Seattle, a shoe store, told KOMO that rioters damaged their store, but when they reached out to police officers, they were told nothing could be done.

Rioters roamed about the Capital Hill neighborhood, doing massive amounts of property damage, looting, shooting fireworks, and committing arson, the Seattle Police Department said in a statement.

As the group moved through downtown, they smashed windows, set fires, and looted, police said.

After an undetermined amount of time, the group dispersed.

In this still file photograph taken from video, rioters try to break into an Amazon store in Seattle on July 19, 2020. (Katie Daviscourt via Reuters)

Police officials said no arrests were made and no officers were injured. The riots took place days after two people were arrested for helping to cause significant damage to both government buildings and private businesses.

A Seattle Police Department spokesman told The Epoch Times that arrests could be made at a later date.

Life safety is our primary focus. When people damage property and the SPD moves in, theres a likelihood that someonewhether an officer or someone elsecould be injured. The SPD is trying to avoid that. However, this doesnt mean that suspects in crimes wont be arrested at a later date, he said in an emailed statement.

We are trying to find the safest ways to enforce the laws without making the situation worse. If lives are at risk, you can expect a swift response by the Seattle Police Department.

Police officers are facing increased pressure to keep the peace while limited in the tools at their disposal.

The City Council unanimously passed an ordinance last month banning a range of crowd-control measures, including the use of CS gas. U.S. District Judge James Robart ruled July 22 that the ordinance can go into effect on July 26, but indicated he might reconsider after hearing arguments from attorneys for both sides.

According to the ordinance, city departments are prohibited from owning, purchasing, renting, storing, or using crowd-control weapons such as chemical irritants, ultrasonic cannons  or any other device to cause pain or discomfort.

Andrew Lewis, a councilman, praised the ruling, saying Robart recognized that Constitutional policing (with a capital C) means we dont tear gas peaceful protestors.

Demonstrators gather to listen to speeches during a picket and rally event outside the office of King County Executive Dow Constantine as part of the nationwide Strike For Black Lives in Seattle, Wash., on July 20, 2020. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

All council members are Democrats except for Kshama Sawant, who is a socialist.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, a Democrat, declined to veto the bill. Instead, she and Police Chief Carmen Best asked the court to stop the ordinance from going into effect until the Department of Justice and others review it. Federal oversight of the department has been in place since 2012 after a review found officers were using excessive force.

A majority of Seattle council members support a plan to defund the citys police department by 50 percent.

Deputy Mayor Mike Fong said in a letter to council members that the department has already spent half of its annual budget, so a 50 percent cut would leave police with no budget for the rest of the year and require the City to abolish the department.

In a letter to the council this week, Best said she was concerned by the clear disconnect many of the recommendations, including slashing her departments budget, have from reality.

Also this week, City Council President M. Lorena Gonzalez decried what she described as targeted protests at the homes of council members.

Demonstrations are a protest tool, but using that tool to create an environment by which people and their family members feel unsafe in their own homes is not something I can support, she said.

I urge protestors and my fellow elected officials to engage with each other in good faith and via the many tools available to access each other at City Hall, via virtual forums or during Full Council meetings that occur every Monday.
TICKERS: BNCH; CYRTF, LIO; LOMLF, PRG; PREIF, TSG; TSGZF

Source: Bob Moriarty for Streetwise Reports (7/23/20)

With gold and silver "climbing to the moon," Bob Moriarty of 321gold discusses four juniors.



My readers may be shocked to hear that I have been exceptionally busy lately, as the metals seem to be climbing to the moon. Naturally the stories I follow are trying to make hay while the sun shines so I am forced into ganging some of those stories together else I will never catch up. There are probably 1,500 juniors in Canada all clamoring for attention and I can only type so fast.

These are all companies I have written about in the past and if you want to reread what I have said, go to my archives page and do a search for their name.

Benchmark Metals Inc. (BNCH:TSX.V; CYRTF:OTCQB) is in the midst of a 50,000-meter drill program at their Lawyer's gold/silver project in the Golden Horseshoe district in Northern BC. To date they have completed 10,500 meters of drilling this year. Results will start to come out in the next couple of weeks. They have added a third core rig to make a total of five drill rigs working. Expect a lot more gold and silver.

TriStar Gold Inc. (TSG:TSX.V) just closed a $9.2 million bought deal financing about two weeks ago. That will fund the exploration portion for their prefeasibility study scheduled for release early next year. Meanwhile they will begin a major drill program shortly.

Investors are going to have to read between the lines for the meaning of the latest press release from Precipitate Gold Corp. (PRG:TSX.V; PREIF:OTCBB) but I will give you a big hint. This is exactly what you want to see if you want to find another Pueblo Viejo gold deposit. With a $25 million market cap, PRG is a giant sleeper. Naturally the truth detector will be the drill rig but the company is coming up with the ground survey results that you want to see in a big deposit. Pueblo Viejo is the largest gold mine in the Americas and the 8th largest in the world. All shares in juniors are lottery tickets but the Precipitate lotto has a giant potential payoff.

Like Benchmark and TriStar, the market understands the potential and is willing to pay up for Lion One Metals Ltd. (LIO:TSX.V; LOMLF:OTCQX) with a market cap of about $220 million today. But Lion One owns a whole alkaline gold system in a region where such deposits are measuring 10-20 million ounces. Their latest report on drilling from the company just out a couple of days ago suggests they have found the feeder structure they have been looking for. Drilling is continuing and assays are pending.

I own shares in all of these companies and have participated in prior private placements. All are advertisers so I am biased. Do your own due diligence.

Benchmark Metals Inc.

BNCH-V $0.76 (Jul 23, 2020)

CYRTF-OTCBB 118.5 million shares

Benchmark Metals website

TriStar Gold Corp.

TSG-V $0.38 (Jul 23, 2020)

TSGZF-OTCBB 182 million shares

TriStar Gold website

Precipitate Gold Corp.

PRG-V $0.255 (Jul 23, 2020)

PREIF-OTCBB 105.7 million shares

Precipitate Gold website

Lion One Metals

LIO-V $1.88 (Jul 23, 2020)

LOMLF OTCQX 117.5 million shares

Lion One website

Bob Moriarty

President: 321gold

Archives

321gold

Bob Moriarty founded 321gold.com, with his late wife, Barbara Moriarty, more than 16 years ago. They later added 321energy.com to cover oil, natural gas, gasoline, coal, solar, wind and nuclear energy. Both sites feature articles, editorial opinions, pricing figures and updates on current events affecting both sectors. Previously, Moriarty was a Marine F-4B and O-1 pilot with more than 832 missions in Vietnam. He holds 14 international aviation records.

[NLINSERT]

Disclosure:

1) Bob Moriarty: I, or members of my immediate household or family, own shares of the following companies mentioned in this article: Benchmark Metals, TriStar Gold, Precipitate Gold and Lion One. Benchmark Metals, TriStar Gold, Precipitate Gold and Lion One are advertisers on 321 Gold. I determined which companies would be included in this article based on my research and understanding of the sector.

2) The following companies mentioned are billboard sponsors of Streetwise Reports: Lion One. Click here for important disclosures about sponsor fees.

3) Statements and opinions expressed are the opinions of the author and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. The author is wholly responsible for the validity of the statements. The author was not paid by Streetwise Reports for this article. Streetwise Reports was not paid by the author to publish or syndicate this article. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports requires contributing authors to disclose any shareholdings in, or economic relationships with, companies that they write about. Streetwise Reports relies upon the authors to accurately provide this information and Streetwise Reports has no means of verifying its accuracy.

4) The article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports.

5) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article until three business days after the publication of the interview or article. The foregoing prohibition does not apply to articles that in substance only restate previously published company releases.
Photo: Colin Dacre

The British Columbia government has announced $4.4 million in new funding for post-secondary education and training related to health-care professions throughout the province.

In a release on Thursday, Minister of Advanced Education Melanie Mark says B.C. residents have been calling for more health-care workers in their communities for years.

The latest funding is aimed at programs for nurses, health-care and anaesthesia assistants as well as mental health and community support workers.

The province says it's also created opportunities for existing health-care professionals to upgrade their skills through short, targeted training modules offered at the B.C. Institute of Technology.

It says the investments include $750,000 for Vancouver Community College to expand a nursing-degree program for licensed practical nurses and $227,000 for BCIT to offer advanced training for registered nurses working in critical care settings.

Other institutions set to receive funding include the College of New Caledonia, Camosun College, North Island College, Nicola Valley Institute of Technology, Okanagan College and Thompson Rivers University.

"We are committed to training, recruiting and hiring a new generation of health-care professionals at all levels, including respiratory therapists and critical care nurses, who are vital members of the health-care team," Health Minister Adrian Dix said in a statement.

He also thanked respiratory therapists and nurses working with patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.
City Editor

Tom Roeder is the Gazette's City Editor. In Colorado Springs since 2003, Tom has covered the military at home and overseas and has covered statehouses in Denver and Olympia, Wash. His main job, though, is being dad to two great kids.
Following the outrage over the transfer of key customs officials who are investigating the Kerala gold smuggling case, the order was withdrawn on Thursday. The Union Home Ministry has expressed serious reservations over the issue saying such a controversy should have been avoided when the investigation was continuing on the right track, a senior official familiar with the development said.

The sudden transfer order of six superintendents and two inspectors attached with the Kochi unit of the Customs who are part of the ongoing investigation was issued by Mohammad Yousaf, Commissioner of Customs, late on Wednesday. After the issue triggered a controversy, the Customs department made it clear that it was a routine transfer and it was deferred for the time being.

ALSO READ | Kerala gold smuggling case: NIA custody of accused extended

There are enough pressures as the investigation is progressing. The transfer drama can be part of it. It seems many who are part of the syndicate are rattled, said a senior official, who did not want to be identified. He said the multi-agency probe is moving in the right direction.

The gold smuggling case came to light on July 5, when P S Sarith, a former employee of the UAE consulate in the state capital, was arrested when he came to receive a consignment in the name of an official of the consulate. Later, 30 kg gold was retrieved from the consignment. Five days later, Swapna Suresh, a senior IT official and her friend Sandip Nair were arrested from their hideout in Bengaluru.

The Enforcement Directorate has formally arrested three key accused, Sarith, Suresh and K T Ramees, another accomplice. The ED had registered a case against them under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and the NIA court had earlier allowed it to question the accused. Opposition Congress and BJP said since the transfers were deferred they will not comment on the issue.
SPRINGFIELD  There could be millions and millions of dollars of fraud going on with unemployment benefits being sent to people who didnt apply for them, according to an Illinois state legislator who is calling for public hearings on the issue.

Unemployment security is covered by employer taxes. Since the beginning of March, more than 1.4 million Illinoisans have filed for initial claims amid continued economic restrictions the government imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Thursday, the U.S. The Department of Labor reported nearly 39,000 more Illinoisans filed for unemployment benefits last week, around 2,300 fewer than filed the week before.

Wednesday, the Illinois Department of Employment Security announced they are investigating a fraud following an increasing number of reports of people getting unemployment benefits when they didnt apply for them.

The increase in the fraudulent unemployment claims is believed to be coming primarily out of the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program, a statement from IDES said. Under the ambiguous federal guidelines, which were developed in haste because of the urgency of the pandemic and issued to every state without a uniform method of implementation, the potential for fraud within this system is abundant. 

One of the largest vulnerabilities within PUA is the absence of an employer on the other side of the claim to contest the claim in the event it is fraudulent or should be protested, the department said.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker said its a fraud, but couldnt say how expansive it is.

We dont know yet, but we know that its wide enough spread that weve gotten a lot of reports of it, Pritzker said.

State Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield, told WMAY radio hes aware of one instance where someone who didnt apply got a card with $11,000. He said public hearings are needed.

We can do it today. We can have a hearing tomorrow, Butler said. We can have a hearing at the capitol building tomorrow and march these people in front of us and get these questions answered or at least get the ball rolling telling them they need to investigate. We need to hold these people responsible.

A statement from IDES said the department is cracking down and investigating.

Despite there being a data breach back in May of the IDES website the state said seemed to expose names and social security numbers independent contractors filing for recently created benefits, Pritzker said the program the federal government set up seemed to be attractive to hackers.

The fraud thats being engaged in by them with information that they obtained in some other capacity, its not that theyre breaching our systems its that theyre applying in the normal way that people apply to get these programs and payments to them using the names that theyve gotten, Pritzker said. Now how they would obtain them from somebodys mailbox if it were sent to somebody, Im not sure. Therea lot of federal investigation going on. 

Butler said the feds arent the only ones who need to investigate. He demanded there be hearings at the statehouse to question state officials. .

I think millions upon millions of dollars are subject to fraud on this and I dont see anything that the governor is doing to try and correct this situation, Butler said.

Unemployment insurance is covered by taxes employers pay. The state is already borrowing billions to cover the cost of the historic levels of unemployment driven by government shutdowns of sectors of the economy.
Here comes another shot of very warm to hot air for the weekend. That will eventually be followed by an area of storms. Heres a quick look across Michigan for the weekend weather.

Radar forecast for 2 p.m. Saturday, July 25, 2020

Saturday afternoon will be dry and gorgeous across all of Michigan, including the U.P.

Radar forecast for 8 a.m. Sunday morning

Saturday night thunderstorms will roll across the U.P., while Lower Michigan stays dry. The image above shows the expected radar at 8 a.m. Sunday.

Radar forecast for 2 p.m. Sunday, July 26, 2020

By Sunday afternoon, the radar forecast above shows showers and thunderstorms moving into northern Lower Michigan. If you are heading north for the weekend, plan on Saturday being a much sunnier day.

Total rainfall from Saturday evening to Sunday evening.

Above is the total rain forecast through Sunday evening. Grand Rapids to Bay City and southward will be dry the entire weekend. This includes Detroit, Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Jackson, Flint and Saginaw.

High temperature forecast for Saturday, July 25, 2020

Saturday is going to be a very warm day with most everywhere warming well into the 80s.

Skin temperature forecast for 2 p.m. Saturday, July 25, 2020

In meteorology we often ignore the heating effect of sunshine on us. Out in the hot sun it certainly feels hotter than the thermometer reads. The forecast above is the afternoon temperature forecast with the power of the sun factored in. It will be hot in the sun.

High temperature forecast for Sunday, July 26, 2020

Sunday is a hotter day, especially in the southern half of Michigan.

Skin temperature forecast for 2 p.m. Sunday. This factors in heat felt in the sunshine.

When we factor in the hot sunshine, Sundays temperatures near 100 degrees will mean you need to figure out how to stay cool.

Wind forecast at 2 p.m. Saturday, July 25, 2020

Its another weekend without major steady winds. In other words its a good boating weekend.

Wind forecast for 2 p.m. Sunday, July 26, 2020

Even Sunday will have a southwest wind generally less than 13 mph.

Another great summer weekend is on the way, especially for the southern two-thirds of Lower Michigan.

Have a great weekend, and stay safe folks.
Real Housewives of Beverly Hills fans were shocked on Wednesday night as information on the alleged affair between Brandi Glanville and Denise Richards finally aired.

Fellow cast member Dorit Kemsley joined Maren Morris and Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live to react after the episode aired.

Dorit and Maren both called the allegations that Brandi shared 'shocking.'

Reacting: Fellow cast member Dorit Kemsley joined Maren Morris and Andy Cohen on W atch What Happens Live to react after the episode aired and Brandi Glanville detailed her alleged affair with Denise Richards on Wednesday's Real Housewives of Beverly Hills episode

When asked by Andy her thoughts Dorit, who joined the show in season seven, said she previously heard about the details from the other cast members but the episode was her first time hearing it from Brandi.

'It was already shocking when you hear it, for the first time, via the girls and then to hear it out of Brandi's mouth brought me right back,' the 44-year-old said. 'It's shocking information.'

She added: 'At least hearing it from her, gave me a chance to kind of hear her voice, because I hadn't really heard it from her before I heard it from the girls. But that didn't make it any less shocking truthfully.'

Country star Maren, agreed that she was shocked by the details.

First-hand: When asked by Andy her thoughts Dorit, who joined the show in season seven, said she previously heard about the details from the other cast members but the episode was her first time hearing it from Brandi

Shocked: Country star Maren, agreed that she was shocked by the details

Honest: 'You saw her shaking, so I have to assume that she's telling the truth,' Maren said. 'Because she really looked like she was gonna throw up, about to say that the girls. It's shocking. And I think she's being honest'

She pointed to clear signs of anxiety Brandi had when recounting the details that she felt she was telling the truth.

'You saw her shaking, so I have to assume that she's telling the truth,' Maren said. 'Because she really looked like she was gonna throw up, about to say that the girls. It's shocking. And I think she's being honest.'

Brandi spilled all the dirt on her alleged affair with Denise on Wednesday's explosive episode.

At a gathering at Kyle Richards' home, Brandi, 47, told a shocked Kyle, 51, and Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave, 39, that she and Denise, 49, had hooked up several times.

Sex secrets: Brandi spilled all the dirt on her alleged affair with Denise Richards on Wednesday's explosive episode of The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills on Bravo

Denied: The pair's steamy affair has been denied by Denise, but Brandi insisted that it happened, with the pair even having sex while Denise's daughter Lola, 15, slept downstairs

The pair's steamy affair has been denied by Denise, but Brandi insisted that it happened, with the pair even having sex while Denise's daughter Lola, 15, slept downstairs.

She said her first sexual encounter with the Wild Things actress took place the night they met, during a dinner that was shown during season nine of RHOBH.

'We completely click, we get absolutely wasted, we go to the restroom, and all of a sudden, we're making out,' Brandi affirmed. 'I wasn't expecting it, but I was like, ''Alright, I'll go with it! I'm wasted, you're pretty, let's do this!'''

Denise later invited Brandi to visit her on set in Northern California, in 2019, where she told her she could stay with her and offered her the use of a roll-away bed.

Shocking revelation: At a gathering at Kyle Richards' home, Brandi, 47, told a shocked Kyle, 51, and Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave, 39, that she and Denise, 49, had hooked up several times

'There was no roll-away bed, conveniently,' Brandi said. 'So I just slept in the bed with Denise.'

When asked by Teddi if they just kissed, Brandi responded 'like everything,' heavily implying a sexual encounter.

To Brandi's horror, she discovered afterward that Denise did not have an open relationship with her husband Aaron Phypers, 47, which meant Brandi had been involved in cheating.

'The next day, she just said to me, ''No matter what you do, you can't tell Aaron. He will kill me'',' Brandi remembered. 'And I'm like, ''What the f*** is happening right now?'''


Mystery artist's boost for Waveney Foodbank Mystery artist's boost for Waveney Foodbank

Waveney Foodbank, based at Brome near Diss, is the latest recipient of a large piece of artwork, created by mysterious artist The Hat, which has been sold for 420 to help fund its vital work.

Mysterious artist The Hat has been anonymously leaving pieces of artwork to charities across Suffolk to be auctioned off for charity  Banksy-style.



The piece donated to Waveney Foodbank is called Please Sir, Can We Have Some More and on its website The Hat said: This piece was inspired by my childhood memories of never knowing where my next meal was coming from.



Waveney Foodbank Project Manager, Matt Scade, said: The artwork went very quickly for 420. Apparently it might be an Ed Sheeran original, if the Daily Mail are right.



A spokesman for Ed Sheeran, who lives near Framlingham in Suffolk, has denied that he is the artist who has also donated pieces to the East Anglian Childrens Hospices, Home Start, Banham Zoo and several local pubs.



Waveney Foodbank had been feeding hundreds of people across South Norfolk and North Suffolk during the Covid-19 lockdown



Read our most recent story about its work



waveney.foodbank.org.uk



www.whoisthehat.com



Keith Morris, 23/07/2020
(Natural News) Operation Warp Speed is underway in the United States as the federal government moves forward with approximately $2 billion in contracts with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to produce and deliver up to 300 million experimental vaccine doses by January 2021.

In the meantime, state governments and health departments are coercing people into indefinite mask wearing, contact tracing, restrictions on personal liberty, and continued shutdowns and restrictions on certain activities, until new experimental vaccines are consumed en masse.

US President Donald Trump, seeking stock market growth for reelection, is caught up in a conflict of interest as he becomes Big Pharmas greatest spokesperson to advance new biologics and RNA injections.

Gates and Fauci pushing controversial trans-generational germ line editing vaccine for every human being

Big Pharma has over 170 covid-19 vaccines in development, but Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Fauci are pushing an experimental RNA technology to the front of the line. This technology, delivered via injection, is a type of genetic engineering called germ line editing. Bill Gates has been pushing this technology for over a decade and has the financial resources in place to carry out these genetic alterations on populations around the world. The technology inserts coronavirus genetic code into each person, forever changing genetics and cellular processes in their body. The coronavirus RNA reprograms human cells to produce spike proteins, forcing the immune system to fight properties of a virus that are being artificially manufactured by the bodys own cells. The effects of this technology are trans-generational; the cellular manipulation can be passed down to future generations. Leading ethicists and scientists called for an end to this kind of trans-generational human genome editing in a January 2020 Geneva Statement.

January 2020 was also the time when Dr. Fauci and the NIH moved forward with licensure of this controversial technology to be used in Modernas experimental RNA coronavirus vaccine. (The NIH owns half of Modernas vaccine and stands to profit.) Even though Moderna has never brought a product to market, their latest controversial technology has been irresponsibly pushed through clinical trials, bypassing animal studies that are critically important to understand toxicity, histopathology, and disease processes. (Previous attempts to manufacture a coronavirus vaccine for SARS resulted in animal fatalities after injection and upon subsequent infection.)

In the first round of hasty human trials approved by Dr. Fauci, Modernas results were embellished by the pharmaceutical-controlled media, despite the injection causing complications and hospitalizations in 20 percent of the participants in the high dose group. It has also proven to cause side effects in half of study participants and its effectiveness wanes in 2 to 3 months. Imagine this kind of damage being carried out among larger populations! Its reasonable to assume that wide-scale hospitalizations from the injection will be blamed on those who did not get the vaccine in the first place. These anti-vaxxers (which could represent well over half the population) will be shamed by the media and blamed for new outbreaks, resulting in government emergencies that force everyone to comply.

Despite the apparent risks, Moderna was given the green light to continue pushing their experiment forward. Moderna even received $483 million in federal funds from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to warp speed the process along. Bill Gates wants to make the technology mandatory for the worlds population. He even said that anyone who refuses the injection is making the science less effective, putting everyone at risk. Its this kind of false guilt, mental degradation, and bondage that is coercing millions of people to follow along with ongoing fear-based mandates that do nothing to address our ability to overcome the virus with healthy immune function. This kind of illegal medical coercion will result in people being physically abused as they submit to experimental, inherently-dangerous injections just to get a sense of their freedom back.

But thats not freedom. Its all about control. Will you continue to go along?

Sources include:

ChildrensHealthDefense.org

GeneticsAndSociety.org

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com
EDWARDSVILLE  Because of the coronavirus, the format for the 2020-21 school year remains uncertain.

But Glen-Ed Pantry is making sure that students in District 7 will be prepared no matter what happens.

The pantry is hosting its annual school supply drive, providing students from qualified families with a backpack filled with supplies the student will need for the upcoming school year.

Some students will continue with virtual learning and some are home-schooled, but no matter if youre in at home or a brick-and-mortar classroom, you still need supplies, said Tina Barnard, chairperson of the fundraising committee for Glen-Ed Pantry. Dont hesitate to pick up a bag just because you think you might be doing virtual learning.

Due to the pandemic, more students will be needing assistance this year, but the pantry is ready to meet the increased demand.

The pantry has been doing this for as long as I can remember because school supplies have always been very expensive, Barnard said. Last year we helped 242 students and this year it looks like its going to be around 300.

The pantry will distribute school supplies and backpacks for children in grades K-12 in front of the pantry from 9-11 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 8.

Anyone who cannot be at the pantry on Aug. 8 can schedule a pickup.

The distribution normally takes place on Main Street (in Edwardsville) but due to COVID, we are going to be distributing outside the pantry doors (at 125 Fifth Ave.), Barnard said. Well have some tents in the parking lot, which is a safer environment for the students, the parents and our volunteers.

To pick up a backpack, students and their parents must live in District 7 and must be clients of the pantry. If they are not already a client, they can call the pantry to set up an appointment. Signup sheets are also available online at https://www.glenedpantry.org/.

A lot of businesses arent fully staffed, so we had to reach out for some new partners in the community, Barnard said. We have a variety of places to drop off items, including a realtor, a music shop and another not-for-profit. Edwardsville City Hall is one of our collection sites.

There are three ways that people can donate to the school supply drive  making a bulk purchase, donating money to adopt a student and purchasing supplies from the most needed list.

To adopt a student, a donation of $250 will provide all the school supplies, a backpack, a gift card for shoes and PE clothes for one child. To make a monetary donation, click the donate button on the pantry website (https://www.glenedpantry.org/school-supply-drive) or mail a check to Glen Ed Pantry, 125 5th Ave., Edwardsville, IL 62025.

A list of school supplies is on the website. The most needed items include one-inch, two-inch and three-inch binders and flash drives (eight gigabytes or more).

Were very fortunate to have some skilled volunteers that have stepped up to the plate for fundraising, setting up the collection sites and coordinating everything, said Jane Ahasay, director of development for Glen-Ed Pantry. Amy (Poos, director of operations) and I could not do this without them.

We want to thank everyone in the community for their support of the pantry, not only for school supplies but for food and monetary donations.

Brandi Brace is the coordinator for the school supply drive. She and Barnard and other volunteers have been busy in recent weeks sorting school supply items and putting them into backpacks.

Each student will get to choose their own backpack and depending on what grade they are in, they will receive a bag that is appropriate for their grade, Brace said. If youre in ninth grade, for instance, youll get loose-leaf paper, spiral notebooks, binders, folders, pencils, pens, a scientific calculator, a lock and index cards.

If you are planning to come, its a good idea to do any other school supply shopping after you pick up your bag here. There is probably not going to be a whole lot that you need.

Students will also receive a $25 gift card from Shoe Carnival toward the purchase of a pair of shoes. If the shoes are purchased from Aug. 8-10, they will get an additional 20 percent discount.

The backpacks will include a school-specific clothing item.

We havent decided if were going to do PE clothes because theyre not having PE in school this year, Brace said. We may have spirit wear or a fun T-shirt for each local school.

Volunteers are producing masks for students as well.

We have ladies sewing masks for all of the kids, Brace said. We hope to have 900 masks, which is three per student. We already have 400 and Jill Schwear, who is a retired math teacher from Edwardsville High School, has made about 300 of them.

Donations for school supplies will be accepted through Wednesday. Aug. 5.

We always like to go shopping, so cash donations are welcome, Brace said.

The list of collection sites includes:

 Cassens and Sons Auto (3333 Illinois 159, Glen Carbon)

 City of Edwardsville (118 Hillsboro, Edwardsville

 Coldwell Banker Brown Realtors (2205 S. State Route 157, Edwardsville

 First Mid Bank (Three locations: Goshen Road, St. Louis Street, Illinois 157

 Fitness4Life Physical Therapy (219 Second Ave., Suite C, Edwardsville

 Happy Up (6654 Edwardsville Crossing Drive, Edwardsville

 Mojos Music (144 N. Main St., Edwardsville

 Office Max (220 Junction Drive West, Glen CarbonRestore Decor (111 N. 2nd St., Edwardsville)

In addition, St. Boniface Church is doing a drive-by school supply drive at the pantry from 35:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 29.

Volunteers are packing school supply bags on the following dates and times:

 Mondays: July 27 and Aug. 3, 9-11 a.m.

 Thursdays: July 30 and Aug. 6, 1-3:30 p.m.

 Fridays: July 24 and 31, 9-11 a.m.

 Wednesday: Aug. 5, 1-3 p.m.

 Friday: Aug. 7, noon to 4 p.m. (event setup)

 Saturday: Aug. 8, 8-11:30 a.m. (distribution day)

To volunteer, contact Brace at pantry2020.brandi@gmail.com.

For more information about the school supply drive, call 618-656-7506 or go to https://www.glenedpantry.org/.
Liz Cheney is only upset because I have been actively getting our great and beautiful Country out of the ridiculous and costly Endless Wars, he wrote on Twitter. I am also making our so-called allies pay tens of billions of dollars in delinquent military costs. They must, at least, treat us fairly!!

The president also retweeted a post by Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, a regular antagonist of Ms. Cheney. We should all join @realDonaldTrump in advocating to stop our endless wars, the tweet said. Liz Cheney not only wants to stay forever, shes leading the fight to try to stop him from leaving. Unacceptable.

Ms. Cheney responded mildly to Mr. Trumps tweets. Its no secret the president and I disagree on some foreign policy issues, she told Politico. Noting that she belongs to the Armed Services Committee, she added that her biggest obligation is to provide for the defense of the nation and that she would continue to speak out.

Bidens plan for caregiving reflects a growing acknowledgment that its not only a womens issue.

The coronavirus made it undeniable that caregiving is not just a concern for women, and when Mr. Biden presented his new caregiving plan this week  speaking about his experience as a single father and describing caregiving policies as an economic necessity  he made it explicit, Claire Cain Miller writes.

This is the so-called sandwich generation, he said. It includes everyone from an 18-year-old daughter caring for a mom who suddenly gets sick to a 40-year-old dad raising his child and caring for his own aging parents. The joy and love are always there. But its hard. I know its hard.

Treating caregiving the way Mr. Biden proposed  as labor that is respected, worthy of a living wage and an economic necessity for everyone  would be a significant economic shift in the United States.

The more we make it a broader issue, the better we are, said Linda Smith, director of the early childhood development initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Its long overdue for some of us who have been working on this for a very long time.
British Airways resolved a bitter dispute with its pilot union, reaching a deal on cuts in pay and headcount that will help the IAG SA unit get through the deep slowdown triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.

The plan reduces mandatory job cuts to 270 from the 1,255 originally signalled, the British Airline Pilots Association said late Wednesday. British Airways will rely on voluntary moves to bridge much of the gap, while also creating a pool of 300 crew idled on reduced pay who will return only when demand picks up.

IAG said in a statement Thursday that it welcomed Balpas decision to recommend the settlement to members, adding that the measures are a necessary response to the Covid-19 crisis affecting the aviation industry.

The compromise may help quell a debate over how much pain British Airways should pass on to its workforce after accepting government loan guarantees to survive the crisis. The carrier has faced criticism from U.K. lawmakers over a plan to cut as many as 12,000 jobs overall as it seeks to preserve cash and cope with a slow recovery.

Shares of IAG, as International Consolidated Airlines Group SA is known, traded 0.5% lower as of 8:10 a.m. in London. The stock has lost two-thirds of its value this year.

British Airways pilots who remain in service will absorb an initial pay cut of 20%, which narrows to 8% over the next two years, the union said. The ballot is due to close on July 31, with IAG planning to provide a further update at that time.

The House of Commons Transport Committee accused British Airways of using the global outbreak as an excuse to slash the payroll. Prime Minister Boris Johnson last week refused to join in the condemnation, saying the company was in severe difficulties.

As part of the Balpa agreement, British Airways agreed not to follow through on its threat to fire and rehire pilots on new terms if it couldnt reach a deal with the union.
The floods in Assam have affected 26 districts and claimed 89 lives till July 22, said the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA).

According to the flood report by the ASDMA on Wednesday, Barpeta, Dibrugarh, Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon, Tinsukia, among other districts have been severely affected by the floods in the state affecting 26,31,343 people.

A total of 2,525 villages are reeling from the effects of the rising waters of the Brahmaputra, among its other tributaries, which have affected 1,15,515.25 hectares of crop.

As many as 120 animals have died due to floods in the Kaziranga national park, while 147 have been rescued as per the report by the Divisional Forest Officer, Eastern Assam Wildlife division. Many animals from the national park were seen migrating to higher places by crossing the streets after water entered Kaziranga.

Currently, 45,281 people are being helped through 391 relief camps/distribution centres.

The State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF), National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), Circle Offices, and locals have rescued 452 people so far.

The rising water levels have damaged embankments, roads, bridges, and culverts, among other constructions like houses, etc in the state.

On Wednesday, the Centre announced that it will release Rs 346 crores, in the first phase, under the Flood Management Program (FMP) scheme to Assam and will also hold talks with Bhutan to solve the recurring flood problem in the lower parts of the state.

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal held a meeting with Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, through video conferencing, on Wednesday, in which the information was conveyed.

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Diagnostics company SphingoTec GmbH ("SphingoTec") today announced the launch of its IB10 sphingotest bio-ADM, a CE-IVD-marked point-of-care test to quantitatively determine blood levels of Bioactive Adrenomedullin (bio-ADM). Blood levels of bio-ADM reflect in real-time the functional status of the endothelium, the inner cell sheet of blood vessels. The test is made available on the company`s rapid point-of-care platform Nexus IB10 that uses whole blood samples without any pre-processing, requires less than three minutes hands-on-time, and delivers results after 20 minutes. Nexus IB10 can be flexibly deployed in laboratories or near-patient settings such as intensive care units (ICUs) and Emergency Departments (EDs).

In numerous studies on more than 22,000 patients admitted to ICUs and EDs, bio-ADM has been shown to predict distortions of the inner cell sheet of blood vessels, the endothelium. Failure of the endothelial function has been demonstrated to precede edema and the life-threatening blood pressure drop that causes shock and multiorgan failure e.g. in patients with sepsis at ICUs and EDs . In heart failure patients, bio-ADM blood-levels reliably and objectively reflect tissue congestion and residual congestion. Recent data show that elevated blood levels of this functional biomarker also identifies patients in the general ICU patient population who require immediate life-saving therapeutic interventions. In ICU patients with severe COVID-19, endothelial dysfunction has been identified to play a crucial role in the disease progression, thus providing a rationale to monitor bio-ADM to guide the therapy stabilizing the endothelium.

The endothelial function plays a key role in a large number of critical care conditions, such as sepsis, septic shock, acute heart failure, and COVID-19. A distortion in the endothelial function predicts the patient's progression to a critical stage. Therefore, bio-ADM screening can identify high-risk patients who require early life-saving therapeutic intervention. With the launch of this rapid test for bio-ADM on our widely established Nexus IB10 immunoassay platform, we aim to support earlier treatment decisions and improve outcomes of acute care patients." Dr. Andreas Bergmann, CEO and founder of SphingoTec

The IB10 sphingotest bio-ADM assay is commercialized in Europe and other regions that accept CE-IVD certification through SphingoTec's network of distribution partners for the Nexus IB10 platform, together with a broad menu of standard tests for acute and critical care.
China launched a rover to Mars on Thursday, a journey coinciding with a similar US mission as the powers take their rivalry into deep space. The two countries are taking advantage of a period when Earth and Mars are favourably aligned for a short journey, with the US spacecraft due to lift off on July 30. The Chinese mission is named Tianwen-1 ("Questions to Heaven") -- a nod to a classical poem that has verses about the cosmos. Engineers and other employees cheered at the launch site on the southern island of Hainan as it lifted off into blue sky aboard a Long March 5 -- China's biggest space rocket. "We carry out this first Mars exploration mission to peacefully use the universe and to explore its mysteries. It's for this purpose. It's not to launch a competition with any other country," Liu Tongjie, spokesman for China's first Mars exploration mission, told reporters. The mission includes a Mars orbiter, a lander and a rover that will study the planet's soil. The five-tonne Tianwen-1 will arrive in the Red Planet's orbit in February 2021 after a seven-month, 55 million-kilometre (34 million-mile) voyage, and deploy the rover to Mars three months later in May. It is a crowded field. The United Arab Emirates launched a probe on Monday that will orbit Mars once it reaches the Red Planet. But the race to watch is between the United States and China, which has worked furiously to try and match Washington's supremacy in space. "With today's launch, China is on its way to join the community of international scientific explorers at Mars," NASA chief Jim Bridenstine said on Twitter. "Safe travels Tianwen-1!" NASA, the American space agency, has already sent four rovers to Mars since the late 1990s. The next one, Perseverance, is an SUV-sized vehicle that will look for signs of ancient microbial life, and gather rock and soil samples with the goal of bringing them back to Earth on another mission in 2031. Liu said both the Tianwen orbiter and rover will relay Mars data back to Earth, including on its morphology and geological structure, water ice distribution, climate information, and internal structure. "As a first try for China, I don't expect it to do anything significant beyond what the US has already done," said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Tianwen-1 is "broadly comparable to Viking in its scope and ambition", said McDowell, referring to NASA's Mars landing missions in 1975-1976. - Catching up - After watching the United States and the Soviet Union lead the way during the Cold War, China has poured billions of dollars into its military-led space programme. "China joining (the Mars race) will change the situation dominated by the US for half a century," said Chen Lan, an independent analyst at GoTaikonauts, which specialises in China's space programme. China has made huge strides in the past decade, sending a human into space in 2003. The Asian powerhouse has laid the groundwork to assemble a space station by 2022 and gain a permanent foothold in Earth orbit. China has already sent two rovers to the Moon. With the second, China became the first country to make a successful soft landing on the far side. The Moon missions gave China experience in operating spacecraft beyond Earth's orbit, but Mars is another story. The much greater distance means "a bigger light travel time, so you have to do things more slowly as the radio signal round trip time is large," said McDowell. It also means "you need a more sensitive ground station on Earth because the signals will be much fainter," he added, noting that there is a greater risk of failure. The majority of the dozens of missions sent by the US, Russia, Europe, Japan and India to Mars since 1960 ended in failure. Tianwen-1 is not China's first attempt to go to Mars. A previous mission with Russia in 2011 ended prematurely as the launch failed. Now, Beijing is trying on its own. "As long as (Tianwen) safely lands on the Martian surface and sends back the first image, the mission will... be a big success," Chen said.
Seventeen days after put on notice by the Chandigarh bench of Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), the Centre and Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) did not file the replies until July 21 in a case challenging the new selection system of Haryanas Non-State Civil Service (Non-SCS) officers to fill five Indian Administrative Service (IAS) posts.

In yet another twist, the day before the high-stake case came up for second resumed hearing on July 21, Sanjeev Kaushik, other member of the bench that had issued notices, recused himself.

The case has been placed before Ajanta Dayalan, single bench member of the Tribunal.

Sanjeev Kaushik is former additional advocate general of Haryana while Ajanta Dayalan is a retired 1978-batch officer of the Indian Audit and Accounts Service.

The case was listed for July 21 after issuance of notice on July 3 and further hearing on July 14, Ajanta Dayalan, member, CAT, has said in the order. However, on July 20 the other member Sanjeev Kaushik recused himself and as such the case is placed before single bench of this Tribunal, Dayalan added.

Dayalan observed that as the matter pertains to policy issue regarding appointment to a premier service namely the IAS and also involves interpretation of statute, this case needs to be placed before an appropriate division bench.

During the resumed hearing, counsel for the applicant pleaded that the written examination (that is being challenged in this case) is scheduled to be held on August 9. As such, the matter regarding interim prayer needed to be decided urgently, the applicants counsel argued.

In view of urgency of the matter, the order reads, Registry is directed to take steps for constitution of appropriate division bench and the matter be listed before it, urgently, preferably within this week or early next week.

Observing that the Centre and the UPSC have not filed the reply so far, Dayalan stated: They are directed to file their replies before the next date.

WHAT IS THE MATTER

In a June 9 order, the Haryana government had directed Haryana Public Service Commission to recommend Non-SCS officers (five times the number of vacancies) after conducting the written examination.

It is for the first time that Non-SCS officers in Haryana will have to take a written examination to get appointed to an IAS post. Until now, the Non-SCS officers of the state were appointed to such posts on basis of their service record. The HPSC will prepare a merit list based on the marks obtained in the written examination and recommend names to the state government for onward submission to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).

The petitioner has sought quashing of the June 9 notification of the state government, pleading that the government has committed an illegality by introducing the written test.

The state government has held that there was no illegality in its June 9 order and that the written test for shortlisting the eligible candidates has been introduced to have a rational and transparent system for evaluating/adjudging the persons of outstanding merit and ability.

The HPSC has also told the CAT that the state government has the powers to make a reference to the HPSC for recommending names of persons of outstanding merit and ability on the basis of written test.

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He ran as an independent for Mississippi governor in 1971 and for a U.S. Senate seat in 1978. Although he lost those elections, Evers influenced the outcome of the Senate race by drawing support away from the Democratic candidate. That led to a victory by Republican Thad Cochran, who later became chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee and remained in the Senate until early 2018.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has held a three-way phone call with the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in a bid to de-escalate tensions amid a flare-up of violence along their border.

The July 22 call with Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian and his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ceyhun Bayramov, was the first such direct diplomacy to bring the three parties together for talks.



Borell called on both sides to commit to a cease-fire and take immediate action to de-escalate the situation.

The EUs top diplomat urged both sides to stop the armed confrontation and to refrain from action and rhetoric that provoke tension, in particular from any further threats to critical infrastructure in the region, the European Union External Action service said in a statement.

Also on July 22, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for "immediate and full de-escalation" and "a return to negotiations" between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Guterres spoke by telephone separately with Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.

Fighting between the neighboring South Caucasus countries has killed at least 12 Azerbaijani soldiers, including a general, and four Armenian servicemen since a flare-up of violence began on July 12 that lasted several days.

Each side has blamed the other for starting the fighting, the worst outbreak of violence in the region since clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2016.

Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war over Nagorno-Karabakh in the late 1980s and early 1990s as they transitioned into independent countries amid the dissolution of the Soviet Union. About 30,000 people were killed.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but is controlled by Armenian separatists.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is urging the sides to resume peace talks. Both Washington and Moscow have called on the countries to halt the violence immediately.

With reporting by AFP
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The head of the White House coronavirus task force, Dr Deborah Birx, has warned that 11 major cities - including Indianapolis, Pittsburgh and Baltimore - need to take 'aggressive' steps to mitigate COVID-19 outbreaks.

Dr Birx issued the grave warning on Wednesday during a phone call with hundreds of state and city leaders.

The 11 cities she mentioned include: Baltimore, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Miami, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, Pittsburgh and St Louis.

Dr Birx warned that the outbreak currently plaguing cities in Sunbelt states, like Phoenix and San Antonio, was now moving north, according to audio of the call obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.

Dr Deborah Birx, who leads the White House task force, issued the grave warning on Wednesday during a phone call with hundreds of state and city leaders

'What started out very much as a southern and western epidemic is starting to move up the East Coast into Tennessee, Arkansas, up into Missouri, up across Colorado, and obviously we're talking about increases now in Baltimore,' she said.

'So this is really critical that everybody is following this and making sure they're being aggressive about mitigation efforts.'

She warned leaders of the 11 cities that they should take 'aggressive' steps in order to stem their current outbreaks.

Dr Birx said it was vital for health officials to contract trace patients testing positive in areas where test positivity was increasing.

'When you first see that increase in test positivity, that is when to start the mitigation efforts,' she said.

'I know it may look small and you may say, 'That only went from 5 to 5-and-a-half [percent], and we're gonna wait and see what happens'. If you wait another three or four or even five days, you'll start to see a dramatic increase in cases.'

Indiana: Cases in the state of Indiana have been increasing since mid-June. The city of Indianapolis is on the list of 11 cities that Dr Birx has warned of

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh currently has 6,817 confirmed COVID-19 cases

Baltimore, Maryland: There are currently 9,841 infections in Baltimore with cases trending upwards since late June

Columbus, Ohio: Columbus currently has 11,877 coronavirus infections

Her warning came as the total number of coronavirus cases reported in the United States passed 4 million on Thursday, reflecting a rapid acceleration of infections in the country since the first case was recorded on January 21.

It took the country 98 days to reach 1 million cases but just 16 days to go from 3 million to 4 million.

The case total indicates that at least one in 82 people in the United States have been infected.

As the pandemic has spread from the early epicenter of New York to the South and West, federal, state and local officials have clashed over how to ease lockdowns imposed to curb the infection rate, including in some states whether to rollback reopenings.

The ordering of face coverings, a common practice around the world and recommended by the federal government's own health experts, has also become highly politicized, with some Republican governors particularly resistant.

Minneapolis, Minnesota: There are currently 6,247 infections across the city of Minneapolis

St. Louis, Missouri: St Louis now has 3,538 confirmed coronavirus cases

Nashville, Tennessee: Nashville currently has 18,830 confirmed cases in the city

New Orleans, Louisiana: The city of New Orleans, which was initially expected to be a COVID hotspot has 9,649 cases

Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland currently has 3,812 COVID-19 cases

Hostility to the idea appeared to be dwindling this week, including from the Republican administration of President Donald Trump, who once dismissed mask-wearing as an effort to be politically correct.

Trump, who faces falling poll numbers over his handling of the health crisis ahead of the November election, has long refused to wear a mask in public but this week encouraged Americans to do so.

While Trump did not issue a national mandate, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir on Thursday cited the importance of masks to bring the virus under control.

'We have to do our mitigation steps: wear a mask, avoid the crowds. We won't see hospitalizations and deaths go down for a couple of weeks because (they are) lagging indicators, but we are turning that tide,' Giroir told Fox News Network.

He also said the time it currently takes to get coronavirus test results back needs to be reduced.
On the face of it, the case for the introduction of a soft opt-out organ donation system in Northern Ireland is compelling. Although something like 47% of the population is on an organ donation register, the demand for organs outweighs supply at any one time.

Currently there are 112 people are awaiting transplants and every one of them is desperately hoping that organs become available before their condition claims their life.

Under the opt-out scheme, everyone would be deemed as a potential donor unless they opted out.

A further safeguard is that even if they made it clear they wished to donate an organ after death, relatives can still veto that bequest.

Health Minister Robin Swann is right to launch a consultation on his proposal.

As our story today illustrates, grateful recipients of organs are fully behind an opt-out scheme.

Evidence from other countries shows it increases the number of donations.

But there are also concerns about such a proposal, as were found during a consultation process on the potential impact of an opt-out donor scheme in the UK.

While some 60% of the public were in favour of the idea, provided that measures were put in place to safeguard the rights of vulnerable people, there was also a vociferous lobby opposed to the introduction of such a system.

The public stressed that any change to the organ donation scheme must be accompanied by a comprehensive information process, so that people can make informed decisions on the way forward.

Clinicians voiced concern about the impact it could have on their care of end-of-life patients and how the trust between them, their patients and the families could be damaged.

When the opt-out scheme was first mooted in Northern Ireland by former UUP MLA Jo-Anne Dobson in 2016, some senior clinicians opposed the Bill, describing it as unhelpful and saying that the province was not ready for such a move.

The legislation was ultimately rejected by Stormont's health committee.

Whether views have changed in the intervening years will be shown by the public consultation.

This is a hugely important health initiative and it is vital that a wide range of views are made known to the Department of Health, so that a balanced decision can be taken.

People's lives depend on the outcome.
What lies beyond the pandemic? MassForward is MassLives series examining the journey of Massachusetts businesses through and beyond the coronavirus pandemic.

___________

For more than a year since opening, Redemption Rock Brewing Companys footprint remained mostly in Worcester County.

A new partnership with Night Shift Distributing is changing that. The radius at which its beer is available will extend far beyond its home on Shrewsbury Street in Worcester.

Earlier this month, Redemption Rock provided Night Shift with about 80 cases of its beer, which will be distributed throughout the Boston market.

Venturing westward will soon follow the expansion into the eastern part of the state.

Were starting to put down some roots in Boston, the whole eastern part of Massachusetts, CEO Dani Babineau said. From a revenue perspective, its the ability to buffer us a little bit in case there is another shutdown back to the way things were.

At the start of the pandemic, in March, April and May, small breweries like Redemption Rock experienced a devastating decline in sales. Much of the revenue depended on taproom sales.

Without the taproom operational under restrictions imposed by Gov. Charlie Baker, Redemption Rocks sales dipped about 70%.

Since that time, the taproom has reopened with restrictions and the brewery is canning more beer than it ever has. Revenue is still down by about 20% compared to last year, but it would be twice that without the cans.

Its not terrible as far as being able to hang in there and do enough revenue, Babineau said. We can stay at this level. This is OK.

After starting with one pallet - 80 cases - in July, Redemption Rock expects to double that in August for distribution in Boston.

Julys pallet included Three Decker and War Castle. In August, the distribution will include about 40 cases of War Castle and 20 cases each of Three Decker and another beer.

We want to make sure that we can get them a consistent amount of product and consistent brands so they can supply their accounts but also making sure that were not running out locally as well, Babineau said.

Redemption Rock Brewing Co. is expanding its distribution to Boston amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The initial expanded distribution only included cans, but as restaurants begin to reopen, a discussion around including kegs has started.

The idea of expanding outside of Worcester County represented one of Redemption Rocks goals for 2020. The coronavirus pandemic emphasized the expansion even more to generate new forms of revenue.

The brewery hasnt been timid in developing new strategies during the pandemic. It launched a delivery service in April. It was discontinued once the taproom reopened.

Redemption Rock Brewing Co. is expanding its distribution to Boston amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Its also expanding its outdoor patio, which should add about 40 seats and be ready by the end of the summer. However, there is a shortage of pressure-treated wood delaying the project.

Its one extra hurdle among many that the small business is trying to overcome.

My main concern right now is things regressing, Babineau said. If we need to stay with this type of service and this level of revenue production, we can live here for a while.

MassForward is MassLive's series examining the journey of Massachusetts' small businesses through and beyond the coronavirus pandemic.

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NEWTON  The Rotary Club of Newton Conover celebrated a new Rotary year on July 21 at Conover Downtown Park with masks and social distancing. New officers and directors were installed, a new theme announced, perfect attendance awards given, and a new member was welcomed.

Rotary unites people from all continents and cultures who take action to deliver real, long-term solutions to the worlds most persistent issues. Through volunteering,1.2 million Rotarians nationally and internationally make lifelong friendships that transcend political and cultural boundaries and foster global understanding and respect. This years theme is Rotary Opens Opportunities.

Mark Robinson, president of The Blue Ridge Distributing Company dba Associated Brands accepted the presidency of the Rotary Club of Newton Conover from the immediate past president, Chief Eric Loftin.

Robinson is a native Newtonian and a graduate of North Carolina State University. He is also the father of two daughters, Hannah and Lexie. Robinson's family has been in the beverage wholesale business serving this area for 65 years. Robinson himself has been a Rotarian since 2000 and served as president during the 2006-2007 Rotary year.
NEW YORK, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP ("Scott+Scott"), an international securities and consumer rights litigation firm, is investigating certain directors and officers of The Walt Disney Company ("Disney") (NYSE: DIS) for breaching their fiduciary duties to Disney and its shareholders. If you are a Disney shareholder, you may contact attorney Joe Pettigrew for additional information toll-free at 844-818-6982 or [email protected].

Scott+Scott is investigating whether Disney's board of directors or senior management failed to manage Disney in an acceptable manner, in breach of their fiduciary duties to Disney, and whether Disney has suffered damages as a result. Specifically, Scott+Scott is investigating potential breaches of fiduciary duty regarding 1) systemic racial discrimination and bias at Disney; and 2) prematurely and inappropriately reopening Disney theme parks during the COVID-19 outbreak.

What You Can Do

If you are a Disney shareholder, you may have legal claims against Disney's 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 [email protected].

About Scott+Scott

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, Virginia, and Ohio.

Attorney Advertising

CONTACT:

Joe Pettigrew

Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP

230 Park Avenue, 17th Floor, New York, NY 10169

844-818-6982

[email protected]

SOURCE Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP

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U.S. officials and scientists unveiled a plan Thursday to pursue what they called one of the most important technological frontiers of the 21st century: building a quantum Internet.

Speaking in Chicago, one of the main hubs of the work, they set goals for forging what they called a second Internet - one that would function alongside the globe's existing networks, using the laws of quantum mechanics to share information more securely and to connect a new generation of computers and sensors.

Quantum technology seeks to harness the distinct properties of atoms, photons and electrons to build more-powerful computers and other tools for processing information. A quantum network relies on photons exhibiting a quantum state known as entanglement, which allows them to share information over long distances without having a physical connection.

David Awschalom, a professor at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, called the network project a pillar of the nation's quantum-research program.

"It's the birth of a new technology. It's becoming a global competition. Every major country on Earth has launched a quantum program . . . because it is becoming clearer and clearer there will be big impacts," he said in an interview.

China, the United States' top technology rival, is investing heavily in quantum technology, a field that could transform information processing and confer big economic and national-security advantages to countries that dominate it.

The Department of Energy and its 17 national labs will form the backbone of the project.

How exactly the work will be funded was not clear. The Energy Department did not announce a funding figure for the project Thursday. Speaking to reporters, Paul Dabbar, undersecretary for science at the Energy Department, said the federal government invests about $500 to $700 million a year in quantum information technology, suggesting some of that money would fund the new network.

In an interview, Dabbar said there probably would be further funding announcements for the project in the future.

Panagiotis Spentzouris, head of quantum science at the Chicago-area Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, or Fermilab, said in an interview that more resources, and a clearer project structure, will be needed to carry out the blueprint published Thursday.

The 38-page document lays out research priorities and milestones to aim for, but it does not assign detailed tasks to particular parties.

Initial users of a quantum network could include national-security agencies, financial institutions and health-care companies seeking to send data more securely, researchers said.

The networks promise to be more secure - some say unhackable - because of the nature of photons and other quantum bits, known as qubits. Any attempt to observe or disrupt these particles would automatically alter their state and destroy the information being transmitted, scientists say.

A quantum network could also be used to connect various quantum computers with each other, helping boost their total computing power. Quantum computers are still at an early stage of development and not yet as powerful as classical computers, but connecting them could help accelerate their use for solving complex problems such as finding new pharmaceuticals or new high-tech materials, Awschalom said.

Consumers might also tap into the quantum network to buy products with less risk of their credit card details being hacked, or to send and receive sensitive personal information such as health records or Social Security numbers, Spentzouris said. It is possible that consumers could surf seamlessly among the Internet and quantum networks as they make purchases and send information, without necessarily knowing that they are switching platforms, he said.

In a sign of the potential economic rewards that quantum technology could bring, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, both Democrats, spoke at the announcement Thursday, expressing hope that there would benefit the city's tech community.

Universities and labs in the region have established the Chicago Quantum Exchange to accelerate innovation and economic development.

Pieces of the network are up and running at national labs. In the Chicago area, Argonne National Laboratory has built a 52-mile quantum network that soon will connect to nearby Fermilab, to establish an 80-mile test bed.

In New York, Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Lab have built another 80-mile quantum network.

The plan is to slowly connect these local networks nationwide, using fiber-optic cable, satellites and drones fitted with quantum-communication hardware, Spentzouris said.

A key piece of hardware called a quantum repeater still needs to be developed, to amplify a quantum network's signal over long distances, researcher said.

Awschalom said the country needs to do more to educate a new generation of quantum engineers. "When you ask tech companies what is their number one concern with quantum information technology, the number one concern by far is the workforce," he said. Companies will ask him, "Where are we going to hire a thousand quantum engineers?"
Locals in Indore were stunned when a woman fruit seller, who was upset with the repeated lockdowns due to Covid-19, expressed her displeasure in fluent English and later identified herself as a former research scholar of Devi Ahilya University, Indore.

The video, which went viral on social media on Wednesday, showed the woman, who has a fruit shop at Malwa Mill area in the city, complaining about the administration's move to impose prohibitive measures in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

The woman identified herself as Raeesa Ansari and said that the repeated curbs in Indore's markets have left the fruit and vegetable sellers penniless.

At times, one side of the market is closed and on others, the second one is shut by the administration and there are hardly any buyers. What we are supposed to feed our families, asked Ansari who claimed that most of the sellers in the area are second or third generation shopkeepers.

"I too inherited fruit shop from my father", Ansari said, adding that she was upset with the district collector, municipal corporation and Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the prohibitive measures, which according to her had dried up the income of the poor vendors.

On being asked about her qualification, Raeesa claimed that she has done Master of Science in Physics and completed PhD in Material Science from Devi Ahilya Vishwa Vidyalaya in the year 2011.

Asked why she had not opted for a better job, she replied that she was not able to secure one.

The first question is who will give the job to me. The perception that coronavirus is being generated from Muslims has become common now. Because my name is Raeesa Ansari, no college or research institution is willing to give me a job, she alleged.

Dr Rajkumar Chauhan, who was posted at DAVV's physics department before 2010 told News18 that he recognised Raeesa as she had been a student then and met her frequently. I remember that Raeesa had given a decked up fruit basket for my daughters engagement, recounted Chauhan.

"She was a bright student and used to study hard but I am am not sure what prompted her to start working at her family's shop," Chauhan said.

Dr Ashutosh Mishra, the HoD at DAVV Physics Department confirmed that Raeesa had been a student around a decade ago. Mishra claimed that Raeesa was a bright scholar. On Raeesa's charges of being denied chances because of being Muslim, the HoD rubbished the allegations saying caste has nothing to do with jobs in the field of science and technology as all that matters is merit and scientific temperament.

Dr Ratnesh Gupta, under whom Raeesa completed her PhD, said that he could not remember her as it was an old issue.

However, the woman, Raeesa Ansari, could not be reached for comment. Covid-19 infections are on the rise in Indore for the past few days and the administration has decided to impose prohibitive measures in the markets as opposed to complete lockdown to rein in the cases.
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It was reported on Tuesday that she had split from husband Liam Macaulay.

And Candice Brown stepped out for the first time since it was revealed they had parted ways, as she took her dog for a walk in Milton Keynes on Thursday.

The TV personality, 35, was not wearing her wedding ring following the breakdown of her marriage, as she went on the stroll near her pub.

Outing: On Thursday Bake Off star Candice Brown stepped out in Milton Keynes without her wedding ring for the first time since she secretly split from husband Liam Macaulay

Candice kept things casual for the outing as she wore a black T-shirt that had a 'F**K Stigma' logo on the front and back with black shorts.

The striking top was from The Burnt Chef Project, a crowdfunding campaign that helps those in the hospitality industry who have been struggling with their mental health during the coronavirus crisis.

Candice's top was only available for those who donated 75 or above to the crowdfunding campaign, which will provide education on mental health in the hospitality industry.

The TV personality pulled her brunette locks back into a tight ponytail, and accessorised with a pair of flip flops and chic shades.

Split: It was revealed earlier this week that Candice and the tree surgeon secretly split earlier this year, after less than two years of marriage

Ensemble: Candice kept things casual for the outing as she wore a black T-shirt that had a 'F**K Stigma' logo on the front and back with black shorts

Pondering: Candice looked sombre as she took her dog for a stroll

Good cause: The striking top was from The Burnt Chef Project, a crowdfunding campaign that helps those in the hospitality industry who have been struggling with their mental health

Helping hand: Candice's top is only available for those who donated 75 or above to the campaign, which will provide education on mental health in the hospitality industry

Moving on: Candice was seen without her wedding ring

On Tuesday, Liam confirmed their split as he revealed that their two-year marriage collapsed under the pressures of fame.

Speaking for the first time since the couple announced their separation, Liam said: 'There is nobody else involved. We have just sadly decided it wasn't working.

Liam told MailOnline he struggled to adjust from life as a tree surgeon and being thrust into TV personality Candice's showbiz world after they tied the knot and ran a pub together.

Liam admitted their relationship came under strain just days after they got engaged when Candice, 35, was seen getting close to Paul Hollywood on a night out.

He said he struggled to cope under the intense pressure as he faced claims his new fiancee kissed the 54-year-old divorced Bake Off judge on the lips, despite her insistence that it was a friendly goodbye peck on the cheek.

Struggle: On Tuesday, Liam confirmed their split as he revealed that their two-year marriage collapsed under the pressures of fame

Honest: Speaking for the first time since the couple announced their separation, Liam said: 'There is nobody else involved. We have just sadly decided it wasn't working

Pressure: Liam told MailOnline he struggled to adjust from life as a tree surgeon and being thrust into TV personality Candice's showbiz world

Early problems: Liam admitted their relationship came under strain just days after they got engaged when Candice, 35, was seen getting close to Paul Hollywood

Hard: Liam explained: 'That was just a kiss on her cheek and there was nothing else to it. But we had only been engaged a few days. It was a lot to have to deal with'

Revealing the trouble it caused their relationship, Liam told MailOnline: 'I'd not long asked Candice to marry me and I had to read reports that my new fiancee was seen kissing Hollywood and getting close to him.

'That was just a kiss on her cheek and there was nothing else to it. But we had only been engaged a few days. It was a lot to have to deal with.'

It was revealed earlier this week that Candice and the tree surgeon secretly split earlier this year, after less than two years of marriage.

Moving out: It was previously asserted that Liam has moved out of the pub - The Green Man in Eversholt, Milton Keynes - where the couple previously lived together

Low profile: Candice kept her head down as she strolled through the park

Stroll: Candice was seen walking swiftly as her dog pulled her along

Pet pooches: Candice's second dog was also seen running along beside her without a leash

Enjoying themselves: Candice's cute pet pooches walked far ahead of Candice

Doting: Candice kept a close eye on her dogs as they enjoyed the walk

The report asserted that Liam has moved out of the pub - The Green Man in Eversholt, Milton Keynes - where the couple previously lived together, and back to Ampthill, Bedfordshire.

According to The Mirror, Candice Brown's representative said: 'I can confirm Candice and Liam separated earlier this year.'

The Bake Off star first met Liam in the bar where he worked while studying for a degree, back in 2012.

After five years of dating, the couple announced their engagement in October 2017, just over a year after she first appeared on Bake Off.

It's over: The Bake Off star first met Liam in the bar where he worked while studying for a degree, back in 2012

In September 2018, Candice exchanged nuptials with her longtime love at Chateau de Varennes in Burgundy, France.

Candice revealed the happy news on Twitter, simply writing: 'Got married, didn't we?'

She later wrote: 'The congratulations & love we have received is incredible! Thank you so much for all your kind words!

'I keep bursting into tears (of complete overwhelming happiness & joy) -to anyone posting negative comments- I hope one day you experience the love and happiness we have #wife.'

Speaking shortly after the ceremony, Candice said of their relationship: 'We have always said we work better together than we do apart. Being able to say we are now husband and wife is such a lovely thing.'

Former flames: After five years of dating, the couple announced their engagement in October 2017, just over a year after she first appeared on Bake Off and they wed in September 2018

The TV star revealed Liam popped the question where they shared their first date in Bedfordshire.

She told Hello! at the time: 'I get emotional. Because it's been such an amazing year. I feel very lucky. I've had such incredible opportunities  GBBO opened so many doors  and to top it off he puts a ring on it.

He reached into the glove compartment, got out the ring, got down on one knee and said, 'I love you, you are my world. Will you marry me?'

Liam continued: 'So I proposed in a car park. But it really meant something to us. Candice just cried for five minutes before she could say, "Yes!"'

Following her 2016 Bake Off victory, Candice and Liam sparked engagement rumours when she wore a show-stopping ring to the National Television Awards.

Business Mogul: Candice grew up in a pub run by her parents in North London, and last year opened her own tavern, The Green Man in the scenic village of Eversholt, Bedfordshire

Candice grew up in a pub run by her parents in North London, and last year opened her own tavern, The Green Man in the scenic village of Eversholt, Bedfordshire.

The star previously admitted she will be taking a leaf out of Dame Barbara Windsor's EastEnders landlady of the Queen Vic Peggy Mitchell book when it comes to pub management.

The baker claimed she is 'dying' to use Peggy's famous words 'Get out of my pub' when tossing out any rowdy customers.

She told BANG Showbiz: 'I've just bought a pub, I want to do the best Sunday lunches, and comforting, warming and hearty food.

'I'm an ambassador for Love British Food, so I work with the farmers to promote that seasonal and local produce is when food is at its best.

'It's called The Green Man in Eversholt, I'm hoping it will be open in mid-February, it's so exciting. I was brought up in pubs with my brother and I want this to be a real family affair.'

At the time Liam threw his support behind his wife's business venture, and her brother Ben and his girlfriend Sophie also got on board.

She added: 'It's been a real family affair. A real baptism of fire but it's going to be amazing. I got it with my brother Ben, so his girlfriend Sophie is involved too.'
Seen is the Samseong World Tower apartment building in southern Seoul, which was sold to a private equity fund managed by IGIS Asset Management last month. / Yonhap

By Park Jae-hyuk



The government has begun moving to regulate real estate investments by private equity funds (PEFs) in an apparent attempt to put the blame for the country's housing price hike on financial companies.



Industry officials fear the envisioned restriction could further shrink sound investments in the local market given that more investors are leaving due to heavy taxes and strict regulations.



According to the Ministry of Economy and Finance, Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki urged relevant institutions to check whether a PEF managed by IGIS Asset Management violated real estate regulations when buying an entire apartment building recently.



The remarks came during an emergency economic meeting, although the PEF's real estate investment was not on the top of the agenda for the meeting.



A few hours later, IGIS announced it had decided to exit the investment in the apartment building. The company said it will sell the property as soon as possible to avoid any additional controversy.



The IGIS fund bought an 14-story Samseong World Tower apartment building in the affluent district of Gangnam-gu, southern Seoul, for 42 billion won ($35 million) last month, raising suspicions that multiple home owners were trying to avoid heavy punitive taxes by using the fund, as it guarantees the anonymity of investors.



The fund has been mired in controversy as it allegedly violated the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio limit after borrowing 27 billion won from seven branches of the Korea Federation of Community Credit Cooperatives (KFCC).



The KFCC decided to retrieve the loan, but IGIS rebuffed the criticism, saying it borrowed the money with an intention of remodeling the building, not for the purpose of its purchase.



Since the fund fell into controversy, IGIS has explained its purchase of the apartment building was aimed at taking profits by remodeling it. The company also said investors in the fund are institutions, not individuals owning multiple homes.



However, the Ministry of Justice sent a warning to PEFs specializing in real estate investments.



"Considering that real estate prices in certain areas have recently soared due to illegal acts by speculators seeking short-term profits, including PEFs specializing in real estate investments, we ordered the prosecutors to take strict measures against unlawful acts by such PEFs," the ministry said in a statement.



Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae rapped financial firms for the recent housing price hike.



"As corrupt government officials have allied with chaebol for the real estate business and brought in financial firms since the Park Chung-hee administration's developmental dictatorship, there has emerged a distorted economic system which has made finance and real estate inseparable," the minister wrote on Facebook, earlier.



Data compiled by the Korea Financial Investment Association showed the size of PEFs investing in real estate rose to 103 trillion won as of June this year from 51 trillion won in May 2017.



"The recent price hike in the real estate market was related to the failure of policies and liquidity supply, so it is inappropriate to link PEFs with the price hike," Yonsei University economics professor Sung Tae-yoon said.


Update: The missing returned home safe and in good health, according to a statement from police.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police are asking for the publics help to find a 53-year-old man from St. George.

Juan Rivera, 53, was last seen at his residence on Tuesday at about 6 a.m. on the 200 block of Hamilton Avenue, according to a statement from the NYPDs Deputy Commissioner of Public Information.

Police described the man as Hispanic and standing about 5 7 tall and weighing about 165 pounds. He was wearing blue clothing.

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.
Beijing's space programme has made huge strides in recent years as it tries to catch up with the United States and Russia

A Long March-5 rocket, carrying an orbiter, lander and rover as part of the Tianwen-1 mission to Mars, lifts off from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre in southern China's Hainan Province. (AFP)

Beijing: China launched a rover to Mars on Thursday, another milestone for its space programme after putting humans into orbit and landing a probe on the Moon.

It is among a trio of nations, along with the United Arab Emirates and the United States, launching missions to the Red Planet this month, taking advantage of a period when Mars and Earth are favourably aligned.

Beijing's space programme has made huge strides in recent years as it tries to catch up with the United States and Russia.

Here are five things to know about the programme:

'Questions to Heaven'

China's Mars probe lifted off on July 23 from the southern island of Hainan.

The mission was dubbed Tianwen-1 ("Questions to Heaven") in a nod to a classical Chinese poem that has verses about the cosmos.

The probe aims to go into Martian orbit, land on the planet and release a small rover to conduct research on its surface.

The craft will travel at least 55 million kilometres (34 million miles) to reach its destination. It will arrive seven months after launch, in February, according to an official.

Without Russia this time

It is not China's first attempt to go to Mars.

A previous mission with Russia in 2011 failed because the Russian launcher was unable to get the craft into a transfer orbit to slingshot towards the Red Planet.

The hardware partially disintegrated as it later crashed back to Earth.

Following that failure, Beijing decided to try again on its own.

"Its purposes are not different from those of other countries: develop the capability, explore the universe... and finally, create political influence and national prestige," said Chen Lan, an independent analyst at GoTaikonauts.com, which specialises in news about China's space programme.

Six-wheeled rover

The rover, weighing 240 kilogrammes (530 pounds), has six wheels and four solar panels, Chinese state media reported.

The rover will roam Mars for three months, according to Sun Zezhou, chief engineer of the probe.

The machine is supposed to analyse the planet's soil and atmosphere, take photos, chart maps and look for signs of past life.

Jade Rabbits

China sent two rovers to the Moon, Jade Rabbit One and Two (Yutu in Chinese), in 2013 and 2019.

The second rover made a historic soft landing on the far side of the Moon, making China the first country to do so.

"The lunar Yutu rovers are good practice in many ways for a Martian rover. The terrain is broadly similar," Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told AFP.

But the distance from Earth means communication will be slower, McDowell said, adding that the risk of problems increases with such a long trip.

Space race

China has poured billions of dollars into its space programme to catch up with the US, Russia and Europe.

In 2003, it became the third nation -- after the US and Russia -- to send a human into space.

It has launched a slew of satellites into orbit, completing a constellation in June to set up its own navigation system, Beidou, to rival the US GPS system.

The Asian powerhouse plans to assemble a space station by 2022 in Earth orbit.

And China is aiming even higher, hoping to become only the second nation to send humans to the Moon a decade from now.
Read your overview of news from Slovakia on Thursday, July 23.

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Kuciak murder trial ends

The Specialised Criminal Court in Pezinok has wrapped up the presentation of evidence in the Kuciak murder case on the 21st trial day, on July 23, 2020.

>>>Read more about the trial so far.

The lawyer representing Marian Kocner has proposed that a large volume of new evidence be taken into account. The lawyers of the bereaved families and the prosecutor who oversees the case saw it as an attempt to stretch out the length of the trial. The court has dismissed all the additionally proposed evidence and proceeded with closing speeches.

"The guilt of the defendants has been proved beyond reasonable doubt," Prosecutor Turan concluded. He proposed a punishment of 25 years in prison for all the defendants.

Matovic government's first no confidence vote

Igor Matovic is the first of his cabinet to face a no confidence vote. The session that the opposition MPs have initiated in the aftermath of the reports about Matovic's plagiarism was opened on Thursday before noon.

Four months after he took over as prime minister, Matovic faces the vote that could lead to his forced resignation if successful. This is however, unlikely. MPs of the ruling coalition have already said they would not take part in the initiative of opposition MPs from Smer and from the group of Smer renegades led by Peter Pellegrini.

Several of the coalition MPs, particularly from the smallest coalition party Za Ludi, have however, criticised Matovic for the way he communicated the scandal.

The session is expected to take place late into the night.

In other news today:

The number of foreigners working in Slovakia dropped slightly in June 2020. The largest group among foreigners in Slovakia remains Ukrainians.

Andrej Danko is testifying at the National Criminal Agency, the Aktuality.sk reported. Danko told journalists after the hearing that the investigators were asking him about Milan Cuba, who earned thousands of euros a year as the advisor to the boss of the state-run Tipos betting company. He did not say if he also testified about the corruption case at the agricultural subventions agency, the Cattle Breeder case.

The first section of the Bratislava ring road project was opened at odds with nature protection legislation, environmentalists from the SOS/Birdlife Slovakia organisation say. Therefore, they will submit a complaint to the European Commission and financing banks. Read more.

The more than 2,000 tests performed on Wednesday have returned 31 new coronavirus positive results. See more details about the development of the infections in Slovakia here.

The Irish government is planning to cancel the compulsory 14-day quarantine for people arriving from countries on its "green list". That is 15 European countries, including Slovakia. Reuters

The number of visitors to accommodation facilities in Slovakia has dropped by 93 percent in May in the year-on-year comparison. This was caused by the coronavirus measures that closed the facilities down for several weeks. This May, 38,900 guests stayed at hotels and pensions in Slovakia, compared to 553,000 in May 2019. SITA

Kia Motors Slovakia will halt production at its plant in the northern-Slovak city of Zilina for a planned company-wide holiday on the usual date at the turn of July and August. In early September, Kia will relaunch the third shift.

Labour unionists have agreed with the management of the Bratislava-based Volkswagen plant to prolong the collective agreement, originally set to expire in September 2023, by one year. This could help the plant gain the production of new models that the company originally planned for its plant Turkey. (Hospodarske Noviny)

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Cape Canaveral :

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson is on the verge of becoming the oldest woman in space, adding to her long list of barrier-breaking records.

Whitson will be 56 when she rockets off the planet on Thursday. She'll celebrate her 57th birthday in February on the International Space Station.

That's a far cry from John Glenn's space shuttle flight at age 77 and a few years shy of the male runners-up. But it's enough to beat Barbara Morgan's record as the world's oldest spacewoman. Morgan waited so long to fulfill her role as Christa McAuliffe's teacher-in-space backup that she was 55 when she finally flew in 2007.

This will be the third space station mission for Whitson, an Iowa-born biochemist, and her second stint as commander. She'll launch from Kazakhstan with two younger men, Russian and French.

"I love working at NASA, but the part that has been the most satisfying on a day-to-day basis, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute, has been working on board the space station," Whitson told reporters over the summer.

"It doesn't matter if I'm cleaning the filters. I feel like I'm helping personally push forward exploration. that's the why I want to go again."

Strict when it comes to lifetime radiation exposure, NASA insisted Whitson remain Earth-bound for a while after her 2008 mission.

"I would have rather gone sooner, but I'll deal with it," she said.

Whitson was the first woman to serve as commander of the space station  in 2007, nine years into its lifetime. She also was the first  and so far only  woman to head NASA's male-dominated astronaut corps. No other woman has spent more time in space.

She'll ride a Soyuz rocket with a Russian cosmonaut, Oleg Novitskiy, 45, and a French newcomer to space, Thomas Pesquet, who's 38. The launch is 3:20 p.m. EST Thursday, 2:20 a.m. Friday in Kazakhstan.

A French documentary crew followed Pesquet during training, focusing on his relative youth and fresh eyes. Whitson said the interest on her, by comparison, was for being "old and experienced."

"All right, yes, I'm old," she said in the NASA interview. She noted in a recent series of preflight interviews that it gets easier with age, knowing what to expect on a spaceflight and how to prioritize.

Her biochemist husband, Clarence Sams, also works for NASA.

Whitson already has spent 377 days in space and performed multiple spacewalks. Her upcoming six-month mission should push her beyond 534 days in space, the U.S. record set in September by 58-year-old astronaut Jeffrey Williams.

Whitson said she's had a lucky run with few regrets. But she noted: "In terms of goals for NASA before I die, we need to be living on Mars. And I might not live that long, so they better get with it!"

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The lawsuit seeks to overturn these sweeping and unlawful immigration restrictions that are an unequivocal not welcome sign to the engineers, executives, IT experts, doctors, nurses, and other critical workers who help drive the American economy.

Five top trade bodies, including the US Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers, have filed a lawsuit challenging the presidential proclamation suspending for the rest of the year new non-immigrant visas that include the H-1B, the most sought-after among Indian IT professionals.

In his proclamation last month, President Donald Trump banned the entry into the US of workers in several key non-immigrant visa categories, including the H-1B, arguing that they eat into American jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.

Companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.

Denying access to non-immigrant workers deprive American businesses of the talent they need.

It also has far-reaching repercussions in today's competitive market for talent, said the lawsuit filed by National Association of Manufacturers, US Chamber of Commerce, National Retail Federation, TechNet, and Intrax.

The lawsuit seeks to overturn these sweeping and unlawful immigration restrictions that are an unequivocal "not welcome" sign to the engineers, executives, IT experts, doctors, nurses, and other critical workers who help drive the American economy, said US Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas Donohue.

"Left in place, these restrictions will push investment abroad, inhibit economic growth and reduce job creation, he said.

Ahead of the presidential proclamation, Donohue in a letter to the White House had said that there were many other sectors of US economy that rely upon the contribution of foreign nationals working in America.

One of the visa categories impacted, H-1B, is used predominantly by employers seeking to hire and retain individuals working in these fields, and in computer-related roles.

Banning these individuals from entering the United States is thus not a remedy to current unemployment levels, said the lawsuit.

Businesses across industries are very concerned about the potential disruptions that will be caused if they can no longer employ valued employees that work here under the following visa classifications: H-1B, L-1, H-4, F-1 Optional Practical Training (OPT), and H-2B.

Similarly, companies that rely upon investment dollars from the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program are concerned about restrictions being imposed upon those individuals that have invested in their businesses.

Shutting these individuals out of the chance to contribute to an economic recovery is misguided for a host of reasons, Donohue said.

National Association of Manufacturers senior vice president and general counsel Linda Kelly said that these overreaching, unlawful restrictions did not just limit visas, but will also restrain US economic recovery at a time when the very future of the country hangs in the balance.

Manufacturers and programme sponsors are going to court because these restrictions are far outside the bounds of the law and would deal a severe blow to our industry. We cannot let this stand," he said.

"Our industry should be laser-focused on leading our recovery and renewal, but these visa restrictions will hand other countries a competitive advantage because they will drive talented individuals away from the United States.

These restrictions could harm every corner of our economy, as evidenced by the broad coalition that has come together to oppose them," he added.

Innovation is absolutely key to surviving the economic crisis currently facing America, especially for retailers who have seen their stores forced to close and scrambled to find new ways to sell and deliver products, said National Retail Federation chief administrative officer and general counsel Stephanie Martz.

"This proclamation is meant to protect American jobs but instead it threatens the millions of rank-and-file workers whose jobs rely on experts coming up with the latest technology to keep retail moving forward.

Advanced computer and IT jobs are already hard to fill, and retailers need to be able to bring in talent from wherever they can find it.

This sweeping measure could have a significant negative impact on their ability to do that," he said.

The Exchange Visitor Program enhances US national security by building mutual understanding that helps "us address critical international issues while strengthening the US economy," Intrax president Marcie Schneider said, adding that these overreaching restrictions will sharply curtail cultural exchange programmes at just the time when they should be increasing connections between people around the world.

According to the lawsuit, denying American businesses access to international labor markets is inflicting swift and severe harms.

Companies are unable to move employees who have developed special expertise outside the United States into domestic roles, where they would otherwise help expand operations, develop new products, and contribute to the hiring of domestic workers, it said.

Photograph: Jim Bourg/Reuters
MEDIA  A week into being Delaware Countys new executive director, Howard Lazarus outlined some of his goals.

Things have been hectic but its been enjoyable, the 63-year-old Marple native said with the county, like the nation, grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, its correlating economic issues and systemic racial inequity issues. He explained his current focus is to gain a better understanding of the direction Delaware County Council wants to go.

Lazarus was selected from a field of more than 140 applicants in a nationwide search for the $215,000-a-year position. After attending Marple Newtown High School, Lazarus went to West Point and served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for 20 years. He also served as public works director in Austin, Texas, and as city administrator in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a position he held from 2016 until February.

He explained that his contract with Ann Arbor did not have a termination date, like the two-year time limit with Delaware County.

They terminated without cause, Lazarus said. There wasnt any misbehavior or misadministration. Council has a right to pick a leader with the direction they want to go.

He explained that the Ann Arbor council changed recently and chose to pick someone who would pursue its goals. New council members were elected in November.

I have no ill will with anyone, Lazarus said, adding that the matter was handled with courtesy and professionalism. I wish all of them well.

Here, in Delaware County, he explained some of his priorities include cultivating a strong, energetic, motivated workforce who understand and are committed to public service; building sustainable environmental, economic and equitable systems; and ensuring that the governmental entity is economically sound.

Lazarus added that he sees the importance of engaging with different parts of the community so there is trust in the government.

He said one emphasis will be on challenging the approximate 3,000 county employees while also supporting them, empowering them to solve problems and provide customer service.

I want people not to sleep on Sunday night, he said, adding thats not because they dont want to come to work but because they are so excited to get there.

Some of his short term goals include filling positions and finding a structure within the lasting impacts of the pandemic.

I need to rebuild some of the senior leadership positions, Lazarus explained. There are a lot of vacancies.

Likewise, COVID-19 will provide the framework for public interaction going forward, both for the employees and residents and the executive director noted that providing testing and keeping the community safe are paramount.

Thirdly, he said he wants to concentrate on the November election to make certain it is inclusive and that everyone who wants to vote is afforded that opportunity.

In addition to addressing ongoing reassessment issues, Lazarus said economic development measures would be part of his longer term goals.

Id like to look at some of the sustainability and open space initiatives that are going on, he explained.

He also said he wants to create strong relationships with municipal governments while addressing some of the social and economic inequities that exist in the county.

Lazarus said he and his partner, Carol, with whom he has two adult children, decided to come to Delaware County at this stage in his career so he could pay back the community that created a foundation for him.

Yet, its not the only time hes returned. He said his sister lives in Havertown and he returned many Novembers for the Army/Navy weekend.

Pursuant to the code, Lazarus said he is looking for a home within Delaware County to live as he becomes refamiliarized with the county and all the things that contribute to a great quality of life here.
Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner has received a formal data breach notification from Twitter concerning the serious hacking vulnerability the company experienced in the last week.

A spokesman for the Irish office declined to say whether the watchdog would be initiating an independent investigation into the incident, which resulted in some of the platform's highest-profile accounts being taken over by Bitcoin scammers.

However, he said that a draft decision concerning a separate Twitter data breach from 2018 has been circulated to other European data protection commissioners for regulatory consultation.

This is likely to be the first major multinational tech decision under GDPR from the Irish Data Protection Commissioner. There are more than 20 investigations currently in process, including several into Facebook.

Twitter has not yet given a full account of exactly what happened in last week's hack, which resulted in accounts belonging to Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Kanye West and others being temporarily taken over.

The company, which employs hundreds of people at its Dublin Emea headquarters, said that the unknown hackers "successfully manipulated a small number of employees and used their credentials to access Twitter's internal systems".

US media reports claim that the breach may have been the result of staff posting security logins on internal company communication channels.

Twitter has been shaken by the incident, with fears expressed over the security of its service in the run-up to the US presidential election in November.

The Irish DPC spokesman declined to comment on whether there was any appearance of rules being broken.

Under GDPR rules, European data authorities are empowered to issue fines of up to 20m or 4pc of annual global turnover.

Helen Dixon's office has not yet taken such action against any multinational tech firm, despite the large number of investigations currently under way.

DPC executives say that due process can be lengthy, but is necessary to give prospective fines better protection from appeal.

Last week, the European Court of Justice ruled that the Irish DPC must start to make decisions on reducing or cutting off major data flows between the EU and the US.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 16:46:07|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Finnair resumed passenger flight services between Shanghai and Helsinki on Thursday, linking the eastern Chinese municipality with the capital of Finland, according to the airline.

China continues to play a key role in the airline's strategy and Finnair is looking forward to increasing its service to the Chinese market, according to the airline.

The Shanghai-Helsinki route will be serviced by A350 aircraft with one round-trip flight every week. The airplane departs from the Helsinki Vantaa International Airport each Thursday and returns from Shanghai Pudong International Airport each Saturday.

The airline plans to add flights amid the gradual lifting of travel restrictions and recovering travel demand. Moreover, the growth of long-haul flights to Asia is also driven by cargo demand, said the airline.

Passengers on flights to China are required to provide negative nucleic acid test results before boarding, said the country's civil aviation regulator Tuesday.

The move aims to ensure the health and safety of international travelers and reduce the risks of cross-border spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Enditem
Manufacturing and services sectors are likely to recover and be the main growth driver in the second half of the year. - Photo vcci.com.vn

The forecast was in the banks recently published research report for the third quarter.

Growth is likely to rebound in the second half of the year (H2) driven by the strength of the domestic economy; global headwinds are likely to partially offset this. Vietnams dependence on the global economy is the second-highest in ASEAN after Singapore; its trade-to-GDP ratio of 198 per cent is among Asias highest, driven by electronics exports. We expect 3 per cent growth in Vietnam in 2020; further monetary and fiscal support in H2 could push growth closer to the Governments target of 4-5 per cent, said Chidu Narayanan, economist for Asia, Standard Chartered Bank.

According to the latest macro-economic report, manufacturing and services sectors are likely to recover and be the main growth driver in the second half of the year. The manufacturing sector growth is estimated at roughly 1.5 per cent in 2020, with its contribution to growth down 1.8 percentage points. The services sectors contribution to growth is likely to fall to 0.5 percentage points from 2.8 percentage points in 2019.

Construction activity is expected to decline on subdued sentiment and declining foreign direct investment (FDI). However, public infrastructure investment is likely to be stronger than in the past 18 months, driven by Government stimulus. A slowdown in tourism and related activities is likely to weigh on consumption, which is projected to pick up in H2 following the reopening of the economy but to remain below 2019 levels.

Standard Chartereds economists anticipate Vietnams trade to pick up in H2 as global demand recovers, but a recovery to pre-COVID levels is unlikely. Demand from China should support a pick-up in both exports and imports near-term; however, subdued global demand is likely to impact trade growth. The bank expects trade balance to remain in surplus this year as lower imports offset soft exports.

The study forecasts FDI inflows to decline this year on heightened uncertainty and depressed investment sentiment globally, totalling US$13 billion. Government measures should support FDI inflows in H2. In addition, the sustained relocation of low-tech manufacturing to Vietnam amid geopolitical tensions should partly offset subdued sentiment, supporting FDI inflows.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 17:05:18|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- A Long March-5 rocket blasted off Thursday at the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China's Hainan Province, carrying the country's Mars probe, Tianwen-1.

It is the first time that the Long March-5 carrier rocket, currently China's largest launch vehicle, is put into practical use after a series of trial launches.

It is also the first time the Long March-5 exceeded the second cosmic velocity, the fastest China's carrier rockets have gone to date, said Li Dong, the rocket's chief designer at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT).

The rocket did not separate from Tianwen-1 until it accelerated to over 11.2 km per second, the second cosmic velocity or escape velocity. At that speed, Tianwen-1 went into the Earth-Mars transfer orbit, overcoming the gravitational pull of Earth and embarking on an interplanetary journey, Li explained.

The rocket, codenamed Long March-5 Y4, has a total length of almost 57 meters, equivalent to the height of a 20-story building. It has a 5-meter-diameter core stage and four 3.35-meter-diameter boosters.

The rocket uses environment-friendly propellants, including liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen and kerosene. It has a takeoff mass of 869 tonnes and can carry a payload of 14 tonnes to a geostationary transfer orbit.

As the relative positions of Earth and Mars are constantly changing, a space mission from Earth is like shooting at a moving target. The researchers have designed a record number of trajectories targeting multiple narrow time windows to ensure the probe's precise entry into the preset orbit, said Wang Jue, general director of the rocket research team at CALVT.

The Mars mission has a 30-minute launch window each day for 14 consecutive days from late July to early August. The rocket team subdivided it into three 10-minute launch windows with different trajectory parameters, said Wang Jue.

A total of 42 launch trajectories have been designed, more than any other Chinese space mission and the rocket can switch among them automatically, Wang Jue said.

Tianwen-1, comprising an orbiter, a lander and a rover, weighs nearly five tonnes, a tonne heavier than the Chang'e-4 lunar probe. It is the heaviest deep space probe that China has launched so far.

"Relying on the strong carrying capacity of the Long March-5, China will push its deep-space exploration from the moon to the planets," said Li Minghua, top director of the Long March-5 team at CALVT.

Previously, the Long March-5 successfully launched the Shijian-20 satellite. The Long March-5B carrier rocket, a modified version, sent China's new-generation manned spaceship for test into space.

Based on the experience of these launches, engineers have improved the technology and reliability of Long March-5 Y4, covering multiple systems like its control system, measuring system, body structure, and ground support system. Enditem
She had been showing off her catwalk skills at Milan Digital Fashion Week in Milan, Italy this past week.

And now, just days after the first-ever three-day event closed, top model Taylor Hill gave her 14.3 million Instagram followers a glimpse at one her more relaxing moments dressed in a gold bikini.

'Golden hour,' she wrote in the caption in a reference to her revealing two-piece and the gorgeous sunshine glaring down on her tan figure.

Golden hour: Taylor Hill, 24, flaunted her golden tanned figure dressed in a revealing gold bikini as working Milan Digital Fashion Week just days ago

Hill, 24, looked absolutely stunning as she casually leaned back on a lounge chair and stared directly into the camera while on a patio.

Along with her swimsuit, she also donned an assortment of bracelets and necklaces and had her dark brown tresses styled long, just past her shoulders, with some natural soft waves.

So far there's no word on whether the American model is still abroad, but the beautiful backdrop in the photo could in fact have been taken in Italy.

COVID-19 ready: The American model shared a photo of herself in full-on tourist mode wearing a mask while outside a cathedral in an unknown European city on Monday

Hill also gave evidence that she's still overseas, presumably in Italy, when she posted a photo of herself on Instagram on Monday.

She struck a more tourist-pose, complete in a mask, in front of an historic cathedral that can bee seen in a number of old European cities.

'Coffee  MASK  Fannypack  my favorite NECESSITIES,' she wrote in the caption along with the hashtags: '#wearamask #whatlikeitshard'

Just days earlier, Hill was spotted arriving at the Etro Fashion how during Milan Digital Fashion Week on July 15, in blue jeans and sneakers, a black t-shirt under a plaid blazer and a protective mask.

Preparing for the catwalk: Hill was seen arriving at the Four Season Hotel ahead of the Etro Fashion Show on July 15, 2020 in Milan, Italy

Hill is an Illinois native, who grew up in Colorado, and was discovered by a fashion photographer when she was just 14.

She kick started her modeling career by being featured in an Intimissimi's catalog in 2013, which led to a print campaign in Forever 21.

Since then Hill went on to become a popular Victoria's Secret Angel, beginning in 2015, and has appeared in many of the top high-fashion publications and fashion shows around the world.
WOOD RIVER  State officials on Thursday announced 1,624 new known cases of the coronavirus  the highest number of new infections in nearly two months.

The report came a day after the Illinois Department of Public Health reported the highest number of new cases in July with 1,598.

IDPH officials also anounced 20 additional confirmed deaths, though none were in the Metro East region.

Currently, IDPH is reporting 166,925 cases, including 7,367 deaths, in 102 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 39,706 specimens for a total of 2,388,193.

The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from July 16-22 is 3.4 percen. As of Wednesday night, 1,473 people in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 309 patients were in intensive care units and 135 were on ventilators.

In Madison County, local health officials on Thursday reported 50 new cases.

That follows 60 cases  the highest one-day increase ever  reported on Wednesday in the county.

More Information COVID-19 cases by county St. Clair- 2,951 (152 deaths) Madison - 1,654 (71 deaths) Clinton - 288 (17 deaths) Monroe - 210 (13 deaths) Montgomery - 115 (3 deaths) Macoupin - 101 (3 deaths) Jersey - 57 (1 death) Bond -30 (1 death) Washington - 40 Greene - 14 Calhoun - 4 Sources: Illinois Department of Public Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Madison County Health Department. COVID-19 cases by zip code 62002 (Alton) - 229 62010 (Bethalto) - 61 62067 (Moro) - 9 62035 (Godfrey) - 94 62012 (Brighton) - 20 62014 (Bunker Hill) - 7 62052 (Jerseyville) - 29 62095 (Wood River) - 42 62084 (Roxana) - 6 62018 (Cottage Hills) - 14 62024 (East Alton) - 27 62025 (Edwardsville) - 230 62034 (Glen Carbon) - 125 62062 (Maryville) - 37 62294 (Troy) - 72 62040 (Granite City/Pontoon Beach) - 314 62234 (Collinsville) - 279 62060 (Madison) - 70 62090 (Venice) - 20 62249 (Highland) - 38 62281 (St. Jacob) - 14 62001 (Alhambra) - 6 62097 (Worden) - 7 62037 (Grafton) - 6 62088 (Staunton) - 17 62069 (Mt. Olive) - 12 62056 (Litchfield) - 45 62049 (Hillsboro) - 32 62033 (Gillespie) - 11 62014 Bunker Hill - 7 62626 (Carlinville) - 19 Sources: Illinois Department of Public Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Madison County Health Department. See More Collapse

To date, the county has recorded 1,654 cases and 71 deaths. No virus-related deaths have been reported in Madison County during July.

Health officials also reported a three-day positivity rating of 8.1 percent in the county. On Wednesday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said noted that, per metrics set by IDPH, if a rolling positivity rate surpasses 8 percent or if the one-day positivity rate increases for seven of 10 days along with hospitalization increases or declines in surge capacity, the state would take actions to mitigate the spread.

Those steps include possibly reverting to closures seen in previous phases of the states reopening plan.

Madison County health officials also noted the completion of another 660 tests, or 30,417 in total so far. Four more people were released Thursday, for a total of 739.

Yesterday, I called all cities and mayors in Madison County urging them to persist in caution: hand-washing, social distancing and wearing masks where appropriate, said Madison County Chairman Kurt Prenzler.

Our health department has done a great job, he said. The department focused on nursing homes, which have accounted for more than 80 percent of all deaths.

Prenzler said the most current data shows two COVID patients in Madison County intensive care units. He said that, as the result of businesses reopening and more social gathering, the countys positivity rate  the number of positive cases divided by the number of tests  has increased.

Most of the new cases are among younger people, said Toni Corona, Madison County Public Health Director. We want to remind everyone to be responsible and continue to follow the recommended protocol of hand-washing, social distancing and wearing masks.

According to the IDPH, Calhoun County was the only one among 11 Metro East counties not reporting new cases on Thursday. For the first time, the IDPH ZIP code map also included 62037 (Grafton) with six cases.

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 about COVID-19 or coronavirus resources, visit the Madison County Health Department at www.madisonchd.org and Facebook @MadisonCHD. Also visit www.co.madison.il.us and Facebook @MadisonCountyIL for more news and a daily update.
After a methane gas explosion at Anglo Americans underground Grosvenor Mine in central Queensland seriously injured five workers in May, the state Labor government went into damage control, announcing an inquiry into the deadly incident.

Four of the men, who sustained horrific burns to their upper torsos and airways, have only just been moved out of intensive care, while the fifth miner was released from hospital in late May. Testifying to the intensity of the blast, he told the media that it melted the workers helmets and ear plugs and burnt their work clothing.

Queensland mines and energy minister Anthony Lynham claimed that the board of inquiry, to be headed by a retired judge, Terry Martin, would be an opportunity to continue this governments sweeping reforms to protect mine workers.

Such claims are entirely fraudulent, as the record clearly shows. Before the May disaster there had been a rising toll of deaths and injuries in mines and quarries across the state, including eight fatalities in the 18 months to last December. The carnage continued despite government promises of safety reforms after each tragedy.

In 2018-2019, 1,935 high potential incidents (HPIs) were reported at Queensland mines or around 37 per week. HPIs include fires, equipment failure, theft or other loss of explosives, structural and procedural failures and workers trapped in mines. According to departmental records, the governments Queensland Mines Inspectorate fails to investigate many such incidents.

The Grosvenor Mine inquiry is due to begin early next month. But there are already indications that it will be another cover-up of how safety is subordinated to the companies ruthless drive for profits to meet investor and shareholder demands. It is also likely to avoid probing to what extent the coal royalties that flow into state coffersan estimated $4.3 billion last yearinfluence the governments relationship with the coal giants.

Australian National University health and safety expert Professor Andrew Hopkins was forced to recuse himself from the inquiry following a complaint by Anglo American over an interview he gave after the Grosvenor Mine explosion but before his appointment to the inquiry.

In the interview Hopkins made the telling observation that there existed striking similarities in conditions leading up to the Grosvenor explosion with those before the 1994 BHP Moura disaster, also in central Queensland, where 11 miners were killed in a deadly methane gas blast.

Hopkins stated: It seems there were consistently high levels of methane gas being recorded at that mine [Grosvenor], explosive levels of methane gas, and this was apparently one of the main causes of this accident. This was known beforehand, there were concerns raised beforehand, and nothing effective was done. In that respect, this was very like the Moura accident.

Hopkins said this was part of a pattern which is present in almost every accident I have studied, that there are warning signs, tell-tale signs, people at the grassroots will speak about. He added: This was an accident waiting to happen, but nothing was done about it. It falls into that pattern in a very tragic way.

Anglo, whose major concern, like all the mining giants, has been to extricate itself from any responsibility for such disasters, rushed in to engineer Hopkins removal.

Hopkins accurate account of the Moura experience is all the more important because when Lynham announced the Grosvenor inquiry he lauded the Mine Wardens Inquiry into the Moura tragedy for having recommended safety measures that still protect mine workers today and that have no doubt prevented further incidents and saved lives over the past two decades.

The Moura inquirywhich included a leading mining union representative on its boardfound that BHP had sent the miners underground knowing that a highly volatile and dangerous situation existed. Yet the inquiry recommended that no charges be laid. This provided a green light to mining companies that they could continue to undermine and ignore workers safety with impunity.

The state government has replaced Hopkins with Andrew Clough, who held leading positions in the mining inspectorate but has also worked at senior management levels and for major mining companies such as Peabody, Vale and BHP Billiton.

Anglo American is opposed to even the most minimal safety requirements that may increase operational costs. According to an article in the Australian on July 3, Anglos chief executive of metallurgical coal Tyler Mitchelson held a teleconference with Lynham in April in which he pressed the minister to relax recently introduced rules for monitoring methane in coal mines.

Earlier in April, the Queensland mine inspectorate had directed Anglos Grosvenor and Grasstree mines to briefly suspend operations until the managements complied with regulations on underground methane monitors.

The fact Mitchelson has a direct line to the minister underscores the close relations between the mining companies and the Labor government. With the public spotlight on the string of coal mine fatalities, Lynham denied Michelsons request. However, the coal chief still complained that his company had not been consulted before the new monitoring requirements, leaving no doubt that Anglo expects to be able to veto any future changes.

Since the May disaster, the mining unions have pointed to the conditions at the Grosvenor Mine, with about 400 workers employed through labour-hire contractor One Key Resource who fear losing their jobs if they make safety complaints.

This situation is rife across the mining sector, facilitated by union-negotiated work contracts. Labour hire and other forms of insecure work now account for close to 65 percent of the Queensland coal mining workforce.

The unions are just as culpable for the rising death and injury toll as the companies and the government. The Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union was aware of the hazardous conditions in the Grosvenor Mine, having admitted after the blast that workers had raised concerns about high gas levels, but failed to act to halt production.

The carnage will not end until workers take matters into their own hands and build new organisations of struggle that will vigorously enforce safety and basic conditions. This will form part of the fight to totally re-organise society along socialist lines, so that production is placed under workers control to meet social need, not private profit.
Rights groups are urging Myanmar to work with international bodies to address allegations of rights abuse and failures to reform rather than rebut the accusations at the U.N. Human Rights Council in the run-up to the Southeast Asian countrys next Universal Periodic Review in January 2021.

In a statement issued Monday, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticized the Myanmar government for disregarding international legal obligations to provide accountability for military atrocities against the Rohingya Muslims and other ethnic minorities in conflict areas.

Despite a commitment to adopting democratic reforms and respecting civil and political rights in the 2015 UPR review cycle, Myanmar has made little progress and failed to undertake meaningful reforms to bring its rights-violating laws into compliance with international human rights standards, HRW said.

HRW also noted the governments failure to revoke or amend laws that it said undermine the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly.

Myanmars unwillingness to provide accountability for rampant rights abuses seems to know no bounds, said Phil Robertson, HRWs deputy Asia director, in the statement.

U.N. member countries should use Myanmars U.N. review to demand the government make progress through deeds, not more flowery talk, to achieve genuine human rights improvements. he said.

In a submission to the Human Rights Council on July 9, HRW cited Myanmars refusal to cooperate with a Council-mandated fact-finding mission to investigate atrocity crimes, its barring of a previous U.N. special rapporteur on human rights from entering the country, and its failure to fulfill a pledge by former President Thein Sein to set up a permanent office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the country.

Running a risk

Yangon-based rights activists on Wednesday also called on Myanmar leaders to investigate rights violation allegations and to prosecute those responsible if the government is unwilling to resolve them in the international arena and through the UPR reporting process.

Nickey Diamond, a human rights activist with Fortify Rights, said he does not see the government taking effective measures to rectify the issue.

Instead, the government is protecting the military for its rights violations, he told RFA.

It is running the risk of involving itself in the crime, Diamond said. When there are allegations that rights violations occurred, the government is supposed to take measures, such as investigations. The government also should take action to prosecute the violators.

Aung Myo Min, executive director of Equality Myanmar, a human rights education group based in Yangon, said the governments lack of cooperation with international bodies over the allegations of rights abuse wont bode well for Myanmars global standing.

The governments lack of action is drawing more international pressure, he said, adding that the situation could reach a point where international judicial bodies take over the cases.

Aung Myo Min noted that the international community has moved from condemnation of Myanmar to efforts to prosecute the country and its military leaders under international law.

The focus of these efforts is the crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in 2017 that left thousands dead and drove more than 740,000 others into neighboring Bangladesh.

Before, they condemned Myanmar for human rights violations and made demands of the government, but now they are trying to bring the cases before the courts to be prosecuted under international criminal law, he said.

Myanmar faces genocide-related charges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the U.N.s top court which settles disputes between nations. The International Criminal Court, a separate court that tries individuals, in November authorized an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity perpetrated by Myanmar soldiers against the Rohingya.

At an ICJ hearing last December in The Hague, Aung San Suu Kyi, who led Myanmar's defense, said the violence meted out against the Rohingya  which included killings, mass rape, torture, and village burnings  occurred during army operations to sweep northern Rakhine of Muslim insurgents who had attacked police. She asked the ICJ to drop the case.

Different views

Chan Aye, director general of the Consular and Legal Affairs Department at Myanmars Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told RFA that Myanmar would give an oral report on the governments performance during the UPR session in January.

The government has expressed concern over these issues, he said. We have talked about prosecuting the violators. Actions are being taken to do that. We are also making sure not to stop the flow of humanitarian assistance in the middle of armed conflicts.

Chan Aye added that Myanmar and the international community may have different views on how well the country is doing in this regard.

Under the UPR system, U.N. member states undergo a review of their human rights records every five years under the guidance of the Human Rights Council in Geneva.



Reported by Phyu Phyu Khine for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Alvin Campbell Jr., the 39-year-old Rhode Island man who was charged in January with kidnapping and raping an intoxicated woman after she left a Boston bar, was charged this week with similar crimes against seven other women between 2017 and 2019, according to the Suffolk District Attorneys Office.

Campbell, the brother of Boston City Councilor Andrea Campbell, remains held on $250,000 bail after his January arraignment in connection with rape and kidnapping charges stemming from a December incident in Boston.

The Suffolk District Attorneys Office said Campbell now faces charges in three Boston Municipal courts  Central, Roxbury and South Boston  for multiple charges of rape, kidnapping and recording a nude person without consent. No arraignment dates have been set for the new charges.

The attacks on these women are the acts of a predator. Women are entitled to go out and enjoy themselves without the fear of being preyed upon, kidnapped or raped,' Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins said. With one exception, these women did not know each other. They shared in common only that each were out enjoying nightlife in Boston when Campbell found and violated them. Now, they are linked by those horrific assaults. But these eight women are also linked due to the incredible bravery and courage they each displayed coming forward to hold their rapist accountable.

Authorities said the details of all eight cases vary, but said in every case Campbell targeted the women at or near bars or other locations where intoxication had made them incapable of consenting or resisting.

In every case, the women believed they were with a ride-share driver they had summoned.

Campbell last worked for Uber in 2016, but when his vehicle was seized in the first case, it was festooned with Uber stickers and logos, the district attorneys office said. Most of the assaults took place in Campbells vehicle, and he also took video of five of the unconscious victims, according to prosecutors and sexual assault unit detectives who obtained a warrant to search his cell phone.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was no grand jury to hear the additional evidence. Detectives from the Boston Police Sexual Assault Unit obtained the new complaints Thursday to lodge arrest warrants in the system until Campbell can be brought to face them in court.

The BPD sexual assault unit did extraordinary work in these extraordinary times to hold an individual accountable for horrendous and predatory behavior,' Rollins said. As I have said before, the current crisis may have changed our modes of interaction, but it has not changed our mission. As we continue to navigate this crisis, I and my Office will always uphold our commitment to serve survivors of sexual assault with support, referrals for needed services, and vigorous prosecutions to hold perpetrators accountable.

The district attorneys office noted other cases involving women being sexually assaulted by men posing as ride-share drivers or drivers for various ride-share companies.

Imer Soto, a Dorchester man, was sentenced to serve 9-to-10 years in prison for kidnapping and raping a woman who had ordered a ride-share. He pulled the woman into the ride-share car in which he was riding and raped her.

In January 2019, an intoxicated woman left Hennessys near Bostons City Hall and encountered Victor Pena, who is now charged with holding her captive in a Charlestown apartment and raping her.

Other cases have involved sexual assaults by actual ride-share employees.

Three Uber drivers  Ranjan Thapa, Michael Squadrito and Daudah Mayanja  all separately await trial on charges that they raped female customers in Boston while driving them home from bars in 2018 and 2019, the district attorneys office said.

Campbell was arrested in January on charges that he raped a Boston woman after she got into his black Chevrolet Suburban outside the Harp bar on Dec. 7 thinking it was her Uber ride.

Campbell is accused of driving the woman to Cumberland, Rhode Island and raping her. The woman did not remember anything from the time she entered the vehicle until she woke up at Campbells home. Campbell was indicted in that case.

Rollins office noted that the case against Campbell happened a few months before the kidnapping of Jassy Correia, who left the Venu nightclub in the Theater District after closing time on February 24, 2019.

Louis Coleman III, the man accused of kidnapping and killing Correia, is facing federal charges in her death.

Correias body was found in the trunk of Colemans car when he was pulled over by police in Delaware four days later.

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Texas set a grim new one-day record for increases in COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday, evidenced in part by such occurrences as Hidalgo County hospitals being forced to store bodies in refrigerated trucks, according to Reuters.

Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez has issued a call for new stay-at-home orders for all residents starting Wednesday.

"We've got to lasso this virus, this stallion, bring the numbers back down and get control of this thing, " Cortez zaid. "Because our hospitals---they're war zones, they are really struggling now."

According to Texas Health and Human Services, Texas reported 217 deaths and 10,893 COVID-19 hospitalizations. Hidalgo County has reportedly seen cases climb by 60 percent in the last week, with deaths now doubling more than 360.

COUNTY WARNING: Texas county warns COVID-19 positive residents must stay home or face prosecution

Crematoriums in the Hidalgo area now have a wait list of two weeks, Cortez said, which has forced the county to use five refrigerated trucks that can hold 50 bodies each.

"It's overwhelming. It's a tsunami what we're seeing right now," Critical care pulmonologist Dr. Federico Vallejo told CNN.

Vallejo added that he's treating up to 50 to 60 patients a day.

"It is so difficult to watch them maybe saying goodbyes to their relatives by picking up the phone," Vallejo said. "I see nurses crying all the time. I see doctors breaking down all the time."

Hospitals and ICUs began reaching capacity earlier this month in the Rio Grande Valley. South Texas has become the new hotspot as the novel coronavirus has spread throughout the state. Hidalgos top medical official, Dr. Ivan Melendez described the heartbreaking situation inside South Texas hospitals as seemingly another world.

'WE NEED TO SLOW THIS VIRUS DOWN': Houston's top doc warns of worst-case scenario

"It's definitely a parallel universe,"Melendez said. "If they only knew what lurked behind the walls, if they could only have X-ray vision and see the pain and the suffering. You have people telling you--'Doc. please don't put me on that.' You struggle because you know what that's what they need. Then finally, they just give up. They struggle and say, 'Go ahead. You may be the last person I ever talk to. Please tell my family, parents, my kids..that I love them and I fought hard.'"

The escalating numbers in coronavirus deaths and hospitalizations in South Texas has become so dire that Hidalgo County officials warned this week that they would criminally prosecute people who don't quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19.

alison.medley@chron.com
WASHINGTON, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Danaher Corporation (NYSE: DHR) (the "Company") today announced results for the quarter ended July 3, 2020. All results in this release reflect only continuing operations unless otherwise noted.

For the second quarter 2020, net earnings were $927.3 million, or $1.24 per diluted common share which represents a 38.0% year-over-year increase from the comparable 2019 period.

Non-GAAP adjusted diluted net earnings per common share were $1.44 which represents a 32.0% increase over the comparable 2019 period. Revenues increased 19.0% year-over-year to $5.3 billion, with 3.5% non-GAAP core revenue growth including Cytiva.

Operating cash flow for the second quarter 2020 was $1.4 billion, representing a 37.0% increase year-over-year, and non-GAAP free cash flow was $1.3 billion, representing a 41.0% increase year-over-year.

For the third quarter 2020 the Company anticipates that non-GAAP core revenue growth including Cytiva will be in the mid- to high-single digit range.

Thomas P. Joyce, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "We are very pleased with our second quarter resultsespecially in such a challenging environment. Our solid revenue growth, strong cash flow generation and more than 30% adjusted EPS growth are a testament to our team's commitment to the Danaher Business System and the outstanding portfolio of businesses that comprise Danaher today."

Joyce continued, "We are tackling the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic head-on, providing critical diagnostic testing capabilities and accelerating our customers' pursuit of new vaccines and treatments. We're fortunate to navigate through this environment from a position of strength and believe that the combination of our team's DBS-driven execution, resilient portfolio and strong balance sheet uniquely position Danaher in 2020 and beyond."

Danaher will discuss its results during its quarterly investor conference call on July 23, 2020 starting at 8:00 a.m. ET. The call and an accompanying slide presentation will be webcast on the "Investors" section of Danaher's website, www.danaher.com, under the subheading "Events & Presentations." A replay of the webcast will be available in the same section of Danaher's website shortly after the conclusion of the presentation and will remain available until the next quarterly earnings call.

The conference call can be accessed by dialing 866-503-8675 within the U.S. or by dialing +1 786-815-8792 outside the U.S. a few minutes before the 8:00 a.m. ET start and telling the operator that you are dialing in for Danaher's earnings conference call (access code 5251859). A replay of the conference call will be available shortly after the conclusion of the call and until August 6, 2020. You can access the replay dial-in information on the "Investors" section of Danaher's website under the subheading "Events & Presentations." In addition, presentation materials relating to Danaher's results have been posted to the "Investors" section of Danaher's website under the subheading "Quarterly Earnings."

ABOUT DANAHER

Danaher is a global science and technology innovator committed to helping its customers solve complex challenges and improving quality of life around the world. Its family of world class brands has leadership positions in the demanding and attractive health care, environmental and applied end-markets. With more than 20 operating companies, Danaher's globally diverse team of approximately 67,000 associates is united by a common culture and operating system, the Danaher Business System, and its Shared Purpose, Helping Realize Life's Potential. For more information, please visit www.danaher.com.

NON-GAAP MEASURES

In addition to the financial measures prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), this earnings release also contains non-GAAP financial measures. Calculations of these measures, the reasons why we believe these measures provide useful information to investors, a reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures and other information relating to these non-GAAP measures are included in the supplemental reconciliation schedule attached.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Statements in this release that are not strictly historical, including statements regarding the Company's anticipated third quarter financial performance, the Company's contributions to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the positioning of the Company's portfolio, the Company's differentiation and any other statements regarding events or developments that we believe or anticipate will or may occur in the future are "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. There are a number of important factors that could cause actual results, developments and business decisions to differ materially from those suggested or indicated by such forward-looking statements and you should not place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. These factors include, among other things, the highly uncertain and unpredictable severity, magnitude and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic (and the related governmental, business and community responses thereto) on our business, results of operations and financial condition, Danaher's ability to successfully integrate the operations and employees of the Biopharma business Danaher acquired from General Electric Company (now known as Cytiva) with Danaher's existing business, the ability to realize anticipated financial, tax and operational synergies and benefits from such acquisition, Cytiva's performance and maintenance of important business relationships, the impact of our debt obligations (including the debt incurred to finance the acquisition of Cytiva) on our operations and liquidity, deterioration of or instability in the economy, the markets we serve and the financial markets (including as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic), developments and uncertainties in U.S. policy stemming from the U.S. administration, such as changes in U.S. trade and tariff policies and the reaction of other countries thereto, contractions or growth rates and cyclicality of markets we serve, competition, our ability to develop and successfully market new products and technologies and expand into new markets, the potential for improper conduct by our employees, agents or business partners, our compliance with applicable laws and regulations (including regulations relating to medical devices and the health care industry), the results of our clinical trials and perceptions thereof, our ability to effectively address cost reductions and other changes in the health care industry, our ability to successfully identify and consummate appropriate acquisitions and strategic investments and successfully complete divestitures and other dispositions, our ability to integrate the businesses we acquire and achieve the anticipated benefits of such acquisitions, contingent liabilities relating to acquisitions, investments and divestitures (including tax-related and other contingent liabilities relating to past and future IPOs, split-offs or spin-offs), security breaches or other disruptions of our information technology systems or violations of data privacy laws, the impact of our restructuring activities on our ability to grow, risks relating to potential impairment of goodwill and other intangible assets, currency exchange rates, tax audits and changes in our tax rate and income tax liabilities, changes in tax laws applicable to multinational companies, litigation and other contingent liabilities including intellectual property and environmental, health and safety matters, the rights of the United States government to use, disclose and license certain intellectual property we license if we fail to commercialize it, risks relating to product, service or software defects, product liability and recalls, risks relating to product manufacturing, our relationships with and the performance of our channel partners, uncertainties relating to collaboration arrangements with third-parties, commodity costs and surcharges, our ability to adjust purchases and manufacturing capacity to reflect market conditions, reliance on sole sources of supply, the impact of deregulation on demand for our products and services, labor matters, international economic, political, legal, compliance and business factors (including the impact of the United Kingdom's separation from the EU and uncertainty relating to the terms of such separation), disruptions relating to man-made and natural disasters (including pandemics such as COVID-19) and pension plan costs. Additional information regarding the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements is available in our SEC filings, including our 2019 Annual Report on Form 10-K, our first and second quarter 2020 Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and our Prospectus Supplement filed with the SEC on April 6, 2020 pursuant to Rule 424(b)(5) under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release and except to the extent required by applicable law, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events and developments or otherwise.

DANAHER CORPORATION AND SUBSIDIARIES CONSOLIDATED CONDENSED STATEMENTS OF EARNINGS (unaudited) ($ and shares in millions, except per share amounts)



Three-Month Period Ended

Six-Month Period Ended



July 3, 2020

June 28, 2019

July 3, 2020

June 28, 2019

Sales $ 5,297.4



$ 4,444.5



$ 9,640.5



$ 8,664.7



Cost of sales (2,444.8)



(1,960.7)



(4,345.1)



(3,826.0)



Gross profit 2,852.6



2,483.8



5,295.4



4,838.7



Operating costs:















Selling, general and administrative expenses (1,685.4)



(1,390.0)



(3,143.7)



(2,757.7)



Research and development expenses (322.6)



(282.1)



(609.6)



(549.6)



Operating profit 844.6



811.7



1,542.1



1,531.4



Nonoperating income (expense):















Other (expense) income, net (0.7)



5.0



(2.2)



10.1



Gain on sale of product lines 454.6







454.6







Interest expense (78.6)



(19.7)



(126.0)



(40.2)



Interest income 1.0



26.2



63.5



41.9



Earnings from continuing operations before income taxes 1,220.9



823.2



1,932.0



1,543.2



Income taxes (293.6)



(146.8)



(409.6)



(534.5)



Net earnings from continuing operations 927.3



676.4



1,522.4



1,008.7



Earnings from discontinued operations, net of income taxes 



54.9







56.4



Net earnings 927.3



731.3



1,522.4



1,065.1



Mandatory convertible preferred stock dividends (34.6)



(22.7)



(54.2)



(29.2)



Net earnings attributable to common stockholders $ 892.7



$ 708.6



$ 1,468.2



$ 1,035.9



Net earnings per common share from continuing operations:















Basic $ 1.27



$ 0.91



$ 2.09

(b) $ 1.37



Diluted $ 1.24



$ 0.90



$ 2.06

(b) $ 1.36



Net earnings per common share from discontinued operations:















Basic $ 



$ 0.08



$ 



$ 0.08



Diluted $ 



$ 0.08



$ 



$ 0.08



Net earnings per common share:















Basic $ 1.27



$ 0.99



$ 2.09

(b) $ 1.45



Diluted $ 1.24



$ 0.97

(a) $ 2.06

(b) $ 1.43

(a) Average common stock and common equivalent shares outstanding:















Basic 705.1



717.6



701.1



712.6



Diluted 718.2



727.9



713.1



723.2







(a) Net earnings per common share does not add due to rounding. (b) Net earnings per common share amounts for the relevant three-month periods do not add to the six-month period amounts due to rounding.

This information is presented for reference only. A complete copy of Danaher's Form 10-Q financial statements is available on the Company's website (www.danaher.com).

DANAHER CORPORATION

RECONCILIATION OF GAAP TO NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES

Adjusted Diluted Net Earnings Per Common Share from Continuing Operations 1



Three-Month Period Ended

Six-Month Period Ended

July 3, 2020

June 28, 2019

July 3, 2020

June 28, 2019 Diluted Net Earnings Per Common Share from Continuing Operations (GAAP) $ 1.24



$ 0.90



$ 2.06



$ 1.36

Pretax amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets A 0.43



0.21



0.65



0.43

Pretax acquisition-related fair value adjustments to inventory and deferred revenue, incremental transaction costs deemed significant and integration preparation costs, in each case related to the acquisition of Cytiva B 0.31



0.03



0.39



0.05

Pretax impairment charges related to a facility in the Diagnostics segment and a trade name and other intangible assets in the Environmental & Applied Solutions segment C 







0.01





Pretax fair value adjustments and losses on the Company's equity and limited partnership investments D 0.01







0.02





Gain on the sale of certain product lines in the Life Sciences segment in the second quarter of 2020 E (0.62)







(0.62)





Tax effect of all adjustments reflected above F 0.05



(0.04)







(0.09)

Discrete tax adjustments and other tax-related adjustments G 



(0.02)



(0.04)



0.31

Declared dividends on the MCPS assuming "if-converted" method H 0.02



0.01



0.03



0.02

Adjusted Diluted Net Earnings Per Common Share from Continuing Operations (Non-GAAP) $ 1.44



$ 1.09



$ 2.50



$ 2.08







1 Each of the per share amounts above have been calculated assuming the Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock ("MCPS") had been converted into shares of common stock.

Adjusted Diluted Shares Outstanding



Three-Month Period Ended

Six-Month Period Ended

July 3, 2020

June 28, 2019

July 3, 2020

June 28, 2019 (shares in millions)













Average common stock and common equivalent shares outstanding - diluted 718.2



727.9



713.1



723.2

Converted shares 2 16.8



11.9



14.6



8.1

Adjusted average common stock and common equivalent shares outstanding - diluted 735.0



739.8



727.7



731.3







2 The number of converted shares assumes the conversion of all MCPS and issuance of the underlying shares applying the "if-converted" method of accounting and using an average 20 trading-day trailing volume weighted average price ("VWAP") of $172.83 and $139.04 as of July 3, 2020 and June 28, 2019, respectively.

See the accompanying Notes to Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Core Sales Growth and Core Sales Growth Including Cytiva



% Change Three-Month Period

Ended July 3, 2020

vs.

Comparable 2019 Period

% Change Six-Month Period

Ended July 3, 2020

vs.

Comparable 2019 Period Total sales growth (GAAP) 19.0 %

11.5 % Impact of:





Acquisitions/divestitures (21.5) %

(11.0) % Currency exchange rates 2.0 %

1.5 % Core sales growth (decline) (non-GAAP) (0.5) %

2.0 % Impact of Cytiva sales growth (net of divested product lines) 4.0 %

2.0 % Core sales growth including Cytiva (non-GAAP) 3.5 %

4.0 %

Forecasted Core Sales Growth and Core Sales Growth Including Cytiva



% Change Three-Month Period Ending

October 2, 2020 vs. Comparable 2019 Period Core sales growth (non-GAAP) +Low- to mid-single digit Impact of Cytiva sales growth (net of divested product lines) ~300-400 bps Core sales growth including Cytiva (non-GAAP) +Mid- to high-single digit

See the accompanying Notes to Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Reconciliation of Operating Cash Flows from Continuing Operations (GAAP) to Free Cash Flow from Continuing Operations (Non-GAAP)



Three-Month Period Ended

Year-over-Year

Change

July 3, 2020

June 28, 2019

Cash Flows from (used in) Continuing Operations ($ in millions):









Operating Cash Flows from Continuing Operations (GAAP) $ 1,445.0



$ 1,056.4





Investing Cash Flows from (used in) Continuing Operations (GAAP) $ 539.3



$ (202.3)





Financing Cash Flows (used in) from Continuing Operations (GAAP) $ (888.0)



$ 605.0

















Free Cash Flow from Continuing Operations ($ in millions):









Operating Cash Flows from Continuing Operations (GAAP) $ 1,445.0



$ 1,056.4



 37.0% Less: payments for additions to property, plant and equipment (capital expenditures) from continuing operations (GAAP) (155.4)



(154.3)





Plus: proceeds from sales of property, plant and equipment (capital disposals) from continuing operations (GAAP) 0.3



11.2





Free Cash Flow from Continuing Operations (Non-GAAP) $ 1,289.9



$ 913.3



 41.0%











Ratio of Free Cash Flow from Continuing Operations to Net Earnings from Continuing Operations ($ in millions):









Free Cash Flows from Continuing Operations from Above (GAAP) $ 1,289.9



$ 913.3





Net Earnings from Continuing Operations (GAAP) 927.3



676.4





Free Cash Flow from Continuing Operations to Net Earnings from Continuing Operations Conversion Ratio (Non-GAAP) 1.39



1.35







We define free cash flow as operating cash flows from continuing operations, less payments for additions to property, plant and equipment from continuing operations ("capital expenditures") plus the proceeds from sales of plant, property and equipment from continuing operations ("capital disposals").

See the accompanying Notes to Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Notes to Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Financial Measures

A Amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets in the following historical periods ($ in millions) (only the pretax amounts set forth below are reflected in the amortization line item above):





Three-Month Period Ended

Six-Month Period Ended

July 3, 2020

June 28, 2019

July 3, 2020

June 28, 2019 Pretax $ 314.1



$ 156.3



$ 470.5



$ 313.7

After-tax 252.9



126.1



378.8



252.9





B Pretax costs incurred for fair value adjustments to inventory and deferred revenue related to the Cytiva Acquisition in the three-month period ended July 3, 2020 ($228 million pretax as reported in this line item, $178 million after-tax) and fair value adjustments to inventory and deferred revenue, transaction costs deemed significant and integration preparation costs related to the Cytiva Acquisition for the six-month period ended July 3, 2020 ($288 million pretax as reported in this line item, $231 million after-tax). Pretax costs incurred for transaction costs deemed significant and integration preparation costs related to the Cytiva Acquisition for the three-month period ended June 28, 2019 ($18 million pretax as reported in this line item, $16 million after-tax) and the six-month period ended June 28, 2019 ($33 million pretax as reported in this line item, $29 million after-tax). The Company deems acquisition-related transaction costs incurred in a given period to be significant (generally relating to the Company's larger acquisitions) if it determines that such costs exceed the range of acquisition-related transaction costs typical for Danaher in a given period.



C Pretax impairment charges related to a facility in the Diagnostics segment and a trade name and other intangible assets in the Environmental & Applied Solutions segment recorded in the six-month period ended July 3, 2020 ($8 million pretax as reported in this line item, $6 million after-tax).



D Pretax fair value adjustments and losses on the Company's equity and limited partnership investments recorded in the three and six-month periods ended July 3, 2020 ($6 million pretax as reported in this line item, $4 million after-tax and $13 million pretax as reported in this line item, $10 million after-tax, respectively).



E Pretax gain on the sale of certain product lines in the Life Sciences segment in the three and six-month periods ended July 3, 2020 ($455 million pretax as reported in this line item, $305 million after-tax).



F This line item reflects the aggregate tax effect of all nontax adjustments reflected in the preceding line items of the table. In addition, the footnotes above indicate the after-tax amount of each individual adjustment item. Danaher estimates the tax effect of each adjustment item by applying Danaher's overall estimated effective tax rate to the pretax amount, unless the nature of the item and/or the tax jurisdiction in which the item has been recorded requires application of a specific tax rate or tax treatment, in which case the tax effect of such item is estimated by applying such specific tax rate or tax treatment. The MCPS dividends are not tax deductible and therefore the tax effect of the adjustments does not include any tax impact of the MCPS dividends.



G Discrete tax adjustments and other tax-related adjustments for the six-month period ended July 3, 2020, include the impact of net discrete tax gains of $27 million (or $0.04 per diluted common share) related primarily to excess tax benefits from stock-based compensation and the release of reserves for uncertain tax positions due to the expiration of statutes of limitation. Discrete tax adjustments and other tax-related adjustments for the three-month period ended June 28, 2019 includes the impact of net discrete tax gains of $18 million or $0.02 per diluted common share. Discrete tax adjustments and other tax-related adjustments for the six-month period ended June 28, 2019 includes the impact of net discrete tax charges of $227 million or $0.31 per diluted common share. The discrete tax matters for the six-month period ended June 28, 2019 relate primarily to changes in estimates associated with prior period uncertain tax positions and audit settlements, net of the release of valuation allowances associated with certain foreign tax credits and tax benefits resulting from a change in law and excess tax benefits from stock-based compensation realized in the three and six-month periods ended June 28, 2019 in excess of anticipated levels. The Company anticipates excess tax benefits from stock compensation of approximately $7 million per quarter and therefore excludes benefits in excess of this amount in the calculation of Adjusted Diluted Net Earnings Per Common Share from Continuing Operations.



H In March 2019, the Company issued $1.65 billion in aggregate liquidation preference of 4.75% MCPS. In May 2020. the Company issued $1.72 billion in aggregate liquidation preference of 5.0% MCPS. Dividends on the 4.75% and 5.0% MCPS are payable on a cumulative basis at an annual rate of 4.75% and 5.0%, respectively, on the liquidation preference of $1,000 per share. Unless earlier converted, each share of 4.75% MCPS will automatically convert on April 15, 2022 into between 6.6549 and 8.1522 shares of Danaher's common stock, subject to further anti-dilution adjustments. Unless earlier converted, each share of 5.0% MCPS will automatically convert on April 15, 2023 into between 5.0081 and 6.1349 shares of Danaher's common stock, subject to further anti-dilution adjustments. The number of shares of Danaher's common stock issuable on conversion of the MCPS will be determined based on the VWAP per share of the Company's common stock over the 20 consecutive trading day period beginning on, and including, the 21st scheduled trading day immediately before April 15, 2022 and April 15, 2023 for the 4.75% and 5.0% MCPS, respectively. For the purposes of calculating adjusted earnings per share, the Company has excluded the paid and anticipated MCPS cash dividends and assumed the "if-converted" method of share dilution (the incremental shares of common stock deemed outstanding applying the "if-converted" method of calculating share dilution are referred to as the "Converted Shares".)

Statement Regarding Non-GAAP Measures

Each of the non-GAAP measures set forth above should be considered in addition to, and not as a replacement for or superior to, the comparable GAAP measure, and may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other companies. Management believes that these measures provide useful information to investors by offering additional ways of viewing Danaher Corporation's ("Danaher" or the "Company") results that, when reconciled to the corresponding GAAP measure, help our investors to:

with respect to Adjusted Diluted Net Earnings Per Common Share from Continuing Operations, understand the long-term profitability trends of our business and compare our profitability to prior and future periods and to our peers;

with respect to core sales from continuing operations, identify underlying growth trends in our business and compare our sales performance with prior and future periods and to our peers; and

with respect to free cash flow (the "FCF Measure"), understand Danaher's ability to generate cash without external financings, strengthen its balance sheet, invest in its business and grow its business through acquisitions and other strategic opportunities (although a limitation of free cash flow is that it does not take into account the Company's debt service requirements and other non-discretionary expenditures, and as a result the entire free cash flow amount is not necessarily available for discretionary expenditures).

We also present core sales from continuing operations on a basis that includes sales attributable to Cytiva (formerly the Biopharma Business of General Electric Company's ("GE") Life Sciences business), which Danaher acquired from GE on March 31, 2020. Historically Danaher has calculated core sales solely on a basis that excludes sales from acquired businesses recorded prior to the first anniversary of the acquisition. However, given Cytiva's significant size and historical core sales growth rate, in each case compared to Danaher's existing businesses, management believes it is appropriate to also present core sales on a basis that includes Cytiva sales. Management believes this presentation provides useful information to investors by demonstrating the impact Cytiva has on the Company's current growth profile, rather than waiting to demonstrate such impact 12 months after the acquisition when Cytiva would normally have been included in Danaher's core sales calculation. Danaher calculates period-to-period core sales growth including Cytiva by adding to the baseline period sales Cytiva's historical sales from such period (when it was owned by GE), net of the sales of the divested product lines and also adding the Cytiva sales to the current period.

Management uses these non-GAAP measures to measure the Company's operating and financial performance, and uses core sales and non-GAAP measures similar to Adjusted Diluted Net Earnings Per Common Share from Continuing Operations and the FCF Measure in the Company's executive compensation program.

The items excluded from the non-GAAP measures set forth above have been excluded for the following reasons:

With respect to Adjusted Diluted Net Earnings Per Common Share from Continuing Operations:

We exclude the amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets because the amount and timing of such charges are significantly impacted by the timing, size, number and nature of the acquisitions we consummate. While we have a history of significant acquisition activity we do not acquire businesses on a predictable cycle, and the amount of an acquisition's purchase price allocated to intangible assets and related amortization term are unique to each acquisition and can vary significantly from acquisition to acquisition. Exclusion of this amortization expense facilitates more consistent comparisons of operating results over time between our newly acquired and long-held businesses, and with both acquisitive and non-acquisitive peer companies. We believe however that it is important for investors to understand that such intangible assets contribute to sales generation and that intangible asset amortization related to past acquisitions will recur in future periods until such intangible assets have been fully amortized.



We exclude costs incurred pursuant to discrete restructuring plans that are fundamentally different (in terms of the size, strategic nature and planning requirements, as well as the inconsistent frequency, of such plans) from the ongoing productivity improvements that result from application of the Danaher Business System. Because these restructuring plans are incremental to the core activities that arise in the ordinary course of our business and we believe are not indicative of Danaher's ongoing operating costs in a given period, we exclude these costs to facilitate a more consistent comparison of operating results over time.



With respect to the other items excluded from Adjusted Diluted Net Earnings Per Common Share from Continuing Operations, we exclude these items because they are of a nature and/or size that occur with inconsistent frequency, occur for reasons that may be unrelated to Danaher's commercial performance during the period and/or we believe that such items may obscure underlying business trends and make comparisons of long-term performance difficult.



Danaher's Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock ("MCPS") will mandatorily convert into Danaher common stock on the mandatory conversion date, which is expected to be April 15, 2022 and April 15, 2023 for the 4.75% and 5.0% MCPS, respectively, (unless converted or redeemed earlier in accordance with the terms of the applicable certificate of designations). On the prior pages, we present the earnings per share-related measures on a basis which assumes the MCPS had already been converted as of the beginning of the applicable period (and accordingly also exclude the dividends that were actually paid on the MCPS during such period, since such dividends would no longer be paid once the MCPS convert). We believe this presentation provides useful information to investors by helping them understand what the net impact will be on Danaher's earnings per share-related measures once the MCPS convert into Danaher common stock.

and for the 4.75% and 5.0% MCPS, respectively, (unless converted or redeemed earlier in accordance with the terms of the applicable certificate of designations). On the prior pages, we present the earnings per share-related measures on a basis which assumes the MCPS had already been converted as of the beginning of the applicable period (and accordingly also exclude the dividends that were actually paid on the MCPS during such period, since such dividends would no longer be paid once the MCPS convert). We believe this presentation provides useful information to investors by helping them understand what the net impact will be on Danaher's earnings per share-related measures once the MCPS convert into Danaher common stock. With respect to core sales from continuing operations and core sales from continuing operations including Cytiva, (1) we exclude the impact of currency translation because it is not under management's control, is subject to volatility and can obscure underlying business trends, and (2) we exclude the effect of acquisitions (other than Cytiva, in the case of core sales from continuing operations including Cytiva) and divested product lines because the timing, size, number and nature of such transactions can vary significantly from period-to-period and between us and our peers, which we believe may obscure underlying business trends and make comparisons of long-term performance difficult.

With respect to the FCF Measure, we exclude payments for additions to property, plant and equipment (net of the proceeds from capital disposals) to demonstrate the amount of operating cash flow for the period that remains after accounting for the Company's capital expenditure requirements.

With respect to forecasted core sales from continuing operations and forecasted core sales from continuing operations including Cytiva, we do not reconcile these measures to the comparable GAAP measure because of the inherent difficulty in predicting and estimating the future impact and timing of currency translation, acquisitions and divested product lines, which would be reflected in any forecasted GAAP revenue.

SOURCE Danaher Corporation

Related Links

www.danaher.com


July 23 : Since the debacle of his last film Zero two years back, Shah Rukh Khan was taking a break and was reading scripts for the right film to make a comeback. According to the industry grapevine, the superstar was planning to make his comeback with Rajkumar Hiranis next, but now the star may consider a film with Siddharth Anand before Hiranis.

It is reported that SRKs film on a social comedy about immigration with Rajkumar Hirani is taking time to go to floors as it was supposed to be shot in Canada, and the makers of the film are awaiting permission to shoot overseas. Consequently, the film will start shoot later this year.

It is now reported that Shah Rukh has finally decided to make his comeback with Siddharth Anands action-drama. It is also rumoured that the star will be paired with Deepika Padukone in this film. While an official announcement is awaited, the actor is expected to start shooting in October this year.

While Rajkumar Hiranis last film was Sanju in 2018, Siddharth Anands last was War in 2019. Deepika made her acting debut with Shah Rukh in Om Shanti Om. She again reunited with him in films like Chennai Express and Happy New Year.
People love to try different types of cuisine. It helps you understand the culture and it also gives your taste buds a bit of a kick. However, not all foods are available as some are banned by the government from being distributed.

Some of these foods are unhealthy, dangerous to eat or it endangers the animals that are involved in the production of the food. With that being said, here are some of the banned foods from around the world.

Haggis

Originated from Scotland, haggis was banned from being distributed to the United States in 1971, according to BBC. The USDA forbade sheep lung, which is one of the ingredients of the Scottish delicacy, in food products. Numerous British politicians have tried to get the food back on the American market but failed.

Haggis is Scotland's national dish. It contains the sheep's lungs, liver, and heart and it takes the form of a savory pudding. It may not sound that appetizing to other people, but some say it is delicious.

Also Read: 10 Best Fast Food Chain in the US

Fugu

Originated from Japan, fugu, or pufferfish is banned in the United States. This is because fugu is poisonous, and even the smallest mistake in its preparation can cost lives. The ovaries, intestines, and liver of fugu have poison called tetrodotoxin. According to Time, tetrodotoxin is 1,200 times deadlier than cyanide.

Ackee

Originated from Jamaica, ackee is boiled and cooked with salted cod, according to Buzzfeed. If it is ripened properly, ackee is safe to eat. However, if it is unripe, it has high hypoglycin A and B and it can cause vomiting that can result in coma or even death.

Because of this, the FDA banned all ackee until 2000. There are some manufacturers who can sell canned or frozen ackee in the United States, but fresh ones are still banned.

Kinder Surprise Chocolate Eggs

Originated in Germany, Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs have a tiny toy inside the plastic capsule packaging. Although chocolates are harmless and the toy adds more fun in eating it, a 1938 U.S law bands inedible objects placed inside food products. According to the law, children might now know that the objects are not to be eaten and they can be a choking hazard.

Shark fins

Originated in China, distribution, and consumption of shark fins are banned in the United States. Shark finning is considered as an act of animal cruelty and PETA has been trying to stop the consumption of the fins because it involves slicing them off of live sharks. Sharks are then tossed overboard after their fins are sliced off and they are forced to endure a gruesome demise.

Casu Marzu

Originated in Italy, casu marzu is usually called the rotten cheese because it has live maggots in it while being served. The cheese is made from unpasteurized sheep's milk and contains the larvae of a specific fly. The maggots facilitate the fermentation of the cheese.

Once the larvae hatch, the maggots eat through the cheese, making it softer. The cheese is still being eaten in Italy and some provinces in France. The United States, however, has banned the cheese for health reasons.

Related Article: Weirdest Food Menu Items from the Last Decade

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The Police Service says it is concerned about the growing reports of violence at some centres in the ongoing voter registration exercise.

In a statement on Wednesday, it indicated that some of these acts of violence have been occasioned by the activities of politicians who move to registration centres in groups claiming that they are familiarizing themselves with the process.

It said politicians must stop the unwarranted movement to/at Voters Registration Centres and also the busing of people or blockage of routes to such Centres.

The police in the statement said it is investigating every complaint of violence reported at various registration centres and will duly ensure that those found guilty are brought to book.

The Administration wishes to state that every complaint of violence reported to Police is being investigated with some already in Court. Due process will be followed in all the cases.

The Polices statement comes after several reports of confusion and violence at some registration centres across the country often instigated by political actors.

In an instance at Banda-Ahenkro in the Bono region, a young man was killed.

Mavis Hawa Koomson , the Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya East Constituency in the Central Region and also the Minister for Special Development Initiatives admitted on Monday to firing a gunshots in self-defence when confusion broke at a registration centre she visited.

Her action has received widespread criticisms from the public with some people calling for her resignation and prosecution, although some members of her party have said such calls are unnecessary.

The police have also been accused of failing to take action against her despite arresting four other civilians in connection with that incident.

But the police service insists on its impartiality to ensure that those who are found to have fallen foul of the law are brought to book.

Any person or group of persons, political or not, who has been arrested or will be arrested will face the consequence of the law, as far as police powers are concerned, the police said in their statement.

Read the full police statement below:

1. The Police Administration is gravely concerned about reports of violence in the ongoing Voters Registration Exercise. The reports create tension, alarm, fear and insecurity among the populace. However, Police assures all that the necessary police actions have been taken or arc being taken to bring all culprits to book.

2. The Administration wishes to state that every complaint of violence reported to Police is being investigated with some already in Court. Due process will be followed in all the cases.

3. Further, the Police Administration observes that some of the acts of violence that have characterized the registration exercise are attributable to movement of politicians to Registration Centres in groups, under the guise of familiarizing themselves with the process or responding to calls of illegal actions from party representatives assigned to the Centres. Other factors are the blockage of routes to Registration Centres and allegations of busing or transporting of applicants from one Electoral Area to the other. These acts have also resulted in physical and verbal attacks on Registration Officials.

4. All persons are therefore reminded that per the Public Elections (Registration of Voters) Regulations, 2016 (C.I. 91), persons and groups outside the list provided under regulation 10 are barred from entering any Registration Centre. Also, a person who disrupts proceedings at a Registration Centre or in any way interferes with the work of an official connected with registration of voters commits an offence.

5. The public are further reminded that threat or intimidation by a person to further that persons interest or an affiliate related to a political party or office holder among others also amount to offence under the Vigilantism and Related Offences Act, 209 (Act 999).

6. Political actors, individuals and groups are advised to stop unwarranted movement to /at Voters Registration Centres, the busing of people or blockage of routes to such Centres. Those who claim to receive calls or reports of illegality from representatives assigned to Registration Centres should promptly contact local Police Officers for action, instead of proceeding to the Centres. Their presence contributes to the alleged illegality.

7. The Police Administration finally cautions all to adhere to the rules and regulations laid down for the registration exercise, including following the ECs challenge procedure for ineligibility. Any person or group of persons, political or not, who has been arrested or will be arrested will face the consequence of the law, as far as police powers are concerned.

---citinewsroom
The UN Special Envoy to Syria has announced the date of the next meeting of the Constitutional Committee, and the opposition have promised a positive attitude and a willingness to seek a solution writes Baladi News.

UN Special Envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen, contacted the co-chair of the Syrian Constitutional Commission, Hadi al-Bahra, and informed him of the Committees meeting date and the agenda of the meeting.

Bahra published on his personal account on Facebook the details of a phone call he received from Pedersen. He wrote, I received a phone call this evening from the Special Envoy during which he informed us of his efforts during the previous stage and the current one towards supporting and facilitating the work of the Constitutional Committee. He also invited us to meet on Aug. 24, 2020 in Geneva, according to the agreed upon agenda.

Bahra added, Pedersen emphasized the importance of the next round of meetings being positive, and that all parties seek to compensate for lost time, when they were unable to meet due to COVID-19. We have affirmed our constant desire to advance the work of the Constitutional Committee and the willingness of our representatives to strive and be positive, in order to complete the mission for which it was initially formed in the shortest possible amount of time.

On Jun. 17, 2020, Pedersen expressed his readiness to hold and facilitate a third Constitutional Committee session, expressing his hope that the session would be held in Geneva by the end of next August.

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.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 21:49:37|Editor: huaxia

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RABAT, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The Moroccan government has signed three loan and grant agreements worth 701.3 million euros (810.6 million U.S. dollars) with Germany, to finance diverse economic sectors in the North African country.

The agreements were signed on Wednesday in capital Rabat by Minister of Economy and Finance Mohamed Benchaaboun, and German Ambassador to Rabat Gotz Schmidt-Bremme, reported official RIM radio on Thursday.

The statement did not specify the details of the three agreements, nor the areas to which these funds will be directed.

According to the statement, the agreements reflect the importance of the cooperation between the two countries which focuses on priority sectors of Morocco's development, mainly renewable energies, energy efficiency, sustainable economic development and management of water resources. Enditem
India Inc. and its lenders are in a legal crisis. Pre-empting a financial meltdown due to the Covid-19 lockdown, the Centre has suspended the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code for a year. In parallel, the Reserve Bank of India has offered moratorium on loan repayments. In the absence of debt resolution mechanisms, the burden has shifted back on banks. Business Today's Nevin John speaks to Shardul Shroff, Executive Chairman, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and Co, on the legal tangle and what this means for businesses and banks. Edited excerpts:

What are the legal implications of suspending IBC?

The implications of suspending the corporate insolvency resolution (CIR) process indicates lack of capacity of tribunals, inability to deal with lack of market demand for stressed assets in the CIR process, and ban on existing promoters remedying the default. It also indicates excessive litigation slowing down the resolution process. In the absence of a white knight or a third-party promoter stepping in to take over, the ban on existing promoters continuing with the company is deeply problematic. There is a moral dilemma. The expectation that lenders and promoters of companies, which are stressed assets / NPAs for banks, resolving matters without the imperative to find a solution in a time-bound solution, are difficult to handle. A mechanism which expects NPA companies/stressed assets will find their own solution with lenders is totally useless.

You represent various stakeholders. So what does it mean for lenders, defaulters and government?

Lenders would be stressed since they cannot rely upon defaults in the interim (from March 25, 2020) by borrower companies to seek resolution of bankruptcy of such firms that are in insolvent circumstances. It would open the need for lenders standing outside, winding up and proceeding to enforce security, not as a mere asset sale or a piecemeal sale, but as a sale on a going concern basis with management rights, and which promote creation of adequate cash flows to repay lenders. The suspension of default interest and penal interest together with non-payment of regular interest and the right to recovery will lead to bank balance sheets shrinking and create the need to capitalise banks.

Defaulters also do not have it easy. In the absence of market revival or creation of demand, the lack of production and sale is affecting manufacturing enterprises. Unless there is true restructuring of balance sheets of borrowers, it is difficult for borrowers to resolve their defaults.

For the government also, this is a problematic issue. In the interim period of the moratorium, the government is not able to build capacities or originate novel solutions, which are adaptive to the prevailing circumstances.

It is not able to envisage the massive insolvencies, which would follow the suspension period of between six months to one year (from March 25). Unless innovative thinking with ideators is encouraged, the suspension is not going to take matters further. It will only kick the can down the road.

Does suspension mean that the earlier era of debt restructuring mechanism is back?

Technically, the old methods of recovery will come into play as the remedy of resolution is suspended. In the absence of legal process of compelling stakeholders to adopt a method of resolution, lenders will be driven to harsher recovery mechanisms without results.

Some corporates on the brink of bankruptcy may use the opportunity to default and force lenders to restructure loans. What is the mechanism to prevent misuse of IBC suspension?

In case of wilful defaults by borrowers, there are sufficient mechanisms to take action against them, including punishment for fraudulent trading. Deliberate acts of mismanagement, siphoning funds, removing assets, promoters treating the company as personal fiefdom and personal property are bad behaviours of majority shareholders and managers of defaulter companies. None of these can be condoned. Bankers will have to trace assets and use modern methods to recover misappropriated properties of borrower companies.

While restructuring loans, lenders have to forgo the unsustainable loan portion and stretch the repayment deadline of defaulters. They also have to grant another set of loans for working capital. So, does the default burden further shifts back to lenders?

It is true that while restructuring loans, lenders do sacrifice. But, the previous regime's policy of requiring at least 30 per cent of the value of sacrifices as new funding from promoters for the benefit of lenders is a saner policy. There is no free lunch and reducing bank loan outstandings and giving new loans has their limitations. Promoters, old or new, have to bring fresh funds to be entitled to remain in charge of their companies. Restructuring has to be equitable and sharing the burden between promoters and lenders of defaulter companies is a fine art requiring great talent. The interest of unsecured creditors and small traders is also to be catered to.

What does it mean for the NPA position of banks?

That may not increase technically as no default is declared during the moratorium period allowed by the RBI. However, once the RBI notifications have lapsed or are withdrawn, there would be a sudden spike in NPA portfolios of banks and financial institutions.

Will enhancing the threshold limit to Rs 1 crore affect NPA reduction plans of banks?

The threshold to commence a CIR proceeding has been raised from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1 crore so that the IBC focusses on larger claims, which have caused banks to suffer. It is a question of prioritising larger value matters, enhancing recovery from such matters and prosecuting defaulting promoters and their investor companies who have caused the insolvency or are guarantors. This is a matter of fiscal prudence and optimal utilisation of resources in the NCLT/NCLAT to lower NPA defaults.

Economic projections state India could post negative GDP growth this fiscal...

Yes, based on the Covid-19 pandemic details available, migration of workers, inability of factories to produce more than 60 per cent of their capacity due to lack of demand, inability to have a healthy cash flow to retire debts are all factors responsible for rendering the GDP to a negative value this financial year. This may spill over to the next few fiscals as there will be a time lag. This is a structural problem, the pandemic has worsened the situation.

@nevinjl
Amazon is reportedly in talks with billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries for picking up 9.9 per cent stake in Reliance Retail. Amazon wants a preferred, strategic stake in Reliance Retail for JioMart, ET Now reported citing unidentified sources. The deal, if it goes through, will help Amazon further expand its footprints in the Indian markets where it already operates an online marketplace.

Reliance Industries (RIL), the country's most valued firm, has so far raised a total of Rs 152,055.45 crore in the last three months by selling stake in its digital arm, Jio Platforms. Recently, Google announced to invest Rs 33,737 crore in Jio Platforms.

The digital arm of the Reliance Industries has so far received fourteen investments from marquee global companies and investors that include Google, Facebook, Silver Lake Partners (two investments), Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR, Mubadala, ADIA, TPG, L Catterton, PIF, Intel Capital and Qualcomm Ventures.

Earlier in April, Amazon India launched a program 'Local shops on Amazon' to enable small shops and retailers to sell their products online amid nationwide lockdown in wake of the coronavirus outbreak. It had said that it will invest Rs 10 crore in launching the program which was in pilot phase for the last 6 months with 5,000-plus local shops and retailers from across 100 tier-1 and tier-2 cities.

Share price of Mukesh Ambani-led RIL on Thursday rose 3.73 per cent to hit an all-time high of Rs 2,078.9 against previous close of Rs 2,004 on the BSE. The rally in RIL stock took the market cap of the firm to Rs 13.16 lakh crore, a fresh record set by the conglomerate on BSE and NSE. The RIL share has gained 139.55 per cent from its 52-week low of Rs 867.82 hit on March 23 this year and 20.64 per cent in the last one month.

Also Read: RIL enters club of world's 50 most valued companies, ranks 48

Also Read: RIL becomes first Indian firm to cross market cap of Rs 13 lakh crore, share hits all-time high
Meghan Markle seems to be eyeing something extravagant for her birthday this year.

Despite the alarming number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S., Meghan reportedly wants to give herself a breath of fresh air for her birthday.

Weeks before her 39th birthday on August 4, the Duchess of Sussex is said to be feeling "cooped up" after months of quarantining and practicing social distancing.

For his part, Prince Harry reportedly also feels the same -- which led Meghan to toy with the idea of traveling out of town for her birthday.

A source recently told Daily Mail that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are in need of "a change of scenery." Thus, Meghan expressed her interest to celebrate her birthday in Montecito, where her friend Oprah Winfrey lives.

"Whatever she ends up doing for her birthday, Meghan said it will be low-key. She said she doesn't want to come across as being careless and irresponsible," the insider went on.

The birthday party would be risky and exhausting at the same time, as the duchess would require her attendees to undergo rapid COVID-19 tests. For what it's worth though, Meghan reportedly invited only a few of her closest friends.

Meghan Celebrated Her Birthday Differently As A Royal

In 2019, the former "Suits" actress enjoyed her 38th birthday by having a "family day" at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor in England. The celebration was simple, and she only enjoyed a carrot cake she got from Luminary Bakery.

However, The Sun reported that Queen Elizabeth II planned a special celebration at Balmoral to mark her birthday last year.

With that said, Meghan's birthday will not be as grand as before, as the royal family will not do the same thing again this 2020.

According to a report from Richard Eden and Emer Scully of Daily Mail, the Westminster Abbey will not ring its bells on August 4 to mark Meghan's birthday. Compared to Prince Andrew, the duke's special day was still honored in February despite stepping down from his royal duties.

Moreover, it will still ring for Princess Anne's birthday -- which is 11 days after Meghan's birthday.

"The bells are usually rung to mark the birthdays of senior members of the Royal Family, and through the line of succession to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their children," a spokesman for the Abbey said.

Per the Westminster Abbey bell ringing calendar, the bells will not ring to mark Prince Harry's birthday on September 15 either.

The Westminster snub came after Tom Quinn told The Daily Star that the Duke of Sussex is still struggling to find his place in the U.S.

The royal expert added that Prince Harry was "getting swept up in Meghan's positive energy," and it has been causing problems in their married life.

"It's always been a problem, early on in the relationship, Meghan is a dynamo, she's full of positive energy that would sweep Harry along but once the honeymoon is over, you still have to fill the days," he went on.

READ MORE: Meghan Markle's HORRIBLE Attitude Caused Royal Rift With Kate Middleton [RUMOR]
An emergency nurse has begged the public to keep up efforts against COVID-19 while sharing details of the exhaustion she and her colleagues experience each day.

Abbey, a clinical nurse at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, filmed a video while decked out in her personal protective equipment to shed light on the current conditions in the Victorian health system.

State Premier Daniel Andrews described the video as the single most important thing for Australians to watch on Thursday.

With at least 40 patients requiring ventilators in coronavirus stricken intensive care units and a further 201 people hospitalised with the virus, medical staff have been run off their feet during Victoria's second COVID-19 outbreak.

Abbey explained how the virus has essentially 'taken this job I love and morphed it into this complicated, sometimes exhausting, constantly evolving daily battle'.

The additional 403 cases reportedly announced on Thursday is third-worst for the state -behind only the totals announced on Wednesday and July 17

'My colleagues are working overtime, covered head-to-toe in PPE, which leaves us dehydrated, often sweating, covered in pressure sores from where it rubs into our face,' she said.

'This is all day, every day.'

Abbey said her entire department has transformed into a 'COVID specific workplace', while staff had adapted to care for critically unwell patients while also putting themselves on the front line each and every day.

'The entire way we practice emergency medicine and nursing has changed - entirely due to COVID-19.

The nurse said she is 'in awe' of her colleagues after watching them 'sacrifice every piece of themselves in the fight against this pandemic... with integrity, strength and grace'.

She urged Australians - particularly those living in locked down suburbs within Melbourne - to follow health directives.

Abbey, a clinical nurse specialist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, filmed a video while decked out in her personal protective equipment to shed light on the current conditions in the Victorian health system

Royal Melbourne Hospital this week received an order of an additional 22 ventilators to add to bolster its intensive care units, which already have 42 beds

People line up outside the Royal Melbourne Hosital for coronavirus testing

'Your temporary but greatly appreciated sacrifice means you, and my colleagues and I will eventually see the light at the end of this very long road,' Abbey said.

'We collectively may see the end of this pandemic. So please, for the last time, stay home, wear a mask, wash your hands, socially distance yourselves and follow the restrictions.'

From Thursday, Victorians in locked-down areas of Metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire have been required cover their faces when they leave the house or risk a $200 fine.

Royal Melbourne Hospital this week received an order of an additional 22 ventilators to bolster its intensive care units, which already have 42 beds.

Hospitals in the state are preparing for an influx of new cases given hospital admissions appear to be about 10 days behind the diagnoses of new cases.

RMH ICU nurse unit manager Michelle Spence said the new ventilators could be ready for use within 48 hours, and will protect nurses as well as save lives.

'We are ready and within 24 to 48 hours we could have those next 22 beds set up. It gives us the opportunity to start expanding our service and that has been the plan since March,' she said.

Medical workers and police are seen at a Government Commission tower in North Melbourne during lockdown

A nurse conducts a COVID-19 swab test as large crowds queue at Bondi Beach for drive-thru testing on Wednesday. Queensland has not ruled out extending its travel ban on Sydney's COVID-19 hotspots to the whole of the Harbour City

The latest health directive was implemented in an attempt to stem the spread of COVID-19 as cases in the state continue to soar

'The staff are definitely fatigued a little bit in life,' she said. 'But we are ready for this. We have been training and practising and getting staffing models since March.

Most of the people brought into hospital with severe cases of COVID-19 are the elderly, but an increased amount of young people are catching the disease.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data released on Thursday showed men were more likely to die from the virus than women, and the median age of death is 80.

The institute analysed data from late January to late May, before the large scale outbreak in Victoria.

Australians aged 20 to 29 had the highest number of infections, while people aged over 70 had the lowest.

Women aged between 20 to 29 and 60 to 69 were the most likely of females to be infected, while men aged 60 to 79 were the most likely of males.

People line up outside the Royal Melbourne Hosital for coronavirus testing at the height of the pandemic in March

Pictured: A map shows Sydney's coronavirus hotspot sites as the virus spreads throughout NSW

Police officers in protective masks enforce the state's mandatory mask order, which came into place overnight (pictured on Thursday morning)

And while the bulk of the infections were acquired overseas during the period studied, 98.8 per cent of cases diagnosed in the last week have been acquired locally.

Authorities in New South Wales have not yet mandated the use of face masks, but have encouraged people to use them where possible.

Dr Stephen Parnis earlier told A Current Affair the state could be heading in a similar direction to Victoria.

He said the virus could easily spiral out of control in Australia.

'It's always the case that these things could spread,' he said.

'The concern is that NSW could now be where Melbourne was four, five, six weeks ago.'

Mr Andrews pictured addressing reporters on Thursday as he announced 403 new cases - a figure trailing only Wednesday's record figure of 484 cases

Victoria has recorded 403 new coronavirus cases, the third-highest figure for the state since the pandemic began (pictured, two women walking along Birrarung Marr in Melbourne on Thursday)

Victoria has recorded another 403 COVID-19 cases and five more deaths from the virus on Thursday - the state's third-worst day for daily infections since the pandemic began.

A 'significant number' of new infections are in people in their 20s, with Premier Daniel Andrews issuing a grave warning about young people flouting social distancing rules.

Three of the deaths in the state over the past 24 hours were people who were in aged care - a woman in her 70s and men in their 80s and 90s - while four children are also in Victorian hospitals suffering from the virus.

Another of the state's newest COVID-19 victims was a man aged in his 50s, Mr Andrews told reporters on Thursday morning.

He said 334 of the new cases were under investigation and only 69 had been linked by authorities to known and contained outbreaks.
The government of Ghana spent GHS904 million in providing sanitation facilities and potable water, mostly to deprived communities, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has told Parliament on Thursday, 23 July 2020 when he delivered the 2020 mid-year budget review.

He further announced that in the next few weeks, launch a GHS100-billion economic recovery programme aimed at restoring Ghanas economy back on track following the devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr Speaker, we wish to take this opportunity to announce to the people of Ghana that the President and his team have done a lot of thinking since March and brainstormed over the crisis, with the view of using the challenges it presents, rather as an opportunity to transform Ghana and for all Ghanaians, Mr Ofori-Atta told Parliament.

Im happy to announce that in the coming weeks, the President will launch a GHS100-billion development programme, an ambitious and unprecedented three-and-a-half year programme called Ghana Coronavirus Alleviation Revitalisation of Enterprises Support (Ghana CARES), he said.

He noted that the Ghana CARES programme, also known as Obatanpa programme, is aimed at anchoring the comprehensive transformation of our society.

As part of the economic recovery measures, Mr Ofori-Atta also told Parliament that: Mr Speaker, Ill also request supplementary funding to support our priorities of saving lives and livelihoods; supporting businesses to ensure that the health of Ghanaians and their jobs are secure in these challenging times.

The Finance Minister, however, noted that things will get tough in the few years ahead and, thus, it was important to keep the Akufo-Addo government in power to continue its recovery programme.

He said the predicted long-lasting effects of this pandemic, amid systemic shifts and uncertainties, suggests 2020 and beyond, will be very challenging.

Ghana will, therefore, need the continuity of a courageous, compassionate and competent government with a well-crafted programme to protect the lives of Ghanaians, safeguard jobs and support businesses during this period, and, especially in the four years ahead, he pointed out, adding: This can only be possible with competent economic management of the economy with we being at the helm.

Mr Ofori-Atta also said: We have proven over and over again that we are better managers of the economy.

He explained: Together, we took Ghana out of HIPC and placed it among lower-middle-income countries within a decade. Together, we recovered and revitalised a critically-weakened economy and today, we can now attract global automobile companies in just three years of returning to office. Together, once again, well optimise the opportunities presented by this pandemic and build a sustainable future for Ghanaians.

In the now-famous words of President Akufo-Addo, we know how to bring the economy back to life. Therefore, this 2020 mid-year fiscal policy review is the first of our economic plans to reposition and Ghanaians to deal with the challenges posed by the pandemic and seized the opportunities it presents, he said.

He said the governments response to the pandemic prioritises the protection of our lives and livelihoods, sustaining our business operations and sharpening our focus on Ghanas future beyond aid.

---classfmonline
By Aisha Jabbarova

Air Defense units of Azerbaijan's Air Forces have downed another Armenian tactical unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) "X-55", carrying out reconnaissance flight over the country's positions, the Defence Ministrys press service reported on July 22.

The UAV was carrying out a reconnaissance flight over the positions of the units of the Azerbaijan Army in the direction of Aghdam village of the Tovuz district on the Armenia-Azerbaijan state border on July 22 night.

This is the 3rd Armenian UAV destroyed in the last two days, the ministry said.

Two other UAVs belonging to Armenia were downed on July 21. Another UAV belonging to Armenia was downed on July 16.

The cross-border fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan started on July 12 with Armenia's firing artillery at Azerbaijan's positions in the direction of Tovuz region. Azerbaijani army lost 12 servicemen as a result of Armenian attacks. One civilian was killed as a result of artillery fire by the Armenian armed forces.

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNews
Washington: Stone tools unearthed in a cave in central Mexico and other evidence from 42 far-flung archaeological sites indicate people arrived in North America - a milestone in human history - earlier than previously known, upwards of 30,000 years ago.

Scientists say they had found 1930 limestone tools, including small flakes and fine blades that may have been used for cutting meat and small points that may have been used as spear tips, indicating human presence at the Chiquihuite Cave in a mountainous region of Mexico's Zacatecas state.

Researchers take samples from different cultural layers in a cave in Zacatecas, central Mexico. Credit:AP

The tools spanned from 31,000 to 12,500 years old, said archaeologist Ciprian Ardelean of Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas in Mexico, lead author of one of two studies published in the journal Nature. The site was occupied periodically for millennia by nomadic hunter-gatherers.

Ardelean thinks the site may have been used as a refuge during severe winters.
She co-parents her three children with ex-husband Ben Affleck.

And Jennifer Garner was enjoying some family bonding time on Wednesday as she took the youngsters to the beach.

The actress, 48, was making the most of the summer with Violet, 14, Seraphina, 11, and Samuel, eight.

Bonding: Jennifer Garner enjoyed a beach day in Malibu with her three chidren on Wednesday, and took a walk with her eldest Violet, 14

The 13 Going On 30 star looked stunning as she enjoyed the beach day in Malibu in a white top and jeans.

She looked deep in conversation with her eldest Violet, who now appears taller than her mother, during the family trip.

Jennifer was later seen with her arm around her youngest daughter Seraphina before taking a picture of young Samuel who had buried himself in the sand.

Stylish mom: The 13 Going On 30 star, pictured with Seraphina, 11, looked stunning as she enjoyed the day out in a white top and jeans

Making memories: The actress took a picture of her youngest child Samuel who had buried himself in the sand

The movie star split with movie star husband Ben Affleck in 2015 after 11 years together.

Despite the breakup of their marriage, both parents have managed to maintain a positive relationship, and they regularly come together to support their children at school events and special occasions.

In March, she spoke to The Tonight Show of her experiences with her three children in lockdown, saying: 'I think I have the perfect aged kids for this [global pandemic crisis].

On good terms: The movie star split with movie star husband Ben Affleck in 2015 after 11 years together

'Because they are big enough to understand and to have the conversations like, "We're built for challenge. We can do this. We're a tough team. Let's learn about a vacuum cleaner." But then they're not so big that they're just like, "Well I don't care, I'm going to go..."

Jennifer is currently having a new mansion built for herself in Brentwood, California.

She snapped up the lot in July 2018 for $6.5 million and enlisted architect Ken Ungar to build the mansion there, X17online reported.

Late that year Ben and Jen sold their marital home in the Pacific Palisades to Adam Levine and Behati Prinsloo for $32 million, according to TMZ.

Ben is currently conducting a whirlwind romance with his Deep Water co-star Ana de Armas, who is a decade and a half his junior.
Japan share market closed on Thursday, 23 July 2020, for a public holiday.

Asian stock markets were mixed on Thursday, 23 July 2020, amid concern over renewed Sino-U. S. tensions and timing of potential coronavirus vaccines heightened investor jitters and overshadowed the boost from Wall Street overnight on stimulus hopes.

In the latest deterioration in Sino-U.

S. ties, the United States ordered China to close its consulate in Houston, saying it was to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information. China strongly condemned the move, and as per reports Beijing was considering shutting the U. S. consulate in Wuhan in retaliation.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Ancient Roman artefacts thought to date back around 2,000 years have been seized from a frozen seafood shop in Spain after the owner's son is thought to have found them while out fishing.

Spain's Guardia Civil recovered 13 Roman amphoras while carrying out a routine inspection of the shop's storage in Alicante.

Local media reports suggest the shop-owner's son had found the ancient items while out fishing, and decided to bring them back as decorations.

Officers discovered 13 Roman amphoras jugs, dating back to the 1st century, decorating a frozen seafood shop in Alicante

One of the amphoras was described as 'of significant importance, due to its exclusivity'

They also discovered an 18th century anchor inside the store.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Civil Guard wrote: 'Agents observed several ceramic amphoras in different points of the facilities, a metallic anchor and a limestone plate with an inscription that, at first glance, could be of considerable age.

'The Civil Guard is now investigating the owner of the establishment and his son as alleged perpetrators of a crime against historical heritage and another against heritage and socio-economic order.'

Despite local reports, Spanish authorities are considering whether there was foul play.

The jugs were taken to Alicante Santa Pola, on the Spanish coast, to establish how old they were

A force spokesman said: 'The amphoras could come from the looting of wrecks.'

Following extensive testing at the nearby Santa Pola Sea Museum, it was decided they were all Roman amphoras, in varying states of condition, though one was described as 'of significant importance, due to its exclusivity'.

The amphoras were used to transport oil across the Mediterranean sea to Rome.

Others were used to transport wine and fish sauces.
Scientists of Tomsk Polytechnic University jointly with teams from the University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague and Jan Evangelista Purkyne University in Usti nad Labem have developed a new 2D material to produce hydrogen, which is the basis of alternative energy. The material efficiently generates hydrogen molecules from fresh, salt, and polluted water by exposure to sunlight.

"Hydrogen is an alternative source of energy. Thus, the development of hydrogen technologies can become a solution to the global energy challenge. However, there are a number of issues to solve. In particular, scientists are still searching for efficient and green methods to produce hydrogen. One of the main methods is to decompose water by exposure to sunlight. There is a lot of water on our planet, but only a few methods suitable for salt or polluted water. In addition, few use the infrared spectrum, which is 43% of all sunlight," Olga Guselnikova, one of the authors and a researcher of the TPU Research School of Chemistry & Applied Biomedical Sciences, notes.

The developed material is a three-layer structure with a 1-micrometer thickness. The lower layer is a thin film of gold, the second one is made of 10-nanometer platinum, and the third is a film of metal-organic frameworks of chromium compounds and organic molecules.

"During the experiments, we watered material and sealed the container to take periodic gas samples to determine the amount of hydrogen. Infrared light caused the excitation of plasmon resonance on the sample surface. Hot electrons generated on the gold film were transferred to the platinum layer. These electrons initiated the reduction of protons at the interface with the organic layer. If electrons reach the catalytic centers of metal-organic frameworks, the latter were also used to reduce protons and obtain hydrogen," Olga explains.

Experiments have demonstrated that 100 square centimeters of the material can generate 0.5 liters of hydrogen in an hour. It is one of the highest rates recorded for 2D materials.

"I this case, the metal-organic frame also acted as a filter. It filtered impurities and passed already purified water without impurities to the metal layer. It is very important, because, although there is a lot of water on Earth, its main volume is either salt or polluted water. Thereby, we should be ready to work with this kind of water," she notes.

In the future, scientists improve material to make it efficient for both infrared and visible spectra.

"The material already demonstrates a certain absorption in the visible light spectrum, but its efficiency is slightly lower than in the infrared spectrum. After improvement, it will be possible to say that the material works with 93% of the spectral volume of sunlight," Olga adds.
Luke Evans is in Australia to film the Hulu limited series Nine Perfect Strangers, produced by Nicole Kidman.

And it appears the actor, 41, is enjoying the Australian sunshine as he shared a selfie with the sun and clear skies behind him on Wednesday.

The Welsh-born hunk wrote in the caption: 'Warming up' and tagged Australia as his location.

'Warming up': Luke Evans is in Australia ready to film Hulu limited series Nine Perfect Strangers, produced by Nicole Kidman. He appeared to be out of his hotel quarantine as he shared a selfie with the sun and clear skies behind him and tagged Australia as his location

It's unclear where in Australia he is. It's also unclear whether or not he's currently still in hotel quarantine and simply shared the photo from his allowed time outside, or if he has already completed the required 14 days in isolation.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted his representatives for comment.

Luke recently told Variety's podcast The Big Ticket that he would have to undergo hotel quarantine and regular testing upon his arrival Down Under.

The new normal: Luke recently told Variety 's podcast The Big Ticket that he would have to undergo hotel quarantine and regular testing upon his arrival Down Under

He explained: 'We all have to be quarantined in a hotel room. I can't see anyone for two weeks. I have to be tested every other day.

'Everything is going to be delivered to my room and I have to stay in a room in Australia and not leave it for two weeks just so that we can then be free to go and shoot something,' he added

Meanwhile, his Nine Perfect Strangers co-star and producer Nicole Kidman, and her husband Keith Urban managed to avoid going into hotel quarantine.

The A-list couple, who flew from Tennessee to Sydney via private jet, were granted permission by the New South Wales Government to self-isolate at home instead of staying at a quarantine hotel for two weeks.

No hotel! Luke's Nine Perfect Strangers co-star and producer Nicole Kidman, and her husband Keith Urban (pictured together) were granted permission by the New South Wales Government to self-isolate at home instead of staying at a quarantine hotel for two weeks

Unlike the vast majority of travellers who must stay in state-approved hotels, Nicole, 53, and Keith, 52, were allowed to head straight to their $6.5million mansion in the Southern Highlands set on a 45 hectare estate.

Despite being granted this exception, the pair must still spend 14 days at home in accordance with Australia's coronavirus rules.

The couple were joined on the flight by their two daughters, Sunday Rose, 12, and Faith Margaret, nine.

The couple's arrival Down Under comes after Nicole was given the green light to film her new TV series, Nine Perfect Strangers, in Australia.

The series will be produced in Byron Bay, and will begin on August 10 and will run for 19 weeks, according to The Daily Telegraph.

The production, based on the 2018 novel by Liane Moriarty, will reportedly inject $100million into the struggling local film industry by creating hundreds of jobs.

Isolating in luxury: Nicole, 53, and Keith, 52, who flew from Tennessee to Sydney via private jet, were allowed to head straight to their $6.5million mansion in the Southern Highlands set on a 45 hectare estate

Strict COVID-19 restrictions are in place, according to local news reports, and production is based out of Nicole and Keith Urban's Southern Highlands home.

Cast and crew members flying from overseas or interstate will be made to quarantine in a hotel for 14 days upon their arrival in NSW.

Nicole and her fellow producers will also be responsible for paying all medical and security costs.

Under Screen Australia's COVID-19 guidelines all arrivals in Australia must isolate in quarantine accommodation for 14-days in the city of arrival.

The cast is also required to undergo regular COVID-19 testing throughout the shoot under the guidelines.

Co-stars: Luke and Nicole will star in the limited series alongside comedian Melissa McCarthy (left), The Good Place star Manny Jacinto (right)

Nicole and Luke will star alongside comedian Melissa McCarthy, The Good Place star Manny Jacinto and will also star Australian actors Asher Keddie and Samara Weaving.

Nine Perfect Strangers is based on the novel by Australian author Liane Moriaty.

The story follows nine people, each with their own stresses and mental baggage, who visit an expensive health and wellness resort that promises them healing and transformation.

In the past, Nicole has worked with Liane to adapt her best-seller Big Little Lies into a HBO TV series.
YEREVAN, JULY 23, ARMENPRESS. US Congressman Jim Costa condemned the recent attack unleashed by Azerbaijan on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, urging to revise the US assistance to Azerbaijan.

Beginning July 12 the Azerbaijani soldiers approached the Armenian border, a place that has been one of contention, and opened fire on Armenian civilians in Tavush province. Since then the conflict, sadly, has escalated. The Azerbaijani forces have been indiscriminate in attacking Armenian schools, factories, factories producing personal protective equipment that are essential during this pandemic. Azerbaijan must be held accountable, Jim Costa said in his remarks.

The Congressman said now more than ever before its critical to work towards peace with Artsakh.

We must re-evaluate the US security assistance to Azerbaijan immediately. As well as increase aid to Armenia to counter this Azerbaijani aggression. In the appropriations bill yesterday, a $20 million augmentation was made to the country of Armenia. I urge my colleagues to support that and to urge immediate action condemning Azerbaijans disgraceful actions, the Congressman added.
Boxwood continues its strong momentum by navigating a successful process through COVID-19 en route to its 3rd successful transaction of 2020

RICHMOND, VA / ACCESSWIRE / July 23, 2020 / Boxwood Partners, LLC is pleased to announce the recapitalization of Consolidated Label Co. and Online Labels, Inc. ("Consolidated Label", "Online Labels" or, collectively, the "Company") with investor Tenex Capital Management ("Tenex"), a New-York-based private equity firm.

Boxwood Partners acted as the exclusive advisor to Consolidated Label and Online Labels with respect to this transaction. The transaction was led by Managing Partner J. Patrick Galleher, Director Brian Alas, Vice President Robbie Nickle and Associate Madison Day. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Headquartered in Sanford, Florida, the Company provides a full-suite of custom printed pressure sensitive, shrink sleeve, flexible packaging, and blank labels on sheets and rolls to small businesses, consumers, and premier middle market brands via enterprise relationships and a direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform. As a result of strong demand and an impressive track record for growth, the Company has recently expanded its production footprint by opening new manufacturing and distribution facilities in Scranton, PA, Kansas City, MO and Sparks, NV.

"Consolidated Label and Online Labels are widely recognized throughout the industry as a leader for innovative solutions, high-quality products and first-class customer service. The Carmany family has done a tremendous job building the Company into the premier customized label and flexible packaging provider servicing small and medium-sized business across the country," said Perrin Monroe, Managing Director at Tenex. "We are extremely excited to be partnering with such a strong management team and look forward to the continued growth and success of the Company."

With consistent year-over-year growth over its 30+ year history, the Company has established a strong domestic and international reach, which is supported by a robust digital and e-commerce infrastructure.

"We are confident that the Company has found a good home with Tenex and look forward to our partnership with Perrin, Ron and the rest of our team," commented President Joel Carmany. "Tenex is the perfect partner for Consolidated Label and Online Labels and shares our vision for growth," said CEO Dave Carmany. He continued, "We are extremely appreciative of the hard work that the Boxwood team put in throughout the process to ensure a successful outcome. Given their current circumstance, we would not have been able to achieve this result without the remarkable level of service, knowledge and advice that Patrick, Brian and the rest of our advisors were able to provide."

J. Patrick Galleher, Boxwood's Managing Partner added, "We are thrilled for Dave and Joel as they enter into this new partnership with Tenex. They've built a tremendous business and we are grateful to have represented them throughout the process."

Greg Bishop and Forbes Thompson of Williams Mullen served as legal counsel, while Scott Bormet and Steve Martin of BKD, LLP provided accounting advisory services to the Company.

About Boxwood Partners

Boxwood Partners, LLC (www.boxwoodpartners.com), is a boutique investment bank based in Richmond, Virginia. Boxwood Partners combines a unique blend of senior-level transaction advisory, business operating experience, and proven process execution skills to give its clients a distinct advantage in the market. The firm's extensive relationships within the global capital and buyer communities (including U.S. and international private equity groups, corporations, and lenders) and other important transaction-related service providers such as consultants, attorneys, and accountants, ensure that the firm's clients receive the attention, service, and results they deserve.

About Consolidated Label Headquartered in Sanford, FL with over 30 years of experience, Consolidated Label provides a full-suite of custom printed pressure sensitive, shrink sleeve and flexible packaging solutions to small and medium-sized business throughout the country. Consolidated Label serves a diverse group of end markets, including food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, household chemicals, health, beauty and more. About Online Labels Founded in 2000 and Headquartered in Sanford, FL, Online Labels primarily provides blank and custom printed sheeted and roll labels directly to businesses and consumers via a first-class e-commerce platform. Online Labels also operates out of three satellite facilities in Scranton, PA, Kansas City, MO and Sparks, NV. About Tenex Capital Management Tenex Capital Management is a private equity firm that invests in and partners with middle-market companies. Tenex uses an in-house team of hybrid investment and operations professionals, which enables the firm to effectively collaborate with management teams and capitalize on business and market opportunities. Tenex has successfully invested in businesses and management teams across a diverse range of industries, including industrials, healthcare, business services, automotive aftermarket, and building products. For additional information, please visit www.tenexcm.com.

Contact: J. Patrick Galleher

Phone: (804) 343-3441

Email: pgalleher@boxwoodpartners.com

SOURCE: Boxwood Partners, LLC

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598494/Boxwood-Partners-Advises-Consolidated-Label-Co-and-Online-Labels-Inc-on-Recapitalization-by-Tenex-Capital-Management
Four people, including a Filipino woman, were confirmed Covid-19 positive Thursday, increasing Vietnams total to 412 and active cases to 47.

One patient is a 37-year-old Filipino education expert who flew from South Korea to Phu Quoc Island on July 19. She tested positive the next day and is being treated at the Phu Quoc District Medical Center.

The other three are Vietnamese, two men and a woman, aged 25-49. They had flown in from Russia to the Van Don Airport in northern Quang Ninh Province on July 17, and tested positive twice on Wednesday and Thursday. They are being treated at the Nam Dinh General Hospital in the northern eponymous province.

All four patients had been quarantined on arrival.

Sixteen others on the July 17 flight from Russia had tested Covid-19 positive previously.

All active Covid-19 cases in Vietnam are in stable health, and four have tested negative once.

Over 10,000 are in quarantine across the country, most of them in centralized facilities and the others in hospitals, own homes or other designated accommodations.

Vietnam has recorded no community transmission of the novel coronavirus in over three months.
2018 - 42 MIN

Much like the Amish, the Mennonites live a life of isolation from the outside world. They resist the temptations of the modern society by casting themselves away from it. As a result, outsiders have rarely enjoyed an insider's perspective on their daily existence. Meet the Mennonites pulls back the curtain and offers a rare glimpse into their simple and fascinating way of life.The film observes life in a Mennonite commune in Belize. Many of the commune's inhabitants are reluctant to be shown on camera, but the filmmakers manage to gain the trust of a few subjects. Through their insights, we learn what draws them to a life of extreme discipline, religious devotion and self-containment.Their unique perspectives are embedded into them from a young age. Children attend school from the age of 6 to 13. During that time, they forgo the usual textbooks devoted to math and science. Their studies revolve exclusively around the Bible.The typical Mennonite families consist of up to a dozen children. Their days are spent working on farmland or constructing useful furnishings to sell to the outside world.Artifacts from the outside - such as cell phones - are viewed as tools from Satan. Even so, a few members of the commune have opened themselves to more inclusion from their surrounding communities. This is a sore point with the more devout members of the Mennonite tribe, and they work to ensure that these "offenders" are appropriately ostracized for their transgressions.Sensing a wavering from the old order, a feeling of discontent begins to rumble among the more traditional members of the community. Together, they join forces to form a new commune in Peru. This ambitious move stirs both optimism and fear within them. It will mark their first time on a plane, and a degree of interaction with the masses that they have been successful in avoiding up until now.Sharply observant and free of judgement, Meet the Mennonites is a fascinating look at a committed people who are driven by a shared thirst for a simpler way of life.Directed by: Melanie Van Der Ende
A grandmother died from lung cancer weighing just three stone after the Department for Work and Pensions stopped her 177.85-a-week benefits.

Christine McCluskey, 61, from Dundee, Scotland, had several long-term health conditions which left her housebound and she was denied her disability benefits for four months before she died.

At the time of her benefits assessment in May 2018, Christine, who had Crohn's disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, a stroke, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), was fed through a feeding tube, was worryingly malnourished and had a concerning cough, the i reports.

Christine McCluskey, 61, from Dundee, Scotland, weighed just three stone when she died in August 2018

The visit was conducted by a private contractor - Independent Assessment Service (IAS), previously known as Atos.

Despite her health issues, the DWP axed her Personal Independence Payments and removed her mobility car based upon the IAS assessment, but continued her Employment and Support Allowance.

When Christine was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer a month later, the DWP still would not reinstate her benefits.

Her daughter, Michelle McCluskey, 42, from Kirkcudbrightshire, told the : 'I cant get my head around how someone could assess my mother as anything but very sick. You only had to look at her to see that.

'They said she could walk 200 metres based on her having hobbled from the sofa to the door to let them in.'

When she was assessed Christine weighed 5st 5lbs and four months later, when she died, she was just 3st.

Michelle took her mother's case to tribunal five months after she died and a judge reversed the decision.

She was able to get the payments backdated but said it was 'too little too late'.

For eight years before her death Christine, who had Crohn's disease, was fed through a tube for 16 hours a day

Christine was deemed 80 per cent disabled at a medical tribunal in 1986 but sadly her health continued to decline after a stroke in 2005.

She had suffered with Crohn's disease since her early 20s and for the last eight years of her life had a feeding tube for 16 hours every day.

Her daughter, a mother-of-one, said the report produced by IAS was 'full of blatant lies'.

Michelle detailed several elements of the report which she deemed incorrect, including the assessment stating her mother could get herself into the bath despite this not being assessed on the visit because she was too frail.

In addition, the assessor noted she was able to tuck her feet underneath her legs, something she did to avoid bed sores from sitting for hours at a time.

She said the report noted her mother's surgery scars were 'not that bad' after only looking at one on her leg when ones on her stomach were seeping and bandaged.

Christine's daughter is now rallying support for the Scrap 6 Months campaign set up by charities Marie Curie and the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

It calls on the government to make it easier for terminally ill people to access the benefits they need without having to jump through hoops during an already stressful time.

Michelle believes the stress of battling the DWP for her benefits contributed to her mother's rapid decline.

Currently people can only get fast track support if a doctor or clinical nurse completes a DS1500 form informing the DWP the patient has six months left to live.

But health care professionals do not always feel confident in confirming someone only has six months to live, even though they have a terminal condition, and cannot always accurately predict when someone will die.
Late night drivers will see rolling traffic slowdowns on Interstate 84 near Wood Village and Northeast 238th Drive 10 p.m.-1 a.m. Thursday.

Portland General Electric will be working installing high-voltage transmission towers and conductor rope in the area. Crews will need to make about four slowdown sessions over the course of the evening. Slowdowns will happen on both sides of the freeway and include the on- and off-ramps at 238th Drive.

Drivers should expect delays during the work hours or choose an alternate route.

***

Heads up for the closure of Interstate 5 in Vancouver from SR 500 to the merge with Interstate 205 north of the city during the overnight hours from 11 p.m. Friday through 6 a.m. Saturday, July 24-25.

Contractor crews from the Washington State Department of Transportation will close the interstate overnight, in both directions, to install an overhead sign bridge across all lanes of the highway as part of the I-5 SB Interstate Bridge to NE 78th Vic.  Active Traffic Management project.

Map of work areas for Traffic Management Project.WSDOT

Traffic detours are as follows:

Northbound I-5 at SR 500 : Crews will divert all lanes of northbound I-5 onto eastbound SR 500. Travelers who need to continue on to northbound I-5 can do so by using SR 500 eastbound to connect with I-205 northbound then back on to northbound I-5 at the merge.

Southbound I-5 at I-205: Crews will divert all lanes of southbound I-5 onto southbound I-205. Travelers who need to continue to southbound I-5 will travel on westbound on SR 500 or SR 14 then back on to southbound I-5.

During the overnight full closure, all on- and off-ramps within the work zone area, between the I-5/I-205 split and SR 500, will be closed. Travelers will need to use an alternate route.

Check back throughout the morning for the latest commuting updates and follow us on Twitter: @trafficportland

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Patna, July 23 : At least 400 nursing staff at the Patna AIIMS have gone on strike, adding to the hospital administration's problems in managing the treatment of patients in this coronavirus crisis situation, officials said on Thursday.

The striking non-permanent nurses have a number of demands including job security, increase in salary, health insurance, leave benefits like that of permanent employees.

The striking nurses said they have made a big contribution in the fight against COVID-19 and in such a situation if any of them fall ill, they should get medical facilities like the permanent staff.

The Patna AIIMS has been converted into a full-fledged COVID-19 treatment facility.

Meanwhile, the AIIMS administration said that it has accepted some of the demands of the striking staff.

However, the nurses' strike is still on and the administration officials are constantly talking to them.

In Bihar, the number of coronavirus positive patients has crossed 30,000 out of which more than 200 infected people have died so far.
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Linkedin Sausan Atika (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 21:17 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668d3491 1 National #stunting,stunting,stunting-in-children,children,#children,Children-Day,COVID-19,#COVID19 Free

Collaborative efforts are key to reducing stunting in Indonesia, as the COVID-19 pandemic may worsen the already high prevalence of stunted children, experts have warned.

Endang Laksminingsih, a professor at the University of Indonesias School of Public Health, said the involvement of all stakeholders was necessary given the multiple factors that caused stunting.

Indonesia should prioritize programs based on evidence and [stunting] pathways above all, which consist of inadequate daily intake and infection, Endang said in her presentation for The Jakarta Posts Jakpost Up Close webinar, Putting children first: Policy development in reducing stunting in Indonesia.

The webinar was held in a partnership between the Tanoto Foundation and The Jakarta Post Foundation to mark National Childrens Day, which falls on July 23.

In order to reach the same goal, she called for a national directive with clear division of authority at all levels, as well as a similar framework and evaluation-monitoring system.

With the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) estimating that Indonesia could see 4 million births in the nine months since the COVID-19 pandemic began -- as social restrictions keep couples at home -- fears of potential stunting have increased.

Globally, the number of malnourished children under the age of 5 is predicted to increase by about 15 percent this year as a result of the pandemic, if no swift response efforts are made, according to UNICEF.

In Indonesia, the situation is likely to be exacerbated, with Statistics Indonesia (BPS) recently saying that about 1.63 million Indonesians fell into poverty between September 2019 and March this year. The number of poor households is expected to further rise because of the pandemic, which still shows no signs of abating.

World Bank senior social development specialist Samuel Thomas Clark said the pandemic could pose a threat to stunting-reduction efforts, as parents struggle with loss of income.

He said state-sponsored social aid could help families financially impacted by the pandemic, but attempts to reduce stunting would lose ground without a wider intervention from the government and the participation of all stakeholders. He cited examples of efforts made in Peru, a country that achieved a 15 percent stunting prevalence rate decline in eight years.

Peru has put stunting [eradication] as a national priority. [...] The country has multisectoral convergence nutrition programs and allocated funding only to programs deemed effective, Clark said. "The government also promotes behavioral change communication to people of all walks of life, including parents, local figures, regional leaders, even chefs, to understand the importance of this issue."

Better comprehension of stunting and preventive measures should be applicable at the grassroots level, particularly in poor households, the group most susceptible to major health problems, said Fasli Jalal, professor of public health and rector at YARSI University. Hence, the government needed to scale up Posyandu (community health posts), he suggested.

Posyandu workers were once touted as heroes, but the trend is now changing. Each region should have been able to find a suitable formula to revitalize the Posyandu, Fasli said.

Despite the country having reduced the stunting prevalence in children under 5 years old from 37.2 percent in 2013 to 27.7 percent last year, the rate remains high as more than a quarter of Indonesian children are stunted.

Furthermore, President Joko Jokowi Widodo has set a rather ambitious target to reduce the rate to 14 percent by 2024.

We need to work hard and all stakeholders must participate, Fasli said, urging municipalities and regencies to cooperate with universities in stunting-reduction programs.

Eddy Henry, the head of early childhood education and development at the Tanoto Foundation, an organization that is involved in programs aimed at improving life quality among communities, suggested private stakeholders also join the cause. The foundation recently started its #BulanPeduliStunting (stunting care month) campaign.

Eddy said that the private sector could contribute to stunting reduction by conducting stunting-related studies to support evidence-based policies, providing funding, helping with the implementation at the grass roots and facilitating collaboration with various sectors.

The government has already put stunting reduction at the top of the country's agenda but flaws remain during implementation, said Bambang Widianto from the National Team for Accelerated Poverty Reduction (TPN2K).

He said that 18 government institutions had allocated nearly Rp 30 trillion (US$2.05 billion) for stunting reduction last year.

In terms of budget and human resources, we have it. But the biggest challenge is how to reach convergence [among institutions and regional governments], Bambang said. The fact is, regional administrations cannot handle it alone. Therefore, we need help from many stakeholders.

Bambang said the pandemic had indeed hampered the governments efforts at reducing stunting but the government was determined to continue them.

Posyandu have gradually reopened with health protocols, but still obstacles remain for certain services, he added.
A transgender man is suing a Maryland hospital after his hysterectomy was cancelled because it 'conflicted with the hospital's Catholic beliefs'.

Jesse Hammons, who is suing the University of Maryland in a federal court, was scheduled to have the procedure in January but the hospital cancelled it around a week before because it 'conflicted with the hospital's Catholic beliefs'.

Hammons has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a distress felt by people whose sex assigned at birth does not match their gender identity. The procedure, was therefore deemed medically necessary, the lawsuit says.

Pictured: Jesse Hammons, who is suing the University of Maryland for breaches of the first and 14th Amendments and the Affordable Care Act's ban on sex discrimination in healthcare, after the hospital cancelled his hysterectomy in January

'Defendants canceled the surgery based on a discriminatory and unconstitutional application of Catholic religious doctrine,' the suit, seen by MSN, states.

'When they canceled Mr. Hammons' medically necessary surgery, Defendants thus treated Mr. Hammons  as a man who is transgender  differently from non-transgender patients who require medically necessary hysterectomies for other medical conditions.'

The lawsuit alleges that the St Joseph Medical Center, which has always been a Catholic institution, is in breach of the first and 14th Amendments, as well as the Affordable Care Acts ban on sex discrimination in health care.

Jesse Hammons, who is suing the University of Maryland in a federal court, was scheduled to have the procedure in January but the hospital cancelled the procedure around a week prior because it 'conflicted with the hospital's Catholic beliefs'

The University of Maryland Medical System acquired St Joseph's in 2012 and the hospital said it would hold on the Catholic identity of the Center, which means that procedures like abortion, euthanasia and sex-assignment surgeries are barred.

Michael Schwartzberg, director of communications for the University of Maryland Medical System, told NBC News in an email: 'UMMS is a privately-held corporation (since 1984), and SJMC is a privately-held, not-for-profit hospital, and SJMC is mandated to abide by the ERDs'.

'All physicians and advanced practitioners seeking privileges at UM SJMC agree to abide by the ERDs prior to the granting of privileges,' Schwartzberg added.
What can Indonesian fishers and happiness data teach us about the COVID-19 economy?

July 23,2020 | Source: ASEAN Today

A new study suggests fishers in Indonesia report relatively high levels of happiness and well-being, despite facing poverty, risks and instability. As COVID-19 hits workers around the world, the findings show how governments might look to data on happiness to help build new economic and labor policies.



As COVID-19 hammers the Indonesian economy, new research suggests that fishers in the country are happier than other workers in similar socioeconomic situations.



Though the findings are based on data from before the pandemic, they point to how well-being and happiness are vital indicators that can help governments shape policies to protect workers and keep their economies afloat.



A recent study by researchers at Padjadjaran University in Bandung shows that despite very low incomes, fishers are largely more optimistic in life than other workers and that working as a fisher is tied to higher levels of happiness.



Workers in Indonesias fishing industry are among the lowest-paid in the country: 11.34% of them are classified as poor, according to the 2017 National Socioeconomic Survey (SUSENAS), compared to 9.86% in construction or 5.56% in the service portion of the restaurant industry.



The industry is hazardous and unpredictableindependent fishers have reported that their earnings are down to as little as US$65 per month this year, compared to $355 before the pandemic.



Buti in a study published in Marine Policy, Professors Zuzy Anna and Arief Anshory Yusuf of Padjadjaran University compared the life satisfaction of Indonesian fishers to other workers with similar incomes, educational backgrounds and other variables. They found that fishers who are self-employed and receive help from others in their community enjoy a happiness bonus compared to workers in other professions.



Fishers that work for other people or who only fish alone dont report the same levels of happiness, but they were happier than expected given their very low incomes and highly unstable livelihoods.



The researchers findings present the Indonesian government with an opportunity to support fishers in their livelihoods, and to develop policies that could increase levels of happiness in other professions. The study points to how focusing on workers well-being and happiness offers a new framework for labor policy: rather than pitting workers rights against economic productivity, pro-worker policies could be based on data about workers happiness and well-being.



Fishers face a complex list of challenges: from uncertain catches, to competitors operating illegally, to depleted fish stocks from over-fishing. The Indonesian government is already struggling to help fishers deal with these challenges, and the first step is to provide them with social support and financing options, and take steps to increase their income.



Zuzy Anna and Arief Anshory Yusufs findings showed that fishers well-being and life outlook was highly dependent on their economic situation. Lower incomes correlated with lower well-being, as in many professions, and fishers in more self-directed work situations reported higher rates of life satisfaction.



As Iwan, a fisherman in the Natuna islands, recently told Channel News Asia, If the government wants to give aid, it has to be in line with our needs. And please increase the value of our products so the livelihoods of all fishermen will improve.



To succeed, the governments fishing industry policiesas with all labor policiesneed to be based on the voices of workers themselves. The new research from the team at Padjadjaran University highlights the kind of data that will show whats workingand what isntas far as improving workers quality of life.



For example, as self-employed fishers reported higher levels of happiness, the government could adopt policies and programs to support entrepreneurship and to further study its impact on happiness.



A second study from the team at Padjadjaran, published in April in the Malaysian Journal of Applied Sciences, also found fishers in the Indramayu regency of West Java reporting high levels of well-being and life satisfaction.



But the study also showed that the active participation of womenusually fishermens wivesin livelihoods was highly correlated with subjective well-being. Further research might look into how gender equity is a factor in well-being and be used to shape policy.



Government and labor advocates alike can integrate these subjective factors, like happiness and well-being, into existing human rights and economic justice approaches to labor policy.



Government policy can support fishers, for the sake of the economy and the countrys food supply, by strengthening the factors that make fishing a desirable livelihood while addressing the poverty-level incomes and dangerous work environment.



The working conditions and livelihoods of fishers are vital in Indonesia, as the country has one of the largest fishing industries in the world, worth US$1.34 billion annually, by one estimate.



But fishing is a declining profession in the country. Data from the Indonesian Statistics Bureau shows that the number of families dependent on fishing for income has dropped by more than half since 2000.



Despite this, the study in Marine Policy found that being a fisherman is associated with a positive attitude toward future change in economic status.



As the pandemic has uprooted the livelihoods of workers around the world, labor and economic policymakers need more data like thison peoples economic prospect and worker happinessin order to find effective solutions.

 ASEAN Today

Theme(s): Communities and Organisations.
BOSTON, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (NYSE: SAM) reported second quarter 2020 net revenue of $452.1 million, an increase of $133.7 million or 42.0%, from the same period last year. Net income for the second quarter was $60.1 million, an increase of $32.3 million or 116% from the same period last year. Earnings per diluted share were $4.88, an increase of $2.52 per diluted share from the second quarter of 2019. This increase was primarily due to increased revenue driven by shipment growth of 39.8%, partially offset by lower gross margins and increases in operating expenses.

Net revenue for the 26-week period ended June 27, 2020 was $782.7 million, an increase of $212.6 million, or 37.3%, from the comparable 26-week period in 2019. Earnings per diluted share for the 26-week period ended June 27, 2020 were $6.37, an increase of $1.99 per diluted share or 45.4% from the comparable 26-week period in 2019.

The Company began seeing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its business in early March. The direct financial impact of the pandemic has primarily shown in significantly reduced keg demand from the on-premise channel and higher labor and safety related costs at the Company's breweries. In the first half of 2020, the Company recorded COVID-19 related pre-tax reductions in net revenue and increases in other costs that total $14.1 million, of which $10.0 million was recorded in the first quarter and $4.1 million was recorded in the second quarter. The total amount consists of a $5.8 million reduction in net revenue for estimated keg returns from distributors and retailers and $8.3 million of other COVID-19 related direct costs, of which $5.6 million are recorded in cost of goods sold and $2.7 million are recorded in operating expenses. In addition to these direct financial impacts, COVID-19 related safety measures resulted in a reduction of brewery productivity. This has shifted more volume to third-party breweries, which increased production costs and negatively impacted gross margins. In April 2020, due to uncertainties around COVID-19, the Company withdrew its full-year fiscal 2020 financial guidance. Despite the continued uncertainties related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Company feels its business outlook has stabilized and that it is now appropriate to give full-year fiscal 2020 financial guidance and has provided such guidance later in this release. The Company will continue to assess and manage this situation and will provide a further update in its third quarter earnings release, to the extent that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are then known more clearly.

In the second quarter and the 26-week period ended June 27, 2020, the Company recorded a tax benefit of $0.19 per diluted share and $0.35 per diluted share, respectively, resulting from the Accounting Standard "Employee Share-Based Payment Accounting" ("ASU 2016-09").

Highlights of this release include:

Reported depletions increased 46% and 43% from the 13- and 26-week comparable periods in the prior year.

Excluding the addition of the Dogfish Head brands beginning July 3, 2019 , depletions increased 42% and 38%, from the 13- and 26-week comparable periods in the prior year, respectively.

, depletions increased 42% and 38%, from the 13- and 26-week comparable periods in the prior year, respectively. Reported shipments increased 39.8% and 36.5% from the 13- and 26-week comparable periods in the prior year.

Excluding the addition of the Dogfish Head brands beginning July 3, 2019 , shipments increased 35.3% and 31.9%, from the 13- and 26-week comparable periods in the prior year, respectively.

, shipments increased 35.3% and 31.9%, from the 13- and 26-week comparable periods in the prior year, respectively. Full-year 2020 shipments and depletions growth is now estimated to be between 27% and 35%.

Gross margin was 46.4% for the second quarter, a decrease from 49.9% in the comparable 13-week period in 2019, and 45.7% for the 26-week period ending June 27, 2020 , a decrease from 49.7% in the comparable 26-week period in 2019. The Company's full-year gross margin target is now between 46% and 48%.

, a decrease from 49.7% in the comparable 26-week period in 2019. The Company's full-year gross margin target is now between 46% and 48%. Advertising, promotional and selling expense increased by $6.3 million , or 6.7%, in the second quarter over the comparable period in 2019 and increased $32.4 million , or 19.6%, from the comparable 26-week period in 2019.

, or 6.7%, in the second quarter over the comparable period in 2019 and increased , or 19.6%, from the comparable 26-week period in 2019. Based on current spending and investment plans, full-year 2020 Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share 1 , which excludes the impact of ASU 2016-09, is now estimated at between $11.70 and $12.70 .

, which excludes the impact of ASU 2016-09, is now estimated at between and . Full-year 2020 capital spending is now estimated to be between $180 million and $200 million .

1 See "Outlook" below for additional information regarding non-GAAP forward-looking measures used in this press release.

Jim Koch, Chairman and Founder of the Company, commented, "As the world continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, our primary focus continues to be on operating our breweries and our business safely and supporting our partners in the beer industry. Supporting the communities in which we work and live is one of our core values and we are very happy that our Samuel Adams Restaurant Strong Fund has raised $5.4 million thus far to support bar and restaurant workers who are experiencing hardships in the wake of COVID-19. Working with the Greg Hill Foundation, this Fund is committed to distributing 100% of its proceeds through grants to bar and restaurant workers across the country. We achieved depletions growth of 46% in the second quarter, of which 42% is from Boston Beer legacy brands and 4% is from the addition of Dogfish Head brands. I am tremendously thankful for the efforts of our coworkers in achieving our ninth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, while maintaining a focus on quality and innovation. We are also thankful to our outstanding distributors and retailers for their focus during COVID-19. Our business in the second quarter was strong, but uncertainties due to COVID-19 remain. These uncertainties include our ability to continue to operate our breweries at a level of safety that meets our standards, the continued ability to distribute to off-premise retail locations, and the timing of the re-opening of on-premise retail locations. We will continue to work hard throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and prioritize safety above all else. I am very proud of the passion, creativity and commitment to community that our company has demonstrated during this pandemic. We remain positive about the future growth of our brands and are happy that our diversified brand portfolio continues to fuel double-digit growth."

Dave Burwick, the Company's President and CEO stated, "Our depletions growth in the second quarter was a result of increases in our Truly Hard Seltzer and Twisted Tea brands and the addition of the Dogfish Head brands that were only partially offset by decreases in our Samuel Adams and Angry Orchard brands. The growth of the Truly brand, led by Truly Hard Lemonade, has accelerated and continues to grow beyond our expectations. Since early January, Truly has grown its velocity and its market share sequentially while other national, regional and local hard seltzer brands have entered the category. Truly is the only hard seltzer, not introduced earlier this year, to grow its share during 2020. We will continue to invest heavily in the Truly brand and work to improve our position in the hard seltzer category as competition continues to increase. We are excited about our new Truly advertising campaign that showcases colors, variety and joy to hard seltzer drinkers through four spots, but we have been deliberately slow to roll out this campaign given the consumer environment surrounding COVID-19 and it is too early to know if it will resonate with drinkers. Twisted Tea continues to generate double-digit volume growth rates that are well above full-year 2019 trends. We expect to increase our brand investments in the second half compared to the first half and see significant distribution and volume growth opportunities for our Truly, Twisted Tea and Dogfish Head brands. Samuel Adams and Angry Orchard's volumes continue to decline, as they are more deeply impacted by the effect of COVID-19 on on-premise retailers. We are encouraged that Samuel Adams Boston Lager and Angry Orchard Crisp Apple both have experienced double-digit growth in the measured off-premise channels during the quarter. We continue to work on returning these brands to growth, but do not expect them to grow during 2020 because of on-premise closures. I am pleased that our overall business has shown great momentum and depletion improvements during the first half of the year. Given our trends for the first half and our current view of the remainder of the year, we've adjusted our expectations for higher 2020 full-year earnings, depletions and shipment growth, which is primarily driven by the strong performance of our Truly and Twisted Tea brands."

Mr. Burwick continued, "We have adjusted our business to the COVID-19 environment and continue to work to control what we can control, with our primary focus being the safety of our coworkers, distributors, retailers and drinkers. We have deployed many safety protocols across our business and at our breweries, including entrance screening and temperature checks, face mask requirements, reorganized work spacing to increase physical distancing between and among shifts, and adding more cleaning and sanitation time to each shift. We are slowly re-opening our hospitality locations, which were closed since March, with a focus on outdoor service and takeout. Our accelerated depletions growth has been challenging operationally. We have been experiencing out of stocks and we expect wholesaler inventories to remain very tight for the rest of the summer. We have been operating at capacity for many months and have further increased our usage of third-party breweries in response to the growth. In particular, the additional Truly volumes have come at a higher incremental cost, due to an increased usage of third-party breweries, which is negatively impacting our gross margin expectation for the year. We are investing significantly in our supply chain, but do not expect these pressures to be relieved in the second half of the year. We will continue to invest to increase capacity, as appropriate to meet the needs of our business and take full advantage of the fast-growing hard seltzer category. We're in a very competitive business, but we are optimistic for continued growth of our current brand portfolio. We remain prepared to forsake short-term earnings as we invest to sustain long-term profitable growth, in line with the opportunities that we see."

2nd Quarter 2020 Summary of Results

Depletions increased 46% from the comparable 13-week period in the prior year. Shipment volume was approximately 1.9 million barrels, a 39.8% increase from the comparable 13-week period in the prior year.

The Company believes distributor inventory as of June 27, 2020 averaged approximately 2.5 weeks on hand and was lower than prior year levels due to supply chain capacity constraints. The Company expects wholesaler inventory levels in terms of weeks on hand to remain lower than prior year levels for the remainder of the year.

Gross margin of 46.4% decreased from the 49.9% margin realized in the comparable 13-week period in 2019, primarily as a result of higher processing costs due to increased production at third party breweries, partially offset by price increases and cost saving initiatives at Company-owned breweries.

Advertising, promotional and selling expenses increased $6.3 million from the comparable 13-week period in 2019, primarily due to increases in salaries and benefits costs, increased brand investments in media and production, the addition of Dogfish Head brand-related expenses beginning July 3, 2019, and increased freight to distributors due to higher volumes partially offset by decreased investments in local marketing and national promotions due to timing of these costs compared to the prior year.

General and administrative expenses increased by $2.9 million from the comparable 13-week period in 2019, primarily due to increases in salaries and benefits costs and the addition of Dogfish Head general and administrative expenses beginning July 3, 2019, partially offset by one-time Dogfish Head transaction-related fees of $1.5 million incurred in the second quarter of 2019.

The Company's effective tax rate for the second quarter decreased to 23.4% from 26.9% in the comparable period in 2019, primarily due to a higher tax benefit from stock option activity recorded in accordance with ASU 2016-09.

Year-to-Date 2020 Summary of Results

Depletions increased 43% from the comparable 26-week period in 2019, reflecting increases in the Company's Truly Hard Seltzer, Twisted Tea brands and the addition of the Dogfish Head brands that were only partially offset by decreases in the Samuel Adams and Angry Orchard brands.

Shipment volume was approximately 3.3 million barrels, a 36.5% increase from the comparable 26-week period in 2019.

Gross margin at 45.7% decreased from the 49.7% margin realized in the comparable 26-week period in 2019, primarily as a result of higher processing costs due to increased production at third party breweries and higher processing costs and finished goods keg inventory write-offs at Company-owned breweries of which $5.6 million was direct costs related to COVID-19, partially offset by price increases and cost saving initiatives at Company-owned breweries.

Advertising, promotional and selling expenses increased $32.4 million from the comparable 26-week period in 2019, primarily due to increased investments in media and production, higher salaries and benefits costs, the addition of Dogfish Head brand-related expenses beginning July 3, 2019, and increased freight to distributors due to higher volumes.

General and administrative expenses increased by $6.6 million from the comparable 26-week period in 2019, primarily due to increases in salaries and benefits costs and the addition of Dogfish Head general and administrative expenses beginning July 3, 2019, partially offset by the Dogfish Head transaction-related fees of $1.5 million incurred in the second quarter of 2019.

Impairment of long-lived assets increased $2.1 million from the first half of 2019, primarily due to write-downs of brewery equipment at the Company's Cincinnati brewery.

The Company's effective tax rate for the 26-week period ended June 27, 2020 decreased to 21.4% from 24.1% in the comparable 26-week period in 2019. This decrease was primarily due to a higher tax benefit from stock option activity recorded in accordance with ASU 2016-09.

The Company expects that its June 27, 2020 cash balance of $86.7 million, together with its future operating cash flows and the $150.0 million unused balance on its line of credit, will be sufficient to fund future cash requirements.

During the 26-week period ended June 27, 2020 and the period from June 28, 2020 through July 18, 2020, the Company did not repurchase any shares of its Class A Common Stock. As of July 18, 2020, the Company had approximately $90.3 million remaining on the $931.0 million share buyback expenditure limit set by the Board of Directors.

Depletion Estimates

Year-to-date depletions through the 28-week period ended July 11, 2020 are estimated by the Company to have increased approximately 42% from the comparable period in 2019. Excluding the Dogfish Head impact, depletions are estimated to have increased approximately 37%.

Outlook

The Company currently projects full year 2020 earnings per diluted share to be between $11.70 and $12.70. This projection excludes the impact of ASU 2016-09. The Company's actual 2020 earnings per share could vary significantly from the current projection. Underlying the Company's current 2020 projection are the following full-year estimates and targets:

Depletions and shipments percentage increase of between 27% and 35% of which between 1% and 2% of this growth is due to the addition of the Dogfish Head brands.

National price increases of between 1% and 2%.

Gross margin of between 46% and 48%.

Increased investment in advertising, promotional and selling expenses of between $70 million and $80 million . This does not include any changes in freight costs for the shipment of products to the Company's distributors.

and . This does not include any changes in freight costs for the shipment of products to the Company's distributors. Non-GAAP effective tax rate of approximately 26%, excluding the impact of ASU 2016-09.

Estimated capital spending of between $180 million and $200 million , which could be higher, if deemed necessary to meet future growth.

Non-GAAP effective tax rate and Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share are not defined terms under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"). These Non-GAAP measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for diluted earnings per share and effective tax rate data prepared in accordance with GAAP, and may not be comparable to calculations of similarly titled measures by other companies. The Company's projection for its Non-GAAP effective tax rate and Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share exclude the impact of ASU 2016-09, which could be significant and will depend largely upon unpredictable future events outside the Company's control, including the timing and value realized upon exercise of stock options versus the fair value of those options when granted. Therefore, because of the uncertainty and variability of the impact of ASU 2016-09, the Company is unable to provide, without unreasonable effort, a reconciliation of these Non-GAAP measures on a forward-looking basis.

About the Company

The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (NYSE: SAM) began in 1984 brewing Samuel Adams beer and the Samuel Adams brand is currently recognized as one of the largest and most respected craft beer brands. Our portfolio of brands also includes Truly Hard Seltzer, Twisted Tea, Angry Orchard Hard Cider, as well as other craft beer brands such as Angel City Brewery, Coney Island Brewing, and Concrete Beach Brewery. On July 3, 2019, the Company completed its previously reported Dogfish Head Brewery transaction. Dogfish Head has a proud history as a craft beer pioneer with a brand that is beloved by American consumers and highly respected by the industry. For more information, please visit our investor relations website at www.bostonbeer.com, which includes links to all of our respective brand websites.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements made in this press release that state the Company's or management's intentions, hopes, beliefs, expectations or predictions of the future are forward-looking statements. It is important to note that the Company's actual results could differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained from time to time in the Company's SEC filings, including, but not limited to, the Company's report on Form 10-K for the years ended December 28, 2019 and December 29, 2018. Copies of these documents may be found on the Company's website, www.bostonbeer.com, or obtained by contacting the Company or the SEC.

Thursday, July 23, 2020

THE BOSTON BEER COMPANY, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME (in thousands, except per share data) (unaudited)

























Thirteen weeks ended

Twenty-six weeks ended





June 27,

June 29,

June 27,

June 29,





2020

2019

2020

2019



















Barrels sold



1,921

1,374

3,345

2,451



















Revenue



$ 481,089

$ 338,643

$ 833,314

$ 606,202 Less excise taxes



28,951

20,236

50,611

36,144 Net revenue



452,138

318,407

782,703

570,058 Cost of goods sold



242,514

159,405

425,106

286,516 Gross profit



209,624

159,002

357,597

283,542 Operating expenses:

















Advertising, promotional and selling expenses



100,336

94,079

198,227

165,802 General and administrative expenses



29,685

26,748

56,714

50,122 Impairment of assets



834

243

2,355

243 Total operating expenses



130,855

121,070

257,296

216,167 Operating income



78,769

37,932

100,301

67,375 Other (expense) income, net:

















Interest (expense) income, net



(212)

(27)

(149)

610 Other (expense) income, net



(52)

197

(412)

(55) Total other (expense) income, net



(264)

170

(561)

555 Income before income tax provision



78,505

38,102

99,740

67,930 Income tax provision



18,364

10,246

21,365

16,380 Net income



$ 60,141

$ 27,856

$ 78,375

$ 51,550



















Net income per common share - basic



$ 4.93

$ 2.39

$ 6.43

$ 4.42 Net income per common share - diluted



$ 4.88

$ 2.36

$ 6.37

$ 4.38



















Weighted-average number of common shares - Class A basic



9,720

8,648

9,572

8,627 Weighted-average number of common shares - Class B basic



2,400

2,918

2,523

2,918 Weighted-average number of common shares - diluted



12,258

11,684

12,221

11,660



















Net income



$ 60,141

$ 27,856

$ 78,375

$ 51,550 Other comprehensive income:

















Foreign currency translation adjustment



(13)

5

(71)

42 Comprehensive income



$ 60,128

$ 27,861

$ 78,304

$ 51,592

THE BOSTON BEER COMPANY, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (in thousands, except share data) (unaudited)

















June 27,

December 28,





2020

2019











Assets





Current Assets:









Cash and cash equivalents



$ 86,716

$ 36,670 Accounts receivable



99,320

54,404 Inventories



108,523

106,038 Prepaid expenses and other current assets



22,693

12,077 Income tax receivable



3,435

9,459 Total current assets



320,687

218,648











Property, plant and equipment, net



565,265

541,068 Operating right-of-use assets



61,420

53,758 Goodwill



112,529

112,529 Intangible assets



104,096

104,272 Other assets



44,255

23,782 Total assets



$ 1,208,252

$ 1,054,057











Liabilities and Stockholders' Equity





Current Liabilities:









Accounts payable



$ 93,576

$ 76,374 Accrued expenses and other current liabilities



118,788

99,107 Current operating lease liabilities



7,444

5,168 Total current liabilities



219,808

180,649











Deferred income taxes, net



87,417

75,010 Non-current operating lease liabilities



62,896

53,940 Other liabilities



10,648

8,822 Total liabilities



380,769

318,421











Commitments and Contingencies





















Stockholders' Equity:









Class A Common Stock, $.01 par value; 22,700,000 shares authorized;









9,834,473 and 9,370,526 issued and outstanding as of June 27, 2020









and December 28, 2019, respectively



98

94 Class B Common Stock, $.01 par value; 4,200,000 shares authorized;









2,307,983 and 2,672,983 issued and outstanding as of June 27, 2020



23

27 and December 28, 2019, respectively









Additional paid-in capital



585,327

571,784 Accumulated other comprehensive loss, net of tax



(1,740)

(1,669) Retained earnings



243,775

165,400 Total stockholders' equity



827,483

735,636 Total liabilities and stockholders' equity



$ 1,208,252

$ 1,054,057

THE BOSTON BEER COMPANY, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASHFLOWS (in thousands) (unaudited)





Twenty-six weeks ended





June 27,

June 29,





2020

2019











Cash flows provided by operating activities:









Net income



$ 78,375

$ 51,550 Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash provided by operating activities:









Depreciation and amortization



32,584

26,089 Impairment of assets



2,355

243 Loss on disposal of property, plant and equipment



39

104 Change in ROU assets



3,649

1,789 Credit loss expense



375

(1) Stock-based compensation expense



7,103

5,810 Deferred income taxes



12,407

6,283 Changes in operating assets and liabilities:









Accounts receivable



(45,326)

(35,346) Inventories



(12,795)

(14,942) Prepaid expenses, income tax receivable and other current assets



(4,784)

(6,855) Other assets



(10,231)

(4,107) Accounts payable



19,560

26,320 Accrued expenses and other current liabilities



20,803

(101) Change in operating lease liability



(80)

(1,391) Other liabilities



(23)

85 Net cash provided by operating activities



104,011

55,530











Cash flows used in investing activities:









Purchases of property, plant and equipment



(60,072)

(44,578) Proceeds from disposal of property, plant and equipment



45

179 Investment in Dogfish Head, net of cash acquired



-

(158,402) Other investing activities



260

(188) Net cash used in investing activities



(59,767)

(202,989)











Cash flows provided by financing activities:









Proceeds from exercise of stock options and sale of investment shares



8,010

4,692 Net cash paid on note payable and finance leases



(649)

(115) Cash borrowed on line of credit



100,000

86,000 Cash paid on line of credit



(100,000)

(48,500) Payment of tax withholdings on stock-based payment awards and investment shares



(1,559)

- Net cash provided by financing activities



5,802

42,077











Change in cash and cash equivalents



50,046

(105,382)











Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of year



36,670

108,399











Cash and cash equivalents at end of period



$ 86,716

$ 3,017























Copies of The Boston Beer Company's press releases, including quarterly financial results, are available on the Internet at www.bostonbeer.com

SOURCE The Boston Beer Company, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.bostonbeer.com


She has been showing off her sensational figure during lockdown.

And Lauren Goodger was at it again on Monday as she took part in a sizzling photoshoot in London.

The TOWIE star, 33, showcased her voluptuous curves in a tiny tiger print bikini as she posed up a storm.

Wild thing! Lauren Goodger was at it again on Monday as she took part in a sizzling photoshoot in London

Lauren, who was forced to deny she had bum implants earlier this year, highlighted her peachy posterior in a pair of thong bottoms with gold chains on the side.

While the plunging triangle top displayed her very ample assets and toned waist during the racy photoshoot.

Lauren styled her brunette locks into a blow-dried hairdo and added a slick of glamorous make-up.

Peachy! The TOWIE star, 33, showcased her voluptuous curves in a tiny tiger print bikini as she posed up a storm

Roarsome! While the plunging triangle top displayed her very ample assets and toned waist during the racy photoshoot

I'm ready for my close-up! The reality star knew how to work her best angles as she posed up a storm during the photoshoot

The reality star knew how to work her best angles as she posed up a storm during the photoshoot.

At one point, Lauren took a brief break from the shoot as she was spotted taking a phone call on set.

Earlier this year, the reality star denied that she has had surgery, including implants or fat transfer to enhance the look of her derriere.

Busy bee: At one point, Lauren took a brief break from the shoot as she was spotted taking a phone call on set

Lauren told new! magazine: 'I've always been thick set and I've always had a big bum. That's the way it is. Feel it if you want! I've not had implants.'

She also insisted that she would allow anyone to do a Kim Kardashian-inspired X-ray on her bottom to make sure that it was real.

Lauren went on to reveal that although she had lipo and sculpting three years ago she hasn't had any since and any fluctuation is down to weight gain or loss.

Glamorous: Lauren styled her brunette locks into a blow-dried hairdo and added a slick of glamorous make-up

Selfie! Lauren made sure she took a smouldering selfie of her ensemble, which will no doubt make a debut on her Instagram

Meanwhile, the Dancing on Ice star recently revealed that now the UK's COVID-19 lockdown begins to ease, she's on a mission to find a new man.

Talking to her good friend, Bobby Norris, also 33, over the phone for new! magazine, the brunette bombshell claimed she has lined up 100 dates for when lockdown permits.

She said: 'In isolation, I've got so many guys asking me out and I've got about 100 dates lined up after this, I'm loving life and I'm getting lots of attention.

Claims: Earlier this year, the reality star denied that she has had surgery, including implants or fat transfer to enhance the look of her derriere

Single and ready to mingle! The Dancing on Ice star recently revealed that now the UK's COVID-19 lockdown begins to ease, she's on a mission to find a new man

'I've got a lot more time on my hands to respond and talk to people and normally I don't really bother. I feel really confident at the minute.'

Lauren also added she would love to get involved with the TOWIE ten-year reunion, the show that turned her into a household name.

The TV star declared the 'whole f***ing show was about her relationship' with ex fiance Mark Wright, who she dated on and off for eleven years and that she gave 'TV gold.'
SARASOTA, FL  The Sarasota High School community is mourning the loss of 27-year veteran social studies teacher Robert Shackelford, who lost his battle with the coronavirus on Wednesday, according to school Principal David Jones.

In a communication to the Sarasota High School community, Jones described the longtime educator as a person of "intelligence, integrity and incredible conscientiousness, whose life and career were indeed an inspiration" to everyone who knew him.

"When we at school heard of Roberts passing, we were saddened beyond belief," Jones wrote. "There was a feeling that passed among us, a feeling that his death has left us with a void that can never be entirely filled."

Shackelford's daughter, Kari, shared on Facebook that she and other family members were connected via FaceTime when her father died.

"A nurse held his hand while we all spoke to him and said our goodbyes," she said. "I believe he was able to hear the voices of those he loved the most, and who loved him more than words can describe."

Robert Shackelford (top right) was a 27-year veteran social studies teacher at Sarasota High School. (Photo courtesy Torie Ewald of Sarasota County Schools)

Shackelford joined the teaching staff at Sarasota High School on Aug. 19, 1993. Jones told Patch the teacher once invited a guest speaker to bring his Model T automobile to the school to "enliven" a discussion on the industrial revolution.



"We also take comfort in the fact that a part of him will continue to live, reflected in the lives of the students he has instructed and guided over the years," Jones told the school community.

"As a teacher, he gave of himself, perhaps the greatest gift of all, and those students who were fortunate enough to fall under his unique tutelage will carry his ideals, his knowledge, and his moral principles into the world, and the world cannot help but be made a better place because of it," Jones added.



Shackelford's death was the second this week of a Florida teacher who contracted the coronavirus at a time when fellow educators across the state prepare to reopen schools next month either online, through in-person classroom instruction or a combination of the two.

Story continues

Pasco County school teacher Renee Dermott died Sunday after losing her battle with the coronavirus. See Teacher's Final Lesson Is To Hold Family Close, Appreciate Life

"Im reading all the Robert Shackelford memories my co-workers are posting and my heart is broken," fellow teacher Tiffany Pepsin posted on social media. "Not just for the loss of him, but all those who will follow. There will be more [Facebook] memoriam pages for more teachers if we reopen brick and mortar. I dont want to see more of my friends, co-workers, and fellow teachers die. I dont want to see any students die either. Im in mourning for my Sailor family and a profession I love."

This article originally appeared on the Sarasota Patch
The UK on Thursday welcomed efforts by India and China to de-escalate tension along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

British High Commissioner Sir Philip Barton also expressed concern over Chinese action in Hong Kong as well as cases of human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

The UK, he said, is aware of the challenges presented by "some Chinese actions" and has been working with its close allies like the US to deal with them.

"I would like to say that the progress we have seen in managing the tensions and the commitment the two special representatives made on boundary question on July 5 to disengage and de-escalate is welcome," the newly-appointed envoy said during an online media briefing.

He said the Chinese actions in Hong Kong as well as along the LAC are "concerning".

The British envoy also talked about the "tragic loss of lives" of Indian soldiers along the LAC and hoped that both sides would be able to achieve de-escalation of tensions through talks.

Twenty Indian soldiers were killed in a violent clash in Galwan Valley on June 15, triggering massive escalation of tensions between the two sides.

However, both sides agreed to de-escalate tension by withdrawing troops from friction points following a series of diplomatic and military talks.

The disengagement process between Indian and Chinse militaries began on July 6 after a telephonic conversation between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi the previous day. Doval and Wang are Special Representatives for the boundary talks.

"We do not have a border with China but we do have particular responsibility for Hong Kong. The new national security law which China imposed is a very clear and serious violation of UK-China joint declaration," Sir Barton said.

"We have also got great concerns around human rights abuses, in particular against the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang," he said.
Former Chief Minister and state Congress president wrote to the Election Commission, suggesting that the upcoming Assembly bypolls should be conducted using ballot papers in view of COVID-19 pandemic.

Bye-elections are due on 26 seats which fell vacant following resignations of 24 Congress MLAs and death of two legislators earlier.

In March this year, 22 Congress MLAs resigned from the state Assembly paving way for BJP's Shivraj Singh Chouhan to take over as Chief Minister for the fourth time.

(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.)
Kim Gardner, the odious and incompetent St. Louis prosecutor, has filed charges against the McCloskeys, the couple that brandished firearms to deter a mob that had trespassed onto their property and, they say, threatened them. There are a number of problems with this prosecution. One is the Castle Doctrine which, in Missouri, apparently allows people to defend not only their homes but also their property.

Another problem is that the governor of Missouri has already said he likely will pardon the McCloskeys if they are convicted. A third problem is that Missouris attorney general has filed a brief in the case urging that the prosecution be dismissed.

Finally, there is a fundamental problem with the prosecution of Patricia McCloskey. The gun she held apparently was inoperable. Reportedly, the firing pin spring was in front of the firing pin, so that the gun could not be fired. The McCloskeys say they had rendered the gun inoperable when they used it as a prop during litigation. They didnt want to bring a functioning gun into the courthouse.

What did Kim Gardner and her team do upon learning that the gun they seized couldnt fire? Documents obtained by a local media outlet show that they had the gun assembled in the correct order. Then, they tested the gun and found that it worked.

In other words, they tampered with the evidence.

According to the local media outlet, in Missouri the gun crime with which Patricia McCloskey is charged requires that the weapon in question be readily capable of lethal use at the time in question. When she brandished her weapon to ward off the mob, it was not readily capable of being put to lethal use. It did not become capable of this until the prosecutor had gun experts reassemble the weapon.

Yet, Gardners office reportedly represented to the court that the gun was readily capable of lethal use.

This is the version of justice that George Soros seeks to spread nationwide by funding incompetent radical leftist prosecutors like Kim Gardner. You can oppose this effort by contributing to Gardners opponent, Mary Pat Carl, here.
(Newser)  The mayor got tear-gassed. Protesters described being manhandled and whisked away by camo-clad men in vans. Now a government watchdog is going to investigate whether the actions of federal officers during Portland's protests have gone too far, reports the Washington Post. Coverage:

Michael Horowitz, inspector general of the Justice Department, announced the investigation on Thursday. The inspector general operates independently of Attorney General William Barr. The probe will be coordinated with the IG of the Department of Homeland Security, reports USA Today.

The primary focus will be the officers' use of force in Portland, per Law & Crime, but the investigation will look at other incidents as well, including the clearing of protesters near the White House on June 1 to make way for a photo op by President Trump.

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Horowitz says his Portland investigation will cover the instructions given to the federal officers, whether they followed rules on identifying themselves, and the use of chemical agents to subdue protesters, reports CNN.

House Democrats demanded such a probe over the weekend as complaints surfaced in Portland, notes Axios.

Trump has defended the deployment of federal officers as necessary to maintain law and order, and he plans to expand their presence around the country, including in Chicago.

The Oregonian has a detailed look at how Mayor Ted Wheeler ended up getting tear-gassed. The reason I am here tonight is to stand with you, Wheeler told the crowd at one point. If theyre launching the tear gas against you, theyre launching the tear gas against me.

(Read more Portland, Oregon stories.)
The Center for Political Accountability released its "Conflicted Consequences" report on July 21, a study that shows despite corporate PR promises about pursuing environmental, social and governance commitments, companies are "laundering" contributions via 527 organizations to undermine those lofty vows.

Amid such heady rhetoric, the Report "is a bracing reminder that talk, when not backed by action is cheap," wrote Yale professor Jacob Hacker and UC Berkeley's Paul Pierson in their forward to the CPA study. "Indeed in few places today is the gap between word and deed as wide as it is in the political spending of American corporations."

The 527 organizations take corporate cash and then spend it to advance a broad political agenda. "For corporations pursuing agendas they do not want scrutinized, this type of spending has three big advantages over traditional political spending: it is less likely to attract attention than PAC contributions that go directly from firms to candidates; it is effectively laundered by running through the 527 organization so the donor can duck accountability for specific uses of the money; and it allows the resources of many companies to be pooled to achieve maximum impact," wrote Hacker and Pierson.

While both Republicans and Democrats run 527 organizations, the bulk of corporate money flows to GOP-affiliated groups that work against stated corporate ESG commitments.

The Report tracks $800M in spending for GOP-tied 527 groups, of which 46.6 percent of the amount came from companies and their trade groups, vs. $475M in Democratic-affiliated 527s.

The CPA monitored money flowing to the Republican Attorneys General Assn., which filed a lawsuit in 2018 to declare the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional.

Facebook, Coca-Cola, Pfizer, Walmart, Noble Energy, Altria, Southern Co., Pinnacle West, Anthem, and Mallinckrodt rank among the top 20 corporate donors to the RAGA.

More than 20M Americans would lose healthcare coverage in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, if the RAGA succeeds in trashing ObamaCare.

The Report also found corporate hypocrisy on climate change. Though companies such as Uber, ExxonMobil, Western Union, Intel, HP, DuPont, Bank of America and Microsoft publicly support the Paris Climate Accords, they donated to the RAGA, which filed the lawsuit to kill the Clean Power Plan, which would help fight global warming.

The CPA also tracked corporate spending designed to boost racial gerrymandering, restrict women's reproductive rights and promote anti-LGBTQ legislation.

The group believes its study highlights the increasing risk that companies face from their political spending.

"When corporations take a public stand on such issues as racial injustice or climate change, the money trail illustrated here can lead to their boardroom door," the CPA said. "It can reflect a conflict with a companys core values and positions."

There's been a lot of good reading about the Trump administration (John Bolton's "The Room Where it Happened") and the dysfunctional Trump family (Mary Trump's "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man") of late.

But it's Michael Cohen's upcoming book that may do the most damage to the re-election bid of the president.

A federal judge on July 23 ordered the release into home custody of Donald Trump's former fixer. Alvin Hellerstein ruled that Cohen was sent back to jail earlier this month as "retaliation" for his memoir, which is tentatively titled, "Disloyal: The True Story of Michael Cohen, Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump."

The book must have been a tough one for a former loyalist like Cohen, who once said he would take a bullet for Trump, to write. According to Cohen's July 21 lawsuit, "Disloyal" will describe anti-Semitic remarks made by Trump about prominent Jewish people and racist remarks against Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela.

Hellerstein said Cohen has the "First Amendment right to publish a book and to discuss anything about the book or anything else he wants on social media or with others."

Cohen, who was thrown under the bus by Trump, may wind up with the best revenge.

Say it ain't so, Ryan. There's something ironic about LinkedIn, the networking site that helps people connect to get jobs, laying off six percent (960 people) of its workforce.

In a memo to "Team," CEO Ryan Roslansky wrote that the global pandemic has impacted LinkedIn as "fewer companies, including ours, need to hire at the same volume they did previously."

He pledged to help "impacted employees look for other roles within the company, build new skills and land on their feet if they no longer have a role at LinkedIn."

The company will provide exiting workers a minimum of ten weeks of severance pay and bonuses. The package also includes LinkedIn learning courses on interview prep, compensation fundamentals, job search strategies, and integrating into a new role.
California based electric automaker Tesla has picked Austin, Texas capital, for $1.1 billion assembly plant that is expected to provide employment to around 5,000 people. This will be one of the largest economic development projects in Austin's history.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during the company's earnings call on July 21 that its next Gigafactory would be located near Austin, Texas.

The location is five minutes from Austin International National Airport and 15 minutes from Downtown Austin. It's about 2,000 acres, Musk said during the call.

And we're going to make, I think, a factory that it's going to be stunning. It's right on the Colorado River. So we're actually going to have, we're going to have a boardwalk where there'll be a hiking, biking trail. It's going to basically be an ecological paradise  birds in the trees, butterflies, fish in the stream. And it will be open to the public as well, he said.

Initial work on the facility began this past weekend, Musk said.

This will be the company's fourth vehicle-assembly factory worldwide and second in the US, with its Fremont, California factory, Shanghai Gigafactory and forthcoming Berlin factory comprising the other three.

The Tesla Cybertruck, Tesla Semi and Model 3 and Y for the eastern half of North America will be manufactured at the Texas Gigafactory, Musk said.

Both the Tesla Cybertruck and Semi are still being developed.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott heralded the announcement in a written statement Wednesday, calling Tesla one of the most exciting and innovative companies in the world.

The planned factory will keep the Texas economy the strongest in the nation and will create thousands of jobs for hard-working Texans, Abbott said.

I look forward to the tremendous benefits that Tesla's investment will bring to Central Texas and to the entire state.

Indo-American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Houston (IACCGH) president Tarush Anand and its Executive Director Jagdip Ahluwalia joined governor Abbot in welcoming Tesla to Texas.

"This will boost the economy and open doors for jobs lost because of the pandemic", they said.

In Austin, Tesla will join large high-tech companies that began to flock to the area in the 1970s led by Dell, IBM, and 3M.

As companies continued to pour in over recent decades, the city has experienced high population growth.

A business-friendly climate with no state income tax for residents and a wealth of educated workers have made it a fitting home for hundreds of companies, both tech imports and home-grown enterprises alike.
Tinsukia/Dibrugarh: A massive blast occurred near the Oil India Limited's Baghjan well in Assam's Tinsukia district on Wednesday, injuring three foreign experts involved in the dousing of the well fire raging for over a month. The experts have been rushed to a hospital at Dibrugarh, Oil India Limited's senior manager, public affairs, Jayanata Bormudoi, said. The experts have been identified as Anthony Steven Reynolds, Doug Dallas and Craig Neil Duncan, he said.

The blast occurred when the experts were on their way to open the spool of the well before putting up the blow out preventer (BOP) that finally douses the fire, Bormudoi said.

The well has been spewing gas since May 28 and a fire has been raging in the area since June 9 in which two firefighters lost their lives.

The dousing operation has been called off at Baghjan after the blast. The cause of the blast, its scale and nature are being ascertained, the official said.
WASHINGTON, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Fragrance Creators Association announced today that Homer Swei, Ph.D., Global Director of Product Stewardship, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products, has joined its Board of Directors. In his current role, Swei provides oversight of the company's worldwide portfolio of ingredients and materials, including its baby, beauty, oral care, wound care, feminine hygiene, wipes, and device business. He brings a wealth of expertise in policy development and governance, stakeholder engagement and education, and extended ingredient transparency to the Board.

Fragrance Creators Association

Swei has served in various roles at Johnson & Johnson since joining the company in 2003, including Technical Assurance Manager and Innovation Sourcing Manager. Prior to that, he oversaw materials science efforts at Dow Chemical Group and product technology at Union Carbide Corporation, and served in key roles at RayChem Corporation and Exxon Chemical Corporation. He earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, and earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University.

"Fragrance Creators is the organization leading on fragrance-related issues in North Americaissues that carry real-world impacts for business and the public," said Swei. "In representing Johnson & Johnson on the Board, I am excited to use my expertise to augment the association's reach and impact."

"Homer is a leader in advancing responsible product stewardship, and I'm confident he will be an asset to the Board of Directors," said Farah K. Ahmed, President & CEO, Fragrance Creators. "He brings a passion for driving positive impacts for people, business, and the planet, and an understanding of the value of sound science-based policies and communications that build trust among diverse audiences."

Fragrance Creators Association is the principal trade association representing the majority of North American fragrance manufacturing and the fragrance value chain. The organization's membership is diverse, including companies that create, manufacture, and use fragrances and scents for home care, personal care, home design, fine fragrance, and industrial and institutional products as well as those that supply fragrance ingredients, including natural extracts and other raw materials that are used in perfumery and fragrance mixtures. Fragrance Creators produces The Fragrance Conservatory, the comprehensive digital resource for high-quality information about fragrance. Learn more about Fragrance Creators at fragrancecreators.org

Contact: Lia Dangelico

[email protected]

+1 571 317 1504

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Anyone wanting to understand the origins of the right-wing extremist networks in Germanys Bundeswehr (armed forces) and the security services and why they can operate largely unhindered should read the current interview with Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer in the German weekly magazine Die Zeit.

The minister and acting Christian Democratic Union (CDU) chairwoman beats the drum so aggressively for re-armament, militarism and war that one is inevitably reminded of Nazi policies.

It is high time to discuss how Germany must position itself in the world in the future, she insists right at the outset of the interview. Germany is expected to show leadership, not only as an economic power. It concerns collective defence, it concerns international missions, it concerns a strategic view of the world, and ultimately it concerns the question of whether we want to actively shape the global order.

By this, Kramp-Karrenbauer means a massive rearmament offensive to advance the interests of German imperialism in a new period of war and great power conflicts. One could clearly feel that 1989 was not the end of history. Instead, one encounters conflicts between the USA and China, which confront us Europeans ever more abruptly with the question of what we are prepared to do for our values and our way of life.

Seventy-five years after the end of the Second World War and the Nazis war of annihilation in the East, German imperialism is once again targeting Russia. The claim of the current Russian leadership to advocate their interests very aggressively must be confronted with a clear position: We are well-fortified and in case of doubt, ready to defend ourselves. We see what Russia is doing and we will not let the Russian leadership get away with it.

In response to the question by Die Zeit about what the Bundeswehr could do, Kramp-Karrenbauer threateningly answers, As a NATO and EU [European Union] country in the middle of events, we need a 360-degree view. If you look at who is within range of Russian missiles in Europe, then its just the Central and Eastern European states and us. Germany will use its EU Presidency to work on a joint threat analysis and to develop defence systems. This would increasingly involve drones, swarms of AI-controlled drones or hypersonic weapons.

What Kramp-Karrenbauer and the ruling class have in mind is the comprehensive militarization of society. She is pleased that we have been able to make the Bundeswehr somewhat more visible in the midst of society, with troops taking a public pledge before the German Bundestag [federal parliament] on the Bundeswehrs birthday and the free train rides for those in uniform. She added that it was also important to maintain force overhaul as a Bundeswehr capability in its own right, the planned acquisition of new fighter jets and also our demands on industry in terms of operational readiness and equipment.

And all this is only the beginning. What is now up for discussion is the question of arming drones to protect our soldiers, adds Kramp-Karrenbauer.

The entire interview makes it clear that the extreme right-wing networks in the army are only the sharpest expression of the right-wing offensive of the grand coalition of the CDUSocial Democratic Party (SPD) and the entire ruling class. With the revival of German militarism, the militaristic traditions that are historically linked above all to the unruly Soldateska [bands of soldiers] of the Kaiserreich (Imperial Empire) and the Wehrmacht (armed forces of Nazi Germany) are inevitably returning.

In response to the remark of Die Zeit that comradeship, war, dying for ones country, killing someone was practically non-existent in the public self-representation of the Bundeswehr, Kramp-Karrenbauer replied that precisely this had to change. We are an army. We are armed. When in doubt, soldiers must also kill, she declared. Unlike in the past, today, dangerous foreign missions are common. Those who join the Bundeswehr know that. That is also part of what I understand by a well-fortified democracy and a strong Europe.

Kramp-Karrenbauer protests that she really does not take the fascist terror networks in the army, which hoard ammunition and prepare for a Day X, lightly, which may or may not be the case. In any case, she is systematically working with the military leadership to cover up the extent of the extreme right-wing conspiracy in the army. There is no general suspicion. The attitude of the absolute majority of our soldiers is correct, she claims.

Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer at a joint press conference with the Inspector General of the German Armed Forces Eberhard Zorn (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

Regarding her latest measures to restructure the KSK elite force, recently shown to harbour a multitude of soldiers professing neo-Nazi views, Kramp-Karrenbauer makes it clear that it serves less to crush the extreme right-wing forces than to promote them and extend their long-secret practice of targeted killing. The KSKs operations were subject to special secrecy, if only so as not to endanger their success, she said. But from within the unit itself, there is now a desire to speak more openly about the operations. We will make this possible, and this is also part of the decisions that have been made recently.

The interview with Kramp-Karrenbauer is a warning. It underlines that the ruling class, as in the past, will stop at nothing to push forward the interests of German capital both at home and abroad. As in the 1930s, it is reacting to the deep crisis of the capitalist system and the growing resistance in the working class with militarism and fascism.

Significantly, the interview was conducted by Mariam Lauthe Die Zeit journalist who already defended right-wing extremist Humboldt Professor Jorg Baberowski (Hitler was not vicious) in a detailed article in 2017. Baberowski, who in addition to trivialising and justifying Nazi crimes is also notorious for his calls for brutal war missions and violence, has close ties to the army and the defence ministry.
Description

GIS  23 July 2020: Mauritius has benefited from a donation of medical supplies from the Peoples Republic of China, as an act of solidarity amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The batch of medical supplies were handed over to Mrs Kobita Jugnauth, by the spouse of the Ambassador of the Peoples Republic of China to Mauritius, Mrs Wang Ju, at the New Treasury Building in Port-Louis.

It is upon the request of the Organization of African First Ladies for Development that the Chinese Government is donating a batch of medical supplies to fifty-three African countries including Mauritius. The donation includes medical protection gears, face masks and body temperature scanning devices.

Mrs Kobita Jugnauth expressed her gratitude towards the Chinese Government for providing its continuous support to Mauritius. This gesture, she highlighted, testifies the profound relationship between both countries, who have supported each other during such a crisis.

She deplored that the women have been significantly influenced by the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic which is why it is important to place them at the core of the post Covid -19 economic recovery. Mauritius, she stated, has put at the disposal of the women, several measures to improve their economic and social conditions despite prevailing challenges.

Mrs Wang Ju, for her part, underlined that since the outbreak of Covid-19, the Chinese Government has kept a close eye on the evolution of the pandemic in Mauritius. She reiterated the support of Peoples Republic of China to Mauritius while adding that the security and protection of citizens especially children, women and the youth remains a priority for both countries.

Mauritius and China, she stated, have strengthened their bilateral ties and renewed further cooperation in the face of Covid-19. Both countries, she observed, have been proactive in the prevention and containment of the virus by taking bold measures to protect its citizens.
Mumbai:

Veteran actor Mukesh Rawal, known for his role of 'Vibhishan' in serial 'Ramayana', was found dead on railway tracks in sub-urban Kandivali in Mumbai, railway police said on Wednesday.

66-year-old Rawal was run-over by a train while crossing railway tracks, they said. His body was found on Tuesday at 9.33 AM, but the actor's kin identified him on Wenesday morning, Commissioner of Railway Police Niket Kaushik said.

The body was found on the tracks between Borivali andKandivali railway stations, Kaushik said. "Initially, we could not find anything on the body toidentify. Railway Police had issued his photographs at allpolice stations. "His son-in-law came at the Kandivali railway stationin search of Rawal, who had gone missing. The officials senthim to a hospital where he identified the body," the Commissioner of Police said. After autopsy, the body was handed over to his family members, Kaushik said. Apart from 'Ramayana', Rawal had also acted in Gujarati films and TV serials. Currently he was doing the Gujarati TV serial "NassNass Mei Khunnas".
P arents have been warned not to buy face masks for babies and young children under the age of three due to the risk of choking or suffocation.

Public Health England (PHE) said it had become aware that masks and coverings are being sold in shops and online aimed at youngsters.

Professor Viv Bennett, chief nurse at the agency, said: PHE has been made aware that face coverings for babies and very young children are available for sale in England.

Guidance is clear that children under the age of three years should not wear face coverings or masks.

Coronavirus hits the UK - In pictures 1 /81 Coronavirus hits the UK - In pictures A deserted Westminster Bridge PA A man wearing a face mask or covering due to the COVID-19 pandemic, walks past customers sat outside a restaurant AFP via Getty Images Boris Johnson addresses the nation on the Coronavirus lockdown Andrew Parsons Runners pass cardboard cutouts of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William during the London Marathon in London AP An empty escalator at Charing Coss London Underground tube station Jeremy Selwyn Electronic bilboards displays a message warning people to stay home in Sheffield PA A sign is displayed in the window of a student accommodation building following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Mancheste Reuters People take part in a 'We Do Not Consent' rally at Trafalgar Square, organised by Stop New Normal, to protest against coronavirus restrictions, in Londo AP People sing and dance in Leicester Square on the eve on the 10PM curfew Reuters Hearts painted by a team of artists from Upfest are seen in the grass at Queen Square, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Bristol Reuters Graffiti reads 'good luck and stay safe', as the number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases grow around the world, under a bridge in London Reuters A sign is pictured in Soho, amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London Reuters Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures, during a coronavirus briefing in Downing Street, London AP A person runs past posters with a message of hope, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in Manchester REUTERS Riot police face protesters who took part in a 'We Do Not Consent' rally at Trafalgar Square, organised by Stop New Normal, to protest against coronavirus restrictions in London AP An image of The Queen eith quotes from her broadcast to the UK and the Commonwealth in relation to the Coronavirus epidemic are displayed on lights in London's Piccadilly Circus PA Military vehicles cross Westminster Bridge after members of the 101 Logistic Brigade delivered a consignment of medical masks to St Thomas' hospital Getty Images Durdle Door in Dorset Reuters Captain Tom Moore via Reuters Mia, aged 8, and Jack, aged 5, take part in "PE with Joe" a daily live workout with Joe Wicks on Youtube to help kids stay fit who have to stay indoors due to the Coronavirus outbreak PA An NHS worker reacts at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital during the Clap for our Carers campaign in support of the NHS Reuters Goats which have taken over the deserted streets of Llandudno @AndrewStuart via PA Tobias Weller PA Novikov restaurant in London with its shutters pulled down while the restaurant is closed London Landscapes: Hyde Park and the Serpentine, central London. Matt Writtle A newspaper vendor in Manchester city centre giving away free toilet rolls with every paper bought as shops run low on supplies due to fears over the spread of the coronavirus PA Theo Clay looks out of his window next to his hand-drawn picture of a rainbow in Liverpool, as the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continue Reuters A young man cuts another man's hair on top of a closed hairdresser in Oxford Reuters General view of the new NHS Nightingale Hospital, built to fight against the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London via Reuters Jason Baird is seen dressed as Spiderman during his daily exercise to cheer up local children in Stockport, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues Reuters A woman wearing a face mask walks past Buckingham Palace Getty Images A man holds mobile phone displaying a text message alert sent by the government warning that new rules are in force across the UK and people must stay at home PA Medical staff on the Covid-19 ward at the Neath Port Talbot Hospital, in Wales, as the health services continue their response to the coronavirus outbreak. PA Prime Minister Boris Johnson taking part in a virtual Cabinet meeting with his top team of ministers PA A shopper walks past empty shelves in a Lidl store on in Wallington. After spates of "panic buying" cleared supermarket shelves of items like toilet paper and cleaning products, stores across the UK have introduced limits on purchases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some have also created special time slots for the elderly and other shoppers vulnerable to the new coronavirus. Getty Images People on a busy tube train in London at rush hour PA Mia, aged 8 and her brother Jack, aged 5 from Essex, continue their school work at home, after being sent home due to the coronavirus PA Children are painting 'Chase the rainbows' artwork and springing up in windows across the country Reuters Social distancing in Primrose Hill Jeremy Selwyn A general view of a locked gate at Anfield, Liverpool as The Premier League has been suspended PA Homeless people in London AFP via Getty Images A piece of art by the artist, known as the Rebel Bear has appeared on a wall on Bank Street in Glasgow. The new addition to Glasgow's street art is capturing the global Coronavirus crisis. The piece features a woman and a man pulling back to give each other a kiss PA The Queen leaves Buckingham Palace, London, for Windsor Castle to socially distance herself amid the coronavirus pandemic PA A general view on Grey street, Newcastle as coronavirus cases grow around the world Reuters Matt Raw, a British national who returned from the coronavirus-hit city of Wuhan in China, leaves quaratine at Arrowe Park Hospital on Merseyside PA Britain's Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty (L) and Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance look on as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures as he speaks during a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) news conference inside 10 Downing Street Reuters The ticket-validation terminals at the tram stop on Edinburgh's Princes Street are cleaned following the coronavirus outbreak. PA Locked school gates at Rockcliffe First School in Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear PA A sign at a Sainsbury's supermarket informs customers that limits have been set on a small number of products as the number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases grow around the world Reuters Jawad Javed delivers coronavirus protection kits that he and his wife have put together to the vulnerable people of their community of Stenhousemuir, between Glasgow and Edinburgh AFP via Getty Images A sign advertising a book titled "How Will We Survive On Earth?" Getty Images A man who appears to be homeless sleeping wearing a mask today in Victoria Jeremy Selwyn A pedestrian walks past graffiti that reads "Diseases are in the City" in Edinburgh AFP via Getty Images Staff from The Lyric Theatre, London inform patrons, as it shuts its doors PA A quiet looking George IV Bridge in Edinburgh PA A quieter than usual British Museum Getty Images A racegoer attends Cheltenham in a fashionable face mask SplashNews.com A commuter wears a face mask at London Bridge Station Jeremy Selwyn A empty restaurant in the Bull Ring Shopping Centre Getty Images A deserted Trafalgar Square in London PA Passengers determined to avoid the coronavirus before leaving the UK arrive at Gatwick Airport Getty Images

These masks should not be used as they are potentially dangerous and can cause choking and suffocation.

If you or your child is unwell with the symptoms of Covid-19, then you should get a test and stay at home until you get the result.

If you are worried then you should call 111 or speak to your doctor.

Face masks become compulsory in supermarkets and shops in England on Friday.

But children aged under 11 are exempt.
Chron.com is following the latest headlines on the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the Houston area.

9 a.m.: The latest numbers

Wednesday marked the single highest day for new deaths in Texas since the pandemic began.

From Tuesday to Wednesday, the number of new deaths increased by 217 -- a 5.2 percent increase -- to 4,429 deaths statewide, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis. Over the last eight days, the state has reported 1,050 deaths, with Dallas and Hidalgo Counties reporting some of the highest - 30 and 49 deaths, respectively.

New cases in Texas increased by 10,260 to 362,200 cases total, marking the seventh-highest day for new cases since the pandemic began. Decreases were seen in the state's rolling average of new cases, which is now at 10,020, and the positive test rate, which dropped from 15.05 percent to 14.18 percent.

As of Wednesday evening, there were 10,893 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 across hospitals, marking 13 straight days the state has had more than 10,000 patients hospitalized.

PUSH TO KEEP STUDENTS SAFE: Harris County leaders, health officials ask schools to delay in-person classes

The Houston region saw a 2.41 percent increase in cases and is now at 85,965 cases total. The region's death count increased by 24 and is now at 813 deaths total. In Harris County, cases increased by 2.36 percent to 59,924 cases total.

NOTE: The numbers included in this report represent a one-day change in data from Tuesday, July 21 through Wednesday, July 22. It is still unclear how many of the state's new cases can be attributed to jail inmates from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The Houston Chronicle's analysis of COVID-19 case data now includes probable and pending cases. This change is based on interviews with multiple public health officials and epidemiologists, as well as in line with CDC guidelines on reporting.

rebecca.hennes@chron.com
The representatives of the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) in Minsk have agreed on a complete and comprehensive ceasefire on the contact line in Donbas from July 27, the Ukrainian president's press service has reported.

"According to the decision, a full and comprehensive ceasefire should be observed from 00:01 on July 27, 2020. The breakthrough in the work of the TCG in this area is the result of the effective work of the Ukrainian delegation with the support of our international partners in Berlin and Paris, as well as the work of political advisers and foreign ministers of the countries participating in the Normandy Format," the report reads.

During the TCG meeting, the parties, with the mediation of the OSCE, agreed to take measures to strengthen the ceasefire until a full settlement of the international armed conflict in the Ukrainian Donbas.

Relevant measures were agreed at the TCG meeting by Ukraine and Russia and supported by the OSCE.

"The observance of a full and comprehensive ceasefire, if observed by the other party, is a basic precondition for the implementation of the Minsk agreements and paves the way for the implementation of other provisions of these agreements. Ukraine has reaffirmed its full readiness to comply with the agreements reached at the December summit in Paris by the leaders of the countries participating in the Normandy Format and its commitment to the implementation of the Minsk agreements," the President's Office said.

According to earlier reports, the Ukrainian authorities rule out the possibility of securing special status for Donbas in the Constitution of Ukraine.

The President's Office also said that the elections in Donbas could be held only after Ukraine gains control over the border, as well as in accordance with the Constitution and legislation of Ukraine.

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She has been laying down tracks in a recording studio in recent days.

Paris Jackson was back to making music on Wednesday as she was spotted heading to the studio in Los Angeles for another session.

The 22-year-old musician kept her look ultra-casual with a mauve concert crop top that showcased her taut tummy.

Staying busy: Paris Jackson, 22, rocked an ultra-casual look while heading to the studio in LA to continue recording with her folk duo the Soundflowers

Paris stayed on the low-key theme with rolled up tie-dyed sweatpants and a well-worn pair of once-white sneakers.

The 5ft9in actress had her dirty blonde locks tied up in a messy bun, and she blocked out the sun with a large set of round-frame sunglasses.

She seemed to be in a great mood and flashed a peace sign ahead of the day's recording.

Also joining her was a friend who has been a regular fixture at the recording sessions.

Low key: She showed off her fit tummy in a mauve crop top and paired it with rolled up tie-dyed sweatpants

Ready to get to work: She seemed to be in a great mood and flashed a peace sign ahead of the day's recording

On Tuesday, Paris posted a playful video from inside the studio as one of her collaborators goofed off with a keyboard.

'I'm gonna take a quick smoke break,' she said while filming him as he triggered a sampled voice saying, 'Again?!'

The audio joke got a laugh out of Paris, who also included a short boomerang of her fingertips after the top layer of skin was shredded from playing guitar.

'Sexiest fingertips go to... clearly not me,' she joked in the caption.

Goofing: Paris posted a funny video Tuesday in which she said she was taking a smoke break, at which point her collaborator played a sample on his keyboard of a voice saying, 'Again?!'

Staying busy: The daughter of Michael Jackson has been hard at work on her new music in recent days

The couple that works together: Paris was recording with her folk duo The Soundflowers, a collaboration with her partner Gabriel Glenn, whom she started dating in March of last year

Going strong: The group first began performing in June 2018, and they released their debut self-titled EP on June 23. She and Gabriel began a relationship in March 2019

Last week, the daughter of Michael Jackson shared another photo of herself and her producer hard at work at the mixing board.

Paris was recording with her folk duo The Soundflowers, a collaboration with her partner Gabriel Glenn, whom she started dating in March of last year.

The group first began performing in June 2018, and they released their debut self-titled EP on June 23.

'It wasn't until the last, like, couple of years where I started calling myself a musician and embracing that you know, the feeling that I think I was born to do this,' Paris said about her craft while on Good Morning America.

'I originally started writing music for myself, just as, like, just to get things out, to purge.'

The lovers have been the subject of the Facebook Watch docuseries Unfiltered: Paris Jackson & Gabriel Glenn.
Goa, July 23 : Actor Rajeev Khandelwal admits shooting in the time of pandemic is difficult, but he hopes that with time we will all be accustomed to the new normal.

Rajeev, who has started shooting for his upcoming web series "Naxalbari", said: "We have started shooting for 'Naxalbari' here in Goa, and we are doing as much as we can to follow precautionary measures on the set. It is always a great feeling to be back after a hiatus, and meet and work with fellow crew members." He added: "The world has changed and we are very quickly adjusting to the new normal. We are among the few web series units that have started shooting, and we hope to achieve success despite the challenging and little hostile circumstances." "Naxalbari" is an eight-episode story of Red uprising. It is a race against time for a cop named Raghav (played by Rajeev Khandelwal), who is up against the odds, to save the day.

About his character in the show, Rajeev said: "You need to embody that character because it has such intensity. Sturdiness is a natural ask for it, and wearing a moustache is something I have done for the first time. The bigger challenge is balancing sophistication with the right intensity. It has to be effortless. All in all, it is going to be a huge task for director Partho Mitra. The most interesting part of shooting right now are the action scenes in the dense jungles, in the rain with muck and slush all around. From dawn to dusk, it is a complete new experience." The show also features Tina Datta, Sreejita Dey, Satyadeep Mishra, Shakti Anand and Aamir Ali, and is slated to release on Zee5.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
LOS ANGELES, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, SecChic, a new direct to consumer fashion and lifestyle e-commerce brand, launched into the market. The immersive shopping experience provides customers from around the world a curated assortment of stylish, high-quality, fashion pieces for the modern, trend-driven woman.

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A radio interview may have killed NSW Police's plans to stop next Tuesday's Black Matters Lives rally in Sydney from going ahead.

The state's police boss Mick Fuller vowed to do everything in his power to stop the July 28 rally from legally going ahead when he went on 2GB on Monday morning.

He told breakfast show host Ben Fordham he had already instructed assistant commissioner Mick Willing to take the matter to the Supreme Court.

The police chief added lives would be at risk, and that Victoria had shown how dangerous the protests can be for health with an alarming rise of new coronavirus cases.

In Melbourne, at least six protesters from the June 6 rally have since been diagnosed with coronavirus.

The commissioner's tough talking comments have since been described by Supreme Court judge as 'very concerning', since the interview occurred three hours before police even met with event convener Paddy Gibson.

A Supreme Court hearing on Friday will decide whether the July 28 Black Lives Matter protest in Sydney should go ahead go ahead. Pictured is a protester at the June 6 rally

Black Live Matters activists attended Thursday's Supreme Court hearing (pictured) with the court set to decide whether the June 28 protest in Sydney can go ahead

The activist's lawyer Felicity Graham argued the police-initiated Supreme Court action was invalid at Thursday's hearing.

Ms Graham said the law dictated police had to take any matters put by organisers at the meeting 'into consideration' before they went to the Supreme Court.

But they claim the radio interview shows police had already made their minds up about the protest.

Mr Fuller's comments showed that wasn't the case, she said.

'There's no evidence at all (the commissioner) took into consideration representations made by Mr Gibson in writing or matters raised in the conferral process,' Ms Graham told the hearing.

'It's clear the commissioner formed a view to oppose the holding of the public assembly and made the decision to go to court before even the representations had been received or the conferral process had taken place.'

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller (pictured on July 8) urged Sydneysiders to pledge their support for the Black Lives Matter movement in alternative forums

Justice Ierace said he was 'very concerned' by the interview.

'If it is to be the case that the commissioner said publicly he'd given instructions before the meeting, (then) on its face, that would be very concerning,' he said.

NSW Police say Mr Fuller delegated responsibility to Assistant Commissioner Stacey Maloney, who made the decision to go to court after the conference.

She is due to give evidence when the hearing resumes on Friday morning.

'At that time (of the interview), the commissioner wasn't exercising a function under the Act in any event,' said Michael Spartalis for NSW Police.

Justice Ierace will decide on Friday whether the July 28 rally can go ahead amid a growing coronavirus outbreak in parts of Sydney.

NSW has suffered double-digit cases of coronavirus almost every day since July 13 after a freight worker from Melbourne spread the disease at a pub in south-west Sydney.

At least 4,000 protesters are expected to attend a Black Matters Lives rally in Sydney next Tuesday (pictured, the last rally on July 16 in the Harbour City)

If the protest is declared illegal, police will have the powers to move on or arrest demonstrators blocking roads and issue $1000 fines to those breaching restrictions.

At least 4,000 protesters are expected to attend the July 28 rally being organised for the family of David Dungay Jr, 26, who died in custody at Sydney's Long Bay Jail in December 2015 after he was forcibly removed from his prison cell.

Five guards were later cleared by the NSW Coroner of any wrongdoing.

Mr Dungay's family still plan to attend on Tuesday, even if the rally is declared illegal.

'No matter what a court says, at the end of the day this is Aboriginal land and nothing should be able to stop us from protesting,' his nephew Paul Silva told The Daily Telegraph.

'The whole world has seen video footage of him being held down and begging for his life continuously.'

'Me and my family have fought for the last five years.'

A Supreme Court will decide whether Tuesday's rally in Sydney can go ahead (pictured, a previous Black Lives Matter rally in The Domain on July 5)

Prime Minister Scott Morrison believe there should be no 'special rule' or 'ticket' for protests to breach the coronavirus restrictions on gatherings.

'My response to that, as an Aboriginal person and a family member of an Aboriginal person killed in custody, is the special rule and ticket not to obey the law goes to police and Corrective Services in Australia,' he told 2GB on Wednesday.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott also slammed the rally, describing the Black Lives Matter protesters as 'copycats'.

He claimed marches are 'out of place' in Australia after the movement swept over from the United states in the wake of George Floyd 's death.

'I don't like the copycat culture to start with but I particularly think that it's out of place here,' said on a podcast with Institute of Public Affairs John Roskam.

'I say to everyone unhappy with Australia, what country would you rather live in? Anyone who thinks that we are in some way racist, sexist, whatever, what country is better?'

'And the truth is it's almost impossible to identify one.'

More than 4,000 protesters are expected to attend next week's rally in Sydney, sparking fears a second wave of coronavirus cases will worsen (pictured, the June 6 protest in Sydney)

Mr Gibson said it was 'critical' the rally went ahead next Tuesday, while the world was 'finally listening' to the concerns of black voices.

He said the risk posed by the protest was no more than the risk hundreds of people had taken in recent weeks by visiting the beach, packed markets or shopping centres.

'I do understand people would be concerned. I was at the markets on the weekend where hundreds, if not thousands, of people went through the markets,' Mr Gibson told the Today Show earlier this week.

Since the start of June, NSW Police has gone to the Supreme Court four times to seek an order prohibiting the holding of a public assembly.

The first, a major rally in Sydney, lost its 'authorised' status then won a last-minute reprieve in the Court of Appeal on a technicality.

A Wollongong rally in mid-June was banned over the health risks while a Newcastle rally in early July was permitted after a judge ruled health risks were low.
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the release of Michael Cohen to home confinement, agreeing with his lawyers that he was wrongly sent back to prison after making public statements critical of President Donald Trump.

Cohen should be released by Friday at 2 pm, the judge said.

Cohen's lawyers said during a telephone hearing that prison officials violated his constitutional right of free expression on July 9 by ending his home confinement and returning him to the federal penitentiary in Otisville, New York, after the longtime Trump fixer and confidant said a book about his experiences working closely with the president would be published in the fall.

In a statement, Cohen's lawyer Danya Perry called the order "a victory for the First Amendment," adding, "we appreciate the Judges ruling confirming that the government cannot block Mr. Cohen from publishing a book critical of the president as a condition of his release to home confinement."

This principle transcends politics and we are gratified that the rule of law prevails, Perry said.

Cohen began serving a three-year prison sentence last year for financial crimes and lying to Congress. But when the pandemic hit, he was released in May as part of a nationwide program allowing federal inmates to be transferred to other prisons or confined to their homes. He said that because of his condition  age 53 and with a history of high blood pressure and respiratory problems  continued incarceration at Otisville, where the infection was rampant, would jeopardize his health.

A week after tweeting that he was finishing a tell-all book about Trump, Cohen was told by a probation officer that he would have to agree to a complete ban on speaking in public, including by publishing a book, as a condition of continued home confinement, according to court documents. He was asked to sign a form that included this provision: "No engagement of any kind with the media, including print, tv, film, books, or any other form of media/news. Prohibition from all social media platforms."

Story continues

The form said it was intended "to avoid glamorizing or bringing publicity to your status as a sentenced inmate serving a custodial term in the community."

"I've never seen such a clause in 21 years of being a judge and sentencing people," said federal District Judge Alvin Hellerstein. "How can I take any other inference but that it was retaliatory?"

Cohen's lawyers said when they asked if that provision could be modified, they were told that the officers would need to discuss it with their superiors. But a short time later, Cohen was placed in handcuffs and shackles and sent back to Otisville.

"Michael Cohen refused the conditions of his home confinement and as a result, has been returned to a BOP facility," prison officials said in a public statement. But his lawyers said he never refused to sign anything.

Sending him back to prison was an effort by the Trump administration to censor criticism of the president, Cohen's lawyers told the judge. They cited previous court rulings which held that prisoners retain the First Amendment right to write and publish articles critical of government officials

But the Justice Department said Cohen was sent back because he refused to sign the document and contested several of its provisions, including a requirement to get advance approval for any employment and a ban on contacting other convicted felons.

The officials he talked with about the conditions of his release had no idea he was writing a book, government lawyers said, and that issue "played no role whatever" in the decision to send him back to Otisville, where he is free to continue writing, they said.

As for Cohen's concern about his health and the risks of contracting COVID-19, the government lawyers said "he was reportedly seen dining out at Manhattan restaurants on more than one occasion" during his time out of prison. That fact, they said, was "relevant to assessing the severity" of his claimed health concerns.

The government also said because federal law gives the Bureau of Prisons exclusive authority to dictate whether a prisoner is confined, courts cannot interfere or review those decisions.

In a declaration filed in court, Cohen said his book will describe his experiences working as a lawyer for Trump before and after the presidential election, including "graphic and unflattering details" about Trump's behavior.

"For example, the manuscript describes the president's pointedly anti-Semitic remarks and virulently racist remarks against such Black leaders as President Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela, neither of whom he viewed as real leaders or as worthy of respect by virtue of their race," it said.

In his earlier tweet, Cohen said the book would be out by late September.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com.
In the three decades since the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act, employment has remained an elusive goal for many people. Thirty-one percent of people with disabilities, ages 16 to 64, had a job in 2019, compared with 75 percent of those without disabilities, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

But in the last five years, many businesses have adopted hiring practices that prioritize workers with disabilities, often receiving praise for their diverse hiring efforts. Some of these companies start as family restaurants or retail stores that build their brands around hiring only people with disabilities, sometimes operating as charities to save money. In the technology sector, companies such as Microsoft have created programs designed for recruiting workers with autism.

These well-intentioned strategies are an improvement from what are known as sheltered workshops, which disability rights advocates said can become exploitative make-work programs that paid below minimum wage and segregated them from the competitive work force and their communities.

But advocates said this new targeted approach should not be the end goal because it could still sequester people with disabilities and limit their options for employment. Activists also said it set a low bar for companies that expected a pat on the back for hiring workers with disabilities, when that should be the norm for all industries.

Yes, its better than a sheltered workshop, but what it doesnt give that I think is so important for people with disabilities is the opportunity to work alongside co-workers without disabilities, said Alison Barkoff, director of advocacy at the Center for Public Representation, a legal advocacy group that supports the disability community. I think we should be calling upon mainstream employers across the country to really think hard about how we can make a welcoming place for people with disabilities and how we can think about structuring jobs in ways that really meet their strengths.
Along the Gulf of Guinea lies beautiful Ghana in West Africa. Just like any other African country, the nation has its culture, tradition and practices that differ from one ethnic or religious group to another. Each year events are held in various parts of the country to celebrate the heritage of Ghanaians. Which are the best festivals in Ghana?

Image : instagram.com @Ghanafest

Source: UGC

Last year, just like any other year, some colourful festivals in Ghana took place. Some were intriguing and erupted with remarkable historical and cultural propensity. Art, music and food celebrations had exciting rare beats, great street tastes and creative dynamism! Below are our top picks of the best events in Ghana.

Best festivals in Ghana

There over 70 ceremonies celebrated in the country every year. Such events instil spirituality of citizens, consecrate communal and family bonds not to mention extolling beautiful cultures. Each one of them has its purposes, and so it is wise to know the importance of these galas before getting down to the Ghana holidays 2019.

Importance of festivals in Ghana

Below are some of the reasons people celebrate these events:

Purification of the gods: Important rites are done, including the cleansing of old stools and so on.

Important rites are done, including the cleansing of old stools and so on. Development planning: The events are also used to plan development projects in the area since most citizens will attend.

The events are also used to plan development projects in the area since most citizens will attend. Thanksgiving: The supreme God is thanked for guidance, protection and food. Other lesser gods might also be praised.

The supreme God is thanked for guidance, protection and food. Other lesser gods might also be praised. Dispute resolution: Family and individual level disputes might be solved for peaceful co-existence.

Family and individual level disputes might be solved for peaceful co-existence. Tourism promotion: Many ceremonies attract tourists to the country. Through this, Ghana can earn foreign exchange.

Many ceremonies attract tourists to the country. Through this, Ghana can earn foreign exchange. Maintain culture: Most of these events preserve the cultural heritage of the involved groups.

Most of these events preserve the cultural heritage of the involved groups. Political and national significance: Leaders and prominent people are invited to speak about various policies and programs.

Types of festivals in Ghana

Ceremonies held in the country can be classified into the following:

1. Cultural

Commemoration of the farming season

Commemoration of migration

2. Religious

Christians and Muslims in the country have different celebrations during the year.

List of festivals in Ghana

Below is a listing of various ceremonies in the country according to the above classification. So shall we get started?

Cultural galas in Ghana

Image: instagram.com @afronationfest

Source: UGC

The following are the best festivals in Ghana and their ethnic groups. We have listed them according to their occurrence months for smooth flow.

January 1. Fao - Navrongo

People and chiefs observe fao from the Navrongo in the upper eastern region of the country. The ceremony is held annually in January.

February 2. Dzawuwu - Agave

It is celebrated by the Agave people in the Volta Region. Dzawuwu is just an annual thanksgiving ceremony.

March 3. Ngmayem - Krobo

Ngamyem is one of the yearly, traditional festivals in Ghana. It is mainly conducted by the Krobo people and involves thanksgiving. It is celebrated in Odumase and Somanya in the Eastern Region. It commemorates plentiful of millet harvest, which is referred to as Ngma. The Krobo also give thanks to God for protection.

April 4. Bugum Chungu - Dagomba

Classified as the first Dagomba ceremony in the year. It is celebrated in the Dagomba Lunar Years first month. Dancing ziem (a dance style for the tindaamba), and playing gungong are some of the main activities here. People dress like warriors and use torches. Muslims in the state do not partake in this festival as they associate it with Satanism.

May 5. Kpini Chungu - Dagombas, Basaris, Kokombas, Nanumbas, Mamprusis

Kpini Chungu means Guinea Fowl and is a minor cultural gala celebrated after Damba in the northern region. Naa Zangina is said to have initiated the ceremony.

June 6. Aboakyir (Deer Hunt) - Efutu (Winneba)

This is a bushbuck hunting gala celebrated in the central region of the country. On the first day, two warrior groups take part in a hunting trip. The earliest hunters troop to catch a live bushbuck present it to the chiefs and are declared the winners. The animal is then sacrificed to the Gods.

July 7. Adae Kese - Asante

This is a critical gala among the Asante people of Ghana. It glorifies the Asante kingdom achievements. It was first observed after the war the Ashantis underwent to have their independence. They fought against the Denkira at Feylase. It coincides with yam harvesting season hence it was nicknamed the yam custom. It is celebrated between July and October according to the Akans calendar. However, some observe it in January.

August 8. Homowo Festival - Ga

Homowo is one of the biggest and the grandest gala in the country. It happens right in the capital, Accra, every August. It originated from a season of despair as a result of fame, followed by enormous yields of food and fish. The chiefs of the Ga community sprinkle kpokpoi while people sing. Libations are poured, and litanies said to the gods to facilitate another sound season.

9. Kundum - Nzema

Kundum, as one of the harvest festivals in Ghana, takes place as from August to November and is celebrated in the Western Region coastal area. Beginning from the west, Nzema community people move from Takoradi to nearby towns at a weeks interval. Rituals are performed and prayers for good harvests made. Dancing and drumming are featured in prominently.

10. New Yam festival - Igbo, Ho

Yam is held at the end of the rainy season around August. It is also practised in Nigeria by the Igbo community and other West African countries. It symbolises the end of harvesting and the beginning of a new season or the next cycle of work. The Igbo and Ho are primarily agrarian and mostly depend on yam to make their central cuisine.

September 11. Ohum - Akim

This festival is usually held on a Tuesday or Wednesday in either September or October. The dates depend on Ohumkan festival month. Before the gala, a 2-week ban on making noise is imposed. It is mainly celebrated to give thanks to God for plenty yam harvests and ask for his favours in the coming season.

12. Fetu Afahye - Oguaa

Fetu Afanye is mainly celebrated by people and chiefs from the cape coast in central Ghana. It is held on the first Saturday of September annually by the Oguaa people. In their history, there was an outbreak of a strange disease and many people were pronounced lifeless.

Elders prayed to the gods to help them get rid of the ailment. Hence it is celebrated to cleanse the town and prevent the chance of another epidemic disease befalling the community.

November 13. Adae - Akim, Asante, Akwamu

Adae is one of the most critical Akan festivals in Ghana. It involves worship, invocation and propitiation of ancestral spirits. Traditional leaders enter the stool house and pour libations and foods to the ancestors on behalf of their people.

As the term suggests, the ceremony is usually a day of rest. Hence, work on such a day is forbidden. Ritual drumming is used to announce events while invoking the spirits of ancestors who were once drummers.

14. Fiok - Busa

It is celebrated annually by the Sandema ethnic group in the upper eastern region of the country.

Farming season festivals in Ghana

Here are the farming season festivals:

1. Kakube

Kakube is celebrated by the Nandom people in the upper western region. It is meant to show gratitude to the lesser gods for their guidance and protection throughout a specific farming season. It marks the end of farming and the beginning of a new work cycle. This is when people rekindle their relationships and also exhibit their rich culture and traditions.

2. Kobine

The main aim of this celebration is to give thanks to the gods for a bountiful harvest. It is usually conducted in September by the Dagaaba community in the upper western region. The 3-day fest features in eating, drinking and dancing.

Migration festivals in Ghana

Migration festivals include:

1. Akwantukese

New Juaben people commemorate this feast in the eastern region of the country. They do so to mark the epic journey ancestors went through from Juaben in Ghanaian Ashanti region around 135 years ago.

2. Hogbetsotso

Celebrated on the first Saturday of November, Hogbetsotso is one of the ewe festivals in Ghana. It is observed by chiefs and Anlo people in the Volta region. Various towns and villages such as Keta, Vodza, Dzita, Abor, Anloga, Kedzi, Whuti, Tegbi, and Afladenygba host the celebrations. A peacemaking section is included where all the disputes are settled down, and an amicable solution found.

Religious festivals in Ghana

Image : Unsplash.com

Source: UGC

1. Easter

Also known as Resurrection Sunday, this is a Christian holiday that commemorates the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as described by the New Testament. It is proceeded by lent, a period of 40 days of fasting, penance and prayer.

Most Christian churches refer this holiday week to as a Holy Week which includes Ash Wednesday, Mundy Thursday, Last Supper and also Good Friday. The dates for this celebration fall between March 22 and April 25.

2. Christmas

This is one of the most famous festivals in not only Ghana but also the entire globe. It is held on December 25 annually and remembers the birth of Jesus Christ. Millions if not billions of people observe it worldwide, and it is regarded as a central feast to the Christians liturgical year. The day is a public holiday in almost all nations.

3. Aboakyer

This is a bushbuck hunting feast that is observed by the Winneba in central Ghana. The institution of the gala was to remember the migration of the Winneba people from north-eastern Africa in Timbuku town, Sudan. The people believe that a god called Out protected their ancestors through the journey from all the dangers. The mature bushbuck captured by the hunting groups are sacrificed to this God as a sign of appreciation.

4. Eid al-Adha

Also known as the festival of the sacrifice, Eid al-Adha is considered holier than any other Islamic holiday. It honours Abrahams willingness to give out his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God. This is seen as an act of obedience to His command. Before the father of faith could sacrifice his son, God gave him a goat to in place of Isaac. In commemoration, an animal should be butchered and then divided into three parts. One is given to the needy, the other to relatives and the third kept for home.

5. Eld al-Fitr

Popularly known as the feast of breaking the fast, Eid al-Fitr is a holiday celebrated by all the Muslims not only in Ghana but also the entire world. It marks the end of the month of fasting of Ramadan. In this month, no one is allowed to fast. The festival takes place for one to three full days. Specific prayers are nominated to be cited on this gala. As a charity obligatory, money is given to the needy and the poor before performing the prayer.

6. Akwasidae

Observed by the Ashanti once in every six weeks. It is next to The National Day celebrations importance. Personal or communal ancestors are honoured. A gathering occurs and drumming, dancing and singing conducted in an orderly manner. Abosom (a lesser god in the Akans traditions) is acknowledged via food offerings such as mashed yams and hard-boiled chicken eggs.

On this day, the king of the Ashanti meets his chiefs and subjects at the Manhyia Palace courtyard. The golden stool is displayed, and people usually visit the place to sing and dance in large numbers. People are given a chance to shake hands with the king.

7. Bakatue festival

This means opening of the lagoon or draining of the lagoon. The festival is celebrated in commemoration of the foundation of the town of Elmina by the Europeans.

Other significant celebrations in Ghana

Other important celebration in the country include:

1. Damba festival

Damba is celebrated by chiefs and people from Nalerigu, Tamale and Wa in the upper west and Northern Region of Ghana. In Dagbani, its called Damba, Damma in Mampruli and in Waali, Jingbenti. The primary purpose of the ceremony is to mark the birth and naming dates of Mohammad. However, other practices, such as the glorification of chieftaincy and non-Islamic motifs, are conducted.

2. Odwira

Observed by chiefs and citizens from the Eastern region of the country, Odwira festival is celebrated annually every September. It commemorates a historic victory over people from the Ashanti tribe in 1626. Jamestown residents in Accra also mark it as they have a long association due to intermarriage with the Akans.

3. Asafotufiam

The Ada people and chiefs commemorate this gala in Dangbe East of the Greater Accra region. It is held annually on the first week of August and remembers the achievements in settlement wars ancestors fought in the area. The chiefs are entertained by a local dance known as Kpatsa.

Different festivals in Ghana are held a specific culture or tribe annually to celebrate various occasions and reasons. They all have backgrounds relating to the history of the culture in question. This could be anything from hunger, stories, goods, stools, and so on.

READ ALSO: Ten regions in Ghana and their festivals: Learn the Ghanaian Culture

Source: YEN.com.gh
What just happened? While we know plenty about the Xbox Series X and the hardware it's packing, Microsoft still hasn't revealed a release date beyond the vague "holidays 2020." Now, it appears that a Redmond exec has narrowed that window down to a specific month. As many expected, the next-gen machine looks set to arrive this November.

Microsoft CFO Amy Hood let the cat out of the bag when responding to a question from Bloomberg's Dina Bass in an investor call. Hood said that the upcoming console was "still on track" to launch in November.

Microsoft CFO Amy Hood says new Xbox is still on track for the November holidays launch.  Dina Bass (@dinabass) July 22, 2020

The journalist was asked if Hood specifically mentioned the Xbox Series X and a November release date, to which Bass replied: "It was in response to a question from me and I said "new console" and "November holidays." Her answer was the single word "yes.""

It was in response to a question from me and I said "new console" and "November holidays." Her answer was the single word "yes."  Dina Bass (@dinabass) July 22, 2020

It would have been surprising if the Xbox Series X had released in any other month, seeing as virtually all of its predecessors, including the 2001 original, launched in North America during November. Only the Xbox One S and the now-discontinued Xbox One S All-Digital Edition arrived outside of that month.

We're only a few hours away from Microsoft's Xbox Games Showcase, which takes place at 12pm ET/ 9am PT/5pm BST today, but don't expect a more specific release date or price reveal; Xbox marketing boss Aaron Greenberg tweeted that the show will be focused solely on games, "No business, devices or similar news."

I know everyone is excited for Xbox Games Showcase next Thursday. Seen some wild expectations so if helpful this show has one focus, games. No business, devices or similar news, just games. A whole show about hour long focused on games. Hope you enjoy it! https://t.co/eIPBsJtLbJ  Aaron Greenberg ?? (@aarongreenberg) July 16, 2020

Interestingly, we had heard rumors that Microsoft originally intended to beat Sony to the punch by releasing the Xbox Series X in August, but that date was pushed back because of Covid-19. Let's hope the next four months pass quickly.
Owen Lingley was unhappy with the way federal officers were treating Portland protesters. So he decided to send them a message. Several messages, in fact, on a moving billboard.

Since early July, these federal officers have reacted to nightly protests against racism and police violence downtown, sometimes working in coordination with local police, with force and tear gas.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump's disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.

The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump's decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump's meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency.

"This is code-word information," said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump "revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies."

The revelation comes as the president faces rising legal and political pressure on multiple Russia-related fronts. Last week, he fired FBI Director James Comey in the midst of a bureau investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Trump's subsequent admission that his decision was driven by "this Russia thing" was seen by critics as attempted obstruction of justice.

One day after dismissing Comey, Trump welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak - a key figure in earlier Russia controversies - into the Oval Office. It was during that meeting, officials said, that Trump went off script and began describing details of an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft.

For almost anyone in government, discussing such matters with an adversary would be illegal. As president, Trump has broad authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that his disclosures broke the law.

White House officials involved in the meeting said Trump discussed only shared concerns about terrorism.

"The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation," said H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, who participated in the meeting. "At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly."

McMaster reiterated his statement in a subsequent appearance at the White House on Monday and described the Washington Post story as "false," but did not take any questions.

In their statements, White House officials emphasized that Trump had not discussed specific intelligence sources and methods, rather than addressing whether he had disclosed information drawn from sensitive sources.

The CIA declined to comment, and the NSA did not respond to requests for comment.

But officials expressed concern about Trump's handling of sensitive information as well as his grasp of the potential consequences. Exposure of an intelligence stream that has provided critical insight into the Islamic State, they said, could hinder the United States' and its allies' ability to detect future threats.

"It is all kind of shocking," said a former senior U.S. official who is close to current administration officials. "Trump seems to be very reckless and doesn't grasp the gravity of the things he's dealing with, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security. And it's all clouded because of this problem he has with Russia."

In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. "I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day," the president said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange.

Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States learned only through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence-gathering method, but he described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State's territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat.

The Post is withholding most plot details, including the name of the city, at the urging of officials who warned that revealing them would jeopardize important intelligence capabilities.

"Everyone knows this stream is very sensitive, and the idea of sharing it at this level of granularity with the Russians is troubling," said a former senior U.S. counterterrorism official who also worked closely with members of the Trump national security team. He and others spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject.

The identification of the location was seen as particularly problematic, officials said, because Russia could use that detail to help identify the U.S. ally or intelligence capability involved. Officials said the capability could be useful for other purposes, possibly providing intelligence on Russia's presence in Syria. Moscow would be keenly interested in identifying that source and perhaps disrupting it.

Russia and the United States both regard the Islamic State as an enemy and share limited information about terrorist threats. But the two nations have competing agendas in Syria, where Moscow has deployed military assets and personnel to support President Bashar al-Assad.

"Russia could identify our sources or techniques," the senior U.S. official said.

A former intelligence official who handled high-level intelligence on Russia said that given the clues Trump provided, "I don't think that it would be that hard [for Russian spy services] to figure this out."

At a more fundamental level, the information wasn't the United States' to provide to others. Under the rules of espionage, governments - and even individual agencies - are given significant control over whether and how the information they gather is disseminated, even after it has been shared. Violating that practice undercuts trust considered essential to sharing secrets.

The officials declined to identify the ally but said it has previously voiced frustration with Washington's inability to safeguard sensitive information related to Iraq and Syria.

"If that partner learned we'd given this to Russia without their knowledge or asking first, that is a blow to that relationship," the U.S. official said.

Trump also described measures the United States has taken or is contemplating to counter the threat, including military operations in Iraq and Syria, as well as other steps to tighten security, officials said.

The officials would not discuss details of those measures, but the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed that it is considering banning laptops and other large electronic devices from carry-on bags on flights between Europe and the United States. The United States and Britain imposed a similar ban in March affecting travelers passing through airports in 10 Muslim-majority countries.

Trump cast the countermeasures in wistful terms. "Can you believe the world we live in today?" he said, according to one official. "Isn't it crazy?"

Lavrov and Kislyak were also accompanied by aides.

A Russian photographer took photos of part of the session that were released by the Russian state-owned Tass news agency. No U.S. news organization was allowed to attend any part of the meeting.

Senior White House officials appeared to recognize quickly that Trump had overstepped and moved to contain the potential fallout. Thomas Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, placed calls to the directors of the CIA and the NSA, the services most directly involved in the intelligence-sharing arrangement with the partner.

One of Bossert's subordinates also called for the problematic portion of Trump's discussion to be stricken from internal memos and for the full transcript to be limited to a small circle of recipients, efforts to prevent sensitive details from being disseminated further or leaked.

White House officials defended Trump. "This story is false," said Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy. "The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced."

But officials could not explain why staff members nevertheless felt it necessary to alert the CIA and the NSA.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said he would rather comment on the revelations in the Post story after "I know a little bit more about it," but added: "Obviously, they are in a downward spiral right now and have got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening. And the shame of it is, there's a really good national security team in place."

Corker also said, "The chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline is creating an environment that I think makes - it's creates a worrisome environment."

Trump has repeatedly gone off-script in his dealings with high-ranking foreign officials, most notably in his contentious introductory conversation with the Australian prime minister earlier this year. He has also faced criticism for seemingly lax attention to security at his Florida retreat, Mar-a-Lago, where he appeared to field preliminary reports of a North Korea missile launch in full view of casual diners.

U.S. officials said that the National Security Council continues to prepare multi-page briefings for Trump to guide him through conversations with foreign leaders, but that he has insisted that the guidance be distilled to a single page of bullet points - and often ignores those.

"He seems to get in the room or on the phone and just goes with it, and that has big downsides," the second former official said. "Does he understand what's classified and what's not? That's what worries me."

Lavrov's reaction to the Trump disclosures was muted, officials said, calling for the United States to work more closely with Moscow on fighting terrorism.

Kislyak has figured prominently in damaging stories about the Trump administration's ties to Russia. Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign just 24 days into the job over his contacts with Kislyak and his misleading statements about them. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from matters related to the FBI's Russia investigation after it was revealed that he had met and spoke with Kislyak, despite denying any contact with Russian officials during his confirmation hearing.

"I'm sure Kislyak was able to fire off a good cable back to the Kremlin with all the details" he gleaned from Trump, said the former U.S. official who handled intelligence on Russia.

The White House readout of the meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak made no mention of the discussion of a terrorist threat.

"Trump emphasized the need to work together to end the conflict in Syria," the summary said. The president also "raised Ukraine" and "emphasized his desire to build a better relationship between the United States and Russia."

- - -

The Washington Post's Julie Tate and Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report.
23.07.2020 LISTEN

Unlike Greece, Nigeria is not taking the issue of maritime business serious and have been unable to exploit the natural advantages in the industry despite having similar opportunities, Nigeria still depends on Greece for logistics requirements in the sector.

Mr. Bem Ibrahim Garba, MD/CEO GOG Marine Ltd, noted that there are a unique situation and relationship that exists between the two seafaring nations, Nigeria and Greece amongst the committee of nations active in global trade.

According to Garba, "these two nation-states have the natural advantage of proximity to the sea, giving their indigenous people (coastal people) the natural advantage of seeking employment, trade and wealth creation from trades associated with the Sea, yet these gains only accrue to one state".

He, however, regrets that only Greece could boast of a merchant fleet of 5,628 vessels involved in various trades as in 2018, while Nigeria has a shipping industry in comatose.

Not only that, but Nigeria also has to depend on many other seafaring states including the smaller European state to meet her maritime and logistics requirements.

"This is a tale of Nigeria and Greece. Two seafaring nations with active pollution of trained seafarers, and wealthy businessmen capable of all kinds of investment in shipping", he said.

"Have you ever wondered like I have, why Nigeria has not been able to exploit the natural advantages she has within this industry?

"What is the impact of this inability on the nations socio-economic development?" He queried.

He used the opportunity to call on relevant authorities to encourage indigenous investors in the seafaring and maritime sectors.
PORTLAND, Ore.  The mayor of Portland, Oregon was tear-gassed by U.S. government agents as he stood outside a federal courthouse during another night of protests against the presence of federal police sent by President Donald Trump to quell the citys ongoing unrest.

Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, appeared slightly dazed and coughed and said Wednesday night it was the first time he'd been tear-gassed.

He put on a pair of goggles someone handed him and drank water but did not leave his spot at the front of the protest and continued to take tear gas as the demonstration raged  with protesters lighting a large fire between protective fencing and the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse amid the pop-pop-pop sounds of the federal agents deploying tear gas and stun grenades into the crowd.

It wasn't immediately clear if the agents knew Wheeler was among those in crowd when they used the tear gas.

Earlier in the night, Wheeler was mostly jeered as he tried to rally demonstrators who have clashed nightly with federal agents but was briefly applauded when he shouted "Black Lives Matter" and pumped his fist in the air.

In a tweet Thursday, Trump referred to Wheeler as the "Radical Left Mayor of Portland, who last night was booed & shouted out of existence by the agitators & anarchists."

Wheeler has opposed federal agents' presence in Oregon's largest city. He has faced harsh criticism and his presence wasn't welcomed by many demonstrators who yelled and swore at him.

"I want to thank the thousands of you who have come out to oppose the Trump administration's occupation of this city," Wheeler told hundreds of people gathered downtown. "The reason this is important is it is not just happening in Portland ... we're on the front line here in Portland."

Wheeler has been accused by critics including city council members of not reining in local police who used tear gas multiple times on protesters before federal agents arrived early this month in response to nearly two months of nightly protests since George Floyd was killed. And city business leaders have condemned Wheeler for not bringing the situation under control before the agents showed up.

Department of Homeland Security acting Secretary Chad Wolf denied that federal agents were inflaming the situation in Portland. He told "CBS This Morning" on Thursday that Wheeler legitimized criminality in the city by going to the front of the crowd of demonstrators where the fires were lit and people were trying to pull down the protective fence.

Wolf said Wheeler had cited violence in the city before federal officers arrived.

Wheeler did not participate in lighting any of the fires or attempting to tear down the fence and was surrounded by his security team when he was gassed.

Earlier, protesters held signs saying "Tear Gas Ted" in reference to the Portland Police Bureau's use of the substance before federal agents arrived. As Wheeler left the protest zone about 12:40 a.m. Thursday, one person shouted that he should be there "every single night."

Less than an hour after Wheeler left, the Portland Police Bureau declared there was a riot at the site and threatened to use tear gas but officers never did and made no arrests.

In a statement later Thursday, police said the crowd threw Molotov cocktails, lit fires in a park and in trash cans and released hundreds of gallons of water from fire hydrants.

Before he was tear-gassed, Wheeler was criticized for cutting the local police budget and for not assigning Portland police to protect protesters from federal agents.

Wheeler's appearance in the protest zone came hours after state attorneys for Oregon urged a judge to issue a restraining order against agents deployed to tamp down on the protests.

The arguments came in a lawsuit filed by Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, who accused federal agents of arresting protesters without probable cause, whisking them away in unmarked cars and using excessive force. Federal authorities have disputed those allegations.

The lawsuit is part of the growing criticism of Trump's order that sent the federal agents to Portland and pending orders for them to head to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to fight rising crime.

Trump's move has deepened the country's political divide and has potentially set up a constitutional crisis months ahead of the presidential election. Democratic mayors of 15 cities have condemned the use of federal officers in a letter to the U.S. attorney general.

The court hearing focused on the actions of the more than 100 federal agents responding to protests outside the Portland courthouse.

The motion asks U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman to command agents from the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Patrol, Federal Protective Service and U.S. Marshals Service to immediately stop detaining protesters without probable cause, identify themselves and their agency before arresting anyone, and explain why an arrest is taking place.

On Thursday, a judge is expected to hear arguments in a legal challenge that the American Civil Liberties Union filed on behalf of journalists  including a freelance photographer for The Associated Press  and legal observers who say they were targeted by Portland police while documenting demonstrations.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of volunteer medics who have been attending to injured protesters.

Wheeler, 57, a sixth-generation Oregonian was born and raised in Portland and attended local public schools.
Lets start todays look at Connecticuts COVID-19 data since the start of Phase 1 reopening, most of it excellent, with some breaking news: Stamford Hospital discharged its last coronavirus patient Monday.

Wow  Stamford Health, once the states epicenter with 150 in-patients at the peak in mid-April, is down to zero as of this writing.

Dr. Michael Parry, chief of infectious diseases there, isnt dancing in celebration. We cant be too overconfident, he said. Were seeing a small number of patients in the emergency room, in outpatient clinics, who are testing positive but are not sick enough to be admitted.

Keep that in mind as we look at the states numbers since the week of May 20, when life inched toward normal in Connecticut. We know the declines in deaths, hospitalizations, rates of positive tests and total new infections have made this state the nations No. 1 performer.

One troubling measure: The Rt rate, aka the transmission rate or the R-naught, an indirect number designed to estimate how many new infections each sick person causes. If its over 1, the illness is growing, or so the theory goes. Under 1, its abating.

Connecticut went from a nation-leading 0.73 on May 18 to 0.99, eighth best in the United States, on Sunday. Still in the green zone, but only barely.

Arizona, which peaked at a high 1.25 two months ago  and ended up with a vast spread  is now at 0.98, a tick better than Connecticut. Even Florida, which recorded more than 10,000 new cases in each of the last several days, was down to 1.01 Sunday.

Small changes might matter in this Rt measure, which is frightfully complex and was developed by the founders of Instagram. Then again, maybe not. Deaths, hospitalizations, new cases, percent of positives, those we can relate to more easily.

Those are numbers that are tangible and can be measured, Parry said Monday. I dont know what to do with this R-naught value.

Others take the same view. But this Rt thing  I credit my colleague Jordan Fenster for watching it closely  seems to have decent qualities of prediction for a few weeks down the road, through its highly uneven.

Is the rising Rt in Connecticut  and other top-performing states  related to young people being out and around? My friends 20-year-old son had ten of his friends over at their house, partying in close quarters, no masks. The host then spiked a fever and now everyone is worried as the test takes days to come back.

The point: Gen-Z people may contract COVID-19 less easily but theyre out and around a lot more than the early-bird special dinner crowd. That may explain the rising Rt numbers even as Connecticut sees less illness overall.

And sure enough, in the week ending July 11, my colleague Amanda Cuda reported, people aged 20 to 29 led all age groups for new cases in Connecticut  following a national trend.

We dont have enough data to draw conclusions, Dr. Albert Ko, the Yale epidemiologist, said Monday.

We suspect thats the case, Ko, professor of epidemiology and department chair at the Yale School of Public Health, said as part of the governors coronavirus briefing. This may be what we call a reservoir, that transmission is occurring in this age group.

Yeah, thats not the kind of reservoir we want to see among our kids and their friends.

What weve seen is that the whole Rt curve has moved toward the middle. Two months ago there were nine states at or over 1.20. Now there are just four, all barely over that threshold. And there were seven states at or under 0.80. Now? Zero.

Fall is coming.

Gov. Ned Lamont, for his part, is urging caution but focusing with optimism on the hallmark statistic in Connecticut, the percent of tests showing positive for COVID-19. Even as the number of tests rises  an average of 71,000 a week in July, up from 46,000 in June  Connecticut has seen its positive test rate plummet to 0.8 percent in each of the first three weeks of July.

That compares with 9.6 percent in Connecticut the week the state reopened, May 20. And it compares with a current national average of about 9 percent, well over 20 in some states, including Florida.

And it comes despite Connecticuts marketing efforts to test only the highest risk groups, such as people who have been in contact with a known carrier, people with symptoms and urban Black and Hispanic residents, who have been hardest hit by coronavirus.

Lamont said late Monday he was just off a call with Vice President Mike Pences task force.

I was very happy to see Dr. [Anthony] Fauci was back, by the way, Lamont said. What is working in these highly infected states is that bars are closedand theyre trying to keep occupancy rates lower in the restaurants.

In other words, what Connecticut is doing has worked here and elsewhere, Lamont said.

Deaths in the last week were at 35, down from 441 the week of the reopening. Hospitalizations stood at 54 Monday, down from 920 that Monday in mid-May.

And at Stamford Hospital, zero  for now. Well just have to wait to see whether the uptick in this mystical stat known as Rt portends danger, but make no mistake, were in a long slog.

No way this virus is going away, Parry said to me on Monday. This is going to smolder and circulate around the country for the next year until we have a vaccine.

dhaar@hearstmediact.com
(Newser)  Joe Biden on Wednesday dubbed Donald Trump the nation's "first" racist president. "The way he deals with people based on the color of their skin, their national origin, where theyre from, is absolutely sickening," the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said at a virtual town hall. "No sitting president has ever done this. Never, never, never. No Republican president has done this. No Democratic president. Weve had racists, and theyve existed. Theyve tried to get elected president. Hes the first one that has." As the AP points out, "many presidentsincluding the nations first, George Washingtonowned slaves." The HuffPost put it more bluntly: "He's wrong," it declared on Biden. NBC News notes Biden's campaign later issued a statement acknowledging, "There have been a number of racist American presidents, but Trump stands outespecially in modern historybecause he made running on racism and division his calling card and won."

story continues below

In addition to the slave-owning presidents, the HuffPost points out that Andrew Jackson was responsible for forcing indigenous people off their native lands and onto the "Trail of Tears"; he also would order "harsh, even brutal punishment for enslaved people who disobeyed orders." Ronald Reagan was caught on tape calling African UN delegates "monkeys," Woodrow Wilson supported segregation and segregated several federal agencies, and Franklin D. Roosevelt had Japanese-Americans placed in internment camps. Asked about Biden's comments at a White House briefing later Wednesday, Trump said, "Prior to the China plague coming in, floating in, coming into our country and doing terrible things, we had the best African American, Hispanic American, Asian American, almost every group was the best for unemployment." He added, "Most importantly, when you look at criminal justice reform  Ive done more for Black Americans than anybody with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln. Nobody has even been close." (Read more Joe Biden stories.)
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CHICAGO (AP)  Passengers wishing to board a United Airlines flight will have to wear face masks at ticket counters and in its airport lounges, or risk a flight ban from the carrier.

United and all other major U.S. carriers require passengers to wear masks during flights. United said Wednesday that it is broadening mask requirements for passengers even before they board the plane.





. . .
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Zenith New Zealand research on hold due to Covid-19

Zenith Investment Partners has found its plans to expand into research of New Zealand fund managers has been thwarted by Covid-19.

Friday, July 24th 2020, 6:14AM

Zenith bought FundSource from the NZX last year.

Chief operating officer Jason Huddy said the firm planned to expand Zeniths qualitative fund management research into New Zealand.

We certainly have plans not only to expand our research coverage of Australian and international managers to New Zealand for New Zealand advisers but to include New Zealand-based managers. But weve hit a roadblock. We cant have any analysts travel to have a meeting with fund managers, he said.

The business in New Zealand had been renamed to Zenith Investment Partners NZ and there was a website to give New Zealand advisers international fund insight, he said. But the 14 analysts working for Zenith faced a challenge in travelling to New Zealand while the borders were closed due to Covid-19, he said.

Huddy said video conferencing was possible but Zenith preferred to have a face-to-face meeting in the first instance.

After that its easier to do Zooms or Teams meetings but we havent been able to have that connection yet so its hard to kick off that background research work.

Zenith has also cancelled the fund manager of the year awards this year.

Huddy said the team was still in a holding pattern waiting to see whether a trans-Tasman bubble would make travel possible but it would not be possible to wait much longer before initiating conversations in some form with managers.

In that case we would have to go to plan b and explore a video conferencing facility but its not ideal.

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Rewari:

The hardship arising out of demonetisation may continue for around a month, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Wednesday, describing the move as the first step towards achieving economic and social freedom.

Speaking at a rally here, Singh asked the people to bear with the difficulties for some time as it would usher in a bright future in the long run.

ALSO READ: (Oppn alleges 'leak' of information before currency ban: Here's what all happened in Parliament on Day 1)

It wasnt a small decision. We admit that people will face hardships for at least a month but it will be beneficial in the long term. A few political parties are opposing it. But bear with it for some time. We will give you a bright future.

India has got political freedom but we need economic and social freedom. We want economic inequality to end. The demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes is the first step towards that. It will help bring transparency in Indian politics, he said.

At the Martyrs Rally organised by Minister of State for Urban Development and Housing Rao Inderjit Singh, the Home Minister also hit out at Pakistan for betraying the trust India reposed in it after the Narendra Modi government came to power in 2014.

Singh didnt refer to the issue of One Rank, One Pension (OROP) even once in his speech at the rally that was also attended by Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattar and several ministers of the Haryana government and MLAs.

This assumed importance as Narendra Modi had promised to implement OROP from the similar venue before the 2014 Lok Sabha election, two days before he was declared BJPs prime ministerial candidate.

ALSO READ: (Govt asks banks, post offices to report to I-T department of all deposits over Rs 2.5 lakh)

Referring to the surgical strikes, Singh hailed the soldiers for proving that hum idhar bhi maar sakte hain aur udhar bhi maar sakte hain (We can kill them on either side of the border).

He said that terrorism is the weapon of the coward and claimed that this government which has a strong heart has brought down extremism and Naxalism significantly over the last two years.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was supposed to address the rally but he couldnt come as he was unwell, Singh said.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Parkdale Mall welcomed back Charlotte Russe this week as the clothing chain opens new stores across the country under new ownership.

The store opened its doors Wednesday at Parkdale at its old location across the way from Buckle.

The brand closed stores in 2019 as it entered bankruptcy, but eventually sold its holdings and trademarks to Toronto-based fashion house YM Inc. in March of last year.

Shortly after, YM announced it had plans to open around 100 stores under the Charlotte Russe banner, including the location at Parkdale Mall.

YM Inc. operates over 700 stores across Canada and the United States, and will soon open stores under an Aeropostale Canada banner.

Along with the new opening, Parkdale Mall has also been advertising spaces for local businesses to launch ventures with pop-up shop events, kiosks and other spaces.

Parkdales parent company, CBL Properties, recently disclosed issues making its debt payments and started talks with some of its debt holders almost a month ago.

Thursday, CBL said it would extend those talks into next week but it could not make any promises that it will avoid financial crisis.

"The company is continuing to engage in negotiations and discussions with the holders and lenders of the company's 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 said in a filing to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
An organization encompassing some 79,000 Shinto shrines in Japan has been rocked by the recent declaration by a key member shrine that it intends to leave the body, after years of distrust.

The Kotohira-gu shrine in Kagawa Prefecture, popularly referred to as Kompira-san, said in a statement dated June 5 that it would withdraw from the Association of Shinto Shrines, which directly names chief priests at major shrines and has offices in each prefecture.

Dedicated to sailors and seafaring and situated on a mountain, the centuries-old shrine is a major tourist draw in western Japan. Every year, millions of visitors climb its 785 steps to reach the main shrine and another 583 steps to the upper shrine.

The rift apparently became irreparable after the association failed to provide the shrine with a heihaku cash offering in time for Emperor Naruhitos conducting of the Daijosai, a Shinto-style ceremony held once in an emperors lifetime to pray for peace and abundant harvests, in November last year.

The special offering was supposed to be used for a rite that shrines across the country had been asked by the association to hold on the same day as the Daijosai. But the money, delivered through the associations regional offices, didnat arrive at the Kagawa shrine until late January.

We can only think that it was an act of harassment against our shrine, said Yasutsugu Kotooka, 71, the chief priest.

Kotooka, who was prevented for a long period by the association from succeeding as chief priest when his father died in 1994, said a number of other incidents besides late receipt of the offering had fueled his distrust of the association.
Rajasthan assembly Speaker C P Joshi is the slender thread that stands between a Congress and BJP government, reports Aditi Phadnis.

IMAGE: Rajasthan Assembly Speaker C P Joshi. Photograph: ANI Photo

Had C P Joshi, current speaker of the Rajasthan assembly, not lost the 2008 assembly election in his constituency, Nathdwara, by one vote, it might have been hard to decide whether Joshi or Ashok Gehlot -- Rajasthan's current chief minister -- would have been chief minister.

The two are chalk and cheese.

Joshi is irascible, blunt and hates being asked for favours.

Gehlot is moderate and unaggressive. They are also not particularly fond of each other.

In fact, at a meeting where Gehlot was present, Joshi remarked soon after the Rajasthan assembly election in 2008: "I was a follower of Ashok Gehlot. Now I am his collaborator. The earlier relationship between us was of leader-follower and now it is of leader-collaborator'.

Despite their differences (and they persist), they made a formidable team and scripted victory not just in the assembly election (96 out of 200) but also in the Lok Sabha (19 out of 25) in 2008 and 2009.

As Union minister in the United Progressive Alliance government, Joshi was moved out of rural development to replace Kamal Nath in surface transport in 2011.

When the UPA went into the Opposition in 2014, he was given extensive Congress party responsibilities of nearly a dozen states, small and big, in the north east as well as Bihar, West Bengal, and the Andaman islands.

Either his new assignment did not interest him, or he felt he had bigger fish to fry.

Either way, it was on his watch that Himanta Biswa Sarma left the Congress to join the Bharatiya Janata Party, ostensibly because Rahul Gandhi didn't give him the importance he felt he deserved.

Many feel that the Congress general secretary in charge, Joshi, could have stepped in to stem the damage.

In Bihar, Ashok Choudhary, who was made party chief, quit, not just his position, but the party itself, when he joined the Janata Dal-United. This, too, was under Joshi's watch.

Others, too, had a litany of grievances. Speaking to local newspapers, Nagaland Congress chief Kewe Khape Therie, said just before the Congress lost the March 2018 assembly election, that the party was going to lose and Joshi was responsible for the loss: He even prevented then Congress president Rahul Gandhi from visiting Nagaland.

Therie said in the two-and-a-half years that Joshi was in charge, he visited the state only once. 'I think the Congress will draw a blank as of now because Congress candidates have sailed in an abandoned ship. I don't think anybody can stand without the support of logistics. I just didn't like my candidates to resign. So I let them continue but I think nobody wins elections without logistics support,' Therie said.

While the Congress had announced 23 candidates initially, five pulled out for lack of funds, leaving only 18 in the fray.

In Meghalaya too, the Congress managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. With just two more than the Congress, it was an agile Bharatiya Janata Party that stitched an alliance with smaller groups and form a government.

In Tripura, Sarma took advantage of a somnolent Congress to steal erstwhile allies from under its nose.

The party leadership took its time to act. Charge of the north east and West Bengal was taken away from Joshi only in 2018.

Then came the Rajasthan assembly election and Joshi went back to doing what he does best -- state politics.

Now, he is the slender thread that stands between a Congress and a BJP government. He might be saving the government for the party.

But the unintended recipient of his grace will be bitter erstwhile rival Ashok Gehlot.
Sushmitha Ramakrishnan By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: College students have welcomed the government's decision to promote them without conducting semester examinations.

Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Thursday cancelled the April-May 2020 semester examinations, except for students in their final year of education. Details are expected on when final semester exams will be conducted.

The state government had constituted a high-level 11-member committee to make decisions about the exams, based on University Grants Commission (UGC) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) recommendations.

Following this, the government cancelled the even semester exams for the following students and promoted them to the next academic year: first and second year undergraduate and first year postgraduate students studying in arts and science colleges, first, second and third year undergraduate and first year postgraduate students studying in engineering colleges and first year MCA students.

The government said that further details will be announced later. Students are awaiting information on when and how final semester examinations will be conducted.

It is expected that colleges will be asked to use internal assessments to evaluate students in place of the cancelled semester examinations and that final year students will have to write the exams online. However, a final announcement is yet to be made on this.

Anna University has been mulling conducting the exams online. A senior official from the varsity said that a decision will be taken after considering the feasibility. The official further added that the varsity is waiting for the state government's decision on the matter.

Students are happy with the government's decision. Many left for their hometowns in a jiffy when the lockdown was announced thinking that it would last only a couple of weeks like in European countries. "Many of us left our books behind at the hostel and we do not have sufficient access to the internet in our hometowns," said a third year student from Anna University, Guindy campus.

A final year student from a private engineering college in the city told The New Indian Express that she had to leave for Kerala at the beginning of the lockdown. "The government should ensure that we are transported safely to write our exams and that we have a place to stay before announcing semester exams. Otherwise they should cancel the exams for us as well," she said.
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Vodafone Idea share price gained over 2 percent on July 23, a day after the Supreme Court dismissed an income tax department plea challenging a Bombay High Court order directing it to refund Rs 833 crore to the company.

Upholding Vodafone's claims for refund of taxes for the year AY 2014-15, the SC said the I-T department had in October 2019 concluded that Rs 833 crore was due and payable to the telecom company, CNBC-TV18 reported. It also said the tax department didn't have the authority to withhold refunds anticipating future demands. The tax department had opposed the refund, citing potential demands against the company.

Vodafone Idea had filed a petition seeking a direction to the I-T department to refund Rs 1009.43 crore, including Rs 833 crore on an immediate basis. Upholding the telco's plea, the Bombay High Court directed the tax department to refund Rs 833 crore to Vodafone Idea Limited within two weeks.

The stock, which has been volatile, was trading at Rs 8.77, up Rs 0.24, or 2.81 percent.

It was the most active stock on NSE in terms of volumes, with 8,27,85,766 shares being traded at 0948 hours.
Technavio has been monitoring the global piperylene market size and it is poised to grow by USD 428.50 million 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/20200722005731/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Piperylene 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

Frequently Asked Questions-

At what rate is the market projected to grow during the forecast period 2020-2024?

A. The market is expected to grow at a CAGR of almost 6 during the forecast period.

The market is expected to grow at a CAGR of almost 6 during the forecast period. What is the key factor driving the market?

A. The growing demand for piperylene-based adhesives is expected to propel the growth of the market.

The growing demand for piperylene-based adhesives is expected to propel the growth of the market. Who are the top players in the market?

A. Braskem SA, Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LLC, China Petrochemical Corp., Eastman Chemical Co., Kai Yen International Trading Corp., Lotte Chemical Corp., LyondellBasell Industries NV, Mitsui Co. Ltd., NOVA Chemicals Corp., and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are some of the major market participants

Braskem SA, Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LLC, China Petrochemical Corp., Eastman Chemical Co., Kai Yen International Trading Corp., Lotte Chemical Corp., LyondellBasell Industries NV, Mitsui Co. Ltd., NOVA Chemicals Corp., and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are some of the major market participants Which region is expected to hold the highest market share in the market?

A. APAC region

APAC region Based on segmentation by application, which segment is expected to witness the fastest growth in the global market?

A. The plastic segment is expected to grow at a faster rate

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Braskem SA, Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LLC, China Petrochemical Corp., Eastman Chemical Co., Kai Yen International Trading Corp., Lotte Chemical Corp., LyondellBasell Industries NV, Mitsui Co. Ltd., NOVA Chemicals Corp., and Royal Dutch Shell Plc. are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

The growing demand for piperylene-based adhesives has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. However, the development of bio-based plastics might hamper market growth.

Piperylene Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Piperylene Market is segmented as below:

Application Adhesives Plastics Others

Geographic Landscape APAC Europe MEA North America South America



To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR41194

Piperylene 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 piperylene market report covers the following areas:

Piperylene Market size

Piperylene Market trends

Piperylene Market industry analysis

This study identifies the growing demand for pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSA) as one of the prime reasons driving the piperylene market growth during the next few years.

Piperylene Market 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the piperylene market, including some of the vendors such as Braskem SA, Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LLC, China Petrochemical Corp., Eastman Chemical Co., Kai Yen International Trading Corp., Lotte Chemical Corp., LyondellBasell Industries NV, Mitsui Co. Ltd., NOVA Chemicals Corp., and Royal Dutch Shell Plc. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the Piperylene Market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Piperylene Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist piperylene market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the piperylene market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the piperylene market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of piperylene market vendors

Table of Contents:

PART 01: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

PART 02: SCOPE OF THE REPORT

2.1 Preface

2.2 Currency conversion rates for US$

PART 03: MARKET LANDSCAPE

Market ecosystem

Market characteristics

Value Chain Analysis

Market segmentation analysis

PART 04: MARKET SIZING

Market definition

Market sizing 2019

Market Outlook

Market size and forecast 2019-2024

PART 05: FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

PART 06: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY APPLICATION

Market segmentation by application

Comparison by application

Adhesives Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Plastics Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Others Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by application

PART 07: CUSTOMER LANDSCAPE

PART 08: GEOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024

South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity

PART 09: DECISION FRAMEWORK

PART 10: DRIVERS AND CHALLENGES

Market drivers

Market challenges

PART 11: MARKET TRENDS

Growing demand from emerging economies

Growing demand for PSA

Increasing vendor initiatives toward sustainable operations

PART 12: VENDOR LANDSCAPE

Overview

Landscape disruption

Competitive scenario

PART 13: VENDOR ANALYSIS

Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Braskem SA

Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LLC

China Petrochemical Corp.

Eastman Chemical Co.

Kai Yen International Trading Corp.

Lotte Chemical Corp.

LyondellBasell Industries NV

Mitsui Co. Ltd.

NOVA Chemicals Corp.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc

PART 14: APPENDIX

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

Definition of market positioning of vendors

PART 15: EXPLORE TECHNAVIO

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses 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/20200722005731/en/

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As of July 17, Nueces County in Texas has reportedly recorded 85 positive coronavirus tests among infants under one year of age. However, the number of babies who tested positive for COVID-19 was debunked to be false.

The true tally was that Nueces County registered children aged under 1 year positive for COVID-19 and 33 children aged between 1 and 2 years tested positive. Therefore, the total is 85 novel coronavirus positive children under 2 years old. Nueces County is located in South Texas.

According to Nueces County Director of Public Health Annette Rodriguez at a press briefing on Friday that an evaluation of the county's data displayed that 85 residents under the age of one tested positive for the coronavirus, reported CBN News.

The infants have not reached their first birthday yet, Rodriguez added. The local health official did not elaborate on the situation of the children.

Cases involving infants are usually rare, but babies under one-year-old are more susceptible to serious illness with COVID-19 due to their and smaller airways and not fully developed immune system, reported Fox News.

Local officials are imploring residents to contribute to stopping the coronavirus transmission as Texas has evolved to become one of the newest hotspots of the virus.

Health authorities have recorded over 3.6 million coronavirus cases throughout the United States since January, reported CTV News.

Texas is one of the around two dozen states combatting fast increases in coronavirus confirmed cases after rapidly reopening their economies alongside Florida, Oklahoma, and Arizona.

Also Read: How Accurate Is the COVID-19 Finger Stick Test

According to the Nueces County Medical Examiner Adel Shaker, an infant boy less than 6 months old died after testing positive for the virus.

The date when the cases were confirmed was not stated by Rodriguez.

Questions remain regarding the infection rates of US children.

When the coronavirus pandemic became prevalent in Texas, Nueces County remained relatively healthy as the Amarillo region agonized due to the virus outbreak.

The beachfront location has one of the most rapidly growing outbreaks in Texas, adding over 2,000 new cases for each of the previous two weeks.

A number of hospitals in the state are almost at capacity as the coronavirus grow prevalent.

With infants under 1 year of age representing around 1% of the coronavirus positive cases, 8,407 people have tested positive for the virus since March.

According to the Corpus Chrisi's official data, Nueces County has recorded 90 deaths as of Saturday at 4:15 PM.

Data from Johns Hopkins University indicated that health authorities have identified over 3.6 million coronavirus cases throughout the United States with 140,000 fatalities.

The tally of coronavirus cases in Texas' Nueces County rapidly rose in July after a flattening trend. Therefore, local officials are advising citizens to wear face shields and comply with social distancing measures.

Texas, taking into account the babies who tested positive for COVID-19, has grown to become a new hotspot for the virus with 15,038 newly-confirmed cases on mere July 16.

For the past week, Nueces County has recorded 2,499 new confirmed cases and 40 fatalities and was deemed as "the fastest growth in new cases on the seven-day average than any other metropolitan county in the state," according to Corpus Christi City Manager Peter Zanoni.

Related Article: Fact Check: Fauci, Obama, and Gates Appeared in Wuhan Lab in 2015?

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A Manhattan judge has ruled in favor of releasing material related to a years-old civil lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell, to be used in her current trial where she is facing charges of conspiring to sexually abuse minors.

The sealed material is said to contain the names of influential people who had contact with - and traveled with - the late Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sexual predator whom Ghislaine worked with for years, and is accused of abusing women and minors with.

Maxwell, who has been held without bail in a New York jail since being arrested earlier this month, argued through her lawyers that information contained in the material stemming from the civil case, which was settled three years ago, could influence "potential witnesses or alleged victims."

The previous lawsuit was brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who has accused Epstein, Britains Prince Andrew, and American lawyer Alan Dershowitz of sex crimes. Her deposition will be one of many that will be unsealed. However, it is not clear what prominent names could be identified through the documents though, as US District Judge Loretta Preska said that the personal identifying information of people mentioned in the material, as well as the names of non-parties, will be redacted.

Maxwells attorney asked for a two-week emergency stay to appeal the decision by the court, but was given only a week. The unsealing of documents will continue, however, with some expected to be released to the public in at least a weeks time.
By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry has condemned recent hate crimes committed by Armenians against peaceful Azerbaijanis during protests held in a number of countries.

In a statement published on July 23, the ministry said that over the last week, radical Armenian forces have committed extremely aggressive provocations against Azerbaijani diplomatic missions abroad, as well as peaceful demonstrators during the protests held by members of the Azerbaijani community in foreign countries in connection with military provocation launched by Armenian armed forces in direction of Tovuz district in the Azerbaijani-Armenian border starting on July 12.

We strongly condemn the hate crimes committed by Armenian radical elements against Azerbaijani diplomats, as well as members of the Azerbaijani communities in these countries, and we expect the agencies responsible for preventing such provocations in the respective countries to take full responsibility for their duties, the statement reads.

Armenian provocations against the buildings of Azerbaijani diplomatic missions in France, Great Britain, Sweden, Poland, Australia, USA, the Netherlands, Belgium, as well as against Azerbaijani demonstrators expressing their views peacefully in these countries, are characterized as criminal acts involving elements of vandalism and terrorism and deliberately seeking to damage members of the Azerbaijani community, diplomats and their property, the ministry said.

This vandalism of radical Armenian forces is nothing new for either Azerbaijan or the other countries faced Armenian terrorism, the ministry said.

In 1970-1980, ASALA and other Armenian terrorist organizations killed more than 70 people. Overall, they committed more than 235 terrorist acts across 22 countries, in which 24 Turkish diplomats were killed. After the declaration of independence of Armenia in 1991, in order to implement its territorial claims against Azerbaijan, Armenia turned terrorism into a state policy tool and widely used terrorist means in different parts of the country during the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions of Azerbaijan, the statement reads.

The Foreign Ministry reminded in the statement that according to the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, it is the responsibility of the host country to ensure the protection of diplomatic missions from any interference or harm, as well as to prevent any attack on the diplomat, his/her identity, freedom and honour.

Addressing the friendly countries, the Azerbaijan side calls on to pay more attention to strengthening the protection of diplomatic missions of Azerbaijan, the inviolability and security of diplomats, as well as the security of our compatriots, the ministry stated.

Azerbaijan demands that the acts of vandalism committed by radical Armenian forces be investigated by the law enforcement agencies of the relevant countries and that the actions of the perpetrators of these crimes be given a legal assessment.

The ministry said that Azerbaijans diplomatic missions have been instructed to provide all necessary assistance, including legal assistance, to Azerbaijanis facing difficulties due to Armenian violence abroad.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Officers from the Chilean Investigation Police took custody of Nicolas Zepeda in his home on Wednesday, to carry out his extradition order to France, where he will face charges on the disappearance and alleged murder of his former Japanese girlfriend Narumi Kurosaki in France in 2016.

Zepeda was under house arrest in Vina del Mar, but the Chilean Supreme Court lifed the order earlier on Wednesday in order to hand him to the Interpol. Officers drove away in a tinted window car. Nicolas Zepeda will be extradited to France on a flight on Thursday. A court in Chile ruled the extradition in March, when Zepeda's defense argued that he could not be extradited because Kurosaki's body has never been found.

But the decision was finally settled by the Chilean Supreme court in April. Zepeda had returned to Chile before an investigation into Kurosaki's disappearance began and has reportedly not cooperated with Chilean prosecutors representing French authorities.
The Ghana Civil Society Organisations Platform on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has called on Government to do more to lessen the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on the poor and vulnerable persons.



A release by the sub-platform on Goal 10, and copied to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) said the harsh impact of the pandemic widened further the growing inequality in the country, and placed vulnerable groups including women, youth, children, and persons with disabilities in economic destitution.



It said the toll of the pandemic on the worlds economy affected developing countries like Ghana and noted that measures by the Government to alleviate the plight of the most affected, notably the distribution of free food and micro-credit facilities for SMEs were not sufficient.



The release said with the UN was projecting the pandemic to drag on for a couple more years until a vaccine was found, a long term strategy to diminish the short term effects of the situation was crucial.



In light of the World Health Organizations (WHO) projections, it has been made clear that the virus will be with us for at least 2 more years because a vaccine has not yet been developed.



Government will need to develop an inclusive long term strategy that will help address the short to long term effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the poor and vulnerable and the entire citizenry at large, it said.



The release made some key suggestions that could be considered in national budgeting, and also by political parties as they drew up manifestos during the election year.



Notable among the recommendations was a strong focus on universal quality public services towards bridging the gap between rich and poor and address gender disparities, which it said could be attained with budget allocations to boost free quality universal public education, and a free universal, easily accessible and quality healthcare.



It also recommended progressive taxation that would help redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor, and create an environment that would encourage investment and economic growth.



The release also called on government to enhance the labour market by strengthening unions, increase minimum wage, protect rights, level off gender opportunities, and cushion the vulnerable lot with social security programs among others.



It further called for invests in national care systems that would help address what it calls the disproportionate responsibility for care work done by women and girls, asking that such systems addressed challenges with the universal access to safe water, sanitation and domestic energy systems, and also secure investments to deliver universal care for children, the aged, and people living with disabilities.

Source: GNA









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WASHINGTON  The House has approved a bill to remove statues of Gen. Robert E. Lee and other Confederate leaders from the U.S. Capitol, as a reckoning over racial injustice continues following the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis.

The House vote also would remove a bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the author of the 1857 Dred Scott decision that declared African Americans couldn't be citizens.

The bill directs the Architect of the Capitol to identify and eventually remove from Statuary Hall at least 10 statues honoring Confederate officials, including Lee, the commanding general of the Confederate Army, and Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president. Three statues honoring white supremacists  including former U.S. Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina  would be immediately removed.

"Defenders and purveyors of sedition, slavery, segregation and white supremacy have no place in this temple of liberty," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said at a Capitol news conference ahead of the House vote.

The House approved the bill 305-113, sending it to the Republican-controlled Senate, where prospects are uncertain. Seventy-two Republicans, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Lousiana, joined with 232 Democrats to support the bill.

Hoyer, a Democrat, co-sponsored the measure and noted with irony that Taney was born in the southern Maryland district Hoyer represents. Hoyer said it was appropriate that the bill would replace Taney's bust with another Maryland native, the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the high court's first Black justice.

The House vote comes as communities nationwide reexamine the people they're memorializing with statues. Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month ordered that the portraits of four speakers who served the Confederacy be removed from the ornate hall just outside the House chamber.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said the statues honoring Lee and other Confederate leaders are "deliberate attempts to rewrite history and dehumanize African Americans."

The statues "are not symbols of Southern heritage, as some claim, but are symbols of white supremacy and defiance of federal authority," Lee said. "It's past time we end the glorification of men who committed treason against the United States in a concerted effort to keep African Americans in chains."

Bills to remove the Taney bust and the statues of Confederate leaders have been introduced in the Senate, although they would require separate votes.

Even if legislation passes both chambers, it would need the president's signature, and President Donald Trump has opposed the removal of historic statues elsewhere. Trump has strongly condemned those who toppled statues during protests over racial injustice and police brutality following Floyd's death in May and other police killings.

The 2-foot-high marble bust of Taney is outside a room in the Capitol where the Supreme Court met for half a century, from 1810 to 1860. It was in that room that Taney, the nation's fifth chief justice, announced the Dred Scott decision, sometimes called the worst decision in the court's history.

"What Dred Scott said was, Black lives did not matter,'' Hoyer said. "So when we assert that yes they do matter, it is out of conviction ... that in America, the land of the free includes all of us.''

There's at least one potentially surprising voice for Taney to stay. Lynne M. Jackson, Scott's great-great-granddaughter, says if it were up to her, she'd leave Taney's bust where it is. But she said she'd add something too: a bust of Dred Scott.

"I'm not really a fan of wiping things out," Jackson said in a telephone interview this week from her home in Missouri.

The president and founder of The Dred Scott Heritage Foundation, Jackson has seen other Taney sculptures removed in recent years, particularly in Maryland, where he was the state's attorney general before becoming U.S. attorney general and then chief justice.

Calhoun, who served as vice president from 1825-1832, also was a U.S. senator, House member and secretary of state and war. He died a decade before the Civil War, but was known as a strong defender of slavery, segregation and white supremacy.

His statue would be removed within 30 days of the bill's passage, along with two other white supremacists, former North Carolina Gov. Charles Aycock and James Clarke, a former Arkansas governor and senator.

In the summer of 2017, shortly after white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the removal of a statue of Lee, Baltimore's mayor removed statues of Lee, Taney and others.A statue of Taney was removed from the grounds of the State House in Annapolis around the same time. And a bust of Taney was removed that year from outside city hall in Frederick, Maryland.

Another Taney bust sits alongside all other former chief justices in the Supreme Court's Great Hall, a soaring, marble-columned corridor that leads to the courtroom. A portrait of Taney hangs in one of the court's conference rooms.

Jackson said she believes that what memorials honoring figures like Taney need is context. At the Capitol, the Taney statue sits in the "place where the Dred Scott case was decided," but the fact he is "there by himself is lopsided," Jackson said in suggesting a bust of Scott be added. She had proposed a similar fix for the Taney statue in Annapolis.

In Congress, Taney's bust was controversial from the start. When Illinois Sen. Lyman Trumbull proposed its creation in 1865, shortly after Taney's death, he got into a heated debate with Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner, a fierce opponent of slavery.

"Let me tell that senator that the name of Taney is to be hooted down the page of history. Judgment is beginning now," Sumner said. "And an emancipated country will fasten upon him the stigma which he deserves."

Funding for a Taney bust wasnt approved until almost a decade later. Today, near the Taney bust, inside the old Supreme Court chamber, there are also busts of the nations first four chief justices. The first, John Marshall, is the only person to serve as chief justice longer than Taney and a revered figure in the law.

Matthew Daly and Jessica Gresko of The Associated Press wrote this story.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  Museums that seemed on the brink of reopening in New York are staying shut after Gov. Andrew Cuomo modified the states reopening plan last week. In California, arts institutions that had briefly reopened have had to padlock their doors once again. As the coronavirus epidemic continues to intensify across the country, museums have had to recalibrate their plans for renewed engagement. Remember when you thought your first museum visit would feel like a payoff as the pandemic abated?

Here in the Berkshires, after four months when the only museums I saw were on my phone screen, I went to two: the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in neighboring North Adams. Both now require advance booking, as well as masks. Both limit admissions to a fraction of total capacity, though you shouldnt have trouble finding a slot; with all of the regions cultural festivals canceled  Tanglewood, Jacobs Pillow, the Williamstown Theater Festival  the museums have regrouped for local audiences and the hardy art lovers ready to travel here. (Massachusetts requires visitors from out of state to self-quarantine for 14 days, though those from New York, New Jersey and the other New England states are exempt from the directive.)

I expected what would surprise me most were the new sanitary rules: how circulation is regulated, how guards handle their new responsibilities, what happens in the cafes and the bathrooms. But the rules werent that obtrusive  if you can handle a supermarket aisle in these bad new days, you can handle an enfilade of galleries. The greater surprise was the impact of the art itself, which in some rooms felt like a salve for miserable times, and in others like trivialities from a vanished world.
President Trump on Wednesday said if he is one of the first people to receive a coronavirus vaccine, he will either be looked at as being "so selfish" or "very brave."

Speaking to Fox News medical contributor Marc Siegel, Trump said if he isn't at the front of the line to get the vaccine, people will take that as a sign he "doesn't believe in the program." If he is vaccinated early, though, it could also be a problem. "If I'm the first one, they'll say, 'He's so selfish, he wanted to get the vaccine first,'" Trump said. "Then other people would say, 'Hey, that's a very brave thing to do.'"

Still, Trump said he will go along with whatever members of the coronavirus task force suggest, telling Siegel that "if they wanted me to and thought it was right, I'd take it first or I'd take it last." His comments aired after Pfizer and BioNTech announced Wednesday morning that they reached a $1.95 billion agreement with the U.S. government for 100 million doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine.

More stories from theweek.com

Florida poll puts Biden 13 points over Trump

City investigator inspects Trump's D.C. hotel after president, guests spotted not wearing masks

Fox & Friends marvels at Trump repeating 'person, woman, man, camera, TV'


Actor Daniel Radcliffes life changed forever when he was cast as Harry Potter, but there was a time when he wanted to quit being an actor. Casting director Janet Hirshenson once recalled the story of how Radcliffe, and his co-stars Emma Watson and Rupert Grint were cast in the series.

She told the Huffington Post in 2015 that the process was very intense, because of author JK Rowlings demand that only British actors be cast. Besides, Harry needed to be of a specific age, and have green eyes. For Harry, to complicate things, I needed a blue or green-eyed kid because part of Harry is his green eyes or blue-green, but they couldnt be brown eyes, so that was another elimination thing. We said, Oh, drat! Hes great, but he has brown eyes, she said.

Also read: When Daniel Radcliffe admitted to sleeping with Harry Potter fans a few times when I was drinking

When they found Radcliffe, Hirshenson said that he just wasnt interested. He didnt want to be an actor anymore. But director Chris Columbus and producer David Heyman were quite impressed with him. One evening, David Heyman the producer went to the theatre and he knew Daniels father, who was an agent ... so the producer ran into Daniel and his dad and said to Daniel, Why dont you come in and audition? Think about it. So he said, OK.

Hirshenson continued, We mustve had about six Harrys, only two or three Hermiones  there wasnt a lot  and there was probably five-ish Rons. She said that Watson immediately caught everyones attention. For the Hermiones, as soon as Emma came on, there were six of us in the screening room. We just gasped. It was like, Oh my God. Like, Whoaaa! She took up the screen, she said. For Ron, it was Grints face that sold it.

But Harry was proving to be a bit difficult to cast, and it came to Radcliffe and another actor. We went back and looked at Daniel again, she continued. The other kid was terrific and very vulnerable and very Harry-looking, but besides that, Harry was going to become a very powerful kid, too. And Daniel had both sides. He was very vulnerable, but the other kid  it was like, he [was] not going to have the balls that Daniel has, to put it that way.

Also read: When Daniel Radcliffe said Harry Potter turned him into an alcoholic, revealed details about sex life

But Columbus and the producers were sure. Hirshenson recalled all three young actors being brought up to Columbus office, without telling them that theyd been chosen. After we chose, they pulled the three of them up to Chriss office, not telling them they got the part, but they were standing there, the three of them, looking at each other, probably figuring, I think we may be it. So they told them they had it. Yay, yay, yay, and then they started chattering amongst themselves because they hadnt known each other very much. Emma asked Daniel if he liked the books and he said, Yeah, I like WWF better, and she did a harumph or some Hermione thing that was so perfect, just as herself. [Gasp] WWF! And we just all were like, Whoa, this is them.

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PETACH TIKVA, Israel, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Tikal Center, the innovative developer of business communications technologies for intelligent call center operations and services, today announced that the company has been selected as a 2020 Emerging Vendor for Unified Communications by CRN Magazine, a brand of The Channel Company and the leading news source for solution providers and the IT channel.

The CRN Emerging Vendor list is an annual award recognition that features new technology companies using channel partner strategies to drive growth and deliver innovative products and technologies.

Tikal Center has been named as an Emerging Vendor in the category for Unified Communications. The company received this recognition for widening the market reach of its Cloud-based call center solutions with its strong channel-based go-to-market strategy.

Tikal Center has recently built and is currently expanding a global network of sales channel partnerships with value added resellers, system integration firms, telcos and managed service providers in local markets. The company reports that many of the its local channel partners are hosting its Tikal Call Center solution and offering call center services to their business customers.

"We are collaborating closely with Tikal to pursue the growing market opportunities for call center solutions and services here in Tanzania and across East Africa," said Ismael Khangane, Managing Director of Miramar Systems in Tanzania. "Tikal's innovative Cloud-based solutions and flexible approach to working with us as a sales channel partner has allowed us to deliver solutions for our enterprise and government customers to modernize their call center operations as well as work with local service providers to offer call center services to their business customers."

Tikal Center has also recently added new sales channel partners in Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos and South Africa.

"This recognition from CRN as an Emerging Vendor for Unified Communications is a great endorsement for our channel program and partner recruitment," said Doron Dovrat, CEO of Tikal Center. "Our channel-based go-to-market strategy is driving the growth of our company and is delivering tangible benefits to both our channel partners and their customers."

About Tikal Center

Tikal Center and its innovative business communications technologies are powering intelligent call center operations and services of all customer types and sizes around the world. The company's Tikal Call Center is a single, unified platform that includes a full feature set for inbound, outbound and blended operations with advanced AI-driven features, reporting and management controls. The modern architecture of the Tikal Call Center allows for flexible integration with external applications and facilitates rapid deployment in any Cloud environment or on premise scenario. The Tikal Call Center serves as a technology platform for the company's go-to-market partners to add value and deliver call center solutions and services to their customers. For more information, please visit www.tikalcenter.com.

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 unequaled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. www.thechannelco.com

Press Contact

Tony Miller

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SOURCE Tikal Center
The prisoner-exchange, part of a US-Taliban deal, has proved a major sticking point ahead of peace talks.

The Taliban is prepared to hold peace talks with the Afghan government next month straight after the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, the armed group has said, provided a continuing prisoner swap has been completed.

The conditional offer marks the first occasion a talks timeline has been floated since warring parties blew past a March 10 deadline to begin negotiations.

The development on Thursday comes amid soaring violence that has threatened to derail US-backed efforts to bring Kabul and the Taliban to the negotiating table and seek an end to Afghanistans nearly 19-year war.

The Taliban is likely  ready to begin intra-Afghan negotiations immediately after Eid in case the process of the release of the prisoners is completed, the armed groups political spokesman Suhail Shaheen said on Twitter.

He added that the Taliban was ready to release the remaining Afghan security force prisoners in their custody, as long as Kabul freed all Taliban inmates as per our list already delivered to authorities.

There was no immediate response from the Kabul government.

The prisoner-exchange issue, agreed to under a deal between the US and the Taliban, has proved a major sticking point ahead of peace talks.

The Afghan government is supposed to release up to 5,000 Taliban fighters, while the armed group has pledged to free 1,000 Afghan security forces in their custody, according to the US-Taliban agreement.

Kabul has protested that many among Taliban inmates are dangerous fighters who will return to the battlefield.

So far, Kabul has released about 4,400 Taliban captives. The armed group says it has freed 864 government inmates.

Deadly air raid

Even amid faltering progress on the prisoner exchange, violence levels have soared across Afghanistan, with the Taliban carrying out near-daily attacks on security forces.

But it was an Afghan government air attack this week that has drawn the most scrutiny after officials said it killed eight civilians.

The attack hit a group of people gathered on Wednesday in the western province of Herat to celebrate a Taliban commanders release from prison, an official told the AFP news agency.

An air strike was carried out during the ceremony and civilians who participated were among those killed, said Ali Ahmad Faqir Yar, the district governor in the area where the raid took place, putting the toll at eight civilian deaths and 16 wounded.

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Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special envoy to Afghanistan, said photographs and witness accounts indicated that many civilians, including children, had been killed.

We urge all sides to contain the violence, protect civilians, and show necessary restraint as the start of intra-Afghan negotiations is so close, he said on Twitter.

The defence ministry, however, disputed both accounts and said none of those killed was civilians.

Afghan forces had carried out the attack based on intelligence photos and videos, the ministry said.

The defence ministrys investigation is ongoing, but initial information shows that no civilians were killed, it said.

In a separate incident in the eastern province of Nangarhar on Wednesday, at least 31 Taliban fighters were killed in clashes with security forces, the defence ministry said.

The Eid al-Adha, or feast of sacrifice, is one of the holiest Muslim rites and marks the end of the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

During a separate festival marking the end of Ramadan in May, the Taliban called a three-day ceasefire, marking only the second official truce in the war.
Insurer Zurich has decided not to renew cover for the Canadian governments Trans Mountain oil pipeline, said a spokeswoman for the project, which is opposed by environmental campaigners and some indigenous groups.

All financial services companies are under pressure from environmental campaigners to cease doing business with the fossil fuel industry.

A planned expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which ships oil to British Columbia from Canadas main oil-producing province of Alberta, has also drawn ire from some First Nations leaders anxious about the impact on their communities.

A spokesman for Zurich said the insurer did not comment on customer relationships.

Trans Mountain said it has the insurance it needs for its existing operations and the expansion project.

There remains adequate capacity in the market to meet Trans Mountains insurance needs and our renewal, the spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.

The Trans Mountain pipelines annual liability insurance contract, dated August 2019 but filed with the Canada Energy Regulator on April 30, 2020, had shown Zurich was the lead insurer for the pipeline.

The insurance, which provides $508 million of cover, runs to August 2020, the filing showed.

Zurich was the sole insurer for the first $8 million of potential insurance payouts and the company provided a total of $300 million in cover with other insurers, the 2019/20 energy regulatory filing showed.

Lloyds of London syndicates were the projects biggest insurer in 2019-2020. Chubb and Zurich were the biggest listed insurers providing coverage.

Other insurers that have provided cover for the Trans Mountain project this year include Liberty Mutual and Munich Re unit Temple.

Munich Re said it would review the contract given its new underwriting guideline on oil sands, which have a higher carbon footprint than conventional oil, but no renewal decision had been made.

Lloyds of London, Liberty Mutual and Chubb did not immediately comment.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 01:10:59|Editor: huaxia

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First Lady of Ghana Rebecca Akufo-Addo (R, Front) gives a speech at a donation ceremony of China's medical supplies to Ghana, in Accra, capital of Ghana, on July 22, 2020. The Chinese government presented a consignment of medical supplies on Wednesday to help Ghana's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. (Xinhua/Xu Zheng)

ACCRA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese government presented a consignment of medical supplies on Wednesday to help Ghana's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The medical supplies presented to the First Lady of Ghana Rebecca Akufo-Addo include face masks and thermometers.

Charge d'Affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Ghana Zhu Jing, who presented the items, said the donation was in response to a request from the Organization of African First Ladies for Development to Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, to support the fight against the pandemic among mothers, children and young people to 53 African countries.

"At this critical moment as China and Ghana stand together facing the pandemic, this is a token of friendship from the Chinese people towards the Ghanaian people and a strong testament to the brotherhood of China and Ghana who have shared weal and woe over the years," Zhu said.

"This expression of profound feeling is an indelible deed in the history of China-Ghana friendship and shall always be remembered," he added.

In her remark, the Ghanaian First Lady expressed sincere gratitude to the Chinese government for the enormous support for Africa in these difficult moments.

"Today marks another milestone in the friendly relations between Ghana and China and is another proof of our warn relations. It is good to engage each other in order to restore normalcy to humanity because it is only by collective effort can we overcome this. Together, we can," she said. Enditem
Here is the bitter truth, if your website is not getting rankings on Google's top 10 results for your focused keywords then your website will be considered invisible on Google.

According to HubSpot, 75% of searchers never visit the second page of Google search results - that is why it becomes crucial to get the top rank of the first page of Google.

There are several strategies and methods that most of the top SEO companies are following to get better google rankings for their clients' websites. If you are thinking to perform the task by yourself you will need to make a strong grasp on the basics of SEO else this process will only take much of your time and at the end you will be left with zero results.

By following the best search engine optimization practices, you will be laying the foundation for your site to increase its visibility in various searches.

In this article, we will be discussing some of the best SEO practices that are followed by SEO companies for better search rankings in 2020.

Align Your Content with Search Intent

Search purpose (also known as user intent) is the main reason behind any search query. What comes first in Google's priority list is satisfying search intent. Pages that you are able to see on the first page of Google have all passed Google's litmus check on search intent.

For example, search and check the results for "how to make oatmeal cookies."

You will find some of the blog posts or videos on the top search results, not eCommerce websites that sell ready made oatmeal cookies. Google understands that those people who are searching with this specific keyword are looking to learn, not to shop for.

On the other hand, if you are making a query as "purchase or buy oatmeal cookies" you will see a lot of eCommerce pages. Because in this case, Google is familiar with the fact that people are in buy mode. Therefore, the results that are on the top don't include links to websites that show the recipe of oatmeal cookies.

For that reason, in case you would love to rank your web pages on page 1 of Google in 2020, you want to recognize the concept of search intent thoroughly. Also, you need to generate content that aligns with user intent.

It might seem like an easy task but when you start your reading about the theory and preparing your strategies you will know how difficult it is. Therefore, it is always recommended to all the business owners to look for some of the best SEO consultant and hire one that suits you the best. Top SEO companies have well trained employees who know everything about search intent and several other things that are required. They are working with the sole purpose of making your web page a top ranked page on Google.

Write a Compelling Title Tag and Meta Description

If you are new in this digital marketing world then the words title tags and meta description may scare you, but these are essential for every web page. The two most important meta tags on your web page are meta description and title tag. Let's understand title tags first.

Title Tags

The clickable headings which you see in the search results are title tags and are extremely crucial from an SEO perspective.

According to Google:

"Titles are important to giving customers a brief information about the content of a result and what relevance it makes with their question. It's often the primary piece of data used to decide which page to click on, so it's essential to use great and catchy titles on your web pages."

Search engines like Google generally display the first 50-60 characters of a heading. Google will display the heading to your page as long as the title tag is kept under 60 characters.

Here are some of the best practices that are generally used by top SEO companies for creating catchy title tags:

Include your focused keywords in the title.

Write a title that is relevant with the search intent.

Do not create duplicate title tags.

Avoid over use of keywords.

Keep it descriptive however concise.

Meta Descriptions

The other most important meta tag for a website is the meta description. A meta description consists of a short summary of a page in SERPs. Meta descriptions are displayed just below the heading or title tag of the page.

Well, meta descriptions are not directly responsible for search rankings, but they play an important role for increase in click through rate.

Google explains meta description:

"A meta description tag is designed to inform and grab the users with a short and relevant summary of the content of a particular web page. Meta descriptions are a type of pitch that convince the users that the particular page is providing you the exact information about their search"

According to the guidelines given by Google, meta descriptions should be described under 155-160 characters. Make sure to design an accurate summary of your content that can be fitted in the given limits of characters.

Here are a few practices that are recommended by SEO companies which you should implement on your web page:

The meta description should be unique for each web page.

Use action-orientated words.

It must include your focused keywords but make sure not to perform keyword stuffing.

Keep search intent in mind.

Provide a precise and accurate summary.

Other than this, you need to focus on the images, it should be of proper size as suggested in the guidelines. Image SEO should be performed correctly.

Optimize your page speed and use internal linking wherever possible and add keywords in the URL of each webpage. In order to get better SEO rankings you need to focus on authoritative backlinks and updating new content on a regular interval.

Make sure you have worked well on your webpages for providing a better user experience. At the end, there a lot more things which need to be performed cautiously. We recommend hiring an experienced SEO company that can help you achieve the desired results.
TMAC at The University of Texas at Arlington received $3.3 million in federal funding to help small- and medium-sized businesses respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The funding is part of a nationwide $50 million pool of money authorized by the CARES Act that the Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is awarding for COVID-19-related projects to Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) centers in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. TMAC is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership for the state of Texas.

TMAC delivers hands-on business management, technology and operations solutions to a wide range of businesses. TMAC's mission is to bolster the global competitiveness of the Texas economy by increasing its extended manufacturing enterprise through developing and improving profits, products, processes, technology and people.

TMAC has eight offices across Texas including at UT Arlington, Texas Tech University, University of Texas El Paso, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Southwest Research Institute, Bee Hive Fund, Texas A&M Extension Service and Lamar University. TMAC at UTA serves North Texas and as a statewide office.

Mark Sessumes, TMAC state executive director, said the pandemic has underscored supply chain weaknesses that TMAC and MEP have known about for decades.

"Many products are produced by foreign supply chains located outside the United States. When supply chains are disrupted, it creates havoc on producing and providing products to U.S. consumers," Sessumes said. "Health-related products including equipment, pharma and personal protective equipment don't just impact American lives, but also our economy, livelihoods, safety and national security."

The COVID funding allows TMAC to work with small- and medium-sized manufacturers to reshore supply chains and restore operations.

"In addition, it funds TMAC to work with manufacturers that want to expand their capabilities and capacity to produce critical equipment and personal protective equipment to fill exponential demand now and in the future," Sessumes said.

The TMAC website has more information on how to apply for the grant money or for help during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"These grants are part of President Trump's whole-of-America effort to combat COVID-19 and help America's businesses recover," Department of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement. "Small- and medium-sized manufacturers are among the leaders of the swift and strong comeback from this unprecedented health challenge, and the Department of Commerce is doing our part to support their efforts."

Walter G. Copan, undersecretary of commerce for standards and technology and NIST director, said that for more than 30 years, NIST MEP has supported U.S. manufacturing and built a national network that can immediately reach over a third of U.S. manufacturers.

"The MEP centers have the expertise to help client companies make the products needed to fight this pandemic and to help manufacturers across the supply chain weather this storm," Copan said in a statement.

Successful applications will allow MEP centers to help manufacturers recover from workforce and supply chain interruptions; apply for private insurance claims and disaster loans from the Small Business Administration; and access resources at the federal, state and local levels.

MEP centers may also use the funds to assess the operating needs of manufacturers, scout for manufacturers that can produce critically needed medical equipment and supplies and organize peer-to-peer manufacturing councils.

###
LUTSK, Ukraine -- A Ukrainian man, who was detained on July 21 after he held 13 people hostage inside a bus with a firearm and explosives in the northwestern town of Lutsk for 12 hours, has been sent to pretrial detention.



A court in Lutsk ruled on July 23 that 44-year-old Maksym Kryvosh must be held for at least 60 days.



Kryvosh, a native of the city of Dubno and a resident of Lutsk who has a criminal record and was once treated at a psychiatric center, said at the hearing that the hostage-taking was "a performance."



Kryvosh's lawyer told reporters that his client will not appeal the ruling.



According to police, while holding hostages, Kryvosh ranted against "the system" in his negotiations, called the nation's oligarchs and officials "terrorists," and demanded that people watch the 2005 documentary film Earthlings about the suffering endured by animals at farms, research labs, and other locations.



In response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy posted a short video on Facebook recommending that people watch the documentary. The video was removed from Facebook right after Kryvosh was detained. Nobody was hurt in 12-hour ordeal.
WASHINGTON  The House Judiciary Committee staff initially drew up 10 articles of impeachment against President Trump last year, alleging a wide range of high crimes and misdemeanors before the case was whittled down to his interactions with Ukraine, according to a book to be published next week.

The staff members, working for Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the committee chairman, drafted a sweeping indictment of Mr. Trump charging him with, among other things, obstructing the Russia investigation, authorizing hush money for women to cover up sexual affairs, illegally diverting money to his border wall and profiting personally from his office.

In the end, House Democratic leaders privately rejected prosecuting the president for those other actions, according to the book, calculating that such an expansive set of accusations would cost them votes even among Democrats by seeming to go too far and thus potentially sink the whole impeachment effort. The internal debate came down to whether to include a third article claiming obstruction of the special counsel investigation but Speaker Nancy Pelosi vetoed it.

The decision to pursue a narrower case has long posed one of the most perplexing what-if counterfactuals of the entire impeachment and trial of Mr. Trump: What would have happened if House Democrats had thrown everything they had against the president rather than stick to just his campaign to pressure Ukraine to incriminate his Democratic rivals? Would a broader case have been more compelling as some Democrats argued or be viewed as overreach as the leaders of the impeachment drive concluded?
T M Thomas Isaac By

Twenty four years ago, the Left government in Kerala took a big-bang decision. It decided to devolve 35-40% of the state plan, mostly as untied funds, to local governments (LGs). It was evident to everyone that LGs lacked the capacity to plan and spend such a large fund. Plunge into the waters and then learn to swim was the spirit. So, on 17 August 1996, the Malayalam New Year day, Peoples Plan Campaign (PPC) was launched to empower LGs by rallying volunteers, experts, officials and people at large. After one year of six rounds of a cascading training programme, which at one time involved one lakh people, local plans emerged through a bottom-up process. Since then, year after year, every LG in Kerala has been preparing its local plans and implementing them.

The decentralisation in Kerala has survived four regime changes while remaining essentially intact. In the international decentralisation literature, this fact alone sets the Kerala experience apart. The PPC had created an environment that made it politically inexpedient to undermine decentralisation. As for the three great Fs of decentralisationdevolution of funds, functions and functionaries Kerala has not slid back. In the Budget of 2020-21, the share of untied funds is 25.9% of the outlay. The total devolution would be more than Rs 20,000 crorenearly 20% of the governments total revenue.

Now, its time to look back and make a frank assessment of the achievements of this experiment.

Health: The famed public health system in Kerala was in serious crisis by the 1990s, confronted with increasing demand for healthcare arising from a change in the epidemiological regime and decline in public health expenditure. When the government cut back investments in health, the private sector stepped in to meet the demand-supply gap. The percentage of people using government facilities declined to 34% in the 71st round of NSSO (2014).

The consequence was an escalation of health costs, marginalisation of the poor and inequities in infrastructure, utilisation and outcomes. The increase in infant mortality rate from 12 per thousand live births in 1997 to 15 in 2006 was a big embarrassment. But the decentralisation was slowly preparing the ground for a turnaround. The percentage of people using government facilities increased to 48% in the 75th round of NSSO in 2017-18. The IMR declined to single digits, 7, lower than the UN target of 8 for 2020 and far ahead of the national average of 32. Immunisation rates rose to nearly 100% for many diseases.

Education: Free and universal school education through the public education system (government schools and private aided schools) slipped behind the popular aspiration levels as per capita incomes improved. As a result, the middle class increasingly began to shift towards unaided private schools, whose strength increased from 1.5 lakh students in 1991 to a peak of 4.1 lakh in 2016-17. The trend has been reversed now with more than 5 lakh students of Classes 2 to 10 migrating back from the unaided sector in the last three years. Kerala has emerged first among 20 large states with a score of 76.6 out of 100 in the School Education Quality Index-2019.

Local Roads: The total road length under the LGs more than doubled from 1,15,306 km in 1995-96 to 2,31,676 km in 2018-19. There has also been the visible improvement in the condition of town and country roads. The roads have become more evenly distributed across districts and regions. Housing: One Lakh Housing Scheme in the early 1970s, for providing houses to the beneficiaries of land reforms, is still etched in the memories of Keralites. But the PPC surprised everyone by constructing 5.7 lakh houses. By the end of the 13th five-year plan in 2022-23, our estimate is that the LGs would have constructed more than 20 lakh houses, which would take Kerala to a near-universal housing status. All the houses in Kerala have been electrified and have toilets.

Kudumbasree: One of the most celebrated outcomes of democratic decentralisation has been the emergence and growth of Kudumbasree Neighbourhood Groups (NHGs). They are basically a micro-finance network linked to LGs. They also function as a platform for convergence of anti-poverty programmes, agency for women empowerment and basic community organisation. At present there are 2.77 lakh NHGs with membership of 43 lakh households, each represented by a woman member. They have become the most accessible source of micro credit with a fund base of more than Rs 11,000 crore.

Poverty Alleviation: On the eve of PPC in 1993-94, the poverty ratio was 25.76% and 24.59% in rural and urban areas respectively. Though not strictly comparable to the earlier series according to the Rangarajan Committee Report on Poverty Estimation, in 2011-12, the poverty ratio in Kerala had declined to 7.3% and 5.3% respectively. The performance of LGs has been largely lacklustre on the production front.

There are also miles to go in overcoming challenges like participatory fatigue, inadequate integration of plans, nagging corruption, weakness of tribal sub-plans and so on. Keralas achievements in decentralisation, however fragile and incomplete, provide a sense of what is possible. It was a sad day when Kerala was the only state in India that celebrated the 25th anniversary of the passage of the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments. Maybe the pandemic provides us another opportunity to rethink our approach to decentralisation in the country. It is heartening to hear the honourable prime minister going Vocal for Local. But what is Local without a Local Government?

T M Thomas Isaac

Finance Minister of Kerala (drthomasisaac@gmail.com)


MILAN - A migrant rescue organization said Thursday that Italian authorities have blocked its ship in a Sicilian port, characterizing the move as harassment.

SOS Mediterranees ship arrived in Sicily on July 7 carrying 180 migrants who were rescued off Libya. The group said in a statement that preventing the Ocean Viking from heading back to open water was blatant administrative harassment ... aimed at impeding our lifesaving work.

Such actions, it said, discourage other migrant rescue vessels from operating in the perilous central Mediterranean Sea, where thousands of migrants have died while seeking safety or better lives in Europe. The Ocean Viking was the last ship actively carrying out rescues in the central Mediterranean off Libya.

Italian authorities cited safety reasons for keeping the ship in port, specifically that the Ocean Viking was carrying more people than its certification allows, according to SOS Mediterranee. The organization noted that the ship had passed previous inspections and waited 11 days to secure a port to disembark the rescued passengers.

Why wasnt safety more of a concern to maritime authorities then, said Frederic Penard, the groups director of operations.

Italian authorities similarly detained SeaWatch3 earlier this month. The aid group that operates that rescue ship, denounced the action based on a technical inspection as an excuse to block rescue ships.

They argue with the lack of safety of rescued persons on board, the group said on Twitter, but they themselves make sure that people are in distress for days without providing rescue.

International Organization for Migration spokeswoman Safa Msehli pointed to very little, if any, life-saving capacity recently in the central Mediterranean, which she called the most dangerous sea crossing in the world.

We continue to see people dying, we continue to see boats disappearing. Its really concerning to see such restrictions on the work of NGOs, and the absence of the state in search-and-rescue operations, Msehli said.

There is very little dedicated search-and-rescue capacity in the Mediterranean. NGOs have seen a lot of restrictions, and Ocean Viking is an example of that.

Italy has taken a hard line on private rescue boats, expressing concern that such operations encourage human traffickers in Libya to keep launching migrants toward Europe, often unseaworthy dinghies or fishing boats. Fresh concerns have also been generated by the coronavirus epidemic, after some migrants have tested positive.

Early in the pandemic, Italy declared its ports unsafe for docking by private rescue ships as it sought to contain its devastating coronavirus outbreak.

Migrant boats have been arriving independently on the Italian island of Lampedusa, with more than 800 arriving in recent days. More than 4,000 migrants have arrived so far this month, which is four times more than the number in July 2019 but far below the high of more than 23,500 who arrived on the island by sea in July 2016.

____

Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed.
Stephanie Tsuru was driving with her son-in-law when she had a wild idea: Shed heard about a beautiful new home, and she wanted to see it.

They turned the car toward Tiel Way in River Oaks and when they got there, sneaked up the driveway to get a look at the lush, wooded grounds and peek in windows. Tsuru wasnt even house shopping, but she rushed home to tell her husband about her find.

I knew Frank would love that house. There was an open house that very afternoon, so two hours later we were there, said Stephanie of her husband, Frank Tsuru, CEO of both Momentum Midstream and Indigo Natural Resources. (She and her daughter-in-law, Katie Tsuru, are launching SheSpace, a women-centric cowork space in the fall.) I knew within two minutes of walking in the door that it was the place for us.

The Tsurus, who lived in a similarly sized home in Memorial, made an offer and closed on 2 Tiel Way in mid-July.

Finally, after four years of ups and downs, the lot at the entrance to one of River Oaks most scenic streets has a finished home and a family ready to move in.

Jack Thompson

Original midcentury gem

In late May, architect Christopher Robertson walked through his latest project with microfiber booties over his shoes as workmen handled finishing touches inside, pavers were still being laid in the driveway and landscapers used flats of annuals to spruce up the curb appeal.

Martha Turner Sothebys Realtor Jay Monroe walked another smiling family through empty rooms, admiring the limestone floors, marble counters and large closets.

The 6,540-square-foot home designed by Robertson and his architect/wife, Vivi Nguyen Robertson  of Robertson Design  didnt start as a spec home, but it ended up as one just the same.

Its saga began in January 2017, as Carolyn and James Robertsons hopeful project to restore and renovate a midcentury gem  the original home on this 2-acre lot.

In 1961, Houston developer and oilman George Mitchell hired Karl Kamrath of the MacKie and Kamrath architecture firm to design a home for his sister and brother-in-law, Maria and Alando Jones Jay Ballantyne. Jay was a well-known surgeon at MD Anderson Cancer Center, and the couple raised their seven children in the home that remained in the family until 2015, when Maria Ballantyne died.

Jack Thompson

MacKie and Kamrath were post-war architectural trendsetters and by the early 1960s had used modern design in significant structures across Houston: Phillis Wheatley High School, Temple Emanu-El, St. John the Divine Church and the first office building used by NASA astronauts (now the Houston Parks Gragg Building.)

The Ballantynes low-slung, L-shaped home was touted as one of the citys best examples of midcentury architecture and was the subject of many home tours through the years, but when the Robertsons purchased it in mid-2016, it came with issues.

Christopher Robertson said his parents had every intention of updating and restoring the original home  in fact, he told them he would not be responsible for a wholesale removing of the existing house and putting up something that is totally different. As their contractor examined the homes infrastructure, though, they discovered termite and water damage and other issues, and the projects potential cost kept scaling upward.

So in January 2017, when a bulldozer reduced the home to a pile of debris, Houstons architecture community was buzzing with the news. In a city known for demolishing older homes, it was one more painful blow.

Kamrath DNA

Christopher and Vivi Robertson have always leaned modern in their design aesthetic, and a vacation in Japan where they saw the work of renowned Japanese architect Tadao Ando firsthand added another layer. They returned to Houston inspired to use more concrete in simple but beautiful ways, and to stay connected to nature and organic materials.

Though the Tiel Way home has no obvious Asian motifs  no paper-thin sliding screens or curved roofs  it has a distinctly Japanese feel. Thats what immediately hooked Frank Tsuru, a native Midwesterner whose grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Japan in 1910.

The Robertsons designed a spacious 6,540-square-foot home largely in white, gray and black, with Texas limestone or white oak flooring, and a large bar, kitchen counters and bathrooms in limestone, marble and granite.

Siberian larch is a durable, bug- and rot-resistant wood, and the Robertsons used it on ceilings and in other decorative ways inside and out, all stained black.

Jack Thompson

Christopher Robertson was determined that this new home would be an original design but also an homage to Kamrath and the home he built  a Robertson design with Kamrath DNA baked in, he said. One thing that was re-created was a striking front living room cantilevered over a ravine with a floor-to-ceiling window that makes you feel like youre in a treehouse.

In the Ballantynes version of this room, it was where the musical family kept their grand piano and often sang together. The new version is nearly identical  minus the piano  with a built-in banquette along one wall and a simple, cozy fireplace.

Kamraths design included a long corridor that organized the bedrooms, and the Robertsons kept it that way, too, with two good-sized guest rooms and a large primary suite at the end, with a luxurious closet and plenty of Carrara marble in the bathroom. A fourth bedroom  a flex room  was located in another part of the home.

That corridor was also created as a library for James Robertson, an avid reader and collector of books, with shelves lining the lower portion of the outside wall the full length of the hall. Stephanie Tsuru is a book lover, too, so its likely those shelves wont be wasted.

Architecturally, Kamraths design used a 6-foot grid, and the Robertsons honored those measurements as well, adhering to it more strictly than Kamrath did, Christopher said. And the homes silhouette  its roof pitch and shape  are similar, with less noticeable exposed rafters.

Beyond that, everything else is different. The Ballantynes had a smallish kitchen, bathrooms and closets. The new house has a big open space that encompasses a kitchen with a 16-foot island and a breakfast area large enough to be a full-on dining room plus a large family room.

One of the most striking new features is an interior courtyard, a vertical bubble in the center of the home that brings in natural light and looks as lush as the backyard and ravine.

Tragedy strikes

The home was well underway  the shell constructed and mechanical components installed  when Hurricane Harvey stalled over Houston, causing widespread flooding. The ravine that backs up to Tiel Way filled with rainwater, and virtually every home on the street suffered some damage.

The Robertsons project had 22 inches of water, prompting them to halt work to let it dry out and then elevate the structure 4 feet. Once the water had receded, they dug up dirt from the ravine to help fill the land where the home would sit.

Not only did the work stop, it added a huge expense to an already growing tab. The Robertsons paid $3,375,000 for the property, understanding that the restoration could cost as much as a new house. By the time it was finished, the cost had doubled.

Gary Fountain, Houston Chronicle / Contributor

In June of the following summer, Carolyn Robertson, who was retired from a career in computer programming and was in poor health, died. A grieving James continued meeting his son at the construction site to monitor progress, but in late September 2019, the Robertsons world was rocked again: James died unexpectedly of a heart attack.

My dad loved architecture, and he loved me and was happy to give me an opportunity to build stuff for him, but now its a spec house, Christopher said of the home before the Tsurus saw it. There are so many things that would be different if it was a spec house, but it was designed for my dad just like he wanted it.

Heartbroken, Christopher was left to finish the project his parents had been so excited to launch.

I couldnt come back in the house until about three weeks after my dad died, he said. That was a very sad first trip back.

Their own connection

Though the Tsurus are excited about a new chapter of their lives  both are turning 60 and heavily involved in the citys philanthropic community  the homes journey from demolition to their purchase has had a number of sad turns.

The home the Tsurus have lived in for several years is very traditional and bedroom-heavy. Their children are grown now, though, and both are excited about a shift to a new home and, likely, a more minimalist home life.

Frank Tsuru was preparing for his first trip to Japan this year, but the coronavirus pandemic squashed that. For now, hell settle for the fresh style in his new home.

It has Japanese architecture all over it, it really does. When I walked in and saw bamboo out the window, it looked just like a Japanese tea house, Frank said. It was something Ive never seen before, actually.

Jack Thompson

Frank said that since buying the home hes discovered connections he didnt know existed: His business partner was friends with one of the Ballantyne boys, and he serves on a charitable board with one of the Ballantyne daughters.

We are fairly private, but this (home) may change some things, he said of the potential of hosting events there. Were very involved with the philanthropic community in Houston and, if it helps, obviously, we will be there to help them.

The Tsurus said that very little of their current furniture will work in their new home, so theyre working with interior designer Courtnay Tartt Elias and hope to move in this fall.

When we walked in, that house spoke to us. Thats why we made the decision (to buy it), Stephanie said. Now I feel like the house and its history belong to the city, and we will share it if called upon.

diane.cowen@chron.com

Sign up for Cowens Access Design newsletter, delivered to your inbox Tuesdays, at houstonchronicle.com/accessdesign.
WASHINGTON  As the coronavirus began shuttering the global economy in March, critical parts of U.S. financial markets edged toward collapse. The shock was huge and unexpected, but the vulnerabilities were well known, the legacy of risk-taking outside regulatory reach.

To head off a devastating downward spiral, the Federal Reserve came to Wall Streets rescue for the second time in a dozen years. As investors sold a vast array of holdings and rushed to the comparative safety of cash, the Fed pledged to become a buyer of last resort to restore calm to critical markets.

That backstop bailed out many people and investment firms, including a class of hedge funds that had been caught on the wrong side of a trade with ample risks. The story of that trade  how it went wrong and how it was salvaged  offers a cautionary tale about important issues Congress did not address in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law and the Trump administrations hands-off approach to regulation.

A decade after Dodd-Frank, Americas sweeping post-2008 crisis fix, was signed into law, commercial banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America are better regulated and safer, but they may be less willing to help smooth over markets in times of stress. Tougher regulation in the formal banking sector has pushed risk-taking to the shadowy corners of Wall Street  areas that Dodd-Frank left largely untouched.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-24 04:01:53|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, July 23 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Thursday urged relevant countries to lift the unilateral sanctions imposed on Syria immediately.

"We urge relevant countries to respond actively to the appeals of the secretary-general and his special envoy on lifting unilateral sanctions (on Syria) immediately," Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, told the Security Council's open videoconference on the political situation in the war-scarred country.

"We also request the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to assess the humanitarian impact of unilateral sanctions, as an integral part of the humanitarian reports," Geng said.

"Those who claim that unilateral sanctions have no harm on Syria, should join China and many other countries in requesting a secretary-general report on this issue," the envoy noted.

Geng noted that the reason behind the sufferings of the Syrian people is self-evident. Years of economic blockade and illegal sanctions have worsened the socio-economic and humanitarian situations in Syria, undermined the livelihoods of the Syrian people, and caused tremendous hardships to innocent civilians, in particular women and children.

"At this critical time, the unilateral sanctions further compromised the capacity of Syria to ensure access to food, essential health supplies and medical support to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is against humanity and totally unacceptable," he said.

The envoy called on the international community to take actions to help the Syrian government to cope with these economic and humanitarian challenges.

Talking about terrorism situation in the country, Geng said that "we welcome the efforts by relevant parties to maintain ceasefire and promote stability in Syria. The international community must be alerted and keep an eye on the terrorist activities in northwest Syria."

"We should not allow terrorist groups to take advantage of the current situation. The Security Council should support the special envoy's call for effective, cooperative and targeted counter-terrorism efforts," he said.

"We call on relevant parties to launch negotiations and take concrete actions on counter-terrorism," the envoy added.

Speaking about the future of the country, Geng said that Syria's future must be decided by the Syrians, without foreign interference.

"It is fundamental to respect and uphold the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria. China will continue to support the good offices of the special envoy in fulfilling his mandate endorsed by Security Council Resolution 2254 and work with the international community for a lasting peace in Syria," he added.

Referring to China's position on the Syrian issue, Geng said that China supports a "Syrian-led, Syrian-owned" political process from the very beginning.

"We encourage and support the special envoy to make every effort to promote political dialogue and enhance mutual trust among parties concerned. We hope the secretary-general and special envoy's ceasefire appeals will be accepted by all parties to the conflict so as to foster an enabling environment for negotiations," said the envoy.

"We are pleased to learn that Constitutional Committee will hold its third round meeting by the end of August, and we look forward to seeing more progress in this round of consultation. It could become a window of opportunity if the Syrian parties engage constructively with each other and with the UN Special Envoy under the Constitutional Committee framework," he said.

Geng added that China welcomes the convening of Astana virtual summit on July 1, and the joint statement released by Iran, Russia, and Turkey afterwards.

"The joint statement contains many positive elements with regard to the situation in Syria, such as standing against separatist agendas, opposing illegal seizure and transfer of oil revenues that belong to Syria, rejecting all unilateral sanctions and so on. China would be happy to see the Astana Process continuing to contribute to the political process in Syria," said the envoy. Enditem
In an effort to confront its own racist origins and foster a more inclusive environment, the Sierra Club is taking a hard look at some of its most revered icons, including founder John Muir, namesake of the Wisconsin chapter.

In an essay posted to the groups website Wednesday, executive director Michael Brune said its time to recognize the 128-year-old environmental organizations past and continued harms to Indigenous, Black and other people of color.

Vowing to give people from those backgrounds majority control of the leadership team and greater representation throughout the organization, Brune said the systems of power that got us here will not enable the transformational change we need.

Brune also acknowledged a need to address the organizations roots as a mountaineering club for middle- and upper-class white people who worked to preserve the wilderness they hiked through  a wilderness that just a few decades earlier white settlers had taken from the native people who had inhabited and cared for the land for thousands of years.

As defenders of Black life pull down Confederate monuments across the country, we must also take this moment to reexamine our past and our substantial role in perpetuating white supremacy, Brune wrote. Its time to take down some of our own monuments, starting with some truth-telling about the Sierra Clubs early history.

Foremost among those monuments is Muir.

Known as the father of our national parks, Muir helped establish the conservation movement and shaped the way generations of people viewed the natural world. But he also disparaged Black and Native American people and kept company with white supremacists, including early Sierra Club board members who advocated forced sterilization of non-white and disabled people.

As the most iconic figure in Sierra Club history, Muirs words and actions carry an especially heavy weight, Brune wrote. They continue to hurt and alienate Indigenous people and people of color who come into contact with the Sierra Club.

Public comments on Brunes essay were split between those praising the move as long overdue and those accusing him of trying to rewrite history.

Brune, who did not respond to a request for comment, has not called for changing the Wisconsin chapters name.

Executive director Elizabeth Ward said the state chapters board is scheduled to discuss the question on Saturday, though a name change would require a vote by the full chapter membership.

Addressing John Muirs history has become part of our overarching journey to become more equitable, Ward said. This conversation has been happening for over a year now.

Born in Scotland in 1838, Muirs family moved to the United States when he was 11, settling on a farm near Portage. As a boy, he loved roaming the woods but was also an inventor who built clocks and carved wooden machines, according to biographies by the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Sierra Club.

Muir enrolled in the University of Wisconsin in 1860 but left after three years to roam and eventually settled in California, where he wrote dozens of books and articles about his travels and naturalist philosophy and pushed for the creation of numerous national parks, including Yosemite, Sequoia and Grand Canyon.

In 1892, Muir and some followers founded the Sierra Club to do something for wildness and make the mountains glad. He served as its president until his death in 1914.

Brune cites a 2016 essay on the website Atlas Obscura, which quotes Muir calling Native Americans dirty, garrulous as jays, superstitious and lazy and describing Cherokee homes as the uncouth transitionist  wigwams of savages.

The article goes on to quote Muir writing, Birds make nests and nearly all beasts make some kind of bed for their young, but these negroes [sic] allow their younglings to lie nestless and naked in the dirt.

While Muir spoke disparagingly of Indians, the greater problem is that he largely ignored them, said Paul Robbins, dean of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at UW-Madison.

Robbins said Muir was using the same playbook as everyone else was working from at the time, but that the Sierra Club was founded on the premise of preserving sacred spaces devoid of the people who previously inhabited them.

White environmentalism renders Indians invisible because it has to make wilderness, Robbins said. You cant have wilderness if you have people.

Photos: Look back at Madisons Forward statue through the years

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We are targeting these resources to benefit some of the hardest hit, most economically distressed communities, including many Native American communities.

Clearinghouse Community Development Financial Institution (Clearinghouse CDFI) announced today that it has been awarded a $65 million New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) allocation from the United States Department of Treasury. Clearinghouse CDFI will use the tax credits to finance the development of community facilities in underserved neighborhoods throughout the western United States. This includes hospitals, clinics, job training centers, and projects serving Native American communities.

For almost 20 years, the New Markets Tax Credit has attracted private capital into businesses and communities as they recover from significant shocks to our economy, said CDFI Fund Director, Jodie Harris. Projects that spur job creation, enable access to technology infrastructure and develop community facilities like federal qualified health centers, are examples of how New Markets Tax Credit investments are especially critical for low-income communities across the country.

The New Markets Tax Credit program stimulates community development in economically distressed communities through tax credits that attract private investment capital. This federal tax credit incentive helps to invigorate struggling local economies by allowing investors to make larger investments than would otherwise be possible. Communities benefit from the job creation associated with these investments, as well as greater access to public facilities, goods, and services. This includes: manufacturing, food, retail, housing, health, technology, energy, education, and childcare.

We are grateful to the CDFI Fund for entrusting us with this NMTC allocation and the opportunity to create positive change in the communities we serve. said Douglas Bystry, President and Chief Executive Officer of Clearinghouse CDFI. We are targeting these resources to benefit some of the hardest hit, most economically distressed communities, including many Native American communities.

Through the New Markets Tax Credit Program, the CDFI Fund allocates tax credit authority to Community Development Entities (CDEs). CDEs, such as Clearinghouse CDFI, are financial intermediaries through which investment capital flows from an investor to a qualified business located in a low-income community. CDEs use their authority to offer tax credits to investors in exchange for equity in the CDE. With these capital investments, CDEs can make loans and investments to projects operating in distressed areas that have better rates and terms and more flexibility than available in the conventional marketplace.

Since inception, Clearinghouse CDFI has deployed $538 million in NMTC funding for 57 projects throughout the western United States. This includes:



Kalispel Reservation, Cusick, WA$9 million of NMTC allocation for the construction of a new healthy foods facility on tribal land.

Expertise Cosmetology Institute, Las Vegas, NV$4.5 million of NMTC allocation and $2.5 million in financing to construct a skilled training facility in a highly distressed area.

First Place, Phoenix, AZ$8 million NMTC allocation to build a unique special needs center.

About the NMTC Program

The New Markets Tax Credit Program, established by Congress in December 2000, permits individual and corporate taxpayers to receive a non-refundable tax credit against federal income taxes for making equity investments in financial intermediaries known as Community Development Entities (CDEs). CDEs that receive the tax credit allocation authority under the program are domestic corporations or partnerships that provide loans, investments, or financial counseling in low-income urban and rural communities. The tax credit provided to the investor totals 39% of the cost of the investment and is claimed over a seven-year period. The CDEs in turn use the capital raised to make investments in low-income communities. CDEs must apply annually to the CDFI Fund to compete for New Markets Tax Credit Program allocation authority. Since the inception of the NMTC Program, the CDFI Fund has completed 16 allocation rounds and has made 1,254 awards totaling $61 billion in tax allocation authority. This includes $3 billion in Recovery Act Awards and $1 billion of special allocation authority used for the recovery and redevelopment of the Gulf Opportunity Zone.

About Clearinghouse Community Development Financial Institution

Clearinghouse CDFI addresses unmet credit needs throughout the U.S. and in Indian Country through direct lending, equity investments, and financial assistance. For over 23 years, Clearinghouse CDFI has helped bridge the gap between conventional lending standards and the needs of low-income, distressed, and communities of color. Clearinghouse CDFI is also a B Corpa certification received from the nonprofit B Lab. B Corps are companies who meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability, and use business as a force for good. More information is available at: http://www.ccdfi.com.
WASHINGTON  The White House is pushing for the new coronavirus relief bill to include $20 billion in direct payments to farmers, among other measures that may complicate negotiations with Democrats as Congress rushes to pass the $1 trillion stimulus package, according to a draft plan obtained by Yahoo News.

The bill is designed to provide a new round of stimulus payments, unemployment benefits and Paycheck Protection Program loans for small businesses, but as with the first relief package, the two parties are clashing over the size of payments, among other details. The payments for farmers are bound to be particularly controversial, since Democrats in the past have accused President Trump of using this aid to benefit part of his voting base.

Orchard worker Francisco Hernandez picks apples in Yakima, Wash., in June. (Elaine Thompson/AP)

Democratic aides who spoke with Yahoo News blasted the Republican plan, a draft of which has been circulating on Capitol Hill over the past day, particularly since the amount of unemployment aid would be smaller than the previous $600 weekly payments that went to some of the record numbers of people who lost their jobs due to the pandemic. A senior Democratic Senate staffer who has seen the plan described it as woefully inadequate.

Weve seen this movie before, said the staffer, who requested anonymity to discuss ongoing policy negotiations. This is a continuation of an underwhelming Republican response to the greatest public health and economic challenge weve seen in our lifetimes.

The plan, which was first published by the New York Times Thursday afternoon, does not specify the size of direct stimulus payments people would receive. These will be included, but the amount of the payment and eligibility criteria are TBA, the plan says.

Protesters near Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnells house demand the extension of coronavirus relief in Washington on Wednesday. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

It also does not outline the size of the unemployment benefits beyond saying they would probably be lower than the previous $600 weekly benefit, which is set to expire at the end of this month.

There will be some type of extension of the enhanced benefit, but likely not $600 a week. There will be a transition period during which there will be a flat amount of extra UI per week. After that, there will be a new policy that better aligns with an individuals lost income (possibly by multiplying a persons state benefit) but will cap out at 100 percent of income, the plan says.

Story continues

The Republicans proposal also does not provide any additional aid to local governments but notes that some would get provided in negotiations with the Democrats.

Senate Republicans and the White House are currently working together to finalize the $1 trillion stimulus plan. GOP leaders and the Trump administration reportedly agreed to major details of the plan on Wednesday. It is not clear whether the draft proposal is final. A Capitol Hill source and the senior Democratic Senate staffer both said the document was a draft of the Republican and White House plan that leaked out in the past day.

It is a draft that is floating around the Hill that is not supposed to be floating, the senior Senate staffer quipped.

David Popp, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, declined to comment on the Republican proposal.

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the proposal. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters on Capitol Hill that the Republican plan would extend supplemental unemployment benefits, although not at the current $600 level.

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at the Capitol in Washington on Thursday. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

We realize there are a lot of hard-working Americans, because of COVID, still wont have jobs, and we do not want that to expire, Mnuchin said. On the other hand, weve said we were in a different situation last time.

Mnuchins remarks echoed the plan for unemployment benefits in the draft proposal. After some delays, GOP leaders have said they hope to release details of a final plan in the coming days.

This draft proposal details $20 billion in direct payments to farmers as well as a more generous PPP calculation for farmers and ranchers based on their 2019 gross income. Under the proposal, there would also be a second round of PPP loans for businesses under 300 workers or within the [Small Business Administration] size threshold for their industry that can demonstrate 50 percent lost revenue compared with a reference period.

The plan also proposes a new working capital loan offered for businesses under 300 workers that is an alternative to a second round of PPP, specifying that businesses cant double dip in both loan programs.

Additionally, there is funding for efforts to fight the coronavirus in the plan, including $25 billion for testing, $26 billion for vaccine research, distribution, and use, $1.3 billion for workplace training on social distancing, $15.5 billion to the National Institutes of Health for labs/research and $25 billion for the hospital/provider fund, among other things.

The proposal devotes $105 billion to help schools recover from the pandemic, including $70 billion for K-12, though $10 billion of that would go to private schools.

A sign related to the coronavirus at Mantua Elementary School in Fairfax, Va., on Friday. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Steps to protect businesses from coronavirus lawsuits are also included in the proposal. Specifically, it provides for an exclusive federal cause of action that applies to litigation against any business, non-profit, school, medical provider, or medical professions arising from COVID. It would limit potential damages awarded in lawsuits and raise the standards for determining negligence.

The limits on aid and efforts to curb lawsuits show that the Republicans are more focused on protecting businesses than protecting people, the senior Democratic Senate staffer told Yahoo News.

The proposal is not taking seriously the pain people are feeling right now, and its not nearly enough to stop the economic hemorrhaging and the devastation being wrought by the coronavirus, the staffer said.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:
A man armed with a grenade has taken a senior policeman hostage in the central Ukrainian city of Poltava.

The man pulled out a grenade and threatened to kill police as officers went to arrest him for allegedly hijacking a vehicle.

It comes just two days after 13 bus passengers were taken captive by a gunman in the country during a 12-hour standoff in which he threatened to blow up the vehicle.

Today's incident saw a junior officer originally taken hostage but then replaced by a more senior police chief who 'volunteered to risk his life', according to 112.

An assailant, who seized a long-distance bus with 13 hostages, after police officers captured him in the city centre of Lutsk, 250 miles west of Kiev, Ukraine late on Tuesday

A huge emergency response, including explosives technicians and an investigative task force, are working at the site to bring the standoff to an end.

Deputy interior minister Anton Herashchenko said: 'The latest news is that a police officer has been replaced by a chief of criminal investigation, who volunteered to risk his life instead of an ordinary criminal investigation officer.

'The criminal was provided with a car, and now he is riding across Poltava with the hostage, he is accompanied by police officers.'

He added that negotiations are ongoing to force the attacker to surrender to the police without harming himself or others.

It is the second hostage situation to erupt in the Ukraine this week after Maxim Krovishey, 44, lobbed a grenade out of a bus and fired twice at officers after storming the vehicle at around 9.25am on Tuesday in Lutsk, in the northwest of the country.

Weapons, including an assault rifle, a revolver, a flick knife and extra magazines, that belonged to an assailant who seized a long-distance bus with 13 hostages on Tuesday, are pictured on the ground

Pictured: A grenade held by the attacker, who launched one of them from the bus at one point in the attack on Tuesday, which fortunately did not detonate

Krovishey spoke over the phone with relatives of those trapped on the bus and threatened to blow up the vehicle unless senior politicians admitted that they were 'terrorists.'

The gunman - who claimed to have explosives planted in another area of the city - released an elderly woman, a teenager and a young pregnant woman towards the end of the standoff.

At around 9.45pm local time, police announced that the assailant had been detained and that all remaining hostages had been freed without injury.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov was personally leading negotiations with Krovishey. His deputy, Anton Herashchenko, said the case was being treated as 'terrorism'.

More follows.
The United Kingdom will receive 30 million doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine candidate, making it the partnership's first agreement with any government.
In an agricultural ecosystem, the impact caused by humans, such as a decline in biodiversity, which affects food chains and food networks, has created more risks.

The attempts to control nature, including the development of hi-tech agriculture, the abuse of chemicals, and the use of equipment on a large scale, will harm the ecosystem, according to Pham Van Hoi from the Vietnam National University of Agriculture.

Glasshouses in Da Lat





For example, the increased use of nitrogen fertilization to increase crop productivity may cause soil degradation, water source pollution (surface water, groundwater), and air pollution. And when humans increase the use of plant protection products, they will hurt the ecosystem.



In an agricultural ecosystem, the impact caused by humans, such as a decline in biodiversity, which affects food chains and food networks, has created more risks. To mitigate the risks, humans then use more fertilizers and pesticides.

In an agricultural ecosystem, the impact caused by humans, such as a decline in biodiversity, which affects food chains and food networks, has created more risks. To mitigate the risks, humans then use more fertilizers and pesticides.

As a result, farmers incomes drop (because of required higher investments), consumers become worried about food hygiene, and the environment gets polluted.

Once the environment is polluted, the required investment costs will be even higher, while crop yields will decrease.



Hoi, in his article published in Khoa Hoc & Phat Trien, pointed out that human efforts to increase income on the basis of excessive crop intensification have led to changes in eco-service quality of the agricultural ecosystem.



For example, the pH of arable soil increases together with the higher cropping index. Similarly, the governments effort to strengthen rice production for domestic consumption and exports over the past decades is seen as one of the chief causes leading to the current environmental disasters in Mekong Delta.



Which way for Vietnam?



Hoi believes that the destruction of ecological services has caused pollution, resource degradation, and food safety problems.



However, instead of fixing problems and restoring ecological services, Vietnam has chosen another path to follow: strengthening human control over the agricultural ecosystem through large investments in hi-tech agriculture.



Hi-tech agriculture creates a more separate and controlled agricultural production environment with net houses, greenhouses, irrigation systems, and automatic control systems.



If applying hi-tech agriculture on a large scale, ecological services will be further damaged.



Rsearchers have warned that big investments in hi-tech agriculture will widen the gap between the rich and the poor. Poor farmers, who lack land for wet rice cultivation in Chandigar in India, deliberately destroyed the irrigation system.



In the long term, the productivity of the agricultural ecosystem and the quality of agricultural products are determined by supportive ecosystem services such as soil, water and biodiversity, rather than high-tech equipment (net houses, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and expensive irrigation systems).



In the context of climate change, widespread resource degradation as well as high population, the protection of agricultural resources must be a top priority among national development goals.

Thanh Mai

Hanoi in the front line on curtailing the use of pesticide Nguyen Manh Phuong, director of the Hanoi Department of Plant Production and Protection talks on the citys plan to curtail the use of pesticides in agricultural production.
The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) on Thursday buried the remains of late Flying Officer Tolulope Arotile, the services first female combat helicopter pilot, at the National Military Cemetery in Abuja.

Ms Arotile, who died on July 14, as a result of head injuries sustained from a road traffic accident at NAF Base Kaduna, was buried with full military honours.

A Squadron Pilot at the 405 Helicopter Combat Training Group (405 HCTG) Enugu, she was attached to the Air Component of Operation GAMA AIKI in Minna,having recently completed her Promotion Examinations.

She was in Kaduna awaiting deployment for her next assignment when she died.

Speaking at the funeral ceremony, the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Sadique Abubakar, said Ms Arotile would be greatly missed by the NAF.

Mr Abubakar said that even at this moment the NAF was still in shock and grief because it has lost a heroine whom the Service has so much confidence in.

He noted that the NAFs expectations were cut short as a result of her sudden demise.

The air chief who eulogised Ms Arotile, noted that her short stay in the Service was highly impactful, as she was a committed, confident officer in her service in the North West and North Central missions.

He noted that Ms Arotiles demise had affected the NAF and the nation whose sovereignty she protected.

Mr Abubakar thanked the late Ms Arotile for adding value to national security, saying the NAF and the country would always remember her contributions to nation building.

Speaking earlier in his sermon, Dogo Gani, the Director Chaplaincy, Protestant Nigeria Air Force, said the death of Ms Arotile was a difficult thing to comprehend.

Tolulope Arotiles Funeral (PHOTO CREDIT: @CDS_Nig)

He said Ms Arotile, a young woman of passion, and courage who took up the challenges of fighting evil, is now gone.

Mr Gani commended the CAS for taking up the boldness in putting resources together to realise Arotiles dreams.

He called on political, religious leaders to raise young men and women like Ms Arotile to defend the country.

Speaking on behalf of the Arotile family, Damilola Adegboye, sister to the deceased, noted that she had dreamt to fly a plane as a child.

She said her sister was passionate about her job and family.

Mrs Adegboye thanked Mr Abubakar and the entire nation for their prayers, condolences and love shown to the family since the demise of Ms Arotile.

Present at the ceremony were the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Gabriel Olonisakin, and the Minister of Defence, Bashir Magashi, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Sabiu Zakari.

Others were the Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, the Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, among other dignitaries.

Death register of Flying Officer Tolulope Arotile. (PHOTO CREDIT: NAF)

News Agency of Nigeria reports that the family was presented with the national colours by the air chief.

Also, there were the laying of wreath and the firing of volley by the Burial Party.

In another development, the Senate on Thursday condoled with the family of Ms Arotile.

The lawmakers also condoled with the governor, government and people of Kogi State over her loss.

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This was after the Senate observed a minute silence for the repose of her soul after considering a motion moved by Smart Adeyemi and entitled: Demise of Flying Officer Tolulope Arotile.

Mr Adeyemi also urged the Nigerian Airforce to immortalise the first female combat helicopter pilot of the nation by naming any a Airforce adifice after her or an institution of learning in Ijumu Local government area.

Mr Adeyemi had in his motion to the Senate said the upper legislative chamber noted with grief the death of Ms Arotile at the age of 24.

Mr Adeyemi said that Flying Officer Tolulope was winged as Nigerias first female combat helicopter pilot at the Nigerian Air Force headquarters, Abuja on 15 October 2019, after completing her flying training in South Africa.

Recalls also that Flying Officer Arotile underwent tactical flying training on the Augusta 109 Power Attack Helicopter in Italy, and holds a commercial pilots licence;

Recalls further that on 6 February 2020, she introduced the Air Forces newly-acquired Augusta 109 Power Attack Helicopter to the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari during the induction ceremony at the Eagle Square, Abuja;

Tolulope Arotiles Funeral (PHOTO CREDIT: @CDS_Nig)

She served the nation as a Squadron Pilot at the 405 Helicopter Combat Training Group, Enugu, attached to the Air Component of Operation GAMA AIKI in Minna, Niger State; had recently completed her Promotion Examination and was awaiting her next deployment;

Also as a participant in the GAMA AIKI in Niger State, she flew her quota of anti-banditry combat missions to ensure a safer and more secured Nigeria and that before her untimely death, she made significant and outstanding contributions to the war against terrorism, armed banditry and other forms of criminality in the country;

Aware that Flying Officer Tolulope Arotile in her own words: I joined the military simply out of passion for it. Being a military personnel has been a long time ambition, the carriage and what it stands for are simply exceptional

Aware also that Flying Officer Tolulope Arotile possessed deft skills as a combat helicopter pilot and truly earned the accolades from the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshall Sadique Abubakar, who described her as a very intelligent, disciplined, confident and courageous young officer who added value wherever she served.'

The Kogi West senator also stated that Ms Arotile was a shining young star in the Nigerias Air Force combat flying missions and her sad demise has reduced the ranks the Air Forces female pilots to six, thus she deserves to be memorialized in the Nigerias history. 

Isa Jibril, representing Kogi Central, called for another full investigation by the Nigerian Air Force as according to him, the manner of her death was suspicious and leaves one in doubt that it was just an accident.

(NAN)
Nationwide effort to build quantum networks and usher in new era of communications.

CHICAGO  In a press conference today at the University of Chicago, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) unveiled a report that lays out a blueprint strategy for the development of a national quantum internet, bringing the United States to the forefront of the global quantum race and ushering in a new era of communications. This report provides a pathway to ensure the development of the National Quantum Initiative Act, which was signed into law by President Trump in December 2018.

Around the world, consensus is building that a system to communicate using quantum mechanics represents one of the most important technological frontiers of the 21st century. Scientists now believe that the construction of a prototype will be within reach over the next decade.

In February of this year, DOE National Laboratories, universities and industry met in New York City to develop the blueprint strategy of a national quantum internet, laying out the essential research to be accomplished, describing the engineering and design barriers and setting near-term goals.

The Department of Energy is proud to play an instrumental role in the development of the national quantum internet, said U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette. By constructing this new and emerging technology, the United States continues with its commitment to maintain and expand our quantum capabilities.

DOEs 17 National Laboratories will serve as the backbone of the coming quantum internet, which will rely on the laws of quantum mechanics to control and transmit information more securely than ever before. Currently in its initial stages of development, the quantum internet could become a secure communications network and have a profound impact on areas critical to science, industry and national security.

Crucial steps toward building such an internet are already underway in the Chicago region, which has become one of the leading global hubs for quantum research. In February of this year, scientists from DOEs Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois, and the University of Chicago entangled photons across a 52-mile quantum loop in the Chicago suburbs, successfully establishing one of the longest land-based quantum networks in the nation. That network will soon be connected to DOEs Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, establishing a three-node, 80-mile test bed.

The combined intellectual and technological leadership of the University of Chicago, Argonne and Fermilab has given Chicago a central role in the global competition to develop quantum information technologies, said Robert J. Zimmer, president of the University of Chicago. This work entails defining and building entirely new fields of study, and with them, new frontiers for technological applications that can improve the quality of life for many around the world and support the long-term competitiveness of our city, state, and nation.

Argonne, Fermilab and the University of Chicago have a long history of working together to accelerate technology that drives U.S. prosperity and security, said Argonne Director Paul Kearns. We continue that tradition by tackling the challenges of establishing a national quantum internet, expanding our collaboration to tap into the vast power of American scientists and engineers around the country.

Decades from now, when we look back to the beginnings of the quantum internet, well be able to say that the original nexus points were here in Chicago  at Fermilab, Argonne and the University of Chicago, said Nigel Lockyer, director of Fermilab. As part of an existing scientific ecosystem, the DOE National Laboratories are in the best position to facilitate this integration.

A range of unique abilities

One of the hallmarks of quantum transmissions is that they are exceedingly difficult to eavesdrop on as information passes between locations. Scientists plan to use that trait to make virtually unhackable networks. Early adopters could include industries such as banking and health services, with applications for national security and aircraft communications. Eventually, the use of quantum networking technology in mobile phones could have broad impacts on the lives of individuals around the world.

Scientists are also exploring how the quantum internet could expedite the exchange of vast amounts of data. If the components can be combined and scaled, society may be at the cusp of a breakthrough in data communication, according to the report.

Finally, creating networks of ultra-sensitive quantum sensors could allow engineers to better monitor and predict earthquakes  a longtime and elusive goal  or to search for underground deposits of oil, gas or minerals. Such sensors could also have applications in health care and imaging.

A multi-lab, multi-institution effort

Creating a full-fledged prototype of a quantum internet will require intense coordination among U.S. Federal agencies  including DOE, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, the National Institute for Standards and Technology, the National Security Agency and NASA  along with National Laboratories, academic institutions and industry.

The report lays out crucial research objectives, including building and then integrating quantum networking devices, perpetuating and routing quantum information and correcting errors. Then, to put the nationwide network into place, there are four key milestones: Verify secure quantum protocols over existing fiber networks, send entangled information across campuses or cities, expand the networks between cities and finally expand between states, using quantum repeaters to amplify signals.

The foundation of quantum networks rests on our ability to precisely synthesize and manipulate matter at the atomic scale, including the control of single photons, said David Awschalom, Liew Family Professor in Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicagos Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, and director of the Chicago Quantum Exchange. Our National Laboratories house world-class facilities to image materials with subatomic resolution and state-of-the-art supercomputers to model their behavior. These powerful resources are critical to accelerating progress in quantum information science and engineering, and to leading this rapidly evolving field in collaboration with academic and corporate partners.

In addition to our collaboration with the University of Chicago, Fermilab is working with Argonne, Caltech, Northwestern University and tech startups to develop the architecture and gradually deploy and connect quantum communication nodes across the city of Chicago. Before long, with this second group of collaborators, well be teleporting data across a metropolitan network, said Panagiotis Spentzouris, head of quantum programs at Fermilab. This blueprint is important for telling us how we build this out nationwide.

###

Other National Laboratories are also driving advances in quantum networking and related technologies. For example, Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory, working with the DOEs Energy Sciences Network headquartered at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, have established an 80-mile quantum network test bed and are actively expanding it in New York State and at Oak Ridge and Los Alamos National Laboratories. Other research groups are focused on developing a quantum cryptography system with highly secured information.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nations 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 Americas 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 Energys Office of Science.

The U.S. Department of Energys 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.
A King cobra was rescued from a well in Burujhari village of Ganjam district, Odisha on Wednesday by the help of members of the snake helpline.

The locals first saw the snake inside an abandoned well and immediately informed the forest department officials who sent a team of the snake helpline, working in the Khollikote forest range to the village.

ANI also took to Twitter to share four images of the rescued reptile. They also detailed the incident in the posts caption.

Odisha: A King cobra was rescued from a well in Burujhari village of Ganjam district earlier today. It was later released into the wild. Swapnalok Mishra, a snake rescuer says, "The king cobra is 12-15 feet long." pic.twitter.com/OHTslLv6Q0  ANI (@ANI) July 22, 2020

The snake was rescued after an hour of hard work by the rescuers, speaking about which, Swapnalok Mishra and Mihir Pandey -- the two team members said that the reptile was approximately 12-15 feet long.

It was later released in the forest on the orders of Khallikote forest official after a health check-up.

A few days back, a rescue story of another reptile surfaced online. A crocodile which ventured out into the fields in Kelanpur village of Vadodara district was rescued and handed over to the State Forest Department.
Some of Australia's most idyllic tourist destinations have been hit the hardest amid the COVID-19 pandemic with more than half of their businesses relying on JobKeeper.

Businesses in coastal towns like Byron Bay, Cairns and Shark Bay have topped the list for recipients of the COVID-19 handout, according to data from consulting firm Taylor Fry.

Around 35 per cent of businesses across the country have applied for the wage subsidy but in some NSW and Western Australian towns the figure is closer to 60 per cent.

Byron Bay (pictured Byron Bay lighthouse) has 60 per cent of its businesses relying on JobKeeper payments

The popular Byron Bay souvenir shop was one of many retail stores that fell victim to COVID-19. Pictured at height of pandemic in April

Byron Bay had 60 per cent of businesses on JobKeeper and Western Australia's Shark Bay had 59 per cent.

Break O'Day in north-east Tasmania had 52 per cent of the town's businesses on the handout, followed closely by Tweed in NSW at 48 per cent.

'As we look to our tourist regions the reliance on JobKeeper increases substantially,' Taylor Fry Principal Alan Greenfield said.

Marion in South Australia had 46 per cent of businesses on the wage subsidy and Queensland's tropical hot spot of Cairns had 45 per cent.

Capital cities also saw a large percentage of businesses turning towards government subsidies.

Sydney's eastern suburbs businesses were some of the most reliant with Waverley having 43 per cent, and Canterbury-Bankstown regions having 41 per cent.

Shark Bay in Western Australian (pictured) was also one of the top towns relying on JobKeeper with 59 per cent of businesses using the handout

Businesses in Sydney were also hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic with Waverley, the Inner West and Canterbury-Bankstown all have more than 40 per cent on JobKeeper

The city's inner west had 42 per cent of businesses on JobKeeper.

'Inner city businesses skew heavily towards white-collar professions and larger organisations and these businesses are just less likely to be receiving JobKeeper,' Mr Greenfield said.

TOP TEN TOWNS WITH BUSINESSES ON JOBKEEPER NSW Byron 60 per cent WA Shark Bay 59 per cent WA Exmouth 57 per cent WA Vincent 53 per cent Tas Break O'Day 52 per cent WA Augusta-Margaret River 51 per cent NSW Tweed 48 per cent Vic Moreland 47 per cent WA Northampton 47 per cent NSW Lockhart 46 per cent Source: Taylor Fry Advertisement

'In our CBDs, it's the small businesses supporting the functioning of modern life who are reliant on JobKeeper  the cafes, dry cleaners, shoe repairers.

'They've seen business completely dry up, with no respite on the horizon as white-collar professionals show no signs of returning anytime soon.'

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced on Tuesday the wage scheme, which currently helps 3.5million Australians, will be reduced in phases as the economy recovers from coronavirus lockdowns.

The payment was due to end on 27 September but instead it will be decreased from $1,500 to $1,200-a-fortnight.

A lower rate of $750-a-fortnight will go to people who worked fewer than 20 hours a week in February, before coronavirus struck.

The two-tiered system has been brought in because one in four casuals are earning more on JobKeeper than when they worked.

From 4 January, the payments will be reduced to $1,000-a-fortnight for full time staff and to $650-a-fortnight for those who worked fewer than 20 hours.

Fewer businesses will be eligible for JobKeeper as they must continue to prove a revenue decline of 30 per cent compared to before coronavirus.

Many will not meet this threshold because business has picked up after lockdowns ended.
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Victoria has recorded another 403 COVID-19 cases and five more deaths from the virus on Thursday - the state's third-worst day for daily infections since the pandemic began.

A 'significant number' of new infections are in people in their 20s, with Premier Daniel Andrews issuing a grave warning about young people flouting social distancing rules.

Three of the deaths in the state over the past 24 hours were people who were in aged care - a woman in her 70s and men in their 80s and 90s - while four children are also in Victorian hospitals suffering from the virus.

Another of the state's newest COVID-19 victims was a man aged in his 50s, Mr Andrews told reporters on Thursday morning.

He said 334 of the new cases were under investigation and only 69 had been linked by authorities to known and contained outbreaks.

The daily infection number trails only Wednesday's record figure of 484 cases and the 428 infections confirmed by Mr Andrews last Friday.

The embattled premier also announced all Victorians forced to isolate after taking a coronavirus test will get a $300 payment for staying at home until their results arrive.

If they later test positive, they may then be eligible for an existing $1,500 payment to help make up for lost earnings while they stay home from work.

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Victoria has recorded 403 new coronavirus cases, the third-highest figure for the state since the pandemic began (pictured, two women walking along Birrarung Marr in Melbourne on Thursday)

Police officers in protective masks enforce the state's mandatory mask order, which came into place overnight (pictured on Thursday morning)

A cafe worker wearing a protective mask is pictured working in a Melbourne cafe on Thursday morning after the rule mandating mask usage came into place at 11.59pm on Wednesday night

The Victorian premier meanwhile issued a warning to young people that their lives of themselves and their families were on the line if they did not follow social distancing rules.

Police took to the streets of Melbourne on Thursday morning to enforce rules which came into place overnight requiring all of the city's residents to wear masks when out in public.

There are a lot of young people who have died of this in other parts of the world, there are lots of otherwise healthy people who have become ill,' Mr Andrews said.

'One of the terrible tragedies today is a man in his 50s, this is not something that just affects people frail and of older age.

'That would be enough. But there is growing evidence that many people are not getting over this like a common cold, it is lingering, it has chronic symptoms that gives you shortness of breath for a long time.

'This is not something you want to get, this is nothing something you want to spread.

Dont break the rules and this will be over sooner.

A woman wears a protective face mask in Melbourne on Thursday after it became the first city in Australia to enforce mask-wearing in public

Mr Andrews pictured addressing reporters on Thursday as he announced 403 new cases - a figure trailing only Wednesday's record figure of 484 cases

The continued spike in cases comes as Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said on Thursday morning she would not rule out extending its ban on travellers from Sydney's COVID-19 hotspots to all residents from the Harbour City.

'I will be getting further updates today,' she said.

'If we have to declare further hotspots, we will declare further hotspots.'

Queensland could also declare a complete ban on travel from New South Wales if cases keep climbing, sources told The Gold Coast Bulletin.

The police source said more Sydney hotspots would inevitably be declared by authorities in Queensland.

Ms Palaszczuk has already banned anyone travelling from the Sydney local government areas of Liverpool and Campbelltown from entering Queensland.

'There is no way more hot spots are not going to be declared, and all of Sydney would definitely be a consideration given what's happening down there,' a police source said.

The Victorian premier meanwhile issued a warning to young people that their lives of themselves and their families were on the line if they did not follow social distancing rules (pictured, a couple in face masks in Melbourne on Thursday)

Commuters wearing face masks at Parliament Station on Thursday morning. Mr Andrews said one of the state's newest COVID-19 victims was a man aged in his 50s

'If the situation continues to deteriorate, I honestly don't see how we wouldn't look at closing the border entirely.'

New South Wales recorded another 19 coronavirus cases on Thursday - with most of the new cases linked to known Sydney clusters at the Crossroads Hotel and the Thai Rock restaurant.

There were nine new cases linked to the Thai Rock cluster - with one being a child who attended Tomaree Public School.

Another case associated with the Thai Rock cluster is a toddler who attends Goodstart Early Learning Anna Bay.

Both schools were closed on Friday while contact tracing and cleaning is underway.

There were three new cases linked with the Crossroads Hotel cluster.

Three new cases are also returned travellers in hotel quarantine. One new case was a South Western Sydney resident who acquired their infection in Victoria and has been self-isolating since arriving in NSW.

A pedestrian wearing a face covering in front of Flinders Street Station on July 23. Face masks or face coverings are now mandatory for anyone leaving their homes in the Melbourne metropolitan area or the Mitchell Shire.

A man wearing a protective face mask leaves a train station in Melbourne on Thursday as residents of the city and neighbouring Mitchell Shire are forced to wear masks to curb a resurgence of coronavirus in the state

There are now 56 cases associated with the Crossroads Hotel cluster, 46 cases associated with the Thai Rock restaurant and eight cases associated with the Batemans Bay Soldiers Club.

One of Queensland's highest ranking police officers has meanwhile hit out at those disregarding border rules - describing those who 'roll the dice on the system' as 'selfish' and 'reckless'.

'Well continue to do this [border checks] as we see things unfold interstate,' Police Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said.

'We know Victoria is not in a good place and things are looking pretty grim. You can expect our border controls will be with us for some time.'

A woman wears a protective face mask in Melbourne. Four children are in Victorian hospitals suffering from the virus on Thursday, authorities confirmed

A nurse conducts a COVID-19 swab test as large crowds queue at Bondi Beach for drive-thru testing on Wednesday. Queensland has not ruled out extending its travel ban on Sydney's COVID-19 hotspots to the whole of the Harbour City

Earlier on Thursday, a top Australian doctor choked back tears as he described the impending disaster in Victoria due to the latest coronavirus outbreak.

Australian Medical Association president Tony Bartone issued the grim warning when he appeared on the Today show on Thursday.

'Our residents in aged care facilities are just a heartbeat away from calamity,' he said.

'We have seen this astronomical explosion in cases there. The PPE is not being worn. Infection control procedures are not being implemented in some.

The additional 403 cases reportedly announced on Thursday is third-worst for the state -behind only the totals announced on Wednesday and July 17

'This is just absolutely unsustainable and we are just going to see the (case) numbers continue to rise.'

Karl Stefanovic appeared stunned after Dr Bartone issued his warning.

'It's bleak,' the host replied.

'That man is considered, that man is knowledgeable, and that man is incredibly worried,' Stefanovic said.

'Incredibly worried. He's saying we need help. We need help here in Victoria.'

A further 484 cases were diagnosed in Victoria in the 24 hours to Wednesday - the largest single-day spike in Australia since the pandemic began.

Mr Andrews speaks to the media on Thursday. He announced Victorians would receive a $300 payment from the government if they are made to isolate and don't have access to sick leave

Today show hosts Karl Stefanovic and Allison Langdon appeared stunned after Australian Medical Association president Tony Bartone issued the grim warning

Victorians could be cut off from the rest of Australia for two years as the state battles a second outbreak of coronavirus

Mr Andrews is reportedly desperate to reopen his state to avoid economic ruin, but is resolved to only do so when cases drop dramatically.

Senior government figures told The Australian the Victorian premier wanted daily case numbers 'in the single digits' before reopening the economy.

'It all comes down to the data. Every option is open,' a senior government source said.

From midnight, wearing a face mask will be mandatory throughout metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire and failure to do so punishable with a $200 fine

Almost nine in ten Victorians who tested positive to COVID-19 between July 7 and July 21 were still leaving their houses while their symptoms developed.

Even after being tested, 54 per cent still left their homes while waiting for their results, Mr Andrews said.

Royal Melbourne Hospital this week received an order for an additional 22 ventilators to bolster its intensive care units, which already have 42 beds.

Pictured: A map shows Sydney's coronavirus hotspot sites as the virus spreads throughout NSW

Hospitals in the state are preparing for an influx of of coronavirus patients given hospital admissions appeared to be about 10 days behind the diagnoses of new cases.

Australians aged 20 to 29 had the highest number of infections, while people aged over 70 had the lowest.

Women aged between 20 to 29 and 60 to 69 were the most likely of females to be infected, while men aged 60 to 79 were the most likely of males.

And while the bulk of the infections were acquired overseas during the period studied, 98.8 per cent of cases diagnosed in the last week have been acquired locally.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 22, 2020) - Blackrock Gold Corp. (TSXV: BRC) (the "Company") is pleased to announce a non-brokered private placement (the "Offering") of 10,416,667 units (the "Units") at a price of C$0.72 per Unit for gross proceeds of C$7,500,000.24. The Company is pleased to advise that Eric Sprott has agreed to purchase C$5 million of the Offering. Each Unit will be comprised of one common share and one-half of one share purchase warrant. Each whole warrant will entitle the holder to acquire one additional common share in the capital of the Company at a price of C$1.00 for a period of two years from the date the Units are issued.

The Offering is scheduled to close on or about July 31, 2020, and is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary approvals including the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. The Units to be issued under the Offering will have a hold period of four months and one day from the closing. The net proceeds of the Offering will be used by the Company to fund an expanded exploration program on the Company's Tonopah West property, and for general working capital.

The Company will pay a finder's fee on the Offering of 6% in cash and finder's warrants equal to 6% of Units placed by the finder, each finder's warrant exercisable for one common share for a 2 year term at a price of $1.00.

The securities described herein 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, and accordingly, may not be offered or sold within the United States except in compliance with the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities requirements or pursuant to exemptions therefrom. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any securities in any jurisdiction.

Story continues

About Blackrock Gold Corp.

Blackrock is a junior gold-focused exploration company that is on a quest to make an economic discovery. Anchored by a seasoned Board, the Company is focused on its Nevada portfolio consisting of low-sulphidation epithermal gold & silver projects located along on the established Northern Nevada Rift in north-central Nevada, and the Walker Lane trend in western Nevada.

For further information, please contact:

Andrew Pollard, President & CEO

Blackrock Gold Corp.

Phone: 604 817-6044

Email: andrew@blackrockgoldcorp.com

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. Such forward-looking statements concern expected subscriptions and closing of the Offering, net proceeds from the Offering and the intended use of proceeds. Such forward-looking statements or information are based on a number of assumptions which may prove to be incorrect. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things: conditions in general economic and financial markets; timing and amount of capital expenditures; and effects of regulation by governmental agencies. The actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of risk factors including: the availability of funds; the timing and content of work programs; results of exploration activities of mineral properties; the interpretation of drilling results and other geological data; and general market and industry conditions. Forward-looking statements are based on the expectations and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. The assumptions used in the preparation of such statements, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date the statements were made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements included in this news release if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as otherwise required by applicable law.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWS WIRE SERVICES

OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES



To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60246
The ice breaker Xuelong 2 at a wharf in Shanghai, China, July 11, 2020.

Costfoto/Barcroft Media via Getty Images

The Xuelong 2, China's first domestically built icebreaker left Shanghai on July 15 for its first trip to the Arctic.

It's not the first time a Chinese icebreaker has gone to the Arctic, but the ship and the trip underscore Chinese ambitions for the region at a time when many countries are pursuing their interests there.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

China's first domestically built icebreaker left this month for its first trip to the Arctic, a few days after President Donald Trump said the US was pursuing as many as 10 new icebreakers of its own, underscoring the growing interest major powers have in being able to access the region.

Xuelong 2, or Snow Dragon 2, left Shanghai on July 15 for a scientific expedition to the Arctic and is expected to return in late September. Scientists aboard the ship plan to research Arctic biodiversity and ecosystems to improve China's understanding of climate change in the Arctic, according to state media.

The Xuelong, which China bought in the 1990s, has already traveled to the Arctic. While Xuelong 2's trip isn't a first for Beijing, it adds credibility to China's polar ambitions, according to Dr. Elizabeth Buchanan, a lecturer at Deakin University in Australia.

Chinese icebreaker Xue Long at a drift ice camp in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, July 2010.

Wikimedia Commons

"It is a 'win' for Beijing in that the international community is witnessing the sheer ability for China to domestically design, build, and operate a icebreaker," said Buchanan, also a non-resident fellow at West Point's Modern War Institute.

A number of countries are trying to improve their ability to operate in the Arctic, where receding ice and warming temperatures promise access to natural resources and shipping routes. Most of them border the Arctic Ocean and claim a portion of its waters. Many view China's designs skeptically, especially its self-designation as a "near-Arctic state."

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While only "a small sliver" of the Arctic is international waters, "China is pushing this narrative that the Arctic is global commons, trying to broaden out the 'buy-in' China really has with regards to the region," Buchanan said in an email.

"The West has not (until now) done a great job at pushing back against this commons approach. New ice-breaking capabilities on show with [Xuelong 2] kind of force us to realize Beijing is not going anywhere in the Arctic narrative," Buchanan added.

While the stated objectives for the Xuelong 2's expedition relate to scientific research, the intent is twofold, Buchanan said: It's "a domestic PR stunt" to bolster China's global stature and is meant to convey to Arctic-rim states that China is a relevant stakeholder in the region, "now with the capability to credibly back [its] interest."

A 'precarious' Arctic relationship

Chinese President Xi Jinping with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the BRICS Summit in southeastern China's Fujian Province, September 4, 2017.

REUTERS/Wu Hong/Pool

China has worked closely with Russia on Arctic infrastructure and other projects. Their partnership has worried other countries for geopolitical and geo-economic reasons, but experts question its extent and staying power.

"Chinese experts recognize that Russia will never accept China as an equal partner in the Arctic, because if you had a partnership in the Arctic, the question would be who would be the number one partner," Elizabeth Wishnick, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at Montclair State University, said at a recent event hosted by the research group CNA.

Their cooperation has mostly been economic, with China supplying needed investment in Russia's liquefied natural gas projects and for other infrastructure, though progress has been limited, partly due to Russian wariness of China.

"I think that it's going to be kind of a mixed picture with a deepening Russia-China partnership as a whole," Wishnick said. "But in the Arctic, I think that's where the brakes are going to be applied to some extent."

The Arctic tanker Christophe de Margerie loads liquefied natural gas at the Yamal LNG plant on the western coast of the Kara Sea, February 19, 2019.

Alexander Ryumin/TASS via Getty Images

China's recent push into the Arctic should be a reason for countries on the Arctic rim to unite, Buchanan said. "It's something Russia and the West have common interest in containing."

Russia knows it's reliant on China for investment in its Arctic energy projects and is pursuing other partners for that reason, Buchanan said.

"The Russia-China Arctic relationship is extremely precarious, but at least both parties recognize this. Beijing needs access to Russia's [Northern Sea Route] to fulfill Polar Silk Road ambitions and for now will continue to play by Moscow's rules there," Buchanan added. "Problem is, Moscow can't trust Beijing to continue to do so."

'We're trying to do a deal'

With two icebreakers, China has as many as the US. Russia, however, has more than 40 of different sizes that operate in the Arctic and the Baltic Sea.

Russia is also increasing production of nuclear-powered icebreakers, and reports that it could arm its icebreakers have concerned the US.

The Coast Guard operates both US icebreakers, the medium icebreaker Healy and the heavy icebreaker Polar Star. The Polar Star is more than 40 years old and breaks down regularly.

Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star in Antarctic ice in the Ross Sea, January 16, 2017.

US Coast Guard/Chief Petty Officer David Mosley

The US is seeking to build more polar security cutters, as its icebreakers are known, awarding a contract worth up to $2 billion for as many as three, with the first delivered in 2024 and the third by 2029.

"We've approved ... two polar security cutters for the United States Coast Guard," Trump said in a July 10 speech. "We have under construction right now the largest icebreaker in the world, and we're going to be trying to get, if we can, an extra 10 icebreakers."

"We're trying to do a deal with a certain place that has a lot of icebreakers, and we're seeing if we can make a really good deal where you can have them very fast," Trump said. "We're working on it, and I think we can surprise you."

It's not clear what Trump was referring to, but earlier this year the White House ordered the Coast Guard and other federal agencies to review plans for the icebreaker fleet, including identifying options "to bridge the gap of available vessels" as soon as late 2021.

The order said the review should "specifically include operational risk associated with using a leased vessel as compared to a purchased vessel to conduct specified missions."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Businesses are looking for assistance in how to return to work, and return to work safely, Rausch said. With our experience, we help these businesses focus on mitigating the disease within their facilities. They recognize that if they have to close their facilities, they could lose untold revenue.

The startup company has put together a staff to conduct on-site tests.

GRTC, which has about 550 employees total, contracted with SecureHealth in May and has since held two on-site testing events at its headquarters. About 100 employees were tested on June 8, and 67 were tested on June 18. Another testing day took place in mid-July.

We know from what we had been learning in cooperation with the Department of Health that there are a significant number of people who have COVID and do not know it, said Carrie Rose Pace, a spokeswoman for GRTC.

It is important to make sure we can detect any case early, isolate and prevent it from spreading, she said.

The University of Richmond plans to resume in-person instruction and residential educational this fall, said Shannon Sinclair, the universitys vice president and general counsel.

To do that, we are putting significant protocols in place for the health of our campus community, Sinclair said. SecureHealth will provide COVID-19 testing to our students prior to the start of the academic year. The majority of the testing will take place over six days on campus.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 22:54:59|Editor: huaxia

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-- China launched a Mars probe on Thursday, designed to complete orbiting, landing and roving in one mission.



-- The most challenging part of the mission will be the soft landing, an autonomous process of the probe lasting seven to eight minutes.

-- Chinese scientists are looking forward to finding more evidence of water-ice.

-- Although China has achieved a series of successes in lunar exploration with four probes to the moon, Mars poses new difficulties for Chinese spacecraft designers.

-- Extensive international cooperation has been carried out.

by Xinhua writers Yu Fei, Quan Xiaoshu, Zhou Huimin

WENCHANG, Hainan, July 23 (Xinhua) -- China launched a Mars probe on Thursday, designed to complete orbiting, landing and roving in one mission, taking the first step in its planetary exploration of the solar system.

A Long March-5 rocket, China's largest launch vehicle, carrying the spacecraft with a mass of about 5 tonnes, soared into the sky from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the coast of southern China's island province of Hainan at 12:41 p.m. (Beijing Time).

A Mars probe is launched on a Long March-5 rocket from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China's Hainan Province, July 23, 2020. (Xinhua/Cai Yang)

About 36 minutes later, the spacecraft, including an orbiter and a rover, was sent into the Earth-Mars transfer orbit, embarking on an almost seven-month journey to the red planet, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

China's first Mars mission is named Tianwen-1, which means Questions to Heaven and comes from a poem written by Qu Yuan (about 340-278 BC), one of the greatest poets of ancient China. The name signifies the Chinese nation's perseverance in pursuing truth and science and exploring nature and the universe, said the CNSA.

JOURNEY OF ADVENTURE

The successful launch of the Tianwen-1 probe is a key step for China going deeper into space, said Liu Tongjie, spokesman of China's first Mars exploration mission from the CNSA.

"The launch is only the first step of China's Mars mission, and we hope each of the many key steps of the long journey is completed successfully," said Geng Yan, an official at the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the CNSA.

Picture released on Aug. 23, 2016 shows the concept portraying what the Mars probe would look like. (Xinhua)

The key steps include slowing down when close to Mars, orbiting, separating the landing platform and the rover from the orbiter, landing softly and roving.

The spacecraft is expected to enter the orbit of Mars around February 2021. Afterwards, it will spend two to three months surveying potential landing sites using a high-resolution camera to prepare for the landing in May.

The most challenging part of the mission will be the soft landing, an autonomous process of the probe lasting seven to eight minutes. The probe will use its aerodynamic shape, parachute and retrorocket to decelerate and buffer legs to touch down, said Geng.

After the landing, the rover will be released to conduct scientific exploration with an expected lifespan of at least 90 Martian days (about three months on Earth), and the orbiter, with a design life of one Martian year (about 687 days on Earth), will relay communications for the rover while conducting its own scientific detection.

Picture released on Aug. 23, 2016 shows the concept portraying what the Mars rover and lander would look like. (Xinhua)

SEARCHING FOR WATER-ICE

Chinese space engineers and scientists have chosen a relatively flat region in the southern part of the Utopia Planitia, a large plain, as the potential landing zone.

"The reason we selected this place is that it has both the conditions for a safe landing and scientific research value. The place has not been investigated by other countries, so the scientific data can be shared with other countries to enrich the world's understanding of Mars," Geng said.

Earlier research showed the potential landing site might be the edge of an ancient ocean or lake in the early history of Mars. Chinese scientists are looking forward to finding more evidence of water-ice.

The scientific goals include mapping the morphology and geological structure, investigating surface soil characteristics and water-ice distribution, analyzing the surface material composition, measuring the ionosphere and the characteristics of the Martian climate and environment at the surface, and perceiving the physical fields and internal structure of Mars.

Picture released on Aug. 23, 2016 shows the concept portraying what the Mars rover and lander would look like. (Xinhua)



The orbiter is equipped with seven kinds of scientific instruments: two remote-sensing cameras, Mars-Orbiting Subsurface Exploration Radar, Mars Mineralogy Spectrometer, Mars Magnetometer, Mars Ion and Neutral Particle Analyzer, and Mars Energetic Particle Analyzer.

The six-wheel solar-powered rover, looking like a blue butterfly with a mass of 240 kg, carries the Terrain Camera, Multispectral Camera, Mars-Rover Subsurface Exploration Radar, Mars Surface Composition Detector, Mars Magnetic Field Detector and Mars Meteorology Monitor.

CONTRIBUTION TO MANKIND

Mars is at the forefront of international deep space exploration, Geng said. Mars exploration could help improve human ability to go deeper into space and provide first-hand data for major scientific research such as the origin and evolution of the solar system and life.

"Previous explorations have found evidence of water on the planet. Does this indicate there is or was life on Mars, or Mars is the past or the future of Earth? These questions are key goals of Mars research and are of great significance in understanding life and the evolution of Earth," Geng said.

Mars is also a priority target for manned landing missions other than the moon, as it can be reached using existing space capabilities and its environment is closest to Earth in the solar system, Geng said.

The mission will spur the enthusiasm of Chinese scientists to study other planets and make unique contributions to scientific progress, he said.

Pushing forward deep space exploration with Mars as the starting point could help promote China's development through innovation, he added.

Mars exploration is innovative and challenging. It needs basic technologies concerning materials, components, structures and instruments for extreme environmental conditions. It needs breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, autonomous navigation, precise control, as well as remote measurement, control and communication technologies.

Through transformation and application, these new technologies will help improve human life, and set new frontiers for social development by driving leaps in fields such as science and technology, ideology and culture, he said.

A Mars probe is launched on a Long March-5 rocket from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China's Hainan Province, July 23, 2020. (Xinhua/Guo Cheng)

"Earth is the cradle of humanity, but we cannot stay in the cradle forever. It's important we have the ability to get out. Only by learning to fly, can we have a better future," said Li Dapeng, a spaceflight enthusiast from north China's Hebei Province.

"The mission requires tens of thousands of steps operated correctly for complete success, quite a test for engineers and technicians. It might fail on the first try, but let's hope we're lucky," Li said.

Han Hongxu, a tourist from Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, brought his son to Wenchang to watch the launch.

Han believed flying to Mars is the most courageous and romantic human achievement. "Like loving a person, you run to the lover, regardless of the difficulties and dangers, regardless of how far and whether you have a future together," he said.

UNPRECEDENTED CHALLENGES

China is a latecomer in planetary exploration. Chinese space experts do not want the goal of exploration to be reached easily. China's Mars exploration does not repeat the paths of other countries.

"We hope the mission will be innovative and help push forward scientific and technological development," Geng said.

However, the challenges are also unprecedented.

Although China has achieved a series of successes in lunar exploration with four probes to the moon, Mars poses new difficulties for Chinese spacecraft designers.

Photo taken on Nov. 14, 2019 shows the trial ground of an experiment for landing on Mars in Huailai County, north China's Hebei Province. On Nov. 14, China unveiled an experiment simulating the process of a probe hovering, avoiding obstacles and descending to land on Mars. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)

More than 40 Mars missions have been launched since the 1960s, but only about half have succeeded. The success rate for landing is even lower, and only the United States has succeeded in a soft landing on Mars.

"We only have a limited understanding of Mars. There are still many uncertainties about the environment and great risks," said Geng.

If China can succeed in orbiting, landing and roving with Tianwen-1, it will take the challenge of collecting and bringing back samples in the next Mars mission, as well as exploring asteroids and the Jovian system, Geng added.

Photo taken on Nov. 14, 2019 shows the trial ground of an experiment for landing on Mars in Huailai County, north China's Hebei Province. How to safely land on Mars is one of the biggest challenges facing the mission. The experiment simulated the gravity of Mars, about one-third of the gravity on Earth, to test the design of the lander. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)

OPEN TO COOPERATION

The Mars mission has attracted active participation of non-governmental research agencies, with more than 600 domestic organizations joining the development of the probe system alone.

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Macao University of Science and Technology helped develop cameras for the project, and scientists from Hong Kong and Macao were also involved in the scientific research.

Extensive international cooperation has also been carried out.

China works with the European Space Agency and Argentina in the mission's measurement and control, and with France and Austria in the calibration of multiple payloads and data analysis.

"Scientists from all sides have been in close contact, making active preparations for early and quick research results," Geng said.

Norbert Paluch, space counselor of the French Embassy in China, said that deep space exploration is one of the biggest challenges for mankind, and it makes sense to do it together. He believes everybody on Earth will learn a lot from what China will discover. 

(Video reporters: Zhou Xuan, Guo Liangchuan, Hu Zhe, Ding Ting; Video editor: Wei Yin)
Washington, July 23 : US President Donald Trump has blamed the surge of coronavirus cases in the the country due to the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests triggered by the May 25 death of George Floyd under police custody, the media reported.

Addressing the media on Wednesday, Trump suggested that young people demonstrating against police brutality and racism are the cause for the increase in cases, which have been seen in about 30 states across the country over the recent weeks, the Metro newspaper reported.

"There are likely a number of causes for the spike in infections. Cases started to rise among young Americans shortly after demonstrations which you know very well about.

"Which presumably triggered a broader relaxation of mitigation efforts nationwide and a substantial increase in travel." He went on to say that "increased gathering on holidays such as Memorial Day, as well as young people closely congregating at bars and probably other places, maybe beaches, four or five listed places likely also contributed".

The President also blamed Mexico for the recent spike, reports the Metro newspaper.

"Sharing a 2,000 mile border with Mexico, as we know very well, and cases are surging in Mexico unfortunately... It's a big problem for Mexico." Trump however, failed to mention why New York City, which saw some of the largest protests in the country in the wake of Floyd's death, has since flattened the curve while hospitalizations and deaths have dropped amid the ongoing demonstrations.

Trump further said that he was "comfortable" reopening schools and claimed children do not spread the virus.

"I am comfortable with that," he responded when asked if he was comfortable opening schools to young children, including his son Barron and his grandchildren.

The President's remarks come as the US currently accounted for the world's highest number of COVID-19 infections and fatalities at 3,967,917 and 143,147, respectively.
By Maureen Clare Murphy

July 22, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - The days of Israels impunity are dwindling as the International Criminal Court inches closer towards opening a full investigation into war crimes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

An Israeli diplomatic offensive and sanctions by the US have so far not bullied the court into submission.

A pre-trial chambers determination on court jurisdiction in Palestine is expected soon (the ICC just adjourned for the summer holiday and will reconvene in mid-August), and the Israeli government doesnt anticipate the judges will rule in its favor.

The Tel Aviv daily Haaretz reported this week that Israel is compiling a secret list of military and intelligence officials who might be subject to arrest abroad should an ICC investigation proceed.

The paper said it was told the list now includes between 200 and 300 officials.

The document remains secret because the ICC is likely to view a list of names as an official Israeli admission of these officials involvement in the incidents under investigation, Haaretz added.

Likely suspects include top ministers and military brass who oversaw and carried out Israels 2014 offensive on the Gaza Strip. Among the senior-ranking potential suspects named by Haaretz are Benjamin Netanyahu and former army chief Benny Gantz, who jointly head Israels coalition government.

The list may also include lower-ranking officials involved in the building of West Bank settlements.

The number of personnel liable for war crimes prosecutions only grows larger with each street execution of a Palestinian by Israeli police and military.

Unarmed and defenseless

Dozens of human rights groups told the United Nations this week that the perpetrators of the extrajudicial execution of 26-year-old Ahmad Erakat at a checkpoint last month must be held accountable.

Israel said that Erakat had intentionally rammed the checkpoint with his car, causing minor injuries to a soldier. Video of the incident shows that soldiers shot Erakat when he exited his vehicle with hands in the air.

Erakat was running errands ahead of his sisters wedding when he was slain. The bride was already wearing her wedding dress when she learned that her brother had been killed, the rights groups state in the appeal.

Erakat was due to be married in September after his wedding was postponed in May because of the pandemic.

Clearly unarmed and defenseless, Erakat was left to bleed to death for around 90 minutes while occupation forces denied him medical care, the rights groups state.

Israeli soldiers present did not provide Erakat with emergency treatment. Ten minutes after the shooting, an Israeli ambulance arrived at the checkpoint. Those medics treated only the lightly injured soldier and did not provide aid to Erakat.

In treating a wounded Israeli soldier but leaving [Erakat] without medical assistance despite his critical injury, Israels conduct amounts to prohibited racial discrimination, the rights groups add.

Israeli soldiers prevented Palestinian paramedics from reaching Erakat.

Denial of treatment of Palestinians injured by Israeli forces must be understood as part and parcel of Israels widespread and systematic shoot-to-kill policy targeting Palestinians, the rights groups say.

The aim of this policy is to maintain Israels regime of systematic racial oppression and domination over the Palestinian people, the groups add.

Israeli forces failed to provide treatment to injured Palestinians on at least 114 occasions in 2019 alone.

The denial of medical assistance at the earliest possible moment amounts to violations of the rights to health and life, the groups add in the urgent appeal.

Climate of fear

Israel is holding Erakats body as part of a policy of withholding the remains of Palestinians killed in what it claims are attacks on soldiers and civilians.

Israel delayed the return of the bodies of more than 250 Palestinians killed by its forces since implementing the policy in 2015.

It continues to withhold 63 of those bodies so that they may be used as bargaining chips in future prisoner swaps.

This practice, approved by Israels highest court, is a form of collective punishment that amounts to torture and ill-treatment of the victims families, the rights groups state.

Israels collective punishment practices are designed to create a climate of fear, repression and intimidation and to weaken the capacity of the Palestinian people to effectively challenge the regime, the appeal adds.

The willful killing of Ahmad Erakat is a grave violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the rights groups say. State parties, including Israel, are obligated to bring persons suspected of carrying out such violations before their courts.

However, the Israeli militarys self-investigation mechanism has repeatedly been shown to fall abysmally short of international standards for ensuring effective, genuine and credible investigations, the groups add.

Given the lack of access to justice in Israeli courts, the groups say, genuine accountability for Palestinian victims may only be attained through the international criminal justice and universal jurisdiction courts.

The [International Criminal Court] in this regard represents a court of last resort for Palestinians, they add. The groups urge UN human rights experts to call upon the ICC to rule, without delay, in recognition of the courts territorial jurisdiction in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Until justice is served, there will be yet another Palestinian family bereaved of a son or daughter week after week, month after month, year after year.

Maureen Clare Murphy is an associate editor of The Electronic Intifada and lives in Chicago. @maureenclarem on Twitter - " Source " -

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday (local time) extended condolences to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the loss of lives due to floods in various parts of India.

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his deepest condolences to President of India Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi over the tragic consequences of the floods in several states of the country, the Russian Presidents office said in a statement.

Russia shares the grief of those who lost their loved ones to the rampant elements, and hopes for a speedy recovery of all those injured, Putin said in the message.

As per the India Meteorological Department (IMD) reports, northeastern states will continue to experience heavy downpour while parts of north India will experience heavy to moderate showers in isolated locations.

The flood situation in Assam again deteriorated on Wednesday as two more persons died in Barpeta and districts, taking the death toll to 89. Around 26.32 lakh people in 26 of the states 33 districts have been affected by the floods, as per the states disaster management authority.

Several parts of Bihar have been submerged in floodwaters with Director-General of NDRF Satya Pradhan had said that a total of 19 teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) are being deployed in the state to deal with the floods situation.

Several people have been forced to set up camps along the national highway (NH-27) after their homes got partially submerged in floodwaters in Muzaffarpurs Kanti area of the state.
Airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan killed 45 people, including civilians and Taliban, local officials said on Wednesday.

Ali Ahmad Faqir Yar, the governor of Adraskan District in the eastern Afghanistan province of Herat, said at least eight civilians were among the dead.

Forty-five people had been killed so far in airstrikes by security forces in the Kham Ziarat area, Taliban were among those killed, he said.

It was unclear how many of the remaining 37 were civilians and how many were members of the Taliban.

Afghanistans Ministry of Defence said it was investigating allegations of civilian casualties in attacks by Afghan forces in the area.

The results of the investigation will be shared with the public and the media. The National Defense and Security Forces have the responsibility to protect the lives and property of the people, in this regard, they use all the opportunities and facilities and will not spare any effort, the statement said.

Habib Amini, a local official in neighbouring Guzara district, confirmed the incident and that 45 were killed and more injured.

A spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan said they had not taken part in Wednesdays airstrikes.

The United States is winding back troops under an agreement with the Taliban struck in February, which was meant to pave the way to formal peace talks between the insurgents and the Afghan government. However, disagreement over the release of prisoners demanded by the Taliban and rising violence around the country have hampered progress, and talks have yet to start.

Qari Muhammad Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said in a statement that two airstrikes in Heart had killed eight civilians and wounded 12.

Two local officials confirmed there had been two rounds of airstrikes.

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The remarks have come days after private carrier IndiGo said it would lay off 10 percent of its workforce due to COVID-19-induced economic crisis

New Delhi: Unlike other airlines that have laid off a large number of workers, no employee of Air India will lose his job, the national carrier said on Thursday.

The largest airline of the country, IndiGo, announced on Monday that it would lay off 10 percent of its workforce due to the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

"Recent decisions of the Air India board regarding rationalization of staff cost were reviewed in a meeting at the Ministry of Civil Aviation this evening. The meeting reiterated that unlike other carriers which have laid off a large number of their employees, no employee of AirIndia will be laid off," the national carrier said on Twitter.

On Wednesday, Air India announced reduction in the allowances of its employees, who have a monthly gross salary of more than Rs 25,000, by up to 50 percent.

"There has been no reduction in the basic pay, DA (dearness allowance) and HRA (house rent allowance) of any category of employees. The rationalisation of allowances had to be implemented on account of the difficult financial condition of the airline that was exacerbated by Covid-19," the national carrier explained on Twitter.

The flying crew will be paid on the basis of the actual number of hours flown, it added.

"As domestic and international operations expand to reach pre-COVID-19 levels and the financial position of Air India improves, the rationalization of allowances will be reviewed," the airline said.

In another step to rationalise staff costs, Air India issued an internal order on 14 July, asking its departmental heads and regional directors to identify the employees, based on various factors such as efficiency, health and redundancy, who will be sent on a compulsory leave without pay (LWP) for up to five years.

Moreover, it said employees can voluntarily opt for the LWP scheme too.

The aviation sector has been significantly impacted due to the travel restrictions imposed in India and other countries in view of the pandemic.

All airlines in the country have gone for cost-cutting measures such as pay cuts, LWP and firing of employees in order to conserve cash.

The national carrier has a debt of around Rs 70,000 crore and the government started the process to sell it to a private entity in January. Air India's net loss in 2018-19 was around Rs 8,500 crore.

India resumed domestic passenger flights from 25 May after a gap of two months due to the pandemic. However, the airlines have been allowed to operate a maximum of 45 percent of their pre-COVID-19 domestic flights.

The occupancy rate in Indian domestic flights has been around 50-60 percent since 25 May.

The scheduled international passenger flights continue to remain suspended in the country since 23 March. However, Air India has been operating a significant number of special flights to and from countries around the world under the Vande Bharat Mission to help stranded people reach their destinations.
Sesa Sen By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: After a strategic review of its global tea business, Unilever on Thursday said it has decided to keep its operations in India and Indonesia intact, while separating the rest of the tea business into an independent entity. The decision comes at a time when the packaged consumer goods major has been failing to accelerate sales growth globally.

However, its Indian unit --- Hindustan Unilever (HUL) --- has been growing exponentially. Currently, the company is the market leader controlling more than a fifth of the tea segment in the country.



We will retain the tea businesses in India and Indonesia and the partnership interests in the ready-to-drink tea joint ventures. The balance of Unilevers tea brands and geographies and all tea estates have an exciting future, and this potential can best be achieved as a separate entity," the Anglo-Dutch company said in a statement.



The tea portfolio, which includes brands such as Brooke Bond, Red Label, 3 Roses, Taaza, Taj Mahal and Lipton, is one of the largest within HULs food and refreshment (F&R) business and has delivered strong double-digits growth during the first quarter of the current financial year with consumption shifting In-home and demand for immunity boosters rising.

Tea in India provides a big growth opportunity given there are just two players (Tata is the other) and the market is highly unorganised. For the past few years, HUL has been gaining share both in terms of volume and value and we had expected HUL to retain its India business as it has been aggressive on inorganic growth with the acquisition of GSK recently, said Abneesh Roy, senior executive vice-president at Edelweiss Securities. During the June quarter, the F&R segment saw a 51.7 per cent revenue growth led by nutrition, tea and coffee.

Unilever had announced a strategic review of its global tea business in January. A process will now begin to implement the separation, which is expected to conclude by the end of 2021," it said, while announcing its results for the first half of 2020. The tea division accounted for about 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) of sales last year, including the $2.3 billion business that will be separated.

The volumes shrank as sales of traditional brew and the largest segment in the category - black tea - went out of fashion in the developed worlds after consumers turned in favour of herbal tea and coffee.
Any artist who visibly raises the hackles of Susan Sontag deserves a closer look, and Gero von Boehms Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful is eager to oblige. Yet this brisk documentary, steered by the fond recollections and admiring voices of famous beauties  Charlotte Rampling, Catherine Deneuve, Isabella Rossellini, Grace Jones  is as averse to analysis as its irrepressible subject.

Not that Newton, a photographer of uncommon wit and unabashed eroticism (he died in a car crash in 2004), would have appreciated being called an artist. (To him, art was a dirty word.) As a Jewish teenager living in Berlin under the Nazis, he was inspired by Leni Riefenstahls images of athletes and apprenticed to the theatrical photographer Madame Yva (who was later killed in a concentration camp).

These influences flourished in his often controversial fashion shoots for Vogue in the 1960s and beyond. An avowed lover of breasts, legs and attitude, he could turn stiletto heels and skintight skirts into weapons of empowerment, drawing the eye to the muscled flesh beneath. His statuesque nudes, positioned as unattainable Valkyries, were immune to the stares of the men who often crouched below them in the frame. Like those of the artist Robert Crumb, Newtons compositions could waver between objectification and celebration, animosity and desire. Yet Helmut Newton alights only glancingly on their more troubling readings, leaving Sontags accusations of misogyny (here voiced on a French talk show) essentially unplumbed.

What dominates instead is a gossipy portrait of a charmingly naughty boy whose genius is perhaps best appreciated on a second viewing with the sound off and the eyes wide open.

Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful

Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. Watch on Kino Marquee.
A stop-go system on one of Portlaoise's busiest roads is in place to facilitate Gas Networks Ireland upgrade work to the town's gas supply network.

Work recommenced this morning, July 23 on the old Dublin road on the stretch east of the Kilminchy Roundabout.

The company says the work will be carried out on the R445 to Kilminchy roundabout for two weeks between 8am and 6pm.

Two-way traffic will be facilitated on a stop-go basis.

Gas Networks Ireland, which has 9,000 customers in Laois, wishes to apologise for any inconvenience caused during this work.

Gas Networks Ireland explained what the work was and the reason for doing it to the Leinster Express.

"Gas Networks Ireland has recently commenced maintenance works in Portlaoise to reinforce over 4km of gas mains. These improvements will ensure that the gas infrastructure is future-proofed and robust enough to help facilitate the anticipated economic growth in the area, as well as ensuring that County Laois 9,000 existing gas customers will continue to have adequate gas pressure in their homes and businesses," said the company.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-24 01:08:39|Editor: huaxia

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TIRANA, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Albanian parliament approved here on Thursday the Normative Act proposed by the government to close down all night clubs across the country.

Ninety lawmakers voted in favor of the Normative Act, 19 against and five abstained during the session held on Thursday.

Speaking in front of lawmakers before the voting, Minister of Health and Social Protection Ogerta Manastirliu demanded awareness of wearing masks among all citizens as coronavirus cases continue to rise in the country.

Manastirliu also drew the attention of some lawmakers who were not wearing a mask in the Assembly hall.

"Dear colleagues, some of you are not wearing the mask. If you do not keep it, you are not the best example to follow," she said, adding that the mask is a necessary measure for all citizens proposed by health experts.

Putting on a mask in indoor spaces was made mandatory by the Albanian government last week.

According to Manastirliu, the increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases in the country is overloading hospitals.

Currently, according to the minister, over 120 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 are in the two COVID-19 hospitals.

"Very soon the capacities of both hospitals will be full and patients will be hospitalized in a third and fourth hospital designated for people suffering from COVID-19 disease," said Manastirliu.

She underlined that the government will continue to strengthen hospital capacities and urged everyone to get used to the new normality.

"We will not be as we were, until the vaccine comes out," she added.

On Thursday, health authorities reported 108 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total in the country to 4,466, with 2,523 recoveries and 123 fatalities. Enditem
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 23) The proposed plenary action on the franchise bid of media giant ABS-CBN remains a possibility, but the House of Representatives will still be prioritizing the current COVID-19 crisis, speaker Alan Peter Cayetano said Thursday.

Speaking to CNN Philippines, Cayetano said the plenary has all the powers under the Constitution to decide on such move and reopen discussions, but stressed that the pandemic problem should still take the front row for deliberations.

Ang priority namin (our priority is) is fighting COVID We're dealing with so much work and unforeseen future uncertainties. So if you're asking directly the possibility, anything is possible sa (in the) plenary, Cayetano said in an interview with The Source.

Lets's not put in front and center because the reality is, we are in a pandemic and we have to focus on solving the day-to-day problems ng ating mga kababayan (of our countrymen), he added.

The Makayaban bloc earlier this week wrote to the House committee on legislative franchises asking lawmakers to submit the technical working group report and the adopted committee resolution on ABS-CBNs franchise to the plenary for ratification of its decision.

The letter, released to the public on Wednesday, claimed that all 305 representatives need to decide on the networks fate, citing "unsure" and "insecure" issues laid down in the report which junked the company's license bid.

Possible sanctions?

Some lawmakers from the lower chamber also recently went viral over a Zoom meeting, where they discussed steps and other possible sanctions that can be imposed against the network even after the shutdown.

These include supposed violations on the distribution of its digital boxes, as well as controversies on land ownership.

RELATED: Lawmaker seen in viral Zoom meeting denies ABS-CBN 'takeover' plans

Cayetano, for his part, said it is up to solons to tackle possible violations.

Its up to them If you are asking if I was chairman, I would put everything sa (to) COVID, the speaker stressed.

ABS-CBN which has repeatedly refuted allegations hurled against them halted broadcast operations in May following the expiry of its license. The House panel earlier this month also denied the companys application for a fresh 25-year franchise a move labeled by local and international critics as the latest blow to press freedom in the country.

While it remains off the air, the network said it will continue to deliver news through the limited platforms available to them.

CNN Philippines' Alyssa Rola and Glee Jalea contributed to this report.
A young woman has reunited with her father via Facebook after they lost contact five years ago when their family was split up.

Marissa Tukuafu, 24, was a 'massive daddy's girl' growing up with her parents and three siblings in Mount Druitt, western Sydney.

They lived close to her paternal relatives who cultivated the children's connection with their Tongan roots.

'If my dad went to the toilet I would go and sit outside the door,' Ms Tukuafu told Daily Mail Australia.

Marissa Tukuafu (pictured), 24, lost contact with her father in 2015 when her parents, who had divorced years earlier, had another falling out

Ms Tukuafu reunited with her father (pictured) last month at his Dean Park home after not seeing each other for five years

Ms Tukuafu moved back to Sydney last year from Nowra, where she moved in 2008 after her parents' divorce

'I always wanted to be around him.'

But just before Ms Tukuafu's 12th birthday, in 2008, the lifestyle the four children had always known was shattered when their parents divorced.

Ms Tukuafu and her sister Elisapesi, 22, and brothers Siaosi, 20, Samiu, 18, moved with their mother 165km south to Nowra.

As the relationship breakdown continued to sour, contact between her parents ceased.

Subsequently, visitations between the children and their father Siliza Tukuafu, 52, dwindled to around once a year.

'We would speak on the phone,' Ms Tukuafu said.

'I would always ask if we could see him, but my parents' work schedules never lined up.'

Over time, the disconnected parties began to feel as though the other did not want to be reached.

Ms Tukuafu, the oldest of four children, said she was a 'daddy's girl growing up in Mount Druitt, Sydney

Ms Tukuafu was told by her mother she would follow her father (pictured together) around the house

A huge fight between the former spouses when Ms Tukuafu was 18 years old, would completely sever the children's contact with their father.

'They had problems constantly and I guess we just became cut off due to that,' she said.

'He had remarried and we were under the impression he didn't want to see us, and he thought we didn't want to see him.'

'Then our parents had a massive argument he changed his number. We still don't really know what happened.

'After that I did not see him or hear from him for years and couldn't figure out how to find him as he didn't have any social media. '

Although the years passed, Mr Tukuafu was never far from his children's mind.

Then, in a stroke of luck, Ms Tukuafu came across her long-lost father on Facebook.

'He came us as a suggested friend and I was like surely that's not him?' she said.

'I clicked on his page and saw his photos then and called my siblings straight away and told them 'you will never want to believe who I just found'.

Ms Tukuafu pictured with her father Siliza, 52, during a visitation when she was 16. It was one of the last time she would see them before their five-year-long separation

Ms Tukuafu and her siblings messaged him immediately.

'He was shocked that we tried to contact him because he was under the impression we didn't want to see him but he was so happy to hear from us.'

'We sent him updated pictures of us kids and began updating him on everything.'

'Eventually I asked if he wanted to meet up and he said 'of course!'.'

Ms Tukuafu, who moved back to Sydney last year, arranged to meet him at his Dean Park home on June 27.

The entire car ride there, her nerves made her tremble uncontrollably.

But after she stepping out of the vehicle, her fears of 'what to say' and' if he really wanted to see her' were immediately quashed.

As if no time had passed, they rushed to embrace one another, eyes brimming with tears.

'It was extremely emotional I had to hold back tears,' she said.

'I could see my father also trying not to cry.

'We stood there and hugged for a few minutes and just didn't say anything.'

Ms Tukuafu was ushered inside and introduced to her step mother and step sister.

She was also met by other relatives she had not seen in years.

'One of my uncles was saying a prayer. He told me 'you have never been far from our thoughts, and came and gave me a hug. My grandmother was there too.'

Ms Tufuaku and her father sat together for hours catching up, before she began reconnecting with her other loved ones.

Since meeting, the pair keep exchange messages every few days and are planning a time for her siblings to come see him once the coronavirus outbreak simmers down.

A TikTok story documenting the journey of rekindling their relationship has gone viral, racking up more than 5000 reactions.

Ms Tufuaku is excited to finally be reconnected with her father and to be back learning about her Tongan heritage

Aside from the loss of her father, Ms Tufuaku, has also reunited with the cultural connections that were also left behind due to her parents separation.

Half Tongan on her father's side, with Italian and German maternal heritage, Ms Tufuaku said she missed the opportunity to learn more about her paternal culture.

Being home with her family, she said she was instantly taken back to her childhood.

'I am very proud of where I come from so being disconnected from it was hard.

'Since we left I've had to learn it off the internet or my friends.

'As soon as I sat down, seeing everyone, the smell of the food - it felt like it was just yesterday.'

'To be reconnected and learning it first hand has just been incredible.'
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The Member of Parliament (MP) for the Awutu Senya West Constituency, George Nenyi Andah has asked the public to disregard the publication of an image which suggests that he threatened to kill members of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).



In a press statement, Mr Andah said the image which shows him holding a gun was taken two years ago at a traditional ceremony in the Eastern Region where he was given the privilege to perform as a musketeer.



The MP also urged all news portals who were misled by the photograph to apologise and retract the publication.



Mr Andah further assured that he has always stood for unity, peace, rule of law and order.



"The image in question was taken some two years ago at Akyem Asuom in the Eastern Region when Ursula Owusu-Ekuful was enstooled as a Development Queen and received the title of Nkosuohemaa Obaapayin Abena Bema Oforiwaa Gyankobaa," the statement said.



"In traditional events, such as durbars and festivals, commemorative gunshots are fired into the air by some selected participants of which I, Nenyi George Andah, as one of the two deputies to Ursula Owusu-Ekuful was given the privilege as a traditional musketeer at the ceremony. A role I proudly and honourably discharged.



I call on NDC TV, The Independent Ghana, My Africa Today, ReportGhana and all well meaning news portals who have been misled into publishing this falsehood to apologise and retract the publication".



Image



The image which shows Mr Andah, a Deputy Minister of Communication, holding a pump action rifle aloft is captioned: "WE WILL SHOOT AND KILL, WE ARE DETERMINED TO KILL EVERY NDC SUPPORTER WE SEE- GEORGE ANDAH".











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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Chinese President Xi Jinping has sent a congratulatory letter to the eighth national congress of the Chinese Young Pioneers (CYP), a national mass organization for Chinese children, which opened Thursday in Beijing.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, stressed efforts to foster a new generation of talent and make CYP members well-prepared for upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics and realizing the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.
Caritas Niger donates handwashing kits to schools, parishes, and communities, in an effort to improve hygiene and stem the spread of Covid-19.

By Vatican News

As the world continues its efforts to stem the coronavirus infection rate, the number of confirmed cases on the African continent has crossed the 770,000 mark with South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria having the highest numbers.

Since the first case of Covid-19 was confirmed in Niger in March, the number of those infected has grown to over 1,100 reported cases by mid-July. The country contains a population of over 22 million people.

Caritas Niger is supporting efforts in the fight against the health crisis in the country by highlighting the importance of high standards of hand hygiene. The organization has donated handwashing kits to parishes, communities, health centers and schools in the Archdiocese of Niamey and the Diocese of Maradi. The Diocese of Maradi is home to the largest and second-largest cities in Niger, as well as the administrative center of the Maradi region.

With this recent initiative, Caritas Niger is ensuring that people have the means to protect themselves against the pandemic through hand washing, especially in a mostly desert country where water scarcity presents unique problems to keeping hands clean.

Other efforts



One of the more recent deliveries of the handwashing kits was to Mariama School in Niamey just after schools reopened at the beginning of June after months of lockdown.

During that visit, Caritas Niger donated handwashing stations, bottles of hand sanitizer, liquid soap and face masks.

Expressing gratitude for the donation, Thierry Namata, the Director of Mariama School, said it gives a boost to the schools efforts to protect the students from Covid-19. At the same time, it ensures that the school can respect the hygiene measures necessary so students can study in safety.

The school delivery was part of a 100,000 three-month-long program which is projected to help over half a million people.

Caritas will be focusing on ensuring communities have the means to maintain hygiene measures. It is also organizing grassroot awareness campaigns, and distributing food rations and money to families who are hard-hit by the crisis.
Australia is the third most expensive country in the world, but is still one of the best places to raise a family, according to new research.

The US was the most expensive country, followed by New Zealand in second with Australia just behind in third, according to the 'Raising a Family Index' published on Tuesday.

Australia had a cost index of -77.38 and an 'F' score, which was just behind NZ's index of -71.73 and considerably far behind the US's very poor result of -124.45.

Australia is the third most expensive country to raise a family, only beaten out by New Zealand and the US

Australian families spend 36.64 per cent of of their income on child care while Swedes spend just 4.10 per cent (stock image)

The least expensive countries to raise children were dominated by Nordic countries with Sweden coming out on top, Norway in second, Iceland in third, Luxembourg in fourth and Denmark in fifth.

While Australians spent 36.64 per cent of of their income on child care, Swedes spent just 4.10 per cent.

Countries that were cheaper to raise children had higher levels of public spending on family benefits and lower levels of private spending on education.

Swedes spend just 0.18 per cent of their income on private education while Australians spend considerably more at two per cent.

While Australians spend a lot of money on child care and education, it was still ranked third best for education.

The nation had a high enrolment rate of 90 per cent for students aged 15 to 19 and a rate of 55.6 per cent for students aged 20 to 24.

Australia's high education score solidifies its place as a prime destination for international students to learn

Australia came fifth place for health, with an 'A minus' rating and an index of -45.50

Overall in education, Australia scored an A and an index of 472.33. It was only beaten out by Slovenia in first and Netherlands in second.

By comparison, Slovenia had an education index of 484.42 and an 'A plus' score. It also had higher enrolment rates and a better mathematics performance.

Australia's high education score solidifies its place as a prime destination for international students to learn.

Australia came fifth place for health, with an 'A minus' rating and an index of -45.50.

Again, it was beaten out by northern European countries, with Finland in first, Iceland second, Norway third and Sweden fourth.

The US is one of the worst countries in the world to raise a family, while Britain also scores badly, according to new research

The study also ranked 35 of the world's wealthy economies in the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development by their overall score for raising a family.

Overall, Australia came in the the 14th position, putting it in the top 40 per cent of the 35 countries.

Other than spending, it included five other factors such as safety, happiness, health, education and spare time to spend with family.

Australia had an 'A' for education, an 'A minus' for health, a 'B plus' for happiness, a 'B' for safety, a 'C' for spare time and an 'F' for cost.

In total, Australia was given a 'B' and a 727.45 for the raising a family index.

By comparison, the best overall country to raise a family was once again again a Nordic country, Iceland, which had an 'A plus' and a 1093.07 index.

Mexico was ranked worst for safety in the index, with the US just behind, while Iceland was ranked best

The US was ranked 34 out of 35 in a comparison of the world's biggest economies, scoring three 'F' grades for safety, cost of living and work-life balance, a 'D minus' for health, and a 'C+' for happiness and education.

Overall, it was given an 'F' grade for raising a family, with only Mexico coming out worse.

Britain, meanwhile, was given a 'B minus' rating, ranking it 23rd, with scores including a 'D minus' for work-life balance and an 'F' for cost of living.

It scored average for health (C) and education (C+) but better for happiness (A) and safety (B).
New Delhi, July 23 : The incident of an attempt to kidnap a minor child in East Delhi's Shakarpur has again brought the heinous crime into the spotlight. Though the child's mother fought with the criminals and thwarted the kidnapping attempt by two bikers as the neighbours too joined in, the focus again shifted to the kidnapping cases in the country's capital.

The incident has been reported at a time when Delhi is busy with preparations for Independence Day and security has been beefed up.

The data of Delhi police shows that till June 30 this year, eight cases of kidnapping were reported.

This includes the months in which the national capital witnessed the lockdown.

In comparison to 2019, till June 30 at least 8 cases of kidnapping for ransom were reported.

Giving a glimpse into the cases of kidnapping for ransom in the last 10 years in the national capital, the data shows that the numbers have been fluctuating from as high as 38 in a year to as low as 15.

While in 2011, the total number of kidnappings for ransom cases reported were 25, in 2012, it saw a marginal decline as 21 cases were reported.

The year 2013 saw a surge in such cases and a total of 30 cases were reported in various police stations of Delhi.

In 2014, the cases shot up to 38, registering a steep rise, while in 2015 nothing much changed and a slight decrease was noticed as 36 cases were registered in Delhi.

In 2016, the cases of kidnapping for ransom reported were 23 and in 2017, the data showed only 16 cases.

In 2018, the cases registered for the offence were 19 while 2019 saw the minimum number of cases at 15.

So, in the last decade the maximum number of kidnapping for ransom cases, 38, were registered in Delhi in 2014 while the lowest number of cases - 15 - were recorded in 2019.

In some cases it turned out that persons known to the victims were behind the act.

The motive is usually to demand a hefty ransom and convince the kin of the victim not to call the police.

In the Shakarpur case, with the brave efforts of the mother and neighbours, the police managed to solve the case and arrest the main accused who turned out to be the uncle of the 4-year-old child.
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CORPORATE NEWS Daldrup & Sohne AG: Changes in the Supervisory Board and reorganization of the Management Board - Wolfgang Clement will resign from the Supervisory Board - Josef Daldrup appointed as member of the Supervisory Board - Bernd Daldrup appointed to the Management Board Oberhaching / Ascheberg, July 23, 2020 - Wolfgang Clement, former Federal Minister, will resign from his Supervisory Board mandate at the end of the Annual General Meeting on August 27, 2020. The administration proposes to the Annual General Meeting that Heinrich Goheger, retired bank director, be elected as a new member of the Supervisory Board. As announced, Josef Daldrup has resigned from the Management Board with the approval of the Supervisory Board. He has been appointed as a member of the Supervisory Board by the Munich Local Court. The appointment was made for the period until the end of the next Annual General Meeting of the Company for the former member of the Supervisory Board Joachim Rumstadt, who had resigned from the Supervisory Board on December 31, 2019. At the ordinary (virtual) Annual General Meeting to be held on August 27, 2020, Josef Daldrup will be proposed for election as a new member of the Supervisory Board of Daldrup & Sohne AG. The Supervisory Board of Daldrup & Sohne AG (ISIN DE0007830572) has appointed Bernd Daldrup (35) to the Management Board. The graduate engineer is responsible for the business areas technology, human resources and project management in deep and medium depth geothermal energy. After training as a well constructor, Bernd Daldrup studied geotechnics and applied geology at the Georg Agricola University of Applied Sciences in Bochum. Since 2009 he has been working in the family business and as a project manager he supervised numerous wells in the business fields of deep geothermal energy, exploration and special civil engineering throughout Europe. In 2010 he was appointed Managing Director of J.D. Apparate- und Maschinenbau GmbH, and since 2013 he has been responsible for Daldrup & Sohne AG as an authorised signatory. Andreas Tonies (54), member of the Management Board of Daldrup & Sohne AG since 2005, will assume the function of Spokesman of the Management Board as announced. He represents the company on the capital market and is responsible for the departments Purchasing, Investments and Legal Affairs. Furthermore, the project development division deep drilling is part of his area of responsibility. Executive Board member Peter Maasewerd (60) has been a member of the Executive Board since 2001. His area of responsibility includes shallow and medium-deep geothermal energy projects, general drilling technology, contract and addendum management, and digitalization. Stephan Temming (49) has been a member of the Executive Board of Daldrup & Sohne AG since 2019. He heads the departments Finance, Controlling, Investor Relations and together with Andreas Tonies the Investment Management. About Daldrup & Sohne AG

Daldrup & Sohne AG (ISIN: DE0007830572, WKN: 783057) with a corporate history spanning more than 70 years is a specialist provider of drilling and environmental services and ranks as one of the leading companies in Germany. Its activities are divided into the business divisions Geothermics, Raw Materials & Exploration, Water Extraction as well as Environment, Development & Services (EDS). The Geothermics business division provides drilling services for near-surface geothermics (especially geothermal probes of heat pumps), along with drilling services for deep geothermics up to 6000 m, in order to utilise the geothermal energy accessible in this way for electricity and/or heat generation. In the Raw Materials and Exploration business division, the bores made by Daldrup & Sohne AG serve for exploring and developing fossil fuel deposits (especially coal and gas) as well as mineral resources and ores (e.g. copper and gold). The Water Extraction business division comprises well construction for the extraction of drinking, service, curative, mineral, boiler-feed or cooling water as well thermal brine. The Environment, Development & Services (EDS) business division comprises special environmental engineering services such as the hydraulic clean-up of contaminated sites, the drilling of gas extraction wells for recovering waste dump gas, the provision of groundwater quality measuring points or the installation of water purification plants. The shares of Daldrup & Sohne AG are listed in the Scale (sub-segment in the open market of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange). Disclaimer

This publication represents neither an offer for sale nor a call to submit a tender for the purchase or underwriting of securities. This publication and the information it contains is not intended for direct or indirect dissemination in or within the United States of America ("USA"), Canada, Australia or Japan. Press & Investor Relations contact

Daldrup & Sohne AG

Falk v. Kriegsheim

Fon +49 (0)2593-9593-29 Bajuwarenring 17a ir@daldrup.eu

82041 Oberhaching www.daldrup.eu

23.07.2020 Dissemination of a Corporate News, transmitted by DGAP - a service of EQS Group AG.

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A man has died following a one-vehicle crash in Londonderry this morning.

The collision happened on the Rock Road and was reported to police just before 5.50am.

The man, who was the sole occupant in the car, was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The Northland Road remains closed at this time.

Police have asked anyone who witnessed the collision, or anyone who captured it on their dash cam, to contact officers on 101, and quote reference number 218 of 23/07/20.
President Donald Trump talks to journalists during a news conference about his administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington on July 22, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

More Closures of Chinese Missions in US Possible, Trump Says

President Donald Trump left open the possibility that more Chinese missions would be forced to close after the administration ordered the Chinese consulate in Houston to shut down.

Trump, at a Wednesday CCP virus press conference, said its always possible further Chinese diplomatic outposts would be ordered to close. The State Department said earlier the Chinese mission in Houston was closed to protect American intellectual property and Americans private information.

The president also referred to the fire observed at the premises of the Houston consulate, saying, I guess they were burning documents or burning papers, and I wonder what thats all about.

Overnight in Houston, firefighters went to the consulate after smoke was seen. A video sent to a local news station showed several open fire pits in the courtyard. Houston police told FOX 26 that staff there were burning documents because they are being evicted from the building.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the consulate is operating normally, but did not respond to questions about documents being burned.

Such an immediate eviction would give the Chinese little time to move all their documents and equipment, so the burning of those documents is likely to be disposal of sensitive files, said Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

Chinas foreign ministry called the closure order an unprecedented escalation and said Beijing would retaliate if the United States did not revoke the order. It said the United States gave the consulate 72 hours to vacate.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on a visit to Denmark, did not offer specifics on the consulates closure, but reiterated warnings about the Chinese regimes long-running campaign to steal American intellectual property. He referred to the federal indictment on Tuesday of two Chinese hackers who prosecutors allege were involved in a decade-long campaign to steal trade secrets and sensitive information from defense contractors, COVID-19 researchers, and hundreds of other victims worldwide.

President Trump has said, Enough. Were not going to allow this to continue to happen, Pompeo told reporters on July 22. We are setting out clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave, and when they dont, were going to take actions that protect the American people.

He added, Thats the actions that youre seeing taken by President Trump. Well continue to engage in those.

According to the New York Times, David R. Stilwell, the State Departments head for East Asia and the Pacific, said the Houston consul general and two other diplomats were recently caught using false IDs to escort Chinese travelers to a charter flight at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas.

Stilwell said the Houston consulate has a history of engaging in subversive behavior, and was the epicenter of the Chinese militarys efforts to steal American research, the NY Times reported.

It is likely the regime will retaliate by requiring a U.S. consulate in China to close, Cheng said in a statement. The United States and China each have five diplomatic compounds in each others countries.

Reciprocity

James Carafano, vice president of the Heritage Foundations institute for national security and foreign policy, said the move was incredibly consistent with what this administration has been doing for four years.

Chinese policiesthe so-called wolf warrior diplomacy and their covert operationshave gotten more aggressive, and as theyve gotten more aggressive, I think the United States has been more willing to respond to that, Carafano said in a statement.

He told The Epoch Times the administration has escalated action to ensure reciprocity in its relationship with the communist regime.

Weve allowed the Chinese to exploit the freedoms of American society, Carafano said. The Chinese dont give us nearly that kind of access in China, and we dont kind of do anything about it.

The use of consulates and Chinese nationals in conducting espionage, he said, is clearly something where weve let the Chinese take advantage of us.

The State Department earlier this year designated nine Chinese state-run media outlets as foreign missions, raising restrictions on their operations on U.S. soil. The move was described by the administration as an act in reciprocity against Beijings continued use of intimidation to silence members of a free and independent press.

Trump in May banned entry to Chinese graduate-level or higher students from universities affiliated with the Peoples Liberation Army to counter the regimes state-sanctioned economic espionage.

Reuters and Ivan Pentchoukov contributed to this report.
SARATOGA SPRINGS  As schools across the country struggle to come up with plans to reopen safely this fall, some local mothers are making it known that when their children return they do not want them to have to wear face masks.

Its not because I dont care about people, said Kristin Schoenbach of Wilton, whose son is a first grader attending Dorothy Nolan Elementary School. I dont think its realistic to ask elementary children to have a mask on all day. The staff can wear them, but I think it should be optional for students.

Schoenbach, who initially expressed her concern on the private Facebook group Concerned Parents of SSCSD Students, directed members of that group in June to sign a petition on whitehouse.gov. The petition, titled We the people against face masks/social distancing CDC recommended for PreK - 12th grade children in school systems!, called for parents to stand up for our childrens rights and future and that children deserve to have their constitutional rights and liberties considered. The petition, which also called masks dangerous and NOT effective, was closed because it did not meet the signature requirements. The national petition only earned 6,790 signatures of the needed 100,0000.

She said her position is that masks are fine on the bus and in the hallway, but not all day in the classroom.

Mary Marcolin, who has three children in the Saratoga Springs school district, said she would have signed that petition had she known about it. She said her concern about masks are many.

"I don't think it's feasible," Marcolin said. "It's hard to communicate when you are muzzled. Being able to hear the teacher. It's a nightmare. Kids having to keep track of their masks, putting it on and taking it off."

Marcolin also said she doesn't think masks are "healthy," citing a common claim that when you wear a mask your body takes in less oxygen.

It is common for surgeons and other scientists or health care workers to wear surgical face masks for prolonged periods of time.

Neither the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nor the World Health Organization, has issued warnings suggesting the use of surgical face masks would result in dangerous oxygen level depletion within the general public, according to a recent USA Today article testing the factual accuracy of those who claim wearing masks can post a danger to one's health.

Saratoga Springs School Superintendent Michael Patton said Schoenbach and Marcolin's children will not have a choice. The wearing of masks, which has become a political flashpoint, is not something he will decide. Masks in school is based on what the state Department of Health requires schools to do.



There will be no choice for school districts, Patton said. But face coverings are strongly recommended by everybody, especially anytime social distancing cant be maintained. Obviously as a school district, we will be following the guidance of the Department of Health.



Patton said that the reopening plan will include times when the children can take off their masks such as during meals, short breaks and some instructional time if social distancing can be maintained.



The guidance is very specific about when adults and students (wear masks), whether it's on a bus or in a classroom, Patton said. We will provide detail on how face coverings are going to be used when students are here in person. It is clear guidance that we received from the state Department of Education and Department of Health. Its not a debatable conversation.



Currently, the state Department of Health mandates masks for in-school instruction because, the guidelines note, to protect against the transmission of the COVID-19 virus when on school grounds and in school facilities.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Last month, Schoenbach said she also wonders that if cases in Saratoga County are low, why are we going to take drastic measures. She also wants to know about steps to clean and disinfect the schools.



We need to get a handle on that, Schoenbach said. I support schools, but Im not sending my children to schools without the discussion, without statistics and understanding.



In her original Facebook post, Schoenbach wrote that we are taught not to question and go along with everything passed down to us in laws, rules and regulations because you should not question anything as its for your own safety and good. Our children deserve more.

Marcolin said that it's not fair to make bus drivers mask monitors because "they are already overworked and underpaid." And she said it's not in a teacher's contract to teach this way.

"By the time the teacher makes sure everyone is following the protocols and restrictions, they won't have time to instruct," she said. "It will interfere with learning."

Marcolin said she is considering homeschooling her children, two who are in the high school and one in middle school.

Like the petition, however, their views do not get a lot of traction.

Heather Reynolds, a former school board member who had a family member survive COVID-19, countered mask detractors in the parent Facebook group.

I adhere to these recommendations not out of fear but out a sense of wanting to protect those who are more vulnerable, she wrote on the Facebook page. To me, wearing a mask and distancing are not evidence of fear but rather like getting vaccinated, a way to show others we care about their health.
(Natural News) Its becoming increasingly clear that Portlands mayor and some other city officials are not interested in bringing a sense of order back to their city if it means admitting that the Trump administration may be doing something right by sending in help.

Portland has seen more than 50 days of unrest and daily riots since George Floyds death while in police custody in Minneapolis. Although protests initially broke out in cities throughout the nation, the clashes in Portland have been particularly persistent. Theyve also been largely taken over by antifa and other anarchist groups, who have been attacking a federal courthouse there as well as police and federal agents.

City officials are demanding that the Trump administration withdraw federal agents who have been helping control protesters who are attacking the city. Portlands mayor, Ted Wheeler, has called the federal agents Trumps personal army and demanded that they leave the city.

Of course, the federal agents there are in no way part of anyones personal army. Instead, theyre part of a group that was set up to help protect federal property like the under-attack Hatfield Federal Courthouse and monuments. The federal agents in Portland and other cities are part of the Protecting American Communities Task Force, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In other words, they are federal law enforcement agents defending federal property.

Mayor Wheeler said: This is part of a coordinated strategy of Trumps White House to use federal troops to bolster his sagging polling data, and it is an absolute abuse of federal law enforcement officials.

In Wheelers world, having federal law enforcement officials do their job is abuse.

Federal agents told to pack up and go home

An undeterred Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf said in a statement: We wont 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.

He personally headed to Portland to supervise federal efforts there, and he criticized local law enforcement in the city for failing to get tough with violent anarchists.

Speaking to Fox News, he said that after offering more assistance to the mayor and other local officials, he was told to pack up and go home  something he said is just not going to happen on my watch.

He also accused local officials of fostering an environment that continues to breed this type of lawlessness.

Authorities say security offers were clearly identified

Wolf also denied claims by some in Portland that the security officers werent displaying identification, insisting they wore identifying markings.

One Portland protester whined that being brought into federal custody was like being preyed upon because he couldnt tell whether those arresting him were police or far-right extremists.

The commissioner of the CBP, Mark Morgan, has said that his agents are clearly marked with unique identifiers but names dont appear on their uniforms so criminals cant use that information to target them and their families.

The truth is that if Portland was managing the situation better, federal officers might not be needed there. On Monday night, agents had to use tear gas to disperse big crowds of protesters who were gathered outside the courthouse and throwing projectiles; some of them were armed with hammers.

Over the weekend, protesters dismantled fencing that had been placed around the courthouse to protect it. The Portland Police Association building was set on fire by rioters, and some officers were injured as demonstrators threw rocks. Neighbors have pointed out that the PPA building is in a neighborhood where many families live.

Its unacceptable that the city is rejecting help in controlling angry, armed crowds that are taking over its streets and putting countless lives in danger in their efforts to place blame on law enforcement and the Trump administration. They have failed for more than 50 days, so how do they expect anyone to believe theyre going to get it under control now? Despite the mayors insistence that they go away, Wolf has said that federal agents wont leave the city until the violence has stopped.

Sources for this article include:

TheHour.com

BBC.com

Edition.CNN.com
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RAMALLAH, West Bank  Jerusalemites are now watching the events unfolding around Al-Aqsa Mosque's Bab al-Rahma prayer house, which the Israeli police are seeking to close.

The Jerusalem Islamic Waqf Council received a notice on July 2 that the Israeli police had submitted an urgent request to the Jerusalem Magistrate to close the prayer house.

According to the notice, the council has until July 27 to respond. If it does not, the court will rule on the request to shut it down, Hatem Abdel Qader, a member of the Islamic Waqf Council, told Al-Monitor.

As of this writing, the prayer house is still open.

Abdel Qader said the Islamic Waqf Council will not respond because it does not recognize Israeli jurisdiction over the mosque. He added that the religious authorities in Jerusalem said in a joint statement July 13 that the prayer house closure will have serious repercussions, and that the Jerusalemites will not stay silent.

The 11.5-meter (38-foot) Bab al-Rahma gate is one of the biggest gates in the compound's eastern wall. A building inside the gate served as a prayer house starting in 1992 until the Islamic Heritage Committee rehabilitated it and made it its headquarters. The committee used the building until 2003, when Israel dissolved it.

The Israeli police shut down the prayer house in 2003, claiming that it housed an illegal institution, namely the Islamic Heritage Committee (founded in 1990 and dissolved in 2003), which they labeled a terrorist organization. The decision to close the prayer house was renewed on a yearly basis by the Israeli police chief until the Israeli Magistrate's court ruled in 2017 that it would remain closed indefinitely.

On Feb. 23, 2019, accompanied by the mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Hussein, as well as the head and members of the Islamic Waqf Council and Jerusalem sheikhs, Muslim worshippers forced open the Bab al-Rahma prayer house for the first time in 16 years.

If Israel closes the prayer house, Jerusalemites are likely to protest. Abdel Qader stated, We will counter any Israeli court decision to close the prayer house, which will not be closed again. We are on the way to a situation similar to the battle of the gates in 2017 if the court decides to close it.

He went on, No one will be able to stop the worshipers from breaking into the prayer house if it is closed, nor from praying there.  Israel will be responsible for the serious repercussions.

The battle of the gates was ignited July 16, 2017, at Al-Aqsa Mosque compound after the Israeli police installed metal detectors with which to screen the worshippers. The worshippers protested in front of the mosque where they held their prayers until Israel removed the detectors on July 27.

Jordan has held custodianship of the Christian and Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem since 1924. Jordanian-Israeli relations have worsened over Jordan's opposition to the US Mideast peace plan and the Israeli plan to annex parts of the West bank.

Abdel Qader said it's possible that the Israeli practices are designed to weaken the Jordanian custodianship due to the Jordanian position against the 'deal of the century' and the annexation scheme. Jordan is subject to US and Israeli pressure and the tense relations with Israel have had an impact on Israel's actions at Al-Aqsa. They are trying to pressure Jordan through these measures.

The Jordanian custodianship is total and exclusive. It is a red line for us. We will not accept any other custodianship of Jerusalem. It is a legal, legitimate and historical custodianship and President [Mahmoud] Abbas signed an agreement to this end with the king of Jordan, he noted.

If Israel shuts down the Bab al-Rahma gate, it could ignite a popular uprising in Jerusalem or a military confrontation with the Gaza Strip. Hamas warned in a July 14 press release that any attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque or its status could lead to war, and said that the closure is an Israeli scheme to divide the mosque.

Speaking at a July 15 graduation ceremony in Gaza, Hamas political bureau member Khalil al-Hayya said, Getting near Jerusalem or Al-Aqsa is like playing with fire. The resistance will stand strong against the occupation.

The grand mufti of Jerusalem told Al-Monitor, The prayer house will remain open to worshipers and is an integral part of Al-Aqsa Mosque. These decisions are rejected. We cannot accept them.

The head of the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem, Ekrima Sabri, told Al-Monitor that the Israeli measures targeting Bab al-Rahma prayer house seek to change the status quo at Al-Aqsa Mosque and to turn it into a Jewish synagogue. He went on, When the occupation authorities insist on closing the prayer house, we will have take action. Muslims opened Bab al-Rahma in February 2019, and they will decide its fate."
WASHINGTON - A little-known Treasury Department fund created to settle workplace claims for members of Congress has paid only one settlement over alleged sexual harassment in the last five years, the office that handles workplace claims on Capitol Hill revealed Friday.

In a letter to the Committee on House Administration, the Office of Compliance disclosed that just one workplace complaint alleging sexual harassment was settled out of the Treasury fund between 2013 and the present. The Post confirmed that the member behind the $84,000 settlement was Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, who was sued by his former communications director over alleged harassment in 2014.

In total, the fund paid for settlements related to six claims against House members' offices during that time. The five complaints not pertaining to sexual harassment alleged one or more forms of employment discrimination and in some cases, retaliation, the letter stated.

The data sheds new light on the secretive process lawmakers use to settle workplace complaints against them and their aides. While claims of sexual harassment on Capitol Hill have grabbed national attention, the data shows that discrimination claims were more likely to be settled out of the Treasury fund in the last five years.

The fund is not the only source of settlement payments for lawmakers. Members like Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., have used their office budgets to settle - and conceal - complaints, a method that hampers public scrutiny.

On Friday, the House Ethics Committee plans to review all formal claims of sexual harassment, discrimination and mistreatment involving members and employees of the lower chamber, a sign the panel might assert its power to address mounting allegations of misconduct on Capitol Hill.

In their first major action following a public outcry over sexual harassment in Congress, Ethics Committee Chairwoman Susan Brooks, R-Ind., and ranking Democrat Ted Deutch, Fla., asked the Office of Compliance to provide "all records ... related to any claims of sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, or any other employment practice prohibited" under the Congressional Accountability Act.

The request covers complaints against current members and employees of the House, Brooks and Deutch wrote Friday in a letter to the OOC. It does not mean the records will become public.

Ethics watchdog groups welcomed the move as a sign the panel might wield its power to crack down on mistreatment of congressional aides.

"A nice change of pace to see the Ethics Committee asserting its jurisdiction," Meredith McGehee, executive director of Issue One, wrote in an email. "Usually they are looking for ways to avoid taking on hard questions, hoping the Member leaves or burying the allegations until the 'heat' goes away."

Last week, the ethics panel announced it would probe allegations that Conyers behaved inappropriately toward multiple female aides, its first public response to the sexual harassment debate on Capitol Hill.

Conyers was already under investigation by the ethics committee over what an independent ethics monitor described as a potentially improper severance arrangement with a former employee. House Democratic leaders, as well as a number of rank-and-file members, called Thursday for Conyers to resign over the harassment allegations.

Under the law, the executive director of the Office of Compliance has authority to share records of hearings and decisions with the House and Senate ethics committees. The executive director can share all written and oral testimony from hearings and decisions, but not information discussed in mediation.

It's unclear whether the OOC has ever shared information with the ethics committees. Laura Cech, spokeswoman for the office, said current officials in the Office of Compliance are not aware of any records of hearings and decisions that were provided to the ethics committees.
Having gotten a taste for public service while in the U.S. Coast Guard, Jonathan Shoop joined the police force looking for a career he was passionate about after managing delivery teams for Amazon for nearly five years, his brother said.

For 405 days, the 32-year-old Shoop, according to his brother, lived what he realized was his calling in life as a member of the Bothell, Washington, police department.

Shoop became the 32nd U.S. law enforcement officer shot to death this year on July 13, marking a 28% jump in felonious officer deaths over the same period in 2019, according to data from the FBI.

In the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police in late May, tremendous scrutiny was placed on policing with peaceful protests broadly calling for reform. But accompanying that was a rise in an anti-police sentiment that, experts say, manifested itself in attacks on officers, patrol vehicles and precinct stationhouses, leaving cops around the country feeling under siege.

PHOTO: A photo of slain Police Officer Jonathan Shoop is displayed at a memorial outside the Bothell Police Department on July 14, 2020 in Bothell, Wa. Shoop was shot and killed after a pursuit following a traffic stop on July 13, 2020. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

An ABC News review found that in recent years, periods of civil unrest coincided with an increase in police killings. While the sample size is small and a multitude of factors come into play in each situation, some experts say that an anti-police sentiment helps embolden offenders.

Maria "Maki" Haberfeld, a professor of police science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said while she cannot definitively say that the increase in police officer slayings are related to the mass protests or the increase in anti-police rhetoric by demonstrators and politicians alike, police have become "scapegoats" for broader anger.

"Going out on the street and directing violence to somebody who represents the government, because police are an arm of the government, is the easiest thing to do," Haberfeld said. There is a constant search for the scapegoat for whatever is happening in the society and the scapegoat ends up being law enforcement regardless of what it is that people have grievances about."

Story continues

And Don Mihalek, a retired senior Secret Service agent and an ABC News contributor, said it is more than coincidental that the spike in police slayings has occurred during this tumultuous time in which hostilities have been aimed at law enforcement personnel.

Any time the anti-police rhetoric heats up, it sends a message that its open season on law enforcement. We saw it in 2016 and we're seeing it now," Mihalek said.

The police killings have occurred amid a surge in gun violence this year following the spring peak of the coronavirus pandemic and right-wing extremists with anti-police views have also stepped up activities and some say may be looking to deepen the civil unrest the country is experiencing.

Seven of the U.S. officers killed this year were ambushed, according to the FBI data, including McAllen, Texas, police officers Edelmiro Garza, 45, and Ismael Chavez, 39, who died on July 11 when they responded to a disturbance call at a house and were met with gunfire. The 23-year-old suspect took his own life, police said.

PHOTO: McAllen Police officers console one another as they gather outside the McAllen Medical Center, July 11, 2020, in McAllen, Texas. (Joel Martinez/The Monitor via AP)

The officers never had a chance to suspect a deadly assault on them," McAllen Police Chief Victor Rodriguez said at a news conference.

And the majority of killings happened in Southern and Western states (14 and 10 respectively), following a pattern from prior years. Seven occurred in the Midwest, and one in the Northeast.

'Driven to be a public servant'

Just days after celebrating the completion of his rookie year in law enforcement, Shoop died after he and his field-training officer, Mustafa Kumcur, pulled over a car missing a rear license plate. The driver initially stopped, but allegedly sped off as the officers were speaking to him, hitting a man on a scooter before crashing, according to a report released last Friday by detectives of the Snohomish County Multiple Agency Response Team (SMART).

The suspect, Henry Eugene Washington, 37, allegedly got out of his Pontiac G6 and charged at the pursuing police SUV, firing two rounds through the driver's side window where Shoop was behind the wheel, according to the report. Kumcur, who was hurt when a bullet ricocheted off his gun and hit him in the head, returned fire multiple times, but one of his shots is believed to have fatally struck Shoop, according to the SMART report.

Shoop's brother, Evan Shoop, said the latest details of the shooting don't change the fact that his brother is dead and a suspect with a gun allegedly initiated the fatal confrontation.

Jonny spoke very highly of his training officer. He loved his training officer, and so do I. So, I dont really have anything more to say about it than that," he told ABC News. "We dont view this chaotic situation as his fault.

PHOTO: Bothell Police Office Jonathan Shoop is seen in this undated photo released by the Bothell Police Department. (Bothell Police Department)

He said he and his family are not ready to speak of how his brother died and want to focus on how he lived as they make arrangements for his funeral.

I dont know if it was a dream, but he was driven to serve as an officer. He always was driven to be a public servant," he said, adding that prior to going to Amazon his brother worked as a marine operations supervisor for the Washington State Ferries.

The King County Prosecuting Attorneys Office charged Henry Washington on Friday with aggravated first-degree murder in Shoop's killing. He was also charged with first-degree attempted murder and vehicular assault.

He has yet to enter a plea and was ordered to be held in jail without bail.

In an interview this week with ABC News affiliate KOMO, Washington's mother, Carolyn Washington of Texas, said her son was visiting Seattle and was not of sound mind.

"For them to lose their family, their brother, Im so sorry. I'm so sorry," she said. "They have my deepest sympathies."

She said that she believes her son "didnt intentionally do that."

Police killings rise in times of civil unrest

Police killings are a complicated matter -- involving a multitude of factors, this year primarily being linked to traffic stops and responses to domestic violence calls.

While FBI data doesn't directly link the slayings to the civil unrest or anti-police rhetoric, police advocacy groups and many law enforcement officials say the protests -- particularly when they become unruly -- can contribute to an anti-police atmosphere that puts officers in danger from those looking to exploit the situation.

One federal officer was fatally shot while guarding a federal building during a May 29 Black Lives Matter protest in Oakland, California. But the suspect arrested in the shooting, active duty Air Force Sgt. Stephen Carrillo, was linked to an emerging movement called "boogaloo," a term used by far-right extremists to signify a coming civil war and/or fall of civilization," according to federal court documents. Carrillo was also charged with the June 6 fatal ambush shooting of a Santa Cruz County sheriff's deputy in Ben Lomond, California.

Carrillo, who was not involved in the protests, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges.

PHOTO: Steven Carrillo, the suspect in the June 6 ambush killing of Northern California sheriff's deputy Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, 38. (Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office)

In June, retired St. Louis police Capt. David Dorn, 77, who was serving as police chief of Moline Acres, Missouri, was fatally shot while off duty trying to protect a friend's pawnshop that was being looted by a group of people, officials said. Dorn's killing came during the same week that four police officers were shot and wounded in St. Louis and one in Las Vegas as protests over Floyd's death turned increasingly violent for both protesters and police.

As somebody who studies social science and does research in social science, you cannot be very definitive about this because the data is a little bit problematic," Haberfeld said. "If somebody has mental issues and decides to take it out on law enforcement because this is what he or she hears on the news that they are the enemy, its not necessarily something targeted, per se."

Still, recent FBI data show upticks in police officer killings during years when there have been major incidents of civil unrest across the country.

PHOTO: Illustration (ABC News)

In 2016, protests raged across the country over a series of police-involved killings of Black men, including Philando Castile, 32, who was shot to death during a traffic stop in St. Anthony, Minnesota, when he reached for his wallet; and Alton Sterling, 37, who was fatally shot by Baton Rouge, Louisiana, police while pinned to the ground during an arrest. Slayings of police officers surged 61% from 41 in 2015 to 66 in 2016, including 17 who were ambushed, according to the FBI data.

While the officer who shot Castile was acquitted by a jury of manslaughter and reckless discharge of a firearm in 2017, the two officers involved in Sterlings death were not criminally charged.

Two years earlier in 2014, 51 police officers were slain in the line of duty up from 27 in 2013, an 89% jump. Seven of the officers were ambushed. However, the number of police officer killings in 2013 was the lowest in decades, according to the data, and the number of officer deaths due to felonious acts in 2014 was representative of what was seen in an average year.

The 2014 police officer slayings happened amidst the backdrop of protests that erupted across the country over the police shooting of Michael Brown, a Black teenager, in Ferguson, Missouri, and the police-involved chokehold death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old Black man, in New York City. The officer who shot Brown and those involved in Garner's death were not criminally charged.

And in 2011, the year where Occupy Wall Street protesters clashed with police, law enforcement officers killed increased 28% to 72, including 15 who were ambushed.

My heart and my prayers are so focused on these families," Lorraine Yaslowitz, the widow of a Florida police officer slain in 2011, told ABC News. Her husband, St. Petersburg Officer Jeffrey Yaslowitz, 39, and Sgt. Tom Baitinger, were fatally shot when they went to a home to arrest a man wanted for aggravated battery. The suspect, Hydra Lacy Jr., 39, a convicted felon, opened fire on the officers without warning when they found him hiding in an attic, officials said.

She said she still breaks down when speaking of her husband with their three children -- who were 5, 8, and 12 when their father was killed.

"Its like the rug is pulled out from under you," she said.

And she said the venom directed at police officers has been hard for her to take in the wake of Floyd's killing.

Its a sensitive subject for our family because weve got so many people close to our children being stupid and ignorant and saying, Oh, all cops are bad and we need to wipe them out,' Yaslowitz said. My blood boils when I watch my daughter struggling to answer back and stand up for what she believes without being hated."

'People feel vindicated attacking law enforcement'

Following the surge in shootings of police officers in 2011, Haberfeld participated in a study sponsored by the FBI to examine reasons for the deadly streak. What she found was a myriad of reasons, but hatred for police was not among the top motives.

I think it was different back then. It was more related to issues of people who were trying to avoid going back to prison, or people with mental issues," Haberfeld told ABC News of the findings. It was less related to what I am seeing right now. Right now its just violence against the police."

Haberfeld also said some suspects recently accused of perpetrating violence against law enforcement officers also vary from those seen in the past.

She noted that in late June, two attorneys from Brooklyn, New York, were among three people arrested and charged with tossing Molotov cocktails inside occupied New York Police Department vehicles.

PHOTO: McAllen Police officers investigate a shooting that left two fellow officers dead after they reportedly responded to a disturbance call, July 11, 2020, in McAllen, Texas. (Joel Martinez/The Monitor via AP)

MORE: 2 police officers shot and killed in McAllen, Texas

Mihalek said he believes that anti-police rhetoric espoused by some groups and politicians is helping to fan the flames of violence. Noting that attacks against law enforcement officers correlate with times when rhetoric is high, he said he anticipates violence against police to continue.

If that follows the same pattern then the number will go up because now police have been painted as the bad guys and people feel vindicated attacking law enforcement," Mihalek said. "This is where the officials rhetoric can help or hurt depending on what theyre saying."

'The best younger brother'

Since Shoop's killing, a makeshift memorial of flowers and notes of condolences have piled up around his police SUV in downtown Bothell as residents expressed an outpouring of support for the first police officer in the city's history to be slain in the line of duty.

His brother, Evan said he visited the memorial on Thursday and was moved by the outpouring of respect residents of Bothell have shown his brother.

PHOTO: A memorial for slain Police Officer Jonathan Shoop is shown outside the Bothell Police Department on July 14, 2020 in Bothell, Washington. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

"Hes just beloved. Hes the best younger brother. Im so lucky to have had him his whole life," he said. I think one of the reasons were all struggling as a family is because we didnt quite realize the extent to which Jonny was kind of the adhesive for us. Its sinking in now and its tough, man. Its really tough."

He said compounding the grief is the COVID-19 pandemic.

The reality is that physically we cant hug our mom when she needs it the most and its not fair," Evan Shoop said.

He described his mother, who is in her 70s and suffers from health issues, as being "gutted."

MORE: Ohio police officer shot to death in Home Depot parking lot

Evan Shoop said his brother's girlfriend is also devastated. My brother adored her. She is part of our family and was before this. All of us knew that this is a serious thing and we were so looking forward to the next phase with them," he said. This is somebody whose future Jonny was going to spend with."

He said his brother majored in history at the University of Washington, where he first joined the Coast Guard reserve program.

He was just so smart," he said. "The guy always wanted to do the right things. He wanted to do a good job whether it was working at Amazon or the Coast Guard or policing. He was driven to do a good job."

Police officers killed surge 28% this year and some point to civil unrest and those looking to exploit it originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
The gall of those people. Their honeyed rhetoric is rank hypocrisy, because all three have sought to undercut Lewis life work.

Last winter, McCarthy voted against an historic House bill, co-sponsored by Lewis, that would make it harder to disenfranchise minority voters. Two years ago, Kemp became governor after leading a Republican effort to make voting more difficult, purging 1.5 million voters from the Georgia rolls. And McConnell, the most powerful figure in the Senate, has been sitting on Lewis House-passed voting rights bill for the last seven months, refusing to bring it up.

If McConnell, in particular, truly wants to honor Lewis life, hed let his colleagues vote on Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

As a young activist, Lewis played a crucial role in pushing Washington to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, designed to help minorities gain equal access to the ballotespecially in states, mostly in the South, that had long suppressed minority voting.

Such was the law of the landuntil 2013, when the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. The Republican appointees erased the Justice Departments enforcement powers, insisting that such oversight was no longer needed.
India on Thursday stated that New Delhi appreciates Bangladeshs consistent stand that Jammu and Kashmir and all its developments are Indias internal matters. The external affairs ministrys statement was in context of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khans attempt to discuss the situation in Jammu and Kashmir with his Bangladeshi counterpart in a telephonic conversation on Wednesday.

Our relations with Bangladesh are time tested and historic...We appreciate their consistent stand that Jammu and Kashmir and all its developments are Indias internal matters. Its a stand they have always taken, MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

According to a news report published by the Associated Press of Pakistan, Imran Khan called Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday and discussed the coronavirus situation in the two countries. He also invited her to visit Islamabad and drew her attention to the situation in Kashmir.

He is reported to have stressed the importance of peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute for a safe and prosperous region.

Khan also underscored the importance Pakistan attaches to closer ties with Bangladesh while underlining the significance of regular bilateral contacts and people to people exchanges, according to a PTI news report.

Pakistans attempt to muster international support on the Jammu and Kashmir issue has increased since the Indian government abrogated Article 370 that granted special status to the region, and also bifurcated the erstwhile state into two union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh last year.

Khans attempts to raise the issue at international forums such as the United Nations have been actively countered by India.

Earlier today, the government noted another historic milestone in India-Bangladesh connectivity and economic partnership as the first ever container cargo from Kolkata via Chattogram port reached Agartala. External affairs ministry tweeted to say that this development will help in further development of the north eastern region.

Union minister Mansukh Mandaviya had last week flagged off the first trial container ship from Kolkata carrying cargo meant for Agartala that reached the city via the Chattogram port in Bangladesh.

India and Bangladesh have enhanced cooperation in shipping and inland water trade in the recent years.
Technavio has been monitoring the automotive pump market and it is poised to grow by USD 42.23 bn during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of over 7% 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/20200723005592/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Automotive Pump 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. Aisan Industry Co. Ltd., Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd., Continental AG, Delphi Technologies Plc, DENSO Corp., General Motors Co., Hitachi Ltd., Johnson Electric Holdings Ltd., Rheinmetall AG, Robert Bosch GmbH, and Valeo 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.

Increasing the use of electric fuel pumps has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market.

Automotive Pump Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Automotive Pump Market is segmented as below:

Type Passenger Cars Commercial Vehicles

Geographic Landscape APAC North America Europe MEA South America



To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR40073

Automotive Pump 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 automotive pump market report covers the following areas:

Automotive Pump Market size

Automotive Pump Market trends

Automotive Pump Market industry analysis

This study identifies developments in the field of hydrocarbon evaporation control systems as one of the prime reasons driving the automotive pump market growth during the next few years.

Automotive Pump Market 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the automotive pump market, including some of the vendors such as Aisan Industry Co. Ltd., Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd., Continental AG, Delphi Technologies Plc, DENSO Corp., General Motors Co., Hitachi Ltd., Johnson Electric Holdings Ltd., Rheinmetall AG, Robert Bosch GmbH, and Valeo SA. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the Automotive Pump Market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Automotive Pump Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist automotive pump market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the automotive pump market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the automotive pump market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of automotive pump market vendors

Table Of Contents :

PART 1: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

PART 2: SCOPE OF THE REPORT

2.1 Preface

2.2 Preface

2.3 Currency conversion rates for US$

PART 3: MARKET LANDSCAPE

Market ecosystem

Market characteristics

Value chain analysis

Market segmentation analysis

PART 4: MARKET SIZING

Market definition

Market sizing 2019

Market outlook

Market size and forecast 2019-2024

PART 5: FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

PART 6: CUSTOMER LANDSCAPE

PART 7: GEOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024

North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024

South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity

PART 8: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY VEHICLE TYPE

Market segmentation by vehicle type

Comparison by vehicle type

Passenger cars Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Commercial vehicles Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by vehicle type

PART 9: DECISION FRAMEWORK

PART 10: DRIVERS AND CHALLENGES

Market drivers

Market challenges

PART 11: MARKET TRENDS

Developments in the field of hydrocarbon evaporation control systems

Focus of OEMs on developing autonomous vehicles

Next generation of OBD in automotive fuel injection systems

PART 12: VENDOR LANDSCAPE

Overview

Landscape disruption

Competitive scenario

PART 13: VENDOR ANALYSIS

Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Aisan Industry Co. Ltd.

Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd.

Continental AG

Delphi Technologies Plc

DENSO Corp.

General Motors Co.

Hitachi Ltd.

Johnson Electric Holdings Ltd.

Rheinmetall AG

Robert Bosch GmbH

Valeo SA

PART 14: APPENDIX

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

Definition of market positioning of vendors

PART 15: EXPLORE TECHNAVIO

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses 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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MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd July, 2020) Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has called accusations of Russian interference in recent elections in North Macedonia "absurd" during a press briefing on Thursday.

"It was hard not to notice a series of widely disseminated video messages containing high-ranking Western politicians, including heads of government and ministers, during the election campaign in North Macedonia. They urged North Macedonian voters to vote for one party or another openly and persistently. Against the background of this foreign interference in the affairs of a sovereign state, the absolutely groundless speculation about the presence of a certain Russian hand, which traces across the world, looks completely absurd," Zakharova said.

The Foreign Ministry spokeswoman added that the accusations Russia faces constitute a double standard given the efforts of Western leaders to influence the vote.

"The suspicion and accusations levied at Russia are routinely justified by 'highly likely' reasoning which is unclear and purposely vague, while direct Western pressure on the citizens of North Macedonia is presented as something legitimate, fitting in with the notorious democratic canon, and so on," Zakharova remarked.

In December, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told the Financial Times newspaper that he was concerned over Russia's alleged interference in the Western Balkans.

North Macedonian citizens went to the polls on July 15, with former Prime Minister Zoran Zaev's Social Democratic Union party winning 46 of the parliament's 120 seats. This result gives Zaev the opportunity to form a parliamentary majority as part of a coalition.

Zaev, whose resignation in January over stalled EU accession talks paved the way for elections that were initially scheduled to take place in April, campaigned once again for joining the European Union.

In late March, Brussels gave its approval to begin negotiations with Skopje over North Macedonia's entry to the bloc.
Cicero, N.Y.  Have a bicycle youve run over? How about one your kid has grown out of one thats collecting dust in your garage?

A local charity can help find your old bike a new home.

The Central New York Family Bicycle Giveaway is collecting bikes this weekend for its yearly giveaway. Jan Maloff, the events founder, said all bikes  even those busted or rusted  are welcome. Volunteers will fix the bikes and gift them to children and families in need in Syracuse.

Bicycles can be dropped off at Drivers Village between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Drivers Village is at 5885 Circle Drive E. in Cicero. Monetary donations are also welcomed, Maloff said.

The charitys 24th annual giveaway will happen Aug. 25. Children and parents with vouchers will get to pick out bikes in the parking lot of A. DeWitt Memorial Funeral Home on South Salina Street in Syracuse, where Maloff is a funeral director.

Children need bikes now more than ever, Maloff said.

These kids have been penned up their houses, he said. They havent been able to go out and do anything.

The giveaway, likely nearly all aspects of life, has been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Central New York Family Bicycle Giveaway typically collects bicycles in the fall during an event at the New York State Fairgrounds. Then, per tradition, hundreds of children head to Fowler High School in Syracuse right before Christmas to pick out the perfect bike. But with social distancing requirements and restrictions, Maloff doesnt think the usual setup will work.

So, like so many other organizations, the charity has adapted.

The Syracuse Police Department and the Syracuse Teachers Association are working to find which children and parents in Syracuse need bikes the most. Both organizations will hand out vouchers to families. And the Syracuse residents chosen by police and teachers can come to A. DeWitt Funeral Home on the day of the giveaway to exchange their voucher for a bike.

The number of bikes available to giveaway will depend on how many are donated this weekend, Maloff said.

By involving police in the giveaway, Maloff said he hopes o give officers a chance to interact with residents in a positive manner. That, he said, makes everyone safer.

Maloff encouraged anyone with questions to call (315) 446-7570.

Staff writer Samantha House covers breaking news, crime and public safety. Have a tip, a story idea, a question or a comment? Reach her at shouse@syracuse.com.
New Delhi:

India has, at a high level, briefed its interlocutors in several countries including in the member states of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) about Pakistan's role in aiding and abetting terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, Rajya Sabha was informed on Thursday.

Replying to a written question on whether the Pakistan government has sent 22 special envoys to world capitals to talk on the Kashmir issue, minister of state in external affairs MJ Akbar said according to Pakistan media sources, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif designated 22 'special envoys' to apprise the world about the alleged "human rights abuses committed by Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir". These special envoys visited Belgium, China, France, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, the US and the UN (New York and Geneva), he said.

"The government at a high-level briefed our interlocutors in the concerned countries, including in the member states of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), about Pakistan's role in aiding and abetting terrorism in J-K and stressed that Pakistan's policy of glorying anti-India terrorists and supporting cross-border terrorism had negatively affected peace and stability in the entire region. "Efforts of these envoys (of Pakistan) do not seem to have gained much traction," Akbar asserted.

Replying to a separate question, Akbar said India has taken up with the Russian government its decision to conduct joint military drills with Pakistan as some reports indicated the joint exercises were to be held in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK).

In response, the Russian side clarified that the exercises would not be held in POK, the minister added. Replying to yet another question, the minister also said India was "maintaining contacts" with China on the issue of designation of JeM chief Masood Azhar as a terrorist by the UN.

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Teresa Donohoe (nee Brennan), Legan Rock, Legan, Longford / Ballymore, Westmeath



The death occurred, peacefully in Mullingar Regional Hospital, on Thursday, July 23 of Teresa Donohoe (nee Brennan), Legan Rock, Legan, Longford / Ballymore, Westmeath. Predeceased by her husband Thomas (Tom). Sadly missed by her loving family, Mary, Margaret, Patrick and Tom, grandchildren, brother Michael (Australia), relatives and friends. Rest in Peace.

Teresa's funeral mass will take place in St Mary's Church, Legan on Saturday, July 25 at 1pm with burial afterwards in Legan new cemetery. Her funeral will be for family only, in accordance with the current government and HSE guidelines on public gatherings. Messages for the family can be left on the condolence link on RIP.ie. The family appreciates your sympathy and support at this time.

Micheal McCreanor, Templemichael Terrace, Longford Town, Longford



The death occurred, peacefully in the loving care of the nurses and staff of St Josephs Care Centre, Longford, on Wednesday, July 22 of Micheal McCreanor, Templemichael Terrace, Longford Town, Longford. Predeceased by his parents Patrick and Mary Frances and also by his brothers Frankie, Raymond, Tony, Gerry, Patsy, infant brother Liam and by his sister Rosemary. Micheal will be sadly missed and remembered with love by his family, brothers Jimmy (Longford), Kevin, Clement and Brendan (all London), sister Marie (London), sisters in law Anna-Mai,Valerie and Beryl, nieces, nephews, relatives and friends. May he rest in peace.

Micheals funeral cortege will arrive at St Mels Cathedral (via Templemichael Terrace) on Saturday, July 25 for Mass of the Resurrection at 11am. However, following government guidelines regarding public gatherings this will be restricted to 50 close family and friends. The Mass will be streamed live, please go to www.longfordparish.com. Those who would have liked to attend but due to current restrictions cannot, may leave their personal messages in the condolences section on RIP.ie. The family very much appreciates your support and consideration at this time.

Paddy Verdon, Moyne, Longford

The death occurred, peacefully, in loving care of St Joseph's, Longford, on Wednesday, July 22 of Paddy Verdon, Crott, Moyne, Co Longford. Predeceased by his wife Mary. Sadly missed by his sister in law Ellen Ward England, nieces and nephew, extended family and friends.

Funeral Mass on Friday, July 24 at 11am in Moyne Church and burial afterwards in Colmcille Graveyard.



Sheila Smyth (nee Cunningham), Artane, Dublin / Granard, Longford



The death occurred, peacefully, in the exceptional care of the staff of St Gabriels Nursing Home surrounded by her loving family, on Wednesday, July 22 of Sheila Smyth (nee Cunningham), Artane, Dublin and formerly of Clooneen Granard, Co Longford. Devoted wife to the late Tom and cherished mother to John, Antoinette, Siobhan and the late Ger; very sadly missed by her loving family, sons-in-law, daughter-in-law, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, sisters, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews, relatives and friends. May she rest in peace.

Due to Government advice and HSE guidelines regarding public gatherings, a private funeral will take place for immediate family. Those who cannot attend the funeral can leave a message in the Condolence Book on RIP.ie or send on their condolences through the traditional manner.

Sheila's service may be viewed on Saturday, July 25 at 10 am through the following link: http://www.stbrendanscoolock.org/Webcam.php?visits=16196438.





Mel Kiernan, Clonbrusk West, Coosan, Athlone, Westmeath / Longford Town, Longford



The death occurred, suddenly, at home, surrounded by his loving family, on Tuesday, July 21 of Mel Kiernan, Clonbrusk West, Coosan, Athlone, Westmeath and formerly Longford Town, Longford. Sadly missed by his loving wife Joan, sons Edward, William, Damian and Anthony, daughter Melaina (Zauers), son-in-law, daughters-in-law, his ten grandchildren, in-laws, nephews, nieces, neighbours, relatives and many friends. Rest In Peace. House strictly private please.

Due to Covid-19 restrictions and by adhering to government guidelines, a private family funeral will take place for Mel for family members only. If you wish to express your sympathies or pay your respects, please do so personally by phone or text or use the online condolences section on RIP.ie, or Mass cards by post.





If you wish to have a death notice published on www.longfordleader.ie you can email it to newsroom@longfordleader.ie

And if you wish to submit an obituary for publication in the Longford Leader, you can submit it along with a photograph of the deceased to newsroom@longfordleader.ie
The premeditated attack by violent leftists on Sunday that shut down a pro-police rally in Denver, injuring several of the speakers, is not being forgotten. Yesterday, Michelle Malkin, the best known invited speaker who was roughed up and had to run for her life to safety, filed a formal Colorado Open Records Act Request addressed to the Denver Police Department. It asked for the following:

All communications (electronic, written, faxed, text messages, or otherwise) regarding the 7/19/20 permitted Law Enforcement Appreciation Day celebration and the unpermitted counter-protest at the State Capitol; All Operations Plans and Official Action reports regarding the 7/19/20 permitted event and unpermitted event (This date specifies the date of the events, not the date of creation of records. I request all Operations Plans and Official Action reports relevant to activities on this date, regardless of when these reports were created); Any and all communications regarding stand down orders, retreat orders, and communications between the incident commander and other officers, supervisors, and other DPD personnel regarding such orders.

The request is based on video and other evidence, much of it linked from Malkin's Twitter account, that the Denver police did nothing to stop the leftist mob from attacking and shutting down the legal pro-police rally, allowing mayhem, injuries, and the squelching of free speech to go forward unchecked.

In her email to the police, Malkin wrote that she expects a "response to this request within 3 business days, as the statute requires."

Yesterday evening, after a near-total blackout of this story in most of the major media (an exception was an online article at Fox News dot com on Monday), Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News addressed the event during a live interview with one of the rally participants, Colorado Republican state rep. Patrick Neville. Video of the Carlson program segment was provided by Fox News to this author and can be watched here.

Introducing the interview, Carlson said, "So over the weekend, left wing terrorists  and they are  associated with Antifa  attacked a pro-police rally, Back the Blue, in Denver, Colorado." To my knowledge, this is the first time since the event three days earlier that any national broadcast or cable television media has mentioned it. Addressing his guest, Carlson added, "I read your pre-interview and it made my heart beat fast."

Rep. Neville explained:

We were essentially surrounded by Antifa. We were outnumbered four to one[.] ... We were on the stage when behind us one of my friends was beaten down by four or five Antifa members[.] ... Eventually we had to evacuate[.] ... In the meantime, we were pushed around, we were spit on, we had things thrown at us[.] ... My friend was severely beaten, had a black eye. We didn't have a chance to speak. And all of this occurred right on the stage of the facility where we were supposed to be having our rally. It wasn't a minor scuffle on the outskirts of the rally, it was right there on the stage.

As Neville spoke, a split screen showed shots of Sunday's violence, including clips from Malkin's 36-minute-long cell phone video of the event that livestreamed on Periscope. The original video is archived here.



Screen shot from Tucker Carlson Tonight Fox News Channel July 22 including Carlson, Colo. Rep. Patrick Neville, and part of Michelle Malkin's live video showing a BLM supporter screaming in Malkin's face as Malkin was attempting to make her way to the speaker's microphone. Used with permission of Fox News.

Carlson asked his guest, "You're a lawmaker. What country is this?! And moreover, where were the police? Why wasn't someone protecting you?"

Neville replied:

That is the concern. I'm the House Republican leader in Colorado, the House Minority leader, so if it can happen to me and they can prevent me from speaking, they can really do this to anyone. It's really concerning because I think the order probably came up to stand down. We had the police union chief out there actually saying there was a stand down order. I don't know if that came from the mayor or even the governor. We have a serious problem with complete lawlessness here in Denver to the point where you can't even show up for what should be a family friendly Back the Blue rally  a properly permitted rally  and we were just totally attacked by thugs committing total violence to try to silence our speech.

Carlson was incredulous when Neville noted that local Denver media either didn't cover the violence that shut down the pro-police event or else made light of it, a fact that I confirmed in my July 20 article at American Thinker. Carlson commented, "That's just absolutely horrifying! What about other political leaders in the state? If they allow a sitting lawmaker to be attacked and driven away with violence, what happens next? And what are they doing about it?"

Neville:

They're doing nothing about it whatsoever. And so I think we really need to appeal to the president. It's time that we have an investigation about what actually happened. But not only that. I think it's time that we have a stand your ground law in each state. The police were not there to protect us. Had it not been for the volunteers that I had. I don't know if we would have gotten out of there unscathed. We were the lucky ones. There were many folks who came out with huge gashes, had to go to the ER afterwards. A former soldier was stomped on and beaten down. And this all occurred right on the stage.

The best photos of the pro-police people who were attacked and injured are copyrighted. One of them can be viewed in the body of this article.

In closing, Neville added: "I'm a combat vet. I was a captain in the army. This is by far the most dangerous situation I have been in since I was in combat."



Announcement on social media of Law Enforcement Appreciation Day 2020.

The pro-police rally was billed as The 6th Annual Law Enforcement Appreciation Day (the first five went off without a hitch). It was advertised as "family friendly" with "music, food, and speakers." In today's sick political climate, it immediately became a target of the radical left using social media and the Web to organize a violent flash mob. One Website proclaimed:

On Sunday July 19, a group of ignorant, racist Coloradans are holding a "Pro-Police Rally" celebrating Colorado's 6th Annual "Law Enforcement Appreciation Day". This spectacle makes a mockery of the tragedy and hardship the police inflict on our community. This Sunday, we must make clear that this community does NOT "appreciate" the police and we find it completely unacceptable to celebrate them. Please join us at 2pm and let's shut down this party!

Above that text inviting fellow radicals to "shut down this party" was the graphic below, crediting the "Party for Socialism and Liberation  Denver and Aurora Copwatch" with the call to action.



A meme on radical left sites and social media advocates "no parties for the pigs."

Finally, a mere two days after Sunday's violent pro-police event that left her badly shaken up, Malkin published her latest syndicated column, "One Nation Under Anarcho-Tyranny." The article illustrates why this fearless, best-selling author and activist has become one of the most respected and iconic thought leaders of the conservative right. Malkin's article deserves to be read in full. It begins with a brief review of Sunday Bloody Sunday July 19, 2020 in Denver and goes on to introduce readers to the newly relevant concept of anarcho-tyranny, first described in 1992 by the late conservative columnist Sam Francis.

Malkin's article ends with her sad but realistic take on the role of urban police departments in the rise of violent anarchy around the country. Her concluding paragraph:

So the message is loud and clear. When push comes to bloody shove in end-stage America, under the rule of the anarcho-tyrants, we, the law-abiding, are the enemy. Those in uniform sworn to protect and serve will turn their backs on us because their bosses don't answer to the public. They protect and serve the mob.

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.
London: A British judge says the jailing of a man who "sold his soul" by joining a major corruption ring will hopefully offer some sense of justice to the Iraqi people whose vast oil fields were exploited after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Ziad Akle was sentenced to five years in prison on Thursday for his "leading role" in the Unaoil corruption scandal first exposed by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in 2016.

Iraqi civilians and US soldiers pull down a statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in 2003. Credit:Jerome Delay

In his sentencing remarks, Judge Martin Beddoe said the 45-year-old and others involved in the affair had exploited Iraq at its most fragile moment by plotting to bribe senior government officials so their clients could win lucrative oil contracts.

"In a country not on its knees but in fact flattened, the corruption here seriously undermined the proper functioning of national business and public services," Beddoe said.
In a UK-first, Queen Mary University of London is leading a clinical trial of a new rapid COVID-19 testing system that delivers results in under an hour. Working with the East London Health and Care Partnership, up to 2,000 staff and residents in 50 care homes are being recruited to see how effective rapid daily COVID-19 testing is at reducing rates of infection, hospitalization and deaths.

At the moment, outbreak control in homes and communities is hindered by limitations in testing. It can take days to swab a person suspected of having COVID-19, send the sample to a laboratory and receive the results.

The rapid PCR based testing system in this trial has been developed in the UK by Novacyt, and uses the COVID-19 PCR test already in use in NHS laboratories, but provides an accurate result with an hour.

Residents, staff and visitors in 25 care homes will receive daily testing on the rapid testing machines which each have the capacity to process up to 100 samples a day. Meanwhile, as a comparison, the other 25 care homes will receive the standard central laboratory testing once a week.

The trial team comprises researchers, medical students and laboratory experts from Queen Mary and Novacyt, who are also using a new and more convenient simple nose swab for daily testing, instead of the more common and invasive nasopharyngeal swab.

This work has the potential to bring a new rapid COVID-19 testing system to those at highest risk, and help interrupt community transmission. If found to be successful in care homes, it could be very useful in a wide range of settings, helping to make a quick diagnosis and keep an environment free of COVID-19. With rapid daily testing, we can report back to the care home on the same day, so that they can take action to reduce transmission in their care home and prevent outbreaks into the wider community. By undertaking this study in the diverse East London community, we're hoping to protect one of the most vulnerable groups in the UK, and the frontline staff who are caring for them." Professor Jo Martin from Queen Mary University of London

Henry Black, Chief Finance Officer, NHS North East London Commissioning Alliance said: "Working with our partners in East London we are at the forefront of detecting COVID-19 infections. Rapid testing is essential if we are to reduce transmission of the disease in social care settings.

"The testing equipment is also portable enough to be used in community situations and we believe it will be a valuable tool in tackling any local outbreaks."

Binu Varghese, Care Manager at Beis Pinchos Nursing Home in Stoke Newington, Hackney, which is taking part in the trial, said: "Our primary focus is the care of our residents and staff. We are delighted to take part in this trial. We hope this innovative testing technology helps our people and can be used in care homes across the world."

Novacyt Q16 PCR machines in the trial use the PrimerDesign genesig and exsig COVID-19 PCR tests and are much smaller and mobile than traditional PCR machines, meaning that they have potential to be taken to any site and used in outbreak management.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin arrives to the Capitol for a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., about the COVID-19 relief plan, on Thursday, July 23, 2020. Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Unemployed workers may see about $200 or $300 a week in extra jobless benefits when the current $600-a-week policy expires this month, according to an analysis of a proposal outlined Thursday by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Some Americans would still be able to collect unemployment checks that exceed their prior pay. But this dynamic would apply to far fewer people. The change would cut aid at a time when coronavirus infections are increasing, states are reimposing shutdown orders and millions continue to apply for jobless benefits from week to week.

The Senate is rushing to cobble together the next coronavirus relief package as aid that's propped up household income for millions of out-of-work Americans is scheduled to end in a few days' time. A prior relief bill enacted in March gave workers an extra $600 a week, funded by the federal government, on top of their state payment.

70% wage replacement

$200 or $300 a week

How how much less still isn't entirely clear. Congress will likely derive a new benefit level using the current structure: a flat weekly payment, according to labor experts. States can't handle a more complicated formula  namely, calculating an individual benefit level for millions of people based on 70% of their prior wages  in a timely fashion, they said. That flat weekly payment would likely be around $200 or $300, depending on certain data points. Of course, the amount could change depending on the scope of legislative negotiations.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., walks to the Senate floor on Thursday, July 23, 2020. Al Drago | Bloomberg via Getty Images

Spokespeople for the Treasury Department and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., didn't return a request for comment. A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., deferred questions on the structure to McConnell's office. Congress implemented the current policy based on the notion that $600 a week replaced 100% of lost wages for the average worker. Applying this same logic to Mnuchin's 70% wage replacement proposal, the average person could expect to get $310 a week from an upcoming relief package, according to a CNBC analysis. (This analysis is based on $976 in lost weekly wages and a $373 weekly unemployment benefit for the average unemployed person in the first quarter of 2020, according to most recent data from the Labor Department.)

That strikes me as fundamentally unfair, that workers wouldn't get their full wages for something that was not their fault. Ernie Tedeschi economist at Evercore ISI

However, it's possible Republican lawmakers may derive the weekly subsidy amount using median figures instead of the average, said Ernie Tedeschi, an economist at Evercore ISI. That notion is based on ideas floated by Republican lawmakers in recent weeks pegging a weekly subsidy closer to $200, he said. Mnuchin's proposal would mean a $188 weekly enhancement for the median worker, according to an analysis conducted by Tedeschi. The median represents the typical worker, or the one right in the middle of the pack. (Tedeschi's analysis leveraged a calculator developed by economists at the University of Chicago, which found the median unemployment recipient received $350 a week in state benefits and had earned $769 a week from their job.)
A Delhi court on Wednesday sentenced alleged sex racket operator Geeta Arora alias Sonu Punjaban, 35, to 24 years in prison on charges of kidnapping, immoral trafficking, prostitution among other offences for abducting a minor and forcing her into prostitution for four years in 2009.

Stating that Punjaban had crossed all limits to be called a woman, the court said a person who had committed such acts had no right to live in a civilised society and that the best place for her were the four walls of jail.

According to police, Punjaban gained notoriety for exploiting women and forcing them into flesh trade. Punjaban, whose real name is Geeta Arora according to police records, ran one of the biggest prostitution rackets in Delhi and nearby states in early 2000.

Additional sessions judge Pritam Singh also sentenced Punjabans accomplice, Sandeep Bedwal, 41, to 20 years in prison for the abduction and rape of the 12-year-old girl.

Apart from the present case, Punjaban has five other cases involving murder, the immoral trafficking act and the POCSO act against her. This is her first conviction in the multiple crimes. Punjaban was arrested in December 2017 from a hideout in Delhi and presently lodged in Mandoli jail in judicial custody.

The court directed the Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DSLSA) to pay a compensation of Rs 7 lakh to the girl.

In India thousands of children are kidnapped every year. Very few of them are recovered. Minor girls are kidnapped on the pretext of marriage to be sold in flesh industry where they are sexually exploited on a daily basis. (This) is also one of those cases where a minor innocent girl was trapped in the name of love and kidnapped in a pre-planned manner to force her into flesh trade, the judge said in his order.

The court sentenced Punjaban to two jail terms of 14 years for offences under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act and 10 years for other offences under the Indian Penal Code, including selling and buying of a minor girl for prostitution and criminal conspiracy, while stating that she would stay in jail for 24 years.

Bedwal was sentenced to 10 years for kidnapping, kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel her marriage, procuration of minor girl, selling a minor girl for prostitution, criminal conspiracy of IPC and another 10 years for offences under section 376 (rape) of IPC.

The court also imposed fines of Rs 64,000 and Rs 65,000 on Punjaban and Bedwal, respectively.

On July 16, the court had convicted Punjaban and Bedwal for kidnapping the minor girl on the pretext of marriage and her rape.

Police had said the girl was sold several times to different people for prostitution.

In 2014, she managed to escape from the house of a man who bought and married her. She went to a police station and on her statement, an FIR was registered.

Deputy commissioner of police (crime) Bhisham Singh, who has been part of the probe team ever since the case was transferred to the crime branch in 2017, said the courts judgment vindicated the saying that justice can be delayed but not denied.

I am happy because we as a police team could help the victim get her due justice. She was less than 13 years when she was kidnapped, said DCP Singh.

Retired Delhi Police officer, Ashok Chand, who was an additional commissioner of crime branch, said, I had been part of teams investigating cases related to Sonu Punjaban and her associates. Now that she has been sentenced to 24 years in one of the cases, many of her victims may feel they have got justice.

Punjabans first husband Vijay Singh, a gangster, was killed in a police encounter in 2004. Her second husband, Hemant Singh, was also killed in 2006 by a police team in Gurgaon.

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Signs Binding Zircon Offtake Agreement

Sydney, July 21, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - PYX Resources Ltd ( NSX:PYX ) is pleased to announce the Company has entered into a binding Offtake Agreement with leading global zircon trading group Qingyuan Jinsheng ZR&TI Resources Co. Ltd (Jinsheng) for 250 tons per month of premium quality zircon over a two-year period.Commenting on execution of the Offtake Agreement with Qingyuan Jinsheng ZR&TI Resources Co. Ltd, PYX Resources Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Oliver Hasler, said: "I am delighted that we have been able to finalise this Offtake Agreement with such a well- respected and one of the biggest zircon specialist in China such as Qingyuan Jinsheng ZR&TI Resources Co. Ltd."PYX will provide the premium quality zircon from its world-class Mandiri asset in Indonesia. The Company recently announced the award of an initial contract for the acquisition of a Mine Field Unit to significantly expand production capacity at the Central Kalimantan tenement to 24,000 tons per year.The negotiation of the Offtake Agreement was overseen by the Company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Oliver Hasler who said: "I am very pleased for our Company and all stakeholders to be able to announce such positive progress. This Offtake Agreement also supports our decision to fast-track the expansion of our processing capacity and accelerate production growth at our worldclass Mandiri asset. This agreement enables the Company to significantly expand its position in this key market. China represents 47% of the global zircon demand."Under the terms of the Offtake Agreement, PYX will deliver the product to Qingyuan/Huangpu Port, China, as requested by the buyer. Orders shall be placed by the buyer and accepted by the seller 60 days before each delivery.Pricing under the Offtake Agreement shall be the prevailing US$ market price for zircon.The execution of the Offtake Agreement represents a major agreement to be entered into by the Company, in addition to its existing global customers, since it completed its recent, highly successful IPO and listing on the National Stock Exchange (NSX) of Australia.About Pyx Resources Limited

PYX Resources Limited (NSX:PYX) is a global producer of premium zircon listed on the National Stock Exchange of Australia. The Company's flagship asset is the Mandiri mineral sands deposit, located in the alluvium sediment rich region of Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Boasting the world's 5th largest producing deposit of zircon, PYX is a large-scale, near-surface open pit operation in production since 2015 and with exploration to date validating the presence of additional Valuable Heavy Minerals such as rutile, ilmenite among others within its mineral sands.
'I want once again to reiterate France's full solidarity with Cyprus and also with Greece in the face of Turkey's violation of their sovereignty,' the French leader said

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday denounced what he called Turkey's "violation" of the sovereignty of Greece and Cyprus, as tensions mount between Athens and Ankara.

"I want once again to reiterate France's full solidarity with Cyprus and also with Greece in the face of Turkey's violation of their sovereignty," the French leader said ahead of talks with his Cypriot counterpart Nicos Anastasiades at the Elysee Palace.

"It is not acceptable for the maritime space of a member state of our Union to be violated or threatened. Those who contribute must be sanctioned," Macron said.

Greece's navy said Wednesday that it had deployed ships in the Aegean in "heightened readiness" after Turkey announced plans for energy exploration near a Greek island in an area it claims is within Turkey's continental shelf.

Turkey is at odds with Greece and the European Union over maritime rights in the Eastern Mediterranean amid a scramble for resources following the discovery of huge gas reserves in recent years.

Energy and security issues in the area are the subject of "power struggles, particularly of Turkey and Russia," about which the European Union was not doing enough, Macron said.

Anastasiades agreed there was "a void on the part of Europe" on this issue, adding that Macron's initiatives offered "a glimmer of hope" that the Mediterranean will "not be under the control of Turkey or another country."

Concerning Libya, Macron said foreign powers "whoever they are" cannot be allowed to violate a UN embargo on sending weapons to the war-torn country.

Turkey supports the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), which is fighting for control of the country against eastern-based commander Khalifa Haftar.

Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia all back Haftar's claims.

Arms sanctions, Macron said, were necessary "to achieve a ceasefire and unlock a real dynamic towards a political resolution of the Libyan conflict."

France, which denies supporting Haftar but has long been suspected of favouring him, angrily condemned Ankara last month after it said a French navy ship was targeted by a Turkish frigate's missile radar while inspecting cargo en route to Libya.

"More broadly, Europe must undertake a thorough reflection on the security issues in the Mediterranean," said Macron, who will host a summit of countries of the southern European Union at the end of August or early September.

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Draper secured an FDA contract to develop a system for acoustic cell separation. Pictured is a device concept. Credit: Draper. There is tremendous need for additional therapeutic options for patients with certain cancers and rare diseases, such as sickle cell disease, and we look forward to cooperating with FDA on developing the acoustophoresis device," said Tara Clark, Vice President of Commercial Business at Draper.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has awarded Draper a $2.19 million, three-year contract, through a competitive mechanism, to develop a manufacturing instrument that could help usher in a new wave of cell therapies. The impact could be huge for the millions of people living with cancer or diseases with no known cures, and provide cell therapy manufacturers the technology necessary to produce at the scale required to treat all of these patients.

Under the contract, the FDA will sponsor development of a system designed to enable microfluidic acoustic cell separation and continuous, label-free purification for both autologous and allogeneic cell therapy production.

Companies that manufacture cell therapies could see other benefits to using the new platform when it is complete, including high volume production, low-cost disposable components and greater flexibility to work with a variety of cell types or process flows, according to Jason Fiering, Principal Investigator at Draper.

One of our goals is to advance the technology by constructing demonstration units, ready for commercial testing, says Fiering. These instruments will enable cell therapy manufacturers to produce allogeneic cell therapies much as vaccines are produced: doses are prepared in advance and can apply to a large number of patients with a specific health condition.

Fiering works on a team at Draper that specializes in an area of biomedical engineering that uses new kinds of materials, protocols and tools to improve cell separation and purification. The system under development at Draper uses ultrasonics instead of centrifuges, filters or magnetic beads to separate and purify various populations of cells, which may come from a bioreactor or directly from a patient.

Microfluidic acoustic separation (or acoustophoresis) is gentle on cells, has high selectivity that responds to cell size, density and compressibility and can exceed the capabilities of centrifugation or filtration, said Fiering. The systems design allows it to operate without the need for antibody-based reagents or other features that escalate manufacturing cost.

Draper is aiming to expand the disposable plastic cartridge, approximately the size of a cell phone, and achieve production rates of one liter an houra milestone in cell therapy manufacturing.

The funding of the acoustophoresis device represents an important milestone for cell therapy production, and for Draper, said Tara Clark, Vice President of Commercial Business at Draper. There is tremendous need for additional therapeutic options for patients with certain cancers and rare diseases, such as sickle cell disease, and we look forward to cooperating with FDA on developing the acoustophoresis device.

The microfluidic acoustic cell separation system is part of an integrated portfolio of technologies and resources at Draper intended to help government, industry and academia make better use of biomedicine. The company is working with pharmaceutical companies on drug discovery and development and biomanufacturing companies on increasing the speed and reducing the cost of processing cell therapies.

Draper

At Draper, we believe exciting things happen when new capabilities are imagined and created. Whether formulating a concept and developing each component to achieve a field-ready prototype or combining existing technologies in new ways, Draper engineers apply multidisciplinary approaches that deliver new capabilities to customers. As a not-for-profit engineering innovation company, Draper focuses on the design, development and deployment of advanced technological solutions for the worlds most challenging and important problems. We provide engineering solutions directly to government, industry and academia; work on teams as prime contractor or subcontractor; and participate as a collaborator in consortia. We provide unbiased assessments of technology or systems designed or recommended by other organizationscustom designed, as well as commercial-off-the-shelf.
WELLINGTON, Fla., July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Barbuto & Johansson, P.A. (BARJO or the Firm) and Of Counsel, Neil Rothstein, Esq. (an Akronite with over 30 years of Securities Class Action experience, including cases against ENRON and HALLIBURTON) advises investors that it has commenced an investigation into Akron, Ohios FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE ) after Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four others were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Tuesday morning. Householder and the other Defendants are charged with racketeering in a public corruption case involving a $150 million bailout of two troubled nuclear-power plants owned by former FirstEnergy subsidiary Energy Harbor Corporation (OTC: ENGH ).



The Firm is investigating claims on behalf of investors of FirstEnergy Corp. and Energy Harbor Corp. Investors who purchased FirstEnergy and/or Energy Harbor securities should immediately contact BARJO attorneys. Attorney, Neil Rothstein, raised in Akron, has represented large individual investors and institutional investors in major securities class actions.

On July 21, 2020, Bloomberg News reported that Federal officials planned to announce charges related to a $60 million bribery case linked to Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and the bailout of two Energy Harbor nuclear power plants. Reportedly, the investigation is related to Ohios passage of a law last year that bailed out the two nuclear power plants.

FirstEnergy and Energy Harbor shares then plunged significantly during market trading. On July 21, 2020, First Energy shares fell by about $7.01 per share, approximately 17%, to close at $34.25 per share and Energy Harbor shares fell by about $7.35 per share, approximately 21%, to close at $28 per share. Today, FirstEnergy traded as low as $22.88 per share (a drop of approximately 45% from the previous days high) while Energy Harbor traded as low as $20.00 per share (a drop of about 38% from the previous days high).

BARJO advises investors/shareholders in FirstEnergy or Energy Harbor to contact Anthony Barbuto, Esq. at (888) 715-2520 or via email at anthony@barjolaw.com or Neil Rothstein, Esq. via email at neil@barjolaw.com .
China on Thursday launched its first independent Mars probe, a milestone in the countrys ambitious space programme which aims to have a space station by 2022. If successful, the probe, named Tianwen-1 - which in Mandarin means Questions to Heaven - will join an international community of explorers on Mars, comprising the US, Europe, Russia, India, and soon the UAE which launched a mission to the red planet on July 20.

The launch was planned for years but comes in the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, which China seems to have brought under control, and the worst floods it is experiencing in decades  the launch carries a show of strength for the international community especially the western powers.

Also read: Security agencies red-flag Chinese fronts in education, not just power and telecom

Chinas first Mars probe Yinghuo-1 launched in 2011 had failed. Yinghuo-1, launched in November 2011, two years later than originally planned from Kazakhstan on a Russian spacecraft, crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 2012.

On Thursday, Chinese official media reported that a Long March-5 rocket, the countrys largest launch vehicle, carried the 5-tonne spacecraft from the Wenchang Spacecraft launch site on the coast of southern Chinas Hainan province at 12:41 pm.

About 36 minutes later, the spacecraft, including an orbiter and a rover, was sent into the Earth-Mars transfer orbit, embarking on an almost seven-month journey to the red planet, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) was quoted by official news agency, Xinhua.

The Mars mission is named Tianwen-1 from a poem written by Qu Yuan (about 340-278 BC), a leading poet of ancient China. The name signifies the Chinese nations perseverance in pursuing truth and science and exploring nature and the universe, said the CNSA.

The Mars rover, which is expected to work on Mars for at least 90 Mars days (more than three months on Earth), will carry out patrol exploration and research on geomorphic landforms of Mars, Bao Weimin, an academic with the Chinese Academy of Sciences told Xinhua in June.

A safe landing on Mars is the most difficult and risky part of the mission and the lander carrying the rover will be slowed down through four steps, said Bao who is also the director of the Committee of Science and Technology under the CNSA. The whole landing process will take about seven to eight minutes, Bao had said.

Last November, China had successfully mounted an experiment simulating the process of a probe hovering, avoiding obstacles and descending to land on Mars. In January 2019, Chinas Change-4 probe landed on the far side of the moon, making it the first spacecraft to touch down on the part of the moon, which is never visible from earth. China had lauded Indias Mars mission when it was launched in 2014.

The successful mission to Mars was not only Indias pride but also that of Asia, China had then said, adding that it was a landmark in the world of space exploration.

We congratulate India on the Mars satellite entering orbit (of the planet) successfully, foreign ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, had said in 2014.

This is the pride of India and the pride of Asia and a landmark progress in humankinds exploration of outer space. So we congratulate India on that, Hua had added.
Pittsfield Planners Delay Downtown Homeless Shelter Vote

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  The Community Development Board continued a hearing allowing more time to consider the development of a homeless shelter downtown.

A proposed shelter at 55 Fenn St., First United Methodist Church, took up the bulk of Tuesday night's meeting and after hearing some backlash from downtown businesses, the board extended the hearing to another month.

"For me I need some more time and I really feel that we need to hear from the abutters and other citizens of Pittsfield," board member Floriana FitzGerald said. "We need a better discussion where people will be able to speak and give suggestions."

The church looks to establish a 40-bed homeless shelter in a former classroom space.

Architect John Barry said the space would include shelter, provide services for the homeless, and would be two floors (a floor for men and a floor for women). The space would be separate from the church and be handicapped accessible.

This would replace ServiceNet's Barton's Crossing location and Jay Sacchetti, a senior vice president at ServiceNet, said this would be an ideal location for a new shelter. He said shelters in downtown areas are common in other municipalities and would centralize residents with needed services.

The Rev. Ralph Howe spoke before the board opened up the floor to calls and took time to address some of the comments he anticipated hearing from callers over the next hour.

Howe said Downtown Pittsfield Inc. was informed of the possible shelter in the fall and a meeting was held between the two parties in February. He said this was the last he heard from downtown business association until last week.

After that, they held a series of meetings: one with the directors and a second with business owners just Monday night.

"The problem seems to be they just don't want a shelter in the downtown even if it is two blocks from North Street," he said. "We recognize there are issues created for merchants in the downtown area by street people but for those of us who actually know the street people...this is a red herring issue for this project."

He added that those who may cause issues in the downtown likely do not use the shelter that does have rules and regulations. He said these folks are most likely suffering from mental health or addiction afflictions.

"While these problems are real they are not problems with the shelter," he said.

The church had a tried to develop a shelter a decade ago, finally opening a day-shelter in 2011 for a period of time.

First to call into the Zoom meeting was former Downtown Pittsfield President Jesse Cook-Dubin, who asked that the hearing be delayed for another two months. He said he felt as though Downtown Pittsfield was not properly notified and wanted more time for stakeholders to weigh in.

"The point is not that these challenges are the fault of the homeless shelter or the fault of homeless people," he said. "The point is that the downtown business environment is in critical condition ... we are concerned about the challenges a homeless shelter could pose for a downtown."

He went on to say Downtown Pittsfield does not flat out condemn the shelter but just wants more time to make suggestions and provide possible conditions. He said the remote meeting that took place Monday was last minute and was mostly attended by shelter proponents

"Most of the comments were intended and succeeded in shaming and intimidating the business and property owners for speaking out," Cook-Dubin said. "Some were accused of having a lack of humanity."

Dozens called in against the project and John Keegan, an accountant whose firm is next door to the church, said he was blindsided by the project that was developing right next door.

He also shared some concerns and said, in the past, when the church hosted the day program there were issues on his own property. Program attendees solicited from employees and clients, smoked, drank, slept in the courtyard, slept in trash cans, used drugs, and used the property as a toilet, he said.

Keegan did note the church put a stop to the program but did not clean up his property.

David Tierney, owner of Hotel on North, echoed some of the same points and asked that the board take a broader view of the downtown. He said another concern was where shelter residents would go once the shelter closed during the day.

"Homelessness and panhandling is a detriment to the downtown," he said. "It may not be as bad as New York City but it still detracts from our businesses  let's take our time and do this right."

There were many calls in favor of the shelter and resident Drew Herzog asked the board to act on the application that night.

"This sort of shelter is desperately needed in Pittsfield and we need to move forward now," he said. "There has been lots of planning and this is ripe and ready to do ... this is the right location at the right time."

The city, with ServiceNet, set up a temporary shelter at the former St.Joseph's High School because of the pandemic but recently shut it down after funds ran dry. Currently, homeless encampments are springing up in city parks.

This was a more immediate issue for other callers who urged the board to move on the application giving ServiceNet and the church time to ready the shelter before winter.

Howe mentioned earlier that he was unwilling to accept delaying the process because they are on such a tight deadline if they want to be open for fall.

Other callers who have supported the project went through the long timeline of the project and felt both the city and Downtown Pittsfield were well aware of the development.

Others felt allowing for homelessness in other parts of the city but not the downtown was not a good look for Pittsfield.

"What kind of downtown do we really have if we have a downtown that is not for everybody?" Elton Ogden, President at Berkshire Housing Development Corp, said. "The risk to that is we have gentrification that excludes people who may have lived here through the good times and the bad times."

City Planner CJ Hoss addressed the board after the public hearing portion and said there is still some work the city needs to do. He said the application narrative was lacking in some areas and the city needs time for proper analysis so it can better support the board.

He said much of the information heard during the hearing will be useful when drafting some possible conditions.

Hoss did agree that the subject was time-sensitive and felt his department could wrap up this work in two weeks.

The board tended to agree and voted to continue their hearing until their August meeting giving the shelter and Downtown Pittsfield a month to better communicate.

"I think this has been framed as an either-or position. We either have a homeless shelter downtown or we don't," board member Gary Levante said. "I think that there are other paths forward ... I think coming together and having a conversation about this will be helpful."

The board plans to meet on Aug. 18.
UPDATE: Burger Records To End All Operations After Sexual Misconduct Allegations

In the wake of multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against employees and artists affiliated with the label, Burger Records will cease operation entirely.

Burger Records co-founder Sean Bohrman announced on Tuesday night that the label will not proceed with plans to change leadership and branding and will instead shut down.

On Monday, the label announced that co-founder and president Lee Rickard had resigned and that Bohram planned to transition out of his leadership role at the label.

At the same time, they announced a rebrand from Burger Records to BRGR, and said that veteran label marketing exec Jessa Zapor-Gray would be stepping in as an interim president for the label.

However, by Tuesday night, Zapor-Gray had backed away from that plan.

In a statement provided to Pitchfork, Zapor-Gray said:

When I was asked to take over in this capacity, I expected some blowback for my decision to accept but I believed that the opportunity to have a role in effecting real and lasting positive change within the Burger and indie music scenes was worth the risk. Upon further review, I have informed Burger Records that I no longer believe I will be able to achieve my intended goals in assuming the leadership role at Burger in the current climate. Therefore, I have decided to step away from the label entirely to focus on my other projects.

Bohrman told Pitchfork that the label had asked its distributor to pull all of its catalog from streaming services, but said that the labels artists would be free to seek to have them re-listed, noting that Burgers artists own all of their music.

I hate dealing with lawyers so we never signed contracts with bands, he told the publication.

Founded in 2007, the label, which distributed primarily via cassette, also operated a retail outlet that regularly hosted concerts by up-and-coming indie artists.

Last weekend, an Instagram page started accumulating account of sexual misconduct against employees and artists on the label, with many accusers painting a grim picture of an environment of toxic masculinity around Burgers live shows.

Many of the allegations collected on the Instagram page were second hand and anonymous, but some accusers revealed their names, including Clementine Creevy, frontwoman of the L.A.-based band Cherry Glazerr who accused fellow musician Sean Redman, who was formerly a member of the Buttertones, of cultivating a sexual relationship with her when she was 14 and he 20.

As a young teenage girl, I witnessed a culture of predatory, misogynistic, and abusive behavior towards women by Sean, some of his bandmates in the Buttertones, and other men in their circle. I want to say with no conditionality whatsoever that this is not atypical of the music scene, Creevey wrote in a statement. Countless women I know have had experiences like mine with male musicians and it is heartbreaking and infuriating that young girls wanting to play music or see music should ever have to endure being sexualized by older male musicians in the sceneit is disgusting and it needs to end now.

The Buttertones have since deleted their social media and according to Brooklyn Media, they were dropped by their label Innovative Leisure. We were unable to reach Mr. Redman for comment.

MORE: Indie Burger Records Rebbrands, Execs Exit Amid Sexual Misconduct Allegations

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WHO delivers 16 CT scan machines to assist Iran combat COVID-19

07/23/20

Source: The World Health Organization (WHO)

Tehran, 21 July 2020 - The World Health Organization (WHO) has delivered 16 CT scan machines to strengthen Islamic Republic of Iran's emergency response to COVID-19. CT scanning is a key component of clinical diagnosis of COVID-19 patients. The units, worth more than US$ 4 million, were procured by WHO through support from the governments of Japan and Kuwait.

"As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, WHO is supporting Islamic Republic of Iran's efforts to turn the course of the disease. By delivering vital equipment and medicines, training health workers and raising awareness in communities, WHO works with the Ministry of Health and Medical Education to serve the people of Islamic Republic of Iran," said Dr Christoph Hamelmann, WHO Representative.



Recently, WHO also equipped the country's COVID-19 hospitals with arterial-blood gas (ABG) analyzers - equipment essential for the assessment and monitoring of critically ill patients. Seventy (70) ABG analyzers with the consumables have been procured and delivered so far, with support from the Government of Japan.



Since the start of the pandemic, WHO has supplied tons of personal protective equipment to health workers to help them provide safe care to communities across different parts of the country.



The Organization's multiple shipments of PCR test kits have also enabled the laboratory network to continue to perform hundreds of thousands of diagnostic tests to early detect infected individuals.



As of 21 July 2020, a total of 278 827 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases have been reported in the Islamic Republic of Iran, with the total death toll standing at 14 634. The country's national laboratory network has conducted 2 201 958 tests so far.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Pharmaceutical firm Cipla is all set to launch Favipiravir, developed by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in a cost-effective process, for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, according to an official statement on Thursday.

An off-patent anti-viral drug, Favipiravir, originally discovered by Fuji Pharma in Japan, has shown promise in clinical trials for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, especially in mild and moderate cases.

CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT) developed a cost-effective process using locally available chemicals to synthesize this Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) and transferred the technology to Cipla.

"Cipla has scaled up the process in their manufacturing facility and approached DCGI (Drug Controller General of India) for permission to launch the product in India. Given that DCGI has given restricted emergency use for Favipiravir in the country, Cipla is now all set to launch the product to help patients suffering from COVID-19," the statement said.

Commenting on the development, Director of CSIR-IICR S Chandrashekhar said the technology is very efficient and makes it affordable and allows Cipla to make large quantities of the product within a short span of time.

CSIR Director General Shekhar C Mande observed that they are working with the industry in developing quick solutions and products for mitigation of COVID-19 and this partnership with Cipla is an example of how CSIR is committed to bringing repurposed drugs soon.
The Chinese consulate in Houston, which Donald Trump forced to close on Wednesday, was a hot bed of spies, according to reports.

Trump's decision was made without warning, and without explanation.

Hours before the administration made public its order on Wednesday, consulate employees were seen starting fires in a courtyard of the Houston building, prompting police officers and firefighters to rush to the area.

Fire crews were prevented from accessing the compound.

Diplomats stationed in Texas have been told that operations will cease on Friday.

The Chinese consulate in Houston will close its doors Friday, it was announced on Wednesday

Small fires were seen being ignited in the courtyard of the building on Tuesday evening

Fire crews arriving on the scene were told they could not enter to put out the blazes

Beijing has called the action illegal, and vowed to retaliate. The consulate is one of five in the U.S., not counting the embassy in Washington DC.

Sources on Wednesday told NBC that the consulate was known as being a center for Chinese spying.

Multiple U.S. officials told the network that the Houston consulate has long been used by the Chinese government to steal valuable medical research, and was involved in attempts to infiltrate the oil and natural gas industries.

They said the consulate is well-fortified, was hardened to prevent U.S. surveillance, and was a high-tech communications hub to coordinate and execute various spying operations.

Mark Warner, Democrat senator for Virginia and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told NBC News's Katy Tur that he would not discuss the specific intelligence behind Wednesday's closure.

'But I can tell you for the last two years, I and other members of the intel committee have been holding classified briefings with business leaders and academic leaders about the concerted efforts of the Chinese communist party to steal our intellectual property, to steal it from companies, to steal it from universities, to be on better guard,' he said.

Warner suggested the action was driven by the FBI and its intelligence.

China has five consulates in the United States. The Houston one, pictured, will close on Friday

The State Department said China was directing 'massive illegal spying and influence operations.'

David R. Stilwell, who oversees policy for East Asia and the Pacific at the State Department, told The New York Times that the Houston consulate had a history of engaging in 'subversive behavior'.

He said the consulate was the epicenter of research theft in the United States.

For instance, Stilwell said, said the consul general, the top Chinese official there, and two other diplomats were recently caught using false identification to escort Chinese travelers to the gate area of a charter flight from George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

Stilwell said that some of China's attempted scientific thefts in the United States had accelerated over the last six months, and could be related to efforts to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus - although he again presented no evidence.

Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, who has been a leader in aggressively pushing hard-line policies on China, said Wednesday at a news conference in Copenhagen that the Trump administration was 'setting out clear expectations as to how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave.'

He warned that the United States would 'take actions' to protect its interests.

Moving vans were pictured outside the consulate in Houston on Wednesday

Much of the interest in Houston has focused on the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

In April 2019, three out of five scientists identified by federal authorities as being involved in efforts to steal American research on behalf of China at MD Anderson were ousted by the institution.

A fourth scientist resigned before the conclusion of the investigation, and the fifth was disciplined by the center.

Trump said during a news conference on Wednesday evening that 'it's always possible' his administration would close more Chinese missions.

The consulate closure marks a further breakdown in relations between the world's two largest economies, and is a significant shift from just six months ago, when the countries signed a trade deal and Trump boasted that the U.S.-China relationship 'might be the best it's been in a long, long time.'

Trump said six months ago that the relationship with China was excellent

Now relations between Trump and China's leader, Xi Jinping, are at a low

Now, in addition to closing the consulate, the U.S. is also considering a ban on Chinese-owned mobile apps such as Tik Tok, removing Chinese technology from the electrical grid, and sanctioning Communist Party officials over the internment of Muslims and a security law that effectively ends Hong Kong's independent legal status.

Trump has also cut off additional trade talks and threatened to penalize China because he said 'they could have stopped' the pandemic.

Hua Chunying, foreign ministry spokeswoman, described the reasons given by the US for closing the consulate as 'unbelievably ridiculous'.

She urged the U.S. to reverse its 'erroneous decision', or China would 'react with firm countermeasures'.

'While Chinese diplomats are promoting mutual understanding and friendship, the US embassy in China publicly attacks China's political system,' she said.

'As a result of smears and hatred fanned up by the US government, the Chinese embassy has received bomb and death threats.'
SACRAMENTO, Calif. and VISALIA, Calif., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Suncrest Bank (OTCQX: SBKK) today announced that the company will host its second quarter earnings webcast on Tuesday, July 28, 2020. The company's second quarter earnings report will be released after the market closes on Monday, July 27, 2020.

WEBCAST DETAILS

Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Time: 11:00 AM EDT / 8:00 AM PDT

/ Webcast Registration (to view presentation and submit questions): https://www.webcaster4.com/Webcast/Page/1963/36016

(to view presentation and submit questions): https://www.webcaster4.com/Webcast/Page/1963/36016 Conference Dial-In (to listen only): Toll-Free: 844-369-8774

(to listen only): Toll-Free: 844-369-8774 Conference Call Name: Suncrest Bank Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Webcast

This will be a live and interactive online event where investors are invited to ask the company written questions via the online platform in real-time. If investors are not able to join the event on the day of the conference, an on-demand archive will be available for 90 days.

It is recommended that investors pre-register via the link above and run the online system check to save time and receive event updates.

About Suncrest Bank

Suncrest Bank, member FDIC, offers a full range of commercial, small business and agribusiness loans, cash management services and personal deposit products throughout the Central Valley of California. It is regularly rated Five Stars by Bauer Financial as one of the nation's strongest financial institutions, and in 2017 and 2018 was named to the OTCQX Best 50, a ranking of top performing companies traded on the OTCQX Best Market. It is a Preferred Lender with the Small Business Administration and its stock can be purchased on the open market, trading on the OTCQX under the ticker symbol SBKK. For all other information, visit www.suncrestbank.com

SOURCE Suncrest Bank

Related Links

www.suncrestbank.com


The living room of an apartment on the first floor

The bedroom of one apartment, complete with a desk for schoolwork

The living room of one unit within the new Transitional Living apartment building

Chambliss Center for Children celebrated the completion of a new six-unit apartment building to be used for youth aging out of foster care.



The new building was purchased with funds from an anonymous donor, and construction was completed earlier this month.

Each apartment unit was furnished by local nonprofit organization Homes and Havens utilizing a trauma-informed design approach to create welcoming places of respite for teens entering the Transitional Living Program.



Were honored we get to meet that need for some of the roughly 900 youth who turn 18 in foster care in Tennessee each year, said Jon Berestecky, the Transitional Living specialist at Chambliss Center for Children. Its encouraging to know there are individuals in our community willing to step up and provide whats needed for these young people to get a shot at futures they dream of.



Chambliss Center for Childrens Transitional Living Program is designed to assist youth who are aging out of the foster care system. In addition to housing, this program offers counseling and training in basic life skills, such as financial planning and budgeting, cooking, interviewing and job readiness.

The first four tenants of the new living spaces will move into their new apartments this week, and the remaining two apartments will be occupied in August.
New Delhi: The government on Thursday ruled out coming out with an FAQ on the newly introduced 2 per cent tax on non-resident e-commerce companies, saying the law passed by Parliament is very clear.

The 2 per cent Equalisation Levy was introduced in the 2020-21 Budget and came into effect from April 1, 2020. The tax would be levied on consideration received by non-resident e-commerce operators from online supply of goods or services. The due date for payment of first instalment of the tax was July 7.

Several tax experts have demanded that the tax department comes out with a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) to clarify the doubts relating to the levy.

Finance Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said FAQs are issued where you have to explain to somebody who is not familiar with tax laws and there you try to explain in simple words.

"Here the law is very clear. If you see the entire digital tax law, they are not very lengthy or complicated. Every company which deals with digital tax has tax advisors. They can make their own interpretation and take decision. So superimposing something which has been approved by Parliament by way of something like FAQ is not a very good practice," Pandey said at a FICCI event here.

Pandey, who is also the Revenue Secretary, said that many times the question that comes from businesses is that "if a transaction is this, then do I have to pay digital tax?"?

"The question is it is almost like I'm giving an advance ruling, which is not the job of revenue department. If any advance ruling is to be done, then one has to talk to tax advisor. Whatever I say has to strictly conform to the interpretation that we are taking in law. According to us the law is very clear, what Parliament has approved that can be read by everyone and then appropriate decision can be taken by those companies which have to pay digital tax," the secretary added.

Equalisation levy was first introduced by Finance Act, 2016, at the rate of 6 per cent on payments for digital advertisement services received by non-resident companies without a permanent establishment (PE) here, if these exceeded Rs 1 lakh a year.

The Budget 2020-21 expanded its scope to include consideration received by non-resident e-commerce operators from e-commerce supply or services. The rate applicable has been set at 2 per cent.
LOS ANGELES, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Mending Kids, a nonprofit organization is hosting its first ever "MASKrAID Campaign" virtual online auction to raise funds for the ongoing shortages of PPE for frontline health care workers, teachers and students in disadvantaged communities. The auction will launch on Wednesday, July 29, 2020.



Up for bid will be a collection of one-of-a-kind celebrity designed/illustrated masks. Matthew McConaughey, Thandie Newton, Kaia Gerber, Gene Simmons, Courteney Cox, Sam Elliott, and dozens more iconic and civic-minded individuals have come together in support of Mending Kids' commitment to serve children, teachers, and frontline workers in areas suffering from the financial devastation of the pandemic.



Over the past few months COVID-19 has worsened and amplified the health disparity gap among disproportionately inequitable populations. With the push to open schools, educators are the new frontline workers. As in-person learning resumes, these communities will have an urgent and overwhelming need for basic safety supplies.



Like many organizations, Mending Kids has also been affected by the pandemic, but rather than close its doors, the nonprofit has taken a proactive stance by redirecting its efforts to serve and bring relief to local communities in need. The "MASKrAID Campaign" aims to fight health disparities in depressed areas.



The first weeklong auction opens to the public on Wednesday, July 29, 2020. MASKrAID will not be a typical auction, but a powerful and impactful event to raise awareness, support the vulnerable and save lives. To help raise critical funds, promote iconic individuals and learn more about MASKrAID please visit https://www.maskraid.org/.



"More importantly, we have always been champions of addressing health disparity and we think that MASKrAID will be a great opportunity for iconic individuals to come together and throw their mask in the ring in support of kids everywhere." -Isabelle Fox, Executive Director Mending Kids



About Mending Kids



Mending Kids is a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization that provides free life-saving critical surgical care to children in the United States and around the world from over 66 countries by deploying volunteer medical teams and educating communities to become medically self-sustaining. Looking ahead, Mending Kids will be preparing for its 8th annual 2020 Hometown Mission. For more information, please call: 1-800-993-5680 or visit www.mendingkids.org



Follow us on Instagram @maskraid_campaign



Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @mendingkids



Photos:

https://www.prlog.org/12831269



Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE Mending Kids International
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jul. 23

By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:

The value of trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Georgia amounted to $52.4 million over first five months of 2020, compared to $35.8 million during the same period of 2019, Trend reports with reference to Kazakhstans Statistics Committee.

The share of Georgia in total value of Kazakhstans trade turnover was 0.2 percent during the reporting period of 2020 compared to 0.1 percent during the same period of 2019.

Kazakhstans export to Georgia amounted to $41.8 million over the period from January through May 2020 compared to $20.2 million during the same period of 2019.

Georgias share in total volume of Kazakhstans export amounted to 0.2 percent during the reporting period of 2020 compared to 0.1 percent during the same period of 2019.

In turn, Kazakhstans import from Georgia amounted to $10.6 million over the reporting period compared to $15.6 million during the same period of 2019.

Georgias total share in Kazakhstans import was 0.1 percent during the reporting period of 2020 which is flat year-on-year compared to 0.1 percent during the same period of 2019.

The total volume of Kazakhstans trade turnover amounted to $34.9 billion over the period from Jan. through May 2020 which indicates a decrease from $37.5 billion during the same period of 2019.

Kazakhstans export amounted to $22.3 billion during the reporting period of 2020 ($23.6 billion in the same period of 2019), whereas import amounted to $12.6 billion ($13.9 billion).

---

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The federal government has said Nigerian students may be asked to sit for the General Certificate Examinations (GCE) holding in November if the country fails to meet up with this years timetable for the West African Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

The GCE is a private examination which is only offered in November and the results are available by December.

The Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, made this known at the bi-weekly Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 meeting on Thursday.

The minister explained the shift may become necessary since the WASSCE cannot be rescheduled for any reason.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the Nigerian government reversed its earlier announcement on the resumption of schools.

It also said no Nigerian school will participate in the WASSCE earlier scheduled from August 5 to September 5.

The decision was made to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among students who usually gather in large numbers during the yearly examination.

Also, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, and Liberia have begun discussions on postponing the WASSCE.

However, Mr Nwajuiba said there was already a negotiated timeline to move local language subjects such as Ibo, Yoruba and Hausa as offered in Nigeria, behind from their usual spots as first written subjects.

This is to allow all participating countries the needed time to write the general subjects at the same time if Nigeria is able to meet up with the WAEC timetable.

Nigeria is not moving away from it, the option would have been to go to November to take the GCE external exams. Nigeria is carefully studying that if in the event everything fails, we may go to that, he said.

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In the guideline, there is a checklist of the requirements to be put in place and we have given a cut off date so we can know who needs help, he said.

According to him, we need to know if the teachers cannot be provided with masks, if the school is unable to do that we need to know ahead because states that have given dates for resumption of schools are setting a timetable along the lines we have already explained and they are free to do this.

Many states have come to say they are unable to meet up with that date that is why the minister requested WAEC give us and the schools some time to meet up, he said.

He said the government will work out a domestication module that will take our peculiar subjects behind after we have done general (subjects). This will buy us the time we need for all of us to be at par with the rest of West Africa and operating at the same time because the unanimity with which WAEC has always worked is still very important to us.

WAEC unfortunately, is unable to wholesomely move the exams but we have also worked out a negotiated timeline with WAEC on what we call peculiar Nigerian subjects. These are subjects that are only held in Nigeria such as Ibo, Hausa, Yoruba. The Ghanaians will take examinations peculiar to them, he said.
WASHINGTON  New Yorkers have been cleared to rejoin a federal Trusted Traveler program by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and federal officials said Thursday.

New Yorkers were blocked from the safe-traveler programs in February amid a clash between the administration and the state over federal access to state records that could reveal immigration information. The ban arose from implementation of New York's Green Light Law, which allows undocumented immigrants to get state drivers licenses. While other states also have similar licensing policies, DHS said no other states restrict federal access to its DMV databases as New York does.

Cuomo offered to give U.S. Customs and Border Protection access to the state drivers license database for purposes of vetting the applicants for the Trusted Traveler program, but not unfettered access. In April, a provision allowing that access was tucked in the state budget and approved.

"I am glad that this issue has finally been resolved for all New Yorkers," Cuomo said.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said the change "enables DHS to move forward and begin once again processing New York residents."

The Trusted Traveler and Global Entry programs that were blocked for New York applicants allow pre-screened individuals to more swiftly pass through checkpoints at airports and borders. The popular TSA PreCheck program, which allows expedited screening at airports for passengers who have passed federal background checks, was not affected.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, which administers the programs, shut enrollment centers where application interviews are conducted through Sept. 8 due to COVID-19.

Cuomo met with President Donald Trump at the White House in February to discuss the administration's concerns over their access to New York records.

The Cuomo administration alleged in February that the administration's move to block New Yorkers was "politically motivated." An internal homeland security memo obtained by Buzzfeed News in February indicated that the federal government drafted an action plan to retaliate against states that did not provide access to their DMV records. One of the measures listed was to block those states' access to safe-traveler programs.

"There was never a factual basis for banning New York residents from enrolling in Global Entry the bans true purpose was to punish New York state for embracing diversity and inclusion," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. "I am pleased that President Trump has reversed this deeply misguided policy and urge him to refrain from further abuses of power.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, blamed Cuomo for New Yorkers' exclusion.

Gov. Cuomos reckless immigration policies in New York state caused the suspension of the Global Entry program, Stefanik said. Since the suspension of Global Entry in February, qualified, legal citizens have been penalized by the governors actions. ... I advocated and worked with the president and senior administration officials to successfully reinstate this program critical to the economy and safety of New York. I remain concerned with New Yorks continued restriction on information-sharing with federal law enforcement and will continue to speak out against Gov. Cuomos dangerous policy.

If the ban had remained in place, New Yorkers would be blocked from enrolling or re-enrolling in four programs run by Customs and Border Protection. Three of them  Global Entry, NEXUS and SENTRI  allow qualified people faster clearance when traveling. A fourth, the Free and Secure Trade program, permitted quick clearance for commercial goods.

The programs are critical to many travelers, including in areas like Buffalo where thousands of people cross the Canadian border daily.

Acting Deputy DHS Secretary Ken Cuccinelli said by the end of 2020 about 175,000 New Yorkers would have been kicked out of the travelers programs, with no others able to join. He also estimated 30,000 drivers in the FAST program, which come and go at four New York and Canadian ports of entry, would lose access to the automated system.
Protests by restaurant employees objecting to some of the Covid-19 restrictions were held in various centres across South Africa on Wednesday.

Chef Liam Tomlin (centre) owner of Chefs Warehouse, stood with protesters in Bree Street, Cape Town. He said about 300 employees could lose their jobs in his restaurants. Photo: Ashraf Hendricks

Minister of Tourism Nkhensani Kubayi-Ngubane accepted a memorandum from the South African Restaurant Association on Wednesday afternoon. Photo: Zoe Postman

Silwood School of Cookery students joined the protest in Cape Town. Photo: Ashraf Hendricks

On Muizenberg beachfront, a group of protesters from Tigers Milk, Knead Bakery and Lucky Fish & Chips held placards next to the road at Surfers Corner. Photo: Lucas Nowicki

Staffers at the Next Chapter Restaurant on Florida Road, Durban, staged a project by placing tables and chairs outside the restaurant. Photo: Nokulunga Majola

Empty chairs were placed along Marine Drive in Port Elizabeth and restaurant workers waved placards. Photo: Joseph Chirume

Restaurants want government to lift the curfew and do away with the ban on smoking and alcohol. The call went out this week for a million chairs to be put on the streets of the country in protest.Restaurants in Parkhurst, Parktown North, Melville and Rosebank in Johannesburg participated in the protest. Some restaurants put tables and chairs on the pavement with signs which read "#SaveOurRestaurants" and "#JobsSaveLives".A group of about 25 staff members from Rockets in Parkhurst and people supporting the protest held placards while cars hooted in support.Patience Sibanda has been a pizza maker for six years. She said: "Our shifts have been cut because people are not coming to restaurants which means less money for us. We are supposed to be operating until late at night but with the curfew, we cant."Wendy Alberts of the South African Restaurant Association said it had been a difficult 20 weeks of lockdown for restaurants. "Our staff dont have jobs and our restaurant doors are closing. The liquor ban as well as the curfew has been a major contributing factor to this," she said.She said restaurant staff had been badly affected because Unemployment Insurance Fund payments had still not been forthcoming.Alberts handed over a memorandum to Minister of Tourism Nkhensani Kubayi-Ngubane, who said she would pass it on to Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and President Cyril Ramaphosa.The minister said the department does not have the ability to license alcohol sales but would continue to raise issues that affected the industry "Balancing lives and livelihoods will remain important," she said.Kubayi-Ngubane said she was working with the industry and government to get some of the restaurant safety protocols gazetted.In Cape Town about 100 restaurant employees gathered on Bree Street. Some put chairs and tables in the street, forcing traffic to be diverted. Protesters also marched through the city centre accompanied by a truck with musicians and a speaker system chanting: "Jobs save lives"."Were doing this to show how many jobs are at risk in our industry and how many jobs have been lost," said Liam Tomlin, owner of Chefs Warehouse and four more restaurants. With the alcohol ban and curfew, Tomlin said that his restaurants might only be able to remain open for "six weeks", and this could affect up to 300 people.He said it was costing a small fortune to keep staff on board while continuing to pay rates, rent and overheads.Tomlin said most profits were made from alcohol. With the curfew they have to close at 7pm so that staff can finish up and be home by 9pm. "There is no such thing as dinner service anymore," he said."Food culture in South Africa is a big thing and it will be a shame to lose everything because of a lockdown," said Ludeke Niehaus, a first-year student at the Silwood School of Cookery. With the restrictions, Niehaus said, the wine farms and the countrys best restaurants will be closing."The hospitality industry is obviously collapsing and the government is not doing anything to help," he said.At a protest in Muizenberg, Tigers Milk branch manager Nicholas Goodman said the ban on alcohol and limited seating had hit hardest. The restaurant was operating with only 20 out of a staff of 80 because of the drop in business. "Now, imagine that nationally," he said.He said many people in the industry struggled to access UIF and were left without any income.Various restaurants in Durban heeded the call by the Restaurant Association of South Africa but metro police told them to disperse.Mike Holland of the Next Chapter Restaurant in Florida Road said 48 employees would lose their jobs in his business. We are not being listened to. With this protest we are hoping that the government will listen to us and save thousands of job," he said.Bradley Hollis of Butcher Boys said 40 jobs were at stake. "We had to shut down because of the lockdown and if the situation continues we will be forced to shut down permanently," said Hollis.Durban metro police spokesperson Parboo Sewpersad said the protest was against the law. "We were given a directive that there should be no gatherings of any kind. Any protest taking place is in contravention of the Disaster Management Act," said Sewpersard. Putting chairs and tables on the pavement was also against the law, he said.At the Port Elizabeth beachfront only Barneys Restaurant at Hobie Beach heeded the call to protest. Staff lined up empty chairs along Marine Drive while waving placards. Passing motorists hooted in support.Restaurant manager Jacques van Aswegen said: "We have a staff compliment of 44 but we are now forced to operate with ten workersThe government should find ways to bring sanity to the industry before more jobs are lost."
Presentation demonstrates importance of rapidly-generated Real-World Data (RWD) from Syapse Learning Health Network to support clinical decision-making

SAN FRANCISCO, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Syapse, a real-world data company accelerating the delivery of precision medicine through the Syapse Learning Health Network, today announced results based on real-world data that were highlighted at the AACR Virtual Meeting on COVID-19 and Cancer. Findings from the research suggest a higher incidence of COVID-19 reported among Black Americans, and worsened outcomes in patients with cancer and COVID-19. For people with cancer diagnosed sometime over the past five years, who were also diagnosed with COVID-19, there was an increased risk of severe events with an even greater risk among those with active cancer under recent treatment.



The rapidity with which we conceived of, designed and analyzed this study is nothing short of impressive, and has enabled us to better understand and anticipate the clinical outcomes of patients with cancer and COVID-19, said Shirish M. Gadgeel, M.D., Division Head for Hematology/Oncology, Associate Director, Patient Experience and Clinical Care at the Henry Ford Health System. Unfortunately, these evidence-based results provide further proof that minority populations and those at the lowest income levels are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19  including hospitalization and ventilation support.

The data we analyzed in collaboration with Syapse revealed a stark reality that people with cancer are at an increased risk of more serious outcomes from COVID-19, said Harpreet Singh, M.D., Associate Director, Cancer in Older Adults and Special Populations, FDAs Oncology Center of Excellence. Its imperative that we continue to rapidly examine real-world data to address the urgent health care challenges brought on by this pandemic. We will continue to work diligently to meet the needs of cancer patients, who constitute a vulnerable population at risk of contracting COVID-19.

Story continues

Study Objectives and Findings

The study, using Real-World Data (RWD) from an integrated platform for rapid analysis of patients with cancer, with and without COVID-19, across distinct health systems (Henry Ford Cancer Institute, Detroit, Michigan; Advocate Aurora Health, Wisconsin) included 154,585 people who had a diagnosis of malignant cancer and who were treated at the health systems within the last five years. The primary study objectives were to rapidly leverage integrated real-world data from electronic medical records and ancillary clinical sources for patients with active cancer and/or a history of cancer.

The study included COVID-19 diagnoses between February 15 and May 13, 2020. The rapidly-generated results included information gathered from direct integrations with Syapses health system partners and structured molecular data from reference labs to provide detailed insights. The key conclusions are listed below. Please visit the Syapse website to download a copy of the presentation slides.

Compared to cancer patients without COVID-19, cancer patients with COVID-19 have:

Higher prevalence of pre-existing cardio-pulmonary/vascular & renal conditions; and

Increased risk of hospitalization, mechanical ventilation and mortality.

Groups experiencing increased COVID-19 risk and increased hospitalization and mechanical ventilation were:

Non-Hispanic Black patients with cancer; and

Patients with cancer and with median annual household income of zero to $30,000.

Factors associated with increased mortality for cancer patients with COVID-19 include:

Age, diabetes mellitus, renal failure and pulmonary circulatory disorders (active cancer); and

Age and coagulopathy (past history of cancer).

We continue to explore ways to leverage real-world evidence in order to optimize treatments for cancer patients  especially those impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. With these results, we shine another light on the more serious manifestations of COVID-19 and in particular, the increased risks for people with cancer, advanced age, and underlying chronic illnesses, along with evidence for health care disparities, said Thomas Brown, M.D., chief medical officer at Syapse.

Through its collaborations with various health systems, Syapse continues to engage oncologists in its Learning Health Network in joint outcomes research. This work supports Syapse in enabling the use of RWD by oncology care providers to inform patient care decisions. In turn, Syapse incorporates the methodologies used for outcomes derivation into its Learning Health Network capabilities.

About the Syapse Learning Health Network

This global network of healthcare providers shares real-world data to support clinical decisions and foster collaborations among participants. Healthcare providers, including doctors and nurses, share and learn which cancer treatments produced better real-world outcomes in clinically and molecularly similar patients. Researchers learn from real-world clinical, molecular, treatment and outcomes data. These collaborations are enabled by a secure platform of shared de-identified data that is standardized and normalized across the Learning Health Network and complies with all applicable federal and state data privacy protection regulations.

About Syapse

Syapse works with leading health systems, life sciences companies, and regulators to explore opportunities to use real-world evidence to improve the outcomes of cancer patients. By bringing these organizations together into the Syapse Learning Health Network, Syapse has built one of the worlds largest networks with a goal to improve outcomes in cancer care through improved precision medicine. Syapse and its partners are working towards a future in which all cancer patients have access to the quality of care they need.

Source: Syapse Inc.

CONTACT: Syapse Contacts Fletcher Payne fletcher.payne@syapse.com Denise Powell (Media) denise@redhousecomms.com




Election 2020 Myanmars NLD Unveils Election Candidate Lineup With More Women, Muslims

The NLD holds its second party congress in Yangon in June 2018. / Htet Wai / The Irrawaddy

YANGONThe ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) on Thursday unveiled its candidate list for the upcoming election. The lineup consists largely of the partys sitting lawmakers and current chief ministers, but also includes more women than in 2015 and two Muslim candidates.

Myanmar will hold a general election on Nov. 8.

With less than three months to go before the election, the party announced its list of candidates on Thursday afternoon, right after finalizing its selections.

Of the more than 1,000 candidates listed by the party, 80 percent are sitting lawmakers who won parliamentary seats in the previous general election held in 2015.

The NLD won a sweeping victory in 2015, defeating the then ruling, military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and taking office in 2016.

In a video message to the selected candidates, NLD Chairwoman Daw Aung San Suu Kyi acknowledged on Thursday that there were few new faces on the list of candidates.

Based on the lessons it has learned since the 1990 election, she said, the party prioritized loyalty and experience when selecting candidates.

We look at the applicants loyalty to the partys policies, she said. We pay special attention to those who will faithfully support the aspiration of democratic federalism and who will walk along with us [in the long term].

Party Vice Chairman Dr. Zaw Myint Maung said on Thursday that 20 percent of sitting NLD lawmakers who had performed poorly in Parliament and had not adhered strictly to party discipline and implementing party policies were excluded from the candidate list.

All current state and regional chief ministers except Yangons U Phyo Min Thein were re-selected to run in the election. U Phyo Min Thein has previously said he wont run in the election due to poor health.

Many NLD chief ministers including U Phyo Min Thein, Kayah State Chief Minister L Phaung Sho and Bago Region Chief Minister U Win Thein have disappointed the public by getting involved in controversial activities and failing to fully perform their duties over the past four years.

Whats new?

The NLD will be fielding more women candidates in the upcoming poll than in previous elections.

Dr. Zaw Myint Maung said Thursday that women account for 20 percent of the partys candidatesup from about 13 percent in 2015.

The NLD will also field at least two Muslim candidates. The Muslim candidates included in Thursdays list, Daw Win Mya Mya and Ko Sithu Maung, are both former political prisoners. They will contest in Mandalay and Yangon regions. The party didnt pick any Muslim candidates in the election in 2015.

In ethnic areas, the party has prioritized local ethnic candidates, Dr. Zaw Myint Maung said.

He added that farmers accounted for 12 percent of the NLDs candidates in Novembers general election.

The Union Election Commission has called for candidate registrations to be submitted from July 20 to Aug. 7.

Myanmar currently has 96 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.

Note: This story was updated on July 24, 2020.

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WASHINGTON  The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Tuesday it plans to issue a proposed airworthiness directive for the Boeing 737 MAX in the near future to address changes made since the plane was grounded in March 2019 after two fatal crashes killed 346 people.

An official briefed on the matter told Reuters that the FAA is unlikely to unground the 737 MAX before sometime in October. Boeing Co has said it expects to resume deliveries before Sept. 30 following regulatory approval.

Boeing spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the schedule for the jets return to service will be determined by regulators.

Boeing is working closely with the FAA and other international regulators to meet their expectations as we work to safely return the 737 MAX to service, Johndroe said.

The crisis over the grounding of the once top-selling 737 MAX has cost the U.S. planemaker more than $18 billion, slashed production and hobbled its supply chain, with criminal and congressional investigations still ongoing.

The FAA said the public will have 45 days to comment on proposed design changes and crew procedures to mitigate the safety issues identified during the investigations that followed the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines accidents. The FAA noted there are still some key steps before the plane can resume commercial service.

On July 1, the FAA said it had completed three days of certification test flights on the 737 MAXs automated flight control system.

Final planning is under way for the FAAs Flight Standardization Board (FSB) and the Joint Operations Evaluation Board (JOEB) review of proposed training for flight crews, based on design changes and crew procedures.

The JOEB will include regulators from Canada, Europe and Brazil and will evaluate minimum pilot training requirements. The FSB will issue a draft report for public comment addressing JOEB findings.

The FAA will review Boeings final design documentation to evaluate compliance with regulations and the multi-agency Technical Advisory Board will review the final Boeing submission and issue a report prior to a final FAA determination of compliance.

Boeing agreed to add significant safeguards to a key safety system tied to both crashes, make other software updates and move wiring bundles.
With millions of workers around the world working from home and social-distancing making it difficult to service endpoints face-to-face, companies are looking for ways to manage their IT through the pandemic and beyond. To assist in these challenging times, IT automation and security company Ivanti and Intel announced a new strategic partnership to offer Device-as-a-Service (DaaS) with self-healing capabilities. Intel Endpoint Management Assistant (EMA) now integrates with the Ivanti Neurons hyper-automation platform to enable IT organizations to self-heal and self-secure with Intel vPro platform-based devices both inside and outside the corporate firewall.

Nayaki Nayyar, executive vice president and chief product officer, Ivanti

Together, Ivanti and Intel are delivering unparalleled endpoint management for devices using the Intel vPro platform for on-premises and cloud-based endpoint remote management  integrated with hyper-automation bots on the Ivanti Neurons Platform, said Nayaki Nayyar, executive vice president and chief product officer, Ivanti. As remote becomes the next normal, auto-healing, securing and servicing endpoints and edge devices becomes a key priority for organizations. With Ivanti Neurons, organizations supporting Intel vPro platform-powered devices can gain a 360-degree view of users, devices, and applications and auto-remediate performance, security, configuration issues.

Stephanie Hallford, Intel vice president of the Client Computing Group and general manager of Business Client Platforms

By partnering with Ivanti, Intel continues to expand our industry-leading technologies that support our joint customers to manage a remote workforce and edge devices. Using the Intel vPro platform will provide in band and out of band endpoint management via the cloud. The Ivanti DaaS solution, along with the built for business Intel vPro platform is perfect for driving customer value for the next generation workforce. Together we are providing unparalleled technologies, performance and enhanced security for DaaS, said Stephanie Hallford, Intel vice president of the Client Computing Group and general manager of Business Client Platforms.

This new partnership allows Ivanti to take remote actions on Intel vPro platform-based devices such as power-on, restart, setting wakeup times, controlling a system during OS failure and repairing devices at scale.

Regardless of when things get back to normal, the pandemic has taught companies that maximizing efficiency and automation are key to allowing organizations to survive and thrive at all times.

See the ONLY 5G, SD-WAN, Contact Center, Tech and Communications companies that matter at the ITEXPO #TECHSUPERSHOW.

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An Ethiopian Airlines cargo plane caught fire at Shanghai Pudong International Airport on Wednesday afternoon, The Paper, a Chinese news website backed by the Shanghai government, reported.

Shanghai's fire department said, in a posting on its Weibo account, that it has dispatched 18 fire trucks to put out the fire and no casualties have been reported by so far.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 14

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The General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) strongly condemned the attack by the armed forces of the Republic of Armenia on the Tovuz region in the Republic of Azerbaijan and their violations of the ceasefire on the border region between Armenia and Azerbaijan on 12 July 2020, resulting in the death and injury of servicemen of the Azerbaijani forces, Trend reports citing OIC.

The Secretary General of OIC, Dr. Yousef Al-Othaimeen, extends his condolences to the families of those killed, wishing a speedy recovery to the injured.

The General Secretariat referred to the resolutions and decisions of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the relevant UN Security Council resolutions which demand full and unconditional withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and support a peaceful settlement to the conflict on the basis of sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of the internationally recognised borders of the Republic of Azerbaijan
More than 350,000 workers around the world use iObeya as global demand for enterprise-grade visual collaboration software explodes

MASSY, France, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- iObeya , a leading provider of Enterprise Visual Management software, today announced that it has raised $17 million in a second round of funding from Red River West with participation from Atlantic Bridge Capital and Fortino Capital Partners, bringing the total raised to date to $20 million. In addition to advancing the development of its platform, the new financing will accelerate the company's expansion into the United States, including the opening of a Seattle headquarters led by Cisco veteran Tim McCracken. The company also announced that it has recruited Rick Tywoniak, an expert in the field of visual collaboration, as Vice President of Marketing.

While iObeya was widely used prior to the pandemic - hundreds of thousands of workers already use iObeya every day - the rapid and unprecedented shift to remote work has fueled skyrocketing demand for its platform, which is up by more than 400% since January. iObeya is ideal for large organizations with distributed teams; those that have complex R&D, engineering, and manufacturing processes; and those that utilize Lean and Agile methods. A growing number of forward-thinking multinational companies depend on iObeya for Visual Management and visual collaboration including: Airbus, Thales, Volvo, Philips, Cartier, Axa, Eli Lilly and Company, Western Digital, Kimberly-Clark, Danaher, Sanofi, and many more.

"A decade or more ago, digital whiteboarding tools ushered in an era of visual collaboration. Today, iObeya represents a new vanguard that is poised to define the era of VisualManagement," said Luc-Emmanuel Barreau, Partner at Red River West. "iObeya's momentum and 'stickiness' among leading global brands proves that there is significant - and growing - demand for enterprise-grade visual collaboration solutions that are designed on Lean and Agile principles, that fuel innovation and drive business performance. iObeya's team has a proven track record and we're excited to lead this investment as the company expands its global footprint, notably in the U.S."

Enterprise Visual Management - The Next Generation of Visual Collaboration for Lean and Agile Companies

Companies around the world are increasingly deploying Lean and Agile management methodologies in order to improve overall business performance and competitiveness. Visual Management is a core component of these transformative methodologies, yet many companies find it difficult to scale enterprise-wide: valuable knowledge ends up on Post-It notes, whiteboards, or other information silos such that it cannot be securely stored or shared. Existing visual collaboration and digital whiteboarding tools are limited in enterprise functionality and are ineffective at reproducing a company's unique Lean rituals and Agile ceremonies at scale, which disconnects teams and reduces their ability to manage projects effectively. As a result, many companies must either develop their own software in-house, which is both time-consuming and costly, or attempt to piece together multiple tools.

"Today's workers know that advancing a unified vision and achieving common goals through teamwork - especially when working remotely - is essential. That's why companies are striving to provide their employees with a human-centric, virtual environment in which they can innovate, grow, and contribute to the success of the business," said Cyril Daloz, co-founder and CEO of iObeya. "iObeya is an enterprise platform that empowers teams to create secure, configurable virtual rooms to support all their Visual Management practices. Users can share information and ideas, collaborate with colleagues in real time, and track the progress of projects according to Lean and Agile principles. Our solution is particularly well-positioned to lead in these unprecedented times. We look forward to using this new investment to deliver a more visual and collaborative management approach, centered on human values, to large organizations as we expand our business in the U.S. and around the world."

As the leader in Visual Management for Lean and Agile companies, iObeya is at the heart of business processes and helps businesses achieve operational excellence. iObeya accelerates the deployment of Lean and Agile across large organizations by digitizing all key Visual Management practices: industrial product lifecycle management, manufacturing operational excellence, software design and development, continuous improvement of business performance, and much more.

With the iObeya platform, enterprise users can:

Go beyond the limitations of paper and boost innovation with real-time, collaborative, visual workspaces - Each iObeya room, designed to be a digital reproduction of a real-world " obeya " room, is a virtual workspace dedicated to visual collaboration, accommodating up to 200 users and 40 whiteboards. Users and teams enjoy an immersive, co-creation experience with a wide range of fully-configurable digital tools to replicate and enhance meetings that are traditionally conducted with paper, Post-It notes, and whiteboards.

- Each iObeya room, designed to be a digital reproduction of a real-world " " room, is a virtual workspace dedicated to visual collaboration, accommodating up to 200 users and 40 whiteboards. Users and teams enjoy an immersive, co-creation experience with a wide range of fully-configurable digital tools to replicate and enhance meetings that are traditionally conducted with paper, Post-It notes, and whiteboards. Incorporate Lean and Agile principles into business processes - Seamless integrations with Atlassian Jira and Microsoft Azure DevOps help companies unlock the full potential of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and strengthen Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe ) ceremonies. iObeya is integrated with Microsoft 365, enabling users to directly access their visual workspace from Microsoft Teams. iObeya also contributes to the digital transformation and operational excellence of factories by providing performance management (SQCDP) for Industry 4.0 applications.

- Seamless integrations with Atlassian Jira and Microsoft Azure DevOps help companies unlock the full potential of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and strengthen Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe ) ceremonies. iObeya is integrated with Microsoft 365, enabling users to directly access their visual workspace from Microsoft Teams. iObeya also contributes to the digital transformation and operational excellence of factories by providing performance management (SQCDP) for Industry 4.0 applications. Increase participation, transparency, and accountability across working groups - With iObeya, teams have a single online location for tracking ideas, progress, and results so that projects stay on track and nothing falls through the cracks. Intuitive activity cards enable users to sort tasks in a variety of ways: by project, deadline, owner, and other configurable views.

- With iObeya, teams have a single online location for tracking ideas, progress, and results so that projects stay on track and nothing falls through the cracks. Intuitive activity cards enable users to sort tasks in a variety of ways: by project, deadline, owner, and other configurable views. Leverage cloud-based SaaS or deploy onsite for total data governance - iObeya offers companies the choice to use its secure SaaS service or easily deploy an on-premise version.

- iObeya offers companies the choice to use its secure SaaS service or easily deploy an on-premise version. Ensure the security of corporate data - iObeya is the only Visual Management solution to be ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certified compliant by BSI, the leading international security standards organization. This certification confirms that iObeya meets the most stringent level of IT governance by large enterprises.

"Today, more than 10,000 daily users benefit from a single enterprise platform for their Visual Management practices. iObeya allows our teams to be perfectly aligned and to avoid waste all the while benefiting from a significant increase in efficiency for the organization on a global scale: less travel, fewer emails, and above all, more time for product development," said Philippe Colombo, Head of Knowledge Management and Visual Management at Volvo. "iObeya is a must for any global company going through a Lean transformation."

About iObeya

Founded in 2011, iObeya is the enterprise platform dedicated to all Visual Management and collaboration practices. iObeya enables distributed teams to perform their rituals and ceremonies as though face-to-face and in a secure virtual environment, while upholding the principles of Lean and Agile methodologies. More than 350,000 workers around the world use iObeya daily to improve their company's performance as part of their major strategic Lean, Agile, digital, and cultural transformations. iObeya is backed by leading venture capital firms including Red River West, Atlantic Bridge Capital, and Fortino Capital Partners. For more information, please visit iobeya.com .

About Red River West

Red River West is a unique cross-border VC firm which promotes the international take-off of outstanding EU Tech companies by providing significant financial firepower and game changing hands-on support in EU & the US. RRW focuses on highly disruptive growth-stage companies with investment tickets of 5 million to 30 million. RRW was initiated in 2017 by Artemis - the Pinault family holding company - and Alfred Vericel - the co-founder of Purch, a digital media group leader in the U.S.

About Fortino Capital Partners

Fortino Capital Partners is a European enterprise software investor, managing a 240 million growth private equity fund and two venture capital funds for earlier stage software opportunities. The firm has offices in Antwerp and Amsterdam. Fortino Capital's investment portfolio includes MobileXpense, Efficy CRM, Odin Groep, Tenzinger, Maxxton, LetsBuild, Teamleader, among others.

About Atlantic Bridge Capital

Atlantic Bridge Capital is a Global Growth Technology Investment Firm with over 950 million of assets under management across seven Funds, investing in Deep Tech growth stage technology companies in Europe and the U.S. The firm has offices and investment teams based in Palo Alto, London, Dublin, Munich, and Paris.

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* Proposal to be placed for approval by board, one source says

* GAIL and ENI were frontrunners for tender, sources say

By Nidhi Verma and Jessica Jaganathan

NEW DELHI/SINGAPORE, July 23 (Reuters) - India's top gas importer Petronet LNG is set to cancel its offer to buy an annual 1 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) for 10 years, two sources said, as signing long-term contracts are not attractive in the current scenario.

India is scouting for cheap gas for price-sensitive consumers as Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to raise the share of natural gas in the national energy mix to 15% by 2030 from the current 6.2% to reduce pollution.

Earlier this year, Petronet invited bids to buy LNG with pricing linked to Henry Hub natural gas futures in the United States and Dutch TTF gas futures and shipped on a delivered ex-ship basis.

"This month in an internal committee it was decided to cancel the tender. Soon the proposal will be placed for approval by the board," said one of two sources familiar with the matter who both confirmed the plan to end the tender.

"Long-term deals don't make sense in current scenario. Doesn't make sense to lose precious foreign exchange," the source added. GAIL (India) is struggling to sell its costly LNG sourced under long term deals with U.S. companies.

Asian spot LNG prices <LNG-AS> have been languishing near record low levels, which were first reached in May, due to new supply entering the market from the United States and the coronavirus pandemic slamming gas demand globally.

Petronet's chief executive Prabhat Singh last month said his firm was close to finalising the deal with prices near to spot markets. It is renegotiating pricing under long-term deals with Qatargas after spot prices declined.

Petronet has deals to annually buy 7.5 million tonnes of LNG from Qatar. Petronet did not respond to an emailed request for comment on plans to cancel the tender.

GAIL and Italy's ENI were the only two companies that qualified for Petronet's long term LNG tender, the two sources said. Singh last month said 13 companies had submitted bid for the tender.

GAIL and ENI did not respond to emails seeking comment on whether they were frontrunners for the tender. (Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
President Donald Trump, who has been more mask-friendly in recent days, wouldn't say whether the federal properies in Washington, D.C. will follow the city's lead in mandating mask-wearing outside in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

'We're going to make a decision over the next 24 hours,' Trump replied instead. 'We'll let you know what that decision is.'

Trump made the comments at his Wednesday coronavirus briefing - his second in two days - where he boasted that the Mexican border wall was keeping coronavirus out and claimed GOP 'sun belt' governors were doing a 'good job.'

President Donald Trump wouldn't say whether federal properties would follow the lead of Washington, D.C. during his press briefing Wednesday. He did tout his U.S.-Mexico border wall for keeping Americans safe from the virus

Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, photographed during a briefing Monday, announced new mask guidelines on Wednesday, though she doesn't have power to make people wear masks on federal properties, like the White House, within the city limits

'They're all doing a very good job, they're very talented people,' Trump said.

He then pointed to hotspots Arizona, Texas, Florida and California.

Only California has a Democratic governor.

'There are likely a number of causes for the spike in infections. Cases started to rise among young Americans shortly after demonstrations, which you know very well out,' Trump put at the top of his list.

He also mentioned the relaxing of mitigation measures, the summer holidays, an uptick in travel and people gathering at bars and 'maybe beaches.'

'We're also sharing a 2,000-mile border with Mexico,' Trump pointed out.

He said the border wall was having a 'great positive impact' of not letting people in.

'Two hundred and fifty-seven miles of newly constructed wall along the southern border has had a great positive impact on people coming in,' Trump said. 'And we have record low numbers of people coming in illegally.'

'It was really meant for a different purpose but it worked out very well for what we're doing right now and for the pandemic,' the president added.

D.C.'s Mayor Muriel Bowser was dealing with the city's steady uptick in COVID-19 cases Wednesday by firming up the city's mask policy telling residents of the capital that they must wear masks when they leave their homes.

She outlined some exceptions to the rule including for young children, if people are actively eating or drinking, or in an enclosed space, or if they're vigorously exercising and able to stay six feet away from others.

Washington, D.C.'s Mayor Muriel Bowser wears a mask as she arrives to a press conference Monday. The D.C. mayor announced updated mask guidelines Wednesday to respond to an uptick in COVID-19 cases in the capital city

At Trump's briefing, he again pulled a mask out of his pocket to promote mask-wearing, though was seen out in Washington Monday night at his Trump International Hotel sans cover-up.

The president and Bowser haven't seen eye-to-eye in recent weeks.

Things were especially fraught after 'Black Lives Matter' protesters were teargassed in front of the White House on June 1, directly before Trump emerged to walk across Lafayette park to hold up a Bible in front of St. John's church, which had been vandalized.

Bowser ordered 'Black Lives Matter' painted on 16th Street in front of the White House the next morning.

The D.C. mayor has no power to enforce mask-wearing at federal properties, like the White House.
Alamo Square, Cole Valley, Divisadero, Golden Gate Park, Hayes Valley, Inner Richmond, Inner Sunset, Lower Haight, Upper Haight, Western Addition

The camps on Octavia Blvd. are among the most congested and entrenched in District 5. | Photo: Camden Avery/Hoodline

Last week, we reported on the Upper Haight's new city-run tent village at 730 Stanyan St., which provides safe shelter and sanitation for 40 people previously living on the neighborhood's streets.

But while those 40 people have found some welcome stability, hundreds more are still living on the street in the Haight and across District 5. And with COVID-19 cases on the rise again in San Francisco, they could be at serious risk of illness.

Tent camps are visible around the neighborhood  Oak Street, Waller Street, Octavia Boulevard, Haight and Clayton streets, Larch Street and Olive Street. They're crowded, with unreliable access to basic sanitation or services. And they block sidewalks, making it difficult for both campers and pedestrians to remain socially distanced.

"It's a crisis all over the city," said Jen Snyder, legislative aide to District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston. "[Octavia] has reached a boiling point ... It's a total mess down there. Oak Street is similar."

So what does the city plan to do to help get District 5's unhoused residents into safe shelter? The answer appears to be: not much.

Snyder said it's been a struggle to get the city's attention on District 5. That's partially because the situation is even more dire in neighborhoods like the Tenderloin, the Mission and SoMa, and partially because many of District 5's unhoused are young adults, aged 18-24.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will reimburse the city for sheltering people aged 65 or older, or with certain serious medical conditions, in hotel rooms. It won't do the same for young people, unless they've already been diagnosed with COVID-19.

"Youth were never going to be prioritized," Snyder said. "Our encampments in general aren't being addressed."

Story continues

The encampment at the Fell Street DMV was targeted for inclusion at the Haight safe sleeping site, but it ran out of room too quickly. | Photo: Camden Avery/Hoodline

A viable alternative would be the city's "safe sleeping sites" program, of which the 730 Stanyan St. camp is a member.

The plan was devised as a stopgap when Mayor London Breed effectively blocked a unanimous supervisorial vote to house 7,000 homeless people in city-leased hotel rooms. (The city currently has 2,500 hotel rooms allotted to the unhoused, about 1,900 of which are occupied.)

In early June, the city identified 42 viable locations for safe sleeping sites, where people could safely camp at a social distance with sanitation and other amenities.

But it has yet to build any since that announcement  and last week, it closed an existing one at Everett Middle School in the Castro, despite positive feedback from both neighbors and site residents.

The Everett site was shut down because San Francisco's public schools were planning to resume in-person classes on August 17, a plan since abandoned in favor of an indefinite period of distanced learning.

But even though in-person school won't be returning for the foreseeable future, a spokesperson for the city's Department of Emergency Management (DEM) said the Everett safe sleeping site won't come back. That means that other potential safe sleeping sites on SFUSD property  26 of the 42 total options  are likely also off the table.

DEM's Kristin Hogan said officials are currently looking at adding one more safe sleeping site, but declined to disclose where in the city it will be.

"We have not had the success in getting another safe sleeping site or places to sleep reserved for the Haight," said Snyder, Preston's legislative aide. "We just can't get them anywhere, and it's really frustrating our office. We work on it daily."

Tents earlier this year on Leavenworth Street in the Tenderloin, where conditions prompted a lawsuit against the city. | Photo: Carrie Sisto/Hoodline

The last remaining alternative is congregate shelters, which house tens or hundreds of people in a single, open-air space with privacy dividers.

Though they were largely shut down at the beginning of the pandemic, the city has been reopening congregate shelters at a rapid pace, despite concerns from homelessness advocates and people living at the sites.

A report in the San Francisco Public Press on Wednesday found that a congregate shelter at Moscone West, with room for up to 200 people, was unsanitary, with feces-smeared toilet walls and sinks full of needles and garbage.

Three unhoused Moscone residents interviewed by the Public Press said they weren't tested for COVID-19 before entering the facility  a major concern, given that the virus is believed to spread more effectively indoors than out.

Deb Bourne, who oversees coronavirus homelessness response for the San Francisco Department of Public Health, told the Chronicle this month that sleeping outdoors is likely better at preventing COVID-19 spread than sleeping indoors, provided there's social distancing and adequate sanitation.

The air quality is better outside and theres less chance of spread," she said. [Tents are] a barrier, like your room."

Tents on Waller Street have been in place throughout the shelter-in-place order, but aren't as crowded as those on Octavia or Oak. | Photo: Camden Avery/Hoodline

Even if the city were to max out its congregate shelters without compromising safety, advocates say there would still be thousands of homeless people living on San Francisco's streets. And with unemployment skyrocketing and rent payments going missed, their ranks could grow.

Mayor Breed released a two-year plan on homelessness earlier this week. From now through 2022, it will create thousands of permanent supportive housing units for previously homeless people, including those currently living in hotel rooms.

But in the short term, it only offers fixes for about 1,000 more people on the streets  mostly comprised of hotel rooms for the oldest and sickest people, along with more congregate shelter beds and a few RVs.

A new navigation center in the Tenderloin/Lower Nob Hill will specifically target youth aged 18-24  District 5's biggest constituency  but it won't open until the fall, and will only have room for 75 people.

Thousands more will have no choice but to continue camping on the sidewalk.

Even the vulnerable District 5 residents who might qualify for a hotel room have been deprioritized, in favor of other neighborhoods.

Harvard researcher Chris Herring, who's advised the Coalition on Homelessness during the pandemic, said that new hotel enrollments are effectively at a standstill at the moment. And as far as Snyder knows, city teams aren't currently conducting any hotel enrollment outreach to homeless people beyond the Tenderloin.

"The [Breed] administration is just unclear on an overall strategy," Herring said. "They seem to be very reactive."

In the face of that reality, Snyder says that Preston's office has had to broker its own fixes, with minimal support from the Mayor's office.

"Every solution, we've had to do ourselves," she said, from organizing the Haight's safe sleeping site to bankrolling hotel rooms for 39 vulnerable people through private fundraising.

"I think what San Franciscans should be writing their government officials about every single day is, 'What are you going to do when this is over? What are we going to do to actually solve homelessness?'"

Snyder says that Preston's office is happy to receive that feedback, but it can only do so much. Concerned District 5 locals should also be making their voices heard "higher up the ladder," at the Office of the Mayor and the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.

Herring said he believes the city does care about the issue of homelessness, but its response has been patchwork.

"It's not that they haven't done some good things  they can and are [taking action], but it's hard to navigate," he said. "Unfortunately, my broader read is that what's going to happen is going to be really reactive, based on lawsuits and housed people's complaints."
Over the past few months, we have seen many coronavirus statistics. We have also seen many statistical errors, which have made some of us skeptical. My complaint is that not enough of us have been skeptical. From the point of view of someone who uses statistics as part of his work, these errors are simplistic. Allow me to name a few of the errors and show how they can deceive people.

Choose which attribute to measure (deaths versus cases). The COVID-19 pandemic is an experiment with seven billion guinea pigs: us. At the beginning of the experiment, the cases and deaths were counted. The cases were determined with a doctor carefully examining the patient and deciding if this is from COVID-19. The deaths were determined with a doctor following the patient until the patient's unfortunate demise and again deciding if this is from COVID-19. The latter decision is likely more accurate, so it is a more reliable statistic. Counting the cases is still useful because it leads to a probability of death given infection. In the first few months, this probability varied a great deal. This means that one of these statistics is poorly measured. The inaccurate statistic is undoubtedly the number of cases.

Measure the attribute the same way throughout the experiment (avoid changing the way "cases" is defined). Initially, cases were defined with a doctor's examination. Later, a test for the virus was used. Later still, a test for the virus or antibodies was used. Currently, the patient and anyone with whom he had recent contact are called "cases." The CDC is responsible for much of this. For example, the CDC has been recently asking states to change the way they define cases. If that does not sound confusing enough, only some states are making this change, so, state by state, statistics will differ.

Look for problems with data integrity. There have been accusations of people fudging the data. For example, the CDC has been accused of changing old statistics.

Normalize the data (take into account different population sizes). Often, COVID-19 statistics are displayed state by state. Does this link say New York and California have a lot of COVID-19 deaths or just a lot of people? It turns out that as of 17 July 2020, New York has 167 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people, and California has just 19.

What are the consequences of these statistical flaws? Because of the change in counting the number of cases, that number has greatly risen over the past month. It looks so different from the COVID-19 death trend that it is obviously flawed. From the point of view of the typical reporter, looking at cases makes better news, and it beats up on President Trump. Now Florida mistakenly looks like a leper colony, so even though Florida has only one eighth as many deaths per 100,000 people as New York, New York governor Andrew Cuomo declared that people visiting Florida and returning to New York must quarantine themselves for 14 days. Cuomo, whose state is tied with New Jersey as the worst state in the union, as determined by counting deaths, is jealously blaming a better run state for supposedly being worse than New York. Cuomo should put his emotions aside and try to improve his job performance.

The conclusion we should make is that we should look at the normalized deaths and ensure that they are just from COVID-19.

Readers of American Thinker are not dummies. You read these articles because you want to understand the world better. Hopefully, you now have a better idea of how statistics can be mismanaged to lead to incorrect conclusions and conclusions that the wrong people want. You can now tell your liberal friends to avoid these mistakes. Unfortunately, this requires that they perform some arithmetic, and most people prefer that those with journalism degrees do their math for them.
Education is a hot topic this Legislative session. Here's what bills we're watching.

Here are some of the hot-button education bills were tracking at the Argus Leader. Check back each day to see where they stand as we update.
Chile's Congress on Thursday approved a law allowing citizens to withdraw up to 10 percent of their pension funds to help mitigate the effects of the coronavirus, delivering a political blow to President Sebastian Pinera, who opposed the measure. The final vote in the Chamber of Deputies was a foregone conclusion, since the bill had already been approved by the lower house last week and then by the Senate on Wednesday. The bill was approved by 116 votes to 18 with five abstentions. The Senate vote Wednesday was 29 to 13 with one abstention. The change had been opposed by the Pinera government but nonetheless won the support of several legislators in the governing coalition. The presidency announced Thursday night that Pinera would enact the reform on Friday. "The president's decision to promulgate this constitutional reform follows his intention and will, given the difficult economic and social situation experienced by many families, to facilitate and accelerate the withdrawal of these funds," Pinera's office said in a statement. Polls show the measure is highly popular, with over 80 percent support. It would be the first major reform of the privatized pension system since it was installed under late former dictator Augusto Pinochet. The program requires workers to pay 10 percent of their salaries into an individual account that is managed by administrators of private pension funds. These AFPs, as they are known, are deeply unpopular in Chile and were a focal point of widespread anti-government protests in October 2019. Many people had seen their pensions fall below the minimum monthly wage of 301,000 pesos ($390) even though the pension plans were supposed to guarantee them 70 percent of their last salary. With the bill's passage, 10.9 million people will be able to withdraw up to 4.3 million pesos ($5,400) from their pension funds to help confront the economic crisis provoked by four months of coronavirus-induced restrictions. A similar measure that passed in Peru in May saw hundreds of thousands of people withdraw up to $3,700 from their pension funds. Pinera opposed the change and countered with a package of measures to support the middle class, including a $630 bonus and low-interest loans of $1,900. But he failed to sway a number of ruling coalition legislators whose political futures depend on middle class voters, many of whom feel abandoned by the government. Senators in Chile give the thumbs up as they vote on pension reform
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 00:39:17|Editor: huaxia

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Photo taken on June 4, 2020 shows a view of a night market in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province. (Xinhua/Li Mengxin)

BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- China will roll out a host of measures, including encouraging self-employed businesses and supporting part-time employment, to bolster flexible employment through multiple channels, boost job creation and people's income, the State Council's executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang decided on Wednesday.

The Chinese government places great importance on flexible employment. Premier Li pointed to the important role of multiple forms of flexible employment in underpinning employment stability.

"Sustaining employment is our top priority in maintaining stability in the six key areas and enhancing protections in another six priority areas. Flexible employment is of particular importance," Li said, "The situation this year is particularly challenging, as the number of migrant workers staying in or returning to rural areas keeps increasing. Income and employment are closely related. Our people have infinite creativity. This is what makes the Chinese economy resilient," Li said.

It was decided at the Wednesday meeting that self-employed businesses will be encouraged. All relief policies introduced must be effectively implemented. Key populations including college graduates, rural migrant workers and laid-off workers who engage in self-employed businesses will receive start-up subsidies, guaranteed loans, tax relief and other support, according to regulations.

Part-time employment will be supported. Social insurance subsidies will be extended to those having difficulty finding jobs or college graduates yet to be employed two years after graduation when they engage in part-time work.

A network anchor presents the goods to be sold during a live video stream in Baiyun District of Guangzhou City, south China's Guangdong Province, June 6, 2020. (Xinhua/Lu Ye)

"Unwarranted restrictions on flexible employment must be removed, and the proportion of part-time employment needs to expand. New forms of industry and business models have played an effective role in our COVID-19 containment," Li said, "Government departments should exercise the accommodating yet prudent regulation, abolish unreasonable charges and offer more convenient services."

Accommodating yet prudent regulation will be applied to new forms of employment, including online retailing, smart mobility, online education and training, and telemedicine. Online platforms will be encouraged to create more flexible jobs.

"Flexible employment has enormous potential. To meet the overall employment need this year, relevant support policies already introduced, such as tax and fee cuts, must be delivered on the ground as quickly as possible," Li said.

The meeting underscored the need to strengthen public services for employment. The gig work market will be developed to meet employers' need for flexible workers. The rights and interests of those flexibly employed must be protected, including remuneration and occupational safety. No delinquent payment is allowed. Policies protecting platform workers will be developed.

Information on new professions in demand will be released whenever available. Targeted training programs will be carried out to enhance people's capacity for flexible employment.

"Local governments, especially those at city and county levels, must earnestly fulfill their due responsibilities in protecting the lawful rights and interests of flexibly-employed workers. At the same time, businesses should be allowed certain flexibility, so that more jobs will be created. Governments should work to bring down business costs and help increase income for those working flexibly," Li said. 
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Linkedin Mardika Parama (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, July 24 2020

Tempeh, a traditional Indonesian soybean-based culinary product, has potential to be the countrys next big export to the United States during the health crisis as the market for meat alternatives continues to grow, government officials and businesspeople have said.

Arifi Salman, Indonesian consul general in New York, said that as the US meat supply chain had been disrupted by the unfolding pandemic, there was potential to boost sales of tempeh products in the country.

He noted that sales of meat alternative products had increased 53 percent month-to-month (mtm) from April to May, according to data compiled by the consulate.

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Road work with flagger View Photo

Sonora, CA  Flaggers will be directing traffic in the north end of downtown Sonora for PG&E electrical work this weekend.

The utility has hired Intren, an electric company out of Concord, to replace a power pole at 45 East Columbia Way near the North Washington Street/Highway 49 intersection across from Sonora Union High School. Travis Smith with the company explains that it is an aged pole and given a B-tag after an earlier inspection, which means the pole must be replaced within three months.

The work will require the west lane of the roadway to be closed with flaggers directing traffic due to equipment in the area. That includes what is called a boom truck to pull out the pole and replace it with a new one.

The work will begin at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 25, and run until about 3:30 p.m. Smith says the work is being done on the weekend so that local businesses in the area are not impacted by the lane closure.
China on Wednesday strongly condemned the U.S. request to close the Chinese Consulate General in Houston, saying the move was a political provocation unilaterally initiated against China by the U.S. side.

On July 21, the U.S. side abruptly requested the Chinese side to close its Consulate General in Houston. Such a move "seriously violates international law and basic norms governing international relations, seriously violates the bilateral consular agreement between China and the United States, and deliberately undermines Sino-U.S. relations. It is outrageous and unjustified," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a regular press conference.

"China urges the U.S. side to immediately revoke the wrong decision, or China will definitely make legitimate and necessary reactions," said Wang.

For a period of time, the U.S. government has repeatedly shifted blame to the Chinese side, stigmatized and attacked China, made unprovoked attacks on China's social system, and deliberately put obstacles in the way of Chinese diplomatic and consular staff in the United States. In the meantime, the U.S. side has also intimidated, interrogated Chinese students studying in the United States, confiscated their personal electronic devices, and even detained them for no reason, noted Wang.

"The unilateral closure of China's Consulate General in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China," said Wang.

"The Chinese diplomatic missions in the United States have always been committed to promoting mutual understanding and friendship between the Chinese and American peoples," said Wang, noting that China has always adhered to the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Infiltration and interference in other countries' internal affairs have never been the genes or traditions of China's diplomacy.

In accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, China has facilitated the performance of duties of U.S. diplomatic agencies and personnel in China, he said.

In contrast, the United States has imposed unwarranted restrictions on Chinese diplomats in the United States twice -- in October last year and June this year, and even opened Chinese diplomatic bags privately on many occasions, and seized Chinese official supplies, Wang noted.

Due to U.S. recent wanton stigmatization and incitement to hatred toward the Chinese side, the Chinese Embassy in the United States has recently received bomb and death threats against Chinese diplomatic agencies and personnel in the United States. Moreover, the website of the U.S. Embassy in China has often publicly published articles attacking China, Wang noted.

Wang said the facts are clear who are interfering in the internal affairs of other countries and who are engaging in infiltration and confrontation.

Wang said the U.S. side claims that there is no reciprocity in the U.S.-China relations, but this is just an old and meaningless excuse of the United States. He stressed that "in fact, in terms of the number of diplomatic and consular missions in each other's country and the number of diplomatic and consular personnel, the U.S. side far exceeds China."

"We urge the U.S. side to immediately withdraw this erroneous decision. Should it insist on going down this wrong path, China will react with firm countermeasures," Wang said.
A 13-year-old girl who is said to have been depressed over the death of actor Sushant Singh allegedly died by suicide in Chhattisgarghs Durg district on Wednesday night, police said Thursday.

The family said the girl was a seventh standard student and was a big fan of Sushant Singh who dies last month.

Trinath Tripathi, Station House Officer (SHO), Bhilai Nagar police station said the girls parents were not at home when the incident took place.

When her parents returned, they found the door was locked from inside. The father entered the house from the backyard and found his daughter hanging from the ceiling, Tiwari said.

Durgs Superintendent of Police, Prashant Thakur said police have found a suicide note.

We have recovered a suicide note purportedly written by her that said that she was ending her life because she did that actor Sushant has left the world. We are investigating the case from all angles and matching the handwriting of the girl.

The teenagers father told local media that she was a fan of Sushant Singh and was depressed after his death and was continuously watching his videos and songs of his movies.

A case has been registered and the body was sent postmortem.
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The hard-headed reporter who doesnt play by the rules is a stock character of films that invariably do. So it proves, again, in Most Wanted, a fact-based Canadian procedural of police skulduggery and journalistic derring-do that does its own job with proficient integrity, but as much inventiveness as youd guess from that all-purpose placeholder of a title. Writer-director Daniel Roby has fictionalized the grim story of Alain Olivier, a small-time drug dealer tricked in 1989 by Canuck police into traveling to Thailand to orchestrate a major heroin score, landing him several years in a local prison. Victor Malarek, the real-life journo who uncovered the agents corruption, retains his identity in Robys telling, though as played with furrowed brow and gruff virtue by Josh Hartnett, hes a movie hero through and through.

What sparks of strangeness and intrigue Most Wanted has emerge principally from the presence of Antoine-Olivier Pilon  the electric star of Xavier Dolans Mommy in 2014  as Olivier, here renamed Daniel Leger for purposes of creative leeway. His gangly body language and penetrating, off-kilter stare suggest a real, bewildered inner rage, not defined simply by the tabloid-ready circumstances of his victimhood. You neednt be familiar with the true story to anticipate his arc here, but Pilon makes for volatile watching all the same. When the script shifts to matters of newsroom infighting and shoe-leather reporting, Hartnett takes the lead with his usual likeable diligence, but its hard not to feel weve drifted from the films live wire.

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Its a good 45 minutes before Pilons and Hartnetts halves of the film intersect, exposing a staggered non-linear timeline that, while deftly engineered, doesnt yield quite the dramatic payoff you might expect. Before then, Most Wanted introduces its leads in leisurely fashion. Malarek is established as a star print and TV newsman whose earnest commitment to truth-seeking hasnt made him many friends in high places, and a loving but inattentive husband to his wife Anna (Amanda Crew, thanklessly cast). Hes lightly admonished for missing the birth of their first child to chase a scoop; beyond that, Robys screenplay isnt much concerned with Malareks home life either.

Story continues

Leger is presented to us with more human creases and question marks. An itinerant manual laborer with a drug habit and very bad taste in companions, he has a chequered personal history that is revealed only in patches  the blank spaces turn out to be crucial, particularly when the police identify him as an ideal patsy for an entrapment operation. Falling in with brutish low-level criminal Picker (Jim Gaffigan, playing seamily and effectively against type) is a dead end that pretty much anybody but the dim, desperate Leger could see coming: Soon enough, hes sent to Thailand to do a supposedly routine deal. Cue reversal, betrayal and a stint in the infamous Bang Kwang prison  portrayed here in suitably sobering fashion, though with slightly less baroque hellishness than in 2017s A Prayer Before Dawn, another true-life tale of a hapless westerner drawn into its violent confines.

As Malarek pursues the truth of what exactly went down  to the grave consternation of his editor (J.C. Mackenzie), whod rather he just left the whole thing alone  viewers might arrive at it slightly ahead of him. At over two hours, Most Wanted could stand to pick up the pace of its own investigation: Malareks office squabbles and marital strains, in particular, are diversions that consume considerable screen time without accumulating much emotional weight. Whenever its on Thai soil, the film moves with tightened urgency and vigor: Ronald Plantes camerawork, crisp and handsome throughout, gains in humid restlessness as it travels from the serene, misted vistas of British Columbia.

Along with Pilons striking performance, the films sturdy, subdued craftsmanship keeps it from movie-of-the-week territory, even as Robys script ticks overly familiar boxes. Eloi Painchauds score contributes subtle menace, while Yvann Thibaudeaus editing zips and darts and cross-cuts in ways that enliven passages of procedural cliche. Still, its hard not to feel that Most Wanted has hedged its bets between the perspectives of two characters, when wed rather see Olivier/Legers story through his own naive eyes. Whats that they say about journalists becoming the story?

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How a few negative online reviews early on can hurt a restaurant

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Just a few negative online restaurant reviews can determine early on how many reviews a restaurant receives long-term, a new study has found.

The study, published online earlier this month in the journal Papers in Applied Geography, also found that a neighborhood's median household income affected whether restaurants were rated at all.

"These online platforms advertise themselves as being unbiased, but we found that that is not the case," said Yasuyuki Motoyama, lead author of the paper and an assistant professor of city and regional planning at The Ohio State University.

"The way these platforms work, popular restaurants get even more popular, and restaurants with some initial low ratings can stagnate."

The study evaluated reviews in Franklin County, Ohio, from the websites Yelp and Tripadvisor of about 3,000 restaurants per website. Franklin County, home to Columbus and Ohio State, is also home to the headquarters of more than 20 restaurant chains. Previous research has found that the food industry considers consumer preferences in the area to be a litmus test for the broader U.S. market.

The researchers collected reviews for restaurants published in May 2019, then analyzed those reviews by rating and geographic location. They considered demographics for each neighborhood, and noted the socioeconomics of each neighborhood, too, based on household income.

The study found that restaurants with a smaller number of reviews on sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor had higher likelihood of a low rating.

"The more reviews a restaurant received, the higher the average rating of the restaurant," said Kareem Usher, co-author of the paper and an assistant professor of city and regional planning at Ohio State. "But this has implications: If one of the first reviews a restaurant receives comes from a dissatisfied customer, and people check that later and think 'I don't want to go there' based on that one review, then there will be fewer reviews of that restaurant."

The opposite is true for restaurants that receive positive reviews or a large number of reviews: More people are likely to review those restaurants, improving the likelihood that a restaurant's average rating will be higher.

The study found that 17.6 percent of restaurants with only one to four reviews received a low rating on Yelp. But that decreased to 9.3 percent for those with between five and 10 reviews. On Tripadvisor, those with one to four reviews had a 5.6 percent probability of having a poor review, going down to 0.6 percent for those with five to 10 reviews.

Researchers also found that restaurants in several of the poorest neighborhoods in Franklin County tend not to be rated on the sites. However, the researchers did not find a direct link between a neighborhood's socioeconomics or racial makeup and the average rating of the restaurants there.

Motoyama cautioned that the study had some limits: It was conducted in one county, and future work could expand to include other areas around the country. The high level multivariate analysis could only use the Yelp data, as the majority of key information in Tripadvisor was missing. The researchers also did not analyze the content of the reviews, which could offer additional clues about bias.

But, he said, the study does indicate that online review sites can have significant effects on a restaurant's success or failure - and suggests that, perhaps, the sites can set up policies that might be more fair.

"Maybe these online platforms can withhold reviews until a restaurant gets a certain number of reviews - say, 10 or more," he said. "That way if there are two or three customers who are very dissatisfied with a particular experience, they are not directing the restaurant's success or failure."

###

CONTACT: Yasuyuki Motoyama, motoyama.1@osu.edu

Written by: Laura Arenschield, arenschield.2@osu.edu

URL: https:/ / news. osu. edu/ how-a-few-negative-online-reviews-early-on-can-hurt-a-restaurant/

This story has been published on: 2020-07-23. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
World Beijing Vows to Retaliate as US Orders Chinas Houston Consulate Closed

--

BEIJINGChina said Wednesday that it has been ordered by the United States to close its consulate general in Houston, in a move that could inflame already strained tensions between the worlds two major powers, which have been in conflict over economic and security matters.

On July 21, the US abruptly demanded that Chinas consulate general in Houston cease all operations and events, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters, criticizing Washington for seriously violating international law.

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Google has allocated $115 million out of a $250 million investment fund for affordable housing projects in the Bay Area.

The Mountain View tech giant said that the $115 million commitment should help fund the creation of at least 24,000 affordable units by 2029, with most of them using modular construction. The company pledged $1 billion for affordable housing in the region last year; the majority, it said, would come from efforts to rezone Google-owned real estate valued at more than $750 million to allow for the development of housing projects.

Despite plummeting rent prices in the region caused by the economic crisis and coronavirus pandemic, the Bay Area remains an expensive place to live, and local government investment in affordable housing depends on tax revenue that will likely slump this year.

The pandemic has made investment in affordable housing even more urgent for Google, said spokesman Michael Appel.

Facebook also pledged $1 billion last year to help build affordable housing in the region, and last week, Apple announced a $400 million commitment, part of a similar $2.5 billion pledge it made in the fall. Local leaders have blamed the tech giants for contributing to the regions affordable housing crisis.

Some of Googles newly allocated funds will be directed to Factory_OS, a modular housing company, to help the company build a second factory to double production capacity, according to a statement from Rebecca Prozan, the companys Bay Area housing policy lead. Modular homes are prefabricated buildings made up of sections that are built beforehand and then put together onsite, which developers say reduces costs and construction duration.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a project for 145 supported modular apartments built by Factory_OS on July 1, in the first approval for this kind of construction for affordable housing in the city. Modular housing development has faced resistance from construction unions in the city because some jobs are located elsewhere.

Its faster and less expensive than conventional construction, two characteristics that are often unheard of in Californias housing industry. So, were looking into modular housing options for our investments, Prozan wrote in the statement.

Google also committed another $50 million out of the $115 million to nonprofit Housing Trust Silicon Valley  on top of a $50 million investment last year  as the second of the major investments announced Thursday. This new pledge helped create an initiative that will allow Google and the Housing Trust to invest in a range of projects that should help create about 4,000 affordable units, Appel said.

The fund has already invested in two affordable housing developments intended to create 150 homes, one in San Jose and another in Newark, according to the Housing Trust. Googles previous investments in the Housing Trust led to pre-development lending for several affordable housing projects in San Jose and Berkeley, according to the trust.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

Google.org has distributed $7.75 million in grants to Bay Area nonprofits that address housing and other services in the past year.

Google has submitted its plan for affordable housing rezoning in San Jose, which is part of its massive proposal for new housing and offices near Diridon Station. Google expects that the community evaluation and discussion process for that plan will begin in the fall and culminate in a vote in the spring of 2021, according to Appel.

The company is also working with officials in Mountain View to prepare a proposal for rezoning of some of that land in the coming months, he added.

Anna Kramer is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: anna.kramer@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @anna_c_kramer
NEW DELHI : With the Rafales arriving in the country in the middle of a dispute with China, the Indian Air Force is further boosting the capabilities of the combat aircraft by equipping it with the HAMMER missiles from France.

The order for the HAMMER standoff missiles with the capability to take out any types of targets at the range of around 60-70 kms is being processed under the emergency powers for acquisition given to the armed forces by the Narendra Modi government.

"The order for the HAMMER missiles is being processed and the French authorities have agreed to supply them to us at a short notice for our Rafale combat aircraft," government sources told ANI.

In view of the urgent requirement for these missiles by the Air Force, the French authorities would be delivering the systems to India from the existing stock meant for some other customer, they said.

HAMMER (Highly Agile Modular Munition Extended Range) is a medium-range air-to-ground weapon designed and manufactured for the French Air Force and Navy initially.

The HAMMERs would give India the capability to take out any bunkers or hardened shelters in any type of terrain including the mountainous locations such as Eastern Ladakh, the sources said.

When asked to comment, an IAF spokesperson refused to confirm or deny the developments related to the new acquisition.

Five Rafale would be arriving in India from France on July 29 and their advanced weaponry including the long-range SCALP and Meteor missiles would have reached India before their touchdown.

The first five Rafale fighter aircraft would start arriving in India by July 29 flown by pilots of the 17 Golden Arrows commanding officer.

The delivery of the aircraft was earlier supposed to have been done by May end but this was postponed by two months in view of the COVID-19 situation in both India and France.

The trainers will have the tail numbers of the RB series in honour of the Air Force Chief RKS Bhadauria who played a pivotal role in finalising India's largest-ever defence deal for 36 Rafale combat aircraft.

The aircraft on their way from France to India would be refuelled by a French Air Force tanker aircraft in the air around Israel or Greece before they make a stopover in the Middle East.India had signed a deal worth over 60,000 crore with France in September 2016 for 36 Rafales to meet the emergency requirements of the Indian Air Force.

Air Chief Marshal Bhadauria was the Deputy Chief of Air Staff at that time and headed the Indian negotiation team for the deal which is the biggest ever in monetary terms in India. Armed with the long-range Meteor air to air missiles and SCALP, the Rafales would give India an edge over both Pakistan and China in terms of air strike capability.

Sources said the air to air and the air to ground strike capabilities of the Rafale cannot be matched by both China and Pakistan and the aircraft would give India an edge over both the rivals.

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Amritsar Even as a magisterial inquiry is on into incident of swapping of two bodies of covid-19 victims at Amritsar Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) last week, staff nurses and Class-4 staff have accused the medical superintendent (MS) Dr Raman Sharma of issuing back-dated guidelines to deflect blame.

The MS has issued norms for management of bodies and distributed duties of doctors, staff nurses and Class-4 employees for the disposal of covid-19 victims bodies on July 20 (the incident happened on July 17). He, however, mentions the date as June 20, while putting his signature on it. HT has a copy of the letter with two dates of July 20 and June 20.

The June signature was a clerical mistake and the document was released on July 20 with the additional point of clicking photos of bodies with face uncovered and their identification tag visible. The other guidelines were being followed since June, said the MS.

As per the guidelines of Punjab government, a body management committee was to be formed in state GMCs to handle bodies of Covid-19 victims, but no such committee was formed at the Amritsar GMCH, the staff has claimed.

The nursing staff and Class-4 employees of the hospital, however, alleged that the document has been signed in backdate to show seniors and government that the hospital is following these rules since June and to find a scapegoat among staff nurses and Class-4 employees. Already, the GMCH has written a letter to the state medical education and research department to suspend four staff members in handling the bodies.

President of Punjab Nursing Association, Amritsar, Narinder Bhuttar, said on Thursday, The MS signed the document in back-date to show that Class-4 employees and staff nurses are responsible, but no doctor was present in the mortuary, during the tagging of bodies, due to which the incident happened. Doctors on duty have the responsibility of handing the bodies to their families and this is not the assigned duty of staff nurses and Class-4 employees. Doctors are responsible for the body swap incident. Higher authorities should probe the matter.
Businesses are looking into doors without manual knobs or locks, investing in deep cleaning services, installing plastic barriers and adding a transparent film over frequently used buttons on ATM pads and inside elevators. Whats next?

San Antonio-based Documation has an answer: thermal-scanning kiosks.

The devices automatically read the body temperature of the person standing in front of it. If that person has a fever, they are not allowed to enter. Those who are allowed in are reminded to wear a face mask while inside.

Documation installed the kiosks at its own headquarters to check its nearly 150 employees. Just weeks later, its now selling the devices.

The kiosks can be purchased as a plug-and-play item or be integrated into the companys security system with facial recognition software and a feature that sends automated alerts to the human resources department.

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Its not necessarily a moneymaker; its more of how can we help other businesses in the community, said Vice President Robby Brown.

We thought, Wow, this works well for us, he said. So we saw the opportunity to start offering it to our clients.

Its a change of pace for the company, which has offered IT, printing and software-managed services for 30 years.

If we can make this piece of the puzzle easier, it means they can get back to business and hopefully have a better chance of making it through this pandemic, he said.

The thermal scanners are able to measure temperature in less than a second with 98.3 percent accuracy, Brown says.

Fever is one of several symptoms of COVID-19, which has infected thousands in San Antonio and led to more than 280 deaths in the city since March.

But for businesses, it also means not needing to station employees with handheld infrared thermometers at the entrances, potentially exposing them to the virus, he said.

Telethermographic systems are available to the general public, but Brown says Documation wanted to remove the hassle of working with foreign manufacturers, provide an easy installation and allow clients to pay monthly payments.

Brown said some clients have been able to use COVID-19 response funds for the thermal scanners and theres been growing interest in the product.

On ExpressNews.com: Bexar County gives 1 million masks to San Antonio businesses to help contain COVID-19

Documation sold the contactless thermal scanners to the city of Pleasanton, 30 minutes south of San Antonio, so that it can be used for its City Council meetings and also to Porter Loring funeral homes.

The company donated a device to Por Vida Academy Charter High School, which is on the citys South Side.

We want our teachers and students to be safe, and this helps immensely, Por Vida Superintendent Joseph Rendon said.

Consumers out car shopping may come across the new devices at Ingram Park Auto Centers dealerships.

We had those guns that take a persons temperature, but that didnt seem as friendly, said Buck Murray, operations director and chief information officer of IPAC. People really like them (the scanners) and theyre smart  it sends me emails to let me know if someone isnt in compliance with the mask policy.

Murray installed a device at each of its four auto dealerships and auto body shop on Friday.

SOGO Insurance executive Joshua Hernandez says businesses of all sizes are struggling to make their facilities safer, while also minimizing liabilities such as the risk of someone contracting the virus at their facility.

Hernandez, who owns the small San Antonio-based brokerage firm, said hes considered buying a thermal-scanning device for the office, but hasnt purchased one yet.

Some of the firms clients have chosen the route of investing in pricey medical-grade air purification systems. Another client installed a walk-through station outside of their business to disinfect people as they walked in.

On ExpressNews.com: With masks and Lysol cans, stores and malls in San Antonio prepare to reopen

There are many risks associated with operating a business during a pandemic, he says.

Theres the risk of spreading the deadly virus to others, contamination of inventory as well as the actual loss of life among key personnel should they contract COVID-19.

We are trying to be as helpful as possible, but its been pretty difficult for businesses, especially the small ones, he said. I think at this point right now, people are just trying to work with what they have.

The decision of whether to invest in advanced safety measures could be made easier as businesses start to see some relief on insurance premiums.

Hernandez says his clients are paying 50 to 75 percent less on their premiums because theyre often based on payroll and sales  both of which have declined for the majority of businesses during the recent economic downturn.

Laura Garcia covers the health care industry. To read more from Laura, become a subscriber. laura.garcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @Reporter_Laura
Businesses air grievances with Covid-19 restrictions

State Sen. Chuck Edwards makes a point during a meeting with business owners hosted by state Republican Party Chairman Michael Whatley.

About two dozen local business owners and politicians gathered at Hannah Flanagans Pub on Tuesday morning in a Republican Party-orchestrated event to air grievances about the states business restrictions in the coronavirus pandemic.

Michael Whatley, chairman of the N.C. Republican Party, is hosting the traveling road show across the state to discuss the impacts of Covid-19 and its impact on small businesses in the area.

We are running this series to hear what your story is, Whatley said to the masked business owners seated at a long table at the popular Irish pub on Main Street. Videos of individual participants and their stories will be posted on the NCGOP website.

The business leaders represented real estate, construction, gyms, summer camps, agriculture, restaurants, bars and more. City, county and state officials were also present, including state Sen. Chuck Edwards and Rep. Chuck McGrady.

In a roundtable discussion, each attendee had opportunity to speak about how their businesses had been affected by Covid-19, the shutdown and Gov. Roy Coopers executive orders. Concerns ranged from harms to small business, the loss of tourism and sales tax revenue and confusion over the executive orders.

With Governor Cooper holed up in his mansion, he is not hearing from these small business owners, Whatley said.

Multiple attendees spoke of forming plans to reopen in May only to have a new order extend restrictions.

Moving the goalpost has been a theme here, McGrady said.

Jake Dalton, a Transylvania County commissioner who owns a gym, asked, Who tells who, who is and is not essential? I have bills to pay too.

The politicization of the virus came up often throughout the meeting. Attendees said the upcoming elections were affecting the Coopers actions in regards to COVID-19.

This should not be about politics, Edwards said. This should be about getting people back to work.

Hendersonville City Council member Jennifer Hensley described the executive orders and shutdown as a slow trickle and chipping away, of enforcement of things the government shouldnt be a part of.

Many business owners acknowledged the threat of the virus, but wished to reopen and reduce economic impacts.

The answer, according to every expert across the world, is a comprehensive testing plan, Whatley said. Masks are a great tool, social distancing is a great tool, but its not a plan.

Discussion also touched on how schools are being affected by the Governors orders.

Henderson County School Board member Amy Lynn Holt added: Cooper tied our hands. It was more dangerous to bring them in than to keep them home. She said in order to bring students to class in person, they would have to attend one week and then be out for two. Where are the kids for those two weeks? The School Board on Monday looked at the options for opening school on Aug. 17 and, after hearing multiple problems with returing to the classroom, opted for remote learning only through September.

County Commissioner Rebecca McCall said the situation is teaching children to fear the virus.

Kids are the ones Im most concerned about, she said.
DANBURY  Even if city students return to school five days a week, they would be dismissed early each day for at-home learning.

Thats one part of the districts latest $5.2 million plan, which must go to the state by Friday and focuses on preventive measures to keep the community safe from the coronavirus.

An updated version of the distance learning students experienced at the end of last school year will be part of each model.

Were going to have distance learning as a given, whichever system that were on, Superintendent Sal Pascarella told the roughly 350 community members who tuned into Wednesdays online school board meeting. And if we bring students in, in my view, that will be a luxury given the uncertainty of everything thats happening.

The district has asked the state to allow Danbury to start the year with a hybrid model, where half the students would go into the classroom two days a week, while the other half completes distance learning. After a day to clean the buildings, the groups would switch for two days.

The city has enlisted medical professionals to support its plan and explain how Danbury has too many students and too little space to bring everyone back full time. The district is one of the largest in the state and growing.

The hybrid model is the best, the wise model to start the reopening, said Dr. Jack Fong, the districts medical adviser, who is among the medical experts who will write to the state.

Mayor Mark Boughton supports the hybrid model, and expects the doctors feedback to convince the state.

I dont see a bureaucrat up there thats going to overrule a medical doctor, he said.

If the state does, Boughton said hell hold those officials accountable if there is an outbreak.

As the state required, the district has developed full in-person, hybrid and full distance-learning models.

Parents must complete a survey by July 31, saying whether they plan to send their children into the buildings or on the bus. Families may elect to home-school their children.

Parents may change their minds once the state decides if the district can start with the hybrid model. But administrators are relying on this information to plan staffing, so changing then or in the future wont be easy, officials said.

Its a little bit of a chicken-or-an-egg-situation here, said Kara Casimiro, director of instruction and assessment.

An early July survey with nearly 2,950 participants found 73 percent planned to send their children for in-person classes, with 52 percent of students taking the bus. Sixty-four percent of participants wanted to start the year with the hybrid model.

The district is relying on some students staying home to avoid what would be a roughly $10 million to $12 million cost to hire more teachers and add buses, Pascarella said.

Instead, the district has budgeted about $5.2 million to cover the cost of technology, signs, protective equipment, cleaning supplies and more. Funding has already been covered through various sources, including grants and city and federal money.

This assumes that we can fit everyone in classes and we dont need more teachers or more desks, said Courtney LeBorious, director of finance and operations.

About 700 classrooms would have more than 24 students if everyone returned to the buildings, she said.

An architect is working with the district to space out desks, with extraneous furniture being removed from the classrooms. Each school must have an isolation room for sick students.

About 25 employees so far have sought accommodations due to concerns about returning in-person, said Kimberly Mango Thompson, the human resources director. The district is working with the unions and staff members individually, she said.

Under both the full in-person and hybrid models, most students would be dismissed with grab-and-go meals around lunchtime and finish the day with distance learning. Exact schedules vary based on the school level and are expected to change.

In the elementary schools that start later in the day, students would eat lunch in the classroom before dismissal. The schedule for preschoolers is still being worked out.

The before- and after-school care program will be offered. The district is also looking into offering a 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. paid program off-site, which officials said would be helpful under the hybrid model.

We would support their distance learning while they are there, said Anne Mead, director of family, school and community partnerships. But it would also provide care for families while theyre working.
Gov. Kevin Stitt let down Oklahoma public education by using much of remaining discretionary federal emergency funds for private school scholarships that will benefit a small fraction of Oklahomas school-age students.

Last week, Stitt announced his plans to allocate $30 million left from a U.S. Department of Education emergency block grant. This is the governors discretionary funding from the CARES Act.

He is using $10 million for a fund to keep low-income students attending private schools, though it is uncertain what federal poverty level cap will be used to determine eligibility.

Other allocations included $12 million for expanding digital content and $8 million to bridge the technology gap experienced by low-income students in their homes.

Those are appropriate priorities. The shutdown unveiled the depth of technology inequities among homes, particularly the lack of accessible and affordable internet service.

Other challenges included a lack of teacher and student support services for distant learning and required intensive cleaning. Families also dealt with child-care challenges with virtual learning, and some families faced hunger.
Union Helped Britain Through Thick and Thin, Johnson Says During Scottish Visit

On the one-year anniversary of being elected Conservative Party leader and the last day of his first year in No. 10 Downing Street, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Scotland to meet with local businesses, entrepreneurs, and members of the military.

Johnson hoped the trip would reaffirm his promise to be a prime minister for every corner of the United Kingdom, and to see our whole country coming back strongly together.

Ahead of the visit, the prime minister pledged 50 million ($63.4 million) to the remote Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles, to help develop the islands economic potential.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds crabs caught on the Carvela with Karl Adamson at Stromness Harbour, in Stromness, Scotland, on July 23, 2020. (Robert Perry/WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Speaking on Thursday on the Scottish archipelago of Orkney, Johnson stressed that a united kingdom is important for getting through the colder months, when the country is bracing for the possibility of a second wave of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus outbreak, the flu, the impact of Brexit, and flooding striking simultaneously.

I think the merits of the Union are very, very strong, he said.

The Union is a fantastically strong institution. Its helped our country through thick and thin.

The prime minister said he was in Orkney to encourage cooperation to deal with the economic consequences of the pandemic and to see how investment in green technology can be part of the recovery.

Scottish Independence

Johnsons visit is amid a long-lasting political debate on Scottish independence between Britains ruling Conservative Party and the Scottish National Party (SNP), which governs the semi-autonomous Scotland.

With some polls suggesting a slim majority of people in Scotland now support independence from the rest of the United Kingdom, Johnson was keen to press the case for the whole country working together to tackle the CCP virus and its economic impact.

Its very, very valuable in terms of the support weve been able to give to everybody throughout all corners of the UK, Johnson said.

We had a referendum on breaking up the Union a few years agoI think only six years ago. That is not a generation by any computation and I think what people really want to do is see our whole country coming back strongly together, and thats what were going to do.

Speaking to the BBC, he emphasised how [The Union] working together with money for supporting people through furlough, the Army working on the testing, moving people around was a manifestation of the success of the union.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announces the lifting of some CCP virus lockdown rules at the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood, Edinburgh, Scotland, on July 9, 2020. (Fraser Bremner/WPA Pool/Getty Images)

However, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, who will not be meeting the prime minister this time, did not share the same view.

I dont think any of us should be trying to use COVID, the pandemic and the crisis situation we are facing  as some kind of political campaigning tool, she said.

The SNP has accused Johnson of muddled messaging on the CCP virus, and decided to implement its own lockdown strategy independently of London.

Reuters contributed to this report
Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta is presenting the 2020 mid-year budget review to 020parliament today, Thursday, 23 July 2020.

It is in accordance with Section 28 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921).

The Minority in Parliament have said the minister should use the opportunity to render accounts to the nation on all the accruals received for the COVID-19 pandemic fight.

The Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament, Dr Mark Assibey-Yeboah, however, told journalists a few days ago that Mr Ofori-Atta will not be doing that today.

Meanwhile, Economist Prof Godfred Bokpin has said the mid-year budget review, will not be the magic fixer of Ghanas COVID-19-ravaged economy.

There are no quick fixes, there is no immediate magic, a lot depends on prudent, greater sacrifice ahead of us, Prof Bokpin told Kofi Oppong Asamoah on Class91.3FMs mid-day news 12Live on Wednesday, 22 July 2020.

He explained: We have seen a pandemic that hasnt been tamed. The situation is very fluid. Since the beginning of this year, the IMF, the WB, the UN Economic Commission and all of that, have had to revise their projections more than three times. It tells you how fluid the whole thing is.

So, he continued, we know, in part, and we project, in part, and as the situation unfolds, we revise accordingly.

My suggestion to Ghanaians will be: lets be very moderate so youre not disappointed. Why am I saying so? If you look at the fiscal space, even pre-pandemic level, we didnt have the flexibility to implement broad-based policies that can transform the lives of Ghanaians, policies that can take the macro numbers for it to reflect in the pocket of Ghanaians. We havent been able to do that even in normal times, he observed.

From his assessment, the COVID-19 pandemic, which has, so far, killed 153 people in Ghana with a national tally of 28,989, has erased a lot of the economic gains made by the current government.

Now, the little gains that we have made, even under this government, from 2017, because theres no doubt that the economy has taken a turn for good since 2017, even those gains are practically being reversed, he explained, adding: The gains that have been made in the last 10 years, 15 years, also with the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals, where we celebrated that poverty has been halved and all of that, all those things are being reversed as we speak right now.

He said the African continent is also feeling the heat of the pandemic.

More than 27 million Africans are heading into poverty this year, about 45 million Nigerians are heading into food and nutrition crisis, its not different in the Sahel. Now, we are talking about in excess of 145 income losses to be recorded by Africa. If you look at Ghana, our GDP is going to decelerate sharply from about 6.8 per cent to about 1.5 per cent or even if its 2.5 per cent, that is very huge in terms of output losses, which will translate into income losses, so, this is where we find ourselves, he pointed out.

Now, if you look at Ghana, since independence, we havent had a problem with designing strategies. You can look at the Nkrumah, Busia, Kufuor, Mills and Mahama [administrations], our problem has been galvanising the necessary resource and institutional reforms, to translate those projections into useful broad-based inclusive outcomes for Ghanaians.

And, its not going to be different with the mid-year review budget. Why am I saying so? Look at the statement the Finance Minister made in Parliament on the 30th of March. It tells you the deficit. Revenue remains dwarfed even though some of the tax handles have done quite well. Expenditure has gone up, mostly to contain the pandemic.

Now, if you look at the fiscal stimulus that has been done, we have exhausted all of that. And yet, day in day out, more people are falling into the vulnerable group, Prof Bokpin noted.

As far as what can be done to restore the economy is concerned, Prof Bokpin said: A lot depends on the pillars that the government will identify to aid the recovery. That will be very very important since we dont have money.

It is not also entirely our doing and Africa must fight this together. If you look at the global geopolitics and the world order, as it has been designed to be, its been done not to favour us and its going to expose us further and further hold us back from developing because of COVID-19, he noted.

---classfmonline
Secretary of the Prosperous Armenia faction of the National Assembly of Armenia Arman Abovyan today posted the following on his Facebook page:

As we predicted, the Azerbaijanis are very actively moving the Karabakh-Azerbaijan conflict to the territories of third countries.

The apricot-gate in Russia, the car of the Embassy of Armenia in Germany that was set on fire in Berlin today, the obvious blackmailing against the Georgian authorities and dozens of provocations against Armenians in different countries  these are the very specific and calculated steps of the Azerbaijanis that are aimed at causing uproar over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in different countries.

This technology is generally used when those who start the escalation (in the Armenians case  the Azerbaijani leadership) are preparing to seriously take the offensive and are trying to prepare ground for public opinion in different countries through this aggression.

Taking into consideration the logic of the Azerbaijanis actions on in domestic and foreign policies and in the military and diplomacy, it is unequivocally safe to express the opinion that the Turks and Azerbaijanis are preparing for serious provocations.

We Armenians must be alert.
The candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the September 19 gubernatorial election in Edo State, is currently leading Governor Godwin Obaseki, the flagbearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in an online poll conducted by Ripples Nigeria.

The online poll with the headline Who would you vote in the Edo Guber election: Obaseki or Ize-Iyamu has 4,292 votes as at 7:14pm on Wednesday, July 22.

In the result, 48 percent of respondents said they will vote for Ize-Iyamu while 46 per cent picked Obaseki. Five percent of the respondents picked other candidates aside the two main challengers.

John Mayaki, the Chairman of the Edo state APC Media Campaign Council, said the poll was sponsored by Governor Godwin Obaseki to test his might.

Crusoe Osagie, Media Aide to Governor Obaseki, could not be reached for his reaction.

Recall that the New Nigeria Collective (NNC) group has accused the Edo state governor, Godwin Obaseki, of running his government based on lies.

According to the group, Governor Obaseki is best known for hounding opponents who refuse to support his government.

In a press statement sent to journalists on Wednesday, July 22 and signed by its chairman, Adeola Adewunmi, the group also accused the governor of making several attempts to intimidate one of the respected men in Edo state, Captain Hosa Okunbor.
Two of Northern Irelands largest out-of-town retail schemes are bucking the nationwide trend of a steep decline in shopper footfall and spend, with big brand retailer sales at these locations outperforming those at other outlets across the UK and Europe.

Since opening their doors on June 15th, The...

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The U.S. decision to close the Chinese Consulate General in Houston has drawn criticisms worldwide. Multiple international experts called the move a unilateral U.S. political provocation, which seriously violates international law and basic norms governing international relations, and undermines China-U.S. relations.

On Tuesday, the U.S. side abruptly requested the Chinese side to close its Consulate General in Houston.

Hussein Ismail, a researcher at Egypt State Information Service, said that the U.S. move is a unilateral political provocation, a serious violation of international law and basic norms governing international relations, a reflection of the arrogance of the U.S. government and a destruction of China-U.S. relations.

Ali Sarwar Naqvi, executive director at the Islamabad-based Center for International Strategic Studies in Pakistan, said the U.S. move has shocked the world because people got scared of the direction in which the United States is taking the world.

Such a condemnable and immature decision is totally against the diplomatic norms and a sheer violation of the Vienna Convention, he added.

Regarding the U.S. move as a petty and vile provocation, Andrey Manoilo, doctor of political science at Moscow State Lomonosov University, said from a diplomatic point of view, this is a clearly unfriendly act of the United States.

Cavince Adhere, an international relations researcher specializing in China-Africa relations in Kenya, said the U.S. move that risks escalating the diplomatic friction between China and the United States may further rock bilateral ties.

The closure of the consulate will adversely impact the daily lives of the Chinese living in the United States and blunt efforts to promote cultural exchanges among the people of the two countries, Adhere added.

The United States is using "China card" so that U.S. President Donald Trump can turn the election situation in his favor, said Volodymyr Volya, an expert at the Ukrainian Institute of Politics.

This has already made a small negative impact on global economic development, said Volya, warning that further deterioration of China-U.S. relations is possible.

On Wednesday, Chinese Embassy in the United States said in a statement that "China strongly condemns and firmly opposes such an outrageous and unjustified move which sabotages China-U.S. relations."

Over the years, Chinese diplomatic missions in the United States, including the Consulate General in Houston, have been performing duties in strict accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, and are dedicated to promoting China-U.S. exchanges and cooperation and advancing the two peoples' mutual understanding and friendship, the statement said.
A judge has spoken of his disbelief at how a man ejected from a train in Longford and found stumbling along a footpath in the county town earlier this month could have 365 previous convictions to his name, telling him: You're not serious? Youve one for every day of the year.

Gary Byrne, of no fixed abode, Coolock, Dublin, pleaded guilty to being found drunk in public at 9am in the morning on July 6, 2020 and of refusing to give his name and address.

Sgt Paddy McGirl said gardai came across the accused in an extremely intoxicated state and was consequently arrested for his own safety.

Wearing beige jeans and a blue shirt, Mr Byrne was visibly shaking inside court as he stood beside his solicitor Frank Gearty.

Under questioning from the judge as to his well being, the 53-year-old said he was not in a position to eat breakfast prior to court, explaining his physical demeanour was due to him suffering withdrawal symptoms from alcohol.

How much would you drink in a day? Judge Hughes asked.

Anything I could get my hands on, came the reply from the Dubliner, adding he would comfortably consume a litre bottle of whiskey inside an hour if given the opportunity.

You must have the constitution of a horse, interjected Judge Hughes for a second time.

Mr Gearty, meanwhile, said his client was a father of one who had fallen on hard times.

He was on his way to Sligo to see his brother who is a counsellor and was intoxicated, said Mr Gearty.

And the staff quite rightly put him off the train.

Mr Byrne, himself, said he was trying his best to arrest his addiction problem and was presently studying.

Judge Hughes ultimately fined Mr Bryne 150 for declining to offer his name and address, giving him three months to pay.

The accompanying charge of being found drunk in public was struck out.
Economists, politicians, and investors are all keeping a close eye on unemployment numbers--a key benchmark in determining the overall health of the economy. Of course, unemployment has a variety of effects, none of which are particularly good, but I think the recent spike in unemployment is different from typical unemployment in two main ways.

First off, the spike was huge. In April, unemployment in the United States rose to a massive 19.7 percent, meaning about one in five people was out of work.

And second, it might be temporary. Most lost jobs were associated with the direct and indirect consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, leading many experts to believe this spike in unemployment is temporary. There's early evidence to suggest this might be the case, with unemployment falling to 16.3 percent in May, and 11.1 percent in June.

Millions of people are currently relying on emergency small-business funds, unemployment benefits, or a combination of these and other programs to stay afloat during these uncertain times. So what does this mean for the world of entrepreneurship? I believe we'll see higher interest in entrepreneurship and better opportunities for current entrepreneurs.

First, it's important to acknowledge that two people who are unemployed aren't necessarily going to have the same overall experience. Unemployment laws vary wildly from state to state, so someone filing for unemployment in New York is going to have a much different time than someone filing in Wyoming.

On top of that, people handle unemployment differently. For some, it's a temporary predicament not worth worrying about; they breeze through the experience, and start looking for a new job as soon as they can. For others, it's borderline traumatizing; they worry they're never going to work again, and may suffer from prohibitive mental and emotional effects.

That said, here's a handful of effects that I predict will emerge from spiked unemployment.

Entrepreneurial Interest

First, I believe we can count on a new wave of entrepreneurial interest. Millions of people lost their jobs and likely felt helpless to do anything about it; they weren't in charge of making those decisions, and had no control over their situation. It's reasonable to assume that many of these people will be motivated to pursue a career path that imbues them with more autonomy. They want to be the ones making the decisions, and they want more control over their economic future.

I think entrepreneurship is the only real path to achieve these goals. Starting your own business gives you the power to control your own income, and adapt to new circumstances as they arise. Among people who start small businesses, 55 percent cite their biggest motivation in opening a business was being their own boss--and getting to make those important decisions, rather than being subject to the whims of others.

New Opportunities

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed our way of life, at least temporarily. Even major corporations like Microsoft, Google, and Twitter made a bold transition to encourage employees to work from home. Remote work is being taken more seriously, and people are becoming more comfortable with the concept. Additionally, people are finding ways to entertain themselves within the home because of social distancing guidelines.

This presents many new opportunities for entrepreneurs looking to solve a problem. Today, it's possible to start a full business, with employees, entirely from your home office. And with so many people adapting to new and unusual circumstances, there are plenty of new problems to be solved.

On top of that, if you're unemployed, you've got extra time on your hands--which you can use to learn a new skill, research a specific problem, or build a product that people will want to buy.

Potential Employees

It's also worth noting that you can count on a readily available workforce if you need to hire employees. With millions of people out of work and looking for new opportunities, it shouldn't be hard to find people with the right skills (or at least the right attitude) to help your business grow.
State conservation officers have a variety of duties, including responding to all sorts of calls concerning wildlife.

Recent incidents involve dealing with a wayward African tortoise that mysteriously appeared on a persons yard, capturing a hurting bald eagle that was shot and late witnessing its release  and making an arrest involving the illegal selling of two stools made from an elephants feet.

The following information below was supplied by the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The incidents occurred between May 25 and July 19.

Traveling Tortoise - Chenango County On July 16, ECO Brett Armstrong responded to a Facebook Messenger complaint in the town of Plymouth regarding a tortoise that had been walking around in the complainants front yard for a few days. ECO Armstrong located the tortoise and identified it as a 50-pound Sulcata (African Spurred) tortoise. The Officer captured the tortoise and transported it to Country Care Veterinary Services in Afton for a health evaluation. The tortoise will be turned over to Animal Adventure Park in Harpursville. No information was available on how or where the tortoise originated.

According to SanDiegoZoo.com, The African spurred tortoise is the largest mainland tortoise, easily reaching 30 inches (76 centimeters) in length and well over 100 pounds (45 kilograms) in heft. Some males even reach 200 pounds (90 kilograms)! It is surpassed only by the island dweller tortoises from Aldabra and Galapagos.

Rehabilitated bald eagle in Schoharie County outfitted with tracking monitor flies upon release.

Eagle Takes to the Skies - Schoharie County On July 19, a bald eagle was released in Schoharie County after months of rehabilitation. A retired New York State Police Investigator first found the eagle suffering from a broken wing and lead poisoning after being shot by an unknown perpetrator in Schoharie several months ago. The eagle was transported to Friends of the Feathered and Furry Wildlife Center where the bird began its four-month recovery under the care of wildlife rehabilitator Missy Runyan. ECO Melissa Burgess was on hand when they released the eagle near the location it was discovered. Runyan and the Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society helped secure funds for a GPS tracking monitor for the bird, making it the first eagle to participate in the rehabilitation center's new study tracking the movements and recovery success of lead-poisoned birds. Researchers are looking to broaden the research pool and fit more birds with GPS monitors. DEC's investigation into who shot the eagle is ongoing.

ECOs Brandean Parmelee and Murel Lovgren with seized foot stools made from an elephant's feet.

Stomping Out Illegal Commercialization of Wildlife - Queens County On May 25, ECOs Murel Lovgren and Brendan Parmelee and Investigator Joshua Harvey conducted a buy for an illegal commercialization case in Queens involving two stools made of elephant feet. The stools, made from genuine elephant parts prohibited for sale in New York, were listed for sale online for $1,800, resulting in a Class E felony under the State Environmental Conservation Law. The items were forfeited as a result of the undercover investigation and will be used for educational purposes.

Petroleum Spill - Onondaga County On July 17, ECO Don Damrath received and responded to a complaint at an auto repair facility in the city of Syracuse concerning petroleum products possibly entering a stormwater drain on the property. Officer Damrath discovered leaking 55-gallon drums and other signs to suggest that the products were making it to the drain, even with heavy rains washing away some of the evidence. The owner of the property was instructed to clean up the mess, properly store used oil, and remove waste tires also on-site. ECOs charged the owner with depositing noxious, offensive, or poisonous substances into public waters via the storm drain under Environmental Conservation Law. The name of the business and its owner was not released.

Not a Fluke - Queens County While on patrol on July 6, ECOs Colton Garrand and Darren Milliron responded to a complaint about two people keeping a garbage bag full of summer flounder (fluke) on the North Channel Bridge of Jamaica Bay in Queens County. The ECOs discovered hidden garbage bags containing 16 fluke near the suspected poachers. The fish ranged from 10-12 inches, much smaller than the legal size of 19 inches. ECOs issued five tickets to the two individuals for violations including possession of under-sized fluke, over the limit, and failure to release without undo harm.
A man accused of killing his former partner and dumping her body in a bathtub where it remained for months while he allegedly claimed her Centrelink benefits has stormed off in the middle of a failed bail bid.

Andrew Baker, who appeared in the Supreme Court via videolink on Thursday, interjected in proceedings as the prosecution was summarising its case against him.

Sarah Gatt as a teenager. Credit:Victoria Police

Im not putting up with this shit anymore mate. See you later, he told the court before leaving the videolink.

Mr Baker has been charged with the murder of Sarah Gatt, 40, and is currently on remand.
Steve Ralph's life changed in a second after a diving accident in 2018 damaged his spinal cord, leaving him unable to walk and with only limited hand movement.

Misjudging the depth of a pool, the 27 year-old hit his head. "Within a second, I felt like someone had turned the lights off in a room I was in," Mr Ralph said. "The communication to the rest of my body disappeared within seconds."

At the opening on Thursday of a Spinal Cord Injury Research Centre at Neuroscience Research Australia in Kensington, south-east Sydney, Mr Ralph, who is a quadriplegic, did something he hasn't been able to do without assistance since the accident.

Duncan Wallace CEO SpinalCure Australia with Steven Ralph at the announcement of funding for the new Spinal Cord Injury Research Centre. Credit:Steven Siewert

He curled his fingers into a fist when his muscles were stimulated with electricity.
There seems to be many choices for students in Africa to continue studying while schools remain closed because of the coronavirus crisis. Lessons are taught on television or over the radio. Math problems appear in newspapers. Classes are held on video conferencing services like Zoom or WhatsApp.

But the truth is that many students will fall behind and possibly drop out of school forever. If that happens, inequality will worsen across an already unequal continent.

Mary Goretti Nakabugo is a literacy expert who runs a nonprofit education organization called Uwezo. It is based in Uganda.

Nakabugo told The Associated Press, I think education now is more of an emergency than the health issue. Children, she added, are completely helpless at the moment.

Nakabugo said that limited testing for COVID-19 means cases are likely undercounted in the East African country. But there have been no reported virus deaths in Uganda and just over 1,000 cases.

The coronavirus crisis has created education difficulties around the world. But the schooling crisis is even more severe in Africa, where up to 80 percent of students are unable to connect to the internet. Electricity is also sometimes not dependable, making distance learning difficult or even impossible. And, in normal times, schools often provide safety to children and offer services that their families cannot pay for.

Sub-Saharan Africa has more children who do not attend school than any other place in the world. The United Nations culture and education agency reports nearly one-fifth of children between the ages of six and 11, and over one-third of youth between 12 and 14, do not attend school.

In a report published this week, the charity organization Save the Children called the coronavirus crisis the biggest global education emergency of our time. The report identified 12 countries in which children are at extremely high risk of dropping out forever. Nine of them are in sub-Saharan Africa.

With the help of outside groups, some African governments have announced measures to support learning from home. But many have been limited by a lack of dependable electricity and poor internet connectivity. Even publishing lessons in newspapers can be too costly for people in some places.

Ugandas government has promised to provide 10 million radios and over 130,000 solar-powered television sets. But officials have failed to honor other promises during the crisis, including giving free face coverings to everyone.

In neighboring Kenya, schools for young children and teenagers will remain closed through 2020. Yet colleges and universities can reopen in September. The decision means Kenyan students will repeat a school year, a situation commonly described as a dead year.

The effects of school closures will not be limited to learning. A report by the Norway-based Christian Michelsen Institute said, The critical consequences may be related to health, water and nutrition. That is because schools provide important services to many African young people, the development research organization noted.

School closures may deny students access to food and health programs -- and sometimes clean water.

Schools also provide protection for children from work and exploitation. Girls may especially suffer, says literacy expert Nakabugo. She noted several studies that have reported a rise in pregnancies among teenagers. The Norway-based groups report noted that the same thing happened during West Africas Ebola crisis.

The shutdown could also mean many schools close permanently and many teachers quit, worsening what is already the worlds worst teacher shortage.

Media reports in Uganda point to school owners who are looking to sell their properties or have turned student housing into apartments in order to pay their loans.

In the West African nation of Senegal, education officials tried to keep children learning by broadcasting some classes on television after schools closed in March. The move aimed to reach students without home internet access. But electricity is often lacking in villages.

At many schools in Zimbabwe, up to 70 students may be placed into a small room. The government is postponing a reopening plan that was supposed to start this month. Teachers unions, or labor groups, warned that such a plan was dangerous for schools lacking face coverings, personal cleaning products, and even running water.

Even in South Africa, the continents biggest economy, the government has faced criticism. Teachers unions question the governments decision to reopen schools despite a growing number of cases.

Im Pete Musto.

Rodney Muhumuza reported on this story for the Associated Press. Pete Musto adapted it for VOA Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

conferencing  n. the act of meeting formally in order to talk about ideas or problems related to a given topic, such as medicine or business)

drop out  p.v. to stop attending a school or university before you have completed your studies

literacy  n. the ability to read and write

charity  n. the act of giving money, food, or other kinds of help to people who are poor or sick

global  adj. involving the entire world

solar  adj. of or relating to the sun

consequence(s)  n. something that happens as a result of a particular action or set of conditions

access  n. a way of being able to use or get something

exploitation  n. the act of using someone or something in a way that is unfair

teenager(s)  n. someone who is between 13 and 19 years old

apartment(s)  n. a usually rented room or set of rooms that is part of a building and is used as a place to live

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.
By Azernews





By Akbar Mammadov

Armenians have committed acts of vandalism during peaceful rallies held in a number of countries against Armenias recent provocation on the border, Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov said during the ministrys presser on July 23.

Khalafov said that the Armenian regime, after the defeat of on the battlefield, have committed atrocities against Azerbaijanis holding peaceful protests in various foreign countries for the purpose of diverting attention from the main issue.

The deputy minister emphasized that Azerbaijanis abroad are protesting peacefully to demand an end to Armenian atrocities.

Khalafov also touched upon the latest Armenian provocation against Azerbaijanis ar the Azerbaijani General-Consulate in Los-Angeles.

We are in regular contact with the diplomatic missions of the countries, in which the incidents occurred. They are informed about the situation in details, Khalafov said.

The official noted that US police will thoroughly investigate the act of vandalism against Azerbaijanis in this country and take the necessary measures. The US ambassador to Azerbaijan has also stated this, the deputy minister added.

In the meantime, the FM Spokesperson Leyla Abdullayeva said in the same briefing that an Armenian attacking an Azerbaijani woman in Los Angeles was detained and will stand trial.

It should be noted that on July 22, the US ambassador to Azerbaijan was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after thousands of Armenians attacked a small group of Azerbaijanis and injured seven Azerbaijanis, including a woman.

Armenian radicals also committed provocation near the Azerbaijani Embassy in Belgium on July 22, assaulting Azerbaijani protestors by throwing stones at them. An Azerbaijani journalist received a head injury as a result of the attack.
(Natural News) It turns out, talking trees exist beyond science fiction, says actual science.

The idea of trees talking  and humans understanding them  is a hot topic in environmental science. But for Suzanne Simard, a biologist and a pioneer of inter-plant communication research from the University of British Columbia, the idea that trees talk isnt up for debate. In her 1997 doctoral thesis published in the journal Nature, Simard first demonstrated that trees are capable of communication and share an intelligence similar to insect colonies.

Decades of research and further studies later, Simard described and elucidated the mechanisms behind these inter-plant connections and ecological relationships in a TED talk on the secret language of trees.

Redefining communication

The concept of a tree language isnt as far-fetched to Simard as it might seem to experts and skeptics alike. Simard has devoted more than three decades of her career among trees and forests in attempting to understand their behaviors, the ecological relationships among them and the mechanisms behind both.

For decades, scientists understood little about the supposed connections and relationships among trees. For this reason, Simards initial work was groundbreaking at the time, as it had been the first of its kind not only to postulate that there is such a thing as inter-plant communication but also to explore this concept.

In her TED talk, Simard describes trees as being capable of communication, thanks to an underground maze of fungal connections. Trees use these connections to exchange signals, she adds, in order to communicate and trade nutrients.

She notes that these connections are entangled, such that a group of trees or an entire forest behaves as if it is a single organism.

Through her research, Simard established that the complex relationships among trees are reminiscent of the intricate neural connections inside the human brain. In fact, forests even have so-called mother trees that act as the central hub or information center, much like the brain.

These mother trees are also capable of sending out nutrients to stricken trees. Interestingly, she also found that trees that are too sick to recover can send out their remaining nutrients to their neighbors before expiring.

Using radioactive carbon dating, Simard was able to take a much closer look at these interactions. For instance, she found that Birch trees losing their leaves receive extra carbon from Douglas Firs. In turn, Birch trees confer extra carbon to Douglas Firs that do not get enough sunlight.

All in all, these processes make it possible for trees to survive through harsh conditions.

But on rare occasions, the fungi that trees use to communicate can also be hijacked by selfish trees. However, this type of activity is limited to select plant species. In general, Simard found trees to be altruistic and quite generous in sharing their nutrients.

There is a lot more cooperation involved than there is competition, she adds.

The anthropomorphic nature of trees

Perhaps most lauded for his books on trees and other ecological themes, German forester and author Peter Wohlleben also subscribed to the idea that trees talk to each other.

But unlike Simard, he took it further, describing trees as being capable of human-like abilities, such as deciding, remembering and demonstrating personalities.

He goes as far as claiming that trees are anthropomorphic. People look at nature as if it is a machine and plants as robotic, programmed according to a genetic code, he notes. But much about the ecological communities and connections underground remains unclear.

Nonetheless, foresters, biologists and ecologists agree that trees are social beings capable of both competition and commensalism or mutualism.

Trees are competitors that struggle against each other for light, space and nutrients, Wohlleben notes, recounting his experiences as a forester. But on the flip side, trees are also capable of sustaining each other, supporting stricken trees, nurturing saplings, and keeping out invasive tree species.

Trees use their roots to recognize their friends or families, he adds. These same roots are thought to be behind trees abilities to spot and recognize other trees that are not members of their communities.

That being said, these remain suppositions and theories until further research can be done. Nonetheless, these uncertainties just underscore the fact that a host of possibilities remain in attempting to understand the underground connections among trees and entire forests.

Taken together, these current studies and research efforts on the hidden life of trees and forests confirm at least one thing: Trees speak a language that humans are yet to understand. (Related: Trees are good for your emotional health: Study determines living on the edge of a forest is good for your brain.)

Read more articles about trees and the ecological relationships among them at Ecology.news.

Sources include:

E360Yale.edu

WakingTimes.com

TheGuardian.com
A bomb went off at a busy open-air market in a tribal district in northwestern Pakistan on Thursday, injuring at least 20 people. The bomb blast occurred in Turi Bazar in the city of Parachinar when explosives planted on a cart went off as people were busy in buying groceries and vegetables.

At least 20 people sustained injuries, police said. Parachinar is the capital city of Kurram district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Soon after the blast, security forces and rescue teams reached the spot. The injured were rushed to District Headquarters Hospital.

Security forces have cordoned off the area and launched a search operation. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but the region is known for sectarian clashes between Sunnis and Shias. The residents blocked the main highway for all kind of traffic and staged a protest in front of Parachinar Press Club.
Global Underfill Dispensers Market to Reach US$89. 1 Billion by the Year 2027. Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the global market for Underfill Dispensers estimated at US$53. 3 Billion in the year 2020, is projected to reach a revised size of US$89.

New York, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Global Underfill Dispensers Industry" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05900681/?utm_source=GNW

1 Billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 7.6% over the analysis period 2020-2027.Capillary Flow Underfill, one of the segments analyzed in the report, is projected to grow at a 7.6% CAGR to reach US$37.8 Billion by the end of the analysis period.After an early analysis of the business implications of the pandemic and its induced economic crisis, growth in the No Flow Underfill segment is readjusted to a revised 6.7% CAGR for the next 7-year period. This segment currently accounts for a 33.5% share of the global Underfill Dispensers market.



The U.S. Accounts for Over 27% of Global Market Size in 2020, While China is Forecast to Grow at a 11.5% CAGR for the Period of 2020-2027

The Underfill Dispensers market in the U.S. is estimated at US$14.4 Billion in the year 2020. The country currently accounts for a 27.03% share in the global market. China, the world second largest economy, is forecast to reach an estimated market size of US$19.9 Billion in the year 2027 trailing a CAGR of 11.5% through 2027. Among the other noteworthy geographic markets are Japan and Canada, each forecast to grow at 4.2% and 6.8% respectively over the 2020-2027 period. Within Europe, Germany is forecast to grow at approximately 4.9% CAGR while Rest of European market (as defined in the study) will reach US$19.9 Billion by the year 2027.



Molded Underfill Segment Corners a 24.1% Share in 2020

In the global Molded Underfill segment, USA, Canada, Japan, China and Europe will drive the 8.2% CAGR estimated for this segment. These regional markets accounting for a combined market size of US$9.7 Billion in the year 2020 will reach a projected size of US$16.8 Billion by the close of the analysis period. China will remain among the fastest growing in this cluster of regional markets. Led by countries such as Australia, India, and South Korea, the market in Asia-Pacific is forecast to reach US$12.3 Billion by the year 2027, while Latin America will expand at a 10.3% CAGR through the analysis period. We bring years of research experience to this 9th edition of our report. The 280-page report presents concise insights into how the pandemic has impacted production and the buy side for 2020 and 2021. A short-term phased recovery by key geography is also addressed.



-Competitors identified in this market include, among others,

Story continues

Essemtec AG

Henkel AG & Co. KGaA

Illinois Tool Works, Inc.

ITW Dynatec

ITW EAE

Master Bond, Inc.

MKS Instruments, Inc.

Newport Corporation

NORDSON Corporation

Shenzhen STIHOM Machine Electronics Co., Ltd.

Sulzer Ltd.

Zmation Inc.







Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05900681/?utm_source=GNW



I. INTRODUCTION, METHODOLOGY & REPORT SCOPE



II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY



1. MARKET OVERVIEW

Underfill Dispenser Market: Prelude

Competition

Global Underfill Dispenser Market: Percentage Breakdown of

Sales by Leading Players for 2019E

Global Competitor Market Shares

Underfill Dispenser Competitor Market Share Scenario Worldwide

(in %): 2019 & 2025

Impact of Covid-19 and a Looming Global Recession



2. FOCUS ON SELECT PLAYERS



3. MARKET TRENDS & DRIVERS

Despite Fears of IC Packaging Market Slowdown due to US-China

Trade Tensions, Sustained Growth in Advanced Packaging to Fuel

Demand for Underfill Dispensers

Global Advanced Semiconductor Packaging Market: Breakdown of

Revenues by Platform for 2019 and 2023

Rapidly Growing Semiconductor Industry Presents Opportunities

for the Underfill Dispensers Market

Global Semiconductor Industry Sales Revenues in US$ Billion for

the Years 2010 through 2019

Growing Sales of Smart Handheld Devices Augurs Well for the Market

Stable Sales of Smartphones: An Opportunity Indicator

Global Smartphone Shipments in Million Units for the Years 2016

through 2024

Increasing Adoption Wearable Electronics in Various Industries

Augurs Well for Underfill Dispensing Market

Global Wearable Devices Market: Annual Shipments in Million

Units for the Years 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023

Next Generation of Multi-functional Dispensing Enable

Semiconductor Back-end Packaging

Underfill Encapsulants: Important Role in Improving Reliability

of Flip Chip Assemblies

Stages for Underfill Dispensing in Advanced Package Application

Significant Changes in Application of Underfill

Addressing the Challenges of Jet-Dispensing Underfill in Chip-

On-Wafer (COW) Process

High-Throughput Underfill Dispensing in Chip-On-Wafer Packaging

Large-Volume Underfill Processes Requires Better Maintenance

and Reliability

Flip Chip: The Most Popular IC Packaging Technology Fuels Need

for Underfill Dispensing

Technology Advancements Enable Faster Underfill of Flip Chips

Jet Dispensers for Underfill Applications in Medical Device

Assembly

Jetting Evolves As a Key Means of Underfill Dispensing in Light

Emitting Diode (LED) Products

Jetting Technology Reduces Substrate Area for Underfill for

High Density SiP Manufacturing and Consumer Electronic Devices

PRODUCT OVERVIEW

Underfill

Underfill Dispensing

Jet Dispensing

Capillary Underfill Dispensing

PCD Dispensing for Underfill



4. GLOBAL MARKET PERSPECTIVE

Table 1: Underfill Dispensers Global Market Estimates and

Forecasts in US$ Million by Region/Country: 2020-2027



Table 2: Underfill Dispensers Global Retrospective Market

Scenario in US$ Million by Region/Country: 2012-2019



Table 3: Underfill Dispensers Market Share Shift across Key

Geographies Worldwide: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 4: Capillary Flow Underfill (Product) World Market by

Region/Country in US$ Million: 2020 to 2027



Table 5: Capillary Flow Underfill (Product) Historic Market

Analysis by Region/Country in US$ Million: 2012 to 2019



Table 6: Capillary Flow Underfill (Product) Market Share

Breakdown of Worldwide Sales by Region/Country: 2012 VS 2020 VS

2027



Table 7: No Flow Underfill (Product) Potential Growth Markets

Worldwide in US$ Million: 2020 to 2027



Table 8: No Flow Underfill (Product) Historic Market

Perspective by Region/Country in US$ Million: 2012 to 2019



Table 9: No Flow Underfill (Product) Market Sales Breakdown by

Region/Country in Percentage: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 10: Molded Underfill (Product) Geographic Market Spread

Worldwide in US$ Million: 2020 to 2027



Table 11: Molded Underfill (Product) Region Wise Breakdown of

Global Historic Demand in US$ Million: 2012 to 2019



Table 12: Molded Underfill (Product) Market Share Distribution

in Percentage by Region/Country: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 13: Flip-Chips (End-Use) Demand Potential Worldwide in

US$ Million by Region/Country: 2020-2027



Table 14: Flip-Chips (End-Use) Historic Sales Analysis in US$

Million by Region/Country: 2012-2019



Table 15: Flip-Chips (End-Use) Share Breakdown Review by

Region/Country: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 16: Ball Grid Array (End-Use) Worldwide Latent Demand

Forecasts in US$ Million by Region/Country: 2020-2027



Table 17: Ball Grid Array (End-Use) Global Historic Analysis in

US$ Million by Region/Country: 2012-2019



Table 18: Ball Grid Array (End-Use) Distribution of Global

Sales by Region/Country: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 19: Chip Scale Packaging (End-Use) Sales Estimates and

Forecasts in US$ Million by Region/Country for the Years 2020

through 2027



Table 20: Chip Scale Packaging (End-Use) Analysis of Historic

Sales in US$ Million by Region/Country for the Years 2012 to

2019



Table 21: Chip Scale Packaging (End-Use) Global Market Share

Distribution by Region/Country for 2012, 2020, and 2027



III. MARKET ANALYSIS



GEOGRAPHIC MARKET ANALYSIS



UNITED STATES

Market Facts & Figures

US Underfill Dispenser Market Share (in %) by Company: 2019 & 2025

Market Analytics

Table 22: United States Underfill Dispensers Market Estimates

and Projections in US$ Million by Product: 2020 to 2027



Table 23: Underfill Dispensers Market in the United States by

Product: A Historic Review in US$ Million for 2012-2019



Table 24: United States Underfill Dispensers Market Share

Breakdown by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 25: United States Underfill Dispensers Latent Demand

Forecasts in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020 to 2027



Table 26: Underfill Dispensers Historic Demand Patterns in the

United States by End-Use in US$ Million for 2012-2019



Table 27: Underfill Dispensers Market Share Breakdown in the

United States by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



CANADA

Table 28: Canadian Underfill Dispensers Market Estimates and

Forecasts in US$ Million by Product: 2020 to 2027



Table 29: Canadian Underfill Dispensers Historic Market Review

by Product in US$ Million: 2012-2019



Table 30: Underfill Dispensers Market in Canada: Percentage

Share Breakdown of Sales by Product for 2012, 2020, and 2027



Table 31: Canadian Underfill Dispensers Market Quantitative

Demand Analysis in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020 to 2027



Table 32: Underfill Dispensers Market in Canada: Summarization

of Historic Demand Patterns in US$ Million by End-Use for

2012-2019



Table 33: Canadian Underfill Dispensers Market Share Analysis

by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



JAPAN

Table 34: Japanese Market for Underfill Dispensers: Annual

Sales Estimates and Projections in US$ Million by Product for

the Period 2020-2027



Table 35: Underfill Dispensers Market in Japan: Historic Sales

Analysis in US$ Million by Product for the Period 2012-2019



Table 36: Japanese Underfill Dispensers Market Share Analysis

by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 37: Japanese Demand Estimates and Forecasts for Underfill

Dispensers in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020 to 2027



Table 38: Japanese Underfill Dispensers Market in US$ Million

by End-Use: 2012-2019



Table 39: Underfill Dispensers Market Share Shift in Japan by

End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



CHINA

Table 40: Chinese Underfill Dispensers Market Growth Prospects

in US$ Million by Product for the Period 2020-2027



Table 41: Underfill Dispensers Historic Market Analysis in

China in US$ Million by Product: 2012-2019



Table 42: Chinese Underfill Dispensers Market by Product:

Percentage Breakdown of Sales for 2012, 2020, and 2027



Table 43: Chinese Demand for Underfill Dispensers in US$

Million by End-Use: 2020 to 2027



Table 44: Underfill Dispensers Market Review in China in US$

Million by End-Use: 2012-2019



Table 45: Chinese Underfill Dispensers Market Share Breakdown

by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



EUROPE

Market Facts & Figures

European Underfill Dispenser Market: Competitor Market Share

Scenario (in %) for 2019 & 2025

Market Analytics

Table 46: European Underfill Dispensers Market Demand Scenario

in US$ Million by Region/Country: 2020-2027



Table 47: Underfill Dispensers Market in Europe: A Historic

Market Perspective in US$ Million by Region/Country for the

Period 2012-2019



Table 48: European Underfill Dispensers Market Share Shift by

Region/Country: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 49: European Underfill Dispensers Market Estimates and

Forecasts in US$ Million by Product: 2020-2027



Table 50: Underfill Dispensers Market in Europe in US$ Million

by Product: A Historic Review for the Period 2012-2019



Table 51: European Underfill Dispensers Market Share Breakdown

by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 52: European Underfill Dispensers Addressable Market

Opportunity in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020-2027



Table 53: Underfill Dispensers Market in Europe: Summarization

of Historic Demand in US$ Million by End-Use for the Period

2012-2019



Table 54: European Underfill Dispensers Market Share Analysis

by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



FRANCE

Table 55: Underfill Dispensers Market in France by Product:

Estimates and Projections in US$ Million for the Period

2020-2027



Table 56: French Underfill Dispensers Historic Market Scenario

in US$ Million by Product: 2012-2019



Table 57: French Underfill Dispensers Market Share Analysis by

Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 58: Underfill Dispensers Quantitative Demand Analysis in

France in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020-2027



Table 59: French Underfill Dispensers Historic Market Review in

US$ Million by End-Use: 2012-2019



Table 60: French Underfill Dispensers Market Share Analysis:

A 17-Year Perspective by End-Use for 2012, 2020, and 2027



GERMANY

Table 61: Underfill Dispensers Market in Germany: Recent Past,

Current and Future Analysis in US$ Million by Product for the

Period 2020-2027



Table 62: German Underfill Dispensers Historic Market Analysis

in US$ Million by Product: 2012-2019



Table 63: German Underfill Dispensers Market Share Breakdown by

Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 64: Underfill Dispensers Market in Germany: Annual Sales

Estimates and Forecasts in US$ Million by End-Use for the

Period 2020-2027



Table 65: German Underfill Dispensers Market in Retrospect in

US$ Million by End-Use: 2012-2019



Table 66: Underfill Dispensers Market Share Distribution in

Germany by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



ITALY

Table 67: Italian Underfill Dispensers Market Growth Prospects

in US$ Million by Product for the Period 2020-2027



Table 68: Underfill Dispensers Historic Market Analysis in

Italy in US$ Million by Product: 2012-2019



Table 69: Italian Underfill Dispensers Market by Product:

Percentage Breakdown of Sales for 2012, 2020, and 2027



Table 70: Italian Demand for Underfill Dispensers in US$

Million by End-Use: 2020 to 2027



Table 71: Underfill Dispensers Market Review in Italy in US$

Million by End-Use: 2012-2019



Table 72: Italian Underfill Dispensers Market Share Breakdown

by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



UNITED KINGDOM

Table 73: United Kingdom Market for Underfill Dispensers:

Annual Sales Estimates and Projections in US$ Million by

Product for the Period 2020-2027



Table 74: Underfill Dispensers Market in the United Kingdom:

Historic Sales Analysis in US$ Million by Product for the

Period 2012-2019



Table 75: United Kingdom Underfill Dispensers Market Share

Analysis by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 76: United Kingdom Demand Estimates and Forecasts for

Underfill Dispensers in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020 to 2027



Table 77: United Kingdom Underfill Dispensers Market in US$

Million by End-Use: 2012-2019



Table 78: Underfill Dispensers Market Share Shift in the United

Kingdom by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



SPAIN

Table 79: Spanish Underfill Dispensers Market Estimates and

Forecasts in US$ Million by Product: 2020 to 2027



Table 80: Spanish Underfill Dispensers Historic Market Review

by Product in US$ Million: 2012-2019



Table 81: Underfill Dispensers Market in Spain: Percentage

Share Breakdown of Sales by Product for 2012, 2020, and 2027



Table 82: Spanish Underfill Dispensers Market Quantitative

Demand Analysis in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020 to 2027



Table 83: Underfill Dispensers Market in Spain: Summarization

of Historic Demand Patterns in US$ Million by End-Use for

2012-2019



Table 84: Spanish Underfill Dispensers Market Share Analysis by

End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



RUSSIA

Table 85: Russian Underfill Dispensers Market Estimates and

Projections in US$ Million by Product: 2020 to 2027



Table 86: Underfill Dispensers Market in Russia by Product:

A Historic Review in US$ Million for 2012-2019



Table 87: Russian Underfill Dispensers Market Share Breakdown

by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 88: Russian Underfill Dispensers Latent Demand Forecasts

in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020 to 2027



Table 89: Underfill Dispensers Historic Demand Patterns in

Russia by End-Use in US$ Million for 2012-2019



Table 90: Underfill Dispensers Market Share Breakdown in Russia

by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



REST OF EUROPE

Table 91: Rest of Europe Underfill Dispensers Market Estimates

and Forecasts in US$ Million by Product: 2020-2027



Table 92: Underfill Dispensers Market in Rest of Europe in US$

Million by Product: A Historic Review for the Period 2012-2019



Table 93: Rest of Europe Underfill Dispensers Market Share

Breakdown by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 94: Rest of Europe Underfill Dispensers Addressable

Market Opportunity in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020-2027



Table 95: Underfill Dispensers Market in Rest of Europe:

Summarization of Historic Demand in US$ Million by End-Use for

the Period 2012-2019



Table 96: Rest of Europe Underfill Dispensers Market Share

Analysis by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



ASIA-PACIFIC

Table 97: Asia-Pacific Underfill Dispensers Market Estimates

and Forecasts in US$ Million by Region/Country: 2020-2027



Table 98: Underfill Dispensers Market in Asia-Pacific: Historic

Market Analysis in US$ Million by Region/Country for the Period

2012-2019



Table 99: Asia-Pacific Underfill Dispensers Market Share

Analysis by Region/Country: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 100: Underfill Dispensers Market in Asia-Pacific by

Product: Estimates and Projections in US$ Million for the

Period 2020-2027



Table 101: Asia-Pacific Underfill Dispensers Historic Market

Scenario in US$ Million by Product: 2012-2019



Table 102: Asia-Pacific Underfill Dispensers Market Share

Analysis by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 103: Underfill Dispensers Quantitative Demand Analysis in

Asia-Pacific in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020-2027



Table 104: Asia-Pacific Underfill Dispensers Historic Market

Review in US$ Million by End-Use: 2012-2019



Table 105: Asia-Pacific Underfill Dispensers Market Share

Analysis: A 17-Year Perspective by End-Use for 2012, 2020, and

2027



AUSTRALIA

Table 106: Underfill Dispensers Market in Australia: Recent

Past, Current and Future Analysis in US$ Million by Product for

the Period 2020-2027



Table 107: Australian Underfill Dispensers Historic Market

Analysis in US$ Million by Product: 2012-2019



Table 108: Australian Underfill Dispensers Market Share

Breakdown by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 109: Underfill Dispensers Market in Australia: Annual

Sales Estimates and Forecasts in US$ Million by End-Use for the

Period 2020-2027



Table 110: Australian Underfill Dispensers Market in Retrospect

in US$ Million by End-Use: 2012-2019



Table 111: Underfill Dispensers Market Share Distribution in

Australia by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



INDIA

Table 112: Indian Underfill Dispensers Market Estimates and

Forecasts in US$ Million by Product: 2020 to 2027



Table 113: Indian Underfill Dispensers Historic Market Review

by Product in US$ Million: 2012-2019



Table 114: Underfill Dispensers Market in India: Percentage

Share Breakdown of Sales by Product for 2012, 2020, and 2027



Table 115: Indian Underfill Dispensers Market Quantitative

Demand Analysis in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020 to 2027



Table 116: Underfill Dispensers Market in India: Summarization

of Historic Demand Patterns in US$ Million by End-Use for

2012-2019



Table 117: Indian Underfill Dispensers Market Share Analysis by

End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



SOUTH KOREA

Table 118: Underfill Dispensers Market in South Korea: Recent

Past, Current and Future Analysis in US$ Million by Product for

the Period 2020-2027



Table 119: South Korean Underfill Dispensers Historic Market

Analysis in US$ Million by Product: 2012-2019



Table 120: Underfill Dispensers Market Share Distribution in

South Korea by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 121: Underfill Dispensers Market in South Korea: Recent

Past, Current and Future Analysis in US$ Million by End-Use for

the Period 2020-2027



Table 122: South Korean Underfill Dispensers Historic Market

Analysis in US$ Million by End-Use: 2012-2019



Table 123: Underfill Dispensers Market Share Distribution in

South Korea by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



REST OF ASIA-PACIFIC

Table 124: Rest of Asia-Pacific Market for Underfill

Dispensers: Annual Sales Estimates and Projections in US$

Million by Product for the Period 2020-2027



Table 125: Underfill Dispensers Market in Rest of Asia-Pacific:

Historic Sales Analysis in US$ Million by Product for the

Period 2012-2019



Table 126: Rest of Asia-Pacific Underfill Dispensers Market

Share Analysis by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 127: Rest of Asia-Pacific Demand Estimates and Forecasts

for Underfill Dispensers in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020 to

2027



Table 128: Rest of Asia-Pacific Underfill Dispensers Market in

US$ Million by End-Use: 2012-2019



Table 129: Underfill Dispensers Market Share Shift in Rest of

Asia-Pacific by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



LATIN AMERICA

Table 130: Latin American Underfill Dispensers Market Trends by

Region/Country in US$ Million: 2020-2027



Table 131: Underfill Dispensers Market in Latin America in US$

Million by Region/Country: A Historic Perspective for the

Period 2012-2019



Table 132: Latin American Underfill Dispensers Market

Percentage Breakdown of Sales by Region/Country: 2012, 2020,

and 2027



Table 133: Latin American Underfill Dispensers Market Growth

Prospects in US$ Million by Product for the Period 2020-2027



Table 134: Underfill Dispensers Historic Market Analysis in

Latin America in US$ Million by Product: 2012-2019



Table 135: Latin American Underfill Dispensers Market by

Product: Percentage Breakdown of Sales for 2012, 2020, and 2027



Table 136: Latin American Demand for Underfill Dispensers in

US$ Million by End-Use: 2020 to 2027



Table 137: Underfill Dispensers Market Review in Latin America

in US$ Million by End-Use: 2012-2019



Table 138: Latin American Underfill Dispensers Market Share

Breakdown by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



ARGENTINA

Table 139: Argentinean Underfill Dispensers Market Estimates

and Forecasts in US$ Million by Product: 2020-2027



Table 140: Underfill Dispensers Market in Argentina in US$

Million by Product: A Historic Review for the Period 2012-2019



Table 141: Argentinean Underfill Dispensers Market Share

Breakdown by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 142: Argentinean Underfill Dispensers Addressable Market

Opportunity in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020-2027



Table 143: Underfill Dispensers Market in Argentina:

Summarization of Historic Demand in US$ Million by End-Use for

the Period 2012-2019



Table 144: Argentinean Underfill Dispensers Market Share

Analysis by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



BRAZIL

Table 145: Underfill Dispensers Market in Brazil by Product:

Estimates and Projections in US$ Million for the Period

2020-2027



Table 146: Brazilian Underfill Dispensers Historic Market

Scenario in US$ Million by Product: 2012-2019



Table 147: Brazilian Underfill Dispensers Market Share Analysis

by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 148: Underfill Dispensers Quantitative Demand Analysis in

Brazil in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020-2027



Table 149: Brazilian Underfill Dispensers Historic Market

Review in US$ Million by End-Use: 2012-2019



Table 150: Brazilian Underfill Dispensers Market Share

Analysis: A 17-Year Perspective by End-Use for 2012, 2020, and

2027



MEXICO

Table 151: Underfill Dispensers Market in Mexico: Recent Past,

Current and Future Analysis in US$ Million by Product for the

Period 2020-2027



Table 152: Mexican Underfill Dispensers Historic Market

Analysis in US$ Million by Product: 2012-2019



Table 153: Mexican Underfill Dispensers Market Share Breakdown

by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 154: Underfill Dispensers Market in Mexico: Annual Sales

Estimates and Forecasts in US$ Million by End-Use for the

Period 2020-2027



Table 155: Mexican Underfill Dispensers Market in Retrospect in

US$ Million by End-Use: 2012-2019



Table 156: Underfill Dispensers Market Share Distribution in

Mexico by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



REST OF LATIN AMERICA

Table 157: Rest of Latin America Underfill Dispensers Market

Estimates and Projections in US$ Million by Product: 2020 to

2027



Table 158: Underfill Dispensers Market in Rest of Latin America

by Product: A Historic Review in US$ Million for 2012-2019



Table 159: Rest of Latin America Underfill Dispensers Market

Share Breakdown by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 160: Rest of Latin America Underfill Dispensers Latent

Demand Forecasts in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020 to 2027



Table 161: Underfill Dispensers Historic Demand Patterns in

Rest of Latin America by End-Use in US$ Million for 2012-2019



Table 162: Underfill Dispensers Market Share Breakdown in Rest

of Latin America by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



MIDDLE EAST

Table 163: The Middle East Underfill Dispensers Market

Estimates and Forecasts in US$ Million by Region/Country:

2020-2027



Table 164: Underfill Dispensers Market in the Middle East by

Region/Country in US$ Million: 2012-2019



Table 165: The Middle East Underfill Dispensers Market Share

Breakdown by Region/Country: 2012, 2020, and 2027



Table 166: The Middle East Underfill Dispensers Market

Estimates and Forecasts in US$ Million by Product: 2020 to 2027



Table 167: The Middle East Underfill Dispensers Historic Market

by Product in US$ Million: 2012-2019



Table 168: Underfill Dispensers Market in the Middle East:

Percentage Share Breakdown of Sales by Product for 2012,2020,

and 2027



Table 169: The Middle East Underfill Dispensers Market

Quantitative Demand Analysis in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020 to

2027



Table 170: Underfill Dispensers Market in the Middle East:

Summarization of Historic Demand Patterns in US$ Million by

End-Use for 2012-2019



Table 171: The Middle East Underfill Dispensers Market Share

Analysis by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



IRAN

Table 172: Iranian Market for Underfill Dispensers: Annual

Sales Estimates and Projections in US$ Million by Product for

the Period 2020-2027



Table 173: Underfill Dispensers Market in Iran: Historic Sales

Analysis in US$ Million by Product for the Period 2012-2019



Table 174: Iranian Underfill Dispensers Market Share Analysis

by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 175: Iranian Demand Estimates and Forecasts for Underfill

Dispensers in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020 to 2027



Table 176: Iranian Underfill Dispensers Market in US$ Million

by End-Use: 2012-2019



Table 177: Underfill Dispensers Market Share Shift in Iran by

End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



ISRAEL

Table 178: Israeli Underfill Dispensers Market Estimates and

Forecasts in US$ Million by Product: 2020-2027



Table 179: Underfill Dispensers Market in Israel in US$ Million

by Product: A Historic Review for the Period 2012-2019



Table 180: Israeli Underfill Dispensers Market Share Breakdown

by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 181: Israeli Underfill Dispensers Addressable Market

Opportunity in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020-2027



Table 182: Underfill Dispensers Market in Israel: Summarization

of Historic Demand in US$ Million by End-Use for the Period

2012-2019



Table 183: Israeli Underfill Dispensers Market Share Analysis

by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



SAUDI ARABIA

Table 184: Saudi Arabian Underfill Dispensers Market Growth

Prospects in US$ Million by Product for the Period 2020-2027



Table 185: Underfill Dispensers Historic Market Analysis in

Saudi Arabia in US$ Million by Product: 2012-2019



Table 186: Saudi Arabian Underfill Dispensers Market by

Product: Percentage Breakdown of Sales for 2012, 2020, and 2027



Table 187: Saudi Arabian Demand for Underfill Dispensers in US$

Million by End-Use: 2020 to 2027



Table 188: Underfill Dispensers Market Review in Saudi Arabia

in US$ Million by End-Use: 2012-2019



Table 189: Saudi Arabian Underfill Dispensers Market Share

Breakdown by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Table 190: Underfill Dispensers Market in the United Arab

Emirates: Recent Past, Current and Future Analysis in US$

Million by Product for the Period 2020-2027



Table 191: United Arab Emirates Underfill Dispensers Historic

Market Analysis in US$ Million by Product: 2012-2019



Table 192: Underfill Dispensers Market Share Distribution in

United Arab Emirates by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 193: Underfill Dispensers Market in the United Arab

Emirates: Recent Past, Current and Future Analysis in US$

Million by End-Use for the Period 2020-2027



Table 194: United Arab Emirates Underfill Dispensers Historic

Market Analysis in US$ Million by End-Use: 2012-2019



Table 195: Underfill Dispensers Market Share Distribution in

United Arab Emirates by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



REST OF MIDDLE EAST

Table 196: Underfill Dispensers Market in Rest of Middle East:

Recent Past, Current and Future Analysis in US$ Million by

Product for the Period 2020-2027



Table 197: Rest of Middle East Underfill Dispensers Historic

Market Analysis in US$ Million by Product: 2012-2019



Table 198: Rest of Middle East Underfill Dispensers Market

Share Breakdown by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 199: Underfill Dispensers Market in Rest of Middle East:

Annual Sales Estimates and Forecasts in US$ Million by End-Use

for the Period 2020-2027



Table 200: Rest of Middle East Underfill Dispensers Market in

Retrospect in US$ Million by End-Use: 2012-2019



Table 201: Underfill Dispensers Market Share Distribution in

Rest of Middle East by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



AFRICA

Table 202: African Underfill Dispensers Market Estimates and

Projections in US$ Million by Product: 2020 to 2027



Table 203: Underfill Dispensers Market in Africa by Product:

A Historic Review in US$ Million for 2012-2019



Table 204: African Underfill Dispensers Market Share Breakdown

by Product: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



Table 205: African Underfill Dispensers Latent Demand Forecasts

in US$ Million by End-Use: 2020 to 2027



Table 206: Underfill Dispensers Historic Demand Patterns in

Africa by End-Use in US$ Million for 2012-2019



Table 207: Underfill Dispensers Market Share Breakdown in

Africa by End-Use: 2012 VS 2020 VS 2027



IV. COMPETITION



Total Companies Profiled: 43

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05900681/?utm_source=GNW



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courtesy of the Conroe Police Department

UPDATE: The woman was recovered safely, according to the Conroe Police Department.



A 71-year-old woman left her Conroe home Saturday and has failed to return, leaving her family worried for her safety, according to the Conroe Police Department.

Rebecca Sue Cloyd, formerly Rebecca Stromsness, was last seen at 5 p.m. Saturday. Her family told police she is not known to leave without letting family know. The family expressed concern about Cloyds safety, according to Conroe PD.
(Newser)  Joe Biden had a chat with his former boss, and the video of it released Thursday has already elicited a critical response from President Trump. Their conversation drew contrasts between Trump's handling of the pandemic and their own leadership, the Hill reports. "You and I had experience dealing with health crises, public health crises," former President Obama tells Biden, "and in each instance what you and I understood, and why I have so much confidence that you're going to be able to deal with COVID in the way that other countries with our kinds of resources are dealing with it right now, which is smartlyI have confidence you're going to actually listen to the experts." Another dig was Biden's mention that they had a pandemic response office in the White House, which Trump booted. Trump has said Obama left the government unprepared for an outbreak.

story continues below

The president's tweet pointed out that Obama didn't endorse Biden during the Democratic nomination battle. "Remember, I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for them. I wouldn't be President," Trump wrote. "They did a terrible job!" The 15-minute conversation was recorded in Obama's Washington office with the two men sitting far apart, per the New York Times. They discussed several issues, each time returning to Trump's record of leadership and their own. Trump has been dividing Americans from the beginning, Biden argued, saying, "And I think people are now going, 'I don't want my kid growing up that way.'" Obama said Biden would change that. "The thing I've got confidence in, Joe, is your heart and your character," he said. (Read more Joe Biden 2020 stories.)
Slack has filed a complaint with the European Commission against Microsoft, claiming the technology giant has engaged in anticompetitive behaviour.

The issue is regarding the office communication platform Microsoft Teams. Slack alleges that Microsoft bundling Teams with its Office 365 software forces companies to install it and blocks its removal.

The European Commission will review the complaint and decide whether to open a formal investigation.

If the Commission decides to investigate, Microsoft could potentially face huge penalties.

The European Union's powerful competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who has been at the vanguard of the global movement to rein in big technology companies, has slapped Google with multiple antitrust fines totalling nearly $10 billion (7.8 billion), which the company is appealing against.

Recommended Microsoft launches new feature to make you less tired of video calls

Last month, the commissioner opened twin investigations into Apple's mobile app store and payment platform over concerns that its practices distort competition, following a complaint filed by music streaming service Spotify.

But critics say big fines have not had much of an impact on tech giants, and she has been weighing up stronger measures to curb their anti-competitive behaviour.

Slack has been vocal about its feelings regarding Microsoft for months. In an interview, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield has said that Microsoft is is perhaps unhealthily preoccupied with killing us, and Teams is the vehicle to do that.

If Slack is incredibly successful over the next two years  it does matter to Microsoft because the relative importance of email is hugely diminished. If email becomes less important, then that whole $35, $40 billion-a-year collaboration productivity business unit is threatened, Mr Butterfield said in May.

Slack reported $201.7 million (158 million) in sales between February and April, an increase of 50 per cent on its previous year.

It also reported 122,000 paid customers, an increase of 28 percent since April 2019.

Slack last month announced an expanded partnership with Amazon's cloud computing division and Amazon Chime, an attempt to join forces with Microsoft's chief rival.

Additional reporting by agencies
By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala's borders with other states have been closed to prevent unnecessary travel of people as the state is staring at a health crisis owing to the increase in the number of COVID-19 cases.

The Kerala-Tamil Nadu and Kerala-Karnataka borders have been opened only for selective movement of people after the number of COVID-19 cases saw a heavy spike in recent days. Kerala witnessed 1038 cases on Wednesday prompting the authorities to ponder the enforcement of a total lockdown in the state. This was the first time that the number of COVID-19 cases touched four digits.

Of the infected, 785 contracted the disease locally, while the source of infection of 57 people were still unknown. As many as 109 people, who came from other states, also tested positive.

"Only people having medical emergencies and unavoidable social circumstances will be allowed to enter the state," said state police chief Loknath Behera. He said such people need to register on the COVID-19 Jagratha website before travelling to the state.
ST. LOUIS  City Democratic Chairman Michael Butler is barring state Senate candidate Bill Haas from a party-sponsored online debate July 30 amid fallout over Facebook messages sent by Haas to a female state party official last month.

The Missouri Democratic State Committee on June 22 urged Haas to abandon his campaign after Rachel Gonzalez shared a screenshot of an online conversation between her and Haas in which he asks if she has a boyfriend and if she is alone. Gonzalez said the messages were creepy.

Haas, as he did previously, insisted Thursday that he had done nothing wrong.

Butler, who also is the city recorder of deeds, said he barred Haas from the debate because the local Democratic Party does not agree with how hes treated the women hes interacted with online. His actions dont belong in the Democratic Party.

Haas said he plans to sue Butler, the state party and the city Democratic committee, seeking damages for hurting his campaign. The city committee on July 6 issued its own statement calling on Haas to get out of the race.

Haas also called on the League of Women Voters of Metro St. Louis, which is providing a moderator for the forum, to end its involvement. He noted that the league typically allows all candidates on the ballot to take part in forums it is involved with.

Nancy Miller, co-president of the local league, said its up to the sponsor, the city Democratic committee, to determine who can participate and that the league had no objection to Butlers decision.

Also running in the Aug. 4 primary for the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat are St. Louis Alderman Megan Green, Jeremiah Church, Michelle Sherod, state Rep. Steve Roberts and McFarlane E. Duncan.

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Liberating Israeli-occupied Golan Heights national priority: Syria UN ambassador

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 22 July 2020 9:39 AM

Syria's permanent representative to the United Nations, Bashar al-Ja'afari, has reiterated the Arab country's right to liberate the Golan Heights from Israeli occupation, adding that restoring Syrian sovereignty to the territory remains a priority for the Damascus government.

"The Israeli regime has occupied Arab lands, including the Syrian Golan Heights, for the past 35 years in a flagrant violation of the UN Charter and rules of the international law," Ja'afari said at a UN Security Council session on the situation in the Middle East via video call.

The Syrian official slammed the Tel Aviv regime for its "systematic" violations of international law and human rights in the occupied territory, including restriction of the locals' movements, demolition of houses and destruction of natural resources.

He noted that Washington's support for the Tel Aviv regime and its settlement expansion policies have reached an unprecedented level, and were embodied in decisions by US President Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem al-Quds as the "capital" of Israel in December 2017 and endorse "Israeli sovereignty" over the Golan Heights in March 2019.

The Syrian diplomat then condemned Israel's unilateral actions in the occupied lands, emphasizing that such measures are taken by a party devoid of any political or legal capacity to decide the fate of peoples.

Ja'afari also denounced an Israeli missile strike south of the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday night, stating that the attack was another desperate attempt to uplift the morale of the last pockets of Takfiri terrorist groups and a blatant violation of the 1974 Israel-Syria Disengagement Agreement, international law, the UN Charter as well as relevant Security Council resolutions.

The Syrian UN ambassador emphasized that the implementation of international resolutions is required to end the Israeli occupation of Arab territories, including the Golan Heights, restore stability to the Middle East region and enhance the UN's credibility.

In 1967, Israel waged a full-scale war against Arab territories during which it occupied a large swathe of Syria's Golan and annexed it four years later, a move never recognized by the international community.

Syria has repeatedly reaffirmed its sovereignty over the Golan Heights, saying the territory must be completely restored to its control.

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Laval_news

Police consult begins

On day of George Floyds killing by Minneapolis police, Laval police violently pulled a man out of a car by his hair in Laval des Rapides, after he repeatedly questioned why he was being detained.

Laval is launching its first broad public consultations to enrich relations with citizens of various origins, as promised in the citys Nouveau regard sur le Service de police de Laval document, which aims to reinforce SPL values of inclusion and diversity through commitments and concrete measures.

A dialogue with citizens is the first step in the fight against racial discrimination, a commitment announced last month in the wake of the May 25th killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers and the subsequent global outrage about racial justice and calling for an end to police brutality. On the same day Floyd was killed, a young black man was violently pulled from his car by a Laval officer after refusing to exit the vehicle without knowing why he was being detained. That arrest was filmed and went viral across North America.

Starting next August, Laval residents will be called upon to express their feelings of security and their vision of police work in the territory, according to a statement, as an independent firm hired by the city will collect the concerns of citizens, obtain relevant data, a portrait of the situation as well as recommendations. An action plan will then be drawn up with various partners working with ethnocultural communities and the social milieu.

Laval Police Director Pierre Brochet said officers will also be consulted, adding that citizens need to better understand police interventions, while cops need to know citizens needs and expectations. We still need to better identify the training or awareness needs of our police officers, he conceded, pressing the need to identify the best means to strengthen the link of communication and trust between the SPL and the citizens to produce concrete actions.

Nothing in the city announcement was mentioned about concrete actions already identified, including the use of body cameras, which the city has already said must be deployed, asking the two other levels of government to help finance any such project. The city statement also, oddly, did not include any comments from Mayor Marc Demers or any other elected official, a rarity in Laval.

A retired Laval police officer, last month Demers said he witnessed racial profiling first-hand during his 30-year career, something he always denounced, and agreed that it still exists.

A communications campaign will soon roll out to start the process, and several means will be deployed to reach out to citizens in accordance with public health directives from August to November, including a citizen caravan circulating in public places to interact with residents, workshops and virtual discussion groups, and online questionnaires made available.

A diagnosis should be produced by the end of 2020, followed by the development of an action plan which will be presented at the Laval Intercultural Summit scheduled for spring 2021. In the long term, a structure for monitoring relations with citizens will be set up to ensure constant communication with the community and improve police practices.

For more information visit www.repensonslaval.ca which outlines the steps to hear from residents (in French only).
The logo of German industrial group Siemens is seen in Zurich, Switzerland, Jan. 30, 2019. (Reuters/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo)

Siemens to Roll Out Flexible Working App to Help Staff Safely Return to Work

To facilitate a safe return to work at company sites now that lockdown conditions are easing, Siemens announced on Thursday that its rolling out its Comfy mobile phone app to hundreds of its offices and factories around the world.

More than 100,000 staff in 30 countries will get access to the app, which gives data on occupancy levels and updates on the local situation so employees can comply with physical distancing regulations.

It will eventually work in coordination with Siemens smart office technology to allow workers to see occupancy in real-time.

The safe return of people to the workplace is a global challenge, and its vital that companies protect their employees to build trust and confidence, said Roland Busch, deputy CEO and member of the managing board of Siemens AG, in a statement.

Our Comfy app supports our new mobile working model, by enabling employees to better plan when they choose to work from the office.

Siemens announced last week it would let its employees work remotely for two or three days a week in a new normal working arrangement.

Staff worried about CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus infections among fellow workers can also use a manual contact tracing feature on the app created under a partnership with U.S. software developer Salesforce.

The app can also block desks in an area if information is received about a person suspected of having the virus, said Siemens, which already sells the app to external customers.

The app will initially be available at half of Siemens 1,300 factories and offices. Contact tracing will be an opt-in solution to respect users privacy, Siemens said.

In the UK the system is being trialled and is expected to be ready to be rolled out to employees in September, a Siemens spokesperson told The Epoch Times.

Data Security and Testing

The CCP virus pandemic has changed working conditions in unprecedented ways, requiring new solutions. But apps and technology introduced to ensure staff health and safety also raise questions of data security and privacy.

For companies like Siemens, who have sites worldwide, they will need to comply with specific laws covering data privacy rights in all jurisdictions where the app is to be deployed, Max Winthrop, chairman of the Law Societys employment law committee, told The Epoch Times.

Winthrop said there were, however, certain situations under current laws in England and Wales that could potentially trump those rights, including for employees in the current post-lockdown situation.

There could be situations where a breach of data protection might be excused due to broader public health concerns, he said.

The question would be if you are an employer and you say, right, we need to check you and see whether you have ever been exposed to coronavirus.

Though some employees, Winthrop said, such as pharmaceutical and construction workers, may have already agreed to random testing in their employment contracts, There wont be a clause in your contract that says you can be tested for coronavirus.

Reasonable Request

The question then would be, can the employer say to people this is a reasonable request and if you dont agree to the test then you could be subject to a disciplinary sanction, Winthrop said.

He cited the recent virus-related problems experienced in care homes as a setting in which such a testing request could be reasonable and be viewed as an appropriate instruction for an employer to give employees.

Winthrop also said that he suspects that in the future there might be something inserted into more contracts of employment to facilitate testing compliance.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) already in existence in England and Wales before lockdown, and similar guidelines in Scotland, provides a good level of protection in terms of data security, he said.

In April the European Data Protection Board (EDPD) adopted [Guidelines] on the Use of Location Data and Contact Tracing Tools in the Context of the Covid-19 Outbreak.

It set out the specifics of how such tools are to be used including to notify individuals of the fact that they have been in close proximity of someone who is eventually confirmed to be a carrier of the virus.

Voluntary Use

The guidelines say that the EDPB has already taken a position on the fact that the use of contact tracing applications should be voluntary and should not rely on tracing individual movements.

Siemens new digital service uses a sensor system called Enlighted to enable real-time tracking of people in the building along with an app called Safe.

Built upon Enlighteds real-time location services capability, employees are provided badge tags they carry while in the workplace. Safe continuously records location, movement, and proximity of the badges relative to each other while in the building, the Enlighted website states.

However, data can be anonymised so individual employees do not need to give personal information or be associated with particular badges, the website states.

If someone tests positive for COVID-19, administrators query the Safe application, identify other IDs this badge came in contact with and share the anonymous IDs. Employees carrying those badge IDs can self-identify their exposure, Enlighted, a company owned by Siemens, said.

The Enlighted system is already installed in 320 million square feet of buildings globally.

The Comfy app, which we are rolling out for our employees at Siemens is not a contact tracing App, a Siemens spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.

We take data privacy very seriously. The applications available for employees will be opt-in, meaning employees will choose whether to use them or not. Siemens has a strong commitment to managing data responsibly.

The Charter of Trust, which we have started, is a good example of Siemens working together with other global players on the topic of cybersecurity  a major element in the charter is the protection of data of individuals and businesses, she said.

Reuters contributed to this report.
An exercise to minimise the role of power and telecom companies believed to be linked to the Chinese government could be expanded to cover other critical sectors such as higher education as well, people familiar with the development said after a July 15 review of the penetration of such companies and institutions in the Indian economy.

The high-level meeting attended by national security planners and a select group of secretary-level officials comes against the backdrop of the Chinese armys aggressive moves along the Line of Actual Control that led to a stand-off from May this year. The two sides earlier this month started disengaging at the face-off points in eastern Ladakh after several rounds of talks but Beijing has been slow to pull back its troops.

Last weeks exercise was aimed at coming up with a comprehensive assessment of the footprint of Chinese companies and institutions that could be a proxy for the Chinese government or have close ties to the ruling communist party. The initiative was driven by the top political leadership, a government official said.

Much of the discussion at the meeting revolved around a presentation made by security agencies that put the spotlight on two core areas; telecom and higher education.

Security officials who briefed the top civil servants spoke about several instances of universities and colleges tying up with Chinese institutes through Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) without the requisite approvals.

A classic example cited by the security establishment was the Chinese-government funded Confucius Institutes to promote Han Chinese language and culture - typicality set up in association with a local partner institution.

In the telecom sector, security agencies pointed to the telecom departments instructions to state-run phone company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, BSNL, to amend its tender to exclude Chinese equipment makers from a large 4G upgrade project.

But private phone companies often prefer Chinese equipment because they are cheaper. There have also been allegations that large tenders are tailored to suit Chinese companies. Industry body COAI had last month spoken against restrictions on private companies, insisting that geopolitical issues should be kept separate from corporate decisions.

The education and telecom ministries have been asked to review the Chinese involvement in the two sectors in light of the presentation made by the security agencies and chart the next steps for the sector.

The rule that requires approvals from the education ministry, home ministry and the external affairs ministry before signing pacts with Chinese institutions or universities isnt new. On 1 October last year, the higher education regulator University Grants Commission told universities about the need for approvals for its courses. But it is unclear if the government followed up to ensure compliance.

That exercise is expected to start soon.

Beijing started setting up Confucius Institutes across the world in 2004 to promote Chinese language and culture in foreign countries. But as China started rolling out the institutes across the world, the Chinese government-funded outposts also started increasingly coming under the scanner of agencies in host countries. The initial concerns were only about academic freedom, institutional autonomy and reported instances of censorship. But some institutes started to shut after lawmakers expressed concerns that these served as a platform for chinese intelligence and political agenda. Some more, after the law prohibited the defence department from funding Chinese language programmes at institutes that host Confucius Institutes. These institutes have run into trouble in other countries as well including the UK, Canada, France, Australia and Sweden.

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Taylor Swift fans are speculating that her new album Folklore may be inspired by her friendship with Karlie Kloss.

Within hours of Swift announcing the surprise release of Folklore, which will arrive at midnight tonight (or 5am GMT), Kloss posted images of herself posing among woodland trees  much like the cover art for Swifts new album.

Happy place, the model and entrepreneur captioned the images.

Kloss also posted a video of herself frolicking in similar woodland earlier in July, with Swift fans now guessing it may have been an early hint about the album.

The status of Swift and Klosss friendship has been the subject of heated debate in recent years, amid speculation the pair may have fallen out after being regularly photographed together throughout 2015 and 2016.

In 2018, Jennifer Lawrence jokingly said that if she were a spy she would investigate whats going on with Karlie Kloss and Taylor Swift, thats the honest-to-god truth.

Later that year, Kloss addressed speculation of a possible rift during an interview with Vogue, saying: The world needs to know? Well, Jennifer Lawrence was interested. Jen, dont worry, Taylor and I are still really good friends.

However, Swift was not in attendance at either of Klosss wedding ceremonies to businessman Joshua Kushner in 2019. Kloss has also been photographed with Scooter Braun, who Swift has repeatedly condemned over the purchasing of her master recordings.

On Twitter, Swift fans have speculated that the new album may feature lyrics that clarify if theyre still friendly.

Theyve also theorised that Betty, a track on Folklore, could be a secret reference to Kloss, whose middle name is Elizabeth.

Earlier today (23 July), Swift announced that she had written and recorded an entire album in lockdown that she was dropping without any pre-publicity. It includes collaborations with Jack Antonoff, Bon Iver and Aaron Dessner of The National.

Before this year I probably wouldve overthought when to release this music at the perfect time, but the times were living in keep reminding me that nothing is guaranteed, Swift said in a statement. My gut is telling me that if you make something you love, you should just put it out into the world. Thats the side of uncertainty I can get on board with.
Investing in a Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) ought to be a long-term endeavor. Being able to take advantage of tax-free capital appreciation and dividend growth is not something investors should put aside. Few things are more rewarding than seeing ones TFSA balance increase it each year.

As such, Ive got three top picks every investor ought to consider in this current environment.

Fortis

A defensive, stable Canadian gem of a company, Fortis Inc. (TSX:FTS)(NYSE:FTS) has topped my list of great growth picks for long-term investors for some time. This company provides investors with extremely stable earnings and cash flow growth over long periods. This is due to the fact the significant portion of Fortis overall business is regulated, with almost guaranteed pricing power and small but meaningful revenue and predictable earnings growth overt time.

The companys dividend yield has typically fluctuated between 3.5% and 4% in recent years, and has proven to be one of the best Canadian dividends of all time. This is due mainly to the outsized dividend growth Fortis has provided investors with each and every year for almost five decades.

These dividend increases have recently been in the mid to high single digits, even amid the toughest times. The stability in the companys dividend program is one of the reasons Fortis stock has held up so well; this is also one of my key reasons for continuing to recommend this stock.

Nutrien

The need for a strong global food supply is independent of broad commodity markets. Food production generally follows population growth globally and is a strong driver of demand for the key agricultural project products Nutrien Ltd. (TSX:NTR)(NYSE:NTR) provides.

A supply glut has indeed hampered the prices of these inputs recently. However, the outlook for certain crops appears to be improving. Corn and other staples are also seeing impressive recoveries of late.

Nutriens retail arm (the Agrium side of its merger) continues to perform very well and generates growing cash flow in times of commodity price weakness. Innovation with farmer assistance technologies related to crop planting and harvesting optimization provides an interesting angle for investors looking for growth.

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The companys mid-single-digit dividend yield is solid, supported by cash flow stability and growth, making Nutrien a top pick.

Barrick Gold

A more defensive play for investors concerned about volatility, Barrick Gold (TSX:ABX)(NYSE:GOLD) is one of the best options for investors seeking a portfolio hedge while staying invested. One does not need to be a gold bug to appreciate the value Barrick provides as a low cost producer with one of the largest unmined gold reserves in the sector.

Barrick has been hit with some production issues at its Papua New Guinea mine, so once those are sorted out, I can see this stock popping.

I encourage investors who are interested in a long-term defensive core portfolio holding to consider adding Barrick exposure before the price of gold shoots higher.

The post Get Rich and Retire Early With These TFSA Tips appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

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Fool contributor Chris MacDonald has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends FORTIS INC and Nutrien Ltd.

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
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 23:34:47|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The following are the updates on the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

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SINGAPORE -- Singapore's Ministry of Health reported 354 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 49,098.

- - - -

NEW DELHI -- The total number of COVID-19 cases surpassed the 1.2-million mark in India reaching 1,238,635, as the death toll reached 29,861, according to the latest data from the health ministry on Thursday.

The health ministry said 1,129 new deaths due to COVID-19, besides fresh 45,720 positive cases, were reported during the past 24 hours across India.

This is the highest single-day jump in terms of both fresh COVID-19 cases and deaths in the country so far.

- - - -

WASHINGTON -- The number of initial jobless claims in the United States rose to 1.4 million last week amid a resurgence in COVID-19 cases, reversing a weekly decline that has continued for 14 weeks, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

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BEIJING -- China's national high-tech zones have maintained growth despite the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, a senior official said on Thursday.

- - - -

MOGADISHU -- About 5.2 million Somalis including three million children are in need of humanitarian assistance due to the triple threat of floods, locusts and COVID-19, the UN children's fund (UNICEF) said on Thursday.

Jesper Moller, deputy representative of UNICEF Somalia said the Horn of Africa nation is one of the most fragile nations in the world, a country that has experienced decades of conflict, cyclical drought and floods, and he called on the international community to act swiftly to avert the crisis. Enditem
Coalition Commander Refuses to Reveal Number of US Troops in Syria to Conceal Capabilities

Sputnik News

18:13 GMT 22.07.2020

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve Deputy Commander Kenneth Ekman refused during a press briefing on Wednesday to provide the number of US troops in Syria in order to protect any insight on the their capabilities in that country.

"The numbers in Syria tend to point to specific capabilities, we're careful about how specifically we cite them just given our limited footprint there," Ekman said.

Ekman pointed out the United States is trying to ensure it has a sufficient force in Syria that is enough to achieve the US objectives in the country.

The deputy commander noted the coalition's focus in Syria is to address the threat of the Daesh* terror group. Ekman said there is a residual presences of Islamic State forces in Syria, but the coalition and the Syrian Democratic Forces have been quite successful eliminating them.

The US-led coalition of more than 60 nations has been carrying out airstrikes and other operations against Daesh in Iraq since August 2014 and in Syria since September 2014. However, the coalition has acted in Syria without the approval of the Syrian government or the UN Security Council.

* Daesh (aka ISIS/ISIL/IS/Islamic State) is a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries

A Sputnik

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Tensions have escalated in Portland following the arrival of militarized federal agents over the wishes of local officials.

John Rudoff/Getty Images

Federal officers cited livestreamed YouTube footage as evidence when they arrested a protester in Portland earlier this month, which was first reported by Recode Wednesday.

Officers said in a legal document that they saw someone place a wooden board that was on fire against the wall of a federal courthouse, which led to their arrest of Kevin Benjamin Weier.

Trump ordered federal agents into the city amid ongoing protests, where they have used aggressive tactics against demonstrators include tear gas and throwing people into unmarked vans.

City and state officials have opposed the federal intervention, calling it a "blatant abuse of power" and demanded that the officers leave the city.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Federal law enforcement officers from the US Department of Homeland Security arrested a protester in Portland, Oregon, earlier this month after saying they saw him commit a federal crime while watching a YouTube livestream, first reported by Recode on Wednesday.

A court document submitted by Micah Coring, an agent with the Federal Protective Services, a division of DHS, said officers watching the video saw a protester place a wooden board  that was initially on fire  against the outside wall of a federal courthouse before a second person adjusted it and a third extinguished it.

Related: 15,000 rallied in support of Black trans lives in Brooklyn

The document also said that while first person's face was obscured, the second person's face was visible, and officers sent screenshots to other agents who used them to surveil an individual for several hours before arresting Kevin Benjamin Weier, who they allege is the person they saw on the livestream.

Weier has been charged with attempted arson of a federal building and could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

The arrest shows how publicly available evidence published on protesters' social media feeds or captured by journalists is both exposing abuses of power and being used by law enforcement to dig up evidence on activists.

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Portland, in particular, has become a major flashpoint between law enforcement officers and protesters in recent weeks following President Donald Trump's executive order that allowed federal agents to deploy to the city. Demonstrations there  which have been largely peaceful but have also resulted in some vandalism  have been going on for more than 50 days.

Since the order, militarized federal agents have been patrolling the streets in a dramatic show of force while using tear gas, smoke bombs, and physical violence to break up crowds. They've also been seen throwing protesters into unmarked vans without explanation.

The aggressive tactics by federal officers have prompted strong opposition from city and state officials, who have requested that they withdraw from Portland.

Business Insider previously reported that Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has called the deployment a "blatant abuse of power," and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler declared the use of force an "attack on our democracy." The state's attorney general has since sued the Trump administration, alleging officers are "unlawfully detaining" protesters, according to the Associated Press.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Its been one year since 50-year-old high school teacher Susan Morrissey Ledyard was murdered, and her family tells Dateline they feel they are no closer to finding out what happened.

Were utterly bewildered that weve reached the one-year mark without any answers, Susans sister, Meg Morrissey Heinicke said. Its crushing.

But Meg says that their family hasnt given up hope and continue to push for Susans case to be solved.

Susan Ledyard (Courtesy of Morrissey Family)

A week before the one-year anniversary of Susans murder, the Delaware State Police issued a press release seeking assistance from the public and urging anyone with information about the 2019 case to come forward.

So much time has passed without any solid leads or evidence, Meg said. The one thing that could possibly change everything is someone coming forward with information. Even if its something minor. It could help.

Susans body was found at 7:39 a.m. on July 23, 2019, in the Brandywine River near Northeast Boulevard in Wilmington, Delaware, according to the Delaware State Police.

Her car, a black 2016 Honda Civic, was found parked on Walkers Mill Road, approximately three miles upstream from where her body was discovered. Susans purse and phone were inside. Detectives do not believe Susan entered the river where her car was parked.

An autopsy conducted by the Division of Forensic Science ruled Susans cause of death to be blunt force trauma and drowning. On November 14, nearly four months after Susans body was found, authorities ruled her death a homicide.

Susan Ledyard and her sister, Meg Morrissey Heinicke, just three weeks before Susan's death. (Courtesy of Morrissey Family)

Susans family previously told Dateline they were shocked, as many believed her death may have been a tragic accident.

I did not think it was suicide, but it was inconceivable to think that there was any foul play, Meg told Dateline in November. At first it just seemed like a horrible accident. The thought that someone killed my sister just never even crossed my mind.

Investigators with the Delaware State Police told Dateline they were able to collect video surveillance footage from several locations in the area where Susans car was found, and, using that video and her cell phone records, they were able to create a partial timeline of her activities.

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They were able to determine that Susan was active on her cell phone throughout the night, texting and calling friends up until 2:45 a.m. They added that there was nothing alarming about the texts sent from, or received by, her phone.

It wasnt unusual for Susan to be up late, Susans sister, Missy Morrissey told Dateline. Especially during the summer. She was a teacher. So, summer meant she could stay up.

Susan and her husband, Ben Ledyard. (Courtesy of Ben Ledyard.)

Susans husband, Ben Ledyard, previously told Dateline he had gone to see a movie with a friend around 8 p.m. on Monday, July 22, 2019. When he got home, he said Susan was on the back porch texting on her phone. He added that he went to bed at 11 p.m. and said he never saw her again after that.

Susans sister Missy previously told Dateline the two stayed up texting late that night. On July 23, Missys last text to Susan was around 12:29 a.m.

That was it, Missy said. That was my last communication with my sister.

Over the next several days and weeks, investigators put together a timeline to help figure out what Susan was doing in the moments leading up to her death.

Investigators confirmed that at 3:02 a.m., Susans car pulled out of her driveway on Riverview Avenue and turned left onto northbound Pennsylvania Avenue. Approximately two minutes later, her car parked on Walkers Mill Road and the headlights turned off. Based on the elapsed time, investigators say they believe the car was driven directly from thehouse to the location where the car was found, about a mile away.

Thats when the timeline ends.

Investigators previously told Dateline they had not been able to account for the 4-hour time span between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m., but said they now believe she was active during that time.

Susans sister Meg told Dateline that Susan wore a Fitbit which recorded her pulse during that span of time -- until approximately 7 a.m.

Just half an hour later, a construction worker who was on a job site at the Brandywine River spotted Susans body in the water, according to Delaware State Police Detective Daniel Grassi.

Detectives said the whereabouts of Susan between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m. on July 23 are still unknown and have requested the publics assistance for information on her actions during that time frame, as well as any information that will lead to the identification of her killer.

Susan Ledyard and her best friend, Megan Doherty (Courtesy of Morrissey Family)

For a full year now, the community has rallied behind Susans family to find out what happened to the beloved teacher on July 23.

Fliers that ask Did you see Susan and What happened to Susan are plastered all over Wilmington and surrounding towns.

Meg, who lives in San Francisco, said the friends she speaks to in Wilmington, are baffled that Susans case remains unsolved.

Theyre terrified that a killer is in their midst and no arrests have been made, Meg said.

What happened to Susan in the early hours of July 23, 2019 remains a mystery, but her family says they wont give up until they have answers.

Its a tough case and we realize that, Meg told Dateline. But we hoped there would be some sort of progress by now.

Meg said the case is now being handled by both the Delaware State Police Homicide Unit and the Delaware Attorney Generals Office.

Delaware Attorney Generals Office released the following statement to Dateline.

"Our prosecutors continue to work with the Delaware State Police to advance the investigation. We are encouraging anyone with information related to this case to please contact the Delaware State Police."

Detective Grassi spoke to Dateline this week and said police are doing everything they can to solve Susan's case. He added there are no new updates to be released at this time.

"We hope this push for someone to come forward will bring in the information we need to solve her case," Det. Grassi said. "We want to do everything we can to get closure for her family."

The family continues to receive monthly updates from the teams, but adds there is little to no information.

Our family would like closure, Meg said. We especially want this for our parents. My mother turned 84 years old on Saturday. And this is a nightmare for her. Its heartbreaking.

Meg, her siblings, her parents and all their grandchildren, recently gathered at their beach house in Stone Harbor, N.J., where they often spend time as a family. They celebrated their mothers 84th birthday and cherished being together after a months-long quarantine.

Susan should be here. This was her favorite place, Meg said. She didnt deserve this. I would never say weve lost hope, but its getting harder every day. The best thing we can do is keep telling her story.

Anyone with information about Susan Ledyards case is urged to contact Detective Daniel Grassi at (302) 365-8441 or Detective Amy Lloyd at (302) 365-8411. Information may also be provided by calling Delaware Crime Stoppers at 1-800-TIP-3333, at www.tipsubmit.com, or by sending an anonymous tip by text to 274637 (CRIMES) using the keyword DSP.
- A Chinses vaccine against coronavirus presently in a trial in Brazil has gone into a third-approval phase

- Called the CoronaVac, if the final test goes well, there could be mass production of 120 million doses

- Test results of the promising vaccine according to a health official, Joao Doria, is expected to be ready within three months

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

A Chinese-made vaccine against Covid-19 went into its final phase of test on Tuesday, July 21 in Brazil as volunteers believe it would go a long way in ending the pandemic.

The vaccine was developed by a private Chinese firm called Sinovac, making it the third vaccine in the world to enter Phase 3 clinical trial on humans, How Africa reports.

Were living in unique and historic times, and thats why I wanted to be part of this trial, said the 27-year-old doctor who received the first dose said.

Known as CoronaVac, about 9,000 health workers across six Brazillian states will get the vaccine in two doses over the space of three months.

The governor of Sao Paulo hospital, Joao Doria on Monday, July 20, said that the test results of thee vaccines are expected back within 90 days.

In the case that the vaccine proves effective against Covid-19, the institute in charge will be given the right to mass-produce 120 million doses.

READ ALSO: Study shows people are more likely to contract Covid-19 in their home

A random picture showing a scientist in the lab. photo source: The Scientist

Source: UGC

Meanwhile, YEN.com.gh earlier reported that two Covid-19 vaccine candidates showed positive results in separate trials across the world.

In Britain, a trial saw 1,000 adults participating and had found that the vaccine had induced 'strong antibody and immune responses'.

Another trial took place in China and saw over 500 people taking part. This trial had also shown that most participants had developed a positive response against the virus.

Both possible vaccines have proven safe for human use and trials found that they had both produced strong immune reactions, according to doctors.

READ ALSO: COVID-19 kills 153 in Ghana; 28,430 infected across the country

In other related news, a Nigerian with the Twitter name ikay and handle @BABOONVIEW shared his Covid-19 isolation story with few words and four pictures.

In a post he made on Saturday, July 11, the man said that it is his first night at the centre and he really cannot complain.

He added a laughing emoticon to the tweet with the hashtag #CoronaPapa. In a subsequent tweet, he said his health is fine. @BABOONVIEW said he had to make the post because many people still believe that the virus is not real.

He said that he did not know he would ever be infected with the virus, adding that he cannot even say who got the deadly coronavirus from.

Got a national or human interest story you think we should know? Get interactive via our Facebook page.

Source: YEN.com.gh
The Tunisian parliament said the procedures for withdrawing confidence from its speaker and the Islamist Ennahda Party's leader Rached Al-Ghannouchi will begin on Thursday.

The meeting was expected to be held on Wednesday, but it was postponed for "unknown reasons", reported Russia Today (RT) on the basis of information gained from local news sources.

Opposition MPs officially submitted a request to hold a vote of no-confidence against Al-Ghannouchi last Thursday after securing the support of 73 MPs, the number of backers required to move forward with the process.

Yet, to remove Al-Ghannouchi from his post, they need to get the votes of 109 MPs in the 217-seat parliament.

Earlier this month, parliamentary sources in Tunisia, the satellite TV channel Al-Arabiya reported, said that political forces were fed up with Al-Ghannouchis suspicious moves and practices, including his attempt to implement the Muslim Brotherhood agenda in Tunisia, accusing him of seeking to expand his authority by disregarding the president.

The opposition believes that a conflict of interest exists between Al-Ghannouchis posts as Ennahdas leader and speaker of parliament.

The opposition includes Al-Kotla Al-Democrateya Party (40 MPs), Tahya Tounes, Al-Islah Al-Watani (15), Al-Kotla Al-Wataneya (nine) and the Free Destourian Party (17).

Tunisia is going through a political crisis between Ennahda and opposition blocs, with each taking escalatory measures against the other.

Caretaker premier Elyes Al-Fakhfakh removed all ministers of Ennahda from the coalition government last Thursday.

One day earlier, Al-Fakhfakh was still the North African country's head of government, voted for by parliament five months ago. But he earned the caretaker status after he resigned.

This followed Ennahda's announcement that it pushed for a vote of no-confidence against Al-Fakhfakh after he had decided to reshuffle the cabinet, reportedly succeeding in gathering enough votes to end his leadership of the country's coalition government.

Claiming the need for a better balance between the government and parliament, Ennahda wanted consultations over selecting a new head of government and including new political forces in the coalition government, such as Qalb Tounes Party, which Al-Fakhfakh opposed.

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As smoke rose from the longtime Consulate General of China in Montrose, a Houston firefighter perched atop an engine ladder found the cause in the buildings courtyard. Consulate workers were setting fire to document-filled barrels, fire and police officials said.

Watching the flames Tuesday evening was all they could do since the consulate refused to allow firefighters to access the building.

All I know, its illegal to have open burning in the city of Houston like that, Houston Fire Chief Sam Pena said. But its a sovereign country, and we cant get access into those consulates so were limited in what we can do.

The fire may not have been an immediate threat to public safety, the chief said, but the incident that preceded it  the Trump Administrations abrupt decision to evict the Chinese compound by Friday  triggered a threat to souring relations between the powerful nations.

The consulates closure represents a major provocation in the heated geopolitical conflict between the U.S. and China highlighted by trade wars, finger-pointing over the spread of the coronavirus and accusations that Chinese spies are stealing American intellectual property. A federal indictment issued Tuesday alleges that two Chinese hackers had targeted U.S. firms doing coronavirus research.

The high-stakes diplomatic crisis also threatens Texas industry, which for decades has maintained a critical trading partnership with China in key industries such as energy, petrochemicals and technology. A pressing concern now is will China retaliate for the consulate closure by preventing Texas companies from investing in China and tapping its massive market.

The burning documents were reported around 8 p.m., within four hours of the eviction notice, a Houston police official said.

Consent, the fire chief said, is required for civil authorities to enter the consulate property, and firefighters did not have it. Pena said Tuesday nights fire was snuffed out soon after authorities were dispatched.

An armed guard watched over the quiet consulate Wednesday morning as a handful of people tried making contact through a loudspeaker but failed. Around the corner on Harold Street, workers stashed picture frames, cleaning supplies and black bags into a U-Haul and unmarked white van with a consulate license plate.

Another Chinese-owned property, a series of residences surrounded by a brick fence, iron gates and barbed wire at 7600 Almeda Road, also sat idle. Security cameras overlook the property, where a Peoples Republic of China flag could be seen waving atop a pole.

The Montrose property has been home to the Chinese governments consulate since 1980  about a year after the U.S. established diplomatic relations with China  when it was purchased as a five-story apartment complex and remodeled into its headquarters. The Houston facility was Chinas second U.S. consulate outside Washington D.C.

The purchase also signaled a surge in Chinese commerce passing through the Houston Ship Channel.

The consulate, among nearly 100 foreign government facilities in Houston, is run by consul general Cai Wei and employs at least 60 other staff members.

The consulate closure was a surprise to Mayor Sylvester Turner, who said during a news conference that the federal government did not notify the city ahead of its decision. He said China serves as a major trade partner for Houston, and the city has relied heavily on the nations manufacturers for personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Its my hope that, whatever the friction may be between the two, that those matters can be resolved peacefully, and at some point the consulate will reopen, Turner said.

In an interview with KTRK-TV, Wei said the closure was short notice and wrong and that he would also like the federal government to back up the espionage accusations with facts.

I never expected that we would be treated like this because we are coming for friendship and mutual understanding between China and the United States, he said.

The closure will certainly impact Chinese nationals and students in the Houston area, he continued.

According to an American Community Survey from 2018, about 56,600 people identify as Chinese in the Houston area. Some of those residents will rely on a local consulate for passport and visa services. The Houston office, which had canceled visa appointments in April because of the pandemic, provided services to those in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Puerto Rico.

Houstons Chinese Community Center declined to comment on the consulate closure. An official there said they were not able to comment on this incident because of the political nature of it per 501c3 regulations.

In times of political turmoil, Houstons Chinese community rarely speaks out publicly. Some may fear retribution from the Chinese government. Others might be trying to protect family members or business interests.

One Chinese American in Houston, who requested anonymity because she has family and friends back in China and fears for their safety, said she went through the brutality of the communist regime during her childhood and was happy to hear the consulate was being shut down.

The longtime Houston resident called the closure a necessary decision, and suggested that trust should not be placed in the Chinese government.

The consulate also historically has attracted demonstrators affiliated with Falun Gong, a Chinese religious movement that started in the 1990s and was eventually banned in the country later that decade. The Chinese government labeled the group a cult and sent some practitioners to prison or labor camps. The movement is centered on Buddhist tradition and focuses on self-improvement through study, gentle exercise and meditation, according to falundafa.org.

Practitioners often held demonstrations at the Houston consulate to protest the Chinese governments attempt to suppress their belief system.

Dr. Hans Stockton, a professor of international studies at the University of St. Thomas in Montrose, called the closure a wake-up call that Houston does get periodically dragged onto the world stage.

We see ourselves as a business town, he said. This is going to put a chill on whether or not people from China choose to come to the U.S. to study and travel and work.

He anticipates mounting paperwork and visa delays as Chinese citizens are forced to turn to consulates in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

President Donald Trump, when asked whether those other consulates could close, said, Its always possible.

Julian Gill, Jasper Scherer, Jay R. Jordan, Samantha Ketterer and Currie Engel contributed to this report.

nicole.hensley@chron.com
A defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive incident, said a second U.S. aircraft was also in the vicinity. The official said it was possible that the proximity of the U.S. jet, while far enough away for its pilot to freely maneuver around the slower commercial aircraft, may have triggered an audio collision alarm in the passenger planes cockpit.
Coronavirus Survivors Are Likely To Be Immune To The Disease For Six Months

Coronavirus survivors are likely to have immunity against the disease for six months, Swedens top epidemiologist has claimed.

Dr Anders Tegnell, who has guided the nation through the pandemic without calling for a lockdown, says he hasnt seen evidence of people getting infected twice since the start of the pandemic in December 2019.

He added that he believes that even if a coronavirus survivor doesnt develop antibodies-immune cells that remember how to fight the virus they will be protected.

Evidence is starting to show that antibodies arent the only type of immunity against Covid-19, and that T cells also play an important role.

Its hoped T cells, which target and destroy cells already infected, would offer long-term protection  possibly up to many years later.

But scientists do not have any firm proof as to how long immunity actually lasts once a person has fought off Covid-19, mainly because it is still shrouded in secrecy and has only been known to exist since the start of the year.

Dr Tegnells comments about immunity lasting for half a year were made at a press conference in Stockholm yesterday, The Telegraph reports.

He said: The risk of being reinfected and of transmitting the disease to other people is probably very close to zero.

Therefore, we think you can meet other people, even if they are in a high-risk group. We dont see cases of people falling ill twice from Covid-19.

Hence, our assessment is if you do get Covid-19 you are immune, even if you dont develop antibodies.

There have been cases of people getting infected more than once but they have failed to convince scientists that humans only get a short-lived immunity against the disease.

Some infectious disease experts say it is just an issue with testing because old viral fragments that are not contagious are picked up by swabs taken weeks or months after a patient first became ill.

Dr Tegnell did not explain what proof he had to back-up his claims that immunity lasts for six months.
Air India has constituted a committee for "identification of redundant/surplus manpower resources" to be sent on leave without pay for up to five years. The Committee is to submit its report to the regional director's office by 11th August for review, according to ANI. The national carrier's board has approved a scheme for sending employees on leave without pay for six months to two years.

The period can be extended up to five years. It has authorised chairman Rajiv Bansal to send employees on the leave without pay. The airline has chosen a committee in which, ...
A neo-Nazi suspect accused of the worst anti-Semitic attack in post-war Germany on Wednesday told a court his assault on a synagogue was "not a mistake" as plaintiffs walked out when a video of the violence was played. Stephan Balliet, 28, stands accused of shooting dead two people last October after he tried and failed to storm a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle last year during Yom Kippur, one of the most important festivals in the Jewish year. Showing no signs of remorse, he insisted to the court that "attacking the synagogue was not a mistake, they are my enemies". He has been charged with two counts of murder and multiple counts of attempted murder in a case that has deeply rattled the country and fuelled alarm about rising right-wing extremism and anti-Jewish violence, 75 years after the end of the Nazi era. On the second day of the trial, the video filmed and streamed live by Balliet during the assault was played as evidence, prompting some to leave the room while others covered their ears or looked at the floor during the 30 minutes when the scenes were played out. Balliet meanwhile smiled as the video began playing. Noting that everyone has a right to life regardless of their origin or religion, federal prosecutor Kai Lohse told the accused: "You will have some time to think about this." If convicted, Balliet could face a life sentence for an attack which bore some of the hallmarks of two carried out and similarly live-streamed some months earlier in Christchurch, New Zealand by Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 people. Balliet's victims were a 40-year-old woman gunned down in the street and a 20-year-old man in a kebab restaurant. On the video he can be seen shaven headed and wearing military garb armed with several home-made weapons as well as grenades as he tries to shoot his way inside the synagogue where there were 52 worshippers. When he failed to force open the door, he threw several grenades and Molotov cocktails which likewise caused little damage. After shouting a slew of anti-Semitic remarks and growing increasingly frustrated he is heard switching into English and cursing his efforts as "useless". At his trial he considered his actions to have been "desperate" and "a failure".
AMHERST  Residents have been calling police after seeing college students outdoors at private homes not wearing masks and too close to each other, Town Manager Paul Bockelman told the Town Council during Mondays meeting.

Many of our year-round residents are seeing smallish parties, by Amherst standards. But people are starting to call and say theres a party at this private house and theyre not social distancing, and theyre not wearing masks, Bockelman said.

Normally, that person might have just walked by or driven by that household as being a normal student party  but in this day and age its a different feeling for people, he said.

The difference, of course, is the coronavirus pandemic, which prompted local colleges to send students home in mid-March.

After peaking in April, the rate of new cases of COVID-19 continues to decline in Massachusetts. But health experts continue to recommend that people wear face coverings and stay at least 6 feet apart from others while in public.

The University of Massachusetts Amherst plans to keep almost all of its courses online in the fall semester, but it has invited some students to return to campus  provided they abide by restrictions meant to stop the spread of the virus.

Even so, the return of students  particularly those living off campus  has prompted concern from Bockelman and others who say an influx of students could lead to new spikes in infections.

Bockelman sent a letter to UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy earlier this month expressing some of those concerns. He told the council Monday night he received a response earlier that day.

It is a good response. They have heard our concerns. They have addressed some of them, Bockelman said.

The biggest one  we believe they should be treating all their students the same whether theyre on campus or off campus, he said.

Bockelman said the university must provide isolation and quarantine units for off-campus students if needed to maintain their health and prevent the spread of COVID-19.

These are different times. We cant rely on our old standards of responding to house parties. Its going to be a different way of dong things, he told the council.

More than 20 residents wrote to thank Bockelman for bringing the concerns to Subbaswamy.

As a very high-risk person in the five-college community, I must say I dread students returning for the upcoming semester, one person wrote. I think it is a huge mistake.

Bockelman said having police respond to small parties will create additional drain on resources for the town.

We worry about friction, he said. Police are asked to respond to each of these situations  things they might not normally respond to.

Back in March, Bockelman told the council that the towns emergency dispatchers were inundated with calls from residents reporting social distancing violations. He asked the public not to report social distancing violations.

It is not something we are going to respond to, Bockelman said at the councils March 23 meeting. Dispatchers should not have to get these calls.

About 7,000 of the usual 14,000 UMass students are expected to be living on campus when classes resume Aug. 24. As many as 8,500 students may be living off campus, in Amherst and surrounding communities, the university said.

A university statement said 3,200 students are enrolled in in-person classes, 750 of whom will live on campus.

Meanwhile, no more then 50 Amherst College students and 20-30 Hampshire College students would be living off campus in the fall, Bockelman said.
SAO PAULO, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- This week BTG Pactual (BPAC11), the largest investment bank in Latin America, is holding the Global Managers Conference 2020 with the participation of some of the world's leading international fund managers. The central themes of the event, broadcast on BTG Pactual's digital channel on YouTube, include resuming economic growth, emerging markets, allocation of resources and management of international investment funds.

On the first day, the CEO of BTG Pactual, Roberto Sallouti, led a discussion on how to restart the global economy with the participation of Robert Higginbotham, International CEO of the fund management firm T. Rowe Price. "I am very pleased to be able to gather the largest international fund managers together once again. I am sure that this quality discussion will show a consistent outlook on the future of the Brazilian economy and emerging markets moving forward," said Roberto Sallouti, CEO of BTG Pactual.

Yesterday, on the second day of the Global Managers Conference 2020, Mark Mobius, founder of Mobius Capital Partners, and Brendan Ahern, director of investments at Krane, discussed the future of emerging markets, with moderation by Will Landers, head of variable income at BTG Pactual Asset Management.

"Our greatest allocation of investments at the moment is in China. But we have found numerous opportunities in Brazil, which today is one of the three largest markets in our portfolio. I believe in the recovery of the Brazilian market and we have bet on companies in the healthcare and education sectors, where Brazilian shares have registered incredible results this year," Mark Mobius said.

This Thursday, July 23, two of the largest international fund managers in the world will be leading the panel "Finding value in global markets." Barnaby Wiener, senior portfolio manager at MFS International Ltd., and Reinout Schapers, senior portfolio manager of the Dutch fund management company Robeco, will participate in the discussion, with mediation by Renato Mimica, CIO of the magazine Exame.

Tomorrow, July 24, on the last day of the event, Lydia Hauter, senior portfolio manager of Pictet Asset Management, and Richard Clode, senior portfolio manager of Janus Henderson, will be leading the discussion on global megatrends in the post COVID-19 world, with mediation by Laura Gonzalez, head of Wealth Management at Allfunds.

SOURCE BTG Pactual

Related Links

https://www.btgpactual.com


Tunis Tunisia (PANA) - The coordination of unemployed Tunisian journalists organized a sit-in protest on Thursday in front of the seat of the government presidency, to press their demand for recruitment in the public sector, PANA witnessed on the spot
Flying officer Tolulope Arotile has been laid to rest with full military honours at the National military cemetery Abuja.

Among those who paid their last respects to the departed combat helicopter pilot was the Minister of Women Affairs who alongside the chief of the air staff winged the young officer on the 15th of October 2019.

Her course mates at the Nigerian Defence Academy played the role of pallbearers, wheeling the casket bearing the flying officers corpse to the grave.

Among those paying their last respects to the fighter helicopter pilot is the governor of her homestead, Kogi State.

Others include the, the chief of Defence Staff, the chief of air staff, the minister of humanitarian affairs and the minister of women affairs who along side the air chief winged the young pilot on the 15th of October 2019.

In grief, the Arotiles paid their last respects in the absence of their parents who according to tradition are not allowed to witness the burial of their daughter.

The chief of the air staff describes the female combat helicopter pilot as a mentee who didnt live long enough to fulfil her dreams.

The ceremonial volley and laying of wreaths mark the peak of the funeral.

Flying officer Tolulope Arotile was winged as the first ever female combat helicopter pilot in the Nigerian Air Force on the 15th if October 2019, after completing her flying training in South Africa where she earned a commercial pilots license.

She also undertook tactical flying training on the Augusta 1-0-9 Power Attack helicopter in Italy.

Until her death, she earned the name Bandit Slayer due to her role in a special operation against banditry in the country.
Joele Frank and ICR are working the Chapter 11 filing of Ascena Retail Group, owner of the Ann Taylor, LOFT and Lane Bryant stores, a restructuring that will slash corporate debt by $1B.

ARG, which has 2,800 outlets, claims the revamp will provide the financial flexibility to allow it to focus on generating growth and driving value for customers and stakeholders.

Interim executive chair Carrie Teffner said the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted progress made to improve operating margins and strengthen the company's financial position.

The restructuring plan "will deleverage our balance sheet, right-size our operations and inject new capital into the business," according to Teffner.

ARG plans to "strategically reduce in footprint" by closing a "select number" of Ann Taylor, LOFT, Lane Bryant and Lou & Grey stores, along with a "significant number" of Justice outlets.

The number of shutdowns depends on the outcome of negotiations with landlords to reach agreement on "sustainable lease structures." ARG believes it is in the best long-term interests of landlords to partner with it to keep as many stores open as possible.

The company is exiting the Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico markets and shuttering its Catherines store chain.

Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher's Meaghan Repko, Leigh Parrish and Dan Moore are handling media for ARG, while ICR's Jean Fontana is working the investment community.
Established by longtime partners, Chantal Andrade and Angela Ojeda, Discover Houston Realty is known for making homeownership achievable for generations of families. We were determined to align with a brokerage that cares about people as much as we do. We resonated with Sides mission. They do for agents what we do for our clients.

Discover Houston Realty today announced its partnership with Side, the only real estate brokerage that exclusively partners with high-performing agents, teams, and independent brokerages to transform them into boutique brands and businesses. The collaboration will ensure that Discover Houston Realty, a team known for making homeownership achievable for generations of families, is powered by the most advanced platform in the industry.

Discover Houston Realty was established by longtime partners, Chantal Andrade and Angela Ojeda. Between the two of them, theyve garnered some of Houstons most prestigious awards, including being named in Houstons Top 100 Real Estate Agents, the Top 100 Real Estate Teams in Social Media, and the Houston Association of Realtors Top 20 Under 40 Rising Stars in Real Estate. They serve residential real estate clients throughout Houston and specialize in Pearland, Friendswood, League City, Rosharon, Alvin, Pasadena, Deer Park, La Porte, and EADO.

Partnering with Side will ensure Discover Houston Realty remains at the cutting edge of the evolving real estate market while allowing its agents to continue delivering premium services to their clients. Discover Houston Realty agents are fully supported by a one-of-a-kind premium brokerage platform, which provides transaction management, property marketing, lead generation, business growth opportunities, vendor management, and infrastructure solutions.

When asked why they chose to partner with Side, Ojeda said, We wanted to team up with a company that was as dedicated to delivering our clients dreams as we are. Side gives us access to state-of-the-art marketing, technology, administrative, and legal services, which allows us to ensure our clients have the best service and experience. Andrade continued, We were determined to align with a brokerage that cares about people as much as we do. We resonated with Sides mission. They do for agents what we do for our clients.

Side is led by experienced industry professionals and world-class engineers who develop technology designed to improve agent productivity and enhance the client experience. Based on its belief that homeownership is a fundamental human right, Side is on a mission to improve the public good by providing top-performing real estate agents, teams, and indie brokerages with the best system, support, service, experience, and results.

About Discover Houston Realty

The agents at Discover Houston Realty dont sell properties, they sell dreams, and they make them come true. Operating on a no-client-left-behind policy, they treat each client with dignity and respect and provide service thats tailored to their unique desires and individual needs. Their mission is to turn transactions into unforgettable experiences, and generations of families have trusted them to make homeownership achievable. Find out why Discover Houston is shaping up to be the most sought-after real estate firm in Houston at http://www.discoverhoustonrealty.com.

About Side

Side transforms high-performing agents, teams, and independent brokerages into successful businesses and boutique brands that are 100% agent-owned. Side exclusively partners with the best agents, empowering them with proprietary technology and a premier support team so they can be more productive, grow their business, and focus on serving their clients. Side is headquartered in San Francisco. For more information, visit http://www.sideinc.com.
A forest range officer posted in Nauradehi sanctuary in Bundelkhand region in Madhya Pradesh was transferred within a fortnight of lodging a complaint with police against a BJP MLA.

Madhya Pradeshs principal chief conservator of forest (PCCF) said the transfer on Wednesday was in the interest of the officer.

Forest officer Tilak Singh Raipuria in his complaint lodged with sub-divisional officer of police (SDoP) at Tendukheda in Damoh district on July 10 accused BJP MLA Dharmendra Singh Lodhi of abusing and threatening him with dire consequences for taking action against two persons who were caught fishing in a prohibited area in the forest.

The forest officer was transferred on Wednesday to Sheopur which is about 500 km away from Nauradehi.

In his complaint to the police, the forest officer had said, Pankaj Vishwas and Ramkishun Chakraborty of village Sarra were arrested on July 10,2020 under sections 9, 27, 29, 50, 51 (2) of Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. I got a call to set them free. The caller introduced himself as Jabera MLA Dharmendra Singh Lodhi who inquired with me as to who had been arrested. When I told him the arrested man was some Doctor saheb who was hunting he said he had received a number of complaints against me and that if I didnt release the man I would face dire consequences. He used abusive language against me.

Requesting the police to take necessary action, the officer said in the complaint, MLA Dharmedra Singh Lodhi exerted pressure on me to let go a criminal and also threatened that he would gherao me with 1,000 people. While there was obstruction in discharging my duties as a government servant, I face a threat to my life.

An audio clip went viral on social media in which a man introducing himself as the MLA from Jabera constituency Dharmedra Lodhi is heard using abusive language against the officer Tilak Singh and threatening him. Lodhi, as heard in the clip, wanted no action against the fishing accused doctor while the officer stood his ground.

The MLA, however, denied that he used abusive language against the officer or threatened him and said there were numerous complaints of excesses against him that he had received from local villagers.

When contacted after his transfer Tilak Singh said, I take it not as a punishment posting but routine administrative exercise in the department.

Divisional conservator of forest at Sagar, Naveen Garg said, There was no recommendation from my side for the transfer of the ranger officer.

Principal chief conservator of forest (PCCF) Rajesh Shrivastava said, We had received a complaint from the MLA which had in it statements and affidavits of some villagers too. We had sent an officer to conduct an inquiry into the complaint. The officer was transferred based on the inquiry report. We found that the atmosphere over there was against him. Hence, the transfer was effected in his interest.

(With input from Anupam Pateriya in Sagar)
In other business, the following mayoral appointments of citizens to boards, committees and commissions were agreed upon: Andrew Traxler, zoning board of appeals (3 year term); Michelle Wallace, parks and recreation advisory board (3 year term); Jason Theilen, plan commission (3 year term); Lori Hackman, community and development authority (filling a vacant seat that expires 2023); and Andrew Traxler, Columbus cable commission (3 year term).

The council approved selling the fire departments 1991 Ford rescue truck that is no longer in operation.

Since there was no interest from other departments in the truck, it will be put on an online auction with Wisconsin Surplus. Fire Chief Randy Koehn said the truck will carry a minimum bid of $8,000.

Proceeds from the sale will be used to equip a new rescue truck, of which a little more than $10,000 is needed for loose goods.

Two budgeted items got the go ahead from council members. Carrico Aquatics water management agreement was renewed. Columbus Aquatics Director Amy Jo Meyers said there were no changes in the contract. Approval was also given for final roof repair at the Waste Water Treatment Plant in the amount of $89,430.
The Manipur government announced a seven-day stringent statewide lockdown while Madhya Pradesh announced a 10-day complete shutdown of Bhopal due to spike in coronavirus (Covid-19) cases.

Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh in a social media post on Wednesday evening, said, A strict 7 days Statewide Lockdown from 2 pm of July 23, 2020 has been imposed by a Cabinet decision at a Cabinet Meeting held today. The lockdown may be extended further for another week beyond 29 July 2020. I appeal to all to abide by the lockdown guidelines.

The total number of positive cases in Manipur reached 2,060, while the total active and recovered cases stand at 642 and 1418, respectively.

In the past 24 hours, 45 persons were confirmed as new positive cases ,Dr Kh Sasheekumar Mangang, additional director and spokesperson of health department said in an official press release.

The Madhya Pradesh Narottam Mishra on Wednesday evening said, In view of magnitude of coronavirus spread in Bhopal, it will be under a 10-day complete lockdown from 8 pm on July 24 night to August 3 night. However, chemist shops, vegetable vendors, milk parlours, industries and government ration shops will remain exempted from the lockdown.

As per the state health department, the Covid-19 patients tally in the MP has risen to 24,842 with 770 deaths among them.
Iran Planning to Lever Financial Assets Held Abroad to Balance Own Currency Rate

Sputnik News

14:48 GMT 22.07.2020

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Iranian government has unveiled plans to use foreign currency reserve assets abroad for balancing domestic exchange rates, which have experienced extreme volatility over the past week, President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday.

"We are trying to use the currency we hold in other countries as reserves, as good measures have been taken in recent days with at least three countries", Rouhani said at a cabinet meeting, as quoted by Iran's Tasnim news agency.

The Iranian president pointed, in particular, to Russia and China, saying that the political ties with these countries "have improved in recent weeks" and adding that he sent a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a call for "closer regional relations," delivered earlier this week by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif during his visit to Moscow.

Rouhani also cited the recent visit of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi to Tehran, saying that it brought about "good agreements" on economic and banking cooperation, customs and trade.

"We hope to continue cooperation with the neighbours and friends, including Russia, Iraq, Pakistan, Qatar and Afghanistan", Rouhani added, as quoted in the report.

As part of the measure, Iran's Central Bank has reportedly urged Iranian exporters to repatriate the money held abroad, all to balance out the currency rates.

Iran's currency, the rial, hit an all-time low of 260,000 against the US dollar on Sunday. The Iranian Central Bank responded by injecting $300 million into the market, but its impact on the devaluation of the rial was insignificant.

A Sputnik

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(Natural News) After previously resisting their use, President Donald Trump is now saying that cloth face masks have an impact and have an effect, and that we need everything we can get.

Speaking during a recent White House news briefing, Trump seemed to be asking Americans who are not able to socially distance to wear a mask if they are able to in an effort to help stymie the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19).

For months, Trump had indicated his opposition to masks, especially when they are illegally mandated by city councils, mayors, and other government officials. Anthony Fauci has likewise been pushing their use for months, even after previously stating that face masks are not really effective, and are more symbolic than anything else.

In recent weeks, face masks have really started to be aggressively pushed by many entrenched government officials such as Fauci, who now claim that they prevent the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19). And Trump has seemingly switched his tune to support this concept.

I have no problem with the masks, Trump stated, appearing to affirm the idea that covering ones nose and mouth with a piece of cloth might help to prevent the spread of microscopic viruses.

I view it this way: Anything that potentially can help  is a good thing, Trump added. I have no problem. I carry it. I wear it. You saw me wearing it a number of times and Ill continue.

Trump does not support mandatory mask-wearing, suggests Americans should have freedom of health choice

At the same time, Trump is not supportive of folks being told they have to wear masks under threat of punishment, especially since the coverings can impede oxygen uptake and potentially cause other health problems.

I dont agree with the statement that if everybody wears a mask, everything disappears, Trump stated during a recent Fox News interview, responding to comments made earlier in the week by Robert Redfield about how forced mask-wearing would supposedly eliminate the plandemic in as little as a month.

Trump also emphasized how public health entities such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) had initially not recommended the use of masks, only to switch their tunes when it seemed politically expedient to do so.

These agencies are now claiming that they discouraged mask-wearing early on because they were supposedly concerned about how the publics use of personal protective equipment (PPE) might put undue strain on the supply chain.

Weve had experts in the recent past say that masks arent necessarily good to wear, Trump noted, adding, but now theyve changed their mind. If theyve changed their mind, thats good enough for me.

Interestingly, Trump did not invite Fauci to the recent White House press briefing, and has not engaged in daily briefings with Fauci for quite some time now.

I was not invited up to this point and Im assuming Im not going to be there, Fauci reportedly told CNN in a separate interview that took place just an hour before Trump was set to speak at the press briefing.

Despite now appearing to support the use of masks, Trump has made it clear that he does not intend to mandate them, as attempting to do so would not even pass constitutional muster.

Wash your hands every chance you get, while sheltering high-risk populations, Trump further stated. We are imploring young Americans to avoid packed bars and other crowded indoor gatherings, he added. Be safe and be smart.

For more related news about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), be sure to check out Pandemic.news.

Sources for this article include:

CNBC.com

NaturalNews.com
Genetic testing and counseling for inherited cardiovascular diseases may help patients and their families make well-informed decisions about managing their heart health.

According to "Genetic Testing for Inherited Cardiovascular Diseases," a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association, published today in the Association's journal Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine.

The statement summarizes what we know - and do not know - about the genes or combination of genes that may influence inherited heart diseases and also provides suggestions for best practices for genetic testing.

Although genetic testing has seen explosive growth in the past few years, both in the clinical setting and with direct-to-consumer testing, genetic testing for heart disease should be reserved for specific patients." Kiran Musunuru, M.D, PhD, Professor, Cardiovascular Medicine and Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Musunuru has also done M.P.H., M.L., FAHA,Chair of the writing group for the scientific statement and

According to the statement, cardiovascular conditions that may have an inherited genetic component include:

cardiomyopathies, heart muscle diseases that can lead to heart failure;

thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections, syndromes that cause the body's major artery to balloon and rupture;

arrhythmic disorders that predispose people to potentially fatal abnormal heart rhythms; and

familial hypercholesterolemia, or highly LDL elevated cholesterol levels that greatly increase the risk of heart attack.

Before considering genetic testing, a health care provider should work with the patient to document their family medical history, ideally, going back three generations, to determine if there is a pattern of certain types of heart disease.

Genetic testing should typically be reserved for patients with a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of an inherited cardiovascular disease or for individuals at high risk due to a previously identified disease-causing variant (a gene abnormality that is different from most humans, often responsible for the clinical disease in question) in their family.

Genetic counseling is essential before genetic testing to educate patients on the process and potential results, as well as the potential risks and uncertainties related to testing. Counseling is also critical after genetic testing, so the counselor can explain the results and potential consequences for the patient's health and the health of family members including children.

Since immediate family members - first-degree relatives such as fathers, mothers, siblings or children - might share genetic variants predisposing them to an inherited cardiovascular disease, they are considered to be at higher risk for the same conditions.

Once a genetic variant is identified within a family, all first-degree relatives should consider undergoing genetic testing and counseling for that specific mutation whenever possible.

Genetic counselors can also advise and support patients on the best ways to communicate the news of any genetic variants they may discover through genetic testing to other family members.

Although privacy laws restrict the ability of health care professionals to disseminate information directly to potentially affected relatives, they can provide written letters that explain the genetic findings, which the patients can give to their family members.

"With most genetic cardiovascular diseases, inheriting a mutation (or variant) from a parent substantially increases the risk of getting the disease but does not guarantee the disease," said Musunuru. "In some cases, it might be possible to act early and prevent the disease.

In other cases, having the mutation for a genetically caused cardiovascular condition might lead to different and possibly more aggressive treatment."

Advances in human genetics are improving the understanding of a variety of inherited cardiovascular diseases. However, there are still limitations. Genetic testing might not reveal a cause or confirm a diagnosis of the patient's disease.

In many cases, genetic testing can reveal a mutation that is called "uninterpretable" or a "variant of uncertain significance." A variant of uncertain significance, or VUS, is not considered either definitively pathogenic (disease causing) or benign, meaning that it's unclear if the patient is at increased risk for disease.

Since it is unclear whether the VUS increases the risk of disease or not, it can be challenging for doctors to counsel patients on appropriate treatment.

It is also possible that a patient may be diagnosed with an inherited cardiovascular disease, yet genetic testing doesn't reveal any genetic mutations. This makes it difficult to explain why the patient has the disease and whether any of their family members are also at risk.

"Another issue is that we have not yet clarified the full spectrum of genes that are responsible for various inherited cardiovascular diseases - we are still very much in discovery mode, with ongoing research efforts," added Musunuru.

"Genetic testing methods are evolving, and reliable classification of variants identified in genetic testing will remain a preeminent challenge for the practice of clinical genetics."
Leer en espanol.

INDIANAPOLIS  Consuelo Poland was the only woman and the only woman of color in her class when she got a welding certificate seven years ago in Michigan.

And other than the hands-on instruction on how to use welding tools, the classes didn't offer a way to take what she had learned to the next level.

But she figured it out.

While she was still in school working toward obtaining her certificate, she quickly got job offers and sponsorship opportunities.

My welding skills opened a lot of doors for me, Poland said, "and a lot of opportunities fell on my lap and I wondered, why arent there more women doing this?"

So when the 31-year-old functional artist and welder moved to Indianapolis in 2015, she saw an opportunity to help more women not only venture into the welding industry but also take their skills beyond the workshops in a diverse and inclusive environment.

"But I also wanted to find a way to get more Latinas together, Poland  who was born in Guatemala, adopted by American parents and raised in a predominately white community in Michigan  said.

Empowering women

Consuelo Poland, the Founder and Executive Director of the Latinas Welding Guild, stands next to a robotic welder, Thursday, June 25, 2020. The guild is a nonprofit organization that helps women in the community, 18 years and older, to get certified so they can get jobs in the welding industries.

In 2017, Poland founded the Latinas Welding Guild, a nonprofit organization in Indianapolis that aims to empower Latinas and all women personally, creatively and economically through welding.

Through donations and scholarships, the program is able to feature welding workshops  where she's an instructor  a chance to build career development skills through advocacy and mentorship. The students also learn how to navigate the welding industry, Poland said, "which they wouldn't typically get in a classroom-setting."

From my personal experience of joining the welding industry as a woman and trying to enter a creative world and then also trying to survive in a white world, I know I would have liked to have more support," she said. "That's why it is so important that we are inclusive and that we have women from all backgrounds, ethnicities, ages, and education levels.

Story continues

Networking and field trips to metal supply shops and fabrication shops including larger-scale fabrication shops, and custom art fabrication shops, are also an important part of the program.

Being new to the industry you dont know what questions to ask, you dont know who to talk to, no one teaches you that stuff, she said. "If they dont feel confident enough to go buy their own supplies then theres a chance they wont keep welding. Theres a chance they give up."

Since it was founded, the organization has helped 21 women in Indianapolis obtain welding certifications.

The Latinas Welding Guild students' ages range from early 20s to 60s. Many of the students are moms who are trying to find better career opportunities, seeking to run their own business or enter the workforce.

Women in the welding industry

According to a 2016 study by the Institute for Women's Policy Research, more women are seeking certifications in middle-skill jobs  jobs that require more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelors degree, such as welding, cosmetology, auto repair, nursing, or medical assisting  because they offer the potential of employment with family-sustaining earnings.

But welding is still an occupational field dominated by men.

According to the most recent data by the U.S. Department of Labor, as of 2016, 96% of workers in welding, soldering, and brazing were men.

In Central Indiana, the landscape for structural work is similar.

Iron Workers Local #22 union in Indianapolis represents more than 1,000 members in Indianapolis, Terre Haute, and Lafayette, and only 11 of those members are women.

However, the union doesn't only represent welders, their members do several types of structural work, Rick Crum, the union's financial secretary/treasurer, told IndyStar.

"Just locally (the industry) is predominately male and white," Crum said. "We will gladly accept more women. It's tough labor but women should still be encouraged to look into it."

Marisol Serrano, with the Latinas Welding Guild, puts on protective gear to weld, Thursday, June 25, 2020. The guild is a nonprofit organization that helps women in the community, 18 years and older, to get certified so they can get jobs in the welding industries.

And even during the coronavirus pandemic, structural jobs have not slowed down. There's a need for workers to do these jobs, Crum said.

"Through the pandemic, we were considered essential workers," Crum said. "I mean, our hours have been great. Everybody that wants to work right now is working. There's definitely a high demand."

According to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report, the median annual wage for welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers was $42,490 in May 2019.

The report states that the employment of welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers is projected to grow 3% from 2018 to 2028.

"The nations aging infrastructure will require the expertise of welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers to help rebuild bridges, highways, and buildings," the report says. "Also, the construction of new power generation facilities and, specifically, pipelines transporting natural gas and oil may result in new jobs."

'Yes we can'

Marisol Serrano, 48, heard about the organization through word-of-mouth. Serrano worked as a supervisor for a food manufacturer for more than a decade before she started welding with the guild.

She was tired, stressed, and wanted to try something new. Reaching financial stability has also been her goal for a while, she said.

And working in an environment where she was often the only woman in the room became uncomfortable and exhausting.

"I kept getting challenged only because I was a female," Serrano said. "And when I became involved in this organization it was great to be around people that understand that and that can relate. And yes, welding is a heavy job and (men) might think we can't do it, but yes we can."

Now that she's certified in welding and also celebrating recently obtaining her high school diploma, Serrano hopes to become more involved with the guild and mentor other women.

"I want to help this organization grow," Serrano said. "I want to help us reach more women to get involved."

The students have been able to work in projects with businesses such as Tlaolli Mexican Restaurant and Hotel Tango Distillery.

Carlos Hutchinson owner of Tlaolli said Poland and students of the guild worked on an archway for the entrance of his restaurant.

"Consuelo is a true artist. The piece she designed for us is beautiful and I was very proud to see the work she's doing in helping women entrepreneurs," Hutchinson said. "She's a leader in the Latino community here and an example for everyone. I would encourage other businesses in the community to collaborate with them and get more steel art pieces. Art in your businesses takes your space to another level.

"And business owners will be supporting the (welding) students in return."

In June, the students worked on a community project by creating and installing arbors and a bike rack for the Holy Cross neighborhood.

Upcoming projects for the group include building a horse trailer for Poured to Perfection, a mobile bartending service; and art installations in collaboration with Keep Indianapolis Beautiful and the Indianapolis Arts Council, among other projects.

An inclusive and safe space

Graciela Suarez, 46, had experienced a loss in her family around the time she found the guild. She never told anyone in the group what she'd gone through, she said.

Suarez, who is originally from Mexico City, said she and others in the immigrant community in Indianapolis can often feel excluded from career development opportunities.

She said the classes and the women she met helped her through her grief. But the group also helped her find a variety of resources available to expand her career options.

"This was the first time I felt included and treated as an equal," Suarez. "I was going through something so stressful at the time and this group helped me, supported me, they had the patience and I felt like I do have some options to develop my skills."

Poland said when she founded the organization, she wanted to focus on partnering with people and organizations in Indianapolis that would typically fall through the cracks.

"Some organizations only market to a certain demographic or a certain audience," she said. "So I wanted to reach those artists, those people, and organizations that are also small. Theyre just not being engaged. So how are you supposed to build a network when youre not ever invited?"

Suarez became a certified welder in June. After years of working in housekeeping, the mother of two said her welding certificate gives her more of a safety net.

"Being able to weld, and work the metal and do all of these things was very interesting for me and I also realized that its something that I had no idea I would enjoy."

How to get into the program and how to help

Denise Martin, a student and teaching assistant with the Latinas Welding Guild, does some stick welding, Thursday, June 25, 2020. The guild is a nonprofit organization that helps women in the community, 18 years and older, to get certified so they can get jobs in the welding industries.

The program is designed to help low to moderate-income women get their welding certification. Women must be 18 years or older in order to apply.

The classes cover the basics of metallurgy, welding, and fabrication.

Follow Natalia Contreras on Twitter: @NataliaECG.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indianapolis Latinas Welding Guild helps women break into field
Stephen J. Cernava is a mechanical engineer and father of two college age children currently living in North Carolina. He has published his new book Building America Great: One Brick at a Time! A Biography of William R. Martin: a rousing and quintessentially American success story.

How did a low-income boy from Long Island, New York, become one of the most sought-after construction managers on the East Coast of America? William R. Martin learned several trades at an early age, then used that information to become a very successful construction supervisor. He worked hard, paying attention to every detail first as a carpenters assistant, then a plumbers helper; and finally, he was doing electrical work on his own built-from-scratch homes. Using all this information, along with a confidence, willingness to put in long hours, and desire to get it right the first time, all served him well in his career. Along his lifes journey, he had dozens of interesting adventures (owned a restaurant), met famous people (served with Rocky Graziano in the Army), and built some of the largest nursing facilities, hospitals, and offices on the East Coast. He also served in the Army at the Roswell, New Mexico, base that was notorious for UFO sightings, of which William R. Martin was a witness.

Published by Page Publishing, Stephen J. Cernavas engrossing book is an inspiring success story that affirms with every twist and turn that hard work, determination, and perseverance are the foundation upon which the American Dream is built.

Readers who wish to experience this engaging work can purchase Building America Great: One Brick at a Time! A Biography of William R. Martin 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.
ATLANTA, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Tropical Smoothie Cafe LLC, the franchisor of the leading national fast-casual concept known for its better-for-you-smoothies and food with a tropical twist, announced today its donation of $100,000 to the American Nurses Foundation's Coronavirus Response Fund for Nurses.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Tropical Smoothie Cafe has been on a mission to spread sunshine across the country while giving back and supporting our nation's healthcare heroes and first responders.

In April, Tropical Smoothie Cafe franchisees donated more than 200,000 smoothies to healthcare workers and first responders in their communities.

This initiative was followed by the brand's nationwide One Million Smoothie Giveaway campaign for guests during the month of May, in which Tropical Smoothie Cafe pledged to donate $100,000 to the American Nurses Foundation upon meeting their giveaway goal.

"In the face of the pandemic, cafes across the country quickly came together to support the healthcare workers and front-line responders who have been working around the clock to keep everyone safe," said Charles Watson, CEO of Tropical Smoothie Cafe, LLC. "In addition to donating more than 200,000 smoothies to these healthcare heroes and first responders across the country, we are proud and honored to support the American Nurses Foundation with a $100,000 donation that will directly benefit their COVID-19 Response Fund."

"This generous donation comes during such a crucial time for nurses in our country and we are also extremely grateful for the support Tropical Smoothie Cafe has given to the healthcare professionals in the communities it serves during this pandemic," said Kate Judge, executive director, American Nurses Foundation. "Bringing immediate and ongoing support to those who are continuing to fight this crisis, this donation will help the Foundation support critical areas where frontline nurses need support like mental well-being and national advocacy."

The pivotal support of healthcare heroes by Tropical Smoothie Cafe locations across the country all started with a mother-daughter franchisee duo in Atlanta who wanted to give back to front-line workers in their community.

"Back in March, my daughter and I began delivering free smoothies to hospitals in the Atlanta area to show our appreciation for everything healthcare professionals were doing to keep our community safe," said Debbie Pike, Tropical Smoothie Cafe franchisee. "We never dreamed this initiative would become so successful among our fellow franchisees across the country, and we're proud to be a part of a company that values the need to support its communities."

For more information on Tropical Smoothie Cafe, visit www.TropicalSmoothieCafe.com.

About Tropical Smoothie Cafe

Tropical Smoothie Cafe is a national fast-casual cafe concept inspiring a healthier lifestyle with more than 850 locations nationwide. Serving better-for-you smoothies, wraps, sandwiches, and flatbreads, Tropical Smoothie Cafe also offers upgraded app technology and enhanced mobile ordering capabilities to further elevate the digital and dine-in cafe experience and emphasize the brand's focus on convenience. The rapidly growing franchise has received numerous accolades including rankings in QSR's Best Franchise Deals, Entrepreneur's Franchise 500 and Forbes' Best Franchises, as well as Franchise Times' Top 200+. In 2019, the brand was recognized amongst Fast Casual's Top 100 Movers and Shakers, Nation's Restaurant News' Top 200 and Top 10 Fastest Growing Chains, Franchise Times Fast and Serious, Restaurant Business America's Favorite Chains, as well as being chosen as NRAEF's Restaurant Neighbor Award Winner.

SOURCE Tropical Smoothie Cafe
South Africa: Public schools to close from Monday as COVID-19 cases rise

With the country entering the eye of the COVID-19 storm, President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced the closure of public schools for the next four weeks.

Schools will close on Monday, 27 July and reopen on 24 August 2020. However, Grade 12 learners and educators will only take a one-week break and reopen on 3 August, while Grade 7s will return to class on 10 August.

In a televised address to the nation on Thursday night, President Ramaphosa said the current academic year will be extended beyond the end of 2020.

We have taken a deliberately cautious approach during a period when the country is expected to experience its greatest increase in infections.

The health and well-being of learners and educators are critical, said the President.

The latest figures reveal that South Africas Coronavirus death toll jumped from 5 940 to over 6 000 on Thursday.

With 408 052 confirmed cases, South Africa is now among the top five worst-affected nations in the world, and accounts for more than half the confirmed cases on the African continent.

Schools have been gradually opening since 8 June when Grades 7 and 12 went back to class after all grades shut down in March to curb the spread of the virus under lockdown level 5.

Since then, schools have been welcoming more grades back in a staggered fashion, as the country slowly relaxes regulations.

However, the President said it remains the countrys utmost priority to ensure that everything possible is done to minimise the loss of life.

In approaching the opening of schools, we have always said that the health and well-being of learners and educators are critical, the President said, noting that a difficult balance has to be struck, so as not to hinder the development and progress of learners.

A major and lasting disruption to learning would have a devastating impact on the prospects of an entire generation of young people.

Making the necessary adjustments

As COVID-19 cases continue on an upward trajectory, calls have been mounting from different bodies for the closure of schools.

Over the last few days, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) has met with more than 60 organisations representing parents, school governing bodies, principals, educators, independent schools and civil society organisations, the President said.

The department has also consulted with the Council of Education Ministers, representing the provincial Education Departments, which resulted in a broad range of divergent views.

It is necessary to report that it was difficult to find consensus on the best approach, just as there are differing views among both international and local experts on the circumstances under which schools should be re-opened, the President said.

Notwithstanding, he said, everyone agreed that the health, academic and social development of learners must remain the foremost concern, which is consistent with the advice of the World Health Organisation.

President Ramaphosa said Cabinets decision to close schools for four weeks has been taken after various stakeholders and expert bodies.

He said specific arrangements will be made for different categories of special schools.

The President said Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga will provide details on the management of the remainder of the school year.

Nutrition programme to remain operational

In addition, millions of learners will still receive nutritious meals at school, as the National School Nutrition Programme will continue to operate.

I am aware that this arrangement will disappoint many learners who want to be back at school, and may cause inconvenience and difficulty for many families who need to make alternative childcare arrangements.

We ask you to do this because we believe it is important to ensure that schools do not become sites of transmission at a time when infections are rising fast, the President said.

He thanked teachers and other staff at schools, who have been on the frontline during the pandemic under conditions of great difficulty.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-07-23. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Missouri City Police Chief reports decrease in crimes

Berezin

Missouri City is the 22nd safest city in Texas, Police Chief Mike Berezin told the city council while presenting the annual report.



Berezin said Part 1 crimes have a clearance rate of 17% in Missouri City while the state average is at 28%.



He said the citys police now have 6,000 more cameras for preventing/solving crimes; has an investigator working on human trafficking rescues, and that the police drone program was able to catch some criminals and locate some lost persons.



Also, Berezin said he has put in a new recruitment process for prospective police; destroyed more than 569 pounds of prescription drugs and partnered with FBISD and the DEA for several drug take backs; attended 366 HOA/civic meetings conducted in 26 neighborhood sweeps and had 14,750 code violations.



The police department also got $40,791 in funding for overtime traffic enforcements; $10,600 from the Justice Dept. for fitness equipment; $93,774 from the Crime Victim Liaison for distracted and impaired individuals, and $10,529 for driving education.



Code enforcements were 7,852 for initial inspections, 3,630 for follow ups, 3,314 for removing signs, 4,791 for new code cases opened, 4,418 acknowledged and 5,075 for cases closed.



Then he showed a slide to council about code enforcement in the four districts of the city. District A has 1,617 citizens in it; B, 1,225; C, 759, and D, 1,188. Code violations in District A are trash screening, junked vehicles, vegetation, private property issues, and garbage in that order.



District B also had trash screening, tree problems, vegetation, trash placement and junked vehicles. District C had trash screening, trash, junked cars, vegetation, and garbage. District D had the same problems as District C.



Calls for service in the four districts were premise check, traffic stop, ordinance violation, follow stop, security check, ordinance sign removal, assist citizen and residential alarm, field investigation, disturbance, commercial alarm, and order violation.



Berezin then went to Part I crimes. He said there were no changes from 2016-2017. There was 8.75% reduction in crashes and 54,149 in contacts.



The 2017 to 2018 year had a 37% reduction with 2.5% in crashes and 84,967 contacts. In 2018 to 2019 there was a 10% reduction in Part 1 crimes, 7% in crashes and 53,312 contacts.



Property crimes were in burglary, larceny, and motor theft. In 2018 there were 97 burglaries, 670 larceny, and 44 motor thefts. In 2019 there were 86 burglaries, 670 larceny, and 44 motor thefts.



The difference in the 2 years is 1 less burglary, minus 48 in larceny, and 9 more motor thefts. The totals are 811 for 2018 and 773 for 2019 with a difference of minus 38 or minus 5%.



A five-year average in property crimes included 175.2 in burglaries with a low of 97, a high of 229 and an average of 98 in 2019.



Larceny for 2019 in property crimes was 832.6, a low of 953 and a 622 high. Auto theft in 2019 came in at 84.4, a low of 44, and a high of 109. The average for 2019 was 98 burglaries, 622 larceny and 53 for auto theft.



Violent crimes from 2018 to 2019 in Missouri City changed by 12 %. Murders came in at 5 in 2018 and dropped to 1 in 2019 for minus 80%. Rapes were 22 in each year. Robberies for each year were 27 and dropped to 24 for a minus 11%.



Aggravated assaults were 47 in 2018 and 42 in 2019 for another minus 11%.



Totals came in at 101 in violent crimes for 2018 and were 89 for 2019  a difference of 12%.




(Natural News) If it were up to Anthony Fauci, nobody would be allowed to take hydroxychloroquine for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19). And this is strange considering the fact that the guy pushed hydroxychloroquine 15 years ago as a general treatment for all types of coronaviruses, including the one that causes the common cold.

Unbelievably, Fauci has known since at least 2005 that hydroxychloroquine is an effective remedy against coronaviruses. But he very recently changed his tune on the matter after President Donald Trump made an announcement about its effectiveness, sending the medical deep state into a tailspin.

Because Fauci does not align with Trump politically, nor apparently approve of his performance, Fauci has been on the defensive against the use of hydroxychloroquine for several months. This is despite the fact that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), of which he is currently the director, put forth evidence many moons ago showing that hydroxychloroquine, or chloroquine more specifically, is capable of stopping coronaviruses in their tracks.

The COVID-19 bug is likewise a coronavirus, labeled SARS-CoV-2, reports True Pundit. While not exactly the same virus as SARS-CoV-1, it is genetically related to it, and shares 79% of its genome, as the name SARS-CoV-2 implies. They both use the same host cell receptor, which is what viruses use to gain entry to the cell and infect the victim.

Fauci needs to be prosecuted for committing crimes against humanity

It was August 22, 2005, to be precise when the Virology Journal, the official publication of Faucis NIH, published a blockbuster article revealing chloroquine as a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread. In this paper, researchers working under Fauci wrote:

We report  that chloroquine has strong antiviral effects on SARS-CoV infection of primate cells. These inhibitory effects are observed when the cells are treated with the drug either before or after exposure to the virus, suggesting both prophylactic and therapeutic advantage.

What this means, of course, is that Fauci has known the truth about hydroxychloroquine for 15 years, and yet remains adamantly opposed to its use now, instead favoring antiviral drugs like remdesivir and a future vaccine that has yet to be commercially released.

Hydroxychloroquine, which is technically a milder version of chloroquine, is indeed effective both as a therapeutic and a prophylactic, and yet the medical deep state under Fauci is doing everything possible to keep people in the dark about the truth.

So HCQ (hydroxychloroquine) functions both as a cure and a vaccine, True Pundit goes on to explain. In other words, its a wonder drug for coronavirus.

Fauci himself admitted back in 2005 that concentrations of 10 ?M, of chloroquine completely abolished SARS-CoV infection. And Faucis researchers added that chloroquine can effectively reduce the establishment of infection and spread of SARS-CoV.

This is pretty cut and dry, but has Fauci talked about this earlier research even once while serving under the Trump administration? Of course not, the reason being that it is not politically or financially expedient for him to do so, seeing as how he stands to gain from some new antiviral or vaccine gaining approval as opposed to generic hydroxychloroquine, which costs just a few pennies per pill.

Dr. Didier Raoult, the Anthony Fauci of France, to quote True Pundit, was so sure of the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine as a remedy for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) that back in late February he declared it to represent a game over for the pandemic.

Perhaps this is now true in France, but here in the United States the medical deep state still has a stranglehold on society, forcing everyone to wear masks and remain in lockdown rather than do the right thing by promoting hydroxychloroquine as a simple and safe remedy for this scourge.

More of the latest about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) is available at Pandemic.news.

Sources for this article include:

TruePundit.com

NaturalNews.com
While the world famous Warbirds Over Wanaka International Airshow was unable to take place this past Easter due to the pandemic, the organizers in Wanaka, New Zealand are still hard at work helping to promote vintage military aviation activities in the nation. They released the following news about a day of barnstorming which is due to occur in August, releasing the following press statement (lightly edited) about the event which will feature two significant WWII-era warbirds, an Avro Anson Mk.I bomber and a Yakovlev Yak-3 fighter.

Two warbird owners in New Zealand are determined to do their bit to ensure the southern hemispheres largest vintage military air show returns to Wanaka in two years time. Nelson-based Bill Reid, along with Graeme Frew from Blenheim, are bringing their aircraft to Wanaka this August, giving people in the south island an opportunity to take a ride in a classic World War II aircraft. Reid will be bringing his former RAF/RAAF Avro Anson Mk.1 MH120, the only one of its variant flying anywhere in the world today. Following a 10-year restoration effort this aircraft, which flew in both the Royal Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force, made its air show debut at Warbirds Over Wanaka in 2014. Meanwhile, Graeme Frews Soviet-designed Yak-3 fighter will provide a wholly different kind of flying experience to the Anson. Nicknamed Full Noise, the fighter is a Reno Air Race veteran, first flying in the worlds fastest motor sport during the 1990s. When Frew took part in 2017, he flew Full Noise to victory in the Silver Unlimited Race, and became the first pilot to qualify for the Gold Unlimited in their first year of racing, quite a distinction!

Warbirds Over Wanaka General Manager, Ed Taylor, says its going to be great to have at least a couple of Warbirds buzzing around Wanaka Airport for a few days after the disappointment of having to cancel this years big Airshow. Its been well documented that we took a significant financial hit from having to cancel because of Covid-19, so it was great to get a call from Graeme with an idea to bring the aircraft to Wanaka and to offer rides to southern aviation fans with Warbirds getting a donation at the end of the weekend. Wanaka Airport is also helping out with support during the visit, added Ed.

Taylor continued, We just love having the old aircraft in town, and we know there will be lots of people from around the region wholl come just to see these aircraft in action. Graeme and Bill are both absolutely passionate about their aircraft and so when people book a ride what they get is a full aviation experience learning all about the aircrafts history and a whole lot more.

Weather permitting, the aircraft will be at Wanaka Airport from Friday August 21st until Monday August 24th. For more information about the joy rides on offer, please contact Warbirds Over Wanaka via e-mail at info@warbirdsoverwanaka.co.nz
CHERRY HILL, NJ  Five more children were among nine additional Cherry Hill residents who have tested positive for the coronavirus, Camden County officials announced on Thursday.

The new cases included three boys older than 10 and two girls older than 10. Over the last three days, 10 Cherry Hill children have tested positive for the coronavirus at a time when schools are discussing various options for reopening in the fall. Read more here: Remote, In-Person Learning On Table When Cherry Hill Schools Reopen



While the county doesnt specify the ages of juvenile patients, in nine of the 10 cases, they have been described as in their 10s. The 10th was a juvenile girl of unknown age. Read more here: 5 Children Among 11 New Coronavirus Cases Reported In Cherry Hill



New Jersey Coronavirus Updates: Don't miss local and statewide announcements about novel coronavirus precautions. Sign up for Patch alerts and daily newsletters.



Camden County also identified new cases among children in Gloucester City (boy older than 10), Haddon Heights (2 girls older than 10), Mount Ephraim (girl older than 10) and Pennsauken (girl older than 10).

The other new cases in Cherry Hill involved two women in their 20s, a man in his 30s and a man in his 20s. As of Thursday, there are 1,122 cases of the coronavirus in Cherry Hill with 159 confirmed deaths. Trace investigations are underway in all new cases.



Countywide, there are 8,491 coronavirus cases with 528 confirmed deaths. According to the Camden County Department of Health, there are 1,334 confirmed cases among residents at the county's long-term care facilities, with 307 deaths. Another 502 cases were reported among staff members, with three deaths.



This morning we opened applications for the Camden County CARES Small Business Grant Program. Within hours, we had more than one thousand businesses apply for assistance, Camden County Freeholder Director Louis Cappelli Jr. said. This speaks to the need in our community and the significant impact this years shutdown had on those that make up the backbone of our economy. We cannot afford to close these businesses again, but we can ensure that our economy remains open and that businesses are able to resume operations by taking every precaution to stop the spread of coronavirus. Keep wearing masks, social distancing, and quarantining after travel to states with an active outbreak.

This article originally appeared on the Cherry Hill Patch
Also mentioned in last weeks federal subpoena to Madigans office was Walgreens. Like AT&T, Walgreens is a giant company that has long had an interest in the states political process, but the company has not been quite as generous with its political contributions. From the start of 2016 until mid-July, it had contributed nearly $853,000 to political campaigns. Madigans three primary campaign committees got $56,000, or about 6.7% of the total.
Kamala Harris, who was resoundingly rejected by voters before the primaries based on her phoniness, is now running a stealth campaign to be Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's vice president. Here's the Atlantic Monthly's June 30 take on it:

In public, Harris has repeatedly insisted that she's not talking about or thinking about her prospects of being picked. But judging from my conversations with people around Harris, she and her team use her prospects to book events and television hits that aim to show she's neither overeager nor overambitious. She and her team are avoiding situations that could create stumbles. They're hoping that her resume, her background, and the force of her personality propel her. They're picking specific moments for her to grab attention on the Senate floor or send a calibrated tweet. They're tuning out political reporters who are stuck on their couches, looking to drum up content during the pandemic. They're trying to ease concerns in Biden's orbit that if she's picked and they win, she'll start running for president the morning after the inauguration. They want her on the ticket, and positioned to be the Democratic nominee in 2024.

It's been in the news quite a bit that she wants the job bad even though she's effectively been saying "Who, me?"

She's been showing up at every press opportunity to smile and look occupied with legislation  popular uncontroversial measures, such as making Juneteenth a holiday. She's also been out there denouncing cops and blaming Trump. In addition, she's had what looks like some heavy-duty plastic surgery in a bid to look better on camera. Nothing to see here, move along, la di da...

But behind the phony smiles and demurs, she's campaigning like crazy to undercut her potential black-woman rivals, planting negative stories about them in the press about them to keep Biden from picking them. Call it a campaign to one.

The Washington Free Beacon has the full long-knives-out story:

Curiously enough, negative stories about Harris's potential rivals for the VP slot have been popping up of late in mainstream media outlets. Imagine that.

Those potential Democrat rivals include Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Rep. Val Demings, and Rep. Karen Bass, all black women who could also take that coveted vice presidential slot.

In recent weeks, all three have had negative stories published about themalmost certainly the result of opposition research fed to reporters by a rival. Within a span of two days earlier this month, Vox and Politico published similar stories criticizing Demings's record as Orlando police chief. Harris has been criticized in similar fashion for pursuing "tough on crime" policies as California attorney general back when the Democratic Party still believed in crime prevention  although neither story mentions Harris's record. Around the same time, ABC News published a story highlighting Bottoms's ties to "controversial figure" Kasim Reed, the former Atlanta mayor who left office in disgrace amid a federal corruption investigation that resulted in prison time for a number of his senior staffers. Harris herself is no stranger to controversial figures. Her political career emerged as she was in a relationship with former San Francisco mayor (and Washington Free Beacon Man of the Year) Willie Brown, who was also the subject of a federal corruption investigation  but once again, Harris's similar background went unmentioned. Following reports that Biden was considering Bass because of her relative lack of interest in using the VP gig as a platform to launch a presidential campaign in 2024, Politico came through with an article about how the congresswoman once described Cuban dictator Fidel Castro as "comandante en jefe" (commander in chief). "Florida Democrats recoil at Karen Bass VP float," the headline read.

It sounds like she's got the hooks in at JournoList, which wouldn't be surprising at all, given her closeness to the old Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama political machine. The stories are coming out with perfect timing, and they're echo-chambering each other to magnify the "narrative."

It's a reverberation of her record as a dirty trickster prosecutor, the kind who could plant evidence on the innocent and defend phony made up questions to convict someone in a death penalty case, which is what she did. Planting evidence is "her M.O.," as Glenn Reynolds noted at Instapundit.

And like her plastic surgery, it's really pretty obvious.

Bad stories about rivals in Vox  really? Vox? The Vox, founded by Ezra Klein, who, coincidence of coincidences, also founded JournoList in a bid to make journalists the Obama machine's echo chamber? Sure enough, Vox.

And planting evidence isn't her only M.O., either  she's quite skilled at manipulating different kinds of media. Remember this CNN/CBS shopping excursion with the girls on the bus?

Remember all her fake Twitter followers, put there by her own minions, to make Harris look more influential than she really is?

Remember her suspiciously timed legislation which came about just before the Jussie Smollett racist-attack hoax?

She's an operator, so too bad about the rivals, she's out use the press to knock them out.

Because with dotard Joe in the presidential chair, it's pretty obvious Harris is going to have some pretty impressive catbird-seat level power. She'll be the heir apparent, perfectly positioned, for when Joe makes his exit, either during, or shortly after he takes power. He's a placeholder after all, and she knows it. She knows the plan, which is why this represents a golden opportunity for her. What better than to have the real power in the White House, well positioned for 2024?

So there she goes, padding like a duck underwater, trying to pretend to be all uninterested, when the reality shows she's willing to jump into any bed and manipulate any 27-year-old who knows nothing, to bite and claw her way to the top. Harris has no limits, and voters should beware if dodderig old Biden's fool enough to pick Harris as his running mate. She'll get him, too.

Photo Illustration by Monica Showalter with use of screen shot from MSNBC via shareable YouTube, processed with FotoSketcher, and a Pixabay public domain image.
Australia on Thursday announced that its budget deficit is expected to deepen significantly as it battles a coronavirus outbreak that ended the economy's nearly three-decade growth streak  one of the longest seen in any country around the world.

The country's budget deficit is forecast to deepen significantly to 85.8 billion Australian dollars ($61.27 billion) in the financial year that just ended on June 30 from a balanced fiscal position in the prior year, according to a joint statement by the Australian treasurer and finance minister.

That shortfall is projected to widen even more to 184.5 billion Australian dollars ($131.78 billion) in the new fiscal year, the statement said. A Reuters report said that would be the country's biggest deficit since World War II.

Speaking to CNBC's "Street Signs Asia" after the release of the statement, Australian Finance Minister Mathias Cormann described the numbers as "challenging." In addition to the budget forecasts, the statement also contains the government's projections for growth, debt levels and employment situation.

"We know why we're here. We know that these numbers are the result overwhelmingly of the impact on our economy (by) the coronavirus pandemic," he said.
Saturn is truly the lord of the rings in this latest snapshot from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, taken on July 4, 2020, when the opulent giant world was 839 million miles from Earth. This new Saturn image was taken during summer in the planet's northern hemisphere.

Hubble found a number of small atmospheric storms. These are transient features that appear to come and go with each yearly Hubble observation. The banding in the northern hemisphere remains pronounced as seen in Hubble's 2019 observations, with several bands slightly changing color from year to year. The ringed planet's atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium with traces of ammonia, methane, water vapor, and hydrocarbons that give it a yellowish-brown color.

Hubble photographed a slight reddish haze over the northern hemisphere in this color composite. This may be due to heating from increased sunlight, which could either change the atmospheric circulation or perhaps remove ices from aerosols in the atmosphere. Another theory is that the increased sunlight in the summer months is changing the amounts of photochemical haze produced. "It's amazing that even over a few years, we're seeing seasonal changes on Saturn," said lead investigator Amy Simon of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Conversely, the just-now-visible south pole has a blue hue, reflecting changes in Saturn's winter hemisphere.

Hubble's sharp view resolves the finely etched concentric ring structure. The rings are mostly made of pieces of ice, with sizes ranging from tiny grains to giant boulders. Just how and when the rings formed remains one of our solar system's biggest mysteries. Conventional wisdom is that they are as old as the planet, over 4 billion years. But because the rings are so bright - like freshly fallen snow - a competing theory is that they may have formed during the age of the dinosaurs. Many astronomers agree that there is no satisfactory theory that explains how rings could have formed within just the past few hundred million years. "However, NASA's Cassini spacecraft measurements of tiny grains raining into Saturn's atmosphere suggest the rings can only last for 300 million more years, which is one of the arguments for a young age of the ring system," said team member Michael Wong of the University of California, Berkeley.

Two of Saturn's icy moons are clearly visible in this exposure: Mimas at right, and Enceladus at bottom.

This image is taken as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) project. OPAL is helping scientists understand the atmospheric dynamics and evolution of our solar system's gas giant planets. In Saturn's case, astronomers continue tracking shifting weather patterns and storms.

###

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.
ORANGE  School officials have unveiled parts of their plan to reopen schools under Gov. Ned Lamonts Adapt, Advance, Achieve guidelines, including face masks for students and staff, student groupings or cohorts, lunch in classrooms and lots of cleaning and sanitizing.

In Orange, bus service will be provided  the bus will be loaded, starting in rows from back to front and siblings will sit together  but parents are being encouraged to drive their children to and from school, to mitigate any spread of COVID-19, officials said.

Parents also will be asked to take their childrens temperatures before school and consult with the nurse if there are any questions, officials said.

Superintendent of Schools Vincent Scarpetti said at this weeks Board of Education meeting that educators are preparing for a variety of education models and will be prepared to ramp up or down, depending on COVID-19 cases.

He said they are implementing safeguards for the physical and emotional well-being of students and staff.

He said they will create a system of efficiency with multiple streams of communication.

Students and others will be 3 feet to 6 feet apart, and in case social distancing cant be achieved because of space constraints, space at Holy Infant Church and High Plains community Center may be used, officials said.

Michael Gray, director of business and operations, gave the main presentation on reopening plans - still a work in progress. Some of the highlights are:

Cloth masks or face coverings from home will be worn with various mask breaks during the day, including for lunch.

Lunch will be delivered to each classroom and students will eat in their cohort or student grouping.

There will be cleaning and hygiene protocols, including regular disinfecting of high-touch surfaces such as fixtures, handrails, sinks and light switches, and students will be trained to avoid touching each others desks and high-touch places, except in the case of needing to touch a handrail for steep steps.

Custodians have been deep cleaning the towns four schools since March - from light fixtures to the walls.

Children will wash their hands often.

The water systems, sitting since March, will be flushed, the HVAC systems will be sanitized, and fresh air using fans will be circulated most hours of the day, being kicked on automatically at 5 a.m. before the custodian even arrives.

Staff will receive extensive online tutorials.

A survey of parents showed 55 percent of students will ride the bus and 45 percent will be taken and picked up by parents.

In addition, Scarpetti this week sent a frequently asked questions document with answers to school leaders, including what will happen if someone tests positive for coronavirus.

Scarpettis letter said they have received many questions about specific scenarios related to the virus, such as whether a cohort has to quarantine because a member of it tests positive for COVID-19, and whether the siblings of any of the students in that cohort have to stay home as well.

Scarpetti said Mohammad will work with schools to address each scenario that arises on a case by case basis and provide medical protocols.

Scarpetti says in the letter that over the next few weeks, the district will share elements of the reopening plan.

Please know that our team is working diligently to create a safe and comprehensive plan for the reopening of schools for the 2020-2021 school year, Scarpetti wrote.

Some highlight answers to frequently asked questions include:

Cohorting will enable more effective contact tracing in the event a student or someone in their family becomes ill. Cohorting also allows for members to quarantine, as needed, rather than having to close an entire school or district.

A childs cohort will consist of the students in his or her homeroom class.

Parents can elect to have their child attend school on site or engage with remote learning. A survey will go out to parents in August. Parents will be able to change their mind throughout the year and the changed plan would start the following Monday.

The state is requiring districts to create three phases for the 2020-21 school year so that schools can be prepared for whatever scenario may occur. The three phases consist of: Full-time in school (parents may choose to engage in a learning from home option); Hybrid learning (a blend of in-school and remote learning), potentially two days in school and three days remote per week; full remote learning five days a week.

For those who elect to send their child or children to school they will attend five days a week, full time. However, a cohort may transition to remote learning for 14 days at any given moment (depending on exposure).

Any child who is unable to wear a mask at school needs to have a preexisting medical condition that would require a doctors letter/note. A parent would contact the school nurse to discuss the specifics further.

Scarpetti wrote that parents are encouraged to begin to help their child become comfortable wearing a mask, by gradually building up their comfort level.

Students will have recess every day with their cohort only.

Each classroom cohort will have its own supply of equipment to use (e.g., balls, frisbees, jump ropes).

Each school will have an open house, but it will be in a virtual format this year.

Children with an Individualized Education Program, or IEP, will have that plan implemented while we are in-person using mitigating measures, Scarpetti wrote. Should remote learning be necessary, we will implement the IEP to the greatest extent possible under remote instruction and/or in-person if feasible.

There will be no outside visitors in schools, except parents who need to attend to business regarding their children and no parent volunteers in schools.

While we are waiting on further information from the State Department of Education, some elements will be shared at Board of Education meetings, on our website, and through eblast communications, the letter states.

As for positive COVID-19 case questions, Scarpetti said in his letter that Dr. Amir Mohammad, the towns director of health, has made himself available for multiple meetings a week and frequent phone calls from the administrative team. Mohammad is also a resident of Orange who has children attending the Orange Public Schools, Scarpetti said.

The families of the students in the classroom cohort where a positive case of COVID-19 has been diagnosed, will be informed through an eblast and hard copy letter home. Names of anyone who contracts the virus will not be shared.

Per Lamonts guidance and the Health Department, a student who travels to a virus hotpot would need to quarantine at home, while remote learning, for 14 days. The protocol would take effect if the trip took place within 14 days of the school opening or during the school year.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen speaks at Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York during her visit to the US on July 11, 2019. (Jeenah Moon/Reuters)

India Appoints Senior Diplomat to Taiwan as Relations Sour With China

In a move that signals a change in relations with China, India has appointed a senior diplomat to Taiwan. The move follows the standoff with China at Galwan that on June 15 escalated into the killing of 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese soldiers.

Previously, India, wary of Chinas sensitivity over any ties with Taiwan, had appointed lower-ranking officials, and experts say this appointment is significant in showing Indias desire for more interaction with the island nation.

The just-announced envoy, Gourangalal Das, is currently handling the IndiaUnited States relationship in Indias Ministry of External Affairs, according to a July 12 report by the Indian Express, an Indian national daily.

Dr. Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, a distinguished fellow with the Observer Research Foundation, told The Epoch Times in an email from New Delhi: Indias recent appointment of a new envoy to Taiwan has a message for China, one would assume. It could have been a routine affair, but the fact that India went ahead with the change in the middle of the [Galwan] stand-off is important.

Dr. S. Chandrasekharan, director of the South Asia Analysis Group, is of the opinion that Dass appointment is significant because hes a higher-ranked official, and this means the interaction between India and Taiwan has gone to a higher level.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (2nd L) receives flowers from Indian Joint Secretary of the Americas Shri Gourangalal Das (2nd R) as US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster (R) looks on, during Pompeos arrival in New Delhi on June 25, 2019. (JACQUELYN MARTIN/AFP via Getty Images)

We have appointed a very senior official to continue the relationship. This means greater importance is given to interaction with Taiwan, Chandrasekharan said. Earlier, junior officials were appointed as the two countries interacted mostly for trade, but a senior official means quicker diplomatic intervention when needs arise, as matters can be addressed directly higher up in the government, he said.

Dass appointment comes weeks after Indias ruling Bharatiya Janata Party asked two of its members of Parliament to virtually attend the swearing-in ceremony of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on May 20. The standoff in Galwan started two weeks before that.

Because of Indias one-China policy, it doesnt have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and the diplomatic functions are run by the IndiaTaipei Association (ITA). Das will be the ITAs new director-general, and his background as a diplomat working on IndiaU.S. relationships is significant.

The fact that he is someone who understands the U.S. and the importance of U.S.-India relationship is significant, said Rajagopalan.

Gourangalal Das, Indias next envoy to Taiwan, is fluent in Mandarin, served in Beijing for roughly eight years, in the PMOs office, in Washington DC, as Joint Secretary (Americas), and established the MEAs in-house think tank on China after Doklam.https://t.co/a620Q2hM1C https://t.co/gusqCWd0bC  Jeff M. Smith (@Cold_Peace_) July 12, 2020

China Unhappy

Experts said the new development wont make China happy because Indias improved relationships with Taiwan threaten its expansionist agenda.

Of course, China is not going to be happy at the prospect of a strengthened India-Taiwan relationship. China will resist, protest in whatever ways it can, but India has to do what is in its national interests, said Rajagopalan.

It will not go to the extent of India recognizing Taiwan as a separate country, but there will be more interaction, said Chandrasekharan, adding that China cant now effectively object. We no longer have to take too seriously Chinese sensitivity on this issue.

Rajagopalan said that until Galwan happened, India, to maintain smooth relations with China, hadnt done much on the Taiwan front. Now things are different.

India could do a number of things bilaterally as well as in the multilateral setting to step up its relations with Taiwan, said Rajagopalan. It is now expected that India would change its stand about Taiwans presence at the World Health Organization where India is the newly appointed chair of the Executive Board.

Aparna Pande, director of the Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia at the Hudson Institute, told The Epoch Times over a chat platform that China doesnt respect a one-India policy and claims ownership over certain Indian territories. In the current situation, enhanced relationships with Taiwan could mean reciprocity, she said.

India, like the U.S. and other countries, may not suddenly change its big picture one-China policy. There are many who say that if China doesnt have a one-India policy, neither should India. However, the relations with Taiwan have improved and will deepen on the economic, strategic, and human capital dimension, Pande said.

Meanwhile, the Chinese ambassador to India, Sun Weidong, in a statement on July 10 reminded the two countries about their policy of non-interference in each others affairs.

We need to respect and accommodate mutual core interests and major concerns, adhere to the principle of non-interference in each others internal affairs, he said, according to the Indian Express.

People wear face masks while listening to the annual general meeting at the lobby of Foxconns office in Taipei, Taiwan, June 23, 2020. The company, an Apple supplier, has decided to invest $1 billion to expand a factory in India. (Ann Wang/Reuters)

Taiwanese Investments in India

Taiwanese company and Apple supplier Foxconn announced in the second week of July a $1 billion investment to expand a factory in south India that assembles iPhones. Experts say post-Galwan India could open up more trade with Taiwan. Foxconn is one of the three electronic companies currently with investments in India.

Economic ties are the solid foundation of any relationship, Pande said. Yes, every investment that is in manufacturing or technology that goes to another country doesnt go to China.

Rajagopalan said Taiwan has been seeking a greater economic presence in India for many years because trade and investment are a part of the Tsai Ing-wen governments New Southbound Policy.

Taiwans New Southbound Policy is an effort to expand Taiwans presence across the Indo-Pacific, which includes the ten countries of ASEAN, six states in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan), Australia, and New Zealand, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

India could be expected to loosen up some restrictions and incentivize the Taiwanese participation in Indias economic growth story. Again, India has been reluctant for many years, but it has been changing gradually how it has approached Taiwan in recent years, said Rajagopalan.

She highlights an Indian Parliamentary Standing Committee report on foreign affairs that calls for broadening as well as deepening Indias relationship with Taiwan.

But in the post-Galwan political climate, there could be more appetite within the government [for engaging Taiwan], but she also said that India shouldnt only look at playing the Taiwan card whenever it has a conflict with China.

Instead, Taiwan should be pursued as an active partner in Indias Indo-Pacific strategy, she said.
[July 23, 2020] Vincent Properties Joins Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Brokerage Franchise Network Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, part of the HSF Affiliates LLC family of real estate brokerage franchise networks, today announced that North Carolina-based Vincent Properties has joined its network. The independently owned company will add one office and ten agents to the global brokerage network and operate as Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Vincent Properties. "Vincent Properties decided to franchise with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices because we wanted to take our 'Hometown' approach to a larger global market and expand our tools with knowledge, technology and professional networks," said Jay Vincent, Owner. "We're proud to welcome Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Vincent Properties," said network CEO Chris Stuart. "Jay and Chad Vincent share our vision to create long-lasting relationships with their clients and truly become Forever Agents." Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices is one of the world's fastest-growing real estate brokerage franchise networks with more than 50,000 agents and nearly 1,500 offices added to the brand since its launch seven years ago. The network's global presence has grown to Canada, Germany, England, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the United Arab Emirates. Chad Vincent, Broker-in-Charge, described the company's focus, "Vincent Properties is known for being a family-owned business with all-encompassing market savvy. We do place an emphasis on new construction, development, luxury homes and commercial real estate while providing the same quality service to first-time homebuyers." Added Vincent, "Specifically, Jay Vincent has had a hand in creating several high-end home developments in the North Carolina High Country, including Timber Ridge at the Covers, a Bob Timberlake endorsed subdivision." With their brand transition, Vincent Properties agents gain access to Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices' active referral and relocation networks, and its "FOREVER Cloud" technology suite, a powerful source for lead generation, marketing support, social media, video production/distribution and more. Berkshire HathawayHomeServices has aligned with best-in-class technology platforms to deliver world-class support to its network members far into the future.

The brand also provides global listing syndication, professional training and ongoing education and the exclusive Luxury Collection marketing program for premier listings. Its Prestige Magazine showcases network members' premium listings with a strong lineup of feature stories covering topics that appeal to high-end real estate consumers. Gino Blefari, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, also welcomed the company to the network, "Vincent Properties demonstrates a commitment to their community beyond their business that is a wonderful example of the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices mission to be dedicated to our clients and continuously improve their lives." Vincent Properties works to "Practice Kindness and Courtesy" by being active in their community. They annually participate in the Western Youth Network Festival of Trees event, which raises money for child mentoring and development programs. The company sponsors animals at the Watauga Humane Society monthly and has recently worked with Wine to Water to create W|W Box (News - Alert) , a healthy food program geared toward "serving the service industry" during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns. Agents are active contributors to the Purple Heart Homes Program: High Country Chapter, The Hunger Coalition, Child's Hope Alliance, and Habitat for Humanity. About Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Vincent Properties Jay Vincent moved to the North Carolina High Country with his budding family and strong ambitions in the mid-1970s. His love for the Appalachian Mountains led him to pursue a career in real estate and development. After operating several real estate offices throughout the decades, Jay consolidated his efforts to create Vincent Properties, opening its doors in Historic Downtown Blowing Rock in 1996. Vincent Properties is one of the top producing real estate companies in the High Country while being one of the last family-owned and operated businesses. Thanks to our diligent agents and staff, we have grown into a fully encompassing residential real estate, commercial real estate, construction, and development company. By placing an emphasis on people and relationships, Vincent Properties is based in Blowing Rock, NC; and services clientele from all walks of life throughout Ashe County, Avery County, Caldwell County, and Watauga County of North Carolina. Visit www.vincentproperties.com. About Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices is one of the world's fastest-growing residential real estate brokerage franchise networks, with more than 50,000 real estate professionals, nearly 1,500 offices throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and the Middle East, and more than $119 billion in real estate sales volume. The network, among the few organizations entrusted to use the world-renowned Berkshire Hathaway name, brings to the real estate market a definitive mark of trust, integrity, stability and longevity. Visit www.berkshirehathawayhs.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200723005092/en/

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Durham, NC - A new platform reported on today in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine (SCTM) will enable long-term tracking of cardiomyocytes produced from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) after implantation into the heart. This non-invasive strategy, created by the use of modern gene editing to insert a gene called sodium/iodide symporter (NIS), features superior safety and allows long-term non-invasive cell tracking, plus offers the potential for a broad variety of applications in the preclinical and clinical development of cardiac and other cell therapies, its creators say.

The use of iPSCs, which can be generated directly from adult cells, to treat cardiac disease and other conditions is a much-debated topic in the medical world today. Some research shows they have promise in producing cardiomyocytes (the heart's muscle cells) to allow regeneration of tissue damaged by a heart attack; other studies contradict those results. Being able to follow cells long-term to determine where they go and what happens after implantation could go a long way in settling the issue.

However, current methods used to track iPSCs within the body (in vivo) have several limitations, particularly when it comes to immune-competent large animals (animals with immune systems able to respond adequately to stimulus by a toxin or foreign substance). Optical scanning of xenogeneic fluorescent proteins - a typical method for in vivo cell tracking in immune-deficient organisms -- is not applicable in these cases, for fear the foreign tracking proteins could trigger rejection via the body's immune system and an inability to non-invasively detect fluorescence in internal organs of larger animals. But the new tracking strategy reported on in SCTM promises to overcome these limitations.

The platform was developed by a multi-institutional team led by Cynthia Dunbar, M.D., and So Gun Hong, DVM, Ph.D., of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health.

"Better imaging techniques are crucial for improved cardiac therapies," Dr. Hong said. "In this study, we wanted to demonstrate a molecular imaging technique for non-invasive, long-term visualization of what happens after the NIS expressing heart cells are transplanted into cardiac muscle damaged by a heart attack. We also wanted to see if this technique would permit detection of teratomas -- which are tumors."

They chose the NIS gene as it is endogenous (normally produced within the body) and therefore does not trigger an immune response. Typically, it is produced only in a limited number of tissues, most notably the thyroid gland, where it functions to import iodide. Clinical thyroid scans take advantage of the NIS protein also being able to import radioactive and other tracer molecules that can be detected by standard clinical imaging methods such as PET scans.

Using CRISPR/Cas9 editing, Dr. Hong and coworkers incorporated a rhesus NIS gene into a "safe harbor" location in the genome of rhesus macaque iPSCs. These edited cells (NIS-RhiPSC-CMs) were then injected into the hind legs of one group of mice, to follow for teratomas, and into the hearts of another group of mice immediately following an induced heart attack. The transplanted NIS-RhiPSC-CMs in all animals were then monitored through PET and CT scans.

"The NIS-labeled heart cells looked and functioned similar to heart cells produced from iPSCs without the label. Following transplantation into the damaged heart tissue, the engrafted cells could be visualized until the study's conclusion at 10 weeks post-injection," Dr. Dunbar said. "This leads us to conclude that this new molecular imaging platform is primed for use in preclinical models and clinical trials and may bring us closer to the long-awaited era of gene therapy for heart disease and other diseases."

"This is an interesting study on the development of a new NIS-based platform using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing to track the fate of cells after implantation to determine where they go and what happens to them," said Anthony Atala, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. "This approach offers wider applications in both the preclinical and clinical development of cardiac cell therapies."

In addition to funding from the NHLBI, this study was also funded by the National Cancer Institute, also part of the NIH.

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The full article, "CRISPR/Cas9-mediated introduction of the sodium/iodide symporter gene enables non-invasive in vivo tracking of iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes," can be accessed at https://stemcellsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/sctm.20-0019.

About STEM CELLS Translational Medicine: STEM CELLS Translational Medicine (SCTM), co-published by AlphaMed Press and Wiley, is a monthly peer-reviewed publication dedicated to significantly advancing the clinical utilization of stem cell molecular and cellular biology. By bridging stem cell research and clinical trials, SCTM will help move applications of these critical investigations closer to accepted best practices. SCTM is the official journal partner of Regenerative Medicine Foundation.

About AlphaMed Press: Established in 1983, AlphaMed Press with offices in Durham, NC, San Francisco, CA, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, publishes two other internationally renowned peer-reviewed journals: STEM CELLS (http://www.StemCells.com), celebrating its 38th year, is the world's first journal devoted to this fast paced field of research. The Oncologist (http://www.TheOncologist.com), also a monthly peer-reviewed publication, entering its 25th year, is devoted to community and hospital-based oncologists and physicians entrusted with cancer patient care. All three journals are premier periodicals with globally recognized editorial boards dedicated to advancing knowledge and education in their focused disciplines.

About Wiley: Wiley, a global company, helps people and organizations develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. Our online scientific, technical, medical and scholarly journals, combined with our digital learning, assessment and certification solutions, help universities, learned societies, businesses, governments and individuals increase the academic and professional impact of their work. For more than 200 years, we have delivered consistent performance to our stakeholders. The company's website can be accessed at http://www.wiley.com.

About Regenerative Medicine Foundation (RMF): The non-profit Regenerative Medicine Foundation fosters strategic collaborations to accelerate the development of regenerative medicine to improve health and deliver cures. RMF pursues its mission by producing its flagship World Stem Cell Summit, honouring leaders through the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Action Awards, and promoting educational initiatives.
She gave birth to her son Onyx earlier this year.

And Iggy Azalea look great as she showed off her hourglass post-baby body when she stepped out for a masked stroll on Wednesday to get Go Greek frozen yogurt in Beverly Hills.

The 30-year-old could be seen modeling a fitted ensemble that included a pair of high-waisted skintight leather trousers.

Off she goes: Iggy Azalea showed off her hourglass post-baby body when she stepped out for Go Greek frozen yogurt in Beverly Hills on Wednesday

Iggy emphasized her taut midriff in a plunging vintage Vivienne Westwood corset top that featured an elaborate royal purple and rust-colored pattern.

She threw on a vintage Vivienne Westwood jacket and then let it slide beguilingly off her shoulders as she strutted her stuff on a pair of silver stilettos.

The sizzling sensation put her platinum blonde hair up in a ponytail and added a splash of dazzle to the ensemble with a sparkling Dior Vintage necklace. The pieces were purchased from Pechuga Vintage.

Iggy, who was seen heading to the recording studio earlier this week, appeared to be plugging a new song on Insta Stories this Thursday.

Stepping out: The 30-year-old could be seen modeling a fitted ensemble that included a pair of high-waisted skintight leather trousers

She uploaded a sizzling cleavage-baring video of herself sitting in the car rapping along to her own voice on a previously unreleased track.

'Woke up feeling like Posh Spice. Only wear black and I'm not nice. Get what I want - I don't ask twice,' go some of the lyrics, shouting out Victoria Beckham.

The track also included a snip of Posh on Vogue's 73 Questions saying: 'I'm smiling on the inside - I feel that I have a responsibility to the fashion community.'

Her latest outing came the same day that the Australian rapper staunchly denied allegations that she is being sued for $250,000.

Legging it: Iggy emphasized her taut midriff in a plunging vintage Vivienne Westwood corset top that featured an elaborate royal purple and rust-colored pattern.

Earlier that day The Blast had alleged that she and Ayoub Kharboush - whose brother is Iggy's ex French Montana - were both facing legal action.

The report claimed that Iggy and Ayoub had been sued by a rollerblader who was struck by her car in 2016 and now wants damages to the tune of $250,000.

Iggy wrote on Insta Stories: 'My name is mentioned in a lawsuit from 2016 because I was the vehicle owner of a car that was involved in an accident.'

She continued: 'I was not on the scene & I have never had direct involvement in this suit as per the judge's orders - iam not liable.'

Looking fab: Iggy, who was seen heading to the recording studio earlier this week, appeared to be plugging a new song on Insta Stories this Thursday

The Sydney-born superstar, whose Christian name is Amethyst Kelly, wrote that 'the suit is solely with the insurance company and driver of the vehicle'.

Iggy insisted: 'Iam not personally being asked to pay out any amount of money, have not been summoned to a single court date & genuinely dont even get updates on the case as its outcome is not relevant to me.'

Plaintiff Jeffrey Linett initially sued in 2018, claiming Ayoub was 'snapchatting' at the wheel before 'recklessly and carelessly' hitting him with Iggy's 2015 Jeep Wrangler.

Making it happen: She uploaded a sizzling cleavage-baring video of herself sitting in the car rapping along to her own voice on a previously unreleased track

Respect: The track also included a snip of Posh on Vogue's 73 Questions saying: 'I'm smiling on the inside - I feel that I have a responsibility to the fashion community'

Jeffrey's lawsuit claims that both Ayoub, who was 18 at the time of the crash, and the other person in the vehicle were inattentive to the road.

'Plaintiff contends that the negligence of both Defendants resulted in serious injuries to Plaintiff,' read Jeffrey's new court filing, according to The Blast.

'Per the board certified surgeons reports, Plaintiff is a qualified candidate for ACDF notwithstanding the previous less invasive treatment he has undergone (which has been extensive). Est. Future: $250,000.'

Iggy started running around with French Montana over the summer of 2016 but by the beginning of the following year they had broken up.

Last month she revealed that she had given birth to a son, and earlier this month she revealed that the baby's name is Onyx.

There are rumors that the father is Playboy Carti, whom Iggy began dating in 2018 and is reportedly still with, but she has not publicly confirmed the baby is his.

Co-ord: On Wednesday she also showed off her trim and curvy figure in a matching outfit
Tool to educate the deniers

Danger of suppressing information

(TNS)  Donna MacKenzie, a local registered nurse, and Brenda Rubash, a retired local social worker, are all for protecting the privacy of patients with COVID-19. But they both say they the public needs more information about how and where the disease is spreading.Origins and any information on spread is vital to helping keep people safe, Rubash told The Daily News in an email.Their sentiments are shared by critics here and across the nation who are frustrated by privacy-driven restrictions on information. The public, they say, needs to know more about where virus cases are breaking out so it can judge whether measures to contain the spread are working and identify who may be flouting the rules and thus prolonging the pandemic.Complete data is helpful for people to understand what the government knows and why it is imposing certain restrictions, said Michele Earl-Hubbard, vice president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government and media law attorney.Just straight up numbers (of cases) isnt cutting it, Earl-Hubbard said. I dont understand the resistance. Id think youd want the public to understand what people are affected (by the virus).So far, health authorities here and across the nation have been sparing with data, citing federal and state medical privacy laws to justify withholding any information that might identify an individual patient, directly or indirectly.In Cowlitz County, the health department releases just the patients age range, gender and prevalence of cases by zip code. It has described in general terms where cases have arisen, but authorities have not been specific.Local health officials add that in most instances more information wont help the public reduce the risk of exposure. And they worry about profiling, rush to judgment and other concerns if they were to release more information. However, they have been willing to bend the rules a bit, and say they would identify a businesses if an outbreak threatened the general public.Public health walks the fine line of figuring out how much does anyone need to know to take the appropriate steps to protect themselves, said Jeff Sconyers, attorney and lecturer at the University of Washington School of Public Health.Sconyers said local health officials have a duty to prevent and control the spread of infectious diseases, and a mandate to do so without disclosing the identity of any specific case or suspected case. This often requires providing some information but less than some members of the public might want, he said.The essential  and complex question, though, is whether health authorities are interpreting the law too conservatively, and where should the line be drawn between patient privacy and the publics need to know about the pandemic.Cowlitz County Health and Human Services, like the state and other local health departments, in most instances is not covered by the 1996 federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which prohibits the release of patient information without permission, Earl-Hubbard said. In general, the law, commonly known as HIPAA, dictates what information health care providers and other covered entities can release to health departments but not what the departments can release to the public, she said.However, state law requires that the departments release of information wont identify a patient, even indirectly. But this means that county health authorities adopt different policies for public disclosure, often based on the size of a county.Small counties with few cases typically release less information because its easier to pick out individual patients in a small population. For example, Wahkiakum County just lists its number of total cases and in press releases typically hasnt included an age range or gender of infected individuals.Some large counties, such as King, disclosed case breakdowns by race and ethnicity, as well as by long-term care facility categories. The health department also names long-term care facilities with five or more deaths.Clark County also has a breakdown of cases in long-term care facilities but doesnt list the names. Public Health officials there have reported a couple of outbreaks tied to large businesses.Cowlitz County has only recorded one COVID-19 case related to a nursing home and did not release the name, citing concerns of the patient being identified. The county released information on the April outbreak at the 600-worker Kelso Foster Farms chicken plant, but hasnt named other businesses with cases.The Washington Coalition for Open Government has received several complaints about agencies not disclosing information about COVID-19 cases or deaths that should be public, Earl-Hubbard said.In particular, she has fielded complaints of agencies putting up artificial barriers when people try to access death data, which is legally subject to public disclosure, she said. Many people have raised concerns about deaths being double counted, if, for example, a patient dies in a county other than the one where they lived, she said.The value of greater public disclosure, Earl-Hubbard said, is shown by what happened in the early days of the pandemic in Washington. The media linked COVID-19 deaths in the Puget Sound area to nursing homes, which wasnt a connection the government admitted at first, Earl-Hubbard said. Releasing that information earlier would have helped people decide what precautions to take and better understand the risk of the virus in nursing homes, she said.Many Cowlitz County residents contacted The Daily News commenting in favor of releasing more information about COVID-19 cases, particularly if cases were tied to a certain location or business.Donna MacKenzie, a local registered nurse, said agencies need to be careful about revealing too much personal data, especially if it dissuades patients from being forthcoming about their activities.However, seeing the prevalence of people in this area that feel the virus is a hoax, or other conspiracy theories, it would be of benefit as an educational tool to those deniers, she said.Brenda Rubash said while patients shouldnt be identified, the public should be informed of the locations of outbreaks and whether they are linked to certain activities.However, Dr. Steve Krager, Cowlitz County deputy health officer, said that in many cases location information wouldnt help people decrease their risk. Theres always going to be some risk, but since most interactions in public places are brief, the chance of getting infected is minimal, he said.For example, if a grocery store clerk is infected, his chance of transmitting it to a customer is low, especially with social distancing, glass barriers and face masks, Krager said.I understand people wanting to know, but science tells us its really about close contact with people for a long period of time, Krager said.The virus spreads mainly from person to person through respiratory droplets, and spread is more likely when people are in close contact with one another (within six feet for more than 15 minutes), according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.Since its highly unlikely an infected person in a public place would spread the virus to others in passing, in most cases the health department wouldnt release that location to the general public, Krager said.Earl-Hubbard said state and local departments cant legally hold back locations of exposures or outbreaks because the information doesnt fall under the protected category of something that would identify an individual.Officials dont have to disclose case information down to the details, such as saying if the infected person was an employee or a customer, but its irresponsible not to release the date and location of the exposure or outbreak, Earl-Hubbard said.Theres not a way to know every person who came in contact with a business, she said. Keeping that information a secret doesnt make sense to me from a public health stance.Krager said a lot comes down to public risk and keeping people safe. Theres not necessarily a certain rule or law that outlines what information to release when, although the department does have to avoid identifying patients, he said.If theres a reason to believe people were exposed who cant be reached through contact tracing, then the department would consider releasing the location and time of potential exposure, Krager said.For example, Clark County Public Health warned of a COVID-19 outbreak at Orchards Bar and Grill in Vancouver and urged people who visited the restaurant between June 19 and 25 to get tested. If a similar outbreak occurred in Cowlitz County, the health department would certainly release that information, Krager said.The most effective ways for people to prevent transmission is limiting social gatherings and getting tested as quickly as possible if they have symptoms or were potentially exposed, Krager said.Apart from social gatherings, many cases have been tied to businesses where the virus spreads between workers, Krager said. While the vast majority of businesses are looking out for their workers, some are struggling to make and enforce the necessary policies, he said.The county health department is not regularly releasing information on outbreaks in businesses, Krager said. For example, it has declined to discuss a surge in cases at the WestRock paper mill that the Daily News reported through unofficial channels.In late April, the Cowlitz County released information on its investigation of an outbreak at Foster Farms chicken processing plant in Kelso. Krager said the county shared the information  after TDN made inquiries  because it was still figuring out its outbreak response process. In addition, there was high public interest in outbreaks in food processing plants at the time, and officials wanted the public to know it could happen here.Krager said while he understands the publics desire to know about cases and outbreaks at businesses, there wouldnt likely be any public health usefulness in releasing the information. Businesses have also gotten better about notifying their employees of cases and outbreaks, he said. If a business chose to release information about an outbreak, the county would be happy to explain how its working with it to address the concerns, he said.Theres so much spread happening right now that every business needs to be careful, not just the ones with outbreaks in them, he said. Any business can have a worker pick it up somewhere else and bring it in to the facility, and if their infection prevention strategies are not strong in that facility, they have a risk of an outbreak happening.Krager acknowledged that releasing the information could add public pressure to a business that isnt complying with safety rules. However, he said, it could also be problematic because of people making judgments while not knowing everything thats going on.Along with pressure from the health department to follow the rules, the state Department of Labor and Industries also has a lot of enforcement power to make sure businesses are complying with health and safety orders, Krager said. If a business struggles to comply and was grossly keeping workers unsafe or not communicating well with employees, that may be a time when the health department would alert the public, Krager said.Sconyers, the health attorney, said public reaction to an outbreak at an identified business could cause it to shut down permanently.That may be the right consequence, but you dont want to jump to that in the first place if you have interim steps to protect the public, he said.Employees or others may be hesitant to report COVID-19 symptoms or cases related to businesses out of fear they will be shut down, Sconyers said.The same goes for releasing too much information on individual cases, he said. People could be unwilling to reveal they have symptoms, get tested or cooperate with case investigations in fear of being identified, Sconyers said.By disclosing more widely, we could suppress the information we need to protect the community, he said.Protecting the identity of those infected with the virus is important because some really awful things have happened to people suspected to have the coronavirus, Sconyers said. Especially at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, Asians and Asian Americans were wrongfully targeted in racist and xenophobic harassment and attacks because the virus was first identified in Wuhan, China.People just dont understand whats going on, so they lash out at those who they think are responsible for putting them in harms way, Sconyers said. We have to protect those who have done nothing wrong  and dont deserve to be punished for getting sick.
We grieve for each of our sisters who has passed during the time of the pandemic throughout the province, and we greatly appreciate all of those who are holding us in prayer and supporting us in a number of ways, said Sister Mary Christopher Moore, provincial minister of Our Lady of Hope Province, which oversees the more than 400 Felician sisters in North America.
COLUMBIA  All school districts must invite students in for face-to-face orientation with their teacher before lessons start this academic year and bring them back to the classroom periodically, said schools Superintendent Molly Spearman, making clear a virtual-only plan won't suffice.

As of Wednesday, 53 of South Carolina's 81 districts had submitted their reopening plans for the coming school year, which are under review. None have won approval yet, said deputy superintendent David Mathis.

The other 28 have been given extensions to last week's deadline, he said.

Many districts are planning for a hybrid model that combines in-classroom and virtual learning, as well as an all-virtual option for parents.

While school boards may have approved and announced their plans, Spearman stressed, they are not official until her office clears them.

"They must in their plan invite all students to come back for some face-to-face contact with their teachers. They must lay eyes on those students at least once" before the school year starts, Spearman told a state House panel. "We want to make sure theyre OK."

Districts also need to assess how much students did  or didn't  learn since schools closed in mid-March, she said.

It was her first time publicly addressing legislators since Gov. Henry McMaster called on all districts last week to provide parents the option of sending their child to school five days a week. He asked Spearman, a fellow Republican, to reject any plan that doesn't.

She immediately rebuffed the request, which McMaster announced in conjunction with GOP legislative leaders. Spearman said she met with superintendents statewide a day after that news conference.

To superintendents rejecting a full-week option amid rising COVID-19 numbers, "I said plainly, 'You must include face-to-face with that model, where children come in at least one day a week,'" Spearman told House members.

She also assured them that virtual learning this fall will be vastly different from what occurred in the spring.

For starters, attendance must be taken, and normal truancy rules will resume. If teachers don't hear from students in three days, someone will go knocking on doors to find them, Spearman said.

When the normal school year ended in May, teachers had not heard from an estimated 40,000 students. By Friday, the whereabouts of 7,400 remained unknown. Tens of thousands more had only sporadic communication with teachers, who were told to be lenient amid such stressful, uncertain times and not fail students whether they turned in work or not.

"Things will be different," Spearman said. "We have much greater expectations."

In some districts, virtual learning will be taught by teachers with health concerns who have asked to teach online-only. Other students will learn at home simultaneously with their classmates, with lessons live-streamed from the classroom.

How districts do it will depend on their size and capabilities, but regardless, it must be high-quality learning, Spearman said.

And the lack of high-speed internet in students' homes should not be the hindrance it was in the spring, as state officials are in the process of hooking up homes without it, she said.

She said she hopes to begin announcing approved plans this week.

Beyond reviewing how education will take place, her office is also reviewing districts' safety protocols.

"I applaud the districts that think they can get back five days a week," she said.
It's been a waiting game all along.

Communities downstream from a dam always wait for an evacuation siren to alert them to an impending disaster. When the siren fails to sound the alarm, they wait to see who survived.

Then they wait to count their losses and wait even longer to receive compensation for all the hurt and pain.

A structure is buried in mud in the Bento Rodrigues valley after BHP-Vale's Samarco dam failure in 2015. Credit:Steve Yolen

The people of the Rio Doce valley and the towns peppered along the tributary waters down from the BHP-co-owned Samarco Fundao dam in Brazil are still waiting almost five years after it burst.
An angry man or woman is seen on camera berating an employee about some stores policy that customers must wear masks.

Your uncle shares a months old story saying the Centers for Disease Control doesnt think the public should wear masks.

A social media meme tells you that those who wear a mask are letting powerful forces know who the sheep are.

By now, these are familiar images of the coronavirus pandemic - and they all center on the mask, a visible reminder that life is not as it was at the beginning of 2020. Gov. Kay Ivey last week issued an order for face coverings to be worn in public through the end of the month. Other states are considering mask orders, and even President Donald Trump tweeted out an image of himself masked this week, after saying in April that he didnt see himself doing it.

We are United in our effort to defeat the Invisible China Virus, and many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you cant socially distance. There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President! pic.twitter.com/iQOd1whktN  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 20, 2020

But why are masks a point of controversy? Is there something else going on here besides political perceptions?

It turns out, the last time the United States dealt with a global pandemic of these proportions, masks were also an issue. In November and December 1918, as Spanish Flu swept through the nation, Jefferson Countys health officer urged people to wear gauze masks, as they were the most practical and efficient general method at our command to limit the spread of influenza. Police officers were seen around town with them to encourage the public. The order was repeated in other parts of the country, and was seen during the final days of World War I as part of doing ones bit, according to Pandemic 1918, by Catharine Arnold.

But the move was not popular with everyone. One Washington, D.C. doctor called the practice an absurdity, a menace, and San Francisco police arrested 110 people in one day for failure to wear one. Offenders were fined $5 a piece. Others called the practice unconstitutional.

Real time data

So opposition to the mask is nothing new. Back in March, a psychology researcher at the University of Alabama began a study, funded by a $65,000 National Science Foundation grant, to look at how about 1,000 people around the country were responding to the coronavirus pandemic.

Philip Gable, associate professor of psychology, has since moved to the University of Delaware, but the study will continue through the year. It is a unique opportunity to study, as its happening, how masses of people respond to a sudden disruption of their lives.

Through the first month of the pandemic, Gable said, people in the study were much less likely to wear a mask. That jumped in April and again in May, after public health officials began asking people to wear them. One of the strongest predictors for who wore a mask was among people who were already social distancing, he said. Another was people concerned about infecting their family or themselves with COVID-19.

What Gable could not predict at the beginning of the pandemic was how certain behavior, like mask wearing, would become associated in the public mind with ones political persuasion. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said the mask can be broken down to this equation: If youre for Trump, you dont wear a mask; if youre against Trump, you do...

But Gable said another factor is the divide between the frequency of cases and deaths in urban areas, and the fact that the virus hasnt penetrated deeply into some rural areas.

Inconsistent messages

Josh Klapow is a clinical psychologist at the UAB School of Public Health. He said theres no single theory that explains why some people have such a visceral reaction to wearing a mask. But one important factor is the consistency of information.

Because COVID-19 is a novel virus, researchers and scientists are still learning important information about how it works, and possible prevention measures, day-to-day, as the pandemic plays out globally. But measures to control its spread have created a world where businesses have been shuttered, church services interrupted, livelihoods dashed, and even minor social interactions like handshakes and hugs have become discouraged. While some fret about a new normal, others wonder if we will ever get back to the way it was.

Add to that the fact that, on March 2, the CDC told Americans not to wear masks, in order to save supplies for health care professionals. That changed in late April, and subsequent directives have called on Americans to wear masks.

People tend to listen to their doctors, Klapow said. But with this, you hear an inconsistent message. When you talk to people in the scientific community, they say, Thats how its done. You keep learning new information and you change with that information.' But that also creates a level of uncertainty and predictability. We are constantly in a state of looking for control, and anything to alleviate our stress.

And Americans have seen an inconsistent message from leaders wearing masks. Some governors and mayors have gone for compulsory orders. Some have opted for encouraging citizens to wear masks, urging personal responsibility.

We tend to follow those we see in places of influence and power, Klapow said. If you look at our leaders, their approach to this issue has evolved over time. Some have suggested masks but not made it necessary. We are social beings. We play to that. We are influenced by behavior and words, and that can be anything from officials to celebrities.

Pushing back

All of that may explain why people have been reluctant to don masks, besides the obvious reasons - discomfort, social awkwardness, possible bad breath. But what moves adults to yell and threaten workers in public places?

Gable said one reason may be the theory of psychological reactance. Thats the idea that when someone is threatening or constraining our behavior, we are more likely to push back.

Its sort of setting a boundary, and people want to push that boundary, he said.

Klapow employed another theory, that of cognitive dissonance. Its the problem people have when they carry two ideas at once that contradict each other. Theres a potentially deadly virus out there, but I dont like wearing a mask. That person may go on to reason: I am usually concerned for my health, but I still wont wear a mask. Heres why...

As humans, we get in a distressed state when our actions are inconsistent with our thoughts, Klapow said. It makes us feel uneasy. We tend not to change our behavior; we mold our thoughts to fit our behavior. Someone said its not as dangerous, so it must not be that dangerous. The inconsistent messaging plays into that.

And there are obvious visual reactions that people have. A mask covers the face, Gable said. It constrains your ability to talk and express emotions, to gauge another persons reactions and to read their lips. It might make people feel like less of an individual, Gable said.

When you add the stresses of the pandemic and the societal changes wrought in a short time, along with several weeks at home to think about it all, that adds up to a lot of anxiety thats looking for an outlet.

Eyeball-shamed

For the majority of people, theyll say, Fine, Ill put the mask on, Klapow said. For some people, their own level of embarrassment, frustration, underlying collective stress that were all feeling, coupled with a lack of an outlet - put all that together, and you get an outburst. The idea is that youre challenging me, and you dont have the right to challenge me.

Those who do blow up, on camera or off, are showing they have larger problems with regulating their emotions, he said.

The fight over masks, both historical and in the present, reveal that human beings really havent changed all that much in over a century. As Alabamians put on masks in hope of bringing COVID-19 numbers down, they will navigate new social behaviors and try to find a way back to something familiar, one interaction at a time.

Since the state ordinance, you go out and people who dont have on a mask are being eyeball-shamed, Klapow said. It shows you the power of personal psychology.
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We will cease all remaining clerkships. Please thank your preceptors, collect your things, return home, and practice social distancing.

The emails words were disappointing, but not surprising. Other medical schools had already pulled their students from hospitals. My school had opted to keep us in as long as possible so we could have the unique learning experience of providing health care during a pandemic. But now, safety and prudence exceeded our learning opportunities, and I was getting pulled during the last week of my surgery rotation. I worried about how this would affect my schoolwork and learning.

Little did I suspect of the learning opportunities that were in store for me.

In lieu of completing the last seven days of your clerkships, you will need to complete the online course from FEMA, the email continued. I did as it said, thanked my preceptor, collected my things, and went home. Chaos ensued over the next few days; the state shut down, news media went crazy, testing centers canceled appointments, and toilet paper sold out everywhere. It seemed like no one knew what to do, myself included.

I finished the required online coursework in a day or two and floundered for purpose. Soon my school found a solution, and online patients replaced real ones in virtual rotations. I settled into a comfortable routine. Meanwhile, news and social media were full of people making sacrifices to help others; grocery store employees, medical professionals, first responders, etc. Watching them, I wondered how I could help. I knew I was doing my part by isolating, but I wondered if I could do more?

An email arrived inviting med students to join the State of Georgias Medical Reserve Corps (MRC). The MRC is an organization of doctors, nurses, PAs, EMTs, and med students who are the first medical boots on the ground for disasters in Georgia. They establish mobile hospitals and provide medical care. With extra time in isolation, I signed up and shortly received a notice for locations at food banks available to students. I requested an assignment, received my orders, and deployed the next day to serve for two weeks.

When I arrived, the food bank was in desperate need of volunteers. With the state shutdown, more people needed food, but fewer people were able to help. The Georgia State Defense Force (GSDF), a statewide Army branch of volunteers, assigned soldiers to work at the food banks since normal volunteers were under lockdown. I was assigned as medical support for the soldiers.

My duties were simple. Perform temperature checks and screenings for soldiers coming and leaving the food bank, manage injuries, and general health concerns. I saw a few incidents, dehydration, moldy old food, an errant foot getting run over, a head injury, and thankfully only one scare of COVID-19. It was in an older soldier who became seriously ill one night. We rushed him to the nearby hospital for testing. Luckily, it was a mild pneumonia, likely from working in a food bank refrigerator with old rotten vegetables.

My favorite days were the ones we distributed food. Pallets of packaged cuisine were lined up in empty school parking lots. Cars would come for hours, with license plates from not only Georgia, but Alabama and Florida. They snaked a long line around the building and through the parking lot until they were able to receive food. These days were my favorite because multiple food bank locations would gather for the distribution, and I could meet more soldiers and their medical support.

One group had a physician who had been working with them for a couple of weeks. She was from Northern Georgia, but when the call came for help, she paused her medical practice and drove down to serve. The soldiers all had similar stories. They were all volunteers; they all had careers and families. However, when the call came for help, they all threw on their army fatigues and drove from all over the state. Each one was an inspiration to listen to.

At the start of the pandemic, I was worried about how my medical training would be impacted. Thankfully, due to the wonders of technology, my academic studies carried on uninterrupted. However, outside of my virtual classroom, I learned additional lessons.

We have seen a lot of horrible events due to the pandemic. People have gotten sick. People have died. Livelihoods have been put on hold. People fight over wearing masks. Leaders have mishandled safety responses. Weve become divided and scared.

Despite this, we have seen some amazing things. People have come together. To provide PPE. To package food for the needy. To provide health care. To encourage and love. I have seen how people step up and volunteer to help, even when its hard. Ive learned, from others examples, to put myself aside and assist those in need. I have learned the joy that comes from giving and service. Out of everything I learned during this pandemic, I think this will serve me best in my future as a physician. My education wasnt hindered but enhanced.

Mason Bennett is a medical student.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
KALAMAZOO, MI  Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety Chief Karianne Thomas said she does not agree with an analysis by the 8 Cant Wait campaign published by MLive that said the departments use of force policy meets three of the eight demands of the 8 Cant Wait campaign.

Instead, Thomas said she believes the agency meets seven of the eight standards, and provided an explanation for why on each point.

The 8 Cant Wait organization, in response, stands by the assessment that KDPS policy reviewed met three of the eight categories.

However, an updated version of the policy that was not included in the original assessment makes it so Kalamazoo meets four of the eight demands of 8 Cant Wait, the organization said.

Kalamazoo Public Safety Chief, Karianne Thomas, announces a city-wide curfew during a public press conference about what occurred at the protests overnight in downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan on Tuesday, June 2, 2020. The city of Kalamazoo imposed a 7 p.m. curfew that will last until 5 a.m. Wednesday, June 3. The Michigan National Guard will be deployed in town to assist local law enforcement. Joel Bissell

Heres a look at each point of 8 Cant Wait, along with comments from the chief and from the organization:

1. REQUIRE DE-ESCALATION - Officers must de-escalate situations, where possible, by communicating with subjects and using other techniques to reduce the likelihood that force will be used.

Thomas: All KDPS policies that address use of force mention the use of de-escalation techniques as the preferred resolution. The policies address de-escalation and the preference to talk to suspects as opposed to use force. Additionally, the department has one of the states most-respected instructors in Crisis Intervention Training in Executive Lt. Rafael Diaz. KDPS meets this requirement of the 8 Cant Wait campaign.

8 Cant Wait: There is no explicit mention or requirement to de-escalate in the use of force policy.

2. HAS USE OF FORCE CONTINUUM - A force continuum restricts the most severe types of force to use in the most extreme situations, with policy restrictions for use of each police weapon and tactic that is employed.

Thomas: Policy 300.3.2 clearly outlines that KDPS officers utilize the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards (MCOLES) Use of Force Continuum. The MCOLES Use of Force Continuum is taught throughout the state of Michigan to law enforcement officers regardless of employer. The 8 Cant Wait requires that the use of force continuum restricts the most severe types of force to use in the most extreme situations, and this is what the MCOLES continuum does. In the continuum, and with all KDPS Use of Force incidents, the amount of force used should be in proportion to the level of resistance faced. This is how officers at KDPS are trained and evaluated each day. KDPS meets this requirement of the 8 Cant Wait campaign.

8 Cant Wait: The KDPS policy released to MLive on June 24 and reviewed by 8 Cant Wait did not meet the requirements for having a use of force continuum, according to 8 Cant Wait. Kalamazoo later sent an un-redacted copy of the use of force policy that was only included in the analysis for the previously redacted sections. The updated policy does include a use of force continuum, and a review of the updated policy would give Kalamazoo a yes for this column, according to 8 Cant Wait. The updated policy was not included in the analysis because it was not made clear the policy had been updated with new information when it was re-sent to MLive. The new policy does not show a date when it was updated.

3. BAN CHOKEHOLDS AND STRANGLEHOLDS - Chokeholds and other neck restraints banned in all situations.

Thomas: This is an example where KDPS policy is more restrictive than what is requested by the 8 Cant Wait campaign. KDPS policy 300.3.3 states, In the instance when force is used, public safety officers should not intentionally use any technique that restricts blood flow to the head, restricts respiration or which creates a reasonable likelihood that blood flow to the head or respiration would be restricted.

It is important to point out that while KDPS does not specifically use the words chokeholds and strangleholds, it uses the terminology that any technique that restricts blood flow or respiration to the head should not be used. It is the departments contention that KDPSs more restrictive language clearly prohibits the use of any technique which restricts blood or oxygen to the head area. KDPS meets this requirement of the 8 Cant Wait campaign.

8 Cant Wait: This is not a prohibition or ban on the use. The language is passive and stated as a recommendation (should)

4. REQUIRES WARNING BEFORE SHOOTING - Requires officers to give a verbal warning in all situations, when feasible, before using deadly force.

KDPS meets this standard, 8 Cant Wait agrees.

5. RESTRICTS SHOOTING AT MOVING VEHICLES - Bans officers from shooting at moving vehicles unless occupants of the vehicle are using deadly force (not including the vehicle)

KDPS policy 300.5.1 states, Shots fired at or from a moving vehicle are rarely effective. Public Safety Officers should move out of the path of an approaching vehicle instead of discharging their firearm at the vehicle or any of its occupants, if feasible. A public safety officer should only discharge a firearm at a moving vehicle or its occupants when the public safety officer reasonably believes there are no other reasonable means available to avert the threat of the vehicle, or if deadly force other than the vehicle is directed at the public safety officer or others. Public Safety Officers should not shoot at any part of a vehicle to disable the vehicle.

This directive clearly restricts the shooting at a moving vehicle to only two scenarios: a) the officer, or others, are unable to move out of the way of an oncoming car due to the space or restricted movement placed on the officer (e.g., a narrow alleyway which prevents the officer from moving out of the way of the oncoming car) or b) when the vehicle itself is not the method utilized in the deadly force assault on the officer (e.g., the occupants are firing a weapon out a moving vehicle at the officer). The 8 Cant Wait campaign allows for option b) but not option a). To ban officers from the option to use deadly force in the example used for option a) places an unacceptable risk to our officers and the public.

KDPSs policy is clear: the first priority is to avoid at all costs possible, the use of deadly force at a moving vehicle, by moving to get out of the way of that vehicle. However, in the remote chance that an officer cannot move out of the way due to their surroundings they must be allowed to have the last resort option of lethal force to try and eliminate the immediate threat of great bodily harm or death to themselves. KDPS meets this requirement of the 8 Cant Wait campaign.

8 Cant Wait: This is not a prohibition or ban on the use. The language is passive and stated as a recommendation (should)

6. REQUIRES EXHAUST ALL OTHER MEANS BEFORE SHOOTING - Officers must exhaust all other alternatives, including not using force and using less lethal force, before using deadly force.

KDPS does not meet this standard as it is written by 8 Cant Wait, but this standard contradicts the other 8 Cant Wait requirement of having a use of force continuum (see #2).

The MCOLES Use of Force Continuum does not require an officer to try every available force option available prior to resorting to lethal force. The continuum requires a proportional response to the resistance faced. It is dangerous to require officers to use hand techniques, or physical controls (two of the lower forms of force response) on a subject that points (or worse fires) a firearm at an officer or others. The continuum would support the use of immediate deadly force by the officer in that situation. In 2019, KDPS officers were ambushed by a shooter inside BioMat. Officers entered the building and were immediately fired upon before they could even begin to go through escalating levels of force. The only available response was deadly force by the officers in that real example.

8 Cant Wait: There is no explicit statement requiring officers to exhaust all alternatives before reporting to deadly force.

7. DUTY TO INTERVENE - Officers must intervene and stop excessive force used by other officers and report any such incidents to a supervisor immediately.

KDPS meets this standard, 8 Cant Wait agrees.

8. Requires Comprehensive Reporting - Officers must report every time they use force or threaten to use force against civilians, which includes when an officer points a firearm at someone.

KDPS meets this standard, 8 Cant Wait agrees.

The chiefs response comes after MLive posted an article that shows an analysis by 8 Cant Wait of use of force policies at 12 police agencies in Michigan.

Additional information on KDPSs policies, initiatives and other programs can be found at www.kalamazoocity.org/kdpstransparency .

Read more:

Use-of-force policies from major Michigan police agencies fail to meet anti-brutality demands

Two killed in Kalamazoo shootings in Edison and Northside neighborhoods

Letter from the Editor: MLive.com is discontinuing the routine use of police mugshots. Heres why
Musks electric car maker has posted profits for four straight quarters, paving the way for stocks S&P 500 inclusion.

Tesla Inc on Wednesday posted a second-quarter profit despite the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic, sending its stock up six percent in after-hours trading and clearing a hurdle that could lead to the electric car makers inclusion in the S&P 500 index.

Tesla said it earned nonadjusted net income of $104m from April to June, or a $0.50 per-share profit, marking the first time the company has posted a profit for four straight quarters, a necessary goal for it to be included in the stock index of the largest United States companies.

That could prove another boon for Tesla because fund managers who track the S&P 500 would snap up the stock if it were included in the index.

The result marks a major accomplishment for Chief Executive Elon Musk, whose mission of leading the global auto industry into an electric future has frequently been questioned by investors who doubted the viability of Teslas business.

Teslas shares have enjoyed a meteoric rise in recent months, gaining more than 500 percent over the past year. Many analysts believe the share rally has been fuelled in part by expectations of Teslas imminent inclusion in the stock index.

Tesla chief Elon Musk on Tuesday qualified for a payout worth an unprecedented $2.1bn [File: Bloomberg]

The company on Wednesday affirmed its goal to deliver at least half a million vehicles by the end of 2020 despite production interruptions, including the shutting of its California factory for nearly six weeks of the quarter on the orders of local authorities.

While achieving this goal has become more difficult, delivering half a million vehicles in 2020 remains our target, the company said.

Teslas second-quarter revenue fell to $6.04bn from $6.35bn a year earlier, but surpassed analysts expectations for revenue of $5.37bn, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Tesla reported $5.18bn in second-quarter automotive revenue, but its share of income from regulatory credits  payments the company receives from other carmakers to offset emissions  increased to eight percent to $428m.

The company said higher income from those credits  in combination with temporary employee salary cuts during the pandemic and deferred revenue from its yet-to-be-released self-driving feature  offset the cost of factory shutdowns.

Musk on Tuesday qualified for a payout worth an unprecedented $2.1bn, his second jackpot since May from the electric car maker following its massive stock surge.

Tesla is looking to expand vehicle production by building a new factory in the US Southwest as soon as the third quarter, with Texass Travis County and Oklahomas city of Tulsa vying for the new plant.

The company on Wednesday said a site has been selected and preparations are under way, but did not provide further details. Officials for Tulsa and Travis County did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Travis County has offered some $65m in tax rebates to entice the company, which plans to produce its Model Y sport utility vehicles and futuristic Cybertruck at the new factory.
An irate customer has been caught on camera hurling a box of donuts at a store worker who asked her to wear her face mask correctly.

The incident occurred at The Dapper Doughnut at the Fountains of Farah shopping mall in El Paso, Texas on Sunday.

An executive order issued by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott mandates that all people who patronize indoor shops and restaurants wear a face mask that covers their mouth and nose in a bid to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Dapper Doughnut employee Lauren Keener says she started serving the female customer and her husband and noticed that both of their masks were down around their chins.

Keener claims that she asked the couple to move the masks up onto their face or wait outside until their order was ready.

An irate customer (pictured) was caught on camera hurling a box of donuts at a store worker at The Dapper Doughnut in El Paso, Texas on Sunday

Dapper Doughnuts employee Lauren Keener (pictured) had the box of donuts thrown at her head. She told NEWS 4 San Antonio that she will still continue to tell customers to wear masks inside the store

At that point, the woman allegedly became confrontational and is seen on camera speaking tersely with Keener, who is standing behind a plexiglass shield.

'I handed her her doughnuts and and she told me "You cant speak to your customers like this" and then proceeded to throw the box at me,' Keener recalled to KTSM.

Security footage shows the box narrowly missed hitting Keener's head as it flew through the air.

The woman's husband stepped in and demanded a refund for the doughnuts his wife had just used as a makeshift weapon.

When management said they were unable to return the money, the man grabbed a $10.99 tumbler off a stand and walked out with it.

Another Dapper Doughnut employee told News 4 San Antonio that they reported the theft to police.

'He grabbed the mug and asked how much it was and when I told him how much, he took it as payment I guess for us not giving his refund,' Keener explained.

She told KTSM that she and her co-workers have been struggling with customers who refused to wear face coverings in their store.

The assailant is seen holding the box of donuts before she hurled it over the plexiglass shield directly towards worker Lauren Keener

Her husband then took off with a $10.099 tumbler from this shelf. The theft was reported to police

'There are always those people that like to get confrontational with you even if its just verbally,' she stated.

She says she will continue to ask patrons to cover their nose and mouths when they enter the building to make sure she complies with Gov. Abbot's mandate.

'I definitely feel that I should continue to ask people to wear their masks because its not just me that I have to worry about, it's my family I go home to, its my fellow employees, its the people coming into the restaurant,' Keener declared.

El Paso County is currently experiencing a surge of coronavirus cases, as is the state of Texas at large.

More than 12,000 El Paso residents have tested positive to COVID-19, and close to 200 have died.

On Wednesday, the Lone Star State reported an addition 9,879 cases of the virus, taking the total number to 367,000.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 03:05:11|Editor: huaxia

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People wearing masks are seen at the Jemaa el-Fna Square in Marrakech, Morocco, on July 22, 2020. Morocco registered 220 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, raising the tally in the North African country to 17,962, the health ministry said. (Photo by Chadi/Xinhua)

RABAT, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Morocco registered 220 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, raising the tally in the North African country to 17,962, the health ministry said.

The number of the cured patients has increased to 15,636 with 247 new recoveries, said Mouad Mrabet, coordinator of the Moroccan Center for Public Health Operations at the health ministry, at a press briefing.

The death toll from the infectious respiratory disease rise to 285 as five more fatalities were recorded in the past 24 hours.

The COVID-19 death rate in Morocco stabilizes at 1.6 percent, while the recovery rate is 87.1 percent, he noted.

China has helped Morocco in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

A batch of medical supplies donated by the government of northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region was transported on June 8 to Casablanca-Settat in Morocco.

On May 14, China Development Bank sent a batch of donation, including respirators and medical protective masks, to help Morocco fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

China's Guizhou Province also donated 15,000 surgical gloves, 20,000 medical masks and 2,000 protective suits to help protect Moroccan medical workers fighting the pandemic. Enditem
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 23, 2020 | 02:24 PM | MURRAY





The school's plan, which can be viewed at the link below, is helping to guide the institution while still adhering to all state, federal, and CDC guidelines.







"As our Racer Restart initiative moves forward, Murray State will continue to follow guidelines set by state and federal authorities as well as the Centers for Disease Control," said University President Dr. Bob Jackson. "This is an exciting time at Murray State. To our returning and incoming students, as well as to prospective students who may be looking for an enriching college experience while remaining closer to home at this time, we remain committed to providing a healthy, safe and welcoming living and learning environment for all. We anticipate a successful fall semester as we welcome our students back to campus."







As part of the initiative, MSU has set guidelines for the campus community with a a well thought out approach. Their 12 guidelines include social distancing, utilizing Murray State's on-site Health Services, making smart choices, and use of PPE such as masks, among other important safety measures.







Some of their new proactive health measures include Racer Safe and Healthy signage, plexiglass shields, hand sanitizing stations, and disinfecting wipes for all classrooms and instructional spaces, among other measures. Additionally, the University will be providing a Racer Safe and Healthy kit for each student, faculty, and staff member. The kits will contain face masks, hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes, a thermometer, and a hang tag that can be attached to any bag with contact information for Murray State Health Services.







The University will also be issuing updated RacerCard IDs with a new design for students, faculty, and staff. The cards will improve transaction processing, allowing for even more contactless use.







As they announced earlier this summer, the school will offer a combination of mainly in-person instruction, as well as hybrid and online instruction while maintaining a modified traditional on-campus experience for students.







Registration for the upcoming semester remains open; you can learn more about it and apply for admission at the link below.







Additionally, the Murray State Office of Student Financial Services will have staff available to help students who may be encountering financial struggles. Students are being encouraged to fill out the University's general scholarship application as well as the FAFSA as soon as possible. For more information on this, contact the office at 270-809-2546 or email msu.sfa@murraystate.edu.







Progress on numerous campus enhancement projects is continuing inside the Curris Center. Students will be happy to know that this includes the addition of Steak 'n Shake and a remodeled Thoroughbred Room. The new Starbucks will be fully open as well.







Thanks to a partnership with Primary Care Medical Center/Village MD, they will be providing on-campus health services to students Monday through Friday with on-site physicians, nurses, and staff, along with after-hours access.







New or returning students who have not registered for fall classes are asked to contact their academic advisor as soon as possible.







Limited in-person campus tour opportunities are still available for those interested in attending the University, with virtual tours and visits also available.

The Murray State University is continuing to carry out its Racer Restart initiative as their faculty and staff prepare to welcome students back to the campus in August.

On the Net:
African countries are offering tourists from all over the world the chance to travel the continent and even go on safari by virtual means. But is this a satisfactory substitute for the real thing?

The sun rises slowly above the horizon of the African savanna. Against its glowing light can be seen the silhouettes of an elephant family rambling through the grassland on their quest for the nearest waterhole. Impalas and zebras make their way through the wilderness, the birds chirp and it can be sensed that the day is going to be a hot one.

This scene in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve in Mpumalanga, one of the best-known safari regions of South Africa, seems very real. But, in fact, the tourists who are enjoying it are not sitting in jeeps, but at home watching it on their smartphones and tablets. The safari itself is really taking place, however, and, as in real life, every trip is different, adding to the pleasure of such virtual experiences.

In the Kenyan game reserve Ol Pejeta you can go on a virtual safari with rangers.

Since the coronavirus pandemic broke out, the tourism industry has collapsed across all the countries in Africa. National parks and hotels are empty and there is no trace of tourists, as they are all stuck at home.

But several African tourism associations have come up with the idea of supplying avid travelers with digital impressions of the continent during the pandemic. Virtual tourism is on the rise.

Safaris at home

Safaris in Kenya, strolls through the Namib desert in Namibia, paragliding in South Africa or standing on the edge of the Victoria Falls at the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe: All of these experiences can now be enjoyed at home by virtual tourists like Juan Santiago.

Santiago, who hails from the Spanish capital, Madrid, has already visited Kenya a couple of times at this time of year to watch the migration of wildebeest in the Maasai Mara game reserve, a phenomenon that has often been called one of the Wonders of the World.

But this year, things are different. Instead of going to Kenya, Santiago is paying a virtual visit to the Nairobi National Park. "If the safari is led well, you have the atmosphere of the Nairobi National Park at home. Everything happens in real time," he says. "Even if my family tours Kenya without me after the coronavirus pandemic, this technology lets me accompany them virtually."

A chance to survive

Kenya has already lost more than $750 million (656 million) in revenue from tourism since the first case of COVID-19 in the country. That is why, in June, the tourism authority there initiated a live-stream drive as part of its #TheMagicAwaits campaign. It is meant to give the world a taste of what awaits in Kenya when the country is open to visitors once more, says Betty Radier, the managing director of the Kenya Tourism Board.

"People are online and looking for places they could travel to. That is a great opportunity for us to present ourselves live as a destination," she told DW. Sixteen different destinations in Kenya are being live-streamed.

A taste of things to come

This concept is also working in South Africa. The tourism authority in Cape Town, for example, has launched the campaign We Are Worth Waiting For. It is offering ways to enjoy the city virtually, including tours on Robben Island, with its former prison, and Table Mountain.

The managing director of Cape Town Tourism, Enver Duminy, describes it as a long-distance love affair.

"What we have done using technology during COVID-19 is to use social media and campaigns to remind tourists of why they fell in love with the destination in the first place," Duminy told DW. "We give images of what you are longing for, of what you experienced the last time you were here. And hopefully we can connect and continue that love affair when you visit us. Technology is more of an enabler that allows us to transit in space and time."

"Virtual tourism is a great opportunity for seeing whether you want to visit a particular destination for real," says Gerald Ferreira, the founder of the Virtual Reality Company in South Africa. "People can also try out what adventure tourism is like before they try something like bungee jumping, for example."

Rapid growth

According to figures from the UN's World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), 74% of African governments were not allowing tourists into their countries at the start of June. Before the pandemic broke out, Africa was the fastest-growing tourism region. In 2018, some 67 million tourists visited the continent, bringing $38 billion in revenue. In 2019, the number of tourists increased by 4.2%, according to preliminary figures. And Africa could have reckoned with an increase of 3-4% in 2020.

But then, COVID-19 arrived on the scene. The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) puts the number of jobs lost in Africa's tourism sector alone at almost 8 million. This has made seeking alternatives imperative.

But can virtual tourism replace real travel? Or could it even cause long-term damage to the tourism industry, with potential travelers staying away, content with visiting Africa virtually?

Itchy feet syndrome

Patrick Karangwa, a computer scientist from Rwanda, does not think it will. He offers virtual tours through the capital, Kigali.

"I don't see myself as competing with traditional tourism, but as a partner," he told DW. "I create an additional layer of information that encourages people to travel to places. It is really an advantage for travel businesses, hotels, restaurants and the industry in general."

Enver Duminy in Cape Town is also banking on people's continued wanderlust. "Virtual reality allows more immersive experiences, even though at this stage it does not allow you to touch and taste and smell. It only allows you to see. I think it is in our DNA; we need to connect, to see, to touch, to hug."

In a few weeks' time, the first package tourists from Europe are due in Rwanda again. Tanzania, known for its lax approach to the coronavirus crisis, is already welcoming tourists, and Namibia has reopened its national parks. Kenya will allow tourists in from August 1 and South Africa's tourism industry hopes to be able to open for business from September 2020  whether that will really be the case, however, remains uncertain, as cases of coronavirus infection are currently rising. Countries like Uganda will probably have to wait a bit longer.

Animal welfare benefits

Juan Santiago in Madrid is not worried by this. Since the pandemic started, he has already taken a virtual look at the famous archaeological finds and collections in the Nairobi National Museum.

Even if he likes to travel in these countries in person, he believes in the future of virtual tourism. "One day, we will all be able to see the giraffes in Nairobi from all over the world; you'll go to work at 8 o'clock and watch the giraffes on live screens in the office," he says. "That will be good for nature conservation because nature fans like me would then donate for these giraffes, rhinoceroses or elephants."

Anyone who already has itchy feet can only hope that trips to Africa will soon be possible again. But for those who are content with virtual travel as well  the world is already open.

---DW.com
Press Release

23 July 2020

Magnuson Hotels, the fast-growing franchise alternative, released its Q2 key performance indicators today, showing the company outperforming the USA hotel market by nearly 3 times in RevPAR (revenue per available room) trends.

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For June 2020, Magnuson Hotels sustained a chainwide 22% reduction in RevPAR against 2019, vs a 60.6% USA 2020 YTD fall.

For 2020 YTD, Magnuson withstood a RevPAR drop of only 17.8% against US industrywide fall of 46.7%. YTD.

Average room rates in June are holding higher for Magnuson with a 7.5% reduction against 2019, compared to USA industry average rate fall of 31.5% YTD.

Despite the challenges of Covid 19 across the USA, occupancies are holding above market at a 13.5% reduction in June, compared to a 43% industry fall for the USA.

The company reports that because its portfolio is widely dispersed across USA secondary, tertiary, rural and highway markets, many areas have been less impacted than primary markets dependent upon leisure, corporate and international.

Magnuson states that its midscale business segment moved to a 100% focus on serving essential services workers across secondary tertiary, rural and highways markets of the USA. Customer groups staying in Magnuson Hotels include blue collar, construction, transportation, truckers, medical, government and student housing. Exterior corridor properties are performing strongly as guests can drive up to their rooms, eliminating interaction with other guests, using elevators or passing through lobbies.

Company CEO Thomas Magnuson states, "Our teams and systems are working non-stop to assist hotel owners, their families and employees in successfully navigating through this challenging operating environment. Magnuson Hotels is in a full building mode of investment in technology, distribution, marketing and new business segments to support our affiliates."
Birds come in all shapes and sizes, and each one of these creations of nature has a distinguishing quality that tends to set them apart. While some of them tend to boast a striking plumage, there are others that possess long beaks. Here are the five most beautiful birds that display gorgeous tail feathers.

1.Wilsons bird-of-paradise (Cicinnurus respublica)

Some birds dont need to stun with their spectacularly colorful tail feathers; they can just charm the bird watchers eye with their uniquely styled tail. An Indonesian endemic, Wilsons bird-of-paradise is found in the hill and lowlands of rainforests of Waigeo and Batanta Islands off West Papua, notes Beauty of Birds.

These rather small birds possess a striking bare blue head both in the male and female species, while the color of feathers tend to differ with the male being dressed in black and red while the female species is a brownish bird. Their two eye-catching tail feathers are violet in color and are curled like a wire in the opposite directions. According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, these birds are listed as near threatened.

2. Greater Racket-tailed Drongo (Dicrurus paradiseus)

Found mostly in the Asian region, the black drongo possesses two distinctively long racket-like shaped tail feathers that twist a bit toward the end. This medium-sized bird possesses a shiny neck, a crest that curves backward. When in flight, the tail of these birds appears as if two large bees were chasing a blackbird. According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, these birds are listed as of least concern.

3. Lady Amhersts Pheasant (Chrysolophus amherstiae)

Native to southwestern China and far northern Myanmar, this beautiful bird has an eye-catching long tail feather that measures an estimate of 80 centimeters in length. These distinctive birds move around thick vegetation singly or in pairs while feeding and thus might be hard to spot.

The black-and-white striped tail of the male species along with their body, which poses beautiful colors of green, blue, red, and white, sets them apart. Although these birds can fly, they prefer to run until they can burst upward at great speed. Lady Amhersts pheasant is evaluated at least concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

4. Long-tailed Paradise Whydah (Vidua paradisaea)

Commonly known as the eastern paradise whydah, these sparrow-like species are found across the sub-Saharan African region. These small passerines with short, stubby bills feed on seeds that have to ripen and fall on the ground. Usually, its hard to distinguish the male counterpart from the female counterpart during the nonbreeding season, as they look pretty similar, both possessing a strongly contrasting black-and-white head, including a characteristic dark bill and a double C pattern under the ear.

However, when the breeding season rolls out, the male species boasts a buff, black, and chestnut long tail that can grow three times longer than its own body. The distinctive tail is flattened with both short bulging feathers and long, tapering dagger-like feathers. According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, these birds are of least concern.

5. Greater Bird-of-Paradise (Paradisaea apoda)

Found in the lowland and hill forests of southwest New Guinea and Aru Islands, Indonesia, these birds possess thick central yellow tail feathers that are as long as wires and can seem like twisted ribbons.

However, its their dramatic yellow flaky plumes that can be raised upward or forward enveloping the wings that make this bird eye-catching. When the male finds a suitable female, he displays his wings. These special species that feed mainly on fruits and insects are listed as of least concern in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

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An unmanned Chinese spacecraft left Earth Thursday on a yearlong trip to the planet Mars. The launch marks the beginning of one of Chinas most important space missions yet.

Chinas national space agency launched the spacecraft, called Tianwen-1, from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch area on Hainan Island. Hundreds of people were watching and cheered as it rose into the sky.

The name Tianwen means Heavenly Questions or Questions to Heaven in Mandarin Chinese. The spacecraft is expected to reach the Red Planet by February of next year.

Once it begins orbiting the planet, a probe will leave the spacecraft and attempt to land on the Utopia Planitia area of Mars. Space agency officials say the probe will release a small solar-powered rover. They said the vehicle will explore the planets surface for about three months.

A successful landing would make China only the second nation to place a spacecraft on the Martian planet. The United States has landed eight probes on Mars since 1976.

China would also be the first to successfully orbit, land and deploy a vehicle in the same mission.

This is Chinas first independent mission to Mars. A 2011 mission failed when a Russian rocket carrying a Chinese orbiter had problems after launch, and was unable to escape Earths orbit.

Last year, Chinas Change-4 spacecraft became the first to make a landing on the far side of the moon.

The Tianwen-1 is the third mission to Mars this year. On Monday, Japanese engineers launched a rocket. It is carrying an orbiter developed and built by the United Arab Emirates. The U.S. space agency NASA is set to launch a new Martian vehicle, named Perseverance, on July 30.

Another solar system

In a separate development, scientists have released, what they say, is the first image ever captured by a telescope of more than one planet orbiting a sun-like star. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) said Wednesday that the image came from its Extremely Large Telescope, in Chiles Atacama Desert.

The researchers said the star is part of the constellation Musca, or Fly. They believe it is just about 17 million years old. That is young when compared to Earths sun, which is believed to be 4.5 billion years old.

The newly discovered solar system is about 300 light-years away from Earth.

A report on the discovery was published Tuesday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Lead researcher Alexander Bohn of Leiden University described the star as very young and much like our own sun. He added that taking direct images provides the best chance to find life outside our solar system, if it exists.

Im Anna Mateo.

VOA News reported this story. Susan Shand adapted it for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

spacecraft - n. a vehicle designed to fly in outer space

mission - n. a goal or a serious undertaking

probe - n. a vehicle that explores a planet's service

solar-powered - adj. something that draws its power from the sun

light-years - n. a unit of measure used to explain astronomical distances

constellation - n. a group of stars that appear to form pattern
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 19:47:11|Editor: huaxia

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French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian holds a joint press conference with Lebanese Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti (not in the picture) in Beirut, Lebanon, July 23, 2020. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Thursday urged Lebanese officials to make efforts in implementing necessary structural reforms to enable France to help Lebanon, MTV local TV channel reported. (Photo by Bilal Jawich/Xinhua)

BEIRUT, July 23 (Xinhua) -- French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Thursday urged Lebanese officials to make efforts in implementing necessary structural reforms to enable France to help Lebanon, MTV local TV channel reported.

"Help yourself for us to be able to help you," Le Drian said while addressing Lebanese officials during his joint press conference with Lebanese Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti.

Le Drian arrived in Beirut a day earlier on a two-day official visit to meet with Lebanese officials and push forward reforms.

Le Drian emphasized the need by Lebanon to overhaul the electricity sector which "did not witness so far any positive or encouraging changes."

The French official also urged the Lebanese to fight against corruption, smuggling, and allow independence and transparency of the judiciary system which is fundamental for Lebanon.

Le Drian assured that France maintains its support for the Lebanese military forces to guarantee stability and security in the country.

However, he urged Lebanese politicians to impose their full authority all over Lebanese territories while remaining neutral with regard to crises taking place in the rest of the region.

The French official insisted that the only solution for Lebanon to get out of its current crisis is to succeed in its negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by implementing various reforms including the forensic audit which will highlight the sources of money squandering in the country.

Lebanon has been negotiating a rescue plan with the IMF. It has so far failed to reach a consensus with the IMF due to its inability to come up with unified figures about losses incurred by Lebanon over the past 30 years.

Le Drian asked the Lebanese to prove their seriousness in making changes which would allow the country to access CEDRE funds.

CEDRE refers to the Conference for Economic Development and Reform through Enterprises, hosted by France in 2018, to help Lebanon raise funds to finance its plan to modernize infrastructure and develop economy.

Le Drian said France is assisting Lebanon on the humanitarian level by providing the country with medical donations since the COVID-19 outbreak. He added that France will also support Lebanon's education system given the long historic ties between the two countries in this field.

For his part, Hitti noted that Lebanon is faced with multiple challenges on the economic, financial, social and political levels which require quick initiatives because the time has become too tight and Lebanon is in a dangerous situation.

Le Drian met earlier in the day with Lebanese President Michel Aoun, Prime Minister Hassan Diab and House Speaker Nabih Berri.

According to local TV channel LBCI, Aoun asked Le Drian for France's support in helping Lebanon in its fight against corruption.

Meanwhile, Diab gave an overview of the few reforms that were implemented by the Lebanese cabinet including the scanners which were placed at the airport and ports to control products that enter the country through these facilities and prevent loss of customs revenues.

Also, Diab asked France for support in the overhaul of the electricity sector and the return of Syrian refugees to their homeland.
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Health Expert at RTI International, Pia MacDonald, MPH, PhD, is using her experience from past epidemics to track the potential spread and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the pandemic continues, there is uncertainty around what a new normal will look like, but maintaining efforts to widely test for the virus, physical distance, wear face coverings, and practice effective handwashing can continue to help curb the spread.

Local officials across the U.S. will make decisions in the coming weeks and months about sending student populations back to school. The ability to send students back to school environments will depend on tracking several metrics behind the COVID-19 pandemic's impact within each state. Dr. MacDonald has closely followed the path of COVID-19 and can speak to the trajectory of the pandemic nationally and internationally, the indicators officials should be monitoring when considering re-opening measures, outbreak response and containment, public health interventions and disease prevention.

Using real data and on-the-ground experience from the epicenter of past infectious disease outbreaks, Dr. MacDonald has provided comment for articles in several media outlets such as Vox, The New York Times, NPR, NBC, ABC, Kaiser Health News, iHeart Radio, on her research of the coronavirus thus far.

In her current role, Dr. MacDonald's work is focused on emerging infectious diseases and strengthening capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to disease outbreaks. She has an extensive experience in infectious disease epidemiology and surveillance, global health security, public health preparedness, and outbreak investigation and response.

She is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Gillings School of Global Public Health and previously served as a 10-year faculty member.

Dr. MacDonald has served as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer within the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, led projects funded by the CDC, Pan American Health Organization, National Association of Country and City Health Officials, and the North Carolina Division of Public Health. She is the author of the book, Methods in Field Epidemiology (2012).

Dr. MacDonald's work on COVID-19 includes:

A published editorial in The News & Observer on sheltering in place.

Panel interview for WRAL's 'On the Record'

Published recommendations on fusing academia work and public health work to determine future national responses to health security threats.

Commentary on the future of real-time disease surveillance in California Magazine from Berkeley Alumni.

A published editorial in The Washington post about the benefit of shut-downs.

post about the benefit of shut-downs. Providing subject matter expertise for RTI's recent surveys on public perceptions of COVID-19.

Providing subject matter expertise for COVID-19 modelling in North Carolina .

. Data visualization and epidemiologic intelligence for COVID-19 outbreak response.

To request an interview, email [email protected].

About RTI International

RTI International is an independent, nonprofit research institute dedicated to improving the human condition. Clients rely on us to answer questions that demand an objective and multidisciplinary approach  one that integrates expertise across the social and laboratory sciences, engineering and international development. We believe in the promise of science, and we are inspired every day to deliver on that promise for the good of people, communities and businesses around the world. For more information, visit www.rti.org.

SOURCE RTI International

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JAIPUR, India  As the once-formidable Indian National Congress party began to crumble in recent years, Sachin Pilot, a young, well-connected politician, stepped up to help his bloc weather one crisis after another.

Mr. Pilots parents were Congress stalwarts and served in elite government positions. He is close with members of the Gandhi family, who have controlled the party for decades, dominating Indias electorate until Prime Minister Narendra Modi first swept into office six years ago on a wave of Hindu nationalism.

Many thought Mr. Pilot, 42, who represented Congress as deputy chief minister in the northern state of Rajasthan, had the perfect resume to lead the party to a rebirth.

Instead, Indias political establishment has been jolted by accusations this month that Mr. Pilot was secretly working on behalf of Mr. Modis Bharatiya Janata Party, possibly in an effort to depose a chief minister he had fallen out with. Mr. Pilot has denied those accusations.
(Photo : REUTERS/Dado Ruvic) A woman holds a small bottle labeled with a "Vaccine COVID-19" sticker and a medical syringe in this illustration taken April 10, 2020. (Photo : Steve Parsons/Pool via REUTERS) Britain's William, Duke of Cambridge, wears a mask as he meets scientists during a visit to the manufacturing laboratory where a vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been produced at the Oxford Vaccine Group's facility at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, Britain, June 24, 2020.

A World Health Organization (WHO) expert has crushed any hopes that a COVID-19 vaccine will be available before Christmas.

According to Daily Mail, WHO emergencies program head Mike Ryan noted that the COVID-19 vaccine may not reach the market until early 2021, even after Oxford University claimed its experimental jab may be available as early as Christmas. They also said that people who are highly at risk could first get the jabs by winter.

While Ryan noted that some jabs are currently in phase three trials and they all have triggered an immune response, controlling the spread of the virus should still be the primary focus.

Ryan said in a social media event that people may need to wait until early 2021 to get vaccinated. "And we need to be fair about this because this is a global good," the WHO representative told The Sun.

Ryan also added that WHO was working for expanding access to potential vaccines and increasing the production. He also noted that COVID-19 vaccines are not only for the wealthy or the poor but for everybody.

Having a vaccine is crucial to get rid of the coronavirus pandemic because it would secure protection against catching the deadly disease. Anyone who got injected would trigger an immune response to fight the virus quickly.

However, Wellcome Trust director and Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies member Professor Sir Jeremy Farrar warned that the world will continue to live with coronavirus for the next decades. He also told the Health and Social Care Committee on Tuesday, July 21, that the vaccine will not be available by Christmas. "This infection is not going away, and it's now a human endemic infection," Farrar added.

Farrar also lashed the government for having lockdown too late as it should have been ordered earlier. Nevertheless, humanity will still be living with this virus for many years to come even with a vaccine or very good treatment.

A great day for British science

For the study, Oxford University more than 1,000 healthy volunteers. "We are now moving rapidly forwards to try to evaluate whether the vaccine actually protects the population," the chief investigator, Professor Andrew Pollard, told the Telegraph.

He also said they see "a really important milestone" in developing the vaccine as the volunteers have a good immune response. Meanwhile, U.K.'s Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam said the trial result announcement was a "great day for British science."

"Optimistically, we'll be vaccinating by the end of the year," British Vaccine Taskforce Kate Bingham added.

Meanwhile, Oxford University Jenner Institute for Vaccine Research Director Adrian Hill said the results were at the "high end" of expectations. "It's possible for a vaccine being used by the end of the year," he added.

Phase three human trials will soon start, and currently, more than 10,000 people have been vaccinated already. The researchers now need to determine whether their vaccine would prevent people from contracting COVID-19 or any serious conditions.

Read also: China's Coronavirus Vaccine Trial Produced Immune Response in Patients: It is Already in Phase-Two Stage

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
DAKAR, Senegal Militants from an Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility Thursday for killing five aid workers who were kidnapped last month in northeastern Nigeria.

The Islamic State West Africa Province, which broke away from Boko Haram several years ago, warned in June that it would target Nigerians working for international aid agencies along with those who helped the military. Nigerias president already had blamed the extremists for the slayings.

The group issued its claim online in its digital weekly newspaper, al-Naba, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist groups. The aid workers were killed on Sunday, and a video of their deaths was later released on social media, SITE reported.

The alarming development threatens to further complicate relief efforts in northeastern Nigeria, where nearly 2 million people have been displaced by the ongoing insurgency. The U.N. World Food Program says 3 million in the northeast are facing hunger, and now also threatened by COVID-19.

The five were traveling by road to the state capital of Maiduguri when they were abducted last month by the militants. Nigerias presidency said the victims had worked for the Nigerian government and three international aid agencies: Action Against Hunger, International Rescue Committee and REACH International.

They were committed humanitarians who devoted their lives to helping vulnerable people and communities in an area heavily affected by violence, said Edward Kallon, the U.N.s humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria.

Security has long been a concern for aid groups operating in the northeast, where humanitarian workers have been repeatedly kidnapped and killed during Boko Harams decade-long insurgency against the Nigerian government.

Those concerns have deepened though since the Boko Haram splinter faction warned last month that it would target civilians who help humanitarian groups. The splinter group previously was not known to target Muslim civilians but left threatening pamphlets in June.

___

Associated Press writer Haruna Umar in Maiduguri, Nigeria contributed.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Clint Eastwood filed lawsuits on Thursday over the fraudulent use of his name to sell CBD products and claims that he has retired from the movie business to enter the wellness industry.

The 90-year-old "Dirty Harry" star alleged that his name and likeness were being used in online scams to sell CBD oil, gummies and other products.

CBD, or cannabidoil, is a non-psychoactive compound in cannabis, and is also derived from the hemp plant. It was legalized in the United States in 2018.

"Mr. Eastwood does not have, and never has had, any association with the manufacture, promotion, and/or sale of any CBD products," the lawsuit states.

The first lawsuit cites an online news article carrying a purported interview in which Eastwood falsely reveals that he is developing a new CBD line and is "stepping away from the spotlight to put more time into his wellness business."

Eastwood, a double Oscar-winning director and actor, rarely endorses anything, the lawsuit said. Furthermore he "does not express a point of view about CBD products or the legitimate CBD industry," his representative said in a statement.

A second lawsuit claims that programming code has been used to illegally insert Eastwood's name into some online searches for CBD products.

The two related lawsuits, which allege defamation, trademark infringements and invasion of privacy, seek unspecified damages and injunctions. They were filed in a federal court in California against a number of laboratories, corporations and individuals but the lawsuit said their true identity was unknown.

My client is not one to sit idly by as the defendants use his good name to dupe customers into purchasing products with which he has no affiliation," Eastwood's lawyer Jordan Susman said in a statement.

Eastwood won Oscars for directing the movies "Unforgiven" and "Million Dollar Baby." His most recent film, "Richard Jewell" was released in 2019.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Bengaluru, July 23 : Samsung on Thursday announced a new industry-academia programme under which, its R&D institute here will collaborate with students and faculty at engineering colleges in India on new-age technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G to help solve real-world problems.

Called 'Samsung PRISM' (Preparing and Inspiring Student Minds), the projects under the programme will be taken up by a team of students and a professor, with a mentor from the Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore (SRI-B) training and guiding them, the company said in a statement.

"This program will draw from the strength of our academia and engineering students' community, which undoubtedly is the best in the world," said Dipesh Shah, Managing Director, SRI-B.

SRI-B is Samsung's largest R&D facility outside of Korea. It has signed MoUs with 10 engineering colleges to date and will add more colleges over the next few months.

The Samsung institute will collaborate with students and faculty at these engineering colleges, giving them research as well as development projects to be executed over four to six months.

Each engineering college can have multiple teams, and students will be selected on the basis of a test conducted by SRI-B.

Samsung said that students will be encouraged to publish papers and file patents jointly with SRI-B.

"As we move forward, we want to blend the programme with the academic calendars of engineering colleges across the country, and also encourage students and faculty to publish quality papers and file patents," said Shah.

SRI-B organised a pilot programme last year in which 150 teams worked on unique R&D projects.
By Derrick Hamilton

In 1992, at the age of 28, I was accused of murdering a man and was sent to prison for that murder. Do you still want to keep reading? Do you think differently of me?

I was freed in November 2015 when the single witness who testified against me  the victims girlfriend  was found to be unreliable, untruthful and incredible. It turned out she had been coerced by Louis Scarcella, an acclaimed New York City homicide detective, whose 50 murder convictions were called into question when his sketchy investigatory tactics were revealed by the Brooklyn District Attorneys Conviction Integrity Unit, compromising the legitimacy of those convictions  including mine. Do you still want to keep reading? Do you think differently of me?

I know what its like to come home and have nothing. I know what it is like to be treated like nothing in the hands of the criminal justice system and to be treated as less than nothing while locked up. And I know that this current framework must end and now is the moment.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage on, New Jersey has held the distinct dishonor of being the state with the highest rate of deaths in prisons due to coronavirus since the onset of its spread. As the rest of the nation embarks on an unprecedented trajectory, and more prisons experience the crisis New Jersey has, every state will wrestle with this problem. New Jersey has a chance to do the right thing.

Gov. Phil Murphy has the ability to commute sentences but he hasnt. While the governor has given prisoners the right to a medical furlough or parole, and the New Jersey Supreme Court has created a legal framework to allow incarcerated people the right to appeal a denial, people incarcerated in New Jerseys prisons continue to sicken, and, in some cases, they will die, as many already have. The death toll also extends to the staff  civilian and correctional alike, as well as the families they go home to.

New Jerseys S2519/A4235, introduced by State Senator Nellie Pou, Assemblyman Raj Mukherji, and Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter, creates a public health emergency credit, expediting release for people due to complete their sentences within a year. The credits will reduce sentences by six months for each month of the declared state of emergency during the pandemic, with a maximum sentence reduction of one year. The legislation will apply to adults and kids, with an exception for people determined to be compulsive and repetitive sex offenders in need of treatment.

Prisons are set up to erase people from view and to demonize them from within. Prisons were once meant to rehabilitate, before the widespread recognition that a captive setting can only punish and demean. In practice, they serve to disappear peoples bodies and lives. The COVID-19 crisis has shown us how seriously the state takes its self-appointed task of fortifying the walls that determine how far in we cannot see, allowing people to die as we whistle past the prison gates. Right now, in this moment, we are willing to allow people to die to avoid acknowledging the effects that ruthless policing and generations of social deprivations have wrought.

As someone who worked with men accused of all types of crimes, I saw firsthand how often the system got it wrong, as a constitutional matter and as a matter of truth. I watched as desperately sick men were failed by overwhelmed prison hospitals, and given Tylenol to address serious conditions, from cancerous tumors to bowel obstructions. Now I watch as the deaths climb, as ill people overwhelm hospitals in locations close to prisons, threatening the lives of communities inside and out.

COVID has revealed that we are not deemed worthy of this world even with the virus roaring at our backs. Our families are told they do not deserve their fathers, daughters, uncles, brothers, and wives. That it is acceptable for people to die.

I saw this same indifference in the casual dispensation of solitary. I saw it in case after case as a jailhouse lawyer. Still, even in the face of death, we see the same tired arguments: that even with a deadly virus exploding in the Petri dish of our prisons, where the spread of infection is assured, incarcerated people do not deserve to be treated with the basic dignity accorded to any human being.

I was in for murder, a murder that I did not commit, with incontrovertible evidence proving my innocence. If I were still in, my life could have ended in prison waiting to be exonerated for a crime I did not commit, clearly an injustice. Yet is it in any way just to let an elderly man who did commit murder, and has served 50 years, die?

You must think differently of me  our society depends on it. That also goes for the men and women who are suffering in our prisons, waiting in fear for possible symptoms of a deadly virus. We have to find our own humanity in understanding theirs.

The credits are the humane thing to do. They are the smart thing to do. They are the right thing to do, and we must do something before it is too late.

Derrick Hamilton is an activist for reform of the criminal legal system and advocate on behalf of those affected by it. He served for 23 years in prison, where he was a jailhouse lawyer, before his exoneration and release.

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Lane woke up Saturday at her home in Columbia Heights and saw on Twitter that Rep. John Lewis had died. Here was a man, she thought, who had every reason to give up on institutions, on this country, and yet he fought and fought and fought. It made her think of her own journey this year. In March, she lost her job at a new restaurant downtown. She kept it together until May, when George Floyd was killed, and then fell apart. Floyd looked like her uncle. It was all too much. She was depressed by her deferred career, grieving Floyds death, paralyzed by the pandemic. Then June 1 she pulled herself outside and walked with friends to the White House. Police corralled the crowds uptown, until Lane found herself pepper-sprayed and seeking shelter from officers, with dozens of other wheezing activists, in a strangers home on Swann Street NW, in a pandemic.
A farmer in Cornwall has received credit from firefighters for his quick thinking after his tractor burst into flames.

Photos of the incident, which happened in Boyton, Launceston on Tuesday 21 July, have been shared on social media.

Launceston Community Fire Station applauded the farmer after he managed to get the tractor to a safe spot.

He avoided a field full of hay which could have caught alight, the service said on Twitter.

Two firefighters wearing breathing gear used hose reel jets to tackle the blaze.

??Incident: Both Appliances Attended a Tractor Fire ???? near Boyton, 2 Firefighters Wearing Breathing Apparatus & using 2 Hosereel Jets to extinguish the Fire! Credit to the Farmer who Manged to get the Tractor to a Safe Spot & Avoided a Field full of Hay Catching Alight! ?? pic.twitter.com/fJCPC8zWI2  Launceston Community Fire Station (@LauncestonCFRS) July 21, 2020

Launceston Community Fire Station said: "Both appliances attended a tractor fire near Boyton, two firefighters wearing breathing apparatus and using two hosereel jets to extinguish the fire.

"Credit to the farmer who managed to get the tractor to a safe spot and avoided a field full of hay catching alight!"

It comes as NFU Mutual recently launched a checklist to keep farmers and growers safe during harvest.

The rural insurer said harvest time was 'one of the most dangerous periods' of the farming year.
BETHALTO  Linda Hickman has been named Assistant Vice President of Consumer Lending at 1st MidAmerica Credit Union.

Hickman comes to the credit union with more than 25 years of financial services experience, nine of the those in a lending management role. She will be responsible for directing and monitoring lending and collection operations at the credit union.

Im very excited to join 1st MidAmerica Credit Union and look forward to living and working in the community. Im eager to get involved and support the many organizations that the credit union is affiliated with, said Hickman.

Originally from OFallon, Illinois, Hickman relocated to the Riverbend area two years ago. She has previously volunteered with Meals on Wheels, Salvation Army and Relay for Life.

For more details, visit www.1stMidAmerica.org.
Guwahati, July 24 : The Gauhati High Court on Thursday asked the Assam's prisons' authority to provide the best qualitative treatment to the jail inmates across the state so that no further damage is caused, officials said.

The High Court's intervention comes following a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by a senior advocate Nilay Dutta after a few hundred of prisoners tested positive for coronavirus and the rising number of infections inside the jails across Assam.

The High Court bench comprising Chief Justice Ajay Lamba and Justice Manish Choudhury directed the Inspector General of Prisons to file an affidavit on the issue and listed the case for next hearing on September 8.

The Court order said: "We hereby direct that the best of the measures available with the state of Assam, be employed to give qualitative treatment to the jail inmates across the state so that no further damage is caused. We also direct that the persons who have not been detected COVID-19 positive be segregated and be maintained as such so that the disease is not transmitted to them.

"In any case, all the jail inmates in Assam be tested for COVID-19. The result thereof be conveyed to the court." The HC said that in the affidavit of the IG Prison must be mentioned about how many Covid positive cases have been detected in each of the jails, precautions taken before the inmates were found to be coronavirus positive, the steps being taken for disinfecting the jails and giving treatment to inmates and how many patients are asymptomatic and symptomatic in each of the jails.

The Assam Human Rights Commission (AHRC) headed by Justice T. Vaiphei has also asked the state government to submit an action taken report by August 5 about the enforcement of the COVID-19 protocols in the Guwahati Central Jail.

The AHRC issued the notice to Assam Chief Secretary and Inspector General (Prison) on Monday following a complaint filed by opposition leader Debrabrata Saikia, who is a senior Congress legislator.

According to the officials of the Health and Family Welfare Department, around 535 inmates have tested positive for COVID-19 across 10 jails in the state, of whom the highest around 435 was detected in Guwahati central jail.

Officials of the IG Prison office said that the Assam government is likely to release around 375 prisoners within the next one week to decongest jails across the state.Of the around 375 prisoners to be released, 111 are presently lodged in Guwahati Central Jail in Khanapara.

A 200-bedded Covid Care Centre has been set up inside Guwahati Central Jail to treat asymptomatic prisoners and the authorities are creating a second such facility at Nagaon Special Jail.

According to the officials, of the 31 jails and six detention centres (for "declared foreigners") currently accommodate around 8,800 inmates against the sanctioned strength of 8,938 after more than 300 inmates were released from the detention centres as well.

In pursuance to the Supreme Court's order, different state governments of the northeastern region including Assam have taken several steps to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus in jails.

In all the eight northeastern states, several thousand prisoners had already been released on interim bail or PR Bond to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic inside the jails.

Assam has registered 25,092 COVID-19 positive cases till Tuesday night, while 17,095 patients have recovered and 58 succumbed to the virus. The state has 7,936 active cases.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Its a common knowledge that the most Democrats who call themselves pro-choice (although a pro-death definition would be more accurate), dont see a problem in killing 345,672 unborn babies a year, or making it legal to barbarically terminate the life of a fully formed baby. Those are blobs of cells, after all.

The same approach may be observed in the Democrats harsh opposition to President Trumps and the House Republicans push to reopen public schools that have been shut since March. In-person education and opportunity to socialize are critical for students of all ages, especially the youngest ones. And the isolation and quarantine has already taken its toll on childrens psychological well-being, which manifests itself in anxiety, emotional disorders, depression, and developmental delay. Setting aside the remarkable inefficiency and even psychological harm of distance learning (not to mention the fact that 163,000,000 Americans still dont have a high-speed Internet at home -- how are they to participate in online education?) We are talking about 51,140,573 students nationwide. Can they return to their normal routines? Luckily for some of them, the governors of the corresponding states and local school boards have decided that they can. What about the rest?

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden believes that basement environment is the best for children: Forcing educators and students back into a classroom, into areas where the infection rate is going up or remaining very high is just plain dangerous. How is infection rate going up in areas that remain closed? He added then that science, not politics, should decide school reopening. Biden certainly believes that the science is on their side, but we have almost become accustomed to his bizarre and inaccurate statements, have we not? Joe seems to adopt Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegels notorious maxim that if facts contradict theory, then so much the worse for the facts. Even though its known that Joe choses truth over facts, those Americans who havent moved to the looney tunes universe completely should not disregard verified reality. Let us see whether the facts have once again failed poor ol confused Uncle Joe.

Children Rarely get and Transmit COVID-19

As per the University of Vermont study COVID-19 Transmission and Children: The Child Is Not to Blame based on the data and findings of the COVID-19 in Children and the Dynamics of Infection in Families research of the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, children are not driving the pandemic. After six months, we have a wealth of accumulating data showing that children are less likely to become infected and seem less infectious, doctors conclude. The same has been concluded by foreign colleagues: Britons, French, Germans, Australians, Canadians, even Chinese.

Additional support for the notion that children are not significant vectors of the disease comes from mathematical modeling, the authors say. Models show that community-wide social distancing and widespread adoption of facial coverings are far better strategies for curtailing disease spread, and that closing schools adds little.

Positive foreign experience

Even though there is still lots of confusion and uncertainty about COVID-19, thanks to the politics behind it, there is clear evidence that children should not be held hostage in that game. By early June, more than 20 countries had let the children back to schools. Some others, including Taiwan, Nicaragua, and Sweden, never closed their schools in the first place. Even though it was a vast, uncontrolled experiment, we certainly must learn from it. Thus, some schools imposed strict limits on contact between children, while others let them play freely. Some required masks, while others made them optional. Some closed temporarily if just one student was diagnosed with COVID-19; others stayed open even when multiple children or staff were affected, sending only ill people and direct contacts into quarantine.

According to a study by the American Association for the Advancement of Science that analyzed reopening strategies from South Africa to Finland to Israel, truly encouraging patterns were found. Together, they suggest a combination of keeping student groups small and requiring some social distancing helps keep schools and communities safe, and that younger children rarely spread the virus to one another or bring it home.

Politics, not science

War on parents and economy

Media routinely rumbles about the worst economy ever because of orange man bad -- because people, they believe, are not smart enough to connect the dots between the strict business lockdowns imposed by the local Democratic governments and the unemployment rates. In June, however, nearly 5 million jobs were regained by the U.S. economy, with promising trends for the following months. The parents of the children who will have to choose between a partial in-person learning and distance learning will be prevented from rejoining the workforce. Unemployment rate will remain high -- Damn you, Trump!

Teachers unions

Major teachers unions oppose the reopening as well, and sue those who dare to reopen. No wonder here, as teachers unions are closely associated with the Democrats. According to campaign watchdog Open Secrets, TUs have steadily amped up their political involvement: from 2004 to 2016, their donations grew from $4.3 million to more than $32 million. Even more than most labor unions, they are giving Democrats at least 94 percent of the funds they contributed to candidates and parties.

While working families are struggling, TUs insist not only on advanced safety measures, but also make demands that have nothing to do with the pandemic, like defunding the police and Medicare for All.

Free Money

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims that we shouldnt even be thinking about sending them [children] back to school without extra federal funding of the schools, which echoes the concerns of her TU sponsors. President Trump has threatened to cut federal funding of schools that are unwilling to reopen, but is also considering their demands and is likely will meet them in part. The CARES Act passed in March allocated $13.5 billion to K-12 education, but, naturally, educators want much more -- in a recent letter to Congress, the Council of Chief State School Officers, a nonprofit organization that represents public officials who lead state departments of elementary and secondary education estimated that the cost of safely reopening is between $158.1 billion and $244.6 billion. That is the bail price  inflated and unjustified.

The bottom line is the children need to get back to school, because it is safe -- even the Washington Post admits that reopened schools have largely avoided COVID outbreaks. Parents need to get back to work. As White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow argues, [I]f we don't reopen the schools, that would be a setback to a true economic recovery. And that is exactly what the Democrats try to avoid on the eve of the November elections. And that destructive desire -- The worse, the better, drives all their agenda.

Follow Veronika Kyrylenko, Ph.D. on Twitter or LinkedIn.
In a series of video interviews from a gently rocking small boat docked in Vancouver, British Columbia, that has been his office during the pandemic, Bray straightforwardly presented his ideas as a matter of logic. "I am not in some radical fringe because I think the wealth and power in the 21st century is overly concentrated," he said. "The tech industry is a leading candidate for what could be broken up." Loading Last year, when he saw that thousands of corporate Amazon employees had signed a letter urging Amazon to address the climate crisis more forcefully, he added his name. He was the most senior person to join. His involvement thrilled organisers. "To have a VP just confirmed how strongly Amazon employees felt about Amazon taking significant leadership on climate," said Emily Cunningham, an Amazon designer at the time who helped organise the letter.

His public dissent angered some leaders at Amazon, Bray said. He said he had been told to remember the Amazon leadership principle known as "disagree and commit," the idea that people should vigorously debate internally but that once a formal decision on an issue is made, everyone should fall in line and support it. "As a VP, you're not supposed to go off the rails with conflicting messaging, which is not an unreasonable position," Bray said. But that idea would eventually lead to his resignation. In April, Amazon fired Cunningham and several other workers who had raised concerns about safety in Amazon's warehouses. The company said each employee had repeatedly violated various policies. To Bray, it looked "like an explicit policy of firing anybody who put up their hand." "We support every employee's right to criticise their employer's working conditions, but that does not come with blanket immunity against any and all internal policies," Jaci Anderson, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a statement. For Bray, the firings crossed a line. He said he had raised concerns internally but could not "disagree and commit" as Amazon wanted. He stayed for a few weeks to wrap up a project and resigned, leaving $US1 million ($1.4 million) in compensation behind.

He turned to his blog to explain the resignation publicly. Bray stayed up until 2 am, preparing his server to withstand greater-than-usual traffic, should Reddit and Hacker News pick up his post as he hoped. The plan worked even better than he had expected. On Monday, Jeff Bezos, the company's chief executive, will testify for the first time before Congress, which is investigating the power of Amazon and other tech titans. Credit:AP "I was aiming at a soft target, it turned out," he said. 'A deep societal problem' In the days that followed, Bray's critique resonated in Washington, DC. He spoke with Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat whose district includes Amazon's headquarters in Seattle. And a group of senators mentioned his resignation blog post when they wrote to Bezos about the firings.

He initially tried to keep a low profile, responding only by email to press requests. But he kept blogging and eventually talked publicly, making even more aggressive criticisms of the company. On a live video in early June with National Observer, a Canadian investigative news site, Bray said Amazon was a symptom of concentrated capitalism. "We don't really have an Amazon problem," he said. "What we have is a deep societal problem with an unacceptable imbalance of power and wealth. "It's not obvious to me why the retail company, the manufacturing company, the voice recognition company, the cloud computing company and the Prime video company should be the same company," he said at the event. "They're not particularly related to each other, and I think it's actively distorting and harmful." A week later, Bray spoke at a virtual conference convened by global unions critical of Amazon. He said that unions should be easier to form in the United States and that "one of the most powerful political programs we could run with the aim of correcting the power imbalances that concern us is anti-monopoly." He also said the sheer size of Amazon and other large corporations gives them inordinate power over politics, policies and labour conditions. The "goodness" Amazon espouses for customers  low prices, endless selection, quick delivery "isn't free," he said. "Right now, the downside of all this goodness is overwhelmingly being experienced by the warehouse workers."

Amazon has strongly defended its labour conditions, saying that it has spent billions of dollars to make its warehouses safe and that its workers are paid at least $US15 an hour, plus benefits. Bray soon turned to formulating a business case for breaking up the company. He wrote it in a standard Amazon format, known as a PRFAQ, envisioning how the company would announce the proposal once it was fully enacted. With antitrust pressures growing, Amazon might prefer to "proactively" spin off its cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services, he wrote, "as opposed to under hostile pressure from Washington." Loading He posted the document on GitHub, a coding collaboration tool, asking for help improving the pitch. By spinning AWS off, he argued, companies like Walmart that compete with Amazon would be more comfortable using the cloud computing service, opening up more potential customers. "Organisations who compete with Amazon want to take advantage of AWS's industry-leading offerings without having to worry that they are strengthening a competitor," he wrote.
Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav refused to grant the relief to Bharat Bhushan in the case of the alleged murder of Babbu, as he has been identified by an eyewitness in the case

New Delhi: A Delhi court Thursday dismissed a bail plea of an accused in a case related to the killing of a local resident during the communal violence in northeast Delhi in February, saying he has been identified by the eye witness in the case.

Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav refused to grant the relief to Bharat Bhushan in the case of alleged murder of Babbu during the riots in Khajuri Khas area.

"Considering the gravity of offence in this matter as well as the fact that the applicant (Bhushan) has been categorically identified by the independent eye witness, I do not find it to be a fit case for grant of bail," the judge said in his order.

During the hearing held through video conferencing, Special Public Prosecutor Naresh Kumar Gaur, appearing for the state, opposed the bail plea saying Bhushan has been categorically identified by independent eye witness Sabir.

The prosecutor said constables Amit and Bhupender also identified Bhushan to be one of the rioters who had allegedly killed Babbu.

He further said that the call detail records location of the accused was at or around the spot of the incident.

A video footage showing the incident of alleged murder of Babbu was captured by BBC TV and the investigating officer has written to them to provide it to him.

Bhushan's counsel told the court that he was arrested on the basis of a disclosure statement of co-accused and the investigation was complete in the case.

The accused has not been seen in any of the CCTV camera taking active part in the riots or the alleged murder of Babbu, his lawyer claimed.

Bhushan was arrested for the offences under sections 147 and 148 (rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly), 302 (murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.

The offences entail a maximum punishment of death penalty.

Communal clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after violence between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled out of control leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.
MINSK -- Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka says journalists who call for "mass disturbances" as a presidential election approaches should be expelled from the country.



Speaking at a government gathering in Minsk, on July 23, Lukashenka attacked both Russian and Western media outlets for their coverage of developments in Belarus saying they "don't observe our country's laws."



The BBC, [Radio] Liberty, [Radio] Free Europe, and so on... I am not just talking how biased they are, they are calling for mass disturbances! How are you standing for this? It was you who accredited them," Lukashenka said addressing Foreign Minister Uladzimer Makey.



"No need to wait until the election campaign is over. Expel them out of here, if they do not follow our laws, calling people for Maidans," Lukashenka said, referring to pro-European protests known as Euromaidan in neighboring Ukraine that toppled Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.

RFE/RL Acting President Daisy Sindelar called Lukashenka's accusation that the U.S. news agency is agitating for people to riot "outrageous" and "a possible pretext" for shutting down the company's operation.



"RFE/RL is doing nothing of the sort -- to the contrary, our own journalists have themselves been the victims of unjustified police detentions and violence in recent days for simply doing their jobs," Sindelar said.

'Demonize And Distort'



Sindelar said Lukashenka's accusation seeks to "demonize and distort the role of the independent media" in Belarus as it reports on a wide range of important developments ahead of the August 9 presidential election.



"We have every intention of continuing our important work for the people of Belarus, and condemn officials' use of reckless rhetoric and threats that put our journalists at risk," she said.



The August 9 election comes as Lukashenka faces mounting public opposition after 26 years in power.



Hundreds of people, including activists and bloggers have been arrested as the government has cracked down hard on rallies and demonstrations supporting opposition candidates, who were not registered by election officials.

Western governments and international institutions, including the United Nations, have called on Lukashenka's government to stop the crackdown.



Last month, Belarusian authorities detained at least 14 journalists for allegedly participating in unsanctioned protests, and in May, five journalists covering opposition candidates were detained, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.



On June 25, Komsomolskaya Pravda's chief editor Vladimir Sungorkin said in a radio program that the outcome of the presidential election in Belarus was unpredictable as Lukashenka "is making one mistake after another" and would rely on the KGB to win the poll.



Reporters Without Borders has called on the authorities to "stop this escalation of the repression of the fundamental freedom to express oneself and to inform.
To the Editor:

Re I Wont Risk Covid to Teach Your Child, by Rebecca Martinson (Sunday Review, July 19):

I sympathize. Its difficult to be asked to rejoin a work force when nationally we have not had success flattening the curve or stomping out the virus. Its hard to go to work in a situation where you know youll be exposed to a disease.

I should know  Im a pediatric emergency room doctor. For the last four months Ive joined the tens of millions of Americans who have gone to work as usual, putting their lives at risk. I am also among the millions who have come home to do their best to home-school their children. Its not working. If there is no in-person school in the fall, I will be forced to scale back dramatically from my job.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has come down strongly with the opinion that in-person school is superior to distance learning. I have been contacting my state and local health departments since April, urging them to make school safe during coronavirus. I know that there are schools without enough cleaning supplies or hand sanitizer, and this is unacceptable. That said, we dont have the luxury to wait on education until theres no risk.

Education is an essential business. Teachers know this, and thats why they are childrens greatest advocates. From one essential worker to others, I urge you to do your civic duty so that I can continue to do mine.
She alienated some of her most devoted fans by experimenting with country music on her last album, Golden.

But now Kylie Minogue is back with the classic dance-pop she's famous for on her brand new single, Say Something.

The galactic disco anthem was produced by the star's longtime collaborator Richard 'Biff' Stannard, who was behind some of her biggest hits like Love At First Sight and In Your Eyes.

Making a comeback: Kylie Minogue has returned with her brand new single, Say Something

The track is already a hit with the 52-year-old's fans, with many melting down on Twitter shortly after its release on Thursday night.

'Take a bow Kylie Minogue!' gushed Mike Wass. 'Minogues, saving gay bars since 1987.'

'The most surprising part of #SAYSOMETHING isnt the sound (its instantly @KylieMinogue), but rather how eerily well it captures the sorrow and hope of this present moment - a truly appropriate anthem for 2020,' added Bradley Stern.

Work it: The 52-year-old pop princess has been promoting the track on TikTok

As expected, Say Something is already shaping up to be a huge hit.

The track has already topped the iTunes charts in Australia, Spain, Brazil, and Mexico, while over in the UK it's reached No. 2.

It even seems to be making a dent in the United States, with the song cracking the top ten on U.S. iTunes.

Say Something is the first single from Kylie's upcoming album, DISCO.

It's a hit! The track has already topped the iTunes charts in Australia, Spain, Brazil, and Mexico, while over in the UK it's reached No. 2

The album, her fifteenth, is said to be a return to form for Kylie, whose last record Golden was a country-inspired effort.

A source told the The Sun: 'From what Ive heard of it so far, the new record is set to be a disco classic.

'Its everything you want from a Kylie album. Fans are going to love it. She has been working on her new music for a while now but everything has really come together in the last few months.

'Say Something is upbeat and summery. Its been a grim few months for everyone so Kylie feels like now is the perfect time to put it out and spread some joy.'
Paris has backed successive governments in Lebanon but the country has nosedived into crisis.

Beirut, Lebanon  French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has arrived in Lebanon on a visit aimed at pressing Beirut to implement long-overdue reforms and dissociate from regional conflicts, both seen as key to unlocking international aid.

Le Drians two-day visit comes as Lebanon spirals into its worst-ever economic crisis that is leading to mass poverty and rising hunger. On Thursday, he is set to meet Lebanese leaders, including President Michel Aoun, House Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Hassan Diab.

In May, Diabs government began talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $10bn programme. It is seeking an additional $11bn in aid from the international community over the next five years to stave off the effects of the crisis.

Timeline of international aid to Lebanon 1990  End of Lebanons ruinous civil war; military commanders and business class enter politics 2001  Amid worsening economic outlook, France organises Paris 1 conference; $500m pledged 2002  Paris 2 conference brings together more than 20 states; $4bn pledged 2005  Former PM Rafik al-Hariri assassinated in car bombing; Syrian forces leave Lebanon, ending 30-year presence 2006  34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel leaves 1,200 Lebanese dead and causes widespread destruction valued at $2.8bn 2006  Stockholm conference brings together 50 nations and the UN for Lebanons post-war recovery; more than $1bn pledged. 2007  Paris 3 donor conference brings together 36 nations; $7.6bn pledged for economic relief and development projects 2018  CEDRE (Paris 4) donor conference brings together 50 countries and organisations; $11bn pledged for infrastructure and development projects 2019  Mass protests force government collapse; deep economic crisis takes hold 2020  Government defaults on debt payments, begins negotiations for IMF package and appeals for foreign aid

Adding to Lebanons woes, the country has become increasingly isolated from traditional allies, including Arab Gulf nations who are concerned about the rising influence of Iran-backed Hezbollah, which backs Diabs government, and Western donors who have said they are ready to help but first want to see reform.

France has long acted as Lebanons gateway to the international community, organising four donor conferences in Paris over the past two decades that brought together dozens of nations and international financial institutions.

Pledges at those conferences total nearly $24bn, of which $11bn were committed at the CEDRE conference two years ago.

Lebanon has been a special case for France as the last remaining foothold of its colonial past in the Middle East, and many in Lebanon see France as the countrys compassionate mother.

But even Frances rhetoric has begun to change. Help us so we can help you, damn it! Le Drian exclaimed during a discussion about Lebanon during a session of the French parliament earlier this month.

The French are embarrassed  they dont know what to do, said Sibylle Rizk, director of public policies at local lobby group Kulluna Irada.

They are the ones who have tried to help Lebanon the most, every international conference has been organised in Paris, and they are the most active advocates of Lebanon.

The generous aid that Lebanon received in the past was always accompanied by pledges by successive governments to implement deep reforms and enhance revenue-creating measures.

These included privatisation of the telecoms and electricity sectors, tax hikes, cuts to subsidies, debt reduction and modernising the countrys aged legal framework  much of which dates back to Frances occupation of the country from 1920 to 1943.





But little was done over the last two decades. Lebanons public debt surged from about 25 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2001, when the first Paris conference was held, to about 150 percent of GDP when CEDRE was held in 2018.

Today, the international community is appalled, Rizk said.

Lebanon is really one of the few countries in the world where you have such inertia, such ineptitude to put in place any measures that intend to salvage anything, she said.

Critics have said the donor conferences actually prolonged the life of Lebanons corrupt, deeply entrenched political class.

CEDRE, for example, took place just two weeks before Lebanons first parliamentary elections in nine years, in 2018. The Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections said the timing constituted electoral interference.

Our message to the international community is clear: Dont fuel the system that brought us to this unprecedented crisis, dont help them revive, insist on the conditionality of aid, Rizk said.

We are against any bailout that would come at the expense of the Lebanese and would save or protect the remnants of a failed system, she said.
Siddhant Chaturvedi has proved himself to be an outstanding actor with only one film. His role as MC Sher in Gully Boy had a tremendous influence on the audience. Siddhant has a promising film line up and will be seen collaborating with Bollywood's leading ladies.

With just a single film release, Siddhant Chaturvedi has proven himself to be an exemplary actor. His role in the film Gully Boy as MC Sher had a major impact on the audience, so much so that the underground rap scene in India was brought to the limelight.

After winning over the hearts of the audience, he is to be seen in more films where he will be working with the leading actresses of Bollywood!

Siddhant has a stellar line-up of films and will be seen working with leading ladies of Bollywood, to which he says, It would be a dream for any newcomer to get the opportunity of working with these beautiful and oh so talented leading ladies. I am glad that I am getting to live my dream.

The actor has multiple projects in the pipeline as he will next be seen in Bunty Aur Babli 2, followed by Shakun Batras next with Deepika Padukone and Ananya Panday and the most recently announced Horror-comedy film Phoonebhoot where he will be a part of the trio with Katrina Kaif and Ishaan Khatter.

Apart from his upcoming films, in the film Gully Boy, which Siddhant even bagged an award for, he was also seen working with Alia Bhatt who had played the role of Safeena. Asides from acting, being multi-talented, Siddhant even released his single titled Dhoop which recieved immense appreciation from the industry and fans alike.

For all the latest Entertainment News, download NewsX App
Hazleton, PA (18201)

Today

Cloudy with snow developing after midnight. Low around 25F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 80%. 1 to 3 inches of snow expected..

Tonight

Cloudy with snow developing after midnight. Low around 25F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 80%. 1 to 3 inches of snow expected.
The General Council of the World Trade Organization (WTO) reviewed Turkmenistan's observer status application at its regular meeting at the WTO Headquarters in Geneva.

The Turkmen side was represented by the Permanent Representative of Turkmenistan to the UN Office in Geneva, Atageldy Khaldzanov. Representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Trade and Foreign Economic Relations and the Ministry of Finance and Economy of Turkmenistan also participated in the meeting online.

Speaking at the meeting, Atageldy Khaldzanov briefed the WTO General Council on the origins of the process of Turkmenistan's accession to the WTO and specifics of Ashgabat's foreign economic policy. The diplomat stressed that granting Turkmenistan an observer status in the organization would contribute to the dynamic development of the country's economy, strengthening its positions in foreign trade, attracting foreign investments and developing international trade relations.

Following the statement by the Turkmen side, representatives of a number of WTO member states, including India, the Russian Federation, Turkey, Ukraine, etc. expressed their support for Turkmenistans joining the organization as an observer.

Following the discussion, the WTO General Council unanimously decided to grant Turkmenistan an observer status in the organization.

The WTO currently accounts for 164 member states and 24 observer countries. Turkmenistan became the 25th observer country in the WTO.

 TURKMENISTAN.RU, 2022
Russia is considering whether to adopt a kind of state oil hedging program, similar to Mexicos oil hedge, to protect government revenues from oil price crashes in the future, Russian news agency Interfax reported on Wednesday, quoting sources familiar with the matter.

The Mexican oil hedge, or the Hacienda Hedge, is considered the biggest hedging bet on Wall Street as well as perhaps the most secretive. It has earned Mexicoand a few large investment banksbillions of U.S. dollars.

Every year, Mexico buys put options from investment banks and typically hedges a whopping 200-300 million barrels of oil. With the put options, it has the right, but not the obligation, to sell oil at a previously set price and timing.

Such hedges minimize the losses in case oil prices crash. Earlier this year, it was the oil hedge that is thought to have saved Mexicos economy from collapsing.

Now Russia is weighing an oil hedge and its President Vladimir Putin has instructed the relevant ministries and departments to submit a report about the pros and cons of initiating a hedging program by July 30, a source in Russias economic and finance departments familiar with the document told Interfax.

According to the idea, Russias sovereign wealth fund, the National Wealth Fund (NWF), will provide the money for an oil hedge.

Russias state-controlled oil giant Rosneft has approached Putin with a proposal to consider setting up an oil hedge, a source told Interfax, but Rosneft declined to comment on the matter to the news agency.

Currently, Russias economy is suffering the consequences of the oil price crash it helped create with the temporary rift with its OPEC+ partner Saudi Arabia in March. The Russian ruble crashed, and Russias oil income shrank as a result of the plunge in oil prices.

The oil price crash, along with the coronavirus-driven global recession, will result in Russias economy shrinking this year by 6 percent, or by the most in 11 years, the World Bank said in its latest economic report on Russia earlier this month.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Rydon, the main contractor overseeing the refurbishment at the Grenfell Tower, profited from a deliberate decision to change the proposed cladding to a cheaper and more combustible type.

The criminal decision to use flammable cladding was the main factor in turning the tower block into a death trap, when a small fire in a fourth floor flat on the night of June 14, 2017 engulfed the building, claiming the lives of 72 people.

At the beginning of the refurbishment project talks in early 2014, cost cutting was the primary aim for every organisation involved.

This week the inquiry into the Grenfell inferno was told that Kensington and Chelsea Tenants Management Organisation (KCTMO), which managed the tower on behalf of the local Conservative council, demanded savings of more than 800,000 from the refurbishment project, originally estimated at 10 million. It told Rydon that it was in pole position to be awarded the contract, but needed to find savings.

Rydon knew that by using the cheaper, more flammable Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) cladding, instead of the zinc-based cladding initially proposed, the cost saving would be 419,627. This figure was concealed from KCTMO, Simon Lawrence, Rydons contract manager, explained, so that Rydon could take some of the savings for themselves.

Internal Rydon emails revealed that an employee, Frank Smith, had underpriced its total estimate of the refurbishment costs by 212,000. As a result Rydon was looking for ways to compensate for the error.

Speaking on behalf of Rydon at the inquiry, Lawrence, who was involved in the Grenfell project between June 2014 and October 2015, said he was aware of Rydons cost saving operation. Lawrence was asked by Richard Millett QC, counsel to the inquiry, Was the plan in Rydon to keep the TMO in the dark about the real extent of the savings on the ACM panels and then pocket the difference to make up for Frank Smiths 210,000 estimating error?

Lawrence replied, That could be the reason for it.

Millett asked, Why was it not Rydons responsibility to alert the TMO that Harley had advised that far greater savings could be achieved than you were letting on?

Lawrence replied, It probably went into risk or into additional profit.

Harley Facades was the main contractor of Rydons and applied the flammable cladding to Grenfell Tower. Records show that the following month Harley was preparing talks over the project with the architects Studio E. At that stage, Lawrence asked a Harley employee, Mark Harris, to ensure anything financial stays between ourselves.

Millett asked Lawrence in relation to his advice to Harris, Was it because you were concerned the TMO found out you were pocketing the savings? Lawrence replied, No.

Lawrence was presented with further evidence, from May 2014, of Rydon concealing information from the TMO. Millet asked him, Is it fair to say that you, again, were materially understating to the TMO here the extent of the savings on ACM panels? Lawrence replied, Yes. Yes.

An email from Lawrence to Rydon colleagues was shown to the hearing. In it Lawrence said, I have a gut feeling that KCTMO may go for the cassette-fix option on the cladding due to perceived planning risk.

This gives us a benefit of 126,259 rather than the preferred face-fix option which will generate 200,798 benefit.  Im giving it my hardest sales pitch as we speak.

On Tuesday, as Rydon continued its testimony, the inquiry heard that on November 12 2014, Claire Williams, an employee of the KCTMO, sent an email to Lawrence requesting clarification on whether the new cladding being proposed would resist a fire. Williams wrote, I am just writing to get clarification on the fire retardance of the new claddingI just had a Lacknall [sic] moment.

This was a reference to a 2009 fire in the high-rise Lakanal House residential block in southeast London, that also had flammable cladding, which killed six people. Asked if he knew what the Lakanal reference meant, Lawrence replied, I knew that. I had heard that there was a fire at Lakanal some years before, but I didnt know the specific details. So I knew it was relating to fire.

Neither Lawrence nor any other Rydon employee responded to the email. Lawyers for the bereaved and survivors said of the episode, This was perhaps the last chance to avert disaster  and it was not taken.

Tony Pearson of materials testing firm Exova, following up on the three-day testimony of the firms senior fire engineer last week, recalled that council building control officers had put pressure on the architects to provide adequate fire safety.

A March 2015 email from John Hoban, senior building surveyor of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea council (RBKC), claimed the new wall structure needed firestopping to prevent flames developing between floors for two hours. Studio E architect Neil Crawford thought this superfluous, citing the existence of cavity barriers: The subject of fire barriers is raising a lot of concern on site not least because of program and cost. We are all miffed as to why this detail is not a cavity barrier.

Observing that evacuation plans might not meet the latest regulations, one engineer emailed a colleague, Lets hope [the building control officer] doesnt pick up on it.

Recounting how engineers submitted what they called a debatable justification for designing only a single staircase to evacuate flats on lower floors, Pearson claimed it represented a first attempt at justification, and if building control comes back and says we are not happy with it, then we will revisit it.  RBKC building control department had a bit of a reputation as hard to convince to accept anything non-standard.

Pearson said he knew that proper cavity barriers prevented the rapid spread of fire. On March 31, 2015 he told boss Terry Ashton, If significant flames are ejected from the windows, this would lead to failure of the cladding system, with the external surface falling away and exposing the cavity.

Exova signed off on all three versions of the project fire safety plans, continuously asserting, the proposed changes will have no adverse effect on the building in relation to eternal fire spread.

Pearson, who was meant to check Ashtons work, admitted he was completely ignorant of the fact that the works included overcladding. On one occasion he spent a hurried half hour making changes to Ashtons plans, only to discover that Ashton had already submitted them. He said he took it on trust that Ashton knew what he was doing.

Everything emerging from the Grenfell Inquiry confirms that the longer it continues the more it militates against any possibility of securing justice. As the second phase of the inquiry got underway, the main companies involved refused to testify unless they were given assurances they would be legally protected from self-incrimination.

At the start of June, legal immunity was granted, with Attorney General Suella Braverman issuing an undertaking that any statements given to the inquiry by legal persons cannot be used as evidence against them in a future prosecution. This followed an earlier undertaking granting the same legal protection to natural persons.

While the bereaved and survivors of Grenfell want to know what transpired to lead to the deaths of the 72, and the ruin of so many lives, everyone now knows what happenedwith much of the criminality of the firms involved revealed in the days following the tragedy.

With Rydons testimony, the main guilty party involved is now revealing the extent of the criminality that turned Grenfell into a death trap. Under the terms of the immunity deal agreed with the government, the more Rydon reveals during the inquiry the stronger its case becomes against any future prosecutions! To achieve justice, the Socialist Equality Party repeats its call for an end to all collaboration with the judicial fraud of the inquiry. The demand must go out for those responsible for social murder to be arrested, charged and put on trial.

For further information, visit the Grenfell Fire Forum Facebook page.
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Linkedin Rizki Fachriansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 14:51 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668be2fc 1 National child-protection,National-Children-Day,Women-Empowerment-and-Child-Protection,Bintang-Puspayoga,COVID-19,pandemic,families Free

Steadfast commitment to the well-being of women and children is an essential aspect of the nations COVID-19 response, the government has said, as many families remain confined to their homes during the health emergency.

Womens Empowerment and Child Protection Minister Bintang Puspayoga has called on families not to underestimate the importance of consistent communication and supervision among family members, especially children, in these uncertain times.

We must take it upon ourselves to provide a safe and secure space where children are able to grow regardless of the circumstances, Bintang said during a National Childrens day ceremony streamed on the ministrys YouTube channel on Wednesday.

This years National Childrens Day, which falls on July 23, will provide a moment, Bintang said, to increase public awareness about child welfare, especially as a large share of the nations resources was redirected to the COVID-19 response.

Read also: Indonesian children vulnerable to secondary risks from COVID-19 crisis: Survey

According to the ministrys Women and Child Protection Database (SIMFONI), nearly 4,000 cases of violence against women and children were reported from the beginning of January to July 17.

During the same event, Executive Office of the President undersecretary on human development Abetnego Tarigan said the government had launched a family-oriented telecounseling service called SEJIWA, which can be contacted at 119.

We launched SEJIWA because there has been so much pressure on families. From June 10 to July 10, 59 percent of complaints we received were related to childcare, Abetnego said.

Concerns have been raised before about child welfare during the pandemic. According to the United Nations International Childrens Fund (UNICEF), the number of children suffering from malnutrition could spike in Indonesia as the government shifts its focus to stem the impact of the coronavirus crisis.

Furthermore, UNICEF warned that job losses, an overloaded healthcare system and limited access to food during the current health crisis could exacerbate the already poor living conditions of children deemed most susceptible to stunting and wasting.
Drivers from Northern Ireland travelling to the Republic may need green cards from January

The SDLP has expressed its anger that drivers from Northern Ireland will have to carry an insurance 'green card' while driving across the border into the Republic.

The new rule will apply after the end of the Brexit transition period in January.

The Alliance Party said it was another negative result of the "Brexit shambles".

SDLP South Belfast MP Claire Hanna said: "This is yet another complexity and irritant resulting from Brexit.

"It's very ironic that Brexiteers campaigned for 'freedom from red tape', but the effect of four years of their terrible political decisions will be a long list of bureaucratic annoyances for businesses and consumers."

Alliance North Down MLA Andrew Muir said: "This is another outworking of the Brexit shambles that has to be addressed urgently.

"The UK Government must find a solution as part of the overall Brexit negotiations."

The Republic's Department of Transport confirmed the requirement to BBC Northern Ireland yesterday.

"A green card is a document issued by your insurer that proves you have motor insurance cover when driving in another jurisdiction," it said.

"As it stands, following the transition period, a green card will be required for vehicles from the UK, including Northern Ireland, being driven in Ireland or other EU member states, unless the European Commission declares otherwise."

The issue came to the fore during the Brexit negotiations.

The Republic's Department of Transport confirmed that it would not be an offence for vehicles from Northern Ireland or Britain to travel there without a GB sticker.

The green card may not be required if the matter is resolved in the UK and EU's post-Brexit deal.

According to the Association of British Insurers, drivers from the Republic crossing the border will not require a green card.

Talks resumed this week in London amid fears that time was running out for a deal to be reached before the transition period ends on December 31.

The Department for the Economy had previously estimated that there were approximately 110m border crossings in Ireland each year.

A green card is an internationally recognised insurance document that provides proof of the minimum compulsory motor insurance cover required by the country visited by the person driving the vehicle.

It provide a guarantee of insurance for a minimum of 15 days and can remain valid until the expiry date of the motor insurance policy, offering cover for multiple trips.

Currently all motor vehicles with a valid registration travelling within the European Union are covered by the terms of the EU Motor Insurance Directive (MID).
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) says it will fish out and deal with all unscrupulous Security Officials when the party wins back power in 2021.

According to the main opposition party, some security officials are collaborating with NPP thugs to cause mayhem in the ongoing voter registration exercise being undertaken by the Electoral Commission.

Speaking at the NDCs 8th edition of the weekly press briefing today, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah who is the Director of Elections of the party has noted that security officials who have allowed themselves to be used by the ruling party as agents of violence will face the law when the current government is booted out after the December 7 polls.

We further wish to sound a note of caution to some state Security Officials who have lent themselves as willing and pliant agents of violence against political opponents and innocent Ghanaians against their criminal acts. We wish to remind them that power emanates from the people, hence whatever power they exercise must be done in the supreme interest of the Ghanaian people.

"NDC government will fish out and deal drastically with all NPP thugs and their collaborators in state security agencies who are currently being used to maim and intimidate innocent civilians", he said.

Stressing on the NDCs stance, National Communications Officer of the party, Sammy Gyamfi has indicated that security personnel that will be found culpable when there is a change in government will be dealt with without mercy.

Notice is hereby served to all unscrupulous Security Officials who have lent themselves to the despotic Akufo Addo-govt as pliant agents of violence against innocent citizens, that the next NDC govt will fish them out and deal with them mercilessly when power eventually shifts, he said in a post on Twitter.

Meanwhile, the NDC has urged all supporters to defend themselves in line with the spirit of the 1992 Constitution, against any violent attacks by NPP thugs and any state-sponsored goons.

Read full statement below:

AN ADDRESS ON THE INCREASING INCIDENCE OF VIOLENCE, BRUTALITY AND INTIMIDATION AGAINST MEMBERS OF THE NDC AND GHANAIANS ACROSS THE COUNTRY IN THE ONGOING VOTER REGISTRATION EXERCISE, AT THE 8TH EDITION OF THE PARTYS WEEKLY PRESS BRIEFING, HELD ON WEDNESDAY, 22ND JULY, 2020 AT THE NDC HEADQUARTERS, ACCRA.

Good morning distinguished friends from the media. Once again, I welcome you with gratitude to the Headquarters of the National Democratic Congress for the 8th edition of our Weekly Press Briefing.

We have invited you here today to address the widespread violent attacks and brutalities being meted out to NDC agents, officials, supporters and innocent Ghanaians, including media personnel in the ongoing voter registration exercise.

This issue has become topical and needs to be addressed because our nation is on a downward spiral, fast descending to the edge of the precipice, and the earlier men and women of conscience spoke, the better for our peace.

What are the crimes of these innocent civilians who are being beaten, attacked, maimed and killed? Friends, their only crime is to brave the odds, particularly in this period when COVID-19 is ravaging our country, to exercise their right to be registered as voters in the ongoing voter registration exercise, and to ensure vigilance needed to protect the integrity and sanctity of our electoral process.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media, news broke in the early hours of Monday 20th July, about a gun-violence incident involving the Minister for Special Development Initiatives and the MP for the Awutu Senya East Constituency, Hawa Koomson that happened at the Step-to-Christ Polling station.

As you are already aware, Madam Mavis Hawa Koomson without any provocation, invaded a voter registration center in her constituency in the company of gun-wielding thugs of the NPP, assaulted NDC party agents, burnt motorcycles belonging to NDC supporters and fired sporadic gunshots thereby endangering the lives of her constituents and disrupting the entire voter registration exercise.

It is worthy to point out, that this incident is just one of several coordinated and unprovoked attacks on our members in the ongoing registration exercise in the Awutu Senya East Constituency by Hawa Koomson and her NPP goons who she has imported from Bawku.

These attacks started from the first day of the registration exercise when an NDC agent named Daniel Tachie Mensah at the Lamptey Mills Schools center was assaulted by hooligans numbering about fifteen (15) who were led by the Kasoa NPP Municipal Chief Executive, Michael Essuman Mensah. This case was reported to the Kasoa Divisional Police Command, yet no arrest has been made till date.

This was followed by another attack on a Branch Executive and party agent, one Ebenezer Tetteh whose head was smashed with a piece of concrete by a member of a gang of NPP bandits led by Hawa Koomson herself. This case has also been reported to the Kasoa divisional Police including a video capturing Francis Tetteh a known NPP thug hitting our party agents head with a block. Yet shockingly, the police have refused to act on this evidence till date.

The third attack was executed by these same gangsters brought in from Bawku by Hawa Koomson numbering about 13 on an NDC agent called Prosper, at Amuzukope. This very attack was led by Ato Koomson, the first child of Hawa Koomson.

Not satisfied with the aforementioned attacks, their next stop was at the Kasoa New Town electoral area which happens to be another stronghold of the NDC in Kasoa. Nana One, the NPP constituency youth organizer, and a member of the Delta forces that stormed the Ayawaso West Wougon bye-elections, led these gangsters of land guards to brutally assault NDC agents leaving them with deep cutlass wounds on their heads. Again, the case was reported to the Kasoa divisional police office with no arrest or invite made till date.

Two days before the shooting incident at the Step-To-Christ polling station, the NPP thugs led by Hawa Koomson attacked and assaulted our ward coordinator, Abdallah at the Joemends Electoral area.

Ladies and gentlemen of the press, it is worth noting that all these violent attacks on our innocent supporters were committed by the same thugs imported from Bawku to Kasoa by Madam Mavis Hawa Koomson.

The NDC is totally disgusted by the thuggish and criminal shooting incident involving a gang of NPP thugs who were led by Hawa Koomson, which has received both and national and international condemnation, and which have been admitted by the Minister of State herself. We condemn in no uncertain terms such thuggery sponsored and led by a high-ranking government official and law maker who is supposed to uphold the law at all times.

Hawa Koomson has by this criminal act, and the several brazen brutalities she and her gang have meted to NDC supporters in the last couple of weeks, demonstrated that she is a gangster who doesnt deserve to occupy any public position of trust. And, we join the many voices of conscience in our society to demand her immediate dismissal from office and prosecution for this heinous crime.

In any civilized society, this gangster Minister, would have been arrested, and made to stand prosecution by now. And this is exactly what her appointor, President Akufo-Addo should have done by now if he had any integrity, honor, and conscience left. But because he is the chief promoter and enabler of the unprecedented culture of lawlessness we are witnessing, we will not be surprised if Hawa Koomson is left off the hook like the several NPP criminals, such as Double and the Azugu-masked National Security Operatives who perpetrated the AWW violence, the NPPs Delta Force who attacked a court of competent jurisdiction in broad daylight etc., have been shielded from prosecution and punishment by the President.

We would therefore like to serve notice, that if Hawa Koomson is left off the hook by President Akufo-Addo as we anticipate will happen, the next NDC-Mahama government in the year 2021, shall arrest, prosecute and punish her and all the thugs who were involved in this unlawful shooting incident and other criminal acts.

Distinguished friends, the widespread atrocious attacks on our supporters across the country are being perpetrated by hoodlums and hooligans belonging to the New Patriotic Party under the leadership and direction of certain NPP Members of Parliament (MPs), Parliamentary Candidates and officials of the despotic Akufo-Addo government, who sensing imminent defeat in the upcoming December Polls, have resorted to desperate acts of violence and intimidation, to ostensibly impose their will on the Ghanaian people at all cost.

Even more bizarre, is the active involvement of some unscrupulous security officials, belonging to the once revered Ghana Armed Forces and the Ghana Police service in these shameful acts of intimidation and barbaric attacks on NDC supporters and innocent civilians. This state-sponsored thuggery, as we have sometimes seen, is fast eroding all the gains we have chalked under our Fourth Republican democratic dispensation, and has the potential to plunge our once peaceful nation into total chaos.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media, you may recall that few weeks ago, we provided pictorial and video evidence of similar barbaric attacks against our agents and supporters during one of our Weekly Press Briefings and called on our Security Services to act. But till date, no concrete action has been taken by our security agencies to punish the perpetrators of these brazen acts of violence, and to protect our supporters and innocent Ghanaians from further attacks.

It is this inaction, and in some cases, the complicity and/or tacit approval of our security agencies, that has emboldened NPP thugs and brigands to escalate their atrocious attacks on NDC supporters and innocent civilians across the country, with utmost impunity, over the past two (2) weeks.

I shall at this juncture, recount just a few of the countless violence acts that our party agents and supporters and indeed other innocent Ghanaians have suffered at the hands of NPP hoodlums and their accomplices in state security agencies, in the last few weeks:

1. The unlawful invasion of the office of our Parliamentary candidate for the Ledzorkuku Constituency, Ben Ayiku, over the weekend by some NPP thugs and unscrupulous military officers, based on false and contrived intelligence that he was registering people at his office. Without finding any BVR equipment or evidence of voter registration at the office, these state-sponsored criminals seized the desktop computer at the office, locked up our Parliamentary Candidate, party officials and traditional rulers of the area who were having a meeting at the office at the time and subsequently arrested and detained the NDC constituency Chairman and Organizer for that Constituency for standing up to their intimidation antics.

2. The recent incident involving a Metro TV Journalist by name Alhaji Mustapha Ashley, who while covering the voter registration exercise in the Evalue Gwira Constituency, was assaulted and had his camera seized and recordings deleted by the bodyguard of Catherine Afeku, Minister of State and NPP Member of Parliament for the area.

3. In the Central Region, Akufo Addo's Invisible Forces operating directly under the NPP MPs and NPP Parliamentary Candidates have been brutalizing NDC Executives at the registration centers for insisting on the right thing being done.

In the Effutu Constituency for instance, our Deputy Central Regional Communication Officer - Comrade Lawrence Ghartey was brutally assaulted and nearly killed in the process by these hoodlums under the instructions of the NPP MP of the

Constituency, Alexander Afenyo Markins.

Also, our Constituency Secretaries for Ekumfi and Cape South, Comrades Edward Fayah and George Justice Arthur respectively, were brutally beaten by these same bandits belonging to the invisible forces, and have sustained several degrees of injuries from that attack

Again, our Constituency Youth Organizer for the Abura Asebu Kwamankese Constituency, Hon Eric Mensah has also been brutalized in addition to scores of branch executives, registration agents and party activists. One of the victims of these barbaric acts from Ekumfi Akoanso Kokodo who is our branch youth organizer, is currently battling for his life.

4. The violent invasion of the office premises of Mr. John Dumelo, NDCs Parliamentary Candidate for the Ayawaso West Wagon Constituency, and subsequent brutal attacks on NDC party agents by NPP hooligans under the direction of the NPP MP, Lydia Seyram Alhassan cannot escape our mention.

5. Also, the leaked audio of the Bono East Regional Minister and NPP MP for Atebubu, Kofi Amoakohene who was heard addressing and directing a militia group of the NPP to ensure the registration of NPP minors, attack NDC supporters at registration centers and rig the ongoing voter registration exercise for the NPP, promising to reward them if the NPP wins the upcoming general elections is still fresh on our minds.

6. Ladies and gentlemen, the gruesome murder of a young promising Teacher Trainee in Banda, who was mistaken for an NDC Party Agent is the saddest of all. The culprit, a known NPP Vigilante and brother to the NPP Parliamentary Candidate, Joe Danquah had earlier been arrested for attacking some NDC supporters in the area, Hon. Ahmed Ibrahim but was sadly released within 20 minutes following an order from above. Obviously emboldened by the order from above, and feeling untouchable, he immediately resumed his criminal activities and took them a notch higher by gruesomely murdering the innocent Teacher Trainee. That a young life with so much promise would be curtailed due to the NPPs lust for power is tragic and should not be tolerated.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media, the sad irony is that, while the NPP hoodlums who have perpetrated all these heinous crimes have been left off the hook, innocent NDC officials and supporters are being harassed on a daily basis by our security agencies, which see nor hear all the evil that the ruling NPP and their state-sponsored thugs are unleashing.

Only yesterday, our Parliamentary Candidate for Efutu, Dr. James Kofi Annan was arrested and charged by the police for offensive conduct. His only crime is that he dared to criticize the Police Commander for Efutu who has become an appendage and accomplice to the violent acts being supervised by the NPP MP for the area, Alexander Afenyo Markin, by uttering these words: You are chairman of the committee and so what, You're the reason why we're not enjoying peace in Winneba.

The fact that these innocuous words could warrant such harassment from the Police highlights how low this nation has sunk, and further accentuates the state-sponsored terror that NDC supporters and other party officials are being subjected to at the hands of the despotic and tyrannical NPP/Akufo Addo-government.

Ladies and gentlemen of the press, given the poisoned atmosphere we find ourselves in at the moment, with Government officials who have clearly weaponized themselves and their criminal goons to foment more trouble, we can only see looming trouble ahead of the December polls.

The National Democratic Congress takes this opportunity to salute all its gallant supporters, Parliamentary Candidates, Agents and our rank and file for standing up to these cowardly acts of intimidation being championed by known NPP thugs and their criminal collaborators in our state security agencies. We urge our members not to despair, for as sure as day follows night, good shall surely triumph over the evil. The great NDC party is winning the 2020 General Elections no matter the amount of violence the state and its thugs will met out to innocent citizens of this country.

We hereby urge all NDC supporters to defend themselves in line with the spirit of our 1992 Constitution, against any violent attacks by NPP thugs and any state-sponsored goons.

We further wish to sound a note of caution to some state Security Officials who have lent themselves as willing and pliant agents of violence against political opponents and innocent Ghanaians against their criminal acts. We wish to remind them that power emanates from the people, hence whatever power they exercise must be done in the supreme interest of the Ghanaian people.

As the venerable former President Kuffour once said, power can trick you! Do not be deceived by political power, because the tables will soon turn, and a new NDC government will fish out and deal drastically with all NPP thugs and their collaborators in state security agencies who are currently being used to maim and intimidate innocent civilians.

God bless our homeland Ghana.
Bartholomew said this will not be a case of kids wearing a mask non-stop all day. We will find times when it is safe to take masks off and teachers will create times to take mask breaks.

We feel we have a good plan going into that, he said. Ive had lots of discussions with Laura (McDougall) about this and we want to keep kids in school. Masks, social distancing and hand washing are key parts of that.

York Public Schools will not be providing an alternative online option for students, as some of the larger schools are.

We know that the best way to educate our kids is in the classroom and there is also the fact that bigger schools have the resources to provide online options (when parents choose that for their children), Bartholomew said.

He also stressed, however, that if a child is sick or has to be quarantined, they will provide online educational resources for that child  noting that they have had that protocol for years and will absolutely provide that if needed.

Brad Best, superintendent of the Heartland Community Schools, said his district will be officially unveiling their plans for the new school year on Friday. He said a mask-encouraged-but-optional policy will be taken when the school year starts there  with the ability to make further requirements if warranted.

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Annual NACS Foundation event celebrates first responders and medical personnel and raises funds for the American Red Cross

Alexandria, VA, July 20, 2020  The convenience store industry is uniting to honor local heroes across the country to celebrate 24/7 Day. Held every July 24, 24/7 Day recognizes first responders, medical personnel and American Red Cross volunteers who work around the clock, 24/7, serving communities to ensure people dont face emergencies alone. The annual event, hosted by the NACS Foundation, helps raise awareness and donations for the urgent humanitarian needs of the Red Cross and spotlights the convenience store industrys important role in supporting local heroes in the communities they serve.

Convenience stores are community stores: 93% of Americans live within 10 minutes of one of the 152,720 convenience stores in the United States. Cumulatively, the industry serves 165 million customers per day, sells 80% of the fuel purchased and dedicates more than $1 billion a year to advance the futures of individuals and families by supporting local organizations and charitable causes.

More than 30,000 convenience and fuel retailer locations are participating in the celebration. Brands that are joining together with the NACS Foundation to support 24/7 Day by participating in all or most of their locations include ampm, BP and Amoco, California Fuels and Convenience Alliance (CFCA), ExtraMile, Highs, Hucks, JJs, Kwik Chek, Loop Neighborhood Market, Pilot Company, Rapid Refill & Garretts Family Market, Rutters, Sheetz (Community Leader Sponsor), Shell, The Markets of Tiger Fuel Company, Thorntons, Wawa and Yesway. Each participating retailer is supporting 24/7 Day in its own unique way, including offering free in-store offers for first responders, medical personnel and Red Cross volunteers on July 24 to thank them for their work in our communities. In addition, GSTV, the national video network entertaining targeted audiences at scale across tens of thousands of fuel retailers, is supporting the NACS Foundations #247Day social media campaign via awareness video content at fuel dispensers across the U.S. as the non-profits official 2020 media partner.

People face emergencies every day that affect nearly every community the convenience store industry serves. On average, more than 30,000 people a day receive assistance from the Red Cross, whether they need lifesaving blood, relief after a disaster, support with the challenges of military life, skills that save lives or international humanitarian aid. Every Red Cross donation helps change lives, and 90 cents of every dollar the Red Cross spends is invested in delivering care and comfort to those in need.

Each day, families rely on community heroes for support during disasters and other crises, said Don Herring, chief development officer for the American Red Cross. Thats why we are so grateful for this partnership to help ensure people dont face emergencies alone. We hope you will join us on 24/7 Day, along with the NACS Foundation, to support this work and to thank our local heroes who help when its needed most.

The NACS Foundation invites the public to take part in 24/7 Day by:

Donating to support the American Red Cross work in communities around the country;

in communities around the country; Visiting 247Day.org to find a complete list of participating convenience stores, their unique local offers and ways to support their in-store 24/7 Day efforts;

to find a complete list of participating convenience stores, their unique local offers and ways to support their in-store 24/7 Day efforts; Visiting a participating convenience store. Many 24/7 Day partners are donating a portion of sales for certain products to the Red Cross on July 24 and the remainder of the month of July;

Many 24/7 Day partners are donating a portion of sales for certain products to the Red Cross on July 24 and the remainder of the month of July; Sharing your #WeHeartHeroes story. Join the conversation on social media, share photos and stories on social with the #WeHeartHeroes and #247Day tags to honor a first responder that holds a special place in your heart.

The NACS Foundation is proud to unite the convenience and fuel retailing industry to support the American Red Cross, its volunteers and the first responders who support our communities 24/7, said Stephanie Sikorski, executive director at the NACS Foundation. Convenience stores are often seen as the first supporters to first respondersserving as the only locations that remain open in a crisis and ensuring that fuel, food and other necessities are available for emergency workers and customers seeking a return to normalcy. And with their extended hours of operation, our stores are often the only place open to serve first responders and medical personnel working overnight. Thats why the NACS Foundation honors first responders who work around the clock and is committed to amplifying our industrys reach and impact of its positive charitable efforts in communities across the country.

Sikorski noted a special thank you to Sheetz on behalf of the NACS Foundation for supporting 24/7 Day as a Community Leader Sponsor for the second year, with a generous donation to the NACS Foundation and the Red Cross.

###

About the NACS Foundation

NACS Foundation is the 501(c)3 charitable arm of NACS, the global industry association dedicated to advancing convenience and fuel retailing. In partnership with fuel retail, convenience, and suppliers across the U.S., the NACS Foundation propels brighter futures by unifying and amplifying the philanthropic and charitable activities of the industry in communities across America. To learn more, visit conveniencecares.org, or visit us on Facebook at @TheNACSFoundation and Twitter at @NACS_Foundation.
Lack of export orders, few customers and a dull market scenario has increased the dependence of Varanasi's silk traders on digital tools. To arrest the fall in the business due to the Covid-19 crisis and extended lockdown, they have begun using e-commerce websites, social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram to sell their products and keep the trade alive.

Some of the larger silk traders in the city have even hired the services of online marketing experts to learn the tricks of the trade. According to them, the Covid crisis will not end in the coming few months ...
Ana de Armas has been getting serious with boyfriend Ben Affleck, as they quarantine together at home.

And the Cuban-Spanish actress recently expanded their little family by one, with the addition of their new pup Salsa.

She cut a casual chic look Wednesday as she took her older dog Elvis for a walk in her Venice Beach neighborhood, during a break from isolation.

Casual outing: Ana de Armas cut a casual chic look Wednesday as she took her dog Elvis for a walk in her Venice Beach neighborhood, during a break from isolation

The 32-year-old looked effortlessly stylish in a thin white collarless long-sleeve button-down shirt.

It was tucked into a pair of navy blue trousers with exposed white stitching and a matching belt, tied into a bow.

She finished the look with a pair of black aviators and some blue and white Golden Goose sneakers.

De Armas accessorized with a gold watch, some bracelets and necklaces, including the matching gold heart necklace she debuted with Affleck, 47, in May.

Effortlessly chic: The 32-year-old looked effortlessly stylish in a thin white collarless long-sleeve button-down shirt

Babe in blue: It was tucked into a pair of navy blue trousers with exposed white stitching and a matching belt, tied into a bow

Cool kicks: She finished the look with a pair of black aviators and some blue and white Golden Goose sneakers

Masked up: She took precautions against the coronavirus, as she covered up with a blue face mask

Woman's best friend: The Knives Out star walked the adorable Maltese on a brown leather leash, which was trimmed in baby blue

Flying solo: It was a rare outing without Affleck, with whom she's been spending quarantine

Precious baggage: De Armas carried the white pup for part of the way. She put him back down on the grass, as they continued to walk

Absentee: Not present was her new puppy Salsa, whom she introduced last week to her 3.2million Instagram followers

She took precautions against the coronavirus, as she covered up with a blue face mask.

The Knives Out star walked the adorable Maltese on a brown leather leash, which was trimmed in baby blue.

Not present was her new puppy Salsa, whom she introduced last week to her 3.2million Instagram followers.

She posted some precious photos with the black and white Havanese, the national dog of her native Cuba.

New addition: She posted some precious photos with the black and white Havanese, the national dog of her native Cuba

Baby Salsa: De Armas captioned the cute set of photos with her new furry friend: 'Welcome to the family Salsa'

Pupply love: In addition to Elvis, she's also been spotted out with Affleck, walking his German Shepherd named Hutch (pictured in July, 2020)

De Armas captioned the cute set of photos with her new furry friend: 'Welcome to the family Salsa.'

In addition to Elvis, she's also been spotted out with Affleck, walking his German Shepherd named Hutch.

The couple was first romantically linked back in March, when they vacationed in her hometown of Havana, before jetting off to Costa Rica.

De Armas and Affleck met back in the fall, on the set of their new movie Deep Water, which filmed in New Orleans.
To his legions of listeners, Rush Limbaugh calls the demonstrators in Portland, Ore., anarchists who hate Americans and America. He recently made an ominous prediction: I can see secession coming.

On Fox News, Sean Hannity describes the scene in Portland as a literal disaster area  and, yeah, it looks like a war zone.

On Wednesday, Breitbart News  which features a Riot Crackdown page on its website  published an article declaring, Now would be a real good time to do whatever is necessary to obtain a permit to legally carry a handgun.

Right-wing outlets and conservative media stars have seized on the weekslong protests in Portland as a rallying cry for law and order, instructing their followers to fear for their safety and blaming Democratic leaders for failing to restore peace.
My family and I have owned and operated the Handlery Union Square Hotel on Geary Street since 1928. Were not a big national chain. We are native San Franciscans who have been fortunate to welcome millions of guests to San Francisco and provide careers for thousands of employees for almost 100 years.

At the start of 2020, we had 70 dedicated union employees. Today, we have none. The global pandemic shut us down, but the mayor and Board of Supervisors are keeping us closed.

Their approval of the so-called Healthy Buildings ordinance mandates cleaning processes that will put the men and women I have the privilege to work with at high risk of coronavirus exposure, and the costs associated with implementing the ordinance will prolong our hotels closure. We already have seen a rollback of the governors reopening plan because of the increase in COVID-19 cases.

The ordinance was written by one self-serving local union, UNITE HERE Local 2, and expedited by supervisors who have no medical or scientific education or experience. I am now put into a position where I have to evaluate if it makes sense to reopen.

Do I comply with an ordinance that I feel endangers the health and safety of our employees and our guests?

Can I afford the costs associated with the ordinances mandates? These additional costs are on top of our new cleaning program based on the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and California Department of Public Health guidelines, in collaboration with the American Hotel and Lodging Association, the California Hotel and Lodging Association and the Hotel Council of San Francisco.

If we must open our hotel under these circumstances, it could very well put me back in the situation where I had to close the hotel in the first place.

This means no work for our employees, no guests enjoying San Francisco, no tax revenue for the city, no spending at restaurants, bars or with our Union Square retail neighbors. Despite this, I am still being required to pay city taxes and fees although I have been closed for almost four months.

We are a fourth-generation family-owned and operated hotel. Its not just my family who works at the hotel, but the employees I work with have their children working here as well. Telling them there is no work or income for them or their family is heartbreaking. Asking them to work in an environment that could be harmful to them, because of this ordinance, is something Im hesitant to do. This ordinance could mean they will be out of work the rest of this year. I know the how hard this pandemic has been on their families and how hard it is for them to survive financially without income.

I have worked in the city for almost my entire life and have learned and been forced to deal with the eccentricity of our elected leaders. I have come to realize that the city is focused on the revenue I put in their coffers and not on helping me grow that revenue they so desperately want. This ordinance is the latest and most harmful example of how they will put my business at risk, and at the same time I believe it creates a potential health risk to the people I have enjoyed working with for decades.

Tourism is the No. 1 business in San Francisco, not because we wanted it to be but because other industries either failed or could not deal with the regulations or heavy taxes that they were required to pay. Even before the pandemic, our guests and employees would tell us how disturbing the filth on our streets has become and how unsafe they felt walking around. We already have lost major conventions and many repeat guests because of what they experienced when they stayed here. We can thank the supervisors decades of failed policies for that.

Now tourism  the lifeblood of San Francisco  is being chased away from within. The supervisors ongoing anti-hotel decisions are taking away what helped make San Francisco great and beautiful  the genuine hospitality provided every day by our employees. If the ordinance wasnt enough, the supervisors have proposed five new business taxes at a time when there is no business in San Francisco.

As a result, the 70 employees I work with most likely wont have a job for the remainder of 2020. When I came back to work with my father there were 10 family-run hotels; now there is one. Our hotel has been a union property since we bought it. I appreciate that San Francisco is a union town; what I dont appreciate is a town trying to be run by one union.

Jon S. Handlery is president and general manager of the Handlery Union Square Hotel.
A variety of reasons like growing domestic discontent against Chinese President Xi Jinping's economic policies, his obsession to look strong and concerns about international legitimacy may be driving China's misadventures in eastern Ladakh and South China Sea, global strategic affairs experts said on Thursday.





They said the tensions have added to a sense of apprehension in the United States, Europe and parts of Asia that China will engage in more aggressive behaviour in pursuit of its territorial interests, which in turn has raised the possibility of a serious and coordinated pushback by leading global players.

"There are certainly economic costs China will bear," said Paul Staniland, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago."The question that we can't answer yet is how severe the economic cost actually will be, and, above all, how much pain the Chinese leadership is willing to accept relative to the gains it sees from advancing a more assertive posture in the region," he said.



China's actions in eastern Ladakh fit the pattern of its aggressive behaviour in other parts of Asia, including the South China Sea and East China Sea where it has made territorial claims, often on historical precedent and in the case of the Philippines by ignoring international legal ruling. Principally, it has disputes with Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Brunei, Cambodia and Vietnam among others.



Vipin Narang, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said China's strenuous attempts to expand its assertive influence and territorial claims along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh and elsewhere in Asia could be the result of a variety of reasons.

"It could be anything from opportunism to concerns about India completing the infrastructure projects such as the DS-DBO (Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie) road to concerns about international or domestic legitimacy, where Xi Jinping believes he cannot afford to look weak," he said.



China mobilised its forces in the Western sector of the LAC in huge numbers taking advantage of India's preoccupation with the COVID-19 pandemic.



"China exploited a window of opportunity to make shallow penetrations across a variety of points simultaneously," said Narang, also a fellow at Harvard University's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies.



The 255-km long DS-DBO road that Border Roads Organisation built over a period of two decades connects Leh to strategically important Daulat Beg Oldie near the Karakoram Pass. The road runs along Shyok and Tangtse rivers and gives India access to several strategically key points.



Besides engaging in a major military standoff with India in eastern Ladakh, China has been expanding its maritime offensive in the South China Sea and East China Sea displaying an attempt at aggressive consolidation of control over contested territories when the world has been battling the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed over 6,00,000 people globally.



Another strategic affairs expert, Dr Laxman Behera, said Xi's economic policies are triggering resentment in China and the offensive on the border could be a reason to divert attention and bolster his stature.



He noted that the Chinese are never transparent about what they do. "Nobody knows their intention. It is a very opaque society," he said.



This was evident from the fact that the Chinese never gave details of the casualties they suffered in the Galwan Valley clashes on June 15 while India was upfront and reported 20 deaths. According to an American intelligence report, Chinese suffered 35 casualties.



China will "never care about their casualties and they are very good at hiding all the facts. The fact is that there were severe casualties on their side. But they never tell it to their population. That is the way they do things," Dr Behera said.



India's former Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen (retd) Subrata Saha also said that China did not release their casualty figures because it feared a domestic backlash in China upon hearing about human loss.



Chinese Ambassador Sun Weidong had refused to address important questions such as: Why China resorted to aggressive military behaviour when fighting COVID-19 was paramount for the world; what was the motive behind the massive buildup of troops and why the Chinese military carried out the brutal assault on Indian soldiers in Galwan Valley.



The Chinese envoy was also asked whether China will punish the soldiers involved in the attacks on Indian soldiers in Galwan Valley and what was the Chinese casualty figure. However, Sun sidestepped the questions.



Gen Saha said the ambassador's reticence was the outcome of China's autocratic system, which is "very strictly controlled" and where it is perfectly normal for people lower in the hierarchy to sidestep issues for which they do not have clearance unlike in India where democracy allows officials to speak their mind.



"It is no surprise that people are reluctant to speak out. It is driven by the fact that the total power is consolidated in one single authority -- president of the country, general secretary of the Communist party, chairman of the central military commission, all the powers are vested in one person," he said.



"Therefore, it is a very strongman kind of a rule. Therefore, it is not abnormal for people down the line to be reluctant to speak anything for which they do not have clearance," he added.



But, experts say, this secrecy and the military belligerence, will come at an economic cost to China.



Staniland, the University of Chicago expert, said the extent of possible economic losses depends on whether countries like India and Vietnam can effectively compete with the communist nation, and whether firms in the US, Japan, and Europe will actually change their behaviour.



"I think China's behaviour has certainly increased the likelihood of serious, coordinated pushback against its behaviour. That said, it's too early to tell what the long-term impact will be," said Staniland, who is also a non-resident scholar in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.



"There is no doubt that China wants to reshape some key aspects of the world order to its advantage," he added.



Meanwhile, Tilak Devasher, a member of the National Security Advisory Board, said that China's offensive in eastern Ladakh has dented its international image, adding "there are reasons to believe that there are also domestic considerations for president Xi to be so reckless."



But "the rest of the world has shown that it will not accept China's bullying tactics. Many countries, especially democracies, are coming together to resist China. There will be a substantial economic cost for China," Devasher added.



"The fact that it has hidden its casualties indicates that the losses were severe and it did not want the public and the world to know about it. There has been anger in China about the soldiers not getting proper last rites. The world watched how the Indian martyrs were given full military honours in their respective places," he said.



"This lack of honouring its deceased soldiers has reflected poorly on China's military prowess. Secondly, it has shown that China will not respect bilateral or international agreements or it will respect them only so far as it suits them. Thus, it has proved that for China such agreements have no sanctity. Rest of the world will have to tailor their policies accordingly," he added.
Burma Myanmar Urges Calm After Social Media Spat Between US, Chinese Embassies

Myanmar Foreign Minister Daw Aung San Suu Kyi joins an ASEAN videoconference at her office in Naypyitaw in June. / Ministry of Foreign Affairs Myanmar

YANGONIn the wake of the recent frenzied social media exchange between the Chinese and US embassies in Yangon over Chinas actions in the South China Sea and Hong Kong, which the US described as part of a larger pattern to undermine the sovereignty of its neighbors, Myanmars Foreign Ministry urged powerful countries to maintain good relations, saying this was in the interests of regional and ASEAN countries, including Myanmar.

In a statement on Saturday, which was first published in The Irrawaddy as a guest column, the US Embassy in Yangon also said that Myanmar was vulnerable to huge Chinese investments projects that could lead to debt-traps for the Southeast Asian country. The article also accused China of failing to take action to curb human trafficking and drug production that affect Myanmar, among other issues.

The Chinese Embassy in Myanmar on Sunday responded furiously, accusing the United States of outrageously smearing the country and trying to drive a wedge between it and its Southeast Asian neighbors.

Myanmar Ministry of Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary U Soe Han told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday that Myanmar has practiced a neutral foreign policy since independence in 1948, while maintaining good will in its relations, based on mutual interests, with countries near and far. This policy had been observed during the Cold War and beyond, he said.

We have never encouraged any attempts to fuel military rivalries between powerful parties. Myanmar has always pushed to solve conflicts by means of engagement and negotiation, he said.

The countrys de facto leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, once told Nikkei Asian Review that Myanmar had maintained a very commonsensical foreign policy ever since independence, as the country is a small nation, not yet developed.

We [were] never at the stage where we were able to call the shots, as it were, she said.

The spat between China and the US in Myanmar comes as relations between the two superpowers are already deteriorating over a range of issues including COVID-19, their trade war and intelligence disputes.

U Soe Han said Myanmar prefers to play a role that promotes global peace and enhances cooperation among powerful countries.

Especially in the time of COVID-19, when the whole world is facing challenges, we should be more careful to avoid any conflicts that could make peoples lives more difficult in Myanmar and elsewhere in the world, he said.

In July 2016, when an arbitration court in The Hague ruled that China had no historic title over the waters of the South China Sea and that it had breached the Philippines sovereign rights with its actions, the Daw Aung San Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy government of Myanmar urged all parties to exercise restraint with regard to activities that could increase tension and to refrain from threats or use of force.

Although Myanmar is not a claimant state, we attach great importance to developments in the South China Sea. We have been consistent in calling for and supporting all endeavors to promote a peaceful resolution of disputes through friendly consultations and negotiations in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law including the 1982 United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea, the statement said.

The Irrawaddys Naypyitaw Bureau chief Htet Naing Zaw contributed from Naypyitaw.

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US President Donald Trump.

Reuters/Leah Millis

In the five days between July 17 and July 21, accounts tied to Donald Trump's campaign posted 450 separate adverts on Facebook and Instagram lambasting TikTok for spying on users and siphoning data to China.

Facebook's transparency data showed that the campaign spent tens of thousands of dollars on the ads, perhaps as much as $80,000.

The most-viewed ad posted by the Trump campaign is a 30-second video that claims "TikTok is spying on you." It reached at least 400,000 Americans.

TikTok has denied all the allegations made in the ads.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Donald Trump really hates TikTok. If you didn't get the hint from his multiple threats to ban the video sharing app, then you only need look at your Facebook or Instagram feed.

In the five days from July 17 to July 21, three accounts tied to Trump's campaign  his official Facebook and Instagram pages, his vice president Mike Pence's official pages, and the pages of Team Trump, an organizing committee  posted 450 separate adverts lambasting TikTok, claiming it spies on users and siphons data to China. TikTok has denied all the allegations made in the ads, but declined to comment for this story.

Analysis of transparency data published by Facebook shows that the Trump campaign spent tens of thousands, perhaps as much as $80,000 (Facebook's data gives wide ranges for amounts spent) on the ads. They were seen by up to 5.5 million Americans and were mostly targeted at Trump-voting states, including Texas and Florida.

As of July 22, the most-viewed ad posted by the Trump campaign is a 30-second video that replaces the TikTok logo with an Asian man looking through binoculars. "TikTok is spying on you," the man says. The Trump Make America Great Again Committee paid up to $3,000 to reach at least 400,000 Americans from Trump's Facebook page, the transparency data shows. More than half of viewers were women aged between 18 and 34, the data shows. Other ads targeted men in the same age group.

Story continues

Tristan Hotham, founder of the Social Media Research Centre, and an expert on Facebook political advertising, says that could reflect Trump's need to attract younger voters. "The older people are already in the bag for Trump. Their campaign is about reaching the under-45s, and that seems who they're trying to target," he says.

Or, the ads might simply reflect Trump's growing hostility towards China, he says. "To go so hard into this either means it's electorally prescient, or Trump just hates TikTok and it feeds into this bigger narrative of China and the second Cold War. I'm not sure which one has more power within that logic. It probably doesn't matter."

donald trump facebook tiktok ad

Facebook Ad Library

On whether the ads ring true, experts are split. Cybersecurity experts have downplayed the idea that TikTok operates differently to other apps. One claim central to the Trump ad campaign, that TikTok was caught copying data from users' cell phone clipboards, is also true of the LinkedIn and Fox News apps.

But Andreas Fulda, a China expert at the University of Nottingham, says the Trump campaign should be "commended for highlighting the potential risks emanating from Chinese apps like TikTok."

"There can not be such a thing as an apolitical Chinese app," he says. "In terms of its functionality TikTok is a very popular app, but from a privacy perspective this Chinese app is highly problematic."

A Facebook spokesperson told Business Insider it has removed an unspecified number of the ads "for violating our policies against misrepresenting company branding and depicting features that don't exist on our platforms."

True or not, the claims in Donald Trump's ads carry weight.

Trump's Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, visited the UK on July 22 to press politicians to ramp up pressure on TikTok. Right-wing members of the ruling Conservative party, including former Tory party leader Iain Duncan Smith, obliged, calling for the app to be banned for unspecified national security reasons.

Whether Trump's claims manage to convert skeptics or not, the ads mark an escalation of a spat between the president and the video-sharing app that began more than two years ago, when the app was called Musical.ly.

Between March and May 2018, Musical.ly's Facebook page spent thousands of dollars on five ads on Facebook and Instagram, seen by around 165,000 Americans.

The message of the ads? "Donald Trump doesn't use musical.ly. Join now."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Trump called Lightfoot today: In a new statement, the mayors office offered its take on the chat, The President reached out to Mayor Lightfoot this evening to confirm that he plans to send federal resources to Chicago to supplement ongoing federal investigations pertaining to violent crime. The conversation was brief and straightforward. Mayor Lightfoot maintains that all resources will be investigatory in nature and be coordinated through the U.S. Attorneys office. The Mayor has made clear that if there is any deviation from what has been announced, we will pursue all available legal options to protect Chicagoans.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian held talks with Lebanon's president and prime minister Thursday at the start of his two-day visit to the Mediterranean country that is witnessing the worst economic crisis of its modern history. Le Drian is the first Western official to visit Lebanon since the crisis, which has been unfolding since last year.

It has deepened since the government defaulted on its debt, the onset of coronavirus restrictions and stalled talks with the International Monetary Fund over an economic rescue plan.

Le Drian met with President Michel Aoun, then Prime Minister Hassan Diab. He was scheduled to meet other Lebanese officials before his departure Friday.

Le Drian had appealed to Lebanese officials to carry out needed reforms, calling on them "to help us help you" during a recent session in France's Parliament.

France, the former colonial power in Lebanon, is also the leading Western nation involved in planning efforts to help the Lebanese economy out of its dire straits.
In the midst of the global Covid-19 pandemic this spring, entrepreneurs Rebecca Cahua and Vivian Qu joined forces, skills, and teams to create and bring to production an innovative new product  the O2 Nano Mask, a reuseable nanofiltration mask that combines a high level of filtration with unique breathability and comfort.

Together, Cahua and Qu founded a O2 Brands, Inc., and the two used their combined skills and experience in textiles and technology to bring the O2 Nano Mask to Kickstarter in May. The campaign was successful, and the mask is currently in production.

Before they joined forces, the two women had been running their own successful companies  Cahuas DaD Sewing House and Qus Viaex Technologies. Their experience with these companies inspired and continues to inform their vision for O2 Brands.

02 Nano Mask CreatorsVivian Qu (L) and Rebecca Cahua (R)

The E-Commerce Times spoke with Cahua and Qu to hear their story, learn about the impulse behind their new mask, and get a glimpse into their plans for the future.

E-Commerce Times: Could you describe your career trajectory? How did you get to where you are today?

Cahua: I started in the fashion industry, and when I left college, my first project was providing merchandising to nonprofits. Thats when I got the idea of designing for a difference, and ultimately creating employment in the Bay Area and sustainable domestic manufacturing in San Francisco. Thats been my business for the last three years, working with small brands to large corporations.

Vivian met me through my business. She came in right before the shelter-in-place order happened here, and we quickly decided to collaborate, since we were both separately working on a mask project. People were reaching out to me since I had the ability to sew. We both had people reaching out to us to figure out how to make masks. We thought we would partner together and start O2 Brands Inc. to create products together.

Qu: My background is in material science engineering. We have been very interested in using biopolymers in new products. Viaex Technologies has been working on biopolymer solutions for anti-microbial applications in water and air.

The main thing about working together with Rebecca is that we have good synergy, since she has specific textile experience and is used to sourcing materials from all over the world. On our end, weve been looking for good applications for our materials. Were able to piece that together and do something greater with it, which has cumulated in our initial product.

ECT: Where did the idea for O2 Brands, Inc. come from? What inspired you to start this company?

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Qu: For us it was clear that we could make premium PPE  not in the medical sense, but something everyone could use to protect themselves. We thought that if we wanted to do this, instead of doing it in a rushed or oversimplified way, we could do a better job by combining our backgrounds in technology and design to make a better product. The products available today are not all that comfortable, and we thought there needed to be a better product, and thats why we created it.

Cahua: We wanted to produce a product that we could be proud of. We couldnt do it alone, but when we worked together, we were able to make a premium product that could really protect and help people during this time.

Before Covid-19 happened, we never would have done this. Weve basically launched a company and a brand in a month, which is amazing. We trust each other and believe in what were doing.

Our goal is to grow O2 Brands, and thats our newfound passion. Right now, our focus is to see where this path takes us. Its something we both wanted, to get behind a product we really wanted. It was exciting for both of us to find someone to work with.

ECT: What is your companys mission?

Qu: Our mission is to integrate materials, technology, and the supply chain to create amazing products that focus on sustainability. Because of these unique times, were doing the Good Mask Project, where were donating masks. Thats been part of our DNA, even before we met. Its something that drives us, and were excited to work more on the social responsibility side.

ECT: What makes the masks your company is producing unique?

Qu: It has to do with our design and technology. A lot of the cloth masks and bandanas we see arent that effective, but if you have a premium filter inside, the material will block much more.

The efficiency of our mask is around 80 percent. Our goal was to create a product that has the fit and comfort of a casual mask, with premium filtration material inside.

What we want to do for our customers is to maximize their protection. Even though N95 masks are very good, theyre created for professionals, and theyre not very comfortable to wear for the entirety of a day. That prevents people from doing so. We wanted to bring that much higher level of protection to the average user.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Cahua: What makes our product unique is the science that went into creating it. In particular, the higher filtration level makes it unique. At a time when you couldnt find filters on the market, for Vivian to have that kind of filter accessible made me jump on this project right away.

Anyone can make a cloth mask, but the combination of the two is what takes it to a higher level. We did at least fifty samples of the mask, testing for breathability and fit. We feel like weve achieved one of the highest levels of filtration and comfort that weve seen, and the response has been amazing.

Each mask almost looks like its handmade, with the detail it has, and you can be heard and seen while you speak through the mask. We put a lot of thought into the mask, and we worked hard to make sure our mask is a premium mask that we can really be proud of.

ECT: Why did you decide to launch the Kickstarter campaign for your masks?

Qu: We found that we have a story that is uniquely suited to Kickstarter. The fact that we were still iterating and making this a better product made it especially good for Kickstarter. Kickstarter is very supportive of human-made products that are in a pre-product phase.

Weve enjoyed communicating with the community, as well as having the chance to improve the product before we send it out.

Cahua: Kickstarter was a great platform that we both understood would be the best way for us to respond at the highest capacity to get masks out to the market as quickly as possible. We understood there was a need for consumers and essential service workers.

Our Buy One Give One project, we figured, would be effective using Kickstarter, since we are able to engage the community through that platform.

ECT: How would you describe the response to the Kickstarter campaign? Has it been successful?

Qu: Its been successful in many ways, but a couple that are especially meaningful. Its meaningful to interact with the community and hear from future users about what their needs are, and weve heard a lot of things from them. It gave us the courage to incorporate that right away, and we continued to improve the product.

Cahua: The human-to-human interaction was great, since its not very often that you get that kind of community engagement when youre developing a product at this level.

ECT: How do you see your business evolving? Whats in the future?

Qu: We have a good vision of where we want the next set of masks to be. Broadly, we want to integrate our own materials into the next major product. What we mean by that is using some sort of recycled biowaste fibrous materials. Thats something were excited to do, and we have a customer base that cares about the same things.

We will still be focused on consumer protection and textile products, and we will make premium and user-friendly version of those products and incorporate our sustainable materials into them.

Were also looking forward to increasing the convenience of our products for customers. If youre going to wear something anyway, we want to make this experience better. Were not ready to launch those ideas formally, but we know, for instance, that people like bandanas and scarfs, and those are things were interested in.

We also found that lot of masks represent something, almost like a piece of real estate. Were interested in helping customers make masks more their own. We also want to have the similar attention to detail before launching our next product, so its even more sustainable and user-friendly, and we hope that by being successful with this product we can reinvest to make a good next product.

ECT: In what ways has the coronavirus pandemic changed the world of business and technology? How can innovators and entrepreneurs most effectively respond to these changes and be successful in this new era?

Qu: For us, its about being able to dig down on our locally-based supply chain. A locally-based supply chain is better for the environment, because it reduces our carbon footprint.

Now because of the fact that Covid-19 hit the entire globe in phases, the global supply chain has been affected. A lot of our focus has been to shed light on the fact that we have a globalized supply chain and not much recourse if something disrupts that supply chain. Thats one thing well focus on.

As a small company, we will continue to invest in our locally-based supply chain to ensure that were providing a premium product and will continue to be able to do so.

Cahua: For designers or other entrepreneurs, my advice to pivot is to listen to the consumer  pay attention to societys needs and be aware of any gaps. The supply chain has been disrupted, so theres someplace your business.

Qu: Another major point that Ive thought about is how weve been relying on essential workers during this time. Hopefully in the future, the business community will be more appreciative of these essential workers, acknowledging the fact that it is those people who make everything possible.

We want to find ways to support that community in the short term and continue to play a role in helping service workers in the future.
In the first episode of the final season of prison dramedy Orange Is the New Black, one character, Maritza Ramos, faces deportation. She is held at an immigrant detention centerwhich, beyond the show, currently hold more than thirty thousand immigrants and are some of the most impenetrable places in the country for journalists. A friend gives Ramos a gift: the number for a free hotline that can provide help. You gotta be careful, though, the friend warns. Apparently, as soon as Big Brother figures out youre using the hotline, they shut it down.

The National Immigration Detention Hotline is very real, and is run by Freedom for Immigrants, an advocacy organization whose goal is the abolition of the US immigration detention system. Since 2013, FFI has operated the nations largest immigration detention hotline to monitor conditions in detention facilities and to provide detained immigrants a way to seek legal assistance, report alleged abuse or neglect, or simply talk with family and loved ones, who sometimes have no idea where they are (many are often transferred between facilities or do not have funds to pay for calls). The hotline is an extension operated through US Immigration and Customs Enforcements free and confidential national phone program.

At the time the Orange Is the New Black episode aired, last July, the hotline, which was unmonitored by ice, fielded up to fourteen thousand calls per month, mostly from immigrants reporting abusesoften medical neglectwithout fear of retaliation, says Christina Fialho, FFIs director. Its also one of the only methods journalists have for gaining firsthand accounts from inside facilities that remain a national scandal.

Then, less than two weeks after the Orange Is the New Black episode aired, the phones at FFI stopped ringing. We tried to see if it was a glitch within our own system or with the telecommunications system, Fialho says. We knew there was a definite problem. According to court documents, ice had removed the hotline from its program because the number did not appear on a Department of Justicemaintained list, though it did appear on ices pro bono list.

FFI quickly secured a new backup lineone that, like most calls from detention centers, wasnt free, and was monitored by ice. Then it filed a complaint against ice and the Department of Homeland Security. In February, a judge granted FFIs motion for a preliminary injunction, restoring the national hotlineand, with it, access to immigrants detained by one of the most inscrutable agencies in the country.

The most reliable source of information regarding conditions in ICE jails and prisons comes from those on the inside and their loved ones.

Through the hotline, FFI gathers firsthand reports from inside detention centers, which enables it to identify trends and fuel accountability reporting on conditions for detained immigrants. It can be pretty tough to figure out whats happening in detention centers, says Andrea Castillo, a Los Angeles Times immigration reporter. Several journalists have reported facing obstruction from accessing immigration courts or detention centers, not to mention the barriers for even talking to the people held inside. The cost of phone calls can preclude some immigrants from providing details about detention facilities, so Castillo has to consistently keep funds in her phone account so sources can call her. Asking for comment from ice or detention facilities can yield opaque statements, she says. Because of that, I rely heavily on groups like Freedom for Immigrants.

In a statement, DHS declined, through an ice spokesperson, to comment on the FFI case, citing pending litigation. The statement said ice is firmly committed to ensuring its facilities adhere to ices detention standards, which provide several levels of oversight in order to ensure that residents in ice custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments.

Since covid-19, the hotline has become more crucial than ever for both reporters and detained immigrants. In March, ice banned all social visitation at detention centers in an effort to safeguard detained immigrants amid the pandemic. But, as many advocates feared, covid-19 quickly spread through some facilities. In April, FFI began tracking confirmed cases of covid-19 in ice detention facilities and publishing a biweekly analysis with information from its hotline, among other sources. As of April 14, FFI counted seventy-seven positive cases across twenty-two facilities. Around that time, ice released hundreds of detained immigrants and told news outlets that others were being kept in their cells for as many as twenty-three hours a day in order to enforce social distancing. Still, by April 29, that number had grown to four hundred twenty-five cases across thirty-five facilities, swelling to more than nine hundred cases at over sixty facilities as of June, according to ice data. Even so, the most reliable source of information regarding conditions in ice jails and prisons comes from those on the inside and their loved ones, says Cynthia Galaz, FFIs hotline director.

In April, the LA Times Castillo and Brittny Mejia published an in-depth feature about the perils facing immigrants in ice custody during the pandemic. Their story includes the voices of several detained immigrants whose accounts were made public via the hotline:

On Friday afternoon, an asylum seeker from El Salvador held at Otay Mesa Detention Center called a toll-free hotline run by the nonprofit Freedom for Immigrants. He has cancerand he and 13 other people with health issues had been quarantined for more than a week. The man knew that two employees at the facility had tested positive for the virus and said he doesnt believe that officials there are prepared for an outbreak. With this whole situation, though I have a lot of faith in God, Im also human, he said.

In addition to the hotline, FFI publishes a magazine, Immprint, which regularly features letters and writings from immigrants in detentiona platform for whatever the immigrants want to speak about, Galaz says. FFI also tracks complaints through an internal case-management system, an effort that proves valuable for identifying trendsFreedom for Immigrants filed a federal complaint with the Department of Homeland Security in April 2017 after seeing an uptick in calls from immigrants abut sexual assault and harassment in detention centersbut might also preserve history. Under approval from the National Archives, ice can destroy records relating to the abuse or deaths of undocumented immigrants, as well as complaints about discrimination or medical neglect. That information is going to be lost forever, and we will not know about the abuses that are happening there, Galaz says. But the complaints that we record in our system through the hotline, they dont get destroyed.

The FFI hotline is reachable at 209-757-3733 outside of detention centers or 9233 within detention centers, Monday through Friday, from 6am to 8pm PST.

ICYMI: Covering immigration in a private contractors world

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Sonam Vashi is an Atlanta-based freelance journalist who writes about justice, inequity, and the South. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, CNN, Atlanta magazine, and several others.
After more than three months of slow declines, the number of people filing new claims for state unemployment benefits in the United States rose last week. The Labor Department reported Thursday another 1.4 million new state applications.

The spike comes just days before an extra $600-a-week jobless benefit is set to expire.

An additional 975,000 claims were filed by freelancers, part-time workers and others who do not qualify for regular state jobless aid but are eligible for benefits under an emergency federal program, the Labor Department announced. Unlike the state figures, that number is not seasonally adjusted.

The stubbornly high rate of new weekly claims more than four months into the pandemic suggests that the nature of the downturn has changed from early on, said Ernie Tedeschi, a policy economist at Evercore ISI. It may mean that businesses are shutting down again as cases surge in some places, or that funds from emergency small business loans through the Paycheck Protection Program are running out, he said  or worse, something more fundamental.

It might be that businesses are running through their first line of credit, he said, and now theyre facing the music of an economy that has recovered a little bit but not nearly enough.

During the worst of the Great Recession in 2008-9, the weekly number of claims never exceeded 700,000. Since mid-March, new state unemployment applications have yet to fall below a million.

Congressional lawmakers and the White House are negotiating a roughly $1 trillion relief package that would include extending some benefits for unemployed workers.

NEW YORK ROUNDUP

New Yorks governor again warns about infections among younger people.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York again warned on Thursday of rising cases among younger people. Though most of the states cases were being diagnosed in older residents, the share of those found in 21- to 30-year-olds increased to 13.2 percent from 9.9 percent over the last two weeks, he said. The U.S. outbreak has more recently seen an increase in people in their 20s, 30s and 40s who are testing positive.
PORTLAND, Ore. - The tense standoff between demonstrators and federal police dispatched to Portland, Oregon, dragged on Thursday after the citys mayor was tear-gassed by U.S. government agents as he made an appearance outside a federal courthouse during raucous protests.

Mayor Ted Wheeler and hundreds of others Wednesday night were objecting to the presence of federal police sent by President Donald Trump, who labeled the demonstrators as agitators & anarchists after Wheeler was gassed.

Also, late Thursday a federal judge specifically blocked federal agents from arresting or using physical force against journalists and legal observers at the ongoing Portland protests. The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

U.S. Judge Michael Simon previously ruled that journalists and legal observers are exempt from police orders requiring protesters to disperse once an unlawful assembly has been declared. Federal lawyers had said that journalists should have to leave when ordered.

This order is a victory for the rule of law, Jann Carson, ACLU of Oregons interim executive director, said in a statement.

A freelance photographer covering the protests for The Associated Press submitted an affidavit that he was beaten with batons, chemical irritants and hit with rubber bullets this week.

The ACLU lawsuit is one of several filed in response to law enforcement actions during the protests. The state of Oregon is seeking an order limiting federal agents arrest powers during the demonstrations.

On Wednesday night Wheeler, a Democrat, appeared slightly dazed and coughed and said it was the first time hed been tear-gassed.

He put on a pair of goggles someone handed him and drank water but did not leave his spot at the front of the raging demonstration  with protesters lighting a large fire between protective fencing and the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse amid the pop-pop-pop sounds of the federal agents deploying tear gas and stun grenades into the crowd.

It wasnt immediately clear if the agents knew Wheeler, a 57-year-old sixth-generation Oregonian and longtime politician, was among those in crowd when they used the tear gas.

Earlier in the night, Wheeler was mostly jeered by protesters as he tried to rally the demonstrators who have clashed nightly with federal agents. But they briefly applauded when he shouted Black Lives Matter and pumped his fist in the air.

Trump in his tweet attempted to ridicule Wheeler, calling him the Radical Left Mayor of Portland, who last night was booed & shouted out of existence by the agitators & anarchists.

Wheeler has opposed federal agents presence in Oregons largest city but has also faced harsh criticism from the protesters, who yelled and swore at him.

Ignoring the pushback, Wheeler told those out gathered outside the courthouse that he wanted to thank the thousands of you who have come out to oppose the Trump administrations occupation of this city.

The Justice Departments inspector general said Thursday it will conduct a review of the conduct of federal agents who responded to unrest in Portland and in Washington, D.C., after concerns emerged from members of Congress and the public.

Wheeler has been accused by critics including city council members of not reining in local police who used tear gas multiple times on protesters before federal agents arrived early this month in response to nearly two months of nightly protests since George Floyd was killed. And city business leaders have condemned Wheeler for not bringing the situation under control before the agents showed up.

On Thursday, City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, the first Black woman elected to that role, said the arrival of federal agents had reignited protests that had been starting to die down after weeks.

The reason why we have thousands of people on the street every night is because Portlanders are not going to set back when they see an injustice happening. Theyre going to come and theyre going to stand on a line, said Hardesty.

Hardesty also apologized for saying Wednesday that she believed police officers were setting fires to justify violence against protesters.

Department of Homeland Security acting Secretary Chad Wolf denied that federal agents were inflaming the situation in Portland. He told CBS This Morning that Wheeler legitimized criminality in the city by going to the front of the crowd of demonstrators where the fires were lit and that people were trying to pull down a fence erected to shield the federal courthouse.

Wheeler did not participate in lighting any of the fires or attempting to tear down the fence and was surrounded by his security team when he was gassed.

Earlier, protesters held signs saying Tear Gas Ted in a reference to Wheeler and his leadership of the Portland Police Bureau, which used the substance on protesters before federal agents arrived in the city in early July. As Wheeler left the protest zone about 12:40 a.m. Thursday, one person shouted that he should be there every single night.

Less than an hour later, police said the crowd threw Molotov cocktails, lit fires in a park and in trash cans and released hundreds of gallons of water from fire hydrants. The police bureau in response declared that there was a riot at the site and threatened to use tear gas but officers never did and made no arrests.

Wheelers appearance in the protest zone came hours after state attorneys for Oregon urged a judge to issue a restraining order against agents deployed to tamp down on the protests.

The arguments came in a lawsuit filed by Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, who accused federal agents of arresting protesters without probable cause, whisking them away in unmarked cars and using excessive force. Federal authorities have disputed those allegations.

The lawsuit is part of the growing criticism of Trumps order that sent the federal agents to Portland and pending orders for them to head to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to fight rising crime.

The court hearing focused on the actions of the more than 100 federal agents responding to protests outside the Portland courthouse.

The motion asks U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman to command agents from the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, Federal Protective Service and U.S. Marshals Service to immediately stop detaining protesters without probable cause, identify themselves and their agency before arresting anyone, and explain why an arrest is taking place.

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This story has been corrected to accurately refer to Customs and Border Protection.

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Follow Gillian Flaccus on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/gflaccus
A more recent publication of this set of statistics is available. Latest publication: Preliminary population statistics 2021, November

Published: 23 July 2020

Only under 5,000 emigrations from Finland in the early part of the year

According to Statistics Finland's preliminary data, Finland's population at the end of June was 5,528,855. During JanuaryJune Finland's population increased by 3,563 persons. The reason for the population increase was migration gain from abroad: the number of immigrants was 8,431 higher than that of emigrants. The number of births was 4,729 lower than that of deaths.

Population increase by month 20172020*

According to the preliminary statistics for JanuaryJune a total of 22,886 children were born, which is 651 more than in the corresponding period 2019. Slightly over one hundred children were born on leap day in 2020. The number of deaths was 27,615 which is 383 higher than one year earlier.

The birth rate rose slightly in the early part of the year from the corresponding period of the year before. In January to June 2020, the total fertility rate was 0.68, while in January to June 2019 it was 0.66. The total fertility rate has been calculated for a period of six months instead of for a calendar year. The figure is approximately half of the number of children a woman on average gives birth to over her lifetime if the fertility rate remains on level with the early part of 2020. The total fertility rate of the whole year cannot be deduced from the figures, because the number of births varies at different times of the year.

In January to June, 13,258 persons moved to Finland from abroad and 4,827 persons moved abroad from Finland. The effects of the restrictions due to the corona virus are visible in these figures on international migration. The number of immigrants was 1,828 lower and the number of emigrants 2,844 lower than in the previous year. The number of emigrants in January to June has last been under 5,000 in the 1990s. In all, 4,103 of the immigrants and 3,087 of the emigrants were Finnish citizens.

According to the preliminary data, the number of inter-municipal migrations totalled 127,978 by the end of June. Compared with the previous year, the increase was 2,477 migrations according to the municipal division of 2020.

Same-sex marriages took legal effect in March 2017. During JanuaryJune 2020, same-sex partners entered into 160 marriages of which 102 were between two women and 58 between two men.

According to preliminary data by region, the population grew only in Uusimaa, Pirkanmaa, Southwest Finland, North Ostrobothnia, Aland and Central Ostrobothnia between JanuaryJune of 2020.

The population grew most in absolute numbers in Uusimaa, where it grew by 7,298 persons. The next largest increase in population was seen in Pirkanmaa, 1,037 persons. Relative to the population, population growth was highest in Aland, 4.8 per mil, in Uusimaa, 4.3 per mil and in Pirkanmaa, 2,0 per mil. Population loss was highest in absolute numbers in the region of North Karelia that lost 778 persons of its population. The population of North Savo decreased by 685 persons, which was the second biggest population loss. Relative to the population, the biggest population loss was found in South Karelia and North Karelia, in South Karelia 5.1 per mil and North Karelia 4.8 per mil.

Most migration gain from intramunicipal and international migration was collected by Uusimaa, 6,058 persons and Pirkanmaa, 1,262 persons. Most migration gain in relative terms based on total net migration was attained by Aland, 3.8 per mil and Uusimaa, 3.6 per mil.

In absolute numbers, migration loss from total net migration was biggest in the region of Ostrobothnia, 360 persons. In the region of North Karelia the loss was 328 persons. In relative terms, the biggest migration loss from total net migration was found in the region of North Karelia and Ostrobothnia, 2.0 per mil of the population in the both regions.

During JanuaryJune 2020, migration between regions numbered 55,688. The positive gain from migration between regions was seen in Uusimaa, Pirkanmaa, Kanta-Hame, Southwest Finland, Paijat-Hame, South Savo, South Ostrobothnia, Aland and Central Ostrobothnia. In absolute numbers, the highest gain from migration between regions was received by Uusimaa, 2,223 persons. Also, the relative migration gain was highest in Uusimaa, 1.3 per mil of the population.

Migration loss from migration between regions was biggest in absolute numbers in the region of Ostrobothnia, 721 persons. Migration loss from migration between regions was biggest in relative terms in the region of Ostrobothnia, 4.0 per mil of the population.

Source: Preliminary population statistics, Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Joonas Toivola 029 551 3355, Juhana Nordberg 029 551 3051, Joni Rantakari 029 551 3249, info@stat.fi

Director in charge: Jari Tarkoma

Publication in pdf-format (252.5 kB)

Updated 23.07.2020

Referencing instructions: Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Preliminary population statistics [e-publication].

ISSN=2243-3627. June 2020. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 19.1.2022].

Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/vamuu/2020/06/vamuu_2020_06_2020-07-23_tie_001_en.html
A month after unanimous passage in the legislature, Michigan Senate Democrats blocked an attempt to override Gov. Gretchen Whitmers veto of a whistleblower protection bill.

Senate Bill 686, sponsored by Sen. Tom Barrett, R-Charlotte, would have banned a state department, senate or house supervisor from punishing state employees for communicating with certain individuals in the legislative branch.

The bill passed 37-0 in the Senate on Feb. 26 and 108-0 in the House on June 24. Whitmer vetoed it on July 8, saying it would violate the state constitution.

Whether and how to discipline employees is a core executive power entrusted in part to the Governor and in part to the Michigan Civil Service Commission, she said in a statement. Because this legislation violates the constitutional separation of powers... I am vetoing it.

Whitmer vetoes bills that would have protected whistleblowers, delayed local tax collection

The 22-16 vote was along party lines, failing to reach the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto.

Sen. Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield, said he didnt know when he first voted in favor of the bill that the proposal would protect a state employee who lied to a lawmaker.

Senate Republicans said the failure to override will have a chilling effect on government accountability.

Fear of retribution can keep some employees from blowing the whistle on criminal or unethical behavior, the Michigan Senate GOP posted to Twitter shortly after the vote was official. @MISenDems also fear retribution from @GovWhitmer and refused to override her veto, even after they unanimously supported the bill when it passed,

Barrett pointed to the bipartisan nature of the bill when the veto was originally announced two weeks ago.

Its highly disappointing, he said. The legislature passed unanimously. We really worked in a bipartisan fashion to furnish this bill and to protect state employees that bring forth credible information for us to review in the legislature... We have to be willing to protect people that come forward to their legislature.

Whitmer pointed out at the time that she signed an executive order in January 2019 that offered whistleblower protections to state employees reporting health, safety, or welfare issues within their agencies. While protections for reporting criminal behavior within agencies are already on the books, Barrett argued the legislation would have protected other concerns brought forward.

This would have protected state employees bringing forward any other concerns to the legislature to consider, he said.

Rep. James Lower, R-Cedar Lake, was also pushing this week for a veto override of a bill that sought to defer property tax collection by municipal governments to the summer of 2021. Whitmer shot down that bill due to constitutional concerns over local governments exceeding state limits on borrowing.

GOP lawmaker pushing to override Whitmer veto of tax deferral bills

Senate Bill 943, sponsored by Sen. Peter MacGregor, R-Rockford, removed those concerns, Lower said in a statement. It was passed in the House on Wednesday by a 57-47 vote and returned to the Senate for review due to the changes made.

The governor expressed several concerns with our earlier plan, Lower said in the statement. While we disagree on the alleged issues with the prior bill, the Legislature nevertheless removed the provisions the governor pointed to in her veto letter. Its impossible to overstate how important this legislation is to the people of the state of Michigan. Many families are hurting and we owe it to them to come up with a solution. Weve come up with at least two so far. Our new plan allows local flexibility, while still offering help to those who need it.

Read more from MLive:

More virtual classrooms? House OKs Return to Learn bills in late-night session

More health, school spending in 2020 budget revised by Michigan legislature Wednesday
YEREVAN, JULY 23, ARMENPRESS. Foreign Minister of Artsakh Masis Mayilyan addressed a congratulatory message on the 27th anniversary of the foundation of the Artsakh MFA, the ministry told Armenpress.

The message runs as follows:

July 23 marks the 27th anniversary of the foundation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh. And although the date is not a jubilee, however, following the established tradition, I would like to congratulate sincerely the staff of the Central Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the diplomatic missions of the Republic of Artsakh abroad, as well as all those that in different years have worked in the structure of the Foreign Ministry of Artsakh and contributed to its formation and to the protection of the interests of our state and its citizens.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh was established in a fateful period for our people - in the midst of the military aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan against the young independent state - and immediately assumed the most difficult mission of defending the vital interests of the country, including negotiating with official Baku aimed at ceasing the hostilities and ensuring the security of our citizens. It should be noted that thanks to the victories of the Defense Army of Artsakh and our diplomatic efforts, the mission on forcing Azerbaijan to peace was successfully fulfilled - in May 1994, under the mediation of the Russian Federation, Azerbaijan, the Republic of Artsakh and the Republic of Armenia signed a termless ceasefire agreement. Unfortunately, over the past years, due to the destructive position and outright hostility of the top military-political leadership of Azerbaijan, the ceasefire has not been transformed into a lasting and sustainable peace.

Today, in the conditions of the ongoing confrontation with the authorities of Baku, which in tandem with Turkey are pursuing an outright hate policy against Armenians, the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Artsakh faces no less important and responsible tasks. In accordance with the Program of President of the Republic of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunian for 2020-2025, the priority directions of the foreign policy include the international recognition of our state, the peaceful settlement of the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict, the development and deepening of the Republic's international relations, the counteraction to any attempts to isolate it, the further strengthening of the trinity of Armenia, Artsakh and the Diaspora, which will collectively create favorable conditions for the progressive political and social-economic development of Artsakh. The tasks, I should repeat, are responsible, but Id like to state confidently that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh, as an established state institution, in close cooperation with Armenia and the Diaspora, will use its full potential for their successful implementation, for addressing the current serious challenges, and properly presenting our state in the international arena.

Once again, I congratulate the staff of the diplomatic service of the Republic of Artsakh on this significant date and wish everyone peace and prosperity, good luck and success in their professional activities.
The authors present not just a paper trail but an avalanche of confirmation for their thesis. They recount Trumps deceptions about his academic career, his business accomplishments, his enemies, his achievements, his sex and corruption scandals. There are lies that might amuse you (like his false claim to be a Swede), or appall you (like his revision of a National Weather Service map to justify a false claim), or anger you (like his slanders against John McCain, former FBI director James B. Comey and former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III), or frighten you (like his invented claims of electoral fraud).
Hyatt will require guests at hotels in the U.S. and Canada to wear face-coverings within indoor public areas such as meeting and event spaces, restaurants and bars and fitness centers beginning Monday, the hotel giant announced this week.

The added safety measure in the fight against COVID-19 comes just days after the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) released its "Safe Stay Guest Checklist," which calls for mandating face masks in indoor public spaces in addition to proper social distancing protocols.

Other hotel companies are mandating mask usage this summer, including Marriott, which will also require guests to wear face coverings on-site beginning Monday.

Guests without face coverings will be asked to put one on and hotels will provide masks for those without one. Hyatt employees are already required to wear masks.

Hyatt said that some guests may be exempt from the requirement, including those with medical conditions and children under the age of 2. Additionally, guests will not be required to wear masks while consuming food and or drinks at restaurants and bars.

"This new policy comes at a pivotal time amidst the ongoing challenges of COVID-19 and helps us care for the health and safety of our guests and colleagues," Hyatt President and CEO Mark Hoplamazian said in a statement. "In an effort to enable safe travel, we support AHLA's recently expanded Safe Stay initiative and traveler checklist that help us come together as an industry to promote clear guidelines, which for the foreseeable future include the wearing of face coverings in indoor public spaces and practicing social distancing throughout the hotel."

The new face mask requirement comes nearly three months after Hyatt introduced the Global Care & Cleanliness Commitment to enhanced business and operational practices during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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(TravelPulse is a leading travel authority on the web, providing consumer travel news and insider tips and advice for an ever-changing travel world. Read more stories at travelpulse.com)

Visit Travelpulse at www.travelpulse.com
Nigerias health minister, Osagie Ehanire, has said the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) will receive N100 million each to boost their COVID-19 response.

Mr Ehanire said this at the bi-weekly Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 briefing on Thursday.

I am pleased to mention that all states of the federation, including the FCT are receiving support from the COVID-19 response through the Regional Diseases Surveillance Enhancement (REDISSE) Project.

With this support, all states of the federation will receive N100 million to enhance high impact priority response activities. The soon to be reactivated BHCPF will join the funding pool, he said.

The REDISSE Project was initiated by the World Bank to cover all countries in the ECOWAS sub-region as a consequence of the 20142015 West Africa Ebola crisis.

It promotes regional collaboration among ECOWAS countries, in order to ensure that gaps in disease detection and outbreak response across the West African sub-region are effectively addressed.

READ ALSO:

All states in Nigeria, including the FCT, have reported at least a case of the COVID-19 virus.

As of Wednesday, Nigeria has recorded 38,344 cases of the virus. While a total of 15,815 patients have recovered, 813 fatalities have been recorded.

Treatment

At the briefing, the chairman of the task force Boss Mustapha, said India donated seven tonnes of hydroxychloroquine to Nigeria for treatment of the COVID-19 virus.

The Presidential Task Force wishes to thank friendly nations and corporate organisations for their supports through donations of medicines and equipment

In this regard, we thank India for the donation of seven tons of hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of patients. We wish to assure you that the resources will be judiciously utilised, he noted.

He also applauded sub-national entities for taking ownership in the fight against the pandemic.

He encouraged them to continue as it is the most practicable means of dealing with community transmission phase of the virus.

Mr Mustapha urged Nigerians to comply with the preventive measures already put in place to curb the spread of the virus.

Remember to wear your face mask in the proper manner when in public places. Do not share face mask because any face mask that is already used becomes a contaminated material and could be dangerous.

Finally, dispose of your mask and any other used item properly and safely. This will save others, including street cleaners from being exposed to dangers.
Invite to church led Hollywood designer down path to abandon gay identity

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A former Hollywood designer who worked with celebrities and supermodels and once identified as gay has articulated why contemporary sexuality labels do not accurately describe him and detailed his own road to Damascus.

In interviews with media organizations this week, author Becket Cook explained that he knew he was same-sex attracted at an early age and later embraced it as his identity for years before he was faced with a come-to-God experience.

"The main thing that happened was the Holy Spirit, Cook told The Christian Post in a phone interview on Tuesday. My encounter with God was so road-to-Damascus. But I knew instantly that being gay was not my identity anymore, that dating guys was not a part of my future and I didn't care.

Cook, the author of the 2019 book A Change of Affection: A Gay Man's Incredible Story of Redemption, told The Christian Broadcasting Network on Monday that he felt that he had to hide his same-sex attraction growing up. He dated girls when he was elementary school through high school. But, it was all a facade.

After college, Cook moved to Los Angeles to pursue a creative career in the arts and came out as gay, fully embracing homosexuality as his identity.

"After each relationship with a guy, and after it would end, I had total amnesia [about] how it all ended and I would think, 'Oh, the next guy is going to be perfect. And the next guy is going to be amazing, he remembered.

But within a few years, relationships would end and usually were punctuated by cheating and infidelity. But several years ago, Cook unexpectedly encountered the living God.

At the time, Cook thought the entire purpose of his life was fulfillment in finding true love in another guy and career success. He achieved success as a set and production designer, as he did covers for outlets like Vogue and worked with a lot of stars like Katy Perry, Paris Hilton and Oprah Winfrey.

Everyone you can imagine, I worked with them, he said.

He also started his own mens fashion line that reached popular fashion citys like New York and Paris. But his accomplishments did not fulfill him, he said.

"Is that all there is to life?" he recalled thinking after a celebrity-laden fashion show after-party in Paris on one occasion.

Everyone was there from the fashion world. Kanye [West] was there that year, he recalled. I was kind of looking out over the crowd and it just struck me so profoundly. Is that all there is to life? Just going to parties for the rest of my life. Is this what it is all about?

Cook said he started panicking and was overwhelmed with a sense of emptiness.

After getting back to Los Angeles and getting busy with work for about six months, he randomly encountered some Christians in a coffee shop in 2009 with their Bibles open on the tables. He said that was the first time he had seen a Bible in public in Los Angeles.

At that point in his life, Cook said he was a practical atheist.

He said he asked the group if they were Christians. They told him about what they believe and shared the Gospel. After Cook asked the group what their church believes about homosexuality, they told him that they believe homosexuality is a sin.

Cook said he appreciated their honesty and they invited him to church that following Sunday.

When they responded that [homosexuality] is a sin, I kind of had this moment where I thought maybe there is a God, there is a slim chance that God exists, he told CP. At that point, I was practically an atheist. I thought the Bible was like any Greek myth.

But Cook wondered if God exists and homosexuality is a sin, would that mean that he had built his life on a false foundation.

"I remember taking this idea that homosexuality was my identity and kicked it up out of my brain and put it on an imaginary shelf," Cook explained.

On that Sunday, he woke up and attended the church service. The pastor preached on Romans 7, a sermon that resonated with him.

Cook remembered thinking while the pastor prayed over him: Why does this straight dude love me so much?

Because it seemed so loving what he was saying and praying," Cook explained.

Moments later, the Holy Spirit came in power, Cook said. Cook was overcome by His presence and began bawling.

In response to those who claim that Cook is suppressing his true self by saying he no longer identifies with homosexuality, Cook said that he lived that life for many years and did everything that came with it.

"I marched in gay pride parades. I marched in gay marriage equality parades. I was super gay. I tried that for 30 years, Cook said. "My hope is that people will realize how much more amazing it is to deny yourself and follow Christ rather than just give in to sin now just to satisfy some immediate need."

Cook said that he is happy to leave that dead man behind because He is worth it."

Today, Becket spends much of his time doing ministry work as he speaks about the issue of homosexuality at churches, schools and conferences across the country.

The author believes that the turmoil besetting the Western world as a result of postmodernity and not having any objective truth whatsoever is a heavy burden for any human being to bear.

"I was at that point in my life where that burden was crushing me," Cook explained.

"The plus side of this issue [of homosexuality] being so dominant in the culture is that the Church can no longer look away, and they actually have to deal with it. And pastors are getting educated on this issue and are getting way more insight on this issue than they did in the 1980s."
Actor Zaan Khan led a protest outside the building of Hamari Bahu Silk producers and also shared a picture of the same on his Instagram profile. Sharing images from outside the building, he wrote, #Repost @viralbhayani with @make_repost Hamari bahu silk serial actors protested outside the producers office in Versova. Sadly, they have not been paid their dues for over a year. The channel #zeetv too have not supported them. @zaan001 @partho_stylist #humaribahusilk #supportthem.

His co-star Chahat Pandey, who could not be present at the protest as she is not in Mumbai, also extended her support and told Times of India, Zaan has no option left now but to do something to get us the money. If I was in Mumbai, I would have been there with him. The protest is justified. All our pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

Casting director of the show, Parag Chadha, who was present for the protests, told the daily, We managed to locate Devyanis building with immense difficulty. Learning that we are below her building, she has switched off her phone. Now, Zaan and Rahul (the shows director) have gone inside the building to talk to the secretary.

Zaan was among the first ones to raise his voice against the producers. As the rest of the industry struggled with lack of work and related financial crisis, Zaan shared a picture with co-star Chahat Pandey and wrote in an Instagram post in May, Its sad and shocking to know that team #HumariBahuSilk has not been paid till date!! Also, the actors and technicians are threatening to commit suicide!! Why does this happen all the time!! Why cant Broadcasts do something!! #ZeeTV #ZaanKhan @zeetv @zaan001.

Devyani, Jyoti Gupta and Sudhanshu Tripathi co-produced the show that ran for six months last year. Later, Jyoti said in a statement, It is a shame that we are to see this day where conveniently all the blame has shifted on to me when all I have done is everything in the best of my capacity to assist, run and continue with the shoot with the limited resources and in such chaotic situations. Jyoti claimed Devyani alone was to be blamed.

Also read: Amitabh Bachchan dismisses report of testing negative for Covid-19: Incorrect, Irresponsible, fake

Recently, Zaan talked about pay cuts for artists as shoots resumed after three months. My friend who is also an actor was working on Rs 6000 per day before and now post pay cut, it has come down to Rs 3000. Then he has to give 10% in TDS and pay 20 % to his coordinator, so whats left with him? Do pay cuts par salary dekh le karo. Someone who is s earning Rs10,000 in a month, then where will he go after pay cuts? This will lead to depression, he told Hindustan Times earlier this month, adding that someone who earns Rs 1 lakh per day, can afford a bigger cut but not everyone else.

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Haiti - FLASH : The Government Commissioner Me Lafontant resigns





48 hours after the letter of reprimand and call to order from the new Minister of Justice Rockefeller Vincent, who reproached him in a letter dated July 20 among others for his insubordination, Me Jacques Lafontant Government Commissioner at the Court of First Instance (TPI) of Port-au-Prince, handed in his resignation in a correspondence in the flavor of settling an account... Exchange of correspondence that we invite you to share...



Letter of reprimand from Minister Vincent :



"Me. Jacques Lafontant

Government Commissioner

Near the Court of First Instance of Port-au-Prince

At the Parquet.



Subject: Letter of Blame



Commissioner,



In my capacity as first person in charge of the implementation of the penal policy of the Government, I deplore your blameworthy reaction to my precise instruction relating to an Ordinance issued by the Cabinet of Instruction. This is a serious act of insubordination endangering the society which you are required, by delegation of authority, to protect and which threatens, at the same time, the stability of the State. This injunction, Commissioner, is in line with the constant line of the Government of the Republic of fighting against armed gangs, against firearms traffickers, against those who attack protected social values and against conspirators who 'attack the internal security of the State.



I remind you, Mr Government Commissioner, that you are a subordinate who must execute any order from the Ministry of Justice and Public Security as long as it is not manifestly illegal. I expect that in the future you will rise to the high dimension which characterizes a Government Commissioner who must be a worthy representative of the Executive in the Judiciary.



In this capacity which is yours, I take this opportunity to instruct you to give a diligent follow-up to my instructions concerning land insecurity. I demand, on this point, clear signals proving your determination to fight this scourge that the Moise Jouthe administration is striving to eradicate. Your concrete steps in this fight for constitutionally and conventionally guaranteed property rights would silence some lingering rumors.



Civilities.



Rockefeller Vincent, Av., Minister."



Letter of resignation from Me Jacques Lafontant Government Commissioner :



"Port-au-Prince, July 22, 2020

Me Rockefeller Vincent

Minister of Justice and Public Security

In his ministry



Subject : Resignation



Minister,



I acknowledge receipt of your correspondence dated July 20, 2020 in which you reported persistent rumors by evoking the problem of land insecurity and conflict of property rights. I want to remind you that between persistent rumors and proven facts, the difference is huge.



Mr. Minister, following the parallelism of forms, I am obliged to present this correspondence to you in the form and content that follows:



According to an article published on January 24 of the current year in the columns of the newspaper "Le Nouvelliste", under the stamp of the journalist Jean Daniel Senate, I borrow this form of questioning on certain subjects whose answers have already been revealed to members of the social body.



Who do we blame for the release of several bandits involved in acts of kidnappings, rapes and vehicle thefts when he was Government Commissioner to the Court of First Instance of Cap-Haitien in 2006 ?



Who was the object of reproaches and pinned down successively, according to investigative reports, in acts of corruption and irregular release, under the administration of ex-ministers Henry Marge Dorleans 2005 and Paul Denis in 2006 ?



More recently, who was the object of dismissal for unproductiveness under the administration of Ex Minister Heidi Fortune ? https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31253-haiti-justice-the-new-minister-had-been-dismissed-in-2017-for-unproductive.html



Mr. Keeper of the Seals,



I inform you about your religion, during my studies at the Normal Superior School, at the Faculty of Ethnology, at the Faculty of Law of Gonaives, at Quisqueya / Paris-Est Creteil University and in the Master 2 / double program graduation; none of my diplomas are doubtful, let alone riddled with forgeries or fraud.



I remind you that any conflict relating to property rights is the exclusive responsibility of the Civil Court. However, in my capacity as Government Commissioner, in my essentially penal role and guarantor of social order, I have already taken certain measures relating to the various complaints submitted to my assessment and the applicants will always be able to testify to them.



In addition, I was in charge of the exequatur cell under the administration of my predecessor, Me Paul Eronce Villard, no scandal was recorded on the issuance of exequatur. The famous exequatur which caused so much turmoil and endangering society dates back to 2016 and was issued by a Deputy Government Commissioner who was a member of your Cabinet when you were Director of the ULCC.



On the strength of all these observations, I have chosen to no longer be your subordinate, and I submit to you my resignation which has immediate effect.



Civilities,



Me Jacques Lafontant, Government Commissioner."



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Living in the Bay Area means that our average, everyday views are some of the best in the world.

Here are five of our favorite short hikes with spectacular vistas along the way.

Hike San Francisco's Lands End Trail



Been talking about doing this one for a while and still haven't made it out to the northwest corner of San Francisco? Bite the bullet and head to Lands End this weekend, where four miles of beautiful, well-maintained trails will give you views of China Beach, Sutro Baths, and the Golden Gate Bridge. The hike isn't strenuous at all, so it's a good place to bring family. Learn more.

Inside Tip: While you're on the Coastal Trail, look for a turnoff to Mile Rock Beach. Follow the signs and you'll find yourself at a large stone labyrinth created by artist Eduardo Aguilera in 2004.





Take in Epic Coastal Views in Marin

It takes no time at all to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge to Muir Beach, and the sunset views that await you at the Muir Beach Overlook make the jaunt worth your while. The overlook is set a mile north of the main beach; park in the nearby lot, walk five minutes, and you're there. So, definitely more view than hike on this one. On a clear day, you'll be able to see miles up and down the coastline and all the way to the Farallon Islands. This overlook also provides a pretty spectacular spot to take in the sunset, but be sure to bring layers; it quickly gets chilly when the sun goes down. Learn more.

Inside Tip: From December through spring, thousands of gray whales migrate from their Arctic feeding grounds down to Baja, Californiaand they hug the California coastline the entire way. Head to the overlook and there's a good chance you'll see some passing by.

Hike to the Peak of Angel Island



The largest island in the Bay, Angel Island is a short ferry ride away and full of hiking trails and campsites  not to mention spectacular views of San Francisco. Hike the five-mile perimeter loop, which gets you a 360-degree look around the bay and takes you to the top of Mt. Livermore, the highest point on Angel Island. Learn more.

Inside Tip: Enjoying island life? Reserve a campsite and stay overnight to see San Francisco all lit up. *UPDATE July 6, 2020: Campsites on Angel Island are currently closed due to COVID-19. Please check the official website for updates.





Hike and Picnic at Tank Hill

Want the views of Twin Peaks without the crowds of tourists? Then Tank Hill is for you. Tucked away in Cole Valley, Tank Hill is something of a hidden gem  it's hard to find unless you know it's there. Drive to the eastern dead end of Belgrave Avenue and follow the small path up to the 650-foot summit, where you'll get views spanning from the Marin Headlands to the southern end of the East Bay. Learn more.

Inside Tip: There's only one bench up there, but more than enough space to spread out a picnic blanket. Grab supplies at the market on Cole Street and lunch alfresco.

Climb the East Bay's Tallest Peak



We might have said these were short hikes, but the climb up Mt. Diablo is a bit more than that. At 3,849 feet tall, this is the East Bay's highest peak, and the trail leading up to its summit is 6.8 miles long  which, of course, leaves another 6.8 miles for you on the way down. Bring hiking boots, lots of water, and snacks, and know that your effort will be rewarded with spectacular Bay views once you get to the top. Learn more.

Inside Tip: Walnut Creek's L Beercafe & Bottle Shop (1541 Giammona Dr.) is open for to-go beers during the COVID-19 pandemic.


ARCHIVED - Nearly 1,000 new Covid cases in Spain during the last 24 hours



The figure of 971 is the highest since 8th May

Covid figures published on Thursday 23rd July have continued the upward tendency of the last few days, reaching 971 cases registered in 24 hours, the highest figure since 8th May and bringing the overall total to 270,166.

There have been 3 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the total fatalities count in Spain up to 28,429.

Aragon remains the region with the highest number of new cases, with 415 new positives, followed by Cataluna on 182 and Madrid 112.

Click for a detailed breakdown of the data

List of new cases by region:



 Andalucia: 47

 Aragon: 415

 Asturias: 4

 Balearic Islands: 2

 Canary Islands: 5

 Cantabria: 4

 Castilla-La Mancha: 19

 Castilla y Leon: 5

 Cataluna: 182

 Ceuta: 0

 Comunidad Valenciana: 33

 Extremadura: 6

 Galicia: 7

 Madrid: 102

 Melilla: 0

 Murcia: 1

 Navarra: 66

 Basque Country: 61

 La Rioja: 12

These figures obviously vary significantly from those being reported by regional authorities. Murcia for example, has reported 67 new cases in its own regional report, yet the official figures here show only 1 case.

The calculation methods used by the Spanish Government are frequently called into question; as the two examples below show, cases only recorded based on a diagnoses the previous day.Sometimes, for example, the number of cases can increase by 1,000 when only 500 "new cases" have been officially reported, and the figures tend to be adjusted at the end of the week. In the last couple of weeks the weekly press conferences have stopped at the weekends and no reports are issued; the result is that on Monday there is a major adjustment. For example this weekend only 685 "new cases" were reported on Monday, but the difference in the total cases reported between Friday and Monday was 4,581 "new " cases.

Figures gathered by WHO are compiled from data supplied by the 17 regional health authorities, which as shown below, varies from the official figures reported by the Spanish government.

The media in Spain report the government figures.

Catalonia has reported independently 1,949 new cases, although the majority of the positives relate to rapid test antibody results and not to PCR swab tests; the official figures only report 182 new cases.

The same situation exists regarding the fatalities counts as the official count by the national Government only includes cases officially diagnosed by PCR swab test. At the height of the pandemic there was a significant shortage of tester equipment, so many cases were never officially tested. As a result the official figures for Catalonia are 5,680 fatalities, whereas the regional government quotes figures from the funeral homes in Catalonia which have so far registered 12,661 deaths from coronavirus: 6,936 in a hospital or social health center, 4,116 in residences, 805 at home, and the rest are cases that cannot be classified due to lack of information.

Of the total cases, 4,231 have been hospitalized in serious condition (there are currently 61) and 40,590 hospital discharges have been registered so far.

281 active outbreaks

In Spain on Thursday there are 281 active outbreaks of coronavirus with 3,200 linked cases, Catalonia and Aragon being the autonomous regions that "cause the most concern" to the Ministry of Health, as Barcelona, Lleida and Zaragoza are all experiencing community transmission, ie there are so many outbreaks they cease to be isolated and become a generalised transmission of the virus.



The acting head of the area of the Coordination Center for Health Alerts and Emergencies of the Ministry of Health, Maria Jose Sierra, explained this Thursday at a press conference that "practically all the autonomous communities" are experiencing outbreaks in recent days and that related cases are increasing, with nightlife the principal protagonist.



Since the end of the de-escalation, 369 outbreaks with 5,000 cases have been detected in Spain, although many of the 281 outbreaks currently recorded are now under control.



In the last two weeks, she said, the accumulated incidence of infections has tripled.

She stressed that there are more and more outbreaks associated with leisure and discos, some affecting more than one hundred people.



There are 15 outbreaks with more than 350 cases related to family gatherings and parties and 27 outbreaks that affect workers in the agricultural sector.



Not all outbreaks are of the same magnitude; 70% have ten cases or less.



She stated that the health service is "concerned" about the epidemiological situation, although the health system is not experiencing stress despite the increase in cases, as 50% of positives are asymptomatic. "There are still very few cases hospitalized and in the ICU compared to those diagnosed. In places where there is a higher incidence, the numbers of hospitalized patients are beginning to increase, but without putting stress on hospital services, because half are asymptomatic and the vast majority are mild cases and young people ", she explained.

The Health Ministry considers that all the measures adopted by the autonomous communities to stop transmission are adequate.

Average age of cases is 45, but starting to increase again

The average age of positive cases diagnosed this Thursday is 45, although the Health Ministry is starting to see a rise in the age of the latest patients, something which she said: "worries us because age is the factor that is most associated with the severity of the disease. "

UK

769 new cases in the UK during the last 24 hours

WHO

This afternoon the WHO, which also only measures cases diagnosed by PCR, reported that there are now more than 15 million cases worldwide, and that the number of deaths has passed 620,000. Almost half of all cases relate to just three countries; the USA, India and Brazil.

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New Delhi, July 23 : A Delhi court on Thursday allowed 198 Indonesian nationals to walk out free, after levying a penalty under the plea bargaining process, after they accepted mild charges related to various violations while attending the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in March.

Plea bargain is a pre-trial negotiation between the accused and the prosecution where the accused agrees to plead guilty in exchange for certain concessions by the prosecution.

Metropolitan Magistrate Vasundhara Azad, of the Saket Court, directed 100 foreign nationals to pay a fine of Rs 7,000, while another Metropolitan Magistrate, Swati Sharma, asked the rest to pay a penalty of Rs 5,000. One Indonesian, however, sought a trial in the matter.

The Crime Branch of Delhi Police has named more than 900 foreign nationals in connection with the case. An FIR was registered against Tablighi Jamaat leader Maulana Saad Kandhalvi and others on March 31.

The accused have been charged under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code, the Epidemic Diseases Act, the Disaster Management Act, and also for violating the prohibitory orders under section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

On July 6, the court had noted that there was prima facie sufficient material on record to proceed against the accused persons under Section 14 (b) of the Foreigners Act, 1946, provisions of the Epidemic Diseases Act, the Disaster Management Act and the Indian Penal Code.
President Trump announced Wednesday that he is sending more than 100 federal agents to Chicago to curb violence in the city. The initiative comes as part of a new anti-crime program called "Operation Legend."

"This rampage of violence shocks the conscience of our nation and we will not stand by and watch it happen," Mr. Trump said at a news conference Wednesday.

The DOJ said in a press release that the city is "experiencing a significant increase in violent crime, with homicides currently up 51 percent over 2019." On Tuesday night, 15 people were wounded in a shooting in the city's South Side.

"The most basic responsibility of government is to protect the safety of our citizens," Attorney General William Barr said in a statement. "Today, we have extended Operation Legend to Chicago and Albuquerque to protect the residents of those cities from senseless acts of deadly violence by targeting those involved in gang activity and those who use guns to commit violent crime."

The Department of Justice said that over 100 federal investigators from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will be sent to the city. At least 100 agents from the Department of Homeland Security that are already stationed in the city will also be committed to the operation.

But Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she won't let federal troops terrorize her city. "That's what we call tyranny, and dictatorship, and we are not having it in Chicago," she said.

Federal officers highlight a protester with a green laser to make him an easier target for less-lethal rounds while dispersing a crowd of a few hundred people at the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse on July 21, 2020 in Portland, Oregon. / Credit: Nathan Howard / Getty Images

The move comes after more than 100 federal agents were sent to Portland, Oregon to quell unrest in the city. The agents have repeatedly tear gassed protesters, and officials at Oregon's federal, state and local level have called for the agents to leave.

The administration has also sent over 200 agents to Kansas City and 35 to Albuquerque  and it plans to send more in the weeks ahead.

Story continues

Albuquerque's mayor spoke out against the decision on Wednesday night.

"We always welcome partnerships in constitutional crime fighting that are in step with our community, but we won't sell out our city for a bait and switch excuse to send secret police to Albuquerque," Mayor Tim Keller said in a statement. "Operation Legend is not real crime fighting; it's politics standing in the way of police work and makes us less safe."

Mr. Trump has been promoting himself as the "law and order" leader as part of his re-election push. He's accused presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden of planning to defund the police, which Biden disputes.

"I am opposed to defunding police. Matter of fact, I call for putting more money in," he said.

Air conditioning units could spread COVID-19, research suggests

Texas judge orders county shutdown, but governor says it's unenforceable

CBS New York remembers reporter Nina Kapur
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 21:04:12|Editor: huaxia

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MOGADISHU, July 23 (Xinhua) -- About 5.2 million Somalis including three million children are in need of humanitarian assistance due to the triple threat of floods, locusts and COVID-19, the UN children's fund (UNICEF) said on Thursday.

Jesper Moller, deputy representative of UNICEF Somalia said the Horn of Africa nation is one of the most fragile nations in the world, a country that has experienced decades of conflict, cyclical drought and floods and he called on the international community to act swiftly to avert the crisis.

"Now, to compound the situation, the impact of the locust invasion and the COVID-19 pandemic means the international community has to act fast to help save the lives of millions of Somali families, especially the most vulnerable - the children," Moller said in a statement issued in Mogadishu.

According to UNICEF, children are often the hidden victims of any emergency and are more susceptible to waterborne diseases as a result of the flooding and severe malnutrition due to food shortages.

Moller said there has been an upsurge in cases of acute watery diarrhea/cholera in recent months.

"To further exacerbate the situation, while the immediate impact of the locust invasion is on crop production, which is projected to be 10 to 15 percent lower than the long-term average, the secondary impact will be on children with an anticipated increase of being severely malnourished due to food shortages," he added.

The UN agency said it is working tirelessly in close coordination with the government and local partners to not only prevent and mitigate the spread of COVID-19 but also to continue to provide life-saving assistance to those desperately in need.

As part of the ongoing efforts, said UNICEF, nearly one million vulnerable people have received critical hygiene items and more than 500,000 women and children have been provided with basic health and nutritional services in flood-impacted communities and camps for the internally displaced.
DUBLIN, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "The Corporate Reputation of Pharma in 2019 - The Patient Perspective - Global Edition - The Views of 1,850 Patient Groups" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

How did the Industry Perform?

Patient-group attitudes towards the pharma industry as a whole were more positive in 2019 than in any of the previous years this survey has been undertaken. Patient groups rated the pharmaceutical industry 1st for corporate reputation out of nine healthcare sectors (a first for the pharma industry).

46% of 2019's respondent patient groups stated that the pharmaceutical industry had an "Excellent" or "Good" corporate reputation, ranking pharma 1st out of nine healthcare sectors for corporate reputation.

However, patient group attitudes do vary worldwide.



The pharma industry's overall corporate reputation was highest in 2019 among patient groups in Greece , Latin-American countries, Turkey , China , and Poland . By contrast, only 13% of the 2019's respondent patient groups from Ireland described the industry as having an "Excellent" or "Good" corporate reputation.

, Latin-American countries, , , and . By contrast, only 13% of the 2019's respondent patient groups from described the industry as having an "Excellent" or "Good" corporate reputation. The largest improvements in pharma's corporate reputation, 2018 to 2019, were seen in Greece , Latin-American countries, Portugal , and Canada . By contrast, respondent patient groups from Ireland reported the industry's corporate reputation to be falling, 2018 to 2019.

2019's respondent patient groups also stated that the pharma industry's performance at activities of importance to patients had mostly improved since 2018



2019's respondent patient groups clearly felt that the pharmaceutical industry, despite having made improvements, still has scope to do better, particularly in the areas of:



Transparency

Patient Engagement in R&D

Fair Pricing Policies

Less than one-fifth of 2019's respondent patient groups thought the pharmaceutical industry "Excellent" or "Good" at transparency (whether transparency in its pricing of products, in the sharing of its clinical data, or in its funding of external stakeholders).



Less than one-fifth of 2019's respondent patient groups considered the pharmaceutical industry "Excellent" or "Good" at patient engagement in R&D (despite regular calls throughout 2019 by patient organisations and regulators for the further involvement of patients in this core pharma activity).



Only 10% of 2019's respondent patient groups believed the pharmaceutical industry to be "Excellent" or "Good" at having fair pricing policies.



About the Survey and the Analyses



I. Results of a survey of 1,850 patient groups



Survey conducted: November 2019 - February 2020 .

- . Survey conducted in 20 languages: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Turkish.

Industry-wide analyses: The pharma industry as a whole assessed at a wide range of activities important to patients and patient groups; its performance at corporate reputation compared with that of other healthcare sectors.

Company analyses: 48 pharma companies analysed for performance at 12 indicators of corporate reputation by patient groups familiar with the company, and by patient groups that work or partner with the company.

II. Best-practice case studies from eight leading pharma companies



The eight contributing pharmaceutical companies are:



Boehringer Ingelheim

Gilead Sciences

Ipsen

Lundbeck (US division)

Merck KGaA/EMD Serono

Novartis

Pfizer

ViiV Healthcare

These eight companies tell their own stories about their patient-centric strategies, and what they were doing in 2019 (and have planned for 2020) to improve their corporate reputation with patients and patient groups.



A note about COVID-19



COVID-19 should have little impact on the results of the 2019 'Corporate-Reputation' study, due to the timing of the survey (November 2019 to February 2020 - largely before the crisis became global). Only the opinions of the 15 respondent China-based patient groups may have been influenced by the epidemic.



However, COVID-19 is already creating greater public awareness of the pharmaceutical industry. On the one hand, the industry's scientific abilities are being applauded. On the other hand, drug companies have come under pressure to reduce prices during the pandemic. The 2019 'Corporate-Reputation' results can, therefore, serve as a platform to assist pharma in its corporate-reputation strategies, in the context of the COVID-19 crisis and thereafter at a time when the reputation of the pharmaceutical industry is very much in the public eye.



Key Topics Covered



Executive summary Patient-group relationships with pharma, 2019 Industry-wide findings, 2019 Rankings of the 48 pharma companies, 2019 (v. 2018) among patient groups familiar with the companies Rankings of the 48 pharma companies, 2019 (v. 2018) among patient groups that work with the companies Profiles of the 48 companies, 2019 (v. 2018)



Appendices



Profiles of respondent patient groups, 2019 IMethodology What 8 pharmaceutical companies say about their patient-oriented activities, 2019/2020



Tables and Charts



The key therapy areas of the 2019 respondent patient groups

The geographic spread of the 2019 respondent patient groups

Corporate reputation of the pharmaceutical industry, 2011-2019 (percentage of respondent patient groups stating Excellent or Good)

Corporate reputation of the pharmaceutical industry, 2019-by country (percentage of respondent patient groups stating Excellent or Good) [figure in brackets equals number of respondent patient groups]

Percentage change in the corporate reputation of the pharmaceutical industry, 2019 v. 2018 - by country(respondent patient groups stating Excellent or Good) [figure in brackets equals number of respondent patient groups]

Percentage of respondent patient groups stating that the pharmaceutical industry was Excellent or Good at being patient centric, 2019 - by country [figure in brackets equals number of respondent patient groups]

Percentage of respondent patient groups stating that the pharmaceutical industry was Excellent or Good at ensuring access to medicines, 2019 - by country [figure in brackets equals number of respondent patient groups]

Percentage of respondent patient groups stating that pharma was Excellent or Good at having fair pricing policies, 2019

Companies' respective increases in overall rankings in the Corporate-Reputation' league table, 2019 v. 2018 - according to respondent patient groups that are familiar, and which work, with the company

Percentage of respondent patient groups that stated None or They did not know any company that was Best at an activity, 2019

Overall rankings of individual pharma companies among patient groups familiar with the company, 2019 v. 2018 - ordered high to low

Companies' NPS scores, 2019 - according to respondent patient groups that work with the company; ordered high to low

The rankings of 14 big-pharma' companies at corporate reputation, 2019 v. 2018 - according to respondent patient groups familiar with the companies

The rankings of 14 big-pharma' companies at corporate reputation, 2019 v. 2018 - according to respondent patient groups that work with the companies

Patient groups: familiarity, and partnerships, with pharma companies, 2019 (according to respondent patient groups)

The types of working relationships that respondent patient groups have with pharma companies, 2019

The corporate reputation of the pharmaceutical industry, 2019 v. 2018 - compared with that of 8 other healthcare sectors - according to respondent patient groups

The corporate reputation of the pharmaceutical industry, 2011-2019 - according to respondent patient groups

The perceived effectiveness of the pharmaceutical industry at carrying out specific activities, 2010 v. 2019 - according to respondent patient groups

Perceptions of the efficacy of the pharmaceutical industry at various activities of importance to patient groups, 2019 v. previous years - according to respondent patient groups

Rankings of individual pharma companies, 2019 v. 2018 - according to respondent patient groups familiar with the company

Rankings of individual pharma companies, 2019 v. 2018 - according to respondent patient groups that work or partner with the company



Profiles of the 48 companies, 2019



Charts and Tables for Each of the 48 Companies:

Number of respondent patient groups claiming familiarity with the company, 2019.

Number of respondent patient groups saying that they had a working relationship with the company, 2019.

Profile of respondent patient groups familiar with the company, 2019: country headquarters; specialties; geographic remit; and types of relationships.

Company scores among respondent patient groups familiar with the company, and which worked with the company, for each of the 12 indicators of corporate reputation, 2019.

Percentage of the respondent patient groups that worked with the company, but which also worked with other companies, 2019.

Overall rankings for the company according to respondent patient groups familiar with the company, 2019 v. 2018.

Overall rankings for the company according to respondent patient groups that work with the company, 2019 v. 2018.

Company rankings for each of the 12 indicators according to respondent patient groups familiar, or working, with the company, 2019 v. 2018.

Overall rankings among respondent patient groups familiar with the company, 2015-2019.

Snapshot view: where the company sits in the corporate tiers for each of the 12 indicators (in the higher, the middle, or the lower tier), as assessed by respondent patient groups familiar with the company, 2019.

Snapshot view: where the company sits in the corporate tiers for each of the 12 indicators (in the higher, the middle, or the lower tier), as assessed by respondent patient groups that work with the company, 2019.

The company's Net Promoter Score, 2019.

The company's Net Promoter Score, 2017-2019.

Companies Mentioned



AbbVie

Acorda Therapeutics

Allergan

Almirall

Amgen

Astellas Pharma

AstraZeneca

Bayer

Bial

Biogen

Boehringer Ingelheim

Bristol Myers Squibb

Celgene

Chiesi Farmaceutici

CSL Behring

Daiichi Sankyo

Eisai

Eli Lilly

Ferring

Gedeon Richter

Gilead Sciences (including Kite Pharma)

Grifols

Grnenthal

GSK

Ipsen

Janssen (Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson)

LEO Pharma

Lundbeck

Menarini

Merck KGaA/EMD Serono

Merck & Co (MSD outside Canada and the US)

and the US) Mundipharma

Novartis

Novo Nordisk

Octapharma

Otsuka

Pfizer

Pierre Fabre Laboratories

Roche (Chugai in Japan ; Genentech in the USA )

; Genentech in the ) Sandoz

Sanofi

Servier

Takeda (including its 2018-2019 acquisition Shire)

Teva

UCB

Vertex

Vifor

ViiV Healthcare

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/4eqffw

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: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com








Tesla will build its $1.1 billion Cybertruck factory near Austin, Texas, ending an intense competition with neighboring Oklahoma, the electric carmaker's chief executive, Elon Musk, announced late on Wednesday.

The 2,000-acre site on the Colorado River is about 13 minutes from downtown Austin, Musk said during Tesla's second-quarter earnings call.

"It's going to be an ecological paradise ... open to the public," he said.

Musk said Tesla would consider site runner-up Tulsa, Oklahoma, for future production.

Musk and his team met earlier this month with officials in both states, which were competing to land the plant.

Tesla's new Cybertruck and its heavy-duty Semi truck, as well as the Model 3 and Model Y cars for eastern North America, will be built at the Texas plant, Musk said Wednesday.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott welcomed the news. "Tesla is one of the most exciting and innovative companies in the world, and we are proud to welcome its team to the State of Texas," he said in a statement.

Oklahoma's secretary of commerce, Sean Kouplen, in a statement said the state would actively pursue Tesla's supplier base to persuade them to locate in Oklahoma.

Both states offered hefty incentive packages, including tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks, in efforts to woo what is now the world's most valuable automaker, as measured by stock market capitalization.

Tesla told Texas officials the plant would create at least 5,000 jobs, while Oklahoma officials were told about the creation of at least 7,000 jobs in the near term and up to 20,000 positions down the line.
HARTFORD, Conn. - The Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a sanction against Infowars host Alex Jones over an angry outburst on his web show against an attorney for relatives of some of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, who are suing him for defamation.

The court issued a 7-0 decision rejecting Jones claims that his comments aimed at attorney Christopher Mattei were protected by free speech rights, and upholding a lower courts ruling that Jones violated numerous orders to turn over documents to the families lawyers.

The lower court judge barred Jones from filing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, as a penalty for his actions.

The families of eight victims of the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, and an FBI agent who responded to the massacre are suing Jones, Infowars and others for promoting a theory that the shooting was a hoax. A 20-year-old gunman killed 20 first-graders, six educators and himself at the school, after having killed his mother at their Newtown home.

The families said they have been subjected to harassment and death threats from Jones followers because of the hoax conspiracy.

Jones, whose show is based in Austin, Texas, has since said he believes the shooting occurred.

The sanction came after Jones, on Infowars last year, accused Mattei of planting child pornography that was found in email metadata files that Jones turned over to the Sandy Hook families lawyers. Jones former lawyer, Norman Pattis, who argued the case before the state Supreme Court, has said the pornography was in emails sent to Jones that were never opened.

Youre trying to set me up with child porn, Jones said on the show. One million dollars, you little gang members. One million dollars to put your head on a pike.

Jones mentioned Mattei by name and pounded on a picture of Mattei while saying, Im gonna kill ... Anyway Im done. Total war. You want it, you got it.

In Thursdays decision, Connecticut Chief Justice Richard Robinson wrote, We recognize that there is a place for strong advocacy in litigation, but language evoking threats of physical harm is not tolerable.

Pattis, who withdrew as Jones attorney without explanation in May, said Thursday that he could no longer speak on behalf of Jones.

Personally, Im disappointed by the Supreme Courts lacklustre commitment to the first amendment, Pattis said in an email to The Associated Press. I hope Mr. Jones seeks U.S. Supreme Court review.

An email message seeking comment was sent to Jones and Infowars on Thursday.

Joshua Koskoff, a lawyer for the families, said in a statement that the ruling was a win for the integrity of the court system.

As other branches of government show signs of cracking under the weight of threats and falsehoods, this ruling reminds us that the courtroom is still a sacred place that remains dedicated to the truth, to precedent and to long-established rules created over centuries, he said.

Sandy Hook families sued Jones and others in several states for defamation related to the hoax conspiracy.

Last year in one of the lawsuits, a Texas judge ordered Jones to pay $100,000 in legal fees and refused to dismiss the suit. And a jury in Wisconsin awarded $450,000 to one of the parents in his lawsuit against conspiracy theorist writers, not including Jones, who claimed the massacre never happened.
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Tata AIA Life Insurance has appointed Naveen Tahilyani as the new Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director. This is subject to regulatory approval from Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI).

This is Tahilyani's second stint at Tata AIA Life Insurance.

Tahilyani will take over from current Chief Executive Officer, Rishi Srivastava, who is moving to Group Agency Distribution, AIA Group, Hong Kong as Chief Executive Officer.

Tahilyani was group head in-charge of transformation at Axis Bank but quit the position within seven months.

Also Read: Naveen Tahilyani quits Axis Bank

Till 2019, Tahilyani was the CEO, Group Partnership Distribution at AIA Hong Kong, where he was responsible for enhancing AIAs partnership distribution for the AIA companies. Prior to this, he was the CEO and Managing Director of Tata AIA from the year 2015 to 2018.

Tata AIA is a joint venture between Tata Sons and AIA Group. The entities in a joint statement said they are confident that the growth momentum in Tata AIA will continue under the leadership of Naveen Tahilyani.

Despite the Coronavirus-led lockdown, Tata AIA Life is among the fastest growing life insurers. For the quarter ended June 30 (Q1), Tata AIA Life saw a 23.8 percent YoY growth in new premiums to Rs 715.15 crore.

The private life insurance industry de-grew by 19.2 percent in the same period and the life industry as a whole saw a 18.6 percent YoY decline in first year premiums to Rs 49,355.44 crore.
One in every 10 Covid-19 deaths in English hospitals in July have been at a single NHS trust in Kent, data has revealed.

Some 37 patients have died from coronavirus at the East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust this month, accounting for 10.8 per cent of the 340 Covid-19 deaths across England in July so far.

The data, compiled by NHS England, has compounded fears over whether in-hospital transmission across east Kent has been one of the biggest factors in the region's high death toll.

The East Kent Trust has seen the most coronavirus deaths in the country over the past month, followed by the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust.

Leicester is already known to be in the grip of dangerous outbreak and the city has been forced into a second lockdown. But there are no such rules in place in Kent.

Some 18 coronavirus patients have died at the Leicester trust in July, accounting for five per cent of all Covid-19 deaths in the past month.

Most of England's 223 NHS trusts have seen no coronavirus deaths in the past month and coronavirus patients who have died have been spread across just a handful of trusts.

One in 10 Covid-19 hospital deaths in England in July have been at a single NHS trust in Kent Pictured: The William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, which is part of the East Kent Hospitals University NHS Trust

Following Leicester, the NHS trust which saw the most deaths was the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Some 13 Covid-19 patients died at the Chester trust in the past month, accounting for 3.8 per cent of all coronavirus hospital deaths in England in July.

WHERE HAVE THE MOST COVID-19 DEATHS BEEN IN JULY IN ENGLISH HOSPITALS? 1.) East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust - 37 deaths 2.) University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust - 18 deaths 3.) Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust - 13 deaths 4.) Manchester University NHS Foundation and Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust - 12 deaths 5.) Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust - 10 deaths 6.) East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust - 9 deaths 7.) Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust and Bedford Hospital NHS Trust - 8 deaths 8.) Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust, University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust and Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - 7 deaths each 9.) Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust, West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust and The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust - 6 deaths 10.) Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, Guy's and St Thomas's NHS Foundation Trust, Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Bolton NHS Foundation Trust - 5 deaths Advertisement

In April, less than one per cent of the country's were recorded at the east Kent Trust but since then the ratio has more than doubled every month.

However, Kent's two other hospital trusts recorded no deaths in the past month.

It is feared that in-hospital transmission has played a big role in high infection rates across the county.

Ashford has the second highest infection rate in the country, with 1,025 in every 100,000 people having the virus, according to Kent Online.

However, Kent County Council's director of public health has said there is no need for a local lockdown in east Kent.

Andrew Scott-Clark said last week that although there have been infections in care settings, 'widespread community transmission' doesn't appear to be a problem.

He added that a 'late, second peak' of new Covid-19 cases at the end of May happened mainly in Ashford and Thanet which is which are home to the county's two acute hospitals.

Acute hospitals offer a level of health care in which a patient is treated for a brief but severe episode of illness.

The East Kent Hospitals Trust is currently being helped by NHS England and NHS Improvement to control the spread of coronavirus infection.

It announced last week that it was aiming to carry testing on all of its 9,000 hospital staff over five days in a bid to reduce the rate of infection.

And health bosses are still investigating why the recent number of deaths at the trust is so high.

Some have suggested that it is down to east Kent having an older population who are more likely to suffer 'co-morbidities' - multiple health conditions that cause their death.

However, figures from the Office for National Statistics have found that the average age of someone in Kent is 41.2 years old, just one year older than the country's average of 40.

The highest age of residents in England is in Norfolk, where the average resident is 48 years old.

And all three of Norfolk's NHS Trusts have seen zero coronavirus deaths in the past month.

Ashford's MP, Conservative Damian Green, said: 'I am glad that the testing of all staff members is now going ahead, as the number of deaths at the William Harvey has been wrongly assumed by many to mean widespread community infections in Ashford.

'Some of the deaths in the various East Kent hospitals can be explained by co-morbidities, but I hope the [staff] testing can reveal the underlying reasons for the figures in the Trust, so that clinicians can take the appropriate action, and everyone in East Kent can be reassured.'

The chief medical officer for East Kent Hospitals, Dr Rebecca Martin, said they are working with Public Health England to 'fully understand' the recent deaths seen in the county.

She added: 'We know that the population of east Kent is significantly older with more co-morbidities than the England average and that we are one of the largest trusts in the country.

Dr Martin added that infection prevention has been a 'priority' throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

She added that patients are advised to wear a face covering, maintain social distancing and regularly clean their hands.

And the trust is limiting the number of people on-site, checking temperatures and providing face masks and hand sanitiser in a bid to control infection rates.
NORTH CHICAGO, Ill., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science announced today that its new Helix 51 incubator has garnered corporate support from AbbVie.

The first bioscience incubator in Lake County, Helix 51, which opened in May 2019, and RFU's new Innovation and Research Park, which opened in March, represent an investment in affordable, state-of-the-art wet lab space critical for the expansion of the bioscience industry in Illinois.

"We are pleased that AbbVie, one of Chicagoland's life science leaders and also one of its largest global companies, is stepping up to support the regional entrepreneurial activities energized by our new Helix 51 incubator," said Dr. Ronald Kaplan, RFU's executive vice president for research. "AbbVie's support in the regional bio ecosystem is pivotal given its global role and impact on this industry and local community."

"AbbVie is committed to growing the life science ecosystem both globally and in the greater Chicago area," said Henry Gosebruch, executive vice president and chief strategy officer, AbbVie. "Supporting regional entrepreneurship through the Helix 51 incubator and Innovation and Research Park is one of the many ways that AbbVie fosters next-generation innovative science that can have a global impact."

The Innovation and Research Park is a 100,000-square-foot building designed to promote collaboration among academic and industry scientists, innovators, and entrepreneurs with the goal of accelerating the development of RFU's nationally recognized research into prevention and treatment of disease.

The Helix 51 incubator  named in recognition of the iconic Photo 51 captured by the university's namesake, which sparked the discovery and description of the structure of DNA  provides a supportive environment, including meeting, office and wet lab space for companies working to develop diagnostics and treatments for disease and innovations in healthcare delivery. Plans call for the expansion of the incubator into the Innovation and Research Park to house 15 or more early-stage, lab-based bioscience companies.

Lake County is home to 33,000 bioscience jobs and 122 companies, according to Lake County Partners, a non-profit economic development group. Helix 51 provides a soft landing zone for international bioscience companies looking to establish a foothold in the United States and particularly the Illinois market. Development of the incubator is supported in part by $2.5 million in funding under the federal New Market Tax Credit program aimed at fueling investments that help create jobs and job-training opportunities in low-income communities.

Helix 51 and the Innovation and Research Park are also attracting investment and industry collaborations through an array of financial incentives under the Waukegan-North Chicago Enterprise Zone, a state program aimed at stimulating economic growth and community revitalization.

About Rosalind Franklin University

Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science is committed to serving the population through the interprofessional education of health and biomedical professionals and the discovery of knowledge dedicated to improving wellness. The university embodies the spirit of inquiry and excellence modeled by its namesake Dr. Rosalind Franklin, whose Photo 51 was crucial to solving the structure of DNA. In 2020, the university commemorates the 100th anniversary of the scientist's birth. Recognized for its research in areas including neuroscience, brain-related diseases, inherited disorders, diabetes, obesity, and gait and balance, RFU encompasses the Chicago Medical School, College of Health Professions, College of Pharmacy, School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and the Dr. William M. Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine. Learn more at rosalindfranklin.edu .

About Abbvie

AbbVie is a global, research-driven biopharmaceutical company committed to developing innovative advanced therapies for some of the world's most complex and critical conditions. The company's mission is to use its expertise, dedicated people and unique approach to innovation to markedly improve treatments across four primary therapeutic areas: immunology, oncology, virology and neuroscience. AbbVie employees are working in more than 75 countries to advance health solutions for people around the world. For more information, visit www.abbvie.com .

SOURCE Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science

Related Links

http://www.finchcms.edu/scholl


AGs sue Trump admin. over rule allowing doctors to not perform abortions, trans surgeries

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A group of Democratic state attorneys general is suing the Trump administration over its rule that allows doctors to decline performing abortions and transgender surgeries.

The legal action challenges the administration's reversal of an Obama-era regulation that included someone's "internal sense of gender, which may be male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female" in its definition of "sex discrimination" in section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. The regulation also included "termination of pregnancy" in that same definition.

New York Attorney General Letitia James is leading the effort and is joined by 23 other state attorneys general representing California, Washington state, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, among others. James has claimed that the change in language was tantamount to denying people healthcare, saying it was "especially egregious" to do so during a pandemic.

Last month, the Trump administration revised those regulations, reverting back to the previous standard of sex discrimination, that which discriminates on the basis of biological sex.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced it would enforce the contested section "by returning to the governments interpretation of sex discrimination according to the plain meaning of the word sex as male or female and as determined by biology.

The agency held that the change maintains vigorous enforcement of federal civil rights laws on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, age, and sex, and restores the rule of law by revising certain provisions that go beyond the plain meaning of the law as enacted by Congress."

With the insertion of "gender identity" and "termination of pregnancy" language, the Obama-era rules were understood to mean that should a doctor or medical institution voice ethical or religious objections to performing an abortion or doing a cosmetic gender surgery, they could be referred to the Department of Justice for legal action and potentially risk losing federal funding.

We are restoring respect to the rule of law, Roger Severino, the director of the Office for Civil Rights at HHS, said in a June 12 interview with RealClearPolitics.

The Obama-era definition, he added, created extraordinary confusion in the science and medical fields.

Since December 2016, federal courts have twice held that the Obama regulations contravened religious freedom protections set forth in established civil rights statutes and other laws protecting religious liberty.

Mary Beth Waddell, senior legislative assistant for the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., said previously of the Trump administration's reversal that it will protect health care providers from being forced to participate in and perform services that substantially violate their consciences and help protect their patients.

Central to disputes where transgender-identified people are concerned is the language used to define key terms and how it applies in law.

Days after the HHS formally returned its policies to its solely biological legal definition, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County which held that sexual orientation and "transgender status" are included in the legal definition of sex discrimination regarding Title VII, the federal civil rights statute pertaining to employment.
The $3.6 billion coal seam gas project proposed for north-western NSW has been described as destructive to water tables and the climate, economically unviable, unnecessary to Australias energy needs and as a dangerous fire hazard during Independent Planning Commission hearings.

The plan, under which energy company Santos would drill 850 wellheads in the Pilliga region near Narrabri, is among the most contentious proposals in NSW history, with the commission receiving around 23,700 submissions from people and bodies opposing it and 300 in support.

Santos's project in Narrabri has caused plenty of division. Credit:AFR

If any of the economics or any singular one of the environment, social or governance factors in this decision were contemplated, the project would be rejected, Bruce Robertson, an energy analyst with the pro-renewables Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, told the hearing on Thursday.

Santos says it would help reduce gas prices on the east coast without causing significant environmental damage, and provide clean energy for a transition to renewable energy.
VANCOUVERRetired Toronto police officer Paul Mackrell went to a pub in the Beach neighbourhood to look into a noise complaint. What he found on that night, all those years ago, was a laughing bar manager with the strongest Scottish accent hed ever heard  a man who would become one of his best friends.

On Wednesday, Mackrell and many others were mourning Allan Young after learning that the man who went on to become a veteran officer with the Abbotsford, B.C., police had died from injuries suffered last week.

Though few details have been released, the 55-year-old constable was off duty when he approached a man who was said to be causing a disturbance in Nelson, B.C. A 26-year-old man faces charges of aggravated assault. There had been no indication, as of publication time, whether those charges will change now that Young has died.

Theres no one who loved being a police officer more than Allan, Mackrell said in a phone interview Wednesday. He had passion and compassion  whether he knows you or he doesnt know you, hes there for you.

In the late 1990s, Mackrell convinced Young to join the Toronto police force. There, he worked under Mackrells brother, James Mackrell, for four years at 52 Division before he decided to move with his then-wife and young daughter to Abbotsford.

I was one of his references for Abbotsford, but I wasnt happy about it because I didnt want him to leave, Paul Mackrell said. He would have done anything for his daughter and he just said Toronto is a big city, I want her to grow up somewhere smaller.

Both of the Mackrells described Youngs people skills as his strongest qualities  the way he ingratiated himself to others by injecting levity into conversations, and using his character-laden accent in ways that always seemed to make others smile.

As a rookie, Allan was extremely popular with everyone, he never got into fights, said James Mackrell, now second in charge at Torontos 33 Division. He had a gift for the gab. Hes remembered by everyone here who ever worked with him, even by dispatchers who only ever talked to him on the phone.

Though most of their conversations involved a lot of laughing and joking, Paul Mackrell recalled how Young was there for him when he needed him most.

I lost a brother to mental illness, and Allan was the one who went to the hospital with me, he said. To me, I just lost another brother.

Friends say Young, originally from Dumbarton, Scotland, moved to Canada out of desire for a challenge and a new way of life, but that he never really left his home country behind.

Liz Mackenzie, who met Young when he was 16 and working as a mechanic for Brains Royal Navy, has three adult children and considered Young her fourth.

He loved Canada, he loved the Canadians, Mackenzie said. He loved his job, his families his friends, but Scotland was his home.

When they spoke on the phone just six weeks ago, they discussed making plans for the Mackenzie family to come visit him and his wife in B.C. once the coronavirus restrictions had lifted.

Do you know what? I have never heard anybody say anything bad about Allan. He was such a big part of our family, she said.  Its a waste of life. I think the guy whos done it to him, I hope his family are suffering just as much as we are.

Over 16 years in Abbotsford, Young continued to make a lasting impression on colleagues and friends.

Allan was never too busy for his friends and family and there was nothing he wouldn't do to help, Abbotsford Chief Constable Mike Serr said in a statement. Allan had a zest for life that was unparalleled with a dedication and passion for policing and the Abbotsford Police Department. He will be missed.

Kevin MacDonald, a freelance journalist and videographer from Abbotsford who met Young at crime scenes over the years, said he couldnt help but becoming friends with Young.

Wed talk, wed shoot the s---. He was great, he was just a great, fun guy, Macdonald said. He always, always was good to the media, one of the few who realized we both had a job to do and we worked together.

When MacDonald last saw Young in Abbotsford two weeks ago, they talked about how Young was looking forward to retiring in about two years to enjoy more time with his family.

Devastated that he wont see his friend again, Paul Mackrell said hes having trouble wrapping his head around what happened.

Nelson police have yet to release detailed information about the altercation.

I think he would want to be remembered as someone who cared about the people who knew him, who served his community to the best of his ability, and who did the right thing, Mackrell said.

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When July Garza sought out a COVID-19 test in early July, the mother of eight had lost her sense of taste and smell and couldnt catch her breath.

Worried she might have the coronavirus, Garza spent two days trying to get tested at the Santa Clara Family Clinic off Telephone Road in south Houston. She paid $110 for a blood test that came back negative, the word circled and underlined twice. She was relieved.



The next day, she passed out in the shower.



It just got worse and worse, Garza, 29, said. I have eight children at home, three with medical conditions and one already started getting symptoms.



Garza later discovered the test she had taken was for COVID-19 antibodies - not the virus. In hindsight, she said she had noticed multiple patients complaining in Spanish to a front desk employee about tests they had been given. She remembers seeing one bilingual staff member in the packed waiting room of mostly Hispanic patients and noticed all of the paperwork was in English.



The Hispanic community is being disproportionately affected by the pandemic, and experts say language barriers and lack of translated health information are a big reason why. In response, hospitals and health departments are hastily launching marketing campaigns, increasing community outreach efforts and altering translation services to accommodate the surge in Hispanic patients.



Garza speaks Spanish and English but said she thinks medical jargon and the fact the clinic was overwhelmed with patients may have led to the misunderstanding. She worries other people in her community, especially non-English speakers, are experiencing the same disservice she did during a public health crisis.

I felt taken advantage ofI wasnt the only one," Garza said. "It was wrong, they should have explained, taken more time and used more safety precautions.

Santa Clara Family Clinic did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.

Hispanics hit hard



Over the last two months, rapid case growth among Hispanic residents has drastically outpaced COVID-19 spread among other ethnicities, the Houston Chronicle reported, with up to 65 percent of those hospitalized being of Hispanic ethnicity. Latest available data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that Hispanics comprise the majority of Harris Countys population, accounting for 43 percent of residents.



Public health experts and agencies have outlined several reasons for this health disparity. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, many Hispanics work in frontline industries that require they interact with the public for long hours; live in multi-generational households in densely packed communities; rely on public transportation; and are almost three times as likely to be uninsured and therefore less likely to seek medical attention.



Dr. Luis Ostrosky, infectious diseases specialist with UT Physicians and McGovern Medical School at UTHealth, said Hispanics may have a genetic predisposition for more severe forms of the deadly disease due to conditions such as diabetes and obesity being more prevalent in the community. Many also have limited access to care and wait until their conditions worsen or it is too late to see a doctor.



Another explanation is misinformation within the community and attempts to minimize the disease as not a dire emergency, Ostrosky said.



Ostrosky said at the start of the pandemic, health officials like himself saw a lack of health information and public materials being made available in Spanish. Gov. Greg Abbotts office releases COVID-19 information through a resource website that fails to adequately translate the information into Spanish, the Texas Tribune reported. Abbotts office does not offer translated versions of press conferences or news releases.



Health experts say these language barriers can leave some of the most vulnerable populations unaware of critical health information such as where to receive free testing, how the virus spreads, the different tests being offered and when to see a doctor.



Ostroksy, who hails from Mexico and is bilingual, said making sure health information that is not only translated into Spanish but also culturally appropriate is critical to providing preventive care to vulnerable communities. For months he has been interviewed daily for COVID-19 news segments on Telemundo and Univision and has spearheaded the creation of UT Physicians Spanish COVID-19 information center.



I think we are aware of this disproportionate representation of the Hispanic community in our sickest patients and we are all making very concerted efforts in putting out materials, Ostrosky said.



The City of Houston Health Department responded by releasing a 21-Day Emergency Outreach program, Better Together (Todos Juntos Mejor), to help address the pandemics stronghold on Hispanics. The program provides resources for free testing sites and information on where to receive assistance.



We knew that we needed to reach out and to try and reach those pockets within the Hispanic community that were not getting the message about the importance of protecting themselves and their families, said Porfirio Villarreal, a public information officer at the Houston Health Department.



The health department also set up a COVID-19 hotline that is offered in as many as four languages and receives up to 12,000 calls a day, according to Villarreal.



But what happened to patients such as Garza is another problem the pandemic poses for vulnerable populations: addressing language barriers and lack of communication within hospital and clinics that are swamped with requests for help.



Its unfair. There should be more help for those that dont speak English and for those who are not from here, Garza said. They are just stuck at home having to deal with this illness by themselves and no one is there for them. There should be more translators, more places that can help.



Translation as a human right



Shane Chen, Chief Operating Officer for Hope Clinic, a federally qualified health center that specializes in providing care to uninsured and underinsured patients in more than 30 different dialects and languages, said language barriers can create worrisome gaps in care that put lives at risk. Take for example, Chen said, the elderly.



A good number of them (elderly patients) do have a language barrier, so if they ended up going to the hospital because of COVID-19 and their family member did not go with them to be their interpreter and the medical provider cannot communicate with themthen how is that going to optimize their outcome? Chen said.



Federal law requires that hospitals receiving federal funds must provide translation services to any non-English speaking patient. But many facilities  including up to a third of all U.S. hospitals, according to one 2016 study - fail to do so.



As reported in the Houston Chronicle, from the end of May to early July, the number of Hispanic patients at Houston Methodist roughly doubled. Similar upticks have been reported in other local hospitals, such as Memorial Hermann.



Cathy Easter, senior vice president of community development for Houston Methodist, said pandemic or not, federal law or not, providing translation services to any non-English speaking person is a safety issue and a patients right.



Methodist  one of the largest hospitals in the Houston region  offers a multitude of translation services, including in-house translators and video translation services. The hospital has seen a decrease in its international patients who would travel to Houston for care and has reorganized its teams that would assist those patients to help the hospitals domestic Spanish-speaking patients, Easter said.



Not only is it a law, but its the right thing to do for our patients, Easter said of translation services. But the other right thing to do for our community is to get these messages out there. If young Latinos are not listening to a Telemundo news cast, thats fine, lets get it out through the Astros social, or the grocery stores.



Methodist has launched several new marketing campaigns aimed at providing public health information in Spanish via radio, TV and social media platforms through the hospitals community partners and organizations that serve the Hispanic community, including at grocery stores, the Houston Food Bank, United Methodist churches and the Houston Astros and Texans.



Despite these efforts, the concept of Spanish-speaking patients struggling to receive adequate care is not lost on health officials like Villarreal. As a first-generation immigrant, Villarreal said he remembers serving as a translator for his family growing up.



Hospitals are strained right now, Villarreal said. Its not too far off to venture that not everyone is getting a quick answer to their problem, the wait times may be longer, things needed may be delayed somewhat because there is just a huge amount of demand from all of the healthcare systems.

More barriers to face



Another component to addressing language barriers is the fact that some people are illiterate and cannot easily understand translated health materials. Hope Clinic hires within the ethnic communities it serves and helps staff become representatives of their communities so they can help disperse information those residents may not find elsewhere.



They understand the cultural aspect and they understand the barriers, Chen said. You need to have a person or representative to at least get the message out so that it isshared layer by layer by layer all the way down to those who are illiterate and vulnerable.



According to the CDC, little is still known about COVID-19 and immune response. Chen said addressing language barriers and the pandemics effect on non-English speaking populations requires more than just increasing translation services and access to health materials, but also requires ensuring that education continues even after a patients recovery.



If they dont have a health safety net and are not practicing proper Covid-19 protection they could show up in the ER again, Chen said. If you are trying to address issues within a very at-risk population and they are not understanding because communication is not there, how are you supposed to change anything?



Easter said the pandemic has brought the challenges vulnerable populations are facing to the forefront of the public health sector.



Because of Covid-19, these issues have been highlighted and more people are aware of the challenges that underserved communities face, whether those be around payments and access or around language barriers, Easter said. That to me is really another barrier to address."

NOTE: To read a translated version of this story, click here.

rebecca.hennes@chron.com
Scientists develop safe, rapid COVID-19 antibody test

India

pti-PTI

Singapore, July 23: Scientists have developed a rapid test to detect antibodies in COVID-19 patients that specifically block the novel coronavirus, an advance that may lead to faster methods for estimating the population level infection rate of the disease.

According to the study, published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, a rapid test to detect neutralising antibodies -- capable of blocking the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 -- is urgently needed to facilitate monitoring of infection rates, as well as to determine vaccine efficacy during clinical trials.

Scientists decode how coronavirus is mutating, say findings may aid vaccine development

In order to facilitate this, the researchers, including those from the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, developed a new assay which is much faster than conventional tests for neutralising antibodies, taking only one or two hours to complete. They said the new method, validated in two groups of patients who had COVID-19 from Singapore and Nanjing, China, does not require the use of the live virus.

According to the scientists, the current gold standard assay for detecting neutralising antibodies requires the handling of live SARS-CoV-2 in a biosafety level three laboratory containment facility, and is time-consuming, taking two-four days to complete. Another method involving a pseudovirus-based neutralisation test to detect such antibodies can be done in a biosafety level two laboratory, they said, but added that this too requires the use of live viruses and cells.

In the current research, the scientists Lin-Fa Wang, Danielle Anderson, and their colleagues designed a surrogate virus neutralisation test that does not require the use of any live virus or cells. "The surrogate virus neutralisation test does not require biosafety level three containment, making it broadly accessible to the wider community for both research and clinical applications," the researchers wrote in the study.

They said the new test takes only one to two hours to complete, and can be conducted in a biosafety level two laboratory. The researchers used the purified part of the viral spike protein which binds to the host cell's surface receptor ACE2 to mimic the virus-host interaction.

According to the scientists, this interaction can be blocked by specific neutralising antibodies in patient or animal sera in a similar manner to the conventional virus neutralisation and pseudovirus-based tests. The study noted that this assay can also differentiate neutralising antibodies from those which bind to the spike protein, but do not block the virus.

A timeline of the pandemic spread in India as COVID-19 cases cross 12 lakh mark

Following the lab findings, the scientists validated the new assay with two separate groups of patients recovering from COVID-19: 175 patients who had COVID-19 and 200 healthy controls in Singapore, and 50 patients who had COVID-19, and 200 healthy controls in Nanjing. They said the test can distinguish between antibody responses to COVID-19, and to other human coronavirus infections such as the one causing common cold.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

According to the study, the assay achieves 99.93 per cent specificity and 95100 per cent sensitivity. When the researchers studied the specificity of their test for SARS-CoV-2, versus the 2002-03 SARS pandemic virus using serum collected from patients who had recovered from the earlier coronavirus outbreak, they noted that SARS-neutralising antibodies were still detectible 17 years later. Although the surrogate virus neutralisation assay may never be able to completely replace the conventional virus assay, they said it performs well, and in some cases may be easier to use for many aspects of COVID-19 research.
The vacation plans were two years in the making.

Linda Martelli Ardito and Nicholas Ardito are Disney Vacation Club members, and they booked a special Disney cruise that would set sail from Vancouver, Canada in August 2020.

They also needed to book transportation to Vancouver.

The couple decided to make it an adventure.

We decided on a cross country Amtrak trip departing from Newark Penn Station to Washington D.C. to Chicago, Illinois to Seattle, Washington, Martelli Ardito said. In Seattle, we would board another train that would travel to Vancouver, Canada.

They booked the travel part of the trip, which included a few hotel nights, through AAA Vacations. It would cost $3,899 and they paid $498, which covered the deposit and travel insurance, records show.

But then the coronavirus pandemic slammed into North America. The cruise was canceled by Disney.

Therefore, there is no reason for us to take this cross country trip to Seattle, Washington, Martelli Ardito said. This was told to the travel agencies.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

They contacted AAA Vacations, and their representative tried to get a refund on their deposit.

Amtrak wouldnt give a refund, emails show, only offering a future travel credit of $458. The travel credit wouldnt have an expiration date, the AAA rep told the couple.

And it wasnt acceptable.

My husband and I are both over 60 years old and have underlying health conditions, therefore we are not traveling right now, Martelli Ardito said. They did not care at all and said I should be satisfied with the credit because usually they do not give credits.

That is a lot of money for them to hold onto during a pandemic, she said.

She spent the next two months escalating her refund request with AAA, which followed up multiple times with Amtrak.

But Amtrak still said no to the refund. A credit only.

This trip was planned for two years so we were really looking forward to it. We would never have wanted to cancel this trip and we did not cancel the trip, Martelli Ardito said. The coronavirus canceled the trip.

The couple asked Bamboozled for help.

GETTING A REFUND

Because of the pandemic, weve seen travel companies and airlines treat cancellations differently.

Some companies have been inflexible, insisting on issuing travel credits, while others have made exceptions and given refunds in some cases  but not all. Others have offered partial refunds only.

Consumer complaints about airlines have skyrocketed during the pandemic.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) said in April 2020  the most recent month available  it received nearly 20,000 complaints about airlines, up 1,546.4% over the same time a year ago. The complaints were up 292.1% over the March 2020 complaint count.

The large majority of complaints concerned refunds.

DOTs Federal Railroad Administration said it does not collect data on rail passenger consumer complaints for Amtrak or other commuter railroads.

Were also unaware of any central repository for such data mirroring that collected by USDOT/Bureau of Transportation Statistics for airlines, a spokesman said.

Amtraks Office of the Inspector General (OIG) did not immediately respond to a request for complaint data.

We reviewed the couples reservations and email trail, and then asked Amtrak to reconsider its decision.

The company responded two weeks later.

It appears this one has been refunded and the customer should already have this in their account, a spokesman said in an email.

We asked multiple times why it made the refund, but the company didnt respond.

We told the couple to check their account, and indeed, the funds were refunded.

I never received an email or written letter. The money was just refunded without telling me. I found out from you, Martelli Ardito said. But I am happy for that.

We wish we knew more about the refund decision, but thanks to Amtrak for making it right for these customers.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  A Cuyahoga County Jail supervisor is on paid leave during an investigation into contraband smuggling in the jail, according to a county spokeswoman.

The county placed Cpl. Ebony Haines, who worked as a corrections officer for the past six years, on paid administrative leave July 16 while the Cuyahoga County Sheriff investigates, spokeswoman Mary Louise Madigan said.

Madigan said she would not release any other information on the incident, including what contraband Haines is accused of smuggling and when the incident under investigation happened. The county has also not responded to a public records request for information regarding the case.

Brian Rothenberg, a spokesman for the United Autoworkers union, which represents jail corporals, did not return a message seeking comment on Haines behalf.

Drug and contraband smuggling into the jail, both by officers and others who work in the jail, is a longstanding issue.

The county sheriff is also investigating an incident involving an employee of the Trinity Service Group company that provides food service for inmates at the jail. Madigan previously said the incident involved contraband smuggling, and a Trinity spokesman said the case involved an accusation of drug smuggling. Cuyahoga County officials have so far refused to provide documents and information on the case.

The employee was fired, not for drug smuggling but for breaking a company rule, according to the Trinity spokesman. He declined to say why the employee was fired, but said that the company does not believe the employee smuggled drugs into the jail.

In August 2019, the Ohio Attorney Generals Office charged two county jail officers and an inmate with conspiring to bring drugs, cellphones and vape pens into the jail. Two inmates survived an overdose on the drugs the officers brought into the jail, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors on Tuesday charged a second inmate in that case.

Read more from cleveland.com:

Ohio Attorney General charges new inmate in drug, cellphone smuggling ring involving officers at Cuyahoga County Jail

Cuyahoga County Jails private food service company responds to investigation into drug smuggling

Body camera video shows now-charged Cuyahoga County Jail officer kick docile inmates arm for no reason
A memoir charting RTE broadcaster Keelin Shanley's life and brave battle with cancer is to hit the shelves this autumn.

The posthumous memoir, entitled 'A Light That Never Goes Out' chronicles the career of the investigative journalist and co-anchor of RTE's flagship 'Six One News' programme.

Breast cancer eventually claimed her life last February, when she was aged just 51.

It is published by Gill Books and hits the shelves on October 2.

In a poignant introduction to the book, Ms Shanley wrote: "In spite of everything. In spite of the wig, the scarves, the IV lines, the tests, mum, wife, news presenter, daughter, sister, stepdaughter - I am all of those things.

"And that's why I decided to write this book: to remind me of who I am, and to leave those who love me something to hold on to.'

Gill Books commissioning editor Deidre Nolan said she was approached by Ms Shanley about the book last December despite being in the final stages of terminal breast cancer.

Ms Nolan said: "She was nearing the end and strongly felt she wanted to leave a record of her life behind and we were honoured to help her do so.

"We put her together with writer Alison Walsh and she helped Keelin write a most extraordinary memoir."

"It is so rare to have such an insight into what someone who is facing death is thinking and feeling.

"Despite the gravity of the situation she was facing, through her writing Keelin has managed to capture the fleeting beauty of life in way that is awe-inspiring and ultimately uplifting."

The title of the book is based on a song by the band The Smiths, entitled 'There is a Light That Never Goes Out'.

The Smiths were one of Ms Shanley's favourite bands when she met her husband Conor Ferguson.

He wrote the final chapter of the book following her death.

Mr Ferguson said: "Keelin lived such an extraordinary life, she has left behind a legacy that will never be forgotten.

"Keelin wasn't prone to nostalgia, she was upfront and a 'doer' from the very beginning.

"She always grabbed life by the reins and, as a result, didn't have many regrets.

"Though we miss her every day and remember her in every moment, we hope that her remarkable story will inspire people to live life to the full and put the best foot forward, no matter what obstacles life presents."

Ms Shanley is survived by her husband Conor, and their children Lucy and Ben.
Media favorites Charlie Baker and Larry Hogan. Not a good credential for todays or tomorrows national GOP. Photo: Shutterstock

With the presidents reelection prospects looking poor lately, theres naturally an upsurge in speculation about his partys future leadership. If he loses non-catastrophically, you might expect a struggle for the soul of the GOP between the conservative wing of the party that was dominant before Trump and various representatives of the authoritarian-populist twist on conservatism Trump represents.

But a lot of the chatter about post-Trump Republicanism dwells on two pols who would not have been considered serious national party leaders before 2016 and who most definitely do not espouse Trumpism without Trump. Those would be northeastern governors Charlie Baker of Massachusetts and Larry Hogan of Maryland. Baker had to publicly rule out a 2020 primary challenge to Trump to kill rumors that it might happen, and Hogan confesses he considered entering the race himself. Both men typically make the lists of 2024 presidential prospects.

What they have in common is a record of winning elections and reelections in heavily Democratic states and an ability to get national attention for distinguishing their views from those of a president who is toxically unpopular in those same states. As McKay Coppins notes in a deeply skeptical column on Hogans presidential prospects, that makes these moderate heretics vastly more popular among political writers than among Republican voters:

[H]es routinely introduced as a prospective 2024 candidate. And as a popular blue-state governor with a pragmatic streak, Hogan is catnip for a certain kind of centrist pundit who has long fantasized about the heroic moderate riding in on a white horse to deliver the GOP from barbarism.

But figures like Hogan have a history of attracting more column inches than votes in Republican presidential primaries. (See: John Kasich, Jon Huntsman, assorted other Jo(h)ns.)

For the moment, and perhaps for good, pols like Hogan and Baker who have criticized Trump on multiple issues have in effect traded any possibility of national party significance for popularity back home. It works because the GOP in their states is so weak they will themselves trade orthodoxy for the rare opportunity to win statewide races (though its worth noting that Baker has lost control of his state party, and some speculate he may choose to run for a third gubernatorial term as an independent). And the self-disqualification for national leadership these moderates have invited isnt just a matter of criticizing Trump: They are both pro-choice, which is an absolute nonstarter when it comes to being taken seriously as a presidential candidate in todays GOP. The party remains formally committed to a constitutional amendment banning all abortions forever from the moment of conception.

In essence, northeastern moderates like Hogan, Baker, and Vermont governor Phil Scott are triangulating against their national party, much as southern conservative Democrats did for decades. Theres no way the spurned national party is going to embrace them (nor should it, really), other than as regional survival options.

The real leadership options Republicans will face if Trump loses in November will probably come down to the hard-core conservatives (think 2016 candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, plus Nikki Haley), who accommodated themselves to MAGA over the past four years but represent an older conservative movement, or the designated Trump successors (e.g., Mike Pence, Donald Jr., or Tucker Carlson), or perhaps those who may represent a sort of protofascist extension of Trumpism (e.g., Tom Cotton or Josh Hawley). There remains, of course, the possibility that the 45th president himself will hang around in hopes of becoming the 47th. Its infinitely more probable than the prospect of Hogan or Baker taking over the GOP.
By Associated Press

JOHANNESBURG: The World Health Organization and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have launched an effort to explore the role of traditional medicine in the coronavirus pandemic.

The new advisory panel will support countries in clinical trials, other research and development of traditional therapies as the pandemic now spreads rapidly in parts of Africa.

ALSO READ | South Africa's COVID-19 death toll crosses 5,000 mark; government urges people to cooperate

Confirmed cases on the continent have nearly reached 750,000, more than half of them in South Africa.

A WHO statement says traditional medicine "has many benefits" and the continent has a long history of its use.

WHO Africa chief Matshidiso Moeti says the research "must be grounded in science."

Several countries showed interest after Madagascar's president promoted a local herbal concoction as part of the island nation's pandemic response.
author: Jennifer Chan

Giant panda fans are rejoicing, as South Korea's Everland amusement park in Yongin celebrates this week the birthday of a female panda cub.

Mother panda Ai Bao, a Chinese national, delivered a seven-ounce babe measuring 6.5 inches on Monday at 21:49 local time, according to a Reuters report. That was preceded by a four-month pregnancy period after mating with partner Li Bao.

The cub is the couple's first, the medium said. Fans will be able to see her when she learns to walk and eat bamboo, in about five months. The event is a rare one, as giant pandas, an endangered species, may conceive once year in the period of one to three days in March to April.

In three to four years, the cub will travel to China. The exchange with South Korea is a so-called "panda diplomacy" deal that China has been exercising since the 1950s. The cub is South Korea's first.








Many schools will not be opening their door to full-time, in-person instruction this fall, as COVID-19 continues to spread.. But student safety and wellness will still be an issue for school and district leaders, as federal data show.

A new annual joint report by the federal Education and Justice departments on school crime and safety finds that while the rates of students ages 12 to 18 who are victims of crime have continued to decline nationwide since 1992, students are more than twice as likely to be victims in-schoolabout 33 out of every 1,000 studentsthan out, at about 16 victims out of every 1,000.



Those rates will almost certainly drop in the next school year, as many districts opt to have students learn from home full- or part-time. Yet remote-learning environments could present their own safety concerns, as schools grapple with how to combat cyberbullying, help students cope with neighborhood tensions and violence, and identify which students are suffering from mental and emotional problems related to the pandemic and school closures.

The federal data give a picture of the state of crime and safety in U.S. schools before the pandemic:

Younger grades that do not allow students private messaging or email may have fewer problems with bullying during online classroom settings, but it may also be more difficult for adults to catch wind of problems among students in social media. Moreover, experts have suggested the combination of increased physical isolation from peers and rising dependence on social media could worsen the rising rates of suicide among older students and teenagers.

School leaders have already voiced concern about the difficulty in identifying mental health problems and providing supports for students who are struggling during remote learning. As the data show, schools often serve as the only mental health supports for significant portions of their students.

This year, the National Center for Education Statistics and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which jointly produce the annual school crime and safety study, highlighted concerns around how problems in students neighborhoods can affect their learning. For example, as communities across the country continue to be rocked by protests calling for racial justice, the study finds racial tensions in a childs neighborhood can be nearly as academically damaging as crime.

In 2017-18, the study also found 80 percent of schools had at least one incident of violence, theft, or other crimes, but less than half reported an incident to police. That rate has been flat since 2015-16, but lower than in any year from 2000 to 2010. Only 15 percent of schools reported any serious violent crimes to the police, though there was no information available about where or what kind of schools they were.


The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) has taken the first ever image of a young, Sun-like star accompanied by two giant exoplanets.

Images of systems with multiple exoplanets are extremely rare, and -- until now -- astronomers had never directly observed more than one planet orbiting a star similar to the Sun. The observations can help astronomers understand how planets formed and evolved around our own Sun.

Just a few weeks ago, ESO revealed a planetary system being born in a new, stunning VLT image. Now, the same telescope, using the same instrument has taken the first direct image of a planetary system around a star like our Sun, located about 300 light-years away and known as TYC 8998-760-1.

"This discovery is a snapshot of an environment that is very similar to our solar system, but at a much earlier stage of its evolution," says Alexander Bohn, a PhD student at Leiden University in the Netherlands, who led the new research published today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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"Even though astronomers have indirectly detected thousands of planets in our galaxy, only a tiny fraction of these exoplanets have been directly imaged," says co-author Matthew Kenworthy, Associate Professor at Leiden University, adding that "direct observations are important in the search for environments that can support life." The direct imaging of two or more exoplanets around the same star is even more rare; only two such systems have been directly observed so far, both around stars markedly different from our Sun. The new ESO's VLTimage is the first direct image of more than one exoplanet around a Sun-like star. ESO's VLT was also the first telescope to directly image an exoplanet, back in 2004, when it captured a speck of light around a brown dwarf, a type of 'failed' star.

"Our team has now been able to take the first image of two gas giant companions that are orbiting a young, solar analogue," says Maddalena Reggiani, a postdoctoral researcher from KU Leuven, Belgium, who also participated in the study. The two planets can be seen in the new image as two bright points of light distant from their parent star, which is located in the upper left of the frame. By taking different images at different times, the team were able to distinguish these planets from the background stars.

The two gas giants orbit their host star at distances of 160 and about 320 times the Earth-Sun distance. This places these planets much further away from their star than Jupiter or Saturn, also two gas giants, are from the Sun; they lie at only 5 and 10 times the Earth-Sun distance, respectively. The team also found the two exoplanets are much heavier than the ones in our solar system, the inner planet having 14 times Jupiter's mass and the outer one six times.

Bohn's team imaged this system during their search for young, giant planets around stars like our Sun but far younger. The star TYC 8998-760-1 is just 17 million years old and located in the southern constellation of Musca (The Fly). Bohn describes it as a "very young version of our own Sun."

These images were possible thanks to the high performance of the SPHERE instrument on ESO's VLT in the Chilean Atacama desert. SPHERE blocks the bright light from the star using a device called coronagraph (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronagraph), allowing the much fainter planets to be seen. While older planets, such as those in our solar system, are too cool to be found with this technique, young planets are hotter, and so glow brighter in infrared light. By taking several images over the past year, as well as using older data going back to 2017, the research team have confirmed that the two planets are part of the star's system.

Further observations of this system, including with the future ESO Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), will enable astronomers to test whether these planets formed at their current location distant from the star or migrated from elsewhere. ESO's ELT will also help probe the interaction between two young planets in the same system. Bohn concludes: "The possibility that future instruments, such as those available on the ELT, will be able to detect even lower-mass planets around this star marks an important milestone in understanding multi-planet systems, with potential implications for the history of our own solar system."

Reference: "Two Directly Imaged, Wide-Orbit Giant Planets Around the Young, Solar Analog TYC 8998-760-1," A. J. Bohn et al., 2020, to appear in the Astrophysical Journal Letters [https://apjl.aas.org , preprint (PDF): https://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso2011/eso2011a.pdf]. The team is composed of Alexander J. Bohn (Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, The Netherlands), Matthew A. Kenworthy (Leiden Observatory), Christian Ginski (Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Leiden Observatory), Steven Rieder (University of Exeter, Physics Department, UK), Eric E. Mamajek (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, USA and Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Rochester, USA), Tiffany Meshkat (IPAC, California Institute of Technology, USA), Mark J. Pecaut (Rockhurst University, Department of Physics, USA), Maddalena Reggiani (Institute of Astronomy, KU Leuven, Belgium), Jozua de Boer (Leiden Observatory), Christoph U. Keller (Leiden Observatory), Frans Snik (Leiden Observatory) and John Southworth (Keele University, UK).

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Mumbai, July 23 : Protests were witnessed in different parts of Maharashtra on Thursday over Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu's objection to slogans raised by a Bharatiya Janata Party member Udayanraje Bhosale, after his oath-taking ceremony in the Rajya Sabha.

As the ruling Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Congress raised the issue, the Vice President issued a clarification on his stand in the Rajya Sabha when the oath was administered to 41 of 62 new members.

"Always been a strong and vocal admirer of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and worshipper of Goddess Bhawani. Reminded Members that as per conventional practice at the time of taking oath, no slogans are given. No disrespect at all," said Naidu in a tweet this evening.

After he took the oath in English, Bhosale - the 13th direct descendent of the legendary warrior Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj - raised the slogan of 'Jai Hind, Jai Maharashtra, Jai Bhavani, Jai Shivaji'.

Naidu, who is the Chairman of the Upper House, gently reminded Bhosale that raising slogans was not permitted in the House and it would not go on record, and cautioned against repeating it in future.

Targeting the BJP, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut demanded to know who will certify whether Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj's descendent was insulted by the "Delhi Durbar" or not.

"The BJP has kept its mouth shut on this issue. Even Sambhaji Bhide has not announced a Sangli-Satara shutdown yet," Raut said sarcastically.

Congress leader Bhai Jagtap demanded to know it is not acceptable to the BJP to utter the name of Goddess Bhavani and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

"We know about your fake love for Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaja You want to use his name only during electionsa," he said.

The ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies carried out demonstrations all over the state, shot off protest letters to Naidu, burnt his posters in Nashik, among other forms of agitation.
LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 23, 2020 / Cannabis Global, Inc. (OTC PINK:MCTC) ("Cannabis Global" or the "Company"), a cannabinoid and hemp extract science-forward company developing infusion and delivery technologies, announces the closing of a definitive agreement to enter the fast-growing California cannabis delivery market. Via the executed agreement, Whisper Weed, Inc. and Cannabis Global, have created a new California Corporation to be named CGI Whisper W, Inc., which will provide management services for the delivery entity. CGI Whisper W, Inc, will receive 51% of the profits from the new entity, which will be recognized as income by Cannabis Global, Inc.

"The delivery sector is the hottest area of the California cannabis business and we are very pleased to have a seat at the table," commented Arman Tabatabaei. "We not only will be able to grow our revenue base relative to direct delivery, but we also see Whisper Weed as a perfect platform to launch our infusion technologies in the regulated marketplace. With the deal closing, we are already in the process of adding other delivery platforms and other businesses to our overall portfolio."

Cannabis Global views this agreement as an important step toward the verticalization of its IP-driven focus. Many of the technologies developed for CBD and non-THC marketplaces can be directly applied to the regulated California cannabis marketplace, including the Company's newly developed tetrahydrocannabivarin (THC-V) and Cannabinol( CBN) delivery technologies.

Whisper Weed Inc operates its website at www.WhisperWeedDelivery.com. Consumers are able to browse products in the flower, pre-roll, cartridge, edibles, and concentrate categories. Consumers simply sign up on the website and order products with a delivery typically within a few hours. The operation headquartered in Downtown Los Angeles delivers to the Los Angeles metro area. Cannabis Global believes the trend toward home delivery for cannabis is robust with further growth expected over the coming year.

As compensation for the Agreement, the owners of Whisper Weed, Inc. will receive $150,000 restricted common shares in the Company and shares of a newly created non-voting, participating preferred stock in Cannabis Global. With the signing of the definitive agreement, Cannabis Global expects to begin recognizing revenues from Whisper Weed immediately.

Mr. Tabatabaei continued, "We have recently shifted priorities from full product development to marketing the many innovative products we have put forth into the marketplace. This new deal with Whisper Weed is simply only one component of our overall growth programs - We have so much more planned for the Company."

About Cannabis Global, Inc.

Cannabis Global, Inc. (OTC PINK:MCTC) is a Nevada registered, fully reporting and audited publicly-traded company. With the hemp and cannabis industries moving very quickly and with a growing number of market entrants, Cannabis Global plans to concentrate its efforts on the middle portions of the hemp and cannabis value chain. The Company plans to actively pursue R&D programs and productization for exotic cannabinoid isolation, bioenhancement of cannabinoids and polymeric solid nanoparticles and nanofibers for addition into consumer products and for dermal application. The Company was reorganized during June of 2019 and announced its intent to enter the fast-growing cannabis sector. The Company is headed and managed by a group of highly experienced cannabis industry pioneers and entrepreneurs.

Forward-looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" which are not purely historical and may include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Such forward-looking statements include, among other things, the development, costs and results of new business opportunities and words such as "anticipate", "seek", intend", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "project", "plan", or similar phrases may be deemed "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, the inherent uncertainties associated with new projects, the future U.S. and global economies, the impact of competition, and the Company's reliance on existing regulations regarding the use and development of cannabis-based products. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Although we believe that any beliefs, plans, expectations and intentions contained in this press release are reasonable, there can be no assurance that any such beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions will prove to be accurate. Investors should consult all of the information set forth herein and should also refer to the risk factors disclosure outlined in our annual report on Form 10-k, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and other periodic reports filed from time-to-time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. For more information, please visit www.sec.gov.

For more information, please contact:

Arman Tabatabaei,

IR@cannabisglobalinc.co

Public Relations:

Tiger Global Management

info@TigerGMP.com

www.TigerGMP.com

SOURCE: MCTC Holdings, Inc

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598574/Cannabis-Global-Closes-on-Definitive-Agreement-with-Los-Angeles-based-Brand-Whisper-Weed-Entering-the-Estimated-10B-Regulated-Cannabis-Market
The Journal of Parkinson's Disease and its publisher IOS Press are proud to announce the two articles that have won the first Parkinson Prize, recognizing these outstanding contributions to the advancement to Parkinson's disease research. Recipients of the award are lead investigator Thomas Foltynie, MD, PhD (research article) and co-authors Heiko Braak, MD, and Kelly Del Tredici, MD, PhD (review article).

The winning papers are: Aviles-Olmos I, Dickson, J, Kefalopoulou, Z, Djamshidian, A, Kahan, J, Ell, P, Whitton, P, Wyse, R, Isaacs, T, Lees, A, Limousin, P, Foltynie, T (2014) Motor and Cognitive Advantages Persist 12 Months After Exenatide Exposure in Parkinson's Disease. J Parkinsons Dis, 4, 337-344; and Braak, H, Del Tredici, K (2017) Neuropathological Staging of Brain Pathology in Sporadic Parkinson's Disease: Separating the Wheat from the Chaff. J Parkinsons Dis, 7, S71-S85. They are freely available to everyone to read, download, and share.

These papers were selected by members of the Journal of Parkinson's Disease's Editorial Board from among 461 research articles and 153 review articles published between the journal's launch in 2011 and 2019. Awardees will receive a commemorative plaque. The Parkinson Prize will continue as an annual award, and in 2021 an article published in 2020 will be selected.

Importance of the work

The Foltynie study adds confidence that the potential beneficial effects of exenatide for the treatment of Parkinson's disease may be related to more than transient symptomatic benefits. The trial participants, who used exenatide for one year as part of the investigators' first trial, were reviewed a year after stopping exenatide, and their "off dopaminergic medication" video assessments remained improved compared to participants who were randomly assigned to the control group.

We have learned that careful long-term follow-up can be hugely instructive and have embraced the long-term follow up strategy in the evaluation of exenatide in our current phase 3 trial. My co-investigators and I are very honored that the Journal of Parkinson's Disease has chosen to recognize this article in this way." Prof. Thomas Foltynie, MD, PhD

Prof. Braak and Dr. Del Tredici review the development and rationale for the six-stage staging model they proposed for brain pathology related to sporadic Parkinson's disease (Neurobiol Aging 2003) and ensuing controversies. This staging model continues to fuel discussions as well as new hypotheses and new experimental models pertaining to the pathogenesis and pathomechanisms of Parkinson's disease.

"Neuropathological staging of protein misfolding disorders helps to provide insights into the regional distribution of pathology, its potential systemic spread or propagation along neuroanatomical connectivities, and the selective vulnerability of specific types of neuronal and non-neuronal cells, whereby the prion-like concept of the synucleinopathy and the theory of selective vulnerability in Parkinson's disease are by no means mutually exclusive," explained Prof. Braak and Dr. Del Tredici. "We would like to thank the Journal of Parkinson's Disease Editorial Board members for their recognition of our work."

2020 Parkinson Prize recipients

Tom Foltynie, MD, PhD, is Professor of Neurology in the Department of Clinical and Movement Neurosciences, UCL Institute of Neurology and Consultant Neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London. He is responsible for movement disorder patients, particularly Parkinson's disease patients, undergoing advanced treatments such as deep brain stimulation, apomorphine, and duodopa. He is chief investigator for a series of trials of exenatide, a potential neurorestorative treatment for Parkinson's disease, as well as the lead clinician at UCL for trials of alpha synuclein antibody treatment for Parkinson's disease and Oxford BioMedica / Axovant's gene therapy product for Parkinson's disease, and the Transeuro Parkinson's disease cell transplantation program.

Prof. Foltynie trained in medicine at UCL. After qualifying in 1995, he worked in Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge. From 1999 to 2003, he undertook his PhD in Cambridge looking at the heterogeneity of Parkinson's disease, describing differences in cognitive abilities between patients under the influence of various genes including COMT and BDNF, and tau. He finished his neurology training between Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London before taking up his consultant clinical academic position in London in 2008. He was promoted to Professor in 2016.

A native of Kiel, Heiko Braak, MD, completed medical school at the University of Kiel, receiving his doctorate in 1964. After the habilitation in anatomy (1970), he became Professor of Anatomy in Kiel (1974). As Visiting Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School (1978), he worked with Prof. Norman Geschwind and published the monograph Architectonics of the Human Telencephalic Cortex (1980). He directed the Institute for Clinical Neuroanatomy, Dr. Senckenberg Anatomical Institute at Goethe University Frankfurt/Main (1980-2002). After retiring from university teaching, he was appointed Guest Researcher (2002-2009) at the Anatomical Institute until moving to Ulm University (2009), where he is Senior Professor and co-group leader of the Section Clinical Neuroanatomy (Department of Neurology, Center for Biomedical Research).

Prof. Braak is a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (Halle/Saale) and the 2014 recipient of the Robert A. Pritzker Prize for Leadership in Parkinson's disease Research (Michael J. Fox Foundation). In 2018, he was awarded the Federal Republic of Germany's Great Order of Merit. His research interests include neurodegeneration, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and pathoarchitectonics of the human cerebral cortex. He was married to Prof. Eva Braak until her death in 2000 and is now married to Kelly Del Tredici.

A native of San Francisco, Kelly Del Tredici, MD, PhD, came to Germany on a Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship from Harvard University (1989) after studying at Loyola University of Chicago and Fordham University. She completed medical school at the Goethe University Frankfurt/Main, receiving her doctorate in anatomy there in 2004. Following medical residency at the Clinic for Psychiatry and Neurology in Winnenden (near Stuttgart), she became a postdoctoral fellow at the Dr. Senckenberg Anatomical Institute (Institute for Clinical Neuroanatomy, Goethe University) in 2006. She moved to Ulm University (2009), where she is co-group leader of the Section Clinical Neuroanatomy (Department of Neurology, Center for Biomedical Research). She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Her research interests include neuroanatomy, neurodegeneration, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Kelly Del Tredici is married to Heiko Braak.
Students and faculty are calling for renaming of buildings and colleges on the University of Georgias campus as protests against racial inequality continue across the nation and in Athens.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 13:26:12|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about mechanized and large-scale farming at a farmers' cooperative in Lishu County of Siping City, northeast China's Jilin Province, July 22, 2020. Xi Jinping inspected Jilin Province on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

CHANGCHUN, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has encouraged the development of farmers' cooperatives suited to local conditions across the country.

Xi made the remarks Wednesday afternoon during his inspection tour to a farmers' cooperative in Lishu County, Siping City, in northeast China's Jilin Province.

After learning about the benefits brought by the cooperative to its members, Xi commended their meaningful efforts in finding a development path suitable for themselves, advancing agricultural mechanization and giving full play to the local advantageous land conditions, with improved agricultural technology and its application, and higher agricultural benefit.

Xi encouraged the farmers to continue promoting their experience and called for more efforts to further explore ways to develop specialized cooperatives nationwide. Enditem
It wasnt greed, or curiosity, that made Li Rusheng grab his shotgun and enter Shitou Cave. It was about survival. During Mao-era collectivization of the early 1970s, food was so scarce in the emerald valleys of southwestern Chinas Yunnan province that farmers like Li could expect to eat meat only once a yearif they were lucky. So, craving protein, Li and his friends would sneak into the cave to hunt the creatures they could hear squeaking and fluttering inside: bats.

Li would creep into the gloom and fire blindly at the vaulted ceiling, picking up any quarry that fell to the ground, while his companions held nets over the mouth of the cave to snare fleeing bats. They cooked them in the traditional manner of Yunnans ethnic Yi people: boiled to remove hair and skin, gutted and fried. Theyd be small ones, fat ones, says Li, now 81, sitting on a wall overlooking fields of tobacco seedlings. The meat is very tender. But Ive not been in that cave for over 30 years now, he adds, shaking his head wistfully. They were very hard times.

China today bears little resemblance to the impoverished nation of Lis youth. Since Deng Xiaoping embraced market reforms in 1979, the Middle Kingdom has gone from strength to strength. Today it is the worlds No. 2 economy and top trading nation. It has more billionaires than the U.S. and more high-speed rail than the rest of the world combined. Under current strongman President Xi Jinping, China has embarked on a campaign to regain center place in the world. Farmers like Li no longer have to hunt bats to survive.

That doesnt mean Shitou Cave has faded in significance. Today, though, its musty depths speak not to local sustenance but global peril. Shitou was where Shi Zhengli, lead scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), working with samples of bat feces in 2011 and 2012, isolated a novel virus that was very similar to SARS, which had been responsible for a pandemic a decade earlier. Shiknown as Chinas bat woman for her tireless research on the winged mammalwarned that other bat-borne diseases could easily spill over into human populations again. Seven years later, her fears appear vindicated. In a February paper, Shi revealed the discovery of what she called the closest relative of what would become known as SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. It also originated in Shitou Cave.

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Dubbed RaTG13, Shis virus has a 96.2% similarity with the virus that has claimed some 600,000 lives across the world, including more than 140,000 in the U.S. Shis discovery indicates COVID-19 likely originated in batsas do rabies, Ebola, SARS, MERS, Nipah and many other deadly viruses.

But how did this virus travel from a bat colony to the city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak was first documented? And from there, how did it silently creep along motorways and flight routes to kill nurses in Italy, farmers in Brazil, retirees in Seattle? How this virus entered the human population to wreak such a devastating toll is the foremost issue of global scientific concern today. The search for patient zeroor the index case, the first human COVID-19 infectionmatters. Not because any fault or blame lies with this individual, but because discovering how the pathogen entered the human population, and tracing how it flourished, will help the science and public-health communities better understand the pandemic and how to prevent similar or worse ones in the future.

On top of the millions of lives that hang in the balance, Cambridge University puts at $82 trillion across five years the cost to the global economy of the current pandemic. The human race can ill afford another.

The provenance of COVID-19 is not only a scientific question. The Trump Administration also regards it as a political cudgel against Beijing. As the U.S. has failed to control outbreaks of the coronavirus and its economy founders, President Donald Trump has deflected blame onto China.

Trump and senior Administration figures have dubbed COVID-19 the China virus and Wuhan virus. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there was enormous evidence the virus had escaped from Shis lab in the city. (He has yet to share any hard evidence.) This is the worst attack weve ever had on our country. This is worse than Pearl Harbor. This is worse than the World Trade Center, Trump said in May of the pandemic, pointing the finger at China. In response, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi accused the U.S. President of trying to foment a new cold war through lies and conspiracy theories.

The origin of the virus is clearly a touchy subject. Nevertheless, the world desperately needs it broached. Australia and the E.U. have joined Washingtons calls for a thorough investigation into the cause of the outbreak. On May 18, Xi responded to pressure to express support for global research by scientists on the source and transmission routes of the virus overseen by the World Health Organization.

But Trump has already accused the WHO of being Chinacentric and vowed to stop funding it. His attacks may have some basis in fact. The organization refused self-governing Taiwan observer status under pressure from Beijing. And privately, WHO officials were frustrated by the slow release of information from the Chinese authorities even as they publicly praised their transparency, according to transcripts obtained by the Associated Press.

Partisan bickering and nationalism threaten to eclipse the invaluable scientific work required to find the true source of the virus. Time is of the essence; a SARS vaccine was within touching distance when research that could have proved invaluable today was discontinued as the crisis abated. Once this pandemic settles down, were going to have a small window of opportunity to put in place infrastructure to prevent it from ever happening again, says Dr. Maureen Miller, a Columbia University epidemiologist.

The search for the viruss origins must begin behind the squat blue-shuttered stalls at Wuhans Huanan seafood market, where the outbreak of viral pneumonia we now know as COVID-19 was first discovered in mid-December. One of the first cases was a trader named Wei Guixian, 57, who worked in the market every day, selling shrimp out of huge buckets. In mid-December she developed a fever she thought was a seasonal flu, she told state-run Shanghai-based the Paper. A week later, she was drifting in and out of consciousness in a hospital ward.

Of the first 41 patients hospitalized in Wuhan, 13 had no connection to the marketplace, including the very first recorded case. That doesnt necessarily excuse the market as the initial point of zoonotic jump, thoughwe dont know yet for certain how many COVID-19 cases are asymptomatic, but research suggests it could be as high as 80%. And, even if Huanan market wasnt where the virus first infected humans, it certainly played a huge role as an incubator of transmission. At a Jan. 26 press conference, the Hong Kong Centre for Health Protection revealed 33 of 585 environmental samples taken after the market was shut Jan. 1 tested positive for the virus. Of these, 31 were taken in the western section where wildlife was sold.

In May, China acceded to demands for an independent inquiry after more than 100 countries supported a resolution drafted by the E.U. Still, President Xi insists it must be comprehensivelooking not just at China but also at how other nations responded to the WHOs warningsand cannot begin until after the pandemic has subsided. The principles of objectivity and fairness need to be upheld, Xi told the World Health Assembly. (Notably, inquiries into the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic and 2014 West African Ebola outbreak began before the crises had abated.) According to past investigations protocols, teams are composed of independent public-health experts and former WHO staff appointed by the WHO based on member states recommendations. At a practical level, however, any probe within China relies on cooperation from Beijing, and its uncertain whether the U.S. will accept the findings of a body Trump has slammed for severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.

Peter Ben Embarek, a food-safety and animal-disease expert at the WHO, says an investigation must concentrate on interviews with all the initial cases, trying to find clues about potential earlier infections among their relatives, their contacts, and where they had been over the days and weeks before they got sick. Also, which hunters and farmers supplied what species of animals. With a bit of luck and good epidemiological work, it can be done, he says.

Artwork by Brea Souders for TIME; Shutterstock (3)

There are many who look at where COVID-19 emerged and see something that cant be just a co-incidence. In 2017, China minted its first biosecurity-level 4 (bsl-4) laboratorythe highest level cleared to even work with airborne pathogens that have no known vaccinesin Wuhan. Ever since, the countrys foremost expert on bat viruses has been toiling away inside the boxy gray buildings of the WIV. Indeed, when Shi first heard about the outbreak, she herself thought, Could they have come from our lab? she recently told Scientific American. An inventory of virus samples reassured her that it hadnt, she added, yet that hasnt stopped some from maintaining their suspicions.

Mistakes do happen. The last known case of small-pox leaked from a U.K. laboratory in 1978. SARS has leaked from Chinese laboratories on at least two occasions, while U.S. scientists have been responsible for mishandlings of various pathogens, including Ebola. There are only around 70 bsl-4 laboratories in 30 countries. Suspicions regarding the nature of research under way inside the Wuhan laboratory persist. According to one leading virologist, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of jeopardizing funding and professional relationships, Were you to ask me wheres the most likely place in the world for a naturally occurring bat coronavirus to escape from a laboratory, Wuhan would be in the top 10.

Still, neither the WHO nor the Five Eyes intelligence networkcomprising the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealandhas found evidence that COVID-19 originated from Shis lab. Canberra has even distanced itself from a U.S.-authored dossier that sought to convince the Australian public that the Five Eyes network had intelligence of a Chinese cover-up. (It appeared to rely exclusively on open-source material.) Meanwhile, scientific peers have rallied to defend Shi from suspicion. She is everything a senior scientist should be, says Miller, who has collaborated with Shi on various studies. The Wuhan Institute of Virology did not respond to requests for comment.

Available evidence suggests COVID-19 leaped from wild animal to human. Tracing exactly how is crucial. It enables governments to install safeguards regarding animal husbandry and butchery to prevent any repeat. SARS, for example, originated in bats and then infected a palm civet, a catlike mammal native to South and Southeast Asia. The animal was then sold at a wet marketwhere fresh meat, fish and sometimes live animals are soldin Guangdong, from which it jumped to humans. In the wake of that outbreak, which claimed at least 774 lives worldwide, palm civets were banned from sale or consumption in China. Bats may have been the initial reservoir for SARS-CoV-2, but its likely that there was an intermediary before it got to humans, and thats where the possibilities grow. Bats share Shitou Cave with starlings, for one, and at least one large white owl nests in its upper reaches. Herds of black and white goats graze the dusty shrub all around the cave opening, while the Yi ethnic group traditionally rear and eat dogs. Bat guano is also traditionally prized as a fertilizer on crops.

Just a few miles from Shitou, customers at Baofeng Horse Meat restaurant squat by round tables, slurping green tea poured from enormous brass teapots, while charcoal burners cook up the eponymous cuts alongside dogmeat and other specialties. All the animals we sell are reared nearby, says proprietor Wang Tao. Cultural practices and disease-transmission vectors are often entwined. MERS continues to jump between camels and their human handlers on the Arabian Peninsula. Chinas penchant for eating rare and unusual wildlife for obscure health benefits may have contributed to the current pandemic. While many aspects of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) are entirely benign, involving little more than massage, pressure points and bitter herbs, there is a fetishization of exotic animals, and theres some evidence that TCM might have played a role in launching the pandemic. The receptor-binding domain of SARS-CoV-2s spike proteinwhich the virus uses to bind to hostsis unusually adept at attaching to human cells. New viruses discovered in Malaysian pangolins have since been shown to have exactly the same receptor binders. Some features in [SARS-CoV-2] that initially may have looked unusual, youre now finding in nature, says Edward Holmes, an evolutionary biologist and virologist at the University of Sydney.

That COVID-19 originated in bats and then jumped to humans via a pangolin intermediary is now the most likely hypothesis, according to multiple studies (although some virologists disagree). Up to 2.7 million of the scaly mammals have been plucked from the wild across Asia and Africa for consumption mostly in China, where many people believe their scales can treat everything from rheumatoid arthritis to inflammation. Their meat is also highly prized for its supposed health benefits.

On Feb. 24, China announced a permanent ban on wildlife consumption and trade, scratching out an industry that employs 14 million people and is worth $74 billion, according to a 2017 report commissioned by the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Its again extremely sensitive. President Xi is an ardent supporter of TCM and has promoted its use globally. The total value of Chinas TCM industry was expected to reach $420 billion by the end of this year, according to a 2016 white paper by Chinas State Council. And rather than raising the possibility that misuse of TCM sparked the outbreak, Chinese state media has laudedwithout evidencethe critical role TCM has played in the treatment of COVID-19 patients. In an apparent attempt to head off criticism related to the pandemic, draft legislation was published in late May to ban any individual or organization from defaming or making false or exaggerated claims about TCM. Cracking down on the illicit animal trade would go a long way toward preventing future outbreaks. But as demand for meat grows across increasingly affluent Asia, Africa and Latin America, the potential for viruses to spill over into human populations will only increase.

It probably wasnt blind luck that Li and his friends didnt get sick from their hunting expeditions in Shitou Cave. Research by Columbias Miller with WIVs Shi, published in 2017, found that local people were naturally resistant to SARS-like viruses. Examining their lifestyle habits and antibodies can help deduce both mitigating factors and possible therapies, while pinpointing which viruses are particularly prone to infecting humans, potentially allowing scientists to design vaccines in advance. They are the canaries in the coal mine, says Miller.

The cloud of uncertainty surrounding the viruss origins may never lift. Identifying an individual patient zero where the virus made the jump from animal to human may be rendered impossible by its remarkable ability to spread while asymptomatic. But just as important is uncovering the broader map of how the virus spread and changed genetically as it did so. In theory, that sort of genetic surveillance could foster the development of broad-spectrum vaccines and antivirals that may prove effective against future novel outbreaks. Studying the anatomy of viruses that readily jump between species may even help predict where the next pandemic is coming from, and prepare us for the inevitable next time. So did those of his 40-member team of infectious-disease emergency responders at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Wash. The first time, the alert was part of a routine monthly test. This time, it was the real thing.

The page signaled the first confirmed U.S. case of COVID-19. The patient was a Washington State resident who had recently returned from visiting family in Wuhan, where the disease was spreading rapidly. Aware of his higher risk, and concerned when he developed a fever, the 35-year-old (who wishes to remain anonymous) visited an urgent-care center where he told health care providers about his travel history. They notified the state health department, which in turn helped the care center send a sample for testing to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlantaat the time, the only labs running COVID-19 tests. When the test was positive, CDC scientists recommended the patient be hospitalized for observation. And Diazs team was paged.

A trained ambulance team arrived at the mans home, moved him into a specially designed mobile isolation unit, and drove 20 minutes to Providence Regional. There, the patient couldnt see who greeted him; everyone assigned to his care was garbed in layers of personal protective equipment. Once in his room, he spoke to medical staff only through a tele-health robot equipped with a screen that displayed their faces, transmitted from just outside the room.

A nurse carefully swabbed the back of his nose and pharynx for a sample of the virus that had brought him to the hospital. Not only was he the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the U.S., he was also the first in the country to have his virus genetically sequenced. As the index patient in the U.S., his sequence, named WA1 (Washington 1), served as the seed from which experts would ultimately trace the genetic tree describing SARS-CoV-2s path from person to person across communities, countries and the globe, as it mutated and either died out or moved on with renewed vigor to infect more people.

Genetic sequencing is a powerful tool to combat viruses fondness for mutating. Viruses are exploitative and unscrupulous; they dont even bother investing in any of their own machinery to reproduce. Instead, they rely on host cells to do thatbut it comes at a price. This copying process is sloppy, and often leads to mistakes, or mutations. But viruses can sometimes take advantage of even that; some mutations can by chance make the virus more effective at spreading undetected from host to host. SARS-CoV-2 seems to have landed on at least one such suite of genetic changes, since those infected can spread the virus even if they dont have any symptoms.

Figuring out how to map those changes is a fairly new science. Following the 2014 West African outbreak of Ebola, scientists mapped the genomes of about 1,600 virus samples, collected from the start of the outbreak and representing about 5% of total cases. The work offered insights into how Ebola moved between locations and mutated. But it wasnt published until 2017, because the majority of the sequencing and sharing of that data was done after the diseases peak, says Trevor Bedford, associate professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and co-founder of Nextstrain.org, an open-source database of SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences. With COVID-19, everything is happening much more quickly, he says, which makes the information more immediately useful.

Since the first SARS-CoV-2 genome was published and made publicly available online in January, scientists have mapped the genomes of over 70,000 (and counting) samples of the virus, from patients in China, the U.S., the E.U., Brazil and South Africa, among others. They deposited those sequences into the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID), a publicly available genetic database created in 2008 initially to store and share influenza genomes. During the coronavirus pandemic, it has quickly pivoted to become a clearinghouse for tracking the genetics of SARS-CoV-2, enabling scientists to map the viruss march across continents and detail its multipronged attack on the world.

We have genomes from researchers and public-health labs from all over the world on six continents, says Joel Wertheim, associate professor of medicine at University of California, San Diego. It provides us with unique insight and confidence that other types of epidemiological data just cannot supply. Relying on the GISAID sequences, Nextstrain has become a virtual watering hole for scientistsand increasingly public-health officialswho want to view trends and patterns in the viruss genetic changes that can help inform decisions about how to manage infections.

If genetic sequencing is the new language for managing infectious-disease outbreaks, then the mutations that viruses generate are its alphabet. If paired with information on how infected patients fare in terms of their symptoms and the severity of their illness, genomic surveillance could reveal useful clues about which strains of virus are linked to more severe disease. It might shed light on the mystery of why certain victims of the virus are spared lengthy hospital stays and life-threatening illness. As nations start to reopen, and before a vaccine is widely available, such genetic intel could help health care providers to better plan for when and where they will need intensive-care facilities to treat new cases in their community.

Genetic information is also critical to developing the most effective drugs and vaccines. Knowing the sequence of SARS-CoV-2 enabled Moderna Thera-peutics to produce a shot ready for human testing in record time: just two months from when the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 was first posted. Even after a vaccine is approved and distributed, continuing to track genetic changes in SARS-CoV-2 to ensure its not mutating to resist vaccine-induced immunity will be critical. The data collected by Nextstrain will be crucial to help vaccine researchers tackle mutations, potentially for years to come. Already, the group advises the WHO on the best genetic targets for the annual flu shot, and it plans to do the same for COVID-19. We can track the areas of the virus targeted by the vaccine, and check the mutations, says Emma Hodcroft from the University of Basel, who co-developed Nextstrain. We can predict how disruptive those mutations are to the vaccine or not and tell whether the vaccines need an update.

Meanwhile, genetic surveillance provides real-time data on where the virus is going and how its changing. This is the first time during an outbreak that lots of different researchers and institutes are sharing sequencing data, says Barbara Bartolini, a virologist at the Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome, who has sequenced dozens of viral samples from patients in Italy. That information is giving public-health experts more precise information on the whereabouts of its viral enemy that no traditional disease-tracking method can supply.

After Diazs patient tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, Washington State public-health officials diligently traced the places the patient had been and the people hed come in contact with. He had taken a ride-share from the airport, gone to work and enjoyed lunch at a seafood restaurant near his office with colleagues. But because so little was known about the virus at the time, these contact tracers were focusing mostly on people with symptoms of illnessand at the time, none of the patients contacts reported them. The genetics, however, told a different story.

Seattle happened to have launched a program in 2018 to track flu cases by collecting samples from patients in hospitals and doctors offices, sites on college campuses, homeless shelters, the citys major international airport and even from volunteers with symptoms who agreed to swab their nasal passages at home. Those that were positive for influenza and other respiratory illnesses had their samples genetically sequenced to trace the diseases spread in the community. As COVID-19 began to emerge in the Seattle area at the end of February, Bedford and his colleagues began testing samples collected in this program for SARS-CoV-2, regardless of whether people reported symptoms or travel to China, then the worlds hot spot for the virus. Thats how they found WA2, the first case in Washington that wasnt travel-related. By comparing samples from WA1, WA2 and other COVID-19 cases, they figured out that SARS-CoV-2 was circulating widely in the community in February.

If that community-based sequencing work had been conducted earlier, theres a good chance it might have picked up cases of COVID-19 that traditional disease-tracking methods, which at the time focused only on travel history and symptoms, missed. That would have helped officials make decisions about a lockdown sooner, and might have helped to limit spread of the virus. SARS-CoV-2 moves quickly but mutates relatively slowly, for a virusgenerating only about two mutations every month in its genome. For drug and vaccine developers, it means the virus can still evade new treatments designed to hobble it. Those same changes serve as passport stamps for its global trek through the worlds population, laying out the itinerary of the viruss journey for geneticists like Bedford. The cases in the initial Seattle cluster, he says, appear to have all been connected, through a single introduction directly from China to the U.S. in mid- to late January. Until the end of February, most instances of SARS-CoV-2 in the U.S. piggybacked on unwitting travelers from China. But as the pandemic continued, that changed.

Genetic analysis confirmed that on Feb. 26, SARS-CoV-2 had already hit a new milestone, with the first documented case that it had successfully jumped to a new host in Santa Clara, Calif., one with no travel history to the infectious-disease hot spots in China or known contact with anyone who had traveled there. Its not clear how this person got infected, but genetic sequencing showed this patient passed on the virus to two health care workers while being treated in the hospitaland that the virus was already spreading in the community, without help from imported cases.

Bedfords team began to see mutations in samples from Seattle that matched samples from people in Europe and the U.S.s East Coast. At the beginning we could kind of draw a direct line from viruses circulating in China to viruses circulating in the Seattle area, says Bedford. Later, we see that viruses collected from China have some mutations that were seen later in Europe, and those same mutations were seen in viruses in New York. So, we can draw another line from China to Europe to New York and then on to Seattle. The virus had begun multiple assaults into the U.S.

TIME Graphic by Emily Barone and Lon Tweeten

Around the world, virologists were seeing similar stories written in the genes of SARS-CoV-2. In January, a couple from Hubei province arrived in Rome, eager to take in the sights of the historic European city. By Jan. 29, they were hospitalized at Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases with fever and difficulty breathing. Tests confirmed they were positive for SARS-CoV-2.

Bartolini, a virologist at the hospital, and her colleagues compared the genetic sequences from a sample taken from the wife to sequences posted on GISAID. The Italian researchers found it matched five other samples from patients as far-flung as France, Taiwan, the U.S. and Australia. SARS-CoV-2 was clearly already on a whirlwind tour of the planet.

Not all strains of SARS-CoV-2 are equally virulent; some branches of its genetic tree are likely to grow larger and sprout further offshoots, while others terminate more quickly, says Harm van Bakel, assistant professor of genetics and genomic sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. His team conducted the first genetic sequencing analysis of cases in New York City, which quickly became a U.S. hot spot; by March the city had seen a half a dozen or so separate introductions of SARS-CoV-2, but only two resulted in massive spread of the virus. The remainder petered out without transmitting widely.

Retrospectively, theres no way to tell for sure if these two strains were simply in the right place at the right timein a particularly densely populated area of the city, for example, or in an area where people congregated and then dispersed to other parts of the cityor if they were actually more infectious. But determining the genetic code of a circulating virus early may help scientists and governments decide which strains are worth worrying about and which arent.

From analyzing genetic sequences from 36 samples of patients in Northern California, Dr. Charles Chiu, professor of laboratory medicine and infectious diseases at the University of California, San Francisco, says it might have been possible to identify the major circulating strains and track how they spread if more testing were available to know who was infectedand use this information to guide quarantine and containment practices. There was a window of opportunity that if we had more testing and more contact-tracing capacities available early on, we likely would have prevented the virus from gaining a foothold at least in California, he says.

There were similar missed opportunities in Chicago, where genetic sequencing of 88 viruses revealed that the outbreak resulted from three main strains. One was similar to those circulating in New York; one was closely related to the Washington cases and a third never spread appreciably outside the Chicago area. This suggests that stricter travel restrictions might have helped limit introduction of the virus and transmission in northern Illinois.

Ongoing genetic sequencing can also help officials tailor narrower strategies to quell the spread of a virus. It wasnt long after Beijing reopened following two months of lockdown that infections began creeping up again in June. Sequencing of the new cases revealed that the viruses circulating at the time shared similarities with viruses found in patients in Europe, suggesting the cases were new introductions of SARS-CoV-2 and not lingering virus from the original outbreak. That helped the Chinese government decide to implement only limited lockdowns and testing of people in specific apartment blocks around a food market where the cluster of cases emerged, rather than resort to a citywide quarantine.

And there are other, less obvious ways that genetic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 could help to predict surges in cases as people emerge from lockdown. Italian scientists have sampled wastewater from sewage treatment plants in northern cities where the pandemic flourished, and found evidence of SARS-CoV-2 weeks before the first cases showed up to flood the hospitals. In La Crosse, Wis., Paraic Kenny, director of the Kabara Cancer Research Institute of the Gundersen Health System, applied the same strategy in his hometown in the spring. A few weeks later, in mid-June, when cases of COVID-19 surged because of bars reopening in downtown La Crosse, Kenny compared samples from infected people with the viral genomes in his wastewater samples. They were a genetic match. The same strain of SARS-CoV-2 had been circulating in the community weeks before the cases were reported. In principle, an approach like this can be used to not just ascertain how much virus is in the community, but maybe give hospitals and public-health departments a warning of when to anticipate a surge in cases, he says. The goal is to know not just where we are today but where we will be a week or two from now.

It has been 100 years since an infectious disease pushed the entire worlds population into hiding to the extent that COVID-19 has. And the primary approaches we take to combatting emerging microbes today are likewise centuries old: quarantine, hygiene and social distancing. We may never learn exactly where SARS-CoV-2 came from, and its clearly too late to prevent it from becoming a global tragedy. But extraordinary advances in scientific knowledge have given us new tools, like genetic sequencing, for a more comprehensive understanding of this virus than anyone could have imagined even a decade or two ago. These are already providing clues about how emerging viruses like SARS-CoV-2 operate and, most important, how they can be thwarted with more effective drugs and vaccines.

This knowledge can save millions of livesas long as science leads over politics. As unprecedented as this pandemic seems, in both scope and speed, it shouldnt have caught the world by surprise. For decades, scientific experts have been warning that emerging zoonotic viruses are a threat to humanity of the greatest magnitude. People keep using the term unprecedented. Ill tell you, biologically, there is nothing unprecedented about this virus really, says Holmes, the evolutionary biologist. Its behaving exactly as I would expect a respiratory virus to behave. Its simply how viruses work, have always worked and will continue to work. The sooner we accept that, the sooner we can act on that knowledge to control outbreaks more quickly and efficiently.

With reporting by Jamie Ducharme/New York, Madeline Roache/London and John Walcott/Washington
Turkmenistan's government claims it has successfully prevented anyone in the country from being infected with the coronavirus that is raging around the world.



But that is not what a growing number of people inside the country say.



Here's a look at what "success" in fighting the spread of the coronavirus looks like inside Turkmenistan:



"In the intensive care unit [of a hospital in Ashgabat] 50 people die on average every day."



"On [July 19], doctors warned there were no more plastic [body] bags. Bodies are [since] wrapped in chlorine-soaked cloth."



That is what two people in Ashgabat told RFE/RL's Turkmen Service, known locally as Azatlyk, about the situation in different hospitals in the Turkmen capital.



The first person was a patient at an Ashgabat hospital who was recently discharged but observed what was happening during his/her stay.



"They bring people who are ill with COVID-19 there," the person said. "People are constantly arriving. The hospital is full of patients [and] all are diagnosed with pneumonia."



The person continued, saying there are not enough vehicles to take all the bodies to the morgue.

The comment about the insufficient number of body bags was reported by an RFE/RL correspondent in Ashgabat.



The reporter added that when there were body bags, authorities handed over bodies to relatives with a warning not to open the bag and to leave the body in the bag for burial.



Another Ashgabat correspondent said they knew at least 20 people who were in hospitals in the capital who had coronavirus symptoms.

'Full Of Patients'



One RFE/RL correspondent in Ashgabat said there were too many patients for hospitals to handle and one of the local children's hospitals had started taking patients with COVID-19 symptoms, although officially these are patients with signs of pneumonia.



An Azatlyk correspondent in the eastern city of Turkmenabat, described a similar situation.



"The general hospital is full of patients with the coronavirus," the reporter said. "Earlier it was only one wing that was a quarantined area, but now the whole clinic is closed off. There are about 700 beds and all of them are occupied, there is nowhere to send new patients."

Turkmenabat is the capital of Lebap Province and the independent website Turkmen.news reported on July 20 that the head of the province's Faryab district died recently of pneumonia.



Hasan Metkuliev was 55 years old and, as of July 14, was telling people he was in good health. But Metkuliev died four days later and his family received his body wrapped in a plastic body bag for immediate burial.



Azatlyk confirmed Metkuliev's death, and that his wife and deputy district chief had also been infected and were in the hospital.



Yagshygeldy Kakaev, who for many years oversaw Turkmenistan's key oil and gas sector and was one of the few trusted officials to regularly represent the country abroad, reportedly died of pneumonia on July 8.



Turkish diplomat Kemal Uchkun died in an Ashgabat hospital, officially of heart failure, but when he entered the hospital he was treated for pneumonia and some believe he actually died from COVID-19.

And most recently, there is unconfirmed information that President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov's brother-in-law, Annanazar Rejepov, has died of pneumonia and that his wife, Durdynabat, is seriously ill.



Turkmen authorities managed to guide a team from the World Health Organization (WHO) to sites where there was allegedly no evidence of the coronavirus in early July.



The fact that the visit was delayed by more than two months as Turkmen officials dragged out the process of issuing permission for the WHO mission to come did not escape the attention of those watching Turkmenistan, many of whom wondered if the government was using the time to cleanse sites the WHO team would visit.

At a press conference on July 15, WHO mission chief Catherine Smallwood made reference in her remarks to "reports of increased cases of acute respiratory disease or pneumonia of unknown cause."

The head of Turkmenistan's Department for the Surveillance of Dangerous Diseases, Dr. Gurbangul Ovliyagulova, also spoke at the press briefing and denied there was any pneumonia of unknown cause in Turkmenistan.

Ample Evidence



There is already ample evidence that the coronavirus is in Turkmenistan.



The increasing number of people, including medical personnel, who are willing to speak to foreign media outlets under condition of anonymity, of course, about the strange and sudden number of illnesses in the country shows the frustration within the population with the government's statements that there is no health crisis.



The most baffling thing about the government's repeated denials about the coronavirus being in the country is what exactly is the point of denying it?



According to Worldometers.info, the coronavirus is affecting 213 countries and territories around the world.



There is no shame in admitting the virus is also in your country. Almost every country has done so, including all of Turkmenistan's neighbors (even a long-reluctant Tajikistan).



There is no prize that comes with a claim of being coronavirus-free.



But there are huge losses, chiefly for the people in a country where the government has failed to take adequate measures to stem the spread of the virus and now finds its medical facilities overloaded with patients and ill-prepared in terms of medicine, equipment, and medical personnel to deal with a massive health crisis.



Azatlyk correspondents report that rumors about the virus are everywhere, fueling panic among the public.



And because the Turkmen government denies there is a problem, it receives very little of the outside financial and material help the country desperately needs.

RFE/RL's Turkmen Service contributed to this report
Speaker CP Joshi is contesting the High Court's right to rule on his proceedings

Rajasthan Assembly speaker C P Joshi is contesting the High Court's right to rule upon his disqualification proceedings against Sachin Pilot's group of rebel Congress MLAs. (PTI Photo)

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that it would not stop the Rajasthan High Court from pronouncing its order on a plea by 19 rebel Congress MLAs led by Sachin Pilot against the speaker's notice of disqualification proceedings against them.

But the High Court order would be subject to the outcome of a petition filed in the Supreme Court by speaker CP Joshi, who contests the High Court's right to meddle in his proceedings.

However, the speaker failed to get any interim relief from the Supreme Court on his plea which argues that the High Court cannot interdict disqualification proceedings undertaken by the speaker of a legislature under the 10th schedule of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court bench -- comprising justices Arun Mishra, B R Gavai and Krishna Murari -- said the speaker's plea raises important questions bit it would require a prolonged hearing.

While allowing the High Court to proceed, the apex court scheduled its next hearing on the speaker's plea for July 27.

Speaker Joshi is trying to get disqualification proceedings started against 19 MLAs, including deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot who led them into rebellion against chief minister Ashok Gehlot. They stayed away from a Congress Legislature Party meeting called by the chief minister despite a whip issued to them.

Appearing for speaker Joshi in the Supreme Court, senior counsel Kapil Sibal argued that the presiding officer's right to call and conduct the disqualification proceeding cannot be meddled with by the court; at the most the speaker can be asked to rule upon the proceedings within a time frame.

The bench asked Sibal whether a disqualification notice can be issued to MLAs for not attending meetings and whether not attending such meetings can be construed as a stance against the party.

Therefore, Joshi's counsel argued, the Rajasthan High Court has no jurisdiction to restrain the speaker from conducting disqualification proceedings till July 24.
23.07.2020 LISTEN

The Minority in Parliament have accused the Finance Minister of hiding to rewrite the 2020 mid-year budget review following the hours of delay even though present in the House.

There are reports that Ken Ofori Atta is being held up somewhere in the House by the Majority Caucus in Parliament causing the hours of delay.

This, the Minority believe the Finance Minister who is supposed to ending the budget reading by now is rather being cajoled by the Majority MPs to make last minute changes.

Ken Ofori-Atta is expected to present the 2020 mid-year budget review to parliament today in accordance with Section 28 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921).

The Minority in Parliament have said the minister should use the opportunity to render accounts to the nation on all the accruals received for the COVID-19 pandemic fight.

The Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament, Dr Mark Assibey-Yeboah, however, told journalists a few days ago that Mr Ofori-Atta will not be doing that today.

Meanwhile, Economist Prof Godfred Bokpin has said the mid-year budget review, will not be the magic fixer of Ghanas COVID-19-ravaged economy.
Laboratories across the U.S. are buckling under a surge of coronavirus tests, creating long processing delays that experts say are undercutting the pandemic response.

With the U.S. tally of confirmed infections at nearly 4 million Wednesday and new cases surging, the bottlenecks are creating problems for workers kept off the job while awaiting results, nursing homes struggling to keep the virus out and for the labs themselves as they deal with a crushing workload.

Some labs are taking weeks to return COVID-19 results, exacerbating fears that people without symptoms could be spreading the virus if they dont isolate while they wait.

Theres been this obsession with, How many tests are we doing per day?' said Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The question is how many tests are being done with results coming back within a day, where the individual tested is promptly isolated and their contacts are promptly warned.

Frieden and other public health experts have called on states to publicly report testing turnaround times, calling it an essential metric to measure progress against the virus.

The testing lags in the U.S. come as the number of people confirmed to be infected worldwide passed a staggering 15 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. leads the world in cases as well as deaths, which have exceeded 142,000.

New York, once by far the U.S. leader in infections, has been surpassed by California, though that is partly due to robust testing in a state with more than twice the population of New York.

Guidelines issued by the CDC recommend that states lifting virus restrictions have a testing turnaround time of under four days. The agency recently issued new recommendations against retesting most COVID-19 patients to confirm they have recovered.

Its clogging up the system, Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant health secretary, told reporters last week.

Zachrey Warner knows it all too well.

The 30-year-old waiter from Columbus, Ohio, was sent home from work on July 5 with a high fever a few days after he began feeling ill. He went for a test five days later at the request of his employer.

Almost two weeks and one missed pay period later, he finally got his answer Wednesday: negative.

Though Warner said most symptoms  including fever, diarrhea, chest tightness and body aches  stopped a few days after he was tested, he wasnt allowed to return to work without the result.

It was frustrating that Ive missed so much work due to testing taking forever," Warner said. It is what it is ... (but) Im glad Im negative and happy to be able to get back to work this week.

Beyond the economic hurt the testing lags can cause, they pose major health risks, too.

In Florida, which reported 9,785 new cases and a rise in the death toll to nearly 5,500, nursing homes have been under an order to test all employees every two weeks. But long delays for results have some questioning the point.

Jay Solomon, CEO of Aviva in Sarasota, a senior community with a nursing home and assisted living facility, said results were taking up to 10 days to come back.

Its almost like, what are we accomplishing in that time? Solomon said. If that person is not quarantined in that 7-10 days, are they spreading without realizing it?

Test results that come back after two or three days are nearly worthless, many health experts say, because by then the window for tracing the persons contacts to prevent additional infections has essentially closed.

The turnaround times, particularly across the South are too long, Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House coronavirus task force said on Fox.

Birx said the U.S. had shorter turnaround times in April, May and early June, but that this surge and this degree of cases is so widespread compared to previously, she said.

Dr. Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University said it's reasonable to tell people awaiting test results to isolate for 24 hours, but the delays have been unacceptable.

Imagine you tell a parent with young children to self-isolate for 10 days or more without knowing they actually have COVID? I mean, thats ridiculous. Thats actually absurd, Wen said.

U.S. officials have recently called for ramping up screening to include seemingly healthy Americans who may be unknowingly spreading the disease in their communities. But Quest Diagnostics, one of the nations largest testing chains, said it cant keep up with demand and most patients will face waits of a week or longer for results.

Quest has urged health care providers to cut down on tests from low-priority individuals, such as those without symptoms or any contact with someone who has tested positive.

As testing has expanded, so have mask orders and other measures aimed at keeping infections down. Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota and Oregon became the latest to announce statewide mandatory mask orders Wednesday.

The U.S. is testing over 700,000 people per day, up from less than 100,000 in March. Trump administration officials point out that roughly half of U.S. tests are performed on rapid systems that give results in about 15 minutes or in hospitals, which typically process tests in about 24 hours. But last month, that still left some 9 million tests going through laboratories, which have been plagued by limited chemicals, machines and kits to develop COVID-19 tests.

There is no scientific consensus on the rate of testing needed to control the virus in the U.S., but experts have recommended for months that the U.S. test at least 1 million to 3 million people daily.

Health experts assembled by the Rockefeller Foundation said last week that the U.S. should scale up to testing 30 million Americans per week by the fall, when school reopenings and flu season are expected to further exacerbate the viruss spread. The group acknowledged that will not be possible with the lab-based testing system.

The National Institutes of Health has set up a shark tank competition to quickly identify promising rapid tests and has received more than 600 applications. The goal is to have new testing options in mass production by the fall.

Until then, the backbone of U.S. testing remains at several hundred labs with high-capacity machines capable of processing thousands of samples per day. Many say they could be processing far more tests if not for global shortages of testing chemicals and other materials.

Dr. Bobbi Pritt of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, says the hospitals machines are running at just 20% capacity. Lab technicians run seven different COVID-19 testing formats, switching back and forth depending on the availability of supplies.

At Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, lab workers lobby testing manufacturers on a weekly basis to provide more kits, chemicals and other materials.

Theres no planning ahead, we just do as many as we can and cross our fingers that well get more, said Dr. Colleen Kraft, who heads the hospitals testing lab.
Farhana Khera, president and executive director of Muslim Advocates speaks in September during a House Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship and Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations joint hearing on the administration's 'Muslim ban' on Capitol Hill in Washington. Read more

The House on Wednesday voted to repeal the Trump administrations travel ban and further restrict the presidents power to limit entry to the U.S., a symbolic victory for Muslim American and civil rights groups.

The bill, which passed the Democrat-controlled House 233-183, had initially been slated for action in March, before the coronavirus forced scheduling changes on Capitol Hill. The measure is unlikely to advance in the Republican-controlled Senate, where it has no GOP support. But the bill's passage by the House still elated advocates who had long pushed for formal action against a travel ban that they see as discriminatory.

This is a historic moment for Muslims, Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, one of the groups working in support of the bill, said ahead of the vote.

Passage of the NO BAN act will show Muslims, who have been banned and scapegoated by the Trump administration, that we deserve rights and dignity, Khera added.

Among House Democrats who voted, all supported the bill, while two Republicans among those voting crossed the aisle to vote yes: Texas Rep. Will Hurd and Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick.

The White House noted its opposition to the bill in March, saying in a statement that undoing the travel ban would harm the national security of the United States" and that the ban has been "central to the Administrations ongoing efforts to safeguard the American people against the spread of COVID-19."

In debate ahead of the vote, Democrats repeatedly blasted the travel ban that President Donald Trump first imposed in January 2017. They called it biased against Muslims, whose entry into the country Trump first suggested blocking during his 2016 White House run.

It will be a proud day for this Congress when we invalidate the presidents infamous and ugly attempt to scapegoat people based on their religion, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said during floor debate ahead of the final vote.

The legislation goes beyond overturning Trumps travel ban, which was retooled amid legal challenges and upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. The latest version of the ban affects travel from five majority-Muslim nations  Iran, Somalia, Yemen, Syria and Libya  in addition to North Korea and by some Venezuelan government officials and their families.

In addition to overturning the travel ban, the bill the House passed also prohibits religious discrimination in the application of immigration law and constrains the executive branchs ability to limit entry to the U.S. by certain groups of people.

Conservatives defended Trump's actions. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., said during floor debate that Trumps restrictions on travel are not a Muslim ban but rather a legitimate travel restriction implemented for the safety of this nation. He criticized Democrats for relying on a straw man argument about religious discrimination while crafting a bill that more broadly restricts presidential authority.

Trump earlier this year added new immigration curbs from six other nations, including majority-Muslim Kyrgyzstan and Sudan, as well as Nigeria, which has the worlds fifth-largest Muslim population, according to the Pew Research Center.

Trump's Democratic rival in the upcoming presidential election, former Vice President Joe Biden, vowed Monday to rescind Trumps travel ban on day one if hes elected. He made the pledge in remarks to a summit focused on Muslim voter turnout.

Muslim American and other civil rights advocates have said Wednesdays vote in the House would help them keep the pressure on for a future rollback of the policy.

The bills passage represents a huge step forward for Muslims, Africans, immigrants, and everyone who wants to ensure that future presidents cannot use rank prejudice to issue discriminatory bans, said Manar Waheed, senior legislative and advocacy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, before the vote.
The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has launched a book as part of its contribution to improving quality pre-tertiary education in the country.



The five-chapter book titled, "The GNAT Standpoint on Education," outlines the Association's position on quality education through a good school environment and infrastructure, provision of teaching and learning resources, learner/teacher support, mentoring, monitoring and evaluation, among others.



The Standpoint is expected to serve as a reference for governments, political parties, donor agencies, and other stakeholders interested to know teachers and educational workers position on matters relating to quality pre-tertiary education.



It is also to trigger a social dialogue on educational policy formation.



Reverend Professor Emmanuel Addow-Obeng, President of the Presbyterian University College, who launched the book, commended the Association for impacting positively on the educational system through the policy document.



He called on government and other stakeholders to make good use of the book to transform the educational sector.



Professor Dominic Mensah, Director of the Institute of Teacher Education and Continuing Professional Development at the University of Education, Winneba, reviewing the book said there was a need for government to install broadband internet connectivity to promote E-Learning at the pre-tertiary level.



The Book, he said had called for training and understanding for learner/teacher on how to promptly handle emergencies properly before experts were called.



Professor Mensah said the incorporation of early childhood education in the public sector, which had been capitalized by private schools must not be taken for granted.



The Standpoint called for collaboration between the Government and religious bodies to run early childhood education, especially in rural areas, the Director noted.



He said the Book also placed emphasizes teachers welfare, health, and safety to attract and retain the best teachers.



Mrs Philippa Larsen, National President of GNAT called on Government to release funds to cover the expenses of practical examinations in Science, Visual Arts, and Agricultural in the on-going West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE).



Practical tests deserve to receive the same attention as the written, GNAT, therefore, calls on government to release funds without delay to the affected schools for the conduct of WASSCE practical examinations, Mrs Larsen said.



She appealed to the Ghana Education Service to recruit enough teachers to ease the burden on schools due to the Free Senior High School (SHS) Policy to improve quality work out-put.



The President explained that some teachers were compelled to teach on both the Gold and Green tracks, with some forfeiting vacations between six and ten months, and must be addressed.



Mrs Larsen called on parents to complement the governments efforts by providing some needs of their wards under the Free SHS.



Dr Kennedy Achakoma, Head of Education of the Trade Union Congress called on the government to invest in building quality human resource, that would think outside the box to bring out quality education inspite of challenges.



At the event were representatives from the Ministry of Education, Judicial Staff Association of Ghana, and political parties, among others.

Source: GNA









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NPP Deputy Communications Director, Mame Yaa Aboagye has eulogized the late CEO of the Forestry Commission, Lawyer Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie aka Sir John, describing him as a gem who served his party wholeheartedly.



According to her, Sir Johns death was a big blow to the NPP.



Words cannot describe our loss but one thing I know is a good man legacy always leaves on and we will forever cherish him in our heart.



Sir Johns One Week commiseration came off on Wednesday, July 22, 2020, and tributes poured in for him from his family, friends, the NPP, and the general public.



Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia led a delegation of the party to the Ashanti Region, Sakora Wonoo, to condole with the grieving family.



Mame Yaa Aboagye shared memories of the late Forestry CEO and former NPP General Secretary.



Lawyer Afriyies death is a big blow to us. His love for NPP and contribution to Ghana politics was so overwhelming. Ghana has lost a real gem, NPP has lost a gemHe worked tirelessly with all humility and ensured that all the activities of the party go on as planned even when hes not part of the current executives. He did his best and was very supportive to foot soldiers and also instrumental ensuring Nana-Bawumia retained their seat, come 2020 elections.



Lawyer Owusu-Afriyie died after testing positive for COVID-19 on July 1, 2020.



His sudden demise shook Ghanas political space.

Source: Josephine Acheampomaa/[email protected]









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BOISE, Idaho - When armed protesters took over a remote wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon four years ago to oppose federal control of public lands, U.S. agents negotiated with the conservative occupiers for weeks while some state leaders begged for stronger action.

This month, federal officers sent to Portland to quell chaotic protests against racial injustice took swift and, some say, harsh action: launching tear gas, firing less-lethal ammunition and helping arrest more than 40 people in the first two weeks. State leaders are imploring federal forces to leave the progressive city, saying theyre escalating a volatile situation.

The reaction from state leaders, protesters and anti-government groups to the U.S. response to two disparate situations shows the inconsistencies in how both sides view federal intervention, often based on the politics of whos protesting and whos cracking down.

J.J. MacNab, a fellow at George Washington Universitys Program on Extremism, said many right-wing extremists who espouse anti-government and pro-gun views have embraced the authoritarian tactics used by President Donald Trump that they denounced under his Democratic predecessor.

Its like night and day, she said. They hated government when Obama was in office. They love government now.

MacNab, whos been monitoring social media chatter by supporters of anti-government groups like the Oath Keepers and the militia-style Three Percenters, said shes seen a steady stream of violent rhetoric directed toward Portland protesters.

MacNab said the Oath Keepers in 2015 promoted a conspiracy theory that a U.S. military training exercise was a pretext for the federal government to impose martial law.

They are literally 180 degrees from where they were in 2015, she said.

But some of them dont fully support the federal tactics targeting two months of protests in Portland that began after George Floyds death by Minneapolis police. Large, mostly peaceful crowds had dwindled to smaller groups that have vandalized the federal courthouse and other public buildings downtown, which federal authorities say gives them authority to act to protect their officers and property.

Eric Parker, president of The Real 3%ers of Idaho, supported an armed standoff with federal authorities in 2014 near the Nevada ranch of Cliven Bundy, whose sons led the occupation at the wildlife refuge in Oregon two years later. Both standoffs pushed for states rights and keeping the federal government out of peoples lives.

Parker was charged with pointing a semi-automatic rifle at armed federal agents but ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour. He spent about 18 months in federal custody.

I had to go through due process with my activism, if youre willing to call it that, he said this week. And if youre going to do activism, you have to be willing to do that.

Parker, whos running for Idaho state Senate, has some concerns about the federal response to protests in Portland and elsewhere.

It makes me uncomfortable, sure, he said. He worries that videos appearing to show U.S. agents grabbing people off the street and whisking them away in unmarked cars could mean people are being arrested without probable cause.

Still, he doesnt necessarily oppose U.S. agencies taking action.

If Portland isnt going to protect its police department or the federal building or what have you, I could see them having to, Parker said.

Parker, who was in eastern Oregon during the 2016 occupation but said he didnt take part, criticized the difference in the Democratic governors reactions to the federal response then and now.

Gov. Kate Brown has compared the presence of federal agents at the Portland protests to pouring gasoline on a fire.

This a democracy, not a dictatorship. We cannot have secret police abducting people in unmarked vehicles. I cant believe I have to say that to the President of the United States, she tweeted.

But in 2016 she was begging federal law enforcement to do whatever they had to do to stop the peaceful occupation in the middle of a desert, Parker said. The idea that now federal agents are storm-troopers of death I find quite hypocritical.

The armed occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge started Jan. 2, 2016, and lasted 41 days. Negotiations began in the first weeks, with Ammon Bundy questioning whether the federal government had the authority to operate in the rural county.

Bundy and others were allowed to come and go as Obamas administration tried to avoid the bloodshed thats characterized confrontations with right-wing groups in the past.

By the end of January, state police and FBI agents used a roadblock to stop Bundy and other protest leaders as they headed to a meeting. During the confrontation, occupier Robert LaVoy Finicum was shot and killed by police and several others were arrested. Finicums death sparked protests in over a dozen cities nationwide.

The FBI gave the remaining occupiers time to leave the refuge. Most did  though some were arrested  and soon just four holdouts remained. They surrendered as federal agents moved in Feb. 10.

U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both Oregon Democrats, had urged the FBI to move quickly to end the occupation. Now, they strongly criticize federal actions in Portland. Wyden described them as paramilitary assaults on peoples constitutional rights, while Merkley called them profound offences against Americans.

In Portland, the federal response escalated faster. U.S. officers were deployed in early July, and they have repeatedly deployed tear gas and rubber bullets and used force to scatter protesters.

A protester was hospitalized with critical injuries on July 11 after a federal officer struck him in the head with a round of less-lethal ammunition. A video last weekend showed a federal agent hitting a Navy veteran repeatedly with a baton while another pepper-sprayed him in the face. U.S. officials said theyre investigating.

Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper, author of the 2016 book To Protect and Serve: How to Fix Americas Police, said Trump appears to be using his own private political army in a quest to override home rule and local authority.

If its not unprecedented, its extremely rare and as dangerous as I think it is uncommon, Stamper said.

Stamper said National Guard troops, unlike federal agents deployed by the Trump administration, are trained to respond to civil unrest and operate at the direction of state and local officials.

For me, the larger question is: Who is in charge of these federal forces? he said.

Bundy, who lives in Emmett, Idaho, is asking a similar question. He said this week that he planned to attend a local Black Lives Matter rally calling for reduced police funding.

We have to understand that there is an enormous amount of Black people, you know, that need their rights defended, he said in an online video. I do believe, in many ways, the police need to be defunded. We have become a police state because of the funding that they receive.

Some followers sharply criticized him, which Bundy said disgusted him. He later decided not to go to the protest, saying he feared his presence would increase the risk of violence from opponents.

There needs to be a defunding of government in general, and especially the police forces, because theyre the ones that are actually going to seek and destroy us, he said in a video. And there are many people in the Black Lives Matter organization, along with patriots and, you know, libertarians and Republicans and Democrats that understand this.

___

Kunzelman reported from Silver Spring, Maryland.
Carnival Cruise Line announced updates to its fleet plan Thursday, including word that it will bring a newer ship, the Sensation, to Mobile

Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson shared the news on social media after asking Whos ready for some good news?

Indeed, the word from Carnival follows recent news that the Carnival Fantasy, the ship that previously operated out of Mobile, had been sold and apparently was on its way to a scrapyard. This didnt necessarily mean Mobile had lost its footing as a cruise port -- Carnival had previously announced plans to replace the Fantasy with the Fascination in 2022 -- but it did create some uncertainty.

While its still unclear when the COVID-19 epidemic will subside enough for the cruise industry to get back up to speed, Carnivals announcement does provide some assurance Mobile wont be left behind when that happens.

Its a big, big, big, deal, said David Clark, president and CEO of Visit Mobile. This is years of work to make it happen.

This morning I received a phone call from Carnival Cruise Lines letting me know the Carnival Sensation will move from Miami to Mobile and take up itineraries previously assigned to the Fantasy and Fascination, Stimpson said in a statement released later Thursday morning. This is the great news for our City and a huge shot in the arm for our tourism industry. We had a great team, a great strategy and we never stopped working to make this happen. Mobile believes in Carnival, and todays announcement is validation that Carnival believes in Mobile.

Clark said the effort to build a relationship with Carnival has been a team effort. Among those who deserve credit, he said, are Stimpson, the city council, Visit Mobile and Joe Snowden, Stimpsons executive director of maritime and transportation.

Clark said he sees Mobiles inclusion in the Carnival announcement as a signal that the city isnt an afterthought for the company.

I think in the past mobile has been viewed as possibly a secondary market, he said. This is a sign that Mobile is being viewed as more than that now.

According to Carnivals announcement, the Sensation has previously served Miami, where it will be replaced by the Carnival Sunrise. The Carnival Sensation is a Fantasy-class ship that entered service in 1993, three years after the Carnival Fantasy.

According to Press-Register archives, the Sensation has visited Mobile before: It was one of three Carnival ships chartered by FEMA to house victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After that mission it and a sister ship came to a Mobile shipyard for repairs and refurbishment.

Carnivals announcement provided no new information on the Fantasy, saying only that it and the Inspiration had been sold. The announcement said two other ships, including the Fascination, were being moved to long term lay-up status, with no specific timeline identified for a return to operation.

We have used this pause in operations to think carefully about our fleet and to build a plan that gives our guests new choices and upgrades to current ship offerings, Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line, said in Thursdays announcement.

Duffy said that Carnival will continue to invest in the four remaining Fantasy class ships that we are keeping in the fleet. We have many guests who prefer our Fantasy class ships which work so well for shorter itineraries from smaller ports that cannot accommodate our larger ships.

With our future fleet plan resolved, we are focused on ensuring we are ready to return to operations once it is determined that the time is right to resume cruising in the U.S., Duffy said.
TOMAH, Wis., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --

WHEN: Tuesday, July 28 from 11:00 am to 12:00 noon CDT

WHERE: Veterans Park (Field 13) in Tomah, Wisconsin

WHY: Mired in controversy and often used as an example of the failures of the Obama-Biden administration, the Tomah VA Medical Center erupted in scandal in 2014 when veterans began overdosing on prescribed medications. With reform and dedication, and with Obama and Biden out of office, Tomah has been able to turn a corner, participating in alternative therapies and helping veterans reach peace in their minds and bodies without such heavy reliance on prescription drugs and painkillers. This improvement is a solemn reminder that we don't want to return to those Obama-Biden policies.

WHO: Speakers include retired Navy Seal Derrick Van Orden and veteran Dan Kapanke, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. Event organized by the Coalition for American Veterans.

From now through November, CAV will be conducting a grassroots outreach effort to stand up for Veterans' issues via videos, social media, phone calls, mailings, text messages, email alerts, and literature distribution.

SOURCE Coalition for American Veterans

Related Links

https://coalitionforamericanveterans.com/


Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said he is giving a Raksha Bandhan gift to women of Manipur as he laid the foundation stone for water supply project through video conferencing.

This project will give clean drinking water to Greater Imphal and 1,700 village in Manipur. It will provide a lifeline to these people, PM Mod said. He added that it will help women in as many as one lakh families in the state,

The prime minister said that the project has been designed with the help of local panchayats and people living here, which he said is a fine example of decentralisation.

Also read: India can power post-Covid-19 global recovery, says PM Modi

The Manipur Water Supply project will also generate employment for thousands of people, PM Modi said. He also highlighted the fact that work to lay the pipelines was continuing even during the Covid-19 lockdown.

The country did not stop due to Covid-19, he said.

He also listed the scheme implemented by the Centre to help Manipur and various states during the coronavirus crisis.

The Northeast is battling twin challenges - Covid-19 and flood. Many people have to leave their homes due to the flood. I assure you that everyone is with you in this difficult time, said the prime minister.

The fund for the project has been provided by the Centre under Jal Jeevan Mission to provide freshwater household tap connections (FHTCs) to 1,185 habitations with 1,42,749 households.

The Manipur Water Supply project, an externally funded project, was designed to provide FHTCs to remaining households in the Greater Imphal Planning area, 25 towns, and for 1,731 rural habitations covering 2,80,756 households in 16 districts of Manipur.

The project is an important component of the efforts of the state government to achieve the goal of Har Ghar Jal by 2024. The project outlay is about 3054.58 crore with a loan component funded by the New Development Bank.

Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla, Chief Minister N Biren Singh and his cabinet colleagues, MPs, and MLAs joined the programme from Imphal. Union minister Gajendra Shekhawat and Dr Jitendra Singh also took part in the programme.

Chief minister Singh said that Manipur has developed under the BJP government. He also listed the achievements of the state government, and thanked the Centre for giving it all the help.

Shekhawat, the Jal Shakti minister, said that the water supply project will cost more than 3,000 crore.

The central government had initiated the Jal Jeevan Mission to provide safe and adequate quantity of drinking water to every rural household of the country by 2024 with the motto Har Ghar Jal.

The programme also implements source sustainability measures as mandatory elements, such as recharge and reuse through greywater management, water conservation, rainwater harvesting.
Founder and flagbearer of the All Peoples Congress (APC), Mr Hassan Ayariga has described the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic as a blessing in disguise to Ghanas political sphere, especially to smaller political parties like his.



Even with Covid-19 for us, I will say it is a positive thing. It is a positive thing for us in our campaign because it gives us the opportunity now to meet one on one with people less than 100 seated which gives us the opportunity for the people to buy into our ideas and listen to the policies that we have for them and the programmes that we have for them, he indicated on Joy News PM Express.



He added that, the smaller campaign rallies would also allow the Ghanaian people to ask pertinent questions surrounding policies and programmes thus helping them make informed decisions come Election 2020.



We will not go and mount big rallies and bring people and lie to them, well give people the opportunity to ask us questions, well give them the opportunity to interview us, well give them the opportunity to listen to us and actually scrutinize the policies that we have for Ghana, he explained.



Mr. Hassan Ayariga also bemoaned the medias coverage of the two major political parties in the country; the NPP and the NDC at the expense of the smaller parties.



He stated that the atmosphere created by the pandemic, will give each political party the platform to penetrate the masses with their messages.



That is the best way of campaigning; campaigning that the people will listen to you not campaigning that we have enough money to come and buy you, do this do that.



He was optimistic of winning the 2020 presidential elections.



There will be a serious shock in 2020 election just keep watchingthat shock is coming, 2020 Ghanaians are going to have a new president and Im 100% sure Hassan Ayariga will be that new president, no doubt about it.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Life is a journey, not a destination.

[That platitude] can be a copout, avoiding the effort you need to pull yourself out of bad moments, violin virtuoso Charlie Siem told me. You can be very mediocre if youre too easy on yourself.

The 34-year-old British violinist exemplifies the opposite of mediocrity. As a young child, Siems mother often played Beethovens Violin Concerto on cassette tapes. The simple melodies so entranced the 3-year-old that he picked up the violin, an instrument nearly his own size. Twelve years later at age 15, Siem made his professional debut. For almost 20 years now, hes played with the worlds finest orchestras and conductors, from the London Symphony to the Czech National Symphony, and from Charles Dutoit to Sir Roger Norrington, among many others.

An onlooker could describe Siems disciplined life and practice regimen as a grinda life full of sacrifices made for music. In his youth, he practiced four hours a day; he now practices two to three. In 30 years, hes taken off very few days. Siem sees his life very differently from an onlooker, however.

It wasnt that I thought I was giving anything else up. I always thought I was gaining something by focusing on one thing, the violin, he says. I felt lucky to know what I wanted to do and was able to sink my teeth into it, he said in a phone interview.

Hardship and Brilliance

Siem believes that society today too often attacks the idea of excellence.

Everyone is told not to be too aggressive or competitive. You have to accept and love yourself as you are. I think we all know thats just not good enough, he says. None of us feel good by just accepting things as they are.

He explains that life inevitably throws you twists and roadblocks.

The ups are only good because of the downs. The downs are only bearable because there is hope and a possibility to succeed at some other point afterward, he says.

Although the standard at each level of his musical journey changes, the required effort and passion remains constant.

You have to invest in each level 100 percent. You cannot even look at the next level until youve mastered what youre doing right now, he says. Without that level of dedication and focus, we feel empty when we start zoning out.

Violinist Charlie Siem. (Gilles Marie Zimmerman)

Quarantine Cocoon

Siems typical schedule of over 50 concerts a year easily motivates and focuses him day after day. Hes in a state of perpetual preparation for his next performance. But without a concert in sight, the quarantine period has tested Siems enthusiasm. Hes responded in two ways, both at opposite ends of the spectrum: intermission and immersion.

When youre so isolated and youre so cocooned, its just your own little reality  There have been times Ive gotten lost in that void, he says. Occasionally, hes taken a string of days off, a rarity in three decades of daily practice. Taking time out disconnecting from the instrument and reconnecting with yourself just as a human being in the world, I think, its also good for you.

Siem has taken the days away from his instrument to explore where he is in life, his career, where hes been, and where hes heading. With a laugh, he admits he hasnt received clear answers to these ruminations. But these recesses have refreshed him, inspiring him to engross himself in his craft on all the other days of quarantine solitude.

The more time you have without concerts almost the better, because you can really focus on your own technical ability, refining it, improving it, really going deeper and having much more time to investigate the repertoire that you played before, Siem says. [My] total immersion in music  has forced me to question my interpretation and what it is Im trying to express.

After a morning workout and breakfast, Siem video records his violin practice with his phone.

[I was] treating myself as my own student. [Video recording is] definitely a useful tool that Ive been using more in this period than I ever have before, he says.

Reviewing the footage, Siem checks his finger placements and bow resonance, for example. He has seen bad habits and corrected minute inaccuracies.

He could see he wasnt vibrating every note, he says. There [were] drop-offs in the sound when I think Im sustaining the sound.

To further challenge his technique, Siem tackled Paganini scales, arpeggios, and caprices. He believes Niccolo Paganini is the father of violin, whose repertoire of 24 caprices catapulted the violin into the new sphere of solo performer. On Siems Instagram account, his fingers move so quickly on these scales at times that they appear to hover above the neck, not actually pressing down.

New Realms

Bach wrote six cello suites for solo cello and six violin sonatas and partitas, a repertoire that Siem describes as a bible for string players.

Theres something about solo repertoire. You dont require an orchestra or complementary players, [such as a] pianist. Youre alone, he says.

Bachs music poses many challenges with its different registers and voices dispersed in episodic variation and then returning throughout each piece. Siems acute study of his daily practice has provided new insights into his rendition of Bach.

I feel like Im expressing something that is coherent, that has an architecture in terms of a beginning, middle, and end of the narrative within a phrase. Yet when I listen from a distance, I see that actually I havent conveyed it all and there are holes in the interpretation, he says.

After smoothing out these gaps, the final sound and his connection with the music became transformative, otherworldly, or certainly transcendental. Bachs works allow access to another kind of realm.

Bachs music echoes his unique starting point, philosophy, and ethic. His wisdom encapsulates the journey of a musician more than a feel-good platitude.

A statue of J.S. Bach in front of the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, Germany. (Public Domain)

I worked hard. Anyone who works as hard as I did can achieve the same results, Bach said. The final aim and reason of all music is nothing other than  the refreshment of the spirit.

To that, Siem may agree. Above all, Siem craves sharing that deep, even spiritual connection with his audience again.

When I get back on stage, I look forward to recapturing that magic, he says. Having had all this time out, I really appreciate what it is that I do. Ive got to squeeze out every little drop of value and juice from that experience.

J.H. White is an arts, culture, and mens fashion journalist living in New York.
As it inducts a first batch of five Rafale jets in the midst of the border row with China in eastern Ladakh, the Indian Air Force is looking at integrating the fleet with new generation air-to-ground missile systems having a strike range of up to 60km, people familiar with the development said.

The aircraft is capable of carrying a range of potent weapons. European missile maker MBDA's Meteor beyond visual range air-to-air missile, Scalp cruise missile and MICA weapons system will be the mainstay of the weapons package of the Rafale jets.

The people cited above said the IAF is zeroing in on procuring new generation medium-range modular air-to-ground weapon system Hammer to integrate with the Rafale jets, using the emergency financial powers provided by the government to the armed forces for faster acquisition of key weapons and platforms. Hammer (Highly Agile Modular Munition Extended Range) is a precision-guided missile developed by French defence major Safran.

The missile was originally designed and manufactured for the French Air Force and Navy.

In view of the border row with China, the defence ministry this month granted special powers to the three services for individual capital procurement programme worth Rs 300 crore to meet emergent operational requirements.

There will be no cap on the number of procurement programmes and that each acquisition under the emergency requirement category should not cost more than Rs 300 crore, according to officials.

They said the first batch of Rafale jets is likely to be deployed in the Ladakh sector by the second half of next month. India will receive a total of 36 Rafale jets under a Rs 58,000 crore contract. The Meteor, Scalp and MICA weapons system will be the mainstay of the Rafale jets.

The Meteor is the next generation of BVR air-to-air missile (BVRAAM) designed to revolutionise air-to-air combat. The weapon has been developed by MBDA to combat common threats facing the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Sweden. The Meteor is powered by a unique rocket-ramjet motor that gives it far more engine power for much longer than any other missile, said an official.

The Scalp is a deep-strike cruise missile known for having pinpoint terminal accuracy through its highly accurate seeker and target recognition system. The Rafales will also be equipped with MICA weapon system which is integrated into IAF's Mirage 2000 aircraft.

Besides the missile systems, the Rafale jets will come with various India-specific modifications, including Israeli helmet-mounted displays, radar warning receivers, low-band jammers, 10-hour flight data recording, infra-red search and tracking systems among others.

The IAF has already completed preparations, including readying required infrastructure and training of pilots, to welcome the fighter aircraft.

The second squadron of Rafale will be stationed at Hasimara base in West Bengal. The IAF spent around Rs 400 crore to develop required infrastructure like shelters, hangers and maintenance facilities at the two bases.

Out of 36 Rafale jets, 30 will be fighter jets and six will be trainers. The trainer jets will be twin-seater and they will have almost all the features of the fighter jets.
(Photo : NeONBRAND / Unsplash) Instacart data is allegedly experiencing data infiltration.

The Dark Web seems to hold hundreds of thousands of information from Instacart customers, and many of these are even personal data, this report indicated on Wednesday.

These data allegedly being sold illegally are customer names, credit card numbers and digits, order histories, and more, which have reportedly been affecting the customers who are avid subscribers to the grocery delivery service app.

In the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic, online delivery services like those from Instacart are in-demand. But those with bad intentions are taking advantage of their popularity.

On Wednesday, exclusive reports from BuzzFeed News said that sellers in two web-based stores are providing information on almost 279,000 accounts, those many of these may be duplicated and so, are not authentic.

Since April, Instacart's customers have reached millions in the United States and in Canada, the company spokesperson said. However, they are vehemently denying the claims of the data breach.

The spokesperson pointed out, "We are not aware of any data breach at this time. We take data protection and privacy very seriously... Outside of the Instacart platform, attackers may target individuals using phishing or credential stuffing techniques. In instances where we believe a customer's account may have been compromised through an external phishing scam outside of the Instacart platform or other action, we proactively communicate to our customers to auto-force them to update their password."

What is Instacart?

Instacart is an online grocery delivery app that lets customers find 1,000+ products in the stores where they shop at, in a one-stop platform. Basically, it is like visiting multiple stores and 7-Eleven's at once.

They cater to locations like Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, New York City, Austin, Washington, DC, Atlanta, Houston, and more.

The official website said, "Saving money on Instacart is easy. Find exclusive coupons on hundreds of items."

Using the app, customers can be able to save time and money when it comes to their grocery shopping.

More news

Over the previous weeks, Instacart has also found itself in the news. For instance, the company has reportedly raised $100 million more in funding, thus amounting to $13.8 billion in valuation, Business Insider indicated.

This additional funding came in over the previous month since Instacart entered into a deal with DST Global and General Catalyst which is worth $225 million.

Furthermore, Instacart has also found itself facing issues since it has sued fellow grocery delivery app named Cornershop for alleged theft and intellectual property copyright issues from its Internet-based marketplace platform.

Right now, the customers are seemingly believing these news stories. The report said the information included shopping data and email addresses and were uploaded since June until this day.

Meanwhile, Nick Espinosa, the head of cybersecurity at Security Fanatics is saying these data breaches are legitimate. This cybersecurity firm lead stated, "It's looking recent and totally legit."

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Businesswoman Elena Oelke is challenging U.S. Rep. Fred Upton in the Aug. 4 primary election to represent the Republican Party in November to compete for Michigans 6th District in the U.S. House of Representatives

The winner will face one of the two Democrats vying to represent their party, state Rep. Jon Hoadley, D-Kalamazoo or Jen Richardson, the research director and a science teacher at the Kalamazoo Area Math and Science Center.

The congressional district encompasses Berrien, Cass, Kalamazoo, St. Joseph, and Van Buren counties, and most of Allegan county.

Oelke, a self-employed real estate agent, and Upton did not complete the Voters Guide that MLive Media Group partnered with the League of Women Voters of Michigan on to provide candidate information and other voting resources to readers ahead of 2020 elections. It is available via Vote411.org

According to her website, Oelke, 49, of St. Joseph, grew up in the Soviet Union and became an American citizen in 1998.

I am a passionate fighter to preserve the opportunities America gave me for others, to insure our freedoms stay intact and America and her people come first in every decision we make as a Country and Congress,' according to her website.

As for the issues, Oelke cites several positions including being pro Second Amendment, opposed to red flag gun laws, pro education with more individual choices, against illegal immigration with incentives, and supportive of border security. For more about her campaign and background, visit www.elenaoelkeforcongress.com.

Upton, 67, R-St. Joseph, is running for an 18th consecutive term. He was first elected in 1986.

There is unfinished business we have to complete - Cures 2.0, fighting the opioid epidemic, immigration reform, and protecting the Great Lakes, among others, Upton wrote on Facebook in February when he announced he was seeking another term.

I am raising my hand and committing to work with anyone of any party to deliver results, protect our communities, and simply solve problems. Thats why I am leader of a bipartisan problem solvers group. Despite what you hear, there are good people in both parties doing good work. We just need more of them.

According to his campaign website, Uptons focus remains on passing important legislation to encourage job creation, protect taxpayers, help our community and enhance the quality of life for everyone in Southwest Michigan and throughout our country.

Prior to Congress, Upton worked for President Ronald Reagan in the Office of Management and Budget. For more about his experience and campaign, visit fredupton.com

More on MLive:

Kalamazoo teacher and state lawmaker face off in U.S. District 6 Democratic primary

Republicans face off for Michigans 61st House District nomination

2 Kalamazoo County commissioners compete for Democratic nomination in state House race

All candidates and issues on the ballot for Kalamazoo Countys August primary election
The Senate side of the Capitol is seen on the morning of Dec. 19, 2019. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

Senate Adopts Defense Bill Renaming Military Bases With Confederate Names

The Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which besides authorizing $740 billion for defense programs, also requires renaming U.S. military bases bearing the names of Confederate generals.

The bill passed by 86-14 along bipartisan lines, clearing a two-thirds threshold needed to overcome a potential veto, which President Donald Trump threatened to do over an amendment renaming military assets named after Confederate leaders.

The amendment, proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called for a ban of the Confederate flag on military propertyincluding living quarters, vehicles, and clothing. It also includes a plan to change the names of bases such as Fort Bragg and Fort Benning, which honor men who fought against U.S. troops 155 years ago during the Civil War.

The White House said in a statement on Tuesday (pdf) that Trump would veto the legislation if it contained provisions requiring renaming of bases.

Over the years, these locations have taken on significance to the American story and those who have helped write it that far transcends their namesakes, the statement said.

The Administration respects the legacy of the millions of American servicemen and women who have served with honor at these military bases, and who from these locations have fought and died in two World Wars, Vietnam, the War on Terror, and other conflicts, the statement said, warning that the drive to rename military assets would go further, claiming that it is part of a sustained effort to erase from the history of the Nation those who do not meet an ever-shifting standard of conduct.

The White House said in the statement that the move to rename is part of a chorus of loud voices in America which are calling for the destruction or renaming of monuments and memorials to former Presidents.

President Trump has been clear in his opposition to politically motivated attempts like this to rewrite history and to displace the enduring legacy of the American Revolution with a new left-wing cultural revolution, the White House stated.

Trump said earlier this month on Twitter that his administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations.

Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with, Trump said.

Last month, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said they were open to discussing renaming 10 military installations that now honor Confederate figures, but under the NDAA bill as it now stands, this is a requirement.

In commenting on the bill, some Republican Senators focused on the merits of its technical provisions, with Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, saying in a statement that the NDAA will maintain Americas dominance in a dangerous world.

It also reinforces our deterrent against an emboldened China and Russia. The bill includes legislation Ive championed to expand U.S. sanctions on companies involved in installing Russias Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, Barrasso said. These sanctions will help stop this pipeline and eliminate this Russian geopolitical weapon.

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said in a post on Twitter that, This bipartisan #NDAA signals to our nations heroes in the Armed Forces that the country has their back as they defend our republic against the throes of ongoing threats by authoritarian regimes.
Whitbread May Cut 250 Head Office Roles as CCP Virus Impacts Revenue

Whitbread, the UKs largest hospitality company, may cut around 250 head office roles as part of a proposed restructuring, the Premier Inn-owner said on Wednesday, as it navigates through the CCP virus crisis that had earlier shut all of its hotels.

Whilst were delighted to re-open our doors, we are acutely aware that demand and revenue remain reduced. We anticipate this will be the case for some time to come, a company spokeswoman told Reuters.

The company who, until 2019 owned Costa Coffee, also owns big brands Beefeater and Brewers Fayre, as well as the Hub by Premier Inn, which provides compact, low-cost accommodation across London and Edinburgh and promotes becoming the worlds best budget hotel as its corporate ambition.

Whitbread have suffered greatly, along with their travel and leisure business counterparts, who are still being dealt a hefty blow by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

Lost Revenue

Billions of pounds in lost revenue for the sector has resulted from widespread travel restrictions imposed across countries in response to the pandemic.

Whitbread, which has around 1,300 head office employees, said that some of the proposed job losses will be offset with the creation of around 75 new roles and that final numbers will be confirmed in September.

As well as taking advantage of government support during the CCP virus crisis, the company raised 1 billion ($1.27 billion) when it invited existing shareholders to buy additional shareholder securities or rights, which give the purchaser the right to buy new shares at a discounted rate on a stated date in the future.

Household Name

Whitbread is a household name and one of the UKs oldest companies. It was founded by Samuel Whitbread in 1742. He became a Brewers apprentice at the age of 16 in 1736, and a brewery founder in 1742 at the age of 20. He went on to pioneer new brewing techniques. By 1750 his operation was mass-producing ale in purpose-built premises in London where, in 1784, an early steam engine designed by Georgian engineer James Watt operated.

File photo of a Cookhouse and Pub bar, a brand owned by Whitbread. Revenue in bars and restaurants has declined significantly due to the CCP virus pandemic. (Whitbread)

The company, which has in recent years bought and sold many big brands, including David Lloyd, Marriott Hotels, TGI Fridays, and Pizza Hut, finally sold it breweries in 2001 and grew its restaurant and hotels business.

The 278-year-old company said on Wednesday it had no income while its hotels and restaurants were in hibernation, which has had a considerable effect on its cash flow.

Re-opening

Earlier this month, the company said it had opened more than 270 hotels and 24 restaurants of its more than 1,200 Premier Inn hotels and pubs across the UK. It has also opened all of its hotels in Germany.

Throughout the crisis we operated 39 UK hotels to provide accommodation for NHS staff and other key workers. This experience of successfully and safely operating hotels in a socially distanced environment provided key learnings and will enable us to deliver the highest standards to our customers as we reopen the rest of the estate, Alison Brittain, Whitbread chief executive officer, said in a July trading update.

Whitbread also reported an 80 percent fall in first-quarter like-for-like UK sales growth.

While recovery would be slow in the post-CCP virus climate, due to their multiple brand model and healthy pre-virus balance sheet, there was enough financial resilience in the business to weather the COVID storm, the companys 201920 annual report stated.

Reuters contributed to this report.


By Javier Solana





MADRID  The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted much reflection on the state of globalization, its drawbacks at a time of worldwide disruption, and the supposed benefits of retreating to the national sphere. In this sense, as in many others, the current crisis has accelerated pre-existing tendencies. The global trade-to-GDP ratio  one of the main indicators of globalization  has followed a downward trend since 2012, and anti-globalist political movements have been gaining in popularity for some time.



These movements have good reasons to mistrust globalization, and even more so now. The scarcity of vital materials  from face masks to yeast  highlighted the low resilience of the global supply chains that produce so much of what we use, owing to their excessive concentration in a few countries and the lack of essential stockpiles. Moreover, globalization has created many losers within individual countries, especially in the developed world.



This phenomenon has been particularly marked in the United States, where the average income of the poorest 50% actually fell between 1980 and 2010. The delocalization of production is certainly not the only reason (the effects of automation on inequality are often overlooked), but it is a significant one.



But we must resist the temptation to amend globalized production in its entirety. Adam Smith's axioms about specialization, and David Ricardo's regarding comparative advantage, are as true today as they were 200 years ago. Overall, globalization has clearly been beneficial, lifting billions of people out of poverty, so our focus should be to reform rather than destroy it.



For starters, organizations promoting regional economic integration must strengthen the development of regional value chains for strategically important goods  not only electronic chips, but also basic necessities such as food. Avoiding future shortages of essential goods will require firms to shift from just-in-time production to a "just-in-case" model that prioritizes security of supply over optimal cost efficiency. This will not necessarily lead to autarky, but it will require more diversified global distribution networks.



Likewise, we must continue to fight the enormous inequalities that have emerged within countries. National and local governments must establish adequate protection mechanisms to safeguard workers' fundamental rights and offer them the prospect of a dignified future. These measures include minimum-income systems (which many countries have already implemented), investment in education in the economic sectors of the future, and public employment programs linked to the coming green economic transition.



Policymakers must also urgently tackle weaknesses in the global trade system. The upcoming choice of a new director-general of the World Trade Organization will be crucial. Whoever is chosen will have the difficult task of resuscitating an organization weighed down by the failure of the Doha Round, its member states' current power to declare themselves as developed or developing countries without reference to objective criteria, and the paralysis of its appellate body. This body is the cornerstone of the WTO's dispute-settlement system; without it, the risk of trade wars increases dramatically.



When people speak of globalization today, they are essentially referring to the growth of international trade and the free movement of financial capital. But as the economist Dani Rodrik has pointed out, there is no reason to limit globalization to these processes. In particular, we must look deeper into shared governance of so-called global public goods, so that this can become one of the main vectors of international cooperation.



Serious and overarching threats such as COVID-19 and climate change can be confronted effectively only at the global level. Unilateral measures taken by economic actors and national governments will not be enough: the sum of such initiatives can never substitute for effective multilateralism.



Preventing pandemics and other major public-health risks requires empowering the World Health Organization both politically and economically. Obviously, US President Donald Trump's irresponsible decision to withdraw the United States from the WHO represents a step in the opposite direction, and can be understood only as short-sighted electioneering.



Policymakers must urgently explore reasonable reforms of the WHO, such as strengthening the organization's financing by increasing member states' obligatory contributions. As matters stand, the largest single contributor to the WHO in 2020-21 will be not a state but the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a philanthropic donor. This unacceptable situation must change, and the WHO should also have sufficient staff and capacity to inspect and impose binding sanctions on member states, thereby ensuring that science prevails over national interests.



As for the environment, we must recognize that stopping climate change is the fight of the century. We need to encourage public-private partnerships to help the transition to sustainable production models, in the knowledge that building a green economy can be profitable now as well as beneficial to future generations. The current context offers us the opportunity to entrench green conditionality in all economic recovery instruments  as proven by the historic recovery fund that European Union leaders just unveiled. Finally, cities and other actors should play a more important role in the public debate on this issue. The C40 initiative, which brings together 96 major cities in the fight against climate change, serves as an inspiring example in this respect.



Investing in an economic recovery that ignores the need to advance toward decarbonization is counterproductive. Trying to monopolize supplies of future COVID-19 vaccines by preventing their equitable distribution cannot end the health and economic threat posed by the pandemic. And choosing protectionism and national retrenchment would mean applying yesterday's formulas to today's problems.



Globalization has given rise to legitimate frustrations and concerns, which can't be assuaged simply by recalling the enormous benefits it has brought. But, rather than trying to roll back globalization, we will be better served by engaging in a level-headed attempt to build a better globalization.





Javier Solana, a former EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Secretary-General of NATO, and Foreign Minister of Spain, is currently President of EsadeGeo  Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics and Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution. His article was distributed by Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org).


A Houston Police narcotics officer is under investigation and has been relieved of duty, officials said.

The officer, Juan Martinez, joined the department in 2005. He is assigned to the narcotics division and was relieved July 16, a spokesman.

"The officer is the subject of a proactive internal investigation, Chief Art Acevedo said, in a written statement. Upon completion of the investigation, we will release our findings and the action taken by the department.

Several law enforcement sources said Martinez is being investigated for inappropriate conduct related to undercover operations and confidential informants, but officials have not yet provided additional details.

Wrong Door: HPD records show misconduct in narcotics division beyond cops at center of botched raid

The action is the latest to hit the narcotics division, which has come under scrutiny over the past 18 months after a January 2019 drug raid that led to the deaths of two homeowners and to the shooting of four officers.

The officer who led the raid, Gerald Goines, was later accused of lying about buying drugs from the home, and Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg subsequently announced prosecutors would be reviewing more than 14,000 cases Goines and his former squadmates had handled. In August, she charged him with murder. Goines partner, Steven Bryant, and four other former narcotics officers and supervisors have been charged with an array of other crimes, including tampering with government records, theft by a public servant and misapplication of fiduciary property.

Related: Ogg announces charges against former HPD narcotics supervisors in connection with fatal drug raid

Goines was also charged in federal court in November with violating the civil rights of the couple killed in the raid. During Goines detention hearing, an FBI agent said one of Goines confidential informants told investigators that she and the former officer had a years-long sexual relationship.

Prosecutors also reviewed thousands of cases Goines and his squadmates had worked on and identified more than 150 defendants who may need to have their cases overturned. So far, three people have seen their convictions thrown out.
Tesla Inc boss Elon Musk urged miners to produce more nickel, a key ingredient in the batteries that power the company's electric cars, warning the current cost of batteries remained a big hurdle to the company's growth.

"Tesla will give you a giant contract for a long period of time if you mine nickel efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way," Musk said on a post-earnings call on Wednesday.

Nickel makes batteries energy dense so cars can run further on a single charge, and Tesla needs the metal more than ever as it looks to ramp up production of trucks and solar projects that use a lot of nickel.

Musk's call for greater nickel mining comes even as prices for battery materials wallow around rock bottom.

However, traders and analysts say the kinds of volumes Tesla would need are unlikely to make a compelling business case for miners to invest in increased production, nor are they likely to boost prices in the medium term.

Tesla currently sources nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) batteries from South Korea's LG Chem Ltd and nickel-cobalt-aluminium (NCA) batteries from Japan's Panasonic Corp.

These companies indirectly buy nickel from mining companies in a long auto supply chain. Tesla doesn't disclose which nickel miners are in its supply chain.

Given Tesla's focus on sustainability, the company is likely to prefer to buy from miners of higher-grade nickel sulphide, which requires less power to process than laterite ore, said Lachlan Shaw of National Australia Bank.

There are three key suppliers - Brazil's Vale, which operates in Canada using some hydropower, Russia's Norilsk Nickel and BHP Group's operations in Western Australia. "Vale is in the box seat," he said.

While electric vehicles consume a much smaller amount of nickel than traditional industries such as stainless steel makers, EVs are expected to be the quickest growth market for nickel miners.

Nickel consumption in EV battery materials is expected to soar 64 percent between 2019 and 2025, research firm Wood Mackensie said, although it added that satisfying this demand could be challenging for an industry that has been slow to add capacity in a timely and cost-effective manner.

"He needs nickel, so he hopes nickel prices will go lower and lower," said a China-based nickel trader. "Prices will not be impacted in the short-term because the market is in surplus."

Nickel hit a 14-month low of $10,865 a tonne in March but has since recovered to $13,180, still down by some 30 percent from five-year peaks seen in September. Prices rallied 2.6 percent partly on Tesla's bullish outlook, a trader said.

Tesla on Wednesday posted a second-quarter profit, but Musk said he would prioritise growth over profit going forward, and focus on making Tesla vehicles more affordable.

"The real limitation on Tesla growth is cell production at affordable price. That's the real limit," Musk said, adding the company would expand its business with Panasonic and CATL and "possibly with others".

Tesla is expected to reveal technological advances at its "Battery Day" event in September.
By Nate Raymond

BOSTON, July 23 (Reuters) - The son of former Nissan Motor Co chairman Carlos Ghosn made about $500,000 in cryptocurrency payments to one of the two Massachusetts men who helped him escape from Japan, U.S. prosecutors said in a court filing.

Federal prosecutors in filing late on Wednesday said the payments went to Peter Taylor after he and his father, U.S. Army Special Forces veteran Michael Taylor, helped Ghosn flee in a box and private jet to avoid facing financial charges.

The cryptocurrency, or digital currency, payments from Ghosn's son, Anthony Ghosn, were on top of $862,500 Ghosn himself had wired to a company Peter Taylor managed in October, two months before his Dec. 29, 2019 escape, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors detailed the payments in a filing arguing against the Taylors' latest bid to be released on bail. They have been in jail since their arrests in May at the request of Japan, which is seeking their extradition.

U.S. prosecutors cited the money in arguing that both the elder Taylor, a private security specialist, and his son pose a severe flight risk, saying they "now have access to Ghosn's vast resources with which to flee."

Prosecutors cited a recent TV interview Ghosn gave in which he said he was helping everyone who stood with him.

The Taylors' lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. A spokeswoman for Ghosn declined to comment.

Ghosn fled to Lebanon, his childhood home, after being charged with engaging in financial wrongdoing, including by understating his compensation in Nissan's financial statements. He denies wrongdoing.

The Taylors argue the charges against them are fatally flawed as the Japanese penal code does not make it a criminal offense to help someone "bail jump" unless that person is in custody.

A federal judge will hear arguments on their latest bid for bail on Tuesday. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Tom Brown)
Rohingya wear masks and observe social distancing as a precaution against COVID-19 while waiting to receive goods from volunteers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, April 7, 2020.

A court in northern Malaysias Kedah state threw out a lower courts ruling that 27 Rohingya be caned for entering country illegally, calling it inhumane to punish refugees with strokes from a rattan stick, their lawyer said Wednesday.

Alor Setar High Court Judge Arik Sanusi heard from a lawyer representing the Rohingya and a deputy public prosecutor before delivering his decision Wednesday, according to defense attorney Collin Andrew.

Andrew said Judge Arik based his decision on the Rohingyas status as refugees and noted the situation in Myanmars Rakhine state, the home of the stateless Muslim minority group.

These persons are Rohingya refugees who are in need of international protection due to the persecution faced by them.  As a result and in line with the international principle of non-refoulement, they cannot be returned, Andrew told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, quoting from Judge Ariks ruling.

The judge cited several other grounds including that the Rohingya were not habitual offenders nor were they violent, so it was inhumane to punish them this way, according to the lawyer.

Judge Arik also said that these persons are registered with UNHCR as refugees, [and that] a sentence of whipping will only add to their sufferings, Andrew said.

The judge also instructed that six 17-year-old Rohingya who are serving seven months for entering the country illegally be released to UNHCR  the United Nations refugee agency  upon completion of their sentences on July 27.

The Rohingya were charged on March 23 with illegal entry under the Immigration Act.

On June 23, 40 Rohingya pleaded guilty after the charges were read before Magistrate Mohd Ridzuan Salleh in Langkawi Magistrate court, the Malay daily newspaper Sinar Harian reported, basing its information on a statement from the Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency. Langkawi is a district of Kedah.

It reported that the magistrate had sentenced 31 men to seven months in jail and three lashes each and nine women to seven months in jail.

On Wednesday, Andrew said the number of men sentenced to be caned was just 27, adding they were not represented by an attorney when their case first went before the magistrates court.

I applied for the court appeal on July 6 when I found out about the sentence, he said.

The Immigration Act allows for fines, imprisonment of five years, and caning for those convicted of entering Malaysia illegally. According to Andrew, judges in previous decisions had said they reserved canings in cases where there were acts of violence, those sentenced were habitual offenders or had threatened public order. His 27 Rohingya clients did not meet any of those criteria, he said.



Decision applauded

Jerald Joseph of the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) said the judge was right.

This is definitely good news and the right direction to go when it comes to refugees. The judge also recognized that they are refugees and took note of their situation, Joseph told BenarNews.

While applauding the ruling, Joseph questioned the authorities decision to address the matter judicially instead of the usual method for dealing with refugees. He said the normal action was to detain them in immigration depots pending documentation and registration with the UNHCR.

That is the most logical thing to do since we cannot deport them, cannot send them back to Myanmar, and also cannot send them back to Bangladesh. So why not keep the same procedure? asked Joseph.

Advocacy group Amnesty International (AI) welcomed the news but in a statement called on the government to release all Rohingya who are jailed, calling their detention not justifiable amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even before the pandemic, detention solely for immigration purposes was only allowable in the most exceptional of circumstances. In the present global public health crisis, migration-related detention is not justifiable, AI Malaysia Researcher Rachel Chhoa-Howard said.

Similarly, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW)  in a statement issued before the high court judge in Alor Setar ruled against the canings  called for authorities to stop prosecuting Rohingya refugees over illegal entry and ensure they are protected in accordance with international law.

Phil Robertson, HRWs deputy Asia director, said the original punishment was brutal and would constitute torture under international human rights law.

Malaysia is unlawfully treating as criminals people who fled atrocities in Myanmar. Rohingya arriving by boat should be considered as refugees who have a right to protection under international law, he said.

Malaysia is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its Protocol and there is no legislative or administrative framework for dealing with refugees. Instead, everyone entering the country illegally are lumped together as illegal migrants.

Wednesdays ruling came a day after the Malaysian coast guard arrested 25 undocumented Rohingya at a safe house controlled by a human trafficking syndicate on Langkawi Island, within hours of their arrival aboard a boat, officials said. Also arrested were two Rohingya smugglers.

The 25 were taken to immigration transit houses while the smugglers were detained under remand by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) for allegedly attempting to bribe enforcement authorities to release the migrants.

Officials from Malaysias new government had earlier indicated that the country would not take in more Rohingya refugees, and they were planning to send 269 who had landed in Langkawi in June back to the sea once their boat was fixed.

But Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin recently said that this was not the case.

The government had never planned on sending the Rohingya illegal immigrants back out to the open sea, he said in a written response to a parliamentary inquiry earlier this month.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 08:31 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668a1a46 1 National tomb,monument,kuningan,Sunda-Wiwitan,West-Java,Satpol-PP Free

Indigenous faith group Sunda Wiwitan has said local authorities have committed a human rights violation by closing off a tomb built by the groups followers in West Java.

The tomb was built in Cisantana village, Cigugur district, Kuningan regency.

On Monday, the Kuningan Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) placed an orange barrier around the tomb and fastened two stickers to it. The agency said the group had built a monument without the proper permit.

The Sunda Wiwitan followers said the construction was a tomb that the group had prepared for two of its elders, Pangeran Djatikusumah, who is now 88 years old, and his wife, Ratu Emalia Wigarningsih.

Do we have any technical instructions on [monument construction]? We dont have the regulation yet. For us, it is not a monument. Its a tomb, Sunda Wiwitan member Okky Satrio Djati said on Monday, as quoted by kompas.com.

Kuningan Satpol PP head Indra Purwantoro said that before the building was closed off, he had sent three warning letters to Sunda Wiwitan, but the group had failed to show a permit.

This is in accordance with our standard procedures. If after the third warning letter, no legal license is shown, we close it off, Indra said.

Read also: How Sunda Wiwitan survives injustice

He said the local administration did not consider the building a tomb, saying that tall constructions made of bricks and other materials were defined as monuments by the Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language (KBBI).

Based on the perspective of the Satpol PP, it is a monument. I have discussed it with colleagues from the SKPD [regional working units], and we categorize the building as a monument, Indra said.

According to Kuningan Regency Regulation No. 13/2019 on a building permit (IMB) issuance, a monument must have an IMB, Indra added.

The Satpol PP gave Sunda Wiwitan seven days after it closed off the building to obtain an IMB. If the request was not met, the agency said, it would ask the group to demolish the building within 30 days.

Sunda Wiwitan said it had applied for an IMB with the Capital Investment and One Stop Service (DPMPTSP) agency on July 1, two days after the first warning letter was issued by the Satpol PP.

However, on July 14, the DPMPTSP rejected the application on the grounds that there were no implementing regulations for such a building, the group said.

This is arbitrariness carried out systematically. There are no technical guidelines [for the construction], but the sealing has been done. So whats the legal basis? Okky said.

Okky said he would report the incident to the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM). (syk)
SPOKANE, Wash., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Spiceology, Inc. , the fastest-growing privately held spice company in America, today announced partnerships with Pixlee and Loop Commerce, a Synchrony solution, on a "Coworkers Connecting Through Cooking" initiative for employers looking for innovative and fun ways to re-energize and deepen connections with their employees. The initiative pulls employees together, virtually, around cooking at home, and includes guided access to engaging, live-streamed cooking classes, enabling coworkers to share their culinary adventures digitally with their colleagues.

"Employers are struggling to find ways to foster collaboration and camaraderie among their employees when it's simply not safe to gather together," said Chip Overstreet, CEO of Spiceology. "We're turning what can be a mundane experience of preparing your meals into an opportunity to socialize, connect and share passion for food with coworkers. Employees can experiment with flavor together, learn more about each other through food, and just enjoy the communal experience that home cooking provides."

With "Coworkers Connecting Through Cooking," each employee selects a variety set of Spiceology's innovative spice blends using GiftNow, the Gift Experience Management solution from Loop Commerce. Spiceology chefs provide online cooking seminars customized for each organization that teach employees some easy ways to use their new spice blends to liven up their meals and have fun experimenting in the kitchen. Pixlee provides a private digital channel, code-named "Quarantine Kitchen," for each company's employees to share recipes, photos and videos amongst themselves to help build lasting connections, well past the end of the cooking event.

Lightbend is a global software company headquartered in San Francisco that participated in one of the first "Coworkers Connecting Through Cooking" team events. "Like most every tech company in the world, we now have 100% of our employees working from home," said Sushila Sahay, executive vice president at Lightbend, Inc. "While we spend plenty of time together on Zoom calls, we are missing the bonding opportunities that used to happen over lunch, hanging out in the corporate kitchen, and in the many restaurants we've visited together around the world. "Coworkers Connecting Through Cooking" gives us a way for employees to engage in a unique, fun format, and helps us drive community in this new, disconnected workplace."

"Employers understand the value of relaxing and enjoying a meal togetherwe used to do it every day before COVID," said Bryan Wargo, COO of Pixlee. "At Pixlee, early on in the pandemic, we set up a 'Quarantine Kitchen' digital channel and employees started sharing recipes and photos, and it became a very fun and engaging way for employees to interact and connect in different ways. Personally, I'm a wannabe chef; I introduced Spiceology to the company over a year ago, and we're very excited about taking this concept out to employers and employees everywhere."

The "Coworkers Connecting Through Cooking" initiative is comprised of three parts:



The GiftNow Gift Experience Management solution that enables companies to take an enterprise approach to managing gifting for customers, partners, and employees.

Pixlee's photo sharing application, traditionally focused on curation for marketing channels, offers companies a dedicated, private photo sharing channel for employees to post and comment on creations they're making in their kitchens.

Spiceology's unique, innovative gift set blends are offered at wholesale prices, and the company also holds live streaming cooking classes for companies to help their employees have some fun together while doing what they're already doing  cooking more at home with their families.

"One of the biggest challenges of working from home is the lack of personal engagement that came with being in the office sharing meals and meetups with our colleagues," said John Grech, head of retail partnerships at Loop Commerce. "Our GiftNow solution is a digital gifting program that lets employers say 'thank you' to their employees with the practical gift of learning to cook a delicious meal while also creating connective experiences for virtual engagement and team building."

"We chose to highlight Spiceology's 'Love is Love' collection for our employees because it supports Lightbend's commitment to diversity & inclusion through generous donations to food banks and pantries around the country," continued Sahay. "The live streaming cooking class created a fun new way for our employees to gather and interact, doing something completely different together, and Spiceology Chef Tony walked us through the creation of amazing homemade dumplings, which happen to be the favorite dish of our CEO."

Through Spiceology's partnership with international shipping provider FlavorCloud, coworkers in over 200 countries can get their spices hassle free with duties and taxes handled seamlessly.

For more information on Spiceology, please visit Spiceology.com , or on Facebook and Instagram .

ABOUT PIXLEE

Pixlee is the leading user-generated content and influencer marketing platform providing brands the solution to their content needs. Pixlee supports well over 1,000 leading brands including Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, Alo Yoga, and Kenneth Cole. Witnessing the shift in how people interact with brands they love and the unexplored opportunity to connect social media with online shopping, Pixlee sets out to change the way marketers build relationships with today's consumers and celebrates authentic brand storytelling at scale. Learn more about Pixlee at pixlee.com .

ABOUT LOOP COMMERCE

GiftNow, from Loop Commerce, a Synchrony solution, is a holistic Gift Experience Management (GXM) solution that takes the friction out of gifting. With GiftNow's purpose-built GXM platform, gifters can send personalized digital gifts and gift cards in seconds and recipients can exchange or modify their items before they ship, benefiting gift givers, recipients, corporate gifting programs, and retailers. GiftNow is used by premium specialty and department retailers across the United States. For more information, please visit www.loopcommerce.com.

ABOUT SPICEOLOGY

Founded in 2013, Spiceology is the fastest-growing privately owned spice company in America. The chef-owned and operated, one-stop spice shop offers over 300+ spices, blends, herbs, chiles, salts, confections, fruit & vegetable powders, and modernist cooking ingredients. Today, Spiceology brings flavor to leading restaurants, favorite bars and watering holes, as well as premier resorts, hotels and casinos throughout the U.S., operating out of a 30,000-square foot facility and warehouse based in Spokane, Washington. The brand is sold direct to consumers and chefs across the U.S. and Canada, with customers as far-reaching as Australia and Dubai. For more information or to place an order, visit www.spiceology.com or follow us on Facebook and Instagram . For recipe inspiration, visit here .

SOURCE Spiceology

Related Links

http://www.spiceology.com


In the past week, both United Airlines UAL and Spirit Airlines SAVE reported losses in respective second-quarter 2020 results. This underperformance was due to a massive drop in passenger revenues as air-travel demand remains suppressed due to the prevalent coronavirus pandemic. Notably, Delta Air Lines DAL also put up a dismal show when it posted second-quarter financial numbers in the previous week.

The partnership between American Airlines AAL and JetBlue Airways JBLU also grabbed headlines. The deal aims to boost connectivity options for travellers in the Northeast through an array of new routes. An expansion update by Alaska Air Group ALK on the past five trading days was also available.

Recap of the Past Weeks Most Important Stories

1.United Airlines, carrying a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), incurred a loss (excluding $3.52 from non-recurring items) of $9.31 per share for the June quarter, comparing unfavorably with the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of $9.13. Results were hurt by the coronavirus-induced weakness in air-travel demand. Even though operating revenues of $1,475 million slumped 87.1% year over year, the same beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1,217 million. The year-over-year plunge was due to the 93.5% drop in passenger revenues. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

2. Spirit Airlines suffered a loss of $3.59 per share (excluding $1.78 from non-recurring items) for the second quarter, wider than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of $2.70. However, in the year-ago quarter, the company delivered earnings of $1.69. Meanwhile, operating revenues of $138.5 million surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $118.5 million. The top line, however, plunged 86.3% year over year due to the coronavirus-led air-travel demand disaster. Passenger revenues, which contributed 94.5% to the top line, plummeted 86.8% year over year. Additionally, revenues from other sources tanked 58.4%.



Adjusted operating expenses increased 8.2% to $829.07 million, mainly on expanded flight volume and higher depreciation and amortization. Average fuel cost per gallon in the reported quarter fell 13.4% year over year to $1.81. Moreover, adjusted cost per available seat miles (CASM) dipped 2.4% in the reported quarter.



However, CASM excluding operating special items and fuel (non-fuel unit costs), escalated more than 100% in the reported quarter due to reduced capacity. Spirit ended the quarter with unrestricted cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments worth $1.2 billion. The carrier estimates average daily cash burn between $3 and $4 million for the September quarter.



3. The alliance between American Airlines and JetBlue allows both carriers to sell seats on each other's flights and share frequent flyer benefits. The codeshare agreement under this partnership permits JetBlue passengers to access more than 60 routes operated by American Airlines. Similarly, passengers of the latter can fly on more than 130 routes operated by the former. The contract also provides extended and seamless connectivity between flights of the two carriers. Moreover, passengers of both airlines will enjoy benefits like easy ticketing and better baggage check-in facilities.



4. Per a CNBC report, Delta proposed a 15% cut in pilots minimum pays to avoid furloughs for a year. With air-travel demand falling way below the year-ago levels amid coronavirus concerns, the airline is focusing on cost cuts which require rightsizing its network to align with the current bleak demand scenario. To this end, Delta sent potential furlough notices to more than 2,500 pilots.



5. Alaska Air announced plans of adding a total of 12 destinations in response to the gradual demand recovery despite the continuing COVID-19 uncertainty. The carrier plans to add seven routes from Los Angeles International Airport to boost connectivity between Southern California and the key markets around the country. Alaska Air aims to fly to 35 non-stop destinations from Los Angeles this winter.

Story continues

Performance

The following table shows the price movement of major airline players over the past week and during the past six months.

The table above shows that almost all airline stocks traded in the red in the past week due to the spike in coronavirus cases the United States, which has stopped the rebound in air-travel demand. The downside caused the NYSE ARCA Airline Index to decline 1.4% to $53.1. Over the course of the past six months, the NYSE ARCA Airline Index has plunged 51.8%.

What's Next in the Airline Space?

Investors will keenly await the second-quarter 2020 earnings releases of JetBlue on Jul 28 and Allegiant Travel Company ALGT on Jul 29.

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JetBlue Airways Corporation (JBLU) : Free Stock Analysis 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



Allegiant Travel Company (ALGT) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Alaska Air Group, Inc. (ALK) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Spirit Airlines, Inc. (SAVE) : Free Stock Analysis Report



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New York Times Co on Wednesday named Chief Operating Officer Meredith Kopit Levien as its new chief executive, effective September 8. The newspaper publisher said Levien, 49, will succeed Mark Thompson and also join the company's board. In an interview with the Times, Levien said she would continue to focus on and expand the newspaper's subscription model as advertising revenue continues to fall. Levien joined the New York Times Co in 2013 as its advertising head after a nearly five-year stint at Forbes. She was named chief operating officer in June ...
The government has disbursed Rs 8,767 crore under the special window for completion of 81 stalled residential projects. As many as 60,000 homes across India would be completed with the disbursed amount, the finance ministry announced Thursday.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman reviewed the performance of the special window announced in September last year. Under the special window - Special Window for Affordable and Mid Income Housing (SWAMIH) - a Rs 25,000 crore fund was constituted under SBICAP Ventures to fund completion of those housing projects which were stuck due to paucity of funds.

The 81 projects which have received funding through the special window are spread across a mix of markets including large cities such as NCR, MMR, Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune and also Tier 2 locations such as Karnal, Panipat, Lucknow, Surat, Dehradun, Kota, Nagpur, Jaipur, Nashik, Vizag, Chandigarh etc.

Investments in 18 projects have been given final clearance and disbursement is at various stages across 7 residential projects. Applications from 353 stressed projects are under examination for provision of assistance.

The fund is also actively evaluating options to provide relief to 15,000 homebuyers in certain long-stalled projects which are pending before the Supreme Court for resolution.

The fund has been constituted to complete construction of stalled, RERA-registered affordable and mid-income category housing projects.

The fund has a target corpus of Rs 12,500 crore with a greenshoe option of Rs 12,500 crore. The government has contributed Rs 10,000 crore towards the fund.

The Investment Manager of the Fund is SBICAP Ventures, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SBI Capital Markets, which in turn is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the State Bank of India.

Also Read: Former Fortis promoter Shivinder Singh gets bail in money laundering case

Also Read: Urban employment rate rises to 35.1% despite lockdowns in major cities: CMIE
Man accused of insulting Russian Constitutional Court judges detained for 7 days

 RAPSI

17:36 23/07/2020

MOSCOW, July 23 (RAPSI)  A court has ordered a man charged with insulting judges of Russias Constitutional Court on the Internet to be placed in administrative detention for 7 days, lawyer Alexey Bushmakov has told RAPSI.

Fedor Krasheninnikov has been found guilty of repeated contempt, according to the attorney.

According to the administrative offense protocol, on March 14, Krasheninnikov published an insulting statement against the Constitutional Court judges on his Telegram channel.
A rampaging troop of monkeys killed nearly 30 lambs after invading an Indian farm while a shepherd was away.

The lambs were bitten and savaged by the group of 20 monkeys after the shepherd left them behind when he took his flock of sheep to graze in nearby fields.

According to Times Now News, neighbours tried to come to the lambs' rescue after hearing them bleating in desperation but failed to chase the monkeys away.

None of the lambs survived the attack and their owner Tokala Saidulu was appalled when he returned to find the scene of devastation in the state of Telangana.

A rampaging troop of monkeys killed nearly 30 lambs after invading an Indian farm while the shepherd was taking his flock to graze in nearby fields (stock photo)

Local media said the lambs were only 30 days old but had been left in a shed when the rest of the flock was out grazing.

No-one else was in the house when the monkeys invaded, meaning it was too late for the lambs by the time neighbours arrived.

India is thought to be home to around 50million monkeys and frequently cause chaos including injuries to humans and sometimes deaths.

In another incident earlier this week, a mother and four of her children were crushed to death at their home after a wall was brought down by a troop of monkeys.

The five victims were killed by falling masonry after the wall was 'violently shaken' by monkeys while the family slept in the courtyard, reports said.

Red-faced rhesus macaques have also been known to spread havoc in Delhi, snatching food and phones and even breaking into homes.

More recently, authorities said a troop of monkeys had attacked a medical official and snatched away blood samples of coronavirus patients in Meerut.

People living near the medical college feared a further spread of the virus if the monkeys carried the samples into residential areas.

However, there is no evidence so far that monkeys can be infected with the coronavirus.

Environmentalists say the destruction of monkeys' natural habitats is the main reason the animals move into urban areas in search of food.
Pakistan: Supreme court hints to ban YouTube

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

New Delhi, July 23: Supreme Court of Pakistan has taken notice on Wednesday of objectionable content on social media and YouTube and hinted at shutting down the video-sharing platform in the country.

Justice Qazi Muhammad Amin and Justice Mushir Alam were on the bench hearing the case hinted about banning TouTube while hearing the case of a man, Shaukat Ali, involved in a sectarian crime.

During the hearing, Justice Qazi Amin stated, "We are not against freedom of expression and masses have right to discuss our performance and decisions as we take salaries from public money but the constitution also provides us right of personal life but users of social media and YouTube are targeting our families", he said.

YouTube to ban 'manipulated' content linked to elections

"We have no objection to freedom of expression, remarked Justice Amin. Our salaries are paid from the money of the people, they have the right to raise questions on our decisions and our performance, he said. But the Constitution also grants us the right to privacy", Justice Amin also said.

A Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) official told the court that the PTA cannot remove objectionable content and only can report it.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

Justice said citizens in the United States or the European Union would not dare to post anything against their nations and social media is regulated through local laws in the countries wherein Pakistan, people are incited against the judiciary, the government and the armed forces.

The court issued notices to the attorney-general of Pakistan and the foreign ministry on the matter.

Pakistan's digital space has been frequently restricted and is monitored closely through laws such as the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 as well by the federal agencies.
In May, a group of rabbis sought to elevate the issue, by declaring that their Jewish believers had a religious obligation to protect their lives and the lives of others while exercising their constitutional right to vote.

Our Jewish tradition values human life above virtually all else, wrote the 35 Jewish leaders. As the pandemic continues, our Jewish teachings, laws and traditions require us to stay home except in situations where leaving the home is essential to preserving life.  We  believe therefore that it is a deeply held religious belief to remain home on days in which elections are held and that such a belief qualifies one under the Missouri law to vote in any regional, state, or federal elections via absentee ballot.

Following the issuance of the letter, a Christian cleric, the Rev. David Greenhaw, president of Eden Theological Seminary, issued his own letter affirming the teaching.
(Bloomberg) -- TikTok, the social media app owned by Chinas ByteDance Ltd., is giving its top U.S. talent a reason to stick around, even as President Donald Trump threatens a ban.

TikTok created a $200 million fund that will be distributed to some U.S. users with large followings to encourage them to continue providing innovative content, the company said. TikTok already helps its stars find advertising partnerships and deals with Hollywood talent agencies. Now the fund will help ensure U.S creators earn livelihoods directly from TikTok, too.

U.S. creators will have to apply for the fund starting in August. They must be over 18, post consistently and meet a certain follower threshold. TikTok stars ability to connect with and bring joy to large audiences has already propelled thousands of creators into brand partnerships, sponsorships, and representation deals with some of Hollywoods biggest talent agencies, Vanessa Pappas, the apps U.S. general manager, said in a blog post. In a relatively short time, TikTok has grown to become a source of income and opportunity for creators and their families. Eventually, TikTok will explore similar funds in other countries.

TikTok has also signed a couple of deals with music companies this year that increase payment for use of songs, and is in the process of negotiating deals with the largest music companies.

The extra incentive comes as TikToks users fear what will happen to their habit -- and in some cases, their budding fame -- if Trump follows through on threats to ban the app. Earlier this month, the president said he might do so as a retaliation against China over the spread of Covid-19. Other U.S. government officials, including Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, have warned against using TikTok for data security reasons, so information on U.S. citizens doesnt fall into the hands of the Chinese government.

TikTok has repeatedly said no U.S. data is stored on Chinese servers or sent to Beijing. The company has been hiring aggressively in the U.S. and seeking to reduce association with its owner. Meanwhile, the app has gained in popularity. In the U.S., TikTok has been downloaded more than 165 million times, according to Sensor Tower.

Story continues

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Beijing: China launched its most ambitious Mars mission yet on Thursday in a bold attempt to join the United States in successfully landing a spacecraft on the red planet.

The Tianwen-1 was launched on a Long March-5 carrier rocket from a launch site on Hainan Island, the southernmost point of the country.

The Tianwen-1 Mars probe lifts off from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre in southern China's Hainan Province. Credit:Cai Yang/Xinhua via AP

At a time when China is trying to commercialise space by building its own satellite navigation network, the Tianwen-1 mission is a throwback to the Cold War-era competition between the United States and USSR for bragging rights, said Blaine Curcio, founder of Orbital Gateway Consulting in Hong Kong.

"The Mars mission is probably more similar to the 1960s space race," he said. "It is more on the prestige side than strategic importance side."
Caverion Corporation Investor News 23 July 2020 at 10.00 a.m. EEST

HELSINKI, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Caverion Corporation's Half-year Financial Report for January-June 2020 will be published on Thursday, 6 August 2020, at approximately 8:00 a.m. (Finnish Time, EEST). The stock exchange release and presentation materials in Finnish and in English will be published at that time on the company's website at www.caverion.com/investors.

News conference for investors and media

Caverion will hold a news conference on the Half-year Financial Report on Thursday, 6 August 2020, at 10.00 a.m. Finnish time (EEST) at Hotel Kamp, Kluuvikatu 2, 2nd floor, Helsinki, Finland. The presenters at the event are President and CEO Ari Lehtoranta and Chief Financial Officer Martti Ala-Harkonen. The event is in English and targeted for investment analysts, portfolio managers and the media.

Webcast

The news conference and the presentations by the management can be viewed live at www.caverion.com/investors. The live webcast will start at 10.00 a.m. (EEST). A recording of the webcast will be available at the same address at approximately 12.00 noon (EEST).

Conference call

It is also possible to participate in the event through a conference call. Participants are requested to call one of the assigned numbers at least five minutes before the conference call begins, at 9.55 a.m. (EEST) at the latest:

+44 (0)330 336 9105

+46 (0)8 5033 6574

Participant code for the conference call is "5730948 / Caverion". During the webcast and conference call, all questions should be presented in English.

Schedule in different time zones



Half-year Financial Report published The news conference, conference call and live webcast Recorded webcast

available EEST (Helsinki) 08.00 10.00 12.00 CEST (Paris, Stockholm) 07.00 09.00 11.00 BST (London) 06.00 08.00 10.00 EDT (New York) 01.00 03.00 05.00

For additional information, please contact:

Milena Hggstrom, Head of Investor Relations and External Communications, tel. +358 40 5581 328, milena.haeggstrom@caverion.com



This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/caverion/r/publishing-of-caverion-corporation-s-half-year-financial-report-for-january-june-2020-on-6-august-20,c3158281

The following files are available for download:
The United States on Tuesday offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the chief justice of Venezuela's supreme court, who faces US money laundering charges. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Maikal Jose Moreno Perez had "personally received money or property bribes to influence the outcome of civil and criminal cases in Venezuela" in recent years. "Moreno Perez received the bribes in exchange for judicial actions" in more than 20 cases, such as ordering lower-court judges to release the accused or dismiss cases, Pompeo said. Moreno Perez, who has been on the US Treasury's sanctions blacklist since May 2017, was added to the State Department's separate list on Tuesday, along with his wife, for "involvement in significant corruption." That means the couple cannot enter the United States "indefinitely." In a statement, Pompeo said the moves "reaffirm the US commitment to combating corruption and transnational organized crime in Venezuela." The administration of US President Donald Trump has recently ramped up the pressure on Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his entourage. Washington no longer recognizes Maduro as the legitimate president of the crisis-wracked country, and is seeking to force him from power. The supreme court in Venezuela is seen as stacked with Maduro loyalists.
<! The executed aid workers by Boko Haram terrorists >

By Hamza Suleiman/Maiduguri

The United Nations said it was utterly shocked and horrified by the gruesome killing of five aid workers by Boko Haram terrorists in Borno state.

UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Mr Edward Kallon expressed the reaction of the global body in a statement Wednesday night.

He condemned the killing of the aid workers, who were committed humanitarians who devoted their lives to helping vulnerable people and communities in an area heavily affected by violence.

Our colleagues and partners were abducted while travelling on a main route connecting the northern town of Monguno with Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

Their safety and securing their safe release have been our highest priority since they were captured in June.

I strongly condemn all violence targeting aid workers and the civilians they are assisting. I am also troubled by the number of illegal vehicular checkpoints set up by non-state armed groups along main supply routes.

These checkpoints disrupt the delivery of life-saving assistance and heighten the risks for civilians of being abducted, killed or injured, with aid workers increasingly being singled out.

This is tragically not the first killing of kidnapped aid workers. We have repeatedly called for such devastating fate and blatant violation of international humanitarian law to never happen again.

And yet, it does. I implore all armed parties to step up their responsibilities and stop targeting aid workers and civilians, he said.

Kallon said that all aid workers and the assistance they provide to the most vulnerable populations made the difference between life and death for entire communities.

According to him, nearly eight million people are in need of urgent life-saving assistance in north-east Nigeria at the beginning of the year and today, 10.6 million people need urgent support as conflict-affected states battle the COVID-19 pandemic.

At a time when humanitarian needs have reached unprecedented levels, it is unacceptable that those who are trying to help are being attacked and killed, he said.

Kallon said that the incident would not deter the international community from providing aid to millions of Nigerians who desperately needed assistance in the north-east.

He said that the humanitarian community stood in solidarity with the people of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states who had suffered long years of conflict and now needed protection against a deadly virus.

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The railways is planning to install such vending machines at several other railway stations as well, including at few other suburban railway stations in Mumbai.

COVID-19 cases are rising across the country. To contain the spread of the virus, people have been asked to cover their faces and mouth with masks, use sanitisers and wear gloves. To ensure that people are not running out of either of these safety essentials, vending machines providing the medical protection kit - masks, sanitisers and gloves - has been installed at several places across India.

Station Manager Deepak Kumar at the Chandigarh Railway Station told news agency ANI that the machine is providing masks and hand sanitisers at low costs to commuters.

Commuters can get two types of N-95 masks along with gloves from the machine.

The station manager said that hand sanitisers are also available in two quantities with the 250ml bottle costing Rs 100.

In Mumbai, a vending machine providing these medical essentials is placed at Dadar Central railway station.

A report by India Today said that the coronavirus vending machine has different types of face masks ranging from one-time use to N-95 masks. There are hand sanitisers that cost between Rs 50 to Rs 100. It also has free size gloves.

The railways is planning to install such vending machines at several other railway stations as well, including at few other suburban railway stations in Mumbai.

Earlier in May, Times Now reported that Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu has installed vending machines for people to easily purchase face masks. Two such machines have been installed, one in front of the municipality office and the other at the Amma canteen located in Rajaji Park.

The machines have been installed after the prices of face masks were increased, making it difficult for the people of lower sections of the society to afford them.

Vending machines have also been installed at airports to ensure that commuters travelling in flights to other cities have masks, sanitisers, and protection gloves. According to reports, a fully automated and contact-less vending machine has been installed at the departure area of the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru, Karnataka earlier this month.

As per a report by Banglore Mirror, the machine is stocked with essentials such as four-layer designer protection masks, 100 ml hand sanitisers, pen-shaped hand sanitisers and nitrile protection gloves. The products are priced between Rs 50 and Rs 150.

Passengers can pay for the purchase using any digital payment mode. The vending machine has an automatic sanitiser dispenser to let buyers sanitise their hands before and after making the purchase.

India has so far reported over 12 lakh 41 thousand confirmed cases of COVID-19. The deadly virus has claimed lives of nearly 30 thousand people in the country.
Queen Elizabeth with the Gloriana, the royal barge that formed part of the Thames Diamond Jubilee River Pageant. (Reuters)

The Royal Barge could finally get a permanent home, years after its debut on the River Thames for the Queens Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

Gloriana was the first royal barge to be built for 250 years and was commissioned privately by the Queen to mark 60 years on the throne.

It sailed down the Thames in June 2012, leading a flotilla of more than 1,000 boats and ships and then a month later carried the Olympic flame.

But plans to have it moored permanently in Richmond, south-west London, were met by opposition from residents and it has not been able to find a home since then.

Now the boat looks likely to be shown in all its glory in a new boathouse in east London, as part of a 763m redevelopment which includes 1,500 houses.

Gloriana leads a procession along the River Thames in London in 2015 as Queen Elizabeth II became Britain's longest-reigning monarch. (Getty Images)

Read more: Summer holiday back on for Queen and Prince Philip as they plan trip to Balmoral

A planning application filed with Greenwich Council in east London shows plans for a boathouse which would be the new home for Gloriana, complete with an visitor experience.

The boathouse would located on the Green Peninsula, as part of plans to redevelopment the former Tate and Lyle refiners site.

The team want to redevelopment a disused jetty to create a living and working boathouse where the barge can be looked after correctly to preserve it.

The jettys position already gives views of Old Royal Naval College, Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs, and it can be reached by the Thames Path and via the Thames clipper service, making it accessible to visitors.

The Countess of Wessex and the Queen in the Gloriana. (PA Images)

Read more: Prince Philip makes rare public engagement as he hands over role to Camilla

Architects have included in their proposals a way to get the Gloriana in and out of the boathouse with ease, as the barge is still taken down the Thames, as far as Henley, throughout the year.

The boathouse will be designed to protect the barge from harmful weather conditions and UV rays, while allowing visitors to walk around it, and for it to be viewable from the path.

The application explains the work is vital, stating: The lack of shelter, particularly when she is moored at St Katharine Docks, is causing ongoing deterioration and significant maintenance costs and so a permanent residence is urgently required.

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Architects propose the area will be car-free.

The London 2012 Olympic Games torch makes its way up the River Thames. (Getty Images)

Read more: Nine things the Queen has said about the Commonwealth she gave 'heart and soul' to

The barge has been moored at St Katherines Docks by the Tower of London, for eight years.

There was opposition in Richmond to creating a home for it there. The barge was built west of Richmond in Brentford, and was placed in the water for the first time at nearby Isleworth.

The project, designed by U+I, is expected to start work in 2023 and would take 10 years.

There will be 1,500 homes on the site, called Morden Wharf, with 35% of them affordable. There will also be 17,000 sq ft of commercial space.
PHUKET, THAILAND: JULY 25 2020  The Local Kitchen (Baan Kub Khao) is now open at Blue Tree Phuket, Cherngtalay offering authentic local Thai food at affordable prices.

The Local Kitchen supports 3 fundamental pillars; young chefs, local farmers and the community. 

Blue Trees new Local Kitchen will offer a program providing an opportunity to develop and empower young chefs to follow their culinary passion. Furthermore we specialize in cooking with locally-produced ingredients, which boosts the market demand for local farmers and their products. The goal is to offer healthy, tasty, sustainable local food to the community!

Our number one mission is to support the community during this time of need. We open this outlet and invite our local community to enjoy local, authentic thai food with affordable pricing while supporting our local farmers at the same time. We are delighted to be able to provide training and an opportunity, to those youth that wish to start a career in the culinary field.

 Michael Ayling General Manager.

About Blue Tree Phuket:

Blue Tree Phuket is a spectacular new leisure and entertainment destination that provides exceptional family-friendly facilities. Set over 56 acres of land on Phukets west coast, this integrated destination features an amazing array of amenities, including the signature four-storey Tree House Restaurant & Beach Club, a multi-faceted day and night dining experience, a fitness centre, kids club, walking and jogging trails, multiple retail spaces and F&B outlets, all surrounding a huge 17,000-square metre lagoon, providing a playground for family-friendly and adrenaline-fueled activities. Blue Tree Phuket also has sustainability in its DNA, having been designed and developed from the ground up in line with deep environmental principles. Website: www.bluetree.fun

For media enquiries, kindly contact;

Kittikhun Songprasert, Assistant Marketing Manager, Blue Tree Phuket

Mobile: 085-970-0076

Email: kittikhuns@bluetree.fun
A Saudi government source stated that the issue of income tax had not previously been discussed in the cabinet or any of the governmental councils or committees, said a Saudi Press Agency report.

The source was commenting on what was reported by one of the international news agencies, quoting Saudi Arabia's Minister of Finance regarding the study of the application of income tax.

The source also confirmed that this issue is fundamentally not for discussion, SPA said.
Amid the controversy around "improper lending practices" at HDFC Bank Ltd's vehicle finance unit, the Reserve Bank of India has taken cognisance of the matter, seeking details of the internal probe conducted by the bank. The apex bank has also sought details of the steps taken by the lender in addressing the issues that emerged during the probe, BloombergQuint reported.

Notably, HDFC Managing Director Aditya Puri had said last Saturday that a whistle-blower had flagged issues of "personal misconduct" by some of the employees and that based on the internal probe findings, suitable action was taken by the lender's management.

With regard to the probe, HDFC Bank has fired at least six senior and mid-level officials. Some employees of auto loan unit allegedly breached the code of conduct and governance rules and indulged in corrupt practices, following which they were sacked by the bank's unit.

The probe found that lender's car loan customers were given GPS devices by bundling them in auto loans without their knowledge, thereby violating the guidelines prohibiting them to indulge in non-financial businesses.

As per the allegations, these executives sold the GPS devices with auto loans to achieve sales targets from the years 2015 to 2019, and allegedly to track customers in case of loan default. A GPS device costs around Rs 18,000-Rs 19,500. The bank had tied up with a Mumbai-based firm Trackpoint GPS to offer these devices to its customers, The Economic Times reported.

Also read: HDFC Bank fires 6 employees over 'improper lending' related to car loans

The vehicle financing unit of HDFC Bank has total outstanding loans of Rs 1.2 lakh crore as of March 31, 2020.

Although details regarding the probe have not yet been made public, the tenure of Ashok Khanna, who worked at the bank for around 18 years and headed the crucial unit that accounted for around 10 per cent of the lender's loan book, was not extended despite an earlier proposal to do so.

Earlier, the HDFC Bank management was mulling over increasing Khanna's tenure by at least six months until October. The decision was reportedly being considered to ensure smooth continuity ahead of the retirement of HDFC Bank Managing Director Aditya Puri.

However, 63-year-old Khanna retired from the bank as per the contract in March. Notably, Khanna, who was due to retire in 2017, had been receiving an extension, primarily due to the importance of his unit.

Meanwhile, HDFC Bank's shares were trading Rs 9.20 or 0.82 per cent up at Rs 1,135.55 on Thursday, compared to its previous day close of Rs 1,126.35 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

Also read: HDFC Bank probes allegations of 'improper lending practices' at vehicle financing unit
South Africa: Commission wants justice for GBV victims

The Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) says the justice system should show no mercy for any person who commits gender-based violence (GBV).

This comes after the alleged rape of a 61-year-old grandmother and her 21-year-old daughter in Dzana Street, Dobsonville, last week.

According to a police report, unknown suspects allegedly gained access to a house after breaking the burglar bar and entered through the sliding door.

One suspect was allegedly armed with a weapon and raped the 21-year-old victim, while the second suspect raped and severely assaulted the 61-year-old grandmother in a separate bedroom. The grandmother, who was severely injured, was rushed to nearby Tshepo-Themba Clinic, where she was declared dead on arrival, police reported after the incident.

The rape of the grandmother and her granddaughter shows that the perpetrators of GBV are daring, and act with impunity, said CGE spokesperson Javu Baloyi.

The commission called on the South African Police Service to ensure that the perpetrators of this heinous crime are found and dealt with accordingly.

Women and children cannot be at the mercy of perpetrators of gender-based violence - be it in the streets or their private spaces, Baloyi said.

He said the justice system should show no mercy for any person who commits gender-based violence and other related atrocities, as this will send a clear message to would-be perpetrators that enough is enough.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-07-23. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
JobKeeper is now the government's biggest asset and could stay that way to the next election. It is a two-word brand with more power than the three-word slogans that took the Coalition to victory under Tony Abbott. With the health crisis getting worse, Australians should not be shocked at Thursday's confirmation that the deficit will reach $184.5 billion this year. Illustration: Andrew Dyson Credit: The number reshapes Australian political debate after a decade of Liberal and National alarm about deficits and debt. The parties that attacked Labor for posting deficits in a crisis a decade ago, but could not post surpluses in better times themselves, now ask voters to accept the worst numbers since World War II. No government has been mugged by reality quite like this. What matters most is what comes next. Morrison and Frydenberg are yet to outline the measures that can breathe more life into the economy if, or when, the second wave passes.

Loading The $2 billion skills package offers a start, with plans for more than 340,000 training places, but it will not be enough when people move off JobKeeper and into unemployment  which is inevitable when employers admit the jobs no longer exist. The last time unemployment was so grim, the Keating government responded with the Working Nation plan across industry policy, skills and employment. The July Economic and Fiscal Update, or JEFU, was hardly a plan of this scale. As Morrison said, it was more a reconciliation of the numbers. Those who want a bigger plan must wait for the October budget. There is no real dispute over the fact that this week's plans are not enough. The Coalition party room admits this by calling for more intervention. Liberal MPs want to bring forward personal tax cuts, slow down or stop an increase in superannuation levies and offer more help on business taxation.

There is strong support for these changes inside the party room even though they are all highly divisive in the wider world. Social service groups, for instance, argue the tax cuts would help those lucky enough to have a job at the very time those without work suffer a cut to their JobSeeker rates. The reply from Liberal MPs is that $164.1 billion is already being spent on emergency support and there is room for tax relief as well. Everything depends on what "bring forward" means. The tax cuts due to begin in July 2022 are estimated to cost $48 billion over a decade. Bringing them forward by one year would not break the bank  or, arguably, do much for the economy. The tax cuts due to begin in July 2024 are tipped to cost $95 billion over a decade. Someone on $200,000 a year would gain $11,640 a year. Bringing this forward would throw Morrison and Frydenberg into an argument they do not need over the fairness of helping the wealthy.

Frydenberg says "we will look at those issues" in the budget. Could he bring forward the tax cuts for average workers while making the well-off wait? This could make it more palatable to the Senate. Changes to superannuation are more challenging. The increase in the levy from 9.5 to 12 per cent is a delayed version of a Labor reform from a decade ago. It is already legislated. To stop the increase is to deprive workers of a bigger retirement income  although how much higher is a subject of dispute. Some of Scott Morrison's backbenchers were struck by the lack of thunder about the latest boost to a massive stimulus. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Employers pay the levy and would be the biggest winners from another delay. In theory, they could pay their workers higher wages if they did not pay the levy. In practice, workers would not trust the invisible hand to release the cash. This looks like a Senate battle not worth having.

Loading Company tax relief would be easier. The government says it is looking at ways to encourage investment. The clear candidate is an investment allowance along the lines proposed by the Business Council of Australia  a 20 per cent upfront tax deduction for outlays on plant and equipment. The concept is similar to a Labor policy at the last election, so it should not be impossible to find bipartisan support. This makes the allowance a more attractive option  on politics certainly and economics probably  than a cut to the company tax rate. The fiscal update is merely a signpost on the path to these decisions. The pandemic is worsening but Australians must wait for a more comprehensive response in the budget in October. Can Morrison and Frydenberg deliver what the party room wants as well as what the economy needs? It will be a fine balance but they will know when they get it wrong. That's when the phones ring off the hook.
(Bloomberg) -- A group of unions has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission warning that Amazon.com Inc.s market power has grown during the pandemic.

The complaint comes days before Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos is set to testify before a Congressional panel looking into the tech industrys allegedly anti-competitive behavior. The unions say the e-commerce giant has taken advantage of the upheaval to entrench its position in online retail and gain more leverage over workers and small merchants.

The labor coalition, which includes Change to Win, the Communications Workers of America, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers, previously asked the FTC to investigate Amazons influence on wages and what it deems anticompetitive practices. In the latest complaint, the group calls for immediate and decisive action to curb Amazons most abusive practices and its market power.

Covid-19 accelerated many market trends in favor of Amazon and e-commerce, offering a preview of the future, and the time to act is now, said Michael Zucker, who runs Change to Win, a federation of unions that convened the group. Theres a real danger of allowing one company to own the pipe and control the product that moves through it, that we think Covid underscores.

An FTC spokesperson declined to comment on the complaint.

Maxine Tagay, an Amazon spokesperson, said in an emailed statement that the retail market is fiercely competitive and that the company accounts for less than 4% of U.S. retail sales. The statement also noted safety measures Amazon put in place at its facilities during the pandemic. Nothing is more important than the health and well-being of our employees, and we are doing everything we can to keep them as safe as possible, Tagay said.

Amazon has operated largely as usual amid the pandemic because sales of groceries and other essential items were exempted from government-ordered closings that temporarily shuttered many retailers. The company for a time prioritized stocking items it deemed essential or in high-demand, a move that left small merchants who sell on its retail site unable to carry on their business as usual.

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Some small businesses heavily reliant on Amazon got shut out, merchants say. Amazon told us we werent essential at the time, said Doug Mrdeza, whose Top Shelf Brands generates most sales on Amazons marketplace. They are making up the rules about what is essential and what isnt, he said on a conference call Wednesday with other small businesses and Amazon critics.

The complaint cites research suggesting that despite Amazons restrictions, few sellers defected to other online stores such as EBay Inc. or Walmart Inc., preferring to play by the Seattle-based companys changing rules rather than risk running afoul of their main benefactor.

The unions are also taking aim at Amazons growing power over workers. After bringing on 175,000 employees in its logistics network, the company employed roughly one in three workers in the warehousing sector in the U.S., according to the complaint. A dominant position in many local logistics markets gives Amazon employees less ability to speak up about workplace concerns, especially those related to Covid-19, the unions say.

Bezos is scheduled to testify on Monday before a House of Representatives panel, alongside the top executives of Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Facebook Inc. It will be Bezoss first appearance before Congress.

(Updates with Amazon comment.)

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2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris TD has today welcomed confirmation of opening dates for third level colleges following a meeting with representative bodies.

The Minister and Department officials today met with the Irish Universities Association, the Technological Higher Education Association and Technology University Dublin to discuss the roadmap for reopening our third level sector.

At the meeting, three representative bodies confirmed the induction of first year students is a priority. The IUA, THEA and TU Dublin all confirmed they are seeking to welcome first year students from late September/early October with the majority seeking to open for first year students on September 28th.

Speaking today, Minister Harris said:
Nearly 5 percent of 7.30 lakh migrant labourers have got jobs and the biggest employers of these 35,000 odd labourers are village panchayats, not the private sector, shows Madhya Pradesh governments data.

The state government launched Rozgar Setu web portal on June 10 to bring the migrant labourers and employers/job providers on a common platform so that the latter could choose the workforce as per their requirement, the announcement made in June stated.

The state witnessed the return of 13.10 lakh migrant labourers and their family members from other states since March 24 when lockdown restrictions were imposed across the country given the Covid-19 situation. Of them, 7.30 lakh are labourers and remaining are their family members, as per the state governments data.

Of these 7.30 lakh migrant labourers, who include skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labourers, 35,361 workers are shown on the government portal as of Wednesday to have received employment through various employers/job providers. But, interestingly, while private players have shown little interest in the governments initiative, as many as 27,908 of the labourers who account for as many as 79% of 35,361 labourers have been given jobs by village panchayats as per the state governments data.

Also read: Manipur, Madhya Pradesh opt for stringent lockdowns

As per Rural development and panchayat raj department officials, the panchayats in the state dont have many jobs to offer, that too regularly to any person, except the job ensured for 100 days under MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act).

As per the data, only 69 labourers have got jobs in heavy industries and less than 600 in micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). After village panchayats, the second-best employers are contractors who have provided jobs to 2,700 while more than 550 got jobs through placement agencies. Builders have provided jobs to about 150 labourers, suppliers to 97 and commercial establishments have employed 67 labourers.

In an open letter to employers on July 4, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said, Rozgar setu portal has a database of all the migrant labourers after their skill mapping. More than 24,000 employers/job providers have got themselves registered who include those from heavy industries, MSMEs, builders, placement agencies, commercial establishments etc to provide jobs of permanent nature to the labourers for which I am grateful.

However, industries hardly showed any significant interest in the CMs appeal. Chhindwara district tops the list in facilitating jobs through village panchayats to labourers. About 5,000 labourers have got jobs at the panchayat level, as per the data.

Collector of Chhindwara, Saurav Kumar Suman said, We have certain works other than those offered under MNREGA too, like works related to 226 anganwadi centres, panchayat buildings, mines etc., besides work offered by central government agencies like BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd), NHAI (National Highway Authority of India) etc. They engage labourers as per their need.

However, right to food activist Sachin Jain said, The state governments claim of providing jobs through village panchayats is misleading. There is hardly any significant work left after MNREGA at the villages. The fact is that the state government cant provide or facilitate jobs to labourers overnight particularly because hardly any sincere effort was made in the past on the part of the government to create jobs in the state.

Yusuf Baig, a social activist from Panna district said, I dont see any work at the village level other than MNREGA provided to the labourers. Even MNREGA hardly fulfils their need. A family is supposed to get only 100 days a year job under MNREGA. If a family has four members then each of the members will get just 25 days job.

Mohd Makbool Ali, 53, a migrant labourer from village Mahtara under janpad panchayat Gohparu in Shahdol district got himself enrolled on the portal about a month. Nobody has contacted me so far for any work. Even otherwise, I dont see any work here. I will return to Mumbai the moment situation becomes normal over there, he said.

Another migrant labourer Rahul Kumar, 22, a resident of village Marpura under janpad panchayat Lahar in Bhind district was engaged with a security agency in Gurugram and echoed similar sentiments.

He said, It has been about a month now since I have been waiting for any response. I am planning to return to Gurugram.

On poor response to labourers from industries, president of the Association of Industries, Indore Pramod Daharia said, Any industry will like to engage any labourer if it doesnt have its trusted employees who are already engaged. There is a mutual understanding between the two sides and both understand each others needs. Secondly, after the lockdown, the industries are not running with their full capacity. Hence, they dont need any labourer from outside.

President of Peethampur Audyogik Sangthan Gautam Kothari spoke in a similar vein. He said, The industrialists prefer their own workforce. They are making phone calls to their workers and getting them back by arranging their transport. None of the industrialists would like to disturb its well-established system until unless there is some emergency or real shortage of workforce due to their employees stuck in other parts of the country.

Additional chief secretary (ACS), labour department, Rajesh Rajora said, There are a good number of contractors who have provided jobs to labourers. We are making an all-out effort to facilitate as many jobs to labourers as possible.
The woman nominated to serve as the new U.S. ambassador to Canada says she plans to apply fresh pressure on Ottawa to ban Huawei from taking part in Canada's 5G network.

During an appearance before the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, Aldona Wos said that, if confirmed, she will "... build on our existing bilateral cooperation to counter China's malign activities, and continue to raise concerns regarding the authorization of access to the 5G network by Huawei and other untrusted vendors."

Canada is the only member of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance  which includes the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand  that has not banned or restricted the Chinese tech giant from helping to build the country's 5G network.

Ottawa is carrying out a comprehensive review of Huawei's potential role in 5G that includes a broader, strategic look at how the technology can foster economic growth.

U.S. wants Canada to ban Huawei

Washington has threatened repeatedly to reconsider its intelligence-sharing arrangement with Ottawa if the company is allowed to participate in developing the sensitive technology, which will give internet users a speedier connection and provide vast data capacity.

The U.S. argues the company can be compelled to act as a spy agency for the Chinese government, and that it poses a significant national security risk.

Wos also offered broad support for Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, the two Canadians being detained in China. Both men were taken into custody by Chinese authorities in December of 2018, shortly after Canada arrested Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, on a U.S. extradition request.

Carlos Barria/Reuters

"I will make clear the United States government's deep concern over China's retaliatory and arbitrary detention of two Canadian citizens," she said.

In her opening remarks, Wos highlighted the integration of the Canada-U.S. relationship in the areas of defence and national security and vowed to deepen those ties.

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"The United States-Canada relationship is one of enduring strength. It is built on broad and deep ties between our peoples, shared values, extensive trade, strategic global cooperation and defence partnerships," she said, reading from prepared notes.

Defence spending a thorny issue

Wos also vowed to apply more pressure on Canada to increase its defence spending  an issue raised by both the previous Obama administration and the current Trump administration.

"If confirmed, I will encourage Canada to provide critical capabilities to the alliance by meeting the commitments that all NATO leaders agreed to in the 2014 Wales pledge," she said.

The Wales pledge calls on all NATO members that are not currently spending the equivalent of 2 per cent of their country's gross domestic product (GDP) on defence to gradually increase spending and move toward that goal within a decade.

Canada's defence spending in 2019 was equal to 1.27 per cent of its GDP, according to NATO figures. There is no plan currently to meet the 2 per cent goal.

Canada's current defence policy calls for a 73 per cent budget increase by 2026-27, which would bring defence spending to 1.4 per cent of GDP.

If confirmed, Wos will replace Kelly Craft, President Donald Trump's first ambassador to Canada who oversaw the re-negotiation of NAFTA.

Craft's service impressed many in the White House and she left her post in Ottawa to become the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Wos faced fewer questions than other nominees at today's hearing. Much of the focus was on an appearance by Lisa Kenna, a long-time State Department employee nominated to serve as ambassador to Peru.

Kenna worked in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's office at the time of the Ukraine pressure campaign that led to President Trump's impeachment.

Wos asked about Canada-U.S. border closure

Wos was asked by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire about COVID-related restrictions at the Canada-U.S. border.

Shaheen said companies, hospitals and other medical providers in the northern part of her state have been negatively affected by the closure.

"Because of the nature of the pandemic that we all face, it is currently by mutual decision beneficial to both our countries to continue to have restrictions at our border," Wos replied.

"But those restrictions are mostly for tourist and recreational activities of travel through the border. It is critical for both our countries to continue to have our goods and services be able to flow freely through the borders."

Shaheen said she hopes Wos can work to ensure that the border closure doesn't continue to disrupt trade between border states and Canada.
"Kids today are dressing up at this time as senior citizens to buy alcohol. Teens across TikTok are participating in this challenge and it's crucial now more than ever that ABC policies are still followed and more importantly our leaders address the issues that are driving teens at high rates to alcohol in the first place," said Eric, a high school senior from the Contra Costa County Youth Health Coalition . "We need lasting reforms that hinder this pattern from continuing through the pandemic and after it has passed."

Speakers at the event outlined a litany of issues that have emerged as the coronavirus rages across California. Alcohol consumption is increasing and ways to get alcohol are easing. The California Alcohol Policy Alliance (CAPA) is alarmed by the loosening of alcohol regulations which they call "an immediate threat to the health and well-being of communities." This indicates a serious failure in California by the Governor and the top state agencies reporting to him to acknowledge and address public health and safety concerns of making alcohol essential during the pandemic. The catastrophic annual alcohol-related harms that already plague the state have been dismissed along with the rise in those harms being experienced now that alcohol was deemed essential.

"The California Alcoholic Beverage Control Department needs to make the wellbeing of the people of California essential and not bail out big alcohol," stated Gilbert Mora, Co-Chair, California Alcohol Policy Alliance (CAPA). "Where is the science behind the public consumption of alcohol being essential? No one can drink with their mask on."

According to a study released by the nonprofit research institute RTI International, 35% of people surveyed reported excessive drinking and 27% reported binge drinking in April. About 30% of those surveyed revealed they are drinking several more days per month than they did before the pandemic. The increase is attributed to the stress, boredom and loneliness during the stay at home orders.

Some states, including California, are making it easier to get alcohol. Nationwide alcohol sales climbed 26% between March and June this year compared to the same time last year, according to the Nielsen Corp, driven mainly by online orders which skyrocketed to 243%.

At the beginning of the stay-at-home order in March, the ABC provided special permits allowing cocktails-to-go and alcohol delivery to boost sales for alcohol businesses. On July 1, due to the sudden increase of positive cases and hospitalizations, Governor Newsom announced another shutdown of indoor dining, causing alcohol outlets to heavily rely on takeout and delivery.

"Over-concentration is already epidemic in major California cities," said Carson Benowitz-Fredericks, research manager at Alcohol Justice. "The Los Angeles Drug and Alcohol Policy Alliance reports that 80% of Los Angeles census tracts are over-concentrated, and San Francisco has an even greater density of licenseesso much so that San Francisco legislators appeal to the state for even more licenses because new restaurants cannot make enough money from food sales alone to compete with their neighbors. By giving every alcohol licensee access to an individual's home through delivery, nearly every single census track becomes massively oversaturated."

The prevalence of virtual events such as COVID happy hours, wine and spirits tastings, online parties and social media posts that promote new names for cocktails such as "quarintinis" are highlighting drinking as a way to relieve boredom. This is a danger to public health.

People who are alcohol dependent have weakened immune systems, making it harder to fight off Covid-19. Even individuals who are not addicted but drinking more during the pandemic are at risk for alcohol misuse, which leads to drunk driving, as well as increases in violence, domestic abuse and financial problems. Excessive drinking also increases the risk for liver disease, breast cancer, depression, stroke and heart attack.

Moreover, there is a disproportionate number of alcohol businesses and alcohol advertising in low income minority communities, increases the potential for alcohol related problems in neighborhoods that are already under-resourced.

Veronica de Lara/Co-Chair of CAPA said, "Why are the impacts of alcohol harms and misuse not considered in the state-wide COVID-19 response? What is the science behind alcohol being essential during a global pandemic? Why are we deregulating alcohol? We want answers! Our communities and our families demand public health and safety over economic gain."

Because of the high potential for risky behaviors and subsequent community disruption during the pandemic, CAPA and its community partners strongly urge Governor Newsom to remove alcohol from the list of essential businesses and reinstate ABC regulations that prevent alcohol takeout, delivery, and expanded public consumption in public spaces. Specifically, CAPA is requesting the Governor to:

Rescind all "temporary" alcohol rules and regulation rollbacks

Create statewide standard alcohol policy regulations within the Covid-19 response

Address the disproportionate increase in alcohol harms to low income communities of color

Increase alcohol taxes and allocate the additional funds to treatment and prevention

Retire outdated/unused alcohol licenses

CAPA is urging Californians to Text the word CAPA to 313131 to send a message to the Governor asking him to closely re-examine California's relationship with Big Alcohol, acknowledge that excessive alcohol use is No. 3 on the list of preventable causes of death in the state and make public health essential, not alcohol.

California currently suffers over 10,500 alcohol-related deaths, 165,000 alcohol-related hospitalizations and $35 billion in related economic harm.

The California Alcohol Policy Alliance (CAPA) unites diverse organizations and communities in California to protect health and safety, and prevent alcohol-related harm through statewide action.

CAPA Member Organizations



Alcohol Justice

Alcohol-Narcotics Education Foundation of California

ADAPP, Inc.

ADAPT San Ramon Valley

Bay Area Community Resources

Behavioral Health Services, Inc.

CA Council on Alcohol Problems

CASA for Safe & Healthy Neighborhoods

Center for Human Development

Center for Open Recovery

DogPAC of San Francisco

Dolores Huerta Foundation

Eden Youth & Family Center

Institute for Public Strategies

FASD Network of Southern CA

FreeMUNI  SF

Friday Night Live Partnership

Koreatown Youth & Community Center

Laytonville Healthy Start

L.A. County Friday Night Live

L.A. Drug & Alcohol Policy Alliance

L.A. County Office of Education

Lutheran Office of Public Policy  CA

MFI Recovery Center

Mountain Communities Family Resource Center

National Asian Pacific American Families Against Substance Abuse

National Council on Alcoholism & Drug Dependence  Orange County

Partnership for a Positive Pomona

Paso por Paso, Inc.

Project SAFER

Pueblo y Salud

Reach Out

San Marcos Prevention Coalition

San Rafael Alcohol & Drug Coalition

SAY San Diego

Saving Lives Drug & Alcohol Coalition

South Orange County Coalition

Tarzana Treatment Centers, Inc.

The Wall Las Memorias Project

UCEPP Social Model Recovery Systems

Women Against Gun Violence

Youth For Justice

For more information: https://alcoholjustice.org/press-packets

Contact: Mayra Jimenez 323 683-4687

Jorge Castillo 213 840-3336

Michael Scippa 415 548-0492

SOURCE California Alcohol Policy Alliance

Related Links

https://alcoholpolicyalliance.org


People praying next to the San Gabriel Mission after the historic church was severely damaged by a fire (ANSA)

The Bishops of the United States respond to reports of increasing incidents of church vandalism and fires, and urge understanding and love in response to confusion and hatred.

By Vatican News

The Bishops Conference of the United States, the USCCB, has issued a statement on Wednesday in response to numerous attacks against Catholic churches, statues, and other religious symbols.

Our nation finds itself in an extraordinary hour of cultural conflict, reads the statement from Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami and Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City.

Acts of vandalism and destruction

The Archbishops, chairmen respectively of the USCCBs Committee on Religious Liberty and Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, point to numerous acts of violence in recent weeks, including an attack in Florida when a driver rammed his car into a church and attempted to set the building on fire. Numerous statues of Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin have also been defaced or even beheaded in recent weeks, the Bishops note.

The historic mission church of San Gabriel in Los Angeles was destroyed by fire earlier in July, and the cause is still unknown.

Motives unclear

Whether those who committed these acts were troubled individuals crying out for help or agents of hate seeking to intimidate, the attacks are signs of a society in need of healing, the Archbishops say.

Acknowledging that the motives behind the incidents remain unclear, the Archbishops say they are praying for those responsible, adding we remain vigilant against more of it."

Responding to hatred with love

In their statement, the Archbishops insist, the path forward must be through the compassion and understanding practiced and taught by Jesus and His Holy Mother. They encourage contemplation of images of these examples of Gods love rather than destruction of them.

Following the example of Our Lord, the two Archbishops say, we respond to confusion with understanding and to hatred with love.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 23) A total of 16 petitions have been filed with the Supreme Court seeking to nullify the Anti-Terrorism Act as of Thursday.

The high courts public information office disclosed the list of petitions while more are expected in the coming days.

Two framers of the 1987 Constitution, opposition lawmakers, veteran journalists, and a number of human rights defenders joined forces to file the 12th petition on Thursday.

Youth groups, including student councils from different universities; the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines and artists including National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera are also among the petitioners.

Also on Thursday, a group of Muslim lawyers urged the Supreme Court to declare the Anti-Terrorism Act unconstitutional and stop its implementation, saying the measure puts at risk the Bangsamoro, who are likely to be the victims of injustices and abuses.

Republic Act 11479 or the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, signed into law on July 3, has yet to be fully carried out as law enforcers agreed to wait for the implementing rules and regulations for as long as theres no imminent threat.

Critics said it relaxes safeguards on human rights and is open to abuse, but lawmakers who authored and sponsored the measure maintained its validity.

CNN Philippines' Anjo Alimario contributed to this report.
Kanye West's latest emotional breakdown was triggered by 'unresolved grief' over the death of the rapper's mother, claims the man who helped raise him.

Ulysses Blakeley told The Sun that the 43-year-old Black Skinhead hitmaker is still feeling the loss of mom Donda West, who passed away following complications from plastic surgery procedures in 2007.

'It seems to be a sort of profound, unresolved grief. He feels some isolation,' the 69-year-old, who dated Donya, told the outlet.

RIP: Kanye West's latest emotional breakdown was triggered by 'unresolved grief' over the death of the rapper's mother, claims the man who helped raise him. Kanye and mom Donda seen here in 2007

Ulysses, who was the first man Donda dated after divorcing Wests father Ray, admitted that when Kanye left home at 18 years old to pursue his career, ' that was the last time I had any contact with him.'

But he still feels a connection to West, saying of Kanye's recent meltdown, 'Im distressed to see him in distress.'

Donda wrote about her relationship with Blakely in her 2007 memoir Raising Kanye: 'I thought he was going to be my last love. He and I had a great relationship. Kanye liked him a lot. He would take Kanye to the park for hours near his apartment building.'

The superstar's mom, who was also Kanye's manager, underwent liposuction, a tummy tuck, and a breast reduction, the day before she died.

In 2015 the artist told Q Magazine he still felt some responsibility for his mother's death, saying, 'If I had never moved to L.A. she'd be alive... I don't want to go far into it because it will bring me to tears.'

Kanye's forthcoming album, due out this week, is titled DONDA in honor of his late mother.

Mama's boy: Ulysses Blakeley told The Sun that the 43-year-old Black Skinhead hitmaker is still feeling the loss of mom Donda West, who passed away following complications from plastic surgery procedures in 2007. Seen here in 2007

Meanwhile Kris Jenner has broken her social media silence amid the drama surrounding her son-in-law Kanye - which saw him brand her 'Kris Jong-Un'.

But the Kardashian matriarch, 64, has not risen to Kanye's nasty jibe - and has, instead, totally ignored it.

Taking to Instagram on Wednesday evening, she posted a short clip on Instagram Stories to show off a delivery she had received of beignets - a delicacy from Louisiana.

Appearance: Kris Jenner has broken her social media silence amid the drama surrounding her son-in-law Kanye - which saw him brand her 'Kris Jong-Un' [pictured in February]

The pastries had been sent to her from Beignet Box, a bakery in Los Angeles, which is close to where she lives in Calabasas.

In the clip, music was playing in the background, suggesting Kris was enjoying a simple evening at home with the delicious snack.

She has been notably quiet online since Kanye hit the headlines earlier this week with his bizarre 'Presidential' speech and subsequent Twitter meltdown, in which he made claims about his wife Kim Kardashian as well as her mother.

Kim took to Instagram on Wednesday morning to say that she is 'powerless' and called her husband 'brilliant but complicated'.

Ignored: But the Kardashian matriarch, 64, has not risen to Kanye's nasty jibe - and has, instead, totally ignored it [he is pictured at his presidential rally on Sunday]

Sweet treats: Taking to Instagram on Wednesday evening, Kris posted a short clip on Instagram Stories to show off a delivery she had received of donuts

In-laws: Kris, Kanye and Kim in New York City last November

The reality star, 39, said 'his words sometimes do not align with his intentions' after Kanye claimed he has been 'trying to get divorced' from Kim since she met his fellow rapper Meek Mill at a hotel.

In his latest rambling Twitter outburst, West said Tuesday that Kim was 'out of line' to meet Meek Mill to talk about 'prison reform', and blasted her mother Kris Jenner as 'Kris Jong-Un' while accusing the pair of 'white supremacy'.

Sharing three pages to her Instagram story Wednesday morning Kim said: 'Those that understand mental illness or even compulsive behavior know that the family is powerless unless the member is a minor.'

She told her 180 million followers: 'I understand Kanye is subject to criticism because he is a public figure and his actions at times can cause strong opinions and emotions. He is a brilliant but complicated person who on top of the pressures of being an artist and a black man, who experienced the painful loss of his mother, and has to deal with the pressure and isolation that is heightened by his bi-polar disorder.

'Those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words some times do not align with his intentions.'

Speaking out: Kim took to Instagram Wednesday morning following her husband's late night Twitter meltdown, saying she is 'powerless' and calling her husband 'brilliant but complicated'

West on Tuesday repeated his claim that his wife and mother-in-law had 'tried to fly in with two doctors' to have him hospitalized amid concerns about his well-being after his bizarre entry into the 2020 presidential race.

'Kris and Kim put out a statement without my approval... that's not what a wife should do,' Kanye said after reports that the Kardashians were infuriated by his latest antics. Source told TMZ Wednesday that the Kardashians 'don't know what to do' as Kanye is 'clearly not receptive to getting help'.

Kanye deleted his late-night tweets barely half an hour after posting them, except for a final post in which he signed them off as coming from 'the future president'.

Kim wrote Wednesday: 'As many of you know, Kanye has bi-polar disorder. Anyone who has this or has a loved one in their life who does, knows how incredibly complicated and painful it is to understand.

Stressed: Kim is 'completely devastated' after husband Kanye claimed in a Twitter rant that she tried to get a doctor to lock him up after his presidential rally speech in South Carolina on Sunday. Friends fear that their marriage will not survive West's recent behavior. The couple are pictured with their children North, 7; Saint, 4; Chicago, 2; and Psalm, 14 months

'I've never spoken publicly about how this has affected us at home because I am very protective of our children and Kanye's right to privacy when it comes to his health. But today, I feel like I should comment on it because of the stigma and misconceptions about mental health.

'People who are unaware or far removed from this experience can be judgmental and not understand that the individual themselves have to engage in the process of getting help no matter how hard family and friends try.

'Living with bi-polar disorder does not diminish or invalidate his dreams and his creative ideas, no matter how big or unobtainable they may feel to some. That is part of his genius and as we have all witnessed, many of his big dreams have come true.'

Kanye's shock divorce claim comes after sources had alleged that Kim and Kanye, 43, are already 'living apart' and have been 'at each other's throats' with 'daily bust-ups' during lockdown.

Claims: Kanye claimed he has been 'trying to get divorced' from Kim since she met his fellow rapper Meek Mill at the Waldorf Hotel

Disturbing: In his latest rambling Twitter outburst, West said Kim was 'out of line' to meet Meek Mill to talk about 'prison reform' and blasted her mother Kris Jenner as 'Kris Jong-Un' while accusing the pair of 'white supremacy'

Troubled: Kim , pictured left with Kanye, earned glowing praise from Meek Mill (pictured right) last year, when the rapper called her a 'friend' and hailed her for 'doing a lot of good work' on prison reform

Kim earned glowing praise from Meek Mill last year, when the rapper called her a 'friend' and hailed her for 'doing a lot of good work' on prison reform, but the nature of the alleged hotel meeting is not clear.

Meek and Kim both attended a Criminal Justice Reform Summit in Los Angeles in November 2018, but it was at the Jeremy Hotel rather than the Waldorf in Beverly Hills which Kanye appeared to be referring to.

West's tweets said that 'Meek is my man and was respectful... that's my dog', without elaborating further, before he veered off into his supposed $5billion wealth and a reference to Michael Jackson.

On Wednesday he appeared to address Kanye's tweets, writing on Twitter: 'S*** is cappp cmon ....' Cap is slang for lies. TMZ Meek Mill and Kim only ever met in a professional sense to talk prison reform.

Kanye's freewheeling tweets also referred to rapper Drake and Kim Kardashian's friend Larsa Pippen, without explaining further but followed by the question: 'Should I name more?'.

In a bizarre reference to Michael Jackson and his nemesis and former Sony Music boss Tommy Mottola, West said that 'MJ told you about Tommy before they killed him'.

He added: 'Kim saved my daughters life in the name of Jesus It's Gods choice only I will live for my children Kris I'm in Cody if your not planning another one of your children's playboy shoots.'

Tears: Kanye appeared at a campaign rally in South Carolina on Sunday (pictured) in which he delivered a lengthy monologue which sparked concerns about his well-being

What Kanye has said since joining the 2020 presidential race July 4: Kanye West announces he is running for president, declaring that 'we must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future'. West receives early backing from his wife Kim Kardashian and from SpaceX supremo Elon Musk. However, there is much skepticism about whether he genuinely intends to run. July 8: Forbes publishes an interview with Kanye in which he says he has never voted before, wants to model his presidency on the fictional country of Wakanda in the movie Black Panther, and no longer supports Donald Trump after previously appearing in the Oval Office with a Make America Great Again hat. West also says he was ill with Covid-19 in February and is sceptical of developing vaccines against it, and suggests that Musk should be head of America's space program. July 14: West scores two per cent in a poll of the presidential race, with 56 per cent of respondents believing that the rapper is not serious about running for president. July 15: Kanye appears to take a further step towards running for president, as a filing with the Federal Election Commission shows the establishment of a Kanye 2020 campaign committee under the banner of the Birthday Party or BDY. West says the name is chosen because 'when we win, it's everybody's birthday'. July 18: Kanye urges his supporters to sign a petition to get him on the ballot in South Carolina. Two days later, state officials say the deadline has passed and that that West did not submit the required paperwork in time. However, he is listed on the ballot in Oklahoma. July 19: West holds a campaign rally in South Carolina, wearing a bullet-proof jacket marked 'security' and with '2020' shaved into his head. In a rambling speech, he reveals that he and Kim had considered aborting their daughter North and sparks outrage by claiming that abolitionist Harriet Tubman 'never actually freed the slaves'. July 20: In a series of tweets, Kanye claims that Kim Kardashian is trying to have him locked up on medical grounds, compares himself to Nelson Mandela and suggests the movie Get Out was about him. The tweets spark further concern for his well-being, but Elon Musk says that 'we talked about an hour ago' and that Kanye 'seems fine'. July 21: Kanye claims he has been 'trying to get divorced' since Kim Kardashian allegedly met rapper Meek Mill to talk about prison reform at the Waldorf Hotel. He also calls his mother-in-law Kris Jenner 'Kris Jong-Un' and accuses the pair of 'white supremacy' in another freewheeling series of tweets. Most of his tweets are quickly deleted. Earlier in the day, he had hinted he could postpone his presidential run until 2024 after saying 'I guess all black people supposed to vote for Biden'. He also heaped praise on comedian Dave Chappelle for visiting him at his Wyoming ranch. Advertisement

Kanye had revealed in his South Carolina rally on Sunday that he and Kim considered aborting their daughter North, and separately announced that his children would 'never do Playboy'.

Turning to Kris and Kim, Kanye claimed that 'they tried to fly in with two doctors to 51/50 me', referring to a section of California law under which people can be confined for mental health reasons.

West had alleged just 24 hours earlier that 'Kim was trying to fly to Wyoming with a doctor to lock me up like on the movie Get Out' after his troubling appearance at the South Carolina campaign rally, his first since announcing on July 4 that he was entering the 2020 race.

'I been trying to get divorced since Kim met with Meek at the Warldolf [sic] for 'prison reform'', Kanye said, adding: 'This my lady tweet of the night... Kris Jong-Un'.

Seemingly going off on a tangent, he added in the same tweet that 'Lil Baby my favorite rapper but won't do a song wit me'.

In his next tweet he wrote: 'Meek is my man and was respectful. That's my dog. Kim was out of line.

'I'm worth $5 billion and more than that through Christ. But you'll ain't listen to MJ but you'll believe them???'.

Kanye has also shared his texts with Kris Jenner in which he threatened to 'go to war' if she did not return his calls.

The first message read: 'This Ye, you ready to talk now or are still avoiding my call?', while the second, posted a day later, said: 'This Ye, you wanna talk or go to war?'.

He captioned the screenshot: 'White supremacy at its highest no cap.'

Page Six reports that friends fear the marriage may not survive West's recent frightening behavior, as he welcomes other celebrities including comedian Dave Chappelle to his Wyoming ranch but continues to avoid his wife.

Meek Mill's last public interaction with Kim came in August 2019, when he told Access Hollywood that Kardashian was a 'friend' with whom he had spoken frequently about prison reform.

'I think she's doing a lot of good work. She's doing a lot of work, more than other people who have platforms who might even [have come] from that situation,' Meek said in an interview.

'So, big ups to her and big ups to everybody that's working for a better cause  not even just for reform,' he said.

Meek was freed from court supervision in July 2019 after a Pennsylvania appeals court on Wednesday overturned the rapper's conviction in a drug and gun case that had kept him in prison or on probation for most of his adult life.

He later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor gun charge in a deal which resolved the 12-year legal battle.

In 2018, Meek and Kardashian were both named as guests at a Criminal Justice Reform Summit in Los Angeles, organized by Variety and Rolling Stone magazine.

The event took place at the Jeremy Hotel in West Hollywood, a different venue to the Waldorf in Beverly Hills which Kanye was apparently referring to.

It is not clear whether West was mistaken about the venue or whether he was referring to a different occasion, but no meeting at the Waldorf has ever been publicized.

Kim had visited the White House to lobby for prison reform earlier in 2018, helping to persuade Donald Trump to grant clemency to Alice Marie Johnson who was serving a life sentence without parole for drugs offenses.

Kardashian was the one who broke the news to Johnson, saying that 'telling her for the first time and hearing her screams while crying together is a moment I will never forget'.

Earlier on Tuesday, Kanye heaped praise on his comedian friend Dave Chappelle for flying to Wyoming to visit him at his ranch.

Family: North West, Kardashian, West and Saint (L to R) are pictured together in New York City in 2019

'Thank you Dave for hopping on a jet to come see me doing well. Dave you are a god send and a true friend. All love,' Kanye tweeted alongside a video that showed the pair standing in a group as the rapper urged Chappelle to say a joke.

Later Tuesday he posted a video to Twitter thanking his friends for their support and captioned it: 'THANK YOU 88 MNOP FOR JOINING ME AT OUR RANCH IN CODY IT'S SO GOOD TO HAVE REAL ONES AROUND Oh AND THEY BOTH WEARING ORANGE.'

He then posted a picture of some illustrations with the condensed words: 'TH FTR IS CMNG PRMS N JSS NM.'

Yet despite West's posts with his friends on Twitter, a source told Page Six that while the Kardashian family had decided to stand by Kanye, they believe the situation is 'really bad'.

'I don't know if they can survive it,' the source claimed of Kanye and Kim's marriage.
Polls closed across Malawi Tuesday evening after millions voted for the countrys president in a rerun of the 2019 election that was nullified by the courts because of vote tampering.

Vatican News

Counting of ballots began at the 5,000 polling stations, and the results will be announced from the National Counting Centre in Blantyre. The Malawi Election Commission has eight days to announce the official results. Incumbent President Peter Mutharika, 79, is running against Lazarus Chakwera, 65, leader of the main opposition Malawi Congress Party.

The Tipp-Ex scandal

The Constitutional Court on 3 February struck down Mutharikas victory in the May 2019 election, citing evidence of voting fraud, including thousands of ballots that appeared to have been altered using typing correction fluid also known by its brand name of Tippex. The Malawi Supreme Court upheld the ruling.

Some 6.8 million Malawians were eligible to cast ballots. The Human Rights Defenders Coalition, a local organisation, led demonstrations across the country to call for fairness in the electoral process. The groups national coordinator, Luke Tembo, told AP that the voting Tuesday is what the group had been campaigning for.

This has now given people a second chance to exercise their rights. Now we have been calling on people to come out in their large numbers to vote to determine the future of this country, said Tembo. We believe this time around we are going to get things right and get a free, fair and credible election.

Malawi Electoral Commission assures of fairness

The day before the vote there was a spate of clashes in the capital, Lilongwe, and the lakeshore town of Nkhotakota sparked by rumours of vote-rigging. Order was restored by soldiers of the Malawi Defence Force who have been deployed across the country. The Electoral Commission Chairperson Chifundo Kachale assured all voters that the polling process would be fair.

Before the voting started the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on all political actors and stakeholders to renew their commitment to credible and peaceful elections while observing all preventive measures against the spread of COVID-19, according to a statement issued by spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

Election Observers

Several local and international organisations are observing the new elections, in an effort to confirm that they are free and fair. The European Union, the African Union, the Southern African Development Community, several diplomatic missions, and the Commonwealth also observed the elections, the Malawi Electoral Commissions spokesman Sangwani Mwafulirwa said. The US and British embassies announced that they sent out small observer missions as a supplement to thousands of domestic election observers and political party monitors. (Source -AP)
Ukrainian Culture and Information Policy Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko hopes that Ukraine will soon sign an agreement with Italy on cultural cooperation for 2020-2024.

"The Ukrainian and Italian sides have already agreed on the text of the draft program of cultural cooperation for 2020-2024. I hope that we will sign it in the near future," Tkachenko wrote on Facebook.

He added that he had met with Ambassador of Italy to Ukraine Davide La Cecilia. We are glad that Italians have greatly appreciated cooperation with Ukraine over many years and want to strengthen it, Tkachenko said.

The minister thanked Italy for its contribution to the development of our music and art sectors. "Italy actively cooperates and conducts joint events with the National Opera and Ballet Theatres of Lviv, Odesa, Kharkiv, and Kyiv. Our states consistently exchange museum pieces for exhibitions," Tkachenko said.

He added that Ukrainian exhibitions are often held in leading Italian museums and galleries.

During a meeting with the Italian ambassador, Tkachenko spoke about plans to launch centers for cultural services in the regions, projects on media literacy and tourism development.

At the meeting, the parties also separately focused on the protection of cultural heritage and the restoration of cultural relics. Tkachenko noted that the Italian side has vast experience in this area and will help Ukraine.

ish
Elected officials in Oregon have said they do not need or want federal help managing what have become nightly clashes outside the federal courthouse in Portland. Residents in Oakland, Calif., and Detroit, two cities the president has also suggested have gotten out of control, point out that things have been relatively calm this summer. In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the city could use help containing violent crime, but cautioned that it did not welcome dictatorship.

This moment is notably different from 1968, when local officials requested federal troops to restore order in Washington, Chicago and Baltimore because they believed they could not do it themselves. Its different from Oxford, Miss., in 1962, or Little Rock in 1957, when local officials were openly defying federal court orders to desegregate.

I dont think theres anywhere near the same kind of consensus at the federal level that federal authority is actually being subverted today, said Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Whats new and troubling here is we have a very, very contested factual predicate. And its not remotely clear to me what federal laws are going unenforced.

If the federal presence in Portland were meant to restore order, it would have made more sense to send in National Guard officers, who have served and trained for such a role, not Customs and Border Protection agents, Mr. Vladeck said. Confrontations there have escalated since the arrival of federal forces, with a line of protesting mothers facing tear gas, and then, Wednesday night, Mayor Ted Wheeler of Portland experiencing the same.

This is the very thing that scared the heck out of the framers of the Constitution, said Barry Friedman, a law professor at New York University. Theres been an over-tendency to cry wolf, he said of the presidents critics over the past four years. Well, this is wolf. This is it.

The fact that the Trump campaign has at the same time begun running numerous ads portraying American cities as overrun by violent left-wing mobs suggests that the president is motivated more by the optics of the federal response than its potential effectiveness, Mr. Vladeck said.

Further muddying matters, the president also announced Wednesday plans for a surge of law enforcement officers into American cities to work with local police combating violent crime. Attorney General Bill Barr suggested that a rise in violent crime in some cities over the past month had been a direct result of calls to defund and weaken local police forces amid Black Lives Matter protests.
Following months of dither and delay, mixed messaging from the government and a cabinet split, face coverings will become mandatory in shops, supermarkets and takeaways in England from Friday.

Anyone found not to be wearing a mask in each of these settings could be fined up to 100, under plans announced by health secretary Matt Hancock on 13 July.

It is already compulsory to wear a face mask when travelling on public transport.

The debate around face masks has been rumbling on since the Covid-19 pandemic took hold in March. The World Health Organisation (WHO) initially said they were of limited use in tackling the virus.

But the health body updated its official guidance in June, citing growing evidence suggesting that face coverings can help slow the spread of the disease when worn in enclosed spaces.

Recommended Hundreds of new coronavirus test centres to open across England

Some, however, say the evidence is flimsy, arguing that the presence of face masks in public is deterring people form returning to normal life and therefore holding back the UKs economic recovery.

In the UK, tensions in government came to a head on 12 July when Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show that face masks should not be mandatory in shops, appearing to contradict indications made by his boss, Boris Johnson, the previous week.

Mr Hancock made his announcement the following day, meaning England will now join Germany, Spain and Italy in making face masks compulsory inside shops.

The announcement came a little over a week after Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish first minister, made face coverings mandatory in shops, leading some commentators to accuse the PM of caving to pressure to change public advice.

Below is a timeline of some of the major twists and turns and changing advice in the face mask debate.

11 March

Downing Street releases video of PM in conversation with Englands deputy chief medical officer, Jenny Harries.

Ms Harries tells the PM that it is a bad idea to wear a face mask unless told to do so by a healthcare professional.

16 April

Transport secretary Grant Shapps tells Good Morning Britain there is little value in wearing a face mask.

Its absolutely right that we base this [face mask guidance] on the medical advice not on what a politician has woken up and thought about that day.

17 April

Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, urges the government to follow other countries around the world in encouraging the public to wear face masks where social distancing is difficult, including on public transport and shops.

26 April

The British Medical Association (BMA) calls on the government to explore the use of face masks in public.

There is some emerging evidence that if mouths and noses are covered when people are out and about, it may help in controlling the spread of infection of COVID-19 and so save lives, said BMA council chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul.

4 June

Grant Shapps announces face masks will become mandatory on public transport from 15 June.

5 June

WHO updates guidance on wearing face masks, saying they should be used in enclosed spaces.

2 July

Nicola Sturgeon announces face masks will become mandatory in shops from 10 July.

13 July

UK government announces face masks to be made mandatory in shops, supermarkets and takeaways from 24 July.
The House moved toward a vote Wednesday on removing from the U.S. Capitol statues of Confederate heroes, including Robert E. Lee, and a bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the author of the 1857 Dred Scott decision that declared African Americans couldn't be citizens.

Besides Taney, the bill would direct the Architect of the Capitol to identify and eventually remove from Statuary Hall at least 10 statues honoring Confederate leaders, including Lee, Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens. Three statues honoring white supremacists  including former U.S. Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina  would be immediately removed.

"Defenders and purveyors of sedition, slavery, segregation and white supremacy have no place in this temple of liberty," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said at a Capitol news conference ahead of the House vote.

Hoyer, D-Md., co-sponsored the bill and noted with irony that Taney was born in the southern Maryland district Hoyer represents. Hoyer said it was appropriate that the bill would replace Taney's bust with another Maryland native, the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the high court's first Black justice.

The House vote comes as communities nationwide reexamine the people they're memorializing with statues. Bills to remove the Taney bust and the statues of Confederate leaders have been introduced in the Republican-controlled Senate, where prospects for passage are uncertain.

Even if legislation passes both chambers, it would need the president's signature, and President Donald Trump has opposed the removal of historic statues elsewhere. Trump has strongly condemned those who toppled statues during protests over racial injustice and police brutality following the May death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Chief Justice Taney

The 2-foot-high marble bust of Taney is outside a room in the Capitol where the Supreme Court met for half a century, from 1810 to 1860. It was in that room that Taney, the nation's fifth chief justice, announced the Dred Scott decision, sometimes called the worst decision in the court's history.

"What Dred Scott said was, Black lives did not matter,'' Hoyer said. "So when we assert that yes they do matter, it is out conviction ... that in America, the land of the free includes all of us.''

There's at least one potentially surprising voice for Taney to stay. Lynne M. Jackson, Scott's great-great-granddaughter, says if it were up to her, she'd leave Taney's bust where it is. But she said she'd add something too: a bust of Dred Scott.

"I'm not really a fan of wiping things out," Jackson said in a telephone interview this week from her home in Missouri.

The president and founder of The Dred Scott Heritage Foundation, Jackson has seen other Taney sculptures removed in recent years, particularly in Maryland, where he was the state's attorney general before becoming U.S. attorney general and then chief justice.

'Attempts to rewrite history'

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said the statues honoring Lee and other Confederate leaders are "deliberate attempts to rewrite history and dehumanize African Americans.''

The statues "are not symbols of Southern heritage, as some claim, but are symbols of white supremacy and defiance of federal authority,'' Lee said. "It's past time we end the glorification of men who committed treason against the United States in a concerted effort to keep African Americans in chains.''

Calhoun, who served as vice president from 1825-1832, also was a U.S. senator, House member and secretary of state and war. He died a decade before the Civil War, but was known as a strong defender of slavery, segregation and white supremacy.

His statue would be removed within 30 days of the bill's passage, along with former North Carolina Gov. Charles Aycock and James Clarke, a former Arkansas governor and senator.

Plea for context

In the summer of 2017, shortly after white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the removal of a statue of Lee, Baltimore's mayor removed statues of Lee, Taney and others. A statue of Taney was removed from the grounds of the State House in Annapolis around the same time. And a bust of Taney was removed that year from outside city hall in Frederick, Maryland.

Another Taney bust sits alongside all other former chief justices in the Supreme Court's Great Hall, a soaring, marble-columned corridor that leads to the courtroom. A portrait of Taney hangs in one of the court's conference rooms.

Jackson said she believes that what memorials honoring figures like Taney need is context. At the Capitol, the Taney statue sits in the "place where the Dred Scott case was decided," but the fact he is "there by himself is lopsided," Jackson said in suggesting a bust of Scott be added. She had proposed a similar fix for the Taney statue in Annapolis.

In Congress, Taney's bust was controversial from the start. When Illinois Sen. Lyman Trumbull proposed its creation in 1865, shortly after Taney's death, he got into a heated debate with Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner, a fierce opponent of slavery.

"Let me tell that senator that the name of Taney is to be hooted down the page of history. Judgment is beginning now," Sumner said. "And an emancipated country will fasten upon him the stigma which he deserves."

Funding for a Taney bust wasn't approved until almost a decade later. Today, near the Taney bust, inside the old Supreme Court chamber, there are also busts of the nation's first four chief justices. The first, John Marshall, is the only person to serve as chief justice longer than Taney and a revered figure in the law.

But John Marshall too was a deeply flawed man, as were other justices, said Paul Finkelman, the president of Gratz College in Pennsylvania and the author of "Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation's Highest Court." Marshall bought slaves most of his life, a fact his biographers largely ignored, and was hostile to the idea of Blacks gaining their freedom, Finkelman said. Before the Civil War, probably the majority of justices owned slaves, he said.

"It's not pretty. It's who they were," Finkelman said.


A group that advocates for limited governmental powers has filed a lawsuit challenging Gov. Kate Browns authority to require Oregonians to wear face coverings in public.

The Freedom Foundation announced Thursday that it has asked the Oregon Court of Appeals to temporarily invalidate Browns orders as the court delves further into the legalities of the orders.

The group argues that Brown and the Oregon Health Authority didnt follow legal procedures in mandating masks in all public indoor spaces and outdoors when six feet of physical distancing cant be maintained. Brown first ordered masks indoors in seven counties on June 24, to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. She then gradually expanded her order to include the entire state July 1, outdoor spaces starting July 15 and children ages 5 and older starting Friday.

The governor still is exempting children younger than 5 and people with medical conditions that makes it hard to breathe or with a disability that prevents the individual from wearing a mask.

The Freedom Foundation lists three Oregonians in its legal challenge. They say they have medical conditions, past psychological trauma or strong political beliefs about the mask order and dont think they should have to explain their position to store employees or others who tell them to cover up.

Complainant Chester Mooney of Yamhill County said in a signed declaration to the Appeals Court that hes had heart bypass surgery, is elderly and believes its unhealthy for him to wear a mask.

I do not believe that the mask requirement is even based on sound science and does not prevent the spread of COVID -19 but does actually physically injure me, Mooney wrote.

The second complainant, Shannan Pozzi of Lane County, is a surviving victim of domestic abuse and attempted murder by suffocation and struggles with the fear of being smothered and suffocated again due to someone forcing me to wear a mask, according to the challenge submitted to the Appeals Court.

I have been denied entrance to a stores to buy food and other goods due to the new Statewide Mask rule, Pozzi wrote in her signed declaration. ...I was literally kicked out of a Subway, I have been followed and verbally assaulted and shouted at in a Bi-Mart.

The third complainant, Kevin Rubio, also is from Lane County and says he doesnt believe he can be forced to wear a mask.

I do not want to be forced to express approval for the governor nor wear a mask covering my face and hiding who I am when there is no need for me to contain any virus, Rubio wrote in his signed declaration. I do not have coronavirus

When asked if the Freedom Foundation believes the governors earlier state of emergency declaration gave her the powers to enact mask orders, Foundation spokeswoman Ashley Varner said the organization believes the governor needs the Legislatures approval.

A spokesman for the governor, Charles Boyle, said Thursday that the governors mask directives are legal and necessary to battle COVID-19.

Face coverings save lives, Boyle said in an email. The virus is transmitted through droplets that come from your nose and mouth. Face coverings protect you, your friends, and neighbors from contracting this deadly disease. And the more people who wear face coverings while out in public, the more likely it is that we can keep businesses open.

Scientific studies have found that masks are an important tool in slowing the pandemic and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends them. A model from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington estimated that the lives of 45,000 Americans can be saved from July to November if at least 95 percent of people wear masks in public.

But the Freedom Foundation says there is so much controversy over the effectiveness of masks.

Governors in left-leaning states all over the country are making up the rules as they go  and ignoring the procedural rules their own state laws set up, said Jason Dudash, the Freedom Foundations Oregon director, in a news release.

According to the mask tracking organization Masks4All, more than 100 countries require masks in public because almost every Government in the world endorses them as an effective COVID-19 containment solution. The governors of 30 states also have announced mandatory mask orders statewide. Most of them are Democrats, but some -- such as governors from Texas, Ohio and Alabama -- are Republicans.

A recent national poll found that three out of four Americans support mask requirements in public.

Some medical professionals say its the rare medical condition that might make it dangerous to cover up. Those conditions include people with extreme respiratory ailments or muscular or motor-control disorders that prevent them from removing a mask in an emergency. If a person is so medically frail that they cant safely wear a mask, they probably should avoid public places because theyre at higher risk of dying from COVID-19 if they contract the disease, some experts say.

Advocates for people with disabilities point out there are some people with conditions that arent visible who might encounter extreme distress from covering their faces. That includes some people with autism, claustrophobia or post traumatic stress disorder.

As long as businesses and government agencies make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities, the advocacy group Disability Rights Oregon welcomes Browns mask order. Those accommodations might include having employees grocery shop for people with disabilities who cant wear masks or informing people with disabilities about pickup or delivery options.

Canby attorney Tyler Smith and Olympia attorney Rebekah Millard filed the lawsuit on behalf of the three Oregonians and the Freedom Foundation.

Coronavirus in Oregon: Latest news | Live map tracker |Text alerts | Newsletter

-- Aimee Green; agreen@oregonian.com; @o_aimee

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Leaders of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Evalue Ajomoro Gwira in the Western Region have warned that they would no longer take the unprovoked attacks on their members and parliamentary candidate.



They will respond appropriately since the police have on countless occasions failed to act professionally.



The assault visited on the members and parliamentary candidate have been reported to the district police, but the police have failed their job as peace officers, a situation that has emboldened the perpetrators, the NDC said.



NDC/NPP



Addressing a press conference in Axim, the Regional Secretary of the NDC, Mr. Joseph Nelson reminded the constituency wing of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) not to derail the enviable peaceful records of the region.



He said it was sad that after decades of democracy during which the NDC and NPP have co-existed peacefully, the desperate approach to hang on to power by the incumbent MP, Mrs Catherine Afeku and her associates has resulted in a serious threat to the peace in the region.



We want to say that the source of this threat is the misconduct of the Member of Parliament for the Evalue Ajomoro Gwira Constituency, Mrs Catherine Afeku who should be called to order, he said.



Ugly incidents



Mr. Nelson said the electorate in Evalue Ajomoro are witnesses to the ugly incidents in the constituency perpetrated by the MP and her thugs, and the NDC had been at the receiving end. It has however reached its limit, he said.



The NDC, he said, recalled that on July 12, the bodyguard of the MP who is a serving police officer, physically assaulted the NDCs constituency elections director at the Axim Community Centre on the instructions of the MP.



He said the NDC officer was only going about his legitimate duties as prescribed by the electoral laws and did not flout any law to warrant such an assault from the police officer.



Physical attacks



Again on July 16, 2020 another member of the NDC and the parliamentary candidate for the constituency, Mr. Kofi Arko Nokoe was physically attacked and his phone taken from him after he was slapped by an aide of Mrs. Afeku.



The aide of Mrs Afeku, he said, only justified his action by saying Mr. Kofi Arko Nokoe was using his phone to record him and that is why he slapped him and seized his phone.



He said the behaviour of Mrs Afeku and her associates, in all of these instances, constitutes a blatant display of impunity and provocation of the NDC, but we remained calm and law-abiding because of our peaceful nature.



Police conduct



We have taken steps to report the cases to the police, with the hope that the police would effectively deal with them and ensure that justice is served. However, the conduct of the police is not the best, he said.



The regional secretary said it is important for the police to note that they are peace officers and that they need to defend and protect the public confidence reposed in them and their uniforms as police officers.



As we have it, the police are yet to measure up to that standard and expectation of the public on their part as officers of the law. These developments have left us very disappointed, he said.



He said the police should remember that if they continue this way during the general elections on December 7, which has begun with the ongoing registration exercise, all may not be well. We want to let you know that this is not our first election, however this level of acrimony and intimidation being perpetrated by the MP and her associates is denting the image of the police and poses a risk to our democracy.



Self-defense



Our message to the police is that, there is a limit to what everybody can tolerate, we can no longer sit idle and watch our people abused for no reason without appropriate action from the police representing peace, law and order, he said.



The laws of this country allow for self-defense, if the police fail to protect and act on reports of intimidation and assault reported to them, we shall take steps to defend ourselves from now on, we want the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to know his men are here for all and should call them to order.



Let it be on record that we have had enough and we from now on shall respond appropriately to any future attacks on our people and the only way out is for the police to bring a firm and unbiased conclusion to the cases pending before them.









Source: Daily Graphic









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Belarus joins the WIPO Marrakesh Treaty

On 22 July 2020 the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Belarus to the United nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, Yury Ambrazevich, met with the World Intellectual Property Organization Director General, Francis Gurry, at the headquarters of the WIPO.

During the meeting the Belarussian Side handed over the instrument of Belarus accession to the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled.

Y.Ambrazevich noted that Belarus participation in WIPO multilateral conventions is a practical result of the implementation of agreements reached during the official visit of F.Gurry to Minsk in June 2019 and contained in the revised Memorandum of Cooperation between the Government of Belarus and WIPO dated 4 June 2019. Belarus Permanent Representative stressed positive dynamics of Belarus  WIPO cooperation aimed to improve Belarusian legislation in the area of intellectual property and to promote innovation, and also thanked WIPO Director General for the technical and expert assistance rendered to Belarus in this direction.

Belarus is to become the 70th contracting party to the Treaty, which will contribute to expanding the access of visually impaired persons in our country to cultural and other information, as well as to published works. This is another determined step to ensure the rights of persons with disabilities.

Background information: The WIPO-administered Marrakesh Treaty was signed on 27 June 2013 and entered into force on 30 September 2016. The Treaty is aimed at expanding access to literary and artistic works for the blind, visually impaired and other persons with disabilities by creating uniform conditions for all contracting parties for the reproduction and distribution of works in an accessible format.

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DURHAM , N.C. -- Strategic networking is key to career success, and not just for humans. A new study of wild bottlenose dolphins reveals that in early life, dolphins devote more time to building connections that could give them an edge later on.

Researchers at Georgetown University and Duke University report that dolphins under age 10 seek out peers and activities that could help them forge bonds and build skills they'll need in adulthood.

The results were published July 14 in the journal Behavioral Ecology.

The team analyzed nearly 30 years' worth of records for more than 1700 wild bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay in Western Australia. Since the 1980s, researchers have been taking boats out into this remote bay and noting things like the sex, age and behavior of any dolphins they encountered.

For the current study, the team focused on data collected on youngsters from weaning to age 10, looking at who they hung out with and how they spent their time when no adults were around.

Around 3 or 4 years old, dolphins leave the protection of their mothers to venture off on their own, living in ever-changing groups that come together, split up and come together again in different combinations.

The study revealed that, even though young dolphins flit from group to group as often as every ten minutes throughout the day, they tend to spend more time with a few close friends.

These companions aren't just friends because they share the same areas of water and bump into each other more often, the research shows. "These relationships reflect true preferences," said first author Allison Galezo, a biology Ph.D. student in professor Susan Alberts' lab at Duke.

Males prefer to hang out with other males; females with other females. But the researchers observed that males and females tend to interact in different ways. Males were more likely than females to spend their time together resting or engaged in friendly physical contact: rubbing flippers, swimming close together and mirroring each other's movements. Whereas females socialized less often, and instead spent twice as much time as their male counterparts foraging for fish.

These differences suggest that the social lives of young dolphins may be shaped by the upcoming demands of adulthood, Galezo said.

For adult males, having other males in their corner is key to have a chance at passing on their genes. In Shark Bay, groups of two to three male dolphins often join forces to get fertile females alone with them and coerce them to mate. By the time they grow up, males will need to have enough social savvy to build and maintain strong alliances, or lose out on their chance to get a girl.

Being a successful adult female, on the other hand, means caring for calves that aren't weaned until they're at least three years old. Nursing moms need more calories, and so young females may spend more time foraging to practice skills they'll need later on, before the full realities of motherhood set in.

"The juvenile period can be an opportunity to develop social skills that will be important in adulthood, without the high-stakes risks that go with sexual maturity," Galezo said.

###

This work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (0847922, 0820722, 9753044, 0316800, 0918308, 0941487, 1559380, 1755229) and by Georgetown University.

CITATION: "Juvenile Social Dynamics Reflect Adult Reproductive Strategies in Bottlenose Dolphins," Allison A. Galezo, Vivienne Foroughirad, Ewa Krzyszczyk, Celine H. Frere, Janet Mann. Behavioral Ecology, July 14, 2020. DOI: 10.1093/beheco/araa068
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A 26-year-old woman is in critical condition after she was attacked Wednesday in her Northeast Side apartment while her toddler slept nearby, according to San Antonio police.

Police said a neighbor at the Rosillo Creek Apartments located in the 5200 block of Eisenhauer Road said she noticed the woman's front door was wide open and went to investigate. The neighbor called police around 7:45 a.m. when she discovered the woman laying in a pool of blood next to the front door, said SAPD spokeswoman Jennifer Rodriguez.
Worried tourists have cancelled two thirds of their hotel bookings in Spain as the country battles a new wave of coronavirus cases.

Cancellation rates are as high as 77 per cent among families and 70 per cent in the Balearic Islands which include Mallorca, in a fresh blow to Spain's vital tourism industry which accounts for 12 per cent of economic output.

At some hotels, the number of tourists cancelling holidays that they booked several weeks or months ago is higher than the number of new bookings.

Spain has recorded more than 9,000 new cases in the last seven days after seeing only 5,000 in the previous week, prompting fears of fresh border closures.

One town in Murcia has today re-imposed tough restrictions including a ban on entering or leaving the area after a spike in cases linked to a nightlife venue.

People wearing face masks walk along La Misericordia Beach in Malaga yesterday as Spain faces a fresh blow to its tourism industry because of coronavirus

Spain has recorded more than 9,000 new cases in the last seven days after seeing only 5,000 in the previous week, prompting fears of fresh border closures

The government of the Balearic Islands insists that the archipelago is 'safe for residents and visitors', but some tourists have become alarmed by the growth in cases.

A spokesman for the Association of Hotel Chains on the islands told Ultima Hora that 'the situation has turned around in the last week'.

'It has gone from having more reservations than cancellations to the opposite side,' they said.

'German, Austrian and Swiss tourism, as well as French and Italian, are the most affected by this uncertainty.'

According to research by tourism group Dingus, visitors who booked their trips between two and four months ago have cancelled more than 80 per cent of their holidays.

Cancellation rates overall are as high as 70 per cent in the Balearic Islands and 64 per cent in Spain as a whole.

While tourists travelling alone have cancelled 54 per cent of their reservations, families have scrapped as many as 77 per cent of their trips, the data shows.

The UK government has not made any changes in its rules regarding Spain, after scrapping the 14-day quarantine rule for people returning from Spain to England after July 10.

Scotland also exempted Spain from its own 14-day rules this week after initially keeping it on the quarantine list.

Spain is also one of the countries exempt from the Foreign Office's general warning against non-essential travel.

Two people sit at an outdoor bar as they enjoy the sunny weather at Barceloneta beach in Catalonia over the weekend

In Magaluf, Wigan holidaymaker Charmaine Bell, 37, told the Mirror: 'I'm not too worried really, because we work in ASDA we are used to Covid and it really doesn't scare us anymore, we know how to deal with it and be sensible.'

Sunseeker Mark Nolan, 36, added: 'It is a little worrying they could be put on the unsafe list because that was one of the things that put us off coming but to be honest my advice to people at the moment would be to just come.

'It really hasn't been that bad to deal with and we are having great fun, if they did bring in quarantine there is very little we can do about it is there?'

Spanish tourism minister Reyes Maroto said yesterday that she hoped there would be no need for France to close the border after a spike in cases in Catalonia.

Madrid has voiced concern after French Prime Minister Jean Castex on Sunday did not rule out closing the border.

But Maroto told an event organised by Europa Press that she was optimistic after data showed infections in Catalonia had fallen over the past three days.

'Let's hope that with this better data we don't have to close a border that for us is very important for mobility with our European partners.'

Catalonia, which borders France, has been at the heart of a rebound in coronavirus cases since Spain lifted a nationwide lockdown one month ago

Nearly 7,000 cases have been logged there in the past 14 days, nearly half the nationwide total, though the rate has dropped sharply in the past days.

Catalonia registered 63 new cases on Tuesday, 70 on Monday and 994 on Sunday, down from a peak of 1,226 on Saturday.

People sit on beach towels on Cala de Alfacar beach on the island of Menorca yesterday amid fears of a second wave of coronavirus cases in Spain

Barcelona cut the number of people allowed onto the city's beaches after crowds formed over the weekend despite advice to stay home.

However, Catalan leader Quim Torra ruled out returning to a strict lockdown, telling the regional parliament: 'Catalonia can't be closed.'

Elsewhere, Madrid's regional government said it could make face masks compulsory in all situations, unless the central government imposed stricter controls on arrivals at the capital's Barajas airport.

'If the health ministry assumes its responsibilities...we can continue with the measures taken until now,' deputy regional leader Ignacio Aguado said.

Madrid and the Canary Islands are the only Spanish regions that do not already have such a rule.

Health Minister Salvador Illa told parliament there were 224 active coronavirus clusters in Spain, mostly linked to parties, family events and fruit harvesting.

Meanwhile the town of Totana in Murcia has re-imposed tough restrictions including an entry and exit ban and restrictions on movement.

Bars and restaurants will have to close their indoor seating areas after 55 cases linked to a nightlife venue, according to ABC.

Spain has confirmed 28,426 deaths from the pandemic after recording a total of 267,551 positive test results.

Official figures show 9,011 new cases of Covid-19 being diagnosed in the last seven days, up from 5,128 a week ago.

The number had been only 2,491 a fortnight ago on July 9 and 2,016 a week before that as Spain initially appeared to have the outbreak under control.
Former president of Chile Michelle Bachelet scoffs at how a physically large male colleague was respectfully referred to as "Panzer" after the German tank, yet her size was lampooned by some commentators. And Okonjo-Iweala's glorious reaction to Germaine Greer saying Julia Gillard had a "fat arse" (still unforgivable)  other than a "hurrumph"  was to say that in Africa Gillard would be seen as skinny. Credit: Of course, the take-home message is that it shouldn't matter, but in today's assessment of leadership and the portrayal of women, it still does. Not to mention, as the authors  and Clinton  point out, the time wasted in getting ready each day, or the column inches squandered with such trivialities. Clinton suggested the book be called "Conundrums", given the paradoxes women face and the lack of imagination with which they are pigeon-holed: women with perceived masculine leadership traits are "Iron Ladies" or "robotic" (May was christened "Maybot") or deemed inauthentic. I suspect Gillard could have spoken more about "The Real Julia" debacle in the 2010 election when she pledged to be more herself and "play my own again". The authors cover the "shrill or soft" paradox: women as unlikeable bitches and as modern-day witches. They explore former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's theory that there is a special place in hell for women who don't support other women and unravel the "riddle" of role-modelling: it works and they have the research to prove it.

There are frank discussions about family and the vexed politics of motherhood. Ardern's experience, as the second woman to have a child while in office (former Pakistan PM Benazir Bhutto was the first), is revealing, from the intrusive questions about her plans for a family and marriage, to the realities and exhaustion of breast-feeding and mother guilt. The British media had a fascination with Theresa May's shoes. May's claim that the media respected her "childlessness" contrasts starkly with Gillard's experience. But women can't win: after the birth of my first child, one Senator called me "Mother" for the rest of my term, despite my insistence he use my name. Former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (who sacrificed living with her young family in order to get the education she needed to become the trail-blazing leader she is) highlights the differences in developing nations. Both she and former Malawi president Joyce Banda discuss the racism they endured on the world stage. Okonjo-Iweala reflects on being at the bottom of the "power pecking order" after white men, men of colour and white women. This book is worth reading for the insights into these remarkable women  a dream dinner party guest list  but the authors also examine the statistics, the biases (conscious and unconscious) and the structural obstacles that face women.

Some of us still find it too raw to confront the derogatory labels and painful obstacles that plague female leaders. Little wonder the authors refer to the "jagged, dangerous shards" that surround women who shatter the glass ceiling ... labyrinth ... cliff: "Yes, that is a hell of a lot of glass," they say. Loading I have long-insisted that we need increased representation of women  in all our diversity and difference  in decision-making institutions, not only because it is fair, but because it leads to policies and laws that better address the issues affecting women and children. Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala put forward a clear moral case for women's leadership: that in a democracy everyone deserves to be reflected and represented and they are at pains to emphasise the need for an intersectional approach. This book demands that we never make assumptions about leadership based on gender. And the authors provide 10 useful tips for aspiring women leaders of all ages. Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala want women to persevere in their ambitions, but believe they need to be aware of the obstacles; they should create networks and mentor and support other women.
Christian actor thanked God after learning he'd be working with Tom Hanks on 'Greyhound'

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Grayson Russell, an outspoken Christian whos been an actor in Hollywood since childhood, said he was overcome with gratitude after learning he would be acting alongside Tom Hanks in the film "Greyhound.

Hanks is the star and writer of the World War II action film that was inspired by real-life events. Joining Hanks on-screen is Russell, 22, who's already had a long career in Hollywood.

"I was 19 when we filmed it ["Greyhound] and I just turned 22 a couple of months ago, so it's been a long time coming," the Alabama native told CBN in a recent interview.

Russell revealed that he was overcome with gratitude when he learned that hed be working alongside the Academy Award-winning actor.

"I had just come home from college for Valentine's Day weekend, and I got the call that Friday, saying, 'We need you on Tuesday to be in Baton Rouge to begin boot camp for the Navy Marines for Greyhound and by the way, you'll be working with Tom Hanks for two months,'" Russell recalled.

I just remember, I [was] just on all my knees, like, 'Oh my God, thank you so much,' he said.

On the wall behind Russell during his interview was a framed art piece with the word "MasterPiece." The scripture Ephesians 2:10 was also written under the phrase which says: For we are Gods masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Throughout his career, Russell has starred in several films such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Space Warriors, among others. He also starred in the movie Talladega Nights, a comedy that's not suitable for children and which Russell admitted that he felt uncomfortable being a part of.

"A lot of people don't realize that I got saved while filming 'Talladega Nights,' and as a 7 year old, brand new, just got saved [kid], I wasn't comfortable with it, he explained.

Neither was my family, Russell continued. We're going, 'OK, we know we're supposed to be here because this is too crazy of a situation to not be of God. How do we handle it?'

Even as a child actor, Russell said he felt the need to express his discomfort to the movies director about some of his lines in the film.

I very vividly remember going to Adam McKay, and I remember going up to him and saying, 'Mr. Adam, do we really have to say all this? And he sat me up and looked me in the eyes and said, 'You never have to do anything that you're not comfortable with.'"

According to Greyhound director Aaron Schneider, the protagonist of the film, Ernie Krause (Hanks), is also a man guided by his Christian faith amid the horrors of war.

As soon as you bring a man of faith into a story as a hero, you're almost immediately confronting everything that a man of faith holds dear, Schneider told The Christian Post in an exclusive interview.

When thrust into war, a man of faith is going to inevitably confront the basic tenets of his own faith: The sanctity of life and thou shalt not kill; faith in his mission and himself; and holding to unbroken faith for yet another day. That's what storytelling is about; you take a hero's principles and everything he or she holds dear, and you throw the biggest possible thematic opposites at them, he added.

Adapted from the 1955 novel The Good Shepherd by C. S. Forester, Greyhound follows Krause, captain of a U.S. warship leading a convoy of 37 merchant and troop ships across the North Atlantic in February 1942. Russell plays a signalman who assists Krause in the five-day voyage where the captain must lead his convoy through a treacherous area of the ocean riddled with Nazi U-boats.

"Greyhound" is rated PG-13 and is streaming on AppleTV+.
In a nutshell: Being trapped in another country for months on end might not sound appealing, but when that country is New Zealand, which has had some of the world's lowest Covid-19 infection and death figures, it's not as bad. Just ask Valve boss Gabe Newell, who's so grateful to the nation for having him during the pandemic he's putting on a free concert.

New Zealand has long been a favorite backup plan for billionaires who buy land as a form of "apocalypse insurance." Peter Thiel, who has named at least five of his companies in reference to The Lord of the Rings, owns a 193-hectare estate on the shores of Lake Wanaka and has been granted New Zealand citizenship.

Newell didn't travel to the country to escape Covid-19. He was taking a ten-day break with Alex Riberas and the Spanish racing driver's partner, Teagan Klein, back in March after shipping Half-Life: Alyx, but the pandemic broke out during their visit, and "we had 48 hours to decide before New Zealand closed their border, and we decided to stay," said Klien. "It's five months later now and here we are, happy as ever."

Newell agreed: "For me its very much about the community spirit, the sense that everybody can come together and solve this super challenging problem and then be welcoming to us, essentially as Covid refugees [...] theres the natural beauty, theres all the fun stuff you can do, but its the people that have made our lives different."

New Zealand has recorded just 1,555 cases of Covid-19 and 22 deaths related to the virus. The country hasn't recorded a new infection from an unknown source in over 75 days. Apart from border restrictions and quarantines, life has returned to relative normalityno social distancingunlike the US.

"When I talk to people back in Seattle it's a very strange time, it's very challenging. They're very isolated, they aren't able to go out and take advantage of the environment that New Zealand has created itself and visitors like us," said Newell, on the TV spot.

To thank the country, the trio has put together a free event called 'We Love Aotearoa' on August 15 in Auckland. It will consist of live music, workshops and activities, virtual reality stands, art installations, and food trucks.

"These events are a thank you to the people of New Zealand for being so kind and welcoming, and also an acknowledgment of the hard work that 'the team of 5 million' have gone through to get us to where we are now," states the event page.
South Africa: Deputy Minister interacts with farmer owners in Limpopo

Deputy Minister in the Presidency, Thembi Siweya, today held an interactive engagement with farmers in Ephraim Mogale Municipality in Limpopo.

During their interaction, Deputy Minister Siweya raised concerns about transport conditions of the workers.

On her way to the planned engagement with the farm owners in the area, she visited designated pickup points for farm workers and observed worrying levels of non-compliance to COVID-19 regulations.

Deputy Minister Siweya found that farm workers are transported on tractors, trucks and buses that are not compliant with COVID-19 health protocols of social distancing.

These modes of transportation did not offer protective measures such as sanitizers and some of the employees were not wearing their face masks.

She also observed that the farmers kept their workers within their employ throughout the COVID-19 period and that was highly welcomed.

This, according to the Deputy Minister, is positive for personal interests of farmers, farm workers and their families and most importantly, for the country in terms of food security needs.

During the engagement session with the farm owners, Deputy Minister Siweya raised concerns about what she had observed and she emphasized the importance of COVID-19 regulations especially for the farming sector considering its critical role for the countrys food security strategy.

It is highly pleasing that you, as farmers, have continued to keep farm workers in your employ in a relationship which benefits both of you. But I also want you to never forget that it is also in service of our country, she said.

Deputy Minister Siweya also expressed concerns about the transport conditions of farm workers.

These are not only a health hazard, but also a threat to the stability of the socio-economic conditions of the country. Farming is a strategic sector of the countrys economy and largely accounts for the preservation of food security in the country.

It is necessary that the sector complies with COVID-19 regulations, save the lives of employees and sustain productivity. Your health as farm owners is interlinked to that of farm workers and our country, Deputy Minister Siweya said.

Leading by example, the Deputy Minister insisted that only a few representatives of the farming association should attend the engagement session.

She also insisted that instead of using a closed boardroom for the engagement, the meeting be held under a tree where there is proper ventilation.

During the engagement, the farm owners welcomed the Deputy Ministers feedback and committed to device a safer plan for the transportation of workers as well as improve health protocols in the farms.

The association will furnish the office of the Deputy Minister with a mitigating report within a period of two weeks.

The officials at the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation will follow-up to validate the report. The report will also be presented to the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development and Land Reform.

The Deputy Ministers visit in the area is in response to the Presidents directive that Ministers and Deputy Ministers be deployed to various districts in the country to monitor compliance with COVID-19 regulations.

Deputy Minister Siweya has been allocated the Sekhukhune District as a site of monitoring.

She will be focusing on various centres of service delivery to ensure compliance with the regulations and the districts response to socio-cultural, health and economic issues such as gender-based violence, alcohol abuse, stigmatization, readiness of the health facilities and support to Small Medium Enterprises.

We need each other now more than ever. We have to ensure that all people around us are safe, not just for their sake, but for our own as well as the loved ones, Deputy Minister Siweya said.

As part of her deployment, the Deputy Minister will also visit all the local municipalities in the Sekhukhune district to monitor compliance with COVID-19 regulations.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-07-23. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Profoundly shocked: Mamata writes to PM Modi over Centre's move to reject Bengal tableau from R-day parade

Proposal to change rules for central deputation of IAS officers affects states' administration: Mamata to PM

Bi-weekly lockdown in West Bengal likely to hit jute industry

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Kolkata, July 23: The bi-weekly lockdown to be imposed in West Bengal in the wake of a rapid rise in COVID-19 cases in the state is likely to affect its jute industry, which was limping back to normalcy after being hit during the nationwide lockdown, industry sources said on Wednesday.

The administration has decided to impose a twice-a- week lockdown in the state till August to stem the rise in COVID-19 cases. The state's caseload rose to 47,030 and death toll mounted to 1,182 till Tuesday.

The state government has announced that this week's bi-weekly lockdown will be imposed on July 23 and 25.

Lockdown imposed in Manipur, Bhopal as Covid-19 cases in India crosses grim 12 lakh-mark

As per a state government notification, the jute mills' gates will be locked and no worker will be allowed to enter or exit the premises on the lockdown days.

However, the administration has allowed the mills to function if they house the workers inside the premises before a lockdown day begins.

"Jute mills will remain closed (on lockdown days). If the factory workers are inside the premises, then the operation will be allowed," a senior government official said.

The jute industry is not considered a 'continuous process industry' that requires an uninterrupted operation.

However, the government notification has created some problems for the 50-odd operational jute mills in the state.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

Jute mill owners will have to incur additional costs to house the workers inside the premises. Also, there is a risk of the spread of COVID-19 among the workers if they stay together, the industry sources said.

After being shut on March 24, the jute mills were allowed to fully operate from June 1. However, the industry is facing a shortage of labour as many workers have returned to their hometowns during the lockdown, causing production to be insufficient to meet the government demand, they said.

Bhopal in lockdown mode for 10 days from 8 pm on July 24

The supply backlog was 2.5 lakh bales till May. Jute bags are procured by the government and used for packaging food grains.

Jute production is a major industry in West Bengal.

Most of the mills in the state are concentrated along the banks of Hooghly river in Howrah, Hooghly and North 24 Parganas districts.
- Many ABS-CBN employees and artists have lost their jobs because of the networks franchise issue

- It was reported recently that Pokwang and Jessy Mendiola will have new shows on TV5

- The prominent comedienne will have two programs while the other celebrity will host a health show

- The programming consultant of TV5 also aired a statement regarding the move to absorb some talents from another network

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Pokwang and Jessy Mendiola will soon be seen on TV5 after the Kapamilya network has been ordered to stop its broadcast operations.

KAMI learned that many celebrities have been trying to find ways to connect to people and make a living amid the shutdown issue of ABS-CBN.

Pokwang (Photo from Google Images)

Source: UGC

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In a report by ABS-CBN News (authored by Mario Dumaual), it was revealed that the two prominent showbiz personalities will be having new shows on TV5.

Jessy will host a health show entitled Fit for Life, while Pokwang will serve as Jose Manalos co-host in an upcoming game show in the said network.

The comedienne will also host a morning show with GMA-7 star, Pauleen Luna. The said program is called Rise and Shine.

According to Perci Intalan, the programming consultant of TV5, the networks move to include other artists in its programs are part of their open-door business policy.

We want to cast a wider net to employ more artists and industry players through blocktime or co-production arrangements and platforms, he quipped.

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Pokwang and Jessy Mendiola are two of the most popular showbiz personalities in the Philippines. They co-starred in the 2013 comedy film entitled Call Center Girl.

Just recently, the comedienne served as one of the guests in the Bawal Judgmental segment of Eat Bulaga.

She also aired her funny reaction upon learning that Wikipedia mistakenly crowned her as Miss Universe 2001.

POPULAR: Read more news about Pokwang!

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Source: KAMI.com.gh
By Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A flight bound for Shanghai carrying U.S. diplomats has left the United States as Washington presses ahead with its plan to restaff its mission in China a day after an American order to close the Chinese consulate in Houston sharply escalated tensions.

A person familiar with the matter told Reuters the flight, carrying an unspecified number of U.S. diplomats, left Washington on Wednesday evening. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

An internal State Department email dated July 17, seen by Reuters, said the department was working to arrange a charter flight to Shanghai from Washington's Dulles International Airport departing on Thursday.

The source said this flight had departed earlier than initially planned.

The email said a tentative July 29 flight to Tianjin and Beijing was in the initial planning stages and a target date for another flight, to Guangzhou, was still to be determined.

The memo said priority was being given to reuniting separated families and returning section/agency heads.

The United States is working to fully restaff its mission in China, one of its largest in the world, which was evacuated in February because of COVID-19.

Thursday's flight went ahead despite a dramatic move by Washington to close China's consulate in Houston amid sweeping espionage allegations.

China warned on Thursday it would be forced to respond to the U.S. move, which had "severely harmed" relations.

It gave no details, but the South China Morning Post reported that China may close the U.S. consulate in Chengdu, while a source told Reuters on Wednesday it was considering shutting the consulate in Wuhan, where the United States withdrew staff at the start of the coronavirus outbreak.

China's embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest flight.

Two flights have so far taken place to return some of the more than 1,200 U.S. diplomats with their families to China since negotiations for the returns hit an impasse in early July over conditions China wanted to impose on the Americans.

Story continues

The impasse caused the State Department to postpone flights tentatively scheduled for the first 10 days of July.

U.S.-China relations have deteriorated this year to their lowest level in decades over a wide range of issues, including China's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, bilateral trade and a new security law for Hong Kong.

Washington and Beijing have been negotiating for weeks over the terms of how to bring U.S. diplomats back amid disagreement over COVID-19 testing and quarantine procedures as well as frequency of flights and how many each can bring back.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Mary Milliken, Diane Craft and Jonathan Oatis)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 17:42:56|Editor: huaxia

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HARARE, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The number of COVID-19 cases in Zimbabwe is now 2,034 after 214 people tested positive Wednesday.

Of the new cases, 124 are citizens who returned from South Africa and Zambia while 90 are local cases.

Fifteen of the local cases are contacts of known confirmed cases while investigations are underway to establish the source of infection for the other 75 cases.

In an update Thursday morning, the Ministry of Health and Child Care said 22 people have recovered from the virus, raising the country's total number of recoveries to 510 while active cases are 1,498. Deaths remain at 26.

The country has done a cumulative total of 107,788 COVID-19 tests since the first case was reported in March. Enditem


By Stephen Costello





WASHINGTON  As the Moon Jae-in government of South Korea plans for its last two years, the latest Cabinet reshuffle provides an opportunity to put several policies on a more stable footing, thus allowing for greater predictability for domestic and foreign audiences.



The choice of former lawmaker Park Jie-won for National Intelligence Service (NIS) director and Rep. Lee In-young for unification minister are examples of how these changes could go right, or not.



It is regularly claimed these days that Seoul faces several crises, each terribly difficult, resulting in a kind of paralysis that can be fatal for government.



But looked at in another way, the most urgent crises and policy decisions are deeply interconnected. Addressing one boldly and creatively would make working on the other ones easier. A virtual circle of reinforcing pressures could allow for greater forward movement.



Most of this cannot happen, however, if the government gives in, or compromises on basic principles, to the opposition. Surely there are democratic conservatives and other opposition voices on the political landscape. They have a heavy responsibility to create Korea's first post-authoritarian political opposition to the "Democrat" parties.



But like the U.S. Republicans of today, many current "conservatives" are unhinged in their rhetoric, uninterested in policies that will help the public or the national interest, and fundamentally undemocratic.



As Barack Obama discovered in Washington, it is a losing game to appease these extremists. Instead, they should be kept as far away from power as possible, for as long as possible. This is an institutional rather than partisan point.



On each of the major policy areas necessary for effective governance, the current opposition will often refuse to compromise with elected officials and their party in the National Assembly. This will apply to the Korea-U.S. alliance, South-North relations, Korea-China relations, and of course to confirmation of cabinet secretaries.



It seems Lee In-young's nomination to the Ministry of Unification will be opposed due to his activism in support of the democracy movement while in college. Really? It seems Lee was on the right side of history as demonstrated by political/social progress in the 1980s and 1990s, and the candlelit rallies of 2016-17. Opposing him on those grounds would seem to be opposing basic democratic achievements.



I met Park Jie-won 30 years ago, when our small team in Washington began advising Korean democrats on party institution building and the mechanics of polling and message management. He was completely dedicated to the democratic struggle, and to helping Kim Dae-jung and his wife Lee Hee-ho handle the pressures on them.



Later, when he was in the Blue House with President Kim, Park had the unenviable task of handling demands from journalists, among others. And of course, he played a critical and sensitive role in the breakthrough meetings with the DPRK in 2000. It may be difficult to remember, but those meetings were the major breakthrough for all Koreans since the 1950-53 Korean War.



But Park also had to endure political and fake prosecutions related to those same South-North meetings. When Hyundai Group secretly made agreements with the North, it surprised President Kim with a no-win choice two weeks before the summit.



Former NIS chief and unification minister Lim Dong-won, who I also knew well in the 1990s, details these events in his excellent book, "Peacemaker."



One result was that Park was prosecuted and imprisoned because some political forces objected to South-North peacemaking. Despite this, he's now been a leading lawmaker for years. I saw him last summer at the DMZ Forum in Goyang.



Both Lee and Park should be duly questioned in the Assembly as part of normal confirmation hearings. Both appear to be well-qualified for their unification ministry and NIS positions. But to the degree that opposition to them is disrespectful of democratic progress or diplomatic achievements, it probably ought to be ignored.



A reinvigorated team could use Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha to finally work with the U.N., so that it can recall its founding principles, listen to some of its better rapporteurs regarding North Korea, and respond to a new Korean initiative breaking the current impasse on U.N. sanctions.



Minister Kang is the one who is best-positioned to do this, for a list of reasons. Such an initiative would be the only way that the medium-sized deal discussed in Hanoi could be achieved, and soon. The closure of Yongbyon, a cap on fissile materials production, and other items in exchange for major, credible U.N. sanctions relief and South Korean flexibility will lead the U.N. community back to an end to DPRK nuclear and ICBM production.



In this way, the new project would address three other pending issues. It would begin to build back credibility and authority with its Northern neighbors, North Korea, China and Russia.



It would begin to build back both of those tools with its U.S. ally, despite what some opposed to denuclearization, such as John Bolton, will say. It will deliver the biggest gift yet to the U.S.-Korea alliance, demonstrating the alliance's continued relevance in the coming decades. It will honor the sacrifices made defending and protecting South Korea until it could become a strong middle power.



If the Moon administration can lay out a clear plan, and begin to make progress on the exchange of sanctions for weapons capabilities, its impact on ASEAN and other regional initiatives, from health to infrastructure to defense, will increase. Such a virtuous circle is possible, as we began to see in the late 1990s under the U.S.-DPRK Agreed Framework.



Recent statements from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his sister Kim Yo-jong contained new and fascinating possibilities for more honest interaction. But like the U.S., they will require South Korea to lead here.



With new national security adviser Suh Hoon acting as control tower, Lee In-young could build up the capacity for an investment/development gate for the South and North to operate, in order to minimize the possibility that rogue South Korean companies would once again undermine the open, transparent development that the North so badly needs.



Rather than being faced with multiple unresolved policy choices, maybe South Korea is now able to make progress on several of the big ones at the same time. A sort of virtual circle.





Stephen Costello (scost55@gmail.com) managed the Kim Dae Jung Peace Foundation Washington office in the 1990s. He directed the Korea program at the Atlantic Council there from 1999 to 2004. He now directs AsiaEast.Org, a policy initiative focused on security, development and politics in Northeast Asia. He writes from Washington and Seoul.










The China National Silk Museum, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, and the UNESCO Silk Roads Programme jointly organized a webinar to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Silk Roads expeditions.

UNESCO launched five expeditions along a desert section of the Silk Roads, or the routes network of the Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor, between 1990 and 1995. The first expedition started on July 20, 1990 in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

Chinese and international scholars, who had participated in the five expeditions, shared their memories of the journeys at the online reunion held on Monday.

The expeditions laid a solid foundation for the Silk Roads to be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2014, said Zhao Feng, director of the China National Silk Museum.

Liu Yingsheng, a scholar with Nanjing University and also a three-time participant in the expeditions, said the Silk Roads put Chinese history in a global context and therefore strengthened exchanges between China and the world.

Mechtild Rossler, director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, said in her address that the Silk Roads cultural heritage sets a foundation for international cooperation in the future.

At the webinar, Jing Feng, chief of the Asia and the Pacific Unit at the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, said that with the support from the UNESCO Silk Roads Programme, the silk museum, located in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, had launched a digital archive to collect documents, academic writings, photographic materials, news reports, and interview recordings about the Silk Roads expeditions.
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Linkedin Moch. Fiqih Prawira Adjie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 12:06 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668b1df1 1 National KPK,Jakarta-Corruption-Court,wahyu-setiawan,KPU,PDI-P,justice-collaborator Free

Former General Elections Commission (KPU) commissioner and graft suspect Wahyu Setiawan has offered himself up as a justice collaborator for the case that implicated him as well as other alleged election violators.

Saiful Anam, Wahyu's lawyer, told reporters that the former official had filed the request during a hearing with the Jakarta Corruption Court on July 9.

Wahyu is currently standing trial for allegedly accepting a bribe from Harun Masiku and Saeful Bahri, politicians of the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) accused the two of offering Wahyu Rp 1.5 billion (US$102,524) in exchange for helping Harun secure a seat in the House of Representatives that was left vacant after a legislator died.

Should the request be granted, Saiful said Wahyu would assist the investigation by providing information on other parties who were suspected of being involved in the bribery case, such as PDI-P secretary-general Hasto Kristiyanto and PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri.

In his previous testimony, Hasto claimed he had not been aware of any bribes involving Harun.

The lawyer said his client  who had served as KPU commissioner since 2017  would also reveal information on other election-related bribery cases, including in the selection process of regional KPU members and alleged fraud in the 2019 legislative and presidential elections.

"[Wahyu] has all the details because he was part of [the election] organizer. Of course, he will not be careless; we'll see about that later," Saiful said as quoted by kompas.com.

Read also: Graft fugitive Harun Masiku remains at large as KPK extends travel ban

In response to the request, KPK spokesperson Ali Fikri that the commission would consider the proposal and analyze the evidence presented during Wahyu's trial, adding that becoming a justice collaborator could lighten Wahyu's sentence if he was declared guilty.

"However, it must be understood that the defendant's disclosure should have been conveyed from the beginning of the investigation and when he gave his statement as a defendant, both in the trial of the current case and dismantling other cases that he knows of," Ali told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Through its leaders, the KPK can grant someone justice collaborator status and consequently, the panel of judges that handles the case would consider the status during the defendant's sentence verdict.

Alternatively, Ali said Wahyu could become a whistleblower and unveil other criminal cases that he was aware of should the justice collaborator request be denied.

"It is assured that the KPK will verify and follow up on any [reported] cases that fall under our authority."

On May 28, prosecutors indicted Wahyu, along with former Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) member Agustiani Tio Fridelina, for allegedly accepting a bribe from Harun and Saeful. They were charged under Article 11 of the 2001 Corruption Law, which prohibits state officials and civil servants from accepting gifts.

Apart from Haruns case, Wahyu was also indicted for allegedly accepting bribes from West Papua Governor Dominggus Mandacan pertaining to the selection of provincial general elections commission members last year.

Saeful, who was also a former staffer of Hasto, was sentenced in May by the corruption court to one year and eight months in prison and ordered to pay a Rp 150 million fine for his involvement in the case.

Meanwhile, Harun is believed to have fled the country shortly after he was named a suspect and currently remains at large. The KPK recently filed a request with the Law and Human Rights Ministry to extend an overseas travel ban on the suspect.
Horse riding, sword fighting, stunt work; there were various requirements for playing Nimue in Netflix fantasy series Cursed.

But Katherine Langford, 24, excitedly threw herself into three weeks intense training for the role, while also coming up with her characters dialect.

The Australian star, known for another big Netflix series, 13 Reasons Why, also worked with a trainer on the weekends when they had finished filming, they called it prehab, to make sure she didnt get injured.

Its all part of telling the story of a true heroine, which was something Langford felt was very timely and was partly what drew her to the script of Cursed, created by Tom Wheeler and Frank Miller.

Based on the book of the same name (written by Wheeler and illustrated by Miller), the 10-part series is a reimagining of the tale of King Arthur, and explores themes such as the obliteration of the natural world, religious zeal and oppression, senseless war and finding the courage to lead in the face of the impossible.

The coming-of-age story is told through the eyes of Nimue, a powerful warrior witch who has a mysterious gift and is the young woman who would become the Lady of the Lake.

Following the death of her mother, she finds an unexpected partner in Arthur, a humble mercenary, in a quest to find Merlin and deliver an ancient sword, and also save her people.

Its interesting, because when you think of the Arthurian legend, you think of Arthur and Merlin and the Knights of the Roundtable but we very seldom dive into the female characters, notes Perth-born Langford, who has also starred in films Love, Simon and Knives Out.

Particularly with the Lady of the Lake, whos such an iconic figure within that legend, we know very little to nothing about her.

So, when I was taking on this role, the first thing I did was to try and research little bits about her.

American-Australian actor Devon Terrell (he was born in California but grew up in Perth) takes on the role of Arthur, and agrees playing such a legendary character comes with a lot of pressure.

I love that kind of pressure because it just means I have to do my research, and I work physically and mentally and emotionally with this character and I can find the truth of who they are, says the 27-year-old star, best known for playing a young Barack Obama in the 2016 biographical film Barry.

Being a person of colour playing the role is extremely exciting because, growing up, I didnt see myself a lot in fantasy.

I wanted to be a part of it so much; I love Lord Of The Rings, I love Game Of Thrones, I love Harry Potter, and I didnt see a lot of myself represented, especially as a lead character.

He adds with a smile: If you can believe in a magical sword, you should be able to believe that a person of colour should be able to play this character.

I think its so exciting because this show is going to inspire so many young people, of different genders and different colour, that are going to say, I am not the other; this is what the world looks like.

What was his first reaction when he read the script?

Actually, I was helping a friend out with an audition and they happened to be auditioning for this, and I told my agent and they got in touch and they said, Oh my God, wed love him to audition, he recalls.

It was an amazingly quick process.

My first reaction was, I know I can do this, I know I can play this, if they take the chance.

And it just so happened that in their heads they were like, this is the right person for the role.

Its not, Were making a diverse choice.

The thing I always worry about diversity is, is it a question of, Oh, do we wanna make this a diverse show?

I just think, in the times we are living now, it shouldnt be that we pat ourselves on the back for being diverse.

As for the challenges of the role, amiable Terrell confides: It was a physical, mental and emotional journey the whole way.

I think the fear is, Am I predicting for the audience too much? Am I showing too much of a leadership role?

Am I being too weak in this moment? And I think that was always a challenge, balancing him.

Because in moments, its like, When do I give charge to Nimue, and when is she allowing me to be the leader?

Because this is very much the story of the Lady of the Lake.

Langford points out how sometimes, girls or women are told that its masculine to be strong, which isnt true at all.

Which is why she felt Nimue was an important character to represent on-screen; the story recognises all the obstacles which are specific to women that she has to overcome on her journey, but also shows how she is a strong and capable hero.

I think the most important thing with this is showing that she is capable, and not undermining her by her falling over for no reason, which sounds kinda crazy when you just say it like that, but sometimes scripts you read, if theres a girl and a boy, the girl stumbles and the boy has to help her up, chatty Langford elaborates candidly.

I dont remember if there were any moments like that within this script, but if there were, I felt really comfortable to go to Tom and just say, Hey, I dont quite understand why she does this? And he would go, Oh yeah, that makes no sense at all, just do what makes sense, which is for her to run, and not fall over anything, do you know what I mean?

Cursed launches on Netflix on Friday July 17
The Public Health Agency should disclose the locations of Covid-19 clusters here, a leading health expert has said.

Professor Gabriel Scally, a former NHS doctor and professor of Public Health at the University of Bristol, said more transparency on the issue would be "helpful" to the public.

"It might change people's views about whether they might want to go to a particular geographical spot. It might be helpful for people who live in that area to be especially careful," he told the Belfast Telegraph.

"I think everything should be transparent. But I don't think they should release any personal details of the individuals involved."

The Belfast-born medic's comments come after an outbreak of coronavirus cases was reported in Ballymena on Wednesday.

Since May 22, there have 16 clusters across Northern Ireland, with a total of 133 cases linked to these small outbreaks, according to the Public Health Agency (PHA).

Earlier this month a cluster of cases were also detected in Limavady and traced to a house party - where party-goers had used the same microphone - which led to a number of GAA clubs suspending activity.

Crossgar in Co Down has also reported local spikes in cases recently.

In a separate development, food producer Moy Park also confirmed that a "very small number" of its employees at its Ballymena site had tested positive.

In a statement the company said it was engaging with the PHA and other government agencies by following advice and protocols.

"The individuals affected have been self-isolating on full pay in line with our Covid sick pay scheme and we are in contact with them to ensure they have the support they require," it said.

Meanwhile, a further nine people have tested positive for Covid-19 in Northern Ireland, the Department of Health said.

There were no new deaths reported on Wednesday, leaving the death toll at 556.

Dr Scally said the identification of geographical clusters would give the public greater confidence. "I don't think it does any harm, and I believe in transparency and there hasn't been enough transparency with the Northern Ireland data as it is," he continued.

The PHA has stated it will not release specific details about "every incident that emerges", adding it could undermine people's right to anonymity.

However, Alliance MLA and Stormont Health Committee member Paula Bradshaw last night called on the body to disclose at least the location of larger-scale clusters.

"That's what I'm asking the PHA to do, but obviously not whenever it's a small size, say five cases or under," she said.

"It's about allowing the people and the businesses in that locality to respond accordingly."

She continued: "The second part of that is that I'm asking the PHA what is it that they're learning from the more and more clusters that are taking place.

"Are these in the food manufacturing setting, are these in care homes, leisure etc?

"What setting it is, so the guidance, from the Department for Economy say, can be amended accordingly, for those relevant sections of business or otherwise."

Ms Bradshaw added: "Obviously the PHA is gathering more and more information and statistics and should be shared across the other parts of government so they can learn how the virus is moving through society."

In response, the PHA said clusters of cases are to be expected as the pandemic continues.

"This is why the Test, Trace and Protect programme is in place to help ensure that people are tested when symptoms emerge, and their contacts traced quickly if they receive a positive result, to help prevent further spread," said a spokesperson.

"The PHA will not comment on individual cases or go into the detail of every incident that emerges, as this could lead to people being identified, create stigma and focus attention on individuals, families or groups, and therefore deter others with symptoms coming forward to be tested."

The health organisation stressed that to date "the majority of clusters" have been "managed effectively" via the contact tracing programme. "And where we need to advise or inform the public of any increased risk to public health we will do so in a timely manner," added the spokesperson.

The Department of Health has supported the PHA's position on the issue, adding identifying clusters could be counterproductive in managing Covid-19.

"PHA do not comment on individual cases as this could lead to people being identified and deter others with symptoms coming forward to be tested. We would ask everyone to be mindful of this risk," said a spokesperson.

The Department of Health emphasised that the public should not become complacent about the virus. "We must be aware that Covid-19 is still a threat and we need everyone to play their part in helping to stop the virus spreading," they added.
When asked about former associate of Jeffrey Epstein and accused sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell at his press conference yesterday, President Trump said, quote, I wish her well. And then somewhere an assassin said, Thats the code! and started screwing together a plastic rifle.  SETH MEYERS

In front of millions of Americans, the president publicly sent well wishes to an alleged sex trafficker, while reminding everyone hes been friends with her for years. I mean, you just cant teach that kind of political talent. Now all Trump has to do is sit back and watch the votes roll in.  SETH MEYERS

Oh, no, thats going to become a Trump rally chant, isnt it? Wish her well! Wish her well!  SETH MEYERS

Later on, Trump had everyone sign a Hallmark sympathy card that said, Sorry for your sex-trafficking arrest.  JIMMY FALLON

So, OK, if youre keeping score at home, if youre accused of spray-painting a statue of a Confederate soldier, youre human scum who should be billy-clubbed in the trachea, but if youre accused of recruiting middle schoolers to be sexually assaulted by millionaires, you get a greeting card.  STEPHEN COLBERT

Right after he wished her well, Trumps staff was like, Oh yeah, this is why we stopped doing these.  JIMMY FALLON
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House Democrats want to send a message to President Donald Trump about potentially pardoning himself or any associates who would offer him political favors: If he attempts to do so, the courts will consider it either null and void or an act of bribery.

The House Judiciary Committee will attempt to establish those limits Thursday, when its members meet to vote on two bills: one to set the confines of the president's pardon power, and another to freeze statute of limitations on any crimes a president may commit for the duration he or she is in office.

The pardons bill is the brainchild of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), who drafted it in 2018 after Trump and his lawyers opined that the president could entice his former national security adviser Michael Flynn and his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort not to cooperate with federal investigators by dangling the promise of a pardon.

For Democrats, the issue took on new urgency earlier this month, when Trump commuted the sentence of his friend Roger Stone, who was due to start a 40-month prison term for seven felonies, including lying to investigators and witness tampering.

Schiff's bill requires that if the president issues a pardon for a matter in which he or she is a subject, target or witness, the attorney general must give Congress all materials and evidence from that case within 30 days. In the weeks since Trump took action to save Stone from going to prison, Schiff's bill has been amended to state also that, if the president trades a promise of a pardon or commutation of a sentence for anything of value, that will be considered a violation of the federal bribery statute.

The committee is expected to consider an amendment also from Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a former constitutional law professor, to make it clear that a president cannot pardon himself or herself. His amendment states that any such pardon would be "void and of no effect" in the courts, and would not give the president "any legal immunity from investigation or prosecution."

Trump has claimed that he has an "absolute right" to pardon himself of federal crimes, despite the fact that statement directly conflicts with a 1974 Justice Department memo, drafted in the aftermath of the Watergate investigation and just days before Richard Nixon resigned the presidency.

"Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the President cannot pardon himself," the memorandum from the department's Office of the Legal Counsel reads.

Still, Trump's attitude about pardons - and his demonstrated willingness to utilize them to protect his political interests - has unnerved his critics, who worry the president may compromise cases that could be brought against him after he leaves office.

In 2018, reports identified Trump as unindicted co-conspirator - "Individual 1" - in a hush-money payment case against the president's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen. While the federal courts have effectively closed additional proceedings related to Cohen's case, and the Manhattan U.S. attorney who oversaw those matters, Geoffrey Berman, was removed from his post, it is possible that the Justice Department could pursue action against Trump in the future. Separately, Manhattan's district attorney is pursuing a similar case, over which a president's pardon power would not extend.

Additionally, former special counsel Robert Mueller III's investigation into suspected Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election - the probe that gave rise to the cases against Trump's associates - identified several instances where the president purportedly obstructed justice. Attorney General William Barr determined that the evidence in Mueller's report did not merit bringing charges, and Trump decried that report as a "witch hunt" in his papers commuting Stone's sentence. But Mueller's insistence that the evidence "does not exonerate" Trump could also influence future prosecutors.

Whether such cases are ever brought, however, depends on whether the five-year statute of limitations on the relevant charges has expired. That concern is at the heart of the second bill the House Judiciary Committee plans to consider Thursday.

Justice Department memos from 1973 and 2000 make clear that agency's policy is not to indict a sitting president. But the statute of limitations on certain federal crimes is shorter than a two-term presidency.

The second bill, which House Judiciary Democrats have dubbed the "No President Is Above the Law Act," seeks to get around this problem by freezing the statute of limitations on offenses committed before or during a president's term for the duration that he or she is in office.

A president's "tenure in office shall not be considered for purposes of any statute of limitations," the measure states.

Committee Republicans are expected to object to both proposals, despite the fact neither is retroactive. The bills also face stiff odds of ever being taken up in the Republican-led Senate.
Is he pulling a Kevin Spacey?

Filipinos are questioning whether social media personality Xander Fords recent revelation that he has a boyfriend and is in fact bisexual, is a supposed tasteless attempt to veer away from his former girlfriends very public allegations of rape and physical abuse.

On Monday, Ford (AKA Marlou Arizala) uploaded a vlog where hes seen sitting next to a man wearing a mask whom he introduces as his boyfriend.

Im with my loved one. I dont want you to see his face yet because Im a little embarrassed. Im a private [figure]but thats him, Ford said in English and Filipino, pointing to his boyfriend Jerick Fernandez, or as Ford puts it, my baby boy Jerick.

Over the course of the 15-minute video, Ford brings out two of his friends to host a question-and-answer type program where he discusses how his relationship with his current flame started.

We just became comfortable around each other[H]e said he understood me better than other people, out of all the other people who dont understand. So I believed him. Now when we exactly became a couple, it just suddenly happened. We just felt it, Ford explained.

I really wasnt attracted to men. But lately, I just realized I had all these feelings that I developed for a guy, he added in Filipino.

Towards the end of the video, Fernandez takes off the mask to reveal his face. And a day following the creative reveal, Ford posted a picture of themselves on his Instagram account.

The brazen declaration of love would have been moving, if critics of the internet sensation and wanna-be actor didnt find it fishy.

A post shared by Xander Ford (@z4nder.official) on Jul 20, 2020 at 4:29am PDT

Over at the comments section, someone using the name @emarydraws strongly opposed Fords coming out and wrote, You know [X]ander, dont use being part of the LGBTQ as a scapegoat, as part of the community, I despise you.

How convenient that you came out bisexual at a time that youre on [a public] trial as a rapist. Youre a scourge to society. You do not belong to the community, youre just using the community to cover yourself [up] as a rapist, she said.

Story continues

While on Twitter, @von_vrts wasnt as keen about the news and wrote, So apparently Xander Ford came out as bisexual? Excuse me but what the fuck?!

Yes, its cringey, but you know whats problematic? Do you know how hard it is to be part of the LGBTQ+ community, especially in a conservative country like the Philippines? he added, apparently alluding that Fords predicament isnt helping the queer movements cause.

so apparently xander ford came out as bisexual? excuse me pero what the fuck ?! yes sobrang cringey, pero alam nyo ba kung bakit sya problematic? do u know how hard it is to be part of the lgbtq+ community, especially in a conservative country like the philippines?        (@von_vrts) July 22, 2020

Back in mid-June, Fords former girlfriend Ysah Cabrejas accused him of rape and physical abuse in a series of now-deleted posts on Facebook.

Cabrejas posted screenshots of their conversations and posted photos of bruises she allegedly got from Ford after he allegedly forced her several times to have intercourse, even when she had her monthly period.

Before I gave up I endured it all. You forced it on me. Even if I had [my period], even when I did not want it. When I refused you, you would get angry, thats why I had all these bruises because you forced me!, Cabrejas wrote in Filipino.

Why didnt you take pity on me? I cried in front of you, I pleaded, I told you to stop but you didnt listen, you said as long as I get you pregnant, even if you leave me Im okay with [that]. Are you stupid? What kind of boyfriend are you? the 21-year-old wrote.

It happened many times! The first time [it happened] just because I didnt want to shower with you, you were so angry. You made it clear to my face that it was only my body you were after. Then you kept flipping [my story] to everyone for what? So you can clean your image? You keep playing the victim, but its me whos the real victim! You trampled on my dignity! she added.

Cabrejas also sought the help of broadcaster Raffy Tulfo  who has become famous for settling spats on-air  to file appropriate charges against Ford, who claimed that hed already settled the issue with Cabrejas. Tulfo rejected this and said Cabrejas has not forgiven the actor.

Meanwhile, Fords talent agency, Star Image Artist Management, yesterday released a statement announcing that the controversial figure has been suspended indefinitely.

On July 17, 2020, Marlou Arizala a.k.a. Xander Ford publicly announced that hes a bisexual. Star Image Artist Management respects his decision to expose his real sexuality, and as a person, he is entitled to be free, the statement read.

But we accept the fact that he is still under judicial trial with the case filed against him by his ex-girlfriend. The management has decided to place Marlou Arizala under INDEFINITE SUSPENSION until he will be cleared without any criminal liability, they said.

Furthermore, the personal views, opinions, and statements expressed by any of our artists do not in any way represent the views and opinions of the company and the management, the company added.

Ford, who rose to fame in 2015 after a video of him lip-synching to the song Papogi (To be handsome) went viral on the internet, was a former member of the boyband Hasht5.

Read more Coconuts Manila articles here.

This article, Scapegoating? Pinoys question Xander Fords claim of bisexuality after rape allegation, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. Want more Coconuts? Sign up for our newsletters!
The HSEs chief clinical officer Dr Colm Henry has warned that everyone will have to find a way of living with the new normal of life in the time of Covid-19.

Dr Henry said that he supports people getting back to work, as suggested by IBEC, but said that apart from individual responsibility, employers have a responsibility to ensure their employees are safe.

The new normal had to include minimum contact, avoiding crowds and close contacts, he told Newstalk Breakfast.

When asked about school uniforms and if it was safer for children to wear their own clothing, Dr Henry said that was a decision for each school, but he felt that if good hand hygiene and social-distancing measures were implemented, that would be effective.

Dr Henry said that the health service had suffered an unprecedented shock to the system and that there will be a fall in capacity as social-distancing measures are observed.

Of particular concern to Dr Henry was the worrying trend of outbreaks of the virus in congregated settings such as the workplace and social gatherings.

Read More Suspected stolen dog reunited with owner after spate of thefts

He was also concerned about the number of people declining to be tested when identified as a contact of a person who had contracted the virus.

It is worrying. If you are called you should go for the test. Dr Henry pointed out that 6-7% of asymptomatic people who had been tested were diagnosed with the virus.

People are not the best judges for themselves if they need the test.

Dr Henry said it was very important to contain community transmission otherwise "all bets are off" in Ireland's attempts to recover from the outbreak of the virus.

The HSE confirmed half of close contacts of Covid-19 confirmed cases are failing to turn up for their second test which is conducted seven days after the first.

HSE chief executive Paul Reid described the news of non-attendance as concerning, adding that in most cases, people are committing to an appointment and then they are a no-show.

Its really important, even if you dont have symptoms, to come forward for a test  for yourself, for your family, for the wider public, to stop the surge from happening, he said.
A bomb planted on a vegetable cart went off at a busy open-air market in a tribal district in northwestern Pakistan on Thursday, injuring at least 17 people including a child.

The bomb blast occurred in Turi Bazar in the city of Parachinar when the explosives went off as people were busy buying groceries and vegetables.

Parachinar District Superintendent of Police Najab Ali said the cause of the explosion was an improvised explosive device (IED) that was fitted inside a vegetable cart. The injured were rushed to the District Headquarters Hospital.

District Headquarter Hospital (DHQ) Deputy Medical Superintendent Dr Qaiser Abbas Bangash said that at least 17 injured, including a child, were brought to the facility, Dawn newspaper reported.

One injured person was in critical condition and being shifted to the Combined Military Hospital, Peshawar, the paper quoted Bangash as saying. Earlier, authorities had said that 20 people were injured in the incident.

Parachinar is the capital city of Kurram district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Soon after the blast, security forces and rescue teams reached the spot.

Security forces have cordoned off the area and launched a search operation.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but the region is known for sectarian clashes between Sunnis and Shias.

The residents blocked the main highway and staged a protest against the bombing in front of Parachinar Press Club.

Leader of the Opposition Shehbaz Sharif strongly condemned the blast, saying terrorists seek to target citizens and leave Pakistan in the grip of terror. Kurram district is considered one of the most sensitive tribal areas of Pakistan as it borders three Afghanistan provinces. It has witnessed scores of attacks and kidnapping for ransom incidents during the last decade.

In 2017, nearly 132 people were killed and 460 others wounded in five militant attacks in Parachinar.

In previous years, militants had carried out 11 bomb attacks that killed over 500 people.

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They jetted off on holiday earlier this week.

And Sam Faiers made the most of her family getaway to Spain on Wednesday as the foursome enjoyed a beach day.

The former TOWIE star, 29, looked incredible in a powder blue bikini as she cuddled up to partner Paul Knightley.

Yummy mummy! Sam Faiers made the most of her family getaway to Spain on Wednesday as the foursome enjoyed a beach day

Sam was also joined by their two children - son Paul Jr, four, and daughter Rosie, two, for the fun day out.

The Mummy Diaries star showcased her toned curves in a powder blue bikini with a bra-style top and high-waisted bottoms.

Sam styled her brunette locks back into a relaxed bun, she added just a slick of make-up to enhance her pretty features.

PDA: The former TOWIE star, 29, looked incredible in a powder blue bikini as she cuddled up to partner Paul Knightley

Loved-up: The couple looked loved-up as they got cosy during the family holiday in sweet snaps

Incredible: The Mummy Diaries star showcased her toned curves in a powder blue bikini with a bra-style top and high-waisted bottoms

Later in the day, the reality star changed into a pair of loose-fitting tie-dye trousers and a matching oversized shirts, which she left unbuttoned to show off her bikini top.

Sam added some stylish accessories in the form of multicoloured hooped earrings, a gold watch, white sliders and aviator sunglasses.

The reality star's partner opted for a pair of burgundy swimming shorts as they enjoyed the beach day.

Sam and Paul packed on the PDA during their outing as they sweetly shared several cuddles while paddling.

Relaxed: Sam styled her brunette locks back into a relaxed bun, she added just a slick of make-up to enhance her pretty features

Lovely: Sam and Paul packed on the PDA during their outing as they sweetly shared several cuddles while paddling

Details: Sam added some stylish accessories in the form of multicoloured hooped earrings, a gold watch, white sliders and aviator sunglasses

Family: Sam was also joined by their two children - son Paul Jr, four, and daughter Rosie, two, for the fun day out

The couple also doted over their two children Paul Jr, four, and Rosie, two, as they played on the beach.

It comes after Sam shared snaps on Tuesday of herself doting on her children Paul Jr., four, and Rose, two, as they enjoyed the first day of their sun-soaked holiday.

The former TOWIE star took to Instagram to share a shot of herself donning a colourful striped bikini as she posed with her youngest offspring for a sweet snap.

Doting mother: At one stage, Sam sweetly held daughter Rosie as she gave her a kiss on the cheek

Making the most of it: Sam made sure she made the most of the getaway as she relaxed on a sun lounger

Swimwear: The reality star's partner opted for a pair of burgundy swimming shorts as they enjoyed the beach day

Outfit change! Later in the day, the reality star changed into a pair of loose-fitting tie-dye trousers and a matching oversized shirts, which she left unbuttoned to show off her bikini top

She also uploaded a shot of Paul Jr. looking animated as he sat before his mouth-watering dessert on the first full day of their trip.

Captioning the images, Sam, who has also been joined by her partner Paul on the trip, wrote: We need to work on our tans a little honey... but our first day of holiday was [great]. ps Ive been craving prawns pil pil for month.' [sic]

After being spottted at the airport on Monday, Sam was sure to keep her Instagram followers updated on her family's every move, from check-in to takeoff to landing.

The family will no doubt be happy to be on holiday after 2019 saw them vacation in the Maldives twice, Dubai, Cannes, Venice and Majorca - to name a few.

Updates: It comes after Sam shared snaps on Tuesday of herself doting on her children Paul Jr., four, and Rose, two, as they enjoyed the first day of their sun-soaked holiday

Lavish! The family will no doubt be happy to be on holiday after 2019 saw them vacation in the Maldives twice, Dubai, Cannes, Venice and Majorca - to name a few

Growing up: Earlier this month, Sam revealed that her young son baby Paul, now four, has been allowed to go to summer camp in an Instagram post

Debate: She famously clashed with partner Paul on the Mummy Diaries in 2018, after he refused to send their son to nursery or pre-school

Earlier this month, Sam revealed that her young son baby Paul, now four, has been allowed to go to summer camp in an Instagram post.

She famously clashed with partner Paul on the Mummy Diaries in 2018, after he refused to send their son to nursery or pre-school.

The reality star announced the news as she took daughter Rosie for an outing to a cafe, and revealed she was feeling emotional over her son's absence.

Growing up: The reality star announced the news as she took daughter Rosie for an outing to a cafe, and revealed she was feeling emotional over her son's absence

Giggles: The family appeared in good spirits as they shared several giggles on the beach
Bengaluru, July 23 : Wipro on Thursday announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire 4C, one of the largest Salesforce partners in the UK, Europe and the Middle East, for an undisclosed sum. The move will help make the Indian tech major a leading provider of Salesforce solutions in these key markets.

Wipro already has a well-established Salesforce business in the Americas, Japan and Australia which was reinforced with the Appirio acquisition in 2016.

4C will be consolidated as part of Wipro's Salesforce practice, which provides market leading solutions globally around multiple Salesforce clouds and its ecosystem of products, the company said in a statement.

"We are excited to have the team at 4C join us. This combination along with Wipro's reach across the region and industry, will help us become a dominant player in Europe and a leader in Salesforce's Quote to Cash domain," said Harish Dwarkanhalli, President, Cloud Enterprise Platforms (CEP), Wipro Limited.

Established in 1997 with its headquarters in Belgium, 4C is an independent Salesforce Platinum Partner and one of the leading customer-centric consultancies in Europe and the Middle East.

With over 350 employees, 4C has deep capabilities across multiple Salesforce clouds including sales, marketing, field services and specializes in transforming Quote-to-Cash processes with Salesforce's Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) and Billing solutions.

4C has successfully delivered over 1,500 projects, for more than 500 customers to date.

"We will leverage this opportunity to take the next leap in building companies for the future for our customers, not just locally but across EMEA," said Johan Van Genechten, Chief Executive Officer, 4C.

The acquisition is expected to be closed in the quarter ending September 30.

"Wipro had previously acquired Appirio and now with 4C, it has even further enhanced its depth and experience in Salesforce capabilities and resources," said Angelique de Vries-Schipperijn, EVP and GM of Northern Europe, Salesforce.
Accountants and tax experts are warning tighter eligibility tests for JobKeeper mean businesses could lose the wage subsidy permanently if they start to recover even if lockdowns are reintroduced.

Under the $16.6 billion extension of the scheme until March 31, businesses will have to show an ongoing reduction in turnover to continue to receive fortnightly payments for staff.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Prime Minister Scott Morrison have extended JobKeeper to March 31 but tightened eligibility criteria. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

JobKeeper 2.0 cuts the $1500-a-fortnight payments to $1200 for full-time employees and $750 for part-time workers for the last quarter of the calendar year, then to $1000 and $650 respectively from January to March 2021. Businesses' eligibility will be re-tested at the end of September.

While firms will still have to prove a 30 to 50 per cent fall in turnover, Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand tax leader for Australia Michael Croker said these declines now had to be sustained over multiple quarters to remain eligible for JobKeeper.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 23)  The Bureau of Corrections said it was next to impossible to pull off a supposed conspiracy using the COVID-19 pandemic as a ruse for drug convict Jaybee Sebastian to walk free from the New Bilibid Prison.

"Marami pong nakakakita at napakaimposible pong mangyari. Talagang grand conspiracy dahil it will involve hundreds of personnel. So hindi naman pupwede 'yun [There are so many people watching so it's very impossible to occur. It will take a really grand conspiracy involving hundreds of personnel. It's not possible]," Bureau spokesman Gabriel Chaclag said during the government's Laging Handa briefing on Thursday.

Chaclag said the death of Sebastian as well as eight other high-profile inmates are "well-documented" and followed standard protocols set by the Health Department. He added that they are part of 21 COVID-19 deaths among prisons, but were given specific attention as they were convicted of major crimes.

Although a drug convict, Sebastian was considered a state witness for drug-related charges against Senator Leila De Lima, a critic of President Rodrigo Duterte who also remains detained in Camp Crame. According to Sebastian's previous testimony, drug money funded the senator's 2016 campaign.

RELATED: In Bilibid, corruption thrives and some inmates live 'like kings'

Overall, there were 260 persons deprived of liberty who contracted COVID-19, but majority have recovered. The official insisted that the agency's response to the pandemic has been proper and manageable, adding that those showing symptoms are immediately isolated from the rest of the cells.

Human rights groups previously said that jails were a "ticking time bomb" of infections, given the extreme congestion of prison cells.

RELATED: Guevarra says nothing suspicious with nearly 500 deaths within PH jails

However, Chaclag did admit that BuCor had a hard time reaching out to families of inmates who got infected, as some do not have updated contact details.

There were reports that the families of the nine high-profile PDLs did not know about their situation until they died. Some netizens alleged the bureau could have used the coronavirus crisis as cover to execute the high-profile inmates.

"We can always assure the public that BuCor is doing its job na nasa regulasyon... Hindi naman po kami siguro napakasamang tao na magplano ng ganoOn [We are not evil people who would consider doing that]," Chaclag added.

RELATED: Ex-BuCor official reveals 'money-making' schemes in Bilibid

Members of the National Bureau of Investigation have paid a visit to the BuCor office for its official probe on the incident.
The relative success of remote work has proved that in many cases government staff are just as, if not more, productive when they work away from the office. More agile structures like holacracy might be ones to model.
AP & Associates, LLC, chaired by Phoenix-based businessman and nonprofit leader Alan AP Powell, is excited to announce a partnership with Noral Clean Technologies to bring the state-of-the-art BioProtect System to the Travis L. Williams American Legion Post 65, which serves veterans in South Phoenixs 85040 zip code, one of the most vulnerable communities in the state.

Powell, a serial entrepreneur, Gulf War Veteran, philanthropist and a renowned strategic consultant, most recently launched the nations largest COVID-19 testing site, a free drive-thru, at South Mountain Community College through his nonprofit, the HeroZona Foundation. The location was specifically chosen to ensure that veterans and the local community have access to much needed resources that can help them stay protected against the virus.

Post 65 works hard every day to ensure that the military heroes who reside there are supported, Powell says. By partnering with Noral Clean Technologies and bringing this crucial sanitizing service to the facility, we are helping to keep all of the members safe from coronavirus.

The BioProtect System by Noral Clean Technologies is a proven antimicrobial solution treatment that creates a microscopic barrier on both porous and non-porous surfaces for up to three months. The coating forms a shield of molecular spikes which carry a positive charge that attract negatively charged bacteria. Once attracted, the spikes pierce the cell and rupture its membrane, causing the micro-organism to die. The spray is colorless, odorless, environmentally responsible and nontoxic, making it safe to use in high traffic areas. BioProtect can be used to safeguard against coronavirus, MRSA, ringworm, influenza, HIV and more.

Three months of protection from coronavirus and other harmful organisms will help to keep the legion safe and its members and guests healthy, says J. Glynn Gross, CEO of Noral Clean Technologies. We are honored to have been entrusted by AP and the American Legion to protect these heroes.

Outside of the spray technology, the post will also be given BioProtects hand purifier that provides six hours of protection against germs, after just one application. Similar to the antimicrobial solution, the alcohol-free formula creates a protective barrier on the skin, with aloe vera infusion to hydrate.

Noral Clean Technologies with the help of AP & Associates, LLC, will be performing its patented and FDA and EPA-approved BioProtectUS system to provide three months of protection at the Post in August. Legionnaires will also be provided with the state-of-the-art hand purifier to keep themselves safe once the service is concluded.

Since closing due to the pandemic, myself and the other Post officers have not felt ready to reopen to the public yet with the exception of our kitchen for takeout meals, says Jarvis Reddick, Post Commander and retired U.S. Air Force veteran. With the help of AP & Associates, and Noral Clean Technologies, we are hoping to welcome the veteran community back soon in the safest and healthiest way.

Corporate businesses and residential communities interested in learning more about Noral Clean Technologies BioProtect services can visit noralcleantech.com or call 888-846-4356.

For more information about AP & Associates, LLC, the Travis L. Williams American Legion Post 65 and all its programs, visit apscottsdale.com and twilliamspost65.org.

About AP & Associates LLC

AP & Associates LLC is a strategic alliances firm with specific expertise in multicultural and veteran initiatives. Through the development and creation of strategic partnerships AP & Associates has positioned itself as an expert in the art of company, customer and revenue acquisition. AP & Associates LLC has created strategic alliances with Fortune 500 companies, venture capital firms and private equity to bridge the gap between mainstream and urban customers to clients generating top flight results, capable of raising the monies, introducing strategic relationships and driving customer and revenue acquisition. For more information, visit http://www.apandassociatesllc.com.
Federal officers deployed huge quantities of CS tear gas in Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday.

John Rudoff/Getty Images

Jason Stanley, a professor of philosophy at Yale University, is the author of 2018's "How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them."

Stanley spoke with Business Insider about the deployment of federal agents in US cities; what "fascism" would look like if it came to America; what happens if the president is reelected; and why he is more worried about the Republican Party than he is about Donald Trump.

"I'm not saying that Trump is a fascist," he said. "Trump is certainly performing fascism  it's performative fascism that we're seeing. It's the tropes of fascism, and I think that's worrisome enough."

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

President Donald Trump is doubling down on a "law and order" message ahead of November's election.

Campaign ads paint his centrist opponent, Joe Biden, as a friend of the radical left determined to abolish the police (and the white suburbs), while federal agents in unmarked vans appear to arbitrarily detain  and beat  people on the streets of Portland, Oregon.

Trump announced a "surge" of federal agents being sent to other cities led by Democrats.

It's a "busy time for fascism scholars," Jason Stanley, a professor of philosophy at Yale University, told Business Insider. The author of 2018's "How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them," Stanley has been sounding the alarm that regardless of whether one thinks Trump merits the word "fascist," the US president has undoubtedly embraced fascist politics, trading in fear of the foreign other and the enemy within.

Stanley spoke with Business Insider about the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in US cities, pivoting from the arrest of unauthorized immigrants to the detention of US citizens; what "fascism" would look like if it came to America; what happens if the president is reelected; and why he is more afraid of the Republican Party than he is of Trump.

Story continues

Charles Davis: If fascism were to come to America, what do you think it would look like?

Jason Stanley: Fascism is based on ultranationalism, so it's always going to take the form of the country. There's a famous story from, perhaps apocryphal, where a Spanish fascist was asked to speak at an international fascism conference in the early '30s. And he said, "I'm not a fascist  I'm Spanish." Fascism, because it's based on nationalism, is always going to take the most sort of crude and tense form of the nation's traditional tropes. So German fascism, you know, you would have, you know, people with the most Baroque, traditional German name. They'd be dressed in very traditional, kitschy German outfits  traditional Bavarian outfit. So fascism in the United States would look like that: It would be wrapped in a Confederate flag; it would be wrapped in the vestiges of American ultranationalism, which is white nationalism.

Supporters of then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump displaying a confederate flag with his face on it listen to him during a campaign rally on November 3, 2016 in Jacksonville, Florida.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Davis: It's interesting that you mention the Confederate flag. Is that a unique wrinkle for America, in the sense that the people on the far right, who we would probably call Nazis, they wave the flag of a treasonous ideology. They are saying that they are the most American, but they're also waving the flag of an enemy force to America, as a country.

Stanley: When you look at the United States, and the Confederacy is not itself fascist because fascism needs communism to contrast it with. The fascist ideologue is someone who is always painting his opponents, no matter how centrist they are, as a "commie." So fascism targets labor unions, and the Confederacy preceded that. But what we have in the United States is sort of a kind of ur-fascism, a pre-fascism in our history. It's a history that Hitler admired. Hitler admired the antebellum South. It was what he wanted to transform Ukraine into. He admired our immigration laws. He admired the murder  the genocide  of the Indigenous people. But he certainly looked to antebellum slavery as a model he sought to do in Eastern Europe.

Just as democracy is going to look different in different countries, it's going to have different causes  when you ask, "Why does Sweden become democratic?" People will have a different answer than, "Why did Switzerland become democratic?" Similarly, there's going to be different histories behind fascist social-political movements in different countries. And we have this very particular history of white nationalism, of a civil war fought to preserve slavery. And that history, because fascism is, in most cases, based on racism is going to be based on white nationalism and white supremacy in the United States.

Davis: You argue that Trump draws on fascist ideology, particularly with respect to his demonization of immigrants. In 2019, you singled out Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a particularly troublesome agency, arguing that "its goal is not to make communities safer but to reinforce a distinction between us and them." I wanted you to expand on that and also see how your thinking has been affected by the fact that DHS officers are now being deployed in Portland to arrest not just immigrants but US citizens.

Stanley: When you have an organization like ICE, which is new  it's part of the war on terror, part of the reaction to 9/11, an organization devoted to protecting us from foreign terrorists, to keeping them out of the country as part of homeland security  when you have an organization like that, it's sort of based around an "us-them" ideology.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrest a suspect during a pre-dawn raid in Santa Ana, Calif., in this file photo from Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007.

Mark Avery/File via AP

The concern is are they going to turn domestically? Are they going to turn to domestic political opponents of the president? I mean, we know this Martin Niemoller poem: "First, they came for the communists, but I was not a communist, so I said nothing. Then they came to the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Jews, and I was not a Jew, so I said nothing. So then finally they came for me, with no one left to speak for me."

When you have an organization that's devoted to cleaving the citizens from the noncitizens, it's going to be all too tempting to use that organization to target the supporters who are loyal to you versus your opponent. ICE is now being used to target cities led by the political opposition. The president always talks about "Democrat-led cities." So ICE is being used in this political manner. The concern is when you start to have those organizations that are like the police, but not the police, this sort of middle organization, they're not military, they're not the police.

They're just there to get the noncitizens. They're already infused with a hypernationalist ethnic ideology that can spill into white supremacy. Of course not all members of [US Customs & Border Protection] are like that, or not all members of ICE, but they're there to split the citizens from the noncitizens.

The concern is always that they're going to be used to target political opponents as well. When you set up a system of prisons, of camps  when you have a secret police, essentially, that the administration can deploy, that's independent of local control there's going to be a temptation to use it also against domestic political opponents. And when that organization has been trained to treat people inhumanely, to treat people as gang members and terrorists, well then they're going to treat American citizens that way.

What seems to be going on is that the president is using this organization, this militia, to explicitly target Democratic cities. And as we see in Portland, it seems that when they're brought in, it increases the protests rather than decreasing them, thereby provoking greater unrest. So it looks like he might potentially provoking conflict between him and his political opponents for political-campaign purposes, to create a sense that there's lawlessness in Democratic-led cities and therefore you need a strong leader to protect you.

Police respond to protesters during a demonstration, Friday, July 17, 2020 in Portland, Ore.

Dave Killen/The Oregonian via Associated Press

Davis: I've seen some critics of the deployment in Portland and potentially elsewhere, liken what is happening to, for example, Argentina, when the military junta was arresting and disappearing opponents. But we're also talking about a handful of federal agents. And I guess this comes back to one of the critiques of the argument that "Trump is a fascist" that I'm sure you've been presented with before: that he talks bad, and this is really bad on its face  unmarked vans and agents without insignia  but he's not exactly competent. He's good at the political theater, but like, come on, we're not a military dictatorship. He doesn't have the follow-through for that.

Stanley: I'm not saying that Trump is a fascist. Trump is certainly performing fascism  it's performative fascism that we're seeing. It's the tropes of fascism, and I think that's worrisome enough. What's to stop him from escalating? What's to stop a future person, a future president from escalating, whether Democrat or Republican? ICE is an already existing institution. These are already existing structures. Our prison system is an already existing structure that's sort of ravenous for prisoners, for bodies. Trump is showing how you can use existing structures in fascist ways, if you so desire. He might be doing it merely performatively  we don't know. But you want to stop it early, so you don't allow this performative fascism to be something that could be turned non-performative and degrade our democratic norms.

Davis: What about the argument that, yeah, Trump's "performative fascism" is bad, but so is competent right-wing conservatism and competent liberalism, examples being: Who wiped out the Indigenous peoples? It was the mainstream politicians of the time. Who put Japanese people in internment groups? It was a mainstream liberal who's lionized today. Is there not an argument that the more competent politician is a greater danger than the fly-off-the-handle proto-fascism of Donald Trump?

Stanley: I prefer to think of things in terms of fascist forces than fascist people. As Toni Morrison, in her 1995 Howard University address about racism and fascism, said: We in the United States have a tendency to give fascist solutions to political questions. Out of our Black population, that the Black Lives Matter protest is about, is a reaction to a fascist force that is as much on Bill Clinton and Joe Biden as it is the fault of any Republican. Black Lives Matter, the last time emerged, it was under Barack Obama. We have a reaction to a long-standing fascist force.

So, no, it's not all about Trump. I think many Americans see these forces of racism fester through Democrats and Republicans. Then you're going to get a leader who will exploit them for demagoguery. What Trump is doing is he's returning us to familiar American tropes: lawless cities with minorities, run by Democrats, leftists, and Black protesters. He's trying to create 1968 over again.

Chicago police officers confront a demonstrator on the ground at Grant Park in Chicago during the city's hosting of the Democratic National Convention, on August 26, 1968.

AP Photo

And when the United States leaves its social problems, unsolved and unaddressed, then we will always have protests against police brutality, and then we will always have a demagogic politician, be it Nixon or Trump, who then tries to run on a law-and-order platform, where the "law and order" is in fact lawlessness. That's, what's going on. We have these fascist forces, and it's because we have these fascist forces, and we have our prison system; we have these enormous budgets for our police; we have an enormous military budget; we have all these returning Iraq War veterans; we had a war on terror that gave us the Department of Homeland Security. They are tools that someone can pick up and push further.

And what Trump is doing is he's pushing already existing fascist forces further. Does that mean that he himself is a fascist? It's not really helpful to talk that way; it's an emphasis on the wrong locus. What we need to do is remove the fascist forces. We need to address our prison system, address our over-policing problem, address our inequality, cut down the insider dealing between corporate elites and the government. And then we won't get people who can do this kind of thing.

Davis: You mentioned 1968 and Trump, or at least people around him. Does he seem to be consciously copying the law-and-order tactic of that campaign? And in fact, they did that in 2016 and it's evident in his inaugural address.

Stanley: Right. And if you look at my, if you look at my law-and-order chapter book, I talk about 1968 a lot.

Davis: But it doesn't look like we're headed to 1972, though, in terms of an electoral blowout for a triumphant Donald Trump. As much as the fascist tendencies that Trump is seeming to campaign on, it does seem like progressive forces are ascendant, with the approval of Black Lives Matter and the fact that Trump is behind in the polls at this point. So why is it not 1972?

Stanley: Well, maybe American recognize that we will always get protest against police brutality  that we have this long history that has not been dealt with. And until we deal with it, we're going to get people engaging in racial demagoguery in order to distract us from the problems, such as COVID-19, huge inequality, unemployment, and Americans might be sick of it, white and black.

A crowd of about 1,500 protesters gather at the Multnomah County Justice center for a Black Lives Matter march on July 20, 2020 in Portland, Ore. Monday night marked 54 days of protests in Portland following the police killing of George Floyd.

Nathan Howard/Getty Images

Davis: Is that because American society has become more progressive since the Nixon era? Why did this work, at least in terms of the Electoral College victory in 2016, and it seems to be failing now?

Stanley: During the Clinton era, we had a harsh demagoguing spurt for eight straight years under a Democratic president. The 1990s were a horror show on racial demagoguery. And mass incarceration is a problem that emerged  Nixon started it, but it blew up in the decades after. So I don't think you can talk about a progressive force that gradually arises. I remember when Barack Obama was against gay marriage. Now my evangelical Christian conservative, 19-year-old students are pro gay marriage. Social movements change attitudes quickly. We don't know if this is going to work.

What the president is trying to do is make sure it doesn't work. He's trying to use force to create dissension and amp up conflict. He's manufacturing dissent because dissent is what he thrives off of. And that's where his politics becomes very fascist. He's not about unifying  he's about dividing and saying, "I'm the champion of one side." And so that's what he's doing, and it's not obvious that it's working, but if it doesn't work, we also have to worry about the security of the election.

Davis: What about the security of the election?

Stanley: Well, everything has been very transparent. That's one nice thing about Trump: He's transparent. When he talks about mail-in votes, it's clear that he doesn't want to leave a paper trail. There doesn't seem to be any sanction in place, if foreign governments interfere in our elections. It seems like there's going to be a lot of effort, and one thing we need to worry about is CBP and ICE being used to intimidate people at the polls. I'm not predicting it will happen. I'm not saying it will happen. I'm saying that we have to worry about it.

Federal agents use crowd control munitions to disperse Black Lives Matter protesters near the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Monday, July 20, 2020, in Portland, Ore.

AP Photo/Noah Berger

Davis: Right, ostensibly there to catch, fraudulent undocumented immigrants, and that depresses turnout, because people don't want to be around law enforcement.

Stanley: Exactly. Because as Amy Lerman has shown in her 2018 book, when you have had any encounter with law enforcement, it's the biggest predictor of not voting. So that's one thing we have to think about, too. Flooding these cities with federal agents, flooding these cities with law enforcement  when people encounter law enforcement, they're much less likely to vote; to participate civically.

Davis: What do you think this country would look like if Trump were to win a second term, by whatever means?

Stanley: My worry is less with Trump and more with the Republican Party that enables all kinds of behavior. My concern is with members of the Republican Party that care more about the Republican Party than they care about a multiparty democracy. And that started with Newt Gingrich. Democracy is made up of conservatives and libertarians and socialists, and center-left people, and boring centrists, and all sorts of types. But no one should be more beholden to their political party than the system itself. And this fascist politics of representing all opposition as illegitimate is what is most concerning to me  one of the things that's most concerning about the future.

Davis: Are there any individuals that you kind of keep you up at night? Meaning, when we talk about Trump as a bumbling fascist, are you worried about a more competent Tucker Carlson?

Stanley: President Tucker Carlson  he's very smart, very able. Tom Cotton has shown himself to be somewhat ruthless, though less charismatic. We're getting the complete destruction of our epistemic sphere. That's another thing to worry. There's all these Republican [candidates] who are QAnon supporters. That's "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"-level of conspiracy theorizing that is just so unhinged. We've seen the cost of totally incompetent government. That's just going to get much worse.

Tucker Carlson.

Screenshot via Fox News

Davis: You mentioned QAnon  even the deployment of federal agents in Portland is sort of conspiratorial in its basis: the idea that there's an antifa organization that's going to be marching to the suburbs.

Stanley: Yeah. What we have as this fascist politics  of the crazed leftists who are going to destroy our civilization and destroying things, and they're this secret force. Absolutely. "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" had Jews at its base; the idea was Jews were behind communism. And what we have now is the idea that, you know, there are these leftists everywhere, in our universities and the press, and they're fomenting rebellion.

Davis: A lot of the people that embrace these conspiracy theories think that they are fighting the establishment, the true power  that these are antiauthoritarian conspiracy theories that they believe, but it's in the service of an authoritarian politics. Why does this type of politics embrace superficially antiestablishment conspiracy theories?

Stanley: Well, it always does. The idea is there are these elites who are seeking to destroy this country from within, and they need to be hunted and rooted out. They're hidden and embedded in the elite institutions, and a strong leader is going to represent the people and track them down and get rid of them. The establishment has to go, and that's why it's so dangerous when you have failures of the establishment, like the Iraq War and the financial crisis.

Davis: I guess my last question would be: What's one thing that you wish reporters like me would ask you that's been kind of been neglected in your recent interviews?

Stanley: That's a great question. We need to take the focus off Trump specifically and think about the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and the long-term chain we need to make in order to make sure that this kind of demagoguery doesn't work anymore  and not place everything on Trump. What are the long-term things that made this possible?

Read the original article on Business Insider
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the bill on local content policy adopted by the Verkhovna Rada at first reading, aimed at the development of mechanical engineering, in its current version does not correspond to some parameters of the Ukraine-European Union Association Agreement.

"The law was adopted at first reading. It is quite tough for me and our international partners. It is quite interesting for our industry and economy," Shmyhal told reporters on Thursday during his working visit to Brussels.

The prime minister said that at the moment the authorities' task is to find a "golden mean" in order to support their own economy during the crisis, but at the same time, not to violate the international agreements that have already been signed. Shmyhal is sure that there are opportunities for such a compromise.

"So far, international partners take it absolutely calmly, as they understand that this is the first reading," he said.

The prime minister also said that the government's position is that there can be no talk of strict local content policy, but only of the use of non-price criteria in the amount of 30% when conducting public procurement, which will give some preferences for goods with component of Ukrainian production.

"In the current version, it does not correspond to some parameters of the Association Agreement, so the government will insist that we edit the version along with the MPs so that it does not violate our international agreements, and not only about the association," Shmyhal said.

As reported, on July 21, the Verkhovna Rada adopted at first reading bill on local content policy aimed at the development of mechanical engineering, it implies preferences in public procurement with a local content requirement of 25-40% from 2021 with a further increase by another 15 percentage points starting from 2024.

Bill No. 3739 was registered in parliament on June 24, 2020. Its co-authors were mainly MPs of the Servant of the People faction, including, Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Economic Development Dmytro Kysylevsky, Dmytro Natalukha, Roksolana Pidlasa, heads of parliamentary factions and groups, parliamentary committees, as well as members of the economic development committee and other members of parliament, a total of 37 co-authors.

However, Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine Matti Maasikas sent a letter to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Speaker of Parliament Dmytro Razumkov, in which he expressed concern about the initiatives of the government and parliament on preferences for Ukrainian machine building in public procurement, which contradict Ukraine's commitments under the World Health Organization (WHO). In addition, the EU believes that the bill violates the principles of non-discrimination, and taking into account the proposed level of localization of up to 60%, it actually deprives foreign products of the opportunity to participate in public procurement
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 23:35:49|Editor: huaxia

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ULAN BATOR, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Former Mongolian Prime Minister Sanj Bayar was sentenced to five years in prison on Thursday for abuse of power.

The Primary Criminal Court of Bayanzurkh, Chingeltei and Sukhbaatar Districts in the country's capital Ulan Bator found him guilty of abusing power in his capacity as prime minister over helping his friend's company secure a contract on supplying fuel and lubricants to a big copper-gold mine.

The court also ordered the confiscation of Bayar's illegal properties worth 5.5 billion Mongolian tugriks (1.9 million U.S. dollars).

Bayar, 64, was the prime minister of the East Asian country from 2007 to 2009. Enditem
Ascena Retail Group, the conglomerate behind women's apparel brands Ann Taylor, Lane Bryant and Catherines, filed for bankruptcy Thursday and said it would close at least 877, or nearly a third, of its 2,800 stores after years of declining sales and ballooning debt.

The company, founded as Dressbarn in 1962, is one of the nation's largest sellers of women's clothing. But in recent years, its lineups of no-frills workwear and other basics have lost ground to a growing crop of competitors, including off-price retailers like TJ Maxx and newcomers like Everlane.

Ascena is closing all 264 Catherines stores, and selling the plus-size clothing brand and its website to an Australian company, City Chic Collective. It also will shutter more than 600 Justice stores, which cater to girls and preteens, and some Ann Taylor, Loft, Lane Bryant and Lou & Grey shops.

The Mahwah, N.J.-based retailer also is pulling out of Canada, Puerto Rico and Mexico as it tries to whittle down about $1 billion in debt.

It's the latest retail casualty of the pandemic, following Brooks Brothers, J.C. Penney, J. Crew and Neiman Marcus and several others into bankruptcy court. Ascena temporarily shuttered all of its stores and furloughed more than 90% of its employees in mid-March as stay-at-home orders took effect. To stay afloat, it borrowed $230 million, canceled merchandise orders and stopped paying rent.

The planned closures also represent another blow for U.S. shopping malls, which already were struggling to attract shoppers and tenants before the pandemic ushered in a new wave of bankruptcies and closures.

The Chapter 11 filing comes a few weeks after the company said it would give top executives as much as $5.5 million in retention pay and performance bonuses.

The company got its start in the early 1960s when Roslyn Jaffe opened the first Dressbarn to sell ready-to-wear business dresses and separates as women were entering the workforce in droves.

In 2009, it began a period of rapid expansion, snapping up tween chain Justice, then Lane Bryant, Catherines, and Ann Inc., the parent company of Ann Taylor, Loft and Lou & Grey. But analysts say the buying spree was shortsighted and ill-timed.

"They put all of their eggs in one basket, which was high-traffic malls with a diminishing customer base," said Bob Phibbs, chief executive of the consulting firm the Retail Doctor. "It was a spectacularly bad decision to focus only on women's apparel at the same time that younger women were flocking to fast-fashion brands like H&M and Zara."

Ascena permanently closed all 650 Dressbarn stores in December to cut costs. But the pandemic brought in new difficulties, leading to double-digit drops in apparel sales. Analysts say chains that cater primarily to office workers - especially those like J. Crew and Ann Taylor, which sell relatively affordable pieces - are particularly vulnerable to the long-term effects of store closures and work-from-home orders.

In its bankruptcy filing, Ascena said it owes between $10 billion and $50 billion to more than 100,000 creditors. Its largest debts are related to rent: Ascena owes $31.7 million to mall operator Simon Property Group, $16.6 million to Brookfield Properties, $8.8 million to Boston Properties and $7.2 million to Tanger Properties.

The company began gradually reopening stores in May, but says customers have been slow to return. From March to May, quarterly revenue fell 45% from a year earlier.

Covid-19 "has significantly disrupted our business," Carrie Teffner, Ascena's interim executive chair, said in May. "Despite aggressive actions to preserve liquidity, the pandemic has significantly reduced our earnings and cash flow, resulting in increased levels of debt and deferred liabilities."

The company had $5.5 billion in sales in fiscal year 2019, versus nearly $7 billion in 2016.

Ascena shares plunged more than 26% after the filing, and are down more than 90% year to date.
On pages 46-47 of the federal criminal complaint unsealed yesterday, accusing Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four others of a multi-pronged racketeering conspiracy behind Ohios $1 billion bailout of two FirstEnergy Corp.-built nuclear plants, one of the alleged co-conspirators explains the reason for a hastily called meeting.

Householder, he texted May 31, 2019, is on a rampage and was pissed about a newspaper article.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A 25-year-old man died after being shot inside a deli on Richmond Terrace in Mariners Harbor and the suspect remains at large, police said.

Kaseem Scott, of Mariners Harbor, died at Richmond University Medical Center in West Brighton, according to a statement from the NYPD.

He was the second man shot to death on Staten Island in a span of 10 hours Wednesday.

Police responded around 9:30 p.m. to a 911 call of a male shot inside of Holland Deli at 3400 Richmond Terrace, according to the police statement. Officers found Scott suffering from a gunshot wound to the chest.

No arrests have been made and the investigation continues, according to the police statement.

Caution tape remains around the Holland Deli on Richmond Terrace on Thursday, July 23, 2020, a day after Kaseem Scott, 25, was fatally shot at that store. (Staten Island Advance/Jan Somma-Hammel)

Scott was taken to the hospital in critical condition.

Both the deli and part of Holland Avenue, next to the store, were roped off during the police response on Wednesday night.

Many officers were seen outside the deli, surveying the area with flashlights. They also appeared to be questioning deli staff.

2 SHOOTINGS IN 10 HOURS

About 10 hours earlier, Barry Moultrie, 35, was fatally shot on a West Brighton street corner.

Moultrie was gunned down at 11:25 a.m. on the corner of Castleton Avenue and Barker Street, in West Brighton, police told the Advance/SILive.com. Moultrie was found on scene with a gunshot wound to his torso.

After being transported to Richmond University Medical Center, Moultrie succumbed to his injuries.

Following the shooting of Moultrie, a suspect  described by police as a Black male wearing white shorts and a red shirt  fled the scene in an unknown direction in a green, four-door Acura with Pennsylvania license plates, an NYPD spokesman said.

Moultrie was a father of five who made sure, no matter what, his kids were taken care of, according to his sister, Jasmin Lawton.

The incidents mark the continuation of an alarming trend of gun violence on Staten Island and the rest of the city this year.

Through July 19, there have been 21 shooting incidents in the borough, according to the most recent NYPD CompStat data. That is up from 10 during the same time last year, a jump of 110%.

The most recent shooting before Wednesday occurred on July 19, when an 18-year-old man was shot in the groin in Castleton Corners. He was transported to the hospital in stable condition.
Showcasing the online campaigning tactics that are likely to dominate the final months of the 2020 presidential race, former Vice President Joe Biden and his old boss, former President Barack Obama teamed up for a socially distant conversation to discuss the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the steps they believe need to be taken to right the American economy and the nationwide push for racial justice in the wake of the death of George Floyd.

The in-person discussion, filmed last week at the Obama Foundations office in Washington, D.C. features both Obama and Biden clad in black face masks as they arrive for the conversation, as the two discuss their incredulity at President Donald Trump's handling of coronavirus.

"Can you imagine standing up when you were president and saying, It's not my responsibility. I take no responsibility.' Literally. Literally," Biden said.

"Those words didn't come out of our mouths when we were in office," Obama said as the shot of him exiting his car is seen.

"No. I don't understand his inability to get a sense of what people are going through," Biden said. "He can't relate in any way."

MORE: Pandemic surge damages Trump, boosting Biden's White House bid: POLL

Without mentioning him by name, President Obama took aim at his successors handling of the current coronavirus pandemic while expressing his optimism that his former vice president could help the country recover if elected.

I have confidence that you're going to actually listen to the experts. And you're going to pay attention to the science, and you're not going to quit on trying to actually bend down the curve of disease and transmission rates, Obama told Biden.

The pair also discussed their administrations signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), lamenting the presidents attempts to do away with the law during the coronavirus pandemic, and defending their work as a starting point for health care coverage in the United States.

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It's like a starter house. It's the first house you get and it's not the end of the process it's the beginning of the process, Obama said of the ACA.

Remember what I used to say? It's like Social Security when it's first passed, Biden added, noting the expansion of the program over time.

MORE: Ocasio-Cortez responds to Republican congressman in fiery floor speech

The images are the first of the two men appearing together in person during the 2020 campaign, and come months after Obama formally endorsed Biden in April.

The two men also discussed the current protests and push for racial equality and the Black Lives Matter movement, which both men agreed is largely fueled by a younger generation no longer willing to accept the status quo.

What we have seen is this extraordinary mobilization across the country of people of every walk of life, every race, every creed who say we're past time to do something about this we understand we're not going to fix it all in one day. But we're going to take this seriously and we're going to start now, Obama said, noting that both his daughters and Bidens granddaughters have participated in the recent push for change.

Policy is important, laws are important, budgets are important, but you know what's important also is what kind of values are you communicating? Obama added, expressing his confidence that Bidens agenda will address all of the root causes of systemic racism, not just those reflected in the way America polices its citizens.

PHOTO: NEW CASTLE, DE - JULY 21: Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks about economic recovery during a campaign event at Colonial Early Education Program at the Colwyck Center on July 21, 2020 in New Castle, Delaware. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Biden, as he has throughout the entirety of his presidential bid, decried President Trump as a leader disinterested in addressing racial inequality, and who instead chooses to divide Americans to benefit his political standing.

This guy has generated a sense out there that people are waking up to it. He ran by deliberately dividing people from the moment he came down that escalator. And I think people are now going, I don't want my kid growing up that way, Biden said of his Republican rival.

Obama consistently praised Biden as an effective vice president that is able to relate to the struggles facing American families.

If you can sit down with a family, and see your own family and the struggles that you've gone through, parents went through or your kids are going through. If you can connect those struggles to somebody else's struggles, then you're going to work hard for it. And that's always what's motivated you to get into public service, Obama told Biden.

The former president pledged to support Bidens candidacy and added that he looks forward to helping out the man he worked so closely with for eight years.

I'm looking forward to working with you to do whatever I can to help. And I have confidence in your commitment to making sure that we seize this moment that we have right now, Obama told Biden.

Thank you, and I have faith in the American people, Biden responded.

The Biden campaign also used the video as a chance to beef up voter files, asking those interested in the video to text the campaign to be notified when the video goes live.

On Twitter alone, the two reached nearly 128 million followers when sharing the conversation, with nearly 121 million of those belonging to Obama. According to the Bidens campaigns Digital Director Rob Flaherty, a video previewing the conversation received more than 10 million views across social media platforms Wednesday.

MORE: Biden promises 3 million new jobs in caregiving, early education in 3rd pillar of his economic plan

While Obama remained on the sidelines during the Democratic primary race, he has reemerged to offer his support to the man who served alongside him for eight years. Most recently, the two paired up for a grassroots fundraiser in late June that featured a lengthy and wide-ranging conversation.

The event was also Bidens most successful money event to date, raising more than $11 million.

The new video featuring their chat also comes as Obama is set to participate in his second fundraiser on behalf of the Biden campaign next week.

According to an invitation to the event, obtained by ABC News, Obama will participate in a virtual conversation next Tuesday to raise money for Bidens campaign, which has begun to steadily close the money gap with Trumps reelection juggernaut.

MORE: To honor John Lewis' legacy, need to pass voting rights act: Rep. Karen Bass:

An aide to the former president said that while the bulk of Obamas campaigning, both on the presidential level and down the ballot, is expected to happen after Labor Day, the video with Biden was a way to take advantage of the chemistry between the two men in a way that still modeled best behaviors to stop the spread of COVID-19, which continues to rage in many state across the country.

[The] video is an example of our effort to bring together two beloved and respected leaders to discuss the pressing issues of our time and how Joe Biden will tackle them. We wanted to find a way to tap into the chemistry between the two principals but consistent with all social distancing protocols in order to model best practices, Eric Schultz, a senior advisor to President Obama, told ABC News.

As Biden continues to roll out his economic agenda, he has kept the coronavirus, and what he argues is the presidents management of the crisis, at the heart of his argument for why Trump does not deserve a second term.

In a speech in New Castle, Delaware, on Tuesday, Biden assailed Trumps handling of the coronavirus crisis, casting him as a leader indifferent to the ongoing struggles the virus presents to the public health and American economy.

For all [Trumps] bluster about his expertise on the economy, he's unable to explain how he'll actually help the working families hit the hardest, Biden said. He's quit on you and hes quit on this country.

ABC News' Averi Harper and Beatrice Peterson contributed to this report.

Biden, Obama reunite for socially distanced conversation, slam Trumps handling of COVID-19 crisis originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
New Delhi: The wait will be over on Friday as Sushant Singh Rajput's much-anticipated film 'Dil Bechara' releases on July 24. His fans are waiting for the film will bated breath and social media, too, is abuzz with posts on #DilBechara. It will be his last film. Sushant died by suicide on June 14. After which, the makers of 'Dil Bechara' decided to stream it online as a tribute to Sushant.

'Dil Bechara' was shot two years ago, but the film's release date was postponed several times. It was always Sushant's much-awaited film and after his sudden demise, there's also an emotional connect with it.

The trailer of the film released on July 6 to a fabulous response and shattered the records in terms of views received of several Bollywood and Hollywood blockbusters.

'Dil Bechara' has been the top trend since days now. Ahead of its release, let's know a little more about the film:

It stars debutante Sanjana Sanghi opposite the Sushant. The film narrates the love story of Kizie (Sanjana), a cancer patient, and Manny (Sushant), and how the duo explores life together.

The film has been shot in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, and in Paris. It went on floors in 2018.

'Dil Bechara', helmed by casting director Mukesh Chhabra, is the official remake of the 2014 Hollywood romantic drama 'The Fault In Our Stars', based on John Green's popular novel of the same name. The music of the film has been composed by AR Rahman.

The film was initially titled 'Kizie Or Manny', but was later named 'Dil Bechara'.

Besides, Sushant and Sanjana, 'Dil Bechara' also stars Saif Ali Khan and Swastika Mukherjee in pivotal roles.

'Dil Bechara' streams on Disney+ Hotstar from July 24. It will be available for subscribers and non-subscribers too. The film will have a world premiere on Disney+ Hotstar at 7.30 pm.
New Yorks mayor, Bill de Blasio, has pledged to take Trump to court if he sends federal officers into the Big Apple. In Philadelphia, the district attorney, Larry Krasner, has also vowed to push back. My dad volunteered and served in World War II to fight fascism, like most of my uncles, so we would not have an American president brutalizing and kidnapping Americans for exercising their constitutional rights and trying to make America a better place, which is what patriots do, Krasner said in a statement this week. Anyone, including federal law enforcement, who unlawfully assaults and kidnaps people will face criminal charges from my office.

The deployment of unnamed special secret agents onto our streets to detain people without cause and to effectively take away their civil rights and civil liberties without due process  that is not going to happen in Chicago, Lightfoot said.

Lori Lightfoot, Chicagos Democratic mayor, had vowed to fight efforts to install federal agents in the city. But she walked that back on Tuesday after a conversation with John Lausch Jr., a U.S. attorney and a former colleague of hers, who assured her that the agents would cooperate with the city police.

This seems to stretch the administrations previously stated justifications for deploying federal officers into cities. Those rested on the executive order that Trump signed last month to protect monuments and statues, and on the D.H.S.s original charter, which says that troops can be used to protect public property.

Trump and William Barr, the U.S. attorney general, told reporters that the administration would be sending officers to Chicago not to combat protesters but to help fight a recent rise in violent crime there. Were going to continue to confront mob violence, Barr said. But, the operations we are discussing today are very different  they are classic crime fighting. The administration has also ordered agents into Kansas City, Mo., with a similar mission.

Federal officers under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security have been clashing with protesters in Portland, Ore., since last week, and yesterday the states attorney general argued in court for a restraining order to expel the federal agents from the city.

We will never defund the police, Trump said, hammering at a message that has become central to his re-election campaign. We will hire more great police. We want to make law enforcement stronger, not weaker. What cities are doing is absolute insanity.

President Trump announced yesterday that he would send hundreds more federal agents to Chicago and other American cities, significantly expanding the scope of a program that has been criticized by Democrats as borderline authoritarian.

The House of Representatives, which is led by Democrats, voted yesterday to remove statues of Confederate leaders and other white supremacists from the Capitol building. The bill calls for the replacement of a bust of Roger B. Taney  who as chief justice of the Supreme Court delivered the majority opinion in the Dred Scott case in 1857, declaring that Black people could not be considered U.S. citizens  with a likeness of Thurgood Marshall, the courts first Black justice. It would also remove statues of four white supremacists who served in high government positions in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and would bar from the Capitol all statues of individuals who voluntarily served the Confederacy.

The bipartisan vote, 305 to 113, could end up being moot: Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, has criticized efforts to airbrush the Capitol as clearly a bridge too far, and seems unlikely to call it up for a vote. And even if the Senate passed it, Trump  who has made defending Confederate symbols part of his re-election campaign  would probably veto it.

Two polls published this week found the nation divided on whether Confederate monuments and statues should be banished from public places (neither asked specifically about the Capitol building). In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Tuesday, 51 percent of American voters said Confederate monuments on public property should be removed. In fall 2018, just 35 percent said they should be removed.

But when the question was asked slightly differently, in an ABC News/Washington Post poll also published Tuesday, 52 percent of Americans opposed removing Confederate statues from public places, while 43 percent supported the idea. The ABC/Post poll also found little support  just 25 percent  for removing statues of former presidents who had owned slaves.

How does Trump fit into the legacy of bigotry in the White House? According to some historically dubious remarks by Joe Biden yesterday, its simple: Trump, he said, is the first and only racist to hold the presidency. In a virtual town hall organized by the Service Employees International Union, Biden called Trump a racist in response to a question from a health care worker who said she was concerned about Trumps referring to the coronavirus as the China virus.

The way he deals with people based on the color of their skin, their national origin, where theyre from, is absolutely sickening, Biden said. Weve had racists, and they existed and they tried to get elected president. Hes the first one that has.

Biden might do well to look into the story of Andrew Johnson, who once wrote that everyone would, and must admit, that the white race was superior to the Black, or Woodrow Wilson, who put in place strict segregationist policies in federal offices, or Ronald Reagan, who was captured on a recording privately calling Black people monkeys. (The man he was speaking to, Richard Nixon, was president at the time. He laughed in response.) Then, of course, there were those who actually owned slaves.

The administration yesterday announced that it was putting a down payment on a coronavirus vaccine. It signed a nearly $2 billion contract with Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant, and a German biotechnology company, which are working together to develop a vaccine.

The contract guarantees that the government will have access to 600 million doses of the vaccine, with at least 100 million available by December. The $1.95 billion contract covers the cost of the first batch; the other 500 million doses would need to be paid for in the future. The government does not pay anything until the drug is approved by the Food and Drug Administration and the first 100 million doses are delivered.
Normal shopping service has resumed in the capital. Or the new normal, at least.

But theres more to shopping in London than joining the queue for Primark. The pandemic has hit our homegrown independent shopkeepers the hardest  and theres a wealth of truly brilliant boutiques right on your doorstep.

Of course, the key lies in knowing where to point your feet. Having called the capital my home for the past 12 years  and turned a love of shopping into a career for the past nine of those on the fashion desk of this newspaper  its fair to say that my own knowledge of the best tourist-dodging shopping streets is comprehensive. So much so that Ive written a book about it.

In Shop London, my fool-proof guide to London-based retail therapy, no quiet back street was left untrawled in the search for the best, least-known and most unique boutiques.

If you want to while away an afternoon in a new part of town theres a section dedicated to 12 of the finest, littlest high streets  from the eclecticism of Peckhams Bellenden Road to the ridiculously tasteful indies of Claptons Chatsworth Road.

Or, if theres something specific youre in the market for, the books second half lists the choice haunts from a host of categories for which London is renowned, from bookshops to concept stores, kidswear to interiors. There are more than 200 outposts to choose from, but these are 25 of my top picks to get you out of the e-stores and out your front door. Comfy shoes essential.

69b Boutique

Situated amid the hustle and bustle of Broadway Market, this beautiful boutique shows just how far green has come since the days of sludgy hemp. Owner Merryn Leslie  a talented stylist and former fashion editor at i-D Magazine  brings together some of the best labels with good intentions including Riyka, Beaumont Organic and East London label Here Today Here Tomorrow.

Since reopening, you can pop in - NB only two people are allowed in-store at one time - or book a personal shopping appointment on the website and have the place to yourself for an hour. Hand sanitiser and face masks will be provided. Fittings rooms are open, but those who opt to try on at home have two days to return any unwanted items.

69B Broadway Market, E8, 020 7249 9655

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Aida

This Shoreditch boutique is brilliant for discovering chic and affordable indie labels, from the local (E8 Miista, Elia B) to the far-flung (Minimum, Des Petit Hauts). Theres a wealth of menswear too - think Excelsior kicks and Rains anoraks  as well as homeware including Earl of East candles and Hoxton Mini Press books. The cute in-store cafe is also reopen for takeaway coffees. Open Thursday to Sunday only.

133 Shoreditch High Street, E1, 020 7739 2811

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Alex Eagle

Former fashion journalist turned design golden girl Alex Eagle is as sharp eyed as her name suggests and her Lexington Street address is in the little black book of every arbiter of taste in London. Cottage industry design collaborations and price on request art works sit comfortably with Augustinus Bader skincare, Anissa Kermiche earrings and Eagles own line of silk separates and informal evening wear. Bespoke tailoring and private appointments are also available on request.

6-10 Lexington Street, W1, 020 7589 0588

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Article

The wealth of understated and well-priced streetwear labels is just one of the reasons why this menswear store continues to pull in a steady flow of shoppers. The rest is down to its artfully cool construction. Nested under a railway arch, Articles second branch (the first is on Dalstons Kingsland Road), ticks every box in the hip boutique handbook. The curved, corrugated metal roof and Scandi-minimalist strip lighting gives Brixtons creative industry types a shop to admire, while the cycle-friendly Sandqvist backpacks and cheap Dickies chinos help to ensure they reach the till. The star of the show is Articles hidden shoe room, which features a host of highly Instagrammable features, from the distinctive wood sculpture to the colour-coordinated selection of kicks. Now reopen Tuesday - Saturday for the new hours of 11am - 6pm.

61 Atlantic Road, SW9, 020 7274 5714

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Beggars Run

Having outgrown its original showroom above Bethnal Greens Approach Tavern pub, modern tailoring outfitters Beggars Run have relocated to roomier premises befitting their growing reputation in nearby Old Street. While you wont be able to pick up a pint with your made-to-measure suit, its moleskin bombers and relaxed take on formal will ensure happy customers. As always, the showroom remains a by-appointment-only operation and gloves and masks will be worn for every fitting, while rooms will be sanitised and garments steamed between appointments.

33A Charlotte Road, EC2, 020 8133 3466

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Couverture & The Garbstore

Housed in a converted period townhouse, this cult concept store makes you feel like youre wandering around an (exceptionally tasteful) living room. Set across three floors, this Notting Hill haven is actually two shops sandwiched together. The ground and galleried first floors make up Couverture and are dedicated to womenswear from strictly independent labels plus jewellery, accessories, kidswear and the odd piece of furniture. Meanwhile the basement is home to menswear brand Garbstore. Here, its own vintage-inspired buys for boys are showcased alongside a good selection of cult international brands, many of which are exclusive to the UK.

Now re-open 7 days a week, the shop is offering one-to-one personalised shopping experiences after hours each evening (between 5-7pm), alongside virtual shopping services via FaceTime throughout the day, both of which can be booked online.

188 Kensington Park Road, W11, 020 7229 2178

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The Cross

One of the original  and still one of the best  independent lifestyle boutiques in London, this Holland Park gem boasts well-selected womenswear, eclectic homeware and great gifts. But this shop is as much about West Londons smallest style set as it is their mums, with its hotchpotch of toy-box must-haves and mini-me pompom bags and Breton tops.

141 Portland Road, W11, 020 7727 6760

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D.A.Y Boutique

The passion project of three sisters Disha, Apee and Yukti  hence the name D.A.Y  who live locally and whose parents were shopkeepers for over 40 years, this pocket-sized shop in Peckham specialises in Scandi-chic labels and independent designers from the community of South East London creatives. Here youll find womens- and menswear alongside gift ideas and little treats for your home, plus a Little DAY section of cool and unusual kidswear from the likes of Our Little Tribe and Small Stories. The website also offers Shop the Look capsules of chic ready-made outfits. The post-lockdown lowdown includes a limit of two customers in store, while unwanted items are to be left in the fitting room after trying on for steam cleaning before being returned to the shop floor. The shop has also introduced private shopping sessions  book in advance for a slot lasting between 15 minutes to 1 hour and youll have the place to yourself.

143 Bellenden Road, SE15, 077 1949 7627

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Folk

Since its conception in 2001 by Scotsman Cathal McAteer, this menswear brand has quietly established itself as a purveyor of unpretentious style. The airy, whitewashed shop displays its signature workmans jackets and chunky ribbed knits in suitably industrial surroundings. The street is also home to the brands only dedicated womens store at number 53.

The labels shop in Shoreditch is also reopen for business, but boutiques in Kings Cross, Golborne Road and Soho remain closed for now.

49 Lambs Conduit Street, WC1, 020 7404 6458

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The Goodhood Store

East London brand Goodhood reinvents the department store set-up for the Shoreditch crowd. Everything it stocks  from sweatshirts to tasteful smellies and stationery to stylish slippers  showcases its knack for the niche.

The shop is still shut for the time being, but plans are in place to open at the end of July. Watch this space.

151 Curtain Road, EC2A, 020 7729 3600

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Hub

Founded by sisters Georgie and Lou, Hub has been dressing Sokeys cafe-hopping residents for over 15 years. Threads by cult Danish label Ganni and homegrown favourite LF Markey are always in good supply, as is the shops own line Allsea.

49 Stoke Newington Church Street, N1, 020 72544494

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Luna & Curious

This indie shop on Shoreditchs cool Calvert Avenue was opened in 2006 by a collective of young artisans  ceramicists Polly George and Kaoru Parry and jeweller Rheanna Lingham. Their own stock of handmade mugs and acetate earrings takes pride of place in this miniature department store, alongside a melting pot of fresh homegrown talent. Architectural hoops from Dalston-based minimalist jeweller Jenny Sweetnam, knits from family-run Welsh label Mabli and a plethora of old school toys and modern kids books are just some of the reasons why this is a gift hunters dream. There are free masks and hand sanitizer on arrival and new opening hours span 11am  4pm Friday  Sunday, though you can still buy online and collect from the store on Mondays and Thursdays, 12  4pm.

24-26 Calvert Avenue, E2, 020 3222 0034

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Mouki Mou

Conceived by fashion showroom agent Maria Lemos, this bijou boutique is a celebration of understated luxury. Discover niche jewellers on the ground floor or descend the spiral staircase into a warren of tiny, tiled rooms that contain a concentration of under-the radar labels including draped dresses by Dosa and denim by 45rpm.

29 Chiltern Street, W1, 020 7224 4010

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The Old Cinema

Housed in a former Edwardian picture house, The Old Cinema is billed as Londons only antique, vintage and retro department store and is home to a collective of dealers. Attracting a high class of international interior scourers, the variety of treasures in this family-run emporium is ever-changing and particularly well-versed in kitting out home studies thanks to its wealth of mid-century desks. They also boast a bespoke furniture workshop and an antique restoration service.

160 Chiswick High Road, W4, 020 8995 4166

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Percival

Renowned for its understated aesthetic and dedication to British manufacturing, Hackneys Percival is the work of a team of five who design, produce and shoot everything from their London studio. Collections are small and perfectly formed  think signature embroidered sweatshirts and hip-but-wearable houndstooth overshirts  and are sold direct to customers to keep middle man costs down. More of a showroom than a shop, visits to the HQ must be booked in advance in slots of 30 minutes via its website.

43 Berwick Street, W1, 020 7734 4533

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Egg Shop

This tiny yet enormously influential boutique, run by its famously fastidious founder Maureen Doherty, is one of the capitals most highly rated cult shops among those in the know. Housed in a former dairy, Egg still retains its original blue and white tiles, wooden barn doors and sense of honest authenticity. Its USP is simple and sophisticated clothing with an arty schew, which is designed to be worn and loved forever  a sentiment that is reflected in the steep price tags. Comfort, quality and timelessness are key, with brands such as Sophie DHoore, Dosa and Casey represented. While nowadays Egg also has an ecommerce site, this is a shop you have to visit in person to appreciate fully. Frequent trips are recommended as Doherty routinely curates her wares as if it were a gallery.

For now, Egg is open for one on one appointments only, but is also offering digital appointments for those unable to travel. Call or email to arrange.

36 Kinnerton Street, SW1X, 020 7235 9315

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Persephone Books

The next time you want to brush up on your knowledge of little-known twentieth-century female writers, head straight for Persephone Books. Its picture-postcard storefront conceals a wealth of forgotten works by women, rebound in chic, signature grey covers, decorated with beautiful endpapers and ready to enjoy the cult following they deserve.

59 Lambs Conduit Street, WC1, 020 7242 9292

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Present & Correct

Grown-up lovers of old school stationery will find much to line their pencil cases with at Present & Correct. This meticulously organised shop in Angel, founded by graphic designers Neal Whittington and Mark Smith in 2012, specialises in sourcing iconic and retro office supplies from Europe - some of them highly practical, others just aesthetically pleasing. Hermes baby typewriters site side-by-side with calligraphy sets, old-fashioned airmail envelopes and vintage erasers, while the ingenious keyboard brush from Berlin is ideal for sweeping out even the most deeply embedded Hula Hoop crumbs. If you need any further encouragement to overhaul your workspace, the range of Bakelite desk tidies, big brass scissors and 1970s click calendars are also guaranteed to induce colleague envy.

Open 12  6.30pm, Tuesday  Saturday.

23 Arlington Way, EC1, 020 7278 2460

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Roullier White

The back room in this unassuming shop in East Dulwich is home to the biggest selection of rare and unusual perfumes in the UK  none of which you will recognise, but all of which have the potential to become your new signature scent. The front showroom also stocks the full range of Mrs Whites natural products: a cult line of old-school cleaning products and body lotions inspired by the owners great grandmothers sworn-by recipes.

125 Lordship Lane, SE22, 020 8693 5150

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The Third Estate

Best known for its selection of vegan leather shoes, this popular Camden boutique has an emphasis on cruelty-free and ethically-traded fabric and manufacture. The Third Estate also champions socially-conscious brands including sustainable denim label Mud Jeans and organic cotton shirts from Cologne-based brand Armed Angels.

27 Brecknock Road, N7, 020 3620 2361

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Trunk

Setting up shop in 2010, Trunks owner Mats Klingberg set a benchmark for one-stop menswear shopping. Its two-storey boutique at number 8 was the first to bring respected international brands such as Beams+, Aspesi and Montedoro to London, while its accessories-focussed Labs offshoot at number 34 supplies all the finishing touches.

8 Chiltern Street, W1, 020 7486 2357

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Wolf & Badger

Having started life as a small Notting Hill boutique in 2010 and later relocating to prestigious Dover Street, this ethical department store opened a huge new flagship in Kings Cross last year. With 12,000sq ft spread over three floors, the space is home to more than 600 independent brands from fashion to homeware and beauty, all with a strict no sweatshop, no fur, no animal testing and small production run only ethos. In essence, its an antidote to fast fashion. The in-store cafe is also reopen on the ground floor for takeaway coffees, grab-and-go sandwiches and picnic pre-orders, along with the top floor restaurant Hicce and courtyard terrace serving espresso martini on draft.

32 Dover Street, W1S, 020 3627 3191

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Botanique Workshop

Whether youre after a hand-tied bouquet of blooms or a botanical gift fresh off the workbench, owner Alice, florist Pip and, crucially, shop dogs Goose and Bertie, are on hand to help.

This pretty plant shop specialises in potted succulents and contemporary arrangements  they offer home delivery to most central London postcodes too  while intimate floristry workshops span flower crowns and wreath-making classes.

Botanique also stocks a meticulously curated edit of treasures from local producers, including Hackney-based kidswear label What Mother Made and Netil Markets dog-loving brand Fetch and Follow, while its own products are made during the day at the counter or in the studio downstairs. Add in its charming collection of handmade cards and youve got the perfect pre-party pitstop.

Social distancing measures are limited to three customers at a time and those who would prefer not to enter the shop can browse online for delivery or choose click and collect at checkout.

31 Exmouth Market, EC1

Triangle

Conceived by three friends  Tori, Mary and Matthew  with a shared love of good design, Triangle on Chatsworth Road stocks all the barometers of taste (think HAY stationery, Fig + Yarrow bath soaks and striped Breton tees from the hard-to-find Form & Thread) alongside a steady supply of great-quality mid-century vintage furniture. In essence, its the sort of shop you could snap up in its entirety.

Plus, the shop will continue to offer free local delivery too.

81 Chatsworth Road, E5

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Niddle Noddle

The most distinguishable feature of this beloved Crouch End kids boutique - namely, the big yellow slide in the corner - may be temporarily closed, the shop itself is up and running and stocked to the rafters with pocket-money playthings, nostalgic wind-up toys and lovable clothing labels you wont find anywhere else.

Currently, parents are also encouraged to shop alone and not as a family in a bid to help discourage unnecessary handling of products.

5 Topsfield Parade, N8

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Shop London: An Insiders Guide to Spending like a Local by Emma McCarthy is published by Frances Lincoln, 9.99. Buy it here.
A few in the group then seem to begin pacing, peering off the bridge and into the street, as one man dressed in black pants and a black T-shirt is seen pulling a gun and holding it in his right hand, its barrel to the ground.
Elsewhere, college leaders vowed to keep their workers on the job.

"We had over 500 freshmen for the third straight year, the three biggest classes we've had in the last 12 years," St. Bonaventure spokesman Tom Missel said. "In terms of cuts, we haven't really had any."

"We are currently positioned to enroll a good fall class," Niagara University spokesman Thomas Burns said. "However, we know that the pandemic has forced every industry to be prepared to change at a moments notice. We know that our forecasts for any part of the fall semester, including enrollment or the fiscal climate in which we will operate, will continue to evolve."

The University at Buffalo similarly has no plans for cutbacks, at least for now.

"We are still determining the full financial impact of the Covid-19 crisis on our campus. We are working with SUNY to advocate for federal stimulus relief packages for New York to avoid the possibility of severe shortfalls and future impacts on the university," a UB statement said.

We do not have plans for cuts to employees or programs, but we are monitoring our finances very closely," Hilbert College President Michael Brophy said.
British Airways pilots have been urged by the BALPA union to accept a pay cut deal to save jobs. Photo: Steve Parsons/PA via AP

A union is urging British Airways (BA) pilots to accept drastic cuts to pay and hours to limit mass job losses, under a deal agreed with airline chiefs.

Thousands of pilots will vote over the next week on a deal negotiated between the UKs flag carrier and the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) over the past three months.

International Airlines Group (IAG.L), which owns BA, came under heavy fire from unions and MPs after announcing plans to axe up to 1,255 pilots and up to 12,000 jobs in total earlier this year. The company warned in April it had run out of other ways to save cash as the pandemic has hammered its revenue.

The deal could see compulsory pilot job losses limited to around 270 staff, according to the union.

BALPAs general secretary Brian Strutton said forced redundancies were a matter of huge regret, but said the union had negotiated the best package possible.

READ MORE: UK airports predict 4bn in lost revenue this year

Pilots are being urged to accept 20% pay cuts, which will eventually drop to 8% over the next two years and then towards current levels over the longer term. The package would also see voluntary redundancies, part-time working, and external secondments to limit costs.

Around 300 pilots would be placed in a holding pool on reduced pay, ready to return to flying as demand picks up, BALPA said in a statement late on Wednesday.

The union said the measures would avoid any controversial fire and rehire measures for pilots, but acknowledged BA had not accepted all of its recommendations to prevent any job losses. Given BA's intransigence we have put together the best package we can to save as many jobs as possible, said Strutton.

IAGs chief financial officer Stephen Gunning said on Thursday the company welcomed the unions plans for a consultative ballot over the deal reached with the ariline. This is in response to the COVID-19 crisis affecting the aviation industry, he said. A further company statement will be released after the ballot closes.

Story continues

The pandemic has taken a heavy toll on BA and the rest of the aviation industry. The company announced last week it would retire its entire fleet of 747 jumbo jets earlier than planned.

The announcement of 12,000 potential job cuts came after its worst first-quarter losses since the 1980s. It sparked a backlash from unions and MPs across parties.

Conservative MP James Sunderland said in a Commons debate last month that BA had behaved disgracefully after taking taxpayers cash under the furlough scheme, designed to protect jobs. Another Conservative, Jerome Mayhew claimed BA had used the furlough scheme as a convenient funding scheme for a long-planned corporate restructuring.

READ MORE: Tory MPs revolt over BA job losses

The storm even saw transport minister Kelly Tolhurst warn the furlough scheme was not designed to support firms who swiftly handed staff redundancy notices.

But IAG saw passenger numbers and revenue plummet as global air travel collapsed after the pandemic hit earlier this year. BA is gradually increasing flights to short-haul destinations but does not expect passenger demand to return to 2019 levels until 2023.

BAs CEO Alex Cruz laid bare the companys troubles in a blogpost when the job cuts were confirmed. He paid tribute to staff, but wrote: There is no government bailout standing by for BA and we cannot expect the taxpayer to offset salaries indefinitely. Any money we borrow now will only be short-term and will not address the longer-term challenges we will face.

The government has faced criticism for not offering aviation more support. Transport secretary Grant Shapps would not be drawn on potential suspension of air passenger duty on Sky News on Thursday.
A driver was hospitalized after his 18-wheeler crashed and caught fire on a Northwest Side highway on Thursday morning.

Around 1 a.m., officers driving on Loop 1604 near Shaenfield Road saw the fully engulfed 18-wheeler in the median of the highway.
On the latest episode of 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After? Angela Deem and Michael Ilesanmi are together again in Nigeria. Michael takes Angela to meet a friend of his and some other people hes acquainted with. It leads to a huge argument, but before that, the couple talks in the car ride over to their destination, and Angela reveals she will not be moving to Nigeria.

Michael and Angela head out to meet up with some people

Angela Deem and Michael Ilesanmi | deemangela via Instagram

Michael wants Angela to meet Dawa, his friend, and a few of Dawas friends, who happen to be women. However, Angela isnt aware of that just yet, and they drive over to meet up with them. The people they are going to meet have lived in America before, and what they revealed to Michael is making him nervous about the experience to come.

Michael is hoping the conversation with these people will convince Angela to live with him in Nigeria while they wait for his K-1 visa to be approved. Michael wants Angela to hear about life in Nigeria as well. Angela asks why she would care to hear from people who have lived in the United States, when she lives there herself.

Why Angela Deem says shes not moving to Nigeria

RELATED: 90 Day Fiance: Angela Deem Doesnt Hold Back When It Comes to Her Thoughts on the Bed in Her New Apartment in Nigeria

Michael tells Angela that since these people have lived in both places, maybe they can talk to Angela about staying in Nigeria. She says she cant live there.

You know Im already upset that were thinking about doing a spousal visa, and then he wants to now bring up me living in Nigeria? Thats crazy, Angela tells the cameras. I cant just up and move. My family depends on me. My grandchildren depend on me. My mom depends on me. You know, not only that, Im an American woman. I cant give up hot water, electricity. Im spoiled. I cant live like that.

Angela tells Michael she loves America, and it doesnt sound like shell be moving to Nigeria for an extended stay like Michael is hoping for. He just wants her to stay while they wait for the visa, but it wont be happening.

The meeting doesnt go down well and ends in a fight between Angela and Michael

When they get to their destination, Angela sits down with three women. They are still waiting for Dawa, Michaels friend, but Angela leaves almost immediately.

Matter of fact, thank you all for coming. Im done, Angela says to everyone. Thank you. I appreciate yall. Angela shakes all of their hands and leaves. Thats a wrap Mike. Angela is more than angry, and she even tells Michael there wont be a wedding.

On the car ride back to the apartment, Michael tries to explain that the women are Dawas friends, but that doesnt seem to matter. You know the thing that makes me really p***** off at Michael about this, is he knows that if I dont want you following women on Instagram, how in the hell do you think Im going to feel about you sitting around a bar, drinking with three women? Angela says.

Angela and Michael are off to a rocky start in Nigeria. Well keep you updated on all the latest having to do with the memorable couple.
Syracuse, N.Y.  Ascena Retail Group, the parent company of Ann Taylor and several other retail brands, is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and preparing to close stores.

A number of locations in the Syracuse area and elsewhere in Upstate New York are on the list.

Ascena plans to reorganize and emerge from bankruptcy and its remaining stores will keep operating as the bankruptcy proceeds. Its brands include Ann Taylor, Loft, Lane Bryant, Justice and Lou & Grey.

The company plans to close a total of 1,600 locations across all its brands, reducing its store count to 1,200 from 2,800, according to USA Today.

The firm said the coronavirus pandemic disrupted its recent progress and sparked the need for the bankruptcy and store closings.

Ascena is closing all of its Catherines locations, including a store near the Home Depot in Clay and another in New Hartford.

The Justice brand is getting hit especially hard with 600 locations on the way out, according to USA Today.

The Justice stores in Upstate New York set to close include locations at Destiny USA in Syracuse, Crossgates Mall near Albany, Colonie Center Mall near Albany, Boulevard Mall near Buffalo, Walden Galleria near Buffalo, Clifton Park Center near Albany, Arnot Mall in Horseheads, Eastview Mall, Waterloo Premium Outlets, Salmon Run Mall in Watertown, Sangertown Square in New Hartford, Oakdale Mall in Johnson City, Fashion Outlets of Niagara Falls, a shopping plaza in Orchard Park, The Mall at Greece Ridge near Rochester and Wilton Mall in Saratoga Springs.

Lane Bryant stores in New Hartford and at the Eastview Mall in Victor will close, USA Today said.

The Ann Taylor Factory store at the Waterloo Premium Outlets will also shut down, according to USA Today.

The company is also pulling all stores in all brands from Canada, Puerto Rico and Mexico.

Ascena is just the latest in a long line of retailers to file for bankruptcy or announce major rounds of store closings this year. Others include Brooks Brothers, J. Crew, Neiman Marcus, J.C. Penney and the corporate parent of New York & Co.

The Ascena bankruptcy is one to watch.

Although theyre not on the initial list of store closings, Ann Taylor, Loft and Lane Bryant all have locations at Destiny. The mall has already lost several stores in the last few months, including anchor J.C. Penney and its Microsoft location.

Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 23:32:11|Editor: huaxia

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DAR ES SALAAM, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Tanzania's anti-graft watchdog on Thursday suspended nine of its senior officials attached to its estate management unit to pave way for investigation over claims of corruption, embezzlement and theft related to the construction of the body's seven buildings in seven districts.

John Mbungo, the director general of the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB), said the suspension of the nine officials followed doubts expressed by President John Magufuli shortly before he inaugurated one of PCCB's seven new buildings in Chamwino district in Dodoma region on Wednesday.

President Magufuli expressed doubt over the real cost of the Chamwino PCCB building which cost 148 million Tanzanian shillings (about 64,000 U.S. dollars), saying the building did not meet the value for money that was released by the government.

Mbungo told a news conference in the capital Dodoma that the suspended officials were PCCB's estate management unit's architects, quantity surveyors, engineers, construction managers and building engineers.

He said he had formed a four-member independent team from the Contractors Registration Board, the Tanzania Building Agency and Suma Construction Company Limited, a construction unit under the Tanzania People's Defense Forces, to conduct the investigations in one week beginning July 27.

Mbungo added that he had also disbanded PCCB's estate management unit to pave way for formation of a new unit. Enditem
London: The chairman of Britain's powerful Intelligence and Security Committee has demanded Prime Minister Boris Johnson's chief adviser Dominic Cummings be blocked from interfering with the scrutiny body.

Julian Lewis' request came as his predecessor, Dominic Grieve, who chaired the explosive inquiry into Russian influence campaigns in British politics, restated demands for an inquiry into Russian meddling, saying it was about protecting the future of British democracy, not re-fighting the Brexit referendum, as Johnson has claimed.

Boris Johnson's top aide, Dominic Cummings. Credit:PA

Grieve declined to speculate on why Johnson was refusing to commission the review recommended by the committee whose report was published only this week, 10 months after it was cleared for public release.

Labour has previously accused the government of withholding the report because of the questions it would raise about Cummings who spent time in Russia when he was in his 20s.
The Minister for Inner City and Zongo Development, Hon. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid says Ghanaians should clap for the Member of Parliament (MP) for Awutu Senya East Constituency Mavis Hawa Koomson for her show of boldness during the alleged attack by NDC thugs at the Step to Christ voter registration center.

Last Monday, thugs stormed the registration center which led to the setting ablaze motorbikes amid gunshot.

At the time of the incident, Hon. Mavis Hawa Koomson who was accompanied by his boys to the registration centre in her Constituency fired gunshots in self defence.

Despite the backlash, Hon. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid has jumped to her defense. According to the former Information Minister, Mavis Hawa Koomsons gunshots scared off the perpetrators to prevent the violence from escalating.

The events from yesterday are unfortunate. We must commend the minister for her boldness, and condemn the perpetrators of such dastardly acts. Had she not given those warning shots to scare off those NDC thugs, wed have woken up to a different rather bizarre sad story, Hon. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said in a write-up.

He added, I must commend her, for being bold, and ensuring her personal protection, shes proven to me women are up to the task not just intellectually, but can physically stand up to the thuggery and intimidation of unscrupulous men. She clearly understands her constituency, and knows of the evil capabilities of her opponents and wouldnt wait for anyone to harm her.

Read the full write-up below:

Mustapha Hameed writes...

Dear Speaker of Parliament,

For the nature of Hon Hawa Koomsons constituency, I think special security arrangement should be made for her protection during periods of electoral exercise such as this one. Her constituency is a very dangerous one, one of the dangerous hotspots notable for electoral mayhem and so many bold thugs. A constituency where violent hoodlums within and rented dangerous thugs are mobilized from without by the NDC to unleash violence on innocent NPP folks. Mahama has already given the strongest of indication, that when it comes to unleashing violence, they have no coequals.

The events from yesterday are unfortunate. We must commend the minister for her boldness, and condemn the perpetrators of such dastardly acts. Had she not given those warning shots to scare off those NDC thugs, wed have woken up to a different rather bizarre sad story.

I must commend her, for being bold, and ensuring her personal protection, shes proven to me women are up to the task not just intellectually, but can physically stand up to the thuggery and intimidation of unscrupulous men. She clearly understands her constituency, and knows of the evil capabilities of her opponents and wouldnt wait for anyone to harm her.

For these thugs to exhibit such brazen bravado, charge on a minister of state and member of parliament with the intent of harming her, that is some impudence! I am impressed, she fired those warning shots as a first step of personal protection. She took personal responsibility of her security.

Typical of us, a man once shot through his own car, lied to us that he was shot at, it was later found out to be lie, nobody asked him to resign. Theres a man who moves from one constituency to another causing and instigating madness and chaos during elections, hes seen and praised as bold. A woman in her constituency, protects herself against violent thugs, then all of us are up in arms calling for her sack. For what?

Reminds me of a quote from Chinua Achebe on our collective hypocrisy in politics:

"A man with an unusually big head is appointed as a minister along with other seemingly-incompetent men and everyone is quiet. Then, we all spring up in arms as soon a woman with an unusually big buttocks is appointed as a deputy minister"

The NDC boycotted the vigilante meetings, theyve never believed in it. They know exactly what they intend to do, the Ofosu Ampofo tapes are references enough.

Thank God for the life and safety of Hon. Hawa Koomson. Next time a hoodlum charges on her, she should visit upon him a minuscule of Ayawaso.

Thugs, hoodlums, and their shameless enablers!
New Jerseys pension fund returns were down 1.5% for the first 11 months of the fiscal year, the director of the Division of Investment said Wednesday.

The returns through May 31 show slight improvement from April, when they were down 2.5% and Investment Director Corey Amon cautioned were likely to go lower still once alternative investment returns were reported.

He similarly warned during a remote State Investment Council meeting Wednesday the fiscal year-to-date returns do not fully capture private market returns, and final year-end numbers will be released in September, after the state receives updated valuations through June 30.

Let me be clear on what this preliminary number is and what it is not, Amon said. The modest rebound in the fiscal year-to-date total return captures some of the March drawdown and was offset by the public equity portion of the portfolio that showed strong returns.

The pension fund had an estimated $74 billion in assets at the end of May, according to a Division of Investment report.

The public pension system assumes the fund will return 7.5 percent over the long run. The state uses the assumed rate of return to calculate how much money state and local governments will need to pay out benefits to nearly 800,000 active and retired workers.

The investment council on Wednesday approved changes to its asset allocation, increasing the pension funds stake in alternative investments from 31% to 35%. The share of private credit will increase from 6% to 8%, while investment grade credit drops from 10% to 8%, and private equity rises from 13% to 12%.

We decided to go a little less on the defense, Tom Bruno, a council member who represents the Public Employees Retirement System, told NJ Advance Media after the meeting. We dropped cash to 4% and divvied up some of that money into something else thats going to make money for us.

The council had scaled back its investment portfolio in recent years as it moved away from hedge funds.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com.
The fight for control of the company that publishes the Toronto Star is headed to court Thursday  but legal experts say they think it is unlikely that the courts will block the deal.

During the hearing, which is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m., Ontario Superior Court Justice Cory Gilmore is expected to rule on whether the takeover bid for Torstar by entrepreneurs Jordan Bitove and Paul Rivett can go ahead.

Legal experts say it is possible that Gilmore could block the $60-million deal, which on Tuesday was overwhelmingly approved by Torstar shareholders, but they doubted she would, unless new evidence is presented.

If it goes ahead, the acquisition is expected to close July 28.

Gilmore must look at whether the bid, the actions of Torstars board leading up to it, and the actions of a special committee that explored a sale since last October, were fair to all shareholders and in good faith, legal experts say.

The court will be interested in whether the proper procedures were followed by the board  The judge will also consider if the arrangement is fair and reasonable on the surface, said Ermanno Pascutto, executive director of investor rights group FAIR Canada and former executive director of the Ontario Securities Commission.

The fact that shareholders, including those who hadnt signed hard lock-ups guaranteeing their support for the NordStar bid, voted overwhelmingly in favour of it, makes it much less likely Gilmore would block the deal from closing, Pascutto said.

Approval by about 82 per cent of the disinterested shareholder in this case will carry a lot of weight with the judge, Pascutto said.

On Tuesday, 98.7 per cent of Torstar shareholders voted in favour of the 74-cent-per-share bid from NordStar. According to a Torstar press release, 99.7 per cent of the votes by class A shareholders were in favour of the deal, along with 98.1 per cent of class B shareholders. Even among shareholders who hadnt signed lock-ups, support was strong, with 81.9 per cent voting in favour.

Poonam Puri, a professor at York Universitys Osgoode Hall law school, said judges give considerable weight to shareholder approval for a simple reason.

Overwhelming approval by the majority of shareholders, and by the majority of the minority, is a key indicator of whether those affected by the plan consider it to be fair and reasonable, said Puri, adding that its not the only factor a judge would consider.

Among the other factors, said Puri, is whether the bid was recommended by an independent committee, whether competing offers were solicited, whether the board got independent legal advice, and a fairness opinion by an independent legal source.

Based on what Torstar has made public so far, and the high level of shareholder support, Puri said it seems likely that the NordStar takeover (called a plan of arrangement in legal terms) will be approved by the court.

It is more likely than not that a court will issue a final order approving the plan of arrangement. This may change, however, if a dissenting security holder is able to provide new evidence that contradicts Torstars public disclosure, Puri said.

The Bitove-Rivett bid  made through their company NordStar  is expected to be opposed in court by representatives of a second bid group, Canadian Modern Media Holdings.

Minority shareholders, including former Hamilton Spectator publisher Pat Collins, are also expected to oppose the NordStar bid. (Joe Groia, who will be representing some minority shareholders Thursday, did not respond to requests for comment from the Star.)

Theyll likely have a tough road ahead of them, Puri said.

It is rare for a court to block a proposed takeover on the basis of a breach of directors duties. Canadian courts give deference to reasonable decisions of public company directors who are independent, have acted in good faith, on an informed basis, in a diligent manner, Puri said.
One of Northern Ireland's best-known retailers has said he is in favour of compulsory face coverings for shoppers as the debate over masks intensified.

Health Minister Robin Swann has said he will make a proposal to the Executive to make face coverings mandatory in shops, while Chief Medical Officer Michael McBride has also indicated he is in favour of the measure.

But trade groups Retail NI and the Belfast Chamber have said they are opposed to making them compulsory, saying that it could threaten the already fragile recovery of the retail sector.

And they said they were against heaping further pressure on shop workers who could be burdened with enforcing the wearing of face coverings.

It is still not clear if police would take on the role of making sure such a rule was observed.

The Belfast Telegraph has asked the PSNI several times if it will comment on whether it will enforce the wearing of face coverings if they do become compulsory. However, it did not respond.

Pete Boyle, the managing director of jewellery chain Argento - which has around 20 stores in Northern Ireland - said he would approve of the step.

"I am in favour. Anything that makes us a safer place to live and work has to be welcomed," he said.

"We want to be able to trade but not at the cost of going backwards."

However, another traditional jeweller - who did not wish to be named - said they were concerned about the use of face coverings being exploited by shoplifters, who would then be harder to identify.

Peter Law, the owner of HF Law jewellers shop in Newcastle, Co Down, said he was undecided.

"I would say at the minute that around one in 20 people coming into the shop are wearing face coverings. They would tend to be older people or those with underlying health conditions."

He said he was concerned about the policing of a rule, adding: "At the moment, the way trade is, I can't see any shop owner refusing to let someone in the door because they're not wearing a face covering."

Eugene Diamond, a newsagent in Ballymena, Co Antrim, said: "I'm happy with face coverings if it makes for a safer environment for my customers and staff. I do encounter more people every day wearing them, especially older people."

But on Wednesday, he tweeted about a familiar customer who was virtually unrecognisable while wearing both a mask and a hat.

Tweeting a picture of the customer, Mr Diamond said: "If I hadn't already known this mask-wearing customer at 6am this morning, I would have been a little more startled.

"Mask-wearing will present new dangers for retailers so don't be surprised if your asked to remove your hat or hood... A new world for us all."

In a joint statement on Tuesday, retail leaders Glyn Roberts, chief executive of Retail NI, and Simon Hamilton, head of Belfast Chamber, said that the mandatory wearing of masks "could adversely affect trade and generate serious issues around enforcement".

Speaking on Wednesday, Mr Roberts said the pair were not challenging the science which recommends the wearing of face coverings but said the issue required a sensitive approach. "We're not under any illusion about challenges ahead, not least with the prospect of a second wave.

"But we're asking that the Executive approaches it slightly differently and decide upon the unresolved issues around enforcement.

"Nobody has yet come up with a suggestion about how it's policed."

He said he wished to take a stand on the matter because of the importance of protecting workers as well as representing the interests of business owners.

And he said the dilemma over face coverings was only an element of the challenges facing retail. "I have talked to a number of firms across different sectors and obviously there are a variety of views but one thing is clear, whatever Executive decides, they need a comprehensive plan for high street rejuvenation, including getting workers back into offices.

"Whether masks are voluntary or mandatory, we're at a very fragile stage of recovery and we do need to see a rejuvenation plan."

On Wednesday, Lotus Property, which owns shopping destinations The Junction in Co Antrim and the Boulevard in Co Down, said footfall had been strong since reopening in June. Chris Flynn, centre director at The Junction, added: "Since reopening, our priority has been the safety of our colleagues and our customers...

"We are currently giving customers the option to purchase facemasks for all the family, should they feel more comfortable wearing these while shopping.

"We will be led by the NI Executive, however, as to whether the introduction of face coverings is to become mandatory and will adhere to any policy changes accordingly."

Face coverings in shops become compulsory in England from tomorrow, and have been in Scotland since July 10.

The Executive is due to meet today to discuss the further easing of Covid-19 restrictions but the wearing of face coverings and masks is not expected to be on the agenda for discussion. But a shop owner in Dumfries in Scotland has said he has found trade has fallen since they were introduced.

Ian Edgar, of Edgars' Newsagents and Filled Rolls, said his turnover had fallen over the last 10 days. He said that anecdotally, other business were also feeling the effects. "Other shops are also saying that they're hearing from customers that they'd rather just shop online, and I'm also hearing that big shops have seen a big increase in Click and Collect as well as online shopping."
The very fine spell of weather experienced during the first two months of lockdown brought some respite to the public in a time of great uncertainty.

Good weather in Ireland, however, never lasts and it can change very quickly and often with dramatic and devastating effect.

That was the case for the Gethins family who live at Soxline, Dromahair.

Michael and Sharon and their two sons Adam (14) and Karl (11) experienced it first hand when four days of incessant rainfall following the lengthy dry spell saw floodwaters enter their house up to a depth of two feet.

Sharon explained what happened and said flooding on the site is unfortunately not a new occurrence.

In 2001, their dream came true when Leitrim County Council granted them planning permission to build their future ideal home. With hard work and commitment the couple moved into their dream home in 2002 however in the course of the next few years flooding on the site became a serious issue.

Sharon said that on a number of occasions the water levels in the River Bonet and its tributaries reached the doorstep of their home with the result that insurance companies would no longer cover flooding and they regarded the area as a flood plain.

From then on the Gethins family lived in fear of rising water levels and that their beautiful home would be destroyed.

On Monday, June 29 last their worst nightmare came true. After four days of incessant heavy rainfall the River Bonet burst its banks along with the tributaries with water entering through all the walls and the doors up to a depth of two feet.

The entire ground floor was submerged. The road leading to the house was impassable with only tractor access. Their good neighbours and kind community worked tirelessly for 13 hours with water pumps and brushes in an effort to keep the water at a manageable level.

When the water subsided the true devastation was laid bare - floors, walls, furniture, household equipment all destroyed. Apart from the personal loss and devastation suffered by the Gethins family the flood could have caused a loss of life.

Sharon said an ambulance, fire brigade and gardai were called to the scene of the flood nearby to rescue a lady in terrible distress who was stranded in her car. She was taken to Sligo Hospital.

Flooding like this has happened on a number of occasions in the past, most recently in 2015, and the community feels that this flooding issue needs to be addressed urgently in order to prevent a tragedy in the future.

The recent flooding has also had an impact on the lives of many neighbours in the area where driveways were blocked by rising water.

Sharon pointed out that in the event of an emergency the access to their homes would also be blocked.

Livestock and fodder were lost, she added, and many carcasses of drowned sheep could be seen in the surrounding area when the water subsided.

Sharon said that, sadly, the River Bonet has not been given the maintenance necessary to prevent an occurrence like this.

On walking the river bank from where the river enters Lough Gill, you will see the serious problems of overgrowth, tree trunks and most disgraceful of all, household appliances, dumped recklessly and obstructing the water flow, she said.

The Gethins family would like to acknowledge the visits and support of councillors, local authority staff, TDs, OPW officials and many others who are engaged in drawing up a plan of relief measures for the prevention of further flooding in the Dromahair Bonet catchment area and the local community is looking forward to urgent action in this regard.

In a time of great pain, hopelessness and distress, the family have been hugely supported by the kindness and generosity of the local community and their neighbours.

A Go Fund Me page was set up by the local community to help the Gethins family financially and has raised 20,000. Sharon would like to thank everyone in the local community and let them know how grateful they are for their kindness and continued support.

This generous community spirit will help them move forward to rebuild their family home as they offer their gratitude and appreciation to their good neighbours, community and friends for their work and their financial support.
(Natural News) Twitters Safety Team announced in a series of tweets on Tuesday they would be taking strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm.

(Article by Haley Kennington republished from Loomered.com)

Did they ban the hundreds of Antifa accounts that have used the platform on a daily basis to coordinate attacks in cities across the nation? No? Was it accounts that promote and support pedophilia on the platform they were going after? No? Was it terrorists who have used the platform to brazenly call for violence against American politicians and jihad in America? No?

No, Twitter Safety is concerned about QAnon activity. Thats right. Theyre concerned that all you puzzle-loving patriots who use the platform to expose corruption by Deep State actors and use your accounts to post memes. You guys are all dangerous to society, and Twitter simply cant have that kind of behavior on their site.

We will permanently suspend accounts Tweeting about these topics that we know are engaged in violations of our multi-account policy, coordinating abuse around individual victims, or are attempting to evade a previous suspension  something weve seen more of in recent weeks, read one tweet from the safety team.

Twitter Safety also made a point to let all users know that they have the power to review activity and can update our rules and enforcement approach again if necessary. This comes after Twitter updated their TOS in May to state they reserve the right to suspend or terminate your account for any or no reason.

While Twitter Safety pledges to protect the public conversation in the face of evolving threats, accounts like MAP (Minor Attracted People) Support Club and Pedophiles about Pedophilia remain on the site. Twitter sees no potential offline threat with allowing pedophiles to roam free on their site, to congregate and exchange information and God knows what else?

This account declares that Pedophilia is attraction, not abuse.

In fact, if you havent already stumbled upon adult porn while on the site, consider yourself lucky. Not only does Twitter allow pornography on the site, they also remain silent about child trafficking activity, child porn, and the distribution of videos and images that are exchanged on the platform. Tore Says goes into detail in the article below.

https://twitter.com/Tore_says/status/1285744690353123329

The timing of this QAnon account crackdown is interesting on a few fronts. Just last week several blue checkmark accounts claimed they were all hacked on the platform. Among the high-profile accounts was John Legends wife Christy Teigen who deleted over 60,000 tweets from her account, but not before Twitter users scooped up screenshots of some of her more bizarre and questionable tweets prior to the locking of her account.

You can find thousands of tweets like these floating around the internet all from Teigens account. Teigen posted a tweet before she locked her account that seemed like a weak attempt at putting distance between herself and the tweets that read, I have been hacked for 11 years. This is my first true tweetHello everyone. Did anything interesting happen. I love cats!

Teigen threatened to leave Twitter on July 14th after responding to another Twitter user who mentioned their concern for the safety of Teigen and Legends children.

In addition to Twitter turning a blind eye to the vile pedophilic content on the site, it was recently discovered that the live video streaming app Periscope, acquired by Twitter in 2015, is host to actual child porn. The channels post payment methods as well as links to other platforms to purchase child porn. Some of the accounts associated with the tag VIP are still up, after hundreds of reports against the accounts continue to be ignored.

Twitter user @YesThatAnna responded to Twitters new Q-ban tweeting, my dudes there are PEDOPHILES on this website, and I told your Communications manager the hashtags they were using to distribute and solicit megadumps of child sex exploitation material and yall have done N O T H I N G sir

Twitter remains complicit.ahemI mean, silent.

Just last month I reported on Twitters deafening silence when it comes to the different Antifa and Anti-Police accounts that coordinate and distribute information to fellow rioters on the platform:

In a different report in June, I also pointed out Twitters allowing accounts to give users detailed information on weaponry suggested be used to assault police officers :

Twitter also has no issue with different Antifa accounts using the platform to plan their movements or recruit protestors. Many of these accounts are used to update others on meeting locations and police activity.

In May, The White House called Twitter on their hypocrisy after censoring President Trump for glorifying violence: This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. however, @Twitter has determined that it will allow terrorists, dictators, and foreign propagandists to abuse its platform.

This is nothing compared to some of the threats of violence public figures have received both in direct messages on Twitter and in public tweets.

https://twitter.com/iheartmindy/status/1285740682607341568

Oh look, an actual death threat. pic.twitter.com/rCDS6Yb0mC  Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) July 20, 2020

OANs Jack Posobiec also called Twitter on their lack of interest in real-life threats on the platform, Russiagate truther James T Hodgkinson shot 4 people including Congressman Steve Scalise ANTIFA supporter Conor Betts conducted a mass shooting of 26 people in Ohio MAPS are pedophiles attempting to rebrand Will @TwitterSafety be taking any action against these movements?

Yossi Gestetner weighed in on the QAnon ban Tuesday tweeting, Twitter choked off a tweet by @realDonaldTrump for saying There will never be an Autonomous Zone in Washington D.C., as long as Im your President. If they try they will be met with serious force! But the missile attack threat is ok per the gaslighting hacks who run Twitter.

For those who have no idea what QAnon is about, or have never had much interest in following the goings on of the elusive crumb dropper, Twitters ban on all things QAnon has created the opposite effect, sparking interest to those naive to the movement. Facebook user Hallucin Fadden responded to Steven Crowders post on the Twitter ban by saying, And suddenly theyve made me, someone who has only ever scoffed at Qanon stuff, immensely intrigued. If its worth hiding its worth seeing.

Going as far as to say that this action taken by Twitter could be considered as election interference may be a bit of a stretch, but how many liberals have you met that are supporters of the QAnon movement? Im sure some exist, but considering the QAnon movement is Pro-Trump, Anti-Deep State, and Anti-Global Pedophilia, you have to wonder if this is Twitters attempt at wiping out as many Pro-Trump accounts as possible before the election, all under the guise of safety.

Twitter knows that many Trump supporters are also Q supporters. This is their way of removing as many accounts as possible right before the 2020 election. Should this be considered election interference??  Haley Kennington (@kenningtonsays) July 22, 2020

Laura Loomer also weighed in on the Twitter announcement on Parler, noting that QAnon accounts all support President Trump. QAnon accounts are all pro Trump accounts. You dont have to agree with the QAnon theories to see that this is targeted political censorship against conservatives, Loomer wrote.

You also have to ask yourself when Twitter became everyones Daddy. At what point did those at Twitter decide that you  a free-thinking adult  can no longer take in information, process it, and make your own decisions on what youre reading? At what point did Twitter become the arbiter of truth?

If Twitter is so concerned about activity offline that begins with information shared on their platform, why havent they done anything about the dangerous accounts that are fomenting violence and posting sexual acts with children? Why arent they cracking the whip on actual crimes being committed openly on their platform? Reporting said tweets and accounts are ignored.

Twitter is more concerned about removing puzzle solvers and meme makers than it is protecting children, police, statues, stores, cities, and other users.

For Twitter to continue to take an editorial position while claiming theyre a platform and not a publisher is ridiculous. Section 230 protects platforms like Twitter, Facebook and others from being held liable for allowing defamatory comments to remain on their site. Social media platforms cant have it both ways, and they should not be shielded from liability.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act clearly defines the following: 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. It also states, The Internet and other interactive computer services offer a forum for a true diversity of political discourse, unique opportunities for cultural development, and myriad avenues for intellectual activity.

Anyone retweeting content linked to QAnon can be banned. Anyone sharing links that are supportive of the QAnon movement can be banned. If you have a QAnon hashtag in your name or in your Twitter bio, or even retweet someone who does, watch out.

Take a long, hard look at the stark contrast in what Twitter deems as dangerous and what they allow to remain on the platform. Whether or not you support the QAnon movement really doesnt matter. Today its QAnon, tomorrow it will be Conservatives, Christians, Pro-Trumpers, or Pro-Lifers. This is just another notch in the censorship belt on social media platforms. This will not end here. They are far from done.

Read more at: Loomered.com
The founder of Planned Parenthood has been canceled. Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, an affiliate of the nation's largest abortion corporation, announced it is removing the name of Margaret Sanger due to her "harmful connection to the eugenics movement." Disavowing Sanger comes decades too late, considering that everyone familiar with her notorious history is well aware of Sanger's blatant racism. Given that the Black Lives Matter doctrine has been pushed to the forefront of American politics, Sanger's racist business model of exterminating the black race from American society has now been called out by hundreds of Planned Parenthood employees, donors, and volunteers, demanding she be renounced. It's ironic that the woman responsible for almost 45 years of infant genocide in America and hailed as a feminist hero is now a victim of America's raging cancel culture.

Margaret Sanger was born in 1879 into a poverty-stricken family in New York. She was one of 11 children, and although her mother died at an early age of tuberculosis, Sanger blamed her mother's death on bearing too many children. As an adult, Sanger fiercely promoted her belief of small families and encouraged women to limit their number of pregnancies. Trained as a nurse and shortly after joining the Women's Committee of the New York Socialist's Party, Sanger worked as a nurse in New York City's poor immigrant slums, teaching women about birth control. Sanger became a prolific writer, penning and self-publishing brochures and pamphlets, advocating for the use of birth control.

After the threat of arrest for violating morality laws under the Comstock Act, Sanger fled to England and returned to the U.S. a year later. She was arrested upon her return and spent 30 days in jail. Appealing to a sympathetic judge, her conviction was not overturned; however, her sentence was commuted, and she was released. The judge in her case agreed to allow licensed medical doctors to prescribe contraceptives. Sanger continued to write and edit her seminal, 5,000-page (plus) publication, The Birth Control Review, focusing on birth control advocacy. By 1921, Sanger had established the American Birth Control league, which would later be renamed Planned Parenthood.

Margaret Sanger not only became the voice for birth control in the U.S., enabling the legislation of birth control mandates, but openly promoted the eugenics ideology and frequently gave speeches, discussing the proposal of eliminating unwanted people. Like Adolf Hitler, Sanger believed in a master race society in which only the genetically pure should be allowed to live. She openly associated with racists and anti-Semites and routinely attacked the Catholic Church for its anti-contraception stance. Not only did she give numerous speeches on the subject of eugenics, but she chronicled those beliefs in two brazenly racist articles: "The Eugenic Control of Birth Control Propaganda" and "Birth Control and Racial Betterment." Not surprisingly, Sanger spoke to a KKK women's gathering in 1926, using the word "degenerates" to describe the "lesser humans" in American society, while endorsing the sterilization of the disabled and the intellectually challenged.

For decades, Planned Parenthood has bestowed its annual Margaret Sanger award upon selectees for their leadership, excellence, and contribution to women's reproductive health  garbled terms for women who support abortion on demand. Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi are recipients of this award, neither awardee having ever acknowledged Sanger's despicable racist ideology, nor will either woman speak to the fact that a majority of Planned Parenthood abortion facilities are strategically located in minority neighborhoods, where black infant genocide is rampant. Now that Sanger is canceled, will they return the award?

Finally, while pro-life activists have pointed out Sanger's rabid racism for decades, it became difficult for the Planned Parenthood organization to ignore it. Along with acknowledging the ugly truth, Karen Seltzer; chair of the PP board affiliate, added, "The removal of Margaret Sanger's name from our building is both a necessary and overdue step to reckon with our legacy and acknowledge Planned Parenthood's contributions to historical reproductive harm within communities of color." Punctuating Seltzer's admission, Reverend Dean Nelson, executive director of Human Coalition Action and a black American minister, stated, "The decision is long overdue," adding, "More action is needed." Dean called for the defunding of Planned Parenthood, in addition to closing Planned Parenthood abortion mills in minority neighborhoods. If Planned Parenthood can reject its founder's racist and eugenic beliefs, perhaps the organization will someday reject abortion altogether.
- Bill Gates has donated $1 million to the Nigerian government to fight COVID-19

- Mohamed Yahya, the UN Development Programme resident representative in Nigeria, made the disclosure on Tuesday, July 21

- The donation was made by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

- Our manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

Bill Gates has donated $1 million in support of the Nigerian government in addressing the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The disclosure was made by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) resident representative in Nigeria, Mohamed Yahya.

Bill Gates. Photo credit: CNBC

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Ghana's COVID-19 caseload now 29,672 with 26,090 recoveries

The money was paid by a UN finance support platform tagged One UN COVID-19 Response Basket Fund. The fund is managed by the UNDP.

Yahya on Tuesday, July 21, said the donation was made by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

He said: Through the Basket Fund, the UN aims to ensure policy coherence, programmatic alignment, harmonisation, and coordination of support to the Government of Nigeria during the time of crisis."

In other news, two COVID-19 vaccine candidates have shown positive results in separate trials across the world.

In Britain, a trial saw 1,000 adults participating and had found that the vaccine had induced 'strong antibody and immune responses'.

Another trial took place in China and saw over 500 people taking part. This trial had also shown that most participants had developed a positive response against the virus.

Both possible vaccines have proven safe for human use and trials found that they had both produced strong immune reactions, according to doctors.

READ ALSO: Final testing begins for Covid-19 vaccine, nears approval

Meanwhile, YEN previously reported that a Ghanaian man found himself in a dilemma after his wife decided to move out of their matrimonial home until his financial situation gets much better.

The man whose name has not been disclosed recounted his interesting but sad love story in a letter to popular relationship talk show Sister Sister on CitiTV and CitiFM.

According to the heartbroken husband, he and his wife who works as a banker have been married for six years with two children so far.

In their third year of marriage, the man's business collapsed and it became increasingly difficult to feed the family, which caused his wife's attitude to change dramatically.

Senior Minister, Osafo-Maafo tests positive for COVID-19 | #Yencomgh

Got a national or human interest story you think we should know? Get interactive via our Facebook page.

Source: YEN.com.gh
By Associated Press

HOUSTON: A court-appointed monitor for immigrant youth called on the U.S. government to stop detaining children as young as 1 in hotels before expelling them to their home countries, saying the practice could lead to emotional and physical harm.

In a report filed late Wednesday, Andrea Ordin also said there appeared to be a lack of formal oversight over the contractors hired by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain children at Hampton Inn & Suites hotels in three cities.

Isolating a child alone in a hotel room for 10-14 days can have a more harmful emotional impact than that seen in adults, she wrote. She also noted there was no apparent lower age limit for children held at hotels and that ICE had not issued consistent or formal care requirements for young children's hygiene, nutrition, or well-being.

The Trump administration is detaining and expelling children instead of turning them over to government shelters under an emergency declaration citing the coronavirus. The administration argues it must shut down the U.S.-Mexico border to asylum seekers due to the virus, but advocates allege the virus is being used as an excuse to circumvent federal anti-trafficking law and court-ordered standards for the treatment of children under what's known as the Flores settlement.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Hampton Inns in Phoenix and the Texas border cities of McAllen and El Paso have been used nearly 200 times in two months to detain children the government is waiting to expel. An advocate who visited the McAllen hotel found that workers were going room to room on the fourth and fifth floors caring for children. In one room, a small child held onto a gate as an adult played with the child on the other side, the advocate said.

At least two 1-year-olds were held for three days, according to government data obtained by AP. But some young children, including 3- to 5-year-olds, were detained for two weeks or longer. One 5-year-old was detained for 19 days in McAllen.

In her report, Ordin provided new details on how hotel detention is supposed to work. Children are separated into hotel rooms by age and gender, with siblings allowed to have adjoining rooms with a connecting door. A child must be within the line of sight of a contractor at all times. The contractors  whom ICE refers to as transportation specialists  must wear business casual clothing that cannot be used to identify them.

Children are required to receive three hot meals and snacks. Rooms are cleaned once a day by the hotel staff, and all children are supposed to receive both a surgical and N95 mask.

Younger children may sometimes play in enclosed pool areas for short supervised periods, but generally, residents have little to no access to recreation, Ordin said. Minors in temporary housing also lack access to education and therapy/counseling. Visitation is not permitted, but residents can call or video chat friends, family, and legal counsel upon request.

Carlos Holguin, the co-founder of the Center For Human Rights and Constitutional Law, cautioned that people detained by immigration agencies often report vast differences between official standards and how they are actually treated.

The report "is a recognition that its not possible to properly supervise these types of irregular facilities on a long-term basis, Holguin said. What actually happens on a day-to-day basis when theres no scrutiny is something substantially different.

Federal anti-trafficking law requires the government to promptly refer most immigrant children to the Department of Health and Human Services, whose facilities have bedrooms and schooling. Children are given access to lawyers and social workers while they await placement with family sponsors. The facilities also are licensed by the states where theyre located.

At least 10,000 beds are available in HHS shelters because border authorities have largely stopped referring children to the facilities and expel them instead.

ICE said Tuesday that it uses contractor MVM Inc. to transport single minors to hotels and to ensure each minor remains safe and secure while in this temporary housing. MVM had a contract with ICE for transportation services extended for $49 million on March 31, according to federal contracting data. The company declined to answer questions, and ICE declined to provide further comment Thursday.

The Trump administration has expelled at least 2,000 children since March, along with tens of thousands of adults, citing the threat of the coronavirus. According to Ordin, there has been no assessment yet of whether contractors and ICE are doing enough to prevent the virus' spread in hotel detention. She pointed out that hotel employees cleaning the rooms fall outside any government protocols.

COVID-19 has ravaged much of the West and South, particularly Texas Rio Grande Valley, where McAllen is located. The Hampton Inn in McAllen was used 123 times in April and June to detain children, according to records.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5G comes with a better processor and new colour options. Here are full specifications and price of the new foldable phone from Samsung.

Ahead of its Galaxy Unpacked event on August 5, Samsung has officially launched the Galaxy Z Flip 5G. As the name implies, the new smartphone comes with 5G support. It will be available in new Mystic Gray and Mystic Bronze colour options in select markets starting August 7, 2020.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5G is priced at $1,449.99 ( 1,11,900 approximately). The launch price is slightly higher than the LTE version's $1,380 ( 1,02,967 approximately). In India, the LTE model of Galaxy Z Flip is available for a revised price of 1,08,999.

Apart from 5G support, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip comes with a slightly upgraded processor, Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+. Rest of the specifications of the phone has remained mostly the same.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5G Specifications

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip comes with a 6.7-inch full HD+ Dynamic AMOLED display with 21:9:9 aspect ratio and Infinity Flex Display. The screen has full HD+ resolution and 425ppi pixel density. It also has the 1.1-inch Super AMOLED Display.

It features a 12-megapixel ultra-wide with f/2.2, 1.12um pixel size and 123-degree and a 12-megapixel wide-angle camera with f/1.8 aperture and 1.4um pixel size. At the front, the phone has a 10-megapixel sensor with f/2.4 aperture with 1.22um pixel size and 80-degree field of view.

For performance, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5G runs on an octa-core processor coupled with 8GB of RAM and 256GB built-in storage. It houses a 3,300mAh battery. Other key features of the phone include support for nano-SIM + e-SIM, Bluetooth 5.0, and fingerprint sensor.

Samsung Galaxy Note 20

It is worth noting that Samsung Galaxy Z Flip was expected to launch at the companys August 5 Galaxy Unpacked event. The early announcement is likely to bring the spotlight back on Samsungs upcoming Galaxy Note 20 series.

The new lineup is set to come with at least two versions, Galaxy Note 20 and Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. The successor to Galaxy Note 10 series is said to come with the latest processors, big camera upgrades, and enhanced S Pen functionalities. The premium Galaxy Note 20 Ultra will have an improved 108-megapixel camera as well.

Apart from Galaxy Note 20, Samsung is also expected to showcase Galaxy Watch 3 and Galaxy Buds at the upcoming event.
Kashmir:

An encounter between security forces and terrorists was underway in Bandipora district of Jammu and Kashmir, reports said on Wednesday. According to reports, 2-3 terrorists are believed to be hiding.

Earlier on Wednesday, a policeman was killed in an encounter with militants in the forest area of Baramulla district of Kashmir, police said.

Security forces launched an anti-militancy operation in Marbal village of Zaloora area in Baramulla district in the wee hours following information about presence of ultras there, a police official said.



He said one policeman was critically injured in the gunfight with militants and taken to a military hospital in nearby Kupwara district. However, the injured cop succumbed later on.

(With inputs from PTI)

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Joe Biden, on July 22, said that President Donald Trump was the country's first racist president. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee's comments came during a virtual town hall organized by the Service Employees International Union.

When a questioner complained of racism surrounding the coronavirus outbreak and mentioned the president referring to it as the China virus, Biden responded by blasting Trump and his spread of racism.

"The way he deals with people based on the colour of their skin, their national origin, where they're from, is absolutely sickening, the former vice president said. No sitting president has ever done this. Never, never, never. No Republican president has done this. No Democratic president. We've had racists, and they've existed. They've tried to get elected president. He's the first one that has.

Biden also suggested that Trump is using race as a wedge to distract from his mishandling of the pandemic.

Many presidents  including the nation's first, George Washington  owned slaves.

President Woodrow Wilson, the country's 28th president, is having his name removed from Princeton University's public policy school after recent protests against institutional racism and police brutality.

Wilson, who served in the early 20th century, supported segregation and imposed it on several federal agencies.

At a White House briefing later Wednesday, Trump responded to a question about Biden's comments by pointing to his administration's efforts passing criminal justice reform legislation and expanding opportunity zones, as well as the low unemployment numbers for minority groups before the coronavirus outbreak.

I've done more for Black Americans than anybody with the possible of exception of Abraham Lincoln," the president said.

Nobody has even been close. Katrina Pierson, a senior adviser for Trump's reelection campaign, said in a statement that no one should take lectures on racial justice from Joe Biden."

Biden has vowed that, if elected, he will begin addressing institutional racism within his first 100 days of taking office.

This was not the first time he's suggested Trump's actions were racist. Biden has built his campaign around the election being a battle for the soul of the nation and says he felt compelled to run for president after he saw Trump respond to a deadly 2017 white supremacist attack on counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, by saying there were some very fine people" on both sides.

When Trump said last year that four Democratic congresswomen of color should go back to their countries, Biden called it a flat, racist attack.
They looked like the perfect power couple. The entrepreneur daughter of a former prime minister and the millionaire investment banker.

But sadly, after 13 years, Jessica Rudd, 36, and Albert Tse have reportedly separated.

Ms Rudd - the daughter of former PM Kevin Rudd - and Mr Tse split amicably in recent weeks, close friends told the Sydney Morning Herald.

The couple met back in 2000, when Ms Rudd was just a teenager and Tse was 21 and a volunteer for her father, who was then an MP.

They married seven years later and moved overseas to both London and Beijing for work before settling in Australia in 2014.

Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's daughter has separated from her husband after 13 years of marriage

They have two children, an eight-year-old and five-year-old.

Just five months ago, the couple splurged on a $1.56million one-bedroom apartment in Barangaroo in Sydney's CBD.

They were believed to be splitting their time between Sydney and Brisbane.

A source close to the couple told the Herald that the split has been 'extremely amicable'.

'It's pretty sad, but that is what happens when you're busy people,' the source said.

Ms Rudd and Tse share two children. Pictured with their first daughter Josephine in 2012

Back in 2015, Ms Rudd penned an open letter in which she discussed her heartbreaking miscarriage after giving birth to her first daughter, as well as her experience with post natal depression.

At the time, the then 31-year-old author said losing a child 'steals the joy of pregnancy and replaces it with terror'.

Ms Rudd is a qualified lawyer and author, but works primarily as an entrepreneur and businesswoman.

She is on the board for an online store she set up, Jessica's Suitcase, which sells eCargo, as well as the Australian Agricultural Company, one of the nation's biggest beef producers.

Meanwhile Tse is a former Macquarie executive who founded a private equity fund, believed to be worth in excess of $200million by 2017, MamaMia reported.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the couple and Mr Rudd for comment.
The assistant commissioner of police (ACP) of Bandra division, Mumbai Police, on Thursday, informed the Bombay high court (HC) that he has identified the four police personnel, who had assaulted Raju Velu Devendra, one of the two purported victims of police atrocities in the city during the lockdown restrictions, and proposed to initiate departmental action against them.

But, HC expressed displeasure over the delay in investigating the case, and directed the ACP to expedite the probe and submit a progress report by August 5, and posted the next hearing of the case the following day.

The nationwide lockdown restrictions were enforced from March 25 in a bid to contain the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak in Mumbai.

So far, Juhu police had maintained that Devendra (22) was a victim of mob assault.

They claimed that he was brutally assaulted by a mob because he was caught stealing and had also registered a case against eight purported members of the mob.

On Thursday, a government lawyer supported the ACPs stand.

She informed the two-member HC bench, comprising Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Anuja Prabhudessai, that in terms of earlier court order she had personally viewed the closed-circuit TV (CCTV) footage that captured the incident of the assault on the deceased, but did not find any mob assaulting him.

Only the four policemen are seen to have used fiber lathis in a bid to discipline the deceased, she said.

She, however, added that further investigation was required to ascertain, if the deceased, indeed, succumbed to the injuries caused because of the use of the fiberglass lathis by the erring policemen.

She was responding to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by lawyer and human rights activist Firdause Irani, raising concerns about police excesses during enforcement of the nationwide lockdown restrictions.

Besides pointing out the assault on him, his wife and two sons by a team of policemen and civic body personnel outside his house in Goregaon (West), Irani has also highlighted a report of a human rights organisation that had revealed that a total of 15 people, including two from Mumbai, had lost their lives across the country due to police brutalities during the lockdown.

Devendra was one of the Mumbai victims.

According to the report, Devendras family members have alleged that on March 30, when they were going to meet a relative, a police team chased them and caught the deceased.

The police personnel, the report added, informed the relatives that they were taking Devendra to Juhu police station, but in the morning they were informed by the police that he was lying at Nehru Nagar Chowk.

He was declared brought dead on arrival, when his relatives took him to a hospital.

The investigation into the case was entrusted with the ACP, Bandra division, in view of the allegations against the police personnel.

On Thursday, HC, however, noted that two important witnesses in the case, Devendras mother and the brother did not co-operate with the investigation and though necessary, their statements were not recorded to date.

Taking note of this anomaly, the bench has directed the ACP to issue fresh notices to them and make an endeavour to get their statements recorded by August 5.

The second case pertained to the death of a porter, Sagir Jamal Khan, who was allegedly caught by police on April 18, when he was driving a handcart to deliver a refrigerator in Null Bazaar locality.

The on-duty police personnel hit him on his head, hand and back.

Later in the day, Khan suddenly collapsed while having dinner, and was declared brought dead on arrival, when he was taken to a hospital.

According to the police, his post-mortem examination report has revealed that he died due to the enlargement of the heart.
"Recently I learned that nearly all Emily Dickinson's poems can be sung to the tune The Yellow Rose of Texas," writes Martin Field of Noosa Heads (Qld). "I tried a few at random  it's true."

Bill Wilkinson of Tumbarumba chimes in with a spectacular platypus spotting tale (C8). "Back in the '70s I lived in a house that backed onto Tumbarumba Creek, which had a resident platypus (named Two Bob) that I used to feed every afternoon for over a year with chopped cabbage and worms  that is until a big flood came down the creek and Two Bob disappeared for a few months. I thought she'd relocated until one afternoon she resurfaced, and swimming next to her was a five centimetre puggle. I'm one of very few people lucky enough to have seen a mother platypus and her puggle swimming together."

A platypus spotting, or not-spotting, story (C8) that many may relate to. During a stop at the Atherton Tablelands a few years ago, Sara Kasch of Yatte Yattah discovered a large pond where she was lucky enough to spot a platypus diving and resurfacing. "At a table facing the pond were two German backpackers, studiously searching something on their computer. My husband asked what they were looking for, their reply 'We're looking for the best place to go in Australia to see a platypus'. Completely oblivious to the one right in front of them!"

"Would Jerseys and Guernseys only be found on the Jersey and Guernsey islands in the cooler months, or would Friesians also be there then too?" asks Maurice Collins of Wollongbar.

Peter Gibbs of Yass writes that "dalmatians (C8), like Appaloosa horses, are like teenage children. Can't have spots and brains.
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun. High 17F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Bitterly cold. Mostly clear. Low -3F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph.
A man has faced court over the murder of a father found dead in a car park near a Melbourne primary school.

The body of 47-year-old Michael Mammone was found at Donnelly Reserve in Cranbourne on June 26 by a man taking his children to the nearby school.

Christopher McEachran, 42, was arrested and charged with Mr Mammone's murder on Thursday.

McEachran appeared briefly in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday afternoon, with a beard poking out from below his mandatory blue face mask.

'No worries,' the Carrum Downs man replied when magistrate John Bentley ordered he return to court for a committal mention in November.

Michael Mammone (centre) with his three beloved daughters Brodie, Chelsea and Monique. The three girls were devastated to learn that their gentle and easygoing father had been killed
In the face of a global pandemic and heightened visibility of racism and discrimination, communities across the U.S. are grappling with structural barriers to the success of students of color. Racism and bias not only impact health; they take a toll on overall well-being, and when face to face with the education system, threaten to deepen existing racial gaps in education. The AASA-Howard University Urban Superintendents Academy was created as a direct response to less than five percent of superintendents in America being persons of color. The program is needed now more than ever.

"We are grateful for the commitment that Cigna has shown in supporting urban education," says Dawn Williams, Ph.D., dean of Howard University's School of Education. "We find ourselves fighting a history of structural racism while also trying to safeguard our health against a global pandemic. With the generous support of Cigna, we can attract, develop and retain cohorts of educational leaders to advance change for more equitable and just school systems."



Howard University is widely known for its legacy of tackling some of the world's most challenging issues facing diverse populations. Howard's commitment to training leaders who work to combat inequality is evidenced by its innovative programs, accomplished alumni, and prestigious faculty. As the program's newest faculty member and co-director, Joseph brings a range of expertise in school administration and education leadership and policy to the academy.



"Superintendents of color have unique challenges as we are often tapped to lead high needs districts where millions of underserved students of color are in need of a high-quality education and where resources are scarce," says Joseph, assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies and co-director of the AASA-Howard University Urban Superintendent Academy. "It takes skill, courage, and an unconquerable spirit to improve outcomes under these conditions."



An accomplished administrator and expert in educational leadership, Joseph served as the first African American superintendent in Seaford Delaware and Metro Nashville Public Schools. He most recently served as visiting associate professor of educational administration and policy studies at Fordham University. Joseph has received numerous awards throughout his career for his principalship, research, and leadership as a trailblazer in education leadership and policy. He earned a doctoral degree in educational administration and policy studies from The George Washington University and a master's degree from The Johns Hopkins University. He earned his bachelor's degree from Lincoln University.



"Cigna has a resolute belief in the power of diversity and inclusion and a long-standing commitment to health equity and equality that creates healthy and vibrant communities for all. In partnership with Howard University, Cigna is standing together in support to elevate a diverse next generation of leaders for our urban school communities," said Mike Triplett, president of Cigna U.S. Commercial business. "Education is the path to economic prosperity for many. We are proud to partner on this initiative and wish the program participants every success in their studies and in their future careers."

About Cigna

Cigna Corporation (NYSE: CI) is a global health service company dedicated to improving the health, well-being and peace of mind of those we serve. Cigna delivers choice, predictability, affordability and access to quality care through integrated capabilities and connected, personalized solutions that advance whole person health. All products and services are provided exclusively by or through operating subsidiaries of Cigna Corporation, including Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company, Cigna Life Insurance Company of New York, Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, Express Scripts companies or their affiliates, and Life Insurance Company of North America. Such products and services include an integrated suite of health services, such as medical, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy, vision, supplemental benefits, and other related products including group life, accident and disability insurance.



Cigna maintains sales capability in over 30 countries and jurisdictions, and has more than 180 million customer relationships throughout the world. To learn more about Cigna, including links to follow us on Facebook or Twitter, visit www.cigna.com.

About Howard University

Founded in 1867, Howard University is a private, research university that is comprised of 13 schools and colleges. Students pursue studies in more than 120 areas leading to undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees. The University operates with a commitment to Excellence in Truth and Service and has produced one Schwarzman Scholar, three Marshall Scholars, four Rhodes Scholars, 11 Truman Scholars, 25 Pickering Fellows and more than 165 Fulbright recipients. Howard also produces more on-campus African-American Ph.D. recipients than any other university in the United States. For more information on Howard University, visit www.howard.edu.

MEDIA CONTACT:

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Howard University

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China said malicious slander is behind an order by the U.S. government to close its consulate in Houston, Texas, and maintained Thursday that its officials have never operated outside ordinary diplomatic norms.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said the order to close the consulate violates international law and basic norms governing international relations, and seriously undermines China-U.S. relations.

This is breaking down the bridge of friendship between the Chinese and American people, Wang told reporters at a daily briefing.

The order this week to close the consulate, one of Chinas six missions in the United States, is seen as escalating tensions between the worlds two largest economies while President Donald Trump steers blame and punitive measures against China ahead of the November U.S. election. Beijing has said it would take action in response, although Wang gave no details on Thursday.

Relations between the sides have nose-dived in recent months over the conronavirus pandemic as well as disputes over trade, human rights, Hong Kong and Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea.

In its statement on the closing of the consulate, the State Department alleged that Chinese agents have tried to steal data from facilities in Texas, including the Texas A&M medical system statewide and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Wang said there was no basis to that claim.

This is completely malicious slander, Wang said.
The United States gave China 72 hours to close its consulate in Houston amid accusations of spying, marking a dramatic deterioration in relations between the world's two biggest economies.

The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday the Chinese mission in Houston was being closed "to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information."

President Donald Trump said in answer to a question at a news briefing it was "always possible" other Chinese missions could be closed too.

"We thought there was a fire in one that we did close," Trump said. "I guess they were burning documents, or burning papers, and I wonder what that's all about."

Overnight in Houston, firefighters went to the consulate after smoke was seen. Two U.S. government officials said they had information that documents were being burned there.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the consulate was operating normally.

The ministry said Washington had abruptly issued the demand to close the consulate on Tuesday and called it an "unprecedented escalation."

The Chinese Embassy in Washington had received "bomb and death threats" because of "smears & hatred" fanned by the U.S. government, spokeswoman Hua Chunying wrote in a tweet.

"The U.S. should revoke its erroneous decision," she said. "China will surely react with firm countermeasures."

Communist Party rulers in Beijing were considering shutting the U.S. consulate in the central city of Wuhan in retaliation, a source with knowledge of the matter said.

U.S.-based China experts said Beijing could also opt to target more important consulates in Hong Kong, Shanghai or Guangzhou, something that could hurt American businesses.

Richard Grenell, who served until recently as acting director of U.S. national intelligence, suggested the United States could close the Chinese consulate in tech-heavy San Francisco.

"It's a close call. I would have done both (Houston and San Francisco) but it also makes sense to start with one," he told Reuters by text.

The Houston move comes in the run-up to the November U.S. presidential election, in which Trump and his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, have both tried to look tough towards China.

Speaking on a visit to Denmark, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo repeated accusations about Chinese theft of U.S. and European intellectual property, which he said were costing "hundreds of thousands of jobs."

While offering no specifics about the Houston consulate, Pompeo referred to a U.S. Justice Department indictment on Tuesday of two Chinese nationals over what it called a decade-long cyber espionage campaign that targeted defense contractors, COVID-19 researchers and hundreds of other victims worldwide.

Pompeo also referred to recent speeches by the head of the FBI and others that highlighted Chinese espionage activities.

"President Trump has said: 'Enough. We are not going to allow this to continue to happen,'" he told reporters.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, described the Houston consulate on Twitter as the "central node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States."

The New York Times quoted the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, David Stilwell, as saying that the Houston consulate had been at the "epicenter" of the Chinese army's efforts to advance its warfare advantages by sending students to U.S. universities.

"We took a practical step to prevent them from doing that," Stilwell told the Times.

Stephen Biegun, the State Department's number two diplomat, told the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee the decision was made in response to "longstanding areas of concern."

He said these included intellectual property theft and commercial espionage, as well as unequal treatment of U.S. diplomats, exporters, investors and media in China and abuse by China's security services of the welcoming U.S. posture toward Chinese students and researchers.

A Chinese diplomat, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, denied the spying allegations and said the Houston mission acted like other Chinese consulates in the United States - issuing visas, and promoting visits and businesses.

'RACE TO THE BOTTOM'

U.S.-China ties have worsened sharply this year over issues ranging from the coronavirus and telecoms-gear maker Huawei to China's territorial claims in the South China Sea and clampdown on Hong Kong.

Jonathan Pollack, an East Asia expert with the Brookings Institution, said he could not think of anything "remotely equivalent" to the move against the Houston consulate since the U.S. and China opened full diplomatic relations in 1979.

"The Trump Administration appears to view this latest action as political ammunition in the presidential campaign... It's part of the administration's race to the bottom against China," he said.

A source with direct knowledge of the matter said China was considering closing the U.S. consulate in Wuhan, where the State Department withdrew staff and their families early this year due to the coronavirus outbreak that first emerged in the city.

China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it would shut the consulate.

Wang said the U.S. government had been harassing Chinese diplomats and consular staff for some time and intimidating Chinese students. He said the United States had interfered with China's diplomatic missions, including intercepting diplomatic pouches. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment on the Chinese accusations.
The Missile Defense Agency conducts the first intercept flight test of a land-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense weapon system from the Aegis Ashore Missile Defense Test Complex in Kauai, Hawaii, Dec. 10, 2015. (Leah Garton/U.S. Missile Defense Agency/Handout via Reuters)

US Indo-Pacific Head Wants Missile Defense System on Guam to Counter China Threat

The head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command aims to have an active missile defense system deployed on Guam by 2026 to counter the rising capability of regional rivals.

Adm. Phil Davidsons top priority is to install an Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defense system on the Pacific island as part of a concept he calls Homeland Defense System Guam, he said in a July 21 call with reporters.

He said the Aegis Ashore system, which is derived from a ship-based system, would work in tandem with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system already deployed on the island to provide a more robust defense capability against Chinas growing military threat.

When you look at the way the threat capacity is manifesting from China in the future. Whether its ballistic missiles from the land, or whether its ballistic or cruise missiles from air and maritime platforms, youre going to need a complete clock. A 360-degree coverage in order to help defend Guam, he said.

I will say that my No. 1 priority and the most important action we can take to rapidly and fully implement the National Defense Strategy, the first step is a 360-degree persistent and integrated air-defense capability in Guam.

Lance Gatling, an aerospace and weapons analyst, told the South China Morning Post that the strategic location of Guam makes it a target of choice for regional rivals of the United States in the event of an outbreak of hostilities.

Guam has long been a key staging point for the U.S., in both naval and air operations, and it was from there that long-range bombers operated against targets during the Vietnam War, Gatling told the publication. It is going to become even more important as the U.S. Marines move more of their personnel from Okinawa to Guam.

For the missile defense system to be in place within the time frame outlined by Davidson, funding must begin in fiscal year 2021, he said on the call.

In April, Breaking Defense reported on details of an unclassified executive summary of a National Defense Authorization Act titled Regain the Advantage (pdf) that Davidson submitted to Congress, in which he called for $20 billion in new investments by 2026 to enhance U.S. operational capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region.

Regain the Advantage is designed to persuade potential adversaries that any preemptive military action will be extremely costly and likely fail by projecting credible combat power at the time of crisis, and provides the President and Secretary of Defense with several flexible deterrent options to include full OPLAN [operation plan] execution, if it becomes necessary, Davidson wrote.

One of the line items, titled Homeland Defense System  Guam, calls for $77 million in fiscal year 2021 and $1.594 billion in fiscal years 20222026. In the document, Davidson didnt specify what type of defense infrastructure the system would entail, but in the July 21 remarks to reporters, he made it clear he wants the Aegis system, which is produced by Lockheed Martin.

The backbone of Homeland Defense System Guam would be the baseline 10 Aegis Ashore system, Davidson said. The reason Im a key advocate for that is first, it is technology that is available to us now and could be delivered by 2026 when I believe that the threat will require us to have a much more robust capability than the combination of THAAD, which is deployed there now and an Aegis ship in response can provide.

Davidson wrote in the executive summary that the combination of THAAD and Aegis is key to defending what he called Americas most important operating location in the Western Pacific.
On May 20, Dr. Tanmay Lele, professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University, received a $5 million Recruitment of Established Investigators grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) to further knowledge about cancer and how it progresses.

Lele's research focuses on mechanobiology -- the mechanical aspects of biology -- where he works to understand how cells sense external mechanical forces as well as how they generate mechanical forces, and how these mechanical forces impact cell function.

In cancer, both cellular mechanical forces and the mechanical properties of resisting cellular structures go awry. These errors cause abnormalities in cell structure. A particularly striking feature of cancer cells is the highly irregular and/or distended shape of the nucleus.

The nuclei in normal tissue have smooth surfaces, but over time the surfaces of cancer nuclei become irregular in shape. Now, why? Nobody really knows. We're still at the tip of the iceberg at trying to figure this problem out. But nuclear abnormalities are ubiquitous and occur in all kinds of cancers -- breast, prostate and lung cancers." Dr. Tanmay Lele, Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University

Pathologists study biopsies and note abnormalities in the shape of the cell and its nucleus to grade the severity of cancer. Lele and his team are computerizing the analysis of nuclear shapes to research the cause of abnormal cancer structures.

Using photos of nuclei and cells in human tissue taken by a pathologist, Lele's team has developed a computational algorithm to measure the degree of irregularity in the nucleus. With the algorithm, the team can run statistical analyses of the abnormalities and search for correlations between the extent of the irregularity, changes to genetic or molecular signatures in tumors and, ultimately, patient outcomes.

Lele's research aims to help the medical community develop new knowledge of human cancers and how they progress, to better diagnose and manage cancers. Understanding the mechanisms behind the abnormalities can help develop therapies to better treat cancers by targeting the nucleus.

"Like any other basic field, we are trying to make discoveries with the hope that they will have long-term impacts on human health," Lele said.

The cancer grant from CPRIT is a collaborative effort with Dr. Michael Mancini and Dr. Fabio Stossi from the Baylor College of Medicine.
Hedging from Gov. Pete Ricketts and Nebraska Department of Education Commissioner Matthew Blomstedt on the issue of masks was one of Berges concerns, he said. He asked the board to consider requiring masks in their plans.

Masks and face coverings are one of the most effective methods of ending virus spread, according to the CDC. Despite this, mask mandates have inspired a backlash in some states. Nebraska is one of just seven states without at least a partial mandate requiring masks.

In lieu of a mask mandate at GPS, if the district decides not to require them, Berge asked the district to provide a virtual alternative, something Scottsbluff Public Schools plans to do in the fall.

If neither of those policies comes to fruition, Berge said he and his wife, Kerri Schnase-Berge, plan to home school.

I ask that you take into consideration that Ive never wanted to home school, Schnase-Berge said. Im very aware that teachers possess a skill set that I just dont have.

Board President B.J. Peters responded to the parents first.
Eleven funded projects aim to mitigate the impact of healthcare burden in Canada and contribute to better understanding of several challenging diseases

EDMONTON, ALBERTA (July 23, 2020) The Canadian Glycomics Network (GlycoNet) today awarded $3.9 million in grant funding to 11 collaborative research projects. The fund will support a wide range of multidisciplinary research teams across 17 Canadian research institutions and their industry partners to address unmet medical needs in cancer, gastrointestinal inflammations, cystic fibrosis, Sanfillipo disease, Parkinsons, and autoimmune diseases.

Investing in health research projects that improve the quality of life of Canadians is part of GlycoNets mission, said Dr. Todd Lowary, Scientific Director, GlycoNet. These investments also help foster collaborations between academic institutions and industry stakeholders, making the transition of new scientific knowledge, research techniques and collected data into real-world applications faster. Through funding these projects, we want to make sure those who are learning how to treat diseases, who are finding ways to prevent infections, who are inventing new technologies and creating jobs in the industries have the support and facilities they need.

From prevention to treatment and from tracking to public health policy, these projects aim to mitigate the impact of healthcare burden in Canada and contribute to better understanding of challenging diseases for Canadians. Funded clinical trials, epidemiological observational studies, and other research will accelerate the development of tests, therapeutics, and clinical management of diseases at various levels in our healthcare system.

Projects supported by GlycoNet include:

Developing next-generation GlycoCaged drugs to treat enteric inflammatory diseases in humans and livestock

This project will explore a new technology that can improve the efficiency of delivering drugs for human patients and livestock afflicted with chronic inflammation in the lower gastrointestinal tract.

Lead Investigator: Harry Brumer (University of British Columbia)

Co-Investigators: Douglas Inglis (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada), Wade Abbott (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada), Richard Uwiera (University of Alberta)

Economic evaluation of a novel prostate cancer glycan-based diagnostic tool

This project is the first analysis of the cost-effectiveness of a new sugar-based prostate cancer diagnostic tool. The cost-effectiveness analysis will tell us whether the maximum possible gains from the new test versus status quo or other new technologies are worth their costs, and could contribute to improved patient care and better decision-making of patients, guideline developers and health ministers.

Lead Investigator: Annalijn Conklin (University of British Columbia)

Co-Investigators: Karla Williams (University of British Columbia), Larry Lynd (University of British Columbia), Stanley Liu (Sunnybrook Hospital), Wei Zhang (University of British Columbia)

Systematic characterization of Siglecs and their glycan ligands in cancer

The researchers will study the interactions between carbohydrates on cancer cells and carbohydrate-binding proteins on immune cells to develop therapeutics for patients who do not respond to current cancer immunotherapies.

Lead Investigator: Matthew Macauley (University of Alberta)

Co-Investigators: John Klassen (University of Alberta), Ratmir Derda (University of Alberta), Lisa Willis (University of Alberta), Todd McMullen (University of Alberta)

Anti-exopolysaccharide therapies to improve eradication of early Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection in cystic fibrosis (CF)

The team aims to develop a carbohydrate-based diagnostic tool to identify children CF patients who are likely to fail conventional antibiotic treatment and to give these patients more effective therapies.

Lead Investigator: Valerie Waters (SickKids Hospital)

Co-Investigators: Lynne Howell (SickKids Hospital), Don Sheppard (McGill University), Dao Nguyen (McGill University), Yvonne Yau (University of Toronto)

Lead discovery for inhibitors of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) biosynthesis

Researchers will develop a high-throughput screening platform to discover small molecules that inhibit gram-negative bacteria to develop multidrug resistance.

Lead Investigator: Eric Brown (McMaster University)

Co-Investigators: Chris Whitfield (University of Guelph), Jakob Magolan (McMaster University), Dawn Bowdish (McMaster University)

Mitigation of necrotic enteritis by improving the integrity of intestinal mucin through small molecules and stress management

Researchers will study the effect of milk carbohydrates, derived from dairy residuals, as additives to poultry feed as a non-antibiotic method to maintain bird intestinal health and identify a drug targets to treat flocks that have enteric inflammations. The identified targets will also provide therapeutic insight for diseases in humans such as salmonellosis, Crohns disease, colitis, and colon cancer.

Lead Investigator: Wesley Zandberg (University of British Columbia Okanagan)

Co-Investigators: Douglas Inglis (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada), Wade Abbott (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada), Alisdair Boraston (University of Victoria), Richard Uwiera (University of Alberta), Steven Smith (Queens University), Chantelle Capicciotti (Queens University)

Innovate therapies for neurological lysosomal storage disorders

The team will test novel therapeutic approaches including gene/stem cell correction and small molecules to cure or ameliorate Sanfilippo disease, a genetic disease that causes mental retardation, progressive dementia in children leading to early death in their twenties.

Lead Investigator: Alexey Pshezhetsky (CHU Ste-Justine)

Co-Investigators: Christopher Cairo (University of Alberta), Gregory Lodygensky (CHU Ste-Justine), Christian Beausejour (CHU Ste-Justine)

Identification of targets of glucocerebrosidase (GCase) activators and optimization of positron emission tomography imaging agents

Through studying a carbohydrate-processing enzyme, the research team will develop an imaging tool that will shed light on the progression of Parkinsons disease.

Lead Investigator: David Vocadlo (Simon Fraser University)

Co-Investigators: Vesna Sossi (University of British Columbia), Paul Schaffer (TRIUMF), Edward Fon (McGill University), Thomas Durcan (McGill)

Phase 1/2a clinical trial for treatment of Tay-Sachs and Sandhoff Diseases using AAV9-Hex gene therapy

Researchers will carry out the first Canadian gene therapy trial that removes the excess buildup of glycan-modified fat (GM2 gangliosides) in the brain as a treatment for genetic disorders Tay-Sachs and Sandhoff diseases.

Lead Investigator: Jagdeep Walia (Queens University)

Co-Investigators: Inka Brockhausen (Queens University), Denis Lehotay (Queens University)

Modulatory and therapeutic roles of gangliosides in neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation

The team will study the mechanisms by which gangliosides, a type of glycolipids, protect against neurodegeneration, and determine an optimal method to deliver a potential therapeutic to treat neurodegenerative diseases.

Lead Investigator: Simonetta Sipione (University of Alberta)

Co-Investigators: John Klassen (University of Alberta), Matthew Macauley (University of Alberta)

Regulation of inflammatory response to bacterial infections by human neuraminidase enzymes

Researchers aim to gain a better understanding of the role of neuraminidase enzymes in the immune system during infection. The project will also test inhibitors of these enzymes in treating bacterial infection and autoimmune disease.

Lead Investigator: Christopher Cairo (University of Alberta)

Co-Investigators: Alexey Pshezhetsky (CHU Ste-Justine), Ali Ahmad (Universite de Montreal), Don Sheppard (McGill University)

###

About GlycoNet

GlycoNet is advancing research, innovation, and training in glycomicsthe study of carbohydrates in the biological systemsto improve the quality of life of Canadians. GlycoNet is a one-stop global destination focused on developing new carbohydrate-based drugs, vaccines and diagnostics, in collaboration with academic and industry organizations to address areas of unmet need through applied glycomics research. Funded by the federal Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program and a range of partners, the network includes over 150 researchers across Canada who focus on cancer, chronic diseases, infectious diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases. This national platform supports translational research, protection of intellectual property, novel drug development, company formation and training.
Liam Payne has marked One Direction's 10th anniversary by sharing the text he sent his dad the day the band were put together.

He also revealed that he listens to the group's back-catalogue of music when he's been drinking.

Recalling the exact moment the band - which also featured Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik - were assembled on The X Factor in 2010, Liam shared a screenshot of the message he sent to his father.

Looking back: Liam Payne has marked One Direction's 10th anniversary by sharing the text he sent his dad the day the band were put together [pictured in September]

It was a text that read: 'I'm in a boyband!'

Alongside the text and a throwback black white snap of the band, Liam tweeted: 'What a journey I had no idea what we were in for when I sent this text to my Dad ten years ago at this exact time the band was formed.

'Thanks to everyone that's supported us over the years and thanks to the boys for sharing this with me #10YearsOfOneDirection (sic).'

Bandmate Louis also tweeted, notably claiming he 'misses One Direction every day'.

Throwback: He also shared one of the band's early photos together - featuring co-stars [L-R] Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik [pictured in 2010 on The X Factor]

Memories: Recalling the exact moment the band were assembled on The X Factor in 2010, Liam shared a screenshot of the message he sent to his father

He penned: 'Feeling pretty emotional today. 10 years!! Spent the morning watching old interviews and performances. Just wanted to send a massive thank you to ALL of my band mates. What we did together was incredible.

'Too many incredible memories to mention but not a day goes by that I don't think about how amazing it was. @NiallOfficial @Harry_Styles @LiamPayne @zaynmalik. So proud of you all individually.

'And to the fans. The people who gave us all these amazing opportunities. You are incredible, your unmatched level of loyality is something that makes me really really proud. Miss it every day (sic).'

Liam, now 26, also told Radio 1 how he likes to take a wander down memory lane when he's drunk by listening to the group's albums.

Nostalgic: Bandmate Louis also tweeted, notably claiming he 'misses One Direction every day'

He penned: 'Feeling pretty emotional today. 10 years!! Spent the morning watching old interviews and performances. Just wanted to send a massive thank you to ALL of my band mates. What we did together was incredible'

'I listen to it every so often. Usually when I'm really drunk is when the One Direction playlist starts to come out,' he told Scott Mills. 'It can go one or two ways as we know being drunk, we can be one of those really happy drunks that wants to listen to you know Act My Age and all those kinds of songs.

'But then also I get a little bit thoughtful when I'm drunk sometimes then we go into to like Once In A Lifetime and all the slow jams.

'I actually worry that I've got some sort of boy band memory loss, where I just can't remember a thing. My favourite one is when people who I've had a picture with once, always get offended when I can't remember.'

On first knowing that One Direction were a big deal he added: 'I remember the very first time they shut down the street on X Factor for us.

History: He also revealed that he listens to the group's back-catalogue of music when he's been drinking

Liam said: 'I listen to it every so often. Usually when I'm really drunk is when the One Direction playlist starts to come out' [the group are pictured in 2013]

'That's when that's when I kind of knew more than anything that it was gonna be something different than anyone had seen before.'

He spoke about the advice he'd give himself 10 years ago, looking back.

'I think just relax a little bit,' he said. 'I think in those days I was really quite uptight about a lot of everything that was going on because it was such a serious thing in our lives and I don't know if you knew, but no one around us was taking it very serious.

'That was like my job in the band at the start which was quite boring, but yeah. I just think it's going to be all right and just chill out with it, just have some fun because it was hard to have fun sometimes in that circumstance when there was so much pressure loaded onto it.

'But knowing now that it's all going to be all right- to still be having a music career at this point in my life it's amazing.

He added: 'I actually worry that I've got some sort of boy band memory loss, where I just can't remember a thing' [pictured in December]

'I mean, there was a point in time when we used to stay in these hotels because they hadn't figured out where the hell we were going to live yet and I'd get up in the morning and I get a call from the manager being like 'someone's naked dive bombing the pool and the other residents in the hotel are complaining' or 'someone's gone down the stairs on a mattress or thrown a plate out the window in the car park' like there was loads of stuff that I'd just wake up with every morning.

So that was always my job to be like Mr Debbie Downer. Somebody had to do it. I just wish it wasn't me.'

Doing the radio rounds on Thursday, he also appeared on Capital Breakfast and elaborated on this with host Roman Kemp.

'It was crazy to be involved in this group of really rowdy boys, who just used to go off all the time,' he said. 'I was a bit too grown up in that sense; I needed to grow down and have a little bit of fun, because that was what it was all about, and in the end that is what everyone chimed in with the band for  it was more about this freedom and having fun and what would you do if you were in this position.'

Sharing further memories with Roman, Liam went on: 'At first I don't know why it was so confusing to me that Niall was from Ireland, because I was thinking, 'how is this going to work, he's from like a whole other country, he's not even from nearby, how is this going to happen?!'

'Then I remember we had a conversation straight off the bat, we decided to measure each other's heights because that's how it would be in photos of who would be in the middle... we were so young though. You think you know everything at the time.'

He also admitted that he thought their singing in unison was shocking but didn't 'have the heart' to tell one another who'd be best at singing the different parts of their songs at first.

He said: 'When we first got together and went down to Harry's house to rehearse, we didn't really have the heart to tell each other who should sing what bit or make cut throat decisions because we were all trying to find their place.

The old days: He also admitted that he thought their singing in unison was shocking but didn't 'have the heart' to tell one another who'd be best at singing the different parts of their songs at first [pictured in 2012]

'So we all used to do it in unison, which was the most horrible thing I've ever heard in my life.'

Liam thanked One Direction fans, reflecting: 'I was thinking about this the other day because I remember in interviews they would be like, 'where do you see yourselves in 10 years time', and it definitely was not here.

'I can only say thank you really to all of our amazing fans for putting us into this. For all the love and joy for One Direction and all of the love since we've all gone solo and done our own thing. It's just amazing.

'And for the record each of us broke for all having a song in the Top 40 in America or something, you just can't take those moments for granted because they just don't happen... seeing the love for us is still there.

Down one: Zayn quit the band in 2015 leaving them as just a four-piece for the next three years

'Like I say, some people struggle to hold a job for 10 years, so it's crazy for me, I just feel so thankful to be here.'

Liam's appearance on Capital comes after One Direction finally broke their two-year silence on social media and posted a video soundtracked by the track History, containing archived footage of the group over the years.

In their first Twitter post since 2018, the band said: 'Tomorrow! You and me got a whole lot of history #10YearsOf1D (sic).'

The group posted the same message on their Instagram account, which has more than 18 million followers. One Direction have been on a hiatus since 2016.
Good morning ladies and gentlemen of the media and to all of you gathered here. We welcome you, our friends in the media for your prompt response to our call to be here and let me hasten to add that we appreciate you for your commitment to the peace and development of our dear region.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media, this region has had the enviable record of being very peaceful both in season and out of season. Hardly did you hear of clashes between the main political players, the NDC and the NPP. Over the years the two have co-existed peacefully, but its sad to say that this peaceful environment has recently come under serious threat.

The source of this threat is the misconduct of the Member of Parliament for the Evalue Ajomoro Gwira constituency Hon. Catherine Afeku and her rampaging associates. Over the period that the registration has been on, there have been some ugly incidents in the constituency perpetrated by the MP and her hoodlums, and the NDC has been at the receiving end.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media, on 12th July 2020 the bodyguard of the MP, a serving police officer physically assaulted our constituency elections director at the Axim Community Centre on her instruction, when the gentleman was only doing his legitimate duty of ensuring that the right things were done at the Registration Centre. He had not broken any law of the land, and even if he had decent and lawful action would have been a report to the police officer at the centre. Instead, they preferred to take the law into their own hands.

Again on 16th July 2020 another member of the NDC was physically attacked and his phone taken from. This time it was no less a person than the NDCs Parliamentary Candidate and soon to be declared MP for the Evalue Gwira constituency Mr. Kofi Arko Nokoe who was at the receiving end of a blinding slap from an aide of the MP and a member of the NPP. The perpetrator of this crime alleged that the PC was recording him. Ladies and gentlemen, it is interesting to note that the said allegation has been proven to be palpably false.

Our friends in the media, in all of these instances of blatant display of impunity and provocation of the NDC, we remained calm and law- abiding because of our peaceful nature. The cases were reported to the police, with the expectation that they would effectively deal with them and ensure that justice is served. Sadly, the conduct of the police rather than being reassuring has instead bruised our confidence in them.

The investigations have been botched and so as we speak, justice has not been served, neither is it being demonstrably served. As we have it, both the bodyguard and the Aide are walking free. It is obvious that they have been emboldened to wreak further assault on us.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Press, the constant refrain from the Police has been that we should have confidence in them. Ordinarily, this isnt a bad call, but the fact of the matter is that confidence in them must be born out of a demonstrable determination to be fair and swift in dealing with infractions of the law that are brought to their attention. As we have it, they are yet to measure up to that standard and expectation and this has left us very disappointed.

The journey to the 7th December election has only just begun with the ongoing registration exercise and if current happenings in this constituency are anything to go by then we are in for a bumpy ride. Our message to the police is that we can no longer sit idly by as our people are abused for no reason without appropriate action from them.

The laws of this country allow for self-defense, and so we shall take steps to defend ourselves from hence. We shall respond appropriately to any future attacks on our people and the only way out is for the police to bring a firm and unbiased conclusion to the cases pending before them.

To the MP and her cohorts, we say power is sweet and sometimes intoxicating so enjoy it while it lasts because no condition is permanent. She the MP, more than anyone else in this constituency must understand this wise saying and to lead accordingly.

This is because she became the MP from 2009 and lost it in 2012. She is the MP now because she won again in 2016 and she is certainly going to lose again in 2020. She and her hoodlums must remember that the day of reckoning is fast approaching and if they dont put a halt to these abuses they will live to regret their actions.

As a party we will always desire peace because we are peace-loving, however, let no one take us for granted. Let all who have ears listen and listen well.

Thank you very much for your attention.
Rescue-dog-turned-K-9 cop Halo catches some rays in the park across the street from the Upland police station she calls home. Read more

Halo wasnt the kind of rescue dog everybody wanted, or that anybody wanted, for nearly a year.

Surrendered by her owners after they broke up, Halo, a 6-year-old pit bull mix, was taken in by Rags 2 Riches Animal Rescue in Delaware County and placed with a foster family as they waited for someone to see through her quirks, to the good girl underneath.

Halo didnt have fluffiness or youth going for her  the gray started to settle in around her boopable nose some time ago  and one of her back legs points up in the air like a pop-up turkey timer whenever she sits down.

But when Upland Borough Police Lt. Mickey Curran saw her picture on Facebook, he knew Halo was the dog his department had been looking for.

She had a snaggletooth and an underbite, and I said, Thats the girl for us! Curran recalled. I said I know this is unorthodox but would you be OK with a police department rescuing a dog and with the dog living at the station?

Tish Mayo, director of Rags 2 Riches, had never heard of such an arrangement. I thought it was wonderful, she said. I think dogs belong everywhere.

Adopted by the entire department, Halo moved into the Upland police station on Castle Avenue in March 2019 and has been living there ever since.

Id never heard of a station dog but I know were here 24/7 and theres a lot of dogs that dont have homes, Curran said. I thought itd be good for morale, especially when you come back from a tough situation, like a domestic violence case or a car crash, shes there to greet you with her tail wagging. It makes the day a little easier.

Last week, she was officially sworn in as an Upland police officer, making her the first rescue K-9 in the departments history and the only one in Delaware County, Curran said.

Halo wont be sniffing out drugs or finding missing bodies as part of her duties, shell strictly be working as a community police officer, attending police and borough events and making visitors feel welcome at the station (Hi! Oh my gosh! Im so happy youre here! Do you want to hold my paw? Look at how far back my ears can go. Do you like wagging tails? Well, Ive got one!)

While Halo graciously accepted her new title, she did mistake her swearing-in ceremony for a belly-rub session and offered her tummy instead of her paw to District Judge Georgia Stone as she read her oath in front of the entire police department and borough council July 14.

Once belly rubs were dutifully administered, Halo made things official by signing her oath of office with a paw print. She even received an Upland police badge with her name engraved on it, which permanently hangs from her collar now.

Shes legit, Curran said, of Halos police officer status. She took an oath and put her paw on the Bible and all.

When the department adopted Halo last year, the officers (who paid for her care out of their own pockets) had no plans to make her a cop or to use her to help build community relations. They just had a home to offer a homeless pet and the need for the kind of comfort only a dog can give.

But when the citizens of Upland learned their police department adopted a rescue dog, she quickly became the boroughs dog, too. People often stop in to the station just to visit Halo and they send her treats (so, so many treats) and squeaky stuffed animals, too, just to keep her coworkers on their toes.

The officers no longer have to pay for her food and care out of their own pockets because so many donations have poured in addressed to Halo that shes got her own bank account now.

In reaction to the community response, Curran created an Instagram account for Halo, so her fans can follow her paw-licing adventures visiting local schools and hospitals, or watch her sitting in the dugout, cheering on her departments softball team.

Halo has helped to humanize the officers of Upland to the people they serve in a way that only a dog can, and Curran hopes other police departments will consider adopting a rescue dog for their station, too.

We got her to bring the officers closer together and to assist them when they return from horrific calls  but what it turned out to be is the community getting her involved and her becoming a spokesperson for the department, Curran said. That was not what we expected.
President Donald Trump's relentless efforts to sow doubts about the legitimacy of this year's election are forcing both parties to reckon with the possibility that he may dispute the result in November if he loses - leading to an unprecedented test of American democracy.

With less than four months before the election, Trump's escalating attacks on the security of mail-in ballots and his refusal again this week to reassure the country that he would abide by the voters' will have added urgency to long-simmering concerns among scholars and his critics about the lengths he could go to hold on to power.

"What the president is doing is willfully and wantonly undermining confidence in the most basic democratic process we have," said William Galston, chair of the Brookings Institution's Governance Studies Program. "Words almost fail me - it's so deeply irresponsible. He's arousing his core supporters for a truly damaging crisis in the days and weeks after the November election."

Most legal experts said it is hard to envision that Trump would actually try to remain in office after a clear defeat by former vice president Joe Biden, considering the uproar that would follow such a challenge to U.S. democratic norms. Trump has previously said he offers up inflammatory ideas to provoke the media and his critics.

But his unwillingness to commit to a smooth transition of power has forced academics and political leaders - including, privately, some GOP lawmakers - to contemplate possible scenarios.

The resulting turmoil could surpass the contention over the outcome of the 2000 presidential election, confounding the legal system, Congress and the public's faith in how the country picks its leaders. Such a crisis could also have long-lasting consequences for a nation that has already been rocked this year by the coronavirus pandemic, an economic collapse and a reckoning over racial injustice.

Among the possibilities: Trump could claim victory before the vote in key states is fully counted - a process that could take days or even weeks this year because of the expected avalanche of absentee ballots.

He could also spend weeks refusing to concede amid a legal war over which votes are valid and should be included in the tally, according to legal and constitutional experts who are tracking Trump's statements.

Or he could simply refuse to leave on Jan. 20 - a possibility Biden has discussed publicly.

"This president is going to try to steal this election," the presumptive Democratic nominee told Trevor Noah of "The Daily Show" last month.

Biden said he is convinced that if Trump loses but won't leave, military leaders "will escort him from the White House with great dispatch."

Anxiety about Trump's intentions has grown as he seizes on the shift to absentee voting during the coronavirus pandemic as a sign that the election's outcome will be rigged, claiming without evidence that this year's race will be "the most corrupt election in the history of our country," as he put it last month.

This year, the president has attacked the security of voting by mail at least 50 times, according to a tally by The Washington Post, repeatedly making unfounded claims that it will lead to rampant fraud.

There is no evidence that mail voting leads to the kind of massive fraud Trump has described. Election officials throughout the country have challenged the president's assertions, saying that with the right safeguards, mail voting is secure. Data from several states with all-mail elections show they have had a tiny rate of potentially fraudulent ballots in recent years.

But in an interview with Fox News's Chris Wallace that aired Sunday, Trump reiterated that he thinks "mail-in voting is going to rig the election" and refused to commit to accepting the results.

"I have to see," Trump said. "No, I'm not going to just say yes. I'm not going to say no."

His intensifying rhetoric comes in the wake of a chaotic primary season in which many local election officials have struggled to keep up with the deluge of absentee ballots.

Trump's attacks on voting by mail have been amplified by the Republican National Committee and conservative groups, which are spending tens of millions of dollars on a multi-state legal strategy to limit the expansion of absentee voting.

Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said the president is acting responsibly when he raises doubts about loosening restrictions on voting by mail.

"We don't know what kind of shenanigans Democrats will try leading up to November," Murtaugh said in a statement. "If someone had asked George W. Bush and Al Gore this same question in 2000, would they have been able to foresee the drawn-out fight over Florida? The central point remains clear: In a free and fair election, President Trump will win."

The president's allies say they can envision this year's election ending in the kind of protracted legal fight that played out 20 years ago.

"What Trump is saying is that much of what happened in 2000 could play out again, in terms of the election ending up as a Supreme Court case," former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, said in an interview. "He's not saying he wouldn't accept the results, but he's saying he could imagine an election so chaotic and with so many contested ballots that you'd be fighting it out all the way to the inauguration."

In 2000, however, even as Gore and Bush waged a fierce legal fight over the vote count in Florida that ultimately went to the Supreme Court, neither threatened to reject the final outcome.

Senior Republicans have often distanced themselves from Trump's claims of a possible "rigged" election, but they have echoed his claims about alleged voter fraud. Speaking last month to CNN, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., a member of GOP leadership, did not rebuke Trump and said that there has been "evidence of election fraud in the past and we want to make sure that everything is on the up and up."

Trump's loyalists have gone further. "It's perhaps Joe Biden's failures as a candidate that animate the left's desire to get these vote-by-mail provisions in coronavirus legislation," Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., told Fox News in April, warning of "the greatest opportunity for fraud in our election system."

Top Democrats and Biden supporters are now bracing for what former Ohio governor Ted Strickland said could be "dark days going forward."

"I fear this election could lead to civil unrest in this country because Trump would happily be a cheerleader for that kind of response," said Strickland, a Democrat. "We are facing circumstances in this country we have probably never faced in our history, because we have a president who no regard for our constitutional system of government. ... He is fully capable of putting his own ego and perceived self-interest above what's right for the country."

- - -

Since entering political life, Trump has questioned the integrity of the country's voting system and suggested he might not accept an electoral loss.

"I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election if I win," Trump said in October 2016 at a rally in Delaware, Ohio.

He said something similar in a debate with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton that month.

"What I'm saying now is I will tell you at the time," Trump said. "I will keep you in suspense, OK?"

Winning the presidency did not stop Trump from claiming that millions of votes were fraudulent. He blamed his defeat in California on voting by undocumented immigrants, providing no evidence for the claim. He said he lost in New Hampshire because thousands of Massachusetts voters were bused there to cast ballots illegally, offering no proof.

This year, Trump began issuing salvos against mail ballots in March, just as states announced they were relaxing restrictions on absentee voting for the primaries in response to the pandemic. As his poll numbers began to slide this spring, the attacks became a mainstay of his Twitter presence and a refrain in his interviews and remarks to supporters.

Attorney General William Barr has echoed Trump's allegations about fraud, making unfounded claims that foreign governments could hijack the election with counterfeit mail ballots.

At times, Trump and his allies have said he would not challenge a loss in November.

After Biden's comments last month suggesting Trump might refuse to leave office, the president told Fox News: "Certainly if I don't win, I don't win. I mean, you know, go on and do other things."

His campaign was also definitive, with Murtaugh calling the imagined scenario of Trump refusing to leave the White House "another brainless conspiracy theory from Joe Biden."

"President Trump has been clear that he will accept the results of the 2020 election," Murtaugh said in a statement then.

But Trump appeared to reverse that position during the Fox News interview that aired Sunday.

"Are you suggesting that you might not accept the results of the election?" Wallace asked.

Trump responded: "No. I have to see."

In GOP circles, private talk about Trump's assertions veers from alarm to shrugging off his comments as simply incendiary political salvos. One moderate Republican House member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to comment candidly and avoid Trump's wrath, said he expects Trump to "leave quickly" if it is a blowout defeat. But he said he worries about a narrow election and whether Trump would go to extreme lengths to "protect his personal brand."

"It's something we'd all rather not think about, but it's there," he said.

The president is being backed by a bustling Republican operation in 15 states to monitor voting locations and ensure a heavy GOP presence at polling sites.

Trump's re-election campaign and the RNC are working together to recruit 50,000 volunteers to serve as "poll watchers," according to advisers to both groups, with $20 million set aside for courtroom fights, underscoring the legal arsenal at the party's disposal.

Democrats and voting rights advocates, meanwhile, are mustering their own legal effort to make it easier to cast ballots by mail, filing more than 50 lawsuits in 25 states. They argue changes are needed to make sure that voters are not disenfranchised because of factors outside their control or arbitrary enforcement of the rules.

Though there is no evidence that absentee voting benefits one party over another, the president's rhetoric is persuading some GOP voters that mail ballots are untrustworthy.

Veteran conservative activist Richard Viguerie called this year's shift in voting practices "terrifying to us."

"Every conservative is concerned about these mail-in ballots," he said. "And our issue isn't whether he leaves office but whether Democrats will accept the legitimacy of a Trump re-election. They didn't in 2016 with the resistance and the Russia investigation and all of that, in our view. Will they let him govern if he wins again, or will they be the ones saying it's illegitimate?"

Experts across the political spectrum worry that Trump's latest remarks not only will erode confidence in this year's election but could further weaken the democratic norms that have long held the country together.

"We're headed into an election where it's reasonable to expect logistical challenges due to the pandemic," said Yuval Levin, a conservative policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute. "Leaders should prepare the public to expect that and help them understand that logistical problems do not mean an election is illegitimate. To see the president doing the opposite is a big problem."

- - -

It would be historically unprecedented for an incumbent president not to accept a loss. Even in presidential elections with close margins - such as John Kennedy's defeat of Richard Nixon in 1960 or Bush's defeat of Gore in 2000 - the losing candidate has always conceded the race.

Yet with the dramatic shift to absentee voting, the division of partisan power in swing states and weaknesses in the law that governs how Congress handles disputed presidential elections, the circumstances of this year's general election could converge in a way that allows Trump to foster public doubt about the outcome, experts said.

Lawrence R. Douglas, a professor at Amherst College and author of the new book "Will He Go?: Trump and the Looming Electoral Meltdown in 2020," said there are a range of scenarios that could leave the country without a clear victor.

One possibility, Douglas said, is that Trump has a lead on Election Day that erodes as mail-in ballots come in over the subsequent days, breaking for Democrats in what experts have called the "blue shift."

Many states have seen record-busting totals of absentee ballots in this year's primaries, prolonging their vote counts. Pennsylvania processed 1.5 million mail ballots, compared with 84,000 in its 2016 primary. In Nevada, this year's number was 483,788, compared with about 25,000 in 2016.

New York election officials have spent weeks tabulating some results for last month's primary after voters requested more than 1.7 million absentee ballots, compared with about 115,000 submitted during the 2016 presidential primary.

In November, if Trump tries to declare victory before all those absentee ballots are counted, he could pressure Republican legislatures to certify slates of electors who would support him. And in turn, if Democratic governors of those states disagree, Congress could receive conflicting electoral certificates - something that has happened a handful of times in U.S. history, Douglas said.

Trump has a history of casting doubt on the validity of absentee ballots that are tallied after the Election Day vote.

In 2018, as ballots in Florida's U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races were being recounted, days after voters had gone to the polls, the president tweeted that Senate candidate Rick Scott and governor hopeful Ron DeSantis should be declared the winners.

He claimed that "large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged."

"An honest vote count is no longer possible - ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!" he tweeted. Both Scott and DeSantis won their races in the end.

If Trump chooses to make similar comments as the vote is being counted in November, he could weaken public confidence in the process and cause his supporters to doubt the ultimate result, Douglas said.

"We have a president who, really for years now, has been running down the trustworthiness of our electoral process," he said. "It certainly has gained traction with his base, but it is also incredibly dangerous."

More-complicated scenarios could involve the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which was passed in response to the contested presidential election of 1876 and attempts to clarify what Congress should do in case of a dispute over a state's electoral-college votes.

The law directs the House and Senate to separately debate and vote, but a scholarly consensus has declared the law defective for several reasons, including its failure to define what makes an electoral vote legitimate for counting purposes.

Douglas warned that the deficiencies in the law could make an electoral crisis worse, not better. Its provisions have been triggered only once, after a faithless Republican elector from North Carolina cast a vote for George Wallace instead of Nixon in the 1968 presidential election.

"In 2000, when the ECA threatened to kick in, jurists and commentators were unable to agree about the meaning of even its most basic provisions," Douglas wrote in his book, referring to the contested Bush-Gore election.

The law was not triggered because Gore, "to his credit," provided closure before that became necessary, Douglas said.

- - -

The way to avoid such a crisis, Democrats say, is for Biden to win in a landslide, by a margin so large that legal challenges contesting ballots in various states would be moot.

The Constitution's 20th Amendment helps provide for the peaceful transition of power, ordering that the president's term "shall end at noon on the 20th day of January ... and the terms of their successors shall then begin."

In a Monday interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said of Trump: "Whether he knows it yet or not, he will be leaving."

"There is a process," Pelosi added. "It has nothing to do with (whether) the certain occupant of the White House doesn't feel like moving and has to be fumigated out of there."

To that end, Biden's campaign is pushing for a decisive victory in key battleground states, aware that the comfortable lead he has in polls now could shrink, according to his advisers.

The former vice president also said this month that his campaign had recruited 600 lawyers to fight possible "chicanery" and protect voter access. The campaign has also received volunteer sign-ups from 10,000 people and plans to train them to "be in a polling place" on Election Day, he said.

"It's going to be hard. And if it's close - watch out," Biden said at a July 1 fundraiser.

Legal and political experts said it is important to wrestle with the possibilities of what could unfold in November - however unlikely.

Dan Baer, senior fellow in the Europe program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former Democratic Senate candidate in Colorado, compared the thought experiments to insurance.

"It is unlikely that our house is going to burn down this year, but we still buy insurance against that," said Baer, who recently wrote piece titled "How Trump could refuse to go" for the website UnHerd.

"One of the lessons of this presidency is that we should think about the most insidious opportunities, the most egotistical course of action and make sure we've thought through what could follow from that," he said. "If we haven't done that at this point, shame on us."

- - -

The Washington Post's Matt Viser contributed to this report.
A North Tonawanda man was arrested on several Canadian charges Monday after driving erratically across the Rainbow Bridge and into Canada  without stopping at the border  before committing other crimes, according to the Niagara Regional Police Service.

Harpreet Singh, 33, allegedly drove away from police in Niagara Falls, N.Y., failed to stop at the Canadian border, fled local authorities in Niagara Falls, Ont., crashed into a police car, assaulted an officer and bit a nurse at a local hospital.

Police said Singh was tased by an officer after Singh assaulted the officer during the arrest. Police also said he was found with Oxycodone and Hydrocodone. An officer suffered minor injuries during the arrest.

Singh was charged with the following violations of the Canadian Criminal Code: operation while impaired (drugs); dangerous operation; flight from police officer; assault peace officer with intent to resist arrest; mischief under $5,000; possession of a controlled substance; and assault.

Ontario authorities said Niagara Falls police officers had attempted a traffic stop on Singh, who was driving erratically in a Ford Explorer with Florida license plates.
Theres no other car quite like the classic Volkswagen Beetle. Not only is it the longest-running and most manufactured car of all time, its incredible versatility and robust design mean that its the perfect candidate for modification.

From pimped-out lunar rovers to straight-up just turning one into a hotel, the ubiquity and charm of the Bug naturally invites customisation and experimentation. While its diminutive four-banger only put out a modest 40hp even in its largest incarnations, its rear-engined rear-wheel-drive layout naturally lends itself to performance applications. Plenty of mechanics and revheads over the years have figured out ways to eke many, many more horses out of its motor.

One of the most popular modifications one could make to your Beetle back in the day was to turn it into a dune-basher or beach buggy, either by taking an angle grinder to its all-steel body or by replacing it wholesale with a fibreglass body kit. The buggy became an icon of 60s surf culture, particularly in places like California, Florida, Hawaii and of course, here in Australia.

Tasmania might not be known for its beaches, but this period-correct VW-based whip going under the hammer by Pickles in Hobart is the ultimate beach buggy. It might also be one of the coolest cars on sale in Australia today.

This 1962 coastline cruiser might have started off its life as a humble VW Type 1, but has clearly been extensively modified. The most obvious modification is the bright red J&S body kit. Dont be fooled by the photos on the original listing  there might be a Meyers Manx badge on this buggy but DMARGE reached out to the seller who confirmed with us exclusively that its a genuine J&S kit.

J&S Fibreglass was a small company based in Sydneys Five Dock that built removable hard tops for and kit cars like this beach buggy, which was their most successful product. Some of their other cars were powered by Holden Grey 2.2L or Jaguar XK6 3.4L straight-sixes, but this buggy retains the (presumably original) VW Typ 126 1.6L flat-four.

This was the largest engine fitted to original Beetles, also found in Type 2 vans (aka the Kombi), Type 3s and US-spec Karmann Ghias. In a car this small and light, its probably all you need  but as previously mentioned, its easy to make these 40hp engines much, much faster. This engines also got aftermarket parts from Mick Motors installed, a respected classic VW shop up in Queensland.

The car has a distinct red-and-white colour theme, from the awesome white-wall tires with red rims, to the very 60s vinyl interior. The dashboards all white, too, with what appears to be an old Mazda radio shoehorned into the fibreglass surround. The redback spider entombed in the resin shift knob is a delightfully kitsch touch, too.

Otherwise, its a true beach buggy  no roof, no amenities, but vibes for days. Sure beats any old Jeep Wrangler pavement crawler in the looks department. And because its so mechanically simple  with Beetle parts as common as  this is one classic car that wont break the bank (but will definitely crack a few smiles).

The auction for this ultimate beach buggy opens on 11am sharp tomorrow morning (Friday 24th July), so have your wallet ready  this baby wont stick around long.

Good luck, and you can find the listing here.

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The National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (Finas) announced on July 20 that broadcast network Al Jazeera did not have a valid licence to film a program about migrant workers in Malaysia. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is concerned about a rising number of attacks and threats being directed at the respected international broadcaster and its Malaysia-based journalists and calls on authorities to support media independence and freedom of the press in the country.

The 101 East current affairs program, Locked Up in Malaysias Lockdown, was broadcast on July 3 and has ignited controversy for its coverage of the alleged treatment of migrant workers during the Covid-19 lockdown. On July 6, Malaysian police initiated an investigation under of the Penal Code and the Communications and Multimedia Act. Senior Minister, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, claims the program contains false information. Al Jazeera has refuted the claims and released several statements backing its investigation.

After being contacted by Malaysias Communications and Multimedia Minister, Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah, on July 21, Finas then went on to claim the network did not have the necessary licences to film a documentary.

On July 23, the communications minister defended the governments position, claiming in parliament that it was compulsory for all producers to apply for a Film Production Licence and Film Shooting Certificate (SSP), regardless if they were from a mainstream media outlet or personal media. When questioned if Tik Tok and Instagram TV also qualified as film, the minister said feature films, short films, trailers, advertising filmlets and any recording on material of any kind fell under the licencing rule in his view.

Al Jazeera has dismissed the claims and accusations against it as not credible. It said that by the National Film Corporations own definition the weekly current affairs show does not fall into the category of a film requiring a licence.

Unable to contest the integrity of our journalism, we believe the authorities are now attempting this new gambit of claiming we did not have a proper license, said Al Jazeera English managing director, Giles Trendle.

Malaysia-based Al Jazeera staff were initially questioned by police on July 11. The IFJ has been advised the networks team members have been subjected to trolling and harassment.

The Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) is among those expressing alarm over the probe, saying the move fundamentally undermines press freedom in Malaysia and threatens the country's reputation at an international level.

On July 22, satellite television provider Astro was fined by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) for re-airing a 2015 Al Jazeera program on the murder of Mongolian woman in Malaysia.

The IFJ said: The intimidation being levelled at Al Jazeera and its journalists for simply doing the job of reporting is gravely concerning. The attempts by Finas to pin Al Jazeera under a film licensing claim is highly questionable and should be strongly refuted for the sake of all media and more broadly for freedom of expression in Malaysia.
Even teleprompter could not take so many lies: Rahul's dig at PM Modis Davos speech

PM 100% focused on his own image: Rahul Gandhi slams Modi over China issue

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, July 23: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday launched a scathing attack at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his handling of the border standoff with China, saying that his government lacked a clear cut vision to take the nation forward.

"PM is 100 per cent focused on building his own image. India's captured institutions are all busy doing this task. One man's image is not a substitute for a national vision," Gandhi tweeted, along with a video in which he deliberated on how India should deal with the China situation.

Rahul Gandhi says govt rubbishing his warnings on COVID-19, China

The Congress leader has been critical of PM Modi and his government over the handling of the border issue with China in Ladakh and has even accused the prime minister of having "surrendered" Indian territory to China.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

"If you deal with them from a position of strength, you can work with them you can get what you need and it can be actually done. But if they sense weakness then you had it," he said."

"India has to have a global vision. India now has to become an idea. And it has to become a global idea. So that's the thing that's going protect India... actually thinking big," he Congress leader said.

Acknowledging that the border issue first needs to be resolved, he said this is also the time to change our approach. "This this is the point at which the road parts. If we go this way we become a major player if we go this way, we become irrelevant."

'India losing power and respect everywhere': Rahul attacks Modi over foreign policy

He said it was his job as an opponent of the PM to question him and put pressure on him so he does his work. "His responsibility is to give the vision. It's not there. I can tell you, guaranteed, it's not there and that's why China's is in there today."
Two women have appeared in court accused of murdering a pensioner in Londonderry.

In July 2018, Daniel Guyler (75) was assaulted at Termon Street in the city's Waterside area. His attackers stole his wallet, containing 400, and left him on the ground with serious head injuries.



Mr Guyler never regained consciousness and he died in hospital in May 2019.



Earlier this week - two years after the attack - detectives from the PSNI's Major Investigation Team launched a murder inquiry. They arrested two women - Sharon Harland (44) from Bridge Street in Derry and Rhona Gracey (33) and from Belfast.



They appeared via videolink at Bishop Street Courthouse where Judge Ted Magill said the women were denying charges of murder and robbery.



The court was told the women had considerable criminal records, and both had been trying to address issues of alcohol and drug abuse. A defence barrister said Sharon Harland was a mother of five who was now pregnant with her sixth child.



The judge heard that Harland and Gracey were arrested in July 2018, shortly after the attack on Mr Guyler, and the pair appeared at Londonderry Magistrate's Court, sitting in Omagh, accused of assault. Prosecutors, however, dropped the charges and decided to proceed by way of reports.



Now the women face a murder charge.



A detective told the court that forensic evidence in the case was "quite strong". She said the victim's blood had been found on Harland and Gracey's clothing and shoes. The detective also objected to bail, saying she believed the defendants could interfere with witnesses. She said there was "bad blood" between the women and people who have given statements to the police.



A defence lawyer said there were a number of outstanding issues to be addressed, including the cause of death. He said post-mortem reports indicated Mr Guyler died from bronchial pneumonia.



Judge Magill said both defendants had already been at large for considerable period of time since the attack on Mr Guyler and neither had intimidated any witnesses. He said he was prepared to release Harland and Gracey on bail, but the two women remain in custody after prosecutors said they intended to appeal the judge's decision.



The defendants are due to appear again in court on August 20th.
The UK has welcomed the steps taken by both India and China in easing the border tensions in the sensitive Ladakh sector.

Commitments during Special Representatives talks are welcomed. It is encouraging. There is de-escalation, tensions seem to ease, Sir Philip Barton, British High Commissioner to India, said at a press briefing on Thursday.

Both the countries started the process after the face-of in Galwan Valley, in which India lost 20 soldiers and China suffered undisclosed number of casualties.

There have been a series of meetings since the June 15 incident.

India and China remain committed to complete disengagement which is an intricate process and requires constant verification, the Indian Army had said in a statement last week.

Limited disengagement had started after at least six rounds of meetings both at the miltary and diplomatic levels.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh visited Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir last week where he said that the ongoing negotiations with China should help resolve the ongoing border dispute but he couldnt guarantee to what extent the situation would be resolved, in another confirmation of the complex nature of the ongoing military and diplomatic negotiations between the two nuclear powers.

The government had said ahead of Singhs statement that the complex disengagement process with China on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is specifically aimed at preventing face-off situations, and any unilateral attempts to change the status quo on the disputed border wont be accepted.

However, sources aware of the situation on the border said that India and China have lately failed to make a breakthrough in reducing border tensions, and the disengagement process at some points of the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) has virtually halted.
If the crisis continues at its current clip, coronavirus is on track to become the second leading cause of death in Los Angeles County for 2020, public health officials said Wednesday.

So far, 4,213 Angelinos have died of the infection in only about six months.

That makes it likely second only to heart disease for the leading cause of death in the county where about 6,000 people died of cardiac problems in the first six months of 2019, according to County Public Health Director Dr Barbara Ferrer.

The seven-day average for daily coronavirus fatalities in LA county has turned downward since the first week of July, but Ferrer urged residents to stay vigilant and not interpret that pattern with too much optimism.

Coronavirus is on track to be the second leading cause of death in Los Angeles, following only heart disease, as it has already killed more than 4,000 people in the county - more than stroke or COPD killed in an entire year in 2017

She warned that claims that the declining death tolls mean coronavirus is 'nothing to worry about' are 'simply not true,' ABC7 reported.

Meanwhile, California as a whole has now surpassed New York for the greatest number of coronavirus cases, despite seeming to have gotten its outbreak under control earlier this year.

By the end of June, coronavirus had killed more than 3,400 people in Los Angeles County since January.

That puts it well ahead of other causes of death in the county, excepting heart disease.

The county health department's most recent complete mortality data is for 2017.

If coronavirus had struck the US that year, it would, by June, have killed more people than the next two leading causes of death - stroke and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) - combined.

Coronavirus has often been compared to the flu - particularly by President Trump, who earlier this year insisted that coronavirus was no worse and less deadly than the flu (he's since changed his tune) - but Los Angeles death data undermines that association.

Cases are surging once more in California and, although the number of daily deaths has declined in recent weeks, LA county health officials warned COVID-19 fatalities could still rise

Flu is 'a dangerous virus in its own right,' said Dr Ferrer.

'It's also nowhere near as deadly as COVID-19 has been to date.'

In 2017, pneumonia and flu-like illnesses killed 2,171 people in the Los Angeles area, according to county data.

Already, in the first half of 2020, coronavirus has killed more than twice that many people there.

'I'd like to emphasize that unlike (the) flu, there is no vaccine for COVID-19 at this time,' Dr Ferrer added.

The Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed aims to have a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine by December - but many expert believe scientists will be hard-pressed to have a shot ready to distribute five months from now.

Dr Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said on Thursday that his agency is gearing up for a 'flurry' of rigorous, expedited studies to find a treatment for coronavirus.

California has now surpassed New York for the greatest number of coronavirus cases in the US

But, for now, only the antiviral remdesivir and the steroid dexamethasone have shown reliable evidence of reducing the duration of illness and likelihood of death form coronavirus, and each drug is far from curative.

With no cure, no vaccine, few treatments and hopes that warm weather would bat back the virus dashed, the COVID-19 death toll will only continue to mount.

If that's the case, coronavirus will climb the ranks of leading causes of death nationwide just as it has in Los Angeles County.

As of Thursday afternoon, coronavirus has sickened nearly four million Americans and killed nearly 144,000.

That's more people than died of Alzheimer's in 2017 (the most recent year for which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have complete data), and rivals that year's death tolls from stroke or chronic respiratory disease.
The ongoing pandemic and a potentially harsh hurricane season could combine to make 2020 even worse for South Carolina residents.

This is especially true for the most vulnerable communities, which are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. Cases continue to rise as the Palmetto State approaches peak hurricane season.

In addition to government agencies and relief groups, faith organizations have long been on the front lines of helping people impacted by catastrophes. Some religious groups have already begun preparing storm season relief efforts amid the coronavirus, even using recent tornadoes as a trial run for offering aid amid a pandemic.

They acknowledge this year's disaster relief responses will pose many challenges, such as not being able to shelter people inside church facilities.

Others have been too strapped trying to handle COVID-19 and haven't had much time to think about another crisis.

The Rev. Isaac Holt, pastor of Royal Missionary Baptist Church in North Charleston, struggled to picture what hurricane relief would look like during a pandemic. The church's gymnasium and separate facility usually serves as a safe spot for those flooded out of their homes. The congregation also boasts about 100 elderly members, who the church checks on after hurricanes.

A major storm this year could mean those impacted would be struggling in search of shelter.

"That would be a perfect storm," Holt said.

Catholic Charities of South Carolina's program head Michele Borbely said the group enters every hurricane season preparing for the worst.

"I dont worry until the names start rolling in," she said. "It doesnt mean I stop thinking about it every day."

Another faith group, the S.C. Baptist Convention, is most concerned about the lack of available facilities to house people during disasters.

The Red Cross has said it is looking to first house people in hotels this year, and then possibly campgrounds with cabins. The organization wants to do that before resorting to their traditional congregate shelters in public schools and community centers.

Where do we put those people and how are they cared for," said Randy Creamer, the convention's director for disaster relief.

As far as volunteers go, the convention plans to use churches where people will be socially distanced.

"Were just going to have to separate them more," Creamer said. "Instead of putting a dozen guys in a room, it may be two in a room.

Religious leaders are also considering how the anxiety of dealing with both a pandemic and natural disaster can take one's spirit.

After storms, the Baptist denomination has chaplains accompany victims whose homes have been damaged. Praying with people and helping them navigate the coronavirus is different because they can't see the disease, Creamer said.

He said it's unlike helping people cope with the physical damage of a home, which they know will be repaired at some point.

The virus, you cant see it. You can't touch it. It's a huge emotional burden that gets into peoples minds," Creamer said.

While faith groups anticipate the virus will impact the number of volunteers, they don't doubt the commitment of those who've long responded to the call to serve.

The convention has about 1,200 to 1,500 trained volunteers across the state, many of whom are elderly and showed up earlier this year after tornadoes swept through South Carolina.

Elderly people can be more vulnerable to COVID-19, but that didn't stop many from helping remove trees and debris.

"They just turned out," Creamer said.

The S.C. Conference of the United Methodist Church has about 300 to 350 trained volunteers, a number that has remained consistent over the years, said Matt Brodie, disaster response coordinator with the conference.

Safety precautions are being implemented to protect volunteers.

Catholic Charities of South Carolina will conduct meetings on recovery efforts with storm victims remotely, Borbely said. Food and other distortion will be done with drive-through formats.

For site work, workers will wear gloves and face masks.
Russia has rejected claims made by former US National Security Adviser John Bolton, regarding the relationship between Iran and Russia in Syria writes Al-Masdar.

Moscow has responded to former US National Security Adviser John Boltons claims about Russia not needing Iran in Syria.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov slammed Boltons claims, saying that President Vladimir Putin is not in the habit of discussing such matters behind his partners back.

[Bolton] had no grounds to quote President Putin because Putin has never said anything of the kind, Lavrov told a news conference after talks with his visiting Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, as quoted by the Tass News Agency.

It is against our traditions and principles, and more so, it is against President Putins principles, to discuss such things behind the back of our partners. We are cooperating tightly with Turkey and Iran in Syria, he continued.

I refrain from commenting on the habit of retired American officials to write memoirs in such a way that entails litigations and lawsuits, he noted. It could be called a specific political culture, were it not quite different to what we typically call culture.

Zarif, in turn, stressed that Teheran doesnt believe Bolton either. We think it has nothing to do with the state of things in Syria and the level of cooperation Iran maintains with Russia and Turkey in the interests of peace, stability, he said, adding that such stories were obviously meant to heighten interest in the book.

Iran plays a major role in Syria, especially along the Iraqi and Lebanese borders, where they work with Hezbollah (Lebanon) and the Popular Mobilization Units (Iraq) to secure the areas.

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.
FLY Zipline Ghana Limited had delivered 79,800 medical products to 945 health facilities within its service range as of the end of June 2020.



The Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Bernard Okoe Boye, told Parliament that 47,100 of such deliveries were life-saving medical products; 31,400 were vaccines, while the remaining 1,264 were blood products.



Mr Speaker, since May 2020, Zipline has delivered 2,573 COVID-19 samples to the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) and the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research (KCCR), he said.



Peace of mind



Dr Okoe Boye said, Health professionals in health facilities within the service range now have the peace of mind in the management of patients in the theatre and labour wards particularly and the hospital in general, with the availability of blood and emergency medicines within a few minutes of request.



Patients who otherwise would have been referred to other hospitals for dog and snake bites, blood transfusion and other life-threatening cases as a result of the non-availability of emergency medicines are now being treated within these hospitals without the need for referrals, he stated in Parliament yesterday.



Drone delivery



The deputy minister made the revelation when he answered a question asked on behalf of the MP for Binduri, Dr Robert Baba Kugnab-Lem, who wanted to know what impact the Zipline drone delivery service had had on healthcare delivery since it was launched almost a year ago.



The Ministry of Health and Fly Zipline Ghana Limited signed a service agreement for the emergency delivery of blood and health products to selected public health facilities, which was approved by Parliament on December 11, 2018.



Dr Okoe Boye said the company had so far completed and was operating from four distribution centres at Omenako in the Eastern Region, Mpanya in the Ashanti Region, Vobsi in the North East Region and Sefwi Wiawso in the Western North Region.



Confidence level



Dr Okoe Boye said the efficient delivery by the company had increased the confidence of the relevant communities in the services of the drone operator.



Today, the health facilities in deprived and hard-to-reach communities such as Akuma and Ekye in the Afram Plains; Gbintiri and Sakogu in East Mamprusi; Amonie, Bonso and Adonikrom Aowin in Western North, and others now receive blood and emergency medicines, thereby preventing the death and needless suffering of the people.



Reduced wastage



With Zipline, wastage and expiry from over-stock of blood and emergency medicines have reduced at health facilities within its service range, Dr Okoe Boye added.



Responding to a question by the MP for Kumbungu, Mr Ras Mubarak, if there were plans to extend Ziplines services nationwide, he said the whole country was covered with each of the four distribution centres that serviced various healthcare facilities.









Source: Daily Graphic









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By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Restrictions on international travel due to the Covid-19 pandemic have put the brakes on the strategic disinvestment of CPSEs like Air India, said DIPAM Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey on Wednesday, but added that was a priority for the government to conclude it.

Normally strategic disinvestment takes 8-9 months.... To a lot of extent, Covid has put a brake on this because international travel has virtually stopped. To some extent, we have to grant extension to some of the EoIs that we have issued. It is not that the investors are not engaged, but they want more time. Because one thing which is not open yet is international travel, he said.

The government has already invited bids for strategic sale of national carrier Air India. However, the bid deadlines have been extended a couple of times on account of COVID-19 pandemic. For 100 per cent stake sale in Air India, the latest deadline for bid submission is now August 31. He added that the government has restructured the Expression of Interest (EoI) document for Air India to attract investors.

We restructured the EoI of Air India with deep sense of responsibility that we will be successful this time. A lot of debt restructuring was done, rationality was brought in balance sheet, concerns of investors were met in EoI, he said. A similar extension has also been made for the planned stake sale in BPCL.

Pandey pointed out that the governments policy has marked a change-from selling only loss making public sector units to profit making blue-eyed boys, like BPCL. Strategic disinvestment... completing what we have done (initiated the process) is a matter of priority. Also, building up a healthy pipeline... The idea is we are trying to give more space to the private sector in terms of brownfield investments. Once these enterprises are strategically privatised, Pandey said at a FICCI event held in New Delhi.

RIL uses tech muscle to raise capital

The pandemic may have thrown a spanner in the works for the government, but Indias Reliance Industries has had little trouble raising capital after the outbreak. It has used stake sales in digital unit Jio to raise a whopping Rs 1.52 lakh crore. But, Covid-19 has delayed a planned stake sales in its oil business.
A New York City man is finally heading home after spending more than four months in hospital fighting COVID-19.

Larry Kelly, 64, walked out of the New Jewish Home to rapturous applause on Wednesday - 128 days after he was first admitted to nearby Mount Sinai Morningside suffering symptoms of the coronavirus.

Crowds of medical staff who cared for Kelly stood cheering as he embraced his wife for the first time since March 17.

'I gotta believe that it's my own willpower and all of their support. I believe that in my bones,' an tearful Kelly stated, gesturing towards his family and healthcare workers.

Kelly spent 51 days on a ventilator and suffered both seizures and infections.

Kelly's brother was left stunned by his persistence and dubbed him 'Miracle Larry'.

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Larry Kelly, 64, walked out of The New Jewish Home to rapturous applause on Wednesday - 128 days after he was first admitted to nearby Mount Sinai Morningside suffering symptoms of the coronavirus

Crowds of medical staff who cared for Kelly stood cheering as he embraced his wife for the first time since March 17

'I was in a very dark place, but something pulled me out. And if that's a miracle, that's a miracle!,' he told NBC 4.

Meanwhile, the retired high school assistant principal credited his wife, Dawn, with 'saving his life'.

Just before he was put on a ventilator, Kelly texted his wife writing: 'I'll never give up'.

Dawn told assembled news media on Wednesday that she clung to those words throughout her husband's ordeal.

'My wife saved my life, she wouldn't let them pull the plug,' Kelly stated.

Meanwhile, Kelly's daughter, Jackie, was also on hand to witness her father's incredible walk out if hospital.

'It gets tough. You kind of have to hold on to as much hope as you can,' she told NBC 4.

A crowd of supporters was on hand to cheer on Kelly - a retired high school assistant principal

The group walked Kelly back to his home on the Upper West Side - but not before a quick pit-stop at his favorite bar

The Kelly family told CBS 2 that a 'turning point' came on Easter Sunday April 12, when he opened his eyes for the first time in almost a month.

He tearfully told the crowd: '579 people died on Easter Sunday, and I didn't. I'm very blessed.'

Kelly stays he is still working his way to feeling 100 percent better, and is often short of breath.

While he was able to walk out of the hospital, a crowd of supporters pushed him in a wheelchair to one of his favorite local spots - Dive Bar, on the Upper West Side.

Dive Bar's owner, Lee Seinfeld, has known Kelly for years, and had a sign that read 'Lets Go Miracle Larry' plastered up in his bar.

Meanwhile, Kelly had a message to share with those across the country, as the coronavirus crisis continues to worsen.

'I wouldnt wish this on anybody, so, please, wear your mask,' he stated.
Kasapreko Company Limited is set to receive the Ghana Cedi equivalent of US$ 28.

The leading Ghanaian total beverage producing company will receive 251 million waiver of duties and taxes on import of machinery, equipment and raw materials for the next five years.

The waiver, described as the largest, under the Government of Ghana's flagship programme One District One Factory (1D1F) covers waivers of import duty, import National Health Insurance Levy (NHIL), import GETFund levy, import Value Added Tax (VAT) and EXIM levy.

Dr Mark Assibey-Yeboah, Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament and MP for New Juaben South, moved for the Report of the Committee on the waiver to be adopted.

It was seconded by Mr Governs Kwame Agbodza, MP for Adaklu, who rather wondered why the tax waiver was being sought in dollars when the cost of the project was in Ghana Cedis.

Presenting the report, Dr Assibey-Yeboah informed the House of the intention of Kasapreko to expand its operations under the 1D1F initiative to meet market demand.

In pursuance of this vision, the company has acquired and renovated the abandoned Paramount Distilleries factory previously owned by GIHOC at Tanoso in Kumasi, the report said.

It added: The operationalization of the factory will enable the company to increase its current production capacity, grow sales and satisfy market demand in the Middle Belt and Northern Sector of the country and in the Export Market with high prospects for growth and profitability.

Expected benefits to be derived from the project are that it would facilitate the timely delivery of essential beverage products for local consumption and export, boost the local economy and provide job opportunities.

Kasapreko produces carbonated and non-carbonated soft drinks, water, bitters, whisky, gin, liqour, brandy and wine and also engages in general farming activities.

Being a Ghanaian company, the committee noted that most of its profits and resources would be retained in the country to boost the economy, rather than being repatriated if it were a foreign company.

The incentives being approved for the company would also help elevate the company from a Ghanaian giant into a sub-regional giant and leader in the industry.

Mr Kwaku Agyemang Kwarteng, Deputy Finance Minister, winding up, explained that the amount of the waiver was in dollars because it would involve import items, and also for simplicity sake.

---GNA
Industry veteran Domenic Leo to lead the new business unit joined by several IP legal industry experts

BOSTON, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Anaqua , the leading provider of innovation and intellectual property management solutions, today announced the launch of a new business unit that will address the diverse needs of todays global law firms. As part of this expansion, Anaqua is making additional investments in its leadership and law firm platforms, AQX Law Firm and PATTSY WAVE. The move underscores Anaquas commitment to the law firm market as an essential part of the IP ecosystem and to the companys strategy of organizing to meet the needs of this market.

Leading the business unit is Domenic Leo, who joins Anaqua as Vice President & General Manager, Law Firms. Leo will assume overall responsibility for Anaquas global law firm offering and will oversee the newly acquired IP management software and practice automation business, O P Solutions.

With over 30 years experience in the IP Management industry, Domenic will deepen Anaquas law firm DNA and focus on how we can better serve and deliver solutions that help the law firm community, said Bob Romeo, CEO of Anaqua. We are thrilled to welcome Domenic to the team.

Leo added: Anaqua listens to the market and has a reputation for delivering leading IP management solutions. Thats the culture at Anaqua and is one of the many reasons why I joined. I am very excited to lead a talented team of Anaqua staff, O P Solutions management, and recently hired industry experts. Together we will help drive the success of our law firm clients across the globe.

Joining Leo and Anaquas existing law firm dedicated staff are recent hires Jayne Durden and Joe Bichanich, as well as Mike Frechtman and Ethan Waters, who both became part of Anaqua with the acquisition of O P Solutions.

Durden comes to Anaqua with extensive experience as both an IP practitioner and an IP management service provider. A trademark attorney and solicitor, Durden previously worked in large, as well as boutique law firms in Australia and the U.S., including Ladas & Parry LLP, Allens, and The Webb Law Firm. In her role, as Vice President, Law Firm Strategy, she will work closely with the Anaqua law firm client community to bring their needs to the forefront and will collaborate with the Anaqua product team to further translate those needs into IP platform enhancements.

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Bichanich, a JD, joins Anaqua as Client Director, Global Law Firms, with over 10 years of legal and technology program leadership, his most recent role as Director of Information Technology and Practice Support at Michael Best & Friedrich LLP. At Anaqua, Bichanich will be responsible for developing and implementing creative strategies to enhance the long-term success of Anaquas clients. He will also be supporting IP practices in how to develop and apply Anaquas technology to transform their businesses.

We are very excited that with the backing of our Board we are making a significant investment in people, technology, and products to better serve the law firm sectors IP management needs, said Romeo. With the formation of this unit, and with this team in particular, we are strengthening our knowledge of the sector and our ability to understand and translate our law firm clients needs into effective market-leading solutions.

About Anaqua

Anaqua, Inc. is a premium provider of integrated, end-to-end innovation and intellectual property (IP) management solutions, serving more than 50% of the top 25 U.S. patent filers, more than 50% of the top 25 global brands, and a growing number of the most prestigious, forward-looking law firms. The companys global operations are headquartered in Boston, with offices across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Anaquas IP platform is used by over one million IP executives, attorneys, paralegals, administrators, and innovators globally. Its solution suite merges best practice workflows with big data analytics and tech-enabled services to create one intelligent environment designed to inform IP strategy, enable IP decision-making, and streamline IP operations. For additional information, please visit anaqua.com .

Company Contact:

Amanda Hollis

PR Manager, Anaqua

617-375-2626

ahollis@Anaqua.com




New Delhi, July 23 : In a scathing admonition of Pakistan, the government on Thursday said that Islamabad has blocked all the avenues for an effective remedy available for India in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case.

Jadhav is an Indian national detained by Pakistan since 2016 after he was kidnapped from Iran. Islamabad has alleged that he is an Indian spy and was involved in subversive activities in Pakistan.

During his weekly briefing, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said that Pakistan is not only in violation of the judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but also of its own ordinance.

"Pakistan has completely failed to provide the remedy as directed by the ICJ and India reserves its position in the matter, including its rights to avail further remedies," he said.

India has so far requested consular access 12 times over the past one year. However, Pakistan has not provided an unimpeded consular access yet. The meeting of consular officers with Jadhav on July 16 was "scuttled by Pakistan authorities", Srivastava said.

The consular officers, he said, were instructed not to hand over any document to Jadhav. As a result, the Indian consular officers could not obtain a power of attorney from Jadhav.

India has repeatedly requested Pakistan for relevant documents related to the case of Jadhav. Pakistan advised India that the relevant documents could be handed over only to an authorised Pakistani lawyer. Thereafter, India appointed a Pakistani lawyer to obtain the relevant documents.

"To our surprise, as advised by the Pakistani authorities, when the authorised Pakistani lawyer approached the concerned authorities, they declined to handover the documents to the lawyer," the spokesperson said.

In the absence of an unimpeded and unhindered consular access as well as the relevant documents, as a last resort, India tried to file a petition on July 18. "However, our Pakistani lawyer informed that a review petition could not be filed in the absence of power of attorney and supporting documents related to the case of Jadhav," he said.

Pakistan, the spokesperson said, also created confusion over the last date of filing a petition. Initially, they indicated that a petition has to be filed by no later than July 19. Subsequently, Pakistan indicated that the time limit to file a review petition shall expire on July 20.

Knowing the inadequacies and shortcomings in the ordinance, India had already shared its concerns earlier this month, including a considerable delay in informing India about its promulgation, with the Pakistan authorities.

"Pakistan took two weeks to inform us about this ordinance and shared the copy of the ordinance only after India requested for the same," Srivastava said.

India, he added, has conveyed that the ordinance neither fulfils nor does it give complete weight to the judgment of the ICJ.

"With regard to the ordinance, it seems, Pakistan was non-serious in its approach and was not interested in implementing the judgment of the ICJ in letter and spirit," the government spokesperson said.

The whole exercise of not providing any document related to the case even after repeated requests, not providing an unimpeded consular access and some reported unilateral action of approaching the high court on part of Pakistan again exposes the farcical nature of Pakistan's approach, Srivastava said.
Producer Binaifer Kohli has refuted all rumours of Shefali Jariwala replacing Saumya Tandon on her hit serial Bhabhiji Ghar Par Hain. It was being reported that Saumya did not want to shoot for the show and could be replaced by Bigg Boss 13 contestant Shefali Jariwala.

Speaking with Times of India in an interview, Binaifer said, I dont know where these rumours are coming from. I have not spoken to Shefali Jariwala or anyone. Saumya Tandon is currently shooting for the show. As of now she is very much a part of Bhabhiji Ghar Par Hain and will be shooting with us. Saumya is a good artist, I love her, she is very professional. If I had my way I would have never let her go.

Shefali had also refuted the rumours and told SpotboyE, Its not at all true. I really dont know how my name came into the picture when there has been no discussion at all.

Saumya had not been shooting for a while now, after her staff member tested positive for Covid-19 earlier this month.Binaifer had said then, It is extremely unfortunate that a personal staff member of our artist has contracted the virus. The staff member was tested and a day before the shoot, the report came out negative. The artist and her staff member have not been shooting with us for over 6 days now.

Also read: Amitabh Bachchan dismisses report of testing negative for Covid-19: Incorrect, Irresponsible, fake

About following precautions and being safe on sets, Binaifer told Hindustan Times recently, I have told everyone to be six feet apart. My show set is certified safe. If I write bazaar mein, bazaar dikha nahi sakti. I want to show five people have gone to the police station, but I cant show those five people. We are limited. We will have to shoot smartly.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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(Newser)  "Ghost ships" carrying the bodiesor skeletonsof North Korean fishermen have been washing up in Japan for years, but there was a massive increase after 2017. A new study links the rise to "dark fishing fleets" of Chinese vessels in North Korean waters in violation of United Nations sanctions in 2017, CNN reports. Pyongyang apparently sold the rights to fish in its waters to recoup income it lost under sanctions, a move that forced the country's own fishing vessels to fish for squid illegally in distant Russian or Japanese waters. When the ill-equipped wooden boats ran out of fuel or had engine trouble, they ended up being carried to the shores of Japan, researchers say. They say the death toll has been so high that some settlements on North Korea's east coast have become "widows' villages."

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The researchers used satellite data to determine that more than 900 Chinese vessels fished illegally in North Korean waters in 2017 and more than 700 did so the following year, the Guardian reports. "It is the largest known case of illegal fishing perpetrated by vessels originating from one country operating in another nation's waters," says Jaeyoon Park, co-author of the study from the Global Fishing Watch nonprofit. Over the last five years, around 600 "ghost ships" have washed up in Japan, including more than 150 last year. The researchers say that beyond the human toll, the industrial Chinese trawlers have rapidly depleted fish stocks. Stocks of Pacific flying squid in Korean and Japanese waters are down by more than 80% since 2003, which experts say is at least partly due to overfishing. (Read more North Korea stories.)
Company Announces Dates and Location for VOICE 2021

SAN JOSE, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Leading semiconductor test equipment supplier Advantest Corporation (TSE: 6857) has announced the cancellation of its VOICE 2020 Developer Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona due to health and safety concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic. With the public health emergency showing no signs of relenting, this decision removes the risk of exposing VOICE participants to potential illness.

We recognize these are unsettling times for everyone, and sadly do not foresee the climate improving to the level that rationalizes encouraging attendance to the conference, said Judy Davies, Advantests vice president of Global Marketing Communications and VOICE 2020 Developer Conference ambassador. With the well-being of our employees, partners and customers being Advantests first priority, we have cancelled the event in its entirety for 2020.

Despite earnest consideration to host VOICE as an online event this year, the conference will not move to a virtual format. Throughout its 14 years, VOICE has always been recognized as a collaboration of minds with face-to-face networking and demonstrations amongst peers, colleagues, sponsors and suppliers. Advantest would like to retain that program DNA so instead will focus on making 2021 the most memorable and dynamic program in the history of VOICE.

VOICE 2021 Dates and Location

Designed by test engineers for test engineers, VOICE remains the industrys most anticipated annual conference due to its extensive learning and networking opportunities. Advantest appreciates the support and understanding received from participants throughout this unprecedented period and would like to assure all parties that VOICE 2021 will return with an exceptional program. VOICE 2021 will be held on June 22-23, 2021, with a Workshop Day on June 24, 2021. The venue will remain the Omni Scottsdale Resort & Spa Montelucia in Scottsdale, Arizona. VOICE will only be held in one location in 2021. Additional information will be posted on the VOICE website at https://voice.advantest.com/ as it becomes available.

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Keynote Addresses Remain Unchanged

The exceptional line-up of 2020 keynote speakers have all agreed to speak on the 2021 dates. On day one, Steve Pateras, senior director of marketing for the Test Automation Group at Synopsys, will deliver a keynote titled Test Evolves  New Access to Adaptive Learning, and research specialist Dr. Kate Darling will discuss the future of human-robot interactions in her keynote. Dr. Darling is a leading expert in social robotics who explores humans emotional responses to robots.

On day two, the conference will feature industry expert Dan Hutcheson, CEO and chairman of VLSIresearch, covering 5G, IoT, AI and other critical IC markets including key trends. Fredi Lajvardi, vice president of STEM Initiatives at Si Se Puede Foundation, will discuss how he transformed a group of high school students into a national-champion robotics team. Using humor and compassion to recount his inspiring journey, Lajvardi will illustrate the need to embrace diversity and invest in people to help others realize their potential.

Read more about the VOICE 2021 keynote speakers at https://voice.advantest.com/keynotes/.

Information for 2020 Registered Attendees

Attendees who registered for the conference can expect to receive a refund and more details will be communicated soon. All previously booked Omni hotel reservations for the September 2020 dates will automatically be canceled without penalty.

Sponsoring VOICE 2021

Sponsorship remains a key element of the VOICE Developer Conference and information regarding sponsorship opportunities will be made available during the autumn season.

About VOICE Developer Conference

Managed by a steering committee of volunteer representatives from Advantest and its customers, VOICE is the leading conference for the growing international community of users and strategic partners involved with Advantests V93000 and T2000 SoC test platforms as well as Advantest memory testers, handlers and test cell solutions. The conference offers a unique opportunity to take part in making semiconductor testing operations as efficient and cost-effective as possible. Attendees gain and share valuable insights, build long-lasting relationships and learn whats new about Advantest test equipment, handlers and applications.

About Advantest Corporation

Advantest (TSE: 6857) is the leading manufacturer of automatic test and measurement equipment used in the design and production of semiconductors for applications including 5G communications, the Internet of Things (IoT), autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, smart medical devices and more. Its leading-edge systems and products are integrated into the most advanced semiconductor production lines in the world. The company also conducts R&D to address emerging testing challenges applications, produces multi-vision metrology scanning electron microscopes essential to photomask manufacturing, and offers groundbreaking 3D imaging and analysis tools. Founded in Tokyo in 1954, Advantest is a global company with facilities around the world and an international commitment to sustainable practices and social responsibility. More information is available at www.advantest.com.

Advantest Corporation

3061 Zanker Road

San Jose, CA 95134, USA

Judy Davies

Judy.davies@advantest.com




Night after night for nearly two months, protesters have taken to the streets of Portland, Oregon, for demonstrations against racial injustice that have at times devolved into vandalism and clashes with authorities.

Long after such unrest subsided in other cities, small groups of protesters in Portland continued to set fires, spray graffiti on public buildings and battle officers.

The continued conflict prompted soul-searching in the progressive city, which became increasingly polarised over how to handle it.

More recently, the Trump administrations decision to call in federal agents to help protect the federal court building  the focus of much protest activity  has galvanised many in Portland anew.

Video footage on social media showing federal agents, who refused to identify themselves, pulling a man off the street and putting him in an unmarked car and reports of other detentions have spurred an increase in the number of protesters.

Protests have again swelled and attracted a broader base in a city that is increasingly unified and outraged about the use of federal officers.

The clashes have continued, with some protesters trying to break into the court, while authorities respond with tear gas and projectiles.

But also prominent in the new crowds are groups like the Wall of Moms and PDX Dad Pod, self-described parents who have shown up by the hundreds each night since the weekend, wearing yellow T-shirts and bicycle helmets and ski goggles for protection.
Federal officers and demonstrators in Portland, Ore., on Wednesday. (Associated Press)

The federal government has broad power to enforce the laws of the United States, but not to police the streets or maintain order in a city if protests lead to violence.

That has been how the separation of powers between states and the federal government has been understood. The Constitution leaves the "so-called police power" in the hands of state and local officials. It is one of the "powers not delegated the United States" and instead is "reserved to the states," as the 10th Amendment says.

This principle has been invoked often by the Supreme Court's conservative justices. In 1995, they struck down a federal law that made it a crime to have a gun in a school zone because, as Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said, it threatened to convert federal authority into a "general police power of the sort retained by the states."

But President Trump says he is willing and even anxious to break down the line separating federal authority from local policing. Federal agents clad in military gear clashed repeatedly with demonstrators outside the boarded-up federal courthouse in Portland, Ore.

And on Wednesday, Trump said he envisioned a wider campaign of order imposed by federal agents, sending them next to Chicago. We just started this process and, frankly, we have no choice but to get involved," the president said.

Legal experts agree the president and the Department of Homeland Security have the authority written into law to protect federal buildings and property, even if state and local officials prefer that they had stayed away.

One provision of a 2002 law that created the Department of Homeland Security says its secretary may "designate employees ... as officers and agents for duty in connection with the protection of property owned or occupied by the federal government." They may "carry firearms ... conduct investigations on or off the property in question ... and make arrests without a warrant for any offense against the United States" if they have "reasonable grounds to believe the person to be arrested has committed a felony" under federal law.

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But legal experts also say federal agents in Portland appear to be going well beyond the authority to protect federal property.

"There are federal officers arresting people far from the federal building or federal property," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. "That is not enforcing federal law. This is disrupting peaceful protests, and that would violate the 1st Amendment. There are also reports of arrests without probable cause, which violates the 4th Amendment."

"This is another instance of Trump stretching the law," said Paul Rosenzweig, a former Homeland Security lawyer now at the R Street Institute, which calls itself a free-market think tank. "Yes, if they see someone about to throw a Molotov cocktail, they can arrest him. If they see a group gathering to do something like that, they can investigate. But this power is constrained. If they take someone off the street in a van and without probable cause, they could be sued for damages."

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf denied agents are "patrolling the streets of Portland" or abusing their authority. He said they are fighting off "violent anarchists" who launch attacks late at night after the peaceful demonstrators have gone.

A lawsuit filed Tuesday by a group of Oregon nonprofits and state representatives accuses Homeland Security of violating the 10th Amendment and seeks a judge's order that would limit federal agents to operating on federal property.

Last week, Oregon Atty. Gen. Ellen Rosenblum filed a lawsuit on behalf of several plaintiffs who say they were injured or arrested.

"We are asking the federal court to stop the federal police from secretly stopping and forcibly grabbing Oregonians off our streets," she said. "The federal administration has chosen Portland to use their scare tactics to stop our residents from protesting police brutality and from supporting the Black Lives Matter movement."

It is less clear what legal authority the president could invoke to justify sending armed federal agents to Chicago, New York or other major cities, particularly if it is "to help drive down violent crime," as Trump suggested Wednesday, rather than to respond to specific attacks on federal property.

One possibility is the Insurrection Act of 1807, which authorizes the president "to call forth the militia or the armed forces" to "take such measures as he considers necessary to suppress, in a state, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination."

President Eisenhower invoked the law in 1957 to send federal troops to Little Rock, Ark., to enforce the desegregation of schools. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush used this authority to send troops to Los Angeles to quell the violence that followed the acquittal of several police officers in the beating of motorist Rodney King. Since then, Congress has expanded the law to authorize troops to cope with natural disasters and terrorism.

Usually when governors or city officials are facing an outbreak of violence or a disaster, they would welcome federal help. But the law appears to say the president may act on his own.

"Whenever the president considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any state by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into federal service such of the militia of any state, use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws," it says.

To invoke the law, the president would have to proclaim an insurrection is underway requiring the use of the military. In early June, Trump ran into strong objections from current and former military leaders who said they were opposed to the use of the armed forces for domestic law enforcement.
A no-deal Brexit looms larger than ever after both the EU and UK said an agreement is unlikely and vowed not to blink in the few months left for talks.

The latest round of negotiations broke up in now-familiar acrimony, forcing Boris Johnson to admit to missing his deadline for a breakthrough by the end of July.

In a blistering attack, Michel Barnier, the EU chief negotiator, warned attempts to bludgeon Brussels with ultimatums or threats would fail, adding: I dont think weve got time for these games.

He told a press conference: By its current refusal to commit to the condition of open and fair competition, and to a balanced agreement on fisheries, the UK makes a trade agreement at this point unlikely.

A senior UK government source later agreed that was an accurate description of the stalemate, but insisted a deal would only be struck if the EU gave up on its red lines.

Recommended The government has a lot to answer for over the Brexit trade talks

The question is can they adapt their position to recognise that they are negotiating with an independent state? the source said.

It emphasised how  despite both sides saying a deal is still possible in September  the fundamental differences between them have not been bridged.

Without a deal, the UK will crash out of the transition period, at the end of December, into chaos for traders, travellers and security co-operation  threatening a fresh economic slump.

Mr Barnier pointed to no progress in two key areas, the first being the UKs refusal to guarantee level playing field rules for workers and the environment and set out its state aid demands.

Brexit timeline: How did we get here? Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit timeline: How did we get here? Brexit timeline: How did we get here? Britain votes to leave the European Union - 23 June 2016 A referendum is held on Britain's membership of the European Union. Fifty-two per cent of the country votes in favour of leaving AFP via Getty Brexit timeline: How did we get here? David Cameron resigns - 24 June 2016 David Cameron resigns on the morning of the result after leading the campaign for Britain to remain in the EU Getty Brexit timeline: How did we get here? Theresa May takes the reins - 13 July 2016 Theresa May becomes leader of the Conservative party and prime minister, winning the leadership contest unopposed after Andrea Leadsom drops out Getty Brexit timeline: How did we get here? High Court rules parliament must vote on Brexit - November 2016 - 3 November 2016 The High Court rules that parliament must vote on triggering Article 50, which would begin the Brexit process Brexit timeline: How did we get here? Article 50 triggered - 28 March 2017 The prime minister triggers Article 50 after parliament endorses the result of the referendum Getty Brexit timeline: How did we get here? May calls snap election - 18 April 2018 Seeking a mandate for her Brexit plan, May goes to the country Getty Brexit timeline: How did we get here? May loses majority as Labour makes surprise gain - 8 June 2017 After a disastrous campaign, Theresa May loses her majority in the commons and turns to the DUP for support. Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party makes gains after being predicted to lose heavily AFP/Getty Brexit timeline: How did we get here? Negotiations begin - 19 June 2017 David Davis and Michel Barnier, chief negotiators for the UK and EU respectively, hold a press conference on the first day of Brexit negotiations. Soon after the beginning of negotiations, it becomes clear that the issue of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic will prove a major sticking point AFP/Getty Brexit timeline: How did we get here? MPs vote that withdrawal deal must be ratified by parliament - 13 December 2017 The government suffers a defeat in parliament over the EU withdrawal agreement, guaranteeing that MPs are given a 'meaningful vote' on the deal Brexit timeline: How did we get here? Boris Johnson resigns as foreign secretary - 11 July 2018 Following a summit at Chequers where the prime minister claimed to have gained cabinet support for her deal, Boris Johnson resigns as foreign secretary along with David Davis, the Brexit secretary Reuters Brexit timeline: How did we get here? Draft withdrawal agreement - 15 November 2018 The draft withdrawal agreement settles Britain's divorce bill, secures the rights of EU citizens living in the UK and vice versa and includes a political declaration commiting both parties to frictionless trade in goods and cooperation on security matters. The deal also includes the backstop, which is anathema to many brexiteers and Dominic Raab and Esther McVey resign from the cabinet in protest Getty Brexit timeline: How did we get here? May resigns - 24 May 2019 After several failed attempts to pass her withdrawal agreement through the commons, Theresa May resigns Reuters Brexit timeline: How did we get here? Johnson takes over - 24 July 2019 Boris Johnson is elected leader of the Conservative party in a landslide victory. He later heads to Buckingham Palace where the Queen invites him to form a government Getty Brexit timeline: How did we get here? Parliament prorogued - 28 August 2019 Boris Johnson prorogues parliament for five weeks in the lead up to the UK's agreed departure date of 31 October. Stephen Morgan MP Brexit timeline: How did we get here? Prorogation ruled unlawful - 24 September 2019 The High Court rules that Johnson's prorogation of parliament is 'unlawful' after a legal challenge brought by businesswoman Gina Miller Getty Brexit timeline: How did we get here? Johnson agrees deal with Varadkar - October Following a summit in Merseyside, Johnson agrees a compromise to the backstop with Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar - making the withdrawal agreement more palatable to Brexiteers Getty Brexit timeline: How did we get here? Final Say march demands second referendum - 19 October 2019 As parliament passes the Letwin amendment requiring the prime minister to request a further delay to Brexit, protesters take to the streets in the final show of force for a Final Say referendum Getty Brexit timeline: How did we get here? Johnson wins 80 seat majority - 12 December 2019 The Conservatives win the December election in a landslide, granting Boris Johnson a large majority to pass through his brexit deal and pursue his domestic agenda Getty Brexit timeline: How did we get here? Withdrawal deal passes parliament - 20 December 2019 The withdrawal agreement passes through the commons with a majority of 124 Getty Brexit timeline: How did we get here? EU parliament backs UK withdrawal deal - 29 January 2020 Members of the European parliament overwhelmingly back the ratification of Britain's departure, clearing the way for Brexit two days later on 31 January. Following the vote, members join hands and sing Auld Lang Syne AFP/Getty

Secondly, on fishing rights, he branded the UKs position simply unacceptable, saying: The UK is effectively seeking for near-total exclusion of fishing vessels from the UKs water.

Insisting the EU was engaging, he claimed: The UK has not shown the same level of engagement and readiness to find solutions respecting the EU fundamental principles and interests.

But the UK source vowed there would be no concessions in either area, saying, on state aid: We are not going to pre-commit to a particular regime, thats just not how we are going to do things.

On fish, the source added: We will have right to patrol the economic exploitation of our fishing grounds and we will set the terms on which that is done.

While that did not require exclusion, the EU had to agree to UK control. The source said: Until they do, it is going to be difficult to get a fisheries agreement.

The EU has pencilled in a summit on 15-16 October as a possible deadline, given the need to draft and agree a long legal text which must also be ratified by the European parliament.

Notably, Mr Barnier said the EU was armed with a 5bn contingency fund for a no deal, implying it would be the UK that would suffer more.

Nevertheless, there was some progress on a third stumbling block  on the future role of the European Court of Justice in settling disputes  where the EU appeared to have given ground.

Mr Barnier is in London again next week, after which both sides will take a short holiday and prepare for the next formal round of negotiations from 17 August.
A 93-year-old former Nazi SS concentration camp guard has been convicted for complicity in the murder of more than 5,000 people.

Bruno Dey, who worked at the Stutthof death camp in 1944 and 1945, was handed a two-year suspended prison sentence by a Hamburg court.

He was found guilty of 5,232 counts of accessory to murder and one count of accessory to attempted murder.

The case was heard in a youth court because Dey was 17, and later 18, at the time of his crimes during the Second World War.

During a nine-month trial, which began in October, prosecutors had called for a three-year sentence. It was thought to be one of Germanys last Nazi trials, but only last week another ex-guard at Stutthof was charged at age 95.

The pensioner was aged 17 and 18 when he was a guard at the concentration camp / POOL/AFP via Getty Images

The defence sought acquittal, arguing that although Dey acknowledged hearing screams from the Stutthof gas chambers, watching as corpses were taken to be burnt and seeing emaciated figures, people who have suffered, he was not directly involved in the deaths.

Sentencing Dey, judge Anne Meier-Goering accepted his willingness to take part in the trial but said he saw himself as an observer, refusing to acknowledge his complicity in the deaths. She asked him: "How could you get used to the horror?"

The wheelchair-bound German pensioner listened to witness statements but maintained that he had been forced into his role as a guard at the camp.

In a closing statement earlier this week, he apologised for his role in the Nazi regime, saying "it must never be repeated."

Thousands of prisoners were killed at Stutthof death camp, some of which remains today as a memorial / Getty Images

"Today, I want to apologise to all of the people who went through this hellish insanity," Dey told the court.

Initially a collection point for Jews and non-Jewish Poles removed from Danzig, Stutthof was used from about 1940 as a so-called "work education camp" where forced labourers, primarily Polish and Soviet citizens, were sent to serve sentences and often died.

Others incarcerated there included political prisoners, accused criminals, people suspected of homosexual activity and Jehovah's Witnesses.

From mid-1944, when Dey was posted there, tens of thousands of Jews from ghettos in the Baltics and from Auschwitz filled the camp along with thousands of Polish civilians swept up in the brutal Nazi suppression of the Warsaw uprising.

More than 60,000 people were killed there by being given lethal injections of gasoline or phenol directly to their hearts, shot or starved.

Others were forced outside in winter without clothing until they died of exposure, or were put to death in a gas chamber.
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On July 9, Koretskyi went public to compain about pressure on the part of SBI Acting Director Oleksandr Sokolov and First Deputy Director Oleksandr Babikov.

Investigator with Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) Oleh Koretskyi, who earlier claimed he had been under pressure from the agency's leadership has been dismissed.

The formal reason for his sacking was that his position in the agency, "head of the third department of the Office for investigation of crimes committed by officials", has been cut.

Koretskyi provided an UNIAN correspondent with a photocopy of the order on his dismissal, signed by SBI Acting Director Oleksandr Sokolov.

As UNIAN reported earlier, on July 8, one of the lawyers of former President Petro Poroshenko, Ilya Novikov, said Koretskyi had told him about pressure coming from SBI leadership on investigators in the case of the sale of a Kyiv shipyard.

Read alsoSBI serves ex-border guard with charge papers over Poroshenko's illegal border crossing

On the same day, the SBI claimed Koretskyi's statement was a politically-motivated lie.

On July 9, Koretskyi publicly announced pressure on him from Sokolov and SBI First Deputy Director Oleksandr Babikov. Koretskyi claimed the said officials had been forcing him to investigate cases against Poroshenko, which had no judicial prospects.

Koretskyi added that some 80% of criminal proceedings targeting the ex-president had no judicial prospects.

He also said the SBI had been "purging" its ranks.

Later, Koretskyi appealed in court his dismissal notice.
OAK BROOK, Ill., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Delta Dental Plans Association announced the promotion of technology leader, Scott Jessee, to Chief Information Officer.

Since joining the company in 2012, Jessee has been instrumental in shaping the future of information technology at Delta Dental Plans Association and across the Delta Dental System, serving as Director and most recently as Vice President of Information Technology.

"We are pleased to welcome Scott into his new role as Chief Information Officer. He possesses the leadership, vision, and management skills needed to bring our IT capabilities into the future," noted Steve Olson, President & CEO of the Delta Dental Plans Association. "The backbone of many companies, including ours, is a best-in-class IT department. Scott has a proven track record of creating and growing technology and data programs that will elevate our services in new and increasingly dynamic ways."

As CIO, Jessee will oversee all information systems, project management, vendor management, and executive leadership of the data and information technology teams. Central to the position, Jessee will lead change efforts across the organization, building new capabilities within, and outside of, the information technology department.

"Data and technology continue to reshape industries and services to better meet consumer needs. That evolution is underway for healthcare and Delta Dental will continue its leadership in defining the future of healthcare to ensure Americans have access to oral care," said Jessee. "Central to our work moving forward will be fortifying Delta Dental's ability to quickly adapt and reposition our digital capabilities and controls to meet market demands," he concluded.

About Delta Dental Plans Association

Delta Dental Plans Association, based in Oak Brook, Illinois, is the not-for-profit national association of the 39 independent Delta Dental companies. Through these companies, Delta Dental is the nation's largest provider of dental insurance, covering more than 80 million Americans, and offering the country's largest dental network with approximately 156,000 participating dentists. In 2019, Delta Dental companies provided approximately $76 million in direct and in-kind community outreach support to improve the oral health of adults, children and infants in local communities across the country. For more information, visit: deltadental.com .

SOURCE Delta Dental Plans Association

Related Links

http://www.deltadental.com


Irans underground church comes 'above ground' to aid Muslim neighbors during COVID-19

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Christians in Muslim-majority Iran are risking arrest to provide food and humanitarian aid to their neighbors struggling without jobs during the coronavirus pandemic, according to the head of one of the worlds most prominent Christian persecution watchdogs.

David Curry, CEO of Open Doors USA, an organization that monitors persecution in 60 countries, told The Christian Post that underground churches in Iran have surfaced amid the COVID-19 crisis to answer Jesus call to love their neighbors.

It just began with people spending their own time and their own money to make sure neighbors have the care and support they need because of lost incomes and the COVID pandemic fallout, Curry said, adding that efforts have become more organized over time as local church networks have gotten involved.

The church [serves] as a rally point [and] centers of care and compassion for Muslim communities that they are living in, he explained.

For security reasons, Curry could not go into detail about how many churches are involved in distributing aid and how the aid distribution works. He said that churches, which are already under tremendous societal pressure, are taking extra risk by trying to organize help for people who are struggling.

The remarkable thing about the Iranian church is their ability to mobilize online networks into offline outreach in this highly restrictive, risk-laden environment, Curry explained.

Iran is ranked by Open Doors USA as the ninth worst country in the world when it comes to Christian persecution.

Iranian society is governed by Islamic law and churches are banned from holding services in the nations most common language, Farsi. People caught attending underground house churches face arrest and many are arrested every year.

The Church has always been strong in the underground among supporting each other, Curry stated. This is something different because they are having to come above ground, so to speak. They are starting in their pockets and their communities and neighbors, people who they know who are hungry and need hygiene kits and things like that. But it has gotten more organized, which brings greater risk. They have not done this sort of above-ground relief before. Its a historic thing.

The bold effort comes as the Iranian economy was hit hard over the last few years. The situation has gotten worse thanks to alleged mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis by Iranian leaders.

So far, Iran has over 209,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and over 9,800 people have died. In recent weeks, it has been seeing more than 2,000 new cases a day.

The added pressure of sanctions and the COVID pandemic shutdown has really hurt, Curry said. The leaders are always going to make sure they have theirs. But the working-class people, the elderly are suffering greatly in Iran.

According to Curry, any type of underground church activity to serve neighbors in need is considered illegal in Iran because the regime has laws to interpret these kinds of things.

They would see that as trying to coerce people, he said. There is no evangelism involved in this. It is just Christians loving their communities. They will interpret it as a reason to crack down on Christians, certainly.

Curry assured that the distribution of food and hygiene packets does not involve evangelism.

This is just people loving each other in Jesus name. Of course, [there are] individual stories. There are people who recognize that these are Christian folks who are helping them, he said. But this is not about trying to preach sermons or evangelize to people, per se, but just do the right thing because their faith calls on them to do it.

Despite the risk, Curry said Open Doors felt compelled to share about the Iranian Churchs aid efforts because there are many people right now who need some good news.

They need an example of the Church being the Church in the midst of the very intolerant situation, he said. I just think it is a good example for us to stand up, be brave. There are people in worse situations that are doing this and it is having a tremendous impact and it is the right thing to do.

Despite the persecution, the underground church movement in Iran continues to grow. Open Doors estimates that there are over 800,000 Christians in Iran, a significant increase from the 450,000 Christians the group estimated in 2016. The 2011 census found 117,704 reported Christians in Iran.

Curry believes that the Church in Iran has been able to grow because people have been able to share their experiences of what Jesus has done for them on a personal level with their Muslim brothers and sisters who need hope.

You have a very smart connected community in Iran, which is a great country that has been victimized by this regime. It has really been very organic, Curry said.

Similar church-led aid efforts are happening in other countries where Christians are persecuted, such as India, where there have been reports of Christians being denied aid by radical Hindus.

We have organized, big movements to help Christian communities and Christians are being salt and light to those around them, Curry explained. The situation is different [in India]. There are major needs there. There are mostly Christians being isolated in radical Hindu communities from aid. Churches are having to help each other survive. So it is a somewhat different manifestation but there is a lot of issues intensifying persecution in various countries.
All NHS staff need to be routinely tested for coronavirus to prevent a second wave in winter, according to the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt

All NHS staff need to be routinely tested for coronavirus to prevent a second wave in winter, according to the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt.

In a letter to his replacement Matt Hancock and NHS England boss Sir Simon Stevens, Mr Hunt said nurses, doctors, cleaners and porters must be screened weekly.

This will reassure staff they are not unwittingly carrying the virus, and because tests can produce false negatives, it is essential to carry them out frequently, he said.

Hospital trust chiefs are yet to decide on testing regimes because they say they need clarify from the Government.

For months only people with tell-tale symptoms of Covid-19 were being given access to tests because the Government was struggling to ramp up its swabbing capacity.

Routine testing is slowly being rolled out for care home staff and residents after the sector was devastated by the first epidemic.

But there has been reluctance from health bosses to screen all hospital workers on a regular basis - possibly due to not having the capacity.

The feat would involve swabbing up to a million additional people a week, and the Government is only testing around 2.3million people weekly, currently.

Mr Hunt, who chairs the House of Commons Health and Social Care Select Committee, said NHS staff need to be reassured weekly tests will begin by September.

He wrote: 'NHS staff want to know they will get the weekly testing that has now been offered to care home staff so they can be confident they won't pass on infections to patients.

More than a million NHS staff have received antibody tests - which scour their blood for signs of previous infection - as part of a pilot of the controversial blood tests (paramed Tracey Brooks, left, takes part in the programme in Birmingham)

'The chief medical officer for England (Professor Chris Whitty) says he supports this in principle so there should be no further delays given the complicated logistics necessary to set it up ahead of winter.'

Nearly half of NHS workers had Covid-19 in April The NHS avoided testing its staff for coronavirus en masse because it was afraid thousands would have to go off sick and leave swamped hospitals without workers, scientists claim. And almost half of healthcare workers in the NHS  up to a staggering 45 per cent  were reportedly infected with coronavirus during the peak of the crisis in April, MPs and Peers were told on Monday. In damning meetings with politicians, some of the country's leading experts this morning slammed Britain's response to the Covid-19 crisis and claimed a refusal to prepare had led to a 'major catastrophe'. Officials and members Government have for years ignored the threat of a global disease outbreak, experts said, despite it being 'obvious' that a pandemic would eventually happen. Now with almost 300,000 confirmed cases and over 45,000 deaths from Covid-19, Britain is one of the world's worst hit countries despite being one of the wealthiest. The UK has been too slow to set up testing capacity, made the 'mistake' of stopping contact tracing for most of the epidemic, and suffered badly because it didn't make efforts to set up the systems before the pandemic began, scientists said. Criticising Britain's slow response, the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Professor Peter Piot, said: 'You don't set up the fire brigade when the house is on fire.' Advertisement

He also warned that the delay to people receiving treatments, operations and procedures on the NHS was causing 'huge distress and anxiety' and urged better communication with patients.

Mr Hunt said: 'People understand why this has happened and recognise the huge effort made by frontline staff during the crisis.

'However, patients report a failure by the NHS to let them know what is going to happen to their treatment going forward and put their fears to rest.

'There is going to be a huge backlog and people with illnesses - sometimes life-threatening - need to know where they stand.'

More than a million NHS staff have received antibody tests - which scour their blood for signs of previous infection - as part of a pilot of the controversial blood tests.

But this will have little effect in preventing workers from passing the disease onto others because by the time antibodies have appeared, a person has already beat the disease.

Scientists claimed this week that the NHS avoided testing its staff for coronavirus en masse because it was afraid thousands would have to go off sick and leave swamped hospitals without workers.

The health select committee heard from a slew of experts from SAGE on Monday who said almost half of healthcare workers in the NHS  up to a staggering 45 per cent  were reportedly infected with coronavirus during the peak of the crisis in April.

The UK has been too slow to set up testing capacity, made the 'mistake' of stopping contact tracing for most of the epidemic, and suffered badly because it didn't make efforts to set up the systems before the pandemic began, scientists said.

Professor Sir John Bell, a medicine expert at the University of Oxford, told the House of Commons's Health and Social Care Committee that hospitals were afraid of having to send staff home if they tested positive for Covid-19.

He said that in April up to a staggering 45 per cent of healthcare workers appeared to have been infected with Covid-19.

Sir John said: 'As time went on, there still wasn't a real push to do healthcare workers and indeed, all patients in the hospital. And it sort of went on, and on, and on.

'And indeed there was a suspicion, which I think is probably correct, that NHS institutions and the NHS were avoiding testing their hospital workers because they were afraid they would find [high levels of infection] and they would have to send everyone home, and as a result not have a workforce.

'That in my view is not an ethical approach to the problem. You can't not test people because you're worried about a human resources issue.

'But I think that was a pretty central issue in that failure to test hospitals.'

An NHS spokesperson said: 'Actually, 1.1 million NHS staff have had an antibody test, and the chief medical officer explained clearly to the select committee this morning why he set the NHS staff antigen testing priorities as they have been, and which hospitals have faithfully followed throughout.'
KINGSTON, ON / ACCESSWIRE / July 23, 2020 / Delta Resources Limited ("Delta") (TSXV:DLTA)(OTC:GOLHF)(Frankfurt:6G01) is pleased to announce that it has received the first cash payment of $100,000 for the sale of the Bellechasse-Timmins Gold Deposit in southeastern Quebec, Canada.

In addition, the TSX Venture Exchange has accepted for filing documentation an asset purchase agreement (the "Agreement") between the Yorkton Ventures affiliate, 9412-1068 Quebec Inc. (the "Purchaser") and Delta Resources Limited (the "Vendor") dated July 3, 2020. Pursuant to the terms of the Agreement, the Purchaser will acquire 100% of the Bellechasse-Timmins Project located in Quebec from the Vendor for a total cash consideration of $1.7-million. The Purchaser will also commit to paying Delta Resources a royalty of 1% NSR (net smelter return) on any and all commercial production of gold. The Purchaser may repurchase 0.5 % of the NSR for $1 million at any time.

About Delta Resources Limited

Delta Resources Limited is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on growing shareholder value through the acquisition of high-potential gold and base-metal projects in Canada, exploring these projects with state-of-the-art methods, and potentially developing these projects into mines.

Delta is currently exploring its Eureka Gold Discovery in the Thunder Bay area (Delta-1) and its Delta-2 Gold-Polymetallic Property in the Chibougamau Mining District of Quebec.

Delta also owns a 100% interest in the Bellechasse-Timmins gold deposit in southeastern Quebec. On July 3rd, 2020, Delta announced the sale of the Bellechasse-Timmins project.

The Company continues to focus on building upon its strong portfolio of mineral exploration properties with a high potential for economic discoveries in Canada.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DELTA RESOURCES LIMITED.

Andre C. Tessier

President, CEO and Director

www.deltaresources.ca

We seek safe harbor. 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. The TSX Venture Exchange has not approved nor disapproved of the information contained herein.

For Further Information:

Delta Resources Limited

Frank Candido, Director, VP Corporate Communications

Tel: 514-969-5530

fcandido@deltaresources.ca

or

Andre Tessier, CEO and President

Tel: 613-328-1581

atessier@deltaresources.ca

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Information

Some statements contained in this news release are " "forward looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. Forward looking information include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the use of proceeds of the non-brokered private placement and payment of the debt settlements. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", "believes" or variations of such words and phrases (including negative or grammatical variations) or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved" or the negative connotation thereof. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking information is inherently uncertain and involves risks, assumptions and uncertainties that could cause actual facts to differ materially. There can be no assurance that future developments affecting the Company will be those anticipated by management. The forward-looking information contained in this press release constitutes management's current estimates, as of the date of this press release, with respect to the matters covered thereby. We expect that these estimates will change as new information is received. While we may elect to update these estimates at any time, we do not undertake to update any estimate at any particular time or in response to any particular event.

SOURCE: Delta Resources Limited

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598543/Delta-Resources-Receives-First-100000-Cash-Payment-from-Yorkton-Ventures
DECATUR  Bryant K. Bunch told a judge Wednesday he was pleading not guilty to charges he shot dead his estranged wifes lover in front of her.

Bunch, 44, is facing three alternate counts of murder in the April 5 killing of 36-year-old Devin Slater in the yard of a home in Montgomery Place in Decatur.

Macon County Circuit Judge Phoebe Bowers found probable cause to hold Bunch over for trial. He remains free after posting $10,000 bond on bail set at $100,000. Bunch had been sought on a warrant but turned himself in to Decatur police the day after the homicide.

Giving evidence earlier in the hearing, Detective Jason Danner described how Bunch had driven up to Slater in the afternoon as he stood in a front yard with Bunchs wife, whom he was dating.

Under questioning from Macon County States Attorney Jay Scott, Danner said the wife described Bunch getting out of his own truck and approaching in what she called an aggressive manner.

And did she state the defendant said something like What up, playboy? to Mr. Slater and then pulled out a handgun and began shooting? asked Scott.

Yes, replied Danner.

And did she state that the victim began running and the defendant ran up to him and shot him again? asked Scott. Yes, said the detective.

Danner then said Bunch jumped into his own truck and fled but the shooting had been seen by multiple other witnesses, including Bunchs own grown-up children. A neighbor of Slater had also snapped pictures of Bunchs truck as it was leaving the scene of the shooting, Danner added.

Defense attorney Gal Pissetzky first complained to the judge that he had not received a copy of the sworn affidavit outlining the police evidence. Pissetzky said he had filed a subpoena for the affidavit but Bowers told him that issue would have to be taken up at another hearing.

Pissetzky then questioned the detective and asked several questions about the eye-witness evidence and the photographs taken of Bunchs truck. And did those pictures show Mr. Bunch shooting anybody? the attorney asked.

No, replied Danner.

Pissetzky wanted information on all the witnesses the prosecution was relying on but was told he could not have one name right away. There is a witness that were not disclosing at this point and we will be seeking a protective order delaying the release of her identity, Scott rose to tell the judge.

So I would object on that basis to going any further into the identity of witnesses.

Bowers told Pissetzky she had already heard enough to establish probable cause to try Bunch in any case. She then assigned the trial to Judge Thomas Griffith and scheduled a pretrial hearing for Aug. 31.

Contact Tony Reid at (217) 421-7977. Follow him on Twitter: @TonyJReid

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Colonel Santosh Babu was one of the martyrs killed in the violent clash between Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakh's Galwan Valley last month. His wife Santoshi was recently been appointed Deputy Collector.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao handed the appointment letter to Santoshi Babu at a lunch attended by senior officers and state ministers on Wednesday.

Twitter/@TelanganaCMO

According to an official release, The state government has appointed Ms Santoshi, wife of Col Santosh Babu who was martyred in the recent clashes on the Indo-China Border, as Deputy Collector. Honourable Chief Minister Sri K Chandrashekhar Rao on Wednesday at Pragathi Bhavan handed over the appointment letter to Ms Santoshi.

She was also handed over documents for a 711-sq-yard house site in Hyderabad's high-end Banjara Hills by collector Shweta Mohanty.

Santoshi has a four-year-old son and an eight-year-old daughter and the Chief Minister stressed that she must be posted only in Hyderabad and its surrounding areas. CMs Secretary, Smita Sabharwal, is to assist Ms Santoshi till the time she is properly trained for her new job.

Ms. Santoshi wife of Colonel Santosh Babu who martyred at India-China border met CM Sri KCR today. Hon'ble CM handed over the appointment letter as Deputy Collector. Later CM had lunch with the family members of Colonel Santosh Babu who came along with Santoshi. pic.twitter.com/U3Re2m8pUV  Telangana CMO (@TelanganaCMO) July 22, 2020

Santoshi Babu was appointed as a Group-I service officer in the state government by CM Rao in June when he visited the family in Suryapet town, about 130 km from Hyderabad. After the death of the colonel, the family was also given Rs 5 crore financial support by the state government.

In remembrance of the martyrdom of Col Santosh Babu, CM came to our house and helpedthe Collector invited me today, showed the place (land in Hyderabad) to me and gave the related documents. I am thankful to the CM and Collector, Santoshi reportedly said.

According to a TOI report, Santoshi had initially opted for the post of commercial tax officer but changed her mind and sought deputy collector job in Group-I cadre, which was accepted by the state government.

Twitter/@Vaibhav85003383

The chief minister lunched with 20 family members of Santoshi who had accompanied her to Pragathi Bhavan.

39-year-old Colonel Santosh Babu was among the 20 Indian soldiers who were martyred in Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on June 15 during a clash with Chinese troops. This was the biggest military confrontation between the nations in over five decades.

Colonel Santosh Babu was in the 16 Bihar regiment as Commanding Officer. He had been in the army since 2004 and his first posting was in Jammu and Kashmir.
For the past four months, Jeremy Marsac has followed all the guidelines needed to navigate Pennsylvanias unemployment compensation system.

He was hopeful about a month ago when he got his pin number, but then things got tangled up when he learned he had to redirect the funds from direct deposit to a state-issued debit card. Marsac, who is self-employed, at one point had to restart the process under specific criteria.

Once again, he followed all the instructions, but eventually got radio silence. Hes been struggling ever since. He has gotten no answers; no help, no funds.

Essentially, since the statewide shutdown in March, Marsac, who owns JmJ Property Services in Easton, has been struggling to clear one hurdle after another to collect his due assistance from the states unemployment insurance system.

Im very disappointed, said Marsac, a single father who had been making his living hauling trash and furniture, chopping trees and emptying houses. Its broadcast like a lie. I dont think Labor & Industry has been up to par.

Marsac is referring to the assessment out of the Department of Labor & Industry claiming that the vast majority of eligible claims have been satisfied and that the office is doing the best it can.

The labor department has significantly beefed up staffing to continue to meet the demands of the unprecedented volume of emails, phone calls and claims prompted by the pandemic-induced economic distress.

In the wake of the March statewide shutdown prompted by the coronavirus, unemployment compensation claims in Pennsylvania surged from 40,000 to a current estimate of 3 million. The department has distributed $29 billion in benefits, including traditional state benefits as well as federal funds under the CARES Act.

The majority - 92 percent - of claims filed between March 15 and June 20 have either been paid or determined eligible. The remaining 8 percent have needed to be reviewed manually. But that number means tens of thousands of people are waiting.

In the meantime, the unemployment rate in Pennsylvania has surged to 13 percent.

Four months after the coronavirus prompted a statewide shutdown, leading to widespread job losses, legions of men and women like Marsac, who have lost jobs or have seen wages reduced, report they are still struggling to collect unemployment funds.

For thousands, its the same story: The state website routinely crashes, phone calls are dropped, if they can ever get through; chat lines are not staffed; and in general, service on the end is unresponsive.

The support is a disaster regardless of what that office is claiming, said Lou James, a Philadelphia suburb resident who has been helping his wife clear hurdles but with little success.

We have made several attempts to contact that office, holding on the line for over an hour at a time, with no response ... the unemployment compensation office performance is deplorable..... Please dont paint a picture of the UE office running a smooth operation. It continues to be an inefficient, wholly antiquated and frustrating process bound together by some prehistoric program, staffed by too few and inexperienced folks, isolated and inaccessible from the public who has grown increasingly frustrated, angry and dire given the lack of financial support.

Jody Menzies, proprietor at Windy Ridge Farm in Berks County, strikes a dire tone.

A self-employed, 25-year farmer, Menzies would typically earn $600 to $800 a week buying and selling hay to horse farmers. When the statewide lockdown was issued, Menzies stayed home. Meanwhile, orders froze and the cash flow stopped.

She says she has fallen through the cracks and is having no success getting the financial assistance through the unemployment compensation office. She has filed every other week since April 19 and has received a pin number, a confirmation letter and even the debit card. She said she has called the phone line literally thousands of times and only get a busy signal.

Emails have gone unanswered. She has reached out to the offices of Rep. Ryan McKenzie, Sen. Pat Toomey and Gov. Tom Wolf.

This financial crisis was put onto me without my consent, Menzies said. I complied, stayed home, and felt some comfort that the governor and federal compensation would get me through. But I feel the fool now, because nothing has come through...and I feel the idiot because I cant get through to a faceless person who could help me, or at least talk to me. Im depressed, Im desperate, Im afraid of the future.

McKenzies office said they responded to her and requested that if she needed further help, to reach out again.

Labor & Industry Secretary Jerry Oleksiak this week said he recognized that many state residents face dire situations.

These are not faceless, nameless people, he said. These are family members, friends, neighbors, relatives.

Oleksiak said that while department staff have accomplished a lot, he is not satisfied.

We feel it as well, he said.

Its really just a matter of numbers, Oleksiak said. We are very busy. Whats frustrating for me and I know its frustrating for people who havent received anything is that those numbers dont mean anything if you are not on the right side of the statistics. We understand that.

The governor this week said he recognized the urgency of the situation.

I dont care if its 10 percent or 5 percent or 1 percent, Wolf said. If there is one person who has not gotten served correctly, thats a problem and we recognize we have a problem.

Despite the mobilization that the state put in place to meet the surge of claim numbers, the small handful of people in the Commonwealth not served in timely fashion must be addressed.

Thats a problem and we continue to work on it, Wolf said.

Oleksiak stressed that the department continues to ask people to limit the number of emails, preferably to one email.

I understand the frustration but that just bogs down the system, he said.

In good times, Oleksiak noted, the system could easily take six to eight weeks to make a determination on claims. Given the high volume that wait time is exponentially increased.

Oleksiak gave assurances that all residents eligible for compensation would receive their benefits - without having to wait too much longer.

That is the business that we are in, he said. We dont want to not give people the benefits. We want to do that but we have fiduciary responsibility.

Oleksiak said fraud remains rampant, and is a factor in the speed of determinations.

He said the department has no backlog with pin numbers; and that the biggest hold up continues to be claims that require special action, such as the release of federal or military wages.

Those are things that are outside our control, Oleksiak said.

Oleksiak gave assurances that individuals whose claims fell within the eligibility requirements for the extra $600 per week in unemployment assistance from the federal government would receive those funds. The program is set to expire at the end of the week.

They will be made whole, he said. If they were eligible during that time, they will receive that benefit.

Oleksiak said that compared to other states, Pennsylvania has done a decent job fulfilling all the claims.

He said other state agencies have reached out to him to see how Pennsylvania does it. Some states have shut down their call centers; others their email systems.

Im aware people are not getting benefits. To them it doesnt matter how well we are doing. We want to do what we can to get to those folks, Oleksiak said.

In the meantime, Marsac, who has resumed with his business as much as possible, worries about his familys welfare and his health. His parents help a bit and he has turned to SNAP in order to feed his children, but he remains troubled by the lack of state unemployment compensation.

I work as much as I can, he said. Its not easy with daycare. Im trying the best I can. Its more frustrating how much Ive lost and not gotten any help.....things dont stop.

This story was updated to clarify that the office of Rep. Ryan McKenzie had responded to Menzies.

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Iggy Azalea secretly welcomed her first son earlier this year.

But on Friday, the Australian rapper - born Amethyst Amelia Kelly - proudly flaunted her sensational post-baby body in a racy outfit.

The 30-year-old wore a low-cut beige top that showed off her ample assets and hinted at her trim torso.

Hot mama! New mother Iggy Azalea flaunted her trim torso and ample assets in a racy outfit

She teamed her look with a matching skirt that highlighted her curves and slender waistline.

The Fancy hitmaker wrote in the caption: 'Just a lil two piece situation,' and tagged fashion brand Fashion Nova.

She went for an ultra-glamorous makeup look with bold eyeliner, lashings of mascara and a shimmering champagne gloss on her pout.

Iggy styled her blonde tresses in loose waves and pinned some strands back with little white clips.

The rapper completed her beige ensemble with two stunning diamond necklaces.

'I am not liable': Iggy's sensational post-baby photo comes after she denied claims she is facing a $250,000 judgement in a legal battle brought by a skateboarder who was allegedly hit by her car in 2016

It comes after Iggy denied claims she is facing a $250,000 judgment in a legal battle brought by a skateboarder who was allegedly hit by her car in 2016.

On Thursday, she hit back at the speculation after gossip website The Blast reported that she was being sued alongside Ayoub Kharbouch - the younger brother of her ex-boyfriend French Montana - by a skateboarder who was hit by her car in 2016.

Iggy wrote on Instagram: 'My name is mentioned in a lawsuit from 2016 because I was the vehicle owner of a car that was involved in an accident.'

'I was not on the scene and I have never had direct involvement in this suit as per the judge's orders - I am not liable,' she clarified.

Legal woes: The Australian rapper (right) hit back at the speculation on Thursday after gossip website The Blast reported that she was being sued alongside Ayoub Kharbouch (centre) - the younger brother of her ex-boyfriend French Montana (left) - by a skateboarder who was hit by her car in 2016. Pictured in 2016

The truth: Denying the allegations, Iggy wrote on Instagram: 'My name is mentioned in a lawsuit from 2016 because I was the vehicle owner of a car that was involved in an accident'

Iggy went on to explain that the lawsuit was 'solely with the insurance company and driver of the vehicle' and that she had not personally been asked to pay any amount of money, nor had she been summoned to court.

According to TMZ, the plaintiff is a man named Jeffrey Linett, who was allegedly struck by Iggy's grey Jeep Wrangler while he was skateboarding in Los Angeles.

He reportedly suffered 'extreme physical and emotional' pain and 'high medical bills' as a result of the collision.

Damages: According to TMZ, Linett claimed the then 18-year-old Ayoub (left) was 'Snapchatting' while driving and 'recklessly' collided into his path - causing him 'extreme physical and emotional' pain and 'high medical bills'. Pictured in 2016

Linett claimed the then 18-year-old Ayoub was 'Snapchatting' while driving and 'recklessly' collided into his path, TMZ reports.

Last month, Iggy revealed that she had given birth to a son, and earlier this month she revealed that the baby's name is Onyx.

There are rumors that the father is Playboy Carti, whom Iggy began dating in 2018 and is reportedly still with, but she has not publicly confirmed the baby is his.
DALLAS, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Parks Associates' new research, COVID-19: Impact on Telehealth Use and Perspectives, finds over 50% of US broadband households are willing to share smartphone data to aid in COVID-19 contact tracing, while another 20% could be convinced provided privacy protections are in place. The research tracks changes in consumer attitudes and adoption of telehealth services as a result of COVID-19 and measures future interest in telehealth services beyond the pandemic.

Parks Associates: Willingness to Share Smartphone Data to Track COVID-19

"Use of telehealth services nearly tripled year-over-year, with 41% of US broadband households having used a telehealth service in the past 12 months," said Kristen Hanich, Senior Analyst, Parks Associates. "This increased usage of telehealth services comes as many consumers are unable  or unwilling  to visit a physician in person due to widespread efforts to minimize in-person contact with patients. It is a dramatic switch for both care providers and telehealth services, and provided patients have a good experience, the market is likely to see continued usage on a permanent basis."

Parks Associates will discuss this renewed emphasis on telehealth and home-based care at its seventh annual Connected Health Summit: Consumer Engagement and Innovation conference, hosted virtually on September 1-3. The virtual conference will feature multiple research presentations and interactive sessions focused on the key topics in the connected health space. The agenda includes visionary presentations from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center / Harvard Medical School, Blue Shield of California, Care Planning Institute, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cox Communications, People Power, and UnitedHealthcare, with special networking events where this online community of industry leaders can connect, share insights, and discuss the immediate, near-term, and long-term impact of COVID-19 on the consumer healthcare market.

Parks Associates' COVID-19: Impact on Telehealth Use and Perspectives also notes that those who experienced COVID-19 symptoms are more willing to share smartphone data to aid in contact tracing than those who have not experienced symptoms. Still, nearly half of those who have not experienced symptoms are willing to share their smartphone data.

"Apple and Google have together developed an API and framework that developers, in partnership with public health officials and other stakeholders, can use to build contact-tracing apps," Hanich said. "The industry can drive widespread uptake of these solutions by emphasizing the public benefits of this data sharing while also stressing the privacy protections in place for anyone who participates."

For information on Parks Associates data, please contact Rosey Ulpino, [email protected], 972.996.0233.

About Parks Associates

Parks Associates is an internationally recognized market research and consulting company specializing in emerging consumer technology products and services. Founded in 1986, Parks Associates creates research capital through market reports, primary studies, consumer research, custom research, workshops, executive conferences, and annual service subscriptions.

The company's expertise includes digital media and platforms, home networks, Internet and television services, digital health, mobile applications and services, support services, consumer apps, advanced advertising, consumer electronics, energy management, and home control systems and security.

Each year, Parks Associates hosts industry webinars, the CONNECTIONS Conference Series, Connected Health Summit: Engaging Consumers, Smart Energy Summit: Engaging the Consumer, and Future of Video: OTT, Pay TV, and Digital Media. www.parksassociates.com

Contact:

Rosimely Ulpino

Parks Associates

972.996.0233

[email protected]

SOURCE Parks Associates

Related Links

http://www.parksassociates.com


The House of Representatives has declared as illegal, the procedure leading to the suspension of the management of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF). The lawmakers said the suspension was in breach of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund Act.

The lawmakers made this known on Thursday during plenary while considering a Report of the Ad-hoc Committee on the Need to Investigate the Arbitrary Breach of Presidential Directives on the Suspension of Top Management and Executive Committee Members of NSITF and Other Government Agencies by Ministers.

Mr Ngige had on July 2 approved the immediate and indefinite suspension of the Managing Director/Chief Executive of NSITF, Adebayo Somefun, and some members of his executive.

He accused them of allegedly lavishing N3.4 billion on non-existent staff training split into about 196 different consultancy contracts in order to evade the Ministerial Tenders Board and Federal Executive Council approvals.

The suspension came a month after the Secretary to the Government of the Federations (SGF) restrained cabinet ministers from removing heads of agencies and parastatals they supervise.

On this premise, the lawmakers set up an ad-hoc commitee headed by Miriam Onuoha to investigate the flouting of the directive by ministers.

While adopting the report of the ad-hoc committee, the lawmakers urged President Muhammadu Buhari, through the office of Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), to reinstate the officials and ensure that due process is observed in line with the provisions of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund Act, and the Circular (Ref No: SGF/OP/l.S.3/T/163).

PREMIUM TIMES reported the circular titled Approved Disciplinary Procedure Against Chief Executive Officers of Federal Government Parastatals, Agency and Departments.

In it, the SGF, Boss Mustapha, said ministers no longer have the powers to remove heads of agencies under their ministries. He listed the procedure to deal with erring officials including investigation of the allegations against them by the boards of such agencies.

Despite the circular, however, Mr Ngige suspended the NSITF officials. The minister said he received President Buharis permission to suspend the officials.

The suspended officials affected by the resolution are Adebayo Somefun  Managing Director (Chief Executive), Kemi Nelson  Executive Director (Operations), Tijani Suleiman-Darazo  Executive Director (Admin), Jasper Azuatalam  Executive Director and Olumide Olusegun Bashorun NSITF  General Manager (Admin).

Others are Lawan Tahir NSITF  General Manager (Finance), Chris Esedebe NSITF  General Manager (Claims), Oludotun Adegbite NSITF  Deputy General Manager (investment), Emmanuel Sike- Enyinnaya  Deputy General Manager (Finance), Dorothy Tukura  Deputy General Manager (Training) and Olutoyin Arokoyo  Deputy General Manager (Legal).

The directive also affects Victoria Anyatuga  Asst. General Manager (Audits) and Abdul-Rasheed Lawal (BPP)  Deputy Director (Procurement).

The lawmakers also urged the Minister of Power to review disciplinary action against the chief executives of the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) and the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

The Minister of Power, Sale Mamman, had ordered removal of the Managing Director of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Usman Mohammed and that of Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET), Marylin Amobi.

The duo were removed from office separately by the minister.

While Mr. Mohammed was removed in May, 2020, Ms Amobi was removed in June in the same year.
The temple could not be returned to the Sikhs earlier because of a lingering legal battle between local Sikhs and the provincial government, Singh said. Abdullah Khilji, an official at the education department in Baluchistan, said hundreds of schoolgirls who were studying at the temple building were relocated to a nearby school where they have since adjusted.
Gurugram, July 23 : Three masked men looted jewellery and cash worth over Rs 3 lakh from the house of an elderly Homeopathic doctor couple in Gurugram's upscale Sector 40.

The incident took place in broad day light after one robber posed as patient, went to the house come clinic of Dr Ved Prakash Tandon to take some medicine. The doctor couldn't suspect his intention while he was in the clinic.

"When Tandon asked him to leave the clinic, he signalled his two accomplices who were waiting outside. The other two robbers barged inside, took doctor couple on gun point and asked them to handover the cash and jewellery," said ACP Crime Branch Preet Pal Singh Sangwan.

"The robbers stayed at the house for around 40 minutes and also ensured that the jewellery robbed from them was original or not," Sangwan said.

Sangwan said there might be some insider involved.

"Investigation is underway as we are interrogating the domestic helps and scanning the CCTV footage. We will soon solve the case," Sangwan said.
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WATERLOO  The first hints of change came on Canada Day, when Waterloo business owner Rami Said sent a cryptic tweet and photo about exciting news coming to one of the citys oldest institutions.

Many recognized the photo immediately as the interior of the former Harmony Lunch, the King Street landmark that permanently closed on Jan. 24. Now, Said  who also owns nearby Patent Social Club  is sharing his vision for the space that first opened in 1930.

Hes moving his retro video gaming business from Patent Social Club into the space at 90 King St. N., introducing a pub grub menu for the late-night crowd, and renaming it Revive Game Bar.

The location is amazing, and Im a big believer in uptown (Waterloo), said Said, 31, who ran for council to represent uptown Ward 7 during the last municipal election and even ran for mayor in 2014. Hes also on the board of directors for the uptown Waterloo Business Improvement Area.

It has an amazing history and its right on the main strip.

The plan is to move the retro video consoles like Nintendo 64 and Super Nintendo out of Patent Social Club, which opened in 2018, and keep the club open as a space for live music, open mic nights and comedy shows.

The two brands were competing and confusing customers, Said said.

Harmony Lunch first closed in 2016 but reopened a few months later and was operated by the Fat Sparrow Group of restaurants.

Construction for this latest iteration has been underway for the past several weeks and Said hopes to have the patio ready to open this Friday for a very basic menu and a few beer options.

Hell also pay homage to the original Harmony Lunch, opened by Harry Marks 90 years ago, by keeping the famous slider on the menu.

Said will also keep much of the original layout intact but spruce up the interior with a video game esthetic. He anticipates the space will become known simply as Revive, and hopes it becomes a popular destination after nearby bars close for the night.

With news of several local bars and clubs closing permanently due to COVID-19, Said praised property owner HIP Developments for being flexible and willing to work through the uncertainty.

Said has already hired six staff members for Revive, but is looking to bring in a few more kitchen staff. He also employs five people at Patent Social Club, which reopened for patio service last month.

The name Revival has several different meanings, Said noted. Revival is a common video game trope involving healing characters who are near death, and Said hopes his vision revives an old space during these uncertain economic times.

Were taking over a space and trying to revive the old Harmony, and were also reviving after COVID, he said. Its a time of craziness, and its all hit us so emotionally.
Embattled Philippine journalist Maria Ressa pleaded not guilty Wednesday to tax evasion, as President Rodrigo Duterte's government faced growing calls to drop all charges against the veteran reporter.

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

The award-winning former CNN journalist is on bail pending an appeal against a cyber libel conviction last month for which she faces up to six years in jail.

Ex-Rappler journalist Reynaldo Santos was also found guilty in that case.

In a video on Twitter after the hearing, Ressa said she pleaded not guilty to tax evasion -- one of five tax-related charges she faces -- in the capital Manila.

Her application to quash the charge was rejected by the judge and Rappler was added to the charge sheet, she said.

Ressa, who is also a US citizen, is accused of providing incorrect information for a company tax return involving nearly 300,000 pesos ($6,000) in 2015, Rappler reported.

"We'll fight every step of the way because we will hold the line," Ressa said defiantly in the video.

"I'm not going to voluntarily give up my rights."

Ressa posted on Twitter selfies of herself and her lawyer, both wearing face masks and shields, at the court.

Rights groups and press advocates say the charges against Ressa and Rappler, and a government move to strip the news site of its licence, amount to state harassment.

- 'Politically motivated' -

Fellow alumni, teachers and staff from Princeton University took out a full-page advert in The Washington Post on Tuesday calling for US President Donald Trump's administration to "exercise its influence" to convince the Duterte government to drop all the charges against Ressa, Santos and Rappler.

"Presidents throughout the history of the United States have used their leverage against authoritarian governments that violate the rights of U.S. citizens abroad; the current administration should do the same," the letter said.

Story continues

"To do otherwise would only diminish America's role as a leader of the democratic world."

An online petition launched by international press groups in support of Ressa and Philippine media has received more than 10,000 signatures so far.

But the pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

Earlier this month Duterte, who has a history of clashing with media outlets critical of his administration, called Ressa a "fraud".

He recently signed an anti-terrorism law that many fear will be used to silence dissent and threaten press freedoms.

It comes as the country's top broadcaster ABS-CBN prepares to lay off thousands of workers after it was forced off the air over a stalled renewal of its operating licence.

A lower house committee has since rejected its application for another 25-year franchise.

Ressa, who Time magazine named as a Person of the Year in 2018, warned the broadcaster's experience was a "cautionary tale" for the rest of media.

Duterte's spokesman, Harry Roque, accused Ressa of "playing the victim" and insisted the administration was not involved in the decision on ABS-CBN's licence.

"The press can keep on reporting as long as there is no violation and has the right to continue its operations," Roque said.

The charges against her and Rappler were "politically motivated", Ressa told journalists at the company's headquarters after the hearing.

"It is meant to harass and intimidate, it is meant to be a war of attrition to try to make us afraid to keep reporting," she said.

"And the best response to it is to keep reporting."
Dave Franco will portray the role of Vanilla Ice in an upcoming biopic about the breakout 90s rapper.

The Palo Alto, California native, 35, speaking with Insider in a phone interview last week, said that the film about the Ice Ice Baby artist has been gradually moving toward production.

'We have been in development for a while,' said Dave, who is the brother of James Franco, 'but we are inching closer and closer to preproduction.'

The latest: Dave Franco, 35, will portray the role of Vanilla Ice in an upcoming biopic about the breakout 90s rapper

Franco said he hoped the biopic would impact the rapper - whose real name is Robert Van Winkle - like his brother's film The Disaster Artist boosted actor Tommy Wiseau.

'With that movie, people expected us to make a broad comedy where we make fun of Tommy Wiseau, but the more real we played it, the funnier and heartfelt it was - that's the tone we want for this one as well,' Franco said.

Franco said that amid the downtime in production due to the Hollywood shutdown amid the coronavirus, he's been able to chat with the Play That Funky Music rapper.

'Rob is such a sweet and intelligent guy and he's been super helpful in the process of getting all the details correct and making us privy to information the public doesn't know,' Franco said. 'Just talking to him I can't help but think about the rabbit holes I'm going to go down to get ready for the role.'

Stop, collaborate and listen: Franco said that amid the downtime in production due to the Hollywood shutdown amid the coronavirus, he's been able to chat with the rapper

On his grind: The rapper was snapped performing last year in Las Vegas

The trade publication Production Weekly reported news of the biopic last year.

The studio hyped up the forthcoming motion picture with the following synopsis: 'From a high school dropout selling cars in Dallas to having the first hip-hop single to top the Billboard charts with Ice Ice Baby, a young Vanilla Ice struggles with stardom, extortion attempts, and selling out as he makes music history.'

Vanilla Ice broke out on a mainstream scale with the success of his hit Ice Ice Baby in the fall of 1990.

The rapper made headlines earlier this month when he canceled a scheduled shot in Austin Texas amid coronavirus concerns.

'Due to the increase in COVID-19 numbers in Austin we're gonna move the concert to a better date,' the rapper said on Twitter. '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 we're going to stay home.'
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Linkedin Katrina Hallare (Inquirer.net/Asia News Network) Manila  Thu, July 23, 2020 15:32 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668c130a 2 Entertainment One-Direction Free

To mark its 10th anniversary, One Direction surprised its ever-loyal fans with a social media comeback.

After a two-year silence, the bands Twitter page posted a new photo on Wednesday that read 10 years of One Direction.

Tomorrow! You and me got a whole lot of history, the caption of the photo read, which is a reference to the One Direction song History.

The tweet alone earned 947,300 retweets and 1.6 million likes, as of writing.

Tomorrow! You and me got a whole lot of history #10YearsOf1D pic.twitter.com/nwxrm5MSE9  One Direction (@onedirection) July 22, 2020

Read also: Nine songs to remember nine years of One Direction

And it appears that fans of the group, known as Directioners, are excited for whats in store for their idols anniversary.

The hashtag #10yearsof1D became a trend with 1.7 million tweets.

Meanwhile, One Directions Facebook page also changed its profile picture, which showed band members Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Niall Horan, and Louis Tomlinson.

On July 23, One Direction will celebrate its 10th anniversary. This marked the day that Simon Cowell a judge of the British singing talent competition The X Factor decided that Tomlinson, Payne, Horan, Styles, and Zayn Malik would advance to the show as a group.

After five years, Malik decided to leave the group in 2015 to live a normal life.

The band, which continued on as a quartet after Maliks exit, decided to go on hiatus in January 2016.

One Direction is known for their songs What Makes You Beautiful, Night Changes, Best Song Ever, among others.

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This article appeared on the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
23.07.2020 LISTEN

Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has said government has so far spent GHS13.6 billion in sanitizing the financial sector as at 2020 first quarter.

He made this known on Thursday July 23, when he delivered the Mid-year budget review statement in Parliament.

As at the end of first quarter 2020, a total amount of GH13.6 billion (3.5 percent of GDP) has been spent on the resolution of failed banks, Specialised Deposit-taking Institutions (SDIs), Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs), the establishment of the Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited (CBG), as well as the capitalization of the Ghana Amalgamated Trust(GAT).

He however reiterated that the decision to clean-up the sector that saw the collapse of some financial institutions was not deliberate as critics have suggested.

According to him, the notion that government connived with the Bank of Ghana to collapse some local banks is far-fetched and that such thoughts must not be entertained.

Let it be said that a serious government, as we are, desperate as we were to fix a broken economy as it was and fund our own programmes, as promised, and as patriotic as we are, had absolutely no thoughts, no time, no energy or the luxury to conspire with the central bank to deliberately cause the downfall of Ghanaian banks that were already in zombie state, fatally insolvent, by the time we took office. What we did was to merge those that had failed, save those that could be saved with the view to building a strong and viable financial sector with integrity. What the President did, which is unusual in banking practice, globally, was to go the extra mile to save the funds of all depositors of failed banks he explained.

Meanwhile, following the outbreak of the pandemic, the Central bank has devised certain measures to support the economy and financial institutions.

The Bank of Ghana has stepped up to the challenge and announced various policy measures to help support the economy and financial institutions in order to cushion the adverse impact of Covid-19 on the economy. It is important to stress that this has been possible because of the responsible and competent management of both the fiscal and monetary space since 2017, the Finance Minister touted.

This not-withstanding, not everyone whose money was locked up has been paid, as the Receiver appointed for the collapsed institutions is working to make final payments to depositors and staff of some of the collapsed institutions.

The Bank of Ghana, between 2017 and 2019, revoked the licenses of nine local commercial banks and over four hundred financial institutions comprising Micro-finance, Savings and Loans as well Finance Houses, for violating various regulations guiding their operations.

This affected about 4.6 million depositors whose monies could have been lost completely had the regulators not taken the action.

It all began in August 2017, when the Bank of Ghana (BoG) gave GCB Bank Ltd the green light to acquire two local banks UT and Capital bank due to severe impairment of their capital.

Later in August 2018, the Bank of Ghana consolidated five other local banks into the Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited.

Then in May, 2019, 347 microfinance companies also had their licenses revoked by the Bank of Ghana.

The Bank of Ghana later in August 2019 again revoked the licences of twenty-three (23) insolvent savings and loans companies and finance houses, whiles the Securities and Exchange Commission revoked the licenses of over 50 Fund Management Companies.

 citinewsroom
Study: Chinese dark fleets illegally defying sanctions by fishing in North Korean waters

by Ashoka Mukpo

July 23,2020 | Source: Mongabay

Chinese dark fleets illegally fished a $440 million haul of the squid species Todarodes pacificus in North Korean waters during 2017 and 2018, according to a study published today in the journal Science Advances.



The study used a novel set of satellite images to track fishing vessels operating off the northeast coast of the Korean peninsula, including satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR), Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite sensors (VIIRS), high-resolution optical imagery, and identification beacon data from some of the vessels themselves. Its authors say that this is one of the first times those technologies have been combined to map illicit fishing at such a large scale over a years-long period.



We believe that this study marks the beginning of a new era in fisheries management, transparency, and monitoring, said Jaeyoon Park, senior data scientist at Global Fishing Watch and a co-lead author of the paper.



Park and his colleagues used data collected from Planet Labs, an earth-imaging company that has also been instrumental in tracking deforestation caused by hard-to-track illegal gold mining, to map the movement of fishing boats in contested waters around the Korean peninsula. They found that in 2017, more than 900 Chinese fishing boats traveled to an area in the North Korean exclusive economic zone, followed by another 700 in 2018.



In total, researchers estimate that the vessels caught more than 160,000 tons of Pacific flying squid in those two years alone, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.



Tracking squid harvests in those waters has been challenging due to a dispute over where ocean borders in the region begin and end, with Russia, Japan, China, and North and South Korea each making their own claims. As a result, cooperation in monitoring and sustainably managing stocks of fish, squid, and other ocean wildlife has been complicated by big-power politics.



Pacific flying squid is a staple food in the region and a key source of income for fishing communities in Japan and the Korean peninsula, but in recent years catch volumes have plummeted, raising fears that the lack of coordination is depleting stocks and facilitating illegal fishing. According to the study, since 2003 squid catches have dropped by 80% in South Korean waters and 82% in those of Japan.



Illegal fishing in these waters is a very serious matter in Japan, and the lack of shared data and management is a major challenge considering the critical importance of squid in the region, said Masanori Miyahara, President of the Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency, in a press release that accompanied the study.



Complicating matters are economic sanctions that were imposed on North Korea by the U.N. Security Council in late 2017 in response to the nations ballistic missile tests. The presence of Chinese fishing vessels in North Korean waters would represent a violation of those sanctions and an embarrassment to the Chinese government, which has issued public assurances that it would not allow ships flying its flag to fish in those waters.



If the fishing was conducted without permission of the central government of China, it represents a violation of Chinas distant water fishing management regulation, which requires all Chinese flagged vessels to obtain permission to fish in other nations borders, said Park.



Park says the satellite data doesnt reveal whether the North Korean government has given permission for the vessels to fish inside its borders, but adds that South Korean coastal officials have found evidence suggesting that North Korea is aware that it is taking place.



There are some indications from the South Korean authorities that when they inspect some of these vessels traveling to North Korean waters, some carry documents that appear to be issued by [North Korean] authorities, he said.



The presence of Chinese dark fleets off the coast of North Korea is also causing a crisis for North Koreans who rely on squid fishing for their livelihood. Unable to compete with the more technologically advanced Chinese vessels, which use powerful lights and other technologies to maximize the size of their catch, some North Koreans have resorted to fishing illegally in faraway Russian waters  a potentially deadly journey for their smaller wooden ships. The study found that 3,000 North Korean ships fished in Russian waters in 2018 alone.



In recent years, hundreds of North Korean fishing vessels have washed ashore in neighboring countries. The shipwrecks baffled many observers and provoked questions of potential espionage. But the studys authors say that their data reveals a more straightforward answer: after being pushed out of local waters by the Chinese vessels, North Korean fishermen are taking life-threatening risks to fish in more remote areas, often paying a heavy price.



This phenomenon has led to some fishing villages in North Korea becoming colloquially known as widows villages.



Park says he hopes the data gathered by researchers and published in the study will lead to greater regional cooperation and a political solution to illegal fishing:



We really urge that this is time to accelerate data sharing processes in the region, and also to negotiate a way to deal with regional fishing management mechanisms given the importance of those fisheries and the number of people who rely on those resources for their livelihoods.

 2020 Copyright Conservation news

Theme(s): Fishing Craft, Gear and Fishing Methods.
'Like Nehru, too, Modi has found dealing with Beijing more and more difficult and has adopted an increasingly assertive approach towards managing India's northern neighbour.'

Photograph: ANI Photo IMAGE: Indian soldiers shout 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' along with Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi during his visit to Nimu in Ladakh on July 3, 2020.

Ian Hall -- a professor at the School of Government and International Relations, and deputy director, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia -- is currently working on the evolution of Indian thinking about world politics since 1964.

"India is now forced to compete in the region with a much richer China, and that is a major challenge," Professor Hall, who has also written a book on the Narendra Damodardas Modi government's foreign policy, tells Aditi Phadnis.

Now that the dust has (somewhat) settled after the Galwan Valley clash between India and China, most observers say Narendra Modi's handling of the incident was not significantly different from Jawaharlal Nehru's. Do you agree?

In China's context, Nehru said he had ordered troops to vacate Thagla ridge. Modi has spoken generally about no Indian territory being compromised but stopped short of equivalence in a military response...

There are certainly more similarities between how Modi handles foreign and security policy and how Nehru did.

Like Nehru, Modi has made great use of the world stage to burnish his image as a respected world leader.

This gave him a distinct advantage at home, with the BJP arguing Modi's personal diplomacy boosted India's standing at the global stage.

Nehru, of course, acted in similar ways for similar reasons, spending much time addressing international issues like anti-colonialism and ending racial discrimination despite pressing problems at home.

When it comes to China, there are also commonalities in Nehru and Modi's approaches.

Like Nehru, Modi has tried to build a personal rapport with his Chinese counterparts, especially Xi Jinping.

Who can forget Modi and Xi sitting together on a gilded swing during the Chinese president's visit to Gujarat in September 2014?

But like Nehru, too, Modi has found dealing with Beijing more and more difficult and has adopted an increasingly assertive approach towards managing Indias northern neighbour.

Modi has openly criticised the Belt and Road Initiative, called out transgressions across the Line of Actual Control, and worked hard to deepen India's partnership with the US.

The Modi government has also accelerated the upgrade of strategic infrastructure along the LAC.

And this appears to be one of the reasons for incursions by Chinese troops this year, as Beijing sees some of these roads as threat to its control on Aksai Chin and territories beyond.

Those much-needed upgrades are not analogous, however, to Nehru's controversial 'Forward Policy' that precipitated the Chinese attack in October 1962.

There are, of course, some similarities between the Thagla incident, which led to the death of 25 Indian soldiers and slightly more Chinese troops, and the bloody clash in the Galwan Valley on June 15.

In both cases, Indian forces went across the LAC and met with a bloody Chinese response.

But the big difference is that the new positions in contention in the Galwan Valley were not assumed by India's soldiers, but by the People's Liberation Army.

It is Beijing that has adopted a 'Forward Policy' rather than India.

After his 2014 victory, Modi emphasised that a government having a strong parliamentary majority had made an appreciable difference in the way India was seen by the world. Foreign policy has never really been an element in domestic politics. Has this changed?

On the one hand, survey after survey shows they make their choices based on issues like economic growth, education, health, and infrastructure, in much the same way as voters do in any other democracy.

And that hasn't changed under Modi.

But on the other hand, India's voters also clearly respond positively to leaders they think are respected in the world -- to leaders who make them feel proud to be Indians.

They liked Nehru for this reason, and indeed Indira Gandhi.

This isn't unusual, but it does mean that it is advantageous for Indian leaders to be taken seriously by their counterparts, especially powerful ones, like the president of the US or China or Russia.

Internationally, there are also benefits to having a leader who is perceived abroad as dynamic and fully in control of his/her government.

India experienced these early in Modi's tenure, as foreign investment flowed into the country, driven as much by the boost in confidence he had generated as by reforms his government had enacted.

Of late, however, worries about the state of the economy and the government's desire for further reforms have crept in, and investment has dropped.

Concerns about some elements of Modi's agenda, concerning the citizenship law and Kashmir, for example, have also grown in some places.

Modi's outreach to the world has been characterised by personality projection -- his 'Abki baar Trump sarkar' assertion, public affection for 'my friend Bibi' (Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu), appreciation for (Japanese Prime Minister) Abe Shinzo.

But Hindu nationalism as a tenet has not been expounded as a foreign policy doctrine. Do you agree?

Yes, I would.

There have been talks of a distinctively Hindu nationalist doctrine -- of a Panchamrit, as (BJP General Secretary and former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh spokesperson) Ram Madhav has put it, that might replace the Panchsheel.

Modi himself has referred to the ideas of Swami Vivekananda or Sri Aurobindo as intellectual inspirations not just for domestic policy, but foreign policy and the world.

His government has dropped any reference to non-alignment and to 'strategic autonomy' -- concepts closely associated with Nehru and with the Congress.

But a doctrine that draws inspiration from those figures and others in the Hindu nationalist tradition has yet been fully articulated.

Modi invested heavily in the Diaspora. Has the Diaspora managed to propel policy in their countries in India's favour?

There is really only one case that I know of in which the Indian Diaspora successfully organised and lobbied in India's favour, and that involved the India-US nuclear deal, under Manmohan Singh.

Under Modi, I think the Diaspora has been useful in other ways, in supplying both campaign funds for the BJP and know-how in social media and things like that.

But it has not been very active in trying to influence policy abroad.

Partly, I think, that is because it has not been needed.

The US is reasonably well disposed to India, despite Donald Trump's occasional complaints about trade imbalances and immigration.

Also, Diaspora lobbies must walk a very fine line or else they might appear disloyal to their country. And they must be very organised and motivated.

Under Modi, parts of the Diaspora have been quite motivated -- we have seen that in London, Houston, and Singapore.

But they are not as well organised or funded as they need to be to have a big impact on policy in places like Washington.

How do you evaluate 'Neighbourhood First'?

I think, it has been a mixed bag.

Outreach to the region via SAARC (the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation) has obviously foundered on the deterioration of the India-Pakistan relationship, which has left that organisation inoperable.

New Delhi has got around this obstacle by using mechanisms like BIMSTEC, which has worked better.

But the Modi government has also made mistakes and the circumstances in which it has worked have got steadily worse.

The biggest error was allowing the blockade of Nepal to drag on in 2015, which squandered whatever diplomatic capital Modi had accumulated in his first year in office.

But over India's relations with Nepal, as with every other sState in South Asia and the Indian Ocean, China looms and has made things very difficult.

Smaller States in the region can now play India off against China to their advantage.

Sometimes, as the case with Nepal, they can also miscalculate and end up much more influenced by Beijing than they may want.

In any case, India is now forced to compete in the region with a much richer China, and that is a major challenge, undercutting 'Neighbourhood First'.

A defining feature of Modi's foreign policy has been allowing armed forces to cross the Line of Control. Would you say this is the edifice of a Hindu nationalist foreign policy?

The 'surgical strikes' in 2016 and the Balakot air attack in 2019 have certainly defined the Modi government, that's true.

The idea of a muscular India has long been popular within the Hindu nationalist movement, running back to V D Savarkar and M S Golwalkar in the mid-20th century.

But the big problem faced by the Modi government is that establishing deterrence against terrorist attacks like we saw at Pulwama is extremely difficult, and there are worrying signs this year of another upsurge in infiltrations.

The problem cannot be solved by cross-LoC raids; it will eventually need a diplomatic solution.
AFL star Patrick Dangerfield has spoken out about the treatment of Indigenous Australians in sport and said the country still has a 'long way to go'.

The 30-year-old Geelong veteran explained that he had learned a lot about Indigenous culture and struggles they faced during his career.

'When I was in high school, Captain Cook discovered Australia,' Dangerfield told Footy Classified on Wednesday.

'We have a long way to go as a nation in terms of addressing our cultural heritage and also making sure that sport in Australia is a really safe environment.'

AFL star Patrick Dangerfield said Australia has a 'long way to go' to solve indigenous issues and to help make them feel safer in sport. Pictured with his wife Mardi Harwood

Dangerfield said racism was still rife in sport and claimed that only a few of many incidents ever came to light.

'It [sport] continues unfortunately to be a place where players are very often racially abused and it needs to stop,' he said.

'The ones that we hear about are the ones that we hear about. Clearly, there's plenty else that goes on that isn't always reported, so a lot more needs to be done and we all need to play a role within that.'

High-profile past players like Adam Goodes have been the target of racial abuse with current players such as Eddie Betts experiencing similar treatment.

In 2013, Collingwood president Eddie McGuire even suggested Goodes should be used to promote a King Kong musical but later apologised for his comments.

The AFL has struggled with issues of racism directed towards indigenous players with retired star Adam Goodes and current player Eddie Betts facings frequent abuse. Pictured is Betts with his wife Anna Scullie and family

The AFL was also criticised after Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island players were told they would need to receive a pneumococcal vaccination to play in Queensland.

But players later discovered, after many had received the vaccine, the Queensland Government as the Queensland government said there was no official requirement for injections in order to travel.

The revelation outraged many indigenous players who believed they were deprived of a choice and thought the shot was mandatory.

Dangerfield, who is the president of the AFL Players Association, said he was 'really disappointed' but was glad the AFL had since apologised.

'The AFL acknowledges it could have obtained and shared more information from the Queensland Government health authorities regarding the vaccination, including the underlying health safety benefits and that it can improve its processes in providing information to support club doctors in ensuring cultural safety in provision of health to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,' the AFL said in a statement on Friday.

Dangerfield said it was important that Australians learn of indigenous history and issues they still face and pointed to an educational program run by his association.

'It opens your eyes with how much you don't know about the culture of our indigenous Australians,' Dangerfield said

'It's a really important part around how we educate our players, particularly our white Australians that just don't understand the complexities that our indigenous Australians have grown up with.'
New Delhi: India-China standoff on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the wake of clashes between the Indian Army and Chinese troops in the Galwan valley in Eastern Ladakh on June 15 night has shown confidence as well as the resilience of the Indian armed forces. India's upper hand in the difficult terrain has been possible due to a synergy between armed forces and theatre commands.

This synergy has also provided several successful moments for the Indian Armed forces. The highlights of this success are given below:

June 2020: The Indian Air Force and Army carried out a joint operation in Ladakh. The exercise was conducted in close coordination on-ground operations.

November 2019: In a major step towards enhancing joint collaboration among the three services, special forces of the Army, Navy, and Air Force have been deployed in the Kashmir Valley to carry out joint counter-terrorism operations. The Army's Para (special forces) units, Navy's Marine Commandos (MARCOS), and Indian Air Force's Garud special forces are being deployed in the Kashmir Valley under the Defence Ministry's newly-raised Armed Forces Special Operations Division (AFSOD).

September 2019: With an eye on China, the IAF reopened it's Vijaynagar ALG (advance landing ground) in Arunachal Pradesh for military aircraft on Wednesday, even as the Army wrapped up an operational alert exercise in eastern Ladakh near the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The all-arms integrated exercise, termed as Changthang Prahar (assault), in a super high-altitude area near Chushul in eastern Ladakh, witnessed the participation of tanks, artillery guns, drones, helicopters, and troops as well as para-drops by IAF aircraft.

April 2018: The Operational Commands of the IAF planned and executed Inter Valley Troop Transfer (IVTT) in coordination with affiliated Indian Army Commands. IVTT, a major Joint Operation, was conducted in the high hills of Northern and North-Eastern Sector.

The aim of the exercise was to validate the capability of the Indian Air Force and the Indian Army to quickly transfer and redeploy acclimatized troops, in the simulated objective area. These operations are conducted to reposition troops from one valley to another, to counter any evolving threat, and to surprise or offensively exploit the weakness of the adversary.

July 2018: A "joint doctrine" providing for deeper operational synergies among the Army, Navy, and Air Force was unveiled with an aim to coherently deal with all possible security threats facing India including conventional and proxy wars.

The joint doctrine proposes joint training of personnel, unified command, and control structure besides pushing for a tri-service approach for the modernisation of the three forces.

The doctrine will facilitate the establishment of a broad framework of concepts and principles for joint planning and conduct of operations across all the domains such as land, air, sea, space, and cyber-space. The document was released by the chairman of the chiefs of staff committee (COSC) and Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba in presence of the then Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat and the then IAF Chief BS Dhanoa.
According to guidelines laid out by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, most schools in California are on track to remain online-only, assuming spread of the novel coronavirus remains at its current levels. Meanwhile, New York City has announced that its schools will be open only one to three days a week. Across the country, it's becoming clear that many working parents will face the same challenge they faced in the spring: balancing their jobs with the demands of guiding children through Zoom classes.

As we learned in the spring, many parents find this extremely hard. And even those who can pull off the challenge may still be reluctant to do so, concluding that their children are missing out on social interactions - or that online education simply doesn't cut it. (Who would send their child to online kindergarten if they could possibly help it?) Some parents may be reluctant to send their children back, even in places where schools do open, because of worries about infection.

Faced with all this, parents are panicking. And for some of them, home-schooling pods - impromptu private schools led by parents or privately hired teachers - are emerging as an attractive idea.

I predicted that parents would get creative in this fashion but wasn't sure it would happen. Now I'm seeing more and more news reports and Facebook posts on the subject ("Looking for an experienced teacher in the area to teach a pod of four third graders in the fall. Message me if you know anyone."). "I know that distance learning was not working for us," Darcy Alkus-Barrow, the mother of a 1-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, told the Marin Independent Journal. "I've known that for a long time." She put out a query on social media and heard from 200 interested parents, the newspaper reported. A San Francisco chapter of the Facebook group "Pandemic Pods" has more than 1,000 members, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Social media anecdotes are one thing, and it's hard to say how many such schools will actually materialize. But businesses have taken note: Swing Education, a start-up that matches schools with substitute teachers, has shifted to offering to provide teachers for "your own in-home learning pod."

It's lost on no one, however, that the children who join home-schooling pods won't be randomly selected. Home-schooling pods with teachers that are hired by parents will be the purview of the rich (or at least the richer). Hiring an experienced teacher to work full time for a year - if you pay all the required taxes and provide health insurance - could easily cost $100,000 or more. If you split this with five other families, that's still $20,000 each - an expensive private school that's simply out of the range of most parents. (Never mind if you have multiple kids and you need multiple teachers, or your pod has fewer families.)

Unsurprisingly, discussion of this phenomenon has generated concern. "If parents with wealth are trying to problem solve, and their solutions unwittingly undermine our public school system [and] the kids that don't have the resources . . . we all lose out as a society," Alison Collins, a San Francisco school board member, told the Chronicle.

Parents who can afford this solution, however, could reasonably argue that policymakers and schools have failed them - and just because the option isn't available to everyone doesn't mean they should forgo it. And to be sure, there are more homespun versions of pods that could be affordable: They'd be more like learning co-ops, with the parents taking turns teaching. This feels less objectionable in some ways, but it does require, first, educated parents and, second, parents who can take time away from work.

But however one feels about the ethics of school pods, they seems inevitable - and given this inevitability, it makes sense for citizens (even those with no plans to join pods) to try to make productive use of this social movement.

First, the trend presents an opportunity for education reformers to really highlight already existing inequalities in education. There are enormous differences in spending on schools across states, within states and even within individual school districts. Schools are funded with property taxes, meaning that richer areas have better funding. Beyond this, parents in wealthier areas provide resources to schools on top of the official spending, resources that can buy additional teachers, extra classes such as art and music, and also better test scores.

A world in which some families hire their own teachers seems extreme, but is it that much more extreme than funding schools through property taxes? The school-pods development may put educational inequality in people's faces in a way that is simply harder to ignore than it might be otherwise. If we feel angry about this, if we feel that action is necessary to level the playing field, we should hold on to that anger and channel it into action later, when things are back to the pre-pandemic "normal." (Reformers have proposed merging urban and suburban districts, for instance, to make funding more equitable.)

Second, much more practically, this trend may inspire schools to work harder to provide creative options during the fall. One of the significant issues schools are facing is that to open safely (or as safely as possible) they need to make their classrooms (and buildings) much less population-dense - which is why they some are considering staggered schedules of various kinds. But this effort presents not just logistical but also ethical challenges. For instance, if classroom space is scarce, who should get priority? Schools that are considering hybrid educational approaches - part online, part offline - have tended to embrace neutral approaches (freshmen and seniors one day, sophomores and juniors another).

But once we recognize that a share of parents can afford to set up pods - once the question of inequality is on the table - it may suggest a different answer to the question of prioritization. If pods do start to form, that might create room to bring back to school kids who need this public resource more. But on a more theoretical level, the development might prompt us to recognize that some children are more reliant on in-person public school than others: lower-income children, for example, those with limited internet access, children in special education, and those with learning disabilities. Maybe we ought to accept a fall semester in which some children return to school in person, and others continue to learn remotely, supported by their parents - and maybe the disadvantaged kids should be first in line.

I hear the howls that this is unfair. Almost all of us would like our children back in school. Why should school return prioritize only some groups? Could public policy end up forcing better-off parents to create pods by giving such a preference?

I agree the scenario is unfair. But all of the options on the table regarding schools are unfair, unequal, bad. As with everything else in the pandemic, we are really looking for what is the least bad, not what is good.

- - -

Oster, a professor of economics at Brown University, is the author of "Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool."
Two weavers work in a textile workshop on July 17 in Dongzhang Village, Quting Township, Hongtong County of Linfen City in North China's Shanxi Province. [Photo by Yang Xiaoyu/chinadaily.com.cn]

Munian, literally translated as "mother's handmade cloth", is a type of rough fabric made with a millennia-old weaving craft unique to Hongtong County of Linfen City in North China's Shanxi Province.

But the craft has almost faded into oblivion, as people turn to readily available mass-produced fabrics and garments.

That is until June, when it gained a new lease on life.

The local government of Quting Township in Hongtong built munian workshops in seven villages, offering job opportunities to 40 local women.

Most female villagers in middle and old age are left behind to care for their families and tend farms while most men work in the cities, said Fan Ding, the head of the township.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has kept male villagers from returning to their jobs for months, resulting in a decrease in their household income. "So we decided to revive the traditional munian craft to expand their incomes," Fan explained.

Two weavers work in a textile workshop on July 17 in Dongzhang Village, Quting Township, Hongtong County of Linfen City in North China's Shanxi Province. [Photo by Yang Xiaoyu/chinadaily.com.cn]

In Dongzhang Village, the earliest to get 20 looms working on June 20, a dozen local women, all over age 55, are working in the textile workshop.

"The job is flexible and not so tiring," said Li Shenglan, a local woman at the workshop. "I can just leave here when the busy farming season comes and get back during the off-season."

As a greenhorn weaver, Li earns 25 yuan ($3.58) per day.

"When I become more skilled, my productivity will double and so will my pay," said Li, who looks to earn around 1,500 yuan ($214.65) from the shop per month after one to two months' training.

An array of four-piece munian sheet sets on display at a e-commerce service station on July 17 in Quting Township, Hongtong County of Linfen City in North China's Shanxi Province. [Photo by Yang Xiaoyu/chinadaily.com.cn]

A government-sponsored e-commerce service station in the town collects finished textiles and sells them under a newly registered bedding brand, Kuang Yi Bo Bei (Kuang's clothes and Bo's quilts).

The brand borrows the names of two well-known historical figures of the county  Shi Kuang, a legendary blind music master living in 6th century BC, and Empress Bo, mother of Emperor Wen of the Western Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 24).

Priced at about 200 yuan ($28.62) apiece, four-piece munian sheet sets, highly breathable and comfortable, are selling well during livestreaming promotions.

As productivity is limited, only 70 sets have been produced in the first month. "But they were sold out soon, making us all very optimistic," said Yue Jinchuan, the head of the village.

(Source: chinadaily.com.cn)
Citing public health concerns amid a rising number of coronavirus infections, Wisconsin regulators reinstated a moratorium on utility shutoffs Thursday, granting a temporary reprieve to tens of thousands of households.

With a 2-1 vote Thursday, the Public Service Commission suspended disconnection of services for residential customers until Sept. 1. A previous shutoff moratorium had been scheduled to expire Friday.

Chairwoman Rebecca Valcq cited the 44,847 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported by the Department of Health Services on Wednesday  more than double the number on June 11 when the commission voted to lift a moratorium put in place at the outset of the pandemic.

What Im concerned about is when we disconnect people in the summer months one of the first things we advise them is go seek shelter somewhere else, Valcq said. That flies in the face of all direction were getting from public health officials.

According to data compiled by the PSC, more than 71,000 households were at risk of losing electricity, gas or water service beginning Saturday. Of those households, about 17,500 faced loss of water service.

While several of the largest utilities, including Madison Gas and Electric, had said they were not planning to disconnect any customers right away, a number of groups and elected officials, including the mayors of Madison and Monona, had called on the PSC to suspend shutoffs.

The moratorium extension applies only to residential customers.

According to data reported to the PSC, nearly 8,000 businesses met the threshold for disconnection as of July 15. The data show roughly 4.4% of commercial accounts were past due, compared to 2.6% in spring 2019.

Commissioner Ellen Nowak voted against the moratorium, which she said would hurt the very people were trying to help by allowing their debts to snowball.

We need to rely on the utilities that are working very hard on behalf of customers  to work out payment plans, Nowak said. There are many people in a difficult spot, but they need to use the tools that are already available.

According to the Department of Administration, the state has about $14.2 million remaining of the roughly $79.7 million allocated for home heating assistance and about $3.5 million left for emergency help with electricity bills. Both programs offer once-a-year benefits to households with income less than 60% of the state median, or about $46,300 for a family of three.

An additional $8 million from the federal coronavirus relief act will be available starting Oct. 1.

To get help The Wisconsin Home Energy Assistance Program offers one-time help for people having trouble paying energy bills. To determine eligibility or apply for assistance go to homeenergyplus.wi.gov or call 1-866-HEATWIS. The Citizens Utility Board also has a list of resources at cubwi.org/covid19. Customers who cannot work out a payment plan with their utility can file a complaint through the Public Service Commission website, psc.wi.gov, or call 800-225-7729.

The Home Energy Assistance Program has seen a slight dip in caseload, which officials attributed to problems processing cases in Milwaukee County and the disconnection moratorium. The DOA reported an uptick in applications since utilities began sending out disconnection notices on July 15.

Commissioner Tyler Huebner, who like Valcq was appointed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, pushed for extending the moratorium to Oct. 1 based on the current trajectory of infections.

The health situation has gotten worse. The economic situation is essentially on pause, Huebner said. We dont know what is next.

Commissioners agreed to take up the matter again on Aug. 20.

Wisconsin is one of 33 states that banned utility shutoffs during the pandemic, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. Of those, eight have expired and another five are set to expire by the end of July. Only eight state moratoriums extend beyond Sept. 1.

Decision lauded

The Citizens Utility Board, which represents residential and small business utility customers, praised the decision.

It gives more opportunities to try to connect people in need with resources available, said executive director Tom Content. If the pandemic continues its going to be incumbent on Congress to do more.

Bill Skewes, executive director of the Wisconsin Utilities Association, which represents investor-owned utilities, encouraged delinquent customers to contact their utilities to work out a payment plan or to seek state assistance.

Brian Knapp, president of the Municipal Electric Utilities of Wisconsin, said while he respects the commissions acknowledgment of the difficult circumstances, the organizations 81 members will have little time to work out payment plans in the fall.

Knapp, general manager of Shawano Municipal Utilities, said the utility typically sends about 1,200 disconnection notices each year but only ends up shutting off 30 to 60 customers.

Were just trying to get them to pay their bills, Knapp said. Some need a bigger nudge than others.

Foregone revenue

While municipal utilities can collect unpaid bills through property tax assessments, for-profit utilities socialize the cost of bad debt among all ratepayers.

But Valcq said the fiscal impact to utilities has so far been minimal.

The 268 utilities that responded to a survey reported a total of $7.8 million in foregone revenue  about 0.08% of total operating expenditures last year  along with $8.7 million in additional costs related to COVID-19.

While it is the commissions role to balance consumer interests with ensuring the economic viability of utilities, regulators need to protect the public interest, which includes public health, Valcq said. From an ethical standpoint we dont really have a choice.

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Turkmenistan is using planes to spray disinfectants over fields and towns to battle infectious diseases, even as the reclusive Central Asian country continues to deny it has cases of the coronavirus.

The unorthodox practice of indiscriminately spraying disinfectants from the air is raising concern that authorities may be creating larger health and environmental problems.

RFE/RLs Turkmen Service reported on July 22 that the disinfectants have an unpleasant smell and may be damaging the health of people and animals as well as destroying crops. In cities, authorities are also using trucks to spray disinfectants on the streets.

Turkmenistan's state-run media has described the measures taken during the global coronavirus pandemic as "a comprehensive decontamination campaign to prevent the spread of infectious diseases across the country."

According to official media, light aircraft are spraying a solution of 1 percent chlorine or 0.25 percent sodium hypochlorite solution, more commonly known as bleach. Local experts interviewed by RFE/RL say that the disinfectants are sprayed in higher doses.

This scientifically based work is carried out in two stages. The first of them is aimed at soil disinfection and is carried out from 15- to 20-meter height. The second stage is carried out from a height of 50-60 meters and it is aimed at destroying pathogenic microbes and viruses that are concentrated at a level of about 40 meters from the Earths surface, state media reported on July 15.

State television for the first time showed the aircraft disinfection on the country's border areas on July 15. Observers say the televised events are aimed at calming the population and reassuring them that the epidemiological situation in the country is under control.

An RFE/RL correspondent said many residents in southeastern Mary Province are concerned about the detrimental effects of the disinfectants on their health and that of their children.

Farmers are also worried the disinfectants are damaging their crops and hurting animals.

Turkmenistan insists that the country has no cases of the coronavirus, despite reports that hospitals are filling up with sick patients and deaths from suspected coronavirus cases are soaring across the country.

Despite ignoring the coronavirus, Turkmen authorities have taken unprecedented health measures recently in an apparent attempt to prevent the spread of the disease.

After prohibiting mask wearing up until July 8, the authorities ordered people to wear face masks in public to protect against "dust." Movement around the country has been restricted and markets and shopping malls have also been closed.

The sudden reversal came as representatives from the World Health Organization (WHO) made a delayed visit to the country in early July to assess the epidemiological situation.

At a July 15 press conference, WHO mission chief Catherine Smallwood said the team had not seen or heard anything that would contradict the government's assertion that the coronavirus does not exist in Turkmenistan.

However, Smallwood did recommend that the authorities take "critical public-health measures in Turkmenistan, as if COVID-19 was circulating" in the country.

She also commented on the "reports of increased cases of acute respiratory disease or pneumonia of unknown cause."

The WHO team visit in early July came after RFE/RL had earlier reported Turkmen authorities were trying to hide the extent of the pandemic in the country.
President Donald Trump executed a stunning turnaround Thursday and announced that many U.S. schools will have to delay reopening despite his repeated urgings that they must open in the fall.

After pushing for weeks for schools to reopen and stressing the risks of keeping them closed, Trump said school districts in coronavirus hot spots 'may need to delay reopening for a few weeks. Thats possible. Thatll be up to governors.'

And putting stock in science and infection rates, Trump said: 'The decision should be made based on the data and the facts on the ground.'

It was an acknowledgement that his admonition that schools must reopen at the traditional time may not be possible amid a coronavirus pandemic that the president now admits will get worse before it gets better.

He made the announcement just moments after announcing the cancellation of the Republican convention in Jacksonville, bowing to the reality of a surge of infections in the Sunshine State.

School districts 'may need to delay reopening for a few weeks,' President Trump said Thursday in a stunning turnaround

Flashing red: Trump stood beside a map showing where case numbers are rising fastest as he announced his stunning reversal

Rival Joe Biden and Democrats have blasted Trump for pushing schools to reopen, accusing him of seeking to minimize the coronavirus and force reopening to help his reelection campaign.

Taken in concert  ditching the convention, going along with phased reopening, watching GOP senators walk away from his payroll tax cut in new coronavirus legislation  the president appeared to be going into repositioning mode as he confronts daunting polls nationally and in battleground states.

'I hope that local leaders put the full health and well-being of their students first,' Trump said, 'and make the right decision for children, parents teachers and not make political decisions.'

Then, he mused about the politics of the decision  amid concerns about the health of teachers, the risks students bring infection into the home, balanced against the need to educate children and get them into school systems to free parents to work.

'This isnt about politics, this is about something very, very important, this is not about polics,' Trump said. 'I even think its bad politics if you do the wrong decision,' Trump said.

But the politics of Trump's demand that schools reopen were not on his side.

A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Thursday showed 63 per cent of parents said it was better to open schools later to lower the risk of coronavirus infection, versus just 32 per cent who said it was better to reopen sooner.

The news for Trump was also grim in a new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs poll.

It found just 8 per cent of Americans said K-12 schools should be open for normal in-person instruction. Only 14 per cent backed reopening with minor adjustment, with 46 calling for major changes. An additional 31 per cent said students should not get in-person instruction this fall.

Just over one-third, 36 per cent of Americans approve of Trump's performance on education, with 63 per cent disapproval.

Democrats were twice as likely as Republicans to call for mixed instruction rather than in-person.

The polls reflect weeks of demands by Trump for schools to reopen.

Back on July 6, as schools around the country searched for ways to reopen, Trump tweeted: 'SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!!

At a July 7 speech on 'Safely Reopening Schools,' Trump said: 'We want to reopen the schools. Everybody wants it. The moms want it, the dads want it, the kids want it. Its time to do it.'

Trump also issued a threat on Twitter to deny funds to schools that don't reopen.

I disagree with @CDCgov, Trump wrote, after leaked guidelines on when schools could safely decide to reopen. While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will be meeting with them!!!

He tweeted July 8: 'In Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and many other countries, SCHOOLS ARE OPEN WITH NO PROBLEMS. The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if U.S. schools open before the November Election, but is important for the children & families. May cut off funding if not open!'

Fifth-grade teacher Danielle Biggs writes a message against the reopening of schools while other Florida teachers, whose unions are against their members returning to school, hold a car parade protest in front of the Pasco County School district office in Land O' Lakes, Florida, U.S. July 21, 2020

Middle school teacher Scott Hottenstein stand in protest in front of the Hillsborough County Schools District Office on July 16, 2020 in Tampa, Florida. Teachers and administrators from Hillsborough County Schools rallied against the reopening of schools due to health and safety concerns amid the COVID-19 pandemic

George Walton High School senior were finally able to participate in graduation ceremonies a few months late, due to the Covid19 pandemic. Seniors finally graduated after Covid-19 delays, Marietta, Georgia

Trump announced terms of $105 billion Republicans want to provide to help schools reopen.

But he injected hot issues into the topic by saying funds should follow the children and could go to religious institutions or even for home schooling.

'If schools do not reopen,' Trump said the funds could go to 'public, private, charter, religious, or home school of their choice.'

'The key word being choice,' Trump emphasized.

'If the school is closed the money should follow the student, so parents and families are in control of their own decisions so would like the money to go to the parents of these student. this way they can make the decision that's best for themTrump said.

He said funds would go to mitigation measures, mask wearing, and repurposing spaces.

'We can not indefinitely step 50 million American children from going to school harming their mental, physical and emotional development. Reopening our schools is also critical to ensuring that parents can go to work and provide for their families,' Trump said.

Trump's announcement came moments after he nixed the GOP's Jacksonville convention  which he had also been saying must go forward even as critics pointed to a spike of infections in Florida.

The announcement came moments after Trump nixed the GOP's Jacksonville convention.

'We have to be vigilant we have to be careful. 'Theres nothing more crowded than a convention,' he said.

Trump said the Centers for Disease Control would be reducing guidelines on how schools could safely reopen.

Even as he pulled back from his all-out opposition to schools delaying reopening, Trump made the case for getting students back in classroom.

He said they were at lower risk of getting coronavirus, and said schools are where teachers and other adults often identify abuse and neglect occurring in the home.

'You dont get to see that if youre not going to school its a big thing,' Trump said.

Trump's announcement came on a day when two polls showed him trailing Joe Biden in battleground Florida, while a trio Fox News had him trailing in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota.
NEW YORK, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments (DESRI), a leading renewable energy producer in North America, today announced that it has entered into a strategic financing arrangement with Credit Suisse and Zions Bancorporation N.A. (Zions). Under the arrangement, which was originated and led by Credit Suisse, the lenders will provide DESRI with long-term financing to support DESRI acquisitions and growth. DESRI is focused on owning and managing long-term contracted renewable energy assets in North America and has a portfolio of projects totaling over 2,400 MW of aggregate capacity.

"We are thrilled to be collaborating with Credit Suisse and Zions and appreciate everyone's hard work to close this deal under such unusual global circumstances," said Stan Krutonogiy, Chief Financial Officer of DESRI. "We look forward to working with Credit Suisse and Zions as we further expand DESRI's renewables business."

About D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments (DESRI)

D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments (DESRI) and its affiliates acquire, own, and manage long-term contracted renewable energy assets in North America. DESRI's portfolio of renewable energy projects currently includes 42 wind and solar projects that represent more than 2,400 MW of aggregate capacity. DESRI is a member of the D. E. Shaw group, a global investment and technology development firm with more than $50 billion in investment and committed capital as of June 1, 2020, and offices in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Please visit www.deshaw.com for more information about the D. E. Shaw group.

This press release is provided for the reader's information only and does not constitute investment advice or convey an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities or other financial products.

Please also note that this press release has not been updated since its dateline for any information contained in it that may have changed, including any beliefs and/or opinions. In addition, no assurances can be given that any aims, assumptions, expectations, and/or goals described in this release will be realized or that the activities or any performance described herein did or will continue at all or in the same manner as at the time of the press release.

Contact: The D. E. Shaw group

(212) 403-8119

[email protected]

SOURCE D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments

Related Links

https://www.deshaw.com


Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 18:01:47|Editor: huaxia

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Photo taken on July 17, 2020 shows an exterior view of the Health Point Upper East Medical Center in Harare, Zimbabwe. A newly established state-of-the-art COVID-19 treatment center, funded by Chinese firms operating in the African country, officially opened on Thursday. (Photo by Chen Yaqin/Xinhua)

HARARE, July 23 (Xinhua) -- A newly established state-of-the-art COVID-19 treatment center that was funded by Chinese firms operating in the country officially opened on Thursday.

Three Chinese firms teamed up with a local private medical institution to establish the facility in the capital Harare.

The local partner, Health Point, is providing medical expertise while the Chinese firms are providing medical equipment and funding.

The medical facility, named Health Point Upper East Medical Center (HPUEMC), has a capacity to accommodate 50 COVID-19 patients at a time.

When touring the medical center on Wednesday, Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe Guo Shaochun said only through solidarity and cooperation can the international community overcome the pandemic.

In an interview with Xinhua during the tour, Guo said he hoped the medical center can help Zimbabwe reduce pressure on COVID-19.

"The virus is a common challenge to humanity," he said. "And China is one of the first countries to be hit by the coronavirus, so we have lessons and experiences to share with other countries including with African countries."

The facility is the first hospital in the country to be run through a partnership between Zimbabwe and China.

"Although the hospital is not a public one, it is a very good supplement to the medical system of Zimbabwe. We hope to see more cooperation in the future," Guo said.

He stressed that China will continue to step up assistance to Zimbabwe and other African countries in combating the COVID-19 pandemic.

He also said cooperation between Zimbabwe and China is practical and visible, and must contribute to the wellbeing of ordinary people.

Peter Annesley, Health Point Hospitals Chief Executive Officer, expressed confidence that the cooperation between Zimbabwe and the Chinese side will go a long way in fighting the pandemic.

He said besides providing quality health care to COVID-19 patients, the new facility will also provide training to other medical institutions in the country.

"We think it's going to be the premium COVID-19 treatment center in Zimbabwe that will help other healthcare facilities come and understand the best practices on how to manage and care for COVID-19 positive patients.

"It will not be just a treatment center for the general public, the Chinese community and the business community, it will also become a very powerful training facility to help people learn how to deal with COVID cases," Annesley said.

Michael Li, Executive Director of HPUEMC, said the goal of the facility is not to rake in profits, but to serve the community.

"We believe that we have the moral and social responsibility to help the country fight the pandemic," he said.

Since the first case of COVID-19 was recorded in Zimbabwe in March, the Chinese government and Chinese companies operating in the country have made notable contributions to the country's fight against the pandemic through donations of medical supplies and providing technical support to Zimbabwe's frontline personnel. Enditem
(CNN)  Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro told CNN affiliate CNN Brasil on Wednesday that he had tested positive again for Covid-19, just over two weeks after his initial test came back positive.

Bolsonaro, who spoke to a CNN Brasil reporter on the phone, has been working in semi-isolation from the presidential residence since July 7, when he first announced he had tested positive.

He initially said he had a low-grade fever, but he didnt come down with any serious symptoms. A long-time proponent of the controversial malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, Bolsonaro announced he was taking it and has repeatedly said he believes the drug has helped him.

The Brazilian Society of Infectious Diseases, in a report published last week, urged medical professionals to stop using hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus, because it has been proved ineffective and can cause collateral damage.

Bolsonaro, who spent months downplaying the virus, often strolls out on the grounds of the presidential palace to greet supporters, and has continued to do so since his positive diagnosis earlier this month.

On Tuesday, he told the crowd gathered there that he hoped his latest test, the third since becoming infected, would come back negative so he could get back to work.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Brazil's president again tests positive for Covid-19"
Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin warned companies to return government loans if they could not demonstrate real need. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

One Los Angeles business owner allegedly went to Las Vegas and gambled away some of the $9 million he received in emergency government loans earmarked for his employees.

A Texas man is accused of using his $1.5-million Paycheck Protection Program funds to pay off a mortgage, while another loan recipient in Georgia is charged with using his $2-million loan to buy a car, jewelry and to pay child support.

A Washington, D.C., applicant fabricated Social Security numbers in an attempt to collect money for employees he didnt really have, federal prosecutors say.

Ever since the public backlash last April against some large, well-off or nationwide companies that helped themselves to emergency government funds intended to rescue small businesses during the pandemic, federal officials have vowed to crack down on any abuses of the popular program, also known as PPP.

That effort is now underway with more than a dozen criminal cases filed in 11 states in recent weeks. All involve allegations of blatant fraud, such as lying on applications, falsifying tax or business records and misappropriating money. And most involve relatively small businesses or individual owners.

Federal officials call it the start of what they promise will be a rigorous vetting of the PPP to ensure government dollars were not misused. The program has doled out 4.9 million loans worth $518 billion to businesses nationwide and is accepting applications through Aug. 8.

But legal experts and former federal prosecutors note that the first crop of cases appear to represent mostly the low-hanging fruit. The real test, they say, will be how aggressively the government brings charges against larger, publicly traded companies over allegations that they didnt really need the money, or against other recipients who qualified under the original rules but were later deemed ineligible under updated ones.

The storm is in the making, said attorney Nick Oberheiden, who specializes in defending companies under government investigation, particularly Medicare fraud. He predicted more cases will be filed. We are deep in those investigations, for very sure.

Story continues

But those cases could be much harder to prove in court, he and others warned.

For starters, ever since Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin announced the government may go after businesses that unfairly took advantage of the PPP's forgivable loans, companies have been preparing to defend themselves.

Some opted to avoid the legal hassle and negative publicity  President Trump publicly shamed several recipients  and simply returned the money, including Ruth's Chris Steak House, the L.A. Lakers and the Shake Shack hamburger chain. About $30 billion was returned, Mnuchin recently told House members.

But others balked, insisting they had faithfully followed the program's rules and essentially daring the government to come after them.

Some insurance companies are now even offering policies specifically to protect companies if the government tries to claw back the money, covering legal fees, penalties and even the cost of repaying the loan if the federal government determines the company isn't eligible for forgiveness. Hub Internationals Peter de Boisblanc said there is tremendous interest in the policies, which cost 4% or 5% of the value of the loan plus $30,000 in fees.

The Small Business Administration, which runs the PPP, says it will review all loans of more than $2 million when and if those recipients seek loan forgiveness. A key attraction to the PPP loans was that as long as recipients conformed to certain rules about maintaining workers, the loans would be forgiven.

As of June 30, loans valued at $2 million or more represented about 0.6% of the total number, or nearly 30,000 loans. But they account for 21% of all money lent.

Were going to have a very robust process to review loans before loans are forgiven, Mnuchin told representatives recently.

To review and prosecute the cases, the Justice Department pulled in investigators from the IRS, Federal Housing Finance Authority and Postal Service. Congress has also threatened subpoenas and aggressive oversight.

But proving criminal wrongdoing beyond a reasonable doubt could be difficult in some cases.

The Paycheck Protection Program was quickly cobbled together when the economy was suddenly ground to a halt in mid-March. In an effort to get as much money out the door to prop up small businesses, commercial banks were tasked with accepting and reviewing the four-page applications on which companies had to self-certify that they needed the money.

It was a chaotic launch. The bulk of the loans went out within three weeks of the loan programs creation. But the rules governing who should apply, the limits on using the money and the conditions for forgiveness continued to change, at times even daily.

Much of the public backlash focused on large companies who might not have needed the government help as much as the small businesses the PPP was trying to reach.

A lot of those cases are going to be difficult for the government to bring given that there was a lot of confusion around the program. There were a lot of moving goal posts, said former federal prosecutor Derek Cohen. It may be hard for the government to show bad faith.

In early May, SBA issued a FAQ stating that it would presume businesses that received less than $2 million acted in "good faith" when certifying they needed the loan. And if SBA determines that a recipient of more than $2 million can't adequately prove the money was necessary, they'll be given a chance to return the money, with 1% interest but without penalty.

Cohen said its unclear how many loans will ultimately be examined closely.

It's probably somewhat akin to folks getting speeding tickets on the highway, he said. There are going to be a lot of people speeding and few people that get caught and made examples of.

Though the forgiveness process hasn't been set in stone yet, the federal government will likely seek payroll and financial records, proof of advice from attorneys or auditors and evidence that businesses weighed other sources of liquidity to stay open. What they find could trigger more aggressive investigation, former federal prosecutor Daniel Grooms said.

The most important thing that businesses can do now and should have been doing all along ... is keeping good solid records of their reasoning," Grooms said. When the government investigates, what theyre looking [for] is what people were saying to each other in real time.

Even just to review the thousands of loans worth more than $2 million could take years, former federal prosecutors said. Borrowers were told they must keep relevant documentation for up to six years, and make it available to SBA when requested.

Laura Zander, chief financial officer of the Exploratorium in San Francisco, said the museum compiled 150 documents even before it applied for a nearly $6-million loan in April, including payroll records, benefits costs, retirement contribution information, utility bills and rent payments. The money has allowed it to continue paying nearly 400 employees, she said.

As the rules governing the loans shifted, she frequently spoke with the museum's auditor, labor lawyers and colleagues in the industry to make sure they only used the money for forgivable purposes.

We wanted to ensure that we were going to receive as much forgiveness as possible, but we were doing it as clean as possible, Zander said.

The changing rules mean Children's Bureau, a Los Angeles nonprofit focused on adoption, foster care and mental health services, might end up having to repay some of the $5.3 million it was loaned in April to continue paying nearly all of its 465 employees. In June, SBA issued new guidance that the loan cannot be used to cover work done under a federal contract. The nonprofit, like many others, is funded by a mix of federal contracts and private philanthropy.

Were all just scratching our heads and basically waiting for guidance to come out [about] just how the heck were going to document this, said Gayle Whittemore, the group's chief financial officer. It's just going to be a documentation hell for us.
(@FahadShabbir)

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Jul, 2020 ) :To deliberate upon the implications of the arbitrary decision of the Indian Government to abrogate the special status of Kashmir in violation of International Law and the relevant UN resolutions, the Embassy of Pakistan in Tehran arranged a virtual interactive session with the Pakistani students in Iran.

Highlighting the legal, security and humanitarian aspects of the decision of the extremist Indian government, the participants discussed the Hindutva driven policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his attempt to end the special status of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019 that was accorded in the Indian Constitution, said a press release received on Thursday from Tehran.

By abolishing the articles 35A and 370 of the Constitution, Indian government has malevolently attempted to turn the Muslim majority into minority in the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) with ultimate objective to absorb it in the Indian Union territories.

The decision tramples the inalienable right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people and is also violative of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.

The participants also condemned the human rights violations and freedom of the Kashmiri people in IoJK that have spiked after the abrogation of articles 370 and 35A.

Currently, the Kashmiris are under strict lockdown and are facing worst atrocities at the hands of the Indian security forces especially in the wake of Covid19. Continuous lockdown has crippled life in Kashmir. The students were also briefed that the Indian action constituted the material change to the situation in Kashmir which was prohibited under the UNSC resolutions including 38 and 91.

The efforts made by the Government of Pakistan were also highlighted. Kashmir is an internationally recognized dispute that must be settled in accordance with the UNSC resolutions and according to the aspirations of the Kashmiri people.

Pakistan will continue to extend diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmir issue. The students appreciated Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei for his support to the Kashmiris in their struggle on different occasions.
DALLAS, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Dallas-based National Math and Science Initiative is wrapping up the second of a two-week virtual conference with almost 5,000 educators logging in from around the country.

NMSI's 2020 "Summer Series" replaced the nonprofit's in-person "Summer Institutes" that have been going on in Dallas and around the country for more than 10 years.

"We started offering a blend of in-person and online services a few years ago and have been moved toward more virtual delivery," said NMSI CEO Dr. Bernard Harris. "COVID-19 forced us to accelerate our plans, and I couldn't be prouder of our program design and delivery teams for pulling this off on an incredibly short timetable."

Harris said that while in-person events allow teachers to more easily network and experience hands-on training, online training gives educators more flexibility and eliminates the need for hotels, catering and other expenses. NMSI is facilitating online networking and will provide expanded training through the 2020-21 school year.

"We used to hold teacher trainings three times a year," Harris said. "Now we will offer training year-round and on-demand."

NMSI is among the largest Advanced Placement training organizations. It also supports district and campus leaders and non-AP teachers so they can prepare more students for the rigors of advanced courses, college, the military and other careers, particularly in science, technology, engineering and math. The organization's mission is to expand access and achievement in STEM education to help diversify the STEM workforce and contribute to equity and inclusion across all fields and communities.

"Jobs in STEM are growing faster than other fields and they pay better," said Harris, a medical doctor and veteran astronaut. "Increasing diversity in those fields benefits everyone, particularly communities under-represented in those fields."

Harris said STEM education also builds skills like critical-thinking, problem-solving and collaboration; skills that transfer across all jobs and are sorely needed to improve national security, personal prosperity and social justice.

In addition to courses to hone their content knowledge, educators participating in NMSI's Summer Series are getting new lessons to make learning more relevant and fun for students, working on course pacing and  most importantly  learning best practices for online teaching. In all, there are more than 500 hours of real-time and recorded sessions available to participating educators.

"My instructors take their time and teach the lessons in an organized way, which provides me with ideas on how I should incorporate these methodologies in my classroom," said LaToya Smith, AP Biology teacher at Cedar Hill Early College Academy in Texas.

Harris said transitioning from regional, in-person events to a national, online conference did not affect participation.

"Educators who know NMSI know they are always going to receive engaging sessions and material that they can put to work immediately in their classes," he said. "The principals and counselors know they can immediately put to work what they learn and then continue to use those lessons to sustain positive changes in their schools."

Schools that participate in NMSI's flagship College Readiness Program see significant increases in AP course enrollment, particularly among Black, Latino and female students. They also see above-average increases in college readiness and mastery of college-level concepts, across all student groups.

"With the NMSI partnership, I've seen the culture and belief system shift from the few that can pass AP exams to a college-for-all mentality, where everybody believes they have the opportunity to pass the tests," said Superintendent Ricardo Lopez of Garland ISD in Texas. "A lot of it is just strategic structure in the partnership with NMSI and seeing that their own peers that not necessarily would have been in an AP program getting those 3s, 4s and 5s [passing AP exam scores]. Seeing is believing. When they see kids that are like them in this program, they realize it's not just for a selected few. It's for everyone."

Earlier this year, NMSI transitioned its AP student study supports from in-person to online. The organization leveraged previous experience in online study supports to shift hundreds of events in a matter of two weeks.

More than 1,500 U.S. high schools have participated in NMSI's College Readiness Program, and more than 65,000 teachers from grades 3-12 have participated in NMSI training. Nearly all schools participate through grants from such organizations as the ExxonMobil Foundation, Texas Instruments Foundation and the Toyota USA Foundation. The Defense STEM Education Consortium, a project of the U.S. Department of Defense, supports NMSI programming at base schools and public schools that teach significant numbers of military-dependent students. The U.S. Department of Education provides grants that support rural, urban and other high-need communities.

About NMSI

NMSI's work creates increased opportunities and better outcomes for all students, contributing to the foundation of anti-racism, social justice, economic prosperity and national security. The non-profit engages with school systems based on local priorities and uses evidenced-based programming and constantly evolving best practices. NMSI focuses on the ecosystem, engaging communities and families and changing leadership mindsets and local practices to embed equity into NMSI schools. Learn more at nms.org.

Media Contacts

Juan Elizondo, [email protected] or 214-346-1249

Angela Chambers, [email protected] or 214-525-3046

SOURCE National Math and Science Initiative

Related Links

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WASHINGTON -- Researchers have, for the first time, acquired optical coherence tomography (OCT) images of the curved layers of a person's cornea with cell-level detail and a large viewing area. The new OCT instrument enables improved monitoring of eye diseases as well as general health conditions such as diabetes, which alter the density of nerves in the cornea.

"As the curved outermost part of the eye, the cornea offers a transparent window into both ocular and general health conditions," said corresponding author Viacheslav Mazlin, from The Langevin Institute, a joint research unit between ESPCI Paris and CNRS in France. "The cell-level resolution and large viewing area available from our instrument are ideal for monitoring corneal diseases like endothelial dysfunction and general diabetic conditions, understanding their evolution at the biological scale, and quantitatively evaluating the efficacy of novel treatment strategies."

In Optica, The Optical Society's (OSA) journal for high-impact research, Mazlin and a multi-institutional group of colleagues describe their new curved-field OCT device, which provides high-resolution optical sections with an area ten times larger than clinical devices currently used for corneal diagnostics. The combination of high resolution with large viewing area enables more precise counting of cells and nerves for diagnosing disease and reduces the chance of missing a disease-affected area.

Improving cataract surgery

A high-resolution view with a large imaging area is particularly important for improving the outcomes of cataract surgeries. Cataract surgery causes a loss of endothelial cells, and if the number of those cells drops below a critical threshold value then a person may require a corneal transplant.

"Doctors frequently perform endothelial cell counting before cataract surgery to ensure there will be enough endothelial cells to preserve the cornea after the surgery," said co-author Kristina Irsch from Sorbonne University in France. "Because our instrument provides a much larger viewing area than the existing clinical devices, we can count more cells, making for a more accurate evaluation of the corneal health and potentially improving surgical predictions and outcomes."

The new technique is based on OCT, a high-resolution non-invasive imaging technique that is commonly used to acquire cross-sectional images of the retina. OCT acquires thin optical slices by using interference between the light from the sample and the light from a mirror located in an additional optical reference arm.

The existing full-field OCT approach was developed to acquire optical sections parallel to the surface of the eye. The entire slice is captured by a 2D camera. However, acquiring a flat slice across a curved sample like the cornea would slice through several corneal layers at once, limiting the field of view.

To capture optical sections that match the curvature of the cornea -- in other words, optically flattening the cornea -- the researchers used a full-field OCT configuration where the flat mirror in the additional optical reference arm is replaced with a curved optical lens. The 2D camera captures all the pixels within the viewing area at the same time, making this approach immune to artifacts that can arise with other OCT configurations.

"The ability to use full-field and curved-field OCT to image eyes in people -- where the eye is constantly moving -- became possible recently, thanks to the development of advanced cameras with higher speeds and better light-detection capabilities," said research team leader Claude Boccara from The Langevin Institute.

Testing the device

After testing the device on a flat target and a model eye, they used it to image the cornea of a healthy person. This required centering the instrument on the corneal apex -- the point of maximum curvature -- while the eye was moving. They accomplished this by placing the device on a motorized XYZ translation stage that could be moved with a joystick.

With this setup, the alignment took only a few minutes, while image capture was completed in a fraction of a second. The device successfully captured nerve and endothelial cell slices of the person's cornea with an unprecedented viewing area larger than 1 square millimeter.

The new device could also have applications beyond ophthalmology. "Our device is universal and may prove useful for studying any type of transparent sample exhibiting a curved structure," said Mazlin.

The researchers say that the device is ready for use in clinical research. They are working to incorporate features that would improve the experience of clinicians, such as automatic cell counting and easier aligning procedures. They are also planning to increase the viewing area even more with only a slight reduction in resolution.

###

Paper: V. Mazlin, K. Irsch, M. Paques, J.-A. Sahel, M. Fink, A. C. Boccara, "Curved-field optical coherence tomography: large-field imaging of human corneal cells and nerves," Optica, 7, 7, 872-880 (2020).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.396949.

About Optica

Optica is an open-access, journal dedicated to the rapid dissemination of high-impact peer-reviewed research across the entire spectrum of optics and photonics. Published monthly by The Optical Society (OSA), Optica provides a forum for pioneering research to be swiftly accessed by the international community, whether that research is theoretical or experimental, fundamental or applied. Optica maintains a distinguished editorial board of more than 60 associate editors from around the world and is overseen by Editor-in-Chief Prem Kumar, Northwestern University, USA. For more information, visit Optica.

About The Optical Society

Founded in 1916, The Optical Society (OSA) is the leading professional organization for scientists, engineers, students and business leaders who fuel discoveries, shape real-life applications and accelerate achievements in the science of light. Through world-renowned publications, meetings and membership initiatives, OSA provides quality research, inspired interactions and dedicated resources for its extensive global network of optics and photonics experts. For more information, visit osa.org.

Media Contacts:

Aaron Cohen

(301) 633-6773

aaroncohenpr@gmail.com

mediarelations@osa.org
PHOENIX  Technical rescue crews were trying to recover the bodies of two construction workers after a trench collapse at a west Phoenix housing site Thursday afternoon, authorities said.

Phoenix Fire Department Capt. Rob McDade said the two workers were buried in a trench at a housing site while they were trying to connect a sewer line to a new home build.

Authorities say the men were both 35 years old, but their names werent immediately released.

The families of the men were at the scene and technical rescue teams hoped to recover the two bodies from the 8-foot deep trench by sometime Thursday night.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and other agencies were at the scene and expected to investigate the incident.
WILLIAMS BAY  What makes one of the most picturesque spots on Geneva Lake even better? Fine art.

The Williams Bay Fine Art & Craft Fest returns Saturday and Sunday, July 25 and 26, to Edgewater Park in Williams Bay.

Turning 44 this year, the event brings a juried art show lakeside, along with live music and food vendors.

Originally, the Fest was called Art in the Bay. The first Art in the Bay was in 1976, and it was part of Williams Bays U.S. Bicentennial celebration.

In 2013, Sandra Johnson discovered the event was on the verge of being cancelled, so she founded an organization to save it  the Williams Bay Cultural Arts Alliance.

Although the non-profit was established to operate the Fest, it now has several additional programs and offers scholarships and awards.

Johnson and Dave Rowland, director of the Williams Bay Recreation Department, revitalized the event.

They gave it its current name, set up scholarships for local art students, established cash awards for participating artists, added a program to spotlight emerging artists and started a craft tent for children.

A committee including Marijo Petullo, Rita Pilarski, Michele Melzer, Jackie Winslow and local art teacher Matt Dunlap now runs the event. Petullo is chairwoman of the committee.

Holding degrees in music and vocal performance, Johnson is committed to supporting the arts.

In the following Q&A, Johnson discussed the current art scene in Williams Bay, event changes this year and what still makes her a little emotional each time the Fest comes to town.

Note: The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Resorter: What is the state of the current art scene in Williams Bay?

Sandra Johnson: Sadly, in the seven years since I have been back in the Bay, I have seen many art studios come and go. Because of the peaceful, scenic and uncrowded nature of the Bay, it seems that the Bay would be a perfect place for artists to congregate. I hear people say that today, I heard my mom say it back in the 1970s, and Im sure the earlier generations have thought the same thing.

Resorter: What do you think is the secret to the success of the Fine Art & Craft Fest?

Johnson: Community, dedication and a vision of what is possible.

Resorter: What is different about this years Fest?

Johnson: We are smaller this year. Due to the virus, we had fewer applications. This is actually a good thing as we will be able to space the booths out. We will have hand sanitation stations, masks available and social distancing directional signage. We decided not to have the Kids Craft Tent or the Emerging Artist Incubator this year just to keep things a bit simpler.

Resorter: How many artists?

Johnson: So, we have 30 registered artists, down from the usual 45. The cool thing is that we have an equal number of fine artists and fine crafters. This brings a lot of interest and variety to the show. We have a large group of watercolor artists this year, which is really awesome because they are all so individual in their expression. Some watercolors have that dreamy look, while others have a precision that makes them look like a photograph! In our fine craft category, we have several new artists from southern Wisconsin and I love that because their work is so unique, and this show gives them the opportunity to be seen by a broader audience. At the same time, visitors from the Chicago area get to see some Wisconsin art that they probably wont encounter elsewhere.

Resorter: What do you enjoy most about the event?

Johnson: The first year, I remember coming down the hill into the Bay and seeing all the artists setting up their white tents in the park and feeling just exhilarated! I couldnt believe it was actually happening! Now, when I see those tents go up and all the hard working artists and staff in the earnest pursuit of bringing a fine art show to our little Bay hamlet, I feel a little emotional, full of gratitude!

For more Williams Bay Fine Art & Craft photos, visit www.lakegenevanews.net.

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The Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi has vowed to return to his duty sooner than expected, stressing that only God can heal the sick....

The Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi has vowed to return to his duty sooner than expected, stressing that only God can heal the sick.





Recall that Fayemi had a few days ago tested positive for Coronavirus.





Announcing his status via his Twitter handle, the governor had disclosed delegating his duties to his deputy.





Fayemi spoke from an isolation home, NAN reports.





The governor had stated that the test he took was the third which had now turned out positive.





Following the confirmation, Fayemi went into self-isolation which is the protocol of dealing with COVID-19 cases.





However, Fayemi said: I shared on my Twitter handle my COVID-19 results which came out to be positive. I have decided to do this for the generality of Ekiti people and to reassure everyone that I am okay.





I have basically isolated myself, which is the protocol, but only see my doctor. I want to tell our people that COVID-19 is real.




UN Biodiversity Convention meets crucial to development of post-2020 global biodiversity framework: New dates announced

July 23,2020 | Source: ASNS

New dates have been announced for three key UN meetings, including the UN Biodiversity Conference, crucial to the development of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.



As approved by the Bureau, the fifteenth meeting of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP-15), originally scheduled for October 2020, will now be held 17-30 May 2021, in Kunming, China.



Dates and venue have also been announced for the meetings of the Conventions two subsidiary bodies.



The twenty-fourth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA-24) will be held 2-7 November 2020, and the third meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI-3) takes place 9-14 November 2020. Both meetings will convene in Quebec City, Canada.



While nature is being degraded at unprecedented rates, our dependency on biodiversity has never been more evident, said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, CBD Executive Secretary. One of the most important lessons of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is that safeguarding nature is critical for protecting human health and wellbeing.



These meetings provide us with a tremendous opportunity to ensure that the protection and sustainable use of biodiversity is integrated into policies that will guide the post-pandemic economic and develop recovery plans.



Information regarding the dates of the third meeting of the Working Group on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework will be made available in due course.



To maintain momentum ahead of the UN Biodiversity Summit in September 2020 and COP-15, and facilitate to preparations for SBSTTA-24 and SBI-3, a series of special virtual sessions of SBSTTA and SBI will be held 15-18 September 2020.



These sessions will include the launch of the fifth edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook, which will provide a summary of the status of the worlds biodiversity, and the testing of a Party-led review process through an open-ended forum. The sessions will provide the global community further opportunities to galvanize efforts at all levels to build a better future in harmony with nature.



Given the ongoing uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and taking into account current restrictions on travel and the convening of large physical gatherings, it is possible that further adjustments may be required to the schedule of meetings. The CBD Secretariat continues to monitor developments and will announce any further changes that may become necessary.

 2016, Africa Science News. All Rights Reserved

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Bachelor In Paradise host Osher Gunsberg assured viewers that the contestants have access to mental health professionals, following Jamie Doran's on-screen meltdown.

On Wednesday, many fans of the show thought Jamie's emotional display at the thought of his best friend, Timm Hanly, leaving was hilarious.

But there were a number of viewers who voiced their concern for his mental health.

'It's robust': Bachelor In Paradise host Osher Gunsberg told fans of the show that contestants have 'full access to mental health professionals' throughout production as fans voice for Jamie Doran after his meltdown

The TV presenter, 46, wrote on Twitter: 'It's probably pertinent to point out that everyone on the show has full access to mental health professionals as well as support from the Warner Bros. Australia and Network 10 teams before, during and after production.'

'To be CLEAR. The amount of mental health support before/during/after production for the people on this show it significant.

'But you'll never know who accessed it, who asked for it, and who continues with it because of privacy. But trust me, it's ROBUST,' the mental health advocate added.

Giving his assurance: Osher told concerned fans that 'the amount of mental health support before/during/after production for the people on this show it significant'

Emotional: Osher's tweets come after viewers shared their concerns at Jamie's emotional state as speculation swirled in the Fijian villa that Timm would be walking out after causing drama at the Bula Banquet (Jamie pictured with Brittney Weldon)

Osher's tweets come after viewers shared their concerns at Jamie's emotional state as speculation swirled in the Fijian villa that Timm would be walking out after causing drama at the Bula Banquet.

One tweeted: 'This is actually really uncomfortable and I feel like this should not be aired. Clearly Jamie is going through something.'

'Jamie crying is not funny, it's more just sad that he has such bad social separation disorder issues and everyone laughing at him is kinda toxic,' another wrote.

'Clearly Jamie is going through something': Concerned fans tweeted, 'Jamie crying is not funny, it's more just sad that he has such bad social separation disorder issues and everyone laughing at him is kinda toxic'

Walking out: Jamie was so distraught at the thought of being 'abandoned' by Timm that he packed his bags and threatened to quit too on Wednesday

A third shared: 'Jamie has some serious issues, genuinely concerned for him.'

'With Men's Mental Health finally getting more attention. Kinda sad to watch everyone on the show laugh at Jamie crying,' someone else added.

Jamie - who was known for his bizarre and possessive behaviour on Angie Kent's season of The Bachelorette - was so distraught at the thought of being 'abandoned' by Timm that he packed his bags and threatened to quit too on Wednesday.

Jamie then pleaded with Timm not to leave, telling the shaggy-haired larrikin he 'doesn't know how much he means' to him during a tense bedroom showdown.

Calm down: 'I'm not dying, bro,' a baffled Timm (pictured) told Jamie in a bid to calm him down

'You know I came here because of you. Timm! Please, bro! Timm! You f**king know how much you mean to me!' wailed Jamie as his friend packed his bags.

'Look how much you're f**king hurting me right now! I want to wake up and see you every morning. Timm, please man! Stop packing! No! No! No!' he shrieked.

'I'm not dying, bro,' a baffled Timm told Jamie in a bid to calm him down.

Timm was eventually convinced to stay by his current flame Brittany Hockley.

If you or anyone you know is struggling, please contact Lifeline or Beyond Blue
Campaign banner - 'When we work, Canada works.' Credit: Canadian Energy Centre

Campaign banner - 'When we work, Canada works.' Credit: Canadian Energy Centre

Calgary, Alberta, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Canadian Energy Centre (CEC) launched a new national campaign today to highlight the central role Canadas energy sector has in the countrys economic recovery. Titled: When we work, Canada works,' the campaign features facts and multimedia storytelling to underscore the importance of Canadas energy industry to the national economy.

Every direct job in the oil and gas sector supports five more jobs somewhere else in Canada, so whether youre working in Fort McMurray or Toronto, chances are the sectors impacting your job and your community, said Tom Olsen, CECs chief executive officer.

As all orders of government work to ensure our economy can rebound from COVID-19, no sector is better positioned than energy to play a foundational role in getting people back to work and paying for the services on which families rely.

Between 2000 and 2018, the energy industry contributed $359 billion to federal and provincial budgets. These are dollars that go back into our healthcare, schools, environmental programs and other essential services. Canadas energy sector supports more than 500,000 jobs across Canada in direct and related industries  jobs that have significantly higher average salaries compared to other industries.

Olsen also noted the Canadian industrys high ratings for Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance.

Too many Canadians simply do not know enough about what a great story we have to tell, said Olsen. The facts have always been on our side. We should be very proud of our leading energy sector that creates wealth and prosperity for all Canadians, and provides the responsibly produced energy the rest of the world continues to demand.

The communications campaign will run over the summer and reach Canadians across the country. To learn more about Canadas energy sector visit: www.canadianenergycentre.ca

Story continues

The Canadian Energy Centre is an arms-length agency established by the Government of Alberta to advance Canada as the supplier of choice for the worlds growing demand of responsibly produced energy. It is largely funded by Albertas energy industry through the provincial Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) fund. For more information, visit www.canadianenergycentre.ca

-30-

Attachments

CONTACT: Grady Semmens Canadian Energy Centre 587-391-1589 grady.semmens@canadianenergycentre.ca




WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump announced Thursday he is canceling the Jacksonville portion of the Republican National Convention that had been planned next month because of the coronavirus pandemic, a major setback in his effort to energize his struggling bid for reelection.

"The timing for this event is not right," Trump told reporters at the White House during his latest briefing on the virus. "There's nothing more important in our country than keeping our people safe."

Trump said that he would deliver remarks to formally accept his party's nomination for president but offered no detail on where or when that will happen. The abrupt decision was not only a significant blow to his campaign but also raised questions about the president's narrative that the country is ready to reopen for business.

Trump said convention delegates will still gather in North Carolina, where the official business of the convention was set to take place, and formally nominate him for reelection. Trump said he would announce additional plans in coming days.

"I'll still do a convention speech in a different form, but we won't do a big, crowded convention," Trump said. "I care deeply about the people of Florida and everywhere else, frankly, in this country and even in the world who would be coming into the state. And I don't want to do anything to upset it."

The explosion of coronavirus cases in Florida  the state has reported sharp increases in COVID-19 deaths  and the later-than-usual selection of Jacksonville had cast doubt on the party's ability to convene the major event there to rally supporters. USA TODAY reported this month that convention organizers were looking to limit the event.

More: Republicans fear coronavirus will force scaling back Trump's Florida convention

Republican officials announced last month that Trump would move the highest-profile speeches of the Republican National Convention, including his own, to Jacksonville from Charlotte after North Carolina's Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, imposed a shelter-in-place order that could have limited the made-for-television event.

Story continues

In a sign of disorder as Republicans scrambled to organize the Florida event, the Jacksonville sheriff, a Republican, raised concerns this week about a lack of funds for a four-day event, which was expected to bring thousands of people to the city.

More: 'We cant support this' Jacksonville sheriff says of convention concerns

"There can be nothing like our last convention, unfortunately," Trump said. "It's a different world, and it will be for a little while."

President Donald Trump arrives to speak to the press at the White House on July 22, 2020.

Trump addressed reporters for the third time in as many days after announcing he would restart daily briefings on the virus that were suspended in April. Trump has used the high-profile sessions to tout efforts to spur vaccine production, encourage the wearing of face masks and warn that the pandemic is getting worse.

Public health officials reported Thursday that 4 million people in the U.S. had been infected with the virus and experts believe the number of cases is actually much higher. Meanwhile, almost 150,000 people in the U.S. have died from the coronavirus.

More: U.S. hits 4 million cases of COVID-19: A look at the milestones and setbacks

Minutes before Trump walked into the briefing room, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told his colleagues that Senate Republicans have reached an agreement "in principle" with the administration on another round of virus-related economic stimulus. McConnell said he expected leaders would present details early next week.

Lawmakers have been locked in negotiations for weeks over another round of economic aid. McConnell's announcement was incremental  the major political struggle will be fought between Senate Republicans and House Democrats  getting Republicans on the same page as the White House has been viewed as a critical first step.

On Wednesday, Trump blamed a dramatic uptick in U.S. coronavirus cases on young people who attended nationwide protests over police brutality, summer holidays, a "substantial increase in travel" and migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, even though his own advisers have also attributed the surge to some states' early reopenings.

Contributing: Khrysgiana Pineda, Joey Garrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump cancels Jacksonville portion of Republican National Convention
Beverages group Coca-Cola Amatil's sales outlook is likely to be tested by the latest Melbourne lockdown after the drinks giant flagged up to $190 million in write-downs and revealed trading volumes fell 23 per cent in the COVID-19 hit June quarter.

The $6.5 billion ASX-listed company on Thursday said it expected non-cash write-downs of between $160 million and $190 million at its June half results, largely relating to its Indonesian operations.

CCA had improved sales during the month of June, where volumes were down only 9 per cent on June 2019. This compares to the 33 per cent slump in April 2020 (compared to April 2019) and the 26 per cent May decline.

Coca-Cola Amatil boss Alison Watkins has expressed confidence in the company's Indonesian business, despite unveiling writedowns of up to $190 million that are mostly associated with these operations. Credit:Louie Douvis

In Indonesia, where coronavirus infections have surged, volumes were down about 23 per cent on June last year.
Tools excavated from a cave in central Mexico are strong evidence that humans lived in North America at least 30,000 years ago, some 15,000 years earlier than previously thought, scientists have said.

Two studies published in the Nature journal on Wednesday said researchers had found artefacts, including some 1,900 stone tools, that showed human occupation of the high-altitude Chiquihuite Cave over a roughly 20,000-year period  spanning from 12,500 years ago to at least 31,000 years ago.

Our results provide new evidence for the antiquity of humans in the Americas, Ciprian Ardelean, an archaeologist at the Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas and lead author of one of the studies, told the AFP news agency.

There are only a few artefacts and a couple of dates from that range, he said, referring to radiocarbon dating results putting the oldest samples at 33,000 to 31,000 years ago. However, the presence is there.

No traces of human bones or DNA were found at the site, but the study concluded that it is likely that humans used this site on a relatively constant basis, perhaps in recurrent seasonal episodes part of larger migratory cycles.

In the second study, evidence from 42 sites around North America indicated human presence dating to at least a time called the Last Glacial Maximum, when ice sheets blanketed much of the continent, about 26,000 to 19,000 years ago and immediately thereafter.

The research also implicated humans in the extinction of many large Ice Age mammals such as mammoths and camels.

#PrensaINAH  Descubren evidencia humana de 30,000 anos de antiguedad en la Cueva del Chiquihuite, Zacatecas. Mas detalles  https://t.co/aM6Yxcd1tf pic.twitter.com/6Bcygtsvrd  INAHmx (@INAHmx) July 22, 2020

Translation: [Researchers] discovered human evidence of 30,000 years old in the Chiquihuite Cave, Zacatecas, the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico wrote on Twitter.

Clovis Culture

Until recently, the widely accepted storyline was that the first humans to set foot in the Americas crossed a land bridge from present-day Russia to Alaska some 13,500 years ago and moved south through a corridor between two massive ice sheets.

Archaeological evidence  including uniquely crafted spear points used to slay mammoths and other prehistoric megafauna  suggested this founding population, known as Clovis Culture, spread across North America, giving rise to distinct native American populations.

But the Clovis-first model has fallen apart over the last 20 years with the discovery of several ancient human settlements dating back 2,000 or 3,000 years before earlier.

The recent findings also suggest low numbers of people entered the continent earlier than previously understood  some perhaps by boat along a Pacific coastal route rather than crossing the land bridge  and some died out without leaving descendants.

Archaeological scientist Lorena Becerra-Valdivia of the University of Oxford in England and the University of New South Wales in Australia said the continents populations then expanded significantly beginning about 14,700 years ago.

These are paradigm-shifting results that shape our understanding of the initial dispersal of modern humans into the Americas, Becerra-Valdivia added.
MARTINSBURG, W.Va. A West Virginia city has agreed to settle an excessive force lawsuit filed by the family of a homeless Black man who was shot 22 times by police, an attorney said.

Christopher E. Brown, the attorney for the family of Wayne Arnold Jones, told The Washington Post that the lawsuit was settled for $3.5 million.

I promised my mother before she died that we would continue to fight for justice, Jones brother, Bruce Jones, told the newspaper. The settlement makes me feel a little bit better, but until I can have a chance to have these cops prosecuted, I am still going to be pushing for justice.

The Martinsburg Police Department said in a statement that the settlement was not an admission of guilt.

Police had stopped Wayne Jones as he was walking on a Martinsburg street. Jones was shot after police said the 50-year-old Stephens City, Virginia, resident shrugged off two jolts from a stun gun, fought with officers and stabbed one of them. The officers are white.

U.S. District Judge Gina Groh had dismissed the lawsuit. But a three-member federal appeals court panel reversed the granting of summary judgment to the officers on qualified immunity grounds last month, saying that a reasonable jury could find that Jones was both secured and incapacitated in the final moments before his death.

The court also referenced the Memorial Day death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in Minneapolis after white police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee to Floyds neck for several minutes. That death prompted protests by millions of people around the world

The appeals panel noted that although we recognize that our police officers are often asked to make split-second decisions, we expect them to do so with respect for the dignity and worth of black lives. This has to stop.

The police departments statement said the citys insurance carrier agreed to the settlement to avoid the ongoing costs of litigation along with the stress that a trial would bring to the officers and the families of the officers and Jones.

The city of Martinsburg said in the statement that with this settlement, the City and the MPD hope everyone involved will be able to put this incident behind them and allow the community to heal.

A Berkeley County grand jury declined to indict the officers in the shooting. The U.S. Justice Department later said there was insufficient evidence to pursue criminal civil rights charges against police. Civil rights leaders had pressed for the investigation.

The Jones family has filed a separate appeal in state court seeking a grand jury investigation, Brown said.

The fact that I could tell my client that we still have a shot at criminal prosecution made the (settlement) figure very acceptable, Brown said.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Its not quite the 25th anniversary that the Jersey City Caribbean Carnival was hoping for. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and putting everyones safety first, the Jersey City West Indian and Caribbean-American Carnival will be going virtual as it celebrates its milestone 25th anniversary on Saturday, July 25, from 2 to 6 p.m. on Zoom, Instagram, and Facebook Live. Guests can register for free admission for the event at on Eventbrite at https://bit.ly/2Eb1Hsh.

JC Carnival made the call for DJs, carnival masqueraders, mas folklore, cultural bands, dancers, artists, steel pan, designers, and community organizations to submit short videos to play during the live virtual experience.

COVID-19 could never stop culture or Jersey City carnival, says Cheryl Murphy, Founder/President/CEO of Jersey City West Indian-Caribbean American Carnival Association, Inc.

Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to celebrate this way, she said. People who view it on Zoom can expect see culture at its best. Expect to see a full carnival experience with Mas and Mask and 25 years of Jersey City Carnival History plus amazing performances.

The annual Jersey City Caribbean Carnival takes place every fourth Saturday of July, where a parade begins at Lincoln Park and continues en route to the Festival at Exchange Place. The festival activities normally include health screenings and education, childrens activities, and authentic ethnic cuisine.

CWICACA also hosts an annual Business Conference at City Hall featuring topics like finances, taxes, maintaining healthy stores, and insurance.

The themes of Caribbean Carnivals originate from the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, an annual event known for its colorful costumes, also known as mas, that is held on the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday in Trinidad and Tobago. Carnivals in the Caribbean may last for over a month. International Caribbean Carnivals are celebrated all around the world in the United States, Canada, The Netherlands, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Until now, there simply has not been enough pressure on big fashion industry names to completely cease ties with factories and suppliers in the Uighur region, an area on which many remain hugely dependent and where there is a huge amount of money on the line,  Mr. Irwin said.

On Wednesday, hours before the call to action was formally announced, a PVH spokeswoman confirmed that the company had agreed to cease all business relationships with factories and mills that produce garments or fabric in Xinjiang, or that supply cotton from the region, within the next 12 months, bringing it line with the new call to action. (The company said this was not in response to this groups request but was an independent decision.)

Per our policies, forced labor is considered a zero-tolerance issue, and any confirmed instances of forced labor by our suppliers may result in termination of the business relationship, the spokeswoman said, adding that the company was in the process of reducing its manufacturing, textile and cotton footprint in China.

Signatories to the call to action include the A.F.L.-C.I.O., Human Rights Watch and Anti-Slavery International. The unveiling of the coalition, calling itself End Uyghur Forced Labor, comes days after another Uighur rights campaign focused on the fashion industry, led by a European Parliament member, Raphael Glucksmann, also made headlines. That campaign prompted Adidas and then Lacoste to agree to cease all activity with suppliers and subcontractors in Xinjiang after they were implicated in a report published in March by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

That report said that local officials are often given targets for the number of people they must provide for state-sponsored labor programs. In Xinjiang, the threat of arbitrary detention in the camps weighs heavily on minority residents, so farmers, traders and idle workers often have little room to resist. The organization also said it found evidence that, from 2017 to 2019, more than 80,000 Uighurs were sent outside Xinjiang to work in factories that produced goods for dozens of multinational companies. (A growing number of Uighurs have been moved from one part of Xinjiang to another, or even out of the region to more industrialized areas in the east, as part of a system of organized labor transfers.)
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Linkedin Editorial board (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, July 24 2020

The South China Sea dispute is heating up, and it is happening at the worst possible time. Tensions have risen between the United States and China in recent weeks, marked by Washingtons announcement earlier this month that it had toughened its stance on the South China Sea issue.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo led the rebuke by declaring that America stood with its Southeast Asian allies in protecting their rights to offshore resources. Beijing responded strongly, accusing Washington of inciting confrontation in the region and sabotaging its efforts to engage peacefully with ASEAN.

On either side of this confrontation, the superpowers traded barbs, deployed military assets and conducted maneuvers in contested waters.

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Samsung Galaxy Z Flip adds 5G, available for $1,450



Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, a phone that opens and closes like a flip phone from 2003, now supports 5G. The new phone is exactly the same device as the original Galaxy Z Flip, except it now comes with 5G. However, the new model announced by Samsung will be available for purchase for $1,450. Thats $70 more than the price of the Galaxy Z Flip. Samsung said the Galaxy Z Flip 5G will start shipping in the US starting August 7.



The Galaxy Z Flip 5G, like the OG model, is a phone that easily folds up and slides into small pockets. Instead of a smartphone that turns into a tablet, the Galaxy Z Flip folds in half into a compact clamshell. When opened, the Z Flip looks like a regular phone with a 6.7-inch screen. But when closed, the phone folds into the size of a gents wallet, thanks to a special foldable OLED screen. Read More...


The modern folklorist Gordi was 21 when she managed to save up enough money to purchase her first Maton guitar, an acoustic model she took on breakthrough tours of Europe and the US.

It was the musician's stringed instrument of choice when it came to recording her new album Our Two Skins in a cottage on the family farm in Canowindra. There was no running water but there was a collection of "really nice Matons", including a 12-string loaned by the Melbourne-based, family-owned company, which has been handcrafting the instruments in locally-sourced woods since 1946.

On July 25, the largest-ever retrospective of Maton guitars will open at the Powerhouse Museum in Ultimo.

Gordi and Tex Perkins: in praise of Maton guitars. Credit:Janie Barrett

The pioneering company began with former woodwork teacher Bill May crafting guitars in his Melbourne garage.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 18:45:48|Editor: huaxia

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Video: U.S. President Donald Trump said at his press briefing on the coronavirus pandemic on July 21, 2020 that "we're asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask, get a mask. Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact. They'll have an effect. And we need everything we can get." (Xinhua)

The bridge contract signed with BYD will ensure California can provide PPE to its front-line workforce during the ongoing global pandemic at a competitive price and with an established and reliable partner.



LOS ANGELES, July 23 (Xinhua) -- California Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Wednesday a new contract with China's BYD Company to produce 120 million N95 respirators and 300 million surgical masks as the number of confirmed cases in the state has surpassed New York for the most in the United States.

The new contract is worth 315 million U.S. dollars. California will pay BYD 2.13 U.S. dollars per N95 respirator and 20 cents per surgical mask, according to the new contract released by the governor's office.

Newsom confirmed Wednesday in a news briefing that around 146 million N95 respirators and 193 million surgical masks have arrived as part of the original contract with BYD. Newsom's administration has reportedly agreed a contract with BYD to buy 500 million masks.

The bridge contract signed with BYD will ensure California can provide PPE to its front-line workforce during the ongoing global pandemic at a competitive price and with an established and reliable partner, Newsom said in a statement.

A worker makes face masks at a face mask factory transformed from a 16,000 square-foot apron factory amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the City of Vernon, Los Angeles County, California, the United States, April 16, 2020. (Xinhua)

"Providing front-line workers the protective equipment they need is critical to our state's response to COVID-19," the governor said, adding that "securing a reliable supply chain of PPE allows us to distribute millions of protective masks to our essential workforce while preserving millions more in our state's stockpile for future use."

To date, California has distributed 86.4 million N95 respirators and 297 million surgical masks to Californians working on the front line against COVID-19, including to hospitals, emergency responders, farm and factory workers and nursing home workers, according to the governor.

Newsom has directed the state's Department of Public Health and Office of Emergency Services to further increase the state's strategic stockpile to 100 million N95 respirators and 200 million surgical masks by early fall to account for the potential need given the recent rise in COVID-19 cases, according to the statement.

On Wednesday, California reported a record 12,807 new COVID-19 cases, taking its total cases to 413,576. The state now has the largest number of cases in the country, surpassing New York State.

File photo taken in June shows that a driver of the Fresno County Rural Transit Agency delivers meals together with masks and sanitizer donated by BYD to local residents in Fresno, California, the United States. BYD North America, the Chinese electric bus manufacturer headquartered in Lancaster, California, has joined the efforts of county government to provide meals and safety supplies for local residents as part of the company's million-dollar donation program during the COVID-19 crisis. (The Fresno County Rural Transit Agency/Handout via Xinhua)

California public health officials also confirmed 115 new COVID-19 deaths in a daily update on Wednesday. So far, a total of 7,870 deaths have been registered across the state.

The seven-day average number of new cases is now 9,420 per day, with the average from the week prior being 8,309, according to the California Department of Public Health.

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted on Tuesday that wearing a face mask when not able to socially distance is "Patriotic," a U-turn on his previous attitude toward masks.

Despite the president's new stance, many netizens continue to oppose mask-wearing, with one commenting, "The mandating of a face mask is wrong, it should be a choice!" 
From March 2020, when COVID-19 spread throughout Europe, GPs had to rely on clinical information collected in hospitals, the only official information available, when dealing with potential infections.

"However, we also heard, from colleagues or even through social media, of other and unconfirmed information that reported very different clinical pictures encountered by GPs," explains Dr Hubert Maisonneuve, a lecturer and researcher in the research group led by Professor Dagmar Haller at the Primary Care Unit of the UNIGE Faculty of Medicine, and a GP in the Lyon region.

"Since it was extremely difficult to test our patients, we decided, with a few colleagues and in collaboration with two ambulatory laboratories, to set up studies that would allow us to better understand the symptomatology of COVID-19 in its mild forms, and potentially develop a clinical evaluation tool."

To this end, clinical data from more than 1,500 patients who underwent a PCR test were collected between March 24 and May 7, 16% of whom tested positive for COVID-19.

Significantly different symptoms

The medical researchers were able to establish a clinical picture for these patients that was significantly different from that described in the hospital setting, but consistent with the informal information collected previously.

"Very early on, we detected that loss of taste and smell were among the most predictive symptoms of the disease, unlike fever or cough, which are not specific enough," explains Dr. Benoit Tudrej, a general practitioner and member of the College universitaire de medecine generale at the Claude Bernard University in Lyon, who participated in this work.

In addition, rarer symptoms that were thought to be strongly related to COVID-19, such as shortness of breath, were found to have very little correlation with a positive test. Because the ambulatory population is different from the population arriving at the hospital, the clinical picture is also different.

However, this is a good indication that you cannot base an entire public health policy in managing an epidemic on hospital data alone, especially when there is a lack of tests to screen for people with light symptoms." Dr. Benoit Tudrej, General Practitioner and Member of the College, Universitaire de Medecine Generale, Claude Bernard University

A poor clinical prediction score

Many research teams have sought to develop a clinical prediction score, a technique commonly used that, by combining various clinical signs and symptoms, allows a statistical estimate of a patient's risk for a particular disease. "We thus tested the model published by an Anglo-American team in Nature Medicine based on data collected through an application," explains Dr. Maisonneuve.

"But on our data, this score doesn't work. Why? Probably because of a selection bias in the Anglo-American study, where respondents - mostly young women - did not have the same demographic profile as our patients.

The clinical prediction score does indeed seem to work better for a subgroup, women in their 40s to 60s, whose symptoms seem more pronounced, and therefore easier to detect. "However, this aspect of our work needs to be confirmed on larger samples or with more powerful analysis tools," adds Dr. Paul Sebo of UIGP, who was in charge of this part of the study.

GPs are essential to an efficient health policy

These studies carried out in the urgency of an exceptional situation highlight two important points: firstly, the fact that GPs often remain on the sidelines of political decisions, to the detriment of a large part of the population for whom their usual doctor remains the sole contact person for health matters.

In a situation where triage of patients is problematic, but where the threat is spreading rapidly, this can lead to a delay in care or a lack of subtlety in analysing the situation.

"This is especially true when, as it is currently the case, the aim is to identify new clusters as quickly as possible in order to contain the spread of the virus", the authors point out.

Secondly, research in primary care is still underdeveloped. It is through such work, which is based on strong evidence, that it will be able to take its full place in the construction of academic and medical knowledge.
A Nova Scotia family doctor is urging the province to implement stronger COVID-19 policies, and says it should not consider lifting the mandatory 14-day self-isolation requirement for Canadians visiting the province from outside Atlantic Canada.

Premier Stephen McNeil has mused about reopening the province to the rest of the country sometime this summer.

Dr. Ajantha Jayabarathan, who is also an assistant professor at Dalhousie University's medical school, noted that cases of COVID-19 have shown up in recent weeks in communities of three Western provinces that are bubbled.

"I'm gravely worried that the premier will contemplate such a thing, let alone say it. It seems reckless," Jayabarathan said.

"Why would you invite disaster into your midst? We know what is happening in the United States and everyone of those cases in the Western provinces arrived through travel. Why would you court danger particularly when we have so many gaps and holes in terms of our borders?"

Brett Ruskin/CBC

CBC News has recently reported on cases where people coming from both Quebec and the U.S. did not receive any calls from authorities in Nova Scotia to ensure they were self-isolating.

On July 6, Premier Stephen McNeil said people entering the province from outside Atlantic Canada would have to fill out a form and provide contact information. He said the government would call every day to ensure they were following the rules.

But on July 17, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Robert Strang said the province would be prioritizing calls, especially to those coming from the United States, due to "capacity issues."

Jayabarathan said the tracking system "clearly has a major crack and a gap."

Other COVID-19 precautions needed, says doctor

She said the province needs to implement other measures to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, including a mandatory mask policy in stores. She noted the World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized COVID-19 is spread through airborne transmission.

Story continues

"If somebody has no symptoms, just the act of breathing is enough to create what they call a viral cloud," Jayabarathan said.

She said this makes it easy for people to spread COVID-19 in enclosed public spaces. Wearing a mask would help prevent that.

On July 18, Quebec became the first province to make masks mandatory in indoor public places.

Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press

Last week, Strang said wearing masks needs to become "much more of a habit for all Nova Scotians." However, he stopped short of making it mandatory, outside of on public transit beginning July 24.

"We're just not there yet. There's still more work to do, but people need to understand we are looking very actively at going further with a mandatory masking policy," Strang said.

Jayabarathan calls that "wishy-washy."

"Why would you not mandate that, particularly if you say you're serious about preventing a second wave [of COVID-19]. I don't understand it," she said.

A call for expanded testing

Jayabarathan also said COVID-19 testing needs to be ramped up. She noted essential workers who travel outside the Atlantic bubble are not required to self-isolate upon their return and they aren't tested either. She said this flies in the face of common sense.

In P.E.I., essential workers must be tested for COVID-19 or self-isolate for 14 days before they return to work.

Jayabarathan also worries the province is not acknowledging asymptomatic cases, where people have the virus but show no symptoms and therefore are not aware they are spreading it.

It's unclear what percentage of people who have contracted COVID-19 are asymptomatic, but studies have suggested the number ranges from five per cent to 80 per cent.

As of July 22, Nova Scotia has one known active case of COVID-19.

Submitted by Sandy Forbes

Jayabarathan said it's misleading for the province to say there is only case because there is no random testing for asymptomatic cases. Only people who display a symptom are currently tested.

She said they are tracking cases through postal codes, but not releasing that information prevents people in those communities from protecting themselves and others.

"I think [this] is very, very dangerous," she said. "You need to have a public that is informed. This is not fear mongering, this [is] reality. This is our lives."

What the province is saying

CBC News asked the Nova Scotia government whether it plans to start testing essential workers when they return to the province from outside the Atlantic bubble, and whether it plans to expand testing to people who do not have symptoms.

"Testing cannot replace the need for a 14-day isolation period when that is required," spokesperson Marla MacInnis wrote in an email.

However, she did not say whether the province will require testing essential workers.

"Nova Scotia's testing strategy has evolved and will continue to evolve," MacInnis wrote. "Our learnings from the initial wave of COVID-19 help inform how we respond to the disease now and in the future. Throughout the pandemic, we actively developed new testing initiatives, based on these learnings, to use our lab capacity in different ways."

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A timeline of the pandemic spread in India as COVID-19 cases cross 12 lakh mark

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

New Delhi, July 23: In a span of five months, the COVID-19 outbreak in India has spread to all states and union territories, infecting more than grim 12 lakh people.

The curve is not flattening as the number of active cases has climbed to more than 4 lakh cases and is still increasing, and close to 30,000 people have died because of the fatal virus.

COVID-19: India registers 45,720 fresh cases, 1,129 deaths, tally crosses 12 lakh

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

Take a look how the virus spreads in India

January 30: India's first COVID-19 case is reported in Kerala.

February 3: Following 2 more cases, Kerala declares health emergency in the state.

February 4: India cancelled existing visas for Chinese and foreigners who had visited China in the last two weeks.

March 2: Two more cases were reported - a 45-year-old man in Delhi who had travelled back from Italy and a 24-year-old engineer in Hyderabad who had a travel history from Dubai.

March 11: WHO declares COVID-19 a pandemic.

March 12: India reported it's first death after a 76-year-old man from Kalburgi, Karnataka became the first victim of the virus in the country.

March 13: India suspends all tourist visas and OCI entries.

March 14: Government declares COVID-19 a notified disaster with total cases reach 100.

March 22: 50 days after the virus was first reported in India, a 14-hour voluntary lockdown called 'Janata Curfew' was observed in India. All international flights to India suspended.

March 25: A nationwide lockdown was imposed till April 14 for 21 days, two days after the 'Janata Curfew'. All trains, flights, metros suspended.

March 31: Nizamuddin area in Delhi, emerged as one of the COVID-19 'hotspots' in India with a large number of attendees at a religious congregation held at the headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat, being tested positive.

April 14: 10,000 confirmed cases were recorded, as the nationwide lockdown has been extended till May 3.

May 1: Lockdown extended with zone-wise restrictions.

Shramik special trains started for stranded migrant workers.

May 7

 Total cases now at 50,000+.

 India's biggest repatriation exercise Vande Bharat Mission begins.

May 12: Indian Railways resumes operations with 15 trains to selected stations.

May 17: The world's largest lockdown is extended till May 31.

May 19: Total cases cross 1,00,000.

May 25: Domestic flights resume with restrictions.

June 8: Phased reopening begins nationwide with Unlock 1.

June 12: India overtakes UK to become the 4th worst coronavirus-hit country.

June 17: India registered the highest-ever spike of 2,003 COVID-19 deaths.

June 27: Total cases cross 5,00,000.

July 1: Phased reopening under Unlock 2, schools and colleges still remain closed.

July 6: India overtakes Russia to become the third-worst coronavirus-hit country.

July 15: India's COVID-19 vaccine candidates COVAXIN & ZyCov-D begin human trials.

July 17: India's total COVID-19 cases cross 10,00,000.

July 23: Total confirmed cases: 12,38,635

Total deaths: 29,861

Cases recovered: 7,82,606
File photo

Some people suspected to be ritualists have killed another teenager in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

DAILY POST reports that the 16-year-old teenager known as Toke was murdered Monday night along the Ibadan-Oyo Road in Akinyele Local Government Area of the state.

Our correspondent recalls that Akinyele Local Government has been in the news for a series of killings suspected to be carried out by ritualists.

Five people including an 18-year-old teenager, Barakat Bello were killed in the local government in June this year, though Oyo state police command had paraded three persons in connection with several killings in the local government area.

DAILY POST, however, gathered on Wednesday that Tokes corpse was found in a bush on Tuesday, after her parents made several attempts to locate her.

Sources said that she was sent to purchase Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) also known as petrol by her parents on Monday, only to be killed by yet to be identified persons.

Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the state Police Command, Olugbenga Fadeyi confirmed the incident.

Fadeyi in a statement issued on Tuesday, said that investigation had commenced to arrest the killers of the deceased.



A 16-year-old body was found inside the bush at Onikoko along Ibadan-Oyo express road, at past 9 am, on Tuesday.

When the police from Divisional Police Officer, Moniya division, visited the scene, it was later discovered that the parents sent her, yesterday, at about 9 pm to go and buy petrol.



In the process, she was attacked by some assailants who are still at large and the corpse was discovered in the morning. It is a case of suspected murder.

The Commissioner of Police has ordered an investigation to find out what happened again in that area. The investigation has started and soon we will arrest the perpetrators of that act
MOUNT PLEASANT, MI  A Saginaw man has been arrested and charged with murder in connection with a fatal shooting in Mount Pleasant.

Mount Pleasant Police at about 2:53 a.m. on July 15 responded to the reported homicide at 505 S. Bradley St., within the Bradley Street Trailer Park. They arrived to find Chad A. Kuzma, 33, was already dead and another man, age 25, had suffered a gunshot wound.

The wounded man was treated for his injuries and released.

Through witness statements and investigative leads, police developed 29-year-old Charles S. Reid, of Saginaw, as their suspect. Police located and arrested Reid, who on July 22 appeared in Isabella County District Court for arraignment on charges of open murder, assault with intent to murder, possession of a firearm by a felon, and three counts of felony firearm.

Open murder contains both first- and second-degree murder, both of which are life offenses, though a first-degree conviction comes with a mandatory sentence of life without parole.

Reid remains lodged in the Isabella County Jail on a $1.6 million bond.

Kuzmas obituary states the killing occurred at his home.

He enjoyed playing video games, listening to music, and tubing down the river, the obituary states. He also enjoyed tearing apart electronics and putting them back together.

Police are asking anyone with additional information regarding this incident to call the Mount Pleasant Police Departments Anonymous Tip Line at 989-779-9111 or Central Dispatch 989-773-1000.

The Mount Pleasant Police Department was assisted by Michigan State Police detectives, the Michigan State Police Crime Lab, Michigan State Police Fugitive Team, Michigan State Police Emergency Response Team, Isabella County Sheriffs Department, Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Police, Central Michigan University Police, Mobile Medical Response, Mt. Pleasant Fire Department, VIPER Team, MINT, Bay City Department of Public Safety, Bay City Sheriffs Office, Saginaw County Sheriffs Department, Zilwaukee Police Department, Michigan Department of Corrections, and the FBI.

Related:

Police investigate homicide in Mount Pleasant
A mother of a four-year-old girl thwarted a kidnapping attempt on her daughter as she fought two motorcycle-borne men sent by her brother-in-law to abduct the child to extort money from her father in east Delhi.

The whole incident, which took place on Tuesday, was captured on CCTV cameras.

Police said the 27-year-old uncle of the girl, who planned the kidnapping of the minor girl to exhort money from her parents, was arrested along with his associate in east Delhi's Krishna Nagar area on Wednesday.

Upender, a resident of Krishna Nagar, had planned to abduct his niece in order to extort around Rs 30 to 35 lakh from his brother. However, his plan failed and he was arrested on Wednesday from Krishan Nagar, a senior police officer said.

The mother of the four-year-old girl fought with the two motorcycle-borne men, sent by Upender, and saved her daughter from being kidnapped.

The video of the incident went viral on social media.

In the video, the woman is seen pulling her daughter from the clutches of the abductors. She pushes the motorcycle rider and the two-wheeler falls on the ground, following which the pillion rider starts running. Later, the rider speeds away the two-wheeler.

One of the neighbours of the victim starts running after the accused persons. Another neighbour parks his scooter in the middle of the road to block their way and nab them. However, both the accused manage to escape the spot.

Police received information regarding an attempt of kidnapping of a four-year-old girl at Shakarpur area on Tuesday. After reaching the spot, they found the accused persons had left a motorcycle and a bag containing one country-made pistol with four live cartridges, police said.

The accused came to the house of the victim around 4 pm and asked for water. When the mother of the girl went inside to bring the water, they tried to abduct the minor. However, the woman saw it and successfully managed to free her daughter, police said.

The accused were doing a recee of the area since the last one week. One of the CCTV footages captured their presence in the area two days ago, police said.

During investigation, police found that the motorcycle had a fake number plate. Later, the owner of the motorcycle was identified as Dheeraj (24), a resident of New Govindpura, through its chassis and engine numbers, they said.

"Police reached at New Govindpura and found that Dheeraj had vacated the rented house five-years-ago. Later, he was arrested from Jagatpuri area," Deputy Commissioner of Police (east) Jasmeet Singh said.

During interrogation, Dheeraj said Upender, the uncle of victim, was the main conspirator. Upender knew Dheeraj and hatched a conspiracy with him to kidnap the daughter of his brother and promised to give him Rs 1 lakh. On his information, Upender was arrested on Wednesday from the Krishna Nagar area, Singh said.

Police said that Upender is married and has a daughter. Dheeraj also has a daughter.

Upender said he was in debt and planned to extort money from his brother who owns a garment store in Gandhi Nagar, police said, adding that they are trying to nab the absconding accused.
RESIDENTIAL/INTERIOR

WASHINGTON

Photo by Aaron Leitz The elliptical shape of McKenzie Tower elegantly highlights breathtaking views of mountain ranges.





McKenzie Tower

Location: Seattle

Contractor: Performance Contracting Inc.

Architect: Graphite Design Group

Team: Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, Drywall Distributors, CWallA, SCAFCO Steel Stud Co.

McKenzie Tower is among downtown Seattles premier residential buildings on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Blanchard Street. The 41-story building is in the heart of the Denny Triangle and South Lake Union neighborhoods, across the street from Amazons world headquarters.

The elliptical shape elegantly highlights breathtaking views of mountain ranges, Elliott Bay and Lake Union from each of the 450 homes. A large steel spire extends from the top of the building, creating a landmark in the area.

High-end residential features include a roof deck, yoga room, outdoor spa sanctuary and pet run. The popular Wild Ginger Restaurant is in the grand lobby at the base of the seven-story podium. Over 20 miles of interior framing and 1.7 million square feet of drywall was installed by Performance Contracting.

Judges comment: The 41-story McKenzie Tower required incredible planning and precise execution. The stunning spaces place it among premier residential towers, offering unparalleled views of the mountains and Elliott Bay.





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On Wednesday night, the 2020 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Event #22: $500 No-Limit Hold'em Turbo Deepstack attracted 1,082 players who rebought 497 times. The 1,579-entry field created a $710,550 prize pool and after seven hours of play, Allan Treeoflife Cheung claimed the bracelet and $120,082.95 top prize.

To claim victory, Cheung played a patient game at the final table, carefully biding his time with the blinds so high. In fact, he didnt score any eliminations until he made it to heads-up play against Myles "Shipthemoney" Kotler, who four days earlier had finished second in Event #18: $1,000 NLH 8-Handed Turbo Deepstack for $111,955. Unfortunately for Kotler, he was once again denied the bracelet and had to settle for another runner-up finish.

According to WSOP.com, Cheung hails from Little Neck, New York, and had three prior cashes in the online series leading up to his victory. The first was 248th in Event #10: $600 Monster Stack for $1,008, followed by 156th in Event #11: $500 NLH Turbo Deepstack 6-Handed for $913. The third came in Event #16: $500 NLH Turbo when he placed 113th for $963.

2020 WSOP Online Event #22 Final Table Results

Place Player Prize 1 Allan Treeoflife Cheung $120,083 2 Myles "Shipthemoney" Kotler $74,039 3 Brian JackBogle Altman $53,291 4 Daniel juice Buzgon $38,725 5 Terrell heezahustla Cheatham $28,493 6 Louie pongpong Valderrama $21,174 7 Derek this1smyvice Salgals $15,916 8 Kara theLMT90 Denning $12,079 9 RobertNvrstsfied Natividad $9,308

After Giuseppe Pantalette Pantaleo bubbled in 249th place, the in-the-money eliminations came at a fast and furious pace. Among those to go deep but fall short of the final table were Anthony heheh Zinno (93rd - $1,065.82), Melisa NJ_Melisa Singh (86th - $1,207.93), Erica huckcheevers Lindgren (69th - $1,492.15), Robert bustinballs Kuhn (40th - $2,415.87), Daniel DNegs Negreanu (32nd - $2,913.25), and final table bubble boy Mike mouth123 Matusow (10th - $7,247.61).

The first casualty of the final table was Robert Nvrstsfied Natividad, who lost a race with pocket nines to the ace-queen of Kotler.

Not long after, Kara theLMT90 Denning got it in good preflop with ace-king against the king-ten of Derek this1smyvice Salgals, but the latter flopped the nut straight to send the former out the door in eighth place. Kotler then used an ace-king of his own to dispatch Salgal, who got it all in preflop holding ace-ten.

Louie pongpong Valderrama bowed out in sixth place after failing to get there with ace-jack against Daniel juice Buzgons pocket jacks, and then Event #16: $500 NLH Turbo winner Terrell heezahustla Cheatham ran ace-nine into Kotlers ace-queen to exit in fifth place.

Buzgon busted in fourth after losing a flip with pocket sevens to Brian "JackBogle" Altmans ace-jack, and then Altman, who had started the final table as the chip leader, followed him out the door in third after flopping deuces and threes against Kotler, who flopped the same two pair but held the better kicker.

Brian Altman

Kotler began heads-up play with 41 million to Cheungs 22 million, but the latter managed to double into the lead before closing it out with ace-seven after calling a three-bet jam from Kotler, who had ten-eight suited. An ace on the turn sealed the deal and Cheung laid claim to the gold bracelet.

The next tournament on the schedule  Event #23: $500 NLH Knockout  will take place at 3 p.m. PDT on Thursday. The PokerNews Live Reporting Team will once again be reporting all the action, so be sure to tune in then to see who captures the next 2020 WSOP bracelet!
The Bulgarian authorities assured Russia that the Balkan Stream natural gas pipeline, an extension of the Turkish Stream pipeline, will be finished as agreed, by 1 January of the next, Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Fourth European Department Yuri Pilipson said.

"Construction of the TurkStream second branch on the territory of Bulgaria is going as planned and, according to the partners, will be completed by 1 January 2021. Prime Minister Boyko Borissov keeps the project's progress under personal control, regularly inspecting construction sites," Sputnik cited Pilipson as saying.

Preparations for the Belene Nuclear Power Plant construction also continue, despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the diplomat added. In June, Russia's Rosatom, France's Framatome and U.S. General Electric signed a memorandum on cooperation in selecting a strategic investor for the nuclear power plant.



In January, Bulgarias Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova said that the country intended to replace half of the gas volumes imported from Russia with Azerbaijani gas and liquefied natural gas.

However, according to Pilipson, Bulgaria cannot abandon Russian gas imports without legal and economic consequences, as a long-term contract between Gazprom Export and Bulgargaz is in effect until 2025.

Bulgaria's 474 kilometer pipeline will carry Russian gas via Turkey to Serbia and Hungary. Deliveries to Turkey from Russia began in January.
President Donald Trump described "bloodshed" across America as he announced the expansion of "Operation Legend," saying he has "no choice" but to "surge" federal law enforcement into American cities to fight violent crime.

"Today I am announcing a surge of federal law enforcement into American communities plagued by violent crime," Trump said Wednesday in the East Room of the White House in a move closely tied to his reelection campaign. "We will work every single day to restore public safety, protect our nation's children, and bring violent perpetrators to justice. We have been doing it, and you have been seeing what is happening all around the country. We've just started this process, and frankly we have no choice but to get involved."

"Operation Legend," first announced earlier this month by Attorney General Bill Barr in an exclusive interview with ABC News, is said to be aimed at sending federal resources to cities seeing increases in violent crime even though mayors of many of those cities oppose the move.

A combination of agents from the FBI, DEA and ATF will be sent to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to work with and bolster the already existing federal presence in both cities and assist with investigations of illegal gun sales and other federal crimes, Trump said.

"No mother should ever have to cradle her dead child in her arms simply because politicians refused to do what is necessary to secure their neighborhood and to secure their city," Trump said of Chicago.

He went on to say that other cities will also see a surge in federal law enforcement and he claimed that local officials are "too proud" or "too political" to ask for help.

"Under 'Operation Legend,' we will also soon send federal law enforcement to other cities that need help," Trump said. "Other cities need help. They need it badly. They should call. They should want it. They're too proud or they're too political to do that."

Story continues

A separate government official told ABC News that roughly 125 to 150 agents will be deployed to the Chicago area.

Trump has long criticized the city and its leaders for repeated shocking shootings and the city saw 14 people shot in a single incident Tuesday.

MORE: AG Barr announces new initiative 'Operation Legend' to tackle violent crime

The expansion of federal resources will largely mirror the Justice Department's launch of the initiative two weeks ago in Kansas City, Missouri, where it has sent in roughly 200 FBI, ATF and DEA agents into the city after a request from the state's governor.

The Justice Department says "Operation Legend" is named after four-year-old LeGend Taliferro, a Black child shot and killed while he slept June 29 in Kansas City, which the department said has seen a 40% increase in homicides over last year.

PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks about legislation for additional coronavirus aid in the Oval Office at the White House, July 20, 2020. (Leah Millis/Reuters)

Trump ramps up talk on 'violent cities'

Since the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police and the nationwide protests that followed, Trump has stepped up his political rhetoric on what he calls "out of control" cities run by "liberal Democrats" -- including Chicago, New York and Baltimore.

"I'm gonna do something -- that I can tell you," Trump told reporters Monday in the Oval Office. "Because we're not going to let New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore and all of these --Oakland is a mess. We're not going to let this happen in our country."

Trump has characterized himself as the "law and order" president sending out several tweets in all-caps with a political message that Republicans have tried to own. Last month, in a call with governors, Trump repeatedly urged local police and the military to "dominate" the streets in response to the unrest nationwide over Floyd's death.

Used to attack his political opponents and distract from the pandemic, Trump and White House officials have zeroed in on the law enforcement initiative to help reignite support that has wavered due to the president's perceived lack of leadership on the coronavirus response.

"Look at what's going on -- all run by Democrats, all run by very liberal Democrats. All run, really, by radical left," Trump said.

He added, "If (Joe) Biden got in, that would be true for the country. The whole country would go to hell. And we're not going to let it go to hell."

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has specifically targeted Chicago, calling Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot earlier this month "the derelict mayor of Chicago" who needs to "step up" to do more to keep the city safe.

Despite the president's recent rhetoric on the uptick in violent crime across the country, data from the FBI show that many major cities are actually doing better on crime than they were decades ago.

Mayors see Portland as cautionary tale

In many of the cities Trump has called out, including Chicago, New York and Baltimore, local leaders say they have sought assistance from the federal government for years to address the violence tearing at their communities.

In 2017, for example, Chicago police teamed up with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives to create a joint strike force aimed at cutting the number of guns reaching criminals in the city.

Just this past weekend 63 people were shot in Chicago, 12 of them fatally.

However, as local leaders have seen what has happened as federal agents clash with protesters in Portland, Oregon, many are speaking out against "Operation Legend," saying they don't want their cities used for Trump's political purposes.

The controversial deployment of militarized agents by the Department of Homeland Security in Portland is separate from the Justice Department law enforcement expansion announced by the White House Wednesday and it's not expected those agents would be used against protesters.

MORE: Trump says 'a lot of people in jail' after Portland protests, but few were charged

But Democratic mayors across the country have spoken out against the tactics being used by the federal government in Portland, saying that they do not want or need unidentified federal officers dressed in camouflage battling with protesters.

"The deployment of unnamed special secret agents onto our streets to detain people without cause and to effectively take away their civil rights and civil liberties without due process -- that is not going to happen in Chicago," Lightfoot said at a news conference on Tuesday.

In a letter to Barr and DHS acting Secretary Chad Wolf, the mayors of six major cities and 15 total demanded an end to the tactics used by federal agents in Portland.

"These forces are conducting law enforcement activities without coordination or authorization of local law enforcement officials," the letter read. "The unilateral deployment of these forces into American cities is unprecedented and violates fundamental constitutional protections and tenets of federalism."

Portland, Oregon, Mayor Ted Wheeler signed the letter, along with Chicago's Lightfoot, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton D. Lucas.

Trump has praised the federal government's response.

"In Portland, they've done a fantastic job," Trump said. "They've been there three days and they really have done a fantastic job in a short period of time. No problem."

In response to the letter, White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere said, "President Trump has taken an unprecedented approach to communicating and working with our Nation's governors and mayors to guarantee they have the resources they need and the ability to make the best on-the-ground decisions, but he has not backed away from exposing these officials for their inaction, not based on partisanship but because it's right thing to do."

The most fundamental responsibility of elected officials at every level of government is keeping our citizens safe while respecting their Constitutional rights. President Trump has made clear that if state and local officials do not meet this sacred responsibility, he will take action to protect our citizens and ensure safe, healthy communities," he said in a statement.

The president Wednesday made sure to note that we should "never forget" that the job of policing neighborhoods falls on "local elected leadership."

"But we must remember that the job of policing a neighborhood falls on the shoulders of local elected leadership," Trump said. "Never forget that. When they abdicate their duty, the results are catastrophic. Americans must hold their city leaders accountable. They must insist that community officials fully support, fully back, and fully fund their local police departments. There is simply no substitute for a police department that has the strong backing of city leaders."

ABC News' Alexander Mallin and Luke Barr contributed to this report

Citing crime, Trump expands sending federal agents to cities over mayors' opposition originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Top Official Claims Part Of Iran's 'Blocked' Funds Are Freed To Be Used For Imports

Radio Farda July 22, 2020

President Hassan Rouhani's Chief of Staff announced July 21 the "release of blocked Iranian financial assets" in some countries and maintained that these resources would be used for international payments.

The official government news website, IRNA, cited Mahmoud Vaezi as saying, "The released assets will be used for addressing the concerns and problems of importers." In other words, foreign currency will be made available for imports.

However, he has stopped short of referring to the amounts released or the countries that had "blocked" Iran's "assets."

Most of Iran's money in foreign countries is not actually frozen by any government but impossible to transfer due to U.S. banking sanctions. If Vaezi's statement is true, it means the United States must have agreed for some banks to transfer money to Iran's central bank.

Vaezi's claim has not been confirmed by the U.S. or other governments and foreign banks.

However, the chairman of Iran's Red Crescent Society announced July 20 that that the United States has allowed the launch of a financial channel for transfer of international humanitarian aid to Iran. It is not clear if both officials spoke about the same development.

Lack of dollars and other major currencies in recent months have led to a a steep devaluation of Iran's currency. The central bank was forced to pump $300 million into the market on July 18 and 19 to prevent a further drop of the national currency.

Vaezi described the recent "turmoil in Iran's currency market" as a "psychological and sensational war imposed" on the Islamic Republic.

Several "war rooms" are active in creating the turmoil, Vaezi claimed, naming Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and Sulaymaniyah, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan, as two main centers of directing the currency war against Tehran.

Opponents of the Rouhani administration believe that recent fluctuations in the local exchange market is merely a ploy to generate income for the government which is facing a huge budget deficit.

Responding to the critics, the Governor of the CBI, Abdol Nasser Hemmati, dismisses such intention, maintaining that opponents' allegation is unfounded.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/top-official- claims-part-of-iran-s-blocked-funds-are-freed-to -be-used-for-imports/30740784.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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South Africa: COVID-19: Government monitoring rising cases in KZN

Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, says KwaZulu-Natal appears to be following the same trend of COVID-19 infections, as witnessed in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Gauteng provinces.

The Minister said this when he tabled the Health Departments budget vote speech during a virtual sitting of the National Assembly on Thursday.

This is based on the average daily cases that we have been recording. We have publicly stated that the storm is upon us.

This is evidenced by the surge in different provinces, namely, the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Gauteng. KwaZulu-Natal appears to be following the same trend and we are now watching the province closely, the Minister said.

Based on the average daily cases that the department has been recording, Mkhize said he expects that the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases will have reached the 400 000 mark by the end of the week.

As at 22 July, the number of confirmed positive cases stood at 394 948, with 5 940 deaths reported.

As the globe, we have now tipped the 15 million mark of COVID-19 confirmed cases. As a country, we also know that by the end of this week, we would have reached the 400 000 mark of cumulative confirmed cases, Mkhize said.

The reopening of the economy, which led to the increased movement of people in the country, has with no doubt contributed to the rise in numbers, the Minister said.

However, we are mindful that government had to grapple with protecting our citizens lives and their livelihood.

It has not at all proven to be an easy exercise, with various sectors having their own expectations informed by the challenges they face.

But we want to assure every South African that as inconvenient and uncomfortable things may be, our intention is to do what is in the best interest of our people.

R5.5 billion set aside to fight COVID-19

The Minister said government is mindful of the fact that while the focus has shifted to fighting COVID-19, it still has a responsibility to ensure the gains made with the HIV, TB and other programmes are sustained, regardless of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 The new baseline budget for 2020/201, based on adjustments, is at R58.4 billion, with a total allocation of R5.5 billion earmarked for COVID-19.

The reprioritisation of focal areas includes our most urgent and pressing needs in the midst of a surge in COVID-19 cases, Mkhize said.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-07-23. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 20:41:04|Editor: huaxia

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JUBA, July 23(Xinhua) -- The World Food Programme(WFP) and Food Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Thursday warned that 60,000 in South Sudan were staring at hunger due to recent inter-communal violence that has rocked Jonglei and Pibor regions.

A joint statement issued by the UN agencies in Juba said they were concerned that the violence has halted farming, which will slash harvests for the rest of the year and deprive communities of their key sources of nutrition.

"Recurring violence in Jonglei and the Greater Pibor Administrative Area in the eastern part of South Sudan has already displaced more than 60,000 people and is crippling the food security and livelihoods of growing numbers of people," said the UN agencies.

The violence between Dinka and Murle communities that escalated late last year, has claimed hundreds of lives and has often involved cattle raiding, child abduction and looting.

"At the height of the main planting season, insecurity is preventing farmers from going to their fields to cultivate food crops and livestock keepers are not able to follow their traditional migratory patterns to graze their animals," said Meshack Malo, FAO representative in South Sudan.

"When cattle raiding is part of the violence, communities lose animals essential to their livelihoods and cannot participate in productive agricultural activities, leading to greater food insecurity," he added.

More than 430 metric tons of WFP food supplies have been lost due to the looting of warehouses in the regions affected by inter-tribal skirmishes.

"We simply cannot replace the calories milk given to children when livestock is taken and a year's worth of milk is lost, and we barely have sufficient resources to meet current needs," said Matthew Hollingsworth, WFP country director in South Sudan.

He said the violence risks causing long-term food insecurity crises in South Sudan.

According to an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report, the Pibor Administrative Area now faces emergency levels of food insecurity.

The report said that earlier this year, three Jonglei counties had people who were classified in a "catastrophe" level of food insecurity.

"Their food security was only expected to improve if consistent humanitarian food assistance could be provided. But this has proved impossible because of the fighting in the area," said the report.

It said that violence in eastern South Sudan is adding to the number of hungry people just when the country is currently in its annual lean season, with at least 6.5 million people or more than half of the country's population already facing severe acute food insecurity and in need of humanitarian assistance. Enditem
(Newser)  Republicans have jettisoned one of President Trump's key demands even before the start of negotiations with Democrats over the next coronavirus stimulus package. Senate Republicans, who are planning to unveil the package Thursday, decided not to include the payroll tax cut the president has been calling for, the Washington Post reports. Trump said Sunday he would consider refusing to sign any package that didn't include the cut, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin admitted Thursday that it won't be in the "base bill." The Republican plan is expected to include another round of $1,200 checks, as well as around $70 billion for schoolshalf of which will be tied to reopening.

story continues below

Mnuchin told CNBC Thursday morning that the tax cut is a "very good, pro-growth policy" that the administration will keep pushing for, but Trump "wants to get money into people's pockets now because we need to reopen the economy." He said the GOP plan will replace the extra $600 per week unemployment benefit, which is due to expire at the end of this month, with "approximately 70% wage replacement." "We're not going to continue it in its current form because we're not going to pay people more money to stay at home than work, but we want to make sure that the people that are out there that can't find jobs do get a reasonable wage replacement," Mnuchin said, per the Hill. House Democrats passed a $3 trillion relief package in May. (Read more coronavirus stories.)
New support pages for the Samsung Galaxy Watch3 have gone live  one for the 41mm model and one for the larger 45mm watch. Both are listed twice, once with a stainless steel body and once with no mention of material.

Note that these are SM-R840 and SM-R850 while earlier this month we saw support pages for the SM-R845. The 5 at the end indicates and LTE model, 0 means only local connectivity.

There are two more, the R840X and R850X. However, the X usually stands for a demo unit, so youre unlikely to see these available for purchase (though it seems that Walmart is trying to get rid of old Galaxy Watch demo units, SM-R810X).



Samsung Galaxy Watch3 45 mm (SM-R850)  Galaxy Watch3 41 mm (SM-R840)

Anyway, previous leaks have offered good looks at the 45 mm Galaxy Watch3 as well as the 41 mm one. There will be leather and metal wrist bands as well as several color options, including Mystic Bronze.

The Watch3 will be IP and MIL-STD rated and feature ATM5 water resistance and Gorilla Glass DX over the display (1.4 in the case of the 45mm model, 1.2 for the smaller one). They will run the latest Tizen 5.5, of course, and should feature a GPS receiver and an ECG sensor.

According to @evleaks, the new watches will cost between $400 and $600. Theres talk of titanium versions too, those will be on the higher end of the price scale.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch3 will be officially announced at the Unpacked event scheduled for August 5. The stars of the show will be the Galaxy Note20 duo and the Z Fold 2, the Z Flip 5G couldn't wait and was unveiled yesterday.

Source 1 | Source 2 (in Hungarian) | Via (in Romanian)
After months of helping migrants reach their native places amid the coronavirus pandemic, fans are now suggesting Bollywood actor Sonu Sood should take up the responsibility of making a vaccine for the novel virus as well.

A Twitter user suggested that the responsibility of making a vaccine for coronavirus should also be given to the actor. Sonu responded to the suggestion and tweeted Thursday morning, Hahahaha...itni badi jimmedari mat do bhai (Do not give me such a huge responsibility).

The user had written, Ab samay aa gaya hai jab corona ki vaccinee banane ka bhi jimma Sonu Sood ko de dena chahiye (Now is the time to give Sonu Sood the responsibility of making a vaccine for corona as well).

Sonu has been helping migrant workers reach their native places amid the coronavirus pandemic. While the nationwide lockdown, imposed in March, ended May 31, the virus continues to spread, forcing people to limit movement and do so with safety measures and precautions. Recently, Sonu also launched a platform to enable migrant workers search for jobs all across the country. The project, Pravasi Rojgar, is also expected to offer some basic training, including English speaking courses.

Also read: Kangana Ranaut wants to record statement on Sushant Singh Rajputs death, but hasnt been summoned by Mumbai Police

Earlier, a Twitter user claimed he was duped of Rs 12,000 and tweeted,Kuch log yaha aise bhi hai jo kise ki halato ka galat fayda uthane m bilkul nai chukte jab mai apne ma k liye paresan tha to mere pass ek call aai jisme ek bande me mujhe kaha hi wo @SonuSood k maneger boo rhe hai aur ye wo ulta seedha Gyan dekr mere 12400 rup loot liye ye hai. Sonu then responded on the tweet and wrote, So sorry brother that some one did this fraud with you . Dont worry. I am with you. Will speak to you tomorrow .. aapki maa humari bhi maa hai. So tension mat lena.

So sorry brother that some one did this fraud with you . Dont worry. I am with you. Will speak to you tomorrow .. aapki maa humari bhi maa hai. So tension mat lena. https://t.co/UmUKWRFmm2  sonu sood (@SonuSood) July 22, 2020

Sonu has also donated 25,000 face shields to Mumbai police personnel.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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The Syrian rebels posed casually, standing over their prisoners with firearms pointed down at the shirtless and terrified men.

The prisoners, seven in all, were captured Syrian soldiers. Five were trussed, their backs marked with red welts. They kept their faces pressed to the dirt as the rebels commander recited a bitter revolutionary verse.

For fifty years, they are companions to corruption, he said. We swear to the Lord of the Throne, that this is our oath: We will take revenge.

The moment the poem ended, the commander, known as the Uncle, fired a bullet into the back of the first prisoners head. His gunmen followed suit, promptly killing all the men at their feet.
Eldorado Scioto Downs will host the second leg of the Buckeye Stallion Series two-year-old pacers Thursday, July 23.

One hundred and one entries have resulted in six divisions for colts and five divisions for fillies. Each division will carry a purse of $17,500.

The opening leg was held at MGM Northfield Park on July 13. Ten of the 13 winners will return to action tonight. The previous winners are led by Brighter Days (by Woodstock) and Twig (Mr Apples), who are both undefeated this season in two lifetime starts. Illini Duke (Well Said) and Imagine It (If I Can Dream) have each won three of four starts this year. The other three winners, Hes A Dickens (Well Said), KB Mac (McArdle) and Weekend Pass (Big Bad John), will battle in the seventh race.

On the filly side of the ledger, only three of six opening-leg winners return for leg two. Undefeated Apple Soozy (Mr Apples) and Smothastenesewisky (Nob Hill High) are back along with Margin Of Error (Racing Hill).

First-race post time is at 6:15 p.m.

(With files from the Ohio Harness Horsemens Association)
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta will later today, Thursday, July 23, present the 2020 mid-year budget review and supplementary estimates for the financial year in Parliament in accordance with Section 28 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921).



This particular presentation will highlight the governments plan on how the country is to recover from the shocks of the economy due to the withdrawal of advanced monies from the Contingency and Stabilisation Funds following the COVID-19 pandemic.



Mr. Ofori-Atta is also expected to use the opportunity to review some of the key macroeconomic targets announced in the 2020 budget read last year.



In April 2020, Parliament approved governments request to withdraw an amount of GHS 1.2 billion from the contingency fund to finance the Coronavirus Alleviation Programme (CAP).



It also received a US$1bn rapid credit facility from the IMF as part of funds for the electricity relief package for Ghanaians whilst the remainder will be used to support the 2020 budget.



Additionally, the government borrowed GHS10 billion from the Bank of Ghana (BoG).



It also received a US$1bn rapid credit facility from the IMF as part of funds for the electricity relief package for Ghanaians whilst the remainder will be used to support the 2020 budget.



Already, the Minister has hinted the budget will also consider extending some support to businesses and industries hit by the outbreak of Coronavirus.



The presentation of the statement on the review of government projections for the 2020 financial year will be backed by a request for supplementary estimates.



Government projections for the 2020 financial year have largely been affected by the economic implications of the Coronavirus pandemic, but it hopes to restrategize to generate more revenue to revamp the economy.



Earlier this year, the Finance Minister announced that government will require some 9.5 billion cedis to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, a situation which may move the 2020 budget deficit to over 7 percent.



He also stated that this will be 2.5 percent of Ghanas revised GDP, and there will be a fiscal gap of GHS11.4 billion.



Meanwhile, Parliament has decided not to allow the media to set up makeshift studios in the house to cover the budget review.



According to information from the Public Affairs Department of Parliament, the directive is in line with COVID-19 protocols put in place by the House.



Ahead of the presentation the Chamber of Independent Power Producers and Bulk Consumers, CIPDiB, has asked government to capture the payment of the about USD$1.4 billion debt owed them in the budget.



According to the Chamber, which is made up of the Sunon-Asogli Power (Ghana) Limited, BXC Solar Ghana, Cenit Energy Limited, Cenpower Generation Company Limited and Karpowership Ghana Company Limited, the continuous accumulation of the debt is forcing them to contract costly loans to sustain their generations.



CEO of the Chamber, Elikplim Kwablah Apetorgbor, says the Independent Power Producers (IPP) may shut down their plants if payment doesnt happen soon.



As the Minister of Finance prepares to present to the nation how he intends to fund government activities for the remaining months of the year, we would like this budget to address specifically the debt that the government owes us. It has become very critical because we are seriously bleeding to fund our operations. As at 30th June, 2020, the cumulative indebtedness to the IPPs is about USD$1.4billion and it continues to accumulate.









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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Even as the government claimed that the governance has become virtually impossible, the Supreme Court on Wednesday did not permit the Centre to fill up 1.3 lakh posts by making ad hoc promotions.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde said the court is not going to either modify its April 2019 order or issue any clarification till the matters relating to reservation in promotion for SC/STs are finally heard.

We will not pass any order on this IA (interlocutory application) right now. We will fix these matters for final hearing after four weeks and then we will see, the bench told Attorney General KK Venugopal.

The setback to the Centre has come even as it has sought a reconsideration of the top courts 2018 verdict, which ruled for applying creamy layer principle even for Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) communities, and held that socially, educationally and economically advanced among them should be excluded from the benefits of reservation in government services.

The top law officer, on his part, tried to persuade the bench for permitting the government go ahead with ad hoc promotions for the time being.

The governance has become virtually impossible. Total number of vacancies as on January 31, 2020 is more than 1.3 lakh. More than 1.3 lakh promotions are held up in 23 departments of the Central government. Please allow ad hoc promotions to be made. It is impossible to carry out governance like this, Venugopal submitted.

He added that these promotions will be given to candidates belonging to general as well as reserved category candidates purely on the basis of seniority and without creating any equity or rights in their favour.

Venugopal said that the order of status quo passed by the bench on April 15, 2019 requires a clarification so that the government could make these temporary promotions in terms of the liberty it had by court orders in 2018 in similar matters.

This request by the Attorney General was, however, opposed by senior advocates Rajeev Dhavan and Gopal Sankaranarayanan, who appeared from the other side.

They said the clarification was not required at all, and that the government may try to overreach the court orders on creamy layer and adequacy under the guise of the present plea. Both senior counsel also found favour with the benchs views that the matters should be finally heard without any interim direction at this stage.

The court order then recorded: Let the instant application for clarification be considered at the time of final disposal of the main matter(s). List the main matter along with all connected matters after four weeks for final disposal.

The bench had passed the order of status quo in April 2019 when the Centre had come in appeal against a 2017 judgment of the Delhi High Court, which gave it three months to implement the reservation in promotion based on quantifiable data on adequacy of representation of the SC/STs, overall efficiency in administration along with competing considerations of backwardness. The high court order meant mass reversion of promotions to thousands of SC/ST employees between 1997 and 2017, compelling the government to file an appeal.

Subsequently, by a Constitution Bench ruling in 2018, the Supreme Court had slightly tweaked its judgment in the M Nagaraj case. It affirmed the reservation in promotion policy but added the 'creamy layer' principle for SC and ST employees too, directing the Centre and states to exclude such employees from the quota benefits.

Further, it held that while there will not be any requirement to collect quantifiable data for the purpose of identification of the backward classes, such data will have to be gathered to ascertain adequacy of representation as well as for overall efficiency.

Later, in December last, Venugopal asked for a review of this verdict by referring it to a larger seven-judge bench. But the court could not hear the issues in detail as yet while the promotions remained stuck due to the status quo order. Similar cases have also come from Maharashtra, Haryana and Tripura which are to be heard together.
<! Amarachi and Prince >

Nollywood actress, Elenora Amarachi Paul, has narrated how Big Brother Naija Lockdown housemate, Prince Enwerem saved her from sexual harassment.

Amarachi said on the day, she went to a party and couldnt get a cab home because she was late.

She said she was harassed and almost assaulted because she didnt want to sleep with one of the guys in attendance.

But luckily for her, Prince who saw her stranded asked her to join his Uber and when she told her she was going to the mainland part of Lagos, he helped her pay N20k for a night in a hotel and left without asking for her number.

Read her story below

Hah!! So this guy is a prince. See how I missed my chance!!! Gosh! So last year I was at a house party in Lekki where I was harrassed and almost sexually assaulted and asked to leave around 1 am because I refused to sleep with one of them. I was stranded and had to start

looking for Uber to take me home. But all of them were rejecting trips to the mainland and I was almost giving up when this guy stopped with his own Uber and asked me to join! Hah I was skeptical, but I no get choice. I had to join and when I told him I was going to the mainland he was like hes not going oh and I was like hah! God! But then he said I shouldnt worry that hell help me out. Guy! I sit down tight and was praying in my mind oh! Next thing he took me to a hotel and asked me if Im okay with spending the night there. I said please sir I dont have money to pay for hotel room oh haah! He just smiled.

.Anyways long story short; He paid 20k for a night at the hotel and he didnt even ask me for my number and I was like wow! I didnt even know hes a prince!! Wow!! See how I missed my chancelol

This whole big brother voting thing I dont do it but for this guy Ill

Ill vote with my last card mehn.

Please If you know his handle tag him cos I need to queue in the dm. A true prince!!! God will continue to show up for you like you showed up for me!!! Amen!!????????

Related
China's state media reacted on Thursday to what it called the "shocking" decision by Washington to shut down the Chinese consulate in Houston.



The U.S. ordered China to shutter its consulate in Houston by July 24, citing concerns that it was being used as an espionage hub.



Beijing immediately said it would retaliate, although details of the action it is planning have yet to emerge.



"The U.S. unreasonably asked China to close its consulate in Houston, giving staff there only 72 hours to leave the country," the Global Times newspaper, which has close ties to the ruling Chinese Communist Party's People's Daily, said in an opinion piece on Thursday.



"U.S. insanity is shocking," it said, warning that the move would upset the reciprocal arrangement that each country has five consulates on the other's territory.



"The November presidential election is driving Washington mad," it added.



Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the closure of the consulate "has broken the bridge of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples."



The United States currently has consulates in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenyang, Chengdu, Wuhan, Hong Kong, and Macau, as well as its embassy in Beijing.



China has its embassy in Washington, and consulates in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago, besides Houston.



'A serious escalation'



Wang earlier said the closure of the Houston consulate was a "serious escalation" of growing bilateral tensions, which have seen both sides impose sanctions on each other's media organizations after the U.S. said Chinese state media organizations were equivalent to foreign embassies.



The state-run English-language China Daily said the closure of the Houston consulate with three days' notice was "a major provocative move" on the part of the administration of President Donald Trump.



Trump has indicated that more Chinese consulates could be ordered to close.



Meanwhile, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post cited sources as saying that the U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu, the capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan, would likely be targeted for retaliation.



China's Houston consul general told reporters that the move was "unbelievable," and called for friendly ties between Beijing and Washington, which recently signaled an end to the past few decades of engagement with China, and a move to a more competitive approach in the bilateral relationship.



"Any war, whether hot or cold, between our two peoples would be a disaster for two major countries," he said.



U.S. media have quoted sources as saying that the move to shutter the consulate was triggered by China's denial of entry to 1,300 diplomats and their families from the United States during the coronavirus epidemic.



Other reports have cited fraud allegations against a Chinese scientist surnamed Tang, who turned out to be a member of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), but who had concealed this from the University of California at Davis, where she was a researcher.



Tang took refuge in the Chinese consulate in San Francisco after being charged with visa fraud last month.



Ding Shu-fan, honorary professor of the Institute of East Asian Studies at Taiwan's Chengchi University, said Chengdu was a likely target for Beijing's retaliation move.



"Sichuan is an important province in China for military science and technology, but ... the U.S. hasn't sent overseas students to study in universities and steal its technology or secrets," Ding said.



"Basically, closing the Chengdu consulate would be pretty much like closing the Guangzhou consulate."



Tensions may continue to rise



Hong Kong current affairs commentator Sang Pu said bilateral tensions, already inflamed by the U.S. response to a draconian security regime in Hong Kong, are likely to continue to rise.



"It seems that they aren't just trying to contain China or teach it a lesson, but more to take it down, to end the regime," Sang said. "What is stopping them?"



"There are voices in favor of appeasement, led by the European Union, which say no, this has to end somewhere, because the two sides still need to do business," he said.



"But I don't think they realize the strength of U.S. determination."



After being informed by the State Department late on Tuesday that the consulate in Houston had until 4:00 p.m. on Friday to vacate, Chinese officials were seen stuffing what appeared to be documents into burning barrels in the buildings courtyard, according to local media reports.



Emergency services responded to calls about billowing smoke in the area, but did not enter the compound, over which China has sovereignty.



The consulate in Houston, which mostly issues visas for applicants in the southern states, was the first to be opened in the U.S. by Beijing after Washington officially recognized the Peoples Republic of China in 1979.



The move is the latest in a series of Trump administration actions targeting China, ranging from sanctions over Chinas imposition of harsh security laws in Hong Kong and over human rights abuses against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang to public denunciations of Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea.



It also came on the same day that a U.S. grand jury indicted two hackers affiliated with Chinas Ministry of State Security for a 10-year global campaign in which they broke into the computer systems of hundreds of companies, and recently targeted firms researching a coronavirus vaccine.



Earlier this month, Trumps administration leveled sanctions against several top Chinese officials deemed responsible for rights violations in Xinjiang, including regional party secretary Chen Quanguo, under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.



The move, which marked the first time Washington had sanctioned a member of Chinas powerful Politburo, was followed by similar sanctions against Chinese officials seen to be responsible for recent heavy restrictions on the autonomy of Hong Kong.



Last week, Chinas Foreign Ministry announced retaliatory sanctions targeting several republican lawmakers, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback, and the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China advisory panel.



Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Man Hoi-tsan for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Sally Kammerer is an avid hiker who lives with her husband and three children in Silverdale, Washington, where she is an active member of her community and her church. She has published her new book The Secret at Gray Mountain: a riveting novel that keeps the pages turning until the stunning conclusion.

A man of a prestigious real estate firm is found dead, his grave an empty pool on one of his clients properties.

Richard, a friend and colleague, stumbled across the body in what seems a mere coincidence but leads to a trail of deceit and lies.

Michael has worked hard to earn her way as a well-known therapist in the greater Seattle area until she suddenly becomes a target, tied to the killing of her old friend Richards colleague. Giving the police a run for their money, she works to clear her name and unravel the truth of one mans senseless death and of love gone wrong in a murder mystery with origins decades in the making, all while piecing together her own fractured love life.

Published by Page Publishing, Sally Kammerers engrossing book is a, excellent choice for avid murder mystery readers.

Readers who wish to experience this engaging work can purchase The Secret at Gray Mountain 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.
The Bexar County Medical Society, which represents more than 5,000 physicians and medical students in the area, said in a statement Wednesday that schools should not reopen for face-to-face instruction until the COVID-19 positivity rate drops below five percent for at least 14 consecutive days.

The statement comes nearly a week after the Metropolitan Health District issued an order last Friday, requiring public schools to keep students out of classrooms until Labor Day. The Texas Education Agency also said on Friday it would allow school districts to postpone opening classrooms for up to eight weeks after they begin their fall semester, which would push the start of in-person instruction into October for most.

The Bexar County Medical Society said in the statement that having in-person instructions within the "next few weeks" is not recommended by their COVID-19 task force. The society said schools could possibly reopen for- face-to-face learning when there is a decline in new coronavirus cases for 14 consecutive days in the county, as measured by a seven-day rolling average.

"Public health officials have banned (to the extent permitted by law) large indoor group settings and interactions. Yet, at the same time, Texas public schools are being told to open for in-person classroom instructions within the next few weeks," the society wrote in its statement.

On Express-News.com: Metro Health orders San Antonio schools to stay closed until Labor Day

As of Wednesday, Bexar Countys positivity rate, which is the rate of COVID-19 tests that come back positive, was over 18 percent with a total of 33,555 coronavirus cases reported since the start of the pandemic. Over the past six weeks, the San Antonio community has experienced a dramatic rise in the cases, growing from four percent to 22 percent, the Bexar County Medical Society reports.

The society also noted the community and close contact transmission of the virus has also increased to 90 percent, adding that the rise in cases has caused a strain on local hospitals and healthcare professionals.

As of Wednesday, there are 1,113 COVID-19 patients in local hospitals, leaving 12 percent of staffed hospital beds available in the city. On average, 36 percent of hospitalized pediatric cases are infants up to 2 years old, according to local officials. Five percent of those hospitalized with the virus are 19 or younger.

"As physicians, we understand the importance of a safe, structured learning environment for children. In fact, as parents, we personally understand the challenges that distance learning presents for everyone involved," the society said. "... However, until safer conditions are achieved, it will be critical for the health of the entire community that schools continue online, distance instruction."

Priscilla Aguirre is a general assignment reporter for MySA.com | priscilla.aguirre@express-news.net | @CillaAguirre
Report: The Russian flag outside the Russian Embassy in London, England. Photo: PA Wire

The British government has denied a "catastrophic failure" by ministers over the threat of Russian influence in UK affairs.

Cabinet office minister Nicholas True said the government had been clear that Russia must "desist from its attacks on the UK and [its] allies".

Mr True told colleagues: "We will be resolute in defending our country, our democracy and our values from any such hostile state activity."

But former Labour minister George Foulkes said Tuesday's Intelligence and Security Committee report had revealed a "catalogue of confusion and indifference" in dealing with threats from Russia.

Mr Foulkes called for ministers to learn from past failings and produce a plan to tackle "interference in our democratic processes and the penetration of British society by Russia".

Mr True said: "I do not accept that there's a catastrophic failure, as you put it."

The British government established a cross-government Russia unit in 2017, bringing together diplomatic, intelligence and military capabilities, he said.

Labour former Cabinet minister Des Browne said it was no wonder that public trust in Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his government was in decline, and called for the report's recommendations to be implemented.

Mr True, however, said the government had given a full response to the ISC report and insisted it was not necessary to hold a retrospective inquiry.

Former Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell said the government had been "negligent of its responsibility to guard the democratic values of this country", and accused ministers of delaying publication of the report.

He said the failure to hold an inquiry into "Russian meddling" would make it seem the government had something to hide.

Mr True said he did not accept the "narrative about delay", stating the intelligence committee had been reformed, published its report and the government had responded at the first opportunity.

Independent crossbencher Robin Janvrin, a former member of the committee, hailed the report as a "wake up call" to the government about the covert threat posed by Russia.

Labour's Dianne Hayter said the government had taken its "eye off the ball" and "suppressed" the report, another allegation Mr True denied.

The government had long recognised an "enduring and significant threat" posed by Russia, he added.

Former chief of the defence staff Nick Houghton said the report showed that the UK's democratic processes and political system were "unacceptably vulnerable to malign Russian influence".

Tory Andrew Robathan said the report suggested that some peers were "perhaps influencers" in the Russian debate.

He called for an investigation into the "links" some peers had with the Putin regime.

Mr True told him: "I think it is extremely important that we should be on our guard - all of us - against the activities of the Putin regime."
Police in Portugal have reopened their investigation into the rape of Irishwoman Hazel Behan after she came forward to say she believes her attacker may be Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner.

Ms Behan (37) was working as a holiday representative in Praia da Rocha when she was viciously assaulted in June 2004, two weeks before her 21st birthday.

She told police her attacker was about 6ft 1in tall, had "blond eyebrows, piercing blue eyes" and spoke English with a German accent.

The victim believes Brueckner, a key suspect in the Madeleine McCann case, could be her attacker after she noted similarities between his 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Praia da Luz and her own ordeal.

Sky News reported yesterday that Portuguese detectives collected archived files earlier this week in order to reopen the case.

Ms Behan made a statement earlier this year to London Police after Brueckner was identified as a suspect in the McCann case. They said they were taking her case very seriously and would be contacting Portuguese police.

Noeline Blackwell, lawyer and head of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, said it is "heartening" that police are reopening their investigation.

"One of the things that is going to make progress for us as an Irish and European society is somebody who is the victim can depend on the cooperation between European states and can depend on a high level of knowledge in the area of sexual violence.

"I know from reading reports that she was unhappy with the initial investigation, and what we can do now is hope that progress can now be made."

Brueckner is currently serving a 15-month jail term for drugs trafficking and has applied for early release. He has denied any involvement in Madeleine McCann's disappearance.

There is a 15-year statute of limitations in Portugal, which may impede any charges being brought in Ms Behan's case if police do find evidence.

Ms Behan, who waived her right to anonymity, told The Guardian last month: "My mind was blown when I read how he had attacked a woman in 2005, both the tactics and the methods he used, the tools he had with him, how well he had planned it out.

"I puked, to be honest with you, as reading about it took me right back to my experience."

"This woman was the victim of a horrific crime and she has suffered a lot. It is a matter for police all over Europe to do their best to bring the person who carried out this crime to justice," she said.

"I think if the police had done their job investigating what happened to me, if this is indeed the same man that attacked the American and abducted Madeleine McCann, they might have prevented the attack on her and Madeleine would now be at home with her parents."
A developer that will build new private homes on a former public housing site in North Melbourne stands to get $10,000 a day in compensation from the Andrews government if delays caused by unexpected asbestos removal continue.

Filings in a Supreme Court case brought by neighbouring residents over asbestos found at the North Melbourne project follow months of delay on the partially demolished Abbotsford Street housing estate.

The 10,900 square metre development site in North Melbourne where public housing once stood. Credit:Jason South

It is the latest headache in public housing to befall the state government, which was last month forced to lock up hundreds of tenants in its North Melbourne and Flemington towers after a coronavirus outbreak that has now spread to 293 people.

In October, Housing Minister Richard Wynne signed a deal with developer MAB Corporation to rebuild the Abbotsford Street estate, where 112 public units built in the 1950s are being demolished. They will be replaced with 170 apartments for private buyers and 133 community housing units for the disadvantaged.
NEW YORK, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Historically, compared to other ethnic or racial groups, Hispanics have been at decreased risk for suicide ideation, attempts, and death in the U.S. However, suicide rates among U.S. Hispanics have steadily risen since 2000. Despite the population size, suicide among Hispanics remains relatively understudied and little is known about how to prevent suicide in this population. This is one of the many reasons the National Latino Behavioral Health Association and the American Foundation For Suicide Prevention have formally partnered to advance Latino mental health and suicide prevention efforts to help inform, educate, and bring awareness to this public health crisis.

"NLBHA is proud to partner with the American Federal on Suicide Prevention to bring the expertise and experience of our national organizations to work collaboratively on the prevention of suicide in our nation and in the Latino community. Together we can leverage our mutual efforts to save lives and prevent the loss of human life," said Fredrick Sandoval, MPA, NLBHA Executive Director. NLBHA's vision is to reduce the great disparities that exist in the areas of funding, access, and quality of care for Latino consumers and families needing mental health and substance abuse services and supports and NLBHA's mission is to influence national behavioral health policy, eliminate disparities in funding and access to services, and improve the quality of services and treatment outcomes for Latino populations. Suicide prevention is one of NLBHA's 2019-2024 Policy Priorities.

"This partnership will help address the need for resources and research to dramatically improve access to mental health care and to prevent suicide in diverse communities. As part of our organization's three-year strategy, AFSP wants to ensure that our mental health and suicide prevention programs, locally and nationally, serve and support the unique needs of underrepresented groups, like those in the Latino community," said Robert Gebbia, CEO of AFSP. "We believe the only way to accomplish this is to work together with those from the community, that's why we are excited about our new partnership with NLBHA."

As of 2010, the Hispanic population in the United States (U.S.) reached 50.5 million, making Hispanics the largest ethnic or racial minority group in the country. The U.S. Hispanic population is expected to double by 2060, constituting over 25 percent of the nation's population. Historically, compared to other ethnic or racial groups, Hispanics have been at decreased risk for suicide ideation, attempts, and death in the U.S. However, suicide rates among U.S. Hispanics have steadily risen since 2000.

In 2015, suicide was the 11th leading cause of death among Hispanics of all ages (a rate of 5.84 per 100,000) in the U.S., but the 3rd leading cause of death among Hispanics aged 10-34. Compared to Non-Hispanic Whites, Puerto Ricans and Mexican Americans have fewer suicides annually per case of major depression. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2017 youth risk behavior surveillance survey , 10.5% of Latina adolescents aged 1024 years in the U.S. attempted suicide in the past year, compared to 7.3% of white female, 5.8% of Latino, and 4.6% white male teens.

THE AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR SUICIDE PREVENTION:

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is dedicated to saving lives and bringing hope to those affected by suicide. AFSP creates a culture that's smart about mental health through education and community programs, develops suicide prevention through research and advocacy, and provides support for those affected by suicide. Led by CEO Robert Gebbia and headquartered in New York, and with a public policy office in Washington, DC, AFSP has local chapters in all 50 states with programs and events nationwide. Learn more about AFSP in its latest Annual Report, and join the conversation on suicide prevention by following AFSP on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram , and YouTube .

THE NATIONAL LATINO BEHAVIORAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION:

The National Latino Behavioral Health Association's vision is to reduce the great disparities that exist in the areas of funding, access, and quality of care for Latino consumers and families needing mental health and substance abuse services and supports. Our mission of NLBHA is to influence national behavioral health policy, eliminate disparities in funding and access to services, and improve the quality of services and treatment outcomes for Latino populations. NLBHA manages the National Hispanic/Latino Addictions and Prevention Technology Centers, operates the Behavioral Health Interpreter and Promotores de Bienestar Training programs.

SOURCE American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

Related Links

http://www.afsp.org


Residents in Melbourne's locked down suburbs can simply drive through police checkpoints without telling officers where they are going.

Eve Black, from Melbourne, shared footage on Thursday of herself driving past an officer at a COVID-19 police barricade.

When a police officer asked her where she was headed and why she was attempting to leave, Ms Black simply told him she didn't need to share that information.

Instead of sharing her personal information, Ms Black asked the officer whether she'd 'disturbed the peace' by trying to leave her town.

'No,' the officer responded. 'I just asked what your reason for leaving today is.'

Ms Black responded: 'I don't need to tell you that. I don't know you.'

Eve Black, from Melbourne, shared footage on Thursday of herself driving past an officer at a COVID-19 police barricade

Police stop and question drivers at a checkpoint on July 8, 2020 in Albury near the NSW-Victoria border

Initially, the officer persisted. 'Where have you come from,' he asked again.

'I don't need to answer your questions. Have I committed a crime? Have I committed a crime?' she asked twice.

Instead of answering her question, the officer waved Ms Black through the checkpoint.

'Just keep going,' he said as he let her and her passenger drive past.

Ms Black admitted she was 'nervous as heck' as she approached the checkpoint, but encouraged her friends and family to 'know their rights' during lockdown.

'I just read from the sheet and he could obviously see it wasn't worth the trouble,' she explained.

When a police officer asked her where she was headed and why she was attempting to leave, Ms Black simply told him she didn't need to share that information

COVID-19 checkpoints have been set up in and around Victoria in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus

COVID-19 checkpoints have been set up in and around Victoria in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus. Mr Bartolo argued they should not be legal and there was no consultation with the people before establishing them

The sheet in question explained the exact phrases people attempting to leave lockdown should use when stopped by officers.

The video is one of many circulating on social media where drivers encourage people to challenge the lockdowns, which have been imposed to stem the spread of COVID-19.

A Victorian driver who was pulled over at a lockdown checkpoint argued with police for 20 minutes about the legality of the operation, before claiming COVID-19 was not contagious and refusing to hand over his licence.

James Bartolo shared footage of the altercation on Facebook on Sunday after he was pulled over at a routine checkpoint while travelling in an unregistered Mustang.

He refused to hand over his licence - which police later learned was suspended - and eventually told the officers that they'd pulled him over unlawfully by following 'dopey Dan's false legislation', in reference to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.

Mr Bartolo (pictured) revealed he did not believe coronavirus was contagious and argued that it was a hoax

Mr Bartolo revealed he did not believe coronavirus was contagious and argued that it was a hoax.

The deadly respiratory infection has killed 109 Australians - and at least 571,000 worldwide - and Victoria is currently grappling with a second outbreak.

Mr Andrews ordered metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire back into a second lockdown in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus.

'Who consented to that?' Mr Bartolo asked the officers when they attempted to explain what it is they were doing. 'Go arrest your Freemason scumbag leaders and politicians.'

'Do your actual jobs rather than harassing innocent people like me. Stop being an embarrassment to society,' he said.

The leader of the 'Conscious Truth Network' told police they'd been encouraged to set up the checkpoints under 'false allegations' made by the nation's leaders in an extraordinary 20 minute debate

Barricades have been installed along some of Coolangatta's streets to help stop people crossing the Queensland-NSW border without going through the appropriate checks

'You've pulled me over unlawfully and started to claim... that I've done something wrong. I'm not the one standing around with weapons and harassing people and pulling them over according to dopey Dan's false legislation.'

Mr Bartolo went on to begin ranting about the officers' role in facilitating the COVID-19 lockdown in Victoria.

'Do you know the virus isn't actually contagious?' he asked. 'That has been scientifically proven.

'This whole COVID-19 is a f**king hoax. It's a scam.'

Frustration mounted between both parties as another police officer joined the discussion and instructed Mr Bartolo to pull over to the side to let other cars behind him through.

Following further discussions, the officer conceded.

The cop explained to Mr Bartolo that he would be charged for further offences relating to hindering an officer in performing his job, but then allowed him to leave.
BISMARCK, N.D.  The federal government is asking a judge to dismiss a lawsuit from the state of North Dakota that seeks to recoup $38 million for policing the monthslong Dakota Access Pipeline protests almost four years ago.

The state filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last July, and a hearing on the governments request to dismiss it was held Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Bismarck, the Bismarck Tribune reported.

Much of the hearing focused on the fact that protesters did not have a permit to camp on land managed by the Corps and on the Corps effort to create a designated protest area, called a free speech zone, in 2016.

Judge Daniel Traynor, who is presiding over the case, said he would rule on the motion to dismiss the case in the coming weeks.

Thousands of protesters gathered in 2016 and 2017 during construction near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The $3.8 billion pipeline runs beneath the Missouri River near the reservation. The tribe draws its water from the river and fears pollution. Texas-based pipeline developer Energy Transfer maintains the pipeline is safe.

During the protests, some demonstrators camped on land managed by the Corps, which also manages the river. Some were on land belonging to tribe members.

The Corps was faced with an unprecedented event, said Grant Treaster, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, which is representing the Corps.

North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem noted that the state was wracked by over seven months of catastrophe as a result of the protests that occurred.

The state argued in court documents that the Corps encouraged demonstrators to protest when it tried to set up a free speech zone on nearby Corps land and by processing protesters applications for a permit to use the land, in violation of policies restricting the use of such land to recreational purposes.

In 2017, North Dakota received $25 million to help offset some costs of policing the protests, which included a $10 million grant from a Justice Department assistance program and a $15 million donation from Energy Transfer.

A judge recently ordered the Dakota Access pipeline shut down for additional environmental review more than three years after it began pumping oil.
New Delhi: India on Thursday said that the Indian mission in Kabul is providing the Afghan Hindus and Sikhs visas to come to India, adding that their request for Indian citizenship is also being "examined and acted upon" based on "rules and policies".

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Anurag Shrivastava said that the Centre has been receiving requests from these communities that "they want to move to India and settle down here" and despite the COVID-19 pandemic, "we are facilitating the requests".

While no details have been given on the rules, India could give citizenship to these Afghan minorities under the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 that gives citizenship, from December 31, 2014, to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian religious minorities from three countries--Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

The development comes days after Delhi-based Afghan Sikh Nidan Singh was abducted in the eastern Afghan province of Paktika that borders Pakistan. He was later released. India views the "recent spurt of attacks on Hindus and Sikh community" in Afghanistan by "terrorists at the behest of external supporters", indicating Pakistan's involvement.

The wife of kidnapped Afghan Sikh had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting for assistance for the release of her husband and also grant citizenship. Mahrwanti wrote to PM Modi on June 25 saying, "I request you to kindly repatriate him to New Delhi immediately after his release and grant us Indian citizenship at the earliest."

Singh was kidnapped from Gurdwara Tala Sahib, Chamkani in Afghanistan. He was there to maintain the Gurdwara where according to history Guru Nanak Dev, founder of Sikhism had visited. He was the lone person managing and performing community service in the Gurdwara.

Singh and his family of six--wife, two sons and three daughters had moved to India in 1992 due to civil unrest in Afghanistan and have been staying in New Delhi as refugees. He was a cook by profession in Delhi and used to earn a livelihood by undertaking meal orders for community kitchen like langer.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has urged African Union chairperson and South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, to secure the release of a Zimbabwean investigative journalist, who was arrested after uncovering alleged COVID-19 shady deals, said to be linked to senior state officials in Zimbabwe, including President Emmerson Mnangagwas family.

In a letter signed by CPJ director William Bird, the organization described the arrest and subsequent detention of Hopwell Chinono as an affront to freedom of expression and media.

We call on you as Chair of the African Union, and as the President of the Republic of South Africa to use all available mechanisms to help secure the immediate release of jailed Zimbabwean investigative journalist Hopewell Chinono, and to ensure that journalists across the continent are respected as essential workers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and are not jailed for their work.

CPJ said the arrest of Chinono and others is a violation of the Principles on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa adopted in 2019 by the African Unions Commission on Human Rights and Peoples Rights.

It is our view that the arrest of Mr Chinono constitutes an egregious breach of these principles and cannot go unchallenged ...

CPJ said indications are that Chinono was arrested for his reporting on corruption.

Such appalling behaviour by the Zimbabwean authorities cannot be countenanced. In the midst of the COVID19 crisis, the importance of media being allowed to do their jobs cannot be underestimated. Media fulfil an essential role both in terms of ensuring accurate fair news and information is communicated to the public, but they also have to report on wrong-doing and those who seek to use the chaos of the health crisis for their own evil ends.

At least two journalists have died after exposure to COVID-19 in custody, including Egyptian journalist, Mohamed Monir and Honduran journalist, David Romero.

We repeat our earlier call to African heads of state to release jailed journalists amid the COVID19 pandemic. Mr President, we applaud you for recognising the media as an essential service at the start of the strict lockdown in South Africa. The media were one of the few who were allowed to continue with their work. This was a critical step and has ensured that the public has been able to rely on news media for accurate and credible information.

We ask that in the spirit of this recognition you work with the AU to ensure that media across the continent are recognised as an essential service and that they play a vital role in efforts to help combat the COVID-19 crisis and to maintain democracy.

Chinono has been charged with incitement to commit public violence and inciting the public to commit public violence. Non-governmental organizations, Transform Zimbabwe party led by arrested leader Jacob Ngarivhume and other political parties are planning to stage a public protest against corruption and the deteriorating economic situation in Zimbabwe on July 31st.

Chinono was set to spend his fourth night in police custody Thursday after authorities postponed his bail hearing until Friday morning, according to one of his lawyers, Doug Coltart.

Earlier this year, CPJ and 80 other groups issued a letter to African heads of state, urging them to release all journalists held for their work amid the COVID-19 pandemic. On July 13, Egyptian reporter Monior died after contracting the coronavirus while held in pretrial detention for his work.

Reports from his Chinonos lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, indicate that he was abducted from his Chisipite home in Harare.

Mnangagwa recently fired the countrys health minister following allegations of improperly securing COVID-19 essential equipment without following laid down tender procedures.

The government signed a $60 million COVID-19 deal with Drax International for the supply of COVID-19 test kits and other equipment. Delish Nguwayo, who was recently arrested and granted $50,000 bail, like former Health Minister, Obadiah Moyo.

Nguwaya was accused of misrepresenting to the government that his company was a medical firm capable of supplying huge numbers of COVID-19 medical supplies through Drax SAGL and Drax International.

Some media organizations linked him to the Mnangagwa family. The government dissociated the first family from the shady deal.
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Larsen & Toubro (L&T) share price fell in the early trade on July 23, a day after the company reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 303 crore for the quarter ended June 2020, a drop of 79 percent compared to the previous year.

"The consolidated PAT attributable to shareholders of the company, including profits from discontinued business, is Rs 303 crore, reflecting a decline of 79 percent vis-a-vis PAT of Rs 1,473 crore for the corresponding quarter of the previous year," L&T said.

The company's consolidated gross revenue came at Rs 21,260 crore for Q1FY21, registering a YoY decline of 28 percent.

The company's EBITDA came at Rs 1,620.5 crore and the margin at 7.6 percent.

CLSA | Rating: Buy | Target: Cut to Rs 1,280 from Rs 1,290 per share

The Q1 surprised with core engineering & construction order inflow of Rs 13,700 crore.

The broking house has cut FY21-22 EPS by 2-7 percent on the shutdown of Hyderabad metro till September. However, it sees the company as a good proxy for domestic capex, CNBC-TV18 said.

The company has a credible strategy to improve growth and RoE and it is at the cusp of the next domestic capex cycle upturn, while the stock is inexpensive at current levels, it added.

Dolat Capital | Rating: Buy

It has maintained 'buy' on the stock, saying the company reported decent performance in a tough quarter.

According to the research house, the order inflows were at Rs 235 billion, with 38 percent inflows from international orders, while infra orders were at Rs 113 billion.

The focus will be whether the company can give a guidance now or defer it to Q2. The working capital situation, which was elevated in Q4, they have built ample liquidity buffers, it added.

Macquarie | Rating: Outperform | Target: Rs 1,340

The core E&C was better than expected. The credit provisions in L&T Financial impacted earnings, however, the core E&C revenue & margin were a surprise.

EPC order inflows were expectedly down while the order book was healthy at Rs 3 lakh crore, CNBC-TV18 reported.

Motilal Oswal | Rating: Buy

The company's revenue declined 28 percent YoY to Rs 213 billion and was in line with Motilal Oswal's expectation.

Its core EBITDA was down 71 percent to Rs 4.4 billion, 49 percent ahead of its expectation. The core EBITDA margin came in at 3.9 percent against the expectation of 2.4 percent.

The order inflow declined 39 percent to Rs 236 billion, while the order book grew 4 percent to Rs 3 trillion.

At 0917 hours, Larsen & Toubro was quoting at Rs 916, down Rs 4.95, or 0.54 percent, on the BSE.
Ireland West Airport has welcomed the announcement of 1,000,524 funding from the Department of Transport, Tourism & Sport which will go towards capital investment in the areas of safety and security.

The main body of funding of 569,964 is to support the completion of the rehabilitation of the 2,400 metre runway at the airport.

The airport invested close to 3 million to complete the project in addition to the exchequer funding.

Also read: Aurivo marks Farm Safety Week 2020

The overlay, which included a complete resurfacing and the installation of new ground lighting systems is required to ensure that the runway continues to meet the strict regulations governing the operation and specification of runways at major airports.

The funding of 430,560 supports critical safety related projects which includes - replacement of Aeronautical Ground Lighting on the airports runway, critical Airfield maintenance and ground works and the refurbishment & the upgrade of Electrical Infrastructure AGL & Air Traffic Control (ATC) Communication, Navigation & Surveillance (CNS) Systems.

Also read: Center Parcs Longford Forest granted planning for construction of inflatable floating play area

Arthur French, Chairman, Ireland West Airport said, "We welcome todays announcement of funding by Eamon Ryan, Minister for Climate Action, Communication Networks and Transport and also Hildegarde Naughton, Minister of State at the Department of Transport with responsibility for Aviation.

"The funding supports the airport in undertaking critical safety and security related projects and ensures the airport maintains the highest standards of regulatory compliance in these areas.

"We very much look forward to meeting with and working closely with Ministers Ryan and Naughton and their respective departments in delivering on the recommendations of the recently published Aviation Taskforce Report to support the recovery and sustainability of regional connectivity both during and post Covid-19."

Also read: Gardai urge Longford caravan and camper van owners to be vigilant following spate of thefts
LafargeHolcim Richmond plant secures biosolids fuel supply

23 July 2020

LafargeHolcim has signed a long-term contract with CRD to provide a reliable, steady and safe supply of biosolids to use as fuel in the company's cement manufacturing at the Richmond plant, Canada.



Supported by the Government of BC's CleanBC Industry Fund, LafargeHolcim's Western Canadian Geocycle team received CAD753,000 (US$562.7) in funding for the capital investment in a silo designed to co-process biosolids as low carbon fuel for the Richmond cement kiln.



The silo and associated systems will receive, store and feed biosolids into the kiln. Biosolids, when replacing coal, will reduce GHGs by approximately 5000tof CO 2 e per year. The biosolids will also increase the plant's thermal substitution rate (TSR) significantly. This will enhance the capability of the plant's new low-carbon fuel system that is currently handling huge amounts of material that will no longer be sent to landfill as a result.

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Sudan is in line with Egypt's position on prioritising reaching a binding deal over the next meetings

Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said on Thursday that reaching a binding agreement on the filling and operating of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is a necessity for paving the way for future cooperation on the Nile, official Sudanese news agency SUNA reported.

Hamdok also reiterated his call for all parties to abstain from any unilateral actions that would have any negative impact on the talks led by the African Union.

The Sudanese premier had said at a press conference on Tuesday that there are no other alternatives on the dam issue other than resuming negotiations. He said that Khartoum's position has always been negotiating in good faith and with a strong political will to reach a comprehensive deal over the filing and operating of the dam that would be acceptable for all parties.

At a summit on Tuesday organised by the African Union, the leaders of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia agreed to resume technical talks on the GERD.

Ethiopia surprised the parties by announcing that the process of beginning filling the dams reservoir set for this year has been completed successfully.

Egypt has also agreed with Ethiopia and Sudan to prioritise reaching a binding deal on the filling and operating of the GERD, according to a statement by the Egyptian presidency on Tuesday.

The Sudanese prime minister also issued a decree on Thursday forming a high committee to follow the developments concerning the GERD.

The new committee is chaired by the minister of the cabinet affairs and includes the justice minister, the irrigation minister, the foreign minister, the director of the general intelligence agency and the director of the military intelligence agency.

The committee will follow up on the GERD negotiations issue in order to boost Sudans strategic interests, including boosting the expected benefits of the dam to the country.

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ALTON  Nina Samar Womack, the daughter of Laniesha Ramsey, recently was awarded the Lee C. Cox scholarship from the Friends of the 60s/Alton Black Alumni Association.

Womack is a 2020 Alton High School graduate whose honors and awards included National Junior Honor Society; 150 and 300 hour Youth Awardee for volunteer hours at the Veteran Affairs Medical Center; Honor Roll and High Honor Roll.
Teachers set for biggest pay rise in fifteen years

Teachers on the Island are set to receive their biggest pay rise in fifteen years.

It comes after Gavin Williamson, the UK Education Secretary, accepted all recommendations from the independent School Teachers Review Body (STRB) on Tuesday.

Isle of Man teachers are paid the same as those in England and their annual pay award, once published in a separate document called the School Teachers Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD), has been implemented by the Isle of Man Government in the same way since 1992.

The accepted recommendations will mean the starting salary for new teachers will increase by 5.5% and the maximum of the main pay range and the upper and lower boundaries of all other pay and allowances increased by 2.75%. The recommendations are equivalent to a 3.1% increase in the overall pay bill, 2% of which is already included in budgets and the remaining 1.1% will be found from within existing budgets.

The pay increase is equivalent to 1,250 on average for teachers and 1,970 on average for headteachers and will, once confirmed in the STPCD, be implemented on the Island from 1 September 2020.

Main scale teachers on the Island received 3.5% pay award in 2018 and 2.75% in 2019.
Sarah Ferguson has wowed royal fans after announcing her plans to read a book called 'Love You Forever' on what would have been her 34th wedding anniversary to Prince Andrew.

The Duchess of York, 60, has been sharing videos filmed from her home during lockdown for her series Story Time With Fergie and Friends, which she shares on YouTube.

After Fergie announced today's book would be Robert Munsch's Love You Forever on Instagram, royal fans couldn't help but comment on the choice, with one posting a winky face and writing: 'Fitting book for this date.'

Today would have marked Fergie's 34th wedding anniversary to Prince Andrew, with the former couple marrying at Westminster Abbey on 23 July 1986.

Sarah Ferguson, 60, delighted royal fans when she announced she would be reading a book called Love You Forever on the 34th anniversary of her wedding date to Prince Andrew, 60

Some social media users couldn't help but point out the choice, with one royal fan writing: 'Fitting book for this date'

Fergie has been very dedicated to her channel since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, sharing a video every day with her YouTube followers.

Announcing her choice of book today, she shared a snap on Instagram, writing: 'Today at 4pm on Fergie and Friends I am going to be reading Love You Forever by Robert Munsch and my guest friend is @jonathanbremner.'

Fans appeared delighted with her choice of book, with one commenting: 'Ooooh that book.'

Another posted a crying emoji alongside several hearts, writing: 'Love your story time.'

The Duke and Duchess of York continue to live together at their home The Royal Lodge in Windsor, despite divorcing in 1996

One added: 'Love that book,' while a fourth commented: 'Can't wait, we love storytime.'

The former couple married in July 1986 in Westminster Abbey, before going on to split six years later and divorcing in 1996.

She still lives with him in an unusual domestic arrangement at Royal Lodge in Windsor, and has never dismissed rumours they may remarry.

The Duke and Duchess have stayed 'best friends' for their two daughters Princess Eugenie, 30, and Princess Beatrice, 31, and spent lockdown together.

Sarah married Prince Andrew in Westminster Abbey on July 23 1986, with today marking what would have been their 34th anniversary

Their wedding anniversary comes days after the couple watched their eldest daughter Princess Beatrice, 31, tie the knot to Italian beau Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi at the Royal Chapel of All Saints at Royal Lodge on Friday.

Beatrice's wedding was initially due to take place on May 29, but had to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

She eventually decided to have an intimate ceremony in front of 20 close ones, which included her mother Sarah, father Prince Andrew, grandmother the Queen and grandfather the Duke of Edinburgh.

Royal expert Jennie Bond said it was a 'sign of Sarah's unwavering loyalty to Prince Andrew' that she stayed out of the pictures released to the public.

Social media users flooded Fergie's Instagram comments, with many praising her choice of book

Earlier this year, royal expert Robert Jobson told FEMAIL that Fergie and Andrew relied on one another for support.

Speaking about their close connection, he explained: 'Sarah has been a rock for Andrew at this time.

'She is his number one supporter and at this tricky time for him she has been somebody he could turn to.

'They have remained very good friends whilst they raise their children and her continued support of her ex husband shows what a mature relationship and good appreciation of each other they have.'
This is big: Likely the largest bribery, money-laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people in the state of Ohio. Thats how David DeVillers, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, characterized the accusations against Republican Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, who was arrested Tuesday along with four associates. They are accused of carrying out a $60 million bribery scheme on behalf of FirstEnergy Corp. to install Householder as speaker, pass a $1.3 billion bailout of the companys nuclear plants and enrich themselves. Jeremy Pelzer has details of the complaint, which also named Householders chief political aide Jeff Longstreth, and lobbyists Matt Borges, Neil Clark and Juan Cespedes. The quintet made an initial court appearance.

The bigger picture: The scheme outlined by federal prosecutors described Ohios political system being corrupted by an elaborate scheme funded by FirstEnergy, Andrew Tobias writes. The story walks through the episodes three chapters: one that helped elect Householder as speaker, the second that passed the bailout, and the third that defended it from a well-financed repeal effort.

Chaos is a ladder: Householders arrest makes an already crazy political climate in Ohio even crazier as the election nears, Seth Richardson writes. The political mess isnt limited just to Householder and Republicans, but to everyone who helped put him in power and pass House Bill 6.

Read all about it: The 82-page criminal complaint against Householder and the others goes into great detail about the alleged scheme, Eric Heisig reports. You can read the whole thing here.

Round two: It isnt the first time Borges has been implicated in a public corruption case. As John Caniglia reports, the lobbyist and former Ohio GOP chairman nearly 16 years ago pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor related to his job as chief of staff for then-state Treasurer Joe Deters. The charge was the unauthorized use of a public office for securing preferential treatment for brokers who made campaign contributions.

Whos who: Heres the lowdown on Householder, Longstreth, Borges, Clark and Cespedes and the accusations against them.

No charge: Robin Goist looked for answers to a couple of the obvious questions about the criminal case: Why wasnt FirstEnergy named or charged? And could charges be coming?

Low energy: FirstEnergy stock took a big dive after reports emerged about the bribery allegations. Evan MacDonald has details.

Green light: Environmental groups are hoping for a repeal of the controversial nuclear bailout bill thats at the center of the bribery case, Emily Bamforth reports. House Bill 6 gutted the states energy efficiency and green energy standards.

In chorus: Gov. Mike DeWine led a group of Republican officeholders who called for Householders resignation. Per Richardson and Pelzer, also joining in were Senate President Larry Obhof, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Attorney General Dave Yost and Ohio Republican Party Chairman Jane Timken. Democratic House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes and Senate Minority Leader Kenny Yuko likewise called for Householder to step down. Householders House leadership team, meanwhile, said in a joint statement they were reviewing the allegations.

Sticking with it: Householder told reporters outside the federal courthouse Tuesday that he would not resign, Pelzer reports.

Energy money: While the criminal complaint details secret money transactions, Householders campaign was also a recipient of FirstEnergy money publicly reported. Since 2015, Householders committee has received $38,708 in donations from the FirstEnergy Political Action Committee, reports Rich Exner. Other energy industry money making its way to Householders campaign included $18,700 from Ohio Coal PAC, $17,500 from American Electric Power Committee for Responsible Government, $12,7000 from Murray Energy Political Action Committee and $12,700 from Murrays CEO, Robert Murray.

By the way: LaRose announced Tuesday he had referred apparent campaign violations described in the federal charging documents to the Ohio Elections Commission for further review.

Extra dose of corruption: The huge news about Householder prompted us to record a bonus episode of our news podcast, This Week in the CLE. We had a lively discussion on the criminal complaint and what it means for Ohio politicians.

In other news....coronavirus numbers drop: When Ohio reported 1,047 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, it marked the smallest increase in cases in more than two weeks, Exner reports. Yet the number of patients in Ohio hospitals did edge up some Tuesday, the trends show.

Ohio is no Texas, Florida or Arizona: A dive into the coronavirus numbers for Ohio and three states where cases spiked sharply lately offers an encouraging outlook for the Buckeye State. So far, evidence suggests that Ohio is nowhere close to Arizona, Florida or Texas for rising cases. And Ohio isnt on a path that way either. Exner broke down the numbers of a per-capita basis, finding that the four states were once on a similar path, but the others are more than three or four times ahead of Ohio.

Not a waste of time: An initial round of sampling of the states municipal sewage and wastewater treatment systems to determine the presence of coronavirus fragments is getting underway, Julie Washington reports. The data could provide an early warning of coronavirus outbreaks.

Knocking TikTok: Holmes County GOP Rep. Bob Gibbs joined calls for President Donald Trump to restrict the Chinese video sharing app TikTok on the grounds that China could use it for espionage against the United States, writes Sabrina Eaton. Gibbs and two dozen other Republican members of Congress sent Trump a letter last week that said TikToks data collection practices and Chinese laws that require all companies that operate in China to share user data with Chinese Communist Party authorities present a very real threat to U.S. national security.

Breaking China: A defense authorization bill the U.S. House of Representatives adopted Tuesday contains three amendments by Rocky River GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez that would curb World Bank funding to China, crack down on Chinese-government backed Confucius Institutes at American universities and delist Chinese companies from U.S. stock exchanges if the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board cant audit them. It is past time that the United States take action to recalibrate our relationship with the (Chinese Communist Party) and hold them accountable, said a statement from Gonzalez.

Birthdays

State Rep. Bill Dean

Straight from the Source

"It is a shocking day: The only thing that is clear to me is that pay-to-play is rampant in Ohio. Utility money is the grease of the machine of the Statehouse."

-Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio

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.
A Jeju Air jet is parked in front of an Eastar Jet plane at Incheon International Airport, July 7. / Yonhap



Eastar Jet with 1,600 employees on brink of bankruptcy



By Jun Ji-hye



Jeju Air has abandoned its acquisition of cash-strapped Eastar Jet due mainly to growing uncertainties in the aviation industry caused by the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, officials of the low-cost carrier (LCC) said Thursday.



Following Jeju Air's decision to back out of its share purchase agreement signed with Eastar Holdings, NH Investment & Securities analyst Jeong Yeon-seung said, "Eastar Jet, which has fallen into a state of capital impairment, is highly likely to go bankrupt."



This would result in about 1,600 employees of Eastar Jet losing their jobs.



A Jeju Air official said it was regrettable that the firm's acquisition plan has failed to come to fruition despite the government's intention to offer support and its efforts to mediate.



"We made the decision because the uncertainty that Jeju Air needs to bear is too much, and this could hurt our shareholders and other interested parties," the official said.



In March, Jeju Air signed a deal with Eastar Holdings to acquire a controlling 51.17 percent stake in Eastar Jet for 54.5 billion won.



But the procedures to complete the acquisition have since made slow progress, as the two air carriers have been at odds during their negotiations over a number of thorny issues, including responsibility for unpaid wages for Eastar Jet employees.



Eastar Jet's debts, estimated at about 170 billion won ($142 million), include the company's delayed payments for fuel and the use of airport facilities as well as the unpaid wages that total about 24 billion won.



On June 29, Eastar Jet founder Lee Sang-jik, who is also a lawmaker of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, announced a decision made by the founding family members to contribute all their shares to "save" the debt-ridden budget carrier.



Lee's son and daughter collectively own a 38.6 percent stake in Eastar Jet through the firm's holding company, Eastar Holdings. The daughter who is the CEO of the holding company holds a 33.3 percent stake in it, while the son holds 66.7 percent.



Rep. Lee said his family would "donate" their entire stake, worth around 41 billion won, to the troubled company.



This, however, failed to resolve the situation, and the founding family members have been facing suspicions that Eastar Holdings acquired its stocks in the budget carrier using illegitimate means.



On July 1, Jeju Air sent a de facto ultimatum to Eastar Jet, asking it to settle all of its debts in the following 10 working days to proceed with the deal.



As Eastar Jet failed to meet the conditions by the July 15 deadline, Jeju Air said the following day that it "has the right to cancel the share purchase contract."



KB Securities analyst Kang Seong-jin said Jeju Air seemed to make the right decision, saying, "It was expected the acquisition of Eastar Jet would impose a heavy financial burden on Jeju Air."



Regarding the issue, an Eastar Jet official said, "We will mobilize every possible means to resolve the situation."



Airline industry officials said the two companies are expected to undergo court battles over responsibility for the cancellation of the acquisition deal.


LOBAMBA- Political parties will never rule the Kingdom of Eswatini. They will try, but will never succeed.

This was said by Prince Masitsela during the Somhlolo National Festival of Praise, which is a celebration of the birthday of King Sobhuza II, yesterday. King Sobhuza II was the first Eswatini King to rule after the country gained independence from Britain in 1968. The prince stated that when the King sent emissaries to request for independence from Britain, he (the King) was told that the country would be given to someone who would be elected by the people. He said the British observed that emaSwati wanted to be ruled by the King as they were a cultured nation.

Political

Britain assisted the nation in the formation of political parties in order to ascertain if emaSwati wanted to be ruled by the King. They passed a law before the first national elections in 1964. The law provided that if a man had more than one wife, only one was allowed to vote. I recall very well that I had three wives at the time. Only LaMalaza voted. Only LaMatsebula (Kings Inkhosikati) voted at the royal residence, said the prince. He asked if denying people their right to vote was democracy. The prince stated that the process was unfair. He stated that emaSwati made it clear that they wanted to be ruled by the King because kings were created and blessed by God.

The prince mentioned that the King respected the nation so much that he sought its advice on how they wanted to be ruled. The King sent a committee to get public views on how they wanted to be ruled. I was leading the committee and we engaged all emaSwati in all tinkhundla centres. EmaSwati made it clear that they wanted the Tinkhundla System of Governance whereby each constituency would have someone to represent them in Parliament, he said. The prince stated that emaSwati were determined that the multiparty system of governance would divide the nation and destroy the country if it was allowed.

He made an example about a member of a political party who was elected into Parliament. Without mentioning a name, the prince said voters realised that the MP represented interests of his party instead of the people who elected him into Parliament. The constituents openly told the MP that they would not re-elect him because he represented the interests of his party instead of representing the people who elected him into Parliament, the prince said. The prince made it clear that he was sent to represent His Majesty King Mswati III at the event which was coupled with Somhlolo Festival of Praise. I have been requested by His Majesty King Mswati III to represent him at this event; however, he did not assign me to say anything on his behalf. I am here to listen on his behalf, the senior prince said.

Prayers

On another note, Prince Masitsela has shared how God answered his prayers in four hours when the country was affected by a drought. He said he recalled that King Sobhuza II blessed the National Church as a place where all emaSwati could communicate with God when faced with challenges. My cattle were affected by drought at the lowveld. I came to this church and prayed alone. Four hours later, I was told that there was rain and that it went straight to my place, he said. The congregants praised God when they heard the testimony. COVID-19 was part of the prayer item at the event where congregants prayed for the affected people and protection of the nation against the disease.
The high court verdict in April upheld the 2018 ruling by Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot at the end of a year-long extradition trial that the former Kingfisher Airlines boss had a "case to answer" in the Indian courts.

The UK government cannot set a timeline for extradition of fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya though it is determined to ensure that criminals can't escape justice by crossing national borders, British High Commissioner Sir Philip Barton said on Thursday.

Asked during an online media briefing whether Mallya has sought asylum in the UK, the envoy said his government never comments on such issues.

"The UK government and the courts, which are independent of the government, are absolutely clear about their roles in preventing people avoid justice by moving to another country.

We are all determined to play our part in any case, and to make sure that we are working together to ensure that criminals can't escape justice by crossing national borders," he said.

He said the extradition of Mallya is an ongoing legal case and that the UK government does not have anything new on it.

"The extradition of Vijay Mallya is an ongoing legal case and I can't comment any further on it. I can't say anything at all about timescales," Sir Barton said, replying to a question on when the UK authorities are extraditing the fugitive businessman to India.

At the same time, the newly-appointed envoy said the UK government is aware of the importance India attaches to the case.

Last month, India said it has urged the UK not to consider any request for asylum by Mallya as there appeared to be no ground for his persecution in the country.

The UK government, earlier, indicated that Mallya is unlikely to be extradited to India anytime soon, saying there is a legal issue that needed to be resolved before his extradition can be arranged.

In May, Mallya lost his appeals in the UK Supreme Court against his extradition to India to face money laundering and fraud charges.

The UK top court's decision marked a major setback to the 64-year-old businessman as it came weeks after he lost his high court appeal in April against an extradition order to India.

A spokesperson in the British High Commission in New Delhi said last month that there was a legal issue that needed to be resolved before Mallya's extradition can be arranged.

"Under United Kingdom law, extradition cannot take place until it is resolved. The issue is confidential and we cannot go into any detail.

We cannot estimate how long this issue will take to resolve. We are seeking to deal with this as quickly as possible," the official had said.

Mallya has been based in the UK since March 2016 and remains on bail on an extradition warrant executed three years ago by Scotland Yard on April 18, 2017.

The high court verdict in April upheld the 2018 ruling by Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot at the end of a year-long extradition trial that the former Kingfisher Airlines boss had a "case to answer" in the Indian courts.
LONDON, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Alger Management, Ltd. (together with its affiliates, "Alger") is happy to announce that the Alger SICAV - Alger Dynamic Opportunities Fund ("Fund") has been selected as a constituent in the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index.

The Alger Dynamic Opportunities Fund is a long/short hedged equity fund that invests primarily in U.S.-domiciled companies. It aims to provide investors with long term capital appreciation, downside protection, and lower volatility. Investors in the Fund have access to two premier growth equity managers-Fred Alger Management, LLC and Weatherbie Capital, LLC-that have a combined 25+ years of hedged equity experience. The portfolio management team is led by Alger CEO and Chief Investment Officer Dan Chung, CFA.

The HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index is an asset-weighted investable benchmark designed to represent the overall composition of the hedge fund universe. The HFRX indices are industry leading benchmarks comprising actual hedge and alternative funds delivering the performance of the investment class to institutions since 2003. The HFRX indices are constructed by Hedge Fund Research, Inc. ("HFR"), which uses a UCITSIII and IOSCO compliant methodology to construct its indices.

"We are pleased that HFR has added the Alger Dynamic Opportunities Fund to its Global Hedge Fund Investable Index. We believe it is a testament to our experience in managing long/short strategies, the Fund's strong performance and attractive risk scores, and our unique approach to long and short investing across the market cap spectrum," said Alger Executive Vice President and Chief Distribution Officer Jim Tambone.

Alger has provided asset management capabilities in the United Kingdom and Europe for over two decades and opened its London-based office in 2014. The firm currently manages $1.7 billion in assets for our international clients.

"HFR is pleased and excited to welcome Alger as a constituent of the HFRX Indices, the leading global benchmark of hedge fund performance. Alger's rigorous investment process, dynamic performance and impressive institutional background are an ideal fit for inclusion in the preferred benchmark for leading global investors and managers," said Ken Heinz, president of Hedge Fund Research, Inc.

Alger SICAV, a Luxembourg UCITS vehicle, makes the fund available to non-U.S. investors in U.S. dollar, euro, and Great British Pounds-denominated classes.

About Alger

Founded in 1964, Alger is widely recognized as a pioneer of growth-style investment management. Headquartered in New York City with affiliate offices in Boston and London, Alger provides U.S. and non-U.S. institutional investors and financial advisors access to a suite of growth equity separate accounts, mutual funds, and privately offered investment vehicles. The firm's investment philosophy, discovering companies undergoing Positive Dynamic Change, has been in place for over 50 years. Weatherbie Capital, LLC, a Boston-based investment adviser specializing in small and mid-cap growth equity investing is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alger. For more information, please visit www.alger.com.

Important Disclosures: The views expressed are the views of Fred Alger Management, LLC ("FAM") and its affiliates as of July 2020. These views are subject to change at any time and may not represent the views of all portfolio management teams. These views should not be interpreted as a guarantee of the future performance of the markets, any security or any funds managed by FAM. These views are not meant to provide investment advice and should not be considered a recommendation to purchase or sell securities.

This document is directed at investment professionals and qualified investors (as defined by MiFID/FCA regulations). It is for information purposes only and has been prepared and is made available for the benefit of the investors. This document does not constitute an offer or solicitation to any person in any jurisdiction in which it is not authorised or permitted, or to anyone who would be an unlawful recipient, and is only intended for use by original recipients and addressees. The original recipient is solely responsible for any actions in further distributing this document and should be satisfied in doing so that there is no breach of local legislation or regulation. This document is not for distribution in the United States.

Data, models and other statistics are sourced from our own records, unless otherwise stated herein. We caution that the value of investments and the income derived, may fluctuate and it is possible that an investor may incur losses, including a loss of the principal invested. Investors should ensure that they fully understand the risks associated with investing and should consider their own investment objectives and risk tolerance levels. Do not take unnecessary risk. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Investors whose reference currency differs from that in which the underlying assets are invested may be subject to exchange rate movements that alter the value of their investments.

Certain products may be subject to restrictions with regard to certain persons or in certain countries under national regulations applicable to such persons or countries. NOTABLY, THIS MATERIAL IS EXCLUSIVELY INTENDED FOR PERSONS WHO ARE NOT U.S. PERSONS, AS SUCH TERM IS DEFINED IN REGULATIONS OF THE U.S. SECURITIES ACT OF 1933, AS AMENDED AND WHO ARE NOT PHYSICALLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES. No shares in the Alger SICAV or its sub-funds may be offered or sold to U.S. persons or in jurisdictions where such offering or sale is prohibited. The Alger SICAV is authorized by the Luxembourg Supervisory Authority as a UCITS and has only been authorized for public distribution in certain jurisdictions. See the country specific disclosures below for information regarding the Funds registration and the availability of the prospectus containing all necessary information about the product, the costs and the risks which may occur.

Risk Disclosures: Each Fund is exposed to several types of risks. Please read the Fund's Key Investor Information Document ("KIID") and the prospectus for more information. Investing in the stock market involves risks, including the potential loss of principal. Growth stocks may be more volatile than other stocks as their prices tend to be higher in relation to their companies' earnings and may be more sensitive to market, political, and economic developments. A significant portion of assets will be invested in technology companies, which may be significantly affected by competition, innovation, regulation, and product obsolescence, and may be more volatile than the securities of other companies. Cash positions may underperform relative to equity and fixed-income securities. Options and short exposure, gained through Total Return Swaps (TRS), could increase market exposure, magnifying losses and increasing volatility. Issuers of convertible securities may be more sensitive to economic changes. Investing in companies of small capitalizations involve the risk that such issuers may have limited product lines or financial resources, lack management depth, or have limited liquidity. Leverage increases volatility in both up and down markets and its costs may exceed the returns of borrowed securities. Foreign securities involve special risks including currency fluctuations, inefficient trading, political and economic instability, and increased volatility. Active trading may increase transaction costs, brokerage commissions, and taxes, which can lower the return on investment.

Important Information for All Investors: Alger Management, Ltd. (company house number 8634056, domiciled at 78 Brook Street, London W1K 5EF, UK) is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, for the distribution of regulated financial products and services. FAM and/or Weatherbie Capital, LLC, U.S. registered investment advisors, serve as sub-portfolio manager to financial products distributed by Alger Management, Ltd.

Alger Group Holdings, LLC (parent company of FAM), is not an authorized person for the purposes of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 of the United Kingdom ("FSMA") and this material has not been approved by an authorized person for the purposes of Section 21(2)(b) of the FSMA.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Barry Moultrie was a father of five who made sure, no matter what, his kids were taken care of, according to his sister, Jasmin Lawton.

Lawton and law enforcement sources identified Moultrie, 35, to the Advance/SILive.com as the victim of Wednesday mornings fatal shooting.

The incident occurred at 11:25 a.m. on the corner of Castleton Avenue and Barker Street, in West Brighton, police told the Advance/SILive.com. Moultrie was found on scene with a gunshot wound to his torso, according to police.

5 NYPD responds to shooting in West Brighton

After being transported to Richmond University Medical Center, he succumbed to his injuries, police said.

Following the shooting, a suspect  described by police as a Black male wearing white shorts and a red shirt  fled the scene in an unknown direction in a green, four-door Acura with Pennsylvania license plates, an NYPD spokesman said.

As of 9 p.m. on Wednesday, no arrests had been made and the investigation remains ongoing, police said.

Candles have been placed at Castleton Avenue and Barker Street as a memorial to Barry Moultrie, 35. He was fatally shot at that location on Wednesday, July 22, 2020. (Staten Island Advance/Jan Somma-Hammel)

Lawton said she was notified by authorities about her brothers death at around noon.

She didnt have any ideas as to what would have motivated someone to shoot her brother.

I dont really know why this happened, Lawton said. Nobody was waking up to think that Barry is dead.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Moultrie moved to Staten Island to be closer to his partner, Lawton said. He was one of five siblings.

Moultries five kids - four boys and a girl - lived with him. The boys are three, five, six and eight years old, and the girl is 12 years old.

He was a full-time dad,' Lawton said. Thats all he did. If you saw Barry, he had the kids. Barry was an amazing dad. A really great dad.

To honor Moultrie, Lawton said the family lit some candles at the scene where Moultrie was shot.

On Thursday evening, a memorial service will be held on the corner of Castleton Avenue and Barker Street at around 5 p.m., she said.
Massive infusions of liquidity and ultra-cheap credit have forced investors to take increasing risks, encouraging/coercing them to chase the stocks that hold some promise of generating acceptable returns without pricing in the risks. Famed author Michael Lewis (Liars Poker, The Big Short, Moneyball, The Blind Side, Flash Boys, The Fifth Risk), writing in February 2000 - a month before the tech stock bubble burst  provided a sharp insight into the investor psychology of those times. "To be desirable an internet company must be ever so slightly unknowable," he wrote. "It must remain forever in a state of pure possibility." Most conventional stocks can be conventionally analysed by discounting their future cash flows by a risk-free rate, plus a risk-premium that reflects the investors assessment of the possibility that the cash flows wont meet their expectations.

When the risk-free rates  generally the long term bond rates  are near zero, or even negative, and equity risk premiums are compressed by competition because investors are all chasing the same returns from the same investments, stock prices will rise. Investors will accept the lower returns for greater risks because they have no positively real-returning alternatives. Even if the historical relationship between growth and value stocks isnt restored, the current acceleration of the divergence in their pricing could easily, and violently, be narrowed if there were kind of shock to investor confidence. Tech stocks, because their upside isnt and cant be defined or capped, meet the Lewis description of being "slightly unknowable" and having "pure possibility." Macquaries global co-ordinator of its equity strategies, Viktor Shvets, has an interesting, and perhaps controversial take on the out-performance of the tech stocks. If the risk-free rate is zero and the equity risk premium is also around zero, what is value?

The answer, he said in a note issued on Wednesday, is infinity! Technology and financialisation, he said, had reduced risk-free rates toward, or below, zero while central banks intolerance of volatility had compressed equity risk premiums, resulting in a sustained fall in the cost of capital in most jurisdictions. "At that point most projects become viable and, as (traditional) corporates scramble for deals that yield any meaningful return, the pool of viable opportunities diminishes, forcing an even more aggressive competition, driving both cost of equity and returns ever closer towards zero." It is, as he said, a vicious cycle. His explanation for why tech stocks appear to defy gravity is predicated on a transition from the Industrial Age to the Information Age and a less capital-intensive, less capacity-constrained, less labour-intensive era.

New economy businesses have, he argued, near-infinite scalability whereas the value of companies that rely on generating profits from traditional tangible assets will be steadily de-rated. With a surplus of capital and therefore very low costs of capital, and marginal costs and pricing falling towards zero, any company that appears to have the ability to defy the "gravitational forces" of excess capital and suppressed business and capital market cycles is, he said, rewarded with an almost infinite valuation that is amplified by the near-zero cost of money. Author Michael Lewis says for tech companies to be desirable they need to be 'somewhat unknowable'. Credit:Bloomberg Fundamental structural changes in economies and markets  the shift from the Industrial Age to the Information Age  are, if Shvets thesis were to hold up, being overlaid by the unconventional monetary policy settings in the post-crisis era; settings from which central banks appeared to have no exit route even before the pandemic. The pandemic, which has injected massive doses of new ultra-cheap liquidity and credit into financial systems and economies, is amplifying and accelerating the long term trends and causing investors to chase the stocks with the most amounts of "pure possibility."

It is impossible at this point to put a ceiling on, for instance, Amazons long-term potential, or Facebooks or Teslas or Googles or the myriad of smaller tech stocks who might not have much in the way of earnings or cash flows but do fit the description of having potential that is "slightly unknowable," or even completely unknowable. The moment those stocks, priced for something beyond perfection, become knowable  the moment any limit to that potential can be discerned and they can be assessed more conventionally  of course, their valuations will plummet. If Shvets were right, however, there would be no mean reversion. The relationship between value and growth stocks wouldnt return, as it did in 2000, to their historical norm, with the companies with strong balance sheets and cash flows positively re-rated and the tech stocks without them de-rated. Even if that long-term thesis were correct, however, it doesnt necessarily mean that the market will get the pricing of value and growth right in the short term. It is quite conceivable that investors have been too harsh on value stocks and too optimistic and too enthusiastic about growth stocks.
Selina Finance, a London, UK-based digital lender, completed a 42m Series A funding.

The funding includes 12m in equity from Picus Capital and Global Founders Capital and 30m in debt lines.

The company intends to use the funds for growth to accelerate its growth plans and investment in technology as it prepares to enter the consumer lending market later this year, subject to regulatory approval. The debt lines will be used to support more SMEs and, post-regulatory approval, consumers across the UK.

Founded in 2019 by Andrea Olivari, Hubert Fenwick and Leonard Benning, Selina Finance offers credit facilities up to 1 million which allow SMEs and consumers to borrow against the equity tied up in their homes or investment property. The company says the solution is with no setup, early repayment, or valuation fees  and has flexibility to allow borrowers to draw (and repay) funds whenever they choose, and pay interest on what is outstanding.

Selina Finances credit facilities are secured against physical property, meaning customers can borrow larger amounts (up to 1 million) at competitive rates (starting from 4.95% APR) versus unsecured loans. Selina Finance works with more than 200 commercial finance and mortgage distribution partners across the UK and is planning to offer its product to UK consumers later in 2020.

FinSMEs

23/07/2020
HOLYOKE, Mass., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Nurses and healthcare professionals represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association condemn the decision announced on July 21 by Baystate Health to resume its planned closure of 70 mental health beds at community hospitals in Greenfield, Palmer and Westfield.

Baystate said it plans to partner with for-profit Kindred Healthcare to open a 120-bed behavioral health facility in Holyoke and then close all of the mental health beds at Baystate Franklin Medical Center, Baystate Noble Hospital and Baystate Wing Hospital in about two years.

"This is the same bad plan, with the same negative impacts for patients and our communities," said Donna Stern, a psychiatric nurse at BMFC and Senior Co-Chair of the MNA Bargaining Unit. "Closing local mental health beds and moving services to a centralized, for-profit facility will throw up huge barriers in front of vulnerable patients. When we need more mental health care services than ever before, why is a huge hospital corporation like Baystate planning to close beds?"

Baystate's plan is virtually identically to the plan it announced last year with for-profit behavioral health provider US HealthVest. That proposal fell apart when a Seattle Times investigative series reported on substandard care at US HealthVest's mental health facilities. Kindred Healthcare, Baystate's new partner, has itself been the target of substandard patient care accusations. In 2009, a state court jury in Georgia awarded the daughter of a man who died in pain at a Kindred facility $1.25 million. A group of caregivers in California also sued Kindred in 2014, alleging the company failed to pay minimum wage and overtime. Kindred later settled for $12 million and agreed to pay caregivers.

MNA nurses and healthcare professionals plan to fight local closures and demand Baystate provide safe patient care and fair working conditions at any new facility. Nurses at Baystate Noble Hospital are resuming contract negotiations soon and have proposed no unit closures and no layoffs. A community petition circulated by the Noble nurses shows 96% of the responding community members support the proposal to keep the Noble mental health unit Fowler open and 94% want Fowler to be expanded.

Keeping Care Local?

Baystate Health made promises to keep care local when it acquired Wing and Noble hospitals. It also made promises following its contract negotiations with MNA nurses at Franklin in 2012 and 2013. In fact, Baystate launched a campaign called "BFMC Campaign for Keeping Care Local," after the community and nurses first adopted that theme.

Baystate stated, "Baystate Franklin Medical Center is a cornerstone of wellness and health care for the northern area of the Pioneer Valley and keeping high quality health care close to home is at the core of our mission."

Yet, once again, Baystate is proposing to close local services and send patients and their families to Hampden County, rather than their community hospital. The Holyoke site Baystate has proposed to purchase with US HealthVest is 33.4 miles from Franklin and 21 miles from Wing. Relocating behavioral health services to a centralized location could mean round trips of two hours or more for patients and their families, depending on PVTA bus schedules and traffic conditions.

A Community Health Needs Assessment prepared for Baystate in 2016 identified a lack of transportation as a problem facing many area residents. "In a needs assessment of Franklin, Hampshire, and North Quabbin Regions, lack of transportation was cited as a significant barrier to accessing services," the report said.

Local Behavioral Health Needs

Franklin County residents in particular face higher than average risks of facing mental health and substance abuse issues, according to the Community Health Needs Assessment prepared for Baystate.

An estimated 12% of Franklin County residents have poor mental health on 15 or more days in a month, compared to 11% statewide.

residents have poor mental health on 15 or more days in a month, compared to 11% statewide. Hospitalization rates for mental disorders (including substance use) in Franklin County were nearly 50% more than the state.

were nearly 50% more than the state. Opioid overdose fatalities in Franklin County were higher than that of the state with 13.2 fatalities per 100,000 as compared to 10.7 statewide.

MassNurses.org  Facebook.com/MassNurses  Twitter.com/MassNurses  Instagram.com/MassNurses

Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its 23,000 members advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.

SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association

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Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvins role in the killing of George Floyd is an all-too-common example of a police departments written policy on training for recruits not being enough to stop police brutality in Black communities. Their training manual is 39 pages long and is full of laudable training goals and processes.

The officer who assigned Mr. Chauvin to be the field training officer (FTO) for rookie officers flouted handbook policies.

Why was an officer who had 18 complaints of excessive use of force in 19 years assigned to such a task? The training manual says, The goal of the Minneapolis FTO Unit is to recruit, select and retain experienced officers of the highest caliber to serve as Field Training Officers and Field Training Sergeants. The manual says the FTOs are role models. Was the assigner following the actual training policy? Did the assigner have any better choices than Mr. Chauvin?

Reforming written policies and training manuals will not by themselves bring about just policing or justice to the criminal justice system in the United States.

John E. Addison,

Shaker Heights
US-Chinese relations, already tense over the coronavirus pandemic and Beijing's crackdown in Hong Kong, deteriorated once again Wednesday as Washington ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston within 72 hours. China slammed the US move, which came one day after the unveiling of a US indictment targeting two Chinese nationals for allegedly hacking hundreds of companies worldwide and seeking to steal virus vaccine research. President Donald Trump threatened more consulate closures, telling reporters "it's always possible." "We're setting our clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a visit to Denmark. "President Trump has said 'enough,'" Pompeo added. The secretary of state cited the indictment of the two Chinese nationals for computer hacking but did not specifically mention the order to close the Houston consulate. The closure of the Chinese diplomatic installation in one of America's biggest cities marks a dramatic escalation in tensions between the world's top two economies. Washington and Beijing are feuding over a slew of issues ranging from trade to the pandemic to China's policies in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and the South China Sea. Republican Senator Marco Rubio, acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called the Houston consulate the "central node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States." Michael McCaul, Republican Leader on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, echoed this, saying the consulate was the "epicenter" of efforts to steal "sensitive information to build up their military." State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said the consulate was ordered shut "in order to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information." The State Department said China has engaged in massive spying and influence operations throughout the United States for years. "These activities have increased markedly in scale and scope over the past few years," it said. - 'Outrageous and unjustified' - In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the order to close the consulate was an "outrageous and unjustified move which will sabotage China-US relations." "China urges the US to immediately withdraw its wrong decision, or China will definitely take a proper and necessary response," Wang said. The ministry spokesman claimed the United States "opened without permission Chinese diplomatic pouches multiple times, and confiscated Chinese items for official use." He also said its embassy in Washington had received "bomb and death threats on Chinese diplomatic missions and personnel in the US." Before the closure order was announced, firefighters and police were called late Tuesday to the consulate building over reports that documents were being burned in trash cans in the courtyard, according to local media. The Houston police force said smoke was observed, but officers "were not granted access to enter the building." "Everybody said 'there's a fire, there's a fire,' and I guess they were burning documents or burning papers? And I wonder what that's all about," Trump asked later. The Chinese consulate in Houston was opened in 1979 -- the first in the year the United States and the People's Republic of China established diplomatic relations, according to its website. The office covers eight southern US states -- including Texas and Florida. There are five Chinese consulates in the United States, as well as the embassy in Washington. Chinese state-run tabloid the Global Times launched a poll on Twitter asking people to vote for which US consulate in China should be closed in response, including the ones in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Chengdu. The United States has an embassy in Beijing plus five consulates in mainland China and one in Hong Kong. - 'Significant challenge' - Trump's administration has ramped up pressure on China on a wide range of issues, imposing sanctions over policies in Tibet and Xinjiang, where an estimated one million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities are believed to have been rounded up and held in re-education camps. The United States has also downgraded relations with Hong Kong after China implemented a new security law which Washington says is in violation of Beijing's promises of autonomy for the territory. Last week, Washington formally declared Beijing's pursuit of territory and resources in the South China Sea as illegal, explicitly backing the rival territorial claims of Southeast Asian countries. Washington has also infuriated Beijing by banning equipment made by telecom giant Huawei and seeking the extradition from Canada of top executive Meng Wanzhou. "We find the China-US relationship today weighed down by a growing number of disputes," deputy secretary of state Stephen Biegun told lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday. "We are up against a significant challenge in China."
Legendary Civil Rights Icon C.T. Vivian Dies at 95

Some thoughts on the Reverend C.T. Vivian, a pioneer who pulled America closer to our founding ideals and a friend I will miss greatly, Former President Barack Obama wrote in a statement. Weve lost a founder of modern America, a pioneer who shrunk the gap between reality and our constitutional ideals of equality and freedom.

The Rev. C.T. Vivian, the legendary civil rights activist who marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has died.

Rev. Vivian was 95.

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Vivians daughter, Denise Morse, confirmed her fathers death and told Atlantas NBC affiliate WXIA that he was one of the most wonderful men who ever walked the earth.

Vivian reportedly suffered a stroke earlier this year, but his family said he died of natural causes.

He has always been one of the people who had the most insight, wisdom, integrity, and dedication, said former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, a contemporary of Vivian who also worked alongside King.

The Reverend Dr. C.T. Vivian was one of my strongest mentors in the Civil Rights Movement, National Newspaper Publishers Association President Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., stated.

Rev. Vivian, like Martin Luther King, Jr, and Joseph Lowery was a visionary theologian, genius, and a leading force in the tactical and strategic planning of effective nonviolent civil disobedience demonstrations. C.T. has passed the eternal baton to a new generation of civil rights agitators and organizers.

In a statement emailed to BlackPressUSA, the NBAs Atlanta Hawks expressed their condolences.

The Atlanta Hawks organization is deeply saddened by the passing of Civil Rights Movement leader, minister, and author, Dr. Cordy Tindell C.T. Vivian. The city of Atlanta and the entire world has lost a distinguished icon whose leadership pushed the United States to greater justice and racial equality for African Americans, team officials wrote in the email.

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To inspire the next generation, Vivian founded the C.T. Vivian Leadership Institute in Atlanta, with the intent to create a model of leadership culture in the city that would be dedicated to the development and sustainability of our communities.

They continued:

Vivian also started Basic Diversity, one of the nations first diversity consulting firms, now led by his son, Al, who has been a great partner to our organization. We are grateful for Dr. Vivians many years of devotion to Atlanta and thankful that we had the opportunity to honor and share his legacy with our fans. The entire Hawks organization extends its most sincere condolences to the grieving family.

Rev. Vivan was active in sit-in protests in Peoria, Illinois, in the 1940s, and met King during the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott  a demonstration spurred by Rosa Parks refusal to give up her seat to a White rider. The 13-month mass protest drew international attention.

Rev. Vivian went on to become an active early member of the group that eventually became the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, according to his biography.

Like King, Vivian was committed to the belief that nonviolent protests could carry the day.

Some thoughts on the Reverend C.T. Vivian, a pioneer who pulled America closer to our founding ideals and a friend I will miss greatly, Former President Barack Obama wrote in a statement. Weve lost a founder of modern America, a pioneer who shrunk the gap between reality and our constitutional ideals of equality and freedom.

Rev. Vivian was born in Boonville, Missouri, on July 30, 1924. He and his late wife, Octavia Geans Vivian, had six children.

With the help of his church, he enrolled in American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville in 1955.

That same year he and other ministers founded the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference, an affiliate of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, according to the National Visionary Leadership Project. The group helped organize the citys first sit-ins and civil rights march.

By 1965, Rev. Vivian had become the director of national affiliates for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference when he led a group of people to register to vote in Selma, Alabama.

CNN memorialized Rev. Vivian, noting that, as the county Sheriff Jim Clark blocked the group, Vivian said in a fiery tone, We will register to vote because as citizens of the United States we have the right to do it.

Clark responded by beating Vivian until blood dripped off his chin in front of rolling cameras. The images helped galvanize more comprehensive support for change.

Vivian also created a college readiness program to help take care of the kids that were kicked out of school simply because they protested racism.

I admired him from and before I became a senator and got to know him as a source of wisdom, advice, and strength on my first presidential campaign, Obama stated.

Im only here to thank C.T. Vivian and all the heroes of the civil rights generation. Because of them, the idea of just, fair, inclusive, and generous America came closer into focus. The trails they blazed gave todays generation of activists and marchers a road map to tag in and finish the journey.




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Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will unveil the largest budget deficit in more than 70 years and the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression in a fiscal update revealing the destruction wrought on the country's finances by the coronavirus recession.

Mr Frydenberg on Thursday will use a special budget update, the first since December, to reveal heavy hits to government revenues that will see the nation record the two largest consecutive budget deficits since World War II.

Company taxes alone are expected to be $13.2 billion lower than forecast for the just completed financial year while in 2020-21 they are tipped to be $12.1 billion lower. The falls are akin to those suffered during the global financial crisis.

Business investment had been forecast in December to grow by 1 per cent in 2019-20 and then 6 per cent this year. That has been downgraded because of the recession to minus 6 per cent last year and minus 12.5 per cent in 2020-21.
Flames rise as a wildfire burns near the village of Kechries, Greece, on July 22, 2020. (Costas Baltas/Reuters)

Greek Firefighters Battle Forest Blaze for Second Day Near Seaside Village

ATHENSGreek firefighters on Thursday battled a wind-driven forest fire that burned through pine forest and forced the evacuation of hundreds of people near the seaside village of Kechries in the eastern Peleponnese, officials said.

Thick smoke billowed above treetops licked by flames as more than 236 firefighters tackled the blaze, assisted by four helicopters, eight planes, municipal staff, and volunteers.

A Chinook helicopter makes a water drop as a wildfire burns near the village of Galataki, Greece, on July 23, 2020.(Vassilis Triandafyllou/Reuters)

The fire burned olive and pine trees in a thick forest. Distressing to see residents running around with hoses, its a sad picture, Anastasis Giolis, vice-prefect of Corinth told state TV ERT.

The fire lightly damaged three homes at the nearby villages of Athikia and Alamano and destroyed one fire truck, without causing any injuries to residents or firefighters.

Smoke rises as a wildfire burns near the village of Galataki, Greece, on July 23, 2020.(Vassilis Triandafyllou/Reuters)

Officials said they had been forced to order the evacuation of six residential compounds and one summer camp.

Overnight the blaze moved near the villages of Galataki and Agios Ioannis, with thick smoke clouding the area. The Greek fire brigade chief was still in the area to coordinate efforts, officials said.

On Wednesday authorities evacuated settlements as the blaze had come close to a military camp where explosives were stored. They also preventively evacuated the Summerfun camp, taking children to a safer area near the villages beach.

Kechries, a village in the municipality of Corinth, takes its name from the ancient port town of Kenchreai. A beauty spot surrounded by lush forest, it is very popular with local bathers.
Three years later, she reluctantly testified in the trial of Deonte Davis and identified him as the gunman. Davis was convicted. Three months after her testimony, Treja was walking home from work in her Back of the Yards neighborhood when a man with a gun came out of an alley and fired three times into her head and several more times into her torso, killing her. She was 18 and pregnant with her first child.
Syracuse, N.Y.  A man and a woman, both in their 90s, have died of Covid-19 over the past 24 hours, Onondaga County officials reported today. That brings the total number of coronavirus deaths to 194.

There are 45 coronavirus patients in local hospitals, up two from Tuesday. Six patients are in intensive care.

Twenty-three of the hospitalized patients, or just over half, are from a single memory care facility, county officials say. The county has not identified the facility, but knowledgeable sources confirm that its The Hearth at Keepsake Village, which has experienced a serious outbreak this month.

Onondaga County today reported 18 new cases of Covid-19 since Tuesday, bringing the total to 3,201 since March.

Of the new cases, 10 were attributed to community spread; three occurred in households with previous infections; two were blamed on travel from New Jersey; and three remained under investigation. None of the new cases occurred in senior living facilities.

According to the state Department of Health, 1% of people tested in Onondaga County were positive for the virus during the seven days ending Tuesday. That compares with 1.7% as of July 13 and 2% as of July 6.

Regions that have infection rates of more than 5% will not be allowed by state officials to send kids to school in September.

There are currently 258 active cases in Onondaga County, down 47 since Tuesday. The number of active cases has declined from a high of 941 on June 8.

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News tips? Contact reporter Tim Knauss of syracuse.com/The Post-Standard: email | Twitter | | 315-470-3023
The Great British Bake Off is set to return this year after much speculation, after shooting was delayed by three months amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The popular Channel 4 show had been scheduled to go into production back in April, before the pandemic, and subsequent lockdown, scuppered all plans.

However, Sky Studios CEO Gary Davey brought all hopes for the show's return back to life on Wednesday, when he revealed that filming is 'going very well'.

Coming back: The Great British Bake Off is set to return this year after much speculation, after shooting was delayed by three months amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Further, the company's chief commercial officer Jane Millichip is quoted by Deadline as saying at a virtual Broadcasting Press Guild lunch: 'Its all happening in deep secret, somewhere in darkest deepest Britain in the shires.'

The show's judges Paul Hollywood, 54, Prue Leith, 80, Noel Fielding, 47, as well as new presenter Matt Lucas, 46, are reported to have gone into quarantine in the run-up to filming, to allow for close interaction on the set.

While it had been feared that the show's return would be delayed until 2021, Millichip assured: 'You will have your Victoria sponge this year.'

Delayed: The popular Channel 4 show had been scheduled to go into production back in April, before the pandemic, and subsequent lockdown, scuppered all plans. Pictured 2019 cast

At the start of the month, hopes for the show's return this autumn appeared to be all but bashed, when bosses warned that the 2020 series could be axed.

In a statement, bosses of Love Productions insisted they were 'working hard' to deliver a new series this year, as fans feared the show would not be ready for its usual return in late August.

It comes following reports that this year's series will not feature older contestants due to concerns they could fall ill during filming, despite the show being known for its diverse range of bakers.

The Great British Bake Off  which has traditionally been shot in Welford Park, Berkshire  is usually scheduled to begin in late August on Channel 4, but bosses are yet to begin promotions for a new series.

A representative for Love Productions told MailOnline: 'We are working hard to deliver Bake Off to the audience this year, the priority is the safety of everyone involved in the production of the series.'

Last month, it was reported that the new series of Bake Off may not feature older contestants for the first time in its history.

This year's series will only feature younger bakers who are considered less vulnerable to the pandemic, according to the Sun.

A source said: 'There's a real sense of urgency to get the next series of Bake Off in the can, considering it's one of Channel 4's biggest draws.

Contestants: Last month, it was reported that the new series of Bake Off may not feature older contestants (2014 winner Nancy Birthwhistle, who was 60 when she won is pictured)

'That means the nation's baking grans and grandads have been deemed too high risk. Bake Off's wizened contestants are often the heart of the show.

'Val, who would 'listen' to cakes to work out if they were done, and rapping septuagenarian Flo became favourites.'

Sources have also claimed that the famous 'Paul Hollywood handshake' will also be banned, due to social distancing guidelines.

All the cast and crew on this year's show will have to quarantine together because judge Prue Leith has reportedly been refused insurance.

Comedian Matt Lucas will join the hosting team this year alongside Noel Fielding after Sandi Toksvig stood down earlier this year.
University student combines postgraduate studies with vital role supporting victims of domestic abuse during the pandemic

This article is old - Published: Thursday, Jul 23rd, 2020

An outreach support worker at a key local charity has been working to support victims of domestic violence during the coronavirus pandemic.

Lisinayte Lopes, who lives in Wrexham, is a qualified social worker who is combining her role at the charity BAWSO, where she supports victims of domestic violence, with her studies for a MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Wrexham Glyndwr University.

Despite having to make adaptations to the way they work, BAWSO are still receiving police referrals and still working alongside other agencies. With the effects of lockdown exacerbating issues such as domestic violence, Lisinayte says she has found their work more important than ever.

My role involves supporting victims, providing emotional and practical support, advice and information. This also includes BME men who experience domestic abuse from partners and family members, said Lisinayte.

I work with victims to enable them to progress towards re-establishing their lives and move forward to better life opportunities. Some victims I support are able to access a refuge, a safe breathing space where decisions can be made free from pressure and fear.

As an outreach worker I stand against domestic violence.

Self isolation while living with an abuser may increase the risk of harm. Survivors may be at home with perpetrators and unable to escape from the abuse. Perpetrators may have more free time now and less barriers prohibiting them abusing survivors, leading to an increase in the frequency or severity of the abuse.

Our response during this time is even more important. I am doing my best to offer safe responses to victims.

With the victims I support I have needed to adapt the safety planning aspects of the work. Most support takes place over the phone and special consideration needs to be made at all times to ensure safe and clear communication.

It is a challenging time and it is important to adapt to the new circumstances. The most important thing is to make sure victims are getting the right support. I always speak with my manager to create plans of actions in cases of urgency.

The work is still mostly the same with the same measures. A particular issue is that all workers need to be more vigilant for the safety of the victims. Our response and partnership working with all other agency partners needs to be effective in order to save lives.

Lisinayte, who is originally from Sao Tome and Principe, is a first-language Portuguese speaker and is adding her Glyndwr Masters studies to a degree in Social Work she gained in Portugal.

In the past few months, she has also been juggling her work and studies alongside helping people from the Portuguese community.

She added: It has been challenging working from home, dealing with my personal life and studies. In the current lockdown my work goes beyond my normal role.

Some people, due to language barriers, have got in touch asking for some support  such as ordering repeat prescriptions from the surgery and collecting medication from the pharmacy.

For some people with ongoing health conditions I was able to book ambulances to take them to hospital for appointments and emergencies. Sometimes people have needed support with shopping or topping up gas and electricity.

I have been helping as much I can  taking into consideration all the safety measures regarding coronavirus. I strongly believe it is everyones responsibility to assist and help the most vulnerable people in the community.

And despite having to change her original research plans, Lisinayte is still carrying out a dissertation looking at human trafficking in the region.

Lisinayte said: The research aims to examine the issue of human trafficking in North Wales and offer a broad picture of current practices used to support victims  and gain a better understanding of the perceptions of both the victims and the front line staff working with them.

My intention was to use semi -structured interviews with support workers in BAWSO who work directly with victims and the North Wales Police Crime Commissioner.

Due to Covid-19, I have had to change those plans. I am mindful of the incredible pressure front line staff are under at the moment. Therefore, I am doing an extended literature review, which will provide a comprehensive and critical discussion on the topic instead.

Lisinayte has credited the support she has received at Glyndwr  as well as the ability to carry out much of her study online  for helping to continue with both her volunteering and with her role at BAWSO.

She added: I strongly believe that education is the most empowering force in the world. It has opened doors for me. With my current studies I am able to gain more knowledge and confidence and it helps me to break down barriers.

I like studying at Glyndwr University, I have excellent lecturers and my tutor is always there for me when I need. I am a part time student and most of my work is online  the university keep the processes simple and effective.

Wrexham Glyndwr University Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Dr Karen Washington-Dyer said: Seeing how Lisinayte has kept on going throughout the pandemic  working, studying, and helping her community  is really inspirational.

Its great to see just how our students can combine professional roles like hers with their studies on the degree  and the team here at Glyndwr are always on hand to lend help, support and guidance when its needed. We have a diverse group of students who are combining their studies with a wide variety of professional roles and its great to hear stories like Lisinaytes which show just how valuable those roles can be in times like these.

To find out more about studying an MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Wrexham Glyndwr University  in a subject area rated first in the UK for student satisfaction and top 20 for graduate prospects  visit the university website.
A University of Georgia student has proven that there are much more outlandish excuses for missing work or bad grades than 'my dog ate my homework'  but just because something seems strange doesn't mean it's not true.

Sam Lee, a 20-year-old junior at the school, recently failed an online test because  she claims  a meatball fell out of her sandwich and onto her computer keyboard, logging her out of the exam.

Luckily, Sam's professor was sympathetic and allowed her to retake the test, thanks in part to Sam's thorough documentation of her sandwich snafu.

Whoops! Sam Lee, a 20-year-old junior at the University of Georgia, failed her test after a meatball fell out of her sandwich onto her computer keyboard

Oh no! The meatball submitted the test as finished, even though it wasn't, and she got a failing grade

Sam was taking a test for her economics class this month while eating a meatball sub  but before she was done answering the questions, one of the meatballs fell out of the sandwich, hitting the keyboard and exiting the test.

That left her with a failing grade of 39.17.

Take pity! The panicked student spent six hours drafting an email to her econ professor, Dr. William D. Lastrapes, to explain the situation

Not willing to ruin her GPA over a slipping snack, she emailed her professor, Dr. William D. Lastrapes, to explain the situation.

'Dear Professor Lastrapes,' she addressed the email, a screengrab of which she posted on Twitter. 'I had some technical difficulties and outside distractions during the test today.'

She went on: 'Something hit my computer and caused it to submit the test when I had less than half of the questions answered.

'By something, I mean a meatball that had tragically fallen onto my keyboard as I was taking the exam.

'This said meatball caused some malfunctions with my laptop and caused the test to submit itself.

'While I have yet to comprehend how this sequence of events even occurred... I have provided you some primary evidence of the event occurring.

'I know that you drop the lowest Module test grade, but I just wanted to let you know that this grade was an accident, and I have been working very hard with the course material.

'Something hit my computer and caused it to submit the test when I had less than half of the questions answered. By something, I mean a meatball that had tragically fallen onto my keyboard as I was taking the exam,' she wrote

Viral: Sam shared the story on Twitter on July 15, writing: 'Remember in high school teachers [in high school] would be like "your college professors will not tolerate this kind of behavior?"'

Phew! Luckily for Sam, Professor Lastrapes was understanding, and wrote back to inform her that she could retake the test

'I completely understand that a falling meatball is no excuse for the failing grade on this exam, but is there any possibility of retaking this test?' she asked.

Sam also included a Snapchat screengrab of herself with the sandwich as proof.

Luckily for Sam, Professor Lastrapes was understanding, and wrote back to inform her that she could retake the test.

'Well, this is certainly a new and unusual excuse for a low score! But for that reason it seems unlikely youve made this up,' he wrote. 'Ive extended your deadline for the module 6 test until midnight tonight... you should be able to go back to the test and finish it.

'I would recommend you take the test either before or after dinner,' he added.

Tickled by the unusual series of events, Sam shared the story on Twitter on July 15, writing: 'Remember in high school teachers [in high school] would be like "your college professors will not tolerate this kind of behavior?"'

Speaking to BuzzFeed, she admitted that she spent six hours working on the email to her professor and was 'overjoyed with his response.'
For all of the rows and name-calling, the European Union has taken a decisive step forward with its Covid aid plans and that could just give Paschal Donohoe the leeway he needs to push ahead with reforms as head of the Eurogroup.

Last year, Mr Donohoe sketched out a list of ambitions which included a banking union for the eurozone - a move that could play well domestically as it would increase competition and cut mortgage costs here - as well as capital markets union that would boost investment flows.

"We believe that any changes in the future of economic and monetary union should strengthen economic and financial stability and help in regaining public trust. That means we should focus on areas where there is greater agreement on what to improve and the timeframe by when that should happen," the Minister for Finance said in a speech last year as he outlined his eurozone agenda.

These two would be the bare minimum achievements and would not cross the budget red lines of the so-called frugal states whose resistance to grants and transfers to southern Europe to fight the pandemic made the Brussels summit such a tense event.

The first issue on Mr Donohoe's agenda, however, will be to shepherd through the details of the 750bn support package and the conditions attached to it - the so-called "frugal four", led by the Netherlands, managed to extract extra pledges and oversight as a price for signing up.

For all of the enthusiasm over the compromise deal reached in Brussels this week, the funds agreed at the summit will likely take months to become operational, and their impact on economic growth will take even longer to show up.

"In an ideal currency union, governments would have been able to borrow immediately this year to fund national fiscal stimulus programmes," said Andrew Kenningham, chief Europe economist at Capital Economics.

"But approximately 70pc of the recovery fund will be committed in 2021 and 2022 and 30pc in 2023 - it could take a lot longer for the money to be disbursed."

That is likely to lead to renewed tensions between north and south as domestic political pressure is brought to bear.

Still, Mr Donohoe does have credibility with the "frugals" thanks to Ireland's stance on state taxation rights and the insistence on tough budget oversight when Dublin signed up two years ago to the New Hanseatic League of northern eurozone members led by the Dutch, who opposed French proposals for a common eurozone budget.

He also has traction with southern Europe and called for the eurozone to issue coronabonds, a form of mutual debt, to finance the economic battle against the pandemic.

In April, he made that position clear when he spoke of the contacts he had with his Spanish counterpart, Nadia Calvino, the person he surprisingly beat in the race to head the Eurogroup in a second-round run-off.

When he described why he was backing coronabonds, Mr Donohoe said of the meetings with Ms Calvino: "Nadia was describing to me the level of need and depth that she is trying to respond to."

That degree of empathy will at least ensure the urbane Mr Donohoe does not repeat the provocative statements of his predecessor-but-one as Eurogroup chief, when Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem accused the southern states of wasting crisis bailout cash and said: "You cannot spend all the money on drinks and women and then ask for help."

While the Brussels summit this week did see plenty of invective, it also capped a six-month period in which the eurozone's institutions have reacted a lot faster and with a greater sense of coherence than the initial chaotic showing during the global financial crisis.

Of course, it is the European Central Bank which has led the way, but that has been the case across the world as central banks have blazed a path while national treasuries have followed.

While there are large differences between national fiscal responses, the size of spending being deployed in terms of new money in budgets, grants, loans and guarantees for companies and automatic welfare payments which kicked in has been a significant shift from the harsh austerity of 2008 onwards.

Even with all the wrangling during the summit, the EU notched some real firsts in the way it conducts economic policy for all of the conditionality and the dirty fix that will see frugal countries such as Austria claw back money in rebates.

"It would be the first time the EU will issue common debt of this magnitude; it will be the first time the EU would launch a common fiscal policy initiative with an explicit counter-cyclical stimulus purpose; and it will be the first time that the EU will engage in a supplementary common fiscal policy measure with the explicit intent to facilitate limited fiscal transfers between member states," the Peterson Institute for International Economics wrote in an analysis.

Still, it took the intervention of European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde to remind EU leaders of the costs of not agreeing a deal, as well as European Commission infographics circulated among the national delegations which showed the benefits of being part of the single market far outweighed budget contributions, especially countries such as Ireland which pay more into the budget than they get back.

Of course, this does beg the question of where now and whether the appetite for reform of any kind is now exhausted.

The financial crisis a decade ago clearly showed the costs of a lack of a real counter-cyclical spending capacity in the eurozone and this week's decision does raise the question of whether the temporary financial instruments being deployed will one day lead to the creation of permanent capacity.

Given the battle royal in Brussels over a relatively small disbursement of funds, that is likely a step way too far.

But if Mr Donohoe can deliver on a banking union and a deepening of capital markets integration he will have two major achievements under his belt during his term, both of which would help Irish households and businesses.
More than 11,000 tourists have cancelled their scheduled visit to Ghana because of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, the Minister of Finance said on Thursday.



Presenting the 2020 mid-year budget review to Parliament, Mr Ofori-Atta said the cancellations led to a projected year-to-date revenue loss of GH4.8 million.



He said the Tourism and Hospitality Industry was currently one of the hardest-hit by COVID-19, with severe adverse impacts on travel demand and accommodation bookings, domestic tourism, and other segments including; cruises, restaurants and cafes, conventions, festivals and conferences and meetings.



Within the space of a few months, the Ghanaian tourism industry had plunged from a situation of healthy growth into a crisis mode. Based on data collected by the Ghana Tourism Authority, as at May, 31, 979 accommodation facilities had shut down, he said.



Mr Ofori-Atta noted that the Creative Arts industry, which largely employed informal and vulnerable persons with mostly no social protection, were severely affected due to restriction on social gatherings, travel and border closures.

Source: GNA









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A painting by a Mi'kmaw artist from Newfoundland and Labrador has made it into the permanent collection of one of the United States' premier institutions, the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.

"It's very flattering," said Nelson White, who has had to keep his accomplishment under wraps since its sale in February as the pandemic threw a few wrenches into the final Smithsonian paperwork.

"I've sort of been sitting on it, and the artwork has been sitting in my basement in a crate the last six months, knowing it was going to Washington, just waiting for those details."

The details have since been ironed out, and White's portrait Veteran Elder is destined for its new American home, already en route in a wooden crate to Washington, D.C.

The oil painting depicts Ellsworth Oakley, a Mi'kmaw elder and American veteran of the Korean War  who joined up at the age of just 17  saluting with a stoic gaze.

Oakley, originally from Massachusetts, now calls Eskasoni, N.S., home. White is friends with his daughter, and had crossed paths with him at powwows before inspiration struck.

"He just had a great face. His face just called out to be painted," White told CBC Radio's Newfoundland Morning.

"Once I knew his story, and knew that he served, he was just the perfect subject, both because of his look and because of his background and where he came from."

Submitted by Nelson White

Recognizing Indigenous veterans

White always felt Veteran Elder was a special work, and as he called around trying to find a special home for it, a gallery in North Carolina recommended he give the Smithsonian a ring.

"To my amazement, they knew who I was and were interested in the artwork. So I made a formal application to their acquisitions committee," said White.

The committee, he said, had their eye out for artwork from east coast Indigenous artists, as well as work involving Indigenous military experience. White  a member of the Flat Bay Band who lives in St. John's  and Veteran Elder fit the bill.

Story continues

When you get a yes, and when you get a big yes, it's very exciting. - Nelson White

"I actually ticked a lot of boxes that they were looking for, at the time," said White.

White felt it was a particular honour for the piece to go to the National Museum of the American Indian.

"A lot of my work centres around Indigenous identity, and to be part of that collection is very symbolic for me. It recognizes my work and it also recognizes Elder Oakley and all those thousands and thousands of Indigenous people who served in the military," he said.

A career highlight

White has had wide-ranging success as an artist, from becoming The Rooms' first Indigenous artist-in-residence to taking part in numerous shows, such as the one last spring in St. John's where Veteran Elder was shown at Eastern Edge Gallery.

And while any career in the arts has its ups and downs, White said this sale stands out as a highlight.

"It's very flattering that an institution of that magnitude accepts my work, because sometimes as an artist, anyone out there who works in the arts understands rejection, understands you're going to get a lot of noes," he said.

"When you get a yes, and when you get a big yes, it's very exciting."

The museum has two branches, in Washington and New York City, and White isn't sure where his painting will be shown or when, but said curators have said they will update him when it goes public.

Read more articles from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador
Any meaningful discussion on the economy veers towards the importance of reforms. Minimum, if not zero, discretion on the part of government is a prerequisite for wealth creation and prosperity. Since free market is the sine qua non of growth and development, economic reforms are a must. It needs to be asserted here that political reforms are also a must.

We are not talking here about the subjects that commentators and analysts have been discussing for decades  election reforms, anti-corruption measures, anti-crony steps, and so on. What we mean here is a code that the entire political class should adopt with the objective of immunising economic development from political maneuvers, manipulations, and machinations.

The lack of such immunity has caused immense harm to investor sentiment and the business climate. A recent instance of politics hurting economy is the series of raids the Income-Tax department and the Enforcement Directorate carried out against the businesspersons and associates reportedly close to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. Dozens of premises in Jaipur, Kota, Mumbai and Delhi were searched by the officers.

The timing of the operations by the two departments, both under the Central government, makes them look like politically-motivated. This is not to suggest that Bharatiya Janata Party has invented the abuse of agencies; this was done by the Congress long before when the BJP became a major party.

Even today, when the grand old party is but a shadow what it was in its glory days, it has not shed old habits; it still uses the levers of power with impunity whenever and wherever it can. So, the Gehlot government didnt have any compunctions in directing the Rajasthan police to serve Sachin Pilot a notice under Sections 124(B) dealing with sedition and 120(B) conspiracy. It is instructive to recall here that in its 2019 election manifesto, the Congress had pledged to abrogate the sedition law. Gehlot may be feeling happy that his party didnt the last general poll, for it would have deprived him of the opportunity to abuse the law!

While politicians attack each other, abusing whichever government organs they control, the real sufferer is the economy. Such actions vitiate not just the political atmosphere but also the business climate.

It is a well-known fact that Indian industrialists generally support all parties, though some  very few actually  who align their fortunes with those of some politicians or parties. At any rate, it is the personal choice of businesspersons to support whichever party they want to. Penalizing them for this choice not just militates against the spirit of democracy but also adversely affects their morale.

In effect, it dampens their enthusiasm to invest in India. And, of course, there are cumbersome clearances, complicated compliances, archaic labor laws, tight regulations, socialist-era rules, et al  the entire ecosystem has an institutionalized bias against wealth creators and investment. Unsurprisingly, the wealthy are moving out of India. In 2018, 5,000 high net-worth individuals (HNIs) left India left for foreign shores.

The Hindu reported on September 11, 2019, As per Henley & Partners data, there was a 33 per cent increase till date in Indian nationals applying for residence programmes for 2019, when compared to the whole of 2018. Henley & Partners is an investment migration firm that specialises in helping wealthy individuals obtain second residence or citizenship.

Earlier, in March 2018, a Morgan Stanley study had also highlighted this disturbing development. The Economic Times reported on March 19, 2018, India has lost the highest percentage of dollar-millionaires to migration since 2014, ahead of China and France, with the crackdown on black money being the most plausible reason for the exodus. Nearly 23,000 dollar-millionaires have left the country since 2014, with 7,000 leaving in 2017 alone, taking India to the top of the exodus charts.

The rough treatment meted out to the rich is a major cause of this exodus. Unfortunately, little has been done to stem either the exodus or check the mistreatment of businesspersons. Politicians of all parties continue to misuse government agencies as we mentioned above.

Against this backdrop, it would be unrealistic to expect HNIs to invest money in India.

Investment presupposes an amiable policy framework. The Narendra Modi government has done well to introduce a slew of reforms in the last few months, especially in agriculture, offering choice to the farmer to sell his produce and removing outdated restrictions.

Now, the government should initiate another set of reforms, political ones. It should try to evolve a consensus among all parties that businesspersons are not dragged into the political battles. This will help not just the rich but also the economy, for they will be enthused to invest in India.
With Niagara to enter Stage 3 of the provinces reopening strategy Friday, a video uploaded to YouTube Tuesday has raised concerns about huge crowds of people on Clifton Hill.

The video, titled Shut Down Niagara Falls, was filmed by Cole Morningstar of Niagara Falls and shared by the online group Amusement Insiders. It shows thousands of people in the tourist district, most not wearing protective masks and with little social distancing.

The commentator wonders why amusement parks in Ontario  including Canadas Wonderland  are not allowed to open in Stage 3 because of safety concerns, but throngs of people can jam an area like Clifton Hill.

This right here is exactly why our (COVID-19) cases are climbing in Ontario, the narrator said.

This is how Wave 2 (of the pandemic) starts.

Morningstar, 20, said he filmed the crowds between 9:15 p.m. and 9:38 p.m. Saturday. He was alarmed by the huge lineups for food and attractions, with little space between people.

I went out for a little bike ride and then I saw the mass amount of people in line, he said. I was like, this is not even close to social distancing.

Though he was wearing a mask, Morningstar said he was still nervous wading into the crowd to film.

Theres points in the video where people are not even a foot apart, he said. The line for the SkyWheel went all the way through the road. No way for any through-traffic to go up or down the hill.

Morningstar has an aunt who works in the area and told him the majority of tourists were from Toronto and the GTA, one of the few regions in Ontario that will remain in Stage 2 Friday.

I hope they figure out a way to keep people socially distanced, but its kind of hard, he said. In Niagara Falls, anyone can come into the city. You cant track down a certain number to let in the city and out of the city.

Morningstar said the video had more than 50,000 views by Wednesday morning.

Niagara Falls resident James Gaade said he was shocked by the video, especially because the city has spent months following the provinces protocols. He sent an email to Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati asking why there was little to no regard for public safety in the tourist district.

As a parent of a two-year-old daughter and a longtime Niagara Falls resident I am shocked to see the blatant disregard for the provincial guidelines that could affect my familys safety as we have worked very hard to stay socially isolated for the past four months and then I see this.

Niagara Falls MPP Wayne Gates called the video very concerning.

People need work so we cant shut these businesses down again, but its obvious were getting used to this, he said. When we see these sorts of situations happening we have to act to ensure the community stays safe and that people can still keep working.

Gates added that while inside the businesses, the staff are doing great, its outside on Clifton Hill that measures need to be taken.

Well need to work with the city to ensure that everything public health suggests is made available.

Victoria Centre BIA administrator Tim Parker said all businesses in the area have been given extensive information on safety protocols and are doing a great job so far. But despite sidewalk markings and signage, crowds on the street can be hard to control.

The problem that you have is the open spaces, he said. If people dont want to be educated and they dont want to listen, its very difficult to force them in a public place to say, Hey, stand six feet apart  are you with the same family?  do you live in the same house?  where are you from?

Despite concerns raised by the video, Parker doesnt see the need for drastic measures such as gating off Clifton Hill to control crowds. But if people dont follow guidelines and COVID-19 numbers spike, the region could go back to Stage 1 and a massive shutdown.

People have to understand theyre endangering their lives and the lives of others, he said. They can still come to Niagara Falls, have fun  they basically just have to stay apart, wear your mask, and not gather.

Theres more than enough room to spread out.

Diodati said he doesnt want Niagara Falls to turn into another Florida, but hopes a proactive approach starting this weekend will help crowds be more vigilant. He says some Crush the Curve ambassadors will be handing out free masks, offer to sanitize hands, and remind them of the bylaws.
The Executive has backed down on making face masks in shops here mandatory - at least for the moment - as the issue descended into farce on Thursday night.

Instead, ministers are launching a campaign to encourage people to cover up in stores.

They will consider the level of compliance by August 20 and could then decide on steps around enforcement.

But there was confusion as the Health Minister was forced to backtrack on a statement that claimed a decision on compulsory coverings had already been taken.

In other developments on Thursday:

The Executive agreed on an indicative date of August 10 for the reopening of 'wet pubs'.

Spectators will be allowed to attend outdoor sporting venues "where the operator can control access and ensure adherence to social distancing".

The number of people from different households permitted to gather in a private home is now 10.

Facilities such as bowling alleys and swimming pools can open from Friday;

Health officials revealed a coronavirus contact tracing app for Northern Ireland will be launched next week.

And ministers have updated advice for people heading abroad.

Guidance which had said only to travel overseas if it is essential has been dropped. Instead people are urged to "carefully consider your holiday and travel options, in light of the continuing Covid-19 threat".

The issue sparked a row after Alliance health spokeswoman Paula Bradshaw said her family would travel to Italy for a holiday this weekend. Hours after defending her plans, the South Belfast MLA cancelled the trip.

On Thursday night she refused to be drawn on whether she would reconsider, saying it was "a private matter".

After days of confusion around holidays, Arlene Foster and Michelle O'Neill are seeking a special summit including the British and Irish Governments to address discord over Covid-19 travel restrictions. Deputy First Minister Ms O'Neill admitted: "The position is confusing for people, it is a mess across the island."

The Executive on Thursday night faced fresh claims of mixed messaging - this time on face coverings.

At 6.20pm a statement was released from Mr Swann welcoming the "Executive's decision to make the wearing of face coverings mandatory in shops".

It said the rule would take effect on a phased basis from August 1, with a "lead-in period (that) will see legal enforcement of the measure beginning on August 20".

But 30 minutes later a second statement was issued, removing any reference to mandatory rules.

Mr Swann, in his new statement, said the "initial emphasis will be on education and encouragement".

There had been calls for the Executive to make face masks here compulsory, after similar moves by England, Scotland and the Republic.

But retail bodies said they feared making coverings mandatory would deter shoppers.

On Thursday the Executive agreed to give itself the power to make face coverings mandatory in some indoor settings including shops. But the law will not be enforced until August 20 - and only then if take-up of masks is low.

Simon Hamilton, chief executive of Belfast Chamber, and Glyn Roberts, chief executive of Retail NI, had said they were opposed to face coverings becoming mandatory.

In a joint statement they welcomed the Executive's decision, adding: "We appreciate that ministers have listened to concerns expressed from both of our organisations and have decided to adopt an initial voluntary approach to strongly recommend the wearing of face coverings in shops.

"The decision will allow retailers time to prepare properly and also let the Executive develop guidance, better inform everyone of the benefits of wearing face coverings and educate us all on how to use coverings correctly."

Meanwhile, Colin Neill, chief executive of Hospitality Ulster, welcomed news of an indicative opening date of August 10 for wet pubs.

He said: "These pubs are at the heart of our local communities and have experienced significant financial difficulties since closure in March."

It has also been confirmed a Covid-19 tracing app will be launched next week.

Department of Health chief digital information officer Dan West told the Stormont health committee it would be called Stop Covid NI. Use of the app will be voluntary and it will not collect identifiable information, he added. Should someone receive a positive test they will receive a unique code texted to their phone.

Once the user gives permissions it will release data from the phone to a server so close contacts can be traced, he added.

Northern Ireland will be the first part of the UK to have a contact tracing app. The Republic's app launched earlier this month.

Meanwhile, eight new cases of Covid-19 have been recorded here, the Department of Health confirmed.

No further deaths were recorded in the past 24 hours and the death toll from the virus remains at 556, based on the department's figures, which cover mainly hospital fatalities.
China said Thursday that ``malicious slander'' is behind an order by the US government to close its consulate in Houston, Texas, maintaining that its officials never operated outside ordinary diplomatic rules.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said the move against the consulate, the first one China opened in the US after the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1979, goes against the basic norms of international relations.

``This is breaking down the bridge of friendship between the Chinese and American people,'' Wang told reporters at a daily briefing.

He dismissed US allegations of espionage and intellectual property theft, calling them ``completely malicious slander.''

The US on Tuesday ordered the consulate closed within 72 hours, alleging that Chinese agents had tried to steal data from facilities in Texas, including the Texas A&M medical system and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The move was a dramatic escalation of the growing tensions between the world's two largest economies as President Donald Trump directs blame and punitive measures at China ahead of the US presidential election in November.

Wang did not comment on speculation about whether a US consulate in China would be ordered closed in response, and which one might be targeted.

``China will surely take necessary measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,'' he said, without elaborating.

The US has an embassy in Beijing and consulates in five other mainland cities: Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenyang and Wuhan. It also has a consulate in Hong Kong, a Chinese territory.

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Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesBy TRISH TURNER, ABC NEWS



Sens. John Cornyn and Ed Markey -- from opposite ends of the political spectrum -- attempted to pass legislation by unanimous consent on Wednesday making Juneteenth a federal holiday, saying it was past time to put the celebration of the formal end of slavery alongside other federal holidays celebrated by all Americans.



But one Republican -- Ron Johnson of Wisconsin -- objected, saying that while he favored celebrating the end of slavery, he would not support adding another paid day off for federal workers.



"I object to the fact that by naming it a national holiday, what they're leaving out of their argument, the main impact of that is it gives federal workers a paid day off that the rest of Americans have to pay for," Johnson said, when blocking the legislation.



Markey said making Juneteenth a federal holiday would be a "further reconciliation" in the country that is "long overdue."



"Our country is in the midst of a long overdue reckoning on race and justice. The murder of George Floyd by members of the Minneapolis Police Department has galvanized the nation as protesters have taken to our streets demanding justice," Markey said in a floor speech introducing the bill. "But this reckoning goes well beyond seeking accountability for police officers who betray the trust we bestow upon them. The mistreatment of Black and brown Americans permeates our society. It infects our courts, our schools, our places of work. It reflects the unfulfilled promise of a nation built upon the notion that all are created equal. And it has its roots in our nation's original sin -- slavery -- a crime against humanity that we have for far too long failed to acknowledge or address or come to grips with."



Cornyn, noting that the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in Galveston, Texas, by President Abraham Lincoln, said his home state had been celebrating Juneteenth for 40 years, and it was past time for the nation to celebrate as one.



"There is moment available to us here where we can demonstrate our nonpartisan support for this act of racial reconciliation in our country. I agree that slavery was the original sin. Our founding documents said all men and women are created equal but that certainly wasn't the practice when it came to African Americans at the time which were officially designated as something less than fully human an outrageous -- outrageous -- act at the time," Cornyn said. "And our country has paid a dear price for that over the years from a Civil War to the violence that led up to the peaceful civil rights movement in the 1960's, and it's obvious from the recent events ... that we're not where we need to be. We still have room to grow as part of that -- developing that more perfect union."



Johnson said that neither Markey nor Cornyn had received a price tag from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office which tallies the cost of legislation for lawmakers. The former businessman from Wisconsin said the private sector pays "about $600 million per year" for paid holidays for federal workers, and he offered an amendment to take one current holiday from federal workers in exchange for Juneteenth.



Markey objected.



We shouldn't be penalizing our workers by taking away benefits, especially not in the current environment, and especially not as the price to pay for recognizing a long overdue federal holiday," said Markey.



Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
WATERLOO REGION  Will schools reopen? Will kids wear masks? Will children learn from home? Will that be a better experience?

Local school boards are finalizing options while waiting for the province to announce how education will resume in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Plans from school boards also must be approved by the province.

Boards are planning for three options: a full reopening of classrooms, online learning from home, or a mix of classrooms and home learning.

Heres what we know so far from local boards. Options remain under review. Public and Catholic schools are moving toward aligning their models but have yet to fully get there.

Does my child have to go back to school?

No. Returning to school is voluntary. Schools will offer remote learning to families who keep children at home.

What if schools reopen fully?

It will look a lot like normal but with enhanced health and safety measures, such as frequent handwashing and more cleaning of classrooms.

Parents will be asked to pre-screen children at home. Busing would be like usual but students must wear masks on buses.

Elementary and high school classes could have up to 30 students.

Bell times may be unchanged. Schools would stagger student entries and exits, as well as lunches and outdoor breaks.

Public high school students would carry four classes at a time in each of two semesters. The Catholic board is favouring a quadmester schedule, meaning students will carry two courses at a time in each of four quarters.

What if families are told to mix classroom and home learning?

Students will be divided into groups of up to 15, based on busing. These groups will stay together on the same schedule.

Students may be in a classroom five days in a row, then be sent home to learn remotely for five days.

Students would be in the classroom on Thursday and Friday, and again from Monday to Wednesday, and then learn from home on Thursday and Friday, and the following Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Its a rotation that provides face-to-face learning for five straight days, supports the continuity of learning, and puts all children in classrooms every week.

Some students with special needs will be allowed to attend school daily at both boards, to sustain routines and structure.

Buses would be limited to 24 students under this scenario. Parents are asked to signal by July 31 if they do not require busing. You can opt back into busing at any time.

Public and Catholic high schools generally propose that students carry two classes at a time in quadmesters under this scenario.

What if classrooms stay closed and students are told to stay home to learn?

Boards want remote learning made more robust than it was in the spring, when it was deployed after schools closed in March.

We need to do better, said Lila Read, a superintendent with the Waterloo Region District School Board.

Remote learning is expected to be online as much as possible. Teachers will be expected to instruct students live on a regular basis, along with delivering instruction thats not live.

RELATED STORIES Waterloo Region COVID-19 weighing on Waterloo school board budgets

For example, Catholic elementary teachers could be expected to post or interact daily with students, and to connect with them live up to three times a week.

Teachers at both boards are expected to use software such as Google Classroom or Brightspace by Desire2Learn.

Students are to be assessed and evaluated regularly. To help determine grades or marks, the province says exams may be replaced by demonstrations, projects, essays and tasks.

Who must wear masks in school?

This is undetermined while the Ministry of Education consults. Masks are a tricky question right now, said Loretta Notten, education director for the Waterloo Catholic District School Board.

SickKids hospital out of Toronto has advised the government not to require schoolchildren to wear masks, saying that benefits are weak, improper use carries risks, and it is impractical for a child to wear a mask all day long.

School staff will be masked when working in close contact with children who have special needs.

The public school board is setting funds aside to pay for masks for all staff and students. Boards are awaiting provincial direction.
GRAND TRAVERSE COUNTY, MI -- Brandon Reyes, the 20-year-old man accused of abducting and assaulting two teenage girls, has been charged with 13 felonies. According to Up North Live, among the charges brought against Reyes are torture and assault.

Bond was set at $250,000 Thursday after Grand Traverse County Assistant Prosecutor Kyle Attwood requested a high bond because he believes Reyes was close to committing homicide and has admitted to considering suicide. The suspect is due back in court on Aug. 6.

The alleged abduction and assaults took place on Sunday, July 19 according to officials. Police say Reyes met up with the teenage sisters -- ages 13 and 15 -- early Sunday at a construction site. Throughout the day-long ordeal, Reyes allegedly assaulted the teens with a hammer, drove them to secluded area, threatened them with a gun and at one point tried to get the 15-year-old to jump off a bridge.

Reyes also ran over the 15-year-old with a vehicle, causing her liver to be nearly split in half, the station reported. She remains in the intensive care unit at a local hospital.

At some point during the ordeal, Reyes allowed the 13-year-old to leave, and she went home and told her mother about what happened. Police were called then, and an Amber Alert was issued for the 15-year-old.

Police eventually found Reyes and the older girl in Blair Township shortly before 10 p.m. Reyes was arrested and the girl was found initially unresponsive and in need of treatment for her injuries. Police say Reyes was a family friend and thats how he knew the girls.

Reyes has been placed under suicide watch at the Grand Traverse County Jail.

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China has already delivered two submarines to Bangladesh Navy in its desperate bid to expand its footprints in the Indian sub-continent.

New Delhi 22 July (IANS) For Chinese Ambassador in Bangladesh, Li Jiming, bringing Chinese companies to Dhaka is not the only priority. His ostensible goal seems to be expediting several key projects, including the ultra-modern submarine base project, BNS Sheikh Hasina, in Pekua, Cox's Bazar.

Li Jiming (58), a career diplomat, has been instrumental in bringing Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina closer to Chinese President Xi-Jinping.

In a joint statement of China and Bangladesh last year, Sheikh Hasina had not only backed Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but she also agreed with China's plans to bolster defence industry, including strengthening Bangladesh Navy and maritime management in Bay of Bengal.

Though New Delhi enjoys cordial relations with the Sheikh Hasina government, Beijing eyes to increase its presence in the sub-continent through delivering subsidised infrastructure projects like ports, airports or the ongoing submarine base in Cox's Bazar.

Top sources in Indian intelligence agencies revealed to IANS that Chinese state-owned company Poly Technologies Inc (PTI) has been assigned the submarine base project and a full-fledged construction, estimated to be worth 10,300 crore Bangladeshi taka, has begun at the site. The submarine base would have facilities like wharfs, barracks, ammunition depot and repairing dock.

Sources in Indian agencies said that at the behest of Beijing, Chinese Ambassador Li Jiming has been tasked to expedite several core infrastructure projects in Bangladesh, including that of Cox's Bazar.

Li Jiming, who earlier had a stint with the government of Yunnan province, reportedly has a good rapport with top commanders of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), currently overlooking the submarine project. Li Jiming also played a key role in the quick delivery of Chinese made Corvette to the Bangladesh Navy.

Bangladesh had earlier received two submarines from China in 2016-17, which are operating from a makeshift base in Cox's Bazar. After procuring these submarines, Dhaka had approached Beijing to lend its hand in building a modern submarine base for Bangladesh Navy.

Dhaka is also founding a new naval base in Patkhauli that will have a submarine berthing and operation facilities to ensure the security of Payra seaport in southern Bangladesh.

To strengthen its Naval forces, Prime Minister Hasina last month commissioned a Chinese Corvette named BNS Sangram. However, to balance the scale of relations with its neighbour, Hasina also praised India's contribution in the liberation of Bangladesh. She reminded her countrymen how her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had started the newly-independent country's journey with very limited resources.

--IANS

ds/arm
The Social Democratic Party (SDP) on Thursday picked Peter Fasua as its candidate for the October 10 governorship election in Ondo State.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that before voting could start, Bade Falade, who conducted the party primary, announced the withdrawal of two other contestants from the race.

Mr Falade, also the SDP National Vice-Chairman, South-West, and Chairman of the primary, said that Festus Owolola and Bamidele Oduwale, had stepped down for Mr Fasua.

He said eight delegates were drawn from each of the 18 local government areas of Ondo State to elect the SDP candidate for the incoming governorship election.

Fasua emerged as our candidate for the October 10 election as two other aspirants stepped down for him.

Having met all the guidelines of our party, Mr Peter Oyeleye Fasua, is hereby returned elected as the candidate of SDP for Ondo State governorship election, he said.

NAN reports that the delegates had gathered at the SDP Secretariat in the Adegbola area of Akure for the party primary when the two other contestants announced their withdrawal from the race.

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Other national leaders in attendance were the state Chairmen of the party in Ebonyi, Edo, Ogun, Kogi, Rivers, Osun, Lagos, Delta, Adamawa and Akwa-Ibom.

Mr Falade said, Having met all the guidelines of our party, Mr Peter Oyeleye Fasua, is hereby returned elected as candidate of the SDP for the Ondo State governorship election.

Social Democratic Party, SDP, logo

He urged all members of the party to work with Mr Fasua for his success and that of SDP in the election.

In his acceptance speech, Mr Fasua thanked the delegates and other aspirants for their belief in him as the party candidate.

Ondo State has what it takes to be one of the best states in the country.

But due to maladministration by successive governments, the state has failed to develop.

For this coming election, we shall win with the cooperation of the partys members and people of the state.

SDP is in the race to bring good dividends of democracy to the people at the grassroots, he said.

(NAN)
ANN ARBOR, MI  With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing, huge numbers of people are requesting absentee ballots rather than planning to go to the polls on Election Day.

As of Wednesday, July 22, 90,938 voters in Washtenaw County had requested absentee ballots for the Aug. 4 primary, said Ed Golembiewski, the countys elections director.
Europe cannot 'fail twice on migration' and must avoid a repeat of the 2015 crisis, the EU Commission has warned today.

Vice-President Margaritis Schinas said today the bloc cannot have similar scenes to those seen five years ago, when more than a million exiles fleeing wars, persecution or poverty flooded the continent.

The huge influx caused significant political rifts within the European Union with some states in the border-free Schengen area putting up fences and reimposing frontier controls.

Migrants disembark from a vessel after their arrival from the Turkish coast to the northeastern Greek island of Lesbos, in November 2015, when around 5,000 a day were reaching Europe along the so-called Balkan migrant route

'Europe cannot fail twice on migration,' Schinas said at a press conference after a meeting of ministers from 18 EU and Western Balkan nations.

'This is the moment, now,' Schinas said, referring to a long-awaited and repeatedly postponed proposal for the reform of EU migration and asylum policy, which the European Commission is expected to unveil in September.

Schinas said the fact that the bloc had this week signed off on a giant coronavirus economic recovery plan had cleared the way for progress on other issues.

'We didn't want to contaminate the discussions on the recovery plan with another difficult file on migration,' Schinas said.

However, at the end of the two-day conference held in Vienna it was clear that many aspects of any future deal remain contentious.

Greek representatives had made clear before the meeting that they and other southern European states wanted compulsory distribution of refugees across the EU to be on the agenda.

Countries such as Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have been vehemently opposed to this.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, whose country currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, stressed the need for tighter procedures to decide at the EU's external borders who was eligible for refugee status.

Vice-President Margaritis Schinas, pictured in Vienna today, said the bloc cannot have similar scenes to those seen five years ago, when more than a million exiles fleeing fleeing wars, persecution or poverty flooded the continent

Seehofer also underscored higher levels of returns to countries of origin for those who do not get refugee status.

When asked directly whether Germany would rule out a system of compulsory distribution, Seehofer said: 'Let's introduce these other measures first.'

'If we're able to achieve a lot, then this question of distribution will retreat into the background,' he said.

Seehofer said Germany was now registering between 300 and 400 arrivals per day of people seeking to stay, the same level as before the novel coronavirus pandemic caused a drop.

The meeting decided to set up a 'coordination platform' in Vienna to facilitate the exchange of information between EU states and those in the Western Balkans on migration.

Seehofer said he hoped the new platform would act as a sort of 'early warning system' to indicate when additional measures might be required to deal with migration issues.
Aditya Puri, Managing Director, HDFC Bank

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If one goes by HDFC Bank CEO Aditya Puris comments, his successor will be an insider. There has been a lot of talk about the successor not being with us for a long time. Our potential successor has been with us for 25 years. My successor was always in place, at least in my mind. It is now for RBI to decide, Puri said at the banks recent AGM.

In the list of candidates submitted to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) by the bank early this year, there are two names that qualify this descriptionSashidhar Jagdishan and Kaizad Bharucha. Hence, logically, one of these two executives should be named as the CEO after Puri. The RBI decision on this is still pending.

An insider like Jagdishan or Bharucha will be familiar with Puris work style and the banks way of functioning. Nonetheless, they are both sure to have big shoes to fill.

Puri headed Indias largest private bank for nearly three decades and grew it into a formidable institution. It has long been a darling of investors.

But some recent controversies in the bank has made the job difficult for Puris successor. The problem at hand for the new chief is not just to carry on with HDFC Banks performance legacy but also clear doubts in the minds of investors and shareholders that there isnt anything rotting beneath the glossy walls of the bank. HDFC Bank was rocked recently by charges of misselling or forced selling of GPS products to the auto loan borrowers.

The incident does not amount to a banking fraud or a scam. A series of exits from the senior management including the now-controversial exit of banks former auto division head, Ashok Khanna, could be termed as perfectly normal as the banks crisis management team has been attempting to portray since Day One.

But no doubt, these controversies have dented the image of HDFC Bank among common investors. The shadow of suspicion persists.

The charges include banks executives forcing the borrowers to buy GPS devices bundled with the auto loans and even insisting that loans will not be sanctioned unless they buy these devices.

The devices, manufactured by a Mumbai firm, Trackpoint GPS, cost about Rs 18 000 a piece. But it is not the amount involved but the corporate practices that have been questioned.

For an institution of HDFC Banks stature, such irregularities do not augur well. Misselling or forced selling of products is a crime in the eyes of the banking regulator and selling a non-financial product by the bank, if indeed happened, is a sin.

The allegations first surfaced on social media. The bank responded to the charges with the statement only after a sustained social media campaign by one of the whistleblowers against the alleged irregularities and subsequent reports in the mainstream media.

The misconduct by the bank officials was acknowledged by Puri itself in the banks AGM when he said an internal probe was conducted against a few erring employees and appropriate action was taken.

With this, the GPS scam was no longer a social media buzz and a trading room chatter but acknowledgement by Indias largest private banking institution that some of its employees went against rules possibly under the watch of a senior vertical head. Soon, reports emerged that the bank has sacked six officials in connection with the case and that the RBI has sought details of the probe.

Does the issue end there? One cant say for sure unless the details of the probe and findings are revealed in the public. To be sure, misselling of products isnt new in the Indian banking industry.

From insurance products to mutual funds to controversial additional tier 1 bonds (AT1 bonds), misselling has been a worrying part of the banking business.

Banks have carried out misselling rampantly in the quest to make big money, forgetting the cardinal rules of customer fairness and fair play. Customers, especially uninformed gullible ones, fall for pep talk and marketing methods easily.

But big institutions suffer reputation damage even with smaller faults by employees and the urge to protect those erring employees complicate the wound and it takes a long time to heal.

A perfect case in hand is the heat felt by ICICI Banks brand following Chanda Kochhar-Videocon quid-pro-quo deal. The CEO agreed to push a Rs 3,250 crore loan to Videocons Dhoot so that Dhoot will invest in her husbands company. The scandal damaged ICICI banks image, all because of one erring employee. The wound is still fresh.

This should be a lesson to other banks. Puris successor, who is waiting for RBIs final clearance at this stage, has an immediate task of making the full details of the auto loan probe public and regain the confidence of investorsboth critical for the bank particularly in an already challenging industry environment.

Until then, the bank hasnt revealed what really went wrong in the department. All that the outsider has is media reports and allegations.

The next task would be to keep the top management together. Puri enjoyed an unquestionable command over the senior management, something he built over decades.

HDFC Bank insiders and banking industry officials say Puris voice always dominated the management in crucial decisions. Those who didnt heed had to leave even after long years of work in the bank.

It is not uncommon that an exodus of the senior management begins once the term of the old, influential CEO comes to an end. This happened in Yes Bank and many other banks. The new boss will have to convince the team that he is worthy to lead the team.

The whole transition process takes a while. The problem for Puris successor is that the change of guard is happening at a time when the banking industry is fighting the spectre of Covid-19.

There have been several senior-level exits from the bank sine FY17, many of whom were part of the bank for over a decade and contributed significantly in building the brand. A recent ambit capital research counted eighteen senior-level exits since FY17. These include Groups heads like Munish Mittal, Ashok Khanna, Abhay Aima, Nitin Chaugh, Rajesh Kumar Rathanchand, all of whom spent 18-25 years in the bank.

The list also includes Paresh Sukthankar, Deputy Managing Director, who was rumoured to be Puris successor at one point. These many senior-level exits mean the new CEO will also have a new team and those who built the HDFC bank legacy over the last two decades wont be around. Thats a key challenge.

Future is built on assumptions and hopes.

The auto loan episode has damaged HDFC Banks image of being an institution that cant err. It has exposed faultlines in monitoring wrongdoers and guards good corporate governance practices. A major clean-up will be one of the first big tasks of the new CEO.
Three people in public housing in South Melbourne have tested positive to coronavirus, the Victorian health department has confirmed.

The three people, who live in the 15-storey Dorcas Street public housing tower, have now been told they must isolate at home until cleared by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The small number of cases in the tower will be a cause of concern to the Andrews government because of outbreaks in the inner northern suburbs of Carlton, North Melbourne and Flemington that by Friday had spread to 357 people.

A department spokeswoman said the three positive cases in the Dorcas Street flat were all from the same home.

"As with all other cases who test positive, they are required to remain at home in isolation until cleared by the Department of Health and Human Services, she said.

The department was not aware of any cases outside that one apartment, she said.
Today, LogistiCare partnered with Philabundance, The Liberti Church Network and Medical Transportation Providers LLC to help package, distribute and deliver food to Philadelphia residents in need at West Kensington Ministry. From left to right: Adrian Diana, Medical Transportation Providers LLC; Omar Carillo, Medical Transportation Providers LLC; Reverend Vito Baldini, The Liberti Church Network and Easter Outreach; Dasha Alexander, LogistiCare; and Jamie Moses, LogistiCare.

Today, LogistiCare partnered with Philabundance, The Liberti Church Network and Medical Transportation Providers LLC to help package, distribute and deliver food to Philadelphia residents in need at West Kensington Ministry. From left to right: Adrian Diana, Medical Transportation Providers LLC; Omar Carillo, Medical Transportation Providers LLC; Reverend Vito Baldini, The Liberti Church Network and Easter Outreach; Dasha Alexander, LogistiCare; and Jamie Moses, LogistiCare.

Philadelphia, PA, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LogistiCare, the nations largest non-emergency medical transportation company, is partnering with Philabundance and The Liberti Church Network to deliver food to Philadelphia residents in need. In the first few weeks of the partnership with Philabundance and The Liberti Church Network, LogistiCare has delivered more than 1,200 meals to residents in Philadelphia.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Liberti Church Network quickly recognized that residents facing restrictions and safety concerns needed a way to receive food  with so many no longer able to rely on public transportation to get to the store or a local food pantry, with some forced to go without food altogether.

Adaptability is the hallmark of our success, explained Reverend Vito Baldini, Director of Mercy and Justice for The Liberti Church Network, who has been coordinating food distributions for Philadelphia residents since the start of the pandemic. In a period of 3 days, just as the pandemic really began to spike, we had to quickly find a way for our food distribution efforts to transform from a once a year effort into a 6-days-a-week provider  the need in our city was just that big!

To help make the transformation happen, Rev. Baldini turned to Philabundance, who has been a valued partner for eight years in the coordination of food distribution efforts, along with new partner, LogistiCare, who heard of Rev. Baldinis food delivery needs and stepped in to help. LogistiCare's local transportation provider, Medical Transportation Providers LLC, was called upon to deliver food packages provided by Philabundance to food-insecure members of the community in need.

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Our relationship with The Liberti Church Network and Philabundance allows us to provide assistance to residents of some of Philadelphias neighborhoods that face the greatest need for food delivery, said Kathryn Stalmack, SVP and General Counsel of LogistiCare. LogistiCares growing relationships with food banks, faith-based organizations, municipalities, nonprofits and government entities demonstrate our ability and desire to adjust our basic service model from delivering patients to appointments, to the delivery food when and where it is needed the most.

The COVID-19 crisis has had a major impact on food insecure senior citizens across Greater Philadelphia, explained Philabundance Manager of Agency Relations Emily Glick. Many seniors rely on the governments Senior Box Program to supplement their normal grocery hauls, but risked contracting the virus if they left their homes to pick up this much needed resource. Thanks to Pastor Vito, The Liberti Church Network and LogistiCare, seniors across the region can receive the senior boxes they rely on through contactless delivery. Its absolutely amazing.

We make access to our food delivery services simple, yet effective, said Dasha Alexander, Provider Relations Director for LogistiCare. Philabundance and The Liberti Church Network work together to provide us with a list of recipients for the delivery service, in addition to the actual food packages. Then, we utilize our pre-existing resources with our transportation partners to create routes, pick up food and deliver it those who need it most.

If you or someone you know is in need of food in Philadelphia, kindly reach out to Rev. Vito Baldini at admin@easteroutreach.org or visit www.easteroutreach.org.

About Providence Service Corporation and LogistiCare:

LogistiCare, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Providence Service Corporation, is the nations largest manager of non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) programs for state government agencies and managed care organizations. LogistiCares services include NEMT ride management, call center management, transportation provider network development and credentialing, and vendor administration.

LogistiCare is focused on providing access to convenient, cost-effective, safe and reliable transportation. LogistiCare delivers tech-enabled solutions that provide enhanced functionality, stronger network performance, streamlined workflow processes, and higher overall system efficiency. Annually LogistiCare manages over 63 million trips for more than 24 million eligible riders in 50 states and the District of Columbia. For more information about LogistiCare visit www.logisticare.com.

About Philabundance:

Philabundance is one of the Delaware Valleys largest hunger relief organizations, driving hunger from our communities today and ending hunger for good. In 2019, it distributed more than 26 million pounds through a network of 350 partners, and partnerships with hospitals, schools, libraries and other service providers. Philabundance serves more than 90,000 people each week, 30 percent of whom are children, 16 percent of whom are seniors, and other people served include college students, single parents and the working class. Give now or learn more at Philabundance.org.

About The Liberti Church Network:

The Liberti Church Network is a community of churches that seek to live, speak and serve as the very presence of Jesus in our neighborhoods. All Liberti Network churches are founded on three key ministry areas  church planting, local mercy initiative and international mercy initiatives. Churches span in location from throughout the city of Philadelphia and into greater regional communities in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, including: River Wards, Fairmount, Center City, Newtown Square, the Main Line, Collingswood, Montgomery County, Harrisburg, Lebanon and the Northeast. For more information, visit: https://liberti.org/.

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CONTACT: Liz Thomas Thomas Boyd Communications 609-923-9946 liz@thomasboyd.com




UNHCR Malaysia News  UNHCR Malaysia

UNHCR welcomes the decision made by the Alor Setar High Court today to withdraw a caning sentence for 27 Rohingya refugees who were to receive three strokes of the rotan for illegal entry.

The Rohingya men were among 40 refugees convicted last month by a magistrates court in Langkawi for entering Malaysia by boat without a valid permit. All 40 also received seven months prison sentences.

The decision demonstrates the High Courts clear understanding of international refugee law in a mixed migration context and the need for upholding protection measures for refugees and asylum-seekers.

It has been a very long time since a magistrate`s court has issued a sentence including the punishment of caning under section 6(3) of the Immigration Act 1959/63. Caning is not a mandatory penalty, Courts are vested with the discretion to impose caning in cases where there are acts of violence, habitual offenders or threats to public order.

UNHCR warmly welcomes the ruling of High Court Judge Arik Sanusi that caning would be inhumane as the individuals were refugees registered with UNHCR.

The Court also took note of the persecution faced by Rohingya refugees, highlighting the principle of non-refoulement, that refugees cannot be returned to a country, including their own, where their lives or freedom may be at risk.

UNHCR commends the Courts decision to uphold the protection of human rights of those most vulnerable people among us.
AMC's Studio 30 theater in Olathe, Kan. (Associated Press / Orlin Wagner)

AMC Theatres, the world's largest cinema owner, is delaying the reopening of its domestic locations again, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to scramble plans for film industry's recovery.

The Leawood, Kan.-based exhibitor, owned by China's Dalian Wanda Group, on Thursday that said it currently plans to reopen its U.S. movie theaters in "mid to late August."

Also on Thursday, Walt Disney Co. delayed the release of the highly anticipated live-action remake of "Mulan," which was expected to debut on Aug. 21 after previous delays. The studio did not give a new date for the big-budget film.

"Over the last few months, its become clear that nothing can be set in stone when it comes to how we release films during this global health crisis, and today that means pausing our release plans for Mulan as we assess how we can most effectively bring this film to audiences around the world," a Disney spokesman said in an emailed statement.

The decisions came after Warner Bros. on Monday postponed the release of its Christopher Nolan film "Tenet," a potential blockbuster, indefinitely, amid continued concerns about the spread of the coronavirus. The movie was expected to help kickstart the beleaguered U.S. movie business after months of being largely closed down.

This is not the first time AMC has changed plans. AMC, which operates about 630 theaters in the U.S., earlier delayed plans to open its doors until July 30, after previously targeting July 15.

"This new timing reflects currently expected release dates for much anticipated blockbusters like Warner Bros.' Tenet and Disney's Mulan, as well as release dates for several other new movies coming to AMC's big screens," the company said in a statement.

AMC, which has about 1,000 theaters globally, has been closed in the U.S. since mid-March. The company, led by CEO Adam Aron, has laid off and furloughed thousands of employees and raised hundred of millions in financing to help it survive months of no revenue as it waits for new movies from Hollywood studios.

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Many analysts had speculated that Disney would pause "Mulan's" release plans as coronavirus cases continue to rise in places including Los Angeles, which is the biggest domestic market for theatrical film. The movie was originally planned for March 27 and had already held its premiere in Los Angeles before theaters shuttered.

Disney said it is also delaying all of its scheduled "Star Wars" and "Avatar" movies by a year.

In a recent note to clients, MKM Partners analyst Eric Handler said "it would be surprising to see theaters able to re-open nationwide before September, at the earliest."

Warner Bros. this week said that it would disclose a new "Tenet" release date "imminently." The AT&T-owned studio had first planned to put out the time-bending thriller on July 17, before rescheduling it for July 31 amid continued coronavirus concerns.

While some films have eschewed theaters and gone directly to streaming services during the public health crisis, that is highly unlikely to happen with "Tenet." Nolan is a staunch advocate of the theatrical experience and penned a Washington Post op-ed advocating for the survival of the cinema.

Nonetheless, the theatrical rollout of "Tenet" will not look like the traditional studio plan. The film may debut in international countries before hitting American theaters, premiering first in places where the virus' effects have been better mitigated.

We are not treating Tenet like a traditional global day-and-date release, and our upcoming marketing and distribution plans will reflect that, said Warner Bros. Pictures Group Chairman Toby Emmerich.

Theaters need new movies to recover from months of closures and minimal sales. Some U.S. theaters have opened by showing classic films and recent releases, including the Vin Diesel vehicle "Bloodshot," but have struggled to draw audiences.

Abroad, however, AMC has already started its reopening.

"Approximately one-third of all AMC cinemas in Europe and the Middle East are already open and are operating normally," the company said.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 23 )  Bishop Broderick Pabillo, Apostolic Administrator of Manila, said he has tested positive for the coronavirus disease but is not feeling any symptoms.

"I am now in a designated area for quarantine observing strict protocol as required," he said in a statement on Thursday, adding that he had taken a swab test.

He assured that his staff and people he came in contact with have already tested negative for the virus. Another priest will stand in for him at his scheduled Sunday and Monday masses at the Manila Cathedral, Pabillo said.

Earlier, the bishop slammed the government for imposing "unreasonable" restrictions on religious activities, including limiting devotees in churches to a maximum of 10. He said the "one-size fits all" directive is "laughable" in the case of huge churches, adding government should instead recommend the physical distance between persons inside the church.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday said people's participation is necessary to control the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stating that he would not celebrate his 60th birthday next week, Thackeray said he would like to dedicate all the birthday wishes to COVID warriors.

Regarding containing the pandemic in Osmanabad, the chief minister directed officials to constitute a district-level task force and form village-level teams to undertake mitigation measures.

Laboratories should continue their research work even after the pandemic is brought under control, he said in central Maharashtra. The chief minister inaugurated a coronavirus testing laboratory in Osmanabad through video conferencing.

Speaking on the occasion, he said, "Participation of citizens is important to control the pandemic. The administration must see that citizens follow safety and preventive measures."

"We have fought viral diseases (in the past), but COVID-19 is the worst among them. But together we will defeatit. Follow guidelines strictly and work as a team," the CM said.

Health Minister Rajesh Tope expressed concern over the COVID-19 death rate in Osmanabad. "The district administration must initiate steps to bring down the death rate. After the new lab, there will beno delay in getting reports of swab tests," he said.

The laboratory in Osmanabad has been established at asub-centre of the Aurangabad-based Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwda University (BAMU). The university has already set up a COVID-19 testing laboratory at its campus in Aurangabad.

Thackeray further said nobody should come to his house or office to extend greetings on his birthday on July 27, he said.

"Instead of spending money on garlands, the amount should be contributed to the Chief Minister's relief fund.Health camps, blood and plasma donation camps should be organised," he said, adding he would like to dedicate all the birthday wishes to COVID warriors.

"There should be no posters and banners and no crowds," the chief minister added, reminding that the state was still battling coronavirus. "Last four months' efforts are bearing fruit but we have to be alert," he said.
Vladimir Putin has awarded the rank of major general to Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov  a man who has been linked to the killing, torture and disappearance of hundreds.

Mr Kadyrov, who published the new honour on his social media pages on Thursday, said the Russian president had called him personally to read out the executive order.

It is a high distinction that I value highly, he wrote. Im the presidents loyal solider, and ready to carry out any order on any continent he wishes.

The move comes less than three days after the US State Department announced the blacklisting the controversial strongman and his family.

On Monday, secretary of state Mike Pompeo said the sanctions were the result of numerous gross violations of human rights dating back more than a decade.

Thursdays development appeared to be a direct response to the US snub, and was trailed two days ago when foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova first responded to the US move. It will be difficult to respond reciprocally, but we will think up something, she said.

Mr Kadyrovs own response fell much in line with his brand. In a message on Telegram  his Instagram, and Facebook accounts have been suspended  he posted a picture of himself brandishing two guns. Pompeo, we accept the fight! the caption read. What comes next will be more interesting.

Since assuming power from his assassinated father in 2004, the tiger-loving strongman has ruled Chechnya as a personal fiefdom. He enjoys autonomy unrivalled among any other regional leader  the result of a grand security bargain to keep order following two bloody wars with Moscow.

The strongman has used the deal to deliver personal riches and a regime of terror, with critics frequently disappearing in mysterious circumstances.

Mr Kadyrov is understood to have supported several waves of repressions of LGBT+ people beginning in 2017. At least three men have died, with dozens missing, and hundreds more reporting torture. Russian authorities have refused to investigate the evidence, or open a criminal case.

Igor Kochetkov, whose Russian LGBT Network led the frontline emergency effort to evacuate at-risk citizens, said the honour underlined the Kremlins attitude to human rights abuse.

The authorities are showing they dont want to investigate Kadyrovs crimes, Mr Kochetkov told The Independent. The award of military titles and honours tells him everything he needs to know.
Amber Heard has denied doctoring photos of injuries allegedly caused by Johnny Depp which had to be covered up later by her make-up artist so she could appear on the James Corden show, a court heard yesterday.

The actress says heavy make-up had to be applied to the bruises before her appearance on 'The Late Late Show', the day after her husband allegedly attacked her.

Hollywood make-up artist Melanie Inglessis said Ms Heard told her Mr Depp (57) had tried to suffocate her with a pillow, dragged her by her hair and "tried to kill" her at the couple's LA penthouse in December 2015.

Ms Inglessis told the court that she had to apply concealer and lipstick to Ms Heard's face to cover the bruising so she could go on Corden's prime time talk show.

Expand Close Johnny Depp and Amber Heard married in Los Angeles in February 2015 (Ian West/PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Johnny Depp and Amber Heard married in Los Angeles in February 2015 (Ian West/PA)

Giving evidence via video link from LA, Ms Inglessis said: "She said, 'Johnny and I had a fight', she said he tried to suffocate her with a pillow, she felt he tried to kill her that night and dragged her by her hair."

Describing Ms Heard's appearance the day after the alleged attack, Ms Inglessis told the hearing: "She had minimal discolouration by her nose, her left eye a little more bruised than her right eye, the bridge of her nose swollen and I remember a scab to the right of her lip.

"I tried to conceal some of the bruises with full face of make-up. We had no other choice but to do a bright red lip [stick] to cover the injury on her lip."

Ms Inglessis was compelled to give evidence in court as she feared that doing so would destroy her career in the film industry.

Her evidence came during Mr Depp's libel case against the publisher of 'The Sun' newspaper for labelling him a 'wife beater'.

As part of the newspaper's defence, Ms Heard has accused him of both verbal and physical abuse throughout their relationship - allegedly punching, slapping, kicking, headbutting and choking her during frequent drink and drug-fuelled rages.

Expand Close Amber Heard is giving evidence for the third day in Johnny Depps libel case against The Sun newspaper (Kirsty OConnor/PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Amber Heard is giving evidence for the third day in Johnny Depps libel case against The Sun newspaper (Kirsty OConnor/PA)

Mr Depp's barrister Eleanor Laws QC asked whether Ms Heard had altered photographs taken of her without make-up before her appearance on Corden's 'The Late, Late Show'.

In a dramatic moment the court was shown a set of photographs appearing to show Ms Heard's bruised face and the 34-year-old actress was asked: "Have you played around with these images in any way?"

Ms Heard replied: "I don't know how to, no."

Ms Laws asked: "You don't know how to change colouring or anything of that nature?"

The 'Aquaman' actress responded: "No, I don't know how to do that."

Ms Laws put it to Ms Heard the photograph of her with bruises on her face was "completely set up", which she denied.

She said nobody other than Ms Inglessis had noticed the bruises because she had make-up covering them up.

She had earlier described how Mr Depp pelted her with around 30 bottles during what she claims was a three-day "hostage situation" in Australia in March 2015, leaving her in fear for her safety.

Giving evidence for the third day Ms Heard described how the incident began when she took a bottle of liquor from him and smashed it on the floor because she did not want him to drink anymore.

She said this prompted a furious response from her husband, claiming: "He reached for a bottle and started throwing them like grenades, bombs, one after the other in my direction.

"I felt glass breaking behind me. I retreated into the bar and he didn't stop."

During cross examination Ms Laws accused her of cutting his finger by throwing a bottle at him and of later stubbing a cigarette out on his cheek. Ms Heard replied: "Johnny did that. Johnny did that right in front of me. He often did things like that."

The hearing continues.
Donald Trump has once again touted his results of a cognitive test, telling Fox News that doctors were astonished at him completing a task that 'nobody' performs successfully, and declared his memory to be 'amazing'.

In an interview aired on Wednesday night with Dr Marc Siegel, a Fox News contributor, the president returned to the issue of the mental faculty test.

On Sunday he was ridiculed online after Chris Wallace, Fox News anchor, told him that the test was actually not that hard.

Trump, evidently rattled by the response, on Wednesday returned again to the issue of cognitive testing.

'They give you 35 questions. The first questions are very easy. The last questions are much more difficult,' he said.

'Like a memory question, it would go, like you'll go "person, woman, man, camera, TV".

Donald Trump spoke to Marc Siegel of Fox News in an interview that aired on Wednesday

Trumps description of a cognitive test is mesmerizing pic.twitter.com/Gx4o9HNaXR  Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) July 23, 2020

'So they say could you repeat that. So I said yeah. So it's "person, woman, man, camera, TV,". OK, that's very good.

'If you get it in order you get extra points.'

The exact test that Trump is referring to is not known.

Wallace said one question was to identify an elephant, Mr. Trump did not contradict him. One popular test, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, or MOCA, has a drawing of three animals that patients are asked to identify. It is meant to highlight possible problems with thinking and memory.

The MOCA is used in all 31 of the National Institute on Agings Alzheimer Disease Centers.

Trump said that the doctors administering the test would then carry on with their questioning, and 20 or 25 minutes later then return to the memory test, and ask again.

Trump is believed to be referring to the MOCA test when he discusses the procedure

Another part of MOCA is the examiner reading five words at a rate of one per second and asking the subject to repeat them immediately and then again after some time has passed - further suggesting that the president took the MOCA test.

'They said if you get it in order you get extra points,' he reiterated.

'They said, nobody gets it in order. It's actually not that easy, but for me it was easy.'

The president spelled out the rules for Siegel, telling him that 'if you repeat it out of order, it's ok. It's not as good.'

Siegel, standing in the grounds of the White House, listened intently.

Trump then continued with his story.

'You go back, 20, 25 minutes later, and they say go back to that question, and repeat it. Can you do it. And you go "person, woman, man, camera, TV."

'They say, that's amazing - how did you do that?'

Trump told Siegel that his doctors declared the results of his test were 'amazing'

Trump, 74, said that it was 'because I have, like, a good memory. Because I'm cognitively there.'

And he insisted that his 77-year-old Democratic rival, Joe Biden, also take the test.

Trump has repeatedly insinuated that Biden, famed for his gaffes, is somehow mentally incapacitated.

'Now Joe should take that test,' Trump said.

'Because something's going on. And I say this with respect; it'll probably happen to all of us, right? It's going to happen.

'We can't take a chance with that happening - when you are dealing with Russia, with China - nobody's been tougher on China than me, I can tell you that. They'd love to see Joe Biden rather than Trump.'
A landlord has been accused of discrimination after he allegedly rejected an Indigenous woman's rental application because she has an 'ethnic' first name.

Iwi Kemp applied for 10 private rental properties in Christchurch, New Zealand, but each time she was told the properties were no longer available.

As a joke the Maori woman reapplied for one using the name 'Maria' instead and immediately heard back.

Iwi Kemp applied for 10 private rental properties in Christchurch, New Zealand, but each time she was told the properties were no longer available

'The first thing I asked him was whether the house was still available. He said it was. Then I said that's funny, because when I texted you from my other phone with my real name you said it was gone,' she told the New Zealand Herald.

The man then laughed and allegedly said: 'I just don't want your sort in my house... You're Maori, aren't you? You wreck houses, and have gangs and the drug life.'

Ms Kemp said she was left feeling upset and confused by the call.

'I'm not in a gang and I don't make drugs. I've got a really good job and good tenant references - so he's missing out, really.'

In New Zealand it is illegal for a landlord or property manager to filter or reject potential tenants based on their ethnicity, race, gender or sexual orientation.

A spokesman for the Human Rights Commission has urged anyone who believes they've been discriminated against to get in touch.
Public schools in Petersburg and Hopewell will begin the 2020-21 school year virtually on Sept. 8, with Hopewell starting a month later than expected.

The school boards in both cities approved plans for virtual instruction at their respective meetings Wednesday night.

Before the Petersburg meeting, School Board Chair Kenneth Pritchett said he was leaning toward all-virtual learning, given that COVID-19 cases in Virginia are rising again.

We all want our kids back, he said. Personally, its just too dangerous to do that. Youre putting the teacher at risk, and youre putting the students at risk, too. Its much safer for the teachers and the students.

During the Hopewell School Boards in-person meeting Wednesday, members unanimously voted to keep all students at home for at least the first nine weeks of the academic year.

Last month, without specifying what COVID-19 restrictions would be in place, the school system announced that the first day of school would be Aug. 10. But in the past few weeks, Superintendent Melody Hackney said, it became clear that the August start date was not feasible.
Syrian rebels, frustrated by the Wests reluctance to provide arms, have found a supplier in an unlikely source: Sudan, a country that has been under international arms embargoes and maintains close ties with a stalwart backer of the Syrian government, Iran.

In deals that have not been publicly acknowledged, Western officials and Syrian rebels say, Sudans government sold Sudanese- and Chinese-made arms to Qatar, which arranged delivery through Turkey to the rebels.

The shipments included antiaircraft missiles and newly manufactured small-arms cartridges, which were seen on the battlefield in Syria  all of which have helped the rebels combat the Syrian governments better-armed forces and loyalist militias.

Emerging evidence that Sudan has fed the secret arms pipeline to rebels adds to a growing body of knowledge about where the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is getting its military equipment, often paid for by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia or other sympathetic donors.
Education plays a dominant role in addressing the challenges a country faces and coming up with possible solutions. This has the potential to make a country self-reliant and resilient. While we understand the need for a greater share of public funding for supporting education, a country such as India needs to evolve innovative methods to spread mass education within the available resources. Undoubtedly, there is an increasing social demand for accessible, affordable and good quality higher education as the increasing gross enrolment ratio (GER) indicates.

Covid-19 has given us the opportunity to reflect upon what should be the structures of higher educational institutes (HEIs), and in what forms we can ensure accessible education during and after the pandemic. Those who question the need for adopting online education even post the pandemic should look no further than the non-equity in most of HEIs admission policies, which are based on elimination rather than selection.

I see two arguments advanced against adopting online education. One, the issue of the digital divide. This criticism is not as reliable as it may first appear. While it is true that Internet access has to improve, statistics tell a different story. In 2020, the Internet penetration rate in India is 50%, and is rapidly increasing.

The good news is that the National Broadband Mission (NBM) is progressing fast enough to provide access to every village by 2022. NBM is expected to enable all rural and remote areas to have equitable and universal access to broadband services. In the near future, three million km of optical fibre cable will be laid and the towers are expected to increase from the existing 565,000 to one million. The speeds are expected to reach 50 mbps. Therefore, broadband Internet connectivity will not be a hindrance in providing online education in the future. In India, mobile data charges too are at least 30 times lower than the global average, making it cheaper to access digital content.

The second argument is the belief that we cannot recreate the physical classroom experience. Therefore, some critics say that the online mode of education will dilute the quality of education. Unfortunately, the dilution is already embedded in the physical mode of teaching, with most students playing only a passive role in the classroom. This is one of the reasons why the teaching-learning outcomes in many HEIs are not up to the mark. The lack of student engagement and positive interactions through discussions in the classroom has led to the present situation, leading to increased absenteeism and poor performance by the students. We need to set this right before we criticise online education. Further, we should not import the bad practices of the physical classroom to the online classroom. And this is the right time to do it correctly by redressing the shortcomings of the past.

When we shift to online education, more attention needs to be paid on how we impart it. Online education can happen in two parts. First, at their own leisure and pace, students will go through the digital resources made available to them. Second, students can interact with the teachers in real-time live online classes, discussing what they have already studied from guided online resources.

It is in the second part that, teachers can play an important role. The teaching can be made enquiry or discovery-based, through inclusive and active involvement of students. Moving to online classrooms gives us the opportunity to create non-didactic flipped classrooms as students are expected to attend these after having gone through the pre-lecture materials. This is what we also call blended learning. We could have done this in the physical classrooms too but we missed the bus riding on outdated practices. But nothing stops us from implementing a flipped classroom in online mode.

As many people assume, HEIs do not necessarily need to possess state-of-the-art technology and lecture recording systems to be able to offer online courses. There are many educational technology companies which can provide the technologies for recording, editing, hosting online courses and arranging proctored evaluations while HEIs can work on pedagogy, curriculum, teacher training and improvement of the quality of education. This is also an opportunity for public-private partnership (PPP) in higher education.

HEIs must embark on offering skill-oriented online degrees, diplomas and certificate programmes. This is where prospective industries can join hands with the HEIs in designing the curriculum and offering job guarantees to the enrolled students provided their performance record crosses the desirable threshold. Being funded by non-governmental resources through PPP is the best guarantee for academic and financial independence of HEIs.

The Institutes of Eminence and other HEIs with top National Institutional Ranking Framework scores should mandatorily offer skill- oriented online programmes at a moderate tuition fee. This way, online education has the potential to enhance the social mobility of those who could not easily access quality education from premier HEIs. Covid-19 has provided us the opportunity to be flexible in higher education replacing the ineffective educational practices that we have clung on to for too long.

Maintaining quality in online programmes is important, but this should be done through appropriate mechanisms within HEIs rather than one-fits-all regulations. The greater the initiatives in online education from reputed HEIs, the more likely these will be accepted by students, teachers, parents and employers. In India, the time has never been better for HEIs to re-invent themselves.

M Jagadesh Kumar is vice-chancellor, Jawaharlal Nehru University

The views expressed are personal
Yet, Ms. Rudin has no regrets. Decades before, her parents observed the tradition as well. It was fun. It brings back good memories, she said, adding that her mother took the initiative to package, freeze and store the couples cake for one year. Im sure it wasnt wrapped properly.

For those looking to savor a sweet slice of their wedding cake a year later, experts offer their best tips for freezing and consumption. And, for couples yearning for a nostalgic dessert without sacrificing shelf space and taste, many bakers offer fresh replicated top tiers and other baked goods.

How to Freeze A Wedding Cake

Well before the ingredients are mixed, its best to alert your baker of your intentions to freeze your cake, as it may affect design elements.

If youve got extraordinary fondant, decor and bows, and layers and ruffles, and things like that, more air could get in, said Leslie Hollander, a pastry specialist at Sugar Up, Sugar! in Great Falls, Va. The most important thing is eliminating air circulation.

Ms. Hollander advises first chilling the cake in the refrigerator or freezer until it hardens. Then, wrap the cake (and its cake board, if available) in plastic wrap six times, as tight as possible. Next, place the wrapped cake within a zipped plastic bag, and take the air out of it. Last, use an inverted Tupperware container to shield the cake. Store the bundle far from the appliance door. If your cakes in the freezer for a year, its going to get moved and smooshed, Ms. Hollander said. The more you do to protect your cake and insulate it, the better.
The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami has been ordered by a Federal High Court sitting i...

The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami has been ordered by a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja to surrender a suspected notorious criminal, Asuquo Mbuotidem Edem to the Ghanaian Government for prosecution.





Edem has been accused of alleged involvement in robbery and other related offences in Ghana.





The presiding judge, Justice Faloshade-Giwa, gave the ruling in an extradition suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1456/2019 filed on behalf of the Ghana Attorney General by Akutah Pius Ukeyima of the Federal Ministry of Justice.





A 23-count charge bothering on conspiracy, rape, robbery, money laundering, being in possession of firearms without licence, among others against Edem is said to be pending before a court in Ghana.





He was alleged to have fled to Nigeria, prompting the Attorney General of Ghana to apply to his Nigerian counterpart for his (Edems) extradition.





And Justice Giwa-Ogunbanjo held that the applicant (the Ghanaian AGF) satisfied the necessary legal requirements for the grant of the extradition request.





The judge said she was satisfied that the offences for which Edem was wanted in Ghana were extraditable offences under the provision of Order VIII (1)(a) of the Extradition Rules 2015.




RFE/RL has determined the identities of and new details about seven of the nine men who served on so-called "military tribunals" and carried out several executions of those it "convicted" in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk.

Documents obtained by RFE/RL, outlined in an expose published on July 23, show how the fates of several men were decided by the "tribunals," established by Igor Girkin, a former Russian intelligence officer better known by his nom de guerre Igor Strelkov, on the basis of a draconian law conceived by dictator Josef Stalin and imposed shortly after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in World War II.

The investigation is based on documents recovered from Girkins former office at the citys security service headquarters, open-source research, and interviews with alleged torture victims, witnesses, and family members of the victims.

On top of identifying the nine men who served on the tribunals along with Girkin, RFE/RL has found that one of them is tied through a Moscow-based organization for Russia-backed fighters to Vladislav Surkov, one of Russian President Vladimir Putins closest aides at the time and the architect of the Kremlins Ukraine policy.

Girkin was a key commander in the Russia-backed separatist forces in the early stages of the war against Ukrainian government troops that has killed more than 13,200 civilians and combatants since April 2014.

Ukraine's government has called Girkin a Russian agent and accused him of war crimes. He resigned as a rebel commander in August 2014 amid reports that he had been wounded in battle.

Girkin is one of four defendants charged with murder by Dutch prosecutors for their alleged roles in the July 17, 2014, shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, which killed all 298 people on board.

The new information uncovered by RFE/RL about the tribunals and those who meted out its sentences weaves another layer of evidence into the fabric of what experts believe may constitute war crimes by Russia and the separatists it backs with soldiers, weapons, money, and political support in the conflict.

The revelations also come as Kyiv pursues justice through cases in Ukrainian courts and legal claims against the Russian state in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and International Criminal Court (ICC).
DC mayor Muriel Bowser has ordered anyone outside of their home to wear a mask or face a $1,000 fine.

Washington saw a dramatic increase in the spread of coronavirus when 102 new cases were unveiled on Wednesday.

In response, Mayor Bowser brought in an order to ensure more people wear masks when out in crowded places.

She told reporters at a press conference: 'Basically what it says is, if you leave home, you should wear a mask.

'This means, if you're waiting for a bus, you must have on a mask. If you are ordering food at a restaurant, you must have on a mask. If you're sitting in a cubicle in an open office, you must have on a mask.'

Washington faced a dramatic increase in the spread of coronavirus with 102 new cases unveiled on Wednesday. Pictured, District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser on Monday

The order will not affect children under the age of three, and people who are actively eating and drinking can remove their face coverings.

The mayor also said she would extend the district's state of emergency.

The total number of cases in DC is now at 11,529, with Maryland and Virginia also reporting their highest number of coronavirus cases since early June.

D.C. Health Director LaQuandra Nesbitt told The Hill, two-thirds of coronavirus cases this month have been caught by people under the age of 40. It is thought most will have picked up the virus while travelling.

Restaurants will have to end indoor dining by the end of the week in Baltimore, county Executive Johnny Olszewski announced on Tuesday.

In an effort to put a stop to infections Mayor Bowser brought in an order to ensure more people wear masks when out in crowded places. Pictured, a sign encourages people to wear masks

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released guidance last week urging universal mask wearing.

It comes after President Trump sent out a tweet Monday suggesting people should cover their faces to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

'We are United in our effort to defeat the Invisible China Virus, and many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you can't socially distance,' Trump wrote. 'There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President!'

Trump then included a photo of him wearing a mask from his visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center earlier this month.

It comes after President Trump sent out a tweet Monday suggesting people should cover their faces to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Pictured, Trump holds a mask as he speaks during a news conference on Tuesday, July 21

On April 3, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put out an updated advisory on coronavirus transmission recommending that Americans wear masks.

'Well, I just don't want to wear one myself,' Trump said at the time.

'I just don't want to be doing - I don't know, somehow sitting in the Oval Office behind 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, don't see it for myself,' Trump continued. 'I just - I just don't. Maybe I'll change my mind, but this will pass and hopefully it'll pass very quickly.'

Health officials had originally not wanted to recommend widespread mask-wearing for fear Americans would buy up N95 masks that were desperately needed for healthcare workers and first responders.
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Linkedin Inforial (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta, Indonesia  Thu, July 23, 2020 11:58 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668b09b5 4 Inforial Free

Many people have returned to activities outside of their homes as COVID-19 restrictions have eased. Offices have resumed operation, allowing 50 percent capacity for employees. Facilities such as malls and restaurants have reopened, andmodes of public transportation such as TransJakara, the MRT and app-based Ojek (motorcycle taxis) have also returned.To stay healthy, many have begun to work out in gyms or at public sporting facilities.

However, after about a month of gradual steps to reopen the economy, Indonesia has recorded a significant increase in reported cases and deaths despite a new set of health protocols governing activities in public places, which include the basics, such as wearing face masks, washing hands with soap, physical distancing and maintaining a healthy and hygienic lifestyle.

As of July 20, Indonesia had recorded 88,214 total cases and 4,239 deaths, twice the cumulative figure from the previous month.

In June 2020, YouGov Omnibus conducted a survey on the publics preparation for the relaxation of restrictions that involved 2,000 respondents. Some 35 percent of the respondents expressed fear about possibly being infected by the virus as they returned to life in public.

The survey also highlighted the level of fear that respondents had when adapting to new habits outside the house, especially when they were in crowds. Fear related to public transportation was foremost, with 51 percent reporting worries, followed by gatherings with friends (41 percent) and going to market or supermarket (34 percent). Approximately 42 percent of the respondents said uncertain adherence to health protocols and undetectable sanitation were the major drivers of their fears.

PT AIA Financial (AIA), a leading and trusted life insurance company in Indonesia, understands the worrying situation that Indonesian families face.

Thats why the company has launched a comprehensive protection program for Indonesian families called AIA 1dapat4 to ensure peace of mind in adapting to new habits.

AIA President Director SainthanSatyamoorthyhas said, Entering the phase of adapting to new habits, people will return to activities outside their homes. As the pandemic has yet to end, it is necessary for us to make comprehensive preparations, including keeping mentally and physically healthy, adhering to health protocols set by the government and life protection and health for ourselves and our beloved families.

In line with AIAs commitment to help millions of families in Indonesia live healthier, longer, better lives, AIA has launched a range of innovations. With the AIA 1dapat4 program, people can protect themselves and their beloved families so they can conduct activities with peace of mind.

The AIA 1dapat4 program is designed to give protection to families.With the purchase of one insurance policy, four family members mentioned in the Family Card are entitled to the protection. The program offers a highly affordable premium to get protection for four people, starting from Rp 1 million per month from July 1 to Sept. 30.

The program is available for existing AIA customers and new customers, with the total protection worth Rp 100 million for four family members. The protection that they get is in the form of Donations for In-patient Care, worth Rp 1 million per day in a hospital, with maximum of 25 days per person, especially for customers diagnosed with COVID-19. Another protection that customers can get is called Insurance Protection Affinity Personal Accident. The face amount isRp 5 million per person with a protection period lasting until Dec. 31.

The protection applies to family members from the age of five to 65 years old. To adhere to health protocols, especially to maintain physical distance, customers can join the AIA 1dapat4 program without having to meet face to face with AIA sales representatives.They can use AIA DigiBuy.

Customers can communicate with sales representatives through video calls. The process will be conducted through the Interactive Point of Sales (iPos) platform for the sales force and the microsite for customers. A video record containing the customers approval of the product and the benefits of the insurance to be purchased will be a prerequisite for purchase.

Customers simply need to review all of the supporting documents, and if they agree, they are only required to send a photo of themselves and their ID card and provide their signature on an e-signature form.


BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - European stocks turned in a mixed performance on Thursday with investors largely staying cautious and reacting to quarterly earnings reports and other corporate news, in addition to following the developments on geopolitical and coronavirus fronts.



Investors also digested news on trade talks between Britain and the EU. According to reports, talks concluded with Brussels saying an agreement with London was unlikely due to differences between the two sides on certain key issues, including fair competition guarantees. Fresh talks are likely to resume next week.



The major markets in the region saw a fairly long and good spell in positive territory today, but kept edging lower past noon and eventually ended roughtly flat.



The pan European Stoxx 600 edged up 0.06%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 ended 0.07% up, while Germany's DAX and France's CAC 40 edged down by 0.01% and 0.07%, respectively. Switzerland's SMI ended lower by 0.53%.



Among other markets in Europe, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Poland and Spain moved higher.



Finland, Iceland, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia and Turkey closed higher, while Ireland, Spain and Sweden ended flat.



Melrose, down more than 14%, was the biggest loser in the FTSE 100 index. Informa, Centrica, Royal Bank, Relx, Rolls-Royce Holdings, IAG, Ds Smith, TUI and British Land Company lost 2.5 to 4.3%.



On the other hand, Unilever soared more than 8% and The Sage Group climbed up nearly 7%. Ocado, WPP, Diageo, Smurfit Kappa Group, Glencore, Polymetal International and Fresnillo gained 2 to 3.1%.



In Germany, Wirecard shed 3.7%. Munich RE, Deutsche Bank, Allianz, Lufthansa and Infineon Technologies ended lower by 1 to 2%.



Daimler rallied 4.3% despite the company reporting wider loss and weak sales volume in its second quarter hurt by the virus-related lockdowns. Comments from the company that it started seeing first signs of sales recovery amid Covid-19 pandemic, and expects to record an operating profit in fiscal 2020, helped lift the stock.



BMW gained 2%. Continental, Bayer, Beiersdorf, Linde and Thyssenkrupp were the other notable gainers.



In France, Publicis Groupe shares climbed up nearly 9%. The world's third-biggest advertising company beat expectations for underlying sales in the second quarter and said it continued to record significant wins in new business across the world.



Renault ended higher by about 7% and Worldline gained 4%. Pernod Ricard gained nearly 3% after the company raised its FY20 organic profit outlook. Peugeot, Valeo and ArcelorMittal also rose sharply.



On the other hand, Dassault Systemes Group, Safran, Airbus, Accor and Technip declined sharply.



In economic news, Eurozone consumer confidence deteriorated slightly in July, defying expectations for further strengthening, preliminary survey data from the European Commission showed. The flash consumer confidence indicator for euro area fell to -15 from -14.7 in June. Economists had forecast an improvement to -12.



For the EU, the flash consumer confidence index showed a reading of -15.6, which was unchanged from June. In May, the score was -19.5.



German consumer confidence is set to improve in August, survey data from market research group GfK showed. The report said the forward-looking consumer sentiment index rose to -0.3 points from revised -9.4 in July. The expected reading was -5.0.



Gfk said German consumers are gradually putting the coronavirus shock of earlier this year behind them. A V-shaped trend is currently emerging for the consumer climate.



While economic expectations gained slightly, income expectations and the propensity to buy increased significantly for the third consecutive time. The economic expectations index rose 2.1 points to 10.6 in July. At the same time, the income expectations indicator climbed to 18.6 in July from 6.6 in June. Meanwhile, the propensity to buy climbed 23.1 points to 42.5 in July.



Data from France's statistical office Insee said manufacturing sentiment improved to a four-month high in July, with the manufacturing confidence index rising to 82 from 78 in June. This was the third consecutive rise in sentiment after losing 30 points in April due to the health crisis. However, the score remained well below its long-term average of 100 and economists' forecast of 85.0.



British manufacturers expect output to begin recovery in months ahead for the first time since the Covid-19 crisis hit the economy, the quarterly Industrial Trends Survey from the Confederation of British Industry showed.



According to the survey, the output volumes declined in the quarter to July, with the balance falling to -59% from -57% in June. At the same time, the order book balance fell at the fastest rate since October 1980. The indicator came in at -60% versus -25% in April.



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Farmers and landowners in the Drumkeerin area must be given an opportunity to access compensation by way of state aid under a Landslide Damage Relief Measure as soon as possible.

This was stated by Marian Harkin TD when she called for urgent compensation for property owners affected by the landslide.

Its nearly 4 weeks since the bog slide occurred on Shaas mountain and, while a working group has been set up and met under the auspices of Minister Malcolm Noonan, and works on stabilising the Dawn of Hope bridge and road clearances are ongoing, individual farmers are still in the dark in regard to any state assistance to help compensate for the damage to lands, hay, silage, fences, livestock as well as the ongoing loss of income due to the lands being unworkable, she said.

She pointed out that there was in place an EU regulation which allowed any member state to compensate its farmers where a crisis occurred. The level of aid is up to 20,000 per farm and verified losses incurred can be paid under this scheme, she said. This measure had been used before in Ireland for other crisis in the agri sector and she was now calling on the Minister for Agriculture Dara Calleary to commit to exploring compensation as part of a package of measures.

Other essentials include ongoing support of Leitrim County Council in assessing all circumstances surrounding the bog slide, the carrying out of emergency work to stabilise the situation, the clean-up and restoration of land, drains, rivers as well the putting in place of preventative measures in case of a re-occurrence, Marian Harkin TD concluded.
United Airlines is expanding its mask policy and will begin requiring passengers to wear face coverings not only on board its planes but also in its lounges and baggage claim areas and at its gates, customer service counters and kiosks.

A mask is about protecting the safety of others, and Im proud of the aggressive and proactive steps United Airlines has taken to ensure people are wearing a face covering, the airlines chief executive, Scott Kirby, said in a statement.

The airline joins Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines in requiring masks throughout the airport. Uniteds policy will go into effect on Friday and does not apply to children under 2 years old. Passengers who need an exemption from the rule are asked to contact United ahead of time or speak to an airline representative at the airport.

Customers who fail to follow the rule will receive a verbal reminder and be offered a free mask. Those who still refuse to wear a face covering will be provided a written warning and face being barred from future flights.
Middlemen seeking to profit from the coronavirus pandemic have sprung up overnight to score billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 contracts, their stake as small as a mailbox rental or virtual office subscription.

Some never touch the product: They simply buy it from a manufacturer and resell it directly to the government  at an often steep markup.

Global demand for personal protective equipment has attracted hundreds of companies from construction, financing and technology that have shifted the focus of their business to supplying health care products, many of them without any experience. One in 10 federal COVID-19 vendors are government contracting newcomers.

With traditional manufacturers still backlogged  and another surge of cases well underway  this murky segment of the market has forced the government into an unfamiliar corner where it has to rely on unproven middlemen for lifesaving supplies.

Federal agencies cited critical need and noted that if a contract is not fulfilled, the government does not pay. Brokers who spoke with USA TODAY also said that theyre just trying to help fill gaps in the supply chain. But the companies that manufacture these products point to the potential for counterfeits, which swells greatly with unauthorized third-party resellers.

The contracting market has become dizzying for purchasing officers trying to decipher which vendors are credible. When brokers cannot deliver, officials are stuck scrambling to reissue contracts and track down new suppliers, all while the clock ticks away on frontline health care workers.

Its clearly opportunism, said Benjamin Brunjes, an assistant professor at the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington. People are aware that theres a huge amount of new money, and theyre taking a slice.

From advanced research to emergency travel, the federal government has spent more than $19 billion in response to COVID-19, with agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security and NASA all competing for the same supplies. To expedite delivery, the federal government has eased standards on vendor competition.

Story continues

As part of ongoing reporting on those contracts, USA TODAY scoured more than 1,600 single-source orders awarded to vendors from 15 states, including the largest and those hardest-hit by the virus. Journalists spoke to coronavirus middlemen, along with former procurement officials, public management professors, regulators and attorneys.

Help us report on coronavirus scams

Are you a government contract officer? A vendor? A purchasing agent in the private sector? Do you know about a scam tied to coronavirus we should know about? Email us at covidscams@usatoday.com.

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That review found nearly 10% of vendors who received a COVID-19 contract without competition listed a residence for their address, often an indication that they are middlemen. In the states analyzed, more than $75 million in single-sourced bids were awarded to these companies. If a similar proportion extends across the U.S., that would mean up to $250 million for home-based businesses.

In all, the government shelled out more than $2.7 billion nationwide to vendors completely new to the market and about $5 billion to hundreds of companies classified as wholesalers, according to an analysis of the spending data.

The coronavirus has created unique needs, ranging from refrigerated trailers to provide overflow morgue capacity at veterans hospitals to individually packed breakfast bars to limit the spread at a womens prison camp in Alabama.

But the staple for these middlemen is the ongoing shortage of basic coronavirus supplies: N95 masks, PPE and other medical gear. A lack of federal oversight allows them to flourish.

The contracting for PPE was not done at all like normal, said Charles Tiefer, a professor at the University of Baltimore who specializes in federal procurement. The government, by and large, does not work through brokers. It goes to the suppliers.

The fact that vendors are small, or run a business out of their garage, does not preclude them from government contracts. Nothing in federal law bars newcomers either.

In certain instances, that kind of activity can be the sign of an evolving market, said Trevor Brown, a professor of public management at Ohio State University. Brown pointed to a store owner in Oregon who usually sold trinkets from China but used those same connections to source $1 million in COVID-19 masks.

In normal times, you would want to go with someone with experience in the business who has been doing this for a while, Brown said. In times of crisis, purchasers are scrambling.

Not all of those contracts were fulfilled as expected. Across the federal government, at least $130 million in mask orders alone were returned, adjusted or canceled, records show. The government has recouped its money, but those crucial supplies never found their way to the health care providers expecting them. In some cases, it meant delays of several months.

In Virginia, retired Army Captain Hans Mumm said an overseas PPE provider contacted him this spring needing help brokering a deal with the Bureau of Prisons for protective gowns.

He already had established his home-based small business and registered with the federal contracting system but had never received a procurement.

Mumm contacted the prisons system about his line on protective gear, and the $640,000 order came through quickly, with no competition. But it disintegrated within a week in early April  with no money ever exchanging hands  when his PPE supplier backed out because it couldnt source the materials from China, Vietnam or India.

Middlemen new to federal contracting have flooded the market to score billions of dollars in COVID-19 orders.

I wasnt trying to profiteer; I was trying to connect people in a situation where the (prisons bureau) was desperate for these gowns, Mumm said. I got suckered, but Im one of the good guys. As soon as it fell apart I got in touch to cancel. I didnt string them along or play games.

He said the margins were thin and he hadnt even calculated profit  he was just trying to do his part to help. He has no plans to try again.

Thomas Caulfield, special inspector general for pandemic recovery in the U.S. Department of the Treasury, said some vendors are actually trying to help, while others "see an opportunity to make money and sometimes inflate costs."

The government, rightfully so, is trying to figure out how to get the funds to people who need it, Caulfield said. You weigh the good of the people versus (oversight) protection, but it usually comes down to getting the supplies out.

Counterfeit masks called into question

In dire need of surgical masks, the U.S. Forest Service turned to an unlikely source: a used-phone wholesaler that had never sold anything to the federal government. The agency agreed to pay $757,000 in late May for the shipment.

The Forest Service was satisfied with its order. But earlier that month, New York City officials had rejected masks from the same company, alleging the products were counterfeit, according to a federal lawsuit.

GlobalGeeks Inc., which operates from a sleepy New Jersey corporate park, had promised more than 1 million of the Chinese-made KN95 masks to various public and private customers. The companys soured deal with New York City landed in federal court.

Importer USA Asia Global Inc. filed a civil lawsuit against GlobalGeeks in May, alleging the company held the masks in question hostage in its warehouse for three weeks, refusing to pay for them or release them back to the supplier.

GlobalGeeks filed a countersuit in June against SZN LLC, a second tier of middleman in the deal who brokered the transaction from a Brooklyn apartment and was working on commission for USA Asia, the suit said.

GlobalGeeks alleged it paid SZN up to $4 a mask, ultimately taking a $1.2 million loss on the rejected products.

Citing the pending litigation, an attorney representing USA Asia Global Inc. and SZN declined to comment. Lawyers for GlobalGeeks also declined to comment for this story, but in April a company executive discussed a plan to donate masks to officials in the Northeast.

"Our police officers, our firefighters: There are a lot of front-line workers that really, really need them," GlobalGeeks Chief Operating Officer Kalid Loul told ABC 6 in Philadelphia. "We got our facility registered ... we did all of our due diligence."

As with wars or natural disasters, third-party brokers like GlobalGeeks and SZN emerge when demand outstrips availability.

But attorneys and procurement experts say the dynamics also are ripe for the potential of counterfeiting. Middlemen have targeted government officials with a variety of fake offers, mislabeled products and deceptive marketing tactics.

When you throw that much money at a problem in a matter of weeks, its a flood, and its going to be much more difficult to control, said Bruce Dorris, president and CEO of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. There will always be people who take advantage of it, and effectively game the system.

Home-based vendors flood the market

On a grassy corner lot south of Raleigh in North Carolina, Army veteran Jeffery Agyarko runs an IT solutions company out of his brick home.

Noelani Ventures LLC had done some technology business with the federal government in the past, including $36,590 of contracts in fiscal year 2018-19. But the coronavirus era is its first time sourcing medical gear.

In April, Noelani Ventures committed to provide more than $160,000 in medical gowns to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The supplies were destined for Boston.

Within a week of the deal, the agency canceled the order, paying Agyarko nothing. Agyarko said he defaulted on the contract because suppliers in London  connections he had made in the technology world  skipped out on the transaction. He said he just wanted to help people.

Its difficult trying to find a reliable manufacturer or supplier, Agyarko said. Its crazy. The market is saturated with nonsense, and its difficult to try to determine what is right and what is not. For small companies, like mine, its hard. We dont have the resources to do all of the research.

The flood of home-based business has made it difficult for government agencies to decipher who can really come through with supplies. Many agencies are doing minimal screening of the businesses and their owners. And procurement regulations actually give bidding preferences to small companies.

Stephen Berge is a former hospital nurse and Marine who won a $10,000 grant in 2016 from Florida Gulf Coast Universitys shark tank for veterans to help launch his company, which started by searching for construction projects to sell window sills.

Berge runs the business out of his Cape Coral home, according to the states corporation registry. He previously faced a foreclosure judgment in 2010 after defaulting on $286,000 in loans. He also filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2011, listing more than $400,000 in liabilities, court records show.

In April, Berge got a $208,000 purchase order from the VA for anesthesia machines to be retrofitted for use as ventilators, which the VA says it received. Just weeks earlier, the Food and Drug Administration had approved the converted machines for treating COVID-19 patients.

That award was among more than $20 million Berges company, Bravo Inc., has received in government contracts over the past five years, federal records show.

Berge said he started supplying medical equipment even before the pandemic. He would not answer any more basic questions about his background or his sale of anesthesia machines to the government.

I try not to give out anything about what we do or how we do it, he said. Its a weird, cutthroat industry.

No track record of scoring PPE

Across the country, the federal government has awarded COVID-19 orders to some 5,100 unique vendors, whove provided services ranging from security to janitorial cleaning and procuring medical products, according to nationwide data through July 6.

That includes more than 500 companies that had never received government contracting work before the start of 2020  about one in every 10 vendors.

Among the newcomers was VPL Medical LLC, set up days before it landed more than $20 million in federal contracts.

Hundreds of millions of dollars goes to COVID-19 contractors accused of prior fraud

The company was spotlighted by investigative nonprofit news outlet ProPublica earlier this summer because the government had failed to realize it was run jointly with Jason Cardiff, who is under sanction by the Federal Trade Commission for an allegedly fraudulent scheme involving smoking cessation strips and male sexual enhancement pills.

One of the business partners, Bobby Bedi, told USA TODAY in early June that the company had leveraged previous business relationships in Asia to land the contracts in the new venture.

I watched closely what was going on in the world and established trusted sources of quality equipment before lots of manufacturers and brokers popped up who produce non-certified, substandard products, Bedi wrote in an email. It was solely through hard work and determination that I was able to make contacts in the government and land those contracts.

A U.S. District Court judge froze the companys assets in late June, arguing VPL assets should be seized just like the rest of Cardiff's ventures. Court records from a receivers report show Bedi and Cardiff had paid themselves at least $420,000 out of a $5.4 million mask deal with the VA, which said the vendor delivered the 8 million masks.

Bedi, Cardiff and attorneys for VPL all have denied any wrongdoing and sought to unfreeze the governments hold on the companys finances.

Typically government purchasers will weigh a vendors past performance when deciding among bids. In normal times, that record can count toward as much as a third of the points used to determine who gets the award.

A vendors past performance is especially crucial during a pandemic, procurement experts say, when many of the safeguards to weed out possible fraud and abuse are circumvented to get supplies out more quickly. Companies lacking prior contracts can be harder to judge.

Hope Peddlers and Profiteers: Hundreds of millions of dollars goes to COVID-19 contractors accused of prior fraud

Whenever you have the government throwing money at a problem, youll have folks who look to take advantage of it, said Derek Cohen, former deputy chief of the fraud section at the U.S. Department of Justice, who now specializes in white-collar defense. For all of these crises that you have to move quickly on, theres a level of fraud baked in.

Based out of a small suburb of Dallas, first-time vendor Alpha Jalla Services LLC secured up to $1.2 million from the VA through six orders for surgical supplies and PPE, getting preferential federal contracting status as a service-disabled veteran and Black-owned business.

A screenshot of the website of Alpha Jalla Services LLC, which secured up to $1.2 million from the VA through six orders for surgical supplies and PPE.

Jeffrey Carter runs the company out of his home in Red Oak, Texas. His website lists a variety of PPE aimed at the pandemic, including hard-to-get N95 masks.

While Carter acknowledges the pandemic has opened up business for more middlemen, he argues the federal government remains too restrictive with smaller and lesser-known vendors. Most contracting officials, he said, still prefer to wait for a major company like 3M, even if it means waiting longer.

Carter says he has been able to meet his various government orders through suppliers in China and Thailand, although he would not explain how he found them. He insisted that all of his COVID-19 contracts were above board. The VA also confirmed it had received them.

But Carter acknowledged the situation is ripe for profiteering, especially by companies with close political ties.

Right now, suppliers know that they can overcharge (agencies) and get away with it because they have a good relationship with the government, said Carter, who added that government purchasing officers go with who they know.

Others question the ability of unproven vendors to deliver and doubt the quality of the products theyre finding.

If 3M still cannot get any masks, and some vendor youve never heard of is saying they can, just based on common sense, it would raise a red flag in my mind, said Steve Kelman, who was the top procurement official during the Clinton administration and now teaches at Harvard University. The big question is whether they deliver, and will it be an acceptable product?

Private companies step in for oversight

Experts attribute the middleman phenomenon to a mix of desperation, lax oversight and poor vetting of COVID-19 contractors  with an emphasis on speed over accountability.

The government threw the kitchen sink at the problem in terms of contracting approaches, said Jerry McGinn, executive director of the Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University. Theyre trying to go after anything they can to meet the need.

In the absence of government vetting, larger companies  like mask manufacturer 3M  have tried to step in and protect their brand by going after third-party distributors in court. 3M has shut down more than 7,000 websites it claims peddle fraudulent or counterfeit masks. It has a particular emphasis on price gouging even with authentic 3M masks since the company has vowed not to raise its prices in the pandemic.

3M pursues middlemen: Arrest, lawsuits provide glimpse into coronavirus price-gouging playbook

What 3M found offers a deeper look at the problems with some middlemen.

Its giving bad actors an opportunity to exploit the market and take advantage of need, said Haley Schaffer, 3M assistant general counsel for litigation. Vendors are offering millions, billions, trillions of masks, and they dont have the supply  the danger exposed from counterfeit products is scary.

3M attorneys claim a Texas man set up a 3M Company Trust Account to solicit money that was just a UPS Store mailbox  and a fraud.

In another civil lawsuit, a man allegedly living out of a Nevada hotel targeted Indiana state officials with emails offering a nice Easter gift of 100 million N95 masks at $2.82 apiece. 3Ms investigation initially led to Zachary Puznak.

Puznak settled his civil fraud case with 3M in July, saying in a statement that people who contacted me were attempting to take advantage of my best intentions. In an email to USA TODAY after the settlement, Puznak said he was eager to get back to selling masks.

Antibody tests: Dubious companies among those trying to cash in

Earlier this summer, 3M sued Georgia-based 1 Ignite Capital for allegedly offering state governments up to 10 million N95 masks at nearly five times normal cost. The price of a 3M mask can vary depending on the model, but its most common N95s sell for about $1.30 each.

Auta Lopes, founder and CEO of Lopes 1 Ignite Capital, told USA TODAY that she was a financial consultant operating as a medical supplies broker for the first time. The company denied the allegations and settled the case with 3M in May. Lopes said she is prohibited from discussing it.

Undeterred, Lopes also said she plans to continue middlemanning coronavirus supplies now that the doors are open.

Its hospitals and clinics battered by the virus, the VA is among the federal agencies that has turned to COVID-19 middlemen and unproven suppliers the most, spending more than $180 million on vendors new to the market. Only three other agencies, including FEMA and the Office of Preparedness and Response, spent more on newcomers.

The agency pointed to the intense demand for supplies and noted that if a vendor doesnt deliver, or if a contract is terminated for default, the government is not out any money.

During this time of unprecedented global demand for PPE, VA must cast a wide net in order to ensure were procuring lifesaving supplies needed to keep Veterans and employees safe, agency spokeswoman Christina Noel said in an emailed statement. All of our contractors have met the relevant criteria to become vendors for the federal government under federal law.

The federal prison system had a similar response to its COVID-19 contracting.

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The federal government encourages and promotes small business and does not have an exclusion on new businesses, prisons system spokesman Justin Long wrote in an email. If a vendor is registered ... can meet the specifications, and is competitive in price, they are eligible for an award.

While many of these vendors managed to come through on promised shipments, court documents and procurement experts indicate the brokers can charge a markup from a low of about 2% up to whatever cut they can muster  an additional layer of cost ultimately paid by taxpayers.

With more traditional suppliers, quality controls like regular government facility inspections are built in, leaving governments less exposed to risk, said Brunjes, the assistant professor at the University of Washington.

Were spending so much money, its just impossible for anybody to keep track of where its all going, and you start to see these suspect businesses, Brunjes said. A lot of that is related to a lack of accountability.

I dont see any benefit to using these middlemen.

Josh Salman, Nick Penzenstadler and Dak Le are reporters on the USA TODAY investigations team. Josh can be reached at jsalman@gatehousemedia.com or @joshsalman, or (941) 361-4967. Nick can be reached npenz@usatoday.com or @npenzenstadler, or on Signal at (720) 507-5273.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: COVID: PPE, face mask shortage draws new companies for US contracts
Pittsburgh:

A Pennsylvania woman is due in court on charges she killed her toddler son and sent a video of the boy's lifeless body to his father during a jealous, vengeful rage over test message.

Twenty-one-year-old Christian Clark is jailed on charges of criminal homicide in the death of 17-month-old Andre Price III. She is also charged with trying to kill his 2-year-old sister.

Allegheny County police say the McKeesport woman sent a barrage of angry texts, threats, photos and videos over more than two hours November 1, then later confessed to smothering the boy.

Also read: Mother shares video of lifeless toddler with father after killing him

The children's father, 23-year-old Andre Price Jr., is jailed on child endangerment charges. Police say he should have called 911.

Clark's attorney hasn't commented. Price is due in court December 12, and his attorney hasn't commented.

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WASHINGTON  New Yorkers have been cleared to rejoin a federal Trusted Traveler program by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and federal officials said Thursday.

New Yorkers were blocked from the safe-traveler programs in February amid a clash between the administration and the state over federal access to state records that could reveal immigration information. The ban arose from implementation of New York's Green Light Law, which allows undocumented immigrants to get state drivers licenses. While other states also have similar licensing policies, DHS said no other states restrict federal access to its DMV databases as New York does.

Cuomo offered to give U.S. Customs and Border Protection access to the state drivers license database for purposes of vetting the applicants for the Trusted Traveler program, but not unfettered access. In April, a provision allowing that access was tucked in the state budget and approved.

"I am glad that this issue has finally been resolved for all New Yorkers," Cuomo said.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said the change "enables DHS to move forward and begin once again processing New York residents."

The Trusted Traveler and Global Entry programs that were blocked for New York applicants allow pre-screened individuals to more swiftly pass through checkpoints at airports and borders. The popular TSA PreCheck program, which allows expedited screening at airports for passengers who have passed federal background checks, was not affected.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, which administers the programs, shut enrollment centers where application interviews are conducted through Sept. 8 due to COVID-19.

Cuomo met with President Donald Trump at the White House in February to discuss the administration's concerns over their access to New York records.

The Cuomo administration alleged in February that the administration's move to block New Yorkers was "politically motivated." An internal homeland security memo obtained by Buzzfeed News in February indicated that the federal government drafted an action plan to retaliate against states that did not provide access to their DMV records. One of the measures listed was to block those states' access to safe-traveler programs.

"There was never a factual basis for banning New York residents from enrolling in Global Entry the bans true purpose was to punish New York state for embracing diversity and inclusion," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. "I am pleased that President Trump has reversed this deeply misguided policy and urge him to refrain from further abuses of power.

U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, blamed Cuomo for New Yorkers' exclusion.

Gov. Cuomos reckless immigration policies in New York state caused the suspension of the Global Entry program, Stefanik said. Since the suspension of Global Entry in February, qualified, legal citizens have been penalized by the governors actions. ... I advocated and worked with the president and senior administration officials to successfully reinstate this program critical to the economy and safety of New York. I remain concerned with New Yorks continued restriction on information-sharing with federal law enforcement and will continue to speak out against Gov. Cuomos dangerous policy.

If the ban had remained in place, New Yorkers would be blocked from enrolling or re-enrolling in four programs run by Customs and Border Protection. Three of them  Global Entry, NEXUS and SENTRI  allow qualified people faster clearance when traveling. A fourth, the Free and Secure Trade program, permitted quick clearance for commercial goods.

The programs are critical to many travelers, including in areas like Buffalo where thousands of people cross the Canadian border daily.

Acting Deputy DHS Secretary Ken Cuccinelli said by the end of 2020 about 175,000 New Yorkers would have been kicked out of the travelers programs, with no others able to join. He also estimated 30,000 drivers in the FAST program, which come and go at four New York and Canadian ports of entry, would lose access to the automated system.
The Supreme Court on Thursday  in a setback to chief minister Ashok Gehlot and a possible reprieve to his former deputy Sachin Pilot  refused to stay the proceedings of the Rajasthan high court, which is scheduled to pronounce a verdict on disqualification notices sent by the speaker of the state assembly to 19 rebel Congress MLAs, including Pilot.

The top court, which was looking at the limited but crucial question of whether the high court can interfere in proceedings initiated by the speaker even before a decision on disqualification has been taken, said that the issue would require greater judicial examination. It agreed to hear the plea filed by Rajasthan speaker CP Joshi from Monday onwards, and ruled that high courts Friday decision would be subject to the outcome of the top courts final verdict.

As the high court has already heard the matter after prolonged arguments and reserved the order, we are not staying the passing of the order [by high court]. However, whatever order is passed shall be ultimately subject to the outcome of this petition, said a three-judge bench led by justice Arun Mishra, and also including justices BR Gavai and Krishna Murari.

Though the court did not go into the question of the correctness of the speakers decision to issue notice and if the actions of the Pilot camp amounted to giving up the membership of the Congress party, justice Mishra observed during the hearing that voice of dissent cannot be suppressed then democracy will shut.

After all they have been elected by the people. Can they not express their dissent? Can voice of dissent be shut down like this in a democracy? he told senior counsel Kapil Sibal, who was representing the speaker.

Proceedings in the high court will resume at 10.30am on Friday. It is expected to pronounce its verdict later in the day.

Thursdays order could be a major boost to the Pilot camp  if the high court on Friday bars the speaker from disqualifying the 19 MLAs, they will remain protected from such proceedings until the top court has reached its verdict. It may, meanwhile, hamper the Gehlot government from calling an assembly session  fearing a no-confidence motion from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)  because the numbers in the House are still tenuous for the chief minister.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday evening, however, Gehlot said an assembly session would be called soon.

As things stand, Gehlot appears to have the support of 101 members the majority mark in the 200-member state assembly (though this does not include speaker CP Joshi). Pilot has 18 other Congress MLAs and three independents in his camp, taking his tally to 22. The BJP and its ally Rashtriya Loktrantrik Party have 75 seats. One Congress MLA, Bhanwarlal Meghwal, is indisposed, though he is said to be close to Pilot. If Pilots tally is added to that of the opposition alliance, it takes their number up to 97. This means a three-member swing from the Gehlot camp to the Pilot camp or to the BJP could lead to the government falling in the event of a no-confidence motion.

Conversely, if the high court allows the speaker to go ahead with the proceedings and disqualify the MLAs  Gehlot will then be more confident in calling an assembly session and proving his majority through a trust vote  the rebels led by Pilot will have legal recourse to challenge the order through a petition in the Supreme Court. The speaker has so far been asked by the high court not to take any decision until after its verdict on Friday.

Sibal sought for a stay on the proceedings and the July 21 order of the high court reserved the judgment till Friday. When the court appeared disinclined to grant the prayer, Sibal alternatively sought for the matter before the high court to be transferred to the Supreme Court. This, too, was rejected by the court.

But the larger legal question argued in the court emanating from the Rajasthan developments was whether the high court overstepped its jurisdiction by directing the speaker to not proceed on the disqualification proceedings.

Sibal submitted that the court cannot direct speaker to extend time (to decide the disqualification proceedings). Court cannot interfere till the speaker gives a decision. It is settled by the judgment of this court in Kihoto Hollohan of 1992, he said.

In Kihoto Hollohans case, a five-judge Constitution bench held that judicial review should not cover any stage prior to the making of a decision by the speaker/chairman. No interference would be permissible at an interlocutory stage of the proceedings, the court had said.

Justice Mishra asked whether the speaker can muzzle dissent within party by using his powers of disqualification.

We are trying to find out whether the procedure adopted (by speaker) is correct or not. Can voice of dissent be shut down like this in a democracy? he asked.

Sibal, however, replied that courts cannot go into the merits of the speakers actions before the speaker gives a decision.

Senior counsels Harish Salve and Mukul Rohatgi, representing the Pilot camp, questioned the speakers decision to approach the Supreme Court after participating in the hearings before the high court for three days.

Experts said the Tenth Schedule and the anti-defection law needed examination.

The role of the speaker has to be reconsidered. As it stands today, if the Kihoto Hollohan judgment is applied literally, the speakers actions, even if they are completely without authority or jurisdiction, cannot be touched by courts till the speaker actually gives a decision.This could lead to the speaker overstepping his jurisdiction and issuing notices time and again, said Alok Prasanna Kumar, senior resident fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

Senior counsel Sanjay Hegde said: The crucial thing the Supreme Court has done by keeping matter pending, is in a sense to immobilise the speaker till Monday. Even if Rajasthan high court dismisses the petition, its final judgment is not to be implemented till SC hears petition on Monday.
Egypt has repeatedly said military intervention in Libya is a last option to defend national security.



In Cairo, the Turkish presence in Libya is viewed as a major threat to the security of the whole region, and especially to neighbouring countries such as Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Sudan.



It is this threat that prompted parliament this week to unanimously approve the sending of troops on combat missions outside Egypts borders in reaction to the Turkish-backed Libyan Government of National Accords (GNA) manoeuvering to capture the key coastal city of Sirte.



MPs approval came days after Libyan tribal leaders called on Egypt to intervene to protect the national security of Libya and Egypt. Even the Libyan parliament called on Egypt to directly intervene in the countrys conflict to protect the national security of Libya and Egypt if they see an imminent danger to both countries.



Ali Al-Hefni, a former deputy to Egypts foreign minister, says the vast majority of states in the region understand and support Cairos repeated attempts to bring the warring factions to the negotiating table and preserve the unity of the Libyan state.



That was reflected last month in the Cairo Declarations roadmap to a ceasefire and a settlement that includes all forces except the terrorist groups and militias, Al-Hefni told Al-Ahram Weekly.



Political science professor Tarek Fahmi says the Egyptian approach has always been to promote a political resolution of the crisis.



That was reflected last month in the Cairo Declaration that reasserted the basis for resolving the crisis in Libya according to a defined political and strategic mechanism and according to the outcomes of the Berlin Conference. In the meantime, Egypt is ready for all options, settlement, confrontation and escalation, based on what happens in Sirte, says Fahmi.



Algeria, too, is prompted by national security, a fear of Turkish expansion in the region and concern about growing Muslim Brotherhood influence in the Maghreb. One problem though, says Fahmi, is that Turkey is the biggest investor in both Algeria and Tunisia, the two countries that, like Egypt, are directly affected by developments in Libya.



Algerian President Abdelmajid Tebboune this week declared that his country was cooperating with Tunisia in an attempt to forge a new initiative to resolve the crisis in Libya. Tebboune appealed to all parties involved in Libya to talk in order to reach a peaceful political solution that preserves Libyas unity away from any foreign intervention.



Algeria is also considering constitutional amendments that will allow the army to act beyond Algerias borders in defence of national security. Meanwhile, Ankara has been attempting to pressure the Algerian authorities to accept Turkeys military presence in Libya.



Saudi Arabia and the UAE have supported Egypts attempts to protect its borders. Both states have also backed forces based in eastern Libya, especially after Turkey began increasing its military presence in Libya.



Last week, Saudi Arabia reiterated its support for a political solution in Libya. In a phone call between Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri and his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan both ministers stressed the importance of reaching a comprehensive settlement to the Libyan crisis that preserves the countrys territorial integrity.



The two top officials also highlighted the enormous challenges that face the region and require greater mutual coordination, especially in light of foreign interference in the affairs of a number of Arab countries.



The Arab League (AL) has also reiterated its support for a political solution. In an interview with the state-owned Middle East News Agency (MENA), AL Secretary-General Ahmed Abul-Gheit rejected illegal Turkish intervention in Arab countries, and described Ankaras military operations in Libya as a threat to Arab national security.



He pointed out that the Cairo Declaration outlined a roadmap for settling the Libyan conflict through mechanisms dealing with the military, security, political, and economic aspects of the crisis.



The AL, says Al-Hefni, has shown strong support for Cairos position which is based on reaching a political settlement, and rejecting foreign intervention to avert what happened in Iraq and Syria.



The AL and regional powers agree that resort to a military option is likely to be costly, including in terms of lives.



Despite the fact the majority of regional parties seek a solution in Libya, Fahmi expects the next few weeks will see further escalation on the part of Turkey. Ankara rejects any political solution and is banking instead on the terrorist militias it supports in Libya, and the mercenaries that it pays.



Fahmi does not rule out an open-ended scenario should Turkey refuse to withdraw from Libya.



Any political settlement needs coordination between the concerned parties and must involve the two main players in Libya, as well as the UN. Without pressure from an international body, Libya will remain divided between east and west, he says.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 23 July, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump has chosen to donate his salary for the first quarter of the year - $78,333 - to the National Park Service, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said in a briefing Monday afternoon.

"It is every penny that the president received from the first quarter to the day," Spicer said. "It's from Jan. 20, noon, forward."

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who attended the news conference, said that the money would be put toward the maintenance of historic battlefields. The park service maintains dozens of sites connected to battlefields of the Civil War and other conflicts.

"We're going to dedicate it and put it against the infrastructure of our nation's battlefields," Zinke said. "We're about $229 million behind in deferred maintenance on our battlefields alone."

That announcement marked another change in the president's plans for his $400,000 annual salary.

During the presidential campaign, Trump had said he would not accept a salary if he won the White House. But the Constitution requires the president to be paid, so - after his election - Trump's spokespeople said he would give the money away instead.

But then, on March 13, Spicer said that Trump would not actually donate the money until the end of the year. Spicer also said that Trump had not selected a charity to receive the money, and asked the news media to help the president choose.

On Monday, however, the recipient had been chosen and the donation had been made.

"The president has spoken with counsel and made the decision to make his first quarter salary in total to a government entity," Spicer said. "He has chosen this quarter to donate it to the National Park Service."

The actual donation check was shown during the briefing. It listed Trump personally as the payer, with an address at Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in New York.

Spicer said the choice of the park service - and, in particular, the battleground parks - was made by the president himself.

"It's a decision he made. Counsel presented him with several options. He believed . . . some great work is being done there, especially work being done to restore our great battlegrounds," Spicer said.

Earlier this year, Trump proposed a presidential budget that would cut the Interior Department's funding by 12 percent, a cut of $1.5 billion.

Trump also began his presidency in a feud with the National Park Service, which controls the Mall in Washington, D.C. - and which tweeted out photos of Trump's inauguration that made it obvious the crowd was smaller than it had been for President Barack Obama's inauguration in 2009. The morning after his inauguration, Trump called the park service's acting director to demand the service produce more photographs, which might show the crowd was indeed larger than average.

The director did procure more photos, and sent them to the White House. They did not, however, prove that Trump's crowd was as large as the president claimed.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 23, 2020) - FALCON GOLD CORP. (TSXV: FG), (FSE: 3FA); ("Falcon" or the "Company") is pleased to announce it has acquired an additional 7,477 hectares ("ha") of mineral claims consisting of 369 units in the rapidly developing Atikokan gold camp, growing the Company's land position to 10,392 ha. and a new project total of 507 units. Falcon's staking has resulted in two new claims groups (see Figure below). The southern claims group parallels the Quetico Fault Zone and occupies the gap between the original Central Canada property and the property belonging to Agnico Eagle Mines Limited and its Hammond Reef gold deposit. The northern staked claims are contiguous with the Hammond Reef property on its northern boundary and are located approximately 3.5 km north of the main part of the Hammond Reef gold zone that reportedly hosts a reported Measured and Indicated Resource in the order of 4.5 million ounces ("oz").

Central Canada Project Expansion



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4151/60386_a63bbe1584787a70_003full.jpg

These highly strategic acquisitions have been completed as Falcon continues to develop and constrain gold, silver, and base metal mineralization along the 25 kilometers of the Quetico Fault Zone. The southern acquisition covers a prospective geological trend with both ferrous and non-ferrous base metal deposits and precious metal mineralized zones.

The northern claim group is underlain by the Marion Lake Batholith. However, the claim units appear to occur at a very important potential location where there is a confluence of three or more structural zones or faults that are splays running off of the Quetico Fault Zone. These splays that trend commonly to the northeast are recognized as hosting many of the gold deposits in the Atikokan camp. Falcon believes that the confluence of the splays and the very close proximity of the Hammond Reef deposit make the new northern claims group an excellent gold target.

Falcon's Chief Executive Officer, Karim Rayani stated, "Our Company now controls a combined 51 kilometers of strike length along the Quetico Fault Zone and its major northeast trending splays such as the Marmion Fault zone. Our original Central Canada optioned ground and the new staking combine to make Falcon one of the largest land holders in the mining camp second only to Agnico Eagle Mines. We fully intend to continue to aggressively identify lands worth staking where our technical team identifies high potential gold targets and solid gold occurrences in Atikokan area."

The new acquisitions encompass historical exploration targets identified through the Ontario Government's Energy, Northern Development, and Mines ("ENDM") online database. These previously forgotten multiple gold and polymetallic prospects discovered by past operators include the Jack Lake gold mine Trend (the "J-L Trend") (Au, Ag), the Snow Lake occurrence (Cu, Zn, Ag, and Au), and the McKinnon prospect (Cu, Zn, and Au). The J - L Trend follows a strong northeast striking structural zone believed to be another major splay off of the Quetico Fault Zone and having an 8-kilometer strike length. The Jack Lake gold deposit was originally discovered in 1878 and in 1946 a high-grade resource of 44,946 oz of gold was outlined at an average grade of 15.2 grams per tonne gold ("g/t Au") (OGS Open File Report 5539). Combined drilling from 1982 to 1988 by Asamera Minerals Inc. and Ican Resources Inc. confirmed the gold mineralization and its extension for approximately 500 meters southwest of the original Jack Lake shaft. The Jack Lake deposit is currently covered by Agnico Eagle-owned mining claims. Anomalous gold mineralization has been traced by Fairmont Resources Inc. in 2011 and 2012 along the J-L Trend through Falcon's present claims with surface samples ranging from 0.2 g/t Au to 6.22 g/t Au. In addition to the J-L Trend, the Company acquired expired patented mining land which recently reverted to the Crown on June 1st 2020. These areas were explored by Steep Rock Iron Mines in 1954 and W. Gray in 1950. The historical exploration was targeted towards iron ore but the reports noted significant sulphide mineralization at depth hosted within "metamorphic schist and quartz porphyry rock units".

The Atikokan area has a rich mining legacy that began in the mid to late 1800's. With this long history there is a surprising lack of comprehensive data on which to build an understanding of the gold deposits and their characteristics within the camp. However, Falcon has been actively searching archives and historical journals and is building its own database as it applies to the Atikokan gold camp. The Company believes that as an early participant in the region and one that holds a major land position, it is poised to build one or more gold asset that could lead to a new mining operation or attract a significant corporate suitor to the benefit of our stakeholders, large and small.

Great Lakes Exploration Transaction

Also, Falcon wishes to advise it has not satisfactorily completed its due diligence on the patented mining claim blocks held by Great Lakes Exploration Inc. The Company announced on June 23rd 2020 an extension of the due diligence period for up to August 6th, 2020 but it has decided to not proceed with the transaction at this time.

Qualified Person

The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Mr. Alex Pleson, P.Geo., who is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

About Falcon Gold Corp. & the Central Canada Gold Mine Project

Falcon is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on generating, acquiring, and exploring opportunities in the Americas. Falcon's flagship project, the Central Canada Gold Mine, is approximately 20 km south east of Agnico Eagle's Hammond Reef Gold Deposit which has Measured & Indicated estimated resources of 208 million tonnes containing 4.5 million ounces of gold. The Hammond Reef gold property lies on the Hammond fault which is a splay off of the Quetico Fault Zone ("QFZ") and may be the control for the gold deposit. The Central Gold property lies on a similar major splay of the QFZ.

History of Central Canada gold mine includes;

1901 to 1907 - Shaft constructed to a depth of 12 m and 27 oz of gold from 18 tons using a stamp mill.

1930 to 1934 - Central Canada Mines Ltd. installed a 75 ton per day gold mill. Development work included 1,829 m of drilling and a vertical shaft to a depth of 45 m with about 42 m of crosscuts and drifts on the 100 m level. In December, 1934 the mine had reportedly outlined approximately 230,000 ounces of gold with an average grade of 9.9 g/t Au.

1935 - With the on-going financial crisis of the Great Depression, the Central Canada Mines was unable to fund operations and the mine ceased operations.

1965 - Anjamin Mines completed diamond drilling and in hole S2 returned a 2 ft section of 37.0 g/t Au and hole S3 assayed 44.0 g/t Au across 7 ft.

1985 - Interquest Resources Corp. drilled 13 diamond holes totaling 1,840 m in which a 3.8 ft intersection showed 30.0 g/t Au.

2010 to 2012 - TerraX Minerals Inc. - conducted programs that included line cutting, geological surveys and drilled 363 m.

The Company also holds 3 additional projects. The Camping Lake Gold property in Red Lake, a 49% interest in the Burton Gold property with IAMGOLD near Sudbury Ontario, and the Spitfire and Sunny Boy Gold Claims near Merritt, B.C.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Falcon Gold Corp.

"Karim Rayani"

Karim Rayani

Chief Executive Officer, Director

Telephone: (604) 716-0551

Email: info@falcongold.ca

Cautionary Language and Forward-Looking Statements

This news release may contain forward looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, etc. Forward looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore, involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60386
A newborn babys life was saved by a woman in North Carolina who heard cries coming from a trash bin in her neighborhood. She found the baby, covered in blood, in a garbage bag with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.

It was unclear exactly how long the newborn had endured the outdoor heat on July 16. The baby boy survived, however. I know God put me at that place at that time, said Cynthia Burton, who was walking her dog Flounder at the time.

Burton was cutting behind Christ Community Church in Wilmington when she heard crying coming from a blue bin in the churchs parking lot, WECT reported. She looked inside, ripped open a tied garbage bag, and found the abandoned baby.

I knew he was alive when I found him, Burton explained, and I knew that was a good thing. But I knew I didnt have a lot a lot of time.

Christ Community Church in Wilmington, North Carolina, where Cynthia Burton found the abandoned baby on July 16, 2020 (Screenshot/Google Maps)

She called 911 and then sought help from Tamara Austin, a local apartment resident, who loosened the umbilical cord around the babys neck and cleared the babys airway, WWAY, reported. First responders arrived and transferred the baby to the New Hanover Regional Medical Center.

Austin praised Burton as the hero that saved his life.

Wilmington Police Department later posted an update on Facebook. Drs. say the newborn found earlier today is healthy and doing well, the post read. Police are looking for the mother of a newborn boy who was left for dead in a trash can just before 5pm this afternoon.

(Illustration  Drew Horne/Shutterstock)

North Carolinas Safe Surrender Law states that any parent has the right to relinquish an infant to a first responder, social worker, or health care provider within seven days of the birth if they are unable to take care of the child with no ramifications. For the surrender to be legitimate, however, the infant must be handed to an adult and not left unaccompanied.

Burton admitted that she didnt sleep the night after the shocking discovery. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt that I was reopening the trash bag and seeing the baby, she shared.

Hes special, Burton added. He was loved from the very beginning  Hes very powerful and very strong because he cried out to live, and if I had walked by and not heard a sound, Id have kept on walking, but he cried, and he kept on crying.

Two days after the babys abandonment, 21-year-old Maryuri Estefany Calix-Macedo was arrested and charged with attempted murder, WECT reported.

It is very overwhelming, but God placed me there at the right time, and with my training and with angels surrounding me, it is a great outcome, Burton posted on Facebook.

She added, Please pray for the little girl, the baby, the mother, and her entire family. None of us walked in her shoes when she did what she did. Mental health is real, and there is help out there for everyone.

We would love to hear your stories! You can share them with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.nyc
CHICAGO  The latest gun violence to pierce the South Side, jolted by a shootout this week outside a funeral home that left 15 people wounded, has shaken city leaders and community members who are begging for an end to the bloodshed.

"Put your guns down," Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown said at a news conference after a 3-year-old girl was shot in the head early Wednesday.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said: "We all had restless nights last night, me included. But I woke up this morning with even more resolve to do all we can to stop this violence."

The effort to stem the surge in shootings will now include support from the federal government, the Justice Department announced Wednesday afternoon. "Anti-violent crime task forces" will be deployed in Chicago; Kansas City, Missouri; and Albuquerque, New Mexico, cities where the Trump administration believes its federal agents can help with unsolved murders and gang violence.

Download the NBC News app for breaking news and alerts

The task forces are being rolled out under Operation Legend, named after a 4-year-old boy who was killed in a shooting last month in Kansas City.

But community activists and criminologists in Chicago say they are concerned that the tensions, reinvigorated protests and questionable arrests involving federal agents in Portland, Oregon, in recent days could flare in Chicago, America's third-largest city.

"Sending in federal agents without any real specificity and clarity for their presence is a very slippery slope," said David Stovall, a professor of Black studies and criminology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "If they are just going to ramp up what is existing, then that could mean more arrests and, in the worst case, more fatalities."

Stovall added that "a crackdown on crime and guns only gets more people arrested and doesn't actually address the core issue behind violence."

The task forces will comprise agents from the FBI; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the U.S. Marshals Service; and the Department of Homeland Security. More than 200 federal agents have already been sent to Kansas City, with a similar force expected in Chicago and more than 35 officers in Albuquerque.

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About $3.5 million in federal funding would also be directed to Chicago to compensate local authorities for overtime, equipment and other expenses that support the federal agents, Attorney General William Barr said.

A Chicago police spokesperson said Wednesday that if federal agents are deployed, "it is critical that they coordinate with the Chicago Police Department and work alongside us to fight violent crime in Chicago."

Lightfoot suggested Tuesday that she would support the possibility of an "actual partnership" with federal agencies that could provide more resources to "help manage and suppress violent crime in our city." She said there are "some things the feds are uniquely qualified to do, and we would welcome that."

But she warned that the "Trump administration is not going to foolishly deploy unnamed agents to the streets of Chicago."

President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening called Lightfoot to confirm his administration's plan to bring agents into the city to supplement violent crime investigations. In a statement, Lightfoot's office offered caution, saying that "the mayor has made clear that if there is any deviation from what has been announced, we will pursue all available legal options to protect Chicagoans."

It remained unclear late Wednesday the exact roles the federal agents would play, making their arrival more unnerving for people in the communities they may interact with.

"I need to understand what their true purpose is and know how it's different from what's currently happening, because what's currently happening isn't working," said Asiaha Butler, a South Side community activist who is executive director of the Resident Association of Greater Englewood. "I don't know how you add more to what's not working."

Trump had directed federal officers to Portland following an executive order that punishes the vandalism of federal monuments and government property. But in the case of Chicago and other cities, he said, combating crime is at the top of the agenda.

Chicago has been beset by high levels of gun violence and gang activity, and it has been reeling in recent weeks from a spike over a year ago.

There were 559 shootings over the past 28 days before July 19, up more than 100 percent over the same period in 2019, according to crime statistics analyzed by Christopher Herrmann, a former crime analyst supervisor with the NYPD and professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

His analysis also found that murders in Chicago reached 116 over the 28-day period, an almost 200 percent increase from the prior year.

For year-to-date 2020 over the same period in 2019, shooting incidents are up 47 percent and murders are up 51 percent, Chicago crime data show. Reported sexual assaults, robberies and thefts, however, are down.

The rise in shootings and murders isn't relegated to Chicago. Other cities that Herrmann examined, including New York and Atlanta, also showed increases.

Herrmann said across major U.S. cities during the first six months of the year, murders and shootings were down, attributable to people staying indoors during the coronavirus pandemic.

But he told NBC News that as cities have reopened, the combination of these unique circumstances have led to a rise.

"Not only is it summertime violence, but there is COVID-19, police protests and job loss," he said. "All of those factors are going to exacerbate violence, especially in communities that were already vulnerable."

In more recent years, Chicago police have generally credited the addition of more than 1,000 new officers to the streets as well as the use of gunshot-detection technology and predictive analytics for helping to stave off shootings and homicides.

But Brown said Wednesday that conflicts among the more than 117,000 estimated gang members in Chicago and their warring factions are feeding the "cycle of violence."

"Someone gets shot, which prompts someone else to pick up a gun," Brown said. "This same cycle repeats itself, over and over and over again. This cycle is fueled by street gangs, guns and drugs."

But criminal experts say the issue is much deeper.

"As tragic as the shooting is, we have to connect it to what it means to historically live under the conditions of not having quality education, quality health care, living-wage employment and access to nutrition," Stovall said. "The best way to address violence is to be in a relationship with people before the event occurs."

Vigil Held For Child Killed By Stray Bullet Amid Uptick In Chicago Gun Violence (Scott Olson / Getty Images file)

Arthur Lurigio, a professor of criminology and psychology at Loyola University Chicago, said that law enforcement should be involved but that it is never the main solution.

"There has to be a programmatic response that involves members of the community and, most importantly, an understanding of why these mostly young men are picking up guns and shooting one another," he said.

Many community activists say beefing up law enforcement or adding more federal agents would be a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

"We've just been clipping at the weeds, but that doesn't stop the weeds from coming up again," said William Calloway, an anti-violence community activist.

Calloway said that he is open to help from different sources, including the federal government, but that he believes the larger issues of poverty and disenfranchisement are being overlooked.

Jahmal Cole, an activist who founded a community organization on the South Side called My Block, My Hood, My City, said violence is largely the result of disinvestment from the communities that are hardest hit by racial injustice, poverty, low-performing schools and high unemployment.

"I don't think adding more officers is the solution," he said. "It's not about more police. It's about more resources and investing, giving us the money we need so we can put it into our communities. If you're not willing to do that, then you can't change violence."

Safia Samee Ali reported from Chicago and Erik Ortiz from New York.
XOCEAN is out to transform the way subsea data is collected. The three-year-old company based in Ireland provides turnkey underwater data acquisition services with its growing fleet of innovative unmanned surface vessels (USVs) which deliver an unprecedented combination of safety, versatility, efficiency and productivity.

And, thanks to Torqeedos electric propulsion systems, they are also nearly 100 per cent emission-free.

XOCEANs XO-450 USV is a custom-designed composite wave-piercing catamaran about the length of a typical automobile. The lightweight vessel is powered by a pair of Torqeedo Cruise 2.0 electric pod drives, with a Power 24-3500 lithium-ion battery and a lightweight micro-generator. Solar panels on deck provide efficient recharging during daylight hours.

The two electric thrusters are controlled separately to adjust the speed on each side, steering the boat on the desired course. A pair of Torqeedo Ultralight outboards at the bows enhance the vessels stationkeeping abilities when gathering data.

XOCEAN reports that the boats operating range is 1,500 nautical miles, providing up to 18 days of mission endurance running 24/7.

The XO-450 USVs are designed to be easily and quickly deployed. When underway, the crewless vessels are controlled remotely by qualified pilots at XOCEANs operations centre, which also monitors battery status and quality of the data being collected. The onboard broadband satellite transceiver provides continuous over-the-horizon connectivity.

The company currently has eight of the XO-450 USVs in service with four more vessels under construction to be added to the fleet this year.

In a recent deployment, a XOCEAN XO-450 USV completed a pioneering live seabed-to-shore data harvesting mission from an array of Sonardyne pressure monitoring transponders at the Ormen Lange natural gas field off the coast of Norway. The 30 sensors measure and record pressure, temperature and inclination data at the seafloor at 800-1,100 meters depth. The USV transited more than 160 nautical miles from Kristiansund out to the Ormen Lange field, spent 12 hours on station retrieving data from the sensors using an acoustic array and completed the return trip to Kristiansund in a total of just over three days.

The extremely low noise signature of the Torqeedo electric drives was also an essential element in the success of the mission, which used an acoustic transceiver to retrieve data wirelessly through the water, according to XOCEAN.

Sustainability is a central value for us, said XOCEAN CEO James Ives. Our USVs have a negligible carbon footprint, only producing about one-thousandth of the emissions of a conventional survey vessel. We are also employing offsets for all carbon produced in the delivery of our projects resulting in fully carbon-neutral survey data for our customers.

Unmanned survey vessels are a perfect application for our electric drives, providing clean, green and quiet solutions for a wide range of underwater missions, said Dr Michael Rummel, managing director of Torqeedo.

Torqeedo is the market leader for electric mobility on the water. Founded in 2005 in Starnberg, the company develops and manufactures electric and hybrid drives from 0.5 to 100 kW for commercial applications and recreational use. Torqeedo products are characterized by an uncompromising high-tech focus, maximum efficiency and complete system integration. Torqeedo is part of DEUTZ Group, one of the worlds leading manufacturers of innovative drive systems. Tradearabia News Service
Colorado LEAP (Low-income Energy Assistance Program) will accept applications through July 31 as the annual benefit program begins to wind down the 2019-20 funding period. LEAP is normally available November 1st to April 30th. This year the application deadline was extended because of the increased need created by COVID-19.

We recognize there is a real need for the families and individuals in our state at this time. We have been able to serve many individuals and families during COVID-19 with the added funding period, said Theresa Kullen, LEAP manager.

This year more than 106,000 applications were submitted for approval. More than 75,000 households received help with an average benefit of $671. This is the first-year phone applications were used extensively, with an excess of 7,000 telephonic applications processed. Increased community outreach and promotion of the program resulted in an increase in application submissions of 12%.

These benefits are often the difference between buying groceries and needed prescriptions or having your heat bill go unpaid, Kullen said. We partner with other organizations to assist with additional emergencies like repairs and replacement.

LEAP provides one-time heating assistance to individuals, families and older adults to help cover the cost of utility bills. Residents with an annual income up to 60% of the State Median Income and an individual household monthly income not exceeding $2,371/month or $4,561/month for a family of four may be eligible for benefits.

Applicants must also pay home heating costs to a landlord or utility company, meet the gross income limits, be residents of Colorado and contain at least one United States citizen or permanent legal resident of the U.S.

Applications are available through the end of July at Colorado PEAK or at Colorado LEAP. The website provides details about the application process and eligibility information.

For more information, call 1-866-HEAT-HELP (1-866-432-8435).

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LEAP is a federally funded program that helps eligible hard-working Colorado families, seniors and individuals pay a portion of their winter home heating costs. Our goal is to help bring warmth, comfort and safety to your home and family by assisting with heating costs.

Contact Details

Jane Dvorak

+1 303-919-9275

jane@goteamtbg.com

Company Website

https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/cdhs/leap
The Australian sharemarket is poised to open higher after Wall Street finished a mixed session strongly. Shortly before 7am AEST, futures are pointing to a gain of 7 points, or 0.1 per cent, at the open.

1. Sentiment continues to improve, but price action mixed: Sentiment continues to improve in global markets, though last nights price action proved more mixed than that of previous days. The VIX dropped to 24, while Wall Street stocks firmed, after what was a pull-back in equities during European trade.

It was an up-and-down day on Wall Street. Credit:AP

European and commodity currencies are outperforming still, and the Dollar is weaker. However bond yields continue to grind lower, and gold surged to a new 9-year high. Overall, there remains a bullish skew to market action. But of course, several key risks have kept market participants on their toes.

2. Tesla and Microsoft deliver generally positive Q2 results: One source of market turbulence overnight was positioning for a ramp-up in US earnings season. The NASDAQ lagged broader US stock indices, seemingly as traders positioned for some key corporate results this morning. Tesla and Microsoft delivered their earnings this morning, and on balance, the numbers were positive.
Ben & Jerrys ice cream and Marmite giant Unilever has cheered its resilience as it posted higher half-year profits after a better-than-feared sales performance amid the coronavirus crisis.

The consumer goods group saw shares leap 8% as it reported a 4% hike in pre-tax profits to 4.5 billion euros (3.5 billion) for the first half of 2020 and announced the spin off of part of its tea business.

It saw underlying sales fall 0.1% in the six months of 2020 and by 0.3% in the second quarter  far short of its 3% to 5% growth target, but better than most analysts had expected, given the impact of lockdowns globally on consumer demand.

Alan Jope, chief executive of Unilever, said the results demonstrated the resilience of the business.

Unilever confirmed that after a review of its tea business launched in January, it had decided to keep the operations in India and Indonesia as well as partnership interests in ready-to-drink tea joint ventures, but would separate off the remainder by the end of 2021.

It said: The balance of Unilevers tea brands and geographies and all tea estates have an exciting future, and this potential can best be achieved as a separate entity.

The groups tea business includes household brands PG Tips, Lipton and Brooke Bond.

The results come after Unilever said in June it would call time on its dual Anglo-Dutch structure in favour of a single base in London to give it greater strategic flexibility.

The move will see it ditch its legal base in the Netherlands, with London instead becoming the single site for its legal and corporate headquarters  a decision that came less than two years after an ill-fated plan to move to the Netherlands.

Unilevers half-year results showed the shift in consumer buying during the pandemic, with surging sales for personal hygiene products and groceries during lockdown, but tumbling demand for products normally sold at restaurants and outdoor venues.

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It said sales grew by mid-single digits in the UK as demand for home eating and hygiene products offset the woes in out-of-home categories.

Unilever said: In North America and parts of Europe there was a positive impact from household stocking in March.

Consumption patterns then normalised in the second quarter with heightened levels of demand for hygiene and in home food products.

Sophie Lund-Yates, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the tea demerger was the latest effort by the consumer goods giant to shed some weight in the face of rapidly changing customer habits.

She added: Boosting agility and becoming more streamlined is a core pillar of Unilevers strategy to get sales moving in the right direction, as things were sluggish even before the added pressure of coronavirus disruption.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 23)  Nine Chinese nationals who allegedly sneaked into the country on board a luxury yacht in Puerto Princesa, Palawan will be deported, the Bureau of Immigration said Thursday.

Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente has ordered the conduct of deportation proceedings against the Chinese crew and passengers of a yacht which was apprehended by the Philippine Coast Guard in the wee hours of Tuesday morning off the coast of Barangay Concepcion.

The foreigners had no visa and arrived without prior notice or clearances, violating the countrys immigration laws, the bureau said.

They were identified as Lin Huawei, Zhou Wei, Xu Yuansen, Lou Xioqiang, Zhao Zhoujin, Chang Liujing, Luo Shui Sheng, Chen Zhen Qi, and Zhao Jian Hui.

The bureau included in its list of 44-year-old Chinese national Zhang Dengkang, but the Coast Guard said he was granted a special resident retiree's visa on April 3, 2019, and was staying in Puerto Princesa.

Zhang admitted to owning the pleasure yacht "Chapts," according to the letter sent by Coast Guard District Palawan Commander Allan Corpuz to the militarys Western Command last Tuesday.

Zhang was arrested by the police following a barangay officials report that that he went ashore from the yacht. Police also seized two vehicles suspected to be used as transport vehicle of the Chinese nationals.

Zhang later explained that his nine companions sailed from Shenzen, China for eight days and intended to buy food and fuel for their return voyage when they were apprehended. He added that his company called East Palawan Commercial Property, Inc. owns the property where he was arrested.

The Chinese nationals are now quarantined on board the yacht which is anchored near a beach resort in Puerto Princesa, Immigration authorities said.

"They will remain in their ship until they are deported. We will not allow them to disembark and go ashore, not only for their having no visas, but also because foreigners like them are restricted from entering the country due to COVID-19," BI Seaport Operations Chief Alnazib Decampong said.

Decampong added that the yacht can be impounded and seized by the government under the Philippine Immigration Act
Kristin Heltzel got a COVID-19 test because she wanted to hug her mom.

Before a planned trip to visit her parents lake home over the Fourth of July holiday, one of her kids came back from daycare with cold symptoms. The whole family got tested July 1, thinking it was the responsible thing to do before seeing people outside their household. Then, they waited. And waited.

I got my (negative) results back on day 20, and my husband and my other children are still waiting, she said on July 21st.

Her familys specimens went to Quest Diagnostics for testing.

Asked about the delayed test results in Michigan, a company spokesperson directed MLive to a July 20 press release. In it, the company says high demand from states with big spikes is slowing down labs across the nation, including Quest Diagnostics.

The pandemic continues to surge across much of the United States, which reported record numbers of new COVID-19 cases during the past week. While we believe our gains in capacity will help improve turnaround times over the next few weeks, testing speed is largely a function of demand, the release notes.

The company is able to turn around the results of what it classifies as Priority 1 patients, like those who are hospitalized or hospital workers showing symptoms, in about two days, according to the release. For the rest of the tests its processing, the average turnaround is 7 days, though some are as quick as 2-3 days and some take up to two weeks, according to the press release.

Heltzels family has waited three weeks. They were tested at Pro-Health Medical and Urgent Care in Midland, where Partner and Physician Assistant & Provider Timothy Keeler, too, watched the wait times with growing concern.

Just today I received a result from Quest from a patient July 3 which was positive... imagine how many people that person exposed, Keeler said July 22.

In early July, Pro-Health switched test vendors. The new company is returning tests in 3-5 days, Keeler said.

Dawn Kotcher, of Ypsilanti, was tested more than two weeks ago, on July 3, at a community clinic through Packard Health. She, too, is still waiting on results.

Im pissed. Im pissed at this point, Kotcher said.

She doesnt have health insurance and picked the Packard Health site because it was free. At the time, she thought it was nice that they were doing free testing at Perry Early Learning Center, a school in a relatively low-income area surrounded by affordable housing. Now, she wonders if its part of the reason she hasnt gotten her results yet.

Im concerned about the economic divide and is that it? she said.

Her friends and family members who have been tested at other sites recently, and used insurance, have gotten results back in a few days, she said.

We got into this because we think its important to get good testing to manage the epidemic. So Ill be frank, were as frustrated as anyone, said Packard Health Executive Director Ray Rion.

He watched wait times for test results from Quest Diagnostics grow from a couple of days to a couple of weeks since around the 4th of July holiday. While theyre able to get tests for symptomatic patients back in 24-48 hours, test results for asymptomatic people are taking weeks.

You can do the test but the delay is so long that it doesnt matter. So were almost back to March, now, Rion said, referring to the early days of testing when there were test shortages around the state.

The Washtenaw County Health Department has partnered with Packard Health to set up testing sites like the one Kotcher visited. Spokesperson Susan Ringler Cerniglia said the department has recommended to Packard Health that they switch labs, something Rion said Packard was still exploring.

Theyve been one of the only ones that have been open daily, accessible, theyll test you without charge whether or not you have insurance... its not their fault that the laboratory is backing up and has all these other priorities, being a national laboratory, Ringler Cerniglia said.

Kotcher didnt have symptoms but got tested because she was going back to work in person, as a tutor in peoples homes. Without a test to reassure them, shes taken other measures. She changes clothes between every clients house. Shes spent more than $100 to duplicate her school supplies so she has a separate set for each household. But she cant stay home for weeks and weeks waiting for a test that will be obsolete by the time she gets it.

Its those of us that have no symptoms, that are actually working, that are the ones trying to keep the economy rolling... and we cant get our results, Kotcher said.

Ringler Cerniglia said the delays are affecting individuals, but also public health efforts to stop the spread of the disease. If a delayed test is positive, contact tracing becomes more difficult when asking someone to remember everybody they saw weeks ago.

Local health authorities use contact tracing to alert people who have been exposed to the virus and isolate them to stop the spread. If the results are too late, It does kind of take the wind out of our sails for that whole process, Ringler Cerniglia said.

For Heltzels family, with no results yet, the Fourth of July trip was an exercise in social distancing. They stayed in a camper across the street from her parents, kept the kids out of the house, did all their socializing outside in the heat and wore masks.

I just wanted a couple days of turning COVID in my brain off and just enjoying my family, Heltzel said.

Instead, she spent the 10-day vacation wondering where her results were.

And she never got that hug.

CORONAVIRUS 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.

Related stories:

From Muskegon to Ypsilanti, heres what its like to get a coronavirus test in Michigan right now

Thinking about getting a coronavirus test? 4 pieces of advice from Michiganders who have
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Linkedin Moch. Fiqih Prawira Adjie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 13:43 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668b854d 1 National KPK,Jakarta-Corruption-Court,Tubagus-Chaeri-Wardana Free

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is set to file an appeal against the sentence handed down to graft convict Tubagus "Wawan" Chaeri Wardana after the Jakarta Corruption Court found him guilty of bribery but cleared him of his money laundering charges.

Wawan, the younger brother of former Banten governor Ratu Atut Chosiyah, was sentenced last week by the court to four years in prison for accepting bribes related to several state projects in the province. However, the bench declared him not guilty on two money laundering charges he faced for allegedly laundering about Rp 1.9 trillion reportedly obtained from illicit activities.

KPK spokesperson Ali Fikri said the not guilty verdict for money laundering was the main reason for the appeal, adding that the antigraft commission felt the ruling "has not fulfilled the public's sense of justice".

"We will elaborate on the full reasons in the appeal dossier, which we will immediately submit to the Jakarta High Court through the Central Jakarta District Court," Ali said in a statement on Wednesday.

The sentence Wawan received was lighter than the six years of prison sought by the prosecutors.

Read also: Disgraced Banten governors younger brother convicted of corruption

During the verdict hearing last week, Wawan's lawyer said he would also consider appealing the sentence.

KPK prosecutors indicted Wawan for accepting Rp 58 billion in bribes pertaining to health equipment procurement for hospitals in Banten and community health centers (Puskesmas) in Tangerang in the 2012 fiscal year. The bribery cases were found to have caused Rp 94.31 billion in state losses.

For his crimes, the court also ordered Wawan to pay a fine of Rp 200 million (US$13,679) and Rp 58 billion in restitution. He was found guilty of violating articles 3 and 18 of the 2001 Corruption Law, which prohibit individual acts of self-gain that cause state losses.

The conviction was the third for Wawan, who previously had been sentenced to seven years in prison in 2014 for his involvement in bribery pertaining to a regional election dispute in Lebak regency. Two years later, the judges gave him an additional year of prison in a separate corruption case pertaining to health equipment procurement in Banten.

He is currently also on trial for allegedly bribing Wahid Husen, the former head of Sukamiskin Penitentiary in Bandung, West Java, in exchange for luxurious facilities while serving his prison time there.
India said on Thursday it has been getting requests from members of the Hindu and Sikh minorities of Afghanistan to settle down in the country following a spike in terror attacks on these communities.

There has been a recent spurt in attacks on the Hindu and Sikh communities in Afghanistan. These attacks have been done by terrorists at the behest of their external supporters, external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava told a weekly news briefing.

We have been receiving requests from the members of these communities, they want to move to India, they want to settle down here. Despite the ongoing Covid-19 situation, we have been facilitating these requests, he added.

The Indian embassy in Kabul is providing visas to members of the minority communities to come to the country. Once they reach here, their requests will be examined and acted upon based on extant rules and policies, Srivastava said.

After Nidan Singh Sachdeva, a leader of Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan was released from captivity on July 18 after being kidnapped on June 22, the external affairs ministry had said the targeting and persecution of minority communities by terrorists was a matter of grave concern.

In a recent decision, India has decided to facilitate the return of Afghan Hindu and Sikh community members facing security threats in Afghanistan to India, the ministry had said in a statement at the time.

The controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act provides for a speedy process for members of non-Muslim minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan to seek refuge in India.

In a separate development, India has again asked Pakistan to ensure the safety of its minorities after a Gandhara-style Buddha statue found during the excavation of a house at Mardan in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province was demolished on July 18 at the behest of an Islamic cleric.

This act was widely condemned and Buddhist monks in Gaya have condemned the vandalism, Srivastava said.

We have expressed our concerns to Pakistan. We have conveyed our expectation that they would ensure the safety, security and well-being of minority communities there, as well as protect their cultural heritage, he said.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington has accused the US of taking the relationship between the two countries "down a wrong" path and said it was time to reset. "If the #ChinaUS relationship is a vehicle, the US is taking it onto a wrong path, and worse still, it is hitting the accelerator.

It's time to step on the brakes and return to the right direction!" the Chinese Embassy in the US said in a tweet. Earlier, the US State Department ordered China to close by Friday its consulate in Houston, Texas, over accusations that it engaged for years in massive illegal ...
The following is a summary of statement from Gender Equality and Family Minister Lee Jung-ok during a roundtable hosted by The Korea Times, July 15, on women's leaderhip in COVID-19 era.  ED.



COVID-19 is spreading across the world.



It is a well-known fact that the socially vulnerable, including women, children and the disabled, are hit harder by disasters. This is also true for the COVID-19 pandemic, which has taken a toll on women in terms of care, employment and gender-based violence.





Lee Jung-ok
A major city in north-eastern China has launched emergency disease-control measures to tackle COVID-19 amid fears of a new wave of coronavirus cases.

Dalian, a port city of 6million in Liaoning province, has registered three native COVID-19 infections since Wednesday after reporting zero local cases for nearly four months.

The authorities urged their residents to not leave the city unless there is an emergency as they scrambled to put hundreds under isolation and track down the close contacts of the infected.

Dalian, a port city of 6million in Liaoning province, registered three native COVID-19 infections in nearly four months, officials said today. The picture shows a worker disinfecting a street in Dalian today after the authorities registered three new coronavirus infections

Dalian, a port city in north-eastern China has enforced emergency quarantine measures to prevent the coronavirus from spreading after seeing a new surge of fresh coronavirus cases

The announcement comes as China has been grappled with local coronavirus outbreaks that are erupting Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

The western Chinese region Xinjiang recorded 18 new COVID-19 patients today, bringing the total of active cases to 82 after an outbreak broke out in its regional capital, Urumqi, last week.

Meanwhile, Hong Kongs daily coronavirus cases hit a record high of 118 on Thursday in a renewed wave of infections that has hit the city since the beginning of the month.

The financial hub now has a total of 2,250 confirmed infections, including 14 deaths.

Dalian officials Wednesday reported the first local infection in nearly four months, a 58-year-old male employee from a local seafood processing company.

The worker went to a hospital on Tuesday after developing fever symptoms. He tested positive for the coronavirus the next morning.

The other two infections were announced by officials today after they both tested positive on Wednesday.

Twelve asymptomatic cases were detected after the local government tracked down the first patients close contacts.

All three patients were said to have not travelled out of Dalian in the 14 days before they were diagnosed. They also didnt have any contacts with coronavirus carriers.

The western Chinese region Xinjiang recorded 18 new COVID-19 patients today, bringing the total of active cases to 82 after an outbreak broke out in its regional capital, Urumqi, last week. The picture taken on July 19 shows Urumqi residents undergoing nucleic acid testing

The western Chinese region Xinjiang recorded 18 new COVID-19 patients today, bringing the total of active cases to 82 after an outbreak broke out in its regional capital, Urumqi, last week. Pictured, a medic collects a swab sample from an elderly resident in Urumqi on July 19

It remains unclear how they contracted the bug as officials are conducting an investigation to identify the source.

The Dalian government activated an emergency response after registering the new cases.

The offices where the patients worked at have been sealed off while their colleagues are being quarantined and tested.

Eighteen shops owned by the seafood processor, where the patient worked, are also closed.

Officials are conducting nucleic acid testing on nearly 200,000 residents in the districts where the patients live.

Nearly 600 people who had close contacts with the patients have been put under quarantine and receiving coronavirus testing.

Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) contractors take part in a cleaning and disinfection of Pei Ho Street Market in the Sham Shui Po district of Hong Kong on July 17

Hong Kongs daily coronavirus cases hit a record high of 118 on Thursday in a renewed wave of infections. Pedestrians are pictured walking across a main road in Hong Kong on July 20

The authorities are also tracking down other residents who might have been in contact with the infected citizens and ordering them to self-isolate.

The government has urged Dalian residents not to leave the city until it is for emergency.

The news comes as China is battling a new spike of coronavirus cases across the country.

Xinjiangs capital city, Urumqi of 3.5million, reported last Thursday its first COVID-19 infection - a 24-year-old female retail worker - in five months.

The officials recorded another five native cases the next day, prompting the government to impose the strictest' anti-virus measures.

The Hong Kong government has made masks compulsory on public transport and in public indoor areas following what officials called a third wave of coronavirus infections.

Social distancing measures have also been tightened, with gatherings of more than four people banned. Gyms and amusement parks are shuttered, and restaurants can only operate at limited capacity.

As of Thursday, mainland China have reported a total of 83,729 confirmed infections. The death toll remains at 4,634.
Civil rights leader and longtime Mississippi politician Charles Evers died this week at the age of 97.

Evers was the older brother of civil rights icon and Mississippi National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) leader Medgar Evans, who was assassinated in 1963 outside his home in the state.

After his brothers death, Evers who became NAACPs state voter registration chairman in 1954, took more leadership roles in the civil rights movement and succeeded his brother as the organisations Mississippi field director.

Evers made history in the civil rights movement when he became the first black mayor in Mississippi, when he was elected in the city of Fayette in 1969.

He was named Man of the Year in 1969 by the NAACP, and served as Fayette mayor for 16 years in two different periods until 1989.

Evers publicly backed both prominent Democrats and Republicans during his life and endorsed Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama and most recently Donald Trump in 2016.

His death came a few days after civil rights leader and Georgia congressman John Lewis died at the age of 80.

Lewis was still a prominent politicial figure up until his death and was best known as one of six leaders who organised the 1963 March on Washington.

Political figures in Mississippi, where Evers presence was felt long after he lost his position as mayor, paid tribute to him following his death.

Mississippi governor Tate Reeves wrote on Twitter Rest In Peace, Charles Evers. He was a civil rights leader and a true friend to me and so many Mississippians. His memory will always be cherished and honoured.

Republican Mississippi senator Roger Wickers released a statement following the news of Evers death, where he wrote: Charles Evers was an absolute classic. His rich and colourful story makes him unique among our states historical figures.

He added: As an elected official he navigated the circuitous route from Freedom Democrat to Independent to Republican, even serving as a Trump elector in 2016. He used his powerful personality and platform to change Mississippi for the better.
(Natural News) Research suggests that microplastics are in seafood and in the very water that you drink. While studies have yet to determine the harmful effects of microplastics on human health, experts recommend using water filters to reduce exposure to microplastics in tap water.

A credit cards worth of microplastics ingested weekly

Findings from a separate study conducted by scientists from the University of Newcastle in Australia showed that the average person ingests at least 5 g of plastic every week or the equivalent weight of one credit card.

Five grams may not seem like much, but that means you ingest 2,000 minuscule pieces of plastic every week. This adds up to 21 grams a month or at least 250 g of microplastics a year.

The potential dangers of microplastics

Dr. Maria Neira, the director of the Department of Public Health, Environment and Social Determinants of Health at the WHO, said that continued research is necessary to further determine how exposure to microplastics can affect human health, especially since findings have revealed that plastic can also be found in drinking water.

These studies also highlight the importance of reducing plastic pollution worldwide since microplastics threaten the safety of marine life.

Duncan McGillivray, an Associate Professor from the School of Chemical Sciences at the University of Auckland warned that people are exposed to more microplastics than initially believed.

Some studies have found that one liter of bottled water contains at least 1000 particles of microplastics. But while microplastics are a mostly undetermined danger, McGillivray cautions that this doesnt mean you shouldnt care about microplastics in your food and water.

Various studies suggest that exposure to microplastics are linked to various health problems such as:

Damage to the immune system

Inflammation

Exposure to toxins like mercury or pesticides

Experts believe that exposure to microplastics can also damage fertility among sea mammals.

While studies are ongoing to determine the negative side effects of microplastics on animal and human health, researchers recommend the use of high-quality water filters to eliminate microplastics, pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs found in drinking water supplies worldwide. Dr. Paul Harvey, an environmental scientist and environmental chemist at Macquarie University, explained that using water filters will also help get rid of other pollutants such as heavy metals and pathogens in your drinking water.

Thava Palanisami, a senior research fellow at the University of Newcastles Global Centre for Environmental Remediation, also recommends the use of water filters, adding that the presence of microplastics is geographically dependent.

Palanisami noted, that to date, there is a lack of scientific data on the human health impact of microplastics. Using water filters will help reduce your exposure to particle pollutants, but he cautioned that this also depends on the quality of the filter that you are using.

Harvey said that while water filters help reduce your exposure to microplastics in drinking water, the best course of action is to remove the sources of pollution before they reach the drinking water. (Related: Watch what you eat: 5 Tips to help reduce your toxic plastic exposure in food and water.)

Do your part and help reduce plastic pollution

There are many ways to reduce plastic waste, which in turn helps prevent the accumulation of microplastics in oceans and your drinking water. Read on for tips on how to avoid microplastics in your daily life.

Stop buying bottled water and use a reusable water bottle. Just make sure you refill it at home or the office with filtered water.

Dont buy products with microbeads, like beauty and cosmetic products such as toothpaste or facial scrubs.

Use clothing made from non-synthetic material. Synthetic fabrics like nylon and spandex are made of plastic that eventually sheds fibers called microfibers, another form of microplastic.

Use reusable water bottles and drink filtered water to avoid microplastics that can potentially harm your overall health. Making lifestyle changes also helps reduce the plastic waste you produce, which is great for the environment.

Sources include:

SMH.com.au

WWF.org.au

Get-Green-Now.com
Highlights Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is expected to be launched on August 5

The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra renders have also leaked online

The phone could get a 6.9-inch sAMOLED display

We're barely days away from Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked 2020 event that's slated to be hosted by the company on August 5. The event is expected to see the launch of a number of new smartphones, among which will also be the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra that has now been leaked in all its glory ahead of next month's launch.

The phone's complete spec sheet and a few renders detailing its design have now found their way on to the web. The latter has been shared by well-known tipster, Evan Blass, which show the phone in Mystic Bronze and Mystic Black colors.

The renders give us a glimpse of what we can expect from the phone ahead of its launch in terms of design. However, the complete spec sheet leaked by German tech publication WinFuture, reveals all there is to know about the internals of the upcoming Galaxy Note 20 Ultra.

The leak reveals that the phone will come with a massive 6.9-inch Super AMOLED Infinity-O display with a 120Hz refresh rate, WQHD+ resolution, and Corning Gorilla Glass 7 protection. The screen's pixel density stands at 508 ppi. Beneath the surface, the device is tipped to get an Exynos 990 chipset in Europe and India. This will be paired with 12GB of RAM and up to 512GB UFS 3.1 storage. In the US, the company is expected to launch the phone with Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 865+ chipset instead.

For cameras, the phone could get a primary 108-megapixel sensor with laser autofocus and dual-pixel autofocus. There could also be two other cameras at the back, both with 12-megapixel sensors. One will be a wide-angle lens with an f/2.2 aperture, the other a telephoto lens with 5x zoom.

The phone is also tipped to get a 10-megapixel selfie camera with f/2.2 aperture housed inside an Infinity-O punch hole. Apart from this, there's could be a 4,500mAh battery to complete the device. WinFuture also believes that Wireless Dex will arrive on the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, allowing users to project their smartphone's desktop mode to TVs and other supported displays. Other than this, the S-Pen has also been reworked to reduce its latency.
Appointment

23 July 2020

Michael Kain has been appointed to the position of General Manager at the Steigenberger Bad Homburg and will take up his new duties on 01. August. Mr. Kain has held a number of leadership roles at Steigenberger Hotels AG during more than 35 years with the company. The renovation and repositioning programmes carried out at the Steigenberger Parkhotel and the Steigenberger Grandhotel & Spa Petersberg are just two of the tasks he has successfully managed. After ten years, he is now returning to Bad Homburg. "Michael Kain is an excellent hotel manager and the perfect choice for this particular location," said Thomas Willms, CEO of Deutsche Hospitality. "He has gained a wealth of experience in the luxury hotel segment which he will now be able to put to good use for the Steigenberger Hotel Bad Homburg." Mr. Kain was also named Hotel Manager of the Year for 2020 by Trebing-Lecost, a publishing house which specialises in hotel guides.

His predecessor Albert Mayr is leaving the company at his own request in order to seek new challenges outside the hotel sector. Mr. Mayr had worked for Steigenberger Hotels AG since 2009 and spent the last three of these years as General Manager of the Steigenberger Hotel Bad Homburg. We regret Mr. Mayrs decision, but would like to take this opportunity to offer him our heartfelt thanks for the highly effective cooperation we have enjoyed over such a long period of time, stated Thomas Willms, CEO of Deutsche Hospitality.
The domestic production is likely to go up by 12 per cent to 30.5 million tonnes during the year 2021, beginning October, due to availability of sugarcane in Maharashtra and Karnataka, according to a report.

The production in India is likely to increase by 12.1 per cent to 30.5 million tonnes year-on-year in sugar year (SY) 2021, after adjusting for the impact of the diversion of B-heavy molasses and sugarcane juice for ethanol manufacture, Icra said in a report.

The production is likely to increase in SY2021, because of higher production in Maharashtra and Karnataka, which was adversely impacted in the previous year due to drought.

In addition, heavy rainfall and waterlogging during the last year (August September 2019) adversely impacted the sugarcane crop in a few regions of Maharashtra and North Karnataka for SY2020, the report said.

Icra expects the closing stocks for SY2020 at around 11.0 - 11.5 million tonnes after considering the consumption of 25 million tonnes (decline of 3.8 per cent year-on-year) and exports of 5-5.5 million tonnes.

This along with higher for SY2021 is likely to result in domestic sugar availability of around 42 million tonnes.

In the light of the continuing sugar surplus scenario in the domestic market, continued government support would be critical for industry's profitability, it added.

This increase in production is majorly driven by the increase in cane availability in Maharashtra and Karnataka in SY2021. The domestic sugar consumption was adversely impacted by the nationwide lockdown owing to COVID-19 pandemic due to loss of demand on account either closure or limited operations of several beverage/food manufacturing units during April-May 2020," Icra Ratings Senior Vice President and Group Head Sabyasachi Majumdar said.

He said, with the easing of lockdown rules, the consumption is back to pre-COVID levels in June-July 2020.

"While we expect a decline in the sugar consumption in SY2020, the same is likely to go back to 26 million tonnes levels in SY2021. The closing stocks are expected at around 10.5-11.0 million tonnes for the SY2021 season, which is higher when compared to the normative sugar stock levels," he added.

Without considering the impact of the diversion of B-heavy molasses and sugarcane juice for ethanol manufacture in SY2020, the production is expected to be around 32 million tonnes, the report stated.

In Maharashtra, production is expected to increase by 64 per cent year-on-year at 10.1 million tonnes and in Karnataka, by 26 per cent Y-o-Y to around 4.3 million tonnes in SY2021.

In UP, production is likely to decline by 3 per cent Y-o-Y to 12.3 million tonnes, the report added.

In SY2020, the production was higher by around 0.5-0.6 million tonnes than anticipated because the cane which was generally used by the local gur and khandsari manufacturers, got diverted to sugar mills with the former's operations prematurely shut due to the lockdown, it said.

Meanwhile, the report said that the exports were on the lower side during the lockdown period given the modest port operations owing to the logistics issues and labour shortage, but the pace picked up in May-June 2020.

Icra expects exports of around 5-5.5 million tonnes for SY2020.

Assuming the government continues support for exports for SY2021, considering the surplus scenario in the domestic market, exports are likely to be similar to the SY2020 figures, it added.

The sugar prices moderated closer to MSP ( minimum selling price) levels of Rs 31 per kg in March May during lockdown period and then picked up to Rs 32-32.5 per kg in June.

The pick-up in consumption and pace of sugar exports is likely to support the sugar prices in the near term.

However, given the sugar surplus scenario, any significant increase in the sugar prices is ruled out, the Icra report 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.)
Kourtney Kardashian put her family drama to one side on Wednesday night to enjoy dinner with friends at celebrity hotspot Nobu in Los Angeles.

Hours earlier her sister Kim had issued a statement saying the family feel 'powerless' following husband Kanye West's Twitter meltdown.

Concern has grown for the rapper's mental health in recent weeks after he broke down in tears at a presidential rally, accused Kim of cheating on him with Meek Mill and called his mother-in-law Kris Jenner 'Kris Jong-Un'.

Heading out: Kourtney Kardashian put her family drama to one side on Wednesday night to enjoy dinner with friends at celebrity hotspot Nobu in Los Angeles

But Kourtney gave no hint of the family drama as she was pictured laughing and joking with a male pal while leaving the restaurant.

The eldest Kardashian sister, 41, showed off her sartorial style in leather trousers and a matching jacket. She wore her hair in a sleek bun and accessorised her outfit with a black clutch bag and simple heels.

In keeping with government guidelines amid the coronavirus pandemic, Kourtney wore a pale pink face mask.

Cheering her up: Kourtney was accompanied by a male pal Fai Khadra

Concern: Hours earlier her sister Kim had issued a statement saying the family feel 'powerless' following husband Kanye West's Twitter meltdown

Happy: Kourtney gave no hint of the family drama as she was pictured laughing and joking with friends while leaving the restaurant

Worried: Concern has grown for the rapper's mental health after he broke down in tears at a rally, accused Kim of cheating and called his mother-in-law Kris 'Kris Jong-Un' (pictured 2019)

Mental health: Kanye appeared at a campaign rally in South Carolina on Sunday (pictured) in which he delivered a lengthy monologue which sparked concerns about his well-being

Kourtney's outing comes after her younger sister Kim took to Instagram on Wednesday morning following husband Kanye's late night Twitter meltdown.

The reality star said she feels she is 'powerless' and called the rapper, 43, 'brilliant but complicated'.

Kim said 'his words sometimes do not align with his intentions' after Kanye last night claimed he has been 'trying to get divorced' from Kim since she met his fellow rapper Meek Mill at a hotel.

In his latest rambling Twitter outburst, West said that Kim was 'out of line' to meet Meek Mill to talk about 'prison reform', and blasted her mother Kris Jenner as 'Kris Jong-Un' while accusing the pair of 'white supremacy'.

Fashion maven: The eldest Kardashian sister, 41, showed off her sartorial style in leather trousers and a matching jacket

She's got style: The TV star wore her hair in a sleek bun and accessorised her outfit with a black clutch bag and simple snakeskin print heels

High spirits: Kourtney's friends shared a laugh after their meal

Safety first: In keeping with government guidelines amid the coronavirus pandemic, Kourtney wore a pale pink face mask

Biker girl: Kourtney turned heads as she left the restaurant in her super slick outfit

Sweet: Kourtney's friends have rallied around her as the family try to help Kanye

Plenty to talk about: The star chatted away as she waited for her car

Sharing three pages to her Instagram story Kim said: 'Those that understand mental illness or even compulsive behavior know that the family is powerless unless the member is a minor.'

She told her 180 million followers: 'I understand Kanye is subject to criticism because he is a public figure and his actions at times can cause strong opinions and emotions. He is a brilliant but complicated person who on top of the pressures of being an artist and a black man, who experienced the painful loss of his mother, and has to deal with the pressure and isolation that is heightened by his bi-polar disorder.

'Those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words some times do not align with his intentions.'

Upsetting: Kourtney sought comfort in a pal in the midst of her family drama

Hometime: The star waited for her car to arrive after the meal

Supportive: Kourtney hugged a friend goodbye after the dinner

West on Tuesday repeated his claim that his wife and mother-in-law had 'tried to fly in with two doctors' to have him hospitalised amid concerns about his well-being after his bizarre entry into the 2020 presidential race.

'Kris and Kim put out a statement without my approval... that's not what a wife should do,' Kanye said.

The Stronger hitmaker deleted his late-night tweets barely half an hour after posting them, except for a final post in which he signed them off as coming from 'the future president'.

Sisters first: Kourtney has been a pillar of support to Kim amid the family crisis

Devastated: Kim took to Instagram on Wednesday following husband Kanye's late night Twitter meltdown, saying she is 'powerless' and calling her husband 'brilliant but complicated'

Raising awareness: Kim urged people to be understanding as she spoke of his bi-polar battle

Rant: In his latest rambling Twitter outburst, West said Kim was 'out of line' to meet Meek Mill and blasted her mother Kris as 'Kris Jong-Un' while accusing the pair of 'white supremacy'

Split on the cards? Kanye claimed he has been 'trying to get divorced' from Kim Kardashian since she met his fellow rapper Meek Mill at the Waldorf Hotel

Kim wrote in her statement: 'As many of you know, Kanye has bi-polar disorder. Anyone who has this or has a loved one in their life who does, knows how incredibly complicated and painful it is to understand.

'I've never spoken publicly about how this has affected us at home because I am very protective of our children and Kanye's right to privacy when it comes to his health. But today, I feel like I should comment on it because of the stigma and misconceptions about mental health.

'People who are unaware or far removed from this experience can be judgmental and not understand that the individual themselves have to engage in the process of getting help no matter how hard family and friends try.

'Living with bi-polar disorder does not diminish or invalidate his dreams and his creative ideas, no matter how big or unobtainable they may feel to some. That is part of his genius and as we have all witnessed, many of his big dreams have come true.'

Kanye's shock divorce claim comes after sources had alleged that Kim and Kanye are already 'living apart' and have been 'at each other's throats' with 'daily bust-ups' during lockdown.

The couple married in 2014 and have four children; North, Saint, Chicago, two, and Psalm, 14 months.
For 39 years, Joseph Aleman spent baseball season hawking beer at Wrigley Field, trekking through the stands with 25 pounds of cold brews strapped to his back.

He loved the job, and was good at it, typically earning $1,000 to $1,500 a week in commission and tips during the lucrative summer months. Combined with off-season work as an extra on TV shows shot in Chicago, Aleman, 62, made a decent living for himself and his 19-year-old daughter, who has autism and lives with him in their Orland Park home.

The COVID-19 pandemic stripped Aleman of both jobs as sporting events and TV productions came to an abrupt halt in mid-March. More than four months later, Aleman doesnt know when the work might resume.

A saving grace has been unemployment insurance, which has allowed him to pay his mortgage and bills and occasionally splurge on takeout pizza. But he and millions of other people laid off as a result of the pandemic could soon see severe cuts to those benefits.

The extra $600 weekly in federal unemployment benefits that people have been receiving during the pandemic is set to expire this weekend. After that, the jobless will be eligible only for regular state unemployment aid, which in Illinois pays 47% of a persons regular wages, up to a maximum of $484 a week.

For the millions who remain out work, including many in industries that were decimated by stay-at-home mandates and wont get back to normal for some time, the scenario is devastating. Economists warn that letting the supplement expire could make it difficult for people to buy food and pay bills, dealing a blow to the overall economy.

Lawmakers are debating the future of such supplements as the economic impact of the pandemic drags on. While the unemployment rate has declined from its April peak, in June it was still at 11.1% nationally and 14.6% in Illinois, where more than 946,000 people were out of work. Last week, an additional 38,000 people in Illinois applied for jobless benefits.

House Democrats in May approved legislation that would extend the $600 in extra weekly benefits through January 31, 2021, as part of a sweeping $3 trillion stimulus package. Senate Republicans this week introduced a $1 trillion counterproposal that would replace the $600 supplement with a lower amount, because of concerns that some people have been receiving more in unemployment aid than they were through their regular paycheck. They are also reportedly in talks with the White House about proposing a short-term extension of the enhanced unemployment benefits..

Aleman has been horrified by the nickel-and-diming as the clock ticks. For him, the loss of the supplement would mean he gets $219 per week in unemployment benefits instead of $819, which isnt nearly enough to make ends meet and may force him to sell belongings or dip into savings meant for his daughter.

I think its a slap in the face, Aleman said. There is a lot of people in this country that dont know when theyre going to work again.

The enhanced unemployment benefits, part of the $2.2 trillion relief package passed by Congress in late March, were intended to replace the full wages of people who lost their jobs as governments mandated business closures and urged people to stay home to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Congress agreed to a flat weekly $600 payment on top of state benefits because old computer systems at state offices couldnt handle calculating individual replacement pay. It also extended eligibility to independent contractors, gig workers and the self-employed.

The money has helped prop up the economy. While spending among employed people fell 10% during the pandemic, it increased 10% among those receiving unemployment benefits, according to an analysis by University of Chicago economists. Without the $600 supplement, the authors concluded, there could be a huge drop in overall consumption.

But the supplement has been controversial because, for low-income people, the extra $600 puts them above their regular wages. Two-thirds of unemployed people can receive more in government benefits than they earn while working because of the supplement, and one in five can get twice as much in aid as their usual paycheck, according to another University of Chicago analysis.

Thats raised concerns that people wont want to return to work as businesses reopen.

If that means the labor market wont work as efficiently because these people wont have incentive to go back to work, that hurts the economy in the short and long run, said Michael Miller, associate professor of economics at DePaul University. What can we give them to protect and help them but at the same time not provide so much assistance that they make a decision that is a detriment to the economy?

Many economists agree that eliminating the federal supplement entirely would be disastrous given that 30 million Americans, or one in five workers, are currently receiving unemployment benefits.

With eviction moratoriums also set to expire at the end of this month, there could be a massive homelessness problem if people cant pay rent, said Ben Harris, executive director of the Kellogg Public-Private Initiative at Northwestern Universitys Kellogg School of Management.

We are really on the cusp of a Great Depression-like situation, Harris said.

Laid off workers say the extra $600 in weekly benefits has been critical to maintaining some normalcy while their jobs remain unavailable.

It has allowed me to stay in my apartment and not have to move in with my mother, said Paula Blyth, 54, who usually makes about $46,000 a year feeding cast and crew on the sets of TV commercials.

Blyth has been getting $900 weekly in unemployment benefits, on par with her regular wage, which she said has allowed her to live without fear. But the benefits would drop to $300 a week if the supplement expires.

I have always been a happy person and very optimistic, said Blythe, who lives in Avondale. Now I wake up with a knot in my stomach. I have a hard time sleeping. I think about what I can do to supplement my income. Im not really skilled to do anything else.

Andres Moreno is making slightly less on unemployment than he was working full time as a server at the downtown restaurant Fisk & Co, but it has been enough to pay rent on his Avondale apartment and occasionally buy takeout from neighborhood restaurants and knick-knacks from local shops. Without the supplement, his weekly benefit would drop to $300 and he couldnt afford to support those businesses, he said.

The enhanced benefits are also helpful as he looks to buy health insurance, since he lost his employer-provided benefits.

Moreno, 35, thought about getting another job, but safety concerns held him back.

Though he was recently told his temporary layoff is now considered indefinite, he is hopeful he will be called back to work at the restaurant, where he got full benefits and a 401k.

Id much rather have a secure job than the extra $600, Moreno said.

Concerns that people would rather be idle than working arent based in reality, said Jeremy Rosen, director of economic justice at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law. People want safe and stable work -- the problem is the dearth of stable jobs and safe workplaces, he said.

Manuela Sepulveda, 50, who lost her job as a home health aide in April, is earning more on unemployment than she was working, but she misses the work and wants to return to her field. The challenge is that she isnt quite ready as she deals with depression after one of her clients died of COVID-19. She was asymptomatic when she tested positive for the virus and immediately went home, but worries she may have gotten him sick.

This affected me a lot, she said in Spanish. It was hard because part of me felt like I was to blame.

Melissa Kearney, director of the Aspen Institutes Economic Strategy Group,

is part of a group of prominent economists that has proposed an alternative to the $600 supplement. Their proposal calls for calculating a federal supplement based on a percentage of the recipients wages, and it would phase out as the economy improves. For example, when unemployment is high people would receive an extra 40% of their wages on top of their state benefits -- so in Illinois theyd get nearly 90% of their usual paycheck -- and that percentage would decline as the state unemployment rate falls.

The government should also be rewarding work, Kearney said. While some Republicans have proposed offering hiring incentives to pull people out of unemployment, her proposal suggests doubling the earned income tax credit for the year to boost the wages of lower-wage workers who never stopped working through the pandemic.

There is a bit of an inequity in that we have subsidized unemployment insurance so that people out of work are getting more generous pay than their counterparts who had to work this entire time, Kearney said.

To Michael Wenz, associate professor of economics at Northeastern Illinois University, nailing the perfect formula is not the priority.

As the health crisis continues, the biggest threat to the economy is weak consumer demand for certain goods and services that is keeping employees in hard-hit industries like travel and hospitality unemployed.

Until spending recovers, worrying about whether were sending $400 versus $600 is looking at the wrong problem, Wenz said. Right now the real concern has to be that people keep a roof over their heads.

Roushaunda Williams, who worked for 19 years as a bartender at the Palmer House Hilton before she was laid off in March, said her unemployment insurance is enough to cover her rent but not much else even though she gets the maximum weekly benefits allowed. Bartending she used to make, on average, $1,500 weekly, and now gets, after taxes, just over $900 a week in aid.

Williams, 52, said she has depleted her savings to pay bills and is running out of costs to cut. She stopped running her air conditioner, traded her pricey skin cream for a $5 drug store version and cut back on visits to the hair salon.

If she loses the extra $600, she expects she will lose her Uptown apartment and have to move in with friends.

The sharp drop in benefits might force some people to look for other work rather than waiting for their jobs to come back. But Williams, who is applying to be a Census worker, isnt willing to take just any job after fighting hard for years for a good wage.

To go backwards and be under the poverty line is just not something I want to do, said Williams, a steward with her union, Unite Here Local 1, which represents the areas hotel workers.

Aleman, the Wrigley Field beer vendor, bristles at the notion of finding another job when he had one he loved.

Are they going to put me in a chicken place where Im plucking chickens? he said. Or will they put me at Jewel stocking on the midnight shift? Im not going to go anywhere with that.

As the expiration of the extra unemployment benefits nears, Aleman has faith that those in power wont cut off the lifeline keeping many people like him afloat.

Youre dealing with the benevolence of other people, he said. And I hope, and I pray, that they come up with the compassion.

10 ways Illinois schools could look different this fall

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Amsterdam is known for its liberal approach to life. While Brits, Americans and Australians (to name a few) titter at sex and treat C grade drugs as the height of felony (whilst at home), The Netherlands capital opens their minds to a whole new world of freedom (all while emptying their wallets).

On that note, one of Amsterdams most stereotypical (and profitable) attractions: the Red Light District, is now under a different kind of scrutiny as sex workers were recently given the green light to go back to work.

After being closed for months thanks to The Pangolin Kiss, the Red Light District is now open again  but that doesnt mean its back to normal.

As Amsterdam rethinks its post-pandemic image (something DMARGE reported on earlier this year), with locals having enjoyed the city centre, for the last four months, to themselves, officials are considering cutting back on mass tourism, to keep the benefits of reduced noise, littering and disorderly behavior into the post-pandemic era.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Amsterdam | Travel community (@amsterdamworld) on Jul 21, 2020 at 5:18am PDT

One idea that has been floated, to achieve this, involves a massive overhaul of the Red Light District, which could see the citys sex workers relocated to a prostitution hotel outside the city center.

As CNN Travel reports, The district in Amsterdams historic center, known locally as De Wallen, relies heavily on tourism and normally attracts over a million visitors a month. But now, emboldened by the sight of empty streets and the calm atmosphere during lockdown, residents living in the city center are calling for change.

More than 30,000 residents have signed a petition titled Amsterdam has a choice, which urges city authorities to improve the quality of life for residents in the center and restrict the annual overnight tourist stays to 12 million. Last year the total stood at 18.8 million.

Its not just window shows that bring tourists to Amsterdam. As Anita, a Prostitution Information Center employee told CNN Travel, the industry may have been unfairly singled out: The sex workers are not the cause of the disturbance. The bachelor parties are the problem and the fact that EasyJet flights are so cheap.

Before the lockdown, CNN Travel reports, Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema was already considering a major overhaul of the Red Light District in a bid to reduce disruptive behavior and protect the sex workers from degrading conditions. In May, she said that the pandemic has highlighted the urgency to think about the city center of the future.'

Halsema has presented four scenarios for the district, which range from reducing the number of brothel windows to moving sex workers to a new location.

She has also suggested opening a prostitution hotel outside the center and said in May that the search for a new location was well under way. A spokesperson has told CNN Travel that the council will hold a vote on the scenarios after the summer.

Sex workers fear the districts closure would put them in a precarious position: When you leave your shift at 5 a.m., the robbers will be lining up, Anita told CNN Travel. We dont want to move into a prostitution hotel. Here everyone can see us. Thats what makes our jobs safe.

Sex workers also point out that moving to the citys outskirts will reduce their earning potential.

Only time and budget flights will tell.

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When Jack Snowdon was forced into isolation for being a close contact of a confirmed coronavirus case, he called the Health Department about the $1500 hardship payment promised to Victorians without sick leave entitlements.

It has since been a roller-coaster ride: unanswered phone calls, staff unaware about the hardship fund the state government announced four weeks ago, and being incorrectly told to contact the Australian Taxation Office and Centrelink.

Jack Snowdon is isolating at home after contracting COVID-19.

Mr Snowdon still does not know how to apply, nor when he might expect to see the money in his bank account.

"It's laughable watching the Premier advertise [the $1500 payment]," the 25-year-old sole trader said. "It's impossible to get."
YEREVAN, JULY 23, ARMENPRESS. On July 23, at 00:12, the official vehicle of the Armenian Embassy in Germany was set on fire, the Embassy said in a statement.

The German Federal Foreign Office, the Berlin Police and respective police agencies have been officially notified about the incident. At the moment the police and experts conduct investigation, observing the possibility of arson, the statement said.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
Huge mobile phone masts the height of Nelson's Column will be allowed to be erected without planning permission to improve 5G signal.

The masts would also be allowed to be put up closer to roads, ensuring that the signal did not drop out, ministers said yesterday.

To speed up 5G deployment, new base stations and alterations to existing phone masts will also be allowed without council approval.

There are fears the masts could blight Britain's countryside, with the plans alarming conservationists.

The current restriction on the height of the masts is set at 25m and could be doubled to 50m  almost exactly the same height as Nelson's column

The current restriction on the height of the masts is set at 25 metres and could be doubled to 50 metres  almost exactly the same height as Nelson's Column.

They can be as high as 20 metres in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, and require full planning permission.

The government confirmed yesterday that it would lift this limit, though a new limit has not yet been confirmed.

Ministers initially announced the plans last year in an attempt to boost rural mobile signals.

A consultation into the proposals closed in the autumn.

The government's response, published yesterday, read: 'We are satisfied that there is evidence that the proposed reforms would have a positive impact on the government's ambitions for the deployment of 5G and extending mobile coverage.'

The masts will still need to be approve by councils, though full planning permission will not be required.

Ministers initially announced the plans last year in an attempt to boost rural mobile signals (file picture)

However, upgrades to existing masts will be allowed without local authority approval.

The proposals have proved controversial.

Seventy per cent of local authorities that responded to the consultation said it 'could result in significant adverse individual and cumulative landscape and visual impacts'.

'In taking forward these proposals in England, we will ensure that the appropriate environmental protections and other safeguards are in place to mitigate the impact of new mobile infrastructure,' the government said.

Phone companies will also be encouraged to share masts, which will be allowed without planning permission.
BAY CITY, MI  Bay City-based ShineWater has a new look and a new deal with Kroger to sell its zero-sugar, vitamin-enriched beverages in more than 120 grocery stores across Michigan.

ShineWater, which assumed new ownership and relocated its corporate headquarters to downtown Bay City last fall, recently debuted all-new branding and label designs as it moves toward a goal of national distribution. The product is made in Dade City, Fla.

The Kroger announcement is the next bold step in their journey to national distribution along with new Southeastern U.S. distribution plans detailing expansion to 1200+ Publix locations, and upcoming major chain partnership launches with Circle K, Wesco, Sunrise Convenience Stores and Forward Corp., reads a Shine Water news release.

ShineWater Owner Rod Hildebrant said current events are driving a renewed interest in nutrition among consumers. ShineWater beverages tout nutrients, electrolytes, a full serving of Vitamin D, no added sugar and no artificial ingredients.

Its an ongoing trend that is influencing company strategies and determining which products retailer chains choose to carry, Hildebrant said in a statement. We are proud that our innovative hydration beverages will be available at an outstanding retailer like Kroger, who has inspired customer loyalty for decades by providing their customers with value, quality and convenience.

Kroger, one of the worlds largest retailers, has 2,800 stores in 35 states, including more than 120 locations in Michigan, the release states. Soon, Kroger shoppers will find ShineWater beverages, including Poma-Grape, Strawberry Lemon, Peach Mango, and Kiwi Cucumber flavors, featured as part of the grocery chains Discover Local program. Two new flavors are expected to be released in September.

It is available in some Kroger stores now and will soon be in all Kroger stores across the state.

Working with the Kroger team at both the division and store level has been an amazing experience, Chief Operating Office Larry Long said in a statement. We love seeing consumers try us for the first time and instantly becoming loyal customers. Kroger has long been dedicated to bringing their customers best in class products. And we feel we are at the top of that list. National distribution within the Kroger enterprise is the goal and Michigan is our first step.

Read more on MLive:

ShineWater expands Michigan distribution amid taste for craft culture

Artists add a splash of color to Downtown Bay Citys road-closure barricades

Independence Bridge in Bay City closing for five-day improvement project
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 18:22:29|Editor: huaxia

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URUMQI, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, has provided free accommodation and nucleic acid tests for tourists stranded there since new confirmed COVID-19 cases were reported in the region.

As of July 20, more than 1,000 hotels across the city had offered free food, accommodation and shuttle services for tourists, who were stranded there as the number of flights and trains to and from Urumqi reduced due to the new infections of novel coronavirus.

The municipal epidemic prevention and control headquarters said tourists who have a negative nucleic acid test result are allowed to leave the city.

Li Keru, a tourist from south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, did not expect that his trip in Xinjiang which started in mid-June would be halted due to the new infections. Li turned to the local government for help and was provided with free accommodation in a local hotel.

"I'm very grateful that they provided me a haven. Food and accommodation here are free," Li said.

Jiang Haijun, general manager of a local hotel, said travelers could stay in the hotel after completing a nucleic acid test. "We have received 134 guests to date."

Xinjiang reported 18 new confirmed domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases and 24 new asymptomatic cases on Wednesday, the regional health commission said Thursday.

By Wednesday, Xinjiang had 82 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 77 asymptomatic cases, and 3,284 people were still under medical observation. Enditem
'In what must go down as one of the most nonchalant remarks by the head of any hospital, J J Hospital Dean Dr Ranjit Mankeshwar said: 'We do not know where the staff was, but he did not suffer serious wounds'.'

Jyoti Punwani reports on how the authorities have treated the poet-activist and his co-accused in these harrowing times of the pandemic.

IMAGE: Professor Varavara Rao, poet and activist.

This is prison

The voice muffled

Movements confined

But the hand scribbles

Torment of the heart doesn't cease

Dreams in lonely darkness float toward

Lighted shores



And prison

That stops my tongue

The light of the moon is barred

But who can bar the brilliance of the sun?

A dream soaked in blood was written in one of his many stints in jail by Varavara Rao.

Almost three decades later, the poet, behind bars again, wrote a letter to his family vividly describing a dream he had had

Rao, among the 11 intellectuals charged under the UAPA for their alleged links to the violence that took place at Bhima Koregaon on January 1, 2018, has been in Taloja jail since February.

In the dream, wrote Rao, he was released from jail and in Warangal, his hometown. When he woke up, he realized he was still behind bars.

For Varavara Rao, Warangal has always been special.

In 1987, he wrote about the city:

Oh, the city that taught me

Even as learning from me

The city that spread my words

While teaching me how to talk

The city that paved my path

While making me sing

The city that loved me and enamoured in my love

Oh, my gift and my curse,

My first love,

My Paradise Lost...

Can I ever regain you!

The letter describing the dream of being back in his beloved city was dated March 19, 2020. The four months in Taloja jail since then, have turned the poet into a wreck.

Who should be held responsible for this degeneration that comes as a shock not only to all who have read and heard him, but also to his family in Hyderabad who should have known about his condition?

VV, as he is popularly called, wrote two more letters from Taloja jail, on June 6 and June 26.

The first had some indicators of the professor of literature being disoriented. But the June 26 letter was, as a relative described it: "Just words, making no sense. He was struggling to express himself but couldn't find the words. A writer struggling to write."

The family however, could not detect the gradual degeneration in the writer's faculties because they got all three letters together just last week.

They had all been posted at the same time by Taloja jail.

Had the June 6 letter been received in time, his family could have alerted his lawyer about his condition.

As it turned out, they discovered it only after a call from him on July 11 where it was clear that he was hallucinating.

Similarly, it was from the media that Professor Rao's wife and three daughters discovered that he had fallen from his bed at the J J hospital in south central Mumbai and had to be given stitches.

The dean of the J J hospital later clarified that he had not fallen, but had banged his head against the hospital bed while reaching out for a glass of water.

In what must go down as one of the most nonchalant remarks by the head of any hospital, J J Hospital Dean Dr Ranjit Mankeshwar said: 'We do not know where the staff was, but he did not suffer serious wounds.'

This is the dean of Maharahstra's premier government hospital talking of an 80-year-old patient entrusted to his care, one suffering from a range of illnesses, and who has just tested positive for COVID-19.

Dr Mankeshwar chose to ignore what had by then been reported widely and even commented upon by the National Human Rights Commission: The condition Professor Rao's family found him in two days after he was suddenly admitted to the J J hospital.

In the transit ward, Professor Rao was sitting on the edge of the bed, unattended, with both bed and his own clothes soaked in urine.

The casual nature of the J J Hospital dean's remark only reflects the callousness with which Professor Rao and indeed, all the Bhima Koregaon accused have been treated.

When Professor Rao was first taken to the J J hospital on May 28, his family was not informed by the jail.

His lawyer told the court that the Taloja jail authorities first called the Vishrambaug police station in Pune where the FIR against him had been lodged.

From there, a call was made to a police station in Hyderabad. Those policemen informed Professsor Rao's family.

Again on July 13, when Professor Rao was shifted to the J J Hospital after his family held a press conference about his alarming condition, they were not informed.

Nor were they kept in the loop about his shift from the J J hospital to St George's hospital in south Mumbai and thence to the Nanavati hospital in Vile Parle, south Mumbai.

It is almost as if the jails in which the Bhima Koregaon accused are lodged have decided that these undertrials will receive not even the basic rights a prisoner is entitled to.

More than once, Taloja and Byculla Jail authorities have not sent medical reports of Varavara Rao and Shoma Sen despite orders by the court.

The report on Sudha Bharadwaj's health sent by the Byculla Jjail early this week was 'illegible' said the court.

Yet, not only have the jail superintendents not been pulled up, the orders by the special National Investigation Agency court rejecting interim bail to Professor Rao and 61-year-old Shoma Sen have not even mentioned this flouting of court orders by the jail authorities.

As COVID-19 spread through Maharashtra's jails, the high powered committee set up to implement the Supreme Court directive to decongest jails allowed those aged over 60 to apply for bail even if they were charged under special laws.

At least five of the 10 Bhima Koregaon accused are over 60; some also suffer from other ailments.

While rejecting interim bail for Professor Rao and Shoma Sen on June 26, the court was in possession of their medical reports.

Thus, it knew that while discharging Professor Rao on June 1, the J J hospital had recommended follow up treatment, about which there was no mention in the report ultimately filed by the Taloja jail.

The jail's report also revealed that after Professor Rao's discharge from the J J hospital in May, he had been vomiting and complaining of stomach pain, symptoms not seen in the three days he was at the J J hospital.

So, despite knowing that his health had worsened, the court ordered that he remain in jail.

June 26 was the day the court rejected his bail. That was also the day Professor Rao wrote the incoherent letter from jail.

Within 15 days of this, he had turned completely unstable, unable to talk properly or even brush his teeth.

Who should be held responsible for this deterioration?

Even as the media reported the observations of J J doctors that Professor Rao seemed to be suffering from dementia, even after the wide publicity given to his family's account that he failed to recognise his wife when she visited him on July 15, the NIA, in its latest reply to Professor Rao's bail application, has charged him with 'trying to take undue benefit of COVID-19 and his age' to seek bail!

It used the same words in May while opposing 59-year-old Sudha Bharadwaj's bail application.

This shouldn not shock us. The NIA is, after all, nothing but the police.

But in the Bhima Koregaon case, the judiciary has made almost the same argument. Denying bail to Shoma Sen, Special Judge D E Kothalikar wrote that suffering from 'some diseases' cannot be ground for bail.

63-year-old Vernon Gosalves was assigned by the Taloja jail to look after Varavara Rao in the jail hospital. After Professor Rao tested positive, it became the jail's duty to immediately test Gonsalves.

But his wife advocate Susan Abraham's frantic calls to the jail yielded no satisfactory response.

On July 20, Gonsalves and fellow prisoner Anand Teltumde, 70, had to plead with the Bombay high court that they be tested because they had come in contact with Professor Rao.

'Institutional failure' were the words used by Chief Justice of India Sharad Arvind Bobde to explain why Uttar Pradesh criminal Vikas Dubey, accused in 65 FIRs, was out on parole.

What better words can there be to describe what has happened with Varavara Rao and his co-accused?

Such has been their treatment by the three institutions: The police, the jail authorities and the judiciary that they have had to whittle down their perfectly legal demands.

From asking for bail on merit, they have gone down to asking for bail on medical grounds, from there to no bail but medical treatment, and finally, in Varavara Rao's case, to a plea that the family be requested to see him from afar in his last days.

Let us not forget that there are two others accused of exactly the same crime.

Hindutva leaders Sambhaji Bhide and Milind Ekbote were the first to be charged with instigating violence in Bhima Koregaon on January 1, 2018. Bhide got a clean chit from then Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and was never arrested; Ekbote is out on bail.
PORTLAND, Ore.  Mayor Ted Wheeler was tear-gassed by federal officers along with a large crowd of protesters late Wednesday night after he tried for hours to calm angry activists demanding police reform from City Hall and calling for federal authorities to withdraw from this mostly liberal, mostly white city.

The mayor was caught in a chaotic display of violence and mayhem that began around 11:15 p.m., after protesters threw flaming bags of garbage over a fence protecting the federal courthouse, prompting officers to fire tear gas at the crowd.

Wheeler had spent many hours in the thick of the protest, attempting to answer questions from the crowd, which booed and jeered as he tried to explain a lengthy process for making changes. He acknowledged that he's a "white, privileged male."

"Obviously, we have a long way to go," Wheeler said. "Everyone here has a job to do, all of us."

Before the crowd was tear-gassed, Wheeler huddled with leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement who demanded he move more quickly to reform the police department.

Some activists said they were worried the fight over federal agents overshadowed their demands for change and vowed to keep the pressure on Wheeler and city officials. One mother pointed out that Wheeler showed up to the protests only after other white mothers attending the demonstrations over the weekend were tear-gassed.

"Enough is enough," the crowd chanted. "Enough is enough."

Thousands of protesters alternately booed and interrogated Wheeler after hundreds of mothers dubbed "the Wall of Moms" led a march downtown against police brutality. Many protesters carried signs demanding the withdrawal of federal agents dispatched last week by President Donald Trump over the objection of Wheeler and other officials.

Its hard to breathe, its a lot harder to breathe than I thought, Wheeler told The Washington Post after he was tear-gassed. This is abhorrent. This is beneath us.

Story continues

Norma Lewis, holding flower, is a link in the "wall of moms" during a Black Lives Matter protest on July 20 in Portland, Ore.

Trump said he sent federal law enforcement officers in to restore order. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said agents were in Portland primarily to protect federal buildings such as the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse, a target of protesters.

To hear more about Portland protests, click 'play' below.

Contractors surrounded the building with a tall metal-and-concrete fence Wednesday, and prosecutors warned that anyone who breached it would be arrested. In court files, officials said protesters inflicted more than $50,000 in damage to federal buildings in Portland, including tearing down security cameras and shattering glass doors.

Tai Carpenter, the board president of Dont Shoot PDX, a Portland-based, nonprofit group advocating for social change, said the majority of protesters were exercising their First Amendment rights. She called the federal response disproportionate.

A person wearing a hammer-and-sickle T-shirt emblem of the communist Soviet Union confronts federal agents on July 21 outside the federal courthouse in Portland, Ore., during a night of protests.

Its not a bunch of anarchists on the front lines, said Carpenter, 29. Its moms singing and dads with leaf blowers to disperse tear gas. Its not nearly as out of control as people think. Im scared that the federal officers being here is going to result in someone being murdered.

Wheeler echoed those concerns after speaking to protesters Wednesday night.

"President Trump needs to focus on coronavirus and get his troops out of the city. My biggest fear is that somebody's going to die," Wheeler said. "I want them to leave. This is going to come to a city near you if we don't stop it."

The mayor walked a fine line of blasting the federal government while addressing a crowd that days earlier, before federal officials swept into the city, had been organizing in opposition to his office. As mayor, Wheeler helps set the city's budget priorities. As police commissioner, he helps sets law enforcement priorities.

Workers erect metal fencing and concrete barriers around the federal courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 22.

Some activists said his criticism of the federal government rang hollow, given the clashes between city police and protesters.

"You need to be doing more than you are doing. You say you are doing stuff. We haven't seen it," activist Teal Lindseth, 21, told him Wednesday night.

Protesters were reenergized against what they call heavy-handed federal intervention after nearly two months of demonstrations. They said they were seizing a groundswell of national support to continue pushing for an overhaul in policing.

Wednesday night again saw large numbers of white, middle-aged residents joining the protests, which have drawn hundreds of activists nearly every night since the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died on Memorial Day after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes over a report of an alleged counterfeit $20 bill.

Federal officials have repeatedly referred to protesters as anarchists, and federal agents fired tear gas at the crowds.

Forty-two people have been arrested by federal agents in the past few days, several of them over accusations that they pried open the front doors of the courthouse and scuffled with officers inside.

Portland, Ore., Mayor Ted Wheeler wants federal authorities to withdraw from the city.

"Attempted arson is not a peaceful protest. Physically attacking law enforcement is not freedom of speech. Destruction of property is not peaceful assembly," Wolfe said in a statement. "Criminals perpetrating these crimes are being arrested  not law-abiding protesters."

Wednesday, contractors raced to finish ringing the courthouse with 8-foot-high metal-and-concrete barricades, the sounds of air compressors and electric screw guns echoing across the street to the protest encampment.

Kitty-corner from the courthouse, park rangers removed metal benches from Chapman Square, a small park where many protesters rested and regrouped during overnight clashes. There was no evidence the city planned to evict the protest encampment from Lownsdale Square, directly across Southwest 3rd Avenue from the courthouse.

In that encampment, protesters erected tents and barbecue grills, offering free food. Other sites within the encampment provide basic hygiene supplies, including masks and hand-washing stations to protect against the spread of COVID-19, as well as water and eye rinses for protesters hit with tear gas or pepper spray.

As at other protest sites around the country, including the now-defunct Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or CHAZ, in Seattle, tourists stopped by to take selfies, angering protesters who fretted that their message was being ignored while their encampment became a tourist attraction during the daytime.

Wednesday, four volunteer medics aiding protesters sued city police and the federal government, arguing their constitutional rights were violated by law enforcement officers targeting them with tear gas and rubber bullets. Filed with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, the lawsuit says law enforcement officials at all levels mistreated protesters.

"Defendants conduct is part of a longstanding pattern of assaulting and threatening protest medics to prevent them from rendering aid to protesters, journalists, neutral legal observers, and their fellow protest medics," the lawsuit says. "Since President Trump ordered federal agents to go to Portland to quell protests, the federal defendants have been coordinating with the Portland police to violently disperse demonstrators, neutrals, and medics standing behind a medical-supply table. The federal Defendants use the same types (or worse) of force  chemical irritants, rubber bullets, batons  as the Portland Police. And they have emerged from unmarked vehicles clad in unmarked uniforms to abduct suspected protesters."

Workers erect metal fencing and concrete barriers around the federal courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 22.

Before Wheeler appeared in the crowd Wednesday, many protesters linked arms and lined the street next to the federal courthouse. Lindseth joined the crowd, alongside yellow-shirted moms and hundreds of other activists forming a human wall to protect the protest.

"Hey, look, Trump wanted a wall," she said with a grin. "So we're giving him one!"

Instead of silencing the city's protesters, she said, the president bestowed on them a larger platform by sending in federal officers.

"Trump keeps talking about Portland. People keep talking about Portland. People know us," Lindseth said. "We feel like the whole world has seen us."

Contributing: Lindsay Schnell

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: In Portland protests, mayor warns 'somebody's going to die'
If you want to know who really controls Marimaca Copper Corp. (TSE:MARI), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Insiders often own a large chunk of younger, smaller, companies while huge companies tend to have institutions as shareholders. Companies that used to be publicly owned tend to have lower insider ownership.

With a market capitalization of CA$162m, Marimaca Copper is a small cap stock, so it might not be well known by many institutional investors. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutions own shares in the company. Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholder can tell us about Marimaca Copper.

See our latest analysis for Marimaca Copper

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Marimaca Copper?

Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Marimaca Copper. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Marimaca Copper's historic earnings and revenue, below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Marimaca Copper. Our data shows that Greenstone Capital LLP is the largest shareholder with 25% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 16% and 5.9%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

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A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 9 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no one share holder has a majority.

Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. There is some analyst coverage of the stock, but it could still become more well known, with time.

Insider Ownership Of Marimaca Copper

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. The company management answer to the board; and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board, themselves.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own less than 1% of Marimaca Copper Corp.. It appears that the board holds about CA$880k worth of stock. This compares to a market capitalization of CA$162m. Many tend to prefer to see a board with bigger shareholdings. A good next step might be to take a look at this free summary of insider buying and selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, mostly retail investors, hold a substantial 51% stake in MARI, suggesting it is a fairly popular stock. This size of ownership gives retail investors collective power. They can and probably do influence decisions on executive compensation, dividend policies and proposed business acquisitions.

Private Equity Ownership

Private equity firms hold a 41% stake in MARI. This suggests they can be influential in key policy decisions. Sometimes we see private equity stick around for the long term, but generally speaking they have a shorter investment horizon and -- as the name suggests -- don't invest in public companies much. After some time they may look to sell and redeploy capital elsewhere.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. To that end, you should learn about the 4 warning signs we've spotted with Marimaca Copper (including 1 which is is significant) .

If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its future.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

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.
Rosalie's Writings

with Rosalie Liddle Crawford

Our future phones need to be smarter and have unique user settings. For example, if we were able to set our phones to politician mode, there would be a common warning message come up that reads I wouldnt text that if I were you.

The best rule of thumb though for mobile phone texting and answering messages on social media, is nothing after 9.30pm. I doubt much research has been thrown at this, but my late-night scrolling of social media and message boards suggests the hypothesis that late-night keyboard warriors may have started the day in a less inebriated state.

Trolls will just have to sit behind their screens while you enjoy a solid night of sleep.

The 24 hour rule and my fathers wise advice of if in doubt dont are also great rules to apply to the overuse of communication technology devices.

Blabber and the blubber

Should politicians or wanna-be politicians even be allowed to answer their own mobile phones? It can be like a triple negative - its not unlike not giving a phone to a walrus. Not.

A politician is thick-skinned, prone to loud bellowing, territorial, aggressive when provoked, blabbers, and doesnt have tusks, whereas a walrus on the other hand is thick-skinned, prone to loud bellowing, territorial, aggressive when provoked, has blubber and doesnt debate on television.

If all politicians could do a stint during their first term as a wanna-be astrophysicist, Im sure the world would be a better place.

They would look through a telescope at Mars, Jupiter and further out into the vast universe and start to get an idea of just how inconsequential we all are back here.

The not-so-common cold

This planet we call Earth has been formed in a kind of Goldilocks zone around the Sun. Not too hot or wed burn up, and not too cold, or wed all freeze. How did this happen? Thankfully this is also where oceans remain largely in liquid form. For those of us who are not marine biologists and may not understand its significance, this is just something extremely helpful for our overall survival.

For those who are into the anti-global warming arguments, and point out that hot dogs are no hotter than a decade ago, Sunday remains 24 hours long, and that the abominable snowman hasnt melted, well I give you the common cold. Its not so common post-lockdown. Some say its due to social distancing, but for those of us who continually ask the why questions, could it be global warming?

Dont let baby names go viral

Can you just imagine - if we all took ourselves off into that dark energy in that great vacuum we call space and looked back at how pipsqueak we are, maybe wed stop warring, get rid of our own dark energy, and do something greater and more collaborative about wildlife, the natural environment and our care of it.

Theres not much these days that seems to separate us from the general wildlife. The use of tools was one until someone spotted elephants dropping logs on electric fences to short them; and bottlenose dolphins, the brainiacs of the sea, using marine sponges to stir up ocean-bottom sand to uncover prey. But we also have abstract thought, sandwiches, bean bag chairs, competitive cooking shows and apostrophe abuse in baby names.

Name inspiration comes in many forms, and for these parents who like to draw from real life as the reasoning behind naming babies Corona and Covid, please just no. Please dont name your children after a virus or microorganism.

Granted, having a baby conceived or born amidst the global pandemic is a silver lining, but there are other ways to make the day memorable. And other names.

Its also important to think initials through too. Like R.U. Ready who was born in 1896 in Kansas, USA. And consider first names with surnames, like Agusta Wind, born in 1880 in Illinois, USA.

According to popular baby name website Nameberry, Luna and Milo have topped a list of the hottest baby names of the year so far. One name missing from the girls top ten list was Cora, which took eighth place this time last year. The website said a possible explanation for its decline in popularity over the last six months could be that the name is too reminiscent of the word coronavirus.

Starting a new movement

Speaking of viruses and micro-organisms, its also good for politicians to be reminded that within one linear centimetre of our lower colon there lives and works more bacteria - about 100 billion - than all humans who have ever been born. Yet many people continue to assert that it is we who are in charge of the world. We live, we die, we move through the colon of life. Hopefully we can start a movement, end a movement or change a movement along the way.

Change is after all what politics is supposed to be about. But darker energy forces in the political universe can subjugate best intentions. Politicians get caught in an electoral causality loop. Change is needed, a person promises change, nothing has changed, change is needed. And so on.

Eventually a politician gets expelled from the political digestive tract, someone scoops the poop and we start again.

July 24, 2020
The ministry of defence has issued an order for grant of permanent commission to women officers in the army.

In a landmark judgement, the apex court in February had directed that all serving women officers recruited under the Short Service Commission scheme will have to be considered for permanent commission.

Army spokesperson Col Aman Anand said the government order paved the way for empowering of women officers to shoulder "larger roles" in the army.

"The order specifies grant of permanent commission to Short Service Commissioned women officers in all 10 streams of the Indian Army," he said.

Col Anand said the 10 streams where permanent commission of women officers are being made available include army air defence, signals, engineers, army aviation, electronics and mechanical engineers, army service corps and intelligence corps.

At present, the army offers permanent commission to women officers in two branches -- judge advocate general and education.

"Their selection board will be scheduled as soon as all affected SSC women officers exercise their option and complete requisite documentation," the army spokesperson said.

Under SSC, women officers are initially taken for a period of five years, which is extendable up to 14 years.

Permanent commissioning will allow them to serve till the age of retirement.

The army recruits women officers under SSC for streams like air defence, engineering, signals and services and they can serve up to a maximum of 14 years.

Last year, the defence ministry had taken an in-principle decision to allow permanent commissioning of women in streams like signals, engineering, army aviation, army air defence and electronics and mechanical.

It was decided that the SSC women officers will be considered for grant of permanent commission based on the availability of vacancies and subject to willingness, suitability, performance, medical fitness and competitive merit of the aspirants.

The three services have allowed permanent recruitment of women in select streams including medical, education, legal, signals, logistics and engineering.

The women officers recruited through the SSC in the IAF have the option of seeking permanent commission in all streams except the flying branch.

The navy has allowed permanent commission of women in a host of departments such as logistics, naval designing, air traffic control, engineering and legal.
New Delhi:

The Rajya Sabha was informed on Wednesday that as many as 105 terrorists have infiltrated into Jammu and Kashmir in the first nine months of 2016.

Altogether 105 terrorists have successfully infiltrated into Jammu and Kashmir from across border till September 2016, said Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir.

The numbers show three-fold jump in the infiltration bid graph. There were 201 attempts of infiltration from Pakistan during the period, while, 24 militants were killed, 72 others returned and two militants have surrendered, reportedly.

Records show only 33 terrorists could infiltrate into Jammu and Kashmir from across the border in 2015.

There were 121 infiltration attempts and 46 militants were killed by security forces in that period. Ahir stressed that there has been a spurt in infiltration attempts from the Pakistan side.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
When Ridgefield school officials presented the districts lengthy reopening plan to the Board of Education last Wednesday night, they were following state guidelines.

Less than a week later, however, those guidelines changed.

During a press conference Monday, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont announced the state would allow each district to choose which model (in-class, hybrid, or remote learning) it preferred to begin the 2020-21 academic year.

That was a walk-back from the states previous requirement, which said districts needed to have students in-class five days a week or learning remotely  without the option of starting school in a hybrid model (a mix of in-class and online learning designed to prevent all students and teachers from being on campus at the same time).

Some districts, including Ridgefield, had originally recommended that a hybrid plan be allowed in certain schools where social-distancing protocols might be difficult to follow due to large-class sizes. Ridgefield, for example, wanted to open the school year with a hybrid model at Ridgefield High School.

That idea is now back on the table.

We are considering all options, including the original recommendation [for a mix of in-person and online learning at the high school], said Ridgefield Superintendent Susie Da Silva on Tuesday morning. There is a chance but [we] cant say yes for sure yet. We need to revisit with BOE (Board of Education).

In an email sent to parents Tuesday, Da Silva addressed the states update.

Given this new information, the Steering Committee [part of Ridgefields reopening committee] will be processing and planning any implications that this will have on Ridgefield and we will update you as soon as we can and have enough information to do so, wrote Da Silva, who was among a group of superintendents that met with Lamont on Monday morning, prior to his press conference.

Based on Lamonts decision to give school districts more flexibility, Da Silva wrote (in her email) that parents should not complete the temporary remote learning form, which was set to open Tuesday.

We believe it is important that we provide you with a full understanding of any changes that could come as a result of this new information before you are asked to make this decision, Da Silva wrote.

At a virtual Board of Education meeting that live-streamed last Wednesday night, Da Silva presented the districts reopening plan for Ridgefield schools. No vote was required, and the plan was subsequently sent to the states education department in time for the July 24 deadline.

The state required each district to submit plans for three levels (low, moderate, high) of COVID-19 risk. With Connecticut currently at low risk, districts were instructed to design a model that returns students to classrooms yet offers remote learning for parents who choose to keep their children at home. Districts will receive guidance from the state about how to define each risk level.

Ridgefields current reopening plan calls for an in-class school day that is 40 minutes shorter than usual, with face masks required, social-distancing protocols in place, outdoor space used as much as possible, and frequent hand washing mandatory.

If coronavirus cases increase in Connecticut, students might go to school a few days or week or return fully to remote learning  something they did for the final three-plus months of the 2019-20 academic year.

To meet state guidelines, Ridgefields plan includes in-class, hybrid, and remote models. The district will switch plans if the COVID-19 risk level changes.

In a letter to the Ridgefield community that was part of Wednesday nights presentation, Da Silva said the district was limited by state requirements.

While we have made every effort to plan as much as possible, it is important that we all understand where the District had autonomy in its planning and where it did not, Da Silva wrote. The state has formally communicated (on 7/21/2020) that Districts must provide a full, five-day physical school experience for all students; thus, while it is not the administrations recommendation, we have complied with the states directive. We will continue to advocate on behalf of the District.

But that was before Lamonts reversal on Monday, which allows Ridgefield and other districts to adopt a hybrid model even though the state is at a low-risk level for COVID-19.

Ridgefields reopening model for in-class learning includes cohorting (keeping the same group of students and teachers together) at the elementary and middle schools.

The low risk scenario relies on the ability to cohort, Da Silva wrote in the districts reopening plan. The elementary schools will cohort by class, and the middle schools by team. However, adequate cohorting is far more of a challenge at Ridgefield High School. Therefore, a hybrid model was recommended by the Superintendent for RHS in a low risk scenario.

In the moderate-risk, hybrid scenario, students spend two days in class and three days learning remotely each week. Students with special needs who participate in the Ridgefield Intensive Special Education (RISE) Program have the option to attend school in-person for four days each week.

In the high-risk scenario, school buildings are closed and all students learn remotely.

Regardless of the risk level and the model Ridgefield schools are using, students have a remote-learning option and can study from home. Students also can switch between remote learning and in-class learning, although they cant do both at the same time (unless schools are following a hybrid model).

Based on 2,361 responses to a survey (open July 2-21) the district sent to parents, 81.3% said they intended to send their children back to school for in-class learning this fall.

In the low-risk scenario, buses can operate up to full capacity, and monitors are used to ensure students are wearing masks and following specific loading and unloading procedures. Passenger capacity is reduced in the moderate-risk scenario, and no bus transportation is necessary in the high-risk scenario, when school buildings are closed.

Only 36.4% of parents responding to the district survey said they intend to put their children on buses if full capacity is allowed.

According to the districts preliminary/estimated financial implications, the additional costs for the reopening plan could top $2.5 million. Those projected costs include $105,000 for bus monitors; $237,00 for Chromebooks; $271,920 for cleaning supplies/PPE; $71,346 for washing stations; and between $345,000 and $690,000 for custodial overtime.

Where the money will come from is yet to be determined.

[We are] unsure about any funding, said Da Silva on Tuesday.

Note: Following is the complete reopening plan:
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) speaks to media after the Senate voted to acquit President Donald Trump on two articles of impeachment, at the Capitol in Washington on Feb. 5, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Senate Republicans to Unveil CCP Virus Relief Plan Next Week, McConnell Says

Senate Republicans will delay the release of their CCP virus relief plan until next week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Thursday.

It means that Congress will most likely miss the deadline to extend the $600-per-week unemployment insurance boost. Those benefits are slated to end on July 31, but in some states, they end over the weekend.

The [Trump] administration has requested additional time to review the fine details, but we will be laying down the proposal early next week, the Kentucky Republican told reporters. We have an agreement in principle on the shape of the package.

The enhanced unemployment benefits were passed under the CARES Act in March.

During a meeting Thursday, Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) told reporters that the package will be unveiled on Monday, July 27.

McConnells office could not be reached for comment.

Members of the GOP leadership have been frequently critical of the unemployment insurance boost, arguing that it creates a disincentive for people to return back to work. The unemployment rate has hovered around 11 percent over the past several weeks, while the Labor Department reported that another 1.3 million people claimed unemployment on Thursday.

McConnells announcement came after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters that a payroll tax cut that was pushed by President Donald Trump will not be included in the next stimulus package.

It wont be in the base bill, he said. The tax finances Social Security and Medicare.

A woman shapes a Stetson hat in front of clients while wearing a mask at the manufacture store in Garland, Texas on July 20, 2020.. (Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images)

The president is very focused on getting money quickly to workers right now, and the payroll tax takes time, Mnuchin said at the Capitol. As recently as Sunday, Trump said in a Fox News interview that I would consider not signing it if we dont have a payroll tax cut.

This week, Mnuchin also declared the administration had reached a fundamental agreement with Senate Republicans.

The United States has reported more than 3 million cases of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus and more than 140,000 deaths. Governors across the country have implemented stay-at-home measures, lockdowns, and told certain businesses to close in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus.

And as the virus has spread from the early epicenters of New York and New Jersey to the southern and western states, state and city officials have clashed on how to ease restrictions, including some governors rolling back restrictions.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
(Newser)  A scandal involving the abduction and exploitation of young children in a colonial Mexican city popular with tourists widened Wednesday when prosecutors revealed an adult apparently used other children to help kidnap a missing 2-year-old boy, per the AP. The search for Dylan Esau Gomez Perez led prosecutors in southern Chiapas state to a house in San Cristobal de las Casas where 23 abducted children were being kept in deplorable conditions and forced to sell trinkets in the street. But Dylan, who turns 3 in November, was not among them. Reviewing surveillance cameras, state prosecutor Jorge Llaven said that a boy and a girl, both apparently around 12, were seen talking to a woman who is a suspect in the June 30 abduction. Llaven identified the woman as only as "Ofelia," and offered a $13,500 reward for information about the location of her or the missing boy.

story continues below

In photos from cameras, the boy and the girl enter the public market where Dylans mother worked in the city. Dylan appears to follow the boy, and then the girl takes Dylan by the back of the jacket and walks out of the market with him. The girl is later seen returning alone. Llaven said Tuesday that a search carried out Monday had revealed a house where childrenmost between 2 and 15 years old, but three infants aged between 3 and 20 monthswere forced to sell things on the street. "Moreover, they were forced to return with a certain minimum amount of money for the right to get food and a place to sleep at the house," Llaven said. Juana Perez, 23, has traveled to Mexico City to ask President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to help find her son. (Read more child abduction stories.)
David Chatfield feels he transitioned from an unstable career in graphic design to what is becoming an even more unpredictable one in academia.

The 42-year-old teaches art history as an adjunct professor at two community colleges in Aurora and Fort Lupton, Colorado. He loves teaching, even when last semester the COVID-19 pandemic doubled his workload by forcing him to teach his seven classes online and figure out how to record and upload his lectures to YouTube.

Now he feels a different pressure  the prospect of returning to the classroom this fall. He doesn't know how the schools will protect him from the coronavirus and help him if he gets sick. Chatfield is uninsured. His earnings of about $28,000 a year make it difficult to afford a plan on his own, he said.

If I do get infected, what are my options?" he said. "Do I cancel class? Do I get a sub? Do I get health insurance?

Colleges rely heavily on adjunct professors like Chatfield. And, if these schools move forward with in-person instruction for the coming semester, adjuncts will likely play a greater role in teaching students in the classroom. But they often have little institutional support  in terms of health insurance or other benefits  even during this public health crisis.

The pandemic's dangers for faculty and students abound. Enclosed spaces like dormitories and classrooms provide a prime environment for the virus to spread, and the number of cases among young adults is rising around the country.

Some colleges and universities are allowing faculty members to request accommodations if they feel uncomfortable returning to the classroom. But adjunct professors  cognizant of the poor job market and sometimes working on semester-to-semester contracts  say they hesitate to make that request because they are nervous about losing employment.

These non-tenured faculty are in the most precarious situation," said William Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College in New York.

Take Robin Gary, 56, who, until recently, was an adjunct professor at Elon University in North Carolina. In June, she moved away from her family in Raleigh to be closer to campus. Not long afterward, she received a message from the university with the subject line "Faculty Leaving Elon." Her name was on the list of people whose contracts had not been continued.

Im in shock and Im in mourning," she said.

The health coverage she had through the university will stop at the end of the month, she said. Although Gary takes precautions like wearing gloves while pumping gas to protect herself from COVID, the idea of being uninsured during a pandemic terrifies her.

This is not the climate to run out and go get another job," she said.

The latest data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that nearly half of all college instructors are part-time workers. Only 35% of them had health care coverage through a work-provided plan, according to government estimates.

In addition, few have sick leave. And, although Congress passed legislation entitling workers to paid sick leave for reasons related to the virus, organizations with 500 or more employees don't have to provide it, which could affect adjunct faculty who work at larger colleges and universities.

Meanwhile, a professor teaching a three-credit course at a public community college earned a per-class average of $2,263 in the 2019-20 academic year, according to a report by the American Association of University Professors.

At a university, the amount shoots up to $4,620 per class. The result: These adjuncts often teach at multiple campuses to make ends meet. In the midst of this pandemic, moving among different locations adds to their risks and their potential to spread the virus.

Alyson Paige Warren, 39, is an adjunct professor who teaches writing, literature and gender studies courses at Columbia College Chicago and Loyola University, which are about 40 minutes apart by train. She supplements her income by teaching middle school children on the weekends through a local enrichment program.

Columbia College Chicago will be reopening campus for its students with precautionary measures. Loyola University scaled back its reopening plans to offer on-campus instruction only for courses that require hands-on training, such as lab sections. Those responsibilities often fall to teaching assistants or adjunct instructors.

Neither university offers Warren health insurance, and she's nervous about her health, she said. She relies on public transportation to travel between campuses, which can increase the risk of contracting the virus. I might become a bike enthusiast," she quipped.

She earns $6,800 per course at Loyola, where she teaches two courses per semester, and $5,000 per course at Columbia, she said. She bought a health care plan through an Affordable Care Act marketplace.

Adjunct faculty at both schools have unions, which Warren said is empowering because it gives her a say in the coronavirus decisions universities were making for the fall semester.

"I could see that my voice, my actions were having an impact on my life and the lives of my fellow faculty," Warren said in an email.

Unionizing adjunct faculty to negotiate for better pay and benefits has been on the upswing in recent years, said Herbert. Now, union representatives are in talks with school administrators on some campuses over the decision to reopen, he said.

The United University Professions, a decades-old, New York-based union, counts roughly 7,500 State University of New York adjunct faculty among its 37,000 members. It's been pressing SUNY to use federal COVID relief funds to compensate these professors for working longer hours when the virus shut down campuses in the spring.

Fred Kowal, the union's president, said the organization also is concerned budget constraints will compromise SUNY's ability to provide safe classrooms for faculty members. Each of SUNY's 64 campuses must submit reopening plans to the state for approval.

Kowal said union representatives have not been as involved in the discussion to reopen as he would like, stymieing an opportunity for adjuncts to voice their concerns.

They are aware of issues that our administrators may not be aware of because of the nature of our work," he said.

The idea of COVID-19 as an occupational hazard has caused some adjunct professors to question whether it is worth returning to the classroom.

Sharon Brady, 66, has taught acting courses for roughly two decades. Last semester, she had three classes at Point Park University, a liberal arts school in downtown Pittsburgh. She also has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

For her, a return to in-class instruction would mean not just being in an enclosed room with a group of students but also navigating enclosed spaces such as elevators and stairwells, which are ripe for viral transmission.

The school is planning to offer a hybrid of online and classroom instruction. She will wait to make her decision about working this fall, she said, until she sees which courses the university offers her to teach. However, she has little faith it's capable of providing safe spaces for her or its students.

I think theres a lot of magical thinking going on from the administrators," she said.
A sign language interpreter has made what appeared to be a very rude gesture while quoting Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews during a coronavirus update.

Eagle-eyed viewers posted a screenshot of the interpreter during Mr Andrews' press conference on Wednesday as the state recorded 484 cases.

The interpreter outstretched his arms and displayed both middle fingers as he translated the premier's speech.

Many commenters on a Reddit post thought the interpreter had gone rogue behind Mr Andrews back, but some suggested he was actually gesturing the Auslan sign for 'lazy' or to 'do nothing'.

A sign language interpreter was posted on Reddit making a rude gesture (pictured left) while quoting Premier Daniel Andrews

'I'm dying over here,' a comment on the post reads. 'I love that Auslan expresses some of our national spirit.'

'This has so much potential as a meme format,' another post reads.

Other viewers shut down claims the interpreter was gesturing the word 'lazy', pointing out Mr Andrews made no reference to the word in his speech.

Mr Andrews was talking about Victorians contacting the state coronavirus hotline to inquire about financial assistance when the gesture was made.

He said: 'Hopefully lots of people make that phone call and it may take a little while to for the phone to be answered and for someone to process your claim, but make that call.'

Auslan Services finally settled the debate, claiming the sign is used to refer to the word 'available'.

'Signs are not "frozen" but are done in a 3 dimensional space,' Auslan said in a Facebook post. 'There are a few examples of screenshots of this sign circulating the internet.

'This post is to highlight that it is a legitimate sign and is used everyday by 1000's of Deaf people when communicating. If you love Auslan, perhaps you could learn it!'

Mr Andrews has been begging Victorians to stay inside in an effort to stem the horror second wave of COVID-19.

Mr Andrews has been begging Victorians to stay inside and stem the spread of coronavirus

Under stage three coronavirus restrictions, residents can only leave their homes for four essential reasons.

They are shopping for food and supplies, giving or receiving medical care, exercise and to study or work if you are unable to do so at home.

Almost nine in 10 Victorians who tested positive to COVID-19 between July 7 and July 21 were still leaving their houses after they developed symptoms.

Even after being tested, 54 per cent of people still left their homes while waiting for their results.

It is now mandatory for all people aged 12 and up in Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire to wear a face mask at all times when outside.

A further 484 cases were diagnosed in Victoria in the 24 hours to Wednesday - the largest single day spike in Australia since the pandemic began.
Bengaluru-based tech company in medical equipment design, CuraSigna, said on Thursday it is going into the production of NASA -designed and FDA-approved multi-functional ventilators named VITAL (Ventilator Intervention Technology Accessible Locally).

The firm said in a statement it is among a handful of Indian companies licenced by NASA for meeting the worldwide acute shortage of ventilators needed in treating Covid-19 patients.

CuraSigna, promoted by Sushil Swabhiman Trust (SST), is in an advanced stage of manufacturing the ventilators first for meeting Indias needs in the Covid-19 situation and then for exports, it said in a statement.

CuraSigna has its manufacturing resources at Non-Ferrous Material Technology Development Centre (NFTDC), Hyderabad, an autonomous non-grant-in-aid institution under the Ministry of Mines, Government of India, it said.

NFTDC has been engaged in the design and development of vital medical equipment for the last two decades.

CuraSigna is proposing to blend the hardware capabilities of NFTDC with its state-of-the-art software expertise and international quality control processes in the manufacture of not only advanced ventilators but also other critical care equipment, the statement added.

It is estimated that the domestic ventilator supply-demand gap is at least about 100,000 high-pressure Ventilators.

Besides, the SAARC and South East Asian region requirements of such ventilators are about another 300,000, according to the statement.

CuraSigna has already partnered with Max Global, Malaysia, for export of Ventilators in the South East Asian region.
The technology consulting and services company Visionet Systems has made it to the Top 10 of Bob Scotts list of Top 100 value-added resellers (VAR) of 2020. The prestigious list is compiled by IT industry expert Bob Scott every year and includes the top 100 organizations specializing in the sale and implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and accounting software. The selection is based on the annual revenue generated by each organization. Visionet Systems emerged as the eighth most prominent player in the ERP solutions market.

Congratulating this years class of Top 100 VARs, Bob Scott, Executive Editor of ERP Global Insights said, This selection represents recognition of leaders in this important field.

Being ranked in the Top 10 on Bob Scotts Top 100 VARs list serves as a testament to our commitment to deliver effective software solutions to all our markets and client base. We continue to build, enrich, and enhance global digital businesses, said Arshad Masood, Chief Executive Officer, Visionet Systems.

Visionet stood out in the reputable rankings for providing cutting-edge ERP solutions that accelerate business growth and help integrate cross-organization functions like Finance, Operations, Supply Chain, Sales and Services to streamline decisions and action.

The full report containing the names of the distinguished organizations can be accessed at http://www.erpglobalinsights.com.

About Visionet

Visionet is a full-service IT consulting and services company serving global brands in Europe, Asia, the United Arab Emirates and the USA. For more than 25 years, it has delivered digital solutions and services that help clients increase agility, reduce costs and minimize business risk. With the latest technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Machine Learning and Blockchain, Visionet helps companies worldwide with digital transformation and creates decisive competitive advantages through holistic solutions.

Visionet has six locations worldwide and more than 5000 employees. The headquarters is located in Cranbury, USA. For more information, visit Visionet.com.

About Bob Scott

Bob Scott has been informing and entertaining the mid-market financial software community via his email newsletters for 21 years. He has published this information via the ERP Global Insights (formerly Bob Scotts Insights) newsletter and website since 2009. He has covered this market for nearly 29 years through print and electronic publications, first as technology editor of Accounting Today and then as the Editor of Accounting Technology from 1997 through 2009. He has covered the traditional tax and accounting profession during the same time and has continued to address that market as executive editor of the Progressive Accountant since 2009.
China: Churches shuttered, turned into cultural centers promoting socialist values

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As part of Chinas ongoing crackdown on Christianity, Communist authorities have converted a number of state-approved Three-Self churches into cultural centers promoting President Xi Jinping's socialist values.

Persecution watchdog China Aid reports that recently, Flowing Stream Church in Funing Countys Yangzai township, Jiangsu province was forcibly occupied by officials with China's Communist Party and converted to Yangzai Township Flowing Stream Village Cultural Service Center.

The church had previously been disbanded by the local United Front Department and was accused of occupying villages cultural base.

A local villager told China Aid that now, the building is used to promote President Xis core socialist values and spread positive energy instead of the Gospel.

Another church in the vicinity, Beizhouzhuang Church, was converted to Beizhouzhuang Cultural Compound after the members voluntarily donated the venue for the village (according to the government). The church was also first disbanded last October for not having the right registration, according to China Aid.

In recent years, numerous reports have emerged of Chinese authorities replacing crosses with the CCP flag and images of Jesus Christ with President Xi, and converting churches into buildings for political activities.

These activities are part of a larger strategy on the part of the CCP to shut down any kind of organizing outside of the party, according to persecution watchdog Open Doors USA.

The organization, which ranks China 23rd on its list of 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian, notes that all churches are perceived as a threat if they become too large, too political, or invite foreign guests.

In April, a believer in the Yangbu town said local authorities demolished the cross of a Three-Self church, with plans to convert the 300-square-meter church into a facility for the elderly.

It was also reported that amid the coronavirus outbreak, poor Christian villagers in several provinces were ordered to renounce their faith and replace displays of Jesus with portraits of Chairman Mao and President Xi or risk losing their welfare benefits.

David Curry, president and CEO of Open Doors USA who was in China on a fact-finding trip days before COVID-19 emerged from Wuhan province, witnessed firsthand how the Chinese government is using mass surveillance and data modeling to monitor and punish citizens who choose to attend church or share religious material.

The forced closure of thousands of churches and the removal of crosses from buildings are now-commonplace tactics by the Chinese government in order to limit, if not extinguish, Christian practice, Curry wrote in an op-ed. Chinas totalitarian ambition to build a god-as-government state is motivating the steady eradication of religious practice, at any cost.

China, an officially atheist country, has also been accused of engaging in human rights crimes against other religious minority groups, including Uighur Muslims, Falun Gong practitioners, and Tibetan Buddhists.

Last year, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback said during a trip to Hong Kong that the CCP is at war with faith.

Its a war they will not win, Brownback declared, according to reports. The Chinese Communist Party must hear the cry of its people for religious freedom.
VIENNA, Va., July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Sequoia Project, a non-profit dedicated to solving health IT interoperability for the public good, today launched new resources and training for the healthcare and health IT communities preparing for the November 2, 2020 deadline to comply with U.S. Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) information blocking and interoperability rules. The program includes a 13-week Information Blocking Compliance Boot Camp and a free public resource center .

In 2018-2019, ONC issued drafts and proposed rules to implement the Cures Act. The information blocking aspects of the rules were finalized in March 2020 and dramatically reshaped the U.S. interoperability landscape, enabling broader access to data by patients, their designees and providers while creating sweeping new compliance requirements across the U.S. healthcare system. This also provides competitive opportunities for innovative healthcare organizations and health IT developers. Compliance for the information blocking provisions of the ONC Interoperability Final Rule for all actors (including developers of certified health IT, health information exchanges, health information networks and providers) is required by November 2, 2020.

The new, web-based Information Blocking Compliance Resource Center features dozens of free tools, checklists, reports and webinars from The Sequoia Project and its partners.

The Sequoia Projects Information Blocking Compliance Boot Camp will provide an in-depth study of the rules and practical steps to develop and implement effective implementation plans and compliance measures. The boot camp will consist of 13 weeks of virtual meetings, alternating weekly between 120-minute interactive classroom lectures and discussions, and 60-minute open office hours with subject matter experts for student-initiated discussion. All participants will also receive the exclusive boot camp toolkit, including practical tools for implementation and compliance. The boot camp provides the opportunity for participants to engage each other in discussing the information blocking rule and compliance.

Beginning on August 26, 2020, the boot camp is free for full members of The Sequoia Project (with discount code), and $3,750 per organization, regardless of number of staff attending, for associate members and non-members.

In this unique time of the pandemic, we know our members and the rest of the healthcare community are stretched thin, said Mariann Yeager, CEO of The Sequoia Project. We hope these free tools and value-priced training program will outline practical, implementation-focused steps to preparing to meet the November 2nd compliance deadline.

The Sequoia Project will announce additional details of the boot camp and resource at the Interoperability Matters Public Advisory Forum on July 23rd at 2:00 p.m. ET. The event is free and open to the public, though free registration is required.

About The Sequoia Project

The Sequoia Project is a non-profit, 501c3, public-private collaborative chartered to advance implementation of secure, interoperable nationwide health information exchange. The Sequoia Project focuses on solving real-world interoperability challenges and brings together public and private stakeholders in forums like the Interoperability Matters cooperative to overcome barriers. Sequoia also supports multiple, independently governed interoperability initiatives, such as the Patient Unified Lookup Service for Emergencies (PULSE), a system used by disaster healthcare volunteers to treat individuals injured or displaced by disasters. The Sequoia Project is also the Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE) for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health ITs Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), for which it will develop, implement, and maintain the Common Agreement component of TEFCA and operationalize the Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN) designation and monitoring process. For more information about The Sequoia Project and its initiatives, visit www.sequoiaproject.org . Follow The Sequoia Project on Twitter: @SequoiaProject .
Dev.mo.cn scored 40 Social Media Impact. Social Media Impact score is a measure of how much a site is popular on social networks. 2/5.0 Stars by Social Team

This CoolSocial report was updated on 19 Jan 2013, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want.

This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared the dev homepage on Twitter + the total number of dev followers (if dev has a Twitter account). The total number of people who shared the dev homepage on Delicious. The total number of people who shared the dev homepage on StumbleUpon. The total number of people who shared the dev homepage on Google Plus by a google +1 button. This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared, liked or recommended the dev homepage on Facebook + the total number of page likes (if dev has a Facebook fan page).

Basic Information

PAGE TITLE ASPBLOG-ASP|||Anlige|22.cn|eb||VB DLLASP|web2.0|html5 DESCRIPTION ASP,aspAspdll(dev.mo.cn/r/22),,Asp KEYWORDS , , vb6.0, dllASP, , ASP, blog, , upload, , , 22.cn, eb, , css2.0, javascript, html, xhtml, xml OTHER KEYWORDS asp, asp , isapi, select, function, asp , dnspod



The keywords meta-tag found in the head section of the homepage. The description meta-tag found in the head section of the homepage. The title found in the head section of the homepage. CoolSocial advanced keyword analysis tool is able to detect and analyze every keyword on each page of a site. The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address of the site.

Domain and Server

DOCTYPE XHTML 1.0 Transitional CHARSET AND LANGUAGE Chinese (Simplified, China) GB2312Chinese (Simplified, China) DETECTED LANGUAGE SERVER Microsoft-IIS/6.0 (ASP.NET) OPERATIVE SYSTEM Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003

Operative System running on the server. Type of server and offered services. Character set and language of the site. The language of dev.mo.cn as detected by CoolSocial algorithms. Represents HTML declared type (e.g.: XHTML 1.1, HTML 4.0, the new HTML 5.0)

Site Traffic trend during the last year. Only available for sites ranked <= 100000 in the world.

Referring domains for dev.mo.cn by MajesticSeo. High values are a sign of site importance over the web and on web engines.

Facebook link

FACEBOOK PAGE LINK NOT FOUND

The total number of people who tagged or talked about website Facebook page in the last 7-10 days. The total number of people who like website Facebook page. The type of Facebook page. The description of the Facebook page describes website and its services to the social media users. Facebook Timeline is the new layout of Facebook pages. A Facebook page link can be found in the homepage or in the robots.txt file. The URL of the found Facebook page.

Twitter account link

TWITTER PAGE LINK NOT FOUND
(Natural News) All three of communist Chinas largest rivers  the Yangtze, Yellow, and Huai rivers  are currently overflowing due to extreme heavy rains, threatening the lives of untold millions of people living in their flood zones.

The basins of these three rivers are among the countrys most developed and active in terms of grain production. And Chinese officials have yet to assess any of the damage that has already taken place, with much more on the way, especially if the Three Gorges Dam suffers a catastrophe.

Mudslides that recently cut into the Yangtze River have reportedly created a barrage lake in Chinas Hubei Province. And if these mudslides collapse, unprecedented volumes of water will be released, inundating areas where large amounts of people live downstream.

Tens of thousands of people in the Anhui Province are also facing onslaughts of water, which have left them without electricity, clean water and telecommunications, reports indicate.

And perhaps the worst part about all of this is that there is much more heavy rain on the way in the coming days, meaning the catastrophic impact of Chinas water infrastructure failing has only just begun.

Chinas National Meteorological Center recently issued an extreme weather advisory that warns of heavy rains throughout the regions upstream of the Yangtze River, located to the south, as well as downstream of the Yellow River, located to the north, with the Huai River in between these two areas.

If these forecasts end up being correct, the entire basin of the Huai River is about to get inundated with rain, the accumulation of which could be as high as 2.76 inches in just one hour.

Millions of Chinese people are being displaced due to record flooding

Earlier in the week, the Chinese central government ordered that floodwaters in the Huai River be discharged to the Mengwa region in Anhui, which is the first time this has occurred in 13 years. This resulted in soy, corn and other crops being immediately destroyed.

Chinas state-run Xinhua media outlet also reported that the water level of the Huai River had reached alert levels during the early hours of Monday morning, suggesting that an embankment breach is about to occur along the river.

In order to protect the more urban areas downstream of this area, Chinese authorities decided to flood the rural areas instead, giving residents in these areas about seven hours of pack up their valuables and flee with their loved ones.

The Chu River, a tributary of the Yangtze, reportedly had two of its dikes broken as well, releasing floodwaters to rural areas in the Hunan, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi provinces, resulting in more farmland and homes being submerged.

The flooding of the Yellow River is particular unusual because normally this does not happen even with heavy rains. This demonstrates the sheer volume of water that is currently inundating communist China.

Since the 1st of July, the Xiaolangdi Reservoir along the Yellow River has been discharging accumulated floodwaters, which threatens many areas downstream. Upstream areas along the Yellow are also flooding, threatening other areas.

In Enshi city in the Hubei Province, which is home to four million people, officials have asked area residents to prepare for an evacuation, warning that floodwaters could inundate the city at any time.

The bank of the barrage lake may break, state officials indicated in a public notice. Once it happens, the waters will enter downstream [Enshi city].

Enshi city is said to have been inundated with water ever since July 17. Because area reservoirs have been discharging water constantly with no let-up in rainfall, floodwaters did not even start to begin to recede until July 21.

For more related news about this monumental natural disaster in the making, visit Disaster.news.

Sources for this article include:

TheEpochTimes.com

NaturalNews.com
Amid a surge in gun violence and protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, the nations third-largest city is on edge, awaiting possible greater tension in the form of a plan by President Donald Trump to dispatch dozens of federal agents to Chicago.

The White House plan emerged days after a downtown protest over a statue of Christopher Columbus devolved into a chaotic scene of police swinging batons and demonstrators hurling frozen water bottles, fireworks and other projectiles at officers. Then, on Tuesday in another neighborhood, a spray of bullets from a car passing a gang members funeral wounded 15 people and sent dozens running for their lives.

Tension in the city has climbed to a level that, if not unprecedented, has not been felt in a long time.

Ive never seen things worse in this city than they are right now, said the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest and longtime activist on the citys South Side.

Much of the strain stems from the fact that it remains unclear exactly what the federal officers will do here. The plan seems to be a repeat of what happened in Kansas City, Missouri, where the administration sent officers to help quell violence after the shooting death of a young boy.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot sought to tamp down fear that the surge will resemble the kind of scene that unfolded in Portland, Oregon, where unidentified agents in camouflage have beaten unarmed protesters and stuffed some of them into unmarked vehicles.

Lightfoot said she has been told the U.S. Attorneys Office will supervise the additional agents supporting the Chicago offices of the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

But given the longstanding animosity between city officials and Trump, leaders from the mayor on down worry that those promises will not hold up.

City officials will be on guard for any steps out of line, particularly from agents with the Homeland Security Department, and they will not hesitate to take the president to court, Lightfoot said.

If the federal agents do as they have done in Portland, one prominent minister on the citys West Side said the situation will turn the city into a magnet for the same kind of people who infiltrated the statue protest, put on dark clothes and distributed and threw projectiles at police from behind umbrellas.

Its going to be like that, but on steroids, the Rev. Marshall Hatch warned. Chicago is one of those epicenters where you already have an unsettled social situation and racial situation. And youre going to find out that Chicago is a lot more volatile in the middle of a long hot summer than Portland is.

He fears such a chaotic scene is exactly what the president wants as he seeks reelection.

Pfleger said federal agents could help stem violence if they stick to helping detectives make arrests and increase the citys homicide clearance rate, which the department said this month is under 40%. They could also help stem the flow of illegal guns pouring into the city from Indiana, Mississippi and elsewhere.

A big reason why there are so many murders in the city is that you have a really good chance of getting away with murder here, Pfleger said.

Nor, he said, was it lost on people that nobody had been arrested for the shooting outside the church despite Police Superintendent David Browns contention that two squad cars were on the street and a tactical unit nearby.

Everybodys saying on the street, We have to protect ourselves because the police arent going to protect us Pfleger said. Thats the mentality.

The shooting went on long enough for the gunmen and people attending the funeral who returned fire to leave at least 60 shell casings at the scene.

At a news conference, Brown implored witnesses to come forward with information about the attack, which police believed was carried out in retaliation for another shooting. Observers suggested that the police departments reputation for brutality, misconduct and racism made Browns plea a tough sell.

You dont share stuff with people you dont trust, Pfleger said.

That mistrust also plays into another activists concern that no matter what federal agents do when they arrive in the city, it will not help and may aggravate the situation.

Anytime you have police in a community that have no relationship to the community  with the business owners, with the youth  it makes the situation worse, said Jahmal Cole, founder and executive director of a community organization on the South Side called My Block, My Hood, My City.
UPPER THUMB  The Region VII Area Agency on Aging unveiled its plans for the 2021 fiscal year, aiming to continue providing services to the elderly in Mid-Michigan as the coronavirus pandemic continues.

Bob Brown, the executive director for Region VII, said that in the coming year, they plan on adding more skilled service positions, like a physical therapist and a recreational therapist, to go along with the members of their disciplinary team.

We want to deal with a client holistically, Brown said, adding that their person-centered approach has them figure out what the clients goals in what services they need.

While Region VII does not plan on adding any other new activities or changes to its services, it does plan on having a contingency plan in place to provide services to the neediest clients in the event of a 10% funding reduction. It also plans on training its staff on diversity and inclusion.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic still affecting Michigan, 90% of Region VIIs workforce is working from home. Brown described more as a change to how they do business rather than taking away any services.

People find that they need our services more, Brown said, so we are increasing how we handle things with COVID-19.

That includes more deliveries with meals, boxes with quarantine supplies, USDA processed food, and dairy products, and more friendly reassurance phone calls with clients.

Brown also said that Region VII has been ahead of the curve in providing telehealth services to over 1,000 clients, which has allowed them to video conference in the homes of seniors.

Stacey Dudewicz, the contract manager for Region VII, said working with aging service providers allows services to be more mobile.

Based on statistics provided by Region VII for 2019, they have served 1,665 clients across Huron County and have received $824,790.91 in various rewards for their services. With Huron County paying $2,688 in dues, it is getting a 306.8% return on investment.

The programs serving the most clients include congregate meals, with 405, case coordination & support, with 357, and home delivered meals, with 293.

Brown said that some of Region VIIs funding was diverted to help victims of the May flooding in Midland and Gladwin counties, as when the waters receded, the water in aquifers and small wells went dry. They worked with county officials and emergency services to get peoples homes hooked up to water lines.

Region VII has also been planning on a new wellness center in Bad Axe to be located next to the Huron County Senior Center. It would be for senior citizens who qualify for the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE).

Brown said they are still on schedule to break ground on the site in 2022, with the site plans presented to the Huron County Board of Commissioners last year and the county granting Region VII space in the senior center. The eventual goal for the wellness center would be not just to have services there, but housing as well.

Region VII wants more people to take advantage of the services it provides and Huron County is one of its target areas for expansion. Brown called Region VII one of the best kept secrets in the area, though he wishes it was not so secret.

I believe we are going to be serving more people in 2021, Brown said. It appears this network is even more relevant in these trying times.

Region VII Area Agency on Aging covers Bay, Clare, Gladwin, Gratiot, Huron Isabella, Midland, Saginaw, Sanilac and Tuscola Counties. The agency receives funding from senior millages in the counties it serves, from Medicaid, the Older Americans Act, the Older Michiganian Act, and from grants and fundraisers among other sources.
Now that major airlines and most airports are already on the mandatory mask bandwagon, giant hotel chains are starting to climb on as well. Meanwhile, some airlines are getting even tougher about their existing mask rules for passengers.

Major hotel groups had already imposed a face covering requirement for their employees, and now they are extending that to guests as well. Marriott International (the worlds largest lodging group), Hyatt and InterContinental Hotels Group all said this week that they will institute a guest mask mandate for their U.S. and Canadian properties effective July 27.

The rule requires guests to mask up when they are in any indoor public area of a hotel, including lobbies, meeting rooms, bars, restaurants and fitness rooms.

Other lodging companies are likely to follow suit. The big push for a mandatory mask rule came after the industrys largest trade organization, the American Hotel & Lodging Association, last week issued new guidelines called the Stay Safe Guest Checklist, designed as an industry-wide, enhanced set of health and safety protocols, AH&LA said.

In addition to a face mask mandate, the group is calling on hotel guests to practice social distancing in public areas; use contactless processes as much as possible, including check-ins, mobile room keys, payments and online reservations; forego a daily room cleaning unless its necessary; ask for contactless room service delivery; and dont travel at all if you have any COVID-19 symptoms or have recently been in contact with someone who tested positive.

In announcing the policy, Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson noted that the face mask requirement will apply in all hotels no matter the jurisidiction  i.e., it will apply even at hotels located in cities or states that have decided against imposing their own mask requirements. (Hotels are private property, which means if you can't abide by their rules, you will not be allowed in.)

Meanwhile, some airlines are tightening their existing mask mandates. For instance, United this week said that its passengers are now required to wear face coverings not only aboard the aircraft but also in all airport public areas, including its United Clubs.

Southwest just issued an update to its policy, advising passengers that effective July 27, it will allow no exemptions to the rule requiring an in-fight face covering, except for children under the age of two. If a customer is unable to wear a face covering or mask for any reason, Southwest regrets that we will be unable to transport the individual. In those cases, we hope the customer will allow us to welcome them onboard in the future, if public health guidance, or other safety-related circumstances, regarding face coverings changes, the airline said. (See what CEO Gary Kelly says about this in the tweet below...)

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And Delta this week started enforcing a new requirement for flyers who claim they have a medical condition that exempts them from the airlines in-flight mask mandate: Theyll have to complete a Clearance-to-Fly process before boarding  not just once, but every time they fly. That means submitting to virtual questioning by a medical professional before they are allowed to board.

The virtual consultation process facilitated by a Delta agent with a third-party medical professional could take up to an hour, so customers needing a rare exemption should plan to show up to the airport early. Delta is encouraging customers prevented from wearing a mask due to a health condition to reconsider travel altogether, the airline said.

Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson

Uniteds new in-airport mask mandate may be mostly unnecessary, since almost all major airports already have their own mandatory mask rules for travelers. Like the airlines, U.S. airports last month  through their trade organization, Airports Council International-North America  urged the federal government to establish mandatory nationwide rules for travel in the era of coronavirus, but so far the Trump Administration has shown no inclination to do so.

A roundup of mask policies at the nations 25 largest airports, conducted by the publication Business Insider late last month, listed only two that didnt have a mandatory mask rule  Baltimore/Washington and Minneapolis-St. Paul. Since that survey was conducted, however, Minneapolis-St. Paul changed its policy and will now require face coverings starting July 27. And although the roundup cited a face mask mandate for Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, that could be affected by the outcome of litigation. The City of Atlanta had imposed a mask mandate for everyplace within the city limits, including the airport, but the state government is challenging that in court after its governor declared his opposition to mask mandates anywhere in the state.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-24 03:14:59|Editor: huaxia

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TEHRAN, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday blamed the new surge in COVID-19 infections on the "insufficient attention" paid to the health protocols by some groups of people.

Evaluation of the recent resurgence of the cases suggested that it was not caused by the reopening of economic and social activities, Rouhani told a meeting of the National Headquarters for Managing and Fighting the Coronavirus.

Rather, the resurgence was the result of failure to honor the health regulations by some groups of people, he was quoted by the Tasnim news agency as saying.

Gatherings and parties, such as wedding ceremonies and mourning events, resulted in a new rise in the infection cases, Rouhani said.

The Iranian president noted that the use of face masks in public and indoor or high-risk places, as well as a ban on gatherings, wedding ceremonies, funerals and parties would be effective ways to deal with the second wave of the coronavirus outbreak in Iran.

On Thursday, the total number of COVID-19 cases in Iran, the hardest-hit country in the Middle East, rose to 284,034, while the death toll climbed to 15,074. Enditem
Forces that once attacked the secular themes in Sushant Singh Rajput's films now seek to appropriate him

In a defining scene in Abhishek Kapoor's Kedarnath (2018), Mansoor played by Sushant Singh Rajput attends a meeting of locals discussing the possibility of building a new hotel and other commercial establishments in the Hindu pilgrimage centre from which the film draws its title. When he suggests as an alternative that the number of devotees permitted per annum be restricted in the interests of the region's delicate ecology, the resulting tension at the gathering is almost palpable. Mansoor is Muslim and works as a porter who transports Hindu pilgrims to the famed holy place. "Where did you land up in our midst?" he is asked by an attendee at the meeting who clearly views his intervention as an offensive intrusion. Mansoor looks surprised as he replies: "But we have always been here."

That moment in Kedarnath is a poignant representation of the othering of India's Muslims in a once-inclusive society, made all the more significant by the Islamophobia raging through the current public discourse and bolstered by some major recent Bollywood productions. In the weeks since Rajput's death by suicide, you would imagine that this scene in Kedarnath would have come up repeatedly for discussion in all-pervasive celebrations of his work. It has not.

The late Bollywood actor's interesting filmography, the lack of mental health awareness in India, depression, suicide, elitism in Bollywood, nepotism across all professions in the country, caste and class divides across Indian film industries - in a sensible society, these are the subjects that would have been seriously analysed following his demise. Instead, in an India where sensationalism takes precedence over sense, the last few weeks have passed in a whirl of noise that has done no justice to the aforementioned issues or his life and work.

In place of sobriety, what we have got is a din on social media dominated by bizarre theories about Rajput's end, misogynistic abuse being hurled at the daughters of Bollywood stars, homophobic slurs directed at producer-director Karan Johar, Islamophobia and author Chetan Bhagat's threat to critics who will review the actor's last film, Dil Bechara, releasing this week. Meanwhile, the news media has been overrun with conversations by Kangana Ranaut about Kangana Ranaut's campaign for Rajput, her own suffering as a non-star-kid trying to make it in the film industry, her heroism in calling out nepotism in Bollywood and her views on sundry female stars ranging from Alia Bhatt (daughter of actor Soni Razdan and producer-director Mahesh Bhatt) to Taapsee Pannu and Swara Bhasker (both of whom are rank outsiders like Ranaut herself).

In all this, the one entity relegated to the sidelines is Rajput himself - the real Rajput, not the myth that is now being constructed around him.

To a certain extent, this myth-building is natural - a shocked and grieving public's inevitable response to the untimely death of a talented, successful, handsome, heartachingly young artiste. Largely though, it has been a strategic choice made by those not invested in the man as much as the purpose he now appears to serve. Since the right-wing ecosystem has turned out in full force to support one of its most famous acolytes, Ranaut, it has become necessary to mould Rajput's past to fit their narrative. For one, the late actor's vocal condemnation of violence and threats by the Rajput organisation, Karni Sena, in the run-up to the release of the Hindi film Padmaavat in 2018 has been brushed under a carpet of convenience: at the time, Rajput had briefly dropped his surname in protest, and as a consequence, he had been trolled mercilessly by online right-wing extremists; since his death, random trolls have floated the theory that he made this move not out of choice but under pressure from a powerful lobby within Bollywood and that he succumbed to their demands in his desperate bid to fit in.

Rajput's stand on Padmaavat was perhaps his finest hour. The fact that it is now sought to be erased from his legacy by those who claim to speak for him, should be a warning bell about their motivations. The other inconvenient truth about the actor that has not even been a whimper in media conversations about him after his death is the recurring Hindu-Muslim equation in his filmography.

Back in 2018, BJP members in more than one state had approached the courts seeking a ban on Kedarnath, alleging that it promotes what fundamentalists call 'love jihad' (the term used for the reprehensible conspiracy theory that Muslim men trap Hindu women with their wiles) and insisting that it hurts Hindu sentiments with its depiction of a romance in a sacred town. The object of their ire was the central plot point of the film: an upper-caste Hindu woman called Mandakini (played by Sara Ali Khan) falling in love with Rajput's Mansoor.

In Rajput's brief career, this was his second screen role that had antagonised the communal/patriarchal establishment for precisely the same reason. Rajkumar Hirani's PK (2014) had pushed the envelope into cross-border territory by casting him as a Pakistani Muslim youth called Sarfaraz who the Indian Hindu heroine, Jaggu (Anushka Sharma), falls in love with. PK offered an excellent illustration of how confirmation bias operates when you are conditioned to distrust a particular social group, and had been greeted with widespread protests for this, among other reasons.

Hindi cinema has for decades portrayed inter-community romances but Hindi filmmakers have tended to play it safe, possibly to pre-empt majoritarian wrath, by more often than not writing the woman in the relationship as the minority community member and the man as a member of the majority community. In a patriarchal society, women are seen as the property first of the family and community they are born into, with their ownership later being passed on to the family and community of the man they marry. For those who subscribe to this logic, if a woman marries out of community, she is deemed to be lost to the community of her birth - on the other hand, she and her uterus are counted as gains for her husband's people.

Both PK and Kedarnath went against the tide. That Rajput was a common factor in both was clearly no coincidence, considering that he risked starting his Bollywood career with Kai Po Che - also directed by Abhishek Kapoor - in which his character, Ishaan, gives up everything for his Muslim protege in Gujarat during the 2002 anti-Muslim riots.

I did not know Rajput personally, beyond one long and very illuminating meeting. I do know his films though. And the fact that a thread of Hindu-Muslim amity ran right through his Bollywood career of barely seven years, that too when Hindu-Muslim tensions in India are at an all-time high and most of his industry has been bowing before the establishment, indicates that there was far more to this young man than his self-appointed self-serving spokespersons have suggested since his death.

It is ironic that the forces who, in Rajput's lifetime, attacked his films and his high-profile stand against his very own influential community, now seek to appropriate him in death. Ironic because the characters he played in Kai Po Che, PK and Kedarnath refused to view human beings through the lens of their religious identity. A healing example of this worldview can be found in Swanand Kirkire's lyrics of the song 'Chaar Kadam' that are sung in a scene featuring Jaggu and Sarfaraz early in PK:

Bin poochhe mera naam aur pata

Rasmon ko rakh ke pare

Chaar kadam bas chaar kadam

Chal do na saath mere

(Without asking my name or address

Setting all tradition and customs aside

Do walk a few steps

Just a few steps with me)
President Donald Trump has announced that he will send federal agents to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to help combat rising crime in an expansion of his governments intervention into local law enforcement.

Using the same alarmist language he has employed to describe illegal immigration, Mr Trump painted Democrat-led cities as out of control and lashed out at the radical left, which he blamed for rising violence in some cities, even though criminal justice experts say it defies easy explanation.

In recent weeks there has been a radical movement to defund, dismantle and dissolve our police department, Mr Trump said at a White House event, blaming the movement for a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence.

This bloodshed must end, he said. This bloodshed will end.

The decision to dispatch federal agents to American cities is playing out at a hyperpoliticised moment when the president is grasping for a new reelection strategy after the coronavirus upended the economy, dismantling what his campaign had seen as his ticket to a second term.

With less than four months until Election Day, Mr Trump has been warning that violence will worsen if his Democratic rival Joe Biden is elected in November.

Crime began surging in some cities like Chicago, New York and Philadelphia when stay-at-home orders lifted.

Meanwhile criminal justice experts seeking answers have pointed to the unprecedented moment: a pandemic that has killed over 140,000 Americans, historic unemployment, a mass reckoning over race and police brutality, intense stress and even the weather.

Compared with other years, crime in 2020 is down overall.

The plan Mr Trump announced on Wednesday expands an existing program that sent hundreds of federal agents to Kansas City, Missouri, after a four-year-old boys shooting death to help quell a record rise in violence.

Sending federal agents to help localities is not uncommon; Attorney General William Barr announced a similar surge effort in December for seven cities with spiking violence.

But this effort will include at least 100 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers who generally conduct drug trafficking and child exploitation investigations, in addition to personnel under the Justice Department umbrella.

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DHS officers have already been dispatched to Portland, Oregon, and other localities to protect federal property and monuments as Mr Trump has lambasted efforts by protesters to knock down Confederate statues.

Local authorities there have complained that agents have exacerbated tensions on the streets, while residents have accused the government of violating their constitutional rights.

Indeed, civil unrest escalated after federal agents were accused of whisking people away in unmarked cars without probable cause.

Attorneys for Oregon argued on Wednesday for a restraining order against the federal agents deployed in Portland.

A federal judge heard arguments from the state and the US government in a lawsuit accusing federal agents of arresting protesters without probable cause, whisking them away in unmarked cars and using excessive force.

Expand Close Smoke fills the sky as federal officers try to disperse Black Lives Matter protesters (Noah Berger/AP) / Facebook

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Federal authorities have disputed those allegations.

Since the racial justice protests began, the presidents campaign has leaned heavily into a pledge to maintain law and order.

The campaign believes the push can help Mr Trump by drumming up support from suburban and older voters who may be rattled by violent images, which have been broadcast often by conservative media outlets.

In Chicago, Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who had initially blasted the news, said the US attorneys office will supervise the additional agents joining existing federal law enforcement offices.

If those agents are here to actually work in partnership on support of gun violence and violent cases, plugging into existing infrastructure of federal agents, not trying to play police in our streets, then thats something different, she said.

Instead of collaborating with the Albuquerque Police Department, the Sheriff is inviting the Presidents stormtroopers into Albuquerque Senator Martin Heinrich

In New Mexico, Democratic elected officials had cautioned Mr Trump against sending in federal agents, with US Senator Martin Heinrich calling on Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales to resign for attending the White House event.

Instead of collaborating with the Albuquerque Police Department, the Sheriff is inviting the Presidents stormtroopers into Albuquerque, Mr Heinrich said in a statement.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf drew a distinction between the mission in Portland  to protect federal property  and the surges in Kansas City, Chicago and Albuquerque to help stop violence.

In Kansas City, the top federal prosecutor said any agents involved in an operation to reduce violent crime in the area will be clearly identifiable when making arrests, unlike what has been seen in Portland.

These agents wont be patrolling the streets, US Attorney Timothy Garrison said.

They wont replace or usurp the authority of local officers.
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Linkedin News Desk (Reuters)  Thu, July 23, 2020 07:26 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066897132 2 World US-China,US-China-Hong-Kong-tension,US-China-Uighur,US-China-tension,US-China-tension-COVID-19,US-China-trade-war,bilateral-spat,bilateral-tension Free

The US demand this week that China close its consulate in Houston is the latest in a string of disputes that have taken the relationship between the world's two biggest economies to its lowest point in decades.

Here are the main points of contention between Beijing and Washington:

Coronavirus

US President Donald Trump has accused China of a lack of transparency about the coronavirus, which first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. He regularly refers to it as the "China virus."

Trump said Chinese officials "ignored their reporting obligations" to the World Health Organization about the virus - that has killed hundreds of thousands of people globally - and pressured the U.N. agency to "mislead the world."

China says it has been transparent about the outbreak and the WHO has denied Trump's assertions that it promoted Chinese "disinformation" about the virus. The United States plans to quit the WHO in mid-2021 over its handling of the pandemic.

Trade

The Trump administration began increasing tariffs on imports from China, its largest trading partner, in 2018 as part of an ambitious plan to force Beijing to curb subsidies on state manufacturing and tough demands on US companies in China.

After more than a year of tit-for-tat tariffs that slowed global economic growth, the countries signed a trade deal in January 2020 that rolls back some tariffs, but does not address the core issues. Beijing has pledged to increase imports of US goods by $200 billion over two years.

The US Commerce and State departments are pushing US companies to move sourcing and manufacturing out of China.

South China Sea

The United States has hardened its position in recent weeks on the South China Sea, where it has accused China of attempting to build a "maritime empire" in the potentially energy-rich waters.

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam challenge China's claim to about 90% of the sea. A July 13 statement by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was the first time the United States had called China's claims unlawful and accused Beijing of a "campaign of bullying".

Hong Kong

China and the United States have clashed over pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, most recently Beijing's imposition of new security legislation on the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Trump this month signed an executive order to end preferential economic treatment for Hong Kong, allowing him to impose sanctions and visa restrictions on Chinese officials and financial institutions involved in enacting the law.

China has threatened retaliatory sanctions of its own.

Uighurs

The United States has imposed sanctions on Chinese officials, companies and institutions over human rights violations linked to China's treatment of minority Muslim Uighurs in the country's western Xinjiang region.

China has been widely condemned for setting up complexes in remote Xinjiang that it describes as "vocational training centers" to stamp out extremism and give people new skills.

Journalists and Chinese students

The United States has started treating several major Chinese state media outlets as foreign embassies and slashed the number of journalists allowed to work at US offices of those Chinese media outlets to 100 from 160.

In response, China expelled about a dozen American correspondents with major US outlets and asked four US media organizations to submit details about their operations in China.

Washington in May introduced new rules restricting the granting of visas to Chinese graduate students believed to have links with China's military.

Huawei

Chinese tech firm Huawei was added to the US Commerce Department's "entity list" last year due to national security concerns, amid accusations from Washington that it violated US sanctions on Iran and can spy on customers, allegations Huawei has denied. The listing greatly reduced its access to vital parts and supplies, like chips, from US suppliers.

Huawei says Washington wants to frustrate its growth because no US company offers the same technology at a competitive price.

The United States has been successfully pushing countries around the world to drop Huawei.

North Korea

China is at odds with the United States over North Korea, even though they both want the country to give up its nuclear weapons. Washington has accused China of breaching U.N. sanctions on North Korea, assertions Beijing has denied. China wants to lift some sanctions, but the United States disagrees.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Trump have met three times, but failed to make progress on US calls for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and North Korea's demands for an end to sanctions.

The number-two diplomat at the State Department, Stephen Biegun, said on Wednesday Washington and Beijing could still work together against North Korea's development of weapons of mass destruction despite current tensions.
The central government on Thursday issued a formal sanction letter for grant of Permanent Commission to women officers in Indian Army, over five months after being ordered by the Supreme Court.

The order specifies grant of Permanent Commission to Short Service Commissioned (SSC) women officers in all ten streams of Indian Army in addition to the existing streams of Judge and Advocate General (JAG) and Army Educational Corps (AEC), an Army spokesperson said.

The order will pave the way to empower women officers to shoulder larger roles in the organisation, the spokesperson added. "Their selection board will be scheduled as soon as all affected SSC women officers exercise their option and complete requisite documentation," he said.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court of India had granted one more month to the Centre to implement its verdict directing that permanent commission be given to all serving SSC women officers in the Army.

The court had on February 17 ordered the Centre to grant permanent commission respecting a 2010 order of the Delhi High Court in this regard and had also ruled that women officers can get command and criteria appointments in the Army on par with their male counterparts.

The recruitment of women in the Armed Forces is an evolutionary process, the court had said, and added that the policy decisions of the Centre regarding the employment of women officers were very unique.

The order castigated the government for submitting a note portraying women as physiologically unfit for answering the call beyond duty of the Army. It said that the Centres note perpetuated sex stereotypes.

Arguments by the Centre founded on physical strength of men and women and grounds of motherhood, family etc violates equality, the judgement said. To cast aspersions on ability of women and their role and achievements in Army is an insult not only to women but also to Indian Army.
CHARLOTTETOWN - A Prince Edward Island man who tested positive for COVID-19 and allegedly refused to self-isolate has been jailed near Charlottetown.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CHARLOTTETOWN - A Prince Edward Island man who tested positive for COVID-19 and allegedly refused to self-isolate has been jailed near Charlottetown.

Javan Mizero Nsangira, 22, is being held at the provincial correctional centre at Sleepy Hollow until his next court appearance on July 30.

John Diamond, director of prosecutions, said Thursday that Nsangira is accused of not self-isolating at home in Charlottetown and again at the Rodd Brudenell River Resort where he had been taken to complete his 14-day mandated quarantine.

The resort is being used by the province for self-isolation of temporary foreign workers, although Nsangira is not a temporary foreign worker.

RCMP were called to the resort on July 17 following complaints that a man was refusing to self-isolate.

Sgt. Chris Gunn says they arrested a man who was walking the grounds of the resort and refused to return to his room.

"He ignored requests by staff to go back to his room prior to us arriving," Gunn said.

The man again tested positive for COVID-19.

Diamond said Nsangira now faces two charges of common nuisance and one charge of uttering threats to a police officer.

"By not self-isolating, and the fact that he was tested positive, he was creating a public health risk," Diamond said.

None of the charges has been proven in court.

On Tuesday, Dr. Heather Morrison, P.E.I.'s chief medical officer of health, said no one has tested positive for the disease at the provincial correctional centre.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2020.
July 22, 2020

News

By Jim Garamone , DOD News

Defense.gov

Indo-Pacific Commander Details Regional Deterrence Efforts

The Indo-Pacific is the most significant region for America's future, and it has become the nation's highest-priority theater, the commander of the Hawaii-based U.S. Indo-Pacific Command told the Defense Writers Group in Washington.

Navy Adm. Philip S. Davidson held a virtual meeting today with the nonprofit association of military and national security correspondents, and he repeatedly stressed the danger to the free world that is posed by the Chinese Communist Party's rule over the world's most populous country.

The region is about opportunity, as Indo-Pacific basin nations will represent two-thirds of the world's economy in 10 years, the admiral said. With its long Pacific coastline, he noted, the United States is an integral part of the region.

Since World War II, the nations of the region have taken advantage of the peace and developed at a phenomenal rate. Japan had been flattened during the war and grew to be the world's second-largest economy in the 1980s. South Korea was a developing nation in 1945. It is the world's 12th-largest economy today, making the leap from an agrarian economy to a high-tech, industrialized society in a generation.

Other nations have also made impressive gains, including Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore.

However, the country that made the biggest leap is China. Since the nation opened up to the West following President Richard Nixon's visit in 1972, the country has experienced immense growth and is now the world's second-largest economy. It has profited immensely from the rules-based international order.

Security is a requirement for such prosperity, and Davidson said he sees major security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region. "First and foremost, I think the greatest strategic challenge to the United States comes from the People's Republic of China," he said. Davidson also said Russia is a factor in the Indo-Pacific region, and North Korea continues to be a challenge. Indo-Pacom also faces the threat of violent extremist organizations in the region, most notably in the Philippines, the admiral told the group. "And, then, of course, we have natural and manmade disasters here," he added.

A natural disaster that has far-reaching consequences is the coronavirus pandemic. "I would say that the values of a free and open Indo-Pacific are even more critical today as we operate under the impacts of COVID-19," Davidson said. "We face increasing challenges to the established rules-based international order in that environment, as many nations are forced to divert substantial resources in the form of troops, money [and] certain mitigations  to handle the COVID-19 crisis [and] to help plan for future efforts."

Nations are hurt by the pandemic, and Davidson said he sees the Chinese Communist Party emboldened by that fact. "[The party] seeks to exploit this current global pandemic crisis, and they're doing so with more assertive military behavior, malign diplomatic and information behavior throughout the Indo-Pacific and, really, across the globe," he said.

"Make no mistake the party is actively seeking [to] supplant the established rules-based international order, trying to dictate new norms and behaviors [to] the international community  one that they articulate as a new order with Chinese characteristics," the admiral said.

What the nation is doing against minorities inside China, disregarding the rights of those in Hong Kong, issuing threats to Taiwan, and continuing the militarization of the South and East China Seas gives all nations pause, he said.

"Indeed, the region as a whole is in a strategic competition with Beijing," the admiral said. "But I want to make clear [neither] the international order nor the United States seeks to contain China, nor do we seek conflict."

Times have changed, and the nature of war is morphing, military leaders have said. "We remain aware that we can certainly lose without fighting in this environment as well," Davidson said. "So deterrence is critically important, and I'm a key advocate for that. It's important to keep Beijing from achieving its goal of overturning the rules-based international order in the pernicious manner in which they're trying to do it. We must ensure our diplomatic and economic efforts are reinforced by a strong military deterrent."

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Belgiums French-speaking circle of friendship with Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) has issued a statement on the escalation of the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

As reported the ARF-D Armenian National Committee of Europe, the members of the circle of friendship clearly stated that the escalation of the situation on the border is a result of Azerbaijani provocation and considered the massive demonstrations in Baku for a war with Armenia extremely troubling.

The members also called on Azerbaijan to accept the OSCE Minsk Groups mechanism for investigation of ceasefire violations.

Commenting on the statement by the members of Belgiums French-speaking circle of friendship with Artsakh, Chairman of the ARF-D Armenian National Committee of Europe Kaspar Garabedian stated the following: The Azerbaijani authorities finally need to understand that talking to Armenia and all Armenians of the world in the language of force is doomed to failure. We are also strong with supporters of justice and people for whom principle is more important than the short-term political interest.

The circle of friendship consists of current and former deputies of the federal and regional parliaments of Belgium representing different political parties, members of the Councils of Elders and mayors of several cities, as well as professors and public figures.
Charlotte Plastic Surgery Receives Top Doctors Award "We are extremely proud to be included among the top plastic surgeons in Charlotte North Carolina. Past News Releases RSS

Charlotte Plastic Surgery, a nationally renowned plastic surgery and skincare practice, announced today two of its physicians have again been named as Charlotte Magazines 2020 Top Doctors, based on a peer survey sent to 3,000 licensed physicians.

Dr. Kevin L. Smith and Dr. Theo Nyame, both certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, are two of nine physicians recognized in the specialty as top plastic surgeons who exemplify excellence in their medical field.

I have been practicing plastic and reconstructive surgery for over 40 years and its vital to not only be respected by your patients, but to achieve the respect of your peer community as well, said Dr. Smith, previously named to the Top Doctor list in 2006, 2009 and 2010. Being named to the Top Doctors list again, and being considered a top plastic surgeon, validates the work we do as a practice and the level of results we achieve for our clients.

This is Dr. Nyames second year being included on the list, made even more impressive by the fact that he is one of the newer doctors with the practice. Since joining Charlotte Plastic Surgery in 2016, it has been a pleasure to work for one of the most trusted and well respected plastic surgery practices in the country, said Dr. Nyame. I am extremely proud to be included among the top plastic surgeons in Charlotte.

Dr. Smith has been with Charlotte Plastic Surgery since 1987. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University, and then attended George Washington University for his Master of Science degree, before attending Eastern Virginia Medical School. Dr. Smith completed his general surgery residency at Thomas Jefferson University and his plastic surgery residency at Eastern Virginal Medical. In addition, Dr. Smith holds a fellowship in hand surgery at the Hand Rehabilitation Center at Thomas Jefferson University.

Dr. Smith is certified by both the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Plastic Surgery. He is a member of the American Society of Plastic Surgery and the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. In addition, Dr. Smith is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, associate clinical professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and member of the Board of Medical Advisors for the Society of Medical Aestheticians.

-more-

Dr. Nyame graduated magna cum laude as an undergraduate at Cornell University; graduated from Harvard Medical School, where he was a Phiffer Fellow; and completed his aesthetic surgery fellowship at Gold Coast University Hospital in Queensland, Australia.

Among his many honors, Dr. Nyame won a surgical teaching award and was named a Hollis L. Albright and Linnane Scholar at Harvard, was an Omega Psi Phi scholar with the highest national grade point average and received the National Medical Fellowships Emerging Leadership Award. He also has served as a clinical adviser to skin/trauma research centers at Medizinische Universitat Wein in Vienna, Austria, and Pacific Private Hospital Breast

Academy Center in Queensland, Australia.

About Charlotte Plastic Surgery

Founded in 1951, Charlotte Plastic Surgery is one of the oldest and most trusted plastic surgery practices in the country, with six board-certified plastic surgeons, skin health specialists and nurse injectors, providing the highest level of service and care. Charlotte Plastic Surgerys mission is to renew the quality of life and increase the confidence of our patients through restoration, preservation and enhancement of physical form and function. The senior physicians of Charlotte Plastic Surgery are all members of The American Board of Plastic Surgery. Among our top medical accreditations, Charlotte Plastic Surgery is certified by the American Association for Accreditation of Ambulatory Surgical Facilities (AAAASF). For more information, please visit https://www.charlotteplasticsurgery.com/top-plastic-surgeons/.

About Charlotte Magazine

For 50 years, Charlotte Magazine has provided compelling narrative storytelling, stunning photography, unbiased dining advice and much more. Its products reach upscale, affluent and educated readers throughout the metro Charlotte area. As Charlottes premier media lifestyle brand, Charlotte Magazine connects with 500,000 readers every month through print magazines, website, social media, e-newsletters, signature events, and more. For more information, please visit http://www.charlottemagazine.com.

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The 93-year-old German Bruno D. accused of being an SS guard involved in killings of thousands of prisoners, many of them Jewish, between August 1944 and April 1945, in the Stutthof Nazi concentration camp near Gdansk, Poland, arrives for expecting his verdict in his trial, in a Hamburg court room, Germany, on July 23, 2020. (Fabian Bimmer/Pool/Reuters)

German Court Convicts 93-year-old Man for Nazi Crimes

BERLINA German court convicted a 93-year old German man of helping to murder 5,232 prisoners, many Jewish, at a Nazi concentration camp in World War Two and handed him a suspended two-year sentence in one of the last cases against Nazi-era crimes.

Bruno D., who had been an SS guard in the Stutthof concentration camp near Gdansk in what is today Poland, was guilty of being involved in killings between August 1944 and April 1945, the Hamburg court said on Thursday.

Judge Anne Meier-Goering (C) attends the start of a trial against 93-year-old German Bruno D., accused of being an SS guard involved in killings of thousands of prisoners, many of them Jewish, during World War II, in a Hamburg court room, Germany, on July 23, 2020. (Fabian Bimmer/Pool/Reuters)

He had acknowledged his presence at the camp but argued that did not amount to guilt.

About 65,000 people, including many Jews, were murdered or died at Stutthof, according to the museums website. Prosecutors have argued that many were shot in the back of the head or gassed with the lethal Zyklon B gas.

As he was only 17 or 18 years old at the time of the crimes, he was subject to youth sentencing guidelines. Prosecutors had called for a three-year prison sentence.

In his final testimony to the court earlier this week, Bruno D. apologized for the suffering victims went through but stopped short of taking responsibility, German media reported.

I would like to apologize to all the people who have gone through this hell of insanity and to their relatives and survivors, he told the court this week, broadcaster NDR and many other media outlets reported.

The 93-year-old German Bruno D. accused of being an SS guard involved in killings of thousands of prisoners, many of them Jewish, between August 1944 and April 1945, in the Stutthof Nazi concentration camp near Gdansk, Poland, arrives for expecting his verdict in his trial, in a Hamburg court room, Germany, on July 23, 2020. (Fabian Bimmer/Reuters)

The defendants frail health has meant that court sessions were limited to two to three hours per day.

Although the number of suspects is dwindling due to old age, prosecutors are still trying to bring individuals to justice. A landmark conviction in 2011 opened the way to more prosecutions as it was the first time that working in a camp was sufficient grounds for culpability, with no proof of a specific crime.

By Madeline Chambers
The two killings on opposite sides of the country were strikingly similar. A gunman showed up at the front door, posing as a delivery man, and opened fire.

One of the victims was Marc Angelucci, 52, a men's rights lawyer who was killed on July 11 outside his home in San Bernardino County, Calif. Eight days later, a shooter approached the New Jersey home of Esther Salas, a federal judge, killing the judges son and leaving her husband seriously injured.

On Wednesday, the F.B.I. office in Newark said in a statement that agents had uncovered evidence linking Mr. Angeluccis killing to Roy Den Hollander, who is also the primary suspect in the New Jersey shooting.

It was the first time that the authorities had publicly connected the two killings.

Mr. Den Hollander, 72, was found dead in the Catskills in New York on Monday in an apparent suicide, hours after the shooting at Judge Salass home. He was a self-described anti-feminist lawyer who wrote thousands of pages in online screeds denouncing women, including female judges.
TORONTO, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Adventus Mining Corporation ("Adventus" or the "Company") (TSXV: ADZN) (OTCQX: ADVZF) is pleased to report the voting results from the Company's 2020 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders ("Annual Meeting"), which was held earlier today in Toronto, Canada.

Election of Directors

The eight nominees listed in the management proxy circular for the Annual Meeting were elected as directors of the Company. The detailed results of the vote for the election of directors by shareholders present in person, confirmed via conference call or represented by proxy at the Annual Meeting are set out below.

Nominee Votes For % For Votes Withheld % Withheld Brian Dalton 76,842,420 99.997% 2,100 0.003% Roberto Dunn 76,841,220 99.996% 3,300 0.004% Sally Eyre 76,841,420 99.996% 3,100 0.004% Michael Haworth 76,842,420 99.997% 2,100 0.003% Christian Kargl-Simard 76,841,420 99.996% 3,100 0.004% Barry Murphy 76,842,420 99.997% 2,100 0.003% Paul Sweeney 76,842,220 99.997% 2,300 0.003% Mark Wellings 76,842,420 99.997% 2,100 0.003%

The eight nominees will serve on the Company's board of directors until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed.

Appointment of Auditors

Shareholders reappointed Deloitte LLP as auditor of the Company for the upcoming year and authorized the directors of the Company to fix the remuneration of the auditor. The voting results were as follows:

Votes For % For Votes Withheld % Withheld 77,559,811 99.997% 2,433 0.003%

About Adventus

Adventus Mining Corporation (ADZN.TSXV) (ADVZF.OTCQX) is a unique copper-gold exploration and development company, focused primarily in Ecuador. Its strategic shareholders include Altius Minerals Corporation, Greenstone Resources LP, Resource Capital Funds, Wheaton Precious Metals Corp., and the Nobis Group of Ecuador. Adventus is leading the exploration and engineering advancement of the Curipamba copper-gold project in Ecuador as part of an earn-in agreement to obtain a 75% ownership interest. In addition, Adventus is engaged in a country-wide exploration alliance with its partners in Ecuador, which has incorporated the Pijili and Santiago copper-gold projects to date. Adventus also controls an exploration project portfolio in Ireland with South32 as funding partner as well as an investment portfolio of equities in several junior exploration companies. Adventus is based in Toronto, Canada, and is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol ADZN and trades on the OTCQX in the United States under the symbol ADVZF.

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.

SOURCE Adventus Mining Corporation

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MEXICO CITY, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Grupo Hotelero Santa Fe S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV: HOTEL) (the HOTEL or the Company), announced its consolidated results for the second quarter (2Q20) ended June 30, 2020. Figures are expressed in Mexican pesos, are unaudited and are in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and may vary due to rounding.

Highlights

2Q20 EBITDA 1 was negative Ps. 86.7 million, compared to Ps. 134.2 million in 2Q19, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.





was negative Ps. 86.7 million, compared to Ps. 134.2 million in 2Q19, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 2Q20 Total Revenues were Ps. 15.5 million, down 97.1% compared to 2Q19, due to the following decreases: i) 96.9% in Room Revenue, ii) 98.5% in Food and Beverages Revenue, iii) 93.3% in Other Hotel Revenue, and iv) 94.7% in Third-Party Hotels Management Fees.





In 2Q20, HOTEL posted a Net Loss of Ps. 43.4 million, compared to a Ps. 19.7 million gain in 2Q19. The lower operating income was partially offset by the foreign exchange rate gain and lower interest expenses.





2Q20 Net Operating Cash Flow was negative Ps. 93.3 million, compared to Ps. 163.4 million reported in 2Q19.





At the end of 2Q20, the Net Debt/LTM EBITDA ratio was 8.2x.





HOTELs total portfolio at the end of 2Q20 was 6,237 rooms in operation, a 3.0% increase compared to the 6,058 rooms in operation at the end of 2Q19.





RevPAR2 for Company-owned hotels decreased by 96.9% in 2Q20 compared to 2Q19, driven by a 58.4 percentage point decrease in Occupancy combined with a 20.2% decline in ADR2.





Second Quarter 6 months ended June 30 Figures in thousand Mexican pesos 2020 2019 Var. % Var. 2020 2019 Var. % Var. Total Revenue 15,532 541,934 (-526,403) (97.1) 601,036 1,164,525 (-563,489) (48.4) EBITDA (86,745) 134,180 (220,925) NA 69,621 345,393 (275,772) (79.8) EBITDA Margin NA 24.8% NA NA 11.6% 29.7% (18.1 pt) (18.1 pt) Operating Income (151,958) 64,751 (216,708) NA (65,739) 216,164 (281,904) NA Net Income (43,387) 19,740 (63,127) NA (649,137) 126,102 (775,239) NA Net Income Margin NA 3.6% NA NA NA 10.8% NA NA Operating Cashflow (92,311) 163,403 (255,714) NA 67,661 329,144 (261,483) (79.4) Occupancy 2.3% 60.7% (58.4 pt) (58.4 pt) 30.9% 62.8% (31.9 pt) (31.9 pt) ADR 1,028 1,288 (260) (20.2) 1,316 1,338 (22) (1.6) RevPAR 24 782 (758) (96.9) 407 840 (433) (51.5) Note: operating figures include hotels with 50%+ ownership.



Comments from the Executive Vice-President



Mr. Francisco Zinser, stated:

Due to the impacts of the COVID 19 pandemic on a Global basis the Tourism industry has been severely impacted, particularly in the second quarter of this year. It was a particularly challenging for our Company since most of our hotels were closed for the months of April, May, and a part of June. As of today, all the hotels in our portfolio excluding Hilton Guadalajara and Hyatt Place Aguascalientes are in operation. These two hotels will be opening in the following weeks based on our demand. Also please keep in mind that currently most of our hotels are limited to 30% occupancy due to government regulation, however these measures should ease in the following weeks.

Occupancy for this quarter was 4%, however if we measure real occupancy, (excluding periods when we were closed), we posted 19.5%. This is a positive data point as it allows us to see how hotels are performing. Since the reopening of the portfolio we have seen week-over-week improvements in line with our expectations. We hope that this recovery continues in 3&4 Q20 and that we can gradually build occupancy and rates, and thus exceed our breakeven points of between at operational levels of 25% and 35% occupancy with current ADR, depending on the property and market.

Financially, we have implemented a variety of initiatives to preserve our working capital and lower our operating expenses. In 2Q20 we were able to lower our costs and expenses by over 65%. The measures we have implemented include: (i) the reduction of non-priority expenses; (ii) wage reductions at all levels in both corporate and operational structures, averaging approximately 50%; (iii) lowering operational costs and expenses at properties that remain open; and, (iv) deferring all non-essential CAPEX. We have also reprofiled our cash flow thanks to the support of the banks we work with, assuring adequate working capital levels to restart operations.

Moving on to our quarterly results, revenue totaled Ps. 15.5 million, down 97.1% compared to 2Q19. EBITDA was negative Ps. 86.7 million in the quarter, consequence severe reduction in revenues for the quarter due to the pandemic. Regarding company-owned hotels, RevPAR decreased by 96.9%, due to a 20.2% decrease in ADR and a 58.4 percentage point decrease in occupancy.

I would like to highlight and express my gratitude to the more than 3,700 associates who have supported the Company unconditionally, not only with their economic contribution but with their tremendous attitude that went beyond the call of duty. As always, we are especially thankful for the trust and support of our shareholders in these times, and again to all of our tremendously professional and cooperative teams.

2Q20 Conference Call Details:

HOTEL will host its earnings webcast (audio + presentation) to discuss results:

Date: Friday, July 24, 2020 Time: 12:00 p.m. Mexico City Time 1:00 p.m. New York Time To participate in the conference call and Q&A session please dial:

Telephone: U.S.: 1 877 271 1828 International: +1 334 323 9871 Mexico: 01 800 847 7666 Conference password: 74695062#

Webcast: The webcast will be in English. To follow the Power Point presentation and the audio of the call, please visit our website www.gsf-hotels.com/investors

About Grupo Hotelero Santa Fe



HOTEL is a leading company in the Mexican hotel industry, focused on acquiring, converting, developing and operating its own hotels as well as third-party owned hotels. The Company focuses on strategic hotel location and quality, a unique hotel management model, strict expense control and the proprietary Krystal brand, as well as other international brands. At year-end 2020, the Company employed over 3,700 people and generated revenues of Ps. 2,238 million. For more information, please visit www.gsf-hotels.com

Contact Information

Enrique Martinez Guerrero

CFO

+52 55 5261 0800

Maximilian Zimmermann

IR Director

+52 55 5261 4508

1EBITDA is calculated by adding together Operating Income, Depreciation and Total Non-Recurring Expenses.

2Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) and Average Daily Rate (ADR).
China Embraces BLM in America, Objects to BLM Discussion at Home

By Shen Hua, Lin Yang July 22, 2020

China's state media is accusing a local U.S. consulate of "attempting to incite unrest among Africans in Guangzhou" after the Americans hosted a discussion on the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement last weekend.

The event at the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou titled "Black Lives Matter, Beyond the Hashtag" invited 60 participants to hear two local American residents discuss the history of the BLM movement and their views of how systemic racism continues to affect Black Americans in terms of housing, medical care and employment. The discussion was capped at 60 invitees in order to ensure participants had room for social distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The U.S. Consulate-General Guangzhou's public affairs officer said in a statement to VOA that the speakers "addressed common misperceptions people have about [Black Lives Matter] goals, which are equality and racial justice."

An article about the English-language consulate event in China's state media Global Times claimed it was attempting to "incite unrest" among the expat Africans living in Guangzhou. Thousands of African immigrants have settled in Guangzhou in recent decades, creating what many believe to be Asia's largest community of African expatriates.

Earlier this year, African businessmen and students living in the area complained of discrimination in how they were treated during the peak of the coronavirus outbreak, saying they were evicted from their homes, denied entrance to restaurants and singled out for coronavirus testing, leading to complaints from their embassies.

Beijing's embrace of BLM in America

Since protests erupted after George Floyd, an African American, died in police custody on May 25 in the U.S. state of Minnesota, the Black Lives Matter movement has drawn international headlines for its push to address systemic racism in America.

Chinese officials have also championed the movement, seeing it as a way to criticize the United States for its track record on human rights issues after months of scrutiny over Beijing's crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.

"Racial discrimination is a long-lasting problem in the United States," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian in June. "Black lives matter and their human rights should be guaranteed."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying tweeted "I can't breathe," a reference to George Floyd's last words, as her response to U.S. State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus' criticism of Beijing's Hong Kong policy.

Xinhua, the state-backed media outlet, claimed in a report that "the United States is in pain, anger and the widest unrest for decades over racial injustice," adding African Americans have suffered disproportionately high death rates from the COVID-19 outbreak.

Chinese media have heavily covered the protests and unrest in American cities, painting them as a failure of the country's democratic system.

A spokesperson for the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou told VOA in an email that they regularly host events on a variety of topics related to U.S. history, culture and current events. "We find these events to be a valuable opportunity for us to answer questions from the Chinese public about American institutions, the U.S. government, and the American people, and at the same time we enjoy learning more about China from our guests," the statement said.

But in China, where government censorship is the norm, even an embassy discussion for a few dozen people about an overseas social movement is controversial. Zhu Feng, an international relations professor at Nanjing University, told VOA that although the topic is worth discussing, the timing might be inappropriate.

"I think we should avoid raising such divisive topics during the COVID-19 epidemic. All countries should avoid controversial topics that might incite social unrest," he told VOA.

The U.S. consulate, in a post on its official Weibo account, appeared to respond to the criticism around the event saying that "education is the best way to end discrimination."

Africans in Guangzhou

Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong province and a commercial hub of 13 million people, is home to Asia's largest populations of Africans. Most of them are traders on travel visas engaged in import-export between China and Africa.

According to official statistics, a total of 86,475 foreigners are currently living in Guangzhou, of whom 13,652 are Africans. But researchers say thousands more are believed to be there illegally.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was reported that Africans living in Guangzhou were evicted from their hotels and apartments, and were forced to take COVID-19 tests against their will.

Some told VOA they were barred entrance to stores, detained and singled out to be tested for coronavirus.

Advocates for the Africans say they are being denied basic rights. "We have pictures showing how some people were locked down in their apartments without food. You can't go out on the street if you are black," said Mamane Bashir, spokesman for the Association of Nigerians living in China, in an interview with VOA's Hausa service.

The United States Consulate General in Guangzhou issued a travel warning in April, advising African Americans to avoid traveling to Guangzhou over concerns they could be targeted for quarantine by local officials.

While Black expats living in China drew attention over their treatment during the peak of the coronavirus outbreak, at the time some local Chinese residents complained to VOA that Africans receive better treatment from the local government than China's own citizens.

"Honestly, I think the local government treat them better than us," said local resident Ma Fangmei. "They treat foreigners like dignitaries."

Zhang Xiaoyong, also a Guangzhou resident, said there are two groups of Africans in China. "Rich Africans get preferential treatment from the Chinese government. But if you are just an average citizen, the story is different."

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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.
23.07.2020 LISTEN

The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta has revealed that people within the creative arts industry are going to receive financial support from the government for the next six months.

Presenting the Mid-Year Budget Review in Parliament on Thursday, July 23, 2020, he said this money will be taken from the Coronavirus Alleviation Programme (CAP) Business Support Scheme also known as CapBuss Fund.

According to him, the government is going to increase the CapBuss Programme by GH150 million to, among others, facilitate credit of GH50 million to support the Creative Arts, the Media and the Conference of Independent Universities.

This comes after the announcement of a $9 million stimulus support for Small and Medium Scale Enterprises to be taken from the $40 million dollar Tourism Development Project Fund given to Ghana by the World Bank.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, a lot of creative artists have complained about the untold burden the pandemic has left on their business.

There have been a lot of calls on the government to provide some financial assistance to the sector.

Most stakeholders of the Creative Arts sector have also remonstrated the delay in the establishment of the Creative Arts Fund.

However, during the Creative Arts Forum in December 2020, the Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Barbara Oteng Gyasi explained that while they await the passage of the Creative Arts Bill and consequently the Fund, the government had asked Exim Bank to also provide a GHS10 million loan to the sector.

---citinewsroom
This caused much confusion yesterday as people remarked that some of the countries included on the list were not directly accessible from Ireland.

Also, because a number of Irish flights connect in the UK, which is not on the list, many routes will require passengers to isolate on return to Ireland.

Three of the countries cannot be reached, either directly or indirectly, due to connecting flights passing through non-green list countries, while the majority of the remaining countries can only be accessed from Dublin Airport.

Below is the list of countries and whether they are accessible and how they can be reached.

San Marino: Although San Marino does not have an airport, it can be accessed through Italy, which is also on the list.

Gibraltar: Cannot be accessed as connecting flights pass through the UK or Spain, neither of which are on the list.

Monaco: Cannot be accessed as connecting flights pass through France, not on the list.

Latvia: Can be accessed by flying directly from Dublin to Riga.

Slovakia: You can fly directly from Dublin to Bratislava.

Greenland: Cannot be accessed as connecting flights pass through the UK and Denmark.

Greece: Thessaloniki, Athens, Corfu, Zante and Rhodes can all be reached directly from Dublin.

Lithuania: Vilnius and Palanga can be accessed from Dublin, while you can get to Kaunas from Dublin and Shannon.

Cyprus: Paphos can be reached from Dublin.

Norway: Flights go directly from Dublin to Oslo.

Estonia: Dublin fly direct to Tallinn.

Hungary: Direct flights from Dublin and Cork to Budapest.

Malta: Luqa is accessible from Dublin and Cork.

Finland: Direct flights from Dublin to Helsinki.

Italy: Most Irish airports have flights to various parts of Italy, but flights from Shannon and Knock connect in London. For this reason, the majority of Italian cities can only be directly accessed from Cork and Dublin.

Despite the publication of the green list, the public health advice from NPHET remains that people should not travel abroad unless it is essential.
Dr. Sjon Westre named Senior Vice President of Technology, and Jason Kerver promoted to Vice President of Administration

MINDEN, Nev., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CHEMEON Surface Technology, a global leader in corrosion protection chemistry and innovation, has promoted two of its key executives in order to further strengthen the company going forward and to recognize their valued and exceptional work for CHEMEON's customers.

CHEMEON Science and Business Executives: Dr. Sjon Westre, Senior Vice President of Technology (L) and Mr. Jason Kerver, Vice President of Administration(R)

Dr. Sjon Westre, a leading subject matter expert on the development and commercialization of hexavalent chromium-free corrosion protection chemistries, is named Senior Vice President of Technology from vice president. Since 2016, Dr. Westre's recent patents include CHEMEON eTCP "Dyed Trivalent Chromium Conversion Coatings and Methods of Using Same" (U.S. Pat. No. 10,533,254) and CHEMEON's "pH Stable Trivalent Chromium Coating Solutions" (U.S. Patent No. 10,400,338).

"Dr. Westre has been instrumental in the MIL-SPEC certification, scale-up formulation, and commercialization of our CHEMEON TCP-HF hexavalent free chemistries," says Dr. Madylon Meiling, Chief Executive Officer of the company. "The use of these products by the military, prime contractors, OEMs and metal finishers came as a result of extraordinary research and development supported by the team of PhD scientists and chemists that Dr. Westre has assembled."

Jason Kerver was promoted to Vice President Administration from manager of operations, a position he has held since 2013. Since 1999, Mr. Kerver has been an integral part of the CHEMEON administrative team, and is responsible for the development and customization of CHEMEON's robust and efficient Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and IT infrastructure.

"Mr. Kerver played a critical role in developing the global logistics and manufacturing process for CHEMEON which allows for seamless ordering and timely delivery of our products and services to distributors and customers," Dr. Meiling says. "Customers across North America and throughout the world benefit from the system Mr. Kerver has implemented. It provides customers with their selected chemistries in a most effective and efficient manner."

Ted Ventresca, President and Chief Operating Officer of CHEMEON, says, "The promotion of Dr. Westre and Mr. Kerver represent CHEMEON's continued commitment to innovation and customer service, and recognition of the internal talent that represents CHEMEON 's global expansion of our game-changing products and services."

"Dr. Westre and Mr. Kerver deserve this recognition as they exemplify the professional and personal approach to the scientific and business-based solutions CHEMEON provides to our partners and customers," says Mr. Ventresca.

About CHEMEON

CHEMEON Surface Technology is a global leader in advanced, environmentally responsible, surface engineering solutions including patented CHEMEON eTCP conversion coating and anodic seal that provides a distinct color for visual verification that your parts are coated and protected. CHEMEON is also licensed by the US Navy to manufacture and provide MIL-SPEC (MIL-DTL 81706 and MIL DTL 5541F) Trivalent Chromium Pre- Treatment; CHEMEON TCP-HFO (Hexavalent Free), CHEMEON TCP-HF EPA (Extended Protection Additive), CHEMEON TCP-HF SP (Spray) and CHEMEON TCP-HF Touch Up Pen. CHEMEON's patented and proprietary chemistries include CHEMEON TCP-NP (NoPrep) and patented zero chrome CHEMEON 0CP- 6800. CHEMEON also provides a full line of anodizing pre and post treatments, additives, dyes, custom R&D, consulting and university level training.

SOURCE CHEMEON Surface Technology

Related Links

http://www.chemeon.com


Minister of labour and employment Dr Chris Ngige, who appeared before a house of representatives ad hoc committee investigating the suspension of the management of Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), dragged Hon James Faleke who he threatened with a lawsuit days ago.

Before answering questions, Ngige said that members of the committee were his younger brothers except for Faleke who he said might be up to 60.

However after the lawmaker representing Ikeja federal constituency interrupted and disclosed that he is over 60, the Minister further insisted that he is a small boy as he (Ngige) is in same age bracket with Falekes mentor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

He said;

So you are near my age, at least I am seven years older than you. Im the same age with your mentor in Lagos, Asiwaju. And I was governor with him at the same time. He was a senator, I was a senator. I am a two time minister, he isnt a two time minister.

After Faleke interrupted again by saying that Tinubu won all his elections very well ( a remark which appeared as a shade to Ngige whose election as governor of Anambra state was nullified in 2006), the Minister fired back by saying;

No problem about that, just like you won your own in Kogi state very well. And you are now the deputy governor and governor of Kogi state.

Faleke was running mate to Abubakar Audu in the 2015 Kogi governorship election, but was denied the governorship ticket when Audu suddenly died before the election was completed.

When the lawmaker asked Ngige to respond to the questions he was asked, he said Im responding my friend, if you yab me, I yab you ten times. I am a Lagos boy, you are just a small boy in Lagos. Look at this Mushin boy, hes talking with a VI boy. I lived in Victoria Island. Look at this Mushin boy from Kogi o.
JAY, Vt. - The last of the remaining foreign ski workers who have been stranded at Vermonts Jay Peak resort during the coronavirus pandemic were on their way home to Peru on Thursday, officials said.

We are all very grateful that they will all be with their families soon, said Melissa Sheffer, the resorts director of rooms and community engagement, of the college students who work seasonally at the resort.

Jay Peak has been providing them food, free accommodations, trips to the store, health checks, hiking trips, and a canoe outing, she said. The resort took the five employees to Boston on Wednesday and they flew to Miami and got on a plan to Lima on Thursday morning, Sheffer said. A sixth extended her visa and moved in with friends in the area, she said.

U.S. ski areas employ about 7,500 J1 visa holders each year, according to the U.S. Ski Areas Association. Many had planned to fly home in March, but when the pandemic closed Perus borders, some were stranded.

In other coronavirus-related news from Vermont:

___

HIGHWAY REST AREAS

Many of Vermonts highway rest areas and welcome centres are once again open to the public.

The states highest-volume rest areas and welcome centres reopened Wednesday after being closed because of the pandemic, MyNBC5.com reported.

The reopened rest areas have a number of modifications reflecting Department of Health guidelines to mitigate risks from COVID-19. Face masks are required and are available at the door.

Orange cones and floor tape help ensure social distancing. Coffee machines and water fountains are not in use and vending machines are taped off.

Each facility will be disinfected twice a day.

State Buildings Commissioner Chris Cole said he believes theyre safe.

Its about reducing time in the facility, Cole said. We want the facilities to be open, we want people to use them, but we want people to get in and get out after theyve taken care of business.

___

NUMBERS

The Vermont Health Department Thursday reported 11 new cases of the virus that causes COVID-19. Ten of the cases were in Chittenden County. The eleventh case was in Windsor County.

There are two people hospitalized in the state with COVID-19.

The number of deaths remains at 56, where it has been for more than a month.
The Woodlands is a massive concentration of carefully planned exurbs 30 miles north of Houston, conceived in the 1960s as an antidote to city life. For decades it advertised itself this way, promoting its subdivisions as refuges from Houston's crime, congestion and stress. By the turn of this century it had a population of more than 50,000.But in the next decade, as it continued to grow, it moved to change its image. It began marketing itself to homebuyers as a place to enjoy the blessings of urban living without the inconveniences. By 2012 it was telling prospective homebuyers about its "pedestrian-friendly atmosphere" with "urban residences like brownstones and lofts," and lots being converted to gridded streets.Nearby suburbs started doing the same thing. Sugar Land, launched in the 1950s as a bedroom community for employees of the Imperial Sugar Co., proclaimed that, contrary to its historic reputation as a conventional Houston suburb, it was "working to provide an increasingly urban atmosphere."A few weeks ago, I thought to ask a simple question: What are these developments saying about themselves in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic that has concentrated more infection in Houston than in almost any other American city? I assumed they would be retreating to their original selling points of exurban remoteness and security.My assumption was wrong. This month, as virus cases in the Houston area continued to spike, The Woodlands was touting its Town Center, which "brings an urban feel  with its paved streets, shops, restaurants, hotels, office buildings, lofts, townhomes and condominiums.'' Sugar Land was boasting of its 32-acre urbanized town square, describing it as the community's "beating heart" where "residents and visitors work, live, shop and gather."I suppose it's possible that the Woodlands and Sugar Land marketers just haven't gotten around to updating their promotional material. But they're too smart for that. They have another idea: that the urbanized suburb is the ideal destination for city dwellers who want to escape the pandemic but who don't want to give up the amenities and social contact they enjoy in the central city.The more you think about this, the clearer it seems that COVID-19 is generating an opportunity for urbanized suburbia, not just in Houston but all over the country too. If boring old cul-de-sac suburbs can evolve into appealing urban destinations a few miles beyond the worrisome downtown congestion, the future might actually be theirs. But can they do it?Ellen Dunham-Jones, the Georgia Tech urban planning professor who has been studying suburbs for years, is convinced they can. "We will continue to see a strong market for places where someone feels part of a community and a sense of belonging," she told me recently. "Some will find that in dense urban neighborhoods or rural areas, but I suspect most looking for that will seek walkable neighborhoods with the mid-rise density that can support coffee shops, some small local businesses, farmers markets, yoga-in-the-park and other not-crowded but still-social activities." In other words, urbanized suburbs., the idea of retrofitting the suburbs has been gaining strength all over the country for more than a decade. Its prime exhibit has been the "lifestyle center," the outdoor shopping mall often built as a horseshoe and centering on an ersatz Main Street, similar in its look to the urban retail corridors suburbanites patronized and enjoyed in the decades before they moved out beyond the city limits. There are currently about 500 of these semi-urbanist centers in the United States. Meanwhile, the boxy enclosed indoor malls surrounded by enormous parking lots have been declining, and they will continue to decline. One reliable study from 2017 projected that as many as a quarter of those still remaining would be gone by 2022. The coronavirus pandemic seems certain to accelerate this process of erosion.One thing we have re-learned in the past decade is that people like to conduct their commercial lives outdoors . They were drawn to outdoor commerce when traders gathered at caravansaries along the Silk Road in Asia 2000 years ago, and in the Middle Ages when annual fairs attracted thousands to huge park-like enclosures all over Europe. The conventional indoor mall of the late 20th century is an aberration, not a deep-rooted institution.So lifestyle centers are on the right side of history. But to spearhead a genuine boom in urbanized suburbia, they will need to do much more, go much further than they have until now. To be the fulcrum of genuine communities, they must be built on a solid mixed-use base of offices and residences, not just shopping. If they have stores and residences but no offices, they will be empty most of the day. If they have stores and offices but no housing, they will be empty at night. No matter how attractive they may look, if they fail to do all three things at once their potential will be limited.Most suburban retrofitters understand this. In diverse areas of the country, they are experimenting with the three-legged development stool. Outdoor malls with imitation downtowns have been carefully adding residential units above and adjacent to stores, along with offices that can create a daytime customer base. Reston Town Center, outside Washington D.C., has gradually made itself more attractive and functional by pursuing this goal. So has the town center at Stapleton, an urbanized mixed-use development built on the site of an old airport on the outskirts of Denver.But the nation's most ambitious plan for conversion to urban suburbia is in Fairfax County, Va., where the mammoth Tysons Corner commercial center is scheduled for transformation over several decades into a pedestrian-friendly urban village with 100,000 residents and 200,000 jobs. It will be a long time before we can know whether this huge undertaking will achieve its goals. So far it has accomplished relatively little. Tysons developers have managed to build dozens of apartment and condo buildings close to transit stations, but they have made almost no progress toward pedestrian-friendliness. Walking even a short distance from a transit station to stores or housing is usually an arduous and unpleasant exercise. The pedestrian qualities necessary for a generally urbanized suburb require more than a mixed-use collection of homes, stores and offices. They require connectivity.Most of the new mixed-use developments have been pretty good about installing sidewalks along their built-from-scratch Main Streets. But to create a pedestrian-friendly suburb, the sidewalks have to go somewhere  they can't just peter out at the end of a narrow commercial corridor. Arlie Adkins, an urban planning scholar at the University of Arizona, put this succinctly a couple of years ago. "You could have the best sidewalk in the world for one block," he said, "but if it doesn't continue to the next block people aren't going to use it." The public may be ahead of the developers on this: In a survey by the National Association of Realtors in 2017, 87 percent of respondents said they considered sidewalks either very important or somewhat important in determining where they would like to live.is a lot harder to do than simply putting up an ersatz Main Street, even an attractive one. It means laying down sidewalks that stretch into the residential areas of the community. And here we come up against one of the oddest anomalies in real estate: Local leaders don't like to spend money on sidewalks, regardless of how much people want them. Many cities still ask homeowners to put up all or part of the money for new ones. We ask taxpayers to pay for highway and street improvements, and don't give them any choice in the matter. When it comes to sidewalks, however, we turn into public cheapskates.Decent sidewalks were among the things Jane Jacobs argued for in her 1961 classic,. She rhapsodized about the "sidewalk ballet" that gives streetscapes an unending vitality. Jacobs was talking primarily about truly urban spaces  she lived in Manhattan's Greenwich Village for decades  but her ideas on this subject are highly relevant to the creation of urbanized suburbs today. So are her ideas about a whole range of topics.Jacobs insisted, for example, that "streets and opportunities to turn corners must be frequent." They need to encourage walkers to follow their curiosity. Suburban retrofitters have unfortunately been reluctant to follow this advice, treating the loss of rentable retail space as more important than the pedestrian experience. This works against the creation of the communities they say they want to create. In the recent pandemic months, quite a few cities have cultivated pedestrians by turning some of their streets into open-air restaurant pavilions. That's a good start. But it's only a start.It's worth recalling that Victor Gruen, the architect of the first modern American shopping center, Southdale Center in suburban Minneapolis, saw it as a step toward the community life that today's suburban retrofitters are trying to re-establish. He compared Southdale to "the ancient Greek agora, the medieval marketplace, and our own town squares." Gruen prophesied that "by affording opportunities for social life and recreation in a protected pedestrian environment, shopping centers can fill an existing void."It didn't turn out as he had hoped. Southdale was built as a sterile inward-facing box in an ocean of parking lots. But we don't have to do things that way. Most of us don't want to. The current economic and social environment has given us a genuine second chance in the suburbs, if we can learn to take full advantage of it.
Hackers have stolen student data from six UK universities in a global cyber attack targeting US-based cloud computer provider Blackbaud.

Blackbaud paid the hacker an undisclosed ransom after they were promised that all data - which included phone numbers and donation history in some cases - was destroyed.

The South Carolina-based company said the ransomware hacker 'did not access credit card information, bank account information, or social security numbers'.

The attack - which also affected a Canadian University and a US design school - happened in May but was not publicly addressed until this month.

Hackers have stolen student data from six UK universities (including the University of Leeds, pictured) in a global cyber attack targeting US-based cloud computer provider Blackbaud

Blackbaud paid the hacker an undisclosed ransom after they were promised that all data - which included phone numbers and donation history in some cases - was destroyed. Pictured: The University of York was one of the institutions affected

The South Carolina-based company said the ransomware hacker 'did not access credit card information, bank account information, or social security numbers' of students it universities, including Reading (pictured)

The University of York, Oxford Brookes University, Loughborough University, University of London, University of Leeds and University of Reading are apologising to students, faculty and donors for the breach.

Ambrose University in Canada and Rhode Island School of Design in America were also hit - as were Human Rights Watch and charity Young Minds, BBC News reports.

A statement on the company's website read: 'After discovering the attack, our Cyber Security team - together with independent forensics experts and law enforcement -successfully prevented the cybercriminal from blocking our system access and fully encrypting files; and ultimately expelled them from our system.

'Prior to our locking the cybercriminal out, the cybercriminal removed a copy of a subset of data from our self-hosted environment.

The attack - which also affected a Canadian University and a US design school - happened in May but was not publicly addressed until this month. Pictured: Oxford Brookes University was one of the ones affected

'The cybercriminal did not access credit card information, bank account information, or social security numbers.

'Because protecting our customers data is our top priority, we paid the cybercriminals demand with confirmation that the copy they removed had been destroyed.'

The FBI, National Crime Agency and Europol usually advise against paying what the hacker demands.

The University of York, Oxford Brookes University, Loughborough University, University of London (pictured), University of Leeds and University of Reading are apologising to students, faculty and donors for the breach

The statement adds: 'Based on the nature of the incident, our research, and third party (including law enforcement) investigation, we have no reason to believe that any data went beyond the cybercriminal, was or will be misused; or will be disseminated or otherwise made available publicly.'

One of the impacted former students, cyber-security specialist Rhys Morgan said: 'My main concern is how reassuring - impossibly so, in my opinion - Blackbaud were to the university about what the hackers have obtained.'
Newswire's team of experts is committed to helping customers find ways to stay in front of industry media during the new reality brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 23, 2020 / With the financial world rocked by the negative impact of the COVID-19 crisis, financial outlets and media organizations have been quick to cover companies that are finding unique ways to push through and offer valuable services to their customers. As a part of the Earned Media Advantage Guided Tour (EMA GT), Newswire's team of Earned Media Advantage Strategists work hand-in-hand with in-house marketing and communications teams to help brands align themselves with trending industry stories in order to maximize their potential for earned media mentions.

Trending stories in the financial world present key opportunities to brands looking for coverage during the pandemic. A Newswire strategist acts as extensions of in-house teams to help brands align their messaging to industry trends; this has proven to be effective during the crisis, as many major media outlets have provided coverage to brands that have been able to address issues in the industry that impacted customers over the past few months. As a result, Newswire EMA GT customers have been mentioned on CNBC, Business Insider, Forbes, CheddarTV and NBC affiliates in markets throughout the country.

"Consumers turn to financial media to find out what to expect and who to trust," said Charlie Terenzio, Newswire's VP of Earned Media Advantage Business. "If a brand can help consumers in a unique way, whether that be through a free consultation, a discounted service, or a special program that offers interesting benefits, it can really boost the company's perception in the eyes of the media."

The Earned Media Advantage Guided Tour is designed to help businesses educate and influence media simultaneously. With content that is both well-presented and informative, financial brands can establish themselves as authorities in their respective sub-industries. In the financial services space, this can range from accounting, to banking, to insurance, and beyond. Regardless of industry, the Guided Tour offers a tailored approach to media and marketing communications as EMAS team members work to expand publicity through targeted distribution channels and strategic outreach campaigns.

Story continues

"Staying relevant and up-to-date is important for any campaign, and that reality has only been emphasized during the coronavirus pandemic," said Anthony Santiago, Newswire's VP of Marketing. "Customers are reading and hearing about the recession and financial setbacks that the U.S. economy is experiencing on a daily basis. When it comes to working with financial firms, they want to be certain in the brand's ability to deliver, and they will evaluate its messaging when making that assessment."

"That's why the Earned Media Advantage Strategists dedicate so much effort into the concept development process. If the content is relevant and persuasive, it provides the brand with an excellent opportunity to stand out within their respective industries."

Newswire's Earned Media Advantage Guided Tour empowers financial companies with its best-in-class science, processes and technology as they look to increase their earned media potential. Through the implementation of consistent comprehensive campaigns, brands can elevate their presence in their respective industries and excel in their market expansion efforts.

To find out how Newswire's Earned Media Advantage Guided Tour can help communication efforts during the COVID-19 crisis, navigate to the official program page for more information.

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To learn more about how Newswire can help you, visit http://www.newswire.com.

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Newswire

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Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao presents the appointment order to Santoshi, widow of Col. Santosh Babu who was killed in the skirmish between Indian and Chinese soldiers on the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh on June 15. Santoshi has been appointed as a deputy collector in the Telangana administration.

Hyderabad: The Telangana government has given the job of deputy collector to the widow of Col. Santosh Babu who was among the 20 soldiers killed in the skirmish between Indian and Chinese troops on the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh on June 15, 2020.

Chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao presented the appointment order to Santoshi, wife of martyred at his office-cum-residence, Pragathi Bhavan.

Deputy collector is a Group-I post in the state government.

After the presentation, the colonels family was invited to lunch by the chief minister. Chandrashekar Rao assured the family that the state government will always be there to lend any support required by them.

After handing over the appointment letter to Santoshi, the chief minister instructed Smita Sabharwal, a secretary in the Chief Minister's Office, to mentor Santoshi till she completes her training and settles down in her new job.

He also directed his staff to give her a posting in Hyderabad or its suburbs.

Earlier, Hyderabad district collector Swetha Mohanty handed over documents of a plot measuring 711 square yards to the family of Col Santosh Babu. The plot is located opposite KBR Park on Road No. 14 in Banjara Hills.
HT Tech got in touch with Asus India, mobile business head, Dinesh Sharma to talk about those variants, their India launch and what happens to last years ROG Phone 2 now that ROG Phone 3 is here.

Asus has just unveiled its gaming smartphone, the ROG Phone 3 in India. This is not just the only Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ processor featuring device to hit the Indian shores but also a feature-rich smartphone that aims to give a tough time to other premium offerings from rival brands. India, for now gets two variants of the device  8GB+128GB and 12GB+256GB at 49,999 and 57,999 respectively. However, there are other variants that have launched globally as well. So, HT Tech got in touch with Asus India, mobile business head, Dinesh Sharma to talk about those variants, their India launch and what happens to last years ROG Phone 2 now that ROG Phone 3 is here.

When asked about the ROG Phone 2, which launched at 37,999 (base model) last year and got a price hike in June this year, it was confirmed that the handset will be pulled from the Indian smartphone market. Sharma says that since with ROG Phone 3 users are getting loads of new features such as 64-megapixel camera, 8K video recording, 30W charger inside the box, better Air Triggers, Dirac speakers and more, that too at 49,999, which is just 12,000 more, it will make more sense to remove ROG Phone 2 from the shelves.

Also read: Asus ROG Phone 3: Quick thoughts

So, basically, you're getting a huge upgrade at a marginally expensive price and when you're buying, when you're investing this kind of money, you're looking also at long term. So, from that perspective, we believe that consumers would be way better off actually shifting to the ROG Phone 3 rather than continue the ROG Phone 2 at 45,000 or 43,000 kind of a price point, said Sharma in conversation with HT Tech.

Asus ROG Phone 3 (HT Tech)

Talking about Asus ROG Phone 3 8GB RAM variant with Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 and the 16GB RAM models, it was confirmed that Asus has no plans to launch the Snapdragon 865 SoC version in the country. However, the team is open to consider 16GB RAM variant and may bring it if they see enough demand.

So, as far as the 865 model is concerned, no, we plan to currently stick only to the 865 plus model for India, said Sharma. Like last year, we introduced [Snapdragon] 855+, we are going to be working on only 865+ model for India because I think from an Indian customer perspective, once we cross a certain price threshold, you happen to go for the best. I will say that there is no doubt about the fact because relative pricing perception of Europeans when they look at Euros and when we are looking at Rupees, it's a very different ballgame, he added.

Also see: Asus ROG Phone 3: In Pics

As for 16GB RAM variant, Sharma said that like in the case of ROG Phone 2 Asus wanted to keep the price difference between the two variants reasonable so they launched 8GB+128GB and 12GB+256GB models in India.

If there is massive demand coming in for 16GB+512GB, which if we sense that, then there is always an option which is open, said Sharma. However, the team thinks that 8GB+128GB and 12GB+256GB are currently the best combination for the market. Sharma says that is they launch 16GB+512GB version in India, it will be at a much higher price.
Following Kim Kardashians statement yesterday about her brilliant but complicated husband Kanye West, the reality star has been praised for her dignified and deeply moving words about the musician's mental health and bipolar disorder.

Her statement followed erratic behaviour from her husband of six years, which has included announcing a last minute 2020 presidential run, criticising Harriet Tubman at a campaign launch rally and a number of deleted tweets attacking Kardashian and her mother Kris Jenner.

Many Twitter users who live with bipolar disorder have opened up about their own experiences following Kims statement, helping to spread awareness of the mental health issue.

REUTERS

Jessica Morgan, a writer at Refinery29, tweeted, As someone who has bipolar disorder, I want to thank @KimKardashian for this dignified, respectful and compassionate statement about her husband Kanye."

"Bipolar is complicated, its exhausting and its misunderstood. The stigma must stop. The shaming headlines must stop.

Another user living with bipolar said that not even their own family shared the same understanding Kim had shown in her statement.

They wrote, as someone with bipolar, this was beautifully written. kim k may be many things, but she is understanding something MY family doesnt even understand about me. its hard to understand kanye, but its easy to give compassion.

She was also praised by those who, like Kardashian, know of someone in their close circle living with the disorder.

One wrote: As someone who has been close to someone with bipolar disorder this is a deeply moving and important statement. i feel for all involved. its so very painful to witness and the feeling of helplessness is overwhelming. Absolutely overwhelming and scary."

Kardashian has been criticised over the the past few weeks, as some have called for her to take more action regarding her husbands behaviour. However, as the star clarified in her statement, the family is powerless unless the member is a minor.

One user responded: Was really struck by Kim Kardashian West's description of how the loved ones of those with severe mental illness are "powerless". It is the loneliest place.

Another wrote: Anyone who loves a bipolar person (it runs thick in my family) will recognize the pain, honesty and compassion in this statement.

Notable personalities such as Frozens Josh Gad and Fox News host Mika Brzezinski also hailed the statement, with Gad calling it remarkable and beyond important."

Others praised Kardashian for using her large social media platform to raise awareness of the issue, with one writing: Whatever your opinion is of Kim Kardashian, she deserves a lot of credit for putting out this statement about mental health. She has 180,000,000 Instagram followers. This will help some of them who are struggling.

User Patrick Gaspard also addressed Kims statement, praising her for raising awareness about mental health: Ive never typed the name Kardashian in a tweet. I have to today to say Im impressed with Kim Kardashians courage and humanity in discussing Kanyes mental health challenges. The stigma is real. The mockery is ugly. Black men in particular go undiagnosed and untreated. Big-ups.

In the UK, mental health charities such as Mind run projects specifically aimed at supporting young Black men by providing resources, education on mental health issues as well as working to de-stigmatise disorders amongst young Black men and their families. According to a 2020 study about Black womens mental health in the UK by Business in the Community, there has been no campaign to improve the mental health of BAME women in recent history.

Jacqui Dyer, the NHS England and Improvements Mental Health Equalities Adviser, said in 2019 that there were staggering disparities experienced by Caribbean and African communities within mental health and associated services and that Black Caribbean and African people remain consistently overrepresented in mental health detention and are more likely to come in contact with mental health services through the criminal justice system.

Dyer announced in the same statement that the NHS was developing the Patient and Carers Race Equality Framework, which aims to work with organisations to make practical improvements to address gaps in support for those from diverse backgrounds.

Instagram

The response to Kardashian's statement has been mixed. While many expressed compassion, others have criticised West for his recent behaviour while others have brought up his history of controversies - with one user who said he himself was "severely bipolar" writing, "I hope nobody on this planet lets me get away with the bulls**t they let Kanye West get away with."

Kardashian wrote yesterday in her Instagram stories: As many of you know, Kanye has bipolar disorder. Anyone who has this or has a loved one in their life who does, knows how incredibly complicated and painful it is to understand.

AP

West has previously talked openly about being diagnosed about bipolar disorder as an adult and Kardashian revealed that she had refrained from publicly discussing Wests health, as she is very protective of our children and Kanyes right to privacy when it comes to health. However she said she had changed her mind due to the stigma and misconceptions about mental health that had surfaced following Wests public breakdown.

Saying that she understood he was subject to criticism as a public figure, she described how West has had to deal with the pressure and isolation that is highlighted by his bipolar disorder.

As she asked for compassion and empathy from the media and public, she said, We as a society talk about giving grace to the issue of mental health as a whole, however, we should also give it to the individuals who are living with it in times when they need it most.

For those seeking mental health support, the NHS has a location finder for mental health services near you that can provide assistance and an additional guide for those seeking immediate urgent support here. Mental health charity Mind also has a guide for those seeking mental health support, alongside a database of resources available. The Samaritans also operate a 24/7 helpline at 116 123 as well as email support by emailing jo@samaritans.org.
By Amanda Fries | Times Union, Albany

Albany, N.Y.  Liability shields tucked into this years state budget for nursing homes and health care providers could be clawed back as New York legislators look to amend the legal immunity given to the medical facilities during the coronavirus pandemic.

The protections, buttressed in an executive order issued by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on March 23, have brought intense criticism after nursing home deaths in New York soared to more than 6,500, the highest of any state in the nation. Those deaths also occurred as nursing homes were instructed by the state to accept COVID-positive residents, and families of people who died have raised questions about the safety of the facilities.

Legislators in the Assembly are scheduled Thursday to weigh an amended bill that would extend legal protections only to medical professionals who have diagnosed or treated COVID-19 patients. The bill's sponsor Assemblyman Ronald Kim, D-Queens, said the proposal would roll back the current law that protects facilities from negligence lawsuits arising from the pandemic. The bill is among hundreds of pieces of legislation policymakers are tackling this week to catch up on unfinished business, including expanding coronavirus-related protections.

"This is a critical step in admitting that handing out broad legal immunities to health care facilities, especially nursing homes, was a mistake," said Kim, who lost a family member from the virus at a nursing home. "Now that we can admit that the legal immunity was a mistake, we need to provide retroactive justice for over 6,500 families who lost loved ones in nursing homes as they suffered and died alone without any legal recourse."

The controversial law enacted three months ago  which mirrors similar measures taken in other states and was drafted by health care industry leaders  does not cover immunity for willful, criminal misconduct or gross negligence, but is focused on harm arising from staffing shortages or a lack of protective equipment. Republicans in Congress also are considering protections for the industry in the next federal stimulus package.

Roughly one-fourth of the state's more than 24,000 deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, were residents in nursing homes. Cuomo has faced criticism for his administration's handling of the infectious disease in those facilities, where many of the most physically vulnerable reside.

Earlier this month, the state Department of Health issued a report that officials said absolved the state and health care facilities of blame for the deaths, pointing to infections that were presumed to be from asymptomatic staff members who were in the facilities weeks before New York was aware the pandemic was here. But critics and other have said there needs to be an independent investigation of the state's coronavirus nursing home policies.

The New York State Nurses Association, which called for a full accounting of what happened during the pandemic in health care facilities following the release of the state report, defended the frontline workers who, the group says, early on expressed concern about personal protective equipment supplies and staffing.

"COVID-19 highlighted longstanding inequities we've seen in the health care system. Addressing equity in funding, access to health care and safe staffing is what will keep all of our patients safe," association Executive Director Pat Kane said in an emailed statement Wednesday. "The nurse's responsibility and accountability to practice according to the standards of our profession never go away - regardless of exemptions from civil liability. Our commitment to our code of ethics and advocacy that puts patients first is why we are consistently cited as the most trusted profession."

Industry leaders and representatives have blasted calls to roll back the legal immunity, citing the unprecedented circumstances health care providers have faced responding to COVID-19 cases, including what they said was a lack of adequate personal protective equipment.

The Healthcare Association of New York State issued a memo Tuesday in opposition to the latest legislation, which would amend the protections afforded to the industry and specifically cover medical professionals who provided diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 directly to patients with confirmed or suspected infections.

This legislation would take a significant step backwards by repealing almost all of the liability protections passed by the Legislature only a few months ago, the memo states. First, the bill would eliminate the protections in place for healthcare professionals and facilities providing services that are not specifically related to COVID-19.

The association also alleged the legislation would limit liability protections for those providing services related to preventing coronavirus or arranging services for COVID-19 patients.

Assemblyman John McDonald, a pharmacist and Cohoes Democrat, said he understands the frustration some feel with the immunity granted to health care professionals, but expressed concern about limiting the legal protections for providers.

During the height of the virus in New York, as staffing shortages emerged and nurses and other professionals were working long hours, the state garnered help from retired medical professionals and medical students nearing the end of their educational training. Without the legal protection, McDonald said, some professionals may opt out of assisting should another outbreak occur.

Health professionals have been practicing under very dire and extreme circumstances, and we need to be very mindful of this, he said. I think we need to be very mindful if this legislation dissuades providers from participating.

Kim, along with state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, D-Bronx, in June introduced legislation that would completely repeal the protection; however, its more likely an amendment would garner enough support to pass.

Cuomo said during a press conference call Wednesday that he would have to review the amendment.

The New York chapter of AARP on Wednesday called on lawmakers to support a full repeal of the protections for nursing homes and long-term care facilities.

"Not only would that restore the right of residents and their families to seek justice, but it would incentivize facilities to provide proper care going forward," the organization wrote in a statement. "Residents and their families should have the ability to hold facilities accountable for abuse, neglect and substandard care. This is especially true now, with most nursing home inspections suspended and in-person visits by family members and long-term care ombudsmen restricted due to the pandemic."

Limiting the legal protections will allow families to pursue legal action that could uncover evidence of poor care, allegations that have plagued some facilities in the state for years.

While nursing home leaders have disputed any suggestion that those issues were factors in the scale of their outbreaks, a Times Union review of 10 nursing homes in the Capital Region with the largest or deadliest coronavirus outbreaks found many have struggled to maintain adequate staffing or have been cited for infection-control issues over the years.

Richard J. Mollot, executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, said every New Yorker should be concerned about any legal immunity given to the facilities during the pandemic.

The ability to seek accountability for grossly substandard care or neglect of a vulnerable resident should not be impinged upon, no matter taken away in the dark of night as happened here, he said. This speaks to the need for much greater accountability for the development of the state budget. Most importantly, and sadly, it speaks to the priorities of some of our state leaders, who evidence a greater interest in protecting the profits of nursing homes than the safety and dignity of our elderly.

The nonprofit coalition is dedicated to improving quality of care and living conditions for elderly and disabled people in nursing homes, assisted living and other residential settings.

Mollot said families do not want to sue nursing homes, but in the absence of effective quality assurance and surveillance for abuse and neglect, it is the only option to provide some level of accountability when a nursing home fails to provide care that meets minimum safety standards.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Federal investigators are examining whether a suspect in the ambush shooting of a federal judges family in New Jersey also killed a fellow mens rights lawyer in California, a law enforcement official said.

The federal agents are trying to determine whether Roy Den Hollander, who was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound the day after an attack that killed the judge's son and wounded her husband, had any role in the killing earlier this month of Marc Angelucci.

Angelucci, like Den Hollander, was involved in lawsuits alleging gender discrimination against men. He was shot to death July 11 at his home in San Bernardino County, California.

The official cautioned the investigation was in its early stages and federal officials were working with local homicide detectives. In both cases, the suspect appeared to pose as a delivery driver, the official said.

Investigators are also examining Den Hollanders financial and travel records, as well as misogynistic screeds he posted online, said the official, who could not discuss an ongoing investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

The San Bernardino County sheriffs department referred questions to the FBI.

Den Hollander, 72, described himself as an anti-feminist attorney who filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of ladies night promotions at bars and nightclubs, sued Columbia University for providing womens studies classes, and sued news organizations over what he said was biased coverage.

The FBI said Den Hollander was the primary subject in the attack Sunday at the home of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas in North Brunswick, New Jersey, where 20-year-old Daniel Anderl was killed and his father, Mark Anderl, 63, was wounded. Mark Anderl remained hospitalized and was expected to have more surgery Tuesday, according to Mayor Francis Mac" Womack, a family friend.

Salas, 51, was in another part of the house and was unharmed.

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Den Hollander was found dead Monday in Sullivan County, New York.

Investigators found items in his possession that raised concerns about whether he had targeted, or planned to target, other people, including a photograph of New York Chief Judge Janet DiFiore and the address of a state appeals courthouse, a state court spokesperson said.

Both Den Hollander and Angelucci, 52, were involved in lawsuits seeking to force the U.S. government to require all young women to join men in registering for a possible military draft.

Den Hollander's lawsuit, filed in 2015 on behalf of a woman in New Jersey, was assigned to Salas. He withdrew as the lawyer in the case a year ago after being diagnosed with cancer.

Harry Crouch, president of the National Coalition for Men, told The Associated Press that Den Hollander was furious that he hadn't been involved in a similar case being handled by Angelucci.

Roy was just not happy that we did not involve him as a co-counsel. I think unhappy is an understatement, Crouch said. He called me up and threatened me."

Crouch said Den Hollander did not have a good reputation among other mens rights advocates.

I think he was very hostile, very, very hostile that he finally went over the hill, Crouch said.

In more than 2,000 pages of often misogynistic, racist writings posted online, Den Hollander had sharply criticized Salas and other female judges.

He also wrote about wanting to use the rest of his time on earth to even the score with his perceived enemies, using cowboy justice.

J. Steven Svoboda, a spokesman for the National Coalition for Men who said he was speaking personally and not on behalf of the organization, said Angelucci was beloved for his groundbreaking legal work all. in his mind, to make the world a better place.

___

Dazio reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press reporters Michael R. Sisak in New York and Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia also contributed to this report.
The Chinese embassy has handed over some medical supplies and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) from the First lady of China, Peng Liyuan to the First lady of Ghana, Rebecca Akufo-Addo to continue to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.

The items donated include 66000 nose masks, 240 thermometer guns and some other materials.

The First Lady's Foundation is undoubtedly providing massive assistance to the less privileged especially women and children in various communities during this pandemic.

Making the donation on behalf of the First Lady of China, Zhu Jing, Charge daffaires of the Chinese Embassy in Ghana, said the purpose of the donation is to strengthen the peaceful relation that exists between both countries.

I bring you greetings from the First lady of China, H.E Peng Liyuan. I am glad to do this wonderful donation and I know this donation will help build a strong relationship between the two countries. This year has been a year when we realized how dependent and connected our world is, he said.

Also, Mrs Akufo- Addo expressed her profound gratitude to the First Lady of China for this donation in these critical times.

She said this is not the first time the First Lady of China is supporting African First Ladies.

To her, today is another proof of the warm relationship between Ghana and China.

I am indeed grateful to the First Lady of China. It is, therefore, heartwarming that, in the midst of this pandemic, Ghana and China have supported one another. H. E Peng Liyuan has cooperated with us in the fight to eradicate HIV- AIDS on the continent, she said.

Mrs Akufo- Addo added that today First Ladies are at the forefront of bringing development and positive social change to their people.

 We are all committed to ensuring better lives, especially for our women and children. We will continue to pursue programmes that benefit our women and children. We will continue to cooperate to share ideas and resources with a common understanding that it is in the interest of humanity.

The First. Lady also took the opportunity to implore everyone to continue observing the protocols associated with Covid-19 since the virus is no respecter of persons, nations or continents.

It affects the high and mighty as well as the weak and lowly. It is an equal opportunity offender. Only our collective effort can beat it, she said.

---Daily Guide
There have been more than three million confirmed coronavirus cases and 32,495 deaths here in the United States. And yet some people still refuse to mask up.

How do we change this? How do we convince others to do something that benefits all of us? According to one expert, we must avoid the appearance of disappearing those we asking to help us.

SFGATE's Dan Gentile talked to FBI hostage negotiator Gary Noesner, who explained various techniques to convince people to wear a facial covering.

The first thing, Noesner said, is to address the situation in a non-critical manner.

Remain calm and refrain from displaying a harsh attitude, instead opting to come from a place of genuine curiosity and understanding. Retail Wire's Tom Ryan recently reported that anti-mask shoppers all over the country were being publicly shamed and in return, they resorted to the same tactics. You'll be happy to know that there's a different way to handle the situation.

You might say, Excuse me, could I chat with you for a second? I see that you dont have a mask on, and I know thats a personal choice, and a choice that you need to make. But I have this vulnerability medically. Or my son does. Or my daughter. If not for yourself, you might make others feel more secure,'" Noesner said to Gentile.

COVID CASES: Eighty-five infants have tested positive for COVID-19 in Nueces County



According to Nosener, the "I message" is also a working technique. Instead of blaming the person who is not wearing a mask, make it seem like you're just concerned for yourself. It could work out in your favor if they see how nervous and afraid you are about the virus.

You can also try hearing things from their point of view. Noesner explained that people who are angry often times feel that they're not appreciated, but its really hard to argue with someone whos asking you in a sincerely genuine, very non-confrontational way to share your thoughts on something.

Noesner said you influence by creating a trusting bond with the mask-less individual. Be non-threatening and non-aggressive. You ask them to consider wearing a facial covering, but don't make it seem like they're obligated to do so.

Lastly, Noesner said to accept that there's only so much you can do, and some people won't take necessary precaution until the virus hits home.

"You stay calm and patient and understanding and acknowledge their points of view, and ask them to consider thinking a little differently," Noesner said.

"Thats the best you can do.
The legal and legislative fight over how much insurance companies must pay for coronavirus-related losses is just starting, and it's likely to get uglier.

Why it matters: COVID-19 is, as one insurance industry executive puts it, "the biggest insured loss event in history." For many companies, a successful insurance claim will make the difference between staying in business or going bust.

Where it stands: Insurance lawyers keeping tabs on the litigation say that hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against insurers over coronavirus-related claims  from companies like In-N-Out Burger, the Houston Rockets, and the nonprofit Simon Wiesenthal Center  with scant success so far.

Whats at stake, according to an insurance industry trade group:

COVID-19 could generate $40 to $80 billion in insurance payouts in the U.S., and over $100 billion internationally.

By contrast, 9/11 generated $47 billion, while Hurricane Katrina generated $54 billion.

The big picture: Companies naturally want to recover their losses. That's what insurance is for, in their view. But insurers argue that business interruption policies only cover physical damage  like the kind incurred during floods and fires  and that virus contamination doesn't count.

They also say the industry couldn't possibly afford to foot the bills being tossed at it.

"When the end of the world is coming and were being asked to pay for it, clearly thats not something you can responsibly do," Robert Gordon, SVP of policy, research and international at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, tells Axios.

So far, the handful of decisions that have been handed down in relevant cases have gone against the policy holders  who typically don't have enough money or time to pursue endless litigation against their insurers.

"The insurers are probably likely to prevail in a lot of this," Alexandra Roje, an insurance lawyer at Lathrop GPM, tells Axios. "Does that mean that we should stop fighting the good fight? I say no."

The latest: A showdown is taking shape between the prominent New Orleans attorney John Houghtaling II  who has represented policyholders after Hurricane Katrina and other disasters  and property and casualty insurance companies that say COVID-19 isn't covered under business interruption policies.

Houghtaling has filed lawsuits in California and Louisiana, representing famous chefs like Thomas Keller and Jerome Bocuse. He wants to establish precedent that a vast swath of insurance policies  including ones that don't specifically exclude contagious diseases  should remunerate policyholders.

"We're going to be battling from state to state," he tells Axios.

Insurance companies "give us the absolute lie that pandemics are not insured," he says, pointing to the $16 million payout led by AIG to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in the wake of SARS.

At the same time, a battle is shaping up on Capitol Hill over legislation that would have the federal government backstop insurance companies in the event of a future pandemic.

The Pandemic Risk Insurance Act, which will likely be taken up by the House Financial Services Committee this fall, would set up a public/private insurance system for future pandemics, with the government shouldering most of the risk.

The bill, by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), has the support of some individual companies, but not the broader industry.

The insurance giant Chubb, which said this month that it anticipated $1.4 billion in global coronavirus-related losses for 2Q 2020, recently came out in favor of a public/private partnership (albeit a different plan from Maloney's). Marsh, a giant insurance broker, supports the concept as well.

Nationally, most of the insurance industry supports an alternative proposal that would shift responsibility for pandemic losses onto the federal government, much like the National Flood Insurance Program does.

So far, that proposal hasn't gotten a congressional sponsor.

A key question: How much can the insurance industry truly afford to pay? Critics like Houghtaling say insurers have deeper pockets than they admit. His evidence:

In an April 21 op-ed in the WSJ, Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg said forcing insurers to pay out all pandemic-related claims would "would bankrupt the insurance industry to prop up other parts of the economy," like small business.

In an April 22 earnings call, Greenberg said the coronavirus "will be an earnings event for Chubb. It will not threaten our balance sheet."

Chubb says Houghtaling is conflating issues and taking statements out of context.

The WSJ op-ed described what would happen if insurers had to cover all the claims their policyholders would like to see covered; the earnings call reflected the company's ability to handle the claims it says it owes.

"Paying all business interruption losses (most of which were not insured) will bankrupt the industry, paying insured claims will not," a Chubb spokesperson tells Axios. "We have been clear in all of our statements about this distinction."

What to watch: Expect the confrontations to get brutal and emotional.

And insurance of all kinds will get pricier. The most generous life insurance policies are currently being yanked off the market by companies like Prudential, says Erin Ardleigh, an independent insurance broker in New York City.

of all kinds will get pricier. The most generous life insurance policies are currently being yanked off the market by companies like Prudential, says Erin Ardleigh, an independent insurance broker in New York City. "This would be a good time to lock in what prices you can," she says.

Go deeper:

No, insurance doesn't cover that

Insurers are doing just fine during the coronavirus pandemic
Liquor is not an essential thing, the Supreme Court said on Thursday and dismissed an appeal by Maharashtra Wine Merchants Association (MWMA) against the Bombay High Court order refusing to direct the state to allow over-the-counter sale of liquor in Mumbai. A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R Subhash Reddy and M R Shah said: The High Court has already permitted the petitioner to represent the matter to the Municipal Corporation. We see no reason to entertain this special leave petition. The special leave petition is dismissed.

Advocate Charanjeet Chanderpal, appearing for the MWMA, said a representation was made to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) as directed by the high court but it has not responded as yet.

He urged the top court to fix a time frame on BMC or municipal commission for deciding the representation of the Association.

The counsel said that online sale of liquor has many problems and chances of sale spurious liquor are very high while over-the-counter sale of liquor would prevent such products being sold.

Liquor is not an essential thing. We are not inclined to entertain this plea, the bench 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

On May 29, the high court had refused to quash the BMC's order prohibiting over-the-counter sale of liquor in the city, stating that it was the civic body's policy decision to do so amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

It had refused to quash a notification issued by the civic body on May 22, prohibiting over-the-counter sale of liquor and permitting the use of e-commerce platforms for home delivery of alcohol.

The MWMA in the high court had sought a direction to the state government to permit sale of liquor at wine shops in Mumbai, which is a COVID-19 red zone.

The petition had contended that in cities like Pune and Nashik, where the COVID-19 situation was similar to Mumbai, regular counter sale of retail liquor was being permitted.

The MWMA had contended that the system of online orders and home delivery of liquor was fraught with difficulties and could have an adverse social impact and was also not safe.

The high court, however, said it would be appropriate for the petition to be placed before the city municipal commissioner as a representation.

The municipal commissioner will be able to take an appropriate decision after considering all the factors, the court had said.

"This decision is in the nature of policy. Such a decision entails evaluation of various competing factors. The situation may differ from place to place. The relevant factors can also undergo a change with passage of time," the court had said.
More than 130 local Republican leaders in eight counties publicly rebelled against Mr. Abbott and voted to formally censure him, a stunning rebuke for a politician who easily won re-election in 2018 and who until now has been the most popular Republican in the state. The censure votes were symbolic expressions of disapproval, largely over his statewide mask order. An effort to stiffen the punishment for being censured and to pass a statewide Republican resolution condemning the governor remains in the works.

Mr. Abbott, who faces re-election in 2022, was the first Republican governor of Texas in modern time to be officially reprimanded by a group of Republican county leaders.

We feel that Abbott is going overboard in shutting down the economy, said Lee Lester, the chairman of the Harrison County Republican Party in East Texas, one of the eight counties that censured the governor.

Mr. Lester, a retired insurance salesman who lives near the Louisiana border in a county that has recorded more than 500 coronavirus cases and nearly 70 deaths, said Mr. Abbott needed to start acting like we think he should act, and that is looking at the overall picture  following the facts, not fear tactics.

The divide has been evident in and around Fort Worth, the largest conservative-led city in Texas. Republicans in urban, suburban and rural Texas disagree on how the government should respond to the virus, and on whether masks cross a line.

Mayor Betsy Price of Fort Worth, which has seen an explosion of cases in recent days, expressed empathy rather than criticism for the governor and was as pro-mask as the Democratic mayors of Houston and other major cities. Yall wear a mask, Ms. Price, a Republican, said in a recent public service announcement, through a white mask decorated with the silhouette of a Texas longhorn, the logo of a city whose nickname is Cowtown.

Its been a very measured approach in Fort Worth, not much knee-jerk reaction, she said in an interview. People are very much afraid, and when theyre afraid, they tend to be very critical of things.
The Government's travel advice was changed to "normal precautions" last night, meaning people can now purchase travel insurance when going to places like Greece or Malta.

The government clarification is being welcomed by insurance companies.

The green list of 15 countries which people may travel to and from without having to complete a two-week quarantine upon arrival in the Republic includes Italy, Greece and Malta.

However, it excludes many common destinations for Irish holidaymakers such as Spain and Portugal.
Some of the worlds top consumer goods companies, including Unilever, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo, are worried about the impact of localised lockdowns in India on their business, even as the threat of community transmission of Covid-19 grows in the country. Kerala has confirmed community transmission in the state, despite the central government denying any signs of it in the country.

Indias overall tally of cases has now crossed the 1.2-million-mark, ranked third after the US and Brazil. Localised lockdowns are in place in at least 14 states in the country to tackle the spread ...
The Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) Delhi unit on Thursday said it would launch a protest if the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government did not provide ration to 1 million people, who were yet to receive ration cards, in 15 days.

In April, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had said even those without ration cards would be given free ration. The scheme was discontinued after one month...On May 7, the Delhi HC directed the Delhi government to provide ration to the poor who do not have ration cards. On May 18, the court expressed dissatisfaction over the non-compliance of its order, said a joint statement issued by Lok Sabha MP from East Delhi Gautam Gambhir and Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri.

It said, The Delhi government has not given ration cards to a single poor person while 10 lakh have applied for new ration cards. If the ration cards of these poor people are not issued immediately and free ration is not given to them, then in next 15 days, the BJP would launch a big agitation all over Delhi.

The Aam Aadmi Party did not comment on the matter.
His claim that abolitionist Harriet Tubman, one of U.S. historys greatest heroes, never actually freed the slaves, she just had the slaves go work for other white people, drew boos and catcalls from the mostly African American crowd. But it was just one line in a torrent of nonsense and non sequiturs. West complained that the companies Gap and Adidas have not put him on their boards of directors. He broke down in tears when talking about his late mother. He praised Kardashian West for bringing their daughter North into the world even when I didnt want to. He said he opposed abortion but did not want to ban it, instead proposing to discourage people from terminating pregnancies with cash payments from the government, ranging from $50,000 to everybody that has a baby gets a million dollars.
Talking tough on crime with an election looming, Mr Trump vows to end the "bloodshed".

President Donald Trump is to send "a surge" of federal security forces to US cities in a crackdown on crime.

Chicago and two other Democratic-run cities are being targeted in the Republican president's move, amid a spike in violence.

But federal deployments in Portland, Oregon, have proved controversial. Local officials say they have raised tensions amid ongoing protests.

Law and order has become a key plank of Mr Trump's re-election bid in November.

Since the death on 25 May of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, there have been protests - sometimes descending into civil disorder - in scores of US cities.

Meanwhile, gun violence has spiked in metropolitan areas including New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago and Milwaukee.

What is Operation Legend?

It is named after a four-year-old boy, LeGend Taliferro, who was shot dead while sleeping in his family home in Kansas City in June. The boy's mother joined the president at Wednesday's announcement.

The operation will see agents from the FBI, Marshals Service and other federal agencies work with local law enforcement, according to the US Department of Justice.

Mr Trump - whose opinion poll numbers have been slumping amid a coronavirus-crippled US economy - said: "This rampage of violence shocks the conscience of our nation."

The president, who accuses Democrats of being weak on crime, said: "In recent weeks there has been a radical movement to defend, dismantle and dissolve our police department."

He blamed this for "a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence". He added: "This bloodshed will end."

US Attorney General William Barr, who was with Mr Trump, said they had sent about 200 federal agents to Kansas City, Missouri. They would send a "comparable" number to Chicago and about 35 others to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Mr Barr said the officers would be involved in "classic crime fighting", unlike the deployment of Department of Homeland Security agents which were sent to "defend against riots and mob violence" in Portland.

However policing in the US is the responsibility of states, and governors and locals officials have resisted the deployment of federal agents.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown has called it "a blatant abuse of power," and Portland's Mayor Ted Wheeler "an attack on our democracy."

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said on Tuesday: "We welcome actual partnership, but we do not welcome dictatorship."

What is going on in those cities?

On Tuesday night, federal agents fired tear gas, pepper balls and flashbangs at demonstrators in Portland, which has seen 54 consecutive nights of protests.

The officers used crowd-control munitions to disperse hundreds of people gathered outside a federal court.

The agents have been accused of driving in unmarked vehicles around Oregon's biggest city while wearing military fatigues and arbitrarily arresting a handful of demonstrators.

In the latest incident in Chicago, at least 14 people were shot outside a funeral home in a suspected gang-related attack.

The city has seen 34% more homicides than last year, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

A 2018 FBI survey found the violent crime rate in Albuquerque was 3.7 times the national average. The rates of murder and rape were more than double the national average that year.

Kansas City, meanwhile, is on track to record its most homicides ever in 2020, according to the Kansas City Star. The city has now seen 110 homicides, with another 50 recorded across the greater metro area. BBC
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This week President Trump released a memo meant to stop unauthorized immigrants from being included in the census numbers, which are used to apportion seats in Congress. If he were to have his way -- which looks unlikely -- California could take a big hit politically.

But Trump's wishes aside, a new study from Claremont McKenna College predicts that California could lose two representatives anyway, simply because the state's population growth has slowed and immigration into California has declined.

That team, led by research affiliate Douglas Johnson, predicts one seat would likely be taken from the San Gabriel Valley, which has grown particularly slowly over the last decade.

The loss of one seat has been predicted for some time, but lately it's looking more dire: According to new calculations from data firm ESRI, the margin for California to lose a second seat is only 1,300 people -- and that's assuming every Californian completes the census, something that's not likely to happen.

Using that information. and looking at regional population growth, Johnson's team ran a model to predict which California district could be the second loss in that worst-case scenario. They identified the 49th district, stretching from Dana Point to Del Mar, as one possibility.

"It's on the border of Orange County and San Diego, so it's getting pressure from both sides," Johnson said. If either county loses population as reported in the census, they may need to balance out neighboring districts by absorbing constituents from the 49th.

"Some area is going to lose their voice in D.C. and be grouped together with a larger area and no one wants that," he said.

Johnson said that people living in the 49th should be particularly motivated to get counted in the census if they want to preserve their district.

Rep. Mike Levin (D-San Juan Capistrano) speaks at a car caravan in Oceanside. (Caroline Champlin/LAist)

Last weekend, Mike Levin, a Democrat who currently represents the 49th, participated in a car caravan to drum up census support. He drove through Oceanside along with several vintage car owners, who honked horns and shouted census-related slogans.

Levin is aware of the risk to the 49th, but isn't taking it too seriously...yet.

"It's premature," Levin said. "Talk to me in a year."

At this point, Levin said he's more interested in the federal funding that census participation provides. But if the California Citizens Redistricting Commission does consider cutting up the 49th, Levin said they'd be dividing a cohesive community.

"I think I represent the most beautiful district in the United States, 52 miles of Pacific. People (here) care very deeply about our beaches, our air, our water," Levin said. "Last I saw, we have the second highest percentages of veterans in the United States."

Chema Navarro, an Oceanside resident, came out to the car caravan in her light pink 1957 Lincoln Premiere. She's heard about the possibility of California losing a seat in Congress, and the possible threat to the 49th.

"California is huge and we need to do everything possible to conserve what we've got already," Navarro said.

Ultimately, the fate of the district will be in the hands of the still-forming redistricting commission. This week the first eight members of the team were sworn in; they're now training to learn how to make major redistricting decisions fairly.

But even the commission can't stop a district from being removed -- that will depend on how many Californians participate in the census.
LANSING, MI  New standards limiting how much toxic forever chemicals known as PFAS can be in Michigans public drinking water will take effect after a legislative committee adjourned without taking action to block or change them.

The enforceable rules, which set low limits on fluorochemicals like PFOS and PFOA and require regular testing, are expected to impact about 2,700 utilities, schools, hospitals and large businesses in Michigan that provide water to the public.

The requirements should take effect Aug. 3, after Secretary of State Jocelyn Bensons office formally receives the rules from the state administrative hearings office.

All Michiganders deserve to know that were prioritizing their health and are continuing to work every day to protect the water coming out of their taps, said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in a Wednesday, July 22 statement.

Michigan is once again leading the way nationally in fighting PFAS contamination by setting our own science-based drinking water standard. As a result, we will be better protecting Michiganders across our state, Whitmer said.

Whitmer, a Democrat, ordered the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) to begin drafting maximum contaminant levels, or MCLs, last spring for seven different PFAS compounds following toxicology reviews that started in 2018 under Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican.

The new limits (in parts-per-trillion, or ppt) are: PFNA (6-ppt); PFOA (8-ppt); PFOS (16-ppt); PFHxS (51-ppt); GenX (370-ppt); PFBS (420-ppt); PFHxA (400,000-ppt).

The chemicals are considered harmful at the low parts-per-trillion level in the bodies of people exposed and can increase the risk of kidney and testicular cancer, suppress the bodys immune system response and cause pregnancy complications and low birth weight.

They have been found at some level in public water serving about 1.9 million people in Michigan.

The standards represent Michigans first effort to regulate a chemical in drinking water without involvement of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which traditionally develops nationwide standards that individual states adopt.

The EPA has resisted calls to move more quickly toward creating national drinking water standard for PFAS chemicals under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Thats prompted states like Michigan, New Jersey, New Hampshire and others to develop their own standards.

Two of Michigans limits, for PFOA and PFNA, are the lowest of any similar state-level PFAS standards around the country.

Sen. Peter Lucido, R-Shelby Township, addressed the EPAs lack of action while chairing the state legislatures Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) meeting on Wednesday. The committee was the last potential snag for the proposed rules but it adjourned without taking action.

The committee had 15 session days to act on the rules after a controversial panel created by Republicans to oversee environmental rulemaking advanced them in February.

Im very upset the federal government hasnt come up with a unified federal standard, Lucido said at the meeting, during which JCAR heard testimony from EGLE and groups like the Michigan Environmental Council, Natural Resources Defense Council and Michigan Manufacturers Association (MMA), the latter of which has steadfastly opposed the rules.

Do you think this rule is being moved too fast? Lucido asked MMA environmental affairs director Dave Greco  the only person besides EGLE staff to whom committee members asked a question. Do you think all the outcomes are not being fully explored?

I think you hit the nail on the head, responded Greco. We havent taken enough time to evaluate everything.

The MMA is concerned about ancillary impacts of the proposed standards on PFAS cleanups. The new standards would replace groundwater cleanup standards for PFOS and PFOA with the new lower limits. The standards for those two chemicals had been 70-ppt. Other chemicals on Michigans new MCL list would have to go through a formal process before they could be used as enforceable criteria at toxic sites.

Anna Reade, a staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, called on Michigan to regulate PFAS as a class rather than dealing with individual compounds.

The current crisis we are facing demonstrates that individual chemical management is not an effective approach for controlling widespread exposure to this large group of chemicals with known and potential hazards, Reade said. Moving beyond individual chemical management is critical to properly addressing the unique contamination crisis presented by PFAS.

EGLE says the new standards will also result in 42 new sites being added into the states portfolio of ongoing PFAS investigations. Half of those sites are landfills and more than a dozen are former plating or manufacturing sites.

EGLE estimates Michigan water supplies that serve more than 25 people would collectively have to spend about $11 million installing treatment and $6.4 million to test for PFAS during the first year. Water systems can test for PFAS annually unless existing data or new testing shows detections in the system. Those systems would have to test quarterly. Compliance would be based on a running average of detections.

The regulations would not directly impact households which draw groundwater from a private well because the state lacks authority to require that homeowners test their own water.

Weve communicated with many of these public water systems along with other stakeholders during the period we were developing these rules so this change in status will not come as a surprise, said Steve Sliver, director of the Michigan PFAS Action Response Team within EGLE.

The PFAS levels previously detected at these sites and supplies have not necessarily changed, but the states regulations have become much more protective and give us a new tool in our shared mission of protecting peoples drinking water, Sliver said.

In anticipation of these new rules, EGLE says many public water supplies have already acted to reduce PFAS levels in their drinking water. State agencies like EGLE and the Department of Health and Human Services say they will help systems bring their water into compliance over the next several months.

Related stories:

Michigan collects 30k gallons of toxic PFAS firefighting foam

Air Force plans new cleanup at Wurtsmith base

3M to pay $55M in Michigan PFAS settlement

Advocates petition EPA to regulate PFAS as hazardous waste

Whitmer signs bills regulating PFAS foam use at fire stations
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto said on Wednesday that a resurgence in coronavirus cases in Catalonia was coming under control, adding that she hoped this meant there would be no need for neighbouring France to close the border.

"With the latest data we have in Aragon and Catalonia we are a bit more optimistic. Catalonia has already reduced the number of infections over the last three days," Maroto told an event organised by Europa Press news agency.

"Let's hope that with these better data we don't have to close a border that for us is very important for mobility with our European partners."

(Reporting by Emma Pinedo; Writing by Ingrid Melander)
New Delhi, July 23 : Strengthening Indo-US economic ties during COVID-19 pandemic has salvaged plan of Petronet LNG Ltd. (PLL) to invest $2.5 billion in US LNG developer Tellurian's upcoming Driftwood terminal in Louisiana.

An MoU inked over the proposed deal expired on May 31 raising doubts over PLL's interest in the project that would deliver first set of gas to Indian shores only by FY24.

Sources have said that PLL has renewed its initial deal with Tellurian that gives both sides time till December to reach final agreement and conclude the investment plan.

The renewal was done last week ahead of a virtual meeting between Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and US Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette where the two sides reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthen Indo-US strategic energy partnership.

Doubts about the deal surfaced as spot LNG prices have now crashed to about $2 per million British thermal unit (mmBtu) and gas is widely available in the market.

It would have made little sense sign an agreement committing to pay on sea price of $3.5 to $4.5 per mmBtu for 40 years for the gas at this juncture. However, sources said diplomacy prevailed over economic rationale to move forward on the deal that would bring long term gains for India.

It is expected that PLL renegotiate the whole investment deal given the current the market conditions.

PLL officials could not be reached for comments.

In September 2019, a non-binding memorandum of understanding was signed between PLL and Tellurian that gave the Indian entity PLL option to buy 5 million tonne per annum (mtpa) LNG from Tellurian's Driftwood project on the banks of Calcasieu river in Louisiana.

In return, Petronet was to also spend $2.5 billion for an 18 per cemt equity stake in the $28 billion Driftwood LNG terminal.

The term of the MoU was to expire on March 31, which was extended to May 31 in February.

But with the expiry of second deadline for converting the MoU into a definitive agreement, doubts surfaced whether the deal, that also saw involvement of top government functionaries for both Indian as the US, will go through.

"The Tellurian deal is still under board consideration and cannot comment now. MoU has expired but may be extended. Status will be known this year," PLL said during an analyst call last month.

The Tellurian deal, if concluded, will be first long term LNG deal under the Modi government since 2014.

The previous long term gas supply deals were signed before 2014.

The deal for 7.5 mtpa of LNG from Qatar, 1.44 mtpa from Australia, 2.2mtpa from Russia and 5.8 mtpa from US were concluded by the previous UPA government.

The landed price of some of the earlier concluded long term LNG supply deals is higher at $9-10 per mmBtu that is being renegotiated by PLL now.

Under the Tellurian deal, first set of gas from Driftwood project would reach Indian shores only by FY24.

As per analyst presentations given by Tellurian, the first phase of the 27.6 million tonne per annum (mtpa) Driftwood project will be able to deliver LNG only in 2023.

This would have meant that Petronet would have to wait for LNG under long term contract from the US project for four long years.

The wait is long given competitively priced LNG is available in plenty in the spot market to meet immediate energy needs of the country.

The Driftwood project is a proposed LNG terminal where actual construction work is yet to start.

Though Tellurian has appointed Bechtel as the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) partner for the project, it is still waiting for investment commitments from partners for starting construction work.

So far only French energy major total has committed to invest $500 in the project for 2 mtpa of LNG.

Sources said of the 5 mtpa proposed contracted quantity, Petronet may not get even fully capacity from the first phase 11 mtpa Driftwood project to be ready for delivery by 2023.

As the US project is proposed to be constructed in four phases, sources said full capacity may not be reached before 2030. By then gas market may belooking lot different and may make Petronet's investment unproductive.

For Petronet, another issue of concern would be mobilising huge investment commitment of $2.5 billion for Driftwood. With a cash and reserves of just over Rs 8,500 crore, it would have to look at other means of funding its US investment commitment.

The government could either rope in more PSUs to fund theproject with Petronet or permit it to tap overseas market to raise cheap funds.

Tellurian is selling 51 per cent holding in Driftwood to third parties while it itself would retain 49 per cent stake or control over 13.6 mtpa of LNG. Tellurian expects to generate $8 per share cash flow from the project.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
A day after deactivating his Twitter and Facebook accounts, actor Samir Soni has lashed out at Kangana Ranaut and her team for subjecting him to brutal abuse and harassment.

Samir and Kangana's team recently got into a war of words on Twitter after the former slammed the actress for using late Bollywood star Sushant Singh Rajput's death to further her personal agenda. Following which, Samir was massively trolled by Kangana's supporters online.

Speaking to CNN-News18, Samir said, "The last 3-4 days have been a complete hell for me. I just made a statement on a channel that 'it seems like Kangana is shooting off a dead man's shoulder in terms of how she is fulfilling her agenda using Sushant as an excuse,' and I have since been threatened, hounded and trolled by team Kangana. I had to go off my Twitter and Facebook. Forget the so-called Bollywood mafias, Im more scared of Team Kangana at this point. They threaten just because you have a different opinion. I haven't even called her any names."

#Alert | At this point, Im more scared of Team Kangana than the Bollywood mafia. They have been threatening me because I have a difference in opinion. She is putting herself into the news by making these statements and generalisations: Actor Samir Soni tells @shreyadhoundial. pic.twitter.com/VVrparvHyA CNNNews18 (@CNNnews18) July 23, 2020

In a recent explosive interview with Republic TV, Kangana alleged that Sushant was a victim of nepotism prevalent in Bollywood and Yash Raj Films' head honcho Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar systematically sidelined the late actor. She also slammed Mumbai Police for not officially summoning her in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case.

However, Samir said he is not able to understand why Kangana should be called to join the probe as Sushant had no relation with her whatsoever.

"As far as Sushant's death's investigation is concerned, why should police summon Kangana? Is she Sushant's sister? Is she a manager? Is she his closest friend? She is pretty much putting herself into the news by making these statements, generalisations, and allegations on some really celebrated people in the country without any evidence. My wife (Neelam Kothari) has been abused. They do exactly what they accuse the Bollywood mafias of doing. Tomorrow if I do something to myself, will she (Kangana) be held responsible for this? I live in fear right now. You can't just shoot your mouth off without being responsible or accountable."

Sushant passed away on June 14. The actor died by suicide, Mumbai police confirmed.

This news piece may be triggering. If you or someone you know needs help, call any of these helplines: Aasra (Mumbai) 022-27546669, Sneha (Chennai) 044-24640050, Sumaitri (Delhi) 011-23389090, Cooj (Goa) 0832- 2252525, Jeevan (Jamshedpur) 065-76453841, Pratheeksha (Kochi) 048-42448830, Maithri (Kochi) 0484-2540530, Roshni (Hyderabad) 040-66202000, Lifeline 033-64643267 (Kolkata).
Business Secretary Alok Sharma overrode the concerns of his senior official as the Government took a 400 million stake in the failed satellite company OneWeb.

The UK is part of a consortium with India's Bharti Global which won a bidding war for the company earlier this month, despite it going bankrupt in March amid the coronavirus pandemic, while trying to develop a space network to deliver broadband.

If successful, it would be the first megaconsellation, which is a grouping of satellites that could provide millions of people with broadband.

Ministers hope it will compensate for the loss of access to the EU's Galileo programme in the wake of Brexit.

But Sam Beckett, the acting permanent secretary at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy raised serious concerns about the purchase.

MP's have now launched an inquiry into the move, after Parliament's business committee chief Darren Jones branded the deal a gamble.

Just 74 satellites in an initial network of 648 had been launched when OneWeb announced it was seeking bankruptcy protection - with most experts believing a further 2.35 billion at least is needed to bring the full constellation into use.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma ignored civil servant warning to push ahead with the 400 million purchase of a bankrupt satellite firm

Taking off: The Government will invest about 400m in Oneweb and take a significant share in the company

However, Mr Sharma overruled the concerns of Ms Beckett to push ahead with the deal.

Ms Beckett had told the minsiter that an assessment by the UK Space Agency had identified 'substantial technical and operational hurdles' that OneWeb would need to overcome in order to become a 'viable and profitable business'.

There was a 'high likelihood' that further taxpayer funding would be required to complete OneWeb's satellite constellation.

Ms Beckett said: 'I completely understand your, the Prime Minister's and the Chancellor's interest in wider benefits such as the potential long-term geopolitical advantages for foreign policy and soft power that would come with sovereign ownership of a fleet of satellites.

'Moreover, I do not underestimate the potential opportunity that this investment represents for UK interests globally.

'It would be the first megaconstellation operator, if it succeeds, and would have the potential to connect millions of people, in particular those in remote, rural locations without broadband access.'

But it was an 'unusual' purchase for government and there were significant risks.

'While in one scenario we could get a 20% return, the central case is marginal and there are significant downside risks, including that venture capital investments of this sort can fail, with the consequence that all the value of the equity can be lost.'

Sam Beckett, the acting permanent secretary at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy raised serious concerns about the purchase

A Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle takes-off with another 34 OneWeb satellites from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan

A scale model of an Airbus OneWeb satellite, which ministers hope can help compensate for the loss of access to the EU's Galileo programme in the wake of Brexit

She said he could not be sure that the investment met Whitehall's strict value-for-money requirements and so requested a formal order, a ministerial direction, from Mr Sharma to proceed.

Mr Sharma told her that 'even with substantial haircuts to OneWeb's base case financial projections the investment would have a positive return'.

As well as the benefits of improved broadband access, the scheme could signal 'UK ambition and influence on the global stage'.

Darren Jones, chairman of the Commons Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee said: 'The Secretary of State's use of a ministerial direction to push through the purchase of a stake in OneWeb against the advice of his own permanent secretary heightens concerns around this investment and about the prospects of this delivering UK jobs and value for taxpayers' money.

'It also prompts further questions about how the Government arrived at this decision and how it came to plump for this largely US-based bankrupt satellite company.'

He said that 'now more than ever', the Government needs to ensure that its spending taxpayers' money as 'prudently and wisely as possible'.

'Using nearly half a billion pounds of taxpayers' money to gamble on a 'commercial opportunity' whilst still failing to support manufacturing jobs with a sector deal is both troubling and concerning.'

The UK and mobile operator Bharti are each investing 500 million US dollars (400 million), with Britain acquiring a 'significant equity stake' in the company.

It will enable OneWeb, which has its headquarters in London and a manufacturing base in Florida, to complete the construction of a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites providing enhanced broadband and other services to countries around the world.
S pain could be about to be taken off the British government's list of countries Brits can travel to "safely" following a recent surge in coronavirus cases, according to reports.

The Government created "air bridges" with 76 countries, including Spain, earlier in July - meaning people living in the UK can travel to those countries without having to quarantine for 14 days on their return.

But Spain has seen a spike in coronavirus infections in recent weeks, with around 200 local outbreaks and nearly 4,600 new cases on Monday.

And the Government is considering pulling up the "air bridge" with Spain, the Sun reported on Wednesday, citing sources in the civil service - in what would be a huge blow to many British holidaymakers.

People enjoy the sunny weather at Barceloneta beach, after Catalonia's regional authorities and the city council announced restrictions to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease / REUTERS

A decision will reportedly be made in the next few days, as well as on all the other countries with "air bridges" to the UK. The Government could also ditch the three-week review period in favour of a continuous checking process.

Several parts of Spain have been forced to reimpose local restrictions, after suffering spikes in coronavirus cases in recent weeks. It comes as tourists from around the world, including from the UK, have started booking summer holidays to the country.

Although there are 76 countries where people don't need to quarantine when they come back to the UK, there are just 25 where Brits don't have to quarantine on arrival.

People dance at Barceloneta beach / REUTERS

These include tourist hotspots like Spain, France and Germany. Portugal could soon also be added to the list as the country's coronavirus infection rates have slowed.

The Department for Transport has been contacted for comment.
News

'Double Key Encryption' for Securing Microsoft 365 Data Hits Preview

To protect Microsoft 365 application data, Microsoft this week launched a preview of its new Double Key Encryption solution, in which one key gets stored in Microsoft Azure datacenters, accessible to Microsoft, while the other key is stored by the customer.

Here's how Double Key Encryption was described in an announcement by Alm Rayani, senior director of Microsoft 365:

Double Key Encryption for Microsoft 365 uses two keys to protect your data, with one key in your control and the second in Microsoft's control. To view the data, one must have access to both keys. Since Microsoft can access only one key, your data and key are unavailable to Microsoft, helping to ensure the privacy and security of your data.

Double Key Encryption comes on top of existing encryption schemes for customer data, which happen when the data is stored in Microsoft's datacenters ("at rest") and when the data is in transit.

Double Key Encryption is described by Microsoft as being different from the Microsoft Information Protection service, which lets organizations label and protect access to sensitive files. Organizations that are "highly regulated," such as financial and health care organizations, can use the Double Key Encryption service to stay compliant with regulations, including European Union GDPR data residency requirements, Microsoft's announcement suggested.

Here's how the announcement expressed that notion:

You can move your highly sensitive data to the cloud and be confident about preventing third-party access as you maintain full control of your key. Double Key Encryption allows you to store your data and key in the same location and help meet regulatory requirements across several regulations and standards such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), Russia's data localization law  Federal Law No. 242-FZ, Australia's Federal Privacy Act 1988, and New Zealand's Privacy Act 1993.

Azure Information Protection Dependency

Oddly, Double Key Encryption has a dependency on using the Azure Information Protection unified labeling client for labeling protected data. "DKE works with sensitivity labels and requires Azure Information Protection," a Microsoft overview document explained. Additionally, Microsoft 365 E5 licensing is required.

What's odd about the Azure Information Protection client dependency is that Microsoft had announced in March that "the AIP client (classic) will be sunsetting on March 31, 2021." Microsoft wants organizations to transition to using the Microsoft Information Protection service instead. Why organizations would need to use a client that's subject to deprecation next year to use the new Double Key Encryption preview wasn't explained.

The previews also can only be used by members of Microsoft's Office Insider Program. Microsoft also offered this E5 Compliance trial link to try Double Key Encryption.

Azure Protections

Microsoft has somewhat similar protections available for users of Azure services.

Microsoft already has an Azure Key Vault protection scheme for Azure services that was commercially released five years ago. It's designed for developers and chief security officers to assure regulatory compliance with software-as-a-service applications. Apparently, Azure Key Vault depends on a single key, stored in Azure datacenters, that's "designed so that Microsoft does not see or extract your keys," according to a Microsoft description of Azure Key Vault.

Also on the Azure side, Microsoft has an Azure Confidential Computing security solution that's designed to protect sensitive data when it gets processed on Azure datacenters. Azure Confidential Computing was described back at the preview stage as protecting data against "malicious insiders" with administrative privileges, external hackers exploiting software flaws, plus third parties.
WASHINGTON  For the past month, thousands of production workers at a key U.S. Navy shipbuilding facility have been on strike as federal mediators and union leaders struggle to settle a contracting dispute.

Nearly 4,300 workers at Bath Iron Works in Maine went on strike on June 22 following a decision by the company to expand its use of low-wage and out-of-state contractors. Bath Iron Works, a subsidiary of defense giant General Dynamics, contends its aim is to streamline the hiring of subcontractors.

The shipyard, which has delivered more than 425 vessels, builds the U.S. Navy's Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, which are considered the workhorse of America's fleet. And while the shipyard represents a vital component of U.S. defense manufacturing, the production site has recently missed out on lucrative Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security contracts.

The worker standoff comes as Bath Iron Works struggles to meet Pentagon contract delivery deadlines. The company is currently operating on a year-long delay, with the worker strike as well as the coronavirus further complicating logistics and production timetables.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon awarded Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri Marine $5.5 billion to develop the U.S. Navy's newest class of warships. According to the U.S. Navy contract, the Italian Fregata Europea Multi-Missione, or FREMM, multimission warship will be built at Fincantieri's shipyard in Marinette, Wisconsin.

"This is one example of why the company wants to supplement the work at the yard by bringing in more contractors," a person familiar with the company's plan told CNBC. "This is an effort to get the yard back to being competitive and to catch up on its delivery schedule," said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

As union workers take to the sidelines, forfeiting pay and health-care coverage, the company's production line has hummed along.
(Natural News) In its battle against the deadly Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), South Korea has increasingly adopted digital tools to keep its outbreak under control. However, one of the tools it is using was found to have several major security flaws that have made users private information vulnerable to hackers.

Though the defects have since been fixed, experts say that they could have let attackers retrieve the names and locations of people under quarantine. In addition, they could have also allowed hackers to tamper with the data to make it look like users of the app were violating quarantine orders or still in quarantine despite having gone somewhere else.

In April, authorities in South Korea began requiring all visitors and residents arriving from outside the country to isolate themselves for two weeks. To assist in monitoring compliance, authorities had them install an app whose name in Korean translates to Sel-Quarantine Safety Protection.

Anyone caught violating the quarantines, through the app or otherwise, might be required to wear tracking wristbands or pay steep fines.

By June, the app, which tracks users locations to ensure that they remain in quarantine areas, has been download by more than 162,000 people.

South Koreas app used unsecure encryption

The security flaws in the app were discovered by Frederic Rechenstein. The Seoul-based software engineer had just returned from a trip abroad, which resulted in his quarantine. In his boredom, he had decided to take a look at the apps code to see how it works, leading to his discovery of the security flaws.

According to Rechenstein, the app was assigning users easily guessable ID numbers. This meant that hackers could easily figure out a users credentials and use it to access their data.

In addition, he stated that the apps developers had used an insecure form of encryption to scramble the apps communications with the central server where data was stored.

Instead of using HTTPS, the security standard used by most other apps, the quarantine apps encryption key, was directly into its code. This meant that the code never changed depending on the message being sent of the user sending it. Even worse, the key used was far from random: It was just 1234567890123456.

These security flaws meant that it would be quite easy for hackers to steal a users data once they got the key.

In addition, these security flaws would have also allowed hackers to make it look like a user was breaking quarantine rules by making unauthorized trips out of their homes. On the other hand, a hacker under quarantine could also use it to make it look like he was staying at home, even if he was making trips outside.

South Korean authorities apologize, fix app in an update

In response to the discovery of the flaw, South Korean authorities have apologized, admitting that the speedy rollout of the app was the main reason the flaws werent found before its release.

We were really in a hurry to make and deploy this app as quickly as possible to help slow down the spread of the virus, admitted Jung Chan-hyun, an official at the Ministry of the Interior and Safetys disaster response division, which oversees the app. We could not afford a time-consuming security check on the app that would delay its deployment.

The ministry has since fixed the security flaws in the latest version of the app via an update released last week. In addition, officials have also stated that they had not received any reports of personal information being stolen using the app.

Security flaws have also been found in other countrys coronavirus apps

South Korea is far from the only country that has turned to smartphone apps to help fight the coronavirus. Other countries have done the same as well.

Just like in South Korea, however, some of these countrys apps have also come under scrutiny following the discovery of security flaws in them.

This spring, a report by The New York Times found that a coronavirus tracking app used in the Indian state of Maharashtra could leak users precise location. This prompted the government to resolve the problem.

A similar thing also happened in Qatar, where the countrys own mandatory contact tracing app was found to have security flaws that could leak the personal details of Qatari citizens to hackers.

While the Qatari authorities were quick to fix this issue, it was a huge security weakness and a fundamental flaw in Qatars contact tracing app that malicious attackers could have easily exploited. This vulnerability was especially worrying given use of the EHTERAZ app was made mandatory last Friday, said Claudio Guarnieri, Head of Amnesty Internationals Security Lab, which found the flaws.

Australia too suffered similar issues with its coronavirus contact tracing app. Not only did vulnerabilities in the app leave users data open to being stolen by hackers, but the app itself was also found to be vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks.

The Australian government has since tightened restrictions around the data in the app.

These issues with coronavirus apps highlight the risks of quickly pushing technology in the fight to stop the pandemic. In a rush to get these apps out, certain issues may be getting overlooked, leaving users data vulnerable to hacking.

Learn more about how governments around the world are using technology to slow the spread of the coronavirus at Pandemic.news.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

NYTimes.com 1

NYTimes.com 2

Amnesty.org
New Jerseys top law enforcement official said the state should be spending more, not less money to improve policing, as activists nationwide push cities to divert money from departments in the wake of George Floyds death.

The challenge when I hear defund the police is: I need more funding, state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said Wednesday during a webinar on police reform. Beefing up training was more important than ever, he said, especially when it came to preparing cops to interact with people having psychiatric episodes.

Immediately withdrawing these types of resources from law enforcement puts them in an untenable position, he said, at least until the state improved its mental health care and created other agencies to respond to residents in crisis.

At the same time, Grewal said the state needed to embrace reforms to combat a national systemic racism pandemic.

The comments came as the State Police face new questions about the shooting death of an unarmed man who had talked about being possessed and having paranormal experiences, and after New Jerseys largest city moved to shift more than $11 million out of its public safety budget.

Grewal was joined on the webinar by J. Scott Thomson, the former head of Camdens police department, and Vanita Gupta, who used to lead the U.S. Department of Justices Civil Rights Division.

Thomson highlighted Camdens restrictive force policy, and he said increasing their departments size ultimately helped lower crime. He agreed hiring more cops was not the way to solve complex problems like homelessness, but he said officers were currently the only people who could quickly help a 911 caller in the middle of the night, regardless of the emergency.

Gupta highlighted reforms shes pushed for in Congress, including a national use-of-force standard and increased federal oversight of local departments. Years of poor funding for schools and health care had not only hurt Black communities, she said, but put unnecessary pressure on cops facing the poverty and crime those failed systems can create.

Grewal also highlighted ongoing reforms.

New Jersey will soon require all cops to be licensed and is rolling out a database to allow the public to track how local cops use force, and officials are asking for public feedback to re-write the rules for when officers are allowed to use pepper spray, guns and other types of force. Grewal recently endorsed releasing cops disciplinary records, and he is fighting police unions in court to release names of some disciplined officers.

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Blake Nelson can be reached at bnelson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BCunninghamN.

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Hagia Sophia to host Islamic leaders for Friday prayer Emir of Qatar and Libyan PM Sarraj expected, Balkans presence

(ANSAmed) - ISTANBUL, JULY 23 - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has invited various international leaders to the first Islamic prayer to take place on Friday at the Hagia Sophia following the symbolic Istanbul monument's reconversion into a mosque after 86 years as a museum.



Among the heads of state and government expected to attend are the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, and the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev. Among those also expected to attend are Fayez al-Sarraj, prime minister of the UN-recognized Libyan government of national unity, of which Turkey is the major military supporter, as well as various leaders from African countries in the Sahel area.(ANSAmed).




Study results documenting parental hesitancy to begin and complete their child's HPV vaccine series were published in The Lancet Public Health by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

Based on survey data from the 2017-2018 National Immunization Study, the research team discovered that of the estimated 4.3 million children who were not vaccinated against the human papillomavirus (HPV), nearly 60% of their parents had no intention to initiate the vaccine series. In certain states (Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Utah), vaccine hesitancy was even higher at more than 65%.

"The hesitancy of parents to protect their child against HPV is troubling because improving HPV vaccination coverage is our only option to curb the rising burden of cancers caused by this virus," said Kalyani Sonawane, PhD, the study's first and corresponding author and an assistant professor at UTHealth School of Public Health. "The silver lining here is that these reasons are addressable. Health care providers can play a vital role in combatting misinformation by educating parents about HPV vaccine safety and benefits, and they can also emphasize the importance of series completion."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends a two-dose vaccination regimen for children if the first dose is received before age 15, or a three-dose regimen if the series is started between ages 16 and 26.

The research team completed a cross-sectional study using responses from parents and caregivers of 82,297 U.S. children ages 13 to 17. The study also reported that parents of 1 in 4 adolescents who received their first HPV vaccine dose did not intend to complete the series. In Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Utah, and West Virginia, more than 30% of parents reported their teen would not receive subsequent vaccine doses to complete the series. For parents of children who received one dose but failed to complete the full series, the most common cause cited was lack of a recommendation from a health care provider.

Data from the CDC has suggested that HPV is responsible for 34,800 new cancer diagnoses yearly. More than 90% of all cervical and anal cancers, more than 60% of all penile cancers, and approximately 70% of all oral cancers are caused by HPV, a common and highly contagious sexually transmitted infection. However, current vaccination rates reveal that just over half of U.S. teens (51.1%) are fully vaccinated. The current vaccine provides protection against nearly 90% of cancer-causing HPV infections.

Our findings suggest that parental reluctance to complete HPV vaccine series for their teen might be a major impediment to achieving the Healthy People 2020 goal of 80% coverage." Ashish A. Deshmukh, PhD, MPH, senior author and an assistant professor at UTHealth School of Public Health
It is now compulsory to wear a face covering when you visit a supermarket, indoor shopping centre, coffee shop, or bank in England - but you will not be required to wear one when visiting a pub, restaurant, cinema or hairdresser.

It is also mandatory to wear face coverings on public transport - unless you meet one of the few exceptions - but until recently only essential journeys were permitted, so many people may not yet have had to adhere to the new rules.

Members of staff in shops will not have to wear face masks while they are working, but all customers are legally obliged to in order to reduce the risk of coronavirus spread.

For months ministers in England said face coverings were not essential. Even on 12 July, 24 hours before Matt Hancock confirmed the new rules, Conservative minister Michael Gove said people should rely on common sense and not force people to wear them.

But in the face of mounting evidence supporting their efficacy (and other countries adopting mask policies) the government position has shifted. Numerous studies have now confirmed the benefits of wearing masks in stopping asymptomatic spread of the virus.

So now the rules have changed - what happens if you break them?

What happens if you dont wear a mask?

A study by Cambridge University, says even basic homemade masks can reduce transmission - and help prevent a second spike. A separate study, from the University of Edinburgh, suggested that a face covering could help reduce the spread of coronavirus from people who are carriers.

A study in The Lancet on 3 June, which analysed data from 172 studies in 16 countries, found that by wearing a face mask there is just a 3 per cent chance of catching COVID-19. And on 8 July, Oxford University's Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, published a study, with the message "face masks and coverings work - act now".

Aside from increasing your risk of virus transmission, not wearing a mask could land you with a 100 fine. Those who pay within 14 days can have this reduced to 50.

Will the police be involved in enforcement?

On 22 July Metropolitan police chief Dame Cressida Dick said officers will only enforce the wearing of masks in a shop as a last resort and that she hoped people will be shamed into using them rather than having to be fined.

Thames Valley, and Devon and Cornwall police say officers will only attend non-wearing incidents if they become violent.

Previously the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) suggested officers would only intervene over face masks as a last resort.

Will shop workers report me?

The government has said the new rules will not be enforced by shop workers, who should instead encourage compliance.

Andrew Goodacre, CEO of the British Independent Retailer Association, said: This is not the role of retailers, and we would be concerned any such enforcement may lead to a further increase in the number of threats and abuse shop workers in the UK are currently experiencing.

Some shops have already issued statements on their face mask policies in store:

Sainsburys has said it will not challenge customers as it is worried people may have reason not to wear a mask.

Waitrose said: We're asking customers in our English and Scottish stores to wear a face covering while shopping. All customers  apart from children under 11 and those with disabilities or breathing difficulties - should wear a face mask, scarf or other covering.

Co-op said: The health and safety of Co-op colleagues, customers and members is our priority. In line with new laws set out by the Government, it will be mandatory to wear a face covering to cover the nose and mouth when shopping in Co-op stores in England from 24th July.

Aldi said: In accordance with the recent government announcement, from the 24th July, it will be mandatory for all customers (with certain exceptions) shopping in our English stores to wear a face covering for the duration of their visit.

Lidl said it is the responsibility of individuals and should be enforced by police or council workers

Tesco said: To help keep you and our colleagues safe in-store and reflect the latest government guidance, customers will be required to wear face coverings while shopping from Friday, 24 July. Face coverings will be available to purchase in-store and online (while stocks last).

Should I report other people?

On Thursday, 12 hours before the rules were introduced, Downing Street said it does not expect members of the public to report other people not wearing masks.

A spokesperson said: With shops, we would expect them to give advice to customers and remind them that they should be wearing a face covering and Im sure the overwhelming majority of the public will do so.

Those not wearing their masks properly over both mouth and nose will be advised as to the right and safest way to wear a face mask rather than be immediately fined."
NHS Test and Trace is still failing to track down up to half of Covid-19 patients' contacts in areas most at risk of local lockdowns, it emerged last night.

Experts say language barriers are one of the main factors behind the low success rates, as many of England's worst-affected areas have high numbers of residents from black, Asian and ethnic minority (BAME) backgrounds.

In Luton, which has the fifth highest infection rate in England, just 47 per cent of potentially-infected people were contacted by the system since its launch on May 28.

A fifth of the population in the Bedfordshire town do not speak English as their first language, according to Statista.

Only 65 per cent of close contacts in Leicester - which had to retreat back into lockdown last month after a spike in cases - were tracked down by tracers.

It means 3,340 people who may have had the disease in the city slipped under the radar and could have spread it further through the population. For more than a quarter of people in Leicester (27.5 per cent), English is not their native language.

Scientists have repeatedly warned contact tracing systems need to catch and isolate 80 per cent of potential Covid-19 patients to keep the epidemic squashed.

Professor Paul Hunter, an epidemiologist at the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline: 'The language barrier certainly will have been an issue, people might not necessarily understand what the tracers are asking or why it is important they hand over contact information.'

Gabriel Scally, professor of public health at the university of Bristol and a member of 'Independent SAGE', said this breakdown in communication had led to a breakdown of trust.

He told MailOnline: 'People from BAME groups make up a high proportion of the populations in many of these cities and towns. For many, English is not their first language. This leads to communication and trust issues.

'The Government should devolve contact tracing powers locally to people who understand their communities, and the cultures within them, better. On a regional level it's easier to involve communities in the whole case finding and isolating process.'

Local councilors and public health officials are now demanding more control over the test and trace process on the back of the 'very concerning' figures.

They say devolving power to local authorities could allow them to do door-to-door visits if contacts cannot be reached by other means.

NHS Test and Trace is still failing to track down up to half of Covid-19 patients' contacts in areas most at risk of local lockdowns (top ten, shown)

People walk through the centre of Leicester, where localised coronavirus lockdown restrictions have been in place since June 29. Only 65 per cent of close contacts in Leicester were tracked down by tracers

An interactive map which breaks down Covid-19 cases by postcode allows people in England to monitor infection rates in their neighbourhood

The data, obtained by the Guardian, looked at contact tracing results from between May 28 and June 17.

It revealed thousands more potential patients in other areas of England with rising infections were being missed by the system.

A total of 984 close contacts in Kirklees, West Yorkshire, were not tracked down, meaning a third of potential patients (33 per cent) are unaware they might have the disease.

In Rochdale, Greater Manchester, 759 contacts weren't reached by tracers, which accounted for more than four in 10 suspected patients.

For Blackburn with Darwen, which is being kept under review amid a surge in infections, at least 448 people were missed (46 per cent).

The government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) has said the system must aim to reach 80 per cent of close contacts and get them isolated within 72 hours for the programme to work.

Executive Chair of NHS Test and Trace, Dido Harding, has admitted in the past that the system has faced issues such as language barriers and working schedules which prevented people from answering the phone.

'There's a lot we are doing to improve it,' she said, 'We are calling up to 10 times a day for one individual.

'We have increased our translation services, we have included multiple languages including sign language.'

Local leaders reacting to the findings are now demanding the Government let them take more control of the system because they have the community ties to be able to hunt down contacts on a street level.

The most up-to-date data released by the Government shows Colwall, Cradley and Wellington Heath in Herefordshire was the worst-hit place in England, recording 68 new cases between July 6 and 12. The next four worst-hit middle super output areas  small geographical areas used for statistics  were all in Leicester

Contact tracers need to catch 80% of infections and test suspected patients within three days to keep Covid-19 squashed, ANOTHER study finds Contact tracers need to catch 80 per cent of infections and test suspected patients within three days to keep coronavirus epidemics squashed, a study has found. Researchers from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands said the reproduction R rate can be kept under one as long as only two in 10 patients slip under the radar. Any more than that risks driving the R - the average number of people each coronavirus patient infects - to the point at which the crisis could spiral again. And people need to be swabbed and given results within three days to ensure they aren't tempted to go outside and mingle with others when results don't come back. Dutch researchers used mathematical modelling to predict how contact tracing systems with varying success could influence epidemics. It found that if testing is delayed by three days or more, even a system that is able to trace 100 per cent of contacts with no delays cannot bring the R value below 1. Today it emerged that the UK's contact tracing system is only finding 78 per cent of patients who test positive - despite launching two months ago. More than four thousand people every week who receive a coronavirus test are waiting more than 72 hours for a result, Government data shows. The Government's own scientific advisers have been banging the drum about the need to catch 80 per cent of infections throughout the crisis. Advertisement

NHS Test and Trace, in its current state, sees tracers bombard contacts with texts, emails or phone calls up to 10 times a day.

Gerry Taylor, Luton borough council's director of public health, said she was 'very concerned' at the low rate in her town and blamed the centralised system for being too far removed from communities.

She told the Guardian: 'Clearly 47 per cent is too low. The bulk of the contact tracing feels somewhat distant from us and working more closely together with the national system I think would be a huge advantage.'

Kate Hollern, the Labour MP for Blackburn,added: 'People are out there spreading the virus unknowingly due to this government failure.

'The responsibility and resources for this should have been with local government, who have the local knowledge. It's a complete shambles and we really need to get control of it.'

Bradford council, which is also being kept under review amid rising cases, declined to provide Test and Trace figures, but admitted 'a high number of contacts' were being missed by the national programme.

A council spokeswoman told the newspaper she was urging the Government 'to allow us to set up a local extension to the national test-and-trace system which would enable us to follow up uncontacted data with door-to-door visits, something which no national system can really do.'

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: 'NHS test and trace has already helped test and isolate more than 180,000 cases  helping us control the spread of the virus, prevent a second wave and save lives. This represents 81% of close contacts identified by those who test positive.

'The service is working closely with local authorities across England to help manage local outbreaks. High quality data is critical to providing good public services and we've been providing increasingly detailed data to local directors of public health, helping them tackle local outbreaks and control this virus.'

Health bosses last week released an interactive map breaking down new coronavirus cases by postcode in an effort to keep a lid on local outbreaks.

The map of England, which is updated each week, paints a clear picture showing the Covid-19 crisis in cities, towns and even small villages being hit hard by the virus.

Pressure had been mounting on the Government to be more transparent about rolling Covid-19 data in local areas, to prevent other towns and cities being hit by local lockdowns.

It was accused of not sharing the data quickly enough with public health officials in Leicester, which was forced to revert to lockdown on June after a spike in cases.

The public are able to access the interactive map themselves to gain insight into Covid-19 cases near their home. But it is not possible to identify individuals by name and address.

Local public health bosses in each region will also be given positive test data and contact tracing figures each day after mounting pressure on officials to provide more data intelligence.

Leicester mayor Sir Peter Soulsby has been fiercely critical of the 'blanket' restrictions placed on the whole city  which still has the highest infection rate in the country.

He believes locking down specific neighbourhoods in the city which are particularly badly-hit by Covid would be a less economically crippling way to tackle the disease.
PARMA TWP., MI  Two Tennessee residents were arrested in Jackson County after stealing a car and fleeing from police.

The 28-year-old woman and 22-year-old man stole a Dodge Charger the morning of Wednesday, July 22, in Troy, Michigan State Police said. Troopers found the vehicle in Washtenaw County later in the day and tried to stop it.

The driver refused to stop, leading to a pursuit. It ended around M-99 and Devereaux Road in Parma Township in Jackson County just before 9 p.m., police said. They man and woman then ran away.

The search included a K-9, Michigan State Police helicopter and numerous police units. It took about two hours to find them, 1st Lt. Kevin Rod said.

In Jackson County, they are charged with receiving and concealing stolen property; fleeing and eluding; carrying concealed weapons; felon in possession of a firearm; and felon in possession of ammunition. Additional charges related to carjacking will come from the Troy Police Department, Rod said.

They are lodged at the Jackson County Jail.

The man also absconded from federal probation and was being sought by United States Marshals, Rod said.

No one was injured, police said.

State Police from Brighton and Marshall Post, Jackson County Sheriffs Department, Albion Police Department and Springport Police Department assisted at the scene.

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Henry Nana Boakye has criticized renowned journalist, Kwesi Pratt for describing the countrys Electoral Commission (EC) as lawless.



Kwesi Pratt contributing to a panel discussion on Peace FM's morning show Kokrokoo, said the Commission had no moral right to condemn pockets of violence being reported at some registration centres across the nation.



"Do they, themselves, abide by the laws? If they comply with the laws, would they use secondary schools as registration centres when they were not gazetted. They don't obey the law but expect others to obey it. The Electoral Commission, itself, doesn't respect the law; so why would someone else not infract the law?" he queried.



Nana B disagrees



The National Youth Organiser of the NPP speaking on the same platform said "it's unfortunate for Kwesi Pratt to accuse the EC of being lawless all because they registered students in their schools . . . how can the students be given some time off to go and register when COVID-19 still persists? It will not be proper . . . for Uncle Kwesi to sit here and describe them as lawless and liken it to Kasoa's incident is most unfortunate."



Listen to his explanation below





The Electoral Commission in a statement on Monday, July 20, 2020, said ''the Commission condemns such acts during a civil exercise like the Registration of Voters and calls on security agencies to investigate the issue as a matter of urgency to bring the perpetrators to book. These acts constitute a breach of the Vigilante and Related Offenses Act, 2019 Act 999. The Act seeks to disband violent activities of Political Parties and makes political vigilantism an offence punishable by a prison term''.It also reminded the public, particularly political party agents, that ''any person who wishes to challenge an Applicant on the basis of ineligibility must fill a Challenge Form, which will then be presented to the District Registration Review Committee for a ruling on the matter. Political Party agents are therefore cautioned against the use of violence to challenge a persons eligibility''.

Source: Rebecca Addo Tetteh/Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Swimming pools, spas, bowling alleys and community centres in Northern Ireland are among the venues that will be allowed reopen from Friday in further moves agreed by ministers to ease lockdown.

It comes as the Stormont Executive agreed it will give the Health Minister Robin Swann legal powers to make wearing face masks mandatory from August 20 if the level of compliance remains low after a publicity campaign.

The number of people permitted to gather in a private home will also rise to 10, with the group allowed to consist of four different households. Overnight stays in other households will also be permitted.

Spectators will also be allowed to attend outdoor sporting venues "where the operator can control access and ensure adherence to social distancing".

The Stormont Executive also announced on Thursday that saunas and steam rooms will be among the spa facilities permitted to reopen - while funfairs, whether outdoor or indoor, can also resume.

An indicative date of August 10 for the reopening of indoor pubs and bars that only sell alcohol has also been agreed.

It comes as eight new cases of Covid-19 have been recorded in Northern Ireland, the Department of Health (DoH) has confirmed.

There were no further deaths recorded in the past 24 hours and the death toll from the virus remains at 556.

The total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Northern Ireland since the start of the pandemic now stands at 5,876.

The new cases were recorded after 1,851 tests were carried out on 1,382 people.

Six patients with coronavirus are in hospital, with two of these patients in intensive care.

In care homes there are currently six active outbreaks of the virus.

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Here's how Thursday unfolded:
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.

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More people are 'battling it out' for fewer jobs as businesses struggle to operate during COVID-19. Photo: Nick Ansell/PA Archive/PA Images

Job vacancies have plummeted by 63% during the coronavirus lockdown, according to figures released this week.

Vacancies in the second quarter of 2020 were down 62.7%, compared with the same period in 2019, and down 61.2% quarter-on-quarter, data from job board CV-Library shows.

This drop, likely a result of businesses struggling to operate during the COVID-19 lockdown, was felt across all areas of the UK.

Aberdeen saw the biggest drop, at 80%, while Bristol (70%), Leeds (70%), Birmingham (68%), and Glasgow (68%) followed closely behind.

READ MORE: Chancellor urged to focus recovery plans on 'jobs, jobs, jobs'

Looking at key industries, administration saw the greatest fall in job adverts  at 87%. Meanwhile, design (86%), sales (84%), recruitment (82%), catering (82%), media (82%), marketing (81%), leisure and tourism (79%), hospitality (78%), and customer service (78%) took similar hits.

Its no secret that lockdown measures stunted the UK economy and labour market during this period. As a result, businesses had no choice but to put a pause on their hiring plans and make difficult decisions about their workforce, explained Lee Biggins, founder and CEO of CV-Library.

These figures are pretty bleak and naturally, some industries and locations have been more affected by others. What I can say, however, is that the market is already showing signs of recovery this month, albeit it very, very slowly.

Despite job security being a concern for many Brits right now, job applications also dropped by nearly a quarter (23%) year-on-year, the data shows.

READ MORE: John Lewis to close eight stores, risking 1,300 jobs

However, applications did rise in industries that rely on key workers. Applications for agriculture jobs shot up by 220%, and for public sector jobs by 179%. Meanwhile, applications for medical roles saw a smaller but still significant increase of 28%, and social care jobs went up by 14%.

In addition, the application to job ratio across the nation rose 84%, meaning there are more people battling it out for every job, CV-Library said.

Story continues

Bristol saw the biggest rise in applications per job with an increase of 175%, followed by Edinburgh (up 129%), Brighton (137%), Southampton (125%) and Leicester (117%).

Pay has dropped in sectors that have been hit hardest by the pandemic, the data shows. Salaries are down 20% in leisure and tourism, 10% in charity, 8% in catering and 2% in hospitality.

However, pay actually increased by 5% across the UK, compared to the previous quarter  potentially due to businesses advertising fewer jobs but with higher pay, according to CV-Library.

Listen to the latest podcast from Yahoo Finance UK
South Koreas Asiana Airlines reportedly flew empty Airbus SE A380 over the country in May for a few hours a day for three days to keep its trainee pilots certified. According to a media report, the airlines wanted to send the trainee pilots to Thailand to use a simulator owned by Thai Airways International Pcl but had to cancel the plan because of travel bans.

Asiana Airlines couldnt afford to keep flying empty jets to train the remaining pilots since it cost a lot of money, that too when commercial airlines are facing a huge financial crisis due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. South Korean transport ministry had to finally extend the flying credentials of the pilots under a special exemption.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has provided guidelines for pilots to keep up their skills and it takes at least three takeoffs and landings in last 90 days for the pilots to retain their flying license. However, it is difficult for airlines to fly superjumbos when the demand has hit its nadir due to travel restrictions and virus transmission fear.

Read: SpiceJet Only Private Indian Carrier To Operate Flights To USA Now

'Long shadow'

Earlier this month, International Air Transport Association (IATA) CEO Alexandre de Juniac told a press briefing that the crisis will have a long shadow. He said that two-thirds of passengers are seeing less travel in their future, be it for vacation, visiting friends, relatives or for business purposes.

Boeings chief executive recently said that the air traffic may not bounce back for two or three years to the pre-pandemic levels. Speaking at an annual meeting, Boeing CEO David Calhoun presented a sober outlook of the aviation industry and predicted that it could take three to five years to restore the companys dividend. Calhoun said that it is difficult to estimate when the situation will stabilise due to the unpredictable and fast-changing environment owing to coronavirus crisis.

Read: 58 More Vande Bharat Mission Flights Scheduled To Land In TN, Centre Tells HC

Read: Australia's Qantas 747 Flight Draws Kangaroo In The Sky Before Retiring, Watch Video

(Twitter / @Flyasiana)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 16:24:19|Editor: huaxia

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TEHRAN, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Iran's health minister said that a vaccine for the novel coronavirus developed by the Iranian scientists has "successfully" passed the initial tests, Tasnim news agency reported on Thursday.

Saeed Namaki said Iran has achieved a remarkable success in producing the COVID-19 vaccine.

"It has passed the initial tests and we hope to reach promising stages," said Namaki.

He also said that two local pharmaceutical companies will supply hospitals across the country with Remdesivir, an antiviral drug used for the treatment of COVID-19.

Namaki also expressed Iran's readiness for cooperation with regional nations in the fight against the disease.

Iran's confirmed COVID-19 cases has hit 281,413 as of Wednesday, with 14,853 total fatalities so far.

Iran announced its first cases of COVID-19 on Feb. 19.

Iran and China have offered mutual help in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. In mid-February, at the early stage of the coronavirus outbreak in China, Iran lit up the Tehran Azadi (Liberty) Tower to show its solidarity with China, and donated 3 million masks to China. In return, China has delivered several shipments of medical supplies to Iran.

On Feb. 29, a five-member Chinese medical team visited Iran for a month-long mission to help Iran fight the pandemic. Enditem
SELBYVILLE, Del., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- As per Global Market Insights Inc., the biocides market valuation is expected to hit a valuation of nearly $15.94 billion by 2026, registering a CAGR of 5.4% from 2020 to 2026. The report provides a full analysis of the market estimations as well as size, wavering industry trends, key avenues of investment, top winning strategies, opportunities and drivers, and the competitive scenario.

Global Market Insights Inc.

The demand for biocide is growing across the globe due to the fast shift towards sustainability measures, along with the growing demand for nontoxic chemical solutions. Development in upstream and downstream operations and natural gas exploration will also boost the biocides market share. Additionally, market players are increasingly signing acquisition agreements to strengthen their regional presence and are engaging in new product development for consolidating their brand equity. Manufacturers are also entering into long-term contracts with raw material suppliers to effectively protect their respective production lines to stay competitive within the post-coronavirus economy.

Request a Sample Report: https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/150

In terms of product, the organic acids segment will exceed a valuation of approximately $1.7 billion by the end of the analysis timeframe. The growth is ascribed to the rapid penetration in toiletries, cosmetic, and personal care products, thereby driving the biocides market demand.

Key reasons for biocides market growth:

Increasing demand for high-performance coating and paint solutions in metallic compounds. Rising penetration of halogens in the water treatment industry. Growing product consumption across Asia-Pacific .

2026 forecasts anticipate the 'fuels' application segment showing appreciative growth:

In terms of application, the fuels segment will grow with a CAGR of over 5.5% over the forecast timeframe due to the increasing trends towards increasing sustainability measures and the global shift towards clean fuels. The product is extensively utilized in storing, upstream, and downstream applications. It plays a key role in natural gas production, which is likely to drive product demand. Moreover, market players in oil & gas, as well as the fuel industry, are rapidly shifting towards safe, economical, non-toxic, and sustainable solutions to consolidate their brand value, thereby escalating the biocides market revenue.

Asia-Pacific and Europe's biocide industry to witness appreciative growth:

Based on the regional perspective, the Asia-Pacific is likely to exceed a valuation of $5.6 billion by the end of the analysis time period due to the growing HVAC and automobile industry. Biocide solutions are extensively utilized in manufacturing paints and coatings for automobiles. It not only helps in enhancing protection against acid rain, moisture, water, oxidation, and chemicals but also enhances aesthetic appeal. Moreover, consumers in this region are moving towards economical, as well as high-performance solutions, due to rising inclination towards low-maintenance and high-performance vehicles, thereby stimulating the biocides market.

The European biocides market will grow with a CAGR of over 4.5% over the forecast timeframe. The growth is ascribed to the rapid shift towards fast cleansing, acting as well as over-the-counter economical solutions.

Request for customization of this report: https://www.gminsights.com/roc/150

Leading market players:

The key market players analyzed in the biocides industry report include Troy Corporation, Baker Hughes Incorporated, Lanxess, Solvay, Lubrizol, Sigma - Aldrich, Clariant AG, AkzoNobel, DuPont, BASF, GE Water & Process Technologies, Dow Chemical Company, Lonza, and Thor Group Limited among many others. They have incorporated several strategies including partnerships, expansions, collaborations, joint ventures, and others to heighten their stand in the industry.

Related Reports:

Halogen Biocides Market Future Business Strategies and Revenue Impact Analysis - 2026

Antimicrobial Coatings Market Business Strategies and Competitive Analysis - 2026

About Global Market Insights, Inc.

Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider. Offering syndicated and custom research reports, growth consulting and business intelligence services, Global Market Insights, Inc. aims to help clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data that aid in strategic decision-making.

GMIPulse, our business analytics platform, offers an online, interactive option of exploring our proprietary industry research data in an easy-to-use and dynamic manner. Clients get to explore market intelligence across 11 top-level categories and hundreds of industry segments within them, covering regional, company-level, and cross-sectional statistics that make our offering a stand-out for decision-makers.

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"Holohoax  six million lies" ... "i would luv to see them Jews  publicly hung" ... And in response to a report that almost half of the Jewish sites in Syria had been destroyed or damaged, this gem: "Good payback for all the deaths to these innocent people  reap what you sew filth, from the river to the sea Palestine will be free."

Vic Alhadeff, chief executive of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies. Credit:

These disturbing contributions are a random selection of the more palatable  it's all relative  anti-Semitic messages posted on the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies' Facebook site in recent days. And don't think the author sought to conceal his name. Far from it: he was content to identify himself as he peddled his vitriol.

Not that it would have excused the offensiveness, but the posts had nothing to do with either the pandemic or the Black Lives Matter movement, both of which have attracted bizarre anti-Semitic elements, blaming Jews for spreading the virus and accusing Israel  with zero basis in reality  of teaching American police officers to kill black citizens.

These Facebook posts were "merely" hateful rhetoric from a man tossing out such pejorative terms as "Kike" and "Yid' while threatening another Holocaust. The Board of Deputies lodged a complaint with the police, who sent detectives to the perpetrator's home to warn him that they would be monitoring his activities, their response based on classifying his comments as "harassment" under federal telecommunications legislation.
The American Government has lifted the visa sanctions imposed on some category of Ghanaians in 2019.

The sanctions were over claims that Ghana was unreasonably delaying the return of its nationals ordered to be removed from the US.

The lifting of the visa restrictions followed an agreement reached between Ghanaian officials and their United States counterparts which resulted in the lifting of the sanctions on January 16, 2020.

The restrictions involved the suspension of the issuance of A3 and G5 visas for domestic staff of Ghanaian Diplomats and limited validity of B1/B2 visas issued to Ghanaian officials of the Executive and legislative branches and all officials on government payroll and their spouse and children under 21years of age.

Ms Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration announced this on the floor of Parliament, in Accra, in response to a question posed by Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Member of Parliament (MP) for North Tongu.

Mr Ablakwa wanted to know the terms of agreement reached with the United States of America leading to the lifting of the visa restrictions, and the number of Ghanaians removed from the USA.

Ms Botchwey also indicated that during the period of the sanctions, 125 Ghanaians who were ordered to be removed from the USA were deported.

She explained that her ministry had initiated discussions with American officials for an immediate resolution of the matter.

She said she undertook an official visit to meet the Under Secretary for Political Affairs of the US State Department and officials of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Ms Botchwey noted that during the meeting, she proposed a roadmap for the consideration of the US authorities to resolve all issues related to Ghanaians cited for deportation to Ghana.

She said the suggested plan was accepted by the US side, and it was decided that both sides held further consultations in a manner that was mutually beneficial.

Ms Botchwey said meetings were also held with the Assistant Secretary of State of the United States in June 2019, following which the two sides agreed to resolve all outstanding issues.

She said currently, interviews for persons cited for deportation as agreed between the two sides were ongoing.

She however stated that in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the issuance of Emergency Travel Certificates to facilitate their removal was deferred until borders were re-opened.

She noted that both sides had put in place modalities intended to facilitate and ensure that a procedure was followed in the identification and issuance of the appropriate travel documents in accordance with Ghana's obligation under international protocols.

She stated that whenever there was the need for specific intervention on humanitarian grounds, health or family that was done by engaging the relevant US authorities.

---GNA
Ascena had nearly 2,800 stores as of February, a staggeringly large portfolio that includes Loft and kids shop Justice. That makes it a highly important tenant for many mall operators. The company accounted for 4.7% of annualized base rent at Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc., according to that operators latest quarterly filing, a share that makes Ascena its second-largest tenant behind only Gap Inc. For Simon Property Group Inc., only Gap and Victorias Secret parent L Brands Inc. account for a greater share of annual base rent than Ascena. It is in the top 10 for Brookfield Property Partners and Acadia Realty Trust.
The mayor of Portland was confronted by protesters Wednesday night, as authorities announced three federal agents may have been permanently blinded in the clashes between law enforcement and demonstrators this week.

Mayor Ted Wheeler was met by angry crowds who chanted 'tear gas Ted has got to go', as hundreds gathered for another night in the Oregon city.

Tensions have been mounting in the streets this week as federal agents have been seen violently shoving 'Wall of Moms' protesters who have donned yellow t-shirts and formed human barricades to protect Black Lives Matter rallies.

But the democratic mayor, 57, insisted he was doing 'everything in my power' to get rid of the federal officers.

This comes as Chicago gears up for a night of demonstrations Thursday, with calls to action circulating on social media after Donald Trump ordered an 'immediate surge' of feds into the city.

America's third-largest city is now on edge, rocked by a soaring rate of violent crime and now fears of increased tensions sparked by federal agents deployed by the president.

The mayor of Portland was confronted by protesters Wednesday night, as authorities announced three federal agents may have been permanently blinded in the clashes between law enforcement and demonstrators this week

Mayor Ted Wheeler was met by angry crowds who chanted and held banners reading 'tear gas Ted has got to go', as hundreds gathered for another night in the Oregon city

This footage from Portland tonight is absolutely insane. Dont look away. pic.twitter.com/wqucd1yQmI  Joshua Potash (@JoshuaPotash) July 22, 2020

Mayor Wheeler made an appearance at a protest in downtown Portland Wednesday night, where he promised he was doing everything in his power to push the federal agents out of the city.

'I am doing everything in my power to get them to leave,' he told protesters in footage captured by OPB.

He was met with outrage from the crowds chanting 'tear gas Ted must go', swearing at him and calling for his resignation as he made his way into the crowd.

One man walked up and emptied a bag full of shrapnel in front of him causing Wheeler to stop in his tracks, while another came up behind him and put a police hat on his head which he swiftly removed.

Several people held banners aloft reading 'Tear gas Ted' and 'Hey Ted, no more tear gas'.

Wheeler spoke into a microphone telling protesters he was there to hold a 'listening session' where he wanted to hear their views.

Crowds pushed forward as he urged them to 'step back' to prevent 'crushing'.

Tensions have been mounting in the streets this week as federal agents have been seen violently shoving 'Wall of Moms' protesters who have donned yellow t-shirts and formed human barricades to protect Black Lives Matter rallies

The Moms gather and march in Portland for another night Wednesday

Hundreds gathered outside the Multnomah County Justice Center again Wednesday night

Mothers protest against racial inequality and police violence in Portland

'I thought this was going to be a listening session not me doing all the talking,' he said as he faced a barrage of questions.

When asked by one protester about the police allegedly working with Proud Boys, where he said 'it would be appalling to me personally' if this was true.

The Proud Boys is a far-right neo-fascist organization that admits only men and encouarges political violence.

Protesters also raised concerns about the powers of Portland Police Association president Daryl Turner.

'I can not regulate Daryl Turner. He's a union official,' said Wheeler.

This comes after Turner and Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty exchanged a fierce war of words at a city council meeting earlier in the day where Hardesty called him a liar and said cops could be setting fires in the city during protests to stoke unrest.

Hardesty also accused Wheeler and Turner of inviting the 'federal goons' to the city.

'It is appalling to find out the Portland Police Association and the union president continues to lie to the public on a daily basis about the lack of cooperation by Portland police personnel,' Hardesty said.

Mayor Wheeler made an appearance at a protest in downtown Portland Wednesday night, where he promised he was doing everything in his power to push the federal agents out of the city

Resign now chants pic.twitter.com/dMXvLnwjVL  Rebecca Ellis (@Rjaellis) July 23, 2020

'If Portland does not stand up now and we as a City Council don't hold our own police officers accountable for this egregious behavior, we will be  we will go down in history of having failed in our obligation to protect community members.

I still have to question why was Portland police not protecting Portlanders when these federal goons came in and started attacking us rather than joining the federal goons who were attacking peaceful protesters.'

Turner hit back at the claims demanding she produce evidence to back up her 'outlandish accusation'.

The city council passed new policies Wednesday, banning all Portland police bureau members from cooperating with federal agents as city officials want to rid the city of the troops sent in by Trump.

Wheeler, Hardesty, Commissioner Chloe Eudaly and Commissioner Amanda Fritz voted unanimously to approve the new rules citing 'an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by the federal government'.

Portland Police Association president Daryl Turner (right) and Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty (left) exchanged a fierce war of words at a city council meeting earlier in the day where Hardesty said cops could be setting fires in the city during protests to stoke unrest

Meanwhile, federal officials are also blasting the actions of protesters, with at least three federal agents in Portland being blinded in an altercation this week.

Authorities said the three agents may never recover their vision after it was damaged when people shone lasers in their eyes and threw fireworks toward at the city's federal courthouse earlier in the week.

On Monday night, one person also allegedly threatened to cut off the water supply to federal officers inside the building.

While tensions continue to bubble over in Portland, concerns are mounting that Chicago is headed the same way after Trump said he was sending in federal agents there.

Trump escalated his federal intervention in cities Wednesday by deploying FBI and other agents to Chicago and Albuquerque to quell what he claims is out of control violence.

Medics hold aloft banners pledging support for Black Lives Matter and calling on federal agents to leave Portland

The president said he was sending 'hundreds' of federal agents into Chicago and other cities to combat street violence  including an influx of a controversial Homeland Security unit that has been deployed in Portland.

The president also said he was holding back on dispatching what he termed 'large numbers' of federal agents, pending requests from city mayors  then added: 'At some point we may have no other choice but to go in.'

Trump ordered the agents in after Chicago has been ravaged by escalating violence in recent weeks including a shootout at a funeral home Tuesday.

'The FBI, ATF, DEA, US Marshalls Service and Homeland Security will together be sending hundreds of skilled law enforcement officers to Chicago to help drive down violent crime,' Trump said at the White House.

Chad Wolf, the acting director of the Homeland Security Department, sought to stress the distinction between the two missions in Chicago and Portland after concerns have been raised after the controversial actions in the Oregon city.

While tensions continue to bubble over in Portland, concerns are mounting that Chicago is headed the same way after Trump said he was sending in federal agents there. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot vowed there would be no 'Portland-style deployment' of federal agents in her city

In Chicago, the agents will help local authorities battle a spate of street violence that has ripped apart families and injured young children and bystanders.

'In Chicago the mission is to protect the public from violent crime on the streets,' said Wolf, who has not been confirmed by the Senate for his position.

Trump during remarks repeatedly tore into local officials, blaming them for violence in their cities.

'When they abdicate their duty the results are catastrophic,' the president said. He repeatedly connected violent crime to left-wing policies, as he faces a stiff challenge from Democrat Joe Biden amid protests over police violence and stresses his own 'law and order' platform.

'What cities are doing is absolute insanity,' Trump said, blasting calls to defund police departments. He decried a 'rampage of violence.'

The administration has relied on a legal justification related to protecting federal buildings for inserting Portland agents, who are opposed by local officials.

The Chicago model is to be based on 'Operation LeGend,' which has already been used in Kansas City.

The operation is named after LeGend Taliferro, a four-year-old boy shot and killed in Kansas City, Missouri June 29.

Trump is expanding the operation by deploying FBI and other agents to Chicago and Albuquerque to quell what he claims is out of control violence.

Lightfoot offered some off-ramp to the tensions before the formal announcement, saying a plan to surge FBI and DEA agents to help her city contend with local crime had her approval - but not an 'undemocratic' insertion of unidentified Homeland Security agents, as Trump has ordered in Portland.

Her statement signaled a possible de-escalation as critics fume about the Trump administration's use of 'secret' Homeland Security Investigations agents who have taken part in violent clashes with protesters in Portland.

Lightfoot, who has publicly clashed with Trump , had vowed there would be no 'Portland-style deployment' in her city, just hours before gun violence erupted at a funeral.

Fifteen people were wounded on Chicago's South Side in the shooting outside a funeral home Tuesday night. Police said at least 60 bullets were fired in the shootout when gunmen in a car opened fire on the funeral party, who then returned fire on the vehicle.

Violent crime is soaring across Chicago, with 12 killed in shootings and another 51 injured this weekend.

CCTV footage believed to be from the incident shows the horrifying moment mourners are shot at while standing outside the funeral home. A dark car is seen pulling up by the pavement where attendees of the funeral are gathered. Gunshots can then be heard and the people run for cover from the bullets

Police investigate the scene of the shooting Tuesday - in what marked yet another day of shocking violence in the city

While crime has soared in Chicago - there were 116 murders over the 28 days through July 19, an increase of nearly 200 percent, police department data shows - the reason for the deployment to the New Mexico city is less clear-cut.

In Chicago, police superintendent David Brown blamed turf battles among the roughly 117,000 gang members in the city of 2.7 million people, where one shooting begets another in an endless cycle of revenge.

'This same cycle repeats itself over and over and over again. This cycle is fueled by street gangs, guns and drugs,' he said. 'Too many people in Chicago have been touched by gun violence.'

Lightfoot also vowed in a tweet before that incident: 'Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trump's troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents.'

Lightfoot tweeted after 15 were injured in a Chicago shooting Tuesday

Amid confusion about what federal agents might be sent in, Lightfoot hedged her language. DHS has refused to comment on 'leaked' reports about its agents being deployed.

'What I understand at this point  and I caveat that  is that the Trump administration is not going to foolishly deploy unnamed agents to the streets of Chicago,' she said.

'As I understand it, what we will be getting are some additional resources in the FBI, the DEA and the ATF,' she added.

She even described the federal help as potentially useful in combatting the city's crime wave  which Trump made a campaign issue in 2016 and has been fuming about again.

'What we will receive is resources that are going to plug into the existing federal agencies that we work with on a regular basis to help manage and suppress violent crime in our city,' she said.

She said Laushch would be 'in the loop.' She called what happened in Portland 'not only unconstitutional, it was undemocratic.'
Italian coast guard divers have been working for days to free a massive sperm whale caught in an abandoned fishing net in the open sea off the Sicilian Aeolian Islands.

The whale was spotted struggling to get free of a net usually used for fishing illegally for swordfish.

Facebook/Corpo delle Capitanerie di Porto - Guardia Costiera

In a video posted on Facebook, divers and biologists worked tirelessly to free the whale by cutting the lines with knives.

Also Read: 36 Feet Long Critically Endangered Sei Whale Washes Up Ashore At Bengal's Mandarmani Beach



According to reports, it is the second time in less than a month that the Italian coast guard has had to intervene to free a sperm whale tangled in a fishing net.

Lost or abandoned nets get caught in rocks and coral, and continue to trap wildlife - from fish to turtles, whales and dolphins.







These damn fishing nets are doing huge damage. I haven't slept in 36 hours ... divers managed to take off some of the net but then it started to move and it became too dangerous, biologist Monica Blasi told the daily newspaper La Republica. Blasi said they attached a light to Fury's tail so as not to lose sight of it as they tried to remove the rest of the net.

Also Read: Gruesome Pictures Show 300 Whales Slaughtered In Faroe Islands Despite Coronavirus Restrictions



The coast guard said in a statement that operations were hampered by the large size of the whale, which had become highly agitated while trying to free itself from the tangle.

Due to its repeated efforts to free itself, the whale had been given the name Fury. The coast guard indicated that the fishing lines were illegal, claiming to have seized 100 km (around 62 miles) of illegal fishing nets in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea so far this year, reports FoxNews.



Facebook/Corpo delle Capitanerie di Porto - Guardia Costiera

The Coast Guard said it seized over 100 kilometres of illegal nets in the southern Tyrrhenian sea since January; such nets are similar to the one the sperm whale got trapped



According to Weforum, somewhere between 600,000 to 800,000 tonnes of discarded fishing gear ends up in our oceans every year. This accounts for a large portion of the plastic waste in marine ecosystems.



Also Read: Rare Handfish That Walked In Water Is Extinct Due To Destructive Fishing Practices
The U.S.-Taliban deal has generated large amounts of analysis on stability and security in Afghanistan, the role of the Afghan government and Pakistan-Taliban relations. However, another important dimension of the deal is its impact on Iran-Pakistan relations. Pakistans relations with both Iran and the Afghan government are unstable, but Pakistan enjoys good relations with the Taliban. Iran has also sought to build contacts and relations with the Taliban. Thus, the recognition accorded to the Taliban in the deal could both improve Iran-Pakistan relations and give Iran an important role in Afghanistan. The increasing significance of the Taliban could worsen instability not only in Afghanistan but also across Central, West and South Asia while completely sidelining the Afghan government.

BACKGROUND: On February 29, the U.S. and the Taliban entered into an agreement to end the war that has been going on for 18 years. The agreement was designed to restore peace in Afghanistan and to facilitate the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Among the important implications of the deal are Pakistans increasing importance in Afghanistan, the sidelining of the Afghan government and the increasing political prominence of the Taliban.

Pakistan has played a crucial role in the negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban. Pakistan has supported the Taliban and called for a dialogue with the organization ever since the U.S. attacked Afghanistan in 2001. The eventual U.S. concession to talk to the Taliban has vindicated Pakistans stand. This has also raised Pakistans stature with the Taliban and in Afghanistan. Due to its role in reaching the deal and its enhanced status with the U.S. and the Taliban, Pakistan has gained the upper hand over the Afghan government.

The withdrawal of U.S. forces and support from Pakistan will only make the Taliban stronger and its hold over Afghanistan firmer. A major role for the Taliban in Afghanistan will also affect Iran-Pakistan relations. Iran has built closer contacts with the Taliban since 2003, against the backdrop of its deepening conflict with the U.S. Meanwhile, Irans relations with Pakistan are strained. Several cross border skirmishes have occurred and their bilateral interaction is also affected by their relations with other players, particularly the U.S. and India.

The major driver of Irans interest in Afghanistan and the Taliban is to counter the U.S. Since Pakistan will remain a key actor in Afghanistan, Irans increased role in the country will depend largely on improving its relations with Pakistan. Therefore, the rise of the Taliban could provide a positive catalyst for Iran-Pakistan relations.

IMPLICATIONS: Iran has taken a long-term interest in developments in Afghanistan and has participated in them to a degree. In the 1990s, Iran supported the Afghan forces fighting the Taliban, as did the U.S. However, as the U.S. declared Iran part of the Axis of Evil in 2003, Iran took a more favorable stand towards the Taliban and started developing ties with the group from 2005. In 2012, the Taliban opened an office in Mashhad, Iran. Taliban leaders have also visited Tehran from time to time.

Iran has supported the Afghan Taliban with weapons, training and money, according to a Pentagon report. Despite Irans previous disagreements with the Taliban, it has sought to build a relationship with the group in anticipation of the Taliban becoming an influential actor in Afghanistan, which will in turn increase Irans influence in the country.

While supporting the Taliban, Iran has also sought a role in the Afghan peace process. Iran has said it will continue to talk with the Taliban, but with the Afghan governments knowledge. While supporting the Intra-Afghan talks, Iran maintains that they should include the government as well as all parties and groups, claiming that Iran supports stability and security in Afghanistan but raising doubts about U.S. intentions.

Irans main motivation for siding with the Taliban is its rivalry with the U.S., which has only become more pronounced after the killing of General Qassem Soleimani.

However, Pakistan remains the external actor wielding most influence over the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan has been a U.S. ally in Afghanistan since 2001 and played a key role in the recently concluded U.S.-Taliban peace deal. After the withdrawal of the U.S. forces, Pakistans influence in Afghanistan will likely grow even further. Thus, for Iran to become a serious player in Afghanistan, it needs to improve its bilateral relations with Pakistan. The two countries have a long non-demarcated border and Pakistan has accused Iran of sponsoring terror attacks on Pakistani territory.

While Iran and Pakistan do not have border disputes, several skirmishes and cross-border attacks have taken place along the border, for which the two countries have exchanged mutual accusations. In February 2019, an attack in Iran killed 27 security personnel. Iran assigned responsibility for the attack to the Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-al-Adl. In April 2019, an attack in Pakistan killed 14 security personnel, for which Pakistan blamed Iran-based groups. In 2017, Iran warned Pakistan that it would carry out strikes against terror groups located on Pakistani territory.

These cross-border attacks have been a major impediment to Iran-Pakistan relations. Yet, following the incidents in 2019, Pakistan has sought to de-escalate tensions with Iran and announced plans to fence the 950 km border. The two countries have also conducted meetings to expand border security cooperation.

Their respective ties with other powers also shape relations between Iran and Pakistan, particularly Pakistans cooperation with the U.S. and Irans clash with the latter over its nuclear program. Similarly, relations with India play a significant but reversed role in Iran-Pakistan relations; Iran has a cooperative relationship with India, which remains Pakistans main regional rival. India has developed the Chabahar Port in Iran, which will allow India a connection to Afghanistan and Central Asia through Iran. Chabahar also functions as a competitor to Chinas Gwadar Port in Pakistan. Thus, any improvement of Iran-Pakistan relations will also affect, and be affected by, their ties with U.S. and India.

Driven by the threat it perceives from the U.S., Iran considers expanding its influence in Afghanistan to be an important national security objective and the withdrawal of U.S. forces opens a space for Iran become a strategic actor in the country. Yet if Iran is to achieve this, it requires developing some form of cooperation with Pakistan. Indeed, the U.S.-Taliban deal could present the catalyst that helps Iran and Pakistan to find common ground in Afghanistan.

Afghanistans political instability has been another impediment to Irans ability to gain influence in the country. After Afghanistans September 2019 presidential elections the presidential candidates Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah both claimed victory and were able to reach a power sharing agreement only in May 2020. As per this agreement, Ghani remains president while both sides will be allowed to appoint a number of ministers and Abdullah will lead peace talks with Taliban. Following the formation of a new government, Afghanistans foreign minister visited Iran and agreed to form a strategic cooperation pact between the two states. Iran also stressed the start of Intra-Afghan peace negotiations. Iran later held talks with Taliban in Doha, focused on establishing peace and areas of common interest between Iran and Afghanistan. These developments are taking place in parallel to the U.S.-Taliban peace talks, which concluded the most recent round in the first week of July. While peace and stability in Afghanistan remains uncertain, Iran continues to build ties with Afghan government as well as the Taliban.

CONCLUSIONS: The purpose of the U.S.-Taliban deal was to ensure peace and stability by making the Taliban one of the stakeholders in Afghanistan. However, the deal also poses the risk of further transplanting the U.S.-Iran rivalry to the country. President Trumps drive to withdraw the U.S. forces at any cost presents Iran with an opportunity to gain a foothold in Afghanistan. For this purpose, Iran needs to mend its relations with Pakistan. Considering its rivalry with the U.S., its withdrawal from the nuclear deal and the imposition of sanctions, Iran is likely to make this a priority.

AUTHOR'S BIO:

Niranjan Marjani is an Independent Journalist and Researcher based in Vadodara, India. His articles mostly focus on strategic dimension of international politics. He tweets at @NiranjanMarjani.

Image Source: DoD photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley accessed on 7/20/20
Russian Baltic Gas Pipeline On Pompeo's Agenda As He Visits Denmark

By RFE/RL July 22, 2020

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has arrived in Denmark, where he is set to discuss the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline when he meets with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in Copenhagen.

The pipeline, which Russia is seeking to complete, would transport gas to Europe under the Baltic Sea. The portion of the pipeline that remains to be built lies in Denmark's economic waters.

Pompeo last week warned companies against helping Russia finish the nearly $11 billion pipeline, which the United States opposes on grounds that it strengthens the Kremlin's grip on the European energy market and punishes Ukraine, which is battling Russian-backed separatists in its eastern provinces.

The pipeline would largely reroute natural gas around Ukraine, depriving Kyiv of billions of dollars in annual fees.

European vessels laying the pipeline halted their work in December 2019 following a round of U.S. sanctions that targeted their activity. Russia is now hoping to complete it using its own ships, prompting the United States to include an amendment to a defense spending bill to widen the sanctions to include not just vessels, but any company helping Russia complete the pipeline.

The amendment passed the U.S. House of Representatives on July 20 but would still need to pass the Senate and be signed by the president before the new sanctions would become law.

Discussions also will include security, trade, and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on international cooperation. Relations with China and recent developments in Hong Kong will also be on the agenda.

Denmark is the second stop on Pompeo's current visit to Europe.

On July 21 he met with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in London as tensions between the West and China soar over Beijing's lack of transparency about the outbreak of the pandemic, continued human rights abuses, and charges of cyber-piracy.

Pompeo called on every country that "understands freedom and democracy and values that'' to recognize the threat posed by China. "We hope we can build out a coalition that understands this,'' he said.

U.S. relations with China, already tense over a host of issues, including trade, intellectual property rights, 5G technology, and human rights, have spiraled downward since the outbreak of the coronavirus earlier this year. The United States has accused China of misleading the world about the outbreak and enabling the virus to quickly spread globally.

The United States has lobbied its allies to ban the use of Huawei's 5G technology, saying the Chinese government could use it to spy on Western countries. Huawei denies the allegations and argues that U.S. protectionism was behind the move.

Pompeo also is expected to meet Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod, and representatives from Greenland and the Faroe Islands while in Copenhagen, according to the Danish government.

Kofod has said Denmark considers the United States its "absolutely closest ally."

But bilateral relations hit a snag in August 2019, when Trump floated the idea of the United States buying Greenland, the world's largest island.

Frederiksen called the proposal "absurd," leading Trump to cancel a planned visit to Copenhagen over the "nasty" tone of the response.

A few phone calls between the countries have since eased the tensions, and Greenland officials say they want to put the affair behind them.

Last month, the United States reopened a consulate in Greenland, a move that Kofod welcomed.

Pompeo has said that the Arctic region is important for U.S. security because of the "militarization of the Arctic that China and Russia are presenting."

With reporting by AP and CPH Post Online

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-baltic gas-pipeline-on-pompeo-agenda -visit-denmark/30740812.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Medical Center Hospital Chief Nursing Officer Christin Timmons said the emergency department is still a safe space despite the coronavirus pandemic and people should seek general care if needed.

Thats why we ask you to wear a mask, we provide the gel and our staff is in PPE, she said. We have processes and procedures in place to eliminate your exposure to other individuals. We have all the mechanisms in place to protect you.
By Akbar Mammadov

Police in Belgium has detained six Armenian radicals, who carried out provocation near Azerbaijans Embassy in Belgium, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Leyla Abdullayeva said in a press conference on July 23.

Six people were detained during the provocation committed by radical Armenian forces near the diplomatic mission of Azerbaijan in Belgium. According to police information, 15 people have already been arrested, the spokesperson noted.

Abdullayeva also added that an Armenian man who assaulted an Azerbaijani woman during a rally in Los Angeles has already been detained and will stand trial.

It should be noted that a small group of Azerbaijanis came under the attack of a large number of Armenian nationalists during a violent protest held outside of the building of the Consulate General of Azerbaijan on 21 July.

As a result, seven Azerbaijanis, including a woman, were injured, four of whom were hospitalized. In addition, a police officer of Los-Angeles Police Department trying to protect the Azerbaijani woman from Armenian attackers also received a head injury.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Borno Governor, Babagana Umara Zulum, is deeply pained by insurgents execution of aid workers whom he described as heroes that were gruesomely killed in the course of serving humanity.

Zulums spokesman, Malam Isa Gusau, said in a statement released Thursday morning, that the Governor was informed of the execution on Wednesday evening, while he was at headquarters of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps in Abuja to discuss introduction of civil-defence volunteer programme and the deployment of more agro rangers to secure farmers in Borno State. Zulum departed Maiduguri same Wednesday and on arriving Abuja, he drove to the NSCDC.

The insurgents had released a video which showed five blindfolded aid workers with four of them shot at close range, while one was spared even though he was also positioned for execution. The five aid workers were abducted weeks back during a humanitarian mission to support internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Governor Babagana Umara Zulum is deeply pained and extremely worried by the gruesome execution of the aid workers who lost their lives while trying to save IDPs through humanitarian activities. The Governor mourns these heroes and shares the grief of their families and employers: Borno State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Action Against Hunger, Reach International, International Rescue Committee, and condoles with the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, (UNOCHA)", the statement said.

Gusau noted that Governor Zulum has, in his absence, directed a Government delegation to immediately visit families of the aid workers to participate in funeral activities and to pay condolence visits to affected humanitarian partners through UNOCHA.

The statement also added the Governor wants fresh ideas that would be the way out of the insurgency.

Governor Zulum wants a new thinking that would hopefully stop these endless killings. We cannot continue to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result. The Governor believes in a combination of kinetic and non-kinetic approaches and he is of the position that the Nigerian military has, through its operation safe corridor, demonstrated its willingness to rehabilitate and reintegrate insurgents willing to stop the killings of fellow humans. The Governor reiterates his call on the insurgents to stop the killings that have been on for 11 years. Zulum also urged all stakeholders to renew commitment to ending the insurgency by being open to new ideas and applying different measures that will hasten good results, the statement said.
With that gratitude comes heartbreak as this movement has resulted in the damage and looting of our communitys small businesses, devastating families who were already disproportionately affected by COVID-19. ... It is for this reason that Arsiak and Candice are launching a call to action to contribute to the rebuilding of Black-owned businesses to revive and bring hope to these families and communities.
A number of countries have placed travel restrictions on Luxembourg residents due to the increasing number of coronavirus cases. Here's an overview of the current situation.

Beginning with the Grand Duchy's neighbours, Belgium have placed Luxembourg on an "orange" list, under "increased vigilance".

People travelling from Luxembourg into Belgium are advised to observe a quarantine or take a test, but there is no obligation.

Travellers to Germany must observe quarantine if they do not have a negative test result less than 48 hours old. This is because there have been more than 50 infections per 100,000 inhabitants in Luxembourg during the last week. German citizens have been advised to avoid travel to Luxembourg.

There are no restrictions for travel to and from France. For the Netherlands, travellers must have a reservation.

Rest of Europe



Bulgaria is accepting tourists without restrictions.

Denmark has placed Luxembourg on a list of "banned countries", meaning Luxembourgish tourists cannot travel to the country. Other "open" countries are allowed to visit Denmark provided they have booked a minimum stay of 6 nights. The list is refreshed every Thursday.

Austria is allowing Luxembourgers to enter without a test or quarantine.

Estonian authorities require a 14 day quarantine for travellers from Luxembourg, as there are more than 16 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants.

In Finland travellers hailing from Luxembourg must provide a good reason for travel. People arriving in Finland for work or to see family are encouraged to self-quarantine. This is valid until 11 August.

Visitors to Greece must complete a form the day before travel.

Travellers to Ireland will also have to complete a form, as well as observing a quarantine period for 14 days, staying at home and avoiding social contact.

Visitors to Italy can travel without restrictions, but should carry a declaration regarding their visit with them in the event of any checks.

Luxembourgers can freely travel to Croatia provided they have completed a form.

As long as there are more than 15 infections per 100,000 inhabitants, Luxembourg tourists must observe 14 days of quarantine before travelling to Latvia.

Lithuania has banned visitors from Luxembourg for the time being. Lithuanian citizens arriving from Luxembourg must isolate themselves. The list is updated every Monday.

Malta has no restrictions.

Norway placed Luxembourg on the "red" list, meaning travellers must spend 10 days in quarantine. The list is updated on a fortnightly basis.

Poland has no restrictions.

Portugal has no restrictions.

Romania requires a 14 day quarantine due to the high infection numbers. The list is updated weekly.

Sweden has no restrictions.

Travellers to Switzerland must observe 10 days of quarantine as of 23 July.

Visitors to Slovakia must be in possession of a negative test less than 96 hours old, or isolate themselves until they can take a test.

Luxembourg is on Slovenia's red list, meaning travellers must spend 14 days in quarantine.

Tourists heading to Spain must complete a form before travelling.

Czechia has no restrictions for Luxembourgish travellers.

Hungary also has no restrictions.

Cyprus Cyprus has downgraded Luxembourg to its "Category C," which is a list of countries thought to pose significantly high risks in terms of virus transmission. Visitors from Category C countries (such as Luxembourg) are required to self-isolate for 14 days "regardless of whether the result of the COVID-19 laboratory test is positive or negative, either at your residence or in case you do not have a residence in the Republic of Cyprus, at a place that will be indicated to you by the Republic of Cyprus." All passengers are also obligated to submit an application online for CyprusFlightPass (https://cyprusflightpass.gov.cy/) within 24 hours before their flight departs.

Further information on travel restrictions can be found on the EU site: https://reopen.europa.eu/en

This article specifically covers travel as a tourist.

Many countries will make exceptions for those travelling for work or family reasons - with this in mind, we recommend checking official guidance before you travel.
Inside your mouth right now, there is a group of bacteria whose closest relatives can also be found in the belly of a moose, in dogs, cats, and dolphins, and in groundwater deep under the Earth's surface. In a stunning discovery, scientists have found that these organisms have adapted to these incredibly diverse environments -- without radically changing their genomes.

The organisms are members of the TM7, or Sacchraribacteria, phylum. These are ultra-small, parasitic bacteria with small genomes that belong to a larger group called the Candidate Phyla Radiation (CPR). These CPR bacteria are mysterious "dark matter" that represent more than 25 percent of all bacterial diversity, yet we know very little about them since the vast majority remain uncultivated.

In research first published as a pre-print in 2018, and now formally in the journal Cell Reports, scientists describe their findings that Saccharibacteria within a mammalian host are more diverse than ever anticipated. The researchers also discovered that certain members of the bacteria are found in the oral cavity of humans, the guts of other mammals, and in groundwater. While these environments are all very different, the bacteria's tiny genomes remain minimally changed between humans and groundwater. This indicates that humans acquired the bacteria more recently, on an evolutionary timescale.

"It's the only bacteria we know that has hardly changed when they adapted to humans," said Dr. Jeffrey Scott McLean, a microbiologist and Associate Professor of Periodontics at the University of Washington School of Dentistry, and lead author of the paper.

The TM7 bacteria were a complete mystery to scientists until Dr. Xuesong He, Associate Member of Staff at the Forsyth Institute and co-author of the paper, first isolated the bacterium TM7x, a member of CPR, in 2014. Since then, researchers have learned that CPR includes a huge number of different bacteria, all with tiny genomes. These bacteria need a host to survive and are unique in that they can't make their own amino acids and nucleotides, which are essential building blocks for life.

"I see this as a huge discovery," said Wenyuan Shi, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer at the Forsyth Institute and co-author on the paper. "This creature survives in both humans and groundwater, which indicates there are similarities that allow these bacteria to adapt to humans."

Previous research by Dr. Batbileg Bor, Assistant Member of Staff at the Forsyth Institute and co-author of the paper, showed that TM7 can easily jump from one bacterial host to another. This could explain how they ended up in mammals, since mammals drink groundwater.

"The most likely reason we see a large diversity of these bacteria in humans, yet one group of bacteria remains nearly identical to those in groundwater, is that some groups were acquired in ancient mammal relatives and they expanded over time across mammals, whereas this one highly similar group more recently jumped directly into humans," McLean said.

TM7 and other ultra-small, parasitic bacteria within CPR may play important roles in health and disease that we have yet to discover. Since they act as parasites -- living with and killing other bacteria -- TM7 could change the overall microbiome by modulating the abundance of bacteria, McLean said. Scientists are just scratching the surface of understanding how much our microbiome impacts our overall health.

Another major contribution of this research has been developing a systematic way to name these newly discovered bacteria, setting the foundation for classifying other isolated strains in the future.

The fact that humans acquired TM7 recently is a discovery that has broader implications for understanding our co-evolutionary pathways with the microbes that live on and within us.

"There are only a couple hundred genes that are different in these ultra-small bacteria between what lives deep in the subsurface environment and those that have become common bacteria in our mouths," McLean said. "That is a remarkable feat for bacteria missing so many genes."
The United States condemned the airstrikes conducted by the Afghan Air Force in the western province of Herat that left multiple civilians dead, said the US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad.

The last 24 hours have been very violent in Afghanistan with many losing their lives. In Herat, photos and eyewitness accounts suggest many civilians including children are among the victims of an Afghan airstrike. We condemn the attack and support an investigation, Khalilzad wrote on his Twitter page on late Wednesday, reported Sputnik.

Airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan killed 45 people, including civilians and Taliban fighters, local officials said on Wednesday.

Ali Ahmad Faqir Yar, governor of Adraskan district in the eastern Afghan province of Herat, said, Forty-five people had been killed so far in airstrikes by security forces in the Kham Ziarat area. Taliban were among those killed and at least eight civilians were among the dead.

The diplomat also slammed the Taliban Islamist movement for recent attacks that also resulted in many civilian deaths.

The Afghan people want an immediate start of peace negotiations and a settlement that is in their best interest. More graves will not bring negotiations forward. Rather than setting the process back, we urge all sides to contain the violence, protect civilians, and show necessary restraint as the start of intra-Afghan negotiations is so close, Khalilzad added.

Under the US-Taliban peace agreement which was signed in Doha on February 29, up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners should be released by the Afghan government ahead of the intra-Afghan negotiations.

The process has not been completed yet.

Despite the February agreement, the situation in Afghanistan has remained volatile with sporadic attacks both by the Afghan forces and the Taliban, on each other.
The rise of Gengetone has seen several young Kenyan rappers jump on the rap scene to make music and create content. Some of the biggest names in Gengetone today include groups like Sailors, Mbogi Genje, Ochungulo Family, and Ethic. The groups have taken the industry by storm and put the music scene on a higher scale. Ochungulo Family are among those that are widely recognized by many today. Ochungulo Family songs can be a little too much for those that have conservative views. The young rappers are however versatile with their songs, tackling topics that are common among youth their age.

Image: instagram.com, @ochungulo_family

Source: UGC

The group got their name, and inspiration from ants because they enjoy working together. Ochungulo Family members are Nelly the Goon, Benzema, and Dmore. The trio grew up together in Langata. The three friends have a tight history and always look out for each other. The music they make brings them their peers, and many rap fans together.

Ochungulo Family songs

Ochungulo Family have had hits ever since they officially started making music and continue to garner more support from both corporate and stakeholders in Kenyan music. The recognition they get among industry veterans is enough to gauge their influence. Here are the groups top 10 songs:

1. Mpenzi Mtazamaji - Ochungulo Family ft. The Kansoul

Mpenzi Mtazamaji is one of the latest Ochungulo Family songs. The young group features members of the Kansoul, Mejja and Madraxx, in this hit that has both amusing lines and playful verses. The video is shot in a simple area. The acting in the video is top-notch. Benzema and Dmore are amazing in their part. Mejja and Madtraxx did not disappoint either as their rhyming made the song better.

2. Makeup  Ochungulo Family

Ochungulo Family are known to make light of situations in their songs. It was no shocker when they released this jam which talks about make-up and how it enhances or change a girl's appearance. The rappers wear clown make-up and outfits to emphasize their lines and the message they are trying to pass. The beat switch at the middle of the song is a great concept that puts a listener in a different zone.

READ ALSO: Top 20 latest Kenyan songs in 2020

3. Dudu  Ochungulo Family

Dudu is one of those many Genegtone jams that are X rated. The content in this song cannot be comfortably consumed in conservative settings. Despite using Sheng, many people can still decode the sexual message in the song. Ochungulo Family are known to include vulgarity and extreme language in their songs.

This song talks about coitus and everything provocative that may not be friendly for young listeners. The trio's fans, however, love their music and still enjoy it when the lyrics are obscene.

4. Pandemik  Ochungulo Family

Pandemik talks about the effects coronavirus have brought. The rappers use different examples in real life to show how bad the epidemic has affected the country. This is one of the new Ochungulo Family songs that fans are loving.

Some notable mentions include Pastor Nganga as symbolism for other pastors not being able to get offertory, tithe, and other things congregants offer their pastors. They also include dark humour by talking about terrorists having no opportunity to bomb people as almost the entire world has been shut down by the pandemic.

READ ALSO: Best new Gengetone songs of 2020

5. Mbingijii Imekulwa na Ndogi  Ochunglo Family

The phrase mbingijii imekulwa na ndogi became a popular line on the streets after a young girl in Meru, Kenya was recorded saying it. The heavy Meru accent in the girl is one of the things that made the line popular. Ochungulo Family took the line and hit the studio to make this excellent record. The young girl's catchphrase became the chorus of the song as the three rappers added their verses in the song.

6. Kaa Na Mama Yako  Ochunglo Family

Kaa Na Mama Yako is another song that was made thanks to the popularization of Pokot Governor, Prof Lonyangapuos famous words. The governor's voice makes the hook of this infectious song that has incredible Alvin Brown beats.

Ochungulo Family are known to use buzz words and popular street lines in their music. There are plenty of buzz words in this song which also adapts adult themes. The use of sheng filters some Swahili words but the sexual message remains. The choreography is as spectacular as ever and the cinematography well-made.

7. Aluta  Ochungulo Family ft. Exray and Gwaash

Both Gwaash and Exray have popular songs that have been receiving massive airplay on Kenyan radio. Aluta by Ochungulo Family and the two rappers is a feel-good song that talks about the regular things youth engage in when they are chilling or having a good time.

Aluta is a party song made for all party animals and anyone who enjoys good music. The artistes have fire verses with perfect flows and a great rhyming set. It is impossible not to like this song, especially after the effort put in by everyone involved.

READ ALSO: Best Kenyan gospel songs and artists 2020

8. Na Iwake (Remix)  Ochungulo Family ft. The Kansoul

Ochungulo Family and The Kansoul are known to collaborate on projects that everyone enjoys. In this feel-good song, the two rap groups blend well as they deliver to their fans. The amazing beat and comical lines from the rappers are some of the best features on this song.

Na Iwake is one of the most popular Ochungulo songs, having more than 1 million views on YouTube and still topping radio charts. It is a club banger that many DJs have in their playlists. The working chemistry between the two rap groups is splendid, and fans are looking for more from them.

9. Thutha  Ochungulo Family

Thutha has raunchy scenes and video vixens who are skimpily dressed. This is, however, not as strange as the Ochungul Family music fans already identify with these types of visuals from the group. Thutha is Kenyan slang for booty. The content in this song is about appreciating big booty women mixed with explicit sexual content that is X rated. DJ Nephas produced this distinct beat that complemented the rappers style.

READ ALSO: Top Nandy new songs of 2020

10. Ngwai  Ochungulo Family

This song may not be popular with everyone, but the rappers are not known to make music that is enjoyed by everyone. Ngwai is a song about a recreational substance that is enjoyed by some people. The title of the song may seem controversial, but the lines by the rappers sound good.

The chorus of this track makes the entire jam special as it adapts the tune of a popular Luhya gospel song. Ochungulo Family sometimes displays the usage of this substance in their videos, so it comes as no surprise that they hit the studio to come up with this song.

Ochungulo Family songs and videos are ever lively, vibrant, and colourful. The rappers love to have their friends flood the videos with astounding and distinct dancing styles that spice up the visuals. One thing evident, however, is that the group is not going to stop anytime soon. They have dozens of material that they like to share with their fans and those that support them. Their bold take on issues makes them interesting to watch and follow.

READ ALSO: Alikiba new songs of 2020

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Less than four months before the U.S. election, President Donald Trump has made his tough China policy a centerpiece of his campaign to stay in power.

Over in Beijing, President Xi Jinping is similarly preparing for China's own leadership contest in 2022. While the country's 1.4 billion citizens don't get a vote, public sentiment still matters when it comes to how much support Xi can muster from senior Communist Party leaders for his indefinite rule.

A crucial pillar of that support has been Xi's personification of standing "tall and firm" in the world, an image he's brandished by strongly asserting claims in the South China Sea, spending billions to upgrade military hardware and tightening Beijing's grip over Hong Kong. While that's generated nationalism that has buoyed his support, helping make Xi the country's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, it's also set China on a collision course with the rest of the world.

China has "almost created a dynamic where it has to be externally assertive in order for the party to maintain control domestically, so there's almost a kind of impulse of clashing with the interests, values and sensitivities of other countries," said Rory Medcalf, a professor at the Australian National University who wrote "Indo-Pacific Empire: China, America and the Contest for the World's Pivotal Region."

"It's almost as if the way Xi Jinping has rewired the Chinese system, it can't help it -- it can't help itself," he added. "That is obviously very damaging for China's interests in the long run. It's actually very damaging for all of us."

The deterioration of U.S.-China ties -- the closure of the Houston consulate was the latest in a long string of tit-for-tat action -- is just the tip of the iceberg. In recent months, more countries have spoken out against Chinese actions in places like Hong Kong and Xinjiang. And China's diplomats, eager to please party leaders, have sparred with countries ranging from the U.K. and Australia to India and Kazakhstan.

A new purge with the Communist Party ranks may explain why officials are so eager to demonstrate their loyalty. Quishi Journal, the party's official magazine, published excerpts from Xi's speeches this month saying the party leadership should be embodied in "every aspect and every link" of society. An accompanying editorial called Xi the "ultimate arbiter."

"His campaign to remain in power at the 20th Party Congress has definitely started," said Susan Shirk, chair of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California, San Diego. "There is very likely some real resistance under the surface in the system, and 2022 will be very interesting. I don't think it's a slam dunk."

The biggest question looming over Chinese politics is when Xi, 67, will step aside after breaking with succession practices set up after Mao's fraught tenure. He has pledged to transform China into a leading global power by 2050, with a thriving middle class, strong military and clean environment.

In recent weeks, Xi has sought to weed out dissent among China's security forces. The Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the party body that oversees the country's police, prosecutors and courts, announced an "education and rectification" campaign to "thoroughly remove tumors" from the justice system. Its top official compared the campaign -- set to last through 2022, when Xi's term as party leader expires -- with a political purge that consolidated Mao's paramount position more than 75 years ago.

Xi also placed the People's Liberation Army reserve forces under direct control of the central government and Central Military Commission, changing a rule whereby they reported to both the PLA and local government. And he took steps to silence critics of his government's response to the pandemic while attaching top priority to "safeguarding the regime's security."

While China's citizens aren't going to rebel against Xi, a "perfect storm" scenario in which a covid-19 upsurge forces another lockdown, Chinese stocks crash and countries pressure companies to withdraw investments could lead to splits in the leadership, according to Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. That's dangerous for Xi, he said, because of the precedent he set by jailing former security chief Zhou Yongkang after he retired from the Politburo Standing Committee, China's most powerful body.

"He knows that he's got a lot of enemies, and the enemies are not dissidents," Tsang said. "The enemies are within the top echelon in the Communist Party."

Right now there's no reason to think Xi is facing any imminent threats. While his government's initial handling of the pandemic generated widespread dissatisfaction, Xi's subsequent ability to reduce cases and restart economic activity helped mitigate the damage -- and compared positively with the responses of countries like the U.S., where the virus is still running rampant.

China's economy has also continued to expand, even if growth rates weren't as impressive as during his predecessor's watch. Economic data released in July suggest the country is back on the path to recovery, even though the figures showed worrying trends such as a decline in retail sales and a drop in investment by private companies. Xi this week urged companies to innovate and pledged to further open the economy, saying China will "stand on the correct side of history."

"His position is much more secure than any time before largely because of his success, from the Chinese perspective, in containing coronavirus," said Cheng Li, director of the Brookings Institution's John L. Thornton China Center. "We should not underestimate his capacity and his popularity."

Although gauging public opinion in China is always difficult due to strict censorship, a Harvard University study released this month showed that satisfaction rates among Chinese citizens in 2016 had increased markedly across all levels of government compared with 2003, with officials seen as "as more capable and effective than ever before." It found that citizens respond positively and negatively to measurable changes in their well-being, which could be a "double-edged sword."

"While the CCP is seemingly under no imminent threat of popular upheaval, it cannot take the support of its people for granted," it said.

Without democratic elections, the Communist Party's roughly 200-member Central Committee nominally elects the party leader and lawmakers pick the president -- titles both held by Xi. In reality, leadership positions are hashed out behind the scenes among various factions, a process that starts several years before the Party Congress and remains largely a black box to outsiders.

Whereas a decade ago it was possible to see the government as a separate entity, under Xi the party has become paramount, said Rana Mitter, director of the University of Oxford China Center. That has contributed to a surge in border disputes flaring up at the same time, he said, as promoting nationalism has become more important than creating new diplomatic links.

"In a way that would be less necessary in more prosperous times," Mitter said.

Xi's consolidation of power has made him at once more secure and more vulnerable, with any missteps like the initial response to Covid-19 providing an opening for any rivals to pounce, said Tsang from SOAS University of London. On the world stage, he said, Xi's administration is "picking fights with everybody."

"When you're running it as a strongman, you really cannot afford to show any signs of weakness," Tsang said. "And this is what we have with Xi Jinping."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 19:50:37|Editor: huaxia

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KIEV, July 23 (Xinhua) -- A man armed with a grenade has taken a policeman hostage in Poltava, central Ukraine, and fled, Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Anton Gerashchenko said on his social media on Thursday.

"Negotiations are ongoing to force the attacker to surrender to the police without harming himself or others," the official said on Facebook.

Police stopped the armed man at 9 a.m. local time (0600 GMT) on Thursday, near the building of the administrative court in the town of Poltava. During the operation, the man took a police officer hostage, threatening to blow up the RGD-5 grenade.

The man then drove away with the hostage. A police special operation called "Thunder" was launched.

This is the second incident involving taking hostages in Ukraine this week. On Tuesday an armed man kept 13 people hostage in the western town of Lutsk for over 12 hours but later freed them. Enditem
Queenslands total government debt will blow past $100 billion by June 2021 as the state feels the economic effects of the global pandemic.

Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick delivered the news on Thursday in the wake of the federal government revealing it would be in deficit by $184.5 billion in 2020-21, the largest deficit since World War II.

Mr Dick said Queenslands deficit for 2020-21 was forecast to be $8.5 billion, and said the coronavirus pandemic had obviously caused a large hit to the state and federal economies.

"While our target is to return to balance across the forward estimates, putting a number on that in this volatile economic time is problematic," he said.
Thiruvananthapuram, July 23 : Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's former Principal Secretary M. Sivasankar on Thursday appeared before the NIA in connection with the gold smuggling case and was questioned for around five hours.

Earlier in the day, the NIA officials served notice to Sivasankar at his residence here, asking him to appear before them at the Police Club.

Sivsankar reached the venue in his private car around 3.55 p.m., but did not respond to questions from the waiting media persons whether it was the NIA or the Customs.

At 9 p.m, accompanied by a large number of police officials, he was escorted to his car in which he had come with his relative and despite a volley of questions, he kept silent, got into the car and left for home.

According to reports, the NIA and Customs are expected to call him again as the probe is continuing.

The Customs Department, which began the probe in the case last week, had questioned Sivasankar for over nine hours.

Vijayan, when asked about the development, sharply said: "I have already made this clear. Let the NIA do their job, I have already said about this before also." The gold smuggling case first surfaced when P.S. Sarith, a former employee of the UAE consulate here, was arrested by the Customs Department on July 5 when he was facilitating smuggling of 30 kg gold in the diplomatic baggage from Dubai to Thiruvananthapuram.

The case became more murky when the name of Swapna Suresh, a former employee of the UAE consulate and employed with the state IT Department, surfaced, and then the accused's links with senior IAS official Sivasankar, who has been suspended and dropped from two key posts, were unearthed.

On Wednesday the NIA had completed a joint questioning session with the three arrested persons -- Sarith, Swapna and Sandip Nair -- and it was only a matter of time when Sivasankar was told to appear.

Vijayan has been trying to distance himself from Sivasankar as his stock statement has been: "None will be spared, whosoever he is." With Sivasankar appearing before the NIA, state BJP president K. Surendran said that time is up for Vijayan and he must quit.

"With each passing moment of you sticking to your post, you are challenging the basic principle of democracy. The country is expecting that you would show the example of resigning as that's what is expected to uphold the political morality," Surendran said in a Facebook post.

Congress legislator K.S. Sabarinath said that all know what Vijayan will say now and it will be his routine reaction - "those who have done wrong will not be protected or spared", while going to add that the visuals of Sivasankar going for the questioning "are the most shameful scenes of the most powerful official appearing before the NIA".

CPI-M legislator A.M. Shamseer, however, said that the Chief Minister had made his position clear.

"I don't find anything wrong in the questioning and the NIA is doing their duty. It's only natural that the opposition will cry for the resignation of the CM, as it's common in politics," said Shamseer and after Sivasankar walked out from the NIA office, he asked the media to tell facts only and not let their imaginations run wild.
MEMBERS of a Limerick-based production company are over the moon with the news that their short documentary, The Vasectomy Doctor, has been nominated for an Irish Film and Television Award.

Carbonated Comet Productions have been informed that their Screen Ireland-funded short documentary has been nominated for an Irish Film and Television award for Best Short Film.

The production company, which is based in both Limerick and Clare, has already won 14 awards at festivals all over Ireland and the United States.

To date, the documentary which features Limerick- based actor and festival director Zeb Moore, has also screened at over 35 festivals worldwide.

The company's directors Greg Burrowes and Ronan Cassidy were thrilled to get the news saying: "We are over the moon and delighted to get this recognition from the Irish Film and Television Academy.

The competition this year was fierce and it's fantastic to be nominated alongside such great talent. We want to thank Dr Andrew Rynne for sharing his amazing story and also everyone that made the film possible". The film is currently being distributed by Network Ireland.

It focuses on Dr Andrew Rynne who was the first doctor to perform vasectomies in Ireland. He estimates that he has performed over 35,000 in total. Persevering in the face of opposition from the Church and State in Ireland during the 1970s and 1980s, Dr Rynne continued to challenge the laws governing sexuality, eventually forcing the government to change policy.
Jeffrey Epstein's former defense attorney Alan Dershowitz on Wednesday smeared Epstein victim Maria Farmer as "anti-Semitic" while she's in the middle of undergoing treatment for brain cancer and struggling to survive, let alone defend herself.



As the New York Times reported last year, Maria Farmer and her younger sister Annie were the first people to report Epstein to the FBI and NYPD all the way back in 1996.







Dershowitz on Wednesday evening posted an article he wrote for Newsmax titled, "Key Witness in Epstein Case Made Anti-Semitic Claims," where he took comments of hers condemning Ghislaine Maxwell's alleged supremacist views completely out of context and accused her of sharing "anti-Semitic canards" that sound like they came from "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."





Key Witness in Epstein Case Made Anti-Semitic Claimshttps://t.co/KoLaSeSXgT  Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) July 22, 2020



In one particularly hilarious example, Dershowitz said Farmer was anti-Semitic for saying Epstein and Maxwell were connected to "The Rothschilds" -- even though Dershowitz himself told Fox News' Laura Ingraham on Fox News late last year that he was introduced to Epstein through Lynn Forester de Rothschild!







"Farmer claimed to have evidence that the Israeli Mossad hired Jeffrey Epstein to video tape prominent American political leaders committing acts of pedophilia so that Israel could blackmail them into doing their bidding," Dershowitz said, "and that the entire conspiracy was under the protection and direction of 'The Rothschild's.'"



Dershowitz also constructed this quote of hers where he compiled multiple of her statements into one:

"They are 'Jewish supremacists'" and they are "all connected" through a mysterious organization called MEGA, which is run by Leslie Wexner who is "the head of the snake."

As a reminder, the former Prime Minister of Israel and head of Israeli Military Intelligence, Ehud Barak, was pictured hiding his face while entering Jeffrey Epstein's New York City townhouse (which was given to him for free by pro-Israel billionaire Les Wexner) in 2016.





EXCLUSIVE: Married Israeli politician Ehud Barak is seen hiding his face entering Jeffrey Epstein's NYC townhouse as bevy of young beauties were also spotted going into mansion - despite his claim he NEVER socialized with the pedophile and his girlshttps://t.co/wQBJDkfVzt  HomerB (@HomerB33) July 16, 2019



Barak also reportedly regularly visited Epstein's other apartment building in New York (which was majority owned by Epstein's mysterious brother Mark who bought the apartments off Les Wexner) where underage girls say they were trafficked.





Jeffrey Epstein: Israeli Politician Ehud Barak Crashed at Epstein Apartment Building, Neighbors Say https://t.co/yM89xoKKBs  Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) August 6, 2019



Nonetheless, according to Epstein-defender Alan Dershowitz, it's "paranoid drivel" (and apparently now anti-Semitic!) to suggest Epstein is connected to the Mossad.



Here's the opener to Dershowitz' piece:

The central witness in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation  the person relied on by Netflix in its documentary series "Filthy Rich"  is a 50-year-old woman named Maria Farmer.



It now turns out that she may have been motivated by the anti-Semitic attitudes she has long harbored, to falsely accuse prominent Jews of sexual misconduct. This is some of the bigotry Maria Farmer spewed during a recorded two-hour interview that can be heard online, such as:



"I had a hard time with all Jewish people."



"I think its all the Jews."



"They think Jewish DNA is better than the rest of us."



"These people truly believe they are chosenevery one of them."



"All the Jewish people I met are pedophiles that run the world economy."



"They are 'Jewish supremacists'" and they are "all connected" through a mysterious organization called MEGA, which is run by Leslie Wexner who is "the head of the snake."



Farmer claimed to have evidence that the Israeli Mossad hired Jeffrey Epstein to video tape prominent American political leaders committing acts of pedophilia so that Israel could blackmail them into doing their bidding, and that the entire conspiracy was under the protection and direction of "The Rothschilds."



These anti-Semitic canards sound like they could have come directly from "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and other classic anti-Semitic forgeries and screeds, but all of this and more come from the bigoted brain and malicious mouth of Maria Farmer.

Those quotes were completely taken out of context. Having heard the full interview, I remember Farmer was actually saying how she witnessed Maxwell's supremacist views and it skewed her perception of the world but she specifically said she does not hold any ill will towards all Jewish people despite her terrible experience.











Dershowitz himself has admitted to getting a message at Epstein's place but claimed it was from an "old, old Russian woman" and "I kept my underwear on."





Alan Dershowitz admits to going to child sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein's house for a massage, but would like you to know that he kept his underwear on. pic.twitter.com/Sfj4689wDd  Lauren Werner  (@LaurenWern) July 9, 2019



Farmer responded to Dershowitz's smear on Twitter writing, "For anyone abusing a cancer patient, I hope you never know my agony."





For anyone abusing a cancer patient, i hope you never know my agony. pic.twitter.com/zhaGhQPx9N  ArtisticWhistleBlower, WIDE AWAKE (@ArtisticBlower) July 22, 2020



"Please defend me against evil elites by contacting them on here," Farmer said. "I am losing my will to live. I came forward so everyone would know the TRUTH, not the lies spoken by Dersh. Write to him. I need you all."



"There's an old saying: 'If you have the law on your side, bang on the law. If you have the facts on your side, bang on the facts. If you have neither, bang on the table,'" Alan Dershowitz wrote in his 2013 memoir Taking The Stand: My Life in The Law. "I have never believed that, but I do believe in a variation on that theme: If you don't have the law or legal facts on your side, argue your case in the court of public opinion."



It appears he's taking his own advice by smearing Farmer in the most vile way possible.







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ATHENS, Greece - Greece has warned it will do whatever is necessary to defend its sovereign rights in response to plans by neighbour Turkey to proceed with an oil-and-gas research mission south of Greek islands in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The dispute over seabed mineral rights has led to increased navy deployments by both NATO members in the region, where a Turkish research vessel, the Oruc Reis, is being prepared for a survey mission.

Greek government spokesman Stelios Petsas described the mission as a direct violation of Greek sovereignty.

The government is underlining to all parties that Greece will not accept a violation of its sovereignty and will do whatever is necessary to defend its sovereign rights, Petsas said.

Greece and Turkey have been at odds for decades over sea boundaries but recent discoveries of natural gas and drilling plans across the East Mediterranean have exacerbated the dispute.

Turkey argues Greek islands should not be included in calculating maritime zones of economic interest  a position that Greece says is a clear violation of international law.

The survey ship Oruc Reis remains anchored at the port of Antalya, in southeastern Turkey, but a navigational telex issued by the port says the mission planned through Aug. 2 remains valid and effective.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden during a campaign event in New Castle, Del., on July 21, 2020. Read more

Joe Biden has added four new aides to his Pennsylvania campaign staff, including two with experience in Western Pennsylvania, as he builds out his team in a state crucial to the presidential election.

The hires come two weeks after Biden named Philadelphians Brendan McPhillips and Sincere Harris as state director and senior adviser, respectively.

Some Democrats have worried about Bidens pace of hiring in Pennsylvania, and the Republican National Committee says it already have more than 100 people on the ground in the state, boasting that it will have an organizing advantage.

Bidens national headquarters is in Philadelphia, and he, President Donald Trump, and Vice President Mike Pence have peppered the state with personal visits. Recent polls have showed Biden opening up a sizable lead in Pennsylvania, mirroring surveys in other battleground states and nationally as Trumps handling of the coronavirus pandemic has hurt his political standing.

As Pennsylvania political director, Biden has hired Larry Hailsham Jr., a Pittsburgh native who previously worked as the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerces government affairs manager. He also worked as Western Political Coordinator for Sen. Bob Caseys 2018 senate reelection campaign.

Michael Feldman, a Philadelphia native, will be Pennsylvania communications director. He most recently served as the deputy communications director for Protect Our Care, which aims to protect the Affordable Care Act. He also worked on Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign in Pennsylvania.

Nandi OConnor, a lifelong Philadelphian, will be Bidens digital director for organizing in the state. She previously worked for Organizing Together 2020 PA, which aimed to build out field teams in battleground states, and for Priorities USA, a Democratic super PAC.

 READ MORE: Joe Biden has hired top aides to run his Pennsylvania campaign

And as deputy coordinated political director, Biden hired Amy Dorra, a Philadelphian who previously worked on Rep. Conor Lambs victories in conservative leaning districts in Western Pennsylvania.
She is regularly spotted out on walks with her actor beau Ben Affleck.

But Ana de Armas had a different set of companions on Thursday: her older brother Javier Caso and her adorable white dog Elvis.

The 32-year-old Cuban actress looked casual yet elegant on the walk through Los Angeles' Venice neighborhood in a patterned white dress.

Woman in white: Ana de Armas, 32, was a vision in white as she joined her brother Javier Caso and her dog Elvis for a walk in Los Angeles' Venice neighborhood

The short-sleeved sack dress featured diamond-shaped gold designs and highlighted her trim legs.

She matched it with a pair of white strappy sandals, and she blocked out the sun with a pair of dark aviator sunglasses.

The 5ft6in beauty accessorized with a gold luxury wristwatch and wore her brunette locks parted down the middle in gentle waves.

Her brother was dressed more casually in a navy blue T-shirt and black jeans with black trainers.

Javier, who's based out of New York City, works as a photographer and visual artist.

Breezy style: The short-sleeved sack dress featured diamond-shaped gold designs and highlighted her trim legs

Simple chic: She matched it with a pair of white strappy sandals, and she blocked out the sun with a pair of dark aviator sunglasses

Other half: Her boyfriend Ben was also seen out on the same day in Brentwood

Both brother and sister wore surgical masks for their walk to help slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

California Governor Gavin Newsom order all Californians to wear masks in public back on June 18 to help combat a surge in COVID-19 cases throughout the state, which has paralleled spikes in other states.

Though Ana took her walk with Elvis, the Knives Out star recently welcomed another furry member to her family: an adorable black and white pooch named Salsa.

'Welcome to the family Salsa,' she captioned a gallery of adorable snaps with the new dog posted to her Instagram account on Friday.

Though she put most of the focus on her puppy, the actress was featured in some of the photos, including an overhead shot of the two lounging together.

New pup: Though Ana took her walk with Elvis, the Knives Out star recently welcomed another furry member to her family: an adorable black and white pooch named Salsa

Too cute: 'Welcome to the family Salsa,' she captioned a gallery of adorable snaps with the new dog posted to her Instagram account on Friday

New pals: Though she put most of the focus on her puppy, the actress was featured in some of the photos, including an overhead shot of the two lounging together

Missing from her walk was her boyfriend Ben Affleck, who regularly strolls with her.

Ben and Ana first met during the filming of the Adrian Lynedirected erotic thriller Deep Water, which is based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith and stars Ben as a jealous husband who murders the men his adulterous wife gets close to.

The film, a remake of the 1981 French thriller Eaux Profondes starring Isabelle Huppert and Jean-Louis Trintignant, is currently set for a November 13 release date.

On her own: Missing from her walk was her boyfriend Ben Affleck, who regularly strolls with her; pictured together on June 30

The two took their relationship public in March when they were seen enjoying a vacation in Costa Rica and Ana's native Cuba.

The couple both have a busy schedule ahead of them.

Ana will star as Marilyn Monroe in an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' acclaimed novel Blonde, and she'll also appear in the next Bond film, No Time To Die, which will be released on November 20.

Ben will likely have to record some new audio for Zack Snyder's director's cut of Justice League, which will premiere on HBO Max next year.

He was in the midst of filming his supporting role in The Last Duel for director Ridley Scott, which marked his first screenwriting collaboration with Matt Damon since they won Oscars for their Good Will Hunting screenplay.

It was also announced that he'll be directing and starring in a remake of the classic film Witness For The Prosecution.
Zarif says delivered 'important' message to Putin, agreed on strategic cooperation deal

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 22 July 2020 1:28 AM

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says he has delivered an "important" message from Iran's President Hassan Rouhani to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, adding that Tehran and Moscow agreed to finalize a long-term comprehensive deal on strategic cooperation.

During a third visit to Russia in the past six months, Zarif said in a tweet late on Tuesday that he had delivered an important message to Putin, adding that he had held extensive talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on bilateral cooperation as well as regional and global coordination.

The top Iranian diplomat said both Tehran and Moscow had "identical views" on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with major world countries, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and highlighted the need for upholding international law.

Zarif also underlined that Iran and Russia had "agreed to conclude [a] long-term comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement."

Zarif traveled to Russia on Tuesday to hold talks with senior Russian officials on issues of bilateral and regional significance. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Abbas Araqchi also accompanied Zarif during his visit.

In a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Zarif said Iran-Russia relations are at their strongest in decades, adding that such sustainable ties will benefit both countries and guarantee global peace and security.

Lavrov, for his part, said his meeting with Zarif was an "important stage" in the joint efforts by the remaining members of the JCPOA to maintain this "most important achievement of multilateral diplomacy."

Lavrov emphasized that there are still chances to preserve the international nuclear accord.

The JCPOA was reached between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the P5+1 group  the US, Britain, France, Russia, and China plus Germany  in 2015 in Austrian capital, Vienna.

In May 2018, US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled his country out of the JCPOA and later re-imposed the sanctions that had been lifted against Tehran on the back of the deal.

Although it is no longer a party to the deal, the US is currently exerting pressure on the UN Security Council to extend an arms embargo against Iran, which will expire under the JCPOA in October, as part of Washington's so-called "maximum pressure" campaign against Tehran.

Tehran has firmly rejected Washington's plans, stating that the US is no longer a party to the nuclear deal ever since it withdrew from the multilateral agreement.

China and Russia, which are both signatories to the JCPOA, have echoed Iran's position.

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Within a few short years, Sanders purchased Miller Bakery Cafe from the owners and raised the eatery to the attention of diners from Chicago, Michigan and beyond. He covered the exposed brick walls of the restaurant with pop culture prints from the 1968 Japanese TV animated cartoon Speed Racer, which he recalled from his own youth and won raves for an eclectic yet appealing and creative haute cuisine menu, which appealed to both everyday tastes as well as fine-tuned palates.
YAHOO! Tesla Going Deep In The Heart Of Texas For New Truck Factory

Austin TX July 22, 2020; Reuters reported that Tesla will build its next factory near Austin, Texas, Chief Executive Elon Musk announced late on Wednesday.

The 2,000-acre site on the Colorado River is about 13 minutes from downtown Austin, Musk said during the companys second-quarter earnings call.

Its going to be an ecological paradise ... open to the public, he said.

Musk said Tesla would consider site runner-up Tulsa, Oklahoma, for future production.

Musk and his team met earlier this month with officials in both states, which were competing to land the $1.1 billion plant.

Musk on Wednesday said the plant will build Teslas new Cybertruck and its heavy-duty Semi truck, as well as the Model 3 and Model Y cars for eastern North America.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said in a statement on Wednesday: Tesla is one of the most exciting and innovative companies in the world, and we are proud to welcome its team to the State of Texas, said Governor Abbott. Texas has the best workforce in the nation and weve built an economic environment that allows companies like Tesla to innovate and succeed.

Reporting for Reuters by Paul Lienert in Detroit; Additional reporting by Tina Bellon in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis
Social Security Office to extend unemployment payouts by three months

PHUKET: Ministry of Labour Permanent Secretary Sutthi Sukoson revealed today (July 23) that the Cabinet has approved a budget of B890 million to extend unemployment payouts through the Social Security Office by three months.

COVID-19economics

By The Phuket News

Thursday 23 July 2020, 06:48PM

Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Labour Sutthi Sukoson. Photo: Labour Ministry

Even people left unemployed as a result of the COVID-19 economic crisis who have paid into the fund less than six months in the past 15 months will be eligible for the benefit, Mr Suthi said, reported state news agency National News Bureau of Thailand (NNT).

After the funds have been transferred from the Ministry of Finance, the Social Security Office will provide each successful applicant B15,000 in support, paid out in three monthly payments of B5,000, Mr Suthi explained

From statistics collected on May 15 this year, 59,776 people will receive compensation as a result of the Cabinets approval, which in total will require around B896.64 million in government funds, he said.

This compensation will not only help the people with the income that they lost for living, but also stimulate the circulation of money, he added.

This may create more spending and employment, and in turn money will come back to the government in the form of taxes paid, Mr Suthi said.

Details of applying for the extended unemployment support have yet to be released,

The decision by Cabinet is a turnaround on reports only last week that the board of the Social Security Office (SSO) had opposed extending its relief compensation scheme to subscribers made jobless as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Also, Mr Suthis announcement will come as welcome news to many people in Phuket left without any form of income due to the economic shutdown brought on by policies to counter the spread of COVID-19.

Unemployment in Phuket is the highest on record and although allowed to reopen, businesses across the island are struggling to even cover operating expenses without tourists arriving in numbers.

Phuket Chamber of Commerce (PCC) President Thanusak Phungdet last week expressed his grave concerns that would result from a lack of government support for people left jobless by the crisis.

Crime and suicide rates will rise, he told The Phuket News.

As of last week Mr Thanusak had not received any response to his plea for the government to extend its social security payments for people in Phuket for another three months  a formal request he submitted more than a month ago.

The first three months of social security payments made available to people left without work due to the current situation ended on June 30.

At that time, estimates indicated that the fallout from the COVID-19 crisis may end up costing Phuket more than B280 billion in lost revenues. That figure has yet to be revised.
[July 23, 2020] Hitachi Vantara Federal President and CEO Dave Turner Selected to the Board of Directors for the Northern Virginia Technology Council Hitachi Vantara Federal, a leader in data-driven solutions and services for the Federal Government, today announced that President and CEO Dave Turner was selected to the board of directors for the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC), one of the largest technology councils in the nation. In this role, Dave will assist the NVTC in meeting the future needs of the region's technology network by providing input into the NVTC's vision for the region's technology community. As President, CEO and Chairman of the Board at Hitachi (News - Alert) Vantara Federal, Dave oversees the overall growth and direction of the company and will use his expertise in the Federal Government space to provide insights for the Northern Virginia Technology Council. As a membership and trade association for the technology community in Northern Virginia, the NVTC convenes and connects technology companies and individuals of all sizes to accelerate innovation as well as meet the current and future needs of the region's technology ecosystem. In addition, the NVTC provides networking, branding and business development opportunities as a global technology center. "At Hitachi, we understand the importance of technology and seek a future in which government agencies can extend the life of their IT infrastructure for better reliability," said Dave Turner, President & CEO of Hitachi Vantara Federal. "I share the Northern Virginia Technology Council's mission to address the top priorities in the technology industry, and I'm honored to be a member of the board. I look forward to connecting with and learning from individuals across the different areas of technology." Previously, Dave was Group President of the Applied Technology & Operational Services Group at Akima, a leading holding company that supports a divere portfolio of federal programs. A 20-year veteran in the public sector industry, Dave brings along expertise and experience in leading business development initiatives for major organizations supporting the public sector. Dave has a reputation for leading companies to deliver increased value by encouraging operational excellence and championing business transformation. Prior to Akima, Dave served as senior vice president at Affiliated Computer Services and held roles with McDonald Bradley (now ManTech) and American Management Systems (now CGI (News - Alert) ). About the Northern Virginia Technology Council The Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) is the membership and trade association for the technology community in Northern Virginia. As one of the largest technology councils in the nation, NVTC serves about 1,000 companies and entities from all sectors of the technology industry, as well as service providers, universities/colleges, foreign embassies, nonprofit organizations and governmental agencies. Through its members, NVTC represents about 350,000 employees in the region. NVTC is recognized as the nation's leader in providing its technology community with networking and educational events; specialized services and benefits; public policy advocacy; branding of its region as a major global technology center; initiatives in targeted business sectors and in the international, entrepreneurship, workforce and education arenas; and the NVTC Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity that supports the NVTC Veterans Employment Initiative and other priorities within Virginia's technology community. Visit NVTC at http://www.nvtc.org. About Hitachi Vantara Federal Corporation Hitachi Vantara Federal, Corporation, implements data and analytics solutions that meet the federal government's needs today and tomorrow. Hitachi Vantara Federal provides pathways to the cloud and converged IT systems through virtualization, storage and DCC to reduce IT complexity and increase the efficiency of the U.S. government. Hitachi Vantara Federal is able to offer the best information and operation technology from across the Hitachi family to provide exceptional value to government agencies. Hitachi Vantara Federal Corporation is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. For more information, please visit: www.hitachivantarafederal.com. Follow Hitachi Vantara Federal on Twitter (News - Alert) @HVFederal. About Hitachi Vantara Hitachi Vantara, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., guides our customers from what's now to what's next by solving their digital challenges. Working alongside each customer, we apply our unmatched industrial and digital capabilities to their data and applications to benefit both business and society. More than 80% of the Fortune 100 trust Hitachi Vantara to help them develop new revenue streams, unlock competitive advantages, lower costs, enhance customer experiences, and deliver social and environmental value. Visit us at www.hitachivantara.com. About Hitachi, Ltd. Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is focused on its Social Innovation Business that combines information technology (IT), operational technology (OT) and products. The company's consolidated revenues for fiscal year 2019 (ended March 31, 2020) totaled 8,767.2 billion yen ($80.4 billion), and it employed approximately 301,000 people worldwide. Hitachi drives digital innovation across five sectors - Mobility, Smart Life, Industry, Energy and IT - through Lumada, Hitachi's advanced digital solutions, services, and technologies for turning data into insights to drive digital innovation. Its purpose is to deliver solutions that increase social, environmental and economic value for its customers. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at https://www.hitachi.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200723005100/en/

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The European Union (EU) and the United States government have condemned the recent killing of aid workers abducted in June along the Monguno-Maiduguri road in North-east Nigeria.

In a statement signed by its Nigerian office spokesperson, Chukwulaka Modestus, on Thursday, the EU expressed shock.

The EU would like to express its condolences with the families, friends and colleagues of the five victims and our thoughts are with them, the statement said.

PREMIUM TIMES reported the killing of the aid workers and the circulation of the tragic video online.

The gunmen who carried out the killing said their victims were aid workers working for nongovernmental organisations.

According to the statement, the EU appealed for the adherence to international humanitarian law and the safeguard of human rights.

Conflict is not an excuse to breach these rules and target humanitarian workers and civilians, the statement said.

It said it is an extremely difficult time for the humanitarian community in Nigeria.

It lamented that the informal vehicle checkpoints and ambushes along the main roads in Borno State have resulted in hundreds of civilians being abducted, wounded or killed since the beginning of the year.

Insecurity in conflict-affected North-east Nigeria is severely impacting the civilian population and hindering the capacity to provide humanitarian assistance to people in need of urgent support.

Humanitarian workers have one mission  that of saving lives. At a time when humanitarian needs are at their highest in North-east Nigeria, compounded by the coronavirus pandemic, relief workers continue to selflessly help the people in need for whom this aid is their only lifeline. Saving the lives of others should not cost lives.

U.S.

Also, the United States embassy in Nigeria has reacted to the execution of the aid workers.

We are deeply saddened by the execution of five humanitarian workers by terrorists in North-east Nigeria. This comes against a backdrop of deteriorating conditions for millions of Nigerians, it said.

These brave individuals dedicated their lives to easing human suffering. We hope that their families and colleagues can take comfort in their selfless sacrifices on behalf of others. We will remember their dedication to others.

President Muhammadu Buhari earlier condemned the execution, pledging that his administration would implement measures to prevent a recurrence of such tragedy.
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Croissants, yoghurts, full English breakfasts, gooseberry compotes with creme fraiche, Champagne, beef cheek in red wine, cod roulade the menu for first-class Eurostar passengers  overseen by superchef Raymond Blanc - is amazing.

Well, normally amazing.

Right now in first class  or 'business premier' in the Eurostar-vernacular - it amounts to cookies (very nice ones) and bottles of water, as I recently found out on a return trip from London to Paris.

The inside track on Eurostar in the coronavirus era: Ted in business premier on a St Pancras to Paris service. Masks are mandatory

Pictured left is the business premier lunch service. Pictured right is the business premier dinner service

Like the rest of the travel industry, Eurostar has had to adapt its operation to make it Covid-secure and a reduction in onboard services is one of many measures introduced as a result.

Overall, my experience on the new pandemic-friendly Eurostar was very pleasant  save for the discomfort of wearing a face mask for hours on end.

Theyre mandatory onboard.

At first glance, when I arrived at St Pancras International station for the 12.24 to Paris, all seemed perfectly normal.

The departure area at St Pancras as Ted waited for his lunchtime service to Gare du Nord. Jostling levels? Zero

Pictured left is a Eurostar social distancing message on the waiting area floor at St Pancras International. Right: Passengers are asked not to sit next to each other

At St Pancras coffee cups get special treatment at security. Pictured right is Ted walking along the platform to his carriage

Eurostar is currently running eight Paris services a day, four to Brussels and one to Amsterdam

Then I noticed that some of the outlets in the normally bustling shopping arcade section were shut  along with the dedicated business premier security lane.

After one of my group kindly bought me a coffee from the thankfully open Paul bakery, we decided to begin the journey through security and border control.

Thing is, my coffee was gigantic, the clock was ticking and it was too hot to gulp down, so I decided to check-in with it.

A potential hiccup  but Eurostar had me covered, as Ill explain.

To ensure social distancing, staff were filtering passengers through in controlled numbers.

Seats in business premier come with a recline function, a reading light and a socket for UK and continental plugs

Breakfast, business premier-style, used to start with a roll, a croissant and a yoghurt

Pre-corona business premier dinner: An apple and vanilla cheesecake with blackberry coulis (left); citrus bulgar wheat and fennel salad (right), along with well-balanced Minervois and Bordeaux reds from France

The dapper lounge at London St Pancras International, which will be reopening on August 3

Eurostar carefully filters passengers through the departure system at St Pancras International (file image)

Direct Disneyland Paris Eurostar services restart on August 2. The theme park reopened on July 15

EUROSTARS COVID-SECURE SERVICE There is a revised seat map in place, keeping a safe distance between all travellers.

Face masks are compulsory, following guidance from governments across all routes.

Increased cleaning resources, additional cleaning teams onboard, with high-frequency touch areas such as tables and handles disinfected throughout the journey.

Onboard food service is closed, but travellers can bring their own refreshments and there are no liquid restrictions through security.

Eurostar is working to reopen business lounges as soon as possible. Business travellers (and carte blanche holders) will be able to enjoy all of these once again from August 3.

All tickets are now flexible so that travellers can change their dates without an exchange fee on all bookings made up to the end of the year

Eurostar is currently running eight Paris services a day, four to Brussels and one to Amsterdam. Demand is being monitored and will be adjusted in response.

Direct Disneyland Paris services restart on August 2. Advertisement

Ticketless entry is encouraged, so through the barriers I went using a barcode from my ticket email.

After this, there was a pause before I was directed to a completely empty X-ray machine conveyor belt, which felt rather 'business premier'.

The security staff, perhaps because of thin passenger numbers, were full of bonhomie.

My vertiginous coffee was spotted straight away by a security officer, who produced a little tray lined with foam cup holders so that it could pass through the X-ray system.

Well, I never. How civilised.

Passport control was negotiated rapidly, with passengers dutifully spacing themselves out and masks being removed only briefly for border control officers.

The business premier lounge, which is very cool and swanky, was shut, so we plundered Pret for lunch fodder and sponged in the new normal Eurostar main-waiting-area-vibe, which was serene.

This area can be chaotic - jostle-central.

But social distancing was in full effect  stickers on the seats urged passengers to please leave a space  and everyone seemed very relaxed.

So far, so splendid.

And it was similarly tranquil on the train.

There was no business premier greeter at the door, but acres of space for us to spread out in.

Eight big reclining seats - with power sockets that take both UK and continental plugs - for three people.

Ok, so thats partly because we were in business premier, but Eurostar has changed its seat map to ensure passengers in every class are spaced out.

The only (inevitable) disappointment of the trip was the seriously pared-down service.

Eurostar isnt taking any chances and to keep staff/customer interactions to a minimum, it amounts in business premier to being offered a cookie and bottle of water on the way out, and on the way back  just a bottle of water.

The station experience on the return journey from Gare du Nord was similar to the one in London  no business premier ticket lanes, no lounge (until August 3), but lots of seating available and plenty of room to manoeuvre.

The major frustration  both ways - was prolonged mask-wearing. Necessary, but not comfortable.

The verdict for Eurostar? Sterling job. I felt safe and reassured every step of the way.

And for business premier? Well, its a flat 245 fare each way and that will seem pretty steep for many for a no-frills service.

But on the plus side  youve got the luxury of enough space to swing a cat. And a bottle of water.
The 2bn credit-guarantee scheme is likely doomed to fail because banks won't likely lend to those small firms that are most in need of help, small firm business groups have said.

The credit guarantee scheme which plans to offer 2bn in lower-cost loans to businesses is part of the 7.4bn summer stimulus package that the Government says will save thousands of jobs during the Covid-19 economic emergency.

Neil McDonnell, chief executive at Isme, said the scheme will fail because it is not attractive enough to persuade banks to lend to hard-hit firms struggling with debts and there was still a lack of clarity about the real cost of the loans under the scheme.

The Government said the stimulus will back Irelands businesses by providing SME loans at zero-interest for the first year.

Isme is still holding out for a credit-guarantee scheme that meets the needs of small firms and looks more like the equivalent UK scheme, the Bounce Back Loans scheme, where it has been hugely successful after a revamp.

The UK scheme is 100% backed by the UK government which compares with the Irish schemes 80% guarantee which means that the commercial banks here have to take on 20% of the losses for defaults. Mr McDonnell said that banks here are gun shy over lending to Irish small firms.

Read More Micheal Martin: Stimulus package will lift both communities and businesses

John Moran, a former secretary-general at the Department of Finance, who heads up the SME Recovery Ireland business group, said the stimulus package was not big enough.

The reduction in the Vat rate to 21% would not deliver the aid to small firms who are struggling with debts built up in the last four months of lockdown and who wont have the time to trade themselves out of the crisis by tapping the Vat cut, he said.

On the credit-guarantee scheme, Mr Moran said many SMEs were already too weak financially and wont be able to make the terms of the loans.

Economist Jim Power said that the surprise element of the stimulus package was the very costly reduction in the Vat rate and he favoured more targeted measures. The UK and Germany had announced more ambitious stimulus schemes, he said.

However, Fergal OBrien, director of policy and public affairs at Ibec, said the comprehensive package was the right mix for businesses. And Brian Keegan, director of public policy at Chartered Accountants Ireland, said the extension of the wage-support scheme and the increased level of the restart grants will give firms confidence.
Joe Biden wants Islam taught more in schools, decries 'rise in Islamophobia'

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Democrat presidential hopeful Joe Biden said Monday that he wants schools in the U.S. to teach more about Islam and claimed that there is an unconscionable rise in Islamophobia under the Trump administration.

"I wish we taught more in our schools about the Islamic faith, Biden, a Catholic, said during his video remarks played at the Million Muslim Votes summit organized by the Muslim American political action committee Emgage Action.

I wish we talked about all the great confessional faiths. [Islam is] one of the great confessional faiths. What people don't realize is ... we all come from the same root here, in terms of our fundamental basic beliefs. I just want to thank you for giving me the opportunity for being engaged, for committing to action this November.

Emgage Action boasts of being the political home for Muslim Americans" and endorsed Biden in April after initial endorsing Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the Democratic presidential primary.

Donald Trump has fanned the flames of hate in this country, across the board, through his words, his policies, his appointments, his deeds and he continues to fan those flames, the 77-year-old Biden, who served as vice president under former President Barack Obama, said. Under this administration, we have seen an unconscionable rise in Islamophobia, including kids being bullied at school and hate crimes in our communities.

Biden also claimed that Trump has named people with open Islamophobia  who have no business serving in high positions in our government to key leadership roles in our Department of Defense [and] the U.S. Agency for International Development.

It is an insult to our values, it weakens our standing in the world, Biden said. What message does this send to the rest of the world?

Despite calling out administration officials he accused of being Islamophobic, Biden mentioned nothing in his speech about confronting the presence of radical Islamic extremist groups that are responsible for the killing of thousands around the world.

Biden praised Emgage Action for its effort in getting 1 million Muslim voters to show up to vote in November.

You are doing what has never been done before, Biden said. It matters. Your voice is your vote. Your vote is your voice.

Biden admitted that the voice of Muslim Americans have not always been recognized or represented in the fashion that it deserves.



He went on to say that this is the most important election in modern American history.

Biden also asserted that Muslim communities were the first to feel Donald Trumps assault on black and brown communities in this country with his vile Muslim ban.

The so-called Muslim ban was an executive order during the first days of the Trump administration in 2017 that temporarily halted immigration and refugee resettlement from several Muslim-majority countries that failed to meet minimum security and information-sharing requirements. The order was opposed by immigration and refugee advocacy groups.

That fight was the opening barrage in what has been nearly four years of constant pressure and insults and attacks against Muslim American communities, Latino communities, black communities, AAPI communities, Native Americans, Biden said of the Trump administrations travel bans.

Biden vowed to end the Muslim ban on day one. Biden also vowed to work with Congress to pass hate crime legislation and legislation to end racial and religious profiling by federal law enforcement agencies.

As Trump has built up relationships with several national leaders and strongmen around the world, such as North Koreas Kim Jong Un, Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi Arabias crown prince, Biden vowed that he wont be writing any love letters to dictators.

Biden also said his administration would work with international partners to meet the demands of the humanitarian crisis in Syria, Yemen and Gaza. He also said that he would continue to push for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine.

He further declared that as president, he would seek out and incorporate the ideas of Muslim Americans on everyday issues that matter most to our communities. Biden said he would include having Muslim American voices as part of his administration.



I want to make sure your voices are included in the decision-making process as we work to rebuild our nation, Biden said.

The former Delaware senator said he is not just asking for Muslims' support but stressed that he wants to earn their vote.

Bidens comments on wanting to see more Islam taught in public schools come as many public school districts around the country already include units on Islam in high school and, in some cases, middle school social studies class.

Bidens comment drew the ire of some Christian conservatives on social media.

"Basement Biden should have stayed in basement, conservative author and radio host Wayne Allyn Root wrote in a tweet.

Outside of radical Dementia-crats, his comments scare the be-Jesus out of Americans. Teach Islam in schools. No wonder they keep him in basement. The more he talks, the more he horrifies Silent Majority, he added.

Christian Broadcasting Network analyst David Brody opined on Twitter that Bidens comment will help Trump immensely in 2020.

Christianity and its history/values are being eliminated/distorted in public schools and @JoeBiden wants MORE teachings on Islam? Brody asked.

Also speaking at the summit was controversial activist Linda Sarsour, a Muslim of Palestinian descent who was a founding board member of the Women's March movement before leaving the board after accusations of antisemitism.

The Anti-Defamation League reports that Sarsour holds "positions that delegitimize Israel." Sarsour has in the past reportedly praised one of the alleged unindicted co-conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, Imam Siraj Wahhaj, and referred to him as a mentor.

Also speaking at the conference was controversial pro-BDS Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

"Biden has a lot of work to do to win the hearts of young Muslim Americans who were core to Bernies campaign," Sarsour wrote in a Twitter thread. "They are anti-war, pro-Palestinian, pro-Abolition of ICE & support defunding of police. They care about Rohingya, Uighur Muslims, Kashmir, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen & Syria."

"I choose Biden. But I choose him as my opponent in the White House," Sarsour added. "I want him to defeat Trump so we can mobilize our movements to hold him accountable and push him to do and be better. We cant do that with Trump."
PORTLAND, Ore. - Mayor Ted Wheeler choked on tear gas late Wednesday as he stood at the gates assembled outside the federal courthouse in downtown Portland, where federal agents set off explosives and fired chemicals into a crowd of hundreds.

The Democratic mayor pressed a hand over his nose and mouth, already covered by a blue surgical mask, as a thick cloud of gas surged toward him. He had strapped on lab goggles to help protect his eyes, but still, the mayor said, his face burned and eyes watered.

"It's hard to breathe - it's a little harder to breathe than I thought," Wheeler told The Washington Post while a man with a leaf blower turned the nozzle on the mayor to clear away any gas still hanging in the air. "This is abhorrent. This is beneath us."

As Wheeler stood at the fence, he was heckled and insulted. Some demonstrators called for his resignation. Others, who had been tear-gassed by the Portland Police Bureau over the past eight weeks, shouted questions at the mayor.

"How does that taste?"

"Does it burn?"

"How can you let your people get gassed out here every night?"

Wheeler had come to the protest, he said, to stand with protesters in the face of what he has described as an "occupying force" - federal agents who were deployed by President Donald Trump to restore order to a city that the president has described as "worse than Afghanistan."

For days, Wheeler, Oregon Democratic Gov. Kate Brown and other state and local officials have demanded that Trump withdraw the surge of federal officers from this Pacific Northwest city, where ongoing protests have continued nightly for more than 50 straight days. But little has changed.

Videos of federal officers pelting protesters with less-lethal impact munitions like rubber bullets and exploding pepper balls, shooting tear gas into city streets and launching stun grenades into crowds have captured millions of views on social media and incensed local lawmakers.

"The reason I am here tonight is to stand with you no matter what," Wheeler had said earlier in the night to a roar of cheers from the steps of the Multnomah County Justice Center, where the county jail is located. "And if they launch the tear gas against you, they're launching the tear gas against me!"

But many in the crowd didn't believe him. They shook their heads and muttered words like "photo op." One young man shouted, "You're only saying that because CNN is here."

For hours before Wheeler's brush with chemical irritants, the mayor made a contentious and, at times, tense attempt to talk with protesters. On the wall of the justice center behind him, activists had displayed a list of demands. The last demand on the list, which included defunding the Portland Police Bureau by 50 percent and expelling federal forces from the city, was for Wheeler to resign.

Wheeler tried to address Trump's recent pronouncement that he would be sending a surge of federal forces to other Democrat-led American cities to help combat crime, starting with Chicago and Albuquerque, but the crowd shouted him down.

They wanted, instead, to talk about what, exactly, he was doing to get rid of the federal agents and asked about his dual role as mayor and chief of police. Some shared personal stories of run-ins with the police. Others demanded that he consider making sweeping systemic change to policing in Portland.

As he spoke, the constant thrum of the crowd was punctured with chants of "Quit your job!"

Amanda Lundbom, 36, attended the protest with her 16-year-old daughter. They stood off to the side as Wheeler took questions from the crowd. Lundbom has been going to Portland demonstrations since they began in late May, following the death George Floyd, a black man, in police custody in Minneapolis. She wanted to know what took the mayor so long to join them in the streets, calling for racial justice.

She was skeptical about the mayor's commitment to stand on the front line of the protests, facing down federal officers in tactical gear.

"He has a whole army of Portland police officers who he could have out here keeping the citizens of this city safe while we are being brutalized by the feds," she said. "Why don't they stand with us? Protect us? He says he doesn't want [the federal agents] here, but he's not doing anything to stop them from hurting his people."

Wheeler wound his way through the crowd. When he began to veer away from the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse, protesters yelled, "You're going the wrong way, Ted! Go to the front!"

Wheeler said he had never been tear-gassed before Wednesday night.

Just after 11 p.m., he got his first taste. A chest-pounding boom echoed through the square as dozens retreated from the fence. Some people who had come prepared with gas masks and leaf blowers moved toward the front.

Wheeler stood rooted to the spot in front of black-clad demonstrators carrying umbrellas and homemade shields.

The mayor's protest appearance comes amid a competitive reelection bid in a city that hasn't had a two-term mayor since 2005. Wheeler is being challenged from the left by Sarah Iannarone, who has made police accountability a primary issue of her campaign and has been tear-gassed at recent rallies against police violence.

Iannarone had publicly challenged Wheeler to show up to such a demonstration.

After he was hit with the gas, Wheeler said the experience made him rethink the city's allowance that Portland police can use gas on protesters once a riot is declared. Under Oregon law, a riot can be any situation in which a person commits a crime while five or more other people engage "in tumultuous and violent conduct."

"I don't think we should use these tools at all," Wheeler said. "It makes me think long and hard about whether this is really a viable tool. I want to look at other options. This is not a good option."

After nearly an hour, Wheeler had enough. A thick cloud of gas hung over the place where he stood as he and two security officers pushed through the crowd and away from the federal building.

Protesters marveled as he marched past. Many followed him, yelling as he went, urging him back toward the front of the line.

"I've been out here for more than 50 nights," one man shouted. "Ask me how many times I've been gassed!"

An hour later, Portland police declared a riot outside the justice center, where Wheeler had stood just hours before, talking to his constituents.

Police told demonstrators to leave. If they refused, an officer announced, the department could tear-gas the crowd at will.

- - -

The Washington Post's Katie Shepherd in Washington contributed to this report.
As an example of precision public health, a new study published in the preprint server medRxiv* in July 2020 reports the successful detection of a potential new local COVID-19 case cluster, through the innovative adaptation of existing case tracing technology.

Cluster case counts and SARS-CoV-2 percent positivity inside and outside cluster area for cluster detected on June 22, 2020 in 5 census tracts in New York City, in which patients reported common attendance at a social gathering

The researchers used the free SaTScan software developed by Martin Kulldorff to generate daily analyses of case clusters by geographical location and time frame.

Spatial and temporal case distribution

Public health officials find it useful to be able to locate new cases by date and location, as such detailed data helps to monitor the spread of the disease and intervene in a targeted manner to contain outbreaks early.

This has been attempted using public data, using daily and county-based frameworks across the whole of the USA. Space-based clusters have also been traced using ZIP codes within New York City (NYC).

Case-only analysis fails as a monitoring strategy

The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) has put into routine use the case-only space-time permutation scan feature of the free SaTScan software, as part of its surveillance program aimed at picking up new outbreaks of reportable diseases, including COVID-19, Legionnaires disease and salmonella outbreaks.

However, in the case of COVID-19, the disparity in testing by both location and time parameters makes the case-only analysis unsuitable as a monitoring strategy. This is because any difference in testing rates will show up as a difference in disease rates as well.

Moreover, the researchers wanted to detect potential hotspots during the epidemic stage rather than only after the outbreak had stabilized or died down. Therefore, they adopted a new approach that could identify locations where the number of cases was going up, or showing a slower rate of fall compared to other parts of the city.

The study: community clusters

The researchers focused on using the software to set up a surveillance system, whereby community-based clusters could be detected, which had higher percent test positivity for SARS-CoV-2 at almost real-time conditions and with the location narrowed down to defined census tracts in NYC.

They adjusted for variability in testing. The system came into use from June 11, 2020, with the first common-exposure cluster of COVID-19 being detected on June 22.

The data was gathered from the DOHMH, which receives all the COVID-19 testing results from New York State residents via the New York State Electronic Clinical Laboratory Reporting System (ECLRS). These laboratory data includes the date of collection of the sample, and the residential address with other demographic characteristics of the patient. Many patients are interviewed to obtain patient symptoms and the date of onset.

Space-time scan statistic identifies clusters

The system uses a space-time scan statistic in the form of a cylindrical scan. The base of the cylinder occupies a geographical area, with the height depicting the time, therefore, enabling it to scan both dimensions over varying periods and areas. With each position, the number of cases in the cylinder is assessed relative to the expected count of cases, with the null hypothesis being no clusters.

A cluster is identified as most likely when the cylinder position shows the highest likelihood, and it is evaluated for significance after adjusting for the intrinsic presence of multiple tests because of the many cylinder positions assessed.

Daily analysis is required for the prospective detection of new hotspots. However, due to this practice, recurrence intervals were used in place of p-values to compensate for the multiple occurrences of the same test.

To facilitate the aim of detecting emerging clusters of infection, The researchers also adjusted their model for geographical alterations that remained the same over time. Time trends in percent positivity across NYC were also adjusted, since local rather than citywide outbreaks were the focus.

Detection of Emerging Hotspot

The software detected 28 clusters from June 11 to June 30. They defined the upper limit for a spatial cluster at half the number of individuals tested, but the clusters were still found to be within a small area of median radius approximately 0.7 km. During the study period, the percent positivity for the virus across the whole city was 1.3%, with a median percent positivity per cluster of 4.7%.

Interestingly, more than half of the individuals in 10/28 clusters were in the 18-34 age group, suggesting that this group showed less concern for social distancing. Over this period, citywide case counts fell. However, on June 22, a six-patient cluster of median age 40 was detected within a 0.6 km radius.

All patients in the cluster had been tested on June 17, and interviews showed that two of the patients had been at the same gathering, and social distancing had not been in practice. The DOHMH then initiated containment measures, such as testing and tracing of contacts, meeting the community members, and reinforcing the need to self-isolate and quarantine after possible exposure by health education.

Application and future efforts

The current study shows that automated analyses of infection clusters by space and time are capable of finding newly emerging small clusters in limited areas, promoting containment efforts in NYC. The researchers found that one in three clusters was dominated by young adults, which indicates that this age group must be targeted for the promotion of social distancing.

Secondly, though much effort is required to find clusters and only one cluster could be traced to a common origin for at least some of the infections, it is essential to detect local spread so that public health teams can narrow down the required field of interventions.

During June, we made several adjustments to improve signal prioritization, including increasing the minimum temporal cluster size from 2 to 3 days and increasing the minimum number of cases in clusters from 2 to 5 cases.

They plan to further develop the system so as to make it easy for other health departments. They conclude, Such local targeted, place-based approaches are necessary to minimize further transmission and to better protect people at high risk for severe illness, including older adults and people with underlying health conditions.

*Important Notice

medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
Pakistani ID cards were recovered from the bodies of terrorists killed in Afghanistan's Kandahar, Khaama news agency reported.

The development highlights Pakistan's complicity in aiding Taliban to create unrest in Afghanistan.

Security forces killed five terrorists in Maroof and nine others in Arghistan districts of the province, said Kandahar's police chief Gen Tadin Khan Achakzai, according to Khaama news agency.

Some ID cards read names in Urdu, identifying the dead terrorists as Abdul Ghani, Abdul Ghaffar, Sanaullah, Naqibullah, Obaidullah, Abdul Malik among others.

In another attack, 25 Taliban terrorists, including 12 Pakistanis, were killed in an airstrike by NATO Rescue Support in the Takht-e-Pol town of Afghanistan's Kandahar province.

The arrest of Abdullah Orakzai alias Aslam Farooqi, a key leader of the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) earlier this year brought the terror group's Pakistani connections into sharp focus, according to European Foundation For South Asian Studies (EFSAS), a think-tank based in Amsterdam.

The UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team to the 1988 Sanctions Committee, which oversees sanctions on the Taliban, in its 2019 report had acknowledged that nearly 5,000 terrorists belonging to Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, which is based in Pakistan, were active in Kunar and Nangarhar provinces of Afghanistan alone.

The Pakistan government and its intelligence service, ISI, have long claimed that it is not aiding terrorists in Afghanistan by sending Pakistani youth to create unrest in the war-torn nation. However, the recent operation has again exposed Islamabad's false claims.

-ANI

Also Read: US House votes to repeal Trump administration's travel bans
While the House of Reps is spitting fire and brimstones because Niger Delta Minister Godswill Akpabio let it slipthat the NASS members are bigger beneficiaries of the NDDC contractsthe upper chamber has turned a blind eye.

Akpabio, a former senator, was fingered in some of the financial misappropriations the House probed, but the Senate hasnt looked into that.

The Senate ad hoc committee set up to probe the allegations of corruption in the commission only focused on the commissions Interim Management Committee.

It recommended that the NDDC should be returned to the Presidency for direct supervision, and the monitoring and advisory bodies recognised by the NDDC Act should be inaugurated immediately.

On the forencic audit President Muhammadu Buhari ordered, the Senate committee noted that the Ministry of Niger Delta has no capacity to implement that.

It urged the auditor-general of the federation should supervise the forensic audit for transparency and efficiency.
A 26-year-old man has appeared in court charged with raping a female in Omagh twice last year

A 26-year-old man has appeared in court charged with raping a female in Omagh twice last year.

While arrested in the immediate aftermath, police released him on bail after he made firm denials during questioning and to await DNA sample results - which he was adamant would not link him to the incident.

It also emerged that while on bail for what police described as "very serious matters" the accused did not have an address and was living in a tent, which hampered efforts to contact him.

Robert Murphy, whose last address was Camowen Cottages, Omagh, is accused of committing the alleged offences on November 15 and 16, 2019.

A detective constable told Dungannon Magistrates Court the charges could be connected to the defendant.

Objecting to bail, she explained after the complainant reported the matter to police an ABE (Achieving Best Evidence) interview was conducted.

Murphy was arrested and denied any sexual activity took place. He willingly provided DNA samples, insisting these would show he was not connected to the incident.

Police released him on bail with conditions, which included no contact with the complainant and a ban on being in a particular area of Omagh.

Earlier this week, the DNA samples confirmed a match and when this was put to Murphy, he changed his position, claiming the sexual activity was consensual, before reverting to "no comment" replies.

The detective said: "These are very serious matters and police have concerns the defendant may abscond as he faces a lengthy prison sentence if convicted.

"He has failed to comply with conditions to stay out of an area and a particular house, where he was found despite the occupants not wanting him there.

"He agreed to leave and when asked where he could be located, claimed in a tent, therefore of no fixed abode.

"Obviously, this was not appropriate for contacting him or for his own safety."

She highlighted instances when contact was difficult. While Murphy provided a phone number it stopped receiving calls. On another occasion, when the detective was trying to locate him, she sent a police crew to check for a tent in a specified area of Omagh.

Under cross-examination, the defence enquired why, given police deemed the matter serious, his client was released on bail in the first place.

The detective said Murphy was very definite in his denials, particularly in respect of DNA, and as this was to be forensically examined, bail was appropriate.

The defence asked why bail was allowed again despite the alleged breach when Murphy was found at the prohibited area.

"I gave him the benefit of the doubt," said the detective. "I didn't take any action, although I warned him."

When the defence enquired if forensics were conducted of the alleged scene, the detective replied: "Examinations were carried out, but not submitted."

District Judge Michael Ranaghan asked: "So forensics went to the trouble of carrying out examinations which weren't used?"

The detective responded: "We feel we have more than enough evidence at this time, with the DNA and the defendant's change from his original interview."

The defence, who accompanied Murphy during police interview, pointed out when he enquired if the area had been forensically examined police told him they "would not be providing an answer, as that was a matter for trial". He suggested bail could be granted and while accepting Murphy lives "a chaotic, nomadic lifestyle", this was known by police who saw for to release him before.

But Judge Ranaghan refused, stating: "The defendant has been less than fully compliant."

Murphy will appear again by video-link next month.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-24 05:39:50|Editor: huaxia

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KHARTOUM, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The appointment of civilian governors for the country's states, which was announced on Wednesday, has widely been rejected by various political parties.

Sudan's National Umma Party, which is one of the most important components of the Freedom and Change Alliance, announced its rejection to participate in the declared government institutions.

"Our party's position favors the national interests over partisanship and personality," said Siddiq Mohamed Ismail, deputy chairman of the party, at a press conference.

The Sudanese Professionals Association, a member of the freedom and change alliance, declared its objection to the way the state governors were selected.

It criticized what it termed the "partisan quotas approach."

Meanwhile, in Kassala State in eastern Sudan, protesters blocked major streets in the state's capital and burned tires inside the state's government headquarters in protest against appointment of the new governor.

On Wednesday, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok appointed 18 civilian governors for the states, including two women for the first time.

"Appointment of civilian governors for the states constitutes a completion for the structures of the transitional period," said Hamdok at a press conference in the capital Khartoum Wednesday.

The appointment of state governors had faltered for about 10 months amid differences over the structures of Sudan's transitional authority. Enditem
Nearly 7,000 fewer Michigan residents filed new unemployment claims during the week ending July 11, according to the latest U.S. Department of Labor jobless report.

That places Michigan in the top five among states with the greatest decline in new unemployment claims. Others include: Maryland, which had 13,728 fewer claims, Texas with 11,583, New Jersey with 8,577 and Louisiana with 5,066.

According to Michigan estimates, there were 21,836 new unemployment claims during the week ending July 18, versus 27,720 the week prior, the Department of Labor reports. The total number of Michigan residents receiving unemployment was 506,099 for the week ending July 11, compared to 604,846 the week prior, a decrease of 98,747.

Michigan also saw a dip in the number of residents claiming pandemic unemployment assistance, a program created for those not traditionally eligible for unemployment insurance, such as the self-employed or contractors.

Michigan pandemic unemployment assistance claims declined by 2,949 to 23,609 for the week ending July 18.

New jobless claims across the nation increased by 109,000 to 1.4 million nationally during the week ended July 11, when compared to the week prior, according to the Department of Labor weekly report released Thursday morning.

The total number of American receiving unemployment insurance is on the decline. For the week ending July 11, the Department of Labor reported nearly 16.4 million Americans receiving unemployment assistance, a decrease from 17.3 million the week prior.

The national four-week average of new unemployment claims is down 16,500 to 1.36 million and the national seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dipped by a .7 percentage point from 11.8% to 11.1%.

Michigans unemployment rate fell 6.5 % to 14.8% in June but remained well above pre-pandemic levels and slightly above the unemployment rate reported during the Great Recession in 2009, state officials said in a statement Wednesday, July 15.

While the addition of 464,000 jobs helped bring down the 21.3% May unemployment rate, the total number of Michigan jobs remained 565,000 below February, according to data released by the Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget.

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.
MUNSTER  School Town of Munster parents have their questions, but overall they tend to support the school corporations plan for reentry to the 2020-2021 school year.

For now, the school corporation is offering families two options: in-person classes or remote learning. Even after choosing one plan, families can still change.

Following a work session, the School Board at a special meeting Wednesday voted 5-0 in favor of the re-entry plan as presented by Superintendent Dr. Jeffrey Hendrix and his staff.

In voting so, board Secretary Melissa Higgason said, The plan is to remain fluid. Board Vice President John Castro added that school officials want public input. This does not mean (the plan) is set in stone, he said.

Hendrix said the plan follows recommendations from county and state health officials, which, the superintendent noted, could change daily.

Under the plan, Hendrix explained, during registration families may choose in-person classes or elearning. There is a two-week grace period in which families can change. Students will then be learning either in class or online for nine weeks, after which families can opt to change.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

Trend:

The mission of the WHO Regional Office for Europe has arrived in Azerbaijan to assess measures on fighting the COVID-19, Trend reports citing the WHO Country Office in Azerbaijan.

The mission is aimed at assessing the current situation in the region and making appropriate recommendations.

As part of the mission, a meeting was held with the Azerbaijani Minister of Health Oqtay Shiraliyev and other officials of the Health Ministry.

During the meeting, the current situation and measures taken against COVID-19 were discussed.

The outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan - which is an international transport hub - began at a fish market in late December 2019.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019.
KC Sweger gets annoyed just thinking about it.

Shes worked expanded hours at her warehouse job throughout the coronavirus pandemic, helping fulfill orders for technology for schools and businesses as America quickly moved to a stay-at-home economy.

But while the third-party security guards and cleaning services who guard and clean her building are eligible for the states new, 10-week hazard pay bonus program, Sweger and the roughly 130 other workers at her D&H Distributings facility in Lower Paxton Township wont see it.

Thats because under the state regulations for the new, short-term program - one of several streams of federal aid money flowing into Pennsylvania from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act - warehouse businesses, and a lot of other industry sectors that the Wolf Administration called life-sustaining in March arent eligible.

We were important this entire time, Sweger said, and now all of a sudden we dont qualify, Sweger told PennLive, a tone of exasperation in her voice.

Shes not the only one.

Two state senators co-signed a letter to the Wolf Administration Wednesday expressing their shock that workers at retail pharmacies didnt make the cut.

We find it hard to believe that the program considers food retail facilities (grocery and convenience stores) an eligible industry but not pharmacies and drug stores, wrote Sens. Lisa Boscola, D-Bethlehem, and Judy Ward, R-Hollidaysburg. The employees of pharmacies / drug stores were just as much on the front line as employees in grocery stores during the COVID-19 pandemic and faced an equally high risk given that these businesses remained open during the emergency order when other businesses were closed.

The complaints arise out of the very specific list of businesses that were made eligible to apply for the hazard pay grants, which are designed to push $3-per-hour, federally-funded bonuses to workers in the selected industries who make a base wage of less than $20 per hour. The bonuses are set to run for 10 weeks for all recipients, amounting to a $1,200 boost for full-time workers.

When the program was rolled out last week, Gov. Tom Wolf said it was open to: Health care providers, including hospitals and social services agencies; nursing homes and other residential care facilities; public transit agencies and ground passenger transportation businesses; food manufacturing and retailing; security firms and commercial janitorial services staffing businesses that stayed open during the governors business closure orders.

Those categories alone cover far more workers than the 41,666 grants (for full-timers) that the states initial $50 million allocation will fund.

But there are many, many other industries that, like Kesslers warehouse, were considered life-sustaining when the states economy was in lockdown, but wont even get to be considered for this money.

In Kesslers case, she said she asked her employer about the discrepancy, and was told that the program is specifically designed for workers who are in public-facing jobs, or who work with food.

State Department of Community and Economic Development Press Secretary Casey Smith elaborated to PennLive this week, noting that the administrations list was built, in part, off of a federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration matrix that divides workers into four different levels of risk for exposure to COVID-19.

The Wolf Administrations list, Smith said, sought to capture most public-facing workers in the very high and high risk categories, and then other workers from the medium risk groups that either have the highest level of contact with the general public, or who work in high-density settings like a meat-packing plant.

The intent of the program is to keep front-line employees working in sectors that are vital to every Pennsylvanians existence and to help employers retain their current front-line employees, Smith said. Not every industry that was on the Governors life-sustaining business list is eligible.

That would not have been possible, Smith said, by virtue of the initial $50 million allocation.

Case in point, the warehouse worker.

While the program is expected to help about 40,000 workers, federal Bureau of Labor Statistics employment numbers show there are about 92,000 stockers and order fillers across Pennsylvania. Their average wage is $13.42 per hour, well under the programs income eligibility threshold.

In some cases, like pharmacies, the decision can sound a little bureaucratic.

Smith noted that by the generally accepted North American Industry Classification System, pharmacies fall under Health and Personal Care Stores, which is separate both from retail food merchants and health care providers.

Pharmacy technicians, of which there are more than 18,000 statewide, make an average wage thats just under $15 per hour, according to the federal statistics.

The Wolf administrations hazard pay list was developed, Smith added, in consultation with several legislative leaders, the state Departments of Health and Labor & Industry, and the OSHA guidance.

Boscola and Ward, however, who both said they were motivated to write after hearing from constituents who worked in retail pharmacies, said they did not have any say in shaping the program.

This is part of our frustration. We have no input, Boscola said. Its only after the fact.

Smith said there wont be any changes to the list of eligible industries in this round of funding. The Wolf Administration had initially set up a two-week window for applications from qualifying employers that will run through July 30, and Smith said DCED has already received thousands of applications.

But at the very least, Boscola and Ward said they are hoping that if the hazard pay concept - which enjoys broad bipartisan support in the Legislature - gets a second appropriation from the next round of federal pandemic relief or some other source, some of the workers locked out this time will be considered.

The Democratic-controlled U.S. House included a large hazard pay program in its economic rescue plan in May. The Republican-controlled Senate, meanwhile, is still working on a counter-proposal, and its unclear how the final package will shake out.

Sweger, an East Pennsboro Township resident, is among those sharing that hope.

D&H, she noted, has been gracious about acknowledging the workers efforts and has paid three sets of $100 bonuses through the course of the pandemic and has also presented workers with some smaller gift cards along the way. Shes like to see the same level of respect from the state, too.
New Delhi, July 23 : The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to accede to Rajasthan Assembly Speaker's request to stay the Rajasthan High Court proceedings on Sachin Pilot and MLAs petition against disqualification notice.

The apex court also allowed the High Court to pass an order on the matter on Friday, but said that it will be subjected to the outcome of the proceedings in the top court.

A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra and comprising Justices B.R. Gavai and Krishna Murari took up the matter through video conferencing.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, representing Sachin Pilot, contended before the bench that there is no need to stay, as the Speaker have taken a chance in the High Court and he cannot ask for a stay now.

The bench noted that this matter has to be heard at length, and this will require detailed hearing. "Your questions require lengthy hearing," the bench told senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the Rajasthan Assembly Speaker C.P. Joshi.

Sibal contended that the apex court should suspend the High Court order.

The bench replied, but that is what we need to examine.

Sibal replied then the apex court should transfer the High Court petition here. The bench said: "not now".

Sibal asked the top court for an order to stay any further proceedings before the High Court.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, also representing Pilot, questioned the political overtones of the Speaker. "If Speaker can himself agree to defer twice, why can't he wait for another 24 hours?" Rohatgi argued.

The apex court observed that these are important questions relating to democracy.

"How will the democracy function? These are very serious issues. We want to hear it," said the bench.

Salve also pointed out that the Rajasthan Speaker had deferred the proceedings on his own twice in the past, and the issues of jurisdiction and maintainability have been argued before the High Court.

The bench replied, can we say order of the High Court will be subject to the outcome here? Salve agreed. The apex court will continue to hear the matter on Monday.
Capping nearly three years of intense negotiations, bank employees' unions and the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) have agreed for an annual wage hike of 15 percent, a move that will result in an additional yearly outgo of around Rs 7,900 crore for the lenders. As many as 8.5 lakh bank employees are set to benefit from the wage hike, which will be effective from November 2017.

Under the agreement reached on Wednesday, Performance Linked Incentive (PLI) will also be introduced for public sector bank staff and it will be based on operating or net profit of individual banks concerned. Basic pay has been merged with dearness allowance, the IBA said in a statement.

Close to 37 banks, including public, private and foreign banks, have mandated the IBA to negotiate with unions on wage hikes for their employees. The annual wage increase in salary and allowances has been agreed at 15 percent of the wage bill as on March 31, 2017, which works out to be Rs 7,898 crore on payslip components, as per the agreement signed between the IBA and bank unions.

The agreement on the 15 percent annual wage hike was reached at a meeting between the IBA and members of the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) representing workmen unions and officers association. PLI will be applicable for public sector banks from the current fiscal, while it will be optional for private and foreign banks.

There will also be an increase the banks' contribution to the NPS (New Pension Scheme) fund to 14 percent -- 14 percent of pay and dearness allowance -- instead of the present 10 per cent from the prospective date of signing the settlement subject to the approval of the government, according to the agreement.

"Today IBA & UFBU have signed an MoU for 15% increase in pay slip component of Bank Employees, in Principal agreement to remove cap & offer 30% of Basic Pay as family Pension," IBA Chief Executive Officer Sunil Mehta said in a tweet. As many as 35 rounds of negotiation meetings took place before reaching the common ground and the outcome is satisfying, All India Bank Employees Association General Secretary CH Venkatachalam said.

Details on the implementation of wage hike and allowances are likely to be finalised in the next few days. The last round of negotiation happened on March 16 before the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, he said, adding the wage hike will benefit about 8.5 lakh employees and officers. '

During a round of wage negotiations in May 2018, IBA had offered only two per cent wage hike. In protest, bank unions had also gone on a two-day strike from May 30 that year. The parties will endeavour to finalise the Bipartite Settlement within a period of 90 days from July 22, the agreement said.

Once concluded, this would be the 11th Bipartite Settlement. The 10th Bipartite Settlement ended in October 2017. In the 10th Bipartite wage settlement, which was signed in May 2015, for the period between November 2012 and October 2017, the IBA had offered a 15 percent hike.

As per the latest agreement, the PLI would be payable to all employees annually over and above the normal salary payable. "In today's banking scenario, there is stiff competition amongst different categories of banks that are public, private, foreign banks. In order to inculcate a sense of competition and also to reward performance, the concept of PLI is felt to be introduced," the agreement said.

The quantum of PLI will be nil if the operating profit earned by a bank is less than 5 per cent. If the operating profit is between 5-10 percent, employees would be entitled to get an additional five days salary, An additional 15 days salary will be given in case of operating profit exceeding 15 percent on an annual basis. The latter will be applicable only if the bank concerned has a net profit.

Also read: Centre planning to reduce number of PSU banks to five
TDT | Manama

The coronavirus (COVID-19) took the life of a 21-year-old Bahraini male yesterday, the Ministry of Health announced. The deceased was the youngest virus-related casualty to date in the Kingdom. His passing brought the total deaths due to COVID-19 in Bahrain to 130. The Health Ministry expressed its condolences to the victims family.

Meanwhile, the ministry announced early this morning that out of 7,791 COVID-19 tests conducted yesterday, 321 new cases were detected, including 162 expatriate workers and 159 contacts of active cases. There were also 439 additional recoveries from the virus yesterday, bringing the Kingdoms total number of discharged individuals to 33,894.

Following those recoveries, the total number of current active cases continued to drop as they went to 3,613, with 47 in critical condition and 91 receiving treatment. The remaining 3,566 cases are stable. The total tests conducted in Bahrain increased to 752,485.
New York

Police officers in riot gear cleared out the "Occupy City Hall" encampment in City Hall Park near dawn Wednesday, shutting down a monthlong demonstration against police brutality that recently had attracted numerous homeless people.

A phalanx of officers in helmets started closing in on dozens of protesters and homeless people shortly before 4 a.m., moving in lock-step behind a wall of plastic shields, according to protesters and videos posted on social media.

Seven people were arrested after sporadic clashes erupted between officers and residents of the camp, officials said. One protester was taken into custody after the police said he threw a brick at an officer.

As the police moved through the camp, officers took down a series of tarps and makeshift tents that demonstrators and several homeless people had been living in for weeks and tossed them into city garbage trucks.

By 8 a.m., city cleaning crews had arrived to scrub anti-police graffiti from sidewalks, subway entrances and the walls of several historic buildings in the area, including the Manhattan Surrogate's Court across the street from City Hall.

The graffiti on the courthouse and other government landmarks  much of it obscene  became symbolic of the continuing unrest in the city and, for some critics of the mayor, a sign of decline.

Police union leaders and some local residents complained that the city had waited too long to take it down.

Speaking to reporters later Wednesday morning, Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the decision to shut down the camp had been made around 10 p.m. Tuesday because of "health and safety."

"What we saw change over the last few weeks was the gathering there got smaller and smaller, was less and less about protest and more and more of an area where homeless folks were gathering," the mayor said.

At a separate news conference, Raymond Spinella, the police department's chief of support services, said that several hundred officers moved into the park at about 3:40 a.m. after giving the protesters camped there a 10-minute warning.

He said the decision to move in Wednesday had been reached with City Hall and was based on the relatively few number of people in the park.

A similar raid was launched almost a decade ago to dismantle the Occupy Wall Street camp in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

In November 2011, dozens of officers marched into the park at 1 a.m., rousting protesters who had been there since September and removing their tents, tarps and belongings.

On Wednesday, Yessenia Benitez, 29, of Harlem, said she saw about 100 officers converge on City Hall Park well before sunrise, announcing to protesters that they were breaking the law and ordering them to leave at once.

Most people dispersed, she said, but a small group watched the police operation from Foley Square, a few blocks to the north.

A few protesters said the police had told them that they would be able to return to the park to retrieve their belongings. But when they went back, everything  their water, clothing and personal effects  had been tossed into sanitation trucks, they said.

The decision to close the encampment came only days after President Donald Trump sent teams of heavily armed federal agents to Portland, Oregon, to protect federal property and to subdue protests there that have turned violent on occasion.

Trump has also threatened to send agents to New York and other cities.
Queenslanders are not wearing lifejackets on the water as the state reports its worst ever year for marine accidents, Transport Minister Mark Bailey said.

Eighteen people died in Queensland waters last year in reported marine incidents.

Of the 14 who drowned or went missing in 2019, only one was known to be wearing a lifejacket.

Queensland research shows few Queenslanders wear a life jacket in a boat, contributing to drowings. Credit:Angela Milne

"Last year was the worst in Queensland for decades, in terms of the number of lives lost on the water," Mr Bailey said.
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A pro-police rally in Denver, Colo., on July 20, 2020. Police were given a stand-down order, the police union chief said, and didn't intervene when rallygoers were attacked by counter-demonstrators. (KDVR)

Denver Police Ordered to Withdraw Before Pro-Police Rally Attacked, Union Chief Says

Denver police officers were told to withdraw before demonstrators attacked a pro-police rally on July 19, the head of the citys police union said.

I found out that a retreat order was given by the incident commander, said officer Nick Rogers, president of the Denver Police Protective Association.

And we had one lieutenant step up and said, Were not leaving. And this lieutenant said, These people are going to get killed if we dont stay. So he kept his group there. And thats the only reason that this didnt get worse, because somebody broke rank and decided to not retreat. And they stayed so that they could provide some assistance.

Rogers was speaking on KNUS radio.

The Denver Police Department told The Epoch Times that officials are reviewing what happened at the rally. For now, the department is declining to comment on the specifics of what transpired.

Michelle Malkin, a conservative activist, and Colorado House Minority Leader Patrick Neville, a Republican, were among those scheduled to speak at the rally, which was held at Civic Center Park in Denver.

Michelle Malkin holds a sign during a rally in Montgomery County, Md., on Sept. 13, 2019. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Video footage showed a group of Black Lives Matter demonstrators and people dressed in gear similar to that worn by the far-left Antifa group approaching the stage shortly after the rally started. Some were wielding weapons such as a collapsible baton and a metal rod.

They then began assaulting people at the rally, according to video footage from the scene and accounts from those involved.

Nothing was done as women who were wearing Trump gear and holding their flags were throttled and strangled by other brutish women, women all dressed in black and paramilitary gear, Malkin said.

Rogers, who wasnt at the event, said he came forward because after he learned what happened, he was embarrassed and saddened.

Michelle, anybody thats listening who was there, thats not the rank and file, thats not the cops. That decision was made by someone else, its wrong, and Im sorry, he said.

Neville said on Fox Newss Tucker Carlson Tonight that the pro-police group was essentially surrounded by Antifa and outnumbered 4 to 1.

We were completely surrounded and then, before I know it  one of my friends was beaten down by four or five Antifa members.

And then eventually we had to evacuate, he added. All this occurred right on the stage of the facility where we were supposed to be having our rally. It wasnt like it was a minor scuffle on the outskirts of the rally. It was right there on the stage, Neville said.

It wasnt clear whether Denver Mayor Michael Hancock or Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, both Democrats, were involved in the stand-down order, according to Neville.

The offices of Hancock and Polis didnt immediately respond to requests by The Epoch Times for comment; neither have addressed what happened. Hancock this week joined other mayors in urging President Donald Trump not to send federal law enforcement personnel to their cities.

Attorney Randy Corporon, who helped organize the rally, said Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen requested beforehand that the event be rescheduled or moved to a different location, citing a planned Black Lives Matter counterprotest.

He was agitated that were going to get his officers hurt, Corporon told the Denver Post. My response to him was that he should allow his officers to do their job and if people are down there breaking the law, to stop them. Because theyll have nothing to fear from us.

Corporon said Pazen should resign because his officers stood by as the violence occurred.

Lillian House, part of Denvers Party for Socialism and Liberation, which helped organize the counter-demonstration, told the Post that most of the demonstrators on her side werent violent.

The majority of the crowd was simply making noise and making verbal resistance to their pro-police celebration, she said. To act like the physical confrontations that happened were initiated primarily by us is just absurd.

Malkin said that people should be politically and civically engaged, but added, If youre going to do it, you cant rely on the police.
The total number of coronavirus cases reported in the US passed 4 million on Thursday, reflecting a rapid acceleration of infections detected in the country since the first case was recorded on January 21, a Reuters tally shows.

It took the country 98 days to reach 1 million cases, but just 16 days to go from 3 million to 4 million, according to the tally. The average number of new US cases is now rising by more than 2600 every hour, the highest rate in the world.

A worker hands out testing kits at a mobile coronavirus testing site in Los Angeles this week. Credit:AP

The federal government, state governors and city leaders have often clashed over the best way to tackle the pandemic, leading to a confusing patchwork of rules on issues like mask wearing in public and when businesses can open.

President Donald Trump recently shifted his tone. He had been previously been reluctant to wear a mask himself but this week encouraged Americans to wear masks and recently appeared in public for the first time with a face covering.
The OECD Observer online archive takes you on a journey through half a century of public policy and world progress.

Since November 1962, the OECDs experts and leading guests offer insights on the questions facing our member countries with concise and authoritative analysis, and provide our audiences with an excellent opportunity to understand policy debates and consider solutions.

Each edition of the OECD Observer reports on a core theme of the OECDs on-going work, from economics and society through governance, finance, and the environment, and articles are bolstered by tables and graphs.
Many are probably itching to go outside and enjoy the scenery after months of staying at home due to the current health crisis.

But is it advisable to travel even with the increasing number of confirmed coronavirus cases in different parts of the world?

Experts said if you are planning to spend your vacation someplace, it is advisable that you spend it in a facility with not too many people. Do outdoor activities and do not go indoor, such as gathering inside restaurants or bars.

Medical director of the University Hospitals Roe Green Center for Travel Medicine & Global Health in Cleveland, Dr. Keith Armitage, noted that being outdoors has a much lower risk, unless you're on a packed outdoor restaurant deck or bars.

"I think people can enjoy hiking, swimming, boating, camping, or whatever outdoor activities and sightseeing. It's being indoors with unmasked strangers that people have to avoid," Armitage was quoted in a report.

But are airplanes safe at the moment? Armitage said planes have good air circulation and filters. He noted that the virus will not easily spread, but the risk would be the people a couple of rows around you.

But if everyone wears a mask, the risk is really low, according to Armitage.

The doctor also said plane travel is not high risk and the risk can be reduced by wearing masks. He added that planes are much safer than bars or restaurants.

Travel Industry Appeals For Aid

U.S travel industry leaders have submitted a new series of proposed measures to Congress. This was aimed to help employers to combat the latest wave of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that caused re-closures.

The U.S. Travel Association (USTA) has already sent an appeal to Congress and the administration on July 17, asking to be included in the next coronavirus relief package.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the travel industry has employed one in 10 Americans. But since the outbreak, over half of the 15.8 million jobs disappeared. Without the federal assistance, the travel sector will remain depressed even after the overall economic rebound begins.

"Travel businesses could not possibly have prepared for this level of catastrophe, and there's no telling how many of the eight million jobs we've lost so far will remain gone for good without aggressive federal intervention to keep the industry on life support," USTA President and CEO Roger Dow was quoted in a statement.

Some countries have incentivised foreign travel for tourists.

Travel Special Offers During COVID-19

Many governments across the world have started easing border restrictions in hopes to kick-start international travel to revive the pandemic-hit tourism industry.

The Uzbekistan government has promised to pay $3,000 to any tourist, who will be infected with COVID-19 while visiting the country. The amount will cover the whole cost of medical treatment and is part of the government's strategy to welcome visitors back to Uzbekistan.

The Italian island of Sicily has announced in April that it would cover half of flight costs and a third of hotel expenses for foreign visitors planning to travel the country. Sicily reported loss of more than 1 billion euros in tourism-related revenue due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Japan also launched its "Go To" campaign to increase domestic travel after its tourism industry was also struck by the pandemic. The campaign provides up to 50 percent on all domestic travel spending, which includes accommodation and shopping within Japan.

Mexico also offers visitors two free nights of accommodation for every two nights they pay for as part of the "Come to Cancun" campaign. Travellers will also receive a refund for one additional plane ticket, aiming to encourage them to bring a companion for their beach vacation.

Check these out:

Los Cabos: Mexico's Tourism Jewel Amid COVID-19

Mexican Caribbean Regarded as a Safe Travel Destination by the WTTC

Is Coronavirus the Greatest Tourism Threat Since World War II?
By Mir Afroz Zaman

Dhaka, Jul 22 (UNI) After taking action against 10 hospitals in the last week on allegations of corruption and irregularities in Bangladesh, now it is being said that all government and non-government hospitals and clinics across the country will be brought under strict surveillance.

Secretary of the Ministry of Health Md. Abdul Mannan told the UNI that letters had been sent to civil surgeons in all districts to oversee all relevant matters, including licenses for all hospitals, clinics, and diagnostic centers.
New Delhi:

Rustom-II, Indias indigenously developed long-endurance combat-capable drone, on Wednesday successfully completed its maiden-flight, giving a boost to Indias development programme for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV).



The DRDO successfully carried out the maiden-flight of TAPAS 201 (RUSTOM-II), a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAV. It has an endurance of 24 hours and can conduct surveillance and reconnaissance missions for the countrys armed forces.



The UAV can also be used as an unmanned armed combat vehicle on the lines of the USs Predator drone.



The test flight took place from Aeronautical Test Range (ATR), Chitradurga, 250 km from Bangalore, which is a newly developed flight test range for the testing of UAVs and manned aircraft.



The flight accomplished the main objectives of proving the flying platform, such as take-off, bank, level flight and landing among others, a statement by the Defence Ministry said.



TAPAS 201 has been designed and developed by Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), the Bangalore-based lab of DRDO with HAL-BEL as the production partners.



The UAV weighing two tonnes was put into air by a dedicated team of young scientists of DRDO. It was piloted (external and internal) by the pilots from the armed forces.



It is also the first R&D prototype UAV which has undergone certification and qualification for the first flight from the Center for Military Airworthiness & Certification (CEMILAC) and Directorate General of Aeronautical Quality Assurance (DGAQA).



TAPAS 201, a multi-mission UAV is being developed to carry out Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) roles for the three armed forces with an endurance of 24 hours.



It is capable to carry different combinations of payloads like Medium Range Electro Optic (MREO), Long Range Electro Optic (LREO), Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), Electronic Intelligence (ELINT), Communication Intelligence (COMINT) and Situational Awareness Payloads (SAP) to perform missions during day and night.



Many critical systems such as airframe, landing gear, flight control and avionics sub-systems are being developed in India with the collaboration of private industries.



Rustom-II will undergo further trials for validating the design parameters, before going for User Validation Trials.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Bombardier Global 5500 Aircraft

The first Global 5500 aircraft to be based in the U.S. was recently delivered to Unicorp National Developments. The photo on the wall shows the Learjet 60 aircraft that was delivered to the same company 16 years ago.

The first Global 5500 aircraft to be based in the U.S. was recently delivered to Unicorp National Developments. The photo on the wall shows the Learjet 60 aircraft that was delivered to the same company 16 years ago.

Newest member of renowned Global aircraft family offers safe and productive intercontinental flights within a spacious, comfortable cabin

Global 5500 aircraft outstrips competitors with the longest range, the largest cabin and the smoothest ride

MONTREAL, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bombardier is happy to announce the delivery of the first Global 5500 aircraft to be based in the United States. This business jet, which will be available for charter, was recently delivered to longtime Bombardier customer Unicorp National Developments, headquartered in Orlando, Florida.

Our team at Unicorp is beyond excited to benefit from the first Global 5500 aircraft in the United States, said Chuck Whittall, President, Unicorp National Developments. This aircraft will allow us to travel with less fuss and more peace of mind.

The Global 5500 business jet entered service last month, joining Bombardiers new large-cabin family alongside the outstanding Global 6500 aircraft and the industry flagship Global 7500 aircraft. The Global 5500 aircrafts best-in-class range can take passengers nonstop from Florida to Sao Paolo, Paris, London or Moscow.* On flights short or long, Global 5500 aircraft passengers will enjoy the most comfortable environment, with three stunning and spacious living areas featuring Bombardiers patented Nuage seating collection. High-speed, worldwide** Ka-band connectivity ensures that productivity is never compromised.

We are thrilled that Unicorp will be using this high-performing, high-value Global business jet to facilitate travel needs, said Peter Likoray, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Marketing, Bombardier Business Aircraft. With its intercontinental range and best-in-class cabin experience, the Global 5500 aircraft is a valuable asset for companies looking for safe and efficient transport.

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The Global 5500 business jet is equipped with Bombardier Pur Air, a sophisticated air purification system available exclusively on Global aircraft. The systems advanced HEPA filter captures up to 99.99% of allergens, bacteria and viruses.

Unicorps Global 5500 aircraft will be available for charter out of Orlando International Airport via Elite Air, under a Part 135 charter certificate.

The aircraft delivery took place at Bombardiers site in Wichita, Kansas, where Global 5500 aircraft are completed. This multifaceted site has a history of collaboration with Unicorp: 16 years ago, the company took delivery of the first-ever Learjet 60 aircraft to be completed in Wichita.

About the Global 5500 aircraft

The new Global 5500 business jet offers a unique blend of innovation, style and comfort. With its next-generation wing technology and purpose-built engines, the Global 5500 aircraft flies farther and faster. Meticulously conceived with exquisite finishes and high-end craftsmanship, the Global 5500 aircraft features groundbreaking innovations including Bombardiers patented Nuage seat, the first new seat architecture in business aviation in 30 years. Taking total performance to new heights, the Global 5500 aircraft boasts an impressive range of 5,900 nautical miles (10,928 km), with an optimized wing to ensure the smoothest ride.

About Bombardier

With nearly 60,000 employees across two business segments, Bombardier is a global leader in the transportation industry, creating innovative and game-changing planes and trains. Our products and services provide world-class transportation experiences that set new standards in passenger comfort, energy efficiency, reliability and safety.

Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, Bombardier has production and engineering sites in over 25 countries across the segments of Aviation and Transportation. Bombardier shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (BBD). In the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2019, Bombardier posted revenues of $15.8 billion. News and information are available at bombardier.com or on Twitter @Bombardier.

Notes to Editors

Visit the Bombardier Business Aircraft website for more information on our industry-leading products and services. Follow @Bombardierjets on Twitter to receive the latest news and updates from Bombardier Business Aircraft. To receive our press releases, please visit the RSS Feed section.

*Under certain operating conditions.

** Coverage excludes North and South Poles.

Bombardier, Learjet, Learjet 60, Nuage, Global, Global 5000, Global 5500, Global 6500, Global 7500 and Bombardier Pur Air are registered or unregistered trademarks of Bombardier Inc. or its subsidiaries.

For Information

Louise Solomita

Bombardier Aviation

Louise.Solomita@aero.bombardier.com

+1-514-855-5001 ext. 25148

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/eb541e68-0766-4862-a4d8-516cc396ac98




On July 15, a man shot and killed his ex-girlfriend in the parking lot of her workplace in Springfield, Tenn., earning him a spot on the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations Most Wanted list. Two days later, he drove through Mt. Juliet, about an hour away. An automated license plate recognition (LPR) system picked up his vehicle and alerted police officers, who arrested him.

Thats the biggest success story to come out of the Mt. Juliet Police Departments use of Rekor Systems LPR cameras, but its only one of many, Capt. Tyler Chandler said. Since the system went live April 1, it has led to more than 30 interceptions and arrests of suspects in crimes such as car, license plate and trailer thefts and even the recovery of a runaway.

Its amazing how stuff that you wouldnt know would travel through your city  is actually traveling through your city, Chandler said.

That became apparent during the test that the police department ran from October 2019 to April, when a man who shot at his estranged wife in a city 45 minutes away drove by a test camera. He happened to be driving through our city to go to a Walmart, and our test camera picked him up, and we were able to intercept him and take that armed and dangerous wanted person into custody, Chandler said.

The cameras use machine learning to look for license plates on hotlists -- lists of plate numbers associated with active law enforcement investigations. Mt. Juliet police officers log into a web-based portal through their in-car computer that shows a map of the city with red dots indicating camera sites. When a hot car passes one, an alarm sounds, and an image pops up on the computer screen showing a close-up of the tag and the backend of the vehicle. Officers can also see why the car has been put on a hotlist.

Dispatchers at the 911 call center also get the alert and verify the information with the National Crime Information Center database to ensure its accurate. They tell officers whether to proceed, officers run a tag check when they find the vehicle and dispatchers verify the plate again. Next, officers and supervisors devise a plan for stopping the vehicle and arresting the suspect.

Plans allow for less use of force, less dangerous pursuits, Chandler said.

Besides LPR, Rekor offers forensic video tools that can recognize vehicle make, model and color, enabling users to review and search through video that the cameras collect. For example, in Mt. Juliet, someone called 911 after being assaulted and kicked out of a white work van by the driver. Responding officers gave dispatchers a description of the vehicle. They checked for camera footage from that area, typed in white van and found a couple within that time frame. The dispatchers cross-referenced the tag and entered it into the citys own hotlist on the system. When the driver passed another camera, officers arrested him within 20 minutes.

Rekors software-based technology can be uploaded into an existing camera without changing its functionality, and the forensic tools can also be used by other city departments, such as traffic enforcement and transportation. Each departmental use case gets its own dashboard and user interface from the same video feed and camera.

You get all of these multiple uses out of a single camera without creating clutter because the system can replicate the video stream in real time, Rekor CEO Robert Berman said.

Initially, city residents were uncomfortable with the idea of being watched, he said. So the department launched a public education initiative to ensure the community understood its simply there to detect a plate that is listed on a hotlist. The department posts about the technologys success in helping to recover stolen vehicles and apprehend suspects on its website and social media accounts to increase buy-in from residents.

Some in the community worried that criminals would simply remove the license plate from their vehicles to avoid being caught, but Chandler said they more often swap tags. Then they are just adding a stolen plate to a stolen car so we still get an alert, he added. Were hoping Rekor comes up with a solution that will alert our officers when a vehicle is tagless. If we can get an alert on a tagless vehicle, that would be helpful.

Homeowners associations within the city want to partner with the police department on installing cameras, Chandler said. The project has been on hold because of the coronavirus, but it has potential because sometimes officers struggle to find where a hot car went after entering the city, he added.

Mt. Juliet dubbed its system of 37 cameras -- with two more coming online soon -- at all city entry and exit points Guardian Shield, Chandler said, because it guards our community and shields it from crime.

They created a gated community out of Mt. Juliet without gates, Berman said.

Editor's note: This article was changed July 24 to correct the name of the Mt. Juliet Police Department source. It is Capt. Tyler Chandler, not Chief James Hambrick. We regret the error.
India's third Covid wave likely to peak on Jan 23, daily cases to stay below 4 lakh: IIT Kanpur scientist

Vande Bharat Mission phase 5: Full list of Flights schedule, registration link, fares

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, July 23: The Centre started the 'Vande Bharat Mission' to help those stranded passengers due to coronavirus pandemic reach their destinations via international repatriation flights.

Though Vande Bharat Mission phase five has not been announced yet, it has been hinted that the Air India-driven rescue mission will continue in some form or the other in the coming months.

Currently, India is in its fourth phase of Vande Bharat Mission.

Vande Bharat Mission phase 4: AI to operate 170 flights to and from 17 countries between July 3-15

From July 3, the fourth phase of Vande Bharat Mission begins serving as a significant precursor to the resumption of the regular passenger flights that may take time to begin in its earlier form but may commence soon in the form of an extension of the present Vande Bharat Mission.

The mission began on May 6. Over 4.75 lakh Indians have returned to India from abroad since then. To keep up with the demands, the mission has been extended. Phase two and phase three saw equal enthusiasm.

Commenting on the repatriation drive, civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri said, "As phase 4 of VBM soars smoothly, more than 730k citizens have been evacuated through various means from around the world and more than 96k have flown out. We will reach out to every stranded citizen. No Indian will be left behind."

As on July 15, India has brought back 6,87,467 Indians under Vande Bharat Mission which includes 2,15,495 by national carrier Air India. Phase 4 of Vande Bharat Mission is underway with private airlines also participating in this mission to bring back stranded Indians from other parts of the world. So far, 12,258 Indians have been brought back by private airlines in India.

''1,01,014 nationals have returned from Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh by land borders. The number of returnees by Indian naval ships from Maldives, Sri Lanka and Iran stands at 3,789," the MEA spokesperson said.

MEA lists Vande Bharat mission, COVID medical supplies to 154 countries among key achievements

Where to get Vande Bharat Mission Phase 5 flight schedule:

To know the flight schedule, go to the official website of the ministry of external affairs

Then from home page go to the "COVID-19 Updates" option from the menu bar

Click 'VANDE BHARAT MISSION - LIST OF FLIGHTS' option

Flight schedule list will appear on the screen



Registration details in Vande Bharat Mission

To register yourself for the evacuation flights you will need to follow this:

Go to the official website of COVID 19 evacuation flight.

As soon as you will click on the Direct link, a new web page will be displayed on your screen.

On the registration page, you will have to enter personal details and the details of your residences

Click on submit

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

Helpline

If you are not able to book a flight through Air India website you can call on these call centre numbers for booking 1860-233-1407 / 0124-264-1407 /020-2623-1407.
(Newser)  Hackers did indeed get access to private direct messages on Twitter. "We believe that for up to 36 of the 130 targeted accounts, the attackers accessed the DM inbox," Twitter said Wednesday of the July 15 attempt, per CNN, identifying one of the accounts as belonging to an elected official in the Netherlands. The company said no other former or current politicians' DM inboxes were accessed, which will come as good news to targets including Joe Biden and former President Obama. Of 130 targeted accounts, 45 tweeted out a cryptocurrency scam, including those of Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Kanye West, and Kim Kardashian West. The BBC notes Twitter didn't say whether there was overlap between those accounts and the ones whose DMs were viewed.

story continues below

Local reports suggest the Dutch official is far-right politician Geert Wilders, whose profile image was replaced with a cartoon of a Black man, per the BBC. The background image of his account was replaced with the Moroccan flag. Email addresses and phone numbers were also exposed in last weeks attack. The US Senate Commerce Committee has requested a briefing by Twitter by Thursday. (Fingers are pointing at a 21-year-old in England.)
The government nominated on Thursday a candidate to replace one of the three members of Armenias Constitutional Court who were controversially dismissed last month.

The nominee, Vahram Avetisian, heads a civil law chair at Yerevan State University. He has previously worked in the Office of the Prosecutor-General and the private sector.

I believe that I have necessary professional skills, experience and integrity to properly perform the duties of a Constitutional Court judge, Avetisian told reporters after the announcement of his candidacy.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinians government enjoys a comfortable majority in the National Assembly, making Avetisians appointment to the Constitutional Court all but a forgone conclusion. The nominee said that if elected by the parliament he will strive for judicial independence and harmonious activities of the judicial, legislative and executive branches of government.

President Armen Sarkissian and an assembly of the countrys judges are due to name two other nominees for the high court.

The parliament approved last month constitutional amendments calling the gradual resignation of seven of the courts nine installed before April 2018.Three of them are to resign with immediate effect. Also, Hrayr Tovmasian must quit as court chairman but remain a judge.

Tovmasian and the ousted judges have refused to step down, saying that their removal is illegal. They have appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to have them reinstated.
With nine days remaining in the pandemic-disrupted legislative season and several major items still unresolved, Senate and House leaders have had some conversations about continuing past their traditional end-of-July deadline to continue deliberations on weighty bills.

Senate President Karen Spilka on Wednesday outlined a list of priorities, including the overdue fiscal 2021 budget and bills addressing climate change and police accountability, and said the Senate would be ready to work past July 31 if those bills are not completed. The branches would need to agree to an extension and House Speaker Robert DeLeo is open to "various scenarios" that involve going past July 31 if necessary, according to his office.

"There's no reason why we can't get most of this done by July 31, but if we need to work through these extraordinary circumstances and work past July 31, we will," Spilka told the News Service. She said she's had "initial discussions" with the House about the timeline.

Under joint House-Senate rules, July 31 marks the end of formal legislative sessions for the two-year term, after which lawmakers pivot into campaign mode ahead of the summer and fall elections and continue to meet in informal sessions for the rest of the year. Informal sessions are usually lightly attended, and all lawmakers present must agree to advance bills during such sessions, where recorded or roll call votes are not allowed.

In the second year of most terms, late July is marked by a frenzy of activity as lawmakers work to wrap up major bills and send them to the governor before the deadline. This year, the pace has been thrown off-course by the COVID-19 crisis that took over much of state government's focus, required the adoption of remote voting methods for legislative sessions, and sparked a collapse in state revenues.

"The Senate remains laser-focused on addressing the state budget, the COVID response and economic recovery. The big things -- racial justice, clearly, we have health care that we're still hoping to get done, climate change legislation that sets a 2050 net-zero target," Spilka said. "Despite many curveballs that have been thrown our way this session, we firmly believe that we have acted and gotten our work done."

Spilka said the Senate sought to avoid an end-of-session bottleneck by spreading out its agenda and passing health care bills in November, February and June, and a climate bill in January that included carbon pricing language. The House last July passed a $1 billion bill, dubbed GreenWorks, to finance climate change infrastructure and resiliency grants, and while DeLeo, Spilka and Gov. Charlie Baker all back a goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, that target has not been formalized in law.

The House plans to take up a health care bill this week and on Wednesday began debate on racial justice and police reform. National unrest over police killings of Black Americans thrust the issue of law enforcement accountability onto the legislative agenda, and the Senate passed its own bill last week.

Lawmakers have not yet presented a full spending plan for the fiscal year that began July 1, and budget-writers are waiting to have a better sense of both what the state collected in tax payments by the later July 15 filing deadline and what they can expect for any additional federal aid.

"If we do not have a full-year budget by the end of July, we will need to come back to get a budget done, and that timeline is going to be driven by understanding and knowing what the federal action is," Spilka said.

The Legislature over the years has adhered closely to the July 31 deadline that serves as a cutoff between policymaking and campaign seasons, and it seems likely that if Democrats agree to take up major matters beyond the deadline they will need to first agree on an agenda. There's also a question of whether they would assign themselves a new deadline to end formal sessions in 2020, or leave it open-ended.

"Given the COVID-19 emergency, Speaker DeLeo remains open to various scenarios involving going past 7/31, if necessary, and is in discussions with the Senate President and members on them," a DeLeo spokesperson said in a statement to the News Service.

Last week, DeLeo said the House "plans to address bills relating to police reform, healthcare, climate, economic development and budgetary matters in the coming weeks and looks forward to Senate action on transportation revenue, Greenworks, DCF and other items."

Spilka said she's hoping the House sends the Senate bills on economic development and housing. She also listed a pair of borrowing bills dealing with transportation and information technology as items the two branches need to complete.

The House and Senate passed different versions of each bond bill, and the IT bond bill is before a conference committee that first met Tuesday.

The Legislature's Joint Rule 12A specifies that all formal business in the second year of a session "be concluded not later than the last day of July of that calendar year." That rule requires a two-thirds vote from each branch to be suspended.

Another joint rule, Rule 26A, lays out the process of calling lawmakers back from recess into a special session -- it requires written statements from 21 senators and 81 representatives saying there should be a special session, and the first vote at a special session is whether such a session is necessary.

Lawmakers could also attempt to resolve any unfinished business in informal sessions, but that can present obstacles as any one legislators objection can halt a bills progress.
Man steals Phuket ambulance to drive home, caught in Phang Nga

PHUKET: Kathu Police are bringing a 19-year-old man back from Takua Pa, north of Phuket, where he was arrested for stealing an ambulance from the Kathu branch of the Kusoldharm Foundation rescue center this early morning (July 23).

crimepolice

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Thursday 23 July 2020, 04:47PM

Anurak said that he stole the Phuket ambulance so he could get back home to Surat Thani. Photo: Sawang Maekha rescue foundation

After escaping police custody on foot, Anurak was caught by local rescue workers in Takua Pa. Photo: Sawang Maekha rescue foundation

After escaping police custody on foot, Anurak was caught by local rescue workers in Takua Pa. Photo: Sawang Maekha rescue foundation

After escaping police custody on foot, Anurak was caught by local rescue workers in Takua Pa. Photo: Sawang Maekha rescue foundation

Capt Peerawat Yodtor of the Kathu Police explained that he received a call from the Kathu rescue centre of the Kusoldharm Foundation at around 4am, informing that a man had stolen an ambulance from their rescue center located in front of Kathu Municipality office.

Rescue worker Phannakorn Pongpao, who was at the rescue center when the ambulance was stolen, explained that he normally leaves the key in the ignition of the ambulance so it is ready for use at any time.

A young man was seen walking quietly up to the ambulance, starting it and quickly driving out of the centre.

Rescue workers immediately gave pursuit, but lost track of the ambulance until they were informed that it was seen heading towards Phang Nga, Mr Phannakorn said.

Rescue workers called 191 to ask police in Phang Nga to search for the ambulance, he added.

Hours later, Takua Pa Police found the stolen ambulance and its driver, Anurak Boonkham, 19, originally from Surat Thani, at the bus station.

Anurak apparently explained that he had stolen the ambulance so he could get back home to Surat Thani.

However, while police were inspecting the ambulance, Anurak managed to flee on foot, Capt Peerawat explained.

About 20 minutes later, not far from the bus station, Anurak was caught again by rescue workers from Takua Pas Sawang Maekha rescue foundation, who made a citizens arrest and took Anurak to Takua Pa Police Station, he added.

At around 11am, we were informed that Takua Pa Police had already arrested the thief and they asked Kathu Police to bring him back to Phuket, Capt Peerawat said.

Kathu officers are now bringing Anurak back to Kathu Police Station, where we will question him before deciding exactly which charges he will face, Capt Peerawat confirmed.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 16:41:29|Editor: huaxia

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URUMQI, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region reported 18 new confirmed domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, the regional health commission said Thursday.

The 18 confirmed patients were all in the regional capital Urumqi, according to the commission.

The region also registered 24 new asymptomatic cases, all in Urumqi, on Wednesday.

By Wednesday, Xinjiang had 82 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 77 asymptomatic cases, and 3,284 people were still under medical observation.

All the COVID-19 patients and asymptomatic carriers have been sent to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Sixth People's Hospital, an infectious disease hospital with 800 beds. The hospital in the northern suburb of Urumqi has stopped receiving non-COVID-19 patients.

Song Yuxia, vice president of the hospital, told Xinhua that the hospital was designated to treat COVID-19 cases during the outbreak earlier this year. The hospital has kept "a state of preparedness" since its last COVID-19 patient was discharged on March 8.

Currently, 55 experts from the region's medical institutions have stationed in the hospital. Under their guidance, the hospital implements the "one person, one therapy" strategy to treat the patients. Song said traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been integrated into the therapy. Enditem
Scientists have solved a longstanding reptilian mystery as to whether crocodiles emerged first in Africa or the Americas.

Analysis of a seven million-year-old specimen from an extinct African species shows it is closely related to modern-day American crocodiles.

However, the oldest crocodile ever found in the Americas is only five million years old.

As a result, scientists believe crocodiles, which first emerged in Australia, moved first into Africa before later conquering the Americas during the Late Miocene epoch which spanned from 11 to five million years ago.

Scientists have solved a longstanding reptilian mystery as to whether crocodiles emerged first in Africa or the Americas. A specimen of the extinct species Crocodylus checchiai (artist's impression, pictured) helped reveal it was Africa first, then the Americas

The ancient crocodile skull is stored at the Earth Sciences museum of Sapienza University of Rome and was first discovered in 1939 during excavations in Libya.

Academics put the cranium through a CT scanner to take extremely detailed images of the skull and found some features which had not been documented previously.

Most notable is a protrusion in the middle of the snout of the animal, which belonged to the species Crocodylus checchiai.

Analysis of an ancient crocodile skull stored at the Earth Sciences museum of Sapienza University of Rome was studied to solve the riddle. The skull was first discovered in 1939 during excavations in Libya

Academics put the cranium of the extinct crocodile through a CT scanner (pictured) to take extremely detailed images of the skull and found some features which had not been documented previously

Ancient 13-foot crocodile walked on two legs like T. rex An ancient 13-foot crocodile that lived in South Korea around 120 million years ago walked on two legs just like Tyrannosaurus rex. Experts from South Korea, Australia and the US analysed well-preserved fossil tracks, which were found at the Sacheon Jahye-ri dig site in South Korea. Initially, experts thought that the trace fossils must have been created by another ancient reptile  a pterosaur  that could fly but would have walked on two legs. Further analysis, however, revealed that the prints have heel-to-toe impressions, which must have been made by a creature walking on the flat of its feet. Advertisement

Although this animal was found in Africa, no other African crocodiles have this anatomical feature.

But four living crocodile species over the Atlantic in North and South America do have a very similar bump in the nose.

The researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona used this to try and piece together an evolutionary timeline of when the feature emerged and how it would have spread to different species around the world.

Previously, it was known that crocodiles first evolved in Australia, but it was a mystery if they reached the Americas from Africa, or vice-versa.

But, writing in their study published in Scientific Reports, academics say crocodiles reached America by migrating westwards from Australasia via Africa.

'There are two possible scenarios for the dispersal of Crocodylus to the Neotropics: from Australasia to the Neotropics and then to Africa or, alternatively, from Australasia to Africa and then to the Neotropics,' they say in their paper.

'Thanks to our results, the late Miocene Crocodylus checchiai could offer... direct evidence for the dispersal from Africa to America and suggesting to discard the other option.'
Catherine Opie, Los Angeles-based photographer

As a longtime Angeleno and definitely someone who has been a part of a larger queer leather community here, I know how important Tom of Finland was in terms of brotherhood. So even though it wasnt necessarily for me, Toms house always provided an amazing community resource. But for me as a dyke, I could not find myself in Tom of Finlands work beyond drag.

In a certain way, there was always a position of separatism with the leather men compared to the leather dykes. Which is why Im so interested in the influence that Tom of Finland had on [the Canadian artist and publisher] G. B. Jones. For the first time within G. B. Joness zines, in which she adopted the style of Tom of Finland, I was able to see my own community and my own self, versus the fantasies that many of us carried of being leather daddies.

Tom of Finland, what he modeled for us in his drawings, was actually a butch drag. We ended up adopting this  it was a way for us to do drag as a community. But G. B. Jones, with her drawings, all of a sudden made it part of our queer culture  we could think of ourselves as being women and leather dykes versus just doing drag.

Simon Haas, of the Los Angeles-based artist duo the Haas Brothers

My college boyfriend gave me a Tom of Finland Kake comic for my 21st birthday, when I was studying at the Rhode Island School of Design. I was a recently out-of-the-closet painting student filled with angst about my sexuality and my art, and this was my first exposure to art that made me feel like I belonged. Tom of Finlands deft pencil work and the immediate eroticism are enough to make any young gay boy a quick fan, but after a decade of looking at his drawings, I understand that his work transcends pornography and occupies a space of queer spirituality. I came for the giant phalluses and stayed for the joy of being a gay person. Toms drawings are unapologetically happy and have not a shred of shame in them  an incredible rarity in any depiction of homosexuality, even now. Tom had the fortitude of spirit to celebrate men at play at a time when most of the world considered gay people to be an abomination. I am 64 years his junior, and I have yet to discover within myself the kind of fearless happiness that Tom manifested in his work. Tom had such an abundance of radical self-acceptance that his work continues to impart the spirit of self-love onto gay men everywhere. I will never know Tom, but I can sincerely say that I love him with all my heart.
Minister says all film-makers require a government licence to make videos, including those broadcast on social media.

Malaysias communications minister has declared that all film producers must apply for a licence to shoot and produce videos in the country, including those broadcast on social media, prompting an outpouring of criticism online and opposition allegations of a crackdown on free speech.

Saifuddin Abdulla told legislators in Parliament on Thursday that a 1981 law regulating film production in Malaysia requires all video-makers to apply for a licence regardless of whether they are mainstream media agencies or personal media that broadcast films on social media platforms or traditional channels.

The minister was responding to a question from opposition legislator Wong Shu Qi, who was seeking clarification about filming licences amid a government dispute with Al Jazeera Media Network over a documentary examining Malaysias crackdown on undocumented workers during the coronavirus pandemic.

Saifuddin had claimed on July 19 that the networks 101 East programme did not seek the necessary licence to shoot the film, Locked Up in Malaysias Lockdown.

The Qatar-based network dismissed the charge on Wednesday, however, saying 101 East is a weekly current affairs show that does not fall into the category of films requiring a licence.





Unable to contest the integrity of our journalism, we believe the authorities are now attempting this new gambit of claiming we did not have a proper license, said Al Jazeera Englishs Managing Director Giles Trendle.

We do not believe this is a credible line of argument.

In Malaysias Parliament on Thursday, Wong asked Saifuddin to clarify how a film is defined under the 1981 National Film Development Corporation of Malaysia (FINAS) Act.

Does it include videos posted on TikTok and Instagram TV? Wong asked, noting the governments interpretation meant that all users of social media would need to apply for a license from FINAS.

Saifuddin appeared to evade the question, local media reported, by saying films included movies, short films, trailers, documentaries and advertisements that are made for mass consumption.

The ministers comments sparked an immediate backlash on social media.

Today, @saifuddinabd confirmed that ALL video filming, including for personal social media, needs a Finas license. Finas Act defines films as any recording on any material, wrote Twitter user, Zikri Kamarulzaman. My dear Malaysians, you are all technically criminals,

Today, @saifuddinabd confirmed that ALL video filming, including for personal social media, needs a Finas license. Finas Act defines films as 'any recording on any material'. My dear Malaysians. You are all technically criminals pic.twitter.com/qL2mXrUugy  Zikri Kamarulzaman (@zikri) July 23, 2020

Another wondered if her sister might go to jail for posting videos of their cat.

*Me relaying the bad news to my sister that shes going to jail for posting cat videos* Me: You read about the Finas license thing right? Sis: Ooh I read that. Oh wow Sis: Kupi is going to jail Me: .. (Kupi is our cat )  I slipped  (@rambling_dough) July 23, 2020

In another post that mocked Saifuddins statement, Twitter user Husnanazei wrote: Me to my (will never be born) child, as they took their first steps: my child, walk and talk when Ive obtained license from FINAS ok. Now sit back and crawl.

Me to my (will never be born) child, as they took their first steps: my child, walk and talk when I've obtained license from FINAS ok. Now sit back and crawl.   (@husnanazeri) July 23, 2020

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim meanwhile said Saifuddins interpretation of the law was a worrying development amid attacks and harassment of media, including Al Jazeera.

It is clear the government wants all parties, be it politicians, or social media users to face action for content that may not fit the governments view, he added.

Amid the backlash, Saifuddin issued a statement saying his comments in Parliament had been misrepresented. The government never had the intention of using this act to limit the freedoms of private individuals on social media, he said.





Separately, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Malaysia (FCCM) expressed concern on Wednesday over the requirement for journalists to obtain licences to film and produce films.

We are unaware of any requirement to obtain permission from FINAS for a news video production. Whether it is termed a documentary or otherwise, such material broadcast on news channels have not previously needed any clearance from FINAS, be they for foreign or local news agencies.

The FCCM also called the police inquiry against Al Jazeera alarming and said if journalists are now bound by rules and regulations that apply to film and documentary makers, such an action would have far-reaching consequences.
Scientists are flocking to Floridas Gulf Coast for a glimpse of a mysterious 425-feet-deep "blue hole" on the ocean floor.

The glowing mystery hole, about 155 feet below the waters surface, is similar to the sinkholes seen on solid land, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The site, dubbed the "Green Banana, has been a hot topic for scientists and deep-sea explorers who've been hoping for a glimpse of the phenomenon from afar.

Surprisingly, the first reports of blue holes came from fishermen and recreational divers, not scientists or researchers. In general, the holes appear to host diverse biological communities full of marine life, including corals, sponges, mollusks, sea turtles and sharks.

MORE: Russian region declares state of emergency after mass invasion of polar bears

NOAA scientists already have collected 17 water samples from the area surrounding the hole along with four sediment samples.

PHOTO: Scientists are flocking toward the coast of Florida to explore a mysterious 'blue hole' on the ocean floor. (Mote Marine Laboratory via NOAA)

Remarkably, they also discovered two dead but intact smalltooth sawfish, an endangered species, at the bottom of the hole, according to NOAA. Remains of one of the animals were recovered for examination.

MORE: Polar bears may be extinct by 2100 if Arctic ice melts at projected rate, according to new study

NOAA scientists plan to embark on a new mission to a second, deeper area of the hole in August. That mission will consist of a team of scientists from Mote Marine Laboratory, Florida Atlantic University, Georgia Institute of Technology and the U.S. Geological Society, according to NOAA.

Researchers are interested in studying the seawater chemistry in the holes for its unique qualities.

PHOTO: Divers found two deceased smalltooth sawfish, an endangered species, at the bottom of Amberjack Hole. (Mote Marine Laboratory via NOAA)

"Little is known about blue holes due to their lack of accessibility and unknown distribution and abundance," NOAA said in a statement. "The opening of a blue hole can be several hundred feet underwater, and for many holes, the opening is too small for an automated submersible."

Researchers dont know much about blue holes, but scientists are hoping to learn if the holes are connected to Floridas groundwater or if there is groundwater intrusion into the Gulf of Mexico.

They're also looking to see if a particular blue hole is secreting nutrients or harbors microenvironments or new species of microbes.

Scientists flock to mysterious 'blue hole' off Florida's Gulf Coast originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
An estimated 2,732 people were killed in 33 states and the FCT in three months, a new report by a Lagos based research firm has shown.

The report, Media Reported Killing in Nigeria, conducted by SBM Intelligence, revealed killings from violent incidents, including attacks from Boko Haram, kidnappers, armed herders, various militia, and communal clashes.

The project was a joint effort between SBM and another civil society organisation, Enough is Enough.

SBM had in April reported the killings of nearly 1,000 people between January to March 2020.

It said the report utilised various security trackers, the Council for Foreign Relationss Nigeria Security Tracker, the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), and locally generated reports.

Violence continued and the lack of requisite response from the government and security services in facing insecurity head-on contributed to this problem, it said. The lockdown brought about untold economic downturn added to a growing unemployment problem in a country seeing youth unemployment at nearly 43 per cent (estimated).

SBM security analyst, Confidence Isaiah, explained some of the reasons for the upsurge in the number of casualties in the report.

The uptick in the number of death of soldiers has to do with increased attacks on the North-west. The bandits are not just armed robbers or cattle rustlers with rag-tag weapons. They now operate sophisticated weaponry that can almost match what the military has and this has emboldened them to sustain their operations against communities and the military alike.

Killing fields

The report covers the numbers of fatalities across 33 states and the FCT, incorporating the six geopolitical zones in the country. It includes the number of deaths among security personnel in the country.

The report revealed that 221 security personnel including 173 soldiers, 39 police officers, three civil defence officers, and six vigilantes were killed in the three months.

The security index also recorded 845 deaths of terrorists and bandits and 502 insurgents.

Borno recorded the highest number with 941 killings, while Jigawa emerged the lowest with three killings in the report.

Included was Yobe,143; Taraba, 113; Adamawa, 95 respectively. In the North-west, Zamfara recorded 444 deaths; Katsina, 207; Kaduna, 179 and Sokoto, 99.

Osun and Ekiti recorded four cases each; Kwara with five; Abia, six; Oyo, Akwa Ibom, and Enugu had seven cases respectively.

Regions

The North-east region recorded the highest number at 1,294 cases while the South-west region recorded the least at 51.

Meanwhile, the South-south, recorded 126 killings; the South-east, 62.

The North-central region recorded 270 deaths, while the North-west had 929.

Strident calls, unheeded

The Nigerian Senate on Monday asked its military chiefs to step aside to enable a new set of officials with new ideas tackle insecurity across the country.

The motion was sponsored by Ali Ndume, a lawmaker from the embattled North-east.

In a now expected reaction to the Senate resolutions, the presidency said the removal of the service chiefs was a presidential prerogative.

Despite many calls for their sack, President Muhammadu Buhari has retained the service chiefs even as the body count mounts in many states.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how violence in parts of North-west Nigeria forced an estimated 23,000 persons to seek safety in the neighbouring Niger Republic in April alone, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
Bachelor in Paradise's Niranga Amarasinghe has explained why people of colour don't tend to feature on reality dating shows like The Bachelor.

In an interview with News.com.au on Wednesday, the 28-year-old said it's a cultural issue and has nothing to do with the actual production of the show.

'From experience, there are less POC auditioning for reality TV,' explained Niranga, an aircraft engineer who immigrated to Australia from Sri Lanka as a child.

Cultural differences: Bachelor In Paradise's Niranga Amarasinghe (pictured) has explained why people of colour don't tend to feature on reality dating shows like The Bachelor

He said many people of colour also face opposition from their families when it comes to appearing on certain reality shows.

'For the ones who do [audition] and are successful, there is another hurdle an individual has to conquer to actually make it to the filming stage,' he continued.

'They have to convince their families they are happy for them to go on reality TV. POC individuals can have very strict cultural backgrounds which don't always allow this kind of public display.'

Reasons: In an interview with News.com.au on Wednesday, the 28-year-old reality star said it's a cultural issue and has nothing to do with the actual production of the show

But shows like MasterChef, in which contestants demonstrate their cooking skills, don't carry the same stigma as programs with a focus on romantic relationships.

A Channel 10 spokesperson said: 'Eligible contestants on all Network 10 shows are considered regardless of race or background.

'Network 10 takes its commitment to diversity seriously and we cast as broadly as possible across our entire slate.'

'From experience, there are less POC auditioning for reality TV,' explained Niranga, an aircraft engineer who immigrated to Australia from Sri Lanka as a child

In a 2019 interview with HuffPost, before his appearance on last year's season of The Bachelorette, Niranga said he had the full support of his family.

'Mum's always asking when am I going to find someone and settle down because I'm getting pretty old now,' he joked.

'They're happy for me to find someone on TV. They're pretty excited and open.'
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his family are joined by vice presidential nominee Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and his family on stage at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 21, 2016. (Rick Wilking/Reuters)

Trump Cancels Jacksonville Part of GOP Convention, Delegates to Do Nomination in North Carolina

President Trump on Thursday said that the part of the GOP convention in Jacksonville, Florida, was canceled.

The delegates will still gather at Charlotte, North Carolina, to do the nomination, he announced during a press conference on Thursday afternoon.

The delegates are going to North Carolina, theyll be doing the nomination, he said.

For the Florida part of the GOP convention, there will be tele- and online rallies instead of a physical convention.

The president will still do a convention speech in a different form.

We wont do a big crowded convention per se, its just not the right time for that, Trump said. I care deeply about the people of Florida and everywhere else in this country and even in the world.

I want to thank all the Jacksonville community  and all of the other political representatives in the Jacksonville and in Florida, he added.

The Florida Department of Health on Thursday reported over 389,000 infections and 5,518 deaths with COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

The president said safety is the main reason that causes the cancellation of the GOP convention in Jacksonville and Florida didnt require him to cancel it.

RNC officials once shifted some of the convention from Charlotte to Jacksonville after negotiations over crowd size with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, stalled.

The Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel announced in early June that Trump will accept the Republican nomination this year in Jacksonville.

Trump was scheduled to publicly accept the Republican nomination on the final day of the convention, August 27. For the final day, each delegate, a guest, and alternate delegates will be allowed to attend, she said in mid-July.

Its unclear if there will be any change to the schedule.

The Republican National Committee didnt respond to a request for comment.

Zackary Stieber contributed to the report.
US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster has flagged concerns about Indias policy environment and 'micro-management' of the economy. Speaking at the India Ideas Summit organised by the US India Business Council, Juster said: "For India to become a part of the global supply chain, first you need a stable & predictable regulatory environment, a lighter touch on regulations and you need to unleash and not micro-manage economic growth."

The diplomat emphasised that open markets are necessary for a more dynamic economy. Justers comments assume importance at a time when India and the United States are negotiating a limited trade deal. The United States has raised issues on Indias data localisation, e-commerce and digital tax policies as hindrances for American companies.

Speaking at the USIBC summit on Tuesday, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal had said that India and US should be able to conclude a quick trade deal after a few calls.

Track this LIVE blog for the latest update on coronavirus pandemic

"While we work on an FTA which may take years, India and US could also look at an early harvest Preferential Trade Agreement covering 50-100 products," said Goyal.

Referring to India's Atmanirbhar plan, which aims at reducing imports and a greater role for India in global supply chains, the ambassador added, Being in global supply chains does not mean you make everything here and just get to export it. You must be able to import quality components and export finished goods. This does not mean you are making a concession.

In recent weeks, industry bodies like the USISPF and USIBC had expressed concerns about delays in custom clearances at Indian ports. Mukesh Aghi, the President of US India Strategic Partnership Forum had written to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade saying the delays in clearances for goods coming in from China was impacting US companies manufacturing in India.

The envoy said that there is tremendous potential for India and the US to work together on 5G and set standards for the world. He also said that the post-COVID world provides a great opportunity for India as companies look to leave China. Managing rise of China, terrorism, modernizing its military and providing jobs are key challenges for India," he said.
BALLSTON LAKE  In normal times, a funeral parlor is about as high-touch as a business can get.

When gathering to mourn the loss of a loved one or friend, people hug, kiss, shake hands, mingle in small groups, stand in reception lines and generally come together in a physical as well as spiritual manner.

But these arent normal times.

Funeral homes are considered essential businesses so they have been able to stay open during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown and subsequent precautions.

But funeral home visitors were supposed to be limited to family members only.

Moreover, facilities like Kathleen Sanvidges Townley & Wheeler Funeral Home faced limits on how many people they could safely accommodate.

Sanvidge said she doesnt want more than 30 people inside her facility at a time during the pandemic.

So she created a system to host drive-through wakes.

Mourners pull into the camera-equipped drive-through carport where, from their car, van, SUV or pickup, they talk and commiserate with the family of the deceased, who are inside the funeral parlor.

The family can gather around the deceaseds casket, urn, or anywhere in the parlor and the cameras are set up to show the entire car and group inside together.

They are there to show their support but they can see the whole scene, Sanvidge said of the drive-through mourners.

Sanvidge said the idea came early, shortly after New York state went into lockdown mode back in March.

This started at the inception of the pandemic. We were brainstorming one night about how we were going to help our community, she said.

As a funeral home operator, she knew that its important for people not to postpone their grief and mourning process when some passes away.

So the question was how to allow for that in a COVID-safe way.

The drive-through system seemed to make sense, she said.

That same day they ordered the components including big-screen TV monitors, computers, cameras and a carport.

Sanvidges husband, Zoltan Prohaszek, who also works at the funeral home and who she described as tech savvy, was able to put the system together in short order. They call the setup the Unity Station.

There was trepidation at first. After all, drive-through service at a bank or fast food restaurant is one thing, but a wake?

My preconception was that it was the worst idea ever, John Murphy said when he first heard of the Unity Station back in May after his mom, Eileen Murphy, passed away after a lengthy illness.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Why are you going to come see me on a TV screen? he wondered.

One of his older sisters was actually organizing the wake so he remained the silent critic, he said.

But now hes praising the concept.

I left preferring it this way, said Murphy who lives in Clifton Park.

Not only was it a workaround to the pandemic restrictions but he said the configuration in some ways allows for more interaction between friends and families.

Rather than a traditional wake, where people stand on line and are greeted one by one, a car full of visitors and family members can converse all at once.

Staying in the car can also ease some of the awkwardness and formality that can come with a wake. Sanvidge joked that visitors could even drive up in pajamas if they wanted to although shes not sure anyone has. On a more serious note, people have dropped off gifts like cookies and other items when they visited.

The vehicles have to wait their turn in the parking lot to go through the carport and are called up via an FM radio frequency.

Murphys wake was the third one Sanvidge's business hosted using the drive-through concept and so far, it has done a dozen.

Some other funeral parlors in the Capital Region have taken to Zoom or Facebook wakes, but the drive-through events can also be put on Facebook live.

Sanvidge is also moving to patent the concept and said it will remain in place post-pandemic, given the reception that is has gotten from the public.

People are so appreciative, she said.

rkarlin@timesunion.com  518-248-6070  @RickKarlinTU
Swara Bhasker has opened up about Kangana Ranauts recent interview about the death of Sushant Singh Rajput and her claims that he was sabotaged by the movie mafia. Swara said that Kangana should celebrate Sushant, instead of tearing down her contemporaries.

In an interview with The Times of India, Swara said, I think when you call your colleagues Chaaploos, chaatney waaley (sycophants), needy outsider, B-grade actress and other such flattering adjectives, the conversation tends to get deviated. I think that if Kangana wants this conversation to be about justice for Sushant, she shouldnt make it about herself and her personal vendetta. She should celebrate Sushant, not deride everyone else.

Kangana claimed in a recent interview that Bollywood was controlled by a few heavyweights, who made it their mission to destroy outsiders who were not sycophants. She alleged that Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar joined hands to sabotage Sushants career and brand him as flop star, even after he delivered hits such as MS Dhoni: The Untold Story and Chhichhore.

During the chat, Kangana also referred to Swara and Taapsee Pannu as needy outsiders who denied the existence of nepotism to win Karans favour, but remained B-grade actresses because he chose to give chances to Alia Bhatt and Ananya Panday instead.

Also read: Tahira Kashyap jokes she will leave pajamas and shorts as hereditary wealth for daughter Varushka, shares throwback photos

Since then, Kangana has been involved in a war of words with Taapsee and Swara. Swara recently shared an old video of Kangana, in which she says that the insider-outsider divide doesnt matter in Bollywood. Its hard to get your first break but once your film releases, its up to the audiences and so many of them have been rejected. No matter where you come from...whether you come from the mountains like me or you come from California, it really doesnt matter. Its the people who decide, she says in the video.

Kanganas team claimed that she was only harassed after she became a star with the success of Queen, Tanu Weds Manu and Tanu Weds Manu Returns. Youre picking up a10 yr old video when movie mafia didnt care about her existence & didnt consider her an A-lister. Criminal cases,Threats, Bullying,Character assassination started aftr Kangana became a top star in 2014, she hs mentioned many times before, pls dont misguide, her team told Swara on Twitter.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Lenovo Legion Phone Duel is the world's first phone to debut the Snapdragon 865+ chipset.

Lenovo finally launched its first gaming smartphone under the Legion brand. Lenovo Legion Phone Duel is also the first phone to launch with Qualcomms Snapdragon 865+ chipset.

Lenovos gaming phone will be available first in China where it will be called the Lenovo Legion Phone Pro. It will come to more Asian markets, EMEA and Latin America later. The company hasnt revealed the pricing details though. The smartphone will be available in two variants of 12GB+256GB and 16GB+256GB.

In terms of design, the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel has all the gaming kicks to it with a colour combination of blue and black. There's another colour combination of red and black. It has a pop-up selfie camera which has a very unique placement. Its actually on the side of the phone and not on top as one would expect. The phone also has curved edges and thin bezels up front. Lenovos Y icon is placed at the back along with RGB lighting effects which are customisable.

Lenovo Legion Phone Duel in blue and red colour options. (Lenovo)

Lenovo Legion Phone Duel: Specs

The Lenovo Legion Phone Duel features a 6.65-inch Full HD AMOLED display with 144Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate. It also has an in-display fingerprint sensor. The phones pop-up selfie camera is a 20-megapixel sensor. At the rear, theres a dual-camera setup of 64-megapixel and 16-megapixel sensors.

The phone packs two 2,500mAh batteries and two USB Type-C charging ports. It also supports 90W Turbo Power Charging when both chargers are connected. Lenovo claims the phone can go up to 50% in 10 minutes, and 100% in 30 minutes. With the Snapdragon 865+ chipset, the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel gets 5G support.

Lenovo Legion Phone Duel: Gaming features

In addition to the high-end specs, the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel offers dual ultrasonic trigger buttons with dual vibration engines. There are virtual gamepad controls and joystick as well. Its also equipped with dual liquid-cooling and copper tubes to reduce heat while gaming. The Lenovo Legion Phone Duel also uses its gyroscope for gaming features like using the joystick. It even has this Audio to Vibration feature that uses audio directional signals. So if your car hits a wall the crash and vibration will come from the affected side.

Lenovo Legion Phone Duel's pop-up selfie camera is optimised for streaming. (Lenovo)

The phone is also optimised for streaming with YouTube and Twitch broadcasting features, and four noise-cancelling mics. The pop-up selfie camera has also been placed this way so gamers can easily stream in landscape mode while gaming. It even has AI to auto-enhance images, and theres Playmoji too.

Lenovo Legion Phone Duel launched just before another gaming phone made its debut. Its the Asus ROG Phone 3 which is also powered by the Snapdragon 865+ SoC, and 144Hz refresh rate. In India, the ROG Phone 3 starts at 49,999.
By Andrew Hay and Nathan Layne

July 23 (Reuters) - Even as Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she would accept U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to send a "surge" of federal agents to fight violent crime in Democratic-led cities, Albuquerque, New Mexico's Tim Keller has rejected the deployment outright.

Both mayors are Democrats wrestling with violent crime and a history of police misconduct in their cities. But their reactions to Wednesday's announcement of an expansion of the Operation Legend program were hardly alike.

Lightfoot said she was reassured by the president about the presence of federal agents in her city under an expansion of the Justice Department-led operation, but Keller sees the Republican president's deployment as a political ploy.

"We won't sell out our city for a bait and switch excuse to send secret police to Albuquerque," Keller said in a statement, using a term associated with fraudulent advertising. "Operation Legend is not real crime fighting; it's politics standing in the way of police work and makes us less safe."

New Mexico's Democratic governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, vowed to monitor the deployment for civil rights violations by federal agents. State Attorney General Hector Balderas, also a Democrat, said the initiative "politicized" public safety.

The skepticism about the president's intentions follows a series of violent clashes between federal agents and protesters in Portland, Oregon. On Wednesday night, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, who has rejected the deployment as provocative and counterproductive, was hit with tear gas when he joined the protesters.

Critics see the expansion of Operation Legend as part of a strategy of casting the president as a "law and order" candidate and give his sputtering re-election campaign a boost. He trails Democrat Joe Biden in opinion polls ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election.

Story continues

To be sure, the deployments in Albuquerque, Chicago and other cities are part of a different program than the Portland deployment.

Operation Legend, which began in Kansas City, Missouri, involves federal agents assisting local police in combating what the Justice Department has described as a "surge" of violent crime.

It coincides with the Department of Homeland Security's Operation Defiant Valor to deploy agents to protect federal facilities in cities such as Portland, where protests to demand racial justice have erupted for every night for weeks.

Trump on Wednesday appeared to mix the objectives of both operations, saying he was expanding Operation Legend to confront a "radical movement to defend, dismantle and dissolve our police departments" which had led to a shocking explosion in "heinous crimes of violence."

'OUT OF TOUCH'

In contrast with Keller, Chicago's Lightfoot said she was willing to give the operation a chance. After speaking with Trump on Wednesday, she told MSNBC that the president assured her that the influx of federal agents would not resemble the force led by the Department of Homeland Security in Portland, Oregon.

It was not immediately clear why Trump reached out to Lightfoot, who he has repeatedly dueled with on Twitter, but she told MSNBC they "understand each other" and she had "drawn a very, very sharp line" on federal actions.

While Trump's move has been opposed by the Democratic leadership of New Mexico and Albuquerque, it has divided law enforcement in the Southwestern state.

Albuquerque's police chief, Michael Geier, said Trump had failed to come through with $10 million in funding from his last operation to bring in federal agents.

"I won't hold my breath until we see all this actually come to fruition," Geier said in a statement.

Sheriff Manuel Gonzales of Bernalillo County, which includes Albuquerque, attended Trump's White House announcement of Operation Legend, prompting U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich, a Democrat, to demand his resignation.

"Instead of collaborating with the Albuquerque Police Department, the Sheriff is inviting the Presidents stormtroopers into Albuquerque," Heinrich said in a statement.

Gonzalez vowed to keep working with federal agencies and said Heinrich was "out of touch" with social problems in New Mexico, the second poorest U.S. state with the second highest level of violent crime in 2018, the most recent year for which federal data is available. (Reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico and Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
COLUMBUS, Ohio  Officials at the Columbus Zoo were on the lookout for a red panda Wednesday that appears to have escaped from its outdoor enclosure.

The panda, which is about the size of a raccoon, is no threat to the public, zoo officials say in a news release. However, they say its best not to approach the panda if seen as it might become frightened. Officials say red pandas are naturally shy and reclusive.

The missing panda recently gave birth to two cubs and they are still nursing, officials say. The cubs can be fed with a specialized formula if needed.

Zoo officials say thunderstorms moved through the region Tuesday night and could have bent the limbs in the pandas enclosure, presenting a chance to escape. The pandas are excellent climbers and live in trees. Security video is being reviewed but so far has offered no clues, officials say.

Workers have searched the zoo and dense vegetation surrounding the pandas enclosure but were unable to find it. Its hoped the panda might return on its own to feed its two cubs.

The zoo is asking anyone near its facility who spots the panda to call 614-582-1844.
The Senate has asked the Interim Management Committee (IMC) of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to refund N4.9 billion paid to staff, in breach of procurement process and approvals, to the commissions account with immediate effect.

It also asked the president to dissolve the committee as soon as this is done.

It specifically asked the IMC to refund all other unjustifiable funds paid to staff of the commission.

Some of the funds include N85.7 million for overseas travels to the United Kingdom; N105.5 million for scholarship grants and N164.2 million for union members trip to Italy.

Other are, N1.9 billion for Lassa Fever kits; N1.1 billion for public communication and N1.5 billion for COVID-19 relief.

The panel also recommended that, henceforth, the NDDC management should report directly to President Muhammadu Buhari.

It asked that the president dissolves the IMC and set up a board for the commission.

These were part of the recommendations read out by the chairman of the committee, Olubunmi Adetunmbi, on Thursday.

This comes exactly two weeks after the acting Managing Director of the NDDC, Kemebradikumo Pondei, admitted that the commission spent N1.5 billion for staff as COVID-19 relief funds. He later said the money spent was about N1.35 billion.

He said this at the investigative hearing on the N40 billion corruption allegation against the commission.

The Senate had on May 5 set up a seven-member ad-hoc committee to investigate the financial recklessness of the IMC.

The lawmakers said within the last three months, the commission has spent over N40 billion of the commissions fund without recourse to established processes of funds disbursement which has opened up further suspicion among stakeholders of the Niger Delta region.

The Nigerian Senate [PHOTO CREDIT: @NGRSenate]

They also faulted the IMCs arbitrary use of executive power in an alleged wrongful sacking of management staff without recourse to established civil service rules and practice with the aim of allegedly concealing the fraudulent financial recklessness they have committed.

Deliberation

Presenting the report, Mr Adetunmbi said the NDDC spent N4.9 billion on medicals between October 2019 and May 2020.

He also said the commission spent billions of naira on overseas travel allowance at a time when countries were on lockdown and international flights were not operating.

The commission, between October 2019 and May 2020, paid staff several kinds of questionable allowances. It also spent N81 billion within this period, he said.

He also said the explanations given by the IMC did not explain the need for the reckless spending.

The committee found that the core mandate of the commission was not being followed because payment(s) did not speak to the purpose for which the NDDC was created.

The state of the implementation of the forensic audit is at rudimentary stages. Also, the NDDC does not operate on the basis of budget but a cash accounting system. That is, they spend money as it comes and a lot of contract splitting and allocated to similar contractors, he said.

Outraged lawmakers

Many lawmakers took turns to condemn the IMC.

Smart Adeyemi (APC, Kogi), called for more stringent punishment for corruption; he said the level of corruption in Nigeria is beyond Mosaic or Sharia law.

There should be an amendment to the law that prescribes amputation or life imprisonment for anyone found guilty of corruption. Put those laws that everybody will be scared of.

Lawmakers and invited guests seated at the venue of the investigation of alleged financial recklessness by the NDDC currently going on at the House of Representatives

Spending N81 billion in six months is one of the most terrible crimes anybody can commit in a country even as people are dying of poverty in the region.

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Another lawmakef, Gershom Bassey, said the revelations in the report are enough to make a man faint.

The lawmaker complained that the recommendations are not as strong as they ought to be.

He also blamed the National Assembly as he said the corruption in the NDDC is a clear case of lack of oversight on the part of the lawmakers.

Ibrahim Oloriegbe said people should be killed for engaging in such cases.

Spending over N3 billion on medicals and COVID-19 relief when the epicentre of the pandemic is Lagos, FCT and Kano, is appalling.

The report should be implemented by the president immediately and where a request for document is made to MDAs and there is no response, we should invoke our laws.

Resolutions

Besides calling for a direct presidential supervision for the commission and refund of the funds, the lawmakers resolved that the monitoring committee and the advisory councils should also be inaugurated along with the board of directors as provided in Sections 20 and 21 of the NDDC Act  which is necessary to ensure that there are sufficient checks and balances in the internal affairs of the NDDC.

Other resolutions are:

*The new board, when constituted, should review existing governance framework of the NDDC which is necessary for the improvement of the structure and operations of the commission.

*The NDDC must promote the use of its approved annual budget and provide budgetary performance when due. The commission will also submit annual and quarterly reports to both chambers of the National Assembly when due.

*Oversight of the forensic audit should be transferred to the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation. This will guarantee independence, credibility, transparency and professionalism in the output of the exercise. Also, the President with advice from the Auditor General should appoint a renowned, internationally recognised forensic auditor to carry out he exercise.

*That the NDDC must strengthen its procurement department through appropriate staff engagement (e.g. by appointing staff with procurement chartered status), staff training and formulation of appropriate industry rated internal control measure specifics to procurement function to forestall sharp practice in its bids and tender process.

*Assertions of blackmail by NDDC against members of the National Assembly on the subject of procurement process, must be investigated by the Senate Committee on Ethics and Privileges to report back in four weeks. And if found true, parties will be sanctioned accordingly.

*The Standard Operating Procedure (SOPs) of the Commission must be reviewed upgraded and reinstituted with full documentation and formal training conducted

*The management embark on a Cooperate Social Responsibility review to restructure and reshape NDDCs social responsibility to its staff, community and the public at large.

Although the lawmakers on Wednesday embarked on their annal recess, they held plenary to consider the committees report.
ATLANTA, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- SFA Partners, a family of companies focused exclusively on empowering independent financial advisor businesses, today announced the recruitment of four wealth management firms: Kolinsky Wealth Management, Lehner Carroll Shope Capital Management, OakPoint Investment Partners and Life Income. Together, the offices have over $585 million in client assets  more than $200 million of which has been added to platforms under the SFA Partners brand.

Clive Slovin, President and Chief Executive Officer of SFA Partners, said, "I am overjoyed to welcome these great teams to the SFA Partners family. They are prime examples of how we are ramping up long-term growth in 2020, even as the ongoing pandemic poses unprecedented challenges for the industry. As entrepreneurs and independent business owners, these teams have no shortage of choices in deciding where to affiliate, so their faith in us is a testament to our broad platform of investment solutions, unwavering commitment to providing excellent service and history of empowering independence."

SFA Partners encompasses The Strategic Financial Alliance (SFA), a leading independent broker-dealer and corporate RIA; Strategic Blueprint, an independent RIA geared to serving fee-based advisors; and SFA Insurance Services.

More background on the new teams:

Kolinsky Wealth Management, Ramsey, NJ  The team is led by Stephen Kolinsky , CLU  and ChFC  ; Jason Kolinsky, CFP  ; and Chad Kolinsky , who have registered with SFA for their broker-dealer business, which encompasses approximately $80 million in assets. It also oversees $140 million through its retirement plan business and manages over $230 million in assets through its own RIA.

The team is led by , CLU and ChFC ; Jason Kolinsky, CFP ; and , who have registered with SFA for their broker-dealer business, which encompasses approximately in assets. It also oversees through its retirement plan business and manages over in assets through its own RIA. Lehner Carroll Shope Capital Management , Perrysburg , Canfield and Canton, Ohio  The team is led by Managing Partners Brian Lehner, CFP  CEP  and Amy Shope , will offer advisory services through Strategic Blueprint, where they directly manage about $30 million . They also bring approximately $36 million to SFA in broker-dealer business.

, The team is led by Managing Partners Brian Lehner, CFP CEP and , will offer advisory services through Strategic Blueprint, where they directly manage about . They also bring approximately to SFA in broker-dealer business. OakPoint Investment Partners, Southfield, MI  Rebecca Abel , CFP  , CDFA  has affiliated with Strategic Blueprint where she manages $35 million in advisory assets.

, CFP , CDFA has affiliated with Strategic Blueprint where she manages in advisory assets. Life Income, Salem, SC  Industry veteran Roger Woodruff manages $35 million in advisory assets through Strategic Blueprint.

Jamie Mackay, SFA Partners Vice President of Business Development, said, "The fact that these teams have transitioned to the SFA Partners family is proof not only of our ability to grow despite the challenges of the current environment but also of our adaptability. Whether it's a hybrid seeking to scale up their advisory business with better technology, a practice wanting to focus solely on their advisory business through our independent RIA, or someone with their own RIA who needs a capable broker-dealer partner, these additions prove that we are well positioned to serve a variety of business models."

David Pittman, Strategic Blueprint Executive Vice President, added, "In today's rapidly changing environment, advisors are increasingly looking for a firm that can quickly help them adjust to the new realities of doing business. Strategic Blueprint is honored to welcome these new teams to the SFA Partners family, and we look forward to doing everything possible to support their continued success, including giving them the added freedom and flexibility to manage portfolios, share information and run their businesses in the most client-friendly manner possible."

About SFA Partners

SFA Partners is a master brand encompassing independent advisor-focused entities wholly owned by SFA Holdings, Inc., including The Strategic Financial Alliance, Inc. (SFA), Strategic Blueprint LLC, and SFA Insurance Services, Inc. SFA is a privately owned independent broker-dealer and Registered Investment Adviser, which as of June 30, 2020 serves approximately 150 independent financial advisors across the country, collectively supporting approximately $5 billion in advisory and brokerage assets. Strategic Blueprint provides independent advisors the advantages of having their own RIA but none of the hassles through a range of services, including turnkey compliance, supervisory and back-office support; expert due diligence; an integrated technology stack; and a broad universe of asset management services. SFA Insurance Services empowers holistic financial planning by helping advisors match clients with insurance solutions that fit their needs.

Media Contacts:

Stephanie Schiele

SFA Vice President of Marketing

[email protected]

678.954.4067

SOURCE SFA Partners
Americans owe more than $1.7 trillion in student loans, and employers are using that debt as a way to hire new talent.

Many companies are starting to offer student debt relief alongside perks like vacation, retirement accounts and health insurance, according to Asha Srikantiah, head of the student debt program at Fidelity Investments.

The benefits can range anywhere from free guidance to direct payments designed to go above and beyond your monthly minimums. With the coronavirus halting travel, some businesses are now allowing workers to use compensation for company-provided time off to go directly to their student loans.

Check out this video for a full breakdown of how the repayment assistance works and to learn how you might be able to get your current employer to start pitching in on your loans.

More from Invest in You:

'Predictably Irrational' author says this is what investors should be doing during the pandemic

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How to prepare for a family member with COVID-19

SIGN UP: Money 101 is an 8-week learning course to financial freedom, delivered weekly to your inbox.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal and Comcast Ventures are investors in Acorns.
This is the moment a mother bravely protected her four-year-old daughter from being abducted in broad day light in India.

Two motorcyclists can be seen attempting to take the young girl and drive her away on one of their bikes in eastern Delhi's Shakarpur area.

But the mother rushes out of her house and snatches the child from the kidnappers and shouts in order to alert the neighbours.

Video footage shows the nearby residents come out of their houses to prevent the men from making an escape.

Two motorcyclists can be seen attempting to take the young girl and drive her away on one of their bikes in eastern Delhi's Shakarpur area. Pictured: the man on the left carries the girl out of the house as the other man waits on the bike

The mother (left in the blue top) rushes out of her house and snatches the child from the kidnappers and shouts in order to alert the neighbours

One man creates a make shift road block using a parked motorcycle to slow the kidnappers down, as another man quickly rushes to his aid.

They can be seen bravely attempting to restrain the bikers, but despite their efforts the men are still able to make a get away.

A police case was registered after, and they identified the bikers using the number plate of a motorcycle that had been abandoned.

The mother (in the blue top) is seen grabbing her child to save her from being abducted by the men

One man creates a make shift road block using a parked motorcycle to slow the kidnappers down, as another man quickly rushes to his aid

The police arrested one of the culprit's identified as Dheeraj, a resident of Jagatpuri in the Indian capital Delhi.

He then eventually led to the capture of the man behind the failed kidnap attempt, an individual known as Upendra.

Upendra is the girl's uncle, and he allegedly planned to blackmail his elder brother as he was jealous of him and the success of his growing garments business.

It was revealed that he had given a kidnapping contract of 1,00,000 rupees to the assailants.

The police also recovered guns and cartridges from the possession of the criminals, and both men were take in to custody following their arrests.
Former TV journalist Gianluigi Paragone presents his Italexit party, which aims to take Italy out of the European Union.

An Italian senator has launched a political party that aims to take Italy out of the European Union, just after Rome clinched a huge coronavirus recovery fund deal with the bloc.

Gianluigi Paragone, a former TV journalist, presented his Italexit party on Thursday, two days after a London meeting with Brexit Party head Nigel Farage, who was instrumental in the United Kingdoms decision to quit the EU.

Paragone pointed to a survey by pollster Piepoli Institute from the end of June, which found that about 7 percent of Italians would likely vote for a party campaigning to leave the EU.

Consensus will only grow further, in line with the lies Europe tells us, he said.

Political analyst and poll expert Renato Mannheimer said Italians feelings on the EU had swung widely over the past few months  though we remain the country that trusts Brussels the least.

A perceived initial failure on the blocs part to respond quickly to the coronavirus pandemic in Italy angered and disappointed the population but, since then, support for the EU has risen again, he said.

The stimulus package

A 750-billion-euro ($860bn) recovery package agreed by EU leaders, with a large slice earmarked for Italy, will likely boost that support further.

Most Italians dont want to leave the EU. Only about 30 percent  rising to 40 percent in some moments  say yes to leaving, Mannheimer told the AFP news agency.

That figure rises slightly for Italians in favour of quitting the eurozone.

I dont believe Paragones party can build a large enough following for Italexit, he said.

Paragone, who has previous ties to far-right leader Matteo Salvinis League party, was elected with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, but left soon after it formed a government with the pro-European Democratic Party (PD) last year.

Both the Five Star Movement and the League have toned down their anti-eurozone stance to appeal to more moderate voters.
AquaBlok General manager and COO Mr. John Collins states As a Great Lakes based firm, we have a strong interest in utilizing our technology to help improve the protectiveness of sediment remediation in our region.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a $2.9 million agreement to remediate contaminated sediment along the Detroit River in Detroit, Michigan to be funded through a Great Lakes Legacy Act cost-sharing partnership with the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy.

The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy stated that the project will not only address contaminated sediment, but also stabilize an aging seawall to provide geophysical support for the further expansion of the popular Detroit Riverwalk.

The contaminated sediment is within the Detroit River Area of Concern (AOC), identified by the United States and Canada as one of 43 toxic hotspots in the Great Lakes basin. The project will remediate sediments located just downstream of the MacArthur Bridge that leads to Belle Isle. Contaminated sediment will be stabilized and isolated using a cap made of AquaGate+PAC blended with clean backfill material. The design will provide an isolation layer more protective than clean capping materials alone.

This project is part of the larger effort to restore and protect the Great Lakes through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI). In October 2019, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced the GLRI Action Plan III, an aggressive plan that will guide Great Lakes restoration and protection activities by EPA and its many partners over the next 5 years.

The AquaGate+PAC material utilizes powder activated carbon (PAC) to limit the migration of residual contamination from sediments, to improve water quality in the river. The material will be manufactured in Swanton, Ohio and shipped to the project site for placement in the river. A range of AquaBlok and AquaGate products have been used extensively on sediment projects across the U.S. including several other Great Lakes Legacy Act projects.

AquaBlok General manager and COO Mr. John Collins states, As a Great Lakes based firm, we have a strong interest in utilizing our technology to help improve the protectiveness of sediment remediation in our region.

About AquaBlok, Ltd.

AquaBlok, Ltd. is a manufacturer of composite materials utilizing its patented coating and amendment approach. The company has a long history in the environmental industry and provides a range of products utilized in groundwater treatment and sediment remediation applications. AquaBlok uses its low-permeability bentonite delivery system in a range of geotechnical applications including, industrial impoundment sealing, anti-seep collars (trench dams) around piping, cut-off walls in porous soil conditions, and levee and dam repair or construction.
SARATOGA SPRINGS - The commissioner of the city's Department of Public works said that the Civil War soldier statue that was smashed in Congress Park will be either repaired or replaced.

Also, the city is offering a $2,000 reward for information that will lead to the arrest of the vandal who climbed up the pedestal to smash the statue overnight July 16. Those with any information can contact the Saratoga Springs Police Department at (518) 584-1800.

City police said they are reviewing surveillance video from in and around Congress Park to try and determine a suspect.

Speaking at Tuesday night's City Council meeting, Anthony "Skip" Scirocco said the cast iron and zinc statue to honor the 77th infantry will be put back up on its pedestal.

"We are going to put it back," Scirocco said. "I promise you that."

Scirocco said the statue was erected in 1875. The $3,000 depiction of a soldier was paid for by donations from members of the 77th infantry Union Army. He said it was manufactured by J.W. Fiske and Company in New York City and that many identical statues of Union soldiers were sold throughout the country. Therefore, if the statue cannot be repaired, they will laser scan one of its twin, which he said, can be found in such locations as Canton, Massachusetts and Mansfield, Ohio.

"Push comes to shove, that is what we will do," Scirocco said.

The 77th was made up of volunteers from Saratoga Springs, Wilton, Schuylerville, and other surrounding communities. When the regiment was raised, it was supposed to be numbered in the 30s, but the officers petitioned to have the unit commissioned as the 77th in honor of the Battle of Saratoga, fought in 1777.



The statue was initially in the center of Broadway at the entrance of Congress Park. In 1921, it had to be moved into Congress Park as it became an obstacle for cars.

Those monuments to the Civil War, like the one in Congress Park, appear in many rural areas too including such local places like Berlin, Hoosick Falls, Greenwich and Ballston Spa. They were built, a book by David W. Blight, "Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory," notes that the monuments meant to emphasize reconciliation between North and South.

The monument in Saratoga Springs, however, is ravaged. Scirocco said that the city has put in an insurance claim for the statue that in many spots was only "little tiny pieces."

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

"It was just shattered," he said. "It's unfortunate."

Scirocco said he's also received many calls from people who would like to donate to the cost of repairs or replacement. If it can't be repaired, Scirocco said, fragments of the statue will likely go to the Saratoga Springs History Museum.

"This is a resilient community and people really want to see it back," Scirocco said.
The Madras High Court on Thursday issued summons to popular Tamil producer Gnanavel Raja in connection with 300 crore money laundering case.

As per a report by Tamil news channel Puthiya Thalaimurai, Madras High Court has ordered Gnanavel Raja to appear in person at Ramanathapuram police station on August 7 in connection with the 300 crore money laundering case.

Known for his long-standing collaboration with actor Suriya on multiple projects, Gnanavel is bankrolling the Singam stars upcoming Tamil project Aruvaa.

Following a complaint by Tulsi Manikandan who registered a case against Neethimani, Menaka and Anand for embezzling 300 crore, Ramanathapuram Bazaar police learnt through the investigation that producer Gnanavel Raja was also involved in this money laundering.

Gnanavel Raja has filed a case in the Madras High Court seeking to be excused from appearing in person for trial or to be allowed to appear for trial through video footage until the impact of corona pandemic subsides.

Dismissing Gnanavel Rajas request to appear through video, Judge GK Ilanthiraiyan has ordered him to appear in person on August 7, arguing that the case will only progress if a face-to-face investigation is carried out.

Also read: Nora Fatehi says found my husband as she gets adorable marriage proposal from a little fan. Watch video

Apart from Aruvaa, Gnanavel Raja has Tamil remake of Kannada film Mufti in the pipeline. After shooting the first schedule in Bellary, Karnataka a few months ago, the team is yet to resume the next schedule. Reports have emerged that the project has been dropped after a fallout between producer Gnanavel Raja and Simbu.

Apparently, the producer incurred loss of 40 lakh in the first schedule due to Simbu and he has raised a complaint against him in the Producers Council.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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WASHINGTON

(July 23, 2020)The U.S. Department of Defense recently announced the following contract awards that pertain to local Navy activities.No applicable data., is awarded amodification (P00001) to cost-plus-fixed-fee order N00019-20-F-0817 against previously issued basic ordering agreement N00019-19-G-0008. This order procures support to manage diminishing manufacturing sources in support of the F-35 Program for the Air Force, Navy and non-Department of Defense (DOD) participants. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas, and is expected to be complete by June 2021. Fiscal 2018 aircraft procurement (Air Force) funds in the amount of $6,586,406; fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $6,586,406; and non-DOD participant funds in the amount of $2,853,286 will be obligated at time of award, of which $6,586,406 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity., is awarded ancost-plus-fixed-fee, cost reimbursable, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. This contract provides for in-service engineering activity and production services for various Navy identification and data link systems in support of the Combat Integration and Identification Systems Division at the Naval Air Warfare Center Webster Outlying Field. Work will be performed in Patuxent River, Maryland (77%); and Rockville, Maryland (23%). Services will support integration and production efforts, including design and feasibility evaluation, component and system design, system integration, production, installation testing and evaluation, in-service engineering, logistics, repair and validation, training, lab maintenance, quality assurance and technical management on a worldwide range of naval ship and shore platforms. Work is expected to be complete by June 2025. No funds will be obligated at the time of award. Funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. This contract was competitively procured via an electronic request for proposal, and one offer was received. The, is the contracting activity (N00421-20-D-0117)., is awarded anfirm-fixed-price modification to previously awarded contract N00174-17-C-0022 to exercise Option Year Three for the fiscal 2017-2020 production of the MK 38 MOD 3 machine gun system (MGS) and associated spares. Work will be performed in Hafia, Israel (67%); and Louisville, Kentucky (33%). The production of the MGS is derived from the application of an ordnance alteration to the MK 38 MOD 1 25mm MGS. Once installed, this version will incorporate two-axis stabilizations, an improved electro-optical sight system, improved multi-function display, a modified main control panel, a new main computing unit, a 7.62mm machine gun and remote control operation. Work is expected to be complete by November 2021. Fiscal 2020 weapon procurement (Coast Guard) funds; 2017 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds; and 2020 weapon procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $18,771,034 will be obligated at the time of award. Funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The", is the contracting activity., is awarded afirm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. This contract procures the audio and visual video teleconference equipment for the integration of specialized network video teleconference systems in support of the integrated command, control and intelligence divisions of the Joint Staff and combatant commanders, Department of Defense agencies and services, and Department of Homeland Security operational and support components., and supports the command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Work is expected to be complete by June 2022. No funds will be obligated at the time of award. Funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. This contract was competitively procured via an electronic request for proposal and two offers were received. The, is the contracting activity (N68335-20-D-0028)., is awardedfirm-fixed-price delivery order N00019-20-F-0406 against basic ordering agreement N00019-19-G-0029. Work will be performed in Owego, New York. This delivery order procures labor and hardware to design, develop and test upgrades to currently fielded operation test program sets required for intermediate level support, to include the audio management computer-lite, smart multi-function display, common avionics multi-function display and the control display unit in support of the H-60 Multi-Mission helicopter. Work is expected to be complete by September 2023. Fiscal 2018 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $7,732,575 will be obligated at time of award, all of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity., is awarded afirm-fixed-price contract that procures two MQ-9A Reaper unmanned air systems (UAS); one dual control mobile ground control station; one modular data center; and one mobile ground control station for Group 5 UAS intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance services/persistent strike efforts. Work will be performed in Yuma, Arizona (40%); and various locations outside the continental U.S. (60%), and is expected to be complete by December 2020. Fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds for $26,866,441 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(1). The, is the contracting activity (N00019-20-C-0031). (Awarded June 19, 2020), is awarded afirm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. This contract procures network video teleconference equipment for the integrated command control and intelligence divisions integration of specialized network video teleconference systems in support of the command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions of the Joint Staff and combatant commanders, Department of Defense agencies and services, and Department of Homeland Security operational and support components., and is expected to be complete by June 2022. No funds will be obligated at the time of award, but will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. This contract was competitively procured via an electronic request for proposal and two offers were received. The, is the contracting activity (N68335-20-D-0029)., is awarded amodification (P00004) to firm-fixed-price order N00019-19-F-2963 against previously issued basic ordering agreement N00019-16-G-0001. This modification procures research and development support for airworthiness assessment activities associated with wing stores and configurations to be analyzed with the Wideband Satellite Communication radome for P-8A airworthiness certification and flight tests for the Navy and government of Australia. Work will be performed in Seattle, Washington (85%); and Patuxent River, Maryland (15%), and is expected to be complete by September 2021. Fiscal 2020 research, development, test, and evaluation (Navy) funds for $500,000; and foreign cooperative project funds for $3,000,000 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity., is awarded amodification (P00001) to firm-fixed-price order N00019-20-F-0535 against basic ordering agreement N00019-19-G-0029. This order exercises options to procure 12 retrofit advanced radar processor systems for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft. Work will be performed in Liverpool, New York (54%); and Andover, Massachusetts (46%), and is expected to be completed by November 2023. Fiscal 2019 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $3,738,918; and fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of 18,694,590 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity.No applicable data., is awarded amodification (P00007) to previously-awarded fixed-price-incentive-firm-target contract N00019-19-C-0008. This modification exercises options for the production and delivery of three low-rate initial production MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft, two main operating bases and one forward operating base in an integrated functional capability-four and multiple-intelligence configuration, with associated export compliance support for the government of Australia. Work will be performed in San Diego, California (23.3%); Red Oak, Texas (13%); Palmdale, California (11.5%); Linthicum, Maryland (9.4%); Salt Lake City, Utah (9.3%); Bridgeport, West Virginia (5.2%); McClellan, California (4.7%); Indianapolis, Indiana (4.5%); Moss Point, Mississippi (3.3%); Waco, Texas (2.1%); San Clemente, California (1.5%); Newton, North Dakota (1%); various locations within the continental U.S. (9.8%); and various locations outside the continental U.S. (1.4%). Work is expected to be completed by April 2025. Foreign cooperative project funds for $27,601,190 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity., is awarded afirm-fixed-price order (N00019-20-F-0870) against previously-issued basic ordering agreement N00019-16-G-0001. This order procures retrofit modification upgrades to the series aircrafts' F/A-18 Block II Super Hornet and Growler display suites within the Block III Super Hornet and Growler Advanced Cockpit Systems. Work will be performed in St. Louis, Missouri (65%); Mesa, Arizona (15%); China Lake, California (10%); and Ft. Walton Beach, Florida (10%), and is expected to be completed by February 2025. Fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $15,075,223; and Foreign Military Sales funds in the amount of $1,467,920 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity., is awarded anmodification (P00016) to previously-awarded firm-fixed-price contract N00421-17-C-0024. This modification is for the procurement of 133 Fibre Channel Network switches in support of F/A-18 Lot 44 requirements for the EA-18 Growler, F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and E-2D Hawkeye aircraft. Work will be performed in Malabar, Florida, and is expected to be completed by November 2022. Fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $11,688,708 will be obligated at the time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity.No applicable data., is awarded anot-to-exceed undefinitized contract modification (P00038) to previously awarded fixed-price-incentive-firm-target contract N00019-17-C-0001. This modification provides for the procurement of four F-35C Carrier Variant Lot 14 aircraft for the Navy. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas (63%); El Segundo, California (14%); Warton, United Kingdom (9%); Orlando, Florida (4%); Nashua, New Hampshire (3%); Baltimore, Maryland (3%); San Diego, California (2%); various locations within the continental U.S. (1.3%); and various locations outside the continental U.S. (0.7%). Work is expected to be completed by May 2023. Fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds for $170,000,000 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity., is awarded anot-to-exceed modification (P00004) to previously awarded fixed-price-incentive-firm-target advance acquisition contract N00019-20-C-0009. This modification procures long lead materials, parts, components and support necessary to maintain on-time production and delivery of nine lot 16 F-35A Lightning II aircraft for the government of The Netherlands, as well as seven F-35A semiconductors and two F-35B Lightning II aircraft for the government of Italy. Work will be performed in Cameri, Italy (24%); Fort Worth, Texas (22%); El Segundo, California (11%); Warton, United Kingdom (7%); Baltimore, Maryland (4%); Nashua, New Hampshire (3%); San Diego, California (2%); various locations within the continental U.S. (21%); and various locations outside the continental U.S. (6%). Work is expected to be completed by May 2025. Non-Department of Defense participant funds in the amount of $67,690,000 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity., is awarded aindefinite- delivery/indefinite-quantity, firm-fixed-price delivery orders contract with a five-year ordering period to provide Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module (SAASM) Advanced Tactical Navigator (ATACNAV) units, SAASM ATACNAV-High Accuracy (HA) units, SAASM ATACNAV-HA-Single Enclosure. ATACNAV mini purchases, ATACNAV units, reconfigurable avionics test sets and global positioning system military code receivers. In addition to procurement of ATACNAV units, system upgrades and repairs from Applied Systems Engineering will be required throughout the life of the contract. The program is in support of the Weapons Control and Integration Department (H) of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division and Battle Management Systems Program. This contract does not include options. Work will be performed in Niceville, Florida, and is expected to be completed by June 2025. Fiscal 2018 procurement defense agencies funding in the amount of $692,493 will be obligated on the first delivery order at the time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was procured sole-source in accordance with 10 U.S. Code 2304c1, with one responsible source. The, is the contracting activity (N00178-20-D-4400)., is awarded afirm-fixed-price modification to increase the maximum dollar value of an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract for the exercise of an option for base operating support services at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River. After award of this option, the total cumulative contract value will be $119,645,912.. The work to be performed provides for recurring and non-recurring facility maintenance; facility investment; integrated solid waste management; swimming pool; wastewater; water; and environmental management. Work is expected to be completed by December 2020. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $13,586,127 are obligated on this award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This award is issued under Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 6.302-2, "Unusually and Compelling Urgency." The purpose of this modification is to ensure critical services continue as the agency responds to a post-award protest on the re-procurement of this contract. A total funding amount of $8,808,011 will be obligated at the time of award. The, is the contracting activity (N40080-14-D-0302)., is awarded anfirm-fixed-price order (N00019-20-F-0022) against previously issued basic ordering agreement N00019-19-G-0008. This order procures intel diminishing manufacturing sources parts that have reached end of life in support of the F-35 Lightning II Program future aircraft deliveries for the Air Force, Navy, Foreign Military Sales customers and non-Department of Defense (DOD) participants. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas, and is expected to be completed by October 2020. Fiscal 2018 aircraft procurement (Air Force) funds in the amount of $2,356,880; fiscal 2018 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $2,056,717; fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Air Force) funds in the amount of $1,619,315; fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $631,782; non-DOD participant funds in the amount of $3,982,886; and Foreign Military Sales funds in the amount of $963,001, will be obligated at time of award, $4,413,597 of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity., is awarded amodification (P00028) to previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract N00019-17-C-0009. This modification provides for the installation of the multi-role tactical common data link into two E-6B Mercury aircraft. Work will be performed in San Diego, California (56%); and Lake Charles, Louisiana (44%), and is expected to be completed by October 2021. Fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds for $9,528,561 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity., is awarded amodification (P00041) to previously awarded firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract N00019-16-C-0048. This modification is for the low rate initial production of organic capability pilot repair material, technical publications, peculiar support equipment and logistics support for the CH-53K King Stallion aircraft. Work will be performed in Shelton, Connecticut (62.95%); Claverham, France (5.35%); Longueil, Quebec, Canada (3.32%); West Palm Beach, Florida (3.08%); Chesterfield, Missouri (2.72%); Rockmart, Georgia (2.54%); Springfield, New Jersey (2.27%); Vancouver, Washington (2.07); Stratford, Connecticut (1.77%); Jackson, Mississippi (1.75%); Westbury, New York (1.58%); Manassas, Virginia (1.45%); Tucson, Arizona (1.31%); Irvine, California (1.12%); various locations within the continental U.S. (5.23%); and various locations outside the continental U.S. (1.49%), and is expected to be completed in June 2025. Fiscal 2019 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds for $106,973,015 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity., is awarded afirm-fixed-price delivery order (N68335-20-F-0277) against previously issued basic ordering agreement N00019-15-G-0026. This order procures maintenance support equipment and recurring peculiar support equipment, along with associated non-recurring engineering and integrated logistics support for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft. Work will be performed in Melbourne, Florida, and is expected to be completed by December 2022. Fiscal 2018 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $47,535,758; and fiscal 2019 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $6,908,920 will be obligated at time of award, $47,535,758 of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity., is awarded afirm-fixed-price, level-of-effort-term, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. This contract provides oversight and management of the Naval Air Procurement Group eBusiness architecture including data alignment, ePS implementation planning and support, audit readiness, contracts digital business and business process efforts. Work will be performed in Patuxent River, Maryland, and is expected to be completed by June 2025. No funds will be obligated at the time of award. Funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to 10 U.S. Code 2304 (c)(1). The, is the contracting activity (N00421-20-D-0070)., is awarded afirm-fixed-price delivery order (N00019-20-F0644) against basic ordering agreement N00019-19-G-0029. This order provides for the production and delivery of 62 Audio Management Computer-Lite computers to be used as spares in the MH-60R Seahawk helicopter in support of the Naval Supply Systems Command, the government Australia and Saudi Arabia and to support the development of the Operation Test Program Set for the Navy. Additionally, this order provides for the production and delivery of 33 flight management computers for installation on the Navy MH-60 Seahawk helicopter and 50 SP-103E circuit cards for retrofit computer upgrades. Work will be performed in Owego, New York, and is expected to be completed by August 2023. Fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $5,224,310; fiscal 2019 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $477,803; fiscal 2018 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $1,349,106; and Foreign Military Sales funds in the amount of $5,854,974 will be obligated at time of award, $1,349,106 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Theis the contracting activity., is awarded amodification (P00039) to previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract N00019-17-C-0001. This modification exercises an option to perform Chase aircraft maintenance for Lot 12 F-35 Lighting II aircraft for the Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and non-Department of Defense (DOD) participants. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas, and is expected to be completed by December 2020. Fiscal 2018 aircraft procurement (Air Force) funds in the amount of $4,168,441; fiscal 2018 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $2,530,838; and non-DOD participant funds in the amount of $3,126,330 will be obligated at time of award, $6,699,279 of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity.
A Bradley County inmate, Joseph Dewhurst, was found unresponsive in his cell on Wednesday at 4:14 p.m. The jail staff immediately called 911 and performed CPR.

Paramedics reported to the jail shortly after and the inmate was pronounced deceased by the medical examiner.

Sheriff Lawson, through District Attorney General Steve Crump, requested for the investigation to be turned over to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

At this time, the next of kin has been notified. The deceased inmates name was Joseph Dewhurst, who was being held on federal charges.
The daughter of the doctor who died after contracting Covid-19 has told how it was her dream to work alongside her "hero" and now she will keep her father's legacy alive.

Dr Samar Fatima said her father, Dr Syed Waqqar Ali, had dedicated his life to helping the sick and had now "lost his life to his profession".

The heartbroken colleagues of the A&E doctor will hold a minute's silence in honour of him today.

Dr Ali, a father-of-five originally from Pakistan but living in Tyrelstown, worked as a trusted locum doctor in a number of Dublin hospitals.

He succumbed to the virus after a three-month battle in the intensive care unit of the Mater Hospital.

Speaking to RTE News, his eldest daughter, who recently qualified as a doctor herself, said: "Our father has been incredibly selfless, not only through the pandemic but through his whole life.

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Brave

"He's been the best dad that we could have ever asked for. It's been a very difficult time for our family. He has been incredibly brave and he has pushed through.

"The last three months have been incredibly difficult. There is no word for the battle he was fighting every day and the battle that my father has been fighting 24/7 for the past three months.

"Although he was not able to speak, he was still communicating with us, and we were making plans for when he would come home and what we would do."

She said she hopes to continue his legacy helping others.

"My dream was to work with my father. He told me that he'd guide me and we were supposed to work together," she said.

"But he's been incredibly dedicated to his profession and he lost his life to his profession.

"But there's still a Dr Ali and I'm going to do my best to follow in his footsteps and keep his legacy alive."

Dr Ali had worked in the Mater Hospital, as well as in Tallaght Hospital and in Beaumont Hospital.

He felt unwell after reporting for a shift at the Mater in Dublin in April and was diagnosed with the virus.

He fought a three-month battle in intensive care but became the eighth healthcare worker to die of the virus here.

In a statement, the Mater Hospital described him as a "frontline healthcare worker who provided selfless emergency care to Covid-19 patients at a number of hospitals as a locum during this emergency pandemic".

His colleagues remember him as a hard-working and diligent doctor with a humble and down-to-earth personality.

He leaves behind five children, his wife Rubab and his mother.

"I am deeply saddened to hear today of the death of Dr Syed Waqqar Ali. I want to express my sincere condolences to Dr Ali's family, his friends and his colleagues," Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said.

"Dr Ali contracted Covid-19 and has been cared for diligently by his colleagues in the ICU of the Mater Hospital for some time.

"It's clear from Dr Ali's colleagues that he was a kind, compassionate, hard-working and highly professional man, working on the frontline of Covid-19 to keep us all safe.

"We remember that behind every reported Covid-19 number is a person who loves and is loved, who leaves behind a family and a community who will miss them sorely.

"Today we remember Dr Ali and the seven other healthcare workers who have lost their lives to Covid-19."

Staff of Beaumont Hospital said they had lost a true hero.

"Dr Waqqar dedicated his professional life to emergency medicine, selflessly putting himself at the frontline in our fight against Covid-19," they said. "His friends and colleagues in Beaumont Hospital remember him for his clinical diligence, as well as his kind and gentle manner.

"He will be greatly missed by his colleagues in the emergency department where he regularly worked for the past seven years."

Paul Reid, chief executive of the HSE, said yesterday that it is with great sadness that he learned of the passing of Dr Ali in the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, following a long illness from Covid-19.

"In common with his colleagues, I know he worked diligently and selflessly to care for patients at all times, and particularly during the pandemic," he said.

"I wish to extend the sympathy of all in the HSE, and all healthcare staff, to his wife, family and loved ones at this very sad time. My thoughts are also with all of his colleagues."

Mourning

The Irish Hospital Consultants Association said the hospital community was in mourning at the untimely passing of their colleague and friend.

In a statement it said his death "reminds us once more of the sacrifices made by frontline healthcare professionals, particularly at this time".

It described him as an "exemplary medical professional with an immense dedication to public service".

"His expertise, care and warmth made an impression with patients and colleagues alike," it added.

Earlier this week the Oireachtas Committee on Covid Response was told that as of mid-July there were 8,347 cases of Covid-19 infection among healthcare workers, which is 32pc of overall cases.
Two hikers have been plucked to safety in separate rescues in Tasmania, prompting a reminder from police about the need to be prepared.

A man from Victoria got separated from his friend about 5pm on Wednesday while walking to the summit of Mount Victoria in the state's north east.

He was found and winched to safety by helicopter about five hours later after his phone had gone flat, leaving him unable to communicate with rescuers.

Helicopters have rescued two people who became lost while out hiking on Wednesday including a 39-year-old woman who was walking in in dense bushland in Walls of Jerusalem National Park when she became unwell and triggered a rescue beacon

In a separate rescue, a 39-year-old woman from Tasmania was picked up by helicopter in dense bushland in the Walls of Jerusalem National Park.

She had activated her personal emergency beacon about 5.30pm after feeling unwell.

Police say she was well prepared and carrying all the right equipment.

The rescues come after a 43-year-old man was retrieved from the alpine Overland Track after becoming overwhelmed by freezing weather on Monday night.

Police encouraged people to always bring safety equipment and not to rely on mobile phone reception when they were out hiking. Pictured is Mount Victoria in Tasmania

Senior Sergeant Justin Bidgood has reminded hikers to carry adequate clothing, food and water and advise someone of where and when they intend to walk.

'Mobile telephone coverage in Tasmania shouldn't be relied on,' he said in a statement.

'However walkers should ensure their phone has adequate charge and walkers are encouraged to carry an EPIRB or Personal Locator Beacon.'
From:UK Delegation to the OSCE

The United Kingdom remains deeply concerned about the situation of Jehovahs Witnesses in the Russian Federation. As we said on 12 March, the ruling of the Russian Supreme Court in July 2017, which rejected the appeal against the decision to categorise Jehovahs Witnesses as extremists, criminalised the peaceful worship of 175,000 Russian citizens and contravened the right to religious freedom that is enshrined in the Russian Constitution, and in multiple OSCE commitments.

It is with deep regret that we learned that on 13 July, 110 homes of Jehovahs Witnesses were simultaneously searched by Russian authorities in the cities of Voronezh and Stary Oskol. Thirteen Jehovahs Witnesses were detained at the time and two individuals were reportedly beaten during a home search.

The total number of homes of Jehovahs Witnesses that have been searched by Russian law enforcement authorities now stands at over 1,000. As we noted in March, home raids are often conducted in the early hours of the morning by large numbers of masked and armed police.

We repeat our concern that the increasing number of searches, as well as use of simultaneous large-scale home raids, creates the impression of an organised campaign of persecution against Jehovahs Witnesses.

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So-called evidence used against those investigated and prosecuted includes regular aspects of communal religious life. We again remind the Russian Federation of our extensive commitments on freedom of religion or belief, including from Vienna 1989, as well as Kyiv 2013, where States committed to:

Fully implement their commitments to ensure the right of all individuals to profess and practice religion or belief, either alone or in community with others, and in public or private, and to manifest their religion or belief through teaching, practice, worship and observance, including through transparent and non-discriminatory laws, regulations, practices and policies;

For three years now, the delegation of the Russian Federation has assured the Permanent Council that individual Jehovahs Witnesses are able to practice their religion at home, as no permission is required to pray in Russia. However, we have witnessed time and again that any manifestation of their faith by Jehovahs Witnesses can result in the search of their homes, lengthy detention, criminal prosecution and imprisonment.

We again call on the Russian Federation to end the persecution of Jehovahs Witnesses, and to uphold the commitments on the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief for all individuals across the Russian Federation.

Jarrod Lopes, spokesman for Jehovahs Witnesses, states: The UK Delegation has consistently condemned Russia for arresting, imprisoning, and torturing Jehovahs Witnesses for their peaceful Christian worship. The UKs statement today is the latest by a growing number of international actors who have likewise denounced Russia. We hope Russian authorities will soon halt the persecution and provide the freedom of religion that is enshrined in its constitution.

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Critics say the ratification of a controversial motion by Iran's hardliner-dominated parliament that obligates the government to distribute free asphalt (Bitumen) worth around $600 million to contractors will lead to massive corruption.

On Wednesday, lawmakers approved the outlines of the motion despite much protest from critics. Free distribution of asphalt produced by refineries to contractors was included in the annual budget law for several years but the constitutional watchdog the Guardian Council and the Expediency Council scrapped it from the current year's budget bill. The current motion by Parliament revives the appropriation.

Critics say providing free asphalt to road construction contractors to help the development of rural roads only benefits the contractors and claim that contractors often use less asphalt in building roads than is actually required and sell the extra in the open market or illegally export it.

Using less asphalt in road construction can hugely affect the quality of the road surface which will degenerate and make resurfacing necessary in a much shorter time. Critics say supervision of contractors is not easy because of the complexity of calculating the actual amount of asphalt used in projects.

Many so-called "private contractors" in road construction are affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard's Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarter -- the country's biggest construction contractor -- as well as other state bodies that have a better chance of winning highly-profitable contracts.

The government of President Hassan Rouhani has opposed the controversial and corruption-laden free distribution of asphalt. On Monday Oil Minister Bijan Namdar-Zanganeh said given the massive recent fluctuations in exchange rates, handing out free asphalt to contractors could cause serious concerns about the possibility of corruption.

Zanganeh's reference is to the possibility of well-connected companies receiving free asphalt and then exporting it for hard currency pocketing the money, while the government struggles to support the battered Iranian currency.

According to Mehr News Agency comparing the statistics on the amount of the asphalt handed out to contractors for free and the real amount of asphalt used in the country in the past indicates that a big part of the free asphalt was smuggled out of the country. A few years ago a member of the Oil Products Exporters' Union said annually around 500,000 tons of asphalt "disappeared" in road construction projects.

One metric ton of asphalt is worth on average around $400 in bulk. That means the potential for corruption based on the 500,000 metric tones mentioned can reach at least $200 million.

Another member of the Union on Wednesday told Mehr News Agency that more than half of the asphalt provided to contractors in recent years has been smuggled to neighboring countries.

In one instance in June the Police in Hormozgan Province discovered that 1.27 million liters of asphalt had been exported to India and Indonesia using fake documents and arrested two but many other cases go unnoticed.

The naturally occurring sticky, black and highly viscous asphalt is a by-product of crude oil refineries. It is primarily used in road construction and production of roofing felt and sealants.
By Bill Hughes Jul. 23, 2020 | 05:22 PM | PADUCAH

Carr said, "So, we had this as a buffer to help us, in case our volume went in half and we didn't have enough money to pay our bills. This really helped us."





(Note: The previous two sentences have been edited after learning that part of Carr's statement was mis-interpreted. Our apologies.)







While the pandemic is far from over, thousands of small businesses in the area have been helped by loans offered in the spring by the federal government.The Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was put in place to help small businesses survive the shutdown of many parts of everyday life, since their budgets were sure to be affected. Loans were made by area banks and guaranteed by the SBA to help those businesses avoid laying off employees.Publicly-released data for loans under $150,000 shows that in just McCracken County, 850 loans were issued to businesses and 52 were issued to non-profit organizations, totaling $35,168,829. This allowed 5,794 to keep their jobs.Data for loans over $150,000 was not specific, with the SBA listing ranges for the amount of money loaned. A total of 153 businesses and 11 non-profits in McCracken County got loans ranging from $150,000 to $10 million. This means the total amount loaned in these categories could be as low at $60 million and as high as about $145 million.Susan Carr owns River City Printing on Kentucky Avenue, which opened in January 2018 and employs two others besides herself. After she heard about the opportunity for the loans, she contacted her representative at Paducah Bank, and a person from their Louisville branch followed up to help with required paperwork.Carr said, "He sent me that paperwork, after about 4-5 days he said, 'it's been approved, and it will be deposited in your checking account.' We had the loan in about 7-10 days."She said it was scary when the pandemic began because no businesses really knew how little or much they would be affected, but it turns out they were able to stay open and didn't experience a drop in work.She said she learned several of her clients have also participated in the Paycheck Protection Program and were just as relieved as she was to have the help. Carr said her brother, Daniel Phelps, who owns Phelps Farm Service, also used Paducah Bank to get a loan."I think everybody has been pleasantly surprised how well it has worked and how quickly it came through for us. You never know when you're working with bureaucracy if it's gonna come through or not, Carr said. "I think it's given all of us a little bit of confidence that even if things slack off in the business, we can still make it through to still be in business after all of this is over."Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce President Sandra Wilson told West Kentucky Star the program was, "a lifeline," to many area small businesses.Wilson said, "I think it helped to drive home the importance of having a strong relationship with your local bank, having a CPA and having those resources available as a small business owner in times like this.Carr praised Wilson and the Chamber of Commerce for their work during the pandemic to keep businesses informed about opportunities and programs such as this.
The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) welcomes the Presidential decision to suspend the execution of a Ministerial order to the state-owned Ghana Broadcasting Corporation GBC to surrender three of its six Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) channels, a directive the MFWA had challenged as illegal and inimical.

The president of the Republic, Nana Addo-Dankwa Akuffo-Addo, on Thursday July 23rd, 2020, directed the Minister of Communications, Hon. Ursula Owusu-Ekufful, MP, to suspend the implementation of the directives given to the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) in connection with the reduction of GBCs channels on the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) platform, pending further consultation with stakeholders a statement from the Presidency said.

The Presidents directive came three days after the MFWA issued a statement challenging the propriety and constitutionality of the directive issued on June 26, 2020 by the Communications minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekufful.

The Presidential intervention also came a day after the NMC issued a statement asserting its constitutional right to protect GBC from undue Executive control. There had also been a barrage of criticism against the Ministers order and opposition to the idea including a feisty argument in Parliament.

The Minister had explained in her letter that, the order to shut down three of GBCs channels was to ensure that there is redundancy on the national DTT platform which is currently operating at full capacity, and urged the broadcaster to consolidate its programming.

However, on July 20, 2020, the MFWA issued a statement expressing concern that the directive from the Minister undermines the independence of the State broadcaster as guaranteed by the 1992 constitution and called on the Minister to withdraw the order.

The MFWA took the government to task for disregarding the media regulator, the National Media Commission (NMC) which has oversight responsibility over all state media, including GBC as spelt out in Articles 167  173 of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana and other provisions on institutional governance and operational independence of the state broadcaster and media pluralism generally.

Why will the Minister disregard the NMC in issuing instructions to the GBC? Why was the NMC not even copied in the letter? the MFWA queried.

The Foundation also said the governments order sought to pre-empt the work of a Committee that the NMC has set up to assess and make recommendations for reforming GBC to become a vibrant and viable Public Service Broadcaster.

In view of the above, the MFWA called on the Communications Minister to withdraw the directive, failing which the President should act to ensure it is withdrawn. It also called on the NMC to urgently intervene to prevent the Board of GBC from complying with the illegal and inimical instruction from the Minister of Communications.

Following the MFWAs call, and a petition to the regulator by GBC, the NMC reacted by stating it would be unhelpful to democracy to leave the control of the gateway to public communications in the hands of a Minster of State.

Allowing politicians to control the gateway to public communication would introduce vulnerabilities into the constitutional firewalls of free expression in Ghana, the regulator said in a statement issued on July 22, 2020.

The MFWA therefore hails the decision by the President as timely and appropriate. "We also commend the National Media Commission for asserting its authority over GBC and constitutional obligation to insulate the state media against executive interference.

"We reiterate our call on government to allow the Committee working on strategies to reform the operations of GBC to finish its work so that all stakeholders could know and play their roles as will be spelt out in the recommendations of the committee."
China says US 'abruptly' ordered closure of consulate in Houston

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 22 July 2020 10:24 AM

China says the United States government has "abruptly" informed Beijing that it has to close its consulate in the Texan city of Houston, calling Washington's decision "political provocation."

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Wednesday that the US government had informed Beijing of the abrupt decision on Tuesday.

"China strongly condemns this outrageous and unjustified move to sabotage China-US relations. The Chinese side urges the US side to immediately retract this wrong decision," Wang said.

"China urges the US to immediately withdraw its wrong decision or China will definitely take a proper and necessary response," he added, while noting that the Chinese consulate in Houston was operating normally.

Local media in Houston reported that firefighters and police had been called to the consulate building on Tuesday evening after receiving reports that documents were being burned in the building's courtyard. The Twitter feed of the Houston police force said smoke was observed, but officers "were not granted access to enter the building."

Meanwhile, Reuters cited "a person with direct knowledge of the matter" as saying on Wednesday that China was considering ordering the closure of the US consulate in Wuhan in potential retaliation.

Relations between the United States and China have hit the lowest level in decades. The two are at loggerheads over a range of issues, including trade, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the coronavirus pandemic. In all of those cases, Washington has been aggressively ramping up rhetoric against Beijing in recent weeks.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described China as a "threat" that countries should push back against.

After a meeting in London with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, Pompeo told reporters that China was bullying its neighbors and pushing its claims to maritime regions that he said it had no lawful claim to. Pompeo said he wanted to "build out a coalition that understands this threat."

Last week, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said American officials had "gone mad" in dealing with China.

Earlier, Pompeo had said the United States would do everything it could to support China's rivals in territorial disputes.

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a news conference at the State Department in Washington on July 15, 2020. (Andrew Harnik/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Pompeo: US Calls on India to Pivot Away From China

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on India to work more deeply with the United States and be less dependent on China, according to a recorded video message for the virtual India Ideas Summit held on July 22.

Its important that democracies like ours work together, especially as we see more clearly than everthe true scope of the challenge posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Pompeo said, according to a press release by the U.S. State Department.

The India Ideas Summit, a two-day event that began on Tuesday, was organized by the U.S.-India Business Council. The event included over 50 speakers, including India Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Ambassador of India to the United States Taranjit Singh Sandhu, U.S. Ambassador to India Ken Juster, U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.), and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.

Pompeo highlighted the recent deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in the eastern Ladakh border region in June.

The recent clashes initiated by the PLA [Peoples Liberation Army] are just the latest examples of the CCPs unacceptable behavior. We were deeply saddened by the death of 20 Indian service members, Pompeo said.

The State Secretary urged India to be less dependent on Beijing, by moving supply chains away from China and reduce its reliance on Chinese companies in areas like telecommunications, medical supplies, and others.

Though Pompeo did not name any Chinese telecoms companies, the United States has been advocating for foreign governments to ban Chinese tech giant Huawei from their 5G networks, citing security risks.

In a tweet in June, Pompeo applauded some telecoms companies, including Indias Reliance Jio, for being Clean Telcos and rejecting Huawei equipment. The United States has already banned Huawei from its 5G networks.

While India has not yet formally made a decision on Huawei, local business groups have called on their government to ban the Chinese giant. In early July, the Confederation of All India Traders wrote a letter to Indias Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, demanding a ban on Huawei and fellow Chinese tech giant ZTE from participating in Indias 5G networks, according to local media India Today.

On July 16, local newspaper The Times of India published an editorial, arguing that India should follow the decision by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in banning Huawei, announced two days earlier.

Pompeo applauded Indias recent decision to ban 59 mobile apps, including the popular video-sharing app TikTok, which presents serious security risks for the Indian people.

A U.S. Senate bill banning TikTok on government-issued devices passed unanimously through the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs on Wednesday, and will next be placed before the Senate floor for a vote. On Tuesday, lawmakers in the House voted 336-71 to pass a similar bill.

Speaking of the current U.S.-India relationship, Pompeo said that India is an important partner and a key pillar of President Trumps foreign policy: multilateralism that actually works.

And Im happy to report that India is a rising U.S. defense and security partner in the Indo-Pacific and globally, he added.

On future bilateral ties, Pompeo said the United States desires a new age of ambition in its relationship with India and said he invited Modi to discuss how to advance the economic prosperity network at a future G-7 meeting.

Modi, during his address before the India Ideas Summit, urged U.S. investors to come to India, saying his country was a nation that you can trust with increasing openness.

American investors often look out for the perfect timing to enter a sector or a country. To them, I would like to say: there has never been a better time to invest in India, Modi said.

On Tuesday, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen M. Lord told the India Ideas Summit, that the two countries were negotiating a co-development program for air-launched unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones, according to local media PTI.
(Adds Credit Suisse comment)

LONDON, July 21 (Reuters) - Pensana Rare Earths is

in early stage talks with lenders including Barclays,

South Africa's Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) and funds including

Fidelity to secure more funding for its Angola project, its

chairman said on Monday.

Chairman Paul Atherley said the miner planned to raise

between $30-$50 million of working capital from the banks while

funds would be tapped for about $25 million in equity for the

construction of the mine.

State-owned China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC)

will provide the rest of the up to $170 million required to

build the rare earths project in Angola, Pensana said.

RMB, Barclays and Fidelity did not respond to requests for

comment.

Rare earths, a group of 17 minerals used in anything from

consumer electronics to military equipment and wind generation,

are predominantly mined and processed in China.

Western powers have put them on lists of strategic minerals

and are trying to develop their own supplies, but analysts say

China's dominance will be hard to shake.

Construction of the Angolan project should begin in January,

and the working capital will need to be secured towards the end

of 2021, Pensana said.

Angola's government is in the throes of sweeping reforms to

diversify the economy away from oil, gas and diamonds.

The country's sovereign wealth fund, which is Pensana's

largest shareholder, was at the centre of a scandal involving

the former president's son, Jose Filomeno de Sousa dos Santos,

who allegedly transferred $500 million from the bank to a Credit

Suisse account in London.

Credit Suisse said documents used in the fraud purporting to

be from Credit Suisse were found to be fake.

"There has been no impact regarding Credit Suisse and its

clients nor otherwise any related transactional activity or

receipt by Credit Suisse of illicit funds," the bank said.

Pensana's Atherley said he was confident in the current

government.

"We are totally transparent and we believe that this new

government is a very open book," he said.

(Reporting by Zandi Shabalala; editing by Barbara Lewis)
KITCHENER  Waterloo Regional Police are investigating a robbery at a Scotiabank in Kitchener.

Police were called to the bank on Doon Village Road at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday after two men fled with an undisclosed amount of cash.

No one was physically injured.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 519-570-9777 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer accused of killing George Floyd, was charged with multiple tax-related felonies, prosecutors announced on Wednesday.

Mr. Chauvin and his wife, Kellie Chauvin, failed to file income tax returns and pay Minnesota income taxes, and underreported and underpaid income taxes, according to Washington County prosecutors. The investigation into six years of tax filings, prosecutors said, also showed that the Chauvins did not pay the proper amount of sales tax on a vehicle.

The charges against Mr. Chauvin and Ms. Chauvin, who filed for divorce days after Mr. Floyds death on May 25, come after an investigation by the Minnesota Department of Revenue and the Oakdale Police Department.

Whether you are a prosecutor or police officer, or you are doctor or a realtor, no one is above the law, the countys chief prosecutor, Pete Orput, said in a statement.
Amaravati, July 24 : Andhra Pradesh reported highest single day spike with 7,998 fresh coronavirus cases taking the total tally to 72,711 on Thursday, health officials said.

With this the state also surpassed other southern states in a single day count as Tamil Nadu reported 6,472 cases, Karnataka 5,030 and Kerala 1,078.

On Thursday, Andhra Pradesh also conducted 58,052 tests -- highest so far -- including 25,618 rapid antigen tests. Till date, 14,93,879 tests have been conducted in the state.

East Godavari, Guntur, and Anantapur topped the list with 1,391, 1,184, and 1,016 new cases respectively followed by Kurnool, West Godavari, and Visakhapatnam with 904, 748, and 684 cases respectively. Meanwhile, Nellore, Srikakulam, and Vizianagaram reported 438, 360, and 277 new cases respectively, Chittoor and Prakasam reported 271 cases each whereas 230 cases were reported from Krishna and 224 from Kadapa.

Thursday also saw a marginal dip in the day's toll figures with 61 deaths reported in comparison to the all time high of 65 reported a day earlier. As per the latest update, deaths have occurred in 12 of the 13 districts in the state. The overall death toll in Andhra Pradesh has now shot up to 884, officials said.

14 deaths were reported from East Godavari followed by Guntur and Kurnool with seven deaths each while Krishna and Srikakulam reported six deaths each and Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram reported five deaths each on Thursday. Chittoor, West Godavari, and Prakasam reported three deaths each while one death each was reported from Kadapa and Anantapur districts.

Meanwhile, 5,428 persons were discharged from hospitals and Covid treatment centres after recovery.

As on date, there are 34,272 active cases in the state, while 37,555 persons have recovered and been discharged from the hospitals and Covid treatment centres. Meanwhile, there have been no new addition to the Covid-19 tally from returnees to the state.

Till date, 2,461 cases have been identified as Covid-19 positive among persons who returned from other states. The active cases tally in this category currently stands at 149, while 2,312 persons have recovered.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
But the allegations did not go away. The Sun article appeared in April 2018. A few months later, Heard published an opinion piece in The Washington Post titled, I spoke up against sexual violence  and faced our cultures wrath. That has to change. Depp is suing Heard for defamation in the United States over that article, which he says led to him being dropped from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise.

What has Heard claimed?

On Monday, Heard told the court that Depp often put her in life-threatening situations. I had been for years, for years, Johnnys punching bag, she added on Tuesday. On Wednesday, she detailed an episode in Australia in which she said he threw bottles at her like grenades or bombs.

In pretrial documents, Heard listed 14 times when she said Depp assaulted her.

The first occurred in early 2013, Heard said in a pretrial statement, when the couple were sitting on a couch talking about one of Depps tattoos. She said it had originally read Winona, in reference to Winona Ryder, his former partner, but that he had changed it to read wino.

Heard said she had laughed during the conversation, and in response Depp hit her three times. It felt like my eye popped out, she added of the third strike, saying it knocked her off balance and to the floor.

In later incidents, Heard claims, Depp grabbed her by the hair, choked her, head-butted her and repeatedly punched her, on top of emotional abuse and other controlling behavior.

She said on Wednesday that his behavior was so confusing because when he was clean and sober, he was wonderful and that part of him I loved so much. News Group Newspapers  The Suns publisher  claims Depps memory of the couples time together has been impaired by heavy drug and alcohol use. He has admitted use of both at times in the relationship, but said his tolerance for substances was high.
>>> NA Chairwoman visits policy beneficiary families in Ba Ria  Vung Tau

At her working session with executives of the Saigon Newport Corporation, General Director Colonel Ngo Minh Thuan reported that over its 30 years of development, it has maintained its No. 1 position in container ports and been among the top 10 logistics service providers in Vietnam. It is also among the 20 container port complexes in the world handling the most cargo.

Ngan said she highly values Saigon Newports maintenance of operation amid the COVID-19 pandemic and its swift seizing of opportunities when transport demand changed.

She also applauded its effective operation after the social distancing period and its performance in the three pillars of maritime business, logistics services, and transportation.

On the same day, the top legislator held a meeting with managers and enterprises at the Phu My 3 Specialised Industrial Park, one of the two industrial park projects under a cooperation agreement inked by the Vietnamese and Japanese Prime Ministers in 2011.

She said the legislature is pressing ahead with perfecting the legal system, suggesting that businesses report obstacles and provide opinions so that local authorities and relevant agencies of the NA and the Government can deal with the problems they face.

Vietnam has gone nearly 100 days without community transmission of COVID-19, so foreign investors can feel secure about both the legal and social environment in the country, Ngan stressed, adding that foreign experts can now come to work in Vietnam provided they comply with quarantine regulations.
Adar Poonawal, CEO of Serum Institute of India, the worlds largest vaccine manufacturer by volume, said on Wednesday that he is hopeful of developing a Covid-19 vaccine by October-November this year and that the institute plans to manufacture one billion doses of the vaccine over the coming year. The institute has partnered with biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to manufacture the experimental Covid-19 vaccine candidate developed by the University of Oxford and has received a go-ahead from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) to manufacture its indigenously developed pneumococcal vaccine.

On Wednesday, Poonawalla interacted with Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik through video conferencing and expressed optimism that the Covid-19 vaccine could be ready by October-November this year and the next phase of the trial can start in mid-August in India.

In India, the next phase trial will start in mid-August and the vaccine will be ready by October-November this year, he was seen saying in a video clip released by the Odisha CMO.

Also read: Price, trial timeline of Serum Institutes Covid-19 vaccine

We will be going for large scale manufacturing in mid-August-early-August By the end of this year, we should be able to produce 3 to 4 million doses come the end of December. Thats the target and I hope we can do that, Poonawalla said in an interview to a news channel.

The company will manufacture up to 70 million doses of the vaccine per month up to October as part of the special permission and plans to take it up to 100 million per month by December so that it is ready to hit the market once the final approvals are in place.

If this goes to plan, the phase three trials will take two months after the patients get injected and the vaccine gets a final nod by November, he said, adding that in such a scenario, it can get introduced either in the first quarter of 2021.

Poonawala said that the vaccine will be priced in a manner so that it is affordable. We are planning to put it at about Rs 1000 or less than that, he noted.

AstraZeneca has tied up with Pune-based Serum Institute to manufacture and supply the vaccine to India and more than 60 other countries having a combined population of 3 billion.

Coronavirus has infected over 15 million people across the globe of which over 6 lakh people have died. The number of recoveries across the globe stands at over 9 lakh. With over 12 lakh Covid-19 cases, India stands third on the global Covid-19 tally.

(With inputs from PTI)
The Congress on Thursday said there are two opinions in the party on holding the floor test in Rajasthan with one section suggesting going for an immediate trust vote while the other group is urging legislators to wait for the proceedings in courts to get over before proving their strength in the assembly.

Addressing a virtual press conference, senior Congress leader Ajay Maken also said the party was not disappointed with the Supreme Courts decision on a plea filed by Rajasthan assembly speaker CP Joshi seeking a stay on the proceedings in the high court, saying they were not expecting a favourable verdict and had already prepared a political plan to deal with the crisis.

When we go to the court these days, we dont expect favourable decisions and we prepare ourselves for a decision which is not in our favour. It is not only a legal battle but mainly a political battle. Legal battle is just a part of the entire political battle. Knowing and understanding fully well that the courts may not give a decision in our favour we have prepared our political plan, he said.

ALSO READ | A mini win for Sachin Pilot in Supreme Court, over to HC at 10.30 am tomorrow

The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Rajasthan high court to pass orders on Friday on a plea by rebel Congress leader Sachin Pilot and 18 other dissident legislators challenging the speakers disqualification notice. It set aside the speakers request for a stay on the proceedings.

The plea had challenged the high court order of July 21 which had asked the speaker to defer action on his notice to Pilot and other rebel legislators till July 24, arguing that the courts intervention was premature as he is yet to decide on the issue of disqualification and has only issued notices.

No doubt, floor test is the only solution and we can go for it at any opportune time. We are confident of our numbers and will prove majority on the floor of the House. There are two views in our party. One section feels that we should wait for the proceedings in courts to be over and the other suggests that we should immediately go for the floor test, Maken said.

But as far as the floor test is concerned we are very confident and will easily cross the majority mark with at least a margin of 15-20 legislators in the final count, he added.

ALSO READ | If I meet him, he cannot say he didnt know about crisis: Gehlot on letter to PM Modi

Maken and Randeep Singh Surjewala were deputed by the Congress leadership as the partys two special observers to deal with the political crisis in Rajasthan.

The Congress has so far claimed that 109 legislators in the 200-member assembly are supporting the Ashok Gehlot government and insisted that the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) too had not yet sought a floor test.

Asked if the party has re-established contact with Pilot and other rebel legislators, Maken said, We have been repeatedly requesting them to talk to us and tell us about their grievances. We have never said they are not part of the Congress.

The Congress leader said it was the rebel legislators who went to the court first.

I am here for the past 12 days and I am not a part of any group. My sympathies are with the young leadership as I consider myself a part of it. Similarly, Surjewala and KC Venugopal are also part of the same group. We have told them to come and talk to us and attend party meetings, he added.

Maken said it was unheard of till now that the ruling partys legislators were seeking the floor test from their own chief minister. If a Congress legislator asks for a floor test from its own government, can we call him a member of the Congress party? Have you ever heard that a sitting state Congress president has turned a dissident? he asked.

Who demands the floor test? Why are Harish Salve and Mukul Rohtagi appearing for the rebel legislators? Will they ever appear for the Congress? Why is the BJP government in Haryana not letting the Rajasthan Police take voice samples of the rebel legislators lodged in a hotel in Manesar? Who is Gajendra Shekawat? Why are Amit Shahs police protecting them? Why is ED (Enforcement Directorate) raiding relatives of the chief minister? Isnt this the BJPs open support to rebel legislators?

Asked why young leaders are leaving the Congress, Maken shot back: Has he (Pilot) left the party? I dont think he has left the party yet. We are in the Congress not for any post or importance but for its ideology. If you take the help of a diametrically opposite party like the BJP to damage the Congress, I dont think you are a well wisher of the Congress.

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By Cara Luddy, Communications Assistant at Central Library

On Tuesday, July 28 at 5 p.m., Friends of the Central Library will present a virtual lecture with Marlon James . James will be the fifth author to speak in the 2019-2020 Rosamond Gifford Lecture Series. Tickets can be purchased by visiting www.foclsyracuse.org .

In 2015, James won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings. One of the most esteemed prizes in the literary world, James was the first Jamaican author to claim it. He has written four novels. His latest, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is the start of a new fantasy series, the Dark Star trilogy.

To check out books by Marlon James, visit www.onlib.org or call (315) 435-1900.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

 Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Tracker is searching for a missing boy. His journey takes him through ancient cities and treacherous lands. He is accompanied by an unusual party, each character possessing strange and fantastic traits.

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

 A Brief History of Seven Killings

On December 3, 1976, Bob Marley and his family were injured from an attack by unknown gunmen in their own home. James third novel uses fiction to explore a volatile time in Jamaicas history, weaving a story of crime and dangerous politics.

The Book of Night Women by Marlon James

 The Book of Night Women

Lilith is born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the 18th century. Immediately, the other enslaved women recognize a strong power in Lilith. They call themselves the Night Women and Liliths power is critical to the rebellion theyre planning.
The federal government says it believes Australia has sufficient capacity to make coronavirus vaccines for the entire population and is talking with overseas developers about access and onshore manufacturing options.

A spokesman for Health Minister Greg Hunt said the government was confident that local biotech giant CSL "has the capacity to produce sufficient vaccine [doses] for the entire Australian population either for Australian-based vaccines or under licence for leading international vaccines".

Health Minister Greg Hunt says the government is in ongoing discussions with pharmaceutical companies over securing supply of the coronavirus vaccine. Credit:Twitter

Another large scale global deal for vaccines was struck in the US overnight, with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer inking a $US1.95 billion ($2.7 billion) agreement with the US government to secure 100 million doses of the German-based BioNTech vaccine if it is successful.

A spokeswoman for Pfizer in Australia said the company would work closely with the government and global vaccine initiatives on local supply. "Our goal is to ensure that rapid uptake and access is possible for patients who will need the vaccine by ensuring early allocation of doses needed," she said.
JACKSON, MI  A man who confessed to using obituaries to plan a string of home invasions, targeting families away at funerals in several Michigan counties, has been handed a prison sentence for one of his crimes.

Jackson County Circuit Judge John McBain on Wednesday, July 22, sentenced Antoine Lee Scott to serve 10-15 years in prison on one count of second-degree home invasion, exceeding sentencing guidelines which recommend about four to eight years.
A new study looking at COVID-19 cases and deaths in long-term care homes has reinforced the Stars earlier analysis showing that for-profit homes were more likely to have wider and more deadly outbreaks than non-profit or municipal homes.

The study was published by the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) July 22. Researchers Nathan Stall, Aaron Jones, Kevin Brown, Paula Rochon and Andrew Costa looked at all 623 long-term care homes in Ontario from Mar. 29 to May 20, 2020, tallying COVID-19 outbreaks, cases and deaths.

The researchers found that while the profit status of a home was not significantly tied to the likeliness of a COVID-19 outbreak occurring, for-profit homes were associated with a much higher rate of cases and deaths compared to non-profit homes when an outbreak occurred, with twice the number of cases (a 196% increase) and almost twice the number of deaths (a 178% increase).

The Stars analysis, published in May, found almost the same results: residents in for-profit homes were twice as likely to get COVID-19 and twice as likely to die from the disease compared to those in non-profit homes.

The Star also found that for-profit home residents were four times as likely to get COVID-19 compared to those in municipal homes.

More than 80 per cent of Canadas COVID-19 deaths have occurred in long-term care homes. The Star found that for-profit homes account for less than 60 per cent of long-term care homes in Ontario, but account for 16 of the 20 worst outbreaks.

Researcher Nathan Stall, a geriatrician at Mt. Sinai Hospital, said its important to note that not all for-profit homes suffered equally  the study isolated certain factors that made some homes more likely to have higher rates of cases and deaths when an outbreak occurred.

Broadly speaking, for-profit homes with older design standards dating to the 1970s and chain ownership had much higher rates of disease and death. Twelve of the 15 homes with the most extensive outbreaks were for-profit homes that fell into this category, as were seven of the 10 homes with the most deaths.

Buildings constructed based on Ontarios standards set out in 1972 tend to have smaller rooms housing up to four residents, more shared washrooms and centralized and crowded common spaces, said Stall. Those factors could result in increased spreading of COVID-19, he said.

But there are other factors related to for-profit status that likely increased these homes chances of being hit with more cases and deaths, he said.

Stall said research dating back more than two decades has associated for-profit homes with inferior levels of care, specifically in terms of staffing levels. Studies have also shown that chain-owned homes have lower levels of staffing, he said, while municipal homes are staffed by city employees with better pay and benefits. Meanwhile, many non-profits are staffed by for-profit companies, which could explain why their numbers fell in between the for-profits and the municipal homes, Stall said.

Clearly, COVID-19 has shone a light on something that experts in the field knew for a long time, which is that this is a neglected sector thats really overdue for upgrade and changes, he said.

Pat Armstrong, a sociology professor at York University who has been researching long-term care in Canada for more than 20 years, said she believes staffing is the single biggest issue leading to bigger outbreaks in for-profit homes.

A Star analysis of union staffing data in June found that for-profit homes in Ontario have on average 17 per cent fewer full-time and part-time workers compared to non-profit and municipal homes.

Armstrong said though advocates call for at least 4.1 hours of direct nursing care per resident daily, in Ontario for-profit homes its usually less than three, compared to around 3.5 for municipal homes.

Bed sores, falls, hospital transfers: All of those things are more likely in for-profit homes than they are in non-for-profit homes, said Armstrong.

A spokesperson for the Ontario Long-Term Care Association said according to their organizations analysis, a number of factors including beds per room, geographic location and the staffing situation contributed to the extent of an outbreak within any given long-term care home.

In particular, data points to the age of buildings and the number of beds per room as major factors ... Nearly half of Ontarios long-term care homes are older, and infection control, cohorting, and isolation are more challenging in these sites, they wrote in an email.

They said the association welcomes the provincial governments commission regarding COVID-19 in long-term care, and cautioned it must look at the perfect storm of long-standing conditions leading to the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in these homes, including staffing shortages.

Stall said now isnt the time to plan a big overhaul, but rather to make short-term changes.

We need to really focus on shoring up the homes that are so vulnerable for successive waves of the pandemic which could start as early as the fall.

Armstrong agreed, adding that in the longer term, increased government oversight and labour rules could eventually phase out for-profit involvement in the care home sector.

But right now its time to prepare for the next wave, she said.

Both Armstrong and Stall pointed to B.C. as an example  early on in the pandemic when it became apparent that long-term care homes were going to be epicentres for the virus, the province temporarily took over as the employer of long-term care staff, said Stall.

Months later, of the almost 9,000 COVID-19 deaths in Canadian long-term care homes, close to 2,800 have been in Ontario, and more than 5,600 have been in Quebec, said Stall. British Columbia has seen less than 200.

It was really two provinces that drove the catastrophe, said Stall.

Clarification  July 23, 2020: This story has been changed to clarify that a lack of air conditioning in older long-term care homes is likely not a factor in spreading COVID-19, according to researcher Nathan Stall.

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Despite Pentagon statements that it disbanded a once-covert program to investigate unidentified flying objects, the effort remains underway  renamed and tucked inside the Office of Naval Intelligence, where officials continue to study mystifying encounters between military pilots and unidentified aerial vehicles.

Pentagon officials will not discuss the program, which is not classified but deals with classified matters. Yet it appeared last month in a Senate committee report outlining spending on the nations intelligence agencies for the coming year. The report said the program, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, was to standardize collection and reporting on sightings of unexplained aerial vehicles, and was to report at least some of its findings to the public within 180 days after passage of the intelligence authorization act.

While retired officials involved with the effort  including Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader  hope the program will seek evidence of vehicles from other worlds, its main focus is on discovering whether another nation, especially any potential adversary, is using breakout aviation technology that could threaten the United States.

Senator Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who is the acting chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told a CBS affiliate in Miami this month that he was primarily concerned about reports of unidentified aircraft over American military bases  and that it was in the governments interest to find out who was responsible.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) probing the gold smuggling case on Thursday grilled Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayans former principal secretary M Sivasankar. He was suspended from service last week after his alleged link with one of the accused in the case Swapna Suresh surfaced.

He was interrogated by the Customs department for nine hours on July 14. He was instrumental in getting a key post for Suresh in Kerala Information Technology Infrastructure Limited under the state IT department. She allegedly used her proximity with the powerful principal secretary to dabble in corridors of power.

There are reports that he arranged a flat just outside the secretariat for the husband of Swapna Suresh and another accused PS Sarith. The accused had later used this flat for their smuggling activities. Sivasankar had earlier told the Customs that he arranged this over friendship and he did not know about their illegal activities. A senior IAS officer, he was the CMs blue-eyed boy and was instrumental in bringing many IT and social projects to the state.

In another development, the NIA has sought the CCTV footage of the state secretariat and sent a letter to chief secretary Biswas Mehta in this regard. Earlier, when customs sought this, his office had told them that the cameras developed snags during lightening in May. The NIA has also sought details of the service provider.

When asked about this, the CM did not give a direct reply. Let the NIA carry out its investigation. Its probe is going in the right direction. Why do you want to jump the gun, he retorted. But the opposition has stepped up pressure on him. The probe has reached the office of the CM. He has no moral responsibility to remain in power, said BJP state president K Surendran. Congress state chief Mullappally Ramachandran also sought his resignation.

The gold smuggling case came to light on July 5 when PS Sarith, a former employee of the UAE consulate in the state capital, was arrested when he went to receive a consignment in the name of an official of the consulate. Later, 30 kg of gold was retrieved from the consignment. Five days later, Swapna Suresh, a senior IT official and her friend Sandip Nair were arrested from their hideout in Bengaluru. Later the case was handed over to the NIA.

The Customs department has deferred the transfer of key officials who are investigating the gold smuggling case following an outrage. The Union Home Ministry has also expressed serious reservations over the issue saying such a controversy should have been avoided when the investigation was going in the right track, a senior official familiar with the development said.

The sudden transfer of six superintendents and two inspectors attached with Kochi unit of the Customs who are part of the ongoing investigation was issued by Mohammad Yousaf, Commissioner of Customs, late on Wednesday. After the issue triggered a controversy the Customs department made it clear that it was a routine transfer and it had been deferred for the time being.

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It is expected that most banks will follow a more prudent strategy this year, while aiming to accelerate next year. Photo Le Toan

The domestic economy showed significant signs of recovery, spurring higher demand for loans and higher growth in credit of lenders. Banks are also reducing their lending rates despite impacts on profits from their bread-and-butter lending activities.

Notwithstanding, each lender has their own lending appetite. Tran Thang Long, head of research at BIDV Securities told VIR, In our opinion, banks would change the risk appetite to become more risk averse, and they would focus on increasing non-interest income which is the main growth factor for banks in the near future. Long also brought up examples of state-owned banks slashing their credit exposure to the market and focusing on providing loans to their existing customers.

However, some banks have taken advantage of this unprecedented crisis to expand market share and deepen their foothold. Some lenders might seek more risk such as VPBank and MSB with their credit growth of 12 per cent.

VietinBank, for example, vows to create favourable conditions to assist clients, but not by easing lending standards.

The early economic recovery also boosts massive opportunities for Vietnam to welcome multinational relocations and become a global manufacturing hub, a representative of VietinBank told VIR. Thus, we would place our focus on providing credit for essential sectors. There is a significant untapped potential for VietinBank to further accelerate global relocation by offering top-notch services to lure more high-quality foreign funds.

Trinh Bang Vu, head of the Retail Business Division at Shinhan Bank Vietnam, noted the South Korean lender would continue to specialise in offering preferential lending rates for customers in need of home loans, car loans, or consumer loans.

We always think and act with customers in mind with integrity and trust. For instance, home lending rates offered by Shinhan Bank are now deemed to be the most competitive on the market, while those for personal loans are only 1.16 per cent per month, said Vu.

Private lender ACB, on the other hand, has enjoyed a high loan yield since it has given particular attention on retail banking and individual lending services.

However, the race among diversified retail banking products and services for small- and medium-sized enterprises is heating up as more competition enters, possibly placing a lower profit ceiling.

Nevertheless, Techcombank seems to be more conservative in selecting its customers. Bank chairman Ho Hung Anh emphasised that Techcombank only focuses on groups with high incomes and good repayment ability. For instance, Sun Group and Vingroup made up for a total 70 per cent market share, thus, the bank has chosen them as major customers in the resort segment.

The impact of COVID-19 on the bank has not been significant since the creditor does not have many customers belonging to severely affected sectors like aviation, textiles, and tourism. The customers of such sectors are recovering, except for Vietnam Airlines, Hung Anh noted.

In case of Vietcombank, the state-owned lender expects to increase its proportion of fee income and broaden its deposit base to include more retail clients. Most importantly, the bank expects its fees to improve after signing an exclusive bancassurance agreement with insurer FWD Group, with upfront fees the highest paid to any bank in Vietnam.

Vietnam International Bank (VIB) is slated to achieve a higher-than-average loan growth in the upcoming time, since the bank credit growth is driven by car loans.

Besides that, the Vietnamese government has decided to cut 50 per cent of registration fees for locally-manufactured and assembled cars till the end of this year. The reduction is aimed to help local businesses recover production and trade as well as stimulating consumption of cars, thus also paving the way for VIB lending activities.

Military Bank (MB), meanwhile, would lay stress on Mcredit  its consumer finance subsidiary  as an important profit centre for the bank. MB also plans to upgrade infrastructure and operations to better align the subsidiary with the banks risk appetite.

Nguyen Thi Thanh Huyen, financial analyst at KB Securities, believed that most banks currently are being more conservative with their credit activities which can be seen in the lower targeted annual credit growth for 2020 as presented at its in annual shareholders meeting.

For the remainder of 2020, we expect that banks would maintain a prudent mindset in their loan activities in order to monitor their asset quality to avoid any unexpected consequences in the future, said Huyen. However, in 2021, if Vietnam avoids another wave of COVID-19 and the situation eases globally, banks could return to pre-pandemic levels or slightly lean forward in risk-taking to compensate for a gloomy 2020 performance.
Two years after a dam collapse that caused Laos worst flooding in decades, many of the thousands of rural villagers who lost their homes and land in the disaster say they are still struggling to recover with inadequate support from the dams developers and the Lao government.

On the night of July 23, 2018, billions of cubic feet of water from a tributary of the Mekong River poured over a collapsed saddle dam at the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy (PNPC) hydropower project in southern Laos Champassak province, sweeping away homes and causing severe flooding in villages downstream in Attapeu province.

Cash-strapped Laos handling of the flood  which killed 71 people and displaced 14,440 when it wiped out all or part of 19 villages  has gotten mixed reviews among displaced villagers still waiting for or haggling over compensation.

Environmental and human rights NGOs, already critics of Laos ambitions to become the battery of Southeast Asia by building dozens of hydropower dams on the Mekong and its tributaries, are demanding government and corporate accountability and supporting the disaster survivors.

The government had promised to clear new land for farming and pay compensation for those displaced, but villagers in Attapeu say the help they have received has been slow in coming and short in substance  a situation shared by several thousand people whose claims remain unresolved.

You want to talk about what we lack? We lack everything. We lack seeds and an irrigation system. What is the government going to do? Second, we have a lack of cattle, which we could use for food or sell as goods, like cows and sheep, an affected villager, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFAs Lao Service.

We still dont know what the government will do to reduce poverty for each affected family, the villager from Attapeus Sanamxay district said.

The government began allocating land for those who lost theirs in the flood this year, offering one hectare (2.47 acres) to families with two members, two hectares for families of three, and three hectares for families of four or more.

A second villager told RFA that the plots are located in the hills without proper irrigation, but even if they were as fertile as the lands they had lost, the plot sizes are too small to grow enough rice to live on. Most villagers were rice farmers, and lack skills to find employment in other sectors.

If villagers do not have fertile lowland rice paddy land, like before the dam broke, they will not be able to revive their livelihoods, because rice is their main food, Ian Baird, a Southeast Asia expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told RFA.





Insult to injury

Although the Lao government sees hydropower exports to Thailand and Vietnam as a way to boost the countrys economy, even before the July 2018 disaster, projects like Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy had become controversial for displacing villagers and destroying farmland, forests and fishing grounds.

Two years after the disaster, 12 villages in Sanamxay have been fully compensated, while seven are still owed compensation. Of the seven, three Sanamxay villages have accepted the government offer, while two others are demanding renegotiation.

Some villagers say theyve suffered insult on top of financial injury when, after paying out half of their promised cash, officials announced that 20 percent of the total compensation would be taken out of future payments to cover paperwork, insurance, and a downward revaluation of loss claims to account for depreciation.

The second villager told RFA Monday that he never saw government officials visiting to explain the 20 percent deduction, and when he asked officials the reason for this revaluation of damage claims, they could not explain.

We havent received it yet. We are afraid that the officials wont give it to us because they have no money. Some villagers are getting paid, but others arent, he said.

A third villager said local authorities called a meeting in his village to announce the deduction, but many disagreed.

We are supposed to receive U.S. $5,000, but well only get $3,000 after the deduction. It seems to be too low for us, he said. We want the full amount as initially agreed.

A fourth villager told RFA, All the villagers living here in the temporary houses are survivors. We couldnt take anything with us when the dam broke. Some people got out with only their underwear.

It seems to be unfair if the remaining compensation money will be deducted by 20 percent. We felt very sad when we heard that our money would be deducted. We do not want to argue with the authorities, but we would like to call for their sympathy, the fourth villager said.

Authorities in Attapeu province reached by telephone last week declined to comment on the deduction dispute, but Attapeus Deputy Governor Ounla Xayasith explained the deductions to RFA in May, saying that many of the claims included used items that had lost value due to depreciation.

Temporary lifestyle

Villager Phon Vuongchonpu and his grandchildren take refuge at a shelter in Paksong town, Champasak province, Laos on Wednesday, July 25, 2018. AP

Villagers told RFA that until they are compensated, they have no choice but to wait at relocation centers that lack sanitation and access to health care, housed in temporary shelters. They subsist on stipends paid out by the dam developers amounting to 250,000 kip (U.S. $27), and about 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of sticky rice per person per month.

But some of the villagers reported that they do not receive these stipends in a timely manner, and in some months not at all. The government has said that once compensation payments are complete, these stipends will stop.

A resident of Dong Bark village, who has been living in a temporary shelter, told RFA Tuesday, Ive gotten much poorer since the dam burst that destroyed my house and property. Now I live hand to mouth, and rely on foodstuffs provided by project developer. I have not received a living allowance since April.

I go back to the area of my former village [that was destroyed by the flood] to go fishing and collect forest materials, he added.

I have to cultivate rice near my former village, which is over 10 km (6.21 miles) away from the new resettlement area, but this year its productivity has decreased because of droughts, he said.

The entire Mekong region suffered a drought long into what should have been the rainy season this year.

A resident of Thasengchanh village told RFA that he took it upon himself to leave the relocation center without the governments help.

I have moved out from my temporary shelter in order to live in the house I myself just built on my own farm land, he said.

I cannot live in the shelter because it is hot and, water leaks from roof when rains. As a result, so far the 50-60 families from Thasengchanh have moved out from the shelters, he added.

The government and the dam developer have begun the process of building permanent houses and clearing land, but the houses will not be complete until 2021.

A dam official who requested anonymity told RFA that the company has been transparent about compensation, including the amounts of compensation and how it will be distributed.

No solution for 10 or 20 years

Buffaloes on the roof of a house in the flooded Sanamxay District, Attapeu Province on July 24, 2018. Photo courtesy of an RFA listener

An anonymous source said that to date, for the five villages in Sanamxay, 700 houses have already been completed, including the necessary infrastructure like roads, health facilities and schools, at a cost of $24.5 million. On top of that, the Thai government built 45 more, and the Japanese government built 66 units.

An official from the Lao government told RFA that Vientiane has shored up dam safety standards, requiring developers to redesign their projects to international standards with early warning systems. Additionally developers are required to provide training for emergencies.

At a gathering to mark the second anniversary of the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoi disaster in Bangkok Thailand  the closest place to one-party Laos where such a gathering could be held -- NGOs said all parties involved needed to do better for the homeless villagers.

Up until now, the responsible state personnel, companies, banks, and insurance companies that made these projects possible have failed to facilitate clear systemic channels by which affected people on both sides of the border can access compensation, reparations and regain livelihood dignity, said the Laos Dam Investment Monitor (LDIM) in a statement.

What we can see from this incident that we are worried about the most is that villagers are not receiving compensation and they need answers from all sectors involved, Prem Rudee Dao Heung of LDIM told RFA.

Yuka Kiguchi from Mekong Watch Organization told RFA, Over the past two years, for all the companies involved, we havent known clearly what they are doing to help the affected villagers. Companies and banks lack responsibility and transparency.

Baird -- who lived in Laos for more than 15 years, and researches natural resource management, hydroelectric dams, and land concessions  said the farmers will not bounce back if they are given marginal land to replace rich lowlands lost to floods.

Their livelihood problems will not be solved in 10 or 20 years if the issue of farmland is not seriously addressed, he said.

The Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy dam is a joint venture that includes four companies from three countries. SK Engineering and Construction and Korea western power collectively have 51 percent stake in the project, while Thailands Rath Thai owns 25 percent and the Lao Holding state enterprise owns 24 percent.

Reported by RFAs Lao Service. Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
In an advisory on July 21, the Food and Agriculture Organization said that adult groups and swarms of desert locusts are maturing throughout Rajasthan and that substantial hatching is expected in the coming weeks. This indicates that a second wave of attack  the first happened in western and northern India in May  could happen again in the coming months. In the first installment, parts of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh had to battle the scourge. Despite being caught off-guard  the last major attack was in 1993  the states were moderately successful in tackling the problem by spraying organophosphate to kill locusts.

The desert locust is one of 12 species of short-horned grasshoppers; its swarms can have billions and travel up to 130 km in one day. Each day, a locust can eat its own weight  about two grams of fresh vegetation. This means that they not only devour standing crops, but can also devastate livelihoods of those associated with the agricultural supply chain.

Now that FAO has issued a warning, the states and the central government must be battle-ready, not just for this round but also for the future because the climate crisis will lead to increase in such episodes. This means that the government must strengthen the Locust Warning Organization, which was almost disbanded because no attack had happened in two decades, by ensuring that they have adequate field staff, sprayers and spray vehicles required for locust control, and make sure that states follow its standard operating procedure for spraying of insecticides by drones, airplanes and helicopters before things get out of hand.
The state has objected to the exams of undergraduate medical students in the state  scheduled to take place between August 3 and 29 this year  and has asked the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) to postpone them until Covid-19 situation comes under control. The decision will affect around 24,000 medical and dental students in the state.

State medical education minister Amit Deshmukh said that the exams should not be held putting at risk the lives of students. He also directed MUHS to start the academic year of the first three years.

Covid-19 is highly infectious. Parents are very worried about students health. The state is ready to hold exams, but students are not ready to appear for them. We suggested [MUHS] to start the academic year for first, second and third-year medical students without conducting exams. They can be conducted whenever the situation becomes conducive, the medical education minister said.

Deshmukh said final-year students should be allowed to commence with their internship, so that their services can be used for the ongoing health crisis, and they also will not have to lose their time.

Final-year students should be allowed to start internship even without conducting exams so that their services can be used in the battle against the pandemic and students also wont lose their time, he said.

The directives came at a time when the state is already having differences with the University Grants Commission (UGC) over the issue of conducting final-year exams of non-professional and professional courses.

The state disaster management authority, headed by the chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, in its meeting held on July 13, decided that Maharashtra is not in a position to hold final-year exams, considering the high number of Covid-19 cases and deaths in the state.

The July 13 decision came a week after UGC directed all universities to conduct final-year exams either in online, offline or blended modes by September-end.

When asked about the UGC directives, Deshmukh said that the state is ready to conduct the entrance exams of super specialty courses for postgraduate students, scheduled on September 15, as students are on campus and do not need to travel unlike undergraduate students who are at their respective districts.

We will also discuss the issue with the Medical Council of India (MCI) to make this possible, the medical education minister said.

Officials transferred

The state appointed Parimal Singh as commissioner of family welfare and director of National Health Mission. He will take charge from Anup Kumar Yadav, who has been appointed as special sales tax commissioner in Singhs place. Chief secretarys deputy secretary, Kiran Patil, has been appointed as Raigad CEO, while Anil Dongre is the new chief officer of the Mumbai Building Repairs and Reconstruction Board. Yogesh Mhase has been appointed as chief officer Mhada.

(Inputs from Surendra P Gangan)

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The National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has held a virtual meeting with the regional chairmen of the party and urged them to work hard for victory in the December polls.



During the maiden new normal meeting via Zoom, the chairman heard from the chairpersons updates on the ongoing voter registration exercise.



In his report which entailed measures to ensure vigilance at the centres, the Volta Regional Chairman, Makafui Kofi Woanya, expressed concern about the efforts of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to smuggle Togolese to partake in the exercise.



He nonetheless commended efforts of the security agents in stemming the illegalities, adding that the opposition NDC would not be able to manipulate the electoral roll as it did in previous times.



He gave an assurance that with the development projects being undertaken by President Akufo-Addo, the regional executives would work hard to secure three parliamentary seats for the party in December.



On his part, the Greater Accra Regional Chairman, Divine A. Otoo, could not hide his excitement about the over 1.5 million voters registered in the region, adding that but for a few areas where the NDC sought to foment chaos, all had been well.



He acknowledged the role of the security agents in maintaining law and order.



The remaining regional chairmen each took their turn to brief the National Chairman about the situation in their areas.



The Upper East Regional Chairman, who is also the Secretary to the Regional Chairmens Caucus, Lawyer Anthony Namoo, expressed gratitude to the party supporters whose contributions in the ongoing registration exercise had been valuable.



The Ashanti Regional Chairman, Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, was the toast of the regional chairmen whose areas border the Ashanti Region.



Chairman Wontumi, according to them, offered them the necessary financial and logistical support which facilitated their monitoring of the process alongside vigilance.



The National Party Office also received kudos from the regional chairmen for its invaluable role.



Chairman Blay



An elated Freddie Blay told his virtual guests, I am deeply touched by the amount of sacrifices being made by all of you in galvanizing the partys grassroots and providing some assistance to qualified Ghanaian citizens in undertaking their constitutional right to register and vote in the December 2020 general election.



He recognized their efforts in ensuring that the country goes into the December polls with a credible register.



I am equally encouraged by the cooperation you continue to offer agencies of state in realizing the main purpose for which the nation is embarking on compiling a new voters register, he pointed out, urging the chairmen to worker harder for an enhanced interest in the registration exercise which has barely three weeks to be completed.



Reconciliation



The virtual meeting comes on the heels of the Chief of Staff and the call by the National Office for reconciliation among successful contestants and their opposite counterparts during the parliamentary primaries.



Covid-19



While acknowledging the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, he was quick to add that the fight against the disease had been very well sustained and managed by the Akufo-Addo administration.

Source: daily guide









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Boris Johnson will plead with Scots to turn away from independence on a visit on Thursday, sparking a claim that he is in full-blown panic mode about the rising threat.

On his first trip since coronavirus struck, the prime minister will argue the sheer might of our Union has brought people through the pandemic, by saving lives and propping up jobs.

More than ever, this shows what we can achieve when we stand together, as one United Kingdom, Mr Johnson said, ahead of meeting business leaders and the military.

But the visit comes against the backdrop of polling suggesting the independence campaign has stolen a lead of up to 10 per cent, as the Covid-19 crisis took hold.

The Scottish National Party is on course to win an unprecedented majority at next years Scottish Parliament elections  fuelling demands for a second referendum.

And it is Mr Johnsons handling of the pandemic which has cost him support. His net approval rating on the crisis lags 99 points behind that of Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP First Minister, at a disastrous -39 points.

The only reason Boris Johnson is coming here is because he is in full-blown panic mode amid rising support for independence, said Keith Brown, the SNPs deputy leader.

The prime minister is not expected to meet Ms Sturgeon while in Scotland, although she said she would be happy to do so if he wants.

The First Minister urged him to ensure he and his entourage followed her governments separate advice to prevent coronavirus infections, adding: I'm sure he'll be doing that anyway.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 11 January 2022 A couple walk underneath an umbrella during wet weather on Westminster Bridge in central London PA UK news in pictures 10 January 2022 A jogger passes the Covid Memorial Wall in London AP UK news in pictures 9 January 2021 The sun rises over horses at Seaton Sluice in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 8 January 2022 Riders compete during the Veterans Men's race at the UK Cyclo-Cross National Championships 2022 in Ardingly, south of London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 7 January 2022 A dog looks out of a car window at the wintry conditions in Killeshin, Co. 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Getty UK news in pictures 21 December 2021 People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year PA UK news in pictures 20 December 2021 An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton PA UK news in pictures 19 December 2021 Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux Getty Images UK news in pictures 18 December 2021 Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent PA UK news in pictures 17 December 2021 Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election PA UK news in pictures 16 December 2021 Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire PA UK news in pictures 15 December 2021 Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 14 December 2021 The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool PA UK news in pictures 13 December 2021 People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster Getty Images UK news in pictures 12 December 2021 People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 11 December 2021 People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds, PA UK news in pictures 10 December 2021 Stella Moris speaks to the media after the US Government won its High Court bid to overturn a judges decision not to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange PA UK news in pictures 9 December 2021 Camels are lead around Salisbury Cathedral during a rehearsal for the Christmas Eve Service PA UK news in pictures 8 December 2021 Margaret Keenan and Nurse May Parsons, a year after Margaret was the first person in the UK to receive the Pfizer vaccine PA UK news in pictures 7 December 2021 Snowfall in Leadhills, South Lanarkshire as Storm Barra hits the UK with disruptive winds, heavy rain and snow PA UK news in pictures 6 December 2021 A person tries to avoid sea spray on New Brighton promenade in Wallasey as the UK readies for the arrival of Storm Barra Getty UK news in pictures 5 December 2021 People release balloons during a tribute to six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes outside Emma Tustin's former address in Solihull, West Midlands, where he was murdered by his stepmother PA UK news in pictures 4 December 2021 People walk through a Christmas market in Trafalgar Square Reuters UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 A pedestrian carries a dog as they dodge shoppers on Oxford Street in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 2 December 2021 Duchess of Cambridge inspects a Faberge egg at the Victoria and Albert Museum Getty UK news in pictures 1 December 2021 Meerkats at London Zoo with an advent calendar PA UK news in pictures 30 November 2021 Workers put the finishing touches to the Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree ahead of the lighting ceremony later in the week PA UK news in pictures 29 November 2021 Home Secretary Priti Patel is greeted by a police dog at a special memorial service for Met Police Sergeant Matiu Ratana Getty UK news in pictures 28 November 2021 Riyad Mahrez of Manchester City battles for possession with Aaron Cresswell of West Ham United during a match at the Etihad during snow Manchester City/Getty UK news in pictures 27 November 2021 Residents clear branches from a fallen tree in Birkenhead, north west England as Storm Arwen triggered a rare red weather warning AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 An aerial picture shows a worker using a quad bike and trailer to transport freshly harvested trees at Pimms Christmas Tree farm in Matfield, southeast England AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 26 November 2021 A shopper browses Christmas trees for sale at Pines and Needles in Dulwich, London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 November 2021 A murmuration of hundreds of thousands of starlings fly over a field at dusk in Cumbria, close to the Scottish border PA UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 A pedestrian carries a dog as they dodge shoppers on Oxford Street in central London AFP/Getty

Ahead of the visit, Downing Street announced a 50m package for Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles, while pointing to Covid-19 help including:

* 736,500 jobs in Scotland supported through the coronavirus job retention scheme.

* A 330bn package of loans and guarantees helping thousands of Scottish businesses survive the economic fallout.

* A 4.6bn funding boost to the Scottish administration through the Barnet Formula

* Funding for six drive-through testing facilities and pop up mobile testing sites throughout Scotland

* Cash for a megalab in Glasgow, mass processing coronavirus tests for key workers across Scotland.

Mr Johnson said: The last six months have shown exactly why the historic and heartfelt bond that ties the four nations of our country together is so important and the sheer might of our union has been proven once again.

In Scotland, the UKs magnificent armed forces have been on the ground doing vital work to support the NHS, from setting up and running mobile testing sites to airlifting critically ill patients to hospitals from some of Scotlands most remote communities.

And the UK Treasury stepped in to save the jobs of a third of Scotlands entire workforce and kept the wolves at bay for tens of thousands of Scottish businesses.

The prime minister is resolved to refuse to allow a Scottish independence referendum to take place in this parliament, which will not end until 2024.

However, that stance may be impossible to maintain if the SNP triumphs at Holyrood next May on an Indyref 2 platform.
The photo currently posted on the website of the Chinese embassy in the United States shows the front exterior of the main building of the embassy. (Xinhua)

"China strongly condemns and firmly opposes such an outrageous and unjustified move which sabotages China-U.S. relations," says the embassy.

WASHINGTON, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government's request to close the Chinese Consulate General in Houston is "a political provocation," and "an outrageous and unjustified move which sabotages China-U.S. relations," said the Chinese embassy in the United States on Wednesday.

"The U.S. abruptly demanded that the Chinese Consulate-General in Houston cease all operations and events within a time limit. It is a political provocation unilaterally launched by the U.S. side, which seriously violates international law, basic norms governing international relations and the bilateral consular agreement between China and the U.S.," said the embassy in a statement.

"China strongly condemns and firmly opposes such an outrageous and unjustified move which sabotages China-U.S. relations," the embassy said, noting that China is committed to the principle of non-interference in other countries' domestic affairs.

Over the years, Chinese diplomatic missions in the United States, including the Consulate General in Houston, have been performing duties in strict accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, and are dedicated to promoting China-U.S. exchanges and cooperation and advancing the two peoples' mutual understanding and friendship, it said.

"The U.S. accusations are groundless fabrications, and the excuses it cites are far-fetched and untenable. For the U.S. side, if it is bent on attacking China, it will never be short of excuses," it said.

As for reciprocity, China has been providing facilitation for U.S. diplomatic missions and personnel pursuant to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the embassy said.

"In contrast, the U.S. imposed unjustified restrictions on Chinese diplomatic personnel last October and in June, unscrupulously and repeatedly opened China's diplomatic pouches and seized China's official goods," it said.

"Because of the willful and reckless stigmatization and fanning up of hatred by the U.S. side, the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. has received threats to the safety and security of Chinese diplomatic missions and personnel more than once," it said.

The U.S. side has more diplomatic and consular missions and personnel in China than China has in the United States, another area where the principle of reciprocity is not reflected. "The move of the U.S. side will only backfire on itself," said the embassy.

"We urge the U.S. side to immediately revoke this erroneous decision. Otherwise, China will have to respond with legitimate and necessary actions," it said.
Reef sharks in decline

Though many people find them intimidating, menacing or just plain scary, sharks are vital to the health of the world's oceans.

These often misunderstood creatures are found in just about every ocean habitat around the globe, but their populations are plummeting. Indeed, the true extent of their decline is not fully known.

To better understand the level of shark disappearance across tropical, coastal reefs, an international team of scientists, including researchers from UC Santa Barbara, conducted a landmark study under the Global FinPrint organization. Their findings, published in the journal Nature, reveal that sharks are virtually absent from many of the world's coral reefs.

The results indicate that sharks are too rare to fulfill their normal role in these ecosystems -- otherwise referred to as "functionally extinct." Of the 371 reefs surveyed in 58 countries, sharks were not observed on nearly 20%, suggesting a widespread decline that has gone undocumented on this scale until now.

"Things aren't good for sharks," said coauthor Darcy Bradley, co-director of the Ocean and Fisheries Program at UC Santa Barbara's Environmental Market Solutions Lab. Scientists have known this for a while, she added, but this study shows it in robust, empirical detail.

Essentially no sharks were detected on any of the reefs of six nations: The Dominican Republic, the French West Indies, Kenya, Vietnam, the Windward Dutch Antilles and Qatar. Among these, a total of only three sharks were observed on more than 800 survey hours.

Bradley and UCSB research biologist Jennifer Caselle conducted surveys at Palmyra Atoll, a small American territory smack in the center of the Pacific Ocean. Their contribution to the project was particularly important because the atoll is a protected area. The data they gathered helped to establish what a healthy shark population looks like. And since all of these surveys measure relative abundance, without baselines from pristine reefs like Palmyra, there's no context for the data from other locations.

This first-ever benchmark for the status of reef sharks around the world, funded by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, reveals an alarming global loss of these iconic species that are important food resources, tourism attractions and top predators on coral reefs. Their decline is due in large part to overfishing of sharks and their prey, with the single largest contributor being destructive fishing practices, such as the use of longlines and gillnets.

"Although our study shows substantial negative human impacts on reef shark populations, it's clear the central problem exists in the intersection between high human population densities, destructive fishing practices and poor governance," said Demian Chapman, Global FinPrint co-lead and associate professor at Florida International University. "We found that robust shark populations can exist alongside people when those people have the will, the means and a plan to take conservation action."

The study revealed several countries where shark conservation is working and the specific actions that seem promising. The best performing nations, in comparison to the average of their region, included Australia, the Bahamas, the Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia, the Maldives and the United States.

These nations reflect key attributes that were found to be associated with higher populations of sharks. They are generally well-governed, and either ban all shark fishing or have strong, science-based management limiting how many sharks can be caught.

"These nations are seeing more sharks in their waters because they have demonstrated good governance on this issue," said Aaron MacNeil, lead author of the Global FinPrint study and associate professor at Dalhousie University. "From restricting certain gear types and setting catch limits, to national-scale bans on catches and trade, we now have a clear picture of what can be done to limit catches of reef sharks throughout the tropics."

The FinPrint team is wrestling with the fact that conservation action on sharks alone can only go so far. Researchers are now looking at whether recovery of shark populations requires management of the wider ecosystem to ensure there are enough reef fish to feed these predators.

"Now that the survey is complete, we are also investigating how the loss of sharks can destabilize reef ecosystems," said Mike Heithaus, Global FinPrint co-lead and dean of the College of Arts, Sciences & Education at Florida International University. "At a time when corals are struggling to survive in a changing climate, losing reef sharks could have dire long-term consequences for entire reef systems."

Launched in the summer of 2015, Global FinPrint's data were generated from baited remote underwater video stations (BRUVS). These consist of a video camera placed in front of a standard amount of bait -- a "Chum Cam." Standardizing the BRUVs across all the sites made data much easier to compare between locations. Coral reef ecosystems were surveyed in four key geographic regions across the tropics: the Indo-Pacific, Pacific, the Western Atlantic and the Western Indian Ocean.

Over the course of four years, the team captured and analyzed more than 15,000 hours of video from surveys of 371 reefs in 58 countries, states and territories around the world. The work was conducted by hundreds of scientists, researchers and conservationists organized by a network of collaborators from Florida International University, the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Curtin University, Dalhousie University, and James Cook University.

"This work doesn't just document the demise of sharks," said UC Santa Barbara's Caselle. "It provides hope, and more importantly, it provides actionable solutions that countries can follow to protect and rebuild their shark populations."

###

For more information and a new global interactive data-visualized map of the Global FinPrint survey results, visit https:/ / globalfinprint. org .

This story has been published on: 2020-07-23. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Maisie Williams, left, Henry Zaga, Blu Hunt, Charlie Heaton and Anya Taylor-Joy in "The New Mutants." (20th Century Fox)

In the attic of a creepy psychiatric hospital, looking at rafters from which patients possibly hanged themselves, five young actors participated in the "lie detector scene," their first real interaction for the Marvel comics-inspired movie "The New Mutants."

"It was the perfect scene to start with because all of the kids were together. Everybody got a chance to get in character and do their thing," says "New Mutants" director Josh Boone.

Led by an emotional performance from first-time actor Blu Hunt (as Danielle Moonstar/Mirage), the group  Maisie Williams (Rahne Sinclair/Wolfsbane), Anya Taylor-Joy (Illyana Rasputin/Magik), Charlie Heaton (Sam Guthrie/Cannonball) and Henry Zaga (Roberto da Costa/Sunspot)  bonded early. It was a moment of pure joy for the director and group of actors who soon would have to endure a frustrating years-long path toward their movie's release.

"The New Mutants," a sort-of next-up X-Men teen hero comic book from the 80s, is difficult to classify. Part horror, part mental-health and coming-of-age drama, part teen romance, Boone mentions "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Nightmare on Elm Street 3" and "Girl, Interrupted" as inspirations for his take.

However it's defined, the adaptation remains scheduled to hit screens on Aug. 28 (its fifth official release date) through Disney's 20th Century Studios  despite theaters currently being closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

COVID-19 already forced one of the date changes for the film, which was originally due out in April 2018. But today, the cast and director presented expanded footage during a Comic-Con@Home virtual panel.

"It's a bummer cause I've always wanted to go and bring a movie there," Boone said about the lost opportunity to attend an actual San Diego Comic-Con. "[But] virtual's going to have to do, and nobody should really feel bad about that during this time. I feel lucky that we have a movie to release."

Story continues

We caught up with Boone and Hunt ahead of the panel to discuss their "New Mutants" experience and the film's perilous journey to the screen (which  so far  has included release date changes, reshoot rumors, the Fox-Disney merger and a pandemic).

Have you been able to keep in touch with the (other) actors since the shoot wrapped back in September 2017?

Josh Boone: Oh sure. I cast Henry [Zaga] in "The Stand." Yeah, I've seen these guys multiple times because we've promoted the movie multiple times. We had a good time making it. Got a lot of friends.

Blu Hunt: Before promotion started, me and Maisie [Williams] kept in touch a lot. I went to London for her birthday party  and I'd never left America before! Exciting, and it's fun to make a friend overseas. Me and Henry see each other a lot in L.A. and we all talk about the movie, like, "What is going on?"

How have you navigated the postproduction roller coaster  rumors of reshoots, release dates changing yearly  this movie has presented?

Boone: [I'm] just happy to come out on the other end. We're getting to release the movie that we wanted. My cut of the movie. I got to finish it and do everything that needs to be done to it. It means I'm really happy, but the process was unusually frustrating. There was also rumors and things online that weren't true.

When the [Disney-Fox] merger happened, there was basically a year where nothing was going on and we weren't sure if [finishing the movie] was going to happen. It was after that year that Disney asked me to come back and finish it. Then it was done except for the visual effects. I mean, we had a year of not seeing it. But we've never done reshoots or pickups and the normal stuff you'd get to do. Because of the merger, we just didn't get to. It's still the same story that we always intended to tell.

Hunt: It was definitely a frustrating experience. I went into it thinking it was, as they say, my big break. The first movie I'd ever done, then I left and it was supposed to come out within six months. And it got pushed and pushed, and then the merger. Then the quarantine happening. ... It was definitely a strange experience for an actor just coming in and this being my first project. I feel like I've had an experience that no other actor has ever had.

In a lot of ways, I'm really grateful for it. With the movie taking as long as it did to come out, I got three years to grow up and figure out what I wanted for myself as an actress and as a creative and as a person. I think if it had just come out, it would've been completely overwhelming.

Talk about the casting of Blu as Danielle Moonstar, a First Nation actress for a First Nation character.

Boone: I knew as soon as I met Blu. We had a couple hundred tapes, and only three came in to read with Maisie. Once she was with Maisie, their chemistry was great.

Hunt: It kind of was the perfect role. When I went in for the first audition, I really didn't think that I would get it. I couldn't imagine that I would get it. The casting process was really long since they did a nationwide search for Dani. I felt really honored to take on this role that was so important to so many people. I love Dani now. I think that whatever I act in in the future, Dani will always feel so close to me.

Blu, you mentioned that you'd gone to London to see Maisie for her birthday. The relationship between Dani and Rahne, at least in the comics, was a special one.

Hunt: Our relationship in the movie is definitely strong.

Boone: It's sort of the spine of the movie. Without giving away too much, it's very much about them and how their relationship blooms over the course of the movie. The jumping-off point was certainly their telepathic relationship in the comics.

Since that's going to be there, what is the biggest deviation from the comics?

The image of Professor Charles Xavier guides the "New Mutants" team of Danielle Moonstar (Mirage), front left, Rahne Sinclair (Wolfsbane), Roberto da Costa (Sunspot), Samuel Guthrie (Cannonball) and Xi'an Coy Manh (Karma). (Marvel Comics)

Boone: The biggest deviation is really the setting. We took these characters and their problems and their story and put them in a hospital that they couldn't get out of. That was sort what we added to it, with a few little tweaks here and there to fit the tone of our movie. We shot everything on location. It's not like a typical comic book movie. It doesn't look like a typical comic book movie. It's more like a 90s throwback horror movie with superheroes in it.

Hunt: I think one thing that deviates with Dani is that at the end of the Demon Bear [storyline in the comics] she kind of commits suicide  in an abstract way. I liked that [storyline] for Dani because that is a really serious issue that many indigenous First Nation youth have to deal with, and I think that would've been an important thing for Dani's character and an important culmination of the trauma that she'd gone through. That is something young people do go through  when the feelings get so bad that it becomes [an almost physical manifestation]. But Dani is pretty much right from the pages.

With such a different tone, would this have connected in any way to Fox's X-Men universe? And do you have thoughts on the future of X-Men?

Boone: Well, you could never really have put these characters into those movies. It's way too different tonally and aesthetically and everything  if Wolverine showed up it would be weird. It's certainly part of the X-Men universe and there's discussion about the X-Men in it. But again, we're in that weird place where we were supposed to come out before "Dark Phoenix." Then the merger happened and they put everything they had into finishing "Dark Phoenix"  and with how much it cost and everything else, [we] did kind of get pushed to the wayside.

["New Mutants"] had a love story in it, it's kind of different than most comic book movies. It's got weird stuff, horror stuff. ... I kind of like it as a final interesting original thing [from the Fox series of X-Men films]. And however it plays out in the future, I'll certainly be first in line to see what Marvel [Studios] does with X-Men. But the ball is sort of in their court now. If fans like the movie, I'm sure they'll talk about future ones.

With the current pandemic situation, things are still in flux for theaters, so how would you feel if the movie had to go to Disney+, Hulu or some other streaming outlet?

Boone: Stuff is changing every day because of COVID, so it's hard to know that. I'd be happy with it being available for everyone to see in whatever way we can do that. I've been told that it's going to be a theatrical release, which we would love. I don't even know which streaming service it would go to. It's all muddy because of the merger still, with preexisting streaming deals that could've been made [by Fox] before the merger and all that.

And how about the release date?

Boone: I mean, I see everybody moving like "Tenet," so I don't know exactly what's going to happen. When they tell me it's going to come out is when it'll come out. It's all based on when it's safe to go back to the movies and when the markets are open and everything else. The intention is to get it out for the fans. They've stood by us for years. It's just a matter of when they'll get to see any movies that are coming out right now.

This time, we're in the same boat as everyone else. Last time, we were at the mercy of a corporate merger that had nothing to do with us really at all.

What have you been doing during the pandemic?

Boone: I was lucky I wrapped up making "The Stand" [for CBS All Access] before the pandemic happened and I had a bunch of writing. So I finished writing the next movie we're going to make, which we really started making during "New Mutants." A movie from Bob Mehr's book "Trouble Boys" about the band the Replacements.

Hunt: I spent most of my quarantine reading and watching movies. I'm pretty introverted. But then I went to dozens of protests in L.A. It's something really important to me. So solitude shifted into giant groups. I took up surfing and got a haircut, so I look like Patrick Swayze now.

Boone: Looking like Patrick Swayze is a good thing!

Hunt: All my friends keep saying it, and I had never seen "Point Break."

Boone: Wait ... so please tell me you watched it, and what did you think?

Hunt: I have never had a better viewing experience of a movie. I was laughing. I was crying. I was screaming.
"The Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, reads the petition, hands to government a sledgehammer, a blunt instrument that may easily be wielded to batter down the constitutional guardrails protecting the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of the press and the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances, and ultimately, terrorize the sovereign people into silence and servility.

Manila (AsiaNews/Agencies)  Two framers of the 1987 Constitution, opposition lawmakers, veteran journalists, and several human rights defenders today filed the 12th petition before the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the Anti-Terrorism Act and calling for a halt to its implementation.

The petitioners include members of the Constitutional Commission of 1986 Dr Florangel Rosario-Braid and Prof Edumundo Garcia, Senators Leila de Lima and Francis Kiko Pangilinan, Rep Kit Belmonte, former Senators Sergio Osmena III and Wigberto Bobby Tanada, former Deputy Speaker Erin Tanada and former Akbayan party-list Rep Etta Rosales.

The 73-page plea asks the Supreme Court to declare the entire law unconstitutional. It also urges the court to issue a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction or both whilst the case is pending, to halt the implementation of the law, including the drafting of the implementing rules and regulations.

Aside from the unconstitutionality of the recently-signed law, the petitioners said Republic Act 11479 removes several constitutional powers from the high tribunal.

"The Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, reads the petition, hands to government a sledgehammer, a blunt instrument that may easily be wielded to batter down the constitutional guardrails protecting the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of the press and the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances, and ultimately, terrorize the sovereign people into silence and servility.

The anti-terrorism law formally took effect on Saturday, 15 days after its publication on 3 July. Its implementing rules and regulations (IRR), however, are still being finalized by the Anti-Terrorism Council.

The Anti-Terrorism Act will not be enforced without the IRR for as long as there is no terrorist threat to the country, Cabinet officials said.

The measure, which repealed the Human Security Act of 2007, will give more surveillance powers to government forces. It will also implement stricter penalties for suspected terrorists, including a longer detention period without judicial warrant of arrest.

Entrepreneurs, activists, academics and Catholic Church officials had urged President Rodrigo Duterte not to sign the law. They called for a broader discussion before approving the legislation, stressing that the countrys real emergencies are the fight against the coronavirus and the economic crisis.
Italys coastguard has impounded the migrant rescue ship Ocean Viking over technical irregularities, prompting accusation of harassment by the charity that runs the vessel.

The move came on Wednesday after the ship had been allowed to disembark at a Sicilian port on July 7, with 180 rescued migrants onboard transferred to another boat for a two-week coronavirus quarantine that ended on Tuesday.

The Italian coastguard said in a statement that an inspection had revealed several technical and operational irregularities and the ship was under administrative detention until they were corrected.

The unspecified problems were of a nature likely to compromise not only the safety of the ship and its crew, but also of the people who have been and could be recovered onboard, it added.

The coastguard also referred to violations of regulations aimed at protecting marine environment.

Harassment

SOS Mediterranee, which charters the Ocean Viking, released a statement, condemning a blatant administrative harassment manoeuvre aimed at impeding our lifesaving work.

Over the past three months, the same argument over safety has been systematically used by Italian authorities to detain four NGO ships, Frederic Penard, director of operations at the organisation, said in the statement.

Why wasnt safety more of a concern to maritime authorities when, earlier this month, the Ocean Viking had to wait 11 days for a port to be assigned?

The migrants  mainly from Bangladesh, Eritrea, North Africa and Pakistan  were picked up in four separate rescues in the Mediterranean on June 25 and June 30.

Their disembarkment initially came as a relief, after a tense few days on the ship marked by migrants jumping overboard, a suicide attempt and bouts of violence.

The Ocean Viking resumed rescue operations on June 22 after a three-month halt because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 100,000 migrants tried to cross the Mediterranean last year with at least 1,200 dying in the attempt, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

According to Italian news agency ANSA, customs officials rescued 90 migrants off the island of Lampedusa on Wednesday.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

By Nargiz Sadikhova  Trend:

Power the Future (PTF) Project of US Agency for International Development (USAID) provided for support in renewable energy (RE) regulatory reforms, a USAID representative told Trend.

The official said that PTF implemented several activities to support implementation of the first competitive auctions in 2018 Kazakhstan.

"PTF provided assistance in supporting the Governments legal, regulatory and technical reforms and provided critical assistance to improve the RE auction rules and other related documents. PTF also developed an IT platform to conduct the auctions, as well as preparing a RE guide for investors," the official said.

USAID said PTF also provided recommendations to improve the attractiveness of private investments, such as power purchase agreements, the competitive auction process, prequalification requirements, grid connections, long term planning for RE, and much more.

"This work resulted in successful implementation of the RE auctions in Kazakhstan over the past 2 years, which has attracted strong interest from international and national investors," the official said.

As a result, the official noted, 28 RE auctions have been successfully executed that resulted in 1,255 megawatts (MW) of new RE projects, including wind, solar, hydropower and biomass. This is enough clean energy to generate electricity to 500,000 to 1 million homes, the official said.

"In general, Kazakhstan, which has the highest share of inexpensive coal generation, is the first Central Asian country to scale up the use of renewable energy using competitive auctions. The introduction of the competitive auctions mechanism has used market competition to drive down the cost of electricity, attract international companies to investment in Kazakhstan, reduce the costs of electricity for the consumers," the official said.

---

Follow the author on twitter: @nargiz_sadikh
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The Democratic Partys draft platform for the 2020 election cycle sees the world as I did when I was a Model United Nations delegate: A place where foreign policy is a vessel for pious intentions, and informed by the common good.

Back then, I argued that India and Pakistan could sheath the daggers they held at each others throat  if the leaders in New Delhi and Islamabad simply set aside their blood-soaked history and had a rational, reasonable discussion. So what if General Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq, the Pakistani dictator at the time, was a religious fanatic, menacing his own people as much as the neighborhood? Surely he would recognize the benefits, economic and political, of peace in South Asia?

In my defense, I was 14 at the time.

The authors of the Democratic platform, all grown-ups, have the same faith in Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as my wide-eyed schoolboy had in General Zia. They imagine that the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic will mend his ways if only he can be persuaded that the U.S. is not out to get him.

Democrats believe the United States should not impose regime change on other countries, and reject that as the goal of U.S. policy toward Iran, they write. Instead, under President Joe Biden, Washington should prioritize nuclear diplomacy, de-escalation, and regional dialogue.

That means a return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The authors argue that the Trump Administrations unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA isolated us from our allies and opened the door for Iran to resume its march toward a nuclear weapons capacity that the JCPOA had stopped. Thats why returning to mutual compliance with the agreement is so urgent.

Once that happens, there should be a comprehensive diplomatic effort to extend constraints on Irans nuclear program and address Irans other threatening activities, including its regional aggression, ballistic missile program, and domestic repression.

Story continues

Under normal political circumstances, all this policy pablum is easily dismissed as the kind of virtue-signaling to be expected from both parties ahead of their presidential conventions. The 180-member platform committee will examine the Democratic draft next week and recommend any amendments before ratification at the convention in Milwaukee next month.

After the conventions, the presidential candidates cherry-pick talking points from their party platforms. Once elected, a president is in no way bound to follow through on the promises therein.

But the Iran-related proposals in the Democratic platform merit alarm, not only because Biden is listed as one of the 15 authors, but because they are consistent with his position on the Islamic Republic. If Tehran complied with the terms of the JCPOA, he wrote earlier this year, I would rejoin the agreement and use our renewed commitment to diplomacy to work with our allies to strengthen and extend it, while more effectively pushing back against Irans other destabilizing activities.

As Ive pointed out, the former vice president has a history of endorsing woolly and reckless ideas, especially in connection with the Middle East. But few are more dangerous than the notion that Iran can be talked out of its other destabilizing activities. That catch-all term encompasses the slaughter of Sunni Muslims in Syria and Iraq, support for fanatical Shiite militias across the Middle East, the promotion of Lebanese and Palestinian terrorist groups, attacks against civilian shipping in international waters, assistance for the Maduro regime in Venezuela, assassination campaigns against opposition figures in Europe and cyber attacks against the U.S.

Taken together, these activities comprise the bulk of Irans foreign policy since the formation of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Biden imagines Khamenei can be persuaded to give it all up, in exchange for relief from U.S. economic sanctions and after more diplomacy. That was the expectation of his boss, President Barack Obama, when the JCPOA was signed.

But that was never in the realms of possibility. While the nuclear deal was being negotiated, Khamenei repeatedly said he would brook no discussion about anything else. Nor did he demonstrate any goodwill on this front, much less a change of heart, after the JCPOA was signed. Iran did not and will not hold talks with (the U.S.) on issues other than nuclear negotiations, he said. We agreed to hold talks with America only on the nuclear issue and for particular reasons.

Iran stepped up all those other destabilizing activities even as the world powers that signed the JCPOA began to dismantle the economic sanctions. Tehran ramped up its support for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, for Shiite militias in Iraq and for the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Having turned a blind eye to Irans misbehavior in his eagerness to get a deal done, Obama was unwilling to punish the regime afterward, whether for fear of endangering what he saw as his biggest foreign-policy success or out of consideration for the other signatories.

Trumps withdrawal from the JCPOA was arguably hasty, possibly even unnecessary: A more politic  and defensible  strategy would have been to simply impose tight U.S. sanctions on the regime for those other activities, while giving it no excuse to resume nuclear enrichment and denying the other signatories the high horse from which they now criticize Washington for reneging on a deal.

But to promise a unilateral American return to the JCPOA is to ignore the lessons of recent history. The nuclear deal was always meant to be the beginning, not the end, of our diplomacy with Iran, say the authors of the Democratic platform. For Khamenei, it was and ever will be the end, not the beginning. As long as he and his ilk remain in power, Iran will remain an intractable menace.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Bobby Ghosh is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He writes on foreign affairs, with a special focus on the Middle East and the wider Islamic world.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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Probe is expected to reach Mars in February, when it will attempt to deploy a rover to explore the planet for 90 days.

China has launched an unmanned probe to Mars in its first independent mission to visit another planet, a bid for global leadership in space and display of its technological prowess and ambition.

At 0441 GMT on Thursday, Chinas largest carrier rocket, the Long March 5 Y-4, blasted off with the probe from Wenchang Space Launch Centre on the southern island province of Hainan.

The mission is expected to reach Mars in February, when it will attempt to deploy a rover to explore the planet for 90 days.

If successful, the latest mission, also known as Tianwen-1, or Questions to Heaven  a Chinese poem penned two millennia ago  will make China the first country to orbit, land and deploy a rover in its inaugural mission.

Eight spacecraft  American, European and Indian  are currently either orbiting Mars or on its surface with other missions under way or planned.

CGTN's reporter Wu Lei captured on Thursday the liftoff moment of #China's Long March-5 Y4 carrier rocket, alongside its #Mars probe, from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site. pic.twitter.com/EnZ4SX3EFn  CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) July 23, 2020

The United Arab Emirates launched its own mission to Mars on Monday, comprising an orbiter to study the atmosphere.

The United States is expected to be close behind, with plans to send a probe in coming months.

The probe will deploy a rover on Mars called Perseverance, the biggest, heaviest, most advanced vehicle sent to the Red Planet by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Chinas probe will carry several scientific instruments to observe the planets atmosphere and surface, searching for signs of water and ice.

China previously made a Mars bid in 2011 with Russia, but the Russian spacecraft carrying the probe failed to exit the Earths orbit and disintegrated over the Pacific Ocean.

A fourth planned launch for Mars, the Russian-European Space Agency ExoMars, was postponed for two years due to the coronavirus pandemic and technical issues.
An aerial view of SK's semiconductor factory in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, Thursday. Yonhap



By Kim Yoo-chul



While the United States has been pressuring allies to join its anti-Huawei campaign, amid Washington's allegations the Chinese company is either owned or controlled by the Chinese military, the world's No. 2 memory chip supplier SK hynix said the Huawei conflict would not have any substantial impact on its business.



"Regarding questions on how Washington's pressure on Huawei will impact SK's memory chip business, we can say the issue is being managed well. The so-called 'Huawei issue' was already factored into our contingency business plan which we designed after the outbreak of COVID-19 early this year," the Korean chipmaker told investors upon announcing its second-quarter earnings.



"It's rather difficult for us to specify the estimated impact on us from Washington's move on Huawei. However, because it's possible for us to see various continuing risk factors, SK plans to respond to these variables properly in the latter half of this year through a better mix of products and greater flexibility in terms of supplying chips," the company added in the earnings conference call. Huawei is one of SK's key clients with the Chinese company procuring both DRAM and NAND chips from the SK Group affiliate.






A mother and her five children have today been found after police in Liverpool put out an urgent missing persons appeal.

Merseyside Police last night released an appeal after growing concerned for the welfare of mother Dominique Taylor and her five children.

Police named the children as Amarliyah, Amaya, Nile, Iylah-Rose and Noah Taylor.

However they now say that Ms Taylor and her five children have all been found.

In a statement on Twitter, the force said: 'We are pleased to let you know that Dominique Taylor and her five children have been found safe and well.

'Thank you for sharing our appeal.'

In their original appeal, the police said the family had links to the L8 area of Liverpool - which covers part of the city centre, as well as the inner city areas Toxteth and Dingle.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he is sending more federal law enforcement agents into Chicago and Albuquerque, N.M., casting the effort as one meant to help fight crime while delivering a speech that appeared designed to score political points against Democratic leaders and burnish his law-and-order image.

Appearing at an event with top federal law enforcement officials and the family members of crime victims, Trump delivered fiery talking points that took direct aim at those who have advocated redirecting funding from law enforcement to other endeavors. He blamed the recent increases in violence in some cities on leaders who have endorsed such steps and said he planned to increase federal law enforcement's presence to reduce crime.

The remarks seemed likely to exacerbate tensions between his administration and local officials and residents already wary of militarized U.S. officers roving their streets. Soon after he finished speaking, Chicago's mayor accused Trump of seeking to distract from his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

"In recent weeks, there's been a radical movement to defund, dismantle and dissolve our police departments. Extreme politicians have joined this anti-police crusade and relentlessly vilified our law enforcement heroes," Trump said. "To look at it from any standpoint, the effort to shut down policing in their own communities has led to a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence."

While it is true that violence has increased in some cities recently - coinciding with a global pandemic and huge protests over racism and police brutality - experts caution against drawing a firm conclusion from such small samples of data.

The deployments, at least at first, will be focused in Chicago and Albuquerque, where Attorney General William Barr said the Justice Department will roll out a program it launched earlier this month in Kansas City, Mo., to increase the number of agents from the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The program was named "Operation Legend" to honor 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was shot and killed in Kansas City last month.

"Our goal is to help save lives," Barr said.

Barr said more cities could be added to the operation in coming weeks. He said the federal government had sent more than 200 agents to Kansas City. Chicago, he said, would get a similar number, and more than 35 agents would be sent to Albuquerque.

They will be added to existing anti-violence crime task forces, Barr said. Chad Wolf, the acting homeland security secretary, said that although the operation will be led by the Justice Department, investigators from the Department of Homeland Security will also contribute.

Local officials often welcome federal help and resources to fight violent crime. Police officers frequently work together with agents from the FBI, the DEA and ATF on task forces focused on gangs, drugs or guns, and state officials often give their federal counterparts authority to help with local law enforcement.

But in large part because of the Trump administration's aggressive, militarized response to protests over racism and police brutality, that normally cooperative relationship has been strained. The tension became particularly acute in recent days after Customs and Border Protection agents were caught on camera clubbing protesters and stuffing them into unmarked vehicles in Portland, Ore., and Trump threatened to send federal law enforcement agencies into Democratic-run cities, including New York and Chicago.

Federal officials have defended their response in Portland, asserting that officers were protecting U.S. government buildings in a city that has seen night after night of black-clad protesters throwing projectiles and attempting to set the federal courthouse on fire.

Trump's remarks Wednesday seemed to be as focused on attacking political opponents as on detailing a public safety operation. He ticked off high-profile, violent incidents or offered data from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Albuquerque, which are run by Democratic mayors, and urged people to hold their local elected leaders accountable.

Among the cases he cited was one just from Tuesday evening, when 15 people were injured, two critically, in a shooting outside of a funeral home in Chicago.

"We must remember that the job of policing a neighborhood falls on the shoulders of local, elected leadership," Trump said. "When they abdicate their duty, the results are catastrophic."

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a Democrat, said at a later news conference that the speech was a "political stunt."

"The president is trying to divert attention from his failed leadership on covid-19," she said.

Even before Wednesday's announcement, Trump's deployment of federal law enforcement in response to violence and civil unrest had prompted significant outrage. On Wednesday, several lawmakers from Oregon, including Sens. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, and Ron Wyden, a Democrat, formally requested that the Justice Department and Homeland Security inspectors general investigate the "the unrequested presence and violent actions of recently deployed federal forces in Portland." Senate Democrats on Wednesday also aggressively questioned a Justice Department official who Trump has nominated to be the top lawyer for the intelligence community about the deployment.

"If the line is not drawn in the sand right now, Americans may be staring down the barrel of martial law in the middle of a presidential election," Wyden said at the hearing.

Local officials across the country - worried about the scenes in Portland playing out on their streets - have pushed back against the administration. On Tuesday, a group of 15, including District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, Kansas City, Mo., Mayor Quinton Lucas, a Democrat, and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat - sent a letter to Barr and Wolf saying the deployment of federal forces to cities was "unprecedented and violates fundamental constitutional protections and tenets of federalism." New York City's top lawyer said Wednesday that officials there opposed the federal government sending in federal troops or law enforcement, adding, "we will fight it in court."

Legal analysts say the administration unquestionably has the right to deploy federal officers to U.S. cities to enforce federal laws. But their power is not unlimited, and without the blessing of state or local authorities, they could not enforce state or local laws, legal analysts said.

The mayors of Chicago and Albuquerque had voiced concern over reports before the announcement that their cities might soon see an influx of federal officers. On Wednesday, though, Lightfoot noted that Trump had seemed to heed her complaints, and said that adding additional officers to existing federal officers was different from the deployment of DHS personnel to respond to civil unrest - as happened in Portland.

"That doesn't mean he's not going to try it here in Chicago," said Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor. Of adding federal officers to existing federal task forces, she said: "It's too soon to be able to say if this is a value add or not."

Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, a Democrat, said in a statement: "We always welcome partnerships in constitutional crime fighting that are in step with our community, but we won't sell out our city for a bait and switch excuse to send secret police to Albuquerque. Operation Legend is not real crime fighting; it's politics standing in the way of police work and makes us less safe."

In his remarks, Barr sought to draw a distinction between Operation Legend and the federal government's response to civil unrest in Portland. In court filings, federal officials have called that deployment "Operation Diligent Valor" and said 114 officers from various components of DHS and the U.S. Marshals Service are involved in protecting federal facilities.

"This is a different kind of operation, obviously, than the tactical teams we use to defend against riots and mob violence," Barr said of Operation Legend. "And we're going to continue to confront mob violence. But the operations we're discussing today are very different; they are classic crime fighting."

Charron Powell, Taliferro's mother, also tried to separate the operation named after her son with other actions of federal law enforcement.

"It's not to harm or to hurt," she said. "It is to help investigate unsolved murders."

In addition to sending more personnel, Barr said, the federal government also would be giving money to local police departments in need.

Barr claimed Operation Legend had led to 200 arrests in Kansas City in just two weeks. That, though, is incorrect, and a Justice Department official later said the figure to which Barr was referring included arrests, some by state and local officials, dating back to December, long before the operation was announced. At that time, the department announced an operation with a different name, "Relentless Pursuit," aimed at combating violent crime in seven cities, including Kansas City.

Like Trump, though, Barr blamed recent upticks in violence on efforts to defund the police.

"This rise is a direct result of the attack on the police forces and the weakening of police forces," he said.

After the recent shooting at the funeral home, David Brown, the Chicago police superintendent, decried what he called a "cycle of violence . . . fueled by street gangs, guns and drugs." He said this cycle was an endless procession of shootings and retaliation that left people feeling hopeless and unsafe in their neighborhoods.

"The cycle of violence in Chicago: Someone gets shot, which prompts someone else to pick up a gun," he said. "This same cycle repeats itself, over and over and over again. . . . The response, too often, is picking up a gun to seek vengeance."

- - -

The Washington Post's Mark Berman and Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report.
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Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod said on Wednesday that the U.S. desire to buy Greenland was not on the table during his meeting with the visiting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

"That discussion was dealt with last year and was not on the table here," Kofod told a press conference after the meeting.

The foreign minister acknowledged that Denmark and the United States had different opinions on issues such as climate change.

"We prefer that the U.S. remain in the Paris Agreement," said Kofod.

Earlier in the day, Pompeo met the country's prime minister Mette Frederiksen in Copenhagen.

The U.S. reopened a consulate in Greenland's capital Nuuk last month after 67 years. The United States previously had a consulate in Nuuk from 1940 to 1953.

U.S. President Donald Trump was scheduled to visit Denmark in the autumn of 2019, but canceled the visit after Frederiksen rejected his intention of purchasing Greenland by calling it an "absurd" proposal.

Greenland is the largest island in the world (excluding Australia, which is often defined as a continent), with a population of about 56,000.
The Member of Parliament for Effutu, Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin, has made a donation of $30,000 to help in the evacuation of stranded Ghanaians in Lebanon.



The announcement was made on Oman FM on Wednesday, July 22.



The donation is his contribution towards appeals made by some stranded Ghanaians who travelled to Lebanon and have been finding it difficult to cope with economic conditions in the country in the wake of the deadly coronavirus pandemic.



A video which went viral had these helpless Ghanaians making passionate appeals to the President of the Republic to come to the aid of these stranded Ghanaians.



In the same video, an appeal was made to Honourable Kennedy Agyapong to assist in evacuating the said distressed Ghanaians from Lebanon.



The Assin Central Member of Parliament has since pledged to support the project with $150,000.



It is in the same light that the Honourable Member of Parliament for Effutu, Afenyo-Markin, has also donated $30,000 to help bring the stranded Ghanaians home.

Source: peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Ukraine wants the topic of updating Association Agreement to be the main one at Ukraine-EU summit  PM

Ukraine wants the idea of renewing relations between Ukraine and the EU to be the main one at the Ukraine-EU Summit on October 1, and also hopes to conduct a fundamental analysis of the Association Agreement and eliminate its possible shortcomings in order to facilitate further coordination and integration of markets, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

"Our key instrument for implementing reforms is the Association Agreement. However, we understand that we live in a changing time and that is why it is important for us to make the Association Agreement even more flexible by constantly updating it. We want this idea of renewing our relationship to be the main one at the Ukraine-EU Summit on October 1 this year," he said during a press briefing in Brussels on Thursday.

According to the prime minister, there are several priorities.

"We would like to conduct a fundamental analysis of the Association Agreement and eliminate its possible shortcomings in order to facilitate our further coordination and integration of our markets, strengthen the dialogue on the signing of the Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products (ACAA), switch to a new stage of our dialogue on the application of the rules market of the EU in the field of telecommunications in Ukraine and to involve Ukraine in the implementation of the European Green Deal," said Shmyhal.

The head of government added that he is counting on the support of Ukraine's partners in the EU.

Meanwhile, Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commission Executive Vice-President responsible for an Economy that Works for People, noted that the Agreement is yielding results in many areas, and indicated that the trade between Ukraine and the EU reached a new record in 2019.
I think the color system is fine for information, but the final decision really needs to be left to the school district. They have the most current information about the status and the safety of those particular kids that are entrusted with their safety, said Flanagan. I really think the countywide stuff is so broad  if you have a nursing home or a meatpacking plant in your district and you have an outbreak in that, your numbers will go as high as the sky, but your school is OK.

Board member Estella Hernandez, of Oklahoma City, also opposed the adoption of statewide mandates, saying it violated assurances about protecting local control she made during the process of her appointment to the state Board of Education by Gov. Kevin Stitt.

Were talking about top-down, and thats not what Oklahoma and what this nation is all about, she said. Its about trusting our local boards to do what theyre intended to do.

The states newly recommended safety protocols are aligned with the color-coded COVID-19 alert system adopted about a month ago by the Oklahoma State Department of Health, which is updated weekly based on rates of community spread being documented in each of the states 77 counties.
Phoenix, Arizona--(Newsfile Corp. - July 22, 2020) - SinglePoint Inc. (OTCQB: SING) a fully reporting public company with core holdings in solar energy and hemp consumer products intends to prioritize and reallocate company assets and business strategy around the emerging and growing market opportunities in residential and solar energy and specific hemp based consumer products. The company's long term strategy is to increase shareholder value first by targeting accretive deals that have the potential to increase profitability, cash flow and to improve the balance sheet by paying down high interest or unfavorable convertible notes. We will continue to look to access capital with more favorable terms and judiciously utilize our stock to facilitate transactions that meet our acquisition or growth criteria.

Company Positioned to take Advantage of Nearly National Solar Network by Leveraging Internal Market Insight, Experience and Relationships to Focus on Solar Acquisitions that will Strengthen our US Solar Footprint:

Management unveils a residential and small commercial solar centric roll up strategy designed to increase market share, revenues and most importantly build a future business focused on profitability.





Intends to grow by initially targeting specific installer or developer based solar related acquisitions identified by its subsidiary, Direct Solar America, to capitalize on the emerging consolidation trend in the Solar Industry as evidenced by the recently announced Sun Run and Vivint Solar combination to compete with Tesla.





Solar Industry is rebounding from manufacturing (panel) tariffs while local and state mandates and credits and low cost of implementation position historic solar opportunity in anticipation of increased infrastructure and clean energy programs featuring solar.





Company focused on the two most promising long term strategic initiatives Hemp and Solar: other non core businesses to operate autonomously while being positioned for sale or strategic partnerships.

Story continues

Residential installations and Smaller Commercial Projects (<$20M) are rebounding from the effects COVID-19 had on the market as eco-conscious consumers look to take advantage of record low financing rates to lessen their impact on the planet while ensuring the ability to have power in these uncertain times. The company previously announced its first commercial project which fit the strategic commercial customer acquisition criteria developed by senior management to focus on small to mid-sized commercial projects that we feel are currently underserved in the market and represent a high growth potential. We are now utilizing this same criteria and applying it to identify known vendors and installers in our network to build our targeted acquisition pipeline. Targeting accretive acquisitions will propel the company to its goal of building a national solar installation network.

Direct Solar America ("DSA"), a wholly owned subsidiary (acquired on May 14, 2019) now operates in 34 states which is a leading if not the leading national solar sales brokerage company. In the past year DSA has added a commercial and a capital division. DSA has continued to build valuable referral and financing partnerships that enhance its deal flow and can improve margin and profitability on residential and commercial solar projects.

National Solar Network

The acquisition of Vivint Solar by Sun Run for $1.46B in stock and assumption of $1.8B in debt signaled to the market that the solar consolidation phase has begun. The Vivint-SunRun combination is estimated to control approximately 15% of the current residential solar market. This is a significant deal for solar and puts smaller providers in a precarious position as the economies of scale will be very difficult to maintain. SinglePoint believes that this deal solidifies management's plan to roll up targeted solar installation companies providing savings and enhancements related to sales acquisition costs and shared back office services. We intend to build a national solar installation network targeting acquisitions primarily within our existing solar sales footprint then expand into high growth potential areas. The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) report last updated June 11, 2020, the "supply chain, overhead and margin" are listed as over half of the average industry costs of $2.83 per installed watt.

In addition to the economies of scale, the planned vertical integration of our leading sales network and local installation will provide additional opportunities to create a network that has a multiplying effect on value creation and scale throughout the companies as opposed to simply having singular, siloed or "non-connected" solutions. Direct Solar America's early stage acquisition criteria is centered on multi-year installers that are doing between $5M - $15M in annual revenue. The current financial environment due to COVID-19 has impacted many businesses to the tune of 35% or more. Industry forecasts show that in 2020 the residential and non-residential markets will see 25% and 38% decreases in year-over-year installation volumes, respectively, as the segments face challenges posed by work stoppages, and permitting delays. We don't believe this to be a long term impact to solar as many leading industry outlets project a quick recovery and to resume projected growth in 2021. In fact, prior to the COVID-19 temporary slowdown, Solar has been growing quickly as overall prices have become affordable and competitive. Overall 2019 was a banner year for solar with nearly 40% of all new electricity was added by solar centric solutions.

The Solar+ Battery Storage opportunity

2021 and beyond represents a massive opportunity for solar as both parties have introduced or supported legislation earmarking billions of dollars towards infrastructure spending is a critical and essential tool to drive economic growth. Continued ESG focused investing alongside potential infrastructure and clean energy policies, including solar focused stimulus and incentives have the potential to provide sustainable tailwinds in the near future.

Excerpts from a recently published report (Morningstar Analyst Sees Potential for US Energy Independence with 100% Renewable Sources) by Travis Miller states that the country as a whole has a chance to make energy independence based on renewable sources: "Solar alone will never supply 100%. But when you combine solar with wind, with batteries and with some other non carbon or renewable energy sources, then I do think you can get to 100%. Solar already is at the top of the investment list for nearly all investors, from utilities to corporates, who want to expand their renewable energy profiles. Most of the market agrees that solar is the accepted choice for incremental renewable energy. It will only grow over the next decade as utilities and energy companies try to meet the demands from policymakers and corporates."

Direct Solar America - Residential Brokerage expands Nationally and adds Commercial and Capital Divisions and is now positioned to be a national solar provider capitalizing on the Solar+ Battery Storage market opportunity

In May 2019 SinglePoint completed the acquisition of Direct Solar of America, a solar energy brokerage business that helps its clients find and install the best available solar energy system for any building residential or commercial. From acquisition to year end 2019 the company surpassed $2,000,000 in revenue primarily in the Residential division, helping SinglePoint achieve its largest revenue year in the company history. Currently, Direct Solar America residential unit currently operates in 35 states being led by Texas, Illinois, Florida and North Carolina with plans to continue expansion. The 2020s has been labeled as the Solar+ decade as residential consumers and business owners continue to implement Solar+ Battery Storage solutions.

A Streamlined Focus on our most promising Core Business Assets

The past few years at SinglePoint have been focused on preparing the public company to become fully reporting and seeking out investments and capital partners to support the growth or acquisition of companies we felt had a high growth opportunity creating a diversified business platform with high risk and high reward possibilities. Moving forward we will concentrate a majority of our efforts to look for acquisitions or to make improvements in our go forward core business segments in the solar and hemp categories. Senior management is committed to continuing to look for accretive acquisitions, supported by favorable capital that will ultimately build profitable business units that with revenue growth in addition to utilizing future profits to pay down unfavorable term debt, improving cash flow, and the balance sheet. The Company filed a prospectus in June 2020 allowing for the resale of up to 320,000,000 shares of our common stock with a maximum value of $7,000,000 USD. The shares of common stock will be issued pursuant to the equity financing agreement with GHS Investments LLC. dated April 21, 2020. The equity financing agreement provides SinglePoint access to lower cost financing which will ultimately lessen dilution.

The Company intends to use the net proceeds for product development, repayment of debt, including less favorable convertible notes, sales and marketing, working capital, capital expenditures and other general corporate purposes. The Company is committed to having the ability to access capital in order to maintain and grow its existing core business units and as a potential component utilized for acquisitions which will result in further dilution to the existing shareholders.

Our ultimate goal for our stakeholders and shareholders is to uplist to a higher exchange, we are positioning the Company for that eventuality but it will take improvements in revenue and profits, shareholder equity, price per share to get to a higher listed exchange. It is our belief that eventually uplisting on a higher exchange provides additional liquidity for our current shareholders and investment groups. We are committed to taking the appropriate actions at the appropriate times to continue to drive the company towards achieving its goals.

"Our unveiling of Direct Solar of America/SinglePoint acquisition strategy comes at a unique time following the combination of Vivint and Sun Run signaling a potential consolidation phase in the Solar Industry. We are focused on building a national installation network that leverages our recent expansion of our virtual sales network currently covering 34 states," states Wil Ralston, President SinglePoint. "We intend to take advantage of the slight downturn in the market caused by the Covid19 pandemic to bolster and build our market share through targeted acquisitions. We believe that we have a compelling opportunity to build a truly national solar network and the time is now for us as a Company as consumer demand for cleaner energy will continue and be enhanced by the historical proposed infrastructure spending that is on the horizon."

About SinglePoint, Inc.:

Founded in 2011 SinglePoint, Inc. (OTCQB: SING) invests in and acquires brands and companies that will benefit from injection of growth capital and the sales and marketing expertise of SinglePoint. The company portfolio currently includes solar, hemp and technology applications. SinglePoint is working to grow the company to a multinational brand.

Connect on social media at:

https://www.facebook.com/SinglePointMobile

https://twitter.com/_SinglePoint

https://www.linkedin.com/company/singlepoint

https://www.youtube.com/user/SinglePointMobile

For more information visit: www.SinglePoint.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Rule 175 under the Securities Act of 1933 and Rule 3b-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and are subject to the safe harbor created by those rules. All statements, other than statements of fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding potential future plans and objectives of the Company, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. 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.

Technical complications, which may arise, could prevent the prompt implementation of any strategically significant plan(s) outlined above. The Company undertakes no duty to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release.

Corporate Communication

SinglePoint Inc.

888-OTC-SING

investors@singlepoint.com

www.singlepoint.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60278
Joe Biden, Donald Trump

Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden has labeled Donald Trump as the first racist to become U.S. president.

Biden made this known as he fielded a question at a Service Employees International Union roundtable from a healthcare worker concerned about the Republican president calling the coronavirus pandemic the China virus.

Responding to the question, Biden, who was vice president under Barack Obama, the first Black U.S. president, said it was sickening how Trump deals with people based on the colour of their skin, their national origin, where theyre from.

He added: No sitting presidents ever done this. Never, never, never.

No Republican president has done this. No Democratic president.

Weve had racists, and theyve existed, and theyve tried to get elected president. Hes the first one that has.

The Trump camp has quickly rejected the label, as campaign senior adviser Katrina Pierson fired back, calling Bidens comments an insult to the intelligence of Black voters given the onetime senators past work with segregationist lawmakers.

She said Trump loves all people and works hard to empower all Americans.

A number of U.S. presidents owned slaves or supported policies including the repression of Native Americans and segregation of Black Americans.

Princeton University said last month it was dropping former President Woodrow Wilsons name from the school, citing his racist thinking and policies.
New Delhi:

With opposition seeking to rake up the issue of demonetisation in Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the government is ready to discuss all issues and hoped parties will contribute in completing the legislative agenda in the Winter session.

Addressing the media outside Parliament House on day one of the month-long Winter session, he hoped a "very good" discussion will take place on all issues which are based on the political ideologies of parties, the hopes and aspirations of the common man, and the thinking of the government.

"I feel a very good debate will take place in this session too. All parties will have the best of contribution. Best of efforts will be made to take all parties along in completing the government business," he said.

The Prime Minister said the government is ready for discussion on all issues. "We are ready for an open debate which will lead to good and important decisions," he said.

He recalled that in the last session, taking an important decision on GST, Parliament took an important step towards the dream of one country, one tax.

"That day too, I had thanked all parties. When all parties work together for national interest, good decisions are taken and they are taken fast. It also give good results," he said.

He said to take the GST issue forward, all state governments and parties they represent are holding regular meetings. Discussions on the issue have been on even before the commencement of the session, he pointed out.

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The United Nations (UN) Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Edward Kallon, has condemned the killing of five aid workers by Boko Haram insurgents in Borno.

Mr Kallon, in a statement released in Maiduguri, said he was utterly shocked and horrified by the gruesome killing of some of his colleagues and partners by non-state armed groups in Borno State.

He said the victims were committed humanitarians who devoted their lives to helping vulnerable people and communities in an area heavily affected by violence.

Our colleagues and partners were abducted while travelling on a main route connecting the northern town of Monguno with Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

Their safety and securing their safe release have been our highest priority since they were captured in June.

I strongly condemn all violence targeting aid workers and the civilians they are assisting. I am also troubled by the number of illegal vehicular checkpoints set up by non-state armed groups along main supply routes.

These checkpoints disrupt the delivery of life-saving assistance and heighten the risks for civilians of being abducted, killed or injured, with aid workers increasingly being singled out.

This is tragically not the first killing of kidnapped aid workers. We have repeatedly called for such devastating fate and blatant violation of international humanitarian law to never happen again.

And yet, it does. I implore all armed parties to step up their responsibilities and stop targeting aid workers and civilians, he said.

Mr Kallon said that all aid workers and the assistance they provide to the most vulnerable populations made the difference between life and death for entire communities.

According to him, nearly eight million people are in need of urgent life-saving assistance in north-east Nigeria at the beginning of the year and today, 10.6 million people need urgent support as conflict-affected states battle the COVID-19 pandemic.

At a time when humanitarian needs have reached unprecedented levels, it is unacceptable that those who are trying to help are being attacked and killed, he said.

Mr Kallon said that the incident would not deter the international community from providing aid to millions of Nigerians who desperately needed assistance in the north-east.

He said that the humanitarian community stood in solidarity with the people of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states who had suffered long years of conflict and now needed protection against a deadly virus.

PREMIUM TIMES reported the killing of the aid workers which has also been condemned by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Mr Buhari, in a statement by his spokesperson, Garba Shehu, said that his government will continue to do all it can to ensure that every remaining vestige of Boko Haram is wiped out completely from northeastern Nigeria and that the perpetrators of this atrocity face the law.

President Buhari also condoles with the State Emergency Management Agency, Action Against Hunger, Rich International, and International Rescue Committee, whose staff have suffered this gruesome fate.

He thanks them for their continued dedication and service to the victims of Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria. He assures them that security agencies in the state will work closely with their organisations to implement measures to ensure that no such kidnapping of staff occurs again, Mr Shehu said.
Assassination of General Soleimani flagrant violation of Iraq sovereignty: Speaker

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, July 22, IRNA -- Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf in a tweet on Wednesday reiterated that assassination of anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qasem Soleimani is a flagrant breach of Iraq sovereignty.

"During the meeting with the Iraqi Prime Minister Mostafa Al-Kadhimi, I stressed that the criminal act of assassination of General Soleimani, international hero of fighting terrorism, is an eternal stain on the face of the White House statesmen and blatant violation Iraq's sovereignty," he added.

Political stability and sustainable economic growth is undoubtedly contingent upon expelling American criminals from the region, he said.

A US drone attack killed General Soleimani and al-Muhandis near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, prompting international condemnations.

Earlier, Tehran Prosecutor Ali al-Qasi Mehr said that through Interpol Iran has ordered arresting 36 US political and military officials, including President Donald Trump, who were involved in the assassination of Iran's anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qasem Soleimani.

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has called for proportionate military action against the US interests in response to the heinous crime against the Iranian Commander who was on an official mission to Baghdad.

Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted the US airbase of Ain al-Assad in Al-Anbar province in western Iraq.

8072**2050

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As a global pandemic raged, a major nationwide drop in the number of people behind bars has been felt here in New Jersey, according to a new study.

The Associated Press and The Marshall Project collaborated on a nationwide analysis that found that state and federal prison populations dropped by 8% between March and June as 100,000 people were released.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Businesses that are open | Homepage

In New Jersey, the rate of release was just a bit higher at 9.9%. The states prison population, which stood at 18,439 on March 15, dropped to 16,613 by June 16, a decrease of 1,826 inmates, 14th-most among U.S. states.

In all of 2019, the state and federal prison population dropped by just 2.2%.

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Many of the declines nationwide, according to the AP, did not result from an effort to free people with health risks to manage the spread of the coronavirus on the inside.

The drop more often came because prisons stopped accepting new prisoners from county jails. In addition, the closures of courts led to fewer sentences being handed down, while parole officers sent fewer people back to prison for low-level violations.

A May investigation by NJ Advance Media for NJ.com detailed the states failure to stop the virus from spreading inside prisons, resulting in dozens of deaths. New Jersey prisons have seen 27 deaths per 10,000 incarcerated people due to COVID-19, the highest rate in the U.S., according to The Marshall Project.

Last month, New Jersey  along with all but nine states  received a failing grade from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Prison Policy Initiative for its handling of the pandemic in prisons.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Nick Devlin is a reporter on the data & investigations team. He can be reached at ndevlin@njadvancemedia.com.
A massive global study of the world's reefs has found sharks are 'functionally extinct' on nearly one in five of the reefs surveyed.

Professor Colin Simpfendorfer from James Cook University in Australia was one of the scientists who took part in the study, published today in Nature by the Global FinPrint organisation. He said of the 371 reefs surveyed in 58 countries, sharks were rarely seen on close to 20 percent of those reefs.

"This doesn't mean there are never any sharks on these reefs, but what it does mean is that they are 'functionally extinct' -- they are not playing their normal role in the ecosystem," said Professor Simpfendorfer.

He said almost no sharks were detected on any of the 69 reefs of six nations: the Dominican Republic, the French West Indies, Kenya, Vietnam, the Windward Dutch Antilles and Qatar.

"In these countries, only three sharks were observed during more than 800 survey hours," said Professor Simpfendorfer.

Dr Demian Chapman, Global FinPrint co-lead and Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Institute of Environment at Florida International University, said it's clear the central problem is the intersection between high human population densities, destructive fishing practices, and poor governance.

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"We found that robust shark populations can exist alongside people when those people have the will, the means, and a plan to take conservation action," said Dr Chapman.

Professor Simpfendorfer said it was encouraging that Australia was among the best nations at protecting shark populations and ensuring they played their proper role in the environment.

"We're up there along with such nations as the Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia and the US. These nations reflect key attributes that were found to be associated with higher populations of sharks: being generally well-governed, and either banning all shark fishing or having strong, science-based management limiting how many sharks can be caught," he said.

Jody Allen, co-founder and chair of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation which backs the Global FinPrint project, said the results exposed a tragic loss of sharks from many of the world's reefs, but also gave some hope.

"The data collected from the first-ever worldwide survey of sharks on coral reefs can guide meaningful, long-term conservation plans for protecting the reef sharks that remain," she said.

For more information and a new global interactive data-visualized map of the Global FinPrint survey results, visit https://globalfinprint.org.

Global FinPrint is an initiative of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and led by Florida International University, supported by a global coalition of partner organizations spanning researchers, funders and conservation groups. The project represents the single largest and most comprehensive data-collection and analysis program of the world's populations of reef-associated sharks and rays ever compiled.
On the evening of Sunday, January 24, 1965, the BBC made a last-minute change to its schedules.

Following Winston Churchills death, Prime Minister Harold Wilson had asked to address the nation.

Wilsons opening words set the tone. Tonight, he said simply, our nation pays its tribute to the greatest man any of us have known.

The BBCs message was clear. Churchill was a racist and a villain  and if you dont agree, then so are you

Over the next few days, the BBCs coverage reflected the national mood. Bulletins faithfully reported the words of Churchills old rival, Labours Clement Attlee, who thought the wartime leader was the greatest Englishman of our time  I think the greatest citizen of the world of our time.

And at Churchills funeral, the BBCs cameras captured the scene as dockers cranes along the Thames dipped in a collective salute.

Attack

That was the BBC half a century ago, a broadcaster that spoke for the nation. But its attitude to Churchill today could hardly be more different.

On Tuesday morning, Radio 4s Today programme devoted a long segment to an attack on Churchills record in India.

Then, later that evening, BBC Ones flagship News at Ten gave the impression, incredibly, that Churchill bore personal responsibility for the deaths of three million people in the Bengal famine of 1943.

What made the famine of 1943 so dreadful was the context. Japans invasion of Burma had driven hundreds of thousands of starving refugees into India. Meanwhile, Japanese ships had sunk an estimated 100,000 tonnes of Allied shipping in the Bay of Bengal

One Indian academic maintained Churchill had been the precipitator of terrible mass killings, while Oxford historian, Yasmin Khan said Churchill was guilty of prioritising white lives over Asian lives.

Watching in disbelief, I wondered which historians the BBC had lined up to counter these arguments.

Sir Max Hastings, one of our leading experts on Churchill and World War II? Andrew Roberts, whose recent biography of the great man won countless awards?

The answer was: nobody. No mention of the complexities of wartime; no mention of Churchills national service.

The BBCs message was clear. Churchill was a racist and a villain  and if you dont agree, then so are you.

Not surprisingly, viewers have been up in arms. So too have been those historians who know most about Churchill, the war and 1940s India.

With the BBC facing the greatest challenge in its history, with millions defecting to Sky, Netflix and Amazon, and elderly viewers outraged about the withdrawal of their free licences, it seems incredible that the corporation should wilfully smear Britains most revered patriotic icon.

Whats more, has the BBC no sense of civic responsibility? Its only a few weeks since, humiliatingly, both the Cenotaph and Churchills Parliament Square statue had to be boxed up to protect them from screaming mobs. Is the BBC hoping to whip up a repeat performance?

But Ill come back to the BBC. First, a bit of history.

Theres no doubt the Bengal famine, which killed perhaps three million people in 1943 and 1944, was a horrific business.

It was one of dozens of famines that have stricken the subcontinent in recorded history, such as the Deccan famine of 1630 to 1632, in which some seven million died.

The common denominator is the climate. With its teeming population, India desperately needs water to irrigate crops.

What made the famine of 1943 so dreadful was the context. Japans invasion of Burma had driven hundreds of thousands of starving refugees into India. Meanwhile, Japanese ships had sunk an estimated 100,000 tonnes of Allied shipping in the Bay of Bengal.

Above all, the Japanese had cut off the flow of Burmese rice, on which so many Indian families depended.

The British authorities handled the famine very badly. Bengals colonial administrators were disastrously slow to realise the scale of the problem, and far too slow to lower trade barriers and bring in food imports from overseas.

But was the famine deliberate? Was it mass murder? No, quite obviously not. As for Churchill, no serious historian blames him personally for a famine thousands of miles away. He was not running Bengal. He was in London, struggling to win a world war.

According to the London School of Economics Professor Tirthankar Roy, author of the definitive economic history of modern India: Churchill was not a relevant factor behind the 1943 Bengal famine. The agency with the most responsibility for causing the famine and not doing enough was the government of Bengal.

In reality, Churchill specifically told the Viceroy of India, Lord Wavell, that every effort must be made, even by the diversion of shipping urgently needed for war purposes, to deal with local shortages.

And although its true Churchill could have diverted more ships, theres a glaringly obvious reason why he didnt. For much of 1943, Britain was locked in the Battle of the Atlantic, a life-or-death struggle to get supplies past Hitlers U-boat wolf packs.

Misleading

As the historian James Holland writes: Britain and America were fighting in Sicily  an island that could be supplied effectively only by ship; they were about to invade mainland Italy; they were preparing for the invasion of north-west Europe; and fighting the Japanese throughout the Pacific.

Was Churchill really expected to interrupt the war effort, with millions of lives at stake around the world?

Of course historians will always debate these things. But the BBC left no room for nuance. Instead, it presented a one-sided, almost deliberately misleading account, utterly divorced from context.

Was it mass murder? No, quite obviously not. As for Churchill, no serious historian blames him personally for a famine thousands of miles away. He was not running Bengal

Why on earth would the BBC do this? Im afraid the answer is obvious.

As a patriotic hero, Churchill has become a prime target for woke activists who dream of rewriting Britains history as a dreary saga of racism and oppression. And in the media and in our universities, bashing Churchill has become an easy way for attention-seekers to pander to the mob.

Churchill was a racist. Its time to break free of his great white men view of history, the University of Exeters Richard Toye told the American network CNN last month  which is pretty rich, given he has written five books on the subject.

We celebrate the war an awful lot, moans another historian, Keith Lowe, in an interview about Churchill and Bengal for the BBCs own history magazine. Are we remembering the Allied victory through rose-coloured glasses?

Smug

This attitude has deep roots. Even before the war, George Orwell, who loathed the high-minded Lefts sanctimonious self-flagellation, complained: Almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during God Save The King than of stealing from a poor box.

Todays equivalent is saying anything complimentary about Churchill.

That such attitudes have penetrated the BBC is a tragedy. The outlook for our national broadcaster is already bleak enough.

Are BBC producers unable to see that if they keep lying about Britains history, they will lose popular support? Do they really care so little about the truth of our past?

And are they really so cocooned in their smug metropolitan prejudices they cant see how deeply they are offending millions of people?

The answer, I fear, is clear. But this will not end well for the corporation.

Most of us still look to the BBC as the voice of the nation, just as our predecessors did in 1965. We expect it to ask tough questions.

But we dont expect it to smear the dead, distort our past or pander to prejudice.

Many people have already lost patience, and would love to see the end of the TV licence. My own view is that the BBC remains  if only just  a precious national asset, and that Panorama and the Proms are still worth paying for.

But my tolerance isnt inexhaustible. And if the BBC continues down this road, theres an obvious remedy. Its called the off-switch.
A 41-year-old Connecticut state police trooper is facing benefits fraud charges after authorities allege he earned $47,000 from a T-shirt printing business while out of work on disability.

Trooper First Class Kevin Moore, of Moosup, was charged with fraudulent claim or receipt of benefits and first-degree larceny by defrauding a public community, the Division of Criminal Justice said Wednesday.

Moores arrest warrant claims he sustained a back injury in July 2019 while working as a state trooper, the state agency said in a press release.

A physician placed him on temporary total disability, essentially wage replacement benefits paid by the employer's workers' compensation insurance carrier, which in this case is the state of Connecticut, while the claimant is unable to perform any type of work due to a work-related injury or illness, the agency said.

Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice / Contributed photo

Moore was placed under surveillance from November last year to this February to see if he was exceeding the work limits imposed by his disability.

It was determined that while out on workers' compensation benefits from his job as a state trooper, Moore owned and ran a T-shirt silk screening business, Four82 Designs, for which he received payment for T-shirts he supplied, the press release said.

The surveillance by an insurance claims adjustment firm found Moore had earned around $47,000 that he was not entitled to, the release said.

The Connecticut State Police media relations unit said Moore has been employed by state police since 2004. He has most recently been assigned to Troop K in Colchester.

The Professional Standards Unit will review the facts and circumstances regarding the allegations against TFC Moore, the unit said in an email Wednesday. Based upon the findings of the internal affairs investigation, he will be held accountable for his non-police related actions accordingly.

The unit said the off-duty conduct alleged to have occurred by TFC Moore has severe consequences.

Moore was released on a written promise to appear in court. He is due in state Superior Court in Hartford on July 30.
Kabul, July 23 (UNI) Thirty-one Taliban militants were killed and 15 others injured in clashes with Afghan forces in the Khogyani district of the eastern Nangarhar province, bordering Pakistan, a spokesman for the provincial governor said on Thursday.

"There has been heavy fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban in Khogyani since yesterday. Thirty-one Taliban insurgents, including 13 Pakistanis, were killed, and one was captured alive, and 15 others were injured in a counter-attack by security forces in the Qailagho area of Khogyani district since last afternoon," Ataullah Khogyani said.

However, it was not clear how many Afghan troops were killed or wounded in the fighting. About 10 vehicles and some amount of weapons and ammunition belonging to the Taliban were destroyed, TOLOnews reported.

According to Khogyani, five anti-vehicle mines planted by the insurgents were discovered and destroyed, without any damage caused.

UNI XC ACL1154
Carnival said its sub-brand Princess Cruises would be extending a pause on operations in Asia and the Americas until 15 December Photo: Ivan Pisarenko/AFP via Getty Images

Cruise operator Carnival (CCL.L) has confirmed further delays to restarting operations at one of its key subsidiaries, citing the continued spread of COVID-19 worldwide.

Carnival said in an investor update on Thursday that its sub-brand Princess Cruises would be extending a pause on operations in Asia and the Americas until 15 December. Voyages departing from Australia will be paused until 31 October.

We share in our guests disappointment in cancelling these cruises, Jan Swartz, Princess Cruises president, said in a statement.

We look forward to the days when we can return to travel and the happiness it brings to all who cruise.

Stock in Carnival was trading marginally higher in both London and the pre-market on Wall Street despite the announcement.

Cruise ships became notorious in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic due to high-profile outbreaks of on some vessels, including two operated by Princess Cruises. The Diamond Princess and the Grand Princess both faced outbreaks, with thousands of passengers trapped on board and infections running into the hundreds.

READ MORE: Carnival CEO: 'We are doing what we need to do' to start cruising

The US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) put in place a no sail order earlier this year, which is set to expire on 30 September.

However, COVID-19 infections in the US have begun to climb rapidly in recent weeks, which makes restarting operations in the Americas challenging for Carnival. The US recorded over 71,000 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, according to the John Hopkins University tracking project, close to the record high of 77,300 recorded last week.

Chief executive Arnold Donald told Yahoos All Market Summit this week: We are doing what we need to do. Our priority is public health... there is so much yet to learn about COVID-19.

Carnivals share price has collapsed by 70% since the start of the year and the company has been forced to raise $10bn (7.9bn) through a mixture of debt and equity.
Nashville is barring restaurants from staying open late starting Friday in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Mayor John Cooper said Tuesday.

In a virtual news conference, Cooper said an order will require restaurants, restaurants that have turned into bars during the pandemic and other businesses that serve alcohol to close by 10 p.m. Takeout options can stay open later, said Alex Jahangir, head of Nashvilles coronavirus task force.

Cooper pointed to videos that circulated over the weekend of crowds outside restaurants and other businesses in Nashville, with most people not wearing masks. Earlier this month, Nashville ordered bars to close again due to the growth in new coronavirus cases, but some bars also qualified to stay open as restaurants.

This order is intended to enable our businesses to operate responsibly, while also discouraging those who would come here and shirk their personal and societal responsibilities during this public health crisis, Cooper said.

Tennessee reported more than 2,100 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus across the state on Tuesday. That was down from a high of 3,314 last Monday, although the trend continues to swing upward.

Nashville reported 240 new confirmed cases on Tuesday.

Topics COVID-19
(Newser)  "The timing for the event is not right," President Trump said Thursday. "To have a big convention is not the right time." So Republicans will not be gathering in Jacksonville next month for their national convention. Trump made the announcement during his coronavirus briefing at the White House, saying he wants to protect his supporters from the coronavirus and the protesters, the Washington Post reports. Florida reported 173 COVID-19 deaths Thursday, a record for a single day. Trump said that aides told him the convention could be held safely but that he told them the timing is "just not right with what's happened recently." Thousands of people, he said, "desperately" want to attend the event in Jacksonville. "The pageantry, the signs, the excitement were really, really top of the line," Trump said. Around 10,000 people were expected, far fewer than would normally attend the party's convention, per the AP.

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The convention originally was planned for Charlotte, and Trump said the formal selection of the party's presidential nominee will still take place there. Trump had pulled the main event from North Carolina after disagreeing with the governor about pandemic restrictions. Trump said he'll still deliver an acceptance speech in some form. Fundraising for the Florida event also has lagged, per the New York Times. Instead, more than 2,000 delegates will vote by proxy, and 336 delegates will be invited to take part in person in Charlotte. A Republican lawyer in Jacksonville was glad to hear of the cancellation, saying the party hadn't done any planning. "They were having trouble getting people to come here," he said. "No one in their right mind would come here. This thing was a nightmare for our community." (Georgia also offered to host the Republican National Convention.)
Pop-up Testing Clinics Planned In Chatham And Harwich; Several Local Restaurants Close

This story was updated at 4:20 p.m. July 24.

CHATHAM State officials have updated the number of positive cases of COVID-19 stemming from a July 12 party in Chatham to 13.

A pop-up testing clinic will held Monday in Chatham to test anyone who was at the party or has been in close contact with someone who was there. Harwich announced Friday it would also hold a testing clinic next week after three residents who were at the party tested positive for COVID-19.

The Chatham clinic will be held in the parking lot of the town hall annex at 261 George Ryder Rd. July 27 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in cooperation with the Barnstable County Department of Health and Environment and Cape Cod Healthcare. The clinic is open to anyone who was at the party or has been in close contact with someone who attended. Pre-registration is required by calling the health department at 508-945-5165 Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Many of those who were at the party reportedly work in the local food industry, and none, apparently, were wearing masks.

One of those testing positive is a Chatham resident, according to Director of Health and Natural Resources Dr. Robert Duncanson. Three others were Harwich residents, prompting the town to set up a testing clinic next week. A date and time have not yet been announced. It was not clear if the three Harwich cases were among the original 10 positive cases announced earlier this week, or if they were the three new cases announced Friday.

After the town was notified of the cluster of COVID-19 cases by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Health Agent Judith Giorgio sent an email to all restaurant owners in town urging them to talk with their employees to determine if any attended the party and did not take social distancing precautions. If an employee was exposed at the party, they should not come to work, monitor their health for coronavirus symptoms and self-quarantine for 14 days. Any potential contacts from the party or sick employees should be reported to her immediately, she wrote.

Harwich Health Department Director Meggan Eldredge sent a similar email to restaurants in her town. Employees of the Port Restaurant, Embers and J Bar in Harwich Port tested positive for the virus and the establishments closed for cleaning in accordance with state and local protocols.

At least three Chatham restaurants have closed after an employee tested positive for the virus, but Duncanson said it was not clear if any of those people were at the party.

"We don't know specifically that they are in fact connected to the cluster," he said Wednesday.

Kreme N' Kone announced on its Facebook page Wednesday that it would be closing until further notice after one employee tested positive. The restaurant will be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected and reopened when the health department says it is safe, according to the posting. The Talkative Pig also announced on Facebook that it was closing until July 27 after one of its "back of the house employees" tested positive. The restaurant will be deeply cleaned and employees self-quarantine as per Centers for Disease Control guidelines, according to the post. Knott's Landing also announced that due to the cluster, it was closing its dining room and will be doing take-out and patio dining only for the foreseeable future.

Duncanson also said that Del Mar Bar and Bistro was also closing, and one local hair salon also had an employee test positive.

On Monday, Hangar B announced that it was closing after an employee was exposed to a person who tested positive for COVID-19, but that exposure did not occur at the party in question, according to owner Tracy Shields. She said her employee was friends with a person who tested positive, and the employee tested negative in a quick response test but agreed to self-isolate for two weeks from the exposure. Another employee is also self-isolating as a precaution. That puts almost half her staff out of commission, Shields said. Hangar B was closed Monday and Tuesday in accordance with state guidelines for cleaning and to allow the rest of the staff to be tested. She said when the restaurant reopens, it will go back to take-out only for two weeks.

We want to watch out for our staff, but also we want to do everything possible to avoid not being able to operate at all, which could happen should other staff members test positive or a larger outbreak occurs, she said. Two weeks is a good amount of time to let this play out.

Duncanson said the DPH said between 30 and 50 people were at the July 12 house party. It was not known how many work in the food service industry or the street address of the party. We're trying to get that information from the DPH, Duncanson said. Chatham police received no reports or complaints about the party, according to a press release issued by the town Thursday afternoon.

The state knows the identity of the people who tested positive and contact tracing is being done by the Visiting Nurse Association in accordance with public health guidelines, Duncanson said. Privacy laws prohibit releasing the name of the Chatham resident involved, and the town does not have access to residency information for the others who tested positive, according to the press release.

Hopefully this doesn't get much larger, Duncanson told selectmen Tuesday.

It's something we've all been very concerned about, Duncanson added, referring to news reports from other parts of the country about COVID-19 clusters developing after parties, especially among young people. These kinds of events are really problematic, and they are hitting home on the Cape. We've seen it elsewhere, but it can, in fact, happen here.

I think we have to remind everyone that this is really serious, said Chairman of Selectmen Shareen Davis.

Davis notified residents of the cluster in a recorded phone call Thursday afternoon.

"While this news is alarming it is unfortunately not surprising, as we have seen large gatherings where people not wearing masks and social distancing have resulted in a large number of cases across the country," she said, urging people to avoid gatherings, wear masks and wash their hands to prevent the spread of the virus.

People don't seem to have learned the lessons from similar incidents in other states, Selectman Jeffrey Dykens said Tuesday. Young people partying leads to COVID cases, he said.

Duncanson said Tuesday that Chatham's official COVID-19 count increased by one to 23  20 have cleared, three are still being monitored  and while the daily count of new cases in Barnstable County went above double digits for three or fours day, it was back to single digits Tuesday. It was not unexpected, he said, noting that officials were girding for an increase two weeks after the number of visitors to the Cape surged around the July 4 weekend.

It's a little foreboding to see the changes in the numbers, said Davis, a member of the Cape Cod Reopening Task Force, but not unexpected, with so many people around.

Chatham has generally done a good job at keeping virus in check; the positive rate from tests is about 1.65 percent, Duncanson said, on the low end for the state. Social distancing and wearing masks when that is not possible are critical (the board of health has mandated masks downtown, at the lighthouse overlook and fish pier observation deck), and it's the responsibility of town leaders to reiterate that as much as possible, said Dykens.

If you can't be socially distant out in public, wear a mask, he said.



While some towns have had issues with gatherings on public beaches, that hasn't been a problem here, Duncanson said. There's little that can be done about groups on private property.

We don't necessarily know about it until somebody complains to the police, he said. State guidelines exempt unenclosed outdoor spaces like backyards from gathering size limits, and face covering orders only apply to public spaces. Barnstable County is working on public service announcements geared toward the younger demographic who might not necessarily get information from a town website, but could be reached through Instagram or other social media platforms, he said.

The low numbers in the state may be deceptive if out-of-state visitors who test positive are not being counted, said resident Elaine Gibbs. She questioned how many of the partygoers lived out of state. How many people did they infect? she said.

Massachusetts can't be lulled into complacency thinking it's doing a great job when it's a tourist place, she said. I think there's a huge demographic that's being missed in Massachusetts and other states.

When a person tests positive in Massachusetts, the DPH notifies the health department in their hometown, not necessarily the town where they are staying at the time.
Drew Angerer/Getty

After weeks of warnings from health officials, President Donald Trump on Thursday abruptly decided to play public health hero and cancel the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville, Florida, announcing plans instead for some things with teleralliesjust a few days after his private company quietly sought to trademark the idea.

Trump made the announcement just a few minutes in to the White House's daily coronavirus briefing, declaring that its not the right time in light of the massive coronavirus outbreak in the state.

Trump said the RNCs delegates would still meet in Charlotte, North Carolina, and that he would still hold a convention speech, albeit in a different form.

Were going to do other things, like tele-rallies and other, smaller events, he said.

While Trump attributed his decision to a desire to protect the American people and set an example amid the pandemicwhich has now killed 144,000 Americansmany were quick to note that the pivot to telerallies came about a week after The Washington Post reported that a subsidiary of the Trump Organization filed an application to trademark the term telerally for organizing events in the field of politics and political campaigning.

The abrupt reversal also came after months of insistence from the president that a spiraling pandemic would somehow not prevent a mass gathering devoted to his re-coronation. It was also a likely source of relief to Florida officials, rank-and-file Republicans, and public health experts everywhere wondering how it could possibly go off.

The status of the RNCs planned event in Jacksonville was increasingly in doubt in recent days, as the surging coronavirus crisis in Florida broke records on a near-daily basisand as local officials expressed concern that the Republican National Committee had not sufficiently explained how the event would be conducted safely.

Boat Parties Are the New Way to Spread COVID-19 in Florida

Until I feel the health, safety and welfare are solidly protected, I cant support this bill or any bill that could potentially implode with the virus and our safety and the welfare of our community and those that are coming here, said Jacksonville City Council President Tommy Hazouri earlier this week, noting that a majority of city residents had opposed holding the event. Hazouri was referring to legislation on local funding to facilitate the event.

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As the virus continued to rip through Florida, businesses were cautiously anticipating more news about whether they would be accepted by the top GOP committee to work for the confab. Several Jacksonville-based businesses who spoke with The Daily Beast said they were excited about the prospect of some additional cash flow, more so than feeling thrilled about appearing at a major function for Trump. Some local vendors said it would help boost their bottom lines, and that remaining vigilant with safety precautions was top of mind.

The decision to host the RNC in Florida was sporadic, and even headache-inducing, for some Republicans involved in planning. Just as the president was considering a variety of options for host locations, Ed Rollins, who now chairs the GOP group Great America PAC, told The Daily Beast in early June that, logistically its a nightmare.

Rollins also told The Beast that Trump should attempt to make the event as small-scale as possible, given the ongoing public health concerns that coronavirus presents.

Earlier in July, The Daily Beast reported that local officials in Jacksonville became scared that the Florida episode might turn into something that resembled his rally in Tulsa the previous month.

For his part, Trump on Thursday denied that Florida officials had pushed back against the event going forward, citing only safety as the reason.

We have time, you know, were talking about the end of August, he said, allowing that while the event would be nothing like RNCs in the past, he was confident it would be successful.

The president, contradicting his past insistence that responsibility for the government response to the pandemic often lay with state and local officials rather than himself, said he felt that it was incumbent on the Republican National Committee to emulate the behavior that he had lately begun to encourage everyday Americans to practice. In recent days, Trump has given some rhetorical ground on wearing masks in particulara practice he long dismissed, and even attacked his Democratic rival Joe Biden for doing.

We have to be vigilant, he said. We have to be careful. We also have to set an example. I think setting the example is very importantits hard for us to say were going to have a lot of people packed in a room, and then other people shouldnt do it.

Earlier this week, The Daily Beast obtained a copy of the current plans for the Democratic National Convention that showed a wildly scaled-back convention, with attendees sitting at socially distant tables, and with a program that will largely be conducted remotely at sites around the country.

After his initial announcement that the convention was cancelled, Trump was short on details for how the event would be conducted, only saying that the convention would feature tele-rallies and online events.

During a question-and-answer session with reporters, the president said that while he still believes that the virus will somehow disappear eventually, we wanted it to go away without a lot of death.

We didnt want to take any chances, Trump said.

Still, he could not help but attempt to put a positive spin on the American outbreak, which has risen to more than 4 million cases. The country is in very good shape, other than if you look south and west. Some problems. Itll all work out, Trump said, referring to the slew of states where case counts and hospitalization rates have skyrocketed.

As for the Republican convention, now in its third iteration, it will be really good, the president promised. I think were gonna do it well.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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UNDP says temporary, unconditional basic income could help 2.7 billion living in poverty  and stem COVID-19s spread.

Introducing a temporary basic income for the worlds poorest people will not only give them the means to buy food and medicine, but could also help stop the spread of the coronavirus, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) stresses in a new report released on Thursday.

The report, Temporary Basic Income: Protecting Poor and Vulnerable People in Developing Countries, advocates for a time-bound and unconditional cash transfer to serve as a minimum income guarantee for 2.7 billion people living under or near the poverty line in 132 developing countries.

The Temporary Basic Income, or TBI, is estimated to cost from $199bn to $465bn a month depending on how it is structured, and can last nine to 12 months  or longer if needed  as governments get to grips with the coronavirus pandemic that is currently spreading globally at a rate of 1.6 million new cases per week.

We need to take it up a notch, George Gray Molina, one of the reports authors, told Al Jazeera.

In the absence of unemployment insurance, in the absence of furloughs, in the absence of social protection, what well see is an incredible drop in incomes and livelihoods for the poorest people around the world, he said. The size of that drop is in the hundreds of millions of people.

We see it as a Marshall Plan for people. George Gray Molina, United Nations Development Programme

Though governments are pouring money into social protection programmes to help people weather the economic fallout of the pandemic, most of the stimulus spending is happening in advanced economies.

Developing countries, which may have already been burdened with political and socioeconomic challenges prior to the pandemic, are ill-equipped to deal with mass unemployment as a result of government-sanctioned lockdowns, UNDP says.

Many workers in developing countries also work in the informal economy and are not captured by official unemployment figures.

People suffering from the coronavirus perform yoga inside a care centre for patients in New Delhi, India [File: Adnan Abidi/Reuters]

According to the International Labour Organization, seven out of 10 workers in developing countries earn a living in the informal economy. Many of them are domestic workers, underpaid and unpaid care workers, and refugees and migrants without access to social safety nets.

To throw a lifeline to these workers, UNDP proposes three possible options: top-ups on existing average incomes; lump-sum transfers that are sensitive to the countrys standard of living; or lump-sum transfers that are uniform regardless of the country.

We are making an unprecedented proposal for an unprecedented crisis. This is not business as usual, and we cannot treat it as business as usual, Boaz Paldi, Global Engagement Manager at UNDP, told Al Jazeera.

Paying for top-ups and the lump sums

UNDP does not propose any additional taxes to fund TBI but rather encourages repurposing existing resources.

For instance, developing and emerging economies are slated to repay $3.1 trillion in debt in 2020 alone, according to the United Nations  payments that could be suspended or forgiven and then rerouted into a TBI.

We are making an unprecedented proposal for an unprecedented crisis. Boaz Paldi, United Nations Development Programme

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has asked for a debt standstill, initially approved by the Group of 20 advanced economies for 73 of the worlds poorest nations, to be extended to all developing countries including middle-income countries and small island developing states. He is also calling for private creditors, such as banks, to honour the debt repayment freeze.

Another potential source of financing could be found by eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, which range at around $500bn a year, UNDP says.

Though some 17 billion people globally are estimated to lack access to formal banking services, UNDP is confident that tech advances in mobile money and digital payment make it easier than ever to get cash directly into peoples hands.

We see it as a Marshall Plan for people, Molina says. It will not mitigate the effects of the GDP drop or loss of the largest economies of the world, but it can focus on individuals and households.
The government is likely to extend the deadline for bidding for the privatisation of Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) for the third time in a row, from the current date of July 31. According to sources, the extension of the timelines for expression of interest (EoI) may well be until international airline services are back in place, as a lot of prospective bidders have expressed concerns regarding the current situation.

An empowered group of secretaries, headed by Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, is set to take up the issue in a meeting on Thursday. The other members of ...
Lobbyists and interest groups have had a field day advocating that the Government should borrow virtually unlimited amounts of money to "stimulate" the economy. Money was never so cheap, they say. The Europeans will pay. We can send the bill to future generations. The usual suspects for unlimited public spending like lots of subsidies and tax breaks, but "stimulus" sounds so much nicer.

The European Central Bank's task is to ensure that what its stimulus does is efficient rather than unlimited. William McChesney Martin, governor of the US Federal Reserve from 1951 to 1970, defined the art of central banking as "to take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going". Martin chose central banking as a career just ahead of becoming a Presbyterian minister and became known as "the happy Puritan" in economic circles when he got the balance just right. Stimulus is like sincerity in the words of Oscar Wilde, in that "a little stimulus is a dangerous thing and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal". The Finance Minister recently told reporters that he has received more claims for extra public spending next year, alias stimulus, than the entire anticipated Exchequer tax income.

A welcome note of caution at the weekend came from An Taoiseach, speaking in Brussels. Ireland is now a net contributor to the EU. The bigger the EU stimulus the more we pay. Free money from Brussels ended some time ago. The punch bowl is on our tab now - a sobering thought. We have to pay for punch bowls for other countries as well. Our capital spending in the National Development Plan was already above the EU average despite IMF concerns about weak assessment procedures here.

Stimulus must be efficiently designed. We had a full employment economy in Ireland in February last and public expenditure had grown annually since 2016 at by far the fastest rate in the EU. The public expenditure growth rate in Ireland was double that of Germany, the second ranked country in public spending growth. By 2021 public expenditure growth in Ireland was estimated to be 23pc higher than in 2016, 10 points more than the second country, Germany. In the EU-15 countries in this expenditure growth series Sweden was sixth, Finland 11th and Denmark 14th. Ireland's first place is way out of line with our EU competitors. It is remarkable that in the election this year Europe's fastest public expenditure growth country was deemed to be in a regime of austerity by most parties contesting. This utterly mistaken belief has underpinned the stimulus cheerleader movement since Covid.

Stimulus is more effective in a large closed economy with spare capacity than in a small open economy at full employment. Ireland this spring was most definitely in the latter category. To date the rise in unemployment has been heavily concentrated in hospitality and aviation. Sectoral programmes may be far more efficient than large government deficits. Stimulus in the naive Keynesian model is kick and hope that the deficit may trickle down to target sectors bypassing the sectors which don't need stimulus.

In retailing, the shuttered small shops on Main Street have lost out to online and larger new stores on the outskirts. We cannot freeze the economy of mid-March 2020 and defrost it at some future point. Market economies are dynamic and continuously phasing enterprises in and out in periods of both expansion and contraction.

Stimulus must be flexible. Expenditures must be turned off as soon as the economy recovers. This will be difficult where, as the IMF has shown, the Irish record is to increase capital stimulus in a boom and reduce it in a downturn, with a pro-cyclical record. The Boris Johnson food in pubs and restaurants voucher may make more sense than Dustin extending the Dart to Dingle. The voucher gets closer to a slack part of the economy, takes effect quicker and is easier to shut down. Large capital projects have long lead in times, come on stream when the economy has already recovered and have massive cost overruns thus harming the competitiveness of our exporting economy.

As mentioned in the Dail on Tuesday this week, projects such as the national children's hospital and the Dunkettle roundabout defy normal value-for-money criteria.

Many parts of the Irish public sector have an edifice complex with a huge bricks and mortar inbuilt bias. The Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924, transfers responsibility from those directly in charge of projects to the minister of that department. It is some 50 years since Basil Chubb highlighted this avoidance of accountability in his seminal text 'The government and politics of Ireland'. The obvious absurdity of present practice is that from the stimulus perspective the more expensive the children's hospital the better because the stimulus is larger.

Stimulus programmes must not undermine an economy's efficiency. If every spending department is allowed to relabel poorly assessed spending projects as stimulus, then dud projects will have a new lease of life. Ireland has high cost difficulties in sectors such as health and construction. Without reform and improved competitiveness such sectors have no place in a stimulus programme.

Lobbying for stimulus reduces economic efficiency by diverting entrepreneurs from competing in the market to spending too much time in lobbies in Washington, London and Brussels, as well as in Dublin.

In an era of increasing inequality, the income distribution impact of lobbyists for stimulus must be examined. In Ireland a wide range of subsidy seekers support stimulus programmes that add to inequality. Their lobbyists are skilled in the art of An Beal Bocht, or the poor mouth.

The present surge in unemployment has been severe in hospitality and retailing. Both are low wage sectors and inequality has therefore increased. The burden has been borne by younger people in the affected sectors. A recovery programme for young recently unemployed low wage people in Ireland might be built around apprenticeships on the German model. This is an area in which Ireland has traditionally been weak.

Stimulus programmes must be targeted and independently assessed in published studies. They must emphasise the workers and the sectors directly affected by increased unemployment.

Stimulus programmes must be flexible and turned off as the economy recovers. They must not reduce allocative efficiency in the economy by diverting resources from directly productive activity. Stimulus programmes should not further increase inequality. Much of the cheerleading for stimulus in Ireland in recent months ignores all these criteria. The cheerleaders also fail to recognise that Ireland has had since 2016 by far the fastest growth in current government spending and the highest EU ratio of capital spending to national income. Stimulus needs more economics - not less.
Even as a presidential candidate, Donald Trump declared he had a solution for the gun violence that has plagued Chicago communities for decades. In 2016, he claimed he met with the citys police leadership and was told the vexing problem could be resolved in a single week.

How? By being very much tougher than they are right now, Trump told Fox News. Theyre right now not tough. I could tell you this very long and quite boring story. But when I was in Chicago, I got to meet a couple of very top police. I said, How do you stop this? How do you stop this? If you were put in charge to a specific person, do you think you could stop it? He said, Mr. Trump, Id be able to stop it in one week. And I believed him 100 percent.

Four years later, following multiple threats to intervene with overwhelming force, Trump is moving forward with his plan to help drive down violent crime in Americas third largest city. The strategy to stop violent crime in the city, he says, involves a surge of a few hundred officers from the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security. Frankly, we have no choice, he told reporters Wednesday at the White House.

It remains to be seen, however, how 200 or so federal officers from out-of-town can meaningfully augment Chicagos police department of 13,000, the second largest force in the United States  regardless of whether it takes a week, a month or a year.

Chicago is currently in the midst of one of its deadliest years in recent memory with 414 homicides, according to the Chicago Tribune  a 51% increase over the same period last year. Compare that to New York City, for example, which had just 178 murders through June 30, despite having nearly three times the population.

Story continues

Trumps announcement is part of a broader recent push by his administration to deploy federal officers in U.S. cities as he seeks re-election as a law-and-order candidate. Federal officers sent to help protect federal property in Portland, Ore., have violently clashed with protestors in recent days. Holding semiautomatic weapons and wearing military-style camouflage uniforms without clearly visible insignia or nameplates, the officers have been filmed putting citizens into unmarked vans and using violence to disperse crowds.

The Chicago initiative is part of a separate federal response under the Department of Justice named Operation Legend after LeGend Taliferro, a 4-year-old boy shot and killed June 29 while he slept in his Kansas City home. The operation, which will be made up of so-called anti-violent crime task forces, is already being rolled out in Kansas City, Chicago, and Albuquerque with more cities on the horizon.

Unlike in Portland, Attorney General William Barr insisted the federal officers headed to Chicago will be engaged in classic crime-fighting, such as investigating gang activity, homicides as well as narcotics and gun trafficking. He also announced a $3.5 million grant for Chicago to help reimburse for overtime and other expenses local law enforcement incur in supporting the federal effort. Through a separate federal fund, Chicago also recently received $9.3 million to hire 75 new officers.

Previous partnerships with federal agencies to bring crime rates down have resulted in mixed outcomes on the citys streets, says Ed Yohnka, spokesman for the ACLU of Illinois.

In June 2017, the Trump Administration created a task force called the Chicago Crime Gun Strike Force, a team of 21 ATF special agents, six intelligence specialists, 12 Chicago police officers, two Illinois State police officers, and four ballistics specialists who are focused on the most violent offenders in the most violent areas.

Last weekend in Chicago, 63 people were shot, 12 were killed. Then, on Tuesday, 15 people were shot in a drive-by shooting while attending a funeral of a victim of another drive-by shooting.

Making a difference in Chicago communities takes an investment of time inside neighborhoods, going block by block, meeting people and building trust, says Yohnka.

There isnt a neighborhood in Chicago or anywhere else in the world that doesnt want good law enforcement to reduce violence, he says. The false pretense here is that we can inject a number of people from three-letter agencies and thats going to fix all the problems. That kind of thinking has never really gotten anywhere and, in fact, has driven further wedges between the police and communities.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot was also dubious as to how federal forces would help in Chicago, particularly after witnessing federal officers crack down on protesters in Portland.

A former federal prosecutor, Lightfoot condemned the paramilitary tactics and advised the federal officers deploying to Chicago in the coming days to plug into existing policing infrastructure. The incoming federal forces will work under the direction of U.S. Attorney John Lausch, whom Lightfoot has known for years. The proof is going to be in the pudding, she told reporters on Wednesday, after Trumps announcement. Its too soon to say if this is a value add or not.

Barr made a spurious claim Wednesday that federal officers had already made 200 arrests as part of Operation Legend after only two weeks of operating in Kansas City, but a report from the Kansas City Star found that claim wasnt even close to true. Instead, the paper found one arrest and couldnt verify any other.

Local and state officials have objected to the presence of federal law enforcement in their cities since Trump began painting Democrat-led cities as out of control following the protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd by police on May 25. The push-back intensified in recent weeks as the Trump Administration sent federal officers to Portland.

On Thursday, both the U.S. Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security offices of Inspector General (OIG) announced they would open investigations into the presence and actions of the forces in Portland. Oregons governor and attorney general have already accused the officers of escalating the situation and engaging in aggressive tactics. The situation came to a head on Wednesday night when Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler accused federal officers of an egregious overreaction and engaging in urban warfare after being caught in tear gas while protesting, according to videos posted on Twitter by The New York Times.
Bengaluru, July 23 : Karnataka registered a record number of 5,030 new Covid positive cases, breaching the 80,000 mark to raise the state's tally to 80,863, an official said on Thursday.

"New cases reported from Wednesday 5 p.m. to Thursday 5 p.m. are at 5,030," said a health official.

Of the new cases, Bengaluru Urban accounted for the highest number of cases with 2,207 infections, increasing the city's tally to 39,200, out of which 29,090 are active.

Bengaluru accounts for 58 per cent of all the active cases in the southern state, a slight reduction of 1 per cent in one day.

Among the new cases, excluding Bengaluru Urban, Raichur accounted for 258 cases, followed by Kalaburagi (229), Dakshina Kannada (218), Belagavi (214), Dharwad (183), Ballari (164) and Bengaluru Rural (161) among others.

Meanwhile, 97 patients succumbed to the virus, increasing the toll to 1,616, majority of them occurring in Bengaluru Urban - 783.

Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) has been identified to be the most common medical condition among the deaths, with fever, cough and breathlessness being the main symptoms.

On a positive note, a record number of 2,071 patients have been discharged, raising the total number of discharges to 29,310.

Of the total 80,863 cases, 49,931 are active while the number of patients in ICU rose to 640.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend:

The Russian Vozrozhdenie Group of industrial association companies has started implementing a project to build mudflow protection infrastructure in the southern part of the capital of Turkmenistan - Ashgabat, Trend reports with reference to the Arzuw NEWS information portal.

Some 8 mudflow storage reservoirs should be equipped, where 12 logs will be brought together.

The project involves placing dams above urban development and key transport communications, which will eliminate the risk of destruction of urban infrastructure from mudslides.

Vozrozhdenie Group opened a branch in Turkmenistan in 2009. Since the opening of the branch, more than 25 infrastructure facilities have been built and put into operation.

The company has its own fleet of modern road construction and motor vehicles from leading manufacturers, which includes up to 200 cars on the territory of Turkmenistan.

A number of foreign construction companies, which for many years have been reliable partners of Turkmenistan in construction of industrial, social, and infrastructure fields, were represented at the White city  Ashgabat exhibition, which was held on May 25, 2020 at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Turkmenistan. Vozrozhdenie company was also represented at this exhibition.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @JeilaAliyeva
Describing India as one of the few trusted like-minded countries, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that New Delhi is an important partner and a key pillar of President Donald Trump's foreign policy. In his virtual keynote address to the annual 'India Ideas Summit' of the US India Business Council (USIBC), Pompeo said he was happy to report that India is a "rising" US defense and security partner in the Indo-Pacific and globally.

The United States, he said, "desires a new age of ambition" in its relationship with India. Asserting that the US has never been more supportive of India's security, he said New Delhi too, is an important partner and a key pillar of President Trump's foreign policy. "We don't just interact on a bilateral basis. We see each other for what we are great democracies, global powers and really good friends. India is one of the few trusted like-minded countries whose leaders I call on a regular basis for counsel and collaboration on issues that span continents," Pompeo said.

"I'm confident that our relationship is only getting stronger. Let's emerge from this current challenge more resilient and innovative than before. And let's seize this moment to deepen cooperation between two of the world's greatest democracies," he added. Pompeo said the US has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the next G7 meeting to be hosted by President Trump.

"We will advance the economic prosperity network. It is the group of countries and organisations that we consider natural partners with we share values like democracy, transparency and rule of law," Pompeo said.

The Group of Seven (G-7) is an international intergovernmental economic organisation consisting of seven major developed countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, which are some of the largest IMF-advanced economies in the world.

Pompeo also said that he was happy to report that India is a rising US defense and security partner, in the Indo-Pacific and globally. "I'm confident that with our concerted efforts, we can protect our interests" he said. "We've revived the so-called quad that comprised the US, India, Japan and Australia. India is also part of a group of likeminded nations that I've convened regularly to advance shared interests," he said.

Navies from the US, India, Australia, Japan and France have been deepening their mutual cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region in view of China's growing attempt to expand military influence in the resource-rich region. On Monday, a US Navy carrier strike group led by nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz carried out a military drill with a fleet of Indian warships off the coast of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Four frontline warships of the Indian Navy participated in the "PASSEX" exercise when the US carrier strike group was transiting through the Indian Ocean Region on its way from the South China Sea. The USS Nimitz is the world's largest warship and the exercise between the two navies assumed significance as it took place in the midst of tensions between India and China in eastern Ladakh as well as in China's military assertiveness in South China Sea.

Also read: China can't strong-arm countries, bully them in Himalayas, says Mike Pompeo
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 19:09:28|Editor: huaxia

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A nurse checks the body temperature of a student entering a school to attend the Unified State Exam for Chinese language in Moscow, Russia, on July 20, 2020. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr/Xinhua)

Moscow reported 608 newly confirmed cases, taking its total number of infections to 235,971.



MOSCOW, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Russia registered 5,848 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking its total to 795,038, the country's COVID-19 response center said in a statement Thursday.

Meanwhile, 147 new deaths were reported, taking the nationwide count to 12,892, the statement said.

Moscow, the country's worst-hit region, reported 608 newly confirmed cases, taking its total number of infections to 235,971, it said.

According to the statement, 580,330 people have recovered so far, including 8,277 over the past day.

On Wednesday, 267,315 people were still under medical observation, while over 26 million tests have been conducted nationwide, Russia's consumer rights and human well-being watchdog said Thursday in a separate statement. 
ED summons businessman Raman Kant Sharma in Yes Bank case

New Delhi, Jul 23 (UNI) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned Rajasthan businessman Raman Kant Sharma, in connection with the investigation in Yes Bank scam under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the agency officials said here on Thursday.

They said that Sharma has been asked to depose before the investigating officer of the case in Mumbai on July 27 in connection with its Yes Bank money laundering probe. They said Yes Bank had given a loan amounting to Rs 168-crore to Triton Hotels and Resorts in which Sharma is a promoter share holder.

Businessman Sharma has already been under EDs scan for the violation of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and he has been being investigated by the probe agency on charges of alleged violation of forex laws related to remittance of over Rs 96 crore from Mauritius.
The bushfire royal commission has been extended by two months, taking its reporting deadline to October 28.

Inquiry chairman Air Chief Marshall Mark Binskin said coronavirus had disrupted its schedule and made it difficult for stakeholders to make their submissions on time.

The inquiry's terms of reference are focused on changes needed to help prevent, mitigate and respond to bushfires and other natural disasters. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements in February following the Black Summer bushfires, which destroyed about 3000 homes between NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland.

He set a reporting deadline of August 31, arguing the inquiry must lead to "practical action" ahead of the next fire season, which in 2019 began in August in northern NSW. The inquiry's terms of reference are focused on changes needed to help prevent, mitigate and respond to bushfires and other natural disasters.
WALLINGFORD, Conn. (AP) _ Amphenol Corp. (APH) on Wednesday reported second-quarter net income of $257.7 million.

The Wallingford, Connecticut-based company said it had net income of 85 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for pretax gains, were 81 cents per share.

The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 64 cents per share.

The maker of fiber-optic products posted revenue of $1.99 billion in the period, also topping Street forecasts. Four analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $1.75 billion.

For the current quarter ending in October, Amphenol expects its per-share earnings to range from 84 cents to 86 cents.

The company said it expects revenue in the range of $1.96 billion to $2 billion for the fiscal third quarter.

Amphenol shares have dropped almost 6% since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has increased nearly 1%. The stock has increased 5% in the last 12 months.

_____

This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on APH at https://www.zacks.com/ap/APH
She and her fiance had been putting away money for their wedding, so they have a cushion. But I do wonder what happens to people in my position who dont have the money we saved for our wedding, she said.

Just how many people juggle two or more part-time jobs or pick up a side gig like driving for Lyft in addition to a full-time job is fuzzy. Official figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that are based on surveys show that a tiny slice of workers  about 5 percent  fall into this group, but several economists say the measurement suffers from an outdated definition of what constitutes paid work and misleading assumptions about work schedules.

The bureau asks about work only in a specific reference week, for instance, which may not capture contract workers and freelancers with shifting schedules. Nor does it count self-employed individuals who do more than one job.

What we have been discovering is that the B.L.S. numbers are just not telling the full story, said Hye Jin Rho, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a left-leaning research group in Washington, who recently completed a study of multiple job holders. The researchers found that as much as 16 percent of the American work force  more than 26 million people  depends on multiple jobs for income.

Adam Ozimek, chief economist at Upwork, an online platform for hiring freelancers, who also studies people with multiple jobs, argues that the total is even higher  that 35 percent of workers do some sort of freelancing over the course of a year. Self-employment has always been a feature of the modern American economy, he said, it just hasnt been recognized by official measures or policies.
Its never a good idea to get into a rut and eat the same kinds of food week in, week out  or always order the same drinks. Apart from anything else, it means we can all too easily miss out on some of the best things in life.

I enjoy beer tremendously and think it is almost as complex and fascinating as wine. But I never drink it at home because instead of having the occasional beer, Id be having one every day  and sometimes two or three.

So I have a glass of red wine every day with lunch (keeping to one glass per day is easy peasy ) and during the hot weather I have a cana when I go to a restaurant to do the review.

In the recent past, when summer changed to autumn (which is later and later every year) I went back to having red wine with my restaurant meal. But I enjoyed that weekly cana so much I was eventually drinking a cana throughout the year with my restaurant meals. One cana per week and every time I had one it was like the best drink in the world.

But on two recent restaurant outings I was forced to change my order for the usual cana. The first time was at the Moroccan restaurant Muare in Calle Barcelo I Combis (Tel:971-127572) where they dont serve alcohol but you can bring your own wine for which there is a charge of 5 per bottle for corkage.

We didnt know that. They have zero-alcohol beer but I consider that a complete travesty and ordered a San Pellegrino sparkling water instead. And I was so glad I did because I rediscovered that this Italian sparkling water (along with the French Perrier) is the best there is in this line.

I loved it so much that I had two half-litre bottles with lunch. Since then I have been taking a bottle of San Pellegrino to the office and drinking it as I read the days newspapers. It is so much better than a soft drink from one of the machines. And cheaper and healthier  so I gain in every way.

The second time I dropped my weekly cana was at the recent visit to the Japanese restaurant Quinta Avenida ((Tl:871-043066) where we shared a 14.90 menu del dia and ordered two other dishes. As the menu del dia price includes a drink, I had a glass of white wine, a verdejo from Rueda served in a tallish slim and elegant glass. It was very cold and paired nicely with the Japanese dishes, especially the grilled salmon with stir-fried vegetables.

I had almost forgotten how superb Spanish white wines are, especially during the hot weather when our fatigued tastebuds need something to wake them up with a jolt. Dry Spanish wines such as verdejo, albarino and sauvignon blancs are guaranteed to do just that.

Spains most memorable whites are made from grapes grown in relatively small quantities in the northwest of the country, especially Rueda and Galicia.

The verdejo grape, a native to the Rueda area, gives crisp highly aromatic whites that are perfect for summer drinking. They make excellent aperitifs with nibbles of all kinds and also combine nicely with seafood dishes for lunch and dinner.

Rueda also grows fine sauvignon blanc grapes and produces some excellent whites that arent as well known as the verdejos. Nor are they so easy to find, but they are well worth looking for. You will find them at La Vinoteca in Calle Bartolome Pou 28, El Corte Ingles and other specialised wine outlets.

The Spanish sauvignon blancs available in Palma have two things in common: they are reasonably priced and are good value for money. Most of those I prefer are priced at 5-8 and some are even more economical than that.

These sauvignon blancs are well made and tinglingly fresh, with fruity aromas and flavours. The best way to buy them is to ask the advice of the wine shop attendant or simply pick one up at random. Either way you wont lose. Here are the names of a few sauvignon blancs I have liked.

The first Spanish sauvignon blanc I tasted was Mantel Blanco. I loved its aromas and sharp clean taste. Many years ago the second one I came across was a Marques de Riscal  and it continues to be one of my favourites. Its crisp fresh taste is impeccable.

The Rueda sauvignon blanc I drink most frequently is Martivilli. It has a perfect brilliant colour and it continues to improve in the bottle. One of the reasons I drink it on a regular basis is that even in expensive restaurants it is reasonably priced. It is the white I invariably order  even when Im not paying.

Sanz Sauvignon is another Rueda to look out for. It has an excellent pale yellow colour with green highlights. It is one of the most aromatic of the Rueda sauvignon blancs and its lovely touch of acidity makes it delightful on the palate.

Spains first sauvignon blancs were made in Rueda but the grapes then travelled to Catalonia, Granada and Bierzo. The Catalonian sauvignon blanc you must try is Fransola from the Miguel Torres bodega in Penedes.

It is usually made from 90 per cent sauvignon blanc grapes and 10 per cent parrellada and is partly fermented in oak casks, which gives it extra complexity in aromas and flavours. Its aromas are exuberant with strong fruity touches, especially melon and passion fruit.

If you want to spend a bit more, at some of the better outlets (La Vinoteca and the Club del Gourmet of El Corte Ingles) you will find sauvignon blancs from France, Australia and New Zealand. They are a good deal dearer than the Spanish varieties.

If its Down Under sauvignon blancs you want to try then you must go for those from New Zealand. Most experts are are agreed that New Zealands are well ahead of those made in Australia  or anywhere else, for that matter.

Australian research scientists have found that the herbaceous content of sauvignon blancs depends on the amount or alkyl methoxypyrazines in the grapes. New Zealand sauvignon blanc grapes contain more of these compounds than those from Australia.

The finest New Zealand sauvignon blancs are made in the Marlborough region in the northern part of South Island. Producers to look out for are Cloudy Bay and Hunters, both of whom make distinctive wines bursting with character that have won critical and popular acclaim all over the world.

In recent weeks I have also rediscovered that draught Guinness is one of the great unique beers. I have started drinking one every week. But thats another story for another daypossibly next week.
Global coronavirus infections surged past 15 million yesterday, according to a Reuters tally.

It indicates the pandemic is gathering pace even as countries remain divided in their response to the crisis.

In the US, which has the highest number of cases in the world with 3.91 million infections, president Donald Trump warned: "It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better."

Behind the US the countries with the most cases are Brazil, India, Russia and South Africa.

But, the Reuters tally shows the disease is accelerating the fastest in the Americas, which account for more than half the world's infections and half its deaths.

Globally, the rate of new infections shows no sign of slowing, according to the tally based on official reports.

After the first Covid-19 case was reported in Wuhan, China, in early January, it took about 15 weeks to reach two million cases. But it took just eight days to climb above 15 million from the 13 million reached on July 13.

Health experts say official data almost certainly underreports infections and deaths, particularly in countries with limited testing capacity.

The official number of coronavirus cases at 15,009,213 is at least triple the number of severe influenza illnesses recorded annually, according to World Health Organisation data.

The death toll of more than 616,000 in seven months is close to the upper range of yearly influenza deaths.

With the first wave of the virus still to peak in several countries and a resurgence of case numbers in others, some countries are reintroducing strict social distancing while others relax restrictions.

Stung by low ratings for his handling of the epidemic and downplaying the risks during the early stages, Mr Trump made a significant shift in rhetoric on Tuesday, encouraging Americans to wear a face mask. While the epidemic worsened in the US, Mr Trump's focus ahead of an election in November has been on reopening the economy, and governors in the hard-hit states of Texas, Florida and Georgia continue to push back hard against calls for stricter restrictions.

In Brazil, more than 2.15 million people have tested positive including President Jair Bolsonaro, and more than 81,000 people have died. While Mr Bolsonaro has played down the outbreak, its scale has made Brazil a prime testing ground for potential vaccines.

India, the only other country with more than a million cases, reported almost 40,000 new cases yesterday.

Having been keen to reopen its economy, India is now facing the twin challenge of combating the pandemic and massive flooding in the country's northeast.

Two ministers in South Africa's cabinet were admitted to hospital with Covid, as the country counted a total 372,628 confirmed cases and 5,173 deaths.

Elsewhere other countries are reintroducing restrictions in response to fresh outbreaks.

In Spain, the number of people allowed on Barcelona's beaches was limited after crowds flocked to the seaside over the weekend despite advice to stay home.

In Melbourne, Australia, residents were ordered to wear masks in public from yesterday after the country reported a record 501 new cases.

Officials in Canada were closely watching a spike in cases as the economy reopens, attributing the rise in part to large numbers of young people gathering in bars.

China has announced that passengers on inbound flights must provide negative Covid test results before boarding.
Katie Price has been criticised by animal rights activists after her daughter Princess' puppy Rolo tragically suffocated.

The French bulldog died after getting stuck in an electric armchair while the reality star was packing some bags in another room, reports The Mirror.

Rolo was given to Princess, 13, as a birthday present last month and is the third dog of the family's to die in tragic circumstances.

Tragic: Katie Price, 42, has been slammed by animal rights activists after her daughter Princess' puppy Rolo 'suffocated when he got caught in an electric armchair'

Animal rights activists have slammed Katie online since news of her latest dogs tragic passing broke, with many even contacting the breeders.

Elisa Allen, director of animal rights group PETA, told the Mirror: 'Katie must not be allowed to acquire any more animals.

'At least three dogs and one horse have died on her watch in the last few years alone... her attitude is costing wonderful animals their lives.'

However the RSPCA said they couldn't comment on whether they had received complaints about the reality star's animals for legal reasons.

So sad: Elisa Allen, director of animal rights group PETA, said 'Katie must not be allowed to acquire any more animals', after it was revealed how Rolo (pictured) had died

Devastated: Rolo was given to Princess (pictured together) as a gift for her 13th birthday just three weeks ago

Dog breeders JRC Bullies took to their Instagram page after animal lovers started questioning them about why Princess was given a dog.

They asked that people stopped sending 'vile hatred messages' and said they would post a video explaining why the pup had been gifted to the family on Friday.

They wrote: 'The outcome of our decision has understandably upset a lot of animal lovers, and I apologise from the bottom of my heart that you have had to read of this tragedy, but we can 100 % assure you all we did everything we could for Rolo moving in with his new family.

Heartbroken: JRC Bullies, who bred Rolo, wrote on their Instagram asking people to stop sending them 'hate comments' (left) and also shared Katie's message of support (right)

Speaking out: The breeders also said they would be explaining why Princess was given a dog in a video planned for Friday as well as thanking their followers for support

'Yes you might say well I shouldnt have given the pup but once again I will explain the reason tomorrow for my decision, for now please lay of the text phone calls comments as there is no need.

'We are a massive family at @JRCbullies we love and devote our lives to our animals and we honestly have so much love for all the people who support us and follow us and have sent their messages in the hundreds today, thank you all so much.'

JRC Bullies also told the Mirror that they were 'heartbroken' and had told Katie not to leave the puppy on its own.

Tragedy: The reality TV star and her daughter are said to be distraught after their dog's death

It is thought that she rang the company to tell them about Rolo's death, explaining that she was packing in another room at the time. It was also reported that her five-year-old daughter Bunny found the pup.

MailOnline has contacted Katie's representative and JRC Bullies for comment.

On Wednesday Princess shared a heartbreaking tribute to Rolo, saying she 'missed him already' along with a gallery of snaps of her pet.

Princess penned the tribute: 'Rip baby boy I love you so much u meant everything to me miss you already @katieprice.'

After the news broke on Thursday a source told The Sun: 'Rolo was found dead by Harvey's carer and they had to phone Katie to break the news.

Emotional: Princess also took to Instagram to pet a heartbreaking tribute to Rolo, saying she 'missed him already' along with a gallery of snaps of her pet

'I miss him': The devastated teen shared a gallery of snaps featuring her beloved pet, following news of his tragic death

'Katie is devastated and heartbroken and had to call Princess and break the news. Everyone's in floods of tears. It was a tragic accident nobody could have foreseen - it's no-one's fault, but Katie can't stop crying.'

Katie bought little Rolo for her daughter Princess as a 13th birthday present last month, and the teen had already shared videos of her pet's tricks on her YouTube channel.

It was reported Katie bought the dog after Princess' dad Peter Andre refused, due to his wife Emily suffering an allergy to dogs.

The tragedy comes just five months after Katie's pet Alsatian Sparkle died, after she escaped from her home before being hit by a car. It is also thought that one of her horses died in a crash.

It's the latest pet of Katie's to sadly pass away, after her dog Queenie also died in 2018 after being hit by a delivery driver.

Passed away: The tragedy comes just five months after Katie's pet Alsatian Sparkle died, after she escaped from her home before being hit by a car

Sweet: Katie bought little Rolo for her daughter Princess as a 13th birthday present last month, and the teen had already shared videos of her pet's tricks on her YouTube channel

Katie currently owns another Alsatian named Blade, who sleeps in her room and acts as a protection animal for the household, after being the victim of a carjacking last year.

It also comes after she was seen emotionally leaving the hospital with her son Harvey, 18, after he spent 10 days fighting for his life in intensive care.

A source close to the former glamour model told MailOnline she was 'delighted' to be taking her son home after a 10-day long stint in hospital.

Katie recently revealed eight doctors fought to save Harvey's life after suffering from breathing complications and his temperature rising to 42 degrees.
Iffath Fathima And Ranjani Madhavan By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: With the number of Covid-19 cases galloping every day, Karnataka has now joined Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya at the top as regards the doubling rate of the disease. It is now taking only 10 days for the numbers double in the state, according to the state war room report as of July 21. Among other high prevalence states, the time taken is 21 days in Tamil Nadu, 23 days in Maharashtra and 29 days in Delhi.

Epidemiologist Dr Giridhar Babu, Professor and Head of Lifecourse Epidemiology at Public Health Foundation of India, pointed out that the doubling time will reduce further as Covid cases surge. This is a reflection of our R-naught value, which represents the number of people each person can infect. Karnatakas R-naught value is 1.31 at the moment and the goal is to bring it down to less than 1, which means there is no transmission from one person to another.

The doubling rate also indicates the population characteristics of how we are moving around and how we comply with social distancing and wearing of masks, said Dr Babu, who is also a member of the Covid-19 technical advisory committee to the State Government. On June 20, Karnataka was at the 11th spot, compared to other states, wherein it took 16 days for the number of cases to double. On June 30, the state climbed to the 7th spot with the time reducing to 15 days. The situation declined further thereafter. On July 10, the state was at second spot with the doubling time at nine days.

Nodal officer for Covid testing in the state, Dr C N Manjunath, who is also the director of Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research, said the doubling rate could be indicative of segmental community transmission. One of the reasons is that there are pockets of segmental community transmission. In addition to this, the number of tests being done has gone up in the last 10-15 days from 15,000 a day to 35,000 a day. If we were observing higher rate of doubling with no increase in the number of tests, then it would be a problem. Here, however, we have ramped up testing, Dr Manjunath explained. Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar, who has not admitted to community transmission in Karnataka, said the state is conducting 17,296 tests per million population, which is one of the highest in the country.

DOUBLING RATE LOWEST IN YADGIR

During the one-week lockdown in Bengaluru and some other parts of the state, we took several steps to ramp up testing, specially in containment zones. On July 21, for example, we conducted 43,904 tests. This is the main reason for the quick doubling rate.

We should also keep in mind that Karnataka had very less cases compared to other states until last month, which means the base number was comparatively less for calculating doubling rate, Dr Sudhakar told TNIE. Also, 18 districts have doubling rates which are worse than the states as a whole.

The shortest duration is in Chikkamagaluru with five days and the longest duration is Yadgir with 30 days. Senior IAS officer Munish Moudgil, who is in charge of the state war room, said, The number of cases are doubling as we see people stepping out without taking precautionary measures. The primary contacts of several positive patients have also been going out and not quarantining themselves.
Upcoming streaming service Britbox has announced 4 new original dramas from the UK.

Trainspotting creator Irvine Welsh will adapt his novel Crime with screenwriting partner Dean Cavanagh (Wedding Belles). Set in Edinburgh and directed by James Strong (Liar), Crime will star Dougray Scott (Mission: Impossible 2) as a detective who is investigating the disappearance of a schoolgirl while battling his own personal demons.

Five-part revenge thriller, The Beast Must Die, based on Nicholas Blakes novel, stars Jared Harris (Chernobyl), Cush Jumbo (The Good Wife), Billy Howle (MotherFatherSon) and Nathaniel Parker (The Outcast) and tells the story of a grieving mother who infiltrates the life of the man she believes killed her son.

Magpie Murders, an adapted of Anthony Horowitzs bestselling murder mystery, and revolves around the character Susan Ryeland, an editor who is given an unfinished manuscript of author Alan Conways latest novel, but has little idea it will change her life.

A Spy Among Friends, is a limited series based on the best-selling book written by Ben Macintyre.

The joint BBC-ITV streaming service is due to launch in Australia later this year.

Source: Variety, Hollywood Reporter
HOUSTON, TX / ACCESSWIRE / July 23, 2020 / Turner Valley Oil and Gas, Inc. (the "Company") ("Turner") (OTC PINK:TVOG), now doing business as Turner Venture Group, Inc., pending state filing, is pleased to announce settlement of Convertible Debts outstanding of $100,000.00 and Bridge Capital Loans, combined hereafter referred to as ("Debts") of $77,708.59 reducing Balance Sheet Liabilities by $177,708.59 in total.

This is done as part of Phase 1 of the corporate turnaround plan. The goal is to clean up the balance sheet in preparation of implementation of our new business model. Turner has formed a Preferred B Class Stock in order to settle these Debts and will issue 1,300,000 shares of Preferred Stock at $0.25 a share. The settlement allows Turner to create a stronger financial statement. Allowing new capital placement opportunities to be presented to shareholders and investors. Additionally, the improved balance sheet provides the Company a stronger position in pursuit of equity based acquisitions.

As previously stated, the Company is now operating as a Venture Holding Company that acquires equity interests in innovative products and companies within the health, wellness, sanitation, infrastructure and critical supply chain segments. New management has been appointed with James B. Smith, CPA as Chairman and CEO. The Company's first acquisition is nearly complete and it is expected to be announced shortly.

Turner is in the process of a special offering to shareholders to help get Turner to the next stage and has completed subscriptions for the first round of raising funds via a private placement of $25,000.00 of restricted common shares which will be registered in upcoming S1 or related filing. The Company intends to offer two additional rounds of private placement for $100,000.00 and $250,000.00 priced at new levels to support growth strategy and additional acquisitions.

These funds have been utilized to pay the accounting and legal contractors to complete the March 31, 2020 and June 30, 2020 financial statements, disclosures and legal opinion. These efforts are in progress and nearly complete. This information will be posted to OTC Markets to bring into fully compliant status an OTC Pink Current status Company quickly. Additionally, Nevada Secretary of State filings, OTC Markets fees through the rest of the year, and press release packages to improve dissemination of information to our Shareholders.

New Turner CEO James B. Smith stated, "The quick placement of the first round is a sign of confidence that our active shareholder base is behind this turnaround and will help us quickly execute the next steps in order to bring new value to the Company. We will continue to focus on compliance with required OTC Markets disclosures, new acquisitions and other debt settlements (where possible) with a view towards becoming a full SEC registrant via Form 10 as these matters progress."

Please refer to most recent website announcements for more information:

https://tvoginc.com/2020/06/turner-announces-special-shareholder-resolution-appointing-new-management/

https://tvoginc.com/2020/06/turner-announces-corporate-updates-and-advancement-plan/

About Turner Valley Oil and Gas, Inc.

Turner (OTC PINK:TVOG) is a Venture Holding Company that acquires equity interests in innovative products and companies within the health, wellness, sanitation, infrastructure and supply chain technology segments.

Disclosures

Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements are within the meaning of that term in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended.

Key Links:

OTCMarkets Profile: http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/TVOG/profile

Disclaimer: https://TVOGinc.com/contactus/disclaimer/

Corporate Website: http://TVOGInc.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/tvoginc

Contacts:

James B. Smith, CEO, Chairman

Turner Valley Oil And Gas, Inc.

Address: 317 Sidney Baker South Suite 400-264 Kerrville, TX 78028

Phone: 1-281-826-4289

Email: TurnerVentureGroupInc@gmail.com

SOURCE: Turner Valley Oil and Gas, Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598333/Turner-Venture-Group-Announces-Settlement-of-Convertible-Debts
Representative image

Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope, on July 22, said the state government was planning to set up a single command centre to oversee coronavirus bed management in hospitals in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).

The MMR includes Mumbai as well as surrounding satellite cities in Thane, Navi Mumbai and Palghar.

The centre could come up either in Thane or Navi Mumbai with the help of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), Tope said.

There was an issue of bed availability in the MMR and people from satellite towns are coming to Mumbai for treatment, the minister admitted.

A single command centre, on the lines of the existing system in the financial capital, will help, he said.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

Follow our LIVE blog for the latest updates of the novel coronavirus pandemic

"There is already a single command centre in Mumbai for testing and bed management. Its dashboard gives real-time data on availability of beds across the city. No one gets a bed for COVID-19 treatment directly (in Mumbai). He or she has to call the helpline or the ward-level 'war room'," Tope said.

"But in MMR, I found that the beds at field hospitals in Thane city were empty while other satellite cities were facing shortage of beds," Tope said.

The issue was discussed with Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Thane guardian minister Eknath Shinde and both supported the idea of single command centre to solve the problem of bed availability in MMR, he added.

The health minister also said that gyms in the state would be allowed to reopen at the earliest. "There is a demand to reopen gyms. There is the issue of unemployment too. We will soon frame a standard operating procedure (SOP) to ensure that social distancing is followed and people don't catch infection (at places such as gyms)," he said.
Press Release

July 23, 2020 Imee: Locally made PPE will protect frontliners Senator Imee Marcos has sought to reduce the country's dependence on foreign-made medical supplies by boosting their local production, especially of personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers and other frontliners. Marcos, who chairs the Senate committee on economic affairs, has filed Senate Bill 1708, or the "Healthcare Manufacturing and Pandemic Protection Act," to exempt local manufacturers from certain taxes and continue applying export incentives even on their output for domestic consumption. "We need to guarantee that our health workers and frontliners have the medical supplies they require. Shortages of PPEs and other requisites caused infections resulting in the inexcusably high death toll among doctors, nurses and other frontliners," Marcos said. "At the onset of the pandemic, we were unable to procure supplies from China, Singapore, Japan, and Korea, themselves struggling against the virus. We could not bid against the US and Europe who were understandably paying top dollar for the same short supplies," Marcos added. "Clearly what we need to do is to finally establish health security or, at the very least, PPE security, by producing these supplies locally, initiating the stockpiling of their raw materials and encouraging repurposing and innovation among willing Filipino manufacturers," Marcos also said. Local manufacturers need not pay import duties on raw materials and equipment, value-added taxes, and other fees collected by the Bureau of Customs and Food and Drug Administration under the Marcos bill. Incentives will also be maintained for export manufacturers even if most of the medical supplies they produce will go to the Department of Health and private local hospitals. "Waiving export requirements during a crisis and crediting output for local needs will allow a major industry like the garments industry to preserve hundreds of thousands of jobs and even to expand," Marcos said. Marcos had recommended the shift from export manufacture to local production of PPEs by communities of sewers in Taytay, Cavite, and Bataan when the supply of raw materials and orders dwindled during the lockdown in mid-March. Marcos warned that the country's rising cases of COVID-19 infection will pose more risks to the safety of healthcare workers, citing that the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine already had to suspend operations twice because its personnel fell ill. "During health emergencies, we should give priority to local manufacturers when the government needs to procure PPE and other medical supplies. But their production capacities must be strengthened first," Marcos said. "We can still expand our present capacity which the DTI has pegged at 300,000 PPEs per month. Controversy over the alleged overpricing of imported PPEs will also be avoided in the future," Marcos said.
A New York Times report has revealed plans for a new Disney stage musical based on Hidden Figures.

The global media company has seemingly got its eyes fixed on the story of three Black female mathematicians who worked at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the Space Race. Their story was chronicled in a 2016 non-fiction book, entitled Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race as well as a 2016 film of the same name.

The hit film, starring Taraji P Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae, with supporting performances by Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Glen Powell and Mahershala Ali, was nominated for three Oscars including Best Picture.

Disney is said to be working with film critic Elvis Mitchell on the project, which has been ongoing since 2018. Casting, creative team and any run dates have not yet been revealed.

The report also details a number of productions involving Black artists that are circling Broadway and aiming for a transfer to the heart of New York  including the Pulitzer-winning A Strange Loop and The Secret Life of Bees.
Electric vehicle visionary, Elon Musk, said he is asking mining companies to produce more nickel.

Musk made the comments during his second quarter earning call earlier this week.

Musk said miners will be offered a giant contract from Tesla if they mine nickel efficiently and in an "environmental way," according to note published by Tesmanian.

The CEO of Tesla will need more raw materials. Musk also announced during the call that his companys next gigafactory will be built in Austin, Texas. Gigafactories manufacture batteries and cars. Tesla currently has Gigafactories in the U.S., Europe and China.

Earlier this year Tesla signed a contract with Glencore for cobalt. The company has been reportedly trying to limit dependence on the material to reduce cost and avoid reliance on a material that has links to worker exploitation and environmental degradation.

Cobalt's chemistry generally provide lithium-ion batteries with greater stability.

Green Car Reports that Tesla is moving to an alternate battery chemistry: energy-dense nickel-cobalt-aluminum for its Semi production.

The nickel-based cells have higher energy density, so longer range; those are needed for something like a Semi, where every unit of mass that you add in you have to subtract in cargo, said Musk during the earnings call.
TDT | Manama

The Shura Council has backed Egypts right to protect its western borders from terrorism and maintain Libyas territorial integrity. Foreign Affairs, Defence and National Security Committee chairman Dr Abdulaziz bin Abdulaziz Al Ajman hailed Egypts pivotal role, which stems from the Arab League Defence Treaty.

Dr Al Ajman stressed the stance taken by the Egyptian Parliament, which mandated President Abdel Fattah El Sisi to intervene in Libya to stop Turkey from interfering in Arab affairs and destabilising Libyas security. The stance is in line with the call of the Libyan Parliament and tribal leaders, urging Egypt to intervene militarily and protect their people and country from the Turkish blatant interference, said Dr Al Ajman.

He described military intervention as a necessity to stop Turkish interference and restore Libyas security, based on the principles of Arab nationalism, as Libya is an integral part of Egypts security and stability and pan-Arab security
RTHK: FBI arrests three Chinese nationals for visa fraud

The FBI has interviewed visa holders it believes to secretly be members of the Chinese military in more than two dozen US cities, the Justice Department said on Thursday.

The department said it has arrested three Chinese nationals for visa fraud, while a fourth remains a fugitive staying at China's consulate in San Francisco. The United States believes the four were members of China's military posing as researchers.

In interviews with members of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army in over 25 cities across the US, the FBI uncovered a concerted effort to hide their true affiliation to take advantage of the United States and the American people, John Brown, executive assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's national security branch, said in a statement.

Court filings show that the FBI believed the San Francisco consulate was harbouring a fugitive since late June. US law enforcement cannot enter a foreign embassy or consulate unless invited, and certain top officials such as ambassadors have diplomatic immunity. (Reuters)

This story has been published on: 2020-07-23. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
A city court has directed that Rajasthan police should probe a complaint alleging the involvement of Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat in a credit society scam.

The development comes amid allegations by the Congress that the minister is involved in a bid to topple the Ashok Gehlot government.

The Special Operations Group (SOG) has already sent a notice to the minister in connection with a probe into audio clips which purportedly indicate efforts to lure MLAs away from the Congress.

On Tuesday, additional district judge Pawan Kumar directed the additional chief judicial magistrates court to send the complaint against the BJP leader to the SOG.

Shekhawat has been named in the complaint along with his wife and others in the Sanjivani Credit Cooperative Society scam in which thousands of investors allegedly lost about 900 crores.

The Jaipur unit of the SOG has probing into the scam since last year. An FIR was registered on August 23, 2019.

Shekhawat was not mentioned in the charge sheet filed by the SOG in connection with case. Later, a magistrates court also rejected an application to include him in the charge sheet.The applicants them approached the additional district judges court.

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London: Anglo-Australian miner BHP has dismissed as pointless and wasteful a 5 billion ($8.9 billion) English lawsuit by 200,000 Brazilian individuals and groups over the 2015 collapse of a dam that triggered Brazil's worst environmental disaster.

Kicking off an eight-day hearing in Manchester, northern England, BHP on Wednesday called for the record group action to be struck out or suspended, alleging it duplicated Brazilian proceedings and victims were already receiving redress.

Rescue workers search for victims at the site where the town of Bento Rodrigues stood three days after the Samarco dam burst in 2015. Credit:AP

"...the attempt to export and duplicate the work being done in Brazil, including the litigation, to England, is pointless and wasteful," BHP said in legal documents.

The claimants are due to lay out their arguments on Monday in the latest jurisdictional battle to establish whether London-listed multinationals can face trial in England over the actions of their foreign divisions.
The Great Panic of 2020 is rising to new heights as police in Washington, DC are instructed to issue $1, 000 citations to anyone caught not wearing a mask in public. This only demonstrates that the police state currently has the upper hand in America.  TN Editor

Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) issued an executive order Wednesday requiring residents to wear masks outside of the home as the city battles rising coronavirus cases.

Basically what it says is, if you leave home, you should wear a mask, Bowser said at a press conference. This means, if youre waiting for a bus, you must have on a mask. If you are ordering food at a restaurant, you must have on a mask. If youre sitting in a cubicle in an open office, you must have on a mask.

The order, which allows for fines of up $1,000 per violation, wont be enforced on children under the age of 3 and people who are actively eating or drinking.

The mayor also said she will extend the Districts state of emergency.

The nations capital has been experiencing a spike in cases as it moves toward reopening its economy. D.C., Maryland and Virginia all reported their highest COVID-19 case counts since early June on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, the District reported 102 new coronavirus cases  the most added in a single day since June 4, bringing its total cases to 11,529.

D.C. Health Director LaQuandra Nesbitt said that two-thirds of new coronavirus cases in July involve people under the age of 40 and that many patients likely got the virus while traveling.

Baltimore Mayor Bernard Young (D) on Wednesday ordered restaurants to suspend indoor dining by the end of the week and announced expanded requirements for face coverings.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 14:35:32|Editor: huaxia

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SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Unidentified gunmen believed to be militants killed a policeman in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said Thursday.

The 58-year-old Abdul Rashid Dar was killed outside his house at village Furrah of Anantnag district, about 62 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Dar was a government-backed counter-insurgent turned policeman.

"Last night militants fired upon a policeman Abdul Rashid Dar at his native place Furrah. He was shifted to hospital but succumbed to his wounds," a police official said.

Following the attack government forces cordoned off the area to conduct searches for the attackers.

However, so far no arrests were made.

Health officials at Government Medical College hospital Anantnag said Dar had multiple bullets wounds.

"He was brought dead at the hospital," a health official said. "He had bullet wounds in the chest and in the abdomen."

Militants in the region usually target families and individuals for their possible links with police and defense agencies. Even people having associations with pro-India political parties and police are targeted at times.

So far no militant outfit has claimed responsibility of the killing. Enditem
OTTAWA - A timeline of events regarding the $912-million Canada Student Service Grant program, based on public events and statements from cabinet ministers, government officials, and WE Charity:

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Co-founders Craig (left) and Marc Kielburger introduce Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau as they appear at the WE Day celebrations in Ottawa, Tuesday November 10, 2015. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

OTTAWA - A timeline of events regarding the $912-million Canada Student Service Grant program, based on public events and statements from cabinet ministers, government officials, and WE Charity:

April 5: Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talk over the phone about how to help students whose summer job and volunteer opportunities were vanishing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Finance Department officials are tasked with considering options the next morning.

April 7: Morneau's office contacts the WE organization, among other groups, to get their input on potential programs.

April 9: WE Charity sends an unsolicited proposal for a youth entrepreneurship program to Morneau, Youth Minister Bardish Chagger, Small Business Minister Mary Ng and Trudeau's office. The price tag is between $6 million and $14 million to provide digital programming and $500 grants, plus "incentive funds," for 8,000 students.

April 16: Employment and Social Development Canada officials mention WE in the context of the student program in an email discussion with Finance Department officials.

April 18: Morneau's officials raise the idea of partnering with a non-profit, or for-profit group to administer the program. (ESDC officials suggest the same day that WE might be an option.) Morneau said it was the first time he was involved in any talk about WE and the grant program.

April 19: A senior official at Employment and Social Development Canada, Rachel Wernick, contacts WE co-founder Craig Kielburger. She learns of the April 9 proposal.

April 20: Morneau's office contacts WE to ask about its ability to deliver a volunteer program. An official's record of the call notes "WE Charity will re-work their 10-week summer program proposal to fully meet the policy objective of national service and increase their current placements of 8,000 to double."

April 21: Morneau approves going with an outside organization to run the volunteer program, but no specific group is chosen.

April 22: Trudeau announces a $9-billion package of student aid, including the outline of a volunteer program paying students up to $5,000 toward education costs, based on the number of hours they volunteer. WE sends Wernick an updated proposal to reflect the announcement.

April 26: Morneau speaks with WE co-founder Craig Kielburger, but told the finance committee neither of them talked about the Canada Student Service Grant program.

April 27: Volunteer Canada, a charity that promotes volunteering and helps organizations use volunteers well, meets Chagger and raises concerns about paying students hourly rates below minimum wage and calling it volunteering.

May 4: WE sends a third proposal to Employment and Social Development Canada, this time with more details and specific to the grant program. Finance Department official Michelle Kovacevic, who was working on the program, told the finance committee she received it May 7.

May 5: Youth Minister Bardish Chagger went to a special COVID-19 cabinet committee with the recommendation to go with WE for the program. Morneau isn't at the meeting.

May 22: Cabinet, including Trudeau and Morneau, approved handing the reins of the program to WE.

May 23: The public service officially begins negotiating a contribution agreement with WE, which would have paid up to $43.5 million in fees to the group.

May 25 to June 3: In a series of meetings with Volunteer Canada, WE suggests the target for placements through the program had gone from 20,000 to 100,000.

June 12: WE co-founder Marc Kielburger says in a video chat with youth leaders that he heard from Trudeau's office about getting involved in the volunteer program the day after it was announced by the prime minister. He later backtracks, saying the contact came the week of April 26 from Wernick, and not the PMO.

June 23: WE is informed the contribution agreement has been approved.

June 25: Trudeau unveils more details about student aid. A government release notes that WE will administer the student-volunteer program.

June 26: Facing questions about WE, Trudeau says the non-partisan public service made the recommendation, and the government accepted it: "As the public service dug into it, they came back with only one organization that was capable of networking and organizing and delivering this program on the scale that we needed it, and that was the WE program."

July 3: Citing the ongoing controversy, WE and the Liberals announce a parting of ways and the federal government takes control of the program. Ethics commissioner Mario Dion tells Conservative and NDP ethics critics in separate letters he will examine Trudeau's role in the awarding of the agreement because of the prime minister's close ties to the group.

July 9: WE says it has paid Trudeau's mother Margaret about $250,000 for 28 speaking appearances at WE-related events between 2016 and 2020. His brother Alexandre was been paid $32,000 for eight events, and Trudeau's wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau received $1,400 in 2012 for a single appearance. The organization says Trudeau himself has never been paid by the charity or its for-profit arm.

July 13: Trudeau apologizes for not recusing himself from discussions about WE over his family's longtime involvement with the organization. Morneau also issues an apology.

July 16: Dion says he will investigate Morneau's actions in the affair. Chagger testifies at the finance committee, saying Trudeau's office didn't direct her to go with WE.

July 21: Ian Shugart, clerk of the Privy Council, tells the Commons finance committee there is no evidence to suggest Trudeau spoke with WE before the organization was awarded the deal to run the student-volunteer program.

July 22: Morneau tells the finance committee he just repaid over $41,000 to WE for travel expenses the organization footed for the minister and his family. The Opposition Conservatives call for Morneau to resign.

Trudeau's office says he and his chief of staff, Katie Telford, have agreed to testify before the committee with a date and time to be set.

The House of Commons ethics committee also calls on Trudeau to testify, and votes to seek copies of records for Trudeau and his family's speaking appearances dating back years. Six opposition members outvote five Liberals to have that committee start its own investigation.

July 23: Conservatives and New Democrats ask Dion to launch a new probe of Morneau over his travel expenses.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2020.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - July 23, 2020) - Roscan Gold Corporation (TSXV: ROS) (FSE: 2OJ) ("Roscan" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that, further to the Company's news release of April 24, 2020, the Company has received additional proceeds of $3,382,665 from the exercise of an additional 20,729,185 warrants.

During 2020, the Company has received total proceeds of $5,986,663 from the exercise of warrants. An additional 56.7 million warrants that are in-the-money remain outstanding, which, if exercised, would result in the Company receiving an additional $10.6 million at an average price of approximately $0.19. Of the 56.7 million remaining warrants over 32 million are held by six of our largest and most supportive shareholders.

The use of proceeds will be to fund the Company's exploration program on its highly prospective project in West Mali.

Nana Sangmuah, President and CEO, stated, "This is very encouraging and clearly highlights Roscan's well-financed exploration drill program for 2020 and 2021, which should generate ample news flow. The remaining warrants will potentially provide additional funds to maintain our accelerated exploration program over our 20km prospective trend. We look forward to providing additional updates and reporting results from our exploration activities in the coming weeks and months."

About Roscan

Roscan Gold Corporation is a Canadian gold exploration company focused on the exploration and acquisition of gold properties in West Africa. The Company has assembled a significant land position of 100%-owned permits in an area of producing gold mines (including B2 Gold's Fekola Mine which lies in a contiguous property to the west of Kandiole), and major gold deposits, located both north and south of its Kandiole Project in West Mali.

For further information, please contact:

Andrew J. Ramcharan

Executive Vice President - Corporate Development and Investor Relations

Tel: (416) 572-2295

Email: aramcharan@Roscan.ca

Greg Isenor

Executive Vice-Chairman

Tel: (902) 832-5555

Email: gpisenor@Roscan.ca

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking information which is not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking information is characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, changes in the state of equity and debt markets, fluctuations in commodity prices, delays in obtaining required regulatory or governmental approvals, and other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry, including those risks set out in the Company's management's discussion and analysis as filed under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking information in this news release is based on the opinions and assumptions of management considered reasonable as of the date hereof, including that all necessary governmental and regulatory approvals will be received as and when expected. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, other than as required by applicable securities laws.

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.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60307
Lutsk City District Court on Wednesday chose a preventive measure in the form of uncontested detention for Maksym Kryvosh, suspected of holding 13 hostages on a bus in Lutsk.

The court made the corresponding decision on Wednesday, satisfying the petition of the investigator.

"The court ruled to apply to the suspect Kryvosh a preventive measure in the form of detention for a period of 60 days ... until September 18," the judge said.

Kryvosh said, "I ask everyone to wait for the continuation of the performance - anti-system."

An appeal can be filed against this court decision, but, according to the lawyer, it will not be filed, since Kryvosh himself does not want this.

The prosecutor also clarified in court that the suspect refuses to testify, using his right to do so.

As reported, on the morning of July 21, in the center of Lutsk, a man who identified himself as "Maksym Plohoy" seized a commuter bus, carrying explosives and weapons. He held 13 hostages on the bus.

Kryvosh (born 1975), officially lives in Dubno (Rivne region), where his family is. He is a native of Orenburg region in Russia. He was previously convicted twice of serious crimes and served about 10 years in jail.
WASHINGTON - The sudden decision by the Trump administration to close the Chinese consulate in Houston set off a fresh wave of speculation around Chinese espionage activity in Texas, dealing what appears to be another blow to the regions lucrative trade relationships with China.

With sensitive targets including medical research laboratories, massive energy and petrochemical infrastructure, and aerospace facilities and companies surrounding NASAs Johnson Space Center, Houston industries have lived under the threat of Chinese hacking for years. But what, if any of that activity, may have emanated from the Houston consulate, located in Montrose around the corner from a Starbucks, remains unknown. Nor is it clear why the Trump administration chose to order that facility closed  and not one of Chinas other consulates in New York, Chicago, San Francisco or Los Angeles.

An indictment released by the Justice Department Tuesday against two suspected Chinese hackers alleged they had targeted U.S. companies conducting COVID-19 research. Within Houstons medical complex, Houston Methodist, Baylor College of Medicine and other research facilities are involved in that work, as is the University Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, which is conducting research on vaccines.

The indictment also charged the hackers stole business proposals and other documents concerning space and satellite applications from an unnamed Texas technology firm. The firm, however, was just one of 25 victims across the United States and abroad that were named in the indictment, signaling a far-reaching espionage effort that stretched well beyond the boundaries of Texas.

Maybe there are smoking guns, but they havent given us any indication yet, said Steven Lewis, a China fellow at Rice Universitys Baker Institute for Public Policy. There doesnt seem to be any more activity here (in Houston) than anywhere else. They say Chinese hackers are trying to steal COVID-19 research data, and since were a medical research area it might be related. But were not the only ones doing that work.

On HoustonChronicle.com: For Texas, promise and pitfalls in China

The closure of the Houston consulate presents a clear threat for Texas industry, not only making more difficult interactions with a Chinese government that has maintained a presence in Houston since 1979, but also complicating an already struggling trade relationship between the two nations. Texas industries, particularly petrochemical manufacturers and liquefied natural gas exporters, have bet heavily on China as a major market, investing billions of dollars to build and expand chemical plants and LNG export facilities along the Gulf Coast.

Last year, exports from Texas to China fell by more than 30 percent to $11.3 billion, after President Donald Trump placed tariffs on many Chinese goods in a bid to get China to import more U.S. agricultural goods and other products. Despite a tentative deal with Trump earlier this year, the Chinese have largely held their ground, putting in place retaliatory tariffs against U.S. goods, including energy products.

Concern here is growing that consulates closure could further disrupt trade and make it even harder for Texas companies and products to enter one of the worlds biggest markets. In addition, it could drive the Chinese to start pulling business from Texas that officials had worked hard to lure, said State Rep. Gene Wu, a Houston Democrat.

Rewards, risks

For instance, the Chinese copper company Hailiang announced last year it was investing $165 million to refurbish a 200-acre manufacturing plant west of Houston in Sealy. And Chinese medical company Shandong Weigao Group paid $850 million for a private medical manufacturer outside Dallas in 2017.

China is building factories here, building headquarters here. Companies are putting down roots and distribution centers, Wu said. Elected officials from around the state have gone to great lengths to court them to come to Texas instead of Louisiana or Oklahoma or somewhere else.

But letting Chinese companies into the United States does not come without risk, with Houstons sprawling oil and energy complex making a particularly alluring target for Chinese spies. In November a Chinese employee of Houston refining giant Phillips 66 pled guilty to stealing confidential information on the companys next generation battery technology.

Nations around the world have grown increasingly wary about using the Chinese company Huaweis 5G technology for fear the Beijing government will use it at a tool for spying. In recent years, the Chinese government has scaled up its cyberwarfare efforts, with an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 military and civilian workers employed, said Anthony Roman, a New York-based security consultant.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Clash of the Titans

The Chinese effort is unprecedented. Their cyber intelligence and hacking operations are unprecedented, he said. All the critical infrastructure in the U.S. is the target of the Chinese cyber effort.

The Chinese government, however, has long maintained its intelligence efforts are no different than those conducted by other nations, including the United States. A spokesman for Chinas Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that U.S. officials had harassed their diplomatic staffers, as well as Chinese students studying in the United States - in some cases detaining them without charges.

For some time, the US government has been shifting the blame to China with stigmatization and unwarranted attacks against Chinas social system, said the spokesman, Wang Wenbin. The unilateral closure of Chinas consulate general in Houston on short notice is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking at an event in Denmark on Wednesday, described the closure as a penalty for this long challenge of the Chinese Communist Party stealing intellectual property. 

We are setting out clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave, Pompeo said, when they dont, were going to take actions that protect the American people.

July surprise?

But for now, many experts remain wary of connecting any specific attack with Trumps decision to close the Houston consulate, pointing out that the activity disclosed in Tuesday indictment has been going on for years. With the presidential election looming in November, some are wondering whether the diplomatic dust up is an attempt to distract the public from Trumps struggles to contain the coronavirus.

Is it politically motivated because the election is closing in or is it based on hard reliable intelligence? said Roman, the security consultant. That is not being revealed yet.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Made in China energy grows

Paul Takahashi and Benjamin Wermund contributed to this report.

james.osborne@chron.com

twitter.com/osborneja
Kabul, July 23 : At least 250 Afghan security force members were killed and over 300 others injured in 220 attacks carried out by the Taliban in the past three weeks in the 11 provinces of the country, a media report said.

The TOLO News report indicated that the majority of casualties among the government forces occurred in the north and southeast regions of the country.

The Afghan government has not provided details on the exact number, but has insisted that the Taliban's casualties "are double" than that of the security forces.

Under the US-Taliban peace agreement which was signed in Doha on February 29, the Taliban committed to not stage attacks on the key highways and provincial capitals.

However, over the recent days, Zabul-Kandahar, Baghlan-Samangan and Kabul-Nangarhar highways have witnessed massive attacks, said the TOLO News report.

Of the 11 provinces, Kunduz has witnessed heavy clashes.

The recent wave of violence have also led to a surge in Afghan civilian casualties.

Last week, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission recorded 17 targeted and suicide attacks on places of worship in the last nine months which claimed the lives of 170 people.

The Commission's report cited data from October 17, 2019 to July 13, 2020, reports TOLO News.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Donald Trump, who has consistently deflected blame for the coronavirus outbreak, on Wednesday evening pinned a surge of cases and deaths in America's Sun Belt states on protesters, Mexico and young bar patrons.

The president used his second revived coronavirus briefings in as many nights to again said he and his team have done a stellar job fighting the virus, despite months of harsh critiques from medical experts and Democratic lawmakers.

He said the protests "triggered" a broader relaxation of some mitigation efforts, as well as young people gathering at bars and on beaches. He also blames the US "sharing a 2000-mile border with Mexico, and cases are surging in Mexico."

The implication is sick people, or asymptomatic individuals, are flowing into the United States from that country. Yet, Mr Trump is sending federal border officers, among others, to cities like Portland and Chicago to deal with violence there.

Amid a national debate about opening schools for the fall term, Mr Trump said he is comfortable sending his young son back to soon, as well as his grandchildren.

Asked if he plans to publish a national plans to help local officials get classrooms running this fall, Mr Trump put the onus on those officials and governors.

The president again said he wants the country's schools "100 per cent open" this fall, and contended his administration has data that school-age children do not contract the virus or pass it easily.

That flies in the face of what many health experts have said for months.

The president began his briefing by thanking federal and private-sector experts who are working on a vaccine  applause that comes before any company or agency has proven any of the experimental drugs will inoculate anyone from coronavirus.

"The light is starting to shine," Mr Trump said, reverting to his optimistic tone after sounding more measured on Tuesday evening. "We will get there very quickly."

The night before, the president said the Sun Belt outbreak will "get worse before it gets better."

The president continued to brag about the US testing rate, saying over 50m tests have been administered.

'I take no responsibility'



There are now at least 141, 000 people in America who have died from the virus and at least 3.9m cases. The United States has added nearly 1m cases in just two weeks, most in the Sun Belt region.

States down south and out west that opened in May and June, their GOP governors under pressure from the president, have driven that eye-popping surge in cases.



But, as he did again on Wednesday evening, the president has sought either share blame for the months-long outbreak and now the Sun Belt spike or pin it on others.



Notably, for the second consecutive night, the president was in the briefing room for only a short while  a departure from the wild coronavirus briefings he conducted in the spring, which could last almost two hours and created political headaches for Mr Trump and his White House and campaign aides.

His expected general election foe, former Vice President Joe Biden, and former President Barack Obama this week sharply critcised Mr Trump in a coming joint campaign video.

"Can you imagine standing up when you were president and saying, 'It's not my responsibility. I take no responsibility.' Literally. Literally," Mr Biden says to his former boss, who replies: "Those words didn't come out of our mouths when we were in office."
SAN ANTONIO - Whenever priest Carmelo Hernandez makes a live appearance on his church's YouTube channel, he asks the same question each week: "Have you filled out your census form?"

The parishioners of St. Leo the Great Catholic Church in Houston are largely Hispanic, undocumented or of mixed status, living in one of the most diverse cities in the nation. Hernandez has spent months using his pulpit to demystify the census, disentangle the misinformation and quiet the fears that congregants have about being counted.

But news that President Donald Trump signed a memorandum Tuesday that would exclude many of his parishioners from congressional apportionment is enough to scare them back into invisibility, he said. To them it is proof - against Hernandez's many efforts to the contrary - that the census is a trap and should be avoided.

"This is an obvious attempt to weaponize the census to make sure people already in power stay in power," said Nabila Mansoor, executive director of the Texas chapter of Emgage USA, which works closely with Texas's Muslim American community. "The demographics are changing such that our districts are going to be more diverse and include many more people that were not there before. If you take out the undocumented community, you are allowing these gerrymandered districts to be further diluted."

Trump said Tuesday that he has directed the commerce secretary "to exclude illegal aliens from the apportionment base following the 2020 census," adding that the move "reflects a better understanding of the Constitution and is consistent with the principles of our representative democracy."

Excluding undocumented migrants from the decennial counting of people who live within U.S. borders could have significant consequences in Texas, home to an estimated 1.6 million undocumented immigrants and massive demographic shifts since 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Migration Policy Institute. Some experts estimate that the true number is closer to 2 million, and that more than 107,000 DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients reside in the state.

The Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin urban areas - the fastest-growing in the nation - have some of the highest numbers of undocumented residents in the country, according to the Pew Research Center. They represent huge chunks of the labor force and contribute billions of dollars to the economy, studies show.

Houston alone is home to an estimated half-million undocumented immigrants. Advocates say more concerning than not counting those people is that many of them are in households with children and family members who are U.S. citizens - and who might also be left out of the official count.

Experts say the Trump administration's attempt to change the 230-year-old census process will face constitutional challenges, and Trump opponents say it represents the latest of several actions aimed at suppressing the count and skewing the nation's population data. The Supreme Court struck down an administration effort to include a citizenship question on the census, and groups sued after Trump ordered federal agencies to share data on citizenship with the Commerce Department.

"The conversation alone is devastating," said Graci Garces, director of partnerships at BakerRipley, a community development organization in Texas. "It would also exacerbate the existing feeling among immigrant communities that they don't count and don't exist."

Garces and her team have spent years working with neighbors in the Gulfton-Sharpstown community of Houston to win their trust and to explain how the census can help them. Dubbed the "Ellis Island of Houston," it is one of the most dense and diverse neighborhoods of Harris County. It has its own census tract.

Street after street is lined with apartment complexes full of immigrant and refugee families from around the globe. BakerRipley has invested in Gulfton-Sharpstown, where it has a community center and programming designed to assist families. Trump's memo also threatens the organization's funding, which is based on census data.

"The greater Houston area is projected to lose $15,700 in federal funding for each living human being that does not get counted," said Deborah Chen, the director of civic engagement programs for the Houston chapter of OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates.

Texas is at an inflection point with this census as a result of the state's explosive growth during the past decade. The state could gain as many as three or four members of Congress, but determining the boundaries of those districts will depend on accurate census data. Shifting demographics present an existential threat to the state's Republican hegemony.

The coronavirus pandemic has prompted the postponement of public redistricting hearings slated to take place this summer before lawmakers begin to redraw maps next year. But delays in the delivery of census data could lead the Republican-controlled state legislature to hold a special session. Advocates have urged elected state officials to facilitate public input through remote public hearings before what could be a gladiatorial 2021 legislative session.

Texas has a long history of discriminating against voters of color. Federal district court lawsuits have forced elected state leaders to throw out the maps decade after decade while under the supervision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But after the Supreme Court invalidated a key provision of the civil-rights-era law in 2013, Texas was freed from oversight and quickly implemented voter-identification requirements.

The 2021 session will mark the first time in 50 years that Texas will undertake redistricting out of sight of federal scrutiny.

Organizers say the Trump administration's actions are having a chilling effect on census participation rates, even if the moves are not backed by the courts.

Charlie Bonner, spokesman for the nonpartisan civic organization Move Texas, said the group's outreach workers in the Austin area continue to find people who ask about the citizenship question - a year after it was ruled unconstitutional.

The state government has not devoted any funding to the effort to educate and count more people, leaving the work to the U.S. Census Bureau and volunteer groups that, because of the pandemic, have had to pivot field operations and cancel events designed to urge immigrant communities to fill out the forms.

"Texas is not doing anything to make sure people get counted, because the people in power know the demographics are not growing in their favor," Bonner said. "When we take more Latinx young people out of the count, we diminish their political power. . . . Those communities are losing money and power in Texas."

Immigrant and Hispanic communities have historically underwhelmed at the ballot box, but recent elections suggest years of voter disengagement is no longer a part of the narrative. Filling out census forms is one way grass-roots organizers introduce families to civic life and empower communities to advocate on their behalf.

"We need to be more aggressive in making sure we are seen," said Hernandez, the priest. "It's our moral obligation to be counted."
Standard Bank announced earlier this month that it has changed its brand positioning and tagline and adopted one that epitomises where it sees its role in Africa today.

Thulani Sibeko, chief marketing officer at Standard Bank

Dreams matter. They matter because they fuel the growth of countries, the growth of societies and if dreams matter and if they fuel growth, we concluded that together with our clients, we have to go into unexplored territories to ensure that those dreams are realised. As a result of that research and those insights, we landed on a new brand promise, which is finding new ways to make dreams possible.

Research suggests that Africans are looking for brands that can help them realise their ambitions and put them at the centre of the discussion. They want a brand to believe in them, inspire them and journey with them and, therefore, Standard Bank has changed its brand positioning and tagline It Can Be, in line with its purpose to drive Africas growth and what it sets out to achieve.Standard Bank's chief marketing officer Thulani Sibeko said, The biggest finding that came through was that our continent is full of dreamers, believers and doers, and this prevalence of dream was consistent across all the countries we researched, including South Africa, and with that realisation we adopted a belief that says:Here, my interview with Sibeko to find out more about the brand refresh, what motivated the bank to do this and why now.Several months back we asked ourselves whether we had a trusted brand and our answer was resolute. Yes, we have a trusted brand. However, what we needed to confront was to ask, How old is our positioning and is it as relevant and potent as it was when it was introduced? The answer was simple While we are trusted, our positioning is no longer as distinctive as it ought to be, and there was an opportunity for a change.The ultimate reason why we had to make a change was that we want our current customers and customers who are not with Standard Bank to reconsider Standard Bank and it was very clear that if our current customers need to be reassured that they are with the right brand, if our non-customers need to relook at Standard Bank and say maybe that could be my bank, we had to reposition and that was the genesis of the repositioning.In the launch release, Sibeko said that now is the time to begin a narrative of hope, belief and optimism. The phrase It Can Be is a celebration of the human spirit, of the belief in our dreams, and there is no better time to introduce this new positive message as encouragement to keep going.
Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan acted as joint lead managers.

Ukraine sold a US$2 billion eurobond maturing in 2033 on Thursday with a yield of 7.250%, sources said, relaunching a debt sale Kyiv had been forced to halt in early July following the shock resignation of its central bank governor.

Around US$1.2 billion of the bond sale was new money, while the remainder was part of a liability exercise, a banking source said, adding the order book for new cash reached more than US$6.3 billion, Reuters reported.

Read alsoUkraine's National Bank keeps key policy rate at 6%

The new issue offered a slight premium over the shelved issue, analysts said.

"The book has been over-subscribed comfortably," said Sergey Dergachev at Union Investment. "The fact that there is very limited supply out there is big positive technical feature for Ukrainian sovereign."

The shelved issue had attracted total orders of more than US$7.5 billion. Ukraine's outstanding 2032 bond yields 7.177%.

Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan acted as joint lead managers.

Former governor Yakiv Smolii quit at the start of July, complaining of "systematic political pressure."

New governor Kyrylo Shevchenko was installed last week, promising to keep the central bank free from political meddling. Bonds rallied on his appointment, although investors said much depended on how independent Shevchenko actually proved to be.
I used to sit there and watch him in the bed and in pain and dying of glioblastoma, Mr. Biden said of his older son, who died in 2015. And I thought to myself, what would happen if his insurance company was able to come in, which they could have done before we passed Obamacare, and said: Youve outrun your insurance. Youve outlived it. Suffer the last five months of your life in peace. Youre on your own.

Health care was a central issue for Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, and they are emphasizing it again this election cycle, especially with the pandemic underscoring the importance of insurance coverage and care for the sick.

Mr. Trump came into office on a promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but he and Republicans in Congress failed in their efforts to undo the health law in 2017. Still, the Trump administration has repeatedly sought to undermine the law, and it is now asking the Supreme Court to overturn it.

You and I both know what its like to have somebody you love get really sick, and in some cases to lose somebody, Mr. Obama told Mr. Biden in their conversation. He called the Affordable Care Act a piece of starter house legislation, giving Mr. Biden room to highlight his proposed public health insurance option, which would build on Mr. Obamas efforts.

But that loss is compounded when you see the stress on their faces, because theyre worried that theyre being a burden on their families, Mr. Obama said. Theyre worried about whether the insurance is going to cover the treatments that they need.

In another portion of the conversation, which was released on Wednesday, the two talked about their response to the Black Lives Matter movement and the current protests for racial equality. During Mr. Obamas administration, some activists criticized the president for blocking efforts at systemic reform, but there is widespread agreement he was more receptive than Mr. Trump has been.

Mr. Obama, the countrys first Black president, noted the police accountability measures that his administration put in place, including a greater role for the Justice Department in police oversight. He cited some instances of overt racism that still persist, including job discrimination.
Burma Karen Protestors Say Myanmar Military Must Leave After Killing Local Woman

Local residents from 35 villages in Dweh Lo Township in Papun District of Karen State stage a protest outside of a military outpost in their region on July 22. / Department of Information and Organization, Mutraw District

MANDALAYOver 1,500 locals from Papun District in Karen State staged a protest Wednesday outside of Myanmar military posts in their area, calling for an end to the militarys presence in the region after the recent killing of a civilian by two soldiers.

Local residents of 35 villages in Dweh Lo Township held placards with slogans and pictures of Naw Mu Naw, the woman recently shot and killed by the soldiers, as they marched to four military outposts. They demanded justice for her and other locals killed and injured by the military.

We cannot bear the brutalities of the soldiers anymore, said a local organizer of the protest who requested anonymity. We want Mei Wai, Kay Ko, Wor Mu and Khu Thu Htar military outposts to be removed from our region.

Residents said the incident in which two privates shot Naw Mu Naw and took her gold jewelry is the latest in a string of brutal cases facing their communities.

In the past months, villagers from War Thaw Kho and War Thaw Khar were shot dead by the soldiers without reason, said a local resident. There are many locals being injured, too. The artillery and shells also have fallen into the villages, where we are living in fear, and we cant even move around freely to work at our farms.

Since 2018, the Myanmar militarys reconstruction of a road in Papun has sparked tensions between the military and the Karen National Union (KNU). The area is under the control of KNU Brigade 5 and now see regular military tensions.

The KNU signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement in 2015 but the military and KNU troops still come into conflict over territorial disputes.

We want any organization or individuals who are working for the Karen people to help us by seeking a way for the removal of these military outposts, the local organizer added.

Naw Mu Naw, a 40-year-old mother of three teenagers from Po Lo Hta Village, was shot dead by two soldiers from the militarys Light Infantry Battalion 409 in her home on July 16. The soldiers also took her gold necklace and earrings.

According to the Myanmar militarys Tatmadaw True News Information team, the military arrested the two soldiers who killed the Karen woman on July 17 and will take harsh action against them.

The Tatmadaw True News Information Team said in a statement on July 20 that privates Than Soe Lwin and Hein Min Htet were drunk when they took Naw Mu Naws gold necklace and then killed her. Naw Mu Naw reportedly owned a liquor shop.

The militarys statement also said a preliminary investigation found that the gun of private Than Soe Lwin went off as he confronted the victim and a bullet hit her in the head.

The statement said that further investigation in a military court is ongoing and that the two privates, currently detained at Biin military post in Mon State, will face harsh punishment.

The local residents protesting on Wednesday called for justice for Naw Mu Naw, saying they were sadden by the brutal acts of the soldiers.

We want justice for Naw Mu Naw. We dont believe the bullet just went off from the gun, said one protestor. This is not an accident, though the soldiers who shot her said they didnt shoot her intentionally. The military needs to investigate the case sincerely.

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Karen Parties Coordinate Campaigns to Maximize Votes in Myanmar Election

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Comet C/2020 F3, also known as NEOWISE, was discovered earlier this year by NASAs Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer telescope. While the comet was visible in the early morning hours before July 12, sky gazers can now witness NEOWISE after sunset until around 9:30 in the north-western direction. An excellent opportunity to witness comet NEOWISE, which will not be visible for the next 6,800 years, is on July 23 as it will be closest to Earth.

How to spot it in the sky

The comet will be visible after the sunset just south of the Big Dipper or Saptarishi constellation.

NEOWISE can be witnessed with naked eyes, however, for a clear view, it is advised to use binoculars or a small telescope.

READ: Neowise July 22 Location: Know When And Where To Find The Dazzling Comet Tonight

The comet can be viewed till 9:30pm and the sky gazers will get approximately a one hour window to see it clearly.

One can also download stargazing app to figure out where one should look in the sky to view the comet. SkySafari 6 is one such app that can help in tracing NEOWISE.

READ: Neowise July 21 Location: Here Is Where You Can See The Bright Comet In The Night Sky

Here are some of the pictures of comet NEOWISE from around the globe;

Comet Neowise served with a side of California sunsets  pic.twitter.com/ABayE3VxJg  Brian  (@b_shootz) July 21, 2020

my first astro shots and comet neowise  pic.twitter.com/w3BlHFZ5ZQ  jacob (@jacobroberttss) July 22, 2020

Hope you have all been enjoying Comet NEOWISE! If you haven't seen it yet, try to see it in the North just after Sunset. It's now racing back to the icy outer Solar System, and won't return for around 7000 years! This beautiful image of the comet was captured by Robin Catchpole. pic.twitter.com/S3xhiT0CYQ  Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge (@cambridge_astro) July 21, 2020

Comet NEOWISE

The NEOWISE comet has been an intriguing site for several wanderers of the sky. It was first discovered on March 27, 2020, using a NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) space telescope. After its discovery, it was listed as C/2020 F3 which was located 312 million kilometres (194 million miles) from the sun. At a very faint magnitude of +17, it is considered to be 25,000 times fainter than the faintest star that can be glimpsed with the naked eye.

It is believed that if Comet NEOWISE manages to remain brighter through this phase. The comet had its closest approach to the Sun on July 2 at 43 million kilometres. On July 23, the comet is expected to be closest to earth as it will streak just over 10 crore kilometres from the planet. This is when it will be visible in the Northern hemisphere right after sunset.

READ: Comet NEOWISE: Take A Look At Some Surreal Time-lapses Of This Celestial Phenomenon

READ: Neowise July 20 Location: How To Find Neowise Tonight? Here Is Its Position In The Sky
Although the Republican Party of Texas spent the past few weeks preoccupied with internal squabbles over the venue of their state convention and its conduct among a small group of activists and party officers, the partys elected officials have much bigger problems. For much of the past two decades, the reigning GOP has had to make very few tough decisions. The largesse of the fracking boom and the tradition of the low-tax, low-service political economy nurtured by previous generations of conservative, pro-business Democrats enabled a generation of GOP leaders to claim success for what was mostly baked into the structural trajectory of the state. Now, for the first time, with Abbott at the helm, the Texas GOP must make hard, proactive policy decisions that will have deep structural consequences in a period of multiple sustained crises.

The governor should stay the course he has recently charted, even if it requires defying the president and even if it requires doing so openly. Its time for the governor to spend the political capital hes accumulated over his two terms leading the state with few real political challenges, and perhaps even go in the red on that account, for the sake of the state  and for the people he expects to vote for him and for those he doesnt.

James Henson is director of the Texas Politics Project at The University of Texas at Austin. Joshua Blank is the manager of polling and research of the Texas Politics Project at The University of Texas at Austin. Supporting data used in this column can be found at the Texas Politics Project website, located at texaspolitics.utexas.edu.
In all indications, the capacity of P.P.E. is lower than the demand, said Prakash Mirchandani, the director of the Center for Supply Chain Management at the University of Pittsburgh, referring to personal protective equipment. The total requirement of N95 masks, just for physicians and nurses, is about four to five billion units a year.

The federal government does not release reports outlining each specific order placed under the Defense Production Act. But based on contracts that have been announced, interviews with experts who are tracking the distribution of medical supplies and interviews with advocates for medical workers needs, there is little evidence that the administration has made widespread use of the act to control the supply chain to combat the coronavirus.

There have been myths that, at one point, all of a sudden, there was enough of a stockpile of protective equipment, said Ms. Burger, who is a nurse at a hospital in Sonoma County, Calif. But the honest truth is that if you talk to any nurse in the country, they have never had enough equipment.

A spokeswoman for the Defense Department said it had awarded seven contracts for medical supplies under the Defense Production Act since the coronavirus pandemic began. But as cases surge across the country, the rate of infections has outpaced the production of protective gear, especially for N95 masks.

Under five of those contracts, the Defense Department paid three companies over $200 million to expand and retool factories to produce N95 masks in greater quantities  a process that takes months. The companies will not reach maximum production until late summer or fall.

A spokeswoman for 3M, a manufacturer of N95 masks that has received at least four contracts from the federal government under the act, said it had delivered 200 million N95 masks to U.S. hospitals, FEMA and the federal stockpile since the pandemic began.

But FEMA estimates that even in October, when it predicts that the United States will produce 180 million N95 masks a month, domestic production will not meet demand. Still, the last time the Defense Department issued a contract under the Defense Production Act to produce additional masks was in late May.
Peter Dutton has told a Sri Lankan family fighting deportation from Australia to give up and go home.

The Home Affairs Minister said the family-of-four, who are detained on Christmas Island, have cost the taxpayer $10million which could have been spent on Australians.

Priya and Nades Murugappan came to Australia by boat separately in 2012 and 2013, alleging they were escaping the Sri Lankan civil war.

They settled in Biloela, Queensland and had two daughters, Kopika, four, and Tharunicaa, two.

Priya and Nades Murugappan and their Australian-born daughters Kopika and Tharunicaa are fighting deportation

The family are stuck on Christmas Island. Pictured: A detention centre on the island

They have applied for asylum but the government does not believe they are refugees and wants to deport them.

However, several court orders have barred the government from sending them home, meaning they are stuck in limbo on Christmas Island.

Speaking on Sydney radio 2GB today, Mr Dutton said the family should stop fighting.

'This case has gone on since 2012 I think, and it must have cost now probably over $10 million,' he said.

'That's money that should be going into... communities and helping Australian citizens.

'They are not refugees and they have used every trick in the book to make sure they can stay.

'This is a situation of their own making, it is ridiculous, it's unfair on their children, and it sends a very bad message to other people who think that they can rort the system as well.'

Kopika (right) and Tharunicaa (left) are pictured at the detention centre on Christmas Island on January 28

The family was moved to Christmas Island in August 2019. The couple said they feared persecution back in Sri Lanka, having fled during the civil war.

The children are considered an 'unauthorised maritime arrival' by authorities, despite being born in Australia.

Normally, holding this status means a person does not have the right to apply for a visa - unless given special permission by the immigration minister.

But the family applied for two-year-old Tharunicaa to get a protection visa.

The government rejected the application, but in a landmark decision in April, the court ruled the toddler's case had not been treated fairly.

Federal Court Justice Mark Moshinsky said Tharunicaa's request to apply for a visa was rejected without being properly assessed.

This meant the family could not be sent home because a court injunction last year prevented their deportation to Sri Lanka until legal proceedings were finalised.

The other three family members have had their refugee applications rejected.

The family will be held on Christmas Island while their case continues.

Mr Murugappan has claimed he will be persecuted in Sri Lanka because he was forced to join the militant group Tamil Tigers in 2001 and was harassed by the Sri Lankan military.

The Immigration Assessment Authority rejected the claims on the basis he frequently travelled between Sri Lanka, Kuwait and Qatar for work between 2004 and 2010 during the civil war, something that a Tamil Tigers member would not be allowed to do.
Reuters

Former White House communications chief Anthony Scaramucci has accused Donald Trump of covertly imploring the arrested socialite Ghislaine Maxwell not to reveal what she knows about him.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Mr Scaramucci wrote: She has the goods on him. He is signaling please dont talk.

Mr Trump acknowledged Ms Maxwell during a press briefing on Tuesday, his first since April. Asked by a reporter whether he thought she would turn in other powerful men who were potentially involved with Jeffrey Epstein, the president said he hasnt been following the case closely.

I just wish her well, he said. Ive met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever it is.

Mr Trump was photographed alongside Epstein and Ms Maxwell many times over more than a decade, and once called Epstein a terrific guy, saying he [liked] beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.

Since before Epsteins death, however, any association between them has been downplayed. Fox News recently had to apologise for mistakenly cropping Mr Trump out of a picture featuring the two.

Mr Scaramucci has several times tweeted in support of Epstein-related conspiracy theories, and specifically the idea that the billionaire paedophile was murdered in prison. Among the sources he has retweeted on this subject is far-right male supremacist agitator Mike Cernovich.

Mr Cernovich previously helped propagate the Pizzagate theory, which held that Hillary Clinton and her associates were running a child sex ring out of the basement of a Washington pizza restaurant, Comet Ping Pong. (The restaurant does not in fact have a basement.)

She has the goods on him. He is signaling please dont talk.  Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) July 22, 2020

Mr Scaramucci was hired as White House communications director in August 2017, upon which he immediately became obsessed with leakers and acquired a reputation for turning on both the press and his fellow aides.

Story continues

In a notoriously coarse phone interview with The New Yorker during his time at the White House, he boasted of his own sense of mission while denigrating the presidents closest advisers.

Im not Steve Bannon, Im not trying to suck my own c***, he told reporter Ryan Lizza. Im not trying to build my own brand off the f***ing strength of the president. Im here to serve the country.

Mr Scaramucci was sacked shortly afterwards by incoming chief of staff John Kelly.
Yugra bank ex-managers $300 mln assets seized by court

 flickr.com/Moscow-Live.ru

11:44 23/07/2020

MOSCOW, July 23 (RAPSI)  The Moscow Commercial Court has ordered seizure of over 21.5 billion rubles (about $300 million) belonging to ex-owner of Bank Yugra Alexey Khotin, ex-board chairman Dmitry Shilyayev and several other individuals and legal entities, according to court records.

A relevant injunctive remedies petition has been filed by the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) as part of its claim to collect this amount from the former bank managers.

In June, the court seized their assets in the total amount of more than 77 billion rubles (over $1 billion).

Earlier, the same court ruled in favor of the DIA as to attachment of cash assets and other properties of former Bank Yugra managers worth several dozens of billions.

At that time, DIA petitioned the court to grant it interim relief by seizing the aforesaid property in the framework of a claim by which it sought to hold the defendants civilly liable and recover from them the damages.

In the period from April 9 through April 16, the court ruled in favor of DIA as to the recovery of about 8 billion rubles (about $113 million at the current exchange rate) from the defendants, holding them civilly liable, and the seizure of their assets.

This February, the court dismissed a request of Yugra bank acting on behalf of Shilyayev to review the ruling, by which the banks license had been revoked in 2017, basing upon new evidence.

An earlier petition to review the order of Russias Central Bank of 2017 revoking Yugra license was dismissed in cassation in September 2019.

In July 2017, Russia's Central Bank said withdrew the license of Yugra bank, one of the top 30 banks. It imposed temporary administration represented by the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) in the bank. The DIA was ordered to conduct Yugras status inquiry.

In October 2018, the Moscow Commercial Court declared Yugra bankrupt.

This April, the Moscow City Court extended house arrest of the majority stockholder of Yugra bank Alexey Khotin charged with embezzling 7.5 billion rubles from the credit organization until July 18. Other defendants in the embezzlement case, ex-bank board chairman Dmitry Shilyayev and ex-president of the bank Alexey Nefedov, will also stay under house arrest until mid-July.

Investigators believe that banker Khotin and his alleged accomplices have been involved in stealing the money from Yugra. The fact of the embezzlement is confirmed by the documents of Russias Central Bank, Deposit Insurance Agency and other evidence, according to the investigation.
The UAE has maintained its first place globally in the mobile subscription index, while advancing from second to first in the international mobile broadband Internet subscription index, according to the UN E-Government Survey 2020.



The UAE also ranked first in the Gulf, Arab Region, and Western Asia, second in Asia and the seventh globally in the Telecommunication Infrastructure Index (TII), reported Emirates news agency Wam, citing the UN report.



As for the Internet users index, the UAE moved up to fifth from 13th globally, achieving a qualitative leap in the fixed broadband subscription index, as it moved up to 29th from 68th in the world.



These achievements resulted from efforts of the TII Executive Team headed by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) and UAE mobile operators (Etisalat and du), where the team worked to raise the countrys ranking in the TII sub-indicators by launching a number of initiatives over the past years, contributing to maintaining the UAE as a world leader in such indicators, the Wam report said.



Tariq Al Awadhi, Executive Director of Spectrum Affairs Department, TII Executive Team Leader, and Head of TRA's National Agenda Team, said: "The TRA has developed plans and strategies that contribute to strengthening the telecommunications sector infrastructure, out of its belief in the central role that this sector plays in achieving the UAE Vision 2021 and National Agenda goals. Telecom operators in the country have allotted a huge budget for infrastructure investment of up to AED 36 billion, making the UAEs infrastructure among the best in the world in terms of fibre services and overall coverage."



Al Awadhi stressed that the significant development in UAEs telecommunications sector infrastructure comes in preparation for the upcoming milestones.



"This achievement reflects the development and quality of the telecom sector infrastructure in the UAE, which was a key enabler that contributed to the business continuity of vital sectors in the country during the Covid-19 crisis, as well as raising UAE's readiness for future changes and technology. Owing to the evolved and quality infrastructure, the UAE was able to easily adapt to variables, adopt smart techniques such as distance learning and remote working, provide services ensuring the natural pace of work, and provide opportunities for growth in light of the ever-changing world.



"This achievement also reflects the efforts of the TRA in implementing the directives and vision of UAEs wise leadership to up the readiness of the telecommunications sector to leverage modern technology in the country, especially 5G, where the UAE ranked 1st in the Arab Region and 4th globally in launching and using 5G networks. All this thanks to the cooperation and coordination with mobile operators to deploy and operate 5G networks, and the continued work and collaboration to develop the telecommunications infrastructure in keeping pace with future requirements, thus contributing to the on-going global leadership of the UAE in this sector," he added.



The UAE has been ranked first in the GCC, Arab region, and Western Asia, and 8th globally in the Online Service Index (OSI) issued by the United Nations within the E-Government Development Index (EGDI). The UAE is also ranked 4th in Asia in this indicator, advanced one rank in the E-participation Index, progressing to 16th from 17th in the 2018 index cycle.
Some forecast the dark cloud of the coronavirus pandemic would hold a silver lining  it would bring the world closer together.

Back in April, the World Economic Forum ran an article headlined: A pandemic of solidarity? And noted that as the virus continued to spread, its bringing out the best in people across the globe, adding that in Europe people are singing to one another to keep spirits up.

They were then, but the singing has now stopped.

Far from drawing the world closer together, it appears, if anything, to be having the opposite effect, all too often eroding the solidarity between allies and intensifying the enmity of foes. The world seems to be spinning apart, with the virus acting like a vast centrifugal force, warn analysts.

We have seen nations across the globe turn inward and focus on containing the spread of COVID-19, taking unilateral steps to protect themselves with minimal global cooperation, Denisa Delic of the charity Save the Children recently complained.

The world was out of sorts with itself even before the coronavirus. Established political orders were being challenged in ways not seen since the end of the so-called gilded age in the late 19th century or the 1930s, the decade of the Great Depression.

Writing in his pre-coronavirus book Age of Anger: A History of the Present, Indian essayist Pankaj Mishra argued that many people felt powerless, had lost faith in traditional political authorities to protect them or confidence in their ability to restore predictability. Resentment was rising at the increasingly unequal distributions of wealth and power. The economic shock, and reverberating aftershocks, of the 2008 financial crash were of even greater magnitude than experienced in the late ninetieth century, he noted, with dangers more diffuse and less predictable.

And that was before the deadly virus emerged, which is testing governments and countries like never before in modern peacetime history and adding new layers of unpredictability.

Uncertainty breeding polarization

The public health crisis has morphed into a multi-headed hydra of interlinked crises. Polarization has only deepened. Tens of millions have already lost their jobs and many more tens of millions are likely to lose their theirs. Governments of all types and persuasions are borrowing massively or burrowing deep into their reserves. International organizations have been wanting with mounting criticism of the World Health Organization.

Only 12 years ago, the biggest financial crisis since the 1930s shook the global economy, said Martin Wolf, chief commentator of Britains Financial Times. Affected by how that was handled, the subsequent economic malaise and the perception that capitalism was rigged against them, the public in a number of high-income countries became angry.

Wolf added in a recent commentary said that mustering a concerted and effective global response is nigh on impossible and he fears that the pandemic will leave in its wake even more polarized politics and dreadful international relations.

China, Russia

Trust is increasingly in short supply. China has seized the moment to try to gain political and economic advantage over rivals, say Western leaders, agitating in the South China Sea, clashing with India, punishing countries that backed a call for an international inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus and Beijings handling of the initial outbreak and cracking down on dissent in Hong Kong.

Police detain protesters after a protest in Causeway Bay before the annual handover march in Hong Kong, July. 1, 2020.

Along with Russia and Iran, Beijing stands accused by Western intelligence chiefs of launching aggressive state-backed cyber attacks aimed at stealing data from Western universities and pharmaceutical companies. And, according to U.S. intelligence officials, Russia and China are likely to seek to try to meddle in the upcoming U.S. elections.

Foreign efforts to interfere in American elections is something we constantly must contend with, and well contend with that here, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Washingtons The Hill newspaper last week. He added Americas diplomats are working to make sure our adversaries understand the cost imposed if they try to interfere.

Christo Grozev, lead Russia investigator with Bellingcat, the investigative journalism website, warned recently that Russias troll factory in St. Petersburg, which sought to influence the outcome of the last U.S. election, has been honing its skills. The thousand or so trolls it employs have been instructed not only to plant disinformation but also to amplify on social media sites any fringe opinions in America, of either left or right.

On Monday, the intelligence and security committee of Britain's House of Commons warned in a report examining Russian influence operations: "The security threat posed by Russia is difficult for the West to manage as, in our view and that of many others, it appears fundamentally nihilistic. Russia seems to see foreign policy as a zero-sum game: any actions it can take which damage the West are fundamentally good for Russia."

A new global conflict is unfolding, analysts and diplomats warn, between the democracies of the West and the champions of autocratic capitalism in Beijing and Moscow.

A digital iron curtain looks likely to descend as a result. Democracies are fearful of the security risks and disruption the interlopers from China and Russia are threatening digitally, with apps and chips that can gather intelligence and social media sites that can be used to manipulate public opinion in rival countries. The autocrats want to seal off their populations and censor what can be read or seen on the Internet to try to tame dissent.

Strained friendships

But it is not only regional divides that are widening. The coronavirus is straining relations even within alliances. The 27 European Union countries agreed an ambitious economic recovery package Monday, but it took four stormy days of face-to-face negotiations which exposed old splits between the north and south of the continent as well as east and west.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, 2nd right, speaks with, from left, Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Spain's PM Pedro Sanchez, Portugal's PM Antonio Costa and Romania's President Klaus Werner Ioannis at an EU summit in Brussels, July 21, 2020.

Those present say the talks were among the most rancorous they have ever seen at an EU summit of heads of government and state. At one point the normally cool-headed German Chancellor Angela Merkel yelled at her Austrian counterpart. French President Emmanuel Macron banged the table in anger. Hungarys Viktor Orban, a former anti-communist dissident, accused the Dutch leader Mark Rutte of aping the Soviets in his bid to overcome dissent.

Latvias prime minister, Krisjanis Karins, tweeted, The negotiations are difficult, perhaps one of the most difficult I have ever been involved in. She added, though, an upbeat note, yet the spirit of compromise has not yet disappeared.

But some fear that it could evaporate under political and economic strain the next time the EU leaders gather, especially if a second wave of coronavirus infections worsen economic conditions and the contentious economic package has to be revisited.

Countries, increasingly untrusting of each other, are scrambling to ensure their own populations do not miss out on any vaccines that are developed. The U.S. was criticized in Britain for buying up stocks last month of remdesivir, one of the two drugs proven to work against COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Vaccine fight?

FILE - Scientists are seen working on a potential vaccine for COVID-19 at Cobra Biologics in Keele, Britain, April 30, 2020.

But the British government has been busy buying up as many doses it can get of potential vaccines as they are being developed, trying to hedge its bets. This week it announced it had secured at least 90 million doses of potential vaccine from overseas companies as it wagers on which one may prove successful, if a British one fails. Alok Sharma, the countrys business secretary, said on Monday, We are doing everything we can to ensure the British public get access to a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine as soon as possible.

Britain is not alone in angling for vaccine supplies. The fear of losing out is understandable. Peter Piot, head of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine noted recently that the world will need six billion doses of any effective vaccine that is developed and that there are not even the sufficient number of glass vials available to deliver the necessary doses.

Negotiations are being held internationally to find ways to ensure equitable access to any successfully developed vaccines, but few governments, especially those who have the financial wherewithal to earmark supplies, are willing to gamble on fair distribution in a world on edge.
A daily rise in infections in Spain of a third was announced on Thursday afternoon, a rate of percentage increase not seen since the start of the pandemic in March.

On Thursday there were 971 new cases on the previous day through positive PCR test results, up 33 per cent on Wednesdays figure of 730. This was the highest total daily increase since early May, before lockdown was eased.

On Friday the new case figure had fallen slightly but remained high at 922.

Once again, the northern region of Aragon headed the list, with 415 fresh cases on Thursday and 298 on Friday. Catalonia, another area of worry for the authorities, was in second place with 182 cases on Thursday and 133 on Friday.

The region of Madrid reported 107 cases on Friday, and Navarra, 93.

Phase One again in Murcia

The town of Totana in Murcia has been forced to take the drastic step back to Phase One of lockdown easing, it was announced on Thursday. The measure came from the regional Health department after a sudden surge in cases, up to 55 so far recorded, linked to local night life. The regional minister of Health made a special plea for local Latin Americans to observe social distancing, after 60 per cent of the new infections came from that community.

The national Health ministry reported 57 new localised outbreaks across Spain on the day.
America is sick. Still sick. The fever spikes, abates, returns. The shortness of breath lingers. America is waiting in virtual bread lines, listening to bad jazz, on hold with the unemployment office. America is strewn with the glass shards of Starbucks windows, busted by protesters, and bullied by unidentifiable agents of the government. America, barefoot and in Brooks Brothers, is defending its marble palazzo with an AR-15 rifle. America is spray-painted with the faces of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, on bollards and plywood and mailboxes. America is trying to keep the kids occupied, and fed, and learning, and sociable without socializing. America is in the middle of a public health wildfire, an economic sinkhole and an earthquake over racial injustice - and the president of the United States is having to reiterate that he took a cognitive exam and correctly answered that, yes, the drawing of the large animal is, in fact, an elephant.

"Trump & his stormtroopers must be stopped," the speaker of the House tweeted Friday, about the brutal clashes between protesters and police in Portland, Ore. The police have been met by an army of singing mothers in bike helmets, who asked them to knock it off, would ya? Squad cars were defaced with graffiti that said "BLM" and "Salish land," claiming it for the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest. Fires were set. A "well-organized mob" causing "anarchy," is how White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany referred to the Portland protests Tuesday.

What a year these four months have been. In the spring, medical student Courtney Sanchez felt impending doom, and then slowly the doom arrived. She got herself a volunteer hobby that brought some order and connectivity to her isolated, splintering world. When her two children are napping, she sits at the kitchen table in her 850-square-foot bungalow in Lawrence, Kan., opens her computer and dials strangers on her cellphone, hoping to trace the spread of the novel coronavirus in Wyandotte County.

Sometimes she's able to gather good data for the health department, and to help recovering citizens navigate their way back to work, and she feels as if we're in this together.

Sometimes people balk at the intrusion. A few weeks ago a man answered the phone while coughing and struggling to breathe. He told her "don't worry about me" and hung up.

"That made me so sad," says Sanchez, 32. "I hope he's OK."

Last week the county's contact tracers were 500 cases behind, she says, with 70 new ones piling up every day. She feels like a citizen trying her best, in a nation that isn't really doing the same.

"I don't know if anyone has biffed anything as bad as the federal government biffed their management of this," she says.

This test of solidarity and public trust couldn't have come at a worse time. America's mask has slipped. There is a feeling of failure, of being repeatedly victimized by a virus despite our supposed exceptionalism. National pride in the United States has fallen to a record low, according to Gallup, and only 1 in 5 Americans is satisfied with the direction of the country - a steep drop from four months ago, when satisfaction was at a 15-year high. Forty-nine percent of whites - also a record low - say they are "extremely proud" to be an American; for nonwhite Americans the rate is half that.

Perhaps we ignored our pre-existing conditions for too long. In 1979, Jimmy Carter admitted to a national "crisis of confidence," in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate and energy shortages. But then we shut our eyes and pictured Ronald Reagan's "shining city," as wealth oozed upward. We believed Bill Clinton's pep talk about how our best qualities excused our worst, which included prioritizing mass incarceration. We cloaked George W. Bush's costly foreign policy in pageant-style patriotism and then believed Barack Obama's insistence that Americans were not as divided as we seemed. Meanwhile, big banks crashed the economy and got bailed out, white people in rural areas started dying "deaths of despair," black people kept getting killed by police at disproportionately high rates, and more Americans turned to conspiracy theories to make sense of it all and prescription pills to blunt the pain.

Then a minority of voters elected as president a salesman who built his empire on fraud, spectacle and bankruptcy. Three years and 20,000 "false or misleading claims" later, the reality-show presidency is reaching a dramatic first-season climax marked by mass death, rampant joblessness, tens of millions of people in the streets.

Josh Harrison is trying to ride it all out until November, hoping at least for a political cure. Harrison runs a small pest-control business in North Carolina and voted for Donald Trump in 2016. He regrets it mightily. This year was the breaking point, particularly when Trump suggested that perhaps the virus could be killed by injecting disinfectant into the body. Then, watching the lack of Republican leadership in the wake of Floyd's death, Harrison started questioning whether he even belonged in the party.

So one night last month, after some red wine and White Claw, he sat on his deck about 2 a.m. and hit record on his phone. Shirtless and smoking a Marlboro Light, Harrison said that for the first time in his life he would be voting for a Democrat. Then he submitted the homemade video to Republican Voters Against Trump, which has been releasing similar testimonials. Harrison's video has since been viewed over 1.1 million times.

"Trump doesn't have to build a wall because Mexico is closing its border to us," he says by phone. "We can't travel. We're a laughingstock. The world is either laughing at us or pitying us."

When Chris Wallace asked Trump about the death count on "Fox News Sunday," the president blamed China and said "It is what it is."

"You can no longer pretend that 'the American century' isn't over," says Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, an associate professor of history at Loyola University Chicago. She views the years since 1968 as a cycle of recessions and widening inequality, debt and disenfranchisement that is only now becoming apparent to broader America - white America, moneyed America - because the pandemic and social media have made it impossible to ignore. Institutions have been deteriorating and failing us for generations, she says, but we rigged workarounds with our own social networks and mutual-aid groups. We made do. Then the pandemic scattered us, isolated us, exposed us for what we really are.

"All these years after the Civil War, are we still just a union of states - or have we become a nation of people?"

That's the question Shermer will ask the students in her U.S. history survey course. She's watched governors battle the president and states squabble over stocks of personal protective equipment. Meanwhile the movement of Black Lives Matter has behaved like a nation of people, demanding something more, something holistic, something that was promised centuries ago.

The coronavirus is "fueled upon the systemic injustices in our country," says Cedric Dark, an emergency-room physician and assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. The contagion doesn't just spread because of proximity or air droplets; it feeds on disparity in housing, insurance, transportation, wages, child care, food security. Our current failure is built on previous failures.

Dark grades the U.S. response to our crises with a C-minus. "I think some states are going to pass and some states are going to fail," he says. "So Georgia, Arizona, Florida and Texas are going to fail this test, until they listen."

In Texas, the volume of covid-19 cases is 10 times higher than it was in the spring, Dark says. Hospitalizations are seven times higher; deaths are five times higher. Last week, a man came into Dark's hospital worried about his low blood sugar. He had no covid-19 symptoms, but a check of his vitals revealed a blood-oxygen level of 89 percent: perilously low. An X-ray showed a white, fluffy buildup all over his lungs.

"It's everywhere," Dark says. "And everyone keeps claiming we're alarmist, but when we in the ER are panicking now, and telling you what we're going through, listen. Because we don't normally panic."

The next test that we'll pass or fail, according to Dark, is whether we send our children back to school. As a kind of trial run, Hannah Lebovits sent her two children to a day camp in Plano, Texas, the last week of June. The camp did everything right, she thought, but within two weeks the news arrived via email: one symptomatic child and multiple counselors had tested positive for covid-19.

"I knew it," says Lebovits, 27, an incoming assistant professor of public administration at the University of Texas at Arlington. "I just knew it. I knew in my heart that this is what was going to happen."

Lebovits studies social sustainability, and how government creates or degrades it. Through the lens of her work, she sees this year's crises as a total failure of government and institutions.

"We're being gaslit by this country that everything will be fine if we just get back to work," Lebovits says. "We're focused on economic stability, business revitalization, what the economy is going to look like after covid - not what we're going to look like after covid. My kids are going to need a s--- ton of therapy. I'm going to need therapy. It's just overwhelming. I see this as impacting countless Americans for so long. I want to say a single decade, but it's going to be longer than that." The irrefutable evidence of mismanagement - the 140,000 deaths, the police violence across the country - has made many people realize that "we don't need to be nice to our institutions anymore."

In his 1998 book "The American Century," Harold Evans wrote about the nation's "inner light of freedom." Since then, he says, the pursuit of freedom has become reckless. Democracy has become transactional. An isolated America has plunged into a "permanent fog of war" on its own turf.

"We are reeling from the tsunami of lies and the images of outrage," Evans, 92, writes in an email from his home in the Hamptons. "What has been inspiring to see is that Americans have cut through the mist to fight for justice and equality."

Is America failing, or is it just changing?

"I learned America was a failure when I was 18 and they tried to talk to me about the electoral college," says Washington, D.C., resident Allison Lane, 34. "I've always felt this country wasn't made for me."

Lane woke up Saturday at her home and saw on Twitter that Rep. John Lewis had died. Here was a man, she thought, who had every reason to give up on institutions, on this country, and yet he fought and fought and fought. It made her think of her own journey this year. In March, she lost her job at a new restaurant downtown. She kept it together until May, when George Floyd was killed, and then fell apart. Floyd looked like her uncle. It was all too much. She was depressed by her deferred career, grieving Floyd's death, paralyzed by the pandemic. Then June 1 she pulled herself outside and walked with friends to the White House. Police corralled the crowds uptown, until Lane found herself pepper-sprayed and seeking shelter from officers, with dozens of other wheezing activists, in a stranger's home on Swann Street NW, in a pandemic.

"And my entire life changed," says Lane, who in the aftermath launched a nonprofit called Bartenders Against Racism. "I've operated in anger over this past month, but it wasn't that same old anger, where old Allison Lane would be like 'F--- all this.' It was: 'Let me organize my community.' And I think I'm so emotional with John Lewis because that's what he did with his entire life."

So she is remaking a small part of this country, the country that wasn't made for her, into her own. Bartenders Against Racism is amplifying black voices and providing supplies and sustenance to protesters. On Saturday night, Lane and others lit 300 tea candles spread over Black Lives Matter Plaza, the stretch of 16th Street NW leading to the White House, in a vigil for John Lewis. It was like lighting a path to freedom, she thought, to a better America.

A union of states, or a nation of people?

American collapse, or American transformation?

Lane talks of her new life of activism as an experiment. She might as well be talking about the country.

"I tell the team: I'm failing literally every day," she says. "Every day I don't know what I'm doing. That doesn't mean I'm not smart or won't figure it out."
For some time, parents and school districts have been assured they can keep their kids home for distance learning in the fall should they chose  and districts have been advised to come up with three distinct reopening plans: complete in-school instruction, a hybrid model and total remote learning.

However, a letter from Commissioner of Education Miguel Cardona to school superintendents this week states that current statutes do not anticipate that remote learning programming counts toward the required number of days in school year.

In addition, school districts have been told that plans that have students in school for only part of the week under their full in-school instruction scenario simply are not acceptable.

Any plan submitted to the Connecticut State Department of Education on July 24, 2020, that does not include a full reopening option as one of the three models, where all public school students have the opportunity to access school in person five days a week, will not be in compliance with current state laws regarding the number of school days, the letter states.

Specifically, Excluding public school students for certain days of the week (for example, having certain grades only attend school on Mondays and Tuesdays, with remote learning the other days) is not appropriate under the first model.

That would seem to call into question the Greenwich Public Schools draft reopening plan that calls for no more than 50 percent of high school students on campus at a time for face-to-face instruction  even if the transmission risk to COVID-19 is deemed low.

Since Greenwich High is one of the largest schools in the state, Superintendent Toni Jones is hoping the state shows some flexibility.

We are concerned that the CSDE is standing firm for a full return to Greenwich High School, Jones said Thursday. However, we are working through what logistical considerations would need to be made. We are still working to communicate with the state to see if a hybrid approach would be possible, especially given the enrollment and building capacity of GHS.

In Hamden, Schools Superintendent Jody Goeler said the district will submit the three required plans on Friday, but only because of the requirement. The Hamden school board strongly backs beginning the school year with a hybrid model that allows students to rotate in and out of school.

So do parents. Fewer than 50 percent of Hamden parents surveyed say they intend to send their children to school in the fall if it is five days a week, but four out of five told the district they would participate in a hybrid model that had children switching out between home and school.

We believe more parents will send their children to school with a hybrid plan, as we will be able to follow all CDC guidelines, Goeler said. Teacher surveys indicate a much stronger preference for the hybrid plan as well.

Districts all have until Friday to submit fall reopening plans to the state. Department officials have established a review process to ensure the plans meet expectations.

The state expects local plans to explain how to handle a full reopening  where all public school students have the opportunity to access school in-person five days a week except for families who opt for temporary remote learning.

Districts were also told to plan a so-called hybrid model of in-school and remote learning  if the transmission rate ticks up to moderate  and one that would provide only remote learning should school be canceled again in case there is a resurgence of COVID-19 infections in the state.

The Governor and the departments expectations were very clear that all school districts were to develop plans for three scenarios for fall of 2020, said Peter Yazbak, a state Department of Education spokesman. We acknowledge the challenges that some districts have expressed in meeting the requirements and have established a dedicated support team to help districts.

Ultimately, Yazbak said, public health data will dictate if districts turn to a hybrid or full remote model.

State officials also said Thursday that students kept home for remote learning will be handled like districts handle someone with a long-term illness.

Under normal circumstances, any absences from school that add up to 10 or more qualifies as chronic absenteeism.

All districts will be expected to track daily attendance for students who opt in to remote learning. State guidance on how to do that is forthcoming.

Students who temporarily opt-out of in-school instruction will remain public school students unless a parent decides to home school their child.

As long as the school district is holding school sessions for the required number of days and all students have access to those sessions, the school system is in compliance, state officials said on Thursday.

Last spring, when in-person learning abruptly ended mid-March, districts were allowed to count remote learning toward the 180 days.

On Thursday, State Sen. Will Haskell, D-Westport, threw his support behind districts like Greenwich and Hamden that would prefer to go with their hybrid models. The chair of the senate education committee sent a letter to Cardona and the governor urging them to allow virtual class days to count toward the states legally mandated school year.

In order to continue (success in containing COVID-19), I believe it is essential that the Department of Education grant school districts with the flexibility they need to plan for a safe reopening in the fall, Haskell said. It is clear to me and many of my constituents that social distancing in secondary schools while at full capacity presents unique challenges, including crowded hallways, students moving between classes, lunch scheduling and more. In that light, I ask that you give local school districts full latitude to make decisions that will keep students and teachers safe.

Gov. Ned Lamont has said he wants a full return to school in the fall if public health data continues to support it, saying students, as well as employers who count on parents coming to work, need it.

He said he will announce by early August if the full in-school plan is still a go.

State law requires a 180-day school year, but earlier this month the state Board of Education gave districts permission to shorten that by three day at the start of the school year to provide more time for preparation.

lclambeck@ctpost.com; twitter/lclambeck
Internationally experienced plant production expert Erick Westerman is FitzGerald Nurseries FitzGerald Nurseries new General Manager and his wealth of knowledge and experience in the optimal production of young plants for international markets is a huge boost to the expanding, export-led, family owned enterprise.

The Dutch-born specialist joins the company having spent the last five years as General Manager of multinational plant company Florensis, in Ethiopia. Welcoming Erick into the Beotanics group, founder and Group CEO, Pat FitzGerald, highlighted the need in these challenging times to remain positive, upskill the team and keep a firm focus on its critical export market which accounts for 95% of FitzGerald Nurseries sales across more than 30 countries.

While we are going through a very difficult period with lots of uncertainties, we are continuing with our plan to expand and invest, Pat FitzGerald said. Now is not the time to lose commitment. With Erick to the fore, our company will be more prepared to reverse the negative, medium-term market insecurities that prevail and to introduce efficiencies and cost savings - while guiding our staff towards maximising their own efforts, Mr FitzGerald added.

In April of last year, the Beotanics group announced significant investment into its focus on plant-based foods and this move strengthens this ambition further.

Pat and Noirin FitzGerald and staff have welcomed Erick and his wife Marijke to Ireland and specifically to rural Kilkenny and all the FitzGerald team look forward to learning from Ericks immense knowledge in their specialist field.

Erick is an experienced Operations and General Manager. He served in several key horticultural companies in The Netherlands, Israel and Ethiopia. He knew of the ground-breaking work being done by FitzGerald Nurseries and Beotanics through his work in Ethiopia and from his many visits to Ireland where he took a keen interest in the company as well as the Irish people, culture and nature, Mr FitzGerald explained. The new role offers him the ideal opportunity to live in Ireland and experience its open spaces.

Speaking about his appointment, Erick described FitzGerald Nurseries and its sister company, Beotanics, as very innovative in terms of their product development.

Besides ornamentals, the group has a strong specialist focus on plants for the food industry. This suits my skills set. I look forward to further organising and developing the company in order to accomplish FitzGerald Nurseries specific ambitions and contribution to the plant-based food product development ambitions across the globe.

FitzGerald Nurseries is a farm enterprise with ornamental and vegetable young plant production capabilities and is part of the family-owned Beotanics group. The business has evolved against traditional trends in the Irish industry through international collaborations to operate on a global basis. FitzGerald Nurseries operates specialist young plant production units near Stoneyford and Jenkinstown in Co. Kilkenny with a sales office in Germany. It provides the food and beverage industry with access to a range of unique sources of crops.

Beotanics is located on the family farm near Stoneyford and also has a 50/50 specialist sweet potato joint venture in Portugal and Ireland focusing on the European market. It has established a secure, end to end model that:



 identifies, sources and cultivates niche crops and nutrient dense varieties



 develops, evaluates and establishes the optimum strains of these crops



 organises secure production of these crops in optimum locations around Europe and Africa with growing plans and develops pilot scale ingredient production



 sets up commercial arrangements for clients in the Food and Beverage and Life Science industries to access these crops and ingredients from licensed farmers and processors in a form that works for them.

For more information see www.fitzgerald-nurseries.com
- Professor Godfred Bokpin, an economist, has noted it is important Ghanaians reduce expectations about the mid-year budget review

- He explained that it would not lead to overnight successes and there is a need for prudence and sacrifice

- In his view, it is also important for Ghana to continuously modify strategies in order to make progress

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

An economist, Professor Godfred Bokpin, has called on Ghanaians to minimise their expectations with respect to the mid-year budget review.

According to him, the budget review will not fix Ghanas economy overnight given the devastating effects of the coronavirus.

He argued that a lot would depend on prudence and sacrifice from all Ghanaians.

Professor Godfred Bokpin Source: ABC News Ghana

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: EIU lauds Ghana over banking cleanup exercise and 1D1F programme

Professor Bokpin went on to say that the coronavirus is yet to be tamed and for that reason, the situation has become very fluid.

Per a report by classfmonline.com, he also noted that global bodies such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and the United Nations Economic Commission have revised their strategies more than three times.

In that respect, he went on, it is also essential Ghana follows in the same manner.

Professor Bokpin suggested it is important that Ghanaians reduce expectations so there are no disappointments.

The reason, he said, is because, even before the outbreak of the pandemic, there was no flexibility to implement broad-based policies to transform lives.

YEN.com.gh earlier reported that the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Bank of Ghana will soon begin a three-day session to evaluate Ghanas economy.

The meeting is scheduled to start on Wednesday, July 22, and last until Friday, July 24.

In the course of the meeting, the MPC is expected to begin the initiation of proposals for the formulation of the monetary policies.

READ ALSO: Groupe Nduom releases statement; says government can clear all debts

Enjoyed reading our story? Download YEN's news app on Google Playstore now and stay up-to-date with major Ghana news!

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Source: YEN.com.gh
Italian prosecutors have asked for oil majors Eni and Shell to be fined and some of their present and former executives, including Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi, to be jailed in a long-running trial over alleged corruption in Nigeria. In a Milan court, prosecutors asked on Tuesday for eight years in prison for Descalzi and seven years and four months for Shell's former head of upstream Malcolm Brinded.

The prosecutors also asked for Eni and Shell to be fined 900,000 euros ($1.04 million) each and sought to confiscate a total of $1.092 billion from all the defendants in the case, the equivalent of the bribes alleged to have been paid. In one of the oil industry's biggest suspected scandals, Italian prosecutors allege Eni and Shell acquired a Nigerian oilfield in 2011 knowing most of the $1.3 billion purchase price would go to politicians and middlemen in bribes. The companies and individuals accused have all denied wrongdoing in the case.

Oil falls as inventories rise, U.S.-China tensions escalate

Crude oil prices fell on Wednesday as industry data showed a bigger than expected rise in U.S. inventories and as tensions escalated between the United States and China. Brent crude fell 53 cents, or 1.2%, to $43.79 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude dropped 59 cents, or 1.4%, to $41.33. The American Petroleum Institute (API) industry group reported that U.S. crude inventories rose last week by 7.5 million barrels, compared with forecasts for a drawdown of 2.1 million barrels. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) releases official oil data later on Wednesday.

U.S. glut fears have become a permanent fixture of the oil market, said Stephen Brennock of oil broker PVM. This will remain the case so long as the U.S. oil demand outlook is being undermined by the country's failure to contain the COVID pandemic. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the outbreak would probably worsen before it got better, comments that marked a shift from his previously robust emphasis on reopening the U.S. economy. Bjornar Tonhaugen, Rystad Energy's head of oil markets, said Trump's comments might be welcomed by investors because they are among the most measured by him or his administration so far.

This could be a positive for oil demand prospects. Instead of an uncontrolled, disruptive second wave of lockdowns, maybe chances have now increased that the United States will eventually get the spread under control, Tonhaugen said. However, a fresh dispute between Washington and Beijing put pressure on prices after the United States told the Chinese consulate in Houston to shut and a source said China was considering closing the U.S. consulate in Wuhan. Adding to pressure, there are also signs that Iraq, the second-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, is still not meeting its target under an OPEC-led pact to cut supplies.

Reuters


Bringing food to more than 11,000 households within a seven month period is impressive. Doing it without a designated delivery truck is even more impressive. For more than 30 years, Katy Christian Ministries has been delivering nutritious food to families in need. And until now, they did it all without a food truck.

Thanks to the generosity of the community and local churches, Katys largest food pantry now has a designated food truck to transport food. On July 22, Katy Christian Ministries unveiled the new truck.

Prior to the truck, Katy Christian Ministries used a dilapidated van to move food. When the van died, they used a truck from their resale store.

If you would have only seen the condition of how our minivan was but we were still thankful for it until it died on us completely said Deysi Crespo, executive director of Katy Christian Ministries. And so we were utilizing our resources from the resale store trucks and staff to go and do food pick ups for the entire community.

Related: SUNDAY CONVERATION: Deysi Crespo leads Katy Christian Ministries mission to serve Katy

Crespo had a vision for a truck written on a board in her office, but the charity could never cobble together enough funding to purchase a truck capable of meeting their needs. After major financial setbacks due Hurricane Harvey and COVID-19, the dream of a truck that would be designated specifically for the critical service of food transportation slipped further and further from fruition.

When a pastor at Second Baptist Church in Katy learned that the food pantry was lacking reliable food transportation, he met with leaders in other churches to raise money for a designated food truck.

The truck has been paid for in full, and it even has a custom wrap featuring a volunteer near and dear to Katy Christian Ministries. A photograph of Lynn Hooge, former food pantry director and volunteer for more than 20 years, adorns the side of the truck. Hooge died last year.

(Hooge) was definitely a ray of sunshine to all of us. She was involved with Katy Christian Ministries for over two decades, Crespo said. She poured her heart and soul every single day into every aspect of the ministry.

MORE BY CLAIRE GOODMAN: This candy store donates some sweet profits to local charities

Crespo stated that the COVID-19 pandemic has made the need for a reliable food truck even more pressing. So far this year, Katy Christian Ministries has provided food for more than 11,000 households.

I just pray that this truck gets filled and that we need another one very, very soon because it's so busy, added Patti Lacy, president of the board of directors.

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Other countries opened schools, so why shouldnt Texas? Outbreak severity, health experts say

claire.goodman@chron.com
San Francisco officials are readying an unprecedented educational assistance program for the fall meant to help up to 6,000 children with their distance-learning needs, as parents and students confront the reality of starting the school year without classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Starting in September, dozens of recreation facilities, libraries and community centers across the city will be transformed into learning hubs, spaces where young students who may struggle with remote instruction can go each day to access their digital classwork and the social interactions that virtual schooling cannot provide.

The city is planning to open up to 40 hubs by Sept. 14, just under a month after the school year begins on Aug. 17. Registration will begin Aug. 15 and continue through Sept. 4.

Officials are prioritizing low-income families, children in public housing or the foster care system, homeless youth, and others in living situations that make remote learning particularly challenging. At first, the hubs will serve students in kindergarten through sixth grade, a group that has lower rates of infection, but officials will consider making the hubs available to older students. They will operate five days a week during ordinary school hours and will be staffed by experienced nonprofits and other organizations  many of which already partner with the city to provide after-school programs.

Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle 2019

While there, students will be provided with computers and internet connections necessary to connect with their teachers and classwork remotely, along with some of the elements of ordinary scholastic environments, such as meals, snacks, exercise and, crucially, other students.

The barriers for distance learning are not just access to Wi-Fi, its making sure that children have a quiet place to even connect in to their Zoom calls, and have the support they need to ... submit homework and participate virtually, said Maria Su, executive director of San Franciscos Department of Children, Youth and Their Families.

The department is helping to lead the learning hub initiative, along with the Recreation and Park Department, which may contribute up to half of the sites for the program  the full list is still being compiled. The city is planning to place each of the hubs within walking distance of the attending students homes.

The younger they are, the more they need that in-person, peer-to-peer learning. Thats equally important as academic learning. Those interactions are key to development in a young person, Su said. The hubs are geared toward ensuring kids whove been the most disconnected during these crazy times can get a little extra support; so they dont continue to fall behind, not just academically, but emotionally as well.

In a statement, Mayor London Breed said, It will take a village to address the wide range of learning needs for our citys children and youth during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the community learning hubs will provide a much-needed resource for our most vulnerable students.

Last week, San Francisco Unified School District Superintendent Vincent Matthews issued a statement confirming that the school year would begin with distance learning for all students, starting Aug. 17. School officials plan to announce the details of the districts longer-term reopening plans next week.

Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle 2020

We hope to provide a gradual hybrid approach (a combination of in-person and distance learning) for some students when science and data suggest it is safe to do so, Matthews said.

City officials will be in close contact with the school district, Su said, but the hubs will be active for as long as necessary.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

The citys parks department is also preparing programming for kids in kindergarten through sixth grade whose parents are frontline health care workers or city employees working on San Franciscos pandemic response, but who arent eligible for a slot in a distance-learning hub.

The parks department will set up child care spaces at the Glen Park, Richmond, Sunset, Hamilton and Potrero Hill recreation centers starting Aug. 31. The program mirrors a similar initiative the department operated in the early days of the pandemic and the citys shelter-in-place mandate  it provided child care to the children of essential workers. In all, the earlier day care programs served more than 500 children from March 16 to June 5.

Slots for the parks departments child care programs will be by invitation only, said Recreation and Park General Manager Phil Ginsburg. The department will be reaching out to families whose children were previously enrolled during the spring. Ginsburg estimated that up to 200 students will be invited back. While there, children will be able to access recreational activities and get help with their remote learning.

More Information Important dates To learn about the community learning hubs: dcyf.org/care July 29: San Francisco Unified School District to release plans for a school year that will be defined in large part by the pandemic. Aug. 15: Registration opens for distance-learning hubs. Aug.17: School year begins with distance learning. Aug. 31: San Francisco Recreation and Park Department opens child care centers for children of health care workers and city employees working on San Francisco's pandemic response. Sept. 4: Registration closes for distance-learning hubs. Sept. 14: Distance-learning hubs open. See More Collapse

We know there has been a significant impact on our children throughout all this, Ginsburg said. Many of our children need some extra support and mentorship and guidance to navigate this new normal.

Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa
The Philadelphia District Attorney has announced charges against a SWAT officer who was caught on camera using pepper spray on activists who were sitting in on the interstate last month.

Video footage shows Richard Nicoletti, 35, attacking several people peacefully protesting on June 1 and on Wednesday, he faced three counts of simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, official oppression, and one count of possession of an instrument of crime.

The Philadelphia Police Department Internal Affairs Division initiated the investigation, and referred information regarding Officer Nicoletti's use of force to the District Attorney's Office (DAO) Special Investigations Unit on June 24.

According to the police department, Oleoresin capsicum is usually only authorized to be used when an offender is physically resisting, fleeing arrest or believed to be a potential danger to themselves of others.

Video footage shows Richard Nicoletti attacking several people peacefully protesting on June 1. He pulled off one woman's goggles and pushed a man to spray them in the face on Philadelphia's I-676

The guidelines, issued September 2015, do not apply to demonstrators exercising their Constitutional Rights of Free Speech or Assembly. In those cases officers are advised to disengage.

State and local officers had been deployed to the City Center because the civil unrest was blocking one side of the interstate around 5pm.

Richard Nicoletti, 35, faces three counts of simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, official oppression, and one count of possession of an instrument of crime

Demonstrators reported that several canisters of tear gas landed in their direction when the SWAT team arrived and some participants carefully moved them away.

While the rest of protesters cleared the road, four people remained peacefully to honor George Floyd whose police-custody killing sparked Black Lives Matter gatherings across the country.

In the video widely shared last month, the officer is seen targeting two protesters directly in the face, which is against protocol. He is seen pulling down the goggles of one victim just target her eyes.

He is then seen violently pushing a third to spray them. Footage shows the victim swing in the officer's direction, without contact as they are unable to see and wobbling dangerous close to traffic.

The victims are seen trying to treat the burning sensation, which usually lasts for 30 minutes. Although officers are supposed to reassure the person OC spray has been used on that the pain will subside, the cop strolls off while another demonstrator goes over to help two of them.

Protesters are seen marching in the same area before their victims were pepper sprayed on June 1. The Philadelphia Police Department Internal Affairs Division initiated the investigation, and referred information to the DA on June 24

The mayor and the police commisioner apologized for the deployment of tear gas by police called to the interstate on June 1

Arrested protesters stand and sit on a barrier of the Vine Street Expressway after tear gas was shot to disperse the crowd on June 1. The pepper sprayed victims were not arrested and were helped off the interstate by other protesters after their vision was impaired

Pepper spray victims are also supposed to be offered medical treatment if necessary but the group was left to find their own way off the I-676 even though their vision was impaired.

Other protesters helped them leave and the victims were not arrested so it is unclear why the option of 'less than lethal force' was taken by Nicoletti.

Mayor Jim Kenney and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw apologized for the use of tear gas which caused panic and confusion near the 20th Street overpass.

They issued a moratorium on the use of it to disperse crowds of people under certain conditions.

'Thanks to the investigative work of Philadelphia Police Internal Affairs and careful, additional investigation done by the DAO Special Investigations Unit, we are moving forward today with evenhanded justice. Great care has gone into our factual investigation to get the truth. We are also keeping our sworn oath to uphold the Constitution,' District Attorney Krasner said.

'The complaint alleges that Officer Nicoletti broke the laws he was sworn to uphold and that his actions interfered with Philadelphians' and Americans' peaceful exercise of their sacred constitutional rights of free speech and assembly.

The Philadelphia Police Department Internal Affairs Division initiated the investigation, and referred information to the DA on June 24. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is pictured

Larry Krasner takes a knee in honor of the memory of George Floyd on June 4. He said they are 'keeping our sworn oath to uphold the Constitution' as he announced the charges on Wednesday. 'The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office will not make excuses for crimes committed by law enforcement'

'The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office will not make excuses for crimes committed by law enforcement that demean the democratic freedoms so many Americans have fought and died to preserve.'

The DA's statement came as President Trump has threatened to unleash troops on the streets of many US cities where protests are taking place.

Some in Portland were seen taking demonstrators away in unmarked cars without reason, which prompted the ACLU and politicians to warn Trump they may retaliate with legal action if the invasion continues.

'Let's be clear on who is the source of governmental and police power: People are the source of that power  the people's votes and the people's taxes' the DA continued.

'Let's be clear on who built these highways and streets: These streets come from and belong to the people. In the words of generations of peaceful protesters committed to improving our country, which is what patriots do: "Whose streets!? Our streets!"'

Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #5 President John McNesby rushed to Nicoletti's defense after hearing the charges and pushed for the punishment of civilians in unrelated incidents.

'Once again DA Larry Krasner is only charging Philadelphia police officers following the recent unrest in the city, McNesby said in a response to the charges. 'Krasner refuses to hold unlawful protesters accountable, those who set fire and looted our great city  His top priority is to push his anti-police agenda.

'This double-standard of justice is unacceptable to our brave police officers who work tirelessly to keep our city safe. We will provide an appropriate defense for officer Nicoletti as this process moves forward.'
The Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) with their observation at strategic constituencies between July 6 and July 17 for a total of 8 days have noted with concern, some of the challenges with the on-going voters registration exercise in the country.



Although they have described the Phase 2 and 3 of the on-going registration exercise as having been conducted in accordance with relevant electoral rules and regulations, they also raised concerns about the health safety and security challenges observed at some of the registration centres.



In their second preliminary report on the exercise, CODEO details incidents of confusion, chaos and violence, which led to the death of an individual in the Banda constituency of the Bono Region.



The report condemned all these incidents of violence and implored the security agencies to step up efforts to bring all perpetrators of violence to book in order to serve as a deterrent to others.



The Coalition further warned that failure on the part of the security agencies to act on such violent incidents would send a wrong signal to criminals and make mockery of the new law on vigilantism.



They also made an appeal to all the political parties, particularly the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to check the conduct of their agents deployed in [the] registration centres.



With regards to the health and safety of the registrants, out of the 200 centres monitored, CODEO noted that observance to the COVID-19 safety protocols was not always enforced.



Out of the 200 voters registration centres observed, only 38% of the centres were reported to have sanitized the fingerprint scanning devices before and after each use.



In some instances, the devices were never wiped, while some centres also reported a shortage of hand-washing facilities.



Overall, the Coalition hopes that this report would activate the responsiveness of the EC, the Election Security Taskforce and indeed, all stakeholders, to these challenges and further improve the conduct and security of the registration processes.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Brittany Banks and Yazans happy moments on 90 Day Fiance: The Other Way have been few and far between. From the moment that Banks landed in Jordan, she and Yazan have been feuding. Though Banks time in Jordan has just started on the show, fans are already predicting that things dont end well for the couple. Now, the pair are throwing jabs at one another on Instagram.

90 Day Fiance stars Brittany and Yazan | TLC

Brittany and Yazans problems

Anytime two people from different cultures come together, there is bound to be a clash of beliefs or traditions. In Banks and Yazans case, there has been nothing but issues. When Banks first arrived in Jordan, Yazan began screaming at her for hugging the camera crew and bringing alcohol with her.

After seeing Yazan act like that, Banks doubted if the relationship would work.

Of course I respect his culture and his choices but at the same time I am not Muslim, she told the cameras. It reminded me of the way my ex behaves and so if hes going to behave like my ex then I dont want anything to do with him.

Things got worse when Banks went to visit Yazans parents and they told her that she needed to change to fit their culture.

RELATED: 90 Day Fiance: How Does Ariela Really Feel About Biniyam After Learning He Has an American Ex-Wife and Son?

Cancel all of this, cancel all the life youve been living, and you would marry Yazan and well take good care of you, Yazans father yelled at Banks.

We respected you, and where is our respect? Yazans mother added. Yazan, tell her that the woman, this is how it is here. When a woman wants to get married, this is going to be her family. She has to forget her other family.

Whats going on between Brittany and Yazan on Instagram?

Apparently, things havent calmed down between Banks and Yazan because Yazan got on Instagram this morning and started posting some shady messages.

Have you ever wondered what is the difference between a good girl and a bad girl? he wrote. Well, let me tell you about my thoughts. First of all, a good girl will loosen her shirt button when its hot but a bad girl will loosen her shirt button to make a situation hot. Secondly, a good girl wears underwear and a bad girl dont use underwear. Thirdly, a good girl says no and a bad girl says when? Lastly, a good girl goes to a party and then goes home then goes to bed but a bad girl goes to a party then goes to bed then goes home. I know that different people have different points of view. Thats my personal point of view and a good girl will definitely agree with what I said. Spread positivity and love.

RELATED: 90 Day Fiance: Brittany Banks Calls Out Yazan for Cheating on Her with Fans and Doing Drugs

He also posted a picture with a quote stating that girls should not be proud if every man wants them because things that are cheap have a lot of buyers. The quote urged women to be rare stones that only pious men could afford.

Banks seemingly responded to Yazans words.

A good man holds a job and provides for his woman, she wrote in her Instagram stories. A bad man sits at home with his hand out to everybody, trying to demand respect and control over a woman who WORKS for hers. If I let you control me wed be homeless cus lord knows you will not work or pay one bill with all that mouth. Sit this one out boo.
Residents at five congregate living facilities in Napa County account for 10% of the countys COVID-19 cases, data released by county officials shows.

At least 67 of the countys 685 confirmed cases have arisen collectively among residents of Napa Valley Care Center, two of the countys farmworker centers, Napa State Hospital and the Countys Department of Corrections, Public Health Officer Dr. Karen Relucio confirmed.

An additional 24 cases have been reported among staff of the five facilities, though the county could not confirm how many staff members were also Napa County residents and part of the countys case total.

The most consequential outbreak is at Napa Valley Care Center, a skilled nursing facility on Villa Lane in north Napa, Relucio said. Eight staff members and 27 of 100 residents have tested positive for the disease; three residents have died, and two are currently hospitalized in an intensive care unit with the virus, a spokesperson for the facility confirmed.

That outbreak has not been contained, Relucio said in an interview Tuesday. The center has been cooperative, she added, but was struggling with administrative challenges, including a staffing crisis that had ultimately required intervention from the California Department of Public Health.

What were seeing is that staff are either out because of illness, or that they do not feel safe coming to work once they find out there is an outbreak in the facility, Relucio said, adding many nursing homes nationwide were addressing staffing shortages for similar reasons.

A spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health confirmed it had sent a strike team of infection preventionists and supplemental staff to the nursing facility.

Napa Valley Care Center Administrator Theresa White said in a written statement the facility did not know exactly how residents had become infected, but cited the highly contagious nature of the virus. The facility had implemented a series of safety measures to protect residents and personnel beginning in March, she said, but acknowledged the possibility that the virus had been in residents system(s) for some time. Seventeen residents are currently isolating with mild symptoms, she wrote. None were symptomatic when tests were administered.

The county worked with Napa Valley Care Center to conduct mass testing of residents at the end of June, Relucio said. The center is required to test 25% of its residents and staff, or 64 people, each week.

Napa County has asked that the facility attempt to find a private vendor instead of relying on county resources, Relucio said. The county would like to shift more testing to assisted and independent living facilities that are not licensed by the California Department of Public Health and whose residents remain vulnerable.

Plum Healthcare Group, Napa Valley Care Centers parent company, operates 50 other similar facilities in California, some of which are struggling with far deadlier outbreaks of the disease, the Los Angeles Times reported in May.

Napa County is monitoring active outbreaks at a total of eight congregate living facilities, Relucio said at Tuesdays Board of Supervisors meeting.

Congregate living facilities  predominantly nursing homes and prisons  have proven hot spots for the virus nationwide. Nursing home residents account for more than 40% of coronavirus deaths nationally and almost half of Californias recorded deaths from the virus, statistics show.

Two staff members of the Veterans Home of California at Yountville have fallen ill with COVID-19, one fatally. The countys winter homeless shelter has reported a single case among its residents, Relucio said. A single staff member at the countys Juvenile Hall has tested positive, as has a staff member at an eighth facility whose name Relucio said she could not disclose. Residents of those facilities are being monitored for infection, a county spokesperson said.

Officials earlier this month had attributed a spike in infections to a cluster of cases among one of the countys farmworker housing centers. At least 30 of that centers residents tested positive following mass testing; infected residents of that center have since been placed into quarantine either in a motel or emergency isolation trailers provided by the state, effectively ending the outbreak.

But five residents of a second farmworker housing center have now also tested positive, Relucio said, and the county is monitoring the situation there.

The outbreak among residents at Napa State Hospital has been minimal. Just two have tested positive for the virus, though 14 staff members have also tested positive, the county reported. Two inmates and two staff members at the countys department of corrections have tested positive for the virus.

Regionally, both state and local officials have recognized the seriousness of an outbreak of the virus at San Quentin State Prison, which is straining Marin Countys ICU capacity and regional testing capacity. More than 1,200 inmates have tested positive for the virus and at least 12 have died.

Watch Now: The psychology behind wearing a face mask

You can reach Sarah Klearman at (707) 256-2213 or sklearman@napanews.com.

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>>> Vietnam, New Zealand lift bilateral ties to strategic partnership

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern agreed to formally elevate the two countries relations to strategic partnership during their virtual talks on July 22.

The following is the full text of the joint statement.

JOINT STATEMENT ON THE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM AND NEW ZEALAND

1. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1975, and particularly following the launch of the Comprehensive Partnership in 2009, relations between Vietnam and New Zealand have grown robustly in width and depth, both bilaterally and within regional and multilateral frameworks. Building on that momentum, and driven by our growing shared interests, common outlook, and mutual trust, we aspire to open a new chapter and take our partnership to a higher level.

2. Accordingly, His Excellency Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Right Honourable Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand, and in conjunction with the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries, co-chaired a virtual summit via video-conference to formally elevate the bilateral relationship to Strategic Partnership on 22 July 2020.

3. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has presented the globe with unprecedented health and economic challenges, and it has underscored the importance of cooperation, collaboration, and key partnerships in building resilience and assisting recovery. In that spirit we commit to further enhancing bilateral links, with a particular focus on trade, agriculture, education, development and cooperation on regional and international matters of mutual interest, and other meaningful initiatives elaborated in a Plan of Action for the Strategic Partnership to be jointly developed over the next 12 months.

4. The Strategic Partnership is aimed at further strengthening the overarching framework for engagement and cooperation between Vietnam and New Zealand, for the benefits of our people, contributing to peace, stability and prosperity in each country, the region and the world. To provide leadership and guidance to this strengthening relationship, New Zealand and Vietnam commit to deepening bilateral political cooperation through frequent high-level exchanges between political parties, parliamentary and governmental delegations, particularly regular meetings between Prime Ministers, and annual meetings between Foreign Ministers, Trade Ministers and Defence Ministers, held in either of our countries, in the margins of multilateral meetings, or by video-conference.

5. We highlight trade and investment cooperation as a key component of the Strategic Partnership, for the direct benefit of our people and businesses. Bilateral trade in goods and services reached a new record of US$1.3 billion for the year ending March 2020. To that end, we commit to individual and joint actions to open markets and reduce barriers to bilateral trade, especially for agricultural, seafood, and timber products through enhancing market access, trade facilitation, information exchange, and collaboration between our customs, and agriculture, food safety, and animal health agencies. In order to also promote investment in both directions and encourage inclusive growth, we will also foster cooperation in the development of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), indigenous or ethnic minorities businesses, women entrepreneurs and other important areas.

6. We commit to further enhancing bilateral agriculture cooperation, including through joint research, collaboration and action on climate change in agriculture and forestry, agri-tech, technical assistance on plant health laboratory accreditation, plant breeding, food safety management and electronic certification, trade in legal timber products, and commercialisation of agriculture products. We welcome the commencement of a regular Agriculture Dialogue between officials.

7. We re-dedicate ourselves to deepening regional economic integration by resisting all forms of protectionism and promoting trade liberalisation across the Asia-Pacific region. We pledge our unwavering support for the rules-based, free, open, transparent, and inclusive multilateral trading system, including reform of the World Trade Organisation. In this regard, we reaffirm our commitment to the full and effective implementation of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), signing of a modern, comprehensive, high-quality, and mutually beneficial Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement in 2020, and upgrading the Agreement Establishing the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area (AANZFTA). Vietnam also expressed strong support for New Zealand as Chair of APEC 2021.

8. We welcome the positive impacts made by New Zealand's sustained bilateral and regional official development assistance, particularly in areas of New Zealands strength and Vietnam's priority such as high-quality human resources development, climate change and economic resilience, sustainable water management, agriculture, and disaster risk management.

9. We emphasise that people-to-people links, particularly education and training cooperation constitutes an important element of the Strategic Partnership, and when movement of peoples can safely resume we are confident these linkages will continue to flourish; including through increasing the number of Vietnamese students in New Zealand, joint programmes between our higher education institutions, cooperation in vocational training, scholarships granted to Vietnamese youth and officials to study in New Zealand, scholarships granted to New Zealand youth to study or intern in Vietnam, and student and teacher exchanges.

10. We reaffirm our commitment to closer defence cooperation as a priority in the Strategic Partnership, including through high-level defence visits, port calls, policy consultations, strategic dialogues, education and training, United Nations peacekeeping operations, intelligence exchanges, maritime security cooperation and enhanced coordination in the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus forum. Building upon the 2019 arrangement between the Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam and the New Zealand Police, we agree to convene annual meetings between the leadership of the two agencies and explore the possibility of additional cooperation that provides a framework for preventing and combating crimes, thereby enhancing regional security and the well-being of our people. Through such joint efforts, we will make our respective communities safer.

11. We underscore the significance of information sharing and strengthening cooperation on a range of bilateral, regional, and international issues such as pandemics, climate change, e-government, human rights, science and technology, and countering terrorism and violent extremism. In that light, we welcome the commencement of a regular Oceans Dialogue between officials.

12. The new Strategic Partnership is founded on a shared commitment to international law, multilateralism, and regional economic integration, and an understanding of our converging strategic interests. We emphasise the importance of maintaining close cooperation in multilateral and regional fora in both governmental and parliamentary channels. We reaffirm our commitment to ASEAN Centrality and its role in the evolving regional architecture that is open, transparent, inclusive, and rules-based, built upon ASEAN-led mechanisms, and which safeguards the sovereignty and interests of all states, regardless of their size. New Zealand re-emphasises its strong support for Vietnams roles as ASEAN Chair for 2020 and non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for 2020-2021. We welcome the continued strengthening of the ASEAN - New Zealand Strategic Partnership and celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Dialogue Partnership and the 5th anniversary of the Strategic Partnership in 2020. Acknowledging that the prosperity and sustainable development of the Mekong sub-region is crucial to achieving the ASEAN Community Vision, New Zealand also commits to strengthening cooperation with Mekong countries in areas such as, disaster management, water-food-energy security, smart agriculture, public health and human resources development.

13. We reaffirm the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, safety, freedom of navigation and overflight, pursuing the peaceful resolution of disputes and respecting legal and diplomatic processes, in accordance with international law, particularly the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). We express continued concerns over developments in the East Sea/South China Sea, including disruptive activities, and underscore the importance of non-militarisation and self-restraint in the conduct of activities and avoidance of actions that may further complicate the situation or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability. We underscore the importance of UNCLOS dispute settlement mechanisms and call upon the parties to respect the decisions rendered by these mechanisms. We reiterate the importance of the full and effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea/South China Sea (DOC) in its entirety as well as the swift conclusion of an effective and substantive Code of Conduct for the East Sea/South China Sea (COC) that is consistent with international law, particularly UNCLOS, without prejudice to the interests of third parties or the rights of states under international law. We emphasise that UNCLOS provides the solid legal framework within which all activities in the oceans and seas must be carried out.

14. We welcome the recent signings of the below Government to Government arrangements, which indicate the breadth of our mutual interests, the dynamism of the relationship and our concrete determination to continue to strengthen our partnership now and into the future.

- Arrangement between the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Finance of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam with the New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries on the Facilitation of Border Clearance of Agricultural, Forestry and Aquatic Products through the use of Electronic Certification;

- Vietnam - New Zealand Strategic Engagement Plan on Education 2020-2023;

- Memorandum of Arrangement on Financial Cooperation between the Ministry of Finance of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the New Zealand Treasury;

- Arrangement between the Directorate of Vocational Education and Training, of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and New Zealand Government to Government Know-How relating to cooperation invocational education and training and skills development.
US President Donald Trump sees China as a threat, Republican leader and Indian American Nikki Haley has said, adding that she would campaign and work "very hard" to get him re-elected in the November elections. Addressing the virtual India Ideas Summit organized by US India Business Council, Haley said on Wednesday that the threat China poses to the US would be one of the factors in the November presidential elections.

"I think that (security threat from China) will be one factor (in the elections). I think that you have president Trump who very much sees China as a threat," Haley said in response to a question in the concluding session of the two-day India Ideas Summit, that among others was addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

"I think that you have (Democratic nominee) Joe Biden, who has said that China is not the problem and who was against the travel ban to China and who has not shown, in any of his time that he was in the Obama administration, as realizing the threat that China had. So, I think it will be one of the factors that''s going to be very important in this next election," she said.

Haley, who served as US Ambassador to the United Nations during the first two years of the Trump Administration, deflected a question on her potential presidential run during the summit. What about 2024, she was asked. "You know what, a year is a lifetime in politics. It would not be smart of me to start thinking of 2024. Now our focus is on November. We''ll keep doing that and we''ll take it a year at a time after that," Haley replied.

"I can tell you right now, I''m going to be campaigning and working very hard for president Trump. I think where we have come on foreign policy, where we saw the economy prior to COVID is very strong. I believe in the policies that he''s put forward and I''ll be campaigning hard for him and look forward to a win by president Trump in November," she said.

Responding to a question, Haley said while India and the US have felt a lot of challenges over this past year, especially during COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of opportunities have also come up for both of them. The Republican leader said she is pleased to see the relationship between president Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi strengthened over the past few years.

"That was warranted. They are natural allies. India and the United States are a lot of the same values, the same work ethic, the same family values. It''s important that we just continue to take that relationship forward," she said. Haley hoped that the United States will come together with India, along with allies like Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea, and try and find ways to continue to be less dependent on China.

"But with the aggression that we''re seeing from China against India and against the United States, it only makes more sense that we try and find more opportunities. That's going to be on the supply chain side. That''s going to be in the defense side. That''s going to be in the healthcare side. It's going to continue to be in our tech companies and all the other things," she said.

Noting that when India and the US have tried to do a trade deal before, tariffs primarily on agricultural products have got in the way, Haley said the two countries need to make sure that they look at the opportunities and be flexible enough while going forward. "Everyone is going to start to look at India as they''re looking at Vietnam and other places to see how they can get less dependent on China," she said.

"If India can make some concessions in order to bring all of this trade in, I think that there will be massive amounts, not just from the United States, but from other countries that really lean into India to try and do those things," Haley said. India will have to see how it can be more enticing to countries for trade, "because the political will from the United States to trade with India is there," she said.

Also read: India a rising defence, security partner of US: Mike Pompeo

Also read: India a reliable partner in global supply chain: Ambassador Taranjit Singh Sandhu
CEO has said that Teams users generated more than 5 billion meeting minutes in a single day this quarter and more than 150 million students and teachers now rely on tools like Teams, Stream, OneNote as well as Flipgrid to prioritise student engagement and learning outcomes.

Nadella said that the company is seeing increased usage intensity across the platform as people communicate, collaborate and co-author content in Teams.

"Sixty-nine organisations now have more than a 100,000 users of Teams and over a 1,800 organizations have more than 10,000 users of Teams,: Nadella informed during the company's earnings call on Wednesday.

He said that is working alongside educators as they prepare for remote hybrid and in-person scenarios this fall.

"Our new Cloud for Healthcare is helping providers schedule, manage and conduct virtual visits using Teams and engage with patients using Dynamics 365," he informed.

Microsoft Teams is helping people be together even when they are apart.

"We are reimagining every aspect of the meetings experience with new capabilities like Together Mode and the Dynamic Stage to help people feel more connected and reduce cognitive load," said Nadella.

Microsoft has expanded the gallery view in Teams, so that people can see and interact with up to 49 participants at a time, and breakout rooms and live reactions will help people build social capital in a virtual world.

"Teams is rapidly becoming the communications backbone as customers accelerate moving voice to the cloud. And we're expanding Teams beyond the workplace, making it easy to add personal Teams accounts on mobile, so you can stay connected with friends and family across work as well as your life," informed Nadella.

Microsoft has announced new exciting features in its video conferencing app Teams including a Together Mode that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to digitally place participants in a shared background, as if they are sitting in the same room with everyone else in the meeting or class.

Together Mode will be generally available in August.

--IANS

na/

(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.)
SAN DIEGO, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA) released its 10th annual A-list today, recognizing the top producing real estate professionals across the United States. This year's A-list represents the diverse membership within AREAA. 70% of the top producers and mortgage originators are bilingual and speak at least two languages.

Earlier this year, the Federal Housing Finance Agency released mortgage translations into two Asian languagesChinese and Vietnamese, with Korean and Tagalog expected to soon follow. These Asian languages represent the most spoken languages in our country after English and Spanish, and a growing number of new American homeowners. With over 15 languages spoken by A-list top producers, the A-list is a testament to how important a role Asian language is playing in home sales.

For James Huang, 2020 AREAA National President, "AREAA A-listers represent the best in the industry, and we are proud to recognize them for their achievements. AREAA has 41 chapters and we have an A-lister in 29 of them. We celebrate these top producers not only for their talent and work ethic, but also for the role they are playing in Asian American homeownership."

Among the 29 chapters represented, 7 winners came from SF Peninsula Chapter, followed by Greater Chicago and Atlanta Metro.

With over 54 companies represented, Realogy affiliated brands led the list, followed by Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, and RE/MAX.

The 2020 AREAA A-list will receive special recognition at the 2020 AREAA National Convention, which will be held virtually October 14-16, 2020 (date subject to change).

Contact:

Vanessa Shields, Asian Real Estate Association of America

[email protected]

Mobile: 619.955.2619

SOURCE Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA)


DALLAS (dpa-AFX) - Telecom giant AT&T, Inc. (T) reported Thursday a 66 percent decline in profit for the second quarter, primarily hurt by goodwill impairment, amortization and severance charges as well as merger and integration-related expenses.



Adjusted earnings for the quarter topped analysts' expectations, while quarterly revenues missed their estimates.



For the second quarter, net income attributable to AT&T was $1.28 billion or $0.17 per share, lower than $3.71 billion or $0.51 per share in the year-ago quarter.



The results for the latest quarter include $0.66 per share of primarily non-cash Vrio goodwill impairment, merger-amortization costs, severance charges, and merger- and integration-related expenses.



Excluding other items, adjusted earnings was $0.83 per share, compared to $0.89 per share in the year-ago quarter.



AT&T's consolidated revenues for the quarter declined 8.9 percent to $40.95 billion from $44.96 billion in the same quarter last year, primarily due lower revenues across all its operating segments amid the impact from COVID-19 pandemic.



On average, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $0.79 per share on revenues of $41.10 billion for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.



Revenue declines at WarnerMedia included lower content and advertising revenues partly due to COVID-19. Revenues also declined in domestic video and legacy wireline services, and Latin America was impacted by foreign exchange pressure.



Operating income plunged 52.9 percent to $3.53 billion from last year's $7.50 billion, primarily due to the Vrio goodwill impairment, severance charges, COVID-19 costs and the net impact of lower revenues and operating expenses.



Operating expenses edged down $37.42 billion from $37.46 billion in the year-ago quarter.



The company said it is providing limited financial guidance, due to the continued lack of visibility related to COVID-19 and its economic impact.



The Company continues to expect the total dividend payout ratio at year-end 2020 to be in the 60s percent range and is targeting the low end of that range. The Company also expects gross capital investment in the $20 billion range in 2020.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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ArmorvueCleveland.com Armorvue Home Exteriors is ready to revolutionize the industry with their top of the line products!

With 4 successful locations in Florida and one in Northwest Ohio, Armorvue announces its newest location in North Olmsted is now open. Partner Toby Tokes, who opened the first Armorvue location in 2013, has 32 years experience in the home improvement industry along with Criss Maple, President, whose track record for integrity, customer satisfaction and sales leadership provides strong evidence for success. Maple plans to roll out Armorvue as the new industry standard for custom windows, entry doors, vinyl siding installations and replacement roofing in Cleveland.

We are so excited about our products, says Criss. Our team has over 75 years of experience in the home improvement field and our product is unsurpassed for beauty and efficiency, says Criss! Armorvue Home Exteriors is ready to revolutionize the industry with their top of the line products. Located at 31339 Industrial Parkway in North Olmsted, Criss invites the public to visit his showroom to see Armorvues unique and affordable products. Believe me, says Criss, if you are ready to upgrade your home, we will show you how Armorvue is the only way to go. Our reputation throughout Northeast Ohio is supported by our membership with the Better Business Bureau (BBB).

For your personal visit to see the full Armorvue Home Exteriors line of windows, doors, siding and roofing or to schedule your free in-home estimate call Armorvue now at (440) 230-8490. Armorvue serves the Greater Cleveland area including North Olmsted, Strongsville, Bay Village, Westlake, Brook Park, Brunswick, Middleburg Heights and beyond. For more information go to https://armorvuecleveland.com.

Contact Nicole Rouen for more info at: nhopkins@armorvue.com
An Allentown licensed liquor establishment was given a notice of violation for not complying with COVID-19 mitigation requirements earlier this week.

Pennsylvania State Police Liquor Control Enforcement Officers overall visited 1,876 licensed liquor establishments on Monday and Tuesday. The compliance checks drew the one notice of violation, as well as 47 warnings for failure to follow state rules.

As mandated by the liquor code, a notice of violation precedes the issuance of an administrative citation, which is civil in nature, and is intended to provide licensed liquor establishments notification of the nature of violation(s) discovered, according to police. The investigation remains open during this period, pending review by the Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement (BLCE).

Establishment names are not released during investigations.

Harrisburg and Pittsburgh tied for having the most warnings at 13 each. Williamsport establishments had seven, Wilkes-Barre had four, Altoona and Erie had three each, Philadelphia had two, and Allentown and Punxsutawney had one.

While compliance checks are focused in areas of the commonwealth where higher rates of coronavirus transmission are occurring, they can happen anywhere unannounced.

All businesses and employees in the restaurant and retail food service industry authorized to conduct in-person activities are mandated to:

Require all customers to wear masks while entering, exiting, or otherwise traveling throughout the restaurant or retail foodservice business (face masks may be removed while seated). Further, employees are required to wear masks at all times.

Provide at least six feet between parties at tables or physical barriers between customers where booths are arranged back to back.

Ensure maximum occupancy limits for indoor and outdoor areas are posted and enforced.

READ MORE

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President Trump speaks during a coronavirus news conference at the White House on Tuesday. The same day, he released a memo ordering the Census Bureau to exclude immigrants who were in the country illegally from its count of U.S. inhabitants. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press )

President Trump believes hes found a clever way to circumvent Congress and the Constitution while, for good measure, imposing his lawlessness on a subsequent administration.

Trump unveiled his fresh idea on Tuesday with a memorandum purporting to define a new federal policy: Unlawful immigrants must not be counted in the census.

Theres an obvious problem here. The 14th Amendment specifies that congressional representatives be apportioned according to the whole number of persons in each state. As the Supreme Court has held unanimously, that provision requires the census to take account of each states total population and include all inhabitants.

Trumps declaration specifically excludes some inhabitants, and the courts can be expected to strike it down without breaking a sweat. Still, its worth unpacking Trumps twisted logic, both to understand a power play the president will probably try again and to appreciate his boundless malice.

Trump previewed the strategy in his weekend interview with Foxs Chris Wallace. Were going to sign an immigration plan, a healthcare plan and various other plans, he said. The Supreme Court gave the president of the United States powers that nobody thought the president had, by approving, by doing what they did  their decision on DACA.

Now, its extremely doubtful that the president has read last months 5-4 DACA decision, or any full Supreme Court decision. But what he has read, or at least become aware of, is an article by UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo in National Review. According to news reports, the article was spotted on his desk and Yoo has been talking to the White House about it.

The theory is creative, if cynical.

Recall that DACA  the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program  is an Obama administration executive order that permits Dreamers, who were brought to the U.S. as children, to stay and work in this country without fear of deportation. Obama defended the program as an exercise of prosecutorial discretion: Better to focus resources on more dangerous and blameworthy individuals in the U.S. illegally.

Story continues

The Supreme Court did not actually rule on the constitutionality of DACA. Rather, in a decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court held that the Trump administrations rescinding of Obamas order was improper because it failed to provide adequate reasons for such a change, as required by the Administrative Procedure Act.

Enter Yoo, mischievously. He sees the DACA decision as a perversity that, as his article's headline puts it, harms the Constitution, the Presidency, Congress, and the Country. As Yoo reads the opinion, it makes it easy for presidents to implement illegal policies and difficult for successors to reverse them.

According to Yoos theory, Trump could weaponize the DACA decision for all kinds of ends. He could, for example, cut income taxes by 50% or enact a national right to carry guns openly. Yoo makes it clear that he thinks such executive fiats would be unconstitutional. His point is that they are the unavoidable implication of the DACA decision.

Theres more: The ruling that the White House failed to comply with the Administrative Procedures Act becomes, for Yoo, a license to bind successor administrations from undoing objectionable orders, at least for the time required to go through the prescribed APA process.

The National Review blueprint has a near-gleeful quality of sticking it to Roberts as payback for what Yoo sees as a bad decision. Its a good fit for the third-grade immaturity of Trump. Fortunately for the republic, the theory is legally bankrupt.

The mischief Yoo envisions is based on a wild overreading of the prosecutorial discretion principle that underlies the original DACA order  which, to repeat, the Supreme Court did not approve or even address in its decision. Not every discretionary decision by the president is an exercise in prosecutorial discretion. DACA was: The executive branch decided not to punish certain lawbreakers. In contrast, deciding to not count all immigrants in the census has nothing to do with exercising judgment about which cases prosecutors will pursue. Its rather a refusal to provide a guarantee mandated by the Constitution.

Yoo also overreads the DACA decision in suggesting that it subjects any subsequent administration's change in an executive branch policy to the admittedly cumbersome protections of the APA.

The court emphasized that DACA was more than a mere policy change. It created a program for Dreamers to secure benefits that go with citizenship such as Social Security and Medicare. Because the DACA program is more than a non-enforcement policy, wrote Roberts in the decision, its rescission is subject to review under the APA.

Trumps Tuesday immigration memorandum creates nothing like the DACA program. It simply announces an unadorned policy  the memo appears to use the word as a nod to the Yoo theory  to exclude residents without papers from the census on the ground that such exclusion is more consonant with the principles of representative democracy underpinning our system of Government.

The lawsuits have already begun. Look for courts to grant immediate stays on the census policy  an indication the suits are likely to succeed  followed by invalidation of the memorandum on its merits. Trumps clever idea amounts to nothing but lawless and thinly disguised antipathy toward immigrants, President Obama and constitutional norms.

@HarryLitman
By Ayya Lmahamad

Azerbaijans share in the total volume of gas supplies to Turkey in 2019 amounted to 21.2 percent, local media reported on July 23, with reference to Turkish Energy Markey Regulation Authority.

According to the statement, volume of gas supplied by Azerbaijan to Turkey amounted to 9.5 billion cubic meters.

It should be noted that the total volume of gas imported to Turkey amounts to 45.2 billion cubic meters.

Thus, the share of Azerbaijani gas in the total volume of gas exports to Turkey in 2019 increased by 6.23 percent points from 2018, and by 7.37 percent points from 2009.

Moreover, Azerbaijan ranks second after Russia in terms of gas supplies to Turkey in 2019.

Additionally, in total, Azerbaijan supplied 63.2 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey during the period of 2009-2019.

As reported earlier, Azerbaijan supplies gas to Turkey only from Shah Deniz field. The supplies have been made since July 2007.

Earlier it was reported that during the first six months of 2020, Azerbaijans gas exports amounted to 6.5 billion cubic meters, which is by 16.9 percent more than in the same period last year.

In January-June this year, 5.2 cubic meters of gas were exported to Turkey, which is 24.5 percent more than in the same period of 2019.

It should be noted that 1.9 billion cubic meters of gas were transported to Turkey via TANAP during the reporting period.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Express News Service

The critically-acclaimed film, 'Section 375', will be being screened at the upcoming 23rd Shanghai International Film Festival in China.

The fest will be held from July 25 to August 2. The film will be screened on July 26, 30, 31 and August 1 and 2.



Directed by Ajay Bahl, Section 375 is a courtroom drama where Richa Chadha plays the public prosecutor who is fighting the case of a rape victim Anjali Dangle, played by Meera Chopra.

Akshaye Khanna is seen as the lawyer trying to defend a powerful filmmaker (Rahul Bhat) accused of rape.

The film focuses on Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, under which a woman can accuse a man of rape if he has sexual intercourse with her without her consent, or if the consent is produced via coercion or deception, or if the woman is not of sound mental state to give consent.
Victoria's economy is heading towards the worst recession it has seen in 30 years as unemployment rates soars amid the coronavirus pandemic.

House prices are also expected to plunge by up to 9 per cent adding to the state's troubles as it battles to contain its latest virus outbreak.

The government's mid-year financial update predicts growth will fall by $23 billion as Gross State Product drops by 5.25 per cent this year from an average three per cent growth in 2018-19, the Australian Financial Review reported.

The last time figures dropped that low was during the 1991-92 recession.

Victoria's economy is heading towards the worst recession it has seen in 30 years as unemployment rates soars amid the coronavirus pandemic

A lone shopper walks past empty rows of shops with no customers on the main road in the hotspot suburb of Glenroy in Melbourne in July

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is reportedly desperate to reopen his state to avoid economic ruin, but is resolved to only do so when cases dramatically drop

The state's budget is expected to run a $7.5 billion deficit for the 2019/20 financial year, it was revealed during the economic update on Thursday.

'The coronavirus pandemic has really prompted a worldwide recession,' Treasurer Tim Pallas said.

'That is, of course, as a result of both social distancing arrangements that impact upon business, the closure of national borders ... closure of state borders, as well as dwindling demand for Victoria's key export sectors.'

Victoria is the only state grappling with widespread community transmissions with a further 484 cases diagnosed on Wednesday - the largest single-day spike in Australia since the pandemic began.

The government has introduced another lockdown for Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire residents to slow the spread of the disease.

Residents within the locked-down suburbs can only leave home for four reasons - daily exercise, shopping for essential goods, to give or receive care or to travel to work.

The shutdown, which is expected to cost $1 billion a week to the economy, has seen state's unemployment rate spike to 7.5 per cent in June. It is expected to peak at 9 per cent in the September quarter.

Victoria's tax revenue is also tipped to take a dive.

'Taxation revenue and GST grants are expected to be around $8.5 billion lower over the 2019/20 and 2021 financial years compared with the pre-planned bank forecasts,' Pallas said.

Empty rows of shops with no customers on the main road in the hotspot suburb of Glenroy in Melboourne in July

On Tuesday Scott Morrison announced the JobSeeker payment, which currently helps 3.5million Australians, would be reduced in phases as the economy recovers from coronavirus lockdown (pictured: dozens of people lining up outside Centrelink in Melbourne in April)

'The reduced revenue and the government's unprecedented investment in support measures means that the Victorian budget will now likely return an operating deficit of $7.5 billion in 2019/20.'

Before the pandemic, Victoria had been running surpluses and was forecast to continue doing so.

Then, devastating bushfires ripped through parts of the state and the coronavirus pandemic took hold, both needing state government financial intervention.

As the pandemic has continued, so has the need for government support.

The state has now provided $3.4 billion in support to businesses and households, including $504 million in payroll tax refunds to nearly 19,000 businesses, while 77,139 businesses have been approved for support grants totalling $771.3 million.

Cafes and restaurants were forced to close or offer takeaway only when the coronavirus crisis escalated in March (Pictured: A closed cafe in Melbourne on July 9)

Victorians could be cut off from the rest of Australia for two years as the state battles a second outbreak of coronavirus

It has also spent billions on health interventions.

'The economic devastation caused by coronavirus is simply eye-watering and for many individuals, it will be both traumatic and devastating," Mr Pallas said.

"The revised modelling shows gross state product is forecast to fall by 5.2 per cent in this calendar year. It predicts unemployment to peak at 9 per cent in the September quarter.'

The entire country is tipped to suffer the biggest budget deficit since the Second World War as the coronavirus brings the economy to its knees.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is expected to reveal a deficit of between $190 billion and $240 billion this financial year in a special budget update on Thursday.

Gross government debt is expected to come in at a massive $850 billion.

Mr Frydenberg says the government has delivered $164 billion in direct financial support to help the country through the economic downturn.

A restaurant in a food court is closed with chairs placed on top of tables during Melbourne's lockdown

The Australian economy continues to be hammered by COVID-19, particularly Melbourne. Pictured: Greville Street in the inner city suburb of Prahran

'Our announced measures, together with large declines in taxation receipts, has seen a hit to the bottom line,' he said.

'But this has been necessary in order to cushions the blow for millions of Australians, and to keep businesses in business and keep Australians in jobs.'

Deloitte Access Economics partner Chris Richardson said the massive health crisis was always bound to pound the budget.

But Mr Richardson said the eye-watering debt and deficits had shielded families and businesses from financial ruin.

'There's a risk today that we talk about how awful it is rather than remembering this is exactly what you want the budget to do in a crisis,' he told ABC radio.

'If you're going to protect Australians you have to do it through the budget.'

Thursday's figures are expected to reveal a huge hit to government revenues.

Australians have been warned to brace for 'eye-watering' national debts when the latest budget numbers are released (Pictured: the Prime Minister meeting businessmen on Monday)

The country's debt has been ballooning thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and economists are now predicting a deficit of more than $200 billion for the next financial year - which is -11% of GDP

Company tax receipts alone fell by $13.2 billion in the last financial year and are expected to decline $12.1 billion in 2020/21.

Business investment is forecast to fall by six per cent in 2019/20 and 12.5 per cent this financial year.

Mining investment is one of the few bright sparks.

Unemployment is now tipped to peak at eight per cent this year.

Treasury says the supports put in place have saved 700,000 jobs and lowered the forecast peak unemployment rate by five percentage points.

Since March, there have been record falls in key indicators of business investment, household consumption, the labour market and trade.

The update is expected to show Victoria's six-week lockdown to contain the second wave of coronavirus infections will gouge $3.3 billion from gross domestic product growth in the September quarter.

Mr Richardson believes it will take three to four years for the economy to bounce back, but the task will be easier than most people think.

'The rule of thumb is the bigger the downturn, the bigger the bounce back,' he said.
NEW YORK, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Summary



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05935290/?utm_source=PRN





The global construction industry has been under intense stress in recent months amid the COVID-19 crisis and associated containments measures to prevent the continued spread of the virus. Even in countries where the construction industry has been permitted to continue, being exempt from restrictions on general business activity, there has still been widespread disruption and temporary shut downs of construction sites.



Reflecting the severe impact on the industry, rovisional data for some major markets in Europe reveal that construction output plummeted in April during the peak of the pandemic in the region, with Italy recording a 68% year-on-year drop, and France a 60% decline.Such unprecedented declines are expected in other markets that have seen construction work grind to a halt.



latest industry survey showed that in May 70% of all respondents globally agreed or strongly agreed that the COVID-19 outbreak had led to a halt in construction work respondents, while 88% agreed or strongly agreed that it had led to delays in the commencement of new projects.



Under a positive scenario that a widespread second wave of infections is avoided, latest forecasts show that the construction output globally will fall by 3.2% in 2020, with a much steeper downturn only being prevented because the construction industry in China, the original epicenter of the pandemic, appears to be recovering quickly.



There is a mixed picture in other parts of Asia-Pacific, with India now expected to record a contraction of 7.5% owing to its extended lockdown period. While Europe is now moving to a recovery phase, with restrictions being eased and construction works resuming, the construction industry has suffered a severe downturn. There is high risk that in the US and most parts of Latin America, the COVID-19 crisis will be prolonged, given the continued rise in confirmed cases. Across the Middle East and Africa concerns persist over the wider fallout from the crisis and the damage caused to government finances from the weakness in oil prices and economic weakness



This report provides a detailed analysis of the prospects for the global construction industry up to 2024, including an assessment of the impact of COVID-19.



Scope

- An overview of the outlook for the global construction industry to 2024, with specific focus on assessing the impact of COVID-19

- Analysis of the outlook for the construction industry in major global regions: North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, South and South-East Asia, North-East Asia, Australasia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

- A comprehensive benchmarking of 92 leading construction markets according to construction market value and growth

- Analysis of the latest data on construction output trends in key markets.



Reasons to Buy

- Evaluate regional construction trends from insight on output values and forecast data to 2024, and understand the immediate risks and challenges presented by the spread of COVID-19. Identify the fastest growers to enable assessment and targeting of commercial opportunities in the markets best suited to strategic focus.

- Identify the drivers in the global construction market and consider growth in emerging and developed economies.

- Formulate plans on where and how to engage with the market while minimizing any negative impact on revenues.



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05935290/?utm_source=PRN



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



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This years haj will be a time of sadness for many Muslims around the world prevented from travelling to Saudi Arabia, but a decision to honour local health and security staff in the front line of the fight against the coronavirus has won praise.

For the first time in the modern era, amidst efforts to curb Covid-19, Muslims from abroad will be unable to attend the pilgrimage.

This years event has been limited to about 1,000 pilgrims from within Saudi Arabia, 70% of whom will be foreign residents of the kingdom.

The remaining 30% will be drawn from Saudi healthcare workers and security personnel who have recovered from the coronavirus, as a gesture of thanks for their sacrifice.

Haj this year is for the heroes who saved the country and saved our people, they deserve it ... I personally would have loved to go but there are priorities, said Saudi citizen Nour al Ghamdi.

Those chosen will receive supplies including special ihram garments, toiletries, and a prayer rug in a suitcase from the Saudi haj ministry, as well as pre-arranged meals. They will be required to maintain social distancing.

Like many Muslims around the world, Egyptian Mahmoud Ali Mahmoud, 55, laments the restriction to domestic pilgrims.

As you can see, I had everything prepared. Here is my Quran, my ihram clothing, my garment, he said, opening his packed suitcase.

The time that one can spend there could be a time for us to pray that God rids the world of this pandemic, he said from his Cairo home.

Mahmoud Ali 55 years old, a man whose pilgrimage trip was cancelled due to the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), holds his haj clothes at his home, in Cairo, Egypt, July 15, 2020. (REUTERS/Sayed Sheasha)

Some 2.5 million Muslims typically visit the holiest sites of Islam in Mecca and Medina for the week-long pilgrimage, due to start on July 28. A once-in-a-lifetime duty for able-bodied Muslims who can afford the cost, it is usually extremely crowded.

Dhera Arizona, 31, had been saving up for seven years to travel to Mecca from Indonesia this year.

We are disappointed and sad, she said, but we understand that in this kind of pandemic situation, it is impossible to hold the worship service.

Official figures show that the haj and the year-round umrah pilgrimage earn the kingdom about $12 billion a year. Minimizing the event will hurt government finances, already hit by falling oil prices and the pandemic.

(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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At least 45 million people have been affected by floods, the worst in decades. The China Labour Bulletin reports that the government has overlooked rural areas. Migrant workers have been forced to return to their villages to help in relief efforts. Low-income households have been impoverished. Around 20 million low-paid workers are still unemployed.

Hong Kong (AsiaNews)  As with the COVID-19 pandemic, migrant workers have been the most affected by Chinas worst floods in decades, which are devastating large swathes of the country, especially the central provinces.

The China Meteorological Administration today issued a rain advisory for the coming days, including hurricane-force winds.

The Ministry of Water Resources said that 93 rivers remain above warning levels, and the Three Gorges dam, the biggest in the country, is constantly monitored.

Floods have so far affected 45 million people (with 142 reported dead and missing); material damage stands around 160 billion yuan (US$ 22.9 billion).

The Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin has reported that Chinese authorities have concentrated their aid efforts in large cities, leaving towns and rural areas to fend for themselves. In some areas, flood waters inundated factories and shops.

Many migrant workers rushed back to their home towns to help with the rescue operations because of the lack of government assistance.

Low-paid workers (especially women), who were on the frontlines of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, have not been called once again into action to clean up debris caused by the floods in order to prevent stagnant water from becoming a breeding ground for disease.

Meanwhile, the flood emergency risks slowing down the post-pandemic economic recovery. Although official statistics indicate 3.2 per cent GDP growth in the second quarter of the year, after the 6.8 per cent drop recorded between January and March, unemployment remains high (5.7 per cent).

Even more serious is the loss of purchasing power of households. In the first six months of 2020, per capita income fell by 1.3 per cent, whilst per capita expenditure dropped by 9.3 per cent.

According to a recent study, 30 to 50 million migrant workers lost their jobs in late March because of the pandemic. Of these, 20 million were unable to resume work by mid-May, and those who found a job did so at lower wages.

The survey found that only a small minority of unemployed migrant workers had received unemployment benefits or income support.
The US is the hardest hit country in terms of the number of cases and deaths, and has seen a new surge in recent weeks.

The United States surpassed 4 million cases of coronavirus on Thursday, amid a surge in cases, predominantly in southern and western states.

Death toll in Iran from the novel coronavirus has surged past 15,000 as 2,621 people tested positive in the last 24 hours.

Papua New Guinea has put out a call for emergency assistance to the WHO, fearful it might be facing widespread community transmission of the disease.

More than 15 million people around the world have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and at least 8.6 million people have recovered, while more than 622,000 have died  according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Here are the updates:

Thursday, July 23

20:50 GMT  Chiles congress approves coronavirus pensions bill

Chilean lawmakers punched the air and waved the national flag in Congress on Thursday after giving final approval to a government-contested bill to allow citizens to withdraw 10 percent of their pension savings to help ease the economic pain wrought by the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The bill has sped through several congressional votes with cross-party support despite staunch government opposition. The bill required a three fifths majority, 93 votes, and 116 deputies voted in favor, with 28 against and five abstentions. A number of the 71-strong ruling coalition bloc  including the president of one of its parties  voted in favor.

The chamber erupted in cheers and clapping amid chants of no more AFP  a reference to the long-running campaign to tear up Chiles much-mimicked defined contribution Pension Funds Administrators (AFP) system that was introduced during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.

A woman prepares to receive a food parcel as part of a government food parcels program distribution amid the spread of the coronavirus in Santiago, Chile [File: Ivan Alvarado/Reuters]

20:30 GMT  African Development Bank provides aid to Sahel

The African Development Bank said Thursday it would provide $285 million in aid to Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad to help them fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The aid was being provided within the framework of a $10-billion COVID-19 response facility unveiled by the AfDB in April.

Niger would receive support of $108.8 million, Burkina Faso $54.6 million and Mali $48.9 million in both loans and grants, a statement said.

Chad would receive $61.2 million and Mauritania $10.2 million in the form of grants.

A man washes his hands before entering reopened Rood-Wooko city central market, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso [File: Anne Mimault/Reuters]

19:50 GMT  US passes 4 million coronavirus cases

The US has surpassed 4 million coronavirus cases, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The US is the hardest hit country in the world by the virus, with more confirmed cases and deaths than any other country.

To date, 143,800 people have died in the country after contracting the virus, according the Johns Hopkins data.

19:30 GMT  South Africa probes alleged corruption with coronavirus funds

South Africa is investigating dozens of alleged corruption cases involving theft or misappropriation of funds earmarked to fight the coronavirus pandemic, president Cyril Ramaphosa has said

A special investigating team had been set up to look into allegations of corruption in areas such as the distribution of food parcels, social relief grants, the procurement of personal protective equipment and other medical supplies, he said.

At least 36 cases are currently at various stages of investigation and prosecution, the president said in a special address to the nation.

In April, the government announced an unprecedented 500-billion-rand ($26.7-billion) economic stimulus and social relief package to cushion the impact of coronavirus. But some of those funds have been stolen, misused or relief food aid has been diverted from households in need.

18:50 GMT  South African public schools to close as cases rise over 400,000

South African public schools will close for a four-week break, with some exceptions, President Cyril Ramaphosa said in an address to the nation, as confirmed coronavirus cases rose over 400,000.

Ramaphosa said it was important to ensure that schools did not become sites of transmission at a time when the countrys coronavirus cases are rising at one of the fastest rates in the world.

A student is screened as schools begin to reopen in Langa township in Cape Town [File: Mike Hutchings/Reuters]

18:30 GMT  Bolivia postpones general election until October

Bolivia has postponed its general elections for a second time because of the coronavirus pandemic, putting it off until October 18, officials said.

The poll was originally supposed to be held in May but had been rescheduled fo September 6 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Salvador Romero, who heads the countrys electoral court, said the decision to delay the elections again came after medical experts warned that COVID-19 infections would peak in Bolivia in August or September.

18:00 GMT  French new cases rise, death toll edges up

Frances public health authority has said there had been a significant rise in new coronavirus cases, as the number of deaths in the country continues to edge up.

The number of deaths in France from COVID-19 rose by 10 from the previous day to 30,182  the sixth highest casualty toll in the world.

The number of confirmed, new cases rose by 1,000, a 66 percent increase in three weeks, as people adhered less to social distancing measures and increased testing led to the discovery of new clusters in parts of the country.





17:30 GMT  Florida reports another record virus death toll

Florida has reported a record daily coronavirus death toll of 173 in the latest reflection of the COVID-19 surge in America.

The state health department said there were 10,249 new cases for a total of 389,868 people infected and 5,518 fatalities.

For nearly three weeks now Florida has been reporting more than 10,000 new cases a day. Other states in the south and west of the US are also seeing alarming increases as the country now regularly reports more than 60,000 new cases a day.

A total of 82 percent of the new fatalities in this warm, sunny state popular with retirees were over age 65. And 46 percent lived or worked in nursing homes.

17:00 GMT  US evictions set to soar as pandemic protections expire

As the coronavirus began to shut down large swaths of the US economy in March, spiralling millions of people into unemployment, a patchwork of state and federal eviction bans were enacted to keep people in their homes.

These protections are vanishing. Moratoriums have already expired in 29 states and are about to lapse in others. On Friday, a federal stay, which protects roughly one-third of American renters who live in buildings with mortgages backed by the federal government, will run out unless Congress acts fast.

As many as 28 million people could be evicted in the coming months, according to Emily Benfer, a visiting law professor at Wake Forest University who is the co-creator of Princeton Universitys Eviction Lab, a national research centre on evictions.

Read more here.

Housing advocates are pushing for continued protections to ensure people will not lose their homes if they fell ill with COVID-19 or lost jobs in the pandemics economic fallout [Ross D Franklin/AP Photo]

16:40 GMT  WHO says US Brazil and India can deal with pandemic

The World Health Organization has said that the US, Brazil and India, which are all suffering fast rises in coronavirus cases, can still get on top of the pandemic.

They are powerful, able, democratic countries who have tremendous internal capacities to deal with this disease, Dr Mike Ryan, head of the WHO emergencies programme, told a Geneva briefing.

US. coronavirus cases are set to exceed 4 million on Thursday, with over 2,600 new cases recorded every hour on average, the highest rate in the world, according to a Reuters tally.

16:20 GMT  WHO chief says questioning of his independence unacceptable

The World Organization Chief has said that comments questioning his independence would not distract the organisation from its work in fighting the coronavirus.

Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has come under criticism, especially from US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who have accused him of being pro-China.

The comments are untrue and unacceptable and without any foundation for that matter, he said ata virtual Geneva briefing when asked about Pompeos comments questioning his independence.

He said politicisation was a great risk in fighting a pandemic.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called the Trump administration allegations that he pro-China untrue and unacceptable [File: Fabrice Coffrini/Reuters]

16:00 GMT  Kuwait adjusts curfew, re-opens hotels

Kuwaits cabinet has decided to ease the Gulf countrys partial curfew slightly so that it now begins at 9PM (1800 GMT) and ends at 3 AM (midnight GMT), the countrys Center for Government Communication has said.

The country also announced on Thursday that it would enter phase three of its coronavirus restrictions on July 28, meaning that hotels and resorts would re-open and taxis would be able to operate.

The previous curfew had been between 8 PM (1700 GMT) and 5 AM (0200 GMT). The decision will be reviewed in a cabinet meeting after the Eid Al Adha break, the tweet said.





15:40 GMT  Spain cases jump 2,615 amid surge in new clusters

Spains number of coronavirus cases jumped by 2,615 on Thursday, as the country struggles to contain a rash of fresh clusters of infections that have sprung up since the country lifted a strict lockdown a month ago.

Health ministry data showed a total of 270,166 cases on Thursday, up from 267,551 on Wednesday. Some 16,410 infections have been detected in the last 14 days, the ministry said.

15:20 GMT  US expected to hit 4 million cases on Thursday

The United States is expected to pass 4 million cases of coronavirus on Thursday, amid a surge in cases in the southern and western states.

The US, which is hardest hit in terms of both the number of cases and deaths, has so far recorded over 3.97 million cases and regularly been reported more than 60,000 new cases a day.

Read more here.

15:00 GMT  Uganda reports first death

Uganda has recorded its first death from the new coronavirus, the ministry of health said, making it one of the last nations on the continent to report a fatality since the pandemic reached it in March.

The country has to date reported just over 1,000 infections, according to John Hopkins University data.





14:30 GMT  Virus fallout sends Swedens unemployment to highest since 1998

The Swedish unemployment rate jumped to its highest level since 1998 in June, at nearly 10 percent, due to the economic fallout from the novel coronavirus, Statistics Sweden has said.

The seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate among 16 to 64-year-olds, the statistics agencys longest-running series, reached 9.4 percent last month, surpassing the nine percent peak in early 2010 in the wake of the financial crisis.

The rise has been steep: in January unemployment was still at 7.2 percent and in May it hit 8.6. The all-time high of the indicator dates back to June 1997 when it hit 11.7 percent at the end of the severe economic crisis that hit Sweden in the 1990s.

According to unadjusted seasonal data, Sweden had 557,000 jobseekers in June, around 150,000 more than a year earlier.





14:00 GMT  Dutch museums say will be forced to close without govt support

Around 100 museums in the Netherlands warned they might have to close because of the coronavirus crisis if they dont receive financial support, the Dutch museum association said on Thursday.

The association conducted a survey of its 430 member institutions, which showed that especially small museums with fewer than 40,000 yearly visitors are threatened by bankruptcy if they dont receive the support.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the government provided 300 million euros (342 million dollars) in aid to cultural institutions, although the money benefited mainly large museums, while small ones remain dependent on their own revenue, the association said.

The museum association called for the government to support small cultural institutions as well.

Streets normally full with tourists sat empty at the Zaans Museum and Zaanse Schans open air museum in March amid the coronavirus pandemic [File: Peter Dejong/The Associated Press]

13:30 GMT  Iraq infections pass 100,000 mark

Iraqs total number of infections from the coronavirus has passed 100,000, with health ministry reporting 102,226 cases had been recorded in the country.

At least 4,122 people have died from COVID-19 in Iraq, it said in a statement.

Iraq has often recorded more than 2,000 new cases a day in recent weeks as the spread of the virus has accelerated.

This is Joseph Stepansky in Doha taking over from my colleague Usaid Siddiqui.

12:48 GMT  New US jobless claims rise to 1.42 mn

Claims for government benefits by newly unemployed American workers rose to 1.42 million last week, the Labor Department said, reversing weeks of declines as coronavirus cases skyrocket nationwide.

The increase defied analysts expectations of another weekly decrease in new claims, which spiked in March as US businesses shut down to stop the spread of coronavirus put have been dropping since.

Adding to the toll were the 974,999 people in 49 states who applied for benefits under a program for workers who would not normally be eligible  an increase of nearly 20,000 from the week prior.

A motorist is handed a bag containing information about open positions at a drive-thru job fair in Omaha, Nebraska [Nati Harnik /AP]

12:26 GMT  WHO: More than 10,000 African health workers infected

More than 10,000 health workers in 40 African countries have been infected with the novel coronavirus, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

The pandemic is gathering pace in Africa, with some 750,000 cases and more than 15,000 deaths across the continent, according to the WHO.

The growth we are seeingis placing an ever greater strain on health services across the continent, said WHO Africa director Matshidiso Moeti.

12:00 GMT  Cuba sets example with successful COVID-19 strategy

Cuba has been able to send thousands of doctors and nurses overseas to help other countries fight COVID-19.

That is because the island nation has had huge success containing the virus domestically, with a rigorous active screening campaign and strict restrictions.

Al Jazeeras Ed Augustin reports from Havana, Cuba.





11:40 GMT  South Africa sees huge discrepancy in virus, total deaths

The South African Medical Research Council is reporting a huge discrepancy between the countrys confirmed COVID-19 deaths and the number of excess deaths from natural causes, while Africas top health official says the virus is spreading there like wildfire.

The new report, which came out late Wednesday, shows more than 17,000 excess deaths in South Africa from May 6 to July 14 as compared to data from the past two years, while confirmed COVID-19 deaths are 5,940.





10:55 GMT  Iran death toll surges past 15,000

Iran confirmed 221 additional fatalities from the novel coronavirus, bringing the nationwide death toll to 15,074, according to the Health Ministry.

A further 2,621 people tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, raising the overall count to 284,034, ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said.

10:24 GMT  Proportion of COVID-19 contacts traced by British scheme rises

The proportion of the contacts of coronavirus-positive cases reached by Englands test and trace system rose in its latest week of operation, figures from the health ministry showed.

The Department of Health said 3,887 positive cases had been transferred to service in the week to 15 July, with 77.9 percent of the 16,742 identified contacts reached and advised to self-isolate, up from 72 percent the previous week.





09:57 GMT  Philippines confirms 2,200 more coronavirus cases, 28 deaths

The Philippine health ministry on Thursday reported 2,200 new coronavirus infections and 28 new deaths.

In a bulletin, the ministry said total deaths had increased to 1,871 while infections rose to 74,390.

09:30 GMT  Bahrain, Qatar have highest per capita virus rate in the world

The small, neighbouring Gulf Arab nations of Bahrain and Qatar have the worlds highest per-capita rates of coronavirus infections.

In the two countries, COVID-19 epidemics initially swept undetected through camps housing healthy, young foreign labourers.

09:10 GMT  Philippine Bishop and Duterte critic tests positive for COVID-19

Renowned Manila-based Bishop Broderick Pabillo has tested positive for the coronavirus, local Philippine media outlet Rappler reported.

In a statement, Pabillo said his staff had tested negative, and those he came in contact with had been duly informed.

Pabillo who heads the Manila archdiocese, is considered the unofficial head of the Philippine Catholic Church.

JUST IN: Bishop Broderick Pabillo of Manila, outspoken critic of President Duterte, tests positive for COVID-19 @rapplerdotcom pic.twitter.com/AuuT0P5bio  Paterno Esmaquel II (@paterno_II) July 23, 2020

08:45 GMT  The UN wants to see cash transfers go global to fight coronavirus

Introducing a temporary basic income for the worlds poorest people will not only give them the means to buy food and medicine, but could also help stop the spread of the coronavirus, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) stresses in a new report released on Thursday.

The report, Temporary Basic Income: Protecting Poor and Vulnerable People in Developing Countries, advocates for a time-bound and unconditional cash transfer to serve as a minimum income guarantee for 2.7 billion people living under or near the poverty line in 132 developing countries.

Read more here.

08:10 GMT  Philippines re-imposes non-essential international travel ban

The Philippines has reimposed a ban on non-essential travel abroad, more than two weeks after permitting touristic trips outside the country, a government spokesman said.

Filipinos were banned from all non-essential domestic and international travel from mid-March when a lockdown was imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

Passengers wearing personal protective equipment for protection against COVID-19 queue at the check-in counters in Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Pasay City, Metro Manila [File: Eloisa Lopez/Reuters]

07:45 GMT  Chinas Sinopharm says coronavirus vaccine could be ready by year-end  state media

A coronavirus vaccine candidate developed by China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) could be ready for public use by the end of this year, state media reported, ahead of previous expectations that it may become available in 2021.

Sinopharm Chairman Liu Jingzhen told state broadcaster CCTV the company expects to finish late-stage human testing within about three months.

Sinopharms China National Biotec Group (CNBG), which is responsible for two coronavirus vaccine projects, said in June the shot may not be ready until at least 2021 as a lack of new infections in China made it difficult to find people to test it on.

07:37 GMT  Germany links over 2,000 cases to slaughterhouse

A German official says authorities have now linked more than 2,000 coronavirus infections to an outbreak at a slaughterhouse last month that led to a partial lockdown in two western counties.

Regional authorities restored some coronavirus restrictions in the Guetersloh and Warendorf areas in late June after more than 1,400 people at the Toennies slaughterhouse in Rheda-Wiedenbrueck tested positive for the virus.

07:20 GMT  Australia reports highest coronavirus deaths in 3 months, infections climb

Australia reported its highest daily number of coronavirus-related deaths in three months as new infections continued to climb in its second-most populous state.

Victoria state said it had confirmed another 403 infections, while five people had died from the virus in the last 24 hours.

The fatalities, including a man in his 50s, mark the countrys biggest one-day rise in COVID-19 deaths since late April.

07:10 GMT  Russias coronavirus tally nears 800,000

Russia reported 5,848 new cases of the novel coronavirus, pushing its national tally to 795,038, the fourth-largest in the world.

The country has recorded just over 12,700 deaths to date and more than 570,000 recoveries.

06:53 GMT  South Korea reports worst economic performance in more than 20 years

South Koreas economy recorded its worst performance in more than 20 years in the second quarter, the central bank said, as the coronavirus pandemic hammered its exports.

Asias fourth-largest economy contracted 2.9 percent year-on-year in the April-June period, the Bank of Korea said.

It was the fastest decline since a 3.8-percent drop in the fourth quarter of 1998, the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis.

06:20 GMT  South Africa reports new high in virus deaths

South Africas confirmed coronavirus cases have nearly reached 400,000 as the country reports a new daily high of 572 deaths.

South Africa is now one of the worlds top five countries in terms of reported virus cases, and it makes up more than half of the cases on the African continent with 394,948. Deaths are at 5,940.

Public hospitals are struggling as patient numbers climb, and more than 5,000 health workers have been infected.

Restaurant workers gather in Parkhurst, Johannesburg, to join a national protest organized by the Restaurant Association of South Africa (RASA) against the national lockdown regulations the government issued to fight the rise of COVID-19 [Luca Sola/AFP]

05:55 GMT  Israel names coronavirus supremo as infections grow

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has named a public health professional to head the coronavirus response, his office announced, amid mounting calls for Israels government to appoint a dedicated coronavirus response coordinator.

It said in a statement that the job went to Professor Ronnie Gamzu, CEO of Tel Avivs Sourasky medical complex, who was appointed the National Coronavirus Project Manager, his office said.

Professor Gamzu has many years of administrative experience in the health field, including previous service as health ministry director-general, it added.

05:20 GMT  India sets another daily record for virus cases

Indias health ministry reported a new record surge of 45,720 new coronavirus cases, taking the total tally of infections to 1,238,635.

India has recorded 685 virus deaths in the past 24 hours, as well as 444 previously unreported fatalities, bring the nationwide death toll from the pandemic to 29,861.

Many states in India have started reimposing lockdowns as health authorities struggle to trace transmissions.

Medical workers tend to a coronavirus patient in the intensive care unit at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital in New Delhi [Danish Siddiqui/Reuters]

Hi, this is Usaid Siddiqui in Doha taking over from my colleague Kate Mayberry.

05:00 GMT  Australia warns of record decline in economy

Australia says its economy is likely to shrink at its fastest pace in history in the second quarter.

Officials expect the gross domestic product (GDP) to shrink by 7 percent in the three months ended June leaving Australia in its first recession in 30 years. The economy shrank 0.3 percent in the first quarter.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is also forecasting a record budget deficit as the government steps up spending to keep the economy going and people in work.

03:50 GMT  Papua New Guinea calls for WHO help over outbreak

Papua New Guinea has called on the WHO for help, citing a high likelihood of expanded community transmission. It has asked the WHO to deploy Emergency Medical Teams for an initial period of one month.

PNG is one of the poorest countries in the Pacific and has limited medical resources. It currently has 30 cases of COVID-19, compared with 11 on Sunday. Most of those affected are medical workers.

Following an increase of cases in Papua New Guinea  there is an urgent need for clinical teams (EMTs) to support the country to prepare for and manage a surge in COVID-19 cases. Read the full request for assistance here: https://t.co/wThzLdAmNh #EMTeams #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/sFt16sP6wJ  Chantal Claravall (@ClaravallC) July 22, 2020

National pandemic response controller David Manning said the WHO was in the process of mobilising international medical teams to deploy to PNG. Manning said testing was limited beyond the capital, Port Moresby.

03:30 GMT  China reports 22 new cases  most in Xinjiang

Chinas National Health Commission has reported 22 new cases of coronavirus on the mainland, most of them in the far western region of Xinjiang where mass testing is under way.

Chinese mainland reported 22 new confirmed #COVID19 cases (18 in Xinjiang), and 31 new #asymptomatic COVID-19 patients pic.twitter.com/QkmHZPY2Rg  Global Times (@globaltimesnews) July 23, 2020

Urumqi, capital of NW China's #Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, is carrying out free nucleic acid tests for all residents and people who are visiting the city, in a bid to screen for novel #coronavirus infections and reduce the risk of the epidemic spread. #Covid_19 pic.twitter.com/d55Dvf3GAy  China Daily (@ChinaDaily) July 23, 2020

03:00 GMT  China offers $1bn loan for Latin America vaccine access

China will offer a $1bn loan to make any coronavirus vaccine it develops available to countries across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Mexicos foreign ministry says China made the promise in a virtual meeting.

02:30 GMT  California overtakes New York in coronavirus cases

California has overtaken New York to record the highest number of coronavirus cases in any US state.

Health officials say the states total caseload now stands at 413,576  about 4,700 cases more than in New York.

Californias death toll remains much lower, however. It has recorded 7,870 deaths since the start of the pandemic, compared with 25,068 in New York.

01:30 GMT  More records tumble in South America

Brazil and Argentina have both registered new daily records for coronavirus cases.

Brazil confirmed 67,860 cases on Wednesday, while Argentina recorded 5,782 cases. Both countries also reported more deaths from the disease, while Peru added 3,688 previously uncounted people to its death toll, lifting the total to 17,455.

Meanwhile, Brazils President Jair Bolsonaro has still not shaken the virus, which he once referred to as nothing more than a little flu. A test on Wednesday  his third  showed he still had COVID-19.





00:15 GMT  South Koreas economy in recession as exports slump

South Korea has entered recession after exports recorded their steepest decline since 1963. The economy shrank by 3.3 percent in the three months ended June, compared with the previous quarter.

Exports account for 40 percent of South Koreas economy, and it plunged 16.6 percent.

Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki struck an optimistic note, however. He says government spending, cash handouts and a slowing pandemic could help growth recover.

Containers at the port of Busan in South Korea on May 13, 2020 [File: Yonhap via EPA]

00:00 GMT  Final bow? UK warns of theatre closures after lockdown

A UK parliamentary committee on arts and culture says the coronavirus lockdown has pushed British theatre to the brink of collapse.

The committee estimates that more than 15,000 theatrical performances were cancelled in the first 12 weeks of the lockdown that began on March 23, and put total losses at 603 million pounds ($768m).

The UK has about 1,100 theatres from Londons West End to smaller towns and cities around the country.

Steve Clarkson, head of maintenance and facilities at the Palace Theatre in Manchester, carries out a maintenance check of the auditorium on June 19 [File: Oli Scarff/AFP]



Hello and welcome to Al Jazeeras continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Im Kate Mayberry in Kuala Lumpur.

Read all the updates from yesterday (July 22) here.
Denisse Toala, a 16-year-old girl from Ecuador has set up her own tuition class for school children who do not have internet access and losing education because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Denisse Toala has set up the makeshift school under a tree in a poor neighbourhood of northern Guayaquil, where nearly 40 students attend the classes. According to reports, Toala uses her mobile phone to look into school websites for homework that has been assigned to children of the same age group who attend her classes.

Read: Amid COVID-19, Over 240 Million Students Affected: HRD Minister Promotes Online Education

Toala while talking to the press said that the coronavirus outbreak has brought an educational crisis along with the economic one and the poor families of the neighbourhood where she teaches are among the hardest-hit in her country. The families in the neighbourhood lack basic amenities, including smartphones and internet connectivity, that have become essential for learning amid the coronavirus lockdown. The South American country is one of the poorest countries in the region, where 35 per cent of the total population live in poverty.

Regresamos a Monte Sinai para entregar libros a los estudiantes y una tablet a Denisse Toala, cumpliendo la promesa de ayudar a esta joven y ejemplar docente, para que planifique sus clases y siga ayudando a los ninos de su comunidad. Trabajamos por dias mejores. pic.twitter.com/uQXM6r5tIa  JORGE ACAITURRI (@JorgeAcaiturri) June 10, 2020

Read: Telangana doctor Drives Tractor To Take Covid Patient Body For Last Rites; Hailed Online

Online education

According to UNICEF, 37 per cent of households in Ecuador do not have internet connectivity at homes. While schools are reopening in some corners of the world after pandemic-induced closures, the United Nations and its partners are helping children continue their learning through all possible means, including the Internet, radio and television. Meanwhile, UNICEF and Microsoft Corp. announced the expansion of a global learning platform to help children and youth affected by COVID-19 continue their education at home.

Read: Kerala: Schooling Turns High-tech As Teacher Uses Augmented Reality In Online Classes

Read: IIM Calcutta To Start Academic Year In Online Mode From August

(Image Credit: @JorgeAcaiturri/Twitter)
South Korea Faces Criticism for Crackdown on Leaflet Launchers

By William Gallo July 22, 2020

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who began his career as a human rights lawyer, is coming under severe criticism for cracking down on activist groups calling for reform in North Korea.

The Moon administration has carried out a broad campaign to prevent the organizations, mostly led by North Korean defectors, from floating balloons and bottles filled with propaganda leaflets into the North.

The leaflets often criticize North Korea's human rights record or mock North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and are sometimes packaged with items of value, such as dollar bills or USB flash drives loaded with South Korean dramas.

North Korea, which forbids access to the outside world, has complained bitterly about the leaflets. Last month North Korea demolished the de facto inter-Korean embassy just north of the border and threatened unspecified military action unless Seoul stopped the launches.

The Moon government, which wants to improve ties with Pyongyang, says the crackdown is necessary to reduce military tensions. But activists say the government's response is unprecedented and may be fatal for many groups working on North Korean human rights.

Fierce crackdown

Over the past several weeks, South Korean authorities have raided the offices of non-governmental organizations, filed criminal complaints against the groups, and in some cases even surveilled, briefly detained or physically blocked activists as they head to or from launch sites.

Authorities have also moved to formally outlaw the launches and threatened to imprison violators for a year.

Last week, South Korea's Unification Ministry revoked the NGO licenses of two of the most prominent leaflet campaign groups, complicating their ability to raise money. Officials have warned they will inspect 25 more groups, raising fears their licenses too will be cancelled.

On Monday, a group of South Korean NGOs appealed to the United Nations for help against what they called an "unjustified and politically motivated" investigation. The actions, they said, risk "stifling...the entire North Korean human rights movement in South Korea."

Global condemnation

Many international rights groups have also condemned the crackdown with unusual bluntness.

"Rather than kowtow to Kim Jong Un's sister, South Korea should be standing up for its own principles," said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch.

Last month, Kim Jong Un's sister, Kim Yo Jong, called the leaflet launchers "human scum" and "mongrel dogs." Within hours, South Korea began pressuring the NGOs, raising accusations Moon was stifling free speech in order to placate the North.

"I think President Moon and his people are so deep into this they don't see they're no longer making sense," said Robertson. "Their actions are now violating the rights they spent their entire careers trying to build up."

The U.N. Human Rights Office in Seoul also questioned the decision to revoke the NGO licenses, according to the Dong-A newspaper.

South Korea presses on

But South Korea is undeterred by the criticism, persisting with its crackdown even after the North inexplicably called off its campaign of leaflet-related retaliations late last month.

Moon is now expected to prioritize inter-Korean ties during the final two years of his presidency.

"The peaceful management of inter-Korean relations is the number one priority for us, and human rights would come second," said a source close to Moon, who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity to candidly describe Seoul's view on the issue.

Left-leaning South Korean politicians have long shied away from criticizing North Korean human rights abuses. Instead, they prefer to focus on expanding ties with Pyongyang, hoping that will someday lead to a unified Korea that would respect human rights. A more aggressive approach, they argue, not only prevents reunification but also could lead to hostilities.

"We are not the United States. We cannot push against North Korea on all fronts. We have to prioritize. The issue now is peace, denuclearization, and the prevention of any kind of military conflict and escalation. Those are more urgent than human rights abuses," said the source close to Moon.

"For us, peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula is a matter of national existence," he added.

Legal justifications

Both conservative and liberal South Korean governments have at times attempted to block activists from launching leaflets.

Usually, officials cite national security considerations. In 2014, North Korean border guards tried to shoot down some of the balloons, resulting in an exchange of gunfire with the South.

According to a recent poll, about 60% of South Koreans support a leaflet launch ban. That sentiment is especially common in border areas where many residents fear North Korean retaliation.

During the latest crackdown, authorities have cited varying legal justifications, including opposition from locals but also environmental regulations and non-binding diplomatic agreements.

"They have a whole bunch of excuses and they continue to pull them out and throw them against the wall and see which one is going to stick," said Human Rights Watch's Robertson.

The launches are protected in principle under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees the rights of freedom of expression, even to send information across borders, said Tomas Ojea Quintana, U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea.

"Now at the same time, any government around the world has the faculty to limit this Article 19 by arguing, for example, national security or public order," Ojea Quintana said.

The special rapporteur told VOA's Korean Service he plans to request a meeting with South Korean officials to find more about the NGO license revocation, but stressed: "From what I know, I definitely don't like the move."

Launches continue

Despite the controversy, it's not even clear whether Seoul's strategy will work. According to local media, there have been at least three successful balloon launches since late June.

Two of the launches were reportedly conducted by Eric Foley, who heads Voice of the Martyrs Korea. Unlike other defector groups that launch anti-Pyongyang propaganda, Foley, an evangelical Christian, distributes Bibles along with items like rice and vitamins.

During one attempted launch in early June, Foley was stopped by police who physically blocked his path to the launch site. Since then, he and his staff have been under regular police surveillance.

"I'm puzzled at the amount of resources being applied to stop our work," Foley told VOA. "I'm trying to launch one balloon containing seven Bibles, using my own car...and the response is to have 10 police officers stopping me for 90 minutes, taking photos of the helium tanks."

Foley has vowed to continue launching the Bibles, which he sees as necessary to support underground Christian groups that are persecuted in North Korea.

Other NGOs have also vowed to continue launching more provocative materials.

"By making this a bigger thing," Robertson said, "I think the South Koreans have now set themselves up for a game of perpetual cat and mouse with these North Korean defector organizations, who have the wherewithal and have the determination to continue doing this."

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DETROIT, MI  A Detroit Police officer was arraigned Thursday on felony assault charges in connection with the shooting of non-lethal ammunition that injured an MLive photographer and two other photojournalists covering protests in downtown Detroit.

Detroit Police Corporal Daniel Debono was arraigned Thursday, July 23, on three counts of felonious assault stemming from an incident that occurred May 31 during the protests in Detroit, according to Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy.

The arraignment comes three days after Debono, 32, was charged.

Charges issued against Detroit police officer accused of shooting rubber pellets at 3 photographers covering protests

MLive photojournalist Nicole Hester was hit by as many as a dozen pellets in her face and body, leaving welts and narrowly missing an eye. She was with her fiance, freelance photographer Seth Herald, who was working for AFP, and Matt Hatcher, who was shooting pictures for Getty Images.

The three were in Detroit covering a police brutality protest which was among hundreds that erupted across the country after the death of George Floyd, who was killed by Minneapolis police during his arrest, May 25.

The evidence shows that these three journalists were leaving the protest area and that there was almost no one else on the street where they were, Worthy said in a written statement. They were a threat to no one. There are simply no explicable reasons why the alleged actions of this officer were taken.

MLive photographer among journalists fired upon with pellets by Detroit police officer during protest coverage

Debono was issued a $10,000 personal recognizance bond and ordered not to possess any weapons or have any contact with the victims. His attorney issued a written statement on Thursday.

Once again there has been a rush to judgment involving a Detroit Police Officer, defense attorney Pamella Szydlak said in the statement. After a long night in the City of Detroit of rioting, vandalizing and looting, Corporal DeBono was attempting to clear the area of the remaining rioters and looters, as ordered to do. He did not intentionally shoot rubber bullets at the MLive or the freelance photographers. It is absolutely absurd that he has been charged with any criminal activity. Corporal DeBono, a dedicated Police Officer, was doing his job as directed by the Chief of the Detroit Police Department.

Messages left with Detroit Police Officers Association President Craig Miller were not immediately returned.

Debono has been suspended with pay since June 10, when the Detroit Police Department opened an internal investigation.

The investigation was immediately launched when the department learned of the incident, according to a written statement from DPD Sgt. Nicole Kirkwood. Once the investigation was complete, the findings were turned over to the Wayne Countys Prosecutors Office for review and charging recommendations, Kirkwood said.

Its also important to know that the actions of this officer do not reflect the vast majority of the men and women on this department who have been working the protest for the last eight weeks and doing what is right, the statement from Kirkwood reads.

Debono is scheduled for a probable cause conference Aug. 13 before 36th District Court Judge Roberta Archer. Felonious assault is punishable by up to four years in prison.

For more about the protests throughout Michigan, click here.
Though Sanjana Sanghi is making her debut as a leading lady with Dil Bechara, she is no stranger to being in front of the camera. Her journey in films began in 2011 with Imtiaz Alis Rockstar, in which she played Nargis Fakhris younger sister, Mandy.

In a recent Instagram post, Sanjana shared that she was discovered by casting director Mukesh Chhabra, who is making his directorial debut with Dil Bechara, when she was performing in school. At age 13, Mukesh found me performing on stage in my school in Delhi, asked me to audition then & there itself, and went on to cast me as Mandy in Rockstar, she revealed.

Sanjana was next seen on the big screen six years later, in Hindi Medium, in which she played the younger version of Saba Qamar. She was in her third year of college when she shot for the film, she said in an Instagram post, commemorating three years of the film.

Also read: Sona Mohapatra says Kangana Ranaut takes full advantage of the toxic star system, adds nepotism must be wiped out

Forever grateful for being such a small part of such a beautiful story. I was a 3rd year student in Delhi University when I shot for Hindi Medium, and the thought of just expanding my horizons as a performer by being around such inspirational artists meant the world to me, teaching me that no part as an actor is too big or small. Im glad I made time away from the academic pressure of writing my thesis in the final year of college, and went ahead and did this. Saved myself from a huge regret Id have carried with myself forever, she said.

Later that year, Sanjana appeared in a small role in Fukrey Returns, in which she played Katty. The film also starred Pulkit Samrat, Varun Sharma, Richa Chadha, Ali Fazal and Manjot Singh. In addition to this, she has featured in advertisements for a number of popular brands, including Close-Up, Tanishq, Samsung and others. Here is a look at some of the videos:

Sanjana is making her full-fledged feature film debut opposite the late Sushant Singh Rajput in Dil Bechara. The film is a licensed adaptation of John Greens bestseller The Fault In Our Stars. It is scheduled for a direct-to-digital release on July 24 at 7.30pm on the streaming platform Disney+ Hotstar. It has been made free-for-all as a tribute to Sushant.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Seasoned journalist, Kweku Baako has disclosed that some Headmasters of Senior High Schools in the country failed to register their students for this year's West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE).



Over 300,000 final year SHS students began their WASSCE on Monday, July 20, 2020.



The final year students named ''Akufo-Addo graduates'' are the first batch of students to have benefited from President Nana Akufo-Addo's free SHS programme.



The President wished them best of luck prior to the exams.



Kweku Baako, speaking on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo'' on Wednesday, July, 22, has dropped a shocking surprise on some school Heads revealing that some students have missed the WASSCE because their headmasters and mistresses didn't register them although they qualified to write the final exams.



"There's one particular school where about 607 candidates were not registered. There's another one, 281 were not registered. In fact, the figures is building up to about 10000 in all...It's a serious matter. They have collected the students' money. Their signed list given to the GES is available, their names are there. They (school Heads) have received all the free SHS logistics. They receive the money and logistics in the name of these students on their signed list but yet they've not registered them," he bemoaned the action of the school Heads.



He however refused to mention names of the schools but stressed the appropriate authorities are handling the issue and the names of the Heads will soon be made public with sanctions accompanying the names.



"I want the authorities to do a full disclosure. And I'm sure, what I'm told, the full list will be published, the names will be published; that is the Heads and indeed possibly they will be surcharged for what they've done."









Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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A new study, published in the Journal of Management, suggests that since narcissists dont acknowledge their mistakes, they fail to learn from them.

The mental process of analyzing past actions to see what one should have done differently is called should counterfactual thinking. Counterfactual thinking is the mental process of imagining a different outcome or scenario from what actually occurred.

For example, when most people discover that their actions have led to an undesirable outcome, they tend to rethink their decisions and ask, What should I have done differently to avoid this outcome? When narcissists face the same situation, though, their typical response is something like No one could have seen this coming!

We all engage in some level of self-protective thinking, said study author Dr. Satoris Howes, a researcher at Oregon State University (OSU)- Cascades with the OSU College of Business. We tend to attribute success to our own efforts, but blame our failures on outside forces, while often blaming other peoples failure on their own deficiencies.

But narcissists do this way more because they think theyre better than others, Howes said. They dont take advice from other people; they dont trust others opinions.  You can flat-out ask, What should you have done differently? And it might be, Nothing, it turned out; it was good.

Narcissism is typically characterized as a belief in ones superiority and entitlement, with narcissists believing they are better and more deserving than others.

The research involved four variations of the same experiment with four different participant groups, including students, employees and managers with significant experience in hiring. One of the four was conducted in Chile with Spanish-speaking participants.

Participants first took a test that ranked their narcissism by having them choose among pairs of statements (I think I am a special person versus I am no better or worse than most people).

In the first of the four variations, participants read the qualifications of hypothetical job candidates and had to choose whom to hire. After choosing, they were given details about how this hypothetical employee fared in the job, and were assessed regarding the extent they engaged in should counterfactual thinking about whether they made the right decision.

The four variations used different methods to analyze how counterfactual thinking was affected by hindsight bias, which is the tendency to exaggerate in hindsight what one actually knew in foresight. The researchers cite the example of President Donald Trump saying in 2004 that he predicted the Iraq war better than anybody.

The researchers say previous studies have shown that hindsight bias is often reversed as a form of self-protection when a prediction proves to be inaccurate; e.g., Trump saying in 2017 that No one knew health care could be so complicated after failing to put forth a successful alternative to the Affordable Care Act.

The study results show that when narcissists predicted an outcome correctly, they felt it was more foreseeable than non-narcissists did (I knew it all along); and when they predicted incorrectly, they felt the outcome was less foreseeable than non-narcissists did (Nobody could have guessed).

In either case, the narcissists didnt feel the need to do anything differently or engage in self-critical thinking that might have had positive effects on future decisions.

Theyre falling prey to the hindsight bias, and theyre not learning from it when they make mistakes. And when they get things right, theyre still not learning, Howes said.

Narcissists often rise in the ranks within organizations because they exude total confidence, take credit for the successes of others and deflect blame from themselves when something goes wrong, Howes said.

However, she said, over time this can be damaging to the organization, both because of low morale of employees who work for the narcissist and because of the narcissists continuing poor decisions.

To avoid the trap of hindsight bias, Howes said individuals should set aside time for reflection and review after a decision, even if the outcome is positive. Whether the decision was favorable or unfavorable, they should ask themselves what they could have done differently. And since narcissists dont do this, Howes said it would be wise to have advisory panels provide checks and balances when narcissists have decision-making authority.

Source: Oregon State University
The moment a significant presence of the Muslim Brotherhood group is found within a country is the moment a fifth column is created within that country.

That has been the modus operandi of this Islamist group since its inception and throughout its spread across the world to over 80 countries over the course of the last century. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded by Hassan Al-Banna, its cult-leader until his demise in 1949. His written works also became the guidelines of Islamists and terrorists over the decades to come.

From the early days after its inception in 1928, the group promoted the idea of reviving the past Islamic caliphate, which saw its last days in Turkey in 1923 with the establishment of the modern secular republic. Spreading the belief that Muslims cannot live as proper believers without a caliph ruling over them, the group then acted as an agent of mayhem in Egypt and across the Middle East from the early 1940s after having failed to persuade Egypts former king Farouk to become the next caliph of Muslims.

The group went on a terrorism spree in the country that ended in the assassination of former prime minister Mahmoud Al-Nukrashi in 1948, just days after he had outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood. This was not to be the last of the terrorist groups political assassinations in the country, however, as it went on to attempt to assassinate former president Gamal Abdel-Nasser in 1954 in Alexandria. It was successful in its attempt to assassinate his successor, the Egyptian war and peace hero president Anwar Al-Sadat, in October 1981. This assassination was carried out through the Muslim Brotherhoods offshoot group Islamic Jihad.

History seemed to repeat itself after the 30 June Revolution in Egypt when the Muslim Brotherhood assassinated Egyptian attorney-general Hisham Barakat in June 2015. Barakat had banned the group as a terrorist entity in 2013 following a horrific series of terrorist attacks in the country.

The hierarchy of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was destroyed after June 2013, but as a result it has been resorting to the role of a fifth column in the country, meaning that it is now acting for the benefit of the countrys foreign enemies and even paving the road for the country to be attacked by those enemies. From the early beginnings of the present Turkish military intervention in Libya, for example, Muslim Brotherhood members have been praising this twisted interference on social media, claiming that it is integral to restoring order in Libya after a near decade of civil war. Of course, the truth is the complete opposite.

Messages and other posts can be found on Twitter and Facebook and other social-media sites by Islamists and Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated groups that do not attempt to hide their daylight treachery and their hatred for Egypts army, siding with the Turkish invasion of Libya against their own compatriots who have been protesting against it. This fifth-column strategy has carried a message of discouragement towards a possible Egyptian military confrontation with the Turkish army, pretending instead that it is only concerned about Egyptian lives in the face of the powerful Turkish army.

These Brotherhood fifth-column messsages ignore the fact that the Egyptian army is currently ranked ninth in the world. The groups treacherous role is backed by some Egyptian media anchors situated in Turkey on Brotherhood-operated TV networks such as Mekameleen and the terrorist-supporting TV network Aljazeera, which broadcasts almost daily reports on the perils that will befall the Egyptian army if it faces up to Turkey from the networks base in Qatar.

These twisted reports have also tried to magnify the crisis over Ethiopias building of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, when Egypt is using all the diplomatic means at its disposal to resolve the crisis peacefully. They are trying to belittle Egyptian national security, claiming that Egypts forces are faced by the forces of the Islamist Turkish state near the western border backed by tens of thousands of terrorist militias.

TREACHERY: Such blatant treachery can be traced back to the Muslim Brotherhoods roots and ideology.

The average Muslim Brotherhood member is a cult follower who does not believe in a nation-state or borders except those drawn up by the conquests of an Islamic caliphate. Members of the Brotherhood believe they are on a mission to carry out Gods work on Earth by establishing a fabled caliphate that will bring justice and spread Islams dominion across the world, and this entails that they do not believe in the sanctity of their nations borders or its sovereignty.

They would rather serve a foreign invader who calls himself a caliph as loyal minions rather than the elected president of the country in which they were born and raised.

It is from here that stems the danger of the Muslim Brotherhood to the integrity and security of not just Egypt but also other countries worldwide. Those Western countries that are still harbouring elements of the Muslim Brotherhood or its Islamist affiliates such as the Salafis face the same danger. For decades, Muslim Brotherhood leaders have worked vehemently to convince the Muslim masses of the importance of their caliphate, despite the fact that this was never a part of the Muslim religion and was merely a form of imperial rule from the Middle Ages until the fall of the last caliph in Turkey.

The existence of Muslim Brotherhood elements in the world today constitutes a security breach that could lead to chaos in certain countries. However, there has been a late awakening of the dangers the Brotherhood represents in Western countries such as France and Germany, where the existence of people who are members of the Muslim Brotherhood or who pledge allegiance to terrorist-supporting leaders such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has too long gone unconsidered.

But if these elements are willing to betray their own native countries to foreign invaders and terrorist-supporting regimes such as that of Erdogan or the regime in Qatar, what might they be willing to do in countries that they deem to be run by kafirs or unbelievers according to their beliefs? The horrific waves of terrorism that many Western countries have witnessed over the past two decades are part of the answer to that question.

The case of the United States appears even more tragic, as some terrorist elements of the Muslim Brotherhood group are already supporting Democratic Party presidential nominee Joe Biden, who has sought the support of American Muslims, some of whom are supporters of the Islamists, including US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. The Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an Islamist body affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, is endorsing hundreds of Islamist and Muslim Brotherhood candidates for political office in the upcoming US elections, spelling disaster for the United States in the shorter and longer term should they be elected.

The Muslim Brotherhood may have found the answer to its nine-decades dream in the person of Erdogan, who follows the teaching of terrorist figures such as Brotherhood ideologues Al-Banna and Sayed Qutb. Erdogans fantasy of reviving the Ottoman caliphate and his megalomaniacal ambitions are music to the ears of the Muslim Brotherhood, and its members are willing to endorse it wherever they are found.

However, the Egyptian people are not falling for Muslim Brotherhood fifth-column games and treacherous propaganda, as all patriotic Egyptians are rallying behind their army and their president in the face of threats by Erdogan and his terrorist allies. That said, the current crisis in Libya is an existential crisis for Egypts security, and it cannot be taken lightly, even as the Egyptian army, backed by a strong nation, will ultimately prevail.

*The writer is a political analyst and author of Egypts Arab Spring and the Winding Road to Democracy.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 23 July, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Welcome to Thursday's edition of Patch PM. Check out the top headlines from around the Rhode Island Patch network.

Gov. Gina Raimondo said consequences will come next week if inspectors find non-compliance with strict coronavirus guidelines this weekend.

Bacteria levels in the water have returned to safe levels.

Here's another chance to be in the room where it happens.

Gov. Gina Raimondo said flags will be lowered to half-staff and the state house will be lit up in memory of the victims.













This article originally appeared on the Newport Patch
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 23

Trend:

Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Affairs Josep Borrell and Armenian FM Zohrab Mnatsakanyan held phone talks, Trend reports.

Bayramov informed Borrell about the military provocation of the Armenian armed forces on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border and the suppression of the attempted attack with the use of artillery installations, as well the ongoing tension in the region. He noted that during the recent provocation, the Armenian side shelled and deliberately targeted Azerbaijani border settlements, resulting in death of a 76-year-old civilian.

The Azerbaijani FM brought to Borrell's attention that the Armenian side also aims at creating a threat to geostrategic projects located close to the mentioned area. It was stressed that the tension roots from the aggressive policy of Armenia against Azerbaijan.

Borrell noted the importance of stopping the conflict escalation, including the creation of threats to important infrastructure in the region. He pointed out the need to restore substantive negotiations on the settlement of the conflict through the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group.

Bayramov noted that Azerbaijan remains committed to the peaceful settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but stressed that the negotiations should be conducted in essence and aimed at a specific result.

Borrel was informed that the Azerbaijani side does not participate in the negotiations for the sake of negotiations, as they have been going on for many years, but there are no concrete results to eliminate the consequences of the conflict.

Armenian side's attempts to prolong negotiations under various pretexts, instead of solving the issue, were highlighted.

Azerbaijan's foreign minister stressed the importance of withdrawing the Armenian forces from all the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, restoring the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan within the internationally recognized borders, fulfilling the demands of the international community led by UN Security Council resolutions and the decisive position of the EU on resolving the conflict.

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.
OAKLAND (BCN)

Oakland's cannabis businesses want more police protection after two workers were shot, one fatally, and industry advocates said Wednesday that police are starting to step up but need to do more.

One employee was killed and another wounded late Friday night inside a business in the 500 block of Julie Ann Way, near I-880 northwest of the Oakland Coliseum.

"We just need a comprehensive, coordinated strategy on cannabis business crime," said James Anthony, chair of Oakland Citizens for Equity and Prosperity, a trade association that represents cannabis businesses in Oakland.

Anthony said he thinks police are working on that, but OCEP leaders demanded on Tuesday that the Oakland Police Department also create a cannabis section that would track crimes against cannabis businesses, alert them as needed and have the staff and intelligence resources required to predict and prevent robberies of cannabis businesses.

Anthony said many have been subjected to armed robberies in which cash, plants and cannabis inventory are taken. He said Friday's shooting was a robbery but was unlike many others.

He said many cannabis businesses were among the 200 Oakland businesses that police said were robbed from May 29 to June 3 during protests.

Police said they do not provide site security for cannabis businesses, but they will do a security review for a company.

In what Anthony said was a video of the shooting that was posted on Instagram, a man appears to shoot a woman, then enter the business and then leave. Police would not say whether the assailant in Friday's shooting took anything with him from the business that was targeted.

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.
CervicalCheck campaigner Ruth Morrissey was a "beautiful soul" who showed great resilience and strength in her final years, her funeral has heard.

Ms Morrissey, who died on Sunday aged 39, was among hundreds of women affected by the controversy surrounding incorrect smear test results.

Close friends and family gathered at Mary Magdalene Church in Monaleen, Co Limerick, for her funeral mass yesterday.

The mother-of-one's death comes two years after her 2.1m High Court win against the HSE and two laboratories over the misreading of two cervical smear tests.

Delivering a personal tribute, Ms Morrissey's husband Paul said his wife was "stunningly beautiful, caring and wise".

Resilience

"I met Ruth Maloney when she was 17 and I was 19. From that moment on, it was just the two of us - a team," he added.

"Ruth was my girlfriend but she was also my best friend. We did everything together and it helped that we were both Man United supporters.

"It is no secret that in our relationship, Ruth was the boss. I was quite simply happy with the arrangement - it suited me. I knew she was right.

"Not only was Ruth stunningly beautiful, with a smile that would light up any room that she walked into, she was so loving and caring and well able to give sound advice, whether you wanted to hear it at the time or not.

"She was wise beyond her years - so witty, great fun and people were drawn to her.

"I don't know how I got so lucky when she agreed to come my way."

Mr Morrissey became emotional as he spoke about his daughter, Libby.

"In 2011, we became a trio when our amazing daughter Libby was born. Ruth was a natural mother, she adored Libby and Libby made Ruth so proud and happy," he said.

"Libby has inherited so many of Ruth's qualities. She made a card for her mother on Saturday and signed it 'mini Ruth' - I think that says it all.

"I always knew Ruth was a strong person but the resilience and bravery she showed every day, whether having treatment, going through the court case or dealing with the pain, never ceased to amaze me.

"Me and Libby are truly heartbroken and devastated. I don't think we will ever recover from losing Ruth."

A bag of jelly sweets to represent her sweet tooth, a butterfly and a jar of face cream were among the symbols brought up to the altar. Fr Pat Hogan also paid tribute to Ms Morrissey.

"There is a day ahead when God will bring us all together because that is what the resurrection is, a promise of eternal life together. May her beautiful soul guide us," he said.

A large crowd gathered outside the church as the coffin was taken to a private burial.

The song Roar by Katy Perry was played as Ms Morrissey's coffin left the church. Libby carried a single yellow rose.

CervicalCheck campaigners Vicky Phelan and Lorraine Walsh and Labour Party leader Alan Kelly were among the mourners.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin and President Michael D Higgins were represented by their aide-de-camps.

Meanwhile, HSE chief executive Paul Reid paid tribute to Ms Morrissey as an "incredibly courageous woman" and offered his sympathies to her family.

He said he has written to her husband to express the HSE's deepest sympathies and apologies for what happened to her.

A minute's silence was held in the Dail on Tuesday in her honour. The Taoiseach said the Government acknowledged the failures of CervicalCheck and was profoundly sorry about what had been allowed happen.

"Those of us who were here and have the responsibility of elected office have a solemn duty to learn the lessons from these errors," he added.

He said Health Minister Stephen Donnelly is in the process of appointing a new judge to the CervicalCheck tribunal.
Bengaluru, July 24 : Turning the tables, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday alleged the feud between Karnataka Congress leaders Siddaramaiah and D.K. Shivakumar was behind the graft charges they levelled against the state government in the purchase of Covid medical equipment.

"The internal feud for supremacy between Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah and the main opposition party's state unit president Shivakumar has manifested in the form of levelling allegations against our government," said BJP's state unit general secretary N. Ravi Kumar here.

By repeating the allegations without proof, the Congress has proved that it was not only incorrigible, but also reckless and irresponsible.

"The attempts by Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar to fall on 'Goebbels Theory' - repeating lies to make it look like truth - will never work. Their party has cut a sorry figure and will continue to look sheepish," said Kumar in a statement.

Though Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa denied the charges, Siddaramaiah claimed he has evidence of corruption in purchase of masks, personnel protection equipment (PPE) kits, sanitisers and ventilators by the state government since April and released some documents in Kannada in support of the graft charge in the nearly an year-old BJP government in the southern state.

Refuting the official claims of spending only Rs 333 crore till date on buying medical equipment and supplies, including medicines, Shivakumar said as per documents they have, the state government spent a whopping Rs 4,167 crore, with at least Rs 2,000 crore pocketed by some ministers and officials.

Denying the charges, 5 cabinet ministers fighting the war against the virus said there were no irregularities or corruption in the purchase of medical kits and released official documents in defence of their contention.

The ministers are C.N. Ashwath Narayan (Science & Technology), Basavaraj Bommai (Home), R. Ashoka (Revenue), Sudhakar (Medical Education) and Sriramulu (Health).

Terming the Congress charges baseless, malicious and politically-motivated, Kumar said the Congress duo alleged Rs 815-crore corruption in the medical education department though Sudhakar clarified with documentary proof that medical kits only worth Rs 33 crore were purchased by his officials.

"Similarly, when both the opposition leaders alleged Rs 750-crore graft in the health department, Sriramulu refuted it claiming medical kits valued at Rs 290 crore were purchased so far," Kumar reiterated.

Gloves were bought for Rs 11.40 per pair as against the charge of paying Rs 40 per pair, while 11.6-lakh N95 masks were purchased at Rs 97 per piece as against the market price of Rs 200.

"Ever since Shivakumar assumed charge as the party's state unit chief, its leaders and cadres have become hyper active amidst a race for one-upmanship between the two leaders," added Kumar.

Earlier, Sudhakar told reporters the Congress leaders were trying to revive their moribund party by playing politics in the midst of a pandemic.

"People are watching what the Congress is up to and won't forgive it for doing politics in Covid times. We are prepared to be hanged if corruption is proved in the purchase of medical kits. We are also ready for an inquiry into the graft charges by the opposition party," added Sudhakar.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday said an assembly session will be called soon and his government will prove its majority.

"The session of the assembly will take place soon. The majority is with us, all Congress MLAs are united," he said.

Congress spokesperson Ajay Maken also said the party is confident of the numbers and will convene a session of the state assembly at an "opportune time" to prove its majority.

Gehlot hoped that some of the dissident MLAs, who are led by sacked deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot, will also attend the session when it is called "very soon".

"Without them too, we have a full majority and will go to the House on the basis of this majority, and we will prove it," he said.

Later on Thursday, Gehlot also met Governor Kalraj Mishra at the Raj Bhawan in what was described as a "courtesy call" -- the 20-minute discussion revolved around the possibility of calling a session of the Vidhan Sabha, said Congress sources.

Rajasthan Congress Chief Govind Singh Dotasra also seconded Gehlot's statement, saying his party's government has the majority figure, which is far more than what is required. "The government has the majority figure... 100%... far more than the government requires," he said.

To a question of holding an assembly session, Dotsara said, "We are ready. If our chief minister calls the House, we are ready for the floor test."

The indication that the Gehlot government is preparing for a floor test came a day ahead of the expected pronouncement of a high court order on the disqualification notices sent by the Speaker to the rebel MLAs. But any Rajasthan High Court order will be subject to the outcome of a petition by the Rajasthan Speaker that the Supreme Court is now hearing.

The 19 dissident MLAs had filed a petition in the high court, challenging the disqualification notices.

Maken said the party does not need to wait for the Supreme Court verdict as far as the floor test is concerned as it has the majority number with it. He said a section within the party also feels that the floor test should be conducted after the court verdict with regard to the rebel Congress MLAs.

"We are very confident as we have got the numbers with us and we will prove the majority on the floor of the House. We have a comfortable majority and we will call a session at the opportune time," he told reporters at a virtual press conference.

Maken said there are two views within the party, with a section feeling they should wait for the high court decision and conduct a floor test once the decision comes on Friday so that no one has anything to wait for any court decision.

"But as far as the floor test is concerned, we are very confident that we will easily prove the majority mark. And there will be at least 15-20 members' difference between the MLAs, who are in favour of the government and those against the government," he said.

Asked when the assembly session would be convened, he said the same would be done "at an opportune time".

'Rebel MLAs held hostage'

Gehlot said those who went to court are the ones who were wrong and had been misguided. "They are calling us and saying they are unable to come out," he said, hinting at reports that the rebel MLAs are camping together, just like the ones in his camp. "Bouncers are deployed," he alleged.

Gehlot said the coronavirus pandemic and political issues will be discussed in the assembly session.

Including the dissidents who face the possibility of disqualification, the Congress has 107 MLAs in the 200-member state assembly and the BJP 72.

Targeting Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Gehlot said the audio clips indicating an alleged plot to topple his government can be sent abroad for forensic tests. Without taking the minister's name, Gehlot questioned why he is not coming forward to give a voice sample.

Rejecting the charge that the audio clips are fabricated, he said they can be sent to any forensic science laboratory for examination. "We can send it for FSL testing to America if they have no trust in the Rajasthan government," he said, adding the Congress also did not trust the Centre.

Shekhawat has rejected the charge that it is his voice in one of the three clips. The party has accused the BJP of engineering a plot to lure Congress MLAs away.

When asked about the raids in the state, Gehlot claimed that the central agencies were acting on the directions of Union Home Minister Amit Shah under "Modi raj". The Enforcement Directorate recently searched the premises of his brother as part of a nationwide investigation into an alleged fertiliser export scam.

"We are not afraid of the raids and our mission is not going to stop," said Gehlot. "The BJP policies and programmes are going to ruin the country. They are fascist people and are murdering democracy."

(With inputs from agencies)
China claims the self-ruling island democracy as its own territory and threatens to use Peoples Liberation Army to bring it under control

A Taiwanese Air Force F-16 in foreground flies on the flank of a Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) H-6 bomber as it passes near Taiwan. (Republic of China (ROC) Ministry of National Defense via AP)

Taipei: China is sending military planes near Taiwan with increasing frequency in what appears to be a stepping up of its threat to use force to take control of the island, Taiwans foreign minister said Wednesday.

Such flights are more frequent than reported in the media and have become virtually a daily occurrence, Joseph Wu told reporters.

Along with Chinese military exercises simulating an attack on Taiwan, the flights by China are causing major concern for Taiwans government, Wu said.

What it is doing now is unceasingly preparing to use force to resolve the Taiwan problem, Wu said.

China claims the self-ruling island democracy as its own territory and threatens to use the Peoples Liberation Army to bring it under its control. The sides split in a civil war in 1949 when Chiang Kai-sheks Nationalists fled to the former Japanese colony as the Communist Party took control in mainland China.

Beijing has cut ties with the islands government since Taiwan elected independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen in 2016 and has sought to isolate it diplomatically while raising the military threat. Despite that, Tsai was reelected this year by a wide margin.

Wu said China appeared to have grown in confidence following its crackdown on opposition voices in the former British colony of Hong Kong, facilitated by the national legislatures passage of a sweeping security law.

If international society does not give China a sufficiently clear signal, I believe China will take it that international society will not impede it in doing other things, Wu said. This is what we are extremely worried about.

Wu stressed the need for coordination with allies such as Japan and the U.S., neither of which has official diplomatic ties with Taiwan but which maintain close relations. U.S. law mandates that Washington ensure the island can maintain a credible defense and treat all threats against the island as matters of grave concern.

Support among Taiwanese for political unification with China has long been weak and has fallen further following the crackdown in Hong Kong. That comes as Chinese Communist Party leader and President Xi Jinping pursues an increasingly assertive foreign policy, leading to speculation he may attempt a military confrontation in the region.
On July 18, the same day that the world was mourning the death and celebrating the achievements of U.S. civil rights leader John Lewis, who practised civil disobedience and public protest, Toronto police arrested three Black Lives Matter Toronto activists: Jenna Reid, Danielle Smith and Daniel Gooch, for public protest through artistic disruption spraying pink paint on statues of colonial figures who have had a continuing negative impact on racialized communities.

One of the statues protested was of King Edward VII, brought to Canada from India in 1969. A statue that was rejected in India as a symbol of brutal colonial history, was given a prominent public location at Queens Park, in Toronto.

I was born in India in 1971, and did not have to live under the gaze of colonial statues, which represented oppression of my people for centuries. For racialized immigrants to Canada like myself, the actions by BLM TO protestors reminded me that statues that continue to be symbols of oppression for racialized communities, are given prominence and protected by police services in my country of immigration and choice, Canada.

I applaud the actions of BLM TO activists in drawing attention to the continuing prominent existence of the statues of Ryerson, Macdonald, and Edward VII, colonial figures whose long-term harmful legacies continue to negatively impact Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour across Canada today.

There is another connection to my hometown of Kolkata (previously named Calcutta), where the main square, similar to Dundas Square in Toronto, has been renamed Benoy-Badal-Dinesh Bagh from its original colonial name of Dalhousie Square.

In 1930, Benoy Krishna Basu, Dinesh Gupta, and Badal Gupta, were three young activists, who, to stop the atrocities by Col. Simpson, inspector general of Prisons Kolkata, carried out an act of murder-suicide in the Secretariat Building of the state government of West Bengal (the equivalent of Queens Park in Ontario). The three young activists successfully killed Simpson, the agent of police and prison brutality, but were themselves killed, committed suicide or were executed by death sentence.

In 1930s India, under colonial British rule, the only option for activists wanting to abolish prisons, to stop police violence and political imprisonment and torture of my ancestors, was to kill the inspector general of Prisons, knowing they would die in the process.

In 2020s Canada, similar demands to abolish prisons and defund the police are made through different forms of protest, led by BLM TO. Yet the same BLM TO activists protesting the prominent presence of colonial statues through artistic disruption, are arrested by police and detained in jail cells.

For myself, an immigrant from India, the arrest and detention of Jenna, Danielle and Daniel in Toronto brings up parallels with historical individuals Benoy, Badal, and Dinesh, who were similarly protesting police brutality, advocating for abolishment of prisons, and diminishing lethal law enforcement in their own context.

The actions of Benoy, Badal, and Dinesh and many others, have enabled me to live in India as a free citizen, and not under a brutal, discriminatory and lethal British police and prison system. The actions of BLM TO and their demands on reducing police power, budgets, and discriminatory policies, will enable all of us to live in a society that is less discriminatory. As an immigrant, the arc of colonial history is intrinsically connected for me between Kolkata, India and Toronto, Canada.

Paraphrasing Martin Luther King, when the long arc of history bends towards justice, and when Toronto reconciles with its racial legacies, we will rename Dundas St. and Dundas Square, consciously recognizing that Henry Dundas was a racist 18th century politician who delayed Britains abolition of slavery by 15 years.

I do hope that Dundas Square in Toronto is renamed in honour of Black Lives Matter, as was the site of protest and police violence in Washington D.C. Perhaps when we rename Dundas Square, the names of BLM TO activists Jenna, Danielle and Daniel will be remembered as protestors who were wrongfully arrested and jailed for artistic protest in Toronto in 2020.

In the short term, drop the unnecessary charges against these three courageous BLM TO activists, charges involving police violence in protecting colonial statues, which are symbols of oppression for many Canadians.

Clarification - July 24, 2020: This article was edited from a previous version to make clear that Calcutta was the former name of the Indian city of Kolkata. The government of the Indian state of West Bengal officially changed the name in 2001 to reflect its original pronunciation in Bengali.
WASHINGTON, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has entered into a settlement with Sterling Healthcare Opco, LLC d/b/a/Cordant Health Solutions (Cordant) to resolve a lawsuit that began five years ago with the filing of a whistleblower lawsuit by a former Cordant employee. The whistleblower alleged that a testing laboratory owned by Cordant, and located in Tacoma, Washington, paid kickbacks to at least two major clients of the laboratory to induce those clients to refer tests to the laboratory.

Cordant agreed to pay the government $11,942,913 to settle the claims, originally filed by the whistleblower under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act. Under that law, a private citizen with knowledge of fraud against a government agency or government program can "blow the whistle" by bringing a lawsuit on behalf of the government. Successful qui tam whistleblowers can receive substantial awards. In this case, the government awarded the whistleblower 20% of the settlement amount, which is approximately $2.4 million. Jonathan Tycko, Tycko & Zavareei LLP, based in Washington, D.C., and Felix Gavi Luna, Peterson Wampold Rosato Feldman Luna, based in Seattle, Washington represented the whistleblower.

"This settlement shows that the False Claims Act works," said Jonathan Tycko, one of the whistleblower's lawyers. "Through the qui tam provisions of that law, our client was able to bring the kickbacks to the attention of the government in a way that led to both criminal and civil remedies. We are proud and humbled to represent brave whistleblowers, such as the individual who brought this case."

"We are grateful for how seriously the U.S. Attorney's Office, and all the government lawyers and investigators who have worked on this matter, took our client's allegations, and for the work they did to reach this settlement," added attorney Felix Gavi Luna, who also represented the whistleblowers.

The Whistleblower's Allegations

As described in the allegations of the complaint filed in federal court, the whistleblower worked at the Tacoma, Washington testing lab, which at the time operated under the name Sterling Reference Laboratories. Because of his position at the lab, the whistleblower received monthly "financial reports" showing the expenses incurred by the lab. When the whistleblower first starting working there, he noticed a line item titled "Administrate Service Fees." When he inquired with another employee of the lab about this line item, the whistleblower learned that this was a "kickback" paid to a client of the lab called Northwest Physicians Laboratories (NPL), which referred numerous patients to the lab for testing services. The whistleblower subsequently learned that a similar "Administrate Service Fee" was being paid to another client of the lab called Genesis Marketing Group (Genesis). According to the allegations of the complaint, the whistleblower asked top executives of Cordant, including a Vice President of Operations and the company's Chief Compliance Officer, about the fees, but the payments continued. The whistleblower also learned that the President of the company, Sue Sommer, gave a slideshow presentation to the company's Board of Directors, referencing the allegedly unlawful "administrative service fees."

The whistleblower further alleged that Cordant subsequently billed tests on samples received as a result of referrals from NPL and Genesis to Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE  all healthcare programs funded by the government. Because the kickbacks resulted in those claims on federal healthcare programs, they violated a statute known as the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS). The AKS makes it illegal to offer or pay remuneration to induce someone to make a referral to a healthcare service that will be paid for by Medicare or another federally-funded healthcare program or to persuade someone to purchase something (for example, a drug or medical device) that would be paid for by such a program.

The False Claims Act

The False Claims Act, sometimes referred to as "Lincoln's Law," was initially enacted during the Civil War in response to "profiteering" by companies that sold defective or useless goods to the Union Army. The Act has been amended several times since then. The modern version of the False Claims Act makes it unlawful for a company to submit false claims for payment to the government, or to create false documents or other records to obtain such payment. The False Claims Act also has a so-called "qui tam" provision that permits private whistleblowers to bring a lawsuit in the name of the government against companies or individuals who violate the Act. Under that qui tam provision, a whistleblower award is typically between 15% and 30% of whatever amount is recovered by or for the government as a result of the lawsuit.

Qui tam complaints are filed "under seal" and are then investigated by the Department of Justice, which can then intervene in the lawsuit on the side of the whistleblower. When a qui tam complaint alleges fraud on Medicare or other government-funded healthcare programs, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) is often also involved in the investigation. When TRICARE is involved, the Defense Health Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense may also investigate.

Violations of the AKS can also be violations of the False Claims Act. The AKS incorporates the False Claims Act, stating that a claim for reimbursement from Medicare or another federal health care program resulting from an AKS violation "constitutes a false or fraudulent claim" under the False Claims Act.

Here, the whistleblower filed the qui tam complaint in 2015 in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. The case was investigated by the U.S. Attorney's Office for that district, along with investigators from HHS-OIG, the Defense Health Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. As a result of the whistleblower's disclosures, and the investigation that followed, NPL and a number of individuals associated with NPL face criminal charges, and Cordant subsequently agreed to the settlement of the civil qui tam case.

The qui tam lawsuit at issue is No. C 15-5565-RBL in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington.

About Tycko & Zavareei LLP

Tycko & Zavareei LLP represents whistleblowers, consumers, employees, and others who seek to remedy corporate fraud and other wrongdoing. The firm has offices in Washington, D.C. and California, and represents clients in litigation in federal and state courts around the country. The firm's whistleblower practice is headed by partner Jonathan Tycko, a graduate of Columbia Law School with more than 25 years of litigation experience, who has represented dozens of whistleblowers in cases under the False Claims Act and similar statutes; those cases have returned hundreds-of-millions of dollars to federal and state governments.

About Peterson Wampold Rosato Feldman Luna

Peterson Wampold Rosato Feldman Luna is a firm of dedicated and knowledgeable trial lawyers. The firm's lawyers have tried hundreds of cases from catastrophic personal injury to complex commercial matters in courts throughout Washington and beyond its borders. Since graduating from the University of Washington School of Law in 1997 with honors, Order of the Coif and Order of the Barristers, Felix Gavi Luna has tried dozens of jury trials involving commercial disputes, civil rights, and personal injury matters, helping his clients to recover tens of millions of dollars. Felix Gavi Luna has consistently been rated as a Top 100 Super Lawyer in the State of Washington, and is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

SOURCE Tycko & Zavareei LLP

Related Links

https://www.tzlegal.com


In his campaign to reopen schools, Trump argues that Democrats oppose it for political reasons. He has threatened to cut federal funding for schools that fail to reopen fully. The White House has said he wants to work with Congress to tie future relief funding to reopening. He argues that other countries have reopened schools safely, although some he cites have used the hybrid model that DeVos decried.
The Algonac City Council unanimously approved a variety of items on its July 21 agenda, including the purchase of banners and banner arms for Riverfront Park, preliminary street engineering and emergency sanitary sewer repairs.

Banners and banner arms were approved to be purchased for the solar light poles in Riverfront Park for the total amount of $7,637.29.

If you recall from our budget, fiscal year 2020-2021, we have money set aside for those banner arms and banners for the 23 solar light poles, Mayor Terry Stoneburner said.

The budget has $10,000 set aside for the project.

Its proposed that we purchase the banner arms from Clear Blue Technologies, Stoneburner continued. That is the company that supplied the solar light poles in the park.

The banner arms are designed and warranted to work with the citys light poles. Each costs $201.63 for a total for 23 of $4,637.49.

The city requested quotes for the banners. Notification was published in the newspaper and on its website, invitations were sent to eight companies and quotes were due July 14. One quote was submitted by Curb Appeal Concepts, with pricing between $285 and $345 per banner, depending on the number of ink colors.

The best price continues to be with Northern Lights Display, who Algonac purchased the Christmas banners from in 2018, City Manager Denice Gerstenberg wrote in the councils agenda. Pricing is between $90 to $126 per banner.

The council voted to purchase the 23 banners in the not-to-exceed amount of $3,000.

Council member Corey Blair asked if there would be an additional cost to install the banner arms and banners or if it would be done by the department of public works. Gerstenberg said they would be installed by Fire Chief Joe Doan and his staff.

I am so glad were doing this, council member Michael Bembas said. Weve been pushing to have this done for it feels like a couple of years now, and to me it just brightens up that park. I love the fact that we have the solar lights. Saves the environment, we save a ton of trees, we save money and this just makes it Algonac all-fun city.

He said he hoped to eventually have banners for every holiday or every season so they can be constantly changed and brighten up the mood of Algonac.

Council member Raymond Martin asked who would choose the design of the banners and if council would be involved in the decision. Gerstenberg said the design had not been chosen yet and she could provide a few options to the council.

Stoneburner noted that when the city was looking at Christmas banners, the designs were posted on the citys Facebook page for people to choose and rank in order to get input from the community.

Thats a great idea, Bembas said.

Preliminary engineering approved

The council also approved preliminary engineering from Hubbell, Roth and Clark for projects on Robbins Drive and Michigan Street. The plan is to bid both projects in February 2021 and award them July 7, 2021.

The work on Robbins Drive is from State Street to the end of the road, Stoneburner said.

Work will include road reconstruction with new aggregate base and hot mix asphalt, curb and gutter, underdrain, drainage improvements as needed and water main replacement with new services as needed, hydrants and valves. The sidewalk gaps along the north side of Robbins from Edwards Street to Sheldon Street and from Fassett Street to State Street may be completed, depending on feasibility. It is a city project.

The total estimated cost for the Robbins Drive plans and specifications is $59,500, which includes road engineering, water main engineering and sidewalk.

I called the city manager today and spoke with her, Martin said. Robbins (Drive) is very expensive and Denice explained that its preliminary. Were going to do what we can afford to do and go from there. Robbins (Drive) is just over four blocks and theres a lot of money going in there.

The work on Michigan Street, which will be from 150 feet south of Liberty Street and go to M-29, will be a road mill and overlay.

That is a federal project where the engineering costs are 100% the responsibility of the city and the construction costs are shared 80% federal and 20% city, Stoneburner said.

Projects with federal funding require Local Agency Program tasks, including a National Environmental Policy Act application, Michigan Natural Features Inventory  Rare Species Review and a State Historic Protection Office application.

The total estimated cost for the Michigan Street plans and specifications is $26,840, which includes road engineering and Michigan Department of Transportation LAP tasks.

Emergency sanitary sewer repairs OKd

The council also approved emergency sanitary sewer repairs in the amount of $3,230.

Due to high water and recent heavy rainfall, the North Avenue sanitary sewer lift station could not keep up with the amount of required pumping.

The DPW discovered that the sanitary sewer line was compromised and ground water was entering the main, creating a sinkhole, Stoneburner said. And it was growing daily.

Cortis Brothers Trucking and Excavating was contacted to make the emergency repairs.
The future has already arrived. (Partially) autonomous cars are already on our roads today with automated systems such as braking or lane departure warning systems. As a central vehicle component, the software of these systems must continuously and reliably meet high quality criteria. Franz Wotawa from the Institute of Software Technology at TU Graz and his team in close collaboration with the cyber-physical system testing team of AVL are dedicated to the great challenges of this future technology: the guarantee of safety through the automatic generation of extensive test scenarios for simulations and system-internal error compensation by means of an adaptive control method.

Ontologies instead of test kilometers

Test drives alone do not provide sufficient evidence for the accident safety of autonomous driving systems, explains Franz Wotawa: "Autonomous vehicles would have to be driven around 200 million kilometers to prove their reliability - especially for accident scenarios. That is 10,000 times more test kilometers than are required for conventional cars." However, critical test scenarios with danger to life and limb cannot be reproduced in real test drives. Autonomous driving systems must therefore be tested for their safety in simulations. "Although the tests so far cover many scenarios, the question always remains whether this is sufficient and whether all possible accident scenarios have been considered," says Wotawa. Mihai Nica from the AVL underlines this statement: "in order to test highly autonomous system, it is required to re-think how the automotive industry must validate and certify Advanced Driver Assistance Systes (ADAS) and Autonomous Driving (AD) systems. Therefore, AVL participates with TU Graz to develop a unique and highly efficient method and workflow based on simulation and test case generation for prove fulfillment of Safety Of The Intended Functionality (SOTIF), quality and system integrity requirements of the autonomous systems".

Together the project team is working on innovative methods with which far more test scenarios can be simulated than before. The researchers' approach is as follows: instead of driving millions of kilometers, they use ontologies to describe the environment of autonomous vehicles. Ontologies are knowledge bases for the exchange of relevant information within a machine system. For example, interfaces, behavior and relationships of individual system units can communicate with each other. In the case of autonomous driving systems, these would be "decision making", "traffic description" or "autopilot". The Graz researchers worked with basic detailed information about environments in driving scenarios and fed the knowledge bases with details about the construction of roads, intersections and the like, which AVL provided. From this, driving scenarios can be derived, by using AVL's world leading test case generation algorithm, that test the behavior of the automated driving systems in simulations.

Additional weaknesses uncovered

As part of the EU AutoDrive project, researchers have used two algorithms to convert these ontologies into input models for combinatorial testing that can subsequently be executed using simulation environments. "In initial experimental tests we have discovered serious weaknesses in automated driving functions. Without these automatically generated test scenarios, the vulnerabilities would not have been detected so quickly: nine out of 319 test cases investigated have led to accidents." For example, in one test scenario, a brake assistance system failed to detect two people coming from different directions at the same time and one of them was badly hit due to the initiated braking maneuver. "This means that with our method, you can find test scenarios that are difficult to test in reality and that you might not even be able to focus on," says Wotawa.

This work by Franz Wotawa et al was also presented in the journal "Information and Software Technology" at the beginning of 2020 and overlaps with the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Methods for Quality Assurance of Cyber-Physical Systems". The CD lab is led by Franz Wotawa, and AVL is a corporate partner. Das Christian Doppler Labor (CD-Labor) wird von Franz Wotawa geleitet, die AVL ist Unternehmenspartnerin.

Adaptive compensation of internal errors

Autonomous systems and in particular autonomous driving systems must be able to correct themselves in the event of malfunctions or changed environmental conditions and reliably reach given target states at all times. "When we look at semi-automated systems already in use today, such as cruise control, it quickly becomes clear that in the case of errors, the driver can and will always intervene. With fully autonomous vehicles, this is no longer an option, so the system itself must be able to act accordingly," explains Franz Wotawa.

In a new publication for the Software Quality Journal, Franz Wotawa and his PhD student Martin Zimmermann present a control method that can adaptively compensate for internal errors in the software system. The presented method selects alternative actions in such a way that predetermined target states can be achieved, while providing a certain degree of redundancy. Action selection is based on weighting models that are adjusted over time and measure the success rate of specific actions already performed. In addition to the method, the researchers also present a Java implementation and its validation using two case studies motivated by the requirements of the autonomous driving range.

The project "AutoDrive" is funded under the EU Horizon2020 programme and will end in October 2020. The project is coordinated by Infineon Germany. In addition to TU Graz, the following Austrian organisations AVL List GmbH, Infineon Technologies Austria AG, TTTECH COMPUTERTECHNIK AG, TTTECH AUTO AG, the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology and the Virtual Vehicle Competence Center are also on board. More Information can be found on the project website.

This research is anchored in the Fields of Expertise "Mobility & Productions" and "Information, Communication and Computing", two of the five strategic research core areas of TU Graz.

###
CLEVELAND, Ohio  A minister sued Cuyahoga County this week, alleging its anti-discrimination law violates her constitutional freedoms to avoid marrying same-sex couples.

Kristi Stokes, an evangelical Christian from Cleveland, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Cleveland. It accused the county of forcing her to perform same-sex weddings or face prosecution.

Stokes business, Covenant Weddings, only offers wedding services that celebrate marriage between one biological man and one biological woman, the lawsuit said. The filing said Stokes has already risked being prosecuted by declining to lead a same-sex marriage.

The countys law has left Kristi with an impossible choice: disobey the law, defy her faith, desecrate her ministry or ditch her business. None of these options are acceptable. To Kristi. To her faith. Or to the First Amendment, the lawsuit said.

Mary Louise Madigan, a spokeswoman for the county, said that once attorneys receive service of the lawsuit, they will review it and vigorously defend it.

Its an important piece of legislation written and passed to ensure equal access and opportunity for all citizens of Cuyahoga County, Madigan said.

The suit said Stokes believes that God designed marriage as a gift for people of all faiths, races and backgrounds and that God ordained marriage to be a covenant between one man and one woman.

Attorneys for the Alliance Defending Freedom filed the lawsuit. It is a conservative Christian group based in Washington, D.C.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has described it as a hate-group because it has supported the idea that being LGBTQ should be a crime in the United States and abroad and believes that it is OK to put LGBTQ people in prison for engaging in consensual sex.

Cuyahoga Countys ordinance, passed in September 2018, offers protections to people on the basis of the already-protected classes of race, color, religion, military status, national origin, disability, age, ancestry, familial status or sex, and adds sexual orientation and gender identity or expression to that list.

Stokes claims that the law has hurt her work.

She continues to chill her speech and cripple her business just to avoid violating the law, the suit said.

Matthew Burkhart, the Columbus attorney who filed the lawsuit, could not be reached.

Last year, The Lyceum, a small Catholic school in South Euclid, sued the city in federal court over its anti-discrimination ordinance. The school stresses that marriage is between a man and a woman.

The lawsuit was dropped about a month later, as a lawyer for the school wrote that the city clarified its position as it related to portions of the ordinance and was satisfied that it would not adversely affect the school because of its teaching.
23.07.2020 LISTEN

The OECD Economic Outlook for June 2020 reveals that growth within the global economy has been worse hit and continues to decline as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Other agencies of Bretton woods institution have also made similar predictions indicating a recurrence of 1930s economic woes in the absence of good structural policies for nations across the world with Ghana not being an exception.

Historical antecedents have taught us the economy does not get back to where it started. Instead, the economic revival will depend on the decisions we make as a nation. The impact of the pandemic has affected the revenues of companies, multinationals, corporations in the trade, technology, retail, travel and leisure sectors; such as restaurants, airlines etc. This has resulted in job cuts, low productivity, profit shortfall catamount to rise in unemployment and low-income benefits. The situation has negatively affected the lives of individuals, households, and the growth of the economy.

Economies are known to thrive on favourable conditions that seek to promote and attract economic partnership with the private sector. Since private sector engagement is critical for economic growth and developments. Thus, it is important to consider how best the private sector can be used to facilitate growth in this era of the pandemic.

However, Covidnomics has presented us with both opportunities and risks within the markets and economies of the world. It is now incumbent on the Government of Ghana to strike a balance between risk and opportunities for its citizens notwithstanding the private sector.

I am very conscious of my professional background and my brief for the Mid-Year Review will be advisory but not binding. Bearing in mind the Finance Minister's Statement to Parliament on 30th March 2020, it will be unfair on my part to pre-judged his work for the mid-year but my submission will be investment focused coupled with a recommendation for the future.

My insights have been modelled around the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI), as a pot of investments at this critical time and a channel to drive the economy for both short-term and long-term benefits.

The National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI), one of the governments agencies was established to provide support to Small and Medium-size Enterprises (SMEs) within the country. SMEs have become the backbone of Ghanas economy, with a contribution of about seventy per cent (70%) to the gross domestic product (GDP), not to mention its economic benefits to the nation. Additionally, the world trade organisation recognises SMEs as one of the strategies for the promotion of export growth of a country.

It has even become more pressing that SMEs are internationalised to derive the needed benefits and promote global trade. The governments stimulus packages to businesses within the private sector through the NBSSI is a laudable initiative in the light of this, Covidnomics, makes NBSSI a springboard for our economy to revive, retain, support, protect and create jobs.

Managing this pandemic is a key responsibility of the public sector, the event is not a banking crisis, and therefore money should continue to flow into the economy. The Bank of Ghana (BOG) as a monetary authority does not have direct access to the real sector, whereas the Finance Ministry act as facilitators, instead NBSSI have direct access to all sectors of the economy including agro business, manufacturing, tourism etc. NBSSI in these current conditions can provide around 70% of employment, deliver critical goods and services and contribute to tax revenue mobilisation and efficient flow of capital. This will position the agencys role as a major creator and employer which gives credence to entrepreneurship, digitalization and innovation to drive productivity, development and growth with minimal risk.

Covidnomics Opportunities

Under the Coronavirus Alleviation Programme (CAP), the IMF Rapid Credit Facility, Contingency fund, World Bank, Commercial banks, Heritage Fund, COVID-19 Funds and BOG funds have been allocated to the economy to help curtail any economic disruption.

A holistic approach has to be adopted in these situations to help bring all sectors of the economy on board. These cash flows have come at the right time to help mitigate the shocks of the economy and stem the losses that the pandemic has caused. However, stringent measures must be put in place for judicious disbursement of the funds for efficiency and accountability.

The IMF Credit Facility can help sustain both the micro and macroeconomic indicators of the economy, cushion the public sector expenditures and bridge the shortfall in oil and tax revenues of the country. Whereas 2/3 of GH3 billion Commercial Banks facility can be rolled over to the NBSSI to revamp the economy in the long term.

The World Bank supports the US$100 million and COVID Funds must help respond to the pandemic, expand the health care system, improve health infrastructure (88 Hospital Agenda) and address wages and salaries of health professionals in the country. The Heritage funds should supplement the road infrastructure project (Year of roads 2020) for the benefits of increasing the supply chain of the agriculture sector especially at this time of COVID.

The US$600million COCOBOD Syndicated Loan facility should be injected into the agriculture sector and help facilitate President Akufo Addo vision for planting for food and Jobs, and rearing for food and production of agriculture raw materials to boost the industrial growth of the country.

I am tested at this moment to reflect on the Harrod-Domar growth model which tries to propose that an increase in savings will propel a growth in investment. As such the funds made available from both external and internal sources coupled with expectations in appreciation of the current account balance of the nation due to the decline in import trade; are to serve the ideal purpose of driving the domestic growth of the economy towards creation of wealth and prosperity for the people of Ghana in this era of covid-19.

Risk Component of Covidnomics

The Mid-year review will encompass all the components of both macro and micro economic indicators, however the survival of the economy will be dependent on the investments allocated to the right portfolios of the economy and offset the slow impact of the economy.

Macroeconomic predictions can go wrong and do go wrong many times to push economies into disarray. It is imperative to see a review of the key economic indicators (i.e. growth rate, budget deficit, revenue and expenditure and primary balance) for the 2020 Mid-year review. The Government targets have been thrown off by the pandemic and therefore it will be prudent for the Finance Minister not to dwell too much on these indicators but rather be a guide to help measure with the model recovery.

George W. Bushs Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld talked about lifes unknown unknowns  the things we do not know we dont know. COVID-19 is a risk that came up that nobody was ready and nobody was preparing for. The uncertainties of the future remain a threat and a second wave of infections will be impossible to reboot the economy of Ghana. It is in this respect that nations of the world including Ghana are expected to undertake major critical fiscal expenditure policies to sustain the economy for the medium-term, not losing sight that we are in an election year. Which is necessary for me to acknowledge that the cash flows into the economy will not balloon the Debt-to-GDP ratio beyond 70% at the end of 2020 fiscal year.

It is noted that the global economy is expected to experience worse economic downturn and in order to avert such development, will be dependent on the structural policies governments implement both at the local and international level and secondly the time it will take a nation to bring the pandemic under control. This development has not created the period for experimental predictions but rather the initiation and implementation of good policies that will help nations to mitigate its covidnomic consequences. However, it is prudent to suggest or propose the following recommendations for the Mid-Year 2020 Budget Review to foster job creation, promote wealth, and transform the country.

Recommendations

The government must strengthen the COVID-19 economic recovery team

Bank of Ghana quantitative easing must be done in tranches, as such in mid-September & November] to bring equilibrium to the first quarter of 2021.

NBSSI should be a prioritised model for the real sector measures in order to safeguard existing businesses while creating opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Effective and efficient use of the funds should ease the fiscal and monetary sections of the economy.

Proper data management system to widen the tax net in the long term.

Raising funds through the capital market

SAMUEL OKYERE DONKOR

FMR NPP PARLIAMENTARY ASPIRANT, ACHIASE CONSTITUENCY, E/R AND AN INVESTMENT BANKER (FORMERLY OF DEUTSCHE BANK, HSBC, AON HEWIT)

ATTA TAKYI  POLICY ADVISOR(CO-AUTHOR)
By Nqobile Dludla

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African mobile operator Vodacom Group Ltd <VODJ.J> on Thursday reported a 7.6% rise in first-quarter group service revenue, buoyed by strong demand for voice, data and financial services in its domestic market during the coronavirus lockdown.

Vodacom, which is majority owned by Vodafone <VOD.L>, said group service revenue grew to 18.7 billion rand (891.85 million pounds) in the three months ended June 30, up from 17.4 billion rand from the year-earlier period.

Overall group revenue grew by 5.6%.

The telecoms sector has experienced a spike in network data traffic as millions of South Africans were forced to work, school and entertain themselves from home after the government imposed a lockdown from the end of March to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

This resulted in Vodacom's business in South Africa, its largest market, growing service revenue by 6.4%. Data traffic surged by 97.7%, also boosted by data price cuts implemented from April.

The significant growth in demand for data assisted in offsetting the effects of the price cuts, Vodacom said.

However, the number of South Africa customers fell 9.9% largely due to fewer prepaid connections in "the period of restricted movement," it added.

Vodacom group Chief Executive Officer Shameel Joosub said while he was pleased with the performance of the local business, he remained cautious about the impact of COVID-19 on the firm's operations and uncertainty about the pace of economic recovery.

This is because disposable income will increasingly come under pressure as a result of rising unemployment and reduced economic activity, he added.

Excluding currency gains, underlying growth in its international portfolio declined by 5.3%, impacted by a combination of subdued economic activity, and reduced pricing for M-Pesa mobile money service transactions in some of its operations. In rand terms, revenue rose 10.7%.

(Reporting by Nqobile Dludla; Editing by and Rashmi Aich and Christopher Cushing)
Canada's Minister of Finance Bill Morneau speaks to media during a press conference in Toronto, on July 17, 2020. (The Canadian Press/Cole Burston)

Opposition Parties Call for Expanded Ethics Probe Into Morneaus WE Trips

Trudeau called to testify at second federal committee amid WE scandal

Opposition parties are asking the federal ethics watchdog to widen his probe of Bill Morneau regarding the WE organization as the finance minister continues to face calls for his resignation.

Conservatives and New Democrats have written to Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion to probe trips Morneau took three years ago, part of which were paid for by the WE organization.

During a finance committee hearing on Wednesday, Morneau admitted that he had just repaid WE Charity more than $41,000 for expenses the organization covered for trips his family took to Kenya and Ecuador in 2017 to see some of its humanitarian work.

WE said the Morneau family trips were meant to be complimentary, part of a practice of showing donors the charitys work to encourage them to give more.

Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre said the trips violated several sections of the conflict of interest law that prohibit ministers or their families from accepting paid travel, adding that Morneau should resign his ministerial post.

NDP MP Charlie Angus told Dion in a letter that the trips bring to another level concerns about Morneaus involvement in handing WE a contract to run a $912-million student volunteer program.

The federal ethics watchdog is investigating both Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus and Morneaus role in giving the WE organization a contract to run the Canada Student Service Grant, which the government presented as a way to help students with education expenses as they faced a summer of unemployment in a COVID-19-stricken economy.

The contract would have paid the organization about $43.5 million.

Meanwhile, Trudeau is being called to testify at a second committee, on the same day his office confirmed he would testify at the federal finance committee.

The House of Commons ethics committee passed a vote late Wednesday calling on the prime minister to testify on the WE Charity scandal.

Trudeaus office confirmed on Wednesday that he would testify before the federal finance committee probing the aborted agreement, a rare move for a prime minister. His chief of staff, Katie Telford, will also testify.

Trudeaus office said exact times and dates for those appearances have yet to be set.

Both Trudeau and Morneau have apologized for not recusing themselves from discussions on WE Charity because of their familial ties to the organizationTrudeau because of speaking fees paid to his brother, mother, and wife, and Morneau because one of his daughters works for the organization in an administrative role.

With files from the Canadian Press
Former Finance Minister Seth Terkper in the erstwhile John Mahama administration has slammed the Akufo-Addo administration for trying to blame the already deteriorating economy on the COVID-19 pandemic.



I am not downplaying COVID-19. I need to be very clear on this, but I am saying that a lot was happening already [to the economy].



Speaking on Citi TVs The Point of View, Mr. Seth Terkper charged the Finance Minister to use the mid-year budget which will take place on Thursday July 23, 2020 in Parliament to come clean on the distinct stresses on the economy.



The Akufo-Addo government through the Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta has indicated that the pandemic would cost the state over GHS 9 billion but the former Finance Minister in his submission, held the view that this would account for 2 out of about 10 percent of Ghanas budget deficit.



The International Monetary Fund had predicted that Ghanas budget deficit would be above 7 percent in December 2019. The estimate went up by 2 percent in March 2020.



The former Finance Minister noted the recent financial support like the $1 billion IMF Rapid Credit Facility to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Ghanas economy as contributing to the deficit.



Mr. Seth Terkper however claimed that the $1 billion IMF Rapid Credit Facility to the Akufo-Addo government is rather a return to the IMF in spite of the governments assertions that it had moved beyond the IMF.



U-turn on relationship with IMF



He chose to call the move of the Akufo-Addo government to solicit IMF support in aid of distressing the economy as a result of the pandemic too quick given the claims that the economy was being well managed.



Why did we make a U-turn after we exited the IMF. Exit means that you wont go to the IMF for a programme. We went to the IMF in March, very early into COVID.



The question we should ask is why didnt other African countries rush to go to the IMF in March and April? According to the government, we had a stronger economy than other African countries and we were comparing ourselves.



He thus feels the government is primed to use the pandemic as an excuse to cover the deficit



The gap which I am talking about from Article IV [IMF assessment in December 2019] is as a result of the adjustments which you are talking about.



If you are going to say the deficit is 10 percet or 9 percent, dont say it is all on account of COVID, Mr. Terkper said.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Chief Michel Moore says big changes are coming to the LAPD after a historic $150-million budget cut. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

During a recent meeting with officers from the elite but troubled Metropolitan Division, Los Angeles police Chief Michel Moore offered support for their crime-fighting mission, but also a warning he'd previously shared with command staff.

With significant reductions in the force looming, every unit is under a microscope  and must prove its worth.

"Show your relevance," Moore recalled saying.

Following a historic $150-million budget cut, and amid a nationwide re-imagining of what policing should be, the LAPD is reviewing its operational structure from top to bottom and pushing forward with potentially far-reaching internal changes in anticipation of an even broader shake-up, officials said.

The revamped LAPD will have hundreds of fewer officers to deploy by this time next year, and Moore has asked unit commanders throughout the department to write him proposals for what their teams should look like in such a future. The Metro force, which includes the department's targeted enforcement teams, is being scrutinized closely for potential cuts, and gang units and other specialized squads are also likely to be slimmed down.

Some fear a reduction in patrols as well, meaning fewer officers on the streets and in neighborhoods, though officials have said they intend to limit such cuts. Programs that center cops in the community, meanwhile, will be expanded.

"We need to look at how we police the city with the scant resources that we have, and determine how we can find alternatives if our current practices aren't going to continue to work," Moore said in an interview with The Times.

Assistant Chief Horace Frank said the department will probably concentrate resources on patrols and community outreach, while trimming specialized units and other police functions that are somewhat removed from directly serving neighborhoods.

It's likely that some officers who have been assigned to specialized units will go back on patrol, officials said.

Story continues

"Patrol is absolutely our base service. That is our primary core, and then everything spins around that," Moore said.

The entire conversation represents a radical departure from policing discussions in L.A. just a few months ago, when officials were talking about increasing the police budget. It also falls against a backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, which has dealt significant blows to city coffers; a recent increase in homicides in L.A.; and massive protests for police reform that broke out in major cities across the country following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.

For too long, demonstrators allege, police departments have been bloated, their budgets allowed to balloon to ridiculous levels because they are viewed as sacrosanct by city politicians fearful of crime and all the implications that come with it. Instead, demonstrators have demanded that police be "defunded," with those dollars redirected to hire more social workers, mental health professionals and transportation employees to respond to a plethora of calls that don't require an officer with a gun.

Some activists called for the Police Department to be abolished entirely. Others called for its budget to be cut by 90%. One called the $150-million cut "pocket change."

We are saying defund the police, Black Lives Matter-LA co-founder Melina Abdullah said at a City Council hearing last month. Were also saying re-imagine public safety.

We know that public safety is not policing, actor and activist Kendrick Sampson said at the same hearing.

With defunding suddenly gaining traction, the council acted last month by slashing the LAPD's funds. It also put forward a few additional ideas for reshaping the LAPD. But planning for how the cut would play out on the ground and within the department was lacking, and department officials were sent scrambling.

Moore, who approves of shifting some police responsibilities to civilian agencies, sees any such plan unfolding over time, with careful preparation. His more immediate challenge, he said, is shepherding the LAPD forward with less funding and without sacrificing public safety while a clearer framework for the future is developed.

The questions before him, he said, are twofold: "How am I going to realign the organization? And, in the interim, how am I going to handle the workload while we decide what we're going to stop doing?"

Given the city spends about $3 billion on the LAPD annually, critics have viewed the recent cut as relatively minor and indicative of little change. But police officials don't see it that way.

By this time next year, they expect to have 250 fewer sworn officers, bringing their total to about 9,750  the lowest in a dozen years. They'll also lose about 140 civilian employees, Moore said. The transition to a smaller force has already begun, with hiring curtailed despite sustained attrition.

Eric Miller, a professor at Loyola Law School who focuses on policing issues, said Moore is in a tough spot, facing pressure from all sides  elected officials, the civilian Police Commission, rank-and-file officers, protesters, and most of the rest of the public, who want to see change but still value police in their neighborhoods and quick response times when they call for help.

But police officials have survived similar moments in the past by targeting units that face scrutiny  such as Metro  or are unproductive, Miller said.

"What he has to do is suggest that he is making significant reforms in areas that people are shouting loudest about, but which don't necessarily impact the core mission of police as he sees it," Miller said. "What you want to do is work out which units are causing you disciplinary headaches, use that as an excuse to trim the unit, and use that as a sop to the mayor and the public."

The proposals Moore requested from commanders are due in the coming days and weeks, he said, and will help inform decisions about what units should stay, which ones can go  if any  and which should be reconfigured.

"What is the size of them going forward? That question is being asked of every command," he said.

Moore acknowledged "there's a lot of rumors" that Metro will be completely disbanded, but that is unlikely, he said.

The Metro Division is an amalgamation of several specialized units, including targeted enforcement teams, the SWAT team and the department's mounted and canine units. For years, its members were praised by public officials for being at the forefront of a lot of police work, conducting thousands of traffic stops and seizing guns. Mayor Eric Garcetti at one point ordered the division's expansion as a solution to violent crime.

However, since it was revealed last year by the Times that Metro officers were disproportionately stopping and searching Black drivers, many members of the 200-person team have been diverted to spend more time investigating crimes that have already occurred. That is important work that will continue, Moore said.

Beyond patrol and criminal investigations, the department is working to expand its Community Safety Partnership program, including devoting more command staff to the mission, as part of a directive from the Police Commission.

LAPD officials also are having conversations with officials from other agencies that may be asked to pick up some duties.

Moore recently told the Police Commission that he had begun discussions with transportation officials about a City Council proposal that would see some traffic calls handled not by police but by transportation employees. He said he can't imagine transportation employees handling enforcement stops, but could see them responding to some collision calls.

"Our effort is to sit down together and understand what potential realignment of responsibilities might entail," he said.

Moore said he is looking for ways to incorporate some ideas from officers.

"The wisdom of this organization doesn't come from the 10th floor; it comes from the rank and file," he said, referring to command offices at police headquarters.

Officers and the union that represents them have been critical of Moore and city officials in recent weeks, not only for their handling of the protests and surrounding unrest  where dozens of officers were injured  but for what they perceive to be an acquiescence to the department's critics and a failure by officials to defend officers' actions.

They say they worry about public safety at a time when homicides are up nearly 14% from last year and shootings are on the rise. And they say that little about the path forward is clear to them.

"It's changing so fast. It just seems like every day, something else is going on," said Craig Lally, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

Lally said a lot of people are talking about defunding the police without a clear idea of what that even means  "they're putting the cart before the horse."

Given the force reduction, Lally said he expects there to be "massive shortages over the next few years in patrol," and new demands for more cops from residents angry about rising crime.
The coalition partners running the Israeli government have been trying to conceal the vanishing trust between them. But the July 22 vote over a bill banning conversion therapy exposed the depth of the crisis. Though a new round of elections in the heat of the coronavirus crisis seemed improbable until recently, another vote seems almost inevitable now.

The best and fastest way for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make new elections happen would be insisting on a one-year budget, which his coalition partner Defense Minister Benny Gantz opposes. The last possible date to approve the state budget is Aug. 25. According to Israeli law, a vote on the budget equals a confidence vote in the government. If the budget fails to be approved, the Knesset is dissolved automatically and new elections will take place in November. That fate looked likely as of yesterday, and the blame game is already in motion.

If new elections do materialize, the conversion therapy vote would go down in Israels political history as the catalyst. It will be seen at the event that accelerated the collapse of the coronavirus government after barely three months in office.

The depth of the crisis between the Likud and Blue and White parties unfolded yesterday in front of the cameras, minutes after the Knesset passed the preliminary reading of the law. From the podium Minister David Amsalem, whose responsibilities include Knesset liaison, accused Blue and White of being political grifters.

It turns out that in an earlier agreement, the Likud and Blue and White agreed that they would not support the law proposed by Meretz chairman Nitzan Horowitz. Then, at the last minute, Gantz and Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn supported it despite their previous commitment and it passed.

Amsalem was livid: Three minutes before the vote, you tell me that youre voting with the opposition and that is where you stand. That was chutzpah. You lied! The cameras were rolling as he continued, You sit here deceiving us with no shame at all. The gall of the Blue and White Party! Youre a bunch of liars, just like [Yesh Atid leader] Yair Lapid!

With that, chaos erupted in the coalition. Ultra-Orthodox Knesset members raged at Gantz, heckling him after the vote, You will not be prime minister. But they also attacked Netanyahu, claiming that he didnt do enough to ensure the law would not pass. They pointed out that several Likud Knesset members were not present when the vote was taken. It didnt help that the advisers of Likud ministers were filmed in the plenum applauding and cheering the actual vote.

Meanwhile, Gantz tweeted, "Conversion therapy was born in sin and its place is outside of the law and the public norm. That is why we will vote today in favor of the law and against conversion therapy. Thats why we are here. We promised and we intend to follow through. It is the right thing to do."

The clash between Gantz and the ultra-Orthodox is a devastating blow to any chance they would help him when the time comes to force Netanyahu to keep the rotation agreement and put Gantz in the prime ministers office. It also raises questions about their stance on the budget. As far as Netanyahu is concerned, the clash is laying the groundwork for early elections.

Both the Likud and Blue and White have been campaigning from within the government, indicating that neither party believes that this government can survive. Blue and White is trying to signal to the liberal voters it lost by joining the coalition that it will stick to its agenda. Meanwhile, Netanyahu is unwilling to give up his fight against the legal system. Ironically, there has been no commitment to the joint struggle against the COVID-19 pandemic the unity government was founded to wage.

People in Netanyahus inner circle now say that his patience with Blue and White is wearing thin. They believe that he has concluded that nothing good will come out of this partnership. Netanyahu must feel unable to make important decisions and manage the coronavirus crisis with contrarian partners blocking his every move.

Netanyahu has appeared worn out over the last few weeks, unable to convince the public that he is in control of the situation. The virus is spreading, demonstrations against him are gathering momentum and the economic measures he is trying to advance, such as the distribution of six billion shekels ($1.76 billion) among the public, are being hampered by Blue and White. Netanyahu must understand that his reputation will only suffer further when he appears in court. By that point, even his most zealous supporters could well abandon him.

The bickering over the state budget issue isnt helping. Netanyahu wants a one-year budget to keep his election options open for this coming November, while Gantz insists on a two-year budget, as agreed in their unity deal. Finance Ministry seniors support Netanyahus argument that it is impossible to make long-term plans amid the coronavirus crisis. Clearly the budget dispute is not economic but political.

Netanyahu sees the polls and hears the unrest within his own party. He must realize that someone will sniff out his vulnerability and strike.

How close is Netanyahu to making a decision? Some indication might be found in a tweet by coalition chairman Miki Zohar yesterday morning. He wrote, The political ties between us and Blue and White cannot continue if there is no change.  It is time to make a decision: Either pass the budget, maintain a stable government and keep the coalition functional, or go to elections.

If that were not enough, Netanyahu didnt even bother to inform his alternate prime minister that he had appointed former Health Ministry director Ronni Gamzu as coronavirus czar. Gantz heard the news from the media as Netanyahu took revenge on Blue and White and signaled that the coalition is in its final days.

It looks like the die is cast. Now Netanyahu has to convince his supporters that despite the collapsing economy and hundreds of thousands of people out of work, holding a new election is the right thing to do. President Reuven Rivlin rebuked the behavior of Israel's politicians this morning, dragging Israel toward new elections that could endanger the country. Still, it is unlikely that Rivlins call would be enough to stop this train.
Cybersecurity researchers revealed on Thursday a newfound vulnerability in an app that controls the worlds most popular consumer drones, threatening to intensify the growing tensions between China and the United States.

In two reports, the researchers contended that an app on Googles Android operating system that powers drones made by China-based Da Jiang Innovations, or DJI, collects large amounts of personal information that could be exploited by the Beijing government. Hundreds of thousands of customers across the world use the app to pilot their rotor-powered, camera-mounted aircraft.

The worlds largest maker of commercial drones, DJI has found itself increasingly in the cross hairs of the United States government, as have other successful Chinese companies. The Pentagon has banned the use of its drones, and in January the Interior Department decided to continue grounding its fleet of the companys drones over security fears. DJI said the decision was about politics, not software vulnerabilities.

For months, U.S. government officials have stepped up warnings about the Chinese governments potentially exploiting weaknesses in tech products to force companies there to give up information about American users. Chinese companies must comply with any government request to turn over data, according to American officials.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, who are the most admired people in America?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It is a reminder of two things. First, in the cyberage, closing a diplomatic facility has the faint ring of the Cold War, but most of the attacks on American corporations, laboratories and the government are launched from servers outside American borders. And second, without firing a bullet or dropping a bomb, an adversary can deliver a crippling setback to the United States by infiltrating American computer networks, whether the target is the design for the F-35 warplane or a potential coronavirus vaccine.

To Mr. Trumps credit, orders he issued two summers ago have resulted in more aggressive pushback, what the National Security Agency and the United States Cyber Command call a strategy of defend forward. That means they go deep into an adversarys computer networks, sometimes to strike back, but more often to signal that an attack will not be cost-free.

The central issue is that they need to know they will pay a price, Mr. Langevin said.

It was the Obama administration that moved more aggressively to indict cyberactors, making public the information about who was behind the hacks that until then was available only to those who had the clearance to read classified intelligence briefings.

It was a long-overdue step, said John P. Carlin, who spearheaded the strategy as the chief of the Justice Departments national security division. Mr. Carlin, who later wrote about the experience in the book Dawn of the Code War, said that it is a good way to make the detail public in a credible way, with the high standard that you believe you can prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt.

If you do not do that, Mr. Carlin said in an interview on Wednesday, the message you are sending is that you are decriminalizing this activity. Just before Mr. Carlin left office in 2016, President Barack Obama and Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, announced an agreement that should have ended cybertheft of corporate data. It worked for a while, then fell apart. The Chinese militarys hacking diminished, but the slack was picked up by operatives of the Chinese intelligence agencies. On Tuesday, for example, the Justice Department accused a pair of Chinese hackers of targeting vaccine development on behalf of the countrys intelligence service.

The lesson may be that while the indictments are necessary, they may not be sufficient. So when Gen. Paul M. Nakasone took over as the director of the N.S.A. and the commander of U.S. Cyber Command, he turned to more aggressive actions. The N.S.A. shut down the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg for a few days around the 2018 midterms and sent warnings to Russian intelligence officers. It has worked to sabotage North Korean and Iranian missiles.

The best argument for the strategy is that, so far, no one has turned off the power grid in the United States or conducted a similarly crippling strike. But when it comes to stealing corporate or national security secrets, the cost-benefit analysis conducted in Moscow and Beijing usually comes back with the same conclusion: The benefits still outweigh the costs.
Gov. Tom Wolf spoke out in defense of Dr. Rachel Levine Wednesday and assailed the Bloomsburg Fair fundraising event that mocked Pennsylvanias health secretary.

Levine, a transgender woman, has been a target of slurs in recent months as shes gained increasing visibility in the Wolf Administrations efforts to combat the coronavirus. The governor denounced the hate and transphobia that has emerged in recent months.

The latest controversy emerged after photos were shared from at a fundraiser held at the Bloomsburg Fair. The fundraiser, which was organized to raise money for area fire companies, included a dunk tank where a man wore a dress and wig, and a post to the Bloomsburg Fair Association Facebook page indicated the man was meant to resemble Dr. Levine.

Wolf leveled sharp criticisms at the fair and urged Pennsylvania residents to speak out against discriminatory remarks aimed at the transgender community.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought hate and transphobia into the spotlight through relentless comments and slurs directed at Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine, who is a highly skilled, valued, and capable member of my administration and Transgender, Wolf said in a statement Wednesday. The derogatory incident involving the Bloomsburg Fair is the latest of these vile acts, which by extension impact Transgender people across the commonwealth and nation.

I want to talk about the transphobic incident involving the Bloomsburg Fair.



This is the latest in a relentless series of vile slurs directed at Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine  a highly skilled and accomplished member of my administration.  Governor Tom Wolf (@GovernorTomWolf) July 22, 2020

The Bloomsburg Fair Associations Facebook post was deleted Monday, but it gained widespread attention and criticism.

Dr. Levine? Thank you you were a hit and raised a lot of money for the local fire companies. Wonder why so many were trying to dunk you, said the Bloomsburg Fair Associations post, which included a smiley-face emoji.

Earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., said Levine is owed an apology. Bloomsburg University also issued a statement condemning the fairs post.

Dr. Levine is an honorable public servant whose tireless work to keep PA safe and healthy has saved countless lives. She is owed an apology. https://t.co/VMzwuDn6Ue  Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) July 21, 2020

Fair officials initially said the man in the dunk tank, a local fire chief, intended to look like Marilyn Monroe. Then in a news conference Tuesday, fair officials apologized to Levine and the events sponsors and supporters, saying they meant no harm.

A fellow dressed up in a dress to get people to throw balls at the dunk tank to raise money. It turned into where people thought we were offending Dr. Rachel Levine, and that was no intention at all, Fair President Randy Karschner said in a report by the Associated Press.

Fair organizers called it a serious lapse in judgment.

Wolf said jokes aimed at mocking transgender individuals can be harmful.

Hate has no place in Pennsylvania, even in the smallest transphobic joke, action or social media post, Wolf said in his statement. Im calling upon all Pennsylvanians to speak out against hateful comments and acts, including the transphobia directed at Dr. Levine and all Transgender people in our great commonwealth.

Rafael Alvarez Febo, executive director of the Pennsylvania Commission on LGBTQ Affairs, assailed the fairs actions and spoke out on Levines behalf.

The leadership of the Bloomsburg Fair knew they were catering to Transphobic sentiments when they chose to impersonate Dr. Levine, Alvarez Febo said.

Marginalized communities know when we are being targeted and will not be gas-lit into thinking this was just about Dr. Levines position as Secretary of Health, the statement continued. In times of crisis and pain LGBTQ individuals are united in pushing back against Transphobia of any kind. Commissioners believe that the health and safety of Pennsylvanians should not be undermined due to these toxic and personal attacks.

The commission previously issued a statement of support of Levine last month in the wake of vile and toxic transphobia.

In a news conference Tuesday, Levine said she aims to concentrate on her job and dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

I am going to stay, no matter what happens, laser-focused on protecting the public health in Pennsylvania, Levine said at an event at WellSpan York Hospital on Tuesday. Our vision at the Pennsylvania Department of Health is a healthy Pennsylvania for all. And Im going to do absolutely everything I can to achieve that, whether people agree with me, or if they dont agree with me. Their health is still important to me.

Wolf praised Levine for her work during the pandemic, even as she has endured hate-fueled attacks.

Dr. Levine is a distinguished and accomplished public servant, Wolf said. She is committed to keeping Pennsylvanians safe and healthy, even those who direct hate-fueled attacks at her. Im proud of the work she has done in her five years serving Pennsylvanians, and her success at leading our commonwealth during the COVID-19 crisis is a testament to her intelligence and work ethic.

Sean Adams of PennLive and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More from PennLive

Bloomsburg Fair fundraiser dunk tank targeting Rachel Levine criticized as transphobic

Rally held at Capitol to protest mask mandates, Gov. Wolfs coronavirus restrictions
Their selection board will be scheduled as soon as all affected SSC women officers exercise their option and complete requisite documentation, the Army said.

New Delhi: The Army on Thursday said the government has issued an order for grant of permanent commission of women officers in the force.

Army Spokesperson Col Aman Anand said the government order paved the way for empowering of women officers to shoulder larger roles in the Army.

"The order specifies grant of permanent commission to Short Service Commissioned (SSC) women officers in all 10 streams of the Indian Army," he said.

Col Anand said the 10 streams where permanent commission of women officers are being made available include army air defence, signals, engineers, army aviation, electronics and mechanical engineers, army service corps and Intelligence corps in addition to the existing streams of judge and advocate general and army educational corps.

"Their selection board will be scheduled as soon as all affected SSC women officers exercise their option and complete requisite documentation," he said.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend:

An Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR) mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will arrive in Uzbekistan in December 2020, Trend reports with reference to Foreign Ministry of Uzbekistan.

Deputy Foreign Minister of Uzbekistan Sherzod Asadov met with IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi in Vienna to discuss the matter.

According to message of the Uzbek Foreign Ministry, the agency "is very satisfied with the work progress on the Uzbekistan's nuclear program."

We believe that for the new nuclear states, your country is a model for building relations with the IAEA, the press service of the Foreign Ministry quoted Rafael Grossi as saying.

According to the Uzatom agency, a program has been developed for the country with the assistance of the IAEA to build capacity and create nuclear infrastructure as part of the nuclear power plants construction project for 2020-2021.

As part of its technical cooperation program, IAEA approved four projects worth more than one million euros for implementation in Uzbekistan for the period 2020-2021.

The program provides for strengthening nuclear and radiation safety in the operation of nuclear energy facilities in Uzbekistan, development and introduction of modern nuclear technologies in medicine and other sectors of the economy, as well as dissemination of knowledge about nuclear energy.

---

Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini
A group of Azerbaijanis have come under attack of Armenian nationalists during a protest held outside of the building of the Consulate General of Azerbaijan on 21 July, the consulate reported in its Facebook page.



Seven Azerbaijanis, including a woman, have been injured during the attack and four of them have been hospitalized. In addition, a police officer of Los-Angeles Police Department trying to protect the Azerbaijani woman from Armenian attackers has received head injury.



The Azerbaijanis were attacked by Armenian radicals in Los Angeles who surrounded the building of the Consulate General of Azerbaijan and held a protest action against Azerbaijan with aggressive and provocative slogans.



Members of the Azerbaijani community in California carried out a peaceful rival rally against a large number of Armenians. The courage of the Azerbaijanis who met face to face with a large number of Armenians outraged Armenian Dashank radicals who in turn violently attacked Azerbaijanis. Azerbaijans Consulate General reported that Armenians attacked Azerbaijanis and also sought to drive their cars on the peaceful protesters.



The Azerbaijani community members were carrying posters exposing Armenia's aggression and policy of ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijan, reflecting the displacement of about 1 million peaceful Azerbaijanis from their native lands as a result of the occupation. "Karabakh is Azerbaijan!", "Stop the Armenian aggression!", "Justice for Khojaly", "Armenia is starting a war against Azerbaijan during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shame on you! were some of the slogans.



All staff members of the Consulate General, including the Consul General, were in constant contact with the Azerbaijani community members on the day of the demonstration at the Consulate General's office. The consulate said that to ensure the safety of Azerbaijani citizens, Los Angeles Police officers lined up around them.



Seeing the growing aggression of the Armenians, the Consulate General immediately contacted the bus companies and began the process of evacuation of Azerbaijanis from the area. However, 15 minutes later, Los Angeles police informed members of the Azerbaijani community that they were concerned about the safety of the protesters, and started escorting Azerbaijanis away, accompanied by police.



Immediately after the incident, the Consul General contacted Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore, informing him of the seriousness of the situation and expressing his serious criticism of the police's inability to prevent the Armenian violence.



Thus, it was noted that the Los Angeles Police was aware of the protest by the Azerbaijani community in advance and assured the Consulate General that the security of the protesters would be fully ensured.



Moore apologized to the Consul General for the police forces failure to take relevant measures to prevent the violence, noting that the issue will be seriously investigated and a special investigation team will be set up.



An investigation team has been set up and an investigation is underway, the consulate said.



Consul General Nasimi Agayev has visited injured Azerbaijanis in the hospital and said that measures are being taken to bring Armenian criminals to justice.

The U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan has been summoned to the Foreign Ministry due to attack on peaceful Azerbaijani protesters by Armenian radicals in Los Angeles, the ministrys Spokesperson Leyla Abdullayeva said.



Abdullayeva said that a large group of Armenian radicals attacked a small group of Azerbaijanis outside of the Azerbaijani Consulate in Los Angeles on July 22, injuring seven people.



She reminded that radical Armenian Dashnaks living in Los Angeles staged a protest in front of the consulate building with aggressive and provocative slogans. In response to the protest, members of the Azerbaijani community in California, who were much smaller in number, held a rival rally against the Armenian provocateurs chanting slogans exposing Armenia's aggression against Azerbaijan and its policy of ethnic cleansing.



Radical Armenian Dashnaks used violence and aggression against peaceful Azerbaijani protesters, and even the Los Angeles police, who are responsible for providing security, failed to prevent their vandalism, the spokesperson said.



Abdullayeva pointed out that Armenian radicals, attacking Azerbaijani protesters, injured seven people, including a woman.



"Unfortunately, we would like to note that we are currently witnessing attempts by radical Armenian forces to use violence and vandalism against peaceful Azerbaijani protesters in various parts of the world, including the United States and a number of European countries," she said.



She emphasized that such provocative actions are a clear example of the aggressive policy pursued by Armenia and its leadership by radical Armenian forces.



Armenian criminals have to be brought to justice for demonstrating violence and atrocity against Azerbaijani demonstrators in Los Angeles, the U.S., as well as in European countries, including Brussels on July 22, and the law enforcement agencies of the countries must be held accountable in ensuring the security of Azerbaijani communities in these countries, Abdullayeva concluded
Ai Weiwei is weary from travel.

The Chinese artist and human rights activist shuffles into the Marciano Art Foundations cavernous Theater Gallery  he arrived in L.A. from Berlin just last night and has spent about half the year, he says, traversing the globe making films or exhibiting art. The Marciano space, a former Masonic temple theater, is dimly lighted and nearly empty, a box of cool, gray concrete. But at the far end of the room, light emanates from a new piece Ai has created  hes seeing it installed here for the first time.

Ai slowly makes his way across the room, soft spoken and a bit spacey, his loose cotton clothing fluttering ever so slightly from the AC  as if crossing a dark ocean toward the light. Finally, he peers over a railing into the glowing, sunken Black Box gallery housing his work. His cheeks lift and his eyes brighten.

Oh, wow, so beautiful, he says, turning back around. The light, the shadows.

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Hes talking about Life Cycle, the central piece in the Marciano exhibition, the artists first solo institutional show in L.A. The exhibition, also called Life Cycle, is one of three Ai Weiwei shows opening in L.A. this week; the others are at Jeffrey Deitch gallery and UTA Artist Space.

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei takes on L.A. with three new solo exhibitions at the Marciano Art Foundation, Jeffrey Deitch gallery, and UTA Artist Space. (Maria Alejandra Cardona / Los Angeles Times)

A detail from Ai Weiweis Life Cycle boat, on view at the Marciano Art Foundation. It was made using traditional Chinese kite-making techniques. (Maria Alejandra Cardona / Los Angeles Times)

The Life Cycle work that now has Ais attention looks like an enormous inflatable raft crammed with towering human figures bearing animal heads of the Chinese zodiac, all crafted entirely from thin switches of bamboo. It took dozens of craftspeople, using ancient Chinese kite-making techniques, nearly two years to make. The work is similar to his 2017 piece, Law of the Journey, which was made from black PVC rubber and which also addresses the global refugee crisis, a central theme in Ais work, whether it be installation art, photography, porcelain works, multimedia performance or documentary film. The figures, with their long necks and animal heads, are imposing, frightening even, but theyre also hollow, transparent, like ghosts lost at sea.

Its so dramatic, but its nothing compared to the dramatic conditions of people fleeing from their homes to avoid bombing or war, he says, and they have to go through mountains and rivers and oceans, throw their children onto those kinds of boats, at midnight, and try one time, a second time, could be eight, 10 times, and not even make it.

The walls of Ai Weiweis studio collapse during a multi-day demolition in Beijing on Aug. 4. The frequent government critic said on his Instagram account that the demolition began without prior notice. (Ng Han Guan / Associated Press)

A narrow escape

Life Cycle almost didnt make it to Los Angeles.

Ai, an outspoken political dissident, has long been targeted by the Chinese Communist government for channeling his social justice activism into online projects and art that has resonated around the world. In 2011 he was arrested and detained, in a secret location, for 81 days after having been accused of vague economic crimes. Since getting his passport back in 2015, hes resided in Berlin but has kept an active studio in Beijing, his Zuoyou studio, where Life Cycle was assembled under his guidance.

Just days after the artwork was shipped to L.A., Ais Beijing studio was demolished by the Chinese government. No one was hurt, but some artworks were damaged, others totally destroyed. Hed been alerted, months earlier, that hed eventually have to vacate the space because it was being redeveloped  but the demolition began, as a surprise to him, before the mutually agreed upon evacuation date and without his consent.

It was quite surreal, I was shocked, he says. But in a state like China, you have no space to make any kind of argument or communication. You have to just stand there and watch.

We forget humanity is not something we originally always have had but rather, its something we need always to defend. Ai Weiwei

Ai was in Berlin when the Aug. 3 destruction began. It was late morning and hed just taken his son to school when his Beijing studio assistants began sending photos and video clips via WhatsApp. A construction vehicle was shattering the buildings windows, then wrecking its brick and concrete walls. The experience wasnt new to him. In 2011, his Shanghai studio  which he designed and built from scratch  was also demolished by local authorities.

This sort of demolition of human rights, as Ai calls it  homes being torn down so government-owned land can be redeveloped  is a common practice in China, he says, one that disproportionately affects migrant workers and poorer communities. And there is no law that can protect any individual.

In Beijing or Shanghai, there must be thousands of villages that have been destroyed and those people just have to go back to where they [came] and they have no voice, they will never have any paper or reporter to talk about them.

Life Cycle not only conceptually addresses Ais exploration of refugees and displacement, but without its original studio to return home to, the work  a vehicle for passengers and a passenger itself  physically embodies those ideas as well.

 A time-lapse video of Ai Weiweis Life Cycle" as its installed over three weeks at the Marciano Art Foundation, including narration by the artist himself. The film is by Jeremy Eichenbaum and the Los Angeles Video Club.

Shadows and reflections

So fragile, like life, Ai says, stepping down the stairs into the Black Box gallery for an eye-level view of the work.

Above him, mythical creatures from the ancient Chinese text, the Shanhaijing, made from bamboo and white silk, dangle from the ceiling  a snake swooping through the air, a four-headed fish with legs outstretched and mouths agape. A third piece, a dense wall installation called Ten Windows (2015), is composed of hundreds of two- and three-dimensional objects, also made from bamboo, that dangle on twine and cast pronounced shadows on the walls, like a tangle of stark line drawings.

One of Ai Weiweis bamboo and silk mythical creatures from the ancient Chinese text, the Shanhaijing. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Part intricate mobile and part narrative tapestry, Ten Windows is political, art historical and autobiographical at once  and funny. Its peppered with middle fingers flipping a bird, as Ai says, and cartoonish birds  resembling the Twitter logo  nodding to his frequent social media activity. There are references to Marcel Duchamps bottle rack, Jasper Johns numbers and imagery from Ais own works, such as stools, bicycles and Lego bricks.

But the piece is also disturbing.

There are bamboo re-creations of the six hangers Ai was given in detention to dry his freshly washed clothing. Theres a replica MRI image of his hemorrhaging brain after he was assaulted in 2009 by local police in the city of Chengdu.

I suffered, I feel the pain, but I never think its an attack on me [personally], he says of struggles with Chinese authorities like the recent destruction of his art studio. I think my existence reflects certain values which they cannot accept. And those values make me stronger  you see the strength of yourself through your enemys eye.

Ai Weiweis wall installation, Ten Windows, is political, art historical and intensely autobiographical. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

An L.A. art intervention

When an Ai Weiwei exhibition comes to town, its less a quiet affair at a single art gallery. Instead, its an expansive art intervention, with multiple shows, across multiple artistic mediums, in multiple locations. Last years Good Fences Make Good Neighbors in New York involved more than 300 public artworks spanning all five boroughs.

In L.A. this week, the inaugural show at Jeffrey Deitch gallery, which opens its doors Sept. 29, is Ai Weiwei: Zodiac, showing new and historic work. Deitch is displaying the artists seminal 2013 Stools, involving nearly 6,000 antique wooden stools from Northern China that date back to the Ming and Qing dynasties and the Republican period that followed. The work is both a textural and abstract ode to Chinese social and cultural history. A surrounding survey of works will also include new Zodiac works made from Lego bricks.

The art gallery offshoot of United Talent Agency, which represents Ai, will present Cao / Humanity, a show of the artists marble and porcelain sculptures as well as a new, crowd-sourced, multimedia performance project based on Ais book published earlier this year, Humanity. The little blue book comprises quotes taken primarily from the more than 300 interviews and public talks Ai did in 2017 after his documentary feature about the refugee crisis, Human Flow, was released. For the new video project Humanity, guests to the UTA Artist Space  which Ai designed the interior of  are invited to record themselves reading passages from Ais book. The video will play in the gallery. Individuals are encouraged to share their recordings on social media, as Ai has done.

Its so dramatic, but its nothing compared to the dramatic conditions of people fleeing from their homes to avoid bombing or war. Ai Weiwei

I think hes testing the potential of the gallery without walls, says LACMA Director Michael Govan, who in 2012 showed Ais outdoor installation, Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads. Hes a true contemporary artist in that hes adept at communicating on many channels at once, at an art museum, directly through social media, through the medium of documentary and distribution. He grasps the potential of the present and the kind of multifaceted, multi-model potential for communication. And you can tell  he does not want to be restricted.

Spouts, 2015, contains more than 250,000 broken antique teapot mouths from Chinas Song dynasty. Its a call for freedom of speech among the masses. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

A moment of multiplicity

Ai has long wanted a solo exhibition of multiple works in L.A., he says. He views the city as one of imagination and invention and the West Coast, more broadly, as a place for burgeoning technology and creativity, but also a place roiling with immigration conflicts and border issues, central themes in his work. So its the right moment to have art to be celebrated and to have a voice to be heard in L.A., he says.

The very different works on view in L.A. address a panoply of topics. But Ai sees all three exhibitions as one show, with certain themes rippling throughout, not only refugees but freedom of speech, surveillance, classic Chinese craftsmanship, individualism and mass production among them.

The through line?

Humanity, he says.

It could be a totalitarian society or a so-called democratic society, but violations of basic human rights and the tragic conditions related to human dignity is happening every second in this world. And it seems it doesnt get any better, he says. Very often we forget  we forget humanity is not something we originally always have had but rather, its something we need always to defend.

Simply having concurrent shows itself is a nod to multiplicity, a theme in so much of Ais work. The Marciano Art Foundation is showing the artists iconic Sunflower Seeds (2010), which consists of nearly 50 million individually sculpted porcelain sunflower seeds created by about 1,600 artisans, over two years, in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen known for porcelain-making. It addresses Chinas vast population as well as economic and cultural exchanges with the West. His 2015 work Spouts  shown at the Marciano in its entirety for the first time  contains more than 250,000 antique teapot spouts from Chinas Song dynasty. The veritable carpet of broken porcelain teapot mouths  many tilted upward as if gasping for air  is a call for freedom of speech among the masses.

I want to have a full voice and I want to get exhausted  as if this is my last show, he says of the L.A. exhibitions. Then I will be satisfied, I will not have regret.

Chinese artist Ai Weiweis themes of freedom of expression and refugees have new resonance now with the recent demolition of his Beijing studio. The Life Cycle sculpture demonstrates refugees on a boat. (Maria Alejandra Cardona / Los Angeles Times)

A global passenger

Just before leaving the Marciano Art Foundation, Ai  who was a child refugee in China, now lives in exile in Berlin and spends about half the year traveling for work  pauses on the gallery floor. His bamboo and silk art objects, delicate in material but heavy with meaning, hover and spin above him. Shadows flicker around him.

Kites may be the perfect metaphor for displacement, he says.

I love the object to be flying in the space, he says, so it doesnt belong to any place.

Like his boat, Life Cycle.

Like himself.

Still, Ai doesnt see himself as a citizen of the world, as hes often described. Im not so romantic, he says. I just feel Im a passenger.

Ai WeiWeis sculpture Cao, 2014, will be on display at his agencys UTA Artist Space gallery. (Eric Powell / Ai Weiwei Studio)

Life Cycle, Marciano Art Foundation, 4357 Wilshire Blvd., L.A., (424) 204-7555, Sept. 28, 2018  March 3, 2019. www.marcianoartfoundation.org

Ai Weiwei: Zodiac, Jeffrey Deitch, 925 N. Orange Drive, Hollywood, (323) 925-3000, Sept. 29, 2018  Jan. 5, 2019. www.deitch.com

Cao / Humanity, UTA Artist Space, 403 Foothill Road, Beverly Hills, (310) 579-9850, Oct. 4  Dec. 1. www.utaartistspace.com

deborah.vankin@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter: @debvankin
Sheriff Jim Hammond has appointed Coty Wamp to the position of general counsel for the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office. He said, "In this newly created in-house position, Ms. Wamp will be responsible for providing advice and counsel to the sheriff and his command staff on matters pertaining to investigations, daily operation, policy matters and public media inquiries.



"The new HCSO general counsel will work directly with the Hamilton County Attorneys Office to gather information related to anticipated and pending litigation, the procurement and preservation of evidence and to identify other items necessary for discovery and trial work. The Hamilton County Attorneys Office will continue to provide legal representation and counsel for the HCSO in lawsuits and trial advocacy. By instituting a general counsel position, the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office will join the ranks of other large law enforcement agencies in Tennessee including the Knox County Sheriffs Office as well as others throughout the nation by incorporating immediate, in-house legal counsel.



My staff and I have discussed the notion of instituting a general counsel to support our daily legal needs for quite some time now. With the growing number of legal requests for discovery items, the amount of inquiries from members of the media, the upcoming transition of the Silverdale Detention Facility, and the increase in evidentiary requests, there couldnt be a more pressing and important time for us to incorporate the services of a general counsel.

Sheriff Hammond said, "Having taken 10 felony cases to jury trials in the last six years, Coty Wamp has established herself as one of the most respected young criminal attorneys in East Tennessee prior to joining the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office as general counsel.

"She began her career as an assistant public defender in the Hamilton County Public Defenders Office where she gained a firsthand understanding of the challenges facing law enforcement in Hamilton County. For the last three years, Ms. Wamp has served as an assistant district attorney in Bradley County in the 10th Judicial District under the leadership of District Attorney Steve Crump.



"As an assistant district attorney, Ms. Wamp has prosecuted a variety of criminal cases and cultivated numerous relationships with law enforcement which have played an important part in leading her to want to join the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office. In her roles of assistant public defender and assistant district attorney, Ms. Wamp spent most of her time as an advocate in the courtroom  working to develop both the Mental Health Court in Hamilton County and Juvenile Recovery Court in Bradley County. While prosecuting, Ms. Wamp also became certified in Gang Prosecution through the National Gang Crime Research Center in 2019.

"Ms. Wamps experience has given her a unique appreciation for both sides of the criminal justice system. She is a firm believer that the rights of a criminal defendant are equally important to the peace and safety of the citizens of this community.

My staff and I look forward to working with Ms. Wamp as we utilize her talents and expertise in order to better serve the legal needs of this agency. As a young, accomplished and professional woman, her point of view and her perspective will greatly enhance my command staff and our ability to serve the citizens of Hamilton County."

Born and raised in Hamilton County, Ms. Wamp graduated from Chattanooga Christian School. She is a graduate of the University of Tennessee (B.A., 2011) and the University of Tennessee College of Law (J.D., 2014).



Ms. Wamp said, My role will be multi-faceted and my experience in criminal law as both a defense attorney and most recently a prosecutor, will give me a perspective that will be beneficial to the Sheriffs Office and the citizens of Hamilton County. I understand how important it is to protect both the rights of criminal defendants as well as support and uphold law enforcement for the sacrifices they make every single day.
Fishermen in Central Region on Tuesday, 21st July 2020 received an unprecedented boost in their trades with the receipt of 300 outboard motors at highly subsidized prices from the directive of President of H.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.



According to the Chief Executive Officer, Lawyer Jerry Ahmed Shaib, the support which is being funded under the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP), is being offered through a collaborative effort of the Coastal Development Authority (CODA), Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development (MOFAD) and is intended to alleviate the plight of fishers and empower them in their business for national development.



Under the intervention, a 40 horsepower outboard with a market price of GHS19,000 is being offered to the fishers at GHS10,100 representing a subsidy of 47.3%. Similarly, a 15 horsepower which costs GHS14,500 is being offered at GHS5,100 representing a subsidy of 65%.



A colourful event was organised at the residence of the Central Regional Minister, Hon. Kwamena Duncan for the formal handing over of the equipment by CODA and MOFAD for onward distribution to the fishers who were ably represented by Chief Fishermen of the Region led by Chairman Nana Obrenu Dabun III of Gomoa Feteh and members of landing beach committees in the region.



Chief Fishermen present included Nana Kojo I, Nana Afful Awuotwe II. Nana Mesi Ansa V, Nana Fynn Bonsu II and Nenyi Member. The rest were Nana Kwesi Asabir, Nana Kwabena Quarcoo, Nenyi Kwamena Mortey VI, Farnyi Kweigya VII and Nana Senaman Tawiah II.



The event was also graced by Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) of Assin Central, Mfantseman, Abura Asebu Kwamankese, Komenda Edina Eguafo Abirem and Gomoa Central. Other MMDCEs present were from Ekumfi, Cape Coast, Gomoa West and Awutu Senya.



Timely and impactful intervention



In a statement, the Regional Minister thanked H. E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for hearing the cry of fishers and swiftly coming to their aid with the subsidised outboard motors.



Hon. Duncan also commended the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of CODA for his instrumental leadership in ensuring broad consultations with stakeholders in the fishing industry to ascertain the reality and also for standing firm with fishers throughout the process. He encouraged the fishers to show gratitude to the President for the huge subsidy.



Hon. Kwamena Duncan also stated that the fishing industry has experienced a marked improvement in the management and distribution of premix fuel, a phenomenon that has brought joy to fishers.



Member of the Council of State, Obrempong Appiah Nuamah II, Omanhen of the Twifo Mampong Traditional Area commended CODA for procuring the outboard motors, adding that it was ample proof of the commitment of H.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to develop all sections of Ghanaian society in all parts of Ghana.



The Chairman of Chief Fishermen in Central Region, Nana Obrenu Dabun III thanked H.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for prioritizing the development of fishing and aspirations of fishers. He further stated that fishers are upbeat about their expectations of government since the President has appointed officials who understand the business of fishing to oversee development in coastal communities.



The Intervention and Modalities



In his speech, CEO of CODA thanked the Regional Minister for his consistent and sustained efforts; MMDCEs and other stakeholders for prioritising the welfare of fishers and development of the fishing industry.



Lawyer Jerry Ahmed Shaib made it clear that the procurement of the outboard motors was in response to requests from the fishers to the government, following which H.E Nana Akufo-Addo directed CODA to fund the intervention under IPEP



He stated that, following the President's directive, the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, Hon. Elizabeth Afoley Quaye (MP) took steps to commence the procurement process by liaising with CODA to bring the intervention to fruition.



Committees were then formed comprising representatives from CODA, MOFAD, MMDAs, landing beach committees and chief fishermen to identify, scrutinize, shortlist and recommend potential beneficiaries on the basis that they are actively engaged in fishing.



Other interventions for fishers



Touching on other IPEP-funded support for fishers, the CEO also stated that the fishers will be supported with interest-free microcredit facilities under the CODA Credit Union to give their business a financial boost.



Additionally, CODA is constructing eleven (11) landing beaches in all coastal regions to improve Infrastructure for aquaculture.



According to him, ongoing construction of the Jamestown Harbour in Accra will also significantly transform the fortunes of fishers when completed.



Distribution



The outboard motors presented form part of 1,300 pieces received as the first tranche of a total of 5,000 procured. They were shared as follows:



Komenda Edina Eguafo Abirem  43



Abura Asebu Kwamankese  25



Awutu Senya West  20



Mfantseman  40



Gomoa West  40



Ekumfi  36



Cape Coast  35



Effutu  35



Gomoa East  26



Other regions within the Coastal Development Zone are expected to receive their share of the first tranche of outboard motors in the coming days.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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President Donald Trump and adviser Kellyanne Conway.

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

White House adviser Kellyanne Conway on Wednesday blamed governors for rushing their economic reopenings in violation of federal guidelines amid the pandemic.

"Some of these states blew through our gating criteria, blew through our phases, and they opened up some of the industries a little too quickly, like bars," Conway said.

"Remember the governors wanted complete latitude over when they would open their states," she said. "They pushed back heavily, handsomely, Republicans and Democrats, when it was falsely rumored that the president was going to be in charge of reopening the states."

Far from a false rumor, the president insisted in April that he had "total" authority to order states to reopen.

Ultimately, Trump used his bully pulpit in the White House to urge states to quickly reopen and citizens to protest lockdowns he felt were too strict.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

White House adviser Kellyanne Conway on Wednesday blamed governors for rushing their economic reopenings in violation of federal guidelines amid the pandemic.

"Some of these states blew through our gating criteria, blew through our phases, and they opened up some of the industries a little too quickly, like bars," Conway told reporters outside the White House.

She noted it was the governors  not the president  who controlled the reopening process after statewide shutdowns and thus are to blame for new, devastating outbreaks in many parts of the country.

"Remember the governors wanted complete latitude over when they would open their states," she said. "They pushed back heavily, handsomely, Republicans and Democrats, when it was falsely rumored that the president was going to be in charge of reopening the states."

She added of the president, "He's a federalist. He believes in states' rights."

Story continues

Far from a false rumor, the president insisted in April that he had "total" authority to order states to reopen.

"The president of the United States calls the shots," Trump said during an April 13 press briefing. "They can't do anything without the approval of the president of the United States."

The president falsely claimed there were "numerous provisions" in the Constitution that allowed him to overrule governors.

"When somebody's the president of the United States, the authority is total," he said.

Constitutional law experts rejected Trump's claims at the time, pointing out that the president has no authority to order states to loosen social distancing or reopen businesses and schools. Those decisions are entirely under the purview of state governments.

Ultimately, Trump used his bully pulpit in the White House to urge states to quickly reopen and citizens to protest lockdowns he felt were too strict.

Conway on Wednesday correctly pointed out that Trump publicly criticized Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a fellow Republican, when he became one of the first governors to reopen non-essential businesses amid the pandemic.

But she failed to mention that Trump railed against states that implemented more strict shutdowns as they struggled to contain their Covid-19 outbreaks.

Just days after he claimed to have "total" authority in state reopenings, Trump called to "liberate" Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia, all of which have Democratic governors who imposed strict shutdowns. His calls came amid relatively small but well-publicized protests against the lockdowns in all three states.

Trump told reporters that he thought the protesters were listening to him.

"I think they're listening," he said on April 16. "I think they'd listened to me. They seem to be protesters that like me and respect this opinion, and my opinion is the same as just about all of the governors."

He went on to say that "large parts of the country" were ready to begin reopening. Many of the states the president encouraged in reopening didn't meet Trump administration guidelines that laid out certain thresholds states had to meet before reopening.

In early May, the White House threw out the first set of guidelines crafted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help schools, businesses, and churches reopen. The president felt the recommendations were too strict and forced the CDC to issue new, relaxed guidelines.

In one example, Arizona reopened with new cases on the rise, without testing enough of its residents, and with too high of a positive test rate  violating key federal guidance. Trump traveled to Phoenix in late June to hold a campaign rally that didn't require social distancing or mask-wearing, even as the state's outbreak worsened.

Now the virus is surging in parts of the Sunbelt and West. Arizona, Florida, and South Carolina have the most number of new coronavirus places anywhere in the world.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Wallace wasnt merely prepared with the facts  he knew how to deploy them, with the experience and instincts to guide him on when to challenge Trump and when to lay back. He didnt seek an explosive confrontation with Trump, in the style of his late father, the famously combative 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace. Such moments create telegenic clips, said Soledad OBrien, the former CNN host  but end up being as much about the interviewer as the subject.
Kuwait's 91-year-old ruler Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah left for the United States Thursday to undergo medical treatment, his office said, days after he had surgery for an undisclosed illness.

The emir, who has ruled the oil-rich Gulf state since 2006, had been in hospital since the weekend.

Sheikh Sabah "left the country today at dawn to go to the United States to complete his medical treatment", his office said in a statement cited by state news agency KUNA.

Earlier, it had said he would make the journey "based on the advice of his medical team to complete treatment following the successful surgery".

The statements did not reveal the nature of his illness, the type of surgery he had undergone in Kuwait, or what treatment was planned in the US.

In September 2019, he underwent medical tests shortly after arriving in the United States, leading to a meeting with President Donald Trump being called off.

The emir had his appendix removed in 2002, two years after having a pacemaker fitted. In 2007, he underwent urinary tract surgery in the United States.

Under Kuwaiti law, when the emir is absent, crown prince Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, 83, the emir's half-brother, is appointed acting ruler.

Sheikh Nawaf is an elder statesman who has held high office for decades, including the defence and interior portfolios.

Sheikh Sabah argued last year for de-escalation in the Gulf as tensions surged between the US and its arch-foe Iran.

He is widely regarded as the architect of modern Kuwait's foreign policy.
Iran finalizes deals to rehabilitate, develop Iraq's power grid

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 22 July 2020 10:05 AM

Iran and Iraq have finalized two agreements to rehabilitate and develop the Arab country's power grid, IRNA news agency on Wednesday cited Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian as saying.

Ardakanian met his Iraqi counterpart Majid Mahdi Hantoush in Tehran Tuesday evening on the sidelines of Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi's trip to the Islamic Republic on his first foreign visit.

"It was decided that the contracts related to reducing losses on the electricity distribution network in the provinces of Karbala and Najaf, as well as the contract for repairing Iraq's distribution transformers would be finalized and signed," the Iranian minister said.

Iraq relies on Iran for natural gas that generates as much as 45% of its electricity. Iran transmits another 1,200 megawatts directly, making itself an indispensable energy source for its Arab neighbor, but the United States is trying to pry Baghdad away from Tehran's orbit.

The US has been enlisting its companies and allies such as Saudi Arabia to replace Iran as Iraq's source of energy.

Iran's money from exports of gas and electricity has piled up in bank accounts in Iraq, because US sanctions are preventing Tehran from repatriating it.

In January, an official said the sanctions were giving Iran a run for $5 billion, "sedimenting" at the central bank of Iraq because Tehran could not access it.

Ardakanian said the issue was brought up in the discussions on Tuesday and it was agreed that "the payment of part of TAVANIR (Iran Power Generation and Transmission Company)'s claims will start from the end of July".

The US administration is pushing for a deal between Washington, Baghdad and six Persian Gulf states to connect Iraq's nationwide power grid to that of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

The US State Department said in a statement last Thursday that the six countries that make up the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council Interconnection Authority (GCCIA)  Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the UAE  had affirmed their shared support for the project to supply electricity to Iraq.

Iraq needs more than 23,000 megawatts of electricity to meet its domestic demand but years of war following the 2003 US invasion have left its power infrastructure in tatters and a deficit of some 7,000 megawatts.

In the past, officials in Baghdad have said there is no easy substitute to imports from Iran because it will take years to adequately build up Iraq's energy infrastructure.

They have said American demand acknowledges neither Iraq's energy needs nor the complex relations between Baghdad and Tehran.

In addition to natural gas and electricity, Iraq imports a wide range of goods from Iran including food, agricultural products, home appliances, and air conditioners.

However, the US and its allies in the Persian Gulf hope Kadhimi would go beyond some of the more established ways of thinking.

On Tuesday, the Iraqi prime minister said during a joint news conference with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani that the purpose of his trip to Tehran was to strengthen historical ties between the two countries, especially in light of the challenges they faced as a result of the coronavirus outbreak and the fall of oil prices.

"In the face of such challenges, we need coordination between the two countries in a way that serves the interests of Iran and Iraq."

Both Iran and Iraq, Kadhimi said, suffer from economic problems, adding the two countries need comprehensive and inclusive cooperation to overcome them.

Kadhimi said Iran-Iraq relations are not merely due to the geographical location of the two countries and their 1,450 km border, adding the ties are based in religion and culture and rooted in history.

"I am reiterating to my brothers in the Islamic Republic of Iran that the Iraqi nation is eager to have excellent relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran based on the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of the two countries."

Kadhimi said Iran and Iraq fought against terrorism and Takfiri groups together, and the Islamic Republic of Iran was one of the first countries to stand by Iraq.

"We will not forget this. That is why Iraq has stood with Iran to help it overcome economic challenges and turned to a big market for trade with Iran," he said.

"We seek stability in Iraq and our philosophy and view of Iran is that we consider Iran a stable, strong, prosperous and progressive country, and this fact is in the interest of Iraq and the territorial integrity of the region," he added.

According to Kadhimi, the two sides discussed implementing agreements between them, including connecting their railway through Khorramshahr in Iran and Basra in Iraq, adding he was very confident the agreements would be implemented soon.

Kadhimi had been scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia as his first trip abroad, then quickly follow it up with a trip to Tehran. However the Saudi leg was postponed after King Salman was hospitalized on Monday.

Iraq's delegation included the ministers of foreign affairs, finance, health and planning, as well as Kadhimi's national security adviser, some of whom also met their Iranian counterparts.

Relations between the two countries were not always close -- they fought a bloody war imposed by Saddam Hussein from 1980 to 1988 - but ties have grown since the former Iraqi dictator's fall.

Last year, Iran's exports to Iraq amounted to nearly $9 billion, IRNA reported. It said the two nations will discuss increasing that amount to $20 billion.

"The two governments' will is to expand bilateral trade ties to $20 billion," Rouhani also said after an hour-long meeting with the Iraqi leader.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 09:22:17|Editor: huaxia

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SEOUL, July 23 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in's approval rating was unchanged this week, ending the eight-week downward trend, a weekly poll showed Thursday.

According to the Realmeter survey, support for Moon stood at 44.8 percent this week, unchanged from the previous week. It ended the eight-week decline that had started since the fourth week of May.

The negative assessment on Moon's conduct of state affairs rose 1.0 percentage point over the week to 52.0 percent this week.

Support for Moon's ruling Democratic Party gained 2.3 percentage points from a week earlier to 37.6 percent this week.

The main conservative opposition United Future Party won 32.6 percent of support this week, up 1.6 percentage points from the previous week.

The minor progressive Justice Party garnered 4.2 percent of support score, followed by the minor center-left Open Democratic Party with 3.9 percent and the minor centrist People's Party with 3.7 percent each.

The results were based on a survey of 1,509 voters conducted from Monday to Wednesday. It had plus and minus 2.5 percentage points in margin of error with a 95-percent confidence level. Enditem
Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) for the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF), Gen David Muhoozi, has flagged-off a UPDF Aviation Unit due to deploy under the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). The unit under the command of Col Moses Amanya was flagged off at Nakasongola UPDF Air Force (UPDF  AF) Wing.

The CDF said that the operations against the Al-Shabaab insurgents will be much easier with the presence of air support.

The presence of airpower will offer us extensive asymmetric advantages over the unconventional and dispersed enemy in Somalia. With air assets, we will be able respond quickly with precision fires or inject a quick reaction force once the enemy assembles, he said.

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He added that the presence of air assets will also not only guarantee dominance of firepower for the UPDF over the enemy but also provide marked advantage on technical intelligence, among other benefits.

Once eventually fully injected on the operation theatre with all the assets, we are confident that you will provide the ground forces with the necessary firepower that was missing to subdue the enemy. Airpower is also an important intelligence capability, enhancing surveillance and reconnaissance that we have been operating without for over a decade, he said, urging the Air Force team to fully cultivate the advantages they can offer to the ground forces so as to bring a quick end to the Al-Shabaab menace.

The Commander Air Forces, Lt Gen Charles Lwanga Lutaaya said the deployment is based on a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding between the African Union, United Nations and Government of Uganda.

The MOU authorized the aviation services to include, but not limited to, timely evacuation from hostile environment, transportation of dangerous goods, quick insertion and extraction of troops, aerial surveillance and reconnaissance, armed escorts, armed air reconnaissance, main supply routes support, combat search and rescue, support for airmobile operations, close air support, deterrence operations, air cover, armed patrols, interdiction and troop resupply in hostile environment missions and transportation of personnel and cargo.

Lt Gen Lutaaya noted that the UPDF Aviation Unit should have deployed earlier but it was affected by a setback of the 2012 aircraft crash on Mt Kenya during the deployment phase.

Despite the air crash set-back, UPDF-AF vision was not exterminated. We learnt from that tragedy and have put energies together over time with the support from our partners to form an Aviation Unit that is ready to deploy for AMISOM operations, said Lt Gen Lutaaya.
A board member for Healthy Tennessee, a non-profit organization founded by Dr. Manny and Maya Sethi, released a statement Thursday saying hes "fed up with vicious attacks" on a non-partisan organization designed to provide free health care for Tennesseans.Its unfortunate our political system has gotten to this. Politicians are now slandering an organization that saves lifes and has never taken a dime of government money said Dr. Mitch Mutter, a cardiologist from Chattanooga.Healthy Tennessee has held free health fairs for veterans families, victims of the Smoky Mountain fires, rural Appalachia and intercity families across the state for almost 10 years.We are a non-partisan, non-political organization that helps people who cant help themselves. Maybe these politicians should talk about the good and what they are going to do for Americans  not drag a non-profit doing good work into their political campaigns.
The bright icy Comet C/2020 F3, which is now being called NEOWISE has garnered a lot of fame since its appearance in Earths sky on July 14, 2020. Skywatchers across the world have captured some breathtaking pictures of the comet in the past week. However, the stellar show put on by this space rock is approaching its end, as the outer space visitor is on its outbound journey from our solar system.

What a sight!



Amazing timelapse shows Comet Neowise moving across the sky. pic.twitter.com/vBKyuDbJcZ  TheSpaceAcademy.org (@ThespaceAcad) July 14, 2020

Sedona last night pic.twitter.com/rfzDZol9TO  David Lennard (@dlennard) July 15, 2020

I made the right decision to go out and take pictures of Comet Neowise last night! All thanks to weather forecast for warning me about today's weather when it should appear brightest I also appreciate random kuyas who chased away a lot of dogs while we're shooting hehe pic.twitter.com/l4jF7z2TM5  Ms. Kitty Faye (@meoooowmika) July 23, 2020

Comet #NEOWISE is just spectacular! The last time humans would of seen a sight like this, Stone Henge was a baby at ~500 years old and the Great Pyramids of Giza weren't built fully! The next time we see it will be the year 8,820CE... maybe this is the last time humans see it?! pic.twitter.com/TufQzpFGMd  Cosmic Webb (@Cosmic_Webb) July 16, 2020

The cosmic phenomenon that stargazers across the world are witnessing right now will end in early August. However, before it disappears into deep space for thousands of years, Comet NEOWISE will make its closest approach to Earth today on July 23, 2020. Now astronomy lovers can expect clear and magnified views of the comet in the night sky today.

Read | Comet NEOWISE: Take a look at some surreal time-lapses of this celestial phenomenon

Neowise July 23 Location: How close will the Comet be to Earth?

According to the reports of a space portal, at approximately 9:09 p.m. EDT which is 1:09 a.m.GMT, and 6:39 a.m. IST. Comet NEOWISE will reach perigee or its closest distance to Earth. At that time, the icy comet will be only 0.69 AU or astronomical units, away from Earth.

Read | Comet NEOWISE pictures with the aurora-filled sky, STEVE, steal the heart of many

According to NASAs calculations, this is the average distance between Earth and Sun, which means NEOWISE will be only 8 light minutes away from Earth. If the astronomical units are converted into miles, NEOWISE will be about, 64.3 million miles or 103.5 million kilometres away. Moreover, NASA reports also suggest that the icy comet will be shining with a magnitude of 2.2. This means that our space visitors are currently about as bright as the North Star, Polaris. Hence, skywatchers can keep their binoculars and telescopes aside tonight as NEOWISE will be visible very clearly with naked eyes.

Read | NASA shares skywatching tips on how to photograph Comet NEOWISE

Neowise July 23 Location: How to find Neowise tonight?

Stargazers in the Northern Hemisphere will be able to spot Comet NEOWISE after sunset. The bright comet will appear close to the constellation of Ursa Major. More precisely, it will be just below the Big Dipper. However, if stargazers miss the stellar show of the comet tonight, they will be able to watch it live online.

Read | Comet NEOWISE spotted by NASA spacecraft

According to the reports of a space portal, the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona will be live streaming more live views of Comet NEOWISE in a webcast. The webcast will begin at 11:30 p.m. EDT which is 3:30 a.m.GMT, on July 24 on YouTube. The live webcast will be hosted by Lowell Observatory director Jeff Hall and senior astronomer Dave Schleicher. Their live discussion will help the viewers in understanding the scientific importance of this 'dirty iceball' and how they can view it.
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Linkedin Yunindita Prasidya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 15:08 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668bf6f0 1 Business OJK,stock-market,IDX,market-manipulation,violation Free

False trading and stock price manipulation were among the most common violations found in the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX), according to the Financial Services Authority (OJK).

Other violations include the failure to meet regulatory requirements and breaking the professional code of conduct.

False trading is when a person or company creates a false impression of the volume of trade done on the securities exchange.

The findings are based on OJK inquiries made this year so far, from which supervisory actions were issued on 15 securities companies, 24 investment managers, 14 issuers, one public accounting firm and one public accountant, said OJK acting deputy commissioner for capital market supervision Yunita Linda Sari.

Up to the middle of the year, the number of violations is approximately the same [as last year] but we havent reached the end of the year yet, Yunita said during a live-streamed press conference on Wednesday.

Without robust supervision, manipulation can make investors lose trust in the local bourse, which can negatively impact the governments target of deepening the country's capital market.

Indonesia's capital market is considered to be shallow at Rp 5.92 quadrillion (US$404.7 billion) in market capitalization as of Wednesday, a steep fall from 7.26 quadrillion in 2019, as foreign investors dumped Rp 17.5 trillion worth more stocks than they bought so far this year, according to IDX data.

In regard to mitigating stock trading violations, the OJK stated that it was coming up with new initiatives, one of which was the proposed implementation of a disgorgement fund, in which violators would be instructed to return funds obtained through unlawful means. It also plans to increase market surveillance.

What we want to do is restore the balance of information so everyone in our capital market, be they issuers or investors, have the same playing field of information, so no one is harmed, Yunita said, adding that the measures would eventually lead to the deepening of the capital market.

Calls to improve customer protection against potential fraud in the financial services industry became louder following investment mismanagement scandals, like a recent case involving state-owned insurer PT Asuransi Jiwasraya.

Jiwasraya has been accused of mismanagement and corruption after investing most of its premium revenue from the JS Saving Plan, one of the companys insurance products, in pump-and-dump stocks. As a result, it failed to pay out Rp 18 trillion in matured policies due in May to policyholders.

During the first quarter of the year, the OJK issued 184 written warnings, 192 fines, while freezing permission for two underwriter representatives (WPEE).

It has also revoked the business license of seven brokerage securities (PPE) and six brokerage trader representatives (WPPE), according to OJK data published on July 8.
On 3 June, the Delhi Police had filed a chargesheet before a court in relation to the riots in which the building of DRP Convent School was burnt down.

The son of the owner of DRP Convent School, which was burnt down during the riots in northeast Delhi, has filed a complaint with the police claiming he is being pressured to take back his case, police said on Wednesday.

In his complaint filed on 4 July Dayalpur police station, he had said his school was ransacked and set afire by the rioters on 24 and 25 February, following which a case was registered by his father, they said.

On 4 July at around 10.48 am, he received a call from an unknown number wherein a person threatened him to take his case back and if he fails to do it, then some 'Faisal Bhai' would see him, police said.

A senior police officer said based on the complaint, a case was registered and an investigation is underway.

On 3 June, the Delhi Police had filed a charge sheet before a court here in relation to riots in which the building of DRP Convent School was burnt down in northeast Delhi.

Faisal Farooque, owner of Rajdhani School in Shiv Vihar locality, was among the 18 people arrested for their alleged involvement in burning down and damaging the property of adjacent DRP Convent School.
The next coronavirus stimulus will include $105 billion in aid to schools, $16 billion to advance COVID-19 testing nationwide and a second round of checks to many Americans, according to Senate Republicans who continue to negotiate with the Trump administration in the hopes of finalizing a deal before an August recess.

CNN reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to release the GOP stimulus package in parts on Thursday, opening the door for negotiations with Democrats after several days of haggling between Republican leaders, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Adding pressure to the talks are remaining divisions over what to do with expiring supplemental unemployment insurance, a $600 boost that Democrats and some Republicans want to extend past the end of the month, but that many lawmakers claim is a disincentive for Americans to return to work. The Trump administration proposed a short-term extension, according to CNN, but senators balked at the plan, fearful that it could kill a genuine solution amid unprecedented unemployment sparked by the pandemic.

It also remains unclear who will be eligible for a second round of stimulus checks, and how much those checks will be. But McConnell pledged this week that more checks would be coming.

For more on stimulus checks, read here.

Prior to Wednesday, Republicans had called for about $40 billion to help schools reopen, while Democrats were pushing for closer to $150 billion. The Trump administration has been adamant that schools should fully reopen in the fall, and Senate leaders and White House officials told CNN and The New York Times that theyd settled on $105 billion.

We need to smartly, safely stand up an educational system and an economy that works for workers and families before a vaccine is available, McConnell said Wednesday.

The American people cannot completely stop building their lives until a vaccine is available. The U.S.A. was not built for a defensive crouch. We need to smartly, safely stand up an educational system and an economy that works for workers and families in the meantime. pic.twitter.com/kEtPNydhKe  Leader McConnell (@senatemajldr) July 21, 2020

Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri told reporters the school funding would be split up: $70 billion for K-12, $30 billion for colleges and universities and $5 billion that states could use flexibly, CNN reported.

Meadows told CNN that discussions are ongoing over President Donald Trumps calls for a temporary payroll tax cut, a move he says would stimulate the economy but one that would only help those who already have jobs. Many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are not in favor of the cut, and prefer to stimulate the economy and jobs by offering return-to-work bonuses and refueling the Payroll Protection Program that offered forgivable loans to help small businesses retain workers and stay afloat.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives already approved a $3 trillion package more than two months ago.

Democrats have described a push for more than $875 billion in aid to states and local governments as a red line, but Republicans and the Trump administration have argued that many states, especially Democratic ones, are managed poorly and shouldnt be bailed out. Republicans also want to keep the final deal at about $1 trillion.

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Undocumented youths, with some as young as one year old, were found detained in hotels before the administration deports them to their home countries. The deportation is being conducted after President Donald Trump signed a policy that shut down the United States' asylum system amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to an exclusive report by the Associated Press, documents showed a private contractor for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement takes migrant children, to hotels in Arizona and at the Texas-Mexico border.

The hotels, which were revealed to be three Hampton Inn & Suites hotels, have been used 200 times. Records claim many of the children are detained for several days before they are sent home. It also showed than over 10,000 beds at government shelters remain empty.

Under anti-trafficking laws, migrant children are required to be sent to government shelters while waiting for placement with family sponsors. However, the administration is now immediately expelling asylum seekers, citing the current health crisis to set aside the laws.

What do lawyers and advocates say about the case?

Critics and advocacy groups are challenging the use of hotels as detention spaces. They say keeping them in hotels exposes them to possible trauma as the areas are not designed to hold and care for them.

Roberto Lopez, a member of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said he spotted a small child playing with an adult on the other side of the hotel's gate. He also claimed to hear at least one child crying somewhere in the hallway.

Additionally, Lopez said there were unmarked white vans parked outside the hotel. Through the windows, he saw adults and children. He did not see logos of government agencies on the vehicle or inside the hotel.

The ICE said the private contractors were "transportation specialists" who were "trained to work with minors." It is unclear whether the contractors were licensed child care professionals.

In early July, lawyers visited a holding facility in Clint, Texas. A report by BBC said the cells were overcrowded. Children were locked up without adult supervision. They also did not have access to food or showers.

Why are they turning away undocumented youths?

The Trump administration imposed more stringent coronavirus restrictions on March 21. The order received multiple extensions. As of July 17, only 61 migrant children who arrived at the border were taken to government shelters. Hundreds were turned away, CBS News reports.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials apprehended over 1,650 unaccompanied minors in June. Only 4 percent were taken to the Office of Refuge of Resettlement. The rest of the youths were immediately expelled by border authorities.

Data showed border officials received only 62 children in April, and only 39 in May. More than 2,000 unaccompanied youths had been expelled as of June 25. More minors have been subjected to speedy deportations since.

Want to read more? Check out the latest news here:
Pa. Gov. Tom Wolf and Health Department Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine rolled out new coronavirus restrictions on July 15 in an effort to slow what they feared was another surge in new cases.

The order was focused, both said, and targeted one area in particular: Hospitality.
Description

GIS  23 July 2020: The Mauritius Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) held its 171st annual general meeting (AGM), today, at the Le Labourdonnais Waterfront Hotel, Caudan, in Port Louis. The MCCI, established in 1850, is the oldest non-profit making institution representing the private sector in Mauritius. Following the meeting, a new president will be elected later this afternoon.

The Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development, Dr Renganaden Padayachy, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, Mr Nandcoomar Bodha, the Minister of Industrial Development, SMEs and Cooperatives, Mr Soomilduth Bholah, the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Protection, Mr Yogida Sawmynaden , were p resent at the opening ceremony of the AGM.

Commemorative stamps were gifted to the four Ministers by the MCCIs outgoing president, Mr Marday Venkatasamy. Several personalities from the public and private sectors and members of the diplomatic corps and honorary consuls were also in attendance. On that occasion, Mr Venkatasamy, delivered a speech on the State of the Economy.

In his address, Minister Padayachy, said that more than ever Government is turned towards the development of a business ecosystem in Mauritius. The global health crisis has played the role of accelerator in the process of decision-making for these decisions to be efficient, he recalled. Business as usual is no longer an option and Government has had to set priorities and therefore the current situation could be taken as an opportunity to accelerate the transition of the Mauritian economy, he pointed out.

According to him, if the objective remains the same, that is, to have a robust, inclusive and sustainable socio-economic development, the pathway to be adopted is quite different and Government is coping with this reality. The vision of Government is clear and unchanged and revolves around giving Mauritius the necessary resources to bounce back and impute a new dynamic and to do so more than MUR 100 billion has been provided to the investment and economy recovery plan, he added.

Minister Bodha, for his part, spoke about the need to have the leadership from the business community as well as enhancing the synergy to work together. He further elaborated on the state of affairs with regards to ongoing negotiations pertaining to the Free Trade Agreement with India which is expected to be concluded soon; regional cooperation and regional markets, and the Mauritius Africa Strategy, and the importance of air and maritime connectivity.

Speaking about the European Union tax haven blacklist (EU list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions), the Minister reassured that Government is working arduously to take Mauritius out of that list at the earliest. At present, he indicated, a Mauritian technical team has been mandated to interface via visio-conference with a technical team from the Elysee Palace, France, at the request of the French President, Mr Emmanuel Macron, to work on the five deficiencies that are left so that Mauritius becomes fully compliant with the Financial Action Task Force regulations. Eight experts from the EU will be in Mauritius in August 2020 to help the country on the five sub-committees working on those five deficiencies, he announced.

Addressing the audience, Minister Bholah, emphasised that the Chamber remains a privileged partner for the Government and has always collaborated on various strategic fronts ranging from export, investment, trade negotiations, arbitration and capacity-building activities.

For him, however, the need of the hour amid the Covid-19 pandemic calls for a fundamental shift in the countrys traditional methods of production. This global health crisis has demonstrated that agility, flexibility and automation are sine qua non conditions to ensure survival and technology can be a powerful enabler, he stated. He thus urged members of the business community to adopt exponential disruptive technologies associated with Industry 4.0 such as Artificial Intelligence, Soft Robotics, Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, Virtual Augmented Reality.

Minister Sawmynaden, expressed gratitude to the MCCI for supporting Government in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. The aspects of ensuring continuous availability of basic commodities, and zero disruption in the distribution supply chain especially food items was a challenge in itself, he noted. However, jointly and collaboratively Mauritius managed to face the situation and the results are cogent, he highlighted.

The Minister also acknowledged that the MCCI has been a partner in enabling the country achieve spectacular economic transformation, from a mono-crop industry dominated by the sugar cane to the diversification of the economy through the conception of other value-added sectors - particularly light manufacturing, offshore banking and financial services, and service-related information and communication technology.
BELLEVUE, Wash., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Icertis, the leading provider of enterprise contract management in the cloud, today announced it has been named a finalist for the Alliance Global Independent Software Vendor (ISV) and Manufacturing 2020 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards. The company was honored among a global field of top Microsoft partners for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology.

"Being named as a Microsoft Partner of the Year for three years in a row is an incredible validation of the value we deliver for our joint customers," said Peter Boit, Chief Alliances Officer, Icertis. "These awards signify the strength of our 360-degree partnership with Microsoft and are a testament to the work we are doing together to digitally transform contracts from static documents into strategic business assets for leading companies all over the world."

The Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards recognize Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered exceptional Microsoft-based solutions during the past year. Awards were classified in several categories, with honorees chosen from a set of more than 3,300 submitted nominations from more than 100 countries worldwide. Icertis was recognized for providing outstanding solutions and services in Alliance Global ISV and Manufacturing.

Icertis was recognized as a finalist for the Alliance Global ISV Partner of the Year Award for demonstrating customer focus and success with Microsoft on a global scale. Icertis offers differentiated value and customer experiences that are built on Microsoft's Azure platform.

The Manufacturing Partner of the Year Award recognizes a partner organization that excels at providing innovative and unique services or solutions based on Microsoft technologies to manufacturing customers. Icertis was named a finalist for Manufacturing for its innovative solution that leading manufacturing companies like Airbus, ABB, BASF, Daimler, Vertiv and more are embracing to lower costs, reduce supplier risk and accelerate time-to-market. Last year, Icertis was named the Microsoft U.S. Partner of the Year Award Winner for Manufacturing and Resources.

"It is an honor to recognize the winners and finalists of the 2020 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards," said Gavriella Schuster, corporate vice president, One Commercial Partner, Microsoft. "These partners go above and beyond, delivering timely solutions that solve the complex challenges that businesses around the world face  from communicating and collaborating virtually to helping customers realize their full potential with Azure cloud services, and beyond. I am proud to honor and congratulate each winner and finalist."

For more information about Icertis, visit www.icertis.com

About Icertis

Icertis, the leading enterprise contract management platform in the cloud, helps companies unlock the full business value of their contracts to increase revenue, reduce cost, accelerate cash flow and minimize risk. The adaptable, AI-infused Icertis Contract Management (ICM) platform quickly turns contracts from static documents into strategic assets. Today, Icertis, the analyst-validated industry leader, is used by innovative companies like Airbus, BASF, Cognizant, Daimler, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft and Sanofi across 90+ countries to manage 7.5 million contracts governing more than $1 trillion.

Icertis Media Contact:

Haley Flanagan

Corporate Communications Manager, Icertis

[email protected]

SOURCE Icertis

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By Akbar Mammadov

The Turkish people will defend any decision brotherly Azerbaijan takes in its rightful cause, Turkeys National Security Council said in a statement on July 22.

The statement condemned the aggression of Armenia, which has been continuing its illegitimate occupation in the territories of Azerbaijan for years, which disrupts the peace and ignores international law.

Armenia must put an end to its aggressive attitude and leave Azerbaijani lands that it has occupied. The Turkish people will defend any decision brotherly Azerbaijan takes in its rightful cause, the statement reads.

The statement was made following the meeting of the Turkish National Security Council chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

It should be noted that earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Foreign Miniser Mevlut Cavushoglu, Defence Minister Hulusi Akar voiced support for Azerbaijan amid Armenia's provocation on the border.

The cross-border fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan started on July 12 with Armenia's firing artillery at Azerbaijan's positions in the direction of Tovuz region. Azerbaijani army lost 12 servicemen as a result of Armenian attacks. One civilian was killed as a result of artillery fire by the Armenian armed forces.

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.

Since 1994, hostilities between the two countries have persisted despite the temporary cease-fire agreement. Usually, Armenian forces violate cease-fire regime on the line of contact. But recently Armenia has increased military aggression on the border.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-24 02:21:18|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi received on Thursday a phone call from Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, during which they discussed regional issues, with a focus on the Libyan crisis.

Sisi expressed Egypt's opposition to "illegitimate foreign intervention" in Libyan domestic affairs, citing that they would further exacerbate the security conditions in Libya in a way that affects the stability of the entire region, said Egyptian presidential spokesman Bassam Rady in a statement.

For his part, the Greek prime minister also voiced rejection of foreign interference in Libya, while highlighting the political course as a key solution for the Libyan issue.

He hailed Egypt's "sincere efforts" that seek a peaceful settlement to the Libyan crisis, according to the statement.

Over the past few years, the Egyptian-Greek ties have been growing closer with a similar position on Turkey, which supports the UN-backed Libyan government in its rivalry with the eastern-based army led by Khalifa Haftar who was supported by Egypt.

The talks between Sisi and Mitsotakis came a couple of days after the Egyptian parliament approved possible troop deployment in Libya to defend Egypt's western borders with the war-torn country.

Sisi vowed last week that his country would not stand idle in the face of any direct threats to the national security of Egypt and Libya.

Libya has been suffering a civil war since the ouster and killing of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The situation escalated in 2014, splitting power between two rival governments with warring forces: the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) based in the capital Tripoli and another in the northeastern city of Tobruk allied with the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Haftar.

Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia support the LNA, while the GNA is mainly backed by Turkey and Qatar. Enditem
"Our priorities today and over the last four months have centered on helping Sciton customers succeed while positioning our enterprise to lead the industry with sensational new products that feature powerful consumer brands," says Lacee J. Naik, Vice President of Marketing and Public Relations. Having hosted over 72 virtual events over the last four months during COVID-19, while remaining fully staffed, Sciton emerged in the aesthetic industry as a leader in education and clinical training. Naik continues, "We have a proven track record of technology and trusted post sale support. When we introduced mJOULE with MOXI and BBL HERO, our customers knew it would be a reliable opportunity to introduce another winning Sciton brand to their practice and this consumer confidence is reflected in our June results."

With today's changing landscape in aesthetic medicine, Sciton is well prepared to lead the industry with new technology, best in class training, and award winning service. "In the face of adversity our people united, innovated and produced winning results for the success of Sciton," says VP of North America Sales, Robb Brindley.

To meet the growing demand of our customers, Sciton has expanded their manufacturing capabilities by purchasing a fifth building near their corporate headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. "Outside of the Sciton employees, our customers are our priority. With our facility expansion, we are now able to assemble our systems more efficiently and get our technology into the hands of our clinicians much quicker than before," says Sciton CEO Aaron Burton.

Sciton strives to bring new innovations and products to market in a timely manner, all while keeping the quality and reliability top priority. We look forward to continuing to engage with our customers and educate patients on the world class brands that Sciton creates.

For more information about mJOULE or to locate a physician in your area, visit www.sciton.com.

ABOUT SCITON

Sciton, Inc., located in Palo Alto, California, is a totally employee-owned medical device company established in 1997 by co-founders Jim Hobart, Ph.D., and Dan Negus, Ph.D. Sciton is committed to providing best-in-class laser and light solutions for medical professionals who want superior durability, performance and value. Sciton offers aesthetic and medical devices for women's health, fractional and full-coverage skin resurfacing and skin revitalization, phototherapy, vascular and pigmentation lesions, scar reduction, acne, body contouring, and hair reduction. Sciton operates on a worldwide basis with direct sales forces in the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and distributor partners in more than 45 countries. For more information, and a complete listing of Sciton systems, visit www.sciton.com.

Facebook: @ScitonInc / https://www.facebook.com/ScitonInc

Instagram: @Sciton_Inc / https://www.instagram.com/sciton_inc/

LinkedIn: @ScitonInc / https://twitter.com/sciton

SOURCE Sciton, Inc.

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The defamation claim brought by Mick Gatto against the national broadcaster has been labelled hopelessly misconceived by the ABC's barrister, who said the story at the heart of the complaint didnt have a skerrick of impact on the underworld figures reputation.

In his opening address to the Supreme Court, Dr Matthew Collins QC argued the ABC had no case to answer over its 2019 story and that Mr Gattos lawsuit must fail.

Mick Gatto at a charity event for the Salvation Army Credit:Jason South

The ABC article publicly revealed allegations made by police in a once-secret legal proceeding that Mr Gatto had threatened the life of barrister Nicola Gobbo after he discovered she was a police informer. It also recounted testimony from a 2009 court case that suggested Mr Gatto had been linked to an underworld murder.

Dr Collins said the ABC story represented a fair and accurate description of those legal proceedings, and that testimony heard during the defamation trial  from Mr Gatto, his wife, and a friend showed Mr Gatto had suffered no reputational damage from the story.
Rumor mill: Nvidia has shown interest in acquiring Arm in what would be one of the most significant and likely expensive tech deals of all time. Should Team Green take control of the semiconductor designer, it could gain a tight grip over much of the industry, meaning any acquisition is likely to be met with intense regulatory scrutiny.

Update (July 31): What only seemed like a wild rumor a week ago, has gained substance over the past week. Both Bloomberg and Financial Times are reporting that Nvidia is in talks to buy the Arm from SoftBank in a cash-and-stock deal that would value the chip designer at more than $32 billion. Back in 2016, Softbank paid around $31 billion for UK-based Arm, which became part of the Japanese conglomerate's $100 billion Vision Fundthe worlds largest venture capital fund.

Nvidia may see itself in a perfect position for the takeover and the unique opportunity presented considering its stock has skyrocketed, gaining over 50% in value this year and more than doubling since mid 2019. According to Q2 filings, Nvidia also has over $15 billion of cash on hand.

Softbank has been offloading some of its assets recently to help lessen the impact of the Coronavirus-related economic downturn. Part of its holdings in Alibaba Group and T-Mobile have been sold off, and it is looking to sell part or all of its stake in Arm; it's also considering an IPO for the design company.

Largest tech deals in history:

Company Acquisition Price Year Dell EMC $64 billion 2015 Avago Technologies Broadcom $37 billion 2015 IBM Red Hat $34 billion 2018 Softbank ARM Holdings $31.4 billion 2016 Microsoft LinkedIn $26.2 billion 2016

Softbank once owned part of Nvidia, having amassed $4 billion of shares in 2017, but all its holdings in the firm were sold off last year. According to Bloomberg, Nvidia recently made an approach to buy Arm. Increased demand in the gaming, hardware, and data center sectors has seen Nvidias stock soar this year. Shares currently stand at $417, giving it a market cap of $256 billion. For comparison, rival AMD has a value of $72.3 billion.

Arm has long licensed its technology to some of the industrys biggest players, and has seen its profile rise even higher in the past few months as the Arm-powered Fugaku became the worlds fastest supercomputer, and Apple announced it was transitioning the Mac away from Intels chips to a custom Arm-based SoC.

Its likely that an Nvidia acquisition of Arm would bring anti-competitive questions from regulators. The latters chip architecture designs and IPs are found across a vast range of products, and handing that much power to Nvidia would concern licensees, especially Apple. The claims are all rumors for now, so we cant be certain of their accuracy, but if a deal does eventually go through, it will shake up the industry like nothing before.
People are seen wearing face masks while shopping at the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne, Australia on July 11, 2020. (Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)

Authorities Ask Victorians Not to Vilify Anyone Not Wearing a Mask

MELBOURNEVictorias chief health officer Brett Sutton has asked Melbourians to not make quick judgements on anyone not wearing a face mask as the state settles into it being mandatory.

Sutton is calling on people not to vilify individuals or make a quick judgement if they see someone not wearing a mask in public.

There will be people with medical, behavioural, psychological reasons  certainly dont make an assumption that they should be the subject of your ire, Sutton said in joint a press conference with Premier Daniel Andrews on July 22.

People in the locked down areas of Greater Melbourne and Mitchell Shire can now be fined $200 if they are caught outside their homes without a mask.

IDEAS Disability information service wrote in a blog on July 23: In some situations, wearing a cloth face covering may exacerbate a physical or mental health condition, lead to a medical emergency, or introduce significant safety concerns.

Australian Federation of Disability Organisations (AFDO) posted on Twitter reminding Melboourians not to be quick to judge as not all disabilities are apparent:

Melbourne please remember not everyone can wear a mask safelythis includes some people with a disability. The law says this is okay. Choose understanding, not judgement.



https://www.ideas.org.au/blogs/special-conditions-for-not-wearing-a-face-mask.html

Police Balance Enforcement

Victorian Police have also said they will exercise discretion in their enforcement in the initial days of the compulsory mask order that started on July 23.

Secretary of The Police Association Victoria (TPAV), Wayne Gatt, has said in an interview with ABC Melbourne on July 19, authorities will need to balance between education and helping people understand, helping people adjust to the change.

At the same time, Gatt said they would have to find ways to deter people who show utter disregard of the health risks that come with flouting the restrictions.

Over the last four months, since restrictions have come in, Victoria Police have issued a very small number of infringements compared to the hundreds of thousands of people theyve warned.

Related Coverage New Mandatory Face Mask or $200 Fine Rule in Victoria

No Entry to Supermarkets Without Masks

A number of the big brands have updated their policy settings to align with the Victorian governments mandatory mask-wearing order, and will not allow entry to their stores without masks.

You need to wear a mask if youre going to the supermarket, and you may well be turned away if you turn up at Coles or Woollies (Woolworths) or IGA, if you dont have a mask on, Andrews said.

Andrews said Victorians could face restrictions until Christmas if the spread of the CCP virus is not suppressed.
Even as the market committee here has been releasing the rate list on a daily basis, vegetable vendors continue to charge a higher price than the approved rates of fruits and vegetables.

Taking note of this, Chandigarh Residents Association Welfare Federation (CRAWFED) has written to the UT administration asking to penalise those found guilty of overcharging. CRAWFED chairman Hitesh Puri said, Even though the market committee is releasing the list on a daily basis, vendors were selling items at a much higher price as compared with the capped price. Around two to three vendors per sector were designated by the municipal corporation (MC) who said that they provide a better quality of vegetables and thats why they overcharge. He said that he has to pay about 10 extra as per the pre-approved rates.

General secretary of Sector 19C resident welfare association (RWA) Yashpal Kapoor said, Vendors are fleecing residents of our area. They are selling items two times more than the price fixed by the UT market committee. Some vendors said that they are overcharging as earlier CTU buses would transport vegetables and now they have to do it spending money from their pocket.

For example, some vendors were selling tomato for 60 per kg. The wholesale price for tomato is 32-36 per kg, while the fixed price is 50 per kg. Cauliflower was being sold at 55 per kg by vendors, against its fixed price of 40 per kg.

Speaking about wholesale prices, Rashwinder Singh who works as the auction recorder at the wholesale market said that wholesale prices had gone down, and spells of rain in Punjab had left prices unaffected. These days a lot of our vegetables including potatoes, tomatoes, cauliflower, etc are coming from Himachal Pradesh. The supply chain has improved after the lockdown so prices are on the lower side.

Officials of the market committee said that while prices are fixed, ensuring that vendors follow the rate list was the MCs duty and demanded the civic body inspectors to challan those who overcharge customers.

Vendors flouting Covid norms

Many residents are also claiming that vegetable vendors are flouting social distancing rules, and not wearing masks properly even as Covid-19 cases in the city has touched 800-mark. Federation of Sector Welfare Associations Chandigarh (FOSWAC) secretary Ranvinder Singh Gill said, In the northern sectors there are only a few houses yet so many vegetable vendors pass through our house. They can be seen without masks. The police need to take action against such vendors.

Deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Charanjit Singh Virk said that although the police werent targeting anyone specifically, people seen without masks including vegetable vendors were being challaned in a drive undertaken by the police.

Rates at which vegetables were sold on Thursday

Tomato- wholesale price- 32-36 per kg, Market committee price- 50 per kg, vendor price 60 per kg

Cauliflower- wholesale price- 10-25 per kg, Market committee price- 40 per kg, vendor price 55 per kg

Capsicum- wholesale price- 15-25 per kg, Market committee price- 40 per kg, vendor price 60 per kg

Green chilies- wholesale price-8-9 per kg, Market committee price- 30 per kg, vendor price 40 per kg
Tens of thousands of so-called 'golden visas' have been granted to wealthy foreign investors, including more than 6,000 to Chinese and Russians, since the 'backdoor' scheme was launched 12 years ago.

Those eligible for the government's tier one investor visa, which launched in 2008, must have at least 2million in investment funds and a UK bank account.

With that the can work or study in the UK for up to five years, while also being eligible to apply to settle in the country after making further investments.

there are concerns that the 'golden visa' scheme can be exploited, because not enough background checks are made on applicants.

The figures come just days after the intelligence and security committee (ISC) published its long-delayed Russia report which warned the UK is at risk of being exploited by Moscow because of the cosy relationship with its oligarchs.

The report read: 'In brief, Russian influence in the UK is 'the new normal', and there are a lot of Russians with very close links to Putin who are well integrated into the UK business and social scene, and accepted because of their wealth. This level of integration  in 'Londongrad' in particular  means any measures now being taken by the Government are not preventative but rather constitute damage limitation.'

Former Labour minister Chris Bryant has accused the government of 'giving out golden visas to dodgy Russian oligarchs,' adding the system can be used as a 'backdoor loophole' to funnel dirty money into the UK.

Former Labour minister Chris Bryant said the system offers a 'backdoor loophole' to funnel dirty money into the UK

Today it was revealed 14 Conservative ministers, including six in the Cabinet, have accepted tens of thousands of pounds in donations from Russian oligarchs. All of the donations are legal under electoral rules and have been properly declared.

But there are concerns that the 'golden visa' scheme can be exploited, because not enough background checks are made on applicants.

Between July 2008 and March 2020 there were 12,175 tier one investor visas granted, according to analysis of Home Office figures.

Of these, 3,966 were granted to Chinese applicants and 2,477 handed to Russians.

From January 2019 to March 2020 the Government granted 1,035 of the visas, of which 436 were handed to Chinese or Russian applicants.

Mr Bryant, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said he was 'genuinely shocked' by the figures as he had expected them to have dropped 'substantially' in light of Government commitments to address concerns.

He told PA: 'You can just buy a house, you don't actually have to invest.

'It seems like an extraordinary way to do business.

'Clearly this loophole was being used for years as a backdoor way in to the UK for dodgy Russian money.

'There should be a full review of the system and I think that should be published.

The ISC's long-awaited Russia report read earlier this week: 'There are a lot of Russians with very close links to (Vladimir) Putin (above) who are well integrated into the UK business and social scene, and accepted because of their wealth

What's a tier one investor visa? Anyone with 2million in funds not tied up in securities or shares can apply to be granted entry for a period of up to three years and four months. Successful applicants can then apply for permanent residence should they invest a certain amount in the UK. According to workpermit.com, which provides international assistance to people seeking visas: 'Those who invest 5,000,000 or more can apply to settle after 3 years, while those who invest 10,000,000 or more may apply after 2 years. 'Investors on this visa cannot invest in any company whose main business activities involve managing, developing, or investing in property.' Advertisement

'It should show how many (golden visas) were granted over the last 10 years which they now think were inappropriate.'

In 2018 a report published by the Foreign Affairs Committee, which at that time included the now Home Secretary Priti Patel as a member, accused ministers of risking national security by 'turning a blind eye' to the Russian 'dirty money' flowing through the City of London.

Concerns over the practice of issuing golden visas were raised during this inquiry which found that despite the outcry over the Salisbury Novichok nerve agent attack, President Vladimir Putin and his allies were continuing to use the City as a base for their 'corrupt assets'.

It demanded the Government show stronger political leadership and take action to close loopholes in the regime.

Then foreign secretary Boris Johnson appeared to suggest 'there was no real role for Government in this process', according to the report.

Tom Keatinge, of Royal United Services Institute's Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies, was among those to raise concerns about investor visas when he gave evidence to the committee two years ago.

He told PA on Thursday: 'The bottom line is that it remains the case that the UK appears to easily welcome into the country money from anybody.

'The investor visas act as a cloak of approval in facilitating that money.

'There clearly needs to be a much more rigorous process.'

Anti-corruption group Global Witness accused the UK of turning away those most in need of asylum but rolling out the red carpet for oligarchs.

Ava Lee, who leads the group's threat to democracy campaign, said: 'Despite a long-promised review of the unknown individuals granted golden visas, when almost no checks were being done on the source of their wealth, we have yet to see any progress at all.'

A Home Office spokeswoman said: 'The Government will not tolerate any foreign interference in the running of our sovereign State and has taken action at every level to defend the UK, including from illicit finance.

'We reformed the tier one visa route to better protect the country from illegally-obtained money in 2015 and 2019 and have not ruled out making further changes in the national interest.

'We are also reviewing all tier one investor visas granted before these reforms were made and will report on our findings in due course.'
Former Liberal MP and minister of justice Irwin Cotler, one of the Canadian co-chairs of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. IPAC was established in June to unite international efforts against the global challenges posed by the Chinese communist regime. (Gerry Smith/NTD Television)

Justice for Falun Gong Should be a Priority, Says Former Justice Minister

Seeking justice for adherents of the Falun Gong spiritual practice should be a priority for the international human rights movement for parliamentarians, says a Canadian member of Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC).

Irwin Cotler, one of the Canadian co-chairs of IPAC, made the comments during his speech at an online solidarity rally commemorating the 21st anniversary of the ongoing persecution campaign against Falun Gong, launched by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on July 20, 1999.

We have to make justice for the Falun Gong and accountability for their human rights violators a priority as a matter of principle and policy for the international human rights movement for parliamentarians, said Cotler, a former justice minister who is currently chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.

Cotler said he is delighted that IPAC has already made this a priority, issuing a statement on July 20 condemning the persecution of Falun Gong and calling for justice and accountability.

IPAC was established in June to unite international efforts against the global challenges posed by the Chinese communist regime. It comprises senior legislators from about 20 countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the European Parliament.

Over the past two decades the campaign against Falun Gong practitioners has resulted in the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of its followers, where they have been subjected to some of the most severe forms of torture, said the IPAC statement.

IPAC noted that it is particularly troubled by reports of the targeting of Falun Gong prisoners for their human organs.

Evidence of forced organ harvesting in China emerged 15 years ago and an independent and rigorous legal projectthe China Tribunallast year found beyond reasonable doubt that this practice had been perpetrated on a widespread, state-sponsored, and systematic level, reads the statement.

We remind the world of the depravities they continue to suffer, and urge the world to stand up and speak out for an end to such repression, an end to impunity, and for justice, accountability, human rights, and human dignity for all the peoples of China.

Falun Gong was introduced to the public in 1992 and spread rapidly, growing to between 70 and 100 million adherents by 1999. In July of that year, former CCP leader Jiang Zemin launched an illegal campaign to persecute adherents due to the practices popularity and the fact that wasnt under the control of the regime.

Cotler explained during an interview that while the Falun Gong was doing nothing other than affirming ancient Chinese Buddhist values of truth and compassion and tolerance, the CCP was basically criminalizing them for affirming these values and launched this eradication campaign.

That eradication campaign included mass detentions, imprisonment, torture in detention, extrajudicial executions, and forced harvestingillegal pillaging of organs of Falun Gong practitioners, he said.

Sir Geoffrey Nice, who headed the China Tribunal held in London, England, concluded on June 17, 2019, that forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale and that Falun Gong practitioners have been oneand probably the mainsource of organ supply.

Sir Geoffrey Nice  said that the acts here in regard to the forced organ pillaging and the executions involved could itself constitute acts of genocide, Cotler said.

So were talking about crimes against humanity that have been going on now for 21 years.
Syracuse, N.Y.  A Syracuse woman, accused of intentionally killing her boyfriend by running over him with a van in December 2018, could be spared prison if found to have suffered trauma from domestic violence.

Ajja McClains lawyers say she qualifies for a reduced sentence under the states Domestic Violence Survivor Justice Act. Its aimed at victims of abuse who are so traumatized by domestic abuse that they end up committing other crimes.

In this case, McClain alleges that her boyfriend, Michael Garrett, 48, caused some abuse, but that his actions triggered her post-traumatic stress disorder from a lifetime of prior abuse. If a doctor believes her, that could grant her protection under the survivors act.

Right now, McClain faces up to 25 years to life in prison, if convicted of murder. If she qualifies as a domestic violence survivor, a murder sentence would be capped at 15 years.

But McClains lawyers are pushing for a plea to manslaughter, which is a lesser crime than murder, punishable normally by up to 25 years in prison. If a domestic survivor, McClains punishment would be no more than five years.

Under the domestic violence law, McClain could also face as little as probation or a short jail sentence for manslaughter. Because shes been jailed now for more than a year, theres a chance she could be spared state prison all together.

Lots of numbers and scenarios were bounced around Wednesday during a virtual court appearance held over Skype with County Court Judge Matthew Doran.

Prosecutor Jarrett Woodfork said he was willing to consider a manslaughter plea, but suggested that hed want some control over McClains sentence, whether she was considered a survivor or not.

Her status as a survivor would be determined by the judge after hearing from doctors.

Defense lawyers Ed Klein and Kerry Buske say theyre willing to go to trial on the murder charge if no agreement can be worked out. They say theres enough in question about what happened in Garretts death to challenge the murder charge before a jury.

Garrett did not die right away. In fact, McClain was originally charged with non-life-threatening assault for driving over his legs with a van on Latimer Terrace, a residential street just south of downtown.

But Garretts condition worsened due to complications from his injuries, and he died at a hospital a month later. McClain was then arrested on a manslaughter charge  not intending to cause death  and later indicted on a murder charge  intending to cause death.

McClain is accused of driving the van into Garrett, until it had driven over the lower half of his body, according to the indictment. She then backed up and drove over him again, the indictment stated.

The defendant, in an attempt to hit the victim again, put the car back in drive, and advanced toward the victim again while he was lying on the ground, but stopped when his sister jumped in front of the vehicle, the indictment read.

McClain was jailed for more than a year on the murder charge before being released recently during the Covid-19 pandemic. For now, negotiations continue on her case. There are no jury trials due to the pandemic, so its unclear when she might get her day in court if no plea can be reached.

Staff writer Douglass Dowty can be reached at ddowty@syracuse.com or 315-470-6070.
THE rate of the spread of coronavirus in Ireland has fallen in recent days, the Dail has been told.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said it is "positive news" after recent weeks where the number of cases of Covid-19 has been rising.

Mr Donnelly said the Reproduction Number (R-Number) now stands at between one and 1.4.

It was between 1.2 and 1.8 last week.

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The last four weeks have seen rises in the number of people falling ill, from 61 per week, to 93, to 124 and then 143 cases last week.

Mr Donnelly said: "At the same time the average close contacts is still quite high at more than five."

But Mr Donnelly said the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) met today and their view is that "in the last ten days things have stabilised which is very welcome."

He said: "The number of tests done the last seven days is 51,000 and we have a very low positivity rate of 0.3, which suggests that the prevalence of the virus in the population is low."

"The five-day average of new cases is 18 cases per day and the reproduction number has now fallen.

"Its somewhere between one and 1.4

"So just some positive news that I know the House will be interested in."
COLUMBUS, Ohio  A top aide in Ohio Gov. Mike DeWines office previously led a political non-profit federal agents have called a pass-through used by FirstEnergy to fund a bribery scheme that led to House Speaker Larry Householders arrest this week, tax records show.

Dan McCarthy in 2017 was listed as the principal of Partners for Progress Inc., a 501C(4) entity when it was founded in February of that year, federal tax records show. The organization matches the description of an organization referred to in federal charges unsealed this week as Energy Pass Through, which was funded by a $5 million transfer from FirstEnergy.

McCarthy when he led Partners for Progress was a top lobbyist for the Success Group, an influential Columbus lobbying firm that helped push for the nuclear bailout. McCarthy resigned his position with the firm to take a job as DeWines director of legislative affairs when DeWine became governor in January 2019.

After receiving the $5 million from FirstEnergy in 2017, Partners for Progress over the next several months sent $1.2 million of that money to organizations working to elect Householder as speaker, including Generation Now, an organization federal investigators have said Householder controlled. The group later spent millions funding ads and taking other steps to pass House Bill 6, the nuclear bailout bill that DeWine signed into law last year.

The complaint doesnt accuse McCarthy of wrongdoing, and David DeVillers, U.S. attorney for the southern district of Ohio, has said no one in DeWines administration has been implicated in the investigation.

But McCarthys involvement with the group shows a top staff member in DeWines office was aware of FirstEnergys direct role in funding Householders run for speaker and the subsequent pro-HB6 campaign. Prosecutors have called FirstEnergys financial support for Householders to become speaker in exchange for the passage of the bailout bill a corrupt bargain.

Asked about House Bill 6 on Wednesday, DeWine said he had seen the ads promoting House Bill 6, and said most around Capitol Square probably assumed a supporter of the industry, possibility the utility company itself, was involved.

Partners for Progress and Generation Now are 501C4s, sometimes referred to as dark money groups, which dont have to disclose their donors.

We all knew ads were being run, I saw what other Ohioans saw... but didnt know the backstory, DeWine said.

In a statement Thursday, McCarthy said he was shocked to learn of the allegations against Householder this week, and said he has not been contacted by federal investigators. He also said he personally supported Ryan Smith, a then-state representative who in 2018 was Householders rival to become Speaker.

I was asked to be president of the board of Partners for Progress, a 501(c)(4) organization, but resigned in late 2018 to resume a career in public service, McCarthy said. I have not had any contact with it since.

I was not aware of anything illegal or unethical regarding the operations of Partners for Progress, and all transactions were to the best of my knowledge above board and approved by the 501(c)(4)s treasurer, who is also an attorney and was counsel for the organization, McCarthy said.

The non-profits treasurer is Michael Vanburen, a partner for Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP, a prominent law firm that has done legal work for FirstEnergy in the past. He did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

DeWine wasnt previously aware of Partners for Progress or McCarthys role with it, DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney said Thursday.

Tierney said of the overall federal investigation: This is an issue involving Larry Householder and the Ohio House of Representatives, and is not an executive branch issue.

DeWine, at his Thursday coronavirus briefing, said he has confidence in McCarthy and believes he has done nothing wrong. Asked about the role of so-called dark money, DeWine said he supports more transparency in politics.

McCarthys past work for Partners for Progress was first reported Thursday by the Cincinnati Enquirer.

FirstEnergys support for Householder came in exchange for Householders agreement to pass House Bill 6, federal charging documents allege, which bailed out two financially troubled power plants owned by a FirstEnergy subsidiary. No one with the company has been accused of wrongdoing, and FirstEnergy has said it is cooperating with the investigation.

Householder, an aide and three lobbyists were arrested this week as part of DeVillers called a $60 million bribery scheme.

The money was used on expenditures related to passing House Bill 6, including political contributions to state legislative candidates Householder recruited to support his bid for speaker, ads that pressured lawmakers to pass the bill, and then a costly campaign to thwart a repeal effort.

In the aftermath of Householders arrest, there have been growing calls to repeal House Bill 6, and a bipartisan group of state legislators have announced a push to do so.

DeWine said Wednesday he still supports the bill, despite the allegations of its corrupt origins. He said without the bill, two Ohio nuclear plants previously owned by FirstEnergy would close, leading to a loss of jobs and a form of carbon-free electricity. But on Thursday, he reversed himself and called for a repeal and replacement, saying the process was tainted.

HB6 will provide $1 billion to the nuclear plants and is funded by surcharges on Ohioans electricity bills.

As a 501C4, Partners for Progress is considered by the IRS to be a social welfare organization. In a 2017 tax filing, the group says its mission is to engage in advocacy in support of nuclear power and the power generation industry in general. In its 2018 tax filing, it reported sending $900,000 to Generation Now, and $300,000 to the Growth and Opportunity PAC, another pro-Householder group.

Cleveland.com reporter Jeremy Pelzer contributed to this story.

Read more coverage:

Who is Team Householder, the candidates Larry Householder recruited to help him become Ohio House Speaker?

Is Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine really standing up for a corrupt billion-dollar-plus nuclear bailout? This Week in the CLE

Gov. Mike DeWine stands by billion-dollar nuclear bailout authorities say was forged in corruption

Gov. Mike DeWine urges Ohio House to quickly start search for new speaker

Gov. Mike DeWine calls for repeal of House Bill 6, reversing his position from the day before
The Inventia Skin team leading the skin regeneration revolution. When we started Inventia Life Science, our vision was to create a technology platform with the potential to bring enormous benefit to human health. We are pleased to see how fast that vision is progressing alongside our fantastic collaborators - Dr Julio Ribeiro, CEO of Inventia Skin

A team including fast-growing Sydney start-up Inventia Life Science, world renowned skin surgeon and former Australian of the Year, Professor Fiona Wood, and leading bioprinting researcher, Professor Gordon Wallace, have received two major investments from the Australian Government to accelerate the development of a robotic device that prints a patients own skin cells directly onto a burn or wound.

The device, codenamed Ligo from the Latin to bind, could revolutionise the way we approach wound repair, and place Australia at the forefront of the burgeoning regenerative medicine industry.

Federal Health Minister Hon. Greg Hunt announced that the Governments BioMedTech Horizons program, operated by MTPConnect, will inject funding to take the device into first-in-human clinical trials within two years. Separately, the team also received funding from the Medical Research Future Fund Stem Cell Therapies Mission to collaborate with stem cell expert Professor Pritinder Kaur from Curtin University, to use the Ligo device to deliver stem cell based products that could improve skin regeneration.

The skin, our bodys largest organ, is the first point of injury in accidents and some diseases. Damage it significantly and it will slowly heal and most likely leave a scar. However, throughout this process it will be open to infection while it tries to regenerate - a major problem in the bodys first protective barrier.

Inventia Skins Ligo robot prints tiny droplets containing the patients skin cells and biomaterials to speed up the regenerative process and create a new layer of skin where it has been damaged. The device uses patented technology developed in Australia by parent company Inventia Life Science and featured in its RASTRUM platform for lab-based medical research and drug discovery. In taking this core technology into the clinic in the Ligo robot, Inventia Skin is breaking new ground with some of Australia's leaders in skin regeneration.

When we started Inventia Life Science, our vision was to create a technology platform with the potential to bring enormous benefit to human health. We are pleased to see how fast that vision is progressing alongside our fantastic collaborators. This Federal Government support will definitely help us accelerate even faster, says Dr. Julio Ribeiro, CEO and co-founder of Inventia.

The technology within Ligo enables the rapid and precise delivery of multiple cell types and advanced biomaterials to a wound, providing the potential to recreate functional and aesthetically normal skin. This can be achieved in a single procedure, reducing treatment cost and hospital stays, and minimising the risk of infection.

For one of its partners - Professor Fiona Wood, Director of Western Australias Burns Service - it's not the first time that she has looked towards bioengineering to help her patients. Professor Wood pioneered the now clinically approved spray-on skin technique to treat skin burns based on research beginning in 1993, and came to notice in 2002 at the time of the Bali Bombings. Combined with the expertise of Professor Gordon Wallace at the University of Wollongong, one of Australias most eminent researchers in bioprinting and biomaterials, Inventia Skin has a very bright future ahead.

The combination of these grants is an excellent example of the way the Medical Research Future Fund is being applied across the continuum of translational research to commercialisation, leading to better patient outcomes, says Professor Fiona Wood.

Learn more:

Further information on the BioMedTech Horizons Program is available here: https://www.health.gov.au/ministers/the-hon-greg-hunt-mp/media/188-million-to-supercharge-digital-health-technologies

Contact Inventia Skin at info@inventiaskin.com

Twitter or LinkedIn @InventiaSkin

Australia: 1800 849 128

USA: +1 833 462 5959

Ireland: +353 818 370 035
In addition to murder charges relating to the killing of George Floyd, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is now facing felony tax charges. Chauvin and his estranged wife were each charged with nine counts of aiding and abetting false or fraudulent tax returns and failing to file returns. According to the complaint, the Chauvins did not report $460,000 in income dating back to 2014, including income the former officer derived from off-duty security work. His wife, who filed for divorce on June 1, a week after George Floyd was killed, worked as a photographer and realtor at the time.

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The 45-year-old Chauvin is currently in jail awaiting trial on second-degree murder and manslaughter charges. The county prosecutor said the tax investigation and charges were unrelated to George Floyds death and was in the works well before. From the Minnesota Star Tribune:

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The complaints said that between 2014 and 2019, Derek Chauvin made between $52,000 and $72,000 annually as a police officer. He also worked off-duty security nearly every weekend in that time at El Nuevo Rodeo dance club, Cub Foods, Midtown Global Market and EME Antro Bar on E. Lake Street. During that span, Chauvin failed to pay taxes on nearly $96,000 he earned from El Nuevo Rodeo alone, investigators estimated. Beginning in June 2019, he routinely worked off-duty at EME Antro Bar on weekends from 11 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. after his MPD shift and was paid $250 in cash each night, said investigators, who located no corresponding tax papers. The filing includes a litany of allegations. Among them, prosecutors say the Chauvins bought a new BMW X5 in January 2018 for $100,230 from a Minnetonka dealership and registered the SUV in Floridathey own a condo in Windermere, outside Orlandoand paid $4,664 in taxes in that state. However, the vehicle was serviced 11 times in Minnetonka and never in Florida, investigators say they found. Kellie Chauvin told investigators they opted for Florida because it was less expensive. The taxes due on the SUV had it been registered in Minnesota were $5,053.

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The Chauvins owed $21,853 in taxes on the unreported income from 2014 to 2019, according to the charges, which with interest and late filing and fraud penalties now comes to $37,868. According to CNN, each count the Chauvins face carries a maximum five-year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
But Ms. ODonnells case takes a unique tack by focusing on government bonds and the investment environment, said Jacqueline Peel, a law professor at University of Melbourne.

My personal experience with climate change makes everything I read about climate change more tangible, Ms. ODonnell, a fifth-year law student at La Trobe University in Melbourne, said in a recent interview. I want my government acting with honesty and telling the truth about climate risks.

Simply put: Any risks to the countrys economic growth, value of its currency or international relations, to name a few factors, might change the value of her investment, her suit states.

Ms. ODonnell, backed by a team including two prominent lawyers, is not asking for damages, but wants the government to step up on its climate change policies. The suit seeks an injunction stopping the government from further marketing bonds until they add those disclosures.

Image Katta ODonnell, who is leading a class-action lawsuit against the Australian government. Credit... Molly Townsend

The claim asks for disclosure of risks  it doesnt tell the government what to do or how to act, said David Barnden, one of three lawyers representing Ms. ODonnell. All took her case free, they said.
NEW YORK, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The growth of the V2X cybersecurity market can be attributed to the increasing trend of connected and autonomous vehicles equipped with V2X technologies and growing cyber threats in the automotive industry.



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05934689/?utm_source=PRN



The global V2X cybersecurity market size is projected to reach USD 3,065 million by 2025, from an estimated USD 935 million in 2020, at a CAGR of 26.8%. The advent of V2X technology will have a significant impact on connected and autonomous vehicle technologies, which, in turn, will drive the V2X cybersecurity market.



The focus of automobile manufacturers has shifted from fuel efficiency, performance, driver safety, and stability of the vehicle to additional features such as vehicle connectivity, electrification of functions, and digitalization.This change in focus has created a massive opportunity for non-automotive industry players such as Intel, Qualcomm, and Nvidia, to name a few.



Also, from the demand side, consumers are more inclined toward connected features such as navigation systems, live traffic updates, and easy access to emails via the internet in their vehicles.The growing attraction of connected cars is compelling automotive companies to develop skills in web technology, chip design, and embedded systems, starting with smartphone integration.



However, with the technological evolution of V2X communications, secure data processing has become a significant challenge. Thus, cybersecurity has gained a significant focus in the V2X communication system of vehicles.



The increasing cloud-based applications would drive the V2C segment in the forecast.



The V2C segment is projected to be the largest market during the forecast period.The fact that cloud stores all the personal/private data such as driver information, driving details, location, and vehicle details, securing V2C communications is one of the highest priorities for cybersecurity companies.



V2C is a technology where all the necessary information from vehicles is stored on the cloud in real-time as well as various cloud services are provided in the vehicle.V2C offers features such as weather updates, firmware & software updates (FOTA and SOTA), and multimedia services over the cloud (internet) inside a vehicle.



These features allow vehicle users and passengers to stay connected with the outside environment.However, such features and applications need a constant update for proper functioning.



Thus, it is the top priority for security solution providers to make cloud technology secure. To avoid any malware, security updates are provided with the help of cloud-based services. These frequent updates reduce the risks associated with data loss, and at the same time, reduce the cost of data retrieval, which helps overcome many issues related to cybersecurity.



Asia Pacific is expected to be the largest and the fastest-growing market during the forecast period

The Asia Pacific region is projected to account for the largest share of the global V2X cybersecurity market during the forecast period.The region is home to renowned V2X cybersecurity companies such as Autotalks, AutoCrypt, and Argus Security.



China is expected to be the most influential factor in the Asia Pacific V2X cybersecurity market.China has been conducting various tests and trails on cellular connectivity for V2X, and the expected country-wide launch is by 2021.



The large market share of China can also be attributed to the high sales of the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, which is equipped with V2X, especially V2C and V2I.

Moreover, increasing adoption of electric vehicles will result in the increased demand for V2X technologies, which are quite suitable for electric vehicles.Apart from this, the increasing purchasing power of the population and growing concerns over the environment have triggered the demand for V2X in Asia Pacific.



Since South Korea and Japan are among the leaders in electronics, it would enable them to design V2X solutions with better performance at a lesser price. Thus, increasing V2X use in vehicles will result in high demand for cybersecurity solutions, thus, driving the Asia Pacific V2X cybersecurity market.



North America is expected to be the second-fastest market in the forecast period

The North American automotive industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors globally.The region, which is home to the big threeFord Motors, General Motors, and Fiat Chrysler Automobilesis known for passenger cars with advanced comfort and safety technologies.



It is expected that market growth in North America would be significant due to the rise in application areas based on connectivity.Thus, the demand for cybersecurity solutions for cars in this region will also increase.



The region is home to many renowned V2X cybersecurity solution providers such as OnBoard Security (Qualcomm), Green Hills Software, and Harman, which would further help the market grow.



In-depth interviews were conducted with CEOs, marketing directors, other innovation and technology directors, and executives from various key organizations operating in this market.

 By Company Type: Tier I - 40%, Tier II - 42%, and Tier III - 18%

 By Designation: C Level - 57%, D Level - 29%, and Others - 14%

 By Region: North America - 39%, Europe - 33%, and Asia Pacific - 28%



The V2X cybersecurity market comprises major companies such as ESCRYPT (Germany), OnBoard Security (US), Autotalks (Israel), AutoCrypt (Korea), and Continental (Germany).



Research Coverage:

The market study covers the V2X cybersecurity market size and future growth potential across different segments such as by unit type, connectivity, communication, security, vehicle type, form, and region. The study also includes an in-depth competitive analysis of the key players in the market, along with their company profiles, key observations related to product and business offerings, recent developments, and key market strategies.



Key Benefits of Buying the Report:

 The report will help market leaders/new entrants in this market with information on the closest approximations of revenue numbers for the overall V2X cybersecurity market and its subsegments.

 This report will help stakeholders understand the competitive landscape and gain more insights to better position their businesses and plan suitable go-to-market strategies.

 The report also helps stakeholders understand the pulse of the market and provides them information on key market drivers, restraints, challenges, and opportunities.



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05934689/?utm_source=PRN



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.





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In an email, School Board Chairman John Axselle said the board and the school division administration will work with the Board of Supervisors to resolve its concerns. He did not say whether that means the School Board will reconsider its vote.

The removal of the Lee-Davis and Stonewall Jackson names comes after years of community debate over the schools. The nickname of Lee-Davis was the Confederates, while the nickname for Stonewall Jackson was the Rebels. After a 5-2 decision by the School Board in 2018 to keep the name, the Hanover NAACP filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Lee-Davis and Stonewall Jackson names violate the constitutional rights of African American students.

While the dismissal of the lawsuit in May was a blow to activists, the eruption of racial justice protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis later that month cast attention on racial disparities in policing, education, housing and virtually all aspects of public life.

In Richmond and elsewhere in Virginia, the movement led local and state officials to take down Confederate monuments and memorials.
The European Union has shown solidarity with Ukraine in the face of the coronavirus pandemic and will continue to support its reform efforts, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis has said.

He said this in a statement on Thursday after the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Ukraine on EUR 1.2 billion worth of macro-financial assistance to the country, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"Ukraine is high on Europe's agenda and we continue to provide political, financial and technical assistance, especially during this time of crisis, we support Ukraine's reform agenda to build a more resilient economy. The EU has shown solidarity with Ukraine also in the face of the pandemic and last month it agreed to a support package of EUR 190 million. I know this support is already reaching Ukrainian families, medics, small businesses and civil society organizations, helping them to face the crisis," Dombrovskis said.

According to him, the EU knows that Ukraine is one of the countries in the EU's neighborhood which is hit very hard by the pandemic.

"As part of our objective to help our neighborhood cope with the fallout of the pandemic, we will provide Ukraine with emergency macro-financial assistance of EUR 1.2 billion - it's far more than we provide to any other partner. This also shows our continued support to Ukraine's reform agenda. We are pleased to have concluded the negotiations on the Memorandum of Understanding for the new program. We will continue our strong engagement to support the reform orientation and strategic path that Ukraine has chosen," Dombrovskis said.

According to him, the agreed structural policy measures focus on four key areas  public finance management, governance and rule of law, improving the business climate, and state-owned enterprises and the gas market. They reinforce past achievements and send a strong commitment signal to international investors.

Dombrovskis said that the EU wanted "to ensure a clear commitment of Ukraine to central bank independence, including independent bank supervision."

"This is an essential precondition for financial stability and it's also important for building up confidence and trust and for maintaining good cooperation between Ukraine and its international partners. And I would say the signals I received during today's meeting were reassuring," he said.

He added that the sides had also discussed the upcoming EU-Ukraine Summit on October 1 in Brussels and the implementation of the Association Agreement.

op
Seventh grader Lizeth Villanueva has been in her school's academic honors program for two years. She gets good grades and has never been a discipline problem. Yet on Tuesday, her teacher gave her a "most likely to become a terrorist" award.

It was supposed to be a joke, part of a mock end-of-the-year awards ceremony at Anthony Aguirre Junior High in Channelview, Texas, near Houston, where a group of teachers hand certificates to students. Lizeth, 13, said her teacher "just laughed" when she signed and handed her the certificate, just one day after the Manchester arena terrorist attack in Britain.

But Lizeth's mother Ena Hernandez didn't find the award funny at all.

"I was upset and very mad when I saw the award," Hernandez told The Washington Post. "I was surprised because my daughter has been doing well in the honors program."

Lizeth, who is Salvadoran American, wasn't laughing either. Her emotion was one of shock, she said.

She said two honors classes were brought together for the fake ceremony. Other awards included "most likely to cry for every little thing" that was given to a girl and "most likely to become homeless" that was presented to a boy.

The three other teachers in the room laughed when the awards were handed out, according to Lizeth.

Channelview Independent School District spokesman Mark Kramer told KPRC the awards were a "poor attempt to poke fun and it "wasn't well thought out."

Ena Hernandez said the principal Eric Lathan personally apologized during a meeting at the school.

In a statement the school district said:

"The Channelview ISD Administration would like to apologize for the insensitive and offensive fake mock awards that were given to students in a classroom. Channelview ISD would like to assure all students, parents and community members that these award statements and ideals are not representative of the district's vision, mission and educational goals for our students.

"The teachers involved in this matter have been disciplined according to district policy and the incident is still under investigation."

Hernandez says she wants them fired or else "they will continue doing the same thing."

Lizeth hasn't been back to school because she "feels uncomfortable."
The U.S. Justice Department's internal watchdog on Thursday launched probes into the use of force by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, and Washington during recent protests against police violence.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz said his office will launch an investigation into allegations that federal agents used excessive force against peaceful protesters in Portland and a separate review into actions taken against protesters both in Portland, as well as in Lafayette Square near the White House on June 1.

The review will look specifically at whether officers involved had proper identification, and if they complied with federal policies on using force in law enforcement, Horowitz said in a statement.

Use of force questions: The conduct of Department of Homeland Security agents in Portland, including the beating of Navy veteran Christopher David, will be reviewed by the DOJ and Department of Homeland Security inspectors general

Focus of probe: Attorney General Bill Barr's involvement in the clearing out of peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square to allow Donald Trump to brandish a Bible in front of St. John's Church will be part of the review

Infamous moment: Police in riot gear, some of them mounted, used baton rounds and tear gas to remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square to make way for Donald Trump

Procession: Donald Trump walked to St. John's Church with (left) AG Bill Barr, who was involved in the planning of the clear-out, and (far right) General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who later apologized for being there and wearing combat uniforms.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security, has come under fire after videos surfaced online that appeared to show camouflaged officers in Portland carrying guns without clear insignia on their uniforms identifying them as legitimate law enforcement officers.

That came a month after police on horseback and armed soldiers used tear gas and rubber bullets to push protesters back before Trump walked from the White House across Lafayette Square to St. John's Episcopal Church, where he held up a Bible for a photo.

In Washington, investigators will look at the training and instruction provided to the federal agents who responded to protest activity at Lafayette Square.

Among the questions being studied are whether the agents followed Justice Department guidelines, including on identification requirements and in the deployment of chemical agents and use of force.

The investigation was announced amid ongoing chaos in Portland, where Mayor Ted Wheeler was tear-gassed by federal agents as he stood outside the courthouse there.

Local authorities in both cities have complained that the presence of federal agents have exacerbated tensions on the streets, while residents have accused the government of violating their constitutional rights.

Civil unrest escalated in Portland after federal agents were accused of whisking people away in unmarked cars without probable cause.

And in Washington, peaceful protesters were violently cleared from the streets by federal officers using tear gas.

The decision to dispatch federal agents to American cities is playing out at a hyperpoliticized moment when Trump is grasping for a new reelection strategy after the coronavirus upended the economy, dismantling what his campaign had seen as his ticket to a second term.

Gassed: Portland, Oregon, mayor Ted Wheeler was teargassed Wednesday night from rounds fired by federal officers while he was attending a protest against police brutality and racial injustice in front of the Mark O. Hatfield US Courthouse

A federal officer points a less-lethal weapon toward a crowd of a few hundred protesters in front of the Mark O. Hatfield US Courthouse early Thursday morning

During his appearance, Wheeler promised that he would continue to try to get federal agents out of Portland. 'I am doing everything in my power to get them to leave,' he told protesters

Trump has seized on a moment of spiking violence in some cities, claiming it will only rise if his Democratic rival Joe Biden is elected in November and Democrats have a chance to make the police reforms they have endorsed after the killing of George Floyd and nationwide protests demanding racial justice.

The federal response is likely to be a major topic of discussion next week when Attorney General William Barr appears before the House Judiciary Committee for a hearing.

Trump has targeted Democratic-run cities, provoking criticism that he is using law enforcement resources for political ends.

In recent days, Democratic lawmakers sent a letter asking for an investigation amid concerns that Attorney General William Barr and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf were using federal agents to 'suppress First Amendment protected activities.'

The First Amendment to the Constitution protects the right to peacefully assemble.

Horowitz said he would be coordinating with the internal watchdog for the Department of Homeland Security in his investigation into excessive force in Portland, a probe which was requested by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon in addition to House Democrats.

The White House did not immediately comment on the announcement, and spokespersons for the Justice Department and U.S. Park Police, part of the Department of the Interior, could not be immediately reached.

A spokesman for the Federal Protective Service, part of DHS, declined to comment on a pending investigation.
A seeming defiance by two outlawed Communist Party of India (CPI)-(Maoist) cadres led to their death in the hands of their own party cadres at a village in Chhattisgarhs Dantewada district in Bastar region on Wednesday night.

The Maoists were killed after they purportedly refused to carry out an order to dig up a road that is linked to their native village.

Abhishek Pallava, Superintendent of Police (SP), Dantewada, said on Thursday that the Maoists also thrashed three other villagers, who tried to save the slain Naxals.

The incident took place at Potali village under Aranpur police station. The deceased have been identified as Bajrang Vetti and Tido Mandavi, who were a commander and a member of the CPI-Maoist, respectively, and belonged to Potali village, the SP said.

A meeting of Maoists was held in Potali village, where the villagers were hauled up for not digging up the road linking to the hamlet, the SP said.

Later, the rebels instructed Vetti and Mandavi to carry out the assigned task, which they refused, citing that it would cause inconvenience to the villagers. The defiance infuriated the Maoists, who killed their two colleagues with sharp weapons and also thrashed three other villagers, the SP added.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ritesh Mishra State Correspondent for Chhattisgarh. Reports Maoism, Politics, Mining and important developments from the state. Covered all sorts of extremism in Central India. Reported from Madhya Pradesh for eight years. ...view detail
On the 10-year anniversary of the signing of the Dodd-Frank Act, NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger penned an op-ed in Credit Union Times calling on policymakers to reduce the regulatory burdens credit unions face as a result of the legislation as well as the challenges they are confronting amid the coronavirus pandemic.

While it was important Congress acted quickly to reign in the egregious practices of the big banks, credit unions  which have been heralded for not contributing to the financial crisis  were caught in the crosshairs unnecessarily, wrote Berger. As a result, credit unions and their members have long paid the price of over-regulation.

Berger added that we have a new crisis that credit unions have been facing  how to help their members during the COVID-19 pandemic. This crisis has shown that we need deregulation now more than ever.

Outlining several legislative and regulatory policy requests, Berger called on policymakers to consider:
A MOYROSS man has received a lengthy prison sentence for his role in a sinister burglary, writes David Hurley.

The break-in occurred at a house at Delmege Park, Moyross in the early hours of September 3, 2019.

Limerick Circuit Court was told the occupant of the house  a young woman  was not at home at the time and that the incident was connected to a dispute between two families.

Detective Garda Dermot Cummins said the burglary occurred at around 12.45am  a number of hours after a car was deliberately reversed into the front of the house.

It was captured on CCTV and that Michael Healy, 30, of Cliona Park and another man were identified.

Judge Tom ODonnell was told the culprits can be seen entering the house and carrying out two televisions which they then placed in a car before leaving.

When the VW Passat was stopped by gardai at 1.40am, they observed the TVs in the rear seat. Mr Healy, who has 59 previous convictions, initially claimed he and "bought" the TVs but subsequently made admissions.

Imposing a five year prison sentence, the judge noted the occupant of the house has not returned since. It was sinister, deliberate and targeted," he commented.

The final 18 months of the sentence was suspended.
The US will work with countries like India, Japan, and South Korea to tackle the threat of Chinese surveillance, a top American Senator, who has made a Congressional legislation to make New Delhi a strategic defense partner of Washington on a permanent basis, has said.

Democratic Senator Mark Warner, Chairman of Senate Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in an interaction with members of the US India Security Council said China had emerged as a major problem for the US companies doing businesses in that country and intellectual theft was a big concern.

Warner, who is also co-chair of the Senate India Caucus, said he has sponsored an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) act to make India a strategic defense partner on a permanent basis. Expressing grave concerns over Chinese surveillance on every aspect of the organisations doing business with Beijing, Warner said the US will work with countries like India, Japan, and South Korea to tackle the threat from China.

Eminent Indian-American Ramesh Kapur, from the US India Security Council, said that in view of the present scenario, it would make better sense to shift all manufacturing back to America. He said in areas where there were issues of cost due to labour and other issues, it would make sense to shift the manufacturing to India for all US companies which are at present in China.

Bharat Barai, from Chicago, said that many medium and small-scale electronic companies in the US and India have suffered due to unfair trade practices of China. He also offered the Senator his services in arranging a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to a statement.

Koty Krishna said he did a lot of business with China earlier and was always worried about getting back his money and is glad that he has moved out of that country. Krishna Srinivasa said it was time for the US and India to forge a long-lasting defense partnership that will sustain for at least 40-50 years and requested the senator to pursue the defense partnership with his friends in the senate like Senator Robert Menendez and others.

Nar Koppula told Senator Warner that the Indian American Community has always helped him in his elections and will continue to do so and asked him to be favourable to a stronger US-India partnership.

Rajendar Dichpally expressed concerns over the Chinese aggression against India and warned that Beijing's attitude will not be limited to the South Asian and Pacific regions, asserting that it will expand its ambitions and will be a threat to US in the future due to its vast ambitions.

"All the members agreed that it is absolutely necessary to rein in China with partnerships with other friendly countries," said the statement issued by US India Security Council.

Also read: India received foreign investment of $20 billion amid pandemic: PM Modi at India-Idea's summit
Shes got a long recovery to go. I have raised that girl, and I helped raise her daughters, he told the Tribune. Its misfortunate that she was collateral damage because thats what shes being wrote off as. ... Her life will never be the same.
BRIDGEWATER, N.S.Police continued their search Wednesday on Nova Scotias South Shore for a fugitive accused of stabbing a police sergeant, assaulting a woman and injuring a police dog.

Tobias Charles Doucette, who is in his 30s, was charged with attempted murder after he allegedly struck an officer in the neck with an edged weapon when police responded to a domestic violence call Monday night at the Bridgewater Hotel. The suspect allegedly fled on foot.

An RCMP dog and handler located Doucette briefly Tuesday, but the suspect escaped, fleeing into the woods on foot off Highway 331 in Conquerall Bank, N.S. The dog was stabbed with a stick during the encounter, police say.

We are trying to get the word out any way we can that if people have information about where Tobias Doucette is, we need them to contact us, RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Jennifer Clarke said in an interview Wednesday. Its really important that we bring this to a peaceful resolution.

Clarke said police had received a number of tips on Doucettes whereabouts, but none had been substantiated as of Wednesday afternoon.

She said police had set up several checkpoints but only one remained in operation Wednesday afternoon on Highway 103 near Hubbards, N.S. Clarke said the RCMP was being assisted in the search by federal agencies. A military aircraft was also being used.

She wouldnt say whether Doucette was known to police but cautioned that members of the public should avoid contact if they encounter him. Doucette is described as six-foot-two, weighing 220 pounds and has brown hair and green eyes.

Whats taken place so far would lead a person to believe that they definitely should not approach him if they see him, and they should just call us right away, Clarke said.

Bridgewater police said the officer injured in Mondays incident  Sgt. Matthew Bennett  is a 13-year member with the police service. He underwent successful surgery Tuesday and is recovering in hospital.

The female victim, who is described as the suspects common-law partner, was treated for minor injuries.

Meanwhile, the condition of the injured police dog, Fergus, was described as stable.

On Twitter, the RCMP said the dog bravely protected his handler while in the line of duty. They said he is being closely monitored by a veterinarian and they are very hopeful he will recover.

The RCMPs critical incident command has taken over the search for Doucette.

Read more about:
Though not as hard-hit as Richmond and the larger suburban counties of Chesterfield and Henrico, some Hanover parents and teachers worry that reopening schools could be disastrous.

After getting organized at Henry Clay Elementary School early Wednesday morning, a fleet of protest cars drove to the county School Board office blasting their horns along the way. After several vehicles looped around the school building, keeping the noise level high for about 15 minutes, a school official came outside and asked the drivers to stop disrupting their work day.

Protect the teachers, and well leave you alone, said Julie Stubblefield, the mother of a county high school student who helped organize the protest.

Chris Whitley, the spokesman for the school division, said the protesters were not permitted onto school property Wednesday because there was no formal request to hold a demonstration there.

We respect the right of the people to peaceably assemble. The health, safety, and well-being of our students, teachers and staff remains a top priority in our planning, he said. We will continue to solicit and evaluate feedback from all stakeholders, as well as continuously review all official guidance that we receive.
Aftab Shivdasani worked as a child artist in films like Mr India, Chalbaaz among others before he made his debut as a leading hero with Urmila Matondar's Mast in 1999. The actor went on to star in films like Masti, Awara Paagal Deewana and Hungama, where the audience appreciated his comic timing. However, Aftab never chose to be a part of an camp in Bollywood.

While discussion on topics like nepotism, lobbying and favouristism continues to gain momentum on social media, Aftab Shivadasani shared his opinion on groupism in a recent interview.

In an interview with Times of India, the actor said he was never subjected to groupism as he was never close to anyone in the industry.

The tabloid quoted him as saying, "This groupism was called as campism in the early 2000's where people were saying this one belong to YRF, Bhatt or other camps. I was never subjected to this as I always worked with a wide spectrum of producers and I was friendly to all but never close. Therefore, whenever they had a role and they would call me then I would go and meet them."

Speaking about why he stayed away from camps in Bollywood, Aftab said, "I did 9 films with Vikram Bhatt, 5 or 6 films with RGV but I was never a part of their camps. It's basically how you conduct yourself and I have been friendly to all. Karan (Johar) is even a distant relative of mine but I have never been close to anyone. I've been civil, nice and friendly to everyone and therefore I don't have any enemies. So I have never conciously gone into a camp or a group which is why I have kept myself away on the peripheries of this groupism vs campism ideologies ."

Aftab also opened up about the kind of roles he had turned down at the peak of his career. He said, "I have rejected a lot of films and roles. It's like when they offer you a side role like a third or fourth lead then I wouldn't have become a lead actor. So that's what I have never comprised on but I have people who have offered me such roles as well. I feel I have the right to say no to something that I didn't want to do. So I have politely refused the offers as the ego plays an important aspect here. If I just reject it like that then that person will obviously think about me having a perception about being the lead actor."

Meanwhile, Aftab Shivdasani and his wife Nin Dusanj recently launched a production company called 'Mount Zen Media'.

ALSO READ: Aftab Shivdasani Recalls Meeting Late Sushant Singh Rajput In Gym & Discussing Spirituality!

ALSO READ: Ranvir Shorey On His Twitter Spat With Anurag Kashyap: It Was A Minor Misunderstanding
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A diabolically clever script by actor-turned-director Dave Franco and mumblecore pioneer Joe Swanberg, The Rental has a simple premise: Take two couples with volatile sexual dynamics, have them rent an AirBNB for a weekend on the rugged Oregon coast, mix in secret cameras and the presence of a peeping psycho, and spike the steadily-building suspense with psychological insights. Yes, this is well-covered territory  see the recent You Should Have Left, which didnt work at all. Yet Francos behind-the-cameras debut is sure to strike a chord for COVID-trapped audiences. Just make sure that when you watch it on VOD, the lights are low enough to make you feel alone in the dark.

The first-time director has help scaring folks silly, courtesy of the slithery camerawork from Christian Sprenger and a jangling score from Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans. But what elevates The Rental is the dynamite acting from the four leads. Dan Stevens is Charlie, the groups resident Mr. Cool who initiated the rental. Since his days as the romantic and doomed Matthew Crawley on Downton Abbey, Stevens has dodged the perils of type casting, going dark in The Guest and TVs Legion, and daffy in Netflixs Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. As the dick-ish host, Stevens shows how surface charm can curdle around the edges. You can feel his attraction to Mina, played by the electrifying Sheila Vand (A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night), as they celebrate the success of their tech start-up.

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There is a drawback. Mina is dating Charlies hothead, dropout, part-time Lyft driver brother Josh (Jeremy Allen White of Shameless) and Charlie is married to Michelle (Alison Brie); both are a little late picking up on the Charlie-Mina vibe. They have their creativity going on, Michelle naively tells Josh. The fact that theres more than that going on is not lost on the hidden cameras. (Dont read too much into the brother rivalry just because the filmmakers older sibling is actor-director James Franco.) And though Brie, best known for exemplary work on Mad Men, Community and G.L.O.W., married her director in 2017, there are no real-life parallels to compare with the scary, twisted fun and emotional obstacle courses that Franco prepares for them on screen.

Story continues

You can feel the tension from the moment the foursome arrives for their wild weekend of sex, drugs and digital recording. Josh has violated the no-pets rule by bringing along his French bulldog Reggie. This is bound to piss off caretaker Taylor (Toby Huss), the snoopy brother of the unseen property owner. Everyone seems irritated by Taylor, especially Mina (last name: Mohammadi)  she believes her Middle-Eastern roots got her turned down for the rental even though she called to book the place before Charlie. When Josh and Michelle turn in early to prepare for a morning hike, leaving Charlie and Mina to try out the hottub, you dont need to be a stalker-flick aficianado to know that no good can come from that.

It doesnt. No spoilers, except to say that waves crashing on jagged rocks are a mere prelude to the prime shocks. Over 88 vise-tightening minutes, The Rental never lets up on your nerves. But its the human betrayals that cast the longer shadows, the ones that keep you up nights.

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About 22 per cent of schools across the country are operating from old or dilapidated buildings, according to a report by the apex child rights body NCPCR.

The report on Safe and Secure School Environment was based on a survey of 26,071 schools across 12 states carried out by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) to examine the safety and security of children in schools in terms different indicators.

The states covered are from north, west, east and north-eastern parts of India. Several districts were covered in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and Rajasthan while a few districts were covered in Odisha, Mizoram, Uttarakhand, Meghalaya, Jharkhand and Chandigarh, the report said.

The survey showed that 22 per cent of schools are operating from old or dilapidated buildings, while 31 per cent schools reported cracks in structures. Nineteen per cent of the schools were located near rail tracks, whereas only one per cent has speed breakers with zebra crossing sign for safety and security of children.

Another major finding in the report was that only 74 per cent schools have in-built water facilities in toilets and in the rest students have to carry water from outside.

This is an alarming situation. It puts students health and physical safety at risk, the report said.

It further found that only 49 per cent schools have disabled-friendly toilets. In terms of inclusiveness, provision of disabled-friendly toilets within the premises is an equally significant indicator. As per our data, only 49 per cent schools have such a facility. It is an issue that needs to be addressed, it said.

On mid-day meals (MDM), the report said only 57 per cent of children are satisfied with the quality of food.

As per U-DISE data, 81.5 per cent of the schools in the states covered in this report provide mid-day meals.

However, the report said that only 56 per cent of those 81.51 per cent is providing food as per the prescribed menu.

Only 57 per cent of children are satisfied with the quality of food. There have been cases where the food was not even fit for consumption and children have been sick. They are not even being provided food in the required quantity (61 per cent). It is not surprising that if the food was not prepared as per the menu, the nutritive value in the food provided is only 60 percent of time, the report noted.

U-DISE is a database about schools in India. The database was developed by the Department of School Education, HRD Ministry.

Checking the provisions for inclusiveness, protection and safety of children with special needs (CWSN) at the school, the report found that only 40 per cent schools had facilities like classrooms, play areas, toilets accessible by wheelchair.

It was also found that in only in about 47 per cent schools CWSN were being assisted in the form of being accompanied by a teacher or attendant while using toilets. This is alarming. As only a handful schools have specially-abled friendly toilets. Sixty-one per cent of schools have obstruction free corridors and staircases. This could impose a serious threat to safety of children in rest of the schools, the report said.

It also found that only 32 per cent of schools have provision for blind students. The report found that not all schools had electricity and out of the total schools with electricity, 77 per cent had a proper working electrical fitment in classrooms and corridors.

Seven per cent schools having electrical connection face problem of shocks while nine per cent have faced problem of short circuit/shock a week before the survey, the report said.

One of the safety concerns emerged from the survey is in around 22 percent schools, high voltage wires/transformers within or adjacent to the school premises pose a safety challenge. Although the electric shock cases are low, however it is still dangerous, it said.

On fire safety in schools, the report said that 63 per cent schools have fire extinguisher, 43 per cent schools have emergency steps in place in the school to meet any fire emergency.

Data shows that the preparedness of schools against fire safety is weak and needs to be worked on, it said.

On transportation facilities, the report found that there is a transportation facility available in 28 per cent schools -- 30 per cent of them are government schools and 70 per cent private schools.

While enquiring about safety of a child when the child is in the transport bus, it was seen that only 18 per cent have any teacher and attendant with students on buses, it said.

On the issue of cyber safety in schools, it was observed that not all schools visited had computer rooms, and of the 55 per cent of schools where they have computer rooms and technological devices only 44 per cent schools have security systems in place to restrict internet and 42 per cent have blocked access to social media use by students, the report said.

Discouragement and prohibition of all kinds of bullying was being observed at 90 per cent schools, the report said.

Only 60 percent schools said that they have platform for children to discuss and share their concerns related to safety and protection as against 75 per cent schools that said to have a policy against child abuse and 68 per cent schools that said to have a clearly laid out procedure in case of child abuse, the report said.
South Koreas economy recorded its first technical recession since 2003 in the June quarter, as health restrictions from the coronavirus pandemic hammered economic activities and global demand.

Gross domestic product (GDP) decreased by a seasonally adjusted 3.3% in the June quarter, the central bank said on Thursday, after declining 1.3% in the previous quarter and much worse than a 2.3% contraction seen in a Reuters poll.

Exports of goods and services from the trade-reliant economy plunged 16.6%, logging the worst reading since the final quarter of 1963. That made up nearly 40% of the nations nominal GDP last year.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

Private consumption, which generates nearly half of the countrys GDP, however, rose 1.4% quarter-on-quarter, picking up from 6.5% decrease in the March quarter.

From a year earlier, the economy, Asias fourth-largest, shrank by 2.9% in the April-June period, sharply reversing a 1.4% expansion seen three months earlier and steeper than a 2.0% decline predicted in the poll.
UN agencies have warned that food shortages will rise sharply in parts of Yemen in the next six months.

By Nathan Morley

The situation in the Yemen is bleak. The country has been engulfed by violence and instability since 2014, when Houthi rebels captured much of the country, including Sanaa, the capital.

Now, United Nations agencies have warned the number of people facing food insecurity in southern Yemen may increase from 2 million to 3.2 million in six months.

The analysis forecasts an alarming increase of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity which will rise sharply because of a number of factors, including poor economic conditions, conflict, flash floods, locusts and the coronavirus pandemic.

The report prepared by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) proposed recommendations such as ensuring continued food assistance, rehabilitating local water infrastructure damaged by floods, supporting farmers and promoting good nutritional practices.

The conflict in Yemen has been raging for six years, when, working with forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Houtis seized much of the nation including the capital Sanaa.

The war escalated a year later, when a Saudi-UAE-led coalition intervened against the rebels in an attempt to restore the internationally recognised government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The Yemen war has branded the worst humanitarian crisis of recent times.
Catherine Destivelle awarded Piolet d'Or Carriere Lifetime Achievement Award

French mountaineer Catherine Destivelle will become the first woman to receive the Piolet d'Or Carriere Lifetime Achievement Award at the Ladek Mountain Festival in Poland in September. In the past the coveted prize has been awarded to greatest mountaineers of all times.

The Piolet d'Or Carriere has been awarded to Catherine Destivelle, the 59-year-old Frenchwoman considered one of the greatest climbers and mountaineers of all times. Born in Paris on 24 July 1960, Destivelle will become the first woman to receive the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award after Walter Bonatti, Reinhold Messner, Doug Scott, Robert Paragot, Kurt Diemberger, John Roskelley, Chris Bonington, Wojciech Kurtyka, Jeff Lowe, Andrej Stremfelj and Krzysztof Wielicki, and she will be honoured at the Ladek Mountain Festival in Poland on the 19th of September. Below is the portrait of Claude Gardien, longtime editor of the French climbing magazine Vertical.





CATHERINE DESTIVELLE by Claude Gardien



Catherine Destivelle started making a name for herself in the climbing world during the 1980s, a time when sport climbing was exploding in popularity and grades were rising rapidly. The media focused its attention on this new discipline, ignoring the fact that Catherine had been an alpinist from a young age. Shortly after discovering climbing at Fontainebleau at the age of 12, she was tackling big routes in the Mont Blanc massif. However, by the mid-1980s she had started participating in sport-climbing competitions and her success in these, and the fact she became the first woman to redpoint 8a, turned her into a rock climbing star. But few people knew that as a teenager she had climbed some of the biggest routes in the Alps.

In 1990, the rock star made her mountain comeback with an impressive solo ascent of the Bonatti Pillar on the Petit Dru. This finally gained her recognition as an alpinist. She went on to open a new route on the west face of the Petit Dru over 11 days, before completing a solo winter trilogy; the north face of the Eiger in 1992, the Walker Spur on the north face of the Grandes Jorasses in 1993, and the Bonatti route on the north face of the Matterhorn in 1994. This latter route is still rarely climbed today. It was her second big Bonatti route and the first time a woman had climbed at such a high standard in the Alps. However, Catherine didnt just want to be known as an accomplished female climber, she wanted her performances to be measured against those of any alpinist, no matter their gender. How many people could claim to operate at this standard? Catherine had proved that women could climb just as hard as men.

She went on to embrace the world of high-altitude, technical alpinism. In the Himalaya and Karakoram she made the second free ascent of the Slovenian Route on Trango Tower, climbed the southwest face to the summit ridge of Xixabangma, and attempted the south face of Annapurna, the west pillar of Makalu, and the north ridge of Latok I. She made two significant first ascents in the Sentinel Range of Antarctica. She also climbed in America and on the desert rock spires of Mali and the Sinai.

Catherine inevitably attracted the attention of mountain photographers and film-makers. In 2007, she starred in Remy Teziers Au-dela des cimes, a film that showcased alpine climbing with superb imagery. In the film Catherine climbs Voyage selon Gulliver - a difficult rock climb on the Grand Capucin. However, the main focus is on the beauty of movement, the pleasure of bivouacking on the summit of the Grepon with her sister and an ascent of the Aiguille Verte with friends. The title of the film translates as beyond the summits and expresses the idea that the value of alpinism goes beyond the difficulty of an ascent. The immersion in the mountain landscape and the bond of friendship between climbing partners provide memories that last much longer than an elevated grade or a fast time.

After writing a charming autobiography (Ascensions, Editions Arthaud), it came as no surprise when Catherine established her own publishing house, Les Editions du Mont Blanc. Through this, she published outstanding texts from little-known writers, and quickly gained a reputation for her sound editorial judgement and the quality of her productions. As with mountain climbing, she has gone on to leave her mark in the publishing world. Her creed has always been to keep moving forwards, without ever worrying about her status as an alpinist or an editor.



by Claude Gardien



Info: www.pioletsdor.net
But as Michael has learned, coronavirus doesn't care about nursing home ratings. He first learned the pandemic entered Crofton Care not from anyone official but from his mother. A magnet for intel, she phoned to tell him that two physical therapists had tested positive. He's always been happy with the staff and clinical care, but says the lapse in communication from the home's higher-ups raised concerns.

Michael, an attorney, says he began leaning on administrators for information, arguing that he shouldn't have to rely on his mother to tell him what's going on and that they have an ethical and moral obligation to let every family know that there are cases in the center. Since then, he says, their communication  while not perfect  has improved. He now gets emails whenever there's a new case.

There have been 78 cases among residents, with 14 deaths, and 26 more positive cases among staff, according to the latest data from the Maryland Department of Health.

Before a federal ban on nursing home visitations went into effect in March, Michael, who lives 15 minutes away and works from home, saw his mother daily. She also enjoyed regular visits from her two other sons, a niece and a nephew. Even Michael's childhood friends would swing by to see Ms. Nina. The former New York City public school administrator was the go-to mom when any of them had problems growing up. She gave unfiltered advice, reminded everyone to stay out of trouble and kept them on track. One of Michael's friend's kids call her Grandma Nina.

When the virus interrupted her stream of visitors, Michael bought her a GrandPad, an easy-to-use tablet designed for older users, to keep her connected. She held court in her room by way of video and phone conversations, fielding calls from cousins, friends, her sons and her sons friends throughout the day. Michael, who spoke to her after each meal, says she is well-aware of the pandemic. She sits and watches the news all day, he said. She knows nursing homes are just places where people are like sitting ducks.

A worst fear comes true

He encouraged her to stay vigilant about her health and took comfort in hearing her reports about the staff's safety measures. They have raincoats on and gloves and masks, his mother told him. I don't know who's talking to me. Then she learned one of her friends in the home had died of the virus and grew more nervous.
Digital Marketing has become an integral tool for businesses to reach a larger audience over the last decade, but in the last few months, weve really witnessed the power of a strong online presence, Katie Wagner, President, KWSM: a digital marketing agency

KWSM: a digital marketing agency, a full-service integrated marketing agency with offices in Orange County, CA, San Diego, Atlanta, and Las Vegas is excited to announce that it will hold a series of virtual Social Media Bootcamps in August for business owners and in-house marketing professionals to develop better digital marketing strategies, including using social media. These bootcamps come at a time when many businesses are pivoting because of the COVID-19 climate.

Digital Marketing has become an integral tool for businesses to reach a larger audience over the last decade, but in the last few months, weve really witnessed the power of a strong online presence, says KWSM President Katie Wagner. Connecting with your customers on social media in a time when you may not have the opportunity to do so in person has proved invaluable for our clients.

All Social Media Bootcamp courses will be live webinars due to current COVID-19 restrictions. The workshops will cover social media strategy, best practices, and technical how-tos for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Its not a traditional webinar where participants just listen, says Wagner. Our team is actively monitoring the chatbox, taking questions in real time, and passing them along to the instructor. Its interactive.

The classes are each three hours long and occur over the four Fridays in August. Heres a breakdown:

Facebook, August 7: Learn how to use your business page, increase your reach and engagement, and the best type of content to create for your industry.

Instagram, August 14: Well teach you the power of telling your brands story through content on Instagram and Instagram Stories. Youll also learn the difference between a business and personal profile, how to use hashtags effectively, and how to build a following on your account.

LinkedIn, August 21: Let us help you create an effective LinkedIn profile. Well give you a better understanding of how to prospect, get referrals, and manage your connections on LinkedIn.

YouTube, August 28: Learn how to get your videos in front of more people and improve your video marketing. Well teach you our tactics for getting more views and engaging your audience through video.

"The Social Media Bootcamp by Katie and her team was the best training I've ever attended, says Martha Szufnarowski, CEO of TriLaVie & Swim Velocity. The best components for me were the easy-to-follow checklists for each marketing task and the time-management guidelines. It is very clear that KWSM knows their stuff and knows how to share it well with others."

In addition to each three-hour Bootcamp session, participants also get unlimited phone and email support, a lifetime membership to our private Facebook Group, and access to an online copy of the course.

If your business is still shut down due to COVID-19 restrictions, this is a great time to learn new skills and develop a social media marketing plan, says Wagner. You'll be able to hit the ground running when it's time to get back to business as usual.

#####################

About KWSM: We serve both small to mid-sized businesses that lack either the manpower or the expertise to run a social media marketing campaign in-house and larger corporations who may have a full marketing department but need additional direction with the digital part of their overall marketing strategy. Weve handled social media for more than 800 organizations in many industries, including Professional Services, Beauty, Fitness & Wellness, Mortgage & Real Estate, Fashion, Retail, Finance, Food & Beverage, Hospitality, Travel & Tourism, Government, Technology, Medical, Publishing, and E-commerce. Our clients are both corporate and small businesses, entrepreneurs, start-ups, community organizations, and nonprofits. We work in both the B2B and B2C space. Learn more about KWSM: a digital marketing agency at http://www.kwsmdigital.com.

Contact:

Katie Wagner

KWSM: a digital marketing agency

Katie@KWSMDigital.com

949-436-5173
By Trend

Azerbaijanis living in Atlanta, the administrative center of the US Georgia state, held a protest against Armenias military provocations on the state border in the direction of Azerbaijans Tovuz and the occupation of Azerbaijani lands by this aggressive country, Trend reports with reference to the State Committee on Affairs with Diaspora of Azerbaijan.

The protest was held with the organizational support of Azerbaijanis living in Atlanta and Alabama cities. The act took place in front of the Congress building, where the members of the Legislative Assembly (Senators) of Georgia state sit, the message said.

Posters prepared by our compatriots with the slogans "End of Armenia's occupation policy!", "Karabakh is Azerbaijan!", "Armenia is a terrorist!" and others, as well as with photographs of martyrs who died during military provocations in the Tovuz direction were demonstrated at the action. The protesters demanded to put an end to the occupational and aggressive policy of Armenia, said the message.

The memory of Azerbaijani soldiers and civilians who died as a result of military provocations was honored. During the action, support was expressed for the Azerbaijani state and army, and an appeal was made to the members of the Congress to take decisive steps to liberate Nagorno-Karabakh and seven neighboring regions from the Armenian occupation and restore the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, the message noted.

Following continuous ceasefire violations of Armenia's armed forces, the country launched another military provocation against Azerbaijan on July 12. Grossly violating the ceasefire regime, Armenian armed forces opened fire in the direction of Azerbaijan's Tovuz district.

As a result of the appropriate measures, the Armenian armed forces were silenced. The tensions continued on the border, July 12 night. During the night battles, by using artillery, mortars and tanks, the Azerbaijani armed forces destroyed a stronghold, army vehicles.

The fighting continued in the following several days as well. Azerbaijan lost several military personnel members, who died fighting off the attacks of the Armenian armed forces. As a result of the shelling, many houses in the Tovuz district's border villages were damaged.

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.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
An estimated 2.4 million children have been affected by the recent floods in India, the UNICEF said on Thursday, calling for immediate support, more resources and innovative programmes to address the challenges faced.

In a statement, UNICEF said though flooding at this period of the year is common, this widespread scale of floods during mid-July is unusual.

"In India, over 6 million people across Bihar, Assam, Odisha, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have been affected by the floods, including an estimated 2.4 million children," it said. UNICEF said it is working with the government and partners to respond quickly and effectively.

It said it is also supporting the Assam government to implement the COVID-19 adapted relief camp management guidelines and child friendly spaces in select districts, in addition to its focused support for maternal and child health service continuity and COVID-19 response in many states, the statement said.

Weeks of torrential monsoon rains, widespread flooding and deadly landslides in Bangladesh, India and Nepal have affected millions of children and families, UNICEF said.

"Even for a region that is all-too-familiar with the devastating impact of extreme weather, the recent heavy monsoon rains, rising floods and continued landslides are creating a perfect storm for children and families affected," said Jean Gough, UNICEF Regional Director for South Asia.

"The COVID-19 pandemic and containment and prevention measures add an additional complication to the mix, as COVID-19 cases are accelerating in some of the affected areas," she added.

Gough said the fall-out from the COVID-19 pandemic is being compounded by climate change and extreme weather events and are arguably the biggest issues affecting children in South Asia right now. Immediate support, more resources and innovative programmes are urgently needed to address the challenges that these threats represent to the region's children, she said.
The first COVID-19 patient has arrived at a Laredo hotel designed to hold hospital patient overflow.

The Red Roof Inn on Calton Road received its first patient on Tuesday afternoon, confirmed Fire Chief Ramiro Elizondo on Wednesday during a media briefing.

Elizondo previously said on Monday that the first patients had arrived that day, but a late change apparently altered those plans.

According to Elizondo, the city is working with state officials to lessen the criteria necessary to transfer patients to the facility.

Though the facility has been ready to accept patients since Monday, with up to 106 beds available, the restrictions in place have limited the amount of people that have been able to be transferred to the hotel.

As of Wednesday, to be eligible for transfer, patients must be 18 years or older, not have a history of suicide or violence, and not have an '"altered mental status." A number of additional medical metrics must also have to be met.

Additionally, transfers are only able to be processed between 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

A total of 140 physicians, nurse practitioners, respiratory technicians and paramedics have come to Laredo to treat patients here. They were slated to work in two groups of 70 on 12-hour shifts, and they are staying at other hotels in the city when not working.

The facility is designed to act as a step-down care facility for COVID-19 patients, serving mainly non-acute persons that do not need to be hospitalized but are not ready to return to their homes.

Treating these patients at a separate facility would allow beds at Laredo hospitals to be freed up for patients that require more intensive care.
Spain continued to see a surge in local outbreaks this week, with the focus on Aragon and Catalonia. Here, in these two northern regions with over 50 active outbreaks, local authorities were increasingly looking for ways to try to stem the spread of infection.

Just as last week, the Aragon region headed the list of new cases this week. While outbreaks among the agricultural workers of the Aragonese province of Huesca appeared to be under control, in the regional capital, Zaragoza, the spread appeared out of control in the latter part of this week.

In Catalonia, with outbreaks in the inland province of Lleida in farming areas seemingly subsiding, the spread in and around Barcelona was of particular concern.

Both national and regional governments said this week that there had been a shift from new infections in the workplace to people catching Covid-19 in their free time, such as at family gatherings or young people meeting up in the evening in groups.

The president of Catalonia, Quim Torra, said on Wednesday that his government was considering closing all nightlife and introducing measures to stop young people gathering to drink in streets and squares.

Pleas go ignored

In contrast to Lleida, people in and around Barcelona are ignoring pleas from their regional government to stay indoors and limit groups to 10. The city was faced with 30 localised outbreaks, especially in the southern part of the metropolitan area.

We cannot close the country, said Torra, while stressing the situation was significantly more controlled compared to March, with far fewer hospital admissions.

However, ministers and officials in Catalonia were increasingly admitting this week that if residents did not voluntarily isolate, there was little more in their power to do other than ask central government to take extraordinary measures, akin to returning to a state of alarm.

Barcelona council reduced the capacity of the citys beaches this week by a further 15 per cent.

The northern region of Navarra also showed worrying signs this week, moving into second place in new daily cases nationally on Wednesday after Aragon. The local government there has restricted opening times on night bars. One area of Navarra was also moved back to the equivalent of Phase Two of lockdown and tests on local youngsters between 17 and 28 increased.

The Madrid region, despite fewer cases since the easing of lockdown, moved into third place in the number of new reported cases by midweek, after Navarra and ahead of Catalonia.
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police Crime Branch has arrested a 25-year-old man for allegedly posing as a personal secretary of Union Home Minister Amit Shah. The man arrested by the Crime Branch has been identified as Sandeep Choudhary, who is a resident of Teh Mundawar in Alwar district of Rajasthan.

He has been allegedly calling up the Labour ministers of Haryana and Rajasthan to get someone employed, according to the Crime Branch officials. Sandeep Choudhary was arrested after the Crime Branch registered a case based on a complaint by the Union Home Ministry.

According to the complaint filed by the Home Ministry, a man posing as a personal secretary of Shah had called up the labour ministers of Haryana and Rajasthan to get somebody employed.

Sandeep Chaudhary used to work in Dharuhera's Hero Company and had lost his job due to the COVID-19 crisis and was unemployed for sometimes. He is alleged to have called Rajasthans Labour Minister Tikaram and his Haryana counterpart Anoop Dhanak to get someone a job in Haryana or Rajasthan.

Accused Sandeep Chaudhary took a SIM from MTNL in the name of his girlfriend and put it in the phone and called the ministers of both the states

Later, a complaint was made in this regard by the Union Home Ministry to the Delhi Police, after which the Crime Branch registered a case and arrested the accused Sandeep Chaudhary from Alwar in Rajasthan.
There is a new twist in the move by the United States government to shut down Chinas consulate in Houston. According to CNN, the US government is looking for a Chinese scientist accused of visa fraud.

According to federal prosecutors quoted by CNN, the scientist Tang Juan is hiding in Chinas consulate in San Francisco. Juan is a researcher who focuses on biology, the CNN reported.

She has been accused of lying about the connection with the Chinese military in order to get entry into the US, the CNN further reported. She was charged with visa fraud on June 26.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is assessing that Tang is in the Chinese consulate in San Francisco.

This is a latest blow to China after the US said on Wednesday that it had given China 72 hours to close the consulate to protect American intellectual property and Americans private information.

The decision marked a dramatic escalation of tensions between the worlds two biggest economies amid fresh accusations of Chinese espionage in the United States and calls by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a new global coalition against Beijing.

Chinas embassy to the United States described the move to close the Houston consulate as a political provocation and called on Washington to immediately revoke the decision. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying wrote on Twitter that China would surely react with firm countermeasures.

The Global Times, an English-language tabloid run by the Communist Partys Peoples Daily newspaper, also accused US President Donald Trump of playing politics.

The November presidential election is driving Washington mad, it said.

(With agencies inputs)
Venture capital firms are pumping money into e-bike start-ups as the coronavirus pandemic forces city dwellers to find new ways of getting from A to B.

Technology investors have recently placed bets on young e-bike companies in the cycle-friendly cities of Berlin, Tallinn, Amsterdam, and Brussels. There's a potentially huge market: accountancy firm Deloitte estimates that over 130 million e-bikes will be sold between 2020 and 2023.

Brussels-based Cowboy became the latest e-bike start-up to raise VC funding on Thursday, with the company announcing a 23 million euro ($27 million) series B funding round led by Exor Seeds, the early stage investment arm of Exor, which is the controlling shareholder of Ferrari.

The company's e-bikes, which cost 2,290 euros, are linked to an app that is used to unlock the bike and give real-time information on speed, battery life and directions.

Index Ventures, which has backed the likes of Facebook, Robinhood, and Citymapper, also participated in the round. Martin Mignot, partner at Index, told CNBC that e-bikes are now more popular than regular bikes in some countries.

"As cities and city centers transition away from cars, I expect more people will fall in love with e-bikes and realize how perfect they are for getting around town without breaking a sweat," he said.

"Long are the days when e-bikes were clunky and mostly designed for the elderly. Electric bikes of today are cool and the experience riding them is magical. When I first tried an e-bike from Cowboy, it was like holding the iPhone for the first time, and just as the iPhone it marries software and hardware beautifully."

Cowboy's latest funding round comes just two days after the launch of e-bike subscription service Dance.

The Berlin-headquartered company, set up by the founder's of music streaming service SoundCloud, said that it has raised 4.4 million euros ($5.1 million) from a consortium of investors led by VC firm BlueYard, which is also based in Berlin.

Unlike other start-ups, Dance doesn't want to sell e-bikes, which can cost well in excess of $2,000.

Instead, it has launched a 59 euro per month subscription service that gives customers access to an e-bike within 24 hours of them signing up via the company's app. Dance says it will also take care of the e-bike and replace it for free immediately if it gets lost or stolen.
Adham Amin Hassoun, 58, has left the country after a judge last month ordered his release

The first person detained indefinitely under the Patriot Act over terrorism-related charges has been freed and has left the US for an unknown country.

Adham Amin Hassoun, 58, has left the country after a judge last month ordered his release because the government failed to prove he is a threat to national security, his lawyers confirmed.

Donald Trump made history last year when he became the first US president ever to invoke the Patriot Act in order to hold someone behind bars for an indefinite length of time.

Hassoun was holed up in a federal immigration detention center in Batavia, despite completing his criminal sentence back in 2017, after serving 15 years for cutting checks to extremist-linked Muslim charities outlawed by Congress after the 9/11 attacks.

Authorities have been unable to agree on the danger the Palestinian national poses to America, with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security claiming he is likely to engage in terrorist activities while a federal judge ruled their claims are based on prison informants and a lack of evidence.

Nicole Hallett, one of Hassoun's lawyers, confirmed the US' first post-conviction terrorism detainee has walked free and gone to another country, reported the Daily Beast.

The Trump administration finally deported the stateless man after they backtracked on an appeal to release him into the custody of his sister in Florida.

Hassoun's whereabouts are now unknown.

Hallett said the government had abused its power in holding Hassoun behind bars for an indefinite length of time.

'If the government has this authority, it will abuse it and that has been proven in this case,' Hallett told the Beast.

'This isn't going to determine the constitutionality of PATRIOT Section 412, but what it does do is show precisely why the government can't have the authority to detain someone indefinitely without launching criminal charges.'

A courtroom sketch of Adham Amin Hassoun (second left) with Jose Padilla (second right) at the 2007 Miami trial. Hassoun was the first person detained indefinitely under the Patriot Act over terrorism-related charges and he has now been freed and gone to an unknown country

The government's case for holding Hassoun behind bars indefinitely collapsed last month, after US District Judge Elizabeth Wolford ruled it was based on weak evidence and informants' lies.

In a 43-page ruling, Woolford wrote that Hassoun's imprisonment was not 'lawfully authorized by statute or regulation' and ordered he be released days later.

She ruled that the FBI and DHS had failed to back up claims the 58-year-old is dangerous and likely to engage in terrorist activities if released.

The evidence was found to be at best flimsy and based on the accounts of a prison snitch who had been exposed as unreliable.

Wolford said the government's detention of Hassoun was 'based on the executive branch's say-so' and had 'no judicial oversight of the factual findings' that he poses a threat.

Hassoun, who moved to the US in 1989 and was living in Florida at the time, was first arrested on an immigration violation in June 2002.

He then stood trial and was found guilty of cutting checks to extremist-linked Muslim charities and was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.

All but one of the checks were written before the September 11 attacks ravaged America and killed 2,977 people.

Donald Trump became the first US president last year to invoke the Patriot Act in order to hold a person behind bars for an indefinite length of time

Though he was tried alongside once-suspected 'dirty bomber' Jose Padilla, Hassoun's crimes were not for acts or plots of violence.

Hassoun was due to be released in 2017 and ICE officials warned to deport him.

But his statelessness as a Palestinian prevented this as neither his birth-country of Lebanon nor Israel were willing to supply him refuge.

He won a legal battle that ruled in favor of his release as the likelihood of his deportation was limited.

However, the Trump administration declared him a threat to national security and used an obscure immigration regulation to bypass a Supreme Court ruling allowing for no more than six months detention.

The move was said to be aided by sealed testimony outlining Hassoun's alleged misdeeds behind bars by other inmates.

Trump then invoked, for the first time in US history, section 412 of the Patriot Act.

The clause allows the government to detain non-citizens imprisoned on American soil who cannot be deported and are deemed on 'reasonable grounds' to be engaged in 'activity that endangers the national security of the United States.'

The government claimed he had taken on a 'leadership role' in a criminal conspiracy to recruit fighters and provide materials in support of terrorist organisations.

His case has long divided opinion, with Judge Marcia G. Cooke saying in 2008 the government was unable to find any 'identifiable victims' as a result of his actions and rejecting the life sentence sought after by the Justice Department.

Hassoun claimed he was prosecuted because he refused to turn into a federal informant while in immigration custody in 2002.
By Andrew Hammond





China has begun to hit back following the UK Government's decision this week to ban mobile providers from buying new Huawei 5G equipment after Dec. 31. With Huawei equipment banned from the UK 5G network by 2027, the decision is likely to delay network roll-out, but the much bigger impact is for international relations.



Beijing is predictably incandescent about the decision. Take the example of China's Ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming who asserts "it has become questionable whether the United Kingdom can provide an open, fair and non-discriminatory business environment for companies from other countries".



The UK decision could have big blowback for its relationship with China, especially in a wider context of cooling ties over issues such as Hong Kong, and the ambassador warned that "if [Britain] makes China an enemy, China will become an enemy." One specific area where Beijing could now hit London hard is over post-Brexit trade relations with the two sides having hoped to have secured a big bilateral trade deal in coming months.



The key reason why the UK Government made its U-turn, only months after Prime Minister Boris Johnson's January decision to approve a limited role for Huawei in building the UK's 5G mobile network, is pressure from dozens of Conservative MPs, not to mention the Trump administration. These parties urged Johnson to review this decision as a priority and the latest salvo came a few weeks ago when Washington placed additional U.S. sanctions against Huawei which restrict the firm from using U.S. technology and software to design its semiconductors.



The U.S. Department of Commerce has said that Huawei has flouted regulations implemented last year that require the firm to obtain a licence in order to export U.S. items. It asserts that the firm got around this rule by using U.S. semiconductor manufacturing equipment at factories in other countries.



The impact of these U.S. sanctions meant Johnson had little choice but to back down, especially as he already faced a potentially big, embarrassing defeat in the House of Commons on this issue. The U-turn was therefore effectively forced upon him by the Trump team and the growing band of China 'hawks' within the UK Conservative Party, and adds to a brewing post-Brexit potential crisis in Beijing-London relations.



While China is furious, the UK U-turn has been warmly welcomed not just in the United States, but also other 'Five Eyes' countries, especially Australia. Five Eyes, of course, is one of the world's most successful intelligence gathering and sharing partnerships which had been placed under stress over Chinese participation in 5G networks.



The alliance's origins stem from the remarkable intelligence relationship that the U.S. and UK enjoyed in the Second World War which was institutionalized in the 1946 BRUSA (later UKUSA) Agreement. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, as former UK dominions, began representing themselves in the intelligence pact in the late 1940s and 1950s.



This close cooperation amongst the Five Eyes countries bonded by decades of strong security, economic, political and cultural ties, with their geographical spread across the globe meaning that members neatly divide intelligence-gathering responsibilities by region. The UK, for example, leads on the Middle East, and Europe too.



Yet, in recent years, the mutual trust that is the foundation of these exchanges has been challenged by several developments, including the Edward Snowden leaks during the Obama administration. Most recently, there have been divergences over the use of Huawei 5G technology.



Washington and Canberra have been most vociferous in their opposition with both banning the Chinese-headquartered telecoms firm from supplying equipment to their 5G networks. Australia led the way, in 2018, under then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, when it became the first country to ban Chinese firms from the national 5G network, followed by a de facto U.S. ban on Chinese 5G technology.



However, New Zealand, Canada, and the UK have been exploring more nuanced positions. This had threatened a serious breach on this issue whereby intelligence sharing could possibly be curtailed, creating possible gaps in collection, analysis and dissemination.



New Zealand has refused to completely dismiss the possibility of Huawei being involved in its 5G network. However, in practice that Government's Communications Security Bureau has so far blocked providers from using Huawei in the 5G rollout.



As things stand, therefore, the UK U-turn puts most pressure on Canada which postponed a final decision on this thorny issue until after last October's federal election. It now seems likely that Ottawa will follow London's lead or otherwise stand out like a sore thumb from its Five Eyes partners.



While widening the post-pandemic rift between China and much of the West, Johnson's decision will therefore ease tensions within Five Eyes given that Huawei had previously represented a significant challenge to the future of the intelligence alliance. Moreover, the UK U-turn may also now help shape the direction of policy on Huawei more widely in other allied nations outside of the five-country bloc, despite the political and economic costs of Beijing's backlash.





Andrew Hammond is an Associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics


The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has told its members to halt all forms of attacks against the Yoruba nation with immediate effect...

The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has told its members to halt all forms of attacks against the Yoruba nation with immediate effect.





Leader of the IPOB worldwide, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu gave the directive in a statement signed by Mazi Chika Edoziem, the organizations Head of Directorate of State.





By the new directive, according to the statement, all media personnel operating on different segments and platforms of the organisation as well as the generality of IPOB members, are not expected to attack the Yorubas going forward.





Consequent upon the directive by Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the IPOB, worldwide during his live broadcast of Sunday, 19th of July 2020 to the effect that all attacks on Yoruba people should cease forthwith, Directorate of State of the Indigenous People of Biafra has deemed it instructive to reiterate and reaffirm the adherence by all to that directive from our leader.





To this effect, all IPOB media personnel operating on different segments and platforms be it on print, radio, visual and social media as well as the generality of IPOB family members must strictly obey that directive as given by our leader.




Shortly after midnight on March 13, Breonna Taylor and Kenneth Walker were in bed when police started pounding on the door of their apartment in Louisville, Kentucky. Walker thought someone was breaking in, so he got up and took a gun to protect himself and his girlfriend. Louisville Metro Police broke down the door with a battering ram, and Walker fired a shot, wounding Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly. Police fired back, hitting Taylor multiple times. She died at the scene.

In the four months since Breonna Taylors death, her name has become a rallying cry in nationwide protests against police brutality. But still, no criminal charges have been filed in her killing. On Thursdays episode of What Next, I spoke with Tessa Duvall, a reporter for the Louisville Courier Journal, about why the case has stalled. Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

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Tessa Duvall: In the immediate aftermath of the Breonna Taylor shooting, the police department held a press conference, which is pretty standard, and said that this was about an officer having been shot in the attempt to serve a search warrant. It was a very short press conference, maybe seven or eight minutes, and it was really presented [as] a story about an officers injury and well-being.

Mary Harris: When did the understanding of what happened that night begin to change?

It really took a couple of months for people to start digging in and seeing this was perhaps more complicated than we had originally been led to believe.

There were photos of Breonna Taylors apartment that were released by attorneys for her family, and just the array of household items that had bullets in thempots and pans, a clock, a toolbox. There were holes in the bathroom, in the windows. The sliding glass patio door was shattered. There were bullet holes through the curtains covering that patio door. There were bullet holes in the hallway, and there was blood everywhere. Those were some of the first glimpses of how chaotic and violent this encounter was.

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People really want charges and wont settle for anything less.  Tessa Duvall, Courier Journal reporter

These photos were released just a few days before George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis. His death increased the pressure on Louisville police. The chief eventually was fired. No-knock warrants got banned in the city. And one of the officers involved in Breonnas death, Brett Hankison, was fired. But protests continued.

What protesters in Louisville want is criminal charges. That is the end goal for this. Banning no-knock warrants, in their opinion, is great. There never should have been one used in Breonna Taylors case in the first place, is what a lot of them would say. So they see banning no-knock warrants as an important step, but thats not the solution. People really want charges and wont settle for anything less than charges being brought against those officers. And the longer it takes, the more the frustration builds.

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In the weeks after Breonna Taylors death, the police department started investigating itself. And last month they did release an incident report from the night of Breonnas death. Can you characterize that a little bit?

So we have gotten very few documents from Louisville Metro Police about what happened the night Breonna died, but one of the documents they did ultimately turn over was the initial incident report, which was useless. It contained absolutely no helpful information. It had her name. It had her age, I think. It lists the situation as a death investigation with police involved, but then also checked no under forced entry, even though police admit they used a battering ram to get into her apartment. Under injuries, it listed none, whichwe knew that she was dead. So there obviously were injuries. We also know that an officer was injured in this incident. So it was not only heavily redacted, it was full of inaccuracies. The irony is that police resisted releasing thisfor what reason, I dont know, because, as I said, it was not helpful.

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Who is investigating what happened that night now?

So the police did an investigation into this case through its Public Integrity Unit, and the findings of that investigation have been turned over to the state attorney generals office. Daniel Cameron is the attorney general in Kentucky, and his office has had that file for a couple of months now. The reason its in his hands is because he is special prosecutor over this case. The local commonwealths attorney, who typically would handle a case like this, actually recused himself, citing a conflict of interest because he was at the time pursuing the attempted murder charges against Kenny Walker. Those have since been dismissed.

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Attorney General Daniel Cameron has said that he does not have a timeline on this, that its an ongoing investigation, and that we will all get these results when we get them and not a moment sooner before hes ready to turn them over.

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So now that its been so many months and thereve been protests every day, where are the protests focused?

Right now it really seems the biggest focus is making sure that Breonna Taylor is not forgotten. Its almost as if protesters are sending the message, We havent forgotten her name. We havent forgotten those officers names either. We know that two of them are still on the payroll, and we know that charges havent been filed.

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We saw last week 87 protesters were arrested at Attorney General Daniel Camerons house. They were originally charged with felonies for trying to intimidate the participant in a legal process, and ultimately the felony charges were dismissed, but protesters are willing to go to jail and to escalate and to keep the pressure on however possible. So they are not satisfied right now. And that is the message that theyre sending by showing up every single day.

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Other cities seem to have acted faster, whether you look at Atlanta and the death of Rayshard Brooks or Minneapolis and what happened there. What do you think the difference is in Louisville? Why is it moving at a different pace?

If you were to ask the mayor, he would blame it on the lack of body camera footage: Because there is not footage, things can be open to interpretation. When people saw that video of what happened to George Floyd, that was immediately decried by police officers all over the country who said, This is not what policing looks like. With Breonna Taylor, people are able to pick at it. One of the most common things I hear is, well, Kenny Walker shot at police officers, and therefore that justifies what happened next. Or that if Breonna had not been involved with Jamarcus Glover [an ex-boyfriend who was suspected in a narcotics investigation], then she would have never been on the search warrant. So there are people who will certainly try to justify what happened through things like that.

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Whos saying that to you?

That is not necessarily coming from anyone in position of authority, but that is coming from people who I hear from, readersand because this is such a national story, Im hearing from people all over the place that if Kenny Walker had never shot, then shed still be alive. Or if she wasnt connected with this drug dealer, then shed still be alive. There are obviously people who can do the mental gymnastics to justify just about anything. But I think from a more official perspective, its almost like this case is a he said, she said. What Kenny Walker heard and saw on one side of the door is his perspective, and what officers say they did on the other side of the door is their set of facts, and how do you rectify these two and come up with what really happened?

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But you say part of the reason the record in Breonna Taylors death seems incomplete is because one side remains silent.

Theres still a lot we dont know from the officers perspective. We have heard Kenny Walkers full interview at this point, attorneys for Breonna Taylors family have been very vocal about what they feel happened, but the police have been very tight-lipped about all of this. So we have not seen things like ballistics reports. We dont know who fired the shots that were ultimately fatal. We have only heard from one of the three officers who was involved in the shooting, but we know there were many more on scene. And all of those things provide really important context to what happened that night.

Listen to the full episode using the player below, or subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You are here: China

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on Wednesday inspected northeast China's Jilin Province.



While visiting Lishu, a county in the city of Siping, Xi went to a demonstration zone for green food production and a farmers' cooperative to learn about grain production, the protection and use of black soil, as well as mechanized and large-scale farming.

Xi also visited the memorial hall for the Siping battle in the Chinese People's War of Liberation, and paid his tribute to revolutionary martyrs.
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Linkedin Choi Ji-won (The Korea Herald/Asia News Network)  Thu, July 23, 2020 21:05 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668d336b 2 Entertainment Steel-Rain,Movie,South-Korea,Yang-Woo-suk,comic,Kakao-Page Free

With three webcomic series and two films of the Steel Rain series about the Korean Peninsula, director-writer Yang Woo-suk has now built his own universe about what he calls simulations of situations and solutions to the ongoing inter-Korean conflict.

Its a story that must be told and must be called upon by someone. Im not trying to send a message, but giving suggestions of simulations and throwing questions through them. And the audience will make their own decisions from them, the director said during a press conference coordinated by Kakaos webtoon platform Kakao Page on Wednesday. Kakao Page CEO Lee Jin-soo also was in attendance.

Yangs upcoming film Steel Rain 2: Summit is based on his third webcomic series Steel Rain 3, which was published via Daum Webtoon between September 2019 and early July this year.

Starting with the first webcomic series in 2011, Yang has been constantly expanding his universe about the division of the Korean Peninsula. The second set of the comics, adapted into a film in 2017, drew on the possible collapse of North Korea following a coup. The upcoming sequel is set to show an emergency summit of the leaders of the two Koreas and the US aboard a submarine.

An action-packed blockbuster comic-movie crossover, Yangs Steel Rain has often been compared to superhero movies from DC and Marvel, but the Korean director said the comparison does not fly.

The Korean Peninsula remains within the Cold War system while international society is changing fast. Whereas news content spotlight the phenomenal aspects of the situation, I believe comics and novels can provide a more fundamental and comprehensive view. The inter-Korean conflict is not a problem that can be solved between the two Koreas, and hence the story must expand beyond the peninsula, Yang said.

He went on, Its a sad reality, but the Steel Rain series has its roots in the divided state (of the peninsula). In most creations dealing with the subject, the main characters die. They face a big and unexplainable wall, are discouraged, and in some worst cases, they commit suicide. This is because the division did not result from our own choices. Its not something that we (Koreans) can solve by ourselves. Even one of the characters in Steel Rain 1 died.

Steel Rain is part of Kakao Pages Super Webtoon Project, which selects popular webtoons and develops them into intellectual properties for diverse platforms -- including movies, TV dramas, online games and animations. The upcoming movie Space Sweepers, starring Song Joong-ki, and drama series Itaewon Class, which aired in February on JTBC, are among the first selected intellectual properties.

Read also: Summit takes place on submarine in 'Steel Rain 2'

Kakao Page CEO Lee, who said he has been working with Yang for a decade, said super IPs like the Steel Rain project are exactly what the company is made for and what it is aiming to assemble, support and develop.

Securing more IP businesses is everything to Kakao Page. We started off as a small platform service, and what saved this crippling company was a web novel, and from that experience we learned how the platform must combine with the IPs and how far we could extend them.

Kakao Page currently holds around 7,000 original IP titles and its goal now is to reach 70 million daily active users, or about 1 percent of the global population, according to Lee.

IP business in Korea differs from that of the US comics giants, due to the different environments in which the content is produced and consumed, he explained.

The Marvel universe had been built upon stories that were accumulated over a long time, whereas Kakao Page can make hundreds and thousands of fandoms in the global market over a very short period. The market is much more fragmented and the audience preferences much more diverse, Lee said, saying Steel Rain could appeal to the global audience thanks to its quintessential Korean story.

Director Yang hinted at further expansions to his story, stating the next follow-ups may be about families.

While Korean society has witnessed changes in the forms of families, we have not given proper thought to it. Who will raise the children, what meaning do the children have to the adults and the adults to the children. I want to talk about such stories, Yang said.

Steel Rain 2: Summit, featuring Jung Woo-sung, Kwak Do-won and Yoo Yeon-suk, hits South Korean theaters on July 29.

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This article appeared on The Korea Herald newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
Recently, I read a verse in Daniel that I'd never noticed before that got me quite excited. So many prophecies seem to be fitting together in ways that people have not seen for 2000 years.

Dear Roger,

I've read the book of Daniel several times. Recently, I read a verse that I'd never noticed before that got me quite excited. In Daniel chapter 12 God instructed Daniel to seal up the prophecies in the book until the last days. He describes how knowledge will increase dramatically as the Second Coming of Christ approaches.

As I look at what's going on in the world this makes me think that the last days are upon us. So many prophecies seem to be fitting together in ways that people have not seen for 2000 years. Could you please comment on this?

Sincerely, Susanna

Dear Susanna,

Of course, you are referring to Daniel 12:4: "But you, Daniel, roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.

The prophecies do seem to be opening up for us to see and understand. And of course, knowledge is doubling every year or so; as result, I'm getting rather excited, too.

Old Testament Prophecies - Book of Daniel

The book of Daniel provides an overview of world events from the days of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon all the way to Christ's crucifixion, resurrection and subsequent millennial reign. Daniel forms the framework for the book of Revelation and for the understanding of biblical prophecy.

Daniel's 70 "sevens" prophecy encompasses the chronological framework for the history of the Jews from now until eternity. Again, the book of Revelation fits into this framework. It's really impossible to understand what's going on in Revelation without understanding the book of Daniel.

Daniel's generalized overview occurs in Daniel chapter 9. Daniel was reading the book of Jeremiah when he realized that the 70 years of Jewish Babylonian captivity was coming to an end. Daniel wondered what would happen next--exactly what many Christians today are also wondering about our own times. Understanding these prophecies can help us understand what God has revealed to us about His plan for the End of the Age.

Along with asking God to tell him what came next for Israel, Daniel spent time in prayer, confessing the sins of Israel and pleading God's forgiveness for those sins.

Daniel's overview begins with Nebuchadnezzar's dream-vision in Daniel 2.

Prophecy 1 - Nebuchadnezzer's dream

Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of a huge multi-metallic man with a golden head, chest and arms of bronze, belly and thighs of brass, and feet and toes made out of iron mixed with clay. He then saw a mountain coming out of the sky which hit the man on the toes and feet. The mountain crushed the man into powder, and the mountain grew to fill the earth.

Daniel explained to Nebuchadnezzar that the different metals represented different kingdoms. Babylon was gold; Media-Persia was silver; Greece was bronze; and Rome was iron. The iron mixed with clay represented a future conglomeration of loosely federated governments united around one man whom Daniel identifies as the antichrist. The nations were in chronological order from top to bottom. We see here the devolution of human governments. The value of these kingdoms begins with gold and ends with iron. Also, notice that the nations increase in power over time. Babylon was a terrible foe; however, its wickedness and power were nothing to match the wickedness, strength, and power of the Roman Empire.

I suppose that the lesson here is that all governments degenerate over time and that God is ultimately in control of each of them.

As explained in the book of Revelation, the 10 toes represent 10 nations, occupying the area of the old Roman Empire. These nations will come together in the last days in an attempt to destroy Israel and take over the world. The nations don't get along very well just as iron doesn't mix well with clay. Revelation describes these nations, along with several others, that will all be led in a loose coalition by the antichrist.

The mountain which destroyed the multi-metallic man is a picture of the resurrected Jesus Christ at His Second Coming destroying the wickedness of the Gentile nations on earth. The mountain which grew to fill the earth is a picture of the millennial reign of Christ on earth.

Prophecy 2 - 490 Years and the Reign of Jesus (Messianic Kingdom)

God sent the angel Gabriel to give Daniel an answer to his prayer concerning what God had planned for Israel.

Gabriel shared that God had another program for Israel when the 70 years were concluded. This plan was for 490 years. As you read the verses below you will see how the book of Revelation fits into this passage.

Daniel 9:24 gives us an overview. Daniel 9:25-27 fills in the details.

Daniel 9:24 is the overview: Seventy "sevens" are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place."

Daniel 9:25-27 gives the details: Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven sevens, and sixty-two sevens. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. 26 After the sixty-two sevens, the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one seven. In the middle of the seven he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him."

Remarkably, this passage looks 560 years into the future to predict the very day when Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, April 6, 30 A.D.

In Daniel 9:24 we learn three facts regarding God's plan for Israel.

1. First, Gods program for Israel extends for 70 "Sevens" (70 x 7 = 490 Sevens). "Seven" is the Hebrew word "Heptad." This is a generic word which can mean seven of anything. It is similar to our word, "Dozen" which can mean twelve of virtually anything: twelve bananas, twelve pencils, twelve years. The context of this passage helps us to determine that here the word "Heptad" is referring to seven years. One "Seven" equals 7 years. (70 X 7 years = 490 years.)

2. Second, this program applies to Israel. "Your people and your holy city."

3. Third, this program will continue until Christ establishes His Messianic Kingdom.

Gabriel shared six characteristics of the Messianic Kingdom of Christ's l000-year reign on earth.

- To finish transgression: refers to Israel's national transgression of rejecting the Messiah. At the Second Coming, transgression will be ended because they will accept Him as Savior.

- To put an end to sin: the national sin of Israel will end.

- To atone for wickedness: refers to the reconciliation for all in the Cross of Christ. At the Second Coming Jew and Gentile alike will recognize and believe in the atoning work of Christ.

- To bring in everlasting righteousness: Christ's Kingdom is set up on earth for a millennium.

- To seal up vision and prophecy: After 70th week all prophetic announcement and visions will be confirmed and fulfilled.

- To anoint the Most Holy: refers to the Millennial Temple which will function during that time.

God reassured Daniel that He still has a plan for Israel. After 490 years Israel will be restored to their land and will prosper in a glorious future.

The first sixty-nine "sevens" (483 years) (Daniel 9:25) began at the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. This decree is described in Nehemiah 1:1 and 2:5-8. Historically, the "20th year of Artaxerxes" was 444 B.C. Using the Jewish calendar of 360 days per year and the fact that the prophecies began on the first day of the month, we know for certain that this period began on March 4, 444 B.C.

Prophecy 3 - Birth of the Messiah, Jesus Christ

The 69 "sevens" are broken down into two phases: One seven and sixty-two "sevens."

1. Seven "sevens" tells of the time during which the temple was rebuilt. It took 49 years. Ezra and Nehemiah both helped in the rebuilding and spoke often of the troubled times occurring during this process.

2. The 69 "sevens" concludes when the Anointed One, the Ruler comes." From 444 B.C. until the coming of Christ on Palm Sunday is 483 years or 69 "sevens." 483 prophetic years (360 days adjusted to 365.25 days =5.25 days difference between the Jewish calendar and our present-day calendar. 483 X 5.25 = 2535.75 days or about 6 years and 11 months. Subtract adjustment... and...483 Jewish years from March 4, 444 B.C. to Palm Sunday is April 6, 30 A.D. (see Robert Anderson's book, The Coming Prince).

This is one way that Anna and Simeon knew that it was about time for the Messiah to be born so that they could carry out their planned worship of Jesus as a baby.

To a believer in Christ, Daniel's 490 year prophecy is a tremendous confirmation of the Word of God!

We live in a day in which the Word of God is under attack on every hand. Many mock it, and thousands ignore it; yet, here is a tremendous confirmation for all of us to see this prophecy fulfilled in absolute detail to the very day.

Of course, most of Israel was blinded to it all, as many are blinded to how God is working today as well.

Several things occur between the end of the 69th seven at the beginning of the 70th (Daniel 9:26).

Prophecy 4 - Death of Jesus Christ

First, "the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing."

This is one of the prophecies in the Bible of the death of Jesus Christ.

"Cut off" describes his death. Isaiah 53:8 describes Jesus as "cut off from the land of the living." Jesus mentioned often that he must go to Jerusalem and die (e.g. Matthew 16:21).

One of Holman Hunt's most famous paintings of Jesus hangs in the Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, and is called "The Shadow of Death." Christ is pictured as a young man in Joseph's workshop. The sun is setting. Christ stretches out his hands after a hard day's work. At that moment, the artist catches Jesus' image. The shadow on the wall shows a man with arms outstretched like He's dying on a cross.

Jesus Christ lived his entire life in the Shadow of the Cross. He came to die on that cross for the sins of Israel and for the sins of the entire world.

After 69 "sevens" - 483 years, Jesus was "cut off".

Prophecies 5, 6, 7 - Jerusalem Destroyed, Antichrist, Church Age "Gap"

"The People of the Ruler who will come" refers to the Romans who destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 A.D.

More than three million Jews were killed. Masada occurred. When you are in Rome be sure to see the huge arch of Titus standing at the entrance to the Roman forum which commemorates Titus' his victory over Israel. Seeing the coming Holocaust, Jesus wept for Jerusalem as described in Matthew 23.

"The Ruler who is to come" is the Antichrist. He's the little horn of Daniel 7:8 and the Beast of Revelation l3.

A time gap occurs after the end of the sixty-ninth "seven" and before the beginning of the seventieth "seven".

At the Triumphal Entry of Christ into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, 30 A.D., God's prophetic time clock stopped. The hands stand poised at 69, indicating that there is still one seven-year period left.

We have no indication giving insight into how long until the 70th "seven" commences. After all, long gaps of forty years occurred between the crucifixion and the destruction. Today we are in the gap, waiting for the last seven years to commence, but in His Word, God has revealed much information concerning his plan for this "seven," so that we can understand the times in which we live.

You can read more about the gap in Luke 4:18-21, as Christ quotes from Isaiah 6:1-12.

Prophecy 8 - Antichrist Rules

The Seventieth "Seven" (Daniel 9:27) begins when the antichrist makes a peace treaty with the nation of Israel for seven years.

"He" is "The Ruler of People Who Will Come". The Romans came in 70 A.D. The antichrist will be descended from them. "Many" refers to the Jews and the nation of Israel.

Daniel sketches the outline of 70th seven; Jesus roughs in the picture with the Olivet Discourse; John fills in details with the Book of Revelation.

This is why we don't have to be baffled or surprised by what we see in Europe and the Middle East. I believe that God is preparing to restart the clock. The teams are lined up and the ball is about to be snapped.

Amazingly, Israel has never been assimilated into another nation. In 1948 Jews came home from all over the world. Sociologically, this has never happened with any people. When's the last time you saw a Babylonian walking around? They're all gone. But not the Jews.

We're told elsewhere that the Jews will accept the Peace Treaty with the Antichrist who rules Europe because they are fearful of the threat of the "King of the North."

When a Bible student sees Israel aligned with the West, and not the North or South or East, he or she is not surprised! This is simply a sign of the times. The teams are lining up. We may one day witness the Antichrist taking control of a ten-nation confederacy in Europe by subduing three nations.

Incidentally, the Jews will mistake the Antichrist for their coming Messiah and the beginning of peace for the initiation of the Millennium.

Notice that the Rapture does not restart God's prophetic clock. No one knows exactly when the Rapture may occur. It could come at any moment.

Prophecy 9 - Antichrist Led by Satan - Abomination of Desolation

In the middle of the 70th "seven" (3 l/2 years, 42 months, l260 days) Satan falls from Heaven and indwells the Antichrist (Revelation 12:9-12; 13:4).

Then, the Antichrist breaks the peace treaty and does two things:

1. He forbids the offering of sacrifices in the Temple (Daniel 9:27). This indicates that Israel will have a Temple during this time.

2. He sets up the Abomination of Desolation on the altar in the Holy Place in the Temple.

The Abomination of Desolation is mentioned by Christ in Matthew 24:15-16. The Abomination of Desolation as described in the Old Testament refers to anything which desecrates the Temple of God. The Abomination of Desolation is a resurrected image of the Antichrist that the Antichrist forces people to worship as God or face death (Revelation13).

Prophecy 10 - Great Tribulation

Jesus said that this is a sign for the godly to flee. The Antichrist will then launch the greatest wave of Anti-Semitism that the world has ever seen.

Three and a half years of Great Tribulation will then begin as the Antichrist tries to wipe the Jews off of the face of the earth. As the time of great tribulation comes to an end, Jesus returns with the Armies of Heaven and defeats the Antichrist (Revelation 19).

Prophecy 11 - Second Coming of Jesus

The Messianic Kingdom begins and the six characteristics of Daniel 9:24 will occur.

Baffled? Never, thanks to Daniel 9.

Today, we see the rise of Israel as a state, its alignment with the West, its possession of Jerusalem, its plans to rebuild the Temple, soon to be deployed Iranian nuclear missiles, and the beginnings of worldwide anti-Semitism: all of which are preparing the way for the Beast, Watch closely the rise of the European Union,

We see it all as God preparing the scene for His program with Israel. We don't look for 70th seven. We look for our deliverance (1 Thessalonians 1:10). We look for our blessed hope (Titus 2:13).

Here is a good way to think about the Second Coming: "We plan as though Jesus isn't coming for 1,000 years, but we live as if He is coming in the next 10 minutes." Israel's immediate future is desperate, but she will repent and turn to God, trust in the blood of Christ, and have a glorious future with the Lord. By the way, the same future is available to all who apply the blood of Christ to themselves.

Susanna, I know that I answered a lot more than you asked, but hopefully this overview will help you to make sense of Bible prophecy and how it applies to what is going on in the world today, as well as to remind you that God is in control of our future, and has been since the beginning of time.

Sincerely, Roger

Editor's Note : Pastor Roger Barrier's "Ask Roger" column regularly appears atPreach It, Teach It. Every week at Crosswalk, Dr. Barrier puts nearly 40 years of experience in the pastorate to work answering questions of doctrine or practice for laypeople, or giving advice on church leadership issues. Email him your questions atroger@preachitteachit.org.

This article is part of our larger End Times Resource Library. Learn more about the rapture, the anti-christ, bible prophecy and the tribulation with articles that explain Biblical truths. You do not need to fear or worry about the future!

Battle of Armageddon

Antichrist

End Times

Tribulation

Prophecies of Jesus

End Times Bible Prophecy

Old Testament Bible Prophecy

Signs of the End Times



666 Meaning

Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Purgatory

What is Premillennialism?



What is Amillennialism?

What is Postmillennialism?

The Second Coming of Jesus
Rising ocean temperatures have devastated coral reefs all over the world, but a recent study in Global Change Biology has found that reefs in the Eastern Tropical Pacific region may prove to be an exception. The findings, which suggest that reefs in this area may have adapted to heat stress, could provide insights about the potential for survival of reefs in other parts of the world. The study was published in print in July.

"Our 44-year study shows that the amount of living coral has not changed in the ETP," said James W. Porter, the paper's senior author. "Live coral cover has gone up and down in response to El Nino-induced bleaching, but unlike reefs elsewhere in the Caribbean and Indo Pacific, reefs in the ETP almost always bounce back," he said.

The study was conducted by an international team of researchers from across the region led by Dr. Mauricio Romero-Torres of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and Unidad Nacional para la Gestion del Riesgo de Desastres (the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management or UNGRD) in Bogota, Colombia. The group examined coral cover data for the area, which stretches from Baja California to the Galapagos Islands, from 1970-2014. During that time there were several El Nino events--periods when the equatorial Pacific Ocean reaches unusually high temperatures. Excessive heat can kill the symbiotic algae that inhabit the corals, leading to widespread coral bleaching and death.

The researchers found that while losses of coral cover followed the worst of those episodes, in many cases ETP reefs recovered within 10-15 years.

"So much of my career has been spent documenting coral reef decline that to discover a large area of the tropics where coral reefs are holding their own is very gratifying," said Porter, professor emeritus in the University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology.

They hypothesized that several key factors allowed the ETP reefs to bounce back.

First, corals in this area are mostly pocilloporids, a type of coral that reproduces at high rates. They also contain species of symbiotic algae that are particularly tolerant to extreme temperatures.

Patterns of weather and geography in the ETP may also play a role. Areas having heavier cloud cover or upwelling of cooler waters may survive locally and be able to reseed more severely affected reefs elsewhere.

Another important factor may be "ecological memory," meaning that ETP corals may have become conditioned to heat stress over the years, through mechanisms such as genetic adaptation and epigenetic inheritance, whereby parents pass on these survival traits to their offspring.

"The key to survival for future reefs may not be an immunity to stress, but rather an ability to recover and regrow after stress," said Porter. "ETP reefs show us what this might look like."

Porter said that the study is also important as an example of the need for maintaining long-term original data, which was crucial to the research.

"As soon as Dr. Romero contacted me, I consulted my original dive logs, made when I was a Smithsonian Pre-Doctoral Fellow in Panama in 1970," said Porter. "I realized immediately that my hand-written field notes contained everything needed to anchor this study with the oldest data (1970) used in this long-term survey. Particularly in a changing world, we need to archive and store original data carefully," he said. "Knowing what the world looked like in the past may be the best way to set restoration goals in the future."

"This research teaches the relevance of doing science with FAIR standards (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) so that other researchers in the region can continue the work and estimate the effects of the next El Nino phenomenon on the ETP," said Romero.

###

Besides Romero-Torres and Porter, the study's coauthors are Alberto Acosta of Pontificia Universidad Javeriana; Ana M. Palacio-Castro of the University of Miami and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration; Eric A. Treml of Deakin University, Warun Ponds, Australia; Fernando A. Zapata of the Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia; and David A. Paz-Garcia of the Northwest Biological Research Center, La Paz, Mexico. Support for the research came from Colciencias (the Colombian Department of Science, Technology and Innovation) and Colfuturo (the Foundation for the Future of Colombia), Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, UNGRD and the Kirbo Charitable Trust.
GREENWICH  A licensed clinical social worker with experience in addiction and mental health services will take over as the new commissioner of the Department of Human Services next month, town leaders announced Thursday.

Demetria Nelson will succeed the Alan Barry, who is retiring as commissioner in the coming weeks after leading the department for a decade.

Nelson was hired after an intensive five-month search that attracted many qualified candidates, according to a statement from First Selectman Fred Camillo.

Nelson will assume the role on Aug. 24 in the department, which has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic as it works to improve the quality of life of the those in need in Greenwich. It works to provide health care, education, employment, food, shelter and personal safety services.

I look forward to working with Demetria as the town continues to address and serve the needs of our most vulnerable residents, Camillo said. I have confidence in her ability to lead the Department of Human Services and the staff in providing critical services to our residents.

Nelsons professional experience is what made her the right person for the job, said Alan Gunzburg, chairman of the Human Services Board.

Nelson has experience working in the town. In 2002, she was a case manager for the Greenwich Human Services Department.

It really is exciting to go back to the same department as the commissioner, Nelson said. I know they were doing wonderful work with dedicated workers at that time, and Im really excited because I know that Dr. Barry has made some wonderful developments with the department.

Nelson said shes looking forward to meeting the emerging needs of Greenwichs vulnerable population during the coronavirus pandemic.

Since 2016, Nelson has worked as the administrative director for Addiction and Treatment Services at BronxCare Health System. In that position, she has been responsible for the administration and oversight of five addiction treatment programs  outpatient addictions, inpatient rehabilitation, inpatient detoxification, methadone maintenance and community residence  and also a supplementary grant-funded HIV program.

File / Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media

Nelson is also a licensed clinical social worker with 18 years of experience in the field of human services, with 15 years of experience in addiction and mental health services and 13 years of supervisory and managerial experience, according to the town.

She earned a bachelors degree in psychology from Boston University, a masters of social work from Columbia University and a master of arts in organizational psychology from Columbia University, Teachers College.

As Nelson prepares for the new role, town leaders thanked Barry for his 10 years of service. He had been set to retire in May but delayed his departure to oversee the department during the COVID-19 pandemic and to assist with the transition of a new commissioner.

We are indebted to Dr. Barry for his sage leadership and counsel over the years, especially in these last few months, said Gunzburg. He raised the bar and changed the face of the Greenwich Human Services Department over the last decade and we will be forever grateful.

Barry said he has been blessed to work in his role as commissioner over the last decade.

The dedication of the DHS staff helping low-income and vulnerable residents in the community has been inspiring, and Greenwich is so fortunate to have high-quality not-for-profit community agencies serving its residents, he said.

I leave the department feeling confident that the new commissioner, Demetria Nelson, will continue in the effort to develop and lead successful strategies for helping Greenwich residents to become self-sufficient and economically independent, Barry said.

tatiana.flowers@thehour.com @TATIANADFLOWERS
Angry protesters have vandalised the offices of Health Minister Greg Hunt with face masks.

They had written 'don't' and 'won't' on the masks before sticking them to the offices in Somerville, in the Mornington Peninsula.

The wearing of masks is now mandatory in Melbourne and Mitchell Shire after a horror second wave led to hundreds of new coronavirus cases.

Angry protesters have vandalised the offices of Health Minister Greg Hunt (pictured) with face masks

The protesters stuck face masks to the office in Somerville, in the Mornington Peninsula

A poster which said ' I have a condition that prevents me wearing a mask...it's called intelligence' was stuck to one wall.

Wearing masks in public became mandatory in Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire at at 11.59pm on Wednesday.

The fine for not wearing a face covering is $200.

Children under 12 are exempt from the rule as are joggers and those who have a medical reason for not wearing one.

Those who do not wear a mask fro professional or impractical reasons are still requited to carry a face mask and to wear it when possible.

A spokesperson for the Minister told Daily Mail Australia: 'Items were attached to the front door of Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt's Flinders electorate office overnight and were seen when staff arrived this morning.

'The matter has been referred to the local police and the Australian Federal Police.

'Minister Hunt reminds everyone that COVID-19 is extremely serious and people must abide by their local state or territory government restrictions, including in regards to masks.

'The Minister has been heartened to see the extraordinarily positive response of Victorians to the wearing of masks today - their collective action will help to save lives and protect lives.'

Mr Hunt has been a cheerleader for the wearing of face masks in Melbourne and Mitchell Shire.

The minister appeared on The Today Show on Thursday to explain that masks would help stem the increase of cases in Victoria.

Pictured is a poster stuck to Health Minister Greg Hunt's offices overnight

'We're focusing on bringing resources to Victoria, to assist and our task has been to surge the aged care workforce, provide the support there,' Mr Hunt said.

'But perhaps most critically, for the future and the health of the state, to assist with Victoria in their coordination of their tracing program.

'To achieve that outcome of each case, every day, that is fundamental to stemming the flow.

'But it's a combination now of that tracing of those protective measures and then working with the Victorian public on the critical elements such as masks, the distancing, the cough etiquette, all of these things. It's a partnership between the public and the government.'

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Minister for Health's office for comment.
The Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly has confirmed eight commissioner nominees sent to the House for confirmation by Governor Udom Emmanuel.

Confirming the nominees at plenary on Thursday in Uyo, the Speaker of the House, Aniekan Bassey, said the nominees had earlier been screened by the House Committee on Judiciary, Justice, Human Rights and Public Petitions.

He directed the Clerk of the House to forward the legislators resolution to the Governor for further action.

Accordingly, the list of commissioners and advisers sent by Gov Udom Emmanuel is hereby confirmed. The Clerk to the House, Mrs Mandu Umoren, is hereby directed to forward the resolution of the House to the governor for action, Mr Bassey said.

The speaker advised those confirmed to add value to the State Executive Council and contribute their quota to the development of the people of Akwa Ibom.

Those confirmed at plenary were Eno Ibanga; Frank Archibong; Augustine Umoh; Ini Adiakpan; Enobong Mbobo; Ini Ememobong; Amanam Nkanga; and Imo Moffat.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Governor Emmanuel had on July 16 forwarded the nominees names through a letter to the House for confirmation.

Earlier, Victor Ekwere, the Chairman, House Committee on Judiciary, Justice, Human Rights and Public Petitions, described the nominees as intelligent men and women of proven integrity.

(NAN)
A 27-year-old East Hartford woman was sentenced to three years in prison Wednesday for her role in a heroin and fentanyl trafficking ring allegedly run by her husband, federal authorities said.

Marisol Ferry, formerly Marisol Hernandez, was an active participant in the processing, packaging and distribution of the drugs, according to a news release from the office of John H. Durham, the U.S. attorney for the district of Connecticut.
Former military president, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida has penned an emotional tribute to the departed newspaper publisher and bu...

Former military president, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida has penned an emotional tribute to the departed newspaper publisher and businessman, Malam Ismaila Isa Funtua.





Isa Funtua died on Monday night in Abuja. He was buried on Tuesday.





Two days after, Babangida said he is still in shock to accept the reality of the death of the man he called Mallam Isa.





Read the tribute titled IBB: Good Night My Dear Isa Funtua:





It has taken me two days of shock to be able to muscle the strength to write this tribute and condolence to the family of my departed brother, friend, associate and confidant, Ismaila Isa Funtua.





I am still left in awe to come to terms with the shocking news, but like every mortal, we must taste death when it is time.





Irrespective of age, status and social standing, when we lost our dear ones, we are left in pains, emotional trauma, grief and nostalgia. Mallam Isa, was like an alter ego to me since our path crossed over fifty years ago.





He became part of my family since then and we remained so closely knitted until his sudden death two days ago.





Mallam Isa, as I fondly call him, was one Nigerian who never pretended about issues and situations. You would rightly know where he belongs. He was not given to frivolities and shenanigans. He was pointedly frank when he needed to make his position known on any matter.





He carried with him an aura that defined his persona. He made friends across the length and breadth of Nigeria, from the North to the South, East to the West. He was indeed a bridge builder, a peace maker and one who believed so much in the unity of Nigeria. He believed so much in constructively engaging issues, apply mediation to resolving issues than seeking alternative methods.





As friends and brothers that we were, he never hesitated in speaking his mind in a brutally frank manner no matter whose ox is gored. He carried himself with uncommon patriotism and always ready to reach out to people no matter their backgrounds and tribal inclinations.





He was a pan-Nigeria statesman who was largely misunderstood by some and eternally appreciated by many who understood the dynamics of his engagements. Often times, he would insist that Nigerians must live to love themselves despite our different tongues and tribes, because in his view, we are better off as a united entity than a fractured nation.





Mallam Ismaila, a publisher, business guru, socialite, patriot and pan-Nigerian in every sense of the word, would be greatly missed. His death, has once again, reminded us of the ephemerality of life and its fleeting nature. It is a call that should remind all of us to be God fearing, in our trajectories and engagements in life.





I have no doubt in my mind that Isa, lived a fulfilled life as a devout Muslim and lover of humanity.





On behalf of my family, Aisha, Muha, Aminu and Halima, I wish to convey our hearty condolence to the family at this grieving moment. Words alone cannot convey our condolences but we are rest assured that only Allah knows why this death came at this time.





May Allah grant his soul aljanah firdaus, and strengthen his family to cope with the pains and agonies often associated with losing a dear one. We are indeed in pains, and our hearts are heavy with mournful thoughts.





Adieu, Dan Isa, until we meet to part no more.





Signed.





GENERAL I.B.BABANGIDA, GCFR.

FORMER MILITARY PRESIDENT
Odisha's COVID-19 caseload inched towards the 20,000-mark as the state reported its highest single-day spike of 1,078 new cases on Wednesday, a health official said.

Five more patients succumbed to COVID-19, pushing the death toll to 108, he said.

The fresh infections have taken the state's virus count to 19,835, of which 6,387 cases are active and 13,309 people have recovered, the official said.

Ganjam, the worst-hit district, reported three fresh fatalities, while Gajapati and Kandhamal registered one death each, he said, adding all the deceased were suffering from diabetes.

A 40-year-old woman and two men, aged 61 and 60, died due to COVID-19 in Ganjam. Two men, aged 72 and 86, died in Gajapati and Kandhamal districts respectively, the official said.

"Regret to report the demise of five COVID positive patients while undergoing treatment in hospital," the health department said in a statement.

Ganjam accounted for 62 of the 108 COVID-19 deaths reported in the state, while other districts that registered a high number of fatalities are Khurda (14), Cuttack (9) and Gajapati (6).

Deaths due to the were also reported from 11 other districts, the official said.

Another 59-year-old COVID-19 patient died in Ganjam district due to chronic liver disease, taking the toll of patients dying due to other ailments in the state to 31, the official said.

As many as 721 fresh cases were detected from quarantine centres while a record number of 357 people tested positive for the infection during local contact tracing, he said.

Ganjam district reported the highest number of new cases at 371, followed by Khurda (121), Rayagada (96), Mallkangiri (66) and Cuttack (57), he said.

Ganjam district has posed a challenge for the state as over 1,000 positive cases have been reported here in less than a weeks time.

The Koraput district administration, in a statement, said two BSF personnel are among the 15 new cases reported in the district, taking the number of jawans of the paramilitary force testing positive for the infection in the state so far to 55.

Meanwhile, the capital also witnessed another record spike in COVID-19 cases with 91 people testing positive for the virus in the last 24 hours, which took the tally to 1,343.

has tested 4,10,921 samples for COVID-19 till date, including 9,277 during the last 24 hours.

While reviewing the corona situation in Jajpur and Sundergarh districts, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik sanctioned Rs 5 crore for each district from the CMs Relief Fund for augmenting the medical infrastructure.

Patnaik also allowed the Jajpur district administration to spend Rs 13.5 crore from the District Mineral Foundation to enhance the Covid Care system.

An additional 250 beds will be operationalised in the Covid Care Centre in Jajpur as the district authorities were told to create partnerships with corporates and industry.

Since Rourkela city in Sundergarh district has emerged as a hostpot, Patnaik asked authorities to start plasma therapy in the Ispat Government Hospital in the steel city.

Further, Rs 15 crore will be spent in the next three months for strengthening capacities of Dedicated Covid Hospital and Covid Care centres, an official said adding that the number of beds in the Covid Care Centre in Rourkela will be raised from 700 to 1700.

"I am glad to know that the district administration is working closely with Corporates like RSP, NTPC, MCL, OCL etc for creating Covid Care Homes and Covid Care Centres," Patnaik said.

Meanwhile, a review revealed that within a very short period of time, seven industrial houses have made their COvid Care Centres operational.

They are Tata Power at Jajpur and Duburi, Grasim Industries Ltd at Ganjam, RSP at Rourkela, IOCL at Paradeep, Mahanadi Coal Field at Lakhanpur and Jharsuguda and Jindal Stainless Ltd at Jajpur Road.

(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.)
National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins has asked the National Academy of Medicine last month to develop guidelines for who should get the first doses of COVID-19 vaccine.

The Academy's president, Dr. Victor Dzau, said it will allow the public to know that it is transparents and it is not political.

Dzau said the American people will want to know how these decisions are made and ask questions why they are not getting it.

"Why am I not getting it first?," Dzau was quoted in a CNN report.

The Trump administration wants to prove it can release a COVID-19 vaccine quickly, after months of criticisms from testing to personal protective equipment.

This also means deciding which group of people will be first in line for vaccination once available.

The administration is asking top health officials and industry experts to lead vaccine plans rather than politicians. But many are still concerned that the overall efforts, called Operation Warp Speed, are still done in secrecy.

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia said that the overall effort was sort of being handled like a secret weapon, which is never good.

Offit said that transparency is always good.

Who Will Get It First?

Unfortunately, every American will not be able to get a COVID-19 vaccine at once, if a vaccine is approved.

NIH's Dr. Collins said during a Senate panel earlier this month that people are still uneasy that the government is calling the shots on who will get the COVID-19 vaccines once it is available.

This will mean that there will be a decision who is most vulnerable to the disease during a deadly pandemic.

Health officials and industry experts will have to consider at risk populations such as those in assisted-living facilities or prisons, people who are working in close spaces like meat packing plants, and review the state of Americans with preexisting conditions.

The National Academy of Medicine aims to have its recommendations out in public by August or September.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the second panel of vaccine adviser for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is also creating a set of guidelines.

It is still unknown if the administration will select one set of recommendations over the other or both will be taken into consideration when making its final decisions.

ACIP had an online meeting last month to discuss who counts as an essential worker.

It was also discussed if teachers should be in the priority list, as well as pregnant women. Race and ethnicity is also being considered if it should be in priority considerations.

"If we fail to address this issue of racial and ethnic groups as a high risk in prioritization, whatever comes out of our group will be looked at very suspiciously and with a lot of reservation," Panel chairman Dr. Jose Romero was quoted.

Member of Operation Warp Seed Dr. Matt Hepburn started his presentation on COVID-19 vaccine by asking the panel to bear with his "lack of ability to provide a lot of specifics about what we're doing."

Hepburn then insisted that they are not a secretive organization that's working with unknown people.

When Will There Be A Vaccine?

Vaccine experts are calling out the Trump administration for saying an unrealistic timeline to the American people.

The chief executive of pharmaceutical giant Merck, Ken Frazier, said that they do not have a great history of introducing vaccines quickly in the middle of a pandemic.

Vaccine expert Vijay Samant said you can not give an optimistic message that a vaccine is going to be developed in December.

He said people will wonder what happened if there is still no vaccine come December.

Samant said if you are lucky it could take six months to a year to vaccinate enough of the population to reduce the spread, once a vaccine is available.

Check these out:

Will a COVID-19 Vaccine be Ready Before the End of 2020? Here's What Experts Say

Finger-Sized Microneedles: Potential Vaccine Against COVID-19

Here are the Results of Some COVID-19 Vaccines After Human Clinical Trials
The pandemic is creating its own band of stock market winners.

Unilever and Astrazeneca were long viewed as under-performing and underrated, and became targets of rejected bids from across the Atlantic in the last five years. Both have come roaring back and top the FTSE 100, creating value for the nation's pension funds.

Unilever often has been considered bureaucratic and slow to make decisions. Covid-19, for all its terrible outcomes, has given lie to that. Among the more fascinating product developments has been the revival of the long-forgotten Lifebuoy brand.

Winner: The brand has been revved up into a huge hygiene success story

The brand has been revved up into a huge hygiene success story. Manufacturing and sales have been established in more than 50 countries, using advanced technologies to make sanitisers. As in other UK companies, Unilever had streamlined decision making by making full use of online video, with chief executive Alan Jope and fellow top executives interacting more regularly and efficiently with units around the world.

As expected, Unilever is beginning the process of separating out its tea brands.

It is hanging on in India and Indonesia, where its subsidiaries are separate quoted companies in their own right. But everything else, including PG Tips and the trendy Pukka label, is being hived off with an initial public offering, a trade sale or a joint venture in prospect. One should not underestimate the potential value to be released when one considers that Unilever itself paid GSK some 3billion for Horlicks.

Growth in the US, Unilever's biggest market, fizzed in the first half of the year with the group benefiting from people eating at home under semi-lockdown conditions. Hellman's and Knorr performed strongly as well as ice-cream brands such as Breyers.

The main concern for Unilever is the impact of the pandemic in the southern hemisphere, with Latin America and Africa badly affected. Even so, sanitising products offer a counter-cyclical opportunity. In parallel with changes in its internal governance, the company is pushing ahead with its unification by hoisting the union flag in Britain and ending the outmoded Anglo-Dutch ownership structure.

Dutch investors are coming together in support, according to the company. One trusts that this time around the engagement with investors has been intense enough to prevent a repeat of 2018 fiasco when previous management backed down on a proposed move to Rotterdam after it faced humiliating rejection.

Arm wrestle

Boris Johnson's government is taking technology seriously. The decision to spend 400m on a stake in satellite group OneWeb provoked a splenetic response in the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. But it is hard to take seriously the view of a government department which, in recent decades, allowed great swathes of British manufacturing and technology to fall under overseas control.

In much the same way as Downing Street is seeking to reclaim satellite capability, it should also be working hard to make sure the UK's unique capabilities of microchip design at Japanese-owned ARM Holdings are not lost. Bloomberg reports that 205billion Santa Clara chip maker Nvidia has approached Softbank boss Masayoshi Son about acquiring ARM, which is being prepared for a float next year.

ARM's advanced processors are among the most sought-after technology in the world and a vital component of smartphones. Whitehall and the City referee, the Takeover Panel, should not forget that when it was sold to Softbank, promises were made to double the workforce in Cambridge and expand R&D capability. How these commitments would be enforced if ARM were to be sold to Nvidia is hard to know. The gravitational pull of Silicon Valley would leave ARM denuded of much of the home-grown and nurtured talent. It should not be allowed to happen without thorough scrutiny.

Gilt trip

The Governments financing mountain so far is being scaled without too much difficulty, in spite of swelling furlough costs, Brexit uncertainty and the meltdown in relations with China.

In latest trading, the yield on the 10-year government bond fell to its lowest ever level at 0.12 per cent. This just 24 hours after data showing the Government borrowed an eye-popping 128billion between April and June. The Treasury has been helped in its task by record levels of purchases by the Bank of England. But with another 370billion or so to be raised by year-end, there are still peaks to be conquered.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 23)  The Philippine General Hospital said Thursday its COVID-19 wards, including the intensive care unit, have already reached capacity.

As of now we have 211 patients admitted for COVID. That has surpassed our set limit of 210 beds for them, Dr. Jonas del Rosario, PGH spokesman told CNN Philippines New Day.

The COVID-19 referral hospital is transferring mildly ill patients to temporary treatment and isolation facilities to admit those waiting in their emergency room, del Rosario said.

However, once they have space, they can only accept 'moderate cases' as PGH's ICU unit is already full of critically ill patients.

Too few staff, too many patients

Del Rosario said with the number of their cases growing, they are running out of medical workers who could appropriately monitor the sick, as he warned that failing to do so poses a danger to the patients.

The official added that that while they have enough beds and rooms, accepting more patients is stretching too thinly the PGH workers.

The limitation is not the number of beds or the number of rooms. We do have the beds, it's the number of healthcare workers who can actually man and monitor these patients, he said. He said PGH has 550 functional beds, 38 percent of which are currently allotted for COVID-19 patients. The rest of the beds are for non-COVID-19 patients.

Del Rosario reported that 40 PGH employees and medical staff are currently admitted in the hospital, which has decreased the number of people taking care of their patients. But, in a bit of good news, most of them are mildly ill and will be discharged in due time, he noted.
Even with its marble-lined bathrooms, a luxury suite, and only two careful owners, Mexico still can't sell its luxury presidential jet.

The plane returned on Wednesday (July 22) to the country, more than 18 months after President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sent it to the United States in search of a buyer.

Mexico has struggled to sell the opulent Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

The leftist Lopez Obrador has cast it as a symbol of excess and corruption under previous governments, in a country where around half the population lives in poverty.

The jet was acquired by former president Enrique Pena Nieto in 2012.

The sale has been hamstrung in part by Lopez Obrador's unwillingness to accept offers below a U.N.-backed valuation of $130 million US dollars, even as the plane was potentially losing value as it sat unused in California.

Lopez Obrador's unorthodox plans to sell up included a raffle, where the plane was going to be the prize.

Later he said the raffle would be a lottery-style event, with 100 winners getting about $1 million each rather than the plane.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 20:09:19|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

HANOI, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam reported four new cases of COVID-19 infection on Thursday, bringing its total confirmed cases to 412 with zero deaths so far, according to the Ministry of Health.

Among the latest cases, one was a 37-year-old Filipino woman and three were Vietnamese aged 25 to 49, said the ministry, noting that they have all recently traveled or returned to Vietnam from abroad and were quarantined upon arrival.

Meanwhile, as many as 365 people have totally recovered from the disease as of Thursday.

Vietnam has recorded no local transmission for 98 straight days, while there are over 10,300 people being quarantined and monitored in the country, said the ministry. Enditem




PALM HARBOR, FL  After nearly two decades of firmly establishing Thirsty Marlin as a downtown Palm Harbor institution, owners Mike Flowers and Brian St. Arnold have expanded their culinary offerings to the new Salty Lime Cantina. Inspired by the culture and food scene of Isla Mujeres, Mexico, Mike and Brian partnered with Chef Chino of Iron Chef notoriety to mastermind the new menu described as a fusion of various influences including California, Tex-Mex, Venezuelan, and Asian. The new venture is a true family affair with involvement from Brians wife Cynda and son Cameron.

The Day of the Dead theme is consistent throughout with handcrafted creations from Julie Whittle that range from an outdoor fountain to sugar skulls, painted guitars, and sombreros. Chef Chino beamed that he put his construction skills to work and personally made the hostess stand and computer station. Even the mosaic and brickwork boasts artistry and attention to detail.

The launch party marked our first trip to sample the latest addition to the local fare and we were soon greeted with mercifully addictive warm chips flanked with fresh guacamole, salsa, and juju sauce comprised of cilantro, jalapeno, and crema. All of the tortillas and sauces are made in-house on a daily basis and there are several signature dishes noted on the menu, one of which is a mouthwatering crusted avocado stuffed with shrimp salad and chipotle mayo.

The chicken, beef, and pork tacos come bedecked with fresh cabbage slaw, onions, cilantro, chipotle, queso Cotijo, and crema for an authentic Mexican street experience. The mix of colorful ingredients was pleasing to the eye and even more satisfying to the taste. A sampling of house-made horchata finished things off: a comforting rice milk blend to signal the body that it was time to settle in and relax.

Our next visit included the whole family after the official public opening and word had sure traveled fast! Large craft margaritas were escorted to and fro though we stuck with the standard lime & Corona as we passed the chips and dips around the table and pondered the menu. My niece is of an age bracket known for a discerning palette however she did some extraordinary damage on the chicken quesadilla and her face lit up as she explained that it wasnt like the other chicken quesadillas out there  this one was unique and even her father marveled as he finished up what little was left over. Much to my astonishment, she didnt leave a single kernel on her elote and even sopped up all of the spiced cheese lime sauce. As the B-52s Love Shack played in the background, she observed that the music was upbeat  her first time hearing this song. The modern music fan may be pleased with the range including Lady Gaga to perpetuate the lively spirit.

Story continues

The healthy appetite would be undoubtedly satisfied with the signature Green Monterrey enchiladas: a choice of meat-stuffed tortilla covered with green tomatillo salsa topped with cheese cabbage slaw, cilantro, and crema drizzle.

The Senor Duck tacos fused together the eclectic inspirations with a sweet apple slaw & cherry chipotle salsa offset with goat cheese. The side of beans and rice went beyond the average filler.

When the table was surveyed as to their thoughts, a chorus of enthusiastic adjectives erupted and comments from the fajita-lovers swirled at how the meats were tender and well-flavored.

Although it was mid-July, I couldnt resist Chinos soup  the shredded chicken and tortillas bathed comfortably in chicken broth alongside onion-chili sofrito and tomato topped with avocado, Chihuahua cheese and cilantro.

This left room for the array of desserts that were soon delivered, we were celebrating a birthday after all  though no excuse would be necessary to enjoy these fantastic treats.

Chef Chino should be immensely proud of the flan; the menu description does this one no justice. The dense custard is almost of a cheesecake consistency and scored smiles across the board. He should also be thrilled with the chocolate corn shell that cradles the fried ice cream. My favorite part was using the shell as a scoop to capture all of the chocolate, caramel, and whipped cream  it was a paradoxical paradise indeed. And not a remnant was left of the churros smothered in chocolate and dulce de leche syrup.





On future visits, Im eager to check out the Chimichurri yucca fries, the tamales (Chef Chinos favorite), and the tres leches cake  we spotted this being delivered to another table and let me tell you this thing means business. The assortment of tacos ranges from lobster and Ahi tuna to portabello and multiple fish options.

Comment cards are disbursed throughout the restaurant and the email address is on the menu; they are eager to hear feedback and implement fresh ideas. Diablo salsa will be the newest offering based on requests from those who crave the fire. Taco Tuesday specials are being brainstormed along with a loyalty rewards program. Shaded outdoor dining is available along with takeout 3-10pm daily, until 11pm Friday and Saturday (closed Monday). After working on the launch for nearly three years behind the scenes, the pent-up hospitality urge is palpable. The team is ready to serve and eager to impress. When asked what he would like for diners to know, Chef Chino matter-of-factly stated, Were in this for the long haul.

Address: 1019 Florida Ave, Palm Harbor, FL 34683



https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Restaurant/Salty-Lime-Cantina-505461773131775/



Profile submitted by Tampa Bay Food Tour Taste Ambassador Lisa Gallant.

Tampa Bay Food Tours looks forward to resuming our food tours soon. We miss showcasing the wonderful local restaurants in the area. In the meantime we are happy to continue to profile other local restaurants on Patch.com

www.TampaBayFoodTours.com





This article originally appeared on the Palm Harbor Patch
Cai Wei, Consul General of the People's Republic of China in Houston, on Wednesday urged the U.S. to "revoke the erroneous closing decision immediately," noting that otherwise, China will have to respond with legitimate and necessary actions

Cai made the remarks in a joint interview with U.S. media outlets after the U.S. on July 21 abruptly asked China to close its consulate in Houston within 72 hours.

Cai Wei, Consul General of the People's Republic of China in Houston, in a joint interview with U.S. media outlets, July 22, 2020. /Website of Chinese Consulate-General in Houston

"It is a political provocation unilaterally launched by the U.S. side, which seriously violates international law, basic norms governing international relations and the bilateral consular agreement between China and the U.S.," Cai said.

The Chinese diplomat stressed that the past 40 years of interactions between China and U.S. have clearly shown that both sides stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation. He urged the U.S. side to work in the same direction with China to advance bilateral relations based on coordination, cooperation and stability.

Noting State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi's remarks at the China-U.S. Think Tanks Media Forum recently, Cai said that China has maintained a highly stable and consistent policy toward the U.S. and is willing to grow bilateral relations with goodwill and sincerity.

He also refuted numerous lies about the consulate-general from the U.S. side, saying that repeating a lie a thousand times doesn't make it truth.

"Some U.S. politicians lied for the so-called 'political correctness,' while ignoring people's lives and well-being. In the end, they will harm others as well as themselves. We advise those U.S. politicians to stop playing their tricks as soon as possible," Cai stressed.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry also condemned the U.S.' move the same day and urged it to recall its wrong decision or there will be countermeasures.

On Thursday, the Chinese embassy in the U.S. strongly refuted the U.S.' accusation, stating that if the U.S. is bent on attacking China, it will never be short of excuses.
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The nation paid its final respects Thursday to the Rev. C.T. Vivian, a pioneer of the civil rights movement who helped end segregation across the South and left an abiding imprint on U.S. history.

The funeral for Vivian, a close ally of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., began at around 11am at Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta. Vivian died Friday in Atlanta at age 95.

Vivian's friends and family including his sons spoke at Thursday's service, and his six grandsons were serving as pallbearers.

The late reverend was an active member of the Baptist church. For the private service, the church passed out masks and did temperature checks for those in attendance amid the pandemic.

Entire rows were empty as attendees made it a point to adhere to social distancing at the service.

Scroll down for video

The casket holding the body of civil rights icon C.T. Vivian is carried out of Providence Missionary Baptist Church following his funeral service in Atlanta Thursday

The casket holding the body of civil rights icon C.T. Vivian is placed in a hearse after his funeral service

A video message from former Vice President Joe Biden is played during the service. Biden called Vivian a 'soldier who refused to raise his fist' during his tribute at the service

Rev. DeAna Jo Vivian, the daughter-in-law of civil rights icon C.T. Vivian, speaks at his funeral service at Providence Missionary Baptist Church

Joe Biden and Oprah Winfrey were among the notable figures that offered tributes during the service

Speakers only removed their masks when speaking at the podium.

Dozens of supporters lined the streets outside, holding signs and pictures of the civil rights activist.

Vivian died Friday in Atlanta at age 95

His sons reminisced about Vivian's habit of driving fast while also admiring that he counseled five presidents.

Video tributes by Hank Aaron, Oprah Winfrey and presidential candidate Joe Biden were given during the service and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms was in attendance for the service along with Martin Luther King III and his wife Arndrea.

'A soldier who refused to raise his fists, a preacher whose voice helped electrify a movement, a leader who inspired generations to join him in the ceaseless march to progress,' Biden said in the tribute.

'C.T. didn't waste a single one of the days God granted him and we all know that C.T.'s spirit is going to continue to inspire us to fulfill his mission, a mission that remains unfinished,' Biden added.

Ambassador Andrew Young said in his videotaped remarks: 'He didn't want attention, he didn't want money, he only wanted to do God's will and bring out the best in these United States of America and its people regardless of their race, creed, color or national origin.'

Vivian's preaching was described as 'an echo from heaven' by civil rights activist Bernard Lafayette.

But it was his work during the Civil Rights Movement and the decades that followed that left an impression on former talk show host Oprah Winfrey. She worked with Vivian on a series of racial seminars that aired on her show in the 1990s, she recalled in her video tribute during the funeral.

'In his presence we were always learning more about our country, about ourselves, about what it means to stand for what is right,' Winfrey said. 'He was a giant for justice.'

Martin Luther King III and his wife Arndrea leave the funeral service as the casket is taken out of the church

Vivian's grandsons assist in the carrying of their grandfather's casket

A woman stands outside a funeral service for Rev. C.T. Vivian Thursday. He died Friday at the age of 95

A video of civil rights icon C.T. Vivian reading a poem is played at his funeral service

Entire rows were empty as attendees made it a point to adhere to social distancing at the service

Writer Claude McKay's poem 'If We Must Die' was read during the funeral

The casket holding the body of civil rights icon C.T. Vivian is carried out of Providence Missionary Baptist Church following his funeral

Several friends said Vivian's legacy will live on in the nation's continuing struggle for civil rights for all.

'For me, C.T. was a dream keeper, always holding fast for dreams of a better world,' said Vivian's longtime friend David McCord.

Writer Claude McKay's poem 'If We Must Die' was read during the funeral. It reads, in part: 'If we must die, O let us nobly die, so that our precious blood may not be shed in vain.'

Members of Rep. John Lewis's family were also in attendance and honored during the funeral.

The service ended just shortly after 1.15pm.

On Wednesday, a horse-drawn carriage took his casket from the Georgia Capitol, where a memorial service was held, to King's tomb in Atlanta.

Governor Brian Kemp and other local politicians were in attendance for Wednesday's service.

More than a decade before lunch-counter protests made headlines during the civil rights movement, Vivian began organizing sit-ins against segregation in Peoria, Illinois, in the 1940s.

He later joined forces with King and organized the Freedom Rides across the South to halt segregation.

Mourners sit in the capitol rotunda around the casket of The Rev. C.T. Vivian for his memorial service, Wednesday

Mourners march with the casket of The Rev. C.T. Vivian to the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park on July 22

Mourners march to the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park during the Wednesday memorial service

Mourners march with the casket of The Rev. C.T. Vivian past Ebenezer Baptist Church to the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park on Wednesday

A horse-drawn hearse brings the casket down the the historic Auburn Avenue during the Wednesday memorial

The tomb of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King at the MLK Center is seen above in this file photo. A horse-drawn carriage will take Vivian's casket past Martin Luther King Jr.'s tomb in Atlanta following the service

Vivian helped organize the Freedom Rides to integrate buses across the South and trained waves of activists in non-violent protest.

It was Vivian's bold challenge of a segregationist sheriff while trying to register black voters in Selma, Alabama, that sparked hundreds, then thousands, to march across the Edmund Pettus bridge.

'He has always been one of the people who had the most insight, wisdom, integrity and dedication,' said Andrew Young, who also worked alongside King.

Cordy Tindell Vivian was born July 28, 1924, in Howard County, Mo., but moved to Macomb, Ill., with his mother when he was still a young boy.

Vivian helped organize the Freedom Rides to integrate buses across the South and trained waves of activists in non-violent protest (Pictured with marchers in Selma)

Vivian was honored by former President Barack Obama with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013

As a young theology student at the American Baptist College in Nashville, Vivian helped organize that city's first sit-ins. Under King's leadership at SCLC, Vivian was national director of affiliates, traveling around the South to register voters.

In 1965 in Selma, he was met on the Dallas County courthouse by Sheriff Jim Clark, who listened as Vivian argued for voting rights, and then punched him in the mouth.

Vivian stood back up and kept talking as the cameras rolled before he was stitched up and jailed. His mistreatment, seen on national television, eventually drew thousands of protesters, whose determination to march from Selma to Montgomery pressured Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act later that year.

Vivian continued to serve in the SCLC after King's assassination in 1968, and became its interim president in 2012, lending renewed credibility and a tangible link to the civil rights era after the SCLC stagnated for years due to financial mismanagement and infighting.

Vivian was honored by former President Barack Obama with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.
DTEK Energy Holding plans to launch a 1MW/1.5 MWh lithium-ion energy storage system under a contract concluded with an American company Honeywell.

"DTEK and Honeywell today announced an agreement with an American company Honeywell on the supply of a 1MW/1.5 MWh lithium-ion energy storage system. DTEK and Honeywell have begun to design the system and produce it in order to launch the first largest battery in Ukraine at Zaporizhia Power Plant (Enerhodar)," DTEK said on Wednesday, July 22.

General Director of DTEK Energy Dmytro Sakharuk said that it will be the first in Ukraine industrial energy storage system, which will become DTEK's pilot project for the development of models of work for various segments of the country's energy market.

"The batteries will provide ancillary services to the system operator Ukrenergo, guaranteeing the operational safety and independence of the country's energy system," he said.

DTEK is also considering the possibility of connecting storage devices to its renewable energy sources, but this issue needs additional legislative regulation.

General Manager for Renewables and Distributed Assets at Honeywell Process Solutions Eren Ergin said that the energy storage system will create a bankable business model to manage energy storage assets and help balance the grid as the renewable energy mix increases in Ukraine.

DTEK noted that the agreement to launch Honeywell's Experion Energy Program in Ukraine is the core element of an initiative by DTEK to develop the country's first grid-scale energy storage system.
(Natural News) The lengths to which the lawless, George Soros-funded prosecutors in St. Louis are going to in order to convict a couple arrested and charged merely for defending their home against a Left-wing mob of Black Lives Matter supporters has become readily apparent.

In an interview with Newsmax TVs Greg Kelly on Tuesday, Mark and Patricia McCloskey discussed the felony charges leveled against them by local prosecutor Kim Gardner, who claims that, in spite of state law recognizing their right to arm up in defense of threats, St. Louis law prohibits residents from standing their ground with firearms.

Near the beginning of the interview (around the :51 second mark), Kelly makes a comment about the small handgun that Patricia McCloskey wielded looked more like a cigarette lighter and that he had heard it wasnt a real gun.

In response, she began by noting she wasnt sure how much she could actually say about the weapon  probably on the advice of the couples attorney. But then Mark jumps in and says:

Ill say it this wayit was, in fact, once a real gun, but it was not operational at the time.

Thats key.

According to local NBC affiliate KSDK, Assistant Circuit Attorney Chris Hinckley said in a charging document that the handgun was readily capable of lethal use, which, of course, is completely at odds with what Mark McCloskey told Newsmax TV.

So  whos right? It sounds like the McCloskeys are. (Related: St. Louis home defender: The media is siding with the Marxist BLM mob.)

KSDK reports:

The gun Patricia McCloskey waved at protesters was inoperable when it arrived at the St. Louis police crime lab, but a member of Circuit Attorney Kim Gardners staff ordered crime lab experts to disassemble and reassemble it and wrote that it was readily capable of lethal use in charging documents filed Monday, 5 On Your Side has learned.

In the state of Missouri, the station noted, police and prosecutors have to prove that a firearm is readily capable of inflicting lethality when it is used in association with the type of crime that the McCloskeys were charged with.

According to the report, Hinckley ordered members of the crime lab staff to field-strip the handgun. When they did, they found that it had been wrongly assembled.

Specifically, KSDK reported, the firing pin spring was put in front of the firing pin, which was backward, and made the gun incapable of firing, according to documents the station obtained.

The documents noted further that firearms experts then reassembled the gun correctly and tested it; when they did, it fired properly.

The evidence documents note that crime lab staff took pictures of the disassembling and reassembly of the handgun.

The station noted that the McCloskeys have said previously (even before the Newsmax TV interview) that the weapon wasnt functional because they once used it as a prop during a lawsuit they filed once against a gun maker. They made the weapon inoperable so they could legally bring it into court.

Joel Schwartz, the couples attorney, told the station that their clients intentionally put the firing pin in backwards so they could make it inoperable. Furthermore, he said that the weapon remained in its inoperable state on the evening it was used to ward off the BLM crowd, which had broken through a gate and onto private property.

Its disheartening to learn that a law enforcement agency altered evidence in order to prosecute an innocent member of the community, Schwartz told KSDK.

Theres more. Police did not make any reference to the guns operating condition in their probable cause statement. The only reference to its functionality is contained in the charging document signed by Hinckley.

Gov. Mike Parsons, a Republican, has indicated he would pardon the McCloskeys if they are convicted. Now that a key piece of evidence has apparently been tampered with by the lawless prosecutors, he may not have to bother.

Sources include:

KSDK.com

NaturalNews.com
Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd (CDEL) is likely to take up the investigation report, which is expected to be submitted before the board on Friday. Sources in the know said that the recent resignation of BSR & Associates as the auditor of the company was due to differences over valuation of subsidiaries. The investigation report will be submitted to the board tomorrow.

Once the investigation report is out, all the figures will come out and whatever provisions have to be made, will be made, said sources familiar with the development. In August last year, ...
NEW YORK, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of FirstEnergy Corporation ("FirstEnergy" or the "Company") (NYSE: FE). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at [email protected] or 888-476-6529, ext. 7980.

The investigation concerns whether FirstEnergy and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices.

[Click here for information about joining the class action]

On July 21, 2020, the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrested Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder in connection with an alleged illegal scheme involving bribery in return for Householder's championing of a state-funded bailout of two nuclear power plants formerly owned by FirstEnergy.

On this news, FirstEnergy's stock price fell $7.01 per share, or 16.99%, to close at $34.25 per share on July 21, 2020.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com.

CONTACT:

Robert S. Willoughby

Pomerantz LLP

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Amazon Prime Video has commissioned a second season La Jauria, the Spanish-language thriller from Pablo and Juan de Dios Larrains Fabula, which made the Oscar-winning A Fantastic Woman.

The renewal comes just weeks after Season 1 debuted on Amazon on July 10 across Latin America and Spain. The eight-part series tells the story of the disappearance of a young girl, who becomes the center of a police investigation into an online game that grooms men into assaulting women.

More from Deadline

We are extremely proud of La Jauria. In the current political climate and the ongoing fight for justice and gender equality internationally, the first season is more relevant than ever, said Christian Vesper, executive vice president and creative director of global drama at Fremantle. The second season builds on both the thriller aspects of the first, while also exploring even bigger ideas about justice and gender politics.

Javiera Balmaceda, Amazons head of originals for Argentina, Chile and Colombia, added: In La Jauria, the phenomenal women in front of and behind the camera delivered a smart and thrilling story with intrigue which has delighted our customers.

La Jauria was directed by Lucia Puenzo. Vesper, the Larrains, Angela Poblete and Mariane Hartard, executive produce. Fremantle also produced and handles the global distribution as part of a first-look deal with Fabula.

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Zhang Yuhua (C) with the State Department's foreign affairs officers Tina Mufford (L) and Michael J. Cocciolone on July 20, 2020, marking the 21st anniversary of the persecution of Falun Gong in China. (Provided to The Epoch Times)

Trump Admin Officials Express Concern Over Chinas Forced Organ Harvesting From Falun Gong Adherents

Five representatives of the spiritual discipline Falun Gong met with U.S. State Department officials on July 20, as the group commemorated the 21st year of an all-out persecution campaign unleashed by the Chinese regime.

Assistant Secretary of State Robert Destro and Sam Brownback, U.S. ambassador at large for international religious freedom, who attended the meeting via phone, especially expressed concerns about the continued practice of forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners, according to adherents who relayed contents of the discussion with The Epoch Times.

In June 2019, an independent peoples tribunal in London concluded, after a yearlong investigation, that forced organ harvesting has taken place in China for years on a significant scale, with Falun Gong practitioners as the main source of organs. In its final judgment in March, the tribunal said this human rights crime was still in practice, stating that the tragically unchecked action allowed many people to die horribly and unnecessarily.

July 20 marked the 21st anniversary of the Chinese regimes launch of a far-reaching suppression campaign on Falun Gong, an ancient Chinese discipline with meditative exercises and moral teachings centered on truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.

Among the attendees was Zhang Yuhua, a Falun Gong practitioner originally from Jiangsu Province, who went through repeated arrests and police harassment for refusing to renounce her beliefs.

Zhang, 59, a former dean of the Russian department at Nanjing Normal University, spent a combined period of 7 1/2 years in prison before escaping to the United States in 2015.

Zhang recalled having to stand for days on end inside a prison cell, without any rest or sleep. Her body swelled up due to the tormentfirst her feet and legs, then her hands and arms.

Its not just one day, two days, or a week. They make you stand until you break down, she told The Epoch Times, adding that she easily fell and fainted during that period. The longest duration that authorities forced her to stand was more than 50 days.

Zhangs husband, Ma Zhenyu, was sentenced to three years in prison for the sole reason of sending six letters to Chinese communist leaders concerning Falun Gong and the persecution, according to Zhang, who has not been able to contact him since 2018. Ma had been in jail for a total of around seven years prior to that, Zhang said.

Zhang Yuhua, a Falun Gong practitioner who survived persecution in China, speaks at the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom at the State Department in Washington on July 17, 2019. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Asked about the meeting, the State Department referred to public statements about the Falun Gong persecution but did not provide further details.

In a statement issued on July 22, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on the Chinese Communist Party to immediately end its depraved abuse and mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners, release the detained adherents, including Zhangs husband, and address the whereabouts of those gone missing.

Twenty-one years of persecution of Falun Gong practitioners is far too long, and it must end, Pompeo said.

Around 70 million to 100 million Chinese took up the practice by the end of the 1990s, according to official estimates at the time. Thousands have since died under torture, according to Minghui.org, a U.S.-based website that documents the persecution. Millions of adherents have been detained, with hundreds of thousands tortured, according to estimates by Falun Dafa Information Center. A Minghui report counted more than 5,300 cases of detention or harassment in the first half of 2020 alone.

Levi Browde, executive director of the Falun Dafa Information Center, said that Beijings drawn-out persecution campaign of Falun Gong has allowed the regime to develop a systematic mechanism to suppress other religious groups and dissidents, such as Uyghurs, house Christians, and Hongkongers, to not just to break a person, but to force that person to to profess their allegiance to the Communist Party.

They really honed that process on Falun Gong, he said.

The same day of the meeting, Brownback wrote a tweet expressing condolences for practitioners under suppression in China.

My thoughts today are with Falun Gong practitioners in China who have suffered 21 years of persecution at the hands of the PRC [Peoples Republic of China] government. Harassed, arrested, imprisoned, and brutalized for their beliefs, we stand with them in solidarity, he wrote.

In a separate tweet, he also described the private meeting with Falun Gong practitioners as powerful, saying he was inspired by Falun Gong practitioners perseverance, while under threat from PRC government pressure to renounce their beliefs.

More than 30 U.S. lawmakers and officials have issued statements condemning the 21-year-long campaign. The series of support from top U.S. officials, Zhang said, is a fatal blow to the Chinese regime, which has long regarded Falun Gong as its top enemy.

The U.S. stance will likely spur further action from other countries to expose Chinas human rights abuses, Zhang said in a recent interview, calling it an unstoppable trend.
The retail death march persists.

Somewhat under-the-radar, Italian luxury goods retailer Furla filed for Chapter 11 on Friday after being hit hard from the COVID-19 pandemic. The company is looking to close stores and cut debt as part of the reorganization. The retailer, founded in 1927, plans to emerge from bankruptcy with a greater focus on e-commerce.

Furla joins a long list of well-known retailers that have buckled during the health crisis.

New York City-based department store chain Century 21 filed for bankruptcy in September and said that it will shut 13 locations that for years served up deep discounts on designer wares. The company pinned the blame on the COVID-19 pandemic and uncooperative insurers who were supposed to help provide the company with fiscal support during tough times.

Bankrupt J.C. Penney, meanwhile, received a bailout in September from landlords Simon Property Group and Brookfield. The consortium valued the century old department store  which went bust back in May  at some $1.75 billion. A total of 650 stores will stay open, down from the more than 1,000 pre-pandemic.

The sign outside the J.C. Penney store is seen in Westminster, Colorado February 20, 2009. (REUTERS/Rick Wilking)

It takes a long time to kill a retailer, Forrester retail analyst Sucharita Kodali told Yahoo Finance Live So as long as they are able to pay their bills, which if they have an owner they will  they can absolutely be around. But that doesnt mean death for J.C. Penney is totally off the table.

Kodali added that J.C. Penney may not be a great customer experience, but at least its alive and open. They can figure out what the plan B over five to ten years could be for that space.

Thats a scary number

States have allowed malls and retailers to reopen, but the situation remains precarious as COVID-19 infections are now back on the rise. Consequently, its reasonable to expect malls and stores are shutdown  or shopping times restricted again before year end. That will raise the prospect of a fresh wave of bankruptcies in early 2021 after what could be a lackluster holiday shopping season.

I think many of these companies will file [for bankruptcy], and its not a handful. Its several dozen. And thats a scary number, Stifel managing director Michael Kollender, who leads the consumer and retail investment banking group for the firm, told Yahoo Finance. Its far more than we have seen over the last several years combined.

Story continues

Kollender and his colleague James Doak at Miller Buckfire  Stifels restructuring arm, where Doak is co-head  have worked on dozens of consumer and retail bankruptcies in recent years, including Aeropostale, Gymboree and Things Remembered.

We will see some major chains go away and not come back, Kollender added. These are chains that were struggling before the situation. COVID-19 will put them over the ledge.

The pandemic has toppled several household names this year. Stein Mart, a 112-year-old discounter, filed for bankruptcy in early August and will look to close most of its nearly 300 stores. The company cited significant financial stress brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic for its decision.

August also saw Lord & Taylor  the oldest U.S. department store founded in 1826  file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after being crippled by COVID-19 store closures. The company was purchased for $100 million from Hudsons Bay by fashion startup Le Tote in 2019. Le Tote also filed for Chapter 11.

Mens Wearhouse-owned Tailored Brands also filed for Chapter 11 in August, too. The company said it had received $500 million in debtor-in-possession financing from existing lenders.

Meantime, Ascena Retail Group, the owner of Ann Taylor and Lane Bryant, finally filed for bankruptcy protection in late July. The company, which has been circling the bowl for years, will look to the courts to help it shave $1 billion in debt. But its likely the retailer will be far slimmer post bankruptcy than its current 2,800 store count.

Regional retailer Paper Store filed for Chapter 11 in July as well. The operator of 86 stationary and card stores in the Northeast said its looking for a buyer.

New York & Co. parent company RTW Retailwinds also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July after years of growing irrelevance in malls. The womens apparel company  which changed its name to the bizarre RTW Retailwinds as part of a rebranding in 2018  operates 378 outlet and and mall-based stores across 32 states. It may close all of its stores as part of the filing.

The combined effects of a challenging retail environment coupled with the impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic have caused significant financial distress on our business, and we expect it to continue to do so in the future. As a result, we believe that a restructuring of our liabilities and a potential sale of the business or portions of the business is the best path forward to unlock value. I would like to thank all of our associates, customers, and business partners for their dedication and continued support through these unprecedented times, said RTW Retailwinds CEO Sheamus Toal in a statement.

And the list of now defunct retailers is almost endless.

Brooks Brothers filed for bankruptcy in July. It has been dealt a twin blow to its finance from closed malls and a shift away from preppy clothing. The company would up being sold to the duo of Authentic Brands Group and Simon Property Group for $325 million.

GNC has walked through deaths door after knocking on it for years. The 85-year-old vitamin seller filed for bankruptcy in late June after years of battling waning sales and a debt load north of $1 billion. GNC plans to shutter up to 1,200 stores across the U.S. The company operates more than 5,800 stores.

A person wears a protective face mask outside the GNC store as the city continues Phase 4 of re-opening following restrictions imposed to slow the spread of coronavirus on August 7, 2020 in New York City. (Photo: Noam Galai/Getty Images)

Some companies are just not going to survive this, says McGrail, who is the COO of one of the worlds largest asset disposition and valuation firms, Tiger Capital Group. Its McGrails team  which often includes store associates of a stricken retailer  that hangs the Everything must go signs and works to fetch top dollar on fixtures and other inventory.

Such is the current life for McGrail and others in the retail bankruptcy and restructuring fields. In talking to a host of experts, one thing is abundantly clear: more retail bankruptcies are very likely over the next twelve months.

Even for those retailers emerging from bankruptcy, vendors are likely to be tepid to ship them product while at the same time tightening payment terms as the pandemic rages on.

That one-two punch usually kills a wounded retailer for good.

Then there is the general uncertainty on how people will view going back to the mall in the new normal of social distancing. That fog of war is poised to persist well beyond the coming holiday season.

We are in a retail tsunami, Kollender said.

This story was originally published on June 24, 2020, and has been updated.

Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.

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EYEWITNESS On June 13, 2018, Jacob Soboroff, a correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC, prepared to visit Casa Padre, a former Walmart in Brownsville, Texas, where nearly 1,500 migrant boys, ranging in age from 10 to 17, were living after being apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border. Hundreds of them had been separated from their parents as a result of the Trump administrations zero tolerance immigration policy. Journalists were not allowed to bring cameras inside the facility, so Soboroff stopped at Walgreens to buy a small blue spiral-bound notebook (along with a car charger, dry shampoo and yellow Gatorade, which calms his nerves).

Once he was inside the 250,000-square-foot building, Soboroff started jotting notes: kids everywhere, oreos, applesauce, smile at them  they feel like animals in a cage being looked at. This last bit was advice from Casa Padres chief programs officer and legal counsel, dispensed when Soboroff expressed amazement at what he was seeing  five cots per bedroom, kids watching Moana in a loading dock, a mural of President Trump accompanied by a quote: Sometimes losing a battle you find a new way to win a war.

Those notes  and Soboroffs subsequent reporting  became the springboard for his first book, Separated: Inside an American Tragedy, now No. 14 on the hardcover nonfiction list, which traces planning for family separation back to March 2017. It was a difficult story as a journalist and as a human being because there is so much trauma, he says. I realized right away, the night I left Casa Padre: It will never leave me.

Soboroff has two children who kept him grounded while he worked on the book in a laundry room that doubles as a home office and now as a broadcast studio. (A light fell on me about 30 seconds before we were going on the air, but I avoided catastrophe.) At one point, in the midst of a move from a rental into his current home, Soboroff lost track of the blue notebook. He says, Im a disorganized person and Im not used to working in that medium. I didnt think of myself as a writer; Im a TV guy. Eventually he located the memo book, as it says on the cover, in a 5-by-10-foot storage unit, sandwiched between camping equipment, a pendant lamp and a baby changing table. Soboroff describes this moment in his book: The notebook burned in my hand.  I barely needed to read a word to bring back the sights and sounds and feelings of being there.
OTTAWAInformation commissioner Caroline Maynard says she uncovered evidence of the possible commission of an offence related to the processing of an Access to Information request related to now-retired Vice-Admiral Mark Norman.

In a report presented Wednesday to Parliament, Maynard said she passed the finding to Attorney General David Lametti in February of last year, since she does not have the authority to investigate such offences.

In turn, Lamettis office handed the file to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, given the concern related to the possible investigation and prosecution of an offence under federal legislation.

The prosecution service said Wednesday it brought the matter to the attention of the RCMP.

We understand that the investigation was referred by them to the Ontario Provincial Police to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, said Nathalie Houle, a spokesperson for the prosecution service.

In addition, also to avoid the appearance of a conflict, federal prosecutors asked the Alberta Prosecution Service to provide any required prosecution-related advice, Houle said.

Norman, a vice-admiral who served as the militarys second-in-command, was charged with breach of trust in 2018 following a two-year criminal investigation into the alleged disclosure of classified government information. Fresh evidence led to the charge being stayed last year.

Serious allegations made during pretrial hearings for Norman helped spark Maynards decision to conduct a systemic probe of how National Defence handles Access to Information requests.

The evidence concerning a possible offence related to a request about Norman surfaced during the systemic examination, Maynard said.

She also identified several general shortcomings  from inadequate training to cumbersome paper-based processes  that hamper National Defences ability to answer formal requests from the public.

Overall, she found Defence did not meet its obligations under the Access to Information Act because of dated or inefficient practices.

The access law allows people who pay $5 to request an array of federal files but it has been widely criticized as outdated, clumsy and often poorly administered.

Maynard says Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and his deputy minister are now aware of some of the tools and practices needed to support and deliver on their responsibilities.

She says these leaders should champion a new approach and adopt the recommended methods to make necessary changes, saying Canadians expect as much.

Maynard says her probe also shows that all federal institutions must follow sound information-management practices and make smart use of technology to meet their responsibilities under the access law.

As the government begins to recover from the impact on operations of the pandemic, and looks to how it will work in the future, my findings should have added relevance to institutions across government.
Diners are hungry for a chance to take a seat outside at their favorite restaurants as more eateries reopen amid the pandemic. But even with social distancing and other newly implemented safety precautions, some experts urge customers to consider the pros and cons.

"Good Morning America" asked seven different infectious disease experts a simple question: Would you dine out? Their answers, while varied, provide insightful considerations for Americans who are eager to get out of the house and enjoy a restaurant meal.

PHOTO: A waitress explains the combined menus from B44 Catalan Bistro and Cafe Bastille French Bistro to their first customers during San Francisco's first day of reopening for restaurants and outdoor dinning only in San Francisco, June 12, 2020. (John G Mabanglo/EPA via Shutterstock)

Dr. Todd Ellerin, director of infectious disease at South Shore Health in Massachusetts, told ABC News that "dining out in one form or another is a luxury right now."

As restrictions begin to ease to allow for expanded outdoor dining, the seven doctors and scientists shared what they would do, even as 41 states have reported recent increases in positive coronavirus cases.

Restaurant, food service industry has lost nearly $120B due to pandemic

Would you dine outside in an area that's a COVID-19 hot spot?

All seven experts said they would not.

Dr. Anne Rimoin, an epidemiology professor at UCLA, told ABC News that people in areas with higher rates of infection should proceed with caution in public settings, especially at restaurants.

PHOTO: People wait in line outside a restaurant in the East Village on July 21, 2020, in New York. (Jeenah Moon/Getty Images)

"In a hot spot state, everybody needs to be doing what they can to reduce the spread of the virus," Dr. Rimoin said. "That means social distancing, masks, all of the things that are really hard to do when you're out, when you're eating out."

Would you dine out in an area with low rates of transmission?

For this scenario, five experts said yes and only two of the experts said no.

Dr. Natalie Dean, assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida, explained that there are still risks by being in close proximity with staff.

"You're still interacting with the waitress or waiter, and then you're also still nearby whoever you are dining with," she said.

Story continues

Would you eat outside with caveats?

"I think we have to consider individual risk," Dr. Ellerin said. "If you are at high risk for severe disease -- then you really cannot afford to acquire this infection."

The other experts also explained that when it comes to outdoor dining, there are key signals to make an educated decision about dining outside safely.

PHOTO: A waiter wearing a protective mask serves drinks outside a restaurant on July 21, 2020, in New York. (Jeenah Moon/Getty Images)

'We don't need fine dining right now': What chefs are doing amid COVID pandemic

What to look for at restaurants with outdoor dining?

Experts said look for plenty of social distancing, enforced with six feet of space between guests.

The waitstaff should also wear masks and ask customers to wear their masks.

PHOTO: A worker at the Boulevard Hotel restaurant carries an umbrella in the outdoor seating area of a restaurant in Miami Beach, Fla., July 18, 2020. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Dr. Ellerin also said it's imperative to consider who is at your own table.

"Ideally, you would like those people to be in your bubble," he said.

ICYMI: Our updated #RestaurantReopening Guidance builds on the original document and incorporates the latest information and best practices from the @CDCgov and @US_FDA to help you reopen your restaurant safely. Find the guide here: https://t.co/NsGcfMalCh. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/pqYBNavukS  National Restaurant Association (@WeRRestaurants) June 12, 2020

The National Restaurant Association said in a statement that it shares "the nation's concern over the rising COVID-19 cases."

"Restaurants are now taking additional steps to meet social distancing guidelines, [including] the use of face coverings as required by local, state or federal officials, as well as enhanced cleaning and sanitizing protocols and the emphasis on personal hygiene," the association said.

All of the experts agreed that if diners want to eat from restaurants during the pandemic, the best way to do so is by ordering takeaway.

"I think all epidemiologists are a big fan of to-go food right now," Dr. Dean said.

The bottom line is that the decision to dine at restaurants is a balancing act, according to the experts, who suggest diners weigh the risks and consider the current situation based on their location.

Additionally, if people don't feel comfortable with outdoor dining but want to support local restaurants, takeout and delivery are great alternatives.

Outdoor dining safety: We asked 7 infectious disease experts for their take originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
BAE Systems has awarded contracts worth more than 100m to five British companies for work on the Royal Navy's next warship.

The deals will support 250 jobs at the suppliers as construction gets under way on the final part of the first Type 26 frigate.

The warships are being built at BAE's shipyards in Glasgow. Two local businesses, Denholm Industrial Services and Malin Group, will provide services such as painting.

Fighting fit: The deals will support 250 jobs at the suppliers as construction gets under way on the final part of the first Type 26 frigate

The other groups are Hartlepool-based CBL, insulation provider Kaefer in Nottingham, and Dorset group SCA.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: 'This latest round of contract awards will see companies from the south coast of England to the banks of the Clyde benefit from over 250 highly-skilled jobs and multi-million pound investment.'

The warships are kitted out with Sea Ceptor, a supersonic missile defence system, as well as advanced guns, radar and sonars.

More than 100 suppliers across the world have contributed work on the ships. BAE is Britains biggest defence and weapons company employing around 87,000 in 40 countries, around 40 per cent of them at 50 sites around the UK.

The company will report its half-year results next week. It said in a trading update three weeks ago that it expected profits to be down around 15 per cent.
Newly appointed Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Kyrylo Shevchenko has held his first meeting with representatives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the NBUs press service reports.

The IMF has been, is and will be, a key strategic partner of Ukraine in general and of the National Bank in particular. Therefore, full and successful implementation of the program of cooperation with the IMF is my priority. I can assure you that all the obligations undertaken by the National Bank under the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies will be fulfilled in full and on time, the Governor of the National Bank stressed.

Shevchenko noted that under the Memorandum of Cooperation, among the priorities for the IMF and the NBU is to reduce the amount of non-performing loans, which today burden the banking system, including the balance sheets of state-owned banks. He explained that the recovery of banks' balance sheets would help revive lending, which will speed up economic recovery.

Representatives of the IMF stressed that the balanced policy of the National Bank contributed greatly to the macroeconomic stabilization over the last five years; and this would be impossible without the independence of the NBU.

In turn, the NBU Governor assured the representatives of the IMF that he deeply respects the central banks independence.

The parties also discussed the current state of cooperation between Ukraine and the IMF within the Memorandum and exchanged views on the challenges facing the Ukrainian and global financial systems amid the coronavirus pandemic.

As reported by Ukrinform, on July 16, 2020, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine appointed Kyrylo Shevchenko to the post of NBU governor on the proposal of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky.

Iy
Syria's ruling party wins parliamentary election

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 22 July 2020 2:16 AM

Official results from Syria's parliamentary election show that the country's ruling party and its allies have managed to secure a majority in the legislature.

The electoral commission in Syria announced on Tuesday that President Bashar al-Assad's Baath party and its allies won the general election and took 177 seats out of 250 in the parliament.

Syrians cast their ballots in over 7,000 polling stations in government-held areas on Sunday, the third such elections since foreign-backed militants pushed Syria into chaos in 2011.

Ballot boxes were also available in recently-liberated militant strongholds, including eastern Ghouta and southern Idlib.

The Syrian government has been able to liberate most of the territory occupied by terrorists over the past years.

The elections, twice postponed from April due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, came weeks after the United States imposed new economic sanctions on Syria under the so-called Caesar Act.

In the last legislative vote in 2016, the Baath party and its allies took 200 of seats in parliament.

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Lloyds, the specialist insurance and reinsurance market, announced the creation and in principle approval of its newest syndicate-in-a-box, Syndicate 1796,* set up to insure the storage and transportation of a COVID-19 vaccine  once it is developed  to emerging economies.

This initiative forms part of Lloyds response to the far-reaching impacts of the pandemic, following the publication of a report earlier this month, designed to help develop pandemic recovery and resilience for customers and economies.**

Lloyds has an important role to play in insuring the many risks associated with this global medical response and we are delighted to approve a new innovative syndicate that will provide effective cover for local vaccine distribution supply chains, said John Neal, CEO, Lloyds of London.

Syndicate 1796 has been developed by Parsyl, an insurance technology company, and Lloyds Lab alumni, in close partnership with Ascot as a Lloyds insurer, and in cooperation with AXA XL, McGill and Partners and Gavi  The Vaccine Alliance, which is an international organization created in 2000 to improve access to new and underused vaccines for children living in the worlds poorest countries.

The syndicate forms the foundation of the new Global Health Risk Facility (GHRF) at Lloyds, which aims to provide comprehensive insurance and risk mitigation services to support the manufacturing and distribution of COVID-19 vaccine development efforts. It aims to start writing business from Oct. 1, 2020.

In the GHRF, Syndicate 1796 will be backed by development finance capital, allowing it to share risks with leading cargo syndicates, making better, fairly priced cargo coverage available.

The GHRF will offer All Risk cargo coverage for transit and storage risks on all global health products related to COVID-19 and any other infectious disease control and prevention programs. The creation of a public-private syndicate to address a global health emergency is the first in Lloyds 330-year history, said Lloyds in a statement.

Led by Ascot, the GHRF will take a portfolio approach, focusing primarily on global distribution of products to low income countries supported by global public health agencies, such as Gavi; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria; the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the United Nations International Childrens Emergency Fund (UNICEF).

The GHRF will also offer coverage via direct insurance or reinsurance, for in-country distribution risks to ensure vaccines and other commodities are protected as they are stored in central warehouses and travel through health systems, explained Lloyds.

Eligible insureds will include private manufacturers, procurement agents, logistics companies, ministries of health and other public agencies supporting the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and other lifesaving products to low income countries.

There is broad consensus that life can only return to normality after a vaccine is developed, distributed and administered around the world. Lloyds has an important role to play in insuring the many risks associated with this global medical response and we are delighted to approve a new innovative syndicate that will provide effective cover for local vaccine distribution supply chains, said John Neal, CEO, Lloyds of London.

This unique partnership is a real demonstration of the value and ingenuity the Lloyds market can bring to help address a global health emergency, as we share risk to support the brave efforts of those racing to develop and distribute a COVID-19 vaccine, he added.

Weve seen Lloyds stand behind risks to some of the worlds greatest achievements and innovations. We asked, why not find a way to stand behind the largest vaccine campaign in human history, commented Ben Hubbard, CEO of Parsyl. The Global Health Risk Facility will do this by sharing risk and leveraging new data to unlock insurance solutions for high stakes vaccine distributions around the world.

The GHRF is an excellent example of how the insurance industry is addressing previously uninsured risks, said Andrew Brooks, CEO of London-based Ascot Group. Ascot and the wider insurance market has the underwriting expertise, but to put together a facility such as this requires syndication, infrastructure and market collaboration which Lloyds is uniquely placed to deliver. Such a facility is enabled by high quality new entrants such as Parsyl who have the ideas, technology and data to deliver this positive humanitarian solution.

We are proud to support this critical initiative and be part of the largest movement of medical vaccines in history, said Steve McGill, CEO, McGill and Partners, the London-based broker. At McGill and Partners, we are delighted to have worked on this audacious venture that combines innovative insurance and data and technology driven solutions to help dramatically improve supply chains and ultimately save lives.

Sean McGovern, CEO, AXA XL UK: The COVID-19 crisis has escalated the need to improve the already challenging global distribution of vaccines. By sharing data and through innovative risk mitigation, this facility will play a crucial role in ensuring that vaccines travel safely through the global supply chain to all corners of the world. This is another example of the insurance industry working in a public private partnership to address critical public health issues.

* Syndicate 1796 has received in-principle approval from Lloyds Council. The decision to grant permission for the syndicate to underwrite is contingent on completion of a number of relevant operational workstreams. This work will be concluded through August.

** The Lloyds report, titled Supporting global recovery and resilience for customers and economies: the insurance response to COVID-19, proposes a number of ways the insurance industry could fast-track global economic and societal recovery from the impacts of COVID-19. These include three open source frameworks (ReStart, Recover Re and Black Swan Re), which could help build future pandemic resilience through innovative partnerships and products.

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Topics COVID-19 Trends Excess Surplus Lloyd's
Russia has risked triggering a space war by test-firing an anti-satellite weapon in orbit.

Britain and America today furiously condemned the Kremlin for a concerning act they said threatened peace in space.

The weapons debris alone threatens the satellites the world depends on, according to the head of the UK militarys space directorate.

Moscow fired the weapon from its Cosmos 2543 satellite last week. It did not target another spacecraft but came close to a Russian satellite.

A US statement said the launch was another example that the threats to US and Allied space systems are real, serious and increasing.

It is the first time the British and American military have publicly accused the Kremlin of carrying out an anti-satellite weapons test in space.

Russian President Vladimir Putin participates in a video call at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow today

The Russians have in the past conducted low-level tests with weapons in orbit but nothing of this size.

Echo of Reagans 1983 Star Wars When Ronald Reagan proposed a network of space lasers to knock out incoming nuclear missiles, the scheme was almost immediately dubbed Star Wars. Addressing his nation on television in 1983, he said the Strategic Defense Initiative was not an act of aggression but a sign that the United States was prepared to defend itself. The two-term American leader asked: What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant US retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies? After the Cold War came to an end, funding for the Strategic Defence Initiative was cut. The scheme was reorganised and renamed several times. Advertisement

One UK defence source said: This is using a satellite as a space weapon. It is a step in the direction of turning space into a new frontline.

A second added: Theyve crossed a line when it comes to the scale of this.

Britain depends on satellites in many crucial areas, including communications, navigation via satnav devices and

weather forecasting. Ministers have previously said an enemy state could affect the ability of the emergency services to respond to urgent incidents by taking out satellites.

In a statement released yesterday, Air Vice-Marshal Harvey Smyth, chief of the MoDs space directorate, said: We are concerned by the manner in which Russia tested one of its satellites by launching a projectile with the characteristics of a weapon.

Actions of this kind threaten the peaceful use of space and risk causing debris that could pose a threat to satellites and the space systems on which the world depends. We call on Russia to avoid any further such testing.

We also urge Russia to continue to work constructively with the UK and other partners to encourage responsible behaviour in space.

Cosmos 2543 was launched into space on a Soyuz rocket that took off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in north-west Russia on November 26.

It was combined with a second satellite, which split from it 11 days after the launch.

In a telephone phone call last night, US President Donald Trump expressed hope to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that they could avoid an expensive three-way arms race between the US, China and Russia.

The Russian Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with the Progress MS-15 cargo spacecraft lifting off from the launch pad at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, 23 July 2020

In a statement, Washington said the launch of the weapon was further evidence of Russias efforts to develop and test space-based systems.

General John Raymond, head of US space command, said it was consistent with the Kremlins published military doctrine to employ weapons that hold US and allied space assets at risk. The US State Department has raised concerns that Russian satellites display characteristics of a space-based weapon.

Dr Christopher Ford, the US assistant secretary of state, said: This event highlights Russias hypocritical advocacy of outer space arms control, with which Moscow aims to restrict the capabilities of the United States while clearly having no intention of halting its own counterspace program.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told the House of Commons on Wednesday that the UK was deeply vulnerable in space.

He added: The threat against space is regretfully real, our adversaries are weaponising space and we are deeply vulnerable in the West from those types of actions because we rely so much on space assets.

'This is further evidence of Russia's continuing efforts to develop and test space-based systems, and consistent with the Kremlin's published military doctrine to employ weapons that hold US and allied space assets at risk.'

The UK said the launching of the projectile 'with the characteristics of a weapon' and warned that it could 'threaten the peaceful use of space'.

It is the first time the Ministry of Defence has called out Russian activity of this sort.

The head of the UK's space directorate, Air Vice-Marshal Harvey Smyth, said: 'We are concerned by the manner in which Russia tested one of its satellites by launching a projectile with the characteristics of a weapon.

'Actions of this kind threaten the peaceful use of space and risk causing debris that could pose a threat to satellites and the space systems on which the world depends.

'We call on Russia to avoid any further such testing.

'We also urge Russia to continue to work constructively with the UK and other partners to encourage responsible behaviour in space.'

The press release from US space command today, added: 'Last week's test is another example that the threats to U.S. and Allied space systems are real, serious and increasing.

'Russia's development and testing of orbital weapons highlights the importance of establishing the U.S. Space Force as a new branch of the armed forces and the U.S. Space Command as the nation's unified combatant command for space.

'It is a shared interest and responsibility of all spacefaring nations to create the conditions for a safe, stable, and operationally sustainable space environment.'
President Donald Trump announced a plan on Wednesday to send federal agents to more U.S. cities to crack down on violent crime in an escalation of his "law and order" push going into the Nov. 3 presidential election.

Trump, joined at a White House event by Attorney General William Barr, unveiled an expansion of the "Operation Legend" program to include cities such as Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, in a further effort by federal officials to tackle violence.

"Today I'm announcing a surge of federal law enforcement into American communities plagued by violent crime," Trump said.

Trump said "we have no choice but to get involved" with a rising death toll in some major cities.

"This bloodshed must end; this bloodshed will end," he said.

The program involves deploying federal law enforcement agents to assist local police in combating what the Justice Department has described as a "surge" of violent crime.

Barr sought to differentiate the initiative from the use of federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security to quell unrest in Portland, Oregon, where local authorities have complained about the federal involvement.

He said the law enforcement personnel from a variety of agencies will serve as street agents and investigators who will be working to "solve murders and take down violent gangs."

"This is different than the operations and tactical teams we use to defend against riots and mob violence. We will continue to confront mob violence. But, the operations we are discussing today are very different  they are classic crime fighting," Barr said.

The Republican president has sharply criticized Democratic leaders for presiding over cities and states that are experiencing crime waves, using the issue as part of a "law and order" push he hopes will resonate with his political base. Trump is trailing Democrat Joe Biden in national opinion polls.

But the initiative risks inflaming tensions running high in many major cities in the wake of the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in Minneapolis police custody.

It is not unusual for federal law enforcement to work alongside local partners. A Justice Department official said "Operation Legend" would provide additional resources to cities suffering from "traditional" violent crime.

Trump has emphasized a robust policing and military approach to the protests across the United States about racial inequality after Floyd's death.

The White House has sought to focus on city crime even as Trump's approval numbers plummet in response to his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

The "Operation Legend" program involves federal agents from the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and other agencies, partnering with local law enforcement.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has said federal intervention was not required to help with violence in New York City, and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has also urged Trump not to send unidentified federal agents to her city.

"We are waiting for the mayor, respectfully, and other mayors and governors to call us. We are ready, willing and able to go in there with great force," Trump told reporters later on Wednesday.

"Operation Legend" is named for LeGend Taliferro, a 4-year-old boy who was shot and killed while he slept early June 29 in Kansas City, Missouri, according to the Department of Justice's website.
China successfully launched its first Mars probe on Thursday, aiming to complete orbiting, landing and roving in a single mission, taking an ambitious step towards planetary exploration of the solar system.

IMAGE: The Long March 5 Y-4 rocket, carrying an unmanned Mars probe of the Tianwen-1 mission, takes off from Wenchang Space Launch Center in Wenchang, Hainan Province, China. Photograph: Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters

A Long March-5 rocket, China's largest and most powerful launch vehicle, carrying the spacecraft with a mass of about five tonnes, soared into the sky from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the coast of southern China's island province of Hainan, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

About 36 minutes after the launch, the spacecraft, including an orbiter and a rover, was sent into the Earth-Mars transfer orbit, embarking on an almost seven-month journey to the red planet, according to the China National Space Administration.



The Chinese Mars probe named Tianwen 1 or Quest for Heavenly Truth 1, will fulfil three scientific objectives: orbiting the red planet for comprehensive observation, landing on Martian soil and sending a rover to roam the landing site.



It will conduct scientific investigations into the planet's soil, geological structure, environment, atmosphere and water, media reports said.



It should arrive in orbit around the red planet in February.



The Long March 5 rocket will transport the robotic probe to the Earth-Mars transfer trajectory before the spacecraft begins its self-propelled flight toward Mars' gravity field.



According to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, a state-owned space conglomerate, the probe will travel for about seven months before it reaches Mars, which at the farthest point of its orbit is about 400 million kilometres from Earth and 55 million kilometres at the nearest point.



It said the probe consists of three parts - the orbiter, the lander and the rover -and they will separate in Mars orbit. The orbiter will remain in the orbit for scientific operations and to relay signals while the lander-rover combination makes an autonomous descent and landing.

The rover has six wheels and four solar panels and carries six scientific instruments. It weighs over 200 kilogram and will work for about three months on the planet, the designers said.



China aims to catch up with India, the United States, Russia and the European Union to reach the red planet.



"The triple-task expedition of Tianwen-1 marks another milestone in China's aerospace science and technology development, as well as a fresh daring adventure in the country's long march of outer space exploration following its lunar program and the endeavour to build a space station," the state-run media commented.



In a paper last week, the scientific team behind Tianwen-1 said the probe is "going to orbit, land and release a rover all on the very first try, and coordinate observations with an orbiter. No planetary missions have ever been implemented in this way."



By contrast, NASA sent multiple orbiters to Mars before ever attempting a landing. Pulling off the landing is a far more difficult task, CNN reported.



"If successful, it would signify a major technical breakthrough," the Chinese team wrote in the journal Nature.



China in recent years has emerged as a major space power with manned space missions and landing a rover in the dark side of the moon. It is currently building a space station of its own.



China's previous attempt to send an exploratory probe to Mars called Yinghuo-1, in a Russian spacecraft in 2011 failed as shortly after the launch it was declared lost and later burnt during re-entry.



The US, Russia, India and the EU have succeeded in sending missions to Mars regarded as the most complex space mission. India became the first Asian country to have successfully launched its Mars orbiter mission Mangalyaan which entered the orbit of the red planet in 2014.



India also became the first country to have entered the Martian orbit in its first attempt.

China's Mars probe is the second such mission launched this month.



A United Arab Emirates spacecraft to go to Mars was launched from Japan on July 20, in what is the Arab world's first interplanetary mission.



The launch of the spacecraft named Amal, or the 'Hope Probe', marks the start of the seven-month journey to the red planet. The US space agency (NASA) aims to despatch its next-generation rover, Perseverance, on July 30.



On April 24, China named its first Mars exploration mission as Tianwen-1 as it celebrated 'Space Day' to mark the 50th anniversary of the launch of the country's first satellite Dong Fang Hong-1 in 1970.



The CNSA said all of China's planetary exploration missions in the future will be named on Tianwen series, signifying the Chinese nation's perseverance in pursuing truth and science and exploring nature and the universe, the state-run Xinhua news agency had reported.
Australia yesterday registered the highest number of new coronavirus infections since the beginning of the pandemic.

The total of 502 new cases surpassed the previous daily high of 469 cases on March 28, nearly four months ago. Unlike the initial wave of infections, which was driven by people returning from their overseas holidays, the latest surge features widespread community transmission. More than 2,000 cases remain under investigation, meaning that health authorities do not know how and where these infections were contracted.

Just six weeks ago, on June 9, only 2 new coronavirus cases were reported across Australia. The return of large scale infection is a consequence of the decision by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and every state leader, Labor and Liberal, to lift lockdown measures in May.

A COVID-19 testing center in Melbournes inner west

This move defied evidence within an expert report submitted by epidemiologists and medical scientists that lockdown measures needed to be maintained for at least another month in order to eradicate the virus. Like their counterparts in the US and internationally, the Australian ruling elite has throughout the pandemic prioritised the needs of big business and finance capital ahead of public health and safety.

Melbourne remains the worst affected city, with 484 of the 502 total cases yesterday registered in the state of Victoria. There was one case reported in both Queensland and South Australia, and 16 in New South Wales (NSW). Earlier today, an additional 403 cases was recorded in Victoria and 19 in NSW.

Yesterday two people died from the virus, both men in their 90s, with the incidents reportedly connected with aged care settings. Today another five deaths were recorded in Australia, with the youngest deceased being a man in his 50s. Three of the five deaths were related to aged care.

Across Melbourne, 45 aged care centres have registered one or more infections among their staff or residents since July 8. The worst clusters are at Menarock Life Aged Care in Essendon, with 38 infections, Estia Health aged care in Ardeer, with 54 cases, and St Basils Home for the Aged in Fawkner, with 69 cases. Federal health authorities have taken over the operating of St Basils, with a replacement workforce brought in.

Infections were so widespread there that every regular staff member has to self isolate at home for a fortnight. Workers have reported that the facilitys management did not enforce proper use of personal protective equipment (PPE), with staff told this was optional.

In some affected aged care facilities, residents are being isolated in their rooms instead of being evacuated if they are not infected and hospitalised if they are.

Marylouise McLaws, an infection control expert at the University of NSW and adviser to the World Health Organization, told the Guardian that aged care facilities lacked the necessary pressured rooms, Hepa filters, and designated areas for PPE storage. Its very difficult to all of a sudden turn really a shared home into a proxy hospital with cutting-edge infection control, she said.

Victorias chief health officer, Brett Sutton, nevertheless said earlier this week that aged care evacuations were being decided on a case-by-case basis.

When residents of Sydneys Newmarch House were left inside their infected facility during an outbreak in April, 19 elderly people died of COVID-19. The Victorian governments failure to organise comprehensive evacuation measures for affected aged care facilities will likely lead to many more deaths.

Melbourne and the neighbouring regional shire of Mitchell have been in official lockdown since July 9. Residents are only permitted to leave their homes for four reasonsto exercise, purchase supplies, provide caregiving, and to go to work or school. Ten postcode hotspots had the same restrictions imposed a week earlier, on July 2. Despite this, the coronavirus infection numbers have not declined.

Epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre, from the University of New South Waless Kirby Institute, told the ABC: Generally, when you apply an intervention, you would expect to see the effects in two weeks, which is the incubation period. So it is very concerning to be still seeing figures in the triple figures.

The Victorian Labor government has now mandated the wearing of masks or face coverings in public. It has not, however, imposed any restrictions on business activity, despite admitting that 80 percent of all infections since May have occurred within workplaces.

The pandemic has been exacerbated by the casualisation of the workforce that was engineered over the last four decades by successive Labor and Liberal governments as part of their free market offensive against the working class. Fewer than half of all workers now have a permanent full-time paid job, with proper leave entitlements. More than 25 percent of all workers are in casual employment, with zero job security and no paid leave of any kind.

Many of the aged care clusters are understood to originate from infected casual workers who were compelled to take different shifts across multiple facilities.

Other workplaces have likewise been affected by casual workers who have not self-isolated due to fears of losing their job, or being unable to cope with lost wages. Victorias Premier Daniel Andrews acknowledged yesterday: If they dont work the shift, they dont get paid for the shiftthey dont have sick leave. This is a commentary on insecure work.

The Labor leader did not take any responsibility for this commentary, nor announce measures to address insecure working conditions. Instead, as a band aid measure, casual workers who take a coronavirus test are eligible for a new $300 payment to self isolate while awaiting the result, with an additional $1,500 available for those who test positive and need to forego at least two weeks wages. It remains to be seen whether the limited payments will have any affect on virus transmission.

Many other workers continue to be exposed to dangerous conditionsincluding tens of thousands of school teachers. Schools in Victoria opened for Term 3 last Monday, with all public teachers expected to work on-site even if their students are learning from home. Around 100,000 Years 11 and 12 students are attending school each day, together with Year 10s doing senior subjects, children in specialist schools, and children whose parents cannot supervise them at home.

In just four days, 21 schools have reported infections among staff and/or students. These are across multiple areas of Melbournemany in working class suburbs such as Dandenong High School, Roxburgh College, and Gladstone Park Secondary, others in upper-middle class and inner suburbs such as Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School and Toorak Primary School.

Keeping schools open is regarded by state and federal governments as a key measure to ensure corporate Australia has access to the required workforce. The reckless endangerment of teachers and students safety flies in the face of growing scientific evidence. A South Korean research study reported this week that both adolescents and children aged 10 and over are equally infectious with COVID-19 as are adults.

Victorian authorities today reported that four children are among the 201 people currently hospitalised with coronavirus.
The assistant commissioner of police (ACP), Bandra division, on Thursday, informed the Bombay high court (HC) that he has identified four personnel from Juhu police station who assaulted Raju Velu Devendra, a victim found outdoors during the Covid-19 lockdown. The ACP said he would propose the initiation of departmental action against the four personnel.

Juhu police had so far maintained that the 22-year-old was a victim of mob lynching. They claimed that on March 30, Devendra was brutally assaulted by a mob when he attempted to commit a robbery. The police had registered an offence against eight purported members of the mob.

On Thursday, government lawyer Purnima Katharia supported the ACPs stand. She informed the bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice Anuja Prabhudessai that she had viewed the CCTV footage covering the incident of assault on the deceased and did not find any proof of a mob lynching.

Only the four policemen are seen to have used fiber lathis in a bid to discipline the deceased, she said. The lawyer, however, added that further investigation was required to ascertain if the deceased succumbed to the injuries caused by the policemen.

The lawyer was responding to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by lawyer and human rights activist Firdause Irani, which raised concerns about police excesses during enforcement of the nationwide lockdown imposed to contain the spread of Covid-19 infection.

On March 30, Devendra and his family were going to visit a relative when a police team chased them and caught the deceased. The policemen allegedly informed the relatives that Devendra was being taken to Juhu police station. The next morning, police claimed the 22-year-old was found lying at Nehru Nagar Chowk. They took him to a hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival.

The investigation into the case was entrusted to the ACP, Bandra division, in view of the allegations against the policemen.

On Thursday, HC noted that two important witnesses in the case, the mother and brother of the deceased, have not cooperated with the investigation, and their statements have not been recorded. Taking note of this anomaly, the bench has directed the ACP to issue fresh notices to them and make an endeavor to get their statements recorded.

Expressing displeasure over the delay in investigating the case, HC also directed the ACP to speed up the probe and submit a progress report by August 5. The next hearing on the matter has been posted for August 6.
Egyptian security forces killed 18 suspected militants in aerial and ground operations in the restive northern Sinai Peninsula on Tuesday, thwarting what the army described as a terrorist attack.

Two military personnel died and four others were wounded when militants attacked an army post in the northern Sinais Bir al-Abed, a military spokesman said. In addition to killing 18 suspects, security forces destroyed seven vehicles that were used in the attack or carried explosives.

"In cooperation with the air force, security forces managed to chase the takfiri elements across a farm and in abandoned houses killing 18, including one wearing an explosive belt," the statement said, using the term "takfiri" to refer to the militants.

The town of Bir al-Abed was the site of the deadliest terror attack in modern Egyptian history. In November 2017, an Islamic State-claimed bombing at a crowded mosque left more than 300 dead. The worshippers were Sufi Muslims, whose mystical form of Islam the Sunni extremists find heretical.

A small, but active affiliate of IS has run a yearslong insurgency in Sinai, which borders the Gaza Strip and Israel. The group, known as Wilayat Sinai, has claimed 234 attacks on civilian and military targets in the past year.

Under Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, Egypts security forces have upped their campaign against insurgent groups, which has alienated much of the local population. In 2019, Human Rights Watch accused the military of systematic and widespread arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and torture as part of its campaign against the Sinai-based insurgents. The government dismissed the report as full of lies.

According to government figures, around 990 suspected militants have been killed in the operations, along with dozens of security personnel.

This story contains reporting from AFP.
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Another 53 people have died of the coronavirus in the UK, according to the Government, taking the total to 45,554.

But there are zero new victims in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the countries' own health agencies said, suggesting today's fatalities reported by the Department of Health were all in England.

While the deaths falling is good news, however, the number of people being diagnosed with the disease has surged to 769 from 560 yesterday and one-week low of 445 on Tuesday.

The seven-day average has risen more than 12 per cent compared with last week - from an average 584 per day to 656, and by 15 per cent in two weeks.

King's College London experts  who predict infections over the UK, and don't just account for positive test results which are limited to people with symptoms  say the number of people catching the virus every day is not getting lower and has barely changed over July. And it may be rising in the north of England.

Today marked the eighth day in a row that no deaths have been recorded in Scotland and only one death has been counted in the past fortnight. Experts believe the country will be coronavirus-free by the end of summer.

Today's data comes as:

Scientists estimate Covid-19 cases in Britain are still plateauing with almost 2,000 people getting infected each day  and cases are 'creeping up' in the north of England;

One in every 10 Covid-19 deaths in English hospitals in July have been at a single NHS trust in Kent, data has revealed, more than in Leicester where infections are so high a local lockdown has been enforced;

Figures show NHS Test and Trace is still failing to track down up to half of Covid-19 patients' contacts in areas most at risk of local lockdowns;

Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt calls for all NHS staff to be tested weekly from September in a bid to stop a second Covid-19 wave in the winter;

The World Health Organization warns a coronavirus vaccine will not be ready this year, amid rising hopes of jab getting the disease under control'.

The Covid-19 daily death toll from the Department of Health accounts for deaths across all settings - including care homes and hospitals - in the UK.

Because Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have reported such low death numbers in recent days, it may be assumed the 53 new fatalities are all in England.

However, this can't be confirmed due to the way the data is collected. The daily data from the Department of Health does not represent how many Covid-19 patients died within the last 24 hours  it is only how many fatalities have been reported and registered within each authority.

The data does not always match updates provided by the home nations. Department of Health officials work off a different time cut-off, meaning daily updates from Scotland as well as Northern Ireland are always out of sync.

NHS England also collects data differently, including 'suspected Covid-19' deaths of patients who were never tested. Today it reported a further 19 fatalities across its hospitals, six of which were suspected.

Most of England's 223 NHS trusts have seen no coronavirus deaths in the past month and coronavirus patients who have died have been spread across just a handful of trusts.

COVID-19 VACCINE WON'T BE READY UNTIL NEXT YEAR, WHO SAYS Hopes for a coronavirus vaccine before Christmas have been dashed by a World Health Organization expert. Mike Ryan, head of WHO's emergencies programme, said the first use of a Covid-19 vaccine cannot be expected until early 2021. He noted that several vaccines are now in phase three trials and none have failed so far in terms of safety or ability to generate an immune response. A vaccine is considered crucial for getting out of the coronavirus pandemic because it would be the only way to secure protection against catching it. Dr Ryan said: 'We're making good progress. Realistically it's going to be the first part of next year before we start seeing people getting vaccinated'. The WHO is working to expand access to potential vaccines and to help scale-up production capacity. Dr Ryan said: 'We need to be fair about this, because this is a global good. Vaccines for this pandemic are not for the wealthy, they are not for the poor, they are for everybody.' Advertisement

However, data from NHS England shows one in every 10 Covid-19 deaths in English hospitals in July have been at a single NHS trust in Kent - East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust - where 37 people have died this month.

The figure has compounded fears over whether in-hospital transmission across east Kent has been one of the biggest factors in the region's high death toll.

The East Kent Trust has seen the most coronavirus deaths in the country over the past month, followed by the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust.

Leicester is already known to be in the grip of dangerous outbreak and the city has been forced into a second lockdown. But there are no such rules in place in Kent.

In April, less than one per cent of the country's were recorded at the east Kent Trust but since then the ratio has more than doubled every month. However, Kent's two other hospital trusts recorded no deaths in the past month.

It is feared that in-hospital transmission has played a big role in high infection rates across the county.

Overall Covid-19 fatalities have dropped to the lowest levels since well before lockdown.

There are growing concerns, however, that the virus could return and cause more death and disease in the winter when people are more susceptible.

The former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has today called for all NHS staff to be routinely tested for coronavirus to prevent a second wave in winter.

This will reassure staff they are not unwittingly carrying the virus, and because tests can produce false negatives, it is essential to carry them out frequently, he said.

The feat would involve swabbing up to a million additional people a week, and the Government is only testing around 2.3million people weekly, currently.

Scientists claimed this week that the NHS avoided testing its staff for coronavirus en masse because it was afraid thousands would have to go off sick and leave swamped hospitals without workers.

The health select committee heard from a slew of experts from SAGE on Monday who said almost half of healthcare workers in the NHS  up to a staggering 45 per cent  were reportedly infected with coronavirus during the peak of the crisis in April.

In a letter to his replacement Matt Hancock and NHS England boss Sir Simon Stevens, Mr Hunt said nurses, doctors, cleaners and porters must be screened weekly starting from September.

WHERE HAVE THE MOST COVID-19 DEATHS BEEN IN JULY IN ENGLISH HOSPITALS? 1.) East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust - 37 deaths 2.) University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust - 18 deaths 3.) Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust - 13 deaths 4.) Manchester University NHS Foundation and Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust - 12 deaths 5.) Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust - 10 deaths 6.) East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust - 9 deaths 7.) Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust and Bedford Hospital NHS Trust - 8 deaths 8.) Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust, University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust and Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - 7 deaths each 9.) Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust, West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust and The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust - 6 deaths 10.) Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, Guy's and St Thomas's NHS Foundation Trust, Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Bolton NHS Foundation Trust - 5 deaths Advertisement

It comes as experts at King's College London warned there is a limited window to get the virus under control in the summer months before the cold weather potentially drives cases up again.

Using its COVID Symptom Tracker app, developed with the health tech firm ZOE, it estimates Covid-19 cases in Britain are barely dropping with almost 2,000 people still becoming infected each day, excluding in care homes.

It's higher than Government's daily figures  hovering around 656  which only report on confirmed Covid-19 test results.

The Government have also reported an increase in positive cases, with the seven-day average rising by 10.9 per cent in the last week. There are now an average 656 people diagnosed each day, up from 584 seven days ago and from 556 a week before that on July 9.

The increasing average may be a sign the infection has started spreading again, confirming fears of top scientists that 'Super Saturday' would trigger a surge in cases  or it could be a result of more targeted testing.

King's College London say cases have remained stable over July for the UK as a whole, but appear to be 'creeping up' in the north of England.

Some 1,000 people are catching the coronavirus in the North every day, an increase on the 750 estimated last week. The rise is too small to say definitively that the outbreak is growing once again but the scientists say they are watching the situation closely.

Data also shows there are an estimated 28,048 people in the population who are currently symptomatic, down slightly from the 26,000 the week before. The figure does not include care homes.

Professor Tim Spector, an epidemiologist at KCL and lead researcher behind the app, said app users were reporting worse outcomes from their illness than before, which he said may be linked to the colder, less humid weather.

He said: '[It] makes it even more important that we get this virus under control as we only have a month or two of warm weather left.

'Our data suggests that levels have bottomed out at around 2,000 cases per day which is too many, so we all need to be conscious of the dangers and to continue to practice high levels of personal hygiene, wear a face mask, social distance and know all the signs of early disease.'

The authorities which have the highest estimates of symptomatic COVID in the past week include Wrexham, Rotherham, Kirklees and Blackpool.

At the top of the list is Blackburn with Darwen, where around 0.4 per cent of the population are estimated by KCL to have the virus.

Blackburn has overtaken Leicester  the first place in the UK to be hit by a local lockdown  to have the highest coronavirus infection rate in England.

Covid-19 cases in Britain are barely dropping with almost 2,000 people still becoming infected each day. King's College London says cases have remained stable over July for the UK as a whole, but appear to be 'creeping up' in the north of England

NHS Test and Trace is still failing to track down up to half of Covid-19 patients' contacts in areas most at risk of local lockdowns (top ten, shown)

CANCER PATIENTS WILL DIE BECAUSE THEY WERE 'SCAREMONGERED' AWAY FROM HOSPITALS People suffering from treatable cancers will end up dying because of Government 'scaremongering' and an over-cautious reduction of NHS services, a nurse has warned. The nurse, who wanted to remain anonymous, said that 'hospitals were empty' apart from Covid-19 wards and ICUs and that people died because of they weren't treated. She added that there was 'no reason' that cancer screenings and other routine treatments could not have continued throughout lockdown. Her comments come after a Government report revealed that 200,000 people could die because of delays in healthcare and other economic and social effects all caused by lockdown. Speaking on the Telegraph's Planet Normal podcast, the nurse said: 'We have a lot of deaths in my area but were going to have an awful lot more from cancers that are going undiagnosed and strokes that havent been treated. 'It cuts both ways. We have hospitals that didnt want to have patients come in and we have patients who dont want to come in to hospital because of I think whats been an awful lot of scaremongering from the Government, unfortunately.' The district nurse said most NHS Trusts had enough PPE to have continued to operate 'beyond the skeleton Covid system' by mid-April. She said that as soon as it became clear that the NHS wasn't going to be overwhelmed by coronavirus patients, other services should have restarted. And the nurse went on to criticise GPs who had chosen to only do telephone and video consultations. She said that people who will die because of measures that were initially put in place to protect the NHS will include 'young healthy people who had treatable cancers and treatable issues'. Advertisement

But concerning data revealed last night that the NHS Test and Trace is still failing to track down up to half of Covid-19 patients' contacts in areas most at risk of local lockdowns.

The data, obtained by the Guardian, looked at contact tracing results from between May 28 and June 17.

It revealed thousands more potential patients in other areas of England with rising infections were being missed by the system.

For Blackburn with Darwen, which is being kept under review amid a surge in infections, at least 448 people were missed (46 per cent).

Similarly only 65 per cent of close contacts in Leicester - which had to retreat back into lockdown last month after a spike in cases - were tracked down by tracers.

It means 3,340 people who may have had the disease in the city slipped under the radar and could have spread it further through the population.

In Luton, which has the fifth highest infection rate in England, just 47 per cent of potentially-infected people were contacted by the system since its launch on May 28.

Language barriers may partly explain the low success rates in some of the worst-hit areas, where the virus is disproportionately affecting people of south Asian heritage.

In Luton, for example, 20 per cent of the population do not speak English as their first language, along with 27.5 per cent in Leicester, which has the highest rate in the country. In Blackburn it is 13.4 per cent, according to Statista.

Other potential explanations include a distrust of unknown callers, missed emails or people outright refusing to hand over contact details.

Local councillors and public health officials are now demanding more control over the test and trace process on the back of the 'very concerning' figures.

They say devolving power to local authorities could allow them to do door-to-door visits if contacts cannot be reached by other means.

The government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) has said the system must aim to reach 80 per cent of close contacts and get them isolated within 72 hours for the programme to work.

However, official data published today showed call handlers are still failing to reach almost a quarter of close contacts of positive Covid-19 cases in England to tell them to self isolate.

More damning statistics today published by the Department of Health show NHS Test and Trace is failing on one of its most important measures - testing people quickly.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson had promised that all results would be delivered within 24 hours of someone taking a test, but the service has again missed the target.

Between July 9 and July 15, the proportion of people getting their results within a day was 46.8 per cent, down from 50.6 per cent between July 2 and July 8.
CHICAGO - Amid a surge in gun violence and protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, the nations third-largest city is on edge, awaiting possible greater tension in the form of a plan by President Donald Trump to dispatch dozens of federal agents to Chicago.

The White House plan emerged days after a downtown protest over a statue of Christopher Columbus devolved into a chaotic scene of police swinging batons and demonstrators hurling frozen water bottles, fireworks and other projectiles at officers. Then, on Tuesday in another neighbourhood, a spray of bullets from a car passing a gang members funeral wounded 15 people and sent dozens running for their lives.

Tension in the city has climbed to a level that, if not unprecedented, has not been felt in a long time.

Ive never seen things worse in this city than they are right now, said the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest and longtime activist on the citys South Side.

Much of the strain stems from the fact that it remains unclear exactly what the federal officers will do here. The plan seems to be a repeat of what happened in Kansas City, Missouri, where the administration sent officers to help quell violence after the shooting death of a young boy.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot sought to tamp down fear that the surge will resemble the kind of scene that unfolded in Portland, Oregon, where unidentified agents in camouflage have beaten unarmed protesters and stuffed some of them into unmarked vehicles.

Lightfoot said she has been told the U.S. Attorneys Office will supervise the additional agents supporting the Chicago offices of the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

But given the longstanding animosity between city officials and Trump, leaders from the mayor on down worry that those promises will not hold up.

City officials will be on guard for any steps out of line, particularly from agents with the Homeland Security Department, and they will not hesitate to take the president to court, Lightfoot said.

Trump announced the plan Wednesday, saying he would send agents to Chicago and Albuquerque to help combat rising crime. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and Attorney General Bill Barr both said the mission in Portland  to protect federal property  differs from the focus in Kansas City, Chicago and Albuquerque.

Barr said the number of agents being deployed to Chicago is comparable to the Kansas City surge of more than 200.

Trump painted Democrat-led cities as out of control and lashed out at the radical left. Criminal justice experts say the increase in violence in some cities defies easy explanation.

In recent weeks, there has been a radical movement to defend, dismantle and dissolve our police department, Trump said, blaming the movement for a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence.

Lightfoot has repeatedly said she does not support protesters calls to pull money from police in favour of social services.

If the federal agents do as they have done in Portland, one prominent minister on the citys West Side said the situation will turn the city into a magnet for the same kind of people who infiltrated the statue protest, put on dark clothes and distributed and threw projectiles at police from behind umbrellas.

Its going to be like that, but on steroids, the Rev. Marshall Hatch warned. Chicago is one of those epicenters where you already have an unsettled social situation and racial situation. And youre going to find out that Chicago is a lot more volatile in the middle of a long hot summer than Portland is.

He fears such a chaotic scene is exactly what the president wants as he seeks reelection.

Chicago might offer Trump an opportunity to somehow scare the middle class into thinking hes the only one standing between them and the barbarians, Hatch said.

Pfleger said federal agents could help stem violence if they stick to helping detectives make arrests and increase the citys homicide clearance rate, which the department said this month is under 40%. They could also help stem the flow of illegal guns pouring into the city from Indiana, Mississippi and elsewhere.

A big reason why there are so many murders in the city is that you have a really good chance of getting away with murder here, Pfleger said.

Nor, he said, was it lost on people that nobody had been arrested for the shooting outside the church despite Police Superintendent David Browns contention that two squad cars were on the street and a tactical unit nearby.

Everybodys saying on the street, We have to protect ourselves because the police arent going to protect us Pfleger said. Thats the mentality.

The shooting went on long enough for the gunmen and people attending the funeral who returned fire to leave at least 60 shell casings at the scene.

At a news conference, Brown implored witnesses to come forward with information about the attack, which police believed was carried out in retaliation for another shooting. Observers suggested that the police departments reputation for brutality, misconduct and racism made Browns plea a tough sell.

You dont share stuff with people you dont trust, Pfleger said.

That mistrust also plays into another activists concern that no matter what federal agents do when they arrive in the city, it will not help and may aggravate the situation.

Anytime you have police in a community that have no relationship to the community  with the business owners, with the youth  it makes the situation worse, said Jahmal Cole, founder and executive director of a community organization on the South Side called My Block, My Hood, My City.
The Director of Sarabia Group, Antonio Ivar Sarabia, highlighted that they bet on the economic reactivation of the value chain through the support to producers.

agrofertil.com

The company Agrofertil, of Sarabia Group, signed financing agreements with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), member of the World Bank and the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) to strengthen the task of reinvigorating the agricultural sector and the growth strategy during the Covid-19 pandemic. The lines of credit will be used as investments in silos and branches and the supply financing to producers, in a way they can develop their crops and receive technical throughout the entire productive process.

The company Agrofertil, of Sarabia Group, signed financing agreements with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), member of the World Bank and the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) to strengthen the task of reinvigorating the agricultural sector and the growth strategy during the Covid-19 pandemic. The lines of credit will be used as investments in silos and branches and the supply financing to producers, in a way they can develop their crops and receive technical throughout the entire productive process.

Asuncion, Paraguay , July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The company Agrofertil, of Sarabia Group, signed financing agreements with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), member of the World Bank and the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) to strengthen the task of reinvigorating the agricultural sector and the growth strategy during the Covid-19 pandemic. The lines of credit will be used as investments in silos and branches and the supply financing to producers, in a way they can develop their crops and receive technical throughout the entire productive process.

The Director of Sarabia Group, Antonio Ivar Sarabia, revealed that the business group will receive the project financing of U$D 28 million, of which U$D 10million are from IFC and U$D 18 million from FMO, credits that will be destined to finance the next agricultural campaign, with the goal of contributing to the productive communitys social development, by strengthening the chain of value.

At Agrofertil we work to increase the productivity and profitability of producers, to whom we consider strategic associates. Covid-19 pandemic generated a crisis for which we reinforced the commitment for the next campaign in order to start thinking in the economic recovery, stated the Director, Antonio Ivar Sarabia.

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Besides, he highlighted that Agrofertil is a leader in the commercialization of supplies and grain stockpiling in Paraguay, committing themselves to the producers permanent training by the companys professionals and the constant boost innovation.

On the other hand, Paulo Sergio Sarabia, Agrofertils director, indicated the approved credit lines will contribute at a critical time of the domestic economy. The projects goal is to minimize the Covid-19 impact and will serve to Agrofertil to keep its financing levels and assistance to rural producers for the next crop, even at these difficult times the world economy is going through, contributing to the agricultural sector recovery.

In a statement published on the International Finance Corporation (IFC) website, the entity recognizes to Agrofertil as the ideal associate to move forward this kind of project, since the credit granted has the aim of injecting liquidity in the Paraguayan market in a way that the capital requirements are financed, previous to the harvest of thousands of small farmers, contributing to ensure the continuity of operations of the agro-industrial sector.

In addition, in an official communication, the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) emphasized that they signed a loan with Agrofertil of U$D 18 million, since it is a company that plays a key role in Paraguays agricultural industry by providing supplies on credit to the farmers, as well of providing commercialization services to help the farmers sell their grains in an efficient way with the goal of generating employment in the inner country cities.

It should be noted that both financial entities support the sustainable growth of the private sector from countries in development and emerging markets via the investment in projects and ventures highly ambitious. Regarding the granted credits to the company of Sarabia Group, they indicate they focused on reinforcing the agro-industrial sector as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and they assure that precisely during these times of crisis, it is important to continue investing through key allies.

The funding received will help to the company leader in Paraguays agricultural sector to minimize the Covid-19 impact on the economy, to finance its recent investments in grain silos network, besides keeping the financing levels and assistance to rural producers.

The Sarabia Group is an Agribusiness leader in Paraguay in terms of production and commercialization of agro-chemicals and grains stockpiling throughout its companies Tecnomyl and Agrofertil. Its directives Jose Marcos Sarabia, Paulo Sergio Sarabia and Antonio Ivar Sarabia actively participate of the Corporate Social Responsibility actions, encouraging activities in support of the most vulnerable areas and the environmental care.

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Linkedin Adrian Wail Akhlas (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 15:47 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668c24fb 1 Business aftech,bank-indonesia,open-banking,data-sharing,data-protection,data-security,fintech,financial-inclusion Free

Bank Indonesia (BI) has urged the financial industry to develop an open banking system to boost financial inclusion, but a lack of security standards and data protection regulation can hold up the central banks latest effort to boost the digital economy.

BI payment system policy executive director Erwin Haryono said the data-sharing system would be able to accelerate banks digital transformation efforts, adding that the open banking framework would be used to create a unified national payment system by 2025.

An open banking framework mandates banks to share customer data with approved third parties, such as financial technology (fintech) companies, thereby allowing both parties to access data that offer insights into consumer patterns and needs, as well as credit score, among other things.

Data-sharing among fintech companies is boosting digital transformation in Indonesias economy, Erwin said during a discussion on Wednesday. He called on banks to transform their businesses and collaborate with digital companies to improve consumers experience and boost financial inclusion.

The 2018 Financial Inclusion Insights survey, published by the National Committee for Financial Inclusion in November last year, reveals that 55.7 percent of the 6,695 respondents in all provinces of Indonesia already had formal financial accounts with banks, fintech companies or cooperatives in 2018.

That figure is a jump in financial inclusion from 35.1 percent in 2016, and brings the country closer to President Joko Jokowi Widodos target of 75 percent financial inclusion by the end of 2019. The financial inclusion report for last year has yet to be announced.

The central bank is currently formulating regulations on open banking standards, which will oblige banks to share their data with fintech companies by creating their own application programming interfaces (APIs) from their own systems.

An open banking platform will see traditional banks help digital players reduce technical costs by sharing the know-your-customer (KYC) metrics or loan affordability metrics in an API.

The initiative may reduce borrowing costs for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) as banks could access MSMEs data provided by digital firms, among other benefits, Erwin went on to say.

Erwin said banks had dominated the retail payment industry back in 2015, but e-payment start-ups such as GoPay and OVO had taken much of the market share four years later, adding that banks should transform their businesses or risk losing the market to non-bank platforms.

According to data provided by the central bank, several banks have transformed their business online, such as private lender DBS with its Digibank platform and state-owned banks (Himbara) with their LinkAja platform, creating an interlink between fintech and banks to contain escalation of shadow banking risk.

The central bank also recorded that electronic transactions increased to Rp 15 trillion (US$1 billion) in May compared to Rp 12.8 trillion in the same period last year. Meanwhile, the central bank recorded e-commerce transactions growing 26 percent during the pandemic.

This is a golden opportunity for Indonesias traditional banks to provide a platform for local fintech players to develop their solutions while ensuring data security and compliance, Backbase regional director for Asia Riddhi Dutta wrote in a The Jakarta Post op-ed titled The future of digital banking in Indonesia published last month.

Several industry players and analysts have raised concerns over a lack of a standardized security system, as well as a lack of data protection regulation, all of which can harm customers.

The central bank will need to deal with how to maintain the stability of the banking ecosystem and maintain security standards, World Bank Group senior financial sector specialist Ivan Mortimer-Schutts told the same discussion.

We should not just let any actors come in and access the crucial source of information and payment systems, he stressed.

Indonesian Financial Technology Association (Aftech) vice chairman Budi Gandasoebrata said the custodian of the financial services would need to step up security practices ranging from anti-money laundering to consumer protections.

Indonesia Information Communication Technology (ICT) executive director Heru Sutadi noted that the cybersecurity risks remained a huge threat to the country's financial services.

"Therefore, the open banking system will need to be tightly regulated and must ensure cybersecurity safety, he said on Wednesday.
In a secret Cabinet letter, last year, Ghana's finance minister, Hon. Ken Ofori Atta, predicted that the founder of GN Bank, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, would fight back against the revocation of his bank's license, by challenging it in the law courts - but he (Ofori Atta) was confident that because they were the government of the day, they would prevail there too. Very, very interesting, that. So revealing of the iniquitous nature of our system.

Recently, judgements have been passed in a number of high profile cases, by the judges hearing them, which have baffled many apolitical, discerning and independent-minded Ghanaians. When such decent and apolitical citizens begin feeling that some judges can be relied on by the government of the day, to deliver judgements favourable to a government in power in this country that is hobbled by high-level corruption, it makes them feel that it is a development that certainly does not augur well for our nation's collective future. And it doesn't, as a matter of fact, if truth be told.

We are in the midst of a pandemic that is growing more and more serious, if one listens to some of the fears expressed by COVID-19 burial team members.

Yet, the governing party's hardliners have thrown caution to the wind, and put society at grave risk, by maneuvering to get the Electoral Commission (EC), to go ahead, with the compilation of a new voters register - in the midst of a highly contagious coronavirus, which is killing scores of Ghanaians, we are told, by COVID-19 burial team members, decrying the insouciance of so many Ghanaians, about the risks involved in not adhering to the containment protocols, meant to stop the virus from spreading.

One won't even go into the morality of sending school children back to notoriously unhygenic boarding schools, hitherto perpetually under siege by bedbugs, so as to (it now has become obvious to all but the deliberately-blind), simply enable them to be registered to vote. That definitely is amoral. Ditto arrogant and irresponsible, without question.

Yet, their parents had been promised solemnly that no outsiders, including even they the children's parents' and guardians,' themselves, would be allowed into those schools, whiles the students were there - as a preventative measure to stop outsiders infecting them: thus ensuring that no outsiders could possibly endanger the lives of their children and wards in those boarding schools. Was it not selfish and cynical in the extreme, therefore, to then allow the EC and the ruling party's bigwigs, to have access to them, one wonders? Incredible. Unspeakable. Monstrous. Unpardonable. Abominable.

After being deliberately shunted aside by the hardliners in his party (now busy backstabbing him left right and centre), for 14 days, under the ruse that he had tested positive for COVID-19, according to conspiracy-theorists quoted by bush-telegraph sources, President Akufo-Addo must now fight back, to take full control of his regime, again, from the domineering-hardliners, who have now clearly taken over his presidency, and, rendered him more or less a lame duck leader, unable to stop even the outrageous prostitution, of the honour of the noble profession of arms, by those of his appointees, who have infiltrated our national security apparatus with myrmidon-thugs, who are said to be members of private militias belonging to extremist-hardliners in the New Patriotic Party (NPP), who have been issued military and police uniforms, and who publicly take their marching orders (to the eternal disgust and shame of the professionals in the police and military), from evil-political-blackguards, deploying them to voters registration centres, to intimidate voters in opposition strongholds, across Ghana.

In such precipitous moments in our nation's history, all those appointed by sitting Presidents, as judges of the highest courts in our homeland Ghana, who are women and men of integrity and good conscience, must understand clearly that ultimately, it is the well-being of the citizenry, as defined in the human rights guaranteed them, under the 1992 Constitution, which ought to influence all the judgements that they pass, when the outcomes of such controversial cases, could embarrass those in governments of the day. Full stop. Case closed.

In light of all that, we shall all follow such controversial cases, now before judges, to see how they will eventually rule on them - particularly in the case brought against today's hard-of-hearing regime, which has so foolishly decided to permit the mining of bauxite, in the Atewa Forest Forest Reserve, which is the watershed of three major river systems that over 5 million Ghanaians depend on, for the potable water sourced from the Densu, Ayensu and Birim Rivers for treatment and distribution, to villages, towns and duties across southern Ghana.

Is that abominable decision by the current regime not an egregious abuse of their human right to life - since water is life: and not having access to it is literally a death sentence? We rest our case. Hmmmm, Oman Ghana eyeasem ooooo - enti yewieye paaa enei? Asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa. Yooooo...

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Hong Kong: Police officer initially tests positive

Police today said a 36-year-old male officer posted to Traffic, New Territories South has preliminarily tested positive for COVID-19.

The officer felt unwell on July 21 and sought medical treatment at a hospital the following day. Preliminary results released on the evening of July 22 showed that he tested positive for the virus.

He had no travel history in the past 14 days and last attended work on July 20. He wore masks when coming into contact with the public.

Officers that might have come into close contact with the patient have been arranged to work from home and undergo virus tests.

Police have deployed staff to clean and disinfect the patients quarters as well as his office.

The force has also reminded officers to reduce social contact, pay attention to physical health and consult a doctor if they feel unwell.

Police will continue to communicate closely with the Department of Health and proactively provide the patients recent duty record and roster.

Arrangements will also be made for his close contacts to be sent to quarantine centres.

This story has been published on: 2020-07-23. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

Trend:

The latest Armenian provocations, committed in the direction of Azerbaijans Tovuz district on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border, were condemned by the deputies of the Latvian Saeima, the Azerbaijani Embassy in Latvia told Trend.

Condolences were expressed to the Azerbaijani people in an open letter in connection with the death of Azerbaijani servicemen as a result of artillery shelling by the Armenian armed forces. The letter was written on behalf of 15 members of the group for promoting cooperation between the Latvian Seim and the Parliament of Azerbaijan, and sent to the Azerbaijani-Latvian inter-parliamentary working group.

The parties also expressed serious concern about the military escalation on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border and called on the sides to resume peace talks.

The members of the group highlighted the occupation by the Armenian armed forces of parts of the Azerbaijani territories and expressed their hope that Armenia will be active in their liberation, which will allow people to return to their historical lands.

Following continuous ceasefire violations of Armenia's armed forces, the country launched another military provocation against Azerbaijan on July 12. Grossly violating the ceasefire regime, Armenian armed forces opened fire in the direction of Azerbaijan's Tovuz district.

As a result of the appropriate measures, the Armenian armed forces were silenced. The tensions continued on the border, July 12 night. During the night battles, by using artillery, mortars and tanks, the Azerbaijani armed forces destroyed a stronghold, army vehicles.

As a result of the shelling, many houses in the Tovuz district's border villages were damaged.

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.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 20:27:52|Editor: huaxia

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TIRANA, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Albanian President Ilir Meta on Thursday called for better policies and legal framework in order to stop violence and sexual exploitation of children.

Meta made this statement at an event organized together with the Center for the Rights of the Child in Albania, on the occasion of the launch of a national movement called "We are one - Together against violence and sexual exploitation of children in Albania."

"Violence and sexual exploitation of children is one of the most serious criminal and cruel abuses that can occur in a society," Meta said.

The president underlined that this is high time "not only to raise voices to protect children's rights, but also to improve policies, legal framework to ... stop violence and sexual exploitation of children."

The widespread use of internet and technology, Meta noted, has further exposed children to the risk of violence and abuse.

The president declared that during COVID-19 pandemic there has been a rise in child sexual abuse reported online, due to increased hours spent online.

Meta emphasized that Albania needs a special law on child protection on online platforms, as well as amendments to the Criminal Code for juveniles with a special focus on protection from sexual violence.

The national movement "We are one" aims to address the challenges and shortcomings in protecting children from violence and sexual exploitation throughout Albania, by engaging citizens, parents, teachers, educators, artists, public officials, civil society, youth and children themselves, to denounce any act of violence or sexual exploitation of children, as well as to work with the authorities to take action to protect, care for and raise awareness of children and families from the consequences of violence. Enditem
The Rogovy Foundation is pleased to announce the Miller / Packan Documentary Film Fund Summer 2020 award winners. The Fund awards grants totaling $200,000 to a selection of film projects annually through its Summer and Winter open calls.

The Funds five selection of award winners for this Summer period are:

Planet Z  The film follows a group of climate change youth activists as they mobilize their efforts to empower and inspire other youths and adults to create change within their communities, government and beyond. Director: Tom Donahue.

Untitled Prison Hunger Strike Film  In 2013, three men, trapped for decades in solitary confinement in, all arrived at the same decision  a hunger strike, the largest in US history. 30,000 people abolished indefinite solitary confinement in California prisons. Director: Stephen Robert Morse.

In the Cold Dark Night  In 1983 in a small Georgia town, white men brutally murdered Timothy Coggins, a young black man, because of his relationship with a white woman. Authorities stopped investigating and witnesses received threats to remain quiet, the case went cold for nearly 34 years until a new investigation opened in 2017. Director: Lucas Guilkey.

STAYERS  The documentary follows the tight-knit crabbing community of Tangier Island, Virginia, through a dramatic year as the islanders are fighting for a sea wall to save their home. This all happens in the lead-up to one of the most anticipated presidential elections in US history. Director: Julia Dahr & Julie Lunde Lillester. http://www.differmedia.com/project/stayers

Untitled West Virginia Project  A meditation on the suffering and devastation resulting from the coal industry and its decline in West Virginia, as communities bear witness to a perfect storm of afflictions: a crumbling economy, an opioid epidemic, and environmental damage. Director: Lucas Sabean & Peter Hutchinson. http://www.bigtentproductions.nyc/west-virginia

This year were all seeing the profound challenges we face as a society first-hand, said Asher Rogovy, Foundation President. Supporting these films is but one step towards progress. We can only face problems if we recognize problems, and documentary films are a powerful medium to illustrate them.

Applications are now being accepted for the Winter 2020 Open Call, which ends November 15th.

Further details on the Miller / Packan Film Fund can be found at: http://www.rogovy.org

About The Rogovy Foundation. The Rogovy Foundation invests in inspired people and nonprofit organizations working to build a more enlightened and harmonious planet. The Foundation sees documentary film as a potent medium which broadens our vision and changes our perspectives.

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Queen Elizabeth II has been at the forefront of the British royal family for more than 68 years now. In fact, she has been named as the world's longest-reigning living monarch.

The Queen has managed to redefine her role as the head of state with her efforts to modernize the historic Biritish institution.

Since her coronation in 1953, Her Majesty the Queen has seen Great Britain change drastically over the years. However, she has remained a constant presence in the Commonwealth, as well as the lives of her fellow Britons.

Considered as one of the iconic figures in history, the 94-year-old monarch gained respect among the world's most powerful leaders -- including former U.K Prime Minister Winston Churchill, ex-U.S President Barack Obama, and the 34th U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower.

Over the years, Her Majesty proved that she's one tough Queen, as she has shown no signs of slowing down and giving up her crown.

With that said, here are the proofs that Queen Elizabeth II is a badass monarch.

Queen Elizabeth II Fighting In The War

The United Kingdom declared war in 1939 against Nazi Germany, marking the beginning of World War II.

Then-Princess Elizabeth begged her father George VI, who was also the current King of England at the time, to allow her to join the war efforts.

On her 18th birthday, she was enlisted and enrolled in the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS.)

The teenage Elizabeth took her duties seriously and worked as a mechanic and a truck driver despite her future role in the monarchy and the King's reluctance.

Until this day, the Queen remains the only female member of the British royal family to have entered the armed forces and is the only living head of the monarchy who have served in WWII.

Handling Megxit

Earlier this 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle made a huge announcement that brought a massive blow to the royal family.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex dropped their bombshell news of quitting the Firm in order to enjoy a "more peaceful life."

Being the head of the state, Her Majesty the Queen had to do damage control and summoned the senior members of the royal family at her royal estate.

Dubbed as the "Sandringham Summit," the attendees discussed the "complicated issues" brought by Megxit.

With the couple's decision to be financially independent, Buckingham Palace has agreed to their new arrangement; however, Prince Harry and Meghan are barred from using the term royal in their branding and would no longer be entitled to HRH titles.

Embracing Queenship

At the age of 25, Princess Elizabeth ascended to the throne following the death of King George VI.

Before being proclaimed as the queen by her privy and executive councils, the 21-year-old royal delivered a speech during their family's royal tour in South Africa and promised to dedicate her life to the service of the Commonwealth.

With her position in the monarchy, Queen Elizabeth II never expected that she would be the head of the state.

After her uncle King Edward VIII abdicated, Queen Elizabeth's father was crowned as the King of England, making the unexpecting princess the heir to the throne.

As the saying goes, "the crown always finds its way to the right head," and now, Her Majesty the Queen has successfully served as the British Head of State for more than six decades to today.

Now, that's badass!

READ MORE: Prince Harry Heartbreak: Royal Rift With Prince William IMPOSSIBLE To Fix For Now
Click here to read the full article.

Lana Condor, best known for her breakout role in the Netflix romantic comedy To All the Boys Ive Loved Before, is the latest Neutrogena brand ambassador.

The 23-year-old actress has an intense fan base that quickly followed her to YouTube when she started her own channel in February, where she documents everything from eating chicken wings with her boyfriend to a pre-coronavirus trip to Vietnam, the country where she was born.

Condor, along with new brand ambassador Jenna Ortega, represents Neutrogenas play at harnessing a Gen Z consumer.

Here, WWD talks to Condor about her nascent YouTube career and what shes reading in quarantine.

WWD: Congratulations on the brand deal. What made you want to work with Neutrogena?

Lana Condor: Neutrogena talks about beauty from the inside out and really values strong, individual voices. That women that have done this before me is fantastic  I am one of the biggest Kerry Washington fans, Im obsessed with her work. Every word she says is weighted and she has an amazing, passionate point of view.

WWD: Youre really outspoken on social media about causes you are passionate about. How do you view your role as an activist?

L.C.: Ive noticed particularly in the past couple of months that young people who follow me really need and want to be part of something bigger than themselves. If people follow me, its because they believe in me, and I want to show them what Im passionate about and believe in  girls education, Black Lives Matter, mental health. I spoke so freely because I want to give them a reason to follow me beyond just being a fan of my work.

WWD: What is inspiring you right now?

L.C.: Glennon Doyles Untamed is changing my life. She talks about taking up space. As women, weve been taught to make ourselves fit into a smaller cage to fit societys expectations of us and how we should look or feel, were taught that to keep us smaller to fit in that cage. This has really resonated with me lately, particularly during quarantine. Ive been in that place to make myself small to fit other peoples expectations and I dont want do that anymore. Im going through this metamorphosis to take up space and flourish and be the best I can be.

Story continues

WWD: And you recently started a YouTube channel. Talk to me about how thats going.

L.C.: I wanted to start it because I went to Vietnam in December  I went back there for the first time since being adopted and it was the most amazing experience. That was an emotional trip for me and I realized I wanted to share more of myself in an intimate way  random things that people like, like eating chicken wings or my skin-care routine. I want my YouTube to be educational and about current events, but also self-care. I didnt start really honing in on a self-care routine and taking care of myself until the past couple years, and I very much wish that I had started that self-care journey earlier in my life.

WWD: Whats your skin-care routine like?

L.C.: Im a huge advocate for sunscreen. My mom used to tan and now she has sun damage, and now shes so intense, like Lana, you must wear sunscreen. Im excited to share with people why they need to wear SPF  if they dont listen to their parents, maybe theyll listen to me.

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The Ilorin Area Office of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), was razzed down by fire late Tuesday night, July 21.

The cause of the fire which affected the facilitys Administrative block, Marketing Department, News and Current Affairs Department as well the Programmes Department is yet to be known.

Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq who was among the first responders, said the entire facility would have been destroyed if not for the timely intervention of the Federal and the State fire services.

A statement released by Rafiu Ajakaye, the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, read;
Samsung has revealed that users in Germany will be able to store their electronic ID (eID) details on certain Galaxy devices starting later this year, beginning with the Galaxy S20 lineup. The company worked with the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), Bundesdruckerei (bdr) and Deutsche Telekom Security GmbH on a system that will allow citizens to store their National ID securely on their smartphone.

To enroll, citizens will need to download bdrs Mobile ID application, which will be available later this year, via the Play Store. They can simply tap their NFC-enabled National ID card against the back of their phone. Theyll then be able to use those credentials to, for instance, use eGovernment services and open a bank account.

Once someone has enrolled, their eID will be transferred to a secure location on their device  the separate Secure Element (eSE) chip. Samsung says its S20 phones are its first mobile devices that comply with the BSIs eID security framework for sovereign use. Citizens will have complete control over their data, the company claims, and itll be protected by the highest level of encryption available.

Germany has been working on eID and digital identity programs for some time. previously allowed residents to scan their ID cards into iOS 13 devices. People in Japan have also been able to scan ID cards that are equipped with NFC using an iPhone.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 23)  The Department of Health (DOH) has approved the use of pool testing to increase the countrys COVID-19 testing capacity.

DOH Spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire said on Thursday that the departments executive committee discussed and approved its use, while the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases has noted the suggestion.

Vergeiere, however, said its implementation is pending with the DOH is still awaiting the result of a pilot study conducted by the Philippine Society of Pathologists for the proof of concept to back up the methods feasibility.

Pool testing involves the use of an algorithm and grouping specimens together for testing.

In June, Vergeire said the COVID-19 Laboratory Expert panel is studying the possibility of using pool testing to increase testing capacity.

She added that the DOH Single Joint Research Ethics Board is also doing a review ahead of the pilot study at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine. The department is also identifying other laboratories which may have the capacity to conduct such testing method.

Iloilo congresswoman and former health secretary Janette Garin earlier said she supports the use of this method since it is more efficient and is seen to improve the countrys testing and isolation procedures.

As of July 22, the total number of licensed laboratories in the country is 91, of which 68 are reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) laboratories, while 23 are GeneXpert laboratories.

A total of 1,110,902 unique individuals were tested with an average 24,695 tests done per day as of July 20.
YEREVAN, JULY 23, ARMENPRESS. In the past days Armenia has shown a responsible and reliable behavior to the international community, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at the Cabinet meeting, adding that Armenia remained committed to the three ceasefire agreements which were subsequently violated by Azerbaijan, causing new losses to its armed forces every time.

We didnt make threats to Azerbaijans people and civilian infrastructures in case when the Azerbaijani defense ministry was threatening to strike the Metsamor nuclear power plant. Meanwhile, this threat should become a serious international topic of discussion because it shows Azerbaijans essence of being a terroristic state.

After July 12 the international community made numerous calls on condemning the ceasefire violations and stopping the violence. The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs and their countries have a great contribution to the restoration of the ceasefire. In this sense Russias involvement was especially effective which was expressed both at the foreign ministrys level and the General Staffs of the Armed Forces, the Armenian PM said.

Pashinyan said the only country which was trying not to calm down the situation, but to provoke further violence was Turkey. Taking into account that countrys destabilizing and aggressive policy in some regions near its border, as well as its traditional anti-Armenian policy, which is expressed by the justification of the Armenian Genocide, Turkeys such behavior was not a surprise at all. But its growing aggression brings a necessity for certainly revising our policy, in terms of also increasing our participation in international formats aimed at restraining Turkeys aggression, he said.

He said there is no doubt Armenia will overcome this trial victorious.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
As men, most of us at some point, have always been drawn to war films, such is their allure. It is often said that Saving Private Ryan is the best war film of all times. However, a strong case can be made for Sam Mendes 1917.



 Universal Pictures

We believe that 1917 is one of the best war films ever made, and certainly the best one to be made in the last two decades, and it certainly deserves to be watched, at least once. Why, you ask? Well, we list just some of the reasons that make us think so.



 Universal Pictures

1. The Technical Aspects

 Universal Pictures

From a technical POV, 1917 is a masterclass on how great movies ought to be shot. The cinematography creates an illusion that the film is one continuous shot, without any cuts in between. Furthermore, the soundscape is very evocative and has been used to create a sense of angst among the audience, the same angst that the characters on screen would be going through.



2. The Origin Of The Story

 Universal Pictures

In an interview, Sam Mendes said that the film was somewhat based on the story of a fellow soldier that Mendes grandfather fought with, in World War I. The fact that it is based on a real story, that an actual human being went through something of that scale, is a pretty convincing reason to watch it.



3. The Actual Cost Of War

 Universal Pictures

People who shout war often dont realise the true cost that it entails. Often, movies are accused of creating overtly grotesque images to create a dramatic effect. 1917 does not do that. Instead, it stays as true as possible to the actual effects of war. Yes, it shows people dying and the brutality of it, but it does that without overdoing it. That is not to say that those sequences dont have the same effect of terror.



4. The Real Terror Of War

 Universal Pictures

1917 also perfectly encapsulated the true terror soldiers actual feel when they are on the battlefield. Most other films tend to overtly dramatize it. As a result, most war films turn out to become action films. The only other films to do that properly are Saving Private Ryan, Dunkirk & Apocalypse Now. However, Saving Private Ryan had that sense only in the first 20 minutes, and Apocalypse Now became somewhat caricaturish. Dunkirk stayed true to that terror, but 1917 is on a different level.



5. Historical Accuracy

 Universal Pictures

The historical accuracy of 1917 is uncanny. For example, filmmakers often forget that Indian soldiers, especially from the Sikh Regiment, actually fought in both the wars and simply forget to include them in their films. 1917 has shown Sikh army men fighting in the war. It is actually nice to get acknowledged for our forefatherss contributions, finally, even if it is in a film.



6. Departure From A Formulaic War Film

 Universal Pictures

Most war films are very formulaic. That is the reason why most of them turn out to become action films. 1917, isnt. The film does have sequences of war, but it does not dwell on those, and neither does it rely on the fighting sequences to further the story. Instead, they are purely for cinematic purposes. You dont get an invincible hero who can take on a battalion of German soldiers and come out victorious, and neither do you get a hero who can single-handedly win the war. Instead, you get a protagonist, entrusted with a mission, who struggles a lot to finish his objective.



7. The Accolades

 Universal Pictures

1917 won a number of accolades across the world and deservingly so. It won Oscars for cinematography, sound editing, and visual effects, and was a serious contender for the best picture. It completely swept the BAFTA, and did phenomenally well at the Golden Globes. Unlike most Indian Award Ceremonies, these awards actually mean something and add weight to a filmmaker or an actors portfolio.



8. The Performances

 Universal Pictures

Finally, there are the performances of the actors involved. Colin Firth & Benedict Cumberbatch as always were phenomenal, even in their limited capacities. Mark Strong and Andrew Scott too were great. However, two young men, George MacKay & Dean-Charles Chapman, who you probably have never heard of, were the star of the show, thanks to their immaculate performances.




By Lee Min-hyung



The economy shrank 3.3 percent in the second quarter of the year, its worst performance since the Asian financial crisis in 1998, as exports bore the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bank of Korea (BOK) said Thursday.



The global spread of the novel coronavirus led to strong downward pressure on the export-driven economy between April and June. Private consumption achieved a slight rebound, but it was insufficient to offset the poor exports, the central bank said. Exports make up roughly half of the nation's GDP.



The decline in shipments stemmed mostly from a sales plunge in the manufacturing sectors  such as automobiles and electronic equipment. Second-quarter exports dropped by 16.6 percent from the previous year, and the lowest since the 1970s.



"The sharper-than-expected contraction was due to poor performances in exports and private consumption," Park Yang-soo, chief of the BOK's economic statistics bureau, said in an online press conference.



With the country's major export destination countries imposing entry bans amid fears of the spreading coronavirus, overseas demand for major export items  such as vehicles and smartphones  declined sharply, Park said.



Earlier, the BOK forecast the economy to shrink around 2 percent in the second quarter after reporting a contraction of 1.3 percent in the previous quarter.



Trap of recession



The ongoing downturn is raising concerns that the economy has fallen into a recession often defined as two consecutive quarters of a contraction in GDP growth.



But the central bank and the Ministry of Economy and Finance remained optimistic for a potential economic rebound in the latter half of 2020.





SME exports dip 13.4 pct in Q2 on coronavirus Experts predict U-shaped economic recovery S. Korea reports 59 new cases of coronavirus infection "The Chinese economy has bounced back sharply after Beijing controlled the pace of the virus spread there, and Korea can also follow in similar footsteps," Park said.



Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki also said the economy appeared to have bottomed out during the April-June period, expressing hope for a rapid rebound through the end of the year.



"The economy can achieve a considerable rebound in the third quarter if the virus spread continues to show signs of subsiding," Hong said during an emergency meeting with ranking financial officials.



Local economists, however, expect the virus-induced external uncertainty to remain in place this year.



"The economy will bounce back to some extent in the second half of the year, and GDP growth will take a turn for the better," Yonsei University economist Sung Tae-yoon said.



"But this will be a statistical base effect, compared to the first half of the year. It is too early for us to say that the real economy will achieve a successful rebound by the end of the year."



Private consumption is expected to get on a stable track for recovery in the coming quarters unless there are second or third waves of COVID-19 infections here, according to Sung.



"But the problem is that external uncertainty will not improve rapidly," he said.



"Even if the Chinese economy is showing strong signs of recovery, China is not the only trading partner for Korea." China accounts for a quarter of Korea's exports.



According to the professor, for a full-fledged economic rebound here, global supply chains must be normalized, and economies in other countries need to be back on track for recovery.


Further loosening COVID-19 restrictions in Manitoba is the right thing to do, even with the slight increase in cases during the past week. But eliminating self-isolation rules for those who travel here from Eastern Canada would be premature.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Further loosening COVID-19 restrictions in Manitoba is the right thing to do, even with the slight increase in cases during the past week. But eliminating self-isolation rules for those who travel here from Eastern Canada would be premature.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS FILES The provinces chief public health officer, Dr. Brent Roussin, has reminded Manitobans repeatedly there would be an increase in cases as the government eased restrictions.

It's no surprise Manitoba has had an increase in COVID-19 cases as the economy reopened. The provinces chief public health officer, Dr. Brent Roussin, has reminded Manitobans repeatedly there would be an increase in cases as the government eased restrictions.

Manitobas 13-day streak with no cases earlier this month, while a welcome reprieve, was unexpected. Its unrealistic to think that could continue as the province reopens the economy. There will be more cases. There will be more deaths. Its unavoidable.

However, that doesnt mean the government should take unnecessary risks, where potential costs outweigh expected benefits. Manitoba has no choice but to slowly reopen its economy. The alternative  deeper unemployment, soaring bankruptcies, greater poverty, poor health outcomes in other areas  that would arise from a continued lockdown is unthinkable.

But each stage of reopening has to be weighed against the potential damage it could cause. The cost of reopening the Canada-U.S. land border, for example, would far outweigh the benefits of increased tourism and cross-border shopping, given the alarming outbreaks in the U.S.

By contrast, the benefits of children returning to school in September, which will likely increase the spread of the disease, outweigh the costs of higher caseloads. Its critical that kids get back to the classroom in the fall. Society will have to accept the risks associated with that.

Most of the measures in the provinces Phase 4 plan to reopen the economy, which were unveiled this week, are reasonable. Opening movie theatres with restrictions and casinos at half-capacity, while increasing indoor and outdoor public gathering limits, are low-risk moves (as long as people continue to adhere to social distancing).

But the case for eliminating the 14-day self-isolation period for travel between Eastern Canada and Manitoba is weak. The province said its considering lifting that restriction as part of its Phase 4 plan.

That would be a mistake.

Considering Roussin has said the importation of the virus is one of Manitobas biggest risks in containing the spread of the disease, allowing unfettered access to Manitoba from those provinces would seem foolhardy.

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Quebec and Ontario (particularly Montreal and Toronto) still have much higher caseloads and community transmission than Manitoba. While case numbers in both provinces have come down from highs in April and May, they began to rise again this month. Considering Roussin has said the importation of the virus is one of Manitobas biggest risks in containing the spread of the disease, allowing unfettered access to Manitoba from those provinces would seem foolhardy.

Besides, the benefits of doing so are modest. Yes, it would be nice to visit family and friends in those provinces, or to take a summer vacation there, without having to self-isolate upon return. There would be also tourism benefits for Manitoba if those measures were relaxed. But the cost of that  a steady stream of people getting off the plane from Montreal and Toronto and immediately frequenting stores, restaurants, bars and other public places in Manitoba  would be far too high.

ROBERT F. BUKATY / ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES The case for eliminating the 14-day self-isolation period for travel between Eastern Canada and Manitoba is weak.

Manitoba eliminated the self-isolation rule for western provinces and northwestern Ontario as part of its last reopening phase. With cases rising faster in Saskatchewan and Alberta than in Manitoba, the province is already facing growing risks from interprovincial travel. It doesnt need more by opening up with the rest of Canada, especially when the benefits are so meagre.

Despite the recent uptick in cases, Manitobas pandemic numbers are still among the best in Canada. Although the provinces five-day test positivity rate has grown to 1.12 per cent from under 0.2 per cent a week ago, its still low on a national scale. By comparison, the overall test positivity rate in the U.S. is 8.5 per cent. In Arizona, its 24 per cent and in Florida, 18.9 per cent. Even North Dakotas is much higher than Manitobas at 5.8 per cent.

Manitobas test positivity rate will likely rise as the economy reopens. Roussin cited three per cent as a benchmark in which the province could reinstate measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. Manitoba doesnt need to do anything to hasten that, especially when there is no good reason to.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca
New Delhi, July 23 : ArcelorMittal India Pvt Ltd (AMIPL) on Thursday said it has commenced mining operations at its Thakurani iron ore mine in Odisha's Keonjhar district.

According to the company, the Thakurani block, with estimated reserves of around 179 million tonnes, will make a valuable contribution to AM/NS India's long-term raw material requirements.

AM/NS India is a joint venture between ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel.

"The block has annual production capacity of 5.5 million tonnes, which can be scaled up to 8 million tonnes and its mineral reserves are expected to increase once detailed exploration is complete. AMIPL subsequently signed a Mine Development and Production agreement, executed a lease deed with the state government and has since acquired all valid rights, approvals, clearances and licenses," the company said in a statement.

In February, the AMIPL was selected preferred bidder for the Thakurani iron ore mine license following an auction process conducted by the Odisha government, in which AMIPL agreed to pay a 107.55 per cent premium per tonne, as well as other royalty and duties, ensuring strong revenue contribution to the state.

"The ore produced at Thakurani will feed AM/NS India's steel manufacturing facilities and support our long-term ambition to significantly grow our production capacity in India with a secure, integrated supply chain. Over time, our plan is to connect Thakurani to our plants in Odisha through a slurry pipeline, which ensures both a cost effective and environmentally friendly mode of mineral logistics," Dilip Oommen, CEO, AM/NS India was quoted as saying in the statement.

"We recognise our responsibility to the local communities around the mine and are committed to safe, sustainable operations to earn their trust. "
Just a few months ago international media was going gaga over the so-called Kerala Model that helped the state to contain the spread of COVID-19 there, while most of the other states in India and the majority of the world was struggling.

From BBC to The Guardian, CNN, Al Jazeera, The Economist and many more had featured the success story of Kerela and was discussing what the world can learn from the south Indian state.

BCCL

But come July, Kerala is on the verge of a total lockdown as the number of COVID-19 cases in the state is spiraling out of control.

On Wednesday, for the first time since COVID-19 was reported in Kerala in January, the number of daily infections breached the 1000-mark and recorded 1038 cases in the past 24 hours.

This has taken the total number of cases in the state to 15032, out of which 8818 are active.

BCCL

A total of 6162 people have recovered and 45 have died in the state due to COVID-19.

In early May, there was a time when Kerala did not report any new cases for three days and just 34 people were under treatment for COVID-19 in hospitals.

But COVID-19 cases in Kerala began rising once again after the government started repatriating NRIs who were stuck in COVID-19 affected countries.

Some of the first repatriation flights were to Kerala from the middle east.

AFP

This was followed by the gradual relaxation of the nationwide lockdown, which allowed lakhs of Keralites who were working and living in other states to travel back to their hometowns.

Those returning from abroad account majority cases

Until recently those returning from abroad or other states accounted for the majority of the cases reported in Kerala every day.

But it began changing earlier this month and local transmissions and infections from unknown sources stated overtaking those who came from outside.

It had reached a point where parts of the state capital were placed under a 'triple lockdown' after some fishermen villages there became major COVID-19 hotspots.

SCREENGRAB

Last week, Kerala became the first Indian state to acknowledge that there is community transmission of COVID-19, something that other states with a much higher number of infections and the ICMR has so far refused to do.

On Wednesday, during his daily press briefing, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that a total lockdown will be considered if the conditions do not improve.

So what went wrong in Kerala?

The initial success of Kerala was due to its robust public healthcare system, which is one of the best in India, and the state's ability to trace and track every single primary and secondary contact of infected patients.

I&PRD ERNAKULAM

But once the number of patients started increasing, doing contact tracing at a much larger level became impossible and it further worsened due to local transmissions, resulting in the high number of COVID-19 cases where the source of the infection is unknown.

Unlock 1

Much like the rest of India, Kerala too was eager to get its economy back on track after the lockdown. And as businesses, public transport, and inter-district travel resumed the virus also spread, which has been the same story elsewhere in the country.

Rising death toll

When the Kerala model was being celebrated, the state had recorded just four COVID-19 deaths, which has since gone up to 45. On average Kerala is recording 1-2 deaths every day in the past two weeks.

The politics of COVID-19

When the Kerala model was making headlines around the world, the Congress-led opposition refused to give the government credit for it. The leader of the opposition claimed that the Kerala Health Minister was having a media mania and that all the reports praising the Kerala model were the work of PR agencies. Another Congress MP went a step further and claimed that the low number of COVID-19 cases in the state had nothing to do with the government's work as coronavirus won't survive in a temperature above 30 degrees.

A government mired in controversy

While it was busy in dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak, the Kerala government was struck by a series of corruption charges an allegation of data privacy breach after it engaged Sprinklr, a US-based software company owned by a Kerala origin man to handle the data of COVID-19 patients.

Then came the big one.

Earlier this month two ex-UAE consulate staffers were arrested in Kerala for smuggling gold in diplomatic baggage. One of the accused, Swapna Suresh was a contractual employee of a firm that was working with the IT Department of Kerala Government. As the investigation continued, several people close to the CM including Principal Secretary Shivashankar are on the dock, giving ammunition for the opposition to target the government. These days the CM, in his daily press briefing spends more time defending his government than talking about COVID-19.



So, was the Kerala Model a failure all the way?

Not really and it is by far one of the best out there. In fact, Kerala had anticipated a second wave, once people from outside the state starts coming in. Unlike many other states, there is no shortage of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients even now.

BCCL

The triple lockdown in Thiruvananthapuram and plans for a total lockdown also shows that the government is still in control and these steps are more anticipatory than last resort. The death toll of 45 too is not alarming as the COVID-19 mortality rate in Kerala is just 0.3 percent against the national average of 2.43.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Paris, France  Thu, July 23, 2020 08:50 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668a34ad 2 World France,Catholic-church,Women,female-leader,leadership Free

Seven women announced Wednesday that they would seek leadership roles in the French Catholic Church that are officially reserved for men, the latest push to give women a place in the Church hierarchy.

After submitting their candidacies for posts including deacon, priest and bishop to Pope Francis's envoy to Paris, the women attended a mass at the Madeleine church to mark the feast of Saint Mary Magdalene.

Their campaign echoes a quest by Anne Soupa, a 73-year-old activist theologian, who in May declared herself a candidate to lead the archdiocese of Lyon.

That post has been vacant since Cardinal Philippe Barbarin stepped down last year over a pedophilia scandal involving one of his priests.

"The Church is experiencing a deep crisis, and we need to open up its doors," Soupa, who accompanied the women to Paris, told AFP.

"Women are rendered invisible in the Catholic Church," she said. "In this age of equality, when women's abilities are recognized by all, we can't continue like this."

Scores of pedophilia and sexual abuse charges have rocked the Church worldwide in recent years, prompting calls for wholesale change from critics who say it has failed to adapt its traditions to the demands of the modern world.

Yet so far Pope Francis, who backs many progressive causes such as considering allowing priests to marry, has refused calls to give women a greater role -- let alone let them be ordained.

Last year, he declined to move forward on letting women become deacons, which proponents say could help fill the gap in countries were priest numbers are dwindling, after several years of inconclusive debates.

"This isn't a move against the Church, but for it," Soupa said.
Doan Duy Khuong, chairman of ASEAN BAC 2020, Nguyen Thi Nga, chairwoman of ABA 2020 (centre), and Ha Thi Thu Thanh, chairperson of Deloitte Vietnam, signing a Partnership Agreement for ASEAN Business Awards 2020

The ABA 2020 awards will honour businesses in the ASEAN, serving as a great motivation for them to continue promoting creativity and discover new development directions to match post-pandemic economic conditions.

This is the second time Vietnam holds ABA and Nguyen Thi Nga chairs the award. Previously, in 2010, chairwoman Nga made tremendous contributions to the success and reputation of this award.

At a meeting between the ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ASEAN BAC) and the leaders of the blocs countries within the framework of the 36th ASEAN Summit, Nguyen Thi Nga reported to Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and leaders of the ASEAN that ABA 2020 will honour the blocs businesses for their outstanding contribution to the prevention of the COVID-19 pandemic region-wide.

Speaking at the event, Nguyen Thi Nga said: Featuring the tremendous negative impacts of COVID-19, 2020 is a special year for global businesses in general and ASEAN businesses in particular. However, this is also the time the best enterprises show their bravery and spirit to overcome difficulties as they not only ensure the sustainable development of their enterprises but also contribute to the prevention of the pandemic."

Therefore, ABA 2020 has a special stature, held in a special context to champion exceptional businesses across the region, Nga noted.

The award, granted annually, is not only an opportunity for all businesses in the region to be honoured for demonstrating their important position in the ASEAN economy. At the same time, it is also an opportunity for the global business community to better understand the solidarity and strength of ASEAN businesses, thereby promoting regional trade, investment, and economic integration.

The ASEAN Business Awards 2020 will begin to receive applications from August

Dr Doan Duy Khuong, chairman of the ASEAN BAC 2020, indicated that ABA has always had an extremely important meaning in the activities of the ASEAN BAC.

The significance of ABA 2020 is even more special as ASEAN businesses need to unite and share to not only overcome difficulties but also to take advantage of opportunities that have opened up as the pandemic is contained.

Aiming to build a prestigious award and to raise the standards of the business community in the region, Deloitte Vietnam Co., Ltd. has been selected as a strategic partner to accompany ABA 2020.

The ABA Awards event is scheduled to be held in November in Hanoi, accompanied by the 37th ASEAN Summit and attended by the leaders of the government of Vietnam and other countries in the region.

With the experience and capacity of one of the four leading auditing companies in the world, with customer and market understanding and a wide network of activities covering the ASEAN region, Deloitte Vietnam will bring fairness and transparency to the ABA 2020.

In addition, some award categories at the ABA 2020 are also accompanied by other prestigious international organisations such as the Skills Development Award, which will have GIZ (the Development Cooperation Agency of the German government) as a professional partner.

The ABA 2020 award system will be divided into nine categories refining the ABA awards of previous years and developing new award categories in accordance with the current socio-economic situation of the region, including Priority Integration Sectors; SME Excellence; Young Entrepreneur; Woman Entrepreneur; Family Business; Skills Development; Friends of ASEAN; Inclusive Business; and Combating COVID-19.

Sharing about the award categories at ABA 2020, Ha Thi Thu Thanh, chairperson of Deloitte Vietnam said, Deloitte Vietnam is honoured to be trusted as a strategic partner for ABA 2020. During 30 years of development in the Vietnamese market, with experience working with local businesses as well as a network that works closely with Deloitte members in the region, we understand the markets and businesses of each country.

According to Thanh, the award criteria suit the current business situation so that the judging panel can choose businesses that deserve this extremely prestigious award. At the same time, via creating positive effects for the community over 175 years, through the award Deloitte wishes to support and promote the development of the ASEAN business community.

Also during the event, the awards website at www.ABA2020. vn will contain all updated information, while all queries can be answered by the Organising Committee via email: info@aba2020.vn.

ABA 2020 is expected to receive applications at the beginning of August and registration time for enterprises in the region will last until September, after which the Organising Committee will conduct the judging and the jury (including experts, academics, and leading economists representing the 10 ASEAN countries) will be invited to discuss and make a final decision on the winners.

The ABA Awards event is scheduled to be held in November in Hanoi, accompanied by the 37th ASEAN Summit and attended by the leaders of the government of Vietnam and other countries in the region.
Thousands of health care workers across Africa have contracted coronavirus, a fact that worries international health officials who say the continents health infrastructure is strained enough without the added threat. In South Africa more than 3,500 health care workers have fallen ill, and at least 34 have died.

Nearly 770,000 people have been known to have contracted COVID-19 in the African region. And, says Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organizations regional director for Africa, buried in those numbers is a key group that is on the front lines of the battle.

In the African region, more than 10,000 health workers have been infected with COVID-19," said Moeti. "One of the biggest challenges in protecting health workers has been the global shortage of personal protective equipment, which has severely affected countries on the continent.

Moeti says more than 2 million items of PPE, including masks, goggles and gloves, have been shipped to African countries so far, with many more in the pipeline.

According to Ghana-based midwife Dr. Jemima A. Dennis-Antwi, the health workers getting sick arent always the obvious ones. Of the more than 2,000 infected health workers in the West African country, a significant portion are nurses and midwives.

Over 410 nurses and midwives have been affected in Ghana on duty  And this is because, of course, we are needed to save our patients 24/7," said Dennis-Antwi. "The increasing numbers of infectivity among health professionals, coupled with limited or lack of consistent supply of resources as Ive been stating, results in refusal to attend to patients, psychological stress to self and families, and constant threats of industrial action among many in countries. These, as we all know, have serious implications for quality care, especially reproductive mountain, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent care.

Experts are calling for more protective equipment, for greater testing for health professionals, and for some common sense suggestions. For example, Dennis-Antwi suggested that health-care facilities should provide meals for on-shift workers, to keep them from leaving the grounds to seek food.

South Africa Lockdown Deprives Malnourished Children of Food Nutritious food for children is a priority for their growth, but the coronavirus lockdown has disrupted distribution

In Sierra Leone, officials are thinking even bigger, says Health Minister Dr. Alpha Wurie. In coming weeks, the nation plans to roll out a health-insurance plan for all health workers.

Most of the continents affected health workers are in South Africa, the continents viral hotspot. But, Moeti said, epidemiologists are seeing COVID-19 spreading to health workers in Algeria, Kenya, Ghana and Ivory Coast.

She says governments are reacting to the influx of data to avoid harsh measures such as complete lockdowns.

We've seen some countries, Cote DIvoire is an example, really use the data to adjust the response, if you like, lockdown locally where it's necessary to enable life to continue and the economy to open up in other localities," she said. "I think that one of the most important things to do is to really enable people to grapple with the challenging circumstances and play their role in limiting the spread.

That, she said, is the best strategy: Wear a mask. Wash your hands thoroughly, and often. And keep your distance.
He is known only as Doe 14.

Raised in a devout Catholic family, he attended St. Francis Xavier in Newark and Essex Catholic in East Orange in the Archdiocese of Newark, participating in church and youth activities.

And by the time he was a teenager, his lawyers say he was being groomed for a role in what they called a sex ring involving then-Bishop Theodore McCarrick, the 90-year-old now defrocked and disgraced former cardinal who was cast out of the ministry last year over decades-old sexual abuse allegations.

In a lawsuit, they charged other priests served as procurers to bring victims to McCarrick at his beach house on the Jersey Shore, where he assigned sleeping arrangements, choosing his victims from the boys, seminarians and clerics present at the beach house, and that they were paired with adult clerics.

The lawsuit does not say if McCarrick asked the other priests to bring boys to the beach house.

In a press conference on Wednesday, attorneys for the now 53-year-old victim serving as the plaintiff in the lawsuit detailed a sordid, predatory scheme of sexual abuse involving McCarrick and other members of the clergy involving at least seven children, including Doe 14, that they said played out over dozens of years.

Jeff Anderson, who represents Doe 14, said priests and others under the control of McCarrick engaged in open and obvious criminal sexual conduct that was kept cloaked by the church.

That continued for 50 years until McCarrick, having been publicly exposed, was ultimately defrocked, declared Anderson.

In their court papers filed Tuesday night in New Jersey Superior Court in Middlesex County, the unnamed victim filed suit against the Diocese of Metuchen, where McCarrick served as bishop, the Archdiocese of Newark, where he was the archbishop, and the schools, high schools and parish schools Doe 14 had attended while growing up in New Jersey.

According to the lawsuit, much of what allegedly transpired occurred at a Sea Girt beach house that has been the focus of other complaints involving charges of abuse by McCarrick of seminarian students, who he allegedly would bring down to the Jersey Shore.

McCarrick would creep into this kids bed and engage in criminal sexual behavior and whisper, Its okay, said Anderson.

Asked about the charges, attorney Barry Coburn, who represents McCarrick, said only, no comment at this time.

The Newark Archdiocese also declined comment.

It would be inappropriate to discuss or comment on matters in litigation, said spokeswoman Maria Margiotta. The Archdiocese of Newark remains fully committed to transparency and to our long-standing programs to protect the faithful and will continue to work with victims, their legal representatives and law enforcement authorities in an ongoing effort to resolve allegations and bring closure to victims.

The Doe 14 complaint charged that boys were also selected and abused not only by McCarrick, but by other priests and clergy at the beach house, who were named in the court papers.

Gerald Ruane, Michael Walters and John Laferrera, allegedly abused Doe 14, the lawsuit claimed. All three were listed last year by the Newark Archdiocese as having credible accusations of sex abuse made against them. Ruane was listed as deceased, and the others had previously removed from ministry.

Brother Andrew Thomas Hewitt, the former Essex Catholic principal, was also accused of abusing the boy from 1981 to 1983, and named as well in a list of those accused of sexual abuse. He is now dead as well.

Also accused of unpermitted sexual contact when the plaintiff was 11 years old was a former priest named Anthony Nardino. He had not been publicly accused before, but was said to have left the ministry as well. Church officials did not respond to questions about him.

McCarrick, once the most recognized Catholic leader in New Jersey and a major voice on national issues for the church, has already been repeatedly accused of sexual abuse in earlier court filings.

Last year, James Grein stepped forward with a lawsuit under a new law that gives people more time to sue their alleged abusers and the institutions that protected them. He charged McCarrick sexually abused him for 20 years, even after he told Pope John Paul II during a visit to the Vatican about the abuse.

In a separate lawsuit, John Bellocchio, a former Catholic schoolteacher and principal, alleged in a lawsuit that McCarrick sexually assaulted him when he was the archbishop of Newark.

Even before any of those allegations came to light, church officials in New Jersey later revealed that McCarrick had previously been accused of sexual misconduct with three adults during his time in the state. Two of those cases resulted in secret legal settlements, according to the Archdiocese of Newark.

The settlements included $80,000 paid to a former priest turned lawyer from New Jersey who said McCarrick, known as Uncle Ted, would invite young seminarians and priests to the house in Sea Girt, where they would be expected to share a bed with McCarrick.

All that time, McCarrick continued his ascendancy in the church hierarchy, picked by Pope John Paul II as Washingtons archbishop in late 2000. A year later, he was made a cardinal.

The cardinals downfall began after a former altar server went to the Archdiocese of New York after hearing that a panel was considering settlements for alleged victims, to report how he had been abused as a teenager while being measured by McCarrick for a special cassock for Christmas Mass at St. Patricks Cathedral.

He told them that McCarrick, then a monsignor, unzipped the teenagers pants while measuring him for the garment and was later cornered in a bathroom.

The allegation led to McCarrick being removed from public ministry and later forced to resign from the College of Cardinals. A subsequent Vatican investigation ended with his being laicized, or dismissed from the clerical state  considered one the harshest forms of punishment that can be issued by the church.

McCarrick has never admitted to any wrongdoing.

Local journalism needs your support. Subscribe at nj.com/supporter.

Staff writer Kelly Heyboer contributed to this report.

Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com.
Iran Lawmakers Appoint Controversial Ahmadinejad Ally To Head Court Of Audit

Radio Farda July 22, 2020

Iran's Parliament on Wednesday elected a controversial politician known as an associate of the former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the new head of its supervisory arm, the Supreme Court of Audit.

Mehrdad Bazrpash who is a former Basij militia leader, lawmaker and vice president in the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected with 158 of the total 244 votes cast on Wednesday's open session of the hardliner-dominated Parliament.

Several influential politicians and critics of the Principlist camp, as some hardliners are known, had strongly objected to Bazrpash's nomination to the post.

In a letter to the Parliament Speaker Mohamad Baqer Qalibaf the anti-corruption former lawmaker Ahmad Tavakoli, urged the Parliament to reconsider the nomination of Bazrpash. Tavakoli said Bazrpash lacked sufficient experience and related education to head the Court of Audit.

Tavakoli, himself a Principlist, is the founder of an anti-corruption, non-governmental organization Justice and Transparency Watch.

Bazrpash served as CEO of two of Iran's largest automakers  SAIPA and Pars Khodro -- during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency. He was later appointed as Vice President and head of the National Youth Organization. Bazrpash launched Vatan-e Emrouz, a pro-Ahmadinejad newspaper, shortly before the disputed 2009 presidential election.

The former vice-president allegedly used government funds and resources to publish Vatan-e Emrouz which ceased publication in August 2019 due to "financial issues" as well as corruption allegations dating to the time he was the CEO of SAIPA and Pars Khodro.

Before its closure, the newspaper avidly criticized President Hassan Rouhani and his government and often chose very controversial and provocative headlines against him and the government.

Bazrpash somehow distanced himself from Ahmadinejad after his second term of presidency came to an end in 2013. He is very close to the ultra-hardliner Paydari Front.

Iran's Supreme Court of Audit is one of the 191 members of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI), a non-governmental organization with special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations.

There have been some suggestions in the media that the forty-year-old Bazrpash may be seeking to run in next year's presidential election.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran- lawmakers-appoint-controversial-ahmadinejad-ally-to- head-court-of-audit/30741198.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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The domestic sugar production is likely to go up by 12 per cent to 30.5 million tonnes (MT) during the sugar year 2021, beginning October, due to availability of sugarcane in Maharashtra and Karnataka, according to a report.

The sugar production in India is likely to increase by 12.1 percent to 30.5MT YoY in sugar year (SY) 2021, after adjusting for the impact of the diversion of B-heavy molasses and sugarcane juice for ethanol manufacture, ICRA said in a report.

The production is likely to increase in SY2021, because of higher production in Maharashtra and Karnataka, which was adversely impacted in the previous year due to drought.

In addition, heavy rainfall and waterlogging during the last year (August  September 2019) adversely impacted the sugarcane crop in a few regions of Maharashtra and North Karnataka for SY2020, the report said.

ICRA expects the closing stocks for SY2020 at around 11.0 - 11.5MT after considering the consumption of 25MT (decline of 3.8 percent YoY) and exports of 5-5.5MT.

This along with higher sugar production for SY2021 is likely to result in domestic sugar availability of around 42MT.

In the light of the continuing sugar surplus scenario in the domestic market, continued government support would be critical for industry's profitability, it added.

This increase in production is majorly driven by the increase in cane availability in Maharashtra and Karnataka in SY2021. The domestic sugar consumption was adversely impacted by the nationwide lockdown owing to COVID-19 pandemic due to loss of demand on account either closure or limited operations of several beverage/food manufacturing units during April-May 2020," ICRA Ratings Senior Vice President and Group Head Sabyasachi Majumdar said.

He said, with the easing of lockdown rules, the consumption is back to pre-COVID levels in June-July 2020.

"While we expect a decline in the sugar consumption in SY2020, the same is likely to go back to 26MT levels in SY2021. The closing stocks are expected at around 10.5-11.0MT for the SY2021 season, which is higher when compared to the normative sugar stock levels," he added.

Without considering the impact of the diversion of B-heavy molasses and sugarcane juice for ethanol manufacture in SY2020, the production is expected to be around 32MT, the report stated.

In Maharashtra, production is expected to increase by 64 percent YoY at 10.1MT and in Karnataka, by 26 percent YoY to around 4.3MT in SY2021.

In UP, production is likely to decline by 3 percent YoY to 12.3MT, the report added.

In SY2020, the production was higher by around 0.5-0.6MT than anticipated because the cane which was generally used by the local gur and khandsari manufacturers, got diverted to sugar mills with the former's operations prematurely shut due to the lockdown, it said.

Meanwhile, the report said that the exports were on the lower side during the lockdown period given the modest port operations owing to the logistics issues and labour shortage, but the pace picked up in May-June 2020.

ICRA expects exports of around 5-5.5MT for SY2020.

Assuming the government continues support for exports for SY2021, considering the surplus scenario in the domestic market, exports are likely to be similar to the SY2020 figures, it added.

The sugar prices moderated closer to MSP ( minimum selling price) levels of Rs 31 per kg in March  May during lockdown period and then picked up to Rs 32-32.5 per kg in June.

The pick-up in consumption and pace of sugar exports is likely to support the sugar prices in the near term.

However, given the sugar surplus scenario, any significant increase in the sugar prices is ruled out, the ICRA report added.
The U.S. has been losing control of migration to our country for half a century or more. I dont think weve lost additional control under President Trump, but I doubt we have gained much.

Thus Losing Control is the perfect title for Jerry Kammers new book about immigration. Kammer is a reporter who has covered immigration issues for decades. He describes himself as a liberal restrictionist when it comes to immigration. He favors clear limits on immigration and enforcement of those limits, but supports comprehensive immigration reform that includes a generous amnesty if Congress can ensure enforcement.

Kammer acknowledges that this is a big if. His book demonstrates just how big. It shows that the key to enforcement is a system that stops employers from hiring illegal immigrants. It also shows that all attempts to implement such as system have been thwarted by a coalition of left-wing activists and conservative business interests.

Perhaps the most telling example is Operation Vanguard. This program was launched after the Nebraska and Iowa delegations to the U.S. House complained to the Obama administration about the explosion of illegal immigrants in the two states. Schools were being overrun, the health care system was being overrun, etc.

Operation Vanguard was the response. It was an effort to shut off the illegal immigration magnet at meatpacking plants in Nebraska and Iowa. Audits identified 4,000 or so apparently undocumented workers. INS agents scheduled them for interviews. About 3,000 of them failed to show up, and lost their jobs.

The meatpacking industry was not amused by this loss of inexpensive labor. Companies complained to their representatives. Soon the administration was under pressure to put Operation Vanguard on ice from the same delegations whose complaints had led to the program. On ice, it went.

Losing Control is divided into three parts. The first part is the backstory of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). It charts the political and cultural cross-currents of the debate that produced this fateful legislation.

The second part examines the institutions and organizations  media, liberal foundations, immigration activist groups, environmental movements, etc.  that became part of the coalition that undermined the enforcement half of IRCA. Naturally, the Southern Poverty Law Center figures prominently here, but Kammer discusses less obvious players, as well. I found this part of the book particularly fascinating.

The third part is the story of the slow motion unraveling of IRCA. In separate chapters, Kammer looks at immigration enforcement and its failures in five administrations. He concludes with an epilogue that examines the immigration politics of the Trump era.

Losing Control comes in at 345 pages. If it seems repetitious at times, thats because history kept repeating itself during the decades covered by the book. Activists and employers kept blocking immigration enforcement. Their will to resist exceeded the will of the majority to see our laws enforced.

Thwarted during administration after administration, the will to enforce finally helped lead to the election of Donald Trump. But, as Kammer shows, Trump backed away from worksite enforcement.

During the campaign, he pledged full implementation of E-Verify, the computer-based system that enables employers to check workers legal status. He hasnt followed through. Instead, says Kammer, Trump has opted for the business friendly approach advocated by Jared Kushner.

Losing Control is not uplifting, but its worthwhile reading for anyone interested in a comprehensive account of Americas failure to manage immigration.
New roles cover the entire asset lifecycle for one of Europe's biggest water companies

Black Veatch has been awarded three new frameworks for Thames Water, the UK's largest water utility. The new roles span the lifecycle of Thames' water and wastewater treatment and below ground infrastructure systems: from asset and system modelling studies and developing project briefs through to design and infrastructure engineering service delivery. At a minimum the frameworks will run for the duration of AMP7, the current regulatory review period, 2020 to 2025 and potentially extend through AMP8, 2025 to 2030.

Black Veatch has secured roles as a Delivery Partner on both the Asset Management Framework and the Project Management and Assurance Framework; and as the engineering strategic partner to Galliford Try on Thames' Lot 1 and 2 area-wide Design and Build Frameworks.

"Black Veatch has supported Thames since its inception in 1989; and we are delighted to be playing a significant part in the next chapter of the utility's evolution," commented Scott Aitken, Executive Managing Director of Black Veatch Europe. "A major part of AMP7 will be about optimising the performance and enhancing the resilience of Thames Water's assets to meet changing customer and environmental demands. Our Black Veatch professionals have already helped design, integrate and commission many of these assets and systems. That asset knowledge alongside our digital water capabilities, tools and processes allows our professionals to collaborate with Thames Water to meet the utility's business, sustainability and customer service goals."

The Asset Management Framework role will engage Black Veatch's engineers, scientists and technical professionals early in the infrastructure lifecycle, helping to define technical solutions and give early structure to the projects that will deliver those solutions. Project Management and Assurance Framework support falls within the next phase of the capital programme, and is about drawing out value through developing, refining and testing those solutions; turning them into 'shovel-ready' projects for handover to design-and-build teams. Black Veatch will utilise its industry leading ECO-X cloud-based digital and data ecosystem on both frameworks to maximise value and efficiency opportunities for Thames Water.

The Lot 1 and 2 framework roles cover engineering services to realise both new-build and capital enhancement projects on the ground.

"One of the things that sets us apart is the ability to add value at every point of the infrastructure lifecycle," continued Aitken. "The broad scope of our Thames AMP7 work shows confidence in that ability. We will be delivering a potent blend of traditional engineering, scientific and technical services as well as leading-edge digital and data support through offerings like our Helix Digital Twin as part of our ECO-X cloud-based digital ecosystem."

Thames Water is UK's largest water and wastewater services provider. The utility serves 15 million customers in London, the Thames Valley and southeast England.

Click here to download an image to accompany this story. Suggested image caption: "The AMP 7 frameworks extend Black Veatch's support across some of Thames' most iconic sites."

Editor's Notes:

AMP7 is the seventh five-year asset management period (AMP) to be delivered by water companies in England and Wales since privatisation in 1989; AMP7 runs from 2020 to 2025.

Since privatisation Black Veatch has supported Thames in every AMP on both consultancy and design-and-build frameworks; as a design-and-build partner for major standalone projects; and on standalone consultancy projects.

ECO-X is Black Veatch's own cloud-based digital ecosystem that enables integration with our clients' and partners systems and tools in order to provide digitally enabled asset delivery and management support

About Black Veatch

Black Veatch is an employee-owned engineering, procurement, consulting and construction company with a more than 100-year track record of innovation in sustainable infrastructure. Since 1915, we have helped our clients improve the lives of people in over 100 countries by addressing the resilience and reliability of our world's most important infrastructure assets. Our revenues in 2019 were US$3.7 billion. Follow us on www.bv.com and on social media.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200723005376/en/

Contacts:

Black Veatch media contact

MALCOLM HALLSWORTH +44 1737 856594 p +44 7920 701764 m HallsworthM@BV.com

24-HOUR MEDIA HOTLINE +1 866 496 9149
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

A confrontation over a mask at an auto shop in Southwest Albuquerque ended with the owners son allegedly shooting two men Tuesday afternoon, according to incident reports from the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office.

The case has since been handed over to the Albuquerque Police Department.

APD spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said one of those men has died and the other is in a hospital. He would not give any other details.

According to incident reports written by BCSO deputies:

Deputies were dispatched around 4:30 p.m. to an auto shop in the 900 block of Old Coors SW, near Bridge. The shop owner told deputies a man had come to his shop and asked for air for his tire.

The owner said he told the man that he could help him but that he needed to have a mask on and the man became extremely irate. The owner told deputies the man crashed into his sons vehicle and tried to run him over before driving off.

As deputies searched the area for the vehicle, they received a call from the auto shop owner saying the vehicle had returned and his son had shot someone. Deputies went back to the auto shop and found two men on the ground; both had been shot, and one of them didnt have a pulse.

The auto shop owner identified his son as the shooter, and deputies took him into custody for further investigation. The son told deputies the gun he used was inside the shop.

APD arrived on scene and took over the investigation, a deputy wrote in the report.
MaintenX HVAC technician Dagner Espinosa was recognized as the Refrigeration & RACCA Apprentice of the Year. We are thrilled to have Dagner as part of the MaintenX team. The recognition of his accomplishments is well deserved and is a true reflection of his commitment to his craft.

MaintenX International, one of the nations largest self-performing providers of commercial facility maintenance, is proud to announce that MaintenX HVAC/R technician Dagner Espinosa was named as the 2020 Refrigeration & Air Conditioning Contractors Association (RACCA) Apprentice of the Year. The honor recognizes Espinosa receiving the classs highest grade point average, as well as his commitment to excellence and superior skill. Espinosa is not the first MaintenX team member to earn this prestigious honor; technician Dustin Watkins received the 2019 RACCA Apprentice of the Year award.

The quality of our techs in the field is what truly sets us apart, said Bill Schaphorst, MaintenXs VP of Business Development. We are thrilled to have Dagner as part of the MaintenX team. The recognition of his accomplishments is well deserved and is a true reflection of his commitment to his craft.

Working closely alongside trade and apprenticeship organizations like RACCA is one way MaintenX helps ensure they bring on highly qualified technicians in technical fields such as HVAC/R, plumbing, and roofing. Even though applicants may have completed an apprenticeship, MaintenX candidates go through a careful and thorough hiring process. Potential technicians are brought to MaintenXs headquarters in sunny Tampa, where they receive safety briefings, additional skill evaluations, interviews and assessments.

Training for MaintenX technicians doesnt stop when they are hired. New team members are paired with a training technician who guides the new technician on in-the-field work and provides additional direction on customer service and work order execution. Even after field training, new technicians have access to a senior team member to help with job assessment and training.

MaintenX also knows the recruiting the best technicians means providing the best for their technicians. From uniforms, equipment, phones and vehicles, MaintenX works hard to provide the items their technicians need to succeed. Thats in addition to best-in-class health, vision, dental insurance, paid vacations and holidays, and unique onsite perks.

For more information about MaintenX, or to view current job openings, visit http://www.maintenx.com.

ABOUT MAINTENX INTERNATIONAL:

MaintenX International is a fully licensed, facilities repair company. As one of the largest national self-performing facility maintenance and repair companies in the U.S., MaintenX has created a wide network of knowledgeable and professional technicians throughout the country. With their team of well-trained technicians, MaintenX self-performs and manages facility maintenance for their clients. In the event there is not a MaintenX technician in an area, the company has established a network of preferred vendor partners throughout the country for continued superior service for their clients. For more than 40 years, MaintenX has been expertly serving multi-location retail stores, restaurant chains and Fortune 500 companies nationwide.

ABOUT REFRIGERATION AND AIR CONDITIONING CONTRACTORS ASSOCIATION INC.:

The Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Contractors Association Inc., founded in 1949, serves the entire Tampa Bay Area. Contractors, as well as other firms, with a direct interest in the air conditioning industry benefit by joining the Association. RACCA is an affiliated chapter of the state organization, Florida Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Contractors Association (FRACCA). RACCA takes an aggressive role in promoting industry standards and professionalism. RACCA provides Continuing Education (CEU) courses for contractors and Apprenticeship Programs for HVAC/R Technicians.


Two British Isis members dubbed "The Beatles" have reportedly admitted their involvement in the kidnapping of US hostage Kayla Mueller, who was taken by the group in Syria.

In new interviews and correspondence obtained by NBC News, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheik appeared to confirm their roles in the captivity of the aid worker who is believed to have been killed in 2015.

It was not clear where NBC News obtained the interviews of the pair, who are being held in US military custody in Iraq, and producers did not immediately respond to The Independent's request for clarification.

Mr Elsheikh said in the interview that he "took an email from her myself" that was then used to contact Ms Mueller's family and demand a ransom.

"She was in a large room, it was dark, and she was alone, and...she was very scared," Mr Elsheikh said in the interview footage.

Mr Kotey said: "She was in a room by herself that no one would go in."

NBC News also reviewed emails that appeared to confirm the account, with ISIS demanding the family pay 5 million euros or receive "a picture of Kayla's dead body".

Members the Isis cell nicknamed "The Beatles" had previously denied knowledge or contact with Ms Muller, and denied being members of the group lead by Mohammed "Jihadi John" Emwazi.

Ms Mueller is one of several US hostages who died while held by Isis, including James Foley, Steven Sotloff and Peter Kassig, as well as British victims David Haines and Alan Henning.

Isis claimed she was killed in a 2015 airstrike carried out by Jordan  but US authorities do not know exactly how she died.

The families of the US victims published a piece on the Washington Post on Thursday calling on the Trump administration to prosecute the two men in the US.

Authored by Diane and John Foley, Paula and Ed Kassig, Marsha and Carl Muller, and Shirley and Art Sotlorr, the families don't want the surviving members of Isis to escape "earthly justice" like Jihadi John and Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, both since killed in US operations.

"With the US military reducing its presence in the Middle East, we worry that the detainees will never face trial, just as hundreds of terrorists who were detained on US bases during the Iraq War were let go as the United States withdrew its forces," they wrote.

"The U.S. government should send a more powerful message: It doesn't matter who you are or where you are. If you harm American citizens, you will not escape. You will be hunted down. And when you are caught, you will face the full power of American law."
Bruno Dey, a 93-year-old former SS security guard from the Stutthof concentration camp near Gdansk, arrives in the courtroom in the regional court in Hamburg, Germany, July 23, 2020, for his sentencing. / Credit: Daniel Bockwoldt/Pool/Getty

Berlin, Germany  Bruno Dey, who became a guard at one of Adolf Hitler's Nazi death camps when he was just 17, has been convicted of being an accessory to more than 5,000 murders and given a suspended prison sentence in Germany. Given his health condition now at the age of 93, he was given a two-year suspended sentence.

Between August 1944 and April 1945, Dey served as a guard in the "Death's Head" unit of the SS at the Stutthof concentration camp, 24 miles east of the Nazi-occupied Polish city of Gdansk.

On Thursday, a court in Hamburg, Germany found him guilty of 5,232 counts of accessory to murder - the number of victims believed to have been killed at Stutthof during his time there between 1944 and 1945. He was also convicted on one count of accessory to attempted murder.

The Nazi's Stutthof concentration camp in Poland is seen in a 1941 file photo provided by the Stutthof Museum in Sztutowo, Poland. / Credit: Stutthof Museum

Dey never denied being a guard at the camp, but consistently said in court that he considered himself innocent, having not taken part directly in any murders and claiming he was unaware of the atrocities. On Monday he asked the victims for forgiveness, however, saying they had gone through the "hell of madness."

Dey said Monday that it was only through the trial that he had become aware of the full extent of the cruelty and suffering at the camp. "Such a thing must never happen again," he said in his apology to the victims.

His defense attorney had argued that membership in the SS alone couldn't make Dey an accessory to the murders, and that he had not recognized his service at the time as participation in Nazi crimes.

The 5,232 victims killed during Dey's service include about 5,000 who died of typhoid in the horrifically unhygienic conditions at the camp, but Dey was also implicated in the executions of 200 people who were gassed with Zyklon B, and 30 more who were shot in the neck.

Because Dey was under the age of 18 at the time of the alleged crime, he was tried at the juvenile court in Hamburg. He had faced up to 10 years in jail, but it was always considered unlikely that he would serve any prison time due to his old age.

Story continues

The American plaintiff

Judy Meisel was one of the 20 co-plaintiffs in the case against Dey. She witnessed the atrocities carried out by the Germans in Stutthof. Together with her mother and her sister Rachel, she was sent to the concentration camp from her native Lithuania in 1941 after Hitler's forces invaded.

A recent portrait of American Judy Meisel, who escaped from the Nazi's Stutthof death camp in Poland, provided by David Sherman for

"Her mother was murdered in the gas chamber," Meisel's grandson Benjamin Cohen told CBS News in October last year, after watching the trial begin. "They were tortured, her hair was ripped out by two SS men when they arrived at the camp. It was total brutality."

Meisel is now an American citizen and lives in Minnesota. She couldn't travel to Germany for the trial for health reasons.

She and her sister both managed to escape from Stutthof.

In a statement sent to CBS News on Thursday, Benjamin Cohen said his family considered the verdict, "a powerful message."

"We hope that the world can learn from this trial about where racism and hatred can lead," Cohen said. "The most important thing to us is that these horrific things should never happen again and that the world can be educated about the capacity for seemingly normal people to be part of the most horrific evil."

He said his grandmother now "looks forward to focusing on other things like her great grandchildren."

Judy Meisel (left) and her sister Rachel in Denmark after escaping from the Nazis' Stutthof concentration camp in Poland. / Credit: Courtesy of Ben Cohen

A dying breed

The verdict in Hamburg may well be one of the last handed down on the crimes of Hitler's Nazis, as there are very few suspects left alive.

Since the 2011 sentencing of John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian POW who became a Nazi collaborator, the criminal justice system in Germany has opened multiple cases against former Nazi personnel. The trial against Demjanjuk set a new precedent, allowing suspects to be tried as accessories to the Nazi killing machine even if they didn't commit individual murders.

In Dey's case, the prosecutors argued that he had played a crucial role in Stutthof's mass killings as he stopped prisoners from escaping the camp. Before its liberation in April 1945, some 65,000 people were murdered at the camp, 70% of them Jews.

Recently another former guard from the Stutthof camp was charged in Wuppertal, Germany, but it was still unclear Thursday whether he would be deemed fit to stand trial.

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Cross-strait harmony better than hostility: Taipei mayor

ROC Central News Agency

07/22/2020 08:46 PM

Taipei, July 22 (CNA) Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je () on Wednesday defended his "pragmatic" approach to relations with China, saying that "family harmony is better than family hostility" during an annual forum between the cities of Taipei and Shanghai.

The 11th Taipei-Shanghai Twin City forum was scaled back from three days to one this year and held via videoconferencing for the first time due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In his opening remarks to the conference, Ko said he has tried to adopt a "pragmatic" approach to relations across the Taiwan Strait during his tenure as mayor, taking into account the two sides' historical and cultural connections and close economic ties.

"Even today I still believe that having cross-strait exchanges is better than not, that cooperation is better than confrontation, and that family harmony is better than family hostility," Ko said, in a reference to China's frequent characterization of the two sides as "one family."

Ko proposed "five mutual principles" to guide the relationship, saying the two sides need to meet, understand, respect, cooperate and have forbearance with each other.

He also criticized Taiwan's government for what he called a "contradictory strategy" of instigating anti-China sentiment, even as the two sides continue to enjoy close commercial relations.

Ko sharpened his criticisms in remarks to reporters after the speech. "I don't really approve of using ideology to sow conflict in the cross-strait relationship," he said, adding that some in Taiwan are using the tense relations with China "for personal, partisan or electoral benefit."

Ko, the founder of the centrist Taiwan People's Party (TPP), has tried to stake out a middle ground on China between the skepticism of the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the more sympathetic stance of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT).

In this vein, Ko's speech on Wednesday emphasized the importance of "building goodwill" between the two cities' people, while avoiding larger political issues, such as Taiwan's participation in international organizations or China's recent imposition of repressive national security laws in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng () praised Taipei's success in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, which he said had minimized the social and economic impact on the city.

Gong also reaffirmed the concept that "the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family," adding that while the pandemic has made it impossible to meet in person, it is important for both sides to continue interacting.

In holding the forum, "Shanghai and Taipei have already established a model for cross-strait exchanges between cities," Gong said.

(By Liang Pei-chi, Li Wan-yu and Matthew Mazzetta)

Enditem/AW

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The State of Tennessee wants to make Tennesseans aware, that in several western states, there is currently an outbreak of rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus type 2 (RHDV2). At present, RHDV2 has not been found in rabbits in Tennessee or any neighboring states.

The virus is highly contagious and lethal to wild and domestic rabbits and hares.

In Tennessee, eastern cottontails, Appalachian cottontails, and swamp rabbits are susceptible to RHDV2.

Rabbit hemorrhagic disease is caused by one of several strains of calicivirus. The disease has been detected in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas, and Utah. This strain of the virus is considered a foreign animal disease and is reportable to state and federal authorities. RHDV2 only infects rabbit species and is not known to affect humans, livestock, or other pets.

The virus can be transmitted through direct contact with infected rabbits or carcasses, meat or their fur, feces, bodily fluids, contaminated bedding materials, or other materials that have been contaminated. People can inadvertently spread the virus into new areas by moving infected live rabbits, carcasses or parts from infected animals, as well as on clothing and shoes. The virus can persist in the environment for an extended time, which makes it difficult to control the disease once it affects wild rabbit populations.

Infected rabbits may experience swelling, internal bleeding and liver damage. Disease onset is rapid. Although bleeding from the nose or mouth sometimes occurs, often the only outward sign is death of the rabbit.

People are asked to report rabbits that appear to be bleeding or sightings of multiple dead rabbits to a TWRA regional office. Do not handle dead rabbits. Although RHDV2 is not known to be infectious to humans, rabbits carry other diseases that can make people sick.

Visit the USDA website for the most current map of outbreaks of RHDV2 at https://www.aphis.usda.gov/ aphis/maps/animal-health/rhd . If you travel to states that are currently experiencing die-offs and take part in outdoor activities, make sure to clean your clothing and disinfect your shoes before returning to Tennessee.

Hunters should wear gloves when field dressing rabbits, bury any remains onsite to prevent scavenging and wash their hands thoroughly when finished. Meat from healthy rabbits is safe to consume when cooked properly. If hunting outside of the state, it is recommended that no pieces or parts of harvested rabbits be brought back to Tennessee.

Falconers should avoid flying birds in areas known to have RHDV2 outbreaks, prevent birds from consuming dead or diseased rabbits, and sanitize gear between outings. If flying birds outside of Tennessee, it is recommended that no pieces or parts of rabbits be brought back to Tennessee.

Permitted wildlife rehabilitators should quarantine new rabbits admitted to their facilities for at least five days prior to co-mingling with other rabbits. If a die-off occurs in a rehabilitation facility and signs are consistent with RHDV2, it should be reported immediately to the TWRA.

Pet rabbit owners and breeders should avoid housing rabbits outside in areas known to have RHDV2 in wild rabbits. Additionally, pet rabbit owners should avoid purchasing rabbits from areas known to have the disease in domestic or wild rabbits. All animals, including rabbits, imported into the state of Tennessee require a certificate of veterinary inspection, even if just for exhibition.

Breeders who experience a high number of sudden deaths should report the mortality event to the state veterinarian at 615-837-5120. Pet owners are encouraged to consult with their regular veterinarian for more information about RHDV2 in domestic rabbits.
If youre planning a budget-friendly staycation this summer then theres no need to travel too far as Northern Ireland has been named as the UKs cheapest destination.

Consumer spending experts money.co.uk identified the province as the most budget-friendly in its 2020 Safecation Report, which highlights the top locations in the UK for a socially distanced holiday.

Around 60 countries were listed by the Executive where people can visit and do not need to self-isolate on their return earlier this week.

However, nearly two-thirds of people in the UK (64%) stated they would not feel safe travelling by plane, according to YouGov.

The findings in the money.co.uk report included contactless payment availability, free activities, dog friendliness, the number of beaches and caravan parks within a 50km radius, crime rate for April 2020, visitors per year to the county, park entry fee and car parking charges.

When it comes to budgeting your staycation, Co Armagh came out on top for the cheapest holiday destination with Slieve Gullion Forest Park offering plenty of free activities for all the family.

With no admission fee or car parking charges at the site, Slieve Gullion is the perfect spot for an open space day out with its walking trails, adventure play park and Giants Lair childrens story trail.

In fact, the forest park could accommodate 1,759,035 visitors, while all maintaining a one metre distance.

Armagh city also took fourth position in the report out of 25 best new destinations for a socially distant safecation.

Meanwhile, Antrim was placed 14th on the list as the county has fewer visitors per year compared to Armagh.

Glenariff Forest Park offers a huge open space for visitors to enjoy. However, Antrim scored lower than Armagh on budget-friendly options, the number of beaches and dog friendliness.

Salman Haqqi, money.co.uks consumer spending expert, explained that while strict social distancing measures have been put in place at tourist spots, adhering to the guidelines could prove troublesome.

Campsites, holiday parks and hotels all over the nation are ready and waiting to welcome guests back, but even with strict social distancing guidelines in place, overcrowding can still be a problem in tourist honeypots, said Mr Haqqi.

Our report shows that a destination like Glasgow can only host around 8% of the usual annual visitors to the area taking one metre social distancing into account, whereas there is plenty of space for everyone in Gower.

Its not just wide-open spaces that need to be considered when booking, the report found that 52% of the new destinations had contactless payment options available for parking, food and drinks, shopping and leisure activities.

The top 50 destinations in the report also includes Motherwell, Windsor, Isle of Harris, Durham, Paisley, Devon, Blackpool, Edinburgh, Isle of Wight, London, Brighton and The Cotswolds.
A new Korean film is gearing to give you another laugh and excitement once again!

On a press conference for the film, "The Great Holiday" held on July 22, Actor Kim Sang Ho revealed that the cast and crew actually traveled to the Philippines to film most of the movie's scenes!

"The Golden Holiday," is an action, comedy, and drama film played by four actors showing their escapade and experience in a foreign country. Unexpectedly, detective Byung Soo (Kwak Do Won) encounters trouble as he tries to be with his family and enjoy his 10th wedding anniversary overseas. Due to this, the vacation trip turns out to be embroiled with a treasure case with the locals.

The movie was 80% filmed in the Philippines. As part of the plot that actors get caught and in jail, they get inside a real prison with actual prisoners. There are actors from the Philippines who play supporting roles in the said movie as well.

Actor Kim Sang Ho is one of the main lead in the movie, and he described how it feels like working in the environment. In the movie, he got prisoned in the Philippines due to being involved in a murder case. He was a long time friend of Kwak Do Won, whom he scammed for money and left his country.

Kim shared and described filming in a real prison with real prisoners in the Philippines for the movie was a humbling experience. "They (prisoners) cooperate well."The director of the film, Kim Bong Han even said, "The actors were working with real prisoners, but we can't tell the differerence."

He also thought that while filming in a real location, it felt good and better, especially in a real prison. Kim Sang Ho continued, "We naturally get humble".

The actors and director Kim Bong Han were all present in the press conference for the movie "The Golden Holiday."

Meanwhile, "The Golden Holiday" will be released this August 2020, where Actor Kwak Do Won plays the character of Hong Byung Soo, a detective who becomes a suspect in a murder case in his first trip to the Philippines.

While Kim Dae Myung will be portraying a local guide named Man Chu, who becomes Byung Soo's investigation partner. Kim Hee-Won plays the killer of the criminal organization named Patrick and Kim Sang Ho plays Yog Bae, Byung Soo's close friend.

Actor Kim Dae Myung will be competing with Yoo Yeon Seok, his co-star in "Hospital Playlist," both starred in their respective movies in cinemas this summer. Kim Dae Myung shared that they always talked and supported each other's projects. "We ensure to support and tell each other to take care and eat healthy," describing their friendship.

Watch "The Golden Holiday" Teaser here:
A Russian nurse who was pictured wearing only lingerie under a see-through protective gown on a coronavirus ward has become a TV weather presenter.

Nadia Zhukova, 23, who wore transparent PPE as she gave patients their medicine, was initially disciplined by hospital bosses.

The nurse complained she was 'too hot' in the hazmat gown - and her punishment was withdrawn after a furious backlash from the public.

Now, Nadia has been offered a role as weather presenter on her local TV station in Tula, south of Moscow, but will continue working as a nurse.

Nurse Nadia Zhukova, pictured, wore only lingerie underneath her protective gown on a coronavirus ward in Russia - saying the hazmat suit was too hot

Nadia Zhukova has now been offered a role as TV weather presenter after pictures of her in the hospital ward were seen around the world

She will fit in the forecasts as she works as a nurse and upgrades her training to fulfil her dream of becoming a doctor.

Earlier she was offered a role as a model for a Russian sportswear brand, but she insists that nothing will deflect her from her cherished medical career.

Of her new TV role on Vesti Tula, she said: 'It is a big thing for me. Thank you for letting me try.

'My parents will watch, in the evening, after work.'

In May she was initially disciplined for 'non-compliance with the requirements for medical clothing'.

But Tula regional governor Alexey Dyumin, a close ally of Putin and his former bodyguard, strongly backed her and her punishment was rescinded.

Zhukova speaking to the camera in front of a green screen in her new role as a weather presenter on Russian television

Nadia, pictured wearing a mask and in her see-through gown, was initially disciplined by hospital bosses but the punishment was later withdrawn

Nadia admitted she was 'shocked' when friends showed her how her lingerie pictures were going around the world.

'I thought it would only be a talking point in my city, and that would be all. As it turned out - no,' she said.

She was upset about hurtful comments posted about her pictures.

'My colleagues supported me and I thank them very much for this,' she said. ' If it hadn't been for them, I don't know how I would have dealt with it all.'

The backing from Dyumin was 'unexpectedly pleasant', she said.

'After his words of support, I felt much calmer. I have no boyfriend, but my friends supported me as much as they could.'

Nadia, pictured in her TV role, will fit in the weather forecasts as she continues working as a nurse and upgrades her training to fulfil her dream of becoming a doctor

Nadia, pictured, admitted she was 'shocked' when friends showed her how her lingerie pictures were going around the world

For the future, she is determined not to be distracted by the bright lights of TV or modelling.

'I want to continue my studies and become a doctor,' she said. 'I am not afraid to get infected.'

She continues to work on her coronavirus ward.

'Despite all the losses, stress, constant lack of sleep - we will win, I'm sure,' said Nadia.

'The main thing is to keep a positive attitude.'

Doctors took Nadia's side at the time and said there was a shortage of necessary gear. 'We just have nothing to wear,' one medic told Komsomolskaya Pravda.

'There are not enough scrub suits, which according to the rules we should wear under our protective gowns.

'Believe me, we wouldn't go naked if we were provided with a complete set.'
On the other hand, Francos direction helps the early scenes breathe a little, and establishes some effective, offhanded interplay among sharp-witted actors. Who knows? Maybe good for a while is a good enough review for this particular summer. I like that The Rental is opening at 250-plus venues, including some drive-ins, around the country this weekend, in tandem with the usual VOD streaming launch. The Chicago engagement at a real, brick-and-mortar theater is being hosted by the one and only Music Box Theatre.
Ma Yisa once thought his life would be no different from the older generations of his family: living off the land, grazing animals and doing casual work deep in the mountains. Yet after he came across hand-pulled noodles, he found a chance to break free from a stagnant life.

In Monigou, a township in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China's Gansu Province, roads weave through mountains, adding to the difficulty of making money locally or venturing out.

Around 2000, a story had it in the poverty-hit village where Ma lived that wealth would pour in with the craft of making hand-pulled noodles. It intrigued Ma.

"I was eager to learn the skill, and live a better-off life like the noodle artisans in my village," Ma said.

The hand-pulled noodles Ma mentioned was Lanzhou beef noodles. With a history of more than 200 years, the well-known regional specialty consists of a flavorful broth, shaved beef, radish slices and chewy handmade noodles. While a bowl of hand-pulled beef noodles can be prepared quickly, it may take years to master the skill of noodle making.

The bond Monigou forged with hand-pulled noodles went deeper upon the early stage of China's reform and opening up, when a band of villagers blazed a trail to seek fortune in eastern China. With fine workmanship in making the noodles, they got established in big cities like Shanghai. Back in their hometowns, these artisans built new houses and drove new cars, being some of the first to amass wealth.

Decades later, Ma went down the same road. In 2007, the then 17-year-old was introduced to a noodle restaurant in east China's Jiangsu Province. There he started as a dishwasher. Constantly striving to gain more knowledge, Ma squeezed in learning noodle know-how from the cooks.

At first, he was too weak to pull wheat flour dough by hand into long strips. To overcome it, he often lifted the solid wood benches in the restaurant to build up arm strength. Every night before bed, he would go over every technique in his mind.

"Even in my dreams, I was thinking about the amounts of some ingredients," he said.

Two years into his stay in Jiangsu, Ma saw his dream come true. He became a noodle cook and his salary doubled.

With the increased income, his family became better off. They renovated their adobe home and purchased an agricultural vehicle. Their life in the mountains was renewed.

"Our people dream big, dare to venture out and are persevering. With the noodle craft, we have carved out a niche," said Ma Xiaolong, township chief of Monigou. "Hand-pulled noodles are helping us win the fight against poverty."

To foster the noodle industry, the township has designated the craft as a pillar for the local economy, organizing training courses and offering loans to those in need. It also encourages those trailblazers to promote its popularity, opening noodle restaurants around the country.

Since 2015, nearly 1,100 residents in Monigou have joined in the training, and loans of about 36.62 million yuan (5.25 million U.S. dollars) have been granted, according to official statistics.

Once the idea of owning a restaurant flickered in Ma Yisa's mind, the next second he ruled it out. "It would cost 60,000 yuan or even more. How could I get so much money? Plus, I have no experience in management. So the plan had to be shelved," he said.

In 2015, opportunity knocked again. Ma applied for a 50,000-yuan loan for targeted poverty alleviation and attended courses organized by the local government on the management of restaurants. His wife, meanwhile, received training in making hand-pulled noodles and some other home cooking.

Soon the couple opened a noodle bistro in Jiangsu. Today the annual profit of Ma's business is over 150,000 yuan, more than tripling the income of him as a noodle cook.

Early this year, he prepared to rent a storefront on a commercial street and applied for another 50,000-yuan loan with the help of a program designed to encourage startups.

So far, a total of 1,038 households in Monigou Township work in the noodle industry, creating more than 2,200 local jobs with a monthly salary of over 4,000 yuan. The annual output value of the noodles reached around 100 million yuan in the township.

Now Ma has taken one more title as a pathfinder in creating wealth out of hand-pulled noodles. Recently, he was occupied helping two homies select a restaurant location.

"Due to the support of homies and the local government, I have rid myself of poverty. Now it's time to return the favor and lead more people to taste the blessings of hand-pulled noodles," he said.
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Amber Heard today told London's High Court that Johnny Depp threatened to 'slice up my face' while holding a bottle up against it during the notorious 2015 'finger severing incident'.

The actress also described walking into their ruined Australian mansion to find raw meat hidden everywhere, mashed potatoes smeared over the doors and her nightgown ripped to shreds after Depp went on the rampage.

The fracas, which happened while Depp was filming Pirates of the Caribbean, has been at the centre of much of his libel trial - and the Hollywood star claims Heard severed his finger by throwing a vodka bottle at him, although she says he cut it off while attacking her.

Today, Heard said: 'He held a bottle up against my face, he told me that he would slice up my face. I accept at some point I either pushed him or pushed his arms off me.' She added: 'After those moments, he was so angry he punched the wall... he started hitting the wall, he was punching the wall and he got carried away in that moment.'

She also insisted Depp went on the rampage after severing his finger, assaulting her and sending her fleeing and described the scene of destruction upon her return - with 'blood everywhere', including on the walls and carpet.

Heard said: 'When I first opened the door that last morning, there was what appears to be mashed potatoes and gravy or something rubbed all over the door... I remember there was a bird, which scared me to death. I guess it had flown in through a broken window.'

She added that she found 'messages in paint and blood' and found raw meat, which he had left around the house including in her nightgown.

Earlier today, Heard told the High Court about her pleas for help to her parents while Depp snorted lines of cocaine and drank whisky from a pint glass in a 36-hour bender and accused her of having an affair.

Heard texted her mother Paige saying Depp was 'nuts' and 'violent and crazy', adding that she was 'heartbroken that this is who I love' in the texts sent relatively early into their relationship on 8 March 2013 - as Depp allegedly continued his cocaine binge when he was supposed to be filming a Keith Richards documentary.

The Aquaman actress, 34, says Depp hit her on that day in an argument over a painting despite telling her mother in the messages read out in court that Depp, 57, was 'not being violent to me' but just 'raging in general' and she was finding it difficult to cope with his 'crazy mood swings and binges'.

Heard insisted that she was not being truthful when she claimed the Pirates of the Caribbean star was not being violent, and that her father was 'very violent' to her mother who died only this May.

The actress said Depp had 'gotten it in his mind that I had these affairs and he wouldn't leave until I admitted it', on her final day of evidence in his libel case against The Sun newspaper over allegations of domestic violence.

She has accused Depp of verbal and physical abuse throughout their relationship - allegedly punching, slapping, kicking, headbutting and choking her, as well as displaying 'extremely controlling and intimidating behaviour'.

However Depp, who did not arrive at court until this afternoon because he was attending a meeting about a future film project, says he was not violent towards the actress, claiming it was she who attacked him.

Heard will conclude her evidence about 14 allegations of domestic violence today. The Sun's publisher News Group Newspapers (NGN) is relying on Heard's allegations in its defence of an April 2018 article that called Depp a 'wife beater'. As the biggest English libel trial of the 21st century continued today, the court was also told:

Depp hit Heard with his hand, which caused her blood to hit the wall after an argument about a painting;

She told her mother she was 'on hour 24 of his bender' after Depp was snorting cocaine and drinking whisky;

Depp wanted her to admit an affair with 'Tasya van Ree, my ex-partner, but also a gentleman I hardly knew';

Heard claimed she only broke a bottle despite widespread damage being found throughout their house;

Depp held a bottle up against Heard's face - and there 'was so much glass on the floor', she has claimed.

Amber Heard arrives at the High Court in London this morning for Johnny Depp's libel trial against The Sun to continue

Johnny Depp arrives to attend his libel trial against News Group Newspapers at the High Court in London this afternoon

Heard, pictured arriving at the court in London today, will conclude her evidence about 14 allegations of domestic violence

Texts sent by Amber Heard to her mother Paige Heard in March 2013, which were read out in the High Court this morning

Her sister Whitney Henriquez, who previously lived in one of five penthouses owned by Depp in the Eastern Columbia Building in Los Angeles, is due to give evidence this afternoon.

Today, Sasha Wass QC, representing NGN, continued her re-examination of Heard, by talking about the incident in Australia in March 2015, when Heard alleges Depp was taking MDMA and drinking heavily.

The barrister referred to text messages between Depp and his then assistant Nathan Holmes which are said to show the actor trying to obtain drugs while in Australia.

Heard said: 'I didn't know about those texts until this proceeding.'

Ms Wass asked Heard about the evidence of Ben King, Depp's previous estate manager, on the damage to the house in which they were staying - which included broken windows, graffiti on mirrors and blood and paint on the walls and floors.

She asked: 'Of the damage that's described... what were you responsible for?'

Heard says she only broke a bottle despite widespread damage in their house

Heard replied: 'I broke a bottle on that floor. That's the only thing I broke.'

The actress also said she was not responsible for any of the graffiti in the house.

Ms Wass then referred to a recording made after Depp was taken away from the house, in which Depp's then head of security Jerry Judge can be heard talking about 'a painting in that house which had been defaced and a penis had been drawn onto a painting of a woman'.

The barrister said the painting was of a woman in a bikini and that Mr Judge said Depp had 'drawn or painted a fake d*** on her p***y'.

Ms Wass asked Heard about the damage to the house.

Heard took this picture at her Los Angeles home in 2013, which is said to give evidence of Depp's drink and drug-fuelled lifestyle - showing a pint of whisky, four lines of cocaine and his skull and crossbones 'pill box' ready for consumption

Amber Heard (right) arrives with her girlfriend Bianca Butti (left) at the High Court in London for the libel trial this morning

Heard's sister Whitney Henriquez, pictured arriving at the High Court in London today, is due to give evidence this afternoon

Heard told the court: 'When I first opened the door that last morning, there was what appears to be mashed potatoes and gravy or something rubbed all over the door... I remember there was a bird, which scared me to death.'

'He makes dad look like a saint when he falls off the wagon': Amber Heard's texts to her mother The text messages sent from Amber Heard to her mother Paige Heard which were read out in court today, dating back to March 22 and 23, 2013: 'He makes dad look like a saint when he falls off the wagon' 'My heart is broken. I'm ok physically. JD didn't hit me or anything last night. I told him that would be if he did and it worked last night. But I'm scared by what I see and who I see now. It's Dr Jekyll and mr Hyde -- on a binge.' 'I feel like I'm on a very fastening train that's about to explode but I don't want to jump off and leave my love behind . So I stay on the train.even though I know it's about to explode.' 'It's ok mom. He's not being violent with me. He's just even raging in general. And the crazy mood swings and binges are really difficult for me to handle.' 'Dealing with Johnny's spiral. It's terrible mom. I don't know what to do 'He's nuts mom. Violent and crazy. I am heartbroken that THIS is who I love.' 'I can't tell dad.' Advertisement

She added: 'I guess it had flown in through a broken window.'

Heard continued: 'I started seeing all this blood on the carpet... which I thought was (from) my feet, but there was drops of it. There was blood everywhere.

'There was paint, what I thought was paint because it was a brownish colour, on the walls and then it started to become clear to me that they were letters or messages, words. It was heavy at first and then it kind of faded into a, like, milky brown colour.

'I started to make out words, English words, but it didn't make sense. Then it appeared to be a different kind of writing next to it, but these are on the walls leading down this kind of covered stairwell.'

Heard claims Depp appeared to have set fire to one of the cushions of a couch

Heard said there was 'blood, tonnes of, like, painting, blood on the walls'.

She added: 'He had burned holes through some cushions and through some lampshades, blood and paint, more messages on cushions, there was a couch flipped over.

'It appeared to be he had set fire to one of the cushions because the carpet was burned around it a little.'

Heard continued describing the damage to the house in Australia, telling the court: 'My paints were out, it appeared to be that maybe he (Johnny Depp) had either thrown or dropped paint on the floor and on the wall.

Heard 'found raw meat wrapped inside her nightgown which was ripped into shreds'

'More messages in paint and blood, I could see both textures. I found raw meat, at first I didn't know what it was, on the floor.'

She added: 'Not just on the floor, I continued to find it... that day, hidden in various places. He had taken my nightgown and ripped it into shreds. He wrapped pieces of food (in it).'

Heard said there was a 'significant pooling of blood on the floor, on the steps leading to the stairs. I could see my own bloody footprints (from the night before) but I could also see what appeared to be dropped blood.'

She said: 'I assumed it was from my own arms and hands and feet.'

Heard continued that, when she got downstairs, Mr Depp was playing 'death metal, blasting really loud' and she could see 'tonnes of broken glass'.

Heard claims there was 'so much glass on the floor I could barely find a pathway to walk'

The 14 times Johnny Depp is accused of attacking Amber Heard 1. Early 2013: Heard says Depp was completely sober until early 2013, and around that time he allegedly hit her for the first time when they were in Los Angeles. She claims Depp later cried and apologised, telling her that he sometimes turns into 'the monster' when he snaps. Depp has 'expressly denied' hitting Heard and said that, around early 2013, he had 'confined himself to drinking wine and using marijuana, having been sober from around December 2011 to August 2012'. 2. March 8, 2013: Heard claims Depp was angry she had hung up a painting by her ex-partner Tasya Van Ree by her bed in her LA home, then tried to set the painting on fire and hit her 'so hard that blood from her lip ended up on the wall'. Depp, however, says he simply asked Heard to move the painting from the bedroom 'as a courtesy' and that she had an 'extreme reaction'. He also says a text he later sent describing the evening as a 'disco bloodbath' was to 'placate Ms Heard' and not an apology for alleged violence. 3. June 2013: Heard and Depp were in Hicksville, US with a group of people including Heard's sister Whitney and Depp's assistant Nathan Holmes. Heard says Depp, who was 'taking drugs', became 'enraged' and 'jealous' when one of her friends touched her, and he then threw glasses at her, ripped her dress and damaged the cabin they were staying in. Depp says he drank and took magic mushrooms, as did Heard and her friends who also took MDMA. He claims Heard's friend touched Heard in an 'extremely sexual manner' and he spoke to her to ask her to stop. 4. May 24, 2014: The pair took a private plan from Boston to LA: Heard says that during the flight Depp, who had been drinking heavily, threw objects at her, pushed a chair at her, slapped her and kicked her in the back before passing out in the toilet. Depp says Heard 'began to harangue him' as he was sketching in a notebook, he then tried to 'playfully tap her on the bottom with his foot', at which Heard took 'great offence' and 'continued to verbally berate' him. 5. August 17, 2014: The couple went to the Bahamas, Depp says to 'cure his dependence on painkillers', although Heard claims he was trying to give up other drugs too. Heard says Depp had 'several manic episodes' and his private doctor had to be flown over to help. She alleges that he slapped, kicked and grabbed by the hair during an attack. Depp alleges Heard stopped a nurse from giving him treatment while he was going through withdrawal. 6. December 17, 2014: Heard says Depp was 'violent towards' her in LA, and later texted calling himself a 'f****** savage' and a 'lunatic'. Depp denies any allegation of violence and says NGN has 'failed to provide any particulars of the alleged violence'. 7. January 25, 2015: While the couple were in Tokyo, Japan, Heard claims Depp shoved and slapped her and grabbed her by the hair, before standing over her and shouting while she was on the floor - which Mr Depp denies. 8. Around March 3-5, 2015: Depp is said to have repeatedly assaulted Heard after an argument over his alleged use of MDMA during a three-day trip to Australia. She says he stayed up all night, taking pills and drinking, and then attacked her again the next morning. Heard says, the following night, Depp pushed her into a table tennis table, tore off her nightgown and attacked her, before smashing a telephone into a wall and severing the top of his middle finger. She also claims he had written messages to her around the house in a mixture of paint and blood from his finger, which Depp admits doing while 'in shock', as well as having 'urinated all over the house in an attempt to write messages', which he denies. Depp says Heard was in 'a prolonged and extreme rage' following an argument over a post-nuptial agreement. He says he then 'broke my sobriety' with several glass of vodka, before Heard threw a bottle at him, severing the top of his finger, and stubbed a cigarette out on his cheek. 9. March 2015: Heard says Depp became 'enraged' when they were in LA with her sister and began destroying things in the house before hitting her 'hard and repeatedly'. She also claims he tried to push her sister down the stairs before hitting Heard again. Depp, however, says Heard was 'berating him in a rage' as he tried to leave, threw a can of Red Bull at him and punched him in the face before he finally left. 10. August 2015: While they were on the Eastern and Oriental Express in south east Asia, Heard alleges Depp 'picked a fight' with her, hit her and pushed her against a wall by the throat, 'causing her to fear for her life' - which is denied by Depp. 11. November 26, 2015: In LA, Depp is alleged to have ripped Heard's shirt and 'threw her around the room', also throwing a wine glass and a 'heavy glass decanter' at her, as well as pushing her over a chair which caused her to bang her head against a wall. Depp says they were in LA for Thanksgiving, but denies any allegation of abuse. 12. December 15, 2015: Heard claims Depp threw a decanter at her in their penthouse in LA, then slapped her and dragged her through the apartment by her hair, allegedly pulling 'large chunks of hair' from Heard's scalp. She says he then followed her upstairs and pushed her to the floor while shouting 'you think you're a f****** tough guy' before headbutting her. Heard says that when she told Depp she wanted to leave him he grabbed her and screamed: 'I f****** will kill you - I'll f****** kill you, you hear me?' Depp, though, says 'Ms Heard fabricated the alleged violence', falsely claiming that 'blonde hair on the floor was her hair'. He also claims that 'the only violence committed on that date was by Ms Heard', who allegedly 'violently attacked' him. 13. April 21, 2016: Heard says Depp arrived at her birthday party at their LA home late, 'drunk and high on drugs' and they had an argument after the guests had left. She claims he threw a bottle of champagne at her and shoved her to the floor several times before leaving a note reading: 'Happy F****** Birthday.' Depp says he arrived at the party around two hours late following a meeting with his new business manager and accountants, and that he was not on drugs but 'shocked from what he had learnt at the meeting about his business affairs'. He claims Heard had been 'drinking heavily' and attacked him while he was reading in bed, punching him in the face four times before he grabbed her arms to stop her. Depp says the next day Heard or one of her friends 'defecated in Mr Depp's and Ms Heard's bed', and that Heard later told the building manager Kevin Murphy that it was 'just a harmless prank' - at which he point he 'then resolved to divorce Ms Heard'. 14. May 21, 2016: Depp arrived at their LA apartment, allegedly 'drunk and high' while Heard was there with friends. Heard said Depp became 'very angry', throwing her phone at her and hitting her in the eye before smashing 'everything he could' with a magnum of champagne. He says he went to the apartment with two security guards to collect his belongings after Heard and her sister 'repeatedly' tried to contact him. Depp claims his two security guards entered the room when they heard Heard shouting, and saw her 'repeatedly screaming, 'stop hitting me, Johnny'' while he was 20 feet away in the kitchen. He also says that two police officers who attended the apartment after the incident 'saw no injuries or bruising or swelling'. 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Heard added: 'There were windows broken, there was so much glass on the floor I could barely find a pathway to walk. The ping pong table was broken and on the ground.'

The libel hearing had earlier been told that Depp is accused of causing more than $100,000 worth of damage to the mansion, which had been hired for him by his production company while filming Pirates of the Caribbean.

Ms Wass said: 'It has been suggested that you throw a bottle at Mr Depp and damage the underneath of his finger... did you do that?' Heard said: 'No.'

Ms Wass asked Heard: 'Are you able to say with any certainty at what stage of this incident Mr Depp sustained that injury to his finger?'

Heard replied: 'Yes, about 24 hours into his binge, rage, I had previously come downstairs... I knew he just needed to eat or sleep and the moment I described yesterday, where he offered the bottle to me, this is after he had held me up against the fridge by my neck.

'He was screaming at me for ruining his life, he said over and over again that I ruined his f****** life and that he wished he had never met me and that I did this... I made him this mad, I made him drink, I did this and I always did this.'

Depp held a bottle up against Heard's face and said he would 'slice' it up, she claims

She continued: 'He held a bottle up against my face, he told me that he would slice up my face. I accept at some point I either pushed him or pushed his arms off me.'

Heard added: 'It was after that moment or after those moments, he was so angry he punched the wall... he started hitting the wall, he was punching the wall and he got carried away in that moment.

'He saw the phone... it was kind of a mint green, cream Bakelite, plastic mounted phone on the wall and he picks it up and the hand that had been on my neck loosened a little bit as he was focused on the phone and I stepped back... while he proceeded to, instead of punching with his hand, his fist, he used the phone.'

Heard told the court that Depp smashed the phone 'repeatedly, over and over again, into the wall, screaming at the top of his lungs and I watched as this phone just was disappearing in front of my own eyes'.

Depp allegedly smashed a phone against a wall and 'it was breaking off in shards'

She said that when Depp was smashing the phone against the wall 'it was breaking off in shards'. She added: 'I didn't know he had severed his finger... I didn't know it at the time.'

Heard said: 'The phone incident happened in the early hours of the morning. I discovered him downstairs and said we should call the security around, I think, noon.'

Ms Wass asked: 'Can you describe Mr Depp's state of mind during the time that you both told us about, during the time of the damage and smashing up of the phone?'

Heard replied: 'He was unrecognisable, even as the monster in some way. He was out of his mind, I don't know how else to describe it.'

Ms Wass then moved on to 'the stairs incident', also in March 2015, when Heard said she punched Depp in self-defence because she thought the actor was going to push her sister, Whitney, down the stairs at their home in LA.

The barrister read to Heard her declaration in the US libel proceedings - brought by Depp against Heard - in which she said her ex-husband's 'hand was still in a cast following the incident in Australia'.

In that declaration, Heard said Depp 'began to destroy my personal property all over the house, including my belongings in the closet'.

She also said in that document: 'Acting in defence of my sister, I was scared for her physical safety, I punched Johnny in the face. This was the only time I ever hit Johnny.'

Ms Wass then asked about the couple's return to Australia in April 2015, and a suggestion by Depp's lawyers that 'if these terrible things happened to you in the house in Australia you would never have agreed to go back to Australia to that particular house, of all houses'.

Heard replied: 'Of course I would. I was used to that.'

Heard texts her mother saying Depp is 'violent and crazy'

Ms Wass read out text messages from Heard to her mother sent that month, which read: 'It's terrible, mum. I don't know what to do.' Another read: 'He's nuts, mum. Violent and crazy. I'm heartbroken that this is who I love.'

Ms Wass said Heard's mother suggested that she tell her father, to which the actress said: 'I can't tell dad.'

Heard explained: 'I felt safe to tell my mother, but I didn't know how my dad would react. I had never been in this situation before and I didn't know if he would react violently ... to Johnny.' She added: 'I didn't want to make it worse.'

Ms Wass read out another text Heard sent to her mother, which said: 'It's ok mom. He's not being violent with me. He's just even raging in general. And the crazy mood swings and binges are really difficult for me to handle.'

The barrister asked if, when she said Depp wasn't being violent, Heard was being truthful, to which the actress replied: 'No.'

Ms Wass then asked why she said that to her mother, and Heard responded: 'Because I had sent her a picture of my bruised arm... I was just trying to have someone to talk to who might understand first hand how it was.'

Heard says her father was 'very violent' to her mother 'until the end'

Ms Wass asked why Heard's mother, Paige, would understand first hand, and Heard said: 'My father was violent to my mother growing up. They loved each other but he was very violent to her until the end... she passed away.'

Ms Wass also told the court that in another text to her mother, Heard wrote: 'I felt really lost and lonely. He is a madman. I feel like I'm on a very fast train that's about to explode, but I don't want to jump off and leave my love behind. So I stay on the train, even though I know it's about to explode.'

Heard then told the court: 'I was so in love with Johnny at that time. We had had a wonderful year together where he was sober and clean and that is how I got to know him.

'And Johnny, when he was like that, (is) generous, loving, he is a remarkable man when he is like that. I loved him and I didn't want to lose that... the other side of him was a monster, but I always held out hope that he would get clean and sober.'

She added that she didn't tell her mother the truth about the violence at that time because she 'just didn't want her to tell my dad'.

Heard says her father 'was very violent but I love him very much'

Ms Wass read out a further text sent on March 23, 2013 in which Heard said to her mother: 'He makes dad look like a saint when he falls off the wagon.'

The barrister asked Ms Heard what she meant by that, and she replied: 'My dad (has) struggled with alcohol and drug abuse issues his whole life.

Amber Heard with her former partner, artist Taysa Van Ree, at a New York Fashion Week event on September 11, 2010

'He is an addict and an alcoholic and he was very violent but I love him very much.'

In another text to her mother in March 2013, which Ms Wass read to the court, Heard said: 'He told his friends yesterday that he was really lost, but of course when I try to suggest that is part of the fighting, he claims he is not affected whatsoever by it.

Pictured: Johnny Depp's graffiti calling Amber Heard's ex 'Taysa van Pee' that he scrawled on painting that was a gift from her artist former lover Taysa van Ree This is the first picture of the graffiti left by Johnny Depp on a painting calling Amber Heard's former partner 'Taysa van Pee', which the actor scrawled on painting that she was given as a gift by the artist Taysa van Ree. Depp sent a photograph to Heard's sister Whitney of him having changing Ms Van Ree's name on the painting's glass frame in 2014, with the court previously hearing Whitney 'wasn't particularly enthusiastic' about Ms van Ree'. The court heard Whitney replied to Depp's message by saying: 'Well done, my friend, well done. The van Pee painting earns you 20 points in my book.' Depp then texted her: 'Can't stand that f***ing hovering vulture.' Whitney, who is due to give evidence this afternoon during Depp's libel trial against The Sun newspaper, replied: 'She's the worst. Did sis (Heard) notice the van Pee yet?' Depp texted back: 'Oh yes, she laughed her a*** off.' Depp is said to have 'defaced' a painting by Heard's ex-partner Tasya van Ree, changing the signature to say 'Tasya van Pee'. This picture was taken at some point in 2014. The date on the picture is from when it was taken, not the date of the incident Advertisement

'He has been at my house for weeks now. Last night I locked the deadbolt.'

Ms Wass asked what she was referring to by locking the deadbolt and Heard answered: 'It had been so many nights of up, down, bingeing.

'I couldn't get a moment's sleep... I was either defending myself or trying to make him happy, calm him down, whatever.

'It got so violent so fast and I don't know how it got like that so quickly... I locked the deadbolt.'

She then confirmed to Ms Wass that was the 'first peaceful night' she had, because she had locked Depp out of her house.

Depp allegedly hit Heard with the back of his hand, which caused her blood to hit the wall

Heard said in her first witness statement that Depp hit her with the back of his hand, which caused her blood to hit the wall, after an argument about a painting by her ex-partner Tasya van Ree which was hanging up in her house in Los Angeles.

The actress initially said the incident took place on March 8, 2013, but has since said she 'cannot be sure that the painting incident took place on March 8, 2013'.

Ms Wass showed Heard a number of photographs which are said to have been taken on March 22 2013, and asked: 'What do you consider was the correct date of the painting incident?' Heard replied: 'The 22nd.'

Ms Wass said: 'As far as the painting incident was concerned, what you said in your original statement was that, after the argument, there was an episode of filming on that day with Keith Richards.'

The barrister asked: 'How many incidents were there in March 2013 which involved filming a documentary with Keith Richards?' Ms Heard said: 'At least three.'

Heard confirmed that one painting by Ms van Ree, which she alleges Depp tried to set fire to, was different from one which was defaced by Ms van Ree's name being changed to 'Tasya van Pee' - discussed in a text exchange between Depp and Heard's sister Whitney.

Heard said Depp had asked her to remove both of them, one from her bedroom, and she said one of them was put in her garage. The actress said: 'I'm embarrassed to say, but it looks like it lasted about a week in the house before I had to move it.'

She said there was 'minimal damage' to the painting and the frame had been broken, adding that Mr Depp had tried to burn it but 'was too inebriated'.

Ms Heard said the painting that Mr Depp allegedly tried to set fire to was 'the one with the flamingos, it has always been that one'.

She added: 'This is the painting that he tried to burn. He tried to burn it when I objected to taking it down.'

Ms Wass took Heard to a series of texts between her and Depp's then assistant, Nathan Holmes, which were sent on March 22, 2013, when Depp is said to have been due on set for the filming of part of a documentary he was making about The Rolling Stones' guitarist Keith Richards.

Mr Holmes texted Heard at around noon to say 'on my way to get him', to which Ms Heard replied: 'Trying to wake him now.' The court heard Heard texted Mr Holmes just before 6pm to say: 'Success - he's coming down.'

Heard claims Depp was 'snorting lines of cocaine and drinking whisky' one afternoon

Ms Wass asked: 'What was going on between noon ... and about 6 o'clock that evening?' Heard replied: 'Johnny refused to leave ... (he was) snorting lines of cocaine, drinking whisky and he was saying we really need to work this out, he wanted to get to the bottom of it.

'He wanted me to admit that I was having an affair with, not only Tasya van Ree, my ex-partner, but also a gentleman I hardly knew... he had just gotten it in his mind that I had these affairs and he wouldn't leave until I admitted it.'

The actress added that Depp was on 'the second day' of 'his bender', and that she texted her mother and sister about it. Heard said: 'I remember saying words to the effect of 'I'm on hour 24 of his bender'.' She also said she and Depp eventually left her LA home at 'around 7, 7.30'.

The court heard Heard texted Mr Holmes later in the day to ask if Depp was 'still upright', to which Mr Holmes said: 'He's a lot better ... still upright.' Heard said: 'I was asking if he was still standing, still alive.'

Ms Wass asked why Heard would ask that, to which the actress replied: 'Well, he had done, I think, cocaine and drink for well over a day at this point. This is about 36 hours or more into it and, at that time, I was unfamiliar with his patterns.'

Heard tells Depp's assistant Nathan Holmes that she is 'sad but OK'

Ms Wass said that shortly after midnight, on March 23, 2013, Mr Holmes texted Heard to ask if she was OK, to which she replied: 'I guess. Sad but OK.'

Mr Holmes then said: 'It might be good if he stays here tonight, just to give you a peaceful night and also let him sober up.'

Court accepts dog paperwork was 'not a question of a person believing she is above the law'

Heard was asked about a court decision in Australia in April 2015 over the illegal entry of her and Johnny Depp's pet Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo.

The decision indicated Heard was unaware that documentation for the dogs had not been completed and that just prior to travelling to Australia, Heard's assistant - which she confirmed was Kate James - had been dismissed from her job in 'acrimonious circumstances'.

It said Heard believed all the relevant paperwork had been completed and did not 'deliberately deceive' the Australian authorities, and the court accepted this was 'not a question of a person believing she is above the law'.

Depp says couple had a 'great time' on honeymoon other than 'a fight on the train'

Ms Wass asked Heard about the couple's honeymoon on the Eastern and Oriental Express in south-east Asia in August 2015, and the actress confirmed that she understood it was suggested by Depp's lawyers that the actor was never violent during that trip.

Ms Wass then referred to an audio recording made in September 2015, parts of which have been played to the court previously, known as 'argument two' in which Depp and Heard discuss their relationship.

The barrister read out an exchange in which Depp said the couple had a 'great time' on honeymoon 'other than we had a fight on the train which was physical'.

Ms Wass said in the recording Depp says: 'If things get physical, we have to separate. We have to be apart from one another, whether it's for a f****** hour or 10 hours or f****** a day. We must. There can be no physical violence towards each other.'

Reading from a transcript of the recording, Ms Wass told the court Depp said: 'All I'm saying is we need to take whatever time we need, you need or I need, to kind of let things settle for a minute, so that we don't f****** kill each other or f****** worse, you know, f****** like really kill each other or f****** break up or whatever.'

Heard denies altering images of her face showing injuries

Ms Wass then asked Heard a series of questions relating to an alleged incident the night before she appeared on James Corden's The Late Late Show in December 2015.

The actress denied having altered, or asking anyone else to alter, images of her face which showed injuries on that day, and she denied 'painting on' bruises.

She also denied breaking a bed in the couple's penthouse apartment, as well as pulling out clumps of her own hair to take photographs of it on the floor.

Ms Wass asked Heard: 'You and Mr Depp met after the domestic violence order was provided to you and you met in breach of that order, do you agree?' Ms Heard said: 'Yes.'

Ms Wass asked: 'And was that your idea?' Heard replied: 'I believe both of us, although I initiated wanting to speak to him (with a view to) resolving this in an amicable way.'

Ms Wass then asked 'what was the arrangement' for meeting Depp 'on or around July 22 (2016)' in San Francisco.

Heard said that 'a mutual friend Christian Carino' would be there 'within shouting distance so it wasn't just Johnny's security', who she said she did not believe 'would ever protect me'.

Ms Wass asked: 'Did you ever envisage that you were going to be alone with Mr Depp?' Heard said: 'No.'

Heard says she does not want to be in court and wishes Depp would 'leave me alone'

Ms Wass then asked about an answer Heard gave under cross-examination that she did not want her allegations against Depp to become public and that she was 'trying to save him the embarrassment'.

Ms Heard said: 'Every day, more and more attacks were coming out against me and accusing me of being a liar and forcing me into a position where I was increasingly away that I would have to, at some point, speak to prove (them).'

She added: 'I didn't want to do this, I didn't want to expose the totality of what really happened to me. I didn't want to talk about everything that happened in our marriage and happened in our relationship.

'I didn't want to put Johnny (in a position) where the world or his kids would know fully what he was or what he could do. It's embarrassing.'

Heard said she did not want to be in court and that she just wanted Depp to 'leave me alone'.

Heard says she married and divorced Depp 'without a pre-nup in a no-fault state'

Ms Wass referred to Depp's contention that her allegations were an 'elaborate hoax' and that Ms Heard had 'manipulated pictures, painted on bruises, destroyed property with your friends in order to implicate Mr Depp'.

The barrister asked: 'Has there been any benefit to your career since you have made these allegations against Mr Depp?'

Heard replied: 'No. What woman has ever benefited from being the victim of domestic violence?'

Ms Wass asked if Heard had 'benefited financially' from making the allegations, to which the actress said: 'I married and divorced Johnny without a pre-nup in a no-fault state'.

She explained: 'I was entitled to 50% of his (assets) and he of mine without having to prove anything happened in the marriage, bad or good. It's a no-fault state and I was entitled to 50 per cent.'

Ms Wass finally asked: 'Have you told the truth in court?' Heard said: 'Absolutely.'

Mr Justice Nicol then thanked Heard for coming to court to give evidence before she left the witness box.

YESTERDAY: Heard denies telling 'lies' about her claims Depp was violent

Yesterday, Heard denied telling 'lies' about her claims Depp was violent as the actor's barrister Eleanor Laws QC accused her of 'instigating the assaults and rows' and 'concocting' the allegations against her ex-husband in response to other witnesses' evidence.

Heard told the High Court the star threw bottles 'like grenades' during an explosive row in Australia in which the Pirates Of The Caribbean star lost the top of his middle finger in disputed circumstances.

Ms Laws put it to Heard that, during the incident in Australia, the actress 'worked yourself into a rage, screaming at him' and threw a glass bottle - Depp claims the bottle severed the top of his finger.

Depp allegedly tried to burn this painting, pictured in May 2013, which was also done by Heard's ex-partner Tasya van Ree. This picture was allegedly taken in Heard's garage, where she put the painting after Depp is said to have tried to set it alight

Heard said she got angry 'at times' but 'not to the extent where I would throw anything at him offensively'.

Johnny Depp v The Sun: Key issues in libel trial Hollywood star Johnny Depp's libel claim against The Sun enters its second week on Monday. These are the key issues the trial judge, Mr Justice Nicol, has to determine. - Whether the April 2018 article by the tabloid's executive editor Dan Wootton was defamatory of Depp. Under the Defamation Act 2013, a statement is not defamatory unless its publication causes 'serious harm to the reputation of the claimant'. - The Sun's publisher, News Group Newspapers (NGN), is defending the claim and relying on a defence of truth. It is for the publisher to prove that the allegations made in the article are 'substantially true'. - The meaning of the article, which is defined as what it would mean to the 'reasonable reader', will have to be determined by the judge. But NGN's lawyers say the differences between the rival meanings contended by each side are 'not significant' and the outcome of the case will therefore not turn on meaning. - Depp's case is that the article bore the meaning that he was 'guilty, on overwhelming evidence, of serious domestic violence against his then wife, causing significant injury and leading to her fearing for her life, for which he was constrained to pay no less than 5 million to compensate her, and which resulted in him being subjected to a continuing court restraining order; and for that reason is not fit to work in the film industry'. He strenuously denies the allegations and claims he 'has never hit or committed any acts of physical violence against Ms Heard'. - The meaning which NGN will seek to prove is true is that the Claimant beat his wife Amber Heard, causing her to suffer significant injury and on occasion leading her to fearing for her life. They rely on 14 separate allegations of violence and allege more generally that Depp was 'controlling and verbally and physically abusive' towards Ms Heard, particularly when he was under the influence of alcohol and or drugs, throughout their relationship. NGN's lawyers say an important issue for the judge to decide will be what substances Depp was using during the relationship. They contend that he frequently lost control of himself, partly because of his heavy drug and alcohol use, and also that his memory has been impaired by his heavy use of drugs. - If Depp wins his case, the judge will have to decide what level of compensation he should receive for the harm to his reputation and for the 'distress, hurt and humiliation caused'. There is an upper limit on general damages for libel of 300,000 to 325,000. However, if he succeeds, Depp may also be entitled to aggravated damages. The actor is also asking for a final injunction against NGN, who his legal team say 'have retained the article on their website and maintained their allegation to the bitter end'. Advertisement

She also said she did break a bottle 'very early' one evening of the trip, and that it was 'before Johnny had started to throw the bottles at me'.

Heard claimed the couple were in an argument about Depp drinking and, when she confronted him, he offered her the bottle, 'teasing me to take it' and then pulling it away.

She added that she 'reached for it a second time and I smashed it on the floor in between Johnny and I', adding: 'I regret I did that.'

Heard told the court: 'He started picking them up one by one and throwing them like grenades.

'One after the other after the other, in my direction, and I felt glass breaking behind me, I retreated more into the bar and he didn't stop.

'I was too scared to look behind me. He threw all the bottles that were in reach, all except for one which was a celebratory magnum-sized bottle of wine.'

Heard said she remembered that was the only bottle not smashed out of 30 or so.

The actress was also asked about an alleged incident of domestic violence in Los Angeles in December 2015, which she described in a witness statement as 'one of the worst and most violent nights of our relationship'.

Heard alleges that Depp slapped her, dragged her by the hair through their apartment, pulling clumps of her hair out, and then repeatedly punched her in the head, which he denies.

The actress became visibly upset as Ms Laws read through passages of her witness statement detailing the alleged abuse. She was asked: 'That's just a complete set of lies, isn't it?' Heard quietly replied: 'No.'

The court heard that medical notes made by a nurse, Erin Boerum, who saw Heard shortly after the alleged incident, recorded that Heard was 'actively bleeding on her lip' and that she 'briefly looked at the client's scalp but was unable to visualise haematomas the client described'.

When it was put to her that she had no bruises when she saw Ms Boerum, Heard said: 'I had two black eyes, a broken nose, a broken rib ... I had bruises all over my body.'

After she gave more details of injuries, Ms Laws suggested: 'This is just nonsense, isn't it? She (Ms Boerum) didn't see any bruising ... you had just bitten your lip because there was fresh blood on it.

'Had you just done that for her benefit?' Heard replied: 'Of course not.'

Depp is suing NGN and The Sun's executive editor Dan Wootton over the publication of an article on April 27 2018, with the headline: 'Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be 'genuinely happy' casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?'

His lawyers say the article bore the meaning there was 'overwhelming evidence' Depp assaulted Heard on a number of occasions and left her 'in fear for her life'.

NGN is defending the article as true, and says Depp was 'controlling and verbally and physically abusive towards Heard, particularly when he was under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs'.

The blockbuster case is due to finish next week with closing submissions from both sides' legal teams on Monday and Tuesday.

Security is stepped up at court after Amber Heard claims she was verbally abused by Johnny Depp fans Mary Kennan, 66, pictured today, presented Amber Heard with a bunch of flowers and a gift as she arrived in court this morning Security has been stepped up at the High Court after Amber Heard claimed that she was verbally abused by Johnny Depp fans. Heard has been giving evidence all week, revealing sensational details about the physical and emotional abuse she claims she suffered at the hands of Depp. Heard complained to court security staff that a group of Depp supports swore at her and that she felt intimidated by them intimidated her as she walked through a courtyard to get to her vehicle at the end of the day. Mary Kennan, 66 who witnessed the incident earlier this week, presented Heard with a bunch of flowers and a gift as she arrived in court this morning. Ms Kennan told MailOnline: 'Everyone has the right to feel safe in this building and I felt really sorry for her because of the way some people abused her earlier this week. I chose the flowers because they are beautiful, sweet and innocent and I thought Amber would appreciate them.' Heard spent around five minutes inside the main hallway of the High Court chatting to Ms Kennan, who revealed that the gift to her was a 'meditation.' 'I want her to find some peace and get on with her life. A lot of people have been giving her a very tough time over the past few days and that's not fair,' she added. Security patrols have been increased in and around the High Court with Depp supporters instructed to vacate the building once the day's hearing has finished. Many had been waiting in the courtyard at the end of the day to try and get a glimpse of Depp or speak to his legal team. A group of Depp supporters, who have dubbed themselves 'Team Depp' have been following the trial via video link from a separate courtroom to the one where it is taking place because of social distancing guidelines. Extra checks are also being carried out at the entrance to the High Court following an increase in Depp fans trying to get into the building as the trial has progressed. A High Court source told MailOnline: 'We've had a lot of people trying to get in who have been telling us that they want to see Johnny and give Heard a piece of their mind. 'As the trial has gone on, there have been more and more Depp fans coming to the court and a lot of them are angry about how they feel he's been treated by Heard.' Advertisement

YESTERDAY: Amber Heard had to cover her facial injuries with make-up before appearing on James Corden's Late Late Show after Johnny Depp tried to smother her with a pillow, court hears

Amber Heard's make-up artist claimed she had to cover up the actress' facial injuries before she appeared on James Corden's Late Late Show after Johnny Depp allegedly tried to smother her with a pillow.

Depp's ex-wife accused the Hollywood legend, 57, slapped her, dragged her by the hair through their apartment - pulling clumps of her hair out - and then repeatedly punched her in the head in LA in December 2015.

Heard, 34, described the alleged attack in her first witness statement as 'one of the worst and most violent nights of our relationship' and became visibly upset as Depp's lawyer read through passages of her statement in court.

The High Court in London heard Eleanor Laws QC accuse Heard of lying about the incident as she described Heard's claims that her body was covered in bruises as 'nonsense'.

When a short clip of Heard's appearance on The Late Late Show the next day was then played in court in which she appeared to have no facial injuries, the actress said she had covered the bruises with make-up.

Her make-up artist Melanie Inglessis then told The Sun's lawyer how a 'distressed' Heard had bruises under her eyes, a swollen nose, cuts on her lips and 'missing chunks of hair on the top of the crown'.

Ms Inglessis said that she use concealer to hide some of Heard's facial bruises and had 'no other choice' but to put red lipstick on her 'to cover the injury on her lip'.

In other developments at Depp's libel trial as he sues The Sun for calling him a 'wife beater':

Heard said Depp threw '30 or so bottles' towards her 'like grenades' and severed his finger while attacking her at an Australian mansion as he filmed Pirates of The Caribbean

Heard denied it was her decision to take their dogs Boo and Pistol into Australia illegally and blamed Depp

Heard claimed Depp attacked her 24 hours before she appeared on the Late Late Show with James Corden.

Amber Heard claimed that Johnny Depp physically abused her one day before she was on The Late, Late Show with James Corden on on December 16, 2015 (above) - and said after her appearance that she 'just did that show with two black eyes'

Amber Heard's make-up artist claimed she had to cover up the actress' facial injuries before she appeared on James Corden's Late Late Show after Johnny Depp allegedly tried to smother her with a pillow

Heard poses with guests Luke Bracey and Wanda Skyes on the Late, Late Show with James Corden on December 16, 2015

Heard claimed that Depp attacked her just 24 hours before she appeared on the Late Late Show with James Corden show on December 16, 2015.

She claims that Depp launched a vicious attack which left her with 'tons of injuries' including bruised ribs and arms, bruises all over her body, two black eyes, a broken nose and a broken lip.

The court was then played footage of Heard's appearance on the show, with her face immaculately made up and no visible marks on it.

Ms Laws said: 'That's what you looked like on the show, no injury is there?'

Heard replied: 'I have tonnes of injuries.'

Ms Laws alleged that the night before her appearance on the James Corden show, it was Heard who was violent towards Depp and that she attacked him.

Heard claims that during the fight, Depp dragged her around their Los Angeles penthouse by her hair, knocked her to the floor, pushed her onto a bed and then jumped on top of her so hard that it broke and also headbutted her.

Describing the headbutt, which Depp claims was accidental and not forceful in the way Heard claims, she told the court: 'His head came into contact with mine very deliberately. He clenched his fists, leant back and slammed his head into my nose.'

Ms Laws claimed that prior to appearing on the James Corden show she was seen without any make-up by her stylist Samantha McMillan and that she did not notice any injuries to her face.

The court was also shown photos of Depp's face taken by a friend after Heard claims he headbutted her

Photographs were issued by Heard's legal team of her with injuries to her face around the time of the alleged attack on December 15, 2015, showing bruising across the bridge of her nose and under her eyes after Depp allegedly headbutted her. Depp is believed to have been shown these pictures in court last week while he was giving evidence

Ms Laws said: 'Do you agree that you caused injury to Mr Depp's face on that night?' Ms Heard replied: 'I don't see how I could have, I'm sorry.'

Ms Laws put it to Heard that a photograph of her with bruises on her face taken after the alleged December 2015 incident was 'completely set up', which Heard denied.

Ms Laws then said: 'If someone is grabbing you by the hair and pulling your hair out, it would come out at the root.'

Heard said: 'No of course not, of course not. It comes out wherever it breaks.'

Ms Laws then asked the actress why she took a photograph of her scalp, and Heard said her scalp was 'in pain' and her friend Raquel Pennington took a photograph because she had red spots on her head and it was 'pussy' from where it had been pulled out.

A short clip of Heard's appearance on The Late Late Show was then played to the court, following which Ms Laws said: 'That is what you looked like on the show, there is no injury, is there?'

Heard replied: 'I had tonnes of injuries.' She then said she had makeup on covering the injuries and added: 'You can tell by the size of my lip alone.'

Heard, 34, described the alleged attack in her first witness statement as 'one of the worst and most violent nights of our relationship'

Ms Laws asked Heard about her first allegation of violence against Depp, which she says happened after she remarked on his 'Wino Forever' tattoo.

Heard said it was the 'first time I had been hit like that since I was a child', adding: 'It didn't feel painful necessarily, it just felt like a pop.

'The first time he hit me, I didn't even know he was serious, I was laughing, I thought he was joking ... I just didn't know.'

She said she was left with 'just redness' on her face, adding: 'My eye didn't pop out.'

The actress then said she had told her therapist about it at the time.

Ms Inglessis said Heard told her that Depp 'tried to suffocate her with a pillow ... those were her words'.

Heard also told her that 'she felt he tried to kill her that night and she said he dragged her by her hair', Ms Inglessis said.

Ms Inglessis told the court that she arrived at Depp and Heard's Los Angeles apartment to do Heard's make-up for the taping of the Late Late Show.

She said Heard had 'discolouration under her eyes, on the inner corner or her eyes by her nose. I recall her left eye being a little more bruised than the right eye'.

She added: 'I remember the bridge of the nose being red and swollen (and) like a cut or a scab on her lip.'

Ms Inglessis said Heard told her she had 'missing chunks of hair on the top of the crown', but said she 'did not recall' if she had checked herself.

Heard also told her that 'she felt he tried to kill her that night and she said he dragged her by her hair', Ms Inglessis said

Asked 'how keen' Heard was to appear on TV that day, Ms Inglessis said: 'Not that keen. It was back and forth ... if she would attend or not.'

Ms Wass asked what make-up she put on Heard, to which Ms Inglessis said: 'Obviously concealer, trying to conceal some of the bruises.'

She added that she told Ms Heard that there was 'no other choice' but to put red lipstick on her 'to cover the injury on her lip'.

Inglessis said the concealer was 'very effective' at covering up the bruises 'because, to my recollection, they were not that dark or that inflamed ... I don't remember having trouble covering them'.

Asked if they were 'still visible or not' after she applied make-up to Heard, Ms Inglessis said: 'No.'

Eleanor Laws QC, for Mr Depp, asked: 'Did you ever see Mr Depp be violent to Amber Heard?'

Ms Inglessis said: 'No.'

Ms Laws asked: 'Did you ever see Amber Heard be violent to Mr Depp?'

Ms Ingless replied: 'No.'

Ms Laws then suggested: 'Ms Heard did not have the injuries that you say. Ms Inglessis said: 'I'm not lying.'

'You are making this up as you go along': Heard is accused of lying about Depp's Thanksgiving attack as court is shown video of them celebrating and laughing about 'the monster' with actor's son and Marilyn Manson

Heard was yesterday accused of 'making up' claims Depp was violent after being shown a video of the couple partying happily with friends including Marilyn Manson on the night the actress claims her ex-husband threw her across the room and 'busted' her lip.

Heard alleges that Depp also threw a glass and a heavy glass decanter at her, ripped her shirt and left her with a 'lump' on the back of her head on Thanksgiving in November 2015.

Yesterday two videos were played in court from the holiday weekend where people can be heard talking excitedly and laughing with Heard and Depp, who filmed the group enjoying themselves.

When asked by Eleanor Laws, Depp's QC, to explain the footage, which showed no violence taking place, Heard replied: 'Our fights never happened in front of the family. They typically happened after everyone had gone to bed.'

Ms Laws alleged that Heard was lying about the entire incident and said: 'You are making up this up as you go along'.

Not all the faces of those in the darkened video are visible, but Heard can be seen picking up a drink and revealed that she could tell that Marilyn Manson was present after recognising his fingernails.

She also told the court that others present were her friend Rocky Pennington, Depp and his son Jack, Heard's father David and Erin Boerum, Heard's nurse and friend.

Heard has claimed that her megastar ex-husband would blame his 'alter ego' called 'the monster' for the alleged violence while intoxicated with copious amounts of drink and drugs. In the film Depp can be heard joking with Jack Depp about a monster being in the room while Amber exclaims to a guest: 'What are you doing? Get away get away'.

Ms Laws said: 'This is a happy family event we saw on that second video, a Thanksgiving dinner for family and friends. There was no violence that day or anything at any stage was there?

Heard replied: 'That's not true. The two are unrelated.' Ms Laws pointed out that the video is time stamped after midnight, adding: 'In your account Mr Depp had already been violent to you.'

Heard replied: 'Yes, we had an altercation on the top of the stairs.'

Heard said their fights never happened in front of the whole family, and typically took place behind closed doors when everyone had gone home or to bed.

Amber Heard picks up her drink while partying with Johnny Depp and friends including Marilyn Manson on the night she claims her ex-husband hurled her across a room and 'busted' her lip

Ms Heard was accused of 'making up this up as you go along' by Mr Depp's QC on her third day of evidence

Questioning: Amber Heard was cross examined by Johnny Depp's QC Eleanor Laws, she is pictured outside court, far right

Ms Laws, pictured, alleged that Heard was lying about the entire incident and said: 'You are making up this up as you go along'.

Heard was shown further photos and asked about the incident, including whether her nurse and friend Erin Boerum was present for any of the alleged violence.

Heard said: 'No, she (Ms Boerum?) was there downstairs in penthouse 5 for the bottle throwing, the decanter breaking, the painting breaking.

'I remember there's a slight altercation on the stairs involving wine and Johnny grabbed me by the shirt collar.'

She added: 'There was a slight altercation, but it wasn't what it became after everyone left.'

Ms Laws asked: 'So she was downstairs during part of the assault on you?'

Heard replied: 'Part, yes.'

Ms Laws then asked if 'the second part' of the alleged incident happened after Ms Boerum and Ms Pennington had left.

Heard said: 'Yes, it got much worse later.'

Ms Laws said: 'It's just a lie, isn't it?'

Heard said: 'No, ma'am.'

Ms Laws then asked Heard about what she has called 'the monster' - Depp's 'alter ego' - which was referred to in the Thanksgiving 2015 video.

The barrister said: 'That's just a joke, isn't it?'

She added: 'Those words, 'monster' and 'savage', are all part of the vocabulary that you and your friends would use, aren't they?'

Heard replied: 'No ... it's coming from Johnny's friend in the transcript.'

Ms Laws said: 'In a joke, isn't it?'

Heard said: 'Are you asking me if Marilyn Manson is joking?'

She then said it 'makes me wonder if he (Mr Manson) was writing the apology texts'.

Ms Laws said that, on the video, 'we have Mr Manson saying 'he's a monster, monster, he's scaring me'', adding: 'These are the sorts of words that you and your friends would use in jest.'

Heard said: 'No, it was with Johnny and his friends.'

Cell phone photographs's of Amber Heard and Depp's son Jack on Thanksgiving 2015 were also presented as evidence at the trial

Wrong door: Ms Laws then asked Ms Heard about an alleged incident in the Bahamas in August 2014, when the couple were staying on Mr Depp's private island while he was detoxing. She read out part of Ms Heard's witness statement where the actress referred to a door being splintered during the violent episode. Ms Heard admitted including a picture of another door that was not in the Bahamas in evidence

Ms Laws then asked Heard about an alleged incident in the Bahamas in August 2014, when the couple were staying on Depp's private island while he was detoxing.

She read out part of Heard's witness statement where the actress referred to a door being splintered during the violent episode.

The barrister then read from notes of Depp's doctor, Dr Kipper, which stated that Heard went to get him and nurse Debbie Lloyd and described Depp as 'erratic and paranoid'.

The notes said the pair found Depp 'sitting quietly on his porch' and that he was calm and said he was frustrated with the detox process.

Ms Laws said: 'I suggest to you that he didn't assault you in any way on that day.'

Clarifying the question, Mr Justice Nicol said: 'Did Mr Depp assault you on that day?' To which Heard replied: 'Absolutely.'

Ms Laws then asked about photographs of the broken door, saying: 'That is not a photograph from the Bahamas, is it?'

Heard said: 'No. It was a mistake in the divorce.

Ms Laws said: 'You just include any photographs, anything you can, in a very cavalier way, don't you?'

Heard explained there was a large bundle of evidence in the divorce proceedings, adding: 'This is a different door he kicked.'

'The Bahamas incident'

Ms Laws probed further about 'the Bahamas incident', which involved Tara Roberts - Depp's property manager there - and her husband.

The barrister said Heard had 'given an account in evidence of an incident whereby Tara Roberts' partner had to, in effect, take Mr Depp away from you'.

Heard said: 'My recollection is that, towards the end of that attack, Johnny only had me by the hair and I was trying, there was a bit of a scuffle, trying to bring myself from his grasp and they both approached us, I think at the same time.

'It's my recollection that Tara leaned towards me and CJ, her partner, leaned more towards Johnny and put his hands on Johnny's chest or upper shoulder and we had about two feet of separation for a moment.'

Ms Laws referred to Ms Roberts' witness statement, which said Heard was 'insulting him, calling him names and, in the middle of this onslaught, I heard her say specifically 'your career is over', 'no one is going to hire you', 'you're washed up'.'

Heard said it was Depp who said them to her and 'continued to say them ... as he continued to threaten my job'.

Asked about throwing a can of mineral spirits at Depp, Heard said: 'As I was running away from him, I had my back to him, so I don't know if it actually made contact with him.'

She added: 'He had just threatened my life.'

Ms Laws said: 'What you have done in response to that statement (by Ms Roberts), where you are being accused of really serious violence, is to concoct an account of violence by Mr Depp where, yet again, you are defending yourself.'

Heard replied: 'I have to defend myself sometimes.'

Heard was asked about an alleged incident in Tokyo in January 2015, during which the actress claims Depp slapped her, grabbed her hair and knelt on her back.

Ms Laws asked if she attended a film premiere while there and when it was, and Heard said she did and it was two days after the alleged attack, adding that she was concerned about bruises on her back.

Ms Laws said: 'Do you remember wearing a backless dress to that premiere?' Heard replied: 'Very well.'

The barrister asked: 'You didn't have any injury on your back, did you?' Heard replied: 'Not visible ... I remember checking obsessively.'

Johnny Depp's nose showed visible signs of injury after Amber Heard 'lost her temper' on their Orient Express honeymoon, star's QC claims

The High Court was shown this picture of Amber Heard and Johnny Depp on their honeymoon on the Eastern and Oriental Express in South-east Asia in 2015 with his QC claiming his reddened nose is a sign of injury inflicted by his then wife

Depp's QC Eleanor Laws had earlier discussed the 'train incident', when Depp is said to have been violent to Heard on the Eastern and Oriental Express in South-east Asia in August 2015 on their honeymoon.

Heard alleges Depp picked a fight with her, hit her and pushed her against a wall by the throat, causing her to fear for her life. This is denied by Depp.

The barrister said: 'This is yet another occasion when you had a row and it was you who lost your temper.'

Heard said: 'No, I disagree.'

Ms Laws showed Heard a photo of Depp, taken on the train, which she said showed 'an injury on his face'.

Heard said she could not see any injury to Depp.

Ms Laws continued: 'This is yet another occasion where you have completely turned an incident around and blamed Mr Depp.'

Heard said: 'No, I have tons of pictures from this vacation and these days and he's uninjured. He strangled me.'

Amber Heard's ex admits never seeing Depp hit her, but denies 'concocting' story

the ex-husband of Amber Heard's friend Raquel 'Rocky' Pennington (pictured with Heard) gave evidence from Los Angeles by videolink on Wednesday afternoon.

Joshua Drew, the ex-husband of Heard's friend Raquel 'Rocky' Pennington gave evidence from Los Angeles by videolink on Wednesday afternoon.

Ms Laws

asked Mr Drew about Heard's 30th birthday party on April 21 2016, saying: 'Mr Depp turned up and he was in a coherent, sociable, friendly mood, wasn't he?'

Mr Drew said: 'He was.'

Ms Laws said: 'He was affectionate towards Ms Heard.'

Mr Drew replied: 'Correct.'

Ms Laws continued: 'And he wasn't inebriated.'

Mr Drew said: 'My perception was that he was slightly inebriated.'

He also agreed that it was 'a nice fun evening'.

Ms Laws then asked about the incident on May 21 2016, saying: 'We know that there was a row on May 21 that marked, effectively, the end of the relationship between Mr Depp and Ms Heard.

'After those events of May 21, after you had spoken to the police officers, which we know you did, and after in fact you separated from Ms Pennington in 2017, do you remember after that meeting with Ms Heard shortly before you gave your deposition (in the US)?'

Mr Drew said he did, and Ms Laws asked: 'Did you discuss what you were going to say?'

He replied: 'No, I did not.'

Ms Laws suggested to Mr Drew that 'a lot of the information that you had about the relationship between Mr Depp and Ms Heard in fact came from your then partner, Raquel Pennington'.

Mr Drew said: 'A fair amount, yes.'

Ms Laws then said: 'You never saw Mr Depp hitting Ms Heard. You never saw him throwing a phone or anything else at her, did you?'

Mr Drew said he did not, to which Ms Laws said: 'And you never saw him strike her?'

He replied: 'No, I did not.'

Ms Laws said: 'You would have seen some rows between the two of them.'

Mr Drew said: 'On rare occasion, yes.'

He added that he also saw 'both of them shouting at each other on occasion'.

Mr Drew told the court that he had seen Heard 'drink to excess' and taking illegal drugs - including magic mushrooms and ecstasy - 'on occasion'.

Ms Laws then returned to the incident on May 21 2016.

She said to Mr Drew that, when his then partner Ms Pennington received a text from Heard to come over to the apartment she was in, Ms Pennington 'was not with you'.

Mr Drew said: 'No, that's not the case.'

Ms Laws said: 'What happened on the night of May 21 is that you got involved, along with your partner Raquel Pennington, in supporting Amber Heard and then lying for her afterwards.'

Mr Drew replied: 'I certainly don't agree with that statement.'

Ms Laws asked: 'You didn't see any assault, did you?'

Mr Drew said: 'I didn't, as I've said repeatedly.'

Ms Laws said that he spoke to the police but 'did not show them any damage in the property'.

Mr Drew said: 'I showed them all the damage in penthouse 3, the hallway and penthouse 5.'

He added that photos were taken of the damage to the penthouses before the police arrived.

Mr Drew said that 'there was a pretty substantial pool of red wine' in the hallway, 'a dent in the door of the apartment' and 'there were parts of the kitchen strewn about, broken glass on the kitchen island and the floor'.

He also told the court that, in the other apartment, 'there were a variety of things in the living room that had been thrown about' and broken glass on the floor from 'two broken picture frames'.

Ms Laws asked Mr Drew if he had caused the damage and he said he had not.

Mr Drew said the police would have seen the 'puddle of red wine in the hallway' and had 'walked them through the damage myself, pointing it out'.

Mr Drew said that one of the police officers asked to speak to Heard privately while he waited outside with the male police officer.

He added that he asked the officer what they could do because 'we were obviously very worried about her and we wanted to be helpful and protect her'.

Mr Drew said the officer 'looked at me square in the face and said something to the effect of 'her face is red, there's damage in the apartment, there's enough here that, if she wants, we can go pick him up''.

He told the court that he thanked the officer, but knew it would not happen as Heard was not willing to report the incident.

Ms Laws suggested that Mr Drew had 'concocted a story' and asked if he had 'tailored your evidence in order to support Ms Heard in this case'.

Mr Drew said: 'Absolutely not.'

Johnny Depp 'threw 30 bottles at me like grenades'

Proceedings began when Heard denied severing the tip of Depp's finger or stubbing out a cigarette on his face during a violent argument in Australia claiming the Hollywood star was lobbing up to 30 booze bottles at her 'like grenades' while holding her hostage for three days in a mansion.

The actress, who accuses the 57-year-old Pirates of the Caribbean star of physical abuse on at least 14 occasions, was questioned about an incident Down Under in March 2015 on her third day in the witness box at the High Court in London.

Depp says the tip of his finger was severed during an argument when Heard threw a large vodka bottle which struck his hand, but Heard hit back yesterday saying: 'I only threw things to escape Johnny when he was beating me up'.

Describing the row she said she had taken a bottle from Depp from which he was drinking and smashed it on the floor, prompting a furious response from him. Heard said the majority of bottles were thrown downstairs, before giving a long answer in which she said Depp had thrown '30 or so bottles' towards her 'like grenades'.

She said he threw all the bottles within reach bar one, saying: 'He picked them up ad started using them like grenades or bombs...throwing one after another in my direction.'

Depp's lawyer said Heard's account that the actor had severed his finger by smashing a phone against a wall and then continued to assault her was a lie. 'No it's not,' she replied. 'I don't think he meant to sever the finger but yes he carried on attacking me.'

Ms Laws also accused Heard of stubbing a cigarette out on Depp's cheek. 'No, Johnny did it right in front of me. He often did things like that,' she said. It came after Heard claimed Johnny Depp and his lawyers have run a four-year campaign to 'harass' and 'abuse' Heard as well as wreck her career after they split up.

Amber Heard strides into the High Court with her girlfriend Bianca Butti as she prepares to give evidence for the final time in the bombshell libel trial. Mr Depp (pictured yesterday) is accused of going into rages while on drink and drugs and since splitting with Ms Heard she alleges he has run a campaign of harassment

The carnage in a property in Australia after Depp and Heard allegedly had a fight in 2015, which was released as part of Ben King's evidence a week ago

Depp is on the stand at the High Court for a third day yesterday and was questioned about the incident after he previously claimed the injury was sustained when Heard threw a vodka bottle at him during the fight in Australia. Mr Depp also has a cigaretted burn on his right cheek, but is ex-wife denies it was her

Depp insisted that the only attack on the trip had been launched by Heard when she hurled a vodka bottle at him and caused the infamous injury which cut off the top of his finger

Heard's third day of cross-examination by Depp's lawyers began on Wednesday with Ms Laws asking about the alleged incident in Australia in March 2015, which Ms Heard has described as a 'three-day hostage situation'.

Ms Laws put it to the actress that she 'worked yourself into a rage, screaming at him' and threw a glass bottle, adding: 'Because you would get yourself into rages on occasions.'

Heard said: 'No, I got angry at times but not into a rage that would cause me to throw anything at him.'

Mr Justice Nicol clarified her answer by repeating that she would sometimes get angry, and Heard continued: 'But not to the extent where I would throw anything at him offensively.'

Ms Laws said: 'I'm going to suggest you threw a bottle at his head and it smashed the mirror behind him.'

Heard said the majority of bottles were thrown downstairs. She told the court: 'I would like to be clear, I did break a bottle but it was very early on in that evening, it was the second evening, if I recall correctly, and it was before Johnny had started to throw the bottles at me.

'We were in an argument about whether he was going to drink ... the liquor. When I confronted him about it he offered me the bottle ... he said, 'here, take it'.

'He said, 'Oh yeah, you want it? Here, take it', and at that point drinking had already been ... he had already given it up for a while and it was on the list of 'if this happens, I leave' sort of thing. It was no fly.

'And he gestured to offer it to me and I reached to take it and he pulled it back.

'He was teasing me to take it and would revoke it when I reached (for it).

'Then he did it again and I have in my head all the times that he said that I saved his life, and I thought honestly I could short circuit (a row about drinking).

'So I reached for it a second time and I smashed it on the floor in between Johnny and I.

'I regret I did that.'

Describing the alleged bottle attack, Heard said: 'He started picking them up one by one and throwing them like grenades.

'One after the other after the other, in my direction, and I felt glass breaking behind me, I retreated more into the bar and he didn't stop.

'I was too scared to look behind me. He threw all the bottles that were in reach, all except for one which was a celebratory magnum-sized bottle of wine.'

Heard said she remembered that was the only bottle not smashed out of 30 or so.

The actress then said: 'He (Mr Depp) told me over and over again that my work in trying to get him clean and sober ... when he was clean and sober he would tell me I saved his life.'

In response to Ms Laws disputing her version of events, she said: 'Absolutely not, Ms Laws, I was there, I watched it.

'I would be shocked if Johnny remembers any of this himself, but I was there.'

Ms Laws put it to Heard that Depp's finger was not severed as a result of his hand smashing against the wall, which the actress disagreed with.

The barrister then said: 'This injury was you throwing a bottle in his direction, smashing it down and severing the tip of his finger with glass, wasn't it?' Heard replied: 'No.'

Ms Laws referred to a photograph showing a mark on Depp's face and accused Heard of stubbing a cigarette out on his cheek, which the actress denied, adding: 'Johnny did that.'

Ms Laws said: 'You did it, didn't you?' To which Heard replied: 'No, Johnny did it right in front of me, he often did things like that.'

Ms Laws said: 'According to you, Mr Depp sliced his finger off all on his own ... and then carried on attacking you.'

Heard said: 'Yes, he did. I don't think he meant to sever the finger but yes he did continue the attack.'

Ms Laws said: 'This was a nasty incident in which you were extremely violent.' Heard replied: 'Absolutely not.'

Eleanor Laws QC then said: 'And afterwards, we have got those tapes... when security arrived, you were screaming at Mr Depp not to leave and then in another moment calling him a f****** coward for going.'

Heard said: 'I didn't hear it on the audio files.'

Pressed further she added: 'No on both of those accusations, absolutely not. I was just in another room crying.'

There was an exchange between Ms Laws and Heard about whether she had listened to the audio file and she confirmed she had only listened to part of it, but said it was the relevant part.

She told the court: 'At the beginning of the tape, you can hear how it ended. It ended with Johnny (shouting) incoherently and I was in the bathroom crying.'

Ms Laws then asked the actress about her using the phrase 'have you been so angry you've lost it?'

Heard said: 'I have referred to losing your cool as 'losing it'. I specifically denied referencing it to Ben King.'

She added: 'I said if I did use that phrase or anything like it, I would've been asking about Johnny's behaviour, not my own.'

Ms Laws put it to Heard that it was a phrase she had used about herself, and played part of an audio recording to the court, which was mostly inaudible in the overspill courtroom where the media are listening to proceedings.

The barrister then asked: 'Is it true that sometimes you get so angry you lose it?'

Heard replied: 'Sometimes I get angry enough that I lose my cool.'

Depp also admitted to doing graffiti on a bathroom mirror after the fight with Heard, which resulted in his finger being severed. He admitted that some of it was done with his blood and some with paint

During their visits to Australia in 2015, the couple stayed in this mansion owned by former MotoGp champion Mick Doohan

Heard claims the megastar actor, 57, and his allies have tried to 'embarrass and harass me and the people around me, including potential witnesses' ahead of his extraordinary London libel trial.

In a new witness statement published yesterday, the actress, 34, said she was 'eager for this trial to proceed' claiming her ex-husband's 'campaign has affected my professional life, my personal life and my well-being. It has been extremely upsetting'.

She said: 'Johnny is so much more powerful than I am, in every way: physically, financially, and professionally. By leaving him I escaped the physical abuse, but for the past four years he has used his power and resources to continue the harassment and abuse through the various legal proceedings he has dragged me into and the publicity campaign his team has run alongside those proceedings'.

She added: 'I have been subjected to a campaign of targeted online abuse on social media, as well as online petitions calling for me to be removed from any future sequel to Aquaman and from my association with L'Oreal. It has also been aimed at what is most important to me: my humanitarian work, including my partnerships with the United Nations (UN) and non-governmental organisations, like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and many others, and the important work that these organisations do'.

Heard is expected to give her final evidence with her ex-husband Depp feet away as the biggest English libel trial of the 21st century comes to a head.

Heard, who smiled and waved as she walked into the Royal Courts of Justice with Bianca Butti, has been in the witness box for the past three days where she claimed she feared Depp was 'going to kill' her on several occasions.

Amber has said that the megastar would blame his 'alter ego' called 'the monster' for the alleged violence while intoxicated with copious amounts of drink and drugs.

On another extraordinary day at the Royal Courts of Justice, Heard claimed that Depp once pushed supermodel Kate Moss down the stairs during their relationship in the 1990s. The actress said that was why she had punched the actor  over fears he was about to do the same to her younger sister Whitney.

Heard also denied that she had an affair with Elon Musk, James Franco or 'anybody else' while she was with Depp, who she claimed was 'jealous' and accused her of sleeping with at least eight co-stars and also Leonardo DiCaprio after an audition, giving DiCaprio the nickname 'pumpkin-head'.

But the actress was accused of changing her story about being 'backhanded' by Depp in a so-called 'disco bloodbath'  after she saw a picture of the couple with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards in which Heard does not have any visible injuries to her face.

Amber Heard and her girlfriend Bianca Butti went sightseeing through Central London yesterday after her court appearance

The couple were having a 'nasty row' at the top of stairs in March 2015 when Whitney, then 26, tried to intervene, the court heard.

Accused of punching the Pirates Of The Caribbean star with her closed fist, Heard, 34, replied: 'I did strike Johnny that day in defence of my sister.

'He was about to push her down the stairs and, the moment before that happened, I remembered information I had heard that he pushed a former girlfriend  I believe it was Kate Moss  down the stairs. I had heard this rumour from two people and it was fresh in my mind. And in a flash I reacted in defence of her.

'I have been for years Johnny's punching bag  it was the first time I actually struck him back.'

Ms Laws, for Depp, accused Heard of 'just making this up as you go along', saying she had 'added' Miss Moss  whom Depp dated in the 1990s  to her evidence. Heard admitted she had never mentioned it before, in any statements or previous explanations of the incident.

Heard said: 'He was about to push my sister down the stairs. My baby sister. She has never hurt anyone in her life.

'I would have done anything to prevent her being pushed down a flight of stairs.'

Ms Laws said: 'You are making this up as you go along, throwing in details, new details, which you have thought of literally on your feet to make your account more credible.'

Heard replied: 'Of course not.'

Ms Laws said: 'You don't want to admit the truth, which is that you are violent, do you?'

Heard said: 'Only in self-defence.'

There was no response from Miss Moss's spokesperson yesterday for requests to comment.

Ms Heard sketched giving evidence during the bombshell libel proceedings brought by Mr Depp against The Sun after being branded a 'wife-beater'

Amber Heard made the sensational claim that Johnny Depp pushed British supermodel Kate Moss down the stairs while they dated in the 1990s (pictured together in New York in 1994)

'Johnny's the boss': Amber Heard claims it was Depp's decision to bring their terriers Boo and Pistol into Australia illegally

Heard denied it was her decision to take their dogs Boo and Pistol into Australia illegally in 2015 and said: 'When Johnny wanted something it happened'

The actress said she took the blame to avoid disrupting her then-husband's filming schedule for Pirates of the Caribbean.

The barrister read a series of emails sent between Heard and Depp's then-estate manager Kevin Murphy, in which Mr Murphy told her that 'the dogs will not be allowed to fly commercial in the passenger compartment to Australia'.

Heard told Mr Murphy that she did not want to put the dogs in 'cargo', and said: 'Unless there's another way to get them there or get them on the plane with J.'

A photograph of Amber Heard and Johnny Depp's pet Yorkshire Terriers Pistol and Boo, who were taken into Australia illegally

Heard and Depp at Southport Magistrates' Court in Australia in April 2016. Heard received a $1,000 fine and a one-month good behaviour bond after pleading guilty to one count of falsifying border protection documents when entering the country with the dogs

Ms Laws said: 'You were told by Kevin Murphy, who had been doing quite a lot of work on this, that he wasn't able to get the documentation ready in time.'

Heard said: 'No ... this is a process that had been going on for about six months and I was out of the country filming a movie, I wasn't there with Johnny so it was quite confusing to me.'

She added: 'When Johnny wanted something it happened. He always found a way to make it work.'

Heard continued: 'He told me when I landed. I was only in LA for a matter of hours before we got on his plane for his movie on his flight with his staff.'

She said Depp told her 'everything had been taken care of', adding: 'I had no reason to get any clarity.'

Ms Laws put it to Heard: 'You took a decision to take them (the dogs) anyway.'

Heard replied: 'It wasn't my decision.'

She added: 'Johnny's the boss.'

Ms Laws said: 'You are the boss, aren't you?'

Heard said: 'I didn't call any of the shots. This is Johnny's plane, Johnny's crew, Johnny's staff.'

She also said: 'We both filled out the same entry cards... we both filled out the same thing, yet I took the charges because if Johnny got charges it would have further compromised Pirates (Of The Caribbean), which was already compromised.'

Ms Laws suggested that every time Heard was asked a question 'you used it as an opportunity to say something negative about Mr Depp'.

She added: 'You knew full well that you shouldn't have taken those dogs.'

Heard replied: 'Johnny told me that we would bring the dogs in.'

Ms Laws asked: 'What about Kevin Murphy?'

Heard said: 'That's Johnny's staff.'

She also said: 'I was the only one to get charged so I plead guilty... I took the blame.'

Ms Laws then suggested that Heard tried to 'shunt the blame' on to Kate James, her former assistant.

Heard replied: 'I plead guilty, why would I need to do that?'

Amber Heard accuses Johnny Depp of a four-year harassment campaign after split

Heard claimed Depp and his lawyers have run a four-year campaign to 'harass' and 'abuse' their as well as wreck her career after they split up.

Heard claims the megastar actor, 57, and his allies have tried to 'embarrass and harass me and the people around me, including potential witnesses' ahead of his extraordinary London libel trial.

In a new witness statement published yesterday, the actress, 34, said she was 'eager for this trial to proceed' claiming her ex-husband's 'campaign has affected my professional life, my personal life and my well-being. It has been extremely upsetting'.

She said: 'Johnny is so much more powerful than I am, in every way: physically, financially, and professionally. By leaving him I escaped the physical abuse, but for the past four years he has used his power and resources to continue the harassment and abuse through the various legal proceedings he has dragged me into and the publicity campaign his team has run alongside those proceedings'.

She added: 'I have been subjected to a campaign of targeted online abuse on social media, as well as online petitions calling for me to be removed from any future sequel to Aquaman and from my association with L'Oreal. It has also been aimed at what is most important to me: my humanitarian work, including my partnerships with the United Nations (UN) and non-governmental organisations, like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and many others, and the important work that these organisations do'.

Self-harm

Johnny Depp's lawyer Eleanor Laws QC challenged Amber Heard's testimony of the incident, suggesting that scars she claims were inflicted by Depp depicted in photos shown in court were 'far more akin' to self-harm scars

Scars on Heard's arm were the result of self-harm rather than a brutal attack by Johnny Depp, his QC suggested.

Heard said they were inflicted during a terrifying ordeal in Australia in March 2015 - which she has termed the 'three-day hostage situation'  at a house they rented while Depp filmed one of the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies.

She said yesterday: 'I had been strangled, assaulted, punched, sexually assaulted, strangled, among other things.'

She claimed that Depp had guzzled whisky and ecstasy tablets before hitting and choking her, smashing bottles and throwing her around on a kitchen top strewn with broken glass in the incident in which he drunkenly severed his own finger before daubing 'I love u' with his blood on a mirror.

She told the court, her voice cracking with emotion: 'I was trying to push him off me. I was saying, 'Johnny, it's me, you're really hurting me, stop please'  it's like he couldn't hear me.'

She added: 'He pulled me around by my neck and pushed me down against the bar, I was against the bar, naked, bent over backwards, my back against the marble.

'He was pressing so hard on my neck I couldn't breathe. I was trying to tell him that I couldn't breathe. I remember thinking he was going to kill me in that moment. The floor was wet and I was slipping.'

She said she could not get any purchase on the floor or the countertop 'from all the broken bottles'.

Heard said she still bore scars on her arm. A photo taken on April 18, a month later, at the Tribeca Music Festival in New York, was shared on Twitter, and the court also saw other photos.

Ms Laws asked her: 'These are not scars sustained while you are writhing around, trying to get away from Mr Depp  jagged, uneven  they are straight in line, aren't they?'

Mr Justice Nicol intervened to ask: 'It is suggested these are not scars sustained in the Australia attack  do you agree?' Heard did not.

Miss Laws said: 'These are far more akin to self-harm scars, straight and inflicted by you, and certainly not in a struggle with Mr Depp.'

But Heard replied: 'I have had these scars on my arm since that evening and I have never self-harmed.'

And she added: 'Johnny's a self-harmer, I'm not a self-harmer.'

KEITH RICHARDS PHOTO

The actress was accused of changing her story about being 'backhanded' by Depp in a so-called 'disco bloodbath'  after she saw a picture of the couple with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards in which Heard does not have any visible injuries to her face.

The photo was taken on March 23, 2013. Heard had initially claimed Depp smacked her on March 21 but she later changed this to March 8.

She said Depp had become jealous of a painting her ex-partner Tasya van Ree put up in their bedroom, and that in a drug-fuelled rampage he had tried to set fire to it and had hit her so hard that the wall was 'spattered' with blood from her lip.

Ms Laws suggested Heard had altered her account after seeing the photo of her, her sister Whitney and Depp with Richards, saying: 'You have changed the date in order to explain away the clear face in the photo.

'You have woven a web of lies that you have had to shift and change according to when evidence has emerged.'

Heard replied: 'I disagree.'

PLASTER CAST

The actress was also accused of 'a complete lie' over her claims that Depp grabbed her hair with one hand and punched her with the other in March 2015.

It was impossible, said Miss Laws, since the actor's right hand was swathed in bandages  Depp had chosen a children's dinosaur design for fun  following the severing of his finger in Australia during a previous row. Miss Heard told the court she wasn't lying, saying: 'He grabbed my hair with this hand, and hit me with the hard plastic cast. It was especially unpleasant.'

Miss Laws said the actress had not mentioned the plaster cast before, and suggested that if it had been true it would have been 'a primary feature of the assault' that Heard would have wanted to record.

'BLACKMAIL'

Heard was accused of trying to extort and blackmail the star as they divorced. Her list of demands included three LA penthouses and a black Range Rover.

A letter from her lawyers demanded Depp's 'immediate co-operation' to complete the divorce quickly and without publicity. She also peppered the star with text messages saying 'Please call me, it's important', 'please!' and 'emergency!', the court heard.

Miss Laws said: 'It's blackmail, isn't it?' The actress said: 'No.' Heard filed her divorce declaration on May 26, 2016  five days after the alleged phone-throwing incident  and obtained a court restraining order the following day, saying she was 'petrified' that her husband would return to the apartment.

Miss Laws suggested this was 'not true'. The actress replied: 'I was petrified of the monster that Johnny could become.'

OUT WITH FRIENDS

Heard was also pictured apparently enjoying herself with friends in the days after the May 21 phone-hurling incident, during which she claimed her husband had been 'drunk and high' and smashed 'everything he could' in the apartment with a magnum bottle of champagne.

Three days later, CCTV footage from the lift of her apartment building showed her going out with her sister Whitney and friend Rocky Pennington, coming back at 11pm with wine.

Heard has been accused of faking her injuries with help from her friends, in what Depp's legal team claims was part of a 'hoax'.

FAECES ON THE BED

Amber Heard has rubbished accusations that she defecated in Johnny Depp's bed, as bombshell photographs of faeces at the centre of their bitter court row were made public for the first time

In the latest twist to what was dubbed 'Poogate' by Heard and her friends, the actress vehemently denied she was responsible for leaving 'disgusting' human excrement on the bed she shared with Depp in their Los Angeles penthouse on her 30th birthday. She blamed it on their dog Boo, who was unwell after it ate some of the star's drug stash, the court heard.

Depp says he made up his mind to divorce his wife after being informed about the faeces.

Miss Laws asked Heard: 'You left human excrement on the bed?' Heard responded: 'That's absolutely disgusting.'

Asked if any of her friends had left it, she replied: 'No, of course not. That's unimaginable to me.'

She claimed Boo, Depp's Yorkshire terrier, had had a problem with her bowels since eating cannabis that belonged to Depp when she was a puppy.

The case continues.
Dan Seaman left his last job as a chef in an assisted living facility because he lives with his parents, who are in their 70s and high-risk groups for coronavirus. He feared bringing the infection home.

He spent the last four months calling unemployment offices  more than 9,000 times, by his count  to resolve the unknown issue holding up his March 15 claim. Hes still trying.
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that federal law enforcement agents will be dispatched to cities facing challenges with violent crime, including Chicago, Illinois and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Speaking at the White House, Trump blamed the increases in violence on left-leaning movements to "dismantle and dissolve" local police departments in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.

"This rampage of violence shocks the conscience of our nation," Trump said.

The eruption of gunfire outside a funeral home on Chicago's South Side that left 15 people wounded was part of an ongoing conflict involving the gang of a young man being mourned and a rival gang, police said Wednesday as the federal government planned to send more agents to the city to combat a spike in gun violence.

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After writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the ongoing political turmoil in the state, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday said since India is a democracy, the Prime Minister needs to be aware of the complete scenario and he should not be misinformed about the political crisis.

I wrote to the PM as this is a democracy. I wrote the letter so that he doesnt say that he didnt have information or his people gave him incomplete information. I wrote it so that if I meet him, he doesnt say that he didnt know about the crisis, Gehlot said referring to his letter to PM Modi, reportedly written on Sunday, over the political situation in Rajasthan.

In the letter, the veteran Congress leader had alleged that there had been large-scale attempts to destabilize the elected Congress government in the state and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of trying to poach Congress legislators. Gehlot had also named Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat in his communication to the Prime Minister.

ALSO READ | A mini win for Sachin Pilot in Supreme Court, over to HC at 10.30 am tomorrow

The Rajasthan Chief Minister wrote, There have been despicable attempts to destabilize elected governments through horse-trading. I dont know to what extent you are aware of all this or whether you are being misled.

Locked in a bitter power struggle with his former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot that has almost led to the collapse of the government in the desert state, Gehlot wrote to PM Modi alleging that the ruling party at the Centre had made attempts to offer money to Congress MLAs to defect.

For some time, attempts are being made to destabilize democratically elected governments. This is an insult to the mandate and open violation of constitutional values. Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh are examples of this, Gehlot wrote in his letter to the PM.

ALSO READ | Sachin Pilot demands Re 1 and apology from MLA who alleged bribe offer to join BJP

The ongoing power tussle between Gehlot and his erstwhile deputy Sachin Pilot has now entered its second week. On Thursday, the Supreme Court allowed the Rajasthan high court to pass orders tomorrow on a plea by rebel Congress leader Sachin Pilot and 18 other dissident MLAs challenging their disqualification and setting aside speaker CP Joshis request for a stay on the proceedings.

The Chief Minister has accused Sachin Pilot of seeking the BJPs help to topple the Congress government in Rajasthan just like the modus operandi adopted in Madhya Pradesh, where former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindias defection to the BJP led to the collapse of the Kamal Nath government in March, this year.

Sachin Pilot, who has gone to court over his disqualification, has served a legal notice to Congress MLA Giriraj Singh who alleged that he had been offered Rs 35 crore to cross vote in the recent Rajya Sabha elections, news agency ANI had reported.

Pilot on Wednesday asked for a sum of Re 1 and a written apology before the media for the false and frivolous allegations within seven days. On Monday, Giriraj Singh Malinga said at the talks held at Pilots house he was offered money to switch to the BJP. The MLA said he subsequently informed chief minister Ashok Gehlot about the plan.

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OTTAWA  At a time when Manitobans are relying more on their phones, their bills are the highest theyve been in years.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  At a time when Manitobans are relying more on their phones, their bills are the highest theyve been in years.

Manitoba is the sole province where people are paying more for phone service than a year ago, according to Statistics Canada data released Wednesday.

"Manitoba has lost the edge that it had," Ben Klass, a Manitoban pursuing a PhD in telecommunications policy at Carleton University in Ottawa.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS MTS CEO Jay Forbes (left) and George Cope, CEO of Bell Canada Enterprises after announcing Bell takeover of MTS in 2016. Manitobans have long suspected that Bells acquisition of MTS would lead to higher mobile-phone costs.

"This data clearly show that the prices in Manitoba have diverged (while) prices in other provinces have dropped."

Manitobans have long suspected that Bells March 2017 acquisition of MTS would lead to higher mobile-phone costs.

However, the federal Competition Bureau, which reviews companies confidential internal records, could not confirm that contention as recently as last week.

On Wednesday, Statistics Canada updated its Consumer Price Index, which assesses monthly changes in the publicly listed price of goods and services.

The data show that in June, compared with a year prior, Manitoba phone plans cost 2.7 per cent more for the same variety of services.

Thats compared with a drop of 15.3 per cent in Alberta, and Maritime provinces paying roughly 8 per cent less for phone bills compared with 12 months ago.

In 2018, Winnipeg anti-poverty groups told the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission that telcos were ripping off the most vulnerable Manitobans.

In hearings on "misleading or aggressive sales practices" by the big three telecommunications carriers, the groups testified that advertised rates are often not available for the poorest Manitobans, and that credit checks make phone service harder to access than utilities like hydro and water.

Gloria Desorcy, Manitoba head of the Consumers Association of Canada, testified at those hearings. She said the Wednesday data are concerning during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people are relying on phones to work and maintain a social life.

"This impacts every consumer that uses telephones," she said. "Were seeing the huge importance of communications right now."

Bell absorbed MTS in 2017, and pledged it would not raise wireless rates for a year, though it did increase home-phone and internet rates.

The CPI only compares the change of prices available on the market over time, and not what people are actually paying. Its phone-service figures are 78 per cent based on mobile carriers.

Statistics Canada changed its methodology in 2018 to exclude the incremental payments to carriers for smartphones and instead only tabulate mobile usage plans.

When MTS was still a separate player, the CPI included the cost of plans that included gradually paying for smartphones.

The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, an industry group, noted Wednesday that CRTC data suggest the rates available in different provinces are comparable.

Hotel prices drop further outside Manitoba: stats OTTAWA  Wednesdays Consumer Price Index suggests Manitoba hotels arent dropping prices as much as competitors in other provinces. The CPI logged a 2.1 drop in listed traveller accommodation prices in June compared with a year prior. click to read more OTTAWA  Wednesdays Consumer Price Index suggests Manitoba hotels arent dropping prices as much as competitors in other provinces. The CPI logged a 2.1 drop in listed traveller accommodation prices in June compared with a year prior. That drop was on average 25.1 per cent across Canada, with the second-lowest drop among provinces logged at 14.4 per cent in Saskatchewan. Scott Jocelyn, head of the Manitoba Hotel Association, wasnt sure what was driving that data. He said Manitoba hotels are only operating around 30 per cent capacity, and many in Winnipeg have remained closed through the COVID-19 pandemic. Hotels have been severely impacted, and I dont need to see the numbers to know that, Jocelyn said. Dylan Robertson Close

Klass said that suggests Manitoba had better prices when MTS existed, while rates from the remaining regional carrier, Xplornet, arent much cheaper than the big three.

Meanwhile, other provinces have seen rates drop thanks to Freedom Mobile and local carriers like Videotron and Eastlink.

The CPI data show numbers shifting last summer, when carriers offered unlimited data plans that were a good deal in other provinces, but not in Manitoba.

Klass said that suggests costs are converging across Canada.

He added that its not entirely clear that phone rates would be lower if MTS was still a separate carrier.

"Its hard to say. Deriving causality in a market thats as dynamic and complex as this one is complicated," Klass said.

The Competition Bureau agrees.

In May 2019, the agency told the CRTC in filings that "wireless prices in Manitoba do not appear to have increased subsequent to the acquisition of MTS by Bell."

Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

Last November, the Competition Bureau said "it is difficult to make firm conclusions about levels of competition in Manitoba" for a variety of reasons.

MTS divested some assets to Xplornet and Telus, and the impact on costs isnt yet clear, while "there has been speculation that one of the Big 3 may be planning to purchase SaskTel and therefore, may be moderating their conduct."

Last week, the agency had nothing further to add on whether MTS sale was inflating prices, in its latest CRTC filing.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
23 July 2020

Type Media Article



17% of farm fatalities over the last 10 years were caused by falls from heights or being struck by collapsing or falling objects. Always take time to stop and plan before starting to work at height or in an environment where it is possible to be struck by something falling from a height.



Some safety tips

Assess the job to determine if you have the skills and expertise to do the job safely.

Think about whether or not there are different, new or safer ways to carry out the work. For example, if a roof requires repair, can you avoid going onto it by carrying out the repair safely from below?

Ensure you have the appropriate safety equipment before beginning.

Use a mobile elevated work platform where possible. Never substitute with makeshift alternatives.

Inspect any equipment you use regularly to make sure there are no defects.

Never walk on fragile, slippery or unstable roofs

Use guard rails at a roof edge, or crawling boards on a fragile roof.

Only stack bales if you have the appropriate machinery available to take them back down during feeding.

Fit safety cages under skylights.

Consider falling objects or collapsing earth or structures when planning each job.

Ladders

Many farm injuries each year are as a result of ladders slipping sideways or out from the base, or someone falling from the ladder. Working from a mobile elevated work platform or scaffolding will significantly lower the risk.

Further Information

The Health and Safety Authority (H.S.A) has a working at height in Agriculture information sheet available free on their website that you can access this here

The H.S.A also have a number of videos on the topic of falls and collapses.

Sean talks about the suffering and injuries he received when a bale of hay fell on him.

Emergency services at the scene of a fall from height accident.

For information on safe management of farm building maintenance or new farm building construction please contact your local Teagasc advisor or check out an article by Tom Fallon Teagasc Farm building specialist. The next 6 months will be very busy for Farm Buildings
Art transcends borders, but artists must have boundaries. That was the message from Baijayant Panda, who recently crossed over from BJD to BJP. Panda asked Bollywood personalities to come clean on their alleged links with Pakistans spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). But Panda wont name names. Unfair game? We agree.

Panda may have tried to play safe by not giving out the names, but storyteller Al iskandar decided not to. In a series of tweets, he said US-based Kashmiri Tony Ashai has links with Shah Rukh Khan.

Thread:- ????Look who is talking the man @tonyashai (Aka Aziz Ashai) who himself is sitting in the cozy rooms of California and provoking Kashmiri Youth to Pick-up Stones and Guns while his own Son Bilal Ashai recently graduated from Los Angeles @USC with Masters Degree.1/n ???? pic.twitter.com/WB8wcQ5IeL  Al iskandar (@TheSkandar) July 21, 2020

To which, Tony hit back with threats to sue people: "This conspiracy theory that Indian media is peddling about me being an ISI agent is baseless. These journalists either put out a proof or apologize unconditionally. Short of that you will be sued individually in US Courts and will have to prove it there."

This conspiracy theory that Indian media is peddling about me being an ISI agent is baseless. These journalists either put out a proof or apologize unconditionally. Short of that you will be sued individually in US Courts and will have to prove it there.  Tony Ashai (@tonyashai) July 23, 2020

Brace yourself for some non-film and yet entertaining revelations from Bollywood.

If you want an escape, SpiceJet could be your saviour. Budget airline SpiceJet today said it has been designated as the Indian scheduled carrier to operate flights to the United States. The airline will be the first Indian budget carrier to operate services to the US. When do the services start? We will tell you that when SpiceJet says something about that.

Guess who else is flying high? Women officers in the Indian Army. The Ministry of Defence has issued a formal sanction letter to grant permanent commission to women officers in the Indian Army. That happened today.

The Ministry of Defence has issued a formal sanction letter to grant permanent commission to women officers in the Indian Army. (Photo: Facebook)

But Sachin Pilot and 18 other Rajasthan Congress MLAs will have their fates decided tomorrow when the High Court rules on their disqualification. The Supreme Court said assembly Speaker CP Joshi cant decide on disqualification of the rebels till the top court makes a decision on the issue. When does SC make a decision? On Monday  July 27. So what is the Rajasthan HC to decide tomorrow? HC will deliver its ruling on the plea by the dissident MLAs against the disqualification notices served by the Speaker. HC can decide what it wants to decide but what it decides will be subject to the outcome of the hearing in the SC, on Monday. Did that send you in a tizzy? Breathe deep.

From Supreme Court, lets take you to what happened at a special CBI court today. BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi recorded his statement in the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition case. Another BJP veteran, LK Advani, will record his statement tomorrow in the same court. Well, he is supposed to. But then, there are many a slip between the cup and the lip. How else could the court still be recording statements 28 years after the incident? But construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya will start on August 5 with PM Narendra Modi laying the foundation stone. Both BJP veterans, who by then would be free from recording statements, may also mark their presence.

With or without Lord Rams blessing, WhatsApp is trying to strengthen rural financial services. It has joined hands with Indian banks, including ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank, for the same. WhatsApp also has plans to provide financial services including the insurance and pensions to the low-wage workers. Dont trust WhatsApp news, but trust WhatsApp to get banking to your doorstep. But beware of frauds.

Also be compassionate towards those who need it the most. Now, everyone needs compassion but some need it more than others. American media personality Kim Kardashian West has sought compassion for US Presidential aspirant (till a few days ago) and husband Kanye West. West has been of late posting and deleting tweets. In one such tweet, West accused his wife and mother-in-law of trying to lock him up, and suggested he is seeking divorce.

Kim says West is suffering from bipolar disorder, calling on the media and public to show "compassion and empathy" over the rapper's recent erratic behaviour. We couldnt have agreed more.

But Wests alleged bipolarity reminded us of American mathematician and Noble laureate John Nash. A Beautiful Mind (2001) based on Nashs life won the Oscar.

Now most people who suffer from bipolarity take to medication but Nash said it was ageing which helped him improve. The first symptoms of schizophrenia in Nash appeared when he was in his 30s. By then Nash had made groundbreaking contributions to the field of mathematics, including the math of decision-making. He went in and out of hospitals over the next two decades. And then in his 50s, he began to recover. Nash tried his brain like a mathematical problem. And probably thats why overcame it.

Many say bipolarity is a chemical locha. In the mid-1990s, Nash said, I emerged from irrational thinking, ultimately, without medicine other than the natural hormonal changes of ageing." He died in a car crash in 2015, but many continue to battle bipolarity, including, we are told, Kanye West.

Bipolar, our Word Of The Day, means two poles. It is fine when the two poles exist in two directions, like the North Pole in South Pole where but in south. Problem starts when both exist in the same brain. A person suffering from the disorder experiences polar opposites of mania and depression.

The term first appeared in the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1980.

Before being called bipolar disorder, the disorder was called manic-depressive illness or manic depression because it caused unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, concentration, and the ability to carry out everyday chores.

There are no easy answers to why people suffer from it. It is sometimes genetic and sometimes not. But at all times all people, including West, suffering through it need our empathy.

Nash, we said, could solve it because he could solve maths. The other person who could solve maths with enviable ease was Rani Hindustani. You should totally listen to this to know what we mean because England ki rani koi bhi ho, duniya ki rani, Rani Hindustani.

That will be all for today. We will be back tomorrow and tomorrow at 7.30 pm, you will be able to see Sushant Singh Rajputs last movie Dil Bechara. It's premiering on Disney+Hotstar.

Stay safe.

Also Read: Why Nitish Kumar would fight neither pandemic, nor polls
Every time Priscilla and Ellery Curtis begin talking about what to do about school in a few weeks for their two children, the discussion grinds to a halt.

We always end up stopping the conversation early because we dont know the solution and we dont know what is feasible, said Priscilla. Their kids Olivia, 7, and Charlie, 9, are going into second and fourth grades in the Hoover City school district near Birmingham.

Priscilla and Ellery are also essential healthcare workers. Theyre both pharmacists and cant work from home, but their kids are too young to stay by themselves.

Parents across Alabama and the country are staring down a school year thats quickly approaching but packed with unknowns and risks. While most districts around the state have announced in-person and virtual options, some are starting to opt for an all-virtual start to schooling. [AL.coms complete back-to-school coverage]

Even with options, working parents are forced to weigh their childrens health and educational needs against economic security and their own futures.

We both have come to terms with the idea that we just have to deal with the virus, and we want to do it as safely as possible, Priscilla said.

The Curtises have decided their children will attend school in-person, satisfied that their district has taken appropriate health and safety precautions, like requiring older students to wear masks.

In terms of safety, we feel like them going back to school will not be the safest option, said Priscilla, but its a safe option in our reality.

But if their school district closes schools completely, the delicate balance comes crashing down. One of the parents will have to stay home with the kids and potentially risk losing a full-time job and the salary they depend on.

Ive felt like, as a parent, I dont even know if I have a decision to make because nothing is clear about what will happen, said Ellery. Theres no consensus right now. Were wading into the unknown.

Related: Here are the 80-plus plans for reopening. .

A serious discussion

When schools closed last March, the Curtises were able to cobble together childcare. Theyve used a babysitter during the summer for the days when both parents are at work. But their sitter is headed to college in the fall. And hiring a nanny or tutor to teach the children at home would stretch their budget.

The next part in our planning process is having a serious discussion with our employers for what our options are if schools close, Priscilla said. Or seriously considering: Do I cut back my hours now, so I have that flexibility, built in already? Its really hard because I cant, on a whim, say, Im not coming into work this week.

Priscilla would likely be the one to cut back at work. She has the more flexible schedule. She works a 12-hour shift at a retail pharmacy for two days in a row, then has two days off. Her husband, who works with patients through a physicians office, has a regular 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. weekday schedule.

If (school) goes to virtual learning and someone has to be home every day, Monday through Friday, that would mean me completely going to part-time and just working weekends, or both of us having to figure out how to share that responsibility, where we both have to somehow cut back our hours at work, Priscilla said.

It feelsits really hard.

Career hit

If Priscilla had to drop back to part-time work, the family would be fine in the immediate future. But in the back of her mind, she worries about the ramifications for the career she loves.

Will I get those hours back eventually? she said. The reality is, there are people in my profession who dont have family obligations. Would they step into my position, and would that make it hard for me to go back?

More than a quarter of American workers have children under age 14 and millions of them rely on child care and school to be able to participate in the workforce.

Maura Mills is an assistant professor at the University of Alabamas Culverhouse College of Business with a research focus on work/family balance and gender. She calls the situation caused by the coronavirus epidemic particularly untenable for working parents.

And working mothers, she said, are disproportionately affected when children are unable to attend school or day care. That holds true for both single working moms and for two-income families, even when both parents are involved in taking care of the kids, she said.

Were seeing highly educated women taking major hits to their careers or even falling out of the work force entirely to take care of their children, said Mills.

This will be a generation of women hard hit by this situation for decades to come.

New normal

The financial hit for the Curtis family would be manageable in the short term, but difficult to absorb longterm, said Priscilla.

Right now, we could handle cutting back my hours, said Priscilla, but that would also mean were cutting into our savings, were not saving for our future, and whether or not I could get those hours back at the end of all of this would be a huge concern for us.

Still, said Ellery, they feel like theyre in a much better financial position than many parents, thanks to well-paying professional jobs. Ellery said he grew up in a lower-income household and he worries about working families who cant take the loss of an income.

We need to take care of families, he said. If even people who are middle-class have to cut back, we have to take care of people.

Right now, the Curtises are planning the best they can, continuing to take precautions. Ellery and Priscilla take extra care with sanitizing when they come home from work. Olivia and Charlie are coming to terms with a school year that promises to look much different than usual.

Its been easier for my older one to understand that he will have to wear a mask every day, Priscilla said. My younger one, its a struggle for her, but I feel like because weve talked about this a lot with them, they kind of understand that this is our new normal for a while.

They discuss the options with friends and other parents. Everyones got a slightly different take. And deciding what to do about sending kids back to school can feel almost like a moral question, said Ellery.

Theres this sort of moral lens, as people talk about it, and it is sort of touchy, he said. And understandably. I dont think (others) are wrong, but no one knows the future and everyones got to make a choice.
ATLANTA - A Georgia man accused of plotting to attack the White House with an antitank rocket and explosives was sentenced Thursday to serve 15 years in prison, according to online court records.

Hasher Jallal Taheb had pleaded guilty in April to attempted destruction of government property by fire or explosive. His prison sentence is to be followed by three years of supervised release.

Taheb had made clear that his goal in acquiring numerous weapons and explosives to attack the White House was to do as much damage as possible, to become a martyr, to fight to the end and make a big bang, to enter the White House and take down as many people as possible, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo filed with the court.

Local law enforcement reached out to the FBI in March 2018 after getting a tip from a community member saying Taheb had adopted radical ideas.

In conversations with undercover federal investigators in October 2018, Taheb mentioned plans to travel overseas and wanting to attack the White House and the Statue of Liberty, prosecutors have said. During meetings in December 2018, he broadened his potential targets in the Washington, D.C., area to also include the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and a synagogue.

He then produced sketches he had made of the White House, described a detailed plan to attack it and described weapons and explosives he wanted to use, including semi-automatic weapons, improvised explosive devices, an anti-tank weapon, and hand grenades.

Federal agents arrested Taheb on Jan. 16, 2019 in Buford, Georgia, when he showed up for a meeting with an undercover agent and an FBI source thinking they were going to rent a car and trade their vehicles for weapons, with the intention of driving to Washington, D.C., to carry out the attack, prosecutors have said.

After Taheb loaded the weapons into the rental vehicle and climbed into the passenger seat, agents arrested him, according to a court filing.
Congressional Democrats have asked for the FBI to brief legislators on potential attempts by foreign governments to interfere with the 2020 US election in November.

According to an unnamed source speaking with Politico, the Democrats' desire for a briefing is spurred in part by their fears that Russia will engage in a disinformation campaign to try to undermine the party's presumptive presidential candidate, Joe Biden.

In a letter directed to FBI Director Chris Wray, the Democrats did not specify precisely what they feared Russia or other foreign entities might attempt, but did include fears that groups opposed to Mr Biden's campaign were feeding information to Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson, who heads the investigation into Mr Biden and his son, Hunter's, involvement in an Ukranian energy company, the source claimed.

"We are gravely concerned, in particular, that Congress appears to be the target of a concerted foreign interference campaign, which seeks to launder and amplify disinformation in order to influence congressional activity, public debate, and the presidential election in November," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote.

The letter was also signed by the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff and the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Mark Warner.

Both parties have raised concerns that foreign actors will attempt to influence the upcoming election, though Mr Johnson claims the Democrats' fears that his investigation has been influenced by disinformation is misplaced.

"They're simply wrong," Mr Johnson said. "And Schiff is the last person to talk."

An aide to Mr Johnson told Politico that the lawmaker had also requested a briefing with the FBI on foreign interference issues, but that the Democrats in the Senate were holding up the briefing.

"Committee staff has already requested and received a staff briefing on this issue, and Chairman Johnson has requested an additional briefing at the member level," the aide said. "That briefing has not occurred in part because the agencies requested additional information from minority staff, which has not followed on these requests since mid-May."

On the other side of the aisle, Donald Trump has already sounded the alarm regarding foreign election interference.

In June, Mr Trump baselessly claimed that foreign countries were going to interfere in the election through mail-in voting. A month prior, the president was convinced - incorrectly - that all foreign countries had to do to interfere was print their own ballots and send them to the US.

"They'll even be printing them. They'll use the same paper, the same machines, and they'll be printing ballots illegally. And they'll be sending them in by the hundreds of thousands, and nobody's going to know the difference," Mr Trump said.

Election experts claim the president's fears are unfounded.

According to former National Security Adviser John Bolton, Mr Trump actually courted foreign election interference during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2019.

Mr Bolton included an anecdote in his recently released book, "The Room Where it Happened: A White House Memoir," in which Mr Trump allegedly asked Mr Xi to help him win.

"He then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China's economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he'd win," Mr Bolton wrote. "He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome. I would print Trump's exact words but the government's prepublication review process has decided otherwise."
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Jul. 22, 2020 | FRANKFORT

By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 22, 2020 | 05:45 PM | FRANKFORT

Governor Andy Beshear announced on Wednesday that the state is looking to close out fiscal year 2020 without a shortfall, despite the continuing challenges presented by efforts to fight the novel coronavirus.



Beshear credited the hard work of Cabinet leaders and state agency officials as the state's General Fund revenues for the fiscal year came in far higher than was expected only months ago. The Governor praised the administrators of all state agencies, who were asked to reduce spending by a 1% annualized amount in the last two months.



Beshear said the official numbers for fiscal year 2020 will show a surplus, a marked improvement from May 22, when a revised revenue estimate expected a shortfall of $457 million. He said the Office of the State Budget Director will issue final end-of-the-fiscal-year numbers and details after the books officially close this weekend.



Beshear emphasized, however, that despite these encouraging signs, the economic outlook in Kentucky for 2021 remains extremely difficult, and successfully fighting to stop the spread of COVID-19 remains the most important component to safeguarding our economy.



The key to protecting both the health and safety of Kentuckians and the state's economy, Beshear said, was everyone adhering to guidelines, in particular his recent mandate on face coverings in most public places.




The Nurburgring has emerged as a contender to host a race as Formula 1's 2020 'corona calendar' continues to take shape on the fly.

Earlier, another former German F1 venue - Hockenheim - admitted it was in talks with the sport about filling in for one of the originally-scheduled races.

A spokesman for the Nurburgring now tells motorsport-magazin.com: "We are in contact with Formula 1, but there is nothing (else) to report."

The t-online.de portal believes a deal for a race in October is already done, with teams already booking local hotels.

It is also claimed the Nurburgring's race will be announced on Friday.

Meanwhile, there have been rumours Spain's rescheduled race at Barcelona may no longer happen, due to a significant uptick in the local Covid-19 epidemic.

But El Mundo Deportivo newspaper says preparations for the round at Circuit de Catalunya continue, with the regional government now authorising the modification of the venue's original contract for 2020.

However, Auto Motor und Sport reports that Silverstone could still be asked to step in by scheduling a third race, while Portimao, Imola and Hanoi may also be added to the calendar.

China, however, looks likely to fall out of the running, but the former Malaysian GP venue at Sepang could be set to host its first race since 2017.

(GMM)
NEW YORK, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Market research innovator quantilope today announced a $28 million Series B fundraising round, bringing its total amount raised to $40 million.

The Series B investment was led by Digital+ Partners with Silicon Valley Bank providing debt financing and participation from quantilope's existing investors at Dawn Capital, Senovo, and Surplus - a mark of continued trust and excitement in quantilope's technology. The funds will be used to further expand quantilope's offering in Europe and the US with a focus on growth in the American market. quantilope will also leverage the capital to further develop their technology through AI, automating additional research methodologies, and creating a greater emphasis on support, empowerment, and collaboration in the supplier/client relationship.

"The entire quantilope team is super excited to announce our Series B funding, a major step towards achieving and accelerating our mission to enable agile insights at a global scale," explained quantilope CEO Peter Aschmoneit. "Now more than ever, we see the need for fast and deep consumer insights for brands to stay closely connected to their consumers radically changing motivations, needs, and behaviors. The future of insights is about speed, efficiency, high-quality data, and collaboration among teams. quantilope is leading the way."

quantilope is an agile insights platform automating advanced consumer research methodologies on an end-to-end platform for holistic project management. quantilope's automated end-to-end platform delivers results 3x faster than traditional research agencies with an average turnaround time of 1  5 business days. This includes the questionnaire design, panel management, live reporting, in-depth analysis, and data visualizations.

"We believe that quantilope is exceptionally well positioned to modernize the market of market research by digitizing the workflow of consumer insights generation," stated Thomas Jetter, partner at Digital+ Partners. "Above all, the combination of an excellent team with strong technical competence and a mature technology platform convinced us. We are delighted to be on board and to further support quantilope on its way to becoming the leading international Agile Insights platform."

"quantilope's leading platform and its team continues to convince us of their strong future. We are very confident that they'll successfully scale and expand their business globally. We're pleased to be part of their growing success story and are here to continue to provide support, when they need it," said General Manager of Silicon Valley Bank's Germany Branch, Oscar Jazdowski.

quantilope was founded in Hamburg, Germany in 2014 and expanded into the US in 2019 following an initial Series A investment. quantilope has served over 200 clients world wide and in the past year their US-based client list has increased more than 450%. In 2020, quantilope earned a spot on the Deloitte Tech Fast 50 list in Germany and debuted on the GRIT report's Top 50 Most Innovative Companies List. The GRIT report is the most comprehensive and widely read analysis of the insights industry, ranking the leaders disrupting the market research space.

"quantilope has grown more than tenfold since Senovo's first investment - made possible by a new approach to agile and innovative market research. We are very impressed with the success of the team and look forward to supporting them in the future to contribute to innovative market research," explained Markus Grundmann, Partner of Senovo Capital.

"The current market research industry is valued at over $47 billion globally with the largest markets in the US, followed by the UK and Germany," said Aschmoneit. "The massive industry illustrates the demand for consumer insights to drive informed decision making and fuel growth for brands and organizations across all sectors. A demand that quantilope is eager and ready to serve."

About quantilope: quantilope is an agile insights platform automating advanced research methodologies including Conjoint, MaxDiff, TURF, Implicit Association Tests, Tracking and more. Our end-to-end platform maps the entire market research process from the research question to the questionnaire design, professional panel management, live reporting, in-depth analysis, and data visualization. The average project turnaround time is 1  5 business days.

CONTACT: Johanna Azis, [email protected]

SOURCE quantilope

Related Links

https://www.quantilope.com/en/


InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), one of the worlds leading hotel companies, has signed a franchised agreement with Borealis Hotel Group for Holiday Inn Express Budapest City Centre.

The 189-room hotel will be the first Holiday Inn Express in Budapest and the first IHG hotel to enter the Hungarian market in over 20 years. Expected to open late 2022, Holiday Inn Express Budapest City Centre will bring simple, smart travel by providing the perfect base camp to rest, relax and recharge, whether for business or leisure. The project will be developed by the company Big4.

The expansion of IHGs presence in Budapest brings a new offering to the local guests and those visiting for leisure. The hotel offers convenient access to Blaha Lujza square, once home to the original Hungarian National Theatre, which is soon to be transformed into a modern community space. Situated in the liveliest part of the city, the Holiday Inn Express Budapest City Centre connects locals and guests to the heart of the inner city in just five minutes. Various restaurants and bars are located in close proximity to the hotel, creating an ultimate insight into the true Hungarian culture.

Mario Maxeiner, Managing Director, Northern Europe, IHG, commented: Budapest is one of the most popular cities in Europe, which creates great opportunity for the Holiday Inn Express brand entering the market for the first time. In these challenging and unprecedented times, this signing shows the continued trust our Owners and partners place in IHG and our brands. We are excited to partner with Borealis Hotel Group to launch this brand in Hungary  a market with great growth potential.

Bart van de Kamp, CEO and Founder of Borealis Hotel Group, added: We are very excited to bring the Holiday Inn Express brand to Hungary. Developed for smart, savvy travellers who are typically on-the-move and need a centrally located basecamp from where they can easily explore the city or go to business meetings, Holiday Inn Express is the perfect addition to Budapests city centre. Borealis and IHG have been working on numerous developments across Europe together and I very much value the strong and trusted partnership we have formed over the years. Now were looking forward to expanding our partnership in Hungary.

As IHGs fastest growing hotel brand, Holiday Inn Express is the first choice for travellers who need a simple place to stay, whilst offering everything a guest may need. Being located in a fast evolving and popular city, Budapest is the place for the brand to take off and open up opportunities for future growth. For owners, the brand offers the ability to drive higher returns by delivering exceptional stays and leveraging IHGs powerful systems, including IHG Rewards Club, one of the worlds largest hotel loyalty programmes.

IHG currently has two hotels open in Hungary - InterContinental Budapest and Holiday Inn Budapest  Budaors. - TradeArabia News Service
MONTREAL, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- IPL Plastics Inc. (IPLP or the Company) (TSX: IPLP) today announced that the Company will release its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2020 after market close on Tuesday, August 11th, 2020.



Alan Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, will host a conference call for analysts and investors at 10.00am (ET) on Wednesday, August 12th, 2020. The dial-in numbers for participants are (866) 996-7190 or (270) 215-9493 in North America and 1800902189 or 012475604 in Ireland and the Conference ID is 2789245. Presentation slides to be referenced on the conference call will be available prior to the call on the Companys website at https://www.iplglobal.com/investors/filings-presentations-reports .

A replay of the call will be available until Wednesday, August 19th, 2020. To access the replay, call (855) 859-2056 and enter passcode: 2789245.

About IPLP

IPLP is a leading sustainable packaging solutions provider primarily in the food, consumer, agricultural, logistics and environmental end-markets operating in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Ireland, Belgium, China and Mexico. IPLP employs approximately 2,000 people and has corporate offices in Montreal and Dublin. For more information, please visit the Companys website at www.iplglobal.com .

Contact

Investor Enquiries:

Paul Meade, Head of Investor Relations, +353 87 0655368
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On Wednesday, Congress passed the Great American Outdoors Act, one of the biggest conservation bills since World War II, which allocates substantial money to the upkeep and expansion of public natural areas across the country, including California.

The bill is sweeping in scope, but can be broken down into two major sections:

$900 million guaranteed per year for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, to be used to expand natural areas for recreation, or preserve wildlife and habitats. It could also fund the purchase of land for parks in cities.

$9.5 billion over five years to fix up our National Parks System, which requires much-needed repairs to existing infrastructure, like roads, restrooms, and sewage systems, to name just a few.

Called "a conservationist's dream" by the National Parks Conservation Association, the bill seems to promise major changes, but what does that mean specifically for California?

NATIONAL PARKS NEED HELP

Natural space is clearly important to us, and those that come to visit. In 2019 about 40 million people ventured through National Parks located in the Golden State, spending an estimated $2.7 billion in their surrounding areas.

Still, upkeep of these hallowed grounds have been a major issue for years.

"It's really a game changer for the National Parks Service. It'll enable them to go from a Band-Aid approach really to modern day fixes for their repairs," said Marcia Argust, who heads the Restore America's Parks program at the Pew Charitable trust.

Our park system is over 100 years old, meaning facilities and infrastructure are deteriorating. Upkeep has been made difficult by sporadic year-to-year funding, which forced plenty of parks to defer maintenance, even as more and more people show up to use those spots.

Nationally, parks have a backlog of about $12 billion in maintenance, according to the National Park Service.

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JOSHUA TREE, DEATH VALLEY AND YOSEMITE

California favorites aren't immune.

Joshua Tree is in need of about $73 million in fixes and improvements, primarily for roads and buildings.

(Courtesy of the National Park Service)

Death Valley also needs an estimated $167 million for the improvement of roads and buildings, but also water distribution and wastewater collection systems.

Further north, Yosemite is in need of $923 million, much of which could go to the rehabilitation of Tuolumne Meadows, and the replacement of a wastewater treatment plant.

MUCH NEEDED HELP FOR COMMUNITIES

If the bill is signed into law by President Trump, the Park Service has 90 days to give Congress a list of projects individual parks plan to work on in their first year of funding. That money should start flowing in October, according to Argust.

In addition to fixing crumbling infrastructure for visitors, the money could help buoy communities that have seen their tourism drop during the pandemic, and potentially create a lot of jobs.

It's not just the National Parks that'll benefit from the funding. The U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Indian Education could receive billions over the five years as well.

MORE LAND COULD BE MADE PUBLIC

The other portion of the bill that could impact us in SoCal is the guaranteed $900 million per year allocated towards the Land and Water Conservation fund. This could be used by federal and state governments to purchase and develop public land, protect endangered habitats and species, or even build parks in cities.

"I'm pinching myself. It's a great day," said Mark Kramer, director of federal external affairs for the Nature Conservancy.

"In California, we have such a varied topography that there's always opportunity to make strategic additions to our public lands, whether it's in the desert or along our coast."

Take the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area as an example. In theory, the LWCF funding could be used to buy up additional plots throughout the coastal mountains to prevent further building, and preserve the area for recreation as the risk of wildfires increases (though some may bristle at the government acquiring more land than it already has).

"We've missed opportunities in the past to protect some of these places because the funding wasn't reliable. Now we'll have it," said Kramer, referring to how, in the past, Congress would often take money from the fund for unrelated projects, after its establishment in 1964.

Conservationists see this law as a big step towards guaranteeing funding.

According to the National Parks Conservation Association, the acquisition of 2,210 acres in Mojave National Preserve is considered high priority.

Primary funding doesn't come from taxes, but from income from government leases to energy producers -- primarily oil and gas. Consumption of those fuels is a major contributor to climate change, the very thing which is destroying the ecosystems people are excited to go enjoy.
Leitrim County Council is presently engaged in discussions with the Office of Public Works following recent flooding events in North Leitrim.

Several motions highlighting ongoing flooding of the Bonet River and its tributaries in North Leitrim, were raised at this weeks Manorhamilton municipal district meeting.

Cllr Padraig Fallon said the fact that three separate motions have been raised on the situation emphasised the seriousness of the situation for all of us in North Leitrim.

He asked that flood relief and drainage works be carried out on the river noting that there has been significant and serious flooding in the area over a number of years.

It is one thing to have land flooding, but it is another to have water going into a family home, he added, stating that more engagement with the OPW is needed to address this ongoing problem and work on pinch points in the River Bonet is crucial.

Also See: Dromahair family thank local community for help after flooding

Cllr Felim Gurn agreed, pointing out that flooding has increased over the last few years in areas such as Soxline, Sranacrannaghy, Corusconny, Drumlease and at the DARC development Astro turf/playground.

This flooding is no longer a 1 in 10 year event. Housing and properties in these areas have been flooded and work needs to be completed by the OPW on the River Bonet immediately, he observed.

What we are now seeing is a months worth of rain falling in just two days and this is happening more and more often.

He said farmers have suffered as well with one person having to sell cattle because he has been unable to provide feed for his animals because of flooding on his land.

There hasnt been work done on the River Bonet for a number of years and you also have to bear in mind that once flooded, property owners cannot get insurance again. This isnt going away. With climate change this will get worse and worse. We need money to be put in place now.

Cllr Mary Bohan put forward a proposal calling for the Council to seek an urgent meeting with representatives of the OPW to find a solution to this problem noting that she had recently visited a home which was severely flooded and this situation was causing a great deal of distress.

What Im asking for is an urgent meeting with the OPW for us as public representatives. It is of the utmost importance that the OPW take responsibility with the River Bonet as there is no guarantee that this flooding we have seen recently will not happen again and again, she said pointing out the most recent flooding event also threatened a nursing home and a pub/restaurant.

The remaining councillors all added their support to the three motions noting that more needed to be done to protect the local community from further flooding events.

Responding Leitrim County Council said that officials have met with the Office of Public Works (OPW) regarding the most recent flooding even in the area and said they are in discussions about the possibility of funding minor flood relief schemes in this area.

We are currently assessing the properties at risk and will be making an application to the OPW for funding which will include (an application) for a study to assess all options, noted the Council.

It was also noted that the River Bonet is within an Arterial Drainage scheme and the management of this river is the responsibility of the OPW.
IT infrastructure monitoring company continues global expansion through strategic partnership in Spain

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LogicMonitor , the leading cloud-based IT infrastructure monitoring and intelligence platform for modern enterprises, today announced its partnership with Bluemara Solutions , Spains leading provider of IT management solutions. Bluemara joins a select group of the worlds best resellers, systems integrators, managed service providers and technology integrators in the LogicMonitor Partner Network .



Our partnership with Bluemara Solutions will enable LogicMonitor to expand our coverage by providing customers in Spain and the Iberian peninsula with the most innovative hybrid infrastructure monitoring platform available today, said Sanjay Gupta, Global Vice President of Channels & Alliances at LogicMonitor. Bluemara is a true leader in IT innovation and service in Spain with a tremendous track record of growth and customer success. This partnership will enable customers to accelerate their digital transformation.

Bluemara Solutions is a leading provider of integrated IT management solutions, including workstation management, asset lifecycle management, and security and compliance. Through this partnership, LogicMonitor is delivering its best-in-class monitoring intelligence platform to complement Bluemaras portfolio of services, assisting them in addressing the multi-billion market for IT infrastructure products for the cloud. With recent research from The Motley Fool predicting a 32% growth in the IT infrastructure market, LogicMonitors entrance into the Spanish market is well-timed to help businesses in the region achieve the greatest possible visibility into their infrastructure.

With the continued rise of remote working and non-centralized IT operations, bringing LogicMonitors comprehensive monitoring solutions to this new market underscores the desire for digital transformation on a global scale. As technology continues to eliminate borders, the need for frictionless infrastructure monitoring has never been greater. LogicMonitors platform will empower more customers in Spain and Southern Europe to easily optimize their business performance and innovation.

Story continues

Todays IT environments are larger and more complex than ever, and LogicMonitors entrance into the Spanish market will enable even more businesses to take control of their IT infrastructure, said Ignacio Fernandez Paul, CEO of Bluemara. LogicMonitors automated, full-stack platform provides visibility into each component of an organizations infrastructure in a single display and is the best solution for monitoring and optimizing IT environments. There has been a need for this solution in the Spanish market, and we are thrilled to be able to bring it to our customers.

To capitalize on significant recurring revenue, LogicMonitor partners can build, integrate, resell and implement its cloud-based platform to effectively monitor hybrid IT environments with end-to-end visibility of applications and services. LogicMonitors partner program delivers sales and marketing collaboration, training and certification programs, dedicated partner managers, competitive portfolio differentiation, accelerated onboarding, and automated deal registration.

For more information about the LogicMonitor Partner Network or becoming a LogicMonitor partner, please visit www.logicmonitor.com/partners .

About LogicMonitor

Monitoring unlocks new pathways to growth. At LogicMonitor, we expand whats possible for businesses by advancing the technology behind them. LogicMonitor seamlessly monitors infrastructures, empowering companies to focus less on problem-solving and more on evolution. We help customers turn on a complete view in minutes, turn the dial from optimization to innovation and turn the corner from sight to vision. For more information, visit www.logicmonitor.com .

LogicMonitor Contact:

Anna Lindsey

Tel: (805) 323-3901

Email: anna.lindsey@logicmonitor.com

About Bluemara

Bluemara Solutions is a leading provider of integrated IT management solutions for workstation management, computer lifecycle management, security and compliance, help desk and service desk. Bluemara jointly supports more than 55,000 customers and nearly 20 million IT assets worldwide. For more information, visit www.bluemarasolutions.com or info@bluemarasolutions.com .

Bluemara Solutions Contact:

Emilio Meneses Duran

Tel: +34 902 107 794

Email: emilio.meneses.duran@bluemarasolutions.com




Mandy Lawson of Coweta is one of several students at Oklahoma State University to receive an academic scholarship from the OSU Ferguson College of Agriculture.

The animal science major has been awarded the Clark and Dorothy King Endowed Scholarship for the 2020-2021 academic year.

Her scholarship is part of more than $1.7 million that students will receive from the college and its academic departments.

Lawson is the daughter of Steven and Shari Lawson and graduated from Coweta High School in 2017.

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29% growth in deposits of Banco Azteca Mexico to Ps.177,335 million, generates solid prospects for the financial business

Ratio of deposits to gross portfolio of 1.9 times, is outstanding in the sector, and consolidates firm growth expectation for the Bank, with optimal funding cost

Capitalization index of Banco Azteca of 15.32%, shows remarkable financial strength

MEXICO CITY, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Grupo Elektra, S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV: ELEKTRA*; Latibex: XEKT), Latin Americas leading specialty retailer and financial services company, and the largest non-bank provider of cash advance services in the United States, today announced second quarter 2020 financial results.

Second Quarter Results

Consolidated revenue was Ps.28,154 million in the period, in comparison with Ps.28,762 million for the same quarter of the previous year. Costs and operating expenses were Ps.25,608 million, from Ps.24,749 million for the same period of 2019.

As a result, EBITDA was Ps.2,547 million, in comparison with Ps.4,014 million of the previous years quarter. Operating profit was Ps.438 million this quarter, from Ps.2,255 million in the same period of 2019.

The company reported a net loss of Ps.3,538 million, compared to a net income of Ps.5,697 million a year ago.

2Q 2019 2Q 2020 Change Ps. % Consolidated revenue $28,762 $28,154

$(608)

-2% EBITDA $4,014 $2,547

$(1,467)

-37% Operating result

$2,255

$438

$(1,817)

-81%

Net result $5,697 $(3,538) $(9,234) ---- Net result per share $24.94 $(15.46)

$(40.4)

----

Figures in millions of pesos

EBITDA: Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization.

As of June 30, 2019, Elektra* outstanding shares were 228.4 million and as of June 30, 2020, were 228.8 million.

Revenue

Consolidated revenue decreased 2%, as a result of a 6% reduction in financial revenues, partially compensated with a 4% increase in commercial sales.

The decrease in financial revenue  to Ps.16,931 million, from Ps.17,934 million the previous year reflects lower interest earned in the period, in the context of deterioration in economic performance indicators due to the health emergency.

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The increase in commercial division sales  to Ps.11,223 million, up from Ps.10,828 million from last year  results largely from an increase in sales of telephony and computing, as well as white appliances and mattresses, which effectively meet the needs of thousands of families and are commercialized in the most competitive market conditions.

The commercial business sales have added additional momentum with the launch of new stores with a larger exhibition space that includes an extensive merchandise and services selection to satisfy an increasing number of customers. Similarly, Omnichannel operations, with the online store www.elektra.com.mx, which sells thousands of products at unparalleled prices from any device and at any time, further strengthens the performance of the division.

Costs and expenses

Consolidated costs for the quarter were Ps.12,890 million, from Ps.11,980 million the previous year. The growth in costs is explained by an increase in the financial cost, to Ps.5,739 million this period compared to Ps.4,716 million a year ago, largely derived from the creation of loan loss reserves, which was partially offset by lower interest paid, in line with declining market rates.

Commercial business costs decreased 2%, to Ps.7,151 million, from Ps.7,263 million, derived from superior efficiency in the supply chain of merchandise inventories.

Selling, administrative and marketing expenses were reduced marginally, to Ps.12,718 million, mainly as a result of lower advertising and operating expenses  within the framework of firm strategies that promote operating efficiencies  partially offset by higher personnel expenses.

EBITDA and net result

EBITDA was Ps.2,547 million, from Ps.4,014 million the previous year. The company reported an operating profit of Ps.438 million, compared to Ps.2,255 million in the same quarter of 2019.

The most significant changes below EBITDA were the following:

A negative variation of Ps.11,045 million in the other financial results line, which reflects a depreciation of 10% this quarter in the market value of underlying assets of financial instruments held by the company  and does not imply cash flow  in comparison to a 20% gain a year ago.

Congruent with the operating results for the quarter, there was a reduction of Ps.3,929 million in the tax provision in the period.

Grupo Elektra reported net loss of Ps.3,538 million, compared to a net income of Ps.5,697 million a year ago.

Unconsolidated Balance Sheet

In order to allow the visualization of the non-consolidated financial situation, a pro forma exercise of the balance sheet of Grupo Elektra is presented, excluding the net assets of the financial business, whose investment is valued under the equity method, in this case.

This presentation shows the debt of the company without considering Banco Aztecas immediate and term deposits, which do not constitute debt with cost for Grupo Elektra. The pro forma balance sheet also does not include the bank's gross loan portfolio.

This proforma exercise provides greater clarity regarding the businesses that make up the company and allows financial market participants to estimate the value of the company, considering only the relevant debt for such calculations.

Congruent with this, the debt with cost was Ps.25,852 million as of June 30, 2020, compared to Ps.24,702 million the previous year. The balance of cash and cash equivalents was Ps.6,124 million, from Ps.5,420 million the previous year.

The company's equity increased 6% to Ps.97,944 million, while the ratio of stockholders' equity to total liabilities was 1.5 times at the close of the quarter.

As of

June 30,

2019 As of

June 30,

2020 Change Ps. % Cash and cash equivalents $ 5,420 $ 6,124 704 13 % Marketable financial instruments 40,226 38,468 (1,758 ) (4 %) Inventories 9,914 12,091 2,178 22 % Accounts receivables 44,283 47,300 3,017 7 % Other current assets 2,868 3,585 717 25 % Investments in shares 34,601 38,164 3,563 10 % Fixed assets 7,446 8,017 571 8 % Right of use assets 8,652 8,604 (48 ) (1 %) Other assets 2,029 1,836 (193 ) (9 %) Total assets $ 155,439 $ 164,191 $ 8,751 6 % Short-term debt $ 3,834 $ 11,444 $ 7,610 198 % Suppliers 7,175 6,578 (597 ) (8 %) Other short-term liabilities 11,141 13,645 2,504 22 % Long-term debt 20,868 14,408 (6,459 ) (31 %) Differed taxes 10,585 10,368 (217 ) (2 %) Other long-term debt 9,655 9,804 149 2 % Total liabilities $ 63,257 $ 66,247 $ 2,990 5 % Stakeholders equity $ 92,182 $ 97,944 $ 5,762 6 % Liabilities and equity $ 155,439 $ 164,191 $ 8,751 6 % Figures in millions of pesos.

Consolidated Balance Sheet

Loan Portfolio and Deposits

Banco Azteca Mexico, Purpose Financial and Banco Azteca Latin Americas consolidated gross portfolio as of June 30, 2020 grew 6% to Ps.113,174 million, from Ps.106,957 million for the previous year. The consolidated delinquency rate was 5% at the end of the period, compared to 3.6% in the previous year.

The gross portfolio of Banco Azteca Mexico grew 3% to Ps.93,595 million, from Ps.90,860 million a year ago. The default rate for the bank at the end of the quarter was 5.3%, in comparison with 3% for the previous year, in the context in which a large number of customers from the Bank chose not to resort to official support plans to differ payments, offered by the sector.

The average term of the credit portfolio for principal credit lines  consumer, personal loans, and Tarjeta Azteca  was 63 weeks at the end of the second quarter.

Grupo Elektras consolidated deposits were Ps.183,746 million, 31% higher than the Ps.140,603 million a year ago. Deposits of Banco Azteca Mexico were Ps.177,335 million, 29% higher than the Ps.137,891 million a year ago.

The ratio of deposits to gross portfolio of 1.9 times, consolidates the solid growth prospects of the Bank, with optimal funding cost.

The Bank's liquidity coverage ratio  total of eligible liquid assets / total net cash out  was 642%, an outstanding figure in the Mexican banking sector.

The estimated capitalization index of Banco Azteca Mexico was 15.32%, level that shows the remarkable financial strength of the institution.

Infrastructure

Grupo Elektra currently has 7,047 storefronts, compared to 7,157 units a year ago.

During the last twelve months, 35 new Elektra stores were opened at strategic locations throughout Mexico, with larger exhibition areas; which increase the offering of products and services and maximize customer shopping experiences.

The company has 4,762 storefronts in Mexico at the end of the quarter, 1,601 in the United States, and 684 in Central and South America. The extensive distribution network allows the company to maintain close contact with customers and grants a superior market positioning in the countries where it operates.

Mauro Aguirre is appointed CFO

Grupo Elektra announced today it appointed Mauro Aguirre Regis as CFO of the company.

Mr. Aguirre has 24 years of experience in strategic positions in Grupo Elektra. He has been Director of Administration and Finance of both, Grupo Elektra and Banco Azteca, and had executive level responsibilities in financial planning and controlling for Mexico and Latin America, where he implemented successful strategies for budget control to maximize the efficient use of resources that positively affect profitability. Mr. Aguirre has also been instrumental in obtaining financial resources that result in a solid capital structure and financial cost optimization.

He previously held senior executive positions in Mexican and world-class multinationals. Mauro Aguirre holds a degree in Accounting from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico and holds an MBA in Finance from the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey.

Manuel Delgado Forey, who was the previous CFO of Grupo Elektra, has been appointed Director of Operations of Banco Azteca.

Acquisition of currency hedging

In the context of the recent volatility of the peso exchange rate to the US dollar, the company has acquired options which give it the right, but not the obligation, to purchase dollars at a peso exchange rate, for up to an additional US$170 million, which allow to cover, with a predetermined exchange rate, purchases of merchandise from abroad, as well as other liabilities denominated in foreign currency. Subsequently, as of July 21, the company has also contracted forwards for US$148 million. Depending on the volatility of the exchange rate and in a prudential way, the company could increase its exchange protection operations.

The currency hedging gives Grupo Elektra certainty about the amount in pesos of such operations, and allows the adequate supply of merchandise that effectively meets customers needs, in the best conditions.

Six months consolidated results

Total consolidated revenue in the first six months of the year grew 6% to Ps.59,318 million, from Ps.55,800 million for the same period of 2019, boosted by an 8% and a 5% growth in both commercial and financial businesses, respectively.

EBITDA was Ps.3,288 million, in comparison to Ps.9,571 million last year. The company reported operating loss of Ps.828 million from operating profit of Ps.6,162 million a year ago. During the first six months of 2020 a net loss of Ps.3,396 million was registered, compared with a net income of Ps.10,360 million a year ago.

6M 2019 6M 2020 Change Ps. % Consolidated revenue $55,800 $59,318 $3,519

6% EBITDA $9,571 $3,288

$(6,283)

-66%

Operating result

$6,162

$(828)

$(6,991)

----

Net result $10,360 $(3,396) $(13,755) ---- Net result per share $45.36 $(14.84)

$(60.20)

----

Figures in millions of pesos

EBITDA: Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization.

As of June 30, 2019, Elektra* outstanding shares were 228.4 million and as of June 30, 2020, were 228.8 million.

Company Profile:

Grupo Elektra is Latin Americas leading financial services company and specialty retailer and the largest non-bank provider of cash advance services in the United States. The group operates more than 7,000 points of contact in Mexico, the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama and Peru.

Grupo Elektra is a Grupo Salinas company (www.gruposalinas.com), a group of dynamic, fast growing, and technologically advanced companies focused on creating economic value through market innovation and goods and services that improve standards of living; social value to improve community wellbeing; and environmental value by reducing the negative impact of its business activities. Created by Mexican entrepreneur Ricardo B. Salinas (www.ricardosalinas.com), Grupo Salinas operates as a management development and decision forum for the top leaders of member companies. These companies include TV Azteca (www.TVazteca.com; www.irtvazteca.com), Grupo Elektra (www.grupoelektra.com.mx), Banco Azteca (www.bancoazteca.com.mx), Purpose Financial (havepurpose.com), Afore Azteca (www.aforeazteca.com.mx), Seguros Azteca (www.segurosazteca.com.mx), Punto Casa de Bolsa (www.puntocasadebolsa.mx), Totalplay (www.totalplay.com.mx) and Totalplay Empresarial (totalplayempresarial.com.mx). TV Azteca and Grupo Elektra trade shares on the Mexican Stock Market and in Spains' Latibex market. Each of the Grupo Salinas companies operates independently, with its own management, board of directors and shareholders. Grupo Salinas has no equity holdings. The group of companies shares a common vision, values and strategies for achieving rapid growth, superior results and world-class performance.

Except for historical information, the matters discussed in this press release are concepts about the future that involve risks and uncertainty that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Other risks that may affect Grupo Elektra and its subsidiaries are presented in documents sent to the securities authorities.

Investor Relations:

Bruno Rangel

Grupo Salinas

Tel. +52 (55) 1720-9167

jrangelk@gruposalinas.com.mx



Rolando Villarreal

Grupo Elektra, S.A.B. de C.V.

Tel. +52 (55) 1720-9167

rvillarreal@gruposalinas.com.mx

Press Relations:

Luciano Pascoe

Tel. +52 (55) 1720 1313 ext. 36553









GRUPO ELEKTRA, S.A.B. DE C.V. AND SUBSIDIARIES CONSOLIDATED INCOME STATEMENTS MILLIONS OF MEXICAN PESOS 2Q19 2Q20 Change Financial income 17,934 62 % 16,931 60 % (1,003 ) -6 % Commercial income 10,828 38 % 11,223 40 % 395 4 % Income 28,762 100 % 28,154 100 % (608 ) -2 % Financial cost 4,716 16 % 5,739 20 % 1,023 22 % Commercial cost 7,263 25 % 7,151 25 % (113 ) -2 % Costs 11,980 42 % 12,890 46 % 910 8 % Gross income 16,782 58 % 15,264 54 % (1,518 ) -9 % Sales, administration and promotion expenses 12,769 44 % 12,718 45 % (51 ) 0 % EBITDA 4,014 14 % 2,547 9 % (1,467 ) -37 % Depreciation and amortization 1,028 4 % 1,351 5 % 323 31 % Depreciation right of use asset 737 3 % 765 3 % 28 4 % Other expense, net (6 ) 0 % (7 ) 0 % (1 ) -18 % Operating income 2,255 8 % 438 2 % (1,817 ) -81 % Comprehensive financial result: Interest income 324 1 % 320 1 % (4 ) -1 % Interest expense (922 ) -3 % (989 ) -4 % (67 ) -7 % Foreign exchange gain (loss), net (88 ) 0 % (68 ) 0 % 21 23 % Other financial results, net 6,417 22 % (4,629 ) -16 % (11,045 ) ---- 5,730 20 % (5,366 ) -19 % (11,096 ) ---- Participation in the net income of CASA and other associated companies (84 ) 0 % (139 ) 0 % (55 ) -66 % Income before income tax 7,901 27 % (5,067 ) -18 % (12,968 ) ---- Income tax (2,367 ) -8 % 1,562 6 % 3,929 ---- Income before discontinued operations 5,534 19 % (3,505 ) -12 % (9,038 ) ---- Result from discontinued operations 163 1 % 9 0 % (154 ) -95 % Impairment of intangible assets - 0 % (42 ) 0 % (42 ) -100 % Consolidated net income 5,697 20 % (3,538 ) -13 % (9,234 ) ----





GRUPO ELEKTRA, S.A.B. DE C.V. AND SUBSIDIARIES CONSOLIDATED INCOME STATEMENTS MILLIONS OF MEXICAN PESOS 6M19 6M20 Change Financial income 35,506 64 % 37,328 63 % 1,822 5 % Commercial income 20,294 36 % 21,991 37 % 1,696 8 % Income 55,800 100 % 59,318 100 % 3,519 6 % Financial cost 8,683 16 % 16,351 28 % 7,668 88 % Commercial cost 13,341 24 % 14,320 24 % 979 7 % Costs 22,024 39 % 30,671 52 % 8,647 39 % Gross income 33,775 61 % 28,647 48 % (5,129 ) -15 % Sales, administration and promotion expenses 24,205 43 % 25,359 43 % 1,154 5 % EBITDA 9,571 17 % 3,288 6 % (6,283 ) -66 % Depreciation and amortization 1,983 4 % 2,628 4 % 645 33 % Depreciation right of use asset 1,428 3 % 1,489 3 % 61 4 % Other expense, net (2 ) 0 % (0 ) 0 % 2 90 % Operating income 6,162 11 % (828 ) -1 % (6,991 ) ---- Comprehensive financial result: Interest income 631 1 % 571 1 % (60 ) -10 % Interest expense (1,760 ) -3 % (1,898 ) -3 % (138 ) -8 % Foreign exchange gain (loss), net (196 ) 0 % 2,461 4 % 2,657 ---- Other financial results, net 9,406 17 % (4,241 ) -7 % (13,647 ) ---- 8,082 14 % (3,106 ) -5 % (11,188 ) ---- Participation in the net income of CASA and other associated companies (58 ) 0 % (760 ) -1 % (702 ) -100 % Income before income tax 14,186 25 % (4,694 ) -8 % (18,880 ) ---- Income tax (3,990 ) -7 % 1,336 2 % 5,326 ---- Income before discontinued operations 10,196 18 % (3,358 ) -6 % (13,554 ) ---- Result from discontinued operations 164 0 % 4 0 % (160 ) ---- Impairment of intangible assets - 0 % (42 ) 0 % (42 ) -100 % Consolidated net income 10,360 19 % (3,396 ) -6 % (13,755 ) ----





GRUPO ELEKTRA, S.A.B. DE C.V. AND SUBSIDIARIES CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET MILLIONS OF MEXICAN PESOS Commercial

Business Financial

Business Grupo

Elektra Commercial

Business Financial

Business Grupo

Elektra Change At June 30, 2019 At June 30, 2020 Cash and cash equivalents 5,420 21,599 27,019 6,124 31,838 37,962 10,943 41 % Marketable financial instruments 23,697 74,100 97,797 8,468 102,321 110,789 12,991 13 % Performing loan portfolio - 76,616 76,616 - 64,150 64,150 (12,467 ) -16 % Total past-due loans - 3,682 3,682 - 4,615 4,615 934 25 % Gross loan portfolio - 80,298 80,298 - 68,765 68,765 (11,533 ) -14 % Allowance for credit risks - 8,481 8,481 - 7,358 7,358 (1,122 ) -13 % Loan portfolio, net - 71,818 71,818 - 61,407 61,407 (10,411 ) -14 % Inventories 9,914 - 9,914 12,091 - 12,091 2,178 22 % Other current assets 28,840 12,617 41,458 15,251 14,474 29,725 (11,733 ) -28 % Total current assets 67,872 180,133 248,005 41,934 210,040 251,974 3,969 2 % Financial instruments 16,529 271 16,800 30,001 137 30,138 13,337 79 % Performing loan portfolio - 26,506 26,506 - 43,348 43,348 16,842 64 % Total past-due loans - 153 153 - 1,061 1,061 908 594 % Gross loan portfolio - 26,659 26,659 - 44,409 44,409 17,750 67 % Allowance for credit risks - 677 677 - 1,420 1,420 743 110 % Loan portfolio - 25,982 25,982 - 42,989 42,989 17,007 65 % Other non-current assets 6,026 440 6,466 21,403 187 21,590 15,124 234 % Investment in shares 1,772 - 1,772 1,230 - 1,230 (542 ) -31 % Property, furniture, equipment and investment in stores, net 7,446 5,360 12,806 8,017 8,075 16,092 3,286 26 % Intangible assets 678 6,677 7,355 633 8,104 8,737 1,383 19 % Right of use asset 8,652 2,012 10,664 8,604 1,980 10,584 (80 ) -1 % Other assets 1,351 505 1,856 1,203 8,194 9,397 7,541 406 % TOTAL ASSETS 110,326 221,380 331,706 113,026 279,706 392,731 61,025 18 % Demand and term deposits - 140,603 140,603 - 183,746 183,746 43,144 31 % Creditors from repurchase agreements - 13,904 13,904 - 19,605 19,605 5,701 41 % Short-term debt 3,718 62 3,780 11,215 1,187 12,402 8,622 228 % Leasing 961 851 1,812 1,935 1,096 3,031 1,219 67 % Short-term liabilities with cost 4,679 155,419 160,098 13,150 205,634 218,784 58,686 37 % Suppliers and other short-term liabilities 15,821 18,945 34,766 16,716 21,725 38,441 3,675 11 % Short-term liabilities without cost 15,821 18,945 34,766 16,716 21,725 38,441 3,675 11 % Total short-term liabilities 20,500 174,364 194,864 29,866 227,359 257,225 62,361 32 % Long-term debt 18,844 2,336 21,180 14,370 22 14,392 (6,788 ) -32 % Leasing 8,060 1,122 9,182 7,536 1,051 8,587 (595 ) -6 % Long-term liabilities with cost 26,904 3,458 30,362 21,906 1,073 22,979 (7,383 ) -24 % Long-term liabilities without cost 12,180 2,118 14,298 12,636 1,948 14,584 285 2 % Total long-term liabilities 39,084 5,576 44,660 34,542 3,020 37,563 (7,098 ) -16 % TOTAL LIABILITIES 59,584 179,940 239,524 64,408 230,379 294,787 55,264 23 % TOTAL STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY 50,742 41,440 92,182 48,618 49,326 97,944 5,762 6 % LIABILITIES + EQUITY 110,326 221,380 331,706 113,026 279,706 392,731 61,025 18 %





INFRASTRUCTURE 2Q19 2Q20 Change Points of sale in Mexico Elektra 1,117 16 % 1,140 16 % 23 2 % Salinas y Rocha 38 1 % 37 1 % (1 ) -3 % Banco Azteca 1,807 25 % 1,840 26 % 33 2 % Freestanding branches 1,678 23 % 1,745 25 % 67 4 % Total 4,640 65 % 4,762 68 % 122 3 % Points of sale in Central and South America Elektra 168 2 % 195 3 % 27 16 % Banco Azteca 338 5 % 398 6 % 60 18 % Freestanding branches 95 1 % 91 1 % (4 ) -4 % Total 601 8 % 684 10 % 83 14 % Points of sale in North America Purpose Financial 1,916 27 % 1,601 23 % (315 ) -16 % Total 1,916 27 % 1,601 23 % (315 ) -16 % TOTAL 7,157 100 % 7,047 100 % (110 ) -2 % Floor space (m) 1,703 100 % 1,532 100 % (171 ) -10 % Employees Mexico 73,149 83 % 66,259 84 % (6,890 ) -9 % Central and South America 9,093 10 % 8,387 11 % (706 ) -8 % North America 5,392 6 % 3,791 5 % (1,601 ) -30 % Total employees 87,634 100 % 78,437 100 % (9,197 ) -10 %








The company called in to contain the deadly COVID-19 outbreak at Sydney's Newmarch House has been deployed to the site of Victoria's worst aged care home cluster.

Commonwealth teams including experts from Aspen Medical have replaced regular staff at St Basil's Homes for the Aged in Fawkner who have been asked to isolate. The new team will work on infection control protocols and personal protective equipment use.

St Basil's Homes for the Aged in Fawkner. Credit:Luis Ascui

The number of COVID-19 cases linked to the facility climbed to 73 on Thursday, with staff and residents infected. The Department of Health and Human Services confirmed one resident had died in hospital.

The Health Workers Union said it had contacted its members from St Basils and received "strong feedback" that personal protective equipment (PPE) practices were lax at the facility.
Unexpected. Unpredictable. Unprecedented.

These are only some of the words being used to describe the cultural, societal and industrial shifts felt across the globe due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a matter of months, academic institutions from preschools to universities migrated to online learning, mega-corporations shut down offices and ceased work-related travel and local governments were forced to close their doors, leaving citizens searching for alternate ways to obtain critical civic services -- like applying for unemployment. While no one saw the pandemic coming, it should be no surprise that COVD-19 is ushering in a permanent reliance upon socially distanced virtual engagement.

COVID-19 is not the first time that governments have had to shutter. In the 16th and 17th centuries, government offices closed in London as the city battled the bubonic plague, and as recently as 2009, Mexico City closed government offices as part of a larger effort to limit the spread of a newly identified infection. This latest shutdown, however, shows that paper-based, manual, in-person local government workflows have reached their end of life cycles.

Local governments can no longer give operational preference or solidarity to in-person administrative business operations. Even though some municipal offices have reopened with appropriate safety measures in place, many are still allowing staff members to continue to telework. Whats more, many citizens -- particularly those who are immunocompromised -- are not comfortable queuing up in person to pay bills, apply for jobs or file for unemployment benefits. These realities mean that staff members are still decentralized, and citizens still need remote capabilities for servicing their civic needs.

Even if scientists identify a COVID-19 vaccine in the next 18 months or determine that we have achieved herd immunity, there is no going back to how businesses, schools, health care offices and local governments operated before COVID-19. Citizens who are now learning to pay bills online, stream public meetings from home and access public documents from their mobile device will not be willing to return to a life of rush-hour commutes, long lines, printed forms and postage stamps.

Reflecting on recent technology history, we can see that once an innovation becomes mainstream, the old way of doing business or accessing information is out. Consider these pivotal changes over just the past two decades:

Email reduced raw mail volume by 36% between 2007 and 2008 alone as consumes began the switch to paper-free billing and online personal correspondence, shopping and news consumption.

Smartwatches are destroying the well-established Swiss watch industry.

Ride-sharing services are rapidly stealing market share from the taxi industry, jumping from 8% to 70.5% of the business traveler ground transportation market from 2014 to 2018.

As of 2019, more Americans now pay for streaming services than cable television.

Consider what these migrations should tell us about our future. Once self-driving cars are reliable, affordable and widely used to safely commute and travel, for example, what parents will want their 16-year-old learning to drive a machine that was once associated with 3,287 deaths per day? With technology advancements come not only convenience but safety -- precisely what we are all craving in the wake of a global pandemic.

For local governments, this progress means migrating citizen services online now is not a simply a nice-to-have. It is imperative.

The online imperative for local government

Across the globe, the COVID-19 crisis identified the expedited need for digital services. In the first wave of response, governments took immediate steps to develop new applications and virtual solutions to urgent challenges, such as the overwhelming of state unemployment benefit offices. In the second wave, the focus shifted to resuming general operations, with in-person gatherings migrating to virtual meetings. These shifts are not temporary Band-Aids. They are permanent bridges transporting administrative staff and citizens from the old way of doing business into a future that will be marked by virtual expectations and voluntary social distancing. Local governments that have not yet begun the comprehensive enablement of digital citizen self-service and administrative efficiency need to do so now or risk coming under fire for violating local regulations at best and losing citizen trust at worst.

Those municipalities and governments that have fully adopted the theoretical doctrine of online transformation are taking monumental steps toward its achievement. They are holding hackathons to rapidly create solutions to issues surrounding siloed data, software integration and custom system development needs.

They are taking the initial, mandatory steps to migrate to 5G to enable broadband ubiquity to sustain communities of homeschooled children, to conduct conferences using virtual meeting software and serve patients seeking health care with telemedicine platforms.

They are turning to low-code, rapid application development tools to foster collaboration between departments and build custom digital twins of manual workflows without the cost or time needed to hire custom programmers.

Most importantly, their leaders are taking on the crucial role of change agent, helping staff members and citizens who have interacted in-person and across a counter from one another for years, predicated by generations before them, to find comfort and opportunity in virtual capabilities and cross the digital divide -- together.

The new normal -- and the future -- are now

Local government online service delivery is now imperative. The COVID-19 pandemic may have accelerated it, but it has been in motion, lying just beneath the surface of government-citizen expectations for the past two decades. What should be stressed is that regardless of whether a citizen is obtaining a pet license, a zoning application or an agenda packet in person or online, what will never change is the essential role that local governments play in our society and citizens dependence upon their dedication and accessibility.
2005-11-09 04:00:00 PDT Topeka, Kan. -- The Kansas Board of Education voted Tuesday that students will be expected to study doubts about modern Darwinian theory, a move that defied the nation's scientific establishment and gave voice to religious conservatives and others who question the theory of evolution.

By a 6-4 vote that supporters cheered as a victory for free speech and opponents denounced as shabby politics and worse science, the board said high school students should be told that aspects of widely accepted evolutionary theory are controversial. Among other points, the standards allege a "lack of adequate natural explanations for the genetic code."

The bitterly fought effort puts Kansas squarely on the front lines of a war over evolution being waged in courts in Pennsylvania and Georgia and statehouses nationwide. President Bush waded into the fight last summer, buoying social conservatives when he said "both sides" should be taught.

"This is a great day for education," said Steve Abrams, the Republican Kansas board chairman, who shepherded the majority that overruled a 26-member science committee and turned aside the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association. "This is one of the best things that we can do. This absolutely teaches more about science."

Opposing board members accused Abrams and his colleagues of hiding behind a fiction of scientific inquiry to inject religion into public schools. They said the decision would be bad for education, bad for business and bad for the state's wounded reputation.

"This is a sad day, not only for Kansas kids, but for Kansas," said Janet Waugh, who voted against the new standards. "We're becoming a laughingstock, not only of the nation, but of the world."

The state board of education does not mandate what will be taught to public school students, a decision left to local school boards. But by determining what students are expected to know for state assessment tests, the state standards typically influence what students learn.

Analysts said Kansas delivered a deeper challenge to the teaching of evolution than other states. While a lawsuit is possible before the standards take effect, one organization created to oppose changes to science teaching said politics might be the swifter route. Four of the six board members voting yes will face re-election next year, and three already have drawn opposition.

"If this issue can be resolved by voting these people out in the next elections, the standards will never get in place enough to make a court case worthwhile," said Jack Krebs, vice president of Kansas Citizens for Science. "They'll be lame ducks."

That is what happened in 1999, when the board sought to undermine the teaching of Darwinian theory. Moderates took control of the board in 2000, only to see it regain a conservative Republican majority in 2004. Krebs also said he believed opponents could win a court case by showing that the Kansas board was violating the Constitution by imposing religion in another guise.

Members of the Kansas majority insisted that science motivated them, although several have made clear their position that life's development is too complex to be explained by natural evolution unguided by a higher power. That view describes many adherents of intelligent design, a critique of evolutionary theory that has gained particular support from the religious right -- and ridicule from the vast majority of the world's trained scientists.

Asked about intelligent design last summer, Bush said, "Both sides ought to be properly taught ... so people can understand what the debate is about."

Prominent scientists and scientific organizations dismiss the call from intelligent design proponents to "teach the controversy." The scientific mainstream says there is no significant controversy, that evidence from fields ranging from paleontology to molecular biology shows all life on Earth originated from simple life forms.

Intelligent design "does not provide any natural explanation that can be tested," said Francisco Ayala, an expert in evolutionary genetics and past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He said the Kansas standards "are an insult to science, an insult to education and an insult to the American Constitution."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 14:33:19|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, July 23 (Xinhua) -- People could need multiple vaccine doses to immunize themselves against the coronavirus and deploying a vaccine will require a global effort, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said on Wednesday.

"None of the vaccines at this point appear like they'll work with a single dose," Gates told CBS Evening News. "That was the hope at the very beginning."

He noted that the multiple doses could require more than 7 billion vaccinations to be administered worldwide if necessary.

Gates has been warning about the threat of a global pandemic since 2015, and has donated 300 million U.S. dollars towards the global effort to combat COVID-19 through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He admitted that "there will be a lot of uncertainty" about the efficacy of any vaccine, but stressed that it's a solution "that will improve over time."

On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump resumed his press briefing on the coronavirus pandemic, admitting that the situation in the country will "get worse."

On development of vaccines and therapeutic cures, the president signaled willingness for international cooperation on vaccines, saying that "we're willing to work with anybody that's going to get us a good result" when asked if the administration would collaborate with China.

As of late Wednesday night, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States neared 4 million with more than 143,000 deaths, according to the latest tally by Johns Hopkins University. Enditem
Malian refugee Fatimata sits in front of her shelter in Mbera refugee camp, Mauritania, February 2020.  UNHCR/Sylvain Cherkaoui

ABIDJAN / GENEVA / NOUAKCHOTT Public health and wellbeing of refugees and the host communities in Sahel are at the heart of the latest tripartite agreement between the African Development Bank (AfDB), UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency and the G5 Sahel signed today in Geneva, Abidjan and Nouakchott. The agreement enables a critical USD20 million COVID-19 response across the five countries of the Sahel region.

Financed by the African Development Fund the project will allow the Governments of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger  which make up the G5 Sahel regional cooperation and coordination framework  to strengthen their national response to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and limit its social and economic impact in a region where the pandemic is causing an unprecedented emergency on top of multiple crises. The response will prioritize activities in areas most impacted by conflict and violence, with high a concentration of forcibly displaced people and limited presence of government institutions.

There are 3.1 million refugees, internally displaced people, returnees and others at risk of statelessness in the Sahel. The region has so far recorded 11,000 COVID-19 cases and 468 deaths across the five countries. While emergency measures to halt the spread of the disease are gradually and carefully being lifted in response to success in its containment, it remains essential to strengthen the health response for the most vulnerable communities.

For people who have fled war and violence in the Sahel, and for host countries welcoming these refugees, the COVID-19 pandemic is having a devastating impact, said Kelly Clements, UN Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees, who signed the agreement on behalf of the agency. This contribution not only complements global efforts to secure financial and political support for the humanitarian response in the region, it also demonstrates strong solidarity with the communities hosting people forced to flee, she added.

The project will also aim to strengthen food and nutrition systems, in a region where 5.5 million people are at risk of food insecurity according to UN estimates.

This operation will strengthen the G5 Sahel countries capacity and enable them to support the development and humanitarian actions of the region and complement the interventions undertaken through the Sahel Alliance Initiative, as well as support the most vulnerable, said Khaled Sherif, the Banks Vice President for Regional Development, Integration and Business Delivery.

Through this project the Bank will help mitigate the negative socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis in the G5 Sahel countries, where communities are already vulnerable and affected by conflicts and insecurity.

For the health component, the project will support COVID-19 awareness campaigns, strengthen health infrastructure, epidemiological surveillance and case management. It will also allow procurement of essential medical supplies and equipment for the prevention, control and treatment of COVID-19 patients.

The Sahel requires, more than ever, increased and coordinated attention from the States of the region and the international community to stem the spiral of violence and thus create an environment conducive to inclusive and sustainable socio-economic development, said Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouani, current president of the G5 Sahel.

This project falls under the framework of the African Development Banks COVID-19 response facility of up to US$10 billion, which is the institutions main channel to assist African countries in cushioning the economic and health impacts from the crisis. UNHCRs intervention in the project will be aligned with humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence.

Such partnerships are encouraged by the Global Compact on Refugees, as a framework for more predictable and equitable responsibility-sharing. This joint project is setting an example of how the Compact can be applied, and serve as a model for other financial and development entities to explore and engage in addressing the massive needs created by forcible displacement during the pandemic.

For more information, please contact:

For UNHCR:

In Dakar: Romain Desclous, [email protected] +221 786 386 395

+221 786 386 395 In Geneva: Boris Cheshirkov, [email protected] +41794337682

African Development Bank:
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 19:42:33|Editor: huaxia

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HOHHOT, July 23 (Xinhua) -- A dictionary on the oral language of the Oroqen ethnic group has been published in China as part of efforts to preserve the endangered language, it was announced Thursday.

Pronunciations of common expressions of the language are annotated by the international phonetics alphabet followed by explanatory notes in the dictionary, which is published by the Beijing-based Ethnic Publishing House.

"The compilation of the dictionary is a new attempt to preserve endangered ethnic languages," Alihui, chief compiler of the dictionary, told a press conference held Thursday in Hohhot, capital of north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

An online learning app of the Oroqen language has also been developed by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, marking the preservation of endangered ethnic languages entering a systematic and digital era.

As one of the smallest ethnic groups in China, the Oroqen ethnic group has a population of less than 10,000 who mainly live in the northeastern part of the country. Known for their hunting culture, the Oroqen people have passed down their language and cultures orally, as they have no written language.

To protect the language from extinction, authorities in the city of Hulun Buir, a major habitation of Oroqen people in Inner Mongolia, started organizing the compilation of the dictionary in 2017.

The pronunciation dictionaries of Ewenki and Daur, two other small ethnic groups with no written languages, will also be published. Enditem
WATERLOO REGION  Waterloo Regional Police Sgt. Richard Dorling has launched a $2.5-million lawsuit against the provinces Special Investigations Unit after an attempted murder charge against him was withdrawn earlier this year.

The veteran officer had been charged with attempted murder and other offences in the wake of an incident in 2018 that saw Dorling shoot a break-in suspect alongside Highway 401.

All charges against Dorling were withdrawn in May. In March, a judge had ruled Dorling had done nothing wrong in shooting the suspect, Joshua Hannaford, who was wounded and later convicted of six offences.

They (the SIU) destroyed his career and they impacted on his life, Dorlings lawyer, Bernard Cummins, said Thursday in an interview. They ruined his professional integrity, and its an absolute disgrace.

Dorling has been on a medical leave of absence ever since an administrative suspension ended in January 2019. The lawsuit states he continues to suffer from severe emotional, psychological and/or mental trauma. The statement of claim also says Dorling has suffered a loss of income and a loss of promotional opportunities.

Dorling was among the Waterloo Regional Police officers who responded to a report on March 31, 2018, that a vehicle reported stolen from Hamilton was located in Cambridge. Police were advised there were two stolen guns, ammunition and a crossbow inside the vehicle, and that the suspect had fled on foot.

Dorling encountered Hannaford and, as police radio transmissions showed, repeatedly ordered him not to move and to show his hands. Dorling fired six shots. One struck Hannaford in the back of his thigh, and he was airlifted to a Hamilton hospital. No one else witnessed the interaction.

When Dorling was charged with attempted murder in November 2018, it was the first time the SIU had charged an officer with attempted murder after investigating a police shooting. There have been other cases in which murder or manslaughter charges were laid against police officers.

The SIU is a civilian agency, operating at arms length from the Ministry of the Attorney General, that investigates incidents involving police and civilians that have resulted in serious injury, death or allegations of sexual assault. On Thursday afternoon, a spokesperson said the SIU was not aware that a statement of claim had been issued.

The SIU is unaware at the moment of any such action, nor would the Unit comment on the matter when and if any such lawsuit is filed, Monica Hudon wrote in an email.

During Hannafords trial, Justice Toni Skarica found that Dorling, in an act of bravery and courage, was prepared to risk his life to confront an individual who he thought was armed with a fully loaded firearm, in order to protect the community and thereby do his sworn duty.

The lawsuit names the Crown, which operates the SIU, and three individuals, including former SIU director Tony Loparco, now president of the Ontario Crown Attorneys Association. The other two are Oliver Gordon, who supervised the investigation into Dorling, and Dean Seymour, the lead investigator. Hudon confirmed Gordon and Seymour are still SIU employees.

What was the motivation for laying these charges in the first place? Was it motivated by politics, because it wasnt motivated by fact, said Dorlings lawyer, Cummins.

The lawsuit alleges the SIUs conduct in investigating Dorling was callous and reckless. The statement of claim cites multiple instances of negligence on the part of the SIU and its investigation, including a failure to consult with reasonable and/or qualified experts in such areas as forensic pathology and use of force.

The suit also claims the SIU investigation unreasonably preferred information provided by Hannaford, failed to take inconsistencies in his statement into account, and asked leading questions or suggested answers.

Were going to ensure that Richard Dorling is repaired for the travesty that unfolded, Cummins said. You cannot criminalize a police officer for upholding the law and doing their job. We will ensure that what they did to him reaches an appropriate conclusion.
Moldova's Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Oleg Tulea will visit Kyiv in the near future, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's press service has reported.

This issue was discussed during the Ukrainian-Moldovan political consultations in the format of a videoconference between Ukraine's Deputy Foreign Minister Vasyl Bodnar and State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of Moldova Dumitru Socolan, the report said.

According to the report, during the consultations, both sides reaffirmed mutual support in resolving conflicts and countering Russian aggression on the basis of international law, primarily the principle of the territorial integrity of states.

Particular attention was paid to regional security issues and the coordination of efforts to resolve the Transdniestrian conflict.

"The need to withdraw Russian troops from Transdniestria, as well as to dispose of surplus ammunition in the village of Cobasna under international control, has been confirmed," the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said.

Bodnar and Socolan also discussed practical steps to implement joint projects in the trade, economic, energy, transport, cultural, and humanitarian spheres. To this end, the parties agreed to prepare for regular meetings of joint commissions and working groups, primarily the Ukrainian-Moldovan intergovernmental mixed commission on trade and economic cooperation.

In addition, both parties agreed on further cooperation within international and regional organizations, such as the UN, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, and GUAM.

Socolan thanked the Ukrainian side for its help in returning home more than 15,000 Moldovan citizens in the context of measures to counter the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bodnar, in turn, expressed gratitude to Moldova for the humanitarian assistance provided to Ukraine on June 28 to combat the effects of floods in the country's western regions.

op
Houston brothers from Christian family lose both parents weeks apart after battles with COVID-19

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Over $60,000 has been raised to benefit two young Houston brothers, both under the age of 15, who are now grieving the loss of both parents who died two weeks apart after battling COVID-19.

Carlos Garcia, 44, and his wife of 24 years, Naomi Esquivel, 39, died just two weeks apart after battling COVID-19 this month. They leave behind their sons  Nathan, 11, and Isaiah, 14.

"I didn't get to say goodbye to my mom or my dad now, and that's what hurt me the most right now," Isaiah Garcia told ABC13.

Rita Marquez-Mendoza, their maternal grandmother, told the outlet that her daughter died from COVID-19 on July 2. She said that her son-in-law, who was recovering from the coronavirus, died last Friday, July 17.

"We hadn't even begun to grieve my daughter and now we have to bury Carlos and the grandchildren are left without a mom and a dad," said Marquez-Mendoza. "This disease is just horrible."

Marquez-Mendoza also lamented how her daughter and son-in-law had to die alone during the pandemic as many hospitals nationwide have restricted visitor access to patients.

"Dying now is more tragic than it was before because you die alone, she grieved. You die alone without your family members.

Marquez-Mendoza explained in an interview with KTRK that faced with the pain of the loss, the Christian family will lean on God.

"We have no words, no words to describe it, no words. We are Christian people and we accept the will of God and we know if this is His will, he's going to guide us through it, she said.

Garcia, who was hospitalized for kidney failure while recovering from the virus, was found unresponsive on July 17. He died from oxygen deprivation, according to the mother-in-law.

She explained that both he and her daughter died quickly.

Jacob Mendoza, the boy's maternal uncle, said that Garcia had spoken with his one of his sons a little over an hour before he was pronounced dead.

Mendoza says he will now raise his nephews because he believes its what their parents would want.

"I love them with all my heart, Mendoza said. I know this is what their parents would've wanted was for me take them in.

That is something that Isaiah Garcia says he is thankful for.

"At least, since he [my father] passed, we get to be with our family," the 11-year-old said. "We don't have to go to an orphanage or anything. I'd rather be here than anywhere else right now."

Garcia's funeral will be held next Wednesday at The Promise Church of Houston. The family is raising money through a GoFundMe campaign to help provide for the brothers. As of Thursday, nearly $61,000 has been donated to the fundraiser by nearly 1,400 people.

The money being raised will be for their living expenses and anything they may need, organizer Daniel Esquivel wrote on the fundraising webpage.

He noted that the family initially tried to raise money to help pay for Garcias funeral but a very generous donor offered to cover all funeral expenses.

At the last minute we received a very generous donation that helped pay for all Funeral Expenses! Thank God! Esquivel explained. I just want to thank each and every one of you in advance and tell you that the family greatly appreciates you in our time of sorrow.
Chinas advice to New Delhi to follow an independent foreign policy and safeguard regional peace reflects Beijings sanctimonious, even duplicitous approach in relations with other countries, a senior government official said on Thursday.

We do hope that China gives up its sanctimonious stand and takes real steps to further peace in the region and the world in accordance with international law. It wants India to give up on its close allies like the United States so that any global effort to get India entry into the UN Security Council as a permanent member or a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) despite an impeccable non-proliferation record unlike its all-weather ally Pakistan is blocked. With the Ladakh aggression, the Chinese perfidy in the garb of peace and tranquillity stands exposed, the official said.

A second official, part of Indias national security establishment, added that Beijings track record in its neighbourhood and the world reflected its duplicitous and hypocritical approach.

Also Read: Navys forward posture against PLA in Ladakh muscles out Chinese threat on high seas

The strong remarks are as a reference to Chinas assistance to countries such as Pakistan and North Korea develop nuclear weapons and delivery platforms, blocking UNSC sanctions against designated terrorists in Pakistan and flexing muscles along the 3,488 km long LAC and South China Sea as part of its cartographical expansion.

ALSO WATCH | Closing more Chinese consulates in US always possible: Donald Trump

The Chinese foreign ministry, responding to external affairs minister S Jaishankars assertion that India was never part of an alliance and will never be, said on Wednesday that China hopes and believes that India will be able to maintain its independent foreign policy and safeguard regional peace and stability through concrete actions, and play a constructive role in international affairs.

The statement was seen in New Delhi to reflect concern in China over Indias growing proximity to the United States and loud voices of support for India from the Trump administration, particularly after China attempted to intrude into India in the Ladakh sector.

The external affairs ministry hasnt responded to Beijings statement.

Also Read: From Ladakh to Japans Senkaku Islands, bully China is in an overdrive

What China means to say, a national security planner said, was that India should forget about its attempts to intrude into Ladakh and move on. They made the same point when they wanted India to be part of the Belt Road Initiative, saying that it was a connectivity project and India shouldnt mind if it passes through occupied territories in Pakistan.

Or telling India after trying to take over Indian territory in Ladakh that New Delhi should not let the boundary dispute impact the $ 100 billion bilateral trade.

Contrast this approach with Beijings super sensitive stance when it comes to its perceived sovereignty issues in Arunachal Pradesh and elsewhere, claiming that state sovereignty is a core interest that is non-negotiable and protesting visits to the state by Indian dignitaries.

Or when it fires a barrage of threats over Indian deals to supply Brahmos or Prithivi missiles to Vietnam and Philippines, two of the 20-plus countries it has territorial disputes with. But it goes right ahead to help client state Pakistan to build long range nuclear missiles, supplies fighter jets like JF 17 and other weapons including armed drones.

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LONDON, ON, July 23, 2020 /CNW/ - The Government of Canada is committed to building a clean energy future to strengthen the economy, create good jobs and support the natural resource sectors. This will be more important than ever as we reopen the economy and plan our recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

Kate Young, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages and Member of Parliament for London West, on behalf of the Honourable Seamus O'Regan, Canada's Minister of Natural Resources, today announced a $5.1-million investment in London Hydro to develop and deploy a smart microgrid in the West 5 net-zero energy community in London, Ontario. This funding will help the community achieve its net-zero targets. Local partners are also contributing to this project, including S2e Technologies, Sifton Properties and Western University, for a combined investment of $10.99 million.

Building on federal government commitments to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, this investment supports the design and development of Canada's first large-scale, fully integrated, net-zero energy community. The microgrid will integrate monitoring, data management and communications, electric vehicle infrastructure, distributed energy resource management, solar power generation and batteries to reduce grid use.

Smart grid projects help create smarter and greener communities while saving Canadians money and reducing pollution. The goal of this project is to demonstrate that net-zero energy is feasible at the community level, which will promote sustainable development and inspire widespread change across Canada's construction industry.

Funding for this project is provided by Natural Resources Canada's Smart Grid Program, which allows utilities to reduce pollution and optimize electricity use while encouraging innovation. The program is part of the Government of Canada's more than $180-billion Investing in Canada Plan to create long-term economic growth; support a low- carbon, green economy; and build inclusive communities.

Today's announcement is in line with the plan developed following Canada's national energy dialogue, Generation Energy. Canadians made it clear that clean energy solutions are not a luxury but a necessity for Canada's low-carbon future. Canada will continue to support clean energy projects that create jobs, support investment and industry competitiveness, advance our clean future and help realize our global climate change goals.

Quotes

"With MP Kate Young's leadership, London is becoming a hub for clean technology. This smart grid project will allow the West 5 community to use renewable energy and battery storage to become a net-zero producer of emissions  creating a cleaner atmosphere and making life more affordable for families."

Seamus O'Regan

Canada's Minister of Natural Resources

"The government is proud to support local smart grid projects like the West 5 Smart Grid Project. Strong partnerships and innovative ideas like these at the community level will lead to a cleaner, greener future for generations to come."

Kate Young

Member of Parliament for London West

"The West 5 development will not only provide us with a sustainable approach to develop future communities, but I believe that in the process it will also help us establish new guidelines, new requirements and new policies, which will pave the way for expanded development of such net-zero communities. This is an important step in our journey for achieving a greener community."

Vinay Sharma

CEO, London Hydro

Associated Links

Follow us on Twitter: @NRCan (http://twitter.com/nrcan)

SOURCE Natural Resources Canada

For further information: Natural Resources Canada, Media Relations, 343-292-6100, [email protected]; Ian Cameron, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Natural Resources, 613-447-3488, [email protected]

Related Links

www.nrcan.gc.ca


Chilean legislators punched the air and waved the national flag in Congress on Thursday after giving final approval to a government-contested bill to allow citizens to withdraw 10 percent of their pension savings to help ease the economic pain wrought by the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The bill has sped through several congressional votes with cross-party support despite staunch government opposition.

The bill required a three-fifths majority, 93 votes, and 116 deputies voted in favour, with 28 against and five abstentions. A number of the 71-strong governing coalition bloc  including the president of one of its parties  voted in favour.

The chamber erupted in cheers and clapping amid chants of no more AFP  a reference to the long-running campaign to tear up Chiles much-mimicked defined contribution Pension Funds Administrators (AFP) system that was introduced during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.

Cristobal Bellolio, a political scientist, said the bill represented Chiles Brexit moment, a symbolic blow dealt to the establishment, against the advice of experts, by an angry populace emboldened by social protests last year against inequality and state policies including the AFP system.

President Sebastian Pinera has 30 days to decide whether to veto the bill, sign it into law or refer it to the Constitutional Court.

Interior Minister Gonzalo Blumel told journalists after the vote not to get ahead of themselves with questions about a potential veto, saying, Congress has to send the promulgatory letter to the executive, and once the letter reaches the executive, he has to decide the way forward.

Matias Walker, the Christian Democrat deputy who introduced the bill, appealed to Pinera not to veto it, but to listen to the voice of the people.

The bills swift passage and surprise transversal backing has caught Pineras centre-right government on the back foot as it battles one of the worlds worst outbreaks of the COVID-19 pandemic and faces potentially more of the fiery social protests against inequality that erupted in October last year, as well as the drafting of a new constitution.

Economists and ministers have said withdrawing from pension funds will diminish already low average payouts and deliver a shock to stock, bond and currency markets.

The bills supporters say alternative support offered by the government to millions of citizens left unemployed and impoverished by the pandemic was insufficient and bureaucratic.
New Delhi, July 23 : Five Indian innovators have made it to the second batch of Fashion for Goods South Asia Innovation Programme, the organisation announced on Thursday.

Focussing on technologies and innovations in raw materials, wet processing, packaging, end-of-use and digital acceleration, a total of nine innovators - including five from India - have been selected who aim to bring solutions into the programme crucial to the manufacturing and supply chains in South Asia.

The second batch joins Fashion for Good's global selection of start-ups driving the industry's transformation towards a more sustainable, circular system.

The selected innovators in the South Asia Innovation Programme's second batch are: Bagrotec (Indonesia -- Raw Materials), Biomize (India -- Raw Materials), KB Cols Sciences (India -- Wet Processing), Lucro (India -- End of Use), Nordshield (Finland -- Wet Processing), Phabia (India -- Packaging), Phool (India -- Raw Materials), PoshaQ (India -- Digital Acceleration) and Swatchbook (USA -- Digital Acceleration).

Biomize technology makes bamboo and agri-waste based granules that are alternatives to plastic, are certified home compostable, and can be drawn into textile fibres and fabrics that have fashion, medical and industrial applications.

KB Cols wants to change the landscape of dyeing in the fashion industry by focusing on harnessing the true potential of Biotechnology. Through the exploration of various renewable resources, KB Cols extract natural colours that can be applied in textiles and other applications.

Lucro produces high quality, innovative and recycled plastic waste to remake products, ultimately seeking to close the loop and make plastic sustainable. It caters to big industries including retail, FMCG and automotive, exporting their products to the US and Europe.

Phabio offers bioplastic solutions made from biodegradable polymers made from renewable biomass obtained from waste in the beer, dairy and sugar industries, as well as food waste and sea weeds. These bioplastics can also be made from agricultural waste, used plastic bottles and other containers using micro-organisms.

Katrin Ley, Managing Director -- Fashion for Good, said: "We're extremely pleased to welcome nine new innovators into our second batch of the South Asia Programme. Now more than ever, it's important to support and scale the innovations in one of the industry's most crucial manufacturing regions that can provide vital solutions to help build back stronger, more sustainable and resilient." Due to current circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the selection day for the second batch of innovators was held virtually. A total of 19 innovators, who were shortlisted from over 100 start-ups, attended from across the globe to pitch their innovations with sustainable solutions focused on the South Asia region. Earlier this year, more than 50 innovators had participated in the Fashion for Good Innovation Challenge run in collaboration with Startup India, which concluded last month. Two of the final innovators, Biomize and PoshaQ, were selected from this group to join the programme.

A jury of regional Fashion for Good partners together with an advisory council of global Fashion for Good partners selected the final nine innovators, with whom they will collaborate closely in the coming nine months. With three innovators having female founders and co-founders, the new batch includes innovations in raw materials -- specifically biopolymers, bamboo fibre and alternative leathers and foams, wet processing - namely anti-microbial finishes and microbial dyes, digital acceleration solutions in AI and image processing and virtual swatches, as well as end-of-use solutions, closing the loop and making plastic products more sustainable.

(Puja Gupta can be contacted at puja.g@ians.in)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot expressed agreement with President Trumps plan to deploy federal police to the city during a Wednesday evening phone call with the president, according to the mayors office.

Trump has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to send 200 officers to Chicago, which recorded an abnormally high number of shootings over the past two months, to quell the surging. The unrest in Chicago differs in kind from that in Portland, Ore., which has seen continuous rioting and destruction of city and federal property over the same period.

Lightfoot had previously rejected the deployment of federal police in Chicago, writing on Twitter on Tuesday, Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trumps troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents.

Trump reached out to Mayor Lightfoot this evening to confirm that he plans to send federal resources to Chicago to supplement ongoing federal investigations pertaining to violent crime, the mayors office said on Wednesday in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times. Mayor Lightfoot maintains that all resources will be investigatory in nature and be coordinated through the U.S. Attorneys office. The Mayor has made clear that if there is any deviation from what has been announced, we will pursue all available legal options to protect Chicagoans.

Federal officers drew media criticism after demonstrators in Portland reported being grabbed off the street by unidentified federal law enforcement and brought to other locations. DHS head Chad Wolf has said the officers were in fact identifiable and has criticized demonstrators as rioters and anarchists.

The deployment of federal police in the city will be overseen by U.S. Attorney John Lausch, whom Lightfoot knows from her tenure as a former federal prosecutor.

This is not patrol. This is not against civil unrest, Lausch said. This is working with the Chicago Police Department to do what we can to reduce the staggering violent crime were facing right now.

Story continues

Even after the announcement, Lightfoot said on Thursday that The president has been on a campaign now for some time against Democratic mayors across the country.

During riots that followed the death of George Floyd during his arrest by Minneapolis police officers, Chicago city council members criticized Lightfoot for refusing to deploy the National Guard outside the citys business district.

My ward is a st show, complained Alderwoman Susan Sadlowski-Garza in a conference call. They are shooting at the police. I have never seen the likes of this. Im scared.

Alderman Raymond Lopez, a frequent critic of Lightfoot, said his district was a virtual war zone, to which Lightfoot responded Lopez was 100 percent full of st.

Well, fk you then, Lopez shot back. Mayor you need to check your fg attitude.

More from National Review
Roberto Sallouti, CEO of BTG Pactual, opened the event, which is being broadcast on YouTube and runs through July 24

SAO PAULO, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- This week BTG Pactual (BPAC11), the largest investment bank in Latin America, is holding the Global Managers Conference 2020 with the participation of some of the world's leading international fund managers. The central themes of the event, broadcast on BTG Pactual's digital channel on YouTube, include resuming economic growth, emerging markets, allocation of resources and management of international investment funds.

On the first day, the CEO of BTG Pactual, Roberto Sallouti, led a discussion on how to restart the global economy with the participation of Robert Higginbotham, International CEO of the fund management firm T. Rowe Price. "I am very pleased to be able to gather the largest international fund managers together once again. I am sure that this quality discussion will show a consistent outlook on the future of the Brazilian economy and emerging markets moving forward," said Roberto Sallouti, CEO of BTG Pactual.

Yesterday, on the second day of the Global Managers Conference 2020, Mark Mobius, founder of Mobius Capital Partners, and Brendan Ahern, director of investments at Krane, discussed the future of emerging markets, with moderation by Will Landers, head of variable income at BTG Pactual Asset Management.

"Our greatest allocation of investments at the moment is in China. But we have found numerous opportunities in Brazil, which today is one of the three largest markets in our portfolio. I believe in the recovery of the Brazilian market and we have bet on companies in the healthcare and education sectors, where Brazilian shares have registered incredible results this year," Mark Mobius said.

This Thursday, July 23, two of the largest international fund managers in the world will be leading the panel "Finding value in global markets." Barnaby Wiener, senior portfolio manager at MFS International Ltd., and Reinout Schapers, senior portfolio manager of the Dutch fund management company Robeco, will participate in the discussion, with mediation by Renato Mimica, CIO of the magazine Exame.

Tomorrow, July 24, on the last day of the event, Lydia Hauter, senior portfolio manager of Pictet Asset Management, and Richard Clode, senior portfolio manager of Janus Henderson, will be leading the discussion on global megatrends in the post COVID-19 world, with mediation by Laura Gonzalez, head of Wealth Management at Allfunds.
Move to designate Phuket hotels as Alternative Local State Quarantine venues underway

PHUKET: So far 14 hotels in Phuket have applied to be designated as Alternative Local State Quarantine (ALSQ) in order to accommodate people allowed to enter the country under the conditions set by the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA).

COVID-19tourismtransporthealtheconomics

By The Phuket News

Thursday 23 July 2020, 01:10PM

However, currently only two of the 14 hotels have been inspected and approved by health officials as ready to receive quarantine guests, Phuket Vice Governor Pichet Panapong explained at a meeting of the Phuket Communicable Disease Committee held at Phuket Provincial Hall yesterday (July 22).

The Anantara Mai Khao Phuket Villa and Trisara Phuket Villa and Residences have already passed official evaluation. While Sri Panwa Phuket Villas is now being evaluated, he said.

V/Gov Pichet explained that such visitors will arrive in the country at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok, before being allowed to transit to Phuket.

Hotels that want to be designated as an ALSQ must send a formal letter of request directly to the Phuket Governors Office, he said.

V/Gov Pichet also ordered Phuket Public Health Office (PPHO) officers to research what will be required and to set up a team to ensure all health regulations are adhered to, and that arrivals are transferred directly from the airport to their preferred hotel.

Visitors can choose where they want to be quarantined for 14 days, but they must pay all costs by themselves, V/Gov Pichet said.

The idea of setting up a special COVID-19 screening lab at the airport was floated at the meeting, but dismissed as unnecessary as the arrivals will be screened on landing in Bangkok and then placed in 14-day quarantine on arrival in Phuket, said a report of the meeting by the Phuket office of the Public Relations Department (PR Phuket).

The move to start approving ALSQ venues follows CCSA Spokesperson Dr Taweesin Visanuyothin announcing yesterday that four categories of foreign nationals will be allowed to enter Thailand, but they must spend 14 days in quarantine and comply with public health measures against COVID-19.

The four categories include 1) foreigners participating in trade fairs in Thailand, 2) foreign film crew coming for filming in Thailand, 3) foreign workers from Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar for food and construction industries, and 4) foreign visitors for medical and wellness services.

The Ministry of Labour proposed that organisational quarantine be arranged for foreign workers from the three neighboring countries in order to reduce costs for employers and that this group of foreign nationals must undergo standard COVID-19 tests.

Prime Minister and Defense Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha urged the people not to be worried about the issue of allowing more foreign nationals to enter Thailand.

Strict public health measures must be implemented. The public will be provided with better understanding about the situation. Accurate information and better understanding would help prevent the spread of fake news and misinformation, PM Prayut said.

Meanwhile, the Labour Ministry has announced that it would handle details for bringing in unskilled workers from Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar to meet the demand for labour.

This included 69,235 workers who already had work permits and visas and wanted to return to work in Thailand. Local employers planned to bring in another 42,168 workers who do not already have work permits or visas. They would be employed in the construction and food production sectors, reported the Bangkok Post.

The companies demanding these workers would have to arrange for "organisational quarantine" at their own premises, where each room could accommodate more than one worker for cost effectiveness. Such quarantine facilities must meet disease control standards and be able to prevent migrant workers from getting out during quarantine.

Conventional state quarantine, in which a room served only one person, would cost nearly B20,000 per person and that was not wanted by the companies, Dr Taweesin said yesterday.
In 1975, after public revelations of intelligence abuses concealed from all but a handful of members of Congress, the United States Senate created a temporary committee to study the nations spy agencies  something no standing committee had ever attempted.

What came to be known as the Church Committee, after its chairman, Senator Frank Church of Idaho, recommended broad reforms, including the creation of a permanent Intelligence Oversight Committee. Former Vice President Walter Mondale and I are the last surviving members of the Church Committee.

We have recently come to learn of at least a hundred documents authorizing extraordinary presidential powers in the case of a national emergency, virtually dictatorial powers without congressional or judicial checks and balances. President Trump alluded to these authorities in March when he said, I have the right to do a lot of things that people dont even know about. No matter who occupies the office, the American people have a right to know what extraordinary powers presidents believe they have. It is time for a new select committee to study these powers and their potential for abuse, and advise Congress on the ways in which it might, at a minimum, establish stringent oversight.

Secret powers began accumulating during the Eisenhower years and have grown by accretion ever since. The rationale originally was to permit a president to exercise necessary control in the case of nuclear war, an increasingly remote possibility since the Cold Wars end. An obscure provision in the Communications Act of 1934 empowers the president to suspend broadcast stations and other means of communication following a proclamation by the President of national emergency. Powers like these have been deployed sparingly: A few days after the Sept. 11 attacks, a proclamation declaring a national emergency, followed by an executive order days later, invoked some presidential powers, including the use of National Guard and U.S. military forces.
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The United States is on track to record one million new cases of COVID-19 in just two weeks - as more than 1,100 deaths are recorded in a day and reach levels not seen in two months.

The number of infections across the country was nearing a staggering four million cases on Thursday and more than 143,000 Americans have now died from COVID-19.

In the past week, the average number of daily cases has reached 66,000 and, based on that trajectory, cases will increase by one million by the first week of August.

Daily deaths surpassed 1,000 on Wednesday for the second time this week, while new cases reached 71,000.

There has been an uptick in deaths, on average, across the US since the beginning of July after hotspot states including Florida, Texas, Arizona and California saw explosions in cases and hospitalizations.

The number of infections across the country was nearing a staggering four million cases on Thursday and more than 143,000 Americans have now died from COVID-19. Daily deaths surpassed 1,000 on Wednesday for the second time this week, while new cases reached 71,000

Texas on Wednesday set one-day records for increases in COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations in the state.

The state, which reported 197 deaths and 10,893 hospitalizations, has been one of the hardest hit by the resurgent coronavirus.

Meanwhile, California surpassed New York on Wednesday to have the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the country. It is partly due to robust testing in a state with more than twice the population of New York.

The total number of infections in the most populous US state is now at 413,579 after adding a record 12,807 spike in new daily cases - the biggest single-day increase since the pandemic started.

New York currently has 408,181 total infections throughout the state.

New York has recorded by far the most deaths of any US state at more than 32,000 with California in fourth place with over 8,000 deaths.

If California were a country, it would rank fifth in the world for total coronavirus cases behind only the United States, Brazil, India and Russia.

Deaths have topped 1,000 twice this week across the United States, which hasn't been seen since May.

There has been an uptick in deaths, on average, across the US since the beginning of July after hotspot states including Florida, Texas, Arizona and California saw explosions in cases and hospitalizations. Deaths across the four hotspot states are pictured above dated up until July 21

Coronavirus deaths are now rising in 23 states and the country's three most populous states, Florida, Texas and California, top the list of 44 states where cases are increasing.

The rising deaths and hospitalizations in Texas has forced one county to store bodies in refrigerated trucks and prompting a top health official there to call for new stay-at-home orders.

Hidalgo County, at the southern tip of the state on the US border with Mexico, has seen cases rise 60 percent in the last week, with deaths doubling to more than 360.

'We've got to lasso this virus, this stallion, bring the numbers back down and get control of this thing,' Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez said.

'Because our hospitals - they're war zones, they are really struggling right now.'

Cortez, a Democrat who serves as the top county official, issued a shelter-in-place order for residents. That mandate put him at odds with Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who maintains that local officials do not have the authority to make residents stay home.Crematoriums in the Hidalgo area have a wait list of two weeks, Cortez said, forcing the county to use five refrigerated trucks that can hold 50 bodies each.

Hidalgo's top medical official, Dr. Ivan Melendez, partly blamed Abbott's move to override local officials for the spike in coronavirus infections, which he said has jammed the local medical system at every level.

TEXAS DEATHS: Texas on Wednesday set one-day record of 197 deaths related to coronavirus

TEXAS CASES: Texas recorded 9,879 new cases on Wednesday, down from a record 10,791 on July 15

CALIFORNIA CASES: California added a record 12,807 spike in new daily cases on Wednesday - the biggest single-day increase since the pandemic started

CALIFORNIA DEATHS: Deaths in California rose by 115 on Wednesday, bringing the total death toll to 7,870

'Do I think that a stay-at-home order is medically indicated at this point? Absolutely,' Melendez said.

Meanwhile, laboratories across the US are buckling under a surge of coronavirus tests, creating long processing delays that experts say are undercutting the pandemic response.

With the tally of confirmed infections at nearly 4 million and new cases surging, the bottlenecks are creating problems for workers kept off the job while awaiting results, nursing homes struggling to keep the virus out and for the labs themselves as they deal with a crushing workload.

Some labs are taking weeks to return COVID-19 results, exacerbating fears that people without symptoms could be spreading the virus if they don't isolate while they wait.

'There's been this obsession with, 'How many tests are we doing per day?' said Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 'The question is how many tests are being done with results coming back within a day, where the individual tested is promptly isolated and their contacts are promptly warned.'

Frieden and other public health experts have called on states to publicly report testing turnaround times, calling it an essential metric to measure progress against the virus.

In total, deaths across the United States increased five percent in the week ending July 19, compared to the previous seven days, according to a Reuters analysis of the COVID Tracking Project data. Nineteen states have reported increases in deaths for at least two straight weeks
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 16:57:35|Editor: huaxia

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URUMQI, July 23 (Xinhua) -- While few plants can withstand the ravages of a desert, a special breed of saltbush is thriving around Taklimakan, China's largest desert located in the southern part of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

In the outskirts of Haitiqi Village in Hotan County, Hotan Prefecture, some 50 mu (about 3.3 hectares) of grey-green densely branching shrubs as tall as one meter stand in sharp contrast to the beige landscape.

Known as the four-wing saltbush due to its wing-shaped fruit, the plant, which grows well in saline or alkaline soil, is gaining popularity in south Xinjiang as a desirable choice for desertification prevention and control.

"It also serves as a kind of nutritious feed for livestock," said Memtimin Metiniyaz, a local villager who just collected some four-wing saltbush from the sandy land to feed his 15 sheep. "One mu of four-wing saltbush can feed about five sheep."

South Xinjiang is among the country's poorest regions due to its harsh environment characterized by swathes of sandy terrain. Over 60 percent of Hotan Prefecture falls in the Gobi desert.

Raising livestock is a major way many villagers make a living. However, it is becoming less profitable because of the shortage of affordable feed, according to Wang Lizhong, a Beijing official who has stayed in Hotan for about seven years to help boost local development.

"The four-wing saltbush, with remarkable water conservation properties and crude protein content, can improve ecology and economy at the same time," said Wang, who introduced the saltbush in the village as part of the government's efforts to protect environment and fight poverty. "It can kill two birds with one stone."

Introduced into Hotan in the early 2010s, four-wing saltbush are mushrooming around the Taklimakan Desert thanks to government and private support.

Over 2,000 mu of four-wing saltbush have been planted in Hotan, according to Wang.

The plant is likely to play a bigger economic role as experiments are being conducted in Hotan to use the four-wing saltbush to breed Cistanche deserticola, which grows on other plants' roots. Also known as "Ginseng of the desert," the parasitic plant is used as a local traditional Chinese medicine.

Memtimin plans to raise some camels later this year. "The desert animal can feed on four-wing saltbush and its milk sells well. Hopefully life will take off with the unique plant." Enditem
National Communication Officer for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Sammy Gyamfi has called for the head of Special Development Initiatives Minister, Hon. Mavis Hawa Koomson for the shooting incident at Kasoa registration centre.



According to him, if President Akufo-Addo has conscience in the fight against vigilantism, it is time to act by sacking the Awutu-Senya East lawmaker as a Minister of Special Development Initiatives to serve as deterrent and his commitment to clamp down criminality in the country.



Speaking on Okay FMs 'Ade Akye Abia' Morning Show, Sammy Gyamfi claims it has gotten out of hands the lawlessness that President Nana Akufo-Addo is supervising in the country as there have been many killings, tortures, chaos and mayhem executed by government officials and some state security officers who have sworn allegiance to the NPP government.



We thought that the way we condemned the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election incident, it will never happen again. We also thought that as the President said he has passed Anti-vigilantism Law, the operations of Delta Forces and Invincible Forces have come to an end but we didnt know they are just about to start their criminality, he slammed.



To him, the criminalities of the NPP Vigilante groups have escalated due to the fact that nothing happened to those who caused atrocities at the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election when the Emile Short Commission suggested to the Akufo-Addo government.



The NDC, however, in the words of Sammy Gyamfi has sent a message to President Akufo-Addo not to set free the Minister of Special Development Initiatives, Mavis Hawa Koomson in relations to her crime at the registration centre if he still has the interest of the nation at heart.



We sent a message to President Akufo-Addo relative to Mavis Hawa Koomson, Minister for Special Development Initiatives, a Member of Parliament of Awutu-Senya East, that if the President still has his nation at heart and think of the wellbeing of this country and what is happening, if he has conscience, we are appealing to his conscience that this time around, he should act, he stated.



He stressed that the President should not use his clearing agency to shield those who commit crime; enough is enough because pastors are calling for the dismissal of Hawa Koomson. Every voice of conscience is making that call because what the woman did was criminal which we must not condone.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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South Africa: DBE puts final touches on coding curriculum

Basic Education Minster Angie Motshekga says government is putting the final touches on the coding and robotics curriculum developed for Grades R-9, which is due for completion by the end of July.

Motshekga said this on Wednesday when she tabled the departments 2020/21 adjusted budget vote during a virtual plenary session.

The initial overall 2020/21 budget allocation for the DBE (before adjustments) was just over R25.3 billion, and this was reduced to over R23.2 billion following budget cuts and adjustments due to Coronavirus spending.

The DBE has developed the coding and robotics curriculum for Grades R-9, which is currently being repackaged to ensure proper sequencing and seamless progression from one phase to the next.

We are planning that the repackaging process will be completed by the end of July 2020, said Motshekga.

After putting the final touches on this curriculum, it will head to the quality council authority, Umalusi, for approval.

The rollout of this curriculum forms part of the departments strategic implementation of a curriculum with skills and competencies for a changing world in all public schools.

Once approved, teachers and subject advisors will receive training for this curriculum online because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Motshekga, the Education, Training and Development (ETD) sector and Skills Education Training Authority (SETA) has availed R7 million for this training.

DBE strengthens skills development

To strengthen its skills development initiatives through the three-stream curriculum model, the DBE has partnered with Ford Motor Company. This partnership will see 240 engines donated to technical schools offering Automotive as a subject.

In our efforts to provide every school with ICT devices, loaded with digital content, the DBE, in partnership with mobile network operators, has completed the audit of all 477 special schools.

We have also finalised the implementation plan with the mobile network operators to provide all these schools with devices, connectivity, digital content, as well as ICT integration training for teachers, said Motshekga.

In a bid to digitise schools around the country, the DBE, in partnership with the Communications and Digital Technologies Department, has identified 152 sites in 76 education districts, to equip them with virtual classroom infrastructure.

Through this initiative, the sector will fully embrace the digital revolution of remote learning. Districts will be able to benefit through curriculum specialists streamed lessons on digital platforms.

In line with governments decision to relocate Early Childhood Development (ECD) from the Department of Social Development to the DBE, the department is in the process of amending the Basic Education Law Amendment (BELA) Bill.

The amendment of BELA caters for compulsory attendance  first, in Grade RR by learners turning five (5) years of age; and second, Grade R by learners turning six (6) years of age.

To assist in finding solutions to some of the challenges facing the ECD sector, and to provide guidance on how government can achieve a transformed ECD sector, the department has established an ECD think tank, comprising a group of experts from government, academia, NGOs and civil society.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-07-23. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
J ohnny Depp controlled when Amber Heard wore and the couple rowed every time she landed a new film role, her sister said.

Whitney Henriquez called Depp incredibly jealous and possessive, and said the couple had a huge fight when she was in the running for Aquaman.

Johnny was incredibly jealous and possessive and was threatened by her former partners and co-stars, both men and women, she said.

Both Amber and Johnny talked to me about this after their fights. It became such a problem that he would start a fight about every job she took.

For example, I was with them in Brazil in September 2015 when they had a huge fight because she and I were leaving early so she could do a screen test for Aquaman.

I remember his assistant, Nathan Holmes, and I joking about the fact we hoped she didnt get the role because Johnny would go crazy when he saw a picture of Jason Momoa, her co-star.

Ms Henriquez also told the court: I heard them have a fight  about the dress she wanted to wear to the Art of Elysium gala in 2014 and him making her change into a dress that was less revealing.

It was in this period that his stylist  Samantha McMillen  also became Ambers stylist.

Amber and I talked about it at the time, and I told her 'Johnny is keeping all of it in-house', and we discussed how it was his way of controlling what Amber wore. Her styling definitely changed.

Ms Henriquez said she felt sick about it when told by Heard that she was engaged to Depp.

I told her it was a bad idea, begged her not to go through with it and said that she should end it because it wasnt going to get better.

I asked her 'Why are you putting up with this?' and told her that him putting a ring on her finger was not going to stop him hitting her.

Ms Henriquez said she also confronted Depp before the 2015 wedding over alleged violence.

I did confront Johnny about hitting Amber, she said.

I remember saying to him: Why did you f***ing have to hit her?. Sometimes he would flat out deny it or downplay it by saying no, I just pushed her, I didnt hit her.

Other times, he would acknowledge that he had hit her but would try to justify it, by claiming she hit him first or she called me a pussy and would say sis, I just lost control.

He blamed her for it, saying things like: I just love her so much but this is what she does to me and never really took responsibility for it.

Ms Heards sister is giving evidence in the third week of Depps libel trial against The Suns publisher News Group Newspapers, after a 2018 article by executive editor Dan Wootton called the star a wife beater.

The case centres on 14 allegations of domestic violence against Depp. He denies them all and accuses Heard of orchestrating a #MeToo hoax against him.

On Thursday, Ms Heards sister said she told the actress to leave Depp after noticing bruising and swelling on her face and body.

I saw that her face was swollen and she had a mark under her eye, she said. I had my suspicions before, but it was clear to me that she had been hit.

I confronted her about it in the kitchen - I said: What the f*** is happening? You have to talk to me. Im not stupid, I can see he is hitting you.

She admitted to me that he had hit her, but at that time she was constantly putting it on herself or blaming herself.

She said that she must have done something to annoy him or antagonise him. I told her she needed to leave because it wasnt worth it if he would do that to her.

They werent married and didnt have kids, so best to get out before she was in any deeper.

Ms Henriquez said her sister did not want to leave the relationship, saying: We fight really hard, but we love even harder.

She also said she was nicknamed the marriage counsellor because of how many times she had to stop fights between Heard and Depp.

I was often asked to intervene when they were fighting, with either Johnny or Amber coming into my apartment to get me involved to help sort it out and calm things down, she said.

Or I would be sent over to his house to talk to him after they fought.

Johnny would go there to his man cave as we all called it after they had a big fight.

It got to the point that my nickname became the marriage counsellor.

Ms Henriquez said she was with Depp between his notorious appearance at the Hollywood Film Awards, when he went on stage to present an award while intoxicated.

He was supposed to be going to present an award at the Hollywood Film Awards that night, but he was refusing to go and he was drinking, she said.

I sat with him for hours talking to him about their fight, while he sat there drinking.

His sister Christi kept coming out to tell him he had to leave, but he shooed her away.

I think Christi blamed me for making him late and keeping him there, but I had been sent over to try to talk to him and encourage him to go to the Awards.

The trial continues.
Saudi Arabia will look to sell assets in sectors not previously considered for privatisation, the country's finance minister said on Wednesday, as the country contends with the economic impact of sustained low oil prices.

Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, is facing a sharp recession because of the coronavirus crisis and depleted oil revenues.

The International Monetary Fund has forecast a 6.8% contraction this year, but Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan said at Bloomberg event that he expects the economy to contract less than that.

"A lot of factors work in our favour, ocal and domestic tourism for example is picking up very nicely this month," he said.

Saudi Arabia has planned a series of privatisations in recent years, including the initial public offering of state-owned oil giant Aramco, which took place last year.

"We're looking at sectors that haven't been targeted before for privatisation," Jadaan said, mentioning healthcare and education.

Asked how much revenue privatisations would generate, he said the sale of assets would generate more than 50 billion riyals in the next four to five years.

The prospects for economic recovery were brightened by some promising July data, though the pandemic makes for an uncertain outlook, he added.

Saudi Arabia tripled its value-added tax to 15% this month as part of efforts to bolster state coffers. Though Jadaan said there are no imminent plans to introduce an income tax, he added that nothing could be ruled out.

Later on Wednesday state news agency (SPA) quoted an unnamed Saudi official as saying that the issue has not been discussed by the Cabinet or any government committee.

"This topic is not a matter of discussion," the source added.

International debt investors are likely to be tapped by Saudi Arabia once again this year, Jadaan said, but no decision has been taken on the currency of the planned issuance.

Saudi Arabia, which has raised $12 billion from international bond issues this year, has increased local debt issuance significantly from its original plans, the minister said.Also Read: Former Fortis promoter Shivinder Singh gets bail in money laundering case

Also Read: Urban employment rate rises to 35.1% despite lockdowns in major cities: CMIE
A mother of a four-year-old girl thwarted a kidnapping attempt on her daughter as she fought two motorcycle-borne men sent by her brother-in-law to abduct the child to extort money from her father in east Delhi.

The whole incident, which took place on Tuesday, was captured on CCTV cameras.





Police said the 27-year-old uncle of the girl, who planned the kidnapping of the minor girl to exhort money from her parents, was arrested along with his associate in east Delhi's Krishna Nagar area on Wednesday.

Upender, a resident of Krishna Nagar, had planned to abduct his niece in order to extort around Rs 30 to 35 lakh from his brother.

However, his plan failed and he was arrested on Wednesday from Krishan Nagar, a senior police officer said.



The mother of the four-year-old girl fought with the two motorcycle-borne men, sent by Upender, and saved her daughter from being kidnapped.



The video of the incident went viral on social media.



In the video, the woman is seen pulling her daughter from the clutches of the abductors. She pushes the motorcycle rider and the two-wheeler falls on the ground, following which the pillion rider starts running. Later, the rider speeds away the two-wheeler.



One of the neighbours of the victim starts running after the accused persons. Another neighbour parks his scooter in the middle of the road to block their way and nab them. However, both the accused manage to escape the spot.

Police received information regarding an attempt of kidnapping of a four-year-old girl at Shakarpur area on Tuesday. After reaching the spot, they found the accused persons had left a motorcycle and a bag containing one country-made pistol with four live cartridges, police said.



The accused came to the house of the victim around 4 pm and asked for water. When the mother of the girl went inside to bring the water, they tried to abduct the minor. However, the woman saw it and successfully managed to free her daughter, police said.



The accused were doing a recee of the area since the last one week. One of the CCTV footages captured their presence in the area two days ago, police said.



During investigation, police found that the motorcycle had a fake number plate. Later, the owner of the motorcycle was identified as Dheeraj, 24, a resident of New Govindpura, through its chassis and engine numbers, they said.



"Police reached at New Govindpura and found that Dheeraj had vacated the rented house five-years-ago. Later, he was arrested from Jagatpuri area," Deputy Commissioner of Police (east) Jasmeet Singh said.



During interrogation, Dheeraj said Upender, the uncle of victim, was the main conspirator. Upender knew Dheeraj and hatched a conspiracy with him to kidnap the daughter of his brother and promised to give him Rs 1 lakh. On his information, Upender was arrested on Wednesday from the Krishna Nagar area, Singh said.

Police said that Upender is married and has a daughter. Dheeraj also has a daughter.



Upender said he was in debt and planned to extort money from his brother who owns a garment store in Gandhi Nagar, police said, adding that they are trying to nab the absconding accused.
Pompeo, who was in Denmark, spoke remotely to the US-India Business Council Ideas Summit. He said, "The recent clashes initiated by the PLA (People's Liberation Army) are just the latest examples of the CCP's (Chinese Communist Party's) unacceptable behaviour. We were deeply saddened by the death of 20 Indian service members."

Calling India "a key pillar in (President Donald) Trump's foreign policy", he said, "The United States has never been more supportive of India's security."

"I am confident that because of our concerted effort, we can protect our interests," he said.

He added, "I'm happy to report that India is a rising US defence and security partner in the Indo-Pacific and globally."

Pompeo's unequivocal support for India and condemnation of China was in contrast to Trump's recent wavering stand on last month's conflict in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh.

Asked about the possible actions by the US to send a message to China over the conflict, Trump's spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany quoted him as saying, "I love the people of India, and I love the people of China, and I want to do everything possible to keep the peace for the people."

Pompeo has been the face of the US campaign against China on security and diplomatic issues, trying to line up countries on matters ranging from technology to aggressive behaviour in Asia, ranging from Bhutan and India to Taiwan and the Philippines.

On Tuesday, the State Department ordered China to shut down its consulate in Houston within 72 hours citing espionage and intellectual property theft.

In the latest incident, the Justice Department accused two Chinese nationals of trying to hack into the US computer systems to steal Covid-19 vaccine research.

Pompeo said, "I specially commend India's recent decision to ban 59 Chinese mobile apps, including TikTok, which represent serious security risk for the Indian people."

Turning to trade, Pompeo said that India had the opportunity to benefit from the growing distrust of Beijing and bring in businesses and manufacturing from China.

"India has the opportunity to attract global supply chains away from China and reduce its reliance on Chinese companies in areas like telecommunication, medical supplies and others," he said.

"India is in this position because it has earned the trust of many nations around the world, including the United States," he said.

But he added, "India will need to encourage an environment that is more open to increase trade and investment. I know that's possible because Indians and Americans share the spirit of hard-work and entrepreneurship and I'm confident our partnership is only getting stronger."

"The private sector will be indispensable in overcoming the economic damage caused by the pandemic that began in Wuhan, China," he added.

In another area of international cooperation, the Blue Dot Network, an international development effort led by the US as an alternative to China's Belt and Road Initiative that has trapped several countries in debt, Pompeo said Washington wants to work with New Delhi in the "crucial" effort.

He said the US wants to work on it with India "to promote high-quality transparent infrastructure development. This effort is crucial to adopt because free markets are the best way to lift people out of poverty. India has seen that in its own recent past".

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter at @arulouis)

--IANS

al/arm
Police are searching for six teenage boys who attacked a preteen at a Brooklyn deli earlier this month, leaving him with a bruised head.

The New York Police Department released a video of the July 13 attack on Wednesday night and said that the teen was attacked with shopping baskets, soda cans and kicked by his attackers.

While the preteen suffered an injury to his head, the boy did not have any serious injuries, the New York Daily News reports.

The New York Police Department released the video of the July 13 attack on Wednesday night

His mother shared that he is in a lot of pain.

'(He has) pain to his head and shoulder from being hit with the crate, and he was kicked and hit with soda cans and punched in his face repeatedly,' the boy's mother, Valerie Prince, said to CBS 2.

She said the attack was unprovoked.

'He said they came in right away and started beating on him, calling him all types of names,' Prince added.

Video shows the teens pummeling the young victim at around 5.30pm

The assault took place at the First Stop Grocery on Marcy Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant

Video shows the teens pummeling the young victim at around 5.30pm inside the First Stop Grocery on Marcy Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

The group of boys throw numerous small baskets on the boy and can be seen throwing various items at him.

One boy stomps on the victim before everyone flees from the scene.

The clip comes to a close with the youngster still laying on ground but flailing his legs in an attempt to keep the assailants away.

Police are seeking the public's help in identifying the group and say that there are six suspects.
The Satanic Temple is offering its first scholarship to college students - and it's called the Devil's Advocate.

The Salem-based group, which aims to drive a wedge between religion and politics, will award two winners $500.

Co-founder Malcolm Jarry told CNN the scholarship had 50 entries on Wednesday, just two days after applications opened.

He said he was inspired to set up the scholarship by a student who wrote to him for a recommendation for a religious scholarship.

Satanic Temple members gather around a statue of Baphomet, the goat-headed representation of the devil, in Salem, Massachusetts in 2016. The Salem-based group, which aims to drive a wedge between religion and politics, will award two winners $500

He added: 'I was disappointed that she did not receive the scholarship and saw that moment as an opportunity to offer our own scholarship that reflects our values.'

Entrants have to submit a creative answer to one of two questions; what applicants have done to promote the temple's mission or a description of a teacher who 'crushed your spirit, undermined your self-confidence, and made you hate every minute you were forced to be in school'.

Members of Satanic Temple believe Satan is a 'literary construct,' and not real.

Its website says the group advocates the 'pursuit of knowledge,' but does not agree with schooling.

'Students are often expected to praise their schools in spite of the fact that many students endure unconscionable abuse at the hands of faculty, administration, and their peers,' Jarry said.

The Satanic Temple was previously given section 501(c) tax exempt status which puts it in the same bracket as major religions like Catholicism. Members are seen in Santa Cruz in 2018

The Satanic Temple has used symbols of Satan to criticize the use of religious symbols on government property.

It previously petitioned to have a Baphomet statue -- a goat-headed symbol -- in the Oklahoma state Capitol because the building featured a Ten Commandments statue.

The scholarship is open until August 31. Winners will be announced on the temple's website on September 15.

Last year Satanic Temple was given section 501(c) tax exempt status, which put it in the same bracket as major religions such as Catholicism and organizations such as the Salvation Army.

The recognition means the temple, which has 16 chapters in the U.S. and thousands of followers around the world, can apply for certain federal grants.

Anyone who donates money to the group can also write it off as a tax deduction.
STANTON, Kentucky  After a couple of hours of hiking in Kentucky, my group stopped at a creek bed. Filling up little plastic water containers, we ran the water through a small, palm-sized filter into our water bottles.

I watched, nervous, as my partner Mike and two friends took a gulp. I waited a few minutes, to see if anyone looked nauseous. Then, I took a cautious, tiny sip.

All clear. It tasted even better than the tap water Id had in the bottle before  and, I gladly filled the rest of my bottle up for the remaining hike ahead.

Drinking creek water was only one of the firsts Id experienced on our single-night backpacking trip at Red River Gorge in Kentuckys Daniel Boone National Forest, a park thats about a six-hour drive from Cleveland.

Id camped before, and Id hiked before  but I had never done the two together, bringing all my gear in a massive backpack down a 5-mile trail.

(Photo by Anne Nickoloff, cleveland.com)

And, to be clear, Im usually not a minimalist camper. Before this trip, Id bring all the water, soda and snacks I could want in two coolers to my campsite. Plus, Id pack the little extras  two types of camping chair, extra blankets, pillows, lanterns and flashlights. I even bring a little rug to put outside my tent, to make it feel more like home.

Backpacking was nothing like that. I pared down my list to essentials only, feeling lucky that my two friends organizing the trip would share their camping stove and water filters with Mike and me, who were complete newbies to the backpacking world. Equipped with our car tag (an annual pass to Red River Gorge, priced at $30) and our backpacks, we were ready to go for our overnight trip.

The first lesson I learned in backpacking came quickly: Bags are heavy.

(Photo courtesy Joe Satterfield)

My shoulders ached after the first day; my backpack had been filled without much rhyme or reason, with the weight distributed throughout the pack. My friend noted that heavier items should be as low as possible, distributing the weight to your hips instead of the shoulders. Whoops.

Plus, our gear wasnt the ultra-light camping essentials that seasoned backpackers use. We cobbled together thrifted dinner bowls, bulky metal flashlights and stuffed our large Coleman Sundome tent into our bags.

Our hike took us from the Sky Bridge Road, along the Rough Trail, then to the Pinch-Em Tight Trail up to Grays Arch on the first day of the trip, for a total of about five and a half miles, with some extra diversions added in.

While we had tossed around a few ideas for the hiking trip, we picked Daniel Boone National Forest because it was a reasonable distance away from our group members various locations -- one of my friends lives in Cincinnati and the other in Columbus. We all met up in Cincinnati on Thursday, then drove together the two hours to get to Red River Gorge on Friday.

(Photo courtesy Joe Satterfield)

The beginning of the hike took us down and around a river gorge, where the scene looked almost tropical with ferns, mushrooms, colorful flowers and a few snakes all intruding on the shaded path. (I was grateful for having some bug spray for this especially humid portion.)

Then, we worked our way up a ridge to a flat rock summit, with gorgeous views of the hills around us, hit by bright sunshine -- a favorite spot for me.

From there, we took a turn to follow the Pinch-Em Tight trail until we reached the start of the Grays Arch trail, where we set up camp and went down a hill to find some water to cook our dinner. There were no designated campsites; campers just needed to stay at least 300 feet away from trails and roads, and at least 100 feet away from the bases of cliffs or rock shelters.

I have to say, dehydrated teriyaki and a packet of dehydrated mashed potatoes taste really great after a day of munching on trail mix. Also, sleeping on the hard ground with only a thin sleeping bag and a pillowcase stuffed with clothes isnt so bad when youre completely exhausted.

(Photo by Anne Nickoloff, cleveland.com)

The second morning, we enjoyed some coffee, packed up, left our backpacks at our site and hiked out to Grays Arch -- a picturesque spot in Daniel Boone forest thats a highlight for hikers. We ran into several groups of people at the natural stone arch, which towered 50 feet above us and 80 feet across, nestled in the woods. We scrambled up to some flat rocks to hang out for a bit under the stone awning.

(Photo courtesy Daniel Boone National Forest)

While Grays Arch was beautiful, I felt that it paled in comparison to the hike up the ridge where the panoramic, airy views were stunning. Mike found the lush, forested spots around the riverbed to be his favorite.

(Photo courtesy Joe Satterfield)

After checking out Grays Arch, we picked up our packs and headed back on the trail we took to get there. About a third of the way back, rain started sputtering through the trees. I put my rain guard over my bag, but the summer heat kept me from wanting to put on my raincoat.

Another lesson quickly arrived: If I thought my backpack was heavy on the first day, it felt a lot heavier in the rain.

I was grateful for my hiking pole, which helped me navigate the muddy trail and walks through the creek. When we reached a good break spot -- about two-thirds of our way back to the car -- I was exhausted, and nervous about completing the rest of our trip in the rain. The last leg of the trail had a lot of elevation changes, winding around a muddy river bed and up a slick hill to get back to the car.

I volunteered to stay at the spot, close to a road, with all of our backpacks while the rest of the group finished the trail. Mike waited with me for about an hour, while our two friends finished the hike, and then picked us up with the car.

Even though I didnt complete the entire trail on the second day, it undoubtedly felt like an accomplishment to spend a night in the woods and make our way through such a beautiful park.

The entire trip was a welcome vacation, too -- a trip away from home after feeling stuck inside during the coronavirus pandemic for months. In terms of coronavirus safety, the trails werent crowded, and when we occasionally came by other groups or campers, there was enough room to get around each other safely. I never felt nervous about crowds on this hike.

This first-timer knows that shell be backpacking on some nearby trails again, hopefully before the summer is over.

Some backpacking essentials:

-Hiking shoes: Make sure theyre well-fitted and broken in before starting a big hike.

-Backpack: I bought a hiking backpack with an internal frame from Dicks Sporting Goods to help distribute the weight of my gear.

-Clothes: Bring a change of clothes -- or, at least underwear and socks -- for each day of the trip. A light jacket, raincoat and hat are good to have, too.

-Food: Dehydrated meals, ramen noodles and instant coffee work great for breakfasts and dinners. Bring a bowl and utensils as needed.*

*Consider skipping lunches and packing snacks that are energizing and filling (granola bars, trail mix, jerky) instead. It saves space in your backpack, and time -- since theres no preparation.

-Food protection: Bring something to protect your food and toiletries from rodents or, possibly, bears, at night. We used a canister, but bagging and tying your food up in a tree works, too.

-Hydration: We brought Nalgene water bottles and hydration reservoirs for our packs, and used both. We used Sawyer mini water filters to refill at the river.

-First Aid: One of my friends in our group carried a good first-aid kit. Fortunately, we didnt need to use it.

-Map: We didnt have a paper map, but we pre-downloaded the park on Google Maps and used it to pinpoint how far along the trail we were.

-Toiletries: Toothbrush, toothpaste, hand sanitizer, deodorant, toilet paper, and wet wipes were all I brought, since it was a short trip.

-Other helpful items: Sunscreen, bug spray, handkerchief, pocket knife, headlamps, hiking poles, compass.

Editors note: This story has been updated to reflect that camping at Daniel Boone National Forest must take place at least 300 feet away from trails and roads.
Bengaluru, July 24 : The Kempegowda International Airport in the Karnataka capital recently received a consignment of 24,200 ornamental fish from Thailand for an importer in Kerala, an official said on Thursday.

"Bengaluru airport processed a consignment of 24,200 ornamental fish recently. The consignment arrived at Bengaluru airport from Thailand," said an airport official.

Later, the fish were transported to Kerala's Kozhikode, after approvals from the Customs Department and the animal quarantine services in Bengaluru.

"The varieties included Betta Splendens (Fighting Fish) and Flower Horn Fish," said the official.

Adorned with natural colours of blue, white, black, yellow and red, the fishes had wing-like protrusions shooting out of their bodies on all sides.

The fishes been individually packed in a plastic bag each and then in thermocol boxes for the flight and onward transportation to Kerala.

However, the official did not reveal if any of the fish died during the flight. Though the official could not confirm if this was the largest fish consignment handled ever, she confirmed that the airport doesn't usually handle ornamental fish.

Meanwhile, the airport has raised the air conditioning temperature at its terminal and premises to 25 degrees Celsius to adhere to the recommended level in compliance with Covid guidelines issued by the India Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers (ISHRAE) for the operation and maintenance of AC spaces, as also approved by the Central Public Works Department (CPWD).

"Fresh air intake to central AC premises have been enhanced well above the recommended levels. AC temperature set point has been increased to 25 degrees Celsius to comply with recommendations of temperature range between 24-30 degrees Celsius," said the official.

With the new AC temperature guideline, all ACs in the airport will be maintained at a degree above or below 24 degrees Celsius at all times.

Earlier, during normal times, the set point was 23 degrees Celsius.
CHICAGO, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Sikich announced Thursday that it has signed an asset purchase agreement to acquire the operating assets of Heinold Banwart, Ltd., a public accounting firm based in the Peoria, Illinois, area. The move expands Sikich's presence in central Illinois.

"The Heinold Banwart team adds valuable talent to our group and strengthens our position as a leading service provider in this market," said Tom Krehbiel, partner-in-charge of Sikich's CPA services.

Heinold Banwart offers accounting, tax, audit and assurance, retirement plan, management consulting, business valuation, and wealth management services to businesses and organizations across industries, including manufacturing, construction, agribusiness, health care, real estate, not for profit, and local governments.

"We look forward to leveraging Sikich's industry-leading technology capabilities and offering our clients access to an expanded suite of services," said Arthur Anliker, CEO of Heinold Banwart.

Approximately 50 Heinold Banwart employees will join Sikich. Heinold Banwart's Peoria-area office will be Sikich's third in central Illinois, after Springfield and Decatur. The transaction is scheduled to close on Aug. 31.

About Sikich LLP

Sikich LLP is a global company specializing in technology-enabled professional services. With more than 1,000 employees, Sikich draws on a diverse portfolio of technology solutions to deliver transformative digital strategies and ranks as one of the largest CPA firms in the United States. From corporations and not-for-profits to state and local governments, Sikich clients utilize a broad spectrum of services* and products to help them improve performance and achieve long-term, strategic goals.

*Securities offered through Sikich Corporate Finance LLC, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through Sikich Financial, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor.

SOURCE Sikich

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KENT COUNTY, MI  Kent County teachers are asking to be included in administrative discussions about how schools resume learning for the 2020-21 school year amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Kent County Education Association (KCEA) President Dawn Sobleskey told MLive Wednesday, July 22 that some school administrators have not fully collaborated with teachers and staff in the decision-making process with schools scheduled to reopen in a few weeks.

A major concern in Kent County is the current number of infections and what impact that could have on returning to school, Sobleskey said.

We are concerned that an early return to school in Kent County without the following the proper CDC recommendations and protocols could result in a steep climb in infection rates.'

As of Wednesday, Kent County had 5,872 coronavirus cases and 147 deaths, according to state data.

The union issued a press release Wednesday outlining its beliefs on how schools should plan for students to return this fall.

For example, facial coverings to reduce the spread of COVID-19 transmission being worn by all students and staff throughout the day unless medical documentation is provided.

KCEA represents over 4,100 members from the 20 Kent ISD districts including, teachers, paraprofessionals, social workers, speech and other medical, therapists, guidance counselors, bus drivers, secretaries, custodians, food service workers, among others.

Sobleskey said masks should be mandatory for all students and staff this fall. She also said she believes schools should only resume in-person classes with the approval of teachers, staff, and local health officials.

In their press release, the educators said that regardless of whether learning takes place online or in-person, public school students should be taught by public school educators in their districts.

Teachers and support staff build caring relationships with students, and those relationships are crucial to learning, according to the KCEA release.

Each and every public school staff member believes the best place for our students to learn is in the classroom in the care of highly trained professional public educators and support staff in a safe environment.

In the event that in-person learning is not an option, the educators expressed their commitment to providing a quality and supportive educational experience for all students.

Sobleskey voiced her concerns about a lack of consistency among the back-to-school plans for districts across Kent County.

We have been meeting and discussing what has been done so far throughout the county to create the return to school plans for the fall, she said.

What we discovered is the plans that are being created vary greatly, and that includes the level of involvement with KCEA members. Some districts have worked well with KCEA members to collaborate on the health and safety of the students and members, while others have not included KCEA as the voice of our members.

With the exception of Cedar Springs (Sept. 8), Kent County school districts are scheduled to reopen Aug. 24. The region is currently in Phase 4, under the Gov. Gretchen Whitmers reopening plan, and if that status remains then in-person instruction will be permissible.

Local districts are working on their Preparedness and Response Plans that must be approved by school boards by August 15. Districts are planning on face-to-face instruction but each district will also provide an online, remote option, Kent ISD Superintendent Ron Caniff said earlier this month.

We expect Phase 4 Strongly Recommended procedures in Michigans Return to School Roadmap to be implemented to the greatest degree possible. We expect districts to communicate with parents, students, and staff when it is not possible to follow these procedures, according to the KCEA release.

KCEA is affiliated with the Michigan Education Association (MEA).

On Wednesday, MEA President Paula Herbart warned that Michigan teachers wont be bullied by Betsy DeVos or President Donald Trump into returning to in-person learning without the guidance of health professionals.

Let me be perfectly clear about our stance about a return to school in the fall, Herbart said in a video posted by MEA to Facebook. If medical experts say its not safe for us to return to buildings to teach students face-to-face, then we cant and we wont.

Herbart said she doesnt have a problem with teachers returning to schools, as long as the decision is made in full agreement between teachers, health officials and school administrators.

If youre being held out of those conversations, then we will use every tool in our tool box to support you, up to and including legal action, Herbart said in the video.

Ann Arbor teachers voiced similar concerns earlier this month about going back to school this fall. The Ann Arbor Education Association expressed that teachers dont yet feel safe enough returning to in-person classes.

According to KCEA, changes in working conditions, safety protocols, and online instruction must be bargained with local associations.

More on MLive:

Ann Arbor teachers on a return to in-person classes: We do not feel safe

Are Michigan students really going back to school? Teachers, health officials say reopening is a minefield

Lapeer schools push start date to fall, opt to suspend balanced calendar year
Many experts are predicting that Halloween activities like trick-or-treating, parades, and parties will be canceled this year due the pandemic, but candy companies are still hoping to get a boost in sweet sales for the holiday.

And to that end, Hershey's is reportedly already selling pumpkin pie-flavored Kit Kats starting this month.

According to Yahoo, the limited-edition flavor is only getting minor adjustments to the packaging, possibly to account for a more subdued Halloween season.

Summer treat? Hershey's is bringing limited-edition pumpkin pie Kit Kats to stores this month

Scary stuff: Many experts are predicting canceled Halloween activities like trick-or-treating this October, with some cities and theme parks already calling them off (stock image)

Hershey's debuted pumpkin pie Kit Kats in the US in 2017, and they returned again in 2019.

Previously, the packaging was expectedly Halloween-centric, featuring orange Kit Kats dressed up to look like Jack-o-Lanterns.

This year's version, though, seems to be more fall-focused, with pumpkins and changing leaves.

It's not the only Halloween candy the brand is sending to stores so soon, either. According to Delish.com, Hershey's is also releasing Witch's Brew Kit Kats (with green coating and a marshmallow flavor) and Vampire Milk Chocolate Kisses.

Other options on deck from the candy giant include Reeses Franken-Cup Peanut Butter Cups and mini Cookies 'n' Creme with fangs.

But sending Halloween candy to shelves over two months early may be a way for making up for potential lost revenue ahead of a Halloween season that's sure to be unusual.

Several towns and cities across the US from New York to Pennsylvania to Oklahoma have already canceled their Halloween parades and festivities ahead of the October 31 holiday.

More treats: The candy giant also announced Witch's Brew Kit Kats

Yum! The lineup includes Vampire Milk Chocolate Kisses and Reeses Franken-Cup Peanut Butter Cups, too

Another option on deck from the candy giant isi Cookies 'n' Creme with fangs

Even Disney World, which has re-opened its parks with limited capacity, has preemptively called off its Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween celebrations.

'While assessing ... Mickeys Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, we determined that many of its hallmarks  stage shows, parades and fireworks  are unable to take place in this new, unprecedented environment,' Disney said in an announcement in June.

'With that in mind, we have made the difficult decision to cancel this year's Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party.

It's still unclear what that these changes will do for retail sales of items like party decorations, costumes, and candy  though this year's low-key Easter made offer a pattern for Halloween candy sales.

'Its devastating, actually,' John Mandak, owner of Valos Chocolates in Arnold, Pennsylvania, told Trib Live in April. 'About 50 per cent of our business is at Easter. Its not like you can sell Easter candy in July. If you pick a perfect storm this is it.'

According to Bloomberg, Swiss chocolate brand Lindt gets about 15 per cent of its annual sales from Easter, and had heavily marked down products this spring.
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EXCLUSIVE: Narcos producer Gaumont is teaming with producer Grupo Ganga on its first Spanish co-production  a dark surf drama starring Elites Miguel Bernardeau.

The company is developing the project, which will be shot on location in the Canary Islands, as an eight-part one-hour drama.

More from Deadline

The scripted series, which is being spearheaded by Spanish filmmaker Susana Casares, co-exec producer of Netflixs Luis Miguel, is a YA drama set in a fishing village on the Spanish island of Lanzarote.

Playa Negra follows newcomer Hugo, played Bernardeau, in his quest to get close to the man he suspects is his father. In the process, he befriends a tight-knit group of teens who dream of making it big in Lanzarotes competitive surfing scene, and together become unwittingly embroiled in the islands darkest secrets.

Gaumonts SVP, Creative Executive, Head of Latin American and Spain Christian Gabela said the show combines a coming-of-age theme with elements of suspense.

Alongside Susana and Grupo Ganga, we have created a concept that young adult audiences everywhere will identify with as they immerse themselves in not only the beauty of the location and the thrill of the sport but also the complexities facing the characters throughout series, he added.

Grupo Ganga is best known for producing long-running Spanish drama Remember When (Cuentame) for TVE.

Grupo Gangas CEO Miguel Angel Bernardeau said, Playa Negra has all the ingredients to leave a deep impression on an international audience. Lanzarote, an island that we call home, is the most beautiful of all settings, with the power of its waves and volcanic landscape as a source of inspiration. We are creating an unforgettable gallery of characters, in plots where mystery and passion run hand in hand.

Story continues

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A thrifty cook has saved more than $250 by making three grazing boards with ingredients from Aldi instead of ordering platters from private caterers.

When Jenna Ramsden was asked to arrange sharing boards for a friend's baby shower, she headed straight to the German discount supermarket to see what bargains she could find.



The savvy chef from Adelaide, South Australia, posted photos of her platters in a budgeting group on Facebook, saying '90 percent' of the ingredients were bought in Aldi and the remainder from Coles at a total cost of $124.

For that she arranged two savoury boards, one vegan and another filled with an assortment of cured meats, crackers and cheese, and a third stacked with lollies, fruit and chocolate biscuits.

Divided evenly, each platter cost just over $41 - a fraction of the price charged by cafes and restaurants.

Scroll down for video

Three grazing boards made from Aldi ingredients for a total cost of just $124 - a fraction of the price charged by restaurants and caterers

South Australian cook Jenna Ramsden's homemade charcuterie board, filled with cured meats, cheese and crackers

A plant-based grazing board similar to Ms Ramsden's vegan option with dairy-free cheese, roasted vegetables and 'superfood' dip costs $150 from professional caterers Love Bites Bondi.

An antipasto board with salami, cheese and crackers also costs $150.

Adelaide caterers The Grazing Box charges $135 plus $15 delivery fee for its 'Rustic Grazer', which is filled with three cheeses, three meats, olives, crackers and a dip  remarkably similar to one of Ms Ramsden's spreads.

Popular Sydney restaurant The Grounds of Alexandria supplies takeaway dessert boxes of cakes and pastries for $75.

Had Ms Ramsden ordered a vegan, charcuterie and dessert platter from those retailers, she would have paid $375.

That's $251 more than the $124 she spent on her homemade trio, which look equally delicious.

The vegan and dessert boards, made with '90 percent' Aldi ingredients and the remainder from Coles

Ms Ramsden said she was 'so impressed' with what she had made for such an affordable cost, and hundreds agreed.

'These platters are prettier than I could ever be,' one woman said.

A second said she had made a similar board with ingredients from Aldi for $46, and 'had lots of stuff leftover for morning tea the next day that didn't fit on the platter'.

A third said the presentation looked 'very professional' and praised Ms Ramsden's culinary talent.

Others said she had inspired them to shop at Aldi and similar discount supermarkets more often.
While the Lockdown has had various versions  now we are in Lockdown 5 (and Unlockdown2.0. Its all very confusing)  the WFH model has remained pretty much the same. There is no difference between the first couple of weeks and now. Only that the realisation has dawned that we are going to be in this mode for a much longer time than we had initially believed. The temporary adjustment has become a more permanent way of working. And theres talk about what work should look like once the crisis is over. According to a report 59% people want the option of remote working in the post-Covid world. Even surveys that we have done in our company throw up a similar percentage.

According to another report Netherlands has adapted to working from home the best. The simple reason being that even before the pandemic almost 15% of their workers were operating remotely.

So, after more than 100 days of working from home are we finally admitting that this could be the new normal?

Now, I have been a big proponent of focussing on peoples output rather than their input. I dont care whether our staff report to office on time, or at all, as long as the work gets done. I believe people are responsible enough to manage their own time. And this is something I have always encouraged.

However, what we have witnessed for the last few months is different than allowing for flexible working hours or letting some people work from home. First, this time the entire organisation had to work remotely. Rather than having an option to work from home everyone had to work from home. And second, this was working from home while under Lockdown. This meant that there was other, non-office related work, that needed to be done at home. Depending on the situation, it could mean no domestic help, kids at home 24 hours, old parents to look after etc. Third, we got very little notice for getting ourselves organised. And finally, the anxiety around the pandemic which has caused a lot of stress.

Despite all of the above, we have managed rather well. So much so that people have come to believe that this can be a workable model even after the crisis is over.

I agree that it is possible. I wouldnt go so far as to say that there are no benefits to having a physical office  there are many. However, I would certainly look at a scenario where, on any given day, we dont have more that 50% of our staff working in office.

But to institutionalise this we need to take certain measures. And as with most things in any organisation, it starts from the top  the leadership.

Trust: The most important lesson that we should have learnt from our experience of the last 100 days is that we just have to trust our people more. One of the things that has impressed me (and not surprised me at all), is that I have not heard one instance of anyone from my leadership team reporting a lack of total commitment from our employees. In fact, I keep hearing how people are actually more productive, more responsible and more committed. This, when its easy not to be. There is, after all, no real supervision, no one checking if you are at your workstation. I am sure many of our leaders are micro-managers. If we want to make WFH the new normal they will have to let go. They will have to learn to trust their people to manage their own time. Stop peering over their team members shoulders to check if the work is being done. So, we are talking about a new leadership style that is less authoritative and more empowering.

Appraisals, Evaluation and Culture: Similarly, our HR policies need to change. The focus of the appraisals have to be more focussed on the output of the employees and not whether they are seen to be working. According to a report people feel there is pressure on them to report to work. To be seen in office irrespective of whether they are actually working. There is even a term for it presenteeism. Employees report that they feel that their commitment is doubted if they are not seen in office. Our HR people have to change this. And, of course, we have to work on building a new culture and rules of engagement for people working from home. This includes respecting peoples time  having office hours even if people are not in office. Be conscious that striking a work-life balance can become even more difficult when people are working from home.

Home Infrastructure: And finally, obvious but most important, the need to provide staff with appropriate infrastructure. Starting with basic high-speed broadband connection to hardware that is required to operate from home. In fact, we are making an assumption that everyone can work from home easily. In cities like Mumbai with small apartments, it may be difficult for many people to find the appropriate corner in their homes to work from, especially if they live in an extended family. For them, it may not be working from home but still working remotely as they may have the option to go to a cafe to work from rather than from their homes. Once again, the need for tech support  laptops, WiFi dongles

In conclusion, as a knowledge-based industry, we are lucky that we have the genuine option of making WFH or remote working a more permanent solution without losing out on productivity and efficiency. In the bargain, reducing stress for our employees. And, if more companies follow suit, reducing the stress on the creaking infrastructure of our cities and reducing pollution. The lovely clear blue skies that have been shared on social media in the last three months can continue post the current crisis.

Tarun Rai, is the Chairman & Group CEO, Wunderman Thompson

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not in any way represent the views of exchange4media.com.

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On 22 July, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a phone call to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres first expressed his concern over the military stand-off at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and expressed his regret over human casualties. The UN Secretary-General also noted that the status quo in the negotiations on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict could not last forever and called for an end to hostilities and a continuation of negotiations.

President Ilham Aliyev expressed his gratitude to the UN Secretary-General for his phone call and personal attention to the events at the border. The head of state said that the Armenian side had fired not only on Azerbaijani military but also targeted Azerbaijani villages, killing a 76-year-old civilian along with the Azerbaijani servicemen. As a result of an adequate response of the Azerbaijani army, the Armenian attack was stopped and the situation is now relatively stable. President Ilham Aliyev stressed that the clashes took place far from the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts, adding that Azerbaijan has no military goals in the territory of Armenia. We simply have to protect and are protecting our territories and people.

The head of state agreed with the UN Secretary-General that the status quo could not last forever and noted that Azerbaijan had always demonstrated a constructive position at the negotiating table. However, the Armenian prime ministers statements that "Nagorno-Karabakh is Armenia" and that "Azerbaijan should negotiate with Nagorno-Karabakh, not Armenia" seriously jeopardize the negotiations.

The head of state reiterated that Armenia has been flouting UN Security Council resolutions calling for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian forces from all occupied territories of Azerbaijan for nearly 30 years. President Ilham Aliyev once again thanked the UN Secretary-General for the phone call and attention to the events at the border.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Private Equity Investor Blackstone Downplays Its Pain From Battered Hotels

One of the worlds largest real estate investors is downplaying its exposure to the struggling hotel industry, despite decades of notable hospitality investments.

Blackstone, which owned Hilton for 11 years and took a 5 percent stake in Extended Stay America earlier this year, reported a $568 million second quarter profit Thursday. Its logistics and life science real estate holdings propelled the company forward despite the coronavirus pandemic shutting down many parts of the economy.

After raising $20 billion during the second quarter, Blackstone now has a record $156 billion in dry powder capital to deploy for investments. But the company likely wont use much of those cash reserves to protect its own hotel assets.

Overall, as a percentage of our holdings, [hotels and retail are] relatively small, Blackstone President Jonathan Gray said during an earnings call Thursday morning. So we dont expect a lot of dry powder going in that direction.

Hotels and retail  the real estate sectors struggling the most at the moment  account for 13 percent of Blackstones real estate assets. Gray acknowledged there are clear headwinds to both sectors but doubled down on the claim that, given early signs of a travel recovery and the relatively limited exposure to the troubled sectors, there wasnt much of a need to deploy cash.

Other Blackstone executives continued to downplay the firms involvement in the hotel sector. Roughly 80 percent of the firms real estate portfolio are in sectors showing resiliency to coronavirus economic headwinds like warehouses for e-commerce companies, Blackstone Chief Financial Officer Michael Chae said.

Our performance and our platform overall continues to benefit from superior sector selection and asset quality, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman added. Were not concentrated in shopping malls and hotels like other real estate funds, which have negatively impacted their funds.

Green Shoots of Opportunity

Story continues

Despite the smaller involvement in the hospitality sector today, Blackstone isnt entirely turned off by the hotel business. There are opportunities for the firm to invest in hotels and hold onto them ahead of long-term growth, Gray said this week in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

While he did not specifically mention opportunistic hotel investments on Thursdays earnings call, Blackstones roughly 5 percent investment in Extended Stay America earlier this year was driven by early signs the economy extended-stay hotel sector was durable, even when the pandemic effectively shuttered the entire global travel industry.

As you think about more distressed opportunities, in the private market, those are ahead of us, Gray said.

But there is still a long road to recovery, in both the broader economy and especially the travel and leisure sector. Blackstones team touted its strategy of long-term holds as key in being a successful investment vehicle through the pandemic.

The firms 11-year Hilton hold began in 2007 ahead of the Great Recession, and Blackstone wrote down its initial $26 billion investment by 70 percent due to that economic crisis. But Blackstone held on and eventually took Hilton public in 2013. After shedding all of its shares, Blackstone eventually walked away in 2018 from the investment with $14 billion in total profit.

If the right people are in the right seats, you can get enormous outcomes, Schwarzman said.

The hotel industry may just take longer than usual to show any of those hefty results.

In hospitality there is encouraging early demand from certain key assets that have reopened, Chae said. But corporate and group business travel will likely remain depressed for some time, and were preparing for a long recovery.

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A United States court has dismissed the case against Olalekan Ponle, a Nigerian accused of multi-million dollar wire fraud.

Mr Ponle, popularly known as Woodberry, was arrested, alongside Ramon Abbas (Hushpuppi) in the United Arab Emirate on June 10 for multiple fraud charges after a raid by operatives of the Dubai crime unit.

The duo were extradited to the U.S. on July 2.

According to the complaint against Mr Ponle, an unnamed Chicago company was tricked into sending wire transfers totalling $15.2 million. Companies based in Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, New York and California also were victims of the fraud, prosecutors say.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) nabbed Mr Ponle through details accessed from his WhatsApp, iPhone and Bitcoin transactions. He was extradited to the United States on July 2.

The 29-year-old was facing charges bordering on wire fraud conspiracy at a United States District Court in Illinois.

In fact, a report of the grand jury, a group of lawyers empowered to conduct legal proceedings and investigate potential criminal conduct, indicted him.

The jury summed up the allegations against him to an eight-count charge of wire fraud, which violates section 1343 of the United States Codes.

Dismissal

The United States government on Monday filed a motion through its attorney, John R. Lausch, requesting that the case against Mr Ponle should be dismissed without prejudice.

Counsel for the government has spoken with counsel for the defendant and defendants

counsel has no objection to this motion.

Respectfully submitted, Mr Lausch stated.

He said it is in pursuant with Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 48, which states that the government may, with leave of court, dismiss an indictment, information, or complaint.

Also, the government may not dismiss the prosecution during trial without the defendants consent.

A court order issued by Judge Robert W. Gettleman on Tuesday, said the governments motion to dismiss complaint without prejudice was granted.

Without objection the complaint against defendant Ponle is dismissed without prejudice. Motion presentment hearing set for 7/23/2020 is stricken, Mr Gettleman ruled.

When a case is dismissed with prejudice, it is over and done with, once and for all, and cant be brought back to court.

However, when it is dismissed without prejudice, like in the case of Mr Ponle, the dismissal is temporary as the prosecutor can refile the case within a certain period of time.

The probable causes of dismissal range from unavailability of sufficient evidence, an improper criminal complaint or charging document, to loss of evidence necessary to prove the defendant committed the crime.

While PREMIUM TIMES is yet to obtain the reason for the dismissal against Mr Ponle, there are indications that the prosecutor will re-file a case against him.

He is yet to be released from detention at the time of this report.
ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek firefighters on Thursday battled a wind-driven forest fire that burned through pine forest and forced the evacuation of hundreds of people near the seaside village of Kechries in the eastern Peleponnese, officials said.

Thick smoke billowed above treetops licked by flames as more than 236 firefighters tackled the blaze, assisted by four helicopters, eight planes municipal staff and volunteers.

"The fire burned olive and pine trees in a thick forest. Distressing to see residents running around with hoses, it's a sad picture," Anastasis Giolis, vice-prefect of Corinth told state TV ERT.

The fire lightly damaged three homes at the nearby villages of Athikia and Alamano and destroyed one fire truck, without causing any injuries to residents or firefighters.

Officials said they had been forced to order the evacuation of six residential compounds and one summer camp.

Overnight the blaze moved near the villages of Galataki and Agios Ioannis, with thick smoke clouding the area. The Greek fire brigade chief was still in the area to coordinate efforts, officials said.

On Wednesday authorities evacuated settlements as the blaze had come close to a military camp where explosives were stored. They also preventively evacuated the "Summerfun" camp, taking children to a safer area near the village's beach.

Kechries, a village in the municipality of Corinth, takes its name from the ancient port town of Kenchreai. A beauty spot surrounded by lush forest, it is very popular with local bathers.

(Reporting by George Georgiopoulos and Vassilis Triantafyllou, Editing by William Maclean)
The French presidents remarks refer to Turkeys plans for energy exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean.

French President Emmanuel Macron has denounced what he called Turkeys violation of the sovereignty of Greece and Cyprus, as tensions mount between Athens and Ankara.

Macron made the remarks on Thursday, referring to Turkeys plans for energy exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean.

I want once again to reiterate Frances full solidarity with Cyprus and also with Greece in the face of Turkeys violation of their sovereignty, he said before talks with his Cypriot counterpart Nicos Anastasiades at the Elysee Palace in Paris.

It is not acceptable for the maritime space of a member state of our Union to be violated or threatened. Those who contribute must be sanctioned.

Greeces navy said on Wednesday that it had deployed ships in the Aegean in heightened readiness after Turkey announced plans for energy exploration near a Greek island in an area it claims is within Turkeys continental shelf.

Greek government spokesman Stelios Petsas said on Thursday: The government is underlining to all parties that Greece will not accept a violation of its sovereignty and will do whatever is necessary to defend its sovereign rights.

Turkey is at odds with Greece and the European Union over maritime rights in the Eastern Mediterranean amid a scramble for resources following the discovery of huge gas reserves in recent years.

Energy and security issues in the area are the subject of power struggles, particularly of Turkey and Russia, about which the European Union was not doing enough, Macron said.

Anastasiades agreed there was a void on the part of Europe on this issue, adding that Macrons initiatives offered a glimmer of hope that the Mediterranean will not be under the control of Turkey or another country.

Libya

Concerning Libya, Macron said foreign powers whoever they are cannot be allowed to violate a UN embargo on sending weapons to the war-torn country.

Turkey supports the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), which is fighting for control of the country against eastern-based renegade commander Khalifa Haftar.

Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia all back Haftars claims.

Arms sanctions, Macron said, were necessary to achieve a ceasefire and unlock a real dynamic towards a political resolution of the Libyan conflict.

France, which denies supporting Haftar but has long been suspected of favouring him, angrily condemned Ankara last month after it said a French navy ship was targeted by a Turkish frigates missile radar while inspecting cargo en route to Libya.

More broadly, Europe must undertake a thorough reflection on the security issues in the Mediterranean, said Macron, who will host a summit of countries of the southern European Union at the end of August or early September.
'Was Jesus a socialist?': Economist explains why some wrongly think Jesus favors socialism

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Economist and author Lawrence Reed is pushing back against arguments that Jesus was a socialist and refuted the ideas of Christian socialism while speaking with conservative Christian radio host Eric Metaxas this week.

Reed, president emeritus of the Foundation for Economic Education, authored the June 2020 book Was Jesus a Socialist?: Why This Question Is Being Asked Again, and Why the Answer Is Almost Always Wrong.

Reed was interviewed by Metaxas in a video posted to YouTube Tuesday. He pushed back against those that blend the ideas of Christianity with left-wing economic policies that tend to focus on higher taxation and more welfare benefits for the underserved populations.

Reed, who also authored the 2015 title Rendering Unto Caesar: Was Jesus A Socialist?, explained that he believed that many falsely claim that Jesus was a socialist because they superficially equate socialism with compassion and the idea of helping other people.

There are a lot of young people who come out of high school and college these days whove been told by their teachers that socialism is nothing more than wanting to help people when of course you can do that under capitalism, said Reed.

When you dig a little deeper, you discover that socialism is not voluntary. It is the use of force to accomplish certain objectives and Jesus never advocated any such thing.

Reed quoted former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who reportedly once said that Jesus was the first socialist because he was the first to seek a better life for mankind.

Well, if thats all that [a] socialist is, then just about everybody must be one. But of course, thats not what its all about, Reed responded.

The case that socialism rests upon force is one that we just have to make more strongly to convince people because theyre just utterly unaware of it, thanks to academia.

Reed went on to note contradictions between socialism, which involves the state-sponsored redistribution of wealth, and how Jesus approached charity.

Specifically, Reed referenced a passage from Luke 12 in which an individual approached Jesus and asked him to tell his brother to divide an inheritance. Jesus refused to do so. In the passage, Jesus asked the man who appointed Him to be the arbiter between the two brothers.

Thats what socialists are doing all the time. They act as judges and dividers over the rest of us and they want to do more of it, Reed argued. I see no statement that [Jesus] ever made that supports forcible redistribution of wealth.

While rebutting the idea that Jesus was a socialist, Reed also rejected using the term capitalist to describe Jesus as well.

Reed said that both words arose some 1,800 years after his crucifixion. Reed warned that both words would limit [Jesus] to but a fraction of who He was and what He had to say.

In his new book released last month, Reed explained that more and more advocates are trying to convince Christians that Jesus was a socialist as socialism has come back into vogue.

This rhetoric has had an impact, an online synopsis of the book reads. According to a 2016 poll by the Barna Group, Americans think socialism aligns better with Jesuss teachings than capitalism does.

In the book, Reed answers the claims  point by point  of socialists and progressives who try to enlist Jesus in their causes.

Reed contends that nothing in the New Testament supports their contentions.

Some Christian apologists, among them author and speaker Alex McFarland, believe that more efforts should be made by churches to refute the claims of socialism.

When it comes to defending God or the Bible or Jesus, there are a lot of great apologists, said McFarland to The Christian Post in an interview last month.

But in terms of apologists specifically addressing the political schemes of the left, and by name calling out people that have malicious designs for America, most apologists don't have the fortitude to really get in the down and dirty fray of defending the country or the economic model that has been our M.O. for two centuries plus.
Against the backdrop of mounting tensions between Western nations and China, Japan is taking new steps to safeguard its own advanced research, including tightening the screening of foreign students and researchers to prevent leaks to foreign countries of advanced technologies, particularly those with possible military applications. Visas for foreign researchers will be more closely reviewed.

The Japanese government has stated that financial aid will not be granted for university research if there are concerns or risks of technology outflow.

Under proposed new rules, domestic researchers will be required to disclose foreign funding sources when applying for Japanese research subsidies. This was not required in the past.

On 17 July Japanas cabinet adopted the Integrated Innovation Strategy 2020 which includes new steps to monitor ongoing international research collaboration. The proposed change warns that aleaks of technical information and talent have already occurred as a result of active information collection by countriesa.

The strategy includes support to raise awareness among Japanese companies, universities and research organisations about information leakage and technology theft and to beef up coordination between ministries and agencies to strengthen security measures.

Universities and research organisations will be provided with support to strengthen security, including access to sensitive and confidential technological information.

aThe new strategy is in response to similar steps taken in Western countries to protect domestic technology from theft. We will follow the governmentas measures, which still need to be ironed out, with detailed steps for better monitoring,a explained Kimiyo Saito, spokesperson for the Integrated Innovation Strategy Promotion Council, a funding entity under the Cabinet Office.

Aligning with Western policies

In late June, Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy Naokazu Takemoto said at a press conference he would investigate reports that students and researchers from China had been involved in transferring technology from United States universities to China, in order to adecide how universities in our country should respond to such casesa.

A number of Chinese academics at universities and other organisations in the US have been charged with failing to disclose research funding from China, or transferring research and intellectual property to China.

Most recently, a US federal court this week charged a Stanford University visiting researcher, alleged to be an active duty member of the Chinese military, with visa fraud for not disclosing her military status while conducting medical research at Stanford.

In May the US administration announced a visa ban on graduate students from China who are aassociated with entities in China that implement or support Chinaas military-civil fusion strategya.

The US has controls on exports, including research conducted by foreign nationals, that include a growing list of Chinese organisations and universities. US trade sanctions can also target third countries that collaborate with military-linked entities.

Experts view the Japanese government moves as aligning with the West.

aPolitically speaking, as Japan is a close ally of the United States, it is expected to pursue a confrontational approach with China that is retaliating with equal force,a said Futao Huang, a professor at the Research Institute for Higher Education at Hiroshima University in Japan.

Target is Chinese researchers, students

aThe target of the new strategy will focus on Chinese students and researchers, especially those working in hard science sectors related to military research or sensitive fields.a

However, Huang does not expect a big overall impact on Japanese universities from the new research guidelines. aThe focus is on technology that can be linked to potential military applications. I donat believe there is the same concern over social research,a he explained.

Others worry that the pressure on Japan from its Western allies will affect higher education ties with China.

aJapan and China have close relations and joint research and exchanges between the two countries have been strong and supported by both governments,a said Akira Ishikawa, a researcher at the government-affiliated China Research and Sakura Science Center, which supports academic ties between Japan and China.

Chinese graduate students comprise around 50% of research students in top universities in Japan such as the University of Tokyo. Most top Japanese universities, such as the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Hokkaido University and the private Waseda University, have offices in Beijing and are pursuing closer bilateral academic ties.

Public funding from China has supported joint research at these universities, including in the fast-growing information technology and autonomous driving technology fields. Banning research funding for at-risk universities could have serious knock-on effects for Japanese research.

Japan has strong technology exchanges with the United States. The Nikkei newspaper reported on 23 June that Washington has been warning Japan about technology drain to China, but Japan has not been able to grasp the full picture. The US has also admitted it does not have full details of Chinese institutionsa military links.

Japanas education ministry reported in March 2018 that total subsidies to Japanese government-backed universities amounted to JPY260 billion (US$2.4 billion).

The new strategy that calls for stricter management of foreign researchers and students could affect university research because, although this figure is limited compared to the JPY3.6 trillion spent on R&D in 2018, the initial public subsidy has a ripple effect, attracting funding from other organisations, and experts have pointed out that the line between civil and military research in many technologies, including aerospace and artificial intelligence, can be blurred.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 10:17:54|Editor: huaxia

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SYDNEY, July 23 (Xinhua) -- A jump in COVID-19 cases has prompted officials in Papua New Guinea (PNG) to introduce mandatory wearing of face masks across the capital city of Port Moresby.

Prime Minister James Marape announced the measures on Wednesday following a surge in local infections, which went from 12 to 27 in less than a week.

The recent outbreak was centred around the Port Moresby General Hospital, originating with a cluster at a COVID-19 swab testing laboratory attached to the hospital.

While contact tracing was underway, the extent of community transmission within the densely-occupied capital remained difficult to determine.

Marape said that additional measures could be introduced such as the closure of some hospitality venues and stagger school class times to allow greater social distancing.

In an interview with local media earlier in the week, Marape expressed concern that the country was not well positioned to handle a wider outbreak of the disease, according to The Post Courier.

According to the report, Marape said that the country only had 177 ICU beds and around 40 ventilators. He added that there was a "severe" lack of masks and encouraged the public to start making their own. Enditem
President Trumps latest attack on our hard-working immigrant communities is outrageous and must be stopped, Meng said in a statement. It not only advances his anti-immigrant agenda but seeks to undermine the census. Under the law, everyone in the U.S. must be counted, not just those who he wants to count.
Disney World's Florida parks are predicted to face a drop of 100 million visitors over the next two years due to the coronavirus pandemic, new research shows.

Walt Disney World's four theme parks - Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom - could see 97.7 million fewer visitors in fiscal years 2020 and 2021, according to the report's predictions from Wall Street analysts Cowen and Company.

'With the spread of COVID-19 having accelerated in the US, we expect a prolonged impact to Disneys parks,' the report reads.

The lasting impact on Disney could last until about 2025, the year analysts believe the company will finally bounce back from the pandemic and return to profitability.

In fiscal year 2020, Disney's parks are expected to see a 47 per cent drop followed by a 35 per cent drop in fiscal year 2021, according to the Cowen report.

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Disney World's Florida parks are predicted to face a drop of 100 million visitors over the next two years due to the coronavirus pandemic, new research shows. Visitors are seen at Magic Kingdom on July 14

Walt Disney World welcomed guests back into the Happiest Place on Earth when the Florida amusement park reopened on July 11 (pictured)

'We had previously assumed that the spread of COVID-19 would be relatively halted with social distancing requirements significantly lessened by late 2020,' according the report reads.

'We have now extended that timeline out to at least mid-2021. The situation remains very fluid and we do not rule out the possibility that the impact could last even longer.'

Meanwhile, Disneyland is projected to see a 32 million visitor drop over the next two years.

In 2019, Disneyland reported 18.7 million visitors, but that number is expected to drop to 6.4 million in 2021, according to the report.

Disneys Anaheim theme parks are currently closed until further notice.

But Walt Disney World welcomed guests back into the Happiest Place on Earth when the Florida amusement park reopened on July 11.

In fiscal year 2020, Disney's parks are expected to see a 47 per cent drop followed by a 35 per cent drop in fiscal year 2021, according to the Cowen report

However, Disney officials have already had to fix a glaring loophole in its face mask policies.

The company has banned guests from dining while walking through its parks, telling visitors that they must be stationary and socially distanced if they want to remove their masks to eat.

The initial policy asked that visitors 'please bring your own face coverings and wear them at all times, except when dining or swimming'.

But the new policy, updated on Monday, clarified that guests 'may remove your face covering while actively eating or drinking, but you should be stationary and maintain appropriate physical distancing'.

The park enforced a strict curriculum for what qualifies as a proper face mask, which prohibits 'open-chin triangle bandanas,' popular 'neck gaieters' and costume masks.

Face coverings worn at Disney World must be made of at least two layers of breathable material, fully cover the nose and mother, and be secured with some form of ties.

More than 3.9 million cases of the virus have been confirmed in the US with at least 143,193 deaths

Both Disneyland and Disney World's parks are located in two states that are currently seeing a rise in coronavirus cases.

California, which earned plaudits from health officials for aggressive early action that included the first statewide stay-at-home order, is among states seeing a surge.

On Wednesday, California reported its highest number of infections with nearly 13,000 cases. The state has also passed New York for the most confirmed cases with 409,000.

Meanwhile, Florida reported another 9,785 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday and an additional 139 deaths.

There are a total of 379,619 Florida cases with 5,345 deaths related to COVID-19.

As of Thursday there are more than 3.9 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the US, which is far more than the infection rate that any other country has reported, and the death toll is more than 143,000.
Ever since Sushant Singh Rajput died by suicide, many netizens vowed to bring justice to the deceased actor and his family. Though the Mumbai Police is investigating the case diligently and has interrogated a lot of people including Sushant's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty, many netizens requested the government for a CBI enquiry. Apart from the netizens, actor Shekhar Suman also requested the same and many people came out in his support!

Yesterday, many people lit candles/diyas and came together for a peaceful digital protest on Twitter. The hashtag #Candles4SSR trended on Twitter and has garnered more than one million posts under its name. Many celebrities like Kangana Ranaut, Ankita Lokhande, Mukesh Chhabra and Shekhar Suman joined the digital protest.

A few hours ago, Shekhar Suman tweeted, "You can literally feel that the entire world is now joining hands with us in the movement #justiceforSushantforum we all started.The positive forces are coming together to create a tsunami which will engulf the entire nation in time to come.#CBIEnquiryForSSR."

In another tweet, he wrote, "We cannot grudge if Sushant's family is not coming forward. We should respect their personal space. We shld not even get into the reasons behind it. We should just follow our hearts. Nothing else matters except Sushant and only Sushant #CBIEnquiryForSSR."

He further tweeted, "Our focus has to be just ONE thing.#CBIEnquiryForSSR. I feel his death is being used to settle personal scores, create fake stories for commercial purposes, useless TV debates, enemities, accusations and endless allegations. Have a heart. Just fight for justice."

Sushant Singh Rajput's Death: Rhea Chakraborty Requests Amit Shah To Initiate CBI Enquiry

Shekhar also urged TV channels to support the cause and tweeted, "Yes Arnab is supporting the cause, kudos to him. But this too happened bcoz all of us raised a strong voice that the national tv was ignoring his death. We request all the other channels to also take it up ev day. Thank you."

(Social media posts are unedited.)
Former Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, has been made a member of Parliaments standing committee on external affairs while NCP leader Sharad Pawar has entered another key House paneldefencein a massive rejig to accommodate 65 MPs of the Rajya Sabha.

Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu also nominated former union minister and BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia in the human resource development panel which will have BJPs Vinay Sahasrabuddhe as the new chairman. The rejig in the HRD panel comes at a crucial time when the Covid-19 pandemic has altered the traditional education landscape, forced millions of students to go online, deferred key competitive exams and also when the NDA government is set to unveil its new education policy.

The newly-elected Rajya Sabha members have been distributed seats in all 24 department-related standing committees of Parliament on Thursday, days before its monsoon session is set to begin. This round of allotment of panel seats to the MPs also come when the Covid-19 pandemic, India-China border tensions, economic situation, migrant labourers are raging issues of debate in the country.

The Indian Parliament has 24 standing committees of which 8 are headed by Rajya Sabha members while the remaining 16 are led by lawmakers from Lok Sabha. Every member is entitled to be a member of a standing committee.

Seven panelshome affairs, agriculture, external affairs, finance, petroleum, science and technology and industrygot one new member each. And energy panel got the maximum allotment (6), followed by 5 members each in urban development and social justice panels.

Nominated MP Gogoi is the lone new entrant in the foreign affairs panel, Pawar is accompanied by RJDs Prem Chand Gupta and Congress Rajiv Satav in the defence committee which also has Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as its member.

Former Union Coal Minister Shibu Soren, who had stepped down from the Manmohan Singh cabinet after an arrest warrant was issued, is now part of the coal and steel committee. CPI(M)s Elamaram Kareem has been given the finance panel whose chairmanship was taken away from the Congress last year. Former railway minister and senior Trinamool Congress leader Dinesh Trivedi is in the home affairs panel.

While all the new MPs (barring minister Ramdas Athawale), have been given berths in different panels, 16 MPs including former prime minister HD Deve Gowda would participate only after taking oath.

Along with Scindia, BJPs Bhubneswar Kalita, GK Vasan of the Tamil Maanila Congress (M) and ADMKs Tmabi Durai are in the HRD panel.

Among the prominent BJP MPs, Sudhanshu Trivedi is in the energy panel, Ashok Gasti in social justice and empowerment, Arun Singh is in water resources, Roopa Ganguly in food and consumer affairs and Sanajaoba Leishemba is in the science and technology panel.

Among the prominent Congress leaders, Mallikarjun Kharge is in commerce, Digvijaya Singh in urban development, KC Venugopal is in transport, tourism and culture, Shaktisinh Gohil in Information Technology and Deepender Singh in the law and justice committee.

Shiv Senas Priyanka Chaturvedi has got a slot in the commerce panel.

Even as the pending vacancies in the panels are filled up, the industry committee would not be able to meet as its chairman, K Kesava Rao, could not take oath on Wednesday, when 45 of the 61 new members including 36 first timers were administered oath. A senior Rajya Sabha official said, If a member has not taken oath, he cant participate in the business of the House and panels are an extension of the House.
M Abdul Rabi By

Express News Service

NAGERCOIL: After facing months of hardship and the pandemic in a foreign country, the recently repatriated Kanniyakumari fishermen are already bracing for another hurdle as fear of livelihood and questions about the future caught hold of them. Some said the future looks bleak as they mulled over how to reclaim their lost livelihood and support their debt-ridden families.

On July 1, 535 Kanniyakumari district fishermen, who were stranded in Iran, arrived in the first batch. Two weeks later, 58 more, including 24 from Kanniyakumari district, arrived in the next batch.



A fisherman from Colachel, A John Kennady, had recently completed his quarantine. He said that he could not even earn the `1 lakh he had spent to go to Iran, as the pandemic broke out just after he had landed in the foreign country. John, a father of two, has been struggling to repay the loans and support his family.

With the pandemic spread, it was difficult to go for fishing, said one S Jesu Reegan from Kanniyakumari.

Despite being glad to return home to his family, he said, he was afraid of the fear of livelihood loss.

A Selvaraj of Manakudi has been observing quarantine at a facility in Azhagappapuram. He said that himself and the 23 fishermen he had arrived with were being given food and care, but he has been consumed by the fear of his future.

South Asian Fishermen Fraternity General Secretary Father A Churchil requested the government to provide them financial assistance, as given during the fishing ban. Besides, boats and fishing equipment should be provided to them, he added.

Meenavar Orunginaippu Sangam General Secretary Captain Johnson said that the State Fisheries Department and the district administration helped the fishermen reach the district, after they had arrived at the Thoothukudi Port in INS Jalashwa ship and the Chennai airport in a flight.

While most of the fishermen arrived in the ship, 58 were left stranded as they could not board the ship. Hearing their plight, one Sanjay Prashar, a private maritime shipping founder from Himachal Pradesh, covered the ticket cost for their flight journey, said Johnson, requesting the government to help them revive their livelihood.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 20:26:39|Editor: huaxia

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JERUSALEM, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Israel said on Thursday it was sending a delegation of researchers to India to examine new rapid COVID-19 tests on thousands of Indian patients in cooperation with Indian authorities.

The 20-member delegation, headed by the defense ministry's Directorate of Defense Research and Development, is expected to depart in the coming weeks, according to a statement issued by the foreign ministry.

The tests are aimed at completing the final testing stages of four coronavirus diagnostic technologies, including a voice test, breathalyzer test based on terahertz waves, isothermal test, and polyamino acids test.

"In order to complete the study and prove its effectiveness, the (technologies) must be tested on a wide range of verified patients," the foreign ministry said in the statement, adding it would be difficult to recruit a large number of patients in Israel in a short time.

Israel hopes to collect "tens of thousands" of samples within 10 days and transfer them for analysis.

The professional Indian staff include some 100 persons that will help in carrying out the research, in addition to "dozens" of workers who will build the testing compounds in which the experiments will be held, according to the foreign ministry.

Israel and India have agreed to cooperate on coronavirus research already in the early stages of the pandemic, it added.

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz expressed hope that the research efforts "will bring a breakthrough that will change the way we diagnose the virus and fight it."

Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said the cooperation with India "sends a message of friendship and solidarity and is an opportunity for unique scientific and technological cooperation that can help Israel, India and the whole world."

Israel is struggling with a rapid resurgence of the coronavirus, which emerged after the country started reopening schools and businesses in May.

On Wednesday, the Israeli health ministry reported 2,043 new coronavirus cases, the biggest daily increase since February, raising the tally in the country to 56,085. Enditem
The high prevalence of COVID-19



infections in and will help test the efficacy of the vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, its local manufacturer (SII) has said.

By end of August, between 4,000 to 5,000 people in and will be injected with the vaccine as part of trials that are scheduled to last over two months, SII said.

Oxford University has reported satisfactory progress from the vaccines test results and is conducting bigger field tests in the UK. In India, it has chosen SII as manufacturing partner, which has to conduct field trials before getting the final nod to ensure they are safe and effective for Indians.

While Pine district has over 59,000 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, has 1.03 lakh such cases. Both the cities account for almost half the positive cases in and over a 10th of the cases in India.

There are a number of trial sites across both Mumbai and Punethat we have shortlisted, as these cities have many hotspots, which will help us understand the efficacy of the vaccine, the companys chief executive Adar Poonawalla told PTI in an email interview.

He said the company aims to commence the crucial phase-3 of the trials of the vaccine christened as Covishield in India by August after getting the necessary permissions from the Drug Controller General of India.

"The Indian regulatory authorities have aided us in fast-tracking approvals keeping in mind the requisite guidelines of safety and efficacy, Poonawalla said.

We do not want to rush and would focus only on delivering a viable and effective productfor the masses, he said.

His father and company chairman Cyrus Poonawalla had on Tuesday said SII is aiming to sell the vaccine for under Rs 1,000 per dose in India.

Adar Poonawalla said the company aims to manufacture300 million to400 million doses by the year-end, following the success of initial and licensure trials.

He said as part of the agreement with AstraZeneca, SII can manufacture 1 billion doses for India and nearly 70 low and middle income countries.

There are no challenges in the manufacturing of the vaccine doses and the company will be starting by making 60-70 million doses per day, he said.

He had earlier explained that the COVID-19 vaccine project is a USD 200 million bet, wherein it is investing in production even as the vaccine goes through the trials process, so as to ensure that it can introduce a large volume of the vaccines in the market as soon as the license is received. However, if this candidate fails, the company will lose the money.

"Our facility is well-equipped with state-of-the-art technology to manufacture the COVID-19 vaccine. We plan to start productionpost regulatory approvals, Poonawala said.
PRETORIA (dpa-AFX) - South Africa's wholesale sales declined sharply in May, though at a softer pace, data from Statistics South Africa showed on Thursday. Wholesale sales decreased an unadjusted 20.7 percent year-on-year in May, following a 42.6 percent rise in April. This was the third consecutive fall in sales. The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown regulations since March 27 have had an extensive impact on economic activity, the statistical office said. On a monthly basis, wholesale sales grew a seasonally adjusted 29.7 percent in May, after a 35.4 percent decline in the preceding month. For the three months ended in May, wholesale sales fell 18.3 percent, following a 13.1 percent decrease in the previous three months ended in April. 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.
China has threatened to withdraw its recognition of British National Overseas passports held by residents of Hong Kong.

Beijing is looking to retaliate for the former colonial ruler's policy of easing their path to citizenship.

Starting from January 2021, those in Hong Kong with such status would be able to apply for special visas to live in Britain that could eventually confer citizenship.

China claims this is interfering in domestic affairs, calling it a flagrant violation of Britain's promises, international law and principles of international relations.

Beijing is looking to retaliate for the former colonial ruler's policy of easing their path to citizenship. Pictured: People in Hong Kong holding British passports last month

China (pictured, foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin today) claims this is interfering in domestic affairs, calling it a flagrant violation of Britain's promises, international law and principles of international relations

Spokesman Wang Wenbin said: 'As the English side is the first to violate the promise, China will consider not recognising BNO passports as a valid travel document, and reserves the right to take further measures.'

Before Britain's offer China did not recognise such passports as a valid document for mainland entry by residents of Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Instead, it required them to use travel permits issued by China.

London's decision, which could allow nearly three million Hong Kong residents to settle in Britain, came after Beijing imposed a new security law that democracy activists fear would end the freedoms promised to the territory in 1997.

In a statement, the British consulate in Hong Kong said the immigration route granting the right to live, work or study in Britain was offered following the Chinese government's decision to impose the new national security law.

Britain says the law breaches the terms of the handover treaty agreed in 1984. China accuses the UK of interfering in Hong Kong and Chinese affairs.

China's embassy in London said in a statement: 'The Chinese side urges the British side to recognise the reality that Hong Kong has returned to China, to look at the Hong Kong national security law objectively and immediately correct its mistakes.'

It comes as it emerged today young Hongkongers may not be given an automatic right to move to the UK and will need to prove they still live with their parents. Pictured: Priti Patel Tuesday

It comes as it emerged today young Hongkongers may not be given an automatic right to move to the UK and will need to prove they still live with their parents.

More details of the Home Office's immigration plans to help grant rights to British National Overseas citizens who live in Hong Kong so they can come to live and work in the UK were announced on Wednesday.

Why is the UK suspending its extradition treaty with Hong Kong? China imposed a new national security law on Hong Kong at the end of June this year. The controversial legislation criminalises secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces but also curtails rights to protest and freedom of speech. Crucially, the rules apply outside the borders of China. This has stoked fears Beijing could try to use the extradition mechanism to drag any overseas residents involved in pro-democracy activism back to Hong Kong. The UK does currently have an extradition treaty with Hong Kong but it does not have one with China. There are fears that people could be extradited back to Hong Kong to be unfairly punished. Canada and Australia have both already suspended their extradition arrangements with Hong Kong with the US currently considering whether to also follow suit. Advertisement

Earlier the UK suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and slapped an arms embargo on the territory in response to China's national security law.

But questions have remained about how the immigration measures can protect the rights of 18 to 23-year-olds, who are too young to have been able to register for BNO status like their parents.

The news is likely to spark concern among campaigners who have previously warned measures could exclude the youngsters - who are more likely to be the target of authorities as they have been most active in demonstrations.

Officials said the arrangements will prevent families being split up and allow BNOs to come to the UK with their spouses, children under the age of 18 and any adult children they have, as long as they are still a 'family unit'. For example, if they still live with their parents or are dependants in some form.

The Government may grant permission for other cases under exceptional circumstances - such as for elderly parents of BNOs who need care.

Last week, Home Secretary Priti Patel sought to give assurances to MPs raising questions about the concerns over youngsters, saying that she was 'actively looking at that particular age group and cohort' and considering a 'number of options'.

On Wednesday, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: 'Today's announcement shows the UK is keeping its word: we will not look the other way on Hong Kong, and we will not duck our historic responsibilities to its people.'

Around three million people are thought to be eligible for BNO status and there are around 366,000 passports in circulation.

Those born after 1997 are too young to have been able to register, but some will be too old to be considered a child under the UK immigration system.

The Home Office is still trying to establish how many people it expects could come to the UK under the new immigration rules.

From January, BNOs and their immediate family can apply for 30-month or five-year visas to live, work and study in the UK and can seek British citizenship once they have been in the country for more than five years.

How the Hong Kong row between China and the UK unfolded June 2: Dominic Raab urges China not to go ahead with a proposed national security law and says the UK will offer a path to citizenship for Hong Kongers with BNO status if Beijing proceeds. June 30: The Chinese government decides to go ahead with imposing the law despite mounting international pressure, prompting an instant rebuke from the UK. July 1: Mr Raab makes a formal offer to up to three million Hong Kongers to come to the UK and announces a review of extradition arrangements. July 3: Canada suspends its extradition treaty with Hong Kong. July 6: China'a Ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, accuses Britain of a 'gross interference in China's internal affairs'. July 9: Australia suspends its extradition treaty with Hong Kong. July 20: The Foreign Secretary announced the UK is also suspending extradition arrangements with the former British colony. Advertisement

They will not need a job or a valid passport to apply. They can use an expired passport to provide their identity or the Home Office has pledged to help confirm the status of those without documentation.

Although applicants will be able to access healthcare and go to school, they will not initially have access to benefits and will need to prove they can support themselves financially for the first six months of their stay.

They also have to provide a tuberculosis test certificate and show a commitment to speaking English.

Criminal history will be taken into account but it is unclear how immigration officials will view convictions for participating in protests, which constitute breaking China's national security laws.

Applicants will have to pay for the visa and the immigration health surcharge, but the cost of the fees are still being decided. If they wish to remain in the country permanently they will need to later pay a settlement fee of around 2,400.

It is unclear what support could be offered for applicants with financial difficulties.

While the upfront costs of the 30-month visa will be cheaper, it would have to be resubmitted for those keen to stay in the country after it expires.

Before January, people with a valid Hong Kong passport can turn up at the UK border and will be granted entry for six months. They can then apply for the new visas or any others as part of the immigration system where they meet the criteria.

This means young Hongkongers may be able to enter the UK without their BNO parents and then apply for the youth mobility scheme or as skilled workers under the forthcoming points-based system instead, if eligible.

Questions still remain over how the rights of BNOs will be protected if China resists the measures, and whether there are fears Chinese agents could seek to exploit the new immigration route to the UK.

While the Government cannot force China into allowing Hong Kong citizens to leave, it is expected to live up to its international obligations, a spokesman said.
The rains have returned to northern Senegal, carpeting a daunting semi-desert landscape in emerald grass.

Camels tuck into fresh baobab leaves in Barkedji. The animals have been herded in by Mauritanians, who head south into Senegal at this time because the rains there come earlier than at home. By JOHN WESSELS (AFP)

The downpours are welcome news for thousands of Fulani pastoralists in the region -- doughty people for whom this year was harder than most.

Herders usually move north to south across Senegal as the pasture dries up, before returning north again with the summer rains.

Sheep cluster together as storm clouds gather near Barkedji. By JOHN WESSELS (AFP)

For these semi-nomadic people, livestock is nearly their sole source of income.

But many found themselves caught in the sparsely populated semi-desert -- with little to no grazing for their animals -- when Senegal enacted coronavirus restrictions in March.

Nomadic life: A Fulani pastoralist carries lambs in her donkey cart as her community heads north. By JOHN WESSELS (AFP)

Now, with travel restrictions lifted, and with the first rains last week, many of the Fulani have packed up their temporary camps and are returning north.

Families travel slowly by donkey cart, lugging bedding, pots and cans, surrounded by their animals. They camp by the side of the road.

The slow march north is not without its hazards, however.

A Fulani herder lost 15 sheep in flash floods -- a huge loss. By JOHN WESSELS (AFP)

Long months of drought have hardened the ground, and heavy rains last week caused flash flooding outside the small market town of Barkedji.

Makeshift camps were destroyed, and one family near the town lost 15 head of sheep, a fortune, in the downpour.
ABC NewsBY: CHRISTINA CARREGA



(MINNEAPOLIS) -- The former Minneapolis police officer accused of killing George Floyd is also facing multiple felony charges of tax evasion.



Derek Chauvin and his estranged wife, Kellie May Chauvin, were charged on Wednesday by Washington County prosecutors with failing to file their taxes since 2016 and filing fraudulent returns since 2014.



The couple, who have two homes in Oakdale, Minnesota, and one in Windermere, Florida, owe $37,868 in taxes and penalties, according to the criminal complaint.



Derek Chauvin is currently in custody at the Minnesota Correctional Facility at Oak Park Heights on $1.25 million bond following his arrest for the May 25 death of Floyd. He has entered a not guilty plea to the murder charges.



His attorney for the Floyd case, Eric Nelson, declined to comment to ABC News on Thursday about the tax evasion charges or confirm whether he would represent the couple in that case.



Chauvin, a 19-year law enforcement veteran, was seen on cellphone video pressing his knee into Floyd's neck as Floyd lay on the ground struggling to breathe and calling for his mother.



Kellie May Chauvin filed for divorce after Derek Chauvin and three other Minneapolis officers were arrested on felony murder and manslaughter charges in Floyd's death.



The Chauvins are now facing six counts each of filing false or fraudulent returns and three counts each of failure to file returns, according to court documents. If convicted, they face up to five years in prison and $10,000 in fines.



"When you fail to fulfill the basic obligation to file and pay taxes, you are taking money from the pockets of citizens of Minnesota," Washington County Attorney Pete Orput said in a statement. "Our office has and will continue to file these charges when presented. Whether you are a prosecutor or police officer, or you are a doctor or a realtor, no one is above the law."



According to the complaint, the Minnesota Department of Revenue's investigation into the Chauvins started on June 12 following multiple correspondences sent in 2019 by the department regarding their missing 2016 individual income tax return.



In addition to Derek Chauvin's earnings from the Minneapolis Police Department, he worked since 2014 as an off-duty security guard at four businesses, the complaint said.



"D. Chauvin earned approximately $95,920.00 between January 2014 and December 2019 from El Nuevo Rodeo that the Chauvins did not report as income," according to the complaint.



The 44-year-old also worked as a licensed Realtor for RE/MAX Results in 2017, earning $9,477.50 that was not reported, the complaint said.



Kellie May Chauvin, 45, has worked as a licensed Realtor for RE/MAX Results in Eden Prairie since 2016 but did not report that income, according to the complaint. She also operates a photography business under the name "KC Images," for which she allegedly did not report her income in 2014 and 2015, according to the complaint.



She told investigators that she did not file income tax returns because "it got away from her," according to the criminal complaint. Her father was their accountant for at least two tax seasons, the complaint said.



The couple allegedly purchased a 2018 BMW X5 in January 2018 for more than $100,000 and registered it under their address in Florida, where they allegedly avoided paying more than $5,000 in sales tax. Kellie May Chauvin allegedly told investigators last month that they changed their residency to Florida "because it was cheaper to register a car," according to the criminal complaint.



A court date has not yet been set for the Chauvins' arraignment, prosecutors confirmed to ABC News on Thursday.

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
MIAMI, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- 2020 has been full of uncertainty. Entire industries have been nearly wiped out while others have had to pivot to stay afloat. An easy task for major corporations, the same cannot be said for small business owners. With substantially less resources and cash flow, many have been forced to close their doors permanently. While the path forward for some small businesses may be murky, Pascale Rowe, owner of Ms. Bling, a Miami-based boutique, says hers is one business realizing positive returns with an A-list clientele, the consistent support of her followers and an attitude of gratitude.

Ms. Bling

After leaving corporate America behind in 2007, Pascale established Pascale's House of Bling designing custom jewelry that turned even the simplest pieces into eye-catching, wearable art. It wasn't long before her unique hand-set crystal designs caught the attention of stars such as Kim Kardashian-West, Lauren London, and Gabrielle Union. Over time, her designs could be found in magazines and on screen being worn by some of the cast members of "Dancing with the Stars."

As her clientele's needs expanded and her entrepreneurial nature took hold, Pascale transitioned her business from jewelry to apparel in 2012, renaming the brand Ms. Bling and offering looks in mesmerizing colors for any body type, budget and occasion. Like most businesses today, the Ms. Bling brand relies heavily on social media but, co-mingled with shots of her hottest looks, Pascale offers a look into her life as a mother, a black woman and a human being. Her video views are well into the hundreds of thousands, offering a transparent view of the joys and struggles of wearing so many hats. Her followers comment on how her testimony encourages them or moves them to action in their own lives.

Pascale's creativity knows no limitation - it even appears in her philanthropy. While most in her position may prefer to give money to good causes, Pascale prefers a more personal touch. Most recently, she gifted a single mother in need with a car. Most notably, in 2019, she chartered two private jets to fly necessary provisions to the Bahamas for those displaced by Hurricane Dorian which devastated the island nation. On a smaller scale, she can be found on an almost weekly basis gifting her followers with items from her line.

Pascale Rowe and her Ms. Bling brand continue to offer fashion for customers and favor for those in need. With a grateful heart and a giving hand, it's easy to see why she has thrived through this storm and it's certain there is much more success awaiting Ms. Bling when it clears. For media inquiries, please contact [email protected].

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The decree comes days after parliament approved on Monday the extension of the state of emergency for three more months starting 27 July

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has issued a decree ratifying the extension of a nationwide state of emergency for three months starting 27 July.

The decree was published in the official gazette on Wednesday.

According to the decree, the extension allows the Egyptian Armed Forces and police to take [measures] necessary to confront the dangers and the funding of terrorism and to safeguard security in all parts of the country.

The decree comes days after parliament approved on Monday the extension of the state of emergency for three more months starting 27 July.

The state of emergency, which has been in effect since 2017, has been extended on the grounds of fighting terrorism, implementing development programs in a stable climate, and containing the coronavirus crisis.

According to the bylaws of the Egyptian House of Representatives, two-thirds of parliament must approve imposing or extending a state of emergency within seven days of the decree.

Parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Aal said on Monday that more than two-thirds of the majority of MPs approved the new extension.

The state of emergency was first declared in April 2017 after two church bombings that killed dozens of people. It has since been consistently renewed at three-month intervals in accordance with the Egyptian constitution.

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Figure 1

Standard Uranium Project, Southwest Athabasca Uranium District

Standard Uranium Project, Southwest Athabasca Uranium District

Figure 2

Standard Uranium Drill Target Summary Map

Standard Uranium Drill Target Summary Map

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Standard Uranium Ltd. (Standard Uranium or the Company) (TSX-V: STND) (Frankfurt: FWB:9SU) is pleased to announce that staff and drilling crews are finalizing preparations to commence the Phase 1, 2020 summer diamond drilling program at its flagship 25,886 hectare Davidson River Uranium Project (the Project). The Project is located in the Southwest Athabasca Uranium District of the Athabasca Basin, Saskatchewan, and runs along the inferred trend of Fission Uraniums Triple R deposit and NexGens Arrow deposit, in an area lying 25km to 30km to the west of those deposits. The Company has been monitoring the local Covid-19 situation, and in partnership with the local communities, has determined that it is now safe to proceed with the proposed drill program. The Company will continue to follow the best practices for working safely and will continue to monitor the situation.



Jon Bey, President, CEO and Chairman commented: We built Standard Uranium around the Davidson River Project and for the past two years our team has been working to identify our first drill targets. We are now fully funded, permitted and excited to get the drills turning. We thank all stakeholders for the support theyve given us to get to this milestone and look forward to moving ahead. This is a great time to be a stakeholder of Standard Uranium.

Despite major uranium exploration activity in the Southwest Athabasca Uranium District after the discovery of two of the most significant uranium deposits in the Athabasca Basin, the Davidson River Project has remained un-tested by drilling. Over the past two years, the Company has executed the geophysical work to verify the Project is prospective for uranium by defining three main conductive trends, as defined by airborne electromagnetic surveys. These conductive trends are believed to be associated with graphitic structures in basement rocks, which are commonly associated with uranium mineralization in the Athabasca Basin. The Company plans to focus on the highest priority of these trends, referred to herein as the Warrior Trend. It is a 13 kilometre-long corridor of conductors that is believed to be the continuation of trend that is host to the Smart Lake prospect to the northwest and interpreted as the continuation of the Patterson Lake Corridor to the east that is host to the Triple-R and Arrow Deposits.

Story continues

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/393d23f9-7746-458c-9619-f0b2e1797edf

(Figure 1  Southwest Athabasca Uranium District)

In addition to the regional significance of the Warrior Trend, there are several coincident targeting vectors that the Company has identified as highly prospective target areas to drill-test during the Phase 1 drill program. In total, 15 to 17 core holes within 5,000m of drilling is planned. These priority targets were identified based on having similar geophysical signatures as other deposits in the Southwest Athabasca Uranium District, and the greater Athabasca Basin region. Figure 2 is a summary of these targeting vectors, which include cross-cutting structures as inferred from magnetics, off-sets or breaks along the conductive trend, conductive bright-spots from the VTEM survey, and zones where the conductive trend has a change in dip-direction (wrenched).

The drill spacing will be approximately 100-200 metres along-strike in the high-priority area of the Warrior Trend, and between 500 metres and one kilometre along the remainder of the trend. The conductive trend is in places up to 300 metres wide, and will be tested with at least 3-hole drill fences in many locations in order to determine whether the hanging-wall or foot-wall of the conductive corridor is host to the most favourable geological setting.

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3eb3a6f9-3bcd-4708-be4e-244673c290ea

(Figure 2  Drill Target Summary Map)

Drilling Program Summary:



5,000m planned in approximately 15-17 drill holes

August 4, proposed start date of drill program

Drill testing a uranium fertile corridor to confirm uranium mineralization on the property

Testing wide conductive corridor with fence drilling

Drilling regular intervals to vector along conductor searching for: radioactivity, alteration, structure and graphite- and sulphide- rich shear zones.

The scientific and technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Neil McCallum, VP Exploration and is a Qualified Person as defined in NI 43-101.

About Standard Uranium (TSX-V: STND)

We find the fuel to power a clean energy future

Standard Uranium is a mineral resource exploration company based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Since its establishment, Standard Uranium has focused on the identification and development of prospective exploration stage uranium projects in the Athabasca Basin in Saskatchewan, Canada. Standard Uranium's Davidson River Project, in the southwest part of the Athabasca Basin, Saskatchewan, is comprised of 21 mineral claims over 25,886 hectares. The Davidson River Project is highly prospective for basement hosted uranium deposits yet remains untested by drilling despite its location along trend from recent high-grade uranium discoveries. A copy of the 43-101 Technical Report that summarizes the exploration on the Project is available for review under Standard Uranium's SEDAR issuer profile (www.sedar.com).

For further information contact:

Jon Bey, President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

550 Denman Street, Suite 200

Vancouver, BC V6G 3H1

Tel: 1 (604) 375-4488

E-mail: info@standarduranium.ca

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release includes certain information and statements about management's view of future events, expectations, plans and prospects that constitute forward looking statements, which are not composed of historical facts. Forward-looking statements may be identified by such terms as believes, anticipates, intends, expects, estimates, may, could, would, will, or plan, and similar expressions. Specifically, forward looking statements in this news release include, without limitation, statements regarding: the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations and estimates of market conditions. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results or events, performance, or achievements of the Company to differ materially from those anticipated or implied in such forward-looking statements. The Company believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, but there can be no assurance that actual results will meet managements expectations. In formulating the forward-looking statements contained herein, management has assumed that business and economic conditions affecting the Company will continue substantially in the ordinary course and will be favourable to the Company. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by these forward looking statements include: the ability to commence and complete work on the Davidson River Project given the global COVID-19 pandemic; changes in equity markets; the Companys ability to raise additional capital if and when necessary; and other factors as described in detail in the Companys annual information form dated May 2, 2020 and other public filings, all of which may be viewed on SEDAR (www.sedar.com). Given these risks and uncertainties, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements and information, which are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements to reflect actual results, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, changes in factors affecting such forward looking statements or otherwise.

Neither TSX-V nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX-V) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.




Prince Harry 'is a much less intelligent character' than Meghan Markle and 'goes along with whatever she says' because he's 'desperate to please his wife', according to Lady Colin Campbell.

The Jamaican-born British writer, 70, who penned the 1992 best-selling biography, Diana in Private: The Princess Nobody Knows, made the sensational claims to new! magazine while publicising her new book Meghan and Harry: The Real Story.

She said that the Duke, 35, and Duchess of Sussex, 38, who are currently living with their son Archie, one, in LA, 'have a very strong relationship' but that Meghan wears the trousers because her husband is 'besotted with her'.

'In my opinion, Harry is a much less intelligent character than Meghan is,' the author said from her home at Castle Goring, Worthing in Sussex.

Prince Harry 'is a much less intelligent character' than Meghan Markle (pictured together in London, in March) and 'goes along with whatever she says' because he's 'desperate to please his wife', according to Lady Colin Campbell

The Jamaican-born British writer (above), 70, who penned the 1992 best-selling biography, Diana in Private: The Princess Nobody Knows, made the sensational claims to new magazine when publicising her new book Meghan and Harry: The Real Story

'And I think he's so desperate to please her and go along with whatever she says, no matter how ill-conceived it is. He is that besotted with her.'

Lady Colin, who was married to Lord Colin Campbell for one year in 1974 before retaining the title, added that while Meghan and Harry 'have a very strong relationship, the Duchess is in control.

'She wears the trousers and is as dominating, charming and captivating a personality as Princess Diana was in her marriage,' the author claimed.

Lady Colin also told the publication that she believes Meghan's ambition has 'always' been to outshine Diana.

But the socialite believes the former American actress has misread the situation and that her pursuit of fame in LA 'won't "take off" in the way she thinks she will'.

The author said that the Duke, 35, and Duchess of Sussex (above during a recent video call), 38, who are currently living with their son Archie, one, in LA, 'have a very strong relationship' but that Meghan wears the trousers because her husband is 'besotted with her'

Lady Colin recently claimed she believes Meghan has political aspirations and hopes to one day run for president.

The author has given a number of interviews about the couple in recent weeks, including one with The Sunday Times in which she said Meghan has 'squandered' the 'most wonderful opportunity' by leaving the royal family.

She also claimed the signs Meghan would 'not adjust' well to life as a royal were apparent shortly after her wedding to Prince Harry in May 2018.

Lady Colin said she believes the Sussexes moving to the US is part of the plan to make the shift into the political sphere.

'I know the Duchess of Sussex has political ambitions and I've been told that one day she wants to run for President,' Lady Colin claimed.

'I think everything she is doing, leaving the royal family and moving back to California is part of her plan and she has taken Harry along with her.'
The world famous Hogmanay street party in Edinburgh has been scrapped - as festival chiefs confirm tickets will be pulled from sale and refunds issued.

Event producers Underbelly, which has an 800,000 contract to produce the Hogmanay festival for the city council, said it was clear it could not take place.

The 75,000 capacity event has put the city on the international map for new year celebrations since it was first staged in the mid-1990s.

Hogmanay is a world famous celebration of the New Year, but will not happen this December

A lively torchlight processions kicks of the proceedings for the three-day spectacular

The explosion of light illuminates the streets and house on the route through Edinburgh

It is the centrepiece of Edinburghs three-day Hogmanay festival and the cancellation will be a major blow to the citys economy after summer events fell victim to coronavirus.

Around a quarter of attendees at the party are said to have travelled from overseas in recent years, with 31 per cent from Scotland and 44 per cent from elsewhere in the UK.

Detailed proposals for a new-look Hogmanay celebration are expected to be revealed next month.

Senior councillors said there will be significant requirements for the festivities to meet the latest public health guidelines.

They have insisted the winter events should be spread out more across the city and support businesses which have been affected by the prolonged lockdown period.

A spokeswoman for Underbelly said: Tickets for Edinburghs Hogmanay street party have been on sale since January 1st 2020.

Sales for the Hogmanay event have now been taken off sale and refunds handed out

Pyrotechnic displays have become a key part of the three-day party, which has now been axed

As has been reported, exciting and positive discussions are taking place between City of Edinburgh Council and Underbelly in relation to the Hogmanay programme for 2020.

However, it is clear to all parties that the famous street party cannot take place in its current form in 2020 and tickets are being taken off sale.

Bath cancels Christmas market The pandemic has also put pay to the Christmas Market in Bath this year. The event, which usually involves more than 150 chalets spread over the streets of the historic Somerset city, has been cancelled to prevent the spread of coronavirus. The Bath Christmas Market 2020 is cancelled but Covid-safe events will still take place in the lead up to December 25 Kathryn Davis, chief executive of Visit Bath, said: 'It is disappointing that we cannot hold the Christmas Market this year but I hope everyone will understand the reason for this decision and the early notice we are giving. 'We are pro-actively working with partners across the city to create a Christmas event in Bath that will still support our local economy but in a way that can be adapted as needed and disperses visitors across the city.' She said the council and other local organisations were working to create a four-week 'Covid-secure' programme in the run-up to Christmas, including decorating the city, music and entertainment, cultural events, street stalls and artisan food. Dine Romero, leader of Bath & North East Somerset Council, said the decision had to be taken in July due to the amount of planning involved. 'Our message is that Bath is still open; however, Christmas will look a little different this year.' Other Christmas events have been called off elsewhere, including Lincoln Christmas market which usually attracts around 250,000 people in four days. Christmas markets in Manchester are also said to be 'under review'. Advertisement

Customers who have booked tickets will be contacted in the next 14 days to be offered a full refund.

An announcement on the 2020-21 Edinburghs Hogmanay programme will take place towards the end of August.

It came after a dossier warned Edinburghs status as the worlds Festival City was under threat due to the long lasting impact of the coronavirus shutdown

The official report said it could take several years for it to fully recover from the pandemic.

Festival organisers said the citys long-held status, which dates back to the aftermath of the Second World War, could be fatally jeopardised without long-term support.

Concerns have emerged weeks after a previous report warned that the loss of the 2020 festivals could lead to 7,000 job losses.

The Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) said bringing the greatest programme of performing arts from around the world to Edinburgh is at significant risk.

It added: Sustained government support will be needed across the cultural sector if we are to respond while we await the arrival of a proven vaccination.

We are dependent upon artists, cultural organisations, businesses and freelancers to bring the festival into being, many of whom derive a large share of their annual income from participation in the festival.

The absence of the festival means these groups will lose a substantial proportion of their income, putting employment and livelihoods at risk.

As we look towards the running of future festivals, it is essential that this infrastructure is in place to support and make possible these events.

Without the sustained ability of creative businesses, venues and artists to continue working in cultural production, it is inconceivable that we would be able to continue operating and delivering the festival as it is currently known.

The existential threat to the cultural scene cannot be underestimated.

We believe that an in-depth plan and strategy, examining how the cultural sector in Scotland can identify and implement a sustainable business model for the immediate and longer-terms is essential.

Any scenario in which this infrastructure fails to gain adequate, timely and comprehensive support from governments across the UK could fatally jeopardise our hard-won position as the worlds Festival City and cultural centre.
Nine more COVID-19 cases have been reported in Mizoram in the last 24 hours, taking the state's coronavirus count to 326, a health official said on Thursday. The nine included two Army personnel and an Assam Rifles jawan.

Health department spokesperson on COVID-19, Dr Pachuau Lalmalsawma, said that eight of the newly infected people, including a 10-year-old boy, are from Aizawl district and one is from Champhai, he said.

He said that all of them recently returned from Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Bihar, West Bengal and Nepal and were under quarantine since their arrival in the state.

Pachuau said that the state now has 147 active cases which include 110 employees of military and paramilitary forces. A total of 179 patients have also recovered from the disease.
But no, Chinese-owned Shenhua mining company has the green light from Environment Minister Sussan Ley to blast and dig as it wishes in Aboriginal sacred areas near Gunnedah. Maybe the minister needs to revisit her charter: "Conserve, protect and sustainably manage our environment and heritage". Diane Davie, Rose Bay Minister Ley had stated she "considered the expected social and economic benefits of the Shenhua Watermark Coal Mine to the local community outweighed the impacts of the mine ... as a result of the likely destruction of parts of their Indigenous cultural heritage." What a classic case of a white person applying white criteria to negate Indigenous cultural heritage. I'm disgusted and ashamed. Peter Butler, Wyongah A federal judge says that Shenhua, a Chinese government-owned company, is allowed to destroy parts of the Gomeroi cultural heritage with its proposed massive mine in beautiful Breeza area near Gunnedah. Farmers in the area are desperate to stop it; local koala populations will be decimated. It seems Chinese interests are more important than Australian heritage. So whose country is it? Martine Moran, Gunnedah Rorting the system In view of the admissions by Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Phil Gaetjens about how he conducted his alleged "inquiry" into the "Sports Rorts" scandal (McKenzie "sports rort" probe", July 23), and the obvious ineptitude and conflicted interests displayed by him, perhaps it is time not only for a Royal Commission into this scandal but also a proper investigation into Mr Gaetjen's methodologies. Murray Howlett, Ermington

Labour of love Maybe, Ms Buttrose, the reason a young worker needed more resilience in times past ("Buttrose says Millenials lack resilience, need 'hugging'", July 23) is because some bosses were too much the bastard that Mr Singleton seemed to favour. I think we should be proud of our upcoming generations: to me, they demonstrate finer workplace attitudes than those of my cohort of the 1970s and 1980s. We should be thankful of the progress that our unions and other workplace advocates have achieved since in creating more secure and safer workplaces, although sadly there will always be the occasional boss or leader who tries to bully their workers into submission. Russ Couch, Woonona I don't know about hugs, Ita. Some of the young people I've worked with need a good kick up the backside and a reminder to stop using Twitter, Facebook and whatever else when they're supposed to be working. Duncan Harman, Bundamba Pollies must end COVID confusion Public health communications for epidemics 101: you won't change the community's behaviour with uneven, not-very-coherent messaging by politicians and CMOs, even with threats or fines (Fears NSW will follow Victoria", July 23). So where is the accompanying, well-resourced, information campaign that explains the best ways to manage the risks of COVID-19 to everyone in the community? Surely a federal responsibility? Patricia Duggan, Manly

Why are there no plain language government-sponsored messages popping up on TV and social media saying things such as "if you have a cold or a cough, get tested for COVID19" and "if you get tested, stay at home until you get the result." People need it plain and repetitious  53 per cent of Victorians tested didn't stay at home and wait for the result. Garry Feeney, Kingsgrove Many blame the unclear and continually changing messages from government for a slackening in public obedience to official COVID-19 advice and rules. A perfect example appears in todays Herald. This is the NSW government notice and it instructs us to "stay alert. More cases in NSW." The public could be forgiven for wondering what "stay alert" means. In the enquiry into the Black Summer fires, attention has been drawn to the inadequacy of such terms in guiding behaviour. People just dont know what they should or should not do. Christine Perrott, Armidale Your headline says it all about Kerry Stokes avoiding quarantine without having to read the details: ("Stokes request went right to the top", July 23). No need for mandatory hotel isolation. Email correspondence tracks the name of the WA Premier Mark McGowan and a minister whose name was redacted from the documents in the arrangement, both of whom deny wrongdoing. Does this surprise readers? Theres always been an unwritten law. No point in carrying political clout and lots of money bags if you dont use them for your own advantage. Actors, media personalities, the self-righteous. For the rest of us, its face masks, hand sanitiser, social distancing and hope. Nothing changes. Peter Skrzynecki, Eastwood We took a drive from Shoalhaven Heads, where we are staying for the week, and I can tell you there are Victorians everywhere. Today, we drove down to Hyams Beach, a small community with only one general store/cafe. Of 10 cars in the beach carpark, five had Victorian number plates. Our friends in Culburra, further north, said the same thing. Are they all "essential workers" this far north of the border? Ronald Smith, Waterloo In the past week, we have visited three car dealers with three different COVID-19 approaches. Dealer 1: hand sanitiser at the door and sign-in details required. Sales person does not come on test drive due to social distancing. Dealer 2: hand sanitiser on counter but not really suggested, no details taken and sales person does not come on test drive due to social distancing. Dealer 3: hand sanitiser on desk but not really suggested, no details taken and sales person comes on test drive in rear of car. If this variation applies to restaurants, no wonder we have issues. Barry Frost, Cherrybrook

It is not surprising that the mixed COVID-19 travel messages being issued by Gladys Berejiklian have NSW regional residents bewildered. It is obvious that the trip across the Harbour Bridge to Macquarie Street must be the travel adventure of her year. The Premier of Willoughby is once again showing that she has absolutely no understanding of NSW issues beyond her cosy north shore constituency. Brian Jeffrey, Gunnedah On the one hand, Gladys Berejiklian fills pubs with 300 patrons who are never going to do social distancing. On the other, she expects everyone with a sniffle to take a test and, even if negative, to self-isolate for 14 days. Is it just me or is there some inconsistency here? John Christie, Oatley I went out today wearing a mask as I had to ride a train. One comment made to me was "we'll probably all be wearing masks soon with the spread of the virus in NSW". It seems a lot of people are following government directions and waiting for further instructions. My plea to governments is to stop beating around the bush and give clear recommendations about the need to wear a mask in public to protect yourself and others. My plea to others is to not wait for government instructions, but to act now. COVID-19 is out of quarantine and in the community and multiplying fast. Dick Barker, Epping Three members of my family have been tested for SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19, at the Inner West Respiratory Clinic. We were all told very clearly by the testing medical worker that we should remain in self-isolation until we received a negative test result and we complied without hesitation. In contrast, our relatives in Tasmania and in Port Stephens were not given the same guidance when they underwent testing; I had to inform them of that need myself. This anecdotal evidence suggests that failure to inform patients of the necessity to isolate at the time of virus-testing may be a cause of the appalling self-isolation compliance reported by Daniel Andrews for Victoria. If our state governments continue to out-source critical services to the for-profit sector without mandating and confirming appropriate training of workers engaged by that sector, egregious errors that prolong the economic and health damage of the current pandemic will continue. Dr Chris Jolly, Balmain

Grand welcome Great article by Philip Vivian ("Demolish Cahill Expressway, July 20"). Let the expressway above our heads disappear and the railway station disappear underground. An open, a gathering place plaza, a grand welcome to the Emerald City for the arriving ferries. Edward Watts, Allambie Heights Threat to democracy After reading Ian Cunliffes article on secret trials ("Secret trials: our judges need to resist government's pressure", July 23), I am more anxious about the state of our democracy. Calls by Peter Dutton for protesters who disrupt traffic to have their welfare payments cut and be subject to mandatory jail sentences is but one recent example. Due to clampdowns on protests, police raids on our media and prosecuting of whistleblowers, the international non-profit organisation Civicus has downgraded Australias democracy from "open" to "narrowed". All Australians need to be perpetually awake to such intrusions on our liberties lest we become yet another democracy in name only. Peter Nash, Fairlight

Words on a plate There is an alternative perspective to the assertion that MasterChef was effectively rigged by being weighted towards a dominantly white paradigm of cuisine ("Off-colour truths of program on a plate", July 23). That is, that if you are an 'Anglo Aussie, you are disadvantaged by a gastronomic heritage in which boiled parsnips, ham steak and pineapple and powdered custard are highlights. I can only dream of being able to draw on the inter-generational culture of food that those Asian Australian contestants are surrounded by. Deborah Brown, Ashfield Black and white Compulsory masking in Melbourne reminds one of the old wild west. The goodies usually wore white hats and the baddies black. The baddies often wore masks to hide their identities. Here all mask colours are acceptable for shopper or bandit. Will Melbourne become known as Tombstone Territory? Paul Murchison, Kingsbury VIC
El presidente de la Republica, @MartinVizcarraC , preside la ceremonia de conmemoracion por el 79. aniversario de la inmolacion del capitan FAP Jose Quinones Gonzales y Dia de la Fuerza Aerea del Peru, acto realizado en la Base Aerea Las Palmas. En vivo: https://t.co/uyM7wuXhyM pic.twitter.com/dOPnBvrN5Q

El presidente @MartinVizcarraC lidero, junto al titular de la @pcmperu, @PCaterianoB, la ceremonia por el 79 aniversario de la inmolacion del capitan FAP Jose Abelardo Quinones Gonzales y el Dia de la Fuerza Aerea del Peru, en la Base Aerea Las Palmas, en Surco. pic.twitter.com/NJvUWqRk6a
The reopening of some airports comes as the govt moves ahead with plan to ease restrictions after months of lockdown.

Iraq has reopened its airports to commercial flights as part of a government plan to ease restrictions following months of a coronavirus lockdown that severely hurt the countrys fragile economy.

Flights from the capital, Baghdad, to Beirut and Cairo were scheduled to take off on Thursday morning, ending four months of travel restrictions due to the pandemic that has killed more than 600,000 people and battered economies worldwide.

Before boarding, passengers were required to show negative COVID-19 test results to airport staff.

Airports in the southern cities of Najaf and Basra also reopened, but those in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, cities in the northern Kurdish region, said they would reopen on August 1.

The reopening comes as the government moves ahead with plans to allow business activity to return to shopping centres and other commercial areas by the end of July. A full lockdown will be briefly reimposed next week for the Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday before being entirely lifted.

Currently, restaurants and coffee shops remain closed to customers but are allowed to fulfil takeaway or delivery orders.

The country, however, is registering record numbers of coronavirus cases. On Wednesday, the health ministry reported 2,700 new infections over a 24-hour period, bringing the total tally to 99,865 cases.

More than 4,000 people have died of the virus in Iraq, according to ministry statistics.

Iraqs airports were shut in March, at which time full-day curfews were also imposed to stem the spread of the virus across the country.

The curfew has been extended many times amid rising case numbers, exacerbating a severe economic crisis spurred by falling oil prices and crippling Iraqs private sector
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 18:52:10|Editor: huaxia

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A Mars probe is launched on a Long March-5 rocket from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China's Hainan Province, July 23, 2020. (Xinhua/Cai Yang)

BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- A Long March-5 rocket blasted off Thursday at the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site (WSLS) in south China's Hainan Province, carrying the country's Mars probe, Tianwen-1.

It is the first time that the Long March-5 carrier rocket, currently China's largest launch vehicle, is put into practical use after a series of trial launches.

It is also the first time the Long March-5 exceeded the second cosmic velocity, the fastest China's carrier rockets have gone to date, said Li Dong, the rocket's chief designer at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT).

The rocket did not separate from Tianwen-1 until it accelerated to over 11.2 km per second, the second cosmic velocity or escape velocity. At that speed, Tianwen-1 went into the Earth-Mars transfer orbit, overcoming the gravitational pull of Earth and embarking on an interplanetary journey, Li explained.

The rocket, codenamed Long March-5 Y4, has a total length of almost 57 meters, equivalent to the height of a 20-story building. It has a 5-meter-diameter core stage and four 3.35-meter-diameter boosters.

The rocket uses environment-friendly propellants, including liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen and kerosene. It has a takeoff mass of 869 tonnes and can carry a payload of 14 tonnes to a geostationary transfer orbit.

As the relative positions of Earth and Mars are constantly changing, a space mission from Earth is like shooting at a moving target. The researchers have designed a record number of trajectories targeting multiple narrow time windows to ensure the probe's precise entry into the preset orbit, said Wang Jue, general director of the rocket research team at CALVT.

The Mars mission has a 30-minute launch window each day for 14 consecutive days from late July to early August. The rocket team subdivided it into three 10-minute launch windows with different trajectory parameters, said Wang Jue.

A total of 42 launch trajectories have been designed, more than any other Chinese space mission and the rocket can switch among them automatically, Wang Jue said.

Tianwen-1, comprising an orbiter, a lander and a rover, weighs nearly five tonnes, a tonne heavier than the Chang'e-4 lunar probe. It is the heaviest deep space probe that China has launched so far.

"Relying on the strong carrying capacity of the Long March-5, China will push its deep-space exploration from the moon to the planets," said Li Minghua, top director of the Long March-5 team at CALVT.

Previously, the Long March-5 successfully launched the Shijian-20 satellite. The Long March-5B carrier rocket, a modified version, sent China's new-generation manned spaceship for test into space.

Based on the experience of these launches, engineers have improved the technology and reliability of Long March-5 Y4, covering multiple systems like its control system, measuring system, body structure, and ground support system.

The successful development of Long March-5 rockets is the result of cooperation and coordination across various industries in the country. More than 16,000 people from five research institutes under China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) undertook the research and development work.

More than 900 organizations from industries like metallurgy, chemical industry, electronics, and transportation outside CASC have provided support for the research and development work.

Lou Luliang, deputy chief designer of the rocket at CALVT, said they had been busy with final preparations for the Mars mission since the Long March-5B launch on May 5.

Analyzing results and restoring ground equipment, many of his team members have worked around the clock at the WSLS since the Spring Festival in January. In the hot weather of Hainan, the rocket team completed the ground equipment recovery work 10 days ahead of the normal process.

Wu Junfeng is a pipeline system designer for the rocket. The number of pipelines, which are like "blood vessels" connecting the engines to the tanks, in the Long March-5 is two to three times more than other rockets. To ensure the assembly quality, he often worked overnight at the assembly workshop.

The Long March-5 will help expand China's aerospace activities, said Wang Xiaojun, head of CALVT.

The rocket is scheduled to launch the Chang'e-5 lunar probe later this year to collect moon samples and bring them back to Earth.

The Long March-5 can also be used to take large satellites up to eight tonnes to a high Earth orbit. If combined with a proper upper stage, it can also carry two 5.5-tonne satellites in one launch.

In 2021, the Long March-5B will launch the core module of China's space station. Specially developed for the construction of the station, the Long March-5B has the largest fairing of all China's rockets with a length of 20.5 meters and a low Earth orbit carrying capacity of 25 tonnes.

The Long March-5 will also help lay a solid foundation for the development of heavy lift rockets in the future, Wang Xiaojun said. Enditem
PepsiCo Vietnam has donated medical supplies worth VND4.7 billion ($204,000) to six Vietnamese hospitals and health facilities to aid the countrys Covid-19 campaign.

The aid package supports the Vietnam Young Physicians Association's "Joining hands to prevent and combat Covid-19 - For a healthy Vietnam" program and aims to enhance the ability of long-term medical examination and treatment for front-line and regional hospitals.

Medical equipment delivery event at Cho Ray Hospital, Ho Chi Minh City.

PepsiCo Vietnam, in collaboration with the association, has delivered medical equipment and supplies to six hospitals and health facilities in five provinces and cities like Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi, Hung Yen Province's Department of Health, Don Duong District Health Center, Duc Trong District Health Center (both in Lam Dong Province), Binh Duong Province General Hospital and Ho Chi Minh Citys Cho Ray Hospital.

Donated medical devices include GE's Vivid T8 ultrasound system from the U.S., a Puritan Bennett 840 ventilator from Ireland, the BIPAP AVAPS ventilator from Philips-USA, Nihon Kohden defibrillators and other types of necessary gear.

Medical gear delivery event at Bach Mai Hospital, Hanoi.

Attending the ceremony at Bach Mai Hospital, Prof. Dr. Tran Van Thuan, Deputy Minister of Health and chairman of Vietnam Young Physicians Association, said: "In the new normal era, in the spirit of being ready to respond to the pandemic, Vietnam Young Physicians Association continues to coordinate with creditable partners, supporting essential medical supplies and equipment for regular examination as well as preparing for the second wave of Covid-19. These gifts will be used most effectively by the hospital, bringing health to the people."

PepsiCo Vietnam also contributed masks and antibacterial gels to over 2,400 farmers who are long-term partners of the company in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong.

The firm also provided medical equipment to the two border posts serving as key checkpoints in the border provinces of Ha Giang and Nghe An.

During the Covid-19 social distancing period in April, PepsiCo Vietnam, Suntory PepsiCo Vietnam and Vietnam Youth Union implemented the Million Meals program to support those most affected across the country with a total budget of over VND9 billion ($388,000).

PepsiCo Vietnam volunteers and partners deliver over 600,000 free meals to communities most impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic during the social distancing period in April, 2020.

More than 600,000 free meals have been delivered to help those in need, and more will continue to be implemented in future through Green Summer Volunteer Program of Vietnam Youth Association, said Cao Hoang Nam, head of corporate affairs at PepsiCo Vietnam.

The Millions of Meals and Medical Supplies programs are examples of how PepsiCo is providing critical support to communities affected by Covid-19 around the world, funded by The PepsiCo Foundation, the philanthropic arm of PepsiCo.
A record 279,769 new cases of COVID-19 were reported yesterday, bringing the total number of known cases globally to nearly 15.4 million. There were also 7,113 confirmed deaths, a fatality count not seen since April, bringing the number of confirmed deaths caused by the coronavirus to 629,343.

Brazil, India, South Africa and the United States accounted for the vast majority of the new cases, with Brazil and the United States accounting for almost half by themselves. Similarly, the deaths in Brazil, India, Mexico and the US made up more than half of yesterdays confirmed coronavirus fatalities. Twenty other countries recorded more than 1,000 new cases of the virus yesterday, and eleven posted more than 50 new deaths.

India posted a record day of both new cases, at 45,599, and new deaths, at 1,120, and the rate of increase of both indicates that the pandemic is continuing to spiral out of control in the worlds second most populous country. Its total case count and death tally stand at 1.24 million and 29,890, respectively. Brazil reported the most deaths of any country yesterday, at 1,293, bringing its number of dead to nearly 83,000. The largest economy in Latin America also saw another 65,000 infections, a new daily record, sending its current case count above 2.2 million.

South Africa also suffered a record number of new deaths, 572, double the previous record, bringing the total to 5,940, and a near record of new cases, 13,150, bringing confirmed infections to just under 395,000. As the country was recording these grim figures, the South African newspaper the Sowetan noted that the number of excess deaths in the country from natural causes had rose to 17,090 from May 6July 14, four times the official COVID-19 death toll over the same period. This suggests that the pandemic has claimed, directly or indirectly, more than 23,000 human lives in the country.

Nearly 7,000 new cases were recorded in Mexico, a figure which has been steadily climbing over the past month and a half from less than 3,200 per day at the beginning of June. During that same period, deaths have increased from an average of more than 350 per day to now more than 580 a day. The country currently has more than 362,000 known cases, ranking seventh in the world, and 41,190 reported deaths. At this rate, Mexico is on track to exceed the number of deaths in the United Kingdom (currently at 45,501) by the end of the month.

There was also a resurgence of new deaths in the United States, which rose to 1,205, the highest number since May 30. The number of new cases also jumped back up to just under 72,000. The spread of the pandemic in the US continues to be driven by hot spots such as California (12,137 new cases; 156 new deaths), Texas (10,528; 202), Florida (9,785; 140) and Georgia (3,314; 81). Eleven states have more than 100,000 confirmed cases, and Louisiana is on track to become the twelfth tomorrow. In addition, California is slated to overtake New York as the state with the highest number of cases this week, while the case counts in Florida and Texas will likely exceed those in New York by the end of the month.

Amid the spiraling death toll of the pandemic globally, US President Donald Trump appeared in press briefings on Tuesday and Wednesday, the first time he has personally been at a coronavirus-related White House press conference since April.

Both had similar themes, with Trump almost immediately calling the pandemic by the xenophobic term China virus, especially inflammatory given the rising tensions currently being instigated by the US in the South China Sea. He also boasted that the federal government had cut a deal with Pfizer to produce 100 million doses of the vaccine it is developing with a further order of 500 million later on, without knowing whether or not the vaccine will be effective or safe.

Trump also doubled down on his administrations calls for sending children back to schools as the pandemic spirals out of control. He made explicit that, Our strategy is to shelter the highest risk Americans while allowing younger and healthier citizens to return to work or school. He based this on the claim that, The median age of those who succumb to the China virus is 78 years old. Roughly half of all deaths have been individuals in nursing homes or long term care. In one study, 90 percent of those hospitalized had underlying medical conditions.

He then asserted, 99.96 percent of deaths arent children, hoping to gloss over the fact that, whether or not such a figure is even correct, it would mean that 58 children have already died from the disease with school closed. At the same time, he warned, correctly for once, It will  get worse before it gets better.

While Trump may dismiss the sickness in young people as mild, if he has his way, by September, tens of millions of children will be back in school, and many will be infected with coronavirus and will have caught it from or passed it on to their teachers, school staff, bus drivers, parents and elderly family members. Given the course of the virus, by October, the number of sick and dead will begin to sharply rise. By November, for every 10 million kids forced to go back to school under such unsafe conditions, 4,000 will be dead, their families mourning the loss of the next generation even as they themselves cope with contracting the disease.

Conversely, it suggests that tens of thousandsperhaps millionsof toddlers and teenagers will be forced to witness the slow, agonizing deaths of the mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles or grandparents because they inadvertently brought the virus home.

Trump also took the opportunity to denigrate the youth who participated in the demonstrations against police violence in the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd. He claimed, Cases started to rise among young Americans shortly after demonstrations  which presumably triggered a broader relaxation of mitigation efforts nationwide and a substantial increase in travel.

This is in fact not true. While health experts were worried of a sharp rise in cases as young people across the country braved the pandemic, as well as waves of police brutality, to protest against state repression, that spike in cases never materialized. Instead, the rise in cases has been attributed to the reopening of the economy, particularly in crowded factories and plants, without having a robust testing and contact tracing plan in place.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, spoke to this in an interview with CNNs Jake Tapper on Tuesday. Fauci called the US network of testing and contact tracing patchy. He further noted, One of the things that is an issue  is the time frame from when you get a test to the time you get a result back is sometimes measured in a few days. If thats the case, it kind of negates the purpose of the contact tracing. Because if you dont know if that person gets their results back early,  when you get to six or seven days, that kind of really mitigates getting a good tracing and good isolation.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a news briefing at the State Department in Washington, November 18, 2019.

WASHINGTON  Capping a string of searing speeches by Trump administration officials, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed the Chinese government in a sweeping address Thursday, saying the United States will no longer tolerate Beijing's playbook to usurp global order.

"The truth is that our policies, and those of other free nations, resurrected China's failing economy, only to see Beijing bite the international hands that fed it," Pompeo told an audience at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California.

The crumbling relationship between Washington and Beijing, strained from an ongoing trade battle, has intensified as the Trump administration places blame squarely on China for the coronavirus pandemic and its devastation on the global economy.

This week, in another sign of escalating tension, the U.S. government ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston. Beijing vowed to retaliate.

"We opened our arms to Chinese citizens, only to see the CCP exploit our free and open society. It sent propagandists into our press conferences, our research centers, our high-school and college campuses," the nation's top diplomat said Thursday, adding that the Chinese government had also "ripped off our prized intellectual property" and "sucked supply chains away from America."

Pompeo then sharpened his focus to Chinese telecom giant Huawei, a firm that he has previously described as a "Trojan horse for Chinese intelligence."

"We have stopped pretending Huawei is an innocent telecommunications company ... we have called it what it is, a national security threat, and taken action accordingly," he said.

U.S. officials have long complained that Chinese intellectual property theft has cost the economy billions of dollars in revenue and thousands of jobs. They have also said that it threatens national security. Meanwhile, Beijing maintains that it does not engage in intellectual property theft.

Pompeo's remarks follow those of U.S. Attorney General William Barr, national security advisor Robert O'Brien and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

In a blistering speech last week, Barr accused the Chinese government of human rights abuses, espionage and economic blitzkrieg.

"The American people are more attuned than ever to the threat that the Chinese Communist Party poses not only to our way of life, but to our very lives and livelihoods," Barr said.

Last month, O'Brien slammed China for a laundry list of offenses before saying that "the days of American passivity and naivety regarding the People's Republic of China are over."

Similarly, Wray said the Trump administration would not allow the Chinese to carry on with espionage and cyberattacks against the United States which has amounted to what he called "one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history."
YEREVAN, JULY 23, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan has sent a congratulatory letter to President of Egypt Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi on the National Day, the PMs Office told Armenpress.

The letter says:

I warmly congratulate you on the national day of Egypt  the Revolution Day.

The task of constantly expanding and enriching in content terms the Armenian-Egyptian bilateral and multilateral cooperation agenda is always under the spotlight of Armenia. We are confident that a huge potential exists for that, the effective utilization of which will reveal new opportunities for making our friendly countries closer, as well as for the development of the mutually beneficial cooperation.

I wish you good health and new achievements, and to the good people of Egypt  peace, welfare and speedy overcoming of the challenges caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
Who cares if President Trump now believes that the nasty, horrible coronavirus will get worse before it gets better? Or that his viewpoint about wearing face masks during a health pandemic has suddenly become more favorable?

The only person Im interested in hearing from at a daily COVID-19 press briefing is an expert who provides science-based information. His name is Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984.

Julissa Mendoza, Daly City

Undermining government

Concerning New Trump census plan would cost the state seats in House (Page 1, July 22): After more than 3 years in office and with 3 months until Election Day, President Trump has foolishly chosen to continue his war on undocumented immigrants by ordering census officials to exclude them from the decennial population count.

He slanders these law-abiding, hardworking people as aliens and willfully defies our Constitutions requirement that everyone in the U.S. be counted in the census, making him unworthy of the high office in which he still serves. Ultimately, Trumps rationalization for not counting undocumented immigrants is the reason his order cannot be implemented: It undermines our system of government.

Ezra Steindler, San Francisco

Mail ballots early

Regarding A voter-suppression scenario (Letters, July 21): The writer suggested that those who want to suppress voting could lead a sick-out by postal workers during the week of the November election, preventing ballots from being postmarked on Election Day or delivered by Friday, Nov. 6, and thus invalidating them. I know some of us are procrastinators, but how about mailing your ballot in before the deadline?

Joan Greenfield, San Francisco

Mother Natures styling

Well, even though Outdoors care has hair stylists, barbers on edge (Business, July 22) during this COVID-19 pandemic, theres an upside to getting your hair cut and styled outside: Mother Nature can provide the blow-and-dry part of this process.

Imani Adubayo, Oakland

Wear masks in compliance

Regarding the San Francisco Department of Public Health regulation concerning the wearing of face coverings in public to prevent the spread of COVID-19, it is clearly stated that a face mask with a one-way valve is not acceptable and will not be considered in compliance with the order. As an epidemiologist who worked for both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, I applaud this recommendation. I am concerned while noticing the wearing of these masks by TV reporters and public officials in public. A simple health message that, for some reason, has not been disseminated to the public. It appears that San Francisco is leading the way in applying science and common sense to fighting the spread of this virus, and one can only hope that other communities, as well as both international and national health organizations, follow suit.

Richard Guidotti, Saint Genis-Pouilly, France

Causes for rise in cases

I never thought Id read the headline California this week could overtake N.Y. in virus cases (July 21). Wasnt it just two months ago that New York City was being called the epicenter of the coronavirus, while the Golden State was better managing this crisis? Our states ongoing failure to control COVID-19 is due to a lack of three very important things: sufficient testing, sufficient tracing and sufficient personal responsibility.

Marisol Echevarria, Daly City

Embrace community tutors

While politicians, educators and parents decide on the right time to open schools, childrens precious time, which we as a society have agreed should be spent on learning, is being squandered.

While our president picks another fight with scientists, public health experts, politicians, educators and parents, thus distracting us from his incompetence, children wait for those in charge to decide their fate. In the meantime, embracing the concept that it takes a village, imagine healthy seniors and young people from each community, volunteering as tutors to their neighborhood children for an hour or two per week. Sitting at picnic tables in outdoor public parks to maintain a physical distance, the tutors will wear protective gear and instruct one or two children.

Not much preparation is necessary except for a large dose of goodwill and enthusiasm. Workbooks with curriculum for each school grade are available for purchase at Costco and similar outlets. The tutor chooses the subject and school grade they wish to teach. The children rotate from one tutor to another, thus benefiting from various disciplines and teaching styles. The possibilities are as grand as our imagination. Its not rocket science. Its caring!

Hilda Ayala, San Bruno

Ways to help low-income kids

Parents who can afford it are forming teaching pods and hiring a pod teacher to help their children learn remotely (and provide childcare). Great idea, but it abandons low-income children whose parents typically cant work from home.

What if parents chip in to add one low-income child into their pod? Perhaps the state could offer a tax advantage or recognition to these parents.
Youve probably encountered situations where you need to associate metadata (data that describes other data) with classes, methods, and/or other application elements. For example, your programming team might need to identify unfinished classes in a large application. For each unfinished class, the metadata would likely include the name of the developer responsible for finishing the class and the classs expected completion date.

Before Java 5, comments were the only flexible mechanism that Java had to offer for associating metadata with application elements. However, comments are a poor choice. Because the compiler ignores them, comments are not available at runtime. And even if they were available, the text would have to be parsed to obtain crucial data items. Without standardizing how the data items are specified, these data items might prove impossible to parse.

download Get the code Download the source code for examples in this Java 101 tutorial. Created by Jeff Friesen for InfoWorld.

Nonstandard annotation mechanisms Java provides nonstandard mechanisms for associating metadata with application elements. For example, the transient reserved word lets you annotate (associate data with) fields that are to be excluded during serialization.

Java 5 changed everything by introducing annotations, a standard mechanism for associating metadata with various application elements. This mechanism consists of four components:

An @interface mechanism for declaring annotation types.

mechanism for declaring annotation types. Meta-annotation types, which you can use to identify the application elements to which an annotation type applies; to identify the lifetime of an annotation (an instance of an annotation type); and more.

Support for annotation processing via an extension to the Java Reflection API (to be discussed in a future article), which you can use to discover a programs runtime annotations, and a generalized tool for processing annotations.

Standard annotation types.

Ill explain how to use these components as we work our way through this article.

Declaring annotation types with @interface

You can declare an annotation type by specifying the @ symbol immediately followed by the interface reserved word and an identifier. For example, Listing 1 declares a simple annotation type that you might use to annotate thread-safe code.

Listing 1: ThreadSafe.java

public @interface ThreadSafe { }

After declaring this annotation type, prefix the methods that you consider thread-safe with instances of this type by prepending @ immediately followed by the type name to the method headers. Listing 2 offers a simple example where the main() method is annotated @ThreadSafe .

Listing 2: AnnDemo.java (version 1)

public class AnnDemo { @ThreadSafe public static void main(String[] args) { } }

ThreadSafe instances supply no metadata other than the annotation type name. However, you can supply metadata by adding elements to this type, where an element is a method header placed in the annotation types body.

As well as not having code bodies, elements are subject to the following restrictions:

The method header cannot declare parameters.

The method header cannot provide a throws clause.

The method headers return type must be a primitive type (e.g., int ), java.lang.String , java.lang.Class , an enum, an annotation type, or an array of one of these types. No other type can be specified for the return type.

As another example, Listing 3 presents a ToDo annotation type with three elements identifying a particular coding job, specifying the date when the job is to be finished, and naming the coder responsible for completing the job.

Listing 3: ToDo.java (version 1)

public @interface ToDo { int id(); String finishDate(); String coder() default "n/a"; }

Note that each element declares no parameter(s) or throws clause, has a legal return type ( int or String ), and terminates with a semicolon. Also, the final element reveals that a default return value can be specified; this value is returned when an annotation doesnt assign a value to the element.

Listing 4 uses ToDo to annotate an unfinished class method.

Listing 4: AnnDemo.java (version 2)

public class AnnDemo { public static void main(String[] args) { String[] cities = { "New York", "Melbourne", "Beijing", "Moscow", "Paris", "London" }; sort(cities); } @ToDo(id = 1000, finishDate = "10/10/2019", coder = "John Doe") static void sort(Object[] objects) { } }

Listing 4 assigns a metadata item to each element; for example, 1000 is assigned to id . Unlike coder , the id and finishDate elements must be specified; otherwise, the compiler will report an error. When coder isnt assigned a value, it assumes its default "n/a" value.

Java provides a special String value() element that can be used to return a comma-separated list of metadata items. Listing 5 demonstrates this element in a refactored version of ToDo .

Listing 5: ToDo.java (version 2)

public @interface ToDo { String value(); }

When value() is an annotation types only element, you dont have to specify value and the = assignment operator when assigning a string to this element. Listing 6 demonstrates both approaches.

Listing 6: AnnDemo.java (version 3)

public class AnnDemo { public static void main(String[] args) { String[] cities = { "New York", "Melbourne", "Beijing", "Moscow", "Paris", "London" }; sort(cities); } @ToDo(value = "1000,10/10/2019,John Doe") static void sort(Object[] objects) { } @ToDo("1000,10/10/2019,John Doe") static boolean search(Object[] objects, Object key) { return false; } }

Using meta-annotation types  the problem of flexibility

You can annotate types (e.g., classes), methods, local variables, and more. However, this flexibility can be problematic. For example, you might want to restrict ToDo to methods only, but nothing prevents it from being used to annotate other application elements, as demonstrated in Listing 7.

Listing 7: AnnDemo.java (version 4)

@ToDo("1000,10/10/2019,John Doe") public class AnnDemo { public static void main(String[] args) { @ToDo(value = "1000,10/10/2019,John Doe") String[] cities = { "New York", "Melbourne", "Beijing", "Moscow", "Paris", "London" }; sort(cities); } @ToDo(value = "1000,10/10/2019,John Doe") static void sort(Object[] objects) { } @ToDo("1000,10/10/2019,John Doe") static boolean search(Object[] objects, Object key) { return false; } }

In Listing 7, ToDo is also used to annotate the AnnDemo class and cities local variable. The presence of these erroneous annotations might confuse someone reviewing your code, or even your own annotation processing tools. For the times when you need to narrow an annotation types flexibility, Java offers the Target annotation type in its java.lang.annotation package.

Target is a meta-annotation type  an annotation type whose annotations annotate annotation types, as opposed to a non-meta-annotation type whose annotations annotate application elements, such as classes and methods. It identifies the kinds of application elements to which an annotation type is applicable. These elements are identified by Target s ElementValue[] value() element.

java.lang.annotation.ElementType is an enum whose constants describe application elements. For example, CONSTRUCTOR applies to constructors and PARAMETER applies to parameters. Listing 8 refactors Listing 5s ToDo annotation type to restrict it to methods only.

Listing 8: ToDo.java (version 3)

import java.lang.annotation.ElementType; import java.lang.annotation.Target; @Target({ElementType.METHOD}) public @interface ToDo { String value(); }

Given the refactored ToDo annotation type, an attempt to compile Listing 7 now results in the following error message:

AnnDemo.java:1: error: annotation type not applicable to this kind of declaration @ToDo("1000,10/10/2019,John Doe") ^ AnnDemo.java:6: error: annotation type not applicable to this kind of declaration @ToDo(value="1000,10/10/2019,John Doe") ^ 2 errors

Additional meta-annotation types

Java 5 introduced three additional meta-annotation types, which are found in the java.lang.annotation package:

Retention indicates how long annotations with the annotated type are to be retained. This types associated java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy enum declares constants CLASS (compiler records annotations in class file; virtual machine doesnt retain them to save memory  default policy), RUNTIME (compiler records annotations in class file; virtual machine retains them), and SOURCE (compiler discards annotations).

indicates how long annotations with the annotated type are to be retained. This types associated enum declares constants (compiler records annotations in class file; virtual machine doesnt retain them to save memory  default policy), (compiler records annotations in class file; virtual machine retains them), and (compiler discards annotations). Documented indicates that instances of Documented -annotated annotations are to be documented by javadoc and similar tools.

indicates that instances of -annotated annotations are to be documented by and similar tools. Inherited indicates that an annotation type is automatically inherited.

Java 8 introduced the java.lang.annotation.Repeatable meta-annotation type. Repeatable is used to indicate that the annotation type whose declaration it (meta-)annotates is repeatable. In other words, you can apply multiple annotations from the same repeatable annotation type to an application element, as demonstrated here:

@ToDo(value = "1000,10/10/2019,John Doe") @ToDo(value = "1001,10/10/2019,Kate Doe") static void sort(Object[] objects) { }

This example assumes that ToDo has been annotated with the Repeatable annotation type.

Processing annotations

Annotations are meant to be processed; otherwise, theres no point in having them. Java 5 extended the Reflection API to help you create your own annotation processing tools. For example, Class declares an Annotation[] getAnnotations() method that returns an array of java.lang.Annotation instances describing annotations present on the element described by the Class object.

Listing 9 presents a simple application that loads a class file, interrogates its methods for ToDo annotations, and outputs the components of each found annotation.

Listing 9: AnnProcDemo.java

import java.lang.reflect.Method; public class AnnProcDemo { public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception { if (args.length != 1) { System.err.println("usage: java AnnProcDemo classfile"); return; } Method[] methods = Class.forName(args[0]).getMethods(); for (int i = 0; i < methods.length; i++) { if (methods[i].isAnnotationPresent(ToDo.class)) { ToDo todo = methods[i].getAnnotation(ToDo.class); String[] components = todo.value().split(","); System.out.printf("ID = %s%n", components[0]); System.out.printf("Finish date = %s%n", components[1]); System.out.printf("Coder = %s%n%n", components[2]); } } } }

After verifying that exactly one command-line argument (identifying a class file) has been specified, main() loads the class file via Class.forName() , invokes getMethods() to return an array of java.lang.reflect.Method objects identifying all public methods in the class file, and processes these methods.

Method processing begins by invoking Method s boolean isAnnotationPresent(Class<? extends Annotation> annotationClass) method to determine if the annotation described by ToDo.class is present on the method. If so, Method s <T extends Annotation> T getAnnotation(Class<T> annotationClass) method is called to obtain the annotation.

The ToDo annotations that are processed are those whose types declare a single String value() element (see Listing 5). Because this elements string-based metadata is comma-separated, it needs to be split into an array of component values. Each of the three component values is then accessed and output.

Compile this source code ( javac AnnProcDemo.java ). Before you can run the application, youll need a suitable class file with @ToDo annotations on its public methods. For example, you could modify Listing 6s AnnDemo source code to include public in its sort() and search() method headers. Youll also need Listing 10s ToDo annotation type, which requires the RUNTIME retention policy.

Listing 10: ToDo.java (version 4)

import java.lang.annotation.ElementType; import java.lang.annotation.Retention; import java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy; import java.lang.annotation.Target; @Target({ElementType.METHOD}) @Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME) public @interface ToDo { String value(); }

Compile the modified AnnDemo.java and Listing 10, and execute the following command to process AnnDemo s ToDo annotations:

java AnnProcDemo AnnDemo

If all goes well, you should observe the following output:

ID = 1000 Finish date = 10/10/2019 Coder = John Doe ID = 1000 Finish date = 10/10/2019 Coder = John Doe

Processing annotations with apt and the Java compiler Java 5 introduced an apt tool for processing annotations in a generalized manner. Java 6 migrated apt s functionality into its javac compiler tool, and Java 7 deprecated apt , which was subsequently removed (starting with Java 8).

Standard annotation types

Along with Target , Retention , Documented , and Inherited , Java 5 introduced java.lang.Deprecated , java.lang.Override , and java.lang.SuppressWarnings . These three annotation types are designed to be used in a compiler context only, which is why their retention policies are set to SOURCE .

Deprecated
Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore will not bring two significant officer use-of-force cases to a grand jury before she leaves office this year, her office said Wednesday.

The move delays the prosecution of the cases related to the deaths of Javier Ambler and Michael Ramos, both of whom died at the hands of law enforcement officers. Moore previously planned to present both cases to a special grand jury in August. Last week, Moore lost the Democratic primary runoff to Jose Garza, who earned 68% of the vote. The seat is up for election in November, and Garza is favored to win in strongly blue Travis County over Republican candidate Martin Harry.

By overwhelmingly supporting a candidate for District Attorney who ran on a platform of changing how officer involved shooting cases are prosecuted, I believe the community has clearly stated it would like to see the new administration oversee the prosecution of these cases from beginning to end, Moore said in a statement.

Jeff Edwards, who represents the Ambler family, told the Austin American-Statesman that officer misconduct is too important to the community as a whole for politics to play a role, referring to Moores decision.

If the district attorney were openly committed to vigorously pursuing this indictment, getting an indictment sooner rather than later we believe is in the communitys interest and Ms. Ramos interest, Scott Hendler, who represents Ramos mother, Brenda Ramos, told the Statesman.

Amblers and Ramos names have become rallying cries in Texas during the ongoing protests against police brutality and racial injustice that followed George Floyds death in Minneapolis.

Ambler, a Black man, died last year after Williamson County deputies repeatedly shocked him with a Taser. Before he died, Ambler told the officers he had congestive heart failure and couldnt breathe. Ambler was unarmed, and body camera footage showed he wasnt resisting the deputies involved.

Michael Ramos, a Black and Latino man, died in April after being shot with a bean bag round as he stood next to his car, hands in the air, shouting that he was unarmed, the Austin Chronicle reported. Ramos ducked into the car and had started to drive away when an officer shot him.

Moore said she directed her offices civil rights unit to continue preparing both cases for the grand jury so they will be ready to present to the grand jury as soon as the newly elected District Attorney takes office.
By Akbar Mammadov

Twenty-seven years have passed since the occupation of Aghdam, once Azerbaijans richest city with the population of 50,000.

Armenian attack on Aghdam razed the city to the ground, turning it into the ghost city. Also called as Hiroshimo of the South Caucasus, Aghdam is a vivid example of Armenian aggression and vandalism.

Aghdam is one of the seven surrounding districts around Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan that were occupied by Armenian force in the early 1990s.

6,000 people were killed and over 126,000 others were expelled from their homes as a result of the occupation of a great part (846,7 sq km) of Aghdam district (total 1,150 km), that is comprised of Aghdam city and 80 villages.

The occupation also disabled 3,531 people and turned 1,871 children into orphans.

As a result of the ethnic cleansing carried out by Armenia, out of 204,000 inhabitants of the district, more than 154,000 are scattered across Azerbaijan and live as IDPs.

Aghdam's historical and cultural buildings, schools, museums, houses were destroyed, and historical mosques of Aghdam, such as Juma, Khachindarbatli, were demolished and turned to cattle stables.

Today, Armenian occupying forces are using the district of Aghdam as a buffer zone.

The United Nations Security Council's resolution 853 demands the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of the occupying forces from the district of Aghdam and all other recently occupied areas of Azerbaijan and reaffirmed UN Resolution 822. However, Armenia has still evaded fulfilling its obligations.

Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a conflict over Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway region, which along with seven adjacent regions was occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and around one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France has been mediating the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict since the signing of the volatile cease-fire agreement in 1994. The Minsk Groups efforts have resulted in no progress and to this date, Armenia has failed to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) that demand the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Turkey reiterated its support to Azerbaijan against Armenian border attacks, according to a National Security Council statement on Wednesday.



Turkey called on Armenia to stop its aggression and withdraw from Azerbaijani lands it is occupying, the statement said following the council meeting headed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, Anadolu Agency reported.



Ankara also strongly condemned the Armenian occupation of Azerbaijani territory, the statement added.
In Ghanaian politics, the myths of having a Northern and Southern presidential joint ticket remain as deeply entrenched and blindly accepted by the electorate just as the power of the vice-presidential candidate.

This notion was purported to have been started in 1979 general elections when the then two major parties both fielded a candidate from the north and the south.

The Popular Front Party was led by late Victor Owusu, a southerner, and Peoples National Party-led then by candidate late Dr Hilla Limann, a career diplomat, from the north. This north and south pairing did not come into play again from 1981, when Flt Lt Rawlings overthrew the PNP government under ex-President Dr. Hilla Limann, until 2000 when he finished his term as the president of the fourth republic.

Since 2000 the duopoly of north and south joint ticket has been the norm. However, what has also emerged is the dynamics of who leads the ticket in both parties and their vice-presidential pick.

In the 2000 elections, both the NDC and NPP had Northerners on the ticket as a vice-presidential pick. That election was unique because as many have argued the country was clamouring for change after two terms of NDC administration in government. The same can be argued for the 2008 elections when Mills won after the second round of runoff against the ruling NPP candidate. In both elections, the vice-presidential pick did not make much impact in terms of votes won in their home regions due to the euphoria for change by the major party that was then in opposition.

Ghana, from 1992, when the fourth republic constitution was adopted, and Flt Lt Rawlings won the first elections, the country has had a very vibrant democracy where elections are fiercely contested and are seen to be free and fair with participation being extremely high, especially in two regions of the country, Volta and Ashanti Regions, where both the National Democratic Congress and New Patriotic Parties have their strongholds, respectively.

In his analysis, The Ghanaian Paradox, Cadman Atta Mills (the younger brother of the late 5th President of the Republic, Professor John Kofi Atta Mills), argues that unlike many countries across the continent, the Ghanaian elections are inherently not based on ethnic affiliations, but rather, on the personality and quality of leadership where party supporters appear to no more than associations of prominent individuals and their followers or fan clubs and further argue that for the most part elections are contested on the basis of promised infrastructure projects, utility price reductions, the restoration of allowances, payment of arrears, and elimination of school fees (free SHS), Mills, 2018, Africa In Focus.

Thus in 2012 elections, John Mahama, who was sworn in as President of the Republic of Ghana earlier after the demise of President Mills, campaigned not on his record but his youthfulness and on the record of late President Mills anti-corruption crusade. Mahama surrounded himself with former student leaders who had propelled late President Mills to power 4 years earlier, such as Fiifi Kwetey, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa and Victoria Hammer, among others.

And 4 years later in 2016 elections, then candidate and now President Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo, mainly campaigned on his record as a Human Rights Defender and on Dr Muhammadu Bawumias (his vice-presidential pick) record as a brilliant economist and the one who would save the country from the rout of the NDC. In fact, many in the New Patriot Party often compare Dr. Bawumia to late Milton Friedman, an avid supporter and proponent of free markets, while others say his role in stabilising the Ghanaian economy while pursuing anti-aid and pro-growth policies, mirrors Zambia-born Economist Dambisa Moyos work. Moyos book, Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa, some argue, greatly influence Dr Bawumia and Nana Akuffo Addos Ghana Beyond Aid agenda.

In Ghana, there has been an assumption that any party that wants to win elections must have the north and south ticket. As Mills, 2018, argue Ghanas elections are based on issues that are primarily dominated by powerful socio-economic groups who are very vocal and quite often drive the agenda of the two major parties. Individuals who are perceived to be sympathetic to the political party that wins the elections are rewarded with contracts that do not go through competitive bidding (cronyism and/or in the local dialect, kokofo ball or gutter to gutter), while party affiliations are strong among the 80% poor which are not are seldom based on the ethnicity of the presidential candidates and their vice-presidential pick.

This brings us to the role and impact of the candidates and their vice-presidential pick in the 2020 elections. According to socio-economic and political commentators and analysts including this writer, the right VP pick can help carry not only his or her region, but his or her socio-economic groups, or put an uncompetitive subgroup into play.

Hence the selection of Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyeman is timely for the National Democratic Congress ahead of such greats as Nii Moi Thompson, (a member of the CPP Patriots), Dr. Kwesi Botchwey, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, Alex Mould and others. This shows Aunty Naanas immense stature, her rich experience and her non-corruptible stand in the country is greatly admired.

Aunty Naanas selection as the vice-presidential pick on the ticket of NDC has suddenly changed the dynamics of this coming December 2020 elections.

So, who is Naana Jane, many may ask? Aunty Naana is a mother and grandmother, first and foremost, and an educationalist. Born and raised in Cape Coast, the Central Region of Ghana, Aunty Naana Jane served in the NDC government under John Mahama as an Education Minister, before then she served as the first female vice-chancellor of a major University in the country, University of Cape Coast, the Capital of Central Region.

Pundits across the country strongly believe that Aunty Naanas pick as the vice-presidential candidate of the NDC would bring a huge electoral advantage to the party.

Already the various students unions, the University Lecturers union and women across the country have hailed Aunty Naana as someone who can help the NDC to transform the country. The National Union of Ghana Students, NUGS, the foremost student leadership in Ghana have pledge their total support to Aunty Naanas candidacy and have called on the youth of the country to support and vote for her.

Aunty Naanas gender would play a very crucial role in the December 2020 elections. Women groups across the country are very excited of Aunty Naanas pick as the number 2 on the NDC ticket. Many women are now certain that Aunty Naana would help cement the gains already made when Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, often referred to as Our Mother of Ghana, was the first lady of Ghana from 1981 to 2000. Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings gave voice to women in Ghana and across the African continent. Many hope Aunty Naana Jane would use her role as Vice President of Ghana to do more for women, irrespective of ethnic group across the country.

In an interview that this writer had with a section of the youth in Accra, often seen hawking at intersections of Ghanas roads and have been left behind, with many do not have any home to go to, lack skills to find meaningful work, said, they believe Aunty Naana Jane would help President Mahama to implement policies that would benefit them. The majority says Aunty Naanas pick as the vice-presidential candidate of NDC is God sent and pledge to vote for the NDC because of Aunty Naana Jane.

When NDCs National Communication Director, the young and dynamic Lawyer Sammy Gyamfi, announced to the world of the selection of Naana Jane Opoku-Agyeman as the vice-presidential candidate, there was wild jubilation among the Fantes of Central, Western and North Western Regions of Ghana. In Volta, Oti, Savannah, Upper East, Upper West, North West and Northern, Eastern, Bono, Ahafo and Ashanti Regions of Ghana women were ecstatic and happy to at last seen a woman, who is a mother and grandmother rand incorruptible, been selected as the vice-presidential candidate of the main opposition party, the NDC.

Many WOMEN were of the opinion that at last Aunty Nana Jane would help bring urgently needed advancement to women who have been neglected by previous governments as results of none women-friendly policies. According to one market woman at Takoradi Market Square who burst into tears of jubilation when Aunty Naanas name was called out as the vice-presidential pick for NDC, said at last Aunty Naana Jane will bring the vice-president home to womenfolk. In Tamale, the Capital city of Northern Ghana (often referred to Ghanas 3rd Capital City) there were jubilations at the markets because of Aunty Naana Janes pick as the vice-presidential candidate of NDC.

According to Lawyer Sammy Gyamfi, the dynamic young lawyer National Communications Director of NDC, Naana Janes pick as the vice-presidential candidate of NDC was not based on her huge advantage of Fante ethnic group votes, the most swing voters in Ghanas electoral process, which many believe Aunty Naana would easily carry (Western, Western North, and Central Regions) but on her sole ability of someone who can get things done.

Aunty Naana, who was born in Cape Coast, is a God-fearing woman, a mother and grandmother, loved across the country, especially among her Fante ethnic group.

In a linear regression analysis plotted by this writer, in elections from 1992 to 2016, starting from late Kow Nkensen Arkaahs pick as the vice-presidential candidate, help President Rawlings to carry all the 2 Fante Regions at the time, Central and Western, and this same feat was repeated in 1996 when another notable Fante, late President John Kofi Atta Mills was put on the ticket as the vice-presidential candidate of NDC. In 2012, when the elections were hotly contested between NPP and NDC, Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur, another great son of the Fantes on the ticket as a vice-presidential candidate, the graph showed statistically significant voting trends of his Fante ethnic group, relative to national voting trends. Second, the analysis shows that NDC candidates won a higher percentage of the votes from the Central and Western Regions that is the core ethnic group, the Fante group (Nzema, Ahanta, Wassa, Awutu and Fantes) because of Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur.

This analysis helped informed the selection of the NDC vice-presidential pick and what a good pick that is. My graph clearly shows that the Fante group responds differently to elections that feature a candidate from their group. The analysis also shows that those who normally vote for a different party with none indigene on the ballot or are not likely to vote at all suddenly become engaged in the campaign as is being seen across this writers ethnic group, the Fantes. From Kasoa through to Axim along the coast and from Tarkwa, Swedru, Ayledu, Fante Nyankumasi to Anomabo, Komenda, Abora, Elmina (Edna) Ekumfi, Enyan, Ajumako, Gomoa to Mankessim (The Ancestral Homeland of the Fantes) to Sekondi-Takoradi, the enthusiasm and joy of Aunty Naana being on the ticket of NDC is awesome.

In the 5 Northern Regions, Oti and Volta Regions, many womenfolk across the country are associating themselves with the support for our Aunty Naana to become the first female Vice President of the Republic of Ghana. Aunty Naana Jane will not only bring the Vice President Home to Mankessim and Cape Coast, but to all women of Ghana.

In an interview with Aunty Naana Jane in Accra last week with this writer, Aunty Naana said the plight of the large unemployed youth across the country is one of her most pressing issues that would be dealt in the very first month of the incoming administration.

As Aunty Naana embarks on this very important journey to help redeemed the women of Ghana from extreme poverty, hardships and to once again give voice to womenfolk, not only among the Fantes but the entire women of Ghana, the spirits of the Fantes ancestors in our Homeland of Mankessim would guide her, give her wisdom and strength to withstand any evil threats against her.

Aunty Naana would bring the Vice President Home to MANKESSIM, to Cape Coast, to Sekondi-Takoradi, to Tarkwa and to Axim and to every village and hamlet across our homeland Ghana. Yes, Aunty Naana Jane can. Aunty Naana Jane is our ONLY HOPE. The Spirits of OBRUMANKOMA, ODAPAGYA, AND OSON are firmly behind OUR MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER AUNTY NAANA JANE.
Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu at a virtual meeting on COVID-19 in Tokyo (Photo: AFP/VNA)

Tokyo  Japan will ease entry restriction for Vietnam and Thailand this month, said Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu on July 22.

However, all citizens of the two Southeast Asian countries would be quarantined for 14 days at home or a designated location, according to Japans Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Regarding the permission for businesspeople and those with the work purpose to enter Japan, the ministry said it will continue coordinating with Vietnam and Thailand via diplomatic channels to implement this programme as soon as possible and announce immediately when reaching agreements.

Earlier, at a meeting on June 19, Minister Motegi said Japan and Vietnam have reached an agreement on gradually and partially easing travelling restriction measures between the two countries.

The two sides have been deliberating ways to carry out these measures via diplomatic channels.

Minister Motegi told Vietnam News Agencys correspondents that Japan has selected Vietnam as one of the first four nations to relax travelling restrictions, besides Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand, because of Vietnams good containment of the COVID-19 and the big travelling demand between Vietnam and Japan.

He expressed hopes the relaxation of immigration restrictions for Vietnam will contribute to the strengthening of the bilateral comprehensive cooperative partnership.
Bipartisan Capitol Hill talks have only just begun on a sweeping renewal of coronavirus legislation, but areas of likely agreement  and flashpoints of discord  are becoming apparent as the package starts to take shape.

The Democratic House passed a whopping $3.5 trillion coronavirus response bill more than two months ago , re-upping a $600 per week federal unemployment benefit that expires July 31, another round of $1,200 payments to most people, and almost $1 trillion for cash-starved states and local governments. The GOP's $1 trillion-plus response, expected shortly, will have far less money and will feature a sweeping liability shield for schools, businesses, and charities that are trying to reopen. It's up to top congressional leaders to bridge the gaps.

A rundown of the top issues in play as the talks gain momentum.

___

LIKELY IN THE FINAL BILL

$1,200 direct payments. President Donald Trump, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell all agree that there should be another round of $1,200 direct payments to most Americans at a cost approaching $300 billion. It's seen as a slam dunk for inclusion despite grumbling that the aid isn't well targeted to those most in need.

Aid to schools/universities. Both the House and Senate bills contain $100 billion or more to help schools and universities through the crisis and reopen as soon as possible. The emerging GOP draft would dedicate half of a $70 billion school aid package to schools that resume in-school learning, Republicans say, with half going to those reopening with remote learning. Democrats are sure to oppose the idea.

Small business subsidies. The Payroll Protection Program, or PPP, has received $660 million to help generally smaller businesses weather the pandemic, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is pressing for more targeted to especially hard-hit sectors like restaurants. Democrats and Republicans have worked well together on the issue, and there's more than $100 billion in unspent PPP funding that they could re-purpose.

___

LIKELY IN THE BILL, BUT ONLY AFTER A FIGHT

State and local aid. A huge payment to state and local governments, including smaller cities left out of the huge $2 trillion CARES Act passed in March, is one of Pelosi's core demands. She's backed by a bipartisan gaggle of governors, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, and Republicans like Susan Collins of Maine. Supporters say the funding is crucial to boost the economy, to prevent a wave of layoffs and to alleviate cuts to education and health care. Republicans so far are only promising new flexibility on $150 billion in state and local funding that was allocated in the March, but Democrats will insist on far more.

Extension of jobless aid. A supplemental $600 per week federal pandemic unemployment insurance benefit that has kept millions of workers and households afloat expires on July 31. Democrats would extend the $600 through January 2021. Republicans want to slash the benefits because many workers make more on unemployment than they would if they were to reclaim their jobs. A robust fight is certain.

Liability shield. Businesses and school systems are among those seeking protection from lawsuits arising from coronavirus exposure. McConnell and John Cornyn, R-Texas, have drafted a plan promising to shield employers from ordinary negligence lawsuits, imposing a higher, though temporary, legal standard. Liability protections are a must-have for McConnell, but Democrats and the still-powerful trial lawyers lobby are sure to resist.

Business tax breaks. Republicans are pressing to extend both the employer retention tax credit, which helps businesses defray payroll costs, as well as the work opportunity tax credit, which subsidizes the hiring of disadvantaged workers. Those are likely to make it into the package, but lawmakers are unlikely to consider more ambitious tax breaks.

Election assistance. States are scrambling to expand their absentee and vote-by-mail capacities during the pandemic. The House bill contains $3.6 billion to pay for printing ballots, for postage costs, and for protective equipment and training for poll workers. It'll end up being far less, but key Republicans support the initiative, despite Trump's campaign against mail-in voting.

POSSIBLY OUT OF FINAL BILL

Payroll tax cut. Trump is pushing to temporarily reduce the 7.65% Social Security and Medicare payroll tax to boost take-home paychecks, but it has little buy-in from Senate Republicans, who are increasingly vocal in their opposition. Still, some version of it is likely to make it into McConnell's draft. Democrats are firmly against it, and Trump may not have the leverage necessary to make it happen  though he is pushing hard.
The total number of cases of COVID-19 listed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for Pacific nations is approaching 500 following an increase of more than 48 infections since early July. The main contributor remains the US territory of Guam which, with over 100 active cases, is struggling with a fresh surge of infections.

The WHO has reported over 280 cases on Guam, including five deaths. Multiple cases on the islands huge US military bases are not included in the overall count. There are ongoing tensions over the arrival of COVID-19 through the US military, directly attributable to the Trump administrations policy of allowing the disease to run unchecked.

In April, Captain Brett Crozier of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, stationed on Guam, was fired for demanding that the bulk of his crew be evacuated and quarantined to prevent the spread of the virus. Nearly one quarter of the 4,800 crew was eventually infected. Hundreds of sailors were placed for 14 days in Guam hotels and crowded into the Guam Navy base gym. While most have since recovered from the virus, one serviceman has died. There have also been 35 cases of COVID-19 reported this month at the nearby US Andersen Air Force Base.

The Northern Marianas (CNMI), another US Pacific territory, confirmed four new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending July 17, bringing the total to 37, including two deaths. A CNMI-government imposed State of Emergency is in its seventh month, expected to run until at least mid-August.

In Papua New Guinea (PNG), eleven new COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in the capital Port Moresby. The total number of cases is now 30, over half of them having emerged in the past week. Most of the new cases are health workers at Port Moresby General Hospital where all non-essential services have been suspended. A cancer patient who died at the hospital this week was found by a post-mortem examination to have had the virusthe first COVID-19 linked fatality in Melanesia.

Earlier, the PNG government had announced a cluster outbreak at the Central Public Health Laboratory on the hospital premises, following a previous outbreak at the countrys central military barracks. Prime Minister Marape declared COVID-19 is now prevalent, with community transmission taking hold in the capital and urged all residents to wear masks. Four recent cases have brought Fijis total to 22. Nine border quarantine cases have been confirmed since July 6, all repatriated citizens from India. More than 160 Fijian soldiers returned negative results after returning from the Middle East last month following a COVID-19 outbreak at the Sinai military camp where they had been stationed.

The far-flung islands of the Pacific have so far escaped high levels of COVID-19. However, the factors that have helped contribute to thisremoteness, small and scattered populations and the difficulties of travel and transportare currently fuelling a worsening economic and social crisis.

In Fiji, one NGO estimates that half the population of 883,000 is facing severe financial distress. In June, the Sofitel Resort sacked 160 staff and the Pullman Resort another 220. The sackings followed more than 1,000 redundancies at Fiji Airways and Air Terminal Services. Overall 115,000 workersone-third of the countrys workforcehave had their hours slashed or lost their jobs.

According to government figures, 86,000 Fijians have accessed relief payments from their pension savings in the National Provident Fund, with another 26,000 ready to do so in the next phase of unemployment. Much needed remittances from overseas family members are projected to fall by 15 percent.

Fijis reserve bank has predicted a contraction of 21.7 percent in the economy, driven largely by the collapse of tourism. The government last week projected a $US1.7 billion budget for the 202021 financial year. Minister for Economy Aiyaz Saiyed-Khaiyum said a 20.2 percent increase in the deficit will lift the debt-to-GDP ratio to 83.4 percent. Foreign direct investment is set to plunge 40 percent. A $US930 million stimulus package for business has been announced, along with the restructuring of $US1.6 billion in financial sector loans. Welfare had been increased by a paltry $US6.5m.

Many Pacific governments are seeking to revive their tourist industries, regardless of the risks. While the regions main sources of tourists, Australia and New Zealand, are under lockdown with an upsurge of infections, Fiji is enticing potential visitors with an invitation to escape the pandemic in paradise. The government has offered 150,000 tourists a once-in-a-lifetime travel stipend of $US185 for flights, hotels and meals, plus dropping of quarantine restrictions for arrivals from some countries.

French Polynesia will have an estimated 3,000 visitors this month as the territory opens for international travel and another 7,000 in August, coinciding with France's summer holiday. The first flights from Los Angeles arrived last week after tourists from the US were cleared to enter without needing to quarantine. An online registration system is in place for persons boarding a plane for Tahiti to have cleared a COVID-19 test.

Tahitis reopening comes despite a decree from Paris banning air travel to and from many of its overseas territories. President Edouard Fritch acknowledged that the COVID-19 crisis had worsened in the US but told La Depeche that if French Polynesia didnt open up the consequences would be catastrophic. He acknowledged the probability that there would be more COVID-19 cases.

The Northern Marianas was also scheduled to open for regular international flights last week, but fresh outbreaks of COVID-19 in the CNMIs main tourism markets of China and South Korea forced carriers to abandon their plans. The Commonwealth Ports Authority said a new target date to reopen the international airport has yet to be determined.

The Cook Islands government is holding talks with New Zealand officials, including Deputy PM Winston Peters, to establish a quarantine-free travel bubble between the two countries. Ninety percent of the Cook Islands economy relies on tourism. University of Canterbury Academic Michael Plank told Radio NZ that it will be necessary to tread very carefully so NZ does not export the virus to the Pacific, which has a high risk of devastating health impacts. In Samoa last year, 83 people died in a measles epidemic that originated in Auckland.

The Auckland-based New Zealand Fiji Business Council and other corporate lobbyists, as well as former NZ Labour PM Helen Clark, have been demanding the Ardern-led government relax its border restrictions for mutual economic benefits. However, the head of the South Pacific Tourism Organisation, Chris Cocker, told Radio NZ that any prospect of a tourism rebound this year has been written off, adding that a first quarter 2021 resumption was the best case scenario.

With the virus spreading uncontrolled around the globe and a disastrous financial and economic collapse underway, even this is likely a serious underestimation. The already catastrophic impact on the fragile and impoverished former colonies of the Pacific region is likely to get worse.
An ER nurse has recalled the heartbreaking moment she found her 18-month-old son's body floating in their backyard pool after wandered outside by himself and drowned in a tragic accident.

Jenny Bennett, from Houston, Texas, who has three other children, found her late son Jackson 'floating face down' in the water in June 2016 - and despite her desperate attempts to save him with CPR, the little boy passed away four days later.

Now, the healthcare professional is speaking out about the family tragedy to warn other parents about the risks of childhood drownings - as these kind of heartbreaking accidents see a huge surge amid the coronavirus lockdown.

Devastating: Houston, Texas, ER nurse Jenny Bennett has revealed how her 18-month-old son Jackson died tragically after drowning in their family pool

'Water baby': The 36-year-old found her son 'floating face down' in the pool in June 2016, revealing that he wandered outside through a dog door when his parents weren't looking

This June, 68 children under the age of 12 drowned across the US - a more than 100 per cent increase on the 28 children who passed away from drowning in the same month last year according to data collected by Total Aquatic Programming, LLC.

Jenny, who is also mother to Kila, 14, Lilly, eight, and Asher, three, hopes that other parents will now learn from her family's tragedy, with the grieving mother explaining that she is sharing Jackson's story in order to educate others on the risks of at-home swimming pools.

According to the healthcare worker, her son Jackson loved being in the pool and would often swim with his father, sales manager Adam, 40 - a beloved hobby that earned him the nickname Water Baby.

'He loved to swim with us and he loved the water. We were very proud of him being what we called a water baby,' she said.

In July 2016, Jenny opened the dog door to let their dogs out when she and the family left the house to pick up Adam from work.

When the family returned, Jenny forgot that the dog door was open.

She asked Adam to watch Jackson for a few minutes and Adam thought the toddler had gone to play with his sisters.

Accident: Jenny said that the family never left the dog door open - but the mother had forgotten about it when she and her kids went to pick up her husband, Adam, 40, from work

Heartbreaking: 'I pulled him out [of the water]. His eyes were open and his skin was warm and still looked pink. I thought I found him in time,' Jenny recalled

Tragedy: Jenny performed CPR on her son before the paramedics arrived

Fight: Jackson spent four days fighting for his life in hospital before doctors declared the little boy braindead

'I could hear the girls playing but I couldn't hear Jackson which was strange as he was always laughing,' Jenny recalled.

'That's when I remembered the dog door was open - it was very out of routine that it was open.

'I ran immediately to the pool and that's where I found him floating face down.

'I pulled him out. His eyes were open and his skin was warm and still looked pink. I thought I found him in time.

'I couldn't hear him breathing, I put my head on his chest and I couldn't hear a heartbeat.

'I started CPR on my son. I've performed CPR dozens if not hundreds of times as a nurse but never on a child.'

Paramedics arrived and Jackson was taken to HCA Houston Healthcare.

He remained on life support for four days until he was declared braindead.

Legacy: Jenny and Adam decided to donate their son's organs, with the mother explaining, 'We knew he would be saving others and living on through them'

Family: The parents also gave their older children, Kila, now 14, and Lilly, now eight, the chance to say goodbye to their baby brother

'We decided to donate his organs to children,' Jenny said. 'We knew he would be saving others and living on through them.

'We said goodbye and he became a hero.'

The family traveled to Anchorage, Alaska, last summer to meet the four-year-old boy who received Jackson's heart.

In 2018 Jenny set up Parents Preventing Childhood Drowning, an organization that aims to educate parents and teachers on ways to prevent drowning.

'I thought we were doing everything right to keep our children safe but I feel like I never got the education about drowning prevention.'

Jenny now advocates for parents with pools to install a fence around the pool.

'Put as many barriers as you can between your child and the pool.

'I highly recommend a fence that completely encloses your pool and is at least four feet high.'

Help: In 2018 Jenny, pictured with her husband, son Jackson and his sisters, set up an organization that aims to educate parents and teachers on ways to prevent drowning

Warning: 'I thought we were doing everything right to keep our children safe but I feel like I never got the education about drowning prevention,' Jenny said

She also suggests that children are taught self-rescue swimming skills.

'Swimming lessons that focus on self-rescue and survival are your last layer of protection.

'Personal jail': The ER nurse said that she was afraid to tell people about her son's death because she was worried about the stigma

'If a child makes it through all of the barriers and into the pool, survival swimming will teach them to go onto their backs to float and how to exit the pool.'

Jenny fears the COVID-19 lockdown will create a spike in children drowning as families stay at home and parents may be distracted while working from home.

'With more parents spending time at home, a toddler could wander off and find the pool.

'It just takes five minutes - in the time that you take to post a cute picture on Instagram, you could have a deadly situation.'

Jenny added that the parents of drowned children face stigma.

'I feel like I'm living in my own personal jail. It took me two years to tell people how my son died because of the stigma.

'But I needed to speak up and share my story and I hope that somebody learns from it.'
By Jessica Resnick-Ault

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices edged lower on Wednesday as government data showed a surprise rise in U.S. crude inventories and as tensions escalated between the United States and China.

Brent crude futures settled down 3 cents at $44.29 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude settled down 2 cents at $41.90 a barrel.

U.S. crude and distillate inventories rose unexpectedly and fuel demand slipped in the most recent week, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday, as the sharp outbreak in coronavirus cases has started to hit U.S. consumption.

Crude inventories rose by 4.9 million barrels in the week to July 17 to 536.6 million barrels, compared with expectations in a Reuters poll for a 2.1 million-barrel drop. Production rose to 11.1 million barrels per day, up by 100,000 barrels per day.[EIA/S]

Overall, this would suggest that the demand recovery weve seen from the bottom seems to be stalling," said Phil Flynn, senior analyst at Price Futures group in Chicago.

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the outbreak would probably worsen before it got better, a shift from his previously robust emphasis on reopening the economy.

Bjornar Tonhaugen, Rystad Energys head of oil markets, said Trump's comments might be welcomed by investors because they are among the most measured by him or his administration so far.

"This could be a positive for oil demand prospects. Instead of an uncontrolled, disruptive second wave of lockdowns, maybe chances have now increased that the United States will eventually get the spread under control," Tonhaugen said.

However, a fresh dispute between Washington and Beijing put pressure on prices after the United States told the Chinese consulate in Houston to shut and a source said China was considering closing the U.S. consulate in Wuhan.

Adding to pressure were signs that Iraq, the second-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, was still not meeting its target under an OPEC-led pact to cut supplies.

(Additional reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in London, Jessica Jaganathan in Singapore; Editing by David Gregorio and Leslie Adler)
Florida authorities said that three people have been arrested in connection with the shooting deaths of three best friends who were out fishing.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said last weekend that the three friends were massacred during a Friday night fishing trip.

The victims have been identified as 23-year-old Damion Tillman, 30-year-old Keven Springfield and 27-year-old Brandon Rollins, all from Frostproof.

The sheriffs office arrested Tony TJ Wiggins, 26, who reportedly pulled the trigger, and charged him with three counts of murder.

Judd said Wiggins has 230 felony charges in his criminal history, dating back to when he was 12 years old.

"I didn't stutter. He has 230 charges in his arrest history. Fifteen convictions and two times to state prison at only 26," the sheriff said at a news conference. "He's a thug, he's a criminal. He's pure evil in the flesh. He's wild and he's out of control."

Video above: WFLA via CNN -- Loved ones speak after 3 best friends 'massacred' on fishing trip

TJs girlfriend, 27-year-old Mary Whitemore, was charged with three counts of accessory to murders. TJs brother, 21-year-old Robert Wiggins, was also charged with three counts of accessory to the murders.

Judd said there were no signs the killings were drug-related. He said TJ Wiggins claimed one of the victims had sold his truck engine, but investigators had not verified that claim.
EDMONTON  Albertas chief medical officer says the provinces sharp spike in COVID-19 infections should be a wake-up call for people who dont believe theyre at risk.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw said Alberta saw 114 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, down from 133 cases Wednesday. The province also saw two new deaths linked to the virus.

The new cases are part of a worrying trend in the western province, Hinshaw said.

Alberta was successful in flattening the curve early on in the pandemic, and was among the first jurisdictions to begin reopening businesses.

But now, Alberta has seen the highest increase in new cases per capita nationwide between July 7 and 21.

On July 9, the province had 519 active cases. By Thursday, that number had increased to nearly 1,300.

British Columbia, in contrast, recorded 34 new cases Wednesday.

Particularly concerning for Hinshaw are the provinces hospitalization numbers. She said Alberta is now approaching the previous record for hospitalizations, set on April 30 when there were 113 people in hospital. There are currently 106 people hospitalized for COVID-19 complications.

This needs to be a wake-up call, Hinshaw said. I am very concerned by these numbers.

Hinshaw noted the number of Albertans in intensive-care units has nearly tripled in two weeks, from seven to 21.

She provided some stark numbers on how the virus is affecting different age groups. Of the 106 people who are hospitalized, 24 are under the age of 60.

In Alberta, Hinshaw said one out of 50 people between the age of 30 and 39 who are diagnosed needs to be admitted to hospital. That number increases to one out of every 20 people between 40 and 69. Between 70 and 79, one in 10 people who are diagnosed require hospitalization.

Finally, one in four cases in people who are 80 or over results in death.

While it is true that younger people who catch COVID-19 have a lower risk of severe outcomes, lower risk does not mean zero risk, Hinshaw said.

Hinshaw said she attributed Albertas continued rise in numbers to a collective fatigue after months of public health measures. But she urged people to remember that everyone is at risk of contracting the virus and passing it onto people who are at much greater risk.

She added that even among people who recover from COVID-19, there is emerging evidence of long-term damage, such as a higher risk of diabetes and permanent lung damage.

We don't yet know what the impact COVID-19 will have on your lifelong health, Hinshaw said. This is not something to take lightly.

She said the guidelines the government has put in place in regard to social distancing and other precautions are a manual for how to live with COVID-19 for the rest of 2020, and likely beyond. She said they are not an optional suggestion that can be disregarded when inconvenient.

On Tuesday, Calgarys city council voted to make masks mandatory in all indoor public spaces, effective August 1. Edmonton moved to make masks mandatory on public transit and city-owned buildings, effective on the same day.

Earlier this week, Premier Jason Kenney told Albertans who are flouting social distancing and other precautions to knock it off.

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The House has approved a bill to remove statues of Gen. Robert E. Lee and other Confederate leaders from the U.S. Capitol, as a reckoning over racial injustice continues following the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis.

The House vote also would remove a bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the author of the 1857 Dred Scott decision that declared African Americans couldn't be citizens.

The bill directs the Architect of the Capitol to identify and eventually remove from Statuary Hall at least 10 statues honoring Confederate officials, including Lee, the commanding general of the Confederate Army, and Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president. Three statues honoring white supremacists  including former U.S. Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina  would be immediately removed.

Defenders and purveyors of sedition, slavery, segregation and white supremacy have no place in this temple of liberty," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said at a Capitol news conference ahead of the House vote.

The House approved the bill 305-113, sending it to the Republican-controlled Senate, where prospects are uncertain. Seventy-two Republicans, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, joined with 232 Democrats to support the bill.

Hoyer, a Democrat, co-sponsored the measure and noted with irony that Taney was born in the southern Maryland district Hoyer represents. Hoyer said it was appropriate that the bill would replace Taneys bust with another Maryland native, the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the high courts first Black justice.

The House vote comes as communities nationwide reexamine the people they're memorializing with statues. Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month ordered that the portraits of four speakers who served the Confederacy be removed from the ornate hall just outside the House chamber.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said the statues honoring Lee and other Confederate leaders are deliberate attempts to rewrite history and dehumanize African Americans.

The statues are not symbols of Southern heritage, as some claim, but are symbols of white supremacy and defiance of federal authority," Lee said. Its past time we end the glorification of men who committed treason against the United States in a concerted effort to keep African Americans in chains."

Bills to remove the Taney bust and the statues of Confederate leaders have been introduced in the Senate, although they would require separate votes.

Even if legislation passes both chambers, it would need the presidents signature, and President Donald Trump has opposed the removal of historic statues elsewhere. Trump has strongly condemned those who toppled statues during protests over racial injustice and police brutality following Floyd's death in May and other police killings.

The 2-foot-high marble bust of Taney is outside a room in the Capitol where the Supreme Court met for half a century, from 1810 to 1860. It was in that room that Taney, the nation's fifth chief justice, announced the Dred Scott decision, sometimes called the worst decision in the court's history.

What Dred Scott said was, Black lives did not matter,'' Hoyer said. "So when we assert that yes they do matter, it is out of conviction ... that in America, the land of the free includes all of us.''

Theres at least one potentially surprising voice for Taney to stay. Lynne M. Jackson, Scott's great-great-granddaughter, says if it were up to her, she'd leave Taney's bust where it is. But she said shed add something too: a bust of Dred Scott.

Im not really a fan of wiping things out," Jackson said in a telephone interview this week from her home in Missouri.

The president and founder of The Dred Scott Heritage Foundation, Jackson has seen other Taney sculptures removed in recent years, particularly in Maryland, where he was the state's attorney general before becoming U.S. attorney general and then chief justice.

Calhoun, who served as vice president from 1825-1832, also was a U.S. senator, House member and secretary of state and war. He died a decade before the Civil War, but was known as a strong defender of slavery, segregation and white supremacy.

His statue would be removed within 30 days of the bill's passage, along with two other white supremacists, former North Carolina Gov. Charles Aycock and James Clarke, a former Arkansas governor and senator.

In the summer of 2017, shortly after white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the removal of a statue of Lee, Baltimore's mayor removed statues of Lee, Taney and others.A statue of Taney was removed from the grounds of the State House in Annapolis around the same time. And a bust of Taney was removed that year from outside city hall in Frederick, Maryland.

Another Taney bust sits alongside all other former chief justices in the Supreme Court's Great Hall, a soaring, marble-columned corridor that leads to the courtroom. A portrait of Taney hangs in one of the court's conference rooms.

Jackson said she believes that what memorials honoring figures like Taney need is context. At the Capitol, the Taney statue sits in the "place where the Dred Scott case was decided, but the fact he is there by himself is lopsided, Jackson said in suggesting a bust of Scott be added. She had proposed a similar fix for the Taney statue in Annapolis.

In Congress, Taney's bust was controversial from the start. When Illinois Sen. Lyman Trumbull proposed its creation in 1865, shortly after Taney's death, he got into a heated debate with Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner, a fierce opponent of slavery.

Let me tell that senator that the name of Taney is to be hooted down the page of history. Judgment is beginning now," Sumner said. "And an emancipated country will fasten upon him the stigma which he deserves.

Funding for a Taney bust wasn't approved until almost a decade later. Today, near the Taney bust, inside the old Supreme Court chamber, there are also busts of the nation's first four chief justices. The first, John Marshall, is the only person to serve as chief justice longer than Taney and a revered figure in the law.


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Extending the advance seen over the past few sessions, treasuries showed another modest move to the upside during trading on Thursday.



Bond prices fluctuated after an initial upward move but managed to remain in positive territory. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, edged down by 1.3 basis points to 0.582 percent.



The ten-year yield moved lower for the fourth consecutive session, ending the day at its lowest closing level in three months.



Treasuries benefited from the release of some disappointing U.S. economic data, including a Labor Department report showing first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits increased for the first time in sixteen weeks.



The report said initial jobless claims jumped to 1.416 million in the week ended July 18th, an increase of 109,000 from the previous week's revised level of 1.307 million.



Economists had expected jobless claims to come in unchanged compared to the 1.300 million originally reported for the previous month.



Jobless claims increased for the first time since late March but remain well below the record high of 6.867 million set in the week ended March 28th.



'The labor market remains in a precarious place as Covid-19 cases surge in some parts of the country and stricter measures are adopted in response,' said Nancy Vanden Houten, Lead U.S. Economist at Oxford Economics.



She added, 'Claims data from the last few weeks point to layoffs and less rehiring in possible signs of job losses in July payroll employment.



A separate report from the Conference Board showed its reading on leading U.S. economic indicators increased by less than expected in the month of June.



The Conference Board said its leading economic index jumped by 2.0 percent in June after soaring by an upwardly revised 3.2 percent in May and plunging by 6.3 percent in April.



Economists had expected the index to surge up by 2.5 percent in June compared to the 2.8 percent spike originally reported for the previous month.



Ataman Ozyildirim, Senior Director of Economic Research at The Conference Board, noted labor market conditions and stock prices made particularly strong positive contributions.



'However, broader financial conditions and the consumers' outlook on business conditions still point to a weak economic outlook,' Ozyildirim said.



He added, 'Together with a resurgence of new COVID-19 cases across much of the nation, the LEI suggests that the U.S. economy will remain in recession territory in the near term.'



The strength among treasuries also came as stocks on Wall Street moved sharply lower over the course of the trading day.



A report on new home sales may attract some attention on Friday, although traders are also likely to keep an eye on rising tensions between the U.S. and China and the latest coronavirus news.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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He is believed to have been involved in carjacking prior to hostage-taking.

The man armed with an RGD-5 hand grenade who had taken a police officer hostage in the Ukrainian city of Poltava has put forward his main demands to police, press officer of the local PD Roman Hrishyn reports.

The culprit says he seeks to avoid liability for crimes committed (car theft and hostage taking) and to hide away.

"He asks to let him go. He was being detained for car theft, and now he is holding a hostage. He wants us to let him go and cease pursuit," Hrishyn told UNIAN.

Read alsoSpox explains Zelensky's move to join negotiations with hostage-taker

The officer added that the perpetrator is driving toward Kyiv with cop hostage in car.

As UNIAN reported earlier, a man wielding an RGD-5 hand grenade took a police officer hostage in Poltava. As part of negotiations, the attacker swapped the captured police officer for the local chief detective, Police Colonel Vitaliy Shyian, with whom he drove off in a Bohdan vehicle provided upon his demand.

Police later reported the man has a history of convictions for theft and drug possession.
PHOENIX, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Universal Technical Institute, Inc. (NYSE: UTI), the nation's leading provider of transportation technician training, today announced that it plans to report results for its fiscal 2020 third quarter ended June 30, 2020 on August 6, 2020 after market close. Jerome Grant, Chief Executive Officer, and Troy Anderson, Chief Financial Officer, will host a conference call at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time on the same day to discuss the financial results and operating performance.

To participate in the live call, investors are invited to dial (844) 881-0138 (domestic) or (412) 317-6790 (international). A live webcast of the call will be available via the Universal Technical Institute investor relations website at https://investor.uti.edu. Please go to the website at least 10 minutes early to register, download and install any necessary audio software. The conference call webcast will be archived for 90 days at https://investor.uti.edu or the telephone replay can be accessed through September 6, 2020, by dialing (877) 344-7529 (domestic) or (412) 317-0088 (international) and entering passcode 10146789.

About Universal Technical Institute, Inc.

With more than 220,000 graduates in its 55-year history, Universal Technical Institute, Inc. (NYSE: UTI) is the nation's leading provider of technical training for automotive, diesel, collision repair, motorcycle and marine technicians, and offers welding technology and computer numerical control (CNC) machining programs. The company has built partnerships with industry leaders, outfits its state-of-the-industry facilities with current technology, and delivers training that is aligned with employer needs. Through its network of 12 campuses nationwide, UTI offers post-secondary programs under the banner of several well-known brands, including Universal Technical Institute (UTI), Motorcycle Mechanics Institute and Marine Mechanics Institute (MMI) and NASCAR Technical Institute (NASCAR Tech). The company is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.

For more information, visit www.uti.edu. Like UTI on www.facebook.com/UTI or follow UTI on Twitter @UTITweet, @MMITweet, and @NASCARTechUTI.

Media Contact:

Jody Kent

VP, Communications and Public Affairs

Universal Technical Institute

(623) 445-0872

Investor Relations Contact:

Robert Winters or Brooks Hamilton

Alpha IR Group

(312) 445-2870

[email protected]

SOURCE Universal Technical Institute, Inc.

Related Links

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The upcoming Samsung Galaxy Buds Live have now made a semi-official appearance, leaked to the companys support pages. Specifically, the gadget has leaked to support pages in the UK, Germany, India, Malaysia, and a few others. The pages dont confirm any specifications or features, although they do reportedly confirm the model number SM-R180. The FAQ details are kept vague, applicable more generally to Samsung Galaxy wearables.

There arent any new images or other information associated with the page either. So the new pages appear primarily to be set up in preparation for launch, which is expected within the month.

What are Samsung Galaxy Buds Live

Samsung Galaxy Buds Live are Samsungs next-gen take on true wireless audio. The shape of the device is among its most distinct features. Designed similar to a kidney bean with dual-speakers and three mics, the device abandons silicone tips and nubs. Thats presumably because theyll be small enough and properly shaped to stay in-ear comfortably and provide great audio without the additional support.

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That design will be available in Black, White, and Mystic Bronze  with the latter pictured above.

Active noise cancellation is expected to be a part of the package, as is a battery life that alligns with previous releases. The current expectation is 11-hours on a single charge. If the company follows those releases in other way, these will also feature convenient wireless charging. Pricing has been reported at around $150, once the device hits shelves.

When are Samsung Galaxy Buds Live coming?

Now, Samsung Galaxy Buds Live have already leaked a number of times extensively, as indicated above. And theyve already been spotted passing through a number of certifications. In at least some cases, those seem to confirm incoming market releases at least as well as this latest leak. But none of this is necessarily unexpected.

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Samsung will be hosting a Galaxy Unpacked event on August 5. These bean-shaped earbuds are expected to make an appearance at that event. Theres even been an apparently official promotional video leaked in advance of that. Its appearance on support pages, in combination with all of the other leaks, only seems to confirm that date.
A Chinese giant panda in South Korea has given birth to the first cub in the country at a zoo in Yongin, the Everland zoo said on Wednesday.

The healthy female cub was born at 21:49 local time (1249 GMT) on Monday (July 20), the zoo said, after a seven-year-old female panda, Ai Bao, mated with an eight-year-old male panda, Le Bao, in late March.

The cub weighed in at 197 grams and was 16.5 centimetres long.

The zoo said Ai Bao was in labour for about an hour and a half and in footage the facility released, the mother bear was seen licking the wriggling cub after its birth.

WATCH: Chinese giant panda gives birth to a healthy female cub at a South Korean zoo https://t.co/de28bAyTAE pic.twitter.com/XrGbbnUPZL Reuters India (@ReutersIndia) July 22, 2020

The two adult pandas arrived in South Korea from China's Sichuan Province on a 15-year loan in 2016, as agreed by the two countries during a summit in 2014.

The cub - unnamed for the time being - is expected to return to China after four or five years.

China has been sending their black and white ambassadors abroad in a sign of goodwill since the 1950s as part of what is known as 'panda diplomacy'.
ASTORIA  Da Yang Seafood has temporarily closed processing operations in Astoria after a worker tested positive for the coronavirus, the Clatsop County Public Health Department reported Wednesday.

The worker is in his 30s and lives in the northern part of the county. He was reportedly recovering at home.

Da Yang closed processing operations on Pier 2 at the Port of Astoria on Wednesday for deep cleaning, according to the county. The company reportedly plans to remain closed until test results are received from the rest of the workforce.

The county is coordinating with Da Yang and the Oregon State Public Health Laboratory to test all 160 employees. The testing is planned for Thursday, according to the county, and the county hopes to receive results by Friday or Saturday.

Da Yang notified the county on Sunday that a worker was identified as a potential positive case through the companys daily health screenings.

The Public Health Department arranged to have the man tested at the countys drive-thru testing program on Monday. Results for the test were received Tuesday, according to the county.

In a statement, county public health officials said the cooperation of Da Yang has allowed the county to respond quickly to the case, and are hopeful any potential outbreak can be contained.

The county has disclosed 68 virus cases since March 23.

Outbreaks at Bornstein Seafoods in Astoria and Pacific Seafood in Warrenton were directly tied to 38 of the countys cases.

The Oregon Health Authority reported 15,393 cases and 271 deaths from the virus statewide as of Wednesday morning.

The health authority tracked 3,214 test results in Clatsop County, including the 68 positive cases.

Responding to the increase in virus cases and deaths, Gov. Kate Brown on Wednesday announced new statewide restrictions aimed to slow the spread of the disease.

Starting Friday, all children 5 and over will be subject to the states mask requirement at indoor public spaces and outdoors when social distancing is not possible. The previous requirement applied to children 12 and over.

Children will also have to wear masks when they return to K-12 public schools for the new school year.

Brown is also lowering the capacity for indoor venues  like larger restaurants, bars, community centers, churches and gyms  from 250 people to 100 people.

Restaurants and bars in counties in phase two of the governors reopening plan, like Clatsop County, will be required to close by 10 p.m.

I dont make these decisions lightly, and there are no easy choices, Brown said at a news conference.

In a positive development, long-term care providers can allow limited outdoor visits for residents with safeguards to prevent the spread of the virus.

Brown said a number of virus cases have been linked to tourism and she is speaking with neighboring states about potential travel restrictions from places with high infection rates.

It still may be possible for us to keep our restaurants and shops open, to gather in groups, to continue to hike, camp and get out into state parks, but it all depends on you. Your choices determine our future, the governor said. If we dont slow the spread of the virus, I will have no choice but to force widespread and difficult closures again.

We are truly all in this together.



2020 The Daily Astorian, Ore.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
The United States does not rule out the possibility of closing more Chinese diplomatic missions in the country, Donald Trump has said, hours after Washington ordered the closure of Beijing's consulate in Houston to "protect American intellectual property and private information".

The US move came amid a growing number of disputes between the two countries over Beijing's increasingly aggressive actions that have led Washington to take strong actions, including closing the consulate in Houston, according to senior Trump administration officials.

The consulate in Houston, Texas, is one of five Chinese diplomatic missions in the US, not counting the embassy in Washington, DC.

The US move came after the Justice Department said that hackers working with the Chinese government targeted firms developing vaccines for the coronavirus and stole hundreds of millions of dollars worth of intellectual property and trade secrets from companies across the world.

"As far as closing additional embassies, it's always possible," Trump told reporters during a daily press briefing at the White House when asked if he is looking at closing more Chinese diplomatic missions in the US.

The US State Department in a brief statement on Wednesday said it has "directed the closure of People's Republic of China Consulate General Houston, in order to protect American intellectual property and American's private information".

State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said the US will not tolerate the PRC's violations of its sovereignty and intimidation of its people, just as it has not tolerated the PRC's unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behaviour.

She said Trump "insists on fairness and reciprocity in US-China relations."

During the press conference, Trump referred to the news reports of fire in the Chinese Consulate in Houston apparently due to burning of documents in its courtyard.

"You see what's going on. We thought there was a fire in the one that we did close. And everybody said, 'There's a fire. There's a fire.' And I guess they were burning documents or burning papers, and I wonder what that's all about," he said.

Meanwhile, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun gave a context to the decision to close the Houston consulate.

"We find the US-China relationship today weighed down by a growing number of disputes, including commercial espionage and intellectual property theft from American companies; unequal treatment of our diplomats, businesses, NGOs, and journalists by Chinese authorities; and abuse of the US academic freedom and welcoming posture toward international students to steal sensitive technology and research from our universities in order to advance the PRC's military," he said.

"It is these factors which led the president to direct a number of actions in response, including yesterday's notification to the PRC that we have withdrawn our consent for the PRC to operate its consulate in Houston, Texas," Biegun said.

The move to shutdown the Chinese consulate in Houston was welcomed by top American lawmakers.

Senator Ben Sasse, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, alleged that the Chinese Communist Party's consulate in Houston is a massive safe house for "Chi-Comm spies".

"It's absolutely the right call to shut it down. We ought to be throwing even more of Chairman Xi's agents out of the country," he said.

Congressman Michael McCaul, a Republican leader on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Chinese consulate in Houston is the epicentre of the Chinese Communist Party's ongoing research theft in the US, particularly for stealing sensitive information to build up their military.

The CCP's recent targeting of US coronavirus vaccine research underscores the threat of this consulate's malign activity in Houston, a biomedical research and technology hub itself. I am hopeful this action will deal a significant blow to the CCP's spy network in the US and send a clear message that their widespread espionage campaigns will no longer go unchecked, he said.

In an interview to Fox News, Congresswoman Liz Cheney described it as a strong step. It is a very important sign that we are seeing steps like this one, steps like the President's sanctions against the people in the government of China who are responsible for Uighurs and the concentration camps as well as for what's going on in Hong Kong, she said.

Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, a Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asked, "When China retaliates', as they have said they will, what will be our next move?"

Reacting strongly to the US move, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Wednesday termed it as an "unprecedented escalation and warned retaliatory measures.

Both the US and China were locked in a political and strategic conflict in recent months on a host of issues including the origin of the coronavirus, China's decision to implement its national security law in Hong Kong and deepening trade frictions.

Beijing apparently is looking at options to order the closure of the US Consulate in Wuhan or in Hong Kong, where the Chinese officials had accused the US of backing the anti-China protests.

Apart from the Chinese embassy in Washington, Beijing has an office at the United Nations and consulates in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago.
Within the political group of Trilateral Contact Group (Ukraine, Russia, OSCE), it was noted that a complete and comprehensive ceasefire is a basic precondition for a political settlement.

"After all, elections in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine are possible only under the following conditions: after a comprehensive de-escalation; after withdrawal of foreign military units and equipment, disarmament of illegal armed formations; restoration of control by Ukrainian government over Ukrainian-Russian border; elections must be held exclusively in accordance with Ukrainian legislation; elections must be held in compliance with OSCE Copenhagen standards", says the message of the President's Office of Ukraine following the meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group in format of videoconference on Wednesday, July 22.

The lack of progress in work of the political group was also reported by the journalist Denys Kazansky, who was involved into work of the TCG by the Ukrainian side as a representative of ORDO.

"As for the political subgroup in which I am, there is a habitual dead end, no change. Russian representatives from ORDLO broke down again - this time because of the resolution of the Verkhovna Rada 3809 'On appointment of the next local elections in 2020,'" he wrote on his Facebook page on Thursday morning.

He said that in this resolution Russian representatives were outraged by the phrase that elections in the occupied territories can be held only after "the withdrawal of all illegal armed formations led, controlled and financed by the Russian Federation, the Russian occupation forces and their military equipment from the territory of Ukraine."

"The Russians demanded that the Ukrainian side cancels this resolution, but they were politely sent to a well-known address, of course," Kazansky summed up.
Bulgarian PM Boyko Borissov dismissed Minister of Finance Vladislav Goranov, Minister of Interior Affairs Mladen Marinov, Minister of Economy Emil Karanikolov, and Minister of Tourism Nikolina Angelkova. The PM made such a statement on Thursday at a briefing following the meeting of the coalition council, TASS reported.

Borissov announced that he would propose the candidacy of Hristo Terziyski for the post of Minister of Interior Affairs. Currently, Terziyski heads the Director of the National Police General Directorate.

Kiril Ananiev, who served as Minister of Health, will be appointed to the post of Minister of Finance, and Professor Kostadin Angelov will be proposed for the post of head of the Ministry of Health. Deputy PM Mariyana Nikolova will be the Minister of Tourism. It is planned to appoint Deputy Minister of Economy Lachezar Borisov as the Minister of Economy.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - New Mexico authorities are investigating a deadly shooting at an auto shop after a man who refused to wear a mask allegedly tried to run over the shop owners son and crashed into a vehicle before driving off.

An incident report written by Bernalillo County sheriffs deputies say as they were searching for the man, they received a call from the shop owner saying the man had returned and that his son had shot someone.

Deputies found two men on the ground. One didnt have a pulse.

Albuquerque police have taken over the investigation. Police spokesman Gilbert Gallegos declined to release more details about Tuesday afternoons shooting, saying detectives were interviewing additional people.

The investigation is still in its preliminary stage, he said Thursday.

The initial incident report indicated the man had stopped at the auto shop and asked for air for his tire, the Albuquerque Journal reported. The owner said he told the man that he could help him but that he needed to have a mask on and the man became extremely irate.

The states mandate that everyone must wear face coverings in public has been in effect since May 16. Operators of essential businesses must require customers to wear masks, and violators are subject to a fine.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in a tweet Thursday reiterated the call for wearing masks as state health officials urged people to stay at home.
On Wednesday, the House took a pivotal first step in an overwhelming vote to remove a bust of the fifth chief justice of the United States and Confederate statues from public display in the U.S. Capitol.

The final vote was 305-113. There were 72 Republicans who joined with Democrats in approving the measure.

The legislation does not set up a specific timeline for moving most of the statues, but sets up a process for the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library to identify which figures have ties to the Confederacy.

The bill must now head to the Senate, where it's unclear if the Republican-led chamber will take up the legislation. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has previously said it is up to the states to decide which statues they want displayed in the Capitol.

Democratic leadership expected the vote to be largely bipartisan and a strong signal of support for the Black community after thousands took to the streets to protest police brutality and systemic racism in the wake of the death of George Floyd, who was killed in Minneapolis police custody in May.

Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, who was white, authored the majority opinion in the 1857 Dred Scott case that declared African Americans could never be citizens of the United States. The bill the House voted on Wednesday would direct the architect of the Capitol to remove Taney's bust and replace it with one of Thurgood Marshall, who in 1967 became the first Black justice to sit on the Supreme Court.

"This is an action we will take today of principle and conviction. Defenders and purveyors of sedition, slavery, segregation and white supremacy have no place in this temple of liberty," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Wednesday.

The bill also requires states to reclaim and replace any statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection of individuals who volunteered for the armed services of the Confederacy during the Civil War, and it would also specifically remove three statues -- of John C. Calhoun, Charles B. Aycock and John C. Clarke -- from the collection because of their roles in defending slavery, segregation and white supremacy, according to Hoyer's office.

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MORE: House holds emotional moment of silence to honor John Lewis

"Just imagine what it feels like as an African American to know that my ancestors built the Capitol, but yet there are monuments to the very people that enslaved my ancestors," Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., said during a press conference Wednesday. "The People's House, as I call the Capitol, can never really be for the people with reminders of the painful history that sought to continue the enslavement and control of the African American population."

"Personally, as a black lawmaker, the presence of these statues represent an acceptance of white supremacy and racism, something we are fighting day in and day out to dismantle," she added.

PHOTO: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer delivers remarks during a press conference to introduce legislation to replace the bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in the Old Supreme Court Chamber with one of Justice Thurgood Marshal. (Shawn Thew/EPA via Shutterstock)

Taney's marble bust stands 2 feet tall and sits prominently outside the Old Supreme Court Chamber inside the Capitol, seen by millions of visitors each year.

Scott, an enslaved Black man, sued for his freedom in a case that spanned a decade and reached the highest court in the country.

Taney denied Scott's case on the basis that enslaved people could not sue in federal court because they could never become citizens. The ruling also said the federal government could not ban slavery in its territories. It is often viewed as the worst decision in the court's history.

MORE: House bill's passage expected to force standoff with GOP over policing

In a surprising twist, Scott's great-great-granddaughter says she'd leave Taney's bust exactly where it is.

"I'm not really a fan of wiping things out," Lynne M. Jackson said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press earlier this week from her home in Missouri.

But, she added, she would encourage lawmakers to add a bust of Dred Scott to be displayed alongside Taney's in the Capitol.

Jackson told The AP that she believes memorials honoring figures like Taney need context. At the Capitol, the Taney statue sits in the "place where the Dred Scott case was decided," but the fact he is "there by himself is lopsided," Jackson said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in June ordered the removal from the Capitol portraits of four of her predecessors who served in the Confederacy, saying that "we must lead by example." She also renewed a decades-long quest to remove the remaining Confederate statues.

"While I believe it is imperative that we never forget our history lest we repeat it, I also believe that there is no room for celebrating the violent bigotry of the men of the Confederacy in the hallowed halls of the United States Capitol or places of honor across the country," Pelosi said in a letter last month.

MORE: Speaker Pelosi wants Confederate statues in Capitol removed

"This is not a partisan issue," Hoyer said. "This is an issue about principles that America wants to lift up and display it to the rest of the world."

A similar bill has been introduced in the Senate, but it's unclear if the Republican-led chamber will take action anytime soon.

"I prayerfully anticipate that we can come together -- Democrats and Republicans -- to reject hatred and racism and to make it clear through a strong, bipartisan vote that statues of these individuals have no place in our Capitol," Hoyer said.

Even if both chambers pass the measure and send it to President Donald Trump's desk, it's unclear if he would sign it. Trump has consistently defended preserving Confederate statues, Confederate-named military bases and the Confederate flag.

"I'd say it's freedom of, of -- of many things, but it's freedom of speech," Trump said Sunday.

House overwhelmingly approves bill to remove Confederate statues, controversial bust originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Each year, the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC) and the Rhodes Academy of Oceans Law and Policy (Rhodes Academy) sponsor the Rhodes Academy-ICPC Submarine Cables Writing Award for a deserving paper addressing submarine cables and their relationship with the law of the sea. Applicants to, and graduates of, the Rhodes Academy are eligible to compete for the award. With the award, the ICPC and the Rhodes Academy seek to foster scholarship regarding submarine cables (the infrastructure of the Internet) and the law of the sea and promote the rule of law as applied to submarine cables. The referees of the 2020 competition chose Yang Wenlan of China as the winner for his paper, 'Protecting Submarine Cables from Physical Damage under Investment Law.'

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200723005727/en/

About Rhodes Academy. Each year, the Rhodes Academy brings together approximately 50 mid-career professionals from around the world to study and learn from leading ocean law and science scholars, judges, and practitioners about the law of the sea and its key legal instrument, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It is organised by a consortium of research universities and institutes, led by the Center for Oceans Law and Policy at the University of Virginia (COLP). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rhodes Academy's twenty-fifth session in 2020 was cancelled, but the ICPC and Rhodes Academy decided to proceed with the writing competition, with the organisational assistance of the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore. For more information about the Rhodes Academy and the writing competition, visit: https://colp.virginia.edu/Rhodesacademy.

The Award. Each year, the winner will receive either guaranteed admission and a full scholarship (covering the attendance fee, travel expenses, and shared hotel room) to the Rhodes Academy, or for a Rhodes Academy graduate from a prior year, a cash award of 4,500. The winner will receive assistance from the Rhodes Academy in seeking publication of the winning paper and will also be invited to speak at the next ICPC Plenary meeting. The papers of all past winners have been published in peer-reviewed journals.

About the ICPC. The ICPC is the world's premier submarine cable protection organisation. It was formed in 1958 to promote the protection of international submarine cables against human and natural hazards. It provides a forum for the exchange of technical, legal, and environmental information about submarine cables and engages with stakeholders and governments globally to promote submarine cable protection. The ICPC has 170 Members from over 60 nations, including cable operators, owners, manufacturers, industry service providers, as well as governments. For further information about the ICPC, visit: www.iscpc.org and www.linkedin.com/company/icpc-ltd/.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200723005727/en/

Contacts:

ICPC Contact:

Kent Bressie, International Law Adviser, ICPC

+1 202 730 1337

kbressie@hwglaw.com

Rhodes Academy Contact:

Judy Ellis, COLP, University of Virginia

+1 434 924 7441

colp@virginia.edu
A city in West Virginia has agreed to settle a police excessive force lawsuit where a homeless black man was horrifically tased, put in a chokehold and shot 22 times by officers, lawyers say.

Wayne Arnold Jones, 50, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, was stopped by police in Martinsburg on March 13, 2013 around 11.30pm for walking on the street intead of the sidewalk.

A confrontation with police escalated where Jones was placed in a chokehold and hit with 22 rounds of bullets as he lay on the ground. The five police officers involved claimed he shrugged off two jolts from a stun gun, fought with officers and stabbed one of them with a pocketknife. All the officers involved were white.

An attorney for the family of Jones Christopher E. Brown told the Washington Post earlier this week the family has settled the lawsuit for $3.5million.

The settlement came after a seven-year court battle where the case was dismissed three times before a federal appeals judge reversed the lower court last month that gave police immunity, in light of protests against police brutality and use of deadly force.

The family of black homeless man Wayne Arnold Jones, 50, (above) who was shot 22 times by five white West Virginia police officers in March 2013, has reached a $3.5million settlement

'I promised my mother before she died that we would continue to fight for justice,' Jones' brother, Bruce Jones, told the newspaper.

'The settlement makes me feel a little bit better, but until I can have a chance to have these cops prosecuted, I am still going to be pushing for justice.' Bruce Jones, 57, is one of the beneficiaries in the settlement.

Following the 2013 incident Jones' family sued the city and the police officers alleging excessive use of force, but at first a district court judge initially found that the officers were protected from legal action by qualified immunity. But it was reversed in the June ruling.

However, the Martinsburg Police Department said in a statement that the settlement was not an admission of guilt.

The police department's statement said three independent investigations found insufficient evidence to establish that police officers had violated Joness rights, referring to reviews by the West Virginia State Police, the U.S. Justice Department and the departments Civil Rights Division in 2013.

The city of Martinsburg said in the statement 'with this settlement, the City and the MPD hope everyone involved will be able to put this incident behind them and allow the community to heal.'

A protest in Martinsburg, West Virginia decrying the police killing of Wayne Arnold Jones pictured above on June 12, 2015. Demonstrators carried signs that said 'Murdered For Walking' and 'How do you sleep at night with Wayne's blood on your hands'

U.S. District Judge Gina Groh had dismissed the lawsuit in June.

But a three-member federal appeals court panel reversed the granting of summary judgment to the officers on qualified immunity grounds last month, saying that 'a reasonable jury could find that Jones was both secured and incapacitated in the final moments before his death.'

The court also referenced the Memorial Day death of George Floyd, the black man who died in Minneapolis on May 25 when white cop Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd's neck for over nine minutes.

Judge Henry Floyd with the federal appeals panel noted that 'although we recognize that our police officers are often asked to make split-second decisions, we expect them to do so with respect for the dignity and worth of black lives. This has to stop,' citing the killings of Floyd and Michael Brown.

Jones' family members (pictured sitting) sued the city of Martinsburg, Virginia for $200 million in damages after his death in 2013

The police department's statement said the city's insurance carrier agreed to the settlement to avoid the ongoing costs of litigation along with the stress that a trial would bring to the officers and the families of the officers and Jones.

A Berkeley County grand jury declined to indict the officers in the shooting.

The U.S. Justice Department later said there was insufficient evidence to pursue criminal civil rights charges against police. Civil rights leaders had pressed for the investigation.

The Jones family has filed a separate appeal in state court seeking a grand jury investigation, Brown said.

'The fact that I could tell my client that we still have a shot at criminal prosecution made the (settlement) figure very acceptable,' Brown said.
Two women who operated an occupational and speech and language therapy service have been fined after they pleaded guilty to six charges relating to using professional titles to which they were not entitled.

Lisa O'Driscoll (38), of Ardcahon Way, Coolkellure, Lehenaghmore, Co Cork, and Emma Power (30) of Clonlea, Mount Oval, Rochestown, Co Cork, both pleaded guilty to six sample charges.

This is the first criminal conviction of its kind.

Ms O'Driscoll pleaded guilty to using the title of "speech and language therapist" while Ms Power also entered a guilty plea to using the "title occupational therapist".

The offences occurred in 2018 and 2019 and were breaches of registration requirements under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005.

The women were directors of Bright Speech and Occupational Therapy Services, also known as Bright SPOTS, at the South Ring Business Park in Co Cork. The company, incorporated in 2016, provided services to vulnerable children particularly those with developmental disorders.

The two women received their qualifications and were registered in the UK. However, they were not registered in Ireland.

The women appeared before the High Court in January.

They were operating without being registered with CORU, the Health and Social Care Professional Council.

They acknowledged before the High Court that they were not permitted to use protected titles in Ireland and would desist from using those unless and until they were registered with CORU.

At Cork District Court yesterday solicitor Carrie McDermott, representing the women, said that they had ceased trading since the High Court ruling. They are both now unemployed and are paying High Court costs of over 1,000 a month between them in spite of their poor financial circumstances.

Ms McDermott told Judge Con O'Leary that her clients had paid the "ultimate price" for failing to register with CORU and that their lives had been "devastated" by the proceedings. She said that the case involved a "jurisdictional regulatory problem" and that the women had to liquidate their business even though they counted the HSE as among their biggest clients.

She said both women had "battled so hard" in recent months and had met the case against them with dignity.

"Their lives are ruined by this," Ms McDermott said. "Their business is closed. Both are unemployed."

She said her clients had been vilified on social media. They have no plans to return to their line of work.

Ms McDermott said the women were "very sorry" for not registering in Ireland. They were both very busy with their work and were awaiting documentation to prove their credentials from the UK.

She described the prosecutions taken against her clients as "using a sledge hammer to crack a nut".

CORU's role is to protect the public through regulating the health and social care professionals listed in the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005. It currently regulates 19,000 health and social care professionals in Ireland.

Judge O'Leary said that the women were "naive" to continue trading without the relevant registration in Ireland. He fined the women 100 each and ordered them to pay nominal costs of 250 each.
portland protests PORTLAND, OREGON, USA - JULY 21 : Protesters use shields and umbrellas against the Federal forces in Portland, Oregon on July 21, 2020. Over a thousand people, including a large march of mothers, demonstrated for racial justice and against Donald Trumpas insertion of Federal officers in Portland, Oregon. (Photo by John Rudoff/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

John Rudoff/Getty Images

The Justice Department's internal watchdog is investigating the actions of federal law-enforcement agents in Portland, Oregon, this month.

President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr deployed more than 100 unidentified federal agents to the city to tamp down on what they characterized as violent crime in the area.

The agents' actions sparked widespread alarm after they were spotted driving unmarked vans and pulling protesters off the streets.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz also announced his office was looking into "events in Lafayette Square on June 1" in Washington, DC.

Horowitz's investigation will likely draw scrutiny from Trump and Barr, both of whom have praised law enforcement and characterized protesters as thugs and anarchists.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Justice Department's internal watchdog announced Thursday that it opened an investigation into the actions of federal law-enforcement agents in Portland, Oregon, this month.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced that his office launched the probe in response to requests from Democratic lawmakers and Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum.

The Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General will coordinate its investigation with the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general, Horowitz said.

"In addition, in response to requests from Members of Congress and members of the public, the DOJ OIG is initiating a review to examine the DOJ's and its law enforcement components' roles and responsibilities in responding to protest activity and civil unrest in Washington, DC, and in Portland, Oregon, over the prior two months," he said. "The review will include examining the training and instruction that was provided to the DOJ law enforcement personnel; compliance with applicable identification requirements, rules of engagement, and legal authorities; and adherence to DOJ policies regarding the use of less-lethal munitions, chemical agents, and other uses of force."

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Horowitz specifically referenced "events in Lafayette Square on June 1" and said his office would work with the Department of Interior's inspector general on the matter. He was likely referring to when police used teargas and rubber bullets to clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square in Washington, DC, in early June to pave the way for President Donald Trump to hold a photo op with a bible.

Horowitz also left open the possibility that his office may expand its review to other issues that may arise throughout the course of the investigation. The inspector general's announcement will likely draw scrutiny from Trump and Attorney General William Barr, both of whom have praised law enforcement and characterized protesters as thugs and anarchists.

Portland has made headlines over the past several days following the appearance of over 100 unidentified federal agents who have been seen driving unmarked vans and pulling protesters off the streets. Trump said he sent agents to the city to tamp down on violent crime and suggested it was linked to demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd.

Politico reported Wednesday that the 114 federal agents in the city appeared to be part of a Rapid Deployment Force from the Department of Homeland Security.

Over the weekend, Rosenblum said her state was suing the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and other federal agencies to "stop the federal police from secretly stopping and forcibly grabbing Oregonians off our streets."

Oregon Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden also spoke out against the events and described agents patrolling the streets of Portland as a paramilitary force.

On Wednesday, Trump announced he would deploy federal agents to other US cities, including Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, in a dramatic escalation of the White House's crackdown on anti-racism demonstrations in the wake of Floyd's death.

Both Trump and Barr linked the recent uptick in violent crime to the protests, but neither provided any evidence to support their claims.

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New Roads, LA (70760)

Today

Cloudy. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 74F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy with periods of rain. Thunder is possible early. Low 38F. SSW winds shifting to NNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
Local publicans were left reeling after the decision was taken to delay the reopening of pubs after phase four of the lifting of lockdown restrictions was postponed until August 10.

All pubs were due to open by Monday, July 20 last. However, last week, Micheal Martin announced on the advice of NPHET, the phase four plan to reopen all pubs on July 20 was delayed by three weeks after the number of new confirmed cases rose in the past fortnight.

It sparked concern that many pubs, which were hoping to reopen their doors on Monday last may not do so as a result of a further period of closure.

Chairperson of the Offaly Vintners Federation of Ireland, John Clendennen, described how local publicans were frustrated and bitterly disappointed by the delay. What we had looked for all along is a one tier system where everyone is open with guidelines in place. Let them be enforced and if someone is not meeting those guidelines, let them see the consequences. 

 However, right now for many of our members, we don't see the difference, we don't see the difference of going in and having a  9 meal with a couple of pints, he remarked. Later, he said:  We have done everything as an organisation to ensure that the public health is paramount. We have cooperated in that regard. Back in March, we closed before we were told too.

According to the chairperson, a lot has changed with regard to Covid-19 since then. We are a lot more familiar with this virus. We need to learn to live with it. We need to ensure social distancing, clean premises, and all measures that have been talked about in recent times. The reality is if publicans are given the opportunity to open, there is going to be an onus on them from a customer perspective to provide clean, safe and hospitable environments for people to go into.

If there are not, the market will decide and they will not frequent them. Everything has to be done in the best interest of public health but from our perspective, right now, in terms of the decision that was taken, cases being linked to e.g. house parties and other events and we are suffering the consequences. As far as we are concerned, that doesn't add up.

We are fully about public health, maintaining safety for everyone for customers, staff and owners. Safety is paramount and we want to ensure this but we can't stay close forever. It is important that the Government put forward in their July stimulus package, a robust set of measures that can ensure the long term sustainability of pubs. That is going to require the likes of VAT modifications, subsidy wage schemes. We are going to have to see serious grants put forward for publicans and we need to have a discussion about the long term sustainability of public houses and how they can be supported.

Independent TD for Laois Offaly Carol Nolan has strongly criticised a government decision that will force rural pubs to remain closed until at least August 10. Deputy Nolan was speaking after it was announced that almost 3500 pubs are to be included in the delayed entry into phase four that forms part of the roadmap to reopen the country:

The shock decision taken by the government has left publicans, and rural publicans in particular, absolutely furious. There has been an appalling lack of consultation with the publicans and the Vintners on this matter and this has only added to the extreme stress that many of them are experiencing.

We know that there are 73 pubs in Offaly and 61 in Laois that will be affected by this decision. It is just not fair or right to have brought these businesses practically to the point of re-opening only to have the door slammed in their faces with a totally unexpected announcement.

Up to last week, the Vintners Association were still calling for government guidelines on re-opening as part of the support they will need to adapt their businesses to ensure they comply with the public health requirements. At this point however, what the rural pubs will need, if they are to have a future at all, is grants. I am hearing of grants being needed in the region of 20,000-50,000.

The government must respect the fact that the vast majority of publicans have acted completely responsibly during this crisis. That sense of solidarity however is not being reciprocated which is a huge shame and one that the government and our local economies may well come to regret, concluded Deputy Nolan.
Japan's travel ban aimed at stopping the spread of the coronavirus has hit most European firms in the country and could prompt them to rethink their future in the world's third-largest economy, a European business lobby said on Wednesday.

Many countries have imposed travel curbs amid the pandemic, but Japan's are among the strictest, effectively banning entry to tourists and visa holders coming from 129 countries.

Even permanent residents are not allowed in unless they are granted an exception on humanitarian grounds. In the United States and Europe, in contrast, non-citizen residents are allowed to return.

A recent survey by the European Business Council of 376 members in Japan showed that 85% had been negatively impacted by the ban, with 44% reporting financial losses. The EBC said the travel restrictions run counter to international treaties.

"This situation may also trigger some investment disputes against Japan," EBC president Michael Mroczek told reporters.

The way the ban was handled creates an air of unpredictability that may cause CEOs to "rethink their policy regarding Japan," he said.

Japan allows its citizens to return to the country if they take a coronavirus test at the port of entry and observe a period of self-quarantine.

Foreigners living in Japan face much higher hurdles for re-entry, such as demonstrating the need to visit dying relatives or be reunited with family in the country.
The backlash is coming not from extremists but nationalists who were made to believe all Hindus are their enemies.

Earlier this month, a video clip showing a young boy uprooting the foundational walls of a new Hindu temple that is currently being constructed in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, went viral. A few days later, another video emerged of a boy no older than five warning Prime Minister Imran Khan that if the construction of the temple went ahead, he would kill all the Hindus. Several other posts that aim to humiliate the prime minister by depicting him as a Hindu deity also started to circulate on Pakistani social media around the same time.

These controversial social media posts were created in response to the Pakistani governments recent decision to release funds for the temples construction.

The plan to build a temple complex in Islamabad to serve the citys minority Hindu community was approved in 2017 under former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs government, but construction had been delayed until this year by administrative hurdles. On June 27, Khans government allocated 100 million rupees ($0.6m) for the project and kickstarted the construction.

It is part of the Pakistani states broader policy of renovating existing non-Muslim religious spaces and building new ones across the country.

In 2005, the government of Pakistan renovated the Katas Raj Temple, an ancient Hindu-Buddhist site about 150km (93 miles) from Islamabad, and opened it up for the use of Hindu pilgrims. In January 2017, the then Prime Minister, Sharif, visited the temple complex and ordered further renovations. In October 2019, a historical Hindu temple in Sialkot was renovated and handed over to the Hindu community.

Alongside Hindu temples, several gurdwaras  Sikh places of assembly and worship  were also renovated by the Pakistani state in recent years. In March 2016, a historical gurdwara in Peshawar was renovated and handed over to the Sikh community. Similar renovations were also carried out at important Sikh sites in Nankana Sahib, Sialkot and Eminabad.

The Pakistani states interest in the countrys religious minorities has not been limited to construction projects either.

In March 2016, the government accepted a resolution that declared the days of minority religious festivals as public holidays. In November 2019, the Kartarpur peace corridor was opened to give Sikh pilgrims from India visa-free access to Kartarpur Sahib  a gurdwara that is on the Pakistani side of the border. In June 2019, a statue of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the Sikh ruler of Punjab before the annexation of the province by the British, was unveiled in Lahore Fort.

While most of these projects were completed seamlessly, some drew a backlash. The governments decision to celebrate Maharaja Ranjits legacy with a statue, for example, caused a lot of controversy on social media. Less than two months after the unveiling of the statue, it was vandalised by two men on the basis of religious biases.

It may be tempting to interpret these events as the progressive Pakistani state being challenged by extremists  an image that Islamabad eagerly wants to project.

The Pakistani states interest in the countrys religious minorities and their places of worship, however, should be viewed within the context of 9/11, the so-called war on terror, and the consequent association of Pakistan with religious extremism. In this context, Islamabads eagerness to protect religious minorities can easily be seen as an exercise in moving itself away from the narrative of extremism.

Regardless of its motivation, the Pakistani states new-found interest in Hindu and Sikh places of worship represents a much-needed paradigm shift in its relationship with the countrys religious minorities, as most of these temples and gurdwaras were in ruins prior to their renovation. Nevertheless, this shift has not been accompanied by structural changes that would guarantee the rights and freedoms of Pakistans religious minorities. And perhaps most importantly, the state has not taken the necessary steps to counter the narrative of Hindu and Sikh villainy versus Muslim heroism that it has long allowed to take root in Pakistani society.

The most influential structure that feeds into this narrative is the education system. Just like many other nation-states, the Pakistani state uses the countrys education system as an ideological tool to legitimise its existence and strengthen its founding myths.

The Pakistani education system has at its core the narrative of a centuries-long Hindu-Muslim conflict that supposedly reached its climax with the partitioning of British India into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan in 1947. Certain Muslim Kings have been given particular significance in the Pakistani states educational retelling of this historical conflict, with the 11th-century Afghan king, Mahmud Ghazanvi, being one of the most important components of this national story.

The tales of Ghazanvis frequent raids on the Somnath Temple in India are presented to Pakistani children in a way that equates temple destruction with religious and national duty. Through these tales, lessons and stories, the Hindu becomes the other against which the Pakistani national identity is constructed. Interestingly in India, Ghazanvi plays the role of the villain against which the national self is defined.

Ghazanvi is not the only historic Muslim leader who is still being celebrated in Pakistan. Other Muslim kings who invaded or attacked India, such as Muhammad Bin Qasim, Muhammad of Ghor and Babur, are also seen as national heroes. The Pakistani armed forces name their missiles and bases after these leaders. The former Sikh and Hindu names of streets, squares and towns, meanwhile, are all but forgotten and there is no attempt by the Pakistani state to reintroduce these names that underline religious minorities historical ties to these lands.

As a result of all this, Pakistani society views the countrys contemporary relations with India through a lens of a supposed perpetual conflict between Hindus and Muslims. Thus, every time relations worsen between India and Pakistan, the situation is framed as a new chapter in this alleged historic struggle.

In March 2019, at the height of tensions between India and Pakistan, Punjab Information and Culture Minister Fayyazul Hassan Chohan uttered derogatory remarks against the Hindu community. Chohan was forced to resign following widespread criticism of his racist comments, but his attempt to equate the Indian state with Hinduism at large was indicative of a deeper problem.

Even though Hindus constitute the largest minority in Pakistan, many in the country continue to associate Hindus and Hinduism solely with India. This perception gained further strength in recent years following the rise of the Hindu right wing in India and the increasing Islamisation of the Pakistani state.

Today, many in Pakistan, thanks to an ideologically-charged education system and media, perceive all Hindus, including the Hindu citizens of Pakistan, as the enemy other. The attacks on the proposed Hindu temple in Islamabad also need to be understood through this nationalistic lens that causes many to believe destroying Hindu temples is a religious and national duty.

The Pakistani states new-found interest in protecting Hindu and Sikh religious spaces surely needs to be lauded. However, without structural changes to the education system, reintroduction of historical Hindu and Sikh place names and an active campaign to counter the deep-rooted narrative of perpetual Hindu-Muslim conflict, the states efforts to protect minority religious spaces will continue to face public backlash.

The Pakistani national story is one of Hindu defeat and Muslim victory, told through the battles and raids of historic Muslim kings, while Pakistani nationalism is imagined exclusively through the lens of Islamic identity. This exclusionary identity makes it impossible for Hindus and other non-Muslims to thoroughly become a part of Pakistan and have a say in national debates and decisions.

Without fundamentally changing this national story, the construction and renovation of Hindu temples would be nothing but lip service to minority rights. To call the latest attacks on the Hindu temple in Islamabad an extremist backlash is turning a blind eye to the exclusionary and divisive nature of the Pakistani nation-building process. The people who threaten the temple, and Hindus in Pakistan, are not extremists but typical examples of the loyal nationalists that the state worked hard to engineer in the last 70 years.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
The organizations focus on digital advertising comes during what its top political aides said was the fastest change in media consumption habits since the dawn of the digital age. With millions of Americans homebound because of the pandemic, nearly half of all television consumption is now on streaming platforms.

2020 looks more like 2025, said Charlie Kelly, a senior Everytown political adviser.

Mr. Kelly estimated that the cost to reach voters on digital platforms across enough competitive state legislative districts to flip a state chamber was a fraction of the resources required in a federal or statewide race. Mr. Kelly said Everytown would spend to help Mr. Biden in Florida, but not elsewhere, after consultation with other Democratic super PACs, like Priorities USA, that would take responsibility for different states.

The goal is to win and everybody comes to the table to do that, Mr. Kelly said. Post-2016, people were like, We got to get ourselves together on that front.

Everytown is just one element of Mr. Bloombergs political largess. He spent nearly $1 billion on his own presidential campaign, which ended after he won the Guam caucuses but no states. Mr. Bloomberg had pledged to pay his staff members through November, but later abandoned those plans and donated the $18 million remaining in his campaign account to the Democratic National Committee.

Field staff members for his campaign subsequently filed class-action lawsuits arguing they had been tricked into accepting jobs.

Mr. Bloombergs personal super PAC, Independence USA, spent about $60 million on 2018 races but has yet to engage in 2020 contests.

Everytowns success has come as the National Rifle Associations financial muscle has atrophied. The 2018 midterm elections were the first time gun control organizations  Mr. Bloombergs Everytown and a group founded by former Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona  had outspent the N.R.A. in federal elections.
A 93-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard has been spared jail after being found guilty of accessory to 5,230 murders.

Bruno Dey was handed a two-year suspended sentence on Thursday by a court in Hamburg.

In what could be one of the last such cases involving surviving Nazi guards, Dey was convicted for his role in the killings when he was an SS tower guard at the Stutthof camp near what was then Danzig, now Gdansk, in Poland.

Bruno Dey was handed a two-year suspended sentence on Thursday by a court in Hamburg. He covered his face as he arrived at court in a wheelchair

Some of the victims were executed while others died of illness. Some 40 survivors and relatives of those who died acted as co-plaintiffs in the legal proceedings.

The judge acknowledged his willingness to take part in the trial and listen to the testimony of victims, but said he refused to recognise his own guilt right until the end.

'You saw yourself as an observer,' she said.

The nine-month trial was held in a young offenders' court given that Dey was only 17 when he began his year-long service at the camp in August 1944.

The trial was held in a young offenders' court given that Dey (pictured covering his face) was only 17 when he began his year-long service at the camp in August 1944

Dey himself denied any guilt for what happened at the camp and said that the trial had 'cost a lot of strength'. He is pictured covering his face in court today

Prosecutors had sought three years in jail for the 93-year-old.

But in his summary, Dey's defence lawyer Stefan Waterkamp asked the court for an acquittal or a suspended sentence, claiming his client 'would not survive' jail.

Dey himself denied any guilt for what happened at the camp and said that the trial had 'cost a lot of strength'.

'I would like to stress again that I would never have voluntarily signed up to the SS or any other unit - especially not in a concentration camp,' he said in his final statements before the court delivered the verdict.

'If I had seen an opportunity to remove myself from service, I would have done so.'

He added that he only became aware of the 'extent of the atrocities' upon hearing witness testimonies and reports.

Speaking from the dock yesterday, Dey said: 'Today I would like to apologise to those who went through the hell of this madness, as well as to their relatives. Something like this must never happen again.'

There were thousands of guards who worked at concentration camps during the Nazi regime, but none were prosecuted until a change in German law in 2011, by the time most of those involved had passed away.

The Nazis set up the Stutthof camp (entrance pictured) in 1939 and initially used it to detain Polish political prisoners - but it ended up holding 110,000 detainees, including many Jews

Stutthof (pictured) ended up holding 110,000 detainees, including many Jews, with around 65,000 people perishing in the camp

Human remains seen in a crematorium furnace at Stutthof concentration camp in Poland

During the trial Waterkamp, his lawyer, pointed out that such a young man could hardly have been expected to break ranks and that the teenage Dey 'saw no escape'.

He added that as a mere tower guard, Dey would not have known the extent of the 'sadism' and 'inhumane conditions' of the camp.

Waterkamp also said that the Nazi crimes were 'incomprehensible' and that the witness testimonies had 'severely shaken' his client.

The Nazis set up the Stutthof camp in 1939 and initially used it to detain Polish political prisoners.

But it ended up holding 110,000 detainees, including many Jews, with around 65,000 people perishing in the camp.

The camp was the first to be established by the Nazi regime outside Germany's borders, and one of the last to be liberated in May 1945.

In January, Johan Solberg, 97, a former Stutthof prisoner from Norway, testified in Hamburg that he had witnessed eleven executions, including the hanging of children.

He also said that he watched around 100 prisoners a day, mostly Jews, being sent to the gas chambers.

Stutthof camp (pictured) near what was then Danzig, now Gdansk, in Poland held thousands of people

People are seen visiting the museum at the former Nazi death camp Stutthof earlier this month

In 2015 hundreds of shoes and items of clothing were found in the forest close to former Nazi German concentration camp Stutthof in northern Poland

Stutthof (pictured at the entrance) was the first Nazi concentration camp built outside of Germany

Dey, who now lives in Hamburg, became a baker after the war.

Married with two daughters, he supplemented his income by working as a truck driver, before later taking on a job in building maintenance.

He came into prosecutors' sights after a landmark 2011 ruling against former Sobibor camp guard John Demjanjuk on the basis that he was part of the Nazi killing machine.

Since then, Germany has been racing to put on trial surviving SS personnel on those grounds rather than for murders or atrocities directly linked to the individual accused.

Another former guard at the Stutthof camp, now 95, was charged last week with complicity in the murder of several hundred people.

The district court in Wuppertal will have to determine with the help of experts if the accused in that case is fit for trial.
This combo shows Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., left, and Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla. A top House Democrat demanded an apology Tuesday from Yoho, who is accused of using a sexist slur after an angry encounter with Ocasio-Cortez. Read more

How many times have you seen an inexplicable murder or mass killing on the TV news and the only quotes are from neighbors who could not fathom what went wrong, that he seemed like such a nice guy. Roy Den Hollander, the now-dead 72-year-old lawyer believed to have shown up Sunday at the central New Jersey home of a federal judge and shot to death her 21-year-old son while wounding her husband, was absolutely nothing like that.

Den Hollander did not seem like such a nice guy. To the contrary, the decades-long descent of this so-called mens rights activist from over-the-top gender grievance  such as filing a lawsuit against Ladies Nights at bars as a form of discrimination  into irrational ramblings and finally homicide was a toxic freight train that one could see coming from about 50 miles away.

As U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas  New Jerseys first Latina federal judge  mourned the unthinkable loss of her only child, The Atlantics Joshua Benton analyzed the trail of breadcrumbs that more resembled a massive dessert tray of clues. He chronicled the time in 2011 that Den Hollander was satirically profiled on TVs The Colbert Report and given a megaphone to pronounce Im going to fight the feminists until my last dollar, my last breath as part of his journey from alarming threats to actual, lethal violence.

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For years, the media metabolized his misogyny as an amusement, Benton wrote, as he reveals the way that scores of respectable outlets like The New Yorker, Time magazine, MSNBC and many local TV and radio stations gave Den Hollander airtime that didnt so much mock the media-friendly lawyer  portrayed in some of the pieces as a crusading barrister or even a civil-rights attorney  as bestow an odd legitimacy on his loopy gender grievances. The signs of growing extremism and the potential for bloodshed  he told the New York Daily News in 2013 Im beginning to think its time for vigilante justice  were utterly ignored.

It was weirdly fitting that the deadly assault on the family of a trailblazing woman judge  with some stunning details, including Hollander dressing as a Fed Ex deliveryman to gain access, and the gunman later killing himself in a car in upstate New York with a package addressed to Judge Salas, whom Hollander believed was slow-walking one of his many anti-women suits got such little airplay. A case that would have received breathless tabloid TV coverage a few years ago was now swamped by a nation in crisis  with a president overwhelmed by a pandemics again-rising death toll and siccing unmarked troops on protesting citizens in Portland.

Thats somewhat understandable, and yet its also symbolic of a nation thats finally having something of a day of reckoning on 401 years of systemic racism but still cant summon the energy to attack our deeply embedded systemic sexism with the same passion, let alone attention span. The thing is, you dont need to ace the Montreal cognitive assessment to connect the many dots showing how misogyny has played such a critical role in our national crack-up  with connections to mass shootings in our public venues, murders in our bedrooms, and neo-fascism in our politics.

Did I mention that one of Roy Den Hollanders earlier go-to outlets for spouting hatred against feminazis was the Fox News channel? On the same day the media was ID-ing Den Hollander as the killer at the Salas home, a new lawsuit revealed a culture of toxic masculinity at FNC that ranged from non-stop sexist remarks and harassment from the likes of the networks superstars Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson to crude allegations of sexual assault against on-air personality Ed Henry. Its hard not to see the straight line between the rank misogyny at Americas most-watched cable news channel and the increasingly authoritarian lines that Hannity or Carlson spout to their millions of fans.

And sexism-drenched media like Fox News and talk radio provided the platform for a generation of GOP politicians who rode the no-longer-sublimated backlash against womens rights gains of the latter 20th Century all the way to the corridors of Congress. That boiled over this week on the Capitol steps when one of those Republican congressmen, Ted Yoho of Florida, encountered the relentlessly fierce progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (another strong Latina ... hmm ...) and engaged in a deep philosophical debate over ... Just kidding, Yoho reportedly called her a f***ing bitch.

This is the far-rights brand of what you might call intersectionality, with the movements women-hatred deeply threaded through everything about the current moment  from the 2016s election of a wildly unfit, unethical and untruthful president, credibly accused of sexual misconduct, because his opponent was a nasty women, to the growing tally of mass killers whod started on that path with acts of domestic violence or online incel misogyny, to this weeks tear-gas and rubber-bullet attacks by camouflaged tin soldiers against a wall of moms in Portland.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which was founded in Alabama in the 1960s to track hate groups centered on racism, has in recent years closely tracked the role of mens rights movements like the one proclaimed by the murderous Hollander in Americas increasing fraught war against far-right extremism. Heres an SPLC report from just last year:

A tight overlap exists between the alt-right, white supremacist and male supremacist circles, which feed each others narratives of the dispossession and oppression of white men, which is blamed on minorities, immigrants and women. Both the alt-right and the manosphere agree that feminism is the cause of Western civilizational decline. In fact, the misogyny intrinsic to the alt-right might very well be one of its distinctive feature, or a gateway drug. Southern Poverty Law Center

Yet the feminist writer Amanda Marcotte noted in a piece for Salon after the Salas shooting that the media still tends to cover these acts of misogynist violence as isolated events perpetrated by lone wolf oddballs, instead of as lethal outbursts from a semi-organized movement that engages in stochastic terrorism, in which political leaders or movement activists deliberately use provocative and inciting language in hopes of inspiring their followers to commit acts of terrorism (while maintaining some shreds of plausible deniability).

Lets be clear: One of those political leaders is Donald Trump, who may have launched his presidential bid with a broadside against Mexican migrants as rapists but brought his Nuremberg-style campaign rallies to their frenzied peak with chants of Lock her up! against a female opponent already cleared of an alleged (and fairly low level) crime.

And yet as 2020 has emerged as every bit a pivotal political year along the lines of 1968 or 1861, Americas reaction to the various elements of Trumps alarming descent into authoritarianism has been separate and unequal. The bravery of protesters taking to the streets and confronting walls of militarized and too-often violent robocops to fight racism in America will hopefully change the course of history. But amid so much systemic sexism, the tendency here has been either to change the subject, as with the Salas killing, or even run the other direction.

 READ MORE: Trump doesnt know how to run against Joe Biden, a Democrat who is not a nasty woman | Will Bunch

The biggest non-happening of 2020 was the manner in which Democratic primary voters (a majority of whom are women) rejected the most accomplished field of female presidential candidates in American history for an aging white man because of the overt fear that America probably isnt ready for a woman leader (and that the immediate danger of Trump made it too risky to try). I still see that an epic fail  mitigated somewhat by Joe Bidens pledge to pick a female running mate and put a black woman on the Supreme Court  but the courage of those Portland moms (now being replicated in Philly and elsewhere) gives me some hope that a gender reckoning can build on the racial moment already underway.

Neither the well-deserved take-downs of high-profile men in the #MeToo movement nor the necessary push for more female representation in the White House or on the High Court should be allowed to distract from the urgent and substantive work that needs to be done. That starts with finally enacting the Equal Rights Amendment and undoing the four-year jihad led by Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to make the federal judiciary overly male (and overly white). And it should build up to a legal framework to give women their full reproductive rights and the equality in the workplace and the other pillars of American life that theyve been long denied.

I was in the middle of writing this column Thursday morning when Ocasio-Cortez took to the floor of the House to issue a dramatic rebuke not just of Yoho and his comments, but of the deeper problems in American society they reflected.

This issue is not about one incident, the New York City congresswomen asserted. It is cultural. It is a culture of lack of impunity, of accepting violence and violent language against women, and an entire structure of power that supports that. Ocasio-Cortez said the misogyny connected up with GOP remarks that she is The Other, that she somehow doesnt belong. This is a pattern of an attitude towards women and dehumanization of others.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is finally connecting the dots we should have been connecting all along. The fight against white supremacy and the fight against male supremacy are inextricably linked, and it is the battle of our lifetimes. The time for a bolder, unified front is right now.
BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - U.K. stocks gained ground on Thursday as hopes for another round of government stimulus for the virus-stricken U.S. economy and an upbeat quarterly earnings report by Unilever helped investors look past an escalation in Sino-U.S. tensions. The benchmark FTSE 100 rose 36 points, or 0.59 percent, to 6,243 after declining 1 percent on Wednesday. Unilever soared almost 8 percent as it beat analyst expectations of a drop in sales in its latest half-year results. Second-quarter underlying sales declined just 0.3 percent versus expectations of a 4.3 percent drop. British Airways' parent company International Airlines Group was slightly lower after the U.K pilots union BALPA recommended its members at British Airways to accept a deal to avert 1,255 job losses. Advertising firm WPP rose nearly 3 percent. Its French rival Publicis Groupe SA beat expectations for underlying sales in the second quarter and said it continued to record significant wins in new business across the world. Electronics trading major IG Group Holdings slumped 6.6 percent after announcing its financial results for the twelve months ended May 31, 2020. Risk insurance and reinsurance provider Beazley Group jumped 6 percent. The company swung to a loss in the first-half after setting aside $170 million for coronavirus-related claims. Security contractor G4S climbed 6.3 percent after posting a higher-than-expected first-half operating profit. 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.
Leaders of the four nations behind the Manatua One Polynesia Cable Project have announced that the cable was accepted last week from turnkey supplier SubCom.

They further announced that, following final checks and preparations by the four operators managing the project as the Manatua Consortium, comprising Office des Postes et Telecommunications (OPT) in French Polynesia, Avaroa Cable Limited (ACL) in the Cook Islands, Telecom Niue Limited (TNL) in Niue, and Samoa Submarine Cable Company (SSCC) in Samoa, the system was officially Ready for Service.

The announcement is the culmination of three years of planning, design, cable manufacture, and cable laying. Since completing the cable lay in January 2020, the focus has been on commissioning and testing to confirm the system functions to specifications prior to handover.

Despite disruptions from the global COVID-19 pandemic during the latter stages of the project, which restricted the movement of critical test resources, the Manatua system has been delivered on time and within the original budget.

Manatua is a ground-breaking collaboration initiated in April 2017 with the signing of an international treaty by the President of French Polynesia, the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, the Prime Minister of the Independent State of Samoa, and the Premier of the Government of Niue.

The new 3600 km optical fibre submarine cable now spans the South Pacific and will transform speed, capacity, resilience, and affordability. The cable connects Tahiti and Bora Bora in French Polynesia, Rarotonga and Aitutaki in the Cook Islands, Niue and Samoa. It is the first submarine cable in the Cook Islands and Niue, which until now have relied on satellite connectivity.

Once operational, the Manatua cable is designed to provide service for at least 25 years. The system comprises two optical fibre pairs, each capable of carrying data at 10 Terabits per second (= 10,000,000 Mbps).

Citizens of the consortium countries will benefit from Manatua as each operator works to make the new infrastructure available to retailers for incorporation into their local connectivity products and services.

Edouard Fitch, President of French Polynesia, said: I consider this cooperation as a fantastic technical advancement and a milestone in terms of connectivity for our Polynesian region, which will allow us to a broader connectivity to the World. This is an indication of our determination and a tangible action undertaken under the banner of the Polynesian Leaders Group.

Henry Puna, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, said: Through Manatua, our four nations have achieved together something that was unattainable individually. This project is the dawn of a new era of cooperation and collaboration across Polynesia.

Dalton Tagelagi, Premier of Niue, said: Niue's connection to the Manatua Cable network is a key investment for a world-class telecommunications infrastructure to expedite Niue's technological future that is crucial for the development of the country. It will enable a digital platform for improvements to education, health, other government services and to the private sector enhancing the business and tourism markets."

Tuilaepa Malielegaoi, Prime Minister of the Independent State of Samoa, said:

The Manatua Cable is a physical embodiment of the Polynesian leaders shared vision of a connected Pacific region; delivering fast, reliable and affordable internet for all. It will strengthen our cultural connections, drive economic development and employment, and create the foundation for the digital transformation of all our countries.
Harsher social distancing restrictions have been reintroduced in New South Wales as the state grapples with its new coronavirus outbreaks.

All clubs, cafes and restaurants in the state will be limited to a maximum of 300 customers from Friday, with owners forced to take down contact details and register them online.

The number of people per booking or table has also been reduced from 20 people to ten, meaning big parties are no longer welcome.

Tighter restrictions have also been introduced for weddings, limiting the number of guests to 150.

Wedding receptions will also take a hit as dancing and mingling are banned, with guests being urged to remain seated instead.

Funerals will also be impacted, with venues allowed a maximum of 100 attendees.

Businesses breaching the strict new rules could face fines of up to $55,000, and a further $27,500 fine could apply if offences continue.

All pubs, clubs, cafes and restaurants will be limited to a maximum of 300 customers from Friday (pictured, diners outside a Sydney cafe)

Wedding receptions will be a little different as dancing and mingling are banned, with guests being urged to remain seated instead (pictured, a couple outside Sydney Opera House)

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the new rules were about reducing the risk for transmission, after similar restrictions were slapped on pubs last Friday.

'We are at a crucial stage of the pandemic in NSW  we want venues strictly implementing their COVID-Safe plans and customers abiding by the rules of the venue they are in,' Ms Berejiklian said.

'It is critical people remember when they are at a venue they remain seated. This reduces the risk of transmission.'

She said the state has the chance to get ahead of the virus and control the spread if residents limit their activities and practise social distancing over the next few weeks.

'If you cannot guarantee social distancing where you're going ... you must wear a mask,' she told reporters in Sydney.

Punters must now be seated at pubs (picture, a group of tradesman having a beer at a pub on June 1 when restrictions lifted)

An investigation was launched into the Golden Sheaf in Double Bay after pictures emerged of a crowded line outside the venue (pictured on July 7)

'We encourage everybody to limit their behaviour or activity in the next few weeks especially around large crowds.'

What are the new rules in NSW? Compliance measures are imposed on pubs, restaurants, bars cafes and clubs. This includes: 1. Limiting group bookings to a maximum of ten people 2. Mandatory COVID Safe plans and registration as a COVID Safe Business 3. A digital record must be created within 24 hours. 4. Weddings and corporate events will be limited to 150 people subject to the four square metre rule. 5. Funerals and places of worship will be limited to 100 people Advertisement

The restrictions come as the number of virus cases continue to climb in NSW with 19 new cases reported on Thursday.

Most of the new cases have been linked to known Sydney clusters at the Crossroads Hotel and the Thai Rock restaurant.

There are currently 94 patients being treated for coronavirus in NSW.

While most cases have been linked to known clusters, community transmission continue and NSW Health is calling on people across the state to increase their efforts to stop the virus spreading.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard warned residents not to get complacent, maintain strict social distancing and get tested with even the slightest symptoms.

He has also urged Sydneysiders to avoid a Black Lives Matter protest planned for Sydney this weekend as the number of cases continues to rise.

'Now is not the right time to have people on the streets and intermingling with each othernow is the time to be cautious.'

The new figures come as Victoria records its third-worst day for daily infections since the pandemic began with 403 cases reported.

The state also saw five more deaths due to the virus.

The number trails behind only Wednesday's record figure of 484 cases and the 428 infections confirmed by Premier Daniel Andrews last Friday.

Mr Andrews said four of the deaths in the state over the past 24 hours were people who were in aged care - while one was a man aged in his 50s.

The restrictions will also halve group bookings from 20 to ten, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said
MONTREALAn eight-year-old boy died after he was struck by a car outside a day camp in Montreal Wednesday.

The incident occurred around 4 p.m. as the child was crossing the street to meet a parent in the St-Henri neighbourhood southwest of downtown.

Montreal police say the boy was conscious when officers arrived on scene but later died in hospital of his injuries.

They say the 34-year-old driver was treated at the scene for shock, but neither she nor her 31-year-old passenger were injured.

Police say the driver came to a full halt at a stop sign, but struck the child when she started driving again.

The day camp announced it will be closed for the rest of the week, and the borough mayor said psychological help will be made available for camp staff and clients.
Published on 2020/07/22 | Source

Pictures from the "Zombie Detective" script reading were released on the 22nd.

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According to KBS, present at the script reading were Choi Jin-hyuk (Kim Moo-yeong), Park Ju-hyun (Gong Seon-ji), Kwon Hwa-woon (Cha Do-hyeon), Hwang Bo-ra (Gong Seon-yeong), Ahn Se-ha (Lee Tae-gyoon), Tae Hang-ho (Lee Seong-rok), Lee Joong-ok (Wang Wei), Park Dong-bin (Hwang Cheon-seop), Im Se-joo (Kim Bo-ra) and Bae Yoo-ram (Producer).

Producer Shim Jae-hyun-I said, "I thank the actors for their sincerity and courage. I hope the drama remains a precious memory to you". Writer Baek Eun-jin said, "I hope we finish the drama without being bitten by zombies".

Choi Jin-hyuk who plays the unique character of a zombie detective said, "I enjoyed reading the scenario. I wondered how hard it would be to make into a drama but I think all I have to do is do my best". Park Ju-hyun in the role of Gong Seon-ji said, "I am honored to be working with great actors".

"Zombie Detective", produced by Lemon Rain, is a human comedy about a zombie who becomes a second-year zombie detective and struggles to find his past.
(Natural News) As we have discussed in great detail, 2020 has been unprecedented in many ways, resulting in the 2020 Summer of Hate, where rioting is seen on a daily basis in certain parts of the country, as evidenced in Portland, Oregon, where they are going on 50 nights of rioting.

(Article by Susan Duclos republished from AllNewsPipeline.com)

BIG TECH, SOCIAL MEDIA COLLUSION

Another aspect of the strangeness we have been witnessing is the all-out push by big tech and social media platforms to interfere in the 2020 presidential election, in any way they can.

One might think the media, big tech and social media platforms, all run by liberals, understand that choosing one of the longest-serving Swamp creatures to be their nominee, despite the fact that he cannot even speak coherently, feel they need to actively protect Biden by interfering with Trump, and his supporters ability to communicate.

Example: AT&T, Verizon and t-Mobile shut off the Trump campaigns ability to send out communications on their platforms, a first ever blatant attempt to stop a president, or any presidential candidate from reaching their supporters.

Of course the companies in question are blaming a third party service provider for the temporary interference.

Politico reported that the decision was allegedly not made by Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T to cancel the presidents messaging platform; instead, the companies contend that third-party administrators that monitor their text messaging services blocked the campaign messages. The administrators insist that they were following the guidelines established by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry (CTI). The major telecoms shut down the Trump campaigns messaging during a test run on the Fourth of July, potentially costing the campaign a large number of donations from supporters.

Another example comes by way of the social media platform, Twitter.

Disclaimer: Before getting into this next example, let me say that I have never held much stock in the whole QAnon movement, for lack of a better word. As with everything else online, we keep an eye on it, but do not subscribe to all of the claims made by the person or group of people behind the campaign.

With that said, just because we may not subscribe to those theories does not mean that others should be prevented, by anyone, from accessing the websites carrying the messaging, yet Twitter has just blatantly announced they will block URLs (website addresses) for QAnon from being posted on their website.

The announcement came via the verified Twitter account, screenshot below:

From Citizens Free Press:

NBC News reported the company has removed more than 7,000 accounts associated with the conspiracy theories. The changes will also impact some 150,000 more accounts because Twitter will stop recommending QAnon-affiliated accounts and will limit content circulation.

This is on the same continuum as when they deplatformed Alex Jones and Infowars, simply because they did not approve of his messaging.

Whether you like Jones or not, censoring him, colluding to all at once deplatform him across a dozen-plus formats and platforms at the same time, was a dangerously slippery slope to have started sliding down.

Censorship is censorship, whether done to Jones, Trump, conservatives or liberals.

One really has to wonder about the timing of this Twitter decree, as there are still months to go before the 2020 presidential election, but occurring just a week after General Michael Flynn, publicly used a term QAnon uses Where We Go One, We Go All (WWGOWGA).

Call me cynical if you want but the timing of Twitters censorship, so soon after General Flynns hat/tip to QAnon, shows yet another way that social media giants are attempting to prevent Trump supporters and/or QAnon believers from communicating, which is outright interference into the 2020 presidential election.

Once again, let me clear whether one believes in the QANON messaging, or not, whether they like observing it or not, and even for those thinking it is all one complete hoax and/or PSYOP, everyone should be willing to stand up for free speech and the free communication and sharing of any and all information they want.

IT IS TOO LATE NOW

Everyone should have stood up, spoken out and made life a living hell for the social media and tech companies that deplatformed Alex Jones, whether they liked Jones or hated him, whether they agreed with him or disagreed, because as we said way back then, first they came for Alex Jones.

Only a percentage of Independent Media spoke out loudly in favor of free speech versus outright censorship, because Alex Jones is a controversial character, and big tech and social media counted on that to keep people from speaking out in fear of being associated with Jones.

Then they went after Laura Loomer, the same platforms, coordinated and colluded to all ban her from spreading her message.

Now it is not even one specific person but Twitter and others feel they have the right to ban any message they dont agree with, from any users, such as users that wish to share a QAnon statement or opinion for others to research and determine whether they agree or not.

It is too late now to put the Jeanie back in the bottle, and while the tech companies and social media platforms, along with the media has played a large part in creating an atmosphere where tech thinks censorship of a message is acceptable, some in the Independent Media, by refusing to stand up and speak out when they could, bear some of the responsibility as well.

BOTTOM LINE

It is all going down now as big tech, and social media are throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the battle to help Dementia Joe Biden, by using their overwhelming online power to interfere in the 2020 election.

In 2016, Independent Media and especially their readers, played a huge part in sharing information to bypass the MSMs influence, and we all were successful.

It is time to begin again.. unless of course you want Joe Biden as the next President.

Read more at: AllNewsPipeline.com and BigTech.news.
Marine City Pop-up Pantry set for July 31

Downriver Helping Hands is sponsoring a free food Pop-Up Pantry from noon to 2 p.m. July 31 in Living Faith Lutheran Churchs parking lot, located at 310 S. Parker St. in Marine City. Those participating must stay in their car and follow directions, and prepacked boxes will be put in their trunks.

St. Clair County Community Impact Day to include three pantries

The United Way of St. Clair County and the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan are presenting St. Clair County Community Impact Day on Aug. 3, which includes three free drive thru Pop-up Pantry locations open to all.

Pantries will take place at 9 a.m. at Yale Junior High School, located at 1 School Drive; at 9 a.m. at St. Johns Lutheran Church, located at 109 East Kempf Court in Capac, and at 11 a.m. at Community First Health Centers, located at 555 St. Clair River Drive in Algonac.

Those participating should have their trunks cleaned out and may pick up food for others. The events are on a first come, first serve basis, as there is a limited supply.

SCCHD offers free hearing, vision screenings for children

The St. Clair County Health Department is offering free hearing and vision screenings from Aug. 10 to 31 for any child entering preschool or kindergarten in the fall.

Hearing and vision screenings are a requirement for children entering kindergarten, health officials said in a news release.

Screening can help your child succeed in school, officials said. An undiagnosed hearing and vision problem can interfere with your childs development.  Early diagnosis and treatment can help prevent temporary difficulties from becoming permanent problems.

The health department is located at 3415 28th St. in Port Huron. Screenings will be available from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays and 8 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays.

To schedule an appointment, call 810-987-5300 . For more information about the health departments services, go to scchealth.co.

Road work underway

Area motorists will see a handful of road and intermittent lane closures in the coming weeks as various projects are completed throughout the area. Heres a look at whats ahead.

* China and Cottrellville townships: There will be intermittent lane closures on Marine City Highway between King and Marsh roads for two days during the week of July 27 for a crossroad culvert replacement.

* Cottrellville Township: There will be intermittent lane closures on Broadbridge Road from Marsh Road to M-29 for road resurfacing during the week of July 27.

* East China Township: Meisner Road between Belle River Road and M-29 closed for replacement of the bridge beginning July 15 with an estimated completion date of Nov. 6.

* Kimball Township: There will be daily closures for ditching and culvert replacement on Allen, Ashley and Dove roads during the week of July 27.

* Kimball and Port Huron townships: Construction of a roundabout at the Dove and Range roads eastbound I-94 exit intersection began July 16. The intersection of Dove and Range roads will be closed, along with the Exit 269 ramp from eastbound I-94, during construction. The scheduled completion date is Sept. 4.

* Port Huron Township: Eastland and Westland drives will have intermittent lane closures during the week of July 27 for road paving preparation.

* Riley Township: There will be single-lane closures of eastbound I-69 between Braidwood Road and M-19 for concrete patching during the week of July 27.

* St. Clair Township: Wadhams Road between Rattle Run and Neuman roads will be closed for a culvert replacement project from July 27 through Aug. 10.

* Wales Township: Sparling Road between Goodells and Emerson roads closed for approximately 40 days July 15 for bridge rehabilitation.

 Emily Pauling, MediaNews Group
AIDS2020 Virtual Lobby AIDS2020 is a critical event for the medical and scientific community worldwide, and it has been a true privilege to be a part of allowing the show to go on, even in the midst of the challenges presented by a global pandemic.

UgoVirtual, a comprehensive digital platform designed to meet the growing virtual event management and hosting needs of the international event sector, in partnership with leading global branding and event management agency MCI Group (MCI), announces the successful deployment of the 23rd International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2020: Virtual) which took place from July 6-10, 2020 on the UgoVirtual platform for virtualized conferences and hybrid events.

Dubbed by Science Magazine as the Woodstock of global science conventions, AIDS2020 is a biannual scientific and medical gathering dedicated to advancements in HIV/AIDS treatment and research. Traditionally held as a physical event, the 2020 conference was originally scheduled to be co-located in the cities of San Francisco and Oakland, California in the United States. Due to the worldwide outbreak and continued spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19), organizers at the International AIDS Society (IAS), turned to the MCI Group in March to assist them with quickly pivoting the event online, in order to maintain continuity and momentum for a cure. After vetting multiple virtual event platform providers to ensure the necessary technology features, flexibility and bandwidth to enable an event of such a massive scope on a short timeline, MCI Group ultimately selected UgoVirtual as their strategic solution provider to enable the first virtual edition of the International AIDS Society Conference.

Featuring over 20,000 global attendees participating in more than 600 webinars, 12 prime sessions, 27 workshops, 50 symposia, 62 abstract sessions 10 pre-conference events and 70-plus satellite sessions, the massive virtual gathering was held on the originally scheduled dates and was deployed with a follow the sun schedule to accommodate multiple time zones. The agenda included live and pre-recorded sessions and presentations by leading scientists, health workers, policy specialists, community leaders, A-list celebrities, activists, government officials and even members of the British royal family. The information was presented on the backdrop of a visually stunning virtual environment designed by MCI Group, which was then digitized and securely delivered to the many thousands of global registered attendees on UgoVirtuals robust and scalable virtual event platform.

The AIDS2020 Virtual conference enabled delegates to access and actively engage with the latest HIV science, advocacy and knowledge that is traditionally presented at the physical conference. In addition to a plethora of virtual sessions and community networking opportunities, the event featured a Global Village and Youth Programme that enabled participation by online audiences around the world. Educational content included presentations and appearances by such recognizable names as Sir Elton John, Dr. Deborah Birx, Prince Harry of the British royal family and Bill Gates of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as leading medical professionals, community leaders and individuals who have been affected by HIV and/or AIDS. The last day of the conference was devoted to providing information on containment and potential treatments for a more recent pandemic, COVID-19.

AIDS2020 is a critical event for the medical and scientific community worldwide, and it has been a true privilege to be a part of allowing the show to go on, even in the midst of the challenges presented by a global pandemic, said Diane Estner, strategic advisor for UgoVirtual. The MCI Group teams tireless work, dedication and skill in pivoting this landmark international event to a digital format was impressive and we are honored to have worked alongside them to make this a successful and productive experience for the many stakeholders around the world.

Due to not only the incredible size, scope and reach of AIDS2020, but to its critical importance to the global medical and scientific communities, it was essential that we provide a strategic and seamless solution to allow the transformation of its content to the digital realm, said Shawn Pierce, President of Strategic Events, Meetings and Incentives at MCI Group. UgoVirtual proved to be an ideal partner in this venture, providing the ideal blend of commitment, technology and expertise to bring our clients vision to life virtually.

In order to give scholarship delegates continued access to conference events and sessions, AIDS2020 Virtual content will remain online through July 30, 2020. Please visit http://www.aids2020.org for more information, or to learn more about UgoVirtuals comprehensive virtual event platform, go to ugovirtual.com.

About UgoVirtual | UgoVirtual is a comprehensive digital platform that virtualizes tradeshows, conferences, association/corporate meetings, expositions, and other events to make them conveniently and securely accessible to online audiences around the world. As technologies like virtual reality, e-learning and web-conferencing have converged, UgoVirtual harnesses their combined power to resolve the pain points and challenges of event organizers, exhibitors and industry professionals, making it possible to BE EVERYWHERE. The brainchild of a group of technology industry veterans with over 80 years of combined experience, UgoVirtual leverages a proven digital platform that is currently utilized by many of the worlds leading enterprise organizations to virtualize events, provide on-demand content and allow online collaboration and learning environments. For more information, please visit https://ugovirtual.com/ and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

About MCI | MCI is the global leader in engaging and activating audiences. Our business is founded on a simple human insight: When people come together, magic happens. Since 1987, we have been bringing people together through inspiring meetings, events, congresses and association or community management. MCI helps organisations harness the power of community by applying our strategic engagement and activation solutions to build unforgettable online and offline experiences that foster change, inspire, educate and enhance business performance. MCI is an independently owned company headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and boasts a global presence with 2,500+ professionals in 61 offices and 31 countries, who work with clients across Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific, India, and the Middle East. Visit us at http://www.mci-group.com or on LinkedIn, Twitter, https/Facebook, Instagram.
The Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu has debunked allegations that he is deliberating witch-hunting Samuel Adam Mahama, brother of former President John Dramani Mahama.



This follows a red alert notice issued by Interpol for the arrest of Samuel Adam Foster (Mahama) and three others over their involvement in the Airbus scandal.



A statement issued by the Office of the Special Prosecutor stated that the SP is well known in this country and amongst the community of ethical lawyers and the senior judiciary as a person who had practised the law ethically for upwards of forty years. Some of the unethical lawyers who were assaulting the person and character of the SP on the airwaves are lawyers who are in their twenties and early thirties: they have not been yet cut their teeth at the Ghana Bar. The SP refused to be drawn into the affray of turning law into politics as is the forte of those unethical and inexperienced lawyers with no or very limited distinguished courtroom practice vindicating their standing as lawyers in the Ghana Law Reports,



Red Alert Fake



The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and other pundits had described the red alert notice as fake; insisting that it is not on the official website of Interpol.



Martin Amidu, however, said he was surprised to learn later and read online that a bunch of young, inexperienced and unethical lawyers were referring to the Red Notices as fake while at the same time heaping insults and attributing unwarranted motives to the person and character of the SP for doing his work as the Special Prosecutor to fight provable corruption.



Police Statement



A police statement signed by DSP Juliana Obeng, Head of Public Affairs of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), confirmed that the OSP had made the request to raise a Red Notice through the Interpol for the arrest of the ex-Presidents younger brother together with his accomplices, namely Sarah Furneaux, Sarah Leanne Davis and Philip Sean Middlemiss, who were all believed to be British.



Following a request by the Office of the Special Prosecutor through the Criminal Investigation Department to the Interpol General Secretariat, the latter has issued a Red Notice in respect of the following individuals  Samuel Adam Foster, alias Adam Mahama, Philip Sean Middlemiss, Leanne Sarah Davis and Sarah Furneaux, the statement had said.



It added that the above mentioned individuals have been published on the Interpol Red Notice in connection with the Airbus scandal being handled by the Office of the Special Prosecutor.



Four Fugitives



The four individuals are fugitives wanted for prosecution for their alleged roles in accepting and paying 3,909,756 as bribe on behalf of Airbus SE to some key Ghanaian public officials from 2009 to 2015.



On Friday, July 10, 2020, the Interpol published a Red Notice on its public website requesting law enforcement agencies worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest the four individuals, pending their extradition to Ghana.



There is no expiry date of the Red Notice or arrest warrant issued to track down the four individuals.



According to the summary of facts of the case as set out in the Red Notice, between 2009 and 2015, Airbus SE engaged Mr. Mahama, brother of former President John Dramani Mahama, and Mr. Middlemiss to accept and pay 3.9 million as bribe to some Ghanaian public officials to approve the sale of three C-295 military aircraft to the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF).



Read full statement below

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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ALBANY  The union representing State Police investigators on Thursday said that troopers and investigators deployed in New York City's five boroughs could face arrest on misdemeanor charges if they use restraint techniques that are part of their training but have been banned under new codes adopted by the City Council and Mayor Bill de Blasio.

"They have trained their whole career to effectively control a resistant subject by methods that were taught by instructors with the New York State Police and now were being told we can't do that anymore and, in my opinion, it's placing the investigators and senior investigators who work in these situations in a vulnerable situation," said union Vice President Ronald Pierone.

The changes adopted by the New York City Council, which were intended to largely influence physical confrontations between civilians and the New York Police Department, make it a misdemeanor crime for a police officer to use any neck restraints or to put their knees on the back or stomach of a person.

State Police leaders issued a directive to the agency's members earlier this week cautioning them about the city's ordinances.

But for a trooper, turning off years of training may not be simple, Pierone said, and could create more dangerous situations if a person who is combative cannot be restrained and their behavior escalates to the point the trooper may need to use a Taser, baton, pepper spray or even deadly force if their life becomes endangered.

"It's ingrained. Its (a) muscle-memory thing," Pierone said. "You have guys down there that have made hundreds of arrests and some of the arrests go simple, no issues. ... Its going to be a difficult process to tell yourself, 'well Im in one of the five boroughs of New York City and I cant do that now.'"

The roughly five restraints banned by New York City, including sitting, standing or kneeling on a person's back or chest, are considered a proper restraint by other police agencies across the state. Police consider the methods "non-violent restraining techniques" that they said safely subdue people who are combative with the least amount of force.

But the controversy follows a series of highly publicized cases in which people have died during physical encounters with police, including some who succumbed after being placed in chokeholds. Still, police officials said many of those cases involved officers who may have used improper techniques.

New York City and many other municipalities across the country began changing or debating police use of force techniques in the wake of protests that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. He died after a police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes as Floyd was handcuffed and complaining that he could not breathe. Many police use-of-force experts have said that officer, who has been charged with murder, was using force that was unjustified and is not part of their training.

There are more than 100 State Police investigators and senior investigators deployed in New York City, many of them assigned to narcotics and organized crime task forces, as well as violent felony warrant squads.

"A police officer who is forced to struggle with a criminal who refuses to follow a lawful order may be charged with a crime in New York City even though his/her actions are lawful everywhere else in New York state, may not be intentional, and no one was injured," the investigators' union said in a statement.

Last week, the head of the New York State Troopers PBA issued a statement demanding that state troopers be removed from New York City "and cease any law enforcement activities within that jurisdiction."



"We have arrived at this unfortunate decision due to the hastily written so-called police reform legislation recently passed by the New York City Council," said PBA President Thomas H. Mungeer.

But there is no indication that troopers will be removed from New York City, where many patrol airports, bridges and tunnels.

State Police are arranging for troopers and investigators assigned to New York City to receive additional training on the restraint laws, a spokesman said.
The government has quietly cut the UK's foreign aid budget by 2.9 billion, blaming the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, announced the cuts without fanfare as MPs left parliament for their summer recess, meaning they could not be immediately scrutinised by parliament.

The government insists a "line by line" review of aid projects had prioritised the "40 most vulnerable countries" but aid organisations warned that the cuts were falling at a time of humanitarian crisis. Opposition critics branded the policy "callous".

Mr Raab insisted the UK would still meet its commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of GNI (gross national income) on aid despite the reductions.

Sarah Champion, the Labour MP who chairs the Commons International Development Committee, said it was "poor practice" to announce the cuts on the last day before summer recess  and thus avoid any opportunity for MPs to provide scrutiny.

Mr Raab said in a letter to the chair that the cuts were a reaction "to the potential shrinkage in our economy, and therefore a decrease in the value of the 0.7 per cent commitment".

"We have identified a 2.9bn package of reductions in the governments planned ODA spend so we can proceed prudently for the remainder of 2020," he said.

The package I have agreed with the prime minister maintains our flexibility and enables the government to manage our ODA spend against an uncertain 0.7 per cent position.

It will see some reductions made now, with arrangements in place to tailor spending further during the remaining months as we start to gain a clearer economic picture.

Ms Champion said: The announcement today raises more questions than it answers. The letter speaks of delaying activity and stopping some spending  what is the timescale on this?

If it is with immediate effect, do the projects know or will they find out via the media as Dfid staff did about the merger? Is there an overarching strategy in place?

Will the evaluation of the impact of these cuts be made public? Where is the scrutiny? Clearly there has been no consultation, but to release this news literally as parliament rises so there can be no scrutiny by MPs is poor practice.

The government announced earlier this year that it would be abolishing the Department for International Development and giving responsibility for aid to the Foreign Office  a process it describes as a "merger". The move was criticised by aid organisations who said Dfid has unique expertise in the field and that they were not consulted.

Aid groups said Covid-19 had created "both a health and an economic crisis" and that if cuts had to be made they should be to investment development finance rather than on the ground projects delivering healthcare, water, sanitation, education and food.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab approved the aid cut (Getty Images)

Liberal Democrat international development spokesperson Wendy Chamberlain said: For so many vulnerable people in need around the world, UK international aid has made the difference between life and death.

Despite previous assurances that clearly werent worth the paper they were written on, we now see the callous Tories for who they really are.

This devastating cut to international aid is a clear sign that the UK is abandoning the world stage. Because of this Government more children will have their life chances blighted by poverty.



Now more than ever we need oversight and scrutiny by retaining the ICAI, the International Development Committee and a Development Minister in Cabinet."

Stephanie Draper, chief executive of Bond, the UK network for NGOs said: "At a time when we are facing the biggest health and humanitarian crisis of our lifetime, we would urge the government to ringfence aid going towards our global Covid-19 response and any aid that supports marginalised people facing poverty, inequality, disease, conflict and climate change.

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"Covid-19 has created both a health and an economic crisis. This makes it even more imperative that any aid cuts must not be shouldered by people who are already bearing the brunt of this double tragedy and as a result are being pushed further into poverty.

"The government should instead look to cut programmes that have been found not to deliver for the worlds poorest people. ODA funding that has been called out for being ineffective in terms of poverty alleviation include the CDC Group - the UKs development finance institution.

"The government should rethink its use of 'promissory notes' this year so that funding promised in advance to both the CDC and multilateral institutions is instead reallocated towards programmes that are already up and running, delivering healthcare, water and sanitation, education and food, but are now facing cuts because of the inevitable fall in GNI."
Washington: Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, on Wednesday called President Donald Trump the country's first racist to be elected to the White House.

The former vice president's blunt assessment came during a virtual town hall organised by the Service Employees International Union after a health-care worker expressed concern that Trump continues to blame Asians for the coronavirus pandemic.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Credit:AP

Biden signalled that he shared the questioner's concern that Trump frequently refers to the pandemic as the "China virus," saying, "the way he deals with people based on the colour of their skin, their national origin, where they're from, is absolutely sickening."

"No sitting president has ever done this," Biden said. "Never, never, never. No Republican president has done this. No Democratic president. We've had racists, and they've existed, they've tried to get elected president. He's the first one that has."
Teck Resources Ltd. saw profits fall by 165 per cent last quarter as the COVID-19 pandemic dented demand for its commodities and slashed prices.

The second quarter yielded a loss of $149 million for the Vancouver-based miner, which was forced to shut down operations and halt construction at some sites.

All mines are now producing, and the company has issued an updated guidance after suspending it in April.

The forecast states that coal, copper, zinc and crude oil production in the second half of 2020 will reach volumes at or close to pre-pandemic predictions as industry ramps back up following lockdown closures.

The COVID-19 pandemic obviously had a significant negative impact on business in the quarter. While all of our operations are currently producing with comprehensive virus-prevention measures in place, the economic impacts of the pandemic have reduced demand and prices for our products, CEO Don Lindsay said on a conference call.

Year-over-year prices for steelmaking coal, zinc and bitumen dropped 37 per cent, 29 per cent and 73 per cent, respectively, in the quarter ended June 30, Teck said. Copper output took a 12 per cent hit.

Construction of the US$5.2-billion Quebrada Blanca Phase 2 copper mine expansion in Chile dragged to a near standstill in the spring. Teck cut the workforce to 400, but the site now boasts 3,400 employees with the goal of reaching full strength by October, or 8,000 workers, Lindsay said.

The project  key to the companys shift toward copper, which is used increasingly in electric vehicles, clean power plants and transmission lines  will see a half-year delay due to the COVID-19 interruption, with first production now slated for the end of 2022, he said.

Teck has also suspended operations at the Neptune bulk terminal in North Vancouver for five months starting in May. Construction on an upgrade to enhance capacity at the terminal will wind down in early 2021, with projected costs ballooning to up to $800 million from $400 million amid various delays.

The company incurred $260 million costs tied to the pandemic, more than half of which related to suspending construction at the Quebrada Blanca facility, said chief financial officer Ron Millos. Some $18 million more stemmed from a temporary shutdown at the Antamina copper and zinc mine in Peru as well as coronavirus fund donations.

Impala Asset Management, a New York-based investment firm and Teck shareholder, commended the companys response to the pandemic but criticized past decisions to delve into the Alberta oilsands and indulge heavy coal expenditures.

The oilsands has been a disaster. It would have never happened had Don as the CEO not fully supported it, said Impala founder Bob Bishop, citing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.

Tecks energy business includes a 21.3 per cent interest in the Fort Hills oilsands mine, which is majority owned by Suncor Energy Inc. The operation posted a $10-million profit last year with losses of $165 million in 2018 and $218 million in the first half of 2020.

In February Teck opted to withdraw from its Frontier oilsands project, which it owned entirely, posting a non-cash impairment of $1.13 billion.

Coal is more promising, but still a problem for the mining outfit, Bishop said.

Your coking coal is kind of your flagship and you dont let your flagship costs go the wrong way. And they have. And thats on this management and thats on this board, he said.

Tecks coal costs have risen to $105 per tonne from $67 per tonne in 2005, when Lindsay took over as CEO.

The company said it is carrying out a cost-cutting strategy for steelmaking coal and expects the adjusted site cash cost of sales to drop below $60 per tonne by the end of the year.

On Fort Hills, Teck reiterated that selling off its stake in the oilsands venture remains a real possibility.

We have been very clear that if we cant see the value reflected in our share price, we will not hesitate to pursue other options for realizing value, including divestment at the appropriate time, the company said in an email.

The company said it cut about $250 million in operating costs and $430 million in capital costs to date from expected spending contemplated at the end of last June.

On Thursday, Teck reported revenues of $1.72 billion, down 45 per cent from $3.1 billion in the second quarter of 2019.

Its quarterly loss amounted to 28 cents per share, compared with a 41 cents per share or $231-million profit a year earlier.

Excluding one-time items, Tecks adjusted profit fell to $89 million or 17 cents per share, down from $498 million or 88 cents per share in the prior year quarter.

The company was expected to report a three cents per share loss and 10 cents per share adjusted loss on $1.7 billion of revenues, according to financial markets data firm Refinitiv.

Tecks shares gained 91 cents or 6.3 per cent at $15.41 in afternoon trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2020.

Companies in this story: (TSX:TECK.B, TSX:SU)
Most car washes are just soap and water. Not the one in San Bruno.

Were trying to make it Disneyland caliber, said Bobak Bakhtiari, proprietor of the Tanforan Shell car wash. Were not quite there yet.

For $10, you drive into the car wash. The tunnel doors roll shut. Then the colored lights and space age music come on, along with the suds. Bahktiari calls it a virtual reality car wash. Its not Disneyland, but its pretty exciting for San Bruno.

A car wash could be the least dangerous thing you can do during a pandemic, Bahktiari said. No mask or sanitizer required. No staying six feet away from anything. Just you, inside your car, in the dark.

The car need not be dirty. In fact, Bakhtiari said, a lot of people have been driving through with clean cars, especially on date night, when a few minutes of privacy in the dark is worth $10, maybe more.

Car washes, Bahktiari said, speak to the human experience. Nobody doesnt like going through a car wash.

Bakhtiari inherited the car wash from his father 10 years ago and keeps pushing the envelope. Hes had lights and music for some time, but starting this month he upped the virtual reality trappings by hiring online artists to create each car wash sound-and-light show in real time. No two car washes are the same.

Its something like the colored light display at the top of the Salesforce Tower, or a planetarium visit minus the planets. Its also like a drive-in movie, with just as much smooching among the paying customers.

Even though he owns the place, Bakhtiari never cuts in the car wash line. The other evening he waited half an hour, like everyone else.

When his turn came, the blue Camry rolled into the tunnel. Seven projectors and nine loudspeakers came on. Swirls of colored lights filled the tunnel and swirls of soapsuds covered the windshield. Images of tropical fish swam by on the walls. Something that looked like a volcano erupted. There was a rainbow and a jellyfish. Music thumped and twanged. The suds blocked much of the show but they did get the car clean.

Now Playing: Come for the car wash. Stay for the light show Video: San Francisco Chronicle

When it was over, the car inched down the exit lane past a giant dinosaur sculpture that had a likeness of Donald Trump in its jaws. Thats new, too. Watching the president get eaten is included in the $10.

Weve got something for everybody, the car wash man said. We trying to enhance the awe and wonder in the car wash experience. People need something fun to do right now thats also safe. This is it.

Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

Walk this way: San Francisco will still be here long after the pandemic passes, and if you need proof, says a longtime Bay Area artist, just look up at the sides of the old buildings around town.

Hundreds of painted signs still remain, high up the brick walls. Eat Carnation mush, says one. Smoke Owl cigars or Zubelda cigarettes, say others.

Artist Kasey Smith calls them ghost signs. The products are mostly gone, along with the people who painted the signs and bought the products. But about 300 faded signs still remain. They hearken to the turn of the century  not the last one but the one before.

You cant smoke an Owl cigar any more, and probably shouldnt anyway, but maybe your great grandpa did. Its all right there on the brick wall at 921 Post St.

The past is everywhere, said Smith. Eat at Ahrens Bakery. Drink Acme beer. Drink Rainier beer, too.

Smith, who has mapped the signs and posted them on her website (www.sfghostsigns.com) leads popular downtown walking tours, pointing out the signs and telling their stories. Since the pandemic, the tours have gone online instead of on foot.

The other night, about 150 people signed up for the free online tour of Tenderloin ghost signs. Walking through the star-crossed Tenderloin, one of her favorite parts of town, can be less heartbreaking by computer, Smith said.

The Carnation mush sign just southwest of the Tenderloin, high on a wall at 1586 Market St., could be her favorite. It was hidden for decades until the demolition of a nearby building in 2012 revealed it. The sign says Carnation mush comes in three kinds, but it doesnt say what they are.

Smith said shes pretty sure one kind was polenta, the snazzy name that cornmeal mush goes by in 2020.

A lot of the signs, Smith said, were painted shortly after the 1906 earthquake, another calamity that San Francisco lived through and got past. Together, the signs offer as much of a hope for the future as a glimpse of the past.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

San Francisco has been through great tragedies before, and always comes out on top, she said. These signs speak to how resistant we are. Look up at them. Theyll tell you that the city can survive this.

A chance to rebrand: When people start going to the airport again, said the head of all limousines in the U.S., they arent going to be going in limousines.

Thats because, by then, he hopes to be calling them something else.

The word limousine is a problem for us, said Robert Alexander, president of the organization known (for the time being) as the National Limousine Association. Not as much of a problem as the virus, but its still a problem.

The association will get a new name if he has anything to say about it, which  being the president  he does. Maybe the term will be car service, as they call it back East, or livery, or private driver transportation.

The stigma of a long, black limousine that takes grieving widows to funerals and giddy high schoolers to proms is something that hurts all drivers of limousines, or whatever they are.

For the 2,000 members of the association, another big problem is persuading potential customers  during a pandemic or any other time  to pay two or three times as much to book a limousine, which these days is usually an SUV, instead of an Uber or taxi. Catching a Lyft from central San Francisco to the airport costs about $26, while a taxi costs about $39 and a limousine costs about $85.

Alexander said new rules for limousines call for free masks for all passengers, a thorough disinfecting of the vehicle after each ride and gloves for all drivers. Also sanitizer, lots of sanitizer.

But all the sanitizer in the world wont get people moving again before theyre ready, Alexander conceded. Right now, about nine out of 10 airplanes arent going anyplace. And about nine out of 10 limousines, or whatever they are, are arent going anyplace, either.

But well be ready when this thing is over, the limousine man said.

Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai gestures during a session at the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, on January 22, 2020.

Microsoft's advertising business struggled last quarter, as advertisers cut their budgets during the coronavirus pandemic and corresponding spike in U.S. unemployment.

That outcome could spell bad news for search advertising rival Google, whose parent company Alphabet reports second quarter earnings next week.

On Wednesday, Microsoft said that search revenue minus traffic acquisition costs fell 18% from the year-ago quarter as customers spent less on ads.

One quarter ago, that part of Microsoft's business was up 1% year-over-year, while Google search ad revenue declined 9.4%. Google's search engine is more widely used than Microsoft's Bing; Google had about 84% market share in June, while Bing had 6%, according to NetMarketShare.

Microsoft as a whole saw slower growth as the coronavirus affected many parts of its business last quarter, but portions of its business like gaming, cloud infrastructure and productivity software helped smooth out the results as people remained at home around the world to reduce spread of the coronavirus. Alphabet is less diversified than Microsoft, with 84% of its revenue coming from Google advertising in the first quarter.

Analysts polled by Refinitiv currently expect $37.35 billion in second-quarter revenue from Alphabet, suggesting a 4% year-over-year decline. A Google spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Amy Hood, Microsoft's chief financial officer, said Wednesday that the company expects search revenue for the current quarter, excluding traffic acquisition costs, to be down "in the low 20% range." (Microsoft's fiscal year ended June 30.)

Amid a broad sell-off in tech stocks on Thursday, Alphabet Class A shares were down as much as 3.5% and Microsoft stock traded as much as 4.4% lower.

WATCH: Google tells employees they cannot expense food, other perks from home
MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI  Though Muskegon County has recorded just one additional death from COVID-19 in the past week, the public health director remains on edge about what lies ahead.

The county recorded 47 additional cases of the novel coronavirus since July 16, according to state statistics. It also had one additional death, a patient over age 90, bringing the total to 55.

The 209 cases confirmed so far this month exceed the 161 cases confirmed in all of June, according to Muskegon County health department records.

Total cases in Muskegon County stand at 1,015, state figures show.

But they may not show the full picture, as its becoming clearer that young people may be carrying the deadly virus without knowing it. More importantly, those without symptoms are just as likely  or even more likely -- to spread the virus than those with symptoms, said Kathy Moore, public health director for Muskegon County.

They are more apt to spread the virus because they are unaware they are carrying it, and because theyre not staying home due to illness, she said.

I think thats where we lost a handle on the virus, Moore said. Whereas initially it was suspected the symptomatic people were the most contagious, the latest research shows the asymptomatic are just as contagious as symptomatic, but maybe even more so because people are letting their guards down.

Of the new cases in the past week, more than half -- 28 -- were among people under 30, and there now have been 99 cases among teens. Nearly all the teenagers with COVID-19 had no symptoms; they also are among age groups who seem to be ignoring social distancing messages, Moore said.

Im still a little on edge, to be honest, Moore told MLive/Muskegon Chronicle. Weve really seen an uptick. The uptick is in (the younger) age group, and Im not convinced that age group is tuning in to the public health messaging.

Related: Thursday, July 23: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan

The average number of new cases per day doubled -- to 10 -- during the first three weeks of July, as compared to the month of June, when the number was 5.4, health department statistics show.

However, deaths have remained more stable, with five deaths reported since July 1. And the positive test rate is 3.4 percent, which remains relatively low and below the statewide rate of 4.2 percent.

On Wednesday, July 22, Mercy Health reported six inpatient cases, which up one from a week earlier.

Public Health Muskegon County is using eight employees to follow-up on positive tests, including contact tracing, Moore said. That work determined that a significant number of 170 new cases between July 1-17 were due to Fourth of July gatherings, according to the health department.

The health department studied 97 of the cases and determined more than a third -- 34 of them -- were due to social events and gatherings, according to information from the health department. Those included camping, a Torch Lake gathering, pool parties, family reunion, an open house party, a Silver Lake cruise, a large gathering at Wolf Lake in Egelston Township, a Fourth of July party at Lake Harbor Park in Norton Shores and a Pere Marquette beach party.

Muskegon County cases by age group are 99 in those up to age 19, 163 among people in their 20s, 147 among those in their 30s, 134 among those in their 40s, 170 among those in their 50s,136 among those in their 60s, 73 among those in their 70s and 79 cases among people age 80 and older. Its unknown how old 11 patients were, according to county statistics.

No Muskegon County resident under age 40 has died from the virus, county numbers show. Four people in their 50s have died, 12 in their 60s have died, 10 in their 70s and 26 over age 80.

Cases have been concentrated in the countys cities and larger townships, Muskegon County stats show. But there have been higher numbers of cases in smaller townships, including 32 in Dalton Township, attributable to outbreaks in two adult foster care homes, and 20 in Ravenna Township, due to an outbreak in migrant worker housing at a farm, Moore said.

Oceana County has recorded 427 cases of COVID-19 and five deaths, according to state data. About 180 are agriculture-related cases, including outbreaks at five farms or processing factories, MLive reported earlier.

In Ottawa County, there have 1,430 confirmed cases and 48 deaths, according to the state.

PREVENTION TIPS

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued an executive order requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nose while inside enclosed, public spaces.

Read all of MLives coverage on the coronavirus at mlive.com/coronavirus.

Additional information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.

Also on MLive:

Candlelight vigil held to celebrate life of woman fatally stabbed in downtown Muskegon

Victim in fatal Muskegon County moped crash identified as 74-year-old man

Selfless Fruitport AD, Hall of Fame ex-coach opts to retire as he adjusts to ALS diagnosis
Taking out frustrations about the virus by incorporating it into a make-believe world is something Jacob Krantz, 3, and his mother, Jessica, have also embraced. The two recently joined forces as The Incredibles  mother as Elastigirl, son as Dash  attacking a supervillain known as the coronavirus.

That day, just out of the blue, he was like, Lets go save the world, were going to kill coronavirus, Ms. Krantz said. Jacob announced his plans by saying, First we kill the virus, then we kill the germs, then we kill the colds.

Sandra Russ, a professor and psychologist, said studies had shown children in pediatric hospitals who incorporate their experience into play  by performing surgery on their stuffed animals, for example  experience less anxiety than those who do not.

For most kids, this is a healthy and normal way for them to deal with scary things that are going on in their world, she said. This is the new monster.

Thats it for this briefing. Need a good book? Zadie Smiths latest is a slim collections of essays. See you next time.  Victoria

Thank you

To Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for 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 the plans to reopen schools in the U.S.

 Heres todays Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: Blow smoke (four letters). You can find all our puzzles here.

 The New York Times named Meredith Kopit Levien, chief operating officer, as its next chief executive, succeeding Mark Thompson.
UWs Centennial Summer Speaker Series Virtual Program Aug. 12

The Centennial Summer Speaker Series -- sponsored by the University of Wyoming's Center for Global Studies and the Centennial Branch Library -- will have a virtual program through Zoom Wednesday, Aug. 12, at 5:30 p.m.

The panelists are Professors Thomas Risse and Tanja Borzel, both from the Freie Universitat Berlin; and Jean Garrison and Stephanie Anderson, both UW professors. Anderson will be the programs moderator.

The panelists will discuss U.S.-Trans-Atlantic Relations in the COVID-19 Era. To receive a Zoom link, email Kehli Hazlett at cgs@uwyo.edu.

Growing tensions within the NATO alliance, and between the U.S. and European Union (EU), have been ongoing since the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president. In the discussion, the panelists will discuss the importance of the trans-Atlantic relationship from both regional and global contexts, and address ongoing challenges in the COVID-19 era.

About the programs speakers and moderator:

-- Anderson is the head of the School of Politics, Public Affairs and International Studies. Her research focuses on the nexus between European Union identity and security policy. She has held senior fellow positions at the Europa-Institute at the University of Basel in Switzerland; at the Kolleg-Forschergruppe-Transformative Power of Europe at the Freie Universitat Berlin; and at the EU Centre in Singapore. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in England.

-- Borzel is a political science professor and the chair for European Integration at the Otto-Suhr-Institute for Political Science, Freie Universitat Berlin. She earned a doctoral degree in political and social sciences from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

She is the director of the Cluster of Excellence "Contestations of the Liberal Script," as well as the Horizon 2020 collaborative projects "EU-STRAT-The EU and Eastern Partnership Countries: An Inside-Out Analysis and Strategic Assessment" and "EU-LISTCO-Europe's External Action and the Dual Challenges of Limited Statehood and Contested Orders.

She also directs the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellences "Europe and its Citizens."

-- Garrison is the interim director for UWs Center for Global Studies and the director of the Office of Engagement and Outreach. In fall 2015, she was a fellow at the Kolleg-Forschergruppe-Transformative Power of Europe at the Freie Universitat Berlin; is the past recipient of a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship; and has worked in the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs in the U.S. State Department.

Her teaching and research interests focus on U.S. foreign policy with an emphasis on U.S.-China relations, leadership, small group dynamics and energy security. She holds a B.A. from UW and a Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina.

-- Risse is the director of the Center for Transnational Relations, Foreign and Security Policy at the Otto-Suhr-Institute of Political Science at the Freie Universitat Berlin. He was joint chair of international relations at the European University Institute's Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and the Department of Social and Political Sciences in Florence, Italy.

His previous teaching and research appointments include the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, the University of Konstanz; Cornell, Harvard, Yale and Stanford universities; UW; and Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Frankfurt in 1987.

About the Center for Global Studies (CGS)

The four primary areas of focus are faculty international research opportunities; enhancement of graduate and undergraduate international education through student international research and internship opportunities; enhancing engagement with international issues by sponsoring on and off-campus speakers and symposia; and program development through collaboration with external agencies.

With an interdisciplinary collaborative research approach and commitment to statewide engagement, CGS provides a model by which to build leadership, excellence and in-depth problem resolution-orientated scholarship and creative activities that serve people in our communities, our state, the nation and the world, Garrison says.

For more information about CGS, visit www.uwyo.edu/geo/cgs/index.html.
By Yilei Sun and Melanie Burton

BEIJING/MELBOURNE, July 23 (Reuters) - Tesla Inc boss Elon Musk urged miners to produce more nickel, a key ingredient in the batteries that power the company's electric cars, warning the current cost of batteries remained a big hurdle to the company's growth.

"Tesla will give you a giant contract for a long period of time if you mine nickel efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way," Musk said on a post-earnings call on Wednesday.

Nickel makes batteries energy dense so cars can run further on a single charge, and Tesla needs the metal more than ever as it looks to ramp up production of trucks and solar projects that use a lot of nickel.

Musk's call for greater nickel mining comes even as prices for battery materials wallow around rock bottom.

However, traders and analysts say the kinds of volumes Tesla would need are unlikely to make a compelling business case for most miners to invest in increased production, nor are they likely to boost prices.

Tesla currently sources nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) batteries from South Korea's LG Chem Ltd and nickel-cobalt-aluminium (NCA) batteries from Japan's Panasonic Corp.

These companies indirectly buy nickel from mining companies in a long auto supply chain. Tesla doesn't disclose which nickel miners are in its supply chain.

Given Tesla's focus on sustainability, the company is likely to prefer to buy from miners of higher-grade nickel sulphide, which requires less power to process than laterite ore, said Lachlan Shaw of National Australia Bank.

There are three key suppliers - Brazil's Vale, which operates in Canada using some hydropower, Russia's Norilsk Nickel and BHP Group's operations in Western Australia. "Vale is in the box seat," he said.

While electric vehicles consume a much smaller amount of nickel than traditional industries such as stainless steel makers, EVs are expected to be the quickest growth market for nickel miners.

Story continues

Nickel consumption in EV battery materials is expected to soar 64% between 2019 and 2025, research firm Wood Mackensie said, although it added that satisfying this demand could be challenging for an industry that has been slow to add capacity in a timely and cost-effective manner.

"He needs nickel, so he hopes nickel prices will go lower and lower," said a China-based nickel trader. "Prices will not be impacted in the short-term because the market is in surplus."

Nickel hit a 14-month low of $10,865 a tonne in March but has since recovered to $13,180, still down by some 30% from five-year peaks seen in September.

Tesla on Wednesday posted a second-quarter profit, but Musk said he would prioritise growth over profit going forward, and focus on making Tesla vehicles more affordable.

"The real limitation on Tesla growth is cell production at affordable price. That's the real limit," Musk said, adding the company would expand its business with Panasonic and CATL and "possibly with others".

Tesla is expected to reveal technological advances at its "Battery Day" event in September.

(Reporting by Yilei Sun in Beijing and Melanie Burton in Melbourne; Additional reporting by Mai Nguyen in Singapore and Hyunjoo Jin in Seoul; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh and Sam Holmes)
SINGAPORE, July 23 (Reuters) - Singapore's residual fuel oil inventories plummeted 10% in the week to July 22 to a near three-month low, official data showed on Thursday. The lower inventories came despite limited exports, sluggish marine fuel demand and steady net import volumes, trade sources said. Onshore fuel oil stocks fell 2.605 million barrels, or about 410,000 tonnes, to a near three-month low of 23.505 million barrels, or 3.702 million tonnes, in the week ended Wednesday, according to the Enterprise Singapore data. Still, residual fuel stocks were up 39% from a year earlier. Net import volumes were down 12% from the previous week to a two-week low of 506,000 tonnes in the week to July 22 but were below the 2020 weekly average of 669,000 tonnes. Weekly figures, however, were volatile. The largest imports into Singapore were from Cuba at 184,000 tonnes, followed by Malaysia with 147,000 tonnes, the United Arab Emirates with 102,000 tonnes and Brazil with 83,000 tonnes. Imports from Cuba were at their highest since at least December 2015, or as far as available records show. Prior to this, Singapore registered only three instances of imports from the Caribbean nation. In the latest sign of its increasing production, China for a second time on record was a net exporter of fuel oil to Singapore, sending a record 55,000 tonnes of it in the past week. China's reliance on fuel oil imports from Singapore has begun to fade since it introduced new tax and export rules this year, encouraging refiners to ramp up fuel oil production in a boost to its bunkering industry. Most of Singapore's fuel oil exports went to Hong Kong at 201,000 tonnes, a near one-year high, followed by 59,000 tonnes to Bangladesh and 8,000 tonnes to Sri Lanka. Weekly fuel oil exports from Singapore have averaged 275,000 tonnes this year versus 503,000 tonnes over the same period last year. July 22 Total Imports Total Net Exports Imports Fuel oil (in BAHRAIN 44,957 0 44,957 tonnes) BANGLADESH 0 58,698 -58,698 BRAZIL 82,546 0 82,546 CHINA 54,860 0 54,860 CUBA 184,151 0 184,151 ESTONIA 0 0 0 HONG KONG 0 201,436 -201,436 INDIA 0 72 -72 INDONESIA 0 0 0 IRAQ 49,809 0 49,809 MALAYSIA 166,781 19,814 146,967 RUSSIA 60,838 0 60,838 SAUDI ARABIA 36,962 0 36,962 SRI LANKA 0 8,497 -8,497 THAILAND 6,019 0 6,019 UNITED ARAB 101,580 0 101,580 EMIRATES VIETNAM 5,979 0 5,979 TOTAL 794,483 288,518 505,965 (Reporting by Roslan Khasawneh; editing by Jason Neely)
In a further escalation of his drive toward authoritarian rule, President Donald Trump has ordered hundreds of federal agents into the cities of Chicago, Illinois and Albuquerque, New Mexico. The executive order was announced at a media event held at the White House on Tuesday afternoon presided over by Trump and Attorney General William Barr.

Two hundred federal agents have already been deployed in Kansas City, Missouri as part of Operation LeGend, named after a four-year-old boy, LeGend Taliferro, killed in that city last month. Two hundred more are now being dispatched to Chicago and 35 to Albuquerque. In addition, the administration is sending $61 million to the three cities to hire more local police.

Trump presented the deployment of federal agents as an effort to save the minority populations of those cities, where the rates of gun crime and homicide have soared over the past year. In an effort to use the victims of such crimes as political props, his political aides recruited a number of parents of children killed in street violence to attend the event so Trump could point them out and have them take a bow.

Federal officers attack demonstrators at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Wednesday, July 22, 2020, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

The cynicism and callousness of this effort cannot be overstated. Trump recited the figures for deaths and injuries caused by gun violence in Chicago, a social tragedy to which he is completely indifferent except insofar as he can exploit it for reactionary political purposes.

No mother should ever have to cradle her dead child in her arms simply because politicians refuse to do what is necessary to secure their neighborhood and to secure their city, Trump declared, trying unsuccessfully to manufacture a display of empathy.

Trump has never expressed the slightest feeling for those whose children were murdered by American police. One of his earliest overtly political interventions was to demand the execution of the Central Park Five, minority youth framed up in Manhattan for a crime they did not commit and later completely exonerated.

In his remarks Wednesday, Trump made a thoroughly dishonest amalgam between the conditions in Chicago, where more than a hundred people have died in gun violence this month, and in Portland, Oregon, where heavily armed federal officers drawn from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have been deployed on the streets against supposed anarchist mobsactually protesters against police violence, nearly all of them peaceful.

He blamed both phenomena on his political opponents within the US ruling elite, claiming that unnamed politicians, obviously Democrats, have now embraced the far-left movement to break up our police departments, causing violent crime in their cities to spiraland I mean spiral seriously out of control.

The occupant of the Oval Office is a liar, and not a skillful one, despite constant practice. No police department has been defunded, let alone broken up, nor do any Democratic politicians advocate such measures. They defend the capitalist state machinery of repression just as much as Trump and the Republicans.

The wave of bloodshed in Chicago cannot be attributed to any softness on the part of the police there. On the contrary, Chicago under decades of Democratic Party rule has become a byword for police brutality, torture and murder. The current mayor, Lori Lightfoot, owes her political rise to her work in whitewashing police killings under the previous mayor, Rahm Emanuel.

As the WSWS noted recently, in exposing the law-and-order policies of Lightfoot:

While the political right wing has long attempted to portray the city of Chicago as chaotic and lawless, the violence tends to be centered in deeply impoverished neighborhoods that have the most gang activity. These are neighborhoods that have been hit hardest by deindustrialization and the closure of schools, mental health facilities and other social servicespolicies carried out by the citys Democratic Party machine in the service of corporate interests.

The upsurge in bloodshed in recent years is a manifestation of the social decay of the capitalist system as a whole, for which both capitalist parties share responsibility.

Trumps reelection campaign has spent $20 million on a torrent of digital ads linking the events in Portland and Chicago. Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups are running through our streets and causing absolute mayhem, one ad screams. They are DESTROYING our cities and rioting.

In Chicago, as Mayor Lightfoot emphasized in a statement yesterday accepting the assistance of the Trump administration, the influx of federal agents will be employed behind the scenes, not on the citys streets, and they will be under the direction of the US attorney for the region, not of the Department of Homeland Security.

In other words, the Democratic Party-controlled local and state governments will remain in the drivers seat for the escalation of police repression in Chicago and Illinois, even as Trump seeks to set a precedent for a greater role for the federal government.

In Portland, however, the situation is different. The local police have been largely supplanted in the downtown area by federal forces based in a federal office building and the federal courthouse two blocks away.

At a court hearing Wednesday, Oregon state officials sought an injunction from a federal judge forbidding the federal agents from making arrests without probable cause and without identifying themselves. State Attorney General Ellen Rosenbloom denounced what she called unconstitutional police state-type tactics by the DHS.

Documents made public in conjunction with these court proceedings show that the DHS has deployed 114 agents of a previously secret body called the Rapid Deployment Force, drawn from Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other sub-units of the giant department.

The carefully planned operation in Portland was given the military-style codename Operation Diligent Valor and began on July 4, with agents deployed inside the two federal buildings looking for the opportunity, which finally presented itself on July 17-18, to make a sortie against protesters on the downtown streets. Agents wore camouflage-style military uniforms and badges embossed with the word police, but no name tags and nothing to identify their agency or unit. They used unmarked vehicles and detained people without probable cause.

At a Senate committee hearing Wednesday, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon warned of the precedent being set in Portland. If the line is not drawn in the sand right now, he said, America may be staring down the barrel of martial law in the middle of a presidential election.

The Republican former governor of Pennsylvania Tom Ridge, the first secretary of homeland security in the administration of George W. Bush, told a radio interviewer that the DHS was not established to be the presidents personal militia.

But the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, issued a statement that made no reference either to the threat to democracy or Trumps effort to transform the DHS into a paramilitary force at his disposal.

Of course, the US government has the right and duty to protect federal property, he declared. The Obama-Biden administration protected federal property across the country without resorting to these egregious tacticsand without trying to stoke the fires of division in this country. We need a president who will bring us together instead of tear us apart, calm instead of inflame, and enforce the law faithfully rather than put his political interests first.

As for Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist turned water boy for the Biden campaign issued a letter to supporters warning that Trumps actions were what a police state is all about. But his only remedy, besides voting for Biden on November 3, was to introduce legislation to greatly curtail the activities of federal military forces in our communities.

Such legislation would, of course, not pass the Republican Senate, and even if it somehow did, it would then be subject to veto by Trumpits nominal target. Sanders seeks to divert his remaining supporters from taking any action to oppose the moves toward dictatorship in favor of another useless appeal to the capitalist political establishment.
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The COVID-19 lockdown has its benefits: a chapter a day of the unabridged version of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns The Gulag Archipelago, a study in fear and redefined normal values, among many other lessons.

Lately, Ive seen face coverings stenciled with I cant breathe. The beauty of the statement is its dual meaning. It can be a nod to George Floyd, an arrestee who apparently suffocated at the hands of a rogue law enforcement officer or it can be a statement of the wearers condition behind the mask. More generally, it can be a statement about the suffocation of society as a whole.

Free speech is the bedrock of our politics, but media manipulation is now rampant. Under the guise of fact-checking, our modern day newspapers  YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter  have become the arbiters of what constitutes a worthy opinion or fact in contrast to misinformation. Scientists were certain that something heavier than air could not maintain flight. The misinformed Wright brothers proved them wrong.

Vladimir Lenin recognized that the media are propagandists and their information presented should be easy to digest, most graphic, and most strongly impressive. With COVID-19, the media create irrational fear with daily charts of deaths and case numbers without corresponding recoveries.

They fail to mention that many deaths were of patients with serious underlying conditions or who were already in hospice and had weeks to live and coincidentally tested positive. The raw numbers are unaccompanied by the CDCs instruction to classify a death as COVID-19 even if merely suspected or, in some cases, with a negative test. There is no corresponding warning with blinking lights that the tests have false positives or that the daily report of increases includes old tests that were not previously reported.

As Lenin noted, ideas are much more fatal than guns. Thus, where propaganda and media bias do not succeed, censorship will. Currently, a vocal physician is being silenced and investigated for questioning the motives and possible over-reporting of COVID-19 as the cause of death.

Censorship is our polite version of disappearing dissidents. We are not Communist China and cannot allow the treatment of Dr. Li Wenliang, a Wuhan ophthalmologist to be the new normal. In December 2019, he courageously warned his colleagues on social media about the new SARS-like pneumonia cases but knew that he would probably be punished. Indeed, Chinese officials forced him to sign a letter accusing him of making false comments that had severely disturbed the social order.

Fortunately for scientific advancement of our relentless search for COVID-19 treatments and mitigation, many questioned the official story about the novel coronavirus coming from a pangolin at a Wuhan wet market.

Censorship, corrupt scientific inquiry, and media bias have no place in medicine. It is not clear that lockdowns are scientifically sound. Curiously, social justice protests are allowed despite lockdowns. One epidemiological analysis concluded lockdowns in Western Europe had no effect on COVID-19 deaths.

Additionally, studies show severe psychological effects of quarantines. The five states with the most COVID-19 deaths from March through April showed a 35% to 400% increase in deaths from various non-respiratory underlying causes, including diabetes, heart diseases, Alzheimers disease, and cerebrovascular diseases. Some 80,000 diagnoses of five common cancers may be missed or delayed because of disruptions to medical care caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most reviews conclude that masks do not slow down the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (that causes COVID-19). Studies show non-medical masks do not stop aerosolized droplets less than 2.5 microns. A group of 239 scientists from multiple disciplines from 32 countries have recently agreed that SARS-CoV-2 is spread by such small droplets. They recommend improving indoor ventilation infection controls as the key protective measure. Handwashing and social distancing  but not masks  were advised. The CDC recommends masks.

Faced with a global pandemic, physicians were exploring hydroxychloroquine, which had been favorably studied during the 2003 SARS epidemic, as a prophylactic or an early treatment. Numerous reports of HCQs efficacy on thousands of patients continue to mount.

Once the media labelled it Trumps drug, the fix was in. The long-awaited randomized clinical trial showing no benefit was gleefully reported by the media. However, the media were silent when the study was found to be so corrupt that it had to be retracted. Detroits Henry Ford Hospitals large three-month observational study that showed a significant reduction in mortality in hospitalized patients with HCQ and validated HCQs over 60-year record of safety garnered little media attention.

These (purposefully) chaotic times are an opportunity for a movement toward government control and the suppression of individuality. Lockdowns keep us apart and stifle the free exchange of ideas and social communion.

As Eric Hoffer explained in True Believer, a mass movement deliberately makes the present mean and miserable. ... People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. Becoming a psychological cripple is not an option.

Is this chaos a new form of plastic surgery? When the bandages (masks) are removed will you be a changed person?

Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD is a board-certified anesthesiologist and Association of American Physicians and Surgeons member. While working in the operating room, she attended UC Berkeley Law School, focusing on constitutional law and administrative law.
The parliamentary candidate for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) Hon. Gabiana A. Agbanwa has urged her constituents to register to vote for prosperity in the 7th December 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections. She issued this statement on 22nd July, 2020 at her residence in the Bawku central. Haven been interacting with some party stalwarts, and opposition mambers, market women, farmers, businessmen, youth groups, households, and monitoring visits at some registration center within the Bawku Central constituency, it is evident that, the good people of Bawku wants new leadership in parliament.

Hon. Gabiana A. Agbanwa underscored government commitment to delivering flagship programs including 1 village; 1 Dam; free senior high school policy, 1 constituency; 1 ambulance policy initiative, and among others.

She (Hon. Gabiana A. Agbanwa) is full of praise to President Nana Addo for the free SHS policy. This is because 'parents, orphans and young girls and boys no longer pressurize politicians with calls for school fees. The policy indeed has reduced the financial burden on parents and guardians key public figures and politicians alike by granting easy access to quality since the school fees barrier is addressed.

Also, contained in the statement, Hon. Gabiana A. Agbanwa urged her constituents to come out in their numbers and to register. This appeal is necessary because, voting in an election begins with having your name on the electoral roll and so if you failed to register you cannot be part of the upcoming historic election, that would declare victory for development, progress and prosperity. The 2020 elective is a contest for women empowerment, youth development, community social service initiatives, hope for the vulnerable, and above all social intervention initiatives for the elderly and for that matter one cannot afford to stand aloof and allow Bawku Central to lack the quality of representation in parliament.

She underscored that her quest to influence developmental initiatives from Missiga to Kpalwega, Gingande to Natinga, Sabongari to Bawku, and Mazema to Kuka is enough indication that, she is walking the tag 'Mother for All'. It is no doubt that having a mother in the kitchen, you don't expect to go hungry and for that matter, Bawku must be assured that, she represents their aspiration, vision, and dream.

The statement added that the impending 2020 election is a RESCUE MISSION for Bawku central and all hands must be on deck. He wishes to reiterate that, though she is a party candidate, she represents the voiceless and all groups within her constituency and call for a continuous campaign of clean and decent politics, as her campaign could be a standard for party politics in the constituency.

She is particularly excited that, the 2020 elections offer constituents an opportunity to corrects the wrong choices made in 2016 by endorsed her to continue to transit as their true representative in parliament.

The statement concludes that it is not enough to support my candidature without having the mandate to vote and so as a precondition, the eligible electorate must track the EC movement schedules and get registered when they are at their polling centers.

The statement further entreats constituents to keep safe and observe the necessary protocol to reduce the risk of contracting COVID- 19; physical distancing of at least 1 meter, wearing of nose mark, regular hand washing under running water, using hand sanitizers and covering your mouth when sneezing.

We must all learn to stay safe for every life matter!

Signed

Office of the NPP Parliamentary Candidate

Bawku Central Constituency

Hon. Gabiana A. Agbanwa Gbanwaa
By Donald Kirk

WASHINGTON  The United States is at a tipping point in terms of military power worldwide, nowhere more so than in Korea.



President Donald Trump would love to withdraw a few thousand U.S. troops from South Korea if only to punish President Moon Jae-in for not acquiescing to U.S. demands for a vast increase in the costs of maintaining America's 28,500 troops in the country. South Korea, however, is not the only U.S. ally to face huge cuts in U.S. defense spending.



Trump has already said he's slashing the number of U.S. troops in Germany from 34,500 to 25,000, and the U.S. has reduced its troop strength in Afghanistan from 12,000 a few months ago to about 8,000 on the way to 4,000 by the November election. Trump may talk tough in the face of violent protests on the streets of American cities, but he's ordering a massive retreat from alliances and commitments from Europe to the Middle East to Asia.



Probably the most unsettling aspect of the global American drawdown is that no one knows exactly what Trump is thinking, and he's likely to make decisions without consulting allied leaders or even his advisers. German Chancellor Angela Merkel had no clue Trump was ordering a massive pullout until he announced one day that Germany wasn't spending enough of its own money on defense, was not meeting its commitment to NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and anyway had much too big a trade surplus with the U.S.



The prospect of pulling U.S. troops from Korea is a little different. Trump has been saying for ages that the South should pay $5 billion this year for the privilege of hosting the Americans, more than five times as much as last year. Obviously that figure was ridiculous, but negotiators still can't narrow the gap of a few hundred million dollars between what the U.S. is asking and the South is willing to offer.



The U.S.-Korean impasse gets all the more complicated as Moon strives mightily to rekindle the spirit of dialog with North Korea after all the insults thrown at the South, notably the North's destruction of a spacious modern structure built on its own soil at South Korean expense for purposes of lovey-dovey gabfests between South and North Koreans.



Whatever concessions Moon is willing to make to the North to get the talks going again, we can be pretty sure it will be quite a while before anyone suggests opening another liaison office.



Trump, however, would just love a fourth tryst with the North's Kim Jong-un, and there's no telling what he might promise or do to get it. Considering how easily he got conned into cancelling joint war games for U.S. and South Korean troops after his first love-in with Kim in Singapore more than two years ago, we have to be ready for another surprise in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election in November.



For Trump, what counts is not the U.S. defense of South Korea but the number of votes he might win or lose by ordering a drawdown in U.S. strength in Korea as a prelude to one more chance at hugging the North Korean potentate for all the world to see.



All of which inspires distinctly mixed feelings in Seoul. Sure, President Moon is a liberal, and he's named a slew of old-time leftists to important positions, but then a lot of Koreans, including members of his own party, really feel uneasy about the U.S. reducing its strength in Korea and the region. It's fine for Moon to do all he can to reopen dialog, and talk about trade and cultural exchanges and family visits too, but by now nobody in his right mind can count on the North honoring any agreement.



As for the North's making a show of doing away with its nuclear and missile program, forget it. The best anyone can hope for is that Kim doesn't order a test of a long-range missile capable of carrying a warhead to the U.S. We can thank the spread of COVID-19 for putting the damper on that plan, at least for now, but it's unlikely Kim has abandoned the idea.



Trump for his part isn't giving up on lowering the U.S. profile in South Korea and the region by another pullout. Defense Secretary Mark Esper is coming up with elaborate plans and rationales for rotating troops in and out, giving an appearance of readiness. Nobody's fooled except American voters, fixated on the twin menaces of mayhem in their own cities and the spread of the coronavirus that Trump has failed to comprehend while compromising historic alliances.





Donald Kirk, www.donaldkirk.com, writes from Seoul and Washington.




A lawsuit filed Tuesday night accuses former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of taking his pick of boys to abuse sexually and assigning others to adult clerics at a New Jersey beach home that's been central to previous allegations against the former prelate.

The man who brought the suit said in court papers that he was abused in the early 1980s by McCarrick and three priests at the home, which is in Sea Girt. McCarrick previously was accused of bringing adult seminarians to the home and sexually harassing them during overnight stays. Those allegations and others involving children led to McCarrick being defrocked last year, when he became the highest-ranking American Catholic official to be punished over accusations of sex abuse.

The suit alleges that the plaintiff was abused by two other clerics as a child  including a former Essex Catholic High School principal who introduced him to McCarrick under the guise that McCarrick would help Plaintiff pay his school tuition.

Theodore McCarrick, pictured in this file photo from October 1997, was listed by the church as being credibly accused of child sexual abuse. RECORD.

Jeff Anderson, the plaintiffs attorney, referred to the gatherings at the beach house as a sex ring during a video press conference Wednesday. He repeated allegations made in the lawsuit, saying popes have known about allegations against McCarrick for decades but allowed him to rise to become one of the most powerful prelates in the church. He referred to McCarrick's actions as "50 years of criminal sexual predation" that had been "cloaked in papal power."

McCarrick was bishop of the Metuchen Archdiocese when abuse alleged in the lawsuit occurred. He later became Archbishop of the Newark Archdiocese before taking over the Washington Archdiocese, where he became a cardinal. Allegations that he sexually harassed seminarians at his beach house remained a secret for years before coming to light in 2018.

Related: Vatican defrocks former US cardinal Theodore McCarrick

Two years ago, Newark Archbishop Joseph Tobin acknowledged that claims against McCarrick had been settled years before. Tobin said he learned of the settlements in 2018 shortly before media reports first revealed them. After allegations of child sex abuse surfaced, McCarrick was placed on a list of credibly accused clerics last year.

Story continues

New lawsuits: Nine new sex abuse suits filed against Newark Archdiocese include cleric not accused before

Coronavirus: Politics shouldnt get in the way of religions moral duty

Fort Lee: Former students sue, say they were sexually abused in 'quiet room' at education center

The former cardinal faces two other lawsuits in New Jersey alleging that he sexually abused boys. Those suits, like Tuesdays, were filed under a new law that took effect Dec. 1, 2019 making it easier to bring sex abuse civil claims by suspending the statute of limitations for two years. More than 100 such lawsuits have been filed under the law against the states five Catholic dioceses.

Tuesday's lawsuit, which was filed in Middlesex County, named the Newark Archdiocese, the Metuchen Diocese and McCarrick among the defendants. The name of the accuser was not revealed in court documents and his attorneys declined to provide information about him. Along with McCarrick, four of the five clerics named in the court papers have been previously accused of sexual abuse.

Three Newark Archdiocese priests  Gerald Ruane, Michael Walters and John Laferrera  allegedly abused the boy at the beach house in 1982 and 1983, when the accuser was between 14 and 16 years old. Last year, the Newark Archdiocese listed each of those priests as having credible accusations of sex abuse made against them. Ruane was listed as deceased; the others had been removed from ministry.

Brother Andrew Thomas Hewitt, the former Essex Catholic principal, was accused of abusing the boy from 1981 to 1983. The Congregation of Christian Brothers lists him as having at least two claims of sexual abuse against him. He died in 2002.

The suit also includes allegations against a priest named Anthony Nardino, who had not been publicly accused before Tuesday. The boy was 11 years old and a parishioner at St. Francis Xavier in Newark in 1978 when the priest allegedly abused him. Anderson said on Wednesday that Nardino left the priesthood in the 1980s.

Anderson said in court papers that McCarrick began abusing the boy shortly after they met in 1982. The boy was taken on overnight and weekend trips to the beach house in Sea Girt.

McCarrick assigned sleeping arrangements, choosing his victims from the boys, seminarians and clerics present at the beach house, the suit said. Minor boys were assigned to different rooms and paired with adult clerics.

Anderson said McCarrick had access to two beach homes. Property records show the Metuchen Diocese purchased a Sea Girt home in 1985, years after Anderson's client was allegedly abused. It was later owned by the Newark Archdiocese, which sold it in 1997. Anderson said he didn't know the exact location of the home where his client was allegedly abused.

The suit also alleges that church officials had known about some allegations against McCarrick for many years.

A lawsuit in New Jersey claims that a McCarrick victim told Pope John Paul II about the alleged abuse in the late 1980s. Pope Benedict XVI reportedly placed restrictions on the cardinal in 2008 over allegations related to adult seminarians but McCarrick allegedly ignored a travel ban with the Vatican's knowledge. And a church official says he told Pope Francis about allegations against McCarrick in 2013, a claim the pope denied.

McCarrick's attorney, Barry Coburn, said in a phone call Wednesday afternoon that he was aware of the complaint but could not comment on it. McCarrick has denied previous allegations of sexual abuse made against him.

A spokeswoman for the Newark Archdiocese said in an email Wednesday that it would be "inappropriate to discuss or comment on matters in litigation." The archdiocese, she said, is working with victims and law enforcement "in an ongoing effort to resolve allegations and bring closure to victims."

The Metuchen Diocese said in a statement that it had not yet received the complaint and that "our prayers are with all survivors of abuse."

As new allegations of sex abuse by priests have been made in lawsuits over the past eight months, McCarricks leadership of the Newark Archdiocese has come under increased scrutiny, particularly his handling of sexual abuse allegations.

John Bellocchio, right, announces his lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Newark for sexual abuse he suffered as a teenager by Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, who was the Archbishop of Newark at the time. Bellocchio, with attorney Jeff Anderson, left, held the press conference on Monday, Dec. 2, 2019, in Newark.

The findings of a Vatican investigation into McCarrick, initially expected to be out by the end of last year, have not yet been released.

"It's a sad statement that we're still begging for information from the church," said Mark Crawford, the head of the New Jersey chapter of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by priests, known as SNAP.

A woman from Ridgefield Park recently said she told the Newark Archdiocese in 1996, when McCarrick was the archbishop, that her son had been abused by Gerald Sudol at St. Francis of Assisi parish. A mental health facility sent a letter to church officials saying the abuse came up in therapy. Yet Sudol wasnt removed until 2002 amid a national sex abuse scandal. Later acquitted in a church trial, he lived at a parish with a school until 2018 when additional accusers came forward.

Last year, Seton Hall University said an independent report into allegations that seminarians had been abused found McCarrick had "created a culture of fear and intimidation that supported his personal objectives." The university said at the time that McCarrick "used his position of power" as head of the Newark Archdiocese to "sexually harass seminarians." The school said no university students had been abused.

Two years ago, Tobin said the Newark Archdiocese and Metuchen Diocese had received three claims against McCarrick related to sexual behavior with adults and had settled two of them. He said in a statement that the archdiocese has never received an accusation that Cardinal McCarrick abused a minor.

In December of last year, two lawsuits were filed in New Jersey alleging that McCarrick abused children. One of the suits, filed on Dec. 1, alleges McCarrick abused a boy who was between 13 and 14 years old and a parishioner at St. Francis of Assisi in Hackensack in the mid-1990s.

The other suit, filed days later, alleges McCarrick began abusing a boy from New Jersey in 1969. In that case, the accuser said in court papers that as a man in 1988 he told Pope John Paul II about the abuse during an audience arranged by McCarrick, but that the church didn't take any action.

Follow Abbott Koloff and Deena Yellin on Twitter: @abbottkoloff and @deenayellin

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Theodore McCarrick: Lawsuit alleges ex-cardinal ran NJ sex ring
A World Health Organisation (WHO) expert said on July 22 that the first COVID-19 vaccinations cannot be expected until early 2021 while acknowledging good progress in vaccine development. At a Live Q&A session streamed on social media, Mike Ryan, Executive Director of WHO Health Emergencies Programme, said that the UN agency is working to ensure equitable vaccine distribution but, in the meantime, suppressing the virus spread is important.

Were making good progress...Realistically it is going to be the first part of next year before we start seeing people getting vaccinated, Ryan told the public event.

Ryan noted that several vaccines are in Phase III trials and have been successful in terms of safety or ability to generate an immune response. He said that the health agency has been working to help scale-up production capacity of potential vaccines and expand its access. The WHO official emphasised that coronavirus vaccines are not only for the wealthy or the poor but for everybody.

Countries have started securing vaccine doses from pharmaceutical companies who have been licensed to produce potential vaccines. The United States signed a $1.95 billion deal with Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE to secure 100 million doses of BNT162, a COVID-19 vaccine candidate jointly developed by both the companies.

Read: India Is Continually Strengthening COVID-19 Preparedness And Response Measures: WHO

UK secures early access to vaccines

Britain also secured early access to 90 million vaccine doses by signing separate deals with an alliance of Pfizer and Biotech, and French group Valneva. The UK government announced on July 20 that it has signed a binding agreement with BioNTech/Pfizer to secure 30 million doses of vaccine.

The two major vaccine deals come after its recent agreement with AstraZeneca to produce 100 million doses of a potential vaccine being developed in partnership with Oxford University. The much-awaited vaccine candidate is currently going through large-scale Phase III human trials in Brazil, the epicentre of coronavirus in Latin America.

This new partnership with some of the worlds foremost pharmaceutical and vaccine companies will ensure the UK has the best chance possible of securing a vaccine that protects those most at risk, Business Secretary Alok Sharma said in a statement.

Read: Mike Pompeo Slams WHO For Siding With China During A Private Meeting In UK

(Image: Twitter / @WHO)
The Delhi government has decided to conduct sero-surveys every month to formulate better policies for tackling Covid-19 in the national capital, Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Wednesday. The decision comes after the city government analysed the results of the latest sero-survey which showed that 23 per cent of the people here had exposure to the novel coronavirus.

Interacting with reporters, he also said that the next survey will be conducted from August 1-5. The minister reiterated that there is "transmission in the community" here and around 25 per cent of people have got infected and recovered in Delhi. But it is a technical term and only the Centre can take a decision to declare it, he said.

"The results of the sero-survey conducted from June 27-July 10 came out yesterday, and it shows that nearly one-fourth of people had developed anti-bodies, meaning they had got infected and recovered. Most of these people who were sampled did not know that they were infected earlier," Jain told reporters.

The Delhi government has now decided to conduct sero-surveys every month to find greater percentage of such people who had got infected and recovered, so as to formulate better policies for tackling COVID-19, he said. Jain said the surveys will be conducted from 1st to 5th of every month and the Delhi government is working on making a detailed protocol for it, which will be conducted in both containment and non-containment zones.

The Delhi health minister said the survey will be based on a representative sample to understand the latest situation of the COVID-19 spread. Asked if herd immunity has been developed in the community, he said experts say that herd immunity is developed when 40-70 per cent of the population has recovered from COVID-19.

"We have received the results for about 24 cent of the population, and therefore, we cannot say, herd immunity has developed within the population in Delhi as per the results of the survey," Jain added. The sero-prevalence study was done by the Delhi government in association with the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

The study has found that around 23 per cent of the people surveyed in Delhi had an exposure to the novel coronavirus, the central government said on Tuesday. According to Director of the NCDC, Dr Sujeet Kumar Singh, the remaining 77 per cent are still vulnerable to the viral disease and containment measures need to continue with the same rigour.

The study, conducted from June 27 to July 10 by the NCDC in collaboration with the Delhi government which involved testing 21,387 samples, also indicated that a large number of infected persons remain asymptomatic, according to the Union Health Ministry. Jain when asked the need for more such surveys, said, earlier a survey was undertaken in containment zones, then entire Delhi was represented with random sampling, and the results are coming out for the population sample which was infected 14 days ago or earlier.

"It takes 14 days to develop anti-bodies, so the result that has just come out, represents the situation of people who got infected, say around June 15 and recovered. The next survey will represent the picture for later days," he added.

The minister said strategy is being made for the next survey, and more samples will be taken than in the previous exercise. A sero-survey involves testing of blood serum of individuals to check for the prevalence of antibodies against infection. "The population that was sampled was diversified, from young to old, man and women, and across various areas, both with and without containment zones, and with successive surveys, the results will help us formulate better strategies.

However, people must continue to practice safety norms, use masks, practice social distancing and wash hands regularly," Jain said. Delhi recorded 1227 fresh coronavirus cases on Wednesday, taking the tally in the city to over 1.26 lakh, while the death toll from the disease rose to 3,719 authorities said.

The total number of COVID-19 tests done till date in Delhi stands at 8,71,371. The number of tests done per million to detect infection, as on Tuesday was 45,861 while the number of containment zones stood at 693. The minister also asserted that the percentage of deaths due to COVID-19 in July is "far less compared to what it was in June".

"There have been many interventions by the Delhi government, and I believe that these interventions have a huge role to play in reducing the fatality rate in Delhi. Earlier, there were complaints that people had to wait for a long time to get admission to the hospitals," Jain said.

"CM Arvind Kejriwal has directed that there should be a separate holding area in the hospital where the patients would be taken immediately and oxygen would be given. We have distributed 24,000 pulse oximeters which have also helped to reduce the number of deaths due to COVID," he said.

Also read: Coronavirus: Ashok Gehlot reviews situation in Rajasthan via video conference
I wish I could citizens arrest everyone I know for texting while driving smh

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Finally, living the life of crime he's always fantasized about.

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You dumb fuck, should ban him from making the same movie for the next ten years as well.

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How many talking parts for women, two?



Edited at 2020-07-23 01:41 pm (UTC)

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The Gentlemen looked like a bad ripoff of Kingsmen but with posh people doing regional accents.

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Should I go back and watch..I only made it 20 minutes in.

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Did you like all the racist bits?



(I havent seen this movie, just heard it was racist and supremely low brow)

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the gentlemen was racist and homophobic as fuck, what are you talking about.

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Finally, something that would force him to make The Real Rocknrolla.

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he deserves this for taking half of Madonnas fortune when they divorced

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what kind of cursed fine.



also, i wonder if it was a pap

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yeah the pic quality looks too good for a random

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"Considered a serial 'camera cyclist', Mr. van Erp "shopped 358 drivers last year and has even had death threats over his filming"

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No it was a cyclist that catches drivers who text



Considered a serial 'camera cyclist', Mr. van Erp "shopped 358 drivers last year and has even had death threats over his filming"



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do yall know an ppl that have been fined for texting and driving? or caused accidents bc they were texting?



that doc by that disney+ yoda guy was really impactful for me. I try to always set up everything before I pull out and only fix stuff when im at lights or stop signs. could always improve tho.

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I have been pulled over by a cop for having my phone out while driving, but he just gave me a warning. I was looking at directions to a place but I know thats not a valid defense.

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i think the hardest thing for me to manage is not looking down at the map while im driving. I'm def guilty of it tho. less now than in the past.

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my sister was--she was pulling into a parking lot when I had texted her so she grabbed her phone and that was enough, it's been almost 10 years since that happened and she is STILL mad about it

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My dad has had several near misses and it's down to dumb luck that he hasn't hurt somebody or himself. I insist on anyone else driving if I'm going to be in a car with him, whining be damned. IME, old people who think of themselves as the most experienced drivers on the road are the worst about using their phones.

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for those of you tht hae driven on both sides, do u have a preference?



im in the US so I hate left turns with a passion.

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Im biased, Im American so used to driving on the right. I like driving on the left but I do it so rarely that its not automatic, Im constantly mentally checking myself

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I don't drive, but I've been in cars in London and it didn't feel all that unnatural, maybe because it's a big city and so it's so stop-and-go, but when my friend and I rented a car in Australia being on the other side of the road felt insanely unsafe and I thought we were gonna die.

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I'm in the US so I drive on the right.

I've only driven on the left side once when I was in the Cook Islands and the road was pretty much one big circle. I'm terrified to try it in a major city.



Edited at 2020-07-23 02:53 pm (UTC)

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All these rich ass people have cars with Bluetooth and voice control. If my Toyota can read and send texts by voice, so can a Range Rover.

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Hell, I got a lower-medium range phone and Google Dude sitting inside it can send a text for me. I loved the upgrade from my previous phone just to be able to talk at it in the car.

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I have an old Honda CVR that I will hold onto as long as I can (no payment woo!) and I have this bizarre system rigged with a bluetooth I bought off Amazon plus my phone mount. I priced getting a new radio system and once in a while I am like hmmm should I? But then I remember its an old car so why should I sink $350 just for a cool radio lol

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I don't care enough about a text to check it while driving. I wish Android Auto wasn't so shit so it was easier to change my music though. Once I set what I'm going to listen to I'm stuck with it until I can stop and change things on my phone.

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The thing that really drives me nuts is people texting at red lights and are then totally oblivious when it turns green. Nothing about texting while driving is safe. You have not found a loophole. You're still a dick.

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Good for Mr. Van Esp. May he stay safe

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Good. I almost got into an accident a couple of weeks ago bc a lady that was coming along the street perpendicular to me didn't stop at the stop sign bc she was looking at her phone. Biggest fright I've had in a while

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so late to this post but the same thing almost happened to me, except it was at a pedestrian crossing...if i'd just walked straight out she would have cleaned me up, fortunately i paused for long enough to tell she wasn't going to stop, and sure enough she's looking at her phone. fucking bluetooth, people, there's no excuse in this day and age.

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I drove in and out of NYC at least 3 times a week for a gig. One time there's bumper to bumper traffic going into the Holland Tunnel, and I see a cop just kind of walking along the cars (not uncommon for the tunnel entrances). In front of him this dude who's texting while we all very slowly move ahead. The cop sees this and starts to walk along side this car, the driver none the wiser because he can't put his phone done. After 30 seconds the cop lightly taps on the driver's window and the guy looked PISSED lol

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LOL I can see this whole thing unfold in my head

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Get (metaphorically) wrecked

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This cyclist is not the batman we want but the one w need.



Regardless of that I hate London cyclists with a firey passion.

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lmao. i know a couple of good ones, but yeah a lot of them are shit. i've almost been hit by cyclists so many times when they blast through red lights or across zebra crossings!

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[ The. Worst. ] As a pedestrian, London cyclists are the worst. They cycle all over the pavements, choose pavements over actual cycling paths, cycle over heritage paths in parks where there are no cycling signs all over the place. just the. worst.

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Damn, I thought Toronto cyclists were bad.

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French cyclists are THE WORST. They cycle everywhere but on the goddamn cycling paths. They cycle on the pavements made for pedestrians and if you are in their ways, they honk and call you out in the rudest possible way.

They don't respect traffic regulations. They complain they don't have enough cycling paths, but when the town hall makes new ones, they don't use them. Ugh

Im taking driving lessons and Im TERRIFIED of cyclists.



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SANTA ANA, Calif. - A Colorado man charged with strangling an 11-year-old California girl in 1973 died Wednesday at an Orange County hospital, authorities said.

James Neal of Monument, Colorado, was being held at the maximum-security Theo Lacy Facility in Orange, but the 73-year-old was transferred to a hospital in May because of an illness, according to a statement from the county Sheriffs Department. It didnt state the nature of his illness.

He was pronounced dead at 5:15 a.m.

There are no suspicious circumstances and no signs of trauma to the decedent. The inmate was not exhibiting any symptoms of COVID-19, the statement said.

Neal was charged with killing Linda OKeefe in Newport Beach. The girl vanished in July 1973 while walking home from summer school. She was last seen talking to a stranger in a van. The next day, she was found strangled, her body tossed in a ditch, authorities said.

Neal, then known as James Albert Layton Jr., was living with his family in the Newport Beach area at the time. He moved to Florida shortly after the killing and changed his name, authorities said.

Investigators identified Neal as a suspect using genealogical DNA.

In addition to murder, Neal was charged with committing lewd and lascivious acts on two girls under age 14. Authorities say those crimes happened between 1995 and 2004 in Riverside County east of Los Angeles.

He pleaded not guilty in March.

The pursuit of justice is never-ending, and in this case the hunt for a child rapist and murderer lasted more than 46 years and transcended generations of law enforcement officers, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement. The death of James Neal prior to putting him on trial for Lindas rape and murder robs the OKeefe family of the justice they so deserve and deprives the law enforcement officers of the satisfaction that they finally got their culprit.

Newport Beach Police Chief Jon Lewis said he hoped that the long efforts of investigators to find the girls killer have been able to bring a measure of closure to Lindas family, friends, and loved ones.
Prometei is a crypto-mining botnet that recently appeared in the threat landscape, it exploits the Microsoft Windows SMB protocol for lateral movements.

Security experts from Cisco Talos discovered a new crypto-mining botnet, tracked as Prometei, that exploits the Microsoft Windows SMB protocol for lateral movements. move laterally across systems while covertly mining for cryptocurrency.

The Prometei botnet appears to be active at least since March 2020, it has a modular structure and employes multiple techniques to infect systems and evade the detection.

Cisco Talos recently discovered a complex campaign employing a multi-modular botnet with multiple ways to spread and a payload focused on providing financial benefits for the attacker by mining the Monero online currency. The actor employs various methods to spread across the network, like SMB with stolen credentials, psexec, WMI and SMB exploits. reads the analysis published by Cisco Talos. The adversary also uses several crafted tools that helps the botnet increase the amount of systems participating in its Monero-mining pool.

The attack chain starts with the main botnet file attempting to compromise a machines Windows Server Message Block (SMB) protocol exploiting SMB vulnerabilities such as Eternal Blue.

The Prometei botnet has more than 15 executable modules that are downloaded by the main module from the C2 server over HTTP.

The botnet used a modified version of Mimikatz to steal credentials and any other passwords of the compromised network, then send them back to the C2 for reuse. The C2 share the passwords with other modules that attempt to verify their validity on other systems using SMB and RDP protocols.

The botnet has two main function branches, a C++ branch tasked of cryptocurrency mining operations and a .NET branch that abuse of SMB to steal credentials.

Experts pointed out that the C++ branch can operate independently from the second one, it implements both functionalities for credential stealing and mining. The branch in C++ implements a special type of obfuscation to evade the detection and the analysis in dynamic automated analysis systems.

The main branch also has auxiliary modules that allow the Prometei botnet to communicate through TOR or I2P networks, to collect information about processes running on the system, check of open ports on target systems and to crawl the file systems in search for file names given as the argument to the module. This latest function is typically used to search for Bitcoin cryptocurrency wallets.

The bot supports various commands, including executing programs and commands, launching command shells, opening, downloading, and stealing files, setting RC4 encryption keys for communication, and managing cryptocurrency mining operations.

According to Talos researchers, the current number of infected hosts is in the low thousands, its operators only generated $1,250 per month on average.

Most of the Prometei bots are in the US, Brazil, Turkey, China, Mexico and Chile.

Although earnings of $1,250 per month doesnt sound like a significant amount compared to some other cybercriminal operations, for a single developer in Eastern Europe, this provides more than the average monthly salary for many countries, Talos concludes. Perhaps that is why, if we look at the embedded paths to program database files in many botnet components, we see a reference to the folder c:\Work.

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs  hacking, Prometei botnet)
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Linkedin Mardika Parama (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 08:26 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668a0928 1 Business fruit,Japan,vegetable,horticulture,spice,export,Trade,Thailand,Vietnam,price,competitiveness Free

Indonesias exports of horticultural products such as fruit, vegetables and spices to Japan remain uncompetitive because of high prices, officials have said.

Japanese food products importer Nanyang Trading Co.s president Katsunari Kasugai on Tuesday said that Indonesian frozen horticultural product prices were 40 percent higher than those from neighboring countries like Thailand and Vietnam, because of high production costs and small production scale.

I believe Indonesian exports [of frozen fruit and vegetables] could increase if we could push down the production costs, as [Indonesian products] are more reliable and are of better quality than products from Thailand and Vietnam, Kasugai said during an online discussion held by The Indonesian Trade Promotion Center (ITPC) Osaka.

Indonesia has been struggling to capture a larger horticultural market share in Japan despite having a bilateral trade deal in the form of the Indonesia-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (IJEPA), which exempts fruit products including bananas and pineapples from tariffs, within determined quotas.

Indonesia exported US$30 million worth of horticultural products to Japan in 2019, accounting for only 0.46 percent of Japans $5.79 billion horticultural product imports, according to Indonesias Trade Ministry data.

The largest supplier of horticultural products to Japan is China with 27.2 percent of the import market share, or around $1.58 billion worth of products, followed by the Philippines with $920 million and the US with $680 million.

While the market share of Indonesian horticultural products remains low, it has the potential to grow amid rising numbers of migrant workers in Japan who are the main consumers of the products, according to Kasugai.

Indonesian green peppers are usually marketed toward Southeast Asian migrants, while banana blossoms are widely consumed by migrants from the Philippines and South America, he said.

However, Kasugai fears that demand for frozen food and horticultural products will flatline over the next years, as the COVID-19 pandemic batters Japans economy and sends foreign workers back to their home countries following waves of layoffs.

I think there will be no import growth for frozen food products in the next two to three years because of the pandemic. Currently, we are focusing on maintaining our current import rates rather than increasing them, he said.

Japans economy may contract by 4.7 percent in the year to March 2021, according to a Bank of Japan projection on July 15 as quoted by AFP. The contraction would be Japans worst economic result since the global economic recession in 2008.

Some firms in Japan have reduced their workforce by laying off non-regular workers to cope with the deteriorating business conditions, Japan Center for Economic Research (JCER) senior research fellow Jun Saito wrote in an analysis in June.

The [workforce] reduction is currently taking place only among non-regular workers. Regular workers, on the other hand, are still kept on owing to the lifetime employment system, the analysis reads.

The number of non-regular workers dropped by almost 100,000 in April compared with the same period last year, according to JCER data. Simultaneously, the number of new job offers for part-time and regular workers in April dropped by around 30 percent year-on-year.

Despite the oncoming challenges of recession, the Indonesian Embassy in Tokyos trade attache Arif Wibisono said that Japans market remained crucial for Indonesian products as the country served as a hub for other countries.

If you can get your product into Japans market, it is easier to market your product in other countries as it already meets Japans high standards, he said during the discussion.

Arif said the government was also vying to ensure better market access for Indonesian products by negotiating trade barriers and quotas between the two countries, including those stipulated under the IJEPA.

Topics : fruit Japan vegetable horticulture spice export Trade Thailand Vietnam price competitiveness
The inventor of the Super Soaker water gun is among seven inductees into this years class of the Alabama Business Hall of Fame.

Lonnie Johnson, an inventor, engineer and entrepreneur, is one of the men who will be honored, though the honor portion will have to wait. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the induction ceremony will take place in the fall of 2021, according to the University of Alabamas Culverhouse School of Business.

Besides Johnson, the 2020 inductees include Bob Baron of Huntsville; Cecil Batchelor of Russellville; Marcus Bendickson of Huntsville; Jay Grinney of Birmingham; Joe Ritch of Huntsville and Stan Starnes of Birmingham.

Johnson, who lives in Atlanta, is perhaps the only man in the world in the Toy Hall of Fame and lauded by Popular Mechanics for having developed one of the top 10 world-changing innovations. A graduate of Tuskegee, Johnson worked on the Galileo mission to Jupiter, weapons projects, and the stealth bomber program. In his spare time, while experimenting with a heat pump and high-pressure nozzle, he developed the Super Soaker. He is now engaged in battery technology research.

Bob Baron is the CEO and founder of Baron Services, a Huntsville-based company with a portfolio including weather radar, storm tracking software and climatological data analysis. The U.S. National Weather Service recently tasked Baron Services with the job of upgrading the nations radar network with the companys products. Baron founded the company after a 22-year career in broadcast meteorology and developed a severe weather warning system used by pilots, first responders and emergency management officials.

Cecil Batchelor is chairman of CBS Banc-Corp and Chairman Emeritus of CB&S Bank, based in Russellville, with a 56-year banking career. During his tenure as chairman, CB&S Bank grew from having $5 million in assets and one office in Russellville to more than $2 billion and 56 branches in Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

Marcus Bendickson is the retired CEO and former chairman of the board of Dynetics, Inc. Now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Leidos, Dynetics has more than 2,500 employees throughout the U.S., providing engineering, scientific and IT resources to the national security, cybersecurity, space, and infrastructure sectors. In January, Dynetics was purchased by Leidos for $1.65 billion.

Jay Grinney is the former president, CEO and director of Birminghams HealthSouth, now known as Encompass Health. The company has about 44,000 employees and offers post-acute healthcare services through rehabilitation hospitals, home health and hospice agencies. Grinney also served as president of the eastern group at Hospital Corp. of America and senior vice president at The Methodist Hospital System in Houston. He is currently serving as a senior advisor to KKRs private equity healthcare practice.

Joe Ritch is an attorney with Sirote & Permutt and served as chairman of the Tennessee Valley BRAC Committee, leading a group of 13 communities to promote and advocate for Redstone Arsenal. Thousands of military and government contractor jobs were later brought to the arsenal. He has served on the board of directors of multiple defense and technology companies including CAS, Inc. and Axometrics, and led the acquisition and sale of several defense contractors.

Stan Starnes is executive chairman of ProAssurance Corp., one of the top casualty insurance carriers in the country. During his time as CEO from 2007 until 2019, ProAssurance returned over $2.1 billion to shareholders while growing their equity by 37 percent. In 1975, he and his father established the law firm now known as Starnes Davis Florie, specializing in civil litigation, especially for physicians and others in healthcare. He is the youngest lawyer in Alabama ever elected to the American College of Trial Lawyers and was named to the Best Lawyers in America for more than 20 consecutive years.
HOUSTON, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Stellus Capital Investment Corporation (NYSE: SCM) will release its financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2020 on Friday, July 31, 2020, before the market opens.

Stellus Capital Investment Corporation will host a conference call to discuss these results on Friday, July 31, 2020 at 10:00 AM, Central Daylight Time. The conference call will be led by Robert T. Ladd, chief executive officer, and W. Todd Huskinson, chief financial officer, chief compliance officer, treasurer, and secretary.

For those wishing to participate by telephone, please dial 800-353-6461 (domestic). Use passcode 6250711. Starting approximately twenty-four hours after the conclusion of the call, a replay will be available through Saturday, August 8, 2020 by dialing (888) 203-1112 and entering passcode 6250711. The replay will also be available on the company's website.

About Stellus Capital Investment Corporation

The Company is an externally-managed, closed-end, non-diversified investment management company that has elected to be regulated as a business development company under the Investment Company Act of 1940. The Company's investment objective is to maximize the total return to its stockholders in the form of current income and capital appreciation by investing primarily in private middle-market companies (typically those with $5.0 million to $50.0 million of EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization)) through first lien, second lien, unitranche and mezzanine debt financing, and corresponding equity investments. The Company's investment activities are managed by its investment adviser, Stellus Capital Management. To learn more about Stellus Capital Investment Corporation, visit www.stelluscapital.com under the Stellus Capital Investment Corporation link.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Statements included herein may contain "forward-looking statements" which relate to future performance or financial condition. Statements other than statements of historical facts included in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements and are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which change over time. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in any forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including those described from time to time in filings by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission including the final prospectus that will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statement made herein. All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release.

Contacts

Stellus Capital Investment Corporation

W. Todd Huskinson, (713) 292-5414

Chief Financial Officer

[email protected]

SOURCE Stellus Capital Investment Corporation

Related Links

http://www.stelluscapital.com


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and six Gulf countries on Wednesday imposed sanctions on six targets Washington has accused of supporting Islamic State operations, including by funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to leaders of the group in Iraq and Syria.

The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center (TFTC) - which also include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - imposed sanctions on three money services businesses and an individual in Turkey and Syria, as well as an Afghanistan-based charity.

"The actions taken today serve as a further warning to individuals and businesses who provide financial support or material assistance to terrorist organizations," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

The Treasury said the blacklisted Syria-based money services businesses, which include al Haram Exchange, Tawasul Company and al-Khalidi Exchange, "played a vital role in transferring funds to support Syria-based ISIS fighters and ... provided hundreds of thousands of dollars of liquidity to ISIS leadership."

Abd-al-Rahman Ali Husayn al-Ahmad al-Rawi, selected by ISIS in 2017 to serve as a senior financial facilitator, was also blacklisted, the Treasury said, accusing him of being one of a few that have provided Islamic State "significant financial facilitation" into and out of Syria.

The TFTC also slapped sanctions on Afghanistan-based Nejaat Social Welfare Organization and its director, Sayed Habib Ahmad Khan, accusing the organization of being used as a cover company to support the activities of the Afghan affiliate of Islamic State, known as Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K).

Wednesday's action freezes any U.S. assets of the individuals and entities blacklisted and generally prohibits Americans from dealing with them.

(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Bernadette Baum)
People are now required to wear face masks in shops and supermarkets in England, but they will also need to cover their mouths and noses when entering sandwich shops or takeaways, according to the governments guidance.

In an attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus, the Department of Health and Social Care confirmed face coverings will be required in shops and takeaways if people intend to take their food and coffee away.

But it said if a customer is able to sit down and consume food or drink they have purchased, the face covering can be removed to eat or drink on site.

Face coverings will be mandatory for shops and supermarkets, banks, building societies and post offices.

They will not be required in places such as restaurants and pubs, hairdressers, gyms, leisure centres, cinemas, libraries, museums and theatres.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: From Friday 24 July, it will be mandatory to wear a face covering in shops and supermarkets, as is currently the case on public transport.

If a shop or supermarket has a cafe or a seating area to eat and drink, you can remove your face covering in that area.

The government has been accused of sowing confusing over whether face masks must be worn in sandwich shops and takeaways.

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced on 14 July that wearing a face covering in shops and supermarkets will be compulsory from 24 July.

However, the prime ministers official spokesperson later said sandwich shops were exempt.

Mr Hancock said last week: You do need to wear a face mask in Pret because Pret is a shop. If theres table service, it is not necessary to have a mask. But in any shop, you do need a mask. So if youre going up to the counter in Pret to buy takeaway, that is a shop.

Recommended Timeline of government dither and delay on mandatory face masks

But the prime ministers official spokesperson later said: We will be publishing the full guidance shortly but my understanding is that it wouldnt be mandatory if you went in, for example, to a sandwich shop in order to get a takeaway to wear a face covering.

It is mandatory... we are talking about supermarkets and other shops rather than food shops.

The new law states that it does not apply to an area within or adjacent to a shop where seating or tables are made available by that business for the consumption of food and drink by customers.

The change will be enforced using a new set of health protection regulations, which give police the power to fine people 100 for refusing to wear masks, and use reasonable force to remove them from shops.

The law, which was published on Thursday afternoon, states that no person may, without reasonable excuse, enter or remain within a relevant place without wearing a face covering.

It does not apply to children under the age of 11, staff, employees and people providing services for the business.

A reasonable excuse includes physical or mental illnesses, or disabilities, that prevent wearing a mask.

People who cannot put one on without severe distress are also exempt under the law, alongside people who go inside to escape a risk for harm.

The regulations state that masks do not have to be worn if it is reasonably necessary to eat or drink.

A face covering is legally defined as covering of any type which covers a persons nose and mouth.

People have been advised to wash their hands before putting on a covering or mask or taking it off, and to avoid touching their eyes, nose, or mouth while wearing one.

Face coverings should be stored in a plastic bag until they can be washed or disposed of, the Department of Health and Social Care said.

Tom Ironside, director of business and regulation at the British Retail Consortium, said: While enforcement of this policy will be handled by the police, the ultimate responsibility remains with customers who must ensure that they wear a face covering when going into stores.

Our shopping experience is changing, and we ask customers to be respectful and considerate when the new rules come into force tomorrow.

The regulations and more detailed guidance that the government has told us to expect is now overdue. Every passing hour limits the time that retailers have to implement the new guidance.

A spokesperson for Sainsburys said: The British Retail Consortium has explained that retail colleagues are not expected to enforce the new rules.

The guidance we have shared with our colleagues reflects that.

Earlier this month, national police leaders said forces were unaware of the impending announcement that face masks would be made mandatory in shops.

On Wednesday, Britains most senior police officer said she hoped shoppers who refuse to wear masks will be shamed into compliance.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick told LBC that calling the police over someone failing to wear a face covering should only be a last resort.

Meanwhile, the police and crime commissioners for Devon, Cornwall and Thames Valley have said officers will not attend incidents where shoppers refuse to wear masks, unless they turn violent.

In Scotland, face coverings are already mandatory in shops.

Passengers have been required to wear face coverings on public transport in England since last month.

Additional reporting by PA
ZUG, Switzerland, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- As interest and uptake in the Bitcoin SV digital currency and blockchain continues to expand, Bitcoin Association has appointed a pair of new Ambassadors based out of Asia  for Singapore and Malaysia - to accelerate more support for Bitcoin SV in one of its fastest-growing regions.

Bitcoin Association is the global industry organization that works to advance business on the Bitcoin SV blockchain. Based out of Switzerland, the non-profit Association maintains an active international presence through its global ambassador program, with 20 Ambassadors now appointed to 20 countries and regions following today's announcement.

Continuing the Association's mission to bring highly experienced professionals to the Bitcoin SV ecosystem, the two new Ambassadors appointed are:

Singapore  Jeff Chen

Best known as the founder and CEO of Maxthon  the web browser of choice for 600 million online users worldwide  Jeff Chen has for years been at the forefront of Internet technology. Now living in Singapore, Chen and the team at Maxthon recently released version 6 of the browser, set to integrate a slate of Bitcoin SV blockchain-related features, presently in beta mode. Chen is also developing NB Domain, a new domain registry and user ID system for a blockchain-based Internet that is only possible on Bitcoin SV.

Malaysia - Masumi Hamahira

A veteran financial executive, Masumi Hamahira has spent 21 years with MUFG  the world's fifth-largest bank  where he was appointed in 2011 as Executive Advisor for the Islamic Banking Window at MUFG Bank (Malaysia). He is an expert in the application of blockchain technologies to capital markets and financial products, and the advantages of using a public blockchain (Bitcoin SV) to meet the unique requirements of Islamic finance. Hamahira is contributing his expertise as an initial member of the Bitcoin SV Technical Standards Committee.

Chen and Hamahira are the latest additions to a growing presence for Bitcoin Association across Asia, with six Ambassadors now actively working in the area, in addition to the Association's two full-time regional managers.

Speaking on today's appointments, Bitcoin Association Founding President Jimmy Nguyen, commented:

'With Asia being a region in which we are seeing an explosion of interest in Bitcoin SV, now is the right time for Bitcoin Association to expand our presence and accelerate our outreach to enterprises and developers in two key Southeast Asian countries  Singapore and Malaysia. Jeff and Masumi have made considerable contributions to the Bitcoin SV ecosystem and are excellent advocates for the advantages of the world using a single public massively scalable blockchain. As leaders in their respective fields, I'm confident that the addition of Jeff and Masumi to our ranks of global ambassadors will be another positive step in the incredible growth story of Bitcoin SV."

About Bitcoin Association

Bitcoin Association is the Switzerland-based global industry organization that works to advance business on the Bitcoin SV blockchain. It brings together essential components of the Bitcoin SV ecosystem  enterprises, start-up ventures, developers, merchants, exchanges, service providers, blockchain transaction processors (miners), and others  working alongside them, as well as in a representative capacity, to drive further use of the Bitcoin SV blockchain and uptake of the BSV digital currency.

The Association works to build a regulation-friendly ecosystem that fosters lawful conduct while facilitating innovation using all aspects of Bitcoin technology. More than a digital currency and blockchain, Bitcoin is also a network protocol; just like Internet protocol, it is the foundational rule set for an entire data network. The Association supports use of the original Bitcoin protocol to operate the world's single blockchain on Bitcoin SV.

SOURCE Bitcoin Association
Federal government gives green light to laguna Nichupte bridge project

Cancun, Q.R.  The federal government has given the green light to the Nichupte lagoon bridge project, which when complete, will decongest the Cancun Hotel Zone.

Construction for the long-awaited bridge would start in early 2021 and be an investment of 4 billion peso, which would be financed through the public-private partnership scheme. The project was presented by the head of the Quintana Roo Strategic Projects Agency Eduardo Ortiz, to the director of the National Fund for Tourism Promotion, Rogelio Jimenez, during a virtual meeting.

The bridge would be 7.4 kms long and help relieve traffic in the Cancun Hotel Zone

The project would start on bulevard Colosio and end at kilometre 13.5 of the Cancun Hotel Zone, seeing a total of 7.4 kms pass over the lagoon. The federal official specified the infrastructure aims to reduce vehicle load in the Cancun Hotel Zone, provide a new access road to the beaches and generate a new bike path and a pedestrian zone.

It is estimated the bridge would take two years to finish, and when done, would likely be a toll bridge.
1. Randeep Hooda Movie - D (2005)

2. Randeep Hooda Movie - Risk (2007)

3. Randeep Hooda Movie - Love Khichdi (2009)

4. Randeep Hooda Movie - Once Upon a Time in Mumbai (2010)

5. Randeep Hooda Movie - Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster (2011)

6. Randeep Hooda Movie - Murder 3 (2013)

7. Randeep Hooda Movie - Bombay Talkies (2013)

Directors : Karan Johan, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar and Anurag Kashyap

8. Randeep Hooda Movie - Highway (2014)

9. Randeep Hooda Movie - Main Aur Charles (2015)

10. Randeep Hooda Movie - Sarbjit (2016)

Hes been known as a dependable performer ever since he has joined the film industry. Randeep Hooda is one actor who knows how to convey a thousand things through a single expression. Hes also fond of physical transformations and takes pains to get his body in the required shape for his roles. We bring you a list ofbest performances down the years. Hes one actor whose films need a re-visit for sure.Director: Vishram SawantCast: Randeep Hooda, Chunky Pandey, Rukhsar Rehman, Isha Koppikar, Yashpal Sharma, Sushant Singh, Goga Kapoor, Ishrat Ali, Nagesh BhonsleThis was the film which brought Randeep Hooda into the limelight. He played a common mechanic who unwittingly finds himself becoming a member of a gang. The life of crime suits him and he soon begins climbing the rungs of the underworld one by one. Soon, he becomes a dreaded name and is counted as one of the top bosses in the world of crime. He saves an actress from sexual molestation and soon moves around in glamour circles, thus changing his profile and becoming a public figure in the process. His rising fame and fortune arent liked by everyone. The sons of his mentor declare war on him and manage to kill his best friend, as well as other members of his gangs. But D, or Deshu (Randeep Hooda) escapes. He, in turn, goes on the rampage, killing everyone who was opposed to him. He kills the son but keeps his mentor alive, knowing that he was unable to do anything. D plans to go abroad and become the uncrowned king of Indian underworld, ruling it from an undisclosed location.Director: Vishram SawantCast: Vinod Khanna, Randeep Hooda, Tanushree DuttaIf he played an underworld don earlier in D, here Randeep Hooda turned the tables and acted as an honest police inspector who becomes an encounter expert. Inspector Suryakant (Randeep Hooda) becomes obsessed with bringing the dreaded underworld don Khaled (Vinod Khanna), who rules the Indian underworld through a remote location abroad. To pursue this, he begins killing Khaleds operatives one by one. Khaled, however, makes life hell for him by getting him embroiled in a false case involving the killing of a politician. He then offers Suryakant a way out. Everything will be forgotten if Surykant works for him. Suryakant takes up the offer and on the surface becomes a uniformed contract killer for Khaled. His girlfriend Shraddha (Tanushree Dutta ) also breaks up with him because of that. Khaleds brother Arbaaz (Yashpal Sharma) is of the opinion that Suryakant is playing a double game and hence comes to India to investigate. Suryakant kills Arbaaz and due to circumstances, Khaled has to come to India. Khaled, who is in police custody, informs Suryakant that the charges against him wont hold for long as he had extensively bribed everyone. An enraged Suryakant manages to shoot him, despite being fatally wounded himself...Director: Srinivas BhashyamCast: Randeep Hooda, Sadha, Rituparna Sengupta, Divya Dutta, Riya Sen, Sonali KulkarniVir Pratap Singh (Randeep Hooda), is a sous chef at a five star who is known as a skirt chaser. His boss, head chef (Saurav Shukla), keeps telling him to mend his ways and wait for the right one but Vir doesnt listen. He would rather have sex than love. Numerous women, including a Punjabi neighbour (Divya Dutta), a fiery maid (Sonali Kulkarni), a corporate cookie (Rituparna Sengupta) and a student (Riya Sen), cross his path. Its only when he goes through heartbreak that he learns the true value of love, which leads him on to the road to redemption. The film, despite being a sex comedy, was filled with identifiable characters and real-life situations. Its strange indeed that it performed below par on the box-office.Director: Milan LuthriaCast: Ajay Devgan, Emraan Hashmi, Kangana Ranaut, Prachi Desai and Randeep Hoodain this gangster drama. The film is narrated by him in a flashback. Its based loosely on the lives of Haji Mastan and Dawood Ibrahim. Agnel Wilson (Randeep Hooda) is an ACP in Mumbai police in the 70s. Back then, Mumbais underworld was ruled by a benevolent don Sultan Mirza (Ajay Devgn), who is a gold smuggler but has always said no to drugs. His right-hand man Shoaib (Emraan Hashmi) wants to up their game and has no qualms about shifting base to drugs and prostitution. This leads to a clash of egos between them. Shoaib separates from Sultan Mirza and Agnel fuels the rivalry between them, thinking Mumbai would be better off if both take out each other. But that sadly doesnt happen. Shoaib does succeed in killing Sultan but is able to run away. He takes control of the Mumbai underworld and rules it through remote control, successfully running a betting and drugs cartel and even joins hands with the terrorist. Agnel feels responsible for his rise as he thinks he should have stopped Shoaib when he had the time.Director: Tigmanshu DhuliaCast: Jimmy Sheirgill, Mahi Gill, Randeep Hoodain Tigmanshu Dhulias take on Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962). He played Mahi Gills clandestine lover in the film. The film is a love triangle between Rani Madhavi Devi (Mahi Gill), her husband Raja Aditya Pratap Singh (Jimmy Sheirgill) and an ambitious young man Babloo (Randeep Hooda). Babloo, who happens to be a killer for hire, is planted into the household of Aditya Pratap by a rival gang. He at first becomes the lover of the neglected Madhavi and later becomes her tool for revenge. She makes him kill the Rajas mistress and even the Raja gets wounded in the melee. Babloo forgets his place and wants to become a political power himself. Madhavi kills him for his audacity, as he wasnt of royal blood. He may have been fit enough to share her bed but wasnt fit enough to share her throne.Director: Vishesh BhattCast: Randeep Hooda, Aditi Rao Hydari, Sara LorenRandeep Hooda played a fashion photographer who is a compulsive flirt in the film. Thefilm opens with Vikram (Randeep Hooda), a photographer, viewing a video of his girlfriend, Roshni (Aditi Rao Hydari) telling him she is leaving him. Vikram then goes to a bar to find solace in alcohol. He meets Nisha (Sara Loren) and they have a one-night-stand which blossoms into a full-blown affair. Nisha moves into the house that Vikram was sharing with Roshni. Vikram is a suspect in the disappearance of Roshni. However, unknown to both Vikram and Nisha, Roshni hasnt gone anywhere. She has been hiding in a secret room inside the house and has been keeping watch on them as she always suspected Vikram of infidelity. What follows is pure mayhem, involving different twists and turns.Cast : (Ajeeb Dastan Hai Yeh) Rani Mukerji, Randeep Hooda and Saqib SaleemInepisodic film commemorating the 100 years of Hindi film industry, Randeep Hooda acted in the section, Ajeeb Dastan Hai Yeh, directed by Karan Johar. He played a man coming to terms with his sexuality and discovering that his life till his coming out moment has been a lie. Hooda played the character with the sensitivity and pathos it deserved and won over the audience. His was easily the best segment of the film.Director: Imtiaz AliCast: Randeep Hooda, Alia BhattIn, Veera Tripathi () is the daughter of a rich Delhi-based businessman. One day before her wedding, she goes on a drive with Vinay - her fiance and is abducted from a petrol station. The gang who abduct her panics when they find out that her father is mightily influential but the chief abductor Mahabir Bhati (Randeep Hooda), still goes ahead with the plan. Mahabir finds himself slowly falling in love with the girl he kidnaps. Life does take a strange turn sometimes, and uncannily, two strangers from diverse walks of life open up their hearts to each other and find solace. Hooda's transformation is evident in both his body language and his eyes as he thaws to the unlikely changes in his life. It's one ofever.Director: Prawaal RamanCast: Randeep Hooda, Adil Hussain, Richa Chaddais a fictitious thriller inspired by true events; it is told from the perspective of police officer Amod Kanth (Adil Hussain), who was successful in capturing the dreaded serial killer Charles Sobhraj who was known as the bikini killer.into the hypnotic serial killer Charles Sobhraj was so uncannily accurate that it sent shivers down your spine. The walk, the smile, the charisma and the arrogance reeked of Sobhraj. This well-made film was full paisa vasool on the strength of Hooda's performance alone.Director: Omung KumarCast: Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Randeep Hooda, Richa Chadha, Darshan KumarSarbjit Singh was born in Bhikhiwind, located along the Indo-Pakistani border in the Tarn Taran district of Punjab. He was caught by Pakistani rangers near Kasur and claimed he had crossed over the border in an inebriated state. The Pakistani police initially charged him for trespassing but later accused him of being an Indian terrorist. He spent 22 years in jail, from 1991 till his death in 2013. Various mercy petitions were filed on his behalf but all got rejected. Even the intervention of the Government of India wasnt enough to get him freed. He was killed by prison inmates, some say as retaliation towards the hanging of Afzal Guru. The film is told from the viewpoint of Sarbjits sister. Randeeps physical transformation for the film boggles the mind. The gradual degradation of a prisoner rotting in jail for 22 years is brought before our eyes through Hooda's intense portrayal. While we express our horror at the ravaged body, we also rejoice that his mind retained its sanity, its positivity despite all hardships.
The economy of a lot of countries have been severely hit by the coronavirus pandemic; and Ghana has not been spared according to Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta



Mr. Ofori Atta who describes COVID-19 as more than a health crisis indicated that the IMF is predicting that majority of countries will have their economy suffer as a result of the pandemic.



"COVID-19 is far more than a health crisis. Ghana's economy has not been spared by the social impact of the disease. Several sectors and persons have been severely affected" he stated.



However, he says we will not be daunted by this crisis...Government will continue to do what it has to do to protect lives and livelihoods of Ghanaians" adding "we are up to the task



"Mr. Speaker, as stated earlier, the outbreak of the pandemic is having a negative impact on the financial sector here in Ghana and across the world. All over the world, central banks are being relied upon by governments to find the liquidity to tackle the socio-economic difficulties unleashed by the pandemic. The Bank of Ghana has stepped up to the challenge and announced various policy measures to help support the economy and financial institutions in order to cushion the adverse impact of Covid-19 on the economy. It is important to stress that this has been possible because of the responsible and competent management of both the fiscal and monetary space since 2017"



Ghanas recovery plan



Ken Ofori Atta who was presenting the Mid-year and Supplementary Budget Review in Parliament, Thursday, said a 100 billion program will be launched by the President to revitalize the economy due to the impact of COVID-19.



The program is dubbed 'Ghana Cares Obaatanpa Programme'



He has also added that through the good leadership and international goodwill brought on by effective management of the economy, "we've been able to raise GH20 billion to protect the vulnerable, our businesses and our dignity as a nation"



Read the full statement below







Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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A federal judge in New York on Thursday ordered the unsealing of key documents from a settled civil lawsuit involving Ghislaine Maxwell and victims alleging sex abuse and trafficking by the late Jeffrey Epstein.

Senior District Judge Loretta Preska ruled from the bench in a telephonic hearing that the public interest in the matter outweighed Maxwells claims that the documents, including depositions of central players in the Epstein saga, would prove embarrassing or interfere with ongoing legal matters.

Maxwells opposition to the push for unsealing, mounted by social media personality Mike Cernovich and the Miami Herald as it prepared to publish a series of articles on Epstein titled Perversion of Justice, had long preceded her arrest on July 2 at a secluded New Hampshire mansion on allegations that she helped shepherd women and underage girls to Epstein for sexual abuse. She has pleaded innocent but was denied bail in a July 14 hearing.

The 2015 civil lawsuit was brought by Virginia Giuffre, who alleges Epstein abused her when she was 17 and that Maxwell recruited her when Giuffre was a spa assistant at Palm Beachs Mar-a-Lago, owned by now-President Donald Trump.

As a result of the Courts decision, at least a dozen documents, including both Virginia Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwells deposition transcript, will be unsealed. The decision also lays the foundation for hundreds more to be released, said Christine N. Walz, an attorney with Holland & Knight who represented the Herald.

Preskas ruling affects J. Doe 1 and J. Doe 2, non-parties who petitioned the court and whose identities will now be revealed. There has been speculation as to their identities, and Thursday added fuel to the fire because it did not say whether these were Jane Doe or John Doe petitions.

Neither J. Doe 1 or J. Doe 2 objected to the release of the documents. A similar process will be used for the remaining docket entries, Walz noted, adding that the unsealing process can likely be expedited for the other non-parties.

Story continues

The judge promised to forge a process for the unsealing of documents pertaining to numerous other Does, and that suggests a steady flow of new revelations about the world of Epstein and his longtime associate Maxwell in the months ahead.

The documents ordered unsealed by Preska are from the process of discovery, where lawyers from each side can ask detailed questions of each others witnesses ahead of a trial. Specifically, they were motions already decided on by a judge who first heard the civil lawsuit from Epstein victims against Maxwell.

Judge Loretta Preska

Lawyers for Maxwell had argued that unsealing the documents could prejudice witnesses or victims in other outstanding cases.

Through her publicist, Giuffre said she had no immediate comment. Maxwells lawyers also did not respond to requests for comment about Preskas ruling.

Preska said the presumption of public access to these documents far outweighed any rights to avoid embarrassment or annoyance claimed by Maxwell. She ordered the relevant documents readied for unsealing within a week, but gave Maxwells lawyers a week to file an appeal. If that doesnt happen, the documents would begin hitting the docket next Thursday.

The New York judge had ruled against the Miami Herald in February in its effort to have her reconsider an earlier decision against unsealing documents from pretrial motions that were never heard by the original judge who heard the case. But on Thursday, Preska made it clear she intends to unseal numerous documents from motions already heard, in a victory for the Heralds legal battle.

Aminda Marques Gonzalez, president, publisher and executive editor of the Miami Herald, said, The Miami Heralds tenacity in pursuit of the truth for the public is another example of the important role of local journalists. This is an expensive pursuit but it is vital.

The prosecution of Maxwell, 58, in the Southern District of New York is being closely watched since the alleged madam rubbed shoulders with Hollywood A-listers, Britains Prince Andrew and famous politicians, including Bill Clinton and Trump.

Trump made headlines this week by using a coronavirus news conference to say he wished Maxwell well in her legal troubles.

Giuffre has said Maxwell recruited her for Epstein and that she was directed to have sex with numerous prominent men. That includes famed attorney Alan Dershowitz, who has consistently denied the accusation.

Dershowitz praised Preskas decision and said he wants all of the documents to be released to establish his truthfulness.

Im thrilled that all the documents come out, because I have nothing to hide, Dershowitz said. I want everything to come out.

Famed First Amendment attorney Alan Dershowitz speaks outside the courtroom in New York after an earlier hearing on a sealed lawsuit involving his friend and former client, Jeffrey Epstein.

Dershowitz represented Epstein on legal matters and was also a friend of the multimillionaire. He and Giuffre are suing each other for defamation.

The arguments made by Maxwells team against unsealing documents in the decision Thursday mirrored a request Tuesday by her legal team in the criminal case for an effective gag order preventing any statements to the press from federal prosecutors and lawyers representing witnesses in the case.

Even Maxwells arrest in an early morning raid of the New Hampshire estate where she had been holed up, they argued, was designed to attract media attention, They noted in a filing that plain vanilla surrenders lack the fanfare and attendant media coverage afforded to secret, armed raids at dawn.

U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan denied Maxwells gag order request.

Maxwell is also involved in ongoing litigation in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the late Epsteins estate is being settled. Earlier this year she made a claim against the estate, arguing it should cover her legal expenses and the cost of security in hiding places. Epstein had paid this, she argued, up until the time of his death in a Manhattan jail cell last Aug. 10. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Epsteins mansions in New York and Palm Beach are now on the market, listed at $88 million and $22 million, respectively.
India Test Fires Helicopter-Launched Third Gen Anti-Tank Guided Missile - Video

Sputnik News

07:34 GMT 22.07.2020(updated 07:38 GMT 22.07.2020)

New Delhi (Sputnik): The Helicopter Launched Nag (HELINA) missile is guided by an Infrared Imaging Seeker (IIR) operating in Lock on Before Launch mode. The anti-tank guided missile, which has been called one of the most advanced Anti-Tank Weapons in the world, can be launched from both land and air-based platforms.

Amid a massive deployment of weapons systems along its northern border, India has successfully test fired a helicopter-launched third generation anti-tank guided missile, HELINA, in Balasore, a city in the state of Odisha, in full attack mode for its 7 km range.

Developed by the country's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the missile mounted on the advanced light helicopter is guided by an infrared imaging seeker, which provides day and night operational capabilities against low-silhouette tanks, both static and fast moving.

"The system has all weather day and night capabilities and can defeat battle tanks with conventional armour as well as explosive reactive armour. The HELINA missile can engage targets both in direct hit mode as well as top attack mode," the DRDO said while adding that a variant of the HELINA Weapon System called DHRUVASTRA is being inducted into the Indian Air Force (IAF).

Defence sources said that eight HELINA missiles can be integrated onto a Rudra helicopter, four on each side.

The DRDO has been working on the Nag missile since 2009 and has spent approximately $47 million on its development. As the anti-tank guided missile Nag can be launched from both land and air-based platforms, the strike range varies from 4 km for land-launched missiles and 7km for air-launched missiles.

The Indian army says it requires at least 40,000 anti-tank guided missiles in the next two decades.

A Sputnik

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Arshad Khan By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Private carrier SpiceJet has been designated as the Indian carrier to operate the agreed services between India and the USA under the so-called "air bubble" arrangements.

The flights to the USA will mark a first for SpiceJet and will be a big step in the airline's 16-year journey.

"This is to inform you that in terms of the Air Services Agreement between the Government of India and the Government of the United States of America, SpiceJet has been designated as Indian scheduled carrier to operate agreed services between India and the USA," SpiceJet said in a statement on Thursday.

SpiceJet will also be the second carrier from India that would fly to and from the United States. The other one is the national carrier Air India.

ALSO READ | Air India sets up panel to identify employees to be sent on leave without pay for up to five years

Jet Airways used to fly between India and the USA through code sharing before it announced bankruptcy in April last year.

SpiceJet did not inform which aircraft it would deploy for the long-haul destination. Spicejet currently operates single-aisle narrow-body aircrafts for its domestic and international operations, but for operations to the US, they would need wide-body aircrafts.

Currently, only Air India and Vistara have wide-body aircraft like B787 in their fleet. SpiceJet Boss Ajay Singh had last month said that Indian airlines need to start looking for wide-body aircraft as it would allow them to take passengers directly from India to different parts of the world.



Last week, civil aviation minister Hardeep Puri had said that to further expand India's international civil aviation operations, air bubble arrangements with US, UAE, France and Germany have been put in place while similar arrangements are also being worked out with several other countries.



ALSO SEE:
The first person the U.S. government ever detained indefinitely under the 2001 Patriot Act has gone free.

Adham Amin Hassoun, whose Kafkaesque experience during the 9/11 era turned him into the U.S. first post-conviction terrorism detainee, has left the U.S. for an unnamed country, his lawyers said.

After Hassouns conviction expired in 2017, the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department had sought unreviewable authority to detain Hassoun under both an obscure immigration regulation and a never-before invoked provision of the Patriot Act, known as Section 412. The administration declared Hassoun, a man in his late 50s who has never been accused of violence, a threat to national security.

But in response to a case challenging the government to charge or release Hassoun, a federal judge last month ruled that the administration had to provide evidence and witnesses for its assertions and permit Hassouns attorneys to challenge them. Instead, the Justice Department conceded that it could not meet that standardone found in every American criminal courtroom.

Trump Is First to Use PATRIOT Act to Detain a Man Forever

At first, the administration appealed Judge Elizabeth Wolfords order for Hassoun to be released into the custody of his sister in Florida. But in an indication of the unlikelihood of its success, it arranged his departure from the countrysomething it had for years said was impossible for the Palestinian nationalbefore exhausting its appellate avenues.

This isnt going to determine the constitutionality of PATRIOT Section 412, but what it does do is show precisely why the government cant have the authority to detain someone indefinitely without launching criminal charges, said Nicole Hallett, one of Hassouns lawyers.

Its an astonishing resolution for a man whom the Bush administration first criminalized, also under the Patriot Act, on charges of material support for terrorism. After keeping Hassoun in immigration detention while the FBI pressed him to become an informant, it accused him of sending money to terror cells. At sentencing, the judge in Hassouns case pointedly noted that the Justice Department could not point to any act of violence Hassoun enabled or facilitated.

Story continues

Hassoun completed his sentence in October 2017. But instead of releasing him, the government sought to deport him. When it couldnt find a country willing to accept the stateless Hassoun, it sent him into an ICE prison outside Buffalo, New York, making him a pioneer of the Forever War: the first terrorism convict it detained after his time was served.

To do so, it labeled Hassoun a threat to the country based on a jailhouse snitch whose account Wolford exposed as so unreliable that it prompted the judge to consider sanctioning the Justice Department.

If the government has this authority, it will abuse it, attorney Hallett said, and that has been proven in this case.

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More states should adopt contingency plans in case of disruptions on Election Day, Hasen urged. What if theres a cyberattack that cuts the power in a city? What if the machines malfunction? States need to have back-up systems ready in case of election emergencies. And the media should educate the public about the likelihood of delayed counting, with so many absentee ballots. There need to be people speaking out if anyone tries to claim victory early, he said in the email.
The Faculty Senate at Canisius College, reacting to the college's plan to lay off about 25 professors, voted Wednesday to approve a resolution of no confidence in President John J. Hurley and the college Board of Trustees.

"The Faculty Senate vote of no confidence is regrettable, although I certainly understand the level of concern by the members of the Senate about the moves that the college has been forced to make," Hurley said in a prepared statement.

"This vote is especially regrettable because I involved 11 faculty representatives from the Senate in the development of our budget plan and made it clear that we were open to alternatives from the faculty. I understand that the resolution is to be accompanied by a more complete statement from the Senate which I have not yet received. When we do, Lee Wortham, the chair of the Board of Trustees, will respond on behalf of the Board. In the meantime, we remain committed to working with the faculty on a path forward for Canisius," Hurley said.
The coronavirus lockdown has resulted in new consumer behaviours, including a dip in demand for personal hygiene products and a rise in the sales of ice cream, Unilever has suggested.

The consumer goods giant said ice cream sales from brands such as Ben & Jerrys have jumped by 26 per cent between April to June and it recorded strong growth in home consumption of foods, ice cream and tea as people spent more time indoors.

But the lack of social events meant people were less likely to spend on personal care products, with the demand for skincare, deodorants and hair care declining in both volume and price.

The firm noted a significant increase in the sales of hygiene products as people cleaned their homes and sanitised their hands more often in an effort to keep coronavirus at bay. According to a blog post by Unilever last month, people have more than doubled how often they clean and wash their clothes.

Sales in the second quarter of 2020 fell less than expected during the lockdown, surprising analysts who expected the firms performance to take a much bigger hit as restaurants, schools, shopping centres and other indoor and outdoor venues throughout the world were forced to close.

Consumers eating and cleaning more at home, and focusing more on hand hygiene, led to underlying sales growth in North America of 9.5 per cent in the second quarter, despite a negative impact of 3.7 per cent from food solutions and Prestige channel closures, said the company.

Overall, underlying sales fell 0.3 per cent in the three months ending 30 June, far from previous forecasts of a 4.3 per cent drop.

Graeme Pitkethly, chief financial officer of Unilever, told the Financial Times the second-quarter results showed the resilience of the business despite facing probably the toughest [period] that weve ever seen.

We really do believe that talk about a quick recovery is at the optimistic end of the range, he added.

Unilever also said on Thursday it will retain its tea businesses in India and Indonesia following a review, which was prompted by a decline in demand for black tea, and will separate the companys remaining tea operations into a new business.

The balance of Unilevers tea brands and geographies and all tea estates have an exciting future, and this potential can be best achieved as a separate entity, it said.

The separation process is expected to conclude by the end of 2021.

Additional reporting by agencies
The new Neo-Pure food safety system enables Johnvince Foods to pasteurize additional foods to support their business growth.

Agri-Neo has announced its long-time customer Johnvince Foods Canada has adopted the new, continuous Neo-Pure food safety system. As a result, Johnvince Foods Canada has increased throughput, operational efficiency and cost-savings as they provide high-quality nuts and seeds to their distributors, retailers and customers.

Johnvince Foods Canada has been using Neo-Pure pasteurization to maintain the high food safety standards of our products, said Luis Deviveiros, Vice President of Operations of Johnvince Foods Canada. With the new, continuous Neo-Pure food safety system, we can offer our customers treatment at a higher throughput on a wide range of nuts and seeds to expand our business.

Johnvince Foods Canada uses the Neo-Pure food safety system to pasteurize cashew, macadamia nut and pumpkin seed products, and plans to expand their portfolio of high-quality, safe nuts with this organic method. Because Neo-Pure pasteurizes food at a minimum of three metric tonnes per hour, the continuous-flow process improves efficiency.

The Neo-Pure food safety systems new design allows food processors to pasteurize at a higher volume in less time, said Rob Wong, President of Agri-Neo. The new food safety system also enables our partners to pasteurize additional foods to support their business growth.

The new Neo-Pure food system is fully enclosed to prevent cross-contamination of food as it travels through the pasteurization process. Operators no longer manually move batches from point-to-point. Instead, the nuts move through the integrated system, so that more food is treated in less time compared to using batch systems.

Neo-Pure provides a validated 5-log kill step for a wide range of low-moisture foods while maintaining the raw nutrition and sensory qualities of nuts, seeds and grains. The Neo-Pure pasteurization process eliminates pathogens such as Salmonella, E. coli and Listeria. It is certified organic to the standards of the U.S. National Organic Program and Canada Organic Regime, and also certified Kosher and Halal.

About Agri-Neo

The Agri-Neo mission is to help safely feed the world by creating technology that sets new food safety standards. Neo-Pure from Agri-Neo maintains the nutrition that flourishes naturally in nuts, seeds and grains, and supports the health and well-being of people who eat it. Since 2009, Agri-Neo has invested significant resources in research and development with a dedicated team of food scientists, researchers and engineers. For more information, visit http://www.agri-neo.com.

About Johnvince Foods

Johnvince Foods is an established leader in innovating, manufacturing and distributing quality bulk foods across North America. We continue to invest in state of the art processing and packaging machinery to transform raw materials into finished goods for the bulk food and packaged goods trades. In the mid 90's Johnvince Foods purchased the comprehensive right to the Planters brand for Canada from Hershey's Canada. Presently, all major grocery retailers in Canada, purchase the vast majority of their bulk food requirements from Johnvince Foods. For more information, visit http://www.johnvince.com.
Superintendent WIlliam Hite Jr. wants Philly schools to open two days a week to most students. Hite, shown in this file photo, heard an earful about his school reopening plan at a school board meeting Thursday. Read more

If the Philadelphia School District reopens classrooms to most children two days a week in September, it will do so over the objections of many of its principals, teachers, parents, and students.

In no uncertain terms Thursday night, more than 100 members of the public blasted the plan developed by Superintendent William R. Hite Jr., saying it would neither keep children and staff safe nor offer a robust educational experience.

We should not have to teach students to death, Robin Cooper, president of the districts principals union, told the school board in a dramatic virtual meeting held on Zoom. Cooper led dozens of school leaders in an unprecedented move, publicly coming out against a central-administration position.

Our members are terrified. And so am I, said Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, who said buildings have perilous issues around ventilation and who took the district to task for absurd provisions for masks and shields for staff.

The eight-plus hour meeting, which began at 4 p.m. and stretched into early Friday morning, was supposed to have resulted in the board voting Hites plan up or down. But after hours of hearing from more than 100 people who spoke against Hites plan, the superintendent asked for another week to retool. Once those changes are announced, the board will reconvene July 30 to consider a revised health and safety plan to be filed with the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

 READ MORE: Phillys school reopening plan has stalled. Now what?

If unvaccinated students are excluded from school, the board should not be considering any in-person instruction in a pandemic, period, said board member Angela McIver, who was against waiting a week to act. She said the district needs every moment between now and the start of school to plan.

We did not do a good job of delivering clean, healthy schools before the pandemic, McIver said. She did not believe the district should be asking parents to trust that they could do so amid COVID-19.

Hours earlier, during the public testimony on Zoom, Stephanie King, whose children attend Kearny Elementary in Northern Liberties, said there were too many questions surrounding the districts plan, and too few answers about both the proposed hybrid model and the fully virtual option offered to families.

 READ MORE: Every teacher I know is flipping out: As pandemic back-to-school plans form, educators are wary

We dont want to send them off to die, and we dont want some knockoff cyber charter, said King. Please do the right thing and start everybody online and keep us and our schools alive.

Even students asked the board to force Hite back to the drawing board or into a fully virtual option, and wondered why system leaders werent focused on developing a strong, fully remote school plan for all students.

Hailey Ivory, a 10th grader, said she was very much scared about the prospect of returning to school amid COVID-19. I am concerned that I may spread the virus to my more vulnerable family members.

And though a 100% remote option was offered to students who want it, if Ivory chooses that, she wont be able to participate in her biotechnology program.

Kiana Thompson, principal at Academy at Palumbo, suffers from an autoimmune disorder; she nearly died a few years ago.

But even then, I did not feel the level of fear and anxiety that I feel now contemplating going back to school under the districts first reopening proposal, she said.

School board president Joyce Wilkerson acknowledged the first plans unpopularity, but said that for a large number of our students, virtual learning is a bad option  especially for young children, English-language learners, and children with special needs.

For this reason, we are focused on understanding what health and safety measures must be in place in order to ensure we can bring students physically to school whenever it is safely possible this year, Wilkerson said.

Hite said that the district initially hoped to bring younger children back to class five days a week but that it could not afford such a plan. The cost of the plan would mean up to an extra $80 million, money it cannot afford without an infusion of federal funds.

 READ MORE: Phillys school plan is out. Parents are panicked.

Thomas Farley, Philadelphias health commissioner, underscored the citys position that schools should open; while transmission of the virus is possible, worries about vulnerable students losing out on educational opportunities must also be considered, he said.

Schools are not hot spots of COVID transmission, Farley said.

In just one day, Wednesday, the families of 2,000 students indicated they will choose a fully virtual option to minimize coronavirus risk. Eventually, officials said Thursday, they expect 20% of students will opt into the Digital Academy, though the possible shift in plans would likely affect those numbers.

Schools with high concentrations of children in online instruction will see losses in resources under his first version of the plan, with teaching and support staff needed for the cohort of fully virtual learners, Hite said.

A number of other districts, most recently Allentown, have decided to start the year fully virtually, but Hite said he would be guided by science and guidance from the city health department and others, not by decisions being made by other school systems.

Due to the nature of this pandemic, conditions will continue to evolve in Philadelphia and surrounding areas, Hite said.

The school board could force him to take an in-person opening off the table if members arent comfortable with it, the superintendent said.

Hite also said an announcement is forthcoming next week about child-care options for families of essential workers and others who will be in a tight spot with children in school just two days a week. The city, working with child-care providers and others, Hite said, was likely to open up recreation centers, libraries, and other spots with internet access.

It was not immediately clear what the cost of such care would be or how many children could be accommodated.

Under Hites first version of the reopening plan, families would have to commit to a fully remote learning option by Aug. 4, the superintendent said, and agree to keep their children enrolled that way at least through January. It was not clear whether those conditions will change given the public outcry and Hites decision to go back to the drawing board.
Seoul's financial district Yeouido's next landmark the Parc1 complex, left, and International Finance Center Seoul. / Korea Times file



By Anna J. Park



Yeouido has long been the central financial district in Seoul, harboring dozens of major securities firms and key financial authorities such as the Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS). Since the nation's bourse operator the Korea Exchange (KRX) relocated to the district in 1979 from Myeong-dong, Yeouido's growth as a financial hub in the country has solidified.



Back in the late 2000s, the Korean government ambitiously announced its long-term plan to make Seoul the financial hub of Northeast Asia, centering on Yeouido. The region's landmark International Finance Center (IFC) Seoul was part of the Seoul Metropolitan Government's plan to attract foreign financial companies to the region.



Fast-forward to the present, however, and Yeouido seems to be falling short of becoming the financial center of Seoul, let alone the hub of Northeast Asia. The region is clearly home to most securities firms and asset managers in the nation, yet most foreign financial companies' branches and the headquarters of banks are located in the Gwanghwamun area of central Seoul.





Centropolis, left, and Seoul Finance Center located in Gwanghwamun area in Seoul / Yonhap
Central and state governments, the insurance regulator, insurers and hospitals are working towards evolving some standardisation in COVID-19 treatment charges, New India Assurance Chairman and Managing Director Atul Sahai, also the chairman of General Insurance Council, tells Preeti Kulkarni in this exclusive interview.

What was New Indias experience with managing the business in the first quarter of 2020-21?

The three months (April-June) have been quite challenging. The industry has seen a decline of 9-10 per cent, though New India has grown by around 6 per cent. We did not see a dip in any of the three months. So, we are rather happy that we have defied the trend. Barring motor, aviation and marine, we have done well. Now, vehicles are not getting sold, cargo is not moving and aviation is badly hit, so these three segments are especially impacted. On the other hand, personal accident, health, property and miscellaneous are showing growth for us.

What were the challenges New India Assurance encountered while handling COVID-19 claims?

We have maintained a good turnaround time for claim settlement. We have been proactively reaching out to clients, creating portals and email IDs, to enable them submit their claims online. We receive over 1,500 queries every day on an average and we respond to all. In terms of claims, we have received over 9,000 so far. Of these, we have extended cashless facilities to over 90 per cent of the cases so far, which means that they were settled almost immediately. The rest are reimbursement claims and, even in such cases, we have settled 50 per cent of the claims where patients were discharged. Others are still in hospital. In some cases, we have even made advance payments.

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

What is the average COVID-19 claim size for New India?

It is now hovering around Rs 1.1 lakh. Initially, it was around Rs 1.3 lakh. The size has started coming down with passage of time. Initially, the cost of PPE kits and disposables was quite high, but the government encouraged manufacturers to ramp up production. So, the price has come down, thanks to the increased supply and economies of scale they have been able to achieve. This has led to lower claim sizes too.

The IRDAI has asked insurers to take action against hospitals that deny cashless facilities despite being part of the network. What has been your experience with hospitals?

We are an old, established company with a strong preferred provider network (PPN). Overall, 90 per cent of our claims were settled on a cashless basis. Insurers need to have strong communication channels to ensure better understanding with hospitals. In our case, our officials were constantly in touch with hospitals and policyholders to resolve any kind of grievances. There could have been stray cases of unethical behaviour on the part of some hospitals, but we cannot generalise. We have registered over 9,000 claims, but received only 58-59 complaints related to various issues. Even these were resolved quickly, as we ensured that there was no communication lag.

But disputes between hospitals and insurers on standardisation of certain charges, particularly PPE kits and sanitisation charges, continue

PPE kits were expensive initially; what could the hospitals have done? The only aspect was utilisation of these kits  if 5-10 were being used for a single patient, then that was not right. But due to our PPN experience, we were able to resolve all these issues quickly. Another advantage that public sector insurers have is the third-party administrator network, which strengthened our efforts. These are professionals and they helped PSU insurers deal with this issue effectively. We were able to manage the volume and complexity of cases.

Can we expect a consensus on standardisation soon, after discussions between the GI Council and hospitals?

We are in discussions. We are trying to bring about some uniformity in various charges. Hospitals have reached out with their issues. IRDAI, central and state government, insurers and hospitals are working towards this. We hope that a consensus will emerge.

But will all hospitals accept the General Insurance Councils indicative rate card?

GI Council rates are not binding, but indicative. Wherever the hospitals are charging more, they will have to provide explanations. Insurers are not trying to decide what kind of treatment a COVID-19 patient needs or the number of days he or she needs to stay in the hospital. That is for the doctors to decide. But we have doctors on our (General Insurance Councils) panel and TPAs. They can have a say on the charges hospitals levy for particular type of rooms, charges for PPE kits and other consumables. They will not comment on medicines and treatment procedures  that is for the hospitals to decide.

But where does this leave policyholders who see deductions from their claim amount? What is the way out for them?

Every health insurance policy comes with a reasonable and customary charges clause. We collect a certain amount as premium  the pool is limited. If it is uniformly distributed, it will benefit many. Besides, we are reaching out to hospitals to understand their concerns over the rates. We have also taken into account rates prescribed by governments in some states. We are in discussions with hospitals so that customers do not suffer.The pricing is based not just on common assessment, but also actuarial studies based on the current trend of claims  their severity and frequency - on a pan-India basis.Also to add, these are unprecedented times. There is a huge demand for health covers for COVID-19. No one anticipated such a crisis and its financial implications. People with family floater policies realised that their covers were not enough in case of any unfortunate exposure for more than one member of the family.
By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Leyla Abdullayev has responded to US State Departments newsletter titled US Support for Democracy, Good Governance, and Human Rights in the Global Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic where Azerbaijan is urged to ensure that measures taken against COVID-19 are not used to silence civil society advocacy, opposition voices or public discussions.

Addressing a press conference on July 22, Abdullayeva said: Following the death of George Floyd, the entire world community is now concerned about the situation in the United States due to the riots that have engulfed the United States. In this situation, we cannot understand who the US State Department is worried about and why.

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Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Press Release

July 23, 2020 Senate Committees nix Baloyo's transfer from NBP to San Fernando, Pampanga district jail THE Senate Committees on Accountability of Public Officers & Investigations or Blue Ribbon and on Justice and Human Rights have thumbed down a request to transfer custody of P/Supt Rodney Raymundo Juico Baloyo IV from the New Bilibid Prison to the BJMP-San Fernando City District Jail in San Fernando City, Pampanga. Senator Richard J. Gordon, chairman of both committees, said it had been the committees' collective decision for Baloyo to stay at the NBP for commitment and continued detention instead of being transferred to the San Fernando City district jail. "He (Baloyo) has committed an offense that has been approved by the committee, almost the whole Senate, which placed him in contempt for being very evasive and changing his answers frequently. He's been trying to get out of Muntinlupa and the committee is not disposed, as far as I know, to release him. If it would be up to the determination of this Congress, that will be where we're headed - he will not be released. At the moment, this is the collective decision," he said. Baloyo was cited for contempt during a joint investigation of the Committees on Justice and Human Rights and the Blue Ribbon on the anomalous implementation of Republic Act (RA) 10592 or the Good Conduct Time Allowance Law which veered into other anomalous practices inside the NBP and the so-called "Ninja Cops," who allegedly resell or recycle illegal drugs seized in their operations. Baloyo, who was under investigation for a raid he led in Mexico, Pampanga on November 30, 2019 when former Philippine National Police chief Oscar Albayalde was the provincial director, was very evasive and kept changing his answers during the hearing. In reply to a letter from the NBP's Reception and Diagnostic Center dated July 13, Gordon pointed out that video conferencing is now allowed for court proceedings, hence, Baloyo could attend via video conferencing. "Pwede naman gawin ng court na payagan 'yung video conferencing, the lawyers can ask the question thru video conferencing, stenographic notes can be taken. Besides, anong sasabihin ni Baloyo, kung sa amin ayaw sumagot e lalo sa court. The main basis is he is under contempt and confined to Muntinlupa. Pag dinala si Baloyo doon, mahihirapan nang ibalik dito yan. To avoid that, I consulted SP, and ang pinag-usapan namin video conferencing, pwede naman," he said. The NBP sought Gordon's permission and authority in connection with the Joint Order and Commitment Orders issued by Hon. Judge Esperanza S. Paglinawan-Rozano seeking the transfer of Baloyo's custody to the BJMP-San Fernando City District Jail in San Fernando City and to produce him before the court whenever required.
The medical industry has always had a strong incentive to optimize efficiency by incorporating new technology into care. Better efficiency lowers operating costs and errors, and also increases positive outcomes.

Image Credit: Advantech

It makes sense that information technologies (IT) have been readily embraced by the medical community over the last several years, with their almost limitless potential to streamline processes at all levels of care.

Yet, there are certain challenges posed by the employment of IT in a medical setting. These vary from practical concerns such as sterilization, to more complex issues of data security, workflow, and theft protection.

A leading provider of purpose-built medical IT devices, Advantech, has been able to create a variety of successful medical IT solutions by developing a holistic approach to product design.

This starts with a thorough assessment of the specific environment where the device will be utilized, in addition to the requirements that it will have to adhere to. Some of the challenges inherent to medical use are predictable, and intrinsic to a medical context.

Infection control properties rank highly among these; infections that are transmitted within a hospital, not only result in significant cost to the provider through lost reimbursement but also put patients at obvious risk.

It is crucial that a device can withstand frequent cleaning without loss of function or deterioration, which standard devices simply are unable to do.

Breakage is another basic parameter and problem that consumer-grade electronics cannot satisfy without consumer cases that present a whole new set of infection control concerns or costly cases that retrofit consumer devices to healthcare standards.

Medical IT requires patient trust, in addition to meaningful investment, so theft prevention is a high priority. The loss of a device can be costly, but when data is compromised it can also potentially involve serious privacy concerns.

Measures to address this issue can be as simple as customizing the physical appearance of a device to make it less attractive or more easily identifiable, or as sophisticated as creating organization-specific Basic Input/Output Systems (BIOS) to eliminate unauthorized use and disabling USB function to prevent the easy duplication of data. These concerns can also be alleviated by Mobile Device Management (MDM) software.

In some instances, medical providers will know some of the specifications that are needed for their unique application as they will have previous trial-and-error experience with IT devices.

Utilization in a non-clinical area will be different from employment in an operating room where a fanless design becomes vital to prevent the circulation of pathogens. The ability of a device to be customized enables a more efficient, higher-performing ecosystem.

Advantech will also assess the individual requirements of use beyond these considerations, within each care setting, and customize accordingly. For example, each organization will have particular cost requirements and workflow.

Advantechs 60601 medically certified AIM 55 tablet is a result of years of experience working with medical device developers and health systems. The AIM-55 was built from the ground up to meet the requirements of healthcare. The tablet is sealed, can get wet, can stand up to hospital grade cleaning agents, be dropped, and be used while gloved.

These built-in features can be personalized in multiple ways with a diverse range of extension modules like a magnetic strip, barcode scanners, or smart card readers and RJ45 connector, creating a highly adaptable and powerful device which meets the granular requirements of a wide range of healthcare organizations from administration to surgery.

Acknowledgments

Produced from materials originally authored by Tim Mitchell, healthcare district sales manager at Advantech, from Amplify magazine.

About Advantech

With decades of proven experience and trusted by 23 of the top 30 medical device manufacturers, Advantech is a leading player in the global healthcare market. Advantech partners with leading medical equipment manufacturers and system integrators to transform healthcare and elevate patient-centered care. Advantechs medical device safety certifications and FDA registration, paired with high-performance and customizable products, meets the healthcare industrys demands for both turnkey solutions and comprehensive design and manufacturing services.

Global headquarters located in Taipei, Taiwan, North American headquarters in Irvine, California and design center in Cincinnati, Ohio, Advantech is a global market-leader in industrial PCs and medical grade PCs. Offering a high degree of customization to meet unique customer requirements with in-house design and manufacturing, along with the deliberate selection of component, processor, and chipset for product designs, Advantech products are designed and manufactured with the primary intent of longevity and availability.

Advantech has been ISO 13485 certified for medical devices since 2003; its North American Service Center located in Milpitas, CA is also a FDA Registered facility. Advantechs medical product portfolio includes medical-grade PCs, medical displays, medical tablets, mobile workstation and telehealth carts and healthcare information terminals. Medically certified for patient safety (60601), fanless and sealed for infection control, Advantechs purpose built products specific for healthcare use cases are configurable and customizable, built for both acute care and non-acute care healthcare facilities.

Sponsored Content Policy: News-Medical.net publishes articles and related content that may be derived from sources where we have existing commercial relationships, provided such content adds value to the core editorial ethos of News-Medical.Net which is to educate and inform site visitors interested in medical research, science, medical devices and treatments.
As the world paces towards an efficient coronavirus vaccine, one pertinent question emerges -- when is the COVID vaccine likely in the market? The answer might not be very simplistic. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates believes that multiple doses of the vaccine would be required, unlike what was expected earlier. This throws a spanner in the works. Nevertheless, Pfizer believes that in the best case scenario, a vaccine could be available by year end. Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla, for instance, believes that a COVID-19 vaccine could be ready and available by year-end. Serum Institute is manufacturing the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine that has advanced to the latter stages and has reported positive results in the first phases of trial. A WHO expert believes that people could start getting vaccinated by the first part of next year. Meanwhile, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has said that he is optimistic of a reliable COVID vaccine by fall.

It must be mentioned that there are multiple contenders from several countries in the race to find the first coronavirus vaccine. In India too, several pharmaceutical companies are working towards a vaccine -- some have advanced to trial phases. Bharat Biotech, Zydus Cadila, Indian Immunologicals, Nynvax, Panacea Biotec, and Biological E are some of the Indian companies working towards the vaccine. Multiple hospitals have started screening volunteers for COVAXIN trials. Screening for volunteers will wrap up in July-end.

Also read: COVID-19 vaccine to cost under Rs 1,000 per dose, says Adar Poonawalla

Also read: COVID-19 vaccine update: Oxford drug gives hope; Serum Institute to seek human trials in India soon

Here are the latest coronavirus vaccine news updates from across the world:

12:15 pm: Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker: COVAXIN results to take three months

AIIMS said that the COVAXIN trials would take at least three months for researchers to arrive at the first set of data. "It (starting trials) is heartening because it's an indigenous vaccine; making a new vaccine is an achievement. Even if a vaccine is first developed somewhere else in the world, India will be mass producing it. We are good at it," said AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria.

11:55 am: Chinese coronavirus vaccines: CanSino shows promising results

CanSino Biologics' experimental coronavirus vaccine has shown promising results in a mid-stage clinical study. A Lancet report said that the shot was shown to be safe and had induced an immune response.

11:45 am: Coronavirus vaccine india: Two private UP hospitals to conduct trials

Two private hospitals in Uttar Pradesh will conduct trials of Bharat Biotech's COVAXIN. Prakhar Hospital in Kanpur and Rana Hospital and Trauma Centre in Gorakhpur are among the 12 institutes across the country where trials will be conducted. "We are getting a number of calls from healthy people every day who want to volunteer for the clinical trial of Covaxin," said Dr JS Kushwaha, owner of Prakhar Hospital to Hindustan Times.

11:40 am: Latest News on Coronavirus vaccine: 'Too early to sign deal for vaccine,' says Harsh Vardhan

Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan has said that it is too early to sign a deal with pharma companies to procure coronavirus vaccines. "I do not know about the details of this particular vaccine candidate but there are more than 200 trials happening around the world currently for developing a vaccine against Covid-19, and all are currently far from the stage of manufacturing. None of these are a ready vaccine, rather, these are merely vaccine candidates," he said. He also added that it is too premature to put put government's vaccine procurement and roll-out plan in public.

11:30 am: Coronavirus vaccine: When will we have one?

Boris Johnson's medical advisor has said that the chances of a coronavirus vaccine by year-end is 'very low'. "No one should be under any illusions: the chance of us getting a vaccine before Christmas that actually is highly effective are, in my view, very low. Low probability for this winter flu season," said Chris Whitty, senior medical advisor to Johnson. Meanwhile Oxford University-AstraZeneca is likely to be available this year, says manufacturer Serum Institute of India.

11:25 am: Covid-19 Vaccine Latest Updates India: COVAXIN trials in Bhubaneshwar

Professor G Sahoo, Dean, IMS and SUM Hospital, Bhubaneswar said that around 30-40 candidates would be chosen for the human trials of Bharat Biotech's coronavirus vaccine candidates. The screening started on Wednesday. "Recruitment and screening of volunteers have already started. After screening, we will select healthy individuals between the age of 18-55 for the first phase of trials. We will start the first phase of a human clinical trial of the COVID-19 vaccine from Wednesday, after that volunteer will be in contact with us for two to three months," Sahoo said.

11:15 am: Chinese coronavirus vaccine: Bangladesh says no to China's plans

China's plans to use human 'guinea pigs' in South Asia for vaccine trials is not likely to succeed. Bangladesh said hat it is not ready for immediate trials of Chinese vaccines. Mahmood-uz-Jahan, director of Bangladesh Medical Research Council said that they will only decide what is acceptable after consultations.

11:00 am: Coronavirus vaccine India: Bharat Biotech to finish screening by July end

Bharat Biotech, maker of coronavirus vaccine candidate COVAXIN will wrap up screening of volunteers for human trials by July end. A total of 375 volunteers would be picked for the trials. Around 600 volunteers at 12 locations across India are undergoing "safety and screening" studies.

10:50 am: Can a cured coronavirus patient get infection again?

The debate on this is still on. A study in the UK suggests that a cured person might develop antibodies to fight coronavirus. Dr Ashish Bhalla and professor at GD Puri of PGIMER, Chandigarh, said that just mere presence of the virus in nasal cavity does not mean one is infected. "But how many of them develop a severe disease is still not very clear because these numbers are very small," he said.

10:42 am: Pfizer coronavirus vaccine possible by year end in best-case scenario

Pfizer and collaborator BioNTech are hoping to seek regulatory approval as early as October. In the best-case scenario there would be a coronavirus vaccine by the year end, it said. "An interesting thing about this vaccine approach is that the mRNA is enclosed in a lipid nanoparticle, so you can imagine the complexity of that. At this site, we are looking at engineering that particle and analyses for it that will allow clinical trials as well as the manufacturing to occur," Burkhardt said," John Burkhardt, Senior Vice President, Drug Safety Research and Development at Pfizer

10:33 am: France among first to get Sanofi vaccine

French President Emmanuel Macron said that France would be among the first countries to get access to a potential vaccine being developed by French drugmaker Sanofi. The European Union is in talks with Sanofi to secure 300 million doses of its potential vaccine candidate by second half of 2021. The EU has undertaken an outreach campaign to several companies including Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, CureVac, and BioNTech among others.

10:26 am: COVID vaccine hype disservice to public: Merck CEO

Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier said that those who are promising a coronavirus vaccine by year-end are doing a grave disservice to the public. "What worries me the most is that the public is so hungry, is so desperate to go back to normalcy, that they are pushing us to move things faster and faster. Ultimately, if you are going to use a vaccine in billions of people, you'd better know what that vaccine does," he said.

10:22 am: Don't have to wait for vaccine to fight coronavirus: WHO

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that one does not need to wait for a coronavirus vaccine to fight the virus. Strong leadership, community engagement, and a comprehensive strategy with a focus on contact tracing can go a long way in controlling the outbreak, he said.

10:17 am: COVID-19 not mutating fast enough

Scientists have been monitoring the coronavirus vaccine and have stated that COVID-19 does not mutate fast enough. This is good news for drugmakers as they can stay on track in the development of a COVID vaccine. "There's nothing alarming about the way the coronavirus is mutating or the speed at which it's mutating. We don't think this will be a problem (for vaccines) in the short term," said Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland to NPR. A senior scientist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory also said that there have been very little mutation observed so far.

10:09 am: Can flu shot reduce coronavirus risk?

A professor of health sciences at James Madison University, Audrey Burnett, has said that getting a flu shit could lessen the risk of coronavirus. It would also help the immune system. "I think it is important for the general public to understand that COVID-19 is not the only virus or infectious disease in our society currently. the best protection against COVID-19, in particular, will be its own vaccine. Until one is approved, eating healthy, staying physically active and taking supplements like zinc, and vitamins C and D, utilising hand sanitiser and wearing masks will help keep one's immune system strong," said Burnett.

10:03 am: Nobel laureates advocate 'human challenge trials'

Over 100 top scientists including 15 Nobel laureates have advocated for volunteers to be exposed to coronavirus for vaccine development purposes. This deliberate exposure is called 'human challenge trials'. It is a controversial move, especially for a disease like coronavirus that does not have a cure yet. "If challenge trials can safely and effectively speed the vaccine development process, there is a formidable presumption in favour of their use, which would require a very compelling ethical justification to overcome," the scientists wrote in a letter to US National Institutes of Health (NIH).

9:58 am: WHO warns of decline in other vaccinations

WHO and UNICEF have warned that there is an alarming decline in the vaccinations of other diseases amid coronavirus pandemic. "These disruptions threaten to reverse hard-won progress to reach more children and adolescents with a wider range of vaccines, which has already been hampered by a decade of stalling coverage," stated WHO. Vaccines can be delivered safely even during the pandemic, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. He called on countries to ensure these essential life-saving programmes continue.

9:53 am: Economic damage will be done even with COVID vaccine by Q4: Raghuram Rajan

Raghuram Rajan said that there would be extensive economic damage even if a COVID vaccine is approved by fourth quarter. "You have to vaccinate a lot of people. So, the earliest people are going to feel safe going into crowded restaurants is probably going to be by the middle of next year. If everything goes according to plan - things are not going to go according to plan," he said in an interview to CNBC.

9:49 am: Pining hopes on COVID vaccine not right strategy: Harvard expert

Former professor at Harvard University's medical and public health schools Dr William Haseltine told CNN that pining hopes on a coronavirus vaccine is not the right strategy and that a more comprehensive approach is required. "Pinning all our hopes on a vaccine that works immediately is not the right strategy," he said. He advocated a broad public health strategy to combat coronavirus.

9:43 am: US-China: Friends or foes?

The US Justice Department accused Chinese hackers of targeting vaccine development on behalf of the country's intelligence service. Hackers Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi were deemed by the department as a blended threats who work on behalf of China's spy services or for their own gain. The indictment includes charges of trade secret theft and wire fraud conspiracy against the hackers, who federal prosecutors say stole information not only for themselves but also that they knew would be of interest and value to the Chinese government.

Meanwhile, Trump has also said that if China produced good work, the US would work with them for a coronavirus vaccine. "We are willing to work with anybody that's going to get us a good result," Donald Trump said when asked whether he would be ready to work with China.

9:35 am: Will take vaccine first if asked, said Trump

Donald Trump said if he was asked, he would take the coronavirus vaccine first. Speaking to Fox News, Trump said, "I would absolutely if they wanted me to and they thought it was right, I'd take it first or I'd take it last." He, however, said that he would be criticised if he took the vaccine first and would be criticised if he took it last. He said that if he took it first, his critics would say that Trump is selfish but if he took it last they would say Trump does not believe in the programme.

9:25 am: Need multiple COVID vaccine doses, says Bill Gates

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said that unlike what the aim was in the beginning, it does not seem like a potential coronavirus vaccine could be effective in one dose. "None of the vaccines at this point appear like they'll work with a single dose. That was the hope at the very beginning," he told in an interview to CBS News. Gates has donated $300 million towards efforts to combat coronavirus through Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

9:20 am: Canada doubles order for vaccine syringes

Canada has doubled the order for coronavirus vaccine syringes from 38 million to 78 million. These syringes are being made by BD. The company aims to fulfil the international orders, including 100 million from the UK before the year end. BD said its focus on COVID syringes will not impact its other injector production plans.

9:10 am: Oxford vaccine Covishield in production in India

The Oxford University-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, Covishield, is under production in India, as mentioned in a report in The Hindu. Serum Institute of India that is producing the vaccine aims to manufacture 1 billion doses. CEO Adar Poonawalla also said that 50 per cent of the vaccine doses would be reserved for India.

9:05 am: US secures 100 million doses of potential vaccine for $1.95 billion

The Trump administration has agreed to spend billions of dollars to secure coronavirus vaccine doses. The US government will pay Pfizer and German biotech firm BioNTech $1.95 billion for their potential coronavirus vaccine. Pfizer will deliver the doses if the product receives Emergency Use Authorisation or licensure from the US Food and Drug Administration, after completing demonstration of safety and efficacy in a large Phase 3 clinical trial. Pfizer and BioNTech expect to manufacture up to 100 million doses globally by the end of 2020, and more than 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021.

9:00 am: Russia optimistic for fall-release of coronavirus vaccine

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said that a reliable COVID vaccine is possible by fall. He said that 17 scientific organisations are working on more than 26 type of COVID vaccines. Four vaccines have proven to be safe so far. Two of them are at the final stages of clinical trial. "I am convinced that our solutions will be in demand in Russia and around the world," Mishustin said.

8:55 am: Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker: Oxford University vaccine by year end?

Adar Poonawalla, CEO of Serum Institute of India, that is producing the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine believes that the vaccine could be available by year end. "Based on the success of the trials, we are expecting it to be available by the end of this year. I believe by the first quarter of next year, it will start reaching the masses," he said in an interview.

Similarly Professor Adrian Hill who is heading the team of researchers at Oxford has also said that the vaccine is possible within this year. "If we got a result in, say, October and we had emergency use licensure (ph) by November, we would certainly hope to have many millions of doses available then in different countries from different manufacturers," Hill said in an interview in NPR.

8:45 am: Don't expect vaccine before 2021: WHO

Head of WHO's emergencies programme Mike Ryan has said that while there are multiple contenders and many companies have made significant progress, the likely time for a coronavirus vaccine in the market is not before 2021. "Realistically it is going to be the first part of next year before we start seeing people getting vaccinated," he said. Ryan further added that there must be fairness involved in the distribution process. "Vaccines for this pandemic are not for the wealthy, they are not for the poor, they are for everybody," he said.
S Viswanath By

Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: More than 32,000 people in Andhra Pradesh have recovered from Covid-19, but only 10 of them have donated plasma to help those battling the disease. This shows the need for awareness about plasma therapy, sources in the health department said, adding that it is among the best options available to treat Covid- 19 patients with moderate symptoms.

The state government began plasma collection at the Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences in Tirupati and the Government General Hospital in Kurnool two months ago, but the response has been poor. In Karnataka, the government announced a reward of `5,000 for plasma donors, but some people objected to this approach, saying it doesnt really encourage people to donate blood voluntarily, the sources said. Covid-19 survivors can donate plasma 28 days after recovery as they will have sufficient active antibodies, and this plasma can be preserved for a year under low temperatures, special officer at the state Covid Command Centre C Prabhakar Reddy said.

As for why only a handful of Covid-19 survivors have donated plasma, he said it could be due to misconceptions, but the process does not harm or cause weakness to either the donor or receiver. Plasma is just the content of water in the blood, and will be collected only after ensuring the donor does not have any health complications, he said. Likewise, recipients dont need to worry as tests will first be conducted for bloodtransmitted diseases such as AIDS and malaria, he added.

Greater awareness neded

Pointing out that hardly 0.03% of Covid-19 survivors in the state have donated plasa to help those fighting the disease, sources in the health department said awareness must be raised so people are not misled by misconceptions and come forward voluntarily to donate plasma
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 19:31:45|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- China here on Thursday said that it is considering not recognizing British National Overseas (BNO) passports as valid travel documents, as the British side has already violated its commitments on the matter.

"Regardless of China's solemn representations, the British side insisted on engaging in political manipulation on the issue involving BNO passports," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin at a routine press briefing.

The UK government on Wednesday issued a policy statement on the Hong Kong British National (Overseas) Visa, announcing that it will change the arrangements for BNO passport holders and extend their rights of residence. The relevant measures will come into force in January 2021.

Wang said the British move "blatantly violated British commitments, violated international law and basic norms of international relations, and interfered in Hong Kong affairs and China's internal affairs," and China firmly opposes to such moves.

The Chinese side "reserves the right to take further measures," Wang added. Enditem
As is typical of the Roberts Court, the decision is more limited in its reach and scope than it first appears. The majority opinion doesnt say Montanas constitutional provision prohibiting state aid to religious institutions is unconstitutional. It doesnt overturn prior precedent that states can withhold funding certain types of religious instruction (Locke v. Davey, 2004). The most important sentence regarding the case is straight from Roberts opinion: A State need not subsidize private education. In other words: Just because states can create these programs doesnt mean they should.

And thats something we Nebraskans have long understood. There is good reason we are one of only a handful of states without tax credit scholarships or other voucher schemes. We have excellent public schools. We are fiscally responsible. We believe in accountability, transparency and public oversight of our tax dollars. And we need only look to states that have adopted vouchers to know they do not improve academic outcomes, and they worsen racial and socioeconomic segregation.
But increasingly, thats not the case for contract disputes. Many businesses now put boilerplate arbitration clauses in their consumer contracts, knowing that customers are unlikely ever to read them and cant negotiate over them even if they do. These clauses bar consumers from suing and instead require them to go to arbitration, a private system of dispute resolution dictated by the companies with no judge or jury, limited discovery of facts, and limited appeal rights. Eighty-one of the Fortune 100 companies  among them Amazon, Walmart and Home Depot  include arbitration clauses, as do many financial services firms, sellers and manufacturers. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Buy something from online retailer Wayfair, and you agree that any dispute will be settled by arbitration, including a dispute about the scope of the arbitration itself.
26% of respondents surveyed have seen headcounts decreased, and a further 18% were expecting them down the line. This is just one of the findings included in The Future of Strategy 2020 report, released today by WARC, the global authority on advertising and media effectiveness, following its annual worldwide survey of more than 1,200 senior strategists.

Fielded in May and June 2020, this year's report focuses on the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on strategy, across headcounts, budgets, and the role of strategy during the crisis.

With 69% of respondents agreeing that COVID-19 will fundamentally change the way agencies work, this fourth edition of the report, also addresses what long term changes might result, in a year that has caused significant disruption to the industry.

WARC's Future of Strategy 2020 key findings are:

COVID-19 drives an increasing appreciation of strategy

Brands have had to lean on their strategists more than ever before as the pandemic has forced them to rapidly pivot away from planned marketing strategies.

This enforced agility has resulted in a renewed appreciation of the role strategy plays for some brands, as they have looked to their agencies and consultants for the reassurance and sound advice they have needed to navigate their way through the crisis. Many strategists see now as the time to build on this momentum, capturing the opportunity to lead their clients in different directions while they are open to new ideas.

Brent Nelson, Chief Strategy Officer, Publicis Group North America, comments: "The challenges and emergent questions facing brands are complex and well beyond fundamental communications strategy.The pressing need to account for greater and greater uncertainty has made one thing blindingly clear: the value and need for senior, experienced and diversely skilled planning and account talent."

Strategists have been integral to brands' response to COVID-19: 54% were very involved in their clients' COVID-19 plans and only 1% had no involvement.

Yet, at a time when strategists are reporting high levels of influence, cuts to strategy teams have been common, and further cuts are anticipated.

Headcounts decrease despite the value of strategy increasing

There has been a significant impact of COVID-19 on headcounts in strategy teams, despite strategists telling us that they are in more demand and feel more valued than ever. The impact has been acutely felt at junior levels - reminiscent of the 2008/09 crash.

As enterprises adapt to COVID-19's challenges, the resources that previously were allocated to enhancing diversity and inclusion may come under pressure as every item of capital expenditure is subjected to heightened scrutiny.

Kanika Bali, Strategist, Ogilvy Hong Kong, says: "Diversity means including people across the ethnic, cultural, physical ability, gender and sexuality spectrum. Diverse teams will push to break stereotypes by pushing success stories, being champions for non-traditional casting and to call out group thinking in the advertising process."

Ally Owen, Founder, Brixton Finishing School, UK, adds: "Until we start to see all groups represented, we cannot have balance, and without that balance, can we truly claim to understand all the audiences that our clients need to reach?"

Junior strategists are most at risk of COVID-related headcount cuts. 41% said junior strategists were being made redundant or furloughed. This could result in a lack of new and diverse talent entering the industry.

Budget cuts have a knock-on effect

COVID-19 has reduced the media spend of the majority of brands, which have responded by cancelling or shifting planned work. This has meant a change in role for some strategists, who have had to pivot their focus to advising clients on how to respond and recover.

For other strategists, particularly freelancers, the pandemic has caused a dramatic reduction in work.

Amelia Torode, Co-founder, The Fawnbrake Collective, comments: "The impact that this panic is having on strategists is profound, deeply short sighted and is being felt acutely by freelance strategists. But this will change. Great strategists are sense-makers and meaning-makers and in this confused and confusing new reality, the two things that businesses are most in need of are good sense and meaning."

87% of strategists said their clients have reduced budgets due to COVID-19.

Short-termism and a shift in purpose

There has been a huge shift to short-termism as a result of budget cuts and a need to drive sales quickly as recession bites. Strategists feel this is a real threat to their role and the value they are able to provide.

At the same time, both at a business level and at a brand level, clients have needed advice on what their brand can and cannot credibly say and do - particularly regarding their 'purpose' - at times of crisis. Many strategists feel now is an opportunity to change purposeful marketing for the better.

Jean-Claude M. Kikonge, Director, Strategy Lead, Cossette, says: "As an industry, how we talk about "purpose" needs to be recalibrated away from its current generic cause-related meaning, to what it has - and should've - always been: actual "reasons to be"."

COVID-19 is exacerbating the trend towards short-termism. 72% of respondents said their clients are focusing more on short-term strategies as a result of the crisis.

Summing up, Amy Rodgers, Managing Editor, Research & Rankings, WARC, says: "WARC's Future of Strategy 2020 report reveals that strategists have been crucial to the pandemic response and have had a chance to shine.

"However, staff and budget cuts are a threat to the discipline. Additionally, the shift to short-termism brought on by the crisis to stimulate quick sales is leaving strategists feeling that their role and value are under threat."
A new course at the University of Manitoba is partnering students and professors with local businesses to help them deal with the crisis created by COVID-19.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A new course at the University of Manitoba is partnering students and professors with local businesses to help them deal with the crisis created by COVID-19.

Launching in September, the semester-long course will allow fourth-year students to provide pro bono consultations to small businesses and non-profits in Winnipeg along with the guidance of a professor.

Nardella Asper School of Business Dean Gady Jacoby: 20 businesses have eagerly signed up for course.

Upon completion of the course in early January, each business will be given practical recommendations on how to overcome specific challenges that may have been caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

So far, 20 businesses have "eagerly agreed" to participate, says Gady Jacoby, dean of the Asper School of Business.

"For so long," Jacoby told the Free Press, "weve been privileged to be supported by our local business community at the university."

"Now, its our time to give back."

Debra Jonasson-Young, executive director at the Stu Clark Centre for Entrepreneurship, said the idea for the course came about in the early days of the pandemic.

"We began to see, very early on, a need for us to give back while allowing our students to learn how to face this massive challenge head-on," she said.

Despite relaxed pandemic restrictions, only a third of Manitoban businesses are making normal or above normal revenues with more than half still unable to staff at normal levels, according to data from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

Jonasson-Young said this course will encourage students to "look beyond their textbooks" to find unique solutions to those current challenges faced by local businesses.

Projects during the course, she said, will be unique to each business and could focus on any aspect of the organization including business problem identification, strategic planning, marketing, technology, human resources, supply chain management, or financial analysis.

"Some businesses want help with social media, some want to move retail online," she added. "There are several areas that need help and our students can provide that for them while getting hands-on training through consultations."

Stephanie Kalo, president of the Commerce Students Association at the Asper School of Business, said the course couldnt have come at a better time.

"As soon as students learned about it, right away the immediate response was, How do I sign up?" she said.

'We began to see, very early on, a need for us to give back while allowing our students to learn how to face this massive challenge head-on'  Debra Jonasson-Young

"Weve all been wanting to give back to the Winnipeg business community in some way and the idea of learning specifically how a small business is run is incredibly valuable compared to a larger one where we wouldnt be able to help in the same way."

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Downtown Winnipeg coffee shop Fools & Horses is one of the businesses hoping to participate in the course.

"Because of the pandemic, weve particularly been struggling to move our business online," said co-owner Kendra Magnus-Johnston. "Im hoping this amazing opportunity will allow us to get the expertise we need to get our feet back on the ground now and for the future."

"I cant imagine a better moment for local businesses to embrace an opportunity like this."

Jacoby said the course is a pilot program for now, but "may be extended to coming years," given the feedback.

Course registration for "Applied Small Business Consulting" will be open to some students as early as next week.

Temur.durrani@freepress.mb.ca
The disengagement process between India and China at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) , initiated after conversations between special representatives on the border issue of both sides (national security adviser Ajit Doval and foreign minister Wang Yi) and military representatives, has hit a roadblock. China is not moving back from Pangong-Tso and Depsang. It hasnt fulfilled its commitments to step back from Hot Springs and Gogra. Its military build-up remains intact, which means that the next step after disengagement  de-escalation  is a distant proposition. Both Chinese intentions and its capabilities make it clear that Beijing will continue to be belligerent.

India has attempted five strategies to counter this. The first was underplaying the nature of incursion. While the government should have been more transparent in April, May, and early June, it is understandable if New Delhi wanted to keep the public glare away from the border to be able to arrive at a quiet understanding and give the Chinese a face-saver. This did not work. The second strategy was to warn the Chinese that the border stand-off will have implications for the rest of the relationship. The ban on the Chinese apps, the decision not to award highway contracts to Chinese firms, the clear signalling that the 5G contract to Huawei was now in jeopardy, and the general message within the government to reduce interlinkages with China was meant to deliver the message. It had an impact, but not enough to change Chinese plans. The third was a military response  India has matched the military build-up at the border. Galwan showed India was willing to inflict costs on Beijing, though, to be sure, it incurred costs in the process too. The fourth has been to cement international partnerships, link Chinese actions to its aggression elsewhere, and mobilise international pressure  sometimes discreetly, sometimes publicly  on Beijing. This has been noted in China, but has not been a sufficient enough lever to change Chinese behaviour. And the fifth was a direct dialogue, which hasnt yielded the desired results.

Given the Chinese intransigence, India will have to rely on all but the first option to an even greater degree. There is no point in underplaying the tension. But continue to make China pay economic costs; dont let the guard down militarily; and be an active part of a coalition to contain Chinese belligerence while continuing the dialogue with Beijing. It will be a tough year in Ladakh, but letting the Chinese have their way and losing territory is not an option.
New Delhi: After the Joker malware, another malware BlackRock has surfaced which is said to be stealing your banking details.

Around May 2020 ThreatFabric analysts have uncovered a new strain of banking malware dubbed BlackRock that looked pretty familiar. After investigation, it became clear that this newcomer is derived from the code of the Xerxes banking malware, which itself is a strain of the LokiBot Android banking Trojan. The source code of the Xerxes malware was made public by its author around May 2019, which means that it is accessible to any threat actor, ThreatFabric analysts said in a research.

The research says that the target list of the BlackRock malware contains an important number of social, networking, communication and dating applications.

So far, many of those applications haven't been observed in target lists for other existing banking Trojans. It therefore seems that the actors behind BlackRock are trying to abuse the grow in online socializing that increased rapidly in the last months due to the pandemic situation, the research paper said.

BlackRock's target lists has 337 unique applications and several applications haven't been observed to be targeted by banking malware before. Most targeted apps are related to banks operating in Europe, followed by Australia, the United States of America and Canada, ThreatFabric said.

Those new targets are mostly not related to financial institutions and are overlayed in order to steal credit card details, it says adding that most of the non-financial apps are social, communication, lifestyle and dating apps.

The researchers fear that the number of new banking Trojans will keep growing, leading to banking fraud and posing risks even for consumers who are not using mobile banking. It cites trojans like BlackRock that targets 3rd party apps.

"The second half of 2020 will come with its surprises, after Alien, Eventbot and BlackRock we can expect that financially motivated threat actors will build new banking Trojans and continue improving the existing ones," the research says.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Residents living in and around Adyar, who are planning to leave for their hometowns are requested to provide their addresses to Adyar district police so that the patrol police can be vigilant and prevent incidents of theft. Deputy Commissioner of Police, Adyar, V Vikraman, has launched a public contact number for the people in his jurisdiction.

The Adyar police district comprises Adyar, Thoraipakkam, Neelankarai, Taramani, Saidpet, Guindy, Velachery, Semmenchery, and Thiruvanmiyur. The contact number shared to the residents is 8754401111. He said people are leaving for their hometowns owing to the prolonged lockdown, and many have already left. Unoccupied houses might become targets for the thieves.

Ergo, we request the public to send their living addresses along with the date of their return. This will help the patrol police keep a watch on the houses during nights, said Vikraman. The Adyar district police has started their own Twitter account for people to get regional updates and contact details for providing information and seeking help.

Twitter presence

The residents must dial 8754401111 and inform their addresses and return dates. The Adyar police have also started their own Twitter account for regional updates
An Iranian passenger plane flying over Syria went into a nose-dive after nearly colliding with two US fighter jets, Iran's state news agency claimed today.

The official IRIB agency initially reported a single Israeli jet had flown near the plane but later quoted the pilot as saying there were two self-identified US jets.

The pilot of the civilian airliner contacted the jet pilots to warn them about keeping a safe distance and the jet pilots identified themselves as American, IRIB reported.

Video posted by the agency showed a single jet from the window of the plane and comments from a passenger who had blood on his face.

The Iranian plane, belonging to regime-owned Mahan Air, was heading from Tehran to Beirut and landed safely in Lebanon, an airport source told Reuters.

Israel and the United States have long accused blacklisted airliner Mahan Air of ferrying weapons for Iranian-linked guerrillas in Syria and elsewhere.

The near-miss today comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and the US following the killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in January.

The official IRIB agency initially reported a single Israeli jet had flown near the plane but later quoted the pilot as saying there were two self-identified US jets

The pilot of the civilian airliner contacted the jet pilots to warn them about keeping a safe distance and the jet pilots identified themselves as American, IRIB reported

One passenger in the IRIB report described how his head hit the roof of the plane during the nose-dive and video showed an elderly passenger sprawled on the floor

One passenger in the IRIB report described how his head hit the roof of the plane during the nose-dive and video showed an elderly passenger sprawled on the floor.

All of the passengers came off the plane and only some had minor injuries, the head of the Beirut airport told Reuters.

Mahan Air has been under US sanctions since 2011 for allegedly providing support to Iran's elite Quds Force, which backs Hezbollah and other terror groups overseas.

An Israeli military spokesman had no immediate comment and there was no immediate comment from the US military.

The official IRIB agency initially reported a single Israeli jet had flown near the plane but later quoted the pilot as saying there were two self-identified US jets (pictured, stock photo of F-15 Eagle fighter jets in close formation from RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk)

Mahan Air has been under US sanctions since 2011 for allegedly providing support to Iran's elite Quds Force, which backs Hezbollah and other terror groups overseas. An Israeli military spokesman had no immediate comment and there was no immediate comment from the US

One passenger in the IRIB report described how his head hit the roof of the plane during the nose-dive and video showed an elderly passenger sprawled on the floor

Western sanctions on Mahan Air since 2011 December 2011 - The US designated Mahan Air a material and transportation supporter of terrorism: 'Based in Tehran, Mahan Air provides transportation, funds transfers and personnel travel services to the IRGC-QF.' April 2016 - Mahan Air was banned from flying over Saudi Arabian airspace. 2015-2018 - Mahan Air significantly expand its operations and fleet. Mahan Air targets the transfer business between Asia, especially China, and European destinations. In 2016, besides Germany and Denmark, Mahan Air started service to Milan and Athens; and to Barcelona the following year. It operated up to 15 weekly flights to China until late 2018. 2019 - In January, the German government banned Mahan Air from landing in Germany, where it formerly served Munich Airport and Dusseldorf Airport, citing Mahan's involvement in Syria and security concerns. France imposed the same ban in March 2019, and Mahan Air was forced to cancel its four-weekly service to Paris. In November, the Italian government also announced that the country would ban Mahan Air flights to the country from December 15, 2019. The move came after Mike Pompeo's visit to Rome, during which he urged Italian officials to stop allowing Iranian airlines to use Italy's airspace. The remaining destinations within the EU had been Barcelona and seasonally also Athens and Varna since then. However, in April 2020 the airline lost its traffic rights to Spain as well. Advertisement

Mahan Air has been linked to alleged shipments of arms from Iran to Shiite groups in Syria, including Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.

Alleged Israeli airstrikes in Syria have been thought to target Mahan Air weapons shipments in the past, according to The Times of Israel.

In May the US government slapped sanctions on a Chinese company over its alleged business ties to the airliner.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted at the time: 'China is one of the few countries that still welcomes Mahan Air, an airline used to ferry Iran's arms and terrorists. Today's designation of a China-based company exacts consequences for that decision.

'Anyone doing business with Mahan Air runs the risk of sanctions.'

At the time a Treasury Department state said the sanctioned firm, Shanghai Saint Logistics Limited, served as a general service agent to Mahan, providing various services on the airline's behalf such as freight booking.

Steven Mnuchin said: 'The Iranian regime is using Mahan Air to support an illegitimate and corrupt regime in Venezuela, just as it has done for the regime in Syria and for terrorist proxy groups throughout the Middle East.'

In April Mr Pompeo claimed 'multiple aircraft' belonging to Mahan Air had transferred 'unknown support' to the Venezuelan government, and called for a halt to the flights and for other countries to bar overflights by Mahan Air.

The Associated Press reported that Mahan Air was delivering key chemical components used for producing gasoline to help revive an ageing refinery in the Latin American country, which is in the grip of a severe economic crisis.

Both Iran and socialist Venezuela are under heavy US sanctions, and have had close relations for the last two decades.

The incident today comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and the US following the killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in January.

Iran executed Mahmoud Mousavi Majd, a translator accused of being a US and Israeli spy who helped the US kill Soleimani in a drone strike, on Monday, according to Iran's judiciary.

Majd had been found guilty of receiving large amounts of money from the CIA and Mossad to supply information on the Quds force, which Soleimani headed, including the whereabouts of its commander.

However, Majd was not directly involved in the killing of Soleimani at Baghdad airport on January 3, having been arrested two years ago.

It comes a week after defence worker Reza Asgari was put to death after being accused of selling secret information about Iran's missile program to the US.

Mahmoud Mousavi Majd (left), a translator who worked with Iran's Revolutionary Guard, has been executed for helping the US carry out the raid which killed Qassem Soleimani (right)

Iran admits panicky missile operators shot down airliner with 176 aboard after rocket attack on US bases in Iraq A misaligned missile battery, miscommunication between troops and their commanders and a decision to fire without authorisation all led to Iran's Revolutionary Guard shooting down a Ukrainian jetliner in January, according to a new report. Released late on Saturday by Iran's Civil Aviation Organisation, it comes months after the January 8 crash near Tehran that killed all 176 people on board. Authorities had initially denied responsibility, only changing course days later after Western nations presented extensive evidence that Iran had shot down the plane. The report may signal a new phase in the investigation into the crash as the aircraft's black box flight recorder is due to be sent to Paris, where international investigators will finally be able to examine it. The incident happened the same night Iran launched a ballistic missile attack targeting US soldiers in Iraq, its response to the American drone strike that killed Soleimani on January 3. At the time, Iranian troops were bracing for a US counterstrike and appear to have mistaken the plane for a missile. The civil aviation report does not acknowledge that, only saying a change in the 'alertness level of Iran's air defence' allowed previously scheduled air traffic to resume. The report detailed a series of moments when the taking down of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 could have been avoided. The report said the surface-to-air missile battery that targeted the Boeing 737-800 had been relocated and was not properly reoriented. Those manning the missile battery could not communicate with their command centre, they misidentified the civilian flight as a threat and opened fire twice without getting approval from ranking officials, the report said. 'If each had not arisen, the aircraft would not have been targeted,' the report said. Advertisement

Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike moments after he arrived in Iraq amid fears he was about to orchestrate attacks on the US embassy.

The move brought Iran and the US to the brink of war, and in the end Tehran retaliated by firing a volley of ballistic missiles at US troops stationed in Iraq.

While the attack on the western Iraqi base of Ain Al-Asad left no US soldiers dead, dozens of them suffered brain trauma.

President Donald Trump opted against responding militarily.

Amid sky-high tensions, Iran accidentally shot down a passenger jet while mistaking it for an American warplane, killing 176 people - mostly Iranians.

Majd had migrated to Syria in the 1970s with his family and worked as an English and Arabic language translator at a company, Iran's judiciary website claimed.

When war broke out, he chose to stay in the country while his family left.

'His knowledge of Arabic and familiarity with Syria's geography made him close to Iranian military advisers and he took responsibilities in groups stationed from Idlib to Latakia,' the site added.

Majd was not a member of the Revolutionary Guards 'but infiltrated many sensitive areas under the cover of being a translator'.

He was found to have been paid 'American dollars to reveal information on adviser convoys, military equipment and communication systems, commanders and their movements, important geographical areas, codes and passwords' until he came under scrutiny and his access was downgraded.

He was arrested in October 2018, Mizan Online said.

Iran said last week it had executed another man convicted of spying for the CIA by selling information about Iran's missile programme.

Reza Asgari had worked at the defence ministry's aerospace division for years but retired four years ago, after which he sold 'information he had regarding our missiles' to the CIA in exchange for large sums of money.

Iran in February handed down a similar sentence for Amir Rahimpour, another man convicted of spying for the US and conspiring to sell information on Iran's nuclear programme.

Tehran announced in December it had arrested eight people 'linked to the CIA' and involved in nationwide street protests that erupted the previous month over a surprise petrol price hike.

It also said in July 2019 that it had dismantled a CIA spy ring, arrested 17 suspects between March 2018 and March 2019 and sentenced some of them to death.

Trump at the time dismissed the claim as 'totally false'.
Coronavirus is spreading in Syria, with 561 people recorded as being infected, although it is thought that the number could be higher.

The Ministry of Health, announced on Wednesday that it had recorded 21 new cases of the coronavirus, which brings the total number of infections in Syria to 561, including 165 recovering cases and 32 deaths, according to the official announcement.

According to a statement posted on the ministrys Facebook page, new infections were recorded in three governorates  14 in Damascus, two in the Damascus countryside, and two in Suweida, while recovering cases were distributed as follows: two in Damascus, one in the Damascus countryside, and three in Quneitra. Two deaths were recorded in Damascus.

Moreover, the ministry has sent out a circular to all private hospitals in the capital, stating that not all urgent, or even surgical cases can be admitted during the coming period due to the outbreak. The SY 24 correspondent in Damascus said that, the transfer of cases from private to public hospitals has caused the death of several patients as a result of waiting for a long period of time to be examined.

The spike in the number of infections in Damascus and its countryside coincides with the paucity of PCR swabs necessary to collect samples for coronavirus testing in Damascus, in addition to the significant shortage of preventive measures and face masks, in addition to the lack of oxygen in governmental hospitals.

Private sources revealed to Sowt al-Asima that discussions were held two days ago, between the Syrian regime and the governmental team tasked with containing the spread of the coronavirus in Syria, about potentially re-imposing a partial lockdown in all governorates under the control of the Syrian regime. The Syrian government denied this.

The pro-regime Jaramana News Network announced on Wednesday, that 15 new cases were recorded among residents of Jaramana city in the Damascus countryside.

Eight employees of the regimes media establishments in Damascus were also infected, including three who work for the official SANA agency.

Opposition station Syria TV said that Samer al-Shaghri and Kawthar Dahdal, both SANA employees, tested positive for the virus, along with another anonymous person.

Syria TV, quoting an informed source in the ministry, confirmed that five employees of Al-Thawra newspaper were infected, including an engineer and his wife, a mother and her daughter who work in the newspapers financial department, and one of the stations drivers.

According to the same source, There are suspicions that a ministry employee got infected and that officials were trying to conceal it.

The Opposition

Despite the preventive measures followed in northern Syria since last March, the novel coronavirus invaded Idleb and the surrounding countryside of Aleppo. The first infection was detected on Jul. 9, 2020, and by Jul. 22, 2020, it had risen to 22. There are expectations that the number of infections will rise in the coming period, which has raised alarms in a region housing four million people, a quarter of whom reside in overcrowded camps.

Despite the late arrival of the virus to these areas, preparations started when its spread in neighboring countries, especially Turkey  which borders northern Syria  where precautionary measures seemed insufficient. The capabilities of organizations remain limited, while the medical system is described as fragile.

The Syrian Civil Defense intensified its campaigning after the arrival of the coronavirus in northern Syria, which is outside the control of the Assad regime. It has stepped up operations to sanitize public facilities in all regions, according to a member of the media office of the organization.

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.
LONDON  A long-awaited report has found that the U.K. is an ongoing target of Russian cyberattacks.

Now the British government is fighting on another front: criticism that it took its eye off the ball and did not look into evidence of Kremlin meddling.

"We categorically reject any suggestion that the U.K. actively avoided investigating Russia," security minister James Brokenshire told fellow lawmakers on Wednesday, adding that the government was unafraid to act wherever necessary to protect the U.K. and our allies from any state threat."

The 55-page report from the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament said the U.K. is a target for Russian disinformation and described Russian influence in Britain as "the new normal."

It also said that intelligence agencies had not sought out evidence of Russian meddling in the 2016 Brexit vote, although Moscow had tried to influence the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.

Image: Police officers near the scene of the nerve agent attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England on March 16, 2018. (Jack Taylor / Getty Images file)

The Kremlin denies any Russian interference in U.K. affairs.

The report has long been the source of speculation, with its publication delayed for nine months. It also comes during a low tide in relations between Russia and the U.K. after Britain accused the Russian state of commissioning the poisoning of former Russian military spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter with a nerve agent in the English city of Salisbury in March 2018.

To retaliate, the U.K. expelled 23 Russian diplomats allegedly operating as undeclared intelligence officers.

In 2006, former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko died after drinking green tea poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in a London hotel. A British judge ruled in 2016 that he was murdered on the orders of Russia's FSB security agency  and that the action was "probably approved" by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

So for some, the reports main findings came as little surprise.

Its what weve been saying for the last decade plus, and its a bit of a weary sigh when we see that people are finally catching on, said Keir Giles, an expert in Russian power projection at Chatham House and the author of Moscow Rules, What Drives Russia to Confront the West.

Story continues

The big surprise for us was the great gaping hole in the middle of the report which was the failure to investigate electoral interference.

That was the sentiment of the former chair of the intelligence committee under whose leadership the inquiry took place from November 2017 to November 2019.

Somebody took their eye off the ball or didnt actually ever put their eye on the ball in the first place and simply assumed this wasnt an issue, Dominic Grieve, a former Conservative lawmaker who was effectively kicked out of the party over Brexit, told Sky News on Tuesday.

Opposition lawmakers have sharply criticized the government as well, with a senior Labour Party member Nick Thomas-Symonds saying that the government has consistently underestimated the Russian threat over the past six years.

Heaccused the government of a chronic, systemic failure where the government has had no single responsible minister or responsible department for defending our democracy.

Though Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been in his post for just one year, his party has been in power or in a coalition government since 2010.

In addition to highlighting an immediate and urgent threat from Russias malicious cyber activity, the report also lays out how wealthy Russians, some with close ties to Putin, peddled influence and integrated themselves into Britains business and social scene.

The findings come more than a year after special counsel Robert Mueller found evidence of Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. That report failed to find evidence that President Donald Trumps campaign "coordinated or conspired" with the Russian government.

On Wednesday, however, Johnson, as well as other ministers and lawmakers, said the U.K. was on top of the threat from Russia.

Britain leads the world in caution about Russian interference, Johnson said in Parliament.

Johnson also brushed off criticism on the delay of the reports publication, saying that it was motivated by a desire to give the impression that Russian interference is somehow responsible for Brexit.

The British government has repeatedly said there is no evidence of successful Russian interference in the U.K.s 2016 referendum to leave the European Union.

Brokenshire said on Wednesday that the government had committed to bringing new legislation to counter hostile state activity and espionage, modernizing current laws that arent equipped to deal with current threats.

According to Giles, the focus on the threat from Russia is welcome, but he warned against the recommendations in the report forgotten or overtaken by other events.

This will not stop because this is a default state and a normal condition for Moscow, Giles said on Russian meddling efforts. Playing nice in the hope that Russia will play nice back is as hopeless as it has ever been.
A federal court settlement that requires Hobby Lobby Stores to pay a $3 million fine for illegally importing thousands of ancient Iraqi artifacts is casting a cloud over the much-anticipated Museum of the Bible associated with the store's owners just as the museum prepares to open near the National Mall.

Hobby Lobby president Steve Green also chairs the board of the Museum of the Bible, and the Green family is the museum's major funder. In a civil complaint filed Wednesday, federal prosecutors said that the craft store chain that Green leads had smuggled more than 3,000 items into the United States including clay tablets and seals - precisely the sort of item in the museum's collection, which contains many items donated by the Green family.

Though the items seized by the U.S. government were shipped to Hobby Lobby, not the museum, scholars say the federal case is a blot on the $400 million museum set to open in November.

"They put scholars in a situation where it becomes very ethically difficult for someone to engage in those collections in any way, other than to criticize them," said Donna Yates, an archaeologist who specializes in the study of antiquities trafficking and art crime. "Are they going to come to the museum, somebody who's doing significant Biblical research or linguistic research, where they're going to publish [about] material that's very likely to be stolen?"

The federal complaint described many layers of suspicion surrounding Hobby Lobby's purchase of 5,500 artifacts for $1.6 million in 2010: The company never met the dealer, and wired payments to seven different bank accounts. The items arrived in 10 packages at three different Hobby Lobby addresses, labeled only "ceramic tiles" and "clay tiles (sample)."

In a statement, Green said, "We have accepted responsibility and learned a great deal." Hobby Lobby said that the company made "some regrettable mistakes" because officials didn't understand the rules for properly bringing antiquities into the country.

The statement said that the craft store chain - widely associated with its 2014 Supreme Court victory ensuring that devout religious business owners like the Greens do not have to provide coverage for contraception for their employers - started collecting ancient artifacts in 2009. The pursuit of these items was "consistent with the Company's mission and passion for the Bible," Hobby Lobby said. The company said it planned to preserve the artifacts and offer them for scholars to study.

That project sounds much like the goal of the Museum of the Bible, where Green has promised to house more than 44,000 Biblical texts and artifacts to lure serious researchers and flashy interactive exhibits to attract tourists.

But for its part, the museum - a nonprofit organization which is not a subsidiary of the craft store company but is led by the same man - said in a statement on Thursday that the artifacts implicated in the federal case were never part of its collection.

"The Museum of the Bible was not a party to either the investigation or the settlement. None of the artifacts identified in the settlement are part of the Museum's collection, nor have they ever been. The Museum adheres to the current Association of Art Museum Directors standards on the Acquisition of Archaeological Material and Ancient Art, as well as guidelines set forth by the American Alliance of Museums," the museum's statement said.

It also said that the institution "aims to be the most technologically advanced museum in the world."

Robert Cooley, the vice chairman of the museum's board, said that the museum's ethical standards are different from the standards of Green, the chairman.

"The curators and the director of the collection department have professional standards they go by. The museum does not accept collections without full documented provenance and credibility records," he said. "Every item in the museum is documented."

Numerous other board members and staff members declined to comment on Thursday, directing a reporter to the museum's public relations representative.

Cooley, the president emeritus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, is an archaeologist by training himself who has supervised excavations in the Middle East.

"We maintain our standards at the museum. And if any collection, be it the Green family or any other family that donates, does not meet the standards that we require, then we do not take that collection," he said.

Candida Moss, the co-author of a forthcoming book on the Green family's rapid acquisition of Biblical antiquities and attempts to promote the influence of Christianity on public life, said that the museum has tried to distance itself from its chairman and his craft stores since the media began reporting on his antiquities acquisitions two years ago.

"The Greens remain very much involved. Green is still head of the board," she said. "The fact is, they're not as separate as they claim. Many of the artifacts will be on loan from the Green collection. There are other items in their collection that scholars are asking questions about."

Brent Clark, an Oklahoma lawyer also working on a manuscript about the Green family, agreed: "Steve Green is going to be in charge of that thing, come hell or high water." But Clark doesn't think the federal case will blunt tourist interest in the museum.

"Keep in mind the Greens are successful merchants to the middle class. They've always been marketing silk flowers and fake Christmas trees to the middle class, and it's made them rich," he said. "Their instincts tell them that thousands of people are going to get on buses in Cincinnati, Ohio, to go see it, and they're probably right."

It's the university researchers who are most likely to be dissuaded from coming to the museum.

"Individual scholars will have to ask themselves to what extent are they willing to be complicit," Moss said.

Yates, the art crime expert, said that many major journals of archaeology research refuse to publish articles based on artifacts whose provenance can't be proven, and researchers won't be willing to do work that they can't publish.

Several scholars, including Yates, said the federal complaint filed Wednesday left them convinced that Hobby Lobby had willfully ignored their own lawyers and other experts, not just that the company had been unaware that they might be importing looted Iraqi goods.

"Basically everyone should be suspicious of any antiquity for sale without a provable history," Yates said. "Dealers should be telling people that it's kind of an obvious thing. When we're talking about Iraq, it's even more obvious. That this stuff is dodgy, it's not news. It's a known thing in the market. If an object doesn't have a history that proves that it is legal, you just assume that it is illegal, because it probably is."

Joel Baden, Moss's co-author, said that the Green family's interest in buying thousands of ancient artifacts likely spurred bad actors in Iraq to steal the items in the first place.

"If Hobby Lobby is willing to buy them, people will be willing to loot for them because there's a market for them," he said.

The federal settlement requires Hobby Lobby to send thousands of items back to Iraq. But in many respects, the damage is already done.

"The absolute most important thing for an archaeologist is context. And that's exactly what these antiquities have lost," Yates said. "We may not be able to tell if this one came from a whole library, or this was kept in a temple, or they were individual records. We've lost absolutely all of that information. All we have are the little tattered remains of what's written on the tablets."

"It's a huge loss," she continued, "and all of us could benefit from this information, learning about ourselves and our past."
Shanghai International Advertising Festival to boost ad market

By:An Ranran | From:english.eastday.com | 2020-07-22 18:29

The Shanghai International Advertising FestivalSHIAFbegan on Tuesday on the North Bund in Hongkou District. As the first large-scale advertising event in Shanghai since the outbreak, it shows advertisers determination to revive the industry and their desire to help promote the economy.



The festival welcomed lots of industry professionals from all around the world including Peoples Daily, P&G, Focus Media and Ipsos A summit forum was held for the participants to exchange ideas and give opinions on the new trends in advertising.

Besides, due to the impact of Covid-19, for the first time the festival held an online meeting for those who cant come to Shanghai. The festival connected guests abroad and industry associations overseas online.

The festival also includes professional exhibitions, an awards ceremony and a training camp. 120 students from 33 colleges from all over the world are invited to join in the training camp this year. Though they cant enter the advertising companies in person due to the outbreak, they will study and compete with each other online under the guidance of world-famous media groups such as McCann World group, Havas Group China and ASAP+. The winner will be announced at the awards ceremony of the festival.



Initiated in 2018, the annual festival has had a great influence in the advertising industry. It has played a positive role in leading the direction of the industrys development, cultivating talent and promoting international exchange. This year, against the background of the pandemic, the festival has very special significance. It aims at helping revive the ad market and bringing advertisers all over the world greater confidence.




Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide, Kweku Baako has expressed empathy for Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, Seidu Agongo and former Finance Minister, Dr. Kwabena Duffour over the collapse of their banks.



Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom owned the GN Bank whereas Mr. Seidu Agongo was the founder and majority shareholder of the Heritage Bank and Dr. Duffour was the owner of UniBank.



The banks lost their licenses alongside 22 other Savings and Loans Companies and Financial Houses.



The Central Bank further merged five banks including UniBank into a Consolidated Bank of Ghana Limited.



Following the collapse of the banks, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom and Kwabena Duffour are in court to reclaim their banks' licences.



Groupe Nduom claims the Government of Ghana and its agencies owe the company over GHC2.2 billion out of which over GHC900 million was assigned to GN Savings.



On 30th August 2019, Dr. Nduom filed a motion at the High Court (Human Rights Division) saying the Bank of Ghana (BoG) did not take into account the full value of money owed and due to the company by the Government of Ghana and its agencies and also claimed if a fraction of the debt had been paid, his bank would have been adequately liquid to avoid the revocation of its licence.



Dr. Duffour, on the other hand, has been hauled to court together with former 2nd Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Mr. Johnson Asiama by the Attorney General; officially charging them with money laundering and willfully causing financial loss to the State respectively.



But the former Finance Minister's lawyers have filed a counter-suit challenging the legibility of some documents served on them by the State.



The lawyers, on Thursday, July, 16, 2020, took turns at the High Court contending that they have not been served with some of the pre-trial documents and further argued the documents the State is relying on also could not subject them to scrutiny.



Speaking on the banking sector reforms on Kokrokoo, Kweku Baako sent his best wishes to the banks which are at court to defend themselves.



According to him, in as much as he appreciates government's efforts to resolve the banking sector challenges, he's however hurt that Dr. Duffour, Papa Kwesi Nduom and Mr. Seidu Agongo have become casualties of the BoG action.



''...without the backing of science, science meaning the evidence; something of evidential value, sentimentally I felt for about three banks. I felt for them, just without any evidence; Nduom's bank - the GN Bank - yes I felt for him. Maybe it's because of my personal relationship with him. And also that young man who own Heritage Bank, Seidu Agongo...Because of his extension to radio, we met a couple of times around 2014/2015. I like to see the young men doing well. So, I admired him. I admire young men who strive to make something of life. Some of us during our youthful period, we were a complete waste....His situation really hurt me...The same with UniBank, I'll tell you honestly; you know Dr. Duffour is a personal friend...I'm okay that some of them went to court and are battling the case in court. I wish them well'', he said on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo''.







Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The government is unlikely to meet the Budget targets for 2020-21 due to the COVID-19 crisis but contraction in economic growth may not be as severe as being pointed out by the outside world, Economic Affairs Secretary Tarun Bajaj said.

He said the government on a regular basis is monitoring 14-15 parameters which can give early signs of where the economy is heading.

This includes E-way Bill, power consumptions, GST collections etc and every parameter is showing promising result, he said.

On the figures of first advance tax collection as of June 15, he said, "the revenues that were collected that month gave us a promise that this year, if we continue in that manner and we are not saddled with any more surprises, may not be as bad as the outside world thinks or as we were thinking."

Last month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected a sharp contraction of 4.5 percent for the Indian economy in 2020, a historic low, citing the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic that has nearly stalled all economic activities.

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"We will not be able to achieve our Budget Estimate (BE) figures but the kind of contraction some of the people are mentioning may also not turn out," he said.

Acknowledging that India went for severest lockdown in the world, he said, it had its impact on the economy.

It brought down the economic growth to 4.2 percent while pushing the fiscal deficit to 4.6 percent during 2019-20, he said.

However, he expressed confidence that the country will be back on the growth journey from next year based on the incoming data.

"Unless COVID-19 hits us very badly and we have to change our strategy in the middle which seems very unlikely now, I am expecting a 'V' shaped recovery for the next fiscal. This year (current fiscal) may be a lost year for us but it is not that it will continue next year," said the secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA).

Bajaj also highlighted that COVID-19 crisis was also used as an opportunity to usher in long pending reforms in the agriculture sector to ensure better price for farmers for their produce.

Last month, the Union Cabinet approved amendment to the six-a-and-a-half decade old Essential Commodities Act, in order to deregulate food items, including cereals, pulses and onion.

The Cabinet also approved 'The Farming Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020' to ensure barrier-free trade in agriculture produce.

The government also approved 'The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020' to empower farmers to engage with processors, aggregators, wholesalers, large retailers and exporters.

As part of the Rs 20.97 lakh crore Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan package, the government also announced a Rs 1 lakh crore Agri Infrastructure Fund that will finance projects at farm-gate and aggregation point for efficient post-harvest management of crops.

He said the emphasis of the government is to meet infrastructure spend and capital expenditure targets of public sector enterprises.

"I have spoken to large infrastructure spend departments and I have assured them that even if I have to borrow a little more I will do that but you should achieve your infra spend targets for the current year," he said.

Capex plans of big PSU companies are also being monitored, he said, adding, Rs 2-3 lakh crore is going to be spent by them.

In line with the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan package, he said, the government will soon come out with a list of strategic sectors, and public sector companies in non-strategic sectors will be privatised.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had in May announced that there will be a maximum of four public sector companies in strategic sectors, and state-owned firms in other segments will eventually be privatised.

Along with privatisation, there is a lot of emphasis on monetisation, he said, adding that the government is working on various models in this respect.

"We are working with road, power, rail, shipping so that we actually get more funds for infrastructure spend," he said.

On the issue of setting up a bad bank he said, it has not been decided yet.

"I have few discussions. We have not arrived at any conclusion on that," he said.

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Ghislaine Maxwell reportedly tried to reinvent herself following Jeffrey Epstein's 2008 conviction and had bragged that she had a friendship with Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt as she tried to make her way in with Silicon Valley's elite.

Maxwell, who is facing federal sex trafficking charges for allegedly procuring young girls for the billionaire pedophile, tried to establish herself as an environmental activist in the tech world in a bid to distance herself from Epstein's crimes, The Daily Beast reported.

Maxwell launched now-defunct nonprofit, The TerraMar Project in 2012, a charity that claimed to work on behalf of cleaning up the environment and targeted high-profile entrepreneurs to secure funding for her new venture.

She reportedly hosted salons at her Manhattan residence where she would try to pitch her new project to guests and boasted that she also had connections to former Google CEO Schmidt, sources told the publication.

Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly began eyeing Silicon Valley's elite while trying to reinvent herself as an environmental activist after Epstein's 2009 plea deal. She is pictured speaking at Arctic Circle Reykjavik, Iceland in 2014 while representing her charity The TerraMar Project

Maxwell allegedly bragged that she had connections to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (left) and former Google exec Eric Schmidt (right) in a bid to court donors

A researcher who attended one of her social events in 2013 described Maxwell to the Daily Beast as a 'name-dropper' with 'an incredible list of connections that was very impressive to hear of.'

He said Maxwell had mentioned Schmidt, as well as other billionaires such as Virgin CEO Richard Branson, while touting her new project.

'It was mentioned to me that she was trying to overcome a PR problem and that her focus on oceans was a way of reintroducing her to New York and to the U.S. political establishment,' the source said.

The British socialite is reported to have met Schmidt through Gateway co-founder Ted Waitt, whom she once dated.

Schmidt had also invested in Maxwell's now rumored secret husband and tech entrepreneur Scott Borgerson's Cargo Metrics however, sources say his contribution had nothing to do with Maxwell.

Schmidt reportedly never donated to Maxwell's charity.

A source close to Schmidt said the pair hardly had a friendship and only saw each other at parties.

'Her interactions with him were limited to periodically crossing paths while attending the same social events over the years,' the source told DailyMail.com.

He also confirmed Schmidt declined to contribute to Maxwell's TerraMar Project.

The British socialite had not been charged or formally accused of having a major role in Epstein's sex trafficking scheme at the time, but was suspected to have ties

She is facing federal sex trafficking charges for allegedly procuring young girls for the billionaire pedophile between 1994 and 1997

Former Kleiner Perkins investment partner Ellen Pao, criticized Maxwell's appearance at a 2011 holiday party in a series of tweets earlier this month, saying she was invited despite her suspected links to Epstein's crimes

Another acquaintance claimed Maxwell 'bragged' about knowing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and attended his annual exclusive Campfire event in 2018.

Bezos is yet to comment on his relationship to Maxwell. DailyMail.com has contacted his reps for comment.

Although Maxwell had not been charged or formally accused of having a role in Epstein's sex trafficking scheme at the time, she was still 'suspected' to have been involved due to her close ties with the pedophile.

Keen to maintain her status in society, she reportedly finagled her way into an 'exclusive' 2011 Christmas party hosted by venture capital firm Klein Perkins, to the surprise of some guests.

A source claimed Maxwell allegedly called up fellow Briton and venture capitalist Juliet de Baubigny and asked for an invitation.

Maxwell was known for her impressive list of contacts and for rubbing elbows with A-listers

The 58-year-old, who is accused of being Epstein's 'madam', reportedly tried to distance herself from Epstein by reinventing herself in the tech world. She is pictured at a Children's Benefit Gala in 2014

Former Kleiner Perkins investment partner Ellen Pao, recently criticized Maxwell's attendance in a series of tweets earlier this month, saying she was invited despite her suspected links to Epstein's crimes.

'We knew about her supplying underage girls for sex, but I guess that was fine with the '"cool" people who managed the tightly controlled guest list,' Pao tweeted.

Maxwell, 58, is in a Brooklyn federal jail, awaiting a July 2021 trial in Manhattan federal court. She was arrested on July 2 at a Bradford, New Hampshire, estate she purchased for $1 million late last year.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan rejected Maxwell's bail request after prosecutors argued she was a high risk to flee because evidence against her was strong and she had access to millions of dollars and connections worldwide along with citizenship in the United States, the United Kingdom and France.

She has pleaded not guilty to charges that she procured three teenage girls, including a 14-year-old, for Epstein to sexually abuse in the 1990s.

Epstein, 66, killed himself in a Manhattan federal jail last August as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.
P olice are hunting five men after a fight at a rooftop bar in central London left two people in hospital with serious injuries.

Officers from the City of London Police made eight arrests after the brawl at Madison rooftop bar, near St Paul's Cathedral, on July 11.

Tables and chairs were thrown when the fight broke out at around 11pm, police said.

Officers are now hunting five people pictured in CCTV images released today.

Police have released CCTV images of men they want to speak to / City of London Police

"A number of people were injured at the rooftop bar, located in One New Change shopping centre, when a fight broke out at around 11pm between two large groups and tables, chairs, and glass bottles were thrown," a statement said.

"Two men were hospitalised  one with a broken jaw and the other, a bleed on the brain."

Two people were taken to hospital after the incident / City of London Police

Anyone with information should call the City of London Police on 0207 601 2999 quoting reference 20*355541.

Alternatively, contact the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously via their website or by calling 0800 555 111.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 15:35:54|Editor: huaxia

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BISHKEK, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Kyrgyzstan's total COVID-19 cases reached 30,326 on Thursday, after 967 new cases were recorded in the last 24 hours.

Ainura Akmatova, head of the public healthcare department of the country's health ministry, said that 49 of the new cases are medical workers, raising the tally of contracted medical workers to 2,527, including 1,160 recoveries.

Akmatova said that total recoveries increased to 16,791, with 1,031 new recoveries.

There are currently 13,201 patients under treatment for COVID-19 across the country, she added.

Meanwhile, 46 people died in the past 24 hours, taking the death toll to 1,169, she said. Enditem
Flipkart has acquired Walmart India, and seeks to utilize its B2B infrastructure in order to compete with established B2B players. This comes after Flipkart, last week, announced $1.2 billion worth of funding, from a Walmart led investor group. Flipkart will be focusing on kirana stores and MSMEs, in this new initiative.

Flipkart just announced that its wholesale unit will acquire Walmart India, for an undisclosed sum. Walmart Indias brick and mortar business model is a key vertical for Flipkart, an ecommerce giant, to cross. Just a week ago, Flipkart announced raising $1.2 billion, from Walmart led investors, who valued the company at $24.9 billion. With this acquisition, they ve acquired over $650 billion in the B2B market in India. Flipkarts entry into B2B will flare up competition from Amazon as well.

2 years ago, Walmart had acquired a 77% stake in Flipkart, for $16 billion. Now, Walmarts entire retail operatus, will be consolidated under the Flipkart Group.

Flipkart plans to launch Flipkart Wholesale, in August. Flipkarts senior Vice-President, Mr. Adarsh Menon, will be heading up the new B2B entrant. He told The Press Trust of India, This marketplace is going to effectively link sellers and manufacturers on one end and kiranas and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) on the other end. Flipkart will start with a focus on $140 billion of the $650 billion market, by competing in categories like fashion and grocery, against other heavily funded B2B entities, such as JioMart, Udaan.

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The companies released a statement detailing the acquisition. Walmart Indias nearly 3,500 employees will be transitioning to the Flipkart group, while the Best Price brand, owned by Walmart, will continue operation in its 28 storefronts, serving over 1.5 million people. Over the next year, the office teams will be integrated. The CEO of Walmart India, Sameer Agarwal, will stay on in order to ensure a smoother transition.

Flipkart has been increasing manufacturing engagements and supply chain capabilities since earlier in the year, They have begun offering retail to mom and pop stores, in Delhi NCR. Mr Menon, in a statement, said, These businesses will have one-stop access to an extensive selection of products with attractive schemes and incentives, supplemented with data-driven recommendations for stock selection, delivered through a fast and reliable network to drive greater efficiencies and better margins. Flipkart also plans to allow for more varied easy credit options, for kiranas and MSMEs.

Sameer Agarwal released a statement, saying, A thing we saw through COVID-19 (outbreak) was kiranas are shopping in more omnichannel ways than before. In our Best Price business, we had a 4X increase in e-commerce within our business, which is primarily brick and mortar. What that tells us is that kiranas are very open to shopping both online and offline.

Walmart India has a new, upcoming cash-and-carry store in Tirupati, while Walmart Labs India, will go on running a technological unit, under Walmart Inc.

Also Read: Air India from panel to select employees to be sent on leave without pay for 5 years

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Who had this on their 2020 hellscape bingo card? pic.twitter.com/fUNvIVS7aw  Official Pima County (@pimaarizona) July 16, 2020

A video of a river of fast-moving, dark sludge with ash and soot flooding through a bike trail in Arizona seemed unreal.

But it is real. On July 15, Canada del Oro Wash in Arizona flooded with the black sludge after a minor storm.

Authorities from Pima County report that the debris flow has not caused any death or injuries.

Why does this happen?

According to the official Pima County Twitter Account, the frightening scenes are the result of the recent Big Horn Wildfire that has swept the area in the past weeks.

After the wildfires, it is likely that " debris flows" are formed: the deadly fast-moving waters that are created from even a small amount of rain from the area where the fire happened.

The wildlife has caused the ground to be barren, charred, and unable to absorb moisture. This leads to devastating floods even with little warning.

Normally, rainwater is absorbed by the soil, preventing incidences of flash floods. But the wildfires cause the soil to dry up so water flows freely even with little rain.

USGS California Water Science Center warned that "fast-moving, highly destructive debris flows triggered by intense rainfall are one of the most dangerous post-fire hazards."

The Center cited that in Southern California, even as little as 7 millimeters of rainfall in 30 minutes leads to debris flows.

Debris flows can be deadly. In 2018, 13 people died from debris flow after the Thomas Fire.

After wildfires, floods are a thing to look out for. Floods can happen at any time and anywhere altering the course of water flow.

Roads can easily turn into rivers. The risk that such a catastrophe happens can take years following the major wildfire.

Bighorn Fire

For the first time since the fire, members of media were invited to view Mt. Lemmon for the first time on Monday, July 20.

The Bighorn Fire, the lightning-caused active wildfire burned more than 48, 377 hectares of Sta. Catalina Mountains. As of July 15, 89 percent of the fire has been contained.

Capt. Dan Leade of Mt. Lemmon Fire Department announced that Mt. Lemmon, still green and full of life in some areas despite being scorched in some places. He considered this a big victory for the department as no structures or homes were lost during the fire. Unlike the Aspen fire two decades ago, 300 cabins and business establishments were burned down.

Although the fire containment was a relief for residents, tourism business owners are still worried because the road up the mountain is still closed for the public until November 1. Mt. Lemmon is a popular recreational ski area.

Pima County Sheriffs Department Public Information Officer Deputy James Allerton said that the road remains closed because parts of the fire are still crossing the roadway. The department also said they will close some parts of the forest for safety reasons even if the roads open.

"They're going to be fewer places to go to up here and we want everybody to come up here safely when they do come," said Allerton.

IN CASE YOU MISSED THIS: China Flooding: Heaviest Rains in Decades Continues, 20 Million People Affected
The health minister said that the unlocking process under Mission Begin Again has started in Maharashtra and there will be no more lockdown

MUMBAI: Maharashtra government is contemplating to restart malls and gyms, state health minister Rajesh Tope informed on Wednesday. However, there is no move to open local trains for common people and that decision will be taken only by the CM, the minister said.

There was impromptu rail roko at Nalasopara station on Wednesday where protesters demanded that common people should also be allowed to ply local trains.

While speaking at a press conference in Mumbai, Mr Tope said that the gyms and malls have been closed to curb the spread of the coronavirus. The final decision to allow them to operate remains with the Chief Minister.

The health minister said that the unlocking process under Mission Begin Again has started already in Maharashtra and there will be no more lockdown. The decision on reopening malls and gyms will be announced soon.

The government is currently considering whether to reopen gyms and shopping malls in Maharashtra. Gyms will be considered positive as it is necessary for the fitness of the people. However, the final decision will be taken by the Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, said Mr Tope.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday morning, hundreds of passengers created ruckus at the Nalasopara railway station on Mumbais suburban network and a bus stand nearby for more than two hours as the state transport bus services were unavailable from the Nalasopara bus stand. Nearly 200 commuters entered the Nalasopara railway station, located in neighbouring Palghar district, and jumped on rail tracks and stopped a local train briefly.

The agitation ended after mediation by police and resumption of bus services around 10.30 am. A local train (going to Virar) was stopped by commuters at platform no.1 of the Nallasopara station from 8.27 am to 8.31 am. Commuters were suitably counselled by RPF/ GRP that special suburban services are being operated only for the staff of essential categories as notified, Western Railways chief public relations officer Sumit Thakur said.

He said the suburban services resumed immediately and the situation at the station normalised around 8.45 am. Security was later stepped up at the railway station and bus stand with the deployment of additional force, a GRP official said.
SKOPJE, Macedonia - The leader of the main ethnic Albanian party in North Macedonia said he has been invited to appear as a witness at the special international court on alleged crimes during and after the Kosovos 1998-1999 war, in which he fought.

Ali Ahmeti, leader of the Democratic Union for Integration party in North Macedonia where ethnic Albanians make up at least one-fourth of its 2 million population, posted on Facebook late on Wednesday that The Hague, Netherlands-based Special Prosecutors office invited me to testify as one of the founders of the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) and a member of the General Staff.

Ahmeti, a former KLA founder and member, said he had accepted the invitation and made constructive contact and co-operation with officials in The Hague.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutors Office, which has international staff working under Kosovo law, is mandated to look into allegations that KLA members committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. It has interviewed hundreds of KLA former fighters since early 2019.

Last week, Kosovo President Hashim Thaci was questioned for four days in The Hague.

Thaci, former parliamentary speaker Kadri Veseli and still unidentified others have been charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, enforced disappearances, persecution and torture during and after the 1998-1999 Kosovo war. Both men have denied committing any crimes.

A pretrial judge hasnt made a decision on whether to proceed with Thacis case.

It is still not clear when Ahmeti will testify in The Hague.

I am at the disposal of the justice institutions to testify to the legitimacy of the liberation war of the Albanian people before the genocide of (Slobodan) Milosevics Serb regime, Ahmeti wrote.

The fighting killed more than 10,000 people  most of them ethnic Albanian civilians  and 1,641 are still unaccounted for. It ended after a 78-day NATO air campaign against Serbian troops.

Kosovo, which is dominated by ethnic Albanians, declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which Belgrade doesnt recognize.
Tobacco control advocates across Africa on Wednesday brainstormed on the challenges and gains recorded in the fight against the use of the product on the continent.

They spoke at a webinar co-hosted by the Africa Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA), Centre for Tobacco Control in Africa (CTCA), and the Kenya Tobacco Control Alliance (KETCA).

The panellists, who are the WHO 2020 World No Tobacco Day awardees, highlighted the efforts of activists in their respective countries and proferred solutions to combat increased tobacco use.

Rachel Devotsu, a Kenyan advocate, said Africa has recorded a measure of success in the fight against tobacco use.

We have some countries that have done things that I will call groundbreaking, said Ms Devotsu, a lawyer and the regional coordinator for Africa, McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer, Kenya.

For example, if you look at Kenya and Uganda, their sections in the law Article 5.3 are some of the best in the world. And, of course, we have paid the price by being taken to court, for those measures have been challenged.

When I learnt about tobacco control, I was told about something called the scream test. And, basically, any time the tobacco industry screams, its a sign that your tobacco control measure is really good. Any time they take you to court, its a sign youve done something good.

So, Kenya has been taken to court severally, Uganda is currently in court and I think one of the reasons they are being fought so hard is because of those provisions in Article 5.3.

Ms Devotsu noted that countries such as Mauritius, Seychelles, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger had made progress in terms of graphic health warnings.

Of course, Kenyas track and trace system is one of the best in the world, several people have come over to learn from us, she said.

And so we have some countries that have done some very groundbreaking moves, but then, unfortunately, there is a large number of countries that are doing the bare minimum.

Wondu Bekele, an Ethiopian activist, said 52 per cent of Africans are dying from non-communicable diseases mainly due to tobacco and other risk factors.

Non-communicable disease is no longer a health issue, its becoming a development issue and Im sorry to tell you that Africa is the least prepared. Our people are needlessly dying from the tobacco epidemic, said Mr Bekele, executive director, The Mathiwos Wondu-YeEthiopia Cancer Society, Ethiopia.

He said African governments are not giving enough attention and commitment to the fight against tobacco use.

If they are committed, they have to give us something like 15 per cent of our national budget for health, he said.

Otherwise, if you take Ethiopia 30 per cent of our national budget is from overseas, only 70 per cent is coming from the government.

The money we are getting from our donors, Im not under-estimating their generous support but we want money from our national budget, that is how we can make a meaningful intervention towards the challenge of growing tobacco in Africa.

Another panellist, Robinah Kaitiritimba, described Ugandas tobacco control law as, perhaps, one of the strongest in the region. The law, among other provisions, bars designation of smoking areas and puts the age of smoking at above 21. Also, the pictorial warning on cigarette packs is 65 per cent.

I think that, legally, for Uganda, we are not doing badly, said Ms Kaitiritimba, executive director, Uganda National Health Users/Consumers Organisation.

The lessons that we see here is that there is very little support for tobacco control. The link between tobacco and non-communicable diseases has not been highlighted. We have a lot of work to do to demonstrate the relationship between tobacco and non-communicable diseases.

I know we talk about it, it is in the figures but it is different from going to people and explaining to them. I saw that the information that we gave parliament in Uganda, for instance, that you look at your children at 18, they are at university years, in secondary years but whose money are they smoking? Why are we allowing them?

And parliament saw that evidence, although it was already out there but we gave it such force that parliament eventually began to look at their own children.

Africas weak measures

According to Ms Devotsu, the African region still struggles with putting strong measures against tobacco use.

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We are one of the regions that still have very low tobacco taxes, weve not yet met the threshold set by the WHO 70 per cent tax, she said.

We still have so many countries that still have designated smoking areas in their smoking laws. So we pat ourselves on the back weve passed a smoking law, but if it is got a designated smoking area then it is really not 100 per cent smoke-free.

We have very few countries putting dedicated funding for tobacco control, either in terms of earmarking of tobacco taxes which, as a continent, we are not doing very well.

Ms Devotsu said although several African countries have begun passing laws on warnings for tobacco packagings, a lot still do the bare minimum which, according to her, is 50 per cent graphic health warnings.

My challenge to the African region is, can we try and be groundbreaking? Can we do something thats going to shake the world? Can we stop passing laws with designated smoking areas? Can we go for 60, 70, 80 per cent graphic health warnings?

Who is going to be the first African country to do plain packaging? I know South Africa has got a law on its books that is in parliament that contains plain packaging? But I will love to see more African countries making laws in that direction.
With theaters closed around the country, some companies are making their productions available online. Below, you'll find our weekly update of productions, videos, and other theater-related streaming content from across the US and elsewhere. Some streams are free, while others may charge a fee or request a donation. Either way, you're sure to find something to scratch your theater itch. Theaters may be dark, but the shows go on.

This Weekend



* July 20-24 at 7pm the New Group Off Stage and NRDC will stream Facing the Rising Tide, a free digital festival of play readings and conversations about environmental racism, the climate crisis, and hope featuring five plays, each followed by a discussion. The week will also feature an hour-long New Group Now panel entitled Climate Arts Activision, an inspiring conversation on how art and storytelling can help save the world. The series is free and will be streamed on YouTube Live here. Free registration and additional information including climate action resources are available here.

* Irish Repertory Company will stream Conor McPherson's The Weir in a haunting new production filmed remotely from quarantine and designed for a digital experience July 21-25. Reservations are required, and donations are encouraged. For more information, click here.





* TheatreWorks Silicon Valley will present a free digital reading of Shakespeare in Vegas beginning at 6pm ET July 23-27. Tony winner Karen Ziemba and Tony Award nominee Patrick Page star as a serious New York actor and Vegas impresario who aim to bring the Bard of Avon to the Las Vegas strip. What happens in Vegas? Find out by streaming this witty comedy here.





* On Friday, July 24 at 7pm ET, Black Theatre United (BTU) member, actor, and activist Viola Davis moderated a virtual Town Hall with Leader Stacey Abrams, Founder of Fair Fight and Fair Count and Dr. Jeanine Abrams McLean, Vice President of Fair Count, in a conversation titled "Our Voices. Our Votes. Our Time. Watch the video on YouTube here.





* Source Material will present the world premiere of In These Uncertain Times, a digital performance piece devised by the company and directed by artistic director Samantha Shay. It is a new dramaturgy defined by dystopia, and it is a love letter to the art of theater. Performances will take place on Saturday, July 25 at 7pm ET, Sunday, July 26 at 2pm ET, Saturday, August 1 at 7pm ET, and Sunday, August 2 at 2pm ET. For more information about tickets, donations, and the show, click here.





* The Persians by Aeschylus, the oldest Greek drama that has survived in full to the present day, will be broadcast for free on Saturday, July 25. The stream begins at 1pm ET, with the performance starting at 2pm ET. The National Theatre of Greece, with support from the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports, presents the stream as part of this year's the Athens and Epidaurus Festival to commemorate the 25th centennial of the Battle of Salamis. To watch, click here.

Upcoming



* Bedlam will present a live virtual play reading series to raise funds and awareness for the #BlackLivesMatter movement and associated organizations working toward eliminating race-based discrimination. Upcoming readings include Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw on Tuesday, August 4, and Othello by William Shakespeare on Tuesday, October 13. All proceeds from these readings will go directly to organizations fighting for equity and justice. For a complete list of readings, and for more information on how to donate, click here.

* Fleabag's Andrew Scott will star in the world premiere of Three Kings, a new play written for him by Stephen Beresford and created especially for the Old Vic: In Camera series. Directed by Matthew Warchus, Three Kings will be streamed live nightly from the Old Vic stage with the empty auditorium as a backdrop. The five-performance run will take place July 29-August 1. For tickets, click here.

* TheaterMania will stream the 2020 virtual edition of the popular Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS benefit Broadway Bares on Saturday, August 1, at 9:30pm ET. The stream is free, but donations are welcome. Every dollar donated will help those across the country affected by HIV/AIDS, COVID-19, and other critical illnesses receive healthy meals, lifesaving medication, emergency financial assistance, housing, counseling and more. The donations also support and champion organizations focused on social justice and anti-racism. TheaterMania will provide more information about how to watch the stream on our site in the coming weeks.

A scene from a past edition of Broadway Bares.

( Tristan Fuge)





* There will be an online reading of Paul Osborn's On Borrowed Time, directed by Academy and Tony Award winner Joel Grey, as part of the Two River Theater's Two River Rising series. Benefiting the Actors Fund, this special reading features a cast that includes Blair Brown, Michael Cumpsty, Oakes Fegley, Bill Irwin, Bebe Neuwirth, Phillipa Soo, Steven Skybell, and Sam Waterston. Act One of the live reading will take place on Wednesday, August 5 at 7pm ET and Act Two on Thursday, August 6 at 7pm ET.

Streaming Channels

* The We Are Freestyle Love Supreme documentary, originally set to premiere on Hulu on June 5, will arrive on the streaming platform on July 17. To subscribe to Hulu and Disney Plus, click here.





* TheatreWorks Silicon Valley's production of Paul Gordon's Pride and Prejudice: A New Musical is now streaming on Amazon. Filmed and presented by Streaming Musicals, Pride and Prejudice is free to watch for Amazon Prime members. For digital access and more information about streaming Pride and Prejudice, click here.

* Lin-Manuel Miranda's blockbuster musical Hamilton streams on Disney Plus. Winner of 11 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, as well as a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a Grammy Award, Hamilton explores the life of Alexander Hamilton, creator of the United States' financial system and the first Secretary of the Treasury. This filmed version features the original Broadway cast, including Miranda as Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr, Daveed Diggs as Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson, Renee Elise Goldsberry as Angelica Schuyler, 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. To find out how to watch, click here.





* PBS has announced the lineup for its new summer Great Performances series, Broadway at Home. She Loves Me, starring Laura Benanti, Zachary Levi, Jane Krakowski, and Gavin Creel on July 24; Moritz von Stuelpnagel's 2017 revival of Noel Coward's Present Laughter, starring Kevin Kline, Kate Burton, Kristine Nielsen, and Cobie Smulders on July 31; the documentary In the Heights: Chasing Broadway Dreams on August 7; Kenny Leon's Shakespeare in the Park production of Much Ado About Nothing, starring Danielle Brooks and Grantham Coleman, airing on August 14; and Bartlett Sher's West End revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I, starring Kelli O'Hara, Ken Watanabe, and Ruthie Ann Miles. Check local listings for times.

* Spike Lee directs a filmed version Antoinette Nwandu's provocative play Pass Over, which tells the story of two young black men (Jon Michael Hill and Julian Parker) dreaming of escape from a racist world. A startling and disturbing riff on Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Pass Over now streams on Prime Video. Read our critic's review here.

Antoinette Nwandu's Pass Over streams on Prime Video.

( Amazon Studios)

* In Dominique Morisseau's play Pipeline, a public school teacher (Karen Pittman) must face the trauma of her son (Namir Smallwood) as a young black man when an incident threatens to get him expelled from a prep school. Pipeline streams on BroadwayHD. Read our critic's review here.

* Tony and Pulitzer Prize nominee Anna Deavere Smith wrote and stars in Notes From the Field, her solo play in which she probes the lives of students, parents, and teachers caught in the school-to-prison pipeline. The show streams on HBO.

* Kerry Washington, Steven Pasquale, Jeremy Jordan, and Eugene Lee reprise their Broadway roles in American Son, the story of an interracial couple anxiously awaiting word of their son's whereabouts while dealing with a racist cop in a police station. Tony winner Kenny Leon directs. American Son streams on Netflix.

Available for a Limited Time



* Bette Davis Ain't for Sissies will stream July 15-September 24. Written and performed by Jessica Sherr, this new 80-minute live streaming version is directed for the small screen by Karen Carpenter. Tickets are $19.50 each and are available here.





* Transport Group's filmed performance of its world premiere musical Broadbend, Arkansas will be available for video streaming beginning Monday, July 20 for four weeks. An original cast recording will be released by Broadway Records in July. Audiences can view the stream, hosted by Tony Award winner Chuck Cooper, free of charge here. In lieu of a ticket fee, the company encourages contributions be made to the Black Theatre Network.

* PBS will offer a stream of Anna Deavere Smith's drama Twilight: Los Angeles through August 7. Filmed by Marc Levin in 2001, Smith stars in a solo show that explores the aftermath of the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. To watch, click here.

Anna Deavere Smith

(courtesy of PBS)





* Geffen Playhouse has extended The Present, its world-premiere live, virtual, and interactive theatrical experience written and performed by master illusionist, storyteller, and Geffen alum Helder Guimaraes. The show will now run May 7-October 10. A mystery package will be sent to you inside a USPS Priority Mail box before the show, so you must purchase tickets at least seven days in advance. To purchase tickets, click here.

* The world premiere of The Gifts You Gave to the Dark, written by Darren Murphy specifically for digital media in reaction to the ongoing COVID-19 health crisis, premiered on Wednesday, May 27 at 6pm ET and will remain online through October 2020. For more information, click here.

* Tony-winning dancer Scott Wise has launched the new Wise Conversations talk show series, benefiting Fineline Theatre Arts, in New Milford, Connecticut. Future conversations will take place on Saturdays at 4pm and Wednesdays at 7pm. Recommended donation is $10 for students and $20 for adults. For more information, visit Fineline's Facebook page.

* Actor and playwright Eric Ulloa has announced his new podcast, Do You Hear the People Sing?, a theater person's guide to saving democracy. Each episode in this 10-episode limited series will be hosted by Ulloa and released every other week through Election Day. To learn more, click here.

Always Available

* New Victory is proud to announce a content partnership with the WNET Group's Camp TV, a new one-hour public television series that brings the day camp experience to children nationwide. Featuring videos from New Victory Arts Break, the theater's highly successful online series of performing arts curriculum, Camp TV provides ideas for fun activities for kids who can't go to camp this summer. The series will air weekdays beginning July 13 on public television (check local listings). In the New York metro area, Camp TV premieres July 13 at 10am on WLIW21, 11 am on THIRTEEN, and at noon on NJTV. Episodes will also be available to stream here.

* Girl From the North Country has released two new videos featuring the company of the Broadway musical. Filmed during quarantine, "Pressing On" features the entire company of the musical, and "Make You Feel My Love" features stars Jeannette Bayardelle and Austin Scott in a reimagined duet that does not appear in the show.

Watch the videos below:









* La MaMa E.T.C., in partnership with CultureHub, has announced the public launch of LiveLab, a free, open-source performance and video collaboration software built by artists for artists. LiveLab is a new tool that empowers artists and arts presenters to meet, create, rehearse, and ultimately produce multi-location performances from virtually anywhere in the world. For more information, click here.

Alex Newell and the Sounds of Zamar came together for a moving rendition of "I Know Where I've Been," from Hairspray. AIDS Walk New York posted the video on its YouTube channel after postponing its "Live at Home" event "in response to the murder of George Floyd, the systemic racism it reflects, the ongoing police abuses, and in solidarity with Black Lives Matter." Hairspray co-writer Marc Shaiman lent his keyboard to the rousing tribute. Watch Newell and the Sounds of Zamar here:





* Geraldine Inoa's Scraps chronicles how the family and friends of a black teenager shot by a white police officer struggle to cope in the aftermath. The Matrix Theatre Company has made its production available here.

* The global family of Rent paid tribute to the frontline heroes of New York City. Watch their rendition of "No Day But Today" here:





* Theater producer and playwright David Lan has a conversation with longtime artistic collaborator Stephen Daldry celebrating Lan's new memoir, As If By Chance: Journeys, Theatres, Lives. The conversation, a part of BAM's ongoing series of digital programs Love from BAM, can be seen here.





* More than 70 cast members from various international productions of Maury Yeston and Peter Stone's musical Titanic have gathered to record a socially distant version of the ballad "We'll Meet Tomorrow." Watch it below:





* Idina Menzel and Ben Platt perform "A Whole New World" from Disney's Aladdin as part of "The Disney Family Singalong: Volume II." Watch the video below:





* Wicked celebrates first responders on the front lines of the public health crisis with a video featuring stars Lindsay Pearce (Elphaba) and Ginna Claire Mason (Glinda) singing the anthem "For Good."

* Abrons Arts Center has made all of its performance documentation public on its Vimeo page, alongside contact and donation information for the artists whose work you are viewing.

* TriviaMania co-host and Broadway star Ellyn Marie Marsh has teamed up with Patrick Hinds for a brand-new true-crime podcast Obsessed With: Disappeared, which will recap episodes of Investigation Discovery Channel's hit series "Disappeared" in a comedic and witty tone, with perpetrators always the butt of the joke. It will be available May 27.
Jennifer Worley pads down the carpeted hallway of her apartment toward an aging marquee adorning her wall  a relic from a former life. LIVE NUDE GIRLS & MOVIES, it proclaims in a retro, carnival-like font, with two outstretched middle fingers pointing toward the message underneath from either side: Free admission.

Next to it, an oval-shaped plaque lures the observer with the words Naked, Naughty, Nasty. 25 cents. Across the room, a neon sign reads Private Pleasures in a cursive scrawl that hasnt been illuminated in years, though Worley says she plans to restore it someday.

Ive become kind of a museum, the author and stripper-turned-English professor at CCSF says with a laugh.

The signage once provided a beckoning glimmer in the entryway of San Franciscos last peep show in North Beach: The Lusty Lady Theatre, located on the southwest corner of Broadway and Kearny Street. Now, it provides Worley with a reminder of her previous identity: a girl in a blonde wig named Polly  sometimes Delinqua  who funded her way through graduate school at San Francisco State University by dancing in the late 90s. What she didnt know, however, was that her efforts for strippers to have better working conditions would forever shape the history of San Franciscos sex industry.

Thats the focus of Worleys newly-released memoir, Neon Girls: A Strippers Education in Protest and Power, which recounts her time dancing and organizing at the Lusty Lady: a club where dancers formed the worlds first strippers union and became worker-owners of their own cooperative theater. Though the Lusty Lady closed in 2013, their activism had a lasting impact on organizing of efforts of strippers and sex workers to this day, and might just hold the key to surviving closures due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Today, a handful of temporarily shuttered strip clubs line Broadway where the Lusty Lady once stood: among them the Condor Club, San Franciscos first topless bar, as well as the speakeasy-themed Roaring 20s and Deja Vu Centerfolds  one location in a large chain of strip clubs. None of them, however, are quite comparable to the Lusty Lady, whose peepshow model may have been able to weather the storm of social distancing.

In the age of the pandemic, hopeful dancers might turn to online platforms like OnlyFans, but in 1995, Worley unexpectedly forged her way into the industry when she discovered an intriguing back page newspaper ad.

:::

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Idly thumbing through the SF Bay Guardian one day at Caffe Trieste, she found a listing for the Lusty Lady on the back page. The starting rate for dancers was up to $22 an hour  double what she made as a junior book publicist in the East Bay. The part-time job promised no contact with customers, a flexible schedule and a safe working environment.

No experience was necessary, but it demanded full nudity.

It was a little scary and weird to think about doing this, Worley told me over the phone. Alien would be another way to describe it. But I was a pretty adventurous kid and ready to try it out.

She reasoned that the job would allow her to work less so she could study more and pursue her dream of becoming a professor. Worley expected her audition to be like the movies: wearing tassels on her nipples like Gypsy Rose Lee as she danced for a cigar-smoking manager in a dimly lit room with bawdy music.

Instead, a former dancer named Josephine invited her to watch a show for herself. Filing into a tiny booth together, Josephine closed the door behind them and gestured for her to sit on the bench inside. Worley put a few quarters in a coin slot and a window shade moved up to reveal a mirrored room of several naked dancers laughing and posing at their reflections. After a few minutes, the shade slid down.

Having seen the show, would you like to audition? Josephine asked.

Worley said yes, and two days later found herself dancing to Iggy Pops The Passenger, attempting to mimic other dancers unabashed movements. One of them sauntered toward her and quietly instructed her to take a deep breath and slow down, never moving her eyes or coy smile from the man in the booth in front of them, while at the same time avoiding the attention of Josephine, who was observing from her own booth.

Rather than feeling exposed and vulnerable, Id felt safe, protected by the glass and the kindness of other dancers, Worley writes in her novel.

As her audition came to an end, she was hired. Congratulations, Josephine had told her. Youre now a Lusty Lady.

:::

The Lusty Lady stuck out in comparison to other strip clubs in the city. All of the managers were women  most of them former dancers  and the theater had a strict sexual harassment policy that was rare for the 90s. Dancers were also paid an hourly wage.

That fostered our ability to work in solidarity, because we werent in direct competition with one another, said Worley.

At strip clubs like the Mitchell Brothers OFarrell Theatre, dancers were paid only by tips, required to pay a stage fee and split more than half of the tips they did earn with the bartender, the waitstaff and the doorman. (A group of those dancers eventually formed the Exotic Dancers Alliance and the theater was forced to pay out $2.85 million in restitution and legal fees in 1998.)

MORE: SF sex workers forced to make tough and risky choices during pandemic

At the Lusty, Worley found a sense of camaraderie with the other dancers, who taught her how to apply her makeup under the stage lights and used their backs to physically block the view of drunk, unruly men who sporadically banged their fists on the glass and yelled obscenities at the women onstage. They spent weekends playing poker together, and Worley recalls being asked to join a writing group with some of the other dancers who were also paying their way through school.

 2020 Cammie Toloui

Yet, the Lusty Lady still had its faults. The club was in constant influx because dancers were so frequently fired. If a dancer was late for a shift, missed a staff meeting, broke the strict costuming rules or traded shifts with another girl without requesting permission, she could lose all of her shifts on the following weeks schedule or receive a paycheck cut. Dancers didnt receive paid sick days, either.

Furthermore, the club was consistently hiring. If they had a surge in new dancers, others would lose shifts. Unspoken rules of racial discrimination allowed only one dancer of color onstage at once, and no Black dancers worked in the Private Pleasures booths, where they could make three times as much income performing for a customer in a one-on-one setting.

One day, when Worley was performing, she noticed a blinking red light behind the one-way glass. It was a camera, and the customer wielding it was filming her without her knowledge. Her stomach dropped as she whispered the code word Gordon to another dancer  as in Flash Gordon  to subtly let her know a customer was filming them.

The Lustys support staff confronted the man, and Worley walked out to the lobby to face him, crushing the tape under one of her stiletto heels with a satisfying crunch. Still, she wondered, how many times had this happened before?

At the height of the dot-com boom, this was a frequent tactic. Men would go to the clubs, put a few dollars in the cash machine, and leave with surreptitious footage they sold for hundreds of dollars online.

The solution, it seemed, was to remove the one-way glass altogether.

At a staff meeting the following week, Josephine mentioned the camera incident, but told the dancers that removing the glass was not an option. Expected to take on a teaching job later that semester, Worley felt mortified at the thought of her students coming across one of the videos. Others worried about their own day jobs, and their families who didnt know they were stripping to make ends meet.

Together, the dancers organized.

In August 1996, they voted to form the first strippers union in the nation with the help of the Service Employees International Union local 790. They called themselves the Exotic Dancers Union in tribute to the Exotic Dancers Alliance, whose members worked in collaboration with the SEIU and in turn helped the Lusty Ladies organize.

During the negotiating process with management, dancers staged a pink-out in which they refused to expose themselves as explicitly as they usually did and urged customers to take their business elsewhere. When one dancer was fired for participating, the dancers flooded the street and picketed outside of the theater, eventually emptying it.

The whole city came out to support us when we didnt realize they cared, Worley recalled. Office workers and City Hall staff joined them in the march, and firetrucks drove by with their sirens blaring as firefighters waved out of their windows. It was a very San Francisco thing to see.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

On a national level, however, the SEIU encountered skepticism.

People thought that we werent real workers or worth supporting, said Worley. There was a shame about it. But they shielded us from that and kept working with us. There was a lot of that attitude then and there still is today, which might be why there hasnt been a successful organizing drive in the sex industry since then.

:::

That is, until recently.

Building on the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement, dancers in Portland are pushing back against racism that continues to persist in the industry. And earlier last year, dancers in Los Angeles formed Soldiers of Pole when they did not receive appropriate pay for the hours they were working.

In January, a gig economy law called AB5 was passed in California, advancing their efforts and allowing dancers to be classified as employees rather than independent contractors, expanding their basic legal protections.

RELATED: Uber drivers stage caravan protest around San Francisco headquarters

Amid the pandemic, however, many of them are unable to return to their jobs. The industry itself, Worley explained, is very much like the Wild West in that dancers still dont have healthcare or sick days. Additionally, the only pay that counts toward their unemployment benefits during the economic shutdown is their hourly wage  just a fraction of their total income.

The money making in stripping is the lap dancing, which is obviously really close contact and cash tips, said Worley. If someone has COVID, youre just going to get it from doing that work and not have a safety net.

With the constant cleaning, the separation of glass, and the private one-on-one booths, she said the Lusty Lady would have been the perfect workplace to operate in this condition.

Its ironic that its gone, she mused.

In order to adapt, some dancers in Oregon and Texas have formed drive-thru strip clubs, while others have turned to online sex work using platforms like OnlyFans or ManyVids, where their regular customers can subscribe to their videos. The problem with those websites, Worley explained, is that they do not explicitly promote sex work and users can be penalized for certain behaviors, permanently losing their accounts while the companies keep their income.

Its been really hard and very devastating for a lot of them, said Worley. I cant see that sector of the industry coming back safely until theres a vaccine.

Local strip clubs have been fairly quiet about their reopening plans, but Worley is wary of them potentially forcing dancers to return to work before its safe to do so. The historic organizing efforts at the Lusty Lady, though, could be a template for how today's strippers might deal with the current crisis.

Thats a huge issue we should be dealing with collectively.

Jennifer Worley's "Neon Girls: A Stripper's Education in Protest and Power" is now available for purchase.

Amanda Bartlett is an SFGATE Digital Reporter. Email: amanda.bartlett@sfgate.com | Twitter: @byabartlett
Congress senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP Digvijaya Singh on Thursday complained that popular micro blogging site Twitter has been blocking his tweets saying it includes potentially sensitive content. The Congress leader said his tweets were being blocked by the social media giant without specifying what was potentially sensitive in his tweets. He has demanded a response from the country head of the company.

Twitter has been blocking my tweets saying it includes potentially sensitive content such as these without telling me what is potentially sensitive content in my tweets? I need to have the response of Twitter Country Head of India, Digvijaya tweeted on Thursday.

Digvijaya Singh added that classifying criticism of Central government leaders as sensitive content was an act of political bias.

If saying something against Narendra Modi or Amit Shah you find to be of sensitive content then you are being politically biased against me which you have no right to be. I have earlier complained to your Management of your biased attitude against me but without any response, Digvijaya said in another of his tweets on the matter.

In his defence, he said he was a responsible Indian citizen with an extensive record of public service.

I am a responsible Indian Citizen who has been elected to MP Assembly 5 times Lok Sabha twice and Rajya Sabha twice. I have been Minister in MP and CM MP for 10 years. Why should I post any objectionable tweet? Digivjaya asked.

Twitter was recently questioned by the Supreme Court of India over alleged defamatory tweets by senior lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan. Twitters counsel told the SC that the site can only disable a tweet on orders passed by the Court.

According to the rule of contempt, for a publication including web/social media platform, the author and the publisher, both are called out in the matter.

Social media have been under an increasing scrutiny for libellous content posted by users. The micro blogging site has a media policy that filters and bars graphic violence, adult content and hateful imagery among others.

According to the company, first time violation of these policies leads to removal of the content and the user getting temporarily locked out of his account while a repeat violation leads to permanent suspension of the account.
Srinagar, Jul 23 (UNI) A woman was injured when Pakistani troops violated ceasefire by resorting to unprovoked heavy shelling and firing from across the Line of Control (LoC) in Tangdhar sector in north Kashmir district of Kupwara.



An Army official on Thursday told UNI that Pakistani troops, violating the 2003 ceasefire, fired mortar shells and resorted to heavy firing late on Wednesday night, targeting forward posts and civilian areas in Tangdhar sector.

He said Indian troops retaliated and the exchange of fire continued for over an hour, adding that a woman, a resident of village Hajitra, was injured in the ceasefire violation. The woman who had received bullet injury was immediately taken to a hospital, he added.



He said Pakistani troops have been frequently violating ceasefire in J&K from last about a year. The frequency has increase since March this year as the infiltration passages through which militants sneak into this side have opened with the melting of snow, he said.



Three heavily armed militants were killed in two separate incidents earlier this month immediately after they sneaked into this side at LoC in Kupwara.



A top Army commander earlier this month said that the launchpads in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) are fully occupied with about 300 militants, who are trying hard to infiltrate into this side of the LoC.



However, Major General Virendra Vats, GOC 19 Infantry Division, Baramulla, said that the anti-infiltration grid along the LoC is fully operational and alert troops are ready to foil any attempts by militants to crossover to his side.



We have inputs that the launchpads in PoK are fully occupied. The number of militants present in these launchpads right now is between 250 and 300. They (militants) are trying hard to infiltrate into this side as they have about four summer months left before the passes will be closed due to snowfall, Major General Vats said.



He said Pakistani troops have been frequently violating ceasefire by resorting to heavy shelling and firing to help the militants to infiltrate. But, this tactic wont work as our troops are on high alert to foil any infiltration bid, he added.

UNI ABS SB 1454
Over the next several weeks, the City of Bethlehem Health Bureau will be making the rounds across the city to reinforce coronavirus safety guidelines at the Christmas Citys businesses.

The city on Tuesday announced the effort to educate local businesses about the importance of guidelines such as mask-wearing, social distancing, repeated sanitation and other safety precautions that have become second nature to most over the last few months.

Our success in reopening and slowing down the spread of COVID-19 will largely be driven by compliance with health and safety guidelines and Orders, Mayor Bob Donchez said in a news release on the initiative.

According to the release, Bethlehem currently has a positivity rate of 2.2%, which is a far cry from its 28.4% rate in April.

According to Tammy Wendling, the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerces Downtown Bethlehem Association manager, Bethlehems businesses have done a commendable job of adhering to the distancing and sanitation requirements set by the state. She noted outdoor dining as a huge reason that restaurants, particularly those in the Center City historic district, have had little to no trouble accommodating an appropriate number of guests in a safe manner.

Many of Bethlehems restaurants and businesses have taken the Vow of the Valley, according to Wendling. The vow promised that downtown businesses were going to follow these guidelines so everyone can have a safe and comfortable experience, Wendling said.

Businesses and retail establishments that are not following the necessary guidelines will be given a warning and a short time period to adjust their business to follow the guidelines. The purpose of the visits is for the reinforcement of guidelines to help businesses stay safe and open, city officials say.

Safety protocols and other guidelines can be found at bethlehem-pa.gov/Health-Bureau.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to Lehighvalleylive.com.

Connor Lagore may be reached at clagore@njadvancemedia.com.
By Peter Nurse

Investing.com - European stock markets are seen opening cautiously higher Thursday, helped by an increase in German consumer confidence but held back by fraught Sino-U.S. tensions while coronavirus cases continue to mount.

At 2:15 AM ET (0615 GMT), the DAX futures contract in Germany traded 0.3% higher, the FTSE 100 futures contract in the U.K. rose 0.3%, while CAC 40 futures in France climbed 0.7%.

Germany's Gfk consumer confidence survey came in better than expected earlier Thursday, suggesting that Europe's largest economy is slowly recovering from the coronavirus pandemic.

The forward-looking consumer sentiment index rose to -0.3 in August, better than the -5 expected and the -9.6 seen in July. It has gained almost 23 points since its low of minus 23.1 points in May.

"There is no doubt that the reduction in value-added tax has contributed to the extremely positive progress," said Rolf Buerkl, consumer expert at GfK, explaining that consumers are looking to make major purchases earlier than planned, which will help boost spending this year.

However, stock market gains may be limited by rising tensions between Washington and Beijing after the United States ordered the closure of China's consulate in Houston amid accusations of spying.

The two largest economies in the world have been at loggerheads for months now, over such matters as the origin of the Covid-19 outbreak, the legal clampdown on Hong Kong and Chinas ambitions in the South China sea.

At the same time, the coronavirus continues to ravage its way across the U.S., the globes economic driver.

California has now overtaken New York, the original epicenter of the outbreak in the U.S., as the worst-hit state for cases, according to a Reuters tally. Total cases in the most populous U.S. state rose by 12,112 on Wednesday, the biggest single-day increase since the pandemic started.

In corporate news, Daimler (DE:DAIGn) will be in the spotlight after the German car manufacturer said it still expects to make an operating profit this year despite the hit from the Covid-19 outbreak which resulted in a large second-quarter operating loss.

Story continues

Corporate news from the likes of Unilever (LON:ULVR), Pernod Ricard (PA:PERP), STMicroelectronics (PA:STM) and Roche (SIX:RO) are also due.

Oil prices edged higher Thursday, with the jump in U.S. crude inventories, reported late Wednesday, having only a limited impact.

The Energy Information Administration said crude inventories rose by 4.9 million barrels in the week to July 17, despite this being peak driving season, as a sharp rise in coronavirus cases has started to hit U.S. consumption.

At 2:15 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 0.3% higher at $42.02 a barrel, while the international benchmark Brent contract rose 0.2% to $44.39.

Elsewhere, gold futures rose 0.5% to $1,873.95/oz, while EUR/USD traded at 1.1585, up 0.2% on the day.

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Jeff Kurtzman, 60, who was a senior flight attendant for the airline, died on Tuesday

A Hawaiian Airlines flight attendant, who reportedly participated in a training session that has been linked to a COVID-19 cluster, has died.

Jeff Kurtzman, 60, who was a senior flight attendant for the airline, died on Tuesday. Kurtzman tested positive for the virus earlier this month.

Kurtzman joined the company in 1986 and was based in Los Angeles, according to Hawaiian Airlines CEO Peter Ingram, who released an email announcing Kurtzman's death to company employees.

In the statement, seen by Hawaii News Now, Ingram wrote that Kurtzman had 'become well known to his In-Flight colleagues for his passion for discovering new places, people and cultures' and was admired for his 'terrific sense of humor and knack for easy conversation'.

'He embodied the values of aloha and malama that we hold dear,' Ingram said in the email.

Ingram said the airline has also reached out to Kurtzman's husband to offer support and condolences.

It's unclear if Kurtzman had any underlying health conditions.

Kurtzman tested positive for the virus earlier this month, according to Hawaiian Airlines

Kurtzman (right) had reportedly attended a training session in Honolulu in June, which led to at least 24 people, including 16 staff members, getting the illness

One flight attendant said a couple of other flight attendants participated in the classes while feeling sick. It's unclear if Kurtzman (right) had any underlying health conditions

According to Hawaii News Now, Kurtzman had attended a training session in Honolulu in June, which led to at least 24 people, including 16 staff members, being infected with coronavirus.

One flight attendant told the news outlet that a couple of flight attendants participated in the classes while feeling sick.

'Initially classes started out in compliance with seating six to nine feet apart in the classroom setting. However during the course of the day it became obvious that there was not enough conscious effort to sanitize the entire work areas,' the employee claimed.

'Several areas throughout the day became 'shared' areas making for a bad end result,' the worker said.

At the time, masks were not required in the classes, but since the cluster outbreak, Hawaiian Airlines has made mask-wearing mandatory. Sessions have also been reduced in capacity.

The total number of coronavirus cases reported in the US passed 4 million on Thursday, reflecting a rapid acceleration of infections in the country since the first case was recorded on January 21, a Reuters tally showed.

Kurtzman joined the company in 1986 and was based in Los Angeles, according to Hawaiian Airlines CEO Peter Ingram, who released an email announcing Kurtzman's death to company employees

It took the country 98 days to reach 1 million cases, but just 16 days to go from 3 million to 4 million, according to the tally.

The case total indicates that at least one in 82 people in the US have been infected.

The average number of new US cases is now rising by more than 2,600 every hour, the highest rate in the world.

As the pandemic has spread from the early epicenter of New York to the South and West, federal, state and local officials have clashed over how to ease lockdowns imposed to curb the infection rate, including in some states whether to rollback reopenings.

The ordering of face coverings, a common practice around the world and recommended by the federal government's own health experts, has also become highly politicized, with some Republican governors particularly resistant.

Hostility to the idea appeared to be dwindling this week, including from the Republican administration of President Donald Trump, who once dismissed mask-wearing as an effort to be politically correct.

Trump, who faces falling poll numbers over his handling of the health crisis ahead of the November election, has long refused to wear a mask in public but this week encouraged Americans to do so.

A surge in cases has been seen in California, Texas, Florida and the Carolinas since earlier this month.
Queen Letizia of Spain put on a casual display today as she stepped out in Merida, western Spain to head back to Madrid today.

The royal, 47, joined her husband King Felipe, 52, and daughters Princess Leonor, 14, and Princess Sofia, 12, as they donned masks to head to their car to return home.

The mother-of-two wore a long sleeved checked zip-up waistcoat and sleek black trousers, which which she teamed with loafers as she waved to wellwishers.

Queen Letizia of Spain put of a casual display today as she stepped out in Merida to head back to Madrid today. From left: Princess Sofia, 12, Queen Letizia, 47, Princess Leonor, 14, King Felipe, 52

The whole family covered up with face masks while Princess Leonor joined her mother in causal attire, donning a simple blue pair of trousers and bright white trainers, with a pale blue T-shirt.

Dressing up slightly more was Infanta Sofia, who opted for a trendy black summer dress with trainers.

It marks another outing for the two young princesses whose presence in the public eye has increased in recent months, joining their parents at multiple official engagements.

King Felipe also sported a laid back look, pairing navy chinos with brown leather shoes, a matching belt and an open-collar striped blue shirt.

The royal, 47, joined her husband 52, and daughters Princess Leonor, 14, and Princess Sofia, 12, as they donned masks to head to their car to return home

The family are today returning to their home in Madrid after a stop in Merida yesterday evening as part of a nationwide tour.

The royals have undertaken several weeks of intense travel around the country in the wake of Covid-19, starting a tour of Spain on Monday 22 June.

They started the tour in the Canary Islands before heading to Mallorca, Sevilla and Aragon.

The mother-of-two wore a long sleeved checked zip-up and sleek black trousers which which she teamed with loafers

The family are today returning to their home in Madrid after a stop in Merida yesterday evening as part of a nationwide tour. From left: Princess Sofia, 12, Queen Letizia, 47, Princess Leonor, 14, King Felipe, 52

This week, they had three engagements after starting the week by attending the Mariano de Cavia, Luxa de Tena and Mingotie Awards gala in Madrid on Tuesday, which is organised by the Spanish national newspaper ABC.

Queen Letizia is mother to Princesses Leonor and Sofia with husband King Felipe who ascended to the Spanish throne in 2014.

Letizia married King Felipe ten years ago at Cathedral Santa Maria la Real de la Almudena in Madrid.

The relationship began in November 2002 and in 2003, just months after she had been promoted to the position of anchor on the national news channel.

It's been a busy week for the family, who attended the Mariano de Cavia, Luxa de Tena and Mingotie Awards gala in Madrid on Tuesday, which is organised by the Spanish national newspaper ABC. They are pictured on their way back to Madrid

She then quit her job and days later the royal engagement was announced.

The former newsreader is the granddaughter of a taxi driver and the eldest daughter of Jesus Jose Ortiz Alvarez, a journalist, and first wife Maria de la Paloma Rocasolano Rodriguez, a nurse and hospital union representative.

She attended public high school and did a degree at the Complutense University of Madrid. She later gained an MA in Audiovisual Journalism at the Institute for Studies in Audiovisual Journalism.

King Juan Carlos abdicated in 2014 in favour of his son, now King Felipe VI.

Crown Princess Leonor, King Felipe VI, Queen Letizia and Princess Sofia visit the National Museum of Roman Art during their visit to Merida, Spain

More than 300,000 people have been infected with Covid-19 in Spain, with the country's death toll at 28, 413 according to latest figures.

British tourists were allowed to enter Spain for the first time in three months on June 21 when the country's state of emergency ended.

In the first lockdown of its kind since the end of the state of emergency around 140,000 people in Lleida, a city just under two hours drive west of Barcelona have been told to remain in doors and only leave for food or to work if 'essential'.

People in another seven municipalities near Lleida in the Segria region have also been given the new lockdown order, which means they can only venture outdoors to buy food or go to the bank or for work if it is an 'essential service' and cannot be done from home.
Cannot set timeline for Vijay Mallya's extradition to India: UK envoy

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, July 23: The UK government cannot set a timeline for extradition of fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya though it is determined to ensure that criminals can't escape justice by crossing national borders, British High Commissioner Sir Philip Barton said on Thursday. Asked during an online media briefing whether Mallya has sought asylum in the UK, the envoy said his government never comments on such issues.

"The UK government and the courts, which are independent of the government, are absolutely clear about their roles in preventing people avoid justice by moving to another country. We are all determined to play our part in any case, and to make sure that we are working together to ensure that criminals can't escape justice by crossing national borders," he said. He said the extradition of Mallya is an ongoing legal case and that the UK government does not have anything new on it.

India asks UK not to consider any request for asylum by Vijay Mallya

"The extradition of Vijay Mallya is an ongoing legal case and I can't comment any further on it. I can't say anything at all about timescales," Sir Barton said, replying to a question on when the UK authorities are extraditing the fugitive businessman to India. At the same time, the newly-appointed envoy said the UK government is aware of the importance India attaches to the case.

Last month, India said it has urged the UK not to consider any request for asylum by Mallya as there appeared to be no ground for his persecution in the country.

The UK government, earlier, indicated that Mallya is unlikely to be extradited to India anytime soon, saying there is a legal issue that needed to be resolved before his extradition can be arranged. In May, Mallya lost his appeals in the UK Supreme Court against his extradition to India to face money laundering and fraud charges.

The UK top court's decision marked a major setback to the 64-year-old businessman as it came weeks after he lost his High Court appeal in April against an extradition order to India.

A spokesperson in the British High Commission here said last month that there was a legal issue that needed to be resolved before Mallya's extradition can be arranged. "Under United Kingdom law, extradition cannot take place until it is resolved.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

The issue is confidential and we cannot go into any detail. We cannot estimate how long this issue will take to resolve. We are seeking to deal with this as quickly as possible," the official had said.

Mallya has been based in the UK since March 2016 and remains on bail on an extradition warrant executed three years ago by Scotland Yard on April 18, 2017. The High Court verdict in April upheld the 2018 ruling by Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot at the end of a year-long extradition trial in December 2018 that the former Kingfisher Airlines boss had a "case to answer" in the Indian courts
Hopes for a coronavirus vaccine before Christmas have been dashed by a World Health Organization expert.

Mike Ryan, head of WHO's emergencies programme, said the first use of a Covid-19 vaccine cannot be expected until early 2021.

He noted that several vaccines are now in phase three trials and none have failed so far in terms of safety or ability to generate an immune response.

His comments come after Oxford University  one of the frontrunners in a race for a vaccine  claimed there was still a chance it could deliver its experimental jab by Christmas if tests keep going according to plan.

One of the researchers working on the project had said that people in the most at-risk groups could get the first jabs in the winter.

Hopes for a coronavirus vaccine before Christmas have been dashed by a World Health Organisation expert

Mike Ryan (pictured), head of WHO's emergencies programme, said the first use of a Covid-19 cannot be expected until early 2021

A vaccine is considered crucial for getting out of the coronavirus pandemic because it would be the only way to secure protection against catching it.

It would work by injecting either a tiny piece of the virus into the body  which would not make someone sick  or a clone of its DNA.

This triggers an immune response which has long-term memory, so if a person is exposed to the coronavirus in real life, their body knows how to fight it quickly.

RESULTS FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY VACCINE ARE 'PROMISING' Results from the first phase of clinical trials of Oxford's vaccine were published on Tuesday in the British medical journal, The Lancet. They revealed that the Covid-19 vaccine had been given to 543 people out of a group of 1,077. The other half were given a meningitis jab so their reactions could be compared and scientists could be sure the effects of the coronavirus jab weren't random. Researchers wanted to find out whether the vaccine boosted either of two types of immunity  antibodies, which are disease-fighting substances; and T-cell immunity, with T cells able to produce antibodies and also to attack viruses themselves. The vaccine produced 'strong' responses on both accounts, the study found. It showed that the T cell response aimed at the spike protein that appears on the outside of the coronavirus was 'markedly increased' in people who had had the jab, in tests of 43 of the participants. These responses peaked after 14 days and then declined before the end-point of the trial at 56 days. Antibody immunity, on the other hand, peaked after four weeks and remained high by day 56, the point at which the last measurement was taken, meaning it may well last for even longer. After 28 days, up to 100 per cent of a group of 35 people still had a strong enough 'neutralising' immune response to destroy the virus, researchers found. A neutralising response means the immune system is able to destroy the virus and make it unable to infect the body. The researchers could not test this on more people because they didn't have enough time, they explained. Scientists had to wait a month after vaccinating people, with many of them vaccinated in late May. And Sir Mene Pangalos, a vice-president of research and development at AstraZeneca, said the tests used were 'very laborious' so the team weren't able to get more data in time for the paper. Sir Mene added that the researchers were 'veering towards a two-high-dose strategy' because that seemed to be producing the strongest immune response. Advertisement

But until a jab is proven to be safe and effective, controlling cases relies on social distancing, regular hand washing and face mask wearing.

Governments globally know this is not a long term solution to the disease because prevention measures and lockdowns have crippled economies.

Scientists are racing to find a vaccine that will protect millions, with 24 already being tested in humans and more than 140 in pre-clinical trials.

Dr Ryan said: 'We're making good progress. Realistically it's going to be the first part of next year before we start seeing people getting vaccinated'.

The WHO is working to expand access to potential vaccines and to help scale-up production capacity.

Dr Ryan said: 'We need to be fair about this, because this is a global good. Vaccines for this pandemic are not for the wealthy, they are not for the poor, they are for everybody.'

Dr Ryan also cautioned schools to be careful about re-opening until community transmission of Covid-19 is under control.

'We have to do everything possible to bring our children back to school, and the most effective thing we can do is to stop the disease in our community,' he said.

'Because if you control the disease in the community, you can open the schools.'

It comes after results from the first phase of clinical trials of Oxford's vaccine were published on Tuesday in the British medical journal, The Lancet.

The vaccine produced a 'strong' antibody and T cell immune response in volunteers.

Researchers said 'the early results hold promise' but added much more is still needed.

Infectious disease scientists warned 'there is still a long way to go' before any vaccine is rolled out.

The vaccine  called AZD1222  is already being manufactured by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and the UK Government has ordered 100million doses ahead of time.

Professor Sarah Gilbert, who is leading the Oxford team, said she is still confident the jab could be ready for the most vulnerable people by the end of the year.

The Oxford team initially hoped it would be ready by September when they began trials in April. However, there are a number of hurdles to get through first, including proving the vaccine actually works.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Tuesday, Professor Gilbert said: 'The end of the year target for getting vaccine rollout is a possibility but theres absolutely no certainty because we need three things.'

Those three things are the results from phase three trials, the ability for manufacturers to produce large quantities of the virus, and regulators to approve the vaccine.

Data from the Oxford study show that Covid-19 antibody responses were greater in people who had been given two doses of the vaccine (third column from left, the higher dots represent a greater number of antibodies. Second from left was one dose, and far left was a placebo. Some people had antibody responses in the placebo group, which scientists said was likely because they had Covid-19 without knowing before joining the trial)

The share price of AstraZeneca, which is manufacturing Oxford's vaccine, fell today as the results of the early trial were announced, suggesting they did not live up to the hype investors had been expecting

Professor Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at Oxford, also said 'its possible therell be a vaccine being used by the end of the year' after the publication of the first results.

And vaccine researcher Dr Sandy Douglas added: 'I think the vaccine may be available for some people in high risk groups in the UK by the end of the year. But it wont be made available to everybody immediately.

'Its likely to be given to the people who have the most to gain from it earliest, then gradually introduce it for other people.'

However Prime Minister Boris Johnson tried to temper expectations when he admitted he wasn't totally confident there would even be a vaccine by the end of next year.

Speaking on Sky News on Monday, Mr Johnson said: 'I wish I could say that I was 100 per cent confident we'll get a vaccine for Covid-19.

'Obviously I'm hopeful  I've got my fingers crossed  but to say I'm 100 per cent confident that we'll get a vaccine this year, or indeed next year is, alas, just an exaggeration  we're not there yet.

'If you talk to the scientists they think the sheer weight of international effort is going to produce something. They're pretty confident that we'll get some sort of treatments some sort of vaccines that will really make a difference.

'But can I tell you that I'm 100 per cent confident? No.

'That's why we've got to continue with our current approach - maintaining the social distancing measures... we've got to continue to do all the sensible things; washing our hands. All those basic things.'

Mr Johnson added: 'It may be that the vaccine is going to come riding over the hill like the cavalry but we just can't count on it right now.'

A deal has also been secured for a further 90million doses of two types of experimental jab being developed in France and Germany.

Agreement has been reached for 30million doses from German firm BioNTech and the US company Pfizer, 60million doses from France's Valneva, and an unrevealed amount from Imperial College London which started human trials in June.

It is not clear exactly how much the Department of Health has paid for the vaccines, but it announced in May a 131million fund to develop vaccine-making facilities.

And it has given Valneva  the French company supplying 90million doses  an undisclosed amount of money to expand its factory in Livingston, Scotland.

Kate Bingham, chair of the UK's Vaccine Taskforce, revealed she was still 'hopeful' it would be ready by the end of 2020 but admitted that academics are unlikely to get enough data to prove it works until the end of the year.

Ms Bingham, who is a high-profile health technology investor and has a degree in biochemistry, explained on BBC Radio 4 that the deals with BioNTech and Valneva was part of a spread-betting approach to make sure the UK has stocks of the working vaccine if one is found.

She said: 'The announcements show that the UK is on the forefront of global efforts to source and develop vaccines and we are doing so across a range of different technologies with a range of different companies around the world.

'It's important because we have no vaccines against any coronavirus, so what we're doing is identifying the most promising vaccines across the different types of vaccine so that we can be sure that we do have a vaccine, if one of those proves to be safe and effective...

'We just need to wait and see what the clinical trials tell us but I think again it's important to recognise that it's unlikely to be a single vaccine for everybody. We may well need different vaccines for different groups of people.'

The vaccine made by BioNTech, has shown good results in early trials which proved it could produce a safe immune response in a group of 45 people.

A first-phase study on 45 adults, nine of whom received a placebo, found that the vaccine was well-tolerated and didn't produce serious side effects.

It also triggered the immune system in the right way in all of those who it was given to. The immune reaction was dose-dependent, meaning people who received larger doses produced a larger immune response.

Another vaccine made by the Chinese company CanSino has also had promising results published in The Lancet.

That jab, which works in the same way as Oxford's- by piggybacking coronavirus genes onto a common cold virus - has also produced both antibody and T cell immunity.

The study involved 508 people, of whom 253 received a high dose of the vaccine, 129 received a low dose and 126 were given a placebo.

In a group who were given a high dose of the vaccine, 95 per cent of people still had immune responses 28 days after receiving the jab.

More than half of them (56 per cent) still showed what is called a 'neutralising' antibody response, meaning their immune system could destroy the virus completely. And 96 per cent of them had a 'binding' antibody response, meaning their antibodies could latch onto the viruses and prevent them getting into the body but did not destroy them completely.

In the low dose group, 47 per cent of people had a neutralising response after four weeks and 97 per cent had a binding response. 91 per cent still had some form of immune reaction a month after the jab.

The speed at which Covid-19 vaccines are being developed has been described as 'unprecedented' and a marvel of modern science.

Normally it takes years or even decades to get one into human trials but international collaboration, huge amounts of funding and the instantaneous publishing of scientific research online has allowed scientists to do it in record time.

The Oxford jab, for example, took just 103 days to get from being designed on a computer to entering human trials.

Long, repeated testing means it takes, on average, 10 years to develop a vaccine, according to the Wellcome Trust,
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 09:08:05|Editor: huaxia

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TRIPOLI, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Wednesday that 95 illegal immigrants were rescued off Libya's western coast.

"A group of 95 migrants were returned to Khums, Libya by the coast guard. IOM staff were onsite to provide needed assistance and report that among them were four women," the IOM tweeted.

Earlier on Wednesday, the IOM said that 131 illegal immigrants, including 13 miners, were rescued off the country's western coast.

The IOM estimates that more than 6,100 illegal immigrants have been rescued off the Libyan coast and returned to Libya so far in 2020, compared with 9,225 in 2019.

The fall of the previous Muammar Gaddafi's government in 2011 has created a state of insecurity and chaos in Libya, which made it a preferred point of departure for illegal immigrants to cross the Mediterranean Sea towards European shores.

Immigrant shelters in Libya are overcrowded with immigrants, despite repeated international calls to close them. Enditem
UPDATE (7/24): Pa. coronavirus cases surge by 1.2K, biggest increase in months. Shut down, start over, experts urge U.S.

Coronavirus cases in Pennsylvania increased by nearly 1,000 again on Thursday.

The states COVID-19 case count now stands at 104,358, while 16 more deaths pushed the statewide death toll to 7,079, according to daily data provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

(Cant see the map? Click here.)

Locally, the Lehigh Valley had just over two dozen cases but no new coronavirus-related deaths in the last day.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine addressed media on Thursday on a range of topics, from restaurant restrictions to the state of school-reopening plans. And a Los Angeles Times report says that wearing a mask might not just slow the spread of COVID-19, but can also reduce the severity of the disease in those who do get infected.

Here are your Pennsylvania coronavirus updates for July 23, 2020.

Pa. coronavirus outbreak

Pennsylvania coronavirus cases have been on the rise since mid-June. The most cases reported in a single day that month was 701.

That number has been eclipsed 15 times so far in July, which has seen seven days with more than 900 cases and three with more than 1,000.

(Cant see the chart? Click here.)

Pittsburghs Allegheny County, which has been a hotspot, had 147 new cases in Thursdays report, a day after dipping below 100 for the first time since June. Philadelphia had a two-day count of 311 cases on Thursday after data missing from Wednesdays report was included.

The health department estimates that 75% of Pennsylvania coronavirus patients have so far recovered.

People aged 65 and older continue to represent the majority of hospitalizations and deaths  nursing home residents account for about 18% of the states cases but 68% of deaths.

Coronavirus in the Lehigh Valley

The Lehigh Valley had 26 new COVID-19 cases in the last day  and no coronavirus-related deaths, per Thursdays state data.

The two-county region now totals 8,295 cases and 622 deaths. That breaks down to:

4,609 cases and 334 deaths in Lehigh County , an increase of nine cases.

3,686 cases and 288 deaths in Northampton County , an increase of 17 cases.

(Cant see the table? Click here.)

Levine: For schools to reopen, follow the rules

While testing has increased in recent weeks, Levine said many recent cases have been linked to younger adults going to bars, restaurants and clubs, which is why the state last week implemented new restrictions.

She also scolded businesses that sidestep state orders.

By trying to skirt the rules, Levine said, youre not protecting the public health, youre not protecting your families and your loved ones, and youre not helping schools to open in the fall.

On the schools issue, Levine said the state is optimistic that schools will reopen for in-classroom instruction this fall as planned. Some will mix in virtual learning as well, she said. (Allentown, however, is considering a completely virtual school year, at least at the outset.)

(Cant see the chart? Click here.)

Responding to a question about the current rule limiting indoor events to 25 people, Levine said schools will be granted an exception, though data over the next several weeks will be crucial to the final decision.

Thats why the mitigation efforts we were talking about are so important, she said.

Coronavirus testing will be important as students return. Levine said the state laboratory could potentially prioritize a particular school if it becomes concerning, but otherwise people with symptoms or who were potentially exposed are encouraged to go use one of the 400-plus testing sites in Pennsylvania.

However, some private tests are taking a week or longer to return results. The health secretary said that is a national issue that will require a national solution.

Northampton County on Thursday announced its new drive-through testing center will open Monday at Coordinated Health, 3100 Emrick Blvd. in Bethlehem Township, with hours of operation 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays and plans for twice-monthly Saturday hours 9 a.m. to noon. A physicians order will not be required but to be eligible for testing individuals must report or display one or more CDC-recognized symptoms of a COVID-19 infection.

 Out-of-state travel  both by Pennsylvanians returning home from travel to hotspot states, and travelers visiting our commonwealth from hotspots.

 Lack of national coordination = states in the south and west not committing to prevention measures like social distancing.  Governor Tom Wolf (@GovernorTomWolf) July 23, 2020

Report: Masks may reduce severity of COVID-19 infections

Health experts have been hammering the importance of masks for months now. Its generally accepted that masks slow the spread of the coronavirus, which can happen even when a carrier shows no symptoms.

A mask cannot offer 100% protection to the wearer, but a recent report from the Los Angeles Times suggests that masks filter viral particles, which can reduce the severity of infection.

The report, which cites research and interviews with health experts, says breathing in a smaller amount of the virus could lead to a more mild illness. That could mean that even in places where cases are rising, wearing masks can keep those infections from becoming too severe. Further study is needed, however.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com.

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com.
As India's daily infections of coronavirus keep rising, the country is fighting a pandemic which is getting bigger by the day.

A vaccine, according to the World Health Organization, may not be coming until early 2021 despite good progress on the font. There is also, so far, no definitive cure for the virus, yet.

Madhya Pradesh Assembly Protem Speaker and Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) leader Rameshwar Sharma, however, feels that the end of the coronavirus pandemic will begin with the start of the construction work for Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

"He (Lord Ram) had reincarnated for the welfare of mankind and to kill demons at that time. As soon as the construction of Ram Temple begins the destruction of the COVID pandemic will begin too," said Sharma, reports ANI.

"Not only India, but the entire world is suffering due to coronavirus. We are not only maintaining social distancing but also remembering our holy figures. The Supreme Court has ordered that Ram Temple will be built," he further added.

The treasurer of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Tirtha Kshetra Trust, Swami Govind Dev Giri had said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone of Ram Temple on August 5.

He said that social-distancing norms would be ensured at the program, and not more than 200 people will be attending the ceremony.

"The Prime Minister will visit Hanuman Garhi, Ram Lalla Temple, plant a tree and later do the 'bhoomi pujan'," he told ANI.

Ram Mandir trust spokesperson Nritya Gopal Das said five silver bricks will be placed inside the sanctum sanctorum during the ceremony.

The bricks are believed to symbolise five planets as per the Hindu mythology, he said, adding that the design and the architecture of the temple is the same as the one proposed.

According to the trust sources, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat , Maharashtra Chief Minister Udhav Thackeray and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar are also on the list of invitees.

India so far has recorded 1.19 million coronavirus positive cases, and 28,732 deaths.
The National Media Commission (NMC) has described the directive by the Ministry of Communication to reduce the number of channels that the state broadcaster, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) and Crystal TV are operating on the National Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) platform as an usurpation of the Commissions power.



According to NMC, the directive given to the state broadcaster, GBC and Crystal TV is outside the Ministrys remits as the constitution mandates the Commission the fundamental function to to promote and ensure the freedom and independence of the media for mass communication or information and also insulate the state-owned media from governmental control.



Chairman of the NMC, Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafo in a statement dated July 22 emphasised that any development that seeks to deprive the media of its use of resources legally allocated to them compromises their capacity to serve the country.



Management of Crystal TV had earlier mounted a defence saying such a move will destroy jobs and exacerbate the unemployment challenges in the country.



The Commission has determined that the directive given to GBC and Crystal TV by the Minister for Communications purports to usurp the constitutional mandate and authority of the National Media Commission and same cannot be obliged under our current constitutional dispensation.



The NMC said the DTT platform is an essential part of broadcasting and should be treated as media to enable it to benefit from all the freedoms guaranteed the media by the 1992 Constitution.



This comes on the back of an emergency meeting held by the NMC to consider issues relating to the directives given by Communications Ministry to GBC and Crystal TV over their broadcasting channels on the DTT platform.



A letter signed by the Communications Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful on June 26, indicated the Ministrys intention to reduce the number of GBCs channels from six to three to ensure there is redundancy on the National DTT platform which is currently at full capacity.



The Commission also explained that its mandate to insulate the state-owned media, therefore, enjoins the Commission to protect the Board, Management and staff of GBC from political interference as well as safeguard and preserve the entirety of state-owned media facilities, assets and other resources from governmental control.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









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Federal prosecutors have charged a Chinese cancer researcher at the University of California, Davis, with lying about her ties to the Chinese military and Communist Party when seeking a visa to come to the U.S. The FBI believes she is evading arrest by staying at China's consulate in San Francisco.

The charges come amid worsening U.S.-China tensions and follows the State Department's decision Wednesday to close Chinas consulate in Houston.

Image: Tang Juan in military uniform.

Photos accompanying an affidavit for an arrest warrant recently unsealed by a federal judge show the researcher, Tang Juan, in military uniform prior to her move to the United States. Chinese officials did not immediately respond to news of the charges.

Federal prosecutors on Monday announced similar charges against Song Chen, a Stanford University researcher also accused of lying about his ties to the Chinese military.

Prosecutors allege that Tang  who was issued a visa in November and arrived at San Franciscos international airport on Dec. 27  answered no when asked if she had ever served in the military or been a member of the Communist Party. The affidavit presents evidence that Tang is in fact a member of Chinas ruling Communist Party and a member of the military.

It's estimated that there are close to 100 million Communist Party members in China.

Upon questioning by federal agents on June 20, the affidavit alleges that Tang denied having ever served in the military, but agents later found further photos resembling her in military uniform, as well as an application for state benefits where Tang listed her status as a Communist Party member. Following that questioning, the FBI believes Tang went to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco, where it says she remains.

The U.S. has repeatedly claimed that China is involved in stealing American intellectual property, including medical research. China denies the allegations.

State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said Wednesday that the U.S. had ordered the closing of the Chinese consulate in Houston to "protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information."

Story continues

On Tuesday, the Justice Department also announced an indictment charging two Chinese nationals  both in China  with hacking private companies, including those engaged in COVID-19 vaccine research.

Tensions between the two superpowers have been rising sharply in recent months over trade, Hong Kong, Chinas claims on the South China Sea as well as human rights abuses against Chinas ethnic Uighur population.

President Donald Trump has further angered Beijing by blaming the coronavirus pandemic on China and referring to COVID-19 as the "China virus" and "kung flu."
Southwest Airlines said that beginning July 27, all travelers must wear face coverings in order to fly. The only exception will be for children under the age of two.

"If a Customer is unable to wear a face covering or mask for any reason, Southwest regrets that we will be unable to transport the individual," the airline said in a statement. "In those cases, we hope the Customer will allow us to welcome them onboard in the future, if public health guidance, or other safety-related circumstances, regarding face coverings changes."

The policy is the strictest so far among U.S. airlines.

Two other carriers, United and Delta Air Lines, have made similar changes to face covering policies. However, unlike Southwest, United and Delta may still allow some travelers to fly without wearing a face covering. Passengers flying Delta would have to undergo a separate screening process that could take more than an hour, the airline said. On United, customers will be reminded of the policy and could be denied boarding if they refuse to comply. Those with special medical conditions should contact the airline prior to their flight.

As part of a revised policy announced Wednesday, United said face coverings also would be required in all areas of the more than 360 airports it serves.

There is no federal requirement that air travelers wear masks when they fly, so airlines have largely been left to craft their own policies. A growing number of states however, are now making masks mandatory. On Wednesday, governors in Ohio, Indiana and Minnesota made face coverings a requirement.

Southwest is taking other steps to reassure travelers in the midst of a pandemic. The airline said in early August, it will launch a pilot program at Dallas Love Field to screen passengers for elevated temperatures using thermal screening cameras. The pilot program would last from 30 to 90 days, airline officials said.

"Southwest always operates a multilayered approach to supporting the well-being of travelers and employees, which is especially important during the current covid-19 pandemic," said Scott Halfmann, vice president of safety and security. "We are pleased to partner with Dallas Love Field on this pilot project as thermal screenings could be an important, additional layer of precaution that Southwest can offer customers starting at the very beginning of their travel journey."

Even with the launch of that program, the airline said it was still hopeful that the Transportation Security Administration would take on the responsibility for conducting the screenings. Southwest is among several U.S. airlines that have called on the agency to do so, given that it already conducts security screenings. However, the agency has not committed to launching such a program, saying that it is not clear that it would be effective in identifying passengers who have covid-19.

Currently, Frontier Airlines is the only U.S. airline that does temperature screenings of all passengers before they board.
As Iraq deals with thousands of new infections every day, the Korean government sent two military planes to Iraq on Thursday to bring back more Koreans home.

The 297 Koreans will arrive at Incheon International Airport on Friday. One of them is the body of a Korean worker who died from the virus.

Some 105 Koreans already arrived back home last week from Iraq, and over 40 of them tested positive for coronavirus.

Before the Koreans board the aircraft, they are thoroughly tested and seated accordingly. On arrival, all of them will be tested again and be whisked off to a temporary quarantine facility.

But hundreds of essential workers are still in Iraq and unable to return, so the government plans to provide them with remote healthcare services.
The publicity department for the Grand Circuit has sent out its weekly recap and preview of racing on the Grand Circuit.

This Week: Spirit of Massachusetts and Clara Barton, Plainridge Racecourse, Plainville, Mass.; Nadia Lobell, Hoosier Park, Anderson, Ind.; Tompkins-Geers, Meadowlands Racetrack, East Rutherford, N.J. and Delvin Miller Adios eliminations, the Meadows, Washington, Pa.

Schedule of Events: Grand Circuit action begins this Friday (July 24) at Harrahs Hoosier Park with the $100,000 Nadia Lobell for three-year-old pacing fillies.

The Saturday (July 25) Grand Circuit card at the Meadowlands features the $89,100 Tompkins-Geers for three-year-old trotting colts and a pair of $42,700 divisions of the Tompkins-Geers for three-year-old trotting fillies.

Saturday Grand Circuit action also includes three $25,000 Delvin Miller Adios eliminations for three-year-old male pacers at the Meadows.

On Sunday (July 26), Plainridge will feature the $250,000 Spirit of Massachusetts for open trotters and the $100,000 Clara Barton for pacing mares.

Last Time: Tall Dark Stranger is a danger, especially with his back to the wall. Pushed to the max by old rival Papi Rob Hanover, Tall Dark Stranger battled back in deep stretch to win the $636,650 Meadowlands Pace by a neck on Saturday night (July 18) at the Meadowlands. To read a recap and watch a replay of the Meadowlands Pace, click here. For a complete recap of 2020 Meadowlands Pace Night, click here.

Grand Circuit Standings: In 2020, the Grand Circuit leaders in three categories (driver, trainer and owner) will once again be tracked on a points system (20-10-5 for the top three finishers in divisions/finals and 10-5-2 for the top three finishers in eliminations/legs). Winbak Farms is the sponsor for the 2020 Grand Circuit awards.

Here are the leaders following this past weekend:

Drivers: 1. Yannick Gingras  195; 2. Brian Sears  127; 3. Dexter Dunn  117; 4. Tim Tetrick  92; 5. Scott Zeron  87.

Trainers: 1. Ron Burke  195; 2. Nancy Takter  120; 3t. Marcus Melander  104; 3t. Ake Svanstedt  104; 5. Tony Alagna  50.

Owners: 1. Courant Inc.  45; 2. Burke Racing Stable  38.4; 3. Crawford Farms Racing  38; 4. S R F Stable  35; 5. Weaver Bruscemi  33.4.

Looking Ahead: Grand Circuit action will be taking place next week at the Meadows and Meadowlands Racetrack. The Meadows will host six Grand Circuit events, led by the final of the Delvin Miller Adios for three-year-old pacing colts. The Meadowlands Racetrack will host eliminations for four lucrative stakes, led by the Hambletonian for three-year-old colt trotters, as well as the Tompkins-Geers for three-year-old pacers and the fourth leg of the Miss Versatility for trotting mares.

(With files from the Grand Circuit)
Netflix has decided not to proceed with a new show by comedian and actor Chris D'Elia.

The streaming giant 'scrapped the show' after allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct by the 40-year-old came to light, a spokesperson told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday.

In June, D'Elia was the subject of multiple allegations of sexual harassment and grooming by women on social media, some of whom purported to be underage at the time.

Not laughing now: Netflix has decided not to proceed with a new show by comedian and actor Chris D'Elia. Seen here in 2018

The proposed show was to also star D'Elia's friend and fellow comic, Bryan Callen.

According to the LA Times' sources, 'the nonscripted series was to focus on the relationship between the two comics and their affinity for pulling high jinks.'

However production had yet to begin on the show when Netflix canned it.

D'Elia fell off the radar following the accusations of sexual misconduct, which he denies, having been dropped by his agents and shunned by former colleagues.

Collateral damage: The proposed show was to also star D'Elia's friend and fellow comic, Bryan Callen. Seen together in 2013

The controversy began when a woman by the name of Simone Rossi using the handle @girlpowertbh tweeted images that depicted a text chat between the pair six years ago.

She said via Twitter that she felt she was 'being groomed by a stand-up comedian' for sex and included screen shots of messages purported to be between them.

Rossi wrote: 'Imagine being 16 and being groomed by a stand up comedian twice ur age and the only reason you never met up and never got physically m*lested was because u had just gotten a boyfriend ur own age.'

Another user under the handle @michaelacoletta accused the comedian of '[soliciting] nudes off of [her] when [she] was 17 years old.'

Maintaining his innocence: He denied the allegations and called all his relationships 'legal and consensual', however, he added that he was 'truly sorry' for being 'a dumb guy who ABSOLUTELY let myself get caught up in my lifestyle'

He 'constantly messaged me whenever he was touring [Vancouver] and asked me to come backstage to his shows,' she wrote.

She subsequently added: 'I am so unsurprised that multiple girls are coming out with almost the exact story as mine. Its a known fact hes a f***ing perv and he plays those roles perfectly when acting lmao.'

Other stories continued to be posted across multiple accounts, and across Twitter, many pointed out the ironic notion that D'Elia was accused of creepy behavior after playing characters of a similar ilk, including that of twisted comedian Joshua 'Henderson' Bunter on the Netflix series You.

The following day D'Elia spoke out regarding the accusations and denied them in a lengthy statement maintaining that his sexual relationships had all been consensual.

Irony: In the height of the scandal, many social media users pointed out the ironic notion that D'Elia was accused of creepy behavior after playing characters of a similar ilk, including that of twisted comedian Joshua 'Henderson' Bunter on the Netflix series You

'I know I have said and done things that might have offended people during my career, but I have never knowingly pursued any underage women at any point,' he said.

'All of my relationships have been both legal and consensual and I have never met or exchanged any inappropriate photos with the people who have tweeted about me.'

He added: 'That being said, I really am truly sorry. I was a dumb guy who ABSOLUTELY let myself get caught up in my lifestyle. That's MY fault. I own it. I've been reflecting on this for some time now and I promise I will continue to do better.'

You star Penn Badgley stood told the Los Angeles Times' podcast last month that he didn't really 'know Chris' but that he was 'very troubled' by the accusations.

'It did affect me deeply,' You star Penn Badgley said of the allegations. 'I was very troubled by it. I am very troubled by it.' He added: 'I know that, if there's anything we need to do in this age, it's to believe women.'

'It did affect me deeply,' Penn said of the allegations. 'I was very troubled by it. I am very troubled by it.' He added: 'I know that, if there's anything we need to do in this age, it's to believe women.'

Following the accusations, Chris was dropped by his representation at CAA.

His former co-star Whitney Cummings also released a statement saying she was 'enraged' by what she had 'learned' about D'Elia.

'This is a pattern of predatory behavior. This abuse of power is enabled by silence. Now that I'm aware, I won't be silent.'
Five months after the Supreme Court ruled that Short Service Commissioned (SSC) women officers in the Indian Army are entitled to permanent commission (PC), the Defence Ministry on Thursday issued a formal sanction letter for granting PC to them, opening doors for women in a male-dominated force.

The order will pave the way for empowering women officers to shoulder larger roles in the organisation, an army spokesperson said. A selection board will assemble soon to pick women for PC.

The order specifies grant of PC to SSC women officers in 10 streams --- Army Air Defence (AAD), Signals, Engineers, Army Aviation, Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME), Army Service Corps (ASC), Army Ordnance Corps (AOC), and Intelligence Corps in addition to the existing streams of Judge and Advocate General (JAG) and Army Educational Corps (AEC).

In anticipation, the Army Headquarters had set in motion a series of preparatory actions for conduct of the Permanent Commission Selection Board for affected women officers, the army said in statement. The board will be scheduled as soon as the SSC women officers exercise their option and complete the requisite documentation.

It is wonderful to finally see this. I am elated, said senior counsel Aishwarya Bhati, who had appeared for petitioners in Supreme Court.

The army is committed to provide equal opportunities to all personnel including women officers to serve the country, the statement added.

As they say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The government needs to be lauded for this leap. The equity has been achieved, however, equality still remains a goal to strive for, said Wing Commander Anupama Joshi (retd), from the first batch of women officers commissioned into the IAF in the early 1990s. She said the army should allow women in combat roles too.

The SC on February 17 ruled that SSC women officers in the army are entitled to PC and they have to be considered irrespective of their service length.

The policy of the Centre in this regard to restrict PC to SSC women officers with less than 14 years of service was held to be violative of the Right to Equality by the apex court. It also held that there cannot be an absolute bar on women being considered for command appointments.

The judgement was delivered on a petition by the defence ministry challenging a 2010 judgment of the Delhi high court which had ruled that SSC women officers in the army and air force should be granted PC at par with male SSC officers.

The central government had issued a notification in this regard in February 2019 granting PC to SSC officers of the army. However, as per its proposal, only SSC women officers with up to 14 years of service were to be considered for PC.

The Centre got a one-month extension on July 7 to implement the SCs path-breaking decision to grant PC to women officers. Citing the Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown, the Centre moved an application before the apex court to extend the deadline by another six months.
Meghan Markle tried, but Queen Elizabeth proved the stronger between the two of them. She tried to engage the monarch in a war of words, but the Queen showed her that she is not the longest-reigning monarch for nothing.

According to one expert, Queen Elizabeth II was dragged into a Twitterstorm earlier this year out of Meghan Mrarkle and Prince Harry's doing, but she did not back down. She even won.

As shared by the royal expert, the Queen was aware that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were not happy with their respective roles and lives at the palace. But she never in her wildest dreams, thought that the two would dare leave their senior roles and move out of the country.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle dropped a bombshell statement on their Instagram claiming they would depart their senior roles back in January 2020. It was the start of a turbulent year of Queen Elizabeth. The new Channel 5 documentary, "The Queen: In Her Own Worlds," revealed that the Queen not only felt hurt, she also felt challenged, to show her wiles and what she's capable of.

The programme's narrator, Andrew Scarborough, said: "In 2020 she beat Harry and Meghan in a war of words and proved herself to be the Queen of social media."

Before she was able to do that, the Queen was quite taken aback by the two's behaviors. She did not understand why they would issue a sudden statement that the would be stepping back from their roles as senior royals and they needed certain terms to be observed when Megxit happened.

Naturally, #Megxit trended over the world, and suddenly, the Queen is in a middle of a "Twitterstorm" where she cannot just keep mum and go about her ways. Contrary to some reports, royal editor Ingrid Seward claimed that the statement was a "complete surprise" to the Queen.

"She knew that they weren't happy, she knew that they were in talks with her advisers but she had no idea they were going to put out their own statement," Seward revealed. The Queen was even trying her best to make Meghan Markle at ease, some reports said.

But what was a queen got to do? Braved it and win it, regally, of course. According to Scarborough, even though the Queen was caught off guard, she managed to put out a brief and concise tweet and the take control over the situation that was starting to get out of hand.

Charles Crawfod added that the very short statement was quite impactful. It was business-like, which was what the situation called for.

It can be recalled that Queen Elizabeth said that she recognizes the challenges Prince Harry and Meghan Markle experienced as they were heavily scrutinized since they got married. She also acknowledges that the two's wish for a more independent life is valid. She did not malign the two at all.

Instead, she even thanked them for "all their dedicated work across this country." She even praised Meghan Markle, saying she's proud of her for quickly becoming one of the Royal family. She then wishes them to have a happy and peaceful new chapter.
On the shopping list: Light tanks, anti-tank guided missiles, UAVs, assault rifles, fighter aircraft.

Ajai Shukla reports.

IMAGE: Indian troops in Ladakh. Photograph: ANI Photo.

With the ministry of defence clearing the emergency import of arms and equipment to help the military deal with Chinese aggression in eastern Ladakh, the Make In India and Atmanirbhar programmes would be one of the quiet casualties of that crisis.

The planned import of several categories of weapons -- specifically light tanks, Israeli Spike LR anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), Israeli Heron unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), US-made SIG Sauer assault rifles and MiG-29 fighter aircraft -- will undercut Indian programmes to develop indigenous alternatives.

Light tanks

A key overseas procurement the MoD has initiated is for light tanks.

The army needs these key battlefield weapons to be small enough to be transported in aircraft; light and manoeuvrable enough to traverse narrow, twisty mountain roads and engineered to operate in sub-zero temperatures at extremely high altitudes. User trials would be required to identify the most suitable tank.

The procurement of light tanks has been initiated after surveillance satellites detected large numbers of Type 15 tanks of the People's Liberation Army on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control.

The Type 15, also called the ZTPQ, is not strictly a light tank since it weighs close to 33 tonnes, while light tanks traditionally weigh up to about 25 tonnes.

In fact, the T-72 tanks that equip an Indian armoured brigade in Ladakh weigh about 42 tonnes -- only slightly heavier and less agile than the PLA's Type 15.

The army has long pitched for an indigenous light tank to equip an armoured brigade raised to defend Sikkim.

The Defence R&D Organisation says its armoured fighting vehicle laboratory -- the Combat Vehicle R&D Establishment, which developed the 66-tonne Arjun tank -- can quickly deliver an indigenous 25-tonne light tank for use across India's mountain borders and in jungle terrain.

Indian armoured regiments have a unique history of taking light tanks into battle at altitudes of over 14,000 feet.

In 1948, the tank regiment, 7th Light Cavalry, took its French AMX-13 tanks into battle at Zojila Pass between Kashmir and Ladakh.

In 1962, the 8th Light Cavalry also took AMX-13 tanks to the Nathu La pass in Sikkim though they were not involved in actual battle.

Anti-tank guided missiles

Sources also say the MoD has green-lighted the purchase of an unspecified number of man-portable Spike ATGMs that can destroy enemy tanks at ranges up to 4 kilometres.

Expressing regret at this decision, senior DRDO officials say the indigenous project to develop a man-portable ATGM -- officially called the MPATGM project -- is "very successful" and that the missile has successfully completed five rounds of trials. Further trials are scheduled for later this month.

"If the services are going to buy overseas, it is unfortunate. We are in an advanced stage of development and are offering them the missile," says the DRDO official.

The MoD backed the DRDO in February 2018 when it told Parliament that it had cancelled plans to build the Spike missile in India 'on account of indigenous development of third-generation MPATGM system by DRDO'.

Last year, announcing the 'third series of successful testing of MPATGM', the MoD stated: 'The test paves the way for the army to have developed third-generation MPATGM indigenously.';

Fighter aircraft

On July 2, the MoD approved the procurement of 21 MiG-29 fighters and the upgrade of 59 existing MiG-29s in the Indian Air Force's fleet for Rs 7,418 crore (Rs 74.18 billion), and the production of 12 Sukhoi-30MKI fighters in Hindustan Aeronautics for an estimated Rs 10,730 crore (Rs 107.30 billion).

Officials at DRDO and HAL say that rather than buying old MiG-29s, the MoD should have allocated funds for ramping up production of the indigenous Tejas Mark 1 and Mark 1A fighters, which are entering service too slowly.

However, DRDO has scored a major indigenisation success through the IAF's order for an estimated 250 indigenous Astra air-to-air missiles. This order will inevitably increase as the Astra is progressively integrated into other IAF fighters.

Assault rifles

An earlier 'fast track' order for 72,400 SIG Sauer assault rifles for Indian infantry battalions has been boosted with another similar order for the US-made weapons. The first order is currently being discharged.

Meanwhile, there is slow progress on the project to build 700,000 AK-203 assault rifles in India in a joint venture between Russian rifle maker Kalashnikov and India's Ordnance Factory Board.

The project was to come on stream in 2020, but is being delayed partly due to COVID-19 travel restrictions

With the Indian Army requiring close to one million rifles, there is space for an indigenous weapon too.

However, the INSAS 1C, which has been designed and built by DRDO, has not yet cleared the army's stringent 'user trials'.

Heron UAVs

The need for long-endurance surveillance capability that has been underlined in the ongoing onfrontation in Ladakh has led the MoD to clear the acquisition of Heron high-altitude long endurance drones which will supplement the existing fleet of Herons.

DRDO's indigenous UAV, the Rustom-2, is still under development and has not yet entered user-evaluation trials.
Weather Alert

.An arctic cold front will move across the region on Wednesday, causing rain to change to snow Wednesday afternoon and evening. ...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM CST THURSDAY... * WHAT...Mixed precipitation expected. Total snow accumulations of one inch with localized higher amounts and ice accumulations of a light glaze. * WHERE...Portions of southwest Indiana, western Kentucky and southern Illinois. * WHEN...From 4 PM Wednesday to 6 AM CST Thursday. * IMPACTS...Plan on slippery road conditions. The hazardous conditions could impact the evening commute, especially along the Ohio River. The transition from rain to a wintry mix and snow may not occur closer to the Tennessee border areas until this evening. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS...The combination of gusty winds, falling temperatures and wind chills, and falling snow will cause hazardous travel. Freezing of residual moisture on roads from rain earlier Wednesday could also cause icing of roads and walkways. Black ice issues could linger through the early morning hours. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Slow down and use caution while traveling. &&
The second-quarter earnings wont, however, settle the debate about whether demand for Tesla cars is starting to tail off in important markets. While Musk says this isnt a problem, the company has been cutting prices in North America and China. His explanation is that the cheaper the cars are, the more people will buy them. So long as the company remains slightly profitable and avoids going bankrupt  in his words  then he sounds happy to sacrifice a bit of profit margin to drive growth.
The government faces a fracturing of the detente it has built with unions as it pushes for businesses to be allowed to change staff hours, duties and work sites without paying them JobKeeper.

Industrial relations reforms will be "first cab off the rank" as the Morrison government grapples with the economic aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic and tries to create jobs, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Thursday.

ACTU president Michelle O'Neil. Credit:Eamon Gallagher

The government's plan to extend workplace flexibility for businesses that no longer qualify for the JobKeeper scheme because their revenue has recovered triggered a warning shot from the unions, which are in talks with the government and businesses on broad industrial reform.

"Targeted changes for businesses which have seen enough of a downturn to be eligible for JobKeeper is one thing," said Australian Council of Trade Union movement's president Michele O'Neil.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 08:24:22|Editor: huaxia

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Passengers wearing face masks get on a Go train at Union Station in Toronto, Canada, on July 21, 2020. Starting Tuesday, Go Transit customers are required to wear masks or face coverings. (Photo by Zou Zheng/Xinhua)

"We need all hands-on deck if we are to rebuild our economies sustainably and inclusively."



UNITED NATIONS, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Senior UN officials, Nobel laureates and eminent academic experts gathered virtually on Wednesday for the launching of a new UN report and reached a consensus that new approaches must be taken while the world is grappling with the worst recession in decades due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Titled Recover Better: Economic and Social Challenges and Opportunities, the report analyzed economic trends critical to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and recovery from COVID-19.

Liu Zhenmin, UN Undersecretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, speaks at the session of "Frontier Technology and Sustainable Development" during the Boao Forum for Asia annual conference in Boao, south China's Hainan Province, March 29, 2019. (Xinhua/Guo Cheng)

PARALLEL THREATS

"Parallel threats linked to health, economic and social crises have crippled countries and left us at a standstill," said Liu Zhenmin, UN Undersecretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, as he presented the new report by the High-Level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs.

Among the recommendations that the report proposes is a greater focus on the environment, he said, as well as promotion of research and development, investment in infrastructure and education, and improvement in economic equality.

"Overcoming the crisis and getting back on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals will require a strengthened multilateralism," he said, adding that COVID-19 has laid bare how much leadership, foresight and collaboration among all governments and stakeholders, matter.

In a video message, UN deputy chief Amina Mohammed said as many as 100 million people are expected to be pushed back into extreme poverty in 2020, the first rise in global poverty since 1998.

"We need all hands-on deck if we are to rebuild our economies sustainably and inclusively," she said.

Noting that the report calls for better international tax cooperation and more equitable access to digital technologies, she said the sustainable management of natural resources, and value-added approaches to trading goods, will also be critical.

The 2030 Agenda remains the agreed framework for recovering in ways that accelerate progress on climate change, poverty and gender inequality, and address the fragilities exposed or exacerbated by the pandemic. "We must all do more," she added.

Alicia Barcena, executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), speaks at the presentation of a report in Santiago, Chile, April 21, 2020. (ECLAC/Handout via Xinhua)

EQUALITY, STRUCTURAL REFORM

During two policy dialogues held at the launching event, 12 experts wrestled with whether the world is currently in a recession and if so, what it will take to recover in ways that can thoroughly reform underlying vulnerabilities.

"There is no trade-off between economic efficiency and equality," said Alicia Barcena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), who contributed a chapter on the topic.

During a panel on the theme, "Ensuring a sustainable recovery through more inclusive and strengthened multilateralism," Barcena underscored the urgent need for structural change.

Between 2000 and 2010, 60 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean moved out of poverty. Now, 45 million risk being pulled back in.

"The market is not going to equalize society. We need a new social and political compact altogether," she said, pointing out that Costa Rica, Uruguay and Cuba - societies that have high trust in government - have fared better during the pandemic than others.

She also called for a progressive tax system, as countries in the region have a 23 percent tax burden, lower than those in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), as well as more regional integration. "The post-pandemic world is going to be a world of regions, a world of blocs."

Ricardo Lagos, former President of Chile, suggested the creation of an internationally binding agreement on pandemics, forged under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Along similar lines, Marcel Fratzscher of research institute DIW Berlin, said that on July 21, European countries agreed to establish a 750 billion euros (850 billion U.S. dollars) recovery fund, transferring resources from stronger to weaker countries with the goal of rebuilding Europe.

"There is an institutional framework being put into place that could ultimately lead to fiscal union help strengthen capital market union," he said.

Nobel Prize-winning American economist Joseph Stiglitz speaks at a panel discussion, part of the China Institute 2018 Executive Summit, "U.S.-China Business in the New World Order," in New York, the United States, on April 12, 2018. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

ECONOMIC WOES

Others drew attention to the significant drop in global trade, which Merit Janow, Dean of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, said was occurring in the context of growing nationalism, geopolitical tensions and strain around multilateral institutions - all of which underscores the vulnerability of global supply chains.

The first priority should be to keep the global trading system open, she said. Practical, problem-solving approaches will be needed, which countries might undertake regionally or through "coalitions of the willing."

Broadly speaking, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said that at a moment when more global cooperation is badly needed, strong forces are fraying the global economy.

He said the deeper problem is that supply chains have not been resilient and instead made countries more vulnerable.

Stiglitz said the global economic downturn will be the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s - and in many dimensions, worse than that seismic failure of the global system. "We should use the massive amount of government intervention in countries ... to create a new world that is more in accordance with our views of what our societies should be."

Countries that have done well, he said, have high trust in government, high social solidarity, an understanding of the externalities associated with disease spread, and trust in science, he added. 
Providing Professional Grade Apparel for Sailing's Greatest Round-the-World Challenge

OSLO, Norway, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Helly Hansen, a global leader in technical sailing apparel, announced its partnership with The Ocean Race, sailing's toughest team challenge. With over 140 years of knowledge, experience and expertise in developing performance-driven apparel, the Norwegian-based brand is trusted by professionals around the world and will be the Official Clothing Supplier to The Ocean Race.

Often described as the longest and toughest professional sporting event in the world, The Ocean Race has been testing the sport's top sailors across the world's toughest waters since 1973. It is relentless - with teams giving everything they have, 24 hours a day, in pursuit of winning the hardest professional competition of their career. As a global leader in technical sailing apparel, Helly Hansen has developed lasting partnerships with the sport's top athletes and has been an official apparel sponsor for teams in The Ocean Race since the initial event nearly 50 years ago.

While deeply committed to competition and adventure, The Ocean Race is equally dedicated to advocating for ocean protection and the restoration of ocean health. As a brand founded in Norway and its surrounding seas, Helly Hansen's heritage, experience and passion are deep-rooted in water, and the company shares the Race's commitment to protecting the world's ocean.

"Since 1973, The Ocean Race has been demanding the best of everyone who participates," said Richard Brisius, Race Chairman. "As sailors we not only love to promote the highest levels of competition on the ocean, but we are also working to promote and implement solutions towards restoring ocean health. In Helly Hansen, we have a partner who is equally dedicated to performance and to being a leader in contributing to a healthier ocean."

"No other sailing race in the world is as challenging and rigorous as The Ocean Race, attracting the sport's top professionals who are pushed to their limits in extraordinary conditions," said Paul Stoneham, CEO, Helly Hansen. "Helly Hansen is committed to working closely with professionals to develop gear that they can trust no matter what conditions they face. We are honored to collaborate with The Ocean Race, a partner who also holds sustainability as a true core value, in restoring ocean health."

In 1981, the Race welcomed its first all-Norwegian team, sporting Helly Hansen as their official team gear, featuring the classic flag stripe design still used in today's collections. In the decades to follow, The Ocean Race continued to drive innovation in the sport while Helly Hansen continued to deliver cutting-edge, performance-driven technologies and designs, including outfitting the winning Ericsson team in the 2008-09 edition of the race.

As new high-performance racing boats used in subsequent editions raised the bar for technical sailing gear, demanding apparel that could withstand the increased speed and pressure, Helly Hansen delivered jackets with improved HELLY TECH waterproof, breathable fabric and stow-away facemasks for added protection. In the 2014-15 edition, the brand outfitted the all-women's Team SCA, featuring innovative, gender-specific designs that are still used across existing collections.

Today, Helly Hansen's gir offshore collection is the direct result of having worked closely with The Ocean Race teams through the years. Last refined with the MAPFRE team in the 2017-18 race, the gir line is the culmination of 5 generations of design improvements, using the sailors' feedback to create and develop gear they can trust to withstand even the harshest environments.

The Ocean Race takes competitors on a 38,000-mile competition around the world, touching six continents while visiting ten host cities. The next edition of the Race will feature two classes of boats with the addition of the high-tech, foiling IMOCA 60 class alongside the one-design VO65 fleet.

The Race will start from its home port in Alicante, Spain in the autumn of 2022 and finish in Genoa, Italy in the summer of 2023. Host cities include - Cape Town, South Africa; Shenzhen, China; Auckland, New Zealand; Itajai, Brazil; Newport, RI, USA; Aarhus, Denmark and The Hague in The Netherlands as well as Cabo Verde, which will be the first West African stop in the history of the Race.

To stay updated on the partnership between Helly Hansen and The Ocean Race, visit hellyhansen.com and theoceanrace.com.

About Helly Hansen

Founded in Norway in 1877, Helly Hansen continues to develop professional grade apparel that helps people stay and feel alive. Through insights drawn from living and working in the world's harshest environments, the company has developed a long list of first-to-market innovations, including the first supple waterproof fabrics more than 140 years ago. Other breakthroughs include the first fleece fabrics in the 1960s, the first technical base layers in the 1970s, made with Lifa Stay Dry Technology, and today's award winning and patented H2Flow temperature regulating system.

Helly Hansen is a leader in technical sailing and performance ski apparel, as well as premium workwear. Its ski uniforms are worn and trusted by more than 55,000 professionals and can be found on Olympians, National Teams, and at more than 200 ski resorts and mountain guiding operations around the world.

Helly Hansen's outerwear, base layers, sportswear and footwear are sold in more than 40 countries and trusted by outdoor professionals and enthusiasts around the world. To learn more about Helly Hansen's latest collections, visit www.hellyhansen.com .

About The Ocean Race

Since 1973, The Ocean Race has provided the ultimate test of a team and a human adventure like no other. Over four decades it has kept an almost mythical hold over some of the greatest sailors and been the proving ground for the legends of our sport.

The last edition of the race was the closest in history, with three teams virtually tied, approaching the finish line. After 126 days of racing spread across 11 legs, the winning margin for Charles Caudrelier's Dongfeng Race Team was only 16 minutes. The top three teams were separated by just four points.

The next edition of The Ocean Race will start from Alicante, Spain in the autumn of 2022 and will finish in Genoa, Italy in the summer of 2023.

Sustainability in The Ocean Race

We have a proven commitment to sustainability, and with the support and collaboration of 11th Hour Racing, Founding Partner of the Race Sustainability Programme and Premier Partner of The Ocean Race, we are inspiring action and creating tangible outcomes.

Building upon our award-winning legacy in sustainability, our innovative Racing With Purpose programme is acting as a catalyst for positive change and accelerating the application of innovative solutions to help restore ocean health.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1218437/Helly_Hansen_MAPFRE.jpg
Al Jazeera senior producer Drew Ambrose leaves police headquarters in Kuala Lumpur after being questioned over a news documentary aired by the Qatar-based broadcaster about Malaysias detentions of undocumented migrants, July 10, 2020.

Malaysias communications minister caused an uproar Thursday by saying that anyone shooting footage in the country for publication on social media or traditional news platforms would be required to obtain a permit.

As journalists and press advocates pushed back and Malaysians joked online that the regulation would make everyone in the country a criminal, Minister Saifuddin Abdullah clarified that the government had no plan to restrict freedom on social media.

[The] Communications and Multimedia Ministry is evaluating all the laws under its supervision. I would like to stress that the PN [Perikatan Nasional] government has never and has no intention to use the act to restrict ones freedom on social media, a platform that did not exist when the act was made, he said in a statement, referring to the National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (FINAS) Act of 1981.

Because of that we at the ministry are open to accept any ideas to improve not just the act debated on Thursday morning but also all laws under the ministrys purview to suit the current needs, he said.

Earlier in the day, while responding to a question in parliament, Saifuddin had said media agencies or anyone shooting and disseminating footage via social media were required under the FINAS law to obtain a permit first.

Film producers must apply for a film production license as well as shooting permit regardless, whether they are mainstream media agencies or personal media that publish film on social media platforms or traditional channels, the minister said, citing the 1981 law.

The government encourages everyone, young or old, individuals or organizations to produce any form of films, as I mentioned just now, as long as it follows the law, Saifuddin said.



He said this after Wong Shu Qi, an opposition MP, asked him whether media agencies or anyone filming video for dissemination on social media or traditional channels would be required to obtain a permit from the film development agency (FINAS), which falls under Saifuddins ministry.

The discussion on the parliamentary floor stemmed from a statement issued by FINAS on Monday, in which the agency said the Al Jazeera network had failed to apply for a permit to shoot a news documentary about Malaysias crackdown on undocumented migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 25-minute documentary by the Qatar-based network angered Malaysian authorities, who branded it as full of baseless accusations. Soon after, police summoned production crew-members for questioning on July 10 as part of an investigation into a case of potential sedition and defamation.

In its statement on July 20, the film agency said it found that Al Jazeera did not have a film production license and had not applied for a certification letter for the documentary filming purposes. The agency added it would cooperate with police in a probe into whether Al Jazeera had shot its documentary without a valid license from FINAS.

Later in the day, Wong panned the ministers response to her on the parliamentary floor, and described them as a move to apply the FINAS law to the Al Jazeera case in order to silence dissidents or media agencies.

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim echoed her comments, saying the law regulating filmmaking was being used against critics of Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassins government, which came to power unelected in early March.

Clearly the government wants everyone, be it politicians or social media users, to be actionable upon the breach of any content that is not in line with the views of the government, Anwar said in a statement.

Reporters, media groups respond

On Wednesday, Al Jazeera, in responding to the statement by the Malaysian film agency, asserted that it was not bound by the FINAS law to obtain a permit to shoot its news documentary.

Unable to contest the integrity of our journalism, we believe the authorities are now attempting this new gambit of claiming we did not have a proper license, Giles Trendle, the managing director of Al Jazeeras English channel, said in a statement. We do not believe this is a credible line of argument.

Jahabar Sadi, the CEO and editor The Malaysian Insight, a news portal, agreed that news agencies were not bound by the act regulating the making of films in the country.

I dont agree that news falls under FINAS. The FINAS Act is clear that it covers the development of the film or movie industry, not news or broadcast which is under the Communications and Multimedia Act, he told BenarNews.

I also don't agree that documentaries made by news agencies is a separate category from news, and thus falls under the FINAS act, he added.

Meanwhile a Malaysian media advocacy group, GERAMM, called on Minister Saifuddin to clarify his comments to parliament, in particular those about media agencies being required to apply to FINAS for licenses to film.

The day before, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Malaysia (FCCM) also voiced concern as it responded to the statement by FINAS about the Al Jazeera case.

We are unaware of any requirement to obtain permission from FINAS for a news video production. Whether it is termed a documentary or otherwise, such material broadcast on news channels have not previously needed any clearance from FINAS, be they for foreign or local news agencies, the press club said.

Various news documentaries have been produced by and aired on television channels both local  including state media  and foreign, without this issue ever cropping up before, FCCM said. That the matter has now escalated into criminal investigations is alarming given the wide swathe of news workers that have made video productions in the past.

Noah Lee in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.
Two persons died due to COVID-19 infection in on Wednesday, taking the death toll to 66, while 972 fresh cases were reported in the state, Minister for Health and Family Welfare Himanta Biswa Sarma said.

The state's infection tally stands at 27,744, he said.

Two patients, aged 54 and 47 years, from Jorhat and Kamrup Metro, respectively, died on Wednesday.

"Two more patients lost the battle against #COVID19 today taking total death count in to 66. My thoughts and prayers are with their families, the minister tweeted.

Out of the 972 new COVID19 positive cases reported in Assam, 354 cases were recorded from Kamrup Metropolitan and 51 from Jorhat district.

The number of recovered patients on Wednesday was higher than that of the number of new cases in the state, with 1,317 patients discharged from different hospitals.

"1,317 patients have been discharged today, one of the rare days when recovered number is higher than new cases. Our recovery rate continues to give us hope, Sarma tweeted.

The total cases in the state reached 27,744, and out of these, 8,325 are active cases, 19,350 have recovered, 66 have died and three migrated out of the state, he said.

In Assam, 982 police personnel have tested positive so far and out of them, three died, 662 have recovered and 90 have rejoined duty, Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) G P Singh said.

Meanwhile, inter-district movement of people barred from Wednesday will be lifted for two days on July 30 and 31, except in containment zones, subject to the strict compliance of COVID-19 regulations as detailed in various guidelines issued by the state government, according to an order issued by Chief Secretary Kumar Sanjay Krishna.

Night curfew across the state and weekend lockdown in town and municipality areas will continue to remain in force.

The health minister also inaugurated two new testing laboratories at the State Cancer Institute of Gauhati Medical College and at Dr B Barooah Cancer Institute with the number of laboratories going up to 15 in the state.

"Going ahead, our testing readiness and network of laboratories will determine our ability to contain a pandemic, Sarma tweeted.

The state has so far tested nearly seven lakh swab samples.

He also held a video conference with doctors of all medical colleges and district hospitals.

"Our very impressive #COVID19 recovery demonstrates resolve and dedication of our healthcare staff. Their response has been sterling, the minister 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.)
By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck near the Alaskan peninsula late Tuesday, shaking buildings, but there were no immediate reports of injuries and the U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center canceled an earlier warning of potentially hazardous waves.

In Kodiak, the largest community in the earthquake area on an island south of Anchorage, some residents posted video on social media of people walking up to the high school, which was serving as a shelter, and of sirens sounding alarms.

The quake struck off the coast, 65 miles (105 km) south-south east of Perryville, Alaska, at a depth of 17.4 miles (28 km), according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

The Tsunami Warning Center issued a warning for the coastal areas of south Alaska, the Alaskan Peninsula and Aleutian Islands, but about two hours later, just after midnight, it canceled the warning.

Early evidence suggests that the quake, which was felt 500 miles (805 km) away in Anchorage, the state's largest city, struck the "Shumagin Gap" between the Pacific and North American tectonic plates, state seismologist Mike West said. Because the area was previously unruptured, it is in theory overdue for a very big earthquake, he said in a statement.

Jeremy Zidek, spokesman for the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said emergency officials were trying to contact people in all the affected communities.

The closest is Sand Point, a town of about 1,000 on another island off the tip of the Alaskan Peninsula. Sand Point has been evacuated and sounded its emergency sirens, Zidek said.

"I believe that there's some damage from the shaking, but they have not been able to confirm that," he said, adding that he had heard no reports of serious injuries.

Other towns had sounded their alarms and started evacuations, he said. It was unclear what damage may have occurred.

In Homer, a Kenai Peninsula town of about 5,800 people, residents in low-lying areas were told to use the city's high school as a shelter, according to local public radio there.

(Reporting by Rama Venkat and Radhika Anilumar in Bengaluru and Yereth Rosen in Alaska; Editing by Alex Richardson and Leslie Adler)
Marysville, CA (95901)

Today

Mostly sunny. High 62F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

A few passing clouds, otherwise generally clear. Low 38F. Winds light and variable.
Editors note: This story has been updated to reflect that the school district has changed the name of the A2 All Access program to A2 Student Link.

ANN ARBOR, MI  When classes resume for Ann Arbor Public Schools at the end of August, they will be fully virtual.

Leaders of Michigans fourth-largest school district laid out a plan for a remote-learning start to the 2020-21 academic year during a virtual meeting Wednesday night, July 22.

With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing, school officials dont yet feel comfortable with in-person classes and say having the districts 18,500 students learning from home will be safer.

I dont know if we have any other choice, AAPS Trustee Rebecca Lazarus said. I mean, if were putting student safety at the forefront, virtual, virtual, virtual is what we have to do until we can get this under control.

Its unclear when in-person classes may resume, but it depends on COVID-19 infection rates, officials said.

Heres what virtual classes in Ann Arbor could look like for 2020-21 school year

The districts administration presented its 2020-21 Reimagine Learning Plan to the school board during a Zoom study session.

It awaits formal adoption at next weeks board meeting, but trustees had no objections Wednesday night, giving the districts administration the OK to start communicating the virtual plan to parents and students.

Dawn Linden, assistant superintendent for instruction and student support services, explained three different enrollment options the district plans to offer.

That includes programs called A2 Student Link, A2 Classroom Connect and A2 Virtual+ Academy.

Three 2020-21 enrollment options for Ann Arbor Public Schools students outlined in the district's Reimagine Learning Plan.AAPS

A2 Student Link, available to all AAPS students, would allow students to attend classroom-paced online courses with teachers and students from across the district. Its designed to be fully online all year, so even as schools proceed through phases of reopening eventually, learning through the program would remain virtual.

A2 Classroom Connect, also available to all AAPS students, would allow students to attend online classes with teachers and peers from their neighborhood school. It would start out fully online, but as schools proceed through phases of reopening, students would have the choice to continue participating virtually or attend blended, in-person classes with specified schedules.

A2 Virtual+ Academy, available for grades 6-12, would allow students to sign up for individualized courses and complete assignments at their own pace, with a teacher offering feedback and office hours.

AAPS plans to provide all students with devices such as an iPad or Chromebook to participate in the virtual courses and help with internet service as needed.

The district is approaching the Reimagine Learning Plan through a lens of social justice and anti-racism, with access to learning, emotional wellbeing, student engagement, rigor/relevance and connection in mind, Linden said.

The pandemic has highlighted how important schools are, particularly for students in poverty, and risks of being at home longterm include food insecurity, abuse and neglect, isolation, mental health issues, reduced physical activity and dropping out of school, district officials said.

District officials also said theyre staying mindful of potential negative impacts of extensive screen time for students and the plan is to give them breaks throughout the day.

Jenna Bacolor, AAPS Community Division executive director, explained the challenges with reopening schools from a health standpoint. She noted coronavirus cases had ticked down in June, but then ticked back up.

COVID-19 cases among Washtenaw County residents.Washtenaw County Health Department

The district needs to see sustained decreases over time to feel comfortable letting staff and students back into classrooms, Bacolor said, suggesting its possible that could still happen this fall.

Youths 17 and under represent 4% of COVID-19 cases in Washtenaw County so far, but schools have been closed since the outbreak started and testing is limited, Bacolor said.

She noted there was a party in Saline that recently caused another outbreak where a majority of the dozens of people infected were ages 15 to 25.

Noting daily confirmed cases locally have ticked down again  between 10 and 27 in recent days  Bacolor said she hopes the downward trend continues and numbers remain low for several weeks, and then schools could potentially reopen. With current infection rates, theres still a medium to high risk, she said.

Michigan districts are meeting students where they are as schools adapt to remote learning

Bacolor walked through a hypothetical scenario of what could happen if there are in-person classes and a teacher has COVID-19. The incubation period can range from two to 14 days, but is typically five days, she said.

In the hypothetical example, a teacher wakes up on day 14 feeling ill, goes to the doctor, gets tested, stays home, and on day 17 receives a positive test result and alerts the district, Bacolor said. In that scenario, the teacher already had close conversations with colleagues and taught a class of 25 students multiple days while infected, Bacolor said.

And we have essentially missed the window of opportunity to get to those close contacts and tell them to quarantine, so this is something that we are fighting against when we do reopen schools, she said.

The district will take steps to mitigate risks when schools reopen, including requiring masks, following social distancing protocols and encouraging frequent hand washing or sanitizing, Bacolor said.

District officials plan to present more information about other safety protocols, including screening and physical modifications at schools, next week.

We are mitigating risk in a situation where some of the larger national systems have failed, so now we are trying to do what we can in our setting when around us sometimes things are on fire, Bacolor said.

Each of us has a critical role to play in preventing the spread of COVID-19, she added. If all of us are doing the protocols, we can get back to school in person faster.

Theres mixed international evidence of whether returning to school creates more outbreaks, Bacolor said, suggesting the district should avoid doing apples-to-apples comparisons between the U.S. and other countries schools systems because factors such as government policies, culture of cooperation, availability of rapid testing, school size, climate and students ability to spend time outside can differ greatly.

AAPS will be watching what happens when University of Michigan students from all 50 states and 39 countries begin returning to campus in late August, and it will take several weeks to determine what impact that has on COVID-19 levels in the community, Bacolor said.

University of Michigan will offer in-person classes for fall semester

Whats needed here and what other countries have, Bacolor said, is free, widely available, rapid testing, so people can get same-day COVID-19 test results, allowing immediate isolation, quicker contact tracing and better containment of the virus.

Right now, Bacolor said, there are limited testing options and turnaround time for results, unless someone goes to a hospital, can be a few days up to a couple weeks.

Another issue were having in Michigan is that the infected person may not cooperate with contact tracers, she said.

While there is no available vaccine for COVID-19, Bacolor said flu is also a concern and everyone should get flu shots.

Its recommended for children to get flu vaccine, she said. We had a lot of cases of flu in our school district last year. It would just rip through a classroom. It doesnt need to be that way. Children can get flu shots or they can get FluMist.

Trustee Jessica Kelly said she appreciated Bacolor laying out the complexity of the challenges the district faces.

Theres a narrative out there that says, Well, if you take temperatures before people walk in the building in the morning and you wear masks, itll be fine, and its not that  simple, she said.

Kelly said she hears concerns about mental health from isolation and knows people are suffering, and some families without at-home caregivers are urgently wishing for in-person schooling, but going back to what we thought school was is not an option right now.

A sniffle means you now have to take your child to a place where they have an unpleasant test performed and then you have them at home for however many days its going to take for that testing turnaround, and then the whole class perhaps is at home awaiting news if exposed, Kelly said.

And so its not as simple as it used to be, thinking about school being child care.

MORE FROM THE ANN ARBOR NEWS:

Ann Arbor teachers on a return to in-person classes: We do not feel safe

AAPS announces new start date, what instruction might look like for 2020-21

$15.6-million budget deficit for Ann Arbor schools to be made up through attrition, fund balance

New platform to streamline distance learning being considered by Ann Arbor schools
Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty said Wednesday she didnt believe protesters in Portland are setting fires but that police are sending in saboteurs to create the strife  an unsubstantiated claim that drew immediate pushback from police and then an apology from her hours later.

She also made a not-so-oblique reference to Mayor Ted Wheeler, referencing ignorance at the highest levels in our city government as she participated in a national briefing sponsored by a left-leaning think tank based in Portland.

Hardesty spoke amid growing frustration in the city for the aggressive tactics of federal officers who have been firing tear gas, impact munitions and striking demonstrators with batons as larger crowds have descended this month outside the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse demanding that the federal officers leave town. Federal officers in camouflage fatigues also whisked away at least two people from Portland streets last week in unmarked vans for questioning.

Hardesty said she believes federal officers are targeting sanctuary cities.

I asked the mayor, Who do you think theyre grabbing off the street? Well, ah, ah, she said, attempting to mimic Wheeler stammering in response to her question.

And he says, Well, a sanctuary city just means we dont work with ICE. And I said, well, who do you think the border patrol works with?' So we have an ignorance at the highest levels in our city government, she said. People who just assume that if the police say it happened, it really happened.

Hardestys comments came three days after she issued a statement via Twitter, telling Wheeler that if he couldnt control the Police Bureau, he should allow her to replace him as police commissioner. Wheeler responded that he planned to continue in the position during this period of transformation.

He couldnt be reached for immediate comment on Hardestys latest broadside.

Her remarks were made during a video conference Emergency National Briefing, sponsored by the Portland-based Western States Center. She spoke after Oregons U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley.

Emergency National Briefing The Trump administration has unleashed extreme, armed federal security forces in an effort to silence our voices. Rise up. Watch live as we discuss how we will defend democracy together. #WeDefendDemocracy #UnitedWithRoseCity Posted by Western States Center on Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Hardesty, who has been the leading voice for police reform on the City Council, blamed police for creating strife on the citys streets by sending in provocateurs.

I want people to know that I do not believe theres any protesters in Portland that are setting fires, that are creating crisis. I absolutely believe its police action, and theyre sending saboteurs and provocateurs into peaceful crowds so they justify their inhumane treatment of people who are standing up for their rights.

She didnt offer any information to back up her allegations.

Officer Daryl Turner, president of the Portland rank-and-file police union, quickly responded: Really? Really? That is the most ridiculous thing Ive ever heard.

With statements like this, it has become completely clear that Commissioner Hardesty is part of the problem in Portland, Turner said in a statement. Every one of the many videos we have seen confirms that small groups of rioters are starting the fires and trying to burn down buildings. Even a quick search of Twitter shows rioters setting the fires and boldly claiming responsibility.

Video images on May 29 caught people breaking windows of the Multnomah County Justice Center in downtown Portland and throwing flares and setting a fire in a sheriffs records office there and more recently setting fires outside the federal courthouse next door.

Two weeks earlier, Portland city officials recorded 144 fires set by people in the city since demonstrations began after the death of George Floyd on May 25 while a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes. The fires were recorded by the Portland Fire & Rescue Bureau, which Hardesty oversees as fire commissioner, from May 29 through the morning of July 2, attributed to the civil unrest.

By Wednesday evening, Hardesty issued a statement apologizing, but referenced similar statements on fires she made to another publication, Marie Claire, not the remarks she issued during the national briefing carried live on Facebook.

Today I let my emotions get the most of me during council and the comment I made to the press. But Im angry , frustrated, and horrified by what has happened these past 50 days. Im angry that even as a City Commissioner, I am coming up against countless barriers from protecting protecting Portlanders from the deluge of tear gas, pepper spray and other munitions on a nightly basis.

She said she drew from her experience as a child of the civil rights movement that people have been sent to infiltrate these spaces to create incidents that justify enhanced police actions...I appreciate the reminder that as a public servant I need to be careful making statements out of misinformation, and I take this to heart.

In one of the latest cases involving an attempted fire, a 21-year-old man named Joseph James Ybarra appeared in federal court Wednesday afternoon, accused by federal prosecutors of attempted arson for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail at the front of the federal courthouse about 3:15 a.m. Wednesday.

According to a federal affidavit, video surveillance caught two men lighting a white wick that appeared to stick out of a glass bottle in the pre-dawn hours outside the courthouse.

One in a black sweatshirt, white shorts and carrying a bag, later identified as Ybarra, moved some of the fencing that was used to barricade an exposed opening to the courthouse, while the other person lit the wick of bottle and threw it at the courthouse, according to the affidavit.

Federal offices say Joseph James Ybarra, wearing dark clothing, attempted to throw a lit Molotov cocktail at the courthouse about 3:15 am.. Wed., July 22, 2020.

The device appeared to fall to the ground and Ybarra picked it up and threw it twice more, wrote Nathan Miller, an agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in the federal affidavit. It didnt explode, Miller said.

Ybarra, who said he lived in a tent in Southeast Portland, confirmed he was the person in video surveillance holding the device and told a federal officer he did it because he thought it was cool, the agent wrote in the affidavit. Ybarra remains in custody.

Turner, who represents rank-and-file officers, detectives and sergeants for the Portland Police Association, said he has invited elected officials to stand at the front lines with police officers during protests, but no City Council member has taken him up on it.

Politicians bent on power, perpetuating misinformation and untruths, are just as guilty of using their privilege to hijack this movement as the rioters who are committing violent acts, burning, and looting, he said.

Western States Center, which tracks extremist groups, hosted what it a video-based national briefing on the Trump Administrations misuse of armed federal agents in Portland and beyond.

Joining Hardesty and U.S. Sen. Merkley, D-Ore., were a New York State assemblywoman, the president of the Southern Poverty Law Center and Eric K. Ward, the director of Western States Center. The center this week filed a federal suit against federal law enforcement, seeking to restrict their tactics on the citys streets.

Hardestys statements about sanctuary cities arose partly in response to remarks made the day before by Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad F. Wolf, who said he was concerned about Portland city officials lack of cooperation and willingness to assist federal enforcement, stemming from the time City Hall restricted Portland police from helping federal immigration officers deal with a growing encampment outside their Portland field office in 2018.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian

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Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
A few months ago, she was a homemaker raising two kids and living in the shadow of her husband, an outspoken vlogger with presidential ambitions who was crisscrossing Belarus railing against President Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Today, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya is running for president herself in place of her husband, Syarhey Tsikhanouski, who is in jail on charges that he and supporters say were meant to silence him and quash his bid to unseat the 65-year-old Lukashenka, in power since 1994.

The accidental candidate now finds herself at the forefront of a fresh female political wave that a growing number of Belarusians hope can bring in a democratic tide to the Eastern European country of some 9.5 million.

Political novice Tsikhanouskaya, 38, has teamed up with two other women who led the campaign drives of two would-be challengers who were barred from the ballot in the August 9 election on what they contend were spurious grounds.

On July 19, Tsikhanouskaya spoke before thousands of people at rallies in Minsk and a nearby suburb, flanked by Veranika Tsapkala, who headed the campaign of husband Valer, a former ambassador to Washington and founder of Minsk's High Tech Park, and Maryya Kalesnikava, who led the stymied campaign of Viktar Babaryka, former board chairman at Russian-owned Belgazprombank.

Tsapkala and Babaryka were widely deemed the most serious challengers to Lukashenka. On top of having his bid rejected, Babaryka is now in jail facing embezzlement charges that he and supporters dismiss as politically motivated. The authorities have seized control of Belgazprombank.

Bringing New Hope

Despite dominating all echelons of power, Lukashenka is now facing what looks like the greatest challenge to his more-than-quarter-century rule. Trust in the authoritarian president has taken a blow after he downplayed the coronavirus pandemic as nothing more than a "psychosis" that could be warded off with vodka, a tractor ride, or a visit to a sauna. With infections spiraling upward, the economy nosedived, with the World Bank predicting a 4 percent contraction this year.

Belarusians have mockingly branded Lukashenka "Sasha 3 percent," a stinging reference to his reported low opinion-poll ratings. Before his jailing, Tsikhanouski was leading rallies of Belarusians, many armed with slippers to squash Lukashenka, whom he called a "cockroach." His YouTube channel exposing graft and corruption, A Country For Living, has more than 200,000 subscribers.

Amid growing public disillusionment, Tsikhanouskaya's joining forces with Tsapkala and Kalesnikava not only signaled women's rising role in Belarusian politics, but offered fresh hope, said Artyom Shraibman, a Belarusian journalist and commentator.

"It's a very important, symbolic step because it gives the supporters of these candidates, and, in principle, the protesting electorate, some kind of positive signal after the wave of repression, which left many disillusioned. Now a certain enthusiasm, drive, positiveness, a constructive agenda has returned," Shraibman told Current Time on July 16.

Family, Sexual Threats

With two female candidates on the August 9 presidential ballot and many other women involved, Lukashenka has taken the tack of castigating women instead of courting them. He has suggested they aren't fit for the top political job and has proposed that army service -- largely an all-boys club in Belarus -- be mandatory for any future president.

Besides badmouthing them, Lukashenka has used more sinister methods to dissuade woman from joining the rising opposition political movement in Belarus.

The authorities are targeting women with gender-specific reprisals, including threats to take their children into state custody and threats of sexual violence, according to Amnesty International.

"Insatiable in their intention to silence their political opponents and any form of dissent, the Belarusian authorities are wheeling out practices that smack of misogyny. They are deliberately targeting women involved in politics or female family members of political activists, including with open discrimination and threats of sexual violence," said Marie Struthers, Amnesty International's Eastern Europe and Central Asia director.

Tsikhanouskaya herself has sent her children abroad to an undisclosed location in the European Union after receiving threats they would be taken away unless she quit the race, Natallya Radzina, editor in chief of Charter 97, an opposition website, said on July 20. "We brought the kids out because they genuinely threatened her. They threatened to arrest her and take away her kids," Radzina said in a video posted on YouTube.

The Belarusian news website Tut.by quoted Tsikhanouskaya as saying her 4-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son were in a "safe place."

Her improbable campaign run began on June 19, when the Central Election Commission approved her initiative group's bid to collect signatures to get on the ballot. That came four days after the same commission rejected her husband's petition as he sat in jail, arrested on a charge of holding unsanctioned rallies with supporters. It came amid a wave of arbitrary arrests of over 120 peaceful protesters, as Human Rights Watch reported.

Tsikhanouskaya was initially hesitant about running, releasing a video in June in which, fighting back tears, she said she had received an anonymous phone call threatening that her children would be taken away unless she abandoned her campaign.

Overall, some 1,140 people have been arbitrarily detained by the police during the election campaign, according to estimates from the Belarusian human rights NGO Vyasna (Spring).

Lukashenka has compared the protesters to criminal gangs and accused outsiders, including Russia, Poland, and the West, of stirring up trouble, while vowing there would be no repeat in Belarus of the 2014 Euromaidan uprising in Ukraine, where a Moscow-friendly president was driven from power by massive protests.

Uniting The Opposition

Tsikhanouskaya told Current Time, a Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA, that her new alliance with Kalesnikava and Tsapkala had given her both confidence and energy.

"During the entire campaign, there have been moments when I wanted to give up, because it was morally very difficult, very hard physically. I think that I would try hard, but I could not be sure I wouldn't give up under certain conditions. Now, of course, I've got the support of my colleagues. And I hope with their support, with their help I will carry on. That we will persevere to victory."

Tsapkala said she and Kalesnikava can offer Tsikhanouskaya the political expertise they have honed. "Expertise and resources, because we...have fully formed [campaign] headquarters. We have a team of people who are ready to work together to achieve one goal. That is why we have united," Tsapkala said in her comments on July 17, adding that they also had legal teams that can help Tsikhanouskaya's campaign.

Kalesnikava said women were stepping forward despite continuing efforts to Lukashenka to hold them back. "In Belarus 55 percent of voters are women  more than half. That means that our voice should be heard. In this way, they are trying to exclude us from the political process," Kalesnikava told Current Time.

Minsk-based political analyst Valer Karbalevich said that uniting campaigns may prove easier than uniting electorates. "This is where I see a specific problem, because the supporters of Svyatlana and Syarhey Tsikhanouski and the supporters of Viktar Babaryka and Valer Tsapkala are very different," Karbalevich told Current Time.

Tsikhanouskaya has said that if elected she would order a rerun vote, including all the barred candidates. "This would be a rational decision that supporters of Babaryka and Tsapkala would support," Karbalevich said, and the call for an "honest" revote was one of the five points in a joint statement from the campaigns of Tsikhanouskaya, Babaryka, and Tsapkala on July 16.

Can A Woman Take The Lead?

Belarusian writer and journalist Yulia Charnyauskaya sees Tsikhanouskaya, along with Kalesnikava and Tsapkala, as part of a new generation of Belarusian women.

In the past, women "were always forced to function according to men's rules because political scenarios didn't consider women; they had a fairly skewed structure," Charnyauskaya told RFE/RL's Belarus Service. But these women have now "been able to achieve something that men couldn't -- even those with the most noble of intentions."

Nina Stuzhynskaya, a Belarusian women's rights activist, said women taking a leading role in politics in Belarus was long overdue. "I think Belarusian society has long been ripe for a woman in a leadership role," she said, adding that while "women have thus far been in secondary roles...they've done a lot to ensure that politics has a strong female component -- then and now," Stuzhynskaya told RFE/RL. "The appearance of these women in the public arena is a beautiful thing; it's encouraging and optimistic."

Tsikhanouskaya is not the only female candidate in the race. Hanna Kanapatskaya, who was an opposition member in parliament from 2016 to 2019, is also on the ballot. Despite her opposition bona fides, many analysts have dismissed her as a spoiler candidate.

Karbalevich believes that Lukashenka allowed Tsikhanouskaya into the presidential race because he calculated that she did not pose a threat. "Lukashenka doesn't view her as a rival, doesn't see any danger in her," the analyst said. "He thinks that if Belarusians are forced to choose between voting for a housewife or...for a wiser, more experienced politician, then even those who are skeptical of him will...vote for him."

He may have miscalculated, according Alesia Rudnik, a Belarusian analyst based in Sweden, who said that Tsikhanouskaya could pose a threat because Lukashenka's plummeting public support makes him vulnerable.

"A significant number of Belarusians are pretty much ready to vote for anyone but Lukashenka," Rudnik said in e-mailed comments to RFE/RL.

Written by Tony Wesolowsky based on reporting by Anna Sous of RFE/RLs Belarus Service and Irina Romaliiskaya and Roman Vasyukovich of Current Time
Photo: Wikimedia

Ive been frowning at red licence plates for weeks.

This would likely be true at the beginning of any summer season as Albertan vehicles crowd suddenly congested highways, beach parking spots and campsites. Glowering at Alberta licence plates seems to be a favourite seasonal pastime among Okanagan residents.

And I have to admit, despite coming from the land of red plates myself, Im scowling, too.

This year, we might have good reason to scowl. While British Columbia might have started with a significant outbreak of COVID-19 cases, it is Alberta that has been the black sheep of Western provinces.

As British Columbias numbers of new infections continued to steady or decline, Alberta continued to report multiple exposures in care homes in Calgary, multiple meat processing plants in southern Alberta, and, most recently, a significant outbreak at a hospital in Edmonton.

Despite similar populations, Albertas infection numbers are more than double B.C.s.

It has been easy to feel a little smug about those numbers, especially if you live in the interior of British Columbia. For weeks, we sat at a comfortable one to two active cases across the entire region, exact location of infections unknown.

Those paltry numbers, and the wide region they existed within, were just enough to feel that our communities were once again safe. Safe enough for us to regain some security in seeing our friends again, sitting down on a sunny restaurant patio again, and beginning to return to a normal life.

In those weeks, (if we were talking about it at all) we were talking about the virus elsewhere. Either in the future (the dreaded phase 2), or the problem over there.

For those in Vancouver or the Lower Mainland

For those in Alberta

For those in Ontario and Quebec.

For those in the United States.

All of that was shattered recently when it was revealed that a number of private Canada Day parties had resulted in new and spreading outbreaks within my home city of Kelowna.

Suddenly, the problem over there came here. Future problems became present. Someone elses problem became ours. And when six of the eight people first identified as infected turned out to be non-Okanagan residents (including those from the Lower Mainland and Alberta), we knew exactly who to scowl at.

But thats not entirely correct, is it?

Our current outbreak is not due entirely to foreign, malicious forces descending on our sleepy, COVID-free town and region, is it? Careless intruders that come to our region, spread their virus and leave?

Certainly, much has been said about the conditions where these outbreaks occurred: large groups of people indoors, mixed groups of friends and strangers, people moving between tables in restaurants.

Inadequate physical distancing and mask use. But these conditions existed elsewhere on Canada Day, and on plenty of days before and since.

It continues even now.



We shouldnt be surprised that outsiders would be a focus of this outbreak (or any outbreak). Our freedom, our security and our health is once again threatened, and that fear and anger has to go somewhere.

Thats how blame works. It always gives us only part of the picture. Our local businesses, restaurants, hotels and tourism rely on revenue from outside our region.

We may sneer at sudden influx in tourists, but we also need them. And are we faultless in the spread of these infections? Mask use in enclosed spaces still remains surprisingly low.

Physical distancing and small social bubbles are still being ignored. Why? Perhaps because we have believed it a problem over there." Someone elses problem.

A great illustration of this idea is our view of the current spread of the Coronavirus in the United States. Like so many of us, I have been watching the explosive spread with a detached and morbid fascination.

As I write this, Florida is surpassing more than 11,000 new cases a day. Texas is not far behind that. Yesterday  at least yesterday as I write this  the United States added more than 71,000 new cases (and that number will certainly be out-dated by the time you read these words.

These numbers should terrify me. They do terrify me. But too often I look at them as if they are happening to some far away, disconnected place. As if I didnt live two hours away from Washington State. As if the Canada-U.S. border would never reopen.

One Twitter user, @ericonederful, suggested that The rest of the world is watching America like America watched Tiger King, but I prefer @stevieoakleys take: I bet Canada feels like they live in the Apartment above a Meth Lab right about now."

The truth is, whether we are talking about the exponential rise of cases in the United States, or local outbreaks in the lower mainland, Calgary, or Edmonton, we are all far too interconnected for us to think of this as a problem over there." To think of this as someone elses problem.

I understand the function of compartmentalizing our threats, I really do. Its hard to live in the shadow of an ever present threat. But thinking of this virus as someone elses problem, or a problem for over there is both lazy and dangerous.

We are more intelligent than that.

At best, we have always been a short drive, a planes landing, a private indoor party away from a new outbreak in our region. It doesnt mean we need to attempt to cut all ties and live in fearful isolation. But it does mean that we need to live with a constant awareness of the fragility of our communitys health.

One of the many lessons this pandemic is teaching us is that there is no such thing as a disconnected world. Even with many restrictions and recommendations in place, we are still in partnership with so many.

For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, we are all connected. These may not have been the vows we have taken with people we have never met, living provinces, states, or countries away, but it is no less true.

The problem can never really be just over there." Someone elses problem.

It is our problem now.

Really, it always was.
The unemployment rate in Canada fell to 12.3% in June 2020 from the record-setting 13.7% in May. According to Statistics Canada, nearly one million jobs, or 952,900 jobs to be exact, were added to the economy. The country is starting to rebuild as more provinces are gradually reopening following the havoc brought by COVID-19.

The resurgence in job numbers equates to about 40% of the 3 million workforces lost in March and April this year. Moreover, the number of people who work less than 50% of usual hours was down to 26.96% versus 34.3% in the preceding month. Despite the encouraging better-than-expected figures, the labour sector still needs to recover 1.8 million more jobs.

Gloom not cheers

Economists are warning of an arduous recovery. The pandemic effect could be long-lasting such that you might be counting years before things return to the old normal. Canada is facing the challenge of a lifetime. The Trudeau administration is projecting the federal deficit to hit $343.2 billion in the 2020 fiscal year.

Canadas borrowing activity is extraordinary such that national debt could exceed $1.2 trillion by the end of the year or $765 billion more than in the previous 2019 fiscal year. Also, tax revenue will decline by $71.1 billion, including a $40.8-billion loss in income taxes.

Suggested investment

According to Brett House, deputy chief economist at Bank of Nova Scotia (TSX:BNS)(NYSE:BNS) or Scotiabank, almost all of the job gains in June were in payroll jobs and the private sector. The services-related sectors, led by retailers and food businesses, contributed the highest increase, with 794,400 jobs.

Canadians with funds and appetite to invest can consider Scotiabank. This blue-chip asset is among the reliable income-providers regardless of the market environment. The share price of $56.58 is relatively cheaper today due to the recent market sell-off. However, the dividend yield is a high 6.31%.

Unfailing safety net

Retirees with $50,000 worth of Scotiabank shares earn a quarterly income of $788.75. Would-be investors with long-term financial goals will see the same amount of investment grow to $170,001.35 in 20 years. This bank stock has been paying dividends since 1832.

Story continues

Scotiabank continues to fortify its presence in the Americas, from the home country to Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and the U.S. In 2020, Scotiabank was named the Best Bank in Chile and received Latin Americas Best Bank Transformation award. Scotiabank is also the sixth-largest stock holding of the Canada Pension Plan on the TSX.

Deep hole

Although the employment jump in June is good news, Canada remains in a deep hole. The recovery speed will not be as fast since the road ahead is bumpy. Finance Minister Bill Morneau admits the country was overwhelmed by COVID-19.

However, Morneau believes the current fiscal situation is an opportunity to rebuild and reshape the economy. He said, We faced an enormous shock to our system. Its hard to know where we will be in a month, two months, or six months. A month-by-month improvement in the situation is possible if Canadians work together.

The post 1 Million Jobs Return  But Canada Is Still in Hot Water appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

More reading

Fool contributor Christopher Liew has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA.

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
Thousands of Australians have pleaded to stay in Bali without risking huge fines after their tourist visas expire.

Thousands of tourists sheltered on the Indonesian island during the coronavirus lockdown, and were last month given until August 9 to leave.

Travellers were issued emergency visas in March but Indonesian officials are now removing these to prepare for domestic travel and potential international arrivals in September.

The free automatic Emergency Stay Permits have already expired and tourists who fail to leave by early August will face a hefty fee.

More than 1,000 Australian travellers have pleaded for their tourist visas to be extended in Bali (pictured, Canggu beach on Wednesday) after they were told to leave by August 9

The Indonesian Government granted Emergency Stay Permits during the coronavirus lockdown in March but these have now expired (pictured, security at Bali airport on July 17)

Tourists in Bali (pictured on Canggu beach on Wednesday) will be charged $100 for each day they overstay their visa

Indonesia's normal rules are now in force again, including a $100 per day overstay fee that must be paid in cash on departure.

Immigration processes are also restarting and applications for residency extensions can be processed, but there is no extension path for the tourist visas.

Liam Hayes, an Australian citizen who runs a broking business in Bali, said it was time for tourists 'to go home'.

'If you are here on a residency or retirement visa it shouldn't affect you. But those on tourist visas have a problem,' he told the Financial Review.

There are an estimated 10,000 Australians who remained in Indonesia during the lockdown, made up of 7,000 expatriates and 3,000 tourists.

Thousands of Australians have called on the Indonesian government to change the rules and signed a petition to allow visa renewals without leaving the country.

'There are an estimated 7,000 foreigners currently in Bali who are supporting the local economy by spending money on villa rentals, homestays, hotels, local restaurant and many other local businesses.'

Businesses have called for the tourist visa to be extended as they appreciate the continued support that has been provided by travellers (pictured on Canggu beach on Wednesday)

Thousands of travellers (pictured, a couple on Canggu beach on June 26) have signed a petition calling for the Indonesian Government to allow them to stay in Bali

'Asking foreigners to fly home increases the risk of death from COVID-19 for both Indonesian citizens and foreigners.

'We would like Indonesia to allow foreigners to stay for the long term,' the change.org petition read.

Tourists could fly to an international destination and pick up a new visa on their return to Bali, but flights are scarce and most neighbouring countries remain in lockdown.

It is understood the central government in Jakarta is considering granting the exemption and extending tourist visas.

Thousands of Australian travellers could remain stranded as Indonesia's Garuda are the only airline currently flying directly between Australia and Indonesia.

The carrier is only operating one weekly service from Bali and one from Jakarta.

Bali is home to around 3,000 Australian expats (pictured, a couple hugging on Canggu beach on June 26)

A surfer (pictured) walking into the waves at Canggu beach in Bali on June 15 as tourists beg to stay on the island

One tourist expert advising Bali Governor Wayan Koster said local businesses appreciated the support from tourists.

'Many expats were sent money from their families to pay for accommodation. The hotels were not full of course but at least they had some income.

'This is why many believe the new immigration regulations are not wise,' Mr Rai said.

Indonesia has recorded a total of 91,751 coronavirus cases and 4,459 deaths, far more than Australia's 133 deaths.

The Australian Consulate-General in Bali, Anthea Griffin, has urged Australians who need urgent assistance to call the Consular Emergency Centre in Canberra on +61 2 6261 3305.

The Consulate-General's website says her office is only accepting essential appointments due to the coronavirus pandemic and some services may be limited.

Just as Bali is reopening after a three-month virus lockdown, tourists on emergency visas must leave (pictured, a couple on Canggu beach on June 15)

Normally over 1 million Australians will visit Bali (Canggu beach pictured) every year

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said the network of embassies and consulates in Indonesia was providing consular support as required.

'Australians impacted by Indonesias recent visa decision should contact Indonesian immigration authorities to resolve their individual circumstances.

'The Australian Embassy in Jakarta remains in contact with Indonesian officials on this matter.

'We encourage all Australians seeking to return home to remain in regular contact with their airlines or travel agents to confirm their arrangements,' the spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia.

Bali is a favourite Australian travel destination with more than 1 million holiday-makers travelling to the Indonesian island's palm-fringed beaches each year.

It has also become synonymous with tourists behaving disrespectfully.

In August, Bali's Governor Wayan Koster warned that tourists could be kicked off the island if they misbehaved after an influencer couple were filming splashing each other with holy water at a temple.

'In the future, if there are tourists behaving like that we should just send them home, they are being disorderly coming to Bali. We will give them this warning,' he told reporters.
Government's inability to complete the processing of emergency travel certificates for the deportation of illegal Ghanaian migrants in the United States of America to the country is as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Foreign Affairs Minister, Hon Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey



Responding to a question on the floor of Parliament on Wednesday, the sector Minister for Foreign Affairs indicated that 125 deportees were safely evacuated from the USA as part of arrangements that led to the lifting of the visa ban imposed on Ghana in 2019 before coronavirus.



However, 22 people are currently going through interviews, awaiting deportation when Covid-19 travel restrictions are lifted in pursuit of the agreement.



A total of five meeting sections were held between May and December 2019. Till the lifting of the sanctions on January 15, 2020.



During the period of sanction, 125 Ghanaians who had been ordered to be removed from the US were deported. Currently, interviews for persons cited for deportation are ongoing an agreed by the two sides.



However, in the wake of Covid-19 the issuance of emergency travel certificates to facilitate their removal has been deferred until boarders are reopened, she stated.



Madam Botchway further pledged her outfit together with the US embassy are following all the international protocols to evacuate the remaining deportees.



It is important to state that whenever there was a need for specific intervention on humanitarian ground, be it, health or family, it was done by engaging the relevant US authority.





Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
James Argent was spotted at Heathrow Airport on Wednesday jetting off to Marbella, Spain.

It comes amid claims that his ex Gemma Collins cancelled an event in Spain following reports that he was flying out to win her back.

James, 32, cut a casual figure in a pair of navy blue shorts and a lighter coloured short-sleeved shirt.

Spotted: James Argent was spotted at Heathrow Airport on Wednesday jetting off to Marbella, Spain

The TOWIE star took cautious measures amid the Covid-19 pandemic as he wore a white mask, which covered his mouth and nose, and a pair of black designer sunglasses.

James finished his look with a Gucci clutch bag, red sliders and a black wheelie suitcase.

The star's appearance comes amid claims his ex Gemma cancelled an event in Spain after learning of his plans to fly there in an attempt to win her back.

The TOWIE stars hit headlines last week, after Arg, 32, was exposed for branding Gemma, 39, a 'hippo' and 'fat f**k' over text message during an explosive row.

Casual: James, 32, cut a casual figure in a pair of navy blue shorts and a lighter coloured short-sleeved shirt

Claims: It comes amid claims that his ex Gemma Collins cancelled an event in Spain following reports that he was flying out to win her back (pictured in 2018)

And The Sun is now reporting that Arg informed friends of his plans to jet over to Marbella, where she'd been on the books to appear at Elliot Wright's bar as a part of Diva Night on Thursday, prompting Gemma to call off her plans.

According to the publication, Gemma initially employed the services of a security guard for fear of her off-again boyfriend of causing a scene at the venue, before learning of his plans to ask for another chance.

Meanwhile, a source told The Daily Star: 'The two have not spoken since they split for good after his awful texts.

Cautious: The TOWIE star took cautious measures amid the Covid-19 pandemic as he wore a white mask, which covered his mouth and nose, and a pair of black designer sunglasses

Finishing touches: James finished his look with a Gucci clutch bag, red sliders and a black wheelie suitcase

Claims: The star's appearance comes amid claims his ex Gemma cancelled an event in Spain after learning of his plans to fly there in an attempt to win her back

Cruel: The TOWIE stars hit headlines last week, after Arg, 32, was exposed for branding Gemma, 39, a 'hippo' and 'fat f**k' over text message during an explosive row

'He is always desperate to keep the fire burning so is going to try and win her back by surprising her in Marbella. But it sounds like it may all end in tears, yet again.'

Gemma, who holidayed in Tenerife just last week, blamed travel restrictions for her cancellation, when she took to Instagram to share the news on Wednesday.

She wrote: 'Guys I am so sorry but due to the latest expected travel advice I am so gutted to not be able to host the evening.

Explosive row: The Sun is reporting that Arg informed friends of his plans to jet over to Marbella, where she'd been on the books to appear at Elliot Wright's bar as a part of Diva Night on Thursday, prompting Gemma to call off her plans

'I have imminent filming commitments and have been advised by health and safety that it would be best to stay in the UK for now I have to also think about protecting the filming teams upon my return.

'I was so excited for this night and I was really looking forward to having a good boogie and a drink !! And to see the lovely Elliott and Sadie. We're living in strange times and I have been advised today that I am unable to travel...

'Please do go if you are in Spain and enjoy yourself, Elliott and Sadie are making sure everyone's safety is a priority and the restaurant is following the guidelines it's a fabulous place to be.

'The food is amazing and the cocktails too. I defo would still head down to the evening as it will still be AMAZING and defo should not be missed !!!! I will be there in true DIVA spirit.' [sic]

Hours before cancelling her trip, Gemma shared footage of herself looking upbeat as she received help while packing her bags for the getaway.

Announcement: Gemma, who holidayed in Tenerife just last week, blamed travel restrictions for her cancellation, when she took to Instagram to share the news on Wednesday

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Gemma Collins and James Argent for comment.

After returning to the UK from her Tenerife getaway, Gemma apologised to her former beau for releasing the messages.

In a screenshot obtained by MailOnline, the Diva On Lockdown star contacted her fellow reality star in the early hours of the morning.

She wrote: 'I am sorry about putting the messages up, I was just so hurt you suggested an open relationship, it didn't look like a joke when you typed it.

'I was so upset but I shouldn't have put the messages up, that was anger on my part which was wrong. I am so sorry about that x.' (sic)

'I am sorry about that': In a screenshot obtained by MailOnline, the Diva On Lockdown star contacted her fellow reality star in the early hours of the morning to apologise for sharing the texts

The GC has originally posted the fierce row that led to her breaking up with her on-off beau on social media.

In the texts, the musician called his partner a 'hippo' and a 'fat f**k', after she suggested that he had bought another woman dinner and not her.

The series of texts began with Gemma saying: 'What man pays for another woman!!!', while Arg responded by saying: 'Insensitive.'

Clearly riled, the blonde said: 'And the woman that saved your life has to pay for herself!!!'

Her next message was masked, but her now-ex responded: 'You are supposed to be treating me you hippo.'

Moments later, Gemma uploaded another series of messages, where he sent her a plane emoji in reply to a picture of flight details.

'I'll take a mate, I'm not booking it. You said you would be a gentleman!', she penned, before he shockingly said: 'YOU FAT F**K. IVE JUST LOST ANOTHER 2000' (sic). He didn't refer to what he had lost 2000 of.

The self-proclaimed diva has decided to take some time off social media, citing that she was 'devastated' and 'heartbroken' by the exchange.

It was reported on Monday that Gemma had decided to split with Arg after he told her he wanted to move to Spain and have an open relationship.

An insider told The Sun: 'Arg went to Spain and he told Gemma that he wants to go back there forever and be in an open relationship.

Revealed: Last week, the GC posted the fierce row that led to her breaking up with on-off beau James, in which he called her a 'fat f***' and a 'hippo'

'Gemma feels like she's done everything she possibly can to help Arg but enough is enough. He said that he wants to stay in Spain for good which is worrying as he is known to have suffered relapses there in the past.

'Gemma was devastated by the conversation and decided to end their relationship entirely - she feels like she had no choice but to walk away.

'It couldn't have ended any worse; she has been in floods of tears and has even blocked Arg on social media.'

The Essex native also uploaded a cryptic post about the 'Top 10 Signs of Emotional Abuse In A Relationship' and 'finding the strength to walk away' earlier in the week.

Hurtful: Moments later, the heartbroken star shared another series of messages

She wrote: 'To all who have suffered in lock down or are suffering in general. please please find your strength to walk away.

'There is a better life for you filled with love and respect and always remember the problem isn't within you it's within them.

'Walk away it's never too late. something will happen one day and you will just say enough is enough. It's in that moment the nightmare is over. this is when you find your strength and this is when you will learn self love.' (sic)

Arg, who has shed five stone following rehab, recently admitted he is a cocaine addict and overdosed twice last year before hitting rock bottom over Christmas and calling his friend and former co-star Mark Wright for help.

He checked himself into a 10-week bootcamp at The River rehab facility in Thailand earlier this year where he kicked his habit, and now attends an outpatient facility near his Essex home regularly.

The Sugar Free Farm star still intends to lose another three stone and is already feeling 'so much better in myself'.

The couple reconciled late last year after jetting off on holiday to Dubai in a final bid to resolve their issues.

Gemma originally dumped Arg after he refused rehab and said their relationship was over until he beat his addiction once and for all.

Making a statement? The Celebs Go Dating star uploaded a cryptic post about the 'Top 10 Signs of Emotional Abuse In A Relationship' and 'finding the strength to walk away'

But less than three weeks later, MailOnline exclusively revealed the reality TV pair were spotted holding hands and kissing on a romantic trip to the 250-a-night Palazzo Versace Hotel.

The duo briefly dated in 2012, before embarking on a tumultuous love story from December 2017.

It's not the first time Arg has sent hurtful messages to a girlfriend, with the reality star previously confessing during an episode of TOWIE that he had sent cruel emails to his former girlfriend Lydia Bright.

The pair had dated on and off for years until 2012, before they decided to give things another try in April 2015. Arg sent the emails to Lydia in 2016, calling the blonde 'a butters sl*t'.
Piraeus, Greece, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GasLog Ltd. ("GasLog") (NYSE: GLOG) and GasLog Partners LP ("GasLog Partners" or the "Partnership") (NYSE: GLOP) today announced that their financial results for the second quarter of 2020 will be released before the market opens on Wednesday, August 5, 2020.



GasLog and GasLog Partners will host a joint conference call to discuss their results for the second quarter of 2020 at 8.30 a.m. EDT (3.30 p.m. EEST) on Wednesday, August 5, 2020. Senior management of GasLog and GasLog Partners will review the operational and financial performance of both companies. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session.

The dial-in numbers for the conference call are as follows:

+1 855 253 8928 (USA)

+44 20 3107 0289 (United Kingdom)

+33 1 70 80 71 53 (France)

+852 5819 4851 (Hong Kong)

+47 2396 4173 (Oslo)

Conference ID: 1796557

A live webcast of the conference call will be available on the Investor Relations page of both the GasLog (http://www.gaslogltd.com/investors) and GasLog Partners (http://www.gaslogmlp.com/investors) websites.

For those unable to participate in the conference call, a replay of the webcast will be available on the Investor Relations pages of the companies websites as referenced above.

Contacts:

Joseph Nelson

Head of Investor Relations

Phone: +1 212-223-0643

Email: ir@gaslogltd.com

About GasLog

GasLog is an international owner, operator and manager of LNG carriers providing support to international energy companies as part of their LNG logistics chain. GasLogs consolidated fleet consists of 35 LNG carriers. Of these vessels, 19 (15 on the water and four on order) are owned by GasLog, one has been sold to a subsidiary of Mitsui Co. Ltd. and leased back by GasLog under a long-term bareboat charter and the remaining 15 LNG carriers are owned by the Companys subsidiary, GasLog Partners LP. GasLog's principal executive offices are at 69 Akti Miaouli, 18537 Piraeus, Greece. Visit GasLogs website at http://www.gaslogltd.com.

Story continues

About GasLog Partners

GasLog Partners is a growth-oriented master limited partnership focused on owning, operating and acquiring LNG carriers under multi-year charters. GasLog Partners fleet consists of 15 LNG carriers with an average carrying capacity of approximately 158,000 cbm. GasLog Partners principal executive offices are located at 69 Akti Miaouli, 18537 Piraeus, Greece. Visit GasLog Partners website at http://www.gaslogmlp.com.




23.07.2020 LISTEN

The National Organiser of the opposition National Democratic Congress ( NDC), Hon. Joshua Hamidu Akamba, says some polling agents of the ruling New Patriotic Party are blocking some registrants from taking part in the voter registration exercise in the Ashanti Region.

He noted that the affected registrants, mostly Ewes and Northerners have had their nationalities unfairly challenged at the various polling stations.

Joshua Akamba is currently embarking on a visit to registration centres across the country to monitor the ongoing Electoral Commissions voter registration exercise.

He indicated that tribal games are being played by agents of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) to disenfranchise certain tribes that are known sympathisers of the NDC.

Speaking to the media after his tour of parts of the Northern and Ashanti Regions, Hon. Joshua Akamba indicated that when he got to the Ashanti Region especially Tepa, he realized that the agents of the New Patriotic Party were unduly and unnecessarily challenging the nationality of Ewes and Northerners in the area with the reason that they are not Ghanaians.

In Tepa there are a lot of problems with the registration exercise here because the New Patriotic Party agents here have challenged over 50 Northerners and Ewes with the reason that they are not Citizens of Ghana even though they are residents of the area, he stated.

Hon. Akamba seized the opportunity to visit some Chiefs and founders of the NDC in the Ashanti and Northern Regions to rallying their supports for the NDC ahead of the December elections.
Lakes play a vital role in influencing the weather patterns and ecology of an area. All the world's lakes together (more than a million) also have a significant effect on the global climate. According to a scientific study, the total shoreline length of all the world's lakes is four times longer than the total coastline length of the global ocean. Scientists are also worried that climate change will have a dire impact on the lakes of the world. In some places, lakes will dry up while in others, new lakes will be formed. Such changes might have adverse effects on the global climate. Hence, scientists feel that an inventory of the current status lakes of the world needs to be created to monitor the changes and study their impact on the environment around us.

Counting the number of lakes present in different countries thus becomes important as well. Knowing their numbers will help in monitoring them more efficiently. So, geographers from McGill University, Canada, conducted a study on the lakes of the world and prepared a list of 10 countries with the largest number of lakes. Only lakes that are 0.1 sq. km (10 hectares) or larger were taken into account. The study was published in Nature Communications in 2016.

According to the study, the 10 countries with the most lakes in the world are:

Canada - 879,800 Russia - 201,200 USA - 102,500 China - 23,800 Sweden - 22,600 Brazil - 20,900 Norway - 20,000 Argentina - 13,600 Kazakhstan - 12,400 Australia - 11,400

Where Are The World's Lakes Concentrated?

The study showed that most of the areas or countries with high lake densities are located in the northern parts of the Northern Hemisphere like Northern Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and Alaska. These areas were covered in massive ice sheets during the last Ice Age. The retreat of glaciers at the end of the Ice Age left behind hundreds of thousands of lakes that we see today.

Lakes are also concentrated in the alpine areas of the Himalayas, Rockies, and Andes mountains. Here glacial action and tectonic shifts lead to lake formations. Large floodplains of rivers like the Amazon River in Brazil and the coastal rivers of China also result in numerous lakes. Divergent plate boundaries like that in the African Rift Valley hosts deep lakes in significant densities as well.

Canada, The Country With The Most Lakes

According to the study, Canada is home to the largest number of lakes in the world. Of the 1.42 million lakes around the world with a size of over 0.1 sq. km, Canada is home to a whopping 62% of them. These lakes play a very significant role in shaping the water cycle of the country. However, very little is known about most of these lakes. According to the researchers of the study, lakes in Canada's north could be severely affected by the fast-melting glaciers due to global warming. Old lakes might drain out and new ones form. Hence, studying these lakes in detail becomes necessary.

The US States With Most Lakes

It is no surprise that most of the US states with the greatest number of lakes are found in the northern part of the country. It is the part that has experienced the most active glacial movement in the recent past. Alaska has the most lakes in the country but many of its lakes remain unnamed. Minnesota, however, has the most named lakes in the country.

The Case Of Finland - "The Land Of A Thousand Lakes"

A typical landscape in Finland showing many lakes of various sizes separated by forests. Image credit: Artic_photo/Shutterstock.com

As per the study, Finland does not feature on the list of top 10 countries with the most lakes. However, there are many articles stating that Finland has 187,888 lakes and that makes it the country with the most lakes in relation to the size of the country. In fact, it is estimated that Finland has one lake for every 26 persons. While this fact might be right to a certain extent, it must be remembered that the definition of a lake varies widely from place to place. There is no standard unambiguous definition of the size requirements for a water body to be classified as a lake.

Finland's 187,888 lakes include all water bodies larger than 500 sq. m or just a little larger than the size of a basketball court. However, the list in the study was prepared by taking into account only lakes that are over 0.1 sq. km or 100,000 sq. m in size which is the size of about 18.5 football fields. Hence, Finland failed to feature on this list.
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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 02:53:02|Editor: huaxia

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RABAT, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Morocco registered 180 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, taking the tally of infections to 17,742, the Ministry of Health said.

The death toll from the infectious respiratory disease stood at 280, said Mouad Mrabet, coordinator of the Moroccan Center for Public Health Operations at the Ministry of Health, at a press briefing.

The number of the cured patients has increased to 15,389 with 257 new recoveries, he noted.

The COVID-19 death rate in Morocco stabilizes at 1.6 percent, with the recovery rate at 86.7 percent, the official noted.

China has helped Morocco in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Both China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Guizhou Province have donated medical supplies to Morocco. Enditem
Bengaluru, July 23 : Outraged by abuse and assault on them by relatives of Covid victims, the Karnataka Association of Resident Doctors (KARD) on Thursday sought action against offenders and protection to discharge their duty without fearing for their lives.

"The state government should take stringent action against relatives of Covid patients or victims for abusing and attacking us, nurses and paramedics violently in the event of a death due to the infection," KARD President Dayanand Sagar said here.

Condemning the abuse and assault on resident doctors and nurses on duty at the state-run K.C. General Hospital in the city, as their Covid victim's body could not be handed over without completing formalities, Sagar said the association members would protest from July 24 in all state-run and private hospitals across the state by wearing black bands.

Relatives of a woman who posthumously tested positive assaulted a resident doctor and a nurse for not handing over her body without conducting autopsy and completing formalities.

Similarly, relatives of a patient who died of the infection while under treatment at the state-run hospital at Belgavi, assaulted doctors and nurses and set an ambulance on fire, alleging medical negligence.

"Violence on doctors and healthcare workers in many hospitals endangers our safety and damage to public property," said Sagar.

The association sought arrest and legal action against culprits involved in the attack on doctors in Bengaluru, Belagavi and Bidar hospitals.

"The state government should ensure safety protocols in all hospitals and Covid care centres with security and police personnel," added Sagar.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
In that respect, I encourage every citizen to comply with what health authorities have laid down for us as part of the mitigation measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19. People should stop unnecessary travelling and stay at home in view of the threat posed by this pandemic. Abadala bathi kubo kagwala akulasililo meaning we can avoid the Covid-19 disaster if we stay away from environments that could expose us to this infectious disease. Adhering to laid down procedures will benefit us collectively. Let us fight Covid-19 together, said Minister Ncube. Herald
EDWARDSVILLE  Scott Credit Union was recently named one of the top credit unions in the State of Illinois in a Forbes Best-In-State ranking.

Forbes, in partnership with market research firm Statista, ranked Scott Credit Union fifth in the state based on surveys of credit union members on their overall satisfaction. The survey also measured trust, terms and conditions, branch services, digital services, and financial advice, according to Scott Credit Union President & CEO Frank Padak.

We were very pleased and honored to be in the top five in the state, Padak added. We are always focused on doing the right thing for our members. The ranking tells us we are on the right track.

Statista surveyed more than 25,000 consumers throughout the country for their opinions on their current and former relationships with financial institutions. Nationwide, 182 credit unions made the final list of the best credit unions in their state.

Only 3.5% of all credit unions nationwide made the Forbes list, Padak noted.

According to Statista, Americans generally gave their banking institutions good reviews on satisfaction with scores of 4.2 on average on a scale of one to five. Scott Credit Union scored 4.32 on satisfaction.

We serve members every day. It is really important that we provide them with a great experience, Padak said.

Because of its not-for-profit structure, Scott Credit Union has given $12 million back to members through a bonus dividend and loan interest rebate over the past 12 years. In 2019, the local credit union gave over $1 million back to its members.

The credit union recently opened its fourth location in Missouri in Ballpark Village in downtown St. Louis.

Scott Credit Union has 19 area locations: Scott Air Force Base, East Belleville, Fairview Heights, Collinsville, OFallon, Edwardsville, Waterloo, Highland, West Belleville, Mascoutah, Troy, Wood River, Lebanon, Columbia, Ladue, Missouri, Crestwood, Missour and Ferguson, Missouri.

For more details visit www.scu.org.
iStock/zubada(WASHINGTON, D.C.) -- For a second day in a row, the South has reached a new record high in daily deaths linked to COVID-19. According to data from The COVID Tracking Project, the U.S. south suffered an additional 725 deaths, which is up from 592 the day before.

The South now comprises the highest amount of daily deaths in the U.S., accounting for 65 percent of all new fatalities. The Northeast, the former hotspot of the country, now accounts for 2 percent of the fatalities, suffering 26 over a 24-hour period.

Texas reported 200 new deaths, bumping the state's total to 4,348. Hospitalizations have climbed to 10,893 on Wednesday, keeping consistent with the trend of over 10,000 new hospitalizations daily for the past two weeks.

Florida also reported that four counties now have no ICU beds on Wednesday, confirming 379,619 total cases and 5,458 fatalities.

The West has also seen a dramatic rise in new cases, with California reporting 12,807 new cases on Wednesday, which breaks their previous daily record. The state now has more COVID-19 cases than New York.

New York has over 408,000 confirmed cases while California has 409,000.

The increasing numbers of deaths and COVID-19 cases has complicated the debate on whether or not to open schools in the fall, with President Donald Trump saying Wednesday that he would be "comfortable" sending his youngest son and grandchildren to in-person classrooms.

President Trump says children "don't transmit very easily" to their grandparents and remained confident that opening schools is in the nation's best interest.
Ninety miles east of Springfield, Rep. Carlos Gonzalez delivered remarks in the House chamber urging his colleagues to pass a House bill that would create a certification system for officers, impose use of force restrictions and deny qualified immunity protections to a decertified officer.

We may not get everything we want in negotiations or from the government, but government must obey the will of the people, said the Springfield Democrat, who chairs the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus. The bill, when read, it begins to answer the prayers, the cries and the millions that took to the streets to protest.

While police unions disagree over whether the bill answers calls for change, lawmakers started whittling down the 200-plus amendments tacked onto a mammoth House bill on police reform on Wednesday. The House is taking up a lengthier, but less perhaps progressive bill than the Senate version.

Even if the bill gets approved without major changes, and even if the House and Senate reconcile the differences between their proposals, its unclear whether the final product would survive the Republican governors veto pen at the tail end of the legislative session.

Gov. Charlie Baker, who had filed his own bill creating a Peace Officer Standards and Training or POST system, said Wednesday both the House and Senate versions of the legislation had issues to resolve. He alluded to the quick development of those bills, one of which did not undergo a public hearing.

Part of what made, I believe, the process that we used work was the fact that we spent a long time on it, Baker said during a news conference in Lynn. People understood what the definitions were, what the consequences would be, how the rules we were proposing would actually play out, and they supported it. That in some respects is what I hope comes out of this process.

The House version proposes a POST system overseen by a commission with civilian members that includes an investigative arm and a committee of law enforcement officials, rather than the oversight committee proposed by the governor.

Like the Senate, the House bill codifies a ban on choke holds, limits what student information can be shared with law enforcement agencies and creates a commission on structural racism. The House version also strips a decertified officer of qualified immunity protections, rather than limiting qualified immunity for all law enforcement officials as the Senate proposes.

The House bill garnered multiple amendments to create a commission to study qualified immunity, rather than to change the legal doctrine. Some have been withdrawn since Tuesdays amendment filing deadline.

Of the dozens of amendments reviewed until 9 p.m. Wednesday, legislators voted down amendments that would have narrowed the grounds for decertification and helped officers see body camera footage of incidents involving them before they have to make a statement about what happened.

An amendment proposed by Rep. Tim Whelan, a Brewster Republican, suggested adding a clause that defines unprofessional police conduct as illegal activity, excessive use of physical force or repeated, sustained behaviors that reflect poorly on a department  but only while an officer is on duty.

Under such an amendment, a situation like the alleged 2015 beating of a man involving off-duty Springfield police officers outside the Nathan Bills bar might not be grounds for decertification and might not meet the threshold to end up in a proposed database of certified police officers and complaints they have faced.

That amendment failed when put to a vote Wednesday afternoon.

Lawmakers narrowly passed an amendment by Rep. Liz Miranda, a Boston Democrat, that would have barred no-knock warrants from being executed when children or elderly people are home. The amendment strengthens the proposed limits to no-knock warrants in the bill, which states a judge can only sign off on such a warrant if officers prove announcing their presence would endanger their lives or the lives of others.

Louisville police executed a no-knock warrant in Breonna Taylors home the night of March 13. The former EMT was shot at least eight times by plainclothes officers who burst into her home, according to the Courier Journal.

Miranda mentioned Taylor and Aiyana Stanley Jones, a 7-year-old Black girl who was shot and killed during a police raid at home, when she spoke on the House floor Wednesday afternoon. She also referenced the 2010 death of Eurie Stamps during a police raid in Framingham.

No child or elder should be woken up in the middle of the night by SWAT teams barging into their home, creating terror and danger for everyone, said Miranda, a member of the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus.

My only 2nd time at the rostrum in my history as a Rep. , Im proud to speak about no-knock warrants to further protect our lives. I am thinking of you Breonna Taylor, 27 and Aiyana Stanley Jones, age 7 today Both who perished due to the negligence of no-knock warrants.  Representative Liz Miranda (@RepLizMiranda) July 22, 2020

The provisions restricting no-knock warrants, adding civilian oversight and changing qualified immunity in both the House and Senate bills have drawn the ire of police officials across Massachusetts. Law enforcement officials say legislation has strayed from the POST system the governor proposed, which they largely support.

The legislation in the House and the Senate are nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to the events happening hundreds of miles away from here, said Hampden Police Chief Jeff Farnsworth, president of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, during a news conference this week. These bills are not a response to any current situation in Massachusetts. These bills are being used to make a political statement.

Rep. Paul Frost, an Auburn Republican, has filed amendments to form a commission to study qualified immunity, cut the section of the bill barring schools from sharing student information with law enforcement and replace the House bill entirely with the governors proposal.

This bill is about lives and livelihoods, and we need to stay focused on that, he said Wednesday. I have concerns about this bill. It is certainly better than the Senate bill, but theres more I believe we can do today to make it better.

Gonzalez pushed back against the characterization of the House bill as a knee-jerk reaction, adding that the bill may fall short for conservatives and progressives alike.

It doesnt have all that I may have wanted, but it has all the demands that we addressed on June 2, he said, referring to the BLLCs 10-point plan. It may not have everything you want if youer a conservative or youre a liberal or youre a progressive, but it does move us in the right direction, and I hope you join me in supporting this legislation today.

Whatever comes out of the House will set the stage for negotiations with the Senate as lawmakers have days to get a finalized bill to the governors desk and no time left to override a potential veto.

The BLLC met with Baker Tuesday to determine whether he would pass a POST bill with certain provisions added, such as the proposed expansion of the expungement law so people can have more than one case wiped from their records if they happened before their 21st birthday.

Baker was also asked about a push to allow undocumented immigrants to apply for drivers licenses, which was filed as an amendment to the House policing bill. Lawmakers say the governor did not take a position on a drivers license amendment during the meeting, but its one he has rejected before.

House leaders recessed Wednesday night and plan to resume debate over the policing bill Thursday morning. Lawmakers still face more than three-quarters of the 217 amendments.

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The Portland City Council approved a plan to spend $114 million in federal coronavirus relief, which should start becoming available to the public next month.

Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty was the lone vote against the allocations, saying she didnt believe enough aid was being made available directly to people.

The plan, approved Wednesday, calls for the city to spend $101.1 million on community programs, access to food for families and support to Multnomah County and other cities within county limits. The other $12.9 million in federal funds, and tentatively another $6.1 million, is being budgeted for Portlands COVID-19 response.

The $6.1 million would come from a combination of existing city funds and anticipated federal reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. City records show officials anticipate receiving as much as $9.7 million in federal reimbursements for spending on hygiene programs, personal protective equipment for the community and public safety bureaus, cleaning and supplies, shelters and staff overtime.

Heres a breakdown of the approved spending plan for the $114 million and the other $6.1 million the city is budgeting:

 $20 million to aid Multnomah Countys COVID-19 response.

 $17.8 million for the citys COVID-19 response through its Emergency Coordination Center. This includes funds for shelters, public health outreach, personal protective equipment citywide for the community and city first responders, staff overtime, teleworking hardware and upgrades, cleaning and disinfecting supplies, and redeployed city staff.

 $16.5 million to fund the COVID-19 response of the city and countys Joint Office of Homeless Services.

 $15 million for cash assistance to residents in the form of gift cards.

 $15 million for rent assistance. (direct or through a program?)

 $12 million in direct grants for businesses.

 $5 million for public health expenses of the other five cities in Multnomah County  Gresham, Troutdale, Fairview, Wood Village and Maywood Park.

 $4.2 million to provide households with help accessing meals and groceries.

 $3.5 million for families without internet access or a computer. The plan calls for distributing 5,000 technology kits with a Chromebook laptop and vouchers for Internet service. Funds are also being devoted to training on how to use the equipment.

 $3 million for block grants for small businesses

 $2.5 million in aid to mass venues and businesses not slated to resume operations until Phase 3 of the states reopening plan, such as concert halls.

 $2 million in mortgage counseling to help people avoid foreclosure and mortgage assistance for residents who are Black, Indigenous or other people of color.

 $1.6 million in financial aid to the five arts venues including the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall known as Portland'5 Centers for the Arts.

 $1.2 million for community hygiene programs.

 $550,000 for a public health outreach campaign focused on the transit system and public right of way.

 $250,000 in grants for artists who are Black, Indigenous or other people of color.

City officials said money dedicated to household and business relief programs will prioritize Black, Indigenous and other people of color and businesses owned by people in those groups, as well as members of the homeless population and people with disabilities.

The city council will delegate authority to issue contracts and agreements to Portland Chief Administrative Officer Tom Rinehart, Transportation Bureau Chris Warner, Planning and Sustainability Bureau Director Andrea Durbin, Emergency Management Bureau Director Mike Myers and Housing Bureau Director Shannon Callahan.

Oregon received $1.6 billion in local government relief as part of the $2 trillion federal CARES Act. In addition to the $114 million for Portland, Washington County received $105 million, Multnomah County received $28 million and the remaining $1.39 billion went to the state to distribute to other jurisdictions.

The CARES Act local relief funds have to be spent by Dec. 30.

-- Everton Bailey Jr; ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 | @EvertonBailey

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Rajesh Asnani And Richa Sharma By

Express News Service

JAIPUR/NEW DELHI: Despite a setback in the Supreme Court, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot remained in an aggressive mood on Thursday. A day after the Enforcement Directorate raided his brother's residence in Jodhpur, Gehlot claimed that the Congress is "not scared of raids by central agencies" and re-asserted his government has a majority in the Assembly  in spite of the Sachin Pilot-led revolt raging in the state.

Asserting that the central agencies were being misused, Gehlot asserted, The ED, CBI and IT may be very active in our state but we are not scared or worried about their raids. These people are trying to destroy democracy. They may have been able to misguide some of our colleagues but people will never forgive them.

Attacking the BJP for trying to bring down his government, Gehlot said the audio clips leaked last week which reveal the "conspiracy to topple the Congress government" are genuine and authentic. "Still, the first reaction always is 'it wasn't my voice'. They are also threatening people. Nothing is going to work. Satyamev Jayate," Gehlot told reporters in Jaipur.

CM Gehlot further said the audio clips can be sent abroad for tests. He remarked, "If they think they don't trust Rajasthan government, then they can send the audio-tapes to FSL agency in the US for a voice test. They should step forward and undergo a voice test. Union Ministers/MLAs/MPs give speeches so everyone knows it is their voice."

Gehlot also defended his letter to PM Modi and claimed he wrote to the PM as it's a democracy. Gehlot asserted, I wrote it so that he doesn't later say that he didn't have information or his people gave him incomplete information. I wrote it so that if I meet him, he doesn't say that he didn't know about it.

With the Supreme Court refusing to stay the proceedings in the case of Sachin Pilot and other rebel MLAs in the High court, the Rajasthan CM indicated that a session of the Rajasthan Assembly may soon be convened though he did not spell out any specifics. The Vidhan Sabha will soon be functional and we will discuss the Corona situation, the political situation, and all essential matters in the Assembly soon.

The Central team that is in Jaipur reportedly briefed Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and party leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday about the developments in the state, said party sources. The team informed the High command that Gehlot as of now has numbers on his side and his government will survive but BJP is also working hard to woo party MLAs and Independents supporting Gehlot with money and ministerial berths.

The party high command was informed that till the SC gives a decision in the matter, MLAs will be staying in the Hotel to avoid poaching by BJP, said party sources. Regarding rebel party leader Sachin Pilot, they were told that the door should remain open for his return if the former Rajasthan PCC Chief gives up his demand for the CM post. "But then CM's post is non-negotiable as of now and that there is nothing that Pilot is likely to agree to at central level," added a senior party leader.

In a further indication that a session of the Assembly may soon be called, the new PCC Chief, G S Dotasara confirmed that the cabinet has authorized the Chief Minister to call a Vidhan sabha session whenever he deems fit. Whenever the CM wants, he can request the Governor to convene the Vidhan sabha session.

Meanwhile, the Sachin Pilot camp still remains missing. But in a significant move, an MLA of the group, Prithviraj Meena has filed a petition before the Rajasthan High Court to make the Central Government a Party Respondent to the writ petition filed by Pilot and 18 other MLAs. All eyes are now focused on the Rajasthan High Court which is slated to give an order on the petition on Friday.
A Russian court on Wednesday convicted a respected Gulag historian in a controversial sexual abuse case, but handed down a sentence that will see him free in the autumn. Yury Dmitriyev, the local head of prominent rights group Memorial in Karelia in northwestern Russia, was facing up to 15 years in a penal camp under the charges. His supporters insisted he is being punished for his work digging into Soviet-era abuses. After a trial held behind closed doors, a judge in the city of Petrozavodsk found Dmitriyev guilty of sexually abusing his adopted daughter, sentencing him to three-and-a-half years in prison. His lawyer Viktor Anufriyev told reporters that with time served in pre-trial detention Dmitriyev, 64, would be free in three-and-a-half months. Anufriyev said his client was content with the verdict because "he knows he is not guilty". "Such a verdict following such serious charges can mean only one thing: the prosecution has no real proof of Dmitriyev's guilt," Memorial said in a statement after the decision. "Nevertheless, these charges have already robbed Yury Dmitriyev of more than three years of freedom and ruined his adopted daughter's life," it said. - Decades of research on Gulag - Dmitriyev spent decades locating and exhuming mass graves of people killed under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's rule, including in the notorious Gulag network of forced labour camps. The researcher was first arrested in late 2016 on child pornography charges, and then acquitted in 2018. He was then arrested again on the sexual assault case, charges he has always denied. Memorial argues his prosecution is part of a growing crackdown on dissenters in Russia, and that he was targeted for calling attention to one of the darkest chapters in Russia's history. Dozens of his supporters gathered outside the courtroom on Wednesday and some said the verdict was as close as Dmitriyev could get to an acquittal. Yan Rachinsky, a director at Memorial, said the verdict allowed Russian authorities to save face after a robust public campaign in Dmitriyev's defence. "On the other hand, it won't see a man die in prison," he said. Fellow historian Anatoly Razumov said the fact that Dmitriyev "will soon get back to his work is a victory". - 'Always grateful'- Dmitriyev is known for helping open the Sandarmokh memorial in a pine forest in Karelia in memory of thousands of victims -- including many foreigners -- murdered in 1937 and 1938. "Thanks to Yury Dmitriyev, I know where my grandfather was buried," supporter Galina Ivanova said outside the courthouse. "And this is a huge deal, I will always be grateful to him." The historian was initially arrested in late 2016 on child pornography charges and spent more than a year in pre-trial detention, before calls by prominent figures resulted in his release. He was acquitted in April 2018. But in a stunning turnabout, he was detained again on assault charges later that year after a higher court overturned the not guilty verdict. Dmitriyev's previous case centred on naked photographs of his then pre-teen adopted daughter seized during a search of his home. Independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that Dmitriyev's cellmates had tried to pressure him into admitting his guilt or face sexual abuse in prison. Speaking in court during his second trial this month, Dmitriyev, who was himself adopted, said he had done everything to raise his daughter to be happy and healthy. In the speech published by the Meduza news portal, he also said it was important for people to remember their past. "The strength of the state is not in its tanks and guns, in its nuclear rockets or an ability to tell everyone to flip off," he said. "No, the strength of the state is in its people."
Stormonts political leaders are seeking a special summit including the British and Irish Governments to address discord over Covid-19 travel restrictions.

Sinn Feins leader in Northern Ireland Michelle ONeill and First Minister Arlene Foster will write to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Taoiseach Micheal Martin to make the request.

Irelands list of 15 low-risk countries from which travel is permitted without quarantine does not include Scotland, England or Wales due to the UKs higher infection rate.

Let's find a political solution to the problems we have Michelle O'Neill

Northern Irelands deputy First Minister Ms ONeill said: The position is confusing for people, it is a mess across the island.

There are a lot of anomalies north/south and east/west and it is time to import some common sense into the middle of this conversation.

The British Irish Council was established under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and includes all the UKs devolved regions.

It last met in Dublin in November.

On Thursday Ms ONeill also called on the insurance and travel industry to help families who would lose out due to pandemic and reiterated her concern about people travelling from Great Britain and spreading the virus in Northern Ireland.

She said she was seeking a sensible conversation about the Common Travel Area (CTA) which permits free movement for citizens between the UK and Ireland and a solution making the rules easier to understand.

Lets find a political solution to the problems we have.

Northern Irelands travel guidance has been changed to urge holiday makers to take account of local advice on the pandemic when making plans.

It followed a meeting of Stormont ministers on Thursday.

Northern Ireland should act to protect itself against travellers from Great Britain spreading coronavirus, Stormonts deputy first minister said recently.

Visitors arriving from Great Britain are expected to quarantine for 14 days when they arrive in the Republic of Ireland.

People can cross the border from Northern Ireland unimpeded.

Ms Foster wants to preserve free movement for the sake of business and family life but her powersharing deputy has urged the alignment of rules north and south of the Irish border.

Relations between the pair have been strained in recent weeks over Ms ONeills attendance at veteran republican Bobby Storeys Belfast funeral when hundreds of people lined the route of the cortege.

For weeks before that they presented a united front as they led a powersharing administration which was only restored in January after three years in deep freeze.
The Member of Parliament for Kumbungu, Ras Mubarak has claimed that the governments unwillingness to render accounts of all funds approved for the COVID-19 pandemic explains why the Auditor-General, Daniel Yao Domelevo was forced to go on his accumulated leave.

Ras Mubarak, whos also a member of the Public Accounts Committee said Domelovo was kicked out of the way to enable the government to conceal the expenditure on COVID-19 funds.

Interestingly I know of attempts to petition the Auditor-General to audit the way COVID-19 funds have been spent. And knowing NPP for who they are, they knew that if the Auditor-General who is so dedicated to his work and our country- Ghana audits the fund, there would be a problem. And so they needed to get rid of him, he told host Bonohene Baffuor Awuah on Anopa Kasapa on Kasapa 102.5 FM.

He said the so-called 400,000 persons that were allegedly fed daily by the government was a sham.

They cannot account for many of the funds that parliament approved for them to fight Covid-19, Mubarak said, adding And if the Auditor-General were to audit them, there would have been infractions, misappropriation, and the rest of it.

Chairman for the Finance Committee of Parliament, Dr. Mark Assibey-Yeboah has rejected demands for Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta to render accounts of all funds approved for the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Minority and Former Finance Minister, Seth Terkper have asked for Mr. Ofori-Atta to account in detail the use the over 16 billion cedis granted to government to fill the fiscal gap created as a result of the pandemic has been put to.

They ground their demand in the Public Finance Management Act.

But speaking to the media, Dr. Mark Assibey-Yeboah argued the demands of accountability are untenable.

According to the New Juaben South MP accountability of public funds rest with the Auditor General and not Parliament through a mid-year budget review.

But Kumbungu MP Ras Mubarak disagreed.

He holds the view that the Minister must at least account for withdrawals from the contingency fund as he promised during the approval.

Ras, alleged that the claim the Auditor General is the only person to audit the Covid-19 funds informed President Akufo Addos decision to sack Mr. Domelevo who has been asked to proceed on leave.

---kasapafmonline
Pakistan had earlier this month said 20 July is the last date of filing a review petition by Jadhav against the death sentence handed down to him.

New Delhi: India on Thursday accused Pakistan of blocking all legal remedies to Indian death row convict Kulbhushan Jadhav.

MEA Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava also said Pakistan adopted a "farcical approach" in handling the case, adding India is exploring available options in the matter.

"In the absence of an unimpeded and unhindered consular access as well as of the relevant documents, as a last resort, India tried to file a petition on 18 July," he said during an online media briefing.

"However, our Pakistani lawyer informed that a review petition could not be filed in the absence of power of attorney and supporting documents related to the case of Jadhav," he added.

Pakistan had earlier this month said 20 July is the last date of filing a review petition by Jadhav against the death sentence handed down to him by a Pakistani military court.

The 50-year-old retired Indian Navy officer was sentenced to death by the Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April 2017. India approached the International Court of Justice against Pakistan for denial of consular access to Jadhav and challenging the death sentence.

The Hague-based ICJ ruled in July 2019 that Pakistan must undertake an "effective review and reconsideration" of the conviction and sentence of Jadhav and also to grant consular access to India without further delay.
A 33-year-old New Bedford man was charged with manslaughter on Thursday in connection to last weeks fatal shooting of Keven Rocha, Bristol District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III said.

Ricardo Velez-Gonzalez of New Bedford was arrested Wednesday afternoon in Eastham and was arraigned Thursday in New Bedford District Court, the district attorney said. Judge Paul Pino ordered the Velez-Gonzalez to be held without bail pending the results of dangerousness and bail revocation hearings scheduled to take place on July 30.

The bail revocation request by the district attorney was based on several pending criminal cases against Velez-Gonzalez in New Bedford District Court and Falmouth District Court, according to the DAs office.

On July 17, New Bedford police responded to 17 Margin St. between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. and discovered Rocha had been fatally shot inside the multi-family building, authorities said. Police continue to investigate the incident.

Due to a court-imposed impoundment order currently in place on this case and the ongoing investigation into the fatal shooting, the Bristol District Attorneys office said it couldnt provide any further information about the incident.

Authorities were granted an arrest warrant for Velez-Gonzalez on July 21. The following day investigators received information that he was staying in a friends apartment in Eastham, police said. After conducting surveillance on the apartment, investigators confirmed the Velez-Gonzalez was inside and quickly arrested him without incident, police said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 22:35:55|Editor: huaxia

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ISTANBUL, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Turkish police on Thursday detained eight foreign nationals in Istanbul over suspected links to the Islamic State (IS).

Police launched operations simultaneously in 10 districts across the city to capture the suspects who allegedly entered Turkey illegally with plans to conduct terror activities, the state-run Anadolu agency reported.

Many organizational and digital materials and some cash were also seized during the raids, Anadolu said.

Counter-terrorism units have recently intensified their operations against the suspected IS members in Istanbul.

On Sunday, 27 people were captured for their alleged links to the terror group.

The IS was blamed for a spate of deadly attacks over the years in Turkey, in which more than 300 people were killed. Enditem
The House of Representatives had dragged the Minister for Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, to court over his inability to show proof that its members were beneficiaries of contracts awards fro the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

KanyiDaily recalls that while the House Committee were probing financial misappropriation in the NDDC on Monday, Akpabio alleged that over 60 percent of contracts of the commission are given out to members of the National Assembly.

Reacting to Akpabios comment, Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila had gaven the minister 48-hour ultimatum to name the lawmakers that benefitted from the contracts.

At the expiration of the 48-hour ultimatum, Gbajabiamila, who spoke at the commencement of the plenary on Thursday, disclosed that he had instructed the Clerk to engage lawyers to file the suit against Akpabio after he failed to heed to the House request to publish the list of members who got contracts from the NDDC.

As much as we still have a lot to do in that regard, I refuse to sit here in good conscience and allow anyone to assassinate the character of the House in an attempt to deflect accountability for their conduct in office. This morning, I asked the Clerk of @HouseNGR to engage the services of legal counsel, and instruct them to initiate a criminal complaint of perjury against the minister. At the same time, we will instruct counsel to explore the possibility of a civil defamation suit. The House of Representatives is a public trust placed in our care for the duration of our term in office. We must prove ourselves worthy of this public trust or risk the censure of history. Therefore, we will resist every attempt to undermine this institution, whether such attempts come from within or from outside. @HouseNGR will live up to the highest expectations of the Nigerian people. This is our commitment, and we will not fail, Gbajabiamila said.

KanyiDaily recalls that Godswill Akpabio was also accused of squandering the sum of N300 million given to him for fence construction contract by the NDDC.
Kabir Taneja

Chinas supposed multi-billion dollar deal with Iran comes at a time of increasing alarm bells over Beijings expansionist foreign and military policy designs. From the recent fallouts between India and China in Ladakh, which saw 20 Indian troops killed (and unnumbered Chinese fatalities), to the South China Sea where two US aircraft carriers have been running patrols and freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS) missions, Asia is rapidly becoming the centre of global geopolitical headwinds.

Amidst these developments, two major global maritime and geopolitical chokepoints will inadvertently play a significant role on how Chinas take on increasing pressure over boundary issues and how its aggressive brand of wolf warrior approach to diplomacy plays out globally. Both, the Malacca Strait, traversing between the geographies of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore in the Pacific and the Strait of Hormuz, opening into the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea in West Asia are going to become inflection points, examples of which have already started to take shape.

The proposed China-Iran deal, estimated to be over $400 billion, is expected to have significant infrastructure development in and around the Strait of Hormuz, via which 20 percent of the worlds oil trade travels through. The narrow piece of water separating the Arab world from Iran has already played host to many crisis situations over the past year, with the return of tanker wars in 2019 similar to those witnessed in the 1980s, Iranian boats trying to harass oil tankers, and instances of oil tankers wanted for smuggling by the UN being hijacked and ending up in Iran.

Researchers Elisa Catalano Ewers and Ariane Tabatabai recently highlighted that as per plans of the Iranian government, Tehran wants to completely bypass the Strait of Hormuz to export its oil by March 2021. Ewers and Tabatabai rightly underline this as a game changer, as if this plan comes to fruition, potentially aided by Chinese money, it could weaponise the Strait of Hormuz significantly, and offer both Iran and the Arab world an unchained playground for asymmetric warfare and kinetic actions against one and other. For countries such as India, this eventuality would be a significant foreign and domestic policy challenge, as its top oil suppliers, critical to its economic story, are in West Asia.

On the other side of the Indian Ocean, the Malacca Strait is also in the middle of renewed strategic flashpoint. India and the United States have also conducted a Passage Exercise (PASSEX) between the American aircraft carrier group USS Nimitz and Indian Navy battleships around the archipelago of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a few hundred kilometres from the mouth of the Malacca Strait and within actionable distance of major trade sea routes that service China. Malacca, which feeds into the South China Sea, in 2016, carried 90 percent of all oil flowing into South China Sea, mostly from suppliers in West Asia and Africa.

Along with the US-India exercise, an expansion of the Malabar naval exercise between India, the US and Japan, which now may also include Australia this year, will add a new dimension to Asias geopolitics, and highlight a growing sense of urgency to push-back on Chinas quasi-hegemonic methods to territorial claims that while have been in their narratives for years, are now backed by political will and military might.

Both the Malacca Strait and the Strait of Hormuz may bring trade, and more directly energy security, very near to the centre of the developing situation in Asia, and the US renewed political and military interests in the region to put tactical checks on China and not just strategic ones. However, none of these blueprints will be easy to build upon. In West Asia, Beijing has good relations with the likes of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia; both having deals as part of Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and a strategic infusion of the military kind in Iran may disrupt its geostrategic balance in that region. In Southeast Asia, ASEAN countries are already looking to distance themselves by arguing for a non-alignment 2.0 in parallel to a potential Cold War 2.0 being played out between Beijing and Washington DC.

However, the Arabian Sea will increasingly be expected to bring into the extended understandings of Indias partner nations such as France, Japan and the US, who at times have differing understandings of the constructs around the idea of the Indo-Pacific. In fact, both India and China play a similar deck of cards when it comes to their policies in dealing with the intricacies of West Asia between the Arab block, Iran and Israel. This entails walking a thin line between them, and not fall into the trappings of any poles of power and their regional agendas.

However, if the Iran deal turns out the way it is being portrayed, Chinas delicate balance will be significantly disrupted, and not even its investments with the Arab world may be able to salvage its positions, making the Arabian Sea a fairly complicated water body to operate in. These eventualities must be factored into Indian and Western sensibilities today, as this part of the Indian Ocean Region finds little mention when Indo-Pacific strategies are discussed and deliberated upon.

The Asian power struggle is going to be a long-term agenda, with New Delhi potentially becoming a fulcrum point. India may have balked on being so in the past, however the Ladakh crisis has arguably re-designed its entire approach to China from here on. These new strategic overplays in Asia will be visible from Hormuz to Malacca, and beyond.

(This first appeared in the ORF)
The FBI says fugitive Tang Juan, a Chinese scientist, lied about her ties to China's military in order to gain entry into the country

Another Chinese consulate is facing criticism, a report revealed Thursday, after the FBI alleged the San Francisco property is harboring a researcher accused of denying having any ties to the Chinese military in order to gain entry into the U.S.

The federal prosecutors detail in a June 26 court filing that Tang Juan, a Chinese scientist focusing on biology, has evaded arrest for visa fraud by taking refuge in the California consulate.

News of the rising tensions between the U.S. and China comes just one day after the State Department ordered the closure of China's consulate in Houston, Texas and gave diplomats and other personnel until Friday to vacate the premises.

The FBI claimed it 'found further evidence of Tang's PLA affiliation' when searching her residence and electronic media.

PLA, or People's Liberation Army, is China's armed forces, and in turn, the military power backing the ruling political party, the Chinese Communist Party.

The complaint names many Chinese scientists it claims are part of a PLA program, specifically with the Fourth Military Medical University, or FMMU, 'to send military scientists to the United States on false pretenses with false covers or false statements about their true employment.'

'There exists evidence in at least one of these cases of a military scientist copying or stealing information from American institutions at the direction of military superiors in China,' prosecutors revealed in the filing.

Investigators said they 'discovered photographs of her [Tang] in the uniform of the Civilian Cadre of the Chinese People's Liberation Army' and found she had been employed as a researcher at the FMMU.

'Tang denied serving in the Chinese military,' attorneys wrote in a July 20 court filing based on her interview with FBI agents the same day, 'claimed she did not know the meaning of the insignia on her uniform, and that wearing a military uniform was required for attendance at FMMU because it was a military school.'

The FBI alleges China's consulate in San Francisco is harboring Tang after she fled there following an interview with the bureau on June 20

In the court filing, the FBI claims there is evidence that 'at least one' Chinese military scientist is 'copying or stealing information from American institutions at the direction of military superiors in China' (Scroll down for whole filing)

Tang (pictured here from the court filing) said she did not know the 'meaning of the insignia on her uniform,' claiming the uniform was required for her to conduct her research with the Chinese military-linked school

After her interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Tang allegedly fled to the West Coast diplomatic mission, 'where the FBI assesses she has remained.'

The Chinese researcher was charged, according to court filings, on June 26 with one count of visa fraud after prosecutors accused her of concealing her connections to the PLA on her visa application.

The charges come the day after reports revealed Chinese diplomats were ordered to vacate the Houston property, which was the first Chinese consulate opened in the U.S. in 1979 after diplomatic relationships between the two nations were established.

The Chinese consulate in Houston was reportedly a hot bed of spies  and President Donald Trump's decision to close it was made without warning or explanation.

Hours before the administration made public its order on Wednesday, consulate employees were seen starting fires in a courtyard of the Houston building, prompting police officers and firefighters to respond to the scene.

Fire crews, however, were prevented from accessing the compound.

Diplomats stationed in Texas have been told that operations will cease on Friday afternoon  and Beijing has denounced the action as illegal, and vowed to retaliate.

The consulate is one of five in the U.S., not counting the embassy in Washington DC.

Sources on Wednesday told NBC that the consulate was known as being a center for Chinese spying.

The rise in tensions and more negative consulate news comes after the Chinese diplomatic mission in Houston was ordered Tuesday night to close its doors

Shortly after the directive, diplomats were seen burning documents in several small trash can fires in the courtyard of the consulate property

Fire crews arriving on the scene were told they could not enter to put out the blazes

Multiple U.S. officials told the network that the Houston consulate has long been used by the Chinese government to steal valuable medical research, and was involved in attempts to infiltrate the oil and natural gas industries.

They said the consulate is well-fortified, was hardened to prevent U.S. surveillance, and was a high-tech communications hub to coordinate and execute various spying operations.

Mark Warner, Democrat senator for Virginia and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told NBC News's Katy Tur that he would not discuss the specific intelligence behind Wednesday's closure.

'But I can tell you for the last two years, I and other members of the intel committee have been holding classified briefings with business leaders and academic leaders about the concerted efforts of the Chinese communist party to steal our intellectual property, to steal it from companies, to steal it from universities, to be on better guard,' he said.

Warner suggested the action was driven by the FBI and its intelligence.

China has five consulates in the United States. The Houston one, pictured, will close on Friday

The State Department said China was directing 'massive illegal spying and influence operations.'

David R. Stilwell, who oversees policy for East Asia and the Pacific at the State Department, told The New York Times that the Houston consulate had a history of engaging in 'subversive behavior'.

He said the consulate was the epicenter of research theft in the United States.

For instance, Stilwell said, said the consul general, the top Chinese official there, and two other diplomats were recently caught using false identification to escort Chinese travelers to the gate area of a charter flight from George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

Stilwell said that some of China's attempted scientific thefts in the United States had accelerated over the last six months, and could be related to efforts to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus - although he again presented no evidence.

Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, who has been a leader in aggressively pushing hard-line policies on China, said Wednesday at a news conference in Copenhagen that the Trump administration was 'setting out clear expectations as to how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave.'

He warned that the United States would 'take actions' to protect its interests.

Moving vans were pictured outside the consulate in Houston on Wednesday

Much of the interest in Houston has focused on the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

In April 2019, three out of five scientists identified by federal authorities as being involved in efforts to steal American research on behalf of China at MD Anderson were ousted by the institution.

A fourth scientist resigned before the conclusion of the investigation, and the fifth was disciplined by the center.

Trump said during a news conference on Wednesday evening that 'it's always possible' his administration would close more Chinese missions.

The consulate closure marks a further breakdown in relations between the world's two largest economies, and is a significant shift from just six months ago, when the countries signed a trade deal and Trump boasted that the U.S.-China relationship 'might be the best it's been in a long, long time.'

Trump said six months ago that the relationship with China was excellent

Now relations between Trump and China's leader, Xi Jinping, are at a low

Now, in addition to closing the consulate, the U.S. is also considering a ban on Chinese-owned mobile apps such as Tik Tok, removing Chinese technology from the electrical grid, and sanctioning Communist Party officials over the internment of Muslims and a security law that effectively ends Hong Kong's independent legal status.

Trump has also cut off additional trade talks and threatened to penalize China because he said 'they could have stopped' the pandemic.

Hua Chunying, foreign ministry spokeswoman, described the reasons given by the US for closing the consulate as 'unbelievably ridiculous'.

She urged the U.S. to reverse its 'erroneous decision', or China would 'react with firm countermeasures'.

'While Chinese diplomats are promoting mutual understanding and friendship, the US embassy in China publicly attacks China's political system,' she said.

'As a result of smears and hatred fanned up by the US government, the Chinese embassy has received bomb and death threats.'
By Laura Gottesdiener

MONTERREY, Mexico, July 22 (Reuters) - Kiwapower, a new Japanese-backed Mexican solar company, said on Wednesday it hopes to build scores of small-scale solar plants in the next two years that could generate investment of tens of millions of dollars as it enters the Mexican energy market.

Financed by Japanese conglomerate Marubeni Corp and Mexican firm Becquerel Capital, Kiwapower said it wants to begin construction within the next few months in the Bajio region of central Mexico and the wider Mexico City area.

Kiwapower plans to generate decentralized energy through photovoltaic solar systems installed on the roofs of clients. Each plant's construction will cost between $400,000 and $500,000, founding partner Santiago Morales told Reuters.

"I think if we do 100 to 200 plants in the next two years we'll be very happy," Morales said.

Kiwapower's entry into the market comes as the government has become embroiled in a dispute with energy companies that bet on Mexico during the previous government. Seeking to give the state more control over energy supply, the administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has tried to hold up a number of power plants due to come on stream, and wants to renegotiate the terms of contracts, arguing that past governments skewed the market in favor of private firms.

Still, Morales said he was confident about the outlook, echoing others who have come into the market at a time when many investors are wary of Lopez Obrador's policies.

"We're optimistic that the administration understands the advantages of generating (energy) close to the site of consumption," he said.

Kiwapower has been in talks with universities, large-scale operators like shopping centers and smaller businesses, and is also exploring investments in the northern border state of Baja California and the Yucatan Peninsula, Morales said. (Reporting by Laura Gottesdiener Editing by Dave Graham and Leslie Adler)
A woman who travelled to Torquay to shop because she was sick of walking around her Albert Park neighbourhood has been fined, as data shows a fifth of recent infringements are being issued to people caught trying to escape coronavirus lockdown zones.

Analysis of Victoria Police fines issued since stage three restrictions were reintroduced on July 9 shows one in five fines were given at vehicle checkpoints set up to catch those attempting to travel out of metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire.

Vehicle checkpoints on the Surf Coast on Thursday. Credit:Eyewatch - Surf Coast Police Service Area/Facebook.

Data shows 1214 fines were issued in the past fortnight, with 262 people stung at vehicle checkpoints.

A similar number of fines (1107) were issued in the first two weeks of the first lockdown, which began on March 31.
There can be no greater symbol of mankinds prosperity than a giant rocket blasting off to a far-flung planet with its engines blazing orange.

So in many ways, Chinas successful launch yesterday of its mission to conquer Mars was a highly fitting moment for the worlds second largest economy.

Certainly it was a bold gesture by the manufacturing superpower which makes no attempt to hide its ambitions to overtake the US to become the worlds premier economic titan.

All of which makes it utterly perplexing  not to say concerning  that, as yesterdays Mail revealed, UK taxpayers have forked out an eye-watering 71million in foreign aid to China in just one year.

For as ROSS CLARK reveals, each penny given to Beijing would have been much better spent in Britain

99million to make China even richer

You could be forgiven for thinking that given Chinas GDP is almost five times greater than the UKs, they should be sending us aid.

And yet in 2018, almost 100million was carved out to finance the Department for International Trades China Prosperity Fund over four years.

Despite China being a financial superpower, the fund is designed to address market failures and weaknesses that impede Chinas inclusive economic growth and will help Chinas ongoing transition to an inclusive, sustainable and productive economy.

So far, 6million has been spent. After the devastation wreaked by the Covid19 pandemic on the UK economy, that money will be sorely missed.

Only last month the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development warned our economy is likely to suffer the worst damage from the crisis of any country in the developed world.

China successfully launched a rocket equipped with its own Mars rover on Thursday, making utterly perplexing that UK taxpayers have forked out an eye-watering 71million in foreign aid to China in just one year

500,000 on supporting human rights

Between April 2018 and April 2019, 559,554 of taxpayers money was spent on supporting human rights, democracy and the rules-based international system in China.

Yet shortly after it received the money, China imposed an unprecedented security law on Hong Kong which has undermined its citizens democratic rights to protest and free speech.

Meanwhile, footage on the BBC at the weekend appeared to confirm that the Chinese government has built concentration campstyle institutions to imprison its Uighur Muslim population.

2.4m for Chinese students in UK

Launched in 2018 as part of the Chevening Scholarship scheme, the Government has allocated 4.7million to help Chinese students pursue postgraduate study at UK higher education institutions, returning to contribute to the development of their home country.

So far, 2.4million has been spent. Meanwhile, native students are paying through the nose to study at British universities  in the same year the scheme started, the average UK graduate left university with 36,000 of debt.

Shortly before the generous foreign aid policy was announced, the Government jacked up tuition fees from 9,000 to 9,250 a year  a sum students are still having to pay even though many are not currently receiving any face-toface teaching thanks to the coronavirus crisis.

Between April 2018 and April 2019, 559,554 of taxpayers money was spent on supporting human rights, democracy and the rules-based international system in China

3.86m to boost infrastructure

While weve been dragging our heels over the construction of HS2 and Heathrows third runway, the Chinese have merrily been covering their country with new highspeed railways and airports.

And yet still our Government thinks we should be helping the Chinese build more  to the tune of 3.86million.

The hope is that China will start to build infrastructure that promotes increased and more sustainable investment. Meanwhile, Britain continues to rely on the Chinese to finance our own infrastructure projects  notably the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.

110,000 to fight money laundering

Just this week, a report by the UK Parliaments Intelligence and Security Committee chillingly warned that London has become a worldwide hub for Russian money laundering  with the capital becoming a Londongrad laundromat.

As the Russia reports leave Britain reeling from the new moniker 'Londongrad' it has been revealed we sent 110,000 to fight money laundering in China

And yet the International Trade Department seems to think that Britain is a leading light in the global fight against illegal commercial transactions.

In 2018, it forked out 110,000 to China to develop an effective anti-money laundering system in China, aligned with global standards.

85k to improve education

THE scheme to train Chinas nursery teachers still has one year to go but has already eaten through 73,823 of the 83,368 budget.

As with so many aid projects, the Government is trying to tackle a problem in China which it has failed to remedy at home.

Shortly after the project was launched in 2018, freedom of information requests revealed that 10,731 nurseries, playgroups and childrens centres dont have staff with qualified teacher status  a scenario described at the time by then education secretary Damian Hinds as a persistent scandal.

1.1m on inclusive financial services

The project, launched in 2019 and due to run for three years, is supposed to help Chinas banks operate in a more efficient and inclusive financial system, less exposed to significant shocks.

Quite what we have to teach the world on the financial stability of banks, following the collapse of Northern Rock and the Royal Bank of Scotland, isnt clear.

The Governments time and effort might be better spent addressing serious issues with our own banking system, such as the rise of aggressive overdraft charges.

15k to bolster their pensions

In 2018, a four-year project was launched with the aim of improving Chinas annuity policy and explore the feasibility of [incentivising] participation in occupational pensions.

But instead of helping Chinese workers save for a prosperous retirement, that money could have been better spent in Britain, where a year before the project was launched the Financial Conduct Authority warned that one in three British workers are not saving enough for retirement.

400k on skills shortages

Britain donated 19,000 to support a more skilled and productive workforce helping Chinas ongoing transition to an inclusive, sustainable and productive economy'

The project, launched in 2018, is designed to identify barriers to and opportunities for addressing Chinas skills gap, and to propose recommendations and interventions in specific sectors.

Despite the fact its supposed to run for another two years, it has already overspent its 400,000 budget  410,338 to date.

Rather than helping their foreign competitors, the money would be much better spent fixing the acute skills shortages in British companies. Indeed in the same year the project was launched, a Government report revealed that there were 226,000 vacancies which employers couldnt fill due to a shortage of qualified applicants.

21k to stop illegal wildlife trade

Since 2018, the UK taxpayer has forked out 20,800 to combat Chinas illegal wildlife trade.

The scheme claims to protect wildlife and accompanying vulnerable communities from crime and corruption.

Yet two years later, it is clear that China has no interest in changing its ways. Take the current Covid-19 pandemic, which is said to have originated in a desperately unhygienic Chinese wet market where live animals are sold.

Further, in a blatant display of disregard for Britains money, the Chinese have responded to international criticism of their handling of the crisis by reopening wet markets around the country.

100k to improve animal testing

Rightly concerned about Chinas relaxed regulations, 98,256 has been spent on seeking to reform Chinas animal testing laws... aligning them and Chinese industries practice with internationally-recognised standards.

It is hoped that this will reduce unnecessary animal testing in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

Quite why we need to be handing money to the Chinese government to stop maltreating animals, when a boycott would be far more efficient, isnt explained.

59k to support offshore wind

The year-long project, launched in 2018, was supposed to support China in developing subsidy policies for offshore wind.

Britain sent China 59,000 in 2018 as part of a project to 'to support China in developing subsidy policies for offshore wind

But despite almost every other country in the world now pledging to reduce their coal-burning  Britain is committed to closing all coal-fired power plants by 2025  Chinas programme of building the plants is actually accelerating.

In fact, over the course of the Department for International Developments project, China added 43 gigawatts of extra coalfired capacity  significantly more than the countrys entire offshore wind capacity for the same year.

22k on business dispute system

The project, which ran from April 2018 to April 2019, was supposed to draw on UK judicial expertise to enable China to deal with international commercial disputes.

It cost almost twice its 12,500 budget, consuming 22,049.

Yet it doesnt appear to have had any positive effects, with Chinese firms continuing to pilfer intellectual property from Western companies.

Just this year, FBI director Christopher Wray warned that his organisation has about 1,000 investigations involving Chinas attempted theft of US-based technology.

19k to boost productivity

This programme, gushes DfID, will lead to a more skilled and productive workforce helping Chinas ongoing transition to an inclusive, sustainable and productive economy.

It seems bizarre that we are helping the worlds second largest economy to snatch skilled jobs from our own industries.

A study by the GMB union in 2018  the year the Chinese project began  concluded that the UK had lost 600,000 manufacturing jobs over the previous decade  many of which have disappeared to manufacturing giant China.
PRESTON, Md., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- PSB Holding Corp. (OTC-QX: PSBP), parent company of Provident State Bank, Inc., reported net income of $2.1 million for the first six months of 2020. These earnings produced a .85% return on average assets and 9.23% return on average shareholders' equity. Stockholders' equity totaled $46.3 million as of June 30, 2020 compared to $38.5 million at June 30, 2019. President and Chief Executive Officer Melissa Quirk stated, "Operating results as of June 30, 2020 reflect sound returns as we move into the second half of the year."

Total assets of $523.6 million increased by $79.2 million compared to June 30, 2019, an increase of 17.8%. Total loans increased by $65.4 million to $408.3 million, a 19.1% increase as compared to June 30, 2019. As of June 30, 2020, non-performing assets were .37% of total assets, compared to June 30, 2019 at .61% of total assets. Total deposits at June 30, 2020 were $427.7 million, an increase of 20.9% as compared to June 30, 2019.

Annualized earnings per share at June 30, 2020 was $2.72. The price per share as reported on OTCQX at July 1, 2020 was $20.50 per share. As of June 30, 2020, the book value per share was $30.26.

Melissa Quirk concluded, "Our focus during the first half of 2020 was to continue our commitment to community as we worked through the challenges of this recent pandemic. We remained open to serve our customers and were able to support over 650 small businesses as they navigated through unchartered times. We appreciate the support of our shareholders, customers and employees as we work together through this challenging period."

PSB Holding Corp. is the holding company of Provident State Bank, Inc., a full service financial institution serving the eastern shore of Maryland since 1904. Provident State Bank, Inc. has ten locations in Preston, Federalsburg, Ridgely, Denton, Easton-Elliott Road, Easton-Harrison Street, Secretary, Cambridge, Salisbury and Lewes, DE. For more information on PSB Holding Corp. and Provident State Bank, Inc., visit www.providentstatebank.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Forward-looking statements relating to PSB Holding Corp. and its subsidiary, Provident State Bank, Inc. may include plans, strategies, objectives, expectations, intentions and adequacy of resources. All statements other than statements of historical fact, including, without limitation, statements regarding business strategy, future events, activities, performance, and plans and objectives for future operations, are forward-looking statements. Therefore, the illustrative value of forward-looking statements made in or pursuant to this press release should not, under any circumstances, be considered a guaranty or promise that such future events, activities, occurrences or performances will take place. The enclosed statements are unaudited 2020 financial results.

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET









June 30, 2020

June 30, 2019 Assets





Cash and cash equivalents $ 34,527,127

$ 27,377,989 Investment securities 57,033,548

52,782,158 Loans, net of allowance for loan losses 408,283,991

342,899,013 Property and equipment 9,428,865

9,841,501 Bank-owned life insurance 8,535,133

5,302,417 Lease assets 2,583,640

3,097,644 Accrued interest receivable 1,853,258

1,318,589 Other assets 1,312,497

1,751,255 Total assets $ 523,558,059

$ 444,370,566







Liabilities and Stockholders' Equity





Deposits:





Noninterest-bearing $ 150,864,972

$ 98,581,719 Interest-bearing 276,845,633

255,037,534 Total deposits 427,710,605

353,619,253 Repurchase agreements 7,789,761

4,253,150 FHLB advances and other borrowing 37,381,076

43,610,684 Lease liabilities 2,753,979

3,097,644 Other liabilities 1,577,990

1,309,341 Total liabilities 477,213,411

405,890,072 Stockholders' equity 46,344,648

38,480,494 Total liabilities and equity $ 523,558,059

$ 444,370,566 Book value per share $ 30.24

$ 27.09









CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF INCOME

Six Months Ended June 30,

2020

2019 Interest income





Loans, including fee income $ 9,350,815

$ 8,459,809 Investment securities 679,705

798,326 Other 43,482

97,934 Total interest income 10,074,002

9,356,069







Interest expense





Deposits 1,364,962

1,238,600 Repurchase agreements 5,981

22,883 FHLB advances 416,548

477,717 Other borrowings 80,132

91,017 Total interest expense 1,867,623

1,830,217







Net interest income 8,206,379

7,525,852 Provision for loan losses 298,500

110,000 Net interest income after provision 7,907,879

7,415,852







Noninterest income 1,376,348

1,224,623 Noninterest expense 6,526,682

6,715,795 Net income before tax 2,757,545

1,924,680 Tax expense 680,038

464,142 Net income $ 2,077,507

$ 1,460,538







Net income per common share, annualized $ 2.72

$ 2.07









SOURCE PSB Holding Corp.

Related Links

http://www.providentstatebank.com


Do you know a health hero? The Daily Mail, in partnership with eBay and NHS Charities Together, wants you to nominate special people in the health care sector who have made a difference to your life, or to a loved ones life. Seven finalists will be honoured with an all-expenses-paid trip to London to attend an awards ceremony at the end of the year. The winner will receive a 5,000 holiday. To make a nomination, fill in the form below. Here, ANGELA EPSTEIN tells one nominees story . . .

Danielle Castle couldnt look more at home as she moves between Covid-19 patients on her 26-bed ward, listening with compassion, cheering up the anxious and trying to make everyone feel more comfortable.

Nobody loves the hospital experience, and thats why visits are normally so important, she says. But none of our patients has that and, meanwhile, theyve been diagnosed with the virus which can be scary and isolating. They often just want to talk, which feels like the most natural thing to do  I dont think it makes me special.

Danielle Castle, 27, (pictured) was nominated for The Daily Mail NHS health hero Awards, by Donna Way, 55, who is the clinical matron at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester

Donna Way, 55, the clinical matron on Danielles ward at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester, disagrees. She says Danielle, a domestic whose job is to keep the ward spotless and hygienic, has an almost magical touch with the sick: Recently, we had a gentleman who was very distressed. There werent family members to console him and staff were busy. Danielle calmed him down. The difference when she left his side was remarkable.

We are all so busy attending to clinical care, we havent time to sit with everyone. But Danielle, on top of her duties, takes on a motherly role. Its scary for patients, isolated in bays surrounded by people whose faces are covered. Danielle makes it normal.

Her strength is all the more remarkable because she has had to isolate from her ten-year-old son, Jay. The boy has been staying with his father, from whom Danielle is separated, a four-hour drive away in Norwich.

Realising she would be exposed to Covid-19 at work, the 27-year-old made an enormous personal sacrifice and agreed with Jays father, who works from home, that he would look after their son until restrictions were lifted. I thought it might be for a few weeks, but as the weeks became months, it has been really tough, says Danielle.

It has been horrible, as its the longest weve ever been apart, and it was especially difficult on my days off. I FaceTime him constantly, but with children it gets to the point when theyre too busy to chat. And what is there to say? He just wanted to play or get on with his school work, which is wonderful, but it didnt stop me missing him terribly.

Danielle (pictured) who quit her job as a beautician in February, was plunged into the chaos of Covid-19 when she began training as a nurse

Its surprising to find out that Danielle has worked for the NHS for only a few months. She quit her job as a beautician in February and is now working towards training as a nurse.

Ive always wanted to work in the NHS and one day I thought, I have to do this. Im not getting any younger and I cant resist this pull any longer,  she says.

The timing was significant; Danielle was plunged into the chaos of Covid-19 soon after starting work, and quickly took on extra caring duties far beyond her job description.

Donna says Danielles strong work ethic and caring way with patients  and staff  have made her a vital member of the team. It is for this reason that she has nominated her as a Health Hero.

From day one, her contribution has been exemplary, says Donna. Ive been in nursing for 31 years, and Danielle really is special  which, considering she has only been in the health environment for a short time, is astonishing.

Danielle spends time with patients, chatting, bringing cups of tea and asking about their lives. No visitors are allowed, so patients are missing relatives. But shes instinctive  she can tell when someone seems upset and makes them feel better.

Donna said she would be proud to have Danielle as one of the nurses on her team. Pictured: Danielle and Donna

Nursing is something Danielle has always wanted to do, but being a single mother, I couldnt fit in a degree and the shifts involved in nursing, so I went into beauty therapy. I learned so much about talking to patients from doing that job.

Danielle admits that the role isnt without its challenges: If a patient buzzes, you have to get gowned up, find out what they want, de-gown and leave the room, then do it again. Not that I mind. What is important to me is the relationship with my patients.

She is now hoping to study nursing once her son starts secondary school. Its something Donna fully endorses: Id be proud to have Danielle as one of my nursing team, she says.

Having been finally  all too briefly  reunited with her son, Danielle is resigned to living apart from him for now.

When I saw him at his dads, I couldnt stop hugging him. He is settled there so hes going to stay a few more weeks.

She adds: Hes been wonderful about all this and is proud of what I do. I just want to do the best for my son and the NHS.
LANSING, MI  Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has agreed to review a 2018 case in which an unarmed Macomb County man was killed by Shelby Township police.

Kanwarbir Malhi, 25, was shot by officers after exiting a vehicle in the parking lot of the apartment complex where he lived along Spring Lane in Shelby Township. Authorities stated he refused to comply with their orders, and they believed he may have possessed a weapon.

Authorities later determined Malhi was unarmed, according to the AGs office.

The Macomb County Sheriffs Office reviewed the incident and presented its investigation to the Macomb County Prosecutors Office, but that office did not file charges against the officers involved in the shooting.

The new investigation is to evaluate whether charges should have been filed against law enforcement involved in the incident.

In light of recent inquiries into our investigation, we welcome the Attorney Generals office to review our investigation, facts and findings that were presented to the Macomb County Prosecutors Office, Macomb County Sheriff Anthony Wickersham said. We will provide the Attorney Generals office anything they need as we remain open and transparent.

Nessel agreed to review the case, pledging transparency and an unbiased look at the matter.

As Attorney General I have consistently advocated for a thorough, comprehensive and objective review of all officer-involved shootings, particularly those which result in fatalities, Nessel said.

This matter will receive an exhaustive review and analysis with an impartial lens and, when completed, our department is committed to transparency in our decision-making process, irrespective of the outcome. Justice demands nothing less.
Vietnams domestic gold prices topped VND53 million (US$2,286) per tael for the first time in history on Wednesday before continuing with their upward trend through Thursday morning.

Gold prices posted by trading firms gained another VND250,000 ($10.8) per tael on Thursday morning.

One tael of gold equals 37.80 grams.

The prices for buying and selling gold at the Saigon Jewelry Company (SJC) were VND52.45 million ($2,264) and VND53.4 million ($2,305) per tael, respectively, as of 10:30 am Thursday in Ho Chi Minh City.

At the same time in Hanoi, Bao Tin Minh Chau Jewelry Company purchased SJCs gold at VND52.55 million ($2,255) per tael and sold at VND53.25 million ($2,299) per tael.

In the global market, the precious metal was traded at $1,870 an ounce in the early morning, its highest in nearly nine years.

Expert Phan Dung Khanh told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that the global gold price hike was driven by the European Unions announcement of a budget package and a bailout package of 1.8 trillion euro (approximately $2.1 trillion) to protect economies severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

That central banks continuously pump money to stimulate these economies and purchase gold reserves has triggered global gold prices to skyrocket, Khanh said.

As a result, the volatility of global markets led to the historic increase in gold prices in Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh City-based jewelry company Phu Tho SJCs chairman Tran Thanh Hai warned that the current VND1 million-per-tael difference between the buying and selling rates poses risks for consumers and investors.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Ngoc Trong, director of New Partner Jewelry (NPJ) Co. Ltd., advised those investing in gold to sell a portion of their reserves to make a profit.

Many international organizations forecast that gold prices will exceed $1,921 an ounce in the next few months.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is resorting to public spectacles such as the re-opening of Hagia Sophia as a mosque to distract attention from his waning support and mismanagement of the economy, said Carl Bildt, co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, Ahval reported.

But despite Erdogan's efforts, Turkey is entering an acute phase of political and financial turmoil, Bildt writes in an article for Project Syndicate.

By converting Hagia Sophia into a mosque and planning Islamic prayers there in front of cameras, Erdogan is trying to signal fundamental changes for Turkey, which was founded on secular principles, and to demonstrate his political power and the power of the ruling Justice and Development Party.

For now, it is obvious that the country is heading for a political and financial bust-up, Bildt said, citing Erdogans loss of more liberal, urban Turks, which are leaving him in droves, a faltering debt-laden economy and the decision of former political allies to set up rival parties to challenge him in elections, due by 2023.

With his support eroding, it is unlikely that Erdogan could survive another election, even with the aid of the AKPs current coalition partner, the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Shoring up the religiously conservative nationalist base with gambits like Hagia Sophias reconversion is unlikely to help much.

Meanwhile, according to Bildt, Turkey's economy is heading towards a possible crisis.

Turkey has a brewing economic crisis, owing to rising fiscal and external deficits, which are being sustained with massive amounts of credit from state-owned banks, he said. The debt burden was already a big problem before the COVID-19 pandemic and is sure to become worse now. A recent $15 billion loan from Turkeys sometime-ally Qatar will help for a while. But the current situation cannot  and therefore will not  last.

Bildt noted a political break in Turkey has now become inevitable and it is just a question of what form the transformation will take.

That could mean a smooth transition to a less centralised governance arrangement and a return to the path of modernisation and alignment with Europe, which is what Turkeys friends should be rooting for, Bildt said.

But, now that Erdogan knows his regimes days are numbered, Turkey could also be heading for a more dramatic and disturbing scenario. One cannot rule out the possibility that Erdogan simply refuses to accept an unfavourable verdict by the electorate.
A West Virginia judge urged parties in dozens of asbestos lawsuits to reach a settlement and avoid the dreadful experience of a live trial next week while the coronavirus pandemic rages on.

Judge Ronald Wilson said Wednesday in a court filing that he was forced to move the July 28 trial, which consolidates 38 cases naming scores of defendants, out of a local courthouse to a 4,000-square-foot conference center near Wheeling, West Virginia, to accommodate social distancing guidelines.

For those of you who have not experienced it, a trial with everyone wearing masks and jurors, attorneys, clients, witnesses, and the judge separated by 6 feet  with the judge, the attorneys, and the witness trying to communicate  is a dreadful experience, Wilson said.

If youre going to settle  do it now and avoid this, he urged the parties.

As of Tuesday, West Virginia had reported around 5,200 Covid-19 cases and 101 deaths from the disease. Earlier this month, Governor Jim Justice limited public gatherings to 25 people, but court proceedings are exempt.

States such as Florida have re-started jury trials despite a surge in coronavirus cases in their areas. Other states are putting off in-person trials and seeking to use Zoom and other video-conferencing systems to keep dockets moving.

The plaintiffs in Wilsons trial are suing makers and distributors of asbestos, a building material which has been strongly linked to cancer. West Virginias history with the mining and chemical industry has generated thousands of asbestos suits over the years.

Wilson has overseen asbestos litigation in the state since 2002. He said about 98% of the cases set for trial before him over the years have settled.

The West Virginia case is In RE: Asbestos Personal Injury Litigation  Civil Action No. 03-C-9600, June 2020 Trial Group, Lung Cancer Group 18 (Wheeling).

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics COVID-19 Training Development Virginia
Ghanaians will soon again enjoy another three months of free water supply and electricity relief as part of efforts to cushion Ghanaians against the hardship brought on by the Coronavirus pandemic.

The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta announced this today, Thursday, July 23, 2020 while presenting the 2020 mid-year budget review in Parliament.

It is because we put the concerns and aspirations of the ordinary Ghanaian first. That is also why we further reduced electricity prices by half and completely provided potable water for free for everybody since March this year. And we will extend it for another 3 months, he said.

 citinewsroom
Mr Xiandong said there are limits to freedom, and any expressions of freedom of speech and assembly have to be subject to law and order and should be peaceful. Stories about Hong Kong have been exaggerated, he told RTE radios Today with Sarah McInerney show.

When asked about calls in Ireland to have the extradition agreement with Hong Kong withdrawn, the Ambassador said that the agreement was there is to provide mutual assistance: I don't think many Irish people would like to see those rioters, who are terrorists, come to Ireland to take it as a safe haven for them.

Mr Xiandong also described videos showing members of the Muslim population in the province of Xinjiang, Uighurs in concentration camps as fabricated: A lot of those video clips are fabricated, edited for political purposes, too absurd, it is very unfortunate that people are basing their perceptions or judgements on those reports.

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The Ambassador said it was China's position that these camps do not exist and that they were not concentration camps.

On reports of the forced sterilisation of Uighur women, Mr Xiandong said this was just a fabricated, sensational story. If there's any single case it would not be allowed, if there is concrete proof we will have an investigation.

Stories about ethnic cleansing were totally fabricated because in the past 40 years the Uighur population was double that of the rest of China, he said.

Criticism

Fianna Fail senator Malcolm Byrne said the Chinese governments allegation of fabrication was worrying.

He said he was concerned that anyone extradited from Ireland to Hong Kong would face a farce of a trail and could be spirited away to mainland China, adding Ireland should not allow extradition to Hong Kong.

Former Attorney General Independent Senator Michael McDowell said the Ambassadors remarks were deeply misleading and troubling and that it was blatantly untrue that the stories on concentration camps had been inaccurate.

The fact that the Ambassador referred to the higher birth rate among Uighur Muslims was a matter of concern, he added.

Senator McDowell said that under Article 5 of the extradition agreement between Ireland and Hong Kong it was prohibited to extradite anyone for a political offence or on the basis of their political outlook: Our laws and courts provide that people on trumped charges cannot be extradited.

Senator Byrne added that he was concerned that China might try to use economic might to apply pressure. It was important to stand up to the Chinese authorities as the way they treat people is not acceptable.
Washington  President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he will send federal agents to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to help combat rising crime, expanding the administrations intervention into local enforcement as he runs for reelection under a law-and-order mantle.

Using the same alarmist language he has employed to describe illegal immigration, Trump painted Democrat-led cities as out of control and lashed out at the radical left, which he blamed for rising violence in some cities, even though criminal justice experts say it defies easy explanation.

In recent weeks there has been a radical movement to defund, dismantle and dissolve our police department, Trump said at a White House event, blaming the movement for a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence.

This bloodshed must end, he said. This bloodshed will end.

The decision to dispatch federal agents to American cities is playing out at a hyperpoliticized moment when Trump is grasping for a new reelection strategy after the coronavirus upended the economy, dismantling what his campaign had seen as his ticket to a second term. With less than four months until Election Day, Trump has been warning that violence will worsen if his Democratic rival Joe Biden is elected in November and Democrats have a chance to make the police reforms they have endorsed after the killing of George Floyd and nationwide protests demanding racial justice.

Crime began surging in some cities like Chicago, New York and Philadelphia when stay-at-home orders lifted. Criminal justice experts seeking answers have pointed to the unprecedented moment: a pandemic that has killed over 140,000 Americans, historic unemployment, a mass reckoning over race and police brutality, intense stress and even the weather. Compared with other years, crime in 2020 is down overall.

The plan Trump announced Wednesday expands an existing program that sent hundreds of federal agents to Kansas City, Missouri after a 4-year-old boys shooting death to help quell a record rise in violence. Sending federal agents to help localities is not uncommon; Attorney General William Barr announced a similar surge effort in December for seven cities with spiking violence. But this effort will include at least 100 Department of Homeland Security Investigations officers who generally conduct drug trafficking and child exploitation investigations, in addition to personnel under the Justice Department umbrella.

DHS officers have already been dispatched to Portland, Oregon, and other localities to protect federal property and monuments as Trump has lambasted efforts by protesters to knock down Confederate statutes.

Local authorities there have complained that agents have exacerbated tensions on the streets, while residents have accused the government of violating their constitutional rights. Indeed, civil unrest escalated after federal agents were accused of whisking people away in unmarked cars without probable cause.

Since the racial justice protests began, Trumps campaign has leaned heavily into a pledge to maintain law and order as it has tried to tie Biden to a small group of radicals and anarchists it claims is trying to destabilize Americas cities and rewrite history.

The campaign believes the push can help Trump by drumming up support from suburban and older voters who may be rattled by violent images, which have been broadcast often by conservative media outlets.

In Chicago, Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who had initially blasted the news, said the U.S. attorneys office will supervise the additional agents joining existing federal law enforcement offices.

If those agents are here to actually work in partnership on support of gun violence and violent cases, plugging into existing infrastructure of federal agents, not trying to play police in our streets, then thats something different, she said, while also accusing the president of trying to distract from scrutiny of the federal response to the pandemic.

In New Mexico, Democratic elected officials had cautioned Trump against sending in federal agents, with U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich calling on Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales to resign for attending the White House event.

Instead of collaborating with the Albuquerque Police Department, the Sheriff is inviting the Presidents stormtroopers into Albuquerque, Heinrich said in a statement.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf drew a distinction between the mission in Portland  to protect federal property  and the surges in Kansas City, Chicago and Albuquerque to help stop violence.

Albuquerque and Chicago will be getting millions of dollars for new officers, and the Justice Department will reimburse Chicago $3.5 million for local law enforcements work on the federal task force.

In Kansas City, the top federal prosecutor said any agents involved in an operation to reduce violent crime in the area will be clearly identifiable when making arrests, unlike what has been seen in Portland. Hundreds of extra agents have been sent.

These agents wont be patrolling the streets, U.S. Attorney Timothy Garrison said. They wont replace or usurp the authority of local officers.

Operation Legend  named after 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was fatally shot while sleeping in a Kansas City apartment last month  was announced July 8. There have been more than 200 arrests.

My one and only child who fought through open heart surgery at four months is gone due to senseless gun violence, LeGends mother, Charon Powell, said at the White House. Children are supposed to be our future and our son didnt make it to kindergarten.
This week has a pretty eclectic mix of indies available for your consumption, though the studios are clearly still holding back a lot of their offerings for a future of an inderminate date where we can return to movie theaters.The films listed are from studios other than the Big Six - Paramount, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Universal, Columbia/Sony and Disney. All films listed will be available at their respective sources on Friday unless otherwise noted. Check out the posts from the past few weeks for more movies that may have already come to VOD: July 17th July 10th , and July 3rd : Natalia Dyer, Wolfgang Novogratz, Timothy Simons, Susan Blackwell: Karen Maine: Drama: After an innocent AOL chat turns racy, a Catholic teenager in the early 00s discovers masturbating and struggles to suppress her new urges in the face of eternal damnation.: This is the feature film adaptation of a short by the same name released in 2017. Virtual cinemas ; available VOD on July 28th: Dan Stevens, Alison Brie, Sheila Vand, Jeremy Allen White: Dave Franco, Joe Swanberg, Mike Demski: Dave Franco: Horror, Thriller: Two couples on an oceanside getaway grow suspicious that the host of their seemingly perfect rental house may be spying on them. Before long, what should have been a celebratory weekend trip turns into something far more sinister, as well-kept secrets are exposed and the four old friends come to see each other in a whole new light.: This is Dave Francos directorial debut. Drive in theaters , and available VOD: Rosamund Pike, Sam Riley, Aneurin Barnard, Anya Taylor-Joy: Jack Thorne: Marjane Satrapi: Biography, Drama, Romance: The true-story of Marie Skodowska Curie and her ground-breaking scientific achievements that revolutionized medicine with her discovery of radium and polonium, ultimately changing the face of science forever.: Based on the book by Lauren Redniss.: Amazon Prime: Alec Secareanu, Angeliki Papoulia, Carla Juri, Imelda Staunton: Romola Garai: Horror: An ex-soldier, living homeless in London, is offered a place to stay at a decaying house inhabited by a young woman and her dying mother. As he starts to fall for her, he cannot ignore his suspicion that something sinister is going on.: This is actress/director Romola Garais directorial debut. Drive in theaters , and available VOD: Orlando Bloom, Janet Montgomery, Charlie Creed-Miles, Anne Reid: Geoff Thompson: Ludwig Shammasian, Paul Shammasian: Drama, Thriller: An adult victim of childhood sexual abuse confronts the horrors of his past.: The film is from 2017 and was originally called, but I guess it didnt get a US release until now.: Available VOD: Gero von Boehm: Documentary: One of the great masters of photography, Helmut Newton made a name for himself exploring the female form. Newton's unique and striking way of depicting women has always posed the question: did he empower his subjects or treat them as sexual objects?: The film includes interviews with Grace Jones, Charlotte Rampling, Isabella Rossellini, Anna Wintour, Claudia Schiffer, and Marianne Faithfull, among others.: Valeria Castano Fajardo, Carlos Fonnegra, Julian Giraldo, David Escallon Orrego: Catalina Arroyave Restrepo: Drama: Cristina and Simon are two young graffii artists who paint the city that they live in: Medellin. They defy a criminal gang when they decide to paint over a threat, written in a wall, a mural of a whale. The powerful strength of youth, faces fear, violence and the many risks of growing up.: Its in Spanish, and is the directorial debut from Catalina Arroyave Restrepo.: Joey King, Jacob Elordi, Joel Courtney, Carson White: Vince Marcello, Jay S. Arnold,: Vince Marcello: Comedy, Romance: High school senior Elle juggles a long-distance relationship with her dreamy boyfriend Noah, college applications, and a new friendship with a handsome classmate that could change everything.: This is the sequel to 2018's, based on the book by Beth Reekles.: Netflix: Emily Blunt, Danny Devito, John Krasinski, Ian McKellan: Dean Lorey, Scott Christian Sava: Tony Bancroft, Scott Christian Sava, Jaime Maestro: Animation, Adventure, Comedy: A family must use a magical box of Animal Crackers to save a run-down circus from being taken over by their evil uncle Horatio P. Huntington.: This was finished in 2017, but is just now getting a release on Netflix.: Netflix: James Purefoy, Meadow Nobrega, David Heyman, Maggie Steed: Piers Ashworth, Meg Leonard, Nick Moorcroft: Chris Foggin: Comedy, Drama: Ten fisherman from Cornwall are signed by Universal Records and achieve a top ten hit with their debut album of Sea Shanties.: Based on a true story.: Available VODSource 1
Tom Holland, a.k.a. Spider-Man, is undoubtedly one of the most sought-after actors of his generation. After all, he could go viral on social media for any reason.

However, just recently, he became a trending Twitter topic for something bizarre.

It all started when fans of the 24-year-old Marvel superhero sent congratulatory messages to Holland for becoming a father. (Wait, what? Father of whom?) Apparently, the Twitter world is claiming that Holland is the father of Nicki Minaj's unborn child. (Again, WHAT?)

On July 21,Minaj took to Instagram to announce her pregnancy. She posted a photo showing off her baby bump while wearing a two-piece floral bikini, glass heels, and her iconic yellow hair.

Since then, photos of Tom Holland started circulating alongside some congratulatory messages for being the father of Nicki Minaj's baby.

Twitter's Hilarious Tom Holland-Nicki Minaj Trend

Fans were quick to go online to express their take on the rather odd news. Some shared their happiness for the soon-to-be mom and dad, while others expressed shock and disbelief as if they were born at a different time.

"The fact that TOM HOLLAND is a FATHER now......time flies," one Twitter user wrote.

"Congratulations, Tom Holland. You're going to be an amazing father to little Tony," another one tweeted, adding a baby boy emoji.

Some even burst into tears after hearing the news and said: "My sister really just told me Nicki Minaj is having a baby 'with some white guy' When I asked her who homegirl really said TOM HOLLAND."

Meanwhile, another fan account could not believe what it did after tweaking clips of Tom Holland and Nicki Minaj with subtitles expressing their undying love for each other.

Is Tom Holland A Father Now? The TRUTH!

Okay, so before you slip at the edge of your seats, let us make this clear. No, our favorite Peter Parker portrayer is still not a father and definitely not Nicki Minaj's baby daddy.

The cutie actor was just a victim of another Twitter hoax, which came out of a meme from 2019.

According to Capital FM, the whole "Tom Holland is the father of Nicki Minaj's baby" came from a hilarious rumor and meme that also went viral last year. The rumor accused the Spider-Man star of being the third wheel in a love triangle between the "Super Bass" rapper and YouTube content creator James Charles.

Fans can now all take a deep breath and rejoice because Tom Holland is still not "off the market."

As of writing, Holland has yet to comment about this recent Twitter hoax. Maybe he is still busy filming his upcoming movie "Uncharted," where he would be playing like a modern Indiana Jones.

So Who Is The Father Of Nicki Minaj's Baby?

The 37-year-old rapper announced her first pregnancy with her husband, Kenneth Petty, whom she married in secret in October 2019.

Petty is Minaj's high school sweetheart, and the two reignited their romance after years of being away from each other.

While the rapper flooded her 119 million Instagram followers with photos of her growing belly, she did not drop any details about the baby's gender and her due date.

READ MORE: Jennifer Aniston Heartbreak: Katy Perry Delivers Sad News For 'Friends' Star
The Normandy and Minsk formats are the only ones that are capable of bringing peace to Donbas and reaffirming Ukraine's sovereignty within its internationally recognized borders, French Ambassador to Ukraine Etienne de Poncins states.

The ambassador assured that France will not abandon its attempts to find a way to establish peace in Donbas.

We use a lot of energy and diplomatic tools to try to reach an agreement, and we will continue to do so. President Emmanuel Macron is fully committed to this position and spends a lot of time on phone conversations with Angela Merkel, President Zelensky and President Putin to try to find a way to peace. And we will not give up these efforts. We know that almost every day there are terrible casualties along the line of contact. We want to do our part so that they end and peace returns to Ukraine," the ambassador said.

As Ukrinform reported, the last meeting of the leaders in the Normandy format took place in Paris on December 9, 2019. In early July, Berlin hosted a meeting of political advisers to the leaders of the Normandy format countries. The Office of the President of Ukraine then stated that Ukraine, Germany and France at the meeting demonstrated their readiness to make every effort to implement the agreements of the Normandy format summit, reached in Paris, while Russia said it needs time to prepare its response.

ish
CyberVein - Interconnecting the data that runs the world

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 23, 2020 / CyberVein is a big-data service provider who interconnects the data that runs the world. The platform was founded in 2017 by the Singapore CV Technology Foundation.

CyberVein's big-data solution is based on the PISR (private, interlink, secure, robust) distributed database developed by CyberVein, focusing on enterprise-level "blockchain + big-data" customized services.

CyberVein aims to create a true, trustworthy, and efficient enterprise-level big-data platform, promote blockchain applications to empower the real world economy, and achieve greater data usage and monetization at a lower cost, not only to make data credible and usable, but also to make data truly valuable assets.

The four core products of data management, security, monetization and privacy are focusing on three major problems in this information age: information silo, data security, and data monetization. It perfectly links upstream and midstream of data-flow, aggregates and enables cross-domain governance of upstream data, and encapsulates data abstraction into services, providing business value to applications, thereby creating an enterprise-level data flow platform based on blockchain.

Background

Technological development has brought a surge in data volume. In 2018, the global data volume was estimated 32ZB, and it will reach 180ZB in 2025. How much data is effectively saved? In 2018, it was 5ZB, accounting for less than 16%; it is expected to be 16ZB in 2025, accounting for about 9%, which means that a lot of data is deleted or lost.

In addition to the imbalance between data output and storage, most centralized storage also faces the risk of data being leaked and stolen. How to store large amounts of information properly, safely and in full amount has become a problem faced by individuals, enterprises and government agencies.

The demand for large-scale development of distributed business calls for the birth of a new generation of blockchain infrastructure, and PISR enterprise-level distributed database takes into account the optimal balance between efficiency, security and decentralization, allowing blockchain technology serve the real economy.

Without millions of images and other types of labeled data, it is impossible to truly train large-scale deep learning networks. In other words, companies with large amounts of data can create various types of predictive models to "control", such as Facebook will be 50 million Human data is sold to Cambridge Analytica, which affects the US presidential election.

In recent years, countries have frequently promulgated policies related to data security and privacy protection. In the future, the use of data will become more cautious. At the same time, data interaction and data fusion will also be a world trend, but due to industry competition, privacy and security, data ownership, and complicated administrative procedures, data cannot be developed and applied in compliance and effectively, often in the form of islands. It is difficult and costly to integrate scattered data.

Technology

The four core products are not only independent with different functional attributes, but also each as a holistic system that can be connected in series to provide a more comprehensive big-data solution.

PISR Consortium database

The PISR enterprise-level distributed database uses the blockchain to record the database status and operations in units of time, which not only makes the database credible, but also makes the blockchain a time machine that can be restored to the record on the chain at any time any database status.

It creates better data management: through safe and reliable virtual machine operation and maintenance of user data, data is efficiently aggregated for upstream data, and data traceability and tracking are realized to ensure the reliability of data sources and outputs, and achieve cross-level, cross-departmental data sharing to improve the timeliness, diversity, stock and density of data to realize the commercial value of data, and truly solve the problems in data flow.

DAG storage chain

DAG (directed acyclic graph) is a commonly used data storage structure in the computing. Because of its unique topology, DAG was first used to deal with dynamic programming problems, such as finding the shortest path in navigation, data compression, and other scenarios.

In the field of distributed ledgers, the biggest feature is that there is no block, and its consistency is maintained by the transaction itself. Each transaction needs to confirm the previously unconfirmed transaction when it is issued, and is immediately broadcast to the entire network to form a connected data network.

It creates safer data storage, with better efficiency, no block confirmation, low transaction fees, and also eliminates miner, supports asynchronous verification and parallel processing of each node, the more nodes, the faster the speed, the stronger the scalability. The database backup on DAG storage chain provides an extra layer of security for businesses.

Cloud GPU

Clound GPU enables businesses to use the GPU resources within the CyberVein network to do the machine training required. This allows smaller businesses who don't have the infrastructure and capital to improve their work, and allows big data buinesses to share their data to earn more income. The Cloud GPU platform will have a complete system of data evaluation and standardization, ensuring all data can be used and be rightly valued.

Federated Learning Platform

Federated learning enables data to be monetized. Federated Learning is a distributed machine learning workflow. The datasets is first trained locally, and the data of all parties is kept locally, without revealing privacy or violating regulations. Individual terminal returns trained model to the server to create a shared model. Effectively protect data privacy and security, solve the problem of information silo, and thus realize the value of data.

CyberVein Business Model

CyberVein treats data as an asset and authorize the rights of data. Through CyberVein big-data solution stimulates the value of the data thus achieving data monetization.

The CVT big-data platform covers the entire process of the data value chain from data sources, data processing, data analysis and data applications. CVT incentivizes monetary profit from data storage, data analysis and data transactions, by the data asset chain which applies to diverse data driven industries

CyberVein Clarifies the property rights of data assets, create a common data language for enterprises, form strategic resources for all parties and facilitate the commercialization of data assets

CVT Token

CyberVein Token (CVT) is the special token used in its ecosystem. CVT is used as a transaction fee and network contribution consensus reward in major applications on the chain. The total circulation of CVT is 2,147,483,648, and the current circulation is 1060,163,761. It can be obtained from the Proof of Contribution (PoC) consensus reward mechanism or purchased from digital asset exchanges such as Bittrex Global, OKEx, Bitbns, BitZ and HitBTC.

The token can be rewarded as:

Storage contribution rewards: In PoC consensus algorithm, storage contributors receive CVT token rewards in proportion to their amount of storage contributed

Storage payment: In distributed storage, the data storing party pays the corresponding storage fee according to the file size

Computing Power Contribution Reward: Computing power is network productivity. Computing power contributors get CVT rewards in proportion to their contribution

Data trading: In Federated Learning, data buyers and sellers negotiate the price of data transactions, thus using this interactive data to complete modeling needs

For example: a clinic that provides consultation, diagnosis, treatment, and convalescence services for the health of the elderly wants to track and store clinic data properly. Payments in CVT can enjoy the service of distributed storage of the clinic data provided by storage contributors. CVT token is obtained by the storage contributors. i.e. If the clinic wants to obtain oral health data for the elderly over 65 years old, data can be acquired through the CyberVein data center with the payment of CVT to the data contributor, which indicates the cost of the data; if the clinic needs to provide personal customized services for elders over 65 years old, relevant modeling data through CyberVein federated learning algorithm can be obtained with the payment of CVT to the data center, which represents the cost of usage of the algorithm. Meanwhile, if the clinic intends to use self-possessed existing data for modeling but with insufficient computing power, CVT can be used as a purchasing medium to assist in the shortage amount of computing power in modeling.

Partners

CyberVein has many partners that support it in capital, marketing and technical aspects, which had made CyberVein a strong project that's heading for success. There are several capital supports from Qianhai Huichao, Ace Capital, Empower Capital, Australia CollinStar Capital, Block Capital, BitBen Capital; some market cooperations with Ant Node Alliance, Segmentfault, Lighter Blockchain; and technical supports from CyberMiles, Zhoukou Port District Government, Jiangsu NextStage, InVault, Capital Pay CS Pay, Shanghai Taishi Tax Refund, Zhixing LAB, BT-Bank, Henan Blockchain Technology Research Association, Dubai Government, Ningbo Aquatic products, Shenzhen Insilico.

Institutional Collaboration

Zhejiang University-CyberVein R&D Center was established in 2018. Based on the existing data research characteristics and advantages, and combining the professional needs of new blockchain talents, Zhejiang University and CyberVein will carry out scientific research in the field of blockchain-based new generation information technology, especially in the field of distributed machine learning.

For more information:

Visit CyberVein:

www.cybervein.org

Visit CyberVein on BitcoinTalk Forum:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5250086.0

Follow CyberVein on Linkedin:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/cybervein-%E6%95%B0%E8%84%89%E9%93%BE/

Follow CyberVein on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/CyberVeinGroup

Follow CyberVein on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/cyberveinteam

Follow CyberVein on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/user/CyberVeinGroup

Follow CyberVein on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpIgOnNTu4FPFsa9LBdQjCw?view_as=subscriber

Join the CyberVein Community on Telegram:

https://t.me/CyberVeinCommunity

Contact us at:

CyberVein Customer Support

Rachel Yu

rachelyu@cybervein.org

+8615598359310

SOURCE: CyberVein

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598619/What-is-CyberVein-Why-Is-It-the-Top-Crypto-Project-in-2020
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 18:06:34|Editor: huaxia

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WELLINGTON, July 23 (Xinhua) -- A total of 125 community connector positions are being established throughout New Zealand to focus on helping people connect with the services they need to support recovery post COVID-19.

Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni made the statement on Thursday.

"Some New Zealanders have multiple needs -- for example unemployment as well as other psycho-social needs such as health-related issues, housing issues, job-training and crisis support that have been compounded due to COVID-19," Sepuloni said.

The community connectors will assist people to get the information and access they need from multiple government agencies and service providers with a wide geographical reach, particularly in those areas not already serviced by community agencies, she said.

The Community Connection Service will also work with Maori, Pacific and ethnic groups, seniors and people with disabilities or significant health conditions. Supporting people who may be rurally or socially isolated is also a major focus for the service, the minister said.

The government investment in the community connectors service is 41.25 million NZ dollars (27.56 U.S. dollars) over two years and creates 125 new positions, Sepuloni said.

"It's part of a Community Wellbeing package that supports the sustainability and effectiveness of social services delivered by non-government organizations to vulnerable New Zealanders," she added. Enditem
A lower court in Jaipur has ordered the special operations group (SOG) of Rajasthan Police to probe the role of Union Minister for Jal Shakti and Jodhpur Member of Parliament (MP) Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and his wife Naunad Kanwar, among several others, in the 884-crore Sanjivani Credit Co-operative Society fraud case that was unearthed in end-September last year.

Additional District Judge No. 8 Pawan Kumar gave the order on Tuesday (July 21) on the basis of a revision petition filed by two complainants from Barmer, who had invested 68 lakh in the co-operative society and were denied their dues upon maturity of the sum.

They also demanded an investigation into the role of the minister and his wife in the SOG case registered in August 2019.

Shekhawats office said they would go through the contents of the order before making any comment about it.

Ajay Kumar Jain, the complainants counsel, said the court accepted the revision petition and ordered the SOG to investigate the role of Shekhawat, Kanwar, and three others, including Mohan Kanwar, Rajendra Baheti and Kewalchand Daglia.

The revision petition was filed on June 20, which stated that despite the money trail to the personal accounts of minister Shekhawat and his wife, the SOG neither arrested them, nor seized their properties purchased from earnings from the fraud, Jain said.

The complainants -- Ladu Singh and Guman Singh of Barmer  moved court against the co-operative society that had started its operations in 2008 in Barmer and accused it of duping 50,000 investors, including them, of 884 crore.

The complainants had cumulatively invested 68 lakh in the society, but were denied their maturity dues.

The SOG had also found in its investigation that Shekhawat and his wifes companies had a 19% share in the co-operative society and had their hands in the till. The agency has found that money was transferred from the co-operative society to them, Jain alleged.

The SOG had registered a case against the co-operative society on August 23, 2019, after a preliminary inquiry on the basis of the complaints of unsuspecting investors and found that 50,000 of them were defrauded of 884 crore.

The co-operative societys director Vikram Singh and others were booked under Sections 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 409 (criminal breach of trust by anybody in the capacity of trust), 467(forgery of valuable security), 468(forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using forged document as genuine) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and were later arrested.

In its preliminary investigation, SOG found gross financial irregularities after perusing the balance sheets of the co-operative society between 2009 and 2018, and 214,000 documents of its investors.

The SOG found that documents between the year 2008 and 2015 were destroyed by those who held positions in the co-operative society. Until June 30, 2019; 214,472 investors had invested 883.38 crore, but none of them were paid maturity dues, the preliminary investigation report had said.

The SOG noted that the society promised unrealistic returns to lure investors, which offered 10% and up to 12% for the fixed deposit (FD) and the daily deposit schemes, respectively.

The promised return was over 40% more than the existing market rate that banks and financial institutions offer for FD schemes.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main opposition in the Congress-ruled desert state, is tight-lipped about the courts order.

It wont be prudent to respond to the courts order in a hurry. We need to go through the content before reacting to it, said Rajendra Rathore, deputy leader of opposition in the Rajasthan Assembly.
VANCOUVEROne of the statements compares Chinese people in Canada to the Jewish people before 1948, the year Israel was founded.

Another claims most Chinese Canadians support the new national security law being imposed on Hong Kong.

The messages recently began appearing on social media such as WeChat and WhatsApp in groups frequented by Chinese speakers.

While their origins are unclear, the statements are a glimpse of the rhetoric flaring in Canada around the controversial security law.

And their aim and tone is familiar to Canadians speaking out against the Chinese government.

Its trying to perpetuate the monolith of the Chinese community that everyone is in support of the Chinese government, that everyone is in support of the Hong Kong security law, says Cherie Wong of the democracy activist group Alliance Canada Hong Kong (ACHK).

Were not.

To Wong, they look like the latest attempt by China to galvanize Chinese communities in the country behind the Chinese Communist Party (CPP). Another prominent human rights activist, Anastasia Lin, said the messaging is meant to marginalize Chinese voices in Canada opposed to the Communist Party.

On June 30, the new national security law came into effect in Hong Kong. Opponents say it essentially brings Hong Kong under the full control of the Chinese Communist Party 27 years ahead of schedule and breaches the Sino-British Joint Declaration.

Under the agreement, the region was promised broad autonomy for 50 years upon its handover from the United Kingdom to mainland China. Opponents also say the law is meant to stifle freedom of speech and rule of law in Hong Kong after more than a year of pro-democracy protests have often ground it to a halt.

Once the law was brought into force, Canadians with ties to China or Hong Kong began to demand sanctions on CCP officials in response. Canada suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and will now treat sensitive goods being shipped to Hong Kong as though they were going to mainland China.

In response, last week the Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver placed a statement in the Chinese-language newspaper, Ming Pao, and on its own site espousing the need for the national security law. Part of the statement compares the situation in Hong Kong to Canadas October Crisis involving Quebec terrorists in the 1970s.

As Chinese Canadians with roots and family ties in Hong Kong, we hereby jointly declare our full support for the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Act, that will facilitate and maintain the long-term stability and prosperous development of Hong Kong under the one country, two systems principle, reads the statement.

Jun Ing, the vice-president of the Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver, insists the situation in Hong Kong is not black and white and his organization wants to show the other side of it by giving a voice to those who support the new law.

Ing said an English version of the statement will be sent to Parliament along with signatures of those who support it.

But he said his group is not involved in the latest controversial messages on social media encouraging people to sign it.

This has nothing to do with what CBA is doing, Ing said. For the life of me, I dont know who posted it.

Wong, meanwhile, takes issue with messaging lumping all Chinese in Canada together, such as one anonymous social media post being forwarded through Chinese-language forums this week.

The result of the signing of the joint statement will be sent to the federal government of Canada so the Canadian government will understand the will of most Chinese Canadians! read one of the messages with an undetermined author being forwarded on forums on the Chinese social media app, WeChat.

Concerns over the messages from Chinese community groups were then compounded when someone wrote another one being forwarded on WhatsApp, declaring Chinese Canadians are under threat.

If we Chinese Canadians dont unite, we will end up being like the Jews before 1948, being discriminated against and trampled upon, read the message. Please think hard whether you will support this Joint Statement.

The message started by warning that Canadas elected officials are trying to split China into two countries and to sanction Chinese officials. It pleads for those opposed to sign the statement.

Wong of Alliance Canada Hong Kong said the message comparing the situation to what Jewish people endured before the formation of Israel is particularly concerning and even racist.

But her concern goes further.

Considering a recent increase of hate-driven attacks on Chinese people in Canada as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, Wong said, CCP propagandists are trying to capitalize on the incidents to unite Chinese people behind the party.

Lin, a human rights advocate who also serves as the Macdonald-Laurier Institutes ambassador on Canada-China policy, has been targeted for challenging the CCP in the past, including speaking out against Beijings human rights record as Canadas representative in the 2015 Miss World pageant held in China. She was banned from boarding the plane to compete.

She said the social media messages look like common propaganda attempts by the CCP to make Chinese people feel victimized by others in an attempt to gain their support.

Its a victim mentality and they claim to have ownership or representation of Chinese peoples voice, but thats not true, Lin told the Star.

Over the past year, more attention has been paid to attempts by the United Front Work Departments (UFWD) attempts to influence Canadian politics and society. The department is a bureau of the CCP tasked with advancing the agenda of the party abroad.

Some Chinese-Canadian groups have raised the alarm about United Front operatives working themselves into positions of power in community organizations, then pushing Beijings agenda.

Ing said he isnt familiar with any such interference in the CBA of Vancouver and doesnt associate with the United Front.

I dont know anybody in the United Front, Ing said. I dont know if theres such a department.

Lin added that many Chinese people in Canada are also intimidated into keeping quiet on the actions of Chinas government, even on issues such as the national security law.

She said the Canadian government needs to support the Chinese community by making statements of its own, encouraging others to speak out.

By being vocal about it, the Canadian government is showing its value and its strength to the CCP knowing that they cant just bully our citizens, Lin said. For a lot of Chinese Canadians this is not symbolic.

Read more about:
A man has been taken into custody outside of Ivanka Trump's Washington, D.C. home.

An eyewitness tells DailyMail.com that a young man in a black Mercedes-benz was parked in front of the president's daughter's home Thursday morning and was seen being questioned by the Secret Service.

Uniformed Secret Service agents were seen pulling the man wearing a Pac-Man t-shirt out of his car, cuffing him and putting him in a van.

Ivanka was nowhere near the early morning confrontation as she is currently in Denver, Colorado, for a two-day tour. But about 10 minutes after the man was put in the van, her husband Jared Kushner was seen emerging from the home.

A man was taken into Secret Service custody Thursday morning outside of Ivanka Trump's Washington, D.C. home

The young man was seen in a Mercedes parked outside of the home before being confronted by agents

DailyMail.com photos show him sitting on the curb while handcuffed with his shoes off

Uniformed Secret Service agents were seen pulling the man wearing a Pac-Man t-shirt out of his car, cuffing him and putting him in a van

Ivanka was nowhere near the confrontation as she is currently in Denver, Colorado, to celebrate the passage of the Great American Outdoors Act

About 10 minutes after the man was put in the van, Jared Kushner was seen emerging from the home

It's unclear why the unidentified man was waiting outside of her home or what his intentions were.

DailyMail.com photos show him sitting on the curb while handcuffed with his shoes off. Agents were later seen back at the house towing the man's car.

Ivanka posted a photo of herself on an airplane Wednesday evening wearing a floral embroidered face mask with the caption, 'Taking off!' DC to Colorado.'

The morning of the incident, she tweeted: 'I am in Colorado today w/ Secretary Bernhardt + @SenGardner to celebrate yesterday's passage of the #GreatAmericanOutdoorsAct; a landmark bill that will allocate billions to our public lands making it the most consequential conservation legislation since Pres Theodore Roosevelt!'

She also tweeted that she would be visiting Rocky Mountain National Park Thursday morning.

It's unclear why the unidentified man was waiting outside of her home or what his intentions were

Uniformed Secret Service agents were seen escorting the unidentified driver to the van

While Ivanka was in Denver during the confrontation, Jared was inside the home

The man was given a face mask to wear as he was held in the Secret Service van

Uniformed Secret Service agents were seen pulling the man out of his car, cuffing him and putting him in a van

On Friday morning, Ivanka is expected to join Senator Gardner and officials from the Department of Labor and Department of Health and Human Services for a tour and roundtable talk at a child care facility in Colorado.

'I am looking forward to visiting the great state of Colorado and learning how this administration's policies are helping citizens across the state,' Ivanka said in a statement provided by the White House on Wednesday.

'Working with Senator Gardner on the Great American Outdoors Act, we are securing funding for the next 100 years to preserve our national parks and public lands.

'Additionally, I'm looking forward to visiting with Coloradans to hear how this administration's pro-family policies have positively impacted them,' she added.

Ivanka Trump is seen at a news conference to highlight the Great American Outdoors Act Thursday at Rocky Mountain National Park

The president's daughter is attending the conference with U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhartdt Thursday

The morning of the incident, she tweeted: 'I am in Colorado today w/ Secretary Bernhardt + @SenGardner to celebrate yesterday's passage of the #GreatAmericanOutdoorsAct

Just earlier this week Ivanka lent a helping hand in Washington, D.C. to distribute food boxes to families in need amid the coronavirus pandemic.

President Donald Trump's adviser appeared at the Dream Center for about 45 minutes to give out meat and dairy as part of efforts with Farmers to Families.

She was seen wearing a similar floral print mask as she interacted with recipients and loaded the boxes filled with produced into car trunks, back seats and directly into the hands of locals.
A photo has been going around online that shows United States President Donald Trump embracing and kissing arrested and now deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in the back seat of a car.

Real photo?

The photograph was found to have been edited of an old image of the US president holding and kissing his daughter, Ivanka Trump, who at the time of picture was 13 years old.

According to Snopes, the image would fool an individual at first glance, but upon closer inspection, several oddities could be seen showing the photo's modifications.

The first thing people would notice is that Epstein's head is disproportionate to his body, and a lock of hair could be found on the side of his head, which has no discernable origins.

The original image of father and daughter Trump was acquired from Getty Images and came from some time in 1995, where the two were riding inside their limousine while in Paris.

Despite the photo of Trump kissing Epstein being fake, the two have previously been pictured together on several occasions. At times, the events included Epstein's longtime confidant and now accused of involvement in sex trafficking, Ghislaine Maxwell and Trump's wife, Melania Trump.

Also Read: Fact Check: Is Ghislaine Maxwell's Secret Husband a Bristish Tech CEO?

Maxwell's case

Maxwell has been charged with enticing young girls for Epstein to divulge in his sex trafficking empire, as reported by AP News.

The accused woman's lawyers have requested the judge in charge of her case for a gag order that would deny prosecutors and attorneys of witnesses from expressing public opinions regarding the accusations of her involvement with Epstein's crimes.

In a legal filing, Maxwell's lawyers stated that federal prosecutors and witness attorneys have frequently made prejudicial comments to a fair trial. The 58-year-old woman has pleaded not guilty to the charges placed on her.

Judge Alison Nathan has not yet decided on the gag order request, which lawyers filed on Tuesday in Manhattan's District Court. Last week, Judge Nathan ordered Maxwell to be placed in prison without bail and will wait for a trial scheduled for next year.

The filing wrote that lawyers on the side of Maxwell's opposition would take advantage of any opportunity to damage the defense's chances for a fair trial.

The filing also comes after United States President Donald Trump, who was formerly friends with Epstein, expressed his hopes that Maxwell is in good health when asked about his opinion of her case, as reported by CNBC.

A US attorney spokesman for New York's southern district, one of Maxwell's prosecutors, refused to give a comment.

Maxwell's case was thought to have ended when Epstein died in prison in what was ruled to be suicide by hanging during August of last year. He was held without bail for charges of sex trafficking children and abusing dozens of underage girls.

Related Article: Fact Check: Was Ghislaine Maxwell Pictured Together with Murder Victim JonBenet Ramsey?

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A woman is brought to an ambulance on May 26. Stroke and heart cases plummeted during the pandemic, and hospitals worry about long-term consequences for patients who delayed care. Read more

Months after the coronavirus pandemic first shut down nonurgent medical services, and hospital admissions plummeted, Philadelphia-area health systems say patients are beginning to return for visits  but critical stroke and cardiac cases are still troublingly low.

A below-average number of stroke and heart attack cases is worrisome for hospitals because these are emergency events that cant be curtailed by a pandemic the way stay-at-home orders and shuttered offices may explain fewer car accidents. Whats more, although lots of nonurgent care and preventive screenings were delayed because of the pandemic, strokes and severe heart conditions must be treated quickly  within hours  or patients risk irreversible long-term damage and fewer treatment options.

We had people die because they waited too long, said Merle Carter, vice chair of emergency medicine for Einstein Healthcare Network, whose emergency department saw significantly fewer patients between March and May. Many of those who did show up had waited too long.

Theyd come in with facial droops they had for two or three days, Carter said. If theyd come in when it started  we might have been able to help.

Now, doctors are increasingly concerned that a potential surge in COVID-19 cases in the fall could make matters even worse.

Stroke and cardiac cases dropped during the pandemic

As more businesses reopen, and people begin to resume more of their pre-pandemic routines, they are also coming back to the doctor. But Philadelphia-area hospitals report that in many cases, their patients are now sicker.

We really do see two health crises for 2020: the first being the pandemic, the second being the impact of the care that wasnt delivered, said Jonathan Gleason, chief quality officer for Jefferson Health. Were seeing patients with more advanced disease and having some unfortunate outcomes that could have been prevented had they sought care earlier.

In April, when COVID-19 cases peaked at Philadelphia-area hospitals, Jeffersons severe heart attack and stroke volume was down 40% compared with April of last year. Between February and May, those types of cases were 25% below the number of cases in the same four-month period last year, which indicates that stroke and heart patients began returning to the hospital in the spring  but not entirely, Gleason said.

Penn Medicine also saw a drop in heart attack and stroke cases, but over the last month, those patients have been returning at about the same rate as the health systems overall patient volume, said Jay Giri, an assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine at Penn.

Between March and May, heart attacks were down 25% and stroke cases were down 14% at Penn Medicine, compared with the same time last year.

 READ MORE: 5 recent medical advances you might have missed amid coronavirus news | Expert Opinion

The declines are worrisome because doctors dont believe that patients necessarily had fewer stroke and cardiac episodes  they just didnt come to the hospital for help.

Were worried about the downstream effects of a future stroke. Maybe they didnt have a disabling deficit this time, but two months down the line, they cant move their whole left side, said Lori Lorant-Tobias, medical director of Pottstown Hospitals emergency department, where stroke cases were 52% lower in April than the same month last year.

Across the entire Tower Health system, which includes Pottstown Hospital, stroke cases were down 15% and heart attacks were down 16% between February and June, compared with the same time last year. St. Christophers Hospital for Children, also part of Tower, isnt included in the data because it does not treat stroke and heart attack.

Even more troubling, a new study published in JAMA suggests that delaying treatment for emergencies such as heart attacks may have been fatal for some patients.

 READ MORE: Fear of seeking care in hospitals overwhelmed by coronavirus may have caused thousands of deaths

The study looked at excess deaths  the number of deaths above what is expected based on past data  in March and April, many of which were attributed to COVID-19. But other excess deaths were attributed to chronic diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimers disease, and cerebrovascular diseases such as stroke, said Steven Woolf, director emeritus of Virginia Commonwealth Universitys Center on Society and Health and the studys lead author.

Woolf and his colleagues offered two potential explanations for these deaths: Some were likely people who died of complications from undiagnosed COVID-19.

The other possibility, Woolf said, is they didnt have COVID-19 but died of other things because they could not receive care for an acute emergency.

Fall COVID-19 surge could delay care again

With more chilling data surfacing about how COVID-19 has already affected patient care, hospitals are relieved to see patients returning for routine visits. But doctors are still worried that the effects of delayed care  both urgent needs, such as heart problems, and more routine care, such as preventive cancer screenings  could continue for months to come. And a potential surge in COVID-19 cases in the fall could make matters worse.

Time really is everything in the treatment of many of these conditions, said Gleason, of Jefferson. The impact on any one individual may not be significant, assuming people rapidly begin to resume care, but apply it to a whole population, and it becomes a really big issue.

Much of the decline in medical services during the pandemic can be attributed to state-mandated shutdowns of all nonurgent procedures, a move that many states made to preserve valuable personal protective equipment, ventilators, and medical staff to treat a surge of COVID-19 patients.

But hospital emergency departments remained open for truly urgent cases. These types of cases dropped in part because people were reluctant to go to the hospital and risk exposure to the virus.

 HELP US REPORT: Are you a health-care worker, medical provider, government worker, patient, frontline worker, or other expert? We want to hear from you.

Hospitals are now strategizing how they can learn from the last several months to prevent another major drop in non-COVID-19 cases, should the virus bring back fears about seeking care in the fall.

Sending a strong message that the hospital is safe is a major part of that preparation, said Giri, of Penn.

Not only is the hospital safe, its a place where everyone actually follows the rules, he said.

Theres been a lot of controversy over masks and social distancing. There is no controversy over these issues in the hospital, Giri said.
Got a question or tip? Contact us at bizmojoidaho@gmail.com.
Naked and Bleeding: One Womans Story of What Happened When the Sheriffs Came Through Her Front Door

Its been almost one year since deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Lancaster station armed with rifles and shotguns kicked in Jane Does door without warning, and dragged her outside naked and bleeding from her menstrual cycle. It goes without saying that Jane Doe is a Black woman.

Twenty-four-year-old Jane Doe was home alone with her 5-year-old son and 13-year-old sister. She had just taken a shower when sheriffs deputies, without warning, came barreling through her front door, tearing the door off the hinges. Guns in hand, the deputies ordered a naked Jane Doe  who was upstairs getting out of the shower and had run to the stairs to see what the commotion was  to come downstairs naked. Screaming and asking to see the warrant and be allowed to get dressed, she was forced at gunpoint to come downstairs naked in front of a group of male deputies.

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I had my phone recording the whole thing, and I scanned myself from head-to-toe with my phones camera to show that I was completely undressed and these officers are pointing guns at me and pointing guns at the children too, Jane Doe explained. They yelled at me to come downstairs, and I didnt want to make the officers with the weapons nervous, so I went down the stairs, and once I went down the stairs, it just went left from there. They snatched me off the stairs and tried to take my phone out of my hand. I was able to throw my phone to my little sister before they had me in handcuffs.

While her 13-year-old sister recorded the events, the video shows deputies at one point, throwing a blanket over her head like she was an animal.

Jane Doe chokes back tears while painfully reliving what she says was the most humiliating day of her life. The deputies would go on to take her outside, where the blanket hiding her body would fall, leaving her nakedness exposed and blood dripping down her legs. She says thats when deputies jumped on her and tied her up like cattle before throwing her in the back of a patrol car.

They wrapped the blanket  the comforter  around me, but it wasnt secure, Jane Doe explains. The officer was barely holding onto it. I could feel the wind coming up under me because I wasnt dressed. I could just feel all air. By the time I got out the door, he opened my cover and released it so it could drop. When that dropped, I fell to the ground because I didnt want all these police officers that was [sic] outside  it was a bunch of male police officers  to see me naked.

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Jane Doe says that her dropping to the ground was viewed as resisting by the deputies, so they flipped her over and forced onto her stomach. A group of deputies came and jumped on top of her, touching her breasts and private areas in the process. She says deputies also retaliated against her for telling her son and sister not to talk to them.

Jane Doe continued, An officer had his hand on my head and pulled my hair. I had bald patches from where he pulled my hair out. Another officer used both of his knees on my neck and back  I ended up with two sprained wrists and ankles and my left shoulder was sprained. One officer said, Aw shit and started giggling when his hands touched my private part and I was like aint no aw shit; you know exactly what youre doing. I kept telling the deputies I couldnt breathe, and one of the deputies yelled for someone to bring him the ties.

The deputies ignored her pleas not to tie her up and dragged her naked across her front lawn to the patrol car.

Crying, Jane Doe recounts one of the deputies smiling and laughing at her naked body in the back of the patrol car.

I turned around and looked at him and he was back there smiling like something was funny.

She says that she thought she had suffered the ultimate humiliation, but that it got worse.

I was sitting in the back of the police car bleeding from my menstrual cycle, she cries. My aunt pulled up. The only way for me to identify to her that I was back there like that was to smear blood on the window to show her that I am back here undressed on my period.

Initially, the deputies would not even let her aunt give her a tampon or wouldnt let her use the bathroom to put it on telling her aunt that she might conceal evidence if allowed to do so.

Fifteen minutes later, one officer comes to the car and turns the AC on, rolls down the window, and lets my aunt throw me a tampon. I had to put my tampon on in public in the back of the police car.

After asking her where her clothes are, she recounts that deputies went into her house and brought out her clothes and left them on the trunk, refusing to give them to her. After putting her tampon on, a deputy uncuffed her and allowed her to put her clothes on.

To add insult to injury, Jane Doe was arrested and charged with three counts of resisting arrest.

She says a detective gave her an ultimatum at the Lancaster sheriffs station  either sign a document agreeing that she was illegally recording the deputies in her house and that they can have a copy of the recording or get maced.

Weighing the consequences of being maced while being handcuffed, Jane Doe chose to sign the paperwork.

When she was given her phone back, most of the video she had captured at the beginning of the incident was missing. The video was edited to just capture deputies throwing the blanket over her head.

On top of that, she was never given a copy of the documents she was forced to sign under duress.

So, what was the cause of the sheriffs deputies coming to her home in the first place? The deputies claimed they were there to execute a warrant for Jane Does brothers arrest on an assault allegation. However, her brother was already in the sheriffs custody some 50 miles away in South Los Angeles. And that assault charge? The Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office declined to file criminal charges, citing a lack of sufficient evidence. In the end, it was all for naught and Jane Doe, who had no criminal record and was not the subject of the original warrant, was the only one charged with a crime.

Because of the incident, Jane Doe has been experiencing severe post-traumatic stress syndrome for which she is in therapy. A year later and she still gets nervous when someone comes to the door, and shes suspicious of unknown vehicles on her block. Her mother says she barely leaves the house anymore.

She says she built up the nerve to come forward after the hanging death of Robert Fuller turned the nations focus to the Antelope Valley. Black residents say theres been a long unchecked and unreported on history of anti-Blackness, racial tension, and racism and that the only people scarier than the White supremacists, Neo-Nazis, and skinheads that call the area home are the sheriffs deputies on patrol.

America is experiencing an era where theres a new video or a new headline of police violence against someone Black almost every day. Its gotten to the point that its hard to keep up even for those of us who make it our business to follow these stories. Its important to note that victims of police violence dont always die  so their stories dont always make the national news.

More often than not, they live and are left to go through life suffering extreme mental and physical pain, including anxiety, grief, shock, and humiliation for the rest of their lives, most never seeking or getting justice.

The good news is that Jane Doe will not be a part of the majority of people who experience police violence and live and never seek justice.

Shes currently represented by the Cochran firm. She has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the County of Los Angeles, citing a violation of her civil rights, battery, negligence, and negligent infliction of emotional distress and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Interestingly enough, since filing her lawsuit, the three counts of resisting arrest have been dropped.

If there is an unclothed suspect that is female, law enforcement nationwide is required to have a female officer present who is the officer who puts hands on that particular person, said attorney Brian Dunn. The fact that you had only male deputies handling my client, it demonstrates a further abrogation from the national standard of what it is that theyre supposed to do. The only way that they could bypass that rule and go around it is if they have some type of justification that would equate to an immediate defense of life situation or exigency that would require them to not take steps to ensure that a female officer was there. They had all the time in the world here. They just didnt care enough to have a female deputy present, and thats another problem that we have with their approach to this incident.

The only phrase more infuriating from law enforcement than I feared for my life, is their standard canned response when refusing to discuss these types of incidents and instead choosing to hide behind pending litigation. But we know  even if there were no litigation pending  they still wouldnt speak on it.

I dont think theres a woman alive in her right mind thats going to willingly be dragged out of her home naked  let alone while she was on her menstrual cycle.

As a woman and a Black woman, this story infuriates me and again shows the callous disregard for which law enforcement has for Black women and our bodies. You cannot convince me that they would do this to a White woman  take her outside naked and let her bleed all over the place in front of a bunch of men. Never!

When Jane Does story first aired on television, her now six-year-old son identified his mother immediately  even though her face was blurred.

My son remembers that day. Even though he was five-years-old, he will never forget it. He told me, Mama, I remember they pointed their guns at me, and I thought I was going to die.

Jasmyne A. Cannick writes about the intersection of politics and race and continues to be an outspoken voice in an effort to shape public opinion and encourage civic engagement for positive social change while advocating for underrepresented and marginalized communities. More at iamjasmyne.com
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of volunteer medics alleging that local and federal law enforcement officials have been "targeting and attacking" them during protests in Portland, Oregon.

Details: The suit, filed against the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Marshals Service and City of Portland, argues that attacks on medics violates the First and Fourth Amendments. The ACLU is seeking a court order prohibiting law enforcement from taking such action.

"Volunteer medics should be celebrated, not attacked or arrested."

 statement by Jann Carson, interim executive director of the ACLU of Oregon

The big picture: It's the latest lawsuit filed in connection with officers' response to the demonstrations in Portland.

The ACLU has also filed a suit against the City of Portland and the Trump administration on behalf of journalists and legal observers the group alleges were attacked by police while covering the protests. A motion to add federal agents to that order is pending before the court, with arguments scheduled for Thursday.

On Wednesday, a federal judge heard arguments in a lawsuit filed by Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, who accused federal agents of unlawful tactics following reports that some in unmarked vehicles detained Portland protesters without explanation, per AP. The suit seeks a restraining order against such action.

The other side: The Trump administration and City of Portland did not immediately respond to Axios' requests for comment.

However, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said Tuesday federal agents "will not retreat" from Portland. "The smear attacks leveled against our officers is disgusting," he said.

Read the medics' complaint, via DocumentCloud:

Go deeper: In photos: Portland protests unrest amid presence of federal agents
India on Thursday said Pakistan has once again exposed its "farcical" approach by denying available legal remedies to Kulbhushan Jadhav against his death sentence which is also in contravention of the International Court of Justice verdict, and asserted that it will explore further options in the case.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said India appointed a Pakistani lawyer as advised by Islamabad to help Jadhav file a review petition in a court but it could not be done in the absence of a Power of Attorney and supporting documents related to the case.

He said Pakistan has blocked all the avenues for an effective remedy available to India in the case, while noting that New Delhi has so far requested consular access to Jadhav for 12 times over the past one year.

"The whole exercise of not providing documents related to the case even after repeated requests, not providing an unimpeded consular access and some reported unilateral action of approaching the high court on part of Pakistan again exposes the farcical nature of Pakistan's approach," he said.

The MEA spokesperson said Pakistan is not only in violation of the judgment of ICJ, but also of its own Ordinance.

"Pakistan has completely failed to provide the remedy as directed by the ICJ and India reserves its position in the matter, including its rights to avail of further remedies," Srivastava added.

It is believed that India will seek legal advice on its next possible step in the case which could include again approaching the ICJ on the ground that Pakistan did not comply with the tribunal's order.

Earlier, Pakistan said July 20 is the last date to file a review petition in Islamabad High Court against Jadhav's conviction on charges of espionage and terrorism.

"Pakistan advised India that the relevant documents could be handed over only to an authorised Pakistani lawyer. Thereafter, India appointed a Pakistani lawyer to obtain the relevant documents," Srivastava said.

"To our surprise, as advised by the Pakistani authorities, when the authorised Pakistani lawyer approached the concerned authorities, they declined to handover the documents to the lawyer," he said.

Srivastava said notwithstanding denial of unimpeded and unhindered consular access to Jadhav as well as the relevant documents, India, as a last resort, tried to file a petition on July 18.

"However, our Pakistani lawyer informed us that a review petition could not be filed in the absence of power of attorney and supporting documents related to the case of Jadhav," he said.

The MEA spokesperson said Pakistan also created confusion over the last date of filing of the review petition as initially it indicated that it has to be filed by July 19. But subsequently, Pakistan indicated that the time limit to file the petition shall expire on July 20.

Media reports from Islamabad said the Pakistan government on Wednesday filed a petition in the Islamabad High Court seeking appointment of a "legal representative" for Jadhav.

However, the main parties, including the government of India, have not been consulted ahead of the filing of the application by the Ministry of Law and Justice under a federal ordinance.

Jadhav, the 50-year-old retired Indian Navy officer, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April 2017.

India approached the International Court of Justice against Pakistan for denial of consular access to Jadhav and challenging the death sentence.

The Hague-based ICJ ruled in July 2019 that Pakistan must undertake an "effective review and reconsideration" of the conviction and sentence of Jadhav and also to grant consular access to India without further delay.

Pakistan enacted the 'International Court of Justice Review and Reconsideration Ordinance 2020' on May 20 under which a petition for the review of a military court's decision can be made to Islamabad high court through an application within 60 days of its promulgation.

The Pakistan government has claimed that Jadhav refused to file a review petition or an application to reconsider the verdict.

Srivastava said India already shared its concerns to Pakistan in June knowing the "inadequacies and shortcomings" in the Ordinance.

"Pakistan took two weeks to inform us about this Ordinance and shared the copy of the Ordinance only after India requested the same. India has conveyed that the Ordinance neither fulfils nor does it give complete weight to the judgment of the ICJ," Srivastava said.

"With regards to the Ordinance, it seems, Pakistan was non-serious in its approach and was not interested in implementing the judgment of the ICJ in letter and spirit. It has blocked all the avenues for an effective remedy available for India," it said.
ABC journalist Leigh Sales has revealed the horrific online abuse she received after a feisty interview with the prime minister.

Sales shared the brutal comments following her clash with Scott Morrison on the ABC's 7.30 program on Tuesday night.

During the live interview Sales and Mr Morrison butted heads over the JobKeeper scheme and the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Following the tense interview, Sales shared a 'fraction of the sexualised abuse' she receives 'whenever I interview a prime minister', including being called a 'wh**e'.

'She is in desperate need of a vibrator,' one tweet said.

ABC journalist Leigh Sales (pictured) has revealed some of the shocking abuse she receives online following her 7.30 interview with Scott Morrison

'She pretty much sits on (Morrison's) lap whenever she "interviews" him. No journalistic integrity for Leigh Sales,' another wrote.

'What a rude b***h this so called journalist is, maybe she forgets where she came from?' said one.

'Leigh Sales is a lefty POS. Remember when she behaved like a convorting wh**e when she interviewed Malcolm Turnbull?' someone tweeted.

Sales, a Walkley Award-winning journalist, said other women in her industry, politics and in the spotlight were also subjected to similar abuse 'non stop'.

Following an interview with former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in April, Sales was once again the victim of shocking trolls.

Sales said her and other women in her industry were subjected to this abuse daily

'Any interviewer is supposed to be impartial, but Sales virtually goes down on her knees to give any Lib and on-camera b***job, she gives them such an easy time,' one man tweeted.

Sales shared the tweet with the caption: 'Another morning, another bit of casual misogyny & abuse - basically a daily occurrence for high-profile women on social media.'

Mr Morrison's strained appearance on the ABC program came just hours after he shut down a reporter during live questioning at his press conference.

When he was grilled by Sales about his government's contribution to the arts sector, Mr Morrison was quick to reject any suggestion he hadn't done enough to keep the industry afloat.

'We can take the arts, film, TV, books, music that's really sustained people a lot during the lockdown,' Sales said.

'That sector contributes billions to the Australian economy and employ 600,000 people. Fewer than half are eligible for JobKeeper.'

'That's not true,' Mr Morrison interrupted.

He repeated the line again before saying 'no, I'm sorry. JobKeeper has been an absolute lifeline for them'.

The veteran journalist also cited flaws with government subsidies, particularly the $60billion overestimate of the cost of JobKeeper.

'If Labor in power had made those blunders, the Coalition would be screaming absolute blue murder about economic mismanagement,' Sales said.

Mr Morrison said the decision to create a flat rate for JobKeeper payments also took into consideration that a lot of part time workers had second or third jobs which were lost during the crisis.

Scott Morrison appeared frustrated during consecutive media appearances on Tuesday as he discussed Australia's ongoing battle against COVID-19

Mr Morrison appeared frustrated to be repeating himself yet again as he urged Australians to keep up social distancing practices and following health directives.

'It [the virus] hasn't gone anywhere, and we can't act like it has,' he said at the end of a long spiel about the way Australians should be living in the coming weeks.

When Sales suggested an 'aggressive suppression' of the virus was impossible, Mr Morrison fired back and asked what she would do in his position.

'Well what's the alternative, Leigh?' Mr Morrison asked. 'We're in uncharted waters. The whole world is. Everyone is working together and I think we're learning from that.

'All leaders, all governments, are seeking to work together and learn from each other. Everyone is endeavouring to put their best foot forward.

'Australia is doing better than almost every country in the western world.'

Mr Morrison also defended the implementation of the COVIDSafe app, despite it so far not identifying a single new case of community transmission.

The app has successfully worked alongside manual contact tracing, Mr Morrison said.

Sales suggested Australians simply 'bin the app'.

People queue up outside a Centrelink office in Melbourne prior to the introduction of JobKeeper

'That would be dangerous,' Mr Morrison said. 'What it does is it works with the manual tracing, the two go together.'

The tense interview came just hours after Mr Morrison told a reporter that no-one cares about his question during a press conference to announce the extension of JobKeeper on Tuesday morning.

Sky News political editor Andrew Clennell asked the prime minister if he was planning to call an election next year to capitalise on his popularity.

A stern Mr Morrison responded by saying Australians do not care about the next election when people are dying in Victoria.

'Politics is nowhere near my mind,' he said.

'I mean, I don't think Australians could care less when the next election was and, frankly, right now it's got nothing factoring into my thinking not at all.

'I know it may totally fascinate people who stand in this courtyard, at least some of them, but it is just not a factor,' the prime minister continued.

Mr Morrison said JobKeeper had been a lifeline to many employees who would have otherwise been out of work

'I mean, we have got an outbreak in Victoria and people are dying and you're asking me questions about when the next election is.

'I think we need to focus on what the real issues are here and it's not when the next election is.'

Mr Morrison then moved on to another question without letting the reporter reply.

Speculation has been growing that Mr Morrison will call an election next year because he is so popular after successfully handling the coronavirus crisis.

A Newspoll on Monday found Mr Morrison has a 33-point lead as preferred prime minister over Labor leader Anthony Albanese.

Mr Morrison is on 59 per cent while his rival's support remains steady at 26 per cent.
Egypts Alexandria prosecution is investigating the drowning of four people from one family on Thursday, after they had illegally accessed a beach in Alexandria, which has been shut down as part of the measures adopted to halt the spread of the coronavirus.

The prosecution decided to question the beachs management to determine how the beach-goers were able to access the site despite the shutdown.

Four people from one family drowned after they "stealthily" entered Al-Safa beach in Alexandria at dawn on Thursday, head of the central administration for tourism and resorts in Alexandria, Gamal Rashad, told Al-Ahram Arabic new website.

Upon a notification sent to municipal security authorities stating that four people have drowned in Al-Safa Beach, in Alexandria's Al-Agamy neighbourhood, a number of police officers and river rescue individuals along with an ambulance were dispatched to the incident site.

The corpses of a 19-year-old female and a 15-year-old male were retrieved and taken to the morgue, while the two remaining victims are still missing at sea and a search is underway to find them.

Thursday's incident comes only two weeks after 11 others had drowned after illegally accessing Palm Beach, which is located only metres from Al-Safa beach.

Egypts Alexandria prosecution ordered on 11 July that police officers be stationed at the beach in Agami.

Despite a gradual reopening of vital sectors and activities, including restaurants, coffee shops and malls across the country in a bid to keep the economy running, Egypts public beaches are still closed, including over 60 beaches in Alexandria to prevent crowding to stem the spread of the virus.

The country's cabinet, however, said on Wednesday it will discuss after the Islamic Eid Al-Adha holiday next week the possibility of reopening public parks and beaches with entrance tickets at an occupancy limit of 50 percent.

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ITHACA, N.Y. - Quantum mechanics can seem a bit confounding, so for a quantum material to be called "strange" is really saying something.

A Cornell University-led collaboration has used state-of-the-art computational tools to model the chaotic behavior of Planckian, or "strange," metals. This behavior has long intrigued physicists, but they have not been able to simulate it down to the lowest possible temperature until now.

The team's paper, "Linear Resistivity and Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) Spin Liquid Behaviour in a Quantum Critical Metal with Spin-1/2 Fermions," published July 22 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study's lead author is doctoral student Peter Cha.

Leading the collaboration is Eun-Ah Kim, professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences, who is interested in the social phenomena of electrons and how they interact as a society, with all the complications that entails.

Like people, electrons have different innate tendencies. In metals, electrons are independently minded and mostly roam freely. In insulators, electrons are stuck in a fixed position. Between these metal and insulator phases exists the strange case of Planckian metals. In Planckian metals, electrons dissipate energy at the fastest possible rate allowed by the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics. They have a high level of chaotic behavior and electrical resistivity.

Imagine a congested road with slow-moving traffic. The vehicles are heading in the same general direction, but they are sluggish and their movement is restricted. This is the plight of electrons in Planckian metals. Now compare that with electrons in a superconductor, which is the most organized, coherent state possible, a superhighway with huge numbers of electrons rushing along in lockstep, without resistance or scattering. For more than three decades, scientists have been puzzled that Planckian metals can switch into high-temperature superconductors. This inexplicable behavior appears to be somehow related to the individualistic electrons' desire to distance themselves from each other.

"Just as we have social distancing recommendations at the order of our governor, electrons have social distancing recommendations at the order of Mother Nature," Kim said. "But exactly how this social distancing order resulted in this particular, maximally chaotic behavior has been a mystery. How do you go from the mandate of, okay, you're all repelling each other, to this particular form of chaotic, incongruent behavior? It suggests there is something in this very confusing state that is a seed for a very organized state."

Kim's research group collaborated with scientists at the Flatiron Institute, an internal research division of the Simons Foundation in New York City, who specialize in computational quantum physics. Together, they created the first-ever model of Planckian behavior down to the lowest possible temperature, absolute zero (zero degrees Kelvin or -273.15 degrees Celsius). This marks the quantum critical region when one state of matter transitions to another.

By adjusting the ratio between the electrons' urge to bounce around (kinetic energy) and the strong social interactions that lock the electrons into position according to their spins (interaction energy), which is essentially a mandate for social distancing, the researchers tuned the system to the verge of transition between an ordinary metal and an interaction-driven insulator. When the social distancing is stronger, the system enters a spin glass insulator state, in which immobile electrons are only represented by their loosely aligned spins. But when kinetic energy dominates, the system enters a Fermi liquid metal state.

"We found there is a whole region in the phase space that is exhibiting a Planckian behavior that belongs to neither of the two phases that we're transitioning between," Kim said. "This quantum spin liquid state is not so locked down, but it's also not completely free. It is a sluggish, soupy, slushy state. It is metallic but reluctantly metallic, and it's pushing the degree of chaos to the limit of quantum mechanics."

The model is minimalist by design, allowing the researchers to identify the most basic ingredients for Planckian metal behavior. This will provide a template for building more complicated models that can capture even more elusive phenomena, such as high-temperature superconductivity. And maybe even more than that.

"The universes and societies of electrons that we study are not only a subject of curiosity and intellectual satisfaction," Kim said. "They're also a subject that makes a difference in the society. We can change society - revolutionize society - by understanding new materials, new kinds of states. The discovery of semiconductors led to the transistor. And we cannot imagine what the world would be like today if there were no transistors."

###

Co-authors include collaborators from the Flatiron Institute.

The research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Simons Foundation.
An American tech group that makes chips for video games is eyeing a takeover of ARM.

Nvidia is said to have approached Softbank, which bought the British chip maker for 24billion in 2016, about a possible takeover.

Japan's Softbank is already thought to be looking at selling parts or all of its stake in ARM as it scrambles to boost its finances.

On the market?: Japan's Softbank is already thought to be looking at selling parts or all of its stake in ARM

It has pledged to re-list the company on the stock market by 2023 and recently brought in Goldman Sachs as advisers amid growing pressure from activist investors.

Against that backdrop, Nividia is said to have approached Softbank about a possible sale of the Cambridge-based tech business in recent weeks.

ARM, whose chips power smartphones and laptops, is an attractive target for Nvidia.

ARM could be worth around 35billion if it were spun out of Softbank and floated in New York or London.

Masayoshi Son, Softbank's boss, is having to scale back his lofty ambitions of putting ARM at 'the centre' of his company, as he comes under pressure from investors to pay its debt and return to profit.

The Government approved the 2016 ARM sale on condition that Softbank agreed to double the company's headcount.

That means it must have 3,494 staff in the UK by 2021, with 70 per cent in technical roles.

ARM had around 2,700 UK staff in the UK as of September, of whom 74 per cent were technical.
New Delhi: India has taken major steps towards enhancing joint collaboration among Army, Navy and Air Force. The success of this close coordination under the theatre commands have been witnessed in the Kashmir Valley where joint counter-terror operations were launched.

The Theatre Command would see joint training of personnel, unified command and control structure besides pushing for a tri-service approach for the modernisation of the three forces.

Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat has described benefits of this Theatre Command. They are:

1. One of the main advantages is that the leader of unified command has control over more varied resources. The naval fighter aircraft can be deployed in the Western sector in the desert areas when not required at sea to effectively utilise existing resources.

2. The naval fighter jets can operate in deserts and the IAF jets there can move to the other borders. Air Defence Command will have air assets such as missiles from the army. The navy will be a part of it as well



Other countries having such commands:

Several major militaries are divided into integrated theatre commands. Chinas Peoples Liberation Army has five theatre commands: Eastern, Western, Northern, Southern and Central. Its Western Theatre Command is responsible for India.

The US Armed Forces have 11 unified commands, of which seven are geographic and four functional commands. Its geographic commands are Africa, Central, European, Indo-Pacific, Northern, Southern and Space. Cyber, Special Operations, Transportation and Strategic are its functional commands.

What is Theatre Command?



A theatre command is a military structure wherein all the assets of the Army, Air Force and Navy in a particular theatre of war are under the operational control of a three-star general. Currently, existing commands are of the Army, Navy and Air Force. India's status:

Andaman and Nicobar command:

- The joint command at the moment, the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC), is a theatre command, which is headed by the chiefs of the three services in rotation. Headquarters at Port Blair.

- It has assets and manpower of Army, Navy, IAF and Coast Guard placed under one operational commander.

- The command is headed by a three-star officer and is drawn from the three Services by rotation.

- It was created in 2001 after a Group of Ministers had given a report on national security following the Kargil War.

- It operates directly under the Chiefs of Staff Committee.

- It is to ensure optimum use of assets from all forces is being considered for other sectors as well.

- This is the only tri-services operational command and focuses mainly on amphibious warfare.

CDS Bipin Rawat on Theatre command:

Feb 2020: India could create up to five theatre commands and the new structures would be in place in the next two years, said Indias newly appointed Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat.

Feb 2020: The Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat, is working on redesigning existing military commands into theatre commands and establishing new joint commands that will combine the resources and assets of the three defence forces, based on threats at Indias borders with its neighbours. The work on establishing theatre commands will begin next year and will be completed within three years, the CDS added.
A study in June found that children and teenagers are half as likely to get infected with the novel coronavirus as adults 20 and older. But the findings did not rule out children spreading the virus to family members. Experts say the evidence on how children catch and transmit the virus is still too scant to be definitive.
NEW YORK, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP ("Scott+Scott"), an international securities and consumer rights litigation firm, is investigating certain directors and officers of Tapestry, Inc. ("Tapestry") (NYSE: TPR) for breaching their fiduciary duties to Tapestry and its shareholders. If you are a Tapestry shareholder, you may contact attorney Joe Pettigrew for additional information toll-free at 844-818-6982 or [email protected].

Scott+Scott is investigating whether Tapestry's board of directors or senior management failed to manage Tapestry in an acceptable manner, in breach of their fiduciary duties to Tapestry, and whether Tapestry has suffered damages as a result.

On July 21, 2020, Tapestry announced the sudden resignation of its Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, Jide Zeitlin. It was later announced that Zeitlin had been the subject of a misconduct allegation relating to a past relationship.

What You Can Do

If you are a Tapestry shareholder, you may have legal claims against Tapestry's 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 [email protected].

About Scott+Scott

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, Virginia, and Ohio.

Attorney Advertising

CONTACT:

Joe Pettigrew

Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP

230 Park Avenue, 17th Floor, New York, NY 10169

844-818-6982

[email protected]

SOURCE Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP

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http://scott-scott.com


MOSCOW, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- MegaFon is commencing the first stage of offshore surveys as part of the Arctic Connect project aimed at building a trans-Arctic subsea telecommunications link that will connect Europe and Asia.

MegaFon and Cinia, a Finnish infrastructure operator, signed a memorandum on establishing an international consortium to build the first-ever trans-Arctic telecommunications link in June 2019.

"The Arctic Connect project involves building a fibre optic link that will connect continents where 85% of the global population is concentrated. Our plan is to provide an unprecedentedly short signal transmission time and minimal latency, outperforming all existing links. Offshore surveys are required to select the optimal route for the link. In 2020, we will conduct a preliminary survey of the seabed profile to identify safe routes in the Arctic seas; in 2021, we will conduct the second phase of the surveys, which will involve a detailed examination of engineering parameters for underwater cable laying, including a study of seabed rock. Similar surveys will be carried out for those sections of the telecommunications link that are outside Russia's territorial waters," said Frederic Vanoosthuyze, Adviser to MegaFon's CEO on Strategic Infrastructure Projects.

MegaFon has partnered with Rosgeologiya to conduct the offshore surveys. The Professor Logachev research vessel operated by this company will cover a distance of 6,500 km, focusing on those sections of the route that are characterised by the most challenging ice conditions in the Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian and Chukchi Seas. The expedition will start on 5 August 2020 in Murmansk and will last three months.

Data traffic between continents is growing rapidly. Demand is generated by OTT services, content providers, international telecom operators and major corporate customers. The launch of the telecommunications link with a throughput of 200 Tbit/s will help to meet this demand. The new fibre optic link will run along the bottom of the Arctic Ocean along the Russian Arctic coast. Extensions from the main route will also provide connectivity to customers in the Arctic and the Far East.

Related Links

https://moscow.megafon.ru



SOURCE MegaFon
President Donald Trump joined the fray of an internecine war within the Republican conference Thursday, attacking party leader Rep. Liz Cheney by claiming she backs 'Endless Wars' overseas.

Trump jumped in publicly on Twitter after news of an angry clash inside a closed GOP conference meeting emerged this week. At the meeting, Trump ultra-loyalist Rep. Matt Gaetz and others pounded Cheney for having backed the challenger to a GOP incumbent  even though Trump had called for the lawmaker to be kicked out of the party.

Gaetz would then publicly call for her to lose her leadership and accused her of having 'worked against' Trump.

'Liz Cheney is only upset because I have been actively getting our great and beautiful Country out of the ridiculous and costly Endless Wars. I am also making our so-called allies pay tens of billions of dollars in delinquent military costs. They must, at least, treat us fairly!!!' Trump tweeted.

President Donald Trump jumped into a House GOP civil war and jabbed at Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), accusing her of backing 'endless wars'

Although Cheney has not called for endless wars, her father is identified with neoconservatives who pushed second U.S. intervention in Iraq, a war that Trump regularly calls a disaster that cost trillions from the treasury and upended the Middle East.

The multi-pronged attack featured cultural and political touchtones that are dividing Republicans months before an election that could upend GOP rule: mask-wearing, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Iraq War, Trumpism, race, and political correctness.

Cheney defended herself in the closed-door meeting Tuesday, then took to Fox News to try to calm the waters publicly. She said she votes with Trump 'something like 97 percent of the time' but noted 'there are areas  they tend to be on national security  where we don't always agree.'

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) came under fire at a closed GOP Conference meeting this week

President Trump accused Rep. Cheney of supporting 'Endless Wars'

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 09: U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) are among those who criticized Cheney at the meeting

Cheney contributed to the primary challenger of Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)

Cheney backed Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has come under criticism by White House officials

She tweeted an image of her father former Vice President Dick Cheney wearing a mask in June amid an ideological split over their use

Although she is a reliably conservative vote inside the conference, Cheney has taken some notable public stands that distinguished herself from members of the House GOP, which has become identified with near-total loyalty to Trump on impeachment, investigations, policy, and appointments.

On May 12, Cheney tweeted her support for top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was becoming an irritant to the White House. In recent weeks, White House officials have gone after Fauci both anonymously and publicly, and Trump has called him a little bit of an 'alarmist.'

'Dr. Fauci is one of the finest public servants we have ever had. He is not a partisan. His only interest is saving lives. We need his expertise and his judgment to defeat this virus. All Americans should be thanking him. Every day,' she wrote.

She also defended her campaign contribution to Todd McMurtry, who was challenging GOP Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky). Trump had called Massie a 'third rate grandstander' after he demanded a record-vote on $2.2 trillion coronavirus legislation, requiring members to vote in person during the pandemic.

Massie won anyway, and Cheney asked for her contribution backed after McMurtry's past racist posts were revealed.

House Republicans facing electoral uncertainty in November turned on one another in the private meeting on Tuesday, as a small group of conservative lawmakers confronted House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney over what they said was disloyalty to President Donald Trump.

The lawmakers called out Cheney for her support of Fauci, the nations top infectious-disease expert, and for supporting a primary challenger to Massie, R-Ky., according to people familiar with the closed-door meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss it.

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio noted Cheney's criticism of Trump on defense and foreign policy and accused her of not supporting the president on his coronavirus response.

Trump accused Cheney of supporting endless wars. He has promised to bring troops home, but struggled to reduce forces in Afghanistan and around the world. Here US army soldiers, part of the Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) the US-led coalition against the Islamic State (IS) group, walk around at the K1 Air Base northwest of Kirkuk in northern Iraq before a planned US pullout on March 29, 2020

Leading the criticism was Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who recounted the confrontation on his podcast, 'Hot Takes with Matt Gaetz,' shortly after it happened. He also tweeted about Cheney, who is the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and said she should step down from her post as head of the GOP conference.

'Liz Cheney has worked behind the scenes (and now in public) against @realDonaldTrump and his agenda,' Gaetz tweeted. 'House Republicans deserve better as our Conference Chair. Liz Cheney should step down or be removed. #MAGA.'

Trumps son Donald Trump Jr. retweeted Gaetz's message and wrote, 'We already have one Mitt Romney, we dont need another... we also dont need the endless wars she advocates for.' Utah Sen. Mitt Romney has been one of the only Senate Republicans to regularly separate himself from Trump and voted to convict him on one article of impeachment earlier this year.

The confrontation comes as the president has struggled with a response to the coronavirus pandemic and Republicans in Congress have been somewhat split on his handling of the crisis. As Trump has pushed to quickly reopen the economy and played down the importance of coronavirus testing, some have indicated they disagree with him on those points. Others such as Gaetz and Jordan have rushed to defend him.

Cheney didnt back down in the meeting and did not apologize for breaking with Trump, according to one of the people familiar with the exchange. At a GOP news conference later in the day, she told reporters that she 'absolutely' still supports Fauci, who she said she has known for many years. She also noted that Trump Jr. is 'not a member of the Republican conference.'

She said she takes her position seriously and had a 'great conversation' with Massie after the conference meeting.

'I think the beauty of our system, and frankly the magnificence of this country and one of the things that the founders fought for, and that so many throughout history have died for, is our freedom of speech and the right for all of us to have this kind of healthy exchange and debate,' Cheney said.

Cheney has shot up to the No. 3 GOP leadership spot since she was elected in 2016. While she has voted mostly in step with the president, she has sometimes differed with him on foreign policy as he and his allies have argued against 'endless wars.' She has rarely criticized Trump by name but has separated from him on that issue and others, including the pandemic.

In her June tweet, for example, Cheney alluded to Trumps frequent refusal to wear a mask by featuring a photo of her masked father. 'Dick Cheney says WEAR A MASK. #realmenwearmasks,' she wrote.

Republican leader Kevin McCarthy stood alongside Cheney at the afternoon news conference and said he was honored to have her as conference chair. 'She does an amazing job,' he said.

In addition to Gaetz and Jordan, Cheneys critics at the meeting included Texas Reps. Chip Roy and Louie Gohmert, Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs and Massie himself. Cheney had donated money to Massies primary opponent, Todd McMurtry. Massie won that primary in June.

Roy specifically criticized Cheney for her support of Fauci and asked her 'to consider the full breadth of research out there on the coronavirus,' according to a person close to Roy. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversation.

All the members who criticized Cheney are members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus that often clashed with leadership when Republicans were in the majority.
A road rage incident in North Carolina spiraled out of control when a man pulled an assault rifle on a fellow driver who accused him of throwing up gang signs.

The heated confrontation at a gas station in the town of Havelock was captured on viral video posted to Facebook by a witness, podcast host Charles Tendell, who stepped in to intervene.

The seven-minute clip begins in the middle of a shouting match between a black man holding an assault rifle alongside a female companion and the other driver, a white man.

It's difficult to distinguish what each of them are saying as they shout over each other, but the white man can be heard accusing the black man of trying to run him off the road.

The black man keeps his rifle at the ready on his shoulder as he backs away from the white man advancing toward him.

Scroll down for video

A road rage incident in North Carolina spiraled out of control when a black man pulled a machine gun on a white man who accused him of throwing up gang signs. Neither of the men involved in the heated confrontation caught on video have been identified

'Shoot me motherf**ker,' the white man yells as the woman who was in the car with the black man yells for him to stop blocking their vehicle.

'If you attack me I will put you down,' the black man shouts back as he continues to put distance between himself and the other man.

The dueling groups were standing around a third vehicle driven by Tendell, who asked what the fight was about while his wife recorded the video from the passenger seat.

The woman is heard explaining that her friend did not try to run the other man off the road, and claims that he had followed them into the gas station.

'He's been trying to run me off the road, he hopped out of his car - who's following who?' the black man says.

'You pulled a gun on me on the f**king road,' the white man shouts back.

'Because you tried to run my s**t off the road!' the black man yells.

It's difficult to distinguish what each of them are saying as they shout over each other, but the white man can be heard accusing the black man of trying to run him off the road

A woman who was in the car with the armed black man is heard explaining that the other man had actually tried to run them off the road and then followed them to the gas station

The heated confrontation at a gas station in the town of Havelock was captured on viral video posted to Facebook by witness, podcast host Charles Tendell, who stepped in to intervene

The shouting match continues for several more minutes with the white man refusing to move his vehicle so the black couple can leave.

Asked why he didn't call the police, the white man states: 'He tried to run me off the f**king road, he's gotta man up.'

Tendell then steps out of his car and motions at the black man to step back before calmly trying to talk the white man down.

Meanwhile his wife is heard speaking to a 911 dispatcher on the phone and asking for police to be sent to the scene.

Tendell repeatedly asks the white man to leave, but he refuses, saying: 'Someone pulled his punk card, now he get clocked.'

'Be the bigger man, get in your ride and go,' Tendell says.

'Nah f**k that,' the white man replies. 'I ain't ridin' with this, little b******s motherf**ker.'

Tendell then turns around and tries to convince the black man to leave but he refuses, saying that he doesn't want the white man to get away with attacking him.

Both men resume shouting at each other and refusing to apologize or back down as Tendell accuses them both of acting childish.

Tendell (right) is seen trying to convince the armed man to back off and drive away

The video ends with Tendell holding the white man back as the other couple goes to leave

About five minutes into the video the white man starts to charge at the black man, prompting Tendell to grab onto him and hold him back.

At that point Tendell's wife, who is still on the phone with a dispatcher, begins to panic and again pleads for police to be sent over.

Finally the black couple agree to get back in their truck as Tendell continues trying to calm the irate white man down and the video cuts off.

In the comments of the video, which Tendell posted on the Facebook page of his podcast The Charles Tendell Show on July 17, he wrote that the dispute ultimately ended without police intervening.

Several commenters praised Tendell for trying to de-escalate the situation, while others noted that he could've gotten hurt when he put himself in the middle.

The men in the video have not been identified and DailyMail.com has contacted the Havelock Police Department and Tendell for additional information.
Who won the U.S. Civil War? The north, of course, you say but ah if you did not know the answer, you would have reason to be confused. Who loses a war and puts up statues of its heroes on the victors land? In the south, say, in Northern Virginia, youll find public shrines to Stonewall Jackson, public highways named for Jefferson Davis, and public schools named after Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. Stewart. These are not historical monuments, i.e. preserved battlefields, graveyards, or historic homes. They were erected decades after the war. Youll find them in California, Oregon, and Washington state, which did not exist at the time.

Next question: who did the Confederacy fight in the Civil War? The Union, of course. But the leaders of the region also warred with another enemy, as they had for over two hundred years: millions of enslaved people kept in brutal subjection. In many respects, they won this war, though they lost the privileges of legal slavery. Once Andrew Johnson came to power, the south reinstituted conditions that were often more or less the same for Black people as they had been before the war. Grant struggled to reverse the tide, but Reconstruction ultimately failed.

This is the victory the south commemorated when organizations like the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Sons of Confederate Veterans put up monuments to southern generals all over the country. It is the victory invoked by the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia (or the Confederate Flag). A defiance of multi-racial democracy and a government that serves the needs of all its citizens; a menacing promotion of white supremacist mythology, maintained with public funds on public lands. Those symbols include:

780 monuments , more than 300 of which are in Georgia, Virginia or North Carolina;

, more than 300 of which are in Georgia, Virginia or North Carolina; 103 public K-12 schools and three colleges named for Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis or other Confederate icons;

named for Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis or other Confederate icons; 80 counties and cities named for Confederates;

named for Confederates; 9 observed state holidays in five states; and

in five states; and 10 U.S. military bases.

But, no, one might say, these are observances for the southern dead, who were, after all, Americans too. This is what weve heard, over and over. It was a hoary old story when W.E.B. Du Bois heard it in the early decades of the twentieth century. Lost Cause ideology had done its work, flooding the culture with sympathetic portrayals of the Confederacy, a wave of propaganda that reached its apex in the spectacle of 1915s Birth of a Nation (first titled The Clansman), responsible for resurrecting the Ku Klux Klan.

The story went something like this: No nobler young men ever lived; no braver soldiers ever answered the bugle call nor marched under a battle flag, proclaimed southern industrialist Julian Carr at the 1913 dedication of Confederate statue Silent Sam, which stood on the campus of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill until activists tore it down recently. They fought, not for conquest, not for coercion, but from a high and holy sense of duty. They were like the Knights of the Holy Grail.

Carr goes on like this at length, reciting poetry and making constant references to Greek heroes and gods. His purpose, he says, is to memorialize the Sacred Cause. But he never says what that cause is, though he has many exalted words for the noble women of my dear Southland, who are to-day as thoroughly convinced of the justice of that cause. The speech is boilerplate Confederate apologism: an almost hysterically bombastic defense of the south that never once mentions slavery.

Yet in an odd moment, Carr breaks offduring a rant about what the Confederate soldier meant to the welfare of the Anglo Saxon raceto make a rather personal allusion for seemingly no reason:

One hundred yards from where we stand, less than ninety days perhaps after my return from Appomattox, I horse-whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds, because upon the streets of this quiet village she had publicly insulted and maligned a Southern lady, and then rushed for protection to these University buildings where was stationed a garrison of 100 Federal soldiers. I performed the pleasing duty in the immediate presence of the entire garrison, and for thirty nights afterwards slept with a double-barrel shot gun under my head.

What does it say about his audience that Carr thinks this admission reflects well on him? Du Bois understood it. He had diagnosed the fear and violent hatred men like Carr embodied and seen their cowardice and desperate overcompensation. They preach and strut and shout and threaten, he wrote in The Souls of White Folk, crouching as they clutch at rags of facts and fancies to hide their nakedness, they go twisting, flying by my tired eyes and I see them ever strippedugly, human.

Du Bois knew what Confederate monuments were meant to represent. In 1931, he cut to the heart of the matter in brief remarks published in The Crisis (top). Du Bois pushes right back against the myth of the Lost Cause, writes historian Kevin M. Levin. He refuses to draw a distinction between the Confederate government and men in the ranks, as represented by statues like Silent Sam. Du Bois clearly understood that as long as white southerners were able to mythologize the war through their monuments, African Americans would remain second class citizens.

He did not refer to monuments put up in Confederate cemeteries, as many had been immediately after the war, but to the hundreds of statues and other memorials erected in prominent places of government beginning around 1900. All of these monuments were there to teach values to people, says Mark Elliott, professor of history at University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Thats why they put them in the city squares. Thats why they put them in front of state buildings. Its why there are Confederate statues in the U.S. Capital, gifts to the nation from southern states, gladly accepted.

Three years earlier, Du Bois had written many choice words about attempts to deify Confederate leaders like Robert E. Lee (who himself opposed monuments). He also countered the argument that the war was about States Rights in one incisive sentence: If nationalism had been a stronger defense of the slave system than particularism, the South would have been as nationalist in 1861 as it had been in 1812. None of the high-flown rhetoric about the cause of governing principles had anything to do with it, Du Bois argues. People do not go to war for abstract theories of government. They fight for property and privilege.

One statue in North Carolina, Du Bois notes wryly in his Crisis remarks, goes so far as to claim that Confederate soldiers Died Fighting for Liberty! This would not strike Lost Cause defenders like Carr as ironic. They too fought for liberty, of a kindthe freedom to punish, kill, imprison, exploit, disenfranchise, and otherwise terrorize and impoverish Black Americans at will.

via Nathan Robinson

Related Content:

W.E.B. Du Bois Creates Revolutionary, Artistic Data Visualizations Showing the Economic Plight of African-Americans (1900)

Photos of 19th-Century Black Women Activists Digitized and Put Online by The Library of Congress

The Civil War & Reconstruction: A Free Course from Yale University

Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness
Every day we hear something new about the icy regions of our planet -- either Antarctica or the Arctic -- how global warming is slowly obliterating these ice-clad regions, and how they would impact our lives if we continue to pollute and cause global warming.

Reuters

Amidst all this, in Antarctica, the East Antarctic ice sheet is always considered to be stable. However, the ancient melting data says otherwise.



Researchers looked at data from nearly 400,000 years ago when the Earth was around 1 to 2 degrees Celsius warmer than average. The ice melt could have raised the water levels by about 10 to 13 feet.

The region as big as the nation of France

The study looked specifically on the Wilkes Basin which is one of the several bowl-like basins at the edges of the ice sheet thats as big as France. Researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, University of Kansas and the University of Washington looked at three samples of subglacial sediment to see what minerals have accumulated beneath the ice historically.

With the help of specific uranium isotopes that collect in regions where water and rock meet for an extended amount of time, researchers dated the opal and calcite in their samples that were taken from near the Pensacola Mountains and Elephant Moraine in East Antarctica. Ice that floats is known to trap isotopes in place in the sediment record, however, the open ocean can usually flush it out.

Reuters

Stable Antarctica ice was once melting

These samples revealed that the East Antarctica hasnt been stable as long as researches have otherwise believed, in the past. Approximately 400,000 years ago, samples show that the ice levels dropped in the basin and caused the sea level to rise.

First author Terrence Blackburn, assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz explains, "Our data shows that the grounding line in the Wilkes Basin retreated 700 kilometres inland during one of the last really warm interglacials, when global temperatures were 1 to 2 degrees Celsius warmer than now. That probably contributed 3 to 4 meters to global sea level rise, with Greenland and West Antarctica together contributing another 10 meters."

He added, "We've opened the freezer door, but that block of ice is still cold and it's not going anywhere in the short term. To understand what will happen over longer time scales, we need to see what happened under comparable conditions in the past."

Sea levels are constantly rising

Reports in the past have already shown how fast the ice in the Antarctic is melting. A 2018 study revealed that just in the last five years between 2012 to 2017, Antarctica's ice sheet has shrunk and it has lost 219 billion tons of ice every single year -- triple the rate of ice melt before 2012.

Antarctica (Representative Image: Reuters)

A more recent study from March 2020 has revealed that this has only gotten worse, as researchers found that Antarctica and Greenland have lost a whopping 6.4 million tonnes of ice between the year 1992 and 2017.

This has resulted in the sea levels to rise by 17.8mm or around 0.7 inches. Researchers claim this can not only cause flooding in coastal areas but also cause coastal erosion which will eventually submerge the area underwater.
Faced with deep and lasting consequences from the coronavirus pandemic, Arab countries must show more mutual support through aid, for example by creating "regional solidarity funds," the UN said Thursday.

"The Arab region, home to 436 million people, initially kept transmission and mortality rates lower than the global average but more recent trends are cause for concern," said a UN document, which details COVID-19's impact on the region, as well as the body's recommendations.

The pandemic's consequences are likely to be deep and spread out over time, the text noted, forecasting a contraction of the region's economy by at least 5.7 percent.

"Solidarity is a core element in resolving and mitigating the impact of COVID," Rola Dashti, executive secretary of the UN's Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) told reporters.

That solidarity, she said, must be expressed within countries themselves and also between Arab nations.

"Providing economic and social support for individuals and households is key, and establishing regional solidarity funds," the document said.

It added that countries must "reduce inequalities by investing in universal health and education, social protection and technology."

In a statement accompanying the document, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres noted that "the region is home to the world's largest gender gap in human development."

"COVID-19 recovery is an opportunity to invest in women and girls, ensure equal rights and participation - which will have lasting benefits for all," he added.

According to Dashti, poverty is likely to intensify in the Arab world: "One of four Arabs may end up living in poverty," she said.

She noted that the coronavirus pandemic threatens 55 million people in need of life-saving aid, 26 million of whom are forcibly displaced refugees and internally displaced persons. Of those, 16 million are food insecure.

Positive steps taken by countries in the region in fighting the pandemic include support for informal trade in Egypt and payment extensions granted by some countries' banking sectors, she said.

In his statement Guterres called on Arab countries to reimagine "the region's economic model in favor of more diversified, green economies."

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On Thursday morning, Rajasthan Assembly Speaker C P Joshi failed to get any temporary relief on his plea in the Supreme Court (SC) that the high court cannot interdict the disqualification proceedings undertaken by him under the 10th Schedule of the Constitution. The SC allowed the Rajasthan HC to pass a verdict on the petition, but said that it would be subject to the ...

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Rating Action: Moody's confirms Hanjin International's ratings; changes outlook to negative

Global Credit Research - 22 Jul 2020

Hong Kong, July 22, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service has confirmed the B3 corporate family rating (CFR) of Hanjin International Corp. (HIC) and the B1 senior secured rating on the company's term loan due in October 2020.

At the same time, Moody's has revised the outlook on the ratings to negative from ratings under review.

This rating action concludes the review for downgrade initiated on 12 March 2020.

"The confirmation of the ratings reflects our view that HIC's credit quality will benefit from the improved liquidity of its parent, Korean Air, after the latter's equity issuance and the Korean government's provision of liquidity support," says Sean Hwang, a Moody's Assistant Vice President and Analyst.

RATINGS RATIONALE

HIC's B3 CFR is mainly driven by Moody's assessment of a strong likelihood of support from its parent, Korean Air Lines Co., Ltd (KAL), given the latter's guarantee of all of HIC's existing debt. Based on this assessment, Moody's has incorporated a two-notch uplift to HIC's CFR from its standalone credit quality.

Moody's assessment also reflects an improvement in KAL's near-term liquidity profile and its ability to support HIC, following the KRW1.1 trillion KAL raised from a new equity issuance in July and the KRW1.2 trillion in liquidity support that Korean policy banks have extended to KAL in June. These developments have increased KAL's liquidity to a level that is sufficient to cover its debt maturities for at least over the next 2-3 months, including HIC's USD600 million term loan due in October 2020.

However, KAL's liquidity profile remains inadequate because of its large debt and capital lease maturities over the next 12 months. Still, this risk is substantially mitigated by (1) the possibility of further liquidity support from the Korean government (Aa2 stable) and a continued roll-over of its bank borrowings, given the company's strategic importance to Korea's economy; and (2) KAL's additional self-rescue measures, such as potential sales of idle assets or stakes in business divisions.

Story continues

In addition, Moody's expects KAL to generate sufficient EBITDA over the next 6-12 months to cover its interest expenses and capital spending, as its strong cargo business and a reduction in fuel and other variable costs help offset the steep fall in passenger revenue.

Moody's expects KAL's adjusted debt level -- including lease and hybrid obligations -- will likely decline slightly over the next 6-12 months from KRW21 trillion as of 30 March 2020, given the substantial equity it has raised, the relatively moderate decline in its operating cash flow, and its deferrals of new aircraft purchases. The debt reduction will allow KAL's leverage metrics to improve gradually in 2021-22 once demand for air travel begins to recover.

HIC's standalone credit quality mainly reflects its persistently high debt leverage and weak cash flow as well as the small scale of its single-location operations, although the latter risk is mitigated by the prime location and competitive profile of its mixed-use building, the Wilshire Grand Center in downtown Los Angeles.

"The negative outlook on the ratings reflects the high uncertainty over the timing and pace of demand recovery for KAL and HIC's operations. A protracted demand shock could heighten the companies' liquidity risk again and delay an improvement in financial metrics," says Hwang.

Moody's expects the coronavirus pandemic will keep global demand for air travel deeply constrained in 2020 and 2021, with the airline industry unlikely to recover to 2019 passenger volumes until 2023 at the earliest. The risk of downside scenarios remains high, because the severity and duration of the pandemic and the lifting of travel restrictions remain highly uncertain, particularly given the threat of an increase in the number of infections as social distancing practices ease.

Moody's regards the coronavirus outbreak as a social risk under its environmental, social and governance (ESG) framework, given the substantial implications for public health and safety.

The B1 rating on the term loan reflects the first lien on substantially all of the assets owned by HIC. The USD600 million term loan benefits from ranking above the Aa2-rated senior unsecured note of USD300 million -- guaranteed by the Export-Import Bank of Korea (KEXIM, Aa2 stable) -- in the company's priority of claims.

FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE OR DOWNGRADE OF THE RATINGS

Given the negative outlook, an upgrade of HIC's ratings is unlikely. Moody's could return the outlook on the ratings to stable if HIC and KAL's liquidity improves materially, and if KAL's financial metrics improve on a sustained basis.

Moody's could downgrade the ratings if HIC or KAL's liquidity and refinancing risk increases materially, due to protracted weaknesses in their operations or a significant tightening in the domestic funding market, for example.

A downgrade is also likely if KAL demonstrates unwillingness to provide financial support for HIC, by reducing its guarantee of HIC's debt.

The principal methodology used in these ratings was Business and Consumer Service Industry published in October 2016 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1037985. Alternatively, please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.

Hanjin International Corp. (HIC) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Korean Air Lines Co., Ltd (KAL) and owns the Wilshire Grand Center (WGC), a 73-story Class A mixed-use building located in Los Angeles in the US.

Established in 1962, KAL is a leading airline company based in Korea. It owns a fleet of 143 passenger aircraft and 23 cargo aircraft, serving 123 destinations across 43 countries as of June 2020. KAL is also engaged in the aerospace and catering businesses, as well as the hotel business in the US through HIC.

REGULATORY DISCLOSURES

For further specification of Moody's key rating assumptions and sensitivity analysis, see the sections Methodology Assumptions and Sensitivity to Assumptions in the disclosure form. Moody's Rating Symbols and Definitions can be found at: https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_79004.

For ratings issued on a program, series, category/class of debt or security this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series, category/class of debt, security or pursuant to a program for which the ratings are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the credit rating action on the support provider and in relation to each particular credit rating action for securities that derive their credit ratings from the support provider's credit rating. For provisional ratings, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation to a definitive rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance of the debt, in each case where the transaction structure and terms have not changed prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a manner that would have affected the rating. For further information please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective issuer on www.moodys.com.

For any affected securities or rated entities receiving direct credit support from the primary entity(ies) of this credit rating action, and whose ratings may change as a result of this credit rating action, the associated regulatory disclosures will be those of the guarantor entity. Exceptions to this approach exist for the following disclosures, if applicable to jurisdiction: Ancillary Services, Disclosure to rated entity, Disclosure from rated entity.

The ratings have been disclosed to the rated entity or its designated agent(s) and issued with no amendment resulting from that disclosure.

These ratings are solicited. Please refer to Moody's Policy for Designating and Assigning Unsolicited Credit Ratings available on its website www.moodys.com.

Regulatory disclosures contained in this press release apply to the credit rating and, if applicable, the related rating outlook or rating review.

Moody's general principles for assessing environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks in our credit analysis can be found at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1133569.

The Global Scale Credit Rating on this Credit Rating Announcement was issued by one of Moody's affiliates outside the EU and is endorsed by Moody's Deutschland GmbH, An der Welle 5, Frankfurt am Main 60322, Germany, in accordance with Art.4 paragraph 3 of the Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 on Credit Rating Agencies. Further information on the EU endorsement status and on the Moody's office that issued the credit rating is available on www.moodys.com.

Please see www.moodys.com for any updates on changes to the lead rating analyst and to the Moody's legal entity that has issued the rating.

Please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for additional regulatory disclosures for each credit rating.

The first name below is the lead rating analyst for this Credit Rating and the last name below is the person primarily responsible for approving this Credit Rating.

Sean Hwang Asst Vice President - Analyst Corporate Finance Group Moody's Investors Service Hong Kong Ltd. 24/F One Pacific Place 88 Queensway Hong Kong China (Hong Kong S.A.R.) JOURNALISTS: 852 3758 1350 Client Service: 852 3551 3077 Chris Park Associate Managing Director Corporate Finance Group JOURNALISTS: 852 3758 1350 Client Service: 852 3551 3077 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service Hong Kong Ltd. 24/F One Pacific Place 88 Queensway Hong Kong China (Hong Kong S.A.R.) JOURNALISTS: 852 3758 1350 Client Service: 852 3551 3077

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CREDIT RATINGS ISSUED BY MOODY'S INVESTORS SERVICE, INC. AND/OR ITS CREDIT RATINGS AFFILIATES ARE MOODY'S CURRENT OPINIONS OF THE RELATIVE FUTURE CREDIT RISK OF ENTITIES, CREDIT COMMITMENTS, OR DEBT OR DEBT-LIKE SECURITIES, AND MATERIALS, PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND INFORMATION PUBLISHED BY MOODY'S (COLLECTIVELY, "PUBLICATIONS") MAY INCLUDE SUCH CURRENT OPINIONS. MOODY'S INVESTORS SERVICE DEFINES CREDIT RISK AS THE RISK THAT AN ENTITY MAY NOT MEET ITS CONTRACTUAL FINANCIAL OBLIGATIONS AS THEY COME DUE AND ANY ESTIMATED FINANCIAL LOSS IN THE EVENT OF DEFAULT OR IMPAIRMENT. SEE MOODY'S RATING SYMBOLS AND DEFINITIONS PUBLICATION FOR INFORMATION ON THE TYPES OF CONTRACTUAL FINANCIAL OBLIGATIONS ADDRESSED BY MOODY'S INVESTORS SERVICE CREDIT RATINGS. CREDIT RATINGS DO NOT ADDRESS ANY OTHER RISK, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO: LIQUIDITY RISK, MARKET VALUE RISK, OR PRICE VOLATILITY. CREDIT RATINGS, NON-CREDIT ASSESSMENTS ("ASSESSMENTS"), AND OTHER OPINIONS INCLUDED IN MOODY'S PUBLICATIONS ARE NOT STATEMENTS OF CURRENT OR HISTORICAL FACT. MOODY'S PUBLICATIONS MAY ALSO INCLUDE QUANTITATIVE MODEL-BASED ESTIMATES OF CREDIT RISK AND RELATED OPINIONS OR COMMENTARY PUBLISHED BY MOODY'S ANALYTICS, INC. AND/OR ITS AFFILIATES. MOODY'S CREDIT RATINGS, ASSESSMENTS, OTHER OPINIONS AND PUBLICATIONS DO NOT CONSTITUTE OR PROVIDE INVESTMENT OR FINANCIAL ADVICE, AND MOODY'S CREDIT RATINGS, ASSESSMENTS, OTHER OPINIONS AND PUBLICATIONS ARE NOT AND DO NOT PROVIDE RECOMMENDATIONS TO PURCHASE, SELL, OR HOLD PARTICULAR SECURITIES. MOODY'S CREDIT RATINGS, ASSESSMENTS, OTHER OPINIONS AND PUBLICATIONS DO NOT COMMENT ON THE SUITABILITY OF AN INVESTMENT FOR ANY PARTICULAR INVESTOR. MOODY'S ISSUES ITS CREDIT RATINGS, ASSESSMENTS AND OTHER OPINIONS AND PUBLISHES ITS PUBLICATIONS WITH THE EXPECTATION AND UNDERSTANDING THAT EACH INVESTOR WILL, WITH DUE CARE, MAKE ITS OWN STUDY AND EVALUATION OF EACH SECURITY THAT IS UNDER CONSIDERATION FOR PURCHASE, HOLDING, OR SALE.

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A Syracuse nurses two decades working in homes for the elderly helped propel her into business ownership  and now, through that business, shes in unique position to deliver gifts to some of the people who need them most right now.

Shaeeda Scott worked in Central New York nursing homes as a licensed practical nurse for 20 years. The stability from that career allowed her to pursue her passion for designing custom gift baskets. She opened Y(our) Creations on North Salina Street on Dec. 1.

Years ago, Scott had started creating gift baskets as a hobby, for family and friends. In about 2017, she began to take her craft more seriously. She came up with the name, which hints at the businesses collaborative nature, hired a designer to create a logo, and had business cards printed.

While Scott juggled work as a nurse with her small business, she noticed a need in the nursing homes. Residents didnt get much of an opportunity to purchase custom gifts, especially ones at reasonable prices that they could check out in-person. Scott got administrators on board to offer pop-up shops, where she could sell affordable, themed gift baskets, filled with sweets, snacks, plush animals and other treats. At the pop-ups, the baskets would sell out quickly. They were a hit  not just with the residents, but the staff, too.

Scott found that hosting the pop-up events was half the fun. Nursing homes were always looking for activities to keep everyone busy, and residents really enjoyed the interaction, mingling, and even just asking about her business.

As Y(our) Creations began to grow, Scott hoped to plan more pop-ups at other facilities. She began expanding to schools and sought out other opportunities to sell her creations.

She found that the hobby shed enjoyed so much was something people wanted, even needed.

Being there for so long in the nursing homes, I saw the need, she said. Thats really what it was about, for them, not being able to get out and go to the store ... someone with no or very low income, that was my ideal, to be able to come and offer them something they can afford.

By last year, Scotts business had grown beyond the space she had in her house for putting baskets together and storing inventory.

It just got bigger and bigger, she said. She experimented with new products, different themes, and the response was positive. She started looking for a place she could set up shop. She learned her hairdresser was leaving a storefront at 325 N. Salina St., contacted the landlord and quickly negotiated a lease.

Then, within four months, the coronavirus pandemic forced her to close her doors.

But Scott rolled with the punches.

I was still able to go back to my roots, and make gifts from home like I used to do, she said.

Samples of baskets made by Shaeeda Scott and her team at Y(our) Creations. (Provided Photos)

Shes had to deal with sales dropping, but not by much. The biggest challenge the pandemic presented was disruption to her go-to supply chains. But as a custom gift maker, Scott was able to get creative with how she fills orders. Shes driven around to hunt down the perfect pieces for a basket, or ordered from new places online.

Shes leaned on what makes Y(our) Creations appealing during a public health crisis: Its a small, local business; She takes individualized orders; She and her staff are willing to work around customers needs, whether that means curbside pick-ups or deliveries. Scott gets help filling orders from her family, she said. Her cousin Bahiyyah Muhammad and her husband Davell Scott are business partners.

The coronavirus led Scott to return to her roots in more ways than one.

With nursing homes so vulnerable to the virus, and many residents unable to see their families, Scott realized once again there was a need that she could help fill.

Scott is offering delivery of her custom gifts directly to local nursing homes.

Shes putting the connections she forged from two decades of working at nursing homes to use, to ensure gifts get delivered and everyone stays safe. She has arranged for some deliveries to local homes for residents and staff and wants to expand more. She invites family and loved ones to contact her about ideas for custom gifts. Orders can be placed remotely, and Scott takes it from there.

Scott is active on her business Facebook page, where she posts samples or her work. In the past, she relied heavily on the pop-up shops and word-of-mouth to advertise her products. Her goal is to create a catalog for customers to see more of what she can offer.

She misses the in-person interactions with the residents, and seeing their reactions to her creations. The business allowed her to remain a part of that tight-knit community, of employees and residents, she said. She cant wait to get back to hosting pop-ups.

For now, shes happy to be of some service during a difficult time.

We are here, and we do have something we can offer, she said. I can deliver a gift with a card, and make sure it gets to them safely.

Small business owners: Have a question or a story to share about how youre coping through the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent shutdown? We want to hear from you. Contact Back in Business reporter Julie McMahon: Email | Twitter | 315-412-1992

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PORTLAND, Ore.  David Harris had no idea he was about to be hit with tear gas.

He attended Tuesday night's protests outside the federal courthouse and had dozed off by a tree when he woke up early the next morning to chaos.

"I couldn't see," he said. "I ran with my eyes closed, tears and snot running down my face. I was choking in my sleep."

By Wednesday afternoon, Harris was back in the same spot where his ordeal had unfolded only hours earlier.

"I want peace," he shouted. "No bombs, no gas, no violence!"

For much of July, Department of Homeland Security forces have deployed tear gas into crowds of protesters outside the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse. Under the urging of President Donald Trump to "dominate" protesters, agents have fired projectiles into the crowd, arrested demonstrators and even destroyed medical and food supplies.

Image: Protest in Portland (Nathan Howard / Getty Images)

Residents and local leaders have accused federal officers of acting beyond the scope of protecting federal property and using "police-state like tactics" indiscriminately. Oregon's attorney general has requested a temporary restraining order against federal forces in Portland and is awaiting a decision from a federal judge.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said Thursday that his office will investigate the conduct of federal agents in Portland in response to concerns from members of Congress and the public. The investigation will look at use-of-force allegations and whether agents followed Justice Department guidelines, including adhering to requirements for providing proper identification and deploying chemical agents.

"If circumstances warrant, the OIG will consider including other issues that may arise during the course of the review," Horowitz said in a statement.

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The move comes after a group of Democratic Oregon lawmakers, including Sen. Jeff Merkley, Sen. Ron Wyden, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici and Rep. Earl Blumenauer, sent a joint letter asking the Justice Department to review the federal intervention.

Story continues

Trump's "strongman tactics will not be tolerated," Merkley said in a statement.

The president has said more Democratic-led cities, including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit and Baltimore, could see similar federal enforcement efforts.

Portland protesters first gathered at the end of May to decry police brutality following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, but demonstrators have switched focus in recent weeks and are now calling for federal forces to vacate the city.

Shortly before Harris woke up to a face full of tear gas early Wednesday, federal officers swept through the park where protesters gather across the street from the U.S. courthouse. According to witnesses, agents slashed water bottles and pepper-sprayed food supplies. They also destroyed barbecue grills and first aid kits that had been donated by community members, witnesses said.

DHS did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday.

"This shouldn't be happening, especially when we're trying to feed each other," said a volunteer, who asked not to be named for fear of being targeted by law enforcement. "All it does is destroy. It hurts."

Blumenauer later denounced in a tweet the destruction of food supplies.

Hours after the protest camp was cleared, donations flooded in. Campers received 13 new barbecue grills by Wednesday evening, dozens of pizza deliveries and hundreds of water bottles. First aid supplies were restocked, and new tents were erected to replace those that were damaged.

Image: Protests in Portland (Nathan Howard / Getty Images)

The tear gas that billowed through downtown streets Wednesday slammed parents, protesters and even Mayor Ted Wheeler.

Shortly before midnight, police declared a riot and repeatedly warned protesters to leave or risk use of force or arrest. But they did not move. Most hoisted signs or chanted in place. Only a handful of people near the barricade continued to shake the fence or toss fireworks toward the federal building.

Police drove in marked SUVs around the site, issuing warnings through loudspeakers. Meanwhile, federal officers used tear gas and projectiles to push protesters off the steel barricade that protects the federal courthouse.

Wheeler had been standing at the front of the group when he was suddenly shrouded in a cloud of tear gas. Earlier in the night, he had tried to address protesters but was repeatedly taunted and jeered. They screamed over him, calling for his resignation and asking him to leave.

A resident asked him what could be done to rid Portland of the federal officers.

"I think what we're doing tonight is actually the best thing we can right now: Be here, be unified and be clear," he said. "We didn't want them. We didn't ask for them ... and we want them to leave."

Shortly after being hit with tear gas, Wheeler called the tactic "abhorrent."

"The tear gas is ... indiscriminate," he said. "It makes me think long and hard about whether this is a really viable tool. I want to look at other options. This is not a good option."

Image: Protests in Portland (Nathan Howard / Getty Images)

Wheeler, who also serves as Portland's police commissioner, has come under fierce criticism for allowing local law enforcement to use tear gas when the protests began. A temporary restraining order bars police from using it, but residents worry what will happen when the order expires.

"We've heard this all before," said Tuck Woodstock, a Portland-based reporter who has been chronicling the unrest. "This has created a cycle where, to some extent, every protest is about the night before, because people come out protesting police brutality and then they experience more brutality."
Psyched wrote:

Thanks for the thoughts - I think they're very comprehensive. I've been agonizing over this decision, and with only a few days to go this is just brutal!



My refined goal is to do healthcare in the east coast post-MBA (Boston to be specific), since most of my family is in the area (consulting was a means to an end). I am also open to healthcare technology and/or marketing. Shockingly, MBA location does not play much of a role in my decision-making process - I like the Berkeley area but was really surprised by how fond I was of Durham and the RTP area as well. I have attended both schools' sell weekends and connected better with the Haas students. However, both schools obviously have extremely intelligent, friendly, and ambitious students.



I took a long time to compile a list of pros and cons and I'm still deadlocked...



Haas

Pros

1. Really friendly student community - students were proactive in reaching out and connecting with me during DAH.

2. I have had an "urge" to try out San Fran and California and it is a nice area (though I did mention that it's not a major deciding factor)

3. Arguably stronger global brand due to the Berkeley name, especially in Asia.

4. Opportunities to work part-time in the second year with a local employer due to location.

5. Graduate teaching assistant position in second year that provides $10K.

6. From talking to students, Haas IBD has a significantly higher satisfaction rate than the Fuqua Global Consulting Practicum.

7. While the alumni network in Boston is small, alumni have been very proactive in reaching out to me.

8. Greater number of firms that I would work for within top employers

9. Accepted me the first time, whereas I was a reapplicant at Fuqua

10. Walking campus with most students living in the Berkeley area.

11. Students self-select; many turned down higher ranked schools for Haas.

12. Very accomplished and impressive student body (obviously my subjective assessment).



Cons

1. While tuition is $7K less, cost of living is expected to be $10K more.

2. Alumni network in Boston, per Linkedin, is small ~250.

3. Brand is heavily focused West Coast and NYC. I do not believe it carries a lot of weight in Boston.

4. Recruiting does not seem as structured or robust; many students are still lingering for internships.

5. "Riskier" MBA decision in my mind



To summarize, I think Haas would be a great opportunity to live in the West Coast and enjoy a different lifestyle, but I am hesitant because of post-MBA career prospects in the US region that I want. The two years near SF would be great, but I don't want to be stuck in CA long-term.



Fuqua

Pros

1. Durham was surprisingly nice and cost of living is very low.

2. Considerably larger alumni network in Boston, per Linkedin, ~600.

3. Brand is stronger in all areas of US except West Coast; carries more weight in Boston.

4. Recruiting is very diverse within US regions and industries (i.e. almost no Haas people go to east coast, but many Fuqua people go to west coast)

5. HSM program is top notch in healthcare space.

6. Global travel experiences seem to be more pervasive.

7. Due to the bad publicity, Fuqua is actively ramping up its recruiting and career office; almost 100% of students have internship offers already.

8. To be brutally honest, I see myself in the longer term living in RTP than San Fran purely for cost of living reasons

9. RTP is a fast-growing job hub

10. "Safer" MBA decision in my mind



Cons

1. I did not connect as well with students, but this may be purely sampling bias.

2. All things considered, cost of attendance may be ~$20K more.

3. Arguably weaker global brand

4. Driving campus with most students living at Station 9

5. Students come from more traditional backgrounds



To summarize, I think Fuqua would be a more of "tried and true" MBA path with a strong brand in the industry and region that I want to work at. However, I did not connect as well with the students and am afraid that my two MBA years will not be as great of an experience.



Does anyone have any thoughts? There's two days left before I have to make a decision, and at this point I may have to pay both deposits to buy more time. This is BRUTAL! Any more help would be great!

As a big proponent of fit, I would say Haas hands down.It is the better program and you clearly like the fit better. I think you will be able to achieve your goals from either school, but Haas will enable you to connect better with people in my opinion, due to comfort level and indeed your "fit" amongst your fellow students.
A total of 142 people have died or gone missing in floods across 27 provincial regions in China since June 1, down 56.5 percent on the average amount for the same period over the past five years, according to official data released Wednesday.



Floods across China have destroyed 35,000 homes since June 1 this year, down 72.4 percent on the five-year average, data from the Ministry of Emergency Management (MEM) shows.

Meanwhile, direct economic losses from flooding were 116.05 billion yuan (about 16.65 billion U.S. dollars) during the period this year, down 5 percent on the five-year average.

The MEM urged stronger flood response in regions along the Huaihe River from Thursday to Saturday, while massive downpours are expected in parts of northwest, southwest and east China during the three-day period.

Several provinces, including Hubei, Hunan and Anhui, should step up precautions against rainstorms, floods and landslides, as the water levels remain high at the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, Dongting Lake, Poyang Lake and Taihu Lake, said the MEM.
Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot says he has majority, to call assembly session soon

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Jaipur, July 23: Amid the ongoing political crisis in Rajasthan, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday said he enjoys the full majority in the Assembly.

"We will call the assembly session soon. We have a majority. All Congress MLAs are united," Ashok Gehlot told reporters shortly before he met Governor Kalraj Mishra. The 20-minute meeting was their third since the Congress rebel crisis erupted nearly two weeks ago.

Audio clips genuine, send them abroad for forensic test: Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot

"Those who have gone to court, those who have strayed, their only point is whether the disqualification notices served to them were justified. It has nothing to do with the anti-defection law," Gehlot said.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

The Chief Minister added that an Assembly session would be convened soon and expressed confidence that his government has a majority. "All Congress MLAs are united," he said. "Those who have gone to court, those who have strayed, their only point is whether the disqualification notices served to them were justified. It has nothing to do with the anti-defection law."

The Congress government in Rajasthan has been on the brink of collapse since Pilot rebelled against Gehlot and proceeded with a few MLAs to Delhi last week. Pilot was sacked as the Rajasthan deputy chief minister and as the Congress' state unit chief on July 14. The next day, Assembly Speaker CP Joshi disqualified Pilot and 18 other legislators.
Maryland prosecution officials have dropped charges against a York man who the U.S. Marshals Service arrested Wednesday.

Collin Mailman, 22, of York, was arrested by members of the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force for an alleged sexual assault near Baltimore.

In a press release, officials said they arrested and charged Mailman with second-degree rape among other charges at a home in the 200 block of Country Club Road in York.

Officials said the Baltimore County Police Department was investigating an alleged sexual assault against a woman outside of Baltimore on July 19. The investigation resulted in police issuing a warrant for Mailmans arrest.

The task force picked up the search after Baltimore County police were unsuccessful in locating Mailman.

Maryland attorney Thomas J. Maronick Jr. issued with a statement on behalf of Mailman:

The Mailman family and Mr. Mailman are deeply grateful to the States Attorneys Office in Baltimore County for taking the appropriate action and dismissing all charges against him, as well as for the work of the Baltimore County police detectives in coming to this decision, Maronick said.

He continued, From the beginning, we have said these charges were completely false and would have vigorously defended against them in court, had this proceeded to trial. Mr. Mailman is a talented young man with a bright future and we will be proceeding to seek expungement of these charges at the earliest opportunity. It has been a difficult 24 hours to be sure but thankfully this is the right outcome.
A family in Wuhan has rushed to get tested for the coronavirus after spotting a whole dead bat in a pot of pork soup that they ordered from a Chinese restaurant.

A revolting image shows the small black mammal with its wings and body curled up together as it was floating on the surface of the half-eaten broth.

The customers immediately went to hospital after the shocking discovery over fears of catching the coronavirus. Their results came back negative, according to local media.

A family in Wuhan has been left disgusted after spotting a whole dead bat in a pot of soup that they ordered from a Chinese restaurant. The picture shows the mammal found in the soup

The Chinese family, known by their surname Chen, bought a pot of frozen soup from a restaurant near his home in Wuhan of Hubei province on July 10, reported local media

It comes as the source of the coronavirus pandemic, which first emerged in the central Chinese city last year, has been suggested to have come from wild animals, including bats and pangolins.

The Chinese family, known by their surname Chen, bought a pot of frozen pork soup from a restaurant near his home in Wuhan of Hubei province on July 10, reported local media.

The father had eaten some of the broth by himself but did not spot anything unusual, his son, Mr Chen, told Hubei Television.

They were shocked to find the whole dead bat in the leftover food as they were planning to eat it together on the third day after the purchase.

Mr Chen said: I was going to reheat the soup and I scooped up something black. It was a small baby bat.

Mr Chens mother said that she initially thought the foreign object was a type of spice used for cooking the soup.

I checked it with chopsticks and I saw its wings and ears. It even had fur, the woman told reporters.

Footage released by the TV station shows the diner fiddling with the dead animal with a pair of chopsticks after it was scooped out of the food.

The disgusted diners went to the restaurant where they ordered the soup after their shocking discovery.

Mr Chen (pictured right) and his mother (centre) are seen speaking to a reporter in Wuhan

The source of the coronavirus pandemic, which first emerged in the central Chinese city last year, has been suggested to have come from wild animals, including bats and pangolins. This file picture shows a group of small horseshoe bat sleeping while they are covered by wings

The eatery offered to refund the family but said that they had purchased the frozen product from a local soup manufacturer.

When approached by the local press, the owner of the food company denied that the bat got into the broth while they were making it.

He said: Bats are normally active during the night, but we make our soup during the day. We seal the pot immediately when we finish and put it in the fridge. We never leave it outside.

The business owner claimed that the black mammal had flown into the soup when the family took the food out of the fridge.

The local authorities launched an investigation into the matter after receiving a complaint from the diners.

But they were unable to identify when and how the baby bat got into the soup as it was found three days after the purchase, an official told the local station.

The Chinese family living in Wuhan were shocked to find the whole dead bat in the leftover food as they were planning to eat it together on the third day after the purchase of the food

The image released by Hubei Television shows the small black mammal with its wings and body curled up together after it was found floating on the surface of the half-eaten broth

The family had also received nucleic acid tests after they found the bat. All of them tested negative for the coronavirus.

Although no one appeared to be responsible for the incident, the soup manufacturer said that they were willing to pay the family 2,000 yuan (224.56) as compensation.

The news comes as scientists are still unravelling the source of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed at least 623,000 people worldwide.

Experts suggested that the virus had jumped onto humans from wild animals, such as bats or pangolins.
China launched a Mars probe on Thursday, designed to complete orbiting, landing and roving in one mission, taking the first step in its planetary exploration of the solar system.

A Long March-5 rocket, China's largest launch vehicle, carrying the spacecraft with a mass of about 5 tonnes, soared into the sky from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the coast of southern China's island province of Hainan at 12:41 p.m. (Beijing Time).

About 36 minutes later, the spacecraft, including an orbiter and a rover, was sent into the Earth-Mars transfer orbit, embarking on an almost seven-month journey to the red planet, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

China's first Mars mission is named Tianwen-1, which means Questions to Heaven and comes from a poem written by Qu Yuan (about 340-278 BC), one of the greatest poets of ancient China. The name signifies the Chinese nation's perseverance in pursuing truth and science and exploring nature and the universe, said the CNSA.

"The successful launch is only the first step of China's Mars mission, and we hope each of the many key steps of the long journey is completed successfully," said Geng Yan, an official at the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the CNSA.

The key steps include slowing down when close to Mars, orbiting, separating the landing platform and the rover from the orbiter, landing softly and roving.

The craft is expected to enter the orbit of Mars around February 2021. Afterwards, it will spend two to three months surveying potential landing sites using a high-resolution camera to prepare for the landing in May.

The most challenging part of the mission will be the soft landing, an autonomous process of the probe lasting seven to eight minutes. The probe will use its aerodynamic shape, parachute and retrorocket to decelerate and buffer legs to touch down, said Geng.

After the landing, the rover will be released to conduct scientific exploration with an expected lifespan of at least 90 Martian days (about three months on Earth), and the orbiter, with a design life of one Martian year (about 687 days on Earth), will relay communications for the rover while conducting its own scientific detection.

Chinese space engineers and scientists have chosen a relatively flat region in the southern part of the Utopia Planitia, a large plain, as the potential landing zone.

"The reason we selected this place is that it has both the conditions for a safe landing and scientific research value. The place has not been investigated by other countries, so the scientific data can be shared with other countries to enrich the world's understanding of Mars," Geng said.

Earlier research showed the potential landing site might be the edge of an ancient ocean or lake in the early history of Mars. Chinese scientists are looking forward to finding more evidence of water-ice.

The scientific goals include mapping the morphology and geological structure, investigating surface soil characteristics and water-ice distribution, analyzing the surface material composition, measuring the ionosphere and the characteristics of the Martian climate and environment at the surface, and perceiving the physical fields and internal structure of Mars.

The orbiter is equipped with seven kinds of scientific instruments: two remote-sensing cameras, Mars-Orbiting Subsurface Exploration Radar, Mars Mineralogy Spectrometer, Mars Magnetometer, Mars Ion and Neutral Particle Analyzer, and Mars Energetic Particle Analyzer.

The six-wheel solar-powered rover, looking like a blue butterfly with a mass of 240 kg, carries the Terrain Camera, Multispectral Camera, Mars-Rover Subsurface Exploration Radar, Mars Surface Composition Detector, Mars Magnetic Field Detector and Mars Meteorology Monitor.
The next series of Live At The Apollo has been delayed because of COVID-19.

The 16th season was due to be filmed in the Hammersmith Apollo, West London, in September.

While indoor events have been given UK approval from August 1, they still have to implement social distancing.

A spokesperson from Open Mic Productions, said: In light of the current social distancing measures affecting theatres in the UK, Live at The Apollo will not be filmed this year.

While this news will be disappointing for viewers, the safety and wellbeing of everyone involved in the show is our number one priority.

The good news is that Live at The Apollo will return bigger and brighter in 2021 for its 16th series, once again welcoming the cream of established and up-and-coming comedy stars to the Apollo stage.

It screens in Australia on ABC Comedy.

Source: Chortle
National Health Service workers outside King's College Hospital during the Clap for our Carers campaign.

REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

A coronavirus intensive-care unit at risk of burning because its structure is similar to that which exacerbated the 2017 Grenfell Tower blaze was closed this week after an investigation by Insider.

The King's College Hospital ICU in London is one of six hospitals considered at risk of burning because of the cladding used in their exteriors.

Fire risk in ICUs is real because of the oxygen canisters used in coronavirus treatment.

The UK National Health Service has struggled to fix its buildings because it was excluded from a 1 billion fund that targeted mainly residential housing.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A hospital in London closed an emergency intensive-care unit for coronavirus patients this week because the building's structure poses a fire risk similar to that which exacerbated the Grenfell Tower inferno in 2017.

Seventy-two people died in that fire, which spread quickly because of highly combustible aluminum-composite "cladding" on the outside of the building.

The closing of the King's College Hospital unit came one week after Insider made inquiries to a government auditor and two separate government departments about the National Health Service hospital's decision to use the new building as an intensive-care unit.

At least five other hospital buildings in the UK have the same dangerous paneling that contributed to the Grenfell fire, Insider's investigation found.

The risk of fire in ICU units is real: In May, five patients died and 150 were evacuated from an ICU in Moscow after an oxygen canister caught fire, according to reports.

Coronavirus patients were moved into the building when the hospital ran out of space

King's College, in the Camberwell area of London, opened a previously unused building in April within weeks of England's lockdown to treat coronavirus patients, a spokeswoman for the hospital told Insider. She said the building was evacuated this week amid concerns it might have had the same paneling as Grenfell Tower. The hospital now plans to remove the paneling, and patients have been moved elsewhere in the hospital, she said.

Story continues

The building is now covered in green netting because of ongoing work. A police car was parked outside the hospital on Thursday afternoon.

The hospital moved coronavirus patients to the building when it ran out of space in the main hospital, a source told Insider in April.

The hospital created a separate but adjacent 60-bed critical-care center near the Ruskin Wing, on top of an existing surgical block.

Medical student dorm evacuated

In 2017, Arup Group, an engineering company the NHS hired to work on cladding and facade designs, identified a non-patient area at King's College Hospital as potentially having the same aluminum-composite cladding used in Grenfell Tower.

The hospital also evacuated one of its student accommodations in January this year over fears it had dangerous cladding, according to separate reports.

Hospital staff members were not formally made aware of dangerous cladding in the hospital buildings, sources said.

An Insider investigation found that Arup Group had informed government and hospital chiefs that part of King's College had dangerous cladding in 2017.

Last week, Insider asked the government to identify all six hospitals that had yet to complete remediation work for Grenfell-style fire risks. Those hospitals were also made aware in 2017 that their buildings posed a severe fire risk, according to a report by the UK's National Audit Office published in June.

Multiple hospitals have removed cladding from their buildings

The Department of Health & Social Care, in an emailed statement, denied it had acted after Insider raised the issue: "The issue at King's is not related to Aluminium Composite Material cladding and the action was not taken as a result of your earlier enquiry." Another spokeswoman said the closing was due to concerns over the cladding on the building but did not believe it was ACM cladding.

The National Audit Office previously identified seven hospitals as having unsafe aluminum-composite cladding. Two of those had no remediation plan in place as of April, the month after the pandemic lockdown, an NAO report said. The NAO said the government had asked it not to disclose the hospital names to prevent the risk of arson.

Speaking privately, a government source told Insider the NAO was correct. Multiple hospitals have removed cladding from their buildings, but six have still not done so. The NHS is conducting an ongoing review.

The NHS was excluded from a fund designed to fix dangerous buildings

Part of the reason for the delay in removing the cladding is that NHS hospital trusts have to fund the removal from their existing budgets, after they were excluded from a pot of money announced by the government for remediation work.

The NAO said a 1 billion building safety fund for the removal of paneling considered a fire risk would be available only for residential high-rise buildings in the private leasehold and social-housing sectors.

"Hospitals would therefore not be eligible for this funding (nor for the 200m fund for the replacement of ACM cladding in the private leasehold sector, nor the 400m funding for ACM cladding in the social housing sector)," the NAO said.

King's College hospital was on a list of 38 hospital buildings originally identified by the NHS as potentially having unsafe aluminum-composite cladding.

Neither the Arup Group nor the National Fire Chiefs Council responded to a request for comment by the time of publication.

If you have more information about fire risks at NHS hospitals, please get in touch with Jessica Davies at jdaviesjournalism@outlook.com, or 07747033141. Confidentiality offered.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Allentown, PA (18103)

Today

Turning out mostly cloudy and not as cold. There might be a rain or snow shower late..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy with some rain and snow showers. Any rain will be early in the night.
The coronavirus has pushed schools all over the world to go online as new waves of infections keep emerging. In India, a country where the gaps in access to education and the Internet were already vast, poor families are struggling to stay the course.

Shirin Riyaz Shah, 15, attends a small private school in Mumbai. Theres one smart-phone between her and her four siblings over which they sit through Zoom lessons and submit homework via WhatsApp. Their schedules dont blend neatly and theres a constant tussle over the phone.

Data is especially precious because money, always tight, is now in even shorter supply as the pandemic stretches her familys single income. Her father is a tailor and for now, movement restrictions mean hes mostly home. When that changes so will the childrens access to his phone.

And digital classrooms make the process of learning harder.

In class we can raise our hands over and over again and it isnt a problem, said Shah by phone. We can ask teachers to pause in a class and then ask them to repeat. But in a video call if two or three students do this then time will run out.

The pandemic has led to the biggest global education emergency of our lifetime, according to a report by the Save The Children Fund. Globally, lockdowns enforced to stop the viruss spread have put 91% of learners out of school. Out of these, the poorest and most marginalized children are at highest risk of never returning to the classroom.

In India, where the government spends about 3% of the nations gross domestic product on education and only half the population has access to the Internet, 320 million students have already been affected, according to Save The Children Fund.

The spokesperson for Indias Ministry for Human Resource Development and the secretary of the School Education and Literacy department did not respond to an email and or phone calls asking for comment.

UNFAMILIAR TECHNOLOGY

You have one side of the population thats so used to tech, its like a second language to them, said Shreya Tobias, a volunteer with Teach for India, a non-governmental organization, who educates fourth grade children. Many of her students have never used phones before, and their parents themselves dont know enough to help. These kids dont have that. Tech is confusing for them.

The majority of her students have seen their parents lose jobs as a result of the economic distress caused by Indias protracted lockdown. She lost contact with some when they were forced to return to their villages.

Instead of innovating, governments and schools have gone for the easiest option available, said Shantha Sinha, founder of the research institute Mamidipudi Venkatarangaiya Foundation and the former head of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights. Its showing a lack of sensitivity.

Governments must allocate funds to local village councils and encourage solutions from the bottom up, Sinha said. They should allow people to come together, they should say, Come up with an innovation, we will support you.

SCALING UP

Several rights groups and NGOs have taken this approach -- from reading rooms to distributing books directly to homes -- attempting to fill the gaps left by online education. A village in Jharkhand has seen widespread fame for its use of loudspeakers perched on trees through which children can listen to classes. But these initiatives need to be scaled up quickly, experts say.

Despite the challenges, many teachers and students hold on to hope.

Tobias believes her students will return to classes once lockdowns are fully lifted. After having worked in this system for a while, Ive realized that it takes a lot of effort to get your child into a school, to begin with, she says. The parents are quite invested.

And 15-year-old Shah is worried but determined.

This is my aim, and this is my responsibility, she said. I will not let my future goals be disrupted by anything.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern announced the elevation of their countries relations to a strategic partnership during their online talks on July 22.

PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc

The strategic partnership was set up amid the 45th founding anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties as well as the positive and sustainable development of the comprehensive partnership founded in 2009, and based on the common interest and vision and the growing mutual trust between the two nations.

The two PMs voiced their belief that the new partnership will create momentum for bilateral relations to continue growing in an increasingly effective manner in all spheres, for the sake of the two peoples and for peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.

PM Phuc highly valued the comprehensive development of the two countries friendship and cooperation over the past almost half a century, and appreciated New Zealands official development assistance, which he said has effectively contributed to Vietnams socio-economic development in the period.

As the global and regional economy has been heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Vietnamese leader suggested both sides maintain the upward trend of their trade and strive to raise bilateral trade to 2 billion USD annually at an early date.

He also asked New Zealand to open its market wider to Vietnams agricultural products and share experience in building trademarks and developing value chains to help Vietnamese fruits access demanding markets.

For her part, PM Ardern congratulated Vietnam on its success in coping with COVID-19, noting both countries good control of the pandemic has created favourable conditions for them to soon resume connectivity and cooperation in all aspects.

She spoke highly of Vietnams role and active performance as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, as well as its contributions to UN peacekeeping activities.

The leader also thanked Vietnam for its active support for and contribution to the enhancement of the ASEAN-New Zealand strategic partnership.

Vietnam, New Zealand lift bilateral ties to strategic partnership hinh anh 2

The teleconferenced talks on July 22 (Photo: VNA)

During their talks, the two PMs agreed to assign their countries foreign ministries to build an action plan for implementing the strategic partnership, including holding regular meetings between the Government leaders; organising annual meetings between ministers of foreign affairs, national defence, and industry and trade, along with leaders of the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security and the New Zealand Police, as well as bilateral dialogue mechanisms on agriculture, maritime cooperation, and other issues of shared concern.

They agreed to keep strengthening defence and security cooperation in an increasingly substantive manner via delegation exchanges, policy consultation, visits to ports, training, and transnational crime fight.

The two also emphasised the resolve to improve cooperation in other fields, especially education, science-technology, and people-to-people exchange.

Besides, they affirmed the commitment to fostering cooperation and mutual support at multilateral forums, particularly when Vietnam is serving as the ASEAN Chair in 2020 and a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for 2020-2021, and New Zealand is preparing to take over the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) chairmanship in 2021, and both are active members of new-generation free trade agreements like the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

They underlined that Vietnam and New Zealand share common viewpoints on and interests in many regional and international issues of common concern, and both support multilateralism and rules-based regional and international order.

Continuing to voice concerns about developments in the East Sea, the PMs affirmed the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, safety, and freedom of navigation and overflight, along with peacefully resolving disputes on the basis of international law, especially the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

They stressed that the UNCLOS is the solid legal framework regulating all activities in seas and oceans, and called on parties to respect rulings made by dispute settlement mechanisms of this convention.

On the occasion of the high-level talks and partnership elevation, the two sides issued a joint statement on the Vietnam-New Zealand strategic partnership.

They also announced four bilateral cooperation documents inked on this occasion, namely an arrangement on the facilitation of customs clearance for agro-forestry-fishery products; a strategic engagement plan on education for 2020-2023; a memorandum of arrangement on financial cooperation; and an arrangement on cooperation in vocational education and training and skills development.

Vietnam, New Zealand issue Joint Statement on Strategic Partnership

The online talks between Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern on July 22

The following is the full text of the Joint Statement on the Strategic Partnership between Vietnam and New Zealand.

JOINT STATEMENT ON THE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIET NAM AND NEW ZEALAND

1. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1975, and particularly following the launch of the Comprehensive Partnership in 2009, relations between Viet Nam and New Zealand have grown robustly in width and depth, both bilaterally and within regional and multilateral frameworks. Building on that momentum, and driven by our growing shared interests, common outlook, and mutual trust, we aspire to open a new chapter and take our partnership to a higher level.

2. Accordingly, His Excellency Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam and the Right Honourable Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand, and in conjunction with the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries, co-chaired a virtual summit via video-conference to formally elevate the bilateral relationship to Strategic Partnership on 22 July 2020.

3. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has presented the globe with unprecedented health and economic challenges, and it has underscored the importance of cooperation, collaboration, and key partnerships in building resilience and assisting recovery. In that spirit we commit to further enhancing bilateral links, with a particular focus on trade, agriculture, education, development and cooperation on regional and international matters of mutual interest, and other meaningful initiatives elaborated in a Plan of Action for the Strategic Partnership to be jointly developed over the next 12 months.

4. The Strategic Partnership is aimed at further strengthening the overarching framework for engagement and cooperation between Viet Nam and New Zealand, for the benefits of our people, contributing to peace, stability and prosperity in each country, the region and the world. To provide leadership and guidance to this strengthening relationship, New Zealand and Viet Nam commit to deepening bilateral political cooperation through frequent high-level exchanges between political parties, parliamentary and governmental delegations, particularly regular meetings between Prime Ministers, and annual meetings between Foreign Ministers, Trade Ministers and Defence Ministers, held in either of our countries, in the margins of multilateral meetings, or by video-conference.

5. We highlight trade and investment cooperation as a key component of the Strategic Partnership, for the direct benefit of our people and businesses. Bilateral trade in goods and services reached a new record of US$ 1.3 billion for the year ending March 2020. To that end, we commit to individual and joint actions to open markets and reduce barriers to bilateral trade, especially for agricultural, seafood, and timber products through enhancing market access, trade facilitation, information exchange, and collaboration between our customs, and agriculture, food safety, and animal health agencies. In order to also promote investment in both directions and encourage inclusive growth, we will also foster cooperation in the development of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), indigenous or ethnic minorities businesses, women entrepreneurs and other important areas.

6. We commit to further enhancing bilateral agriculture cooperation, including through joint research, collaboration and action on climate change in agriculture and forestry, agri-tech, technical assistance on plant health laboratory accreditation, plant breeding, food safety management and electronic certification, trade in legal timber products, and commercialization of agriculture products. We welcome the commencement of a regular Agriculture Dialogue between officials.

7. We re-dedicate ourselves to deepening regional economic integration by resisting all forms of protectionism and promoting trade liberalization across the Asia-Pacific region. We pledge our unwavering support for the rules-based, free, open, transparent, and inclusive multilateral trading system, including reform of the World Trade Organization. In this regard, we reaffirm our commitment to the full and effective implementation of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), signing of a modern, comprehensive, high-quality, and mutually beneficial Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement in 2020, and upgrading the Agreement Establishing the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area (AANZFTA). Viet Nam also expressed strong support for New Zealand as Chair of APEC 2021.

8. We welcome the positive impacts made by New Zealand's sustained bilateral and regional official development assistance, particularly in areas of New Zealands strength and Viet Nam's priority such as high-quality human resources development, climate change and economic resilience, sustainable water management, agriculture, and disaster risk management.

9. We emphasize that people-to-people links, particularly education and training cooperation constitutes an important element of the Strategic Partnership, and when movement of peoples can safely resume we are confident these linkages will continue to flourish; including through increasing the number of Vietnamese students in New Zealand, joint programmes between our higher education institutions, cooperation in vocational training, scholarships granted to Vietnamese youth and officials to study in New Zealand, scholarships granted to New Zealand youth to study or intern in Viet Nam, and student and teacher exchanges.

10. We reaffirm our commitment to closer defence cooperation as a priority in the Strategic Partnership, including through high-level defence visits, port calls, policy consultations, strategic dialogues, education and training, United Nations peacekeeping operations, intelligence exchanges, maritime security cooperation and enhanced coordination in the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus forum. Building upon the 2019 arrangement between the Ministry of Public Security of Viet Nam and the New Zealand Police, we agree to convene annual meetings between the leadership of the two agencies and explore the possibility of additional cooperation that provides a framework for preventing and combating crimes, thereby enhancing regional security and the well-being of our people. Through such joint efforts, we will make our respective communities safer.

11. We underscore the significance of information sharing and strengthening cooperation on a range of bilateral, regional, and international issues such as pandemics, climate change, e-government, human rights, science and technology, and countering terrorism and violent extremism. In that light, we welcome the commencement of a regular Oceans Dialogue between officials.

12. The new Strategic Partnership is founded on a shared commitment to international law, multilateralism, and regional economic integration, and an understanding of our converging strategic interests. We emphasise the importance of maintaining close cooperation in multilateral and regional fora in both governmental and parliamentary channels. We reaffirm our commitment to ASEAN Centrality and its role in the evolving regional architecture that is open, transparent, inclusive, and rules-based, built upon ASEAN-led mechanisms, and which safeguards the sovereignty and interests of all states, regardless of their size. New Zealand re-emphasizes its strong support for Viet Nams roles as ASEAN Chair for 2020 and non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for 2020-2021. We welcome the continued strengthening of the ASEAN - New Zealand Strategic Partnership and celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Dialogue Partnership and the 5th anniversary of the Strategic Partnership in 2020. Acknowledging that the prosperity and sustainable development of the Mekong sub-region is crucial to achieving the ASEAN Community Vision, New Zealand also commits to strengthening cooperation with Mekong countries in areas such as, disaster management, water-food-energy security, smart agriculture, public health and human resources development.

13. We reaffirm the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, safety, freedom of navigation and overflight, pursuing the peaceful resolution of disputes and respecting legal and diplomatic processes, in accordance with international law, particularly the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). We express continued concerns over developments in the South China Sea, including disruptive activities, and underscore the importance of non-militarisation and self-restraint in the conduct of activities and avoidance of actions that may further complicate the situation or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability. We underscore the importance of UNCLOS dispute settlement mechanisms and call upon the parties to respect the decisions rendered by these mechanisms. We reiterate the importance of the full and effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) in its entirety as well as the swift conclusion of an effective and substantive Code of Conduct for the South China Sea (COC) that is consistent with international law, particularly UNCLOS, without prejudice to the interests of third parties or the rights of states under international law. We emphasise that UNCLOS provides the solid legal framework within which all activities in the oceans and seas must be carried out.

14. We welcome the recent signings of the below Government to Government arrangements, which indicate the breadth of our mutual interests, the dynamism of the relationship and our concrete determination to continue to strengthen our partnership now and into the future.

- Arrangement between the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Finance of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam with the New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries on the Facilitation of Border Clearance of Agricultural, Forestry and Aquatic Products through the use of Electronic Certification;

- Viet Nam - New Zealand Strategic Engagement Plan on Education 2020-2023;

- Memorandum of Arrangement on Financial Cooperation between the Ministry of Finance of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam and the New Zealand Treasury;

- Arrangement between the Directorate of Vocational Education of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam and New Zealand Government to Government Know-How relating to cooperation in vocational education and training and skills development./. VNA
A little birdie told me a secret plan was afoot to revive Mayberry v. KKR, a derivative suit by eight beneficiaries of the severely underfunded Kentucky Retirement System against fund managers KKR/Prisma, Blackstone, and PAAMCO as well as private equity barons Henry Kravis, George Roberts, Steve Schwarzman and J. Tomilson Hill personally. That little birdie was right.

In a surprise move yesterday, the Kentucky attorney general, Daniel Cameron, intervened in the case, joining the plaintiffs. Weve embedded the Commonwealth of Kentuckys filing at the end of the post. As well discuss, the politics of this move are extremely perplexing. Cameron is a protege of Mitch McConnell, and two of the defendants in this suit, Steve Schwarzman and Henry Kravis, are not just Republican heavyweight donors; they are (or at least have been) specifically top McConnell funders. What gives?

Readers may recall that the case seemed dead after the Kentucky Supreme Court dismissed it earlier this month, relying on the recent the US Supreme Court ruling in Thole v. US Bank to find that the plaintiffs lacked standing.1 It would seem awfully unlikely that the courts would take the view that the Kentuckys highest law enforcement officer lacked standing to pursue these allegations and seek a sizable recovery on behalf of the state.

This filing uses much of the language of the original case, including defined terms like Hedge Fund Sellers and Black Box and has updated versions of key exhibits charting the terrible performance of the Kentucky Retirement System portfolio. The Attorney General filing preserves the main argument, which we summarized in 2018:

The suit, which weve embedded at the end of this post, was filed on behalf of the beneficiaries of Kentucky Retirement Systems (KRS), the states public pension fund and its taxpayers, against Blackstone, KKR/Prisma, and PAAMCO for engaging in a civil conspiracy and violating its fiduciary duties under Kentucky law by misrepresenting what it calls Black Box hedge fund products. One of the eight plaintiffs is a sitting district court judge. In addition to suing the top executives at these funds, including Henry Kravis and George Roberts of KKR and Steve Schwarzamn of Blackstone, the filing also targets four former and three current KRS board members, four former KRS administrators for breach of fiduciary duties, along with KRS fiduciary counsel, several financial advisers, its actuarial adviser, and a firm that certified its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. The fund managers allegedly focused on KRS and other desperate and clueless public pension funds who were unsuitable investors, particularly at the risk levels they were taking. KRS made what was a huge investment for a pension fund of its size. $1.2 billion across three funds all at once, in 2011, roughly 10% of its total assets at the time. They all had troublingly cute names. The KKR/Prisma funds was Daniel Boone, the Blackstone fund was Henry Clay and the PAAMCO fund, Colonels. In the case of KKR/Prisma, the fund had installed an employee at KRS as well as having a KKR/Prisma executive sitting as a non-voting member of the KRS board. The filing argues that that contributed to KRS investing an additional $300 million into the worst performing hedge fund even as it was exiting other hedge funds. The suit seeks damages for losses, recovery of fees paid to the hedge funds and other advisers, and punitive damages. The damages would go to KRS and the suit also asks that the court appoint a special monitor to make sure the funds are invested properly.

This iteration of the case has cleaned up some of the repetitions in the original filings but more important, firms up and extends its arguments on some key points. I imagine that some of this material was developed in the successful effort at trial court to surmount Motions to Dismiss (recall it was the appeals and Supreme Court that ruled against the original plaintiffs).

One issue that was questionable in the original filing but is compelling in the version below is the rationale for suing Henry Kravis, George Roberts and Steve Schwarzman personally. The filing has a lengthly discussion of the unusual governance arrangements that allow these executives to retain operating control of their respective companies, including appointing board members, despite both KKR and Blackstone having gone public. The document argues that KKR and Blackstone are the alter egos of their founder. One tidbit that exemplifies this relationship:

Privately owned jet planes of Kravis and Roberts in the case of KKR/Prisma and Schwarzman in the case of Blackstone were used by their respective companies to fly their agents to Kentucky, for which the companies were charged and for which Kravis, Roberts and Schwarzman were reimbursed, in amounts, on information and belief, often in excess of $5 million per year. Thus each of Kravis, Roberts and Schwarzman personally profited from Kentucky business.

In fact, this practice is no secret except of course to fund beneficiaries and other members of the great unwashed public. Private equity and hedge fund limited partnership agreements not only authorize the use of private class travel, some even extend it to family members of the funds principals. Blackstones 10-K further discloses that Blackstone used Schwarzmans jet for firm travel and pays him normal commercial rates.

The way private equity firm employees use private jets like taxis has remained under the radar. One top Wall Street Journal reporter has repeatedly pitched articles on private equity jet use and has repeatedly been told no (the excuse? The Journal does not want to look anti-capitalist).

Private equity firms justify this grifting by saying it helps their productivity. One can see a justification when private equity execs and staffers are having to go to a remote spot, or between awkward city pairs. But if they have only one layover, the pretense is an insult to intelligence. M&A pros, who are very time stressed and working on highly confidential matters, elite lawyers, and consultants, all fly commercial and make use of the time when they need to. Fund investors, by contrast, are bilked for thousands of dollar an hour for private jets.because private equity professionals are bad at time management?

Needless to say, having a publicly owned company should effectively guarantee the profits (by providing for full utilization) of a side venture of a top executive is not an arms length relationship. One of my private equity contacts volunteered that at prevailing rates, $5 million a year is an awful lot of flying to and from Kentucky (one wonders if Kentucky Derby partying was billed to Kentucky retirees).

In other words, the idea that a going-bust pension system of modestly-paid state workers is paying for the priciest airfare on offer is not a good look.

Having the plaintiffs root around in the use of the planes and how Kravis and Schwarzman profited from them is chump change in terms of all of the damage done to Kentucky Retirement Systems beneficiaries, but it nevertheless serves to illustrate the way these Masters of the Universe feel entitled to take personal advantage of the funds they operate.

Another set of arguments that this iteration of the case fleshed out more fully was the misrepresentation of the founding of defendant Jane Buchans firm PAAMCO. Buchan presented PAAMCO as a majority woman-owned firm, which gave her great advantage in marketing. In fact, virtually all of the founding money came from convicted hedgie David Sussman, who also obtained a large percentage of the economics. Sussman and Buchan even created fake documents to depict his ownership stake as a loan. The arrangement came to light when Buchan cheated Sussman on his payout and he successfully sued her.

This filing also explains how KKR/Prisma and PAAMCO decided to combine their hedge fund operations as the industry started imploding due to lackluster performance and investor withdrawals. The filing drily points out that Kentucky Retirement System was instead plowing even more money in despite poor returns.

Similarly, the media has chosen to ignore other accounts of private equity executives profiting personally from owning businesses that sold services to private equity portfolio companies. We wrote back in 2013 about how another Blackstone executive, Tony James, engaged in apparent self-dealing by gaining ownership of a software program, iLevel Solutions spun out of Blackstone, then selling the software to portfolio companies, including Blackstones.

As to process: the quick intervention of the Attorney General and the extent of updates and polishing of the filing strongly suggests considerable direct support of the plaintiffs attorneys, Anne Oldfather and Michelle Ciccarelli Lerach. Theres even a nod in the text to the formidable, disbarred attorney Bill Lerach, a consultant on the case:

Other public pension funds have recouped billions of dollars through lawsuits against persons and firms which damaged those funds in violation of law  including Wall Street financial houses. Most notable are the suits arising out of the Enron, WorldCom and AOL Time Warner financial collapses by which public pension funds recovered billions of dollars

Those were all Bill Lerach cases.

Attorneys General often hire outside counsel on a contingent fee basis, and not just for their expertise. Even New York, which has one of the larger state AG offices, has only a dozen attorneys, so outside counsels also provide manpower.

In many states, these arrangements need to be approved by an independent party in the Administration, usually the Governor. As a lawyer who has been engaged by the Attorney General in another state opined, In this situation, I would also guess that the Governor wouldnt put up much of a complaint if the Attorney General wanted to hire the same crowd that started the case.2previously adjudicated here. I assume the defendants will insist on repeating these fights; it is over my pay grade to know how a judge will respond if the case goes before a new jurist, as opposed to back to Judge Philip Shepherd.

Finally, I am not the only one having to wrap my mind around what is going on here. Attorney General Daniel Cameron is joined at the hip with Mitch McConnell. A Mitch McConnell scholarship helped fund his college education. After clerking for a Federal judge in Kentucky, Cameron then became McConnells legal counsel before joining a Kentucky firm for two years as a senior associate. At 34, he won the Attorney General election, the first Republican to hold the seat since 1944 and the first black, in no small measure due to McConnells backing. So there is no way for McConnell to pretend Cameron has gone off the reservation.

Not only are Henry Kravis and Steve Schwarzman long-standing, big ticket Republican donors, but Kentucky contacts maintain that they are also McConnells largest donors. The Mayberry v. KKR case was dead; there is simply no way that reviving it is in any of the defendants interest. The case is very likely to get to the discovery phase and discovery would be very damaging to the plaintiffs, most of all Blackstone and KKR. Remember that anything that gets into the public record isnt just a potential embarrassment; it can be included in other cases.

Should Cameron believe he can go through the motions on this litigation after November, its going to be hard to extricate himself, given the dire state of the Kentucky Retirement System finances and the visibility of his involvement to beneficiaries, without clawing a meaningful-appearing amount out of the deep pockets. Even a cost of doing business fine/disgorgement like the big private equity funds paid to settle SEC enforcement actions, on the order of $50 million each, is an expense they would not have faced absent Cameron mixing things up. And a settlement would not be secret; its a public record, subject to disclosure.

So what is the political play here? Does McConnell feel the need to bolster his bona fides with Kentucky cops? Recall lead plaintiff Mayberry is an officer. Have the Republicans decided they need to bolster their populist credentials? Recall that the Trump Administration filed an amicus brief in favor of the plaintiffs, as in the lowly pension beneficiaries, in Thole v. US Bank.

Is this revenge? Has Schwarzman or Kravis crossed McConnell? Or has the famously sure-footed and ruthless McConnell miscalculated due to not adequately understanding the terrain? Theres some sort of dark matter exerting force on this equation. It will likely become evident in due course.

_____

1 We pointed out that the plaintiffs in fact made three independent arguments regarding standing, and the Kentucky Supreme Court, relying on Thole, addressed only one, that the plaintiffs lacked Federal Article III standing because their losses had not yet actualized. Since Kentucky is one of the minority of states that uses Article III in state law matters, the Kentucky Supreme Court could have reached the same conclusion without Thole, but they risked with Thole in play that the US Supremes might reach the opposite conclusion, that what amounted to a mark to market loss might do. We pointed out that the Kentucky Supreme Court handwaved away the second standing argument and simply ignored the third.

2 In light of the oddity of Mitch McConnells protege going after some of McConnells biggest meal tickets, it does not appear that the Attorney General and the original plaintiffs have the same interests, although the legal pretense is the AG is above those considerations. Nevertheless, this does raise the question of whether the Attorney General is as motivated as the original plaintiffs to go the distance on this case. That means I wonder how the same legal team could represent both even if Kentucky were willing. Having said that, the key attorneys are not part of the same firm, so conceivably the original team could divide up the representation.
Organic produce, handmade sausages and flaky pastries are all on offer at Castro Valley Marketplace, a huge food hall that opened this month in the East Bay despite the coronavirus crisis.

While there are a few other food halls in the East Bay, Castro Valley Marketplace is the biggest and most ambitious. At 39,000 square feet, its even larger than Assembly, the planned food hall for Oaklands Jack London Square thats drawn a star-studded lineup of chefs.

In the works for nearly three years, the Castro Valley complex promises several restaurants and food-oriented shops, plus classrooms and event spaces intended to make it a true community hub  at least, when the coronavirus allows such gatherings.

For now, Castro Valley Marketplace has only three businesses open, including a new grocery store.

Castro Valley Natural Grocery is a spin-off of the much-loved Alameda Natural Grocery in Alameda and similarly focuses on organic produce and locally produced artisan goods. The new store ups the stakes with a professional cheesemonger and its own restaurant called Tomato.

Barons Quality Meats & Seafood, which has locations in Alameda and San Francisco, also opened a new shop in the food hall. The butcher specializes in meat, poultry and seafood free of hormones and antibiotics, and its handmade sausages and marinated meats have built a following.

Also open is Seven Hills Baking Co., a new solo venture of baker Julien Wagner, who most recently spent a decade at Alamedas Feel Good Bakery. Seven Hills serves a variety of laminated pastries, organic whole grain breads and classic baguettes.

In August, olive oil purveyor Amphora Nueva and spice specialist Oaktown Spice Shop are scheduled to open in the marketplace. Both shops already operate popular outlets elsewhere in the Bay Area. September is slated to bring a second location of Berkeley sushi restaurant Akemi.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

Other coming attractions include Cannery Kitchen & Tap, a restaurant from the chefs behind Haywards now-closed Cannery Cafe; Cordial Cellar + Lounge, a bar from the owners of San Leandros Cordial Bottle Shop; and Night Owl, a cocktail lounge from the team behind Oaklands Blind Tiger and Gogi Time.

Janelle Bitker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: janelle.bitker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @janellebitker
Saudi Arabia's King Salman underwent a successful surgery that removed his gallbladder, the kingdom said Thursday, just days after being admitted to the hospital over an inflammation of the organ.

Surgeons at Riyadh's King Faisal Specialist Hospital operated on the king, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported, describing the procedure as a laparoscopic surgery. That's a low-risk procedure that usually involves only small incisions and a small camera to aid the surgeons' work.

King Salman will remain at the hospital for some time to recover and be observed by doctors, the report said, citing a statement from the Saudi royal court.

The king thanked all his well-wishers, the report said.

King Salman has been in power since January 2015. He is considered the last Saudi monarch of his generation of brothers who have held power since the death of their father and founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdulaziz.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A former Cuyahoga County jail guard and a Heartless Felons gang member on Thursday each pleaded guilty to helping carry out a drug-smuggling operation inside the jail that prosecutors say employed several corrections officers.

Ex-corrections officer Marvella Sullivan and Lamar Speights, a member of the violent Cleveland gang who is currently serving a 16-year prison sentence for participating in a smash-and-grab enterprise, each entered guilty pleas via video conferencing.

Sullivan pleaded guilty to trafficking in marijuana and attempted bribery and faces a maximum sentence of 30 months in prison. She agreed to testify if prosecutors call her to the stand in cases against others involved in the drug ring. Prosecutors dismissed racketeering and theft in office charges.

Speights admitted to charges of bribery, money laundering and illegal conveyance of drugs onto a government facility. He faces up to six additional years in prison. He also must forfeit a Samsung cellphone that prosecutors said he used while behind bars. Speights also must testify if called upon during any trials or investigations.

Common Pleas Court Judge William McGinty said he would sentence the pair after once there is a resolution in the cases of others accused in the ring.

The pair is among four people charged in connection in the ring, which prosecutors say operated in the jail from January 2017 through July 2019 and saw inmates and family members bribe guards to smuggle heroin, fentanyl, marijuana, cellphones, vape pens and other contraband.

Former corrections officer Stephen Thomas is accused of accepting thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for smuggling drugs and contraband into the jail for inmates. Former inmate Alexander Foster, who is charged with bribing Thomas, was charged for the first time in an information filed Tuesday.

Foster pleaded not guilty to bribery and s on Thursday but is expected to plead guilty at his next pretrial hearing set for Aug. 6.

Thomas resigned from the county after his indictments. Sullivan resigned in March 2019, five months before prosecutors charged her for her role in the ring.

Speights and another inmate, Brico Allen, are accused in court filings of being the ringleaders of the operation that paid bribes to Thomas, Sullivan and five other corrections officers who have yet to be publicly named or charged in the investigation. Allen and five other inmates accused of participating in the ring were not charged as of Thursday.

Sullivan brought marijuana to Speights while he was awaiting his trial in the smash-and-grab ring in exchange for $160 and a purse that Speights told his brother and sister to give her, court records say.

Allen, who is currently awaiting trial on aggravated murder charges, told investigators that he paid $3,000 in bribes to Thomas in exchange for the contraband. Allen also told investigators he bribed several other corrections officers dating back to early 2017.

Foster, who overdosed on drugs three days after he went to jail in February 2019, is accused of using the money-transferring app Cash App to bribe Thomas with $1,097 in exchange for Thomas smuggling in a cellphone battery, charger and vape pen, according to the indictment.

Thomas is also accused of warning Foster on April 12, 2019 that corrections officers were about to search his cell, the indictment says. Thomas has given Foster drugs four days earlier, and the warning allowed Foster to flush contraband down the toilet, according to the indictment.

The case is part of a broad investigation by the Ohio Attorney Generals Office into the jail. The cases include officers who beat inmates, an officer who ignored a dying inmate, and charges against the former warden and former jail director accused of negligently making decisions that made the jail unsafe.

Contraband-smuggling continues to plague the jail even after the grand jury handed up indictments in this case last summer. A corporal in the jail was suspended amid an investigation into allegations that he smuggled contraband, and Trinity Food Services, the company the county hired to handle food services inside the jail, fired an employee earlier this month after the county confirmed it was investigating allegations that Trinity employees had engaged in contraband smuggling.

Read more stories

Cuyahoga County Jail supervisor under investigation on suspicion of smuggling contraband into jail

Ohio Attorney General charges new inmate in drug, cellphone smuggling ring involving officers at Cuyahoga County Jail

Cuyahoga County Jails private food service company responds to investigation into drug smuggling

Cuyahoga County Jail officer accused of trying to rob man with fake gun in Brooklyn

Cuyahoga County to pay $140,000 to jail inmate attacked by officer while praying days after interview with U.S. Marshals over jail conditions
Liberian incumbent operator Libtelco is looking to push its broadband offering outwards from the countrys capital of Monrovia.

Local outlet The New Dawn quoted the fixed providers Deputy Managing Director for Operations Anderson Slober Chea as saying that while broadband is already in full swing around the capital and its surrounding areas, it must now expand to Grand Bassa, Margibi and Bomi Counties.

Chea noted that increased economic activity in other regions of Liberia had prompted the operator to explore the viability of expanding its service into these regions and make appropriate preparations for deployment.

While he acknowledged that the Covid-19 pandemic had held up the operators broadband expansion, Libtelco still aimed to ensure every home within the capital is given the opportunity of service.

TeleGeography reports that Libtelco has constructed a high speed IP backhaul data ring network that links all of its deployed tower sites. Chea claimed that this will give Liberians access to global internet services, including research works by students.
The Enchanted Rock State Natural Area is advising hikers to leave their dogs at home after numerous pets in recent days experienced heat exhaustion, park rangers said.

With the 100-plus degree heat Texas has experienced recently, the state park trails are dangerous for pets, said park supervisor Doug Cochran.

"You are taking dogs  who are mostly indoor dogs, who sit in the air conditioning and lounge on the couch  out hiking in these temperatures, it is too much for them," Cochran said.

Park rangers rescued five dogs unable to complete the 4.5-mile trail during a two-day span earlier this week. Rangers use utility terrain vehicles to pick up the dogs and then take them to the ranger's station to cool off.

Last year, Cochran said they had several dogs die from heat exhaustion and are just trying to be proactive to keep them safe this summer.

In addition to the dangerous temperatures for the four-legged hikers, the gravel on the trail can reach up to 150 degrees, making it extremely painful for dogs' paws. Cochran said owners should always touch the pavement with their own hands first and if it is too hot for them, it is too hot for a dog.

"We are all dog lovers here and we don't want to see the animals suffering," Cochran said. "So we want to make sure we are doing what we can to help and make sure the dogs are safe."

READ ALSO: Kayaker spots alligator in Austin's Lady Bird Lake

If owners want to take their pets hiking, Cochran suggest buying special boots to protect them from the ground temperature. Owners should also bring lots of food and water for their dog and rest in the shade often.

Signs a dog is suffering from heat exhaustion include panting, drooling, vomiting and breathing distress.

For tips to safely hike with your dog, click here.

Taylor Pettaway is a breaking news and general assignment reporter for MySA.com | taylor.pettaway@express-news.net | @TaylorPettaway
New Orleans police are investigating two separate shootings that injured two men on Wednesday evening.

One man was taken to the hospital by Emergency Medical Services after being shot in the face at Pauger and North Derbigny streets around 6:45 p.m.

The NOPD has not released any information on the man's condition, possible suspects or a motive.

This area of the 7th Ward has been a hotspot for gun violence, with the most recent shooting before Wednesday taking the life of 9-year-old Devante Bryant at Pauger and North Villere streets on July 13. The shooter also injured a 13-year-old boy and 15-year-old girl.

Police have not released any information on arrests in last Monday's case.

Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

Minutes before the 7th Ward shooting, another man was shot in the 3600 block of Frenchmen Street.

The man arrived at a nearby hospital with a gunshot wound around 6:20 p.m., authorities said.

Information on suspects or motives in this case was also not available Wednesday evening.

Stay with NOLA.com for more updates.
Houstons Tacos A Go Go is heading to the small screen.



The restaurant will be featured in an upcoming episode of "Secret Menus" on the Cooking Channel TV series, "Food Paradise.

A lot of restaurants have special items that don't make it onto the menu. The food reality show showcases the off-menu dishes so you know what to ask for the next time you order.
Dublin, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Goat Milk Cosmetics Market - Global Outlook and Forecast 2020-2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The goat milk cosmetics market is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 7% during the period 2019-2025.



Goat milk cosmetics constitute a niche but important segment in the global cosmetics market. Although the market concentration is gradually increasing with the increasing number of small brands entering the market, major global cosmetic brands are yet to capture share in the market. Consumers are investing in premium skincare products, which do not contain harmful chemical ingredients. Indigenous brands are thus increasingly entering the market with several natural ingredients, which are claimed to have therapeutic properties. These products are able to attract greater consumer attention.



Hence, the awareness of goat milk cosmetics is rapidly growing. Goat milk contains high protein and fat content. It also contains Alpha-Hydroxy Acid (AHA), which can improve the appearance of surface lines and wrinkles, prevent acne breakouts, brighten your complexion, and increase product absorption. Thus, cosmetics contain goat milk have high demand among the aging and as well as the teenage population. The demand for goat milk products is thus expected to growly rapidly during the forecast period, as an increasing number of brands enter the goat milk cosmetics market.



The goat milk cosmetics market is highly fragmented with the presence of numerous local, regional, and global vendors across the globe. The number of global players is, however, limited, and the growing trend of natural cosmetics has given rise to numerous domestic and local vendors that are posing a tough challenge to renowned vendors across geographies. The number of players in the market is expected to increase, which intensifies the competition.



Brands offering organic and natural products in sustainable and ethical packaging are expected to become successful. Brands are focusing on transparency, and ethical practices as the millennial population is highly conscious. In developing countries, such as India, Indonesia, and China, promotion plays a crucial role. Strategies including affordable pricing in attractive packages of small quantities in offline stores could drive consumer demand.



Prominent Vendors

Story continues

Dionis

Bend Soap Company

Ziaja

Gorgeous Soaps

Sunaroma

Crabtree and Evelyn

Legend's Creek

Horse o Peace

Dr. Squatch

Zum Bars

Beekman

Nubian Heritage

Windrift Hills

Bates Family Farm

Lover's Care

Goat Milk Stuff

HARVEST Hill Skincare

Sunhill Skin Care

Little Seed Farm

Kate Somerville

Haute Goats

Chivas Skincare

Whey Organic Cosmetics

Mt Capra

Billie Goat Soaps

Key Questions Answered:



What is the goat milk cosmetics market size and its growth forecast during 2019-2025? What are the top industry trends, drivers, challenges and investment opportunities in the global goat milk cosmetics industry? Which segment is going to have the largest market share? Which regions will dominate the global industry? Who are the key players and what are their key strategies?



Key Topics Covered:



1 Research Methodology



2 Research Objectives



3 Research Process



4 Scope & Coverage

4.1 Market Definition

4.2 Base Year

4.3 Scope Of The Study

4.4 Market Segmentation



5 Report Assumptions & Caveats

5.1 Key Caveats

5.2 Currency Conversion

5.3 Market Derivation



6 Market at a Glance



7 Introduction

7.1 Overview



8 Market Opportunities & Trends

8.1 Premiumization Of Beauty Products

8.2 Diversifying Product Portfolios

8.3 Social Influencers Reshaping Cosmetics Market



9 Market Growth Enablers

9.1 Rising Demand For Ethical Products

9.2 Growing Demand For Skin Care Products

9.3 Shifting Demand From Luxury Brands To Artisanal Products

10 Market Restraints

10.1 High Product Prices

10.2 Rising Demand For Animal-Free Products

10.3 Low Awareness Among Consumers In Developing Countries



11 Market Landscape

11.1 Market Overview

11.2 Market Size & Forecast

11.3 Impact Of Covid-19 On Goat Milk Cosmetics Market

11.4 Five Forces Analysis



12 Product Type

12.1 Market Snapshot & Growth Engine

12.2 Market Overview

12.3 Skin Care

12.4 Hair Care

12.5 Bathing Accessories

12.6 Foot, Hand And Nail Care

12.7 Others



13 Distribution Channels

13.1 Market Snapshot & Growth Engine

13.2 Market Overview

13.3 Specialty Stores

13.4 Supermarkets & Hypermarkets

13.5 Drug Stores

13.6 Online Channels

13.7 Others



14 Geography

14.1 Market Snapshot & Growth Engine

14.2 Geographic Overview



15 North America

15.1 Market Overview

15.2 Product Type

15.3 Distribution Channels

15.4 Key Countries



16 APAC

16.1 Market Overview

16.2 Product Type

16.3 Distribution Channel

16.4 Key Countries



17 Europe

17.1 Market Overview

17.2 Product Type

17.3 Distribution Channel

17.4 Key Countries



18 Latin America

18.1 Market Overview

18.2 Product Type

18.3 Distribution Channel

18.4 Key Countries



19 Middle East & Africa

19.1 Market Overview

19.2 Product Type

19.3 Distribution Channel

19.4 Key Countries



20 Competitive Landscape

20.1 Competition Overview



21 Key Company Profiles

21.1 Dionis Goat Milk Skincare

21.2 Bend Soap Company

21.3 Ziaja

21.4 Gorgeous Soaps

21.5 Sunaroma

21.6 Crabtree & Evelyn, Ltd.

21.7 Legend's Creek Farm

21.8 Horse O Peace

21.9 Dr Squatch, Inc

21.10 Indigo Wild

21.11 Beekman 1802, LLC

21.12 Nubian Heritage

21.13 Windrift Hills

21.14 Bates Family Farm, LLC

21.15 Lover's Care

21.16 Goat Milk Stuff LLC

21.17 Harvest Hill Skincare

21.18 Sunhill Skin Essential

21.19 Little Seed Farm

21.2 Kate Somerville Skincare

21.21 Haute Goat

21.22 Chivas Skin care

21.23 Whey Organic Cosmetics

21.24 MT. Capra

21.25 Billie Goat Soap



22 Report Summary

22.1 Key Takeaways

22.2 Strategic Recommendations



23 Quantitative Summary

23.1 Product Type

23.2 Distribution Channel

23.3 North America

23.4 Europe

23.5 APAC

23.6 Latin America

23.7 Middle East & Africa



24 Appendix

24.1 Abbreviations



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The cyber crime unit of the Delhi Police had invoked the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) against persons controlling the domain of environment collective website Fridays for Future to block the website, earlier this month, based on a complaint filed by Union Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Prakash Javadekar. In a notice sent to the website domain host  Endurance Domains Technology LLP  the Delhi Police had alleged that fridaysforfuture.in depicted objectionable contents and unlawful activities or terrorist act, which are dangerous for the peace, tranquility and sovereignty of India.

However, the Delhi Police clarified on Thursday that the initial notice dated July 8, which was being circulated on the social media, has been withdrawn.

"It is clarified that the notice in question was sent over email inadvertently with unrelated sections of law. Immediately upon getting the knowledge that the appropriate section has not been applied during its electronic transmission, the Notice was withdrawn on July 12, 2020, because the relevant sections of law needed modification. Accordingly, modified Notice under appropriate section of law (Section 66, IT Act) was sent to the concerned entities," DCP Aynesh Roy said.

He further said that even the correct notice under IT Act was withdrawn on July 16 as the issue has been resolved.

Cabinet Minister Javadekar had filed a complaint after he received multiple emails on his email address with a similar subject name, EIA 2020, according to the notice of Delhi Police. After the investigation mainly below mentioned website is sending emails to him. Their unlawful activities on this website may disturb peace, sovereignty of India. The publication and transmission of such objectionable contents is a cognizable and punishable criminal offence under Section 18 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, the Delhi Police notice read.

The emails Delhi Police mentioned in its notice are actually linked to an online environmental campaign run by Fridays for Future (FFF), an informal collective of volunteers who trace their roots to the international climate change movement, largely run by youth and teenagers, including Greta Thunberg. FFF had launched an online campaign in June pertaining to the consultations on draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification, 2020. The campaign intended to spread awareness on the issue and also provided a template for concerned citizens to send an email letter to Javadekar on the dilutions in the EIA norms.

For this, the campaign provided publicly available email address of the environment minister and the ministrys email address created specifically for sending public comments on the draft EIA notification.

The draft EIA notification, 2020 seeks to overhaul the existing 2006 EIA notification. The EIA notification is one of bedrocks of environmental regulation in the country that drives scrutiny of infrastructure and developmental projects as part of the process of project clearances. The 2020 draft notification has been criticized heavily across the country for allowing only 60 days for public comments and the criticism was echoed even by former environment minister Jairam Ramesh.

Among the key criticisms against the draft notification include proposed reduction in period for public consultation of industrial projects, institutionalizing post-facto clearances for cases involving violations of green laws, weakening of compliance mechanisms and provision of relaxations for project expansions.

Javadekars complaint and the subsequent action against the website under UAPA came to light after Fridays for Future (FFF) and Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) made public details of the case and FFFs response to the Delhi Police notice, calling it factually inaccurate, outrageous and the allegations as baseless.

Responding to a query on the issue of the ministers complaint, a spokesperson of the union environment ministry said, Draft EIA notification, 2020, is in public domain. Any suggestions and public comments can be sent at the official mail provided for the purpose i.e. eia2020-moefcc@gov.in till August 10, 2020, as mentioned in the notification. How is spamming the Honble Ministers personal mail with a lakh mails justified? (sic). The minister though did not respond to specific queries mailed to him.

Javadekars complaint also drew criticism from former environment minister Jairam Ramesh.

Cmon @PrakashJavdekar I too received multiple emails when I was Minister and took them in my stride. I thought you had a slim streak of liberalism, but quite clearly I was wrong. You are EXACTLY like those TWO! https://t.co/SHqZtMz16a  Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) July 23, 2020

FFF is not the only website that has faced censorship from the government. Last month, two other websites  LetIndiaBreathe.in and ThereIsNoEarthB.com  were also blocked. According to IFF, the National Internet Exchange of India (NIX), had put a domain hold on the website. IFF said that NIXI had not informed the operators of LetIndiaBreathe.in about the reasons for the domain hold and neither were given a chance for a hearing. IFF is providing legal assistance to these websites and had sent a notice to NIXI on the issue on July 10.

As per its website, NIXI is a not for profit Organization under section 8 of the Companies Act 2013, and was registered on 19th June, 2003. It was was set up for peering of Internet Service Providers among themselves for the purpose of routing the domestic traffic within the country, instead of taking it all the way to US/Abroad, thereby resulting in better quality of service (reduced latency) and reduced bandwidth charges for ISPs by saving on International Bandwidth.

What was the campaign run by FFF and what has it said in its response to Delhi Police?

With legal assistance from IFF, Fridays for Future has sent a detailed response to Delhi Police demanding that they rescind their orders to block the website and rebutting the allegations mentioned in their notice.

FFF clarified that the website was merely providing a template to make to facilitate public participation and consultation on the issue of the draft EIA notification 2020 and that it did not send any emails received by the minister. A part of this template read as follows, In March 2020, during the COVID pandemic and under your leadership, the MOEFCC had released the Draft EIA 2020 Notification, and I am writing to you today to unequivocally request that this draft be withdrawn on account of how destructive it can prove to be for the ecology and the people of our great nation. Though the notification states that it seeks to make the EIA process more transparent and expedient. But several renowned organisations, experts and the public have raised serious questions and concerns about the consequences, if such an amendment came into force.

The campaign sought withdrawal of the draft EIA norms for its apparent dilution of environmental safeguards.

FFF also sought to clarify that it had no control over who was sending emails to the minister. It is apparent that the FFF Website did not send any emails as is wrongly alleged in the Notice, nor did it retain any degree of control over the actual act of sending emails itself. The emails in question have been sent by persons who are concerned about the apparent dilution to the EIA norms and the incalculable harm that such a move might result in to Indias environment, FFFs respond to the Delhi Police notice read.

Questioning the allegations of Delhi Police with regards to the objectionable content, FFF said that a perusal of the content would confirm that it was exemplary in its decency and was wholly moderate in its tone and tenor. It did not level threats, raised no outrageous demands, but objectively raised a note of concern regarding Indias environment and climate justice. We assert that said conduct does not meet the legal standards justifying blocking the website via exercise of powers under Section 79 of the IT Act, the representatives of the website said.

It is very shocking how they are going out of the way for something that is anti-people from the beginning. The draft EIA notification has not even been published in any of the 22 languages mentioned in the 8th schedule of the constitution. We are within our rights to carry out this campaign, said M Yuvan, a Chennai-based volunteer of Fridays of Future and a naturalist.
AMMAN, July 20 (Reuters) -

Syrian air defenses on Monday intercepted a new Israeli "aggression" above the capital Damascus, state media said, in the latest wave of attacks that Western intelligence sources have said were Israeli strikes on a major Iranian-backed ammunition depot on the edge of the capital.

State television said Israeli missiles had flown over the Syrian Golan Heights where they conducted raids around the capital and live footage showed blasts across the skies of the capital.

There was no immediate Israeli comment.

A Syrian military spokesman was quoted on state television as saying its air defenses thwarted most of the missiles that targeted southern Damascus suburbs, areas that Israel had hit in the past, before reaching their targets and inflicted only "material losses".

Syrian military defectors said the strike targeted a major Iranian-run ammunition depot in Jabal al Mane near the town of Kiswa, where Iranian Revolutionary Guards have long been entrenched in a rugged area almost 15 km (9.3 miles) south of the centre of Damascus.

Other strikes hit Muqaylabiya and Zakiya towns near Kiswa where Lebanese pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia are deployed with other pro-Tehran militias in strength, according to two senior army defectors.

An official in the regional alliance that supports Iran said that there were no Iranian or Hezbollah casualties.

The severity of the blasts were heard in the capital and shook windows of several neighborhoods there, according to residents.

"The Israelis have targeted a major ammunition depot. There were several strikes and the blasts were huge. There are reports that Iranian personnel have been killed," said Zaid al Reys, a Syrian analyst in touch with sources on the ground.

The bases in eastern, central and southern Syria which Israel had hit in recent months are believed to have a strong presence of Iranian-backed militias, according to intelligence sources and military defectors familiar with the locations.

Syria never publicly acknowledges that the strikes target Iranian assets in a country where Tehran's military presence has covered most government-controlled areas.

Western intelligence sources say Israels stepped up strikes on Syria in the last few months are part of a shadow war approved by Washington and part of the anti-Iran policy that has undermined in the last two years Irans extensive military power without triggering a major increase in hostilities.

Israel has acknowledged conducting many raids inside Syria since the start of the civil war in 2011 where it sees Iran's presence as a strategic threat.

Israeli defense officials have said in recent months that Israel would step up its campaign against Iran in Syria where, with the help of its proxy militias, Tehran has expanded its presence.
A judge has decided to unseal records from a 2015 civil lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell, a socialite and associate of Jeffrey Epstein who has been accused of grooming and luring young girls into a sex trafficking ring with the late financier.

US District Judge Loretta Preska has ordered that potentially dozens of documents, testimony and other evidence could be unsealed, despite Maxwells objections.

Maxwells attorneys have argued that the release of documents could inappropriately influence potential witnesses or alleged victims and expose other people linked to her and Epstein, who had reportedly killed himself while imprisoned awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019. His death has been ruled a suicide.

Judge Preska ruled that public interest in the release of those records far outweighed Maxwells claims.

While investigating allegations against Epstein, The Miami Herald had pursued the release of documents tied to a civil defamation lawsuit filed by Virginia Roberts Giuffre against Maxwell in 2015. Those records could contain the names of high-profile figures with connections to Epstein and Maxwell, including Donald Trump, Prince Andrew and former president Bill Clinton, among others.

Among the documents are transcripts from Maxwells depositions from the case which had previously been kept confidential.

Maxwells attorneys have one week in which to file an appeal on Judge Preskas decision.

She was arrested earlier this month and accused of a scheme in which he allegedly assisted, facilitated and contributed to Epsteins 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.

Recommended Ghislaine Maxwell denied bail in Epstein abuse case

She has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges against her and remains in a New York federal detention centre after a judge denied her bail, citing concerns that Maxwell could be a flight risk. A tentative trial date has been set for 2021.

On Thursday, the judge presiding over her criminal case ruled against imposing a gag order that would prevent prosecutors and other from discussing the case.
18:33





Rao, among the 11 intellectuals charged under the UAPA for their alleged links to the violence that took place at Bhima Koregaon on January 1, 2018, has been in Taloja jail since February.





The following is the text of his family's letter to the NHRC.





To,

Mr. Debindra Kundra, Focal Point - Human Rights Defenders & Assistant Registrar,

National Human Rights Commission,

New Delhi.





Dear Sir,





At the onset, we, the family members of Mr Varavara Rao, would like to express our gratitude that the NHRC on July 17, 2020, directed that Mr Rao be provided the best possible treatment in a reputed super speciality hospital by the State Government of Maharashtra at its cost. Following this, he was admitted at the Nanavati Hospital.





Today, we are compelled to write this letter to you, as we are denied any information about his condition or his treatment at the Nanavati Hospital. From the time he was shifted out of Taloja Jail to St George's hospital to Nanavati hospital, the only official information provided to the family was that he had tested positive for the Covid-19. Denial of any information on Mr Rao's health is a direct violation of NHRC's order dated July 13, 2020, whereby it had specifically directed the prison authorities to provide all the necessary medical care and assistance to Shri Rao with intimation to his family members.





Completely disregarding this NHRC directive, the family was not informed, by either hospital or prison authorities, about a head injury discovered on him upon arrival at the Nanavati hospital. We learnt about it only from friends in media and civil society.





Consequently, we receive no official updates from the hospital or the prison authorities and our consent isn't taken for any of the critical treatment that maybe required to administer him. His health becoming the subject of public speculation with no official or transparent information from the hospital authorities is causing extreme anxiety to the entire family.





We believe that the health updates of a person in judicial custody must be shared with his family. Denial of regular health updates to the family of Mr Rao is not only unconstitutional but it is a cruel and an inhuman act.





It is the family's right to get routine updates about the medical status of a patient, any treatment that he is undergoing and the risks involved regarding the same.





Keeping us in dark about Mr Rao's medical status is a flagrant violation of the NHRC directive.





We urge the NHRC to intervene urgently in this matter and to immediately direct the hospital and prison administrations to provide transparent, official updates on Mr Rao's health status and line of treatment on every six hours to us -- his family members.





The NHRC should also consider directing the hospital authorities to provide us with a point-of-contact in the hospital for regular updates and to make medical records accessible to his family.





We believe as Mr Rao's family we should have access to information and patient concerned as it should be according to the law of the land and medical ethics.





We also urge the NHRC to direct the concerned authorities to allow a family member to assist/attend him, since he is reportedly not in a position to do anything on his own.





Yours sincerely,

P Hemalatha (wife of Varavara Rao)

P Sahaja, P Anala, P Pavana (daughters)





The family of jailed poet activist Vara Vara Rao has made another appeal to the National Human Rights Commission to release him from custody.
Melbourne hospitals have begun to draw on an army of reserve doctors and nurses as Victoria's second wave of coronavirus forces hundreds of healthcare professionals into isolation.

COVID-19 infections among Victorian healthcare workers rose by 60 since Wednesday, bringing the total number of infections to 529, 239 of which are active.

Medical staff in the COVID-19 ward at Melbourne's Austin Hospital. Credit:Justin McManus

Pandemic plans to increase ICU bed capacity at some of the city's major hospitals have also been re-enacted this week, as Victoria recorded its most deadly day in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Five more people - a man in his 50s, a man in his 70s and three aged care residents - had died from coronavirus, the government revealed on Thursday. The state recorded 403 new cases. It now has 3630 active cases.
Sonu Sood's Pravasi Rojgar app will provide all necessary information and links to find jobs for migrant workers during the coronavirus outbreak

Actor Sonu Sood on Wednesday, 22 July, launched an app to offer support to workers in finding the right job opportunities in various sectors across the country.

Sood, who catapulted to national spotlight for his work in helping migrants reach their homes amid the COVID-19 pandemic, has come out with a free of cost online platform called Pravasi Rojgar, which will provide all the necessary information and right links to find jobs.

(Click here for LIVE updates on coronavirus outbreak)



The 47-year-old actor said while arranging travel for the migrants, their conversations would often revolve around how they were looking for the right work opportunity amid the pandemic.

"Lot of thinking, planning, and preparation have gone into designing this initiative over the last few months, in order to ensure that it is holistic and builds on the work already being done in the country."

"Extensive consultations have been held with top organisations that are involved at the grassroots level in skilling and placing the youth below the poverty line, NGOs, philanthropic organisations, government functionaries, strategy consultants, technology startups and above all the returned migrants whom I have helped," Sood said in a statement.

The initiative will be supported by community outreach in the villages to find the right employment opportunities for migrant workers in different parts of the country.

According to the release, the online platform has over 500 reputed companies related to construction, apparel, healthcare, engineering, BPOs, security, automobile, e-commerce, and logistics sectors, offering job opportunities.

Pravasi Rojgar will also be offering specific job training programmes like spoken English.

A 24x7 helpline has been set up in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Ahmedabad, and Thiruvananthapuram.

Check out the post

(With inputs from Press Trust of India)
The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to restrain the Rajasthan high court from passing order on a plea of sacked deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot and 18 other dissident Congress MLAs challenging the disqualification notice against them and said it would be subject to the outcome of petition before the apex court.

Observing that voice of dissent in a democracy cannot be shut down, the apex court refused to accept the request of Rajasthan assembly speaker C P Joshi to either stay the matter pending before the high court or transfer it to the apex court.

A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra was hearing an appeal filed by Joshi against the high court's direction asking him to defer the disqualification proceedings till July 24.

The high court is scheduled to pass its order on Friday on the plea filed by the 19 dissident Congress MLAs.

The apex court, which heard the matter through video-conferencing, said that issue raised in the plea filed by the Speaker required prolonged hearing as it involved larger question related to the democracy and how it will survive.

As the high court has already heard the matter after prolonged arguments and reserved the order, we are not staying the passing of the order, however, whatever order is passed, shall be ultimately subject to the outcome of this petition, the bench, also comprising Justices B R Gavai and Krishna Murari, said and fixed the matter for hearing on July 27.

The case requires prolonged hearing so as to decide the question of jurisdiction. However, prayer is made that the high court should not pass an order on which it has heard the matter and reserved the order, the bench said in its order.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the speaker, raised questions over jurisdiction of the high court in entertaining the plea filed by the MLAs and said that the court can only intervene after the speaker takes a decision on either suspension or disqualification of a member of the House.

Referring to the high court's July 21 order asking the speaker to defer the disqualification proceedings till Friday, Sibal said, How can the high court direct the speaker to extend the time? This is not the jurisdiction of the court.

He referred to a famous top court verdict rendered in the 1992 Kihoto Hollohan case, in which it was held that courts can't intervene in the disqualification proceedings undertaken by the speaker under Tenth Schedule to the Constitution.

Sibal said that speaker has not decided anything and he has just issued notice to these MLAs and they should respond to it.

He referred to the grounds for the disqualification proceedings and said not attending party meeting, conspiracy to destabilise their own government, going to Haryana and staying in hotel incommunicado, giving statements on TV and demanding floor test against their own government amounts to voluntarily giving up membership of the party under paragraph 2(1)(a) of the Tenth Schedule.

The bench then asked whether these MLAs have been either expelled from the party or have they resigned.

When Sibal said No, the bench observed, We are trying to find out whether the process resorted to is permissible or not.

To this, Sibal said, Whether it is permissible or not, the court can't go into in at this stage.

The bench observed, Voice of dissent in democracy cannot be shut down like this.

This is not a simple matter. This is a matter where persons are elected by the public. They are peoples' representative, the bench said, adding that the Speaker has the right to decide on the disqualification issue but there has to be reasons also.

Sibal said these MLAs can voice their dissent in the party meeting and as the speaker has given them chance to respond to the disqualification petition, they can explain all these aspects.

He said reasons have to come in disqualification proceedings and the high court's direction to defer it is like a protection to these MLAs.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for some of the dissident MLAs, said counsel for the speaker had appeared and argued at length before the high court and now they can't ask for a stay of the proceedings there.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for some of these MLAs, said that when the Speaker had extended the time twice when matter was heard there, then what is the problem if the high court says so.

During the hearing, the bench asked Sibal, If somebody is not attending it (party meeting) then will it be taken as that he is against the party?.

To this, Sibal said, Who says they will be disqualified on this ground? The speaker will decide the issue.

He said it is not only for not attending the party meeting as there is much more to it and the Speaker has to examine the conduct of the members of the House.

When the bench said the matter was required to be heard at length, Sibal said, I request transfer of high court's matter to yourself.

When the bench said, Not right now, Sibal said then the apex court should stay the further proceedings in the high court.

The hearing also saw some lighter moment when the bench asked Sibal, Why you are in pain?.

Sibal responded with a smile and said, I am not pained.

Justice Mishra then said, I thought you are in a thinking process. You are an elder person and you may have this feeling.

Sibal then said, Now a days, I am immune as so many things are happening.
Renewable energy has surged to capture a record share of global electricity generation, seizing more market share during the coronavirus downturn. The steep drop in electricity demand, down by more than a fifth in some parts of the world, has hit energy producers everywhere. But because renewable energy has zero variable costs  the sun and wind are free once solar and wind farms are constructed  coal and natural gas are often pushed out of the market first.

That has renewables holding up a bit better than oil, gas and coal. In fact, renewables in some places are seizing the opportunity, potentially accelerating the energy transition. For example, renewables accounted for 44 percent of power generation in the European Union in the second quarter, up sharply from 37.2 percent in the same period a year earlier, according to Reuters. We are seeing figures we werent expecting to see for another 10 years, Matti Rautkivi, director of strategy and business development at Finnish energy tech group Wartsila, told Reuters.

The European Union is going further. The bloc just agreed to a 500-billion-euro green stimulus to ramp up renewable energy, electric vehicles, EV infrastructure, and other clean technologies. The European Commission is also considering ratcheting up the ambition, raising the emissions reductions target to as high as 55 percent from 44 percent.

The flip side is that around the world (excluding the EU stimulus), roughly $697 billion worth of recovery investment has been funneled into oil, gas and other carbon-intensive sectors such as aviation, according to Bloomberg NEF. Only $54 billion has gone to green policies. That could change  Joe Biden has proposed spending $2 trillion in clean energy, but that remains on the drawing board for now.

Related: The Worlds Newest Oil Boom Is Facing A Major Problem

Meanwhile, there is quite a bit of debate about peak oil demand. While there has been no shortage of predictions about peak demand, plenty of analysts still see oil demand rising in the years ahead.

But even some oil executives have come around to the idea of tightening up carbon controls, investments in renewable energy and other climate policy. One reason is obviously to gain good PR. But another reason is investment risk. The longer that governments put off climate policy, the more likely an abrupt policy change occurs somewhere down the line. Such a disorderly transition increases the risk of stranded assets, according to Royal Dutch Shells CEO Ben van Beurden.

Not all companies will find the transition that burdensome. Obviously, renewable energy companies are positioned well for a shift away from oil and gas. But some companies operating in the oil and gas sector can easily switch over to renewables. Roughly 40 percent of the oilfield services sector can replace lost revenue from oil and gas with new opportunities in renewables, according to Rystad Energy.

Fracking services, for example, may not fare well. But complex energy projects require services from engineering, procurement, construction and installation. Thats true for both an offshore oil project and an offshore wind project, for instance. These service providers can pivot with the transition. Around $90 billion, or 40% of the revenue from the top 50 players in the global service market, could potentially be replaced by energy transition projects, such as clean energy infrastructure and renewable energy production development services, says Rystad Energys Head of Energy Services Research Audun Martinsen.

Related: Halliburton Looks Beyond Shale As Fracking Remains Unprofitable



Renewables have not been spared during the downturn. More than 600,000 people working in clean energy in the U.S. lost their jobs during the lockdowns from several months ago. In June, the sector added a little over 100,000 jobs as people got back to work. But that still left half a million people unemployed.

And renewable energy installations are set to fall by 13 percent in 2020, the first contraction in two decades, according to the International Energy Agency.

However, the IEA said that the pandemic is hurting but not halting global growth in renewable power capacity. After a dip year, new installations will rebound sharply in 2021.

In the meantime, as energy demand contracts, the hit to oil, gas and coal is worse than that of renewables, allowing solar and wind to take market share away from fossil fuels.

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Ivan Yates will present his last The Tonight Show on Virgin Media One this Thursday at 10pm, when he reunites with Matt Cooper for a special show.

The show will feature regulars of The Tonight Show including Professor Luke O'Neill, Eamon Dunphy, Michael Healy Rae TD, Mary ORourke, Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald, Brid Smith TD and Michael Harding with the full line-up announced tomorrow.

For the last three years, Ivan Yates, along with co-host Matt Copper, has brought unique insight and analysis to The Tonight Show, helping viewers navigate and digest some of the biggest events in recent Irish history during this extraordinary time.

Speaking about his departure from the show, Ivan said: Since 2017, I've learned so much about live TV. Ive really enjoyed working with Matt Cooper and the entire production team who are excellent at what they do.

"I want to thank Virgin Media management for their support. I think the programme gave deeper insights, from Brexit to the elections to Covid-19, and sometimes an alternative view. We embraced controversy and craic at the same time. I hope we gave viewers a level of analysis that was both entertaining and informative. Im delighted for the station that it was such a rating success.
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The Sites may contain hyperlinks in the form of word link, banners or otherwise, to other sites that are controlled by parties other than Gasgoo.com. Users must be aware that Gasgoo.com is not responsible for any use of such other sites, even when said site is accessed through a link from the Gasgoo.com. Gasgoo.com does not control these sites, does not monitor such sites and bears no responsibility or liability for, nor should Gasgoo.com be deemed in any way to endorse or approve of, the contents, products, services and information on the linked site. Gasgoo.com encourages you to read such sites' Terms of Use and Privacy Policies before using such sites. Users must be aware that messages or information sent by other Users through communication systems provided by Sites or through emails and fax or letters to addresses obtained from Sites is out of Gasgoo's control and monitoring ability and so User acknowledges that Gasgoo.com cannot be held responsible or liable for the content of these messages and information. The message sender shall be responsible for the content of all the messages communicated, as well as the consequences of any such message.

Users acknowledge and agree that by using the features, products and services provided in Sites, a user may be exposed to content that is offensive, indecent or objectionable. Under no circumstances will Gasgoo.com be liable in any way for any third party or User content, including, but not limited to, for any errors or omissions in any such content, or for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any such content posted, emailed or otherwise transmitted via the features, products and services provided by Sites.

Registered Users

Each User who has filled out an on-line registration form on Sites by giving its information (such as name, address, telephone and fax number, email address, details of its business, etc.) is a registered user of Gasgoo.com (a "Registered User"). Gasgoo.com will establish an account ("Account") for each Registered User and each Registered User will be assigned a user alias ("Member ID") and password ("Password") for log-in access to its own Account.

Gasgoo.com may refuse registration and deny the issuance of an Account and/or Email Account and associated Member ID and Password to any User for whatever reason.

If the Registered User is a business entity, you represent that (a) you have the authority to bind the entity to this Agreement; (b) the address you use when registering is the principal place of business of such business entity; and (c) all other information submitted to Gasgoo.com during the registration process is true, accurate, current and complete. For purposes of this provision, a branch or representative office will not be considered a separate entity and its principal place of business will be deemed to be that of its head office.

By becoming a Registered User, you consent to the inclusion of your personal data in our Global Buyer Database and authorize Gasgoo.com to share such information with other Users.

Gasgoo.com may suspend or terminate a Registered User's Account or Email Account at any time by giving no less than 24-hour notice to the Registered User; provided, however, that notice is not required for such termination if (a) in Gasgoo's determination, there is any breach of the provisions of this Agreement by the Registered User; or (b) Gasgoo.com has reasonable grounds to suspect that such information provided by a Registered User is untrue, inaccurate or is not current or complete, or (c) Gasgoo believes that the Registered User's actions may cause financial loss or legal liability to such Registered User, Gasgoo's other Users, or Gasgoo.com or its affiliates.

The User shall be responsible for all users and the content of all the messages communicated through the Gasgoo.com, as well as the consequences of any such message.

The Registered User shall not use the Member ID for junk mail, chain letters or spamming or the transmission of any unlawful, harassing, libelous, abusive, threatening, harmful, vulgar, obscene or otherwise objectionable material of any kind or nature. Further, the Registered User shall not use the Email Account to publish, distribute, transmit or circulate any unsolicited advertising or promotional information or any content that is obscene, indecent, seditious, offensive, defamatory, threatening, or which incites or results in causing racial hatred, discrimination, menace or breach of confidence.

A Registered User may not sell, attempt to sell, offer to sell, give, assign or otherwise transfer an Account, Member ID or Password to a third party without the prior written consent of Gasgoo.com. Gasgoo.com may suspend or terminate the Account of a Registered User or the transferee of a Registered User in the event of a sale, offer to sell, gift, assignment or transfer in violation of this Section.

Users Who Post Information on Gasgoo.com

You must be a Registered User in order to post information on Sites using the self-help submit and edit tools provided through Sites.

No sales agency relationship is created between any User and Gasgoo.com, our affiliates, directors, officers or employees by virtue of Gasgoo's display of any of the User's information on Sites.

Each User hereby represents warrants and agrees to (a) provide Gasgoo.com with true, legitimateaccurate, current and complete information to be displayed on Sites and (b) maintain and promptly amend all information to keep it true, legitimateaccurate, current and complete. Each User hereby represents, warrants and agrees that it has obtained all necessary third party copyright, trademark trade secret or patent licenses and permissions, or such other licenses or permissions as may be required in connection with any other personal or proprietary rights of any third party (including but not limited to rights of personality and rights of privacy), for any material or information it posts on Sites or provides to Gasgoo.com or authorizes Gasgoo.com to display. Third party copyrights, trademarks, trade secret rights, patents and other personal or proprietary rights affecting or relating to material or information displayed on Sites, including but not limited to rights of personality and rights of privacy, or affecting or relating to products that are offered or displayed on Sites, are hereafter referred to as "Third Party Rights". Each User hereby represents, warrants and agrees that it shall be solely responsible for ensuring that any material or information it posts on Sites or provides to Gasgoo.com or authorizes Gasgoo.com to display does not, and that the products represented thereby do not, violate any Third Party Rights, or is posted with the permission of the owner(s) of such rights. Each User hereby represents , warrants and agrees that it has the right to manufacture, offer, sell, import and distribute the products it offers and displays on Sites, and that such manufacture, offer, sale, importation and/or distribution of those products violates no Third Party Rights.

Each User hereby represents, warrants and agrees that information submitted to Gasgoo.com for display on Sites shall not: (a) contain fraudulent information or make fraudulent offers of items or involve the sale or attempted sale of counterfeit or stolen items or items whose sales and/or marketing is prohibited by applicable law, or otherwise promote other illegal activities; (b) be part of a scheme to defraud other Users of Sites or for any other unlawful purpose; (c) relate to sale of products or services that infringe or otherwise abet or encourage the infringement or violation of any third party's copyright, patent, trademarks, trade secret or other proprietary right or rights of publicity or privacy, or any other Third Party Rights; (d) violate any applicable law, statute, ordinance or regulation (including without limitation those governing export control, consumer protection, unfair competition, anti-discrimination or false advertising); (e) be defamatory, libelous, unlawfully threatening or unlawfully harassing; (f) be obscene or contain or infer any pornography or sex-related merchandising or any other content or otherwise promotes sexually explicit materials or is otherwise harmful to minors; (g) promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age; (h) contain any material that constitutes unauthorized advertising or harassment (including but not limited to spamming), invades anyone's privacy or encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offence, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise violate any law or regulation; (i) solicit business from any Users in connection with a commercial activity that competes with Gasgoo.com; (J) contain any computer viruses or other destructive devices and codes that have the effect of damaging, interfering with, intercepting or expropriating any software or hardware system, data or personal information; (k) link directly or indirectly to or include descriptions of goods or services that are prohibited under this Agreement; (l) Be irrelevant or not belong to auto parts categories (m) otherwise create any liability for Gasgoo.com or its affiliates.

Gasgoo reserves the right in its sole discretion to remove any material displayed on Sites which it reasonably believes is unlawful, could subject Gasgoo.com to liability, violates this Agreement or is otherwise found inappropriate in Gasgoo's opinion. Gasgoo.com reserves the right to cooperate fully with governmental authorities, private investigators and/or injured third parties in the investigation of any suspected criminal or civil wrongdoing. Furthermore, Gasgoo.com may disclose the User's identity and contact information, if requested by a government or law enforcement body, an injured third party, or as a result of a subpoena or other legal action, and Gasgoo.com shall not be liable for damages or results thereof and User agrees not to bring any action or claim against Gasgoo.com for such disclosure. In connection with any of the foregoing, Gasgoo.com may suspend or terminate the Account of any User as Gasgoo.com deems appropriate in its sole discretion. User agrees that Gasgoo.com shall have no liability to User, including no liability for consequential or any other damages, in the event Gasgoo.com takes any of the actions mentioned in this Section, and that User agrees to bear the risk that Gasgoo.com may take such actions.

Transactions between Buyers and Suppliers

Through Sites, Gasgoo.com provides an electronic web-based platform for exchanging information between buyers and suppliers of products and services. Gasgoo.com does not represent the supplier nor the buyer in specific transactions. As a result, Gasgoo.com does not control and is not liable to or responsible for the quality, safety, lawfulness or availability of the products or services offered for sale on Sites or the ability of the suppliers to complete a sale or the ability of buyers to complete a purchase.

Users are hereby made aware that there may be risks of dealing with people acting under false pretenses. Gasgoo.com uses several techniques to verify the accuracy of the information our users provide us when they register on Sites. However, because user verification on the Internet is difficult, Gasgoo.com cannot and does not confirm each User's purported identity. We encourage you to use the various tools available on Sites, as well as common sense, to evaluate with whom you are dealing.

Each User acknowledges that it is fully assuming the risks of purchase and sale transactions when using Sites to conduct transactions, and that it is fully assuming the risks of liability or harm of any kind in connection with subsequent activity of any kind relating to products or services that are the subject of transactions using Sites. Such risks shall include, but are not limited to, mis-representation of products and services, fraudulent schemes, unsatisfactory quality, failure to meet specifications, defective or dangerous products, unlawful products, delay or default in delivery or payment, cost mis-calculations, breach of warranty, breach of contract and transportation accidents. Such risks also include the risks that the manufacture, importation, distribution, offer, display, purchase, sale and/or use of products or services offered or displayed on Sites may violate or may be asserted to violate Third Party Rights, and the risk that User may incur costs of defense or other costs in connection with third parties' assertion of Third Party Rights, or in connection with any claims by any party that they are entitled to defense or indemnification in relation to assertions of rights, demands or claims by Third Party Rights claimants. Such risks also include the risks that consumers, other purchasers, end-users of products or others claiming to have suffered injuries or harms relating to product originally obtained by Users of Sites as a result of purchase and sale transactions in connection with using Sites may suffer harms and/or assert claims arising from their use of such products. All of the foregoing risks are hereafter referred to as "Transaction Risks". Each User agrees that Gasgoo shall not be liable or responsible for any damages, liabilities, costs, harms, inconveniences, business disruptions or expenditures of any kind that may arise a result of or in connection with any Transaction Risks.

Users are solely responsible for all of the terms and conditions of the transactions conducted on, through or as a result of use of Sites, including without limitation, terms regarding payment, returns, warranties, shipping, insurance, fees, taxes, title, licenses, fines, permits, handling, transportation and storage.

In the event that any User has a dispute with any party to a transaction, such User agrees to release and indemnify Gasgoo (and our agents, affiliates, directors, officers and employees) from all claims, demands, actions, proceedings, costs, expenses and damages (including without limitation any actual, special, incidental or consequential damages) arising out of or in connection with such transaction.

General Conditions

Subject to any additional agreements relating to Paid Member Services, this Agreement and the Privacy Policy constitute the entire agreement between the User and Gasgoo.com with respect to access to and use of Sites, superseding any prior written or oral agreements in relation to the same subject matter herein.

Gasgoo's failure to enforce any right or failure to act with respect to any breach by a User under these terms and conditions will not waive that right nor waives Gasgoo's right to act with respect with subsequent or similar breaches.

User agrees to indemnify and hold Gasgoo.com and its affiliates, executives, directors and employees, harmless from any claim or demand (including legal expenses and the expenses of other professionals) made by a third party due to or arising out of User's breach of this Agreement or the documents it incorporates by reference, or User's violation of any law or the rights of a third party.

The Terms of Use contained within this Agreement constitute the entire agreement and understanding between Gasgoo.com and the User, superseding any previous understanding(s) between Gasgoo.com and the User. Furthermore, User agrees that they have not relied upon any representations or warranties that are not set forth expressly in this Agreement. Headings used in this Agreement are for reference purposes only and in no way define, limit, construe or describe the scope or extent of such part or section of this Agreement.

This Agreement is written in both Chinese version and English version. In case of any discrepancy between the two versions, the Chinese version shall prevail.

This Agreement is updated in July 2019 and takes effect as of the date of issuance.
A terrifying chapter in Australia's history has ended with Leonard John Warwick being found guilty of a series of brazen Sydney murders and bombings related to his Family Court battles.

The former firefighter's targets included judges and a church congregation during a campaign of extreme violence between 1980 and 1985.

The 73-year-old on Thursday was found guilty of the shooting murder of a judge and two bomb-related murders, including of a judge's wife, and numerous other offences related to six events that occurred in Sydney over five years.

He was found not guilty of the shooting murder of his brother-in-law.

Leonard John Warwick (pictured) has been found guilty of three murders in the 1980s

After a judge-alone trial occupying more than 200 sitting days in the NSW Supreme Court, Justice Peter Garling delivered his verdicts more than two years after the Crown opened its case.

It was a long time coming for the families of the victims, whose loved ones died or were maimed more than three decades ago.

Although Warwick was considered a suspect early on, he wasn't arrested until July 2015.

Prosecutor Ken McKay contended seven events were 'inextricably linked' to drawn-out Family Court proceedings involving Warwick and his ex-wife Andrea Blanchard, which ran from 1979 to 1986.

She testified the marriage started normally before Warwick turned violent and abusive.

She left him in March 1979 after he assaulted her when she planned to go to a Tupperware party.

'He started punching me and then pushed me down to the floor and started kicking me on the body and repeatedly punching me in the arm.'

He once told her he could shoot her father 'at any time' and also said Justice David Opas 'won't be there much longer' - weeks before he was shot dead at his home in 1980.

The 73-year-old (pictured in August, last year) on Thursday was found guilty of the shooting murder of a judge and two bomb-related murders, including of a judge's wife, and numerous other offences related to six events that occurred in Sydney over five years

He was the first judge to deal with the Warwick case and made adverse rulings against him.

The judge, who was shot when he answered the doorbell just as his family sat down to dinner, had predicted blood would be shed if more court security wasn't provided.

Justice Richard Gee took over the case, also making numerous orders adverse to Warwick.

His home was bombed in 1984, as was the Family Court registry building at Parramatta where Warwick's cases were heard.

The home of Justice Ray Watson, the third judge to make adverse orders, was then bombed, killing his wife Pearl.

Those four events were 'book-ended' by events of violence which were related to Ms Blanchard - the shooting murder of her brother Stephen and a car bomb at the previous home of her solicitor, according to the Crown.

But Justice Garling acquitted him of murdering Mr Blanchard, whose body was found with bricks attached around his waist in a national park creek after he went missing in 1980.

In 1985, a man who lived in a home formerly owned by Ms Blanchard's solicitor, found a bomb under his car bonnet when he opened it to do some repairs.

Although Warwick was considered a suspect early on, he wasn't arrested until July 2015

He'd sat in the car and put the key in the ignition before changing his mind about moving the Holden Torana into the garage to do some work.

The final event was a bomb which ripped apart a Jehovah's Witnesses hall, killing Graham Wykes and injuring 13 other members of the congregation which had offered support to Ms Blanchard.

Joy Wykes testified her husband was sitting at the end of the row and they were holding hands.

Because it was quite a cold day, she had a little rug and placed it over their hands.

Her husband realised why she did it and whispered 'I love you' and 'that's when the bomb went off'.

Warwick's solicitor Alan Conolly had submitted there was not 'a scintilla of acceptable evidence' that his client had committed extreme violence at any point in his life.

But Justice Garling determined otherwise and will conduct a sentence hearing on August 20.
Apartments in Praia da Luz from which Madeleine McCann went missing in 2007

Hazel Behan was raped while working as a holiday rep in Portugal in 2004

Police in Portugal have re-opened their investigation into the rape of Irish woman Hazel Behan after she came forward to say she believes her attacker may be Madeleine McCann abduction suspect Christian Brueckner.

Dubliner Ms Behan (37), who now lives in Westmeath with her family, was working as a holiday rep in Praia da Rocha when she was raped in June 2004, two weeks before her 21st birthday.

She told police her attacker was about six-foot-one, had "blond eyebrows and piercing blue eyes" and spoke English with a German accent.

She believes 43-year-old German Brueckner, a key suspect in the Madeleine McCann case, could be her attacker after she noted similarities between his 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Praia da Luz and her own ordeal.

Archives

Sky News reported yesterday that Portuguese detectives collected archived files earlier this week in order to reopen the case.

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Ms Behan made a statement earlier this year to London's Metropolitan Police after Brueckner was identified as a suspect in the Madeleine McCann case.

They said they were taking her case very seriously and would be contacting Portuguese police.

"We would not be able to comment on the rape investigation," a spokesperson for the Met said.

"Likewise, we are not providing a running commentary on the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann."

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Lawyer Noeline Blackwell, who is head of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, said it is "heartening" that police are reopening the investigation.

"One of the things that is going to make progress for us as an Irish and European society is that somebody who is the victim can depend on the co-operation between European states and can depend on a high level of knowledge in the area of sexual violence," she said.

"I know from reading reports that she was unhappy with the initial investigation."

Brueckner is serving a 15-month jail term in Germany for drugs trafficking and has applied for early release. He has denied any involvement in the McCann case.

Lawyers for Madeleine's parents this week urged prosecutors to make their case soon due to the 15-year statute of limitations in Portugal.

This may also affect any charges being brought in Ms Behan's case if police do find any evidence.

After the attack, Ms Behan was taken to a local hospital where she was examined, but she does not know if forensic evidence was taken.

She also said she was "not very confident" police examined her room correctly either.

In Portugal, forensic evidence is destroyed on the orders of a judge in cases where no suspect is identified within a certain period, so any valuable clues concerning her case may be lost.

Ms Behan, who waived her right to anonymity, said last month: "My mind was blown when I read how he had attacked a woman in 2005, both the tactics and the methods he used, the tools he had, how well he had planned it out.

"I puked, to be honest with you, as reading about it took me right back to my experience.

"This woman was the victim of a horrific crime and she has suffered. It is a matter for police all over Europe to do their best to bring the person who carried out this crime to justice."

Recalling her nightmare ordeal, she added: "I had gone to bed around 1am and was awoken by someone calling my name.

"I turned on to my back and standing there was a masked man dressed in tights and what resembled a leotard, with a machete around 12 inches long."

The man had removed his shoes at the door and set up a video camera in the room.

He took out a bag full of whips and chains before cutting Ms Behan's clothes from her body and gagging her.

"It seemed to me he had worked everything out, he had a plan," she said. "He consistently cleaned his hands, and repeatedly changed condoms. This went on, I guess, for around four or five hours.

"He got angry and ordered me into the bathroom and he picked up the machete.

"I was convinced he was going to kill me and I threatened to scream and said I would not go in there.

"My hands were still tied behind my back and he leaned me over a small bench and put a sheet over my head.

Humiliating

"I thought that was it, my life was over, but underneath the sheet I watched as he backed out of the door, put on his shoes and ran away down the street."

Once her attacker had left, she ran down the corridor to find help and, shortly afterwards, around 30 police officers and officials arrived.

Ms Behan said they took her back to the room "where I was asked to strip off and stand in a star jump-like stance while they took pictures of me. That was one of the most humiliating aspects of the whole ordeal".

"I was told at the time that if I talked about what had happened I would bring bad publicity to the resort," she added.

"Then I read about the poor American woman who was raped in September 2005 - who I would love to talk to - and the possible link that was being made between her attack and the person who abducted Madeleine McCann, and I was so full of anger, I knew in my gut it was the right thing to do to speak out.

"I think if the police had done their job investigating what happened to me, if this is indeed the same man that attacked the American and abducted Madeleine McCann, they might have prevented the attack on her and Madeleine would now be at home with her parents."

Ms Behan was selected last year as Sinn Fein's candidate for the Kinnegad area in May's local elections.

She is an advocate for domestic and sexual abuse victims and has worked with families living with addiction.

The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre's 24-hour helpline can be contacted on 1800 77888.
A Caribbean reef shark swims by a baited remote underwater video system in the Bahamas. Photo by AFP/Andy Mann.

An unprecedented global survey has revealed a shocking decline in the number of reef sharks, with the predators "functionally extinct" on nearly 20 percent of sites studied, including in Vietnam.

The four-year study used more than 15,000 baited and remotely operated cameras - so-called "chum cams" - to obtain the first comprehensive picture of where reef sharks are thriving and where they are virtually non-existent.

The results, from over 370 reefs in nearly 60 countries, are alarming, said lead author Aaron MacNeil.

"We expect... that there should be sharks on every reef in the world and to find 20 percent of the reefs we surveyed didn't have any sharks on is very concerning," he told a press briefing.

At reefs surveyed in eight countries, including Qatar, India, Vietnam and Kenya, no sharks were detected at all.

The findings do not mean sharks do not exist in the waters of these countries, but are evidence that their numbers on reefs are now critically low.

"These nations are places where we're saying that reef sharks... play no role in the ecosystem there and they're functionally extinct," MacNeil, an associate professor at Dalhousie University said.

'Transformational'

The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, says destructive fishing practices are the most likely culprit for the losses.

"The use of gillnets and longlines had the strongest negative influence on the relative abundance of reef sharks," the study says.

Gillnets use a wall of netting, while long line fishing involves a single line strung with multiple baited hooks. Both methods have been criticized for high levels of bycatch -- snaring marine life indiscriminately, including endangered animals.

The study backed by the Global FinPrint project was motivated by the dearth of big-picture information about shark populations in areas near coastlines.

In the past, researchers relied either on examining catch records, or underwater visual surveys by divers, both of which have shortcomings and produce results that are difficult to compare, MacNeil told AFP.

The new study relied on more than 15,000 hours of video from the underwater cams, analyzed by a team of volunteers and researchers.

That method has given the team "a baseline against which we can both predict and gauge the success of future conservation actions for reef sharks," he added.

"It is transformational."

And while the results might appear disheartening, the researchers said there are were some bright spots.

- 'Reservoirs of hope' -

"There are reservoirs of hope," said Mike Heithaus, co-author of the study and dean of the College of Arts, Sciences and Education at Florida International University.

"There are places where reef sharks are doing well that could repopulate and rebuild in these areas that are degraded," he told a press briefing.

Banning harmful fishing practices, imposing catch limits, closing areas to fishing and creating shark sanctuaries could all help restore shark populations, the authors said.

But they emphasised the need for solutions that fit particular circumstances -- for example where fishing communities rely on shark fishing to survive.

"They have no alternative... So we really need to figure out solutions that can work with those communities to still protect reef sharks effectively," said co-author Demian Chapman, an associate professor at Florida International University.

The study also warns that policies focused on protecting reef sharks may not be enough, given the predators rely on a healthy reef and abundant prey to survive.

Modelling done by the team suggests "focusing on reef sharks alone can only restore about 35 percent of their abundance, relative to restoration of the wider ecosystem," MacNeil told AFP.

"Results like these demonstrate that conservation of any group of animals must be embedded within a wider ecosystem."
SURREY, B.C.Two people have died in a house fire in B.C.s Lower Mainland.

Surrey Fire Service assistant chief Steve Serbic says crews were called just after 4:30 a.m.

An elderly man and woman were pulled from the home a short time later.

The blaze destroyed the upper floor of the house in Surreys northwest corner.

Serbic says crews had a difficult time reaching the fire, because the property was surrounded by debris and there was more inside the home.

A cause has not yet been determined.

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MEXICO CITY A scandal involving the abduction and exploitation of young children in a colonial Mexican city popular with tourists widened Wednesday when prosecutors released additional evidence that an adult apparently used other children to help kidnap a missing 2-year-old boy.

The search for Dylan Esa Gmez Prez led prosecutors in southern Chiapas state, on the Guatemalan border, to a house in San Cristobal de las Casas where 23 abducted children were being kept at a house in deplorable conditions and forced to sell trinkets and handicrafts in the street.

But Dylan, who turns 3 in November, was not among them.

Reviewing surveillance cameras, state prosecutor Jorge Llaven said that a boy and a girl, both apparently around 12, were seen talking to a woman who is a suspect in the June 30 abduction. Llaven identified the woman as only as Ofelia, and offered a $13,500 reward for information about the location of her or the missing boy.

In photos from cameras, the boy and the girl enter the public market where Dylans mother worked in the colonial city. Dylan appears to follow the boy, and then the girl takes Dylan by the back of the jacket and walks out of the market with him. The girl is later seen returning alone, apparently having handed the missing boy over to someone else.

Llaven said Tuesday that a search carried out Monday, apparently related to Dylans disappearance, had revealed a house where children most between 2 and 15 years old, but three infants aged between 3 and 20 months were forced to sell things on the street.

Moreover, they were forced to return with a certain minimum amount of money for the right to get food and a place to sleep at the house, Llaven said.

San Cristobal is a picturesque, heavily Indigenous city that is popular among tourists. It is not unusual to see children and adults hawking local crafts like carvings and embroidered cloth on its narrow cobblestone streets.

But few visitors to the city suspected that some of the kids doing the selling had been snatched from their families.

The Chiapas state prosecutors office said in a statement the children were forced through physical and psychological violence to sell handicrafts in the center of the city, adding the kids showed signs of malnutrition and precarious conditions.

According to video presented by the prosecutors, many of them slept on what appeared to be sheets of cardboard and blankets on a cement floor. Three other women have been detained in that case and may face human trafficking and forced labor charges.

Dylan was with his mother, Juana Prez, at the market on the day he was snatched.

Prez, who traveled to Mexico City to ask President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador to help find her son, works at the market selling fruit and vegetables. She said her son would sometimes wander off to play, but that no children had ever been snatched from the market before.

The boys father emigrated to California to find work, and thus Prez, 23, has had to care for Dylan and his sister by herself.

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Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, 59, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Bandhan Bank Ltd, is a self-made man. Son of a small sweet-shop owner from Bengal, Ghoshs journey began in Eastern Indias villages with an initial capital of mere Rs 2 lakh sourced from family and friends, to gradually build a microfinance institution and later grow it to a commercial bank in less than 15 years. In this chat with Moneycontrol, Ghosh opens up about his management style, his most admired leader and what motivates him at his work. Edited excerpts:

What time do you like to be at your desk? My workday starts much before I get to my desk in office. It starts soon after I wake up early in the morning, after which I check my schedule and prepare for the day ahead. My day remains incomplete without my morning exercise and pooja. I then leave for office and try to be at my desk around 9:00 am.

Where is the best place to prepare for leadership: at business school or on the job? While B-schools serve a purpose and have proven their success in preparing leaders, there is no teacher like life itself and no substitute for on-ground experience. Most management lessons comprise the learnings that experienced people have gained while working on ground. Many successful leaders in the world dont have a B-school degree, but they have sharpened their entrepreneurial and leadership skills over time by pursuing their profession with passion and dedication.

Describe your management style. I would say that my management style is inclusive and participative. Having the right people for the right job, and empowering them, is imperative. Whenever my colleagues approach me for a solution to a problem they are faced with, I encourage them to think of three possible solutions, keeping their view of the problem in mind. They are in the best position to assess the situation and I try to build on their thinking to arrive at the best course of action. Involving them in the decision-making process also gives employees a sense of ownership.

Are tough decisions best taken by one person or collectively? It depends on the situation. As they say, two minds are better than one, and it always make sense to confer with your senior management team before coming to a conclusion. Diverse opinions and suggestions are important to take the best decision possible especially when it is a tough one. But whatever the decision be, its rationale should be explained to the larger team. If the context to a tough decision is set right, it helps employees accept the decision more willingly and this ensures effective implementation.

Do you want to be liked, feared or respected? A leader should be liked. If he isnt liked, none of his or her decisions will be accepted. If a leaders suggestions lead to professional and personal well-being of his team members, it will help him earn their affection and respect. There should be no place for fear in a leaders relationship with his team. I have seen myself in an organisation very early in my career where a senior persons presence was a reason for everyone to feel scared. I remember how none of us used to be at our best in such a situation as we were all only thinking of how to avoid being cornered and chided. An atmosphere of fear is counterproductive to the interests of an organisation.
Spains cherished saying that there is a bar on every corner is in jeopardy with 85,000 drinking and eating establishments facing closure if a coronavirus rebound gets out of control.

That was the warning from the main hospitality business lobby, which said some 40,000 bars and restaurants had already shut down permanently in tourism-dependent Spain which implemented one of Europes toughest lockdowns.

The Spanish Hospitality Industry Association added that in a best-case scenario, 25,000 more were likely to close by year end, with another 20,000 if spikes were not contained.

FILE PHOTO: Closed touristic bar terraces are seen in the Bierstrasse street (Miquel Pellisa street) in El Arenal beach, where authorities on Wednesday closed all commercial activities to prevent the crowding of tourists, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, July 15, 2020. (REUTERS)

Spaniards and foreign tourists have not been drinking and eating out as much as usual when lockdown ended last month.

In many cases the heart has been more powerful than the head and many of the businesses opened their doors while losing money, association president Jose Luis Yzuel told Reuters on Wednesday.

How long can (owners) maintain that? he said, estimating that revenues for the sector were set to halve in 2020, with losses of around 67 billion euros ($77.49 billion).

FILE PHOTO: People sit at a bar near Barceloneta beach, after Catalonia's regional authorities and the city council announced restrictions to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Barcelona, Spain July 19, 2020. (REUTERS)

NO TAX CUT

Spain, which has suffered more than 28,400 deaths and about 266,000 cases of the COVID-19 disease, has seen a sharp rise in new infections over the last three weeks, but still at a level well below the peak.

Several business groups have created a lobby campaign Together for hospitality to seek help for a sector that accounts for about 6.2% of GDP and employs 1.7 million people.

Among their demands are a temporary cut in value-added tax and help for micro businesses, as up to 70% of the sector are self-employed or have less than three workers.

FILE PHOTO: A woman and a man sit in a bar as they enjoy the sunny weather at Barceloneta beach, after Catalonia's regional authorities and the city council announced restrictions to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Barcelona, Spain July 19, 2020. (REUTERS)

But on Wednesday, Industry and Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto ruled out a VAT cut.

Its not on the agenda at the moment because it involves a very important budgetary effort and the needs we have to support the various economic sectors are enormous, he 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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President Muhammadu Buhari has condemned the recent killing of five staff of humanitarian agencies in Borno State, who were kidnapped by Boko Haram Terrorists a month ago.

President Buhari sympathises with the families of the five aid workers, while praying that God will comfort them for their irreplaceable loss. He assures them that his government will continue to do all it can to ensure that every remaining vestige of Boko Haram is wiped out completely from northeastern Nigeria and that the perpetrators of this atrocity face the law.

President Buhari also condoles with the State Emergency Management Agency, Action Against Hunger, Rich International, and International Rescue Committee, whose staff have suffered this gruesome fate. He thanks them for their continued dedication and service to the victims of Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria. He assures them that security agencies in the state will work closely with their organisations to implement measures to ensure that no such kidnapping of staff occurs again.
A President Donald Trump and a former Vice President Joe Biden supporter converse before the Joe Biden Campaign Rally at the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Miss., on March 7, 2020. (Kyle Rivas/Getty Images)

Political Climate Preventing 62 Percent of Americans From Sharing Their Views

A growing number of Americans feel that the political climate is preventing them from sharing their views, according to a new survey by the Cato Institute.

The institute surveyed 2,000 Americans and found that 62 percent are reluctant to share their views due to the political climate. In 2017, 58 percent of people surveyed expressed the same opinion.

Republicans are much more likely to be afraid to share their opinions than Democrats and independents, the survey found. More than 3 in 4 Republicans77 percentsaid they are afraid to share their views compared to 52 percent of the Democrats and 59 percent of the independents.

The reluctance to share ones views appears to grow as respondents shift right on the political spectrum, the survey found.

Compared to 2017, the reluctance to share ones views increased across the political spectrum. Liberals, moderates, and conservatives all were 7 percent more likely to be afraid to express their opinions.

The increase in reluctance was more pronounced among strong liberals, rising 12 points to 42 percent, compared to 2017. Reluctance to share their views among strong conservatives notched up 1 point to 77 percent.

This suggests that its not necessarily just one particular set of views that has moved outside of acceptable public discourse, Emily Ekins, research fellow and director of polling at the Cato Institute, wrote about the survey. Instead these results are more consistent with a walking on eggshells thesis that people increasingly fear a wide range of political views could offend others or negatively impact themselves.

The self censorship cut across demographic groups as well, with roughly 2 in 3 Latino Americans and white Americans and nearly half of African Americans holding views they are afraid to share. More men (65 percent) than women (59 percent) said the political climate prevents them from speaking their mind.

The Cato Institute also polled respondents on whether they would support firing someone if they had donated to President Donald Trump or presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

The cancel culture manifested stronger among staunch liberals than staunch conservatives. Half of all the people who identified as staunch liberals said they would support firing Trump donors, compared to 36 percent of staunch conservatives who would support firing someone who donated to Biden.

Nearly a third of Americans said theyre afraid their political views may cost them their jobs or career opportunities. In line with the results on cancel culture, the fear was slightly stronger among conservatives (34 percent) than liberals (31 percent).
NEW YORK, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- NYCHA Black Rally organizers announced today their official March + Rally to take place on Sunday, July 26th, 2020 from 12 Noon ET to 5 PM ET. The event will kick off at Kingsborough Houses at the African Mural, 2nd Walk location in Brooklyn New York 111233. Event attendees can take A, C, 3 or 4 trains to Utica Avenue and head to Bergen/Pacific St. Between Buffalo and Rochester Avenues.



The purpose of the rally is to effectively raise the concerns and calls to action for three demands:

1. Immediate maximum funding for NYCHA

NYCHA Black Rally- July 26th 2020 Kingsbridge Houses March + Rally

2. End Gun Violence by Addressing Root Causes

3. Defund the NYPD

The NYCHA Black Rally demands that New York City, New York State, along with the federal government ceases all run around activity and when it comes to the living conditions and repairs for the tenants of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), and immediately fund healthy and sustainable living conditions. NYCHA is and has always been a community of predominantly lower-income black residents and families which is believed to be reason for delays in providing what is desperately needed. The event includes additional calls to action and hopes to also raise awareness and demand that the communities across NYC come together to end gun violence, a topic of contention where root causes of such violence are consistently ignored and glossed over within the black community by government officials. The events third demand is one that has been resounding loudly as of late. The NYCHA Black rally is demanding that the NYPD continues to be defunded and that the NYPD takes drastic measures to ensure changes that will result in the true safety and protection of New York City's Black communities.

Speakers for the event include but are not limited to:

Jamell Henderson - Event Organizer from House of Henderson

- Event Organizer from House of Henderson Hakeem Jeffries - Congressman of the 8th district

- Congressman of the 8th district NYCHA students + NYCHA residents

Alicka Ampry-Samuel - Councilwoman of the 41st District and Chair of NYCHA committee & NYC Council Member

Jabari Brisport , Senator-Elect of the 25th district

, Senator-Elect of the 25th district Khaleel Anderson - Assemblyman Elect of the 31st district

"Residents of NYCHA are real people. Like myself. There is a gross misconception that residents are ghetto, uneducated, gangbangers, when in reality the rent in NYC is too high for many to meet their basic needs without living in low-income housing, working multiple jobs, or residing with a number of roommates. This is not an uncommon cry. This is not a new problem. The fact that NYCHA is predominantly black and needs go ignored is yet another symptom of the systematic oppression that black people are experiencing daily." States Jamell Henderson- Creator and Head Organizer of The Black NYCHA Rally. We are demanding that our residents needs to be met, that gun reform occurs to ensure the safety of our communities and our youth. We are also continuously calling for the defunding of the NYPD who have proven they are not effective in policing black communities or responding to our needs as public servants but instead as tyrants and tormentors."

Additional organizers and supporters of the event include NYCC, Housing Justice Coalition, Strategies for Black Lives, The Black Code Revolution, Voices of Black Powher, Walk Away Sis Podcast, United Mexicans of America, Mic Check Collective, New York Civilian Defense, and Black Lives Matter Brooklyn.

For more information on The Black NYCHA Rally please email [email protected]

Media Contact:

Monique Tatum

877-841-7244

[email protected]

SOURCE NYCHA Black Rally
[July 23, 2020] FortressIQ Launches World's First Learning and Adaptive Computer Vision-Based Firewall SAN FRANCISCO, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FortressIQ , the company delivering end-to-end process insights for the modern enterprise, today announced Privacy Enhanced Gateway (PEG), in addition to updated security certifications to mitigate customers' compliance and security requirements throughout their business transformation journeys.

According to a report from IDC, worldwide spending on digital transformation is expected to reach $2.3 trillion dollars by 2023, but security continues to be a top concern for businesses undergoing these changes. Furthermore, IT decision makers have listed data security and data privacy as top concerns in Constellation Research surveys over the last three years. The secure gathering and analysis of customers personally identifiable information (PII) is a challenge that has been persistently impeding large-scale data collection and data-driven decision making for the enterprise. The very nature of process intelligence requires visibility into a companys data, much of which may be sensitive. Historically, companies have had to invest in internal storage and masking software in an attempt to solve this problem, but these solutions can be costly, inefficient, and often do not scale as more data is collected. At Fortress IQ, we believe privacy is a human right. Organizations that create technology have the potential for abuse and an obligation to provide solutions to that abuse, said Pankaj Chowdhry, CEO at FortressIQ. To stand unambiguous in this belief, we are making the Privacy Enhanced Gateway a standard part of our platform at no additional cost." FortressIQ's PEG is the worlds first adaptive and learning computer vision-based firewall. It allows enterprises to confidently execute on their strategic business initiatives by filtering their sensitive data in a secure and scalable manner. It works by redacting all private data that has been obtained on customer's machines within their own netwok before being forwarded to the FortressIQ cloud for analysis. All agents connect to PEG before leaving the customer's perimeter, removing PII and sensitive data in its entirety. PEG utilizes AI from FortressIQs platform, and allows it to run under customer control. It is packaged as a virtual appliance that can be deployed on-premise or within the customers own VPC on the cloud provider of their choice. The core of this technology is a joint AI model which has learned the individual types of objects which compose a software screen, and the meanings of their labels and values. It determines every control, like a drop down list box or radio button, the labels for that control, along with the data within that control. The data is then redacted, leaving only the empty software screen remaining. As part of FortressIQs ongoing commitment to providing best-in-class security for its customers, the company also recently completed its SOC 2 type 2, ISO 27001, and HIPAA certifications. At FortressIQ, security, compliance, risk management, and trust are a part of our DNA and are reflected in our culture, products, and processes, said Alex Lawrence, director of security and compliance at FortressIQ. They are integral to our company and drive our mission to accelerate the responsible and ethical use of AI in the enterprise. Were dedicated to fostering a culture of continuous development within the company, and ensuring constant improvements when it comes to compliance and security across the entire platform. Data security and data privacy regulations and, more importantly, related expectations among consumers, business partners, and employees are only increasing, said Doug Henschen, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research. Its incumbent upon technology providers to not only meet todays compliance requirements but to proactively build data security and data privacy safeguards into their systems so they can address future regulations and ever-rising expectations. FortressIQ announced $30 million dollars in Series B funding in May, led by M12 and Tiger Global Management, with participation from earlier investors Boldstart Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Eniac Ventures, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Additionally, this year the company partnered with both Microsoft and Blue Prism to deliver solutions for intelligent automation that support customers business transformation journeys. About FortressIQ

FortressIQ delivers real-time, end-to-end process insights for the modern enterprise. It leverages computer vision and artificial intelligence to add human-level observability to any application, with zero integration and universal compatibility. FortressIQs automated process discovery enables enterprises to uncover insights and analytics previously unattainable with traditional methods, so that they may confidently make decisions and strategically implement them across the enterprise. These capabilities assist in improving employee experience, system optimization, process redesign, value engineering, and augmented intelligence. Founded in 2017, FortressIQ is backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Boldstart Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Eniac Ventures, M12 and Tiger Global. To learn more, please visit www.fortressiq.com . Media Contact

Reagan McAfee

Offleash for FortressIQ

fortressiq@offleashpr.com

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WASHINGTON - Bowing to the coronavirus threat, President Donald Trump has scrapped plans for a four-night Republican National Convention celebration in Florida that had been set to draw more than 10,000 people to a pandemic hot spot to mark his renomination.

Trump had already moved the conventions public events out of North Carolina because of virus concerns. But the spiking virus shifted to the South, too, and the planned gathering in Jacksonville increasingly appeared to be both a health and political risk. Trump and his advisers feared that going forward with big parties and infomercial programming in Florida would ultimately backfire on the president.

Its a different world, and it will be for a little while, Trump said, explaining his decision at a Thursday White House coronavirus briefing. To have a big convention is not the right time.

A small subset of GOP delegates will still formally renominate Trump on Aug. 24 in Charlotte, North Carolina, at an event scheduled to last just four hours.

Trump had decided last month to shift the ceremonial portions of the GOP convention to Florida because of a dispute with North Carolinas Democratic leaders over holding an indoor gathering with throngs of supporters taking a pass on face masks.

But his plans for a grand gathering in Florida started shrinking almost as quickly as the move was announced, as virus cases spiked in the state and other parts of the country.

Trump said he plans to deliver his nomination acceptance speech in an alternate form still to be determined  perhaps online. Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien said the campaign will still provide exciting, informative, and enthusiastic programming so Republicans can celebrate the re-nomination of President Trump and Vice-President Pence.

Trump said thousands of his supporters and delegates wanted to attend the events in Florida but I just felt it was wrong to gather them in a virus hot spot. Some of them would have faced quarantine requirements when they returned to their home states from the convention.

We didnt want to take any chances, he added. We have to be vigilant. We have to be careful, and we have to set an example.

Democrats will hold an almost entirely virtual convention Aug. 17-20 in Milwaukee using live broadcasts and online streaming, according to party officials. Joe Biden plans to accept the presidential nomination in person, but it remains to be seen whether there will be a significant in-person audience.

The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to messages Thursday seeking comment on Trumps announcement.

In recent weeks, Trump aides and allies have encouraged the president to consider calling off the convention, arguing it was not worth going forward with the event if the focus would be on the pandemic. Trump acknowledged that consideration, saying, I could see the media saying, Oh, this is very unsafe.

After a three-month hiatus, Trump has stepped back to the forefront of the governments handling of the virus with regular briefings aiming to stanch an erosion of support in public and private polls that has followed the surge in new virus cases.

Trump said he did not cancel the convention events at the request of local officials, but the Jacksonville City Council was set to meet Friday to discuss safety concerns around the gathering.

Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, a former chair of the Florida Republican Party, said he appreciated Trump putting health and public safety first.

I know this was a difficult decision and just demonstrates and reaffirms once again his commitment to Jacksonville, the state of Florida and the people of the United States of America, he said. Im grateful for him and his leadership, and this was the right way to move forward.

Joe Gruters, current chair of the Florida Republican Party and a state senator from Sarasota, called it a selfless move.

Having our home-state candidate was going to be a really big deal for Florida, but listen, he had it right, Gruters said. At the end of the day, its about safety.

More than 10,000 people were expected in Jacksonville  already a fraction of the number that would typically attend a nominating convention. Only 336 delegates will be allowed to participate in Charlotte under extraordinary procedures approved last month by the Republican National Committee. The balance of the more than 2,500 delegates will vote by proxy.

Cory Burkarth, a spokesperson for the city of Charlotte, said Thursday, We have an agreement in place with the Republican National Committee to host a substantially scaled down business meeting and that is what we are planning to do.

The RNC had raised more than $35 million in contributions earmarked for the convention since 2017, according to an analysis of campaign finance disclosures by The Associated Press. The list of donors to the now-cancelled event reads like a whos who of industry titans, power brokers and wealthy Republicans.

The RNCs convention committee had spent $9.5 million through June. But that doesnt take into account the spending of the local host committee, which pledged to raise $70 million.

The Charlotte City Council voted in April to accept a $50 million federal grant for convention security. City Attorney Patrick Baker said the city had spent $14 million prepping for the convention but expected Charlotte to get reimbursed through the grant.

___

Farrington reported from Tallahassee, Fla.
The Jennifer Dulos murder and her body will eventually be found after her husband killed her, and hid the evidence.

One of the hitches in the case is that the body was not found by the authorities. Despite these setbacks, there is still optimism that the corpse will be located soon, reported Oxygen.

In an interview by NBC's Dateline,Connecticut state police Sgt. Kenneth Ventresca said that further work in looking for clues to find the remains of the murdered woman may lead to its discovery.

Based on the reports, the Connecticut mom disappeared without a trace in May 2019. There was fierce divorce custody with Fotis Dulos, her estranged husband, to get their five children. In January, Fotis passed away when he committed suicide in a garage he owned. He was accused of killing and kidnapping Jennifer, who was thought to be dead, cited ABC News.

Chief State's Attorney Richard Colangelo stated that based on the evidence found by investigators, there was a defined struggle, mentioned The Sun. Found were bloodied zip ties which we slashed that might be the victim's own blood. These zip ties were needed to stop the victim from struggling against Dulos in the garage where they were found.

Also read: Man Hides Decomposing Body Under Floor Board, Tries to Escape Authorities By Disguising as His Sister

What the investigators discovered were about four zip ties dumped in trash containers by Fotis himself. These were contained when an arrest warrant was served by the officers. Some evidence points to him and ex-girlfriend Michelle Troconis who are trying to take away the evidence. They were actively throwing off investigators by scattering evidence in Hartford. Included in charges are Troconis and Kent Douglas Mawhinney as his accomplices.

The arrest warrant accuses that the murder was planned as he stalked his estranged wife. According to the warrant, the assault happened in her garage as pointed out by Ventresca.

The lawyer added that a blood spatter was detected in the garage, which proves she was struck hard, and hurt badly during a physical assault.

During the investigation, the police had detected the zip-ties and signs of a scuffle that happened in the garage. But what needs to be answered is how Jennifer died, and what caused the blood to spatter.

Also, Colangelo said that the wife's corpse might be hidden in any of her husband's properties.

He stressed that the properties owned by Fotis are several, mentioning that these properties were not yet scoured or searched yet by authorities.

One home where the estranged couple stayed had its septic tank drained a month ago, according to Stamford Advocate. During the search for clues of the remains, cadaver dogs and the police did not find anything relevant that may trace to the body of Jennifer.

Later, those who helped the husband cover up the crime were encouraged to help solve the Jennifer Dulos murder.

Related article: Three Friends Found Killed on a Fishing Trip Under Mysterious Circumstances

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Tepuna Tupuna Mariri, 29, pleaded guilty to manslaughter

A New Zealand man who helped force two drug dealers into a toolbox that was dumped in a Queensland creek, killing them, will spend at least a decade in jail.

Tepuna Tupuna Mariri, 29, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Cory Breton, 28, and Iuliana Triscaru, 31, south of Brisbane in 2016.

He also admitted to torturing the pair after they were lured to his home in a Kingston apartment complex on January 24.

Mr Breton and Ms Triscaru's decomposing bodies were found 18 days later when police pulled the large metal toolbox from Scrubby Creek.

The duo had been bashed with a metal pole before being forced into the toolbox at knifepoint and dumped in the waterway next to the Logan Motorway.

Mariri helped torture Mr Breton and Ms Triscaru before they were murdered, the Brisbane Supreme Court was told on Thursday.

'The ordeal extended over many hours,' Justice David Boddice said.

'The torture was sustained and brutal.'

Mr Breton and Ms Triscaru were bound and assaulted.

Cory Breton (pictured left) and Iuliana Triscaru (right) drowned in a large metal box which was found at Scrubby Creek, south of Brisbane, on February 11, 201

'Screams of pain did not cause anybody to desist,' Justice Boddice said.

'Your conduct is properly described as cold, continuous and callous. You showed no respect for either victim as human beings.'

Later, Mariri assisted his co-accused, a group of school friends, shove the pair into the box. He also sat on the toolbox to stop the duo from trying to escape.

When they cried out, he closed windows at his home so their torturous screams for help would not be heard by neighbours, Justice Boddice said.

He also distracted onlookers concerned over the banging coming from the toolbox as it was loaded onto the back of a ute outside the unit.

After the pair were driven to their deaths, Mariri directed the cleaning up of blood at the apartment, but he was not at the creek when they drowned.

'What you did to my beautiful girl opened my eyes to the evil of the worst kind and makes my skin crawl,' Ms Triscaru's mother Victoria Duga said in her victim impact statement read to the court.

Mr Breton and Ms Triscaru's decomposing bodies were found 18 days later when police pulled the large metal toolbox from Scrubby Creek

'What kind of mind is capable of thinking that it is okay to do something like this to another human being?'

'It must be very cruel and depraved.'

Mr Breton's former partner, Miranda Parkinson, told the court their daughter, Sienna, constantly asked questions about how and why her dad died.

'How do you tell a three-year-old they are never going to be able to see their father again,' she asked in her victim impact statement.

'We have to tell her the truth.

'It is hard. Every day is hard.'

Justice Boddice sentenced Mariri to 13 years' imprisonment. He will be eligible for parole after serving 80 per cent of the sentence.

Mariri is likely to be deported after completing his jail time.

Tuhirangi-Thomas Tahiata was sentenced in February to life in prison over the murders.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 11:25:38|Editor: huaxia

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CHANGCHUN, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has encouraged the development of farmers' cooperatives suited to local conditions across the country.

Xi made the remarks Wednesday afternoon during his inspection tour to a farmers' cooperative in Lishu County, Siping City, in northeast China's Jilin Province. Enditem
New state unemployment claims increased last week for the first time in nearly four months, disturbing evidence that the struggling economy is backsliding at a time when coronavirus cases are on the rise.

After a flood of claims as the pandemic shut businesses early in the spring, weekly unemployment filings fell sharply before flattening in June. But on Thursday, the Labor Department reported more than 1.4 million new applications for state benefits last week, up from about 1.3 million in the preceding two weeks.

Another 975,000 jobless workers filed for benefits through an emergency federal program, also an increase. Unlike the figure for state claims, that number is not seasonally adjusted.

Claims are rising just as a $600-a-week federal supplement to jobless benefits is set to expire and Republican infighting has kept the party from putting forward a proposal for further aid, much less negotiating with Democrats on a bill.
University of Virginia School of Medicine scientists are harnessing the mind-bending potential of quantum computers to help us understand genetic diseases - even before quantum computers are a thing.

Stefan Bekiranov, PhD, has developed an algorithm to study genetic diseases using quantum computers, once there are much more powerful quantum computers to run it.

UVA's Stefan Bekiranov, PhD, and colleagues have developed an algorithm to allow researchers to study genetic diseases using quantum computers, once there are much more powerful quantum computers to run it. The algorithm, a complex set of operating instructions, will help advance quantum computing algorithm development and could advance the field of genetic research one day.

Quantum computers are still in their infancy. But when they come into their own, possibly within a decade, they may offer computing power on a scale unimaginable using traditional computers.

We developed and implemented a genetic sample classification algorithm that is fundamental to the field of machine learning on a quantum computer in a very natural way using the inherent strengths of quantum computers. This is certainly the first published quantum computer study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and may be the first study using a so-called universal quantum computer funded by the National Institutes of Health." Stefan Bekiranov, PhD, UVA

Quantum computing basics

Traditional computer programs are built on 1s and 0s, either-or. But quantum computers take advantage of a freaky fundamental of quantum physics: Something can be and not be at the same time. Rather than 1 or 0, the answer, from a quantum computer's perspective, is both, simultaneously. That allows the computer to consider vastly more possibilities, all at once.

The challenge is that the technology is, to put it lightly, technically demanding. Many quantum computers have to be kept at near absolute zero, the equivalent of more than 450 degrees below zero on the Fahrenheit scale. Even then, the movement of molecules surrounding the quantum computing elements can mess up the calculations, so algorithms not only have to contain instructions for what to do, but for how to compensate when errors creep in.

Our goal was to develop a quantum classifier that we could implement on an actual IBM quantum computer. But the major quantum machine learning papers in the field were highly theoretical and required hardware that didn't exist. We finally found papers from Dr. Maria Schuld, who is a pioneer in developing implementable, near-term, quantum machine learning algorithms. Our classifier builds on those developed by Dr. Schuld. Once we started testing the classifier on the IBM system, we quickly discovered its current limitations and could only implement a vastly oversimplified, or 'toy,' problem successfully, for now." Stefan Bekiranov, PhD, UVA

Classifying genomic data

The new algorithm essentially classifies genomic data. It can determine if a test sample comes from a disease or control sample exponentially faster than a conventional computer. For example, if they used all four building blocks of DNA (A, G, C or T) for the classification, a conventional computer would execute 3 billion operations to classify the sample. The new quantum algorithm would need only 32.

That will help scientists sort through the vast amount of data required for genetic research. But it's also proof-of-concept of the usefulness of the technology for such research.

Bekiranov and collaborator Kunal Kathuria, PhD, were able to create the algorithm because they were trained in quantum physics, a field that even scientists often find opaque. Such algorithms are more likely to emerge from physics or computer science departments than medical schools. (Both Bekiranov and Kathuria conducted the study in the School of Medicine's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. Kathuria is currently at the Lieber Institute for Brain Development.)

Because of the researchers' particular set of skills, officials at the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Mental Health supported them in taking on the challenging project. Bekiranov and Kathuria hope what they have developed will be a great benefit to quantum computing and, eventually, human health.

"Relatively small-scale quantum computers that can solve toy problems are in existence now," Bekiranov said. "The challenges of developing a powerful universal quantum computer are immense. Along with steady progress, it will take multiple scientific breakthroughs. But time and again, experimental and theoretical physicists, working together, have risen to these challenges. If and when they develop a powerful universal quantum computer, I believe it will revolutionize computation and be regarded as one of greatest scientific and engineering achievements of humankind."

Findings published

The scientists have published their findings in the scientific journal Quantum Machine Intelligence. The algorithm-development team consisted of Kathuria, Aakrosh Ratan, Michael McConnell and Bekiranov.

The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, grants 3U01MH106882-04S1, 5U01MH106882-05 and P30CA044579.
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Linkedin Made Anthony Iswara (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23 2020

Haida, a 53-year-old resident of Jakarta, said that she was stumped when she learned that her daughter must soon return to Malaysia alone because of the recent revocation of the emergency stay permit (ITKT) and corresponding policies, which came into force on July 13.

Haida is Indonesian, but her husband is a Malaysian citizen who is in Indonesia on a permanent stay permit (ITAP). Their 18-year-old daughter Jennet has a Malaysian passport and is enrolled at a university in Germany.

Jennet usually returns to visit her parents in Indonesia under the visa-free facility, an exemption accorded to ASEAN passport holders and other designated states. But she has been staying on an ITKT since March, when her visit was unexpectedly prolonged as a result of the COVID-19 travel restrictions imposed by many countries in the world, including Indonesia.

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A hospitality leader has said the question of tourism this summer "is more an issue of a green light than a green list".

Janice Gault, head of the Northern Ireland Hotels Federation, said the current government advice, which is only to travel if it is essential, was causing confusion for those aiming to go abroad or plan a holiday.

She added that for local hotels "summer will be about the staycation, with a drive to secure domestic business and attract visitors from the south of Ireland".

Her comments came as the Republic published its so-called green list of 15 countries from which travellers will not have to quarantine. It does not include Great Britain or the US.

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Most of the countries on the Ireland list are also on the list of places from where people heading to Northern Ireland do not have to quarantine.

There are, however, notable differences, including France and Spain, which are on our list but not on the Republic's.

Likewise, some appear on the Ireland list but not the UK one, such as Estonia and Slovakia.

Ms Gault said the primary concern was how people can get here in the first place, irrespective of quarantine issues.

She added that in 2019, the tourism spend was in the region of 1billion, with some 76% generated from domestic, Republic of Ireland and GB visitors. "The GB market remains our largest overseas market in terms of spend and numbers," she said.

There are, she added, three main questions to consider in terms of attracting visitors from abroad. "How can people get to Northern Ireland for a holiday?" Ms Gault asked.

"How happy are visitors to travel? And will the local communities be happy to welcome them?"

Ms Gault said that Northern Ireland's hoteliers were concentrating on island of Ireland visitors in the short-term, but they hope that, as the pandemic subsides, visitors from GB and further afield will return.

"Visitors on the island can travel easily by land and are content to do so," she said.

"Tourists have been widely welcomed by local communities as the R number remains well contained north and south of the border.

"Moving to those beyond the island of Ireland, perhaps the most pertinent point is that access by air and sea is limited.

"Research has shown that international visitors, even those from Great Britain, are reticent about travelling to Ireland and appear to be looking at holidaying in 2021."

Ms Gault said that Covid clusters "cause concern about people coming into communities".

She added that "the general consensus is that travel is starting to pick up on an all-Ireland basis and visitors from further afield are more likely to travel much later this year but may wait until 2021".

Ms Gault said that until leisure and business travel was given the green light, "it is difficult to see how we can restore significant levels of business".

"There is confusion about travelling, with essential travel abroad deemed as the only travel people should plan," she added.

"This in itself is leading to concern and having a negative effect on visitor sentiment.

"Recovery of the tourism industry will be slow.

"It is important Northern Ireland has access to markets which offer opportunity whilst maintaining control of the spread of Covid-19, and that we are open for business once the overseas visitor is happy to travel again."

Tourism expert Lyn Fawcett, whose family owned a string of venues on the north coast, said that if Northern Ireland was not open to GB visitors, it would have "a significant impact on our overall business". "About 25% of my business will be from GB and the rest is domestic," Mr Fawcett explained.

"At the moment I have people who have booked to come on holiday from England. If they're forced to go into quarantine, they will not come.

"The other dimension is that we already have bookings from people from GB and we need to be able to honour those."

Mr Fawcett, whose family owned Northern Counties, Fawcetts Royal and The Lismara Hotels in Portrush and The Strand Hotel in Portstewart, said "the industry has suffered a setback which will be almost impossible to get over".

"Losing 50% of the year's income for most businesses is a very big hole that has to be filled," he added.

"If we are closing the doors effectively to a number of countries, that will have a long-term impact. If we don't get the GB traffic, that will have a major damaging effect on the industry.

"I don't think that damage will be so great if it's from other countries."

The former Ulster University hospitality and tourism lecturer, who owns self-catering cottages on the Causeway Coast, said there were positives associated with so many people staycationing in Northern Ireland.

"There are very few places left in self-catering on the north Antrim coast," he said.

"People who've missed their holidays will probably do so in Northern Ireland and we will continue to be busy into September, October and November.

"It's not all doom and gloom. Business is picking up and I'm experiencing a higher level of demand for those three months than I've had in previous years - and it's entirely people from Northern Ireland."

Mr Fawcett also said making all US visitors quarantine for 14 days was "using a sledgehammer to crack a very small nut" because they could be tested for Covid at the airport upon arrival.

He added: "You can insist on them bringing negative Covid test results, you can test their temperature at the airport and you can give them a test at the airport and ask them to self-isolate for 24 hours until the test comes through."

Stormont health committee member Colin McGrath said the differing approved flight lists were confusing.

"The advice on international travel isn't clear from the Executive and across the island, so it's little wonder that people are confused," the SDLP MLA added.
Health experts and scientists gathered at a seminar held by the Ministry of Health (MOH) on July 22, discussing research, production, clinical trials, licensing and the use of vaccines in Vietnam.

The workshop introduced the appropriate mechanisms, policies and regulations to facilitate the research, production, trials, licensing and use of a possible COVID-19 vaccine, helping to cope with the pandemic while ensuring the efficacy and safety of the vaccine for future study on vaccinated participants as well as users.

It also featured an overview of the research on COVID-19 vaccine development from around the world and preliminary results and research plans for possible COVID-19 vaccines by four domestic manufacturers, including Vabiotech, Polyvac, Ivac, Nanogen.

Prof., Dr. Nguyen Thanh Long, acting Minister of Health, said that the world has recorded more than 15 million infections and over 600,000 deaths from COVID-19. The pandemic has shown no sign of stopping and there is no indications of any country successfully stopping it. Therefore, vaccine production is one of the top priorities for all countries.

According to the speaker, there are now 24 vaccines globally moving to Stage 3 trials, with some bringing about positive results.

As of July 15, there are 163 COVID-19 candidate vaccines at different stages. Among them, 23 are in the human testing phase.

According to Long, Vietnam is one of 42 countries that can produce vaccines. It is also one among 38 nations with vaccine management agencies meeting the World Health Organisation (WHO)s two standards. This is an opportunity for cooperation as well as the export of vaccines made in Vietnam, he added.

The MOH has directed the relevant units to research and put possible COVID-19 vaccines into production soon. Currently, Vietnam has four vaccine research and production units and the COVID-19 vaccine production has gained positive results, Long informed.

He added that the Institute of Vaccines and Medical Biologicals (Ivac), based on the existing technology of using chicken eggs with embryos to produce influenza vaccines, is researching and application of the technology to a possible COVID-19 vaccine production. This approach is feasible and positive, Long stated, adding that if it meets the requirements in August, Vietnam will soon subject Ivac's potential COVID-19 vaccine into the clinical trial phase later this year.

In addition, the Company for Vaccine and Biological Production No.1 (Vabiotech) is also working with the University of Bristol in the UK on a possible COVID-19 vaccine. Currently, Vabiotech has conducted preclinical research trials on animals, with very satisfactory results and good immune responses.

Long called for more support from the Government, regulatory agencies, vaccine manufacturers, researchers, donors and technical support units to soon complete the vaccines.

He also announced that his ministry is preparing to establish a vaccine fund to help Vietnam be proactive in its domestic supply and ensure speedy access to vaccines around the world.
By Matthias Williams

KYIV (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday called on law enforcement to find and punish those responsible for an arson attack on the family home of a prominent anticorruption activist known for criticising top officials and businessmen.

Vitaliy Shabunin's house was hit by an explosion that triggered a fire in what his organisation called an assassination attempt and part of a sustained intimidation campaign to stop its activities.

"The culprits must be found and punished," Zelenskiy said in a statement. "And we - the society - still have to learn to be tolerant of those who have their own position on controversial issues."

Shabunin was not at home, while his parents managed to escape the blaze which occurred early on Thursday. Footage from the scene showed the house badly damaged from the fire and debris from the roof strewn across the rooms below.

"I was lucky, my family was lucky ... Our neighbour, who works at night, heard an explosion, a loud bang at 2.30 a.m. (2330 GMT), it was hard for her to understand what it was," he said, speaking to reporters outside the house.

The nongovernmental Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC), cofounded by Shabunin, had demanded Zelenskiy take personal control over the cases of attacks on activists including the "assassination attempt" on Shabunin.

The fire prompted concern from Western diplomats who have pressed Ukraine to tackle entrenched corruption and clean up its justice system.

Police opened a case of suspected intentional destruction or damage to property.

But AntAC called the fire "part of a campaign aimed at intimidating ANTAC, its team members and stopping our activities," including physical assault, fabricated criminal cases and smear campaigns.

There have been high-profile attacks on anticorruption activists in Ukraine.

Shabunin said he suffered chemical burns in 2018 when an assailant threw green liquid in his face while he was demonstrating outside a prosecutor's office.

Story continues

In the same year, activist Kateryna Handziuk died after attackers poured sulphuric acid over her.

"Very disturbed by the news that (Shabunin's) house ... burned down," tweeted European Union ambassador Matti Maasikas. "...Civil activists must feel safe to carry on their mission."

(Reporting by Matthias Williams in Kyiv; Editing by John Stonestreet and Matthew Lewis)
Rating Action: Moody's places Adler Pelzer's B3 ratings on review for downgrade

Global Credit Research - 23 Jul 2020

Frankfurt am Main, July 23, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service, ("Moody's") has today placed the B3 corporate family rating (CFR) and senior secured instrument ratings of Adler Pelzer Holding GmbH (Adler Pelzer, or the group) as we well as its B3-PD probability of default rating (PDR) on review for downgrade. The outlook has been changed to ratings under review from negative.

"The rating review is driven by the continued delay of the publication of Adler Pelzer's 2019 audited financial statements, well beyond the 120 day timeline included in the financial covenants of its notes due 2024.", said Matthias Heck, a Moody's Vice President -- Senior Credit Officer and Lead Analyst for Adler Pelzer. "We expect to conclude the review during the course of August, and an unavailability of audited financials for 2019 by mid-August will likely lead to another rating downgrade." added Mr. Heck.

RATINGS RATIONALE

The review results from the continued delay of the publication of Adler Pelzer's 2019 audited financial statements. This represents a breach of financial covenants of the company's notes due 2024, which require the company to publish annual results within 120 days and quarterly results within 60 days. The company already informed the market about the delayed publication and Moody's understands that the current breach of reporting requirements has not resulted in an event of default, as neither the trustee nor holders of the notes representing at least 25% of the outstanding amount have given written notice to the company so far.

The review will focus on the published financials, if available by mid-August, and the company's current operating and financial performance as well as its liquidity situation. The review will also focus on additional liquidity risks as long as audited financials haven't been published. A continued delay in the publication will increase the risk that the trustee or bondholders could give notice to the company to comply with the reporting requirement related to the notes, potentially leading to an event of default after another 60 days. Moreover, the lack of audited financial statements will increase refinancing risks of short-term financial debt, in Moody's view. Moody's expects to conclude the review during the course of August.

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On 03 June 2020, Adler Pelzer confirmed the delayed publication of its 2019 annual report to around 30 June (from previously end-April), and also delayed its 1Q 2020 results publication until later this year. The delayed results publication reduces visibility on the group's financial and operating performance, and changes versus Moody's expectations could result in further pressure on the rating.

Adler Pelzer also announced that its management has taken strong actions to mitigate costs and protect its cash flow and aggressively analyzed each cost item to eliminate all non-essential cost. The company also revised capex for 2020 to E25 million, from E75 million at LTM September 2019. With these measures, the company has been able to maintain cash on hand at E125 -- 130 million at the end of April 2020, versus E140 --145 million at the end of December 2019. Whilst this indicates an adequate level of liquidity, Moody's notes that the current restart of production activities could consume sizeable amounts of cash and weaken the group's liquidity accordingly. In this respect, Moody's notes the company's plans to secure additional financing from public sector banks in a range of E60 -- 70 million, which would support liquidity accordingly.

Moody's expects that the company will suffer materially from the global coronavirus outbreak, with revenues declining by 15-20% in 2020, before recovering by around 10-15% in 2021. Despite the recovery, Adler Pelzer's revenues will remain below levels seen in the years 2017 and 2018. Moody's expects a drop in the company's margins (Moody's adjusted EBITA) to below 3% in 2020, before recovering into a range of 3%-4% in 2021. The lower profitability will also weigh on the group's leverage, which Moody's expects to increase to above 7x in 2020, from 4.0x at LTM September 2019. With a recovery in 2021, Adler Pelzer's leverage might improve but stay at still elevated levels of around 5x-6x in 2021.

LIQUIDITY

Moody's assesses Adler Pelzer's liquidity profile as still adequate, while expecting a weakening over the next quarters due to the operational challenges related to the coronavirus outbreak. The group's primary liquidity sources are internal and include a cash balance of E120-125 million (on a preliminary and unaudited basis, at the end of March 2020), which Moody's understands is unrestricted, and annual funds from operations (FFO) of around E40-50 million in Moody's stress case.

Adler Pelzer's main liquidity uses include estimated capital expenditure of around E25 million and short-term debt maturities, which Moody's estimates at around E50 million. Moody's understands that the company is not planning to pay any dividends to its shareholders. Moody's assumes around E40 million of working cash (3% of revenues), which is tied up to run the business.

Overall, the company is exposed to the cyclicality of the automotive industry and the current disruption in production due to the global coronavirus outbreak. This could further weigh on Adler Pelzer's ability to generate positive free cash flows and weaken its liquidity accordingly.

FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE OR DOWNGRADE OF THE RATINGS

Given the current market situation Moody's does not anticipate any short term positive rating pressure for Adler Pelzer. A stabilization of the market situation leading to a recovery in metrics to pre-outbreak levels could lead to positive rating pressure. More specifically adjusted Debt/EBITDA would have to drop back sustainably below 5x with an EBITA margin sustainably above 4%.

Further negative pressure would build if Adler Pelzer's liquidity erodes, and/or the company fails to publish audited financial statements, leading to a covenant breach and potentially also an event of default. Rating pressure would also increase, if the company fails to return to meaningful operating profit generation of the second half of 2020 allowing it to stabilize its liquidity situation. A prolonged and deeper slump in demand than currently anticipated leading to more balance sheet deterioration and a longer path to restoring credit metrics in line with a B3 credit rating (EBITA margin at least 3%, debt/EBITDA 6x) could also lead to negative pressure on the rating.

PRINCIPAL METHODOLOGY

The principal methodology used in these ratings was Automotive Supplier Methodology published in January 2020 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1170606. Alternatively, please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.

REGULATORY DISCLOSURES

For further specification of Moody's key rating assumptions and sensitivity analysis, see the sections Methodology Assumptions and Sensitivity to Assumptions in the disclosure form. Moody's Rating Symbols and Definitions can be found at: https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_79004.

For ratings issued on a program, series, category/class of debt or security this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series, category/class of debt, security or pursuant to a program for which the ratings are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the credit rating action on the support provider and in relation to each particular credit rating action for securities that derive their credit ratings from the support provider's credit rating. For provisional ratings, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation to a definitive rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance of the debt, in each case where the transaction structure and terms have not changed prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a manner that would have affected the rating. For further information please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective issuer on www.moodys.com.

For any affected securities or rated entities receiving direct credit support from the primary entity(ies) of this credit rating action, and whose ratings may change as a result of this credit rating action, the associated regulatory disclosures will be those of the guarantor entity. Exceptions to this approach exist for the following disclosures, if applicable to jurisdiction: Ancillary Services, Disclosure to rated entity, Disclosure from rated entity.

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These ratings are solicited. Please refer to Moody's Policy for Designating and Assigning Unsolicited Credit Ratings available on its website www.moodys.com.

Regulatory disclosures contained in this press release apply to the credit rating and, if applicable, the related rating outlook or rating review.

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Matthias Heck, CFA VP - Senior Credit Officer Corporate Finance Group Moody's Deutschland GmbH An der Welle 5 Frankfurt am Main 60322 Germany JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454 Anke Rindermann Associate Managing Director Corporate Finance Group JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454 Releasing Office: Moody's Deutschland GmbH An der Welle 5 Frankfurt am Main 60322 Germany JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454

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The Taliban often flatly deny incidents that kill civilians, even when the bodies are there to be buried. Protest and pressure turns the governments denials of civilian casualties in its operations into investigations that rarely result in follow-through or answers.

The U.S. military, after a deal with the Taliban in February that was supposed to produce something resembling a cease-fire between them, has quietly returned to striking Taliban units that it sees as preparing attacks on its Afghan allies, but it no longer officially acknowledges those strikes.

Making the battlefield still more murky has been the presence of other militant groups in addition to the Taliban, including factions with long ties to Al Qaeda as well as a branch of the Islamic State.

The airstrikes on Wednesday in the Guzara district of Herat Province struck a group of 100 to 150 people who had gathered to welcome a Taliban member who had been held by the government, according to survivors, local officials and community leaders. He was released as part of a prisoner swap that is supposed to open the way for direct negotiations between the insurgents and the government.

As part of the U.S. deal with the insurgents, the Afghan government was expected to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in return for 1,000 Afghan troops. But the government opposed the trade at first, and then only agreed to a phased release of captives after pressure from the Trump administration.
COLUMBIA  Federal prosecutors locked in a valuable witness Thursday who will give them insights and advantages as they continue to bring charges against the leaders of a failed $9 billion nuclear expansion project in South Carolina.

Steve Byrne, the former vice president of Cayce-based SCANA Corp., pleaded guilty in federal court to defrauding electric customers and lying about construction progress as the company tried to build two nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Fairfield County.

The guilty plea requires Byrne, 60, to cooperate with federal prosecutors who have spent three years investigating the project's sudden abandonment in July 2017. The construction failure cost South Carolina electric ratepayers billions of dollars in higher power bills. SCANA's shareholders also suffered huge losses when the company's stock value tanked. The company was ultimately sold at a bargain price to Virginia-based Dominion Energy.

On Thursday, Byrne admitted to falsely telling regulators, investors and the public the project was on track in order to win rate hikes on customers and keep the venture going while failing to raise alarms about critical flaws that were dooming the expansion effort.

By pleading guilty, Byrne is hoping to avoid a stiffer sentence. The fraud charges he pleaded to can still carry up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release afterward.

He could also be required to forfeit up to $1 million in pay and bonuses tied to his performance when he oversaw the V.C. Summer venture.

For now, Byrne will remain out of jail. A federal magistrate released him on $25,000 bail and required Byrne, who owns a home on the Isle of Palms, to surrender his passport. He will need permission from federal parole officials to leave the state for consulting work or special occasions.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Shiva Hodges said she was providing leniency because it could take years for a judge to issue Byrne's sentence, which will come at the end of a federal investigation targeting other SCANA officials.

Prosecutors revealed Thursday that Byrne has been cooperating with the investigation for about a year, though his plea agreement was made public only last month.

Today is the start of a process that has been years upon years in the making," U.S. Attorney for South Carolina Peter McCoy said after Byrne's plea. "Were mighty proud to have gotten this first step down."

Byrne appeared emotionless Thursday as he stepped out of a white SUV, walked past a group of protesters demanding he apologize for stealing customers' money and heard the charges against him read aloud in court.

He stared forward as prosecutors revealed their case against him, rocking slightly in his chair at the federal courthouse in Columbia. He spoke only in response to U.S. District Judge Mary Geiger Lewis, who asked him 82 questions aimed at ensuring Byrne understood the charges against him and still wanted to plead guilty.

Byrne will have more to say as the V.C. Summer investigation progresses. SCANA's former No. 2 official is expected to be a star witness in future trials or grand jury proceedings involving other officials who oversaw the project.

Byrne was at the center of nearly every major meeting involving V.C. Summer and was involved in important decisions regarding the project, which is considered one of the worst economic calamities in South Carolina history.

He participated in monthly construction meetings with officials from Westinghouse, the project's primary contractor. He negotiated with the leaders of state-owned utility Santee Cooper, SCANA's partner on the project. And he was involved in pivotal discussions among SCANA's top executives, including former CEO Kevin Marsh and former Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Addison.

Marsh and Addison are both thought to be targets in the ongoing investigation. Prosecutors have also hinted former SCANA attorneys could face charges.

Documents filed in federal court specifically referenced Marsh and Addison's efforts to persuade state regulators to raise the company's power rates to help pay for the project. The federal court filings also reference attorneys who advised SCANA's leadership team as being involved in the alleged criminal schemes.

Tom Clements, one of a handful of environmental activists who drove to the courthouse for Byrne's plea, has eagerly read those tea leaves.

Im glad there is going to be a little bit of justice and that Mr. Byrne is now pleading guilty to his crime, so its a matter of holding others accountable who were former executives of SCANA, Clements said. I would anticipate that Kevin Marsh and Jimmy Addison are probably next in the queue to be charged, and hopefully some others.

In court Thursday, McCoy used Byrne's plea hearing to lay out broader allegations of a criminal conspiracy surrounding the nuclear project.

It wasn't the first time that McCoy, a former state lawmaker, spoke at a hearing involving the nuclear project. He also led a special committee in the S.C. House in 2017 that investigated SCANA and Santee Cooper after the nuclear project's demise.

At Thursday's hearing, McCoy explained how Byrne oversaw all aspects of the nuclear project. He described how Byrne and other officials at SCANA allegedly lied to the public, state utility regulators and their investors on Wall Street by providing rosy projections of the project's construction progress as it teetered toward collapse. He detailed how Byrne and others hid damaging information about the project to convince people that the nuclear reactors would be finished in time to qualify for $1.4 billion in crucial federal tax credits.

"Do you understand and agree with Mr. McCoy's summary?" Judge Lewis asked after the prosecutor finished laying out the evidence in the case.

"I do," Byrne said.
Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) said it has signed an agreement with the Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company to develop the kingdoms largest and first grain terminal in Yanbu Commercial Port.

Spread over a 313,000-sq-m area, the grain terminal, a first-of-its-kind for the kingdom, will be built in two phases, said the statement from Mawani.

The facility, which will be mainly responsible for importing, processing and exporting grains in the kingdom, is set to handle 5 million tonnes of grains annually.

The agreement was signed by Engineer Saad bin Abdulaziz Al Khalb, the Mawani President and Engineer Sulaiman bin Abdul Rahman Al Rumaih, the CEO of Salic, Public Investment Fund owned company, during a video conferencing event today (July 23).

The ceremony was attended by Minister of Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture (MEWA) Engineer Abdul Rahman bin Abdul Mohsen Al Fadhli and Minister of Transport Engineer Saleh bin Nasser Al Jasser.

On the key partnership, Al Fadhli said: "This strategic partnership with Mawani has lasted for over thirty years and is considered one of the key pillars of the food security system in the kingdom. The project aims to enhance the velocity of the main grain influx to Saudi Arabia and is considered the first regional center for grains in the commercial port of Yanbu."

"We rely on the geographical location of the kingdom and the port infrastructure to enhance overall food distribution solutions in the region by linking Saudi Arabia to global grain sources, especially countries where Salic is currently investing," remarked Al Fadhli, also the chairman of Salic's Board of Directors.

Salics key strategic objectives is to significantly contribute to the import of basic commodities that are in line with the food security strategy in the kingdom.

Furthermore, the company aims to invest in supply chains and ports in Saudi and countries where Sallic holds investments to ensure the sustainability of the supply of all basic commodities,, he added.

Al Jasser pointed out that the Yanbu grain project is aimed at building the first regional center and logistic platform for importing, processing and exporting grains in Saudi Arabia, while taking advantage of Yanbu ports exceptional location on Red Sea coast and the competitive advantage it provides given its proximity to local and regional markets in Red Sea Basin and the Horn of Africa.

This partnership plays a vital role in the ports and logistic services sector, given they are the main enablers of many key industries and sectors, including the food security sector, stated Al Jasser, also the chairman of Mawanis Board of Directors.

One of Mawani's strategic objectives is to partner with public and private sector organizations to support the kingdom's ports in becoming the leading regional and international ports and providing an efficient, high capacity, integrated port network, he noted.

"This will significantly support the kingdom's economic growth plans, stimulate the logistics services industry and global supply chains, and position Saudi as a global logistical hub and link to the three continents, in line with the Saudis 2030 vision," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Apropos the column Congress has lost the plot (July 22), the grand old party has not only lost it, but is in a similar situation that the BJP was in after losing two successive elections in 2004 and 2009. However, the BJPs performance under late Atal Bihari Vajpayee then was much better than now.

Atalji got punished by none other than the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The infighting was so intense that after the BJPs defeat in 2009, former party member and Union minister Arun Shourie went on to say that the BJP was kati patang and Rajnath Singh (then party ...
The Lagos State government is set to establish a mental health centre for its workforce, in a bid to cater for their mental needs, an official has said.

In a statement released by Tunbosun Ogunbanwo, the spokesperson of the Lagos State Ministry of Health, the government has concluded plans to activate the centre.

The centre, Lagos State Employee Wellness (LASWELL) centre, will provide services around mental wellness to the entire staff of the state government.

Announcing the establishment of the centre at a zoom conference, Olusegun Ogboye, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health said the state has set the groundwork for the development of sustainable mental health care programs and services that will ensure improved health outcomes and positively impact on productivity in the workforce.

The Lagos State Government recognizes that its employees are its most important resource. Research has shown that when people are happier, they are more creative and more productive in their personal and work lives. We know that when employees thrive, the entire Lagos State community benefits. So, the LASWELL Centre was established to support Lagos State employees with both professional and personal concerns that may impact their overall wellbeing, he said.

LASWELL Centre is located at the First Floor of the Folarin Coker Staff Clinic, and mental health services at the centre will be provided by licensed professionals in various disciplines, Mr Ogboye said.

Mr Ogboye urged the staff of the Lagos State government to take advantage of the mental wellness centre to access professional help and care.

Speaking on the centre, Yewande Falugba, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Youth and Social development said the centre was borne out of the initiative of the Head of Service to create a permanent solution to address mental health issues among members of staff in order to improve productivity.

The services provided at the wellness center include: Mental Health counselling, Organisational psychology as well as Diagnostic Assessment and Referral.

Mrs Falugba added that the centre will have a team of health care professionals including social workers, psychologists and psychiatric Nurses.

She said the Sanwo-Olu led administration will not relent in executing policies that will promote sustainable social development.

Adejoke Abiodun, a consultant psychiatrist and a guest speaker at the conference said prompt identification of mental health related problems is essential.

Referencing a recent survey on anxiety in the workplace, Mrs Abiodun said people with anxiety have difficulties to cope with common job-related situations like meeting deadlines, maintaining personal and professional relationships, participating in meetings, managing staff and dealing with problems that may arise.

It is very important to recognize depression and anxiety disorder and promptly link with help so that productivity will not be affected. Many members of staff, (who) are having mental health issues, have fear of sharing their disorder with anyone at work because they are afraid of being stigmatized or labelled weak, she said.
Rajasthan crisis a reflection on the inadequacies in the anti-defection law: Dr. Shastri

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, July 23: The Rajasthan crisis is now playing out in the judiciary. On the face it the Rajasthan crisis can be described as a reflection of the inadequacies in the anti-defection law.

OneIndia caught up with leading psephologist, Dr. Sandeep Shastri to find out his views on the issues.

There are several factors involved here. I think, it is the reflection of the inadequacies in the anti-defection law, Dr. Shastri says. Can a member of a party defying the direction of the party be constituted as an act of defection?

Pilot vs Gehlot: Rajasthan HC to pronounce verdict on disqualification notice at 10. 30 am, Friday

The judgment of the Rajasthan High Court to be delivered on Friday, will offer some clarity on what constitutes an act of defection by an elected representative. Are we widening the gamut not just on the floor of the House or also that involves not attending a meeting by the party, Dr. Shastri asks.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

The anti-defection law was originally conceived to prevent elected representatives from joining another party. After 35 years, the debate is whether this law is about crossing over to another party or defying the decision by his or her own party. Does it mean that there is no room for an alternate point of view, Dr. Shastri says.

This crisis would also sharpen the debate on the role of the Speaker. The original amendment said that the decision of the presiding officer will be final. The Supreme Court has however said that the decision of a presiding officer can be subject to the scrutiny by the court.

We saw in Karnataka, the Speaker had disqualified the MLAs and also barred them from contesting the elections for a certain period of time. The Supreme Court however upheld the disqualification, but added that the Speaker could not have barred them from contesting the elections.

This also raises the larger question as to whether we have enough mechanisms within the political parties for the operation of an internal democracy? Is dissent seen as largely opposing the leadership? The Supreme Court too asked today if there is no room for internal dissent.

The crisis in Rajasthan will draw out for a long time. If the court were to say that the present act which Sachin Pilot has committed does not amount to defection, then it opens up the flood gates for instability of the government says Dr. Shastri.

If these members abstain from the floor test, the critical point will be what happens if the Speaker acts after they have disobeyed the whip. Because they have disobeyed the whip, the government falls. Can you disqualify them assuming that they will not take part in the proceedings of the House.

Rajasthan crisis: After SC setback, Ashok Gehlot readies Plan B to checkmate rebel MLAs

Moreover even if the court says that the Speaker has acted within his powers, following which the MLAs are disqualified, then they will still challenge it in court. The judiciary has kept the ball in its own court in the tussle within the legislature on the anti-defection law, Dr. Sandeep Shastri points out.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Thursday, July 23, 2020, 17:53 [IST]
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

By Asif Mehman - Trend:

Azerbaijan has reliable and confirmed information about weapon supplies from Serbia to Armenia, which were used in an attack at Azerbaijan's Tovuz district, Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov said.

Khalafov made the remark at the Foreign Ministrys briefing, Trend reports on July 23.

According to him, contacts between the Azerbaijani and Serbian embassies continue. At present, the Serbian side is conducting an investigation in connection with this issue and will give official explanations to Azerbaijan.

We want to understand reasons for such steps and would like to note that this is a sensitive topic on agenda [of bilateral relations]. Investigations in the area of Armenian-Azerbaijani border has showed that the weapon from which the units of Armenian armed forces shelled civilians and positions of Azerbaijani army is Serbia-made. Of course, it's country of origin of weapons which is responsible for their use and for the fact to which country they are sold, Khalafov said.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 23, 2020 / Metallic Minerals (TSX.V:MMG)(OTC PINK:MMNGF) ("Metallic Minerals" or the "Company") announces mobilization of the first of two drills planned to be utilized in carrying out the 2020 exploration program on the Company's 100%-owned Keno Silver project in the high-grade Keno Hill silver district of Canada's Yukon Territory. The 166 square kilometer property is the second largest land position in the district, directly adjoining Alexco Resource Corp., which is set to return to production in Q4 2020. Keno Hill is one of the world's highest-grade silver districts, with nearly 300 million ounces of silver in past production and current M&I resources1,2. The district also benefits from excellent existing infrastructure, including grid power, road access and nearby community services.

Phase one of the 2020 program will utilize a reverse circulation drill to test multi-kilometer-scale anomalies discovered in 2019 at the East Keno target area where surface sampling programs and target refinement work has been ongoing. The second phase will include deployment of a diamond drill, with the aim of expanding known areas of mineralization through step out drilling at the advanced-stage target areas. Metallic Minerals recently released high-grade results from surface and underground sampling and modelling at its West Keno targets (see news release May 26, 2020) and also plans to follow-up on these areas.

Metallic Minerals Chairman & CEO, Greg Johnson, commented: "We are pleased to have launched our full 2020 field programs in the Keno Hill region. Our exploration activities began in June at the Company's earlier-stage McKay and Silver Hill projects, to the north of Keno Hill, and we are now ramping up activities on our flagship Keno Silver project, beginning at the East Keno target area. It is very exciting that this phase one drilling program will see the first holes ever drilled in this under-explored part of the historic Keno Hill silver district and we look forward to testing these newly identified multi-kilometer-scale geophysical and geochemical targets. The phase two drill program will focus on our advanced-stage targets, in the west and central parts of the district, by undertaking step out drilling designed to expand the areas of known mineralization towards development of an inaugural mineral resource."

Story continues

"We would also like to extend our congratulations to the team at Alexco Resources on their recent announcement of the receipt of their final permit at the Bermingham deposit that will allow for the start of mining. With initial concentrate production from the Keno Hill mill complex and silver sales anticipated to begin in Q4 2020, this is a major development for the local communities and for the Yukon as a whole. Keno Hill is set to become the third mine to start production in the Yukon within the past year, following the restart of the Minto copper mine by Pembridge and commissioning of the Eagle gold mine by Victoria Gold."

All field work will be conducted in compliance with the Company's comprehensive COVID-19 prevention strategy in accordance with Territorial regulatory requirements and recommendations by the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyak Dun.

Exploration by Metallic Minerals at the Keno Silver project continues to systematically build on the Company's 3D geologic database covering the east, central and western portions of the prolific Keno Hill silver district. The project includes eight high-grade, shallow past-producing mines that have yet to be subjected to modern exploration due to previously unconsolidated land ownership. Along the known, historically productive trends in the central and western parts of the district, the Company has advanced three targets to step-out drilling stage and several additional targets to drill-ready status. In addition, recent exploration has refined and expanded 12 new priority multi-kilometer-scale early-stage targets for reconnaissance drilling in the under-explored eastern and western parts of the district where highly elevated silver, lead and zinc in soils and high-grade rock samples have been identified.

Red Cloud Summer Silver Conference

Metallic will be presenting at the 2020 Summer Silver Conference, hosted by Red Cloud Securities, on Tuesday July 28 at 9am PST. To register, click here.

About Metallic Minerals

Metallic Minerals Corp. is a growth stage exploration company, focused on high-grade silver and gold in underexplored brownfields mining districts. Our objective is to create shareholder value through a systematic, entrepreneurial approach to exploration in the Keno Hill silver district, La Plata silver-gold-copper district, and Klondike gold district through new discoveries and advancing resources to development. All three districts have seen significant mineral production and have existing infrastructure, including power and road access. Metallic Minerals is led by a team with a track record of discovery and exploration success on several major precious and base metal deposits, as well as having large-scale development, permitting and project financing expertise.

About the Metallic Group of Companies

The Metallic Group is a collaboration of leading precious and base metals exploration companies, with a portfolio of large, brownfields assets in established mining districts adjacent to some of the industry's highest-grade producers of silver and gold, platinum and palladium, and copper. Member companies include Metallic Minerals in the Yukon's high-grade Keno Hill silver district and La Plata silver-gold-copper district of Colorado, Group Ten Metals in the Stillwater PGE-nickel-copper district of Montana, and Granite Creek Copper in the Yukon's Minto copper district. The founders and team members of the Metallic Group include highly successful explorationists formerly with some of the industry's leading explorer/developers and major producers. With this expertise, the companies are undertaking a systematic approach to exploration using new models and technologies to facilitate discoveries in these proven, but under-explored, mining districts. The Metallic Group is headquartered in Vancouver, BC, Canada and its member companies are listed on the Toronto Venture, US OTC, and Frankfurt stock exchanges.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Website: www.metallic-minerals.com

Phone: 604-629-7800

Email: chris.ackerman@metallic-minerals.com

Toll Free: 1-888-570-4420

Footnotes:

1. Historic production data from Cathro, R.J., 2006, Great Mining Camps of Canada - The History and Geology of the Keno Hill Silver Camp, Yukon Territory, Geoscience Canada Vol. 33;

2. Alexco News Release: Alexco Announces Positive Pre-Feasibility Study, March 28, 2019.

References to adjoining properties and historic production are for illustrative purposes only and are not necessarily indicative of the exploration potential, extent or nature of mineralization or potential future results of the Company's projects.

Forward-Looking Statements

Forward Looking Statements: This news release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts including, without limitation, statements regarding potential mineralization, historic production, estimation of mineral resources, the realization of mineral resource estimates, interpretation of prior exploration and potential exploration results, the timing and success of exploration activities generally, the timing and results of future resource estimates, permitting time lines, metal prices and currency exchange rates, availability of capital, government regulation of exploration operations, environmental risks, reclamation, title, and future plans and objectives of the company are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties. Although Metallic Minerals 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 the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on a number of material factors and assumptions. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include failure to obtain necessary approvals, unsuccessful exploration results, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, results of future resource estimates, future metal prices, availability of capital and financing on acceptable terms, general economic, market or business conditions, risks associated with regulatory changes, defects in title, availability of personnel, materials and equipment on a timely basis, accidents or equipment breakdowns, uninsured risks, delays in receiving government approvals, unanticipated environmental impacts on operations and costs to remedy same, and other exploration or other risks detailed herein and from time to time in the filings made by the companies with securities regulators. Readers are cautioned that mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Mineral exploration and development of mines is an inherently risky business. Accordingly, the actual events may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. For more information on Group Ten and the risks and challenges of their businesses, investors should review their annual filings that are available at www.sedar.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Metallic Minerals





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/598594/Metallic-Minerals-Commences-Phase-1-Drilling-at-Keno-Silver-Project-in-Yukon-Canada




A tale of two viruses. John Shakespeare Credit:

Yikes, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has a problem, and its not just the states COVID-19 infection rate.

For journos, obtaining the daily coronavirus numbers before Victorias official announcement has become the easiest game in town.

Where are the leaks coming from? There are various theories, they are leaking out via federal government sources in Canberra or from the multitude of state and federal health officials. The Andrews government used to be a more tightly run ship, prompting growing angst in its ranks over the widespread leaking.

Some are even concerned that the virus-like spread of early numbers, which have been pretty accurate, could prompt renewed panic buying.
On the Frontline Against China, the US Coast Guard Is Taking on Missions the US Navy Can't Do

Competition with China has drawn more Pentagon resources to the Pacific, but the most visible U.S. military presence there...
A report published today by a member of the International Observatory of Violence in Schools shows how despite high fees, private schools are failing to protect their students from serious bullying and cyberbullying.

A leading expert has expressed concerns that schools often prioritise their reputations by punishing victims who speak out, leaving bullies to feel validated in their actions.

Institut Le Rosey - the most expensive school in the world - is the subject of a high-profile court case in Switzerland over its failure to protect a student.

GENEVA, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dr Eric Debarbieux, Professor Emeritus University of Paris-Est and a member of the International Observatory of Violence in Schools, has warned that some private schools are failing to protect their students from bullying and uphold values of tolerance and respect.

Dr Eric Debarbieux has discussed how some schools are failing to adequately train their staff, resulting in serious bullying incidences being missed or trivialised. Victims are not taken seriously or, even worse, are punished for speaking out: the so-called 'double punishment'.

He has subsequently called upon schools to ensure that all employees understand their duty to protect and care for students, and should be trained in how to handle serious incidences of bullying.

He has stated this is 'often' the case in 'the most prestigious institutions', who are often primarily concerned with the school's reputation, and therefore the 'denial of harassment is strongest'.

In particular, Dr Debarbieux discusses one example of this at Institut Le Rosey - the world's most expensive school.1 Due to an alleged failure of action by the school, Radhika and Pankaj Oswal, the parents of one student, were left with no choice but to take legal action in Switzerland against the school.

Following claims of serious bullying incidents against their child, the parents raised their concerns to teachers at the school and asked that action be taken to ensure their child's safety.

However, apparently no action was taken and staff members sought to downplay the whole issue. Commenting on the case - and providing the facts happened as presented - Dr Debarbieux noted that staff at Le Rosey did not take this issue as seriously as it should have been, causing further problems in this case.

Le Rosey showed no willingness to acknowledge there was an issue, and instead cancelled the re-enrolment of the child, without proper justification.2 The school has refused to apologise, according to the family, very recently dismissing the bullying as a "banal short dispute between teenagers".

The expert has explained how this is a clear case of 'double punishment', in which the victim is not only punished by their bullies, but also by the people who are supposed to protect them - in this case the school's staff.

Dr Eric Debarbieux said:

"Based on the facts presented to me, Le Rosey should have taken the matter more seriously, which could have avoided the continued harassment of the student. Any action taken in these cases should always seek to listen to and protect the victim. Unfortunately, instead victims can be punished by the school - allowing bullies to feel validated in their actions."

The report calls for private schools to set up clear prevention policies, to ensure there is a safe process for victims to raise any concerns and ensure that they are listened to and taken seriously. It states that this should also include adequate training for staff on how to handle school harassment and cyberbullying.

The parents of the student involved, Radhika and Pankaj Oswal, said:

"Dr Debarbieux has shown how schools such as Le Rosey are failing in their responsibility towards the welfare of a child. Schools such as Le Rosey should use their resources to lead the way in creating effective policies to protect students. Unfortunately, that has not been the case.

We are pleased that he chose to look at our daughter's case. Comments such as these should be used constructively to make such schools reflect on what a world-class education really looks like and take action to provide adequate training for staff, rather than serving as a playground for the super-rich.

Our daughter is adamant that this unhappy period in her life should be turned into a force for good. We hope to use this moment to build a positive legacy that will ensure that this doesn't happen to any more students in our daughter's position."

Dr. Eric Debarbieux, Professor Emeritus University of Paris-Est, Member of the International Observatory of Violence in Schools.

debarbieux.antibullyingreport@gmail.com

Notes to editors

Eric Debarbieux is Professor Emeritus in Education sciences at the university Paris Est Creteil (France). He is an international expert on the topic of violence and bullying in schools. He previously oversaw public policy against school bullying and violence at the Ministry of Education in France. He was the co-founder of the International Observatory of Violence in Schools. Dr Debarbieux authored 11 books on violence in schools, bullying and school climate.

Pankaj and Radhika Oswal are a successful Indian national family residing in Switzerland. The family have numerous business interests across the globe. The case was filed with the Swiss courts on 30 September 2019.

_________________________

1 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8281345/Billionaire-parents-sue-worlds-expensive-school-claims-daughter-bullied.html
Former AFLW star Moana Hope has slammed Premier Daniel Andrews over the strict new rule for partners of mothers who give birth in Victorian hospitals.

The 32-year-old, who is preparing to become a parent with pregnant wife Isabella Carlstrom, shared her outrage at the new rules on Thursday.

The new rule, enforced due to COVID-19, means that a partner or support person can be present during the birth but may only remain with the mother for two hours afterwards.

Furious! AFLW star Moana Hope (right) has slammed Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews over the strict new hospital rule for mothers and their partners after giving birth. She's pictured with pregnant wife Isabella Carlstrom (left)

'Can somebody PLEASE explain me why this has been put in place?' Moana asked on Instagram, sharing an article outlining the new regulation.

'This doesn't make sense. Kicking the partner out after two hours of birth... The mother needs help, the parent [or] support person needs to be there for those moments of birth.'

'What if something happens to Mum or the baby, how dare this be a rule. Those first few days are some of the most important. Why would you take that away? Please educate me on this outrageous decision.'

The former Survivor contestant went on to ask parents or health care professionals who had already experienced the changes to share their story.

'This doesn't make sense': The 32-year-old shared her outrage at the new regulation, which means that a partner or support person can be present during the birth but may only remain with the mother for two hours afterwards

'This decision sounds like it's been made from someone who doesn't have kids or never been in a birthing room. How do we fight it people?' Moana finished the post.

Earlier this month, model Isabella, 28, revealed that she had been finding pregnancy amid Melbourne's latest lockdown difficult. The couple are based in Melbourne.

'In the light of everything that is happening I really struggled today. The first lockdown was a breeze for me as I was feeling so unwell I didn't want to leave the house,' she explained.

Tough times: In a post on Instagram earlier this month, Isabella revealed that she had been finding pregnancy amid Melbourne's latest lockdown difficult

'Now that I'm feeling like myself again, I've really enjoyed being out and celebrating my pregnancy with my people and my community.

'It was something I always looked forward to. The love, support and kindness from even strangers have been so endearing and heart warming.'

But she said she was 'forever grateful for the life inside of me'.

Getting through it together: 'What a ride we have been through already, but with my wife and my baby by my side, I know we can get through anything,' Isabella said

'This baby knows exactly when I need cheering up and makes me always look on the bright side,' she continued.

'What a ride we have been through already but with my wife and my baby by my side, I know we can get through anything.'

After marrying last year, Moana and Isabella announced their pregnancy in May and conceived their child with the help of IVF.

'We are going to be MUMS!' Moana announced on Instagram at the time, sharing a photo of herself and Isabella with the baby's framed sonogram.

The couple's baby is due in November.
A postmistress led a secret life as a cocaine dealer - selling Class A drugs with her first class stamps in her Londis and earning the nickname 'Deidre the Dealer' from customers.

Deirdre Jenkins, 45, flogged cocaine in her quiet country village in Parcllyn, rural west Wales, but was arrested after refusing any more 'coke on tick' to one drug-user - who then went to the police.

Swansea Crown Court heard mother-of-two Jenkins sold the drugs to friends and associates who were regulars at her post office - but was then turned on by people in the area.

Deirdre Jenkins, 45 (pictured above) led a secret life as a cocaine dealer selling the drug at her Londis in the quiet country village in Parcllyn, rural west Wales. She has now been arrested

Prosecutor Jim Davis said: 'Police executed a search warrant following receipt of information from local residents'.

Mr Davis told Swansea Crown Court police found three wraps of cocaine in her handbag and eight grams of the class A drug hidden in a cupboard in her bedroom. There was also 1,200 in cash in her house which neighboured her Londis store and post office.

Mr Davis said an examination of Jenkins' mobile telephone revealed numerous messages related to drugs deals. One showed that a single customer owed her 3,000.

Mr Davis said: 'It appeared that Jenkins had become fed up of giving customers cocaine 'on tick' and had told some to go to other dealers.'

Jenkins was even nicknamed 'Deirdre the Dealer' by her cocaine customers in her quiet country village as she peddled the drug. Above, her post office in the village of Ffostrasol in West Wales

A sign on the door of one of Jenkins' two stores said that it has ceased trading 'with immediate effect'

Police were then tipped off about 'Deidre the Dealer' who raided her post office in December 2019.

Jenkins pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to supply.

Ian Ibrahim, defending said she had lost her shop and been declared bankrupt since her arrest.

He said Jenkins had started selling drugs after she 'relapsed back into drug use' herself.

Judge Catherine Richards told Jenkins she 'enjoyed the status' of being a drug dealer to her friends.

Judge Richards said anyone dealing in a Class A drug such as cocaine deserved to go to prison, partly because of the tremendous harm caused to communities they lived in and dealt in. But there had been a considerable delay between her arrest and sentencing partly because of the backlog of cases due to coronavirus.

Jenkins was handed a two year suspended sentence and ordered to complete a rehabilitation course.

The tiny Stordy DJ Stores was the only shop in the village of Parcllyn and now looks rundown with smashed pane of glass.

A hand-written sign in the window states: 'The store has ceased trading. Apologies for any inconvenience caused. Please contact HMRC Receiver for more info.'

There is still a defibrillator on the wall and a notice board with advertising cards for local cleaners, carpenters and holistic therapist.

Deirdre Jenkins' second store in Parcllyn, rural west Wales, (pictured today) where she flogged the Class-A drug from. She was also reportedly a cocaine user herself

The Post Office and local store has gone bust since her under-the-counter drug sales emerged

But no one has stepped in to take it over since Deidre, who was born in Ireland, fled.

A neighbour said: 'Deidre ran the shop for a couple of years and was a popular postmistress, no one had any idea she was involved in drugs.

'It closed overnight and I haven't seen her since, it's a shame because we don't have a shop now, you have to drive a few miles.'

Locals said the 'DJ' in the shop name were Deidre's initials and she was very proud of setting up the business to provide for herself and her children.

But a neighbour said she was involved with a local man and the relationship had 'turned sour'.

The shop, which had a five star hygiene rating is next door to the three-bedroomed whitewashed dormer bungalow where Jenkins lived with her children.

The shop was know for its long opening hours seven days a week.

Villager Steve Greenhalgh said: 'I didn't know she had been in court and something like this goes around a small village like ours like Billy-o.'
A woman from Virginia was found carrying a dead baby at Tanglewood Mall on July 19. The Commonwealth of Virginia issued a warrant so that investigators can collect DNA samples from the woman and determine if she is the mother of the child.

Horrifying find

The suspect was identified as 34-year-old Mandy Lacy. Lacy was walking around the mall carrying the corpse of a baby in a shopping bag, she also assaulted the police officer who responded to the scene. The incident happened on July 19 at Tanglewood Mall in Roanoke.

According to the warrant, Mandy Lucy is charged for assaulting a police officer and is now facing additional charges including murder. The warrant was issued related to "Violation of Section 18.2-32 of the 1950 Code of Virginia, as amended, to wit: Murder."

The warrant stated that the dead infant was found wrapped in a jacket. It was stuffed in a small grocery bag that the suspect had been carrying. She was arrested for assault on police and for being intoxicated in public. The authorities have requested the DNA of Lacy to know if the dead child was hers.

Also Read: Afghan Girl Kills Two Taliban Fighters, Shoots Several More After They Murdered Her Parents

On July 21, Roanoke County officials said that the infant's body was partially decomposed, thus making it difficult to identify the child. Authorities are now waiting for the findings of the medical examiners. The warrant stated that Lacy was a transient in Roanoke County and Roanoke City.

On July 21, Lacy's mugshot was released. The police officer that she assaulted sustained a minor injury. She punched the police officer who wanted to retrieve the body of the dead child, as reported by WSLS.

Similar incident

In September 2019, a cheerleader smashed the skull of a newborn baby with a rock. She then buried her dead child in the backyard to hide the corpse, according to The Sun.

The perpetrator, Brooke Skylar Richardson from Ohio, did not tell anyone about her pregnancy, She was 18 years old when she told a doctor back in 2017 that she had given birth to a stillborn baby. She named the child Annabelle.

Richardson told the medic that she buried the corpse of the baby in the backyard at her parent's house in Carlisle, Ohio. The physician immediately reported what happened to the authorities. The police soon located the corpse of the child, according to News.com.au.

Richardson was charged with murder, abuse of a corpse, manslaughter, tampering with evidence and child endangering. She had pleaded not guilty to all charges.

According to prosecutors, the former high school cheerleader gave birth to her daughter on May 1, 2017. The delivery happened in the bathroom at their home. She gave birth to her daughter just a few days after her senior prom and weeks before she was about to go to college.

According to her parents and friends, she hid the pregnancy from them. The prosecutor stated that Richardson did not tell anyone that she gave birth and took her own daughter's life and tried to pretended that nothing happened but eventually the secret was too much for her to bear that she spilled.

Related Article: 14-Year-Old Pakistani Girl Burned Alive By Uncle After Father Refused to Wed Her to Her Cousin

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Vietnam accelerates research, production of vaccine against COVID-19

The Ministry of Health held a workshop in Hanoi on July 22 to speed up the research and production of a vaccine against COVID-19.

Acting Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long said this is the priority of all countries at present as the pandemic is still developing complicatedly.

Without a vaccine, it is difficult to bring life back to normal, he said, adding that so far the number of COVID-19 cases worldwide has surpassed 15 million with over 600,000 deaths.

To date, Vietnam has recorded 401 infections, mainly imported. The country has gone through nearly 100 days without new local transmissions, Long reported.

The pandemic is curbed well at home; however, social distancing is just a temporary measure to limit the number of new infections and prevent an outbreak. The most effective solution at present is a vaccine.

According to Long, Vietnam is one of the 38 countries in the world that has a vaccine quality management system meeting the World Health Organisation (WHO)s standards. Therefore, if COVID-19 vaccine is successfully produced in the country, it could be exported, contributing to the prevention of the pandemic in other countries.

He asked manufacturers and research units to continuously study the production of a vaccine against the disease.

At the workshop, representatives of four domestic manufacturers reported preliminary results and research plans for the production of the vaccine in Vietnam.

More than 400 Lao students quarantined upon entering Vietnam



More than 400 Lao students were placed in quarantine in Ha Tinh province, central Vietnam, on July 22 after they crossed Cau Treo International Border Gate to enter the country for further study.

The students came from 18 provinces of Laos and they are to study at various universities across Vietnam, according to local police officials.

They were required to fill out a health declaration form, have body temperature checked and complete other necessary procedures before taking buses to concentrated quarantine facilities.

The Lao students were provided with 4G SIM cards to support their study during the 14-day quarantine period.

Relevant forces of Ha Tinh province are set to receive and quarantine an additional 450 Lao students from Vientiane who had registered to cross the same border gate into Vietnam, on July 23.

The province is expected to receive more than 1,900 Lao students from now till the end of August.

Vietnam is one of the destinations for Lao students to study under a student exchange programme between Vietnam and Laos. Currently, thousands of Lao students are pursuing different courses in Vietnam.

COVID-19: Seven new imported cases recorded, total rises to 408

A Vietnamese returning from abroad is quarantined at a military camp in northern Ha Nam province

Vietnam reported seven new imported COVID-19 cases on July 22 evening, bringing the total to 408 nationwide, according to the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

The new patients are Russian citizens coming to Vietnam to work as experts for an oil and gas company.

The group, aged between 42 and 55, landed at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in southern Ho Chi Minh City on Flight IO4405 on July 11 and were quarantined in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province immediately upon arrival.

They are all being treated at Ba Ria Hospital.

Earlier, Vietnam recorded 10 imported cases who are passengers on the same flight and being quarantined in Ba Ria-Vung Tau.

The country has gone through 97 days without new community transmissions. Among the total, 268 were imported and quarantined upon arrival.

More than 12,480 people having close contact or entering from pandemic-hit areas are under health monitoring and quarantined at hospitals, concentrated quarantine establishments, homes and accomodations.

The committees treatment subcommittee reported that 365 patients have been given all-clear and there is zero death. Most of the patients treated at health facilities nationwide are in stable condition.

Dialogue discusses COVID-19 impact on conflict-affected countries

The UN Security Council held an informal interactive dialogue on July 22 with representatives of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) to look into the impact of COVID-19 on conflict-affected countries.

The videoconference, co-organised by Germany, Indonesia, Niger and the UK, was also attended by representatives of Canada as PBC Chair, Colombia and Japan as PBC Vice Chairs, and UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support Oscar Fernandez-Taranco.

PBC representatives said the COVID-19 pandemic has worsen problems in conflict-affected countries, pointing out that humanitarian crisis and food scarcity have increased, many economies are now on the brink of collapse, elections have been postponed, and inequality has got more serious.

Assistant Secretary-General Oscar Fernandez-Taranco affirmed obvious impact of this pandemic on peace and security, which he said has made the UNs works, including intermediary and peacebuilding roles, harder but also more necessary.

At the dialogue, member states of the UN Security Council applauded activities that the PBC has carried out in the recent past to cope with the pandemic. They were relatively unanimous in the need for an overall and comprehensive approach, attention to the coordination and cooperation among UN agencies, priority given to vulnerable groups, and improvement of the role of local communities.

They also suggested the PBC flexibly adjust its priorities to adapt to pandemic-induced issues.

Ambassador Dang Dinh Quy, head of Vietnams permanent mission to the UN, echoed the views on the pandemics impact, the importance of resolving issues as a whole, and the necessity for coordinating to avoid overlapping in the implementation of UN programmes and actions.

COVID-19 tally remains at 408 as no new cases recorded overnight

Vietnam did not record any new coronavirus cases overnight and entered the 98th straight day without community transmission of the virus on July 23, the national steering committee for COVID-19 prevention and control said.

Vietnamese citizens in Taiwan (China) wait to handle boarding procedures before getting on a repatriation flight on July 20

Among the 408 confirmed patients, 268 are imported cases quarantined upon their arrival.

As many as 365 patients or 89.5 percent have recovered from the disease, and there are no deaths.

Most of the 43 remainders are in stable condition, including one negative from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, once.

There are 11,597 people having close contact with confirmed cases or coming from pandemic-hit areas in quarantine at present, including 136 in hospitals, 10,888 in other quarantine sites, and 573 at home or accommodation facilities.

Cambodia considers easing entry regulations

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has approved in principle the elimination of the 3,000 USD deposit and 50,000 USD insurance for investors, businesspeople and experts entering the country, the Khmer Times reported.

However, the technical working group of the economy and health ministries will discuss further to do check and determine whether the loosening of the measure will impact public health or not.

Spokesman of the Ministry of Economy and Finance Meas Sok Sensan said the government will facilitate the procedure for business-linked travellers, including investors, directors, general managers, technical staff, and their family members.

However, the regulation that travellers must have COVID-19-free health certificates within 72 hours prior to their arrival remains in place. On arrival, after normal immigration procedure, travellers will be quickly guided to have COVID-19 testing, and it takes about 8 hours to have test results.

The spokesman added that a 160 USD fee related to swab test, meal, and transport to pre-booked hotels for the first night accommodation will include the hotels first night fee.

If the test is negative, travellers can go to their own self-quarantine places for 14 days. If positive, they will be sent for treatment and their companies will pay the total bill.

The new procedure is expected to be applied next week.

Meanwhile, a secretary of state at the Cambodian Council of Ministers In Virak Cheat on July 20 sent a letter to Education Minister Hang Chuon Naronto to announce that the government gave the greenlight to the reopening of 20 schools meeting high-safety standards in Phnom Penh capital, Siem Reap city, and Battambang city.

According to the Ministry of Education, the first phase will include schools with high-safety standards, the second phase will focus on schools with moderate-safety standards, and the third one will be schools with minimum-safety standards.

Each class must not have more than 15 students, while social distancing must be strictly enforced, it said.

As of July 21 morning, Cambodia recorded 197 cases of COVID-19, including 140 recoveries.

Thailands emergency rule against COVID-19 extended till August 31

The Thai Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) on July 22 approved the extension of the state of emergency nationwide for another month until August 31.

CCSA spokesman Taweesilp Visanuyothin said the extension was necessary because the COVID-19 pandemic was still spreading worldwide and Thailand was allowing in foreign visitors and easing lockdowns on business and activities that pose high risks of disease transmission.

The emergency decree allows the government to restrict arrivals, follow up suspected cases of COVID-19 and impose disease control measures on all business and activities, Taweesilp said.

It will be an important tool to prepare national transition to the new normal until other laws can be put in place, he added.

Gen Somsak Roongsita, secretary-general of the National Security Council and the man who proposed the extension, was quoted by the Bangkok Post newspaper as saying that global COVID-19 cases were rising by over 200,000 a day and were occurring in countries nearby to Thailand.

The disease control law would be amended to provide an efficient response to COVID-19. Pending that, the emergency decree should be exercised, he said.
MANCHESTER, MI -- Drive-thru coronavirus testing will be available to Manchester-area residents this weekend through the state and Michigan National Guard.

Free testing for COVID-19 will be available at the Riverside Intermediate School District parking lot at 710 E. Main St., Manchester, from noon to 6 p.m. on Sunday, July 26, state officials said in a news release Thursday.

The testing is available for all ages and no appointment is required. You do not need to have symptoms to be tested, according to the Washtenaw County Health Department. Health officials encourage participants to bring an ID for faster processing.

Almost 1,900 Washtenaw County residents have been confirmed to have COVID-19 since March, county data shows. About 350 confirmed cases are active in County residents as of Wednesday, July 22.

A team of three Guard members will help the testing sites staff conduct the testing or assist with paperwork and logistics, according to the news release. The National Guard has helped testing in more than 30 other communities in the past two months.

CORONAVIRUS 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.

For more data on COVID-19 in Michigan, visit https://www.mlive.com/coronavirus/data/.
A 21-year-old man has been arrested by the Pimpri-Chinchwad police for impersonating the personal assistant of Chandrakant Patil, president of the Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) Maharashtra unit, to extort money from a doctor in Pune.

The arrested man was identified as Saurabh Santosh Ashtul (21), a resident of Lohiyanagar, Ganj peth, Pune, according to a statement issued by the police.

He is unemployed. We are investigating why he was targeting the doctor and whether he has done this with other people too, said senior police inspector Ganesh Javadwad of Nigdi police station.

Ashtul was arrested from his house in Pune, according to police.

A case under sections 387 (putting the person in fear of death or of grievous hurt, in order to commit extortion), 501 (printing or engraving matter is known to be defamatory), 34 (common intention) of Indian Penal Code was registered at Nigdi police station based on a complaint lodged by Dr Shrikrushna Gangadhar Joshi who works at Lokmanya hospital in Nigdi.

The doctor, whose name is being withheld, is a resident of Ravet and received a call at 4pm on July 18 by a person who claimed to be the BJP leaders personal assistant. He demanded Rs 25 lakh from the doctor in the name of the politician.

According to the complainant, the caller asked for the Rs 25 lakh to help the poor who have suffered due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The caller also allegedly threatened to kill the doctor if he failed to give the money.

The doctor went to the local police.

Ashtul was remanded to three days in police custody by a local court on Thursday.
Valerie Pecresse, a French presidential hopeful from the Republican party, who had the egregious audacity to illegally visit the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan on December 22, 2021, is now allegedly "infuriated" at the French government's "deafening silence" at Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's remarks that she would not have been permitted to leave the country, had Baku been informed about her illegal trip.
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PARIS  Watches & Wonders, the Geneva-based watch fair, is taking to the road with plans to host a show in Shanghai in September, joining a growing number of luxury labels taking to mainland China while travel remains subdued.

Eleven watch brands, including Cartier, IWC Schaffhausen and Jaeger-LeCoultre will take part in the event on Sept. 9 to 11 at the West Bund Art Center.

The program includes product launches, talks, panels and workshops on watch trends, technology and mechanical movements, as well as demonstrations by artisans.

Watches & Wonders, which was formerly known as SIHH and traditionally takes place in Geneva, became an online event in April this year as plans for a physical gathering were scuppered by coronavirus shutdowns in Switzerland.

The Geneva showcase is dominated by labels belonging to Compagnie Financiere Richemont.

The watch industry has been hit hard by the coronavirus crisis. Exports of Swiss timepieces have declined 35.7 percent in the first six months of the year, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. Business sharply improved in China, with a 47.1 percent rise in exports to the country, highlighting its importance to the industry.

Sales at Swatch Group were down 46.1 percent in the first half of the year, while sales at Richemont in the three months ending June 30 were down 47 percent.

Seventeen watch labels have decided to host events in Geneva at the end of August, for Geneva Watch Days, including Bulgari, which belongs to LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, and Kering-owned Ulysse Nardin and Girard-Perregaux. The activities will be held from Aug. 26 to 29 at stores and hotels in the city center.

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Children in an elementary school class wear masks and sit as desks spaced apart as per coronavirus guidelines during summer school sessions at Happy Day School in Monterey Park, California on July 9.

Members of a leading group of infectious disease experts warned Thursday against reopening schools in Florida, Texas and other states where coronavirus cases are surging, saying older children are just as likely to spread Covid-19 as adults.

"The simple answer is no," Dr. Tina Tan, a professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University, said when asked whether she would suggest reopening schools in states such as Florida, Texas, California and Arizona in the near future.

"When you have such surges of disease in the community, you're basically asking for trouble if you open schools, because you're bringing in individuals from all across the community that potentially may be exposed to it," Tan said on a conference call hosted by the Infectious Disease Society of America.

States in the American South and West have reported weeks of climbing Covid-19 cases. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said officials are "monitoring and aggressively acting to control the infection in Texas, Arizona, California, Florida."

"Sections of the country come up that we didn't anticipate, for instance, Florida, Texas, etc., but we're working with very talented people, very brilliant people, and it's all going to work out," Trump said at the press briefing.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that the state reported a record number of additional new cases and a positivity rate, or the number of positive cases out of total tests performed, at around 7.4% over the last 14 days, a number that "continues to go up modestly."

"It's imperative that people pay attention to what the rate of infection is in the community because that's going to drive whether or not it's safe to open schools," Tan said.

Before reopening, all schools must have plans in advance in case a student tests positive for Covid-19, and they should consider when to close if the outbreak worsens, said Dr. Wendy Armstrong, a professor of medicine at Emory University School of Medicine and a board member of the group.

"Schools are a microcosm of their communities. They don't operate in a vacuum," Armstrong said. "And so in order for schools to open safely, communities' spread must be controlled and must not be explosive."

While some studies have shown that children appear less likely to be infected with Covid-19 than adults, others have shown they can carry the same amount of the virus, Armstrong said.

She said a recently published study in South Korea indicated that although kids under the age of 9 were less likely than adults to transmit the virus to their families, teenagers were at least as likely to transmit the disease as adults.

Armstrong noted countries such as Denmark and Norway allowed the youngest children to return to school first before older children, but she added that the virus was better contained in those countries.

"Ultimately, the community needs to be responsible for its own health," Armstrong said. "As an adult infectious disease doctor, again, I can't reinforce enough that adults need to do the right thing in order to conserve our most precious resource, which is our children."
The Nasarawa State House of Assembly on Thursday passed the revised 2020 budget of N62.96 billion.

The Speaker of the House, Ibrahim Abdullahi, announced the passage after Tanko Tunga, the Majority Leader of the House moved a motion for the passage of the bill into law.

The motion was seconded by the Minority Leader of the House, Danladi Jatau.

The speaker said the passage of the budget into law tagged Budget of Inclusive Development was due to the importance of budget to the development of the state.

 A bill for a law to amend the Nasarawa State 2020 appropriation bill of N62,968,348, 138.00 only for the services of Nasarawa State has passed third reading.

This comprises N31,943,912,285.00 billion only as recurrent expenditures while N26,465,632,374.00 billion only as Capital expenditure and the consolidated revenue fund charges is N4,558,803,479.00 billion, only, he said.

Mr Abdullahi urged the state government to intensify efforts to improve the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to complement statutory allocation to the state.

The speaker commended the House Committee on Finance and Appropriation and other members for their commitments in ensuring that the bill sees the light of the day.

I appreciate all of you for your commitment and for the passion you have for the people of the state, he said.

The speaker directed the clerk of the House to produce a clean copy of the bill for the governors assent.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that on July 20, Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State transmitted a revised 2020 budget of N62.96 billion only to the state house of assembly for consideration and approval due to the effects of coronavirus on the economy.

The governor had on December 4, 2019 presented a 2020 budget proposal of N100.52 billion to the Assembly for consideration and approval.

Mr Sule said the budget was anchored on his administrations policy of transparency, accountability and prudence.

The state assembly subsequently passed the appropriation bill into law on December 23, 2019 after raising it from N100.5 billion to N108.4 billion.

(NAN)
By Peter Symonds

July 22, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - The escalating barrage of propaganda against China emanating from the US and its allies has stepped up another notch with the publication of leaked Chinese documents by the New York Times and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists on the oppressive measures employed against the Muslim Uyghur minority in the western province of Xinjiang.

The documents have been seized upon by the US media and politicians to vilify the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime and to ramp up demands for Washington to impose punitive measures on Beijing. Yesterday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that there was overwhelming evidence that the CCP was committing human rights violations and abuses against individuals in mass detention.

The New York Times has run several comments denouncing the Chinese regime following its article on November 16 detailing some aspects of the 24 documents that it obtained, including some 200 pages of internal speeches by Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders.

An editorial on November 18 entitled This is not dystopian fiction. This is China, declared that the documents echoed 1984 and Brave New World and branded the Chinese reeducation camps as modern-day totalitarian brainwashing. Another comment on the same day, Beijings Secrets of Xinjiang, criticized the West for being largely silent and declared that there was no excuse for Western leaders, the World Bank or United Nations for not speaking out.

All of this is to a script drawn up by the CIA and US State Department, with the media seeking to outbid one another in their lurid denunciations of China. A particularly filthy comment published in the Washington Post on November 3 was entitled In China, every day is Kristallnacht. It provocatively likened Chinas cultural oppression and internment of ethnic Uyghurs to the Nazi genocide of Jews in which millions were murdered in concentration camps during World War II.

The World Socialist Web Site holds no brief for, and gives no political support whatsoever to, the CCP regime in Beijing. As it has implemented capitalist restoration from 1978 onwards, the CCP leadership has increasingly relied on the whipping up of Chinese nationalism to try to cement its shaky social base. Its resort to greater Han chauvinism has alienated ethnic minorities not only in Xinjiang, but in Tibet and other areas, which has only deepened as it has responded to separatist sentiment and terrorist acts with police state repression.

Beijings attempts to portray its detention centres in Xinjiang as re-education facilities, together with its dismissal of the latest caches of leaked documents as fakes, are simply not credible. On the other hand, the way in which US imperialism and its allies are cynically exploiting the oppression of Uyghurs for their own reactionary purposes is expressed in the inflated claims about the documents.

Neither of the two batches of documents, insofar as they have been translated and published in English, support the claim, repeatedly made in the Western media, that at least one million Uyghurs are being detained in Chinese reeducation camps.

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The figure has the character of a big lie, endlessly recycled but not substantiated, other than on the basis of estimates by various experts.

The New York Times opened its pages to one such expertAdrian Zenzon November 24 to add his voice to the sensational claims being made about the gigabytes of files, reams of reports, thousands of spreadsheets demonstrating the mass internment in Xinjiang. He claims to have obtained his own massive cache of government filesthat have not been made public as yeton which he bases his own revised estimate of between 900,000 and 1.8 million people detained since 2017.

There is every reason to be cautious about accepting such estimates as good coin. Zenz is a German academic associated with a network of right-wing think tanks and publications that are connected to exile Uyghur organisations including the World Uyghur Congress and the American Uyghur Association, both of which are funded by the CIA front, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). He is a lecturer at the European School of Culture and Theology in Germany and a senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington. He is featured by media such as Radio Free Asia (the US State Department propaganda outlet) and Bitter Winter, published by the Italian-based Center for Studies in New Religions (see: The New York Times and its Uyghur activist).

The documents released last Sunday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists do appear to give a glimpse of the oppressive regime inside Chinas detention centres in Xinjiang, but they do not represent a vast trove nor are they comprehensive in any sense. They include a nine-page telegram from Chinese security officials concerning the running of the centres emphasizing the need to prevent escapes and manage every aspect of the life of detainees; four short intelligence briefings pointing to the mass surveillance of suspected Uyghurs; and a public court document concerning the trial and sentencing of a Uyghur man for inciting ethnic hatred and extreme thoughts.

The New York Times cache of documents is of a different character, focusing on the CCPs internal discussion which highlights the genesis of the surveillance and re-education program in the escalating violent attacks by Uyghur extremists. President Xi visited Xinjiang in April 2014 following a particularly bloody attack on travellers and employees at Kunming railway station in southern China. Eight attackers armed with knives and meat cleavers killed 29 people and injured more than 130 others. Amid public outrage, Xi called for a struggle against terrorism, infiltration and separatism, declaring that officials must be harsh and show absolutely no mercy.

The New York Times editorial board expresses surprise that Xi appeals to Western examples to excuse himself and urges Chinese officials to study how the US responded to the September 11 terrorist attacks. In reality, Xi simply confirms that the US war on terror became the model for autocratic regimes around the world. The Bush administration seized on the 2001 attacks not only as the excuse for its illegal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, but also to develop its own detention and torture centres in both countries. It also established the notorious Guantanamo Bay hellhole where so-called enemy combatants were held indefinitely without charge.

The criminal activities of US imperialism underline the rank hypocrisy of its latest human rights campaign against China. Not only is the Guantanamo Bay prison camp still in operation, but the US runs a network of more than 200 detention centres for immigrants and refugees whose only crime is to seek a better life for themselves and their families. In the fiscal year 2018, on a daily basis more than 40,000 people were in detention in the US and nearly 400,000 people over the year. At least 166 people died in custody between 200316.

Washington has a long record of drumming up human rights campaigns to justify regime change operations, military provocations and wars, while carrying out its own gross abuses and ignoring those of key allies. Indeed, when the Bush administration needed Chinas support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it turned a blind eye to Beijings own war on terror in Xinjiang. Now as the Trump administration ratchets up its trade war and military build-up in Asia against China, it is ramping up its propaganda campaign over Uyghur oppression aimed at weakening and eventually breaking up China.

The targeting of Xinjiang is not accidental. Not only is the western province resource-rich and strategically positioned, but it is also a focus of President Xis Belt and Road Initiativea massive infrastructure plan aimed at linking the Eurasian landmass with Africa and the Middle East and undermining US efforts to encircle China. By whipping up international outrage and encouraging, or even fomenting, opposition and unrest in Xinjiang, the US calculates that it can disrupt Beijings plans.

The CIA and US State Department not only have close, longstanding links to the Uyghur diaspora in Europe and the United States via organisations such as the World Uyghur Congress and the American Uyghur Association, but have forged new ties with Uyghur Islamist extremists fighting in the Middle East. The CIA and US military have relied on Al Qaeda-linked fighters in the dirty war in Syria, nominally targeted against Islamic State, but, in reality, aimed primarily at toppling the Assad regime backed by Russia and Iran.

According to a 2017 policy brief by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague, thousands of Uyghur extremists have been fighting in Syria. While some joined Islamic State, the largest contingent belongs to the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) which has been operating under the umbrella of Al Qaedas Jabhat al-Nusra. From 2017, Uyghur militia in Syria increasingly made China, rather than the Middle East, a focus of their propaganda. Amid Al Qaeda and Islamic State videos calling for a jihad against China, TIP leader Abdul Haq declared: China is not only our enemy, but the enemy of all the Muslims.

The coincidence between this declaration of jihad and the escalation of the aggressive US propaganda campaign over the past two years is suggestive. Just as US imperialism exploited right-wing Islamists including Al Qaeda in the 1980s to mire the Soviet Union in an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, so there are undoubtedly sections of the CIA and Pentagon that are at the very least considering whether to back and assist a new holy war in Xinjiang to undermine the CCP regime in Beijing.

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PRESS RELEASE

July 22, 2020

New CEO appointed

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Allan JF Kristensen as CEO Frontmatec Group. Allan has extensive experience from various senior management positions working internationally within complex project sales, execution of large specialized technical engineering projects and building up aftermarket focused organisations in many different industrial segments. Key focus has been delivering high customer satisfaction, supported by skilled and motivated people. The last 20 years Allan has been with the Howden Group in various senior management position and is currently based in Singapore as CEO for Howden Asia.

I know Allan is looking forward to return to Denmark and is excited about the opportunity to be in charge of Frontmatec. He will have his base in Kolding.

Frontmatec has through a number of acquisitions created one of the strongest companies globally within equipment, software and service solutions for primary and secondary red meat processing. We are recognised as a leader in the field of automation. I am convinced Allan with his experience and knowledge will be a major force in driving Frontmatec further ahead and cementing our position in the market.

Allan will formally start his position as CEO with Frontmatec latest during December 2020.

I would like on behalf of us all in Frontmatec to wish Allan welcome.

Arne Vraalsen

Chairman Frontmatec Group

For further information, please contact:





Frontmatec:

Arne Vraalsen, Chairman

Tel.: +41 799 448 960

email: arne.vraalsen@mac.com





About Frontmatec

Frontmatec develops world-leading customized solutions for automation in the food industry, other hygiene sensitive industries and the utilities industry. We are especially renowned for our high-quality systems for the entire value chain in the meat industry  from hygiene systems to control systems, from carcass grading to harvest lines, from cutting and deboning lines to logistics and packaging. Frontmatec employs more than 1200 employees in 10 countries with a turnover of 250M EUR.

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Speedify is all about speed. It takes an interesting approach by attempting to use all possible internet connections a device has to combine them into one super connection. It isnt the fastest VPN weve tested, but it performs very well.

Speedify in brief:

P2P allowed: Yes

Yes Business location: Philadelphia, PA

Philadelphia, PA Number of servers: 1,000+

1,000+ Number of country locations: 34

34 Cost: $72

$72 VPN protocol: Speedify protocol (proprietary)

Speedify protocol (proprietary) Data encryption: ChaCha20 (mostly for older devices); AES-256 (for devices with AES hardware acceleration)

ChaCha20 (mostly for older devices); AES-256 (for devices with AES hardware acceleration) Data authentication: DTLS 1.3

DTLS 1.3 Handshake encryption: DTLS 1.3

Speedify is a weird VPN. It doesnt just connect to a server, and then leave you to your business. Speedify stands ready to offer a helping hand to make sure your internet access performs at its best when connected.

Thats the promise of Speedify 10 at least, which the company released in June 2020. As before, the biggest selling point of Speedify is its seamless failover from one network to another. This mostly concerns mobile phones that may start a video call on Wi-Fi, but continue it on 4G after leaving the house.

Note: This review is part of our best VPNs roundup. Go there for details about competing products and how we tested them.

As before, this feature works well and is a nice addition for anyone whose Wi-Fi frequently drops out, or is constantly on the move between networks.

IDG Speedify 10 with an active connection in single-pane view.

Speedify also uses what it calls channel bonding, a feature that takes multiple internet connections at the same time for better bandwidth. This can be Wi-Fi and ethernet, or Wi-Fi and a 4G network.

Speedify 10 adds to this by also actively monitoring for real-time streams. That is, data that needs prioritization such as a Zoom or Skype call, broadcasting a live stream, or gaming. When it detects something like this Speedify prioritizes that traffic.

Speedifys approach is interesting, though the active monitoring does raise a few questions about privacy and just how deeply Speedify is looking into your on-device activity.

Speedify 10 adopts a mobile-style look on both the desktop and phones. On Windows, Speedify is a single panel by default, and it crowds a ton of information into this space.

At the top, it shows the VPN server youre connected to, and then below that is the bandwidth usage. This section also has tabs for latency and packet loss, if youre interested in looking at that.

Below the bandwidth usage it shows the name of the network (or networks) youre connected to. Then there is the section that shows the active streams, if any, that Speedify is prioritizing. Finally, there is a section for statistics showing how much data the VPN has encrypted, its top download speed, and top upload speed.

As we said, it packs a ton into that simple panel. Clicking on the hamburger menu icon shows Speedifys settings. The key settings are a ways down the list, such as the settings for bonding mode, which helps Speedify manage your connection based on prioritizing streaming activities, speed, or redundancy. Here you can also turn off the connect at startup setting, as well as a number of other options for advanced users.

Speedify is unusual, because in the settings it also has an option to turn off encryption. While encryption with a VPN is more or less the whole point of the service, encryption can slow down performance. Users who wish to, can dump the VPNs encryption in order to take advantage of Speedifys bonding feature without worrying about potential slow downs. They would still use TLS (https) on websites they visit, but that important encryption between the PC and the VPN server is absent.

Speedify also provides DNS leak protection, an internet kill switch, as well as a Bypass feature for Netflix, Disney+, HBO, and Hulu. The bypass makes sure this video streaming traffic doesnt go through the VPN since streaming services, especially Netflix, will block you if they detect a VPN connection.

IDG Speedify 10s country list in full screen mode.

If you dont like the single-panel design, maxmimizing the window shows most of the options, including the settings, in a single window.

Navigation in this mode is not intuitive, however. For example, if you click on the servers option in what is now the left rail, you then get to pick your location. But to get back to the dashboard, you have to click the not-so-obvious Dashboard option in the left rail. There is no back button or a connect button to start connecting to the server of your choice. Its a little odd, but manageable once you get the hang of it.

By default, Speedify connects to the best possible server closest to you, and there doesnt seem to be a setting to not connect automatically. If you want to choose a specific country connection, you can do that by clicking on the active server at the top of the window. This reveals Speedifys country list, which includes 34 possible locations. Each country also lets you drill down to a more regional location such as a server in New York or New Jersey if youre looking for a U.S. connection.

Speedify works with Windows, Mac, Android, Linux, and iOS. Speedifys pricing has three tiers. For individuals, a year costs $72. You can get it cheaper by paying $95.76 for two years, or $107.64 for three. Theres also a month-to-month option of $10. In addition, Speedify offers a family plan that covers up to five people, with costs ranging from $14.95 for a single month to $162 for three years. Finally, Speedify has a Teams service for businesses with a wide range of pricing depending on the number of team members you have.

Speedify supports up to five simultaneous device connections per user.

Performance

IDG Speedify 10 has a split-tunneling mode called Bypass for Netflix and other streaming services.

In our tests we used Speedifys default settings, which includes the channel bonding feature, and the speeds were impressive. They werent the best weve seen, but they were very good. Overall, using five different country locations over three different testing days, the VPN maintained an average of nearly 44 percent of the base speed. All locations were in double digits, with some variance, but overall it was a solid showing.

Anonymity, privacy, and trust

Speedify is not a no-logs service. It doesnt track your web activity; but it does record your Wi-Fi network name, IP address, device ID, session start and end times, as well as the amount of data used. This information is kept for six months.

Speedify accepts payment via credit card, PayPal, and Amazon Pay. There are no options for cryptocurrencies or cash.

Speedify is owned by Connectify, a company based in Philadelphia. The CEO is Alex Gizis, the president is Bhana Grover, and the CTO is Brian Prodoehl.

Conclusion

Speedify 10 has very good speeds, the prices are right, but weve seen better privacy policies. The app is fairly good in its single-pane view, but once you try to expand it for a more desktop feel, navigation turns awkward. We like Speedify and if speed over a VPN is your focus then this is a good service to look at. Anyone whos more privacy conscious, however, should look elsewhere.

Editors note: Because online services are often iterative, gaining new features and performance improvements over time, this review is subject to change in order to accurately reflect the current state of the service. Any changes to text or our final review verdict will be noted at the top of this article.
A 200-year-old Sikh temple that served as a school for Muslim girls for seven decades was returned to the Sikh community in Quetta, enabling them to worship there for the first time in 73 years, officials said Thursday.

The temple stood empty for a year or two when most Sikhs left Pakistan for neighbouring India after the British partitioned the subcontinent into separate nations in 1947, following two centuries of colonial rule.

Under the governments guardianship, a school was later set up in the temple building, which remained functional until recently, when Sikhs won a legal battle to have the property returned, temple custodian Govind Singh said.

He said Sikhs living in Quetta were delighted to get back to their temple.

This is the best gift for us. We are grateful to Pakistan and the judiciary for giving it back to us, local Sikh leader Jasbir Singh said. For us, it is like a dream come true.

Members of the Sikh community arrive for worship at the Gurudawara Sri Guru Singh Sabha temple in Quetta, Pakistan, Thursday, July 23, 2020. (AP)

Singh spoke as jubilant members of the Sikh community, adhering to social distancing rules to avoid the spread of the coronavirus, gathered at the temple to worship.

The temple could not be returned to the Sikhs earlier because of a lingering legal battle between local Sikhs and the provincial government, Singh said. Abdullah Khilji, an official at the education department in Balochistan, said hundreds of schoolgirls who were studying at the temple building were relocated to a nearby school where they have since adjusted.

The development comes at a time when Pakistans tiny Hindu minority is facing resistance from Muslim activists for attempting to build a temple in the capital. Initially, the government approved its construction, but then reversed the decision after Muslims objected.

A council of clerics is currently deliberating whether the temples construction should be allowed.

However, there has been no other resistance to the construction or renovation of Sikh temples in Pakistan, where the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan has supported the construction of one of the largest Sikh shrines to Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion, which is known as Gurdwara Darbar Sahib.

Members of the Sikh community take part in worship at the Gurudawara Sri Guru Singh Sabha temple in Quetta, Pakistan, Thursday, July 23, 2020. (AP)

Its the second-holiest place in the Sikh faith and is located on the Ravi River just 4.5 kilometres (3 miles) from Pakistans border with India.

The shrine is visible from the Indian side of the border.

Currently, no Indian Sikhs are visiting shrines in Pakistan because of a travel ban imposed by their government to contain the spread of the coronavirus, which has also caused 5,709 deaths and 269,191 infections across Pakistan.

Pakistan and India have a history of bitter relations and have fought two of their wars since gaining independence from Britain.

(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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BINGHAMTON, NY -- Protecting the U.S. information infrastructure and the privacy of data have become top concerns, especially over the past decade -- and Binghamton University, State University of New York is now ready to take a greater role in combating these threats.

In June, the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security named Binghamton a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Research (CAE-R) through 2025.

The designation recognizes the work being done by the Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity (CIAC), a Binghamton University research center, as well as other research efforts around the campus. CIAC is a joint effort among faculty members from the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Harpur College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Management, the College of Community and Public Affairs, and the Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences.

"Your ability to meet the increasing demands of the program criteria will serve the nation well in contributing to the protection of the national information infrastructure," Jillian Curcio, national CAE-R program manager for the NSA, said in a letter.

Watson School Dean Krishnaswami "Hari" Srihari praised the efforts of Associate Professor Ping Yang, who is the director of CIAC, and other faculty members collaborating as part of the new CAE-R at Binghamton.

"Our faculty continues to gain international recognition for their diligent research and academic excellence," Srihari said. "We are very proud to be a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Research, and we know that Professor Yang and her colleagues are committed to keeping data secure."

To become a CAE-R, Binghamton University had to complete a rigorous 200-page application detailing published cybersecurity research, core faculty resumes, research grants, the advanced certificate in cybersecurity program and more. Multiple letters were also submitted, with help from Associate Vice President for Research Mary Beth Curtin, Research Development Assistant Michael Jacobson and Computer Science Department Chair Weiyi Meng.

"This designation shows that Binghamton University has a strong academic program in cybersecurity research," Yang said. "It also opens up cybersecurity grants and scholarship opportunities for our students and faculty. We're now eligible to apply for some large grants from the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation. I also hope that this designation will attract more students to apply for our cybersecurity certificate program."

Yang arrived at Binghamton in 2006, after earning her PhD at SUNY Stony Brook. She developed the Department of Computer Science's first graduate course on cybersecurity.

"Since then, a lot more people are using computers and the internet," she said. "Children also use the internet, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic. So it becomes more urgent to educate students and community members on possible cyber threats and how to address such threats."

The mandates from the NSA and DHS regarding the CAE-R program are clear, she added, and she looks forward to Binghamton University meeting or exceeding them.

"The main goals," she said, "are to reduce the vulnerability in the information infrastructure of the United States by promoting higher education and research in cyber-defense and producing professionals with cyber-defense expertise."

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As vote totals were finalized about a month after the June 23 primary, two women in Queens made history: Melissa Sklarz and Emilia Decaudin became the first openly trans people to become Democratic district leaders in New York City.

District leader positions are unpaid members of a political partys county organization who help to participate in political decision-making, including which candidates receive party support in elections. Sklarz and Decaudin are both Democrats. The positions are split up by Assembly district, often split even further into different lettered parts, and each district must have one male and one female leader. In this case, Sklarz won the election for Assembly District 30, Part B, representing northern Woodside. Decaudin won in Assembly District 37, Part A, representing Sunnyside.

There are still few trans people who have won any elections anywhere in the United States. While, to the best of activists knowledge, New York still has never elected an openly trans person to any level of government, Sklarz and Decaudins victories are still significant milestones in the city and states LGBTQ history. In many cases, political party positions help serve as stepping stones to elected office. Regardless, theirs will be voices never before represented in Democratic leadership positions in New York City. Kristen Browde, a trans woman from Westcher who ran for Assembly and lost in the primary, currently serves as a Democratic district leader in the town of New Castle.

Both Sklarz and Decaudin had previously made history. Sklarz, a long time trans and LGBTQ advocate with a history in Democratic Party politics, became the first openly trans person to win an election in New York, when voters chose her as a delegate to the Democratic Party's Manhattan Judicial Convention in 1999. I would like to think that the work that we started doing in the political arena in the 1990s continues to create the idea that trans people belong in any place where people belong, Sklarz told City & State. She hopes to promote progressive reform and transparency in the Queens County Party.

Sklarz also ran for Assembly last year against Assembly Member Brian Barnwell, but she came up short in the Democratic primary. She said she doesnt have any plans to run again, saying that the people of the district spoke two years ago, and that shes focused on her work in the county party and on defeating President Donald Trump in November.

Decaudin became the first openly trans, and the youngest, member of the state Democratic Committee, representing the 94th Assembly District in Westchester. (She won the position in 2018 at the age of 19 and came out in the summer of 2019).

She grew up in Yorktown, but attends City College of New York and moved to Queens in February.

She is still a member of the state committee, although she no longer lives in Westchester and was therefore unable to run for reelection for that seat. State and county committee positions are up for election every two years, on the same schedule as the state Legislature.

Now, Decaudin hopes to continue the work she started in the state Democratic Committee in her new district leader role, working to help nonbinary New Yorkers enter politics and pushing for trans issues. I hope that I can serve as an inspiration for other trans people hoping to get involved in their communities and party, Decaudin told City & State. And (people) dont have to be afraid that being trans means that theyll be passed up for these opportunities (and) that people around them will believe in them and put their faith in them.

Decaudin also plans to work with other new Queens district leaders who, like her, ran as part of the New Reformers group to make the county party more transparent and shift it more to the left. Sklarz defeated a New Reformers candidate, Melissa Bair, but said she knows Bair and plans to work with her to achieve their shared reform goals. There is a fast movement of change happening in the Democratic Party in New York City and the country, said Sklarz.

Decaudin made waves in the state Democratic Committee for other reasons aside from being its first openly trans member. In October 2019, she successfully proposed to remove binary gendered language from the committee rules. Most significantly, this included eliminating the one male/one female per district requirement for committee members. Instead, each district would have two committee members of different genders, as a means to open the door to people who identify as nonbinary.

The change at the time was lauded as a progressive victory. Decaudin, who is a trans woman and does not identify as nonbinary, said the change is not meant to take away positions from women, but simply to create an evenue for those outside the gender binary to comfortably enter the political arena. The change does not apply to district leaders except in Brooklyn, where state committee members and district leader positions are merged into one. However, Decaudin would like to see binary gendered language removed from district leader positions as well and will work to do so in Queens. Such a change, at both the state and city level, will ultimately require state legislation facilitating the change at boards of elections, which run state committee and district leader races.

The male/female rule for district leaders dates back about 100 years and was implemented as a way to give women an avenue to politics and ensure gender parity. It was, in other words, a progressive, feminist reform at the time of its adoption. Election lawyer Sarah Steiner discussed the importance of the rule for women in a 2018 interview with WNYC, before the state committee rule change. In a comment to City & State, Steiner agreed that nonbinary people have to right to run and should have a pathway, but cautioned that removing the requirement to elect women could lead to women being under-represented on the county committees. I have a feeling that anything that changes these rules will eventually take a toll on the number of women in office, Steiner told City & State.

Decaudin said she carefully considered the language to ensure that it was not eliminating the gendered requirement on the state committee. Under the change, one still cant elect two men to the committee from a single district, because the two members must be of different genders. It still maintains that kind of parity that mandates diversity within party committees, while not very clearly preventing nonbinary people from participating, Decaudin said. She added that the only way the change will significantly take seats away from women is if a man and a nonbinary person regularly get elected, which she doesnt believe will happen.

Decaudin also won a race for state Democatic Committee member in the 37th Assembly District in the recent primary, defeating Queensbridge Houses resident and long-time community leader Corinne Haynes-Wood. Claudia Coger, president of the Astoria Houses Tenant Association, where Wood-Haynes running mate Andre Stith lives, lamented the fact that people new to Queens were running against and beating residents with deep roots in the neighborhood. Both Haynes-Wood and Stith are African American. That bothers me, Coger told City & State. How are you supposed to represent me if you don't know anything about me? She laid some of the blame on those who dont come out to vote.

Decaudin, who is white, said she regrets having run against a Black public housing resident, saying it was not her intention to take power away from anyone from an underrepresented community in Queens. Unlike the district leader race, where she challenged an incumbent who held the seat for years, the state committee seat was open. Decaudin said she didnt know until after she had filed her petition signatures that Haynes-Wood was running, having thought that the current member from the 37th District intended to run for reelection.

Despite having not actively campaigned for the position, Decaudin easily won nonetheless. She said she has reached out to Haynes-Wood and Stith, who ran unopposed and won, to ensure that she can help represent the needs of those living in public housing. I definitely regret (missing) the opportunity to have worked with rather than run against someone from NYCHA in this district, which is, across the city, definitely an underserved demographic, Decaudin said.
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard has warned the community to remain on high alert after two more cases linked to the Thai Rock restaurant cluster in Sydney were detected in the Port Stephens area.

NSW recorded 19 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday as the Crossroads Hotel cluster in Casula in south-west Sydney grew to 56 cases and the outbreak linked to the Thai Rock in Wetherill Park in Sydney's west increased to 46.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard says he is concerned about the growing number of cases in the Port Stephens area. Credit:Steven Siewert

Of the nine new cases linked to the Thai Rock cluster, two were in children from the Hunter New England area, north of Sydney. The children were both close contacts of a previously reported case, a Port Stephens man aged in his 60s who has also been linked to that outbreak.

Mr Hazzard said that, while he was concerned about the increase in cases north of Sydney, it was reassuring to know they were connected to a known outbreak.
The US-based Thermo Fisher Scientific, one among the leading global healthcare and life sciences companies, has a current capacity of supplying at least 1,00,000 to 1,50,000 COVID-19 real-time PCR (RT-PCR) test kits per day to the Indian requirements, said Amit Chopra, Managing Director, Thermo Fisher Scientific, India & Middle East.

Way back in early March, Thermo Fisher was among the first two companies to receive emergency use authorisation from the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) to start making RT-PCR kits for COVID-19 testing and in the initial lot, the Indian government had ordered about 10 lakh RT-PCR kits from Roche and Thermo Fisher.

"Our global manufacturing site in the US started with one and a half million per week by March, but now our capacity is 10 million tests per week, which is further being ramped up. Our kits, now used in more than 50 countries including India, are considered as the 'Gold Standard', as our testing can identify three unique genes of the coronavirus, which makes the testing very accurate," said Chopra.

He said so far India has done several millions of RT-PCR tests with Thermo Fisher kits, as the country was among the first ones in the world to receive its kits. The $25 billion company is also one of the largest manufacturers of RT-PCR testing instruments in the world and over 1,200 Thermo Fisher made RT-PCR testing instruments are already available in the country at government labs, private hospitals and research and development facilities. This has also helped India quickly ramp up the COVID-19 testing infrastructure. At present, Thermo Fisher makes the kits from its central facility in the US and these are imported into India.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) data, India has 1,284 COVID-19 operational laboratories, including 895 government labs and 389 private laboratories. Of this, RT PCR testing for COVID-19 is available in 650 facilities, including 397 government laboratories and 253 private laboratories. India has done cumulative testing of 1,50,75,369 samples until July 22, including 3,50,823 tested yesterday. Besides multinationals like Roche and Thermo Fisher, over two dozen Indian manufacturers have been validated by the ICMR to make COVID-19 testing kits. It is estimated that domestic manufacturers have a capacity to make 146 million RT-PCR test kits a month, or 4.87 million kits a day, say sources.

Thermo Fisher, which employs over 2,300 people in India, has manufacturing facilities in Nasik, Pune and Ahmadabad. The Pune facility was set up three years ago for air quality monitoring for all industries and process instrumentation for the oil and gas industry. In Nasik, the company makes analytical instruments and have two sites in Ahmadabad for clinical trials, packaging, distribution and storage. Its Bangalore unit has a Research and Development facility employing 90 to 95 scientists. It also makes antibodies for research applications. Thermo Fisher also has centres of excellence for information technology in Bangalore employing over 600 software engineers, and an engineering R&D centre in Hyderabad.

In addition to RT PCR kits, Thermo Fisher is engaged in all aspects of COVID-19 research and development, like extraction instruments, PPE kits, electron microscopy and next-generation sequencing instruments which helps in studying the genome of the virus and products related to vaccine research and manufacturing, said Chopra, noting that its electron microscope was instrumental in determining the structure of coronavirus in the early phase. "We have been able to bring the best of technologies to India to fight the virus and our teams are working round the clock."

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KANSAS CITY  Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas will introduce legislation to criminalize doxxing police officers and elected officials, he announced on Twitter Thursday.

Lucas said in his tweet that the legislation stems from a weekend conversation he had with officers families, who expressed concern about the growing practice of leaking personal information online

Our public employees have a right to get home safely and their families should be free from harm, Lucas said in a Facebook post. I condemn any sharing of police officer addresses and personal details and I look forward to Council joining me to make such actions against officers, our city employees, and other public servants illegal in Kansas City.

He added Kansas City welcomes free expression ... and disagreement on issues of public concern, including public safety.

We do not welcome intimidation of people doing the jobs we hire them to do or intimidation of their spouses and children.

The legislation says it would be illegal for someone to willfully or maliciously publish personally identifying information to intimidate, abuse, threaten, harass, stalk (or) frighten a public official or encourage another to do so and when the publication places that official, immediate family or intimate partner in danger.

Personally identifying information includes a Social Security number, birthday, home address, email address, phone number, financial information, health or insurance information or school or employment location.

According to the Associated Press, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security found that personal information about officers was posted online as police and protesters were locked in tense standoffs around the country following Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvins killing of George Floyd on Memorial Day. The document said the doxxing could lead to attacks against officers.

Lucas ordinance is expected to be introduced at Thursdays City Council meeting.

Lucas, who was endorsed during last years mayoral race by the local Fraternal Order of Police, has said repeatedly over the last few weeks that he supports law enforcement and joined Black Lives Matter protesters who have called for reforms.

At a rally at City Hall last month, Lucas signed onto a list of demands, including seeking local control of the Kansas City Police Department. The department is now overseen by a board, which includes Lucas, appointed by the Missouri governor.

Lucas introduced legislation late last month to put a question on the November ballot asking voters if they want Kansas City to push legislators in Jefferson City to allow local control of the police department. Members of the public turned out to testify on the legislation Wednesday, but a City Council committee put off voting until next month.
The Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry, and Turkey Tourism Promotion and Development Agency (TGA) will host tourism professionals from Germany in the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya this week.

From Thursday to Monday, representatives from Germany's leading tour operators will observe the "Safe Tourism Certification Program" implemented by the ministry and TGA jointly.

The program includes an extensive measures for transportation and accommodation of all domestic and foreign visitors as well as touristic facility staff to stem the spread of COVID-19.

Nadir Alpaslan, the deputy culture and tourism minister, said another group was hosted in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir last week with the partnership of aviation firm SunExpress and that the visitors were pleased with the measures against the pandemic.

Ahmet Caliskan, the deputy CEO of SunExpress -- a joint venture of flag carriers Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa -- said Antalya is a safe and hygienic tourism area with its high-standard security measures.

"Within current conditions, we aim to show that Antalya is one of the most correct destinations for travel," he added.

Image Credit:  AA
3 1 of 3 Gov. Greg Abbott/Twitter Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Tesla, HO / TNS Show More Show Less 3 of 3





Tesla CEO and controversial billionaire Elon Musk announced his company has chosen southeast Travis County for its newest "Gigafactory" that promises to hire thousands of workers and generate over $1 billion in capital investment.

Musk said during a recent earnings call that the factory will be located minutes from downtown Austin and be open to the public, CNBC reported. Situated over 2,000 acres near the Colorado River, Musk said the site will be an ecological paradise" with a boardwalk, hiking and biking trails.
New Delhi: The Mumbai Police on Thursday issued a new summon to actress Kangana Ranaut in late star Sushant Singh Rajput's death. As per earlier reports, Kangana said that she is ready to record her statement, but denied getting any notice by the cops in the case. Sources said that the Mumbai Police had gone to Kangana's Mumbai home on July 3 to summon her to record the statement on July 4, but her manager Amrita Dutt refused to accept the letter. When the police asked for Kangana's contact number, the manager instead gave her own details.

Now, since the actress has been issued a new summon, she is likely to record her statement online. Kangana is in her hometown Manali and according to her sister Rangoli Chandel, who also manages the actress, she can give her statement on email.

Meanwhile, Kangana's Twitter team on Wednesday also lashed out at reports stating that she was summoned before. They also shared a screenshot of a message Rangoli sent to Mumbai Police saying Kangana is ready to record her statement as she wants justice for Sushant Singh Rajput.

There is no formal summon sent to Kangana , Rangoli keeps getting casual calls from the cops for past 2 weeks, Kangana wants to record statement but we dont get any response from @mumbaipolice, Heres a screen shot of message Rangoli ji sent to @mumbaipolice pic.twitter.com/w03i2csbWV  Team Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) July 22, 2020

Kangana has quite actively called out some Bollywood A-listers for promoting nepotism and favouritism in the industry after Sushant's death.

Sushant was found hanging in his apartment in Mumbai on June 14. He was said to be under stress and depression.

The Mumbai Police has so far recorded the statements of over 36 people in the case. However, fans of the star have demanded a CBI probe into his suicide case citing foul play behind his sudden demise.
Equipcons commitment, knowledge and experience to the NDT industry, their dedication to providing clients with exceptional service and access to the best NDT technologies make partnering with them as our North American representative a natural choice for Nordinkraft AG

EQUIPCON GROUP, today announced the recent signing of an exclusive partnership agreement with NORDINKRAFT AG, a world-leading developer and manufacturer of modern high-tech NDT systems for non-destructive examination of products in the primary metals: ingot, slab, plate, strip, billet, bar, rod, wire, tube & pipe industries as well as in the energy, automotive and aerospace industries.

Nordinkraft technologies include: Piezoelectric, Arrays, Phased array, Non-contact EMAT, and Eddy Current. These technologies are the building blocks of their automated and integrated testing systems for industrial applications.

Commenting on the announcement, Mr.Pavel Pashkov, Nordinkraft AGs Global Sales Director, said: Equipcons commitment, knowledge and experience to the NDT industry, their dedication to providing clients with exceptional service and access to the best NDT technologies make partnering with them as our North American representative a natural choice for Nordinkraft AG. We are expecting to realize an excellent, long-term business relationship with Equipcon.

Mr. Jeff Monks, President of Equipcon Group, said: With decades of experience and deep connections in the NDT industry as a manufacturers representative and master distributor, we are pleased to welcome Nordinkraft as the latest supplier partner in our group of unique solutions based manufacturing partners. We look forward to bringing Nordinkrafts leading technologies and expertise to our clients throughout North America.

ABOUT NORDINKRAFT AG

NORDINKRAFT AG, a member of NORDINKRAFT Group, is a German company working in the area of Non-Destructive Examination of semi-ready materials as pipes, plates, bars, and billets made of steel, aluminum, and other metals. The company is the world leader in developing, production, and turn-key implementation of sophisticated automatic ultrasonic testing equipment based on the modern EMAT and phased-array technologies, with a vast selection of products, having hundreds successful applications in the global market. Its highly qualified and creative team, supported by more than 80 patents and uncountable number of know-hows are the intellectual basis of its successful professional activity. The quality management system of NORDINKRAFT AG is certified for ISO 9001:2015 by TUV SUD Management Service GmbH. More information, please visit http://www.nordinkraft.de.

ABOUT EQUIPCON GROUP

With over 30 years serving the NDT and industrial automation markets, EQUIPCON GROUP is a leading manufacturer's representative and master distributor with many exclusive partnerships including: Shanghai CHiNDT, Structural Diagnostics Inc (SDI), Baugh & Weedon and now Nordinkraft AG. The company also assists innovators with strategies, sales channel development and management as well as go to market positioning. Maintaining a customs bonded warehouse in the Midwest, EQUIPCON GROUP has the capabilities to fully manage its clients back office and logistics functions. Along with its growing representative network, EQUIPCON GROUP is excited to help revolutionize NDT with features, innovations and unparalleled service and support throughout the Americas. For more information, please visit http://www.equipcon.com.
Andrew Young, AMSTAT General Manager said: The AMSTAT Aircraft Valuation Tool is constantly incorporating the latest market data and is able to quickly generate serial number specific aircraft values that reflect current market conditions. The data generated by this tool has enabled VANGAS to creat

AMSTAT and partner VANGAS Aviation Services, the leading provider of business aviation analytics have published charts showing monthly trends in business aircraft values in 2020 by market group. This data has been generated using the AMSTAT Aircraft Valuation Tool.

In the Heavy Business Jet market group, 2020 stated with a 4% increase in the average estimated value for this group. This trend was reversed in the second half of March and start of April offsetting the initial gains and more with a 7% decline. Values plateaued in late April and early May and then proceeded to fall 16% for a net year-to-date decline of 18%. Early data suggests a recent slowdown in this decline.

In the Super-Mid Business Jet market group estimated values rose for the first 2 months of 2020, gaining 6%. There then followed a period of values oscillated between March and April. Between the second half of May through June the average estimated value for Super-Mid Business Jets fell 15%. Year-to-date values in this group fell 14%.

As with the Heavy Jet and Super-Mid Business Jet groups, the Medium Business Jet average estimated value rose at the start of 2020. For Medium Jets this increase was 3%. Between February and May average estimated values in this market group fell 22%. This downward trend slowed in June and may have started to level off recently.

In the Business Turboprop market group, the average estimated value rose 4% between January and February 2020. The trend between March and May was generally downward, falling a net 14%. As with the Light Jet group, the average estimated value of Business Turboprops has lately started to regain some of the loses from earlier months. Since the start of June, the average estimated value has risen 5%.

Andrew Young, AMSTAT General Manager said: The AMSTAT Aircraft Valuation Tool is constantly incorporating the latest market data and is able to quickly generate serial number specific aircraft values that reflect current market conditions. The data generated by this tool has enabled VANGAS to create the charts we see here showing the impact of COVID-19 on aircraft values in 2020 and how some market segments might be starting to show some recovery in values.

Don Spieth at VANGAS added, The Aircraft Valuation Tool allows users to access information about current market conditions including event driven impact like COVID 19. We are also able to leverage decades of AMSTAT research to determine probabilistic outcomes by comparing previous market disruptions in business aviation. These tools empower our industry with the ability to react to trends and adverse market conditions to better serve their clients.

For a full copy of the report go to: https://www.amstatcorp.com/pages/PressReleases/AMSTAT_VANGA_Estimated_Aircraft_Values_PR_072220.pdf.

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AMSTAT is the leading provider of market research information and services to the corporate aviation industry. Founded in 1982, and based in Tinton Falls, NJ, AMSTAT introduced the concept of providing researched information to corporate aviation professionals. AMSTATs mission is to provide timely, accurate, and objective market information to its customers. AMSTAT products and services provide aviation market and statistical information that generates revenue and delivers competitive advantage to brokers/dealers, finance companies, fractional providers, and suppliers of aircraft parts and services.

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SAO PAULO, July 23 (Reuters) - Brazil state prosecutors on Thursday charged Geraldo Alckmin, the former governor of Sao Paulo state and two-time presidential candidate, with corruption, money laundering and electoral crimes, in a new blow to the nation's weakened centrist parties.

The fresh accusations come after the federal police accused Alckmin last week of allegedly receiving unregistered campaign funding. The state prosecutors' charges against Alckmin, a veteran of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party, still need to be reviewed by a judge.

A four-time governor of Brazil's richest state, Alckmin's last term ended in 2018, when he ran for president, failing to reach a second-round runoff, which was won by far-right populist President Jair Bolsonaro.

Alckmin also ran for the presidency in 2006, when he lost in the second round to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the leftist Workers Party.

Representatives for Alckmin did not respond to a request for comment. Last week, the former governor told CNN Brasil there were no irregularities in his campaigns, saying he had "an absolutely calm conscience."

Since Bolsonaro's 2018 election victory, which shifted Brazilian politics sharply to the right, traditional centrist parties have struggled to make a mark. Their reputations have also suffered from years of graft scandals revealed by the corruption-busting Operation Car Wash, which jailed scores of political powerbrokers and business leaders. (Reporting by Eduardo Simoes Writing by Gabriela Mello Editing by Brad Haynes and Jonathan Oatis)
Singapores tourism sector is facing an existential crisis, its tourism board chief said on Wednesday, laying out plans to boost local demand after a collapse in visitor arrivals due to Covid-19 travel restrictions.

Singapore had welcomed a record 19.1 million travellers in 2019 - more than three times its total population.

But the island city-state closed its borders earlier this year and has advised its citizens to avoid going overseas - a position that is unlikely to change in the near term.

Tourism numbers for the remainder of the year would be similar to April and May when they fell 99.9%, said Singapore Tourism Board chief executive Keith Tan. The board unveiled a S$45 million ($32.5 million) marketing and promotion campaign to drive local demand for lifestyle and tourism businesses.

Singapore is hoping locals, who spent S$34 billion on overseas travel in 2018, will splash out on staycations at hotels and visit tourist attractions.

Still, the STB does not expect residents, already worried about salaries and jobs, to be able to fill the S$27.1 billion hole left by international visitors.

Given the severe impact that Covid-19 has had on international travel, it is inevitable that more job losses will happen in the coming months, Tan added.

The government has pumped in stimulus of nearly S$100 billion to cushion the impact of Singapores worst recession.

It is not sustainable for us to keep supporting a business model that may not longer be available or at least will not come back within the next one, two years, said Chan Chun Sing, minister of trade and industry, urging tourism businesses to seek new markets and niche offerings.

While demand for mass market tourism is unlikely to pick up in the near term, Chan said, Singapore has agreed to resume essential business travel with China and Malaysia. It is in talks with South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and some European nations for similar agreements.

(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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BEARDSTOWN  Beardstown City Council approved on Tuesday an agreement to move forward with the permit process for the second phase of dredging of the Beardstown Marina Access Channel.

Jacksonville-based firm Hutchinson Engineering will prepare the permit for the second phase of dredging so the project will be shovel ready when it comes time to apply for grants, Harris said.

It also was announced at Tuesdays meeting that JBS, owner of the citys largest factory, will give $20,000 to pay for the permitting fees, Beardstown Mayor Leslie Harris said. The donation will help move the project forward, especially after fundraising efforts slowed down because of the COVID-19 pandemic, she said.

JBSs donation helped as there was a lack of fundraising, she said.

The project is an effort to provide a clean and safe access point for boaters accessing the Sangamon and Illinois rivers. It will allow Beardstown residents to pursue more recreational activities on the water, such as kayaking, fishing and boating, Harris said.

Recreation is very important for people, she said.

Last year, the city received a $125,000 grant from state Rep. Norine Hammond and a $50,000 from state Sen. Jil Tracy to cover the dredging. The grants were directed through the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

The marinas location accumulates a lot of silt deposits from the two rivers, which decreases its effective depth so boats cannot navigate in or out of the marina as well.

Jim Burke, a project manager for Hutchinson Engineering, said the city will apply for a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit for the dredging project. The permitting project also will set the terms and conditions for a bidding process for contractors to work on the project, Burke said.

During Tuesdays meeting, the city council also approved the use of $5,915 in grant money to buy a car camera for the Beardstown Police Department from Watch Guard Video.

The city received a $19,656 grant from the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board to buy three cameras and partially pay for a server, City Clerk Petie Ruch said. Two cameras were purchased in advance of receiving the money and the last one still needed to be purchased, Ruch said.

The city councils vote to approve the purchase was a formality, Harris said, adding that she is always happy to find grants to help the police department get the best technology.

Any time that money becomes available to our police department, it helps it become a better department, Harris said.
While a March moratorium on evictions, signed by Gov. Eric Holcomb and extended to the end of July, currently makes it illegal for landlords to evict tenants for not paying rent, no one knows how long it will last. For many Hoosiers struggling to make ends meet due to job loss or pay cuts due to the pandemic, the end of the moratorium could mean losing their home.

Luckily, several state and city leaders are making an effort to shine a light on programs  many of which were in existence before the pandemic began  to help tenants work with landlords to prevent evictions and foreclosures.

Jacob Sipe, executive director of Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, said with the moratorium in place, it gives both landlords and tenants the opportunity to work together to create a payment plan, and a majority of the landlords hes worked with have been willing to work with tenants and community organizations to keep people in their homes.

However, if a tenant finds their landlord to be less than cooperative and worries they may be evicted once the moratorium is up, Sipe recommends using HUDs toolkit. The toolkit helps Indiana residents get more information about their rights and access to resources if they find themselves unable to pay their rent or mortgage.

The toolkit, which can be accessed as a PDF online, includes information on rental assistance, foreclosure prevention, home energy assistance and an eviction and foreclosure guide, the latter specifically in response to COVID-19.

While the moratorium currently in place prevents landlords and property owners from evicting tenants, it does not mean tenants do not have to pay rent for the duration of the pandemic.

In a statement, Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill encouraged Hoosiers who are unlawfully subjected to eviction to contact his office or file a complaint with the offices Consumer Protection Division.

The coronavirus pandemic has left thousands of Hoosiers temporarily unemployed and facing financial distress, Hill said. Its important for Hoosier renters and homeowners to be aware of their rights during these difficult times. If you are unlawfully subjected to eviction or foreclosure proceedings during this public health emergency, contact my office. We may be able to help you.

Under state law, a renter who pays on a monthly basis must be given 30 days warning before an eviction, whereas someone who pays annually must be given three months notice. Sipe said evictions should always be the last resort and often are because the proceedings can be costly for landlords.

With rental assistance programs being offered in Marion County and around the state, Sipe said landlords who agree to work with the programs must wait 45 days before going ahead with evictions, and encouraged both tenants and landlords to work to create a payment plan to prevent evictions.

However, Sipe encouraged Hoosiers who feel they are being taken advantage of  as well as those who are being threatened with eviction despite the moratorium  to contact Indiana Legal Services, which is free, or the Indiana Civil Rights Commission.

Contact staff writer Breanna Cooper at 317-762-7848. Follow her on Twitter @BreannaNCooper.

Get help!

Find the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authoritys toolkit at www.in.gov.

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Shiraaz Kureembokus (pictured) claimed he was lonely during lockdown when he tried to meet the teenager - who was actually an undercover officer

An Oxford University PhD student has been jailed after a police sting caught him trying to arrange sex with a 14-year-old boy off Grindr.

Shiraaz Kureembokus claimed he was lonely during lockdown when he tried to meet the teenager - who was actually an undercover officer.

The 27-year-old, who was studying for a doctorate in education, was caged for 18 months and forced to sign the sex offenders' register.

Prosecutor Christopher Hewertson told Oxford Crown Court the policeman had said from the start of their Grindr conversations he was 14.

But Kureembokus replied 'it's cool baby, I'm 27', before they started talking on Whatsapp messenger.

The paedophile asked the officer about his school work and parents before turning the conversation sexual.

Mr Hewertson said: 'The defendant was nearly double the age of the child who he arranged to have penetrative sex with.'

They had arranged to meet at Kureembokus's university flat on May 5 and the defendant was spotted searching the grounds for the child.

But police swooped and arrested the paedophile, who admitted the crime after being interviewed by detectives.

The 27-year-old, who was studying for a doctorate in education, was jailed for 18 months and forced to sign the sex offenders' register

Defending, Brid Eve said: 'He was finding lockdown particularly hard. He was very lonely and had no friends at the college.

'On that day he made a grave error, he acted in self-gratification and loneliness from what he knew was right and legal. He calls it a moment of madness.

'He has a supportive family who have worked very hard to get him to Oxford. He is embarrassed and upset that he risked his future for this.'

They had arranged to meet at Kureembokus's university flat on May 5 and the defendant was seen searching the grounds for the child

She added: 'He was suspended by the college and he risks the end of his studies. It is utterly devastating for him and those around him and he will find it very difficult to rebuild his life after this.'

But Judge Maria Lamb said: 'It is quite apparent from that that you were working on the basis that the person you were communicating with was a 14-year-old boy.'

She said: 'There was frequent reference to the age of the boy and the fact he was at school.

'It is clear what you had in mind, anal and oral sex activity with him. You are a young man who had a very promising career.

'This will have devastating consequences for you and your family. The clang of the cell door rings the loudest at the start.'

A spokesman for Oxford University said: 'We are shocked by the actions of Shiraaz Kureembokus which resulted in his conviction and sentencing today.

'Shiraaz Kureembokus was a registered doctoral student and had not yet begun his research work.

'The Department of Education is deeply committed to the wellbeing and safeguarding of children and all necessary checks are undertaken before any of our students work in schools or with children in other settings.'
The statue of Christopher Columbus at Marconi Plaza is enclosed in a box until a decision is made about its future. Read more

Allowing the statue of Christopher Columbus to remain in South Philadelphias Marconi Plaza would be unacceptable and completely unsafe, city officials told the Art Commission on Wednesday while presenting a proposal to remove the monument from the plaza, where it repeatedly attracted armed groups accused of assaulting protesters and passersby last month amid the national reckoning over racism and monuments to controversial figures.

It is clear from the last several weeks and months that maintaining the Columbus statue at Marconi Plaza is unacceptable to the majority of the residents of Philadelphia, and, in fact, completely unsafe, James Engler, Mayor Jim Kenneys chief of staff, told the commission.

City officials suggested bringing in a qualified rigging team and sculpture conservator to remove the statue and place it in storage. Engler called the situation at the plaza a tinderbox.

The 144-year-old Columbus effigy has been boxed up in plywood since June, when uproar over the monument led to repeated bouts of violence as some supporters of the statue milled around the public plaza carrying weapons, claiming they were defending it. Observers said members of the group physically attacked people, while a crowd brawled later with protesters who marched to the plaza after a demonstration against racist vigilantes and their cop allies.

At least three people have been charged with assault at Marconi Plaza. A police cruiser is now stationed there to prevent further violence, officials said.

Italian and Italian American history runs deep, and it is not tied to one man, Engler added, noting that the city would be open to replacing the statue with another homage to Italian history. If the proposal is approved, the Columbus statue also could eventually be moved to a private location, which would require a separate Art Commission hearing, officials said.

City Public Art Director Margot Berg also presented preliminary findings from an online survey asking residents what they would like to see happen and how they wouldd reimagine public art at Marconi Plaza, where the statue has stood since 1976. Previously, it was in Fairmount Park.

In total, the city received 13,553 written submissions, Berg said. An analysis of 1,200 randomly selected submissions found that 80% stated that the Columbus statue represented false history, genocide, racism, oppression, while 20% said the monument symbolized Italian American culture, American history, explorer, pride of neighborhood.

Following the citys proposal, for more than 5 hours during a virtual Zoom meeting Wednesday, nearly four dozen people passionately testified on their visions for the statue. Over half of the testimony  delivered by residents, scholars, and politicians  was in favor of keeping the statue at the plaza, leading some to question the citys polling methods.

Berg told the commission that the survey was designed similarly to past polls on public matters, and was publicized by local print media, TV, social media, and physical signs posted near the statue.

Those defending the statue said it celebrates Italian American heritage and represents family history and memories tied to Columbus Day festivities. Some questioned what precedent removing the statue would set.

Others, meanwhile, asserted that the area needs more statues, not less statues, suggesting that the city keep the Columbus statue and build a monument nearby as a tribute to Indigenous people.

The statue, said Rich Cedrone, president of the Friends of Marconi Plaza, means the world to the Italian community.

Michael J. Lewis, a leading architectural historian, a professor, and architecture critic for the Wall Street Journal, also voiced his support for keeping the statue, telling the commission it represents the first monumental expression of the Italian presence in the population of the United States, and an inspiring symbol of the American capacity to accept and welcome new populations.

But those against the statue say its a painful reminder of atrocities against Indigenous people directed by Columbus. Some called for the statue to be replaced by a monument to the Lenni Lenape, the tribe native to the Philadelphia region.

One member of the tribe said he and his son play in the park near Marconi Plaza, and hes had to explain the statues painful origins to his child.

Several Italian American residents also said Columbus and his deeds do not represent their heritage and must come down.

Its not about erasing history, its about correcting it, said Caitlin Borelli, an Italian American resident of Philadelphia.

The debate comes as cities across the nation continue to grapple with commemorations to controversial figures, including in Chicago, where officials have similarly covered and erected a fence around a city Columbus statue following clashes at the site. Columbus monuments have been vandalized in Boston and Baltimore and removed from public locations in Wilmington, Camden, and other cities.

If removed, it would be the second statue taken down in Philadelphia since the national uprising following George Floyds death at the hands of Minneapolis police. Officials in June removed a statue of former mayor and police commissioner Frank L. Rizzo from the front of the Municipal Services Building.

The Delaware River Waterfront Corp. also is reconsidering the Columbus monument at Penns Landing. In June, crews covered the base of the monument, also asking for public input on its future.

The Historical Commission will weigh in Friday on the citys proposal for the Columbus statue. The Art Commission is then expected to vote Aug. 12.
NEW YORK, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The weapon mounts market in North America was valued US$ 363.9million in 2019 and is projected to reach US$ 574.4million by 2027; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.01% from 2020 to 2027.Several countries across the North American region are emphasizing manufacturing armoured vehicles and Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFV). These vehicles have the capability to mount various types of weapons as these vehicle traverses through the main battlefield. The majority of the IFVs and main battle tanks (MBT) have coaxial type machine gun mounted on it. The objective of mounting a machine gun on the main battle tank is to allow the soldiers to fire along the parallel axis to the main battle tank gun. Owing to the increasing manufacturing of armoured vehicles, IFVs, and main battle tanks, the demand for remote weapon stations continue to rise, which showcase the growth of weapon mounts market year on year. The demand for remote weapon stations is stimulating among various military forces, which is aimed at modernizing and strengthening respective military forces. Kongsberg, a well-established Norwegian defense contractor, sealed a contract with General Dynamics Land Systems - Canada with an objective to supply the Canadian Army with PROTECTOR Remote Weapon Stations (RWS), for a valuation of US$ 49.9 million (NOK 500 Million) in May 2020.





Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05934848/?utm_source=PRN





The growth in asymmetric warfare is propelling the military forces to opt for easy and convenient traversing capability.Owing to this, the demand for armoured personnel carriers (APC) and light armoured vehicles (LAV) is continuously up surging in the current scenario.



The demand for easy manoeuvrability and increasing military budgets year on year has been reflecting increased attraction for armoured vehicles among the military forces.Another factor gaining attraction of military forces towards armoured vehicles is the capability to combat cross-border conflicts.



The manufacturers of armoured vehicles are integrating their vehicles with advanced technologies, including sensors, countermeasure systems, command and control systems (C2), weapon mounts, and fire control systems.Pertaining to the fact that the armoured vehicles are capable of carrying machine guns, rocket launchers, the demand for weapon mounts on armoured vehicles is accentuating rapidly, which is supporting the growth of weapon mounts market.



Several military forces are procuring armoured vehicles in the recent years, for instance, in 2020, BAE Systems has secured two new contracts for the production of US Army's Armoured Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) worth US$ 575 million.

In terms of mount type, the static mount segment led the North America weapon mounts market in 2019 the largest share, and it is expected to continue to be the largest shareholder during the forecast period. However, the non-static mount type segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR in the weapon mounts market during the forecast period.The static mounts are the non-portable weapon support components, which are either directly mounted to the ground, on a fortification, or as part of aircraft, vehicle, or naval vessels. The different types of static mounts include, turret, casemate, coaxial, fixed, pintle, remote weapon station, and swing arm. Turret is a rotating weapon platform, which is installed to protect the crew or mechanism of the weapons while letting the weapons to be aimed and fired in several directions.

The North America weapon mounts 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 North America weapon mounts market with respects to all the segments.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 in such a 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 North America weapon mounts market. A few of the players operating in the North America weapon mounts market are AEI Systems Ltd., CRSystems Inc, Engine Engineering Company, FN HERSTAL, Troy Products, Leonardo, ISTEC SERVICES LTD, Military Systems Group, Inc., TMIL-systems, and WE Platt.



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05934848/?utm_source=PRN



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Lebanese MPs Propose National Day to Remember Armenian, Assyrian Genocide

BEIRUT -- A number of members of the Lebanese Parliament from various Christian parties signed a joint proposal calling for Parliament to legislate a law that allocates the 24th of April to be a national day marking the anniversary of the massacres of Armenians and Syriacs--Assyrians who were killed during the Sayfo Genocide in 1915 without being an official day off.

The resolution also stipulates that all schools, institutes, and universities devote the first session of the 23rd of April to the historical events that took place in 1915 to educate students about the dangers of racism and discrimination of all kinds and the importance of safeguarding human rights.

Among the reasons for the proposal included in the text were that Armenians and Syriacs--Assyrians who were subjected to massacres of ethnic genocide during and after the First World War constitute an essential component of the Lebanese people. The events of 1915 coincided with the great famine that struck Mount Lebanon between the years 1915--1918 in which one-third of the country's population at that time died, between 120,000 and 200,000 people.

The MPs stressed the necessity to legislate this proposal, as Armenians and Syriacs--Assyrians who survived the Sayfo Genocide fled to Lebanon after the massacres and became an integral part of Lebanese society.

The Lebanese Parliament recognized the Armenian genocide in May 2000.

The group of MPs expressed their hope that this proposal would be approved during the soonest legislative session.
File photos published by Merseyside police showing two of the five children missing from Merseyside, northwest England. (Merseyside Police)

Five Missing Children, Mother Safe and Well, Police Update

Updated on July 23 at 1:15 p.m. BST:

Merseyside Police posted an update that Dominique Taylor and her five children have been found safe and well.

We are pleased to let you know that Dominique Taylor and her five children have been found safe and well. Thank you for sharing our appeal  pic.twitter.com/YtNuiyjbfW  Merseyside Police (@MerseyPolice) July 23, 2020

Updated on July 23 at 11:57 a.m BST:

Social media posts by relatives indicate the mother and children may have been found safe and well Thursday morning. Police have not yet confirmed.



Previously:

Police on Wednesday night appealed to the public to come forward with information about a missing mother and her five vulnerable children, who have links to Liverpool in northwest England.

File photo published by Merseyside police showing three of the five children missing from Merseyside, northwest England. (Merseyside Police)

Merseyside Police released photographs of the children and named them as Amarliyah, Amaya, Nile, Iylah-Rose, and Noah Taylor. A photograph of their mother Dominique Taylor was not released.

Officers said the family are linked to the L8 area of Liverpool, and they are concerned about the familys whereabouts and welfare.

Anybody with information please contact @MerPolCC, 101, or Liverpool Childrens Service on 0151 233 3700, the police said.
A Moosup, Conn., man has been arrested and charged with illegally collecting workers compensation benefits while being employed as a Connecticut state trooper.

Kevin Moore, age 41, was arrested by inspectors from the Workers Compensation Fraud Control Bureau in the Office of the Chief States Attorney on a warrant charging him with one count of fraudulent claim or receipt of benefits and one count of larceny in the first degree by defrauding a public community.

According to the arrest warrant affidavit, in July of 2019, Moore sustained an injury to his back in the performance of his duty. He was subsequently placed in a temporary total disability (TTD) status by his treating physician.

TTD is essentially wage replacement benefits paid by the employers workers compensation insurance carrier, which in this case is the state of Connecticut, while the claimant is unable to perform any type of work due to a work related injury or illness.

From November of 2019 to February of 2020, Gallagher Bassett Investigative Services (GBIS) surveillance was conducted on Moore to determine if he was exceeding the physical limitations set forth by his physician.

It was determined that while out on workers compensation benefits from his job as a state trooper, Moore owned and ran a t-shirt silk screening business, Four82 Designs, for which he received payment for t-shirts he supplied.

Gallagher Bassett determined that in the period of time from November 2019 to May 2020, Moore received approximately $47,000 to which he was not entitled.

Moore was released on a written promise to appear in court and is scheduled to appear in Hartford Superior Court on July 30, 2020. The charges are merely accusations, and he is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The case will be prosecuted by the Workers Compensation Control Unit.

Source: Connecticut State Division of Criminal Justice

Topics Workers' Compensation Fraud Abuse Molestation Law Enforcement Connecticut
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Coronavirus cases in the United States has now surpassed a staggering 4 million cases and is on track to record an addition one million in just two weeks - as more than 1,100 deaths are recorded in a day and reach levels not seen in two months.

The 4 million case total reported on Thursday reflects a rapid acceleration of infections in the country since the first case was recorded on January 21.

It took the country 98 days to reach 1 million cases but just 16 days to go from 3 million to 4 million. The case total indicates that at least one in 82 people in the United States have been infected.

The average number of new US cases is now rising by more than 2,600 every hour, the highest rate in the world.

In the past week, the average number of daily cases has reached 66,000 and, based on that trajectory, cases will increase by one million by the first week of August.

More than 143,000 Americans have now died from COVID-19 after daily deaths surpassed 1,000 on Wednesday for the second time this week.

There has been an uptick in deaths, on average, across the US since the beginning of July after hotspot states including Florida, Texas, Arizona and California saw explosions in cases and hospitalizations.

Coronavirus cases in the United States has now surpassed a staggering 4 million and is on track to record an addition one million in just two weeks - as more than 1,100 deaths are recorded in a day and reach levels not seen in two months

Texas on Wednesday set one-day records for increases in COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations in the state.

The state, which reported 197 deaths and 10,893 hospitalizations, has been one of the hardest hit by the resurgent coronavirus.

Meanwhile, California surpassed New York on Wednesday to have the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the country. It is partly due to robust testing in a state with more than twice the population of New York.

The total number of infections in the most populous US state is now at 413,579 after adding a record 12,807 spike in new daily cases - the biggest single-day increase since the pandemic started.

New York currently has 408,181 total infections throughout the state.

New York has recorded by far the most deaths of any US state at more than 32,000 with California in fourth place with over 8,000 deaths.

If California were a country, it would rank fifth in the world for total coronavirus cases behind only the United States, Brazil, India and Russia.

Deaths have topped 1,000 twice this week across the United States, which hasn't been seen since May.

There has been an uptick in deaths, on average, across the US since the beginning of July after hotspot states including Florida, Texas, Arizona and California saw explosions in cases and hospitalizations. Deaths across the four hotspot states are pictured above dated up until July 21

Coronavirus deaths are now rising in 23 states and the country's three most populous states, Florida, Texas and California, top the list of 44 states where cases are increasing.

The rising deaths and hospitalizations in Texas has forced one county to store bodies in refrigerated trucks and prompting a top health official there to call for new stay-at-home orders.

Hidalgo County, at the southern tip of the state on the US border with Mexico, has seen cases rise 60 percent in the last week, with deaths doubling to more than 360.

'We've got to lasso this virus, this stallion, bring the numbers back down and get control of this thing,' Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez said.

'Because our hospitals - they're war zones, they are really struggling right now.'

Cortez, a Democrat who serves as the top county official, issued a shelter-in-place order for residents. That mandate put him at odds with Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who maintains that local officials do not have the authority to make residents stay home.Crematoriums in the Hidalgo area have a wait list of two weeks, Cortez said, forcing the county to use five refrigerated trucks that can hold 50 bodies each.

Hidalgo's top medical official, Dr. Ivan Melendez, partly blamed Abbott's move to override local officials for the spike in coronavirus infections, which he said has jammed the local medical system at every level.

TEXAS DEATHS: Texas on Wednesday set one-day record of 197 deaths related to coronavirus

TEXAS CASES: Texas recorded 9,879 new cases on Wednesday, down from a record 10,791 on July 15

CALIFORNIA CASES: California added a record 12,807 spike in new daily cases on Wednesday - the biggest single-day increase since the pandemic started

CALIFORNIA DEATHS: Deaths in California rose by 115 on Wednesday, bringing the total death toll to 7,870

'Do I think that a stay-at-home order is medically indicated at this point? Absolutely,' Melendez said.

Meanwhile, laboratories across the US are buckling under a surge of coronavirus tests, creating long processing delays that experts say are undercutting the pandemic response.

With the tally of confirmed infections at nearly 4 million and new cases surging, the bottlenecks are creating problems for workers kept off the job while awaiting results, nursing homes struggling to keep the virus out and for the labs themselves as they deal with a crushing workload.

Some labs are taking weeks to return COVID-19 results, exacerbating fears that people without symptoms could be spreading the virus if they don't isolate while they wait.

'There's been this obsession with, 'How many tests are we doing per day?' said Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 'The question is how many tests are being done with results coming back within a day, where the individual tested is promptly isolated and their contacts are promptly warned.'

Frieden and other public health experts have called on states to publicly report testing turnaround times, calling it an essential metric to measure progress against the virus.

In total, deaths across the United States increased five percent in the week ending July 19, compared to the previous seven days, according to a Reuters analysis of the COVID Tracking Project data. Nineteen states have reported increases in deaths for at least two straight weeks
Asymmetry is fascinating. Artists, architects and designers have been addressing this subject throughout history. The examination of asymmetry and symmetry has brought together the media artist and choreographer Christian "Mio" Loclair and A. Lange & Sohne. Together with his studio, Waltz Binaire, he realised a project at the Finca Bell-Lloc in Girona, Spain, that analysed the interaction between design, mathematics and nature through words and movement.

Two different physical bodies move within an empty room. A mechanical male body forms the opposition to an organic female body. At first, they are separate from one another and we notice the beauty of both types of movement. We experience how the two units encroach on each other and overlap. The interaction on the interface between mathematics and nature epitomises physical nature and the rhythm of asymmetry.

For Loclair, good design begins with a decision based on the law of proximity, which originates from Gestalt psychology: If we add a new element to an existing group of elements, we have to take the altered balance in the space into consideration. We are always creating new connections and find our way towards simplicity through this complex mathematical process.

The balancing of asymmetric proportions also forms the core of the Lange 1 design philosophy. The complexity within, which gives rise to a new kind of harmony resulting from the off-centre display designed in accordance with the golden ratio, remains timeless and ground-breaking, even after a quarter of a century. A new, organic sense of order results from the perceived imbalance, corresponding to human experience and giving the watch its iconic character.

Asymmetry is the leitmotif of the Lange 1 design, imparting an inimitable appearance. The off-centre displays without any overlaps create a captivating sense of tension. Nevertheless, the dial looks ordered and harmonised. This is due to the fact that the displays are in a delicately balanced relationship with one another. It conforms to classic design rules such as axial arrangement and the golden ratio.

In geometry, two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio of the sum of the two quantities is the same as the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller quantity. Expressed as a number, this is a ratio of one to 1.618. This magic number has inspired thinkers since antiquity and appears in the works of renowned artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Le Corbusier. On the Lange 1, the proportion of the diameters of the dial and the hour and minute circles is in the golden ratio, just like the proportions of the out-size date display.
Recent reports discussed the discovery of more false SARS-CoV-2 numbers in multiple cities. The reports bring up the question of COVID-19 statistics from other locations which, as time goes on, appear more questionable and may or may not be true. Specifically, the COVID-19 statistics from New York City require a closer look. As SARS-CoV-2 continues to spread, no other location has observed even close to New York Citys reported overall number of deaths being five or six times more than the normally observed deaths during a month or two span.

Some have discussed the numbers of COVID-19 patients that reportedly died at nursing homes. But there were a huge number of deaths (both involving COVID-19 and not involving COVID-19) reported in the New York City hospital inpatient setting not likewise observed in other locations.

Looking at hospitalization statistics sheds light on the topic. First, some general information on hospital occupancy; the COVID-19 pandemonium has included many attempts to scare Americans with hospital data. The fear concerns hospitals filling up and not having enough space. Unmentioned by politicians and public health officials is that hospitals apparently normally try to stay at greater than 85% occupancy rate. This is particularly helpful to know: for hospitals, an industry accepted benchmark for the volume necessary to break-even is an inpatient occupancy rate that is greater than 85%. (Page 15) That is, hospitals apparently try to stay near full.

Regarding specifically the COVID-19 situation that occurred in New York City, one significant piece of information is what the occupancy rate was at the beginning of the reported SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. How many were already hospitalized when the COVID-19 outbreak reportedly began and how many more could NYC hospitals reasonably have hospitalized thereafter?

New York City reportedly has 23,000 hospital beds, and it is difficult to find information with precise occupancy rate when the outbreak began. Previous years data may be useful; the NYC Health + Hospitals reported that, for fiscal year 2018, its eleven acute hospitals averaged 79.7 occupancy rate. Data on other NYC hospitals does not appear to be available but a separate estimate suggested New York City hospitals were at about 75% occupancy rate on March 19, 2020. The estimate is in line with NYC Health + Hospitals average reported occupancy rate for fiscal year 2018. For the sake of this discussion, the occupancy rate of 75% will be used. Out of 23,000 hospital beds, then, approximately 17,250 may have been in use, and approximately 5,750 may have been available on March 19, 2020.

From March 19, 2020 to April 21, 2020, New York City reportedly (see: Get the data for exact numbers) had 39,518 specifically COVID-19 hospitalizations. The date of April 21, 2020 is used here because that is the date that Governor Andrew Cuomo said that New York City hospital stress was easing and the extra hospital beds that the U.S.N.S. Comfort Navy hospital ship provided were no longer needed, after arriving on March 30, 2020 and treating only 179 patients. So, NYC hospitals reportedly were not close full sometime around April 21, 2020.

Again, from March 19, 2020 to April 21, 2020, New York City reportedly had 39,518 specifically COVID-19 hospitalizations beginning at a time when approximately 5,750 beds were available. Data on non-COVID-19 hospitalizations is difficult to find, but it is known that New York City hospitals were also treating non-COVID-19 patients. This is deduced from the CDCs data which reports that between February to July, 14,746 deaths involving COVID-19 occurred in the NYC hospital inpatient setting, while 25,334 total deaths occurred in the NYC hospital inpatient setting. This means that, reportedly, at least 10,000 non-COVID-19 patients were hospitalized (and then died in the inpatient setting) in NYC between February to July.

Now, the CDC reports that the median hospital length for a COVID-19 survivor was 10 to 13 days. Does it seem reasonable for NYC hospitals to have had less than 6,000 hospital beds available on March 19, 2020 and then accommodate 40,000 or more hospitalizations in one month, many which would, according to the CDC, require a stay of 10 to 13 days? And the 40,000 number does not include non-COVID-19 hospitalizations; non-COVID-19 hospitalizations would make the number even higher than 40,000. It is important to remember that the field hospitals and USNS Comfort hospital ship were mostly unused. The NYC hospitalization numbers seem implausible and worth further research.

Of course, some of the NYC COVID-19 hospitalizations (reportedly 1 in 5 COVID-19 hospitalizations) and non-COVID-19 hospitalizations died in the hospital inpatient setting, opening up space for more hospitalizations. Here again a reasonable person might ask some unfortunate but necessary questions.

The CDCs data shows that between March 21 and April 25, there were a total of 27,523 deaths in NYC (deaths that occurred in any setting). According to the CDCs data, there were 5,180 deaths in NYC during the comparable time in 2019. This means that NYC reportedly experienced more than 5 times the normal number of total deaths.

But the excess number of deaths which reportedly occurred in the NYC hospital inpatient setting may be even higher than 5 times the normally observed number. The number of deaths which occurred in the hospital inpatient setting from March 21 to April 25 is not specifically provided, but the current data suggest that at least 50% of all deaths (both deaths involving COVID-19 and not involving COVID-19) in NYC occurred in the hospital inpatient setting. If 50% of the deaths in NYC between March 21 and April 25 occurred in the hospital inpatient setting, then a reasonable number of deaths in the NYC hospital inpatient setting during that time frame would be approximately 14,000 deaths. The CDCs statistics (click agree then send on the provided link to view data) show there were less than 2,000 deaths in NYCs hospital inpatient setting in April 2018. This means that total deaths in the NYC hospital inpatient setting from March 21 to April 25, 2020 (approximately one month) may have been more than 7 times more than normal.

Now, nearly everyone merely assumed that the reported excess in NYC deaths was caused by COVID-19. But no other location with reported COVID-19 outbreaks has experienced even close to that significant of an excess - potentially 7 or more times normal in the hospital inpatient setting in 1 month - in deaths. This specific observation might make a reasonable person conclude that either the reported COVID-19 and/or total death statistics for NYC are wrong or something other than COVID-19 may have been causing the deaths of thousands of New Yorkers in the hospital inpatient setting.

Possibly foreseeing others reporting on the incomparable death statistics in New York City hospitals, a local newspaper suggests that under-resourced hospitals, including not enough nurses, and other hospital inequalities were the reasons for such an excess of reported NYC hospital deaths. That explanation does not suffice, though, because extra hospital resources were provided but went mostly unused. Both the reported high number of hospitalizations and excess deaths in the hospital inpatient setting in New York City are worthy of further research, which should include critical evaluation of every death certificate.

Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with use of Pixabay public domain images.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 20:30:37|Editor: huaxia

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Battling a pandemic and the worst economic crisis in a decade, residents of Epworth, a town southeast of Zimbabwe's capital Harare find themselves saddled with yet another grave challenge -- water shortage.

By Tafara Mugwara

HARARE, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Battling a pandemic and the worst economic crisis in a decade, residents of Epworth, a town south-east of Zimbabwe's capital Harare find themselves saddled with yet another challenge.

Like in most of Zimbabwe's urban areas, water has become a scarce resource in the poor settlement, forcing locals to trek to unsafe wells to collect the precious liquid.

With an estimated population of 152,000, according to the 2012 census, Epworth lags behind in terms of the provision of basic services such as roads, clean water, and sewer systems.

Without access to tap water, residents rely on wells, which usually dry up during the dry season, leaving them in an unbearable predicament.

A mother with a baby strapped in her back carries a bucket to fetch water for home use in Epworth, Zimbabwe, July 18, 2020. (Xinhua/Tafara Mugwara)

The acute shortages of the precious commodity have caused untold suffering to women and children - who are usually the primary drawers of water for household consumption.

So dire is the situation that many people are now drinking water from unprotected sources, posing a health risk that leads to outbreaks of water-borne diseases such as cholera and dysentery.

Faced with water challenges and with no other alternatives, an unlikely place is now providing relief to the struggling residents - a disused pool from an abandoned quarry mine.

The pool, known as the 'Pool of Death' by locals due to the number of lives that have perished in it, has since become the primary source of water for residents of Epworth and other surrounding areas.

According to local estimates, hundreds of people have died in the pool by accidentally drowning, by committing suicides, or by being murdered and then dumped into the pool.

Despite the fact that the pool has claimed many lives over the years, it has become a lifeline for the water-starved residents.

With containers in their hands or in wheelbarrows, every morning, groups of women, some with young children strapped in their backs, troop to the pool to fetch water or to do laundry.

George Mutawo, an Epworth resident, said although the dam has a negative reputation, it has become a lifeline for many residents.

Mutawo said owing to erratic rains received in the past season, most wells have dried up leaving families in an unbearable predicament.

"We received erratic rains this season. The boreholes and the wells that we depend on are now dry. That's why so many people are coming to the dam to fetch water," he told Xinhua.

Mutawo said they are now worried over their health as people are now using the contaminated water for drinking.

Fungai Nyikadzino, another Epworth resident, said the water shortages have become unbearable, and many residents now spend a lot of time searching for water.

"We are experiencing acute water challenges. Here at this dam, we are getting water to wash clothes, for dishwashing, and for bathing. For drinking, we buy water, 10 (Zimbabwe) dollars (about 0.15 U.S. dollars) a bucket.

"We can't afford to buy drinking water, sometimes we go for days without clean water to drink. We have no means of getting the money to buy drinking water in this lockdown," she said.

Two men fetch water from an unclean source in Epworth, Zimbabwe, July 18, 2020. (Xinhua/Tafara Mugwara)



Nyikadzino said owing to the water shortages in the community, many residents have resorted to extreme rations of water, limiting how much water they drink, wash, and how they use the toilet.

"We hope authorities will drill boreholes for us here in Epworth because the ones we have here are too few," she said.

Another resident, Jestina Kambanje said although the dam has become a relief for Epworth residents, it poses a major threat of drowning to children.

"We are afraid that our young children might drown while fetching water at the dam," she said.

Evans Matsika said the water situation has become dire, resulting in some people walking for two or three km every day to quench their thirst.

"We are wasting a lot of time collecting water. Instead of doing other productive work, fetching water has become our main activity. There is no development, we are just surviving from hand to mouth," he said.

Matsika said water shortages are making it impossible to adhere to hygienic conditions required to contain the spread of diseases.

"We are expected to wash our hands after using the toilet, but we end up using dirty recycled water to wash our hands, making us prone to cholera," said Matsika.

He said the shortage of water is also making it harder to fight the spread of COVID-19.

With huge numbers of people crowding at the dam, implementing social distancing becomes almost impossible.

Residents also increase their risk of exposure to the coronavirus each time they venture outside their homes to collect water from community boreholes or at the dam.

Water woes are not affecting Epworth residents alone. An economic crisis stretching for over two decades has seen a collapse of Zimbabwe's water infrastructure due to a lack of expansion to match a growing urban population.

The acute water shortages have also been worsened by one of the worst droughts to hit Zimbabwe in years.

The situation is desperate, as is evidenced by severe water rationing in Harare, and the recent outbreak of water-borne diseases in the second largest city Bulawayo.

While efforts have been made to avail water to more urban communities through the drilling of boreholes around the country, the boreholes are not enough to meet the growing demand. 
Apple, which generated sales of $US124 billion in the six months ending March 28, may be the Goliath of the global technology industry but it may not be the most obvious candidate to hit $US2 trillion first. That's because despite efforts to reduce its heavy reliance on the iPhone, and a recent focus on services and wearables as the next big growth opportunities, at its heart Apple remains a hardware company which is more exposed to deteriorating relations with China than its peers. Apple faces a serious challenge grappling with deteriorating relations between Washington and Beijing. Credit:AP Apple has enjoyed a recent lift at the expense of Huawei, a key competitor which has been hammered by US sanctions and restrictions on its use of cutting edge US chip designs. Nevertheless, the iPhone still generates roughly half of Apple's sales, while other devices - iPads and Macs - take the share of hardware up to 75 per cent of overall sales.

Smartphones remain a stagnant market of course. Global sales of smartphones across the industry fell 20 per cent in the first quarter of 2020, according to Gartner which also predicts global device shipments - including per cents, tablets and phones - to fall 14 per cent this year. Such figures are distorted by the COVID-19 lockdown, but even a potential boost from the launch of Apple's first 5G iPhone, expected in September, is unlikely to significantly move the dial. Apple has struggled to develop its next killer product to supplant the Mac, iPad and iPhone of yesteryear, while services income may come under pressure amid anger over the stiff commissions charged to third party developers using its app store. Jeff Bezos's corporate octopus has so many limbs growing at such a phenomenal pace it sometimes seems hard to keep track of them all. Meanwhile, Tim Cook's colossus, which produces most of its devices in China - the world's biggest smartphone market - faces a serious challenge grappling with deteriorating relations between Washington and Beijing. A comprehensive reordering of its supply chain is in the offing - which won't be easy or cheap.

Microsoft has been the tech industry's dark horse in recent years. After a rocky period a few years back, under Satya Nadella, the chief executive, the Seattle-based company has overseen a remarkable comeback through a far-sighted pivot into cloud computing and an overhaul of what many viewed as a toxic culture. Once written off as a has-been which famously fumbled the rise of the smartphone through an ill-judged acquisition of Nokia, then another has-been, Microsoft has enjoyed a boost from the pandemic through the surging popularity of services like Microsoft Teams. Loading Nevertheless, it is not Microsoft but its cross-town rival, Amazon, which of all of the big tech companies arguably has the greatest shot at hitting the $US2 trillion mark first. Without Apple's Chinese headaches, Jeff Bezos's corporate octopus has so many limbs growing at such a phenomenal pace it sometimes seems hard to keep track of them all. Amazon also has a clear runway of growth in the years ahead, not only in its core e-commerce business but across several others.

Amazon Web Services, its highly profitable cloud computing arm, is still growing at over 33 per cent per year. Amazon Prime Video, its streaming business, is likely to have enjoyed a boost from lockdown viewing, while its often overlooked advertising business is emerging as a serious contender to Facebook and Google. Amazon is somewhat cagey about the performance of this unit, refusing to break it out. But its "other" category, which mostly covers the ad division, was up a stunning 44 per cent in the last quarter to $US3.9 billion in revenue. The company possesses detailed insights into its customers' tastes, their likes and dislikes, and it's increasingly leveraging that information for fresh commercial advantage.

Then of course there is e-commerce, where Amazon remains hugely dominant and where it has enjoyed a huge advantage during the temporary shutdown of so many bricks and mortar retailers. There is also still huge scope for growth, especially in international markets. Loading For Jeff Bezos, who will appear before a US Congressional hearing into competition next Monday, the company's biggest threat does not come from its rivals so much as from politicians and regulators. From the amount of tax it pays to the impact Amazon is having on the high street and the dominance of its cloud computing arm, as it edges towards $US2 trillion in value Bezos's extraordinary creation is facing growing calls to be pruned back.
Exporting $43 billion worth of farm, forestry and seafood produce this year has been a difficult task, though the situation improved when European and regional countries began reopening their markets.

According to Vu Kim Hanh, director of the Business Studies and Assistance Center (BSA), Vietnams farm produce has many problems which have existed for years.





First, Vietnam mostly exports raw products because of its outdated processing and preservation technologies. Farmers abuse chemicals (fertilizer, pesticides) in cultivation and products dont have even quality and clear standards, which makes it more difficult to overcome technical barriers.



Second, Vietnam still doesnt have good distribution networks both in the country and the world market.



Hanh said foreign buyers hold prejudices about high chemical residue in Vietnams farm produce. Only five percent of Vietnams farm produce can meet international standards.



The produce lacks strong brands and cannot squeeze into the global trade chain. The situation has improved recently, but at a very slow pace.



Hanh believes that both farmers and businesses urgently need more information.





Exporting $43 billion worth of farm, forestry and seafood produce this year has been a difficult task, though the situation improved when European and regional countries began reopening their markets.

The market changes rapidly. Updating information and knowledge about markets is the most important thing for now, Hanh said.



Vietnamese farmers understanding about the Chinese market, for example, has become out of date.



They think that China is a market easy to please and all products can be sold in the market. They believe that they can just carry products to the border areas and lower selling prices to export to China, Hanh said.



But the doors for Vietnamese enterprises to export produce across the border have been gradually closing. China now requires high-quality products which meet certain standards and have origin traceability.



Dragon fruit is another example which shows the lack of information among Vietnamese farmers.



An analyst said Chinese are now growing dragon fruit on 70,000 hectares with Vietnams varieties, but Vietnamese farmers are still growing dragon fruit in 62 out of 63 cities and provinces. In the states plan, dragon fruit was supposed to be grown in the three provinces of Binh Thuan, Tien Giang and Long An.



As a result, when farmers have bountiful crops, products cannot sell and ministries call on people to buy products to rescue farmers.

Nhan Dan reported that Vietnams farming exports in the first five months of 2020 fell by 4.1 percent to $15.49 billion due to the coronavirus pandemic. The fruit revenue decreased by 21.4 percent to $1.15 billion as many fresh fruits were unable to reach the Chinese market.

Kim Chi

EU announces quotas for Vietnamese farm produce The European Commission (EC) on July 15 announced quotas for several Vietnamese agricultural products and rice in line with the European Union  Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA).
OTTAWA - A timeline of events regarding the $912-million Canada Student Service Grant program, based on public events and statements from cabinet ministers, government officials, and WE Charity:

April 5: Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talk over the phone about how to help students whose summer job and volunteer opportunities were vanishing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Finance Department officials are tasked with considering options the next morning.

April 7: Morneaus office contacts the WE organization, among other groups, to get their input on potential programs.

April 9: WE Charity sends an unsolicited proposal for a youth entrepreneurship program to Morneau, Youth Minister Bardish Chagger, Small Business Minister Mary Ng and Trudeaus office. The price tag is between $6 million and $14 million to provide digital programming and $500 grants, plus incentive funds, for 8,000 students.

April 16: Employment and Social Development Canada officials mention WE in the context of the student program in an email discussion with Finance Department officials.

April 18: Morneaus officials raise the idea of partnering with a non-profit, or for-profit group to administer the program. (ESDC officials suggest the same day that WE might be an option.) Morneau said it was the first time he was involved in any talk about WE and the grant program.

April 19: A senior official at Employment and Social Development Canada, Rachel Wernick, contacts WE co-founder Craig Kielburger. She learns of the April 9 proposal.

April 20: Morneaus office contacts WE to ask about its ability to deliver a volunteer program. An officials record of the call notes WE Charity will re-work their 10-week summer program proposal to fully meet the policy objective of national service and increase their current placements of 8,000 to double.

April 21: Morneau approves going with an outside organization to run the volunteer program, but no specific group is chosen.

April 22: Trudeau announces a $9-billion package of student aid, including the outline of a volunteer program paying students up to $5,000 toward education costs, based on the number of hours they volunteer. WE sends Wernick an updated proposal to reflect the announcement.

April 26: Morneau speaks with WE co-founder Craig Kielburger, but told the finance committee neither of them talked about the Canada Student Service Grant program.

April 27: Volunteer Canada, a charity that promotes volunteering and helps organizations use volunteers well, meets Chagger and raises concerns about paying students hourly rates below minimum wage and calling it volunteering.

May 4: WE sends a third proposal to Employment and Social Development Canada, this time with more details and specific to the grant program. Finance Department official Michelle Kovacevic, who was working on the program, told the finance committee she received it May 7.

May 5: Youth Minister Bardish Chagger went to a special COVID-19 cabinet committee with the recommendation to go with WE for the program. Morneau isnt at the meeting.

May 22: Cabinet, including Trudeau and Morneau, approved handing the reins of the program to WE.

May 23: The public service officially begins negotiating a contribution agreement with WE, which would have paid up to $43.5 million in fees to the group.

May 25 to June 3: In a series of meetings with Volunteer Canada, WE suggests the target for placements through the program had gone from 20,000 to 100,000.

June 12: WE co-founder Marc Kielburger says in a video chat with youth leaders that he heard from Trudeaus office about getting involved in the volunteer program the day after it was announced by the prime minister. He later backtracks, saying the contact came the week of April 26 from Wernick, and not the PMO.

June 23: WE is informed the contribution agreement has been approved.

June 25: Trudeau unveils more details about student aid. A government release notes that WE will administer the student-volunteer program.

June 26: Facing questions about WE, Trudeau says the non-partisan public service made the recommendation, and the government accepted it: As the public service dug into it, they came back with only one organization that was capable of networking and organizing and delivering this program on the scale that we needed it, and that was the WE program.

July 3: Citing the ongoing controversy, WE and the Liberals announce a parting of ways and the federal government takes control of the program. Ethics commissioner Mario Dion tells Conservative and NDP ethics critics in separate letters he will examine Trudeaus role in the awarding of the agreement because of the prime ministers close ties to the group.

July 9: WE says it has paid Trudeaus mother Margaret about $250,000 for 28 speaking appearances at WE-related events between 2016 and 2020. His brother Alexandre was been paid $32,000 for eight events, and Trudeaus wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau received $1,400 in 2012 for a single appearance. The organization says Trudeau himself has never been paid by the charity or its for-profit arm.

July 13: Trudeau apologizes for not recusing himself from discussions about WE over his familys longtime involvement with the organization. Morneau also issues an apology.

July 16: Dion says he will investigate Morneaus actions in the affair. Chagger testifies at the finance committee, saying Trudeaus office didnt direct her to go with WE.

July 21: Ian Shugart, clerk of the Privy Council, tells the Commons finance committee there is no evidence to suggest Trudeau spoke with WE before the organization was awarded the deal to run the student-volunteer program.

July 22: Morneau tells the finance committee he just repaid over $41,000 to WE for travel expenses the organization footed for the minister and his family. The Opposition Conservatives call for Morneau to resign.

Trudeaus office says he and his chief of staff, Katie Telford, have agreed to testify before the committee with a date and time to be set.

The House of Commons ethics committee also calls on Trudeau to testify, and votes to seek copies of records for Trudeau and his familys speaking appearances dating back years. Six opposition members outvote five Liberals to have that committee start its own investigation.

July 23: Conservatives and New Democrats ask Dion to launch a new probe of Morneau over his travel expenses.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2020.
Taoiseach Micheal Martin faced stinging criticism from his own TDs who he called on to stop briefing against their own government.

At a meeting of the Fianna Fail parliamentary meeting on Wednesday night, Mr Martin called for loyalty and cohesion from all members, insisting that members stopped leaking matters to the media.

At the private meeting held at Dublins Convention Centre, Sligo-based TD Marc MacSharry laid into Mr Martin and his ministers for allowing themselves to be led by their officials as opposed to driving the agenda in their departments.

He pointed to the reports of Housing Minister Darragh OBrien taking a tough stance with his officials saying that is the example to follow.

Mr MacSharry said he agreed with his leaders call for cohesion but said that can only come from a shared ownership of the party and that it was up to the leader to make it happen.

Loyalty and unity flows from a shared ownership and that is your job as leader to provide that, Mr MacSharry told the meeting.

He also was sharply critical of the appointment of senior civil servant Robert Watt who runs the Department of Public Expenditure to the board of the FAI.

Mr MacSharry, according to several sources, said the appointment did represent a conflict of interest and should not have happened.

He described the situation as scandalous, a source said.

Mr MacSharry received two rounds of applause for his critical comments of the partys leadership.

Micheal looked most uncertain and shaken by the end of the meeting. MacSharry let him have it and many backed him, said the source.

There was an extensive discussion on todays July Stimulus package but Minister Michael McGrath warned colleagues that many will be disappointed by what it is included in the plan.

There is not something for everyone, he told his colleagues.

New Education Minister Norma Foley was also pressed about the need for schools to re-open in September by several TDs and while she was present, sources said she did not respond.
Badger High School board members are offering students this fall a choice of in-class or at-home instruction, with one condition: Students must wear face masks if they show up at school.

The school board voted July 20 to draft a plan for reopening school that will allow students to choose whether to return to campus or to continue remote learning during the coronavirus pandemic.

Board members voted unanimously, however, that students must wear face masks in the hallways and whenever else they are unable to stay at least six feet apart from one another at school.

Its not about their rights being taken away, school board member Janet Giovannetti said. Its about their community being safer.

Public health officials have advocated wearing face masks to avoid spreading the coronavirus infection to others, especially in crowded indoor environments.

Lake Geneva school district officials presented the board with a plan that offers Badger students three back-to-school options  in-person, at-home or a combination of both.

Along with the face mask requirement, the Lake Geneva-Genoa City Union High School Board directed staff to move forward with the three-choice proposal for final board action later.

School administrators are separately considering back-to-school plans for Lake Geneva elementary and middle school students.

A former student and a parent both urged Badger school board members to require face masks for students returning to the school this fall.

Former student Braden Kundert told board members he has a sister who will be a Badger freshman this fall, and he is concerned about her safety during the pandemic.

Its important to myself, her and my family that Badger High School comes up with a good, safe re-opening plan, Kundert said.

Parent Michelle Peetz said she also wants mandatory student face masks.

We have to err on the side of caution with regards to our students health and to make sure we dont take this lightly, Peetz said.

School board members approved the face mask requirement and directed staff to include it in a final plan to be voted on later.

Some board members, however, said they hope there will be times at Badger when face masks are not necessary.

If the classroom is set for social distancing and students are away from each other, then I dont think they need to wear masks, school board president Patrick Sherman said. When they cant social distance while in the hallways, I think its very important.

Officials did not explain if plans were being made to rearrange classrooms at Badger so that student desks would be positioned six feet apart from one another.

School board member Jeff Buntrock said students should be required to wear face masks when they cannot maintain safe distances in the hallways. Buntrock said it is not feasible, though, to expect students to wear face masks all day.

Having to breathe through those things for eight hours a day, its not easy, he said.

School Superintendent Jim Gottinger said students may attend school in-person, attend classes virtually at home, or select a blended option.

He said some classes, such as automotive technology, would be difficult to conduct virtually.

Sherman said the plan is reasonable for students who elect not to return to in-person classroom settings during the public health crisis.

If they do not want to attend school, they still will be able to get their education, he said.

District officials have presented a similar back-to-school plan to Lake Geneva Joint No. 1 School District Board, covering students in elementary and middle school.

At a board meeting July 15, Gottinger said some parents have indicated that they want their elementary or middle school-aged children to return to the classrooms, while others prefer their children learning from home.

Many families, parents and kids want to be in school, and I think we should offer them that opportunity, he said. Many of them dont, and we should offer them that opportunity.

Gottinger said elementary school and middle school students will attend classes five days a week, regardless of which option they choose.

Janice Eckola, director of curriculum and instruction for the school district, said teachers who are teaching virtually will undergo training during the next several weeks.

District officials have not decided whether students will be required to wear face masks at the elementary school or middle school levels.

Gottinger said the plan may recommend students and staff wear masks, or require masks when social distancing cannot be maintained.

Thats not all worked out yet, Gottinger said.

District officials hope to implement final back-to-school plans for all schools by the end of July.

Gottinger said aspects of the plans may change throughout the school year as issues with the coronavirus change.

We dont know whats going to happen as we go forward, he said. So we have to be prepared to pivot and go in a different direction.

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Hyderabad, July 23 : Hinting at the possibility of community transmission of Covid-19 in Telangana, state health officials on Thursday called on all people to be cautious for next 4-5 weeks.

"We have noticed transmission of the virus in communities," Director of Public Health G. Srinivasa Rao said while addressing a news conference with Director of Medical Education Ramesh Reddy.

Stating that coming 4-5 weeks are crucial for the state, Rao hinted at presence of SARS-CoV-2 virus in the community.

The official voiced concern over the increasing number of cases in tier-II cities in the state and advised citizens to be very careful.

They urged people to take the treatment at initial stage, saying the basic treatment costs not more than Rs 150. The officials said such people can recover within 10 days and can thus avoid high-cost treatment.

"Don't rush to private hospitals in panic and spend lakhs of rupees," Reddy said.

In view of the spike in cases in towns and villages, the government is making arrangements for testing at primary health centres.

The officials pointed out that 6,500 Covid beds in government hospitals are still vacant. Stating that the treatment for Covid is being provided in all district headquarters, they advised people to come to Hyderabad only if it is unavoidable.

Reddy said the healthcare professionals were discharging their duties with dedication and commitment without getting scared by Covid. He pointed out that 1,000 healthcare workers and their family members had so far tested positive.

The officials claimed that the situation in Telangana was better than other states. The fatality rate in the state is just 0.88 per cent. Most of the deceased were aged and were suffering with other co-morbidities.

The officials said for every 10 lakh population, 8,320 tests are being conducted.

As of Wednesday, Telangana's tally of Covid cases stands at 49,259. The virus has claimed 429 lives.
Sadie Fleig eagerly anticipated her freshman year of college  moving away from home, embracing campus life, making new friends.

But this spring, as she witnessed the wild uncertainty of life in the age of coronavirus, she realized her vision might not match reality. Fleig, who graduated from Berkeley High School last month, decided to take a gap year rather than start at Colorado College in 2020.

I wanted to play the safest bet, she said. An in-person experience is incredibly crucial to my idea of college and what I want out of it. I thrive in communities and I want to kind of immerse myself in it, which is impossible online.

Thats why Fleig will spend the fall working on a campaign to lower the voting age to 16, joining a friend doing yard work in the East Bay and taking an online Spanish class. She hopes to travel to New Zealand early next year and begin college in the fall of 21.

Her plan illustrates an increasingly popular option for recent high school graduates amid the pandemic. Many students, wary of the virus forcing schools to pivot to distance learning, are choosing to delay the start of their college careers  even though the pandemic also has curtailed traditional gap-year adventures, such as international travel, and made jobs harder to land.

Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

Ethan Knight, executive director of the Portland-based Gap Year Association, estimated about 40,000 students in the U.S. typically take a gap year. Knight doesnt yet know how much that number will change in 2020, but his group has seen a striking jump in traffic on its website  421% more page views among users searching for gap-year programs in the past week, compared with the same period in 2019.

One of those programs, Pacific Discovery, also is fielding significantly more inquiries than usual. U.S. admissions director Austin Rogers finds herself perpetually on the phone, answering questions and interviewing prospective participants.

Rogers expects an increase of up to 50% for 2020-21, even if Pacific Discovery probably will cancel its international programs for the fall because of COVID-19 restrictions. The company also is likely to trim its presence in the Western U.S. from nine states to four or five  but will run multiple programs in those locations to accommodate heightened interest.

Now that universities are giving hard details, people are bailing, Rogers said. Theyre jumping ship.  Nobody wants to have the spring repeated, going home mid-semester.

That scenario weighed heavily on the minds of Bay Area students who chose to take a gap year. Abby Hasselbrink of Danville was considering it anyway  and then the pandemic upended education in mid-March, abruptly pushing it online.

Hasselbrink finished her senior year at Holy Names-Oakland with remote instruction and feared an encore for her freshman year at Denison University in Ohio.

Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

When I heard my school was doing pre-orientation online, that put me over the edge, she said. I really wanted to have everything in person.  I just thought taking a year to try something new and break away from school would be beneficial.

Hasselbrink, much like Fleig, is dividing her gap year into two distinct segments. She will continue her part-time job at Baskin Robbins in San Ramon through the end of the year, along with doing volunteer work for the Democratic Party of Contra Costa County. (Most schools hold spots for admitted students who choose to take a gap year.)

Then, if the pandemic eases in the next six-plus months  by no means a certainty, as Hasselbrink acknowledged  she will leave Feb. 1 on a 10-week trip to Central America, one of Pacific Discoverys programs.

Kaycee McKenzie, a 2020 graduate of Cardinal Newman-Santa Rosa, will stay closer to home during her gap year. She endured a tumultuous run at Cardinal Newman  the Tubbs Fire destroyed half the campus during her sophomore year, forcing students to take classes in various parishes, and the pandemic derailed her final semester.

McKenzie originally planned to attend nearby Sonoma State, despite not getting into the schools nursing program. She improvised by enrolling in a training program for medical assistants this summer in Rohnert Park  before the University of Portland admitted her off its waiting list, into the nursing program.

Even so, McKenzie and her parents didnt want to spend the money on tuition, room and board  about $30,000 per year at Portland, she said  and potentially end up taking online classes at home in Santa Rosa. She ultimately deferred her acceptance to Portland and will complete the training program and try to land an internship and job during her gap year.

COVID Resources Coronavirus Map Tracking COVID-19 cases across the Bay Area and California.

Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

I cant see paying that much money and not being sure if you can stay or youre going to have to come home, McKenzie said.

One factor driving Bay Area students is their unsatisfying experience with remote instruction this past spring. McKenzie, who developed painful headaches while staring at the computer screen, struggled with motivation and came to realize shes a hands-on learner.

Hasselbrink missed the structure of Holy Names and seeing her teachers in person, not on a computer screen. Oliver Backer, who went to Head-Royce School in Oakland and will take a gap year before enrolling at Colgate, also was influenced by his unappetizing taste of distance learning.

My high school experience definitely made me want to turn off my camera and mute myself rather than do the work, Backer said.

Or, as Fleig described her final few months at Berkeley High: It was incredibly frustrating and disappointing. Youve worked 13 years on your education and you end up graduating on YouTube.

This helped shape how Fleig and these other students made their gap-year decision. She feels fortunate, in a way, because this is a natural time for an academic break, between the end of high school and the start of college.

Fleig made the call before Colorado College, where tuition is about $60,000 annually, announced its fall plan. The school, for now, plans to stagger attendance in blocks of 3-4 weeks (starting with freshmen)  but she also knows many schools are quickly abandoning plans to reopen campus, given the recent surge of coronavirus cases.

So Fleig will happily stick with her gap-year plan, in an attempt to patiently outlast a global pandemic. McKenzie, the Cardinal Newman graduate, is taking the same approach.

I was definitely looking forward to the social scene in college, she said. Thats why Im willing to wait.

Ron Kroichick is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rkroichick@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ronkroichick
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to lying to Congress, campaign-finance violations, and other financial crimes, is being released from prison today on orders from a federal judge, who said Cohen's reinstallment to prison was a retaliatory move by the Trump administration to prevent Cohen from releasing a tell-all book.

From CNBC:

Judge Alvin Hellerstein at a hearing in Manhattan federal court found that Cohen was sent back to prison on July 10 in retaliation for failing to agree a day earlier to not to publish a book about Trump as one of multiple conditions for serving the remainder of his three-year prison term on home confinement.

Cohen, who has been in quarantine in the prison in Otisville, N.Y., since his arrival there, will be released by 2 p.m. after being tested for the coronavirus, and will be driven back to his home on Manhattan's Upper East Side by his son, Hellerstein said.

Cohen had been furloughed from prison in late May due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.
How do naxals procure sophisticated weapons: It was the LTTE which aided them

Abducted CoBRA jawan Rakeshwar Singh Manhas released by Naxals after six days of captivity

AK-47s stolen from COD Jabalpur supplied to naxals, criminals says NIA in chargesheet

Naxals from Telangana were in the process of making grenade launchers, IEDs: NIA

Naxals kill naxals in Chhattisgarh

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, July 31: Two naxals were allegedly killed by their colleagues after they refused to carry out an order to destroy a road built in their village in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Dantewada district, police said on Thursday.

Three villagers were also injured in the incident after they were thrashed by ultras for trying to save the two cadres, an official said.

The incident took place at Potali village under Aranpur police station limits late on Wednesday night, Dantewada superintendent of police Abhishek Pallava told PTI.

NIA arrests two naxals in case relating to killing of Chhattisgarh MLA

"The deceased have been identified as Bajrang Vetti and Tido Mandavi, who were militia commander and militia member of Maoists respectively," he said.

Naxals are angry about the construction of a road from Aranpur to Potali, considered as a Maoist stronghold, he said.

As per preliminary information, two naxal commanders called a meeting of villagers in Potali and questioned why they had not destroyed the road despite being instructed to do so in the past, he said.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

"Subsequently, they asked Vetti and Mandavi, who were natives of Potali, to destroy the road, to which the duo refused citing that the road had helped villagers get access to several facilities such as ambulances," he said.

Angry about their refusal to carry out the order, the ultras thrashed the duo and slit their throats, Pallava said, adding that some villagers were also beaten up when they tried to intervene.

Security forces have sent the bodies for post-mortem, while three villagers have been hospitalised, he said.

Security forces have launched a search in the area to trace the ultras, the official added.

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Story first published: Thursday, July 23, 2020, 17:36 [IST]
Interactions between black bears and people are continuing a year-to-year increase, resulting in unprecedented numbers of complaints and requests for assistance, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) announced recently in a statement.

Some of these interactions have been serious, including bears entering homes and gravely injuring both leashed and unleashed dogs. Already in 2020, through July 8, the DEEP said it has received more reports of bears entering homes than in any previous year, totaling 25.

We are on track to triple the average number of home entries of 2018 and 2019, officials said in a statement. The number of home entries reported this year in June alone (17) equaled those reported during all of 2019.

DEEP is reminding residents of several best practices they can follow, to help reduce the likelihood of an encounter with a bear. These practices, along with additional information, are available on DEEPs Living with Black Bears website: https://portal.ct.gov/DEEP/Wildlife/Nuisance-Wildlife/Living-with-Black-Bears

Black bears that access and consume birdseed, trash and pet food on a regular basis become comfortable around people, or habituated, and food-conditioned, meaning the associate humans with food, according to the DEEP.

As the bear population continues to grow and expand its range, and bears become increasingly food conditioned, conflicts with humans will continue to increase, and food-conditioned bears pose a greater risk to public safety and often cause more property damage to houses, cars, pets, and livestock, officials said.

Black bears should never be fed - either intentionally or unintentionally, said Jenny Dickson, DEEP Wildlife Division Director. Bears that are attracted to homes by easily-accessible foods lose their fear of humans. Such bears spend more time in neighborhoods and near people, increasing risks to public safety, the likelihood of property damage, and the possibility that the bears may be hit and killed by vehicles.

Best practices: Those who encounter a bear while in the yard or hiking should make their presence known by yelling or making other loud noises.

Never attempt to get closer to a bear. If a bear does not retreat, slowly leave the area. If there is a bear in your yard, go into your house, garage or other structure. If the bear persistently approaches, go on the offensive, shout, wave your arms, and throw sticks or rocks.

If your dog is hiking with you, it is imperative that you keep the dog on a short leash and do not let it roam free - this is for the safety of your dog, yourself, and the bear.

Everyone can be a good neighbor and take steps to reduce encounters and potential conflicts with bears, officials said. The most important step is to remove food attractants, such as bird seed and unsecured garbage:

* Never feed bears.

* Do not feed birds in the spring, starting in late March, summer, and early fall. Clean up spilled seed from the ground.

* Store garbage in secure, airtight containers inside a garage or storage area. Adding ammonia to cans and bags will reduce odors that attract bears. Periodically clean garbage cans with ammonia to reduce residual odor. Garbage for pickup should be put outside the morning of collection and not the night before.

* Do not store leftover bird seed or recyclables in a porch or screened sunroom as bears can smell these items and will rip screens to get at them.

* Supervise dogs at all times when outside. Keep dogs on a short leash when walking and hiking. A roaming dog might be perceived as a threat to a bear or its cubs. (Dogs are required to be on a leash when visiting State Parks, State Forests, and Wildlife Management Areas. Check dog and leash regulations for town properties, land trusts, and other public properties before heading to those areas.)

* Do not leave pet food outdoors or feed pets outside.

* Use electric fencing to protect beehives, agricultural crops, berry bushes, chickens, and other livestock.

* Keep barbecue grills clean. Store grills inside a garage or shed.

* Avoid placing meat scraps or sweet foods, such as fruit and fruit peels, in compost piles.

In the rare instance when a bear appears to be aggressive toward people, residents should immediately contact DEEPs 24-hour dispatch line at 860-424-3333.

Officials said bear sightings reported by the public provide valuable information to assist the DEEP in monitoring changes in the black bear population. Anyone who observes a black bear in Connecticut is encouraged to report the sighting on DEEPs website at https://rb.gy/kv64pc, or call the Wildlife Division at 860-424-3011. Information on the presence or absence of ear tags, including tag color and numbers, is particularly valuable.

A common misconception is that a tagged bear is a problem bear, and a bear with two ear tags was caught on two different occasions because it was causing problems. Actually, every bear receives two ear tags (one in each ear) the first time it is handled by DEEP. Most tagged bears have not been caught as problem bears, but rather as part of a project researching the states population.

Another tool available to municipalities to help avoid conflicts between humans and bears is to adopt ordinances prohibiting the feeding of black bears. The towns of Hartland, Colebrook, and Barkhamsted have already adopted such ordinances. DEEP supports adoption of such ordinances and plans to initiate outreach to municipal leaders to share information about the development, execution, and effects of these ordinances.

A DEEP graph provides a comparison of this years home entry by bears compared to last for the same period. Also, a localized and filterable mapping tool of reported bear sightings is available through DEEPs website at https://rb.gy/uhc1wi
A valuable Troubles archive has been rescued at the eleventh hour after the Irish government announced funding for a new project.

Earlier this year Ulster University had decided that the Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN) website would be frozen.

The Irish government has now provided 66,561 through its Reconciliation Fund.

But additional resources must still be found to secure its long-term future.

CAIN is viewed as one of the most important sources of information about the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

It is based in Derry and has been being expertly curated by a team of two full-time researchers and an ICT Officer since March 1997.

The website contains a large archive of materials and information related to the conflict and politics in Northern Ireland, with new materials added on a regular basis.

It is seen as a unique academic and civic resource.

Last year, following a consultation the site had been granted a 12-month reprieve.

However, Ulster University carried out a final review of the funding situation facing CAIN in May 2020.

The university decided that the CAIN archive would move into a transition phase from May 1 to October 30 during which time the archive and website would become an unstaffed, static resource.

The three staff members would be made redundant.

Online access would be ensured by making CAIN a special digital collection within the University's Library.

However, in the absence of dedicated staff, no new material would be added, no updates carried out, and no queries or permission requests would be dealt with.

CAIN, and the wider ARK team, actively pursued additional funding.

The Reconciliation Fund of the Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in Dublin had a call for funding applications with a deadline in March 2020.

CAIN applied for funding to undertake a specific project of work and were recently informed that their application had been successful.

Commenting on the news, an spokesperson for Ulster University said: We are delighted to have received funding from the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to complete the final phase of the Chronology of the Troubles project.

We continue to seek funding for this important work and are committed to completing all funded initiatives as we work to secure the valuable assets in the CAIN archive for future generations of researchers.

CAIN Director Martin Melaugh added: This confirms support for the work that CAIN undertakes.

Both Ulster University and CAIN are committed to fully delivering all funded CAIN activity, so the planned work on this project will be carried out.

This project will begin on 1st August 2020. CAIN is still seeking further financial support and project funding."
He said the Federal Emergency Management Agency was sending protective gear to more than 15,000 Medicaid- and Medicare-certified nursing homes throughout the U.S. "I want to send the message of support and hope to every senior citizen who has been dealing with the struggle of isolation in what should be the golden years of your life," he said.

During Wednesday's daily coronavirus briefing, Trump said the coronavirus poses "the greatest threat to our senior citizens," and that "nearly half of the deaths have occurred among those living in nursing homes or long-term care facilities."

The deal was announced one day after more than 1,000 people in the U.S. died of COVID-19, the first time since early June the U.S. reached the grim single-day milestone, and Trump acknowledged the coronavirus crisis in the country "will... get worse before it gets better."

The deal announced Wednesday is part of President Donald Trump's Operation Warp Speed initiative, which hopes to deliver 300 million doses of an approved vaccine by January 2021. Pfizer and BioNTech said they hope to be ready to pursue some form of regulatory approval as early as October if ongoing studies of the vaccine are successful and that it currently expects to deliver up to 100 million doses by the end of the year.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar told Fox News on Wednesday the U.S. could buy 500 million additional doses of the vaccine provided they are "safe and effective."

The companies said Wednesday they finalized a deal with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Defense Department to supply the agencies with a vaccine they are developing jointly, the latest in a number of comparable agreements with other vaccine companies.

The U.S. government will pay $1.95 billion to American drug maker Pfizer and German biotech company BioNTech SE for 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, if it proves to be safe and effective.

Trump, who only recently wore a mask in public for the first time and touted on Tuesday the impact face coverings have in reducing the spread of the coronavirus, again stressed their use Wednesday, as well as that of washing hands. "I am finding more and more people are saying wash your hands. So, wash your hands," he said.

Trump held the briefing solo Tuesday, without medical experts or members of the White House coronavirus task force. When asked Wednesday why no medical experts were at the briefing, Trump responded, "Because they're briefing me. I just spoke to (Dr. Anthony) Fauci and Dr. (Deborah) Birx is just right outside... it's a concise way of doing it."

The U.S. continues to lead the world in COVID-19 fatalities with more than 142,300, far greater than the 81,487 deaths in second-ranked Brazil, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics. The U.S. also remains the world leader in infections, with 3.5 million of the world's 15 million coronavirus cases.

Data released Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say, however, the actual number of coronavirus infections in some parts of the U.S. is anywhere between two to 13 times higher than what has been officially reported.

The CDC based its conclusions on blood samples collected from people who were given routine clinical tests across 10 geographic regions, including New York City, south Florida, Missouri and the western states of Utah and Washington. In Missouri, for example, the estimated number of actual infections was 13 times higher than the number of confirmed cases, while in Utah, the actual number was at least twice as high.

The authors of the study, which was also published on the website of JAMA Internal Medicine, said many infected people did not seek medical care or get tested because they likely had mild symptoms or none at all, and likely spread the virus among the population. At least 40 percent of people who are infected do not develop symptoms.

The CDC researchers also found that only a small number of people in many parts of the United States were carrying the coronavirus antibodies as of late May, indicating that most of the population remains highly at risk of infection.

 Across the Globe

Meanwhile, South Africa is now a global COVID-19 hotspot with more than half of the confirmed cases on the African continent. South Africa's health ministry said there were nearly 382,000 cases and nearly 5,400 deaths in the country.

Nepal's government announced an end to lockdown measures 120 days after they were first imposed in March. The information ministry said despite the decline in the number of infections in Nepal, schools and colleges would remain closed until further notice.

The Brazilian government said Wednesday that President Jair Bolsonaro tested positive for the coronavirus for the third time. The government said he tested positive again Tuesday after a follow-up test on July 15 and after announcing he first had COVID-19 on July 7. Bolsonaro has repeatedly downplayed the coronavirus as a "little flu" and frequently mingled in crowds, sometimes without wearing a mask.

The World Health Organization said the median period from the beginning to recovery for mild cases is about two weeks.
When most of us think about Churchill, polar bears, whale watching and maybe bird watching, come to mind.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When most of us think about Churchill, polar bears, whale watching and maybe bird watching, come to mind.

We dont think of it as being the headquarters of a Dutch crypto-currency trading operation at the end of Canadas most northerly rail line.

The red flags were waving all over the place when Manitoba securities regulators saw a website for a company called cryptrade24.com that offered a guarantee of a 200 per cent return in 20 days.

That the operation that made that offer was headquartered on a residential address on Button Street in Churchill was a sure giveaway.

The Manitoba Securities Commission has flagged it as an off-shore investment scam. It warned Manitobans to stay clear no matter how much they would like to support the Churchill economy, which has suffered many blows over the last couple of years.

The firms website boasts it has "collected the best from the business of investment under a single virtual roof."

But Jason Roy, senior investigator with the securities commission, quickly discovered the firm  which purports to be licensed in the Netherlands and in Manitoba  is not registered in either jurisdiction.

Not only that, the "virtual roof" is a two-bedroom bungalow in Churchill. The property is owned by Manitoba Housing and is used as a residence for government staff who travel to Churchill for work.

Although the website is attractive and professional-looking, Roy said thats a relatively easy thing to create and is not uncommon for the thousands of fraudsters around the world who are currently operating.

"For whatever reason, they picked this Churchill address," Roy said. "Ive not quite figured out why they came up with that, but it definitely caught our attention."

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Roy said he once investigated a scam linked to an address that was a surface parking lot in downtown Winnipeg.

While the commission does not have any indication of victims at this point, Roy said it is keen to get out in front of the fraud.

"We are asking Manitobans if they have been contacted about this or any other type of investment fraud to contact our office," he said.

Roy said these kinds of scams typically feature attractive, savvy websites and if anyone reaches out they will be contacted by persuasive rip-off artists. He said he has had countless conversations with investors who are angry at themselves for getting suckered by sweet-talking scammers. He said they are trained in effective tactics and are amazingly successful in getting people to part with their money.

Roy said they encourage consumers to make sure dealers or brokers are registered to do business in Manitoba. The information is available at www.aretheyregistered.ca.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca
Coon cheese could be renamed in a matter of weeks as its Canadian owner considers bowing to pressure from people who claim it is offensive to Aboriginal people.

Saputo Dairy has faced complaints that the name of its cheese is racist, despite it being named after Edward William Coon, who patented a 'ripening process' that was used to manufacture the original product in the 1920s.

Activists recently renewed calls to change the cheese's name as the Black Lives Matter movement gathered momentum in the wake of the death of George Floyd.

Coon cheese could be the next casualty in the war to tear down historical icons with racial overtones

Leading the call for an overhaul of the brand name is Aboriginal activist Stephen Hagan.

The businessman contacted Canadian CEO Lindo Saputo Junior by email last month to try and have Coon cheese pulled from the shelves after years of lobbying, The Australian reported.

It's not his first attempt to have the dairy product banned, after lodging a complaint with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission back in 1999 for the same purpose.

Leading the call for an overhaul of the brand name is Aboriginal activist Stephen Hagan (pictured)

Saputo Dairy is considering bowing to public pressure to rename the Australian brand Coo Cheese (pictured) after ongoing complaints the name is racist towards Aboriginal people

In his email correspondence, Dr Hagan said the brand name should be 'consigned to the past of outdated racist brands'.

Dr Hagan said the word 'coon' is demeaning to people of colour, particularly First Nations people in Australia because it was used by oppressors to belittle them as a race.

He also asked the company to investigate the origins of the company's name, amid doubts over the existence of Edward Coon.

Saputo thanked Dr Hagan for raising the issue and promised to outline any proposed changes to the name in the coming weeks.

An image circulating online shows Donald Glover holding up Coon branded cheese in an Australian supermarket

'One of our basic principles as an organisation is to respect individuals and groups of all backgrounds and to not condone discrimination in any shape or form,' the email said.

'This guiding belief applies to our brand names as well. We would never tolerate any behaviour, activity or branding that goes against these values.'

Australian comedian Josh Thomas has also called for the name of the cheese to be changed.

The Please Like Me star shared a photo of the cheese product last month alongside the caption: 'Are we still chill with this?'

Another proponent to change the name is Australian comedian Josh Thomas who shared a photo of Coon cheese - found in supermarkets across Australia - alongside the caption: 'Are we still chill with this?'

Thomas argued it was out of touch to still honour the cheese's creator Edward William Coon

Production of the brand in Australia started in 1935 and continued through to 1942 before the war disrupted production, the company's website says.

Manufacturing restarted in 1948 at Allansford in western Victoria and was made at the time in a red waxed cloth known as 'Red Coon'.

The potential fall comes a month after Nestle admitted to being 'out of step' over Allens Lollies brand confectionery Chicos and Red Skins.

The company will be renaming the popular lollies after complaints the names were racially offensive to Mexicans and Native Americans respectively.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Saputo Dairy for comment.
We are pleased to recognize Dr. Gerald Yoon as a UroLift Center of Excellence for his commitment to providing consistent care to BPH patients using the UroLift System treatment, said Dave Amerson

NeoTract, a wholly owned subsidiary of Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE:TFX) focused on addressing unmet needs in the field of urology, today announced that Gerald Yoon, M.D., of PIH Urology, in Whittier, CA, has been designated as a UroLift Center of Excellence. The designation recognizes that Dr. Yoon has achieved a high level of training and experience with the UroLift System and demonstrated a commitment to exemplary care for men suffering from symptoms associated with Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH), also known as enlarged prostate.

Recommended for the treatment of BPH in both the American Urological Association and European Association of Urology clinical guidelines, the FDA-cleared Prostatic Urethral Lift procedure using the UroLift System is a proven, minimally invasive technology for treating lower urinary tract symptoms due to BPH. The UroLift permanent implants, delivered during a transurethral outpatient procedure, relieve prostate obstruction and open the urethra directly without cutting, heating, or removing prostate tissue.

The UroLift Center of Excellence program is designed to highlight urologists who are committed to educating their patients on BPH and the UroLift System as a treatment option and consistently seek to deliver excellent patient outcomes and experiences.

We are pleased to recognize Dr. Gerald Yoon as a UroLift Center of Excellence for his commitment to providing consistent care to BPH patients using the UroLift System treatment, said Dave Amerson, president of the Teleflex Interventional Urology business unit. This achievement has helped many patients experience durable, long- term relief from the burdensome symptoms of BPH while preserving sexual function*1,2.

Over 40 million men in the United States are affected by BPH, a condition that occurs when the prostate gland that surrounds the male urethra becomes enlarged with advancing age and begins to obstruct the urinary system. Symptoms of BPH often include interrupted sleep and urinary problems and can cause loss of productivity, depression and decreased quality of life.

Medication is often the first-line therapy for enlarged prostate, but relief can be inadequate and temporary. Side effects of medication treatment can include sexual dysfunction, dizziness and headaches, prompting many patients to quit using the drugs. For these patients, the classic alternative is surgery that cuts, heats or removes prostate tissue to open the blocked urethra. While current surgical options can be very effective in relieving symptoms, they can also leave patients with permanent side effects such as urinary incontinence, erectile dysfunction, and retrograde ejaculation.

About the UroLift System

The FDA-cleared UroLift System is a proven, minimally invasive technology for treating lower urinary tract symptoms due to benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). The UroLift permanent implants, delivered during a minimally invasive transurethral outpatient procedure, relieve prostate obstruction and open the urethra directly without cutting, heating, or removing prostate tissue. Clinical data from a pivotal 206-patient randomized controlled study showed that patients with enlarged prostate receiving UroLift implants reported rapid and durable symptomatic and urinary flow rate improvement without compromising sexual function*1,2. Patients also experienced a significant improvement in quality of life. Over 100,000 men have been treated with the UroLift System in the U.S. Most common adverse events reported include hematuria, dysuria, micturition urgency, pelvic pain, and urge incontinence. Most symptoms were mild to moderate in severity and resolved within two to four weeks after the procedure. The Prostatic Urethral Lift procedure using the UroLift System is recommended for the treatment of BPH in both the American Urological Association and European Association of Urology clinical guidelines. The UroLift System is available in the U.S., Europe, Australia, Canada, Mexico and South Korea. Learn more at http://www.UroLift.com.

About NeoTract | Teleflex Interventional Urology

A wholly owned subsidiary of Teleflex Incorporated, the Interventional Urology Business Unit is dedicated to developing innovative, minimally invasive and clinically effective devices that address unmet needs in the field of urology. Our initial focus is on improving the standard of care for patients with BPH using the UroLift System, a minimally invasive permanent implant system that treats symptoms while preserving normal sexual function*1,2. Learn more at http://www.NeoTract.com.

About Teleflex Incorporated

Teleflex is a global provider of medical technologies designed to improve the health and quality of peoples lives. We apply purpose driven innovation  a relentless pursuit of identifying unmet clinical needs  to benefit patients and healthcare providers. Our portfolio is diverse, with solutions in the fields of vascular and interventional access, surgical, anesthesia, cardiac care, urology, emergency medicine and respiratory care. Teleflex employees worldwide are united in the understanding that what we do every day makes a difference. For more information, please visit http://www.teleflex.com.

Teleflex is the home of Arrow, Deknatel, Hudson RCI, LMA, Pilling, Rusch, UroLift and Weck  trusted brands united by a common sense of purpose.

For Teleflex Incorporated: Jake Elguicze, 610.948.2836

Treasurer and Vice President, Investor Relations

Media:

Nicole Osmer, 650.454.0504

nicole@healthandcommerce.com

*No instances of new, sustained erectile or ejaculatory dysfunction

1. Roehrborn, J Urology 2013 LIFT Study

2. McVary, J Sex Med 2016

MAC00968-01 Rev A
Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan on Thursday dismissed reports of him being tested negative for coronavirus. Bachchan said that these reports are completely fake. Bachchan tweeted, "this news is incorrect, irresponsible, fake and an incorrigible LIE!!". There were also reports saying that the actor has recovered fully from COVID-19.

.. this news is incorrect , irresponsible , fake and an incorrigible LIE !! https://t.co/uI2xIjMsUU - Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) July 23, 2020

Amitabh Bachchan and his son Abhishek Bachchan had both tested positive for the coronavirus on July 12. He was admitted to Mumbai's Nanavati Hospital soon after. Bachchan had himself announced the news on Twitter. "I have tested CoviD positive .. shifted to Hospital, hospital informing authorities .. family and staff undergone tests , results awaited .. All that have been in close proximity to me in the last 10 days are requested to please get themselves tested !," he had tweeted. Bachchan has remained admitted at the hospital ever since.

A few days later, his daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and granddaughter Aaradhya Bachchan both tested positive for the coronavirus. They were also later admitted to the hospital.

Ever since he was diagnosed with COVID-19, fans across the world have been praying for his speedy recovery. He has been regularly updating his admirers about his health on social media.

Also Read: Former Fortis promoter Shivinder Singh gets bail in money laundering case

Also Read: Urban employment rate rises to 35.1% despite lockdowns in major cities: CMIE
Former Chief Minister and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) chief on Thursday claimed to have received an assurance from that his concerns about need for better "coordination" in the Grand Alliance will be squarely addressed.

The veteran leader also said that Gandhi's assurance was the reason why he has not jumped the ship despite repeated rebuffs from the RJD, which helms the five-party coalition.

Manjhi, the founding president of the HAM, has been demanding establishment of a "coordination committee" of representatives of all coalition partners, drawing ridicule from the RJD which said that the former CM was venting his frustration over Tejashwi Yadav, four decades his junior, occupying the centre stage.

"I am aware that many people must be wondering what kind of a man is that he keeps setting deadlines for the formation of a coordination committee, despite nobody taking note of his ultimatums.

"I strongly believe that if we put up a strong fight in against the NDA, it will be in the interests of the state. The RJD's stance is that of 'duragraha' (obstinacy). Still, I would not regret if good sense prevails on them in time," the HAM president told reporters here.

Manjhi, however, made it clear that he has had no discussions in the matter with the RJD, the party founded and headed by Lalu Prasad, at whose beckoning he had quit the NDA and joined the Grand Alliance and who had also played an instrumental role in getting the HAM president's son a berth in the legislative council, despite the fledgling party having a negligible presence in the Assembly.

"I have been in touch with the Congress. I have spoken to and he has asked me to wait for some time. I understand the AICC in-charge for Shaktisinh Gohil has been entrusted with setting things right in the state," said the HAM chief.

Speculations have been rife that he was in touch with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who heads the JD(U), seeking a return to the NDA.

Manjhi also said that his demand for a coordination committee was being misconstrued as a tactic for ensuring a greater share of seats for the HAM and remarked "we are in a very good position and poised to perform well in the polls. But right now we are not thinking in terms of whether we are going to contest 50 seats or just five".

In 2015, when Manjhi floated his party just ahead of the state polls and fought as an NDA ally, the HAM performed dismally with only its founder managing to win one seat, having contested two out of 243 Assembly seats.

Manjhi, who had recently said that the HAM, too, was in favour of timely assembly polls -- due in a few months -- appeared to have changed the tack when he expressed apprehensions that COVID-19 cases may spike further by November.

He was also in agreement with the Congress-RJD combine which has demanded that if polls were held on time, "conventional" modes of campaign -- rallies and door-to-door meetings -- must be allowed since digital electioneering robbed parties with less resources of a level playing field.

"The WHO has said that by February-March next year, India may start witnessing lakhs of fresh cases every day, up from more than 40,000 per day at present. So, despite measures like the current lockdown in Bihar, we may be heading for worse times. To hold polls in such times is a very tough task. It is to be seen whether the EC bites the bullet," Manjhi 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.)
Imphal, July 23 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said that peace has been established in the northeastern region, asserting that the region has the potential to become India's growth engine.

"Road blockades have become a history in Manipur, the decades old violence in Assam has ended. In Mizoram and Tripura, youths also have deserted the path of violence and the Bru-Reang refugees (belonging to Mizoram) are now heading for a better life," the Prime Minister said after laying the foundation stone of the Manipur water supply project via video link from Delhi.

He said that the government has been making constant efforts to further develop the region and connectivity and other infrastructure, including highways, railways and airports. "The laying of the foundation stone for the vital water supply project is an example of the fact that despite the abnormal situation triggered by the novel coronavirus, the government has not stopped working for the development and growth," Modi said.

An externally-funded Manipur Water Supply Project is designed to provide Freshwater Household Tap Connections (FHTCs) to remaining households in Greater Imphal planning area, 25 towns and to 1,731 rural habitations, covering 2,80,756 households in 16 districts.

The Prime Minister said: "Until a vaccine is developed to cure the COVID-19, we have to robustly fight against the infectious virus and the developmental works also to be carried forward vigorously." Funded by the New Development Bank, the Rs 3054.58 crore Water Supply Project is part of the Centre's Jal Jeevan Mission to provide safe drinking water to every rural household by 2024. The Central Government has provided funds under "Jal Jeevan Mission" to Manipur for FHTCs to cover 1,185 habitations with 1,42,749 households. The Manipur government has planned to cover the remaining households through additional sources of funding, including funds from the Department for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER).

"The Manipur Water Supply Project is an important component of the state government's efforts to achieve the goal of 'Har Ghar Jal' by 2024. The project outlay is about Rs 3,054.58 crore with a loan component funded by New Development Bank," said a government statement.

The "Jal Jeevan Mission" looks to create a 'Jan Andolan' for water, thereby making it everyone's priority. The official statement said that there are about 19 crore households in India out of which only 24 per cent have FHTCs. The Mission aims to provide 14,33,21,049 households with FHTC through partnership of all stakeholders including the state governments, Panchayati Raj institutions and local communities.

Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla, Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, and his cabinet colleagues, MPs, and MLAs joined the programme from the state capital Imphal.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
When Massachusetts students return to the classroom for in-person learning this fall, schools will likely look significantly different than in previous years.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released guidance Wednesday regarding facility and operations reopening. The 34-page document outlines recommended changes to accommodate social distancing and curb the spread of coronavirus when students or staff test positive this fall.

Major facility changes will occur in most schools, including but not limited to: reconfiguration of desks in classrooms to allow for social distancing; installation of plexiglass barriers; and installation of additional hand-washing hand sanitizing stations.

In the weeks before reopening in September, schools are asked to create an inventory of all their available spaces, including classrooms, auditoriums and libraries and consider such spaces for additional classrooms to allow for smaller class sizes.

Outdoor spaces should also be considered, weather allowing. As feasible, consider the use of outdoor spaces for classes, breaks, meals, and other activities. Some jurisdictions have considered tents, platforms, and other not-permanent structures in spaces adjacent to buildings, such as courtyards, play areas and parking lots.

The guidance calls for students to spend as much time as possible with a single group of students, rather than shifting from room-to-room and mixing with other groups of students.

Classrooms will feature student desks facing forward with at least 3 feet from seat edge to seat edge, the reopening guidance states, though 6 feet is encouraged when possible. All students will have assigned seating in their classrooms.

For younger elementary school and pre-kindergarten classrooms, all soft and cloth-based materials - such as rugs, pillows, stuffed animals and dress-up clothing - must be removed. Children can bring their own stuffed animal, but it cannot be shared, the guidance states.

Recognizing the difficulty of getting the youngest children in Massachusetts public schools to sit at a desk all day, schools may consider making laminated mats with childrens pictures. Washable mats, plastic trays, and other items which can be easily cleaned can be used to define space for each student.

There is no maximum classroom size number in the state guidelines though larger cohorts of students will need to utilize larger classrooms or alternative spaces, such as auditoriums and libraries. For larger spaces, districts are recommended to break up such rooms with temporary walls or dividers into smaller classrooms.

Some jurisdictions are considering installing temporary floor-to-ceiling walls to maximize cohorts in larger spaces, according to the state guidance. Be mindful that temporary barriers may not block sound as well as permanent walls.

While some states are utilizing plexiglass barriers to help with physical distancing between desks, Massachusetts education officials have recommended against this in classrooms.

There are pros and cons to the use of plexiglass barriers. In general, we do not recommend setting up plexiglass barriers in regular classrooms, since they represent an additional high-risk surface to clean and disinfect, the guidance states. However, barrier use is permitted if classroom furniture cannot be replaced and if required physical distancing cannot be achieved without the use of barriers, such as in shared table or laboratory settings where there is limited capacity and desks are often heavy or immovable.

Schools are recommended to consider plexiglass shielding for high-traffic areas or areas where physical distancing between staff cannot be achieved.

Schools will set up plans for hallway usage to minimize the number of students traveling at one time. Education officials are urged to make hallways and stairs one-directional to prevent students from directly passing each other - especially for small or narrow hallways and stairwells.

The state has recommended education officials suspend the use of lockers to further limit the amount of time students and staff are in the hallway.

COVID-19 is mostly spread by respiratory droplets released when people cough, sneeze or talk. Research suggests the droplets only travel up to three feet, Sandra Nelson, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, told state education officials last month.

This distance, in combination with students and school staff wearing masks, will allow for lowered transmission rates, Nelson said. We feel comfortable, the medical community feels comfortable with that plan, she said Tuesday.

While the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has recommended maintaining a physical distance of at least 6 feet, the World Health Organizations guidance calls for people to keep a 3-foot distance.

Mask breaks:

All staff and students in second grade and older will be required to wear masks. Students in kindergarten and first grade will be encouraged, but not required to wear masks.

Face shields may be an option for those students with medical, behavioral, or other challenges who are unable to wear masks/face coverings, the guidance states. Transparent masks may be the best option for both teachers and students in classes for deaf and hard of hearing students.

Parents or guardians should supply their children with reusable masks which should be washed daily. Schools will have extra disposable face masks available if needed.

Students are recommended to have at least two mask breaks per day for recess and meal time. During these times, students must be at least 6 feet apart.

Consider using tape or other markers to identify where students should be to maintain 6 feet of separation, the guidance states. Hand washing facilities or hand sanitizer must be available upon entering and leaving this space. Provide napkins or paper towels for masks to be set on (inside face up) when removed. Consider adding signage in mask break areas on how to properly put on and take off masks. As mask wearing is recommended for children younger than second grade, it is important to note that these students may need additional mask breaks during the day.

Playgrounds can be used during recess - with limitations. Staff must monitor students, who will be required to wear masks and physically distance on playground equipment.

Meals:

Schools are encouraged to have students eat in the classroom.

Based on CDC recommendations, it is preferable for students to eat in classroom spaces, the guidance states. Meals can be delivered to classrooms, or students can bring food back from the cafeteria to eat. Schools may consider having half of the class take an outdoor mask break or recess time while the other half eats and then switching these groups to enable 6 feet of distancing.

An alternative option proposed is eating lunch outdoors - when weather allows.

For students learning from home, schools will continue to offer meals to eligible students. This includes students learning from home full-time as well as students participating in a hybrid in-school, remote model.

Begin planning for drive-through, delivery, curb-side pick-up, or end of school day take-home meals (as appropriate) for students who are not attending in-person school five days a week, the guidance states. Meal distribution methods utilized this past spring, including parent pick-up, can be continued, including providing meals to cover multiple days.

Entering and exiting school:

No outside visitors are recommended inside schools to help limit potential spread of coronavirus.

Members of the school community who must come into the school will be screened for potential COVID-19 symptoms, must wear a mask covering their mouth and nose at all times and be added to the school log. The school will maintain a log of visitors to be kept for 30 days, including the date of visit, phone number, arrival/departure times and areas visited within the building.

COVID-19 symptoms reported at school:

If a student or staff member reports coronavirus-like symptoms during the school day, they will be evaluated by the school nurse for symptoms. If a student exhibits symptoms, they will be placed in the designated medical waiting room to be picked up by their parent or guardian. If a staffer presents COVID-19 symptoms, they must head home then follow testing protocols.

The symptoms include:

Fever (100.4 Fahrenheit or higher), chills, or shaking chills

Cough (not due to other known cause, such as chronic cough)

Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath

New loss of taste or smell

Sore throat

Headache when in combination with other symptoms

Muscle aches or body aches

Nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea

Fatigue, when in combination with other symptoms

Nasal congestion or runny nose (not due to other known causes, such as allergies) when in combination with other symptoms

If a student or staffer presents symptoms, they must get a COVID-19 test and test negative before returning to school. If they choose not to get tested, they must self-quarantine for two weeks.

A list of test sites is available here, and Massachusetts also has an interactive testing map. Additionally, every school should maintain a list of available testing sites. As of now, its not recommended by state education officials. Students and staff should discuss testing with their health care providers.

If a student is tested and it comes back negative, they can return to school once they are asymptomatic for at least 24 hours.

If they test positive, they must remain at home and notify the school of the results, the local board of health and people with whom the child has been in close contact with recently.

Most people who have relatively mild illness will need to stay in self-isolation for at least 10 days and until at least 3 days have passed with no fever and improvement in other symptoms, the guidance states.

If a student exhibits symptoms at home, they are urged to stay home. Education officials emphasize that families are the most important first line of defense for monitoring symptoms.

School bus transportation:

School transportation will significantly differ when students return to in-person learning this fall.

All staff and students, regardless of age, will be required to wear masks at all times. Exemptions to the mask mandate will be made for students with medical and/or behavioral reasons.

Bus drivers and monitors will be trained on watching for possible symptomatic students. If a student shows symptoms of being sick while getting on the bus, state education officials said they should not be allowed to board and their caregiver should take them home. That protocol assumes a parent or guardian is waiting at the bus stop with the student.

Upon boarding the bus, students will go to assigned seats, with students seated no more than one to a bench, alternating sides for each row. Children from the same household will be allowed to sit together but all others will be required to maintain at least three feet of physical distance while seated.

The new guidelines will significantly decrease the number of students on each bus. An 83-passenger bus in operation will now be able to seat up to 27 passengers - 33% capacity.

A 47-passenger bus is now limited to 15 passengers.

A 14-passenger bus may only be used to transport 6 people.

With the decreased capacity, Massachusetts school districts will encourage parents and guardians utilize alternative modes of transportation, from driving children to school daily, carpooling with a specific group of families or children walking to school.

Families who rely on the school bus this fall can expect significant modifications to bus routes and schedules, including potentially staggering school start and end times, the guidance states.

Changes to the school day could include students in different grades starting and ending their day minutes or hours apart.

To assist with adherence to these guidelines, schools are encouraged to add a bus monitor to each bus route. This role could be a hired position, paraprofessional, current student, staff member, or volunteer, but should not be an individual at high risk for COVID-19, the guidance states.

The bus monitor will assist with evaluating students for COVID-19 symptoms and managing students entry and exit of the bus.

A recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs shows the majority of Americans believe such safety measures are necessary for schools to reopen.

Of those surveyed, less than 8% believe K-12 schools should reopen for normal in-person instruction.

About 14% sought to have schools reopen with minor changes while 46% believe major adjustments are necessary for the safety of students and staff.

An additional 31% said they dont believe schools should reopen this fall, instead continuing remote learning.

Part of our responsibility as educators, administrators, and parents is to do all that we can to help our children in this difficult time, said Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Jeffrey C. Riley said in June. As we all know, there is no substitute for the attention and engagement that is only possible with in-person learning. We can mitigate the risks associated with COVID-19 for in-person school programs and prevent the significant consequences of keeping students out of school and isolated. It will take all of us working together to make this successful.

The decision to reopen schools was based in part because of the lower infection rate of COVID-19 among children and the negative impact of keeping children out of the classroom.

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Yet another group of Gen Z influencers is coming under fire after having a huge house party amid the coronavirus pandemic  and showing a complete disregard for mask and social distancing recommendations.

According to BuzzFeed, 24-year-old makeup artist and YouTuber Nikita Dragun threw an 'insane' 22nd birthday celebration for fellow YouTuber Larray in Los Angeles this week, hosting a bash in which a crowd of guests drank, danced, and otherwise partied the night away.

While the group  which included James Charles, Tana Mongeau, and Charli and Dixie D'Amelio  proudly posted photos and video from the event on social media, not everyone is impressed with their throwing caution to the wind, with YouTuber Tyler Oakley, 31, calling them out as 'bad influences.'

What rules? Yet another group of Gen Z influencers is coming under fire after having a huge house party amid the coronavirus pandemic

Whatever! Photos and video from the event this week show a room packed with people not wearing masks

Par-tay! YouTuber Nikita Dragun, 24, (not pictured) threw a 22nd birthday celebration for fellow YouTuber Larray in Los Angeles

Night of fun: A crowd of guests drank, danced, and otherwise partied the night away

On top of each other: Social distancing doesn't appear to have been observed at any point

Cooped up: Some guests even gave each other lap dances, which certainly weren't six feet apart

Hands on: Nikita happily posted a video of herself giving a lap dance to the birthday boy, prompting dozens of Instagram users to slam her 'dangerous' behavior

Crowded: Partygoers included James Charles, Tana Mongeau, Jon Marianek, Ondreaz and Tony Lopez, and teenage TikTok stars Charli and Dixie D'Amelio

The COVID-19 pandemic is still spreading across the US, and Los Angeles is still considered at high risk.

On Wednesday, the county documented 3,266 new cases and 64 new deaths - while California surpassed New York to have the highest number of cases in the country, with 413,579 reported thus far.

But for the young, rich, and Instagram-famous, it seems, nothing will get in the way of a night of revelry.

Guests at the party this week shared photos and videos from inside the Hype House, a lavish mansion inhabited by famous TikTok users, which is where the festivities were held.

Images show dressed-up influencers in trendy outfits with hair and makeup done  and hardly any at all wearing masks, even as they crowded around one another to wait in line, dance, and drink, despite the fact that it is now a statewide requirement to cover your nose and mouth whenever you are outside your home.

Some videos show partygoers not just dancing near one another, but on top of each other, giving friends lap dances and hugging for photos.

Not over: The COVID-19 pandemic is still spreading across the US, and Los Angeles is still considered at high risk

What else is going on: On Wednesday, the county documented 3,266 new cases and 64 new deaths

That's not how it works! Some partiers (like Larray himself) may have shown up with masks, but they were off once people were inside the doors

Not helpful: Any masks present were quickly taken off  or pulled down for funny faces

Venue: Pictured is Hype House, the TikTok house where the festivities were held

Staying safe? Influencer Tana Mongeau shared photos from the event

Tognues out? Among Hello Kitty decor, partygoers could also make use of a ping pong table and pool tables, couches, and a bar stocked with signature cocktails

Among Hello Kitty decor, partygoers could also make use of a ping pong table and pool tables, couches, and a bar stocked with signature cocktails.

According to BuzzFeed, one person said the house was at capacity.

Tana Mongeau shared several snaps on Instagram with Phil Shaw, while Jon Marianek, Ondreaz and Tony Lopez, and others offered peeks inside the party.

Not only did the influencers present seem unconcerned about virus, but they also had no qualms about boasting about the party on Instagram  which has led to criticism from those taking the pandemic more seriously.

'If your favorite influencers are at huge house parties during a pandemic (& are dumb enough to post it on social media)... they are bad influences. unfollow them,' Tyler Oakley tweeted on July 22, before addressing the partygoers directly.

'Hi @jamescharles, @NikitaDragun, @tanamongeau, @larrayxo, @charlidamelio, @dixiedamelio & any others who have been partying in large groups  please consider social distancing, mask wearing, & using your huge platforms to encourage responsibility during a worldwide pandemic,' he added.

Full: According to BuzzFeed, one person said the house was at capacity

Sharing: Not only did the influencers present seem unconcerned about virus, but they also had no qualms about boasting about the party on Instagram

Over the top: Dozens of revelers were seen getting very close and personal during the party, apparently showing no concern whatsoever for social distancing guidelines

Throughout the pandemic, some Gen Z-ers who think they are immune to the virus have continued to live life as usual

Broadcasting: The influencers at the party flooded social media with documentation

Instigator: Nikita (pictured) organized the party for her fellow YouTuber friend

No concern: At one point Nikita was seen dancing incredibly closely with another partygoer

Yikes... Some Twitter users have called out the partygoers for their behavior

Whoops: After fellow YouTuber Tyler Oakley called them out on Twitter, Larray said it was a 'dumb thing to do' and he'd 'do better'

'Not trying to drag them!' he went on. 'Just reaching out & hoping they feel encouraged to take everything a bit more seriously. Getting through a pandemic takes teamwork. & people look to them for guidance!'

Tyler also insisted that he hopes those at the party don't come down with the virus.

'They'll likely come into contact with many vulnerable people who DO take precautions, the last thing I want to happen is for those people to be impacted by their irresponsible behavior,' he said.

'I want them to stay healthy, I want their people to stay healthy, I want vulnerable people they may come into contact with to stay healthy... they just need a reminder that they have the added responsibility of being role models during a crucial moment in our country.'

Larray, at least, seems to have seen the errors of his ways and responded to Tyler.

'I understand 100% where ur coming from & it was a dumb thing to do. I will do better & will actually take this s*** seriously. appreciate you tyler much love,' he wrote.
Pakistan passes Bill to give right of appeal to Kulbhushan Jadhav

Pakistan gives Kulbhushan Jadhav right to appeal against death sentence

Kulbhushan Jadhav case: Pakistan blocked all legal remedies, India exploring options, says MEA

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, July 23: The Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday said that Pakistan has blocked all legal remedies in Kulbhushan Jhadav case.

Addressing media, MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastav said that India had requested Pakistan 12 times for consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav and Islamabad has not provided "unhindered and unimpeded access".

"In the absence of an unimpeded and unhindered consular access as well as of the relevant documents, as a last resort, India tried to file a petition on July 18," he said during an online media briefing.

He said Pakistan adopted a "farcical approach" in handling the case, adding India is exploring available options in the matter.

Third consular access for Kulbhushan Jadhav: Will Pak ensure it is un-restricted

"Pakistan has blocked all avenues for effective remedy available to India. It stands in violation of ICJ judgement and its own Ordinance. India reserves its position incl right to avail of further remedies," the MEA said on Pakistan government moving Islamabad High Court to appoint lawyer for Kulbhushan Jadhav.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

Pakistan had earlier this month said July 20 is the last date of filing a review petition by Jadhav against the death sentence handed down to him by a Pakistani military court.

The 50-year-old retired Indian Navy officer was sentenced to death by the Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April 2017. India approached the International Court of Justice against Pakistan for denial of consular access to Jadhav and challenging the death sentence.

The Hague-based ICJ ruled in July 2019 that Pakistan must undertake an "effective review and reconsideration" of the conviction and sentence of Jadhav and also to grant consular access to India without further delay.
Introduction of non-cash incentives will boost EV adoption, says Frost & Sullivan

SANTA CLARA, California, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Frost & Sullivan's recent analysis, Strategic Analysis of the Canadian EV Market, predicts that the Canadian electric vehicle (EV) market is likely to experience a possible stagnation in 2020 due to the lack of support from provincial governments. However, federal incentives are expected to give an impetus to the market. The country continues to prefer hybrid electric vehicles over plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs). Despite this, the gap in sales is reducing and will continue to do so as charging infrastructure improves in 2020 and beyond.

For further information on this analysis, please visit: http://frost.ly/49k

"As there exists a notable lack of non-cash incentives in current provincial EV-centric policies and schemes, provincial governments, apart from the Big 3-Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia-need to introduce such incentives to push EV adoption," said Ishaan Kolse, Automotive & Transportation Research Associate at Frost & Sullivan. "Additionally, charging station networks must be extended beyond the southern part of Canada and penetrate the entire country to address range anxiety."

Kolse added: "As reflected by its 100.7% year-on-year growth, the xEV market is demonstrating substantial demand. Further, this is the time to invest in the supply chain to lower cost of ownership of xEVs (versus internal combustion engine vehicles) and increase rate of adoption for potential customers."

If the Canadian government's ambitious sales and emission targets are reflected in the policies it establishes, EV growth could skyrocket in the near future, unlocking immense growth opportunities for market participants. Frost & Sullivan recommendations include:

Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) should introduce xEV pick-ups before the market reaches saturation.

Charging station infrastructure must be rapidly extended across the country to address range anxiety.

Large OEMs and the government can leverage the availability and expertise of local EV makers.

Introduction of quality-of-life and utility-based incentives can push the demand for EVs in the country.

Strategic Analysis of the Canadian EV Market is the latest addition to Frost & Sullivan's Automotive & Transportation research and analyses available through the Frost & Sullivan Leadership Council, which helps organizations identify a continuous flow of growth opportunities to succeed in an unpredictable future.

About Frost & Sullivan

For over five decades, Frost & Sullivan has become world-renowned for its role in helping investors, corporate leaders and governments navigate economic changes and identify disruptive technologies, Mega Trends, new business models and companies to action, resulting in a continuous flow of growth opportunities to drive future success. Contact us: Start the discussion.

Strategic Analysis of the Canadian EV Market

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United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has held talks over the phone with President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, spokesperson for the UN Secretary General Stephane Dujarric said.

Guterres first expressed his concern over the military stand-off at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and expressed his regret over human casualties.

The UN Secretary-General also noted that the status quo in the negotiations on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict could not last forever and called for an end to hostilities and a continuation of negotiations.



President Ilham Aliyev expressed his gratitude to the UN Secretary-General for his phone call and personal attention to the events at the border. The head of state said that the Armenian side had fired not only on Azerbaijani military but also targeted Azerbaijani villages, killing a 76-year-old civilian along with the Azerbaijani servicemen.

As a result of an adequate response of the Azerbaijani army, the Armenian attack was stopped and the situation is now relatively stable. President Ilham Aliyev stressed that the clashes took place far from the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts, adding that Azerbaijan has no military goals in the territory of Armenia. We simply have to protect and are protecting our territories and people.



The head of state agreed with the UN Secretary-General that the status quo could not last forever and noted that Azerbaijan had always demonstrated a constructive position at the negotiating table. However, the Armenian prime ministers statements that "Nagorno-Karabakh is Armenia" and that "Azerbaijan should negotiate with Nagorno-Karabakh, not Armenia" seriously jeopardize the negotiations.
When it comes to election reforms, it seems clear Connecticut will not waste this coronaviris crisis.

The state House and Senate, barring a huge shock, will vote for absentee ballot expansion for this year  the ability of voters to cast ballots by mail or in dropoff boxes just by declaring theyre afraid to go to the polls on Election Day.

We already have that right under an order of the governor for the upcoming Aug. 11 primary. The question was whether the General Assembly would make it happen for Nov. 3, and it looks like it will.

That means the absentee balloting will jump from just a few percent to maybe 40 percent of the whole turnout in Connecticut. Hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots will pour into town clerks offices, for state legislative races and the contest for U.S. president, to be counted feverishly, by hardworking poll workers.

So the deeper question is, what comes next? Will Connecticut continue to fall behind other states and revert to our 19th century rules after this year? Or will the state, after decades of fits and starts, finally adopt, permanently, the two reforms of universal, no-excuse-needed absentee balloting and early, in-person voting?

And beyond that, does the state need to reform the whole way we register voters, conduct elections and count ballots? That is, are we OK with 169 electoral fiefdoms, each with at least two registrars of voters, most of them elected as Democrats or Republicans, many of them coming to work once a week or so?

Since were using the health crisis to rethink so much of public culture, Id suggest reforming that big picture as well. Voting could run more reliably and smoothly if the people staffing the system  dedicated as they are  were nonpartisan and divided not by city and town but by regions such as counties or congressional districts.

We have a system that was effective in about 1830, said Hank K. Brown, of Wethersfield, a lobbyist  who was not endorsing my radical reform idea.

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill proposed dramatic changes in 2015, cutting the number of registrars sharply and creating a system under which theyd be appointed. That followed an election in which her Hartford voting place  and that of the governor  opened late, inexcusably, because local officials didnt have the ballots in hand.

That same Election Day in 2014, voters rejected, by a 52-48 margin, a constitutional referendum question that would have added the twin reforms of early voting and expanded absentee balloting. It lost in part because elected officials did not campaign hard for it (Common Cause did) and in part because the wording of the question was impossible to understand.

Merrills 2015 idea didnt fly  gee, politicians didnt want to eliminate a system that rewards campaign aides  but a compromise led to more training for local election officials. Since then weve moved part of the way toward another ballot referendum, which could happen in 2022, or maybe 2024.

As necessary as this bill is, it is hopefully the first step and not the last, Merrill told the General Assembly committee that wrote the bill, in a public hearing Tuesday.

She explained that despite the 2014 defeat, voters in both parties overwhelmingly want those reforms. And most states already have them in one form or another.

So whats the problem? Partly, skeptics of expanded voting  mostly Republicans  say the reforms invite fraud in the form of people voting illegally, or casting multiple ballots. Democrats counter that instances of fraud are infinitesimally rare.

As Merrill testified Tuesday, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz  Merrills predecessor  told a small gathering in Windsor that election fraud, according to a conservative think tank, happened 0.00006 percent of the time. Maybe Im leaving out a zero; its basically never.

The Republicans, led in this state by party Chairman J.R. Romano, continue to warn of the possibility of fraud and they are right in theory. Im holding in my hand a ballot application mailed to my daughter, who lives and votes in Boston. I could send it in, register her as an absent voter, receive the ballot at my house, send it in with her name and succeed in casting two ballots for the primary.

And risk a jail term. Or, I could help my preferred candidates by, oh, I dont know, donating money or calling friends on their behalf. So, yes, fraud can happen fairly easily but it doesnt. And why would it?

Republicans, including Rep. Mike France, R-Gales Ferry, ranking GOP member of the legislatures elections committee, want to at least move slowly and make sure protections are in place. Were doing things differently in a number of ways that havent been vetted, France said Wednesday. The challenge is that we dont have the protections in place that many of these other states that use voting by mail have in place.

Because of the coronavirus emergency, he said hes likely to vote in Thursdays special session for the ballot measure  which also eases some rules for town officials handling ballots and for Election Day registration.

These reforms should happen permanently, and thats a stickier question.

As for the even deeper reforms, changing the whole system, thats partly a practical matter. Eventually we might actually want to count ballots with high-speed machines, for example  something thats less practical in individual cities and towns.

And, really, do we need Democrats and Republicans elected to do the work of Democracy? Consider, late Wednesday afternoon when I called Matthew Waggner, the Democratic Registrar of Voters in Fairfield, he was on hold on the other line, arranging for tents to set up outside wach of the towns polling places on Aug. 11  for coronavirus safety suppies, or to help voters avoid having to enter the buildings.

Thats a credit to the folks in Fairfield, going above and beyond. But its not a partisan activity, nor is anything else the registrars do. And in fact, Waggner prefers to just say hes registrar, not the Democratic registrar. He signed his written testimony in favor of the Nov. 3 ballot bill without listing his party.

So, why not take the full step, and professionalize the whole system, Greenwich to Putnam, Stonington to Salisbury?

No, many elected officials say, we dont need to do that.

I think the system is pretty well set up to handle the number of problems that we see, Waggner said. There are a number of benefits you get from having local officialsBeyond accountability, its just accessibility.

A blind constituent pointed out difficulties that could be fixed, for example, and Waggner is making it happen.

Ive been very impressed by their abilities to work within the system that they have, said Rep. Dan Fox, D-Stamford, co-chairman of the elections committee.

Thats the case for now, though we do see problems. If we truly modernize voting, as we should, we may want to truly modernize the whole apparatus. Why wait for a crisis that we wont want to waste?

dhaar@hearstmediact.com
A Dalit youth allegedly died in police custody after being picked up by personnel for not having a mask and helmet on in Chirala town, Prakasam district, Andhra Pradesh. After Y Kiran Kumar died while being treated for a head injury in a private hospital in Guntur on Tuesday, the police registered a case of death in police custody (Criminal Procedure Code section 176).

Kumar's parents claim that he was beaten up by the police for not wearing a mask. However, Prakasam police said that he jumped out of the jeep on the way to the Town Police station, which led to a head injury. The police has denied that the youth was beaten up by the sub-inspector.

After the incident, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy announced an ex-gratia of Rs 10 lakh to the alleged victim's family.

According to Prakasam Police, Kumar and his friend Shini Abraham were riding a motorcycle without a mask on July 18. Upon being reprimanded by constable Rami Reddy at the Kothapeta check-post, the "inebriated" duo created a ruckus and allegedly beat up the constable, Police said. When sub-inspector Vijay Kumar was informed of the incident, he took them into custody, police added.

After the constable's complaint, a case was registered against the duo under IPC Sections 353,188,269 and r/w 34 IPC, Sec 185 of Motor Vehicles act and Section 51 of Disaster Management Act. While the blood sample of Kumar has been sent for testing, Abraham was tested by a breath analyser.

A case against the sub-inspector has also been registered on a complaint by Kumar's father Mohan Rao, under IPC Section 324.

SP of Prakasam District Siddharth Kaushal said that there was "absolutely no manhandling of the youth by Police." According to him, both youth were heavily inebriated and driving a bike. "They were stopped by the police at a check-post and asked to get into the police vehicle. He said that Abraham is one of the witnesses to the incident.

"One of them (Kiran Kumar) jumped out of the jeep while it was moving and received a major head injury. His hair fell off too," he said, adding that the PME report states that his death was due to a head injury, and that "no other injuries or proofs of being physically hit" were there. Kaushal has handed over the case to Darsi Deputy Superintendent of Police for an impartial probe en ordered. Abraham is one of the witnesses to the incident," SP Sidharth Kaushal told the Pune Mirror publication.

Meanwhile, the Additional Superintendent of Police Gangadhar was been appointed as special enquiry officer by the Guntur Range Inspector-General of Police J. Prabhakar Rao. Gangadhar is expected to carry out a comprehensive inquiry into the case, as directed by CM Reddy.
Yves here. Suicide is not normally a topic in polite company. But the desperate conditions facing Indian farmers, even ones with good-sized plots and high-value crops, means a rise in suicide rates. And as this post make clear, its mainly due to debt. The same forces are crushing US farmers, who often sell off parts of family farms to get by, which can put them in a death spiral, since the remaining land doesnt throw off enough income to support the overheads.

And we are about to see this movie start playing across small business American. Many enterprises are suffering from a collapse in revenues. Some may be able to downsize enough to continue to provide the owners and a few employees with an adequate income, even if it is wrenching to fire long-standing, loyal employees to save a few. But other businesses will fold. The loss of savings (most owners will put in more money to try to keep the venture afloat) and the emotional toll, combined with the poor prospects for the economy generally, mean a lot of owners will be isolated and desperate. And a lot of this distress could have been prevented.

By Aaqib Athar. Originally published at openDemocracy

Shankar Darekar is haunted by reports about farmer suicides | Shankar Darekar

I am Shankar Darekar, a 47-year-old farmer from Vimchur, a remote rural village in Indias Maharashtra province. Maharashtra is known for its rich heritage, the generally prosperous lifestyle of its people and fertile lands. But behind that lustrous shroud, penury and unremitting suicides fester, defining the lives of us peasants.

The coronavirus pandemic, which erupted in India in early March, has spelled doom for us. It was the harvest season. I cultivate grapes on five acres of land bequeathed to me by my forefathers. Grapes are an expensive cash crop, requiring a whopping investment of up to $3,000 per acre of cultivation. There are no yields for the first three years.

Every year in March, I sell part of the crop to merchants in Kolkata, in Indias eastern province of West Bengal, from where it is sent to Bangladesh. The remainder is sent to Delhi and Punjab, for export to our western neighbours. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the lockdown from midnight of 24 March, he gave Indias 1.3 billion citizens barely four hours notice. It was a cruel joke that had a huge effect on millions of farmers.

By that time, I had dispatched 100 quintals [10 tonnes] of grapes to Bangladesh, but 350 quintals were still on vines in the fields. I thought of the debt I had incurred. If the grapes rotted, my life would be ruined. Some of us got together, called farmers bodies and made hurried representations to the government. To our dismay, our appeals fell on deaf ears.

The Modi government, which had arranged special jets to fly back the rich who were stranded abroad, was unwilling to run the railways for a few more days to transport our crops. We tried to organise trucks on our own, but provincial borders were sealed. Permits were not granted despite pleas to the government.

Over a week was wasted in this flustering uncertainty. By the time we zeroed in on some local merchants, the sugar level of the grapes had risen. The buyers fixed abysmally low rates, but we could not negotiate. I sold 225 quintals of grapes for one-fifth of the price I would usually get.

But more than 125 quintals of grapes had ripened and could not be sold. Someone suggested that raisin makers might be interested in buying it. The buyer gave us 23 rupees per kilogram of raisins. The maths was numbing. I sold the grapes at a measly four rupees [0.05 US cents] per kilogram.

This was looting. It coincided with fervent displays of nationalism at the whim of the prime minister. One evening, Modi asked people to gather on their balconies or nearby open spaces and cheer healthcare workers by banging pots. On another occasion, he wanted them to switch off their lights at 9pm and light diyas [earthen pots] and candles. The rich obeyed merrily, and they even set off firecrackers. They said they were patriots. Their self-applauding made for pulsating prime-time TV, while our livelihoods were squeezed out of us and we had to save every penny.

The Modi government claims to have introduced several pro-farmer and pro-poor schemes, which it robustly markets at the time of election. But I dont know who benefits from them.

What I witnessed in the lockdown was the anti-farmer face of this government, which refused to buy our crops or ensure minimum support prices. This is the same government that seldom hesitates to waiver the loans of crony capitalists.

I shudder to think of the losses I have incurred. But the numbers come rattling to me in my sleep. It is somewhere between $18,800 and $20,000.

How will we repay the loan, papa? my children ask.

By June, I usually start repaying the loan. But I have no money to do so this year. The government isnt even willing to write off the interest on it.

Many peasant farmers may have ended their lives already. In reply to a right-to-information disclosure in October 2019, government reported that 15,356 farmers in Maharashtra had committed suicide between 2013 and 2018. This means that seven farmers committed suicide every day for six years.

Not only do I have massive debt, but my cultivation cycle has been badly hit. After the grapes are harvested in March, there is usually a crucial period of thread-cutting and treatment of leaves, followed by resting of the plants.

None of that could be done because of the unplanned lockdown. The harvest usually due in October is now likely to drag until December, adding to my financial woes.

Usually from January to March, we also borrow from the neighbourhood grocer and local vendors. They happily give us rations and other essentials on credit as they are certain that we will repay them once the yields start coming.

I havent paid for the rations I have taken since January and the grocer is becoming uneasy. He may stop our supplies from next month.

Meanwhile, at the end of June, my 74-year-old mother suffered a stroke. The local doctor recommended that she be taken to the Nashik district hospital but we cannot afford to do that. If something happens to my mother, I will not be able to forgive myself.

But I am helpless. Theres no money and a huge debt. Besides my mother, I have to look after my wife and two children and my brothers widow and her two children.

Reports on farmers suicides, usually relegated to the inside pages of newspapers, fill my mind. But I restrain that thought. What would happen to the three women and four children in my family if I wasnt around?

[As told to Aaqib Athar]

Over 40% of Indians rely on agriculture for their livelihood, according to the World Bank. But this sector has been under pressure for a number of years due to crop failures and price drops. Many small-scale farmers borrow from moneylenders who charge exorbitant interest rates. Suicides are common in this sector when crops fail: a 2015 study attributed almost 40% of farmers suicides to financial pressure. Although the Modi government has introduced minimum support prices for crops, few farmers are benefitting. The government is also in the thick of a controversy over the Prime Ministers Crop Insurance Scheme. Farmers allege that it is designed to benefit the private insurance companies as premiums are compulsory but hidden clauses mean the policies often do not pay out.
Lufax Holding, which runs an online wealth management and peer-to-peer lending platform, is planning an initial public offering in the US this year, according to a person familiar with the matter, amid heightened scrutiny on US-listed Chinese companies in recent months.

The company is pursuing its long-held ambitions to list in the US as many of its investors and creditors are based in New York, the person said, declining to be named becaused the information is private. Lufax will follow in the footsteps of OneConnect Financial Technology, which raised US$312 millionin its New York Stock Exchange debut in December.

Both Lufax and OneConnect are backed by Ping An Insurance (Group), China's largest insurer.

The decision to stick with a US listing bucked recent trend where Chinese companies, predominantly technology firms, have decamped and turned to Hong Kong and Shanghai for capital amid a regulatory backlash in the US. They were preceded by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, China's biggest chip maker, which ended its 15-year stay on the NYSE in May last year.

OneConnect Financial Technology was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2019. Photo: Handout alt=OneConnect Financial Technology was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2019. Photo: Handout

Founded in 2011, Lufax was valued at US$39.4 billion during its last-known funding round at the end of 2018. Its business is about breaking even, the person familiar said.

While it has previously contemplated a listing in Hong Kong in early 2018, the plan did not materialise for unknown reasons.

Earlier this year, Lufax completed a US$1.29 billion syndicated loan to help finance the firm's restructuring and expansion, just before the coronavirus outbreak severely disrupted business and fundraising globally.

The group has also moved into non-performing loans, just as the asset class swells and prices slip as economies globally slow down or contract. The balance of Lufax's loans have grown steadily, while only 1.9 per cent of its outstanding loans are more than 30 days overdue, people familiar said.

Story continues

Lufax scaled down its peer-to-peer lending business last year after Beijing tightened its scrutiny on the sector following a string of scandals.

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.
Five top trade bodies, including the US Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers, have filed a lawsuit challenging the presidential proclamation suspending for the rest of the year new non-immigrant visas that include the H-1B, the most sought-after among Indian IT professionals.

In his proclamation last month, President Donald Trump banned the entry into the US of workers in several key non-immigrant visa categories, including the H-1B, arguing that they eat into American jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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. Companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.

Denying access to non-immigrant workers deprive American businesses of the talent they need. It also has far-reaching repercussions in today's competitive market for talent, said the lawsuit filed by National Association of Manufacturers, US Chamber of Commerce, National Retail Federation, TechNet, and Intrax.

The lawsuit seeks to overturn these sweeping and unlawful immigration restrictions that are an unequivocal "not welcome" sign to the engineers, executives, IT experts, doctors, nurses, and other critical workers who help drive the American economy, said US Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas Donohue.

"Left in place, these restrictions will push investment abroad, inhibit economic growth and reduce job creation, he said.

Ahead of the presidential proclamation, Donohue in a letter to the White House had said that there were many other sectors of US economy that rely upon the contribution of foreign nationals working in America.

One of the visa categories impacted, H-1B, is used predominantly by employers seeking to hire and retain individuals working in these fields, and in computer-related roles. Banning these individuals from entering the United States is thus not a remedy to current unemployment levels, said the lawsuit.

Businesses across industries are very concerned about the potential disruptions that will be caused if they can no longer employ valued employees that work here under the following visa classifications: H-1B, L-1, H-4, F-1 Optional Practical Training (OPT), and H-2B.

Similarly, companies that rely upon investment dollars from the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program are concerned about restrictions being imposed upon those individuals that have invested in their businesses. Shutting these individuals out of the chance to contribute to an economic recovery is misguided for a host of reasons, Donohue said.

National Association of Manufacturers Senior Vice President and General Counsel Linda Kelly said that these overreaching, unlawful restrictions did not just limit visas, but will also restrain US economic recovery at a time when the very future of the country hangs in the balance.

Manufacturers and programme sponsors are going to court because these restrictions are far outside the bounds of the law and would deal a severe blow to our industry. We cannot let this stand," he said.

"Our industry should be laser-focused on leading our recovery and renewal, but these visa restrictions will hand other countries a competitive advantage because they will drive talented individuals away from the United States. These restrictions could harm every corner of our economy, as evidenced by the broad coalition that has come together to oppose them," he added.

Innovation is absolutely key to surviving the economic crisis currently facing America, especially for retailers who have seen their stores forced to close and scrambled to find new ways to sell and deliver products, said National Retail Federation Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel Stephanie Martz.

"This proclamation is meant to protect American jobs but instead it threatens the millions of rank-and-file workers whose jobs rely on experts coming up with the latest technology to keep retail moving forward. Advanced computer and IT jobs are already hard to fill, and retailers need to be able to bring in talent from wherever they can find it. This sweeping measure could have a significant negative impact on their ability to do that," he said.

The Exchange Visitor Program enhances US national security by building mutual understanding that helps "us address critical international issues while strengthening the US economy," Intrax president Marcie Schneider said, adding that these overreaching restrictions will sharply curtail cultural exchange programmes at just the time when they should be increasing connections between people around the world.

According to the lawsuit, denying American businesses access to international labor markets is inflicting swift and severe harms.

Companies are unable to move employees who have developed special expertise outside the United States into domestic roles, where they would otherwise help expand operations, develop new products, and contribute to the hiring of domestic workers, it said.
Attending in the conference were SEOM leaders of CLMV countries, representatives of ASEAN Secretariat, relevant ministries and agencies of CLMV countries involved in component of economic cooperation mechanism.



Head of SEOM CLMV of Laos run the conference on alternative mechanism.

Participating in the online meeting, the Vietnamese delegation included representatives of agencies under the Ministry of Industry and Trade and some relevant ministries such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ministry of Education and Training.

A leader of Asia-Africa Market Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade was Head of SEOM CLMV Vietnam.

The leader of Asia-Africa Market Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade is Head of SEOM CLMV Vietnam.



At the online conference, four countries agreed to create favorable conditions for activities of trade, investment and services, especially cross-border trade activities between CLMV countries to limit and remove unnecessary trade barriers contributing to supporting small-medium scale businesses, ensuring the operation of supply chains.

Besides that, SEOM CLMV leaders also exchanged and agreed a number of contents to prepare for the 12th CLMV Economic Ministers Meeting in August which will be held online.

By Van Phuc- Translated by Huyen Huong
A seven-year-old boy died on Wednesday after a boat he was in with 'over nine people' onboard capsized in the Chicago river.

Victor Lobato, from Little Village, was on the boat as it capsized at around 6.40pm near the 1500-block of South Lumber Street in Chinatown.

Police share that the boat capsized and drifted three blocks down to 18th Street by the time first responders were able to rescue the occupants, ABC 7 Chicago reports.

Scroll down for video

'If you look down the river the accessibility of where we actually found the victim versus where we retrieved everyone else. We're talking almost three blocks down river,' said deputy district chief of Chicago Fire Department (CFD) Carmelita Wiley-Earls.

According to fire officials, there were at least nine people on the 'small craft' and it is unclear whether the passengers were wearing life vests.

'There was over nine people in the boat,' said CFD chief Patrick Maloney. 'It was a small craft, kind of pretty packed up as far as water safety.'

The area near Chinatown where the boat overturned is 20 to 30ft deep, authorities shared

Authorities say that there were at least nine people on the 'small craft' and add that it is unclear whether all of the passengers had on life vests

At the scene, three of the passengers refused medical treatment.

Three adults and three children were taken to a local hospital and are listed as being in a fair to critical condition.

It is believed that the incident was an accident.

'The helicopter divers that went into the water were able to retrieve the one child that was underneath the capsized boat,' Maloney said.

Three adults and three children were taken to a local hospital and are listed as being in a fair to critical condition

It was witness calls to 911 that got first responders to the scene so quickly.

'Without the public's input and without the public's initially 911 sounding of the alarm then we would have a different outcome,' Wiley-Earls said.

At the area where the boat capsized, the river is approximately 20 to 30ft deep.

Fire officials said that this was the fourth or fifth incident involving water rescues just this week and stressed the importance of not overloading vessels and wearing life vest.

The rescue was a joint effort by police, fire officials and the U.S Coast Guard.
Against the backdrop of the recent firing by Nepal Armed Police Force that left an Indian injured, the Shiv Sena on Tuesday called for breaking barrels of Nepalese guns right now or else, it said such incidents will be a permanent headache like is the case of Pakistan.

An editorial in Shiv Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' also said that China has been quiet in Ladakh at the moment, but is "playing a game" to ensure Indian borders are not peaceful by making Pakistan and Nepal fire bullets.

Praising Indian soldiers for giving befitting replies to terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir, the Shiv Sena sought to know when will the countrys rulers succeed in stopping Pakistans ceasefire violations and firing from across the border.

An Indian national was injured in firing by the Nepal Armed Police Force (NAPF) in the 'no mans land' on the Indo- Nepal border in Bihars Kishanganj district on Saturday, according to police.

On June 12, an Indian national was killed while two others were injured in firing by the NAPF on the Indo-Nepal border near Lalbandi Janki Nagar village in Bihars Sitamarhi district.

The Shiv Sena on Tuesday said Pakistan violated ceasefire more than 2,700 times till now this year. Twenty-one innocent Indian citizens were killed, while 94 others injured in these incidents, the Uddhav Thackeray-led party added.

Now, add the firings from Nepal to this. This means, earlier only Pakistan would engage in firing from across the border. Now, Nepalese guns are also blazing and claiming lives of innocent Indians," it said.

"We have not been able to stop Pakistani guns, but such should not become the case with Nepal. The barrels of the Nepalese guns must be broken right now. Or else, firing along the border with Nepal will become a permanent headache as is the case with Pakistan, the Marathi publication said.

Referring to the two incidents involving the NAPF, the Shiv Sena said Nepal has shown it will side with China and Pakistan against India.

"China is quiet in Ladakh at the moment, but it is playing a game to ensure Indian borders are not peaceful by making Nepal and Pakistan fire bullets, it said.

Pakistanis continue to fire bullets in the central areas of Jammu and Kashmir, while Indian soldiers have been giving befitting replies to such aggressions, it pointed out.

"But when will the ceasefire violation and firing from across the border by Pakistan stop? It is a question when our rulers will succeed in stopping it, the Shiv Sena said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-24 01:56:53|Editor: huaxia

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KAMPALA, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Uganda's ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party on Thursday declared incumbent president Yoweri Museveni as the party's presidential candidate in the 2021 general elections.

Tanga Odoi, chairperson of the NRM electoral commission told reporters that no other party member had paid nomination fees for the position of flag bearer in the 2021 polls. The deadline of picking the nomination forms has expired.

Odoi also declared Museveni who has been in power for over 30 years as the party's national chairman for the next five years.

Museveni on Monday through his lawyers picked the party's nomination forms seeking to represent the party in next year's presidential elections and also the chairmanship of the party.

Legislators in 2017 voted to remove the age limit of 75, paving way for Museveni who turns 76 this year to run for the presidency in the 2021 polls.

According to a previous law in the east African country, persons over the age of 75 were not allowed to run for the presidency. Enditem
Having had several, um, opportunities to call on Phillys armed constabulary over the years, I am keenly interested in the various descriptions of what defunding the police means. One Philadelphia activist group says its time to fund our communities, not police.

Back in the last millennium when I was helping on a project in the Fairhill community, we went house to house and asked what the residents top three priorities were. In most houses, it was 1. Crime, 2. Crime 3. Crime with trash as the fourth, if pressed. One neighborhood man suggested we erect guard towers and outfit them with machine guns, a suggestion we did not choose to implement.

Somewhere between machine gun towers and disbanding the police is the effort underway to roll out a group violence intervention model of police and neighbors strategically cooperating before crimes are committed. It has worked well elsewhere. For the sake of every Philadelphian, but particularly those plagued by gun violence, may it work well here as well.

Editorial cartoons from this week include:
Congress leader and former party chief Rahul Gandhi on Thursday sharpened his attack on the Centre and PM Modi, tweeting out that the prime minister is 100% focused on building his own image. Indias captured institutions are all busy doing this task. One mans image is not a substitute for a national vision, Gandhi posted along with a video. In a two-minute-long video, Gandhi talked about Indias ties with China after the brutal Galwan valley faceoff last month wherein 20 Indian Army soldiers were killed.

If you deal with them (China) with a position of strength, you can deal with them, Gandhi said in the video. Gandhi said that if the Chinese sense weakness, then it will be a problem. Dealing with the situation with China requires a vision, an international vision, Gandhi said, adding that India needs to have a global vision and needs to become an idea in itself.

Gandhi said that a huge opportunity will be missed by not thinking long-term and big.

Also read: India, China fail to make breakthrough in de-escalating tensions at LAC

PM is 100% focused on building his own image. Indias captured institutions are all busy doing this task.



One mans image is not a substitute for a national vision. pic.twitter.com/8L1KSzXpiJ  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) July 23, 2020

Were fighting among ourselves, look at the politics. An Indian is fighting an Indian. This shows there is no clear cut vision going forward, he added.

Gandhi said that his responsibility is to question the prime minister and put forth questions, so that he does his work.

It is his responsibility to give the vision and I can guarantee you that it is not there and that is why China is in there, Gandhi concluded.

This comes a couple of days after Gandhi took to Twitter and posted that the prime minister has fabricated a fake strongman image to come to power which has now become Indias biggest weakness as he has to protect the idea of Chhapan Inch.

The Congress leader posted a video message on Twiter and wrote, PM fabricated a fake strongman image to come to power. It was his biggest strength. It is now Indias biggest weakness.

In the video message, Gandhi spoke on speaking on Chinas Strategic Game Plan and said, What is Chinas strategic and tactical game plan? It is simply not a border issue. The worry I have is that the Chinese are sitting in our territory today. Chinese dont do anything without thinking about it strategically.

In their mind, they have mapped out the world and they are trying to shape the world. Thats the scale of what they are doing. Thats what Gwadar is, that is what belt and road is. It is a restructuring of the planet. So when you are thinking about the Chinese you have to understand that that is the level at which they are thinking, he added.
Over 500 churches using phone streaming so members with limited internet can listen to live services

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More than 500 churches are using a telephone-based streaming service to allow members to listen to live worship services if they don't have internet access to watch online.

Known as PhoneLiveStreaming.com, the service was launched in March after churches were ordered to close during state lockdowns in response to the coronavirus. As many as 550 churches are now using the service.

The audio service allows people to listen to a livestream of a church worship service on a traditional telephone line instead of watching it online.

Hugh Plappert, whose son David developed the system while on spring bring in March, told The Christian Post that people can just pick up the phone and they're in church.

It actually does streaming across the internet to a server that then converts the signal and then puts it on a phone line, said Plappert.

So people with traditional phone lines are receiving streaming. People with poor or no internet access are the main audience.

Plappert also told CP that churches that've used the audio service have mentioned that they intend to keep the streaming system even after they reopen post-pandemic.

The surprise, a lot of churches say, is they didn't realize how many people were not able to watch their livestreaming, when they thought everybody was, he explained.

He compared PhoneLiveStreaming.com to a handicap ramp, noting that while a lot of church members might not use the service per se, some will find it necessary.

You could kind of look at it as the technology handicap ramp for churches. You don't have a lot of people using the handicap ramp and you didn't build it for a lot of people, but you build it for some key people and so you're going to take care of it and maintain it, said Plappert.

Initially, the audio service was created for a limited number of churches in the Great Lakes region, with Plappert and his son sharing it with a few people on social media.

However, the audio service got a serious jolt in attention when Pastor David Platt of the megachurch McLean Bible Church in Virginia promoted it on Twitter in late March.

If you know someone without internet access, we dont want them to be left out on Sundays. So spread the word! Platt tweeted at the time.

Since the spread of COVID-19 to the United States earlier this year, many Christian organizations and churches have adjusted their outreach in response to state lockdowns that forced many churches to close.

These have included expanding their online presence, adding outdoor worship services to their agenda, and even giving various sacramental rites over the phone.

For example, in April, Virginia Theological Seminary and General Theological Seminary launched Dial-A-Priest to allow clergy to give last rites to people in the hospital over the phone, especially for COVID-19 patients for whom access might be limited.

VTS Dean, the Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, said in a statement at the time that Dial-A-Priest was a way to make sure the dying do not feel alone.

In a season where hospitals are overwhelmed and where pastoral care is limited because of physical distancing, the seminaries step in to suggest a way forward, said Markham.

Our goal is to make sure that the dying do not feel alone at this time. It is a simple idea: we provide this free service to support those who are most in need.
Russian lawyer Nikolai Polozov sat down with UNIAN to talk about possible implications for Russia and its closest neighbors of Vladimir Putin resetting the count of his presidential terms, on why Ukraine shouldn't believe one should not believe Russian negotiators offering to release Ukrainian prisoners in exchange for relaunch of freshwater supplies to the occupied Crimea, and on whether rallies against the Russian government are bound to lead to anything more significant.

Nikolay Polozov is one of the most acclaimed Russian lawyers in Ukraine. He represented a number of Ukrainian political prisoners and coordinated their defense, including for Ukrainian Navy crews captured by Russians near the Kerch Strait in November 2018.

Judgments handed down by Russian courts are predictable, not differing much: Ukrainians are always found guilty and sentenced to long prison terms. In such cases, Polozov emphasizes the fact that they are politically motivated, and tries to bring them into the brightest public spotlight. As a result, under international pressure, sooner or later Vladimir Putin agrees to do the exchange. This was the way Ukraine got back Nadiia Savchenko, Ilmi Umerov, Akhtem Chiygoz, and 24 navy sailoirs.

In an interview with UNIAN, Nikolai Polozov told what Russians and the rest of the world should expect from the recently-passed amendments to the Russian Constitution, which secured for Putin a safe stay in power until at least 2036.

What changes can be expected in Russia after the reset of Putin's presidential terms?

No sharp turns should be expected. Everything will move along the path paved back in 2014, after the start of aggression against Ukraine  occupation of Crimea and the outbreak of war in eastern Ukraine. This will be a gradual departure from cooperation with other states and a further shift towards self-isolation. This will be about a tightened domestic political situation and harsher repression. The latest changes to the Constitution simply drew a de jure line under what has already been in place de facto. Legislation will be updated following constitutional amendments. Neither Russians nor those living close to Russia should expect anything good.

The State Duma has already passed a law banning the alienation of territories, including the temporarily occupied Crimea. How can this rule be applied in practice?

This article has actually been applied since 2014  it was introduced after the Crimea grab. The article is titled "Public calls for violation of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation." People in Crimea have already been persecuted under this norm. Ilmi Umerov was convicted precisely on these charges, now the same charges are being pressed against Refat Chubarov and Lenur Islyamov who are being tried in absentia. This is, first of all, about strengthening punishment. Now the maximum sentence is five years in prison, but will be up to ten years.

Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin is already threatening with prosecution foreign politicians who declare that Crimea is part of Ukraine, not Russia, and that Ukrainian control must be restored over the peninsula. But what is this threat, really? In my opinion, this is a political baton Russia is swinging to calm itself down. This is like a mantra  "Crimea is ours", "Crimea is ours"  uttered in hope that someday it will actually be theirs. I don't see any real prospects for the extradition of any incumbent Ukrainian, European, or American politician. Most likely, cases will also be initiated in absentia against most vocal dissidents, verdicts will be passed, also in absentia, which Russian diplomats will be shaking in the face of UN, OSCE, and PACE officials. They'll say: "Look, 'Crimea is ours', Russian court has confirmed"

Another factor is that verdicts passed in absentia have already been handed targeting many Ukrainian politicians. Some of the cases concern the Donbas events. Ukrainian military are accused of violating the rules of waging a conventional war, but this doesn't lead to anything. Although I don't rule out attempts to appeal for extradition of a number of them, attempts to abduct them, as was the case, for example, with Pavlo Hryb, who was captured on the territory of [the neighboring] Belarus.

Another question is that it is impossible to have Interpol put people on the wanted list on such charges. According to its charter, Interpol shall not prosecute anyone for their political views and political statements. And the issue of who Crimea belongs to is a priori political. It doesn't matter how Russian domestic legislation interprets the issue. Except for internal use, these innovations will have no prospects beyond Russian borders.

However, in special cases, could Russian government resort to abductions on foreign soil?

Why not? They sought to assassinate [journbalist] Arkady Babchenko in Kyiv. In 2013, Russian opposition leader Leonid Razvozzhaev was kidnapped in the Ukrainian capital. There have also been murders in other parts of the world. Everyone remembers the story in Salisbury with the Skripals' poisoning...

Of course, some will claim nothing has been proven, but we're well aware that, if necessary, such special missions will be executed. This is the Kremlin's traditional game. The Kremlin knows no other ways of operating, including in the foreign policy field.

Russian deputies, when discussing the ban on the alienation of territories, came to the conclusion that this doesn't mean Russia cannot acquire new territories. What do they need this window of opportunity for?

This is a sovereign state mentality that underlies the external political structure, proposed by Putin, which implies restoration of an empire within the former borders of the Soviet Union. Of course, Russia's rulers see the source of their legitimacy in selling people stories of the nation's greatness. But how is that greatness acquired? It's small victorious wars and chopping off pieces of land from neighbors. Remember Putin's words he voiced back in 2005, when he offered Latvia "dead donkey's ears" instead of giving back the territory of Pytalovsky district.

At the back of the mind of the current Russian regime lies greatness and imperialist features that they desperately lack. Therefore, legally, such schizophrenic constructions emerge in the legislative field, according to which alienation is banned, while grabs are okay.

So Ukraine is at risk. The occupation of just Crimea and the east of your country was a forced measure. In fact, their plans were far-reaching, up to and including creating a land corridor to Transnistria via Mykolaiv, Kherson, and Odesa regions.

Belarus is also under threat. The Kremlin is watching closely the ongoing election campaign in this country, because the entire infrastructure is ready for acceding to the Russian Federation. Everyone there speaks Russian, legislative acts have been brought into line thanks to the so-called Union State.

The third direction is Kazakhstan, especially its northern parts, home to a fairly large number of Russian speakers. In fact, since the time of Hitler, no one has invented anything new: one language, one nation. The incumbent authorities in Russia act on the same principle, trying to get back the breakaway fragments of the empire employing the linguistic issue. If people spoke Russian in Alaska, they would have rattle sabers there, too, although it is clear that they wouldn't be able to seize it.

Threats to neighbors are real. After all, failing to deliver in domestic politics, failing to make people's lives better and richer, they are forced to maintain a social contract with the people of Russia and their legitimacy through such external aggressive, expansive actions.

You often visit Crimea to defend Crimean Tatars in court. Do you expect changes in Russian policy towards the occupied territories?

I sure do. Changes are already underway in the occupied Crimea. For example, the procedure for entry and exit of Ukrainian citizens who were forced to obtain Russian passports on the peninsula has been changed. Now they cannot use Ukrainian passports to cross into our out of Crimea as they could before. Now they are forced to present a Russian passport, and if they show a Ukrainian one, they get a fine.

Plus, the policy of repression hasn't gone anywhere. In the occupied Crimea, first of all, we're talking about the Crimean Tatars, who make up for the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian political prisoners. Out of 130 people 90 are Crimean Tatars, who are facing consistent repression and constant raids. Now more than 180 Crimean Tatar children are left without fathers, who were thrown in pre-trial detention centers and prisons. This repressive pressure doesn't cease.

Now there is a discussion on the resumption of exchange efforts. Moreover, they say the exchange could be not only people for people, but also people for freshwater supplies to Crimea. This is also on the table. I believe that this is an absolutely wrong position because Crimea is an almost inexhaustible reservoir for replenishing the so-called exchange fund. Today they give 130 people in exchange for water to Crimea, but tomorrow another 500 people will be captured. Who will stop them?

When it comes to certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, controlled by Russian-backed forces, there's complete chaos there. Even the minimum norms of Russian legislation that guarantee the right to defense, the right to a lawyer don't work there. People are simply thrown into basements as no law exists there  these are gangster nests in which people are bullied as much as it is possible. Naturally, Russia indulges the occupying administrations in such pressure on people. The task is very simple: to intimidate what's left of the disloyal population, so that they don't harbor hope of returning to Ukraine, so that they don't think that they'll be saved. Thus, the sense of helplessness is being imposed on people so that they never live in the hope that someday everything will return to normal.

Protests in Khabarovsk have been ongoing for more than a week already. Are they of any threat to Russian government?

This is a manifestation of that deep discontent that prevails among the Russian population. Since the end of 2011, not 2014 as many think, incomes have been falling, the economy has been growing slowly or, as we say, "growing negatively".

The authorities cannot offer people anything but repression and a tightening of the political regime. There's not much electoral choice, there are no courts. Naturally, people don't like this, so discontent periodically manifests itself here and there. This is not the story of today in Khabarovsk or Moscow. Remember, a year ago young people rallied on the occasion of the elections to the Moscow City Duma? As a result, there were criminal cases and verdicts with prison terms. Before that, there were protests against the construction of the Shiese landfill, before that there were rallies in Ingushetia. There were also truckers protesting against the "Platon" fees...

That is, there is discontent, but it will not translate into anything because despite this, for the most part, Russians fear that things will get even worse if something changes. They proceed from the principle: Putin is evil, but it's better this way, otherwise NATO troops will sit on the Kremlin throne and things will turn ugly. People have been fed these hysterical narratives through TV, so they're truly afraid of it.

Protests are scattered across country and the authorities can suppress them, redeploying their resources. Moreover, huge amounts of money are spent on maintaining the security machine, and all these local fires can be put off either with Russian Guards' batons or by working with local elites and bribing people as happened in the Caucasus or Crimea. After all, a part of the Crimean Tatar population, albeit a small one, flipped to the side of the invaders for certain benefits.

I don't think any consequences should be expected anytime soon, although protests will proceed in this sort of a sluggish manner. The authorities will suppress them, while the degree of discontent will rise, but it is unlikely to reach a critical point yet. When this bifurcation point comes, no one knows, but the Russian government still has, including a large financial resource in order to hold the reins. We are talking about the National Welfare Fund, which, if necessary, will be spent on the army, police, and security agencies to suppress any protests.

Roman Tsymbaliuk
A record one-day total of newly confirmed coronavirus cases gave California more than 409,000 since the pandemic began, sending it past New York for the most in the country, data from Wednesday showed.

Californias cases have climbed rapidly in the last month, punctuated by the 12,807 recorded Tuesday, while New Yorks have fallen to less than 1,000 per day. Californias overall total is about 700 more than New Yorks, according to a tally Johns Hopkins University.

The surge of cases in California came after much of its economy was reopened in May and early June following nearly three months under the nations first statewide stay-at-home order that forced most businesses to close and restricted where people could go.

Statewide, hospitalizations have nearly doubled in the past month to more than 7,100 patients. Coronavirus patients in intensive care have risen 71% over the same time frame to more than 2,000 patients.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and health officials have blamed the increase on people  many of them younger adults  gathering with friends and family and not wearing masks or maintaining social distancing.

At the end of June, Newsom began reimposing shutdowns. Bars and inside dining are forbidden statewide and tougher restrictions  including bans on indoor religious services and in-person instruction at schools and closures of indoor malls and gyms  have been imposed on virtually every large county and some small ones where the outbreak is most severe.

Officials say its still too soon to know if the new restrictions will adequately slow the spread of the virus. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has warned the situation in LA has become so tenuous that a virtual lockdown may be needed.

Still, the lure of sunny skies has beckoned families and friends to gather for barbecues and pool parties despite pleas from public health officials to stay home.

I know its hard, Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Wednesday. I know its a sacrifice, especially on beautiful summer days. But Im asking people to stay home as much as possible. Avoid gathering with people you dont live with.

New York still has by far the most coronavirus-related deaths in the country with more than 32,500  four times more than Californias tally of about 7,900. New Yorks rate of confirmed infections of about 2,100 per 100,000 people is twice Californias rate.

With nearly 40 million residents, California is the most populous state in the country by a wide stretch. New York has 19.5 million residents.

Newsom said it wasnt surprising California would eventually have the most cases. He added, however, that it is a sober reminder of why we are taking things as seriously as we are.

But with the disease spreading faster than public health officials can track it, its impossible to know the true extent of the viruss reach in the United States. Federal government data published Tuesday found that reported and confirmed coronavirus cases vastly underestimate the true number of infections, echoing results from a smaller study last month.

Testing supplies were so scarce at the start of the pandemic that many people had it and recovered without ever getting checked to see if they had the disease. Antibody surveys in New York City have suggested that by late April, as many as 1 in 5 people in the city had the disease, which would be about 1.6 million people.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study said true Covid-19 rates were more than 10 times higher than reported cases in most US regions from late March to early May. It is based on Covid-19 antibody tests performed on routine blood samples in 16,000 people in 10 US regions.

In California, Los Angeles County and its 10 million residents remain a virus hot spot. County officials announced 64 new deaths on Wednesday, raising the total to 4,213 as the number of confirmed cases soared past 164,800. County hospitals had 2,207 patients, marking the fourth day in a row of hospitalizations exceeding 2,200 people.

A state watch list of counties with increasing number of cases grew to 35 on Wednesday as officials added rural Butte County to the list. The Northern California county was devastated by a 2018 wildfire that destroyed most of the town of Paradise.

Counties on the watch list for three consecutive days trigger a new round of restrictions, including closing indoor operations at hair and nail salons. The renewed restrictions now apply to more than 85% of the states population, fuelling fears of a more job losses in a state where more than 8 million people have applied for unemployment benefits.
Sydney, June 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Just released, this edition of Paul Budde Communications focus report on Tajikistan outlines the major developments and key aspects in the telecoms markets.

Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Tajikistan-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses

Of all the former Soviet republics, Tajikistans telecommunications infrastructure was arguably the least developed. With a telecom network that was near total collapse, the government had the daunting task of bringing it up to modern standards. Despite the launch of 4G/LTE services, the overall the telecom sector has continued to struggle. Tajikistan still has one of the lowest fixed-line penetrations in the Asian region and one of the lowest broadband levels of broadband penetration.

Tajikistans mobile sector has been on a strong growth path for over a decade. It continues to be the standout feature of the countrys telecom industry. However, as the market has moved closer to a saturation phase there has been an inevitable reduction in the growth rate and. only moderate growth is predicted over the next five years.

There are five major operators in the market: Tcell, Babilon Mobile, MegaFon, ZET Mobile (registered as Tacom) and TK Mobile. Tcell has the largest overall market share, followed by Babilon Mobile, Megafon, ZET Mobile and TK Mobile.

Fixed broadband penetration in Tajikistan remains extremely low, mainly due to a limited number of fixed lines as well as the dominance of the mobile platform. Market penetration has only grown marginally over the last five years from a very small base. Over the next five years growth is expected to continue but overall market penetration will remain extremely low.

Tajikistan has seen a strong increase in mobile broadband penetration over the past four years, though the market is still at an early stage of development and penetration remains relatively low compared to other Asian nations. Steady growth is predicted over the next five years, supported by the rising number of mobile subscribers, and increasingly faster speeds offered by the mobile operators as they roll out their 4G networks. Tariffs should improve due to strong competition, though the regulator has imposed SMP conditions on all operators, which makes it difficult for them to adjust tariffs to suit market conditions.

BuddeComm notes that the outbreak of the Coronavirus in 2020 is having a significant impact on production and supply chains globally. During the coming year the telecoms sector to various degrees is likely to experience a downturn in mobile device production, while it may also be difficult for network operators to manage workflows when maintaining and upgrading existing infrastructure. Overall progress towards 5G may be postponed or slowed down in some countries.

On the consumer side, spending on telecoms services and devices is under pressure from the financial effect of large-scale job losses and the consequent restriction on disposable incomes. However, the crucial nature of telecom services, both for general communication as well as a tool for home-working, will offset such pressures. In many markets the net effect should be a steady though reduced increased in subscriber growth.

Although it is challenging to predict and interpret the long-term impacts of the crisis as it develops, these have been acknowledged in the industry forecasts contained in this report.

The report also covers the responses of the telecom operators as well as government agencies and regulators as they react to the crisis to ensure that citizens can continue to make optimum use of telecom services. This can be reflected in subsidy schemes and the promotion of tele-health and tele-education, among other solutions.

Key developments:

Government orders mandatory registration of all mobile devices;

MegaFon Tajikistan launches 5G network in Dushanbe;

ZET Mobile sets up LTE-based smart city concept in Dushanbe;

Telecom sector continues to struggle, with one of the lowest internet data rates globally;

Report update includes an assessment of the global impact of COVID-19 on the telecoms sector.

Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Tajikistan-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses
With three Congress MLAs in Madhya Pradesh resigning in the last two weeks, former chief minister Kamal Nath on Thursday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi exhorting him to protect "democratic values".

There was an "undemocratic pandemic" prevailing in the country in which the BJP was luring away MLAs to topple elected governments in states ruled by opposition parties, the Madhya Pradesh Congress chief alleged.

"I am sure...you will come forward to save the declining credibility of Indian democracy by not giving any place in your government and the party to such opportunist leaders who are facing charges of trading democratic values, so that India's established identity as a nation having democratic neutrality, transparency and maturity will remain intact," the letter said.

The Congress government headed by Nath lost power in Madhya Pradesh in March when 22 party MLAs joined the BJP. The Congress government in Rajasthan too is facing a political crisis.

The "toppling" of his government was among the most abominable act in the history of Indian democracy, Nath said.

When the whole world was fighting coronavirus, "a senior BJP leader along with....MLAs went away to Bengaluru to topple my government," he alleged.

The federal structure is the beauty of Indian democracy as per Dr BR Ambedkar, but the same structure was now under attack, the Congress leader said.

Narayan Patel, Congress MLA from Mandhata, resigned from MP Assembly on Thursday. Earlier this month Sumitra Devi Kasdekar and Pradyuman Singh Lodhi had quit the party and joined the BJP.
German English

SIKA DEFIES CORONAVIRUS CRISIS WITH GROWTH IN LOCAL CURRENCIES OF 2.9%

Sales growth of 2.9% in local currencies to CHF 3,614.6 million (3.2% in CHF)

High negative currency effect of 6.1% (impact of minus CHF 225 million in sales and CHF 29 million in EBIT)

Maintained high EBITDA margin of over 16% (currency adjusted absolute EBITDA was flat)

Operating profit (EBIT) at CHF 410.2 million (14.8%)

Increased operating free cash flow amounting to CHF 254.7 million (+41.7%)

Closing of acquisition of Adeplast (Romania), takeover of Modern Waterproofing Group (Egypt), and buildup of a new factory in Barranquilla (Colombia)

Outlook for the second half of the year: Sika is expecting more favorable market conditions. With the anticipated improvement in sales volumes, the company expects an over-proportional EBIT increase for the second half of the year

Confirmation of 2023 strategic targets for sustainable, profitable growth

Despite the substantial impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the company was able to continue its growth trajectory, reporting a sales growth of 2.9% in local currencies to CHF 3,614.6 million for the first half of 2020. A high negative currency effect of 6.1% led to a decline in sales of 3.2% in Swiss francs (which corresponds to around CHF 225 million). Acquisition effect contributed 13.4% to growth. At 10.5%, organic growth was negative in the first half of the year. In March, April, and May, the business was impacted by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in almost all subsidiaries. In June, Sika recorded a positive organic sales growth for the first time since February, as lockdown measures ended or were significantly relaxed in many countries. Business activities started to normalize, and the dynamics in the construction sector picked up.

Paul Schuler, Chief Executive Officer: Around 35 of the 100 countries Sika is present in experienced a full lockdown for about two months in the first half of the year, and the rest of our countries have been strongly impacted by the pandemic. With our local management structure in place, we quickly adapted globally to the changing market conditions in the respective countries. We swiftly implemented the necessary measures to protect our employees, customers, and suppliers, whilst simultaneously maintaining our supply chain and business activities with a focus on consistent cost management. Thanks to our high speed of implementation and the proximity to our customers in all countries, we were able to quickly grasp business opportunities and thus capture further market share. I would like to thank all of our employees worldwide for their great efforts and never losing focus during this challenging time.

INCREASED MATERIAL MARGIN  STRONG FOCUS ON CASH FLOW AND LIQUIDITY

The reduced sales volumes in the months March, April, and May had a negative impact on profitability. Nevertheless, the material margin increased to 54.6% (previous year: 53.8%) in the first half of the year. Operating profit before depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) was maintained on a high level with the EBITDA margin reaching 16.4% (previous year: 16.7%). On a currency adjusted basis, absolute EBITDA was flat.

Operating profit (EBIT) amounted to CHF 410.2 million (previous year: CHF 481.7 million) a decline of 14.8%. EBIT was impacted by a negative operating leverage (March to May), initial expenses in connection with structural adjustments and efficiency measures, as well as integration costs in connection with the acquisition of Parex. The negative currency effect of 6.1% further reduced the EBIT by CHF 29 million.

Strong focus on liquidity and cash management resulted in a high operating free cash flow of CHF 254.7 million which exceeded previous year by CHF 75 million. Key drivers of this were an optimized inventory management, a focus on accounts receivables, and reduced capital expenditures.

GROWTH IN LOCAL CURRENCIES DESPITE NUMEROUS LOCKDOWNS

Sales in the first half year includes a substantial acquisition effect of Parex, with the total acquisition effect amounting to 13.4%.

The EMEA region grew by 3.2% in local currencies in the first half of the year. In June, the region achieved single-digit organic growth after already exhibiting a considerable improvement in May compared to April. The impact of the pandemic was limited in most Central European countries, such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Eastern European countries, and Nordic countries. The UK and the Middle East, which still show a very diverse picture, slightly improved in June. In May, Southern Europe showed the biggest improvement versus the previous month, with most lockdown restrictions being eased in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and France, with the latter returning to growth in June. Across the entire EMEA region, direct sales activities can again be supported with customer visits. Digital sales support measures, such as webinars, continue to be used to maintain close contact with customers.

In the first half of the year, the Americas region recorded growth in local currency of 2.6%. Despite higher COVID-19 infection rates in the USA, Mexico, and Brazil, Sika saw an improvement in the Americas region in June. Canada in particular recorded a strong performance with positive organic growth. In the USA, operating profit remained unchanged in June compared to the previous year, with the distribution business even recording double-digit growth in sales. The business in the Americas region was most heavily impacted by the pandemic in May. During this month, many major cities in North America were affected by stringent restrictions and several Latin American countries were in a complete lockdown. In Latin America, the development continues to be uncertain, as most countries are still in a partial or total lockdown, with repeated transitioning between reopening and more restrictive measures.

The Asia/Pacific region reported a growth of 21.8% in local currencies in the first half of the year. Despite numerous extended lockdowns, several key countries were back to growth in June. China in particular recorded double-digit growth and most Target Markets are also back to growth. The Parex business, with its granular distribution channels, has proven to be quite resilient throughout the crisis. The operating business in Japan is slowly recovering. In parts of Southeast Asia, many countries remained in lockdown for a longer period of time, whereas the situation in Vietnam and Thailand improved more quickly. Australia recorded organic growth in the first half of the year.

Global Business: In the first half of the year, the automotive industry reported a decline of 35% in car build rates. While some signs of improvement are visible in June, it is expected to take some time until the numbers climb back to 2019 levels again. Sika has therefore focused the business on lower capacity requirements and invested in process improvements. Most car manufacturers in China, Europe, and North America halted production for a longer period of time during the first six months of the year, with Chinese manufacturers being the first to restart their operations. From May onwards, car production in China is back on the growth trajectory and incentives are boosting customer demand. For the first half of the year, Global Business posted negative growth in local currencies of 23.1%, therefore developing more favorably than the global automotive sector.

Despite the coronavirus-related forecasted decline in automotive sales, Sika is confident that the megatrends in modern auto manufacturing, such as electromobility and lightweight construction, will help Sika to continue to gain market share and generate profitable, long-term growth.

OUTLOOK

Despite the coronavirus crisis and its impact on business operations, Sika confirms its strategic targets 2023. The organization will continue to be aligned for sustainable, long-term success and profitable growth. By targeting six strategic pillars  market penetration, innovation, operational efficiency, acquisitions, strong corporate values, and sustainability , Sika is seeking to grow by 6%8% a year in local currencies until 2023. It is aiming for a higher EBIT margin of 15%18% from 2021 onwards. Projects in the areas of operations, logistics, procurement, and product formulation should result in an annual improvement in operating costs equivalent to 0.5% of sales.

In June, Sika has seen a further improving trend in construction markets and sales volumes are steadily returning to normal levels. Global construction activity is gaining momentum thanks to the gradual reopening of construction sites around the world.

For the second half of the year, Sika is expecting more favourable market conditions. With the anticipated improvement in sales volumes, the company expects an over-proportional EBIT increase for the second half of the year.

KEY FIGURES HALF-YEAR 2020



in CHF mn 1/1/2019 -

6/30/2019 1/1/2020 -

6/30/2020 Change in % Net sales 3,732.4 3,614.6 -3.2 Gross result 2,008.9 1,973.2 -1.8 Operating profit before depreciation (EBITDA) 623.8 593.6 -4.8 Operating profit (EBIT) 481.7 410.2 -14.8 Net profit after taxes 330.7 275.6 -16.7 Undiluted earnings per share (in CHF) 2.31 1.94 -16.0 Diluted earnings per share (in CHF)1 2.11 1.76 -16.6 Operating free cash flow 179.7 254.7 Balance sheet total2 9,959.7 9,437.1 Shareholders equity2 3,161.2 2,848.3 Equity ratio in % 2,3 31.7 30.2 Return on capital employed (ROCE) in % 4 17.0 13.5 1 Dilutive effect due to convertible bonds issued.

2 As of December 31, 2019/June 30, 2020. 3 Shareholders equity divided by balance sheet total. 4 Capital employed = current assets, PPE, intangible assets less cash and cash equivalents, current securities, current liabilities (excluding bank loans and bond).

NET SALES BY REGION





in CHF mn 1/1/2019 -

6/30/2019 1/1/2020 -

6/30/2020 Change compared to prior year

(+/- in %) In CHF In local currencies Currency

impact Acquisition

effect By region EMEA 1,626.0 1,584.2 -2.6 3.2 -5.8 11.7 Americas 986.7 942.0 -4.5 2.6 -7.1 11.4 Asia/Pacific 641.8 746.7 16.3 21.8 -5.5 30.8 Global Business 477.9 341.7 -28.5 -23.1 -5.4 0.0

Net sales 3,732.4 3,614.6 -3.2 2.9 -6.1 13.4 Products for construction industry 2,888.9 2,956.6 2.3 8.4 -6.1



17.3 Products for industrial manufacturing 843.5 658.0 -22.0 -16.0 -6.0



0.0





Webcast today, July 23, 2020 at 3 pm (CET) In connection with the publication of the half-year results a webcast call will be held today. Please join 10 to 15 minutes before the start at: www.sika.com/hy2020webcast By clicking this link, you will be able to participate in the webcast with Paul Schuler (CEO), Adrian Widmer (CFO) and Dominik Slappnig (Head Corporate Communications & IR). A replay of the webcast will be available on the Sika website in the Investors section.



FINANCIAL CALENDAR:

Results first nine months 2020 Thursday, October 22, 2020 Net sales 2020 Tuesday, January 12, 2021 Media conference / analyst presentation on full-year results 2020 Friday, February 19, 2021 Net sales first quarter 2021 Tuesday, April 20, 2021 53rd Annual General Meeting Tuesday, April 20, 2021 Half-year report 2021 Thursday, July 22, 2021

CONTACT

Dominik Slappnig

Corporate Communications &

Investor Relations

+41 58 436 68 21

slappnig.dominik@ch.sika.com

SIKA CORPORATE PROFILE

Sika is a specialty chemicals company with a leading position in the development and production of systems and products for bonding, sealing, damping, reinforcing, and protecting in the building sector and motor vehicle industry. Sika has subsidiaries in 100 countries around the world and manufactures in over 300 factories. Sika employs 25,000 people and generated sales of CHF 8.1 billion in fiscal 2019. At the end of 2019, Sika won the Swiss Technology Award for a groundbreaking new adhesive technology.



The media release can be downloaded from the following link:

Media Release

Sika_Half-Year Report_2020_EN.pdf
Tanaiste Leo Varadkar has warned it would reflect very badly on Ireland if we were on the only country in Europe that cannot reopen schools in the coming weeks.

Facing questions from the opposition in the Dail over concerns from parents about the reopening of schools, Mr Varadkar also confirmed that education minister Norma Foley would come into the Dail next week and give answers.

His remarks come after growing confusion about if and how schools will reopen at the end of August.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin has said this is the "number one national objective" for him with the pandemic.

Speaking in the Dail, Mr Varadkar said hairdressers, shops, restaurants and even the parliament had opened as he stressed the importance of classes resuming.

He pointed to Germany, which has had higher incidence of Covid-19, and said they had been able to reopen schools there.

It would reflect badly on us if we were unable to reopen schools, he said, noting that some countries didn't even close their schools.

Sinn Fein's Pearse Doherty asked about how school transport would operate and how many teachers would be coming into schools. He said, despite promises of a plan, parents had remained without any information for four months.

Will you give certainty that all children will be returning to school?", Mr Doherty said.

Labour leader Alan Kelly said there was "a lack of confidence" in the government position.

He said Ms Foley couldn't be hiding away in her department and must be accountable to the Dail.

Mr Varadkar confirmed that she would next week come into the house and answer questions.

He reiterated that it would look "very bad" if Ireland was the only country in Europe that didn't reopen schools in August and September.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is insisting that the Minister of Special Initiatives and Member of Parliament (MP) for Awutu Senya East, Mavis Hawa Koomson should be prosecuted for firing a firearm in public at a voter registration centre.



According to the NDC, if the government fails to do so now, the NDC will make sure she is prosecuted when it comes to power.



The Director of Elections of the NDC, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah said this at a press briefing in Accra on Wednesday [July 22, 2020].



The MP on Monday in a television interview with Adom TV admitted to firing a firearm at a registration centre at Kasoa in the Central Region in what she said was a warning shot which was meant to protect her and her supporters whose lives she said were in danger.



But at a press briefing in Accra Wednesday, Mr Afriyie Ankrah said Hawa Koomson should be made to face the law.



"The NDC is totally disgusted by the thuggish and criminal shooting incident involving a gang of NPP thugs who were led by Hawa Koomson which has received both national and international condemnation and which have been admitted by the Minister of State herself", Mr Ankrah said.



"We condemn in no uncertain terms such thuggery, sponsored and led by a high ranking government official and lawmaker who is supposed to uphold the law at all times. Hawa Koomson has by this singular criminal act and the many others committed before, together with her gang and all that they have meted out to NDC supporters and innocent Ghanaians in the last couple of weeks demonstrated that she is a gangster who does not deserve to occupy any public position of trust and we join the many voices of conscience in our society to demand her immediate dismissal from office and her prosecution for these heinous crimes".



Mr Afriyie Ankrah also served notice that the NDC will prosecute Hawa Koomson if their flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama is elected as president in the 2020 presidential election should President Akufo-Addo fail to act.



"We will, therefore, like to serve notice that if Hawa Koomson is left off the hook by President Akufo-Addo as we anticipate, the next NDC-Mahama government in the year 2021 shall arrest, prosecute and punish her and all the thugs who were involved in this unlawful shooting incident, and all the other related criminal acts."

Source: Daily Graphic









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
A family of five who live close to the collapsed three-story building in Nkaliki community in Abakaliki local government area of Ebonyi ...

A family of five who live close to the collapsed three-story building in Nkaliki community in Abakaliki local government area of Ebonyi State, yesterday have revealed how they escaped being buried alive in the rubbles.





The father of five, one Mr Christopher Nwokora blamed the collapse of the 3 story building on substandard building material and builders.





According to him: It is God that saved me and my family, a 3 story building near my house collapsed last night by around 10:30pm. It was raining at the time.





We heard a very big noise like a bomb and everywhere went dark. I thank God that no life was lost. Even though my house is very near the collapsed building but it didnt touch my house. It only destroyed my fence.





They started very well at the ground floor but when they reached the second floor and they started using substandard materials.





It seems they used a professional engineer from the start and at a level, the engineer abandoned the work for them. And the owner started using his own hand to build it. The cement, stones and rods were not mixed very well he stated.





Investigation revealed that the real owner of the affected building lives abroad, but sends money to one of his relations, whose name is yet to be identified at the time of filing this report, to build the house for him.





However, the building plan of the affected house was approved in 2014 under the former administration.





However, the governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi has suspended the members of Abakaliki Capital Territory Development Board as a result of the collapsed building.





A statement signed by the SSG, Kenneth Ugbala, said the suspension is with immediate effect.





The indefinite suspension is a result of their failure to supervise buildings within the Capital City which led to the collapse of three (3) Story building along Nkaliki road in Abakaliki Local Government Area.





The office of the Secretary to the State Government will announce a new task force on building approval, construction and supervision. The task force shall be responsible for building approvals, construction and supervision of all sites within the capital city.




Instacart said it was not compromised by a cybersecurity breach after hundreds of thousands of customers' personal data was reportedly being sold for as little as $2 per account on the dark web.

The California delivery grocer confirmed on Thursday that it found no evidence that hackers had obtained the last four digits of credit card numbers, names and order histories of customers through its system.

The information was available for sale for just $2 per account on two stores on the dark web as recently as yesterday.

Buzzfeed News, who reported the breach on Wednesday, chose not to disclose the site that was advertising the data of 278,531 accounts. Buzzfeed admitted some may have been faulty.



Instacart on Thursday said it found no evidence that customers' private information had been obtained by cybercriminals through a cybersecurity attack

Customers' last four digits of credit card numbers, names and order histories were reportedly for sale on the dark web for as little as $2

On Twitter, Instacart released a statement that said the investigation they launched apparently turned up nothing on their end.

'To directly address questions about customer account information, we want to share an update for Instacart customers. We take data protection & privacy very seriously and our investigation so far has shown that the Instacart platform was not compromised or breached,' the company wrote.

Instead, Instacart said hackers may have targeted customers using phishing attack methods, like stuffing credentials.

'Based on our teams assessment, we believe this is the result of credential stuffing - a technique used by 3rd party bad actors similar to phishing, and occurs when a person uses similar login credentials across various websites and apps.,' they wrote.

Instacart revealed the result of their internal investigation on Twitter and said its platform had not been compromised

The company suggested customers' personal information may have been caught in phishing attacks or stuffing credentials

Instacart is contacting individuals customers who may have been affected by the reported information leak to change their password

Other concerned customers are encouraged to change their login credentials out of caution

Instacart added that it is contacting individual customers to change their login credentials.

'We are reaching out to individual customers to auto-force a password update to those customers that may have been affected by third party credential-stuffing,' wrote Instacart.

'If customers are concerned and want to take their own action out of an abundance of caution, we recommend that customers change their Instacart password in their account settings to a unique password that they do not use on any other apps or website accounts'

The company further denied their system suffered a cybersecurity breach in a statement to USA Today.

'We have a dedicated security team as well as multiple layers of security measures across common vectors designed to protect the integrity of all user accounts,' wrote Instacart.

The most recent upload of an Instacart customer data to one of the websites was 22 July, and there were continuous updates throughout June and July.

In the feedback for one of the sales, seen by DailyMail.com, one customer said: 'Thanks man looking forward to the free stuff :).'

Another said: 'Great overall experience highly recommended.'

Other comments said the vendor had not fulfilled the order and that they didn't receive the information.

Pictured: File photo of a home delivery. An Instacart spokesman told BuzzFeed they were 'unaware' of a breach on their data

An Instacart spokesman initially told BuzzFeed News on Wednesday they were 'unaware' of a breach on their data.

'We are not aware of any data breach at this time. We take data protection and privacy very seriously,' they said.

'In instances where we believe a customer's account may have been compromised through an external phishing scam outside of the Instacart platform or other action, we proactively communicate to our customers to auto-force them to update their password,' they added.

The sites used were on the dark web, but BuzzFeed has chosen not to name them.

Cybersecurity expert Security Fanatics confirmed the advertisement looked legitimate and believed it had been posted recently.

Two women whose information was part of the illegal online package were Hannah Chester and another who preferred only to be known as Mary M.

'I don't really know what to say. It's hard to know what to say, not knowing if it's a result of [Instacart's] negligence,' Hannah Chester told BuzzFeed News. 'But if they're aware that this happened and haven't informed us, that's problematic.'

Mary reiterated her disappointment that Instacart had failed to make its customers aware of the attack and that she had to find out through journalists.

Instacart, founded in 2012 with a reach of nearly 6,000 cities, Instacart's popularity and revenue have surged in the months since the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States in January.

Lockdown orders became a major factor in an uptick in online grocer stores, as civilians avoided public places, grocery stores struggled implement public health guidelines and staffers became sick.

Pictured: Clark resident Jen Valencia (pictured) sanitizes her hands at checkout as she supplements her income working for Instacart at Acme Market

In June, Instacart revealed that it raised $225million in an investment round due to the boost in sales.

Apporva Mehta, one of the Instacart founders and current CEO, became a billionaire that same month as a result.

Forbes reports that Instacart's valuation went from $7.9billion to $13.7billion, and estimated the Mehta had a net worth of $1.2billion.

Instacart hired 300,000 more shoppers in March and had plans of adding an additional $250,000 in April.

'We have ambitious plans for the future and this new investment enables us to deepen our support for our shoppers and partners, further fund strategic initiatives such as our advertising and enterprise businesses, and continue to deliver exceptional experiences for customers,' Mehta said in a press release.

'This pandemic has fundamentally reshaped the way people think about grocery and ecommerce, and we're proud to have Instacart continue to play an important role in people's lives now and long after this crisis subsides.'
LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- ATC Healthcare announced today it has been named to Forbes' annual list of America's Best Temporary Staffing Firms for 2020. The prestigious award is presented by Forbes and Statista Inc., the world-leading statistics portal and industry ranking provider. ATC Healthcare received a five-star ranking, signifying a placement in the first half of awarded companies.

ATC Healthcare

America's Best Temporary Staffing Firms is comprised of the best recruiting agencies based on the results of independent surveys involving over 26,500 recruiters and 5,400 job candidates and hiring managers.

ATC Healthcare is proud to be featured in this Forbes' article. The brand is being recognized for staffing hospitals in New York City with hundreds of nurses from across the country, expanding its business by 35%.

"It is an honor to have been ranked by Forbes as a top staffing firm. We are a healthcare staffing company that truly cares about our clients and this award just reinforces that our services are making a positive impact," said David Savitsky, CEO of ATC Healthcare. "This recognition represents ATC Healthcare's commitment to providing the best quality and service in the industry. We are excited to continue this momentum for the rest of 2020 and beyond!"

ATC Healthcare, a national system with 45 franchisees operating today, provides healthcare staffing services to a variety of businesses including hospitals, outpatient centers, medical offices, schools, travel-based businesses and more. Backed by more than 40 years of proven results, ATC Healthcare brings businesses and medical professionals together to make the entire healthcare continuum run smoothly.

The brand offers its franchise partners unmatched franchisee support. Most notably, corporate manages all back-office affairs, so franchisees can focus on marketing their business and recruiting clients and staff. The back-office work corporate manages for its franchise partners includes payroll for healthcare associates, client credit checks, invoicing, payroll for healthcare and receivables and more.

In addition to back-office support, ATC Healthcare franchisees are provided with thorough training, including step-by-step marketing guides, empowering franchise partners with the confidence to grow and market the business while corporate handles the paperwork. Due to the robust nature of the training program, healthcare or staffing industry experience is not required to become an ATC Healthcare franchise partner as they will be trained on proprietary best practices and processes and systems.

The ATC Healthcare opportunity is built to attract ambitious and people-oriented entrepreneurs with strong leadership abilities, business savvy and dedication to the brand's mission.

For more information on the ATC Healthcare franchise opportunity, visit https://www.atcfranchise.com.



About ATC Healthcare

ATC Healthcare is an industry-leading healthcare staffing franchise. Powered by more than 35 years of experience, ATC Healthcare and its franchise partners are experts at developing staffing solutions for a diverse selection of clients.

ATC Healthcare's franchise opportunity allows entrepreneurs to join the growing healthcare services industry. As the brand prioritizes franchise growth, it is targeting attractive markets in Florida, Minnesota, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Arizona.

For more information about ATC Healthcare, visit https://www.atchealthcare.com

CONTACT: Tess Gabriels

All Points Public Relations

(847) 897-7488

[email protected]

SOURCE ATC Healthcare

Related Links

https://www.atchealthcare.com


(TNS)  Expressway shootings have surged in the Chicago area this year, already surpassing what is normally seen in an entire year and increasing pressure for the installation of better cameras as well as scanners that read license plates.The Illinois State Police have recorded 61 expressway shootings in Cook County this year. That compares with 52 for all of 2019, 43 in 2018, 51 in 2017 and 54 in 2016, a year when gun violence in Chicago hit levels not seen since the 1990s.More than half the shootings this year  40  have been on the Dan Ryan Expressway and Interstate 57, according to numbers provided by the state police. Among the other shootings, nine have been on Interstate 290, five on the Stevenson Expressway, three on the Kennedy Expressway, two on Interstate 80 and one each on the Edens Expressway and Interstate 394.The reason for the spike is unclear, but the coronavirus pandemic could be part of it, according to Beth Hundsdorfer, a spokeswoman for the state police. During the stay-at-home order, the state police recorded 29 expressway shootings in the Chicago area.Traffic on most expressways was sparse, which gave offenders an easy avenue of opportunity to escape, she said. This sparse or reduced traffic also limited the number of potential witnesses to assist with creating leads to solving these violent offenses.There have been just six arrests for expressway shootings in Chicago this year, but thats still better than it has been in other years. There were two arrests in 2016, two in 2017, three in 2018 and six in 2019, according to the state police.Hundsdorfer said the traffic cameras in place along the expressways are little help to investigators.Traffic-monitoring cameras are very useful to determine if traffic is congested or if a crash has occurred, she said. But they provide no investigative value to expressway shooting investigations. In many instances, the existing cameras cant provide the make, model or even color of vehicles.High-definition cameras would solve some of those problems, while license plate scanners would allow police to better trace and track down suspects, she said. A law passed last year authorized the installation of both, but so far only a small number have been placed along expressways in the Chicago area, Hundsdorfer said.The law was named for Tamara Clayton, a U.S. Postal Service employee who was shot and killed last year while driving on I-57 on her way to work. She had told friends she avoided the Dan Ryan because she was afraid of being shot.The murder remains unsolved. Her sister, Alma Hill, believes better surveillance could have led to an arrest in her sisters case and many others that have followed.That would mean (police) would know the car, they would know the license plate, Hill said. Its not something that were thinking about thats scientific and out of fantasy. Its real. It can do the job.Hill said she was told high-definitions cameras would be installed by the end of May, but state officials havent given her an update since January.I know weve had the pandemic, but life goes on, Hill said. All Im asking is: Where is the money? How was the money allocated? And the fact that the Illinois State Police needs help, Chicago police needs help, all of these individuals need help  and its almost like theyre downgrading the situation and ignoring it, and I dont think they want to do that.The legislation directed that the cameras and scanners be paid from the states road fund, which is overseen by the Illinois Department of Transportation. Agency spokeswoman Maria Castaneda said officials were working with the state police and have been upgrading some cameras to high-definition.That process is continuing, she said. Castaneda couldnt give a date for when it would be done.Improving video surveillance on Illinois expressways has been discussed for years as more police agencies have upgraded their cameras and deployed license plate scanners, which automatically capture all plate numbers that come into view, along with the location, date and time, plus photographs of the vehicles.Due to the speeds and time of day most of these shooting incidents occur, we have determined that implementing  license plate readers on the Chicagoland expressways would be most beneficial, said Hundsdorfer, the state police spokeswoman.Investigators deal with a commuting population, making it difficult to develop witnesses unless witnesses contact law enforcement after the fact, she said.Chicago police started using license plate scanners to combat a sudden increase in carjackings several years ago and now have more than 200 of them in squad cars. Officers use the scanners to match license plates against a list of stolen vehicles and those involved in crimes.After a drive-by shooting on the Dan Ryan last week, Chicago police Superintendent David Brown was asked whether more and better cameras should be installed on the expressways, even though the state police and not the Chicago police have jurisdictions on them.As you know, in Chicago we have a lot of cameras in the city, so it has been something that has been helpful to resolving crimes when we dont have any other leads, he replied.Some civil rights groups have raised concerns about the new technology, worrying that the data could be misused.Can a government agency install these kinds of camera systems and not necessarily create a constitutional violation? asked Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union. The answer may be yes, but ... this shouldnt just be a question of if you can do it. It should be a question of whether or not you should do it.Studies indicate that improved surveillance just moves crime from one area to another, Yohnka said. He pointed to misuse of law enforcement databases for personal reasons as an example of ways the cameras can be abused.Chicago has one of the largest, most sophisticated camera systems in the whole world (and) still to this day we havent seen the privacy policies around these cameras, Yohnka said. These questions end up being important. And then when you combine it with ... is there some peer-reviewed evidence anywhere that cameras actually deter crime?Hundsdorfer, however, said state police are determined to increase the number of cameras and improve network capabilities in order to ensure we have the best technology available to assist with decreasing gun violence and drug trafficking on Illinois expressways.
Twitter shares rise on record yearly growth in daily users File photo of the Twitter logo displayed on a screen on the floor of the NYSE

By Katie Paul and Elizabeth Culliford

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Twitter Inc <TWTR.N> on Thursday reported its highest-ever yearly growth of daily users who can view ads, beating analysts' estimates on usage and sending its shares up 4%.

Twitter's average monetizable daily active users (mDAU) increased 34% year over year to 186 million, above analysts' estimate of 176 million, in a rise it said was primarily driven by external factors such as shelter-in-place requirements and increased conversation around the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the company missed Wall Street's lowered expectations for quarterly revenue, as the coronavirus-spurred economic slowdown battered the company's largely events-oriented digital ads business.

Ad sales, which make up 82% of Twitter's revenue, sank 23% to $562 million, a drop the company attributed to brand spending pauses tied to the pandemic and U.S. civil unrest. Analysts had expected $585 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Chief Executive Jack Dorsey opened a conference call with analysts by apologizing for the hack that compromised the accounts of high-profile users last week, saying "we feel terrible." In a statement, Dorsey said Twitter had taken steps to improve its security and "resiliency against targeted social engineering attempts."

Total revenue came in at $683 million, down 19% year-over-year, helped by steadier sales growth from the licensing of users' posts to researchers and marketers.

Twitter has struggled to build out its ad offerings, leaving it reliant on a suite of promotional tools geared toward advertising around big events and product launches, which have all but vanished during the pandemic.

The company said it finished rebuilding its ad management technology in the second quarter, which would support faster development of new formats going forward, and was rolling out measurement tools for "direct response" ads used by app developers.

Story continues

On the conference call, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal declined to give details about the impact of a July social media advertising boycott that was intially focused on Facebook <FB.O> but spread to other platforms. Dorsey said Twitter's actions to protect conversations on the platform were being noted by advertisers.

Twitter also said it was exploring "subscriptions and other approaches to complement our advertising business," such as commerce, though it was not expecting any revenue to result this year Dorsey said on the call that the company would have a "really high bar for when we would ask consumers to pay for aspects of Twitter."

The company reported a second-quarter loss of $1.2 billion, largely driven by the reversal of a tax benefit established last year, when the company transferred intellectual property to Ireland. Because of the second quarter's steep coronavirus-related losses, Twitter did not make enough money to take advantage of the tax benefit.

Adjusted to exclude the tax considerations, the company incurred a loss of $127 million, or 16 cents per share, roughly in line with analyst expectations of a $125 million loss. It had an adjusted profit last year of $37 million.

Echoing earlier guidance, Twitter said it expects data licensing revenue to "moderate" for the rest of the year.

Costs and expenses grew 5% to $807 million, below the increase in the low teens that Twitter had forecast. The company said it anticipated expense growth of 10% or more in the third quarter.

Social media rival Snap Inc <SNAP.N> missed user growth estimates earlier this week, as its usage bump from coronavirus lockdowns petered out sooner than expected, but it beat targets for revenue gains.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford and Katie Paul; Editing by Leslie Adler and Steve Orlofsky)
Kolkata, July 23 : West Bengal Governor Jadgeep Dhankhar on Thursday urged Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to meet him on the issue of the state's deteriorating law and order situation.

"Given the enormity of decline in law and order I have urged Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to urgently brief me," the Governor tweeted.

He also condemned the attacks on opposition leaders across the state and criticised the role of the police.

"Political leaders and opposition MPs and MLAs being virtually hunted out of public space by partisan police acting as political workers. This cannot be allowed in a democracy," Dhankhar said.

The statement came a few days after he met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi on Monday where he conveyed his concerns on the issue.

"As Governor of the state I am extremely worried. I requested the honourable Chief Minister to come forward and have a meeting with me. I hope she will give the highest priority to this," he said.

Reacting to the development, senior Trinamool Congress leader Tapas Roy attacked Dhankhar saying when six other states in India are trying to battle locust swarm invasions, we are dealing with the state Governor.

"Now the first priority for the Chief Minister is to manage the COVID-19 situation and save lives. But he is holding press meets and hurling attacks on the state government's role every day," Roy added.
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Yes Bank share price has tumbled 52 percent since it announced the pricing of its follow-on public offer (FPO) on June 10.

On July 23, the stock plunged 20 percent during the day to Rs 14.6, the lowest intraday level since March 6, when the stock tanked 56 percent after the Reserve Bank of India took control of the beleaguered lender following is failure to raise funds.

A few days later, the central bank handed over the control to a new board under a Reconstruction Scheme.

As part of the reconstruction plan, marquee institutions  State Bank of India, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank, Federal Bank, HDFC, Axis Bank, Bandhan Bank and IDFC First Bank have invested Rs 10,000 crore in Yes Bank.

On March 6, the stock fell to Rs 5.55 during the day but recovered to close at Rs 16.2. On July 23, the stock was trading at Rs 15.65 on the BSE, down 14.25 percent, at 1413 hours.

The consistent fall could be an indication that the share price could gradually be adjusting to the FPO price, which is expected to be fixed at Rs 12, the lower end of price band of Rs 12-13 per share, experts say.

Majority of bids had come in at Rs 12 per share, even anchor investors put in their bids at the same price.

Arun Kejriwal, a primary capital market expert and owner of AK47.in, told Moneycontrol that the stock price may adjust near the issue price before the listing.

"While we agree that the FPO was priced cheap considering the uncertainties like stressed asset quality and overall depressed financial performance expected in the foreseeable future in banking operations going forward. But we do also expect that there are high possibilities that the stock price will get adjusted to near FPO issue price of Rs 12 before listing or even dive down," Prashanth Tapse, AVP Research at Mehta Equities, said.

Yes Bank has managed to raise Rs 14,272 crore or 95 percent of its issue size of Rs 15,000 crore, while the balance amount is expected to be received from issue underwriter SBI Capital Markets.

SBI Capital Markets had committed underwriting amount of up to Rs 3,000 crore, the prospectus says.

FPO shares are likely to be listed on July 27.

The bank will utilise the net proceeds towards ensuring adequate capital to support its growth and expansion, including enhancing its solvency and capital adequacy ratio.

: 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.
Kiev, July 24 : A man armed with a grenade has taken a policeman hostage in Poltava, central Ukraine, and fled, Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Anton Gerashchenko said on his social media.

"Negotiations are ongoing to force the attacker to surrender to the police without harming himself or others," the official said on Facebook on Thursday, Xinhua news agency reported.

Police stopped the armed man at 9 a.m. local time (0600 GMT) on Thursday, near the building of the administrative court in the town of Poltava. During the operation, the man took a police officer hostage, threatening to blow up the RGD-5 grenade.

The man then drove away with the hostage. A police special operation called "Thunder" was launched.

This is the second incident involving taking hostages in Ukraine this week. On Tuesday an armed man kept 13 people hostage in the western town of Lutsk for over 12 hours but later freed them.
A 14-year-old boy has been charged with stabbing another teenager at a high school in central west NSW.

Police were called to a fight at the school in Orange about 2pm on Wednesday, and officers used pepper spray to break up the brawl.

A 15-year-old student suffered a puncture wound to his chest and was taken to hospital for surgery on the non-life threatening injury.

The younger boy was arrested at an Orange home on Thursday afternoon and charged with reckless wounding in company.

He was granted bail to appear before a children's court on August 31.
KYIV -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called on law enforcement to find those responsible for a suspected arson attack on the home of a prominent anti-corruption activist that has caused deep concern among Western countries.

Vitaliy Shabunin, who serves as the head of the Anti-Corruption Action Centers executive board, showed reporters on July 23 the remains of his home in the capital, Kyiv, which burned down overnight.

"The culprits must be found and punished," Zelenskiy said in a statement, adding that such attacks "cast a shadow on the reputation of our state, on our institutions of power, and especially on our law enforcement agencies."

No one was injured in the fire, which the anti-corruption organization described as an "assassination attempt" on Shabunin.

Shabunin said his parents, who were in the house at the time, were able to escape unharmed.

A neighbor told Shabunin that he saw an explosion before the home was engulfed in flames. The activist said workers had inspected the gas meter and pipes just two weeks ago.

The police suspect arson and are investigating.

In a statement, the Anti-Corruption Action Center called on Zelenskiy to personally take control of all investigations into attacks on anti-corruption activists, saying that they did not trust the police or Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.

Activists, journalists, and other individuals that expose corruption often face assaults and threats.

An investigative journalist in Cherkasy in central Ukraine was killed last June, while the nations former central banker who had taken on oligarchs had her home burned down in September.

If the fire at Shabunin's home was the result of arson, it would not be the first time that he has been targeted. In 2018, he suffered chemical burns when attackers threw a green antiseptic in his face as he took part in a demonstration outside a prosecutor's office in Kyiv.



Shabunin said such attacks against activists continue under Zelenskiy, who won last year in a landslide on a promise to fight corruption, because the new head of state hasnt taken any serious steps to thwart them.

These are the consequences of his silence and inaction, said Shabunin, referring to his destroyed home.

Shabunin has lobbied for anti-corruption legislation and the recovery of assets stolen by officials.

He said an arson attack would only make him work "even harder to fight corruption.

The suspected arson attack caused concern among Western diplomats, who have pressured Ukraine to fight corruption and clean up its justice system.

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv said it was concerned about suspected attacks targeting political and civil society leaders.

In thriving democracies, citizens must be able to voice opinions without fear for their physical security, it wrote on Twitter.

Matti Maasikas, the EUs ambassador to Ukraine, wrote on Twitter that he was very disturbed by the suspected attack on Shabunins home.

I call on the authorities to investigate this case and if a deliberate act -- to bring the perpetrators to justice. Civil activists must feel safe to carry on their mission, Maasikas wrote.

With reporting by the Kyiv Post and Reuters
A day ahead of a crucial meeting of diplomats to review the India-China border standoff, people familiar with developments said on Thursday the focus will be on bridging differences that have led to the stalling of the disengagement and de-escalation process.

The Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on border affairs, which held its last virtual meeting on July 10, is expected to reconvene on Friday to review the disengagement process. This will be the mechanisms fourth meeting since the border standoff emerged in the open and India and China mobilised troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Also Read: Air Force ready to counter aggressive action: IAF chief

Both sides will look at the progress that was to have taken place in the disengagement and de-escalation process as agreed on by the leadership of both countries, said one of the people cited above. No one said this process will be simple. It will be complex and long-drawn.

India and China have failed to make a breakthrough in reducing tensions in the sensitive Ladakh sector despite intense negotiations at the military and diplomatic levels, and the disengagement process at some points of the LAC has virtually halted.

No meeting between Indian and Chinese military commanders is scheduled for now and the possibility of a fifth meeting between them will be considered on the basis of the outcome of the WMCC meeting on Friday, the people said.

Also Read: 8 Indian,US warships conduct maritime drills in Indian Ocean

The scheduling of a meeting between the corps commanders will also depend on the Peoples Liberation Army honouring the understanding on disengagement reached during the previous talks between the generals on July 14-15, the people added.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava told a weekly news briefing on Thursday that the Chinese side would have to cooperate for the complete disengagement on the disputed frontier that was agreed on by the Special Representatives for the border issue, Indias National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinas foreign minister Wang Yi.

Also Read: Stage set for Australia to be part of next Malabar exercise with India, US, Japan

As we have stated earlier, the maintenance of peace and tranquillity in the border areas is the basis of our bilateral relationship. Therefore, it is our expectation that the Chinese side will sincerely work with us for complete disengagement and de-escalation ... as agreed to by Special Representatives, he said.

Srivastava pointed out that respecting and strictly abiding by the LAC is the basis of peace and tranquillity in the border areas and this was reflected by several agreements signed by India and China since 1993.

Former ambassador Rajiv Bhatia, distinguished fellow at Gateway House, said there was a growing impression that de-escalation was a work in progress and would take considerable time. India will need patience, perseverance, persistence and a dose of firmness....there have been contextual developments that are a good sign, such as the India-US naval exercise in Indian Ocean and the clear message emerging from the air force commanders conference, he said.
They were once Australia's power couple of international entrepreneurship. But sadly, Jessica Rudd and Albert Tse have split after 13 years of marriage.

Sources close to the pair told CBD the split was "extremely" amicable.

"It's pretty sad, but that is what happens when you're busy people," the source said.

Jessica Rudd and Albert Tse. Credit:Brian Cassey

Rudd, 36, daughter of former prime minister Kevin Rudd and businesswoman Therese Rein, is a director on the board of local beef producer AACo and an Australian ambassador for Chinese online giant Alibaba. She is a former director of listed e-commerce group eCargo, which bought her own exporter, Jessicas Suitcase, in 2018 in a multimillion-dollar deal.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 24)  Cavite Governor Jonvic Remulla ordered on Friday to suspend the mall operations of SM City Trece Martires for violating the provinces quarantine pass policy.

In a statement posted on his official Facebook page, Remulla revealed provincial police officers conducted an undercover operation in Cavite malls last July 22 to find out if these establishments are complying with the provinces regulations to fight the spread of COVID-19.

The Cavite governor added he received a video showing the non-compliance of the mall, located in the provinces capital Trece Martires City, in the provincial governments quarantine pass policy.

Remulla did not specify, however, how the mall violated the Q-Pass System rule.

Guidelines are meant to put order into controlling the pandemic situation. For those who think that the worst is over, you are mistaken, said Remulla.

The Q-Pass System policy requires Cavite residents to have quarantine passes when going outside of their house to buy essential goods.

In line with the relaxation of quarantine measures in the country, the Cavite provincial government implemented the modified Q-Pass System policy last June 7 where quarantine passes are now transferable to other qualified, legal-aged members of the household. Residents are still advised to bring an identification card to prove membership in their household.

The mall management has yet to give a comment on the governors recent order.
Voting in the Green Party leadership contest has closed, with Eamon Ryan widely expected to be confirmed as leader of the Green Party for another term.

Backers are expecting him to prevail by at least a two-to-one margin over his rival, deputy leader Catherine Martin. Both are serving in the new Cabinet.

The deadline for the receipt of ballots for the leadership contest was 5.30pm on Wednesday and a sluggish return of votes  only two-thirds of ballots were returned by lunchtime - is seen as signifying little appetite for a change of leader.

Despite a long lead-in, some 1,943 prepaid envelopes had been returned, representing a 66.22 per cent turnout, although the final percentage could rise slightly.

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For the vote on the Programme for Government, ballots were issued to 1,991 members with 1,904 returned, with the majority sent back promptly for a turnout of over 90 per cent.

The return rate will be lower on the leadership election, a party spokeswoman admitted.

She said members were asked to register for the Programme for Government vote, whereas all eligible members were sent a ballot for the leadership.

If its slow, it suggests there isnt a headlong charge to get rid of Eamon, said a party official.

Ms Martin is believed to have significant levels of support in Northern Ireland, which contributes 600 members to the nearly 3,000 members of the all-island party.

But the early indications are being read as highly favourable to Mr Ryan on all sides. Eligible voters are those members in good standing who have completed a six-month probationary period on joining the party.

At the time of issuing ballots there were 2,336 eligible members in the Republic of Ireland and 598 in Northern Ireland, practically a 4:1 ratio. Neither Mr Ryan nor Ms Martin have offered comment on the turnout, but one of her supporters admitted the portents were not good.

The count will take place on Thursday with the result expected to be announced at 7pm.

Counting will be overseen by independent auditors while observers from both of the candidates will also be present.

After the Greens voted to go into Government, Ms Martin said that there was a missed opportunity by her party to promote women within its ranks to ministerial positions.

Ms Martin was also critical that Green TDs who opposed the Programme for Government document were excluded from the Cabinet table.

She said that while the party talks the talk on promoting diversity and inclusivity, it is not backing that up with action.

Ms Martin previously said: I guess as a female pilot politician and someone who set up the caucus, I would always seek to promote women in our party.

But having said that, all Green Party ministers who are there are good for the job and I respect the decision there.

That was the prerogative of Eamon as leader but I do feel that forever we have women who have proven that they are ready and very able, then we should always seek to promote because young girls cannot aim to be what they cannot see and we should always be seeking to do that to promote women.

Mr Ryan, meanwhile, used the hustings as an opportunity to focus on his experienced in government and as the Minister for Climate Action.

He said he wanted to remain as party leader, adding that his experience at the helm is important.

While the leader attracted some criticism when he appeared to be sleeping during a vote in the Dail last week, it is not expected to impact the final vote.

National Co-ordinator Blaithin Gallagher, who chaired the hustings, will invite a three-minute concession speech from the runner up, followed by a five-minute speech from the victor once the results are announced on Thursday.

With additional reporting from PA
Rahul Gandhi

New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was busy building his own image, and noted that one man's vision cannot be a substitute for a national vision.

Gandhi's attack on the prime minister came as part of a series launched by him on Twitter, where he seeks to explain the India-China conflict at the border.

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Rahul Gandhi tweet"PM is 100% focused on building his own image. India's captured institutions are all busy doing this task. One man's image is not a substitute for a national vision," he said on Twitter.

The Congress leader said he knows that the prime minister is his opponent and it is his responsibility to question him.

"My responsibility is to ask questions and put pressure on him so he does his work. His responsibility is to give the vision. It's not there. I can tell you, guaranteed, it's not there and that's why China's is in there today," he alleged.

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Rahul GandhiExplaining how to respond to China, he said the first thing is you should not take on China without a vision.

"And by that I don't mean a national vision. I mean an international vision."

Gandhi said India has a border dispute with China and this issue has to be resolved. "But we have to change our approach, we have to change how we think."
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 17:03 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668c78f0 4 National KPK,BPK,defense-ministry,Bawaslu,Religious-Affairs-Ministry,KLHK,Environment-and-Forestry-Ministry Free

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) will investigate five state institutions found to have used personal bank accounts to manage public funds.

The KPK will investigate the findings to see if there is an indication of crime or if this is merely an administrative mishap, KPK deputy chairman Nurul Ghufron said on Wednesday.

The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) announced on Tuesday that five ministries and state institutions had used personal bank accounts to manage a total of Rp 71.78 billion (US$ 4.9 million) in state funds.

They are the Defense Ministry, the Religious Affairs Ministry, the Environment and Forestry Ministry, the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu), and the Nuclear Energy Regulatory Agency (Bapeten).

According to the BPK, Rp 48.12 billion in state funds was found in 62 personal bank accounts within the Defense Ministry, Rp 20.71 billion in several personal bank accounts and in cash within the Religious Affairs Ministry and Rp 2.93 billion within the Bawaslu office in Lampung.

Read also: Government earns highest audit rating from BPK despite irregularities

If the use of personal bank accounts was an administrative error, Ghufron said, the matter should immediately be addressed by each of the institutions.

He said the KPK would take "strict measures" if the investigation revealed that the state institutions had been using personal bank accounts for their own profit while managing the state budget.

In response to the BPK's report, Defense Ministry spokesperson Brig. Gen. Djoko Purwanto said the personal bank accounts were used by the ministry only for administrative purposes  to manage the budget for Indonesian defense attaches stationed around the world who needed ready access to funds for their activities.

He added that the ministry had filed a request with the Finance Ministry regarding the opening of bank accounts to provide for defense attaches.

"The Defense Ministry's inspector general has given a detailed explanation to the BPK regarding its findings," Djoko said as quoted by kompas.com.

Religious Affairs Ministry acting inspector general Muhammad Thamrin said the ministry had immediately responded to the BPK's findings by wiring the Rp 20.71 billion back to the public service agency (BLU) that managed state funds and providing ministry financial reports.

Bawaslu secretary-general Gunawan Suswantoro said the use of a personal bank account in Bawaslu, Lampung, was merely an "administrative mishap", adding that the Rp 2.9 billion  which was what remained from direct purchases and stockpiling  had been returned to the state. (dpk)
TORONTO - Several unions launched a campaign on Thursday calling on the Ontario government to phase out for-profit companies that operate long-term care homes.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO - Several unions launched a campaign on Thursday calling on the Ontario government to phase out for-profit companies that operate long-term care homes.

COVID-19 has hit for-profit homes harder than their non-profit or municipally run counterparts, they noted.

"It's proven: For-profits have the worst outcomes in this pandemic," said Sharleen Stewart, president of Service Employees International Union Healthcare representing frontline workers in the province. "It's glaring. The for-profits are the ones with the problems."

For-profits account for just over half of Ontario's more than 620 nursing homes but are also in place across Canada. COVID-19 has been especially brutal for the money-making enterprises, with 13 of the 15 hardest-hit facilities in the province run by for-profits.

Studies have attributed the poorer performance to lower staffing levels and older facilities that barely meet 1972 design standards.

"It has obviously escalated and become even a more dire crisis through COVID," Stewart said. Our hearts break every day. We're frustrated every day. We're angry every day."

In support of their campaign, the unions launched a one-minute TV commercial that says the novel coronavirus has killed 1,800 residents in Ontario care homes.

Many of those who died were in overcrowded and squalid conditions, while staff lacked proper personal protection equipment, the ad says.

"They died while private LTC corporations chose profits over people, paying out shareholders $58 million in the past three months."

That money, the unions said, should have been used to increase staff wages and full-time employment, enhanced infection controls, and air conditioning.

Premier Doug Ford, who has previously said a commission would be reviewing the sector, said on Thursday that "Everything is on the table."

Jerry Dias, national president of Unifor, took aim at former Progressive Conservative premier Mike Harris, now chairman of the board at Chartwell, a key player in long-term care. It was the Harris government that deregulated the industry two decades ago, Dias said.

"The fact that he himself is personally profiting from that today is a disgrace," Dias said.

The former premier did not comment on Dias's claims, but Chartwell said newer homes with better COVID outcomes were the result of the 20,000 new long term care beds and the redevelopment of 16,000 others the Harris government announced in 1998.

"Mr. Harris's government added much needed additional capacity to the long term care system and helped ensure a significant portion of buildings were able to be redeveloped to modern standards," Sharon Ranalli, a Chartwell vice-president, said in a statement.

In all, Ranalli said, the added capacity under Harris accounts for 45 per cent of today's beds.

Chartwell also said the government controls 100 per cent of revenue, and no profit can be generated from government funding for resident care and services.

"What is not spent on care and services is returned to government," Ranalli said. "Return on invested capital in long term care homes can only be generated through accommodation revenue sources, which are also set by government."

The unions said it would take time to phase out for-profits, saying it could be done when contracts expire. It would also require more beds in non-profit and municipal homes and an infusion of cash from both the provincial and federal governments.

"It's going to take an incredible amount of political will," said Candace Rennick of CUPE Ontario. "But the lives of our loved ones are worth it."

A study of Ontario's 623 long-term care homes published this week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal concluded for-profit homes had more severe outbreaks and more deaths due to COVID-19 than their not-for-profit counterparts.

The Ontario Long Term Care Association said everyone needs to work to stabilize the sector ahead of a possible second wave of COVID-19, and called on the government to address the sector's systemic issues that contributed to severe outbreaks.

"We now have an obligation to address the long-standing human resources emergency, reduce red tape, rethink the operating funding model, build and re-build outdated buildings," association CEO Donna Duncan said in a statement.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on July 23, 2020.
In the months since George Floyd's death in Minneapolis in May and the subsequent national demonstrations against police brutality, lawyer J. Wyndal Gordon's phone has been ringing virtually nonstop. And he's troubled by the calls.

Gordon, dubbed "the Warrior Lawyer" because he takes on cases of the underprivileged, said his Baltimore office has been overloaded with inquiries from people of color seeking his services for civil rights violations.

"You'd think that with all that's going on in the country, things would be going the other way," Gordon said in an interview. "But it's the opposite."

The requests have been so plentiful that Gordon has had to refuse more cases than he could accept, he said.

"Excessive force [by police officers] and discrimination, mostly," he said. "I would say there has been a 30 percent increase in business in the last few months. There are so many calls and cases that you can't take them all.

"You hear about all these wrongs and you're overwhelmed," he added. "That's a sad thing as an attorney. You have to adhere to the privilege of practicing law and not just hoard cases when you know you are not able to handle them in a reasonable amount of time. I end up referring many to other attorneys."

The FBI and other agencies and researchers have not yet compiled data on civil rights violations or crimes over the last three months. But others support Gordon's anecdotal assessment.

"As we have seen in the last several weeks  from Minneapolis and from the police response to the protests  there's a great deal that still has to change in policing," Laurie Robinson, a criminologist at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, said in a June 19 report by Nature Research Journal.

Former police officer Seth Stoughton, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, added in the report that Floyd's killing and Ahmaud Arbery's killing in Georgia, along with the case in New York when a white woman called police on a Black man who was bird-watching in Central Park, were telling.

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"I have become convinced that we do not have a race problem in policing," Stoughton said in the study. "Rather, we have a race problem in society that is reflected in policing."

The problem has manifested itself in an explosion of cases  many unreported by the media  since Black Lives Matter began leading scores of protests on America's streets against such violence in the spring, some lawyers say.

"It's troubling," said Daryl K. Washington, a civil rights lawyer in Dallas who successfully represented the family of Jordan Edwards, 15, who was unarmed when he was shot in the back of the head by Officer Roy Oliver in Balch Springs, Texas, in 2017. Oliver was found guilty the following year and sentenced to 15 years in prison. It was the first conviction of a Dallas County police officer in 40 years.

"I have really seen an uptick" of cases, Washington said in an interview. He added that the movement to reform police behavior has sparked the increase.

"Whenever people see that there is an opportunity for change, to have the system go the way it's supposed to, they start to show who they really are," he said. "That's what we're seeing right now: a bunch of police officers doing some of the same things we have been protesting about.

"You also have individuals treating African Americans in an unfair manner, calling the police when they know in most cases that's not the thing to do. We all know how that has played out in the past."

Gordon noted that it has played out in many cases recently for those who make nebulous calls to police or refuse to serve Black people at restaurants, as in a case last month in Baltimore, or for those who have been fired after they mocked the manner in which Floyd was killed.

"But I don't think some of these people are concerned about losing their jobs," Washington said. "In a lot of cases, they become heroes. A GoFundMe campaign is established, and these people end up getting hundreds of thousands of dollars. So are they really losing when they lose these jobs? Or are they gaining in money and publicity?

"These hate groups and racist people stick together," he said. "And whenever something happens to one of them, they come together to say, 'Hey, we got your back.'"

Gordon agreed, adding that officers are threatened by the demonstrations rather than moved to quell aggressive tactics.

"They rear their heads when they perceive people are making headway in society, making a lane for themselves on the main boulevard," he said. "You have cops out here that don't want to give it up. They'd rather quit than adhere to Black people's constitutional rights. They see themselves as victims. And I don't know how you can be a victim when you have a badge and a gun and a license to kill unarmed people."

Daryl Parks of Tallahassee, Florida, a lawyer who was on the team that represented the families of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, sees it differently.

Parks said that there has "not necessarily been an uptick" in the number of cases but that there has been an uptick in awareness. "More people are aware and more inclined to act on it," he said.

Vince Warren, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, said technology has played a significant role in policing and lawyering. "The big difference between practicing civil rights law now and 10 years ago is video evidence," he said. "I suspect those issues that turn up on social media will turn into cases more readily than [a victim] verbally trying to demonstrate what went on in a case."

Warren's organization is a legal and advocacy entity that works closely with social movements, including the Movement for Black Lives. It was an integral part of New York's banning its discriminatory stop-and-frisk police tactics, which disproportionately targeted people of color.

"The increase in video has absolutely changed civil rights practice," Warren said. "Also, people are more likely to record police encounters and report it publicly. There may not be more incidents, but we are seeing many more incidents than we normally would. So I wouldn't be surprised if there is an increase because of this."

A report by the American Society for Public Administration found that "little systematic research exists to answer questions about which policies should be ended or put in place to reduce these deaths."But lawyers say they know which policy, especially, needs to end: qualified immunity, the doctrine that protects officers in a number of ways, including absolving them from civil suits. It enables officers' overzealous behavior because they believe they will not be held accountable, lawyers say.

"If we can get some changes [with qualified immunity], it will put some fear into people and have them think for a second before they do something," Washington said.

Parks said: "But that's not on the table. We've always had cops feeling untouchable because they have qualified immunity backing them up to almost anything they do. Qualified immunity is not threatened now."

Lawmakers, particularly Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who is writing a police reform bill, and President Donald Trump, say scaling back qualified immunity is a nonstarter. "That meant that the police union had gotten to them in a major way to make sure that wasn't touched," Parks said. "That's the No. 1 issue. ... The cloak of qualified immunity and the cloak of the police union protect them so much."

Washington added another element that matters: Trump. He said the president's language  calling Black Lives Matter "a symbol of hate," for example  "incites" his supporters to be aggressive, creating attitudes or confrontations that could lead to trouble.

"Until we have some significant changes in November," Washington said, "we're going to continue to see what we're seeing."

Gordon said he believes the resilience of the people marching for change will ultimately be the lightning rods for change.

"Black people are undefeated," he said. "When it comes to fighting for our rights, we may lose some battles, but we always win the war, from slavery to Jim Crow to segregation to Brown v. Board of Education to the Civil Rights Act.

"The movement is led by people who are determined to separate the opponent from their will to win. And I think it will be the people over the establishment. People are tired of existing under an oppressive regime. They want freedom, and not just for themselves."
The application of Elgar Parishad-Maoists links case accused Varavara Rao for bail on health grounds was a mere ruse and he was trying to take undue benefit under the garb of the Covid-19 pandemic situation and his old age, the NIA has told the Bombay High Court.

His health condition was stable and he did not require treatment in a multispeciality hospital, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said in its affidavit on July 16, the day the 81-year-old poet and activist tested positive for coronavirus.

Raos application of bail on health grounds thus, was a mere ruse and he was trying to take undue benefit under the garb of current situation on account of global pandemic and his old age, said the NIA, which is probing the Elgar Parishad-Maoists links case.

The NIA also said in its affidavit that otherwise Rao wont be eligible for bail only on merits of the case.

The prison authorities have responded timely and provided necessary medical aid to the appellant accused Rao.

The applicant accused was admitted to J J Hospital for the complaint of giddiness on May 28 and after medical treatment, he was discharged on June 1 as he was found asymptomatic and haemodynamically stable, it said.

Raos medical record and the report submitted by J J Hospitals superintendent did not suggest he was suffering from any such ailment which necessitated that he immediately obtain treatment in a multi-speciality hospital, the probe agency further said in its affidavit.

Rao is currently currently undergoing treatment for Covid-19 and other ailments at Nanavati Hospital in Mumbai.

On July 20, the Bombay High Court heard Raos bail plea briefly.

His lawyer Sudeep Pasbola told the court that Rao was almost on his deathbed and even the NIA could not dispute the fact that his health was very critical.

His condition is very serious. He hit his head against the hospital bed while he was at the J J hospital and sustained severe injuries. Besides Covid-19, he suffers from several ailments, he is hallucinating and is delirious, Pasbola said.

His days are numbered and if he is to die, at least let him die in the presence of his family members, the lawyer said while seeking that Rao be granted bail.

However, NIAs counsel Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh told the court on July 20 that the state was taking good care of Rao and he had been admitted to one of the best super speciality hospitals in the city.

The NIA is supposed to inform the court on Thursday if Raos family can be permitted to see him.

Last month, the NIA filed an almost similaraffidavit opposing the bail application of Raos co-accused Sudha Bharadwaj, in the case.

It said the bail application pleading with regard to the medical condition of the petitioner is merely a ruse to obtain an order of interim relief which is not available to her otherwise on merits of the case.

Rao and nine other activists have been arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, which was initially probed by the Pune Police and later transferred to the NIA in January this year.

The case related to alleged inflammatory speeches made at the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, which the police claimed triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial.

The police have also claimed the conclave was organised by people with alleged Maoist links.
Facebook will now hand over a total of $650 million to settle a lawsuit over the companys use of facial recognition technology. The social network added $100 million to its initial $550 million settlement, Facebook revealed in court documents reported by Fortune.

The lawsuit dates back to 2015, when the company was hit with a class action lawsuit saying Facebook violated an Illinois privacy law that required companies obtain explicit consent before collecting biometric data from users. At issue was Facebooks tag suggestions feature, which used facial recognition to scan photos and automatically suggest tags when users uploaded new images. (Facebook stopped scanning faces by default last year.)

The new $650 million settlement comes as officials around the country have pushed for facial recognition bans. Funds from the settlement will be available to Illinois Facebook users whose picture appeared on the site after 2011, Fortune reports, and could pay out as much as $400 per person.
Elderly people wait for their turn to get tested for COVID-19 pandemic under the shade of a tree at the Government ENT Hospital in Visakhapatnam on Wednesday. Photo: P Narasimha Murthy

Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh has registered the highest ever single day spike of 6,045 new Covid-19 cases taking the overall tally of cases in the state to 64,713. Worse, 65 deaths take the death toll to 823 in the last 24 hours.

The state health department in its Covid-19 bulletin issued here on Wednesday reported that out of 49,553 samples tested, 6,045 individuals found to have been infected with the coronavirus.

Among new infections, Visakhapatnam took the lead, registering a whopping 1,049 cases followed by 891 in East Godavari, 842 in Guntur, 678 in Kurnool, 672 in West Godavari, 345 in Chittoor, 327 in Nellore, 325 in Anantapur, 252 in Srikakulam, 229 in Kadapa, 177 in Prakasam, 151 in Krishna and 107 in Vizianagaram.

The state government has tested 14,35,827 samples so far and of them, 32,127 patients have been discharged after recovery while 31,763 patients are undergoing treatment.

The state also recorded the highest number of deaths - 65 - on a single day and Guntur has been the worst hit with 15 deaths, followed by 10 in Krishna, eight in West Godavari, seven in East Godavari, five each in Chittoor and Kurnool, four in Vizianagaram, three each in Srikakulam and Visakhapatnam and one each in Kadapa and Nellore.

In Guntur district, an aged man died while standing in a queue to undergo a Covid-19 test at Sarabhaiah high school at Sattenapalli. Nagaiah arrived at the school premises and was waiting to give his swab samples for Covid-19 test. However, after waiting for nearly two hours in the long queue, he collapsed complaining of chest pain and died.

Later, he was tested Covid-19 positive. The health authorities followed Covid-19 protocol to conduct last rites.

In another case, an aged man committed suicide after learning that he was infected with coronavirus at a quarantine centre at Gundimeda near Tadepalli. According to police, Munipalle Sambasiva Rao, used to work as a compounder in a private hospital at Tenali. He volunteered to undergo a Covid-19 test and was found infected with the virus on July 14.

He was shifted to a quarantine centre. However, the doctors informed him that he would be sent home after conducting Covid-19 test for the second time and collected his swab samples for testing.

Even before test results came out, he took the extreme step as he was dejected at getting infected with the virus. Based on a complaint from his wife Lakshmi Parvathi, police booked a case.

In Kadapa district, 229 new cases have been reported, taking the overall tally in the district to 3,610. The district police booked 460 cases against those who were moving out without wearing face masks and also for failing to comply with all safety norms to contain the spread of Covid-19 in Kadapa, Maidukuru, Pulivendula, Proaddatur, Rajampeta and Jammalamadugu sub-divisions.

District SP Karur, Karunapathi Nagendra Kumar Anburajan, said that they had imposed fines up to Rs 1.22 lakh and urged the people to comply with all safety norms by wearing face masks and maintaining social distancing.

In East Godavari, 891 new cases have been reported from 61 mandals in the district. The district has 20 containment clusters at present and 80 individuals are in home isolation.

In West Godavari, the district administration announced 38 containment zones following finding out several coronavirus infections and the people living in these zones have been advised to stay put at home and have been assured of supply of essential commodities at their doorstep.

In Anantapur, 325 new cases have been reported taking the total number of cases 6,226.

In Nellore district, 146 new cases have been reported taking the tally to 2,995. Health authorities have said that 1,548 patients infected with Covid-19 have been in isolation both in hospitals and also at their homes.

In Chittoor district, 175 new cases have been reported taking the overall tally to 5,668. Among new cases, 86 are from Tirupati alone, while 18 are from Puttur, 13 from Narayanavanam, five each from Chittoor and Srikalahasti and three each from Padala and Satyavedu, two each from Nagari and Renigunta and one each from 12 mandals.
A biography of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex dubbed by Palace insiders 'the gospel according to Harry and Meghan' is set to plunge relations with the Royal Family to a new low.

Sources believe the 'resentful' couple will use the book  extracts from which will be seen for the first time this weekend  to 'settle scores'.

Finding Freedom: Harry, Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family, has been written by royal watchers Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, described as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's 'cheerleaders'.

The authors boast the book published next month has been written 'with the participation of those closest to the couple'.

There have been reports that Harry and Meghan have spoken to the authors personally, although this has not been confirmed.

A biography of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex dubbed by Palace insiders 'the gospel according to Harry and Meghan' is set to plunge relations with the Royal Family to a new low. Pictured: The couple in Rabat, Morocco in February last year

The issue of how far the couple have co-operated with the authors is interesting given the backdrop of Meghan's legal battle with The Mail on Sunday over its publication of a letter she wrote to her father.

Thomas Markle says he only made the letter public after its existence was revealed by some of her closest friends to a US magazine. Meghan claims she had no idea they were going to do this and that the letter should have remained private.

Intriguingly, sources have told the Mail that Harry and Meghan had initially been worried when they heard about plans for the biography and ordered their staff to speak to the authors to find out what was going to be in it.

A number of meetings and dinners were subsequently held, it is believed. 'When they realised that it was likely to be quite the hagiography anyway, it seems the Sussexes decided to kill it with kindness,' one insider said.

Pictured: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex with Prince William and Kate at the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey in March last year

Finding Freedom: Harry, Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family, has been written by royal watchers Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand

Sources have told the Mail that the biography will lay bare the 'pressure cooker' of anger and resentment the couple felt as working royals.

Harry and Meghan claim they were 'spectacularly unsupported' by what they have described as the 'institution of the monarchy', and it is expected that senior staff will be in their firing line.

Wills' 'grief trauma' fund The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have launched a 1.8million fund to provide grief trauma counselling and support for more than 250,000 emergency workers affected by coronavirus. Teachers, children and parents will also be offered mental health support when schools re-open. This week the couple met representatives of frontline bodies that will benefit, including Mind, the Ambulance Staff Charity, counselling service Shout and Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM). Kate said she and William had been 'in awe' of their 'incredible work' but knew that 'the pandemic will have a lasting impact on their mental health'. Grants have also been given to mental health charities to increase the capacity of helpline and chat services to meet rising demand caused by the virus. Advertisement

'Regardless of the truth, it will make headlines worldwide and give a fulsome airing to the Sussexes' long list of grievances, yet again,' one well-placed figure said.

Another source told the Mail that they had been warned to expect a 'revisionist' version of events concerning their engagement, marriage and brief spell as working royals.

'It's going to be the gospel according to Meghan and Harry, so to speak,' they said. 'Everything that has happened in terms of Megxit will be seen through the prism of their take on events.

'What it's unlikely to reveal, however, is how it subsequently emerged that Harry and Meghan had been quietly plotting their 'exit' from the Royal Family for at least nine months before they finally announced their decision to quit in January this year.

'That hurt a lot of people who had bent over backwards to protect them.' Members of the couple's circle say that Harry, while loyal to Meghan, was very torn about how to resolve the situation. 'But Meghan was extremely vocal about how unhappy she was and Harry, who had always hated the media and the so-called 'men in grey suits' [at the palace], eventually saw this as a way out too,' they said.

The Mail understands that Buckingham Palace fear the book will destroy any hope of Harry and Meghan repairing their relationships with the rest of the Royal Family.

Sources say the Sussexes are 'still somewhat shell-shocked' about recent events.

'Truthfully, they didn't think things would end up the way they did,' said one. 'But they are stubborn and have firmly convinced themselves that they have done the right thing, regardless of the consequences.'
Riot police fine journalists covering the anniversary of the violent Yuen Long mob attack last year. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) urge the police to allow journalists to work without interference.

Riot police enter the Yuen Long shopping mall to disperse the commemoration marking one year since the Yuen Long attack. Credit: DALE DE LA REY / AFP

On July 21, crowds gathered at a shopping mall in Yuen Long resulting in police fining 96 people, including journalists for breaching the public gathering restrictions. Reports indicate five people were arrested on grounds of obstruction, violating court-imposed curfews and the new national security law.

During the gathering, riot policeproceeded to search at least 50 journalists, issuing tickets for violating Covid-19 gathering restrictions, failing to present a valid press card and failing to name their employer. According to the current health regulations, group gatherings for the purpose of work are exempt from Covid-19 restrictions.

July 21, 2020 marked a year since the Yuen Long railway station attack on pro-democracy protesters involving white-clad assailants armed with steel rods, bamboo sticks and other weapons, injuring 45 civilians. Police were criticised after the attack for allegedly ignoring distress calls while the attack took place and not acting until after the attackers left.

HKJA said: HKJA is extremely concerned about police spamming tickets to journalists wearing reflective clothes. HKJA urges police to stop the abuse of their powers and the obstruction of working journalists.

The IFJ said: The current pandemic and health regulations are not a tool to silence journalists covering matters of public interest. The IFJ calls on police to end the harassment and intimidation of media workers in Hong Kong.
Seen above is a ten-panel trompe l'oeil-type chaekgeori screen created by Yi Ung-nok, probably between 1864 and 1866. The painter used ink and mineral pigments on silk or hemp. Courtesy of National Museum of Korea



By Kwak Yeon-soo



Chaekgeori, are Korean folk paintings that refer to "books and things." They first appeared in King Jeongjo's time, who ruled the country from 1776 to 1800, and were popular during the latter period of Joseon Kingdom.



The paintings usually depict scholarly objects such as books, calligraphy brushes and carved jade seals and ornaments such as peacock feathers and ceramic vases.



Kay E. Black (1928-2020), who published "CH'AEKKORI PAINTING: A Korean Jigsaw Puzzle" in June, fell in love with chaekgeori when she visited the Emille Museum in Seoul in 1973. The difference in spelling of "ch'aekkori" in the book title versus "chaekgeori"  the common spelling in modern Korea  reflects past and present systems of Romanization of the Korean language.



Fascinated with Korea's brightly colored folding screens and abstract patterns, she started academic work on the subject that was entirely unknown to her beginning in her mid-40s once her children had grown up.





Kay E. Black / Courtesy of Sahoipyoungnon Academy

Black had a keen eye for assessing color, proportion, line and formal arrangement of space, which allowed her to examine as many as some 150 examples of chaekgeori in diverse collections.



Throughout the course of her research that spanned several decades, the author broke an old preconception that chaekgeori reflected folk taste by revealing the fact that court painters worked on the paintings for the elite and royalty.



Black and Edward Wagner (1924-2001), a professor of Korean studies at Harvard University, also disclosed a complex family lineage of professional painters and the transmission of painting themes and styles within those families.





The book cover of "CH'AEKKORI PAINTING: A Korean Jigsaw Puzzle" / Courtesy of Sahoipyoungnon Academy
Meera Suresh By

Express News Service

KOCHI: Lifting the spirit of Kochi amid the gloom cast by the pandemic, the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) on Tuesday announced the first list of artists who will take part in 2020 Kochi-Muziris Biennale: In our Veins Flow Ink and Fire. While the knowledge that Indias biggest art fiesta would be back brings cheer to the ailing tourism and art sectors, apprehensions remain over how conducive the situation is in Kochi, which is in the thick of the battle against Covid-19.

While Bose Krishnamachari, founder member and president of Kochi Biennale Foundation, says the health of the visitors, staff, artists and volunteers are the priority and the foundation will go ahead with the Biennale only if they feel measures for health and safety can be put in place. However, stakeholders think the art fiesta can do a lot in reviving the local economy, which has hit the rock bottom with the pandemic.

The task wont be easy at all. The Covid protocol and travel ban all over the world are likely to play spoilsport. Even if the flight services are restored, the quarantine norms would deter many.

People listening to Anitha Dube, the curator of 2018 Biennale

However,, the KBF is optimistic about footfall. Art professionals, including international visitors, are an important audience for the Biennale. However, they do not form the majority of our visitors. We would like foreign artists, curators, museum professionals, collectors etc to come, but we are also mindful of our principal visitorship, says Bose.

According to the Tourism Department officials, while it would work as per the government instructions, any step towards promoting Biennale can only be done as per Covid protocol. We are not a part of the decision-making process. If the Biennale is on, the department would promote it. But we are apprehensive about how the Covid protocol will allow the conduct of the art fest since the last few editions saw a lot of footfall, which would essentially make social distancing impossible, says Shahul Hameed, joint director, Tourism Department, Ernakulam.
While the Easton Area and Bethlehem Area school districts have indicated they wish to take a split approach between in-class and online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in the fall semester, the Allentown School District administration is recommending a full virtual approach early on.

The Allentown School Board will meet virtually at 7 p.m. Thursday to consider Superintendent Thomas Parkers plan.

With each crisis comes opportunity. In this case, I am pleased to introduce ASDs Virtual Campus. Building off our Virtual Academy, the ASD Virtual Campus will launch on the first day of school, Tuesday, Sept. 8, Parker said in a post on the districts web page. This innovative learning opportunity, which we originally planned to launch later in the year, provides an excellent opportunity for our students and staff to continue teaching and learning, despite the pandemic.

The district weighed information gathered from stakeholder groups, surveys, meetings, the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the Allentown Health Department and local healthcare providers as it worked its way through a challenging process, the post said.

Due to the uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and gaps in the national supply chain of personal protective equipment (PPE), the district must act to protect the health and safety of all staff and students during this time, the statement said.

But the virtual plan is not a full-year concept, the district said.

Providing a face to face instructional model for the 2020-21 school year remains our ultimate goal, the district said. We will work to create safe entry points that correlate with the academic calendar to allow groups of students to return to the building. The board will review and assess the feasibility of opening to groups of students in a timely fashion. The plan for reentry will be based on health and safety factors that include, but are not limited to, community spread, local contact tracing, and the acquisition of PPE to ensure the district can effectively adhere to disinfecting and sanitizing protocols.

The Virtual Campus concept allows personalized learning that would enhance and expand the use of technology to provide anytime, anywhere learning, and develop external partnerships to support digital access for all students, the district said.

The Virtual Campus would mean students could move forward during this difficult time, the district said.

While schools could potentially open later in the fall, the online classes are the best decision to avoid compromise when it comes to the safety of our students and staff, the district said.

Officials thanked the district community for understanding and patience.

We know that not everyone will agree with every decision we make, the district said. However, please know that we are acting in a way that minimizes risks for our students, staff and families.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting lehighvalleylive.com with a voluntary subscription.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com.
Concern grows amid a surge in gun violence, protests and Trump plan to dispatch hundreds of federal agents to the city.

Amid a surge in gun violence and protests sparked by the alleged killing of George Floyd, the United States third-largest city is on edge, awaiting possible greater tension in the form of a plan by President Donald Trump to dispatch dozens of federal agents to Chicago.

The White House plan emerged days after a downtown protest over a statue of Christopher Columbus devolved into a chaotic scene of police swinging batons and demonstrators hurling frozen water bottles, fireworks and other projectiles at officers.

Then, on Tuesday in another neighbourhood, a spray of bullets from a car passing a gang members funeral wounded 15 people and sent dozens running for their lives.

Tension in the city has climbed to a level that, if not unprecedented, has not been felt in a long time.

Ive never seen things worse in this city than they are right now, the Reverend Michael Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest and longtime activist on the citys South Side told the Associated Press.

Much of the strain stems from the fact that it remains unclear exactly what the federal officers will do here. The plan seems to be a repeat of what happened in Kansas City, Missouri, where the administration sent officers to help quell violence after the shooting death of a young boy.

A federal law enforcement officer spreads tear gas during a protest over racial inequality in Portland, Oregon [Caitlin Ochs/Reuters]

Mayor Lori Lightfoot sought to ease fears that the surge will resemble the kind of scene that unfolded in Portland, Oregon, where unidentified agents in camouflage have beaten unarmed protesters and stuffed some of them into unmarked vehicles.

Lightfoot said she has been told the US Attorneys Office will supervise the additional agents supporting the Chicago offices of the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

But given the longstanding animosity between city officials and Trump, leaders from the mayor on down worry that those promises will not hold up.

City officials will be on guard for any steps out of line, particularly from agents with the Homeland Security Department, and they will not hesitate to take the president to court, Lightfoot said.

Trump announced the plan on Wednesday, saying he would send agents to Chicago and Albuquerque to help combat rising crime. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and Attorney General Bill Barr both said the mission in Portland  to protect federal property  differs from the focus in Kansas City, Chicago and Albuquerque.

Barr said the number of agents being deployed to Chicago is comparable to the Kansas City surge of more than 200.

Trump painted Democrat-led cities as out of control and lashed out at the radical left. Criminal justice experts say the increase in violence in some cities defies easy explanation.

In recent weeks, there has been a radical movement to defend, dismantle and dissolve our police department, Trump said, blaming the movement for a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence.

Scare the middle class

Lightfoot has repeatedly said she does not support protesters calls to pull money from police in favour of social services, despite the Chicago polices reputation for civil rights violations and use of excessive force.

If the federal agents do as they have done in Portland, one prominent minister on the citys West Side said the situation will turn the city into a magnet for the same kind of people who infiltrated the statue protest, put on dark clothes and distributed and threw projectiles at police from behind umbrellas.

Its going to be like that, but on steroids, the Reverend Marshall Hatch warned. Chicago is one of those epicentres where you already have an unsettled social situation and racial situation. And youre going to find out that Chicago is a lot more volatile in the middle of a long hot summer than Portland is.

He fears such a chaotic scene is exactly what the president wants as he seeks re-election.

Chicago might offer Trump an opportunity to somehow scare the middle class into thinking hes the only one standing between them and the barbarians, Hatch said.





Pfleger said federal agents could help stem violence if they stick to helping detectives make arrests and increase the citys homicide clearance rate, which the department said this month is under 40 percent. They could also help stem the flow of illegal guns pouring into the city from Indiana, Mississippi and elsewhere.

A big reason why there are so many murders in the city is that you have a really good chance of getting away with murder here, Pfleger said.

Nor, he said, was it lost on people that nobody had been arrested for the shooting outside the funeral despite Police Superintendent David Browns contention that two squad cars were on the street and a tactical unit nearby.

Everybodys saying on the street, We have to protect ourselves because the police arent going to protect us, Pfleger said. Thats the mentality.

The shooting went on long enough for the gunmen and people attending the funeral who returned fire to leave at least 60 shell casings at the scene.

At a news conference, Brown implored witnesses to come forward with information about the attack, which police believed was carried out in retaliation for another shooting.

If Donald Trump really cared about improving public safety, hed invest in programs to interrupt violence and do something to strengthen our nations gun laws. #twill Operation Legend https://t.co/QxHI9MFmBn  Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) July 22, 2020

Observers suggested that the police departments reputation for brutality, misconduct and racism made Browns plea a tough sell.

You dont share stuff with people you dont trust, Pfleger said.

That mistrust also plays into another activists concern that no matter what federal agents do when they arrive in the city, it will not help and may aggravate the situation.

Any time you have police in a community that have no relationship to the community  with the business owners, with the youth  it makes the situation worse, said Jahmal Cole, founder and executive director of a community organisation on the South Side called My Block, My Hood, My City.
SUSANVILLE, Calif.  Firefighters and aircraft worked Tuesday to halt the spread of two forest fires in rural northeastern California as unstable weather brought the risk of gusty winds, thunderstorms and lightning strikes that could start new blazes.

The Gold Fire in northern Lassen County increased to 13.3 square miles (34.4 square kilometers) south of the tiny Modoc County community of Adin and it was only 5% contained.

Two firefighters were injured at that blaze Monday and were flown to a hospital in Redding, treated and released. There were no details on what happened, said Alisha Herring, spokeswoman for the

In southern Lassen County, the Hog Fire covered 14 square miles (36.3 square kilometers) about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the town of Susanville and was just 7% contained.

About 170 buildings were threatened and some evacuations were in effect.

High winds from thunderstorms passing over the Sierra Nevada created high winds late Tuesday afternoon, and the fires heat and an updraft created a so-called fire cloud of smoke and ash that reached tens of thousands of feet into the sky, Scott McGuire, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Reno, told SFGate.

Rain and lightning were spotted within the clouds, the paper said.

The weather service issued a red flag warning of extreme fire conditions through Wednesday night. High winds and thunderstorms also were expected Wednesday.

In central California, the week-old Mineral Fire was 70% contained after scorching 46.4 square miles (120 square kilometers) and destroying seven structures in the Diablo Range west of Coalinga.

Several smaller wildfires burned elsewhere.

Meanwhile in Nevada, strong winds caused a structure fire to spread into south Reno wildland, threatening more than 100 structures Tuesday and forcing some evacuations before it was brought under control.

Chief Charlie Moore of the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District told the Reno Gazette Journal that tankers and air attack help curtail the blaze to about 120 acres (0.18 square miles or 0.46 square kilometers)

The cause of the fire was under investigation and Moore said he was unaware of any casualties or injuries.

The area remained under evacuation with authorities saying it will be at least six hours before people will be allowed back into the area.

The American Red Cross of Northern Nevada made overnight resources available at the Washoe County Senior Services Center.

About the photo: An air tanker drops retardant as the the Badger Fire burns near Yreka, Calif, on Sunday, July 19, 2020. Several wildfires sparked Sunday throughout Northern California as portions of the region remain under a heat advisory. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 14:03 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668ba628 1 National Mataram,West-Nusa-Tenggara,MataramUniversity,Sexual-assault,sexual-harassment,campus,sexual-abuse Free

The University of Matarams Law School ethics committee in West Nusa Tenggara has suspended a lecturer for five years after a female student reported him for alleged sexual harassment.

The case came to light when the student told her family about being harassed on campus by her lecturer during a thesis guidance session on June 24. The family then filed a report with the university.

Law School dean Hirsanuddin reported the case to the ethics committee, which then created a team to investigate the matter. A closed hearing on the investigation was held on Tuesday.

Ethics committee head Zainal Asikin said that after hearing statements from both the student and the lecturer, the ethics panel found the latter guilty of an ethics violation and suspended him from teaching at the university for five years.

"After a long debate, the ethics panel decided that the lecturer had indeed committed an ethics violation," Zainal told kompas.com on Tuesday, adding that the lecturer was also dismissed from his position as secretary of the schools criminal division.

Asikin hoped the case would serve as a warning to other university lecturers.

"We, the ethics council, want to preserve the dignity that we have built. The universitys reputation has been tarnished by such behavior, he said.

Read also: Sexual abuse on campus: 174 survivors across Indonesia speak up

Hirsanuddin claimed the university had only received one report of sexual harassment, but he urged students who experienced similar abuse to immediately file a report.

"We will protect everyone. If there is a student who feels they were harmed by similar behavior, we urge them to report their experience to the school so we can follow up on the matter," he said.

A collaboration project called #NamaBaikKampus (Campus Reputation) initiated by The Jakarta Post, Tirto.id and Vice Indonesia last year collected 207 testimonies from students of 79 universities across 29 cities in the country who claimed they had experienced abuse on campus.

Of the 207, 174 were reports of alleged sexual harassment, submitted through an online form. Eighty-eight percent were from universities in Java.

The alleged sexual harassment mostly occurred during formal university functions, such as compulsory community work (KKN), internship programs and other student-oriented programs.

In a policy brief published in May by the Center of Gender and Sexuality from the University of Indonesia's Social and Political Science Department, the center noted that the Education and Culture Ministry had no direct policy for sexual abuse in university that could be used as a guideline for other higher education institutions.

In February, Education and Culture Minister Nadiem Makarim said he was looking for a way to prevent sexual harassment and assault in the education sector and provide legal protection for victims.

The Islamic education directorate general of the Religious Affairs Ministry issued a guideline for the prevention of sexual violence in Islamic Universities in 2019. (mfp)
The Government of Ghana has invested GH3.2 billion in its free Senior High School (SHS) programme, according to Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.



The government honoured its promise of free SHS aimed at providing free education to all Ghanaian school children at the secondary level when it took over the reins of the economy from erstwhile Mahama government.



Currently, over three hundred thousand (300,00) students who are the first batch of beneficiaries are writing their WASSCE.



Delivering the mid-year budget review on the floor of Parliament on Thursday, July 23, Mr. Ofori-Atta noted the government's investment in the education sector has saved parents and families huge sums of money that they would have paid to take their children to school.



Mr. Speaker, in acknowledging that education is the primary driver for upward social and economic mobility, we rolled out a raft of policy measures to improve the opportunities of our people. We invested GH3.2 billion to implement Free SHS, resulting in over 1.2 million teenagers being in secondary school now, looking forward to better opportunities in life. For their parents and families, this has translated into GH2.2 billion in savings. That is money that the State has put back into the pockets of Ghanaians all across the country, he said.



He further added the government has also made significant investment in resolving the unemployment situation in Ghana.



We have also invested in excess of GH1.6 billion in 100,000 jobless but educated young adults who had been ignored by the State and were in despair. Through the new NABCO initiative, they have been engaged in various state and private institutions, with some of them securing permanent jobs in the process. That is money in the pockets of our youth.

Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Five top trade bodies, including the US Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers, have filed a lawsuit challenging the presidential proclamation suspending for the rest of the year new non-immigrant visas that include the H-1B, the most sought-after among Indian IT professionals.

In his proclamation last month, President Donald Trump banned the entry into the US of workers in several key non-immigrant visa categories, including the H-1B, arguing that they eat into American jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. Companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.

Denying access to non-immigrant workers deprive American businesses of the talent they need. It also has far-reaching repercussions in today's competitive market for talent, said the lawsuit filed by National Association of Manufacturers, US Chamber of Commerce, National Retail Federation, TechNet, and Intrax.

The lawsuit seeks to overturn these sweeping and unlawful immigration restrictions that are an unequivocal "not welcome" sign to the engineers, executives, IT experts, doctors, nurses, and other critical workers who help drive the American economy, said US Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas Donohue.

"Left in place, these restrictions will push investment abroad, inhibit economic growth and reduce job creation, he said.

Ahead of the presidential proclamation, Donohue in a letter to the White House had said that there were many other sectors of US economy that rely upon the contribution of foreign nationals working in America.

One of the visa categories impacted, H-1B, is used predominantly by employers seeking to hire and retain individuals working in these fields, and in computer-related roles. Banning these individuals from entering the United States is thus not a remedy to current unemployment levels, said the lawsuit.

Businesses across industries are very concerned about the potential disruptions that will be caused if they can no longer employ valued employees that work here under the following visa classifications: H-1B, L-1, H-4, F-1 Optional Practical Training (OPT), and H-2B.

Similarly, companies that rely upon investment dollars from the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program are concerned about restrictions being imposed upon those individuals that have invested in their businesses. Shutting these individuals out of the chance to contribute to an economic recovery is misguided for a host of reasons, Donohue said.

National Association of Manufacturers Senior Vice President and General Counsel Linda Kelly said that these overreaching, unlawful restrictions did not just limit visas, but will also restrain US economic recovery at a time when the very future of the country hangs in the balance.

Manufacturers and programme sponsors are going to court because these restrictions are far outside the bounds of the law and would deal a severe blow to our industry. We cannot let this stand," he said.

"Our industry should be laser-focused on leading our recovery and renewal, but these visa restrictions will hand other countries a competitive advantage because they will drive talented individuals away from the United States. These restrictions could harm every corner of our economy, as evidenced by the broad coalition that has come together to oppose them," he added.

Innovation is absolutely key to surviving the economic crisis currently facing America, especially for retailers who have seen their stores forced to close and scrambled to find new ways to sell and deliver products, said National Retail Federation Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel Stephanie Martz.

"This proclamation is meant to protect American jobs but instead it threatens the millions of rank-and-file workers whose jobs rely on experts coming up with the latest technology to keep retail moving forward. Advanced computer and IT jobs are already hard to fill, and retailers need to be able to bring in talent from wherever they can find it. This sweeping measure could have a significant negative impact on their ability to do that," he said.

The Exchange Visitor Program enhances US national security by building mutual understanding that helps "us address critical international issues while strengthening the US economy," Intrax president Marcie Schneider said, adding that these overreaching restrictions will sharply curtail cultural exchange programmes at just the time when they should be increasing connections between people around the world.

According to the lawsuit, denying American businesses access to international labor markets is inflicting swift and severe harms.

Companies are unable to move employees who have developed special expertise outside the United States into domestic roles, where they would otherwise help expand operations, develop new products, and contribute to the hiring of domestic workers, it said.
Claims that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell joked about 'randy Andy' while watching a secret video of the Duke of York with a topless woman have been slammed as false by a royal insider.

'Tiffany Doe', 48, a former employee of paedophile Epstein, said that she walked in on the financier and his girlfriend in a 'television control room,' packed with screens at his 77million New York penthouse.

She said the screens showed Prince Andrew, who was seen driving away from Windsor Castle today after a morning out riding, in a bedroom with a topless woman.

However, a royal insider has rubbished the claims and said they 'cannot be right' as Ms Doe had said she met the Duke in the mid-90s - even though Andrew didn't meet Epstein until 1999.

The source told MailOnline: 'This account cannot be right. She claims to have met the Duke in the mid-90s. But the Duke wasn't introduced to Epstein until 1999.

'She claims to have left Epstein's employment in 2000, but waits decades before mentioning anything about a video? Really?'

Ms Doe had said: 'I do not know who the girl was on the video but she was topless. I really can't say what her age was.

'I couldn't see all of Andrew so I don't know if he was clothed or not. It looked like it was filmed in a bedroom. I don't think Andrew knew he was being filmed.'

She added: 'Then Ghislaine said, ''Oh that's Randy Andy for you.'' Jeffrey laughed at that and I of course immediately recognised who it was on the tape.'

Prince Andrew was seen driving away from Windsor Castle today after a morning out riding.

Prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts, aged 17, and Ghislaine Maxwell at Maxwell's townhouse in London in 2001

The Duke has always denied any allegations of improper conduct, and there is no suggestion he was aware of underage girls at Epstein's parties in the late 1990s.

Ms Doe, a former lapdancer, who is helping lawyers in the States who represent Epstein and Maxwell's victims, claimed it was common knowledge that the paedophile secretly filmed some of his elite friends.

'I wish her well, frankly': Trump sends message of support to Maxwell and says he 'doesn't know situation with Prince Andrew' Donald Trump last night gave a message of support to Ghislaine Maxwell as she awaits her trial for sex trafficking minors. When asked by a reporter whether he thought Maxwell would name powerful people in a plea deal, the president replied that he 'hadn't been following it too much' but said, 'I just wish her well frankly.' He added: 'I've met her numerous times over the years especially since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach.' Trump then reinforced his well-wishes for Maxwell but said he doesn't know about the 'situation' with Prince Andrew. 'But I wish her well whatever it is,' he said. 'I don't know the situation with Prince Andrew. I don't know, I'm just not aware of it.' Trump knew Epstein and Maxwell for decades before the paedophile's conviction in 2008. He has since sought to distance himself from the pair over the years after they were all fixtures on the affluent society scene back in the 1980s and 1990s - before Epstein was convicted of being a paedophile. Advertisement

She said Epstein had cameras installed in the bedrooms of the Manhattan mansion and would spend hours watching the videos.

She added she was sure he had videos of people having sex which he enjoyed as voyeur.

Ms Doe told The Sun that she met Epstein when she was 22 and she claims he manipulated her into procuring young girls on his behalf.

Epstein, who was found hanging in a prison cell last August while awaiting trial, compensated Ms Doe for bringing girls to his events.

Ms Doe said she wishes to make amends for this and help the victims to get justice.

The woman, who has previously testified against Epstein, described last year how Prince Andrew had 'motorboated' her and said she should be in a magazine for 'big-breasted women'.

Recalling their alleged meeting, the former lap dancer said: 'The Duke seemed in good spirits and was out to enjoy himself. I always thought, Andrew liked my breasts. When he started to say hello he looked at them first rather than me.

'He leant forward and put his face on them and blew a raspberry. I was shocked, but I laughed, thinking 'Wow what was that?''

She claimed that Prince Andrew would attend Epstein's parties 'a couple of times a year.'

The woman claimed Epstein 'wanted to make Andrew happy' and that she had been 'specifically selected' to please him.

She added: 'After Andrew motorboated me he tried to remember what it was meant to be called. He didn't quite know the term 'motorboat'. He said, 'motor something?'

'He was trying to come off cool, but he didn't know the words. I found him quite awkward, quite clumsy. He said I should be in a magazine for big-breasted women. It was a normal thing to happen at those parties.'

Ms Doe said she stopped working for Epstein in 2000 because she was revolted by his depravity.

Epstein and British socialite Maxwell, 58, were friends for decades and she allegedly served as his madam.

She is now being held in a Brooklyn jail and pleaded not guilty last week to trafficking minors for Epstein.

She was denied bail and will go on trial in July 2021.

Prince Andrew taking a stroll through New York's Central Park with Epstein in December 2010 following the financier's prison term

Maxwell was friends with Prince Andrew and introduced him to Epstein.

The Duke of York has admitted to flying on the millionaire's private jet, staying on his island in the Caribbean and at the sprawling New York penthouse.

One of Epstein's victims, Virginia Giuffre (Roberts), claims she was coerced into having sex with the prince as a 17-year-old in London.

He has denied any allegations of sexual misconduct in the strongest terms.

A spokesman for the duke's legal team said of Tiffany Doe's claims: 'There will doubtless be a welter of these kind of 'recollections', some ten or more years after the fact, particularly where claims on the Epstein estate are concerned. Where is the evidence?'
The internet is awash with conspiracy theories about President Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell. These theories don't claim that Trump was somehow involved in the despicable sex-trafficking and other perversions of which Maxwell stands accused. Instead, they revolve around Trump's seemingly careless statement that he wishes Maxwell "well."

What could that mean? If you take the time to think it through, what it means is that Trump is a very smart man.

The core story is simple. During a White House coronavirus briefing on Tuesday, a reporter had a question for Trump:

Since Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison, and a lot of people want to know if she's going to turn in powerful people  I know you've talked in the past about Prince Andrew and you've criticized Bill Clinton's behavior  I'm wondering, do you feel she's going to turn in powerful men? How do you see that working out?

Trump's answer was minimalist. He acknowledged moving in some of the same circles as Maxwell and then wished her "well":

I don't know. I haven't really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly. I've met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well. Whatever it is. I don't know the situation with Prince Andrew. Just don't know. Not aware of it.

The fever swamp instantly swung into action with the theory that Trump, because he wished her "well," was going to pardon Maxwell or cut a deal with her that would keep her silent. The assumption among the Trump haters is that Trump was obviously involved in some criminal way with Epstein and Maxwell or that he's simply a self-involved, amoral narcissist:

I wish her well could be code for keep quiet and Ill pardon or commute your sentence! pic.twitter.com/wy83LC2UXt  Phyllis Silver (@PhyllisSilver) July 22, 2020

In case you werent aware, I wish her well is code for, stay silent or else.  Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) July 22, 2020

Trump just said of Ghislaine Maxwell who is under arrest for sex trafficking of minors, I wish her well. What type of statement is that? No sympathy for the victims of Maxwell and his friend Jeffrey Epstein.  Barbra Streisand (@BarbraStreisand) July 21, 2020

"I just wish her well, frankly."

-- President Trump, on child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.



A terrible president. An even worse human being.  Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) July 22, 2020

He didnt just wish her well. He signaled her pardon. Thats what that was. It may be the main reason he was there. https://t.co/MHthePrb9A  Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) July 22, 2020

Thankfully, Trump is smarter than the mindless Twitterati. First, if Trump had been speaking in "code" about anything, he was almost certainly saying he hopes that Maxwell, unlike Epstein, survives to go to trial, or at least to spill the beans to law enforcement.

Trump also never says bad things about people who haven't attacked him or those close to him. As long as Maxwell isn't slandering him or his sons, he's going to voice banal platitudes.

But there's something even more important going on here. Trump isn't going to risk being accused of tainting Maxwell's trial. Unlike his young attackers who know nothing or the older attackers who ought to know better, Trump hasn't forgotten how the defense in the Charles Manson murders attempted to use President Nixon's statements to make it impossible to try the defendants.

Just last August, the Washington Post told the story that's caused Trump to be careful when speaking about Maxwell. In August 1970, Richard Nixon scolded the media for its Manson coverage. He asserted that the media had made Manson appear as a "rather glamorous figure," even though Manson, in Nixon's opinion, was "guilty, directly or indirectly, of eight murders without reason."

Even in a pre-internet era, the media disseminated that throwaway line throughout America within moments. Worse, someone smuggled a copy of a newspaper to Manson, who promptly held the boldly headlined story up for the jurors to see. For the Manson crews' attorneys, Nixon was a possible lifeline:

Lawyers for Manson and his followers immediately demanded a mistrial, portraying their deranged clients as the peace-and-love good guys when compared to Nixon's misdeeds in Vietnam.

The judge polled the jurors separately, and all insisted that they could still be impartial. Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten still tried to take advantage of the situation by chanting, "Nixon says we are guilty, so why go on?" The judge denied the motion.

Trump was not going to pull a Nixon. Instead, he uttered the most anodyne phrase possible, one that alludes obliquely to Epstein's suicide but otherwise says nothing about Maxwell's guilt or innocence, or about any of the well known people who might get sucked into the limelight of Maxwell's trial.

(Trump was also burned by Bowe Bergdahl's military trial. That's when a military panel concluded that, when Trump said he believed Bergdahl was guilty, Trump had committed something that the military calls "unlawful command influence.")

As for Trump, I doubt he's worried about Maxwell. Trump never flew on Epstein's infamous jet to his private pedophile palace island. Instead, Trump long ago banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago after Epstein hit on a teenage girl. Additionally, all the way back in 2009, when an attorney represented several of Epstein's victims in a lawsuit against him, Trump was the only person who would talk to the attorney to try to help the case.

Those who are trying to make a federal case out of Trump's remarks about Maxwell are barking up the wrong tree. All that happened was that Trump was too smart to risk the integrity of Maxwell's trial. (Indeed, thinking about it, he may have been engaging in an even deeper game. If he assumes that a New York jury will hate him, they may be more inclined to find against Maxwell if they believe that doing so will make Trump unhappy.)

Image: YouTube screen grab.
Johnstone Muthama has always sought to portray himself as the ultimate kingmaker in the Kamba nation.

In his world view, no one from the Lower Eastern region, including veterans such as former vice president Kalonzo Musyoka, would matter in the national high table without his endorsement and support.

READ ALSO: Uganda registers 1st COVID-19 death

Muthama is the former Machakos senator. Photo: Johnstone Muthama.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: DP Ruto afanya mkutano wa faragha na wazee kutoka Rift Valley

This is the self-fulfilling role he has sought to play at various points in recent political history when he backed Uhuru Kenyatta (2002), Kalonzo (2007), Raila Odinga (2013 and 2017) and now William Ruto for the presidency.

Indeed, in the run-up to the 2017 elections, Kalonzo bitterly complained that Muthama, then the Machakos senator, was betraying him by backing Raila for the NASA presidential ticket at his expense.

Muthama had arrogated to himself the role of chaperoning the former VPs destiny on account that he was bankrolling the Wiper party from his own pockets. Muthama is a man of means, having made a fortune from his gemstone business.

READ ALSO: Majority of Kenyans think William Ruto is currently more influential than Raila Odinga

Kalonzo blamed him of disloyalty. Photo: Kalonzo Musyoka. Photo: Kalonzo Musyoka.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Harun Ndubi: Nairobi lawyer faces eviction over rent arrears

He now says that his fallout with Kalonzo resulted from his decision to cut finances that went into Wiper operations.

It is vehemently clear that your bitterness comes from my withdrawing my support to the party and for that reason, you are enduring dire financial hardship, Muthama told the party early this month after it issued him with a show-cause notice to state why he should not be disciplined for going against its ideals and positions.

Yet, any keen observer of Kenya's recent political history knows that Muthama would be nothing politically today was it not for Kalonzo.

He has the Wiper leader entirely to thank for guiding him to the national scene, all the way from village politics.

Muthama was initially in Charity Ngilus then political party, the Social Democratic Party, before defecting to Kanu after the 1997 elections.

READ ALSO: Abduba Dida accuses Uhuru of misusing COVID-19 funds, says he'll make him pay after becoming president

It is then that he installed himself as the Kamba kingmaker and went on to take credit for Kalonzo's election as one of Kanus vice-chairmen in the reorganisation that followed Kanu's merger with Raila's National Development Party (NDP).

However, after former president Moi settled on Uhuru as his preferred successor, Muthama joined those who exited the independence party.

At a much-publicised rally in Machakos, Muthama launched his career in political ignominy when he used unprintable words against Kenyatta, declaring that he will never become the countrys president.

He later hosted Kanu rebels - who later formed the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) - at his Mua Hills home.

But strangely, Muthama was a few months later among those campaigning for Uhuru, a man he had dismissed as a political neophyte.

READ ALSO: Githurai man collapses, dies outside cereal shop

It is not clear what changed, though the grapevine had it that he was handsomely bought out.

On his part, he stayed out of any contest and went on to assume a low profile before he emerged again in 2007 to campaign for Kalonzo who was gunning for the presidency on an ODM-Kenya ticket.

It is alleged that it was Muthama who coerced Kalonzo into entering a deal with Mwai Kibaki's Party of National Unity to form a government following the disputed outcome of the presidential contest.

Though the deal saw Kalonzo appointed vice president, his role was diminished after Kibaki and Raila eventually formed a mediated grand coalition government in which the latter served as a powerful prime minister with powers to supervise and coordinate government ministries and functions and with half of the Cabinet consisting of his allies.

In essence, he led Kalonzo into a raw deal though on his part it enabled him to wield immense powers that saw him determine who got appointed into government and who even accompanied Kalonzo on foreign trips.

It is clear from history that Muthama is a self-serving man who cannot be trusted in any political dealings.

His political miscalculations are also legendary. In both 2002 and 2017, for instance, he opted not to vie for any political seat hoping to land a bigger role if Uhuru and Raila respectively had become President.

It never happened as planned, and he ended in the political freezer. He is now banking his hope on Ruto, which may yet again come a cropper.

His immediate headache, however, is how he handles his imminent expulsion from Wiper party, after the process was initiated by the National Executive Committee (NEC) earlier this week.

The writer is Tom Juma, a regular commentator on social, economic and political.

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Kamotho, Virginia and Tabitha meet in Court, media barred from covering the custody case | Tuko TV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Bloomberg photo by Kyle Grillot

Goldman Sachs Group chief executive David Solomon threw his weight behind more spending to help revive the economy as congressional leaders remain deadlocked on a new stimulus deal.

"Even though it's hard and it's expensive, we are better to blunt the economic impact now in the short term, by spending more, than to allow it to get worse and deal with the consequences of it being worse," Solomon said Wednesday in an online presentation hosted by the Economic Club of New York.
Rome, July 23 : Inter Milan manager Antonio Conte said that he doesn't want his players to be satisfied by the club's potential second place finish in the ongoing Serie A. After being held to a goalless draw by Fiorentina, Inter are now a point behind second placed Atalanta and seven points behind leaders Juventus.

"Second place is meaningless in my eyes, it's just first for losers," Conte told Sky Sport Italia post-game on Wednesday.

"Some settle for that, but not me. I don't want my players to settle for that either," he added.

Juventus are on course to their ninth successive Serie A title and the first three title victories of this run came with Conte at the helm of the club. Conte has since won the Premier League with Chelsea before taking charge at Inter.

Conte said that Fiorentina deserved praise for the way they played and he is not complaining about his players' commitment.

"It was a good game, we played with the right intensity and passing moves, but were unlucky when hitting the woodwork twice," he said.

"I can't complain when the lads put in this desire and we even risked losing it at the end through our sheer desire to win. Fiorentina deserve credit for a very good defensive performance.

"When you drop points, there are always things that have gone wrong. We are trying to develop a killer instinct and I am happy if my players are disappointed at this draw, because that shows my work is bearing fruit.

"Every game is a test to prove that we are growing. I think this team hasn't reaped what it sowed this season, aside from securing a Champions League place with several rounds to spare," he added.
Chennai, July 23 : The Tamil Nadu government on Thursday signed MoUs with 16 investors for a potential investment of Rs 5,137 crore in various projects, an official statement said.

The MoUs were signed at the state secretariat, in the presence of Chief Minister K. Palaniswami.

The MoUs, when converted into actual projects, are expected to generate about 6,555 jobs.

Among the proposed projects are Adani Enterprises' information data centre in Chengalpattu district at an investment of Rs 2,300 crore, Super Auto Forge's plant to manufacture forged steel and aluminium parts in Kancheepuram district at an investment of Rs 500 crore, and Airflow Equipments' Rs 320 crore transport spare parts plant in the same district.

Also, ATC Tires is to invest Rs 250 crore on a technology enhancement project in Tirunelveli district, Visteon to invest Rs 100 crore to make electrical parts for automobiles in Chengalpattu district and Top Anil Marketing Rs 100 crore in a vermicelli manufacturing unit in Dindigul.

Princeton plans to invest Rs 750 crore to set up an information data centre at Siruseri, BPL-FTA Energies will set up a facility to make lithium ion batteries at Kancheepuram or Cheyyar at an outlay of Rs 500 crore, while Siruvaru Motors will invest Rs 150 crore to make electric bikes.

Seven MoUs were signed with US-based companies which had committed investments in Tamil Nadu during Palaniswami's visit there some time back.

These include Tirel Network Solutions, which will invest Rs 25 crore for an artificial intelligence-powered food and agriculture supply chain project, and Cloud Enablers Rs 35 crore for autonomous and continuous governance for the enterprise cloud project.

SwirePay will invest Rs 23 crore for a digital payments project, Plethy Rs 22 crore on a digital health scheme, Radus Digital Rs 21 crore for an Artificial Intelligence ventue, and Contintue Rs 20 crore for a SaaS-based Enterprise Risk Automation project.

While all the above projects are to be located in Chennai, E-learning company Bitwise Academy will invest Rs 21 crore in Coimbatore.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The New York Times Company has agreed to buy Serial Productions, the company behind the hit podcast Serial, The Times said on Wednesday, in the papers latest move to broaden its digital journalism.

The arrangement will allow Serial Productions to increase the number of shows it makes, said Julie Snyder, the executive editor of Serial Productions, and will allow those shows to then be promoted on The Timess website, in its newsletters and through its other channels.

The idea is to drive New York Times readers and listeners toward Serial projects, Sam Dolnick, an assistant managing editor who oversees The Timess audio efforts, said in an interview. Theres going to be ways that we can help Serial tell more stories, bigger stories and, down the road, figure out how our newsroom and theirs can coordinate even more deeply.

The Times paid about $25 million for the company, according to a person with knowledge of the deal.

Serial, the series that investigated whether a Baltimore high school student, Adnan Syed, really killed his ex-girlfriend in 1999, was a hit when it came out in 2014 as a spinoff of the popular public radio show and podcast This American Life. It was followed by a second investigative journalism project, S-Town, from Serial and This American Life.
The U.S. government will pay nearly $2 billion to buy enough of a COVID-19 vaccine being developed by Pfizer Inc and German biotech BioNTech SE to innoculate 50 million people if it proves to be safe and effective, the companies said on Wednesday.

The contract for 100 million doses of the vaccine amounts to a $39 price tag for what is likely to be a two-dose course of treatment.

The contract is the most the United States has agreed to spend on a vaccine, although previous deals with other vaccine makers were intended to also help pay for development costs.

Pfizer and BioNTech will not receive any money from the government unless their vaccine succeeds in large clinical trials and can be successfully manufactured, according to a Pfizer spokeswoman.

Under the agreement, the government would also have an option to procure an additional 500 million doses. Pfizer said the price for the additional doses would be negotiated separately if the U.S. orders them.

The vaccine, if successful, will be made available to Americans at no cost, although their health insurance may be charged, the U.S. department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said.

Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla has said the company intends to make a profit on the vaccine. He has also said that spending its own money, rather than government money to develop the vaccine should help speed the process.

Pfizer hopes to start its pivotal late-stage trial of the vaccine as early as next week, pending regulatory approvals, Chief Scientific Officer Mikael Dolsten said in an interview.

Were already starting to the process of allocating vaccine vials to a variety of different clinical sites in the U.S. and elsewhere, Dolsten said. Were looking at the map and getting good advice from the CDC. Where do we have the greatest incidence of COVID-19 disease?

Vaccine trials are more efficient if conducted in areas where high rates of active infection are prevelant.

The vaccine has already shown promise in early-stage small studies in humans, producing the type of neutralizing antibodies needed to fight the virus. In those trials, subjects received two doses of the vaccine.

The Pfizer/BioNTech candidate is one of the most advanced of over 150 vaccines being developed against COVID-19, which has claimed more than 600,000 lives globally and crippled economies.

The vaccine utilizes the chemical messenger RNA to instruct cells to make proteins that mimic the surface of the coronavirus, which the immune system sees as a foreign invader and mounts an attack. Although the technology has been around for years, there has never been an approved messenger RNA (mRNA)vaccine.

The Trump administration has agreed to spend billions of dollars for the development and procurement of potential vaccines under its Operation Warp Speed program.

The aim is to produce vaccines that can end the pandemic by protecting billions of people from infection or severe illness, and governments have signed deals with drugmakers to secure supplies of various candidates. Whether any will succeed remains far from clear.

Other vaccine makers that have signed deals to receive U.S. government funding for their efforts include Moderna Inc, AstraZeneca Plc and Novavax Inc.

Pfizer said it will deliver the doses if the product receives emergency use authorization or U.S. approval as early as October after demonstrating safety and efficacy in a large Phase III clinical trial involving up to 30,000 subjects.

Pfizer and BioNTech currently expect to manufacture up to 100 million doses globally by the end of 2020, and potentially more than 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021, subject to final dose selection from their clinical trial.

On Monday, the companies agreed to supply the United Kingdom with 30 million doses of the vaccine candidate, but did not disclose a price
SpaceX is in discussions with investors about raising about $1bn at a price of $270 a share, sources tell Bloomberg.

Billionaire Elon Musks Space Exploration Technologies Corp. is in talks to raise new capital at a valuation of $44 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The company, better known as SpaceX, is in discussions with investors about raising about $1 billion at a price of $270 a share, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. The round is unlikely to be completed within the next couple months and terms could change, one of the people said.

SpaceX didnt immediately respond to requests for comment.

Any new funding would follows a slew of earlier rounds. The most recent funding effort was for $500 million at a valuation of $36 billion, or $220 a share, according to a CNBC report in March.

In a research report dated July 20, Morgan Stanley said the company ultimately could be worth as much as $175 billion. The bank said it remains focused on the needs and sources of capital for SpaceX as a potential catalyst to increase the relevance of space for public investors.

Morgan Stanley said SpaceX has raised about $3.5 billion to date, and estimates about $50 billion of free cash flow burn from 2019 to 2032, before its satellite internet business, Starlink first generates free cash flow in 2033.

SpaceXs investors include Peter Thiels Founders Fund, Google, Fidelity, Baillie Gifford and Valor Equity Partners.

Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been a key partner and customer for the Hawthorne, California-based company. In May, two U.S. astronauts reached the space station on a SpaceX capsule, marking the first time humans have launched into orbit on a commercially developed craft. A cargo-only version of SpaceXs Dragon capsule makes regular runs to the space station.

With assistance from Dana Hull.
In "The Return," Hisham Matars haunting 2016 memoir about seeking to uncover his missing fathers fate in the hands of the late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, the author pays tribute to a cousin who fought valorously in the North African nations 2011 revolution. Following Tripolis liberation in August 2011, Hamad traveled to Syria to help like-minded revolutionaries there overthrow their own ruthless strongman, Bashar al-Assad.

Nine years on, Syrian rebels are streaming into Libya. But their motives are decidedly different. They are going for the money. As their war-shattered country descends into deeper misery under US sanctions, and with no end in sight, many are enlisting to fight on opposite sides of Libyas ongoing civil conflict pitting the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) against the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by the eastern warlord Khalifa Hifter. The emergence of Syrian mercenaries is the latest cruel twist in Syrias nine-year-long conflict that has claimed at least 400,000 lives, internally displaced more than 6.2 million people and led roughly 5.2 million more to flee the country, according to the United Nations. Some of the Syrian fighters headed to Libya are children, in breach of international law.

What we are now faced with is a scenario in which Syrians who fought together to overthrow Assad are now going to be shooting at each other in a foreign land, said Bassem al-Ahmed, the co-founder of Syrians for Truth and Justice, a nonpartisan advocacy group that monitors human rights in Syria, including the plight of Syrians going to fight in Libya. Ahmed, who is Syrian, said, I would have never imagined we would be in this situation. Its an absolute travesty.

Emadeddin Badi, a Libyan and nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said the arrival of Syrian mercenaries in his country is illustrative of the fact that Syrians hope for change has been turned to ash by Assad and a passive international community. So it isnt that the favor [to Libyans who came to fight in Syria] is returned, more so that both Libya and Syrias revolutions have turned to tragedy.

Not everyone is happy with the Syrians in Libya, even amongst the camp that they have been brought to support, Badi added in emailed comments to Al-Monitor.

The warring parties in Libya have accused the other of importing radical jihadis and assorted criminals to bolster their ranks, part of a propaganda war that is being waged by the Turkish and Qatari media on one hand and the United Arab Emirates and the Egyptian media on the other, with sympathizers of the rival sides weighing in as well.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which has been monitoring the Syrian conflict through a network of local sources, recently alleged that Turkish intelligence had transferred jihadist groups and Islamic State (IS) members of different foreign nationalities from Syria to Libya in the past few months. The SOHR maintains they included over 2,500 Tunisian IS fighters. Aaron Y. Zelin, a Richard Borow fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of Your Sons Are At Your Service: Tunisias Missionaries of Jihad, debunked the claims, telling Al-Monitor in emailed comments that they were straight up not credible.

The Pentagons inspector general concluded in a July 17 report that Turkey had sent between 3,500 and 3,800 paid Syrian fighters to Libya over the first three months of this year.

Despite allegations by Hifter and his UAE and Egyptian backers, the US military found no evidence to suggest the men were linked to either IS or al-Qaeda.

The Libyans who went to Syria in 2011 went out of solidarity to do in Syria what they had done in Libya: overthrow a dictator. It was only in 2012 that you saw Libyans go for overt jihadi reasons. So, what they did was foreign fighting, Zelin said. What we are seeing now with the Syrians going to Libya is different because it's mercenary activity. Foreign fighting and being a mercenary are two different phenomena. The former is more about solidarity and ideological conviction with a cause; the latter is about receiving money, a gun for hire.

Turkeys intervention earlier this year with officers, heavy weapons, warships and drones, together with the injection of Syrian mercenaries, has tipped the war in favor of the GNA. Hifter was forced to call off his yearlong campaign to capture Tripoli in May and beat a humiliating retreat. Turkey and Russia have slapped a band-aid on the conflict for now, with mutual pledges to seek a political resolution. But the risk of renewed escalation remains. The ongoing recruitment of Syrian mercenaries is an ominous sign. Turkey and the GNA have vowed to press on till they capture Sirte. The coastal city where Gadhafi met his bloody end is the strategic gateway to the bulk of Libyas oil, currently controlled by the LNA.

While there are numerous accounts documenting how thousands of Syrians are being recruited by the Turkish-backed opposition Syrian National Army to fight on the side of GNA forces, there is less information available about Syrians fighting on behalf of Hifter.

Mercenaries from neighboring countries like Chad and Sudan have taken part in the Libyan conflict since 2011. But Hifters Libyan Arab Armed Forces is the first post-revolutionary Libyan entity to systematically import them and is now more reliant on them than any other Libyan entity, said Tarek Megerisi, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The embargo on oil produced in areas under his control has depleted Hifters war chest, leaving his top backer and Turkeys top regional foe, the UAE, to foot the bill. The [LNA] is effectively desperate for foreign fighters that are competent on the battlefield and who will listen to orders. Syrians are great from the [LNAs] perspective because theyre cheap bodies to put on the line, as crude as that is," said Megerisi.

Syrian Arab tribes have put out public statements condemning the exploitation of their youths by the Wagner Group. The Russians reportedly began taking Syrians to fight in Libya last year. Wagner typically refuses to comment.

The UN said Wagner had at least 1,200 men fighting in Libya, according to a report that was leaked in May. The Kremlin denies involvement in such activities, including sending at least 14 warplanes to a central Libyan air base. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov last week insisted the Russian military is not involved in any processes in Libya in any way.

Megerisi reckons there is also a geopolitical angle to putting Syrian boots on the ground. It serves the Kremlins agenda of "strengthening the Russia, [Syrian President] Bashar [al-Assad], UAE triangle thats forming, he told Al-Monitor. In March, members of Hifters government established a diplomatic mission in Damascus. The move was welcomed by Moscow.

Syrians for Truth and Justice and its team of digital fact-checkers have pieced together further details of how Syrians are being recruited and taken to Libya to fight for Hifter with the help of Russia. The information will be made available in a report that is due to be published in the coming days and was seen exclusively by Al-Monitor. Its the bookend to a May report that focused on Syrians recruited by Turkey for the GNA. They include members of militias who have committed war crimes against Syrias Kurdish population.

Based on eyewitness testimony and fighters accounts of the Syrian governments collusion with the Russian military and Wagner, the latest report describes how an estimated 3,000 men (at least 22 of whom are children) from Suwayda, Daraa, Quneitra, Hama, Homs, Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor and rural Damascus were recruited. They notably include former opposition rebels who fought in the US-backed Southern Front who have signed so-called settlement or amnesty agreements with the Syrian government. Salaries range from $800 to $1,500, a veritable fortune in Syria where the collapse of the pound has pauperized a broad swath of the population.

One recruit from Suwayda who went by the pseudonym Rami M. told Syrians for Truth and Justice he had applied to go to Libya via the regime-sanctioned Syrian National Youth Party. A party official had told some 80 fellow recruits at an initiation gathering that criminal charges against those who fought in rebel factions would be dropped and they would be exempted from reserve military service. He told us that in Libya, we will be fighting under the supervision of the Russian Wagner company, Rami M. said.

Another recruit, identified as Yousef A. from Quneitra, said, I operated within the ranks of the Free [Syrian] Army against the regime, and like the majority of the fighters of southern Syrias factions, I signed a settlement agreement. The regime, however, did not write off the security reports filed against me, not to mention the poor financial conditions I am enduring, [rising prices and the lack of] job opportunities that turned life into hell. For this reason, I joined the ranks of the fighters in Libya, helped by the Russia-affiliated 5th Legion [of the Syrian Arab Army], because they promised to give a $1,000 salary and cancel all the reports on me under Russian guarantees.

A third recruit, identified as Asem, who also applied to go to Libya through the Syrian National Youth Party, said he and 150 fellow recruits were supposed to undergo 15 days of training before being deployed. He said there were Russian officers with us and a captain in the [Syrian] army present at a meeting in early January at the headquarters of the Syrian armys 18th division in rural Homs. Asem dropped out upon learning that he would not be guarding Libyan oil fields as originally advertised.

Syrians for Truth and Justices Ahmed said he was shocked that former opposition rebels would be going to Libya at all, as they would potentially find themselves killing fellow ex-Syrian rebels in the enemy ranks. Maybe its a strategic plan by the Syrian regime. Maybe it's forcing them to go in order to get rid of them, he speculated.

The fighters are transferred to Libya either via commercial flights from Damascus and Latakia on Cham Wings or from Russias Hmeimim air base in Latakia onboard Russian Tupolev jets. What happens to them once they get there is unclear.

I am working to get access to fighters who are in Libya fighting for the LNA. Its extremely difficult [because] they dont have phones on them or internet. They call their families very rarely when they manage to get hold of a phone, and no one has come back yet. Its pretty new, said Elizabeth Tsurkov, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Tsurkov, who is renowned in the policy community for her vast network of contacts inside Syria, was the first foreign researcher to flag the recruitment of Syrians to fight in Libya by the Wagner group on her Twitter feed.

I would say speaking with members of communities from which these fighters went is that all of them did so due to financial incentives. This applies to fighters who are fighting on the GNA side as well as on the Hifter side. No one has any particular interest in the war that is happening in Libya. Very few knew much about it before going there, Tsurkov said in a telephone interview with Al-Monitor.

They are in desperate need of money. The salaries that are offered to them in Libya are 20 times more than what they are earning in Syria as fighters. As far as I understand now from both sides, at this stage, there are more people who are interested in going than the number of people who are needed both by Turkey and Wagner. This just shows us the sad state of the situation in Syria, Tsurkov observed.
The U.S. government announced on Wednesday a whopping $1.95 billion contract with vaccine candidates Pfizer and BioNTech SE. The investment would go towards securing 100 million doses of their vaccine to be provided to Americans for free.

Under the agreement, the United States will receive 100 million doses after regulators clear it. The Department of Health and Human Services may also acquire an additional 500 million doses if needed.

During a press conference at the White House on Wednesday, President Donald Trump touted both companies who are jointly developing four potential coronavirus vaccines. If the vaccine is proven safe and effective, Pfizer, with guidance from the U.S. government, will begin delivering doses to multiple locations across the nation, CNBC reports.

How effective is the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech?

While dozens of vaccines are currently being studied, not one has been proven to work safely yet. But data released by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE in early July showed very promising results.

Healthy volunteers who received the first dose of the vaccine candidate had higher levels of antibodies after a month. They also had more antibody levels seven days after getting a second dose compared to the levels found in recovered COVID-19 patients. The researchers did not observe any severe side effects, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine candidate uses messenger RNA (mRNA). The innovative gene-based technology is responsible for carrying instructions from DNA to the body's cells to make proteins.

The companies launched its first human study in May. The first phase focused on determining whether the vaccine candidates were safe.

Researchers enrolled 45 subjects who were between the ages of 18 and 55. Some were assigned with the vaccine candidate while others received a placebo. The team used three doses - 10 micrograms, 30 micrograms, and 100 micrograms.

After a month, the average antibody level for patients who received two dosages of 10 micrograms each had 4,813 units per microliter. The average antibody levels found in recovered patients was 602 units per microliter.

What are the other companies developing COVID vaccines?

Moderna had recently received funding from the U.S. government. The $483 million will go towards its vaccine development that also uses the mRNA technology. Phase III of its clinical trials is set to begin on July 27 and involve over 30,000 candidates.

AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford are now conducting the final phase of its vaccine candidate in Brazil and South Africa. The project aims to deliver two billion doses by October.

Europe is also pulling out all stops to develop a vaccine. Germany recently took a 23 percent stake in CureVac. It is the German firm President Trump once tried to lure. It launched the first phase of its trials in June.

Chinese researchers collaborated with the Academy of Military Medical Sciences to develop one of China's leading vaccine candidates. Chinese-firm Sinopharm Group announced in June that it would launch the last phase of trials in the UAE, as reported by The New York Times.

Want to read more? Check these out:
FIVE women have raised more than 25,000 for Henley Music School by crossing the English Channel in relay.

The Henley Mermaids set off from Dover at 11.30pm on Tuesday and they arrived at Cap Gris-Nez in northern France after 17 hours and 43 minutes.

Laura Reinke, Jo Robb, Joan Fennelly, Susan Barry and Fiona Print are all members of Henley Open Water Swimming Club.

They were due to take on the challenge in the first week of June, but it had to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Mrs Reineke, the founder of Henley Music School, was the first swimmer out and described the experience as wonderful, emotional, harrowing and horrific.

She added: An amazing experience shared with four very special mermaids.

Thank you all for your lovely messages and support. Ill read and re-read over the next few days. You kept us going when we doubted ourselves.

They each had to swim for an hour in relay and the mermaids hoped to complete the 21-mile challenge in 16 to 18 hours.

The other four women travelled alongside in an escort boat, called Anastasia, which was being piloted by Eddie Spelling. It was a 42ft Dutch steel flybridge motorcruiser and there were on-board facilities for sleeping.

Mrs Reineke was followed by Mrs Robb, a Green Party councillor for South Oxfordshire, as she is the next strongest swimmer.

Third out of the boat is Mrs Print, a nurse, Mrs Barry, a teacher, and Mrs Fennelly, who is a sales director. Mrs Fennelly had the honour of completing the final leg of the journey.

They started out with a fundraising target of 6,000 for the music school, which was founded in 2010.

To donate, visit gofundme.com/f/laura039s-campaign-for-henley-music-school

A full report and pictures of the challenge will be in next weeks Henley Standard.
The United States will support Vietnamese fishermen against illegal intimidation at sea as part of a new memorandum of understanding (MoU) recently signed between Vietnam and the U.S.

The Vietnam Directorate of Fisheries (D-FISH) and the U.S. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) on Wednesday singed an MoU on strengthening Vietnams fisheries management and law enforcement capabilities.

The signing ceremony was attended by U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Daniel Kritenbrink and D-FISHs director general Tran Dinh Luan.

The technical assistance provided by the INL within the framework of this MoU is going to help boost the capacity of Vietnam's Directorate of Fisheries and Department of Fisheries Resources Surveillance.

It will further promote cooperation between Vietnam, the U.S., and international law enforcement agencies to aid the sustainable maintenance of marine resources and the fight against illegal fishing.

The U.S. has extensive experience in managing and enforcing fisheries laws and is willing to share it with Vietnam, Ambassador Kritenbrink remarked at the ceremony.

The U.S. looks forward to working with Vietnam to develop a sustainable fisheries sector and to support Vietnamese fishermen against illegal threats at sea, the diplomat stated.

Vietnams Directorate of Fisheries has been working with the U.S. since 2015 to improve fisheries law enforcement and management capacity through technical training, study tours, exchange of experience, and other technical assistance activities.

The INL is expected to hand over to Vietnams Department of Fisheries Resources Surveillance a training center in Phu Quoc, an island off the southern province of Kien Giang, in February 2021.

This center will significantly improve the capability of the Vietnamese agency as well as fisheries resources surveillance units in the countrys 28 coastal provinces.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
After a more than two-week closure, the Riva Row Boat House in The Woodlands will be reopened on Thursday and renting the usual watercraft to fun-seekers along The Woodlands Waterway and Lake Woodlands.

The facility was closed on July 6 after a staff member had tested positive for the COVID-19 novel coronavirus. Officials from The Woodlands Parks and Recreation Department also closed the Lakes Edge rental kiosk in Hughes Landing, but it reopened on July 8.

The Riva Row facility is much larger than the Lakes Edge Boat House and requires more staff to operate. Because many of the aquatic and watercraft rental staff had to be quarantined for two weeks, there were not enough employees to open Riva Row.

Related: Woodlands closes 2 boat houses after staffer tests positive for COVID-19

Nick Wolda, director of communications for The Woodlands Township, said the Riva Row facility is expected to be, fully staffed and running at prior hours when it reopens Thursday.

Were please to have both boat houses running at full capacity, Wolda said in an email. Recreational activity on The Woodlands Waterway and Lake Woodlands has been extremely popular this summer.

The two facilities are very popular with both residents and visitors to the township. Rentals of kayaks, pedal-powered kayaks, stand-up paddle boards, Swan boats and other watercraft are done out of both Riva Row and the Lakes Edge facilities. The amenities were among the first to reopen to customers in early May after months of coronavirus-induced closure. Several new watercraft had resulted in a high-demand from customers through the end of June.

The Riva Row Boat House will be open for normal operating hours starting July 23; the facility opens at 9 a.m. with the last rental boats going out at 7 p.m. The facility is closed on Wednesday. For more information, check the boat house website for details at: https://www.thewoodlandstownship-tx.gov/RIVAROWBOATHOUSE.

jeff.forward@chron.com
Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday said he will be calling the assembly session soon and claimed that he does have the numbers or a full majority, a day ahead of the verdict on rebel Congress leader Sachin Pilot and 18 dissident MLAs disqualification notice by the house speaker.

If the rebel MLAs are disqualified, the majority mark in the 200-member assembly will automatically come down, making it easier for chief minister Ashok Gehlot to win a floor test.

The CM added that coronavirus will also be discussed in the upcoming session.

We will soon call the assembly session. Some of those MLAs held hostage will also come and vote for us. We have a full majority and will come to the house with those numbers. We will prove the mandate, said the CM.

At the third Congress legislature party meeting this week, the CM impressed upon the MLAs to stand like a rock. He further added that neither the Congress nor the BJP wanted the assembly to be dissolved and election to take place.

The entire country is watching the way youre fighting. Your respect has increased manifold. Its not something ordinary, he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Earlier, contrasting the situation of his MLAs with those in team Pilot, the CM alleged that the latter were held against their wishes and have been calling him. The MLAs belonging to the Gehlot camp have been seen singing, doing yoga sessions and even trying their hand at cooking at the luxury resort in Jaipur where they have been sequestered.

On the other hand, Team Pilot has been camping in the BJP-ruled Haryana.

The Congress has so far claimed that 109 legislators are supporting the Ashok Gehlot government and insisted that the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) too had not yet sought a floor test. The BJP with 72 legislators has been watching the developments from the sidelines. The majority mark in the assembly stands at 101.
Boris Johnson has told the army to prepare for a second wave of coronavirus, the flu, Brexit and flooding in a four-pronged disaster which threatens to cripple Britain.

Head of military strategy and operations at the Ministry of Defence Lieutenant General Douglas Chalmers said 'No. 10 has been very clear' that tabletop preparedness exercises must be completed by the end of August.

He highlighted 'the normal flu season' and the coronavirus crisis still being 'very firmly with us' as well as the end of Britain's 11-month transition out of the EU on December 31st and potential flooding as issues Britain could face.

Lieutenant General Douglas Chalmers (left) today told the House of Lords public services committee that 'No. 10 has been very clear' that tabletop exercises to prepare for Winter must be completed by the end of August. Right: Boris Johnson

Lieutenant General Chalmers (pictured) spoke to the House of Lords public services committee

The head of military strategy and operations at the Ministry of Defence today told the House of Lords public services committee: 'As we look towards the winter now, we know about the normal flu season.'

He added: 'We are obviously transitioning out of the EU, and we have our normal floods et cetera that come on.

'We are looking very heavily at how we do winter preparedness [...] and we will support some of the departmental tabletop exercising.

'No 10 has been very clear that those TT exercises need to be done by the end of August in order that we can learn from them and then act on some of those elements that have been brought forward.'

The preparation measures appear to contradict the Prime Minister's hopes of getting life back to normal by Christmas.

Modelling by the Academy of Medical Sciences estimates more than 120,000 people could die from coronavirus this winter in a 'reasonable worst-case scenario'

The modelling presumed the R - the average number of people each Covid-19 patient infects -would rise to 1.7

Mr Johnson previously said ministers will review all of the remaining 'outstanding restrictions' - including social distancing - in the coming months in order to allow a 'more significant return to normality from November at the earliest' and 'possibly in time for Christmas'.

Concerns have been raised about potential food shortages and long lines at ports should the Brexit transition period come to an end on December 31 without a deal.

This would come around the same time as a potential second wave of coronavirus.

Earlier this month, scientists warned that a second wave of coronavirus this winter could result in 120,000 hospital deaths.

Action must be taken now to mitigate the reasonable worst case scenario which would see the NHS overwhelmed, the Academy of Medical Sciences says.

The grim forecast  which does not include care home deaths  was commissioned by the Governments chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, to help preparations.

It warned that hospitals could see 120,000 Covid-19 deaths between September and June while also battling a surge in demand from usual winter pressures such as flu.

Another 79 people died of Covid-19 in Britain as official figures released today reveal the daily number of victims is still dropping but cases are still rising in a sign the outbreak is growing.

Department of Health statistics show 64 Britons are succumbing to the illness each day, on average. By contrast, the rate last Wednesday was 75.

Concerns have been raised about potential food shortages and long lines at ports (file image of a queue of lorries in Kent) should the Brexit transition period come to an end on December 31 without a deal

Flooding has been highlighted as a potential issue this winter. February saw severe flooding in parts of the UK (Gloucester, pictured)

Today marked the seventh day in a row that no deaths have been recorded in Scotland and only one death has been counted in the past fortnight, showing the country is on the way to being free of coronavirus.

The number of cases, however, seems to be rising. A further 560 people have been diagnosed with coronavirus, up from 440 yesterday, and the seven-day average has been risen 9.2 per cent in the last week.

There are now an average 638 people diagnosed each day, up from 584 seven days ago and from 546 a week before that on July 8.

The increasing average may be a sign the infection has started spreading again, confirming fears of top scientists that 'Super Saturday' would trigger a surge in cases  or it could be a result of more targeted testing.
It's another day, another dollar in the sunshine for this Olympic decathlete-turned entrepreneur.

Caitlyn Jenner turned up the temperature on Instagram this Thursday, when she appeared to be topless in a selfie while promoting her high-end sunblock spray.

The 70-year-old parent of six appeared at the edge of a swimming pool, her bosom pressed up against the side of the pool, wearing nothing but her Gold medal from the 1976 Summer Olympics and a pair of celebrity-sized sunglasses.

Bare essentials: Caitlyn Jenner turned up the temperature on Instagram this Thursday, when she appeared to be topless wearing her gold medal while promoting her sunblock spray

In her pink-manicured hand, she held a sleek silver bottle of Lumasol, the SPF facial spray she founded with close confidante Sophia Hutchins.

'Chillin with my two favs @mylumasol and my medal,' she captioned the snap.

In the image, Caitlyn's brown hair was slicked back on her head, and her face was half-covered by her enormous round shades.

She had a hint of a smile on her pink matte lips while her medal hung from a silver chain around her neck.

Caitlyn won the Gold medal in the Men's Decathlon at the 1976 Summer Games, which were held in Montreal, Canada.

All dressed up: Caitlyn won the Gold medal in the Men's Decathlon at the 1976 Summer Games, which were held in Montreal; seen recently on Instagram

Recently: Jenner was seen out for dinner with pals at Malibu hotspot Nobu

Caitlyn, then Bruce, beat out Guido Kratschmer of West Germany and Mykola Avilov of the Soviet Union, who took home the Silver and Bronze medals, respectively.

Recently, Jenner was seen out with her business partner Hutchins, 23, for a dinner with pals at Malibu hotspot Nobu.

The reality TV star's recent activities come as her ex stepson-in-law, Kanye West, has been thrust into the limelight for erratic behavior amid a bid to become President of the United States of America.

Caitlyn told TMZ last week that she wants to be considered as 'V.P.' for Kanye's stated run for the presidency.

In good company: She was there with her business partner Sophia Hutchins, and other friends

However the 43-year-old Jesus Is King star has been going on bizarre tweet sprees, firing shots at Caitlyn's ex-wife Kris Jenner, wife Kim Kardashian and others.

Kim and Kanye have both reportedly considered ending their marriage in recent weeks.

The rapper and the 39-year-old Keeping Up With The Kardashians star have been eyeing a divorce even prior to West's incendiary tweets and Kardashian's confirmation that he suffers from bipolar disorder.

West shocked his fans and social media users on Tuesday night when he said he had been looking into divorcing his wife since November 2018.
This originally appeared as part of our daily coronavirus newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.

Conservationists are getting worried about the amount of pandemic-related waste.

How about this summer swimming with COVID-19? asked Laurent Lombard, founder of the nonprofit Operation Mer Propre (Operation Clean Sea) on Facebook earlier this summer. Knowing that more than 2 billion disposable masks have been ordered, soon there may be more masks than jellyfish in Mediterranean waters!

For a solution, we can turn to engineers.

Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Womens Hospital have developed a silicone-based, reusable face mask that works just as well as an N95 mask. This means less waste, and less cost in the long run.

The challenge was to make an effective, reusable mask cheaply enough that it could be produced in large enough numbers to be used in hospitals around the country.

One of the key things we recognized early on was that in order to help meet the demand, we needed to really restrict ourselves to methods that could scale, said Giovanni Traverso, an MIT assistant professor of mechanical engineering, to MIT News. We also wanted to maximize the reusability of the system, and we wanted systems that could be sterilized in many different ways.

It doesnt do away with waste completely  the mask uses N95 filters that can be removed, though that is still a significant reduction in the amount of waste produced per mask.

With this design, the filters can be popped in and then thrown away after use, and youre throwing away a lot less material than an N95 mask, Traverso said.
(Newser)  President Trump says his cognitive test results wowed doctorsand now he's urging Joe Biden to take the same test. Being president of the United States requires "stamina," "physical health," and "mental health," Trump said in a Fox News interview Wednesday, so "in a way [Biden] has an obligation to" take such a test. "Because I can tell you President Xi is sharp, President Putin is sharp, Erdogan is sharp. You dont have any non-sharp people that youre dealing with." Trump, 74, has frequently argued that Biden, 77, is too old to run for president. Trump said during the interview that he'd asked less than a year ago if he could take a test to prove his mental prowess to the media, but he also said he asked Dr. Ronny Jackson about doing so, and Jackson has not been his doctor since 2018. It remains unclear when the cognitive test would have been taken.

story continues below

The New York Times notes that during the Fox interview, Trump "over and over again" recited what he claimed was a sample sequence from the cognitive testing he underwent. "The first questions are very easy," Trump explained. "The last questions are much more difficult. Like a memory question. Its, like, youll go: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV. So they say, Could you repeat that? So I said, Yeah. Its: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.'" Then, he said, up to 20 minutes later, he'd be asked to repeat the sequence: "And you go: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.' If you get it in order, you get extra points," he said, because "it's actually not that easy" to do, and "nobody" is able to do it. But, he said, continuing to repeat the sequence, he did. "They say, Thats amazing. How did you do that?'" he said. "I do it because I have, like, a good memory, because Im cognitively there." (Read more President Trump stories.)
(CNN)  An hours-long hostage siege ended in the Ukrainian city of Lutsk on Tuesday night after President Volodymyr Zelensky met one of the alleged gunman's unusual demands  to endorse a 2005 documentary about humanity's abuse of animals.

A man armed with a rifle and grenades hijacked a bus with 13 people on board on Tuesday morning, claiming he had placed explosives in the vehicle and in another remote location, which he could detonate remotely, according to security officials.

The man, identified by the authorities as 44-year-old Maksym Kryvosh and who used the nickname Maxim the Bad posted an "anti-system" manifesto on social media, demanding that dozens of government officials admit to being "terrorists," among other things.

In the first hours of the siege, Kryvosh allegedly opened fire and threw a grenade at the police, according to the Ukraine Interior Ministry. The National Police of Ukraine later said its specialists had managed to defuse the grenade and it didn't explode.

Zelensky spoke directly to the hostage-taker via phone, resulting in the release of three hostages, his press office said. Others were released after the Ukrainian president posted a short video on his official Facebook page saying: "Everybody watch the 2005 film 'Earthlings.'"

The documentary, narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, deals with the abuse and suffering of animals in industrial agriculture. Zelensky's video was deleted after Krivosh surrendered and the hostages were released. There were no reports of deaths or injuries.

Zelensky later thanked the police for the successful operation and justified his decision to meet the hostage-taker's demands by saying in a Facebook post that "human life is the most important value and we did not lose anyone."

"The negotiations lasted for about 9 hours, everyone talked to him, from psychologists to special negotiators, but he wanted just one thing, his demands to be met, and kept threatening (the people)," Zelensky said in a video released by his press office late Tuesday.

"So we had a council and I wanted to speak to this man. Before that he spoke to everyone for about 10-15 seconds and then hung up but then we managed to talk for 7-10 minutes and reached an agreement that he will make the first move to release our citizens."

Late on Tuesday, the Ukrainian interior minister Arsen Avakov said: "The film [Earthlings]... is a good one. But you don't have to be so screwed up and cause such a terror for the entire country, you can just watch it without all that."

On Wednesday Kryvosh was charged with terrorism, hostage-taking and illegal possession of weapons, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior. Interior ministry officials added that he had previously spent almost a decade in prison for fraud, extortion, illegal sale of firearms and explosives.

Kryvosh will also undergo a mental health assessment. CNN was unable to contact a lawyer or representative for him, and it was not immediately clear if he had been assigned counsel.

This story was first published on CNN.com "Hostage siege ends in Ukraine after President agrees to recommend 2005 Joaquin Phoenix film"
...what will the future of grocery shopping look like post-COVID-19, and how can design professionals help?

HFA (Harrison French & Associates, LTD) and its team of architects, engineers, and other design professionals recently took a look at the post-COVID-19 retail world, particularly in the grocery industry.

In this installment of HFAs Design Thinking blog series, Matt Turner, Associate AIA, discusses the changes he's seen with his client and the grocery industry throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. From an increased emphasis on online grocery shopping and no-contact pickup, grocery retailers across the U.S. hit the ground running as COVID-19 began to ramp up, allowing for further technology and infrastructure changes.

At HFA, we are fortunate to work with grocery retailers that have heavily invested in new technologies to provide the customer with flexible options when shopping for groceries both within their brick and mortar stores and online, said Turner.

Turner continues, During the COVID-19 pandemic, more U.S. families have begun using online grocery shopping than ever before, and retailers that have the infrastructure in place to provide groceries safely and seamlessly to customers are the nations lifeline. There are obvious reasons that customers have changed their shopping preferences to stay safe during the pandemic, but what will the future of grocery shopping look like post-COVID-19, and how can design professionals help?

More than ever, it is essential for industries, especially essential ones like the grocery industry, to listen to what is needed for both employees and customers, whether that be increased technology, virtual shopping experiences, or flexible checkout solutions. These design solutions will be increasingly crucial for the future of the grocery industry and other service industries in a post-COVID-19 world, so much so that we've only begun to see the changes starting to be implemented.

Turner concludes by saying, Although there are many uncertainties surrounding COVID-19, one thing is for sure, we are all in this together as design professionals, clients, customers, and friends. So, listen intently to the customer, be inquisitive, and keep an open mind because the solutions to tomorrows design challenges may not exist today.

HFA is an architecture and engineering firm that is focused on designing for the customer experience. With 30 years of experience to draw on, we believe that we're uniquely positioned to use our knowledge and expertise to further the architecture and engineering industry, especially in this post-pandemic era.

To read more from HFAs Design Thinking series check out the HFA blog: https://blog.hfa-ae.com/

About HFA

Founded in 1990, HFA is a full-service Architecture and Engineering firm with locations in Bentonville, AR; Franklin, MA; Fort Worth, TX; and Mexico City, MX. Focused on designing for the customer experience, HFA works coast to coast with retail, real estate development, office, industrial, fueling, restaurant/food service, lifestyle, and education clients.

Contact: Daryl Whitmer, Director of Marketing and Business Development, (479) 2737780 ext. 274 or daryl.whitmer@hfaae.com.
23.07.2020 LISTEN

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

-Arthur Schopenhauer (1788  1860)

We have decided to carve out our own NATION STATE out of Nigeria. THE OODUA NATION. We have reached the limit of our endurance with Nigeria. We are tired of being slaves in our own land. Our people do not deserve to be poor. They don't deserve to live in poverty. Their choice is never to live squalor. We did not at any time sign any contract with any group of persons, Nations or countries that we are giving up our rights to self determination. Our promise to ourselves and our people is "Life abundant" as eloquently articulated by Obafemi Awolowo in his philosophy of social contract with the people called AWOISM.

We are resolved to have a date with our DESTINY. We are resolved to be free. We are resolved to be the captains of our own souls. We hope to have this done by peaceful means. But if we have to fight, so be it. There is no making the omelette without breaking the egg. Any fight in the protection of our heritage is worth it. Any fight in the protection of our land is worth it. Any fight in the protection of our women is worth it. Any fight in the protection of our children is worth it. Any fight to remove the shackles from our ankles is worth it. Any fight to gain our dignity is worth it. Any fight to set us and the generation unborn free is worth it.

As Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, No one can make you a slave without your consent. Our membership of Nigeria has worked out as slavery and robbed us of the orderly political and social environment in which to employ our God-given capabilities to pursue our development and progress. Our decision, arrived at in utmost humility to the opinions of mankind and with hope in the approval and support of the Creator and Ruler of all nations, is that it is time for us to have a separate, independent and sovereign country of our own in the world. We have resolved to have our OODUA NATION.

Yes, we are very confident that this will happen. We have no scintilla of doubt that this must happen. We are confident of the support of the heavenly armies that this will happen. We are sure of the the origun merindinllogun ile Oodua have lined up for this. All the spirits of our heroes past in Oodua Land are in support of this. All the spirits of the martyrs of Oodua Land are line up for this. It is our Ayanmo ti ko gb'oogun. Yes, it is our manifest DESTINY - OODUA NATION.

We have no idea of the timeline because it depends on a lot of factors. The Yoruba are very deliberative and circumspective and they never rush to take decisions. They will do whatever they need to do at the appropriate time. But, we want to assure you that it is going to be unstoppable when this occurs. Presently, a lot of things are being put in place. All ramifications are being considered and prepared for. All possible impediments, internally and externally are being considered and prepared for. Majority of Yoruba people are tired of Nigeria. We think we can do better on our own. We believe it is our destiny to be free from Nigeria and nothing will be able to impede the realization of that destiny. Nothing will impede the imminence of OODUA NATION.

This coming OODUA NATION is inevitable to say the obvious. No army could stop it. No Airforce could impede its march. No Navy could swim against its tide. No amount of bullion vans could buy it off. No internal enemies would survive it. Yes, internal enemies in their usual perfidious l ways would try, but as usual, they would fail. No amount of external collaborators would succeed again it. OODUA NATION is an idea which time has come. "Ideas do not create crisis, it is crisis that creates idea," so postulated Fidel Castro. OODUA NATION IS HERE.

As to our viability, the new Oodua Nation will in terms of land size (inland and coast water area as recognized by the United Nations) be bigger in land area than Germany, Italy, and United Kingdom. Oodua Nation would be about 9 times bigger than Denmark, almost 13 times bigger than Belgium, over 4 times bigger than Portugal, over 10 times bigger than Switzerland, one of the places where the politicians of Nigeria like to hide their stolen money and over 17 times bigger than the State of Israel!

In population, it will be bigger than Canada, bigger than Great Britain about 2 times, bigger than Portugal about 4 times, Norway about 9 times, Belgium about 4 times, Sweden about 4 times, Denmark about 8 times, Switzerland about 5 times, Israel about 5 times and bigger than Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales put together

In terms of economic resources, the most important thing is the human resources. We need not the oil, even though we have some. We have a lot of arable land. We will revive our agriculture as a base for industrialization with application of technology. We will create an economy that would be the envy of others and once again set pace for the rest of Africa. But our focus would be on a lot of other things some of which we would rather not talk about right now, for strategic reasons. We would posit that development economists tell us that the reason why a nation tends to make faster progress technologically, economically and politically after it becomes an independent Nation, is to be found in cultural homogeneity.

Japan is just a string of Islands without any oil. It has the worlds three best selling cars in world history without having any steel or able to grow any rubber plantation to make tyres. It has economically conquered the world. Look at the State if Israel, what does it have and how big is it that all the Arabs are powerless at its feet. The age of Metuselah is nothing compared to the Wisdom of Solomon. The bigness of a country is not directly proportional to its prosperity, power and prestige. Check out Norway and other Scandinavian countries to appreciate this fact.

It is meaningless to assume that bigness is everything. Statistics and facts available does not support that bigness is always a good thing. When Muammar Gaddafi visited Nigeria in 1982. His first statement at the Murtala Mohammed Airport was Some nations are big for nothing, as a way to express his disappointment in Nigeria.

Our detractors often try to suggest that the Yoruba are disunited. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Yoruba are very united. Do not buy the bogus propaganda that we are divided. We are ONE because we are children of the same father. We will rally together. We will build a country that will be the envy of the others. We will demonstrate that the Blackman is not cursed. We will through sheer hard work and determination which are our hallmarks build a country that its peoples will be very proud and the world will have no choice but to respect. We will revitalize our culture. We will re-engage with our values. We will restructure and modernize our language just as the Jews did to Hebrew after the creation of the Israeli nation in 1948.

We have done it before. We will do it again. We know what we have to do to take our seat in the comity of Nations. We just want to appeal to our brothers and sisters, all sons and daughters of Oodua that in this quest for Oodua Nation, we can not afford the luxury of illusions of impractical ideas, we can not afford the comfort of inaction, we can not afford to cower in fear, we can not afford the delusions of greatness as a member of a failed state where our heritage is being disparaged on daily basis, where the future of our children have been foreclosed, where we can never reach the height of our potentials. Like Benjamin Franklin once posited, those who gave up their liberty for their safety deserves neither their liberty nor safety.

Oodua Nation will be born. It is the destiny of the Yoruba people to be free and to give a lasting legacy to their children, posterity and the world.

Welcome to OODUA NATION!

"In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it."

-John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1960

 Remi Oyeyemi
While their products are still somewhat dismissively labelled "new world wines," Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay are setting new standards in wine tourism, appearing at the top of William Reed Business Media's "50 Best" list of the world's vineyards.

South America's preeminence in the domain of wine tourism is not new. In 2019, when William Reed Business Media decided to create this new ranking along the lines of their "50 Best Restaurants in the World," the continent topped the list with Argentinian and Uruguayan vineyards in first and second places. The predominance of Zuccardi Valle de Uco and Bodega Garzon has been confirmed for 2020's ranking, which was announced in an online ceremony due the pandemic.

Zuccardi, a must-visit for wine lovers

What do South American estates know how to do better than the Europeans in terms of wine tourism? (The first European estate to show up on the list is Spanish at number six.) Under consideration here is not wine quality but rather their innovation and development of characteristics attractive to visiting oenophiles. No less than 500 experts in the wine industry shared their top seven favorite estates, of which four were required to be from outside their specialty regions.

Also titleholder of the best wine tourism experience in South America, the overall winner has been at the forefront of Argentinian viticulture since 1963. In southwest Mendoza's Uco valley, the Zuccardi family, now represented by its third generation, hosts its visitors in a contemporary, rough-cut stone building that blends into the landscape. The estate has its own restaurant right on the premises.

Further west on the Atlantic coast, Bodega Garzon is a point of reference for Uruguayan wines, thanks for the careful cultivation of vines at 160 meters above sea level. Its advantage? The terroir created by some of the oldest soils on the planet. The grapes are harvested by hand. The estate won 2018's "Best Winecellar in the New World" title awarded by Wine Enthusiast magazine, in part thanks to having understood the role of tourism in its success; it offers vineyard hikes, blending workshops, and picnics among the vines. Visitors can even pick up a few Garzon's ambassador chef Francis Mallmann's secrets. He's the world-renowned Argentinian master of wood-fire cooking who also officiates at the Chateau Lacoste near Aix-en-Provence in France.

South America is also represented among the top 50 by Chile, with the Montes and Vina Vik estates.

As for Europe, Austria's Wachau estate took the regional title. France is represented by the Bordeaux region's Chateau Smith Haut-Lafitte in 7th place and Chateau Pichon Baron in 19th.
ANOTHER DAY, another attempt by President Trump to reframe the election as about anything but his abject failure to contain the most catastrophic public health crisis in a century. This time, the president deploys federal agents to cities genuinely wracked by violence. Yet by justifying the move in inflammatory partisan terms  cities all run by very liberal Democrats whose fate under a President Biden would mean the whole country would go to hell  he makes clear his real agenda. It has nothing to do with violent crime, and everything to do with his reelection.
Representative image

The anecdotes are alarming. A woman in Los Angeles seemed to recover from COVID-19 but weeks later took a turn for the worse and tested positive again. A New Jersey doctor claimed several patients healed from one bout only to become reinfected with the coronavirus. And another doctor said a second round of illness was a reality for some people, and was much more severe.

These recent accounts tap into peoples deepest anxieties that they are destined to succumb to COVID over and over, feeling progressively sicker, and will never emerge from this nightmarish pandemic. And these stories fuel fears that we wont be able to reach herd immunity  the ultimate destination where the virus can no longer find enough victims to pose a deadly threat.

But the anecdotes are just that  stories without evidence of reinfections, according to nearly a dozen experts who study viruses. I havent heard of a case where its been truly, unambiguously demonstrated, said Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Other experts were even more reassuring. While little is definitively known about the coronavirus just seven months into the pandemic, the new virus is behaving like most others, they said, lending credence to the belief that herd immunity can be achieved with a vaccine.

It may be possible for the coronavirus to strike the same person twice, but its highly unlikely that it would do so in such a short window or make people sicker the second time, they said. Whats more likely is that some people have a drawn-out course of infection, with the virus taking a slow toll weeks to months after their initial exposure.

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

People infected with the coronavirus typically produce immune molecules called antibodies. Several teams have recently reported that the levels of these antibodies decline in two to three months, causing some consternation. But a drop in antibodies is perfectly normal after an acute infection subsides, said Dr. Michael Mina, an immunologist at Harvard University.

Many clinicians are scratching their heads, saying, What an extraordinarily odd virus that its not leading to robust immunity, but theyre totally wrong, Mina said. It doesnt get more textbook than this.

Antibodies are not the only form of protection against pathogens. The coronavirus also provokes a vigorous defense from immune cells that can kill the virus and quickly rouse reinforcements for future battles. Less is known about how long these memory T cells persist  those that recognize other coronaviruses may linger for life  but they can buttress defenses against the new coronavirus.

If those are maintained, and especially if theyre maintained within the lung and the respiratory tract, then I think they can do a pretty good job of stopping an infection from spreading, said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University.

Megan Kent, 37, a medical speech pathologist who lives just outside Boston, first tested positive for the virus March 30 after her boyfriend became ill. She couldnt smell or taste anything, she recalled, but otherwise felt fine. After a 14-day quarantine, she went back to work at Melrose Wakefield Hospital and also helped out at a nursing home.

On May 8, Kent suddenly felt ill. I felt like a Mack truck hit me, she said. She slept the whole weekend and went to the hospital Monday, convinced she had mononucleosis. The next day she tested positive for the coronavirus  again. She was unwell for nearly a month and has since learned she has antibodies.

This time around was a hundred times worse, she said. Was I reinfected?

There are other, more plausible explanations for what Kent experienced, experts said. Im not saying it cant happen. But from what Ive seen so far, that would be an uncommon phenomenon, said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

Kent may not have fully recovered, even though she felt better, for example. The virus may have secreted itself into certain parts of the body  as the Ebola virus is known to do  and then resurfaced. She did not get tested between the two positives, but even if she had, faulty tests and low viral levels can produce a false negative.

Given these more likely scenarios, Mina had choice words for the physicians who caused the panic over reports of reinfections. This is so bad, people have lost their minds, he said. Its just sensationalist click bait.

In the early weeks of the pandemic, some people in China, Japan and South Korea tested positive twice, sparking similar fears.

South Koreas Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigated 285 of those cases and found that several of the second positives came two months after the first, and in one case 82 days later. Nearly half the people had symptoms at the second test. But the researchers were unable to grow live virus from any of the samples, and the infected people hadnt spread the virus to others.

It was pretty solid epidemiological and virological evidence that reinfection was not happening, at least in those people, said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University in New York.

Most people who are exposed to the coronavirus make antibodies that can destroy the virus; the more severe the symptoms, the stronger the response. (A few people dont produce the antibodies, but thats true for any virus). Worries about reinfection have been fueled by recent studies suggesting that these antibody levels plummet.

For example, a study published in June found that antibodies to one part of the virus fell to undetectable levels within three months in 40% of asymptomatic people. Last week, a study that has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal showed that neutralizing antibodies  the powerful subtype that can stop the virus from infecting cells  declined sharply within a month.

Its actually incredibly depressing, said Michael Malim, a virologist at Kings College London. Its a huge drop.

But other work suggests that the antibody levels decline  and then stabilize. In a study of nearly 20,000 people posted to the online server MedRxiv on July 17, the vast majority made plentiful antibodies, and half of those with low levels still had antibodies that could destroy the virus.

None of this is really surprising from a biological point of view, said Florian Krammer, an immunologist at the Icahn Mount Sinai School of Medicine who led that study.

Mina agreed. This is a famous dynamic of how antibodies develop after infection: They go very, very high, and then they come back down, he said.

He elaborated: The first cells that secrete antibodies during an infection are called plasmablasts, which expand exponentially into a pool of millions. But the body cant sustain those levels. Once the infection wanes, a small fraction of the cells enters the bone marrow and sets up shop to create long-term immunity memory, which can churn out antibodies when theyre needed again. The rest of the plasmablasts wither and die.

In children, each subsequent exposure to a virus  or to a vaccine  boosts immunity until, by adulthood, the antibody response is steady and strong.

Whats unusual in the current pandemic, Mina said, is to see how this dynamic plays out in adults, because they so rarely experience a virus for the first time.

Even after the first surge of immunity fades, there is likely to be some residual protection. And while antibodies have received all the attention because they are easier to study and detect, memory T cells and B cells are also powerful immune warriors in a fight against any pathogen.

A study published July 15, for example, looked at three different groups. In one, each of 36 people exposed to the new virus had T cells that recognize a protein that looks similar in all coronaviruses. In another, 23 people infected with the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, in 2003 also had these T cells, as did 37 people in the third group who were never exposed to either pathogen.

A level of preexisting immunity against SARS-CoV-2 appears to exist in the general population, said Dr. Antonio Bertoletti, a virologist at Duke NUS Medical School in Singapore.

c.2020 The New York Times Company
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Silk Way West Airlines, one of the fastest growing cargo carriers in the world, has confirmed a five-year ULD (Unit Load Device) agreement extension with ACL Airshop, a leading international service partner for outsourced ULD management and customized logistics solutions, commencing earlier in 2020. This alliance extends the long-standing business relationship between the two companies. ACL Airshop has been a service partner with other airline units of Silk Way Holding for well over 10 years.

Silk Way West Airlines (IATA: 7L) and ACL Airshop are working together to measurably enhance the logistics efficiencies of Silk Way's ULD fleet, including the introduction of Bluetooth innovations for real-time tracking of ULDs. That, combined with ACL's global Operations Center in Amsterdam and network-wide "ULD Control" programs and the innovative "FindMyULD" mobile App all operate together for better utilization rates and cost efficiencies for Silk Way.

"We pursue a lean and agile business strategy. Continuous improvement in ULD logistics is one of our strategic priorities. It contributes directly to the bottom line while facilitating top-line growth," said Emile Khasanshin, Vice President Global Cargo Operations for Silk Way West Airlines. "ACL Airshop has saved us well-into 7 Figures in new fleet-wide efficiencies. We seek supplier partners who can meet our rigorous cost expectations and flexibility requirements, demonstrate smart usage of the latest technologies, as well as customer-oriented business processes. With their substantial worldwide expansion in the past few years, and their evolving innovations in technology and service model, ACL Airshop has become a 'strategic partner' for us. Working together has yielded measurable gains for us both, and for our end-customers."

"We cherish our large existing service partnership with Silk Way West Airlines," said Maurice van Terheijden, Managing Director EMEA for ACL Airshop. "We are honored and privileged to continue our efficient, cost-effective, flexible solutions for five years with Silk Way."

"We remain committed to helping Silk Way West Airlines grow their global cargo network. And we salute their admirable step-up in worldwide activity to counter the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic. Large air freighters have stepped in to offset the grounded belly-load capacities of many passenger fleets." said Steve Townes, Chairman of ACL Airshop and CEO of its parent company.

Silk Way West Airlines, headquartered in Baku, Azerbaijan, has a growing air cargo aircraft fleet. The current Silk Way West freighter fleet consists of 12 owned Boeing 747 Full-freighters and three additional leased-in Boeing 747 Freighters. Silk Way West Airlines operates regular and charter flights to various regions of the world  Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and North America, using Heydar Aliyev International Airport, Baku, as a convenient transit hub that centrally connects the continents.

ACL Airshop is a leader in products and services for the global air cargo industry. Over the past 37 years, ACL Airshop has become a leading worldwide one-stop-shop for leasing, sales, repair and fleet control of Unit Load Devices ("ULDs"), and cargo devices manufacturing for the aviation industry. Today, the company operates around the world on six continents with service capabilities at over 50 of the world's Top 100 cargo hub airports. One of the unique aspects of the company's offerings is short-term rentals and leasing solutions for airlines' cargo products requirementsthat is where ACL Airshop has made its strongest reputation for custom ULD solutions. The ACL Airshop service model is now greatly enhanced by innovative new technologies that allow speedier service, smoother logistics balancing, and outright cost savings for customers (for more on technologies, visit www.FindMyULD.com).

For more information, please visit:

www.silkwaywest.com

www.aclairshop.com

SOURCE Ranger Airshop Holdings, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.aclairshop.com


Controversial Tony Ashai on Thursday dismissed allegations levelling him of being an agent of Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Speaking to Zee News, Ashai said, "My reaction is that it is all nonsense and baseless allegations that I am an ISI agent."

Calling Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan his friend, Ashai said that he knows him for 20 years. He also said that he knows Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan through work in Dubai, adding that they have never discussed anything political.

READ | Bollywood's link with ISI exposed; photos of SRK, wife Gauri with Rehan Siddique and Tony Ashai go viral | Some Bollywood celebrities have 'verifiable links to ISI and Pakistan Army', claims BJP leader Baijayant Jay Panda

He stated, "Yes I have known Imran Khan for the last 20 years and he is my friend before he became PM. I have also know SRK through my work in Dubai and we have never discussed anything political."

This is the last statement I am putting out here about some Indian Media accusing me of being an ISI agent, JKLF member and instigating violence in Kashmir.

1. I have never met anyone in Pakistan Army or ISI in my life and no am not working for any agency. 1/n  Tony Ashai (@tonyashai) July 23, 2020

A day after senior BJP leader Baijayant Jay Panda claimed that some Bollywood celebrities have 'verifiable links to ISI and Pakistan Army, sources claimed that Khan and his wife Gauri have a business relationship with Ashai, accused of making inflammatory anti-India statements and funding terror activities in Jammu and Kashmir.

Calling Khan an Indian patriot, Ashai also said, "I am sure he (Khan) had no clue about my activism for Kashmir. May I also add, I have never met a more patriotic Indian than SRK."

He claimed that he has never endorsed anyone to fight an armed struggle or been a member of the banned outfit Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). Ashai also added that he admired India's secular character.

He added, "It is True that I am a Kashmiri and oppose the illegal action that Prime Minister Narendra Modi took on August 5, but never have I endorsed anyone to fight an armed struggle. In fact, it is opposite. I do not hate India or Indians, In fact, I admired India secular character. Because some in Indian media have started character assassination against me, I will clear my name in the court of law very soon. All those journalists who made stories up without any evidence will have to pay for their actions. Never been a JKLF member."

In a series of tweets, Ashai said, "I have never met anyone in Pakistan Army or ISI in my life and no am not working for any agency.

He further tweeted, "I have never been a member of JKLF but I have met some JKLF people in Los Angeles in the early 90s and never since then. I have never received any funds from JKLF or any agency for my education, business or activism for justice for Kashmiris. A complete lie."

Ashai also said, "Through my work, I have met many celebrities including Imran Khan, Shahrukh Khan and many others. Other than my design work we have never engaged in any other business."

According to sources, Khan and his wife have a business relationship with Ashai, who lives in the US, has been making inflammatory statements on Kashmir. Ashai is an architect and was born in Kashmir. He has been provoking Kashmiri youth to pick-up stones and guns, said sources.
Sacked deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot and 18 Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs), who challenged notices for disqualification issued by the Rajasthan Assembly Speaker in the High Court, moved an application before the court on July 23 to include the Union government in the list of respondents.

The application was moved on the ground that Tenth Schedule's constitutional validity was under challenge and therefore, the Union of India was a necessary party now.

An identical application was also filed in the Supreme Court where the Rajasthan Assembly Speaker filed a special leave petition (SLP).

On July 17, the dissident Congress MLAs led by Pilot challenged their disqualification notices through a writ petition which was taken up by a bench of Rajasthan High Court, comprising Chief Justice Indrajit Mahanty and Justice Prakash Gupta, and arguments were held.

Also read: SC allows Rajasthan HC to pass orders on plea of Sachin Pilot, 18 MLAs; directions subject to its verdict

The hearing continued on July 20 and the arguments concluded on July 21. The court will give an appropriate order in the writ petition on July 24.

The notices to MLAs were served after the party complained to the speaker that the legislators had defied a whip to attend two Congress Legislature Party meetings last week.

The Pilot camp, however, argued that a party whip applies only when the assembly is in session.

In its complaint to the Legislative Assembly Speaker, the Congress had sought action against Pilot and the other dissidents under paragraph 2 (1) (a) of the 10th Schedule of the Constitution.

The provision disqualifies MLAs if they 'voluntarily' give up the membership of the party which they represent in the House.
Models showcase qipao on the catwalk during a fashion show in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, on June 21. [China News Service/Yang Bo]

JINAN  Zhang Jin's day usually begins with the gentle clicks of a treadle sewing machine. The time slips by quickly as he sews tailor-made qipao for customers across the country.

The qipao, a traditional dress, has long been popular as a fashion icon of Chinese elegance.

In 1987, at the age of 15, Zhang started learning garment-making from the descendants of the Hongbang tailors.

The tailors, originally from Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, were renowned in the early 20th century for their skills at sewing Chinese tunic dresses and Western-style suits.

They are also thought to have fashioned the first Chinese tunic suit, also known as the Zhongshan suit, after statesman Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), who ended imperial rule in China.

"We followed conventional rules at that time," Zhang said of his training. "As an apprentice, I was in charge of all chores, including cooking, cleaning and doing the laundry. Only if you did those for two years would you be allowed to learn clothes-making skills."

During his first three months, Zhang had to learn how to make buttonholes and the correct use of a thimble, as well as ironing and hemming clothes every day.

Once he had a good grasp of the basic skills, Zhang stepped up to making pants.

"At the beginning, I could make only three pairs of pants a day, then five, 10, and 20 pairs a day," he said.

Finally, Zhang was allowed to learn how to make a qipao, which is known for the complexity and multiple procedures involved in making it.

After completing three years of training, Zhang opened a garment shop in Jinan, capital of Shandong Province.

Weak Demand

However, the mechanization of the garment-making industry in the 1990s brought low prices and a wide range of styles in polyester materials, which resulted in a fall off in demand for handmade clothes.

Zhang's shop was hit hard. He had to turn to other business, including selling flowers and running restaurants.

In 2001, traditional Chinese garments regained their popularity after the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum meeting in Shanghai, at which leaders from many countries wore traditional Tang suits.

Seizing the opportunity, Zhang returned to the garment industry in 2006. "Every family wants to wear traditional clothes during the Spring Festival, and more and more people are starting to wear the qipao," he said.

The qipao originated from gowns worn by women in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Influenced by Western culture, the qipao changed repeatedly during the early 20th century, becoming more fitted and body-hugging, with side slits that reached up to the thigh. During the 1930s and 1940s, it gradually evolved into its current form.

Unlike qipao dresses from the assembly line, Zhang tailors the garments on the basis of the customer's figure. He takes more than 20 measurements to ensure the uniqueness of every dress, and uses different fabrics and designs to suit each person's body shape and different occasions.

"Each qipao is a one-of-a-kind product," Zhang said.

While electric sewing machines are now common, they cannot replace manual skills, he said, so Zhang combines hand stitching and the use of nonelectric machines.

"A qipao must go through dozens of processes, from measuring to forming," said Zhang, adding that just a narrow piece of edging needs to go through nearly 10 procedures, taking three to four days to complete.

Modern Take

Zhang has adjusted his designs to keep pace with changing tastes. The modern qipao has a zipper stitched into the side and a fake fastener on the front.

Traditionally, the front was fastened by pankou knots, but these are now only used for decoration, which saves time when putting on the garment.

In Zhang's view, the qipao is not just a simple dress that covers people's bodies, but a garment that embodies traditional Chinese etiquette and culture.

With collars that stick upward rather than folding down, the qipao causes the wearer to raise her head and push out her chest. It also discourages bad habits, such as glancing right and left, he said.

Zhang has many regular customers, including some he has never seen in person.

One customer from Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, sent her body measurements to Zhang. Based on these, Zhang sent her a sample qipao to try on, and the customer sent it back and outlined the adjustments needed. Last year, the customer ordered a dozen qipao from Zhang's shop.

Aware that an increasing number of youngsters have become interested in traditional qipao-making techniques, Zhang has recruited more than 10 apprentices.

He also gives lectures and seminars on his craft in the hope that more people learn about and fall in love with the traditional dress.

(Source: China Daily)
Police did not immediately release information about the man who was killed, pending notification of his family, and the Cook County medical examiners office had not been notified of the death in time for the mans information to be released in the offices morning list of deaths. No one was in custody.
Some current and former employees of a company developing an oil refinery near Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota filed a lawsuit claiming they are owed wages and bonuses.

Meridian Energy Group first proposed the refinery just three miles from the park in 2016, with the goal of having it operating by next year. However, the project has been beset by funding and legal setbacks. Last year, CEO William Prentice told The Associated Press that the company had delayed the refinerys startup until 2022.

The employees lawsuit, filed last week in Texas, says that starting in spring 2018, Meridian began to sporadically defer payment of weekly payroll to employees due to alleged financial woes. The company, in an effort to keep employees working, said it would reward them with yet-to-be paid bonuses, according to the lawsuit, which was first reported on July 20 by Bismarck blogger Jim Fuglie.

Five former and two current employees of Meridian Energy Group, including its operations manager, filed the lawsuit. Five of the people suing live in Texas and the other two live in Minnesota, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit seeks nearly $607,000 in economic damages, attorney fees and a jury trial.

The company said in a statement that it does not comment on ongoing legal matters. Operations manager Todd Tooley, who lives in Minnesota and is suing his company for nearly $193,000, did not immediately return a telephone message.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is North Dakotas top tourist attraction, with more than 700,000 visitors annually. Environmental groups argue that pollution from the factory will spoil scenery and air quality at the 30,000-acre (12,000-hectare) park. The company has said the project will be the cleanest refinery on the planet and a model for environmentally friendly technology.

The company has said the project is expected to cost about $1 billion. Securities filings show Meridian has raised only about 9% of the projects costs to date.

St. Paul, Minnesota-based SEH Design/Build last year filed a $2.18 million lien, alleging it has not been paid for site preparation work. The company said at the time that payments were being made on the lien but would not disclose the amount.

The lawsuit comes about three weeks after the North Dakota Supreme Court removed one obstacle for the project when it sided with state regulators in a challenge to the companys air quality permit to build the facility.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Claims Minnesota North Dakota
Michael Cohen arrives back at home after being released from prison during the outbreak of the COVID-19, in New York City, on May 21, 2020. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

Judge Orders Michael Cohen Released to Home Confinement, Calling His Jailing Retaliatory

A federal judge has ordered President Donald Trumps former lawyer Michael Cohen to be released from jail and into home confinement, claiming that his return into custody earlier this month was in retaliation for writing a book about Trump.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein on Thursday said Cohenwho is serving a three-year sentence for campaign finance violations, tax evasion, and lying to Congressmust be released from a federal prison in upstate New York by 2 p.m. on Friday. He has been held in solitary confinement at a facility in Otisville, around 70 miles northwest of New York City, since July 9. He will be released into the custody of his son and transition into a setting of home confinement in Manhattan.

Cohen sued Attorney General William Barr on July 20, claiming in the lawsuit petition (pdf) that he is being held in retaliation for his protected speech, including drafting a book manuscript that is critical of the Presidentand recently making public his intention to publish that book soon, shortly before the upcoming election.

He was released to home confinement in May over concerns of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in prisons but was imprisoned again on July 9 because he refused the conditions of his home confinement, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) told The Epoch Times in a statement at the time.

Hellerstein, in ordering Cohen released into home confinement, sided with the claim that his rearrest was retaliatory in nature.

I make the finding that the purpose of transferring Mr. Cohen from furlough and home confinement to jail is retaliatory and its retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book, Hellerstein said at Thursdays hearing.

While in furlough, Cohen made public statements on Twitter on July 2 that he was finalizing a book about his decade-long experience working as Trumps lawyer. His attorneys said that when Cohen visited the U.S. Probation Office in downtown Manhattan on July 9 in order to transition from furlough to home confinement, federal officials asked him to sign an agreement that prevented him from engaging with the media or prohibited him from posting on social media.

They stated that they would then send  [the] inquiry regarding the language of the Prior Restraint Provision up the chain of command for a decision, the lawsuit stated.

Instead, three United States Marshals arrived with handcuffs and shackles and placed them on Mr. Cohen in order to remand him back to prison.

At Thursdays hearing, the judge said he had never seen such a gag order in his two decades of serving on the bench.

Ive never seen such a clause, in 21 years in being a judge and sentencing people, Hellerstein said at Thursdays hearing, CNBC reports. How can I take any other inference but that it was retaliatory? Hellerstein added.

The judge then asked the two sides to negotiate the media provision over the next week so that it is consistent with the First Amendment but yet serve the purposes of confinement.

Cohens lawyer said he would agree to the imposition of the media gag order pending the negotiation.

Janita Kan and Reuters contributed to this report.
MINNEAPOLIS The Minnesota Twins set their opening day roster on Thursday, with right-hander Jake Odorizzi on the 10-day injured list due to mild soreness in his upper back.

Rich Hill will take Odorizzis place the first time through the rotation, scheduled to start on Saturday in Chicago against the White Sox. Jos Berros will take the mound for the opener on Friday, with Kenta Maeda set for Sunday and Homer Bailey on track for next week.

Manager Rocco Baldelli said he expected Odorizzi to throw a bullpen session at some point during the weekend. The 2019 All-Star will be eligible to rejoin the active roster on July 30. With an off day on Monday, the Twins might not need an additional starter before Odorizzi is cleared.

Backup catcher Willians Astudillo, who tested positive for the coronavirus upon his arrival at camp and has yet to work out with the team, joined Odorizzi on the injured list. Center fielder Byron Buxton, who suffered a left mid-foot sprain on July 13, was included on the 30-man roster and expected to join the Twins in Chicago. The biggest surprise on the opening day roster was Australian rookie outfielder Aaron Whitefield, a speedster who finished last season in Double-A.

Major league rosters must be trimmed to 28 players in two weeks, and then to 26 players two weeks after that.

___

More AP MLB coverage: https://apnews.com/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Mailers sent in May

The FTC and Missouri's attorney general sent the warning letters, which identified five deceptive claims in the hearing aid mailers that were sent in or about May 2020."

The CARES Act, signed into law in late March, authorized economic impact payments  also referred to as stimulus checks  of up to $1,200 for individuals and $2,400 for married couples, plus $500 for each qualifying child. But that law does not provide vouchers to purchase hearing aids and neither of the two companies singled out are authorized to provide any assistance under the CARES Act, wrote Todd Kossow, the FTC's Midwest regional director in Chicago. Nor is there any Missouri COVID-19 or hearing aid stimulus package, he wrote in the warning letter.

At FTC headquarters in Washington, spokesman Jay Mayfield said Wednesday he could not comment on whether the mailers were sent to consumers in Missouri alone or in other states as well. Ear to Hear Healthcare has 26 locations in Florida and locations in Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Missouri, its website says. The FTC's warning letter was sent to the company's office in Estero, Florida, a Gulf Coast community south of Fort Myers.

The warning letter to Zephyr Hearing Aid Center went to a hearing aid center in Troy, Missouri. (Zephyr, its website says, is now known as Ear to Hear Healthcare.)

Owners blame marketing firm

Those letters were addressed to three people, including Jason Petty and Michael Brown, who told AARP Thursday their business had hired the marketing company that sent the mailers to people in Illinois and Missouri. The mailers are no longer going out, according to the men, who said they own Ear to Hear Healthcare LLC.

Petty and Brown, in a joint phone interview, said they were the victims of circumstance, put the onus on the marketing company and said they had replied appropriately to the FTC. To our knowledge, the case is closed, and the business is in good standing, Petty said.

FTC does not confirm that

The FTC, however, declined to confirm the case was closed. Because FTC investigations are non-public, we aren't able to comment beyond what was in the [warning] letter itself, the FTC's Mayfield wrote AARP in an email Thursday.

The third person who received a warning letter could not be reached for comment.

It is illegal to make misrepresentations or deceive consumers by omitting material facts when selling products or services, the FTC says.

To file a complaint with the FTC, call 1-877-382-4357 or visit this website.

Editor's note: This article was originally published on July 23, 2020. It has been updated with new information from the FTC.
A distraught woman has revealed how she's torn between getting back with her husband following their split or starting a new relationship with her best friend.

Anna moved from India to Sydney to start a new life after she tied the knot to her childhood sweetheart at the tender age of 15.

But last year, the now-38-year-old noticed their love 'drifted apart' after she realised they never shared an 'emotional connection' over the course of their relationship.

The businesswoman then struck up a romance with her friend, whose marriage also fell part, before her husband begged her to rekindle their love.

The 'miserable' woman - who comes from a traditional Indian background - said she doesn't know what to do because her culture says it would bring her 'shame' if she leaves her marriage for another man.

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A distraught woman - who comes from a traditional Indian background - has detailed how she fell in love with her married best friend after splitting with her husband (stock image)

Poll Who should the woman be with? Husband Best friend Who should the woman be with? Husband 19 votes

Best friend 76 votes Now share your opinion





'I've been married for a long time. I've only ever kissed one guy. Married at 15. Then last year, I felt our love drifted,' Anna told radio duo Kyle and Jackie O on KIISFM in a teary segment called Group Therapy.

She said the couple had a 'tough journey' as they relocated to Australia to 'make ends meet' after getting married at such a young age.

'We got married because we wanted to be together and we made it work for a long time. We worked very hard to make ends meet... We are well off now, we've got a few properties in Sydney, we're doing really well,' she said.

But Anna said their relationship started to crumble last year after she realised she was missing that 'special connection' with her husband.

'He's such a nice guy, he's very decent fella. But the emotional connection was never there but you never know such thing because I've only been with one guy,' she said.

It wasn't until she spoke to her friend, whose marriage was also on the rocks.

'I've always had this friend when I came to Australia who is just a friend and he has kids and a good family. They're our family friend,' she said.

'His marriage fell apart at the same time and he told me, and I told him. I just felt that we had that emotional connection which I was missing.

'Marriage doesn't come with a book... you just get on with it and you take what you get. I'm a person who just makes it work every time. But I didn't realise that I was missing that [connection] until now.'

The 'miserable' woman turned to Kyle and Jackie O for help after her husband wanted her back

Anna said she and her husband split last year before she started a romantic relationship with her friend but things got complicated due to her cultural beliefs.

'I'm a one-man woman, it's my values, it's my core to make it work... He's a really nice guy but I just never knew that these connections should be in a marriage,' she said.

'I just feel different now, maybe I've grown from when I was 15 till now being 38.'

She encouraged her friend to 'go back to his marriage' after their relationship ended following one year together because she couldn't bear the thought of destroying two families.

'I thought that I'd wrecked the family - two families - and my values just didn't allow me because I felt like I needed to fix whatever I can fix. There are kids involved, they are very young so they wouldn't understand. I just hate that,' she said.

'I just don't want to disrespect anyone... I just want to be happy and I don't want anyone to be hurt - that's all I care about.

'We both have similar personalities. He has been very compassionate towards me, he's kind and has been there for me 24/7 even when we broke up.'

Anna was brought to tears as she revealed how her cruel 'friends' have called her nasty names such as a 'w****' and 's***' for dating another man.

'I have so many issues, I can't trust anyone,' she said.

And to make things harder for her, Anna said her husband now wants her back, while her new flame told her: 'I can't see my life without you'.

Kyle and Jackie O called on listeners to share their advice and own experiences in a bid to help Anna decide whether she should follow her heart or stay miserable with her husband

Kyle and Jackie O called on listeners to share their advice and own experiences in a bid to help Anna decide whether she should follow her heart or stay miserable with her husband for the rest of her life.

A caller, an Indian-Australian woman, told Anna she shouldn't waste her time with her husband if she's truly in love with her best friend.

'I understand where you're coming from. If you're not in love with your husband, there's no point going back there,' she said.

'Because if you go five or 10 years down the track, you'll be kicking yourself and thinking "what am I doing here?" You should be with the one you love.

'I'm Indian as well, it's not that easy. You know what? Time has changed, you've got to be strong and do what your heart says and not try to make everyone happy all the time.'

A second caller, Danielle, said she made the best decision of her life after leaving her marriage to be with her best friend.

'Go with your heart Anna because your situation is exactly the same as mine. I left my husband of all those years ago. And my now-husband left his wife, he was my best friend and I married my best friend,' she said.

'Everything worked out, everyone was fine, good and happy. Now we have a baby girl together and it's wonderful.

'People would say things to you, people said nasty things to me about what we did, they don't know the truth. You know the truth yourself. You and your heart know what's right. Do what's right for you and you'll feel good about it.'
Nearly 3,000 Indian seafarers from Holland America Line, Princess Cruises and Seabourn ships are back with their families after being successfully signed off from their vessels, guided through all Covid-19 procedures and safely delivered to their hometowns by GAC India.

The crew members included those who had disembarked the cruise company vessels in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and Manila, Philippines, before being repatriated on chartered flights to Mumbai, Goa and Delhi. The GAC India team also took care of 138 off-signers and one on-signer for a cruise ship in Cochin.

Rakesh Nair, Holland America Group & Costas Head of Crew Lifecycle Business Support & Operations, praised GACs coordination of the repatriation exercise, saying: Excellent relations with nodal officers and other government officials ensured a speedy clearance of our crew at the airport. We have received positive feedback and compliments about your stellar work from our crew. This is true testament of the work that the GAC team has done in bringing our crew back home.

Agreeing, Ravi Pavade, Regional Manager, Port Operations - Western Europe, Africa, Middle East, Indian Ocean, U.S (LA to SFO) of Holland America Group, said: Thanks to the seamless execution by the GAC teams, our crew members have returned safely to their hometowns and are reunited with their families."

Besides the teams on the ground, I know there are many others in GAC who have worked behind the scenes to ensure the safe and prompt repatriation of our nearly 3,000 crew members. This is no small feat, but you have once again proven that you have the capacity and capability to handle projects of such scale.

The massive crew change project is still underway and GAC India Director Anil K. Menon says it is a true test of the companys astuteness, coordination skills and teamwork; A test they have passed.

Our teams led by Jayadevan Nair in Mumbai, Joseph Moras in Goa, Jaya Shekar in Delhi and Sajinath M G in Cochin have had to react and respond quickly to evolving situations on the ground. With over 70 per cent of the crew arriving in Mumbai, it was especially challenging for our team in Mumbai, he added. Besides coordinating closely with one another, the teams have worked closely with the crewing company and the relevant authorities to bring the seafarers home safely without unnecessary delays.

We thank these cruise brands for the confidence and trust they placed in us.

GAC worked with the crewing agent to handle end-to-end arrangements for the crew, including Meet & Greet upon their arrival in India, arranging accommodation for mandatory quarantine, organising Covid-19 tests, obtaining approvals and departure permissions from the relevant State authorities and making all transfer arrangements including those for their journey home.

GAC India also obtained special clearance from the State nodal offices, district and other relevant authorities to enable two crew members who had to leave for their homes immediately to attend to emergencies without undergoing quarantine. They were moved securely and safely in strict compliance with stipulated guidelines. - TradeArabia News Service
Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner is being investigated by Dutch police over the disappearance of a seven-year-old boy who vanished from a beach in the Netherlands.

Jair Soares went missing when he went to buy chips near the town of Monster in the South Holland province of the country on August 4 1995.

His parents had also left the area where they were relaxing but when they returned to the towels, where a friend of theirs was sitting with her daughter, Jair had disappeared.

Dutch cops prepared a dossier for their German counterparts to investigate whether Brueckner, 43, may have been behind the disappearance.

Jair Soares, seven, (pictured) went missing when he went to buy chips at the beach near the town of Monster in the South Holland province of the country on August 4 1995

The possibility of a link between the two missing children, who reportedly have many similarities in how they vanished, was first raised last month and now it has been confirmed that the dossier has been prepared and handed to German detectives.

A spokesman for police in The Hague confirmed that after announcing their intention to exchange information they have now presented the case and 'were in talks'.

He said: 'Presenting the case means that we look if there are any similarities between the cases. So we look for clues that connect them.'

Asked what this might entail he said that it included the fact that they would attempt to put together Brueckner's movements and see whether he could be identified as having been in the Netherlands at the time the youngster disappeared.

Dutch cops prepared a dossier for their German counterparts to investigate whether Brueckner, 43, (pictured) may have been behind the disappearance

Once details of the activities of Christian Brueckner became public, cold-case detectives in the Netherlands admitted that his profile made it a priority to see if he was connected with the disappearance of Jair.

He is being held by police in Bayreuth, near Nuremberg, where he is also under investigation over other cases of child disappearances.

That includes the case of Peggy Knobloch, nine, whose remains were discovered in the Thuringian Forest in Germany on July 2 2016. She disappeared on her way home from school on May 2 2001.

Madeleine McCann (pictured) went missing from her parents holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in Portugal in 2007

Christian Brueckner is also a suspect in the disappearance of Inga Gehricke, five, (left) who vanished in Germany in 2015 and Peggy Knobloch, nine, (right) whose remains were discovered in the Thuringian Forest in Germany on July 2 2016

Detectives are also re-examining the cases of Rene Hasee, six, who went missing while on holiday in Aljezur in Portugal  25 miles from Praia da Luz, where Christian Brueckner was living at the time.

The German is also a suspect in the disappearances of Carola Titze, 16, who went missing in Belgium in 1996 and Inga Gehricke, five, who vanished in Germany in 2015.

He has also been linked to the 2010 killing of Monika Pawlak, a 24-year-old prostitute, in Hanover.

His lawyer has said that he denies any involvement in Maddie's disappearance.
Newsham said the boyfriend is cooperating with police but added that there is a history of domestic violence involving the couple. Police said that they do not have evidence of a crime and that no one has been charged.
(FILES) In this file photo the logo marks the showroom and service center for the US automotive and energy company Tesla in Amsterdam on October 23, 2019. Tesla reported a surprise second-quarter profit July 22, 2020, as it confirmed ambitious targets for 2020 car deliveries despite the coronavirus pandemic. The electric car maker scored profits of $104 million, compared with a loss of $408 million in the year-ago period. JOHN THYS / AFP

The result clears the way for the highflying company led by Elon Musk to potentially join the S&P 500. A requirement for the prestigious Wall Street index is four successive profitable quarters, which Tesla has now achieved.

Tesla shares -- which have exploded in 2020 as the company has met key targets -- climbed further following the results. Several analysts that have praised Tesla's accomplishments view the rise in valuation as excessive.

Musk praised Tesla's staff for "exceptional execution" during a period that included the weeks-long closure of its California plant due to the coronavirus pandemic and said he looked forward to "continue scaling" Tesla up to enable production levels closer to that of conventional auto giants.

"I've never been more optimistic or excited about the future of Tesla," Musk said on a conference call with analysts and investors.

Musk, who has long flouted the unwritten rules of button-down CEOs, avoided the sort of fights with analysts that have occasionally surfaced on conference calls.

But he maintained an informal air throughout the 60-minute session, saying he was interested in hiring "revolutionary actuaries" for an insurance project being developed and effusing about a new factory as an "ecological paradise."

- Soaring valuation -

The electric car maker scored profits of $104 million in the quarter ending June 30 compared with a loss of $408 million in the year-ago period.

Revenues fell five percent to $6 billion.

Tesla said it was on track to ramp up production at factories in California and Shanghai and that activity on a plant being built in Germany "continues to progress."

The company said delivering 500,000 autos this year "remains our target," effectively reinstating its forecast after withdrawing the figure this spring amid the peak of US coronavirus shutdowns.

Musk said the company had picked a 2,000-acre site near Austin, Texas for its next "Gigafactory" to build a number of models, including the new "Cybertruck" vehicle.

The announcement was greeted by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who hailed Tesla as "one of the most exciting and innovative companies in the world" and said the factory would add "at least" 5,000 new jobs.

A note from Wedbush Securities said China appeared to be the "star of the show," based on industry data and that demand in the country is "a ray of shining light in a dark global macro" environment.

"This sustained level of profitability is the key for the bulls and speaks to a business model which is staying out of the red ink despite this unprecedented COVID-19 dark storm," Wedbush said.

Tesla executives confirmed that profit margins in China had improved, with Musk pointing to a shift in the supply chain to more locally produced parts as a source of lower costs.

Shares had rallied ahead of the earnings report, in anticipation that the promotion to the S&P 500 would lift demand from investors. But the blowout figures boosted shares further, by 4.4 percent to $1,663 in after-hours trading.

Tesla's share price has risen by more than $1,000 per-share this year, making Musk one of the 10 wealthiest billionaires in the world, according to Forbes, and lifting the company's valuation to many times that of General Motors and other conventional auto giants that sell many times the volume of Tesla.

A note from CFRA Research called the result a "low-quality" beat, citing an unusually large boost from revenues tied to tax credits for electric cars and reiterating its "hold" recommendation on shares.

CFRA has set a target of $1,220 for Tesla shares, implying shares should fall around 25 percent.

"While Tesla once again managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat for earnings, we believe its share price has become decoupled from underlying fundamentals and see growing risks surrounding the story as shares increasingly appear priced to perfection," CFRA said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 16:47:29|Editor: huaxia

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ULAN BATOR, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia has expressed its wish to further strengthen cooperation with China to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mongolian Foreign Ministry said Thursday.

Mongolia's newly-appointed Foreign Minister Nyamtseren Enkhtaivan made the remarks when meeting with Chinese Ambassador to Mongolia Chai Wenrui earlier in the day.

"We are ready to further deepen comprehensive strategic partnership between Mongolia and China. Particularly, our country is willing to continue its close cooperation with China in the fight against the epidemic," said Enkhtaivan.

As of Thursday, Mongolia has confirmed 287 COVID-19 cases.

All the confirmed cases were imported, mostly from Russia, and no local transmissions or deaths have been reported so far, according to Mongolia's National Center for Communicable Diseases.

In addition, Mongolia has registered no cases of COVID-19 infection imported from China. Enditem
As the coronavirus pandemic hit and public education moved online, school districts across the country rushed to give millions of students laptops, tablets, and Chromebooks, many of which had just been purchased. Now, some of those districts are scrambling to account for all those devicesa task made more urgent by the uncertainty over when students will be able to return to school buildings full-time.

Among the challenges districts are facing: locating and recovering missing devices; making sure clear policies and procedures are in place for distribution, collection, and liability; filing insurance claims for those that cant be found; and budgeting time and staff to inspect, repair, and sanitize the computers and tablets that do come back before theyre redistributed.

Buying devices is the easy part, said William Fritz, the technology director for Sycamore Community Schools outside Cincinnati, Ohio. The hard part is the day-to-day management of the devices and keeping track of where they are.

Take, for example, the 77,000-student Greenville County, S.C., school system. The district made headlines earlier this month when it revealed that it had been trying to recover nearly 5,000 of the more than 58,000 Chromebooks that officials there distributed to students last school year. As of Wednesdaythe day after the district unveiled a tentative re-opening plan that promises to include heavy doses of online instructionmore than 3,000 of the devices had yet to be returned, district spokesperson Teri Brinkman said in an email.

We continue to try to reach out to families and simply need to know how and when we can get the devices back to inspect them and prepare them for redistribution in just a few weeks, Brinkman said. Because every district in the country had to move to remote learning in the spring, Chromebooks are in short supply. We are much more interested in retrieving devices than in punishing families.

A Flood of New Devices

During the first part of 2020, shipments of mobile PCs to Americas K-12 school systems were up 28 percent over the year before, according to data from FutureSource Consulting, a U.K.-based market research firm. With schools across the country increasingly signaling that they will start the school year by providing remote instruction, that huge leap in supply is expected to hold constant through the rest of the year.

For some schools, that has meant a shift from carts of devices that were kept inside schools to 1-to-1 computing, in which each student gets his or her own device to take home.

Before the pandemic hit, Greenville Countys schools were already providing students in grades 3 through 12 with their own Chromebooks. The devices cost about $300 apiece. The previous school year, Brinkman said, almost all of the district-issued devices were returned. Just 478 were reported lost, missing, or stolen.

This spring, however, was a different story.

In mid-March, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, announced that all schools in the state would be closed for the remainder of the month . Then, in mid-May, Greenville County schools announced theyd be closed through the end of the year . The shut down threw a major wrench into normal operations.

Given that we have a portion of our population that is highly transient and buildings were not open, we definitely believe the current situation impacted our [device] return rate, Brinkman said.

Part of the challenge now is to get reimbursed for the thousands of devices that are still unaccounted for. That will likely require filing an insurance claim. But such a claim will only be honored for those devices that have been reported missing or stolen to local law enforcement.

Ideally, families themselves would file such claims. But last week, the Associated Press reported that Greenville Schools was considering taking matters into its own hands. Officials issued a districtwide phone and email blast to parents stating that pretty soon, we will have no choice but to notify law enforcement regarding devices that had not been returned.

Fueling the urgency, the district purchased more than 19,000 additional new Chromebooks earlier this summer with the hope of providing all children from preK through 12th grade with their own device for the coming school year. But meeting that goal will also require inspecting, repairing, and sanitizing existing devices that ordinarily would have been cycled out of usea process that will take time to be done safely.

Struggles Keeping Track

Other districts around the country have run into similar problems. In Washington state, for example, employees in the technology department of the Spokane Public Schools found district-issued laptops had been posted for sale online .

In Philadelphia, meanwhile, officials said in June they still werent sure whether students and families would have to pay for lost or missing Chromebooks that were part of a massive $11 million, 50,000-device purchase the district made as part of its bumpy shift to remote instruction.

Such situations point to a longstanding challenge that has been made worse by the coronavirus, said Fritz, the Sycamore Community Schools technology director, who also heads Learn21 , a nonprofit organization that doubles as the Ohio chapter of the Consortium for School Networking .

In an ideal world, Fritz said, schools would communicate clear policies and procedures regarding loss, theft, and liability of district-owned devices to parents at the beginning of every school year. Districts would also have a robust digital asset-management system that automatically tracks the location of a device and whether its being used, integrates with a student information system, and can be used to automatically contact parents, said Fritz, who has helped develop such a system through Learn21.

But conditions during the massive and sudden deployment of devices this spring were far from ideal.

COVID happened, schools shut down, and superintendents said, We need to get devices in the hands of kids tomorrow, Fritz said. That left many schools little choice but to set up what he called Chik-Fil-A drive-thrus to pass out computers, without having the necessary systems and policies in place.

For its part, Greenville County Schools already had procedures and processes for recovering devices in place before coronavirus, Brinkman said. The district has also had its own asset management system in place since December 2019.

But that hasnt eased the pressure the district is now feeling.

We take our management of taxpayer-provided resources very seriously, Brinkman said. All we ask is that [families who have not yet returned devices] call  and we will work with them.
Actor Amitabh Bachchan has dismissed reports that he tested negative for Covid-19 after 12 days of treatment at Nanavati Super Speciality Hospital. The actor wrote in a tweet while tagging the news report, .. this news is incorrect , irresponsible , fake and an incorrigible LIE !!.

.. this news is incorrect , irresponsible , fake and an incorrigible LIE !! https://t.co/uI2xIjMsUU  Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) July 23, 2020

The actor, along with his son Abhishek Bachchan, daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and granddaughter Aaradhya, tested positive for the virus earlier this month.

While Amitabh and Abhishek have been hospitalised since July 11, Aishwarya and Aaradhya were hospitalised last week after developing mild symptoms. Amitabh has been sharing regular updates on his social media accounts. He has been thanking well-wishers, saying that their support is what has been getting him through tough times. Recently, he shared a picture with Abhishek, Aishwarya and Aaradhya and wrote, We see your love .. we hear your prayers .. we fold our hands .. in gratitude and thanks !

In a blog post on Tuesday, Amitabh wrote, As I sit beside myself in the confines of my solitudinous care .. thoughts rush through .. of the many that need attention and were never given .. of the millions that gave me so much admiration and whether I was able to give back in return ..

Recently, Amitabhs daughter, Shweta Bachchan Nanda, spoke of absence in an Instagram post. She shared a picture of the sky and captioned it, ... absence is like the sky, spread over everything - C.S Lewis. Her post was seen in context of the hospitalisation of her family members after testing positive for Covid-19.

Meanwhile, the Bachchans bungalows - Janak, Jalsa, Pratiksha and Vatsa - were sanitised by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and declared containment zones. All their staffers tested negative for the virus.

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Ryan Nagle filed an unemployment claim in March but didn't get his first check till June. While he waited, has depleted his savings. Nagle poses for a portrait in Haddonfield, N.J. on May 20, 2020. Read more

Shara Molt was furloughed more than two months ago and still hasnt received an unemployment check. But the bills keep coming.

Molts relatives have helped her pay car payments, health-care bills, and groceries for her family of four. All the while, the Dresher resident said she struggles to get through to Pennsylvanias unemployment office to ask about the benefits claim she filed in May. The phone lines are busy and the wait time for an emailed response is too long, she said. When she did get ahold of someone, she was told shed get an explanation in a mailed letter.

Its frightening. It leaves you feeling extremely insecure and exposed, said Molt, a 42-year-old meetings and events planner. And its hard to believe that the government allows somebody to go so long without help or a way to get in touch with somebody.

Molt is among 90,000 workers in Pennsylvania who filed for benefits between March 15 and June 20 and still havent gotten paid  or even denied. Complaints about the stubborn backlog, which amounts to 8% percent of claims filed during that period, prompted a Philadelphia congressman to suggest this month that the state call in the National Guard to help process claims.

As thousands of jobless Pennsylvanians anxiously waited for help, 1.4 million more Americans filed new claims for unemployment assistance last week, including 37,238 in Pennsylvania and 25,606 in New Jersey, the federal government reported Thursday. The 1.4 million new claims are 109,000 more than the week before, marking the first time new claims increased since steadily declining from a peak of 6.9 million in late March. Sarah House, a senior economist at Wells Fargo, called the uptick in new claims one of the clearest signs yet that the U.S. recovery is stalling.
SALT LAKE CITY, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ivanti, the company that automates IT and Security Operations to discover, manage, secure and service from cloud to edge, and Intel announced a new strategic partnership to offer Device-as-a-Service (DaaS) with self-healing capabilities for the next generation workforce. As a result of the alliance, Intel Endpoint Management Assistant (Intel EMA) now integrates with the Ivanti Neurons hyper-automation platform, that enables IT organizations to self-heal and self-secure with Intel vPro platform-based devices both inside and outside the corporate firewall.

"Together, Ivanti and Intel are delivering unparalleled endpoint management for devices using the Intel vPro platform for on-premises and cloud-based endpoint remote management  integrated with hyper-automation bots on the Ivanti Neurons Platform," said Nayaki Nayyar, executive vice president and chief product officer, Ivanti. "As remote becomes the next normal, auto-healing, securing and servicing endpoints and edge devices becomes a key priority for organizations. With Ivanti Neurons, organizations supporting Intel vPro platform-powered devices can gain a 360-degree view of users, devices, and applications and auto-remediate performance, security, configuration issues."

"By partnering with Ivanti, Intel continues to expand our industry-leading technologies that support our joint customers to manage a remote workforce and edge devices. Using the Intel vPro platform will provide in band and out of band endpoint management via the cloud. The Ivanti DaaS solution, along with the built for business Intel vPro platform is perfect for driving customer value for the next generation workforce. Together we are providing unparalleled technologies, performance and enhanced security for DaaS," said Stephanie Hallford, Intel vice president of the Client Computing Group and general manager of Business Client Platforms.

Ivanti Neurons, announced earlier this week, transforms the way IT gets work done. Powered with hyper-automation capabilities, it delivers Ivanti Neurons for Discovery, Ivanti Neurons for Edge Intelligence, Ivanti Neurons for Healing and Ivanti Neurons Workspace. Ivanti Neurons empowers organizations to self-heal, self-secure and self-service from the cloud to the edge with efficiency, accuracy, speed and out-of-the-box automation content for unprecedented IT productivity.

With the integration of Intel Endpoint Management Assistant, Ivanti Neurons provides enhanced remote management for on-premise and cloud-based endpoints. Ivanti Neurons can take remote actions on Intel vPro platform-based devices such as powering-on a device, restarting a device, setting wakeup times, and controlling a system even during OS failure, and repairing devices at scale.

To learn more about the Intel Endpoint Management Assistant integration with Ivanti Neurons for Intel vPro platform-based devices, please visit: www.ivanti.com.

Ivanti: Better Experiences, Better Outcomes.

Ivanti automates IT and Security Operations to discover, manage, secure and service from cloud to edge. From PCs to mobile devices, VDI, and the data center, Ivanti discovers IT assets on-premises, in cloud, and at the edge, improves IT service delivery, and reduces risk with insights and automation. The company also helps organizations leverage modern technology in the warehouse and across the supply chain to improve delivery without modifying backend systems. Ivanti is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah and has offices all over the world. For more information, visit www.ivanti.com and follow @GoIvanti.

Copyright  2020, Ivanti. All rights reserved.

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No product or component can be absolutely secure.

Your costs and results may vary.

Intel, the Intel logo and other Intel marks are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

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The Iran question has come back to haunt Indian foreign policy. Many voices will emerge saying New Delhi is losing Iran. We're told how critical Iran is to Indian strategic interests and we are reminded of that misused concept - civilisational ties.

We are reminded how India is neglecting its ties with Iran, because of ubiquitous American pressure. We are told how the entire edifice of Indian foreign policy might just crumble because we are not taking care of Iran. No country has had such an outsized impact on Indian foreign policy discourse as Iran over the last two decades.

Recent setbacks

The latest shock in India-Iran ties has come from the revelations that India may have been ousted from a project involving the construction of a railway line from Chabahar port to Zahedan. This railway line project was part of the trilateral pact signed during PM Narendra Modi's visit to Tehran in 2016 with Afghanistan and Iran committing India to build an alternate trade route to Afghanistan and Central Asia. Indian Railways Construction Ltd (IRCON) was to take this project forward with financing of around $1.6 billion.

Earlier this year, the development of Farzad-B gas field, which was supposed to be a joint venture between Iran and ONGC Videsh (OVL), was also given to a domestic entity, with Tehran deciding that "in the immediate future, Iran would develop the field on its own and would like to involve India appropriately at a later stage." These decisions have led to an intense debate in India about the failure of Indian foreign policy. But foreign policy is not something that a nation engages in with itself. By its very definition, it is a process, which involves more than one entity. It is iterative, as much a function of what a nation does to and with others, as it is a function of what other entities do to it. So while India may have its own agenda and priorities, Iran's priorities might be completely different. And that has been the case for long.

Where India stands

For Tehran, India is important but not critical in shaping its foreign policy worldview. It is the US that is the primary actor in shaping Tehran's foreign policy calculus. While critics in India often argue that New Delhi had ignored Tehran under US pressure, it is the other way round. It is Tehran that has ignored New Delhi and tried to actively derail Indo-Iranian ties by interfering in Indian domestic matters. For Iranian diplomacy, managing American sanctions has been the primary task.

The entire edifice of Indian foreign policy might just crumble because we are not taking care of Iran. (File photo: Reuters)

As the Trump administration has tightened the screws on Iran and Europe has failed to keep its promises, Tehran's gravitation towards China is natural. China's profile in Iran has been growing over the last several decades and it will continue to grow. The $400 billion 25-year economic and security partnership that Iran is reportedly finalising with China exemplifies the frustration of the Iranian regime that first looked to the West.

If there is one country that has actually managed to deliver something concrete in Iran at a time of tightening American sanctions, it is India. Despite initial delays, the first phase of Chabahar project was inaugurated in December 2017 and since then India has been running the Shahid Beheshti terminal. This is indeed a strategic investment by India as this port opens up an alternative route to Afghanistan and the wider Central Asian region bypassing Pakistan. New Delhi has managed to firewall this key investment, including the railway line project, from American sanctions. India could do this because there was a clear strategic rationale behind this project, which led to an Indo-Iranian convergence.

Iran remains sensitive to Indian contributions. As controversy swelled in India, Iran's railway minister was quick to underline that Iran and India are "determined to continue" cooperation on the railway line, putting the blame on "vested interests" behind reports that Iran excluded India from the Chabahar-Zahedan railway. The US sanctions still cast a long shadow over Iranian engagement with the world, including India. Tehran's insistence on getting Khatam al-Anbiya constructions, which belong to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, involved in the project and New Delhi's reluctance to expose its own entities to the US sanctions seems to have resulted in the deadlock. Even China has been cautious in getting in the crosshairs of American sanctions. While the China-Iran deal is the flavour of the month, it isn't clear how much of the $400 billion promised by Beijing will come without strings.

Friends with benefits

Just as Iran's foreign policy meta-frame is its adversarial engagement with the US, India has higher stakes in its ties with the US and in its engagement with the wider Arab world. While the Iranian leadership has been increasingly vocal on domestic Indian matters in recent months, whether it is India's decision to revoke Article 370 or communal riots earlier this year, there has been a shift in the way major powers in the Arab world have been engaging India more pragmatically.

Tehran must recognise that Delhi has partners with whom the stakes are higher. Yet, India is in its support for Iran and its ambitions. Managing bilateral relations is not India's responsibility alone. If Iran decides that India is dispensable, New Delhi can also make a similar calculation. There will be costs for India but the costs for Iran might be much higher.

(Courtesy of Mail Today)

Also read: India seriously needs to worry about its ties with Iran
Designed to provide broad exposure to the Broad Emerging Market ETFs category of the market, the SPDR SP Emerging Markets Dividend ETF (EDIV) is a smart beta exchange traded fund launched on 02/23/2011.

What Are Smart Beta ETFs?

Market cap weighted indexes were created to reflect the market, or a specific segment of the market, and the ETF industry has traditionally been dominated by products based on this strategy.

Because market cap weighted indexes provide a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns, they work well for investors who believe in market efficiency.

If you're the kind of investor who would rather try and beat the market through good stock selection, then smart beta funds are your best choice; this fund class is known for tracking non-cap weighted strategies.

By attempting to pick stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance, non-cap weighted indexes are based on certain fundamental characteristics, or a combination of such.

Methodologies like equal-weighting, one of the simplest options out there, fundamental weighting, and volatility/momentum based weighting are all choices offered to investors in this space, but not all of them can deliver superior returns.

Fund Sponsor & Index

The fund is sponsored by State Street Global Advisors. It has amassed assets over $287.93 million, making it one of the average sized ETFs in the Broad Emerging Market ETFs. EDIV, before fees and expenses, seeks to match the performance of the S&P Emerging Markets Dividend Opportunities Index.

This Index generally includes 100 tradable, exchange-listed common stocks from emerging market countries that offer high dividend yields. Additionally, stocks must have positive 3-year earnings growth and profitability. Stocks are weighted by annual dividend yield. To ensure diverse exposure, no single country or sector has more than a 25% weight and no single stock has more than a 3% weight.

Cost & Other Expenses

Story continues

For ETF investors, expense ratios are an important factor when considering a fund's return; in the long-term, cheaper funds actually have the ability to outperform their more expensive cousins if all other things remain the same.

Annual operating expenses for this ETF are 0.49%, making it on par with most peer products in the space.

It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 4.88%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

It is important to delve into an ETF's holdings before investing despite the many upsides to these kinds of funds like diversified exposure, which minimizes single stock risk. And, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

When you look at individual holdings, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (2330-TW) accounts for about 4.20% of the fund's total assets, followed by China Resources Land Limited (1109-HK) and Hengan International Group Co. Ltd. (1044-HK).

Its top 10 holdings account for approximately 33.79% of EDIV's total assets under management.

Performance and Risk

Year-to-date, the SPDR SP Emerging Markets Dividend ETF has lost about -17.33% so far, and is down about -17.12% over the last 12 months (as of 07/23/2020). EDIV has traded between $19.98 and $32.77 in this past 52-week period.

The ETF has a beta of 0.88 and standard deviation of 22.96% for the trailing three-year period, making it a medium risk choice in the space. With about 124 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk.

Alternatives

SPDR SP Emerging Markets Dividend ETF is not a suitable option for investors seeking to outperform the Broad Emerging Market ETFs segment of the market. Instead, there are other ETFs in the space which investors should consider.

IShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG) tracks MSCI Emerging Markets Investable Market Index and the Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO) tracks FTSE Emerging Markets All Cap China A Inclusion Index. IShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF has $53.22 billion in assets, Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF has $60.85 billion. IEMG has an expense ratio of 0.13% and VWO charges 0.10%.

Investors looking for cheaper and lower-risk options should consider traditional market cap weighted ETFs that aim to match the returns of the Broad Emerging Market ETFs.

Bottom Line

To learn more about this product and other ETFs, screen for products that match your investment objectives and read articles on latest developments in the ETF investing universe, please visit Zacks ETF Center.



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SPDR SP Emerging Markets Dividend ETF (EDIV): ETF Research Reports



iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG): ETF Research Reports



Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO): ETF Research Reports



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US President Donald Trump on Wednesday (July 22) said that his country is leading the world in terms of coronavirus COVID-19 testing with 50 million tests so far, while India is at second position with 12 million tests.

Replying to a question during a press briefing at White House, President Trump said," Today, we surpassed  first time  we surpassed 50 million tests. Thats far more than any country in the world. India is second, we believe. We think - 1.4 billion people; thats about 12 million tests. We have 50 million tests."

President Trump once again slammed China for spreading coronavirus across the world and said that the "China virus" is a vicious and dangerous illness.

"It's a nasty, horrible disease that should've never been allowed to escape China, but it did. It infected the world, and the world is suffering. But we''re going to get it taken care of, and we''re helping lots of other countries," the US president said.

Respnding to a query about his plan to close more Chinese embassies in the US, President Trump said, "As far as closing additional embassies, its always possible. You see whats going on. We thought there was a fire in the one that we did close. And everybody said, Theres a fire. Theres a fire. And I guess they were burning documents or burning papers, and I wonder what thats all about."

Trump also rejected reports that he had Ambassador Woody Johnson to bring the British Open to Turnberry property in Scotland. "No, I never spoke to Woody Johnson about that, about Turnberry. Turnberry is a highly respected course, as you know  one of the best in the world.

And I read  I read a story about it today. And I had never  I never spoke to Woody Johnson about doing that," asserted the US president.

The US president also said that his government is developing a powerful strategy to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. "We've learned a great deal about it (COVID-19) and who it targets. We are in the process of developing a strategy that''s going to be very, very powerful. Some areas of our country are doing very well; others are doing less well. It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better," President Trump said.
WASHINGTON  An alleged attempt by China to steal American research on a coronavirus vaccine was the nail in the coffin that pushed the U.S. to close the Chinese consulate in Houston, according to the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

While the Trump administrations decision to close the consulate is among the most significant moves yet in an ongoing geopolitical feud between the two nations, U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, said its not the White House that is escalating things.

I would say the Chinese Communist Party has escalated this by their malign behavior, he said. Weve given them every opportunity to join the family of nations and the fact is, it didnt work. And President Xi has made it clear what his policy is, and it is to dominate in the economic and military space.

Were finally taking a stand against them.

More for you Houston, long a target for Chinese hackers, may face reckoning over consulate closure

UNPRECEDENTED ESCALATION: Sudden order to close Houstons Chinese consulate follows accusation of Communist spies

McCaul is among the Texas Republicans who have been some of the most outspoken hawks about China in recent months. Already, the Chinese government has sanctioned U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, and threatened to do the same to Houston U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw.

McCaul, meanwhile, leads the House GOPs wide-ranging investigation of Chinas alleged cover-up of the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak, its suppression of dissent and its theft of U.S. intellectual property.

They are our top, really, top competitor and our long-term biggest national security threat, said McCaul, whose district stretches from Austin to Houston. I would argue they already are today, the way theyve stolen so many things.

And Houstons consulate has been central to those efforts, McCaul said, calling it the epicenter of where the research theft has taken place.

McCaul pointed to the ouster last year of three scientists at MD Anderson Cancer Center accused of trying to steal research. And he said Houstons vast medical system is a logical target for hackers  including those hunting for research on the coronavirus vaccine. Within Houstons medical complex, Houston Methodist, Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston are doing that work.

This is not some made up allegation, this is real stuff, and they infiltrated our universities and our research and they take advantage of our academia system and our freedom of speech and press to turn it against us, McCaul said.

WITHOUT CHINA, WERE DEAD: Houston entrepreneurs cringe as GOP escalates international clash

Court documents unsealed Tuesday describing the alleged attempt to steal coronavirus vaccine research do not link the two suspects to the Houston consulate. Democrats in Congress say its up to President Donald Trump to offer more proof to back up his decision to punish the Chinese government.

While the White House has posed concerning allegations against China  allegations that I take seriously  questions remain as to why the State Department specifically targeted the consulate in Houston, and why such escalatory actions were warranted, said U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, a Houston Democrat. The White House must be transparent and show that it is taking smart and thoughtful actionrather than engaging in brash foreign policy.

A thousand-year war

The closure comes as Trump has doubled down on calling the coronavirus the Chinese virus and has reworked his approach to the coronavirus in recent days  including taking a more serious tone and urging the wearing of masks in public  after weeks of flagging poll numbers.

U.S. Rep. Al Green, a Houston Democrat, said on Wednesday that Asian Americans, many of them constituents of his district, are already being discriminated against because of Trumps anti-Chinese rhetoric. He said constituents have expressed concerns about their businesses staying afloat and the safety of their children.

The closure, Green feared, could make things worse.

Dont give the impression, please Mr. President, that they are all spies, Green said. Please, give some consideration to whats happening to American citizens ... My appeal is to the president to understand that his words take on a meaning that can be harmful to other people.

As the president on Wednesday said its always possible more consulate closures could follow, Texas Republicans were cheering him on, saying the move was a long time coming and urging further action.

China has shown theyre an enemy of the U.S. Crenshaw said in a statement. The Communist regime is clearly willing to spy on Americans and steal our intellectual property, and the burning of documents raises serious questions about what exactly the CCP is trying to hide.

Said Cruz, in a speech on the Senate floor: China is waging a thousand-year war and for the sake not only of Americans but for the sake of the free world, America needs to win this contest.

McCaul and Cruz on Wednesday urged Trump to issue fresh sanctions on Chinese officials involved in attempts to steal research in the U.S. and on those who suppressed information about the coronavirus.

The U.S. and China recently slapped a series of sanctions on officials from the opposing government, with China targeting Cruz. The sanctions against Cruz included a ban on him traveling to China. China earlier this year threatened to sanction Crenshaw, as well.

I will tell you that I wear Chinas sanctions as a badge of honor, Cruz said. Theres a reason theyre lashing out. Theres a reason they have decided to direct personal sanctions on me. Because they are scared. They are terrified.

Taylor Goldenstein contributed reporting from Austin.

ben.wermund@chron.com
South Africa: Commission congratulates Dr Mofokeng on UNHCR appointment

This story has been published on: 2020-07-23. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.

South Africa reported the highest death toll in a single day, with 572 people dying of COVID-19 on Wednesday. Of the additional deaths, 400 were recorded in the Eastern Cape, 114 from Gauteng, 43 from the Free State, 35 from the Western Cape and 18 from KwaZulu-Natal. This has pushed the fatality rate to 5 940 since the pandemic. Mean... See more
Lockdowns have not had a big impact on coronavirus death rates around the world, scientists have claimed, and the health of nations beforehand was more important.

Dozens of countries have been forced to tell people to stay home and close shops in a bid to stop the Covid-19 pandemic since it broke out in January.

But now a study has claimed the drastic measures don't even work. They found that whether a country was locked down or not was 'not associated' with death rate.

Levels of obesity and the amount of money people had were two of the most influential factors for a country's death rate, the study claimed.

High levels of obesity, with more than 30 per cent of adults seriously overweight, were linked to a 12 per cent increase in the number of deaths per million people.

The average age of people had a significant impact on the death rate, too. Countries with a median age - which means half of people are older and half of people are younger - of 40 or above had significantly more deaths.

A graph in the paper showed that countries with a median age over 40 suffered more than 150 Covid-19 deaths per million people, compared to fewer than 25 per million for those where the median average was below 30.

And a lower average income pushed the per-million fatality rate up by three per cent. This was measured against a middling income of $23,122 (18,173).

The data could explain why countries such as Britain - with one of Europe's worst obesity rates, and Italy, which has a high average age - have had such a high death toll despite tight regulations.

The early closure of international borders seemed to lower cases, but did not translate to real lives saved.

Numbers of nurses did protect lives, however, and countries with more than 6,000 nurses per million people saw significantly fewer deaths than those with half as many.

Despite the researchers' insistence that lockdowns did not reduce death rates, they admitted that the drastic measures were linked to lower numbers of Covid-19 cases.

Average age had a big influence on deaths and those with older populations - with a median age of above 40 years - saw more than three times the death rate of countries with younger averages

The study showed that countries that had more nurses per person had significantly fewer deaths from the coronavirus, and the opposite was true

The study compared mortality rates and cases in 50 different countries worst hit by the pandemic up until May 1.

Experts from the University of Toronto and the University of Texas calculated that among these badly-hit nations, only 33 out of every million people had been killed by the virus.

WHAT FACTORS DID THE STUDY FIND TO BE IMPORTANT? Which factors influenced death rates? Obesity rates over 30% increased the death rate per million by 12%

rates over 30% increased the death rate per million by 12% A higher than normal average age increased deaths more than five-fold

increased deaths more than five-fold Low average income pushed up deaths by 3% What influenced case numbers? An old average age pushed up the number of detected cases by 10%

High rates of obesity increased cases by 6%

A delay to closing international border , beyond 23 days, increased cases by an average 4% Advertisement

That rate, however, has since increased markedly, and is now at 80 per million globally, and still rising. Britain has seen 670 deaths per million.

The researchers constructed a mathematical model to measure the impact of each country's response on coronavirus cases and deaths.

They then compared this to demographic factors such as age, smoking and obesity.

Dr Sheila Riazi and colleagues found lockdown measures succeeded in stopping health systems becoming overwhelmed by a surge in patients.

This was the UK Government's primary aim when it imposed restrictions back in March - to protect the NHS and ultimately save lives.

Data in the study showed that the factors affecting the numbers of cases a country had were the time it took to go into lockdown, the ages and obesity of the population, how long it took to close international borders, and how much testing a country did.

Countries with higher average ages saw a 10 per cent increase in cases compared to a nation where the median age was 40.

High rates of obesity appeared to increase the number of infections by six per cent, and a delay to border closure - around a baseline of 23 days from the first case in that country - appeared to increase cases by four per cent.

WHAT DO OTHER STUDIES SAY ABOUT LOCKDOWN SUCCESS? Another study from University of East Anglia suggested draconian stay-at-home orders and shutting all non-essential businesses had little effect on fighting coronavirus in Europe. But the same scientists discovered closing schools and banning all mass gatherings did work in slowing outbreaks across the continent. Other leading scientists have claimed Britain's COVID-19 outbreak peaked and started to decline before the official lockdown began, arguing that Number 10's drastic policy to shut the UK down was wrong. However, some studies directly contradict the theory that lockdown was pointless. A scientific paper from Imperial University in London published in June found lockdown likely saved almost half a million lives in the UK alone. Coronavirus lockdowns across Europe probably prevented up to three million Covid-related deaths, the team led by Professor Neil Ferguson found. The UK, Germany, Spain, France and Italy each dodged up to 500,000 coronavirus deaths or more because of their draconian policies, the team estimated. A separate study also published in June suggested around 500million Covid-19 cases were prevented by lockdowns in six countries, including the US. A study of 149 countries suggested earlier lockdown restrictions slashed the number of Covid-19 cases. Researchers measured how numbers of Covid-19 cases changed over the course of the pandemic and whether they dropped in the days following strict rules. Physical distancing measures such as closure of schools, workplaces and public transport, a ban on mass gatherings, and full-scale lockdowns led to a larger reduction in cases when they were implemented early than late - 14 per cent compared with 10 per cent. It took an average of nine days for countries to recommend social distancing once the first case was detected there. But some countries took far longer. Britain was one of the slowest to introduce the life-saving lockdown measures along with Thailand, Australia and Canada. It took 45 days from the first reported case, on January 31, for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to advise social distancing on March 16. The full lockdown didn't come for another week, starting on March 23. Cases shrunk by 17 per cent as a result, which was higher than the average but low compared to fast-reacting Andorra where cases dropped by 36 per cent. Advertisement

The researchers said they had a 'significantly higher caseload'.

The study also showed that a lockdown seemed to significantly increase the proportion of patients who recovered, despite its key finding that it did not reduce deaths.

Restricting movements and closing borders also had no significant impact on Covid-19 fatalities, even if early border closures appeared to significantly lower cases and lessen the peak of transmission, preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed.

Countries with widespread mass testing did not appear to have fewer critical cases, or deaths per million, the study claimed.

'Government actions such as border closures, full lockdowns, and a high rate of COVID-19 testing were not associated with statistically significant reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality.

'The number of days to any border closure was associated with the number of cases per million.

'This suggests that full lockdowns and early border closures may lessen the peak of transmission, and thus prevent health system overcapacity, which would facilitate increased recovery rates.'

But the scientists didn't find any evidence that this actually saved lives.

It was population demographics and underlying health - particularly obesity rates - which has determined which countries have been worst-hit by the virus, the researchers found.

Nations with above-average obesity rates were 12 per cent more likely to have significantly higher death rates than those without.

It's relevant for Britain - which has one of the biggest obesity problems in Europe - with two thirds of adults and a third of children overweight.

The authors wrote: 'Consistent with reported COVID-19 outcome data from Europe, the United States, and China, higher caseloads and overall mortality were associated with comorbidities such as obesity.'

Countries with a higher median population age were 10 per cent more likely to have a large caseload.

A surprising finding was that nations with higher smoking rates had fewer deaths.

It adds weight to the emerging argument that tobacco use may protect against coronavirus, with a slew of studies finding bizarrely low levels of smokers among hospital patients.

The researchers, however, warned the findings may just be because countries with high smoking prevalence tend to be those with younger populations.

Young people are less likely to get severely ill from the coronavirus, and therefore countries with a younger population have tended to be less badly hit by the pandemic.

The team also found wealthier nations had fared worse, probably because international travel meant more cases were imported at the beginning of the crisis.

This, they believe, is due to 'accessibility to air travel and international holidays', as 'travel was identified as an important factor contributing to international viral spread'.

The team, writing in the Lancet online journal EClinicalMedicine, said: 'Government actions such as border closures, full lockdowns, and a high rate of Covid-19 testing were not associated with statistically significant reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality.'

Some experts are skeptical of the findings, however, suggesting the findings have been exaggerated.

Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter of the University of Cambridge, said: 'A large number of possible predictors are put into a model with only 50 observations, and then the resulting formulae are over-interpreted.'

Lockdowns have not had a big impact on coronavirus death rates around the world, scientists have claimed. Pictured, a closed shop in Britain

Dr Louise Dyson of the University of Warwick, said: 'While population demographics such as median age and obesity prevalence were found to be associated with increased mortality, this should not be interpreted as implying that these were more important than government interventions such as lockdowns.'

It comes amid mounting concern that the full-scale shutdown on Britain's movement will have devastating consequences.

The resulting economic impact is expected to drive up physical and mental health problems both in the short and long term.

Professor Mark Woolhouse, an infectious diseases expert at Edinburgh University and a member of the UK Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies, warned earlier this month: 'When the reckoning comes we may well find that the cure turned out to be far worse than the disease.'

But other British scientists have been adamant the lockdown was necessary, and was so important it should have been enforced weeks before it was, on March 23.

Professor Neil Ferguson - the academic whose work led to Britain's lockdown - says the lockdown likely saved almost half a million lives in the UK alone.

His team at Imperial University in London found coronavirus lockdowns across Europe probably prevented up to three million Covid-related deaths.

'Professor Lockdown' has also conceded that, in hindsight, tens of thousands of lives could have been saved if the lockdown had come a week earlier.

A separate study also published in June suggested around 500million Covid-19 cases were prevented by lockdowns in six countries, including the US.
Society beauty Talita von Furstenburg has been showcasing her lavish holiday in Italy as she travels through the country on her summer getaway.

Talita von Furstenburg, 21, granddaughter of celebrated fashion designer Diane, spent the coronavirus lockdown in Malibu, before travelling to the Amalfi Coast last week.

Now she's landed in Portofino, where she's enjoying the culture, the food, and the scenery with her boyfriend, Rocco Brignone, 19, and sharing snaps of their adventures on Instagram.

The lovebirds sunbathed in the Mediterranean and took boats out onto the water, while Talita showed off the eye for fashion that landed her her very own fashion like under her grandma's label.

Talita von Furstenburg, 21, has been sharing snaps from her lavish holiday on the Amalfi Coast with her boyfriend Rocco Brignone, 19

The youngster, who has been keeping a low profile in Malibu during lockdown, shared a host of pictures from her luxurious holiday

During lockdown, Talita kept a low profile in her home of Malibu, writing in April that she felt grateful for her 'health, family, nature, sunshine, yummy food'.

She previously revealed how she avoided using her royal title growing up in Los Angeles because she didn't want people to 'freak out' when they met her.

Speaking in a recent interview with UK-based magazine Hello monthly, Talita, added that the situation might have been different if she had been raised in Europe, where there is a better 'understanding' of royalty.

'It doesn't make sense for me because I didn't grow up in Europe, it is still my title, but I think that Americans don't understand about being a princess in the same way that you guys do,' she said.

The socialite showed off her fashion credentials as she and her boyfriend explored the pier in Portofino

Calling the town 'picture perfect', Talita shared a host of snaps from her latest summer getaway after spending lockdown in the US

'In LA, where I grew up, if I said I was a princess people would freak out. I didn't think I could claim that title for myself.'

Talita was born Princess Talita, the eldest daughter of interior designer Alexandra (nee Miller) and her ex-husband Prince Alexander von Furstenberg, son of Diane and her ex-husband Prince Egon von Furstenberg.

Her royal heritage comes from her grandfather, German aristocrat Prince Egon, who was married to Diane for 14 years. The fashion designer and the royal, who passed away in 2004, had two children during their marriage: Prince Alexander von Furstenberg, Talita's father, and Princess Tatiana von Furstenberg.

However it is from her grandmother Diane that Talita inherited her love of fashion, and the rising style star is now following in the designer's footsteps; she is being groomed to one day take over the Diane von Furstenberg business.

Other snaps from the holiday show the socialite exploring the Italian countryside on her summer getaway

The young designer is finding her own style and is at the helm of a diffusion line, TVF for DVF, which is now in its third season.

When not hard at work, Talita is often seen gracing the front rows of fashion shows or at society parties. Having been raised in Los Angeles, Talita relocated to the East Coast in 2017, when she started attending Georgetown alongside her cousin, fellow royal Prince Alexios of Greece.

However, the fashion fan appears to be taking a break from her studies, and instead appears to be focusing her energies on her career within her grandmother's company.

Talita has also after her mother Alexandra who was a firm fixture on the Nineties New York social scene along with her sisters Pia Getty and Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece.

Talita von Furstenberg (left), daughter of Prince Alexander von Furstenberg and granddaughter of fashion designer Diane (right together), says she avoided using her royal title growing up in Los Angeles because she didn't want people to 'freak out'

'I always knew about my mum and her sisters as there were always fun, iconic pictures of them around the house,' Talita told Hello.

The 21-year-old has become a regular at high-profile fashion events, and was seen at numerous parties and soirees during Paris Fashion Week in March.

Talita also enjoys several lavish vacations every year, often traveling alongside her cousin and close friends, fellow glamorous royal socialite, Princess Olympia of Greece.

Olympia's mother, Marie-Chantal, Crown Princess of Greece, is the older sister of Talita's mother Alexandra, meaning Talita has royal relatives on both sides of her aristocratic family.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 23)  The joint police task force for COVID-19 has ordered the deployment of one policeman in every barangay dedicated to ensure the strict enforcement of community quarantine measures, such as the wearing of face masks and social distancing.

The policeman will serve as quarantine rules supervisor, the Joint Task Force COVID Shield said in a statement on Thursday.

Police Lt. Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar, head of the task force, cited complaints that residents have started being complacent, with reports that some are going out without face masks and even gather for drinking sessions or gossiping.

This fight must be brought to the community level and the best way to do it is to make the presence of the police felt in every barangay, especially in areas where Coronavirus infection is high, Eleazar said.

If police forces are not enough to cover all barangays in a city or municipality, barangays can be clustered or the help of local military forces can be tapped.

Eleazar said hes now coordinating with Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano who supervises local government units.

He also expressed support for Anos proposed uniform rules which include jail time of up to 30 days and a fine of up to 5,000 for quarantine violators.

Earlier, President Rodrigo Duterte asked the police to be more strict, and arrest quarantine violators to give them a lesson for all time. He also appealed to local government officials to take more effort in punishing residents for disregarding simple health protocols such as wearing masks and observing physical distancing, which he called serious crimes as COVID-19 cases continue to rise.

The country has recorded more than 72,000 coronavirus infections as the government eased quarantine measures to reopen the economy. Local government units are enforcing localized lockdowns in high-risk areas.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah launched the Tree Plantation Drive-2020, organised by the Ministry of Coal, here on Thursday.

Speaking on the occasion, the Home Minister said that under the drive trees will be planted on 6,000 acres of land in 38 districts across ten states. Today, trees will be planted on 600-acre land at 150 places. 5 lakh plants will be distributed, he said.

In the blind race of development, we forget the mantra of Indian culture that nature is our mother and it cannot be exploited. This is the reason why the temperature of the earth is increasing and badly affected climate. The world is afraid of climate change. There is the only way which our saints and puranas had told us that trees are friends of human and only trees can save us. Indian culture has accepted the importance of trees and encouraged it, he said.

The Home Minister also lauded several initiatives by the Coal Ministry.

No one cared about labourers of mines of coal and minerals. After the constitution of District Mineral Fund, the government has spent Rs 49,000 crore for the development of the region where mines were set up, he said.

The Home Minister also paid tributes to Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Chandra Shekhar Azad on their jayanti.

Lokmanya Tilak and Chandrashekhar Azad both sacrificed their lives for the country. No one can forget the contribution of Tilak in Indias independence movement. His slogan freedom is my birthright still inspires Indias youth. Azad never thought of bowing down to Britishers and inspired people with movement, he said.
Just after midnight on June 9, a raucous, unmasked crowd gyrated and pumped fists on a cramped dance floor as music blared inside Harpers Restaurant and Brewpub in East Lansing.

The scene, and the aftermath were put on display in a series of videos, new stories and photos presented by Assistant Attorney General Jason Geissler to the Michigan Liquor Control Commission during a July 23 show-cause hearing to illustrate a lack of adherence by the bar to coronavirus safety guidelines during its brief reopening between June 8 and June 20.

The bar has since been identified as the epicenter of a coronavirus outbreak that exceeded 180 cases, leading the Michigan Liquor Control Commission to call the owners to appear for a hearing Thursday. The hearing was conducted live online using remote video streams.

Ingham County Health Officer Linda Vail shows graph of coronavirus cases displaying a spike in Ingham County after bars and restaurants reopened. She presented the graph at a Michigan Liquor Control Commission hearing for Harper's bar, which has been identified as the epicenter of a 180-plus-case outbreak.

Liquor Control Commission spokeswoman Jeannie Vogel said the hearing was primarily for fact-finding. The commission seeks to learn what led to the spread of COVID-19 among those who visited the bar and restaurant and what corrective action the owners plan to take. The commission does have the authority to revoke or suspend the bars liquor license.

Patrick Riley, who co-owns the 1997-founded family business with Trisha OBrien Riley, his wife of 39 years, admits the patrons were standing tightly in lines outside, dancing closely together and often not wearing masks on opening night, when the bar had a DJ performing inside, based on the video presented.

Patrick Riley testified that his staff spread out tables, supplied complimentary masks to patrons, switched to disposable glasses, marked spaces on the sidewalks to ensure social distancing outside, installed no-touch sinks and toilets and took other precautions required by the state and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer prior to the June 8 reopening. Riley said staff bolted or chained tables to the outdoor deck in order to stop customers from moving them closer together.

While Harpers remains closed pending authorization to reopen from the Ingham County Health Department, Riley said management created a virtual sign-in and contact tracing phone application for patrons to eliminate the need for lines along the sidewalk outside.

He also said staff will remove patrons who violate the states requirement that people wear masks inside businesses going forward.

Liquor Control Commissioner Geralyn Lasher, in reference to a photo showing numerous patrons waiting in line to enter the bar, asked why Harpers didnt comply with a requirement that bars close down waiting areas or require patrons to wear masks.

Riley said patrons were not abiding to managements requests that they distance themselves and stand on designated sidewalk markings while they waited to enter. He also said the environment surrounding the bar, which has little public parking, wasnt conducive to establishing a system for patrons to wait in their vehicles until they were able to enter.

We wanted them to wear a face mask, but we were not going to fight with them at that time, Patrick Riley said.

The governors executive orders at the time didnt require businesses to enforce the mask requirement.

Whitmer has since ordered businesses to enforce the mask rule under penalty of law; however, that demand wasnt in place when Harpers reopened. Businesses are permitted to deny entry or access to any individual who refuses to comply, the previous June 1 executive order said.

Lasher noted the rules required restaurants to post signs asking customers to wear masks until they were seated and she interpreted it as the businesss obligation to carry out that request.

None of us have ever been in a pandemic before, Patrick Riley said, adding that management scoured coronavirus safety guidelines provided by the Centers for Disease Control and the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs and saw nothing regarding the possibility of people congregating on dance floors.

Help me with that decision, Lasher said after Patrick Riley confirmed a DJ was playing music on opening night, despite social distancing requirements.

In hindsight, I wish we didnt have the DJ and I wish we didnt have any dancing, Patrick Riley responded.

 ... We did not believe we were going to see the amount of business that we saw, he said earlier in the hearing.

Patrick Riley said word of Harpers reopening spread quickly through social media and resulted in overwhelming crowds. While tables were distanced from each other, the likelihood that patrons would leave their tables and congregate on the dance floor was an unfortunate oversight, he said.

Ingham County Health Officer Linda Vail, who testified at Thursdays hearing, said while the executive orders didnt explicitly ban certain activities, such as people dancing, certain restrictions were implied, based on other rules and common sense.

If tables are socially distanced, its not really accomplishing anything if people are not at those tables anymore, Vail said.

Commission Chair Patrick Gagliardi questioned why so many of the patrons who contracted COVID-19 after visiting Harpers were under 21. Patrick Riley said his staff takes extensive steps to keep out underage customers after 7 p.m. but added that with todays technology fake IDs are superior to those of the past and often difficult to spot.

East Lansing Police Officer Jeff Spitz, a 23-year department veteran, agreed that stopping underage drinking is quite the challenge, since fake IDs have become more sophisticated. He said Harpers has turned over nearly 1,500 suspected fake IDs staff have confiscated this year.

Vail called the Haprers outbreak a multi-day superspreader event and said the health department confirmed the first two cases among patrons on June 18.

Patrick Riley said his staff learned of the first employee case on June 20, after the business had already determined it would temporarily close. Vail said six employees, including a contractor, eventually tested positive for COVID-19.

Patrick Riley called the outbreak a rude awakening and said his staff is hearing the concerns from the public and health officials loud and clear.

Attorney Kelly Allen and co-counsel Cameron Evans represented Patrick and Patricia Riley, who appeared at the virtual hearing from their bar with beer brewing machinery in the background. Assistant Attorney General Jason Geissler spoke on behalf of Attorney General Dana Nessels office.

A screen shot from the July 23 show-cause hearing before the Michigan Liquor Control Commission resulting from a coronavirus outbreak stemming from Harper's Restaurant and Brewpub between June 12 and June 20.

The outbreak at Harpers has generated alarm well beyond the state of Michigan, said the July 16 notice for the hearing filed by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission. Several national media outlets have reported on the story. Recently, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio cited Harpers as an example of why New York City establishments should remain closed.

The Liquor Control Commission cited news reports and photos that showed concerning activity inside the 10,000-square-foot establishment with an expansive outdoor deck, including large crowds cramming close to one another on the dance floor and many not wearing masks.

The bar is normally approved to allow up to 950 customers into the bar at one time, but coronavirus pandemic limitations reduced capacity by 50%.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer allowed regions in the Upper Peninsula and northern lower Michigan to reopen bars and restaurants for inside seating on May 22. On June 1, Whitmer announced restaurants in the rest of Michigan could follow suit on June 8.

Its believed the spread of the coronavirus connected to Harpers occurred between June 12 and June 20. In response to the outbreak, Harpers closed its doors on June 20 and announced plans to upgrade its air-flow systems, boost social distancing measures and pay for any necessary COVID-19 testing for employees, among other efforts.

The Harpers outbreak prompted the Ingham County Health Department to issue an emergency order to reduce restaurant capacity to 50 percent or no more than 75 people, whichever is fewer. The maximum capacity has since been increased to 125. Whitmer also cited the Harpers outbreak when issuing her July 1 decision to shut down indoor bar service in most of Michigan for establishments that earn more than 70 percent of their money from alcohol sales.

The Ingham County Health Department opened its own investigation into the Harpers outbreak, but no conclusive findings have been publicly released.

Vail said the Health Department is awaiting a finalized safety plan from Harpers and plans to conduct a site inspection before allowing the business to reopen.

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.

More on MLive:

Cases traced to East Lansing bar

Harpers ordered to appear for hearing

Coronavirus outbreak linked to East Lansing bar tops 100, officials take emergency action

Whitmer shuts down indoor bar service in most of Michigan

51 coronavirus cases traced to East Lansing bar, up from 14
Bexar County Sheriff's Office

A 52-year-old man is accused of harassment after his neighbor said he left a "sexually explicit" note on her doorstep, according to an arrest affidavit.

The 68-year-old woman told police that she was in her backyard on July 14, when she noticed her neighbor Craig Steven Cary in his yard near a storage shed that stood in close proximity to their shared fence. When he saw her, he took off his shirt and taped a note to the shed, the affidavit said.
The fertility rate for England and Wales fell from 1.7 children per woman in 2018 to 1.65 in 2019 (PA)

Fertility rates for women under 30 in England and Wales are at a record low, new figures show.

Those aged 40 and over were the only age group to see an increase in the fertility rate, with a rise to 16.5 births per 1,000 women.

The total fertility rate for the two countries fell from 1.7 children per woman in 2018 to 1.65 children per woman in 2019, one of the lowest ever, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

Waless total fertility rate was the lowest since records began in 1982, at 1.54 children per woman.

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Fertility rates last year for women under 30 fell to the lowest level since records began in 1938, the statistics body said.

The total fertility rate is the average number of live children a mother would have while she is of childbearing age, if she experienced the typical fertility rate every year.

The rates were measured in six age groups, from under 20 up to 40 and over.

The ONS suggested possible reasons for the decrease in total fertility rates could be better access to contraception; a fall in mortality rates of children aged under five, resulting in women having fewer babies; and lower levels of fertility or difficulties conceiving because people are delaying having children until later in life.

Last year the standardised mean age of a mother at childbirth was 30.7 years, a figure which has been gradually rising since 1973 when it was 26.4 years.

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The statistics, published on Wednesday, also show a continued decrease in live births, with 640,370 in England and Wales in 2019.

This is a fall of 2.5% since 2018 and a 12.2% decrease since the most recent peak in 2012.

Last year more than a quarter (28.7%) of live births were to women born outside the UK  a record high since 1969, but continuing a general long-term increase, the ONS said.

Poland remained the most common country of birth for mothers born outside the UK, while Pakistan remained the most popular country for fathers.

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While Englands stillbirth rate fell to a record low for the third year in a row to 3.8 stillbirths per 1,000 total births, the rate in Wales rose from 4.4 to 4.6 stillbirths per 1,000 total births in 2019.

David Corps, from the vital statistics outputs branch of the ONS, said the rate in England must fall further to 2.6 by 2025 to meet a Government aim to halve stillbirth rates in the country by then.

The story of births in England and Wales in 2019 is one of decreases and record lows, with the total number of births continuing the fall weve seen in recent years, he said.

Wales had the lowest fertility rate since our records began and Englands is nearing its record low.

For stillbirths, the rate in England continued the decline seen in recent years, reaching a record low of 3.8 stillbirths per 1,000 total births in 2019.

To achieve the government ambition to halve stillbirth rates in England by 2025, the rate must fall to 2.6 by that year.

Clare Murphy, from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said: In many ways these figures tell a story of success.

The increasing age of motherhood is a reflection of improved gender parity, especially greater female participation in both higher education and the workplace.

But she said financial factors also weigh heavily on family planning decisions.

She added: The job market has never been more precarious, and we know the current crisis has hit womens employment particularly hard.

As a result, we may well see these trends continue into the future as women and couples choose to delay having children until they are financially stable.
Jaipur, July 23 : Amid the ongoing political crisis in Rajasthan following the rebellion by his now sacked deputy Sachin Pilot and his loyal MLAs, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday asserted that he enjoys a full majority in the Assembly.

Addressing the media here, he said: "We have a majority and will call a session soon as the Congress MLAs are standing together." On the Pilot camp going to court, he said, "Those who went to court have committed a mistake. The court case has no relation to anti-defection law. It is connected to the fact that we called two CLP (Congress Legislature Party) meetings so that those who had gone can come back, but they did not come.

"It seemed that they had intentions of parting ways. Our Chief Whip filed a petition in this regard. In fact, a Speaker can issue notice, call them and talk to them. The debate hovers around this subject and has no relation with the anti-defection act." Gehlot also claimed that the rebel MLAs have been held hostage.

"Those who have been held hostage, and are under (the eye of) bouncers... we hope that when they come back, they will vote with us. We have a full majority even without them. On the same basis, we will go to the house and prove our majority." He also slammed the raids being conducted by the Enforcement Directorate, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Income Tax Department, including on his elder brother's office and farm house in Rajasthan.

"The way raids have been started by the ED, the CBI, the IT etc under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rule on directions of (Home Minister) Amit Shah, will not stop us from exposing the BJP's ideology." "Earlier, we came to know about raids after they were being conducted. However, now, we start getting news three-four days ahead that raids will be conducted," he quipped.

Gehlot also termed the BJP a "fascist party", which is "engaged in killing democracy". "It is only the Congress party which can fight its ideology." "During the time of corona, the BJP is trying to topple our government," he said, adding that the "nation will never forgive them for this act".
News that Kimberly Guilfoyle contracted the coronavirus had barely surfaced on July 3 before she hopped on a private flight from Mount Rushmore back to New York with her boyfriend, Donald Trump, Jr.

Left behind in her wake after President Donald Trumps pre-Independence Day address were more than a half-dozen junior campaign staffers whom Guilfoyle oversees as the presidents national finance chair. The aides, whod been in proximity to Guilfoyle, were forced to quarantine in their Rapid City, S.D., hotel rooms for three days and barred from face-to-face contact with colleagues as they pleaded with the campaign to get them home.

The campaign tried to reassure the staffers, checking in with them and stressing the need to wait a few days to take a coronavirus test. But the aides felt deserted and scared theyd get sick in a city theyd never set foot in before. They were so distraught that weeks later they sought out Stephanie Alexander, the campaigns chief of staff, to vent about the experience, according to people familiar with the incident.

The episode was the latest example of upheaval within the fundraising unit that Guilfoyle oversees, which is primarily responsible for cultivating networks of donors who cut checks in increments up to $2,800. Interviews with nearly a dozen Republicans familiar with the campaigns fundraising depict an operation beset by departures, staffers with no prior fundraising experience and accusations of irresponsible spending.

Trump is raking in big money online and has amassed an enormous war chest. But Joe Biden has outraised the president for two consecutive months, and there are growing concerns among senior Republicans about whether the dysfunction within Guilfoyles team is translating into money left on the table for what has become an uphill fight for a second term.

Her staff is in upheaval. Last week, several of them requested a meeting with then-campaign manager Brad Parscale to air their grievances. The sit-down never took place  Parscale lost his job before it could happen  but they did meet with Alexander. They described a feeling of confusion and said it felt like they were caught between the competing demands of longtime fundraiser Caroline Wren and Guilfoyle confidant Sergio Gor, who oversee the units day-to-day operations.

Story continues

Finance staffers privately complain about a pressure-cooker environment in which employees are berated when theyre perceived to not be measuring up. They compare working under Wren and Gor to living with two warring parents; some Republicans argue that staff discontent is less about Guilfoyle than about the pair working directly under her.

The team has seen three full-time staffers leave the past two months, including two with past fundraising experience. The most recent departure came earlier this month. Each transferred to different positions within the campaign after finding the culture of the finance operation untenable.

Particularly concerning to some Republicans is that a few of the new additions have not worked as political fundraisers before. One is a friend of Gor and the son of Don Huffines, a major GOP donor. Another is New York socialite and Guilfoyle friend Somers Farkas. People close to the operation acknowledge that Farkas was an unorthodox hire but pointed out that she had spent years raising money for an array of causes.

There are growing Republican worries that the internal turmoil will hurt the campaigns fundraising. The task of shepherding midlevel donors demands a high level of organization and staff coordination, with outreach to thousands of people who are neither megadonors with bottomless bank accounts nor smaller contributors being hit up for a few hundred dollars at most.

Those involved with the campaign describe the 51-year-old Guilfoyle, who took on the finance chair role in February, as one of the presidents most tenacious fundraisers. The former Fox News host has taken on the challenging task of developing a traditional donor network, something George W. Bush made famous with his Pioneer program, but which the anti-establishment Trump has struggled to create. Her supporters say she has performed in the face of a pandemic that has chilled the fundraising environment by cutting off most in-person donor events.

Campaign officials said the bundling program had raised around $73 million and that she had grown the network from roughly 1,000 in January to 6,500.

Guilfoyles unit is part of a massive Trump fundraising apparatus. Her department raises money into Trump Victory, a joint account between the reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee. While Guilfoyles team is mainly responsible for gathering $2,800 checks, the committee focuses on collecting donations into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. There is also the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, which vacuums up small-dollar contributions.

Kimberly is one of the presidents strongest and hardest-working advocates, and he is lucky to have her fighting in his corner, said Ronna McDaniel, the RNC chair.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said, When it comes to raising valuable resources and connecting with voters, Kimberly Guilfoyle is putting on a master class.

But Guilfoyle has rankled fellow finance staffers by claiming what they consider to be her reluctance to share credit for successes. Trump this week hosted a virtual fundraiser that drew $20 million largely from small-dollar donors who gave online, an operation Guilfoyle doesnt oversee day to day. Guilfoyle hosted the event and interviewed Trump during the broadcast. But in the days after, aides expressed annoyance about a press release issued afterward that quoted Guilfoyle but made no mention of anyone else who helped organize the effort.

While establishing a bundling network was always going to be difficult for Trump after his frontal assault on the party establishment, people involved in the campaign say theres still an imperative for any incumbent president to maximize donations across the board  and a recognition that, with Biden well ahead in polls, every cent will count.

Some remain irked by a recent pro-Israel-themed Zoom fundraiser. The campaign signed off on plans for tickets to the event, which coincided with the anniversary of Trumps decision to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, to be made available to donors for $1,000. But Guilfoyles team then began circulating tickets to some donors for $150, leading to confusion.

People familiar with Guilfoyles decision say she wanted the fundraiser to be a lower-cost grassroots event, allowing more people to participate. But others expressed concern that the event raised less money than it could have and worried about the perception that some donors were asked to pay more than others to participate.

There are also questions about spending. In March, two staffers chose not to fly commercial and instead took the private jet of a major Trump donor to the presidents Mar-a-Lago resort for a finance event. The campaign had to reimburse the roughly $25,000 cost.

Trump campaign officials were galled when they realized theyd be footing the bill for the flight. Staffers on the reelection effort are typically expected to book travel on an internal office database and use low-cost commercial flights.

Guilfoyle herself has used private planes to travel to and from fundraisers. But people close to her argued that it amounted to a small sum given that the events often net millions of dollars. The logistics of traveling to multiple fundraisers in such a short amount of time, they added, often make commercial travel unrealistic.

Those close to Guilfoyle say that while her style isnt for everyone, she is well liked by her staff.

In response to inquiries for this story, the campaign provided statements from finance team members who lavished praise on Guilfoyle. Maggie Mulvaney, director of finance operations, said the group is united behind Kimberly Guilfoyles leadership. We are a team and we have a singular purpose of victory for President Trump.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the city Guilfoyle flew back to from Mt. Rushmore.
Shruti said he made a great first impression: He seemed nice and cool from the get-go. I thought it was sweet that he was wearing a rose pin on his lapel, and his apartment looked really nice and clean  and thats definitely important. She noted that the virtual date allows you to get an intimate look into the way people live from date No. 1. I appreciate that he put a lot of effort into dressing for the date.
CHARLES TOWN, W.Va., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Directors of Potomac Bancshares, Inc. (OTC: PTBS), the one bank holding company for Bank of Charles Town (BCT), declared a $0.07 per share dividend at their July board meeting. The dividend is for all shareholders of record on August 4, 2020 and will be paid on August 11, 2020.

About the Company

Founded in 1871, BCT - Bank of Charles Town, also known as The Community's Bank, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Potomac Bancshares, Inc. (OTC:PTBS). With approximately $540.6 million in assets as of March 31, 2020, the Company conducts operations through its main office, an additional eight branch offices, and one loan production office. BCT's offices are located in Jefferson and Berkeley Counties (WV), Washington County (MD), and Loudoun County (VA). The Bank provides various banking products and services including free access to over 55,000 ATMs through the Allpoint network plus online and mobile banking for individuals, businesses, and local governments. The Bank also offers commercial lines and term loans, residential and commercial construction, commercial real estate loans and agricultural loans. The Residential Lending division offers secondary market and portfolio mortgage loans, one-time close construction to perm loans, as well as home equity loans and lines of credit. For over 60 years, BCT Wealth Advisors has provided financial management, investment, trust, and estate services to its clients. In 2019, the Bank was named a "Best Bank To Work For" by American Banker. In 2018, Forbes named BCT a "Best In State Bank" for Maryland.

The Company's shares are quoted on the OTC Pink Sheet marketplace under the symbol "PTBS." For more information about Potomac Bancshares, Inc. and the Bank, please visit our website at www.mybct.bank.

SOURCE Potomac Bancshares, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.mybct.com


As part of The Ad Councils "Love Has No Labels" campaign, the non-profit organization released a PSA dealing with the surge in anti-Asian sentiment.

Everyone across the globe is concerned about staying safe and healthy during the pandemic, but one group is having to deal with additional fears from targeted harassment.

LANGUAGE BARRIERS: How Houston's Hispanics are bearing the brunt of the pandemic

"In addition to these fears, people in the Asian, South Asian, and Pacific Islander (API) communities fear for their safety because they are being falsely blamed and scapegoated for the pandemic," said the "Love Has No Labels" website. "Many are enduring an added layer of bias, harassment, discrimination, and hate."

Producer and writer Alan Yang teamed up with The Ad Council to release the PSA that features an all Asian American cast sharing their experiences with the stereotypical discrimination they have faced.

Calling these incidents eye-opening, Yang said this behavior is fundamentally un-American.

"This country is built on acceptance," Yang told ABC News. "Sadly, this PSA couldn't be more timely."

Vice President of Group Campaign Director at Ad Council Sheri Klein told ABC News that this is more than just a hashtag.

This is not a one and done deal, were really in the long-term fight to educate the public, in the fight against racism and bias," Klein told ABC News.

As it became known that the novel coronavirus originated in China, so did the negative reactions to Asian Americans begin to surge. The PSA campaign aims to educate everyone to "learn the facts" as stated on their website.

The Ad Council shared as a final plea on their website that "Together we can fight the virus and fight the bias,"

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Hong Kongs new national security law is causing international news organizations to consider if they should continue to keep an office in the Chinese territory.

Since World War II, many of the worlds largest news organizations have Asia headquarters in Hong Kong. Its open media environment, respect for rule of law and nearness to China were valuable qualities.

But the territory known as Chinas freest city is fast losing that image following the establishment of the new law. The measure is the latest move by the central government to end self-rule policy for Hong Kong.

The legislation is a response to pro-democracy demonstrations, some violent, held during the past year. But, the laws loosely-defined terms are widely seen as a direct threat to the right of free speech.

The New York Times was the first to announce it would move. The company said it would send about 30 percent of its Hong Kong office to South Korea.

The paper said it will keep reporters in Hong Kong to cover the city, but also said it is becoming more difficult to do so.

Earlier this year, China expelled American reporters working for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post from the mainland. The government also barred them from reporting in Hong Kong.

Since the expulsions, The Washington Post has moved at least two reporters from China to South Korea.

The Wall Street Journal and the French news agency AFP are also considering their future in Hong Kong, CNN reported.

This week, the Hong Kong Free Press said the security law may also lead it to move operations outside of Hong Kong. The English-language newspaper heavily covers the territorys pro-democracy movement.

However, its leader and founder, Tom Grundy recently wrote in The Guardian,our newsroom is here to stay.

China says the law is designed to prevent secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreigners.

But part of the law says officials must strengthen the management of foreign news organizations, nongovernmental organizations and other international groups.

The term is not further explained but many foreign reporters believe it means restrictions on news media content.

Even before the new law, press freedoms in Hong Kong had been shrinking. Increasingly, police have blocked, attacked, and arrested reporters covering pro-democracy demonstrations.

That showed people what was to come which was the start of the extension of mainland-style media and political control to Hong Kong, says Ben Bland. He is a former China correspondent for the Financial Times, who was based in Hong Kong.

No obvious substitute

However, many experts say foreign media will be slow to fully leave Hong Kong. One reason, they argue, is that there is nowhere better for them to go.

Taipei would be risky, the experts say, as such a move could anger China. It considers Taiwan its territory and rejects any self-declared independence.

Tokyo is a democracy with a free press, but the Japanese city is also a costly place to live. Some organizations may not have enough money to base many reporters in Tokyo.

The New York Times said it likes South Korea because ofits friendliness to foreign business, independent press, and its central role in several major Asian news stories.

Im Susan Shand.

VOAs William Gallo reported this story. Susan Shand adapted it for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

secession n. the decision by a region or state to leave a country

collusion - n. to act in concert with a person or organization

management n. the controlling authority of a company or business

role  n. a position or part in something
EL CENIZO, Texas -- This scrappy city of rickety homes on the U.S.-Mexico border cannot afford an ambulance or a gas pump. The mayor earns $100 a month. The nearest supermarket is a half-hour drive.

Yet El Cenizo is leading the charge to block a tough new Texas immigration law that requires police to hold criminal suspects for possible deportation, before the measure takes effect Sept. 1. The lawsuit filed by the city pits Mayor Raul Reyes and his tiny outpost of Democrats against the state's powerful Republican Party. Almost everyone in town is an immigrant from Mexico - or is related to one - and many are here illegally.

"People have been posting that they should make an example out of me and that they should lock me up," Reyes , who helped draft the federal lawsuit, said in an interview at City Hall. "It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for this cause. I know I will be on the right side of history."

The mayor's move puts this city of 3,300 residents at the heart of a new war raging in Texas over an old issue: illegal immigration.

On one side is Gov. Greg Abbott, R, and the GOP-led state legislature. Emboldened by President Donald Trump's blunt rhetoric on illegal immigration, they passed a law in May that forces "sanctuary cities" such as El Cenizo to help detain and deport those who are in the country unlawfully. Uncooperative local governments face large fines, police chiefs and sheriffs could be jailed, and elected officials could lose their jobs.

On the other side are progressive activists such as Reyes, part of a fast-growing younger generation that is largely Hispanic and U.S. born but lacks the political power of conservative white voters. With him are advocates who have pressured Dallas, Houston and other cities to resist cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement because they fear it will lead to racial profiling or deportations for minor offenses.

Tensions boiled over in Austin, Texas, on May 29, as protesters gathered outside the state capitol. Lawmakers nearly came to blows after a Republican from the Dallas area boasted to several Democratic colleagues of calling immigration authorities to come arrest demonstrators.

Rep. Matt Rinaldi, R, said he made the call because some protesters held signs openly declaring their undocumented status. The Democrats say there were no such signs and accused Rinaldi of racial profiling. Democrats said that proved the anti-sanctuary city law will result in the unfair targeting of Latinos.

Appearing with Neil Cavuto on Fox News on Thursday, Rinaldi defended the law as simply keeping "criminal aliens - murderers, rapists, child abusers - from being shielded from federal authorities."

In an interview with The Washington Post, Rinaldi called the sanctuary city law a "very strong policy" that "deals particularly with criminal aliens or illegals" responsible for thousands of crimes. The law forbids law enforcement authorities from racially profiling suspects, he said.

In a video statement on Facebook to announce that he had signed the law, Abbott singled out for criticism the sheriff of Travis County, which includes the liberal city of Austin, who won her seat last year promising not to honor requests from ICE to hold people in the local jail for federal immigration violations.

"This law cracks down on policies like the Travis County sheriff, who declared she would not detain known criminals accused of violent crimes," Abbott said in the video."Those policies are sanctuary city policies and won't be tolerated in Texas."

Reyes, El Cenizo's 34-year-old mayor, has gotten mixed reactions from residents of this impoverished enclave on the humid banks of the Rio Grande. It sprung from a shantytown of landscapers, farmworkers and house cleaners who could not afford the rent in nearby Laredo, a bustling hub of 250,000 people about 17 miles to the north.

For down payments as small as $50, they bought plots of land and built trailers and, later, cinder-block houses. Some are patched together with duct tape, tarps and aluminum foil to block the searing sun.

"He's trying to defend us," said Maria Magdalena Rangel, a 72-year-old immigrant from Mexico who arrived at a local Lutheran church Thursday for a weekly ration of bread and tomatoes. "He sees the injustices that are happening with the people."

Others say they fear the mayor's defiance will irritate the U.S. Border Patrol and inspire them to make more arrests.

The divisions underscore how illegal immigration has evolved as an issue in Texas, home to an estimated 1.6 million undocumented immigrants.

Latinos are expected to outnumber whites in the state over the next few years and already comprise a majority of the public school student population. Political scientists saw a modest jump in Latino voter turnout in the 2016 presidential election, although Hispanics remain significantly less engaged in politics than whites.

Despite the recent immigration crack down, Texas has taken a nuanced - at times progressive - approach. Under then-Gov. Rick Perry, R, Texas was the first state to allow undocumented students to qualify for in-state college tuition. In 2012, the state Republican Party, backed by business interests, called for a national guest-worker program, although the plank was later removed from the platform.

The state GOP's attitude has shifted further to the right, more closely mirroring the national party and its hard-line illegal immigration stance; Trump tried to punish sanctuary cities with an executive order in January that was temporarily blocked by a federal judge.

"The whole attitude toward immigration and illegal immigrants residing in Texas has changed and hardened since the early 2000s," said Ray Sullivan, a Republican operative who advised former Texas Governors Perry and George W. Bush. Sullivan credited concerns about crime, a sense that the border is still not secure, and the rise of Trump for the shift.

Many Texas liberals also have staked out a more radical position, quietly pushing officials in Democratic-leaning cities to keep federal immigration authorities at arm's length. The anti-sanctuary city law is in some ways a backlash to their success.

They contend that the federal government's failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform has forced local governments to act on their own to protect communities in which citizens and unlawful residents live interdependently, often within the same family.

Liberals argue that communities suffer when local law enforcement works closely with immigration officials, sowing a fear that can discourage people from reporting crimes or cooperating with investigations. ICE sometimes leaves people to languish in local jails for weeks before picking them up, which they argue violates their constitutional rights.

El Cenizo declared itself a sanctuary in 1999 and vowed to fire any city official who reported an immigrant to authorities. The city holds its council meetings in Spanish, the predominant language. And when outside volunteers tried to patrol the border with Mexico, the city created a $500 park usage fee to keep them out of El Cenizo.

Reyes said crime is rare. He said the city has not had a single homicide during his seven terms in office, dating to 2004.

At the community center Thursday, Jose Guadalupe Alvarez shrugged as he played dominoes over popcorn and hot coffee. The 64-year-old retired construction worker said he worries that the mayor's defiance will make Border Patrol agents more aggressive.

"Where are you going to hide so many people? This is a small town," said Alvarez, a legal permanent resident who helped build hospitals in other towns, although his own does not have one. "It's taunting the immigration agents. Most of us are illegal. Thank God I fixed my papers."

U.S. Border Patrol agents say there is value in working closely with state and local police, including in El Cenizo, to prevent public safety threats and to bust drug traffickers and human smuggling rings operating along the border.

Gabriel Acosta, the assistant chief patrol agent in charge of the Laredo sector, acknowledged that immigrants whose only offense is the civil violation of being in the United States illegally are sometimes deported, but he said they have some recourse because they can go before a judge.

"I totally sympathize and understand what they're going through, but at the end of the day, it's the law," Acosta said as he patrolled Thursday night. "All we're doing is enforcing the law."

To federal officials, illegal immigrants are lawbreakers. But in El Cenizo, they are Margarita, who cleans houses and sells tamales on the side; Maria, whose son graduates from high school Friday and will join the Army; and Angel Garza Reyna, 18, the pride of El Cenizo, who just received a full scholarship to Duke University, according to the mayor and a letter he provided to The Washington Post.

Angel, brought to the United States illegally at 11 months old, has Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a temporary reprieve from deportation instituted under President Barack Obama that, for the teenager, expires next year. He rises before dawn to catch a ride to a magnet school in Laredo. His bedroom wall is plastered with academic medals. Crammed into one corner is a donated Hamilton upright piano, on which he taught himself to play Chopin.

He wants to be a doctor, because El Cenizo doesn't have one.

Undocumented residents here worry that authorities will soon go door-to-door to root them out. The mayor said he has heard that domestic violence victims are afraid to report crimes. And people fret that going to the supermarket or buying gas could put at risk the lives they have built in the United States.

"This is worse than the wall," said Ricardo Molina, a school board member. "Scaring people to death."

---

Somashekhar reported from Washington, D.C.
Selwyn Township council has denied a request to donate land to the Abbeyfield House Society of Lakefield.

The organization asked the township to donate two acres from Isabel Morris Park, between Water and Queen streets, so that the group could build another Abbeyfield House for elderly people sharing common living space.

Given its location, Deputy Mayor Sherry Senis said she believes the value of the property could be around the $1-million mark.

There are other properties in our township that I think would suit them as well. To take part of our park away I think is the wrong direction for us to go, Senis said.

There are many worthy charities who would like to do things with the property, said Coun. Gerry Herron.

I think wed be opening pandoras box should we choose one charity over another, and I dont believe that the township is in the business of donating lands, Herron said.

Through philanthropy there may be an opportunity for them to get land, or  and unfortunately it would cut in on their budget  maybe they have to go and buy a piece of property.

Senis said council is committed in assisting the organization to find another piece of property.

And to help with their fundraising and to help get the word out there that Abbeyfield is looking for property, she said.

The section of the park the organization had hoped to acquire was purchased by the township, she said.

Some people are under the impression that the Morris family  because its called Isabel Morris Park  had donated that property, but they did not, Senis said.

Isabel Morris Park was donated by the Lakefield Lions, she said.

This other property was purchased by the township from the Sproules in 2003 and we added it to our park, she said.

The township has no intentions on giving the piece of land to anyone, Herron said, because the municipality may decide to do something with it in the future.

Whos to say down the road we dont put something in there. From a splash-pad to a rental space, theres all kinds of options, Herron said.

The township is always in need of more seniors homes, he said.

This is a great retirement area. People want to get out of that hustle and bustle in the city and retire to the good life, and Selwyn brings the good life to people, Herron said.

The pandemic has proved that people dont necessarily need to be in the office to work, said Herron. Because of that, Herron believes the township may see an influx of new permanent residents.
The United States has called on Australia and other nations to demand accountability from Beijing, warning that if the free world doesnt change Communist China, Communist China will change us.

In a strongly worded speech delivered as the relationship between Beijing and Washington plummeted to new lows this week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that the old paradigm of blind engagement with China had failed.

Mike Pompeo: "If the free world doesnt change communist China, communist China will change us." Credit:Getty

America and its allies needed to set a new course if we want to have a free 21st century", Pompeo said.

The truth is that our policies - and those of other free nations - rejected Chinas failing economy, only to see Beijing bite the international hands that fed it, he said at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California.
While the film industry continues to debate on the topic of nepotism and the treatment of outsiders vs insiders, Janhvi Kapoor in a recent interview, acknowledged her privileged background and said that she feels she has been extremely lucky to have got certain opportunities.

The Dhadak actress told Barkha Dutt, "I haven't had to deal with the kind of things that most women have to deal with. Because I do come from a slightly more privileged background and so I have been extremely lucky in the way that I have been treated and the opportunities that I have gotten."

On being asked about her experience of meeting and playing Gunjan Saxena in the midst of the ongoing debate about privileges (of a star kid), Janhvi said, "I don't think I have anything to complain about, but hearing her story, being in a simulated environment, when knowing that she's been in probably these real situations, I don't know if I can say maybe sympathise, but it made me come close to what it may have been like, and it, of course, broadened my horizon and perspective of what women might be going through."

The actress also opened about the casual sexism that she sometimes has to deal with. She said that sometimes during narrations, the filmmaker seemingly pays more attention or makes more eye contact with the male actor.

"In my head, I was like this is happening maybe because he has a longer scene. But then I realised that maybe it's just some sort of subliminal conditioning that is making them do that," Janhvi told Barkha Dutt.

Jahnvi also revealed her biggest takeaway from the film and her learning from Gunjan Saxena. She said, "It all comes down to the effort and the hard work you put in towards your work. Her outlook was very simple, if you keep working hard, then one will get where one has to get."

The actress said that the fact that Gunjan Saxena didn't let the construct of society or the gender bias or anything else be an obstacle in her mind, or she even never victimised herself, but instead just kept through her work, and working hard is something that inspired her the most.

Janhvi further continued that she is so aware of her privilege that she often feels guilty about it. However, it also motivates her to work harder to earn her place.

Speaking about Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl, the film is slated to premiere on August 12, 2020 on Netflix.

ALSO READ: Janhvi Kapoor Reacts After House Help Tests Positive For Novel Coronavirus

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C onsumer goods giant Unilever saw second-quarter sales decline less than expected, helped by Brits stocking up on Marmite, tea and ice cream during lockdown.

Shares in the company gained 345p, or nearly 8%, to 4675p after it published first-half results and chief executive Alan Jope praised the resilience of the group.

The six months to June 30 included Covid-19 lockdowns in different countries at different times that affected the business.

In the UK sales rose by a mid-single digit, helped by increased demand for in-home eating and hygiene products.

Finance chief Graeme Pitkethly said in Britain there was high demand for the Pot Noodle, Marmite and Hellmanns brands.

Anglo-Dutch firm Unilever said: As people spent more time in their homes, we saw growth in home consumption of foods, ice cream and tea. It also benefited from heightened demand for home hygiene products.

However, the group saw other divisions hurt. The maker of Dove soap said consumers going out less frequently dented sales in its personal care division, except for hygiene products like hand sanitiser.

Group second-quarter sales decreased 0.3%, compared to the 3.9% decline analysts had been expecting. First-half underlying sales declined 0.1%.

Jefferies analyst Martin Deboo said: Q2 sales & H1 margins have beaten handsomely.

Unilever also updated on plans for its tea business. It launched a review of the division in January and it has been rumoured as a sale prospect for years as younger consumers move away from black tea towards coffee and herbal infusions.

It today said it has decided to keep its operations in India and Indonesia and a joint venture.

The rest of the tea business, which includes PG Tips and made 2 billion of sales in 2019, will be either sold or listed as a separate company by Unilever.
Jawhar Sircar By

No, we will not discuss Vikas Dubey. But we need to revisit occasionally that very shadowy zone where the state assumes the power to liquidate certain citizens. We know that this is one of the three unique traits that distinguish the state from all other organisations, including those more prosperous or powerful. These are the legitimate right to impose taxes (everyone else charges people); the inherent right to requisition men, materials, places and buildings (as during elections or wars); and the third is its basic right to kill. It thus declares all other killings are homicides and prosecutes the perpetrators, leading occasionally to capital punishment, after due trial and the process of law.

Besides, this most critical authority of the state is meant for foreign attacks and extended to internal rebellion and liquidation, in the name of tackling the war against the Union of India. But neither the judiciary nor the rational section of the people can ever agree with the claim that encounter killings are just a further extension of this dreadful syndrome. At this point, let us recall the first mainstreaming of large-scale liquidation that was carried out in 1971-72 against the original Naxalites of Bengal. The Naxalites were in the throes of their class war and had appropriated to themselves the right to kill at will.

The gory beheadings and the hit-and-run killings of hapless police constables and other perceived class enemies by action squads had converted life in Kolkata to brutal, bloody and short. The major strike-back was Operation Steeplechase in mid-1971 when the police and armed forces unleashed reprisals on an unprecedented scale, methodically and remorselessly, without any due process of law. Those like us who lived through that terrifying period know how young men were tied to lampposts and shot point blank. Later, as an administrator, one was proudly shown exhibits of the very successful operation against urban guerrillas at the Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School.

It was entitled Calcutta 1971 which was, quite eerily, the same name that Mrinal Sen had chosen for his very disturbing film on police brutality in contemporary Kolkata. Hazar Chaurarsis mother can suffer endlessly but the state had gotten over its problem and re-established its authority. The same fate awaited those who had almost hacked Punjab from the Union of India in the 1980s and 1990s, amidst unspeakable atrocities and horror. It was only after pro-Khalistan terrorists had literally slaughtered several hundred innocent citizens, mainly in Punjab and Delhi, that the state hit backwith unconcealed vengeance.

Indira Gandhi paid with her life for having stormed the Golden Temple and stepping up action to liquidate terrorists, but terrorism lingered on. In August 1995, Punjab CM Beant Singh and 17 others were blown off by a Khalistani suicide bomber. The point is, unlike Bengal where a painful surgery worked, Punjabs ulcer bled for a dozen years more. But then, the state clawed its way back and seized Punjab  again, at a huge human cost. It is not that this is restricted to India. It is a recurring feature of the entire Third World and the inhuman brutalities wreaked in Bosnia and its neighbours prove that Europe is not immune. This month itself, Human Rights Watch has reported that more than 180 male corpses have been found in Djibo, a town in the north of Burkina Faso, obviously resulting from extra-

judicial killings.

To understand the heartless institution called the state, we may look back at the most powerful theorist in this domain, Thomas Hobbes. This 17th century English philosopher was obsessed with rescuing humanity from terrifying chaos, lawlessness and endless strife in the state of nature. He viewed the state as an authoritarian Leviathan created by its citizens, surrendering a part of their liberties to strengthen itto rule over them. The other great philosopher, John Locke, was less paranoid and spoke more of human rights, but the state that he advocated had freedom in the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and ... property. The third theorist, Rousseau, was clear that the state emerges from a social contract with citizens but his state could go to more extremes to ensure that the general will of the people prevailed over dissidents.

But these propositions are quite old and constitutional democracy has evolved much since then, through battles, revolutions and world wars. Vigilance over the modern state has sharpened and the hue and cry factor cannot be ignored. In 1919, Jallianwala Bagh hardly stirred the world but 70 years later, the Tiananmen Square massacre drew universal condemnation. Yet, when Daya Nayak eliminated 83 notorious gangsters in Mumbai through his encounter killings, he became the stuff of legend. A rotten, failed judicial system is largely factual, but as long as public support exists for such encounters, they are difficult to stop. They satisfy innate desires for reprisals and bottled-up bloodthirstiness that lie deep within society.

These are, however, only attempted explanations and civilised society can never accept them as justifications. History has proved, time and again, that a murderous state soon turns upon the citizenry it is duty bound to protect. The genetic propensity of the state to assume an acquired right to kill has to be shackledor else we will all be locked in a cage with a Godzilla gone berserk.

Jawhar Sircar

Retired civil servant. Former Culture Secretary and ex-CEO, Prasar Bharati (Tweets @jawharsircar)
by Vladimir Rozanskij

A government bill prohibits foreigners from participating in and leading religious activities on Russian soil. Also excluded are religious personnel who have studied abroad and who show signs of "religious extremism". This will also create problems for Orthodox priests studying in Rome or abroad.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - Foreigners cannot participate in the activities of Russian religious associations, or even more so guide them: this is what is established by a bill presented by the Russian government last July 22 to the State Duma, the Russian parliament. The press office of the Lower Chamber of the Duma reported yesterday.

According to art. 7 of the federal law "On freedom of conscience and religious associations", only Russians and "other people who live permanently and legitimately on the territory of Russia" can enter a religious group. The law defines a "religious group" as a "union of people who profess the same faith, who do not require state registration". The leaders and participants of the group have the right to celebrate common liturgies, religious rites, aggregate and educate new members in their faith. However, prayer meetings must be held in specially authorized premises, and not in private homes.

In addition to foreigners, the ban on participating and leading communities is also extended to people classified as extremists and terrorists, according to official lists of the State Revisers Bureau. In addition, the ban also applies to believers in whose actions the court finds "signs of extremist activity". For some years now, Jehovah's Witnesses, various groups of Baptist Christians and other sects of various kinds have been included in this list.

In an explanatory note, the changes to the law "will make it impossible for priests or religious personnel who have received religious education abroad to spread extremist religious ideologies". This ban will create difficulties for Muslim preachers and Protestant pastors, but also for Catholic priests, among whom there are still many foreign missionaries, who are struggling to obtain permanent residence permits.

But problems could arise even for the same Russian priests sent to study in Rome or other theological faculties abroad, whose activities will be monitored in particular to check for any "signs of extremism". Recall that, as in the case of Jehovah's Witnesses, even the interpretations of the Holy Scriptures "different from tradition" can be considered "extremist". Since there is no "official" version of the Bible in the Orthodox tradition, if not the ancient one in the Slavic-ecclesiastical language, the question of interpretation lends itself to ambiguous and diversified treatment.
Construction continues on the new half-mile section of border fence built by We Build the Wall at Sunland Park, N.M., on May 30, 2019. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Environmentalists Ask Supreme Court to Block Use of Defense Funds for Border Wall

Environmentalists asked the Supreme Court to stop the Trump administration from building parts of the U.S.-Mexico border wall after a federal appeals court determined in June that tapping $2.5 billion in military funding for the project was unlawful.

The motion, part of complex litigation, filed with the high court July 22 in Trump v. Sierra Club, asks to lift a stay imposed by the court on July 26, 2019. That order froze a permanent injunction granted by the trial court against the use of the funds until the governments appeal of that ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit was dealt with.

In other words, the Supreme Courts ruling a year ago allowed the Trump administration to use the disputed funds for wall construction.

Environmentalists are fighting President Donald Trumps efforts to use funding from the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2019 to build the wall along the Mexican border in California, New Mexico, and Arizona. Providing border security and cracking down on illegal immigration was Trumps signature promise during his 2016 campaign for the presidency.

A federal appeals court ruled against the government last month in the long-running dispute. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled June 26 that the Trump administrations attempt to transfer $2.5 billion in military pay and pension funds for border wall construction was unlawful. The ruling, which affirmed a U.S. District Court decision, came in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of the Sierra Club and Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC).

The Trump administration has lost in every lower court, but is still rushing to complete the presidents border wall before the Supreme Court can review the merits of this case. If the administration succeeds, there will be no border wall construction left to stop by the time the Supreme Court hears this case, Dror Ladin, a staff attorney with the ACLUs National Security Project, told The Hill newspaper.

Officials at the U.S. Department of Justice didnt immediately respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

In the June 26 decision, the appeals court concluded that the financial transfers were not authorized, and that plaintiffs have a cause of action, and affirmed the decision of the district court.

These funds were appropriated for other purposes, and the transfer amounted to drawing funds from the Treasury without authorization by statute and thus violating the Appropriations Clause, the appeals court stated, referencing case law. Therefore, the transfer of funds here was unlawful.

The interests of the members of the Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition and of compliance with the environmental regulatory process trump national security concerns, the court ruled.

The Sierra Club alleged that government actions will cause particularized and concrete injuries to its members, and SBCC has shown that it has suffered a concrete injury itself, the appeals court noted.

Sierra Club has more than 400,000 members in California, over 9,700 of whom belong to its San Diego Chapter. Sierra Clubs Grand Canyon Chapter, which covers the State of Arizona, has more than 16,000 members. Sierra Clubs Rio Grande Chapter includes over 10,000 members in New Mexico and West Texas.

These members visit border areas for hiking, birdwatching, photography, and other professional, scientific, recreational, and aesthetic activities. They obtain recreational, professional, scientific, educational, and aesthetic benefits from their activities in these areas, and from the wildlife dependent upon the habitat in these areas.

Building a border wall and related infrastructure in the affected areas will acutely injure these interests because [the U.S. Department of Homeland Security] is proceeding with border wall construction without ensuring compliance with any federal or state environmental regulations designed to protect these interests, the court ruled.
YEREVAN, JULY 23, ARMENPRESS. During the military operations targeting civilian population and non-military infrastructure is prohibited by international law. Recently the spokesperson of Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan announced, that Azerbaijani army is ready to strike Armenian Metsamor Nuclear Plant, which can be described as a real threat for international security and peace. On this issue Professor Dr. Heinz Gartner, the chair of the advisory board of International Institute for Peace and professor at University of Vienna interviewed by Haiastani hanrapetution newspaper

-Dear Professor, Dr. Gaertner, we testimony that turbulent situation in the World affairs is getting tense. What do you think which confrontations can stand real threat for peace and trigger major conflicts where nuclear issues can play decisive role?

- The world today moves towards more global and regional polarization without multilateralism. We witness the breakdown of multilateralism, the emergence of nationalistic and ethnic xenophobia, demonization of adversaries, depreciation of international institutions, the withdrawal of international agreements and treaties and arms race. This happens on the background of a pandemic, and global economic crisis with increasing poverty accompanied and increasing climate damages.

- Can we draw some comparisons between the strike with nuclear weapons and/or strike on Nuclear plant? In which way you will evaluate the official announcement of Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense with which it is threatening to strike Metsamor Nuclear Plant in Armenia?

- Although the threat to target a civilian nuclear power plant is not the same as the threat to use a nuclear weapon, it would violate the nuclear taboo and dangerously cross a red line. I entails an uncontrollable spiral escalation. Involving potential casualties with nuclear means is a kind of first use and goes beyond any deterrence policy.

-What kind of steps must implement the International community for preventing the strikes on nuclear plants, even in the time of wars as it can stand real catastrophe for entire world security? Are there any regulations?

- A Nuclear Plant can be considered a civilian object. An attack on civilian targets are illegal according to the Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and 1977. It also states that that damage against civilians should not be disproportionate to the direct military advantage. The destruction of a civilian nuclear power plant violates definitively the principle of proportionality. A nuclear power plant is no legitimate military target.

-International Institute for Peace (IIP) was established in 1959 in Vienna it is doing great job for strengthening peace and security in the World. As a well know scholar in the field of nuclear issue and the chair of IIP what you will suggest to both sides for strengthening peace and security in the South Caucasus?

- I would suggest to look at a successful historical analogy. The Helsinki Final act and the subsequent process could provide a guideline for resolving the conflict, without copying it. The Final Act recognizes the indivisibility of security in Europe as well as the common interest in the development of cooperation throughout Europe. The participating States pledged to refrain from any form of armed intervention or threat of such intervention or any other act of military, or of political, economic or other coercion against another participating State. Accordingly, they would refrain from direct or indirect assistance to terrorist activities. The participating states reaffirmed their will to intensify such cooperation between one another, irrespective of their systems. They consider that their frontiers can be changed, however, only in accordance with international law, by peaceful means and by agreement. The Final Act also recognizes the right to be or not to be a party to treaties of alliance; they also have the right to neutrality.

The CSCE-Helsinki Final Act of 1975 is the document which expresses best European values. In spite negotiated on the height of the Cold War it does not identify enemies, not even opponents or adversaries. It requests cooperative security and analyses that security is indivisible. The Final Act is not only a guideline to reduce the tensions in Europe but can be model for other conflict areas in the world, for example for strengthening peace and security in the South Caucasus.

Interview by Lusine Mkhitryan
PAO Severstal (SVST)

Severstal reports Q2 & H1 2020 financial results



23-Jul-2020 / 09:04 MSK

Dissemination of a Regulatory Announcement that contains inside information according to REGULATION (EU) No 596/2014 (MAR), transmitted by EQS Group.

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.



Severstal reports Q2 & H1 2020 financial results - Leading 32% EBITDA margin maintained; strong free cash flow growth delivered q/q; dividend recommended - Moscow, Russia - 23 July 2020 - PAO Severstal (MICEX-RTS: CHMF; LSE: SVST), one of the world's leading steel and steel-related mining companies, today announces its Q2 & H1 2020 financial results for the period ended 30 June 2020. CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL RESULTS FOR Q2 AND H1 2020 $ million, unless otherwise stated Q2 2020 Q1 2020 Change, % H1 2020 H1 2019 Change, % Revenue 1,590 1,777 (10.5%) 3,367 4,208 (20.0%) EBITDA1 501 555 (9.7%) 1,056 1,416 (25.4%) EBITDA margin, % 31.5% 31.2% 0.3 ppts 31.4% 33.7% (2.3 ppts) Profit from operations 382 425 (10.1%) 807 1,180 (31.6%) Operating margin, % 24.0% 23.9% 0.1 ppts 24.0% 28.0% (4.0 ppts) Free cash flow2 190 54 251.9% 244 652 (62.6%) Net profit 391 72 443.1% 463 903 (48.7%) Basic EPS3, $ 0.47 0.09 422.2% 0.56 1.10 (49.1%) Notes: EBITDA represents profit from operations plus depreciation and amortisation of productive assets (including the Group's share in depreciation and amortisation of associates and joint ventures) adjusted for gain/(loss) on disposals of PPE and intangible assets and its share in associates' and joint ventures' non-operating income/(expenses). A reconciliation of EBITDA to profit from operations is presented in Severstal's quarterly financial statements. Free Cash Flow ("FCF") is determined as the aggregate amount of the following items: Net cash from operating activities, CAPEX, proceeds from disposal of PPE and intangible assets, interest received and dividends received. A reconciliation of FCF to net cash from operating activities is presented in Severstal's quarterly financial statements. Basic EPS is calculated as profit for the period divided by the weighted average number of shares outstanding during the period: 825 million shares for Q2 2020 and Q1 2020, H1 2020 and 824 million shares for H1 2019. Q2 2020 vs. Q1 2020 ANALYSIS: Group revenue declined by 10.5% q/q to $1,590 million (Q1 2020: $1,777 million) as a result of lower average sales prices for steel products and a decline in sales volumes. Group EBITDA declined by 9.7% q/q to $501 million (Q1 2020: $555 million), reflecting lower revenues during the period, which was partially mitigated by lower sales costs. Severstal's vertically integrated business model delivered an EBITDA margin of 31.5%, maintaining the Group's position of having one of the highest EBITDA margins in the steel industry globally. Free Cash Flow increased to $190 million in Q2 2020 (Q1 2020: $54 million), primarily reflecting positive changes in net working capital. Net profit totalled $391 million (Q1 2020: $72 million), including a FX gain of $168 million, which mainly reflects an accounting gain on the translation of USD debt balances due to the appreciation of the rouble in the quarter. Cash CAPEX amounted to $331 million (Q1 2020: $344 million). Net debt increased to $2,006 million at the end of Q2 2020 (Q1 2020: $1,528 million). Severstal is committed to returning maximum value to its shareholders whilst managing and maintaining a comfortable level of debt. Severstal's financial position remains strong with a Net debt/EBITDA ratio of 0.8 as at the end of Q2 2020. The Board of Directors has therefore recommended a dividend of 15.44 roubles per share for Q2 2020. H1 2020 vs. H1 2019 ANALYSIS: Group revenue declined by 20.0% y/y to $3,367 million in H1 2020 (H1 2019: $4,208 million). This drop in revenue y/y was due to weaker pricing dynamics for steel products and lower sales volumes in the period. Group EBITDA was 25.4% lower y/y at $1,056 million (H1 2019: $1,416 million), primarily reflecting lower revenues, which were partially offset by a reduction in the cost of sales. The Group's EBITDA margin remained high at 3 1 . 4 % (H1 2019: 33.7%).

The Company generated $244 million of FCF (H1 2019: $652 million), mainly reflecting a decline in EBITDA and CAPEX growth y/y. FINANCIAL POSITION HIGHLIGHTS: At the end of Q2 2020, cash and cash equivalents declined to $584 million (Q1 2020: $1,042 million). Gross debt remained almost unchanged at $2,590 million (Q1 2020: $2,570 million). Net debt increased to $2,006 million at the end of Q2 2020 (Q1 2020: $1,528 million). The Net debt/EBITDA ratio was 0.8 at the end of Q2 2020 (Q1 2020: 0.6). Severstal's Net debt/EBITDA ratio remains one of the lowest among steel companies globally and allows the Company to maintain a comfortable level of debt, whilst continuing to return value to its shareholders. The Group's liquidity position remains strong, with $584 million in cash and cash equivalents in addition to unused committed credit lines and overdraft facilities of $1,059 million, more than covering the Company's short-term principal debt of $47 million. Alexander Shevelev, CEO of Severstal Management, commented: "The health and safety of all Severstal employees remains our first priority. For this reason, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic we have implemented strict protective measures across all our sites and organised remote working for our office staff since the middle of March. Fortunately, in almost all of the regions where we operate, we have avoided any large-scale outbreak of COVID-19 and our operations have continued without interruption. As long as necessary, Severstal will continue to maintain strict sanitary requirements and to closely monitor adherence in this area. Moving on to our financial results for Q2 2020, I am pleased to note that all our businesses demonstrated a strong performance despite the market disruptions made by the COVID-19 outbreak. We have maintained almost 100% utilisation rate at our steelmaking facilities. At our mining operations we have increased sales volumes of coking coal by 34% q/q, maintained strong sales volumes of iron ore products and achieved significant end-to-end optimisation effects. The flexibility of our distribution network allowed us to maintain a high share of exports, keeping sales volumes relatively steady during the period. The weighted average selling prices declined only by 4% q/q as we continue developing our downstream operations. Despite the 11% decline in revenues in Q2 2020, our high levels of operational efficiency enabled us to maintain an EBITDA margin of 31.5%, which is the highest in the global steel industry globally. Free Cash Flow also increased from $54 million to $190 million q/q, even though our capital investment level remained high. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic our transformation programme continues and remains a very high priority for us. Severstal's financial position remains strong with Net Debt/EBITDA ratio of 0.8 times, the Board remains confident in its outlook and is recommending a dividend of 15.44 roubles per share for Q2 2020." SEVERSTAL RUSSIAN STEEL (RSD) $ million, unless otherwise stated Q2 2020 Q1 2020 Change, % H1 2020 H1 2019 Change, % Revenue 1,588 1,770 (10.3%) 3,358 4,117 (18.4%) EBITDA 351 370 (5.1%) 721 792 (9.0%) EBITDA margin, % 22.1% 20.9% 1.2 ppts 21.5% 19.2% 2.3 ppts RSD steel product sales decreased 7% q/q to 2.56 mln tonnes in Q2 2020 (Q1 2020: 2.76 mln tonnes), reflecting lower production levels of crude steel and a higher portion of export sales, which have a longer realisation period. In addition, the Company increased its stock of finished goods at the end of the quarter. The share of steel export shipments remained high at 44% (Q1 2020: 45%) in response to a slowdown in domestic demand caused by lockdown measures implemented in Russia. The share of high value-added (HVA) products within the sales portfolio amounted to 43% (Q1 2020: 42%), reflecting an increase in shipments of colour-coated products and lower sales volumes of semi-finished and hot rolled coil. The weighted average selling price for the whole range of steel products in Q2 2020 declined by just 4%, despite weaker price dynamics of global benchmarks. RSD topline declined by 10.3% q/q to $1,558 million (Q1 2020: $1,770 million). EBITDA declined by 5.1% q/q to $351 million (Q1 2020: $370 million). The EBITDA margin increased to 22.1% (Q1 2020: 20.9%). The total non-integrated cash cost of slab production per tonne at the Cherepovets Steel Mill in Q2 2020 declined by $19/t q/q to $252/t (Q1 2020: $271/t) affected by devaluation of the rouble. The integrated cash cost of slab in Q2 2020 totalled $184/t declining by $25/t q/q (Q1 2020: $209/t). SEVERSTAL RESOURCES $ million, unless otherwise stated Q2 2020 Q1 2020 Change, % H1 2020 H1 2019 Change, % Revenue 402 400 0.5% 802 1,158 (30.7%) EBITDA 182 171 6.4% 353 711 (50.4%) EBITDA margin, % 45.3% 42.8% 2.5 ppts 44.0% 61.4% (17.4 ppts) Sales volumes of coking coal concentrate from Vorkutaugol increased 34% q/q to 1.28 mln tonnes in Q2 2020, as a result of planned production growth. Iron ore pellet sales decreased 15% to 2.53 mln tonnes (Q1 2020: 2.97 mln tonnes). In response to weaker pricing dynamics for pellets in Q2 2020, Karelsky Okatysh reallocated a portion of its volumes into iron ore concentrate, achieving a higher rate of end-to-end efficiency of internal consumption at CherMK. Iron ore concentrate sales volumes increased 30% q/q to 1.90 mln tonnes (Q1 2020: 1.47 mln tonnes) driven by production growth at Karelsky Okatysh, and a recovery in production levels following a planned decline in Q1 at Olcon. Revenue from the Resources Division increased to $402 million in Q2 2020 (Q1 2020: $400 million), mainly as a result of improved sales volumes at Vorkutaugol. EBITDA increased by 6.4% q/q to $182 million (Q1 2020: $171 million) due to increased topline and lower cost of sales q/q. The EBITDA margin increased to 45.3%. At Vorkutaugol, the cash cost of coal concentrate per tonne declined to $66/t (Q1 2020: $78/t) reflecting a 34% increase in sales volumes q/q. The cash cost of iron ore pellets per tonne at Karelsky Okatysh declined to $23/t (Q1 2020: $27/t). At Olcon, the cash cost per tonne of iron ore concentrate declined to $24/t (Q1 2020: $30/t) reflecting growth in sales volumes q/q. DIVIDEND The Board of Directors is recommending a dividend of 15.44 roubles per share for Q2 2020. Approval of the dividend is expected to take place at the Company's EGM on 28 August 2020. The record date for participation in the EGM is 3 August 2020. The recommended record date for the dividend payment is 8 September 2020. The approval of the record date for the dividend payment is also expected to take place at the Company's EGM on 28 August 2020. OUTLOOK In Q2 2020 global steel demand was impacted by the spread of COVID-19 as a result of lockdown restrictions throughout the EU and Russia. According to industry experts, global steel demand is expected to decline by 6% y/y in 2020. Iron ore prices demonstrated strong upward dynamics due to high production rates in China, whereas production contraction elsewhere resulted in lower demand for coking coal. Russian domestic steel demand reduced significantly in Q2 2020; however, this is expected to partially recover in H2 2020. Despite a number of potential headwinds on both export and domestic markets, Severstal's low cost position allows us to remain competitive and the Board remains confident in the resilience of the Company's business model relative to its local and global peers. NOTES Full financial statements are available at http://www.severstal.com/eng/ir/results_and_reports/financial_results/index.phtml The Annual Report 2019 is available at http://www.severstal.com/eng/ir/results_and_reports/annual_reports/index.phtml For further information, please contact: Severstal Investor Relations Evgeny Belov T: +7 (495) 926-77-66 evgenii.belov@severstal.com Severstal Public Relations Anastasia Mishanina T: +7 (495) 926-77-66 anastasia.mishanina@severstal.com Severstal's financial communications agent - Hudson Sandler Andrew Leach / Emily Dillon T: +44 (0) 20 7796 4133 A conference call on Q2 & H1 2020 results for investors and Analysts hosted by Alexey Kulichenko, Chief Financial Officer, will be held on 23 July 2020 at 14.30 (London)/ 16.30 (Moscow). Conference ID: 3060369

International Dial: +44 (0)330 336 9411 Russian Dial:

+7 495 646 9190 (Local access)

8 10 800 2867 5011 (Toll free) The call will be recorded and there will be a replay facility available for seven days as follows: Replay Passcode: 3060369 International Dial: +44 (0) 207 660 0134 (Local access) Russian Dial:

810 800 2702 1012 (Toll free) *** P Severstal is one of the world's leading vertically integrated steel and steel related mining companies, with assets in Russia, Latvia and Poland. Severstal is listed on RTS and MICEX and the company's GDRs are traded on the LSE. Severstal reported revenue of $8,157 million and EBITDA of $2,805 million in 2019. Severstal's crude steel production in 2019 reached 11.8 million tonnes. www.severstal.com


Visiting nurse Gabriel Leyva, 34, second from left, of Downey helps treat a COVID-19 patient in Edinburg, Texas, where hospitalizations and deaths have spiked this month. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Crisis nurse Catrina Rugar was in full protective gear, checking a ventilated patient at a new COVID-19 unit in Texas Rio Grande Valley, when a doctor stopped to ask how old the man was: 40.

They keep getting younger, Rugar said.

Doctor and nurse bemoaned how people in Florida and Texas were ignoring pandemic restrictions.

No ones seeing us drown in patients, Rugar said.

Rugar is part of an army of thousands of nurses and other medical staff, including some from Southern California, who were deployed first to New York City at the start of the pandemic, then to south Texas this month to battle the virus. Contracted by staffing agencies that set up temporary offices in Rio Grande Valley hotels, registered nurses are paid $95 an hour ($142 an hour for overtime) plus travel expenses to work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week for months at a time (nurse practitioner jobs pay more).

"You thought NYC was the biggest activation in American history with 4,500 medical professionals? So did we," the Krucial Staffing agency said in a job posting on Facebook last week seeking nurses and other medical staff. "Our operations have moved to the great state of Texas. We are on track to eclipse that number."

Catrina Rugar, 34, a traveling nurse from Florida, responded first to hospitals in New York, then Texas' Rio Grande Valley, where she was treating COVID-19 patients in Edinburg last week. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

A lawsuit filed by seven former Krucial nurses in New York this spring alleges they were forced to work without sufficient protective equipment and to perform work beyond their scope of training, putting them and their patients in danger. When they complained, they said they were fired.

Based on information from many former Krucial nurses  not just my clients  Krucials practices risk peoples lives by sending in unqualified nurses who are attracted to the high pay, said Gregory Antollino, a New York-based attorney representing the nurses in their lawsuit.

Krucial Staffing, based in Overland Park, Kan., released a statement Friday saying it "vehemently denies the claims asserted in that lawsuit. We fully intend to defend our company from these false allegations."

Story continues

Rugar, who worked for Krucial at the 530-bed DHR Health in Edinburg, said the hospital was better prepared than those she staffed early in the pandemic in Harlem and the Bronx. But the Texas facility was still in crisis, she said, forced to cope with shortages of equipment and personnel amid a seemingly endless stream of critically ill patients. One of the women on a ventilator she cared for last week had already lost her husband to COVID-19.

This week charter buses and vans ferried nurses from valley hospitals to hotels, where staff placed Healthcare heroes signs on their doors, thank-you banners in lobbies and ear plugs at the front desks for those on the night shift. At morning and evening shift change, nurses in scrubs and pink respirator masks arrived in groups. Some asked hotel staff for trash bags to carry their soiled scrubs; others for deliveries. Some had ordered protective equipment such as gas masks in advance, unsure what conditions they would face in COVID units. Hotel halls were lined with their clogs and sneakers, which they left outside to avoid contaminating their rooms.

Traveling nurses staying at hotels around McAllen, Texas, take buses to local hospital to work in the COVID-19 units. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

We just have to try our best, said Rugar, 34, who has worked as an emergency room nurse for a decade. Were making progress.

Rugar, who lives in Crystal River, Fla., said she was skeptical about the pandemic when she arrived in New York, but quickly realized the severity of the risk and was "a changed person" when she left 39 days later. She gets frustrated when she sees people refusing to wear face coverings and practice social distancing or calling the pandemic a hoax. Her husband and brother are nursing assistants temporarily assigned to a different south Texas hospital. But Rugar said even her Cuban American family back in Florida had their doubts.

Theres people saying, Oh, the medias lying. The numbers are fake. Theres a lack of trust, she said, until people get infected. Then they want all the help they can get.

She planned to return to Florida this week with her husband and brother to quarantine for two weeks, then continue working at COVID units there.

Working with Rugar on the COVID-19 team in Texas was contract nurse Gabriel Leyva. When the pandemic began, Leyva, 34, a single father raising a 7-year-old, was only a few months out of nursing school at Cerritos College, working at Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in his native Downey.



I didnt know what I was getting into, he said.

Nurses Catrina Rugar, Hannah Woodward and Veronica Gomez treat a COVID-19 patient in Edinburg, Texas. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

He said his parents worried about his safety when he left for a six-week assignment in New York.

One of the things my dad asked me was, What assets do you have set aside for your daughter if you die? he said.

But Leyva said hes learned how to safely work as part of ever-evolving teams to treat the coronavirus.

Its nurses from all over the nation coming together to overcome this virus, he said. You learn to adapt quick. Its something Im learning with each deployment.

One of his friends from nursing school is also deployed in Texas, Jaime Zamora, 30, of Santa Fe Springs.

Zamora had just graduated in February when the pandemic started, and he said he went straight to New York because I wanted to find a way to help.

In New York, he worked the day shift on a psychiatric medical unit full of COVID-19 patients at Bellevue Hospital. Leyva worked night shift. In the evenings at shift change, their spirits lifted when residents of an adjacent apartment building would open their windows and clap.

That doesnt happen in Texas, and after three weeks Zamora said he often feels drained, emotionally and physically. Hes seeing more people infecting their loved ones.

Im constantly arranging FaceTime calls with entire families. Ive seen many brothers and sisters crying. Its a family disease, he said.

A nursing jobs waiting for Zamora at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. But he plans to stay in Texas for at least another week, maybe two.

Thats what I became a nurse for: to help, he said. Im working every single day until its time to go home.
Over the course of three hours, the great-grandson of a couple who donated land for the monument testified that removing the towering equestrian statue would be a slap in the face to his forebears. Historian Edward Ayers, testifying for the state, said the monument proclaimed a version of history that portrayed the Confederate general as a great man and the cause for which he fought  a new nation based on slavery  as just.
Bengaluru: The BJP government of Karnataka has received a rude jolt from the farmers wing of the RSS, which has issued a call to burn the gazzette notification containing an amendment to the Land Reforms Act 1961, thereby enabling purchase of agriculture land by industries.

The protest is scheduled for July 26, a day after the Yediyurappa government is planning to celebrate one year in office.

Curiously, an independent survey conducted by former Karnataka Agriculture Prices Commission chairman Prakash Kammaradi has found that the amendment is attracting more opposition in BJP-dominant areas.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Gangadhar Nelamangala, Karnataka general secretary of the Bharatiya Kisan Sangha, the RSS farmers wing, said support to the BJP government is based on the Hindutva platform, but not to any decision that helps real estate dealers and black money holders.

The ordinance making an amendment to the Land Reforms Act of 1961 was brought in soon after the nationwide coronavirus lockdown was lifted. Facilitated by the amendment, anyone can purchase agricultural land in Karnataka and use it for non-agriculture purposes.

Besides, the ceiling on land ownership, which used to be 54 acres per individual, was raised to 432 acres.

The government has defended the amendment, stating it would not only boost industrial activity in the state, but also bring in investment in agricultural development.

Gangadhar says this does not square with the fact that much of the land already acquired by government for industrial development lies undeveloped. He siad,

"The government has 12,000 acres of land acquired and developed by KIADB. Another 36,000 acres acquired by the Industries Department have not been developed. As per the Industries Department statistics, over 56% of the existing industrial areas are defunct. Without utilising the land already available, why is the government allowing indiscriminate purchase and conversion of agriculture land to industry?''

The farmers' wing of RSS says raising the ceiling of land ownership would only open the door for corruption politicians to invest in land. "The question is how can 54 acres per person be insufficient? Why do you need 432 acres? Instead of non-agriculturists and industrialists investing in agricultural lands, corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and real estates will invest their black money in land. The government is facilitating money launderers to convert their black money showing it as agriculture income,'' Gangadhar added.

Apart from the RSS, the amendment has received a thumbs down from farmers as well. In the survey done by Prakash Kammaradi, over 56% of farmers stated that the amendment was not acceptable.

The survey found that in no region except Kalyana-Karnataka (formerly called Hyderabad-Karnataka) did support for the amendment exceed 50 per cent. In fact, opposition to it was strongest in BJP strongholds like Mumbai-Karnataka (72.6%), Malnad and Coastal Karnataka (54.1%) and Central Karnataka (55.3%).

Further, castes that traditionally have supported the BJP, such as the Brahmins and Lingayats and also the Vokkaligas and Reddy communities, are also opposed to the amendment, 53.5% of Brahmins and Lingayats, 68.2% of Vokkaligas and Reddys, by the surveys reckoning.
More news includes MediaTek announcing Dimensity 720 5G system-on-chip and Dell launching new laptops in India.

Samsung is all set to host the Galaxy Unpacked event on August 5 wherein the company will launch its Galaxy Note 20 series smartphones and Galaxy Fold 2 smartphone. Ahead of the launch event, the company has launched the 5G variant of its Galaxy Z Flip smartphone.

In addition to this, Flipkart Group today announced that it had acquired Walmart Indias wholesale business in India.

Here's everything that made headlines in tech today:

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5G launched

Samsung today launched the 5G version of its Galaxy Z Flip smartphone. The newly launched variant will be available in new Mystic Gray and Mystic Bronze colour variants in select markets starting August 7.

Dell launches new laptops in India

Dell today launched new G-series and Alienware laptops in India. While the Alienware laptops start at 1,99,990, G-series laptops start at 73,990 in India.

Asus discontinues ROG Phone 2 in India

Asus India, mobile business head, Dinesh Sharma while talking to HT Tech revealed that last years ROG Phone 2 will now be discontinued.

Flipkart buys Walmart wholesale

Flipkart today announced that it had acquired Walmarts wholesale business in India. In addition to this, the company launched Flipkart Wholesale in India.

MediaTek announces Dimensity 720 5G

MediaTek today announced the launch of the Dimensity 720G chipset. It supports 90Hz high frame-rate displays and up to 64-megapixel camera resolution.
(Natural News) On Wednesday, California overtook New York as the state with the highest number of total Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) cases since the pandemic hit American shores in March. Meanwhile, Texas also set a new record with its highest one-day increase of confirmed coronavirus cases.

California and Texas  Americas most populous states  reached their grim milestones as the overall number of cases in the U.S. grew at a near-record pace. The countrys overall caseload grew by over 70,000 in the past 24 hours.

California has more cases than New York

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that the state had 12,807 new confirmed coronavirus cases during a briefing on Wednesday. This brings the state total to more than 413,576 since the pandemic began.

While the state has surpassed New York in terms of the most coronavirus cases in the country, it still trails the latter in a number of other metrics. With over 32,500 recorded so far, New York still has the highest number of coronavirus-related deaths in the country. Meanwhile, its rate of confirmed infections of about 2,000 for every 100,000 people is still twice that of California.

New York and other states in the northeast saw the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. during the early months of the outbreak. The state, however, has since been able to bring the viruss spread under control, with New York only recording 705 new cases on Wednesday. California, on the other hand, was quick to lock down and seemed to have its outbreak under control, that is, until last month when its caseload began to climb.

Californias surge in cases comes after the state reopened much of its economy in May. Newsome has since ordered statewide shutdowns for bars and indoor dining, while also imposing tougher restrictions on almost every large county as well as some smaller ones where the outbreak is most severe.

During his briefing, Newsome strongly urged Californians to continue wearing face masks to contain the spread of the coronavirus and also pledged that the state would distribute more protective equipment to frontline healthcare workers.

We are a state, again, the size of 21 states combined, so its not surprising now in some respects as we begin to reopen key sectors of our economy  that our numbers would start to go up, Newsom said. [Its] a sober reminder of why we are taking things as seriously as we are.

With the increase in cases, the California Hospital Association has issued a warning saying that the state must secure more hospital beds.

Of the 50,000 or so hospital beds available in the state, roughly 45,000 have already been filled, according to California Hospital Association president Carmela Coyle. The state also can add 20,000 more beds, though Coyle warns that the state must prepare to treat even more.

We have an ability to surge, but we may have the need for more, Coyle said.

Texas sees record increase in deaths as healthcare systems get jammed

One the same day that California surpassed New York, Texas set its own record, with 197 deaths  the highest single-day increase the state has seen. The increase in deaths has even forced at least one Texas county to store bodies in refrigerated trucks and prompted at least one health official to call for new stay-at-home orders.

Weve got to lasso this virus, this stallion, bring the numbers back down and get control of this thing, said Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez. Because our hospitals  theyre war zones, they are really struggling right now.

According to Cortez, crematoriums in Hidalgo county now have a waitlist of two weeks, forcing them to use five refrigerated trucks that can hold 50 bodies each.

Cortez has since issued a shelter-in-place order for residents of his county. This has put him at odds with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has maintained that local officials do not have the authority to issue such orders.

Abbotts move to override local officials has been blamed by Dr. Ivan Melendez, Hidalgo Countys top health official, for the spike in coronavirus infections in the state, which he said has jammed local healthcare systems at every level.

Do I think that a stay-at-home order is medically indicated at this point? Absolutely, Melendez said.

Texas one-day record increase comes as coronavirus-related deaths in the U.S. as a whole breached 1,000 in a single day for the second day in a row. This was the first time one-day increases have topped 1,000 in the U.S. since mid-June.

Even as cases dramatically rise, deaths have not typically followed suit. This has been attributed partly to improved knowledge about how to treat patients and increased access to ventilators and other equipment.

The fact that coronavirus-related cases and deaths are on the rise again, however, has public health officials worried that the virus could gain further steam. This could further strain already overflowing healthcare systems.

The healthcare systems some cities in Texas had already been pushed close to the brink  in terms of intensive-care capacity  in late June. A further increase in cases could push these over the edge.

Learn how individual states are dealing with the coronavirus over at Pandemic.news.

Sources include:

FT.com

TheGuardian.com

Reuters.com
India does not have a National Security Strategy (NSS). HQ Integrated Defence Staff invited the National Security Advisor (NSA) few years back to put across how military can help draft the NSS. The Deputy NSA came instead but cut short the presentation midway saying forget all this; tell me about Nepal  the royal massacre had just happened. He was told that a comprehensive assessment was sent to NSA three months back how events will shape in Nepal in five phases. He said he had not seen the paper. Few years later, HQ IDS again invited the NSA for the same presentation. This time the NSA came but lost his temper within 10 minutes saying: Who has asked you to work on this? We already have a NSS; this despite government admitting in Parliament there is no NSS but few relevant orders exist in different ministries.

Last year media reported the present NSA is tasked to define the NSS, which apparently is still in the making. How our intelligence agencies are tasked in absence of NSS remains a mystery. But more galling is void of a Strategic Defence Review (SDR) without which numerous aberrations are noticeable with respect to the current standoff in Eastern Ladakh. These are discussed in succeeding paragraphs.

Media recently quoted the China Study Group (CSG) stating they have been closely monitoring China for years  so how come China sprang this surprise in Ladakh? A foreign scholar has detailed satellite imagery of world's largest sand-scale landform in the Ningxia region (China) representing Eastern Ladakh built in 2004 in order to train PLA for operations in Ladakh. Why was our intelligence and CSG unaware of this? Our intelligence at all levels was complete failure despite PLA having built a road 4 km short of Galwan. Some say Chinese aggression was because of India developing border infrastructure to capture Aksai Chin but given the military asymmetry China unlikely sees such threat in the foreseeable future.

Without the SDR and belief there would be no conflict, we went for a truncated Mountain Strike Corps and arbitrarily decided on downsizing Army by 100,000 without examining LAC deployments. For example, the Division in Eastern Ladakh has frontage of over 800 km and had little surveillance means. Successive defence budgets negative in actual terms have adversely affected military modernization, including foreclosing some operational information systems under development by army to fight network-centric war.

Terming intrusions under their perception of LAC doesnt alter the ground truth. Belief that PLA will have to withdraw in winter due to logistics problems too is faulty. Earlier PLA infrastructure were at elevation of 4,000m but now their new encampments are at 6,000m, new support bases at 5,500m and new heliports at 4,500m. It is also opined that PLA will have to de-escalate but de-escalation apparently has already reached a dead-end. PLA withdrawing to April 2020 locations is out of the question. They will unlikely withdraw intrusions, especially in Depsang and Pangong Tso areas.

It is also believed that Beijing cannot afford conflict due to adverse world opinion but China never expected garlands even when triggering Wuhan Virus. China may consider this the best opportunity against India battling the pandemic, floods, emergency purchases, winter logistics nightmare, virulent domestic politics and part focus on periodic elections. Some say ball is in Chinas court, which it is not unless India accepts fait accompli. China continues to claim entire Galwan Valley and PLA intrusions include a deep one in Depsang, besides a mechanized division and other forces on Chinese side of LAC opposite Demchok and Depsang. Ball in Indias court does not preclude further offensive by PLA at opportune time. That is why Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has asked the military to be prepared for two-front war.

The SDR in the Indian context implies defining the threat (short, medium and long-term) much more in detail than the NSS, recommend the size and shape of the military required to build hard power for defending the nation and threat in being enabling unhindered growth of India as a rising power, taking into account multi-domain scenarios through the spectrum of conflict; which would also indicate technologies India must acquire. SDR should also cover worst case scenarios. Periodic review of the SDR is essential because of fast paced situational dynamics. For example, post calling off the Doklam Standoff, China has located a brigade plus force in close proximity. With new illegal claim over Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary in Bhutan, China may be planning operations in Bhutan to force another standoff with India.

The SDR and periodic reviews would take time but in the current India-China standoff notably China maintains India is the aggressor while talking of de-escalation but continues with intrusions at least at Pangong Tso and Depsang while also claiming entire Galwan Valley. China would be unimpressed with military demonstrations shown to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh at Stakna near Leh, being on stronger ground. Recent statement by Chinas foreign ministry that India should maintain its independent foreign policy is noteworthy, which followed External Affairs Minister Jaishankar saying that non-alignment was thing of the past. China could well initiate conflict with India before, during or after winter without activating South China Sea. China could activate fronts through Bhutan, Ladakh and northeast with Pakistan activated through POK. What support would India get from US or Quad in such scenario beyond posturing?

In a closed door international seminar in a foreign country eight years back, some speakers opined China could use tactical nukes to force India submit vital territory. In the current scenario, it could even be tactical bio-bomb.

If we are not prepared for worst case, this could be a surprise. PLA has equipped soldiers with waterproof cold clothing to wade waters of Galwan River; they could be equipped for CBRN operations too. We have nukes including nuclear tipped BrahMos but hopefully these scenarios have been debated already and responses decided least we scramble the National Command Authority after getting hit and then start debating escalation. If the oil wells fire in Assam is an indication we could be fighting three-front war, which with China will involve high level of cyber-cum-electromagnetic attacks and vertical envelopment.
President Donald Trump has boasted in several recent television appearances about his performance on a screening test intended to assess mild cognitive impairment or early dementia.

Its unclear if Trump, 74, has taken the test again, but in 2018 he was given the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) under Dr. Ronny Jackson, the former White House physician, and at the time had scored a perfect 30 out of 30.

The MoCA test was created by Canadian neurologist Dr. Ziad Nasreddine. The test is 30 questions and designed to take 10 minutes. Questions include drawing a clock, copying a picture of a cube and identifying pictures of animals.

I created the test in 1996 as a screening examination where we ask the patient several questions," Nasreddine told NBC News. "Each question is accessing a different part of the brain in terms of cognition.

Its a test only given by doctors and not meant for the general public.

It has to be interpreted by a physician who has expertise in cognitive disorders and cognition, Nasreddine said.

A score of greater than 26 is considered normal while 18-25 is considered mild cognitive impairment, 10-17 is considered moderate cognitive impairment. A score less than 10 is considered severe cognitive impairment.

Sections of the Montreal cognitive test (Ziad Nasreddine)

Trump recently brought up his performance on the test as a challenge to Joe Biden, 77, the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee. On Wednesday, after a press briefing, Trump spoke to Fox News contributor Dr. Marc Siegel, during which he described the memory portion of the test.

It's like you'll go: Person, woman, man, camera, TV. So they say, Could you repeat that?' So I said, Yeah. So it's person, woman, man, camera, TV. Okay, that's very good. If you get it in order, you get extra points.

In an interview with Fox News Chris Wallace on Sunday, Trump said that the exam gets progressively more difficult.

Yes, the first few questions are easy, but I'll bet you couldn't even answer the last five questions. I'll bet you couldn't, they get very hard, the last five questions, he told Wallace.

Story continues

Some of the last five questions that Trump was referring to include naming the time and place that you are in, as well as repeating a series of words that you were asked to remember earlier in the test.

Dr. Lawrence Honig, a neurologist and one of the directors of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Columbia University, said while the test is a pretty good indicator, its not perfect. He has seen patients with dementia score greater than 26 and he has seen patients without dementia score below 26.

This is because there are often confounding factors such as the level of education and whether the test is being given in the persons native language. A person with a a high school education in the United States should be able to get 26 to 30, Honig said.

What does scoring 30 out of 30 mean?

If you're looking for Alzheimer's, then you'd be reassured to say that there's no signs of that disease, Nasreddine said, referring to a perfect score on the test.

The Montreal test is not a routine screening test in the same way a colonoscopy or a mammogram are, Honig said.

There's no broad consensus that we should be giving MoCA's to people as part of their wellness examination or general annual physical, he said.

Symptoms that would prompt giving someone the exam include:

patients repeating themselves

losing car keys frequently

forgetting recent events

multiple instances of forgetting conversations

Nasreddine also cautions that this test is not meant to be an IQ test and is not used as a measure of somebodys intelligence.

There are no studies showing that this test is correlated to IQ tests," he said. "The purpose of it was not to determine persons who have a low IQ level. So we cannot say that this test reflects somebody's IQ.
Police in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak fired four shots while chasing down two traffickers smuggling 200 kg of methaphamine this week.

Police in Dak Lak on Thursday said Vu Ba Tenh and a Laotian are under criminal investigation for transporting 200 kg of meth, considered the biggest ever haul in the Central Highlands.

On Monday, police stopped the suspiciously acting men driving a car along Ho Chi Minh Road towards Dak Lak Province for a check.

As officers opened the trunk, the duo tried to escape. Police then fired four warning shots and chased the culprits into a coffee field four kilometers away. The duo were arrested eventually.

Police weigh a meth haul seized in Dak Lak Province on July 20, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Thu Ha.

At the police station, the Laotian admitted on July 18 he was hired by a compatriot to wait near Savannakhet border gate between Vietnam and Laos and transport the drugs to Ho Chi Minh City for $20,000.

Vietnam is a key trafficking hub for narcotics from the Golden Triangle, an intersection of China, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar and the world's second largest drug producing area behind the Golden Crescent in South Asia.

The repeated seizure of large amounts of narcotics has occurred despite Vietnam having some of the worlds toughest drug laws.

Those convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or cocaine or over 2.5 kg of methamphetamine; and those found guilty of production or sale of 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of any other illegal substance can be sentenced to death.
Nigerian Citizens currently living in the United Arab Emirates with expired Visa have been advised by the embassy to leave the United Arab Emirates, UAE, before August 17, 2020 or face wrath of the law.

In a statement titled Public Notice, the Nigerian Embassy called on affected citizens to submit their papers for emigration processing.

According to the statement, The Embassy wishes to inform that the UAE government has declared that waivers on fines/penalties on visas that expired before 1st March 2020 should leave the country before 17th of August.

They also told affected persons to evacuate the country before the date issued by the government.

There is an evacuation flight that is scheduled to depart on 1st of August, the Embassy is therefore advising affected Nigerians living in the UAE to see it as a prime opportunity of leaving the country before the issued date period.

Nigerians affected by this development and wants to return home, should submit their names and passport numbers to the Embassy, so as to get the necessary approval needed for the flight that will be later departing to Nigeria, the Embassy noted.

They further said that this development, is not related to the internet fraudulent dealings perpetrated by some Nigerians, like Abass Ramon also know as Hushpuppi, who was arrested last month, by the police in Dubai.

Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates has also removed Nigeria from countries that are permitted to fly into the Country.
Body of Judge Found Dead In Romania Repatriated To Iran Along With Report

Radio Farda July 22, 2020

A website close to Iran's Supreme National Security Council reported Wednesday that the body of Judge Gholamreza Mansouri who was found dead in Bucharest last month was delivered to Iran on Tuesday.

According to Nour News, the Romanian Police has also submitted a 29-page report to Iranian authorities. However, the website claims that they have so far refused to submit the footage from the cameras of the Bucharest hotel where Mansouri was found dead on June 19 while under observation by the police. He fell from the upper floors of the hotel but its is not clear if there was foul play.

The website said withholding the footage "strengthens suspicions surrounding the case" but did not explain what type of suspicions it was referring to.

The Telegram channel of the Revolutionary Guard-affiliated Fars News Agency on Wednesday quoted the brother of Judge Mansouri as saying that the family had not been informed of the arrival of the body.

Mansouri was wanted in Iran for corruption and was pursued in Germany for human rights violations. Iranian authorities filed a case for his extradition on June 11 for complicity in setting up a criminal group and taking bribes.

Judge Mansouri had allegedly escaped prosecution in Iran for corruption including taking 500,000 euros in bribes and had been visiting Germany before going to Romania.

The news about Mansouri's presence in Europe before his death prompted Iranian human rights activists and Amnesty International to demand his arrest for detaining, torturing and jailing dozens of Iranian journalists.

Romanian Police have not yet clearly stated whether the judge committed suicide or was the victim of a homicide. His brother claims that the judge had told the family that he was worried about his safety and may have been assassinated.

Some lawmakers including Mojtaba Zolnouri, Chairman of the Parliament's Foreign Policy and National Security Committee, have claimed that Mansouri may have fallen victim to "a terrifying gang in the Judiciary".

Mansouri himself told the Romanian court questioning him regarding Iran's demand for his extradition that he was innocent of the corruption charges and had only carried out the orders coming from another judge.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/body-of-judge- found-dead-in-romania-repatriated-to-iran -along-with-report/30741374.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Weighing just 9kg at 10 years of age, Hassan Merzam Muhammad is so emaciated by the severe malnourishment plaguing hundreds of thousands of Yemeni children like him that he can no longer walk.

Fears of famine in Yemen are resurfacing, the United Nations says, with a report warning the country is returning to "alarming" levels of food insecurity.

"My son is sick and I don't know where to take him. He has fever and I've nothing to treat him, I can't even get water," said Zaina Muhammad, mother to Hassan and his six siblings. "Sometimes we go days without washing."

Coronavirus restrictions, reduced remittances, locusts, floods and huge underfunding of this year's aid response have compounded an already dire hunger situation after five years of war.

Resurgent violence in recent weeks between warring parties, despite UN peace efforts, is also killing and injuring civilians.

Famine has never been officially declared in Yemen. UN warnings in late 2018 prompted an aid ramp-up after which the World Food Programme fed up to 13 million a month.

"Now all those improvements are at risk," WFP spokesperson Elisabeth Byrs said. Despite mounting economic and health pressures, the world's largest aid response is scaling back due to insufficient funding.

Nutrition services for 2.5 million children could cease by the end of August. The WFP already in April halved food aid to alternate months in north Yemen.

"They are on the brink of famine but it is not famine yet... It's not too late," Ms Byrs said, appealing to donors.

Displaced five times by war, Hassan's family now live in rural Hajjah, one of the poorest regions, with no income.

"Warplanes circle above us, Houthi armaments are nearby; we cannot move on," Zaina said.

Nurse Makieh al-Aslami watched Hassan's father carry the boy into the malnutrition clinic she runs.

"Hassan has no health problems. His problem is hunger," she said. "Like all children, Hassan needs play, school... It's like he's in a cage, with hunger increasing depression."

Thin and exhausted herself, Aslami says malnutrition is increasing.

The number of malnourished under-fives could rise by 20pc to 2.4 million by year end on funding shortfalls, Unicef has said.

"If we wait for famine to be declared, it will already be too late as people will already be dying," Ms Byrs said earlier this month.
Niagara Regional Police cruisers were damaged, an officer was assaulted and a nurse was bitten Wednesday after a man crossed the Rainbow Bridge into Canada without stopping.

Police said the incident began on the U.S. side of the border, when Niagara Falls, N.Y., police attempted to stop a Ford Explorer bearing a Florida licence plate being driven in an erratic manner.

The driver evaded officers and crossed into Canada at about 2 p.m. without stopping at the border, closed to all non-essential travellers due to the pandemic.

As local police closed in on the suspect vehicle near the intersection of Second Avenue and Kitchener Street in Niagara Falls, police said the suspect attempted to escape capture leading to a collision causing an estimated $7,000 in damage to a police cruiser.

Police said an officer was then assaulted while attempting to arrest the suspect, forcing police to use a conducted energy weapon (Taser) in his capture.

One police officer sustained minor injuries in the incident.

As the suspect was transported to hospital for assessment, police said the man caused an additional $1,000 of damage to another police cruiser by kicking at a window cage.

After arriving at hospital, police said, the suspect then bit a nurse, causing minor injuries to the health-care worker.

Police said the man was in possession of suspected oxycodone and hydrocodone at the time of his arrest.

Harpreet Singh, 33, of North Tonawanda, N.Y., is charged with operation a vehicle while impaired, dangerous operation of a vehicle, flight from a police officer, assault peace officer with intent to resist arrest, mischief under $5,000, possession of a controlled substance and assault.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 19:32:37|Editor: huaxia

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TEHRAN, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The seizure of illicit drugs by the Iranian border police has increased by 87 percent in the first four months of the current Iranian year (began on March 20), compared with the corresponding period last year, commander of the Iranian Border Police was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency on Thursday.

Ahmadali Goodarzi said that 46 tons of various kinds of illicit drugs were captured along the country's borders during the period.

The police have employed electronic and optical systems, radars, drones and thermal cameras to control the borders round the clock, Goodarzi said, adding that they will also be equipped with smart and modern hardware.

Iran has being suffering from drug trafficking given its location at the crossroads of international drug smuggling from Afghanistan to Europe.

Over the past few decades, Iran's eastern and southeastern borders have seen deadly clashes between Iranian security forces and armed drug smugglers. Enditem
Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot has thrown a challenge to get the audio clips, purportedly carrying evidence of Union minister Gajendra Shekhawats involvement in alleged attempts to dislodge Rajasthan government, tested in a forensic lab in the United States to prove its veracity.

Gehlot also said that those, whose voices are alleged to be on the audio clips, should get their voice tested to clear their names in the MLA horse-trading case being investigated by the state police.

If they think they dont trust the Rajasthan government, then they can send the audio-tapes to the FSL agency in the US for a voice test. They should step forward and undergo a voice test, Gehlot was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

In an indirect reference to Shekhawat, Gehlot added that Union ministers, MLAs or MPs give speeches and therefore their voice is easily recognizable.

Shekhawat, a senior BJP leader from Rajasthan, has denied his involvement in the case and rejected claims that one of the voices on the three audio clips being probed by the police is his.

Gehlot dismissed Shekhawats defence and said that the truth will win in the end.

Still, the first reaction always is it wasnt my voice. They are also threatening people. Nothing is going to work. Satyamev Jayate, the news agency quoted him as saying.

Gehlot has upped the ante against Shekhawat and demanded that he subjects himself to the investigation in the case of alleged horse trading of MLAs aimed to overthrow his government. He and his party has accused BJP leaders of hatching the alleged plot in connivance with Congress rebels led by Sachin Pilot, the former deputy chief minister and head of the partys state unit.

Gehlot even wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi last Sunday naming Shekhawat as one of the BJP leaders allegedly involved in the act. He also referred to Sachin Pilot and MLAs supporting him as over ambitious leaders in his own party, who were purportedly hand in glove with the BJP to bring down his government.

Sachin Pilot has denied involvement with the BJP and rejected conjectures that he may join the party soon.

The BJP leaders in Rajasthan have, however, rejected Gehlots accusations and said his government was in trouble due to internal differences with his own party and alleged failure in governance.

Also Read: A mini win for Sachin Pilot in Supreme Court, over to HC at 10.30 am tomorrow

Gehlots government is also locked in a legal battle with Sachin Pilot and his followers over a disqualification notice served to 19 party rebels by the assembly speaker. The Rajasthan High Court is expected to announce its verdict on a petition filed by Pilot, challenging the disqualification notices. Congress has also petitioned the Supreme Court in the same case asking it to prevent any interference in the proceedings before the speaker takes a decision on the matter. The SC, however, refused to stop the high court from announcing its verdict in the case.
An accused Melbourne murderer will remain behind bars after ditching his own bail application, telling a Supreme Court judge 'see you later'.

Andrew Baker is charged with murdering his partner Sarah Gatt.

The 40-year-old's body was found in her Kensington bathtub in January 2018, about eight months after police say she died.

Andrew Baker is charged with murdering his partner Sarah Gatt (pictured)

Baker was refused bail in Victoria's Supreme Court on Thursday, after leaving the virtual hearing. It took place over web conference because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

'I'm not putting up with this s*** any more mate, see you later,' the 53-year-old interrupted as prosecutors detailed allegations against him.

Justice Paul Coghlan continued in Baker's absence, shortly before dismissing his application for bail.

Prosecutors alleged he'd been angry that Ms Gatt chose to be with someone else instead of him.

He also allegedly threatened her in the years leading up to her death, Detective Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall told the court.

'You're dead this time. There will be no warning, you're dead this time,' Baker is accused of telling Ms Gatt after punching her in 2015.

She had gone to police that year, frightened Baker would kill her, Const Eppingstall said.

'I'm really scared he will kill me because he said if he can't have me, no one can,' Ms Gatt said, according to the police officer.

'He's capable of doing it.'

The 40-year-old's body was found in her Kensington bathtub in January 2018, about eight months after police say she died

Baker is accused of repeatedly changing his story about when he last saw or spoke to Ms Gatt.

She was last seen alive by police on April 19, 2017.

Authorities couldn't find any signs of life at the address after April 23. Police found her body in the bath in January the following year.

A blood splatter was also found on the wall outside the bathroom leading to the master bedroom.

Const Eppingstall said Baker was staying at Ms Gatt's Kensington home months after she died.

'I never knew there was a body at Sarah's house,' Baker allegedly told police in one interview.

He's then accused of saying: 'I knew that her body was in the bath.'

With her remains still in the house, Baker allegedly wrote to her saying ''I'm happy it wasn't you (in the bathtub). She had no tattoo on her body, thank f***'.

He never reported her missing and prosecutors told the court the message was part of his plan to construct a false alibi.

Baker also allegedly told police Ms Gatt had been mixed up about who she wanted to be with before she disappeared and this made him 'pissed off'.

His barrister, Sarah Thomas, argued the prosecution case was weak. Justice Coghlan disagreed.

Based on Baker's alleged conduct after Ms Gatt's death, the judge said 'it would be open to a tribunal of fact to find that (he killed her)'.

The blood splatter near the bathroom, the cord around her legs and her disarrayed clothing all pointed to the death being a violent one, Judge Coghlan also said.

He sided with prosecutors' fears Baker risked skipping future court dates if bailed.

He lived a transient life, didn't have stable accommodation and was 'a bit of a loner', the court was told.

Baker is due to appear in Melbourne Magistrates Court on August 3 for a committal mention.
Five bodies found in a house in Old Seemapuri 20 Jan 2022 | 12:36 AM New Delhi, Jan 19 (UNI) Five bodies were found in a house in Old Seemapuri area here on Wednesday. see more..

Central drug authority recommends regular marketing approval of Covishield, Covaxin 20 Jan 2022 | 12:22 AM New Delhi, Jan 19 (UNI) The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) under the Central Drug Regulatory Authority recommended upgrading the status of Covid-19 vaccines Covishield and Covaxin from restricted emergency use to regular marketing authorisation with certain conditions, the Central Drugs Standard and Control Organisation (CDSCO) said on Wednesday. see more..

SC reserves order on suspension of 12 BJP MLAs from Maharashtra Assembly 20 Jan 2022 | 12:07 AM New Delhi, Jan 18 (UNI) The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its order on the petition filed by 12 BJP MLAs from Maharashtra, challenging the Legislative Assembly's July 2021 decision to suspend them for one year for their disorderly conduct in the House. see more..

BRICS Sherpas hold first meeting of 2022 under Beijing's Chairship 19 Jan 2022 | 11:59 PM New Delhi, Jan 19 (UNI) Sherpas from the five BRICS countries  Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa  held their first meeting of 2022 under the chairship of China. see more..
By Aisha Jabbarova

Serbia has launched an official investigation into the use of Serbian weapons during the recent Armenian provocation in border Tovuz region, Azerbaijans Deputy Foreign Ministry Khalaf Khalafov said during the ministrys briefing on July 23.

The Serbian side understands the seriousness of this issue, Khalafov said, adding that under the international law, a weapon producing country is never relieved of the responsibility for arms

Furthermore, Khalafov said that al lelements of fascism are found in the policies pursued by the Armenian authorities. However, the world already understands and accepts the truth," the minister concluded.

It should be noted that Serbia's Charge d'Affaires Danica Veinovic was summoned to the ministry on July 20 over delivery of large amount of military ammunition and mortar from Serbia to Armenia. Veinovic was informed that according to reliable and confirmed information, a large amount of ammunition was sent from Serbia to Armenia, including mortars and ammunition of various calibers.

Serbian Minister of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications Rasim Ljajic told the Nova.rs portal on July 21 that the weapons were exported to Armenia by a private company. He noted that the company had permits from four ministries (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Defence and his own), as well as the countrys top civilian intelligence and security agency the BIA.

The cross-border fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan started on July 12 with Armenia's firing artillery at Azerbaijan's positions in the direction of Tovuz region. Azerbaijani army lost 12 servicemen as a result of Armenian attacks. One civilian was killed as a result of artillery fire by the Armenian armed forces.

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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President Vizcarra recalled that following a past episode with a public official during his tenure as Moquegua Region Governor (2011-2014) he made a promise to always listen to people, a practice he also encourages among State ministers.

#PrimeroMiSalud El presidente @MartinVizcarraC informa sobre las acciones que realiza el Gobierno para combatir el COVID-19 y las medidas implementadas para continuar con la reactivacion economica.

En vivo: https://t.co/c5Z9DY2fjC pic.twitter.com/UDDTvRCcpw
By Express News Service

BHOPAL: A cabinet minister in Shivraj Singh Chouhan government is among the 215 people who tested positive for the deadly COVID-19 in Bhopal on Wednesday.

The minister who hails from the Gwalior-Chambal region, had played a key role in the fall of the 15-month-old Kamal Nath led Congress government during March in Madhya Pradesh.

The minister is among the three close confidants of CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the council of ministers.

Importantly, the concerned minister had along with other ministers also attended the cabinet meeting chaired by the CM in Bhopal on Wednesday.

He had also attended last rites of Governor Lalji Tandon in Lucknow on Tuesday. The Health Department confirmed that he has been admitted at the Chirayu Hospital in the wee hours on Thursday.

Last month during the Rajya Sabha polls, a senior BJP MLA from Malwa-Nimar region had tested positive for the virus.

However, he had tested negative for the killer infection, by the time he was sworn as a cabinet minister during the second cabinet expansion on July 2.

With this so far, four BJP MLAs and three Congress MLAs, including an ex-ministers have tested positive for COVID-19 in the state.

Importantly, Bhopal reported 215 new cases on Wednesday, perhaps the biggest single-day spike in the state capital on any day.

Bhopal has reported close to 4900 cases so far and 149 deaths.

A ten day total lock-down has been ordered in Bhopal, starting from July 24 evening, in the wake of sudden spurt in COVID-19 cases since last 10 days.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 09:12:20|Editor: huaxia

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TRIPOLI, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Eleven unidentified bodies were recovered inside a mass grave in the city of Tarhuna, some 90 km south of the capital Tripoli, the UN-backed government's Ministry of Justice said Wednesday.

"The committee tasked by the Minister of Justice to search for mass graves in the city of Tarhuna, with supervision of the Attorney General's office today, recovered the remains of 11 unidentified blindfolded bodies after discovering a mass grave," the ministry said in a statement.

"The committee will continue the search and recovery work until all the identified locations for mass graves in the city are completed," the statement said.

Before the UN-backed government took control of it, Tarhuna was the main military operation center for the rival east-based army.

Tripoli has witnessed deadly armed clashes between the UN-backed government and the east-based army for more than a year. The UN-backed government has recently announced the takeover of all of western Libya after the withdrawal of the east-based army. Enditem
ANN ARBOR, MI  As discussions continue about potential police reforms in Ann Arbor, one question being raised is whether theres room for alternatives to armed officers.

It came up in a City Council discussion last month and again during a virtual meeting of the citys police oversight commission Tuesday night, July 21.
23.07.2020 LISTEN

The National Organiser of the opposition National Democratic Congress ( NDC) Hon. Joshua Hamidu Akamba has taken his supervision of the ongoing voter registration exercise tour to some registration centers in the Northern and Ashanti Regions of Ghana.

He said his visit to the Regions is to afford him the opportunity to monitor the ongoing Electoral Commissions registration exercise and to assess for himself the level of progress and challenges associated with the exercise.

Hon. Joshua Akamba was accompanied on his nationwide tour to areas like Bawku, Bolga, Tempane, Garu, Tepa among others by some regional party executives of the National Democratic Congress in the Northern and Ashanti Regions.

Speaking to the media after his tour of parts of the Northern Region and Ashanti Region, Hon. Joshua Akamba indicated that he was satisfied with the level of enthusiasm exhibited by the Northern and Ashanti Regional Executives of the Party towards the exercise.

He was quick to add that some officers of the ruling New Patriotic Party are unnecessarily challenging some Ewes and Northerners residents in Tepa in the Ashanti Region.

He however commended the regional, constituency, electoral area, and polling station executives in the Northern and Ashanti region for their dedication to duty and keeping eye on the ongoing voter registration exercise.

He seized the opportunity to call on the executives to be more united and join forces to campaign vigorously for victory come December 7.
Defrocked ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who is already the subject of a Vatican sexual abuse investigation, now faces new allegations that he allegedly ran a sex cabal out of his New Jersey beach house.

In a newly filed lawsuit, an unnamed victim claims McCarrick, now 90 years old, and three other priests molested him beginning when he was 14-years-old during overnight stays at McCarricks Jersey Shore house in 1982.

In the night, with the assistance of others, McCarrick would creep into this kids bed and engage in criminal sexual assault of him, whispering, It is OK, Jeff Anderson, the attorney for the now 53-year-old victim, said at a virtual press conference Wednesday.

The victims attorneys described a scheme of sexual abuse involving at least seven children over dozens of years. Other priests served as procurers to bring victims to McCarrick at his beach house where he assigned sleeping arrangements, choosing his victims from the boys, seminarians and clerics present at the beach house, and paired victims with adult clerics, the suit alleges.

The suit also details abuse the victim experienced at the hands of priests Michael Walters and John Laferrera, who were permanently removed from ministry, and the late Gerald Ruane  all three of whom were on a list of 188 clergy in the state accused of sexual misconduct, NJ.com reported.

Anderson said priests and others under the control of McCarrick engaged in open and obvious criminal sexual conduct that was kept cloaked by the church.

That continued for 50 years until McCarrick, having been publicly exposed, was ultimately defrocked, he said.

The suit was filed Tuesday in New Jersey Superior Court in Middlesex County against the Diocese of Metuchen where McCarrick served as bishop, the Archdiocese of Newark where he was archbishop, and several New Jersey schools the victim attended.

The victim, described as having been raised in a devout Roman Catholic family, attended St. Francis Xavier in Newark and Essex Catholic in East Orange.

Story continues

The lawsuit also describes sexual abuse experienced at St. Francis Xavier, when the victim was an 11-year-old altar boy, by Father Anthony Nardino, and at Essex Catholic by Brother Andrew Thomas Hewitt, the then-principal. Hewitt died in 2002, according to an online obituary. Nardino, who has not been publicly accused before, has left the ministry, NJ.com reported.

Last year, Pope Francis defrocked McCarrick, making him the highest-ranking official in the church to ever be stripped of a title, after a church investigation found he sexually abused minors and adult seminarians. McCarrick has been accused of sexual abuse by James Grein, the first child he baptized, who said McCarrick began molesting him at 11-years-old.

John Bellocchio, a former Catholic schoolteacher and principal, alleged in a lawsuit that McCarrick sexually assaulted him when he was the archbishop of Newark.

When asked for comment, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Newark said in a statement that it would be inappropriate to discuss or comment on matters in litigation.

The Archdiocese of Newark remains fully committed to transparency and to our long-standing programs to protect the faithful and will continue to work with victims, their legal representatives and law enforcement authorities in an ongoing effort to resolve allegations and bring closure to victims, Maria Margiotta said.

Anthony Kearns III, spokesperson and chancellor for the Diocese of Metuchen, told the New York Post the diocese was committed to preventing future sexual abuse.

While we have not yet received the complaint, our prayers are with all survivors of abuse, today and always, and we stand with them in their journey toward healing and hope, he said. With Gods grace, all survivors of abuse, particularly those wounded by members of the Church, will continue to heal and move forward.

More from National Review
2006-02-10 04:00:00 PDT Beijing -- China announced an ambitious plan Thursday to raise the level of science and technology in its industry and military, vowing to double research investment during the next 15 years to increase "overall national strength."

The strategy, outlined by the State Council, or Cabinet, urged defense companies to join in development of new technologies for the civilian economy and civilian firms to participate in military research and supply the People's Liberation Army with high-tech equipment. A new mechanism will be established to foster such civilian-military cooperation and "integrate research and development forces," it said.

The Pentagon warned last week in a quadrennial report that China's military, although still manpower-heavy with 2.2 million people, was making swift strides toward development of high-tech weaponry and tactics that eventually could pose a challenge to U.S. forces in the Pacific.

The Foreign Ministry swiftly countered that China's progress does not pose a threat to anyone. But the strategy announced Thursday made clear that the government intends to push ahead with military modernization as China's scientific and technological abilities rise.

"Basic research has become part of the international competition of overall national strength," the official New China News Agency quoted the plan as saying. "As a rapidly developing country, China must put the emphasis on basic research in order to achieve national goals and solve key problems that could appear in the future."

President Hu Jintao, a hydraulics engineer, repeatedly has cited scientific development as one of China's most pressing needs, as it seeks a balance between official socialist doctrine and booming private enterprise.

Basically, his goal has been to ensure that government decisions are made on accurate and clear-headed criteria -- whether building a chemical factory on a riverbank, for instance, would raise the danger of pollution.

The new plan was aimed more at stimulating basic research, reflecting a desire by Chinese leaders to see their country's industry move to the front line of innovation and discovery.

In nearly 30 years of liberalization and reform, China's economy has grown swiftly -- 9 percent a year recently -- but still is largely founded on cheap labor assembling products conceived and designed elsewhere.

To change that, the Cabinet plan listed 16 key technologies that should receive more support from government and private industry. These included computer software, telecommunications, nuclear energy and a military-managed space program that already has launched two manned flights. To speed progress in these areas, it said, research and development spending should rise swiftly to reach 2.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2020.

"China over the next 15 years will join the list of innovative countries," Hu vowed in a Jan. 9 speech.

In one measure of the distance to cover, however, a spokesman for the Science and Technology Ministry said he was not authorized to say what the research spending level is now. Another ministry official, in the statistics department, said it was 1.23 percent of GDP in 2004, but the 2005 level was not available yet.
SpiceJet has been designated as Indian Scheduled carrier for the flight services to the US, making it the only private Indian air carrier in India and only the second airline after Air India to operate flights to the Unites States under the air bubble agreement.

In a letter to BSE, Spicejet said - "This is to inform you that in terms of the Air Services Agreement between the

Government of India and the Government of the United States of America, SpiceJet has been designated as Indian scheduled carrier to operate on agreed services between India and the USA."

Ajay Singh, Chairman & Managing Director, SpiceJet said, It gives me immense pleasure to share that SpiceJet has been designated as an Indian scheduled carrier to operate between India and the US. This designation would help us plan for our international expansion in a much better and calibrated manner. I have always maintained that there is an opportunity in every adversity and the present crisis situation has seen SpiceJet rise to the occasion and play a pivotal role. From operating over 4300 cargo flights to carrying over 24,000 tons of cargo to operating over 400 charter flights to bring back thousands of stranded Indian nationals back home, SpiceJet has worked non-stop and contributed in whatever manner possible.

Spicejet currently operate single aisle narrow body aircrafts for it domestic flights and also international operations to the gulf countries under Mission Vande Bharat. However, for operations to the US, they would need wide body aircrafts.

SpiceJet CMD Ajay Singh earlier said that all Indian airlines need to start looking for wide-body aircraft now as it would allow them to take passengers directly from India to different parts of the world.

In India, only Air India and Vistara have wide-body aircraft like B787 in their fleet. All other airlines have narrow-body aircraft or even smaller regional aircraft in their fleet.

"I think we all as Indian carriers need to look at a wide-body option now. But it has to be supported strongly by government policy. If you are going to allow the network carriers, people who are in the Gulf and in the Far East to just keep billions of dollars from their government and keep undercutting us, then it is very difficult to do (operate wide-body aircraft)," he said at a webinar.

Also Watch:

During the pre-COVID era, the majority of international air traffic in India was being handled by foreign carriers. A significant section of air traffic of Gulf carriers like Etihad and Emirates used to come from India.

Wide-body aircraft like B787 and A350 have bigger fuel tanks that allow them to operate long haul flights. Narrow-body aircraft like A320 and B737 are for short-haul or medium-haul flights. Scheduled international passenger flights have been suspended in India since March 23 due to the coronavirus-triggered lockdown.

Under the fourth phase of Vande Bharat Mission, Air India has announced 180 flights to the US.

In June the US Department of Transportation (DoT) had said that it would restrict charter flights from India, accusing New Delhi of engaging in "discriminatory and restrictive practices".

Following the announcement, the Civil Aviation Ministry said that it has received requests from several countries, including the US, France and Germany for allowing their air carriers to participate in the transportation of passengers along the line being conducted by Air India under the Vande Bharat Mission and that the ministry was examining the requests.
When Houston ISD made the decision to switch to online classes for fall, several parents in Houston's West University neighborhood weren't fond of that decision. Now, they're making their voices are heard.

"Children thrive from social interaction, learning from their peers, competing with their peers, comparing themselves to their peers, putting on clothes and presenting themselves, and learning manners each day inside the classroom, " West U. mom Christine Flood told ABC-13.

'WE NEED TO SLOW VIRUS DOWN': Houston's top doc warns of worst-case scenario

Flood and some of the other West U. parents are gearing up for a Red Apple protest on July 27. Red Apple organizers plan to protest each Monday at West University Elementary at 8 a.m.

"A month ago, there was a forum where it was a consensus that we would have more than just one option of only virtual learning," Flood said in an interview with ABC-13. "That there would be more options of in-person learning."

The other issue Flood mentioned was that virtual learning was only a part of the full job of instruction.

"Virtual teaching is only half the job, so it will only be half the pay or less because parents are giving up their time that could be spent otherwise at work," Flood said in the interview.

Harris County Department of Education's Lydia Zatopek responded to the concerns by saying that parents and teachers should try the online approach for fall.

"They didn't sign up to be fully online, but that's unfortunately the situation that we're living in," Zatopek said. "Hopefully it's not permanent. We know that. It's going to end eventually."

Houston parents are now weighing in on the West University protest on social media. Some are fairly vocal about their frustration over online learning, while others are relieved that kids won't have exposure or risk to the virus in the online setting.

"Well let them get certified and go in the classroom and teach during these trying times. Parents are being held more accountable for their child's learning. It's a problem. No child should be lacking educationally. We have too much down time for this to be considered a problem," Facebook user, Marcia Poole commented.

"Yes, Kids need to be in school. BUT the school districts have the responsibility to make necessary safety conditions. If a nail salon can do it, surely they can." Facebook user, SP Parker commented.

"It's not only about whether or not students will get sick. We could bring the virus home and give it to our parents. My brother takes medication that weakens his immune system. And no vaccine will lead to the worst outcome," Facebook user, Lizzie Green commented.

alison.medley@chron.com
The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday (July 23) heard Rajasthan Assembly Speaker CP Joshi's petition challenging Rajasthan High Court order barring Joshi from conducting disqualification proceedings against Sachin Pilot and 18 other rebel Congress MLAs, till July 24 (Friday).

During the hearing, the SC asked Kapil Sibal, who appeared for Rajasthan Speaker CP Joshi, "On what grounds disqualification was sought?"

Sibal responded saying that the dissident MLAs failed to attend party meet and indulging in anti-party activities. The MLAs are in a Haryana hotel, incommunicado and called for floor test against their own party.

Sibal started the argument by saying, The court cannot direct the Speaker to extend the time to file their replies to the anti-defection notices. Its not in the jurisdiction of the court. Rajasthan HC was wrong in issuing a direction to the Speaker. This is against settled law on this point.

Sibal said that sweeping discretion is available with the Speaker and his decision on disqualification may be subject to judicial review, but the Court has no power on anything that happens before the disqualification process.

The SC asks Sibal, "Can't the court interfere if the Speaker disqualifies an MLA?" Sibal responded saying, "Yes, but intervention can only be after the decisions are taken."

Sibal also said that the Speaker cannot be directed to extend the time to file their replies to the anti-defection notices. He argued that this is beyond the the jurisdiction of the court.

Sibal said, "The argument is that prior to the decision of the Speaker, no intervention by court can be done unless there is a suspension by the Speaker or an interlocutory disqualification happens."

The SC bench then asked Sibal has the high court heard the matter on the interlocutory disqualification issue? Sibal responded saying that the HC has heard the issue and it's part of grounds in Speaker's petition.

Sibal said that why the rebel MLAs can't go to court saying that Speaker cannot issue notice. He claimed that all MLAs are in Haryana and incommunicado.

"Whip moves a notice when a member voluntarily wishes to leave, or indicates it. Sachin Pilot camp had talked to media and said they wanted a floor test. Their actions conveyed that they wished to leave - refused to attend party, went to a hotel in Haryana and were incommunicado," Sibal said.

Supreme Court asks, Has the party accepted the resignation. We have to decide whether this is permissible.

The SC also asked Sibal that HC is set to deliver verdict on July 24, then why can't Speaker Joshi wait for one more day.

The top court also asked Sibal's view on intra-party democracy. Sibal responded saying, "It is for the MLAs to explain. They should come back and say they were in a vacation. They are exercising free speech, etc. The apex court asks if a whip can be issued for attending a party meeting. Sibal denies Speaker CP Joshi issued a whip for the meeting and says, it was only a notice not a whip."
MOSCOW -- For nearly two weeks, residents of the Russian city of Khabarovsk have been protesting following the July 9 arrest of the region's popular governor, Sergei Furgal. After President Vladimir Putin named a Moscow-based politician with no ties to the Far Eastern region as Furgal's temporary replacement, the protests took a sharply anti-Moscow turn.

"Twenty years and we don't trust you," protesters chanted on July 21, referring to Putin's two decades in power as president or prime minister. "Putin, resign!" "We are the power here."

Although the protests have been largest in the city of Khabarovsk, demonstrations have also been held in Komsomolsk-on-Amur and other cities across the Khabarovsk region, as well as sympathy rallies in other Far East cities such as Vladivostok and Birobidzhan.

At the same time, the entire country remains anxious about the frightening but not yet fully understood economic fallout of the global coronavirus pandemic and is still coping with the hasty adoption of some 200 constitutional amendments that, among other things, seem designed to pave the way for Putin to remain in power until 2036.

With Putin's personal popularity rating falling and the ruling United Russia party widely held in contempt, some observers have speculated that the Khabarovsk unrest could be harbinger of broader discontent in the coming months. In 2005, they recall, more than 500,000 people in dozens of cities participated in demonstrations against a controversial social-benefits reform. The presidential administration was shocked by images of people carrying posters comparing Putin to Adolf Hitler and by the fact that many local administrations tacitly or openly backed the anti-Moscow anger.

'Emotional' Response

However, the current situation in Khabarovsk seems to be undergirded by specific local conditions and that, in turn, could limit the chances of the protests that have gripped the region metastasizing, experts say.

The Khabarovsk unrest "has primarily an emotional foundation," says Moscow-based economist Sergei Zharovonkov, suggesting that its thickest roots lie not in objective economic conditions but in a long-simmering mistrust of the central government brought to a boil by the actions of the authorities -- from Putin to prosecutors -- in the last two weeks.

"I have looked at the economic statistics of the Khabarovsk region and this dynamic of the situation there is better than average for Russia in terms of productivity and wages," he told RFE/RL's Russian Service. "It is an emotional thing."

Surprisingly, the emotional basis of the protests might be hope, rather than despair.

Economist Andrei Nechayev says that residents of Khabarovsk are primarily angry that Moscow reached into their region and removed a governor who was elected with a huge mandate in 2018 and whose popularity has only grown since.

"And Moscow not only removed him, but put him in prison," Nechayev says. "Metaphorically speaking, it was a political slap in the face to the region."

Furgal was elected in 2018, gaining more than 70 percent of the vote in a runoff election with the United Russia incumbent. On July 9 he was arrested in Khabarovsk on suspicion of involvement in two murders and an attempted murder in the mid-2000s and trundled off to a Moscow jail for possible trial.

In a post on Facebook on July 22, sociologist Anastasia Nikolskaya said the previous United Russia governor, Vyacheslav Shport, was overwhelmingly viewed in the region as "a Kremlin puppet who was trying to rob the region."

The election of Furgal was widely interpreted as a show of regional independence. Moreover, Furgal unexpectedly turned out to be "a good governor," Nikolskaya wrote, "the kind of leader for which demand in the country has been high for some time."

He ran a transparent administration, televising government sessions and focusing on practical issues that in many cases were brought to his attention by constituents, she wrote, and raised local expectations by showing that "interaction between the people and the authorities, as well as transparency and accountability was possible."

"The popularly elected governor did really orient himself toward the people," Moscow-based political and economic analyst Vladislav Inozemtsev says. "Maybe he didn't do everything perfectly, but he was a populist in the positive sense of the word and that, undoubtedly, captured the public mood."

Looking East, Not West

Economist Zharovonkov argues that in many cases the protest potential of a population increases with prosperity and raised expectations. He points to the examples of Ukraine in 2004 and 2014, when people rose up at a time of significant economic growth. Closer to home, he says, Russians did not take to the streets during the economic collapse of 2008-09, but did protest in large numbers in 2011-12, when the possibility that Putin would not return to the presidency after the one-term tenure of Dmitry Medvedev vanished.

"People might revolt when they get some money, some confidence, when their basic needs are met and they aren't thinking just about survival but about freedom, human rights, and personal dignity," he says.

Expectations in the Khabarovsk region, as well as in other parts of the Far East and eastern Siberia, have also been raised by the region's proximity to China and other East Asian economic success stories.

"People there see that not only is Russia not developing, but the region borders China and has access to Southeast Asia and people see the real development happening there," analyst Inozemtsev says. "That is, on one side they see the Kremlin's demagoguery and stagnation and on the other side they see a rapidly developing territory that 20 years ago was much poorer than Russia but now looks like heaven on Earth.

"That is why I think the Far East and eastern Siberia as a whole are going to be major problems for the central authorities," he concludes.

Solving that problem will take more than high-profile special projects that have historically benefited the Moscow-connected interests that are granted the construction tenders more than local economies.

"I am not sure that you can spend some money on onetime payments or start some sort of project in the region like building a new hospital or opening a new school," economist Nechayev says. "I don't know to what extent that will satisfy people in Khabarovsk or reduce the 'protest fever.'"

The solution, Inozemtsev believes, may be something that will be profoundly difficult for Putin's centralized government to offer. "They don't need to buy something for anyone," he says. "They need to stop pressing on people. As in any frontier territory, doing that might produce results."

"But trying to give money through centralized programs or through new ministries will only bureaucratize the situation and make it worse, in my opinion," he adds.

Written by Robert Coalson based on reporting from Moscow by Mikhail Sokolov of RFE/RL's Russian Service. Yelena Rykovtseva of RFE/RL's Russian Service also contributed to this report, with additional reporting from Khabarovsk by the Siberia Desk of RFE/RL's Russian Service
Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday accused the state government of large scale corruption in Covid-19 management and demanded a judicial inquiry by a sitting High Court judge.

Misappropriation by @CMofKarnataka & his ministers is more than 2,000 Cr. Inhumane act at a time of pandemic distress. There should be a judicial enquiry by a sitting high court judge and there should be a discussion in the assembly, Siddaramaiah, leader of opposition in the state assembly, tweeted.

In another tweet, Siddaramaiahn said the Karnataka government was paying substantially more for ventilators than what others have.

Central govt has procured 50,000 ventilators under PM Cares at a cost of 4, lakh per unit. Tamil Nadu has procured at 4.78 lakh. But in our state, the price is between 5.6 lakh to 18.2 lakh.

He also took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modis call for a self-reliant India claiming that chief minister B S BS Yediyurappas government was importing Chinese medical equipment at exorbitant cost.

On one hand @PMOIndia advocates Aatma Nirbhar Bharat but here in Karnataka, his own Chief Minister @BSYBJP, has procured hundreds of crores worth Made in China medical equipment at exorbitant price. Is this not hypocrisy? he said in another tweet.

The Congress leader said the party will continue to cooperate with the government in saving peoples lives in the pandemic but insisted that we will not cooperate with corruption and looting of money.

The government dismissed the charges saying no irregularities have taken place in the procurement of medical equipment to fight the pandemic .

Health Minister B Sriramulu said, I said it before and I am saying it now -- no irregularities have taken place, according to PTI.

On Tuesday, during an address to the people of Karnataka, chief minister Yediyurappa had said, Not one rupee has been misused.
Recovered 50-year-old Delhi cop tests positive again, raises question if coronavirus can reinfect?

India

pti-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, July 23: The case of a Delhi policeman having a relapse of the novel coronavirus has baffled experts and the doctors treating him and has raised the question whether a recovered patient can contract the infection again.

The policeman, 50, had tested positive for the virus in May and was treated at the Indraprastha Apollo hospitals between May 15 and 22. Thereafter, he had tested negative and resumed duty. However, on July 10, he again felt unwell with a fever and dry cough and got himself tested on July 13.

7-day paid institutional quarantine for international passengers arriving at Delhi airport

The report came positive through the rapid antigen test as well as the RT-PCR test, said Dr Rajesh Chawla, Senior Consultant, Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Apollo Hospitals.

The policeman, who has no other underlying ailment, complained of chest pain on July 16 and was admitted to the hospital, the senior doctor said, adding that he is stable and his vitals are being monitored.

"The first time he was tested for coronavirus, he had no symptoms. There was a camp in the hospital and since his friend got tested, he also got tested and came positive, he told PTI.

The second time the policeman was tested for antibodies too, but it was found that he did not have antibodies, he said. What could be the reasons for the relapse of infection? "If it was within a month, said Dr Chawla, I would have said that it was a dead virus that was giving a positive result. But that is not the case.

The other thing could be that it was a false positive when he was tested the first time, although it is very rare in RT-PCR test but still it can occur. The third, of course, is reinfection because he did not have antibodies. I have not seen any other such patient," he said.

Dr Mugdha Tapdiya, Senior Consultant, Internal Medicine, Fortis Hospital, Vasant Kunj, concurred with Dr Chawla. It is possible that a right level of antibodies was not developed against the virus which meant that when the patient was exposed again, he got reinfected, she said. She also did not rule out the possibility that the first result was a false positive.

Earlier this week, a similar case had surfaced in the national capital after a nurse employed at a civic-run dedicated COVID-19 hospital had tested positive again after recovering. However, the municipal authorities had claimed there was nothing to worry as it is ostensibly the dead virus left in her body from the previous infection. The officials had said that her IgG antibody level is very high, which also corroborates this explanation".

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

Bengaluru top cop Bhaskar Rao quarantines himself after driver tests COVID positive

Explaining the recurrence of the infection, Krishnan Harshan, a virologist with the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, said these could be "sporadic cases".

"There are two aspects to it. If the virus is found again in recovered patients, there is either some problem with the test or there is some issue with the immunity of the people who have been re-infected," he told PTI.

The immunity against the virus also stays in the body for sometime, he said, adding that unlike the HIV, which is a latent virus and integrates with the genome of the host, the coronavirus doesn't show anything like that.

Dr Tapdiya it has been a matter of study all over the world. "There have been a few places like Korea, China where there was recurrence or relapse of infection. Actually there are two sets of patients where it has been seen -- first the disease was mild, and in the second episode, it became severe. In the second set of patients, the disease was moderate or severe in the first instance and then in the second instance also, it was severe. "But at no point in both the cases it was proven that in the first case when the patient was asymptomatic it was a false positive and when he came positive the second time, it was a true positive," she said.

The senior doctor also said that recovered patients lower their guard and they become a little bold thinking they won't contract the infection again after catching it once.

"It has also been seen that people who have had a milder infection or are asymptomatic, do not have enough immunity, which is also a theory proposed. "It is very important that for every mild and asymptomatic test beyond the 14th day, we should get an antibody test done for testing their immunity. At no point, they should lower the guard," Tapdiya added. As of now, you are at an equal risk of contracting the infection again.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 16:32 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668c565f 1 Entertainment Netflix,streaming-service Free

Netflix has released its best-performing original movies, with Extraction taking first place followed by Bird Box, Spenser Confidential, and 6 Underground.

The company has been private about viewership statistics in the past and has only recently begun to share some data in the form of quarterly financial results. This time, it released its 10 most popular original movies.

The following list shows the number of views gained in the first four weeks after release:

Extraction  99 million views Bird Box  89 million views Spenser Confidential  85 million views 6 Underground  83 million views Murder Mystery  83 million views The Irishman  64 million views Triple Frontier  63 million views The Wrong Missy  59 million views The Platform  56 million views The Perfect Date  55 million views

There is genre diversity within the list, with the top four being action/thrillers with actors like Chris Hemsworth, Sandra Bullock, Mark Wahlberg and Ryan Reynolds. There are also three comedies as well as an adult drama (The Irishman).

Netflix counts watching at least 2 minutes of a movie as a view.

Read also: Education ministrys partnership with Netflix met with criticism in Indonesia

Every movie on the list was released in the past three years, and most of them were within the last year. With Netflix gaining 43.6 million customers since the beginning of 2019, each new release is more likely to be watched by more people than previous movies.

With lower general cinema attendance, Netflix produces movies with genres that would usually fill theaters such as comic book adaptations, animations and low-budget horror.

As a result, filmmakers and familiar names in Hollywood have turned to the streaming service to get their projects done. This includes the Russo Brothers (directors of Marvel movies) who co-wrote and produced Extraction. Other filmmakers like Michael Bay, Susanne Bier and Peter Berg have done so as well, earning their name on the list.

Netflix has had particular success with the global pandemic closing theaters and most of the world turning to streaming devices that they can enjoy at home. It has also released more original movies than any major Hollywood studio in the past few years.

We want an impactful movie every two weeks, said head of Netflixs film division Scott Stuber as quoted by Bloomberg. For one person, thats Extraction. For another, its The Wrong Missy. (car/kes)
Jensen wrote that he gets a bit agitated when I hear someone say, Why hasnt the board looked into this? I spent more hours digging into this garbage during the pandemic and being at home than I did building a city budget. The truth is, my findings make people uncomfortable  including vendors, staff and board members. Just like when our bankers asked me to personally dig into this stuff  it made folks uncomfortable.

At the Feb. 24 board meeting in Lincoln, I instructed Lori Cox to disclose that data had been wiped from the computers of the finance team, and she did, Jensen wrote. I was upset that there had been no public disclosure of this information prior to that day. I also publicly stated that the days of taking advantage of the fair were over, and the NSF had become a cash cow for nefarious persons to scam the fair. I knew that it was being done both legally, and illegally, and I went as far as to say that it would be really easy to set up a fake company and send the NSF fake invoices, because there were no procedures in place to prevent it from happening. After this meeting, I gave Lori Cox specific instructions of what I wanted her team to look into  which included examining every check that was posted to our bank account that had an amount in excess of $5,000 to verify its validity.
The world is fighting the coronavirus pandemic and while individuals and organisations have pitched in, there is always room for some generosity.

Earnings of millions of people have taken a hit due to the pandemic and hundreds of people have stepped forward to help each other.

In Tamil Nadu's Madurai, a tea-seller is setting a shining example of generosity.

ANI

Tamilarasan, a tea seller in Alanganallur, Madurai spends a part of his earnings to feed the poor and homeless people during these tough times.

"I sell tea on a bicycle every morning and evening in the surrounding villages of Alankanallur, Mettupatti and Pudupatti from which I get decent daily income," Tamilarsan told news agency ANI.

Tamil Nadu: Tamilarasan, a tea seller in Alanganallur, Madurai spends a part of his earnings to feed poor and homeless people. He says, "I sell tea on a bicycle every morning & evening. I also provide food and water to the needy people out of my meagre earnings." (22.07.20) pic.twitter.com/z1qMWj7ezw  ANI (@ANI) July 22, 2020

"Whenever I sell tea, I give free to the poor and needy who flock at the roadside and near the temple gates. I also reserve a portion of my income which goes solely into feeding them thrice a day," he added.

He also said that his dream was of setting up his own shop in the region and helping more people who belong to a weak economic background. He said that he had applied for a loan in the past but the application got rejected as he had no collaterals to provide to the bank.
A woman pours black tiger shrimps on the processing table at Cafatex shrimp and pangasius catfish factory in the Mekong delta province of Hau Giang. Photo by Reuters/Kham.

Vietnams shrimp exports increased by 5.7 percent year-on-year in H1 to $1.5 billion despite the impacts of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Shipments to the U.S., one of its major markets, grew by 29 percent to $323.3 million in the first six months of the year, or 21.2 percent of Vietnams exports, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP).

In the U.S., Vietnamese shrimp enjoyed a competitive advantage since India and Ecuador suffered from supply chain disruptions due to lockdown.

Japan, Vietnams second largest shrimp market, accounted for 18.3 percent of all shipments with $278.2 million worth of imports, up 1.9 percent from the same period last year.

However, exports to the EU fell 7 percent to $200 million.

VASEP expected shrimp prices to increase, saying inventories in key markets such as Japan, the U.S. and the EU are shrinking.

Vietnam's shrimp exports were worth $3.38 billion last year, 5 percent down from 2018.
Four nurses heard a correctional officer shout the words as he beat a handcuffed prisoner with an expandable baton in the medical unit at Ventress Correctional Facility in December 2018.

I am the reaper of death, now say my name! the nurses recounted him as yelling, as the prisoner begged the officer to kill him.

That was only one story in a grim 30-page report released Thursday by the U.S. Justice Department detailing violence against prisoners by correctional officers in Alabamas mens prisons.

In page after page, the report detailed incidents involving officers who beat prisoners, used chemical agents on them, and employed excessive force for even the smallest perceived infractions, sometimes with deadly results. And the DOJ was able to document the incidents despite the fact that the Alabama Department of Corrections would not allow correctional officers to be interviewed for the investigation, blocked certain documents from investigators, and the DOJ had to take the ADOC to court to release others.

The report stated that evidence shows that Alabama state prisons do not protect male inmates from excessive use of force - such as punching, striking with a baton, kicking, and chemical agents - by correctional officers. This likely violates the prisoners constitutional rights. The DOJs findings come after the agency began investigating conditions in Alabama state prisons in 2016, and after DOJ put Alabama on notice last year when it found the state routinely violating prisoners constitutional rights by failing to prevent inmate-on-inmate violence and sexual assault.

DOJ: Reasonable cause that excessive force in Alabama prisons violates Constitution

As with the 2019 report, the DOJ concludes that many acts of violence can be attributed to Alabamas overcrowded and understaffed prisons. Officers may find themselves in close quarters with violent and resistant prisoners, and without supervision. This leads to a lack of accountability, with officers ignoring use of force policies, training and discipline. This leads to problems such as how officers use chemical spray, sometimes against secure prisoners in locked cells. The report found no evidence of practices of sexual abuse among correctional officers, however.

Such uses of force heighten tensions in already violent and overcrowded prisons, the report notes. Failing to de-escalate these situations properly endangers the safety of prisoners and staff. Correctional officers also use force as a form of retribution and for the sole purpose of inflicting pain. Such uses of force violate the Eighth Amendment.

The report came after tours of four prisons, 800 telephone interviews with prisoners and family members, and more than 400 letters from prisoners. It found that in the year 2017 alone, the Alabama Department of Corrections documented 1,800 uses of force. While some force may be justified, investigators said, a statistically significant set from a six-month period showed a large number of reported uses of force were not legally justified.

In 2017, six percent of all reported uses of force occurred at the Bullock mens prison. But that facility accounted for 55% of all referrals for corrective action among Alabamas prisons. Documentation and investigation of uses of force also vary greatly between prisons, with some reports continuing vague language copied from previous reports, and sometimes reported months later.

With the Ventress incident, two nurses in the room witnessed the beating, while two others could hear it from adjacent rooms. One of the nurses saw the officer place his palms against the wall and his right foot against the side of the prisoners face, grinding his head into the floor. After a nurse told the officer to calm down, he paced the floor with the prisoners blood on his clothing, and told the nurses they did not see anything.

The prisoner did not antagonize the officer before the beating and his hands were handcuffed behind his back, the report stated. There was no indication from documents that the matter was referred for prosecution or that the officer was disciplined.

Other incidents were just as gruesome.

One involved a February 2019 incident at Elmore that resulted in federal charges against three ADOC employees. Two prisoners were detained after jumping a fence to receive contraband. One prisoner was punched, kicked and struck 19 times with a baton on the head, legs, arms, back and body. He defecated on himself as a result. Another prisoner was shoved against a wall and struck three times with a baton and kicked. The assaults were seen by four other employees.

A prisoner at St. Clair Correctional Facility in October 2016 stabbed a correctional officer with a prison-made knife through a tray door when he was ordered to be handcuffed to go to the shower. After spraying the prisoner in the face with a chemical agent, he and another officer began escorting the prisoner to the healthcare unit. Then, in what was a termed a mob of officers, at least six other correctional officers rushed toward the prisoner, screaming that he would not be allowed to just be taken to the infirmary.

Despite orders to stand down as the prisoner was in handcuffs, three officers tackled the prisoner to the ground and began beating him with a baton and closed fists, as well as stomping him. One officer pushed back another who attempted to intervene. There was no documented disciplinary action against the officers, the report stated.

One Ventress prisoner was beaten several times during a September 2017 incident where a nurse believed he was high. The prisoner was sprayed with a chemical agent after he masturbated in front of the officer. After being cuffed, the prisoner began thrashing and a cooler of water and ice was dumped on him. At the medical unit, an officer threatened to kill the prisoner if he did not control himself. When he continued to thrash, the officer kicked him several times in the stomach and chest, while another hit him several times with a shoe in the genitals. Both officers were eventually arrested for other offenses, including smuggling contraband.

Regardless of whether this initial use of force was reasonable, what followed was excessive, the report said.

A Bullock correctional officer was questioned after he lost his composure and struck a prisoner twice with a wooden baton for walking through the dining line a second time. The officer blamed his actions on having to work in an area where he had previously been assaulted and the stress of working 12 hours a day for 10 of the previous 11 days.

The officer stated that he would have hit the prisoner even if the warden had been standing nearby, the report stated.

An officer in Statons health care unit in July 2018 punched a handcuffed prisoner in the face with a closed fist after the prisoner stuck out his tongue. An internal investigation found the officer used unnecessary force. Less than a year later, that same officer was arrested at the prison for attempting to smuggle contraband drugs in.

An incident at Kilby in July 2017 involved an officer who saw a prisoner working in the kitchen give some leftover chicken to another prisoner. The officer ordered the prisoner to eat all the leftover chicken as two officers watched, and one slapped him when he failed to finish.

Related stories:

Alabama can adequately staff prisons, ADOC tells judge

How many inmates died in Alabamas prisons in 2019?

Alabama prison guards allegedly beat, hog-tied, ignored inmate who later died: Secret report

Other stories related to prisons
Australians could fly into a fifth New Zealand destination by the end of the decade, with plans afoot to build a second airport near South Island's ski heartland.

Tarras, a tiny farming community best known until now as the home of runaway merino sheep 'Shrek', has been identified as the site for a new international airport.

The owners of Christchurch Airport have already spent $NZ45 million ($A42 million) on land acquisition and initial work on a site less than half an hour's drive from the resort town of Wanaka.

Australians could fly into a fifth New Zealand destination by the end of the decade, with plans afoot to build a second airport near South Island's ski heartland

They expect to spend hundreds of millions more in the coming years, and will now consult locals before building an airport capable of handling jet aeroplanes capable of crossing the Tasman.

'Today is the first time we've announced those plans publicly,' Christchurch Airport boss Malcolm Johns told Radio NZ.

'Our top priority now is a conversation with the people who live closest to the site.

'This is their home and it's important they are given the opportunity to ask us their questions directly and understand our thinking.'

The site is an hour's drive northeast of Queenstown and five hours' drive southwest of Christchurch.

Mr Johns said the onset of COVID-19 could see them 'sit on the land' for years, but with Queenstown Airport reaching its capacity 'sometime in the next decade', they were keen to pick up the slack.

'The conversation has been bubbling around for a couple of years around the availability of aviation infrastructure in the lower South Island,' he said.

'Best case scenario we might open in five years. But Queenstown will fill up first.

'This airport is designed as an 'and'. So there will be Queenstown 'and' this airport ... it's not an either-or.

'Looking at it over the next 50 years, there's no question those communities are going to need more infrastructure.'

New Zealand has four major international airports accessible from Australia; Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown.

Regular travel has currently been suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, though both the Australian and New Zealand governments are keen to resume normal air flows within months when Australian cases drop.
Versatile Ghanaian artiste, Ahkan, has over the past delivered a masterpiece featuring viral internet sensations AY Poyoo, Shatta Bandle and Ablekuma Lace.

According to Akhan, music loving fans saw them as comedians but he saw them as great music exports.

"As we all know, AY Poyoo has attracted some Hollywood attention over the past months while Shatta Bandle is very well known across Africa.

"So deciding to put them together was strictly for business purposes but not comical. I believe these guys are talented in their own ways and Ghanaians should not underrate them,'' he said in an interview.

The song titled "Blessing" has been one of the top trending songs on social media with music loving fans excited with the delivery by all the artistes and has been regarded as one of the best collaborations for the year.

Here is a link of the music video: https://youtu.be/YTXnZ5wJOLg

---GNA
Conservatives call for Morneau's resignation as finance minister says he repaid $41K in WE trip expenses

Finance Minister Bill Morneau is facing calls to resign after telling MPs that he cut a cheque for over $41,000 to repay travel expenses incurred by the WE organization related to two 2017 trips his family took with the organization.

Morneau said he wrote the cheque today  prior to going before the House of Commons finance committee to answer questions about his government's decision to task WE with administering a $912-million student volunteering program.

Morneau said that after conducting a review of his family's finances in recent days, he found documentation confirming that he already had repaid $52,000 in expenses for hotels and flights related to the trips to Ecuador and Kenya to view the organization's humanitarian work  but failed to locate receipts related to the WE programming he and his family members participated in during the trips.

After reaching out to the WE organization to learn the total amount of expenses WE incurred, Morneau said, he had his assistant write a cheque for $41,366.

"I expected and always had intended to pay the full cost of these trips, and it was my responsibility to make sure that was done," Morneau told MPs on the committee.

"Not doing so, even unknowingly, is not appropriate. I want to apologize for this error on my part."

Morneau also said his family has made two donations totalling $100,000 to the We Charity  one in April 2018 and one in June of this year  to support the charitable organization's work with students in Canada and for COVID-19 relief in Kenya, respectively.

"The work that WE and organizations like them do is important to me," Morneau said.

Liberal government embroiled in controversy

The revelations come as the Liberal government is under fire for its close ties to the charity organization it chose to administer its student volunteer program, the Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG).

Neither Morneau nor Prime Minister Justin Trudeau  who also has family ties to WE  recused themselves from cabinet discussions on awarding the contract, which would have seen WE receive more than $43.5 million to oversee the program.

Story continues

The decision to give WE sole responsibility for the program has been widely criticized since it emerged that the organization has paid Trudeau's mother and brother hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees, and that Morneau's daughter is employed by WE's travel division.

Both Morneau and Trudeau are being investigated by the federal ethics watchdog for possible violations of conflict of interest rules.

WATCH: Finance Minister Bill Morneau on repaying expenses to WE Charity

Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre said Canadians will find it hard to believe that Morneau didn't know about thousands of dollars of travel expenses the organization covered  particularly since he's a cabinet minister forbidden from accepting such a benefit.

"We know that this is illegal. We know that you ought to have recused yourself," Poilievre said, referring to the decision on the student grant program.

He then called on Morneau to resign.

"Minister, you've lost the moral authority to hold your office."

WATCH: Pierre Poilievre asks Bill Morneau to resign

WE Charity says it invited the Morneau-McCain family on the trips to see the "impact of its development projects" that they funded.

"WE Charity extended the invitation to Nancy McCain and Bill Morneau because they are well-known philanthropists with a history of significant donations to international development programs," the organization said in a statement late Wednesday.

"Nancy McCain and her daughter visited WE Charity projects in Kenya in July 2017 as part of a larger tour of local charity programs funded by the Morneau-McCain family."

Opposition politicians have accused the Liberal government of playing favourites and choosing to reward the organization, formerly known as Free The Children, which is run by well-known philanthropists Craig and Marc Kielburger.

On Tuesday, Clerk of the Privy Council Ian Shugart said he couldn't see not having the finance minister and prime minister involved in discussions about a program as big in scope and price as the CSSG.

However, Canada's top bureaucrat said he wasn't offering a judgment on whether the two should have recused themselves.

A spokesperson for the Prime Minister's Office backed Morneau in a statement to CBC News.

"Minister Morneau was upfront with the committee and transparent with Canadians today," Press Secretary Alex Wellstead said. "Since the beginning of pandemic, he has worked relentlessly with his colleagues in cabinet to deliver critical support to Canadians. Minister Morneau is continuing to do this work that Canadians rely on."

Morneau offers details of WE discussions

Morneau offered new details about discussions between his office and WE Charity prior to the June 25 announcement that WE would administer the CSSG.

According to his version of events, officials in his office reached out to WE on April 7 along with a dozen other organizations to solicit ideas for how the government could assist young people during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The program that would become the CSSG was still in the development stage.

WATCH | Morneau repaid WE $41K in travel expenses; Trudeau to testify

Two days later, Morneau said, WE submitted a proposal focusing on a social entrepreneurship program. That proposal was unrelated to the CSSG, the details of which were not announced until April 22.

The minister said officials raised the possibility of relying on a third party to administer the CSSG in a briefing with him for the first time on April 18, and cited the WE Charity as an example of a group doing similar work.

In the following days, Morneau said, WE shared a second proposal and discussions continued between his office and WE.

On April 21, Morneau said, he verbally approved the Finance Department's recommendations on the broad parameters of what would become the CSSG, which were announced by Trudeau the next day.

Morneau revealed that he spoke with Craig Kielburger on April 26, but said they discussed the broad impact of COVID-19 and not the details of the CSSG.

Morneau said Youth Minister Bardish Chagger presented her initial proposal to have WE administer the CSSG to the special COVID-19 cabinet committee on May 7, with the final approval from the full cabinet coming on May 22.

"I regret that my not recusing myself has been a reason that students have not been able to get the support on a timely basis," Morneau said.

Witnesses criticize WE Charity

In testimony before the committee today, two witnesses criticized the WE organization for its complicated organizational structure, financial dealings and employment practices.

Jesse Brown, publisher of the media organization Canadaland, walked the committee through his organization's reporting on WE's financial affairs, workplace issues, real estate holdings and legal troubles in Kenya.

Brown alleges the organization has misused public funds, mistreated young workers and volunteers and hired private investigators to investigate reporters.

The director of a humanitarian organization that planned to employ students through the program expressed frustration over its collapse.

"We've recruited students to participate and now I'm very concerned that the students will not get a bursary," said Rahul Singh, executive director of Global Medic, which provides disaster relief to countries affected by natural disasters.

Singh said his Toronto-based organization had spaces for 840 students per week to do things like assemble aid packages. Global Medic had entered into a partnership agreement with WE Charity when the organization became the administrator of the program.

Singh said that after WE pulled out, he reached out to Youth Minister Bardish Chagger's office but hasn't heard back from the government about the future of the program.

"I'm very worried about people falling through the cracks because of poor policy decisions and how they adversely impact people," Singh said.
They say a family is not defined by blood, but the love that runs in it - like how this Chinese mother looks after her adopted sick son without a complaint.

Devoted Peng Lianqing has taken care of her seriously ill child wholeheartedly for 42 years since she found him abandoned on her doorstep at two weeks old.

Ms Peng, now 73, says it has been her pleasure to raise her only son, Chen Zhixiang, who has cerebral palsy and needs round-the-clock attention.

Chinese mother Peng Lianqing has taken care of her sick child wholeheartedly for more than four decades since she found him abandoned on her doorstep at just 14 days old in 1978

Ms Peng, a retired nurse from Changsha, came across her son in July 1978.

Recalling the fateful encounter to local reporters, Ms Peng said she was spending a day off at home when she heard a baby's cries through the window.

When she opened the door, she saw a newborn boy lying outside her house. Next to him was a piece of paper that bore his date of birth.

Ms Peng, who was 31 at the time, took the child into her home without hesitation.

Ms Peng and her husband, who did not have a child of their own, decided to adopt the baby.

'The arrival of the child brought much fun to our family,' Ms Peng told Changsha Evening News.

Ms Peng's son, Chen Zhixiang, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at two years old. She refused to take the boy to an orphanage - like what her husband had told her to - and took care of him

WHAT IS CEREBRAL PALSY? Cerebral palsy is the umbrella term for a number of brain conditions that affect movement and coordination. Specifically, it is caused by a problem in the parts of the brain responsible for controlling muscles. The condition can occur if the brain develops abnormally or is damaged before, during or shortly after birth. One in every 400 children in the UK are thought to be born with cerebral palsy, meaning around 1,800 children a year have the condition. It's estimated that 764,000 children and adults in the US have one or more symptoms of the disorder. There's no cure for cerebral palsy, but some treatments are available to ease symptoms, such as physiotherapy. Life expectancy is usually unaffected, however, the emotional and physical strain can put a great deal of stress on the body which can cause further problems in later life. Advertisement

But Ms Peng's life faced a U-turn when her son was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a toddler.

She had taken the boy to a hospital for checkups because he had not learned to walk at two.

Cerebral palsy is the umbrella term for several brain conditions that affect movement and coordination.

Specifically, it is caused by a problem in the parts of the brain responsible for controlling muscles.

Doctors told Ms Peng that her son might not be able to walk or talk for the rest of his life.

Her husband and mother-in-law told her to give the child to an orphanage, but she refused.

'I thought he was a life too, and we had lived together for two years already. We all have emotions,' Ms Peng told reporters.

In the years to follow, Ms Peng provided meticulous care for her son and took him to different cities to seek medical attention.

She named the boy Zhixiang, or 'fly with ambition', to wish him a bright future.

Years soon became decades. The mother helped her child put on clothes, eat, bathe, pass waste and exercise - day in day out without a complaint.

Over the years, Ms Peng's husband became more and more distant from Ms Peng because she had insisted on keeping the boy.

Her husband died in 2011, which meant that Ms Peng would only be able to rely on her pension to look after Zhixiang.

But the mother has continued to give all her love to her son, who is now 42.

Ms Peng, now 73, says it has been her pleasure to raise her only son all these years despite the hardship and challenges. The devoted mother said: 'As long as I am alive, I will care for him'

Local officials recently awarded Ms Peng the title of a 'moral model' after her selflessness and devotion had moved thousands in her city.

Her story has also been featured on Chinese state media, such as Xinhua.

'I have experienced happiness and hardship all these years, but I have never regretted,' she said at the award ceremony.

Speaking to the local press, Ms Peng expressed her love for Zhixiang: 'As long as I am alive, I will care for him.'
The Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC) through its President, Rev. Prof. Paul Frimpong-Manso in a statement has observed with great concern the shooting incident at a Registration Centre in the ongoing Voter Registration exercise at the Awutu-Senya East Constituency on Monday, July 20, 2020.



It is the view of the Council that the position of the Hon. Mavis Hawa Koomson as a Minister of state is no longer tenable and she must resign or be fired by the President without prejudice to any criminal actions that may be taken against her by the Police.



We call on the President of the Republic to take immediate action on this matter to safeguard the peace and security of this nation and to assure all Ghanaians that we can trust him to keep this nation together in unity ahead of the General Elections in December, the statement said.



Read Full Statement Below



SHOOTING INCIDENCE AT KASOA



The Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC) has observed with great concern the shooting incident at a Registration Centre in the ongoing Voter Registration exercise at the Awutu-Senya East Constituency on Monday, July 20, 2020.



More worrying is the involvement of the Member of Parliament for the area and Minister of Special Development Initiatives, Hon. Mavis Hawa Koomson, who has publicly admitted through a television interview, her direct involvement in the shooting incident.



We unreservedly condemn the unwarranted actions of the Minister in the strongest terms and call on the Ghana Police Service not to relent in their efforts in bringing all perpetrators of the shooting incident, including the Minister to book by ensuring that justice and fair play is manifestly seen to be done in this matter.



As a council, we know that the Ghana Police Service has the capacity and is capable of dealing with crimes of this nature without fear or favour and we wish to encourage them to rise up to this challenge no matter whose ox is gored in this matter so as to assure us that we can trust them to deal with all forms of violence ahead of the 2020 general election.



It is also the view of the Council that the position of the Hon. Mavis Hawa Koomson as a Minister of state is no longer tenable and she must resign or be fired by the President without prejudice to any criminal actions that may be taken against her by the Police.



We call on the President of the Republic to take immediate action on this matter to safeguard the peace and security of this nation and to assure all Ghanaians that we can trust him to keep this nation together in unity ahead of the General Elections in December.



We also call on all Ghanaians, especially aggrieved individuals and parties at every stage of the electoral process to resort to the time tested electoral laws and conflict resolution mechanisms and institutions to resolve our grievance rather than violence. Let us as citizens be reminded that it pays to use non-violent means to resolve our differences than the violent approaches, which could deprive us of our liberties, relations and even our lives.



To the youth of Ghana, we urge you to channel your energies, talents and skills into very productive endeavours and refuse to be used by unpatriotic Politicians for their greedy parochial interests. Today and the future belongs to you so jealously guard it!



We are by this statement calling on all Ghanaians once again to remember that we have only one Ghana to live in with nowhere else to go in the event of any escalated violence, though it is an open secret that the politicians we are willing to die for have their passports and that of their families ready to fly out of this country should violence erupt. Lets be prudent and act responsibly to maintain the peace and security of Ghana for the future of our children and generations yet unborn.



God bless our homeland Ghana and make our nation great and strong.



Issued for and on behalf of the National Executive Council by:





REV. PROF. PAUL FRIMPONG-MANSO



PRESIDENT

Source: Peacefmonline.com









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Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO), a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire 4C, one of the largest Salesforce partners in UK, Europe and the Middle East

Established in 1997 with its headquarters in Mechelen, Belgium, 4C is an independent Salesforce Platinum Partner and one of the leading customer-centric consultancies in Europe and the Middle East. 4C has deep capabilities across multiple Salesforce clouds including Sales, Marketing, Field Services and specializes in transforming Quote-to-Cash processes with Salesforce's Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) and Billing solutions. 4C has successfully delivered over 1500 projects, for more than 500 customers and is one of EMEA's most certified Salesforce partners with over 1000 Salesforce certifications.

With over 350 employees based out of local offices in London, Paris, Brussels, Copenhagen and Dubai, 4C has a robust Salesforce practice in the UK, France, Benelux, the Nordics and the United Arab Emirates regions. This acquisition significantly strengthens Wipro's position as a leading provider of Salesforce solutions in these markets. Wipro has a well-established Salesforce business in the Americas, Japan and Australia which was reinforced with the Appirio acquisition in 2016. 4C will be consolidated as part of Wipro's Salesforce practice, which provides market leading solutions globally around multiple Salesforce clouds and its ecosystem of products.

"We are excited to have the team at 4C join us. They bring in a rich blend of deep Salesforce expertise across multiple clouds coupled with a team of multi-faceted, multilingual experts with strong regional knowledge. This combination along with Wipro's reach across the region and industry, will help us become a dominant player in Europe and a leader in Salesforce's Quote to Cash domain," said Harish Dwarkanhalli, President, Cloud Enterprise Platforms (CEP), Wipro Limited

"Wipro shares the same values as we do. Their global presence, robust digital transformation consulting and delivery capabilities and significant investment in the European market, provides an excellent platform for the growth of our employees. We will now leverage this opportunity to take the next leap in building companies for the future for our customers, not just locally but across EMEA," said Johan Van Genechten, Chief Executive Officer, 4C.

Angelique de Vries-Schipperijn, EVP and GM of Northern Europe, Salesforce, said, "Our partners are at the center of our growth. 4C's strong regional focus and strength in multi-cloud implementations and Quote-to-Cash (CPQ/CLM), coupled with Wipro's strong consulting strength provide an unassailable advantage to Salesforce customers in EMEA." She further added, "Wipro had previously acquired Appirio and now with 4C, it has even further enhanced its depth and experience in Salesforce capabilities and resources."

The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to be closed in the quarter ending September 30, 2020.

About 4C

4C helps companies unlock commercial value and achieve business transformation by consistently putting the company's customer first. 4C is EMEA's largest independent Salesforce Platinum Partner. It offers unrivalled expertise in best-of-breed advisory and implementation services centred around Salesforce and its ecosystem. 4C provides thought leadership via a centre of excellence in the domains of Quote-to-Cash (CPQ Billing), Customer360 (including MuleSoft, Einstein Tableau), e-Commerce, Field Service and the DocuSign Agreement Cloud. 4C is passionate about client success and takes the time to understand its clients' challenges, forging long-term relationships with them. 4C leverages local relevant industry knowledge and capabilities to deliver EMEA and local projects across a wide range of industries: manufacturing, financial services, hi-tech and non-profit, for midsized companies all the way up to enterprise businesses. Established in 1997, 4C is headquartered in Belgium with offices spanning the UK, France, Nordics, the Netherlands and the Middle East.

About Wipro Limited

Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO) is a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company. We harness the power of cognitive computing, hyper-automation, robotics, cloud, analytics and emerging technologies to help our clients adapt to the digital world and make them successful. A company recognized globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services, strong commitment to sustainability and good corporate citizenship, we have over 180,000 dedicated employees serving clients across six continents. Together, we discover ideas and connect the dots to build a better and a bold new future.

Forward-looking and Cautionary Statements

Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in our earnings, revenue and profits, our ability to generate and manage growth, intense competition in IT services, our ability to maintain our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which we make strategic investments, withdrawal of fiscal governmental incentives, political instability, war, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property, and general economic conditions affecting our business and industry. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. We may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by us or on our behalf.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200723005490/en/

Contacts:

Purnima Burman

Wipro Limited

purnima.burman@wipro.com
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is still on the list of potential vice presidential picks, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden told WOOD-TVs Rick Albin in an interview Tuesday.

Albin asked Biden a two-pronged question about how important Michigan is in his electoral and whether he was still considering Whitmer as a potential vice presidential candidate.

Incredibly and yes, Biden answered.

Biden has publicly put Whitmer on his list for months. In March, he told MSNBCs Brian Williams Whitmer had made the list, in my mind, two months ago.

Whitmer has said she is focused on Michigan but has cultivated a national profile during the coronavirus crisis.

Related: Gretchen Whitmer is a national figure now. What you need to know about The woman in Michigan

In an op-ed in the New York Times on Wednesday, she called on President Donald Trump to institute a national mask requirement.

She pointed to him having worn a mask in public recently and his recent tweet that it was patriotic to wear a mask when you couldnt maintain social distance.

I applaud his statement, and urge him to back it up by issuing a nationwide mask mandate like Michigans, requiring masks on public transport, indoors, or outdoors when a distance of six feet cannot be maintained, Whitmer wrote in the New York Times op-ed.

Whitmer has instituted a mask policy in Michigan, requiring people to wear masks in crowded outdoor spaces and public indoor spaces. Failure to do so could result in a misdemeanor and $500 fine.

Her rising national profile, however, has drawn criticism from her opponents in Michigan. The Michigan Republican Party put out a statement calling on Whitmer to withdraw her name from consideration for Vice President and focus on addressing COVID-19 in Michigan.

Its ridiculous that while thousands of Michiganders are unable to receive their unemployment benefits due to the governors broken unemployment system, Gretchen Whitmer continues to peruse a new job of her own, said Michigan Republican Party Chairman Laura Cox in a statement.

Related stories:

Gretchen Whitmer is a national figure now. What you need to know about The woman in Michigan

When and where masks are required in Michigan, now

We are not the mask police, officers, state at odds over enforcing Michigan governors orders

Whitmer orders mask use in Michigan, violators could be fined up to $500
Orange has partnered with bancassurance leader NSIA to launch Orange Bank Africa in Abidjan and Cote dIvoire.

The unit, headed by Jean-Louis Menann-Kouame, will offer clients a range of simple savings and credit services available at all times via mobile phone. Orange Bank Africa will address the needs of a large part of the population, often excluded from the world of conventional banking, allowing them to borrow and save small amounts that are nonetheless essential for their everyday lives.

When it launches, Orange Bank Africa via its Orange Money service will offer a range of savings and micro credit services allowing customers to borrow as little as 5,000 CFA francs instantly using their mobile phone. Oranges mobile financial services strategy in Africa aims to offer solutions accessible to the broadest population regardless of their income or where they live.

Orange Chairman and CEO, Stephane Richard, said: New technology is needed to strengthen financial inclusion and support economic development, as proven by mobile money over the past few years. Banking is a new area of business for Orange in Africa. It falls squarely in line with our strategy as a multi-service operator and our desire to drive the digital transformation forward in Africa. Based on our association with NSIA, also a leader on the market in Africa, we provide easy access to bank services for as many people as possible, with simple and essential services that benefit all our clients.

Jean Kacou Diagou, CEO of NSIA, adds: For the past 25 years, NSIA Group has been developing bank and insurance solutions to address the needs of African people and make them available to as many people as possible. We know that electronic banking is vital for the financial inclusion of our customers.

Orange Bank Africa will expand into Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso.
There are many differences between Republican U.S. Rep. John Katko and Democratic challenger Dana Balter in the 24th Congressional District race. One issue that highlights the separation is health care.

Health care will be a major issue in the election. In past polling, whether it's in this district or across the country, health care is at or near the top of voters' list of their most important issues.

In separate interviews, The Citizen asked the candidates for their stance on health care, including how to provide coverage to the uninsured and address the rising costs of treatment and prescription drugs.

DANA BALTER

Balter, D-Syracuse, supports a Medicare for All system to achieve universal coverage for all Americans. Her plan differs from other Medicare for All proposals because it would be phased in over time.

Under Balter's proposal, the Medicare eligibility age would be lowered from 65 to 55. Americans of any age would then be allowed to buy into the program. Newborns would be enrolled in the program after birth so they're guaranteed health insurance coverage.

While some Medicare for All proposals would eliminate private insurance, Balter's plan maintains a role for private insurers. She believes the adoption of a Medicare for All system would lead to more competition for private insurance companies. These companies would be forced to offer better rates.

The COVID-19 pandemic reinforces Balter's belief that Medicare for All is the best approach to ensure Americans have insurance coverage and don't lack access to care.

"The experience we are having right now in this public health crisis demonstrates why that is so important," she said. "Because it's not only about me and my health care. It's recognizing that if you, my neighbor, the person that I share my community with, don't have access to good health care, it puts not only you in jeopardy but it puts me in jeopardy too.

"We have a vested interest in ensuring that everybody who shares our community has access to good, quality affordable care."

Health care costs are out of control, Balter said, and it's a leading cause of bankruptcy. She called it "terrifying" that health problems can lead to financial problems.

There are other problems with the health care system, according to Balter. She said access has become more difficult and too many people are uninsured. Many can't afford their medication.

"We have to make sure that every person has health insurance and access to a doctor," she added. "They need to be able to afford their medications. They need to be able to go to the doctor whenever they need to."

Balter said she has "yet to hear Congressman Katko ever express an idea like that" and that he hasn't acknowledged health care is a human right that should be guaranteed.

She's hopeful that there will be action taken to address health care when the 118th Congress opens for session in January 2021.

"This is one of the ways we can make the most dramatic, most meaningful difference in people's lives and it's clear that central and western New Yorkers want it and that it's time for Congress to take some action and make it happen," she said.

JOHN KATKO

Katko, R-Camillus, supports repealing the Affordable Care Act but not without a suitable replacement. When Republicans controlled the House, he voted against repeal measures that didn't include a plan to replace the 2010 health care law.

Throughout his congressional career, Katko has said he supports some aspects of the Affordable Care Act, including protections for people with preexisting conditions and allowing children to remain on their parents' insurance plans until age 26.

Katko, who Balter says voted to eliminate protections for individuals with preexisting conditions when he supported the 2017 tax law, insists he's never voted to slash those safeguards. He said he's voted for various bills and resolutions to ensure that people with preexisting conditions maintain their coverage.

In the four months since the COVID-19 outbreak began in New York, Katko said he's advocated for funding to help central New York hospitals. He supported coronavirus relief bills in Congress that provided funding for personal protective equipment and testing. One of the bills he supported, the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, included $100 billion for hospitals, $250 million to expand the preparedness program for hospitals and $200 million for telehealth services.

Those bills brought "millions and millions" of dollars to the 24th district, according to Katko.

Katko reiterated his support of several ideas to reform the health care system. He is a proponent of interstate competition for health insurance and malpractice reform. He also supports prescription drug price reform. While he opposed the House Democrats' prescription drug price reform legislation last year, he signed on as a cosponsor of a competing House GOP bill.

He also wants to create high-risk pools for the 10% of patients he says make up 90% of the health care costs.

"We definitely need to ensure that families in our community have access to health care," he said."

What Katko opposes is a Medicare for All system, which Balter supports. He believes the Medicare expansion would harm seniors and lead to increased taxes for all Americans.

If Medicare for All becomes law, he said it would take away choice and force everyone to enroll in the government program.

"I don't believe in that," he said.

Politics reporter Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or robert.harding@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @robertharding.

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According to the State Grid Corporation of China, China's largest 5G smart grid project has now been completed in Qingdao, a coastal city in East China's Shandong province.

The 5G smart grid can not only automatically remove faults in distribution lines within milliseconds, but also reduce the power consumption of each 5G base station by 20% through a peak-clipping and valley-filling strategy. This greatly alleviates the problem of high energy consumption by 5G technology.

So far, over 30 5G base stations  jointly developed by the State Grid Qingdao Electric Supply Company, China Telecom Qingdao Branch and Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.  have been built to support the smart grid.

Two 10-kilovolt power distribution cabinets, located at Guzhenkou in Qingdao, were recently put into operation. Zhang Tao, with maintenance department of the State Grid Qingdao Electric Supply Company, explained that the facilities, equipped with 5G-powered differential protection devices for distribution networks, can remove faults in distribution lines within a few dozens of milliseconds.

One of the biggest difficulties that has hindered the differential protection of the distribution network is the lack of a suitable means of communication.

The State Grid Qingdao Electric Supply Company, together with China Telecom, Huawei and Shandong University, jointly developed a 5G-powered differential protection device for distribution networks and deployed edge computing and network slicing technologies.

Compared with the previous situation whereby a power fault could cause power failure along the entire line, Zhang said that users not within the fault area would no longer be affected. This achievement marks a major breakthrough in distribution network protection.

According to the State Grid, with its large bandwidth, low latency and massive connections, 5G can meet the demands of various business scenarios such as video inspection, distribution automation and automatic meter reading.

The 35-kilovolt Gujia Substation located at Guzhenkou in Qingdao, the latest 5G peak-clipping and valley-filling base station, has also been put into operation. It has now begun providing cheap and stable power supply for local 5G facilities.

The State Grid explained that the peak-clipping and valley-filling strategy can help store energy during periods of low-power consumption and then use the stored energy to power 5G base stations during peak hours.

It is estimated that the strategy could cut electricity costs at each base station by 20%, saving 13,800 yuan (US$1,979) per station every year.

Around 14,000 5G base stations are expected to be built by three major telecommunications operators in Qingdao, which will provide considerable economic and social benefits once rolled out on a wide scale.

Content created in partnership with Science and Technology Daily.
By Associated Press

DUBAI: Kuwait's 91-year-old ruling emir left Thursday morning for the United States to seek further medical care after recently undergoing surgery, its state-run news agency reported.

Kuwait has yet to elaborate on what required Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah to seek a previously unannounced medical treatment beginning Saturday and a surgery Sunday.

However, Sheikh Sabah's sudden surgery could inspire a renewed power struggle within Kuwait's ruling family.

The state-run KUNA news agency quoted a statement from the country's royal court saying Sheikh Sabah left "based on advice from the medical team treating His Highness to complete his treatment after a successful surgical procedure".

"We ask the Almighty to aid his recovery and sustain His Highness, who is healthy and well taken care of, and to protect him from all harm," the statement said.

A statement attributed to Sheikh Ali Jarrah Al Sabah, the country's royal court minister, did not elaborate or say where in the US Sheikh Sabah will receive treatment.

However, an Airbus A340 flown by Kuwait's government left Thursday morning flying west.

That same Airbus had flown to Rochester, Minnesota, and New York City before returning to Kuwait just days before Sheikh Sabah's surgery.

That Airbus A340 is believed to be a medical transport aircraft.

Rochester is home to the flagship campus of the Mayo Clinic, one of America's best hospitals, and has treated Sheikh Sabah in the past.

The Mayo Clinic did not respond to a request for comment early Thursday.

Kuwait earlier announced that 83-year-old Crown Prince Nawaf Al Ahmad Al Sabah had assumed some of Sheikh Sabah's powers temporarily, without explaining why that was necessary.

A copy of the ministerial decree posted by Kuwait's official gazette, Kuwait Al-Youm, and seen by The Associated Press on Sunday, said the crown prince would be empowered for "the duration of a surgical procedure until the health event is over."

The decree did not elaborate.

Kuwait's Information Ministry has not responded to requests for comment.

Sheikh Sabah, a widely beloved ruler in this OPEC-member nation, took power in 2006 just nine days into the rule of the ailing Sheikh Saad Al Abdullah Al Sabah.

Concerns mounted during Sheikh Saad's brief reign as he was seen in public only in a wheelchair and did not speak.

However, Sheikh Sabah's ascension upset an informal power-sharing arrangement between branches of Kuwait's ruling family.

While Kuwait has since remained politically stable with the most-empowered parliament of any Gulf Arab nation, there have been internal power struggles behind the scenes of his rule.

Kuwait, a nation home to 4.1 million people that's slightly smaller than the US state of New Jersey, has the world's sixth-largest known oil reserves.

It has been a staunch US ally since the 1991 Gulf War expelled the occupying Iraqi forces of Saddam Hussein.

Today, Kuwait hosts some 13,500 American troops, many at Camp Arifjan south of Kuwait City, which is also home to the forward command of US Army Central.

Sheikh Sabah, a longtime foreign minister for Kuwait, has drawn praise during his rule for hosting donation drives for both war-torn Iraq and Syria.

He also has been the lead negotiator in trying to resolve a yearslong boycott of Qatar by four Arab nations over a political dispute.

He previously cancelled a White House visit last November while in the US and visited a hospital there for medical checks.
S tanding on the stage of the London Palladium today, Andrew Lloyd Webber looked out to a depleted audience. This is a sad sight, he said. But the number of those sitting in the stalls was small for a reason: the musical theatre mogul was hosting a pilot performance with new safety measures, in an attempt to prove that indoor performing arts venues can re-open safely in the time of coronavirus.

I am grateful to you all for coming and being a guinea pig in this way. But the Palladium is supposed to be full, he said. Next he called on the Prime Minister Boris Johnson to give a more specific indication of when performing arts venues can reopen. Give us a date, he urged.

Beverley Knight  who Lloyd Webber thanked for being brave  then performed an hour-plus set, the first time anyone has performed on a London stage to a live audience since March. She was ebullient on Twitter beforehand  On my way to the Palladium to make some HISTORY! she tweeted. If today is deemed successful by Public Health England and the government, then live performance is BACK!

She maintained that enthusiasm throughout her performance  an hour-long set, including an interval, standing over five metres from the second row of the stalls where the first guests were sat. We may be few in number but we are full of attitude, she said on stage. This is the first time we have been on stage in months. And it feels so good.

When the pilot was complete Rebecca Kane Burton, the CEO of LW Theatres, said she felt relief to have the Palladium open again. Today has proven we run a tight ship. We are not a risk, we know how to do things properly.

Andrew Lloyd Webber speaks to the audience at the London Palladium during a pilot for new safety measures at London theatres / Andy Paradise

Knight confessed after the performance that it was terrifying stepping on stage to a near-empty theatre, but as an audience member, it doesnt feel as strange as you might suspect. Of course, the atmosphere isnt as vibrant as being in a packed house, but were becoming used to social distancing measures by now and, actually, its quite nice to have the space.

So what does it involve? Before the event, the venue was chemically cleaned. It already had an air ventilation and filter system that fit government requirements. On arrival, fans - who applied for the free tickets via the Palladiums mailing list - were asked to queue at least a metre apart, with one line for the stalls on the lower level and another for the circle seats. If they werent wearing a face covering or mask, they were given one and asked to keep it on throughout the performance unless eating or drinking.

Staff with QR codes wandered the line asking visitors to scan and register their details for track and trace. At the front of the queue there was hand sanitizer stations for guests to use before a bag check by staff wearing gloves and masks. After tickets were scanned, guests had their temperatures checked before being welcomed inside - if they were under 38C. Inside, the Palladium is now entirely one way. Guests enter and are asked to stay on the left while those leaving the auditorium or going to the bar stick to the right. Most of the seats are blocked out, leaving at least two empty between occupied seats. Viewers from the same household can sit together.

Lloyd-Webber and his team have been working since April to host the trial run today, working with staff at the Phantom of the Opera in Seoul, South Korea, which opened to audiences with increased hygiene measures but no social distancing back in March. Today, The Palladium - which is owned by Lloyd-Webbers LW Theatres - hosted 640 fans and media today, operating at 30 per cent capacity of the 2,297-seat venue.

Londons world-leading theatres, concert halls and other music venues have been closed due to lockdown measures since the end of March. There is currently no indication when the curtain may be raised again. Todays test run may put them one step closer to getting the green light.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

When it comes to shoring up Canadas troubled charitable sector, weve heard good words.

"I appreciate the need to protect the entire (charitable) sector to keep it resilient, to make sure that it thrives and doesnt collapse and comes out strong after COVID-19 is over," federal Social Development Minister Ahmed Hussen told The Canadian Press back in April.

Now were into July. Its good that the charitable sector qualified for federal wage subsidies and has received other emergency funding. But so far, there hasnt been the kind of help that would set up this vital part of our society to thrive after COVID-19.

Taking the minister at his word  that he meant everything he said in April  theres a simple way to turn his good words into concrete action: create a temporary dollar-for-dollar charitable donation-matching program. For every dollar someone donates to a Canadian registered charity, the federal government kicks in a dollar, too.

Over four months, that one action would unlock an estimated $2.5 billion to help the entire charitable sector by getting Canadas donor base back into gear. Half the money would come from Canadians directly, matched by half from the public purse.

With seven out of 10 Canadian charities reporting revenue declines, and charities laying off almost 84,000 full-time and part-time staff, that kind of cash injection would be a lifesaver for the entire sector. And the best part is, the federal government has already budgeted most of the estimated $1.25-billion cost for such a program.

Canadians arent contributing to charity nearly as much as they would under normal circumstances. We can blame the economic downturn, job losses and uncertainty during the pandemic for that. Lower charitable donations mean Canadians are making much less use of the federal charitable tax credit for 2020. How much less?

Based on a new analysis by the think-tank Cardus, its reasonable to expect a 33 per cent drop in the use of the tax credit. That would result in an estimated savings of a little more than $1 billion for the federal treasury. So the unbudgeted cost of a dollar-for-dollar donation-matching program would actually come out to less than $250 million.

Thats an amount that federal emergency pandemic spending could easily absorb. So a temporary dollar-for-dollar donation-matching program is affordable. Its also necessary for the long-term health of the charitable sector.

Such a program doesnt play favourites with charities based on their activities, size or location. Canadians who donate drive the donations, after all. And the administrative cost is extremely low. Theres no extra paperwork, no time-consuming reviews by civil servants, and not even fancy media events and announcements.

Its just good, simple policy and the single best way to revitalize Canadas base of charitable donors.

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Previous research has shown that donors are about 20 per cent more likely to give if they know their dollar will be matched. And where matching funds are available, when donors do give, they bump up the size of their contribution by around 20 per cent. So instead of giving $100 to charity, theyre more likely to give $120.

With a matching program, that contribution becomes $240 for organizations that help with things such as mental health, getting refugees settled in Canada and providing daily meals to those who are down and out. Whats more, the research shows the jump-start in giving lasts well beyond the end of the matching program.

So federal government action today would provide more than just immediate relief. It would also establish a strong foundation for the entire charitable sector as Canada rebuilds after the COVID-19 crisis. Thats exactly what Hussen said he wanted back in April. And he was right to say so.

With an affordable, easy-to-administer, democratic and effective policy like donation matching, he has the opportunity to turn good words into good action. All Hussen has to do is say, "Yes."

Brian Dijkema is vice-president of external affairs at the think-tank Cardus.

 Troy Media
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 19:10:19|Editor: huaxia

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CHANGCHUN, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday inspected the Aviation University of the Air Force in northeast China's Jilin Province.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), stressed further reform and innovation, as well as continuous efforts to improve teaching.

On behalf of the CPC Central Committee and the CMC, Xi extended Army Day greetings to the personnel of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the Armed Police Force, the militia, and the reserve force.

China's Army Day falls on Aug. 1. Enditem
Agartala, July 23 : The first consignment of goods from Kolkata arrived in Tripura on Thursday as part of a trial run for shipping of goods from other parts of India to the northeast region via Bangladesh.

Bangladeshi ship MV Shejyoti carrying the consignment comprising 50 MT TMT steel bars and 53.22 MT pulses (in two containers each) left Kolkata's Haldia port on July 16 and reached Chattogram (Chittagong) sea port on Tuesday.

From Chattogram international port, four Bangladeshi trucks carried the goods up to Akhaura Integrated Checkpost (ICP) (adjacent to Agartala city), where the consignment was formally received by Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb. The consignment of steel bars was subsequently ferried to western Tripura's Jirania while the pulses were transported to southern Assam's Karimganj.

India and Bangladesh had earlier signed a MoU to ferry various goods including foodgrains from different parts of India to the hilly northeastern states using Bangladeshi ports and surface roads to save time and transportation costs.

Agartala via Guwahati is 1,650 km from Kolkata by road, and 2,637 km from New Delhi while the distance between Agartala and Kolkata via Bangladesh is just 620 km. There is only a narrow land corridor to the northeastern region through Assam and West Bengal, but this route passes through hilly terrain with steep gradients and multiple hairpin bends, making plying of vehicles, especially loaded trucks, very difficult, risky and time consuming.

The Tripura Chief Minister later told the media at the Akhaura ICP that the Indian government in consultation with the Bangladesh government has made available several road, water and railway routes to ferry goods from other parts of the country to the northeast region via the neighbouring country.

"Earlier there was a lone surface road (NH 8) linking Tripura with the rest of the country, occasionally causing economic crisis and huge escalation of prices. Now in just two years at least three waterways are being opened besides several surface and railway transport. The waterway distance from (Kolkata's) Haldia port to Chattogram international port is 400 km and from Chattogram sea port (in southeast Bangladesh) to Akhaura ICP (along Agartala) is 200 km," he said.

Deb, who also holds the Industries and Commerce portfolio, said that both northeast India and Bangladesh would benefit economically if the transportation of goods via that country continued. "A new waterway between Tripura and Bangladesh would start soon and it would boost trade and numerous economic activities. The barge carrying goods from other parts of the country would come to Tripura via Bangladeshi waterways," he added.

A temporary jetty was built at Sonamura in western Tripura to start the new waterway through the Gomati river between Tripura and Bangladesh.

Increasing the number of new waterways, the "Second Addendum to the Protocol on Inland Water Transit and Trade" was signed in Dhaka on May 20 by Indian High Commissioner in Bangladesh Riva Ganguly Das and Bangladesh Shipping Ministry Secretary Mohammed Mezbah Uddin Chowdhury. To boost trade, economic activity and connectivity, India and Bangladesh under the May 20 deal, have added five more "ports of call" on either side and increased the protocol (water) routes from 8 to 10. There are six "ports of call" each in India and Bangladesh.

The new five "ports of call" on the Indian side are Dhulian, Maia, Kolaghat, Sonamura and Jogigopha and on the Bangladesh side Rajshahi, Sultanganj, Chilmari, Daudkandi and Bahadurabad. Two more extended "ports of call" -- Tribeli (Bandel) and Badarpur in India and Ghorasal and Muktarpur in Bangladesh -- have been added.
Police in Niagara region say theyve charged a New York man who allegedly drove across the border without stopping, then assaulted officers.

They say the incident happened Monday when the man crossed into Canada on the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls without stopping for Canadian border officers.

Police say local officers on the U.S. side had tried to stop the man because he was driving erratically, but he allegedly barrelled through the border crossing.

Niagara Regional Police officers caught up with him in Niagara Falls, but he attempted to escape and eventually collided with a police cruiser.

During his arrest, police say the man assaulted officers, causing minor injuries, and they had to use a stun gun to subdue him.

The 33-year-old from North Tonawanda is facing multiple charges including impaired driving and possession of a controlled substance.
The world isnt short of luxury white leather sneakers. Common Projects has been champion in that arena for many years, but you certainly pay a premium for a pair. So what if we told you that you could get a luxurious canvas pair in a range of colours for just $125?

Thats exactly whats being offered by Koio, which we admit could be a brand youve not heard of before. Koio is an American brand founded by two friends who wanted to bring European style and quality Stateside.

The idea behind the brands inception was to create a sneaker that the founders (self-confessed sneakerheads) would be happy wearing all day and all night. The result is a broad collection of sneakers that encompasses a variety of materials (including a low-top leather model for just under $250) such as canvas. Canvas, of course, is a material championed by the likes of Converse and is notorious for its lightweight construction and breathability.

They can also be paired with just about anything, from tailored shorts to chinos and, if you get it right, a suit.

This pair of Capri canvas sneakers from Koio are made by hand in the Marche region of Italy  a mecca for all things luxury sneaker  from Italian canvas. Theyre fitted with a Margom outsole, known for its durability and lightweight build, so you really are getting a product worth every single cent.

And right now theyre on sale, meaning you can snap a pair up for just $125. Head to the companys website now to get yours.

Buy The Koio Capri Canvas Sneaker $125

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BEIJING/MELBOURNE: Tesla Inc boss Elon Musk urged miners to produce more nickel, a key ingredient in the batteries that power the company's electric cars, warning the current cost of batteries remained a big hurdle to the company's growth.

"Tesla will give you a giant contract for a long period of time if you mine nickel efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way," Musk said on a post-earnings call on Wednesday.

Nickel makes batteries energy dense so cars can run further on a single charge, and Tesla needs the metal more than ever as it looks to ramp up production of trucks and solar projects that use a lot of nickel.

Musk's call for greater nickel mining comes even as prices for battery materials wallow around rock bottom.

However, traders and analysts say the kinds of volumes Tesla would need are unlikely to make a compelling business case for most miners to invest in increased production, nor are they likely to boost prices.

Tesla currently sources nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) batteries from South Korea's LG Chem Ltd and nickel-cobalt-aluminium (NCA) batteries from Japan's Panasonic Corp.

These companies indirectly buy nickel from mining companies in a long auto supply chain. Tesla doesn't disclose which nickel miners are in its supply chain.

Given Tesla's focus on sustainability, the company is likely to prefer to buy from miners of higher-grade nickel sulphide, which requires less power to process than laterite ore, said Lachlan Shaw of National Australia Bank.

There are three key suppliers - Brazil's Vale, which operates in Canada using some hydropower, Russia's Norilsk Nickel and BHP Group's operations in Western Australia. "Vale is in the box seat," he said.

While electric vehicles consume a much smaller amount of nickel than traditional industries such as stainless steel makers, EVs are expected to be the quickest growth market for nickel miners.

Nickel consumption in EV battery materials is expected to soar 64% between 2019 and 2025, research firm Wood Mackensie said, although it added that satisfying this demand could be challenging for an industry that has been slow to add capacity in a timely and cost-effective manner.

"He needs nickel, so he hopes nickel prices will go lower and lower," said a China-based nickel trader. "Prices will not be impacted in the short-term because the market is in surplus."

Nickel hit a 14-month low of $10,865 a tonne in March but has since recovered to $13,180, still down by some 30% from five-year peaks seen in September.

Tesla on Wednesday posted a second-quarter profit, but Musk said he would prioritise growth over profit going forward, and focus on making Tesla vehicles more affordable.

"The real limitation on Tesla growth is cell production at affordable price. That's the real limit," Musk said, adding the company would expand its business with Panasonic and CATL and "possibly with others".

Tesla is expected to reveal technological advances at its "Battery Day" event in September.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.

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Topics
A Saudi man has been found dead in the Islamic praying position three days after he went missing while collecting wood in a desert.

Dhuwaihi Hamoud al-Ajaleen, 40, had vanished from his home on Thursday last week in Wadi al-Dawasir in Riyadh Province, according to local media reports.

Police launched an intensive search for him and he was found three days later in the middle of the desert.

A Saudi man (right) has been found dead in the Islamic praying position three days after he went missing while collecting wood in a desert

Video footage showing the team coming across the body and his car has gone viral on social media

Rescue teams drove through the area before finding al-Ajaleen a few meters away from his car, local media said.

Video footage showing the team coming across the body and his car has gone viral on social media.

The vehicle (pictured) that was found at the site was full of sticks which means he could have been collecting wood for his family

The vehicle that was found at the site was full of sticks which means he could have been collecting wood for his family.

Footage shows several men approaching the body as the wind whips across the expanse of land.

He was found in the 'sujood' or prostration praying position which prompted hundreds of social media users to pray for him online.
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.  Health officials in western Colorado have reported the first confirmed death from COVID-19 in the county on Tuesday.

Mesa County Department of Public Health Executive Director Jeff Kuhr said the person who died was identified as a woman in her 80s who had underlying medical conditions, The Daily Sentinel reported. He declined to provide further information due to privacy regulations, such as where or how she contracted the virus.

I do think that this is the time for people to know that this person was in such a condition with a compromised immune system that she wasnt out in the community, Kuhr said, adding that the message here is that people should be thinking about others and who they could potentially infect.

About 33% of infections in the county in the past two weeks are people ages 10 to 29, he said.

If theyre not worried about themselves, I would appreciate it if they would be worried about infecting others in the community, he said. Unfortunately, that ended up with our first death in Mesa County, and we dont want any more deaths.

Mesa County has recorded 201 confirmed virus cases as of Tuesday and 71 newly confirmed cases in the last two weeks, health officials said. Seven other people are currently hospitalized.

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.

About 34% of all new cases are as a result of traveling, while another 34% are in community spread, possibly because of those travelers, Kuhr said. As a result, the department has offered to test anyone who has returned from a trip where they might have been exposed or during their travel time.

Residents are encouraged to limit their risk of exposure by avoiding large gatherings, limiting time spent in crowded places, and reducing non-essential trips, even to the store, officials said.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. But for some  especially older adults and people with existing health problems  it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

I think people are recovering from the mindset that were not being affected here in Mesa County, Kuhr said. Were not at the point where everything is OK in Mesa County and we can do just about anything we want.
Teen Security Guard Received No Training Prior to Work at Melbourne Quarantine Hotel

A teenager hired via WhatsApp as private security to guard in Melbournes hotel quarantine program said she left because she had no appropriate training and other staff were not taking COVID-19 risks seriously.

Shayla Shakski claims there was no infection control training when she worked at the Stamford Plaza in May; the 19-year-old was handed a mask and gloves on her first shift.

It was really like, Okay, how do I wear a mask? How do I sanitise? she said in an ABC 730 report.

Stamford Plaza and Rydges on Swanston in Melbourne are allegedly the source of Victorias second wave of CCP virus cases.

The Victorian governments hotel quarantine program has been heavily criticised, particularly on the decision to use private security guards instead of police or Australian Defence Forces, like other states.

The misconduct of some hotel security guards has highlighted gaps in the system and is said to be how the outbreak occurred.

Related Coverage MP Calls for Victorian Health Minister to Stand Down Amid Melbourne Quarantine Hotel Outbreak

The Age reported on July 3 that senior health officers in the Victorian government were told about the ill-equipped private security guards a month before the first case was recorded.

MSS Security acquired the contract to safeguard returnees in central Melbournes Stamford Plaza as part of the mandatory quarantine regime. MSS Security used several subcontractors to fill the security guard positions.

Shakshi said there was such a lack of transparency she didnt know who had hired her.

I got put on a WhatsApp group where they actually contacted me, and they were like, Would you like to work at this place? Im like, I dont know what you guys are, what company, nothing else, she said.

As well as little to no training, Shakshi was told to bring her own PPE to work the next shift.

I finished my shift, and we had a meeting in a room, so they were like, Okay, guys, you have got to come in a team and bring your masks from tomorrow. Bring your own gloves, your own sanitisers because we might run out because we have so many guards on-site, she said.

That was the first shift I did, first and last shift. I just didnt want to go back there.

Shakshi said COVID-19 was a joke among her colleagues; she claims seeing people hugging and flouting health guidelines.

They werent serious about how serious this COVID is. They were taking it as a joke like, Oh, it is just some virus that anyone can get, you know, were not going to get it, she said.

The first positive case of COVID-19 was recorded at the Stamford Plaza hotel weeks after Shakshi stopped working there.

A hotel media release titled Statement with respect to Stamford Plaza Melbourne on an inaccurate report by ABC News on July 1, 2020 said:

On or about June 13, 2020, a security contractor, personnel hired by the Victoria Government, tested positive for the COVID19 virus. This security personnel was not under the employ of Stamford Plaza Melbourne or its related companies.

Related Coverage Falun Gong Community Protests Outside ABC Headquarters Ahead of Scheduled Reports

To date, 43 cases of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus, are tied to the Stamford Plaza Melbourne.

The Epoch Times contacted MSS Security for comments but has received no response.

Subcontracting Problems Are Nothing New

Chief Executive of security firm Monjon Australia, Bryan Goudsblom, believes the issues with MSS Security, Unified Security, and Wilson Security are due to companies subcontracting out their services.

The moment you start subcontracting is when you start losing control, so Im not surprised that the hotel quarantine situation has occurred given that a number of these situations and practices have occurred for many, many years, Goudsblom told ABC 730.

Managing director of Queensland-based Executive Security Group, Andrew Bourke, agreed and has made complaints to government bodies about problems within the private security industry for decades.

This is the problem, the regulators are not regulating,  on a government level theyve failed us totally, Bourke told The Epoch Times.

There are so many reports into the security industry about fair work; I just dont understand why we havent gotten an ombudsman.

Bourke said he is glad northern Melbourian Shayla Shaski has lifted the lid on some of the issues that take place with subcontractors.

Theyre very cagey to talk to people, they know its a big problem for them. But Im just glad she has, he said.

Related Coverage Flights Into Victoria Barred as Hotel Outbreaks Probed

Victoria corrections took over the hotel quarantine program earlier this month. A Judicial Inquiry into the hotel quarantine program began on July 20. The inquiry will look into the communication between government and private contractors as well as how training and PPE were provided for security guards.
Three Leicester textile firms have been issued with enforcement notices by the Health and Safety Executive after they breached Covid-19 control measures.

Inspectors have carried out 51 factory visits - including 34 'spot-checks' - on textiles businesses.

The HSE issued enforcement notices at nine sites in total, of which three were for failures to apply adequate Covid-19 controls under health and safety law.

It said it had 'not found any cases where the situation was so bad that it would justify taking a prosecution'.

The organisation has given a detailed breakdown of its inspections and what, if any, action it had taken. But it has refused to name the textile firms involved.

Inspectors carried out 51 factory visits - including 34 'spot-checks' - on textiles firms. Pictured: Factory workers at Faiza Fashion in Leicester when the city was put into lockdown again

Pictured: Workers at the Faiza Fashion factory in Leicester continued to work despite the reimposed lockdown

Multi-agency inspections were launched, following concerns over the welfare of workers at clothing factories in the city, amid claims of exploitation.

The online fashion giant Boohoo faced fierce criticism after reports alleging workers in a Leicester factory packaging clothes for the firm were being paid just 3.50 an hour.

With retailers such as Next and Asos dropping its clothing from their websites, the fast fashion company has said it will investigate the claims and cut ties with any supplier it finds to have broken its code of conduct.

The controversy in Leicester came as the city was subject to the UK's first ever local lockdown on June 29, due to the high rate of coronavirus infection.

The HSE conducted 51 visits to premises in the city between May 1 and July 20, it said.

Of those, 34 were targeted spot checks on textiles firms, while the remainder were in response to concerns raised by workers and the public.

Boohoo founder Mahmud Kamani (right) with his son Umar. Mahmud co-found the company with his brother Jalal Kamani, whose links to a 'slave' factory in Leicester were exposed

HSE said: 'During this period we have not found any cases where the situation was so bad that it would justify taking a prosecution.'

Of those visits, enforcement notices were served at nine premises, including one 'for a work-at-height issue'.

Of the remainder, improvement notices were issued at three sites for 'failure to apply adequate Covid-19 controls' and three others, for 'failing to provide adequate welfare facilities'.

Another improvement notice was issued at a business for failure to control exposure to dust and a further notice was handed out to another firm to 'obtain competent advice under management of health and safety at work regulations'.

The HSE said in early July it was 'actively investigating three textile businesses' and had issued one improvement notice to a firm for Covid-19 control measure failings.

Leicester City Council previously said it had been told by Public Health England it had 'found no evidence to suggest that the rise in cases in the city is linked to the textile industry'.

Leicester City Council (pictured, Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby) previously said it had been told by Public Health England it had 'found no evidence to suggest that the rise in cases in the city is linked to the textile industry'

Boohoo announced at the start of this month an independent review of its UK supply chain.

The review, led by Alison Levitt QC, will be accompanied by a 10million investment in 'eradicating malpractice' in its supply chain.

Boohoo's shares plunged by 1.3 billion amid allegations it was using sweatshops in Leicester to produce cheap clothing during the coronavirus pandemic.

An employee at Faiza Fashion - a factory allegedly producing clothes for Boohoo and Pretty Little Thing - said the firm did not provided its workers with masks or gloves.

And the Sunday Times reported allegations workers in a second factory, which packages clothes for Boohoo brand Nasty Gal, were being paid as little as 3.50 an hour and operating without social distancing measures in place.

In covert footage, an undercover reporter recorded himself packing garments clearly labelled as 'Nasty Gal'.

He was also approached by the factory foreman, who warned: 'These motherf***ers know how to exploit people like us. They make profits like hell and pay us in peanuts.

'Take me for instance, I've been working for so many years in this industry, I've been here for five years but never could I take a proper pay packet. I'm still only on just over 5 an hour.'

The findings prompted a probe by the National Crime Agency, with the allegations labelled 'truly appalling' by Home Secretary Priti Patel.

The findings prompted a probe by the National Crime Agency, with the allegations labelled 'truly appalling' by Home Secretary Priti Patel (pictured on Tuesday)

A HSE spokesman said: 'We're continuing to find high levels of compliance with health and safety law, and the majority of businesses are either Covid-Secure or taking the adequate steps to achieve this, reflecting the national picture.

'HSE inspectors are continuing to carry out targeted spot inspections and following up concerns as they arise.

'Inspectors will take appropriate action to ensure standards, both for the current Covid-19 pandemic and other health and safety matters, reach an acceptable standard no matter what area of the country they are found.'

She added: 'In Leicester, we continue to operate with well-established local multi-agency partnerships.'

The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) has been investigating any potential human trafficking or modern slavery abuses, as part of the multi-agency inspections.

In a statement earlier this month, the GLAA said: 'No enforcement has been used during the visits and officers have not at this stage identified any offences under the Modern Slavery Act.'

Latest data from NHS Digital showed Leicester's seven-day infection rate is at 64 cases per 100,000.

The figure has fallen from a peak of 135 per 100,000 when the local lockdown was imposed, last month.

Although still in place, the city's local lockdown measures are being relaxed slightly on Friday, and will be reviewed again by the Health Secretary on July 30.
The Department of Foreign Affairs has changed its advice for the green list counties and now says those travelling to them must take normal precautions. (stock photo)

TRAVEL insurers now say they will cover countries on the green list in what is a major breakthrough for those who want to holiday abroad.

Lobby group for the industry, Insurance Ireland, said the main providers of travel insurance will provide insurance, subject to normal terms and conditions.

It comes after the Department of Foreign Affairs has changed its advice for the green list counties and now says those travelling to them must take normal precautions.

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This is despite the fact that there is still general advice from the department that people should avoid non-essential travel abroad, according to its website.

Individuals arriving into Ireland from the green list locations will not be required to quarantine for 14 days on their movements upon arrival, allowing people to return to work.

Insurance Ireland said: As the Department of Foreign Affairs has now updated the travel advisory for the 15 countries on the green list from essential travel only to normal precautions, the main providers of travel insurance in Ireland will provide insurance, subject to normal terms and conditions.

Consumers should check directly with their insurer, and should also be aware that the green list will be reviewed on a fortnightly basis and is subject to change, Insurance Ireland said.

It comes after two leading travel insurers had earlier said they will now cover countries on the green list in what is a major breakthrough for those who want to holiday abroad.

Blue Insurances Multitrip.com and GetCover.ie said they will cover cancellations as a result of a positive Covid-19 diagnosis on their policies.

Multitrip.com said it will cover cancellation as a result of a positive Covid-19 diagnosis on their policies with immediate effect.

The travel insurer said it was the first to add this new cover for cancellation to all new and existing policies.

The company also confirmed that its policies will also cover medical expenses abroad resulting from Covid-19.

Managing director of Multitrip Ciaran Mulligan said: Holidaymakers can now travel with peace of mind knowing that they are covered by their travel insurance if they travel to the countries on the green list.

We would also call on the Government to review regions as well as countries when they are updating their list in the next two weeks.

GetCover.ie said the issuing of the green list meant these 15 countries were now exempt from the general travel advice against non-essential travel overseas.

Operations director at GetCover.ie David Hughes said: As the travel advice for green list destinations was last night changed to normal precautions, travellers can now purchase travel insurance and be confident in the knowledge that they will be covered, should they choose to travel to one of those destinations.

Getcover.ie called on the Government to formally clarify its position on transit travel, where passengers need to connect or transit via a third country which is not on the list to reach one of the 15 green listed counties

This applies to the likes of Monaco and Gibraltar.

Countries on the green list include Greece, Italy and Malta, which are popular holiday destinations.

Lobby group for the industry, Insurance Ireland, this week called for clarity on what the green list means for its members and for consumers.

It said its members are working to understand how the international travel green list of countries will operate in conjunction with the general Covid-19 travel advisory and would welcome more clarity.
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The Kenya Private School Association is lobbying the government to help sustain their schools after authorities expressed fears over COVID-19 cases.
Turkey Battles Criticism Over Decision to Turn Hagia Sophia Into Mosque

By Dorian Jones July 22, 2020

This Friday, Islamic prayers are due to be held in Istanbul's iconic Hagia Sophia for the first time since Turkey's government decided to re-convert the ancient cathedral into a mosque. Russia has stepped in, with Moscow voicing concern to Ankara over the fate of the historic building, including its world-famous Christian mosaics.

A spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has spearheaded the push to change the status of the monument from museum to mosque, earlier said Christian mosaics would be concealed with curtains or lighting during Friday prayers.

Within days of an Istanbul court revoking the Hagia Sophia's museum status - paving the way to its conversion to a mosque - Russian president Vladimir Putin was on the phone to President Erdogan seeking assurances over the state of the mosaics.

Russian Orthodox leaders have also expressed concerns about building's conversion, which they describe as a threat to Christianity.

The 6th-century Byzantine cathedral is not only famous as an architectural marvel, but also for the large mosaics depicting Christ, the Virgin Mary, and Byzantium rulers decorating the building's massive walls ceilings.

'A major monument' for Christians

Russia's Orthodox Church is a powerful force within Russian society. "These images are very important for Christianity because it was a major monument for Christian people," said professor Zeynep Ahunbay, who spent 25 years working on the Hagia Sophia's restoration and preservation.

"All possible steps must be taken to prevent damage that could be caused by the hasty change in the status of the world-renowned museum," read a statement this month by the Russian parliament the State Duma.

When the Hagia Sophia was converted to a mosque in 1453 after the Ottoman conquest of then-Constantinople by Fatih Sultan Mehmed  known historically as Mehmed the Conqueror - the mosaics were later plastered over to comply with Muslim doctrine banning figurative representations in places of worship.

The mosaics were only revealed when the Hagia Sophia was turned into a museum in 1934 by the founder of the Turkish secular republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Russia and Turkey are currently at odds on issues like Syria and Libya, but Moscow rarely publicly criticizes Ankara over domestic matters.

Ankara has been quick to quell growing concern by offering assurances on the future of Hagia Sophia's artwork. "It's out of the question that these mosaics are (to be) covered, plastered over or are kept from the public," said presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kaln.

Curtains, not lasers

But the Turkish leadership appeared in disarray over how the museum will be converted into a mosque. Initially, the Turkish presidency proposed sophisticated lighting to obscure the images. In pro-government newspapers, the use of "dark lasers" was touted as a solution without explaining what a dark laser is.

The use of lighting raised concerns over the potential risk posed to the integrity of the nearly thousand-year-old images. However, following Erdogan's visit to the Hagia Sophia Sunday to inspect preparations for the building's conversion, curtains are now presented as the more viable solution.

The Diyanet, the state body administering the Muslim faith in Turkey, announced Christian icons would be curtained off and unlit "through appropriate means during prayer times." The authority also vowed to protect the building's integrity promising "not even a nail would be used" when installing the system.

In Turkey, curtains are already used in other recent mosque conversions of former historic churches. "We have seen some examples of using curtains," said Ahunbay. "In Iznik [Turkish City] there is also a Hagia Sophia and another one in Trabzon [Turkish City], there they try to cover in some way human images, so it's not visible during prayer times. But these are much smaller buildings. You can imagine in Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, how difficult to cover the mosaics, 40 meters high up, and several meters big. I think it's not practical."

Damage control

Ankara is working hard to defuse the controversy, "Our goal is to avoid harming the frescoes, icons and the historic architecture of the edifice," stated Kalin in a television interview.

The government is seeking to present Hagia Sophia mosque conversion as a victory for spirituality, arguing the importance of returning the historic building to its intended religious purpose.

"Hagia Sophia's resurrection is a sign that we something new to say to the world as the Turkish nation, as Muslims, and all of humanity." Yasin Aktay, a close Erdogan adviser, penned in a column Thursday in the pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper.

Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, and Qatar's Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani both close Erdogan allies, are invited to attend the Hagia Sophia's reopening as a mosque. Thousands of people are expected to travel from across Turkey to attend Friday prayers at the Hagia Sophia.

With opinion polls indicating Erdogan's party, the AKP, is hemorrhaging support, analysts say the Hagia Sophia's conversion is widely seen as an attempt by Erdogan to galvanize both his religious and nationalist base.

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Denver, Colorado, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- July 23, 2020, Denver, CO - Turbine Labs, the AI-powered software platform that streamlines and optimizes information gathering and analysis for executives and policymakers, announced today a content license and display-rights partnership with Reuters, the worlds largest multimedia news provider.



Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and advanced machine learning (ML), the platform synthesizes any external topic or question into a customized, insights-driven briefing, informed only by the most objective, impactful data. Turbine Labs tames the explosion of external information, misinformation, and noise, enabling decision-makers to quickly uncover new insights, detect opportunities, and remove blind spots.



As part of this agreement, Turbine Labs premium content subscribers will be able to access and consume the full text of Reuters news stories within the Turbine Labs platform, removing friction and distractions from the information gathering and analysis process.



As one of the most well-respected news gathering and distribution organizations in the world, we are honored to integrate Reuters incredible journalism into the Turbine Labs platform, said Leigh Fatzinger, Founder, and CEO of Turbine Labs. Through our patent-pending impact scoring and routing technologies, we are able to deliver highly relevant Reuters content directly to our subscribers at the precise moment they need it to make higher quality decisions, he said.



This new partnership will give even more customers access to Reuters trusted, impartial information and help them make smart business decisions, said Eric Danetz, Head of Revenue, Reuters. Im delighted that Reuters text and images will now help power Turbine Labs AI technology platform, offering their clients time-critical and market-leading information.

Reuters high-quality journalism and images will be available as a part of Turbine Labs Premium Content plan starting August 15, 2020. The plan offers subscribers full-text access to over 5,300 premium and paywall content sources with a single login, and a simple, cost-effective fee structure. Most importantly, the Turbine Labs Premium Content plan ensures publishers are paid fairly for their journalism, helping news organizations - both local and global - thrive and grow.

About Turbine Labs

Turbine Labs mission is to advance understanding and improve decision-making by efficiently harnessing, contextualizing, distributing, and displaying the worlds information. Unlike complex dashboards, lengthy presentations, and hard to learn and use software, Turbine Labs offers a friction-free, modern approach to obtaining the intelligence leaders need to mitigate risk and improve outcomes. For more information, visit turbinelabs.com.



About Reuters

Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the worlds largest multimedia news provider. Founded in 1851, Reuters is committed to the Trust Principles of independence, integrity, and freedom from bias. With unmatched coverage in over 16 languages, and reaching billions of people worldwide every day, it provides trusted intelligence that powers humans and machines to make smart decisions. Reuters supplies business, financial, national, and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events, and directly to consumers. Reuters: The Real World in Real-Time.

Follow news about Reuters at reuters.com/rpb and @ReutersPR.

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WASHINGTON, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Will Shafroth, President and CEO of the National Park Foundation, the official nonprofit partner to the National Park Service, made the following statement regarding passage of the Great American Outdoors Act in the House of Representatives:

"After years of bipartisan collaboration and debate, today we reached a once-in-a-generation achievement in the conservation community  passage of the Great American Outdoors Act.

As a leading proponent for tackling national park deferred maintenance, the National Park Foundation is thrilled that the House of Representatives voted 310-107 to pass the Great American Outdoors Act. On the heels of last month's resounding bipartisan vote in the United States Senate, we look forward to the President signing into law this incredible win for America's national parks and public lands.

The Great American Outdoors Act affirms our shared commitment to caring for America's special places by providing significant resources to address national park deferred maintenance. Tackling our parks' long overdue maintenance needs will ensure these places are safe and accessible for all, continue fueling local economies, and offer education and inspiration for generations to come.

By directing much-needed funding to repair and improve national park facilities, roads, water systems, trails, and other vital assets, this soon-to-be law will allow the National Park Service and its partners to preserve America's special places while offering a world class visitor experience.

The Great American Outdoors Act's substantial investments in our iconic landscapes, hallowed battlefields, and important historical and cultural sites will enhance the Foundation's work to enrich national parks with philanthropic support. With meaningful federal resources devoted to long overdue park maintenance needs, philanthropic partners can focus on funding innovative projects that enhance the visitor experience and ensure our parks reach their highest potential.

In addition to addressing national park infrastructure, the Great American Outdoors Act enshrines our nation's conservation legacy through permanent, mandatory funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. This hallmark program will conserve precious lands in national parks as well as boost access to close-to-home recreation opportunities in communities throughout the United States.

The Foundation commends Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12), Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD-5), and Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-23) for their shared commitment to moving this significant legislation forward.

The Foundation applauds the dozen bipartisan lawmakers who introduced the Great American Outdoors Act in the House: Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-SC-1), Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA-1), Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID-2), Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ-11), Rep. John Katko (R-NY-24), Rep. T.J. Cox (D-CA-21), Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY-1), Rep. Xochitl Torres Small (D-NM-2), Rep. Kendra Horn (D-OK-5), Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH-15), Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME-2), and Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE-1). We are grateful for the more than 200 members who supported the Great American Outdoors Act as cosponsors.

Passage of the Great American Outdoors Act is a historic triumph for our national parks and all who cherish them. The National Park Foundation looks forward to working with Congress and the Administration on implementing this landmark conservation victory."

ABOUT THE NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION

The National Park Foundation is the official charity of America's national parks and nonprofit partner to the National Park Service. Chartered by Congress in 1967, the National Park Foundation raises private funds to help protect more than 84 million acres of national parks through critical conservation and preservation efforts and connect all Americans with their incomparable natural landscapes, vibrant culture, and rich history. Find out more and become a part of the national park community at www.nationalparks.org.

SOURCE National Park Foundation

Related Links

https://www.nationalparks.org


Piers Morgan and Amanda Holden were reunited in St Tropez as the pair went for lunch together on Thursday.

The Good Morning Britain host, 55, and the Britain's Got Talent judge, 49, are both in the south of France with their families as they make the most of the summer.

Amanda took to Instagram and shared a snap of the pair during their reunion as she posed with a group of young fans while Piers took the photo for her.

Holiday: Piers Morgan, 55, and Amanda Holden, 49, were reunited in St Tropez as the pair went for lunch together on Thursday where Amanda posed with a group of young fans

Alongside the post, she wrote: 'thrilled to be known & asked for a photo from these lovely children from the #netherlands and the #photographer @piersmorgan (no clue who he is @bgt)'.

Amanda looked radiant as she donned a pink and white patterned mini dress with a deep v-neckline along with a sun hat.

Piers took to his Stories and shared a snap of the group as they enjoyed their lunch which included his wife Celia Walden and Amanda's husband Chris Hughes.

It comes after Piers revealed he ended up on crutches after tearing a tendon on the second day of his six-week family holiday.

Stunning: Amanda looked radiant as she donned a pink and white patterned mini dress with a deep v-neckline along with a sun hat

Sweet: Amanda and Piers posed for a picture together

The presenter shared a snap of himself using the crutches on Monday while stood alongside his sons Spencer, 26, Stanley, 22, and Albert, 19.

Alongside the photo, he wrote: 'Peg-leg. (nothing like tearing a tendon on Day 2 of a 6-week holiday) #StTropez'.

Before meeting Amanda, Piers enjoyed lunch with film star Joan Collins in the French town on Friday.

Fun: Piers took to his Stories and shared a snap of the group as they enjoyed their lunch which included Amanda's husband Chris Hughes and his wife Celia Walden

Ouch: Piers revealed he ended up on crutches after tearing a tendon on the second day of the six-week family holiday

Piers shared a glimpse of the socially-distanced lunch he shared with Hollywood superstar Joan - who is a regular guest on GMB.

The former Dynasty star sported a pretty blue and white printed halterneck dress and a wide-brimmed hat as she enjoyed a glass of wine or two.

Piers captioned his post: 'Don't you wish someone looked at you the way Dame Joan looks at me?'

The TV host has certainly been settling into his new summer adode, as on Tuesday he also shared a snap of an enormous plate of paella.

Piers has shared a series of snaps since arriving, as he unwinds after spending months grilling cabinet ministers on morning television amid the coronavirus pandemic.
As part of the Garda Park Smart appeal, Gardai are appealing to caravan and campervan owners to take extra security measures following a cluster of recent thefts. This comes as a result of 13 caravans, four in Limerick, being stolen since March, 2020.

Speaking today, Crime Prevention Officer Sergeant Ber Leetch said "With staycations expected to rise this year, and more people using caravans and campervans, there is a need to be extra vigilant with their security. As a campervan owner myself, I always make sure we have the hitch lock on when we are parked up for the evening or when its not in use. We have also invested in a tracking device, they can be purchased for around 150, so if our campervan was ever stolen there is a better chance of getting it back.

"A caravan or campervan can be a very expensive, and the items you have inside them could be irreplaceable if they hold a sentimental value. I would recommend that you keep valuables out of sight and make sure everything is locked when you go out. Criminals are opportunistic so whilst you may think that its fine whilst you pop out for half an hour, you never know. Dont give them the opportunity by not securing it. Please make sure you park smart and lock up your caravan or campervan no matter where you are. If something is stolen from you, not matter what it is, call the Gardai immediately.

As part of the Park Smart campaign, Gardai have previously highlighted that over 30 million worth of items has been stolen from vehicles in the last four years. Caravans and campervans are no different and should be keep secure with no valuables left inside, if possible.

Since 2019 there has been 43 theft of caravans and campervans. The most recent incident occurred on in July where a caravan worth around 4,000 was stolen from a yard. The owner had no record of any serial number or chassis number or image of the caravan, which can make it very hard for An Garda Siochana to recover. Thankfully in this instance, Gardai were able to recover the caravan which has since been returned to the owner.

The value of some of the caravans and campervans that have been stolen ranges in value from 1,000 to 30,000.

Crime Prevention Advice

 Ensure a good quality hitch lock and wheel clamps are in place and that the caravan is locked to a secure point

 Get an alarm fitted if one is not already in place

 Keep valuables out of sight and remove when not in use

 Ensure windows and doors are locked

 Park in a well-lit area. Keep a light on if leaving unattended overnight

 Use a cover when not in use. This may deter thieves as pulling off a cover can be noisy and add to the time taken to steal the caravan

 Keep good records of all serial numbers, unique markings, image of the caravan/campervan etc. Keep documents secure.

 Consider voluntarily registering your caravan with the Central Registration and Identification Scheme

For further crime prevention advice on this, and on other topics, please see https://www.garda.ie/en/Crime- Prevention/
UPPER THUMB  Huron and Tuscola counties each reported four new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, according to the daily state report.

That brings the number of confirmed cases in Huron County since the pandemic began to 98, with the death toll still remaining at three. There are another 16 probable cases in the county according to the state.

Tuscola Countys case count is now at 246 since the pandemic started, with its death toll still at 27. There are also 16 probable cases in the county.

Sanilac County reported one new case, bringing its case number since the pandemic began to 72, with a death toll of five. There are also eight probable cases and one probable death.

Across the state, there have been 699 new cases and seven new deaths.

Michigan has now had 75,947 cases and 6,148 deaths since the pandemic began.

Ann Hepfer, the health officer for Huron and Tuscola Counties, expressed her frustrations about the case numbers continuing to rise in the Thumb.

We should not still be dealing with this infection, Hepfer said in a press release, adding that people should avoid risky behavior like being around crowds of people and should stay home a little bit more. We need to change our socializing habits or else we are going to (see) continued increases in positive cases.

She further stated that businesses are affected when their employees fall ill and they have to close when they do not have enough staff to work.

Right now, everyone is looking at the short-term effects of this virus which can be a mild illness, we dont know what the long-term effects this virus may have on our health," Hepfer said. "Once again, this is not the flu.

Hepfer once again reminded everyone to continue practicing social distancing, wearing masks, and to washing their hands.

Testing is still taking place at the Great Lakes Bay Health Care Center in Bad Axe, for Huron County, and at the Tuscola County Health Department in Caro.

The Great Lakes Bay Health Care centers testing hours are from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and are weather permitting.

The Tuscola County Health Department testing goes from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Thursdays.

The testing is open to anyone who lives in a rural area with or without symptoms. Those getting tested need the following information:

 Full name

 Date of birth

 Address

 Telephone Number

 Insurance information and numbers

Hepfer said that testing supplies are in short supply, and they can continue testing until the supplies run out.

More testing locations can be found at www.michigan.gov/coronavirus
The World Health Organization has confirmed an Ebola outbreak in a remote forested part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the first in that country since 2014. At least nine people are suspected of being infected, and three have died.

The outbreak has raised alarms about the possibility of a new epidemic.

"An investigation team led by the Ministry of Health and supported by WHO and partners has deployed and is expected to reach the affected area in the coming days", said Peter Salama, WHO's executive director for emergencies, in a statement.

The WHO said it was informed on Tuesday of a cluster of undiagnosed illness and deaths, including hemorrhagic symptoms, in the northeastern part of the country, bordering the Central African Republic. On Thursday, the DRC's health ministry informed WHO that of five laboratory samples tested, one tested positive for Ebola virus at a laboratory in Kinshasa. That confirmed case was one of the three people who died.

The Ebola infection was confirmed from tests on a group of people exhibiting symptoms since April 22 in the province of Bas-Uele in northeast DRC.

The ministry said it is beginning to trace the contacts of those who may have been infected and that it is issuing protective kits for the health workers involved.

"Our country must confront an outbreak of the Ebola virus that constitutes a public health crisis of international significance," the ministry said.

On April 22, the confirmed Ebola victim drove across part of the vast province on motorbike to reach medical care. He had blood in his vomit and stool. There are conflicting accounts of whether he was able to reach the regional hospital in Likati. A sample of his blood was taken to Kinshasa, but because Bas-Uele is so remote, it took 10 days before the sample arrived in Kinshasa, the capital, and was tested.

By that time, both the original patient and the driver of the motorbike who took him to the hospital, his brother, had died, according to Alima, a medical humanitarian organization working in the country.

The body of the original patient was taken back to his village for burial, and a follow-up ministry health team later identified six others who had fallen ill in the same village, according to officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who are participating in coordination meetings but not yet been asked to provide epidemiological or laboratory support.

The health workers who treated the patients without protective gear are now also in grave danger of contracting the disease. Because the confirmed case traveled across Bas-Uele, contact tracers will now have a more difficult task ahead of them, seeking and isolating possible Ebola cases in at least two disparate villages, according to Alima.

But health personnel dispatched to the region are hopeful that the outbreak will mirror previous, limited Ebola outbreaks in the country.

"There will be more cases, but it is more likely to look like other outbreaks in Congo, a smaller outbreak, ending faster," said Susan Shepherd, Alima's medical coordinator.

"It's very isolated there," said Silvain Yuma, chief of staff at the ministry of health

One of those previous outbreaks was in the neighboring province of Haut-Uele in 2012. There were 41 cases there and 18 deaths. The outbreak lasted for around four months.

DRC officials said the confirmed infection involved the Zaire strain, which was the most common one present during the 2014-15 outbreak. Scientists are in the late stages of developing a vaccine that targets that specific strain, and it is likely to be made available for use if the outbreak is found to be large enough to warrant such an intervention. The vaccine has not yet been approved the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but could be made available under an emergency use authorization.

An agreement between Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and Merck, the developer of the vaccine, ensures that the vaccine is available in case of an outbreak, said Gavi's chief executive, Seth Berkley, in a statement. "The fact that this is a country that has experience dealing with Ebola should give us hope that we won't see a pandemic on the scale of the 2014 outbreak that hit West Africa," he said.

The WHO and others will determine if and when deployment of vaccine into this outbreak is warranted. The WHO has previously said it was preparing to make an initial 300,000 doses of the vaccine available in case of an outbreak.

Yokouide Allarangar, WHO representative in the DRC, said in a statement on Friday that the first teams of specialists - including epidemiologists, biologists, and experts in the areas of social mobilization, risk communication and community engagement and also personnel specializing in water, hygiene and sanitation - are scheduled to reach the affected area, which is about 800 miles from the capital Kinshasa, "today or tomorrow."

Allarangar also appealed to other medical organizations to join in the response. A number of them, including Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), have already offered their support.

The CDC, which established an office in the DRC in 2002, also has staff in the country working on a vaccine trial for monkeypox, a rare viral disease that is endemic in the DRC.

Unlike the countries in West Africa that were hardest hit by the 2014 Ebola epidemic, the DRC has had much more experience with the disease, including seven previous Ebola outbreaks since the virus was first discovered in the country in 1976.

The DRC was not one of the main three African countries hit by the 2014 epidemic, but the toll on the country was significant. The WHO confirmed 66 cases with 49 deaths. Worldwide, more than 28,600 people were infected and 11,300 died. The countries at the epicenter of the crisis - Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia - have all been Ebola-free since at least June of last year.

That outbreak was a wake-up call for global public health officials whose response has been widely criticized for being slow and disorganized. Many new measures have been set up to respond to future epidemics, such as better communication systems and quarantine procedures, but there's still much more that is needed.

A review on the world's pandemic readiness published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year said that an investment of at least $4.5 billion is needed each year for improving detection and response tools. The paper, funded by philanthropic and academic groups, including the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, Ford Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, had a sobering prediction: that at least one pandemic event will almost certainly occur in the next 100 years and that there is a 20 percent chance of four or more.

- - -

The Washington Post's Kevin Sieff contributed to this report from Nairobi.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about grain production, the protection and use of black soil at a demonstration zone for green food production in Lishu County of Siping City, northeast China's Jilin Province, July 22, 2020. Xi Jinping inspected Jilin Province on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)

CHANGCHUN, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on Wednesday inspected northeast China's Jilin Province.

While visiting Lishu, a county in the city of Siping, Xi went to a demonstration zone for green food production and a farmers' cooperative to learn about grain production, the protection and use of black soil, as well as mechanized and large-scale farming.

Xi also visited the memorial hall for the Siping battle in the Chinese People's War of Liberation, and paid his tribute to revolutionary martyrs. Enditem
Nebraska State Patrol troopers and Custer County sheriffs deputies have arrested a driver who fled from a traffic stop on foot.

About 8:40 p.m. Wednesday, a trooper saw a Nissan Sentra fail to stop at a stop sign at the intersection of Victoria Springs and Gates Road north of Broken Bow in Custer County, according to a press release from the patrol.

After the vehicle was stopped, a Custer County Sheriffs Office K-9 detected the odor of a controlled substance in the vehicle, according to the press release. As troopers searched the vehicle, the driver ran into a cornfield. A passenger in the vehicle remained at the scene.

The Custer County K-9 and a State Patrol K-9 tracked the subject and located him in a nearby river less than an hour later.

The 22-year-old man from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was taken into custody without further incident. The search of the vehicle revealed less than one pound of marijuana, THC edibles and shatter, and a handgun.
Louth Senator Erin McGreehan says she welcomes the announcement of the July Stimulus package today.

The package is worth 5.2 billion and will encourage job creation and retention in areas worst hit from the unprecedented challenges brought about by COVID-19.

I fully welcome the stimulus package announced by government today. The challenges faced by thousands of business owners, their employees, and others in communities dependent on a functioning economy are unprecedented.

It is important the Pandemic Unemployment Payment has been extended to the end of March 2021. This is vital to so many who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic.

The Business Restart Grant is being increased to up to 25,000 and more businesses will now qualify. This is an important measure for small and medium sized businesses as well as their employees."

She added: I welcome the measures which will encourage people to stay in hotels or dine out in restaurants in Ireland. Our hospitality sector has taken a major hit from the pandemic. This measure will see more people spending in our local restaurants and hotels which will be a positive change.

There will be a large capital spend between now and the end of the year. The investment in capital projects will be a massive boost to both jobs in the area and see the delivery of key projects.

The coronavirus pandemic has brought about unprecedented challenges. I believe this jobs stimulus package along with the programme of government, and the dedication of the Irish people, will see us overcome the coronavirus and the economic challenges that it has brought to our country, concluded Senator McGreehan.
Maharashtra Medical Education Minister Amit Deshmukh on Thursday asked the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) to defer examinations ofits medical courses in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Nashik-based state university has announced holding examinations in August.

An official statement issued said Deshmukh has asked MUHS vice-chancellor Deelip Mhaisekar to postpone the examinations, saying holding them during the ongoing pandemicwas not in the interest of students.

The minister said the first and second year students be allowed to study the next year's curriculum and their final year examinations and all other non certifying tests bedeferred till further notice.

The internship of final year students be started andtheir examinations be conducted only after the COVID-19 spread is contained, he said. Deshmukh said post-graduate students reside in their campuses and hence their exams can be conducted. The entranceexamination of their courses is slated for September 15.

Set up in 1998, the MUHS is focused on teaching,training and research in modern medicine and Indian systems of medicine. It conducts courses in allopathy, dental, nursing,homoeopathy, unani and ayurveda streams.
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Even as there is a call to reduce dependence on Chinese products, Indian businesses are latching on to the opportunity that the market in China provides.

Steelmaker Jindal Steel and Power(JSPL) has not only done that, but also used its China play to return to black and record its best ever EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, for a quarter.

While all the steelmakers increased their exports to China in the first three months of the financial year, it is the Naveen Jindal-led steelmaker that has made the most of the opportunity.

In 'normal times', JSPL used to export about 6,000 tons a month. But, from April onwards, that number shot up by over 2,000 times.

"In the last three months, we have exported over nine lakh tons of steel. Nearly 30 percent of these exports were to China," Managing Director VR Sharma told Moneycontrol.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

While the company exported nearly 2.5 lakh tons of steel in April, this rose to a little over four lakh tons in May. Of the four lakh tons in May, 2.2 lakh tons was exported to China, the highest for any Indian steelmaker. Overall, China and the European Union were the two big markets for JSPL, says Sharma.

In comparison, Tata Steel and its units exported 72,000 tons of steel to China in May, and JSW Steel shipped 1.3 lakh tons.

These exports helped JSPL report a consolidated net profit of Rs 268 crore in the quarter ending March 31, 2020, from a loss of Rs 87 crore, a year earlier. Its gross revenue though was down 12 percent, at Rs 9,741 crore.

Among other steel companies, Godawari Power & Ispat had used the increasing demand in China to shore up exports.

The China opportunity

The secret to JSPL's high exports to China is JSPL's immediate response to the disruption caused by COVID-19, says Sharma.

"We modified our style. The moment the government included steelmaking under essential services, we asked the sales team to look at export markets as demand in India had come to nil," says Sharma.

A national lockdown was announced in India in May, with much of the economic activity coming to a standstill. Infrastructure, housing and auto sectors are the biggest users of steel.

JSPL asked much of its employees in departments such as finance, HR and IT to shift to work-from-home. On the other hand, at its plants, "we laid down SoP for hygiene and social distancing to ensure production continued," says Sharma.

The timing was crucial as China was just recovering from the virus outbreak, which was first reported in the country in December 2019.

"There was a huge stimulus from the Chinese government to kickstart its economy. But the steel mills in the country were unable to cater to the demand and thus they had to import," says Sharma.

The senior executive pointed out that it made sense for the Chinese to import from India, rather than from other alternatives such as Turkey, Russia or Ukraine.

"The shipping time from India to China is lesser, and costs are lower. It was a win-win situation for all," says Sharma.

Apart from China and the European Union, JSPL also exported to countries in South East Asia.

Sharma hopes to continue with the momentum in the coming quarters.

"We plan to produce 1.9 million tons in the second quarter, and will sell everything," he says.

Interestingly, industry observers point out that Chinese demand has been tapering as local mills in the country continue to ramp up their production.

"Exports have gone down," said a senior executive from a steel company.

At the same time, demand is picking up in India. Government-led spending has helped restart work in the infrastructure sector, auto companies continue to see better sales numbers, even though these are still lower than pre-COVID-19 levels. Bajaj Auto for instance, expects demand for its bikes to reach 95 percent in July.

This recovery in the local market will be crucial for JSPL.
The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked the Delhi University (DU) to submit before it the details of the varsitys mock tests, which are scheduled to begin from July 27.

On the next date, we would like to know how your (DU) mock tests went. Give us the entire data on the mock test, and how many students participated, said a division bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice S Prasad and deferred the matter for further hearing on July 28.

The court also observed that the Supreme Court is hearing a petition challenging University Grants Commissions (UGC) decision related to guidelines for conducting the final term examinations.

The Delhi High Court was hearing a batch of petitions filed in connection with the final year examination of Delhi University, including one the National Federation of the Blind.

Earlier today, the Supreme Court agreed to hear within the next two days a plea challenging a UGC circular dated July 6 and seeking the cancellation of final year examination in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.
After seeing a rise in encampments in city, Jalil Bokhari was looking for ways to lend support to the homeless in his Alexandra Park neighbourhood.

He had recently shared a list of Black-owned businesses in the city a few weeks earlier on Instagram, and saw its impact immediately.

He also heard how his friend Zenat Begum in Brooklyn, N.Y., had created a network of seven fridges offering free food.

Bokhari decided to bring the idea to Toronto with the help of his friend Julian Bentivegna.

I live across the street from an encampment on Dundas, and I was seeing the need for that. I came to Julian and he said Ive been wanting to do this for a long time too,  said Bokhari, who set up an Instagram page to spread the word about his idea.

The first fridge opened behind Ten Restaurant at 1132 College St., near Dufferin Street, last Friday. Its stocked and cleaned daily with the help of volunteers, said Bentivegna, the restaurants head chef.

The two friends hope to expand the service to Parkdale and Regent Park next, with a new fridge expected as soon as next weekend.

Anyone can take the free food from the fridge, which sits on the street. No questions are asked. A sign on the fridge tells users to Take what you need, leave what you dont.

As of Thursday, more than 30 people had agreed to help support the service by donating food, and restocking and cleaning the fridges. Four fridges have also been collected in recent days to support the network.

This is the starting point for a much bigger project thats coming, and it was almost just a way to test the waters, Bentivegna said.

Encampments in parks around the city were a familiar sight at the start of the pandemic, as many avoided shelters of out of a fear of contracting COVID-19, before the city stepped in to remove them.

Even those people with homes face food insecurity as a result of losing their jobs, said Bokhari, a server and bartender in Torontos restaurant industry.

Most of the food donations so far have come from Bentivegnas restaurant, and individuals reaching out to them through Instagram.

The Bowery Project and the Toronto Workers Relief Fund have confirmed they will also be donating food.

Given the pandemic, a lot of people have been losing jobs, and left without work, theyve had difficulty paying rent, said Rachel Kimel with the Bowery Project, a non-profit that has been growing food in vacant spaces in Toronto for the last seven years.

Any gesture goes a long way these days.

Several households, Black Diamond Vintage clothing store in Parkdale, and a design studio have agreed to open community fridges in the network, Bokhari said.

The added benefit it is that it allows his restaurant to make use of surplus food at the end of the day that would typically get thrown out.

Its a no-brainer for a lot of restaurants, Bentivegna said. It makes a lot more sense to just have a fridge out there where you can be able to help out the community a little bit.
Clermont

GERMANTOWN  Clermont State Historic Site offers a series of talks and performances on the back porch of the house.

The series kicks off on July 25 and 26 with History Story Hour at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. both days.

This will be followed by Mrs. Livingston, I Presume? A Chat with Alice Delafield Clarkson Livingston at Aug. 1 and History Comics Chat with professional artist and Clermont School Program Coordinator Emily Robinson at 1 p.m. Aug. 2.

On Sunday, Aug. 9 join curator Geoff Benton for a walk and talk tour of the grounds entitled; A Tyrant with whom he will never be reconciled: The Livingstons and Their Community in the Revolutionary War.

Masks and social distancing will be required of all participants.

Programs are free, but registration is required to help with social distancing. Those interested can register at https:

/www.eventbrite.com/o/friends-of-clermont-amp-clermont-state-historic-site-13401630297

Van Buren Site

KINDERHOOK  Martin Van Buren National Historic Sites virtual speaker series, with the support of the Friends of Lindenwald, presents:

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Friday, July 24, Van Buren biographer James Bradley will join park staff for a conversation about the eighth presidents personality, political career, and legacy. Bradley is co-editor of The Papers of Martin Van Buren and is currently writing Van Buren: Americas First Politician.

Tuesday, Aug. 18, historian Michelle Dempsey will share her research on the lives of Angelica Singleton Van Buren and Christina Cantine, two women who had a profound influence on Van Buren. She served at aite in 2019 as the Cultural Resources Diversity Internship Programs 19th Amendment interpretation intern. She works at Edith Whartons The Mount in Lenox, Mass.

Both videos will premiere on Martin Van Buren National Historic Sites Facebook page at 7 .pm. Following the premiere, the talks will also be available for viewing on the parks website and YouTube channel.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the government will provide every Indian with a safe and secure roof over their head by year 2022 when the country completes 75 years as an independent nation.

Prime ministers remark was made while addressing the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) session.

Our Housing for All programme will ensure that every Indian will have a safe and secure roof over their head by 2022, when India completes 75 years as an independent nation, Modi told the session.

He underlined that the ambitious project to build 40 million houses was more than the total number of households in many countries.

Prime Minister also mentioned his governments Ayushmaan Bharat universal health scheme, Swachh Bharat mission for sanitation, direct benefit transfer programme and the Jan Dhan bank accounts scheme to highlight countrys efforts to meet the developmental goals and improve the lives of its citizens.

He also highlighted that his governments stated motto of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikaas, Sabka Vishwas resonates with the core UNs Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of leaving no one behind.

India is home to one-sixth of humanity. We are mindful of our weight and responsibility. We know that if India succeeds in achieving its development objectives, it will go a long way in achievement of global goals. And so we have taken whole-of-society approach- by engaging our States, our local governments, our civil society, communities and our people, the PM said.

UN general assembly had adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 to be achieved by member nations by 2030.

India also contributed to shaping the ECOSOC agenda, including the Sustainable Development Goals. Today, through our domestic efforts, we are again playing a salient role in achieving Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. We are also supporting other developing countries in meeting their Sustainable Development Goals, the PM said highlighting Indias commitment to the UN agenda.

Also Read: India has helped over 150 countries in global fight against Covid-19: PM Modi

PM also stressed on the need to reform the UN so that it can meet aspirations while representing the realities of the contemporary world. He cited the fundamental principle of multilateralism to back his call.

Only reformed multilateralism with a reformed United Nations at its center can meet the aspirations of humanity. Today, while celebrating 75 years of the United Nations, let us pledge to reform the global multilateral system. To enhance its relevance, to improve its effectiveness, and to make it the basis of a new type of human-centric globalization, he said.

It was Modis first speech at the UN after Indias election to the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member for two years till 2022. The government had stated at the time that it wanted to use the latest stint at the powerful UN body to push its candidature for a permanent seat on the council, which failed to reflect the realities of the contemporary world.

PM said that India will display its deep commitment to maintaining global harmony, improving socio-economic equity, and preserving natures balance, while playing its role in full support of the UN agenda.

The ECOSOC is responsible for advancing international economic and social cooperation and development through economic, social, and cultural activities.
Congress and the American people have a right to know if this or any other administration is spying on people in the United States outside of express congressional approval, with no or diminished guardrails.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that President Trump's signature payroll tax cut proposal would be left out of the $1 trillion coronavirus Senate Republican coronavirus package being negotiated with the White House.

Mnuchin told CNBC the payroll tax cut 'won't be in the base bill'  confirming the fate of a proposal that had already gotten pushback from Republican lawmakers and has not made it into previous versions of coronavirus relief.

Instead, negotiators are seeking to target provisions as unemployed workers, who would get unemployment benefits worth up to 70 per cent of lost wages under the latest provision being negotiated.

His comments came on a day when the government announced an additional 1.4 million Americans had filed for unemployment.

Treasury Sec. Steven Mnuchin said the payroll tax cut 'won't be in the base bill' Republicans are unveiling to deal with the coronavirus

'We think the payroll tax cut is a very good pro-growth policy,' Mr. Mnuchin said on CNBC. 'The president's focus is he wants to get money into people's pockets now.,' he said.

Trump has continued to tout the proposal in interviews, even as fellow Republicans were wary of taking from the share of wages that both employees through and employers pay into the Social Security system through payroll taxes.

'We want to make sure that the people who are out there that can't find jobs do get a reasonable wage replacement,' Mnuchin added.

'I'll have to see, but yeah, I would consider not signing it if we don't have a payroll tax cut,' Trump told Fox interviewer Chris Wallace on Sunday

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republicans will soon release their coronavirus bill

But he kept the proposal alive for a future round of relief he indicated was possible.

'But we're going to come back again. There may be a CARES 5.0,' Mnuchin said.

President Trump even went as far as to say he might not sign the bill without the proposal. But after just a few days of talks on a day Senate Republicans may reveal their legislation, 'It won't be in the base bill,' Mnuchin said.

'I'll have to see, but yeah, I would consider not signing it if we don't have a payroll tax cut,' Trump told Fox interviewer Chris Wallace on Sunday, leaving himself plenty of wiggle room on the threat a few days ago.

He also called the proposal 'very important.'

The retreat comes as Trump has pivoted in other areas, bringing back his coronavirus briefings after a months-long hiatus, urging people to wear masks while carrying one himself, and acknowledging things will 'get worse' before they get better in the fight against the coronavirus.

He trails Democrat Joe Biden in national opinion polls, and has repeatedly hammered his rival in public comments.

Trump retweeted a string of posts critical of Biden Thursday, including one from former Speaker Newt Gingrich who claimed Biden would 'attack' religious morals.

Democrats had opposed the payroll tax cut idea. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, warned it could pose 'a public relations problem,' opening the party to criticism it was drawing from the Social Security and Medicare Trust funds months before an election.
SELBYVILLE, Del., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- As per Global Market Insights Inc., the medical styrenic polymers market valuation is expected to surpass $5.9 billion by 2026. The report offers a comprehensive analysis of the opportunities & drivers, market size as well as estimations, wavering industry trends, key investment avenues, competitive scenario, and top winning strategies.

Global Market Insights Inc.

The shifting preference from metallic to polymer-based devices is likely to generate plentiful growth opportunities for the medical styrenic polymers market over the forecast time period. Several key market players are also focusing on capacity expansion and joint venture strategies in an effort to acquire a larger chunk of the industry share, which would positively influence revenue streams.

Based on product, ABS, SEBS, and Polystyrene are considered as more revenue-generating products in the segment. Among these, polystyrene was considered the largest of the product segment in 2019 with industry projections anticipating it to grow at a CAGR of over 5% over the forecast time period.

Request for Sample Report: https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/1821

Key reasons for medical styrenic polymers market growth

Increasing demand for polystyrene. Expanding application scope in medical packaging and instruments. Rising APAC healthcare sector.

2026 forecasts anticipate the overall application segment showing appreciative growth

In terms of revenue and volume, the COVID-19 pandemic has positively impacted the global medical styrenic polymers. The demand for medical solutions and products is increasing due to the growing need for these products in clinics and hospitals. Increasing the consumption of these products in medical containers, diagnostic components, and medical packaging is likely to increase the demand for medical styrenic polymers. Furthermore, owing to the rising COVID-19 cases, the consumption of medical products like medical fabrics, IV solution bags, and instruments is increasing, which is likely to drive the medical styrenic polymers market share.

North America & Asia-Pacific to witness remunerative growth

Based on geography, the medical styrenic polymer market in North America will show a substantial growth with projections anticipating it to exceed a valuation of $2.3 billion by the end of the analysis timeframe. Rising demand for IV solution bags, medical fabrics, and other medical instruments, due to the coronavirus outbreak and the rapidly increasing medical investment across the region, is expected to generate huge revenue gains over the projected time period.

The North American market was followed closely by APAC and Europe in 2019 and is projected to show similar growth trends over the forecast timeline.

In fact, the APAC medical styrenic polymers market is growing at the industry's fastest rate and is likely to foresee gains of nearly 6.7% in the coming years. The increasing population in the region has resulted in rising investment towards the growth of the healthcare sector, which in turn is anticipated to generate considerable revenue gain over the projected time period.

Request for customization of this report: https://www.gminsights.com/roc/1821

Leading market players:

The key market players analyzed in the medical styrenic polymers industry report include Nova Chemical Corporation, Mitsubishi Chemical Holding Corporation, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, LG Chem, Styrolution Group GmbH, Ovation Polymers, Chevron Phillips Chemical, Formosa Chemical & Fibre Corporation, Trinseo S.A, Bayer MaterialScience AG, ELIX Polymers, Ovation Polymers, Kraton Corporation, BASF SE, Mitsubishi Chemical Holding Corporation, and Chi Mei Corporation among others.

About Global Market Insights, Inc.

Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider. Offering syndicated and custom research reports, growth consulting, and business intelligence services, Global Market Insights, Inc. aims to help clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data that aid in strategic decision making.

GMIPulse, our business analytics platform offers an online, interactive option of exploring our proprietary industry research data in an easy-to-use and dynamic manner. Clients get to explore market intelligence across 11 top-level categories and hundreds of industry segments within them, covering regional, company level, and cross-sectional statistics that make our offering a stand-out for decision-makers.

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]

Web: https://www.gminsights.com

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LONDON  Tai-tai is a colloquial term used to describe wealthy housewives in China and in Chinese-speaking regions such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. Kevin Kwans Crazy Rich Asians trilogy has lengthy and hilarious descriptions of these consumers spending habits and fashion styles.

Most of the time, Chinese netizens are obsessed with teen idols and what they are wearing and show little interest in women beyond a certain age. But recently, because of the reality show Sisters Who Make Waves, where 30 female celebrities over 30 years old fight to get into a five-member girl group, and the hit TV drama series Nothing but Thirty, Chinese Tai-tai style has been in the spotlight.

Several celebrities in Sisters Who Make Waves married into immense wealth. As the crew films their family life, the public gets to witness the kind of luxurious lifestyles many consider beyond imagination.

For example, Shengyi Huang, 37  who kickstarted her fame by starring in Stephen Chows top-grossing film Kung Fu Hustle in 2004 and who is married to Zi Yang, heir to Juli Group, a conglomerate valued at $3.2 billion with businesses across rigging equipment, alcohol, new energy, property development, and multimedia  bought a smaller mansion just for the show because she was worried that the size of her real home would scare the audience.

Her ability to pull off looks on the stage and on the street and her diva moments on the show have cemented her as a new fashion icon for many Chinese Tai-tais. She frequently shares her styling tips, skin-care routine and family moments on Chinese social commerce platform Xiaohongshu.

Huang and others in the show  such as Christy Chung, Ning Jing and Annie Yi  are progressive role models of what a modern-day Chinese Tai-tai can be. They are talented, beautiful, have their own careers while being a caring mother and a good wife.

Story continues

Nothing but Thirty, meanwhile, offers a more realistic and sarcastic commentary on the social hierarchy among Chinese Tai-tais.

A clip from the TV drama went viral last week when the lead character got cropped out of a group picture because she carried a Chanel bag to a gathering while the rest came with their Hermes Birkin and Kelly bags. Influencer Mr.Bags analysis of who wears what in the scene became a trending post on Weibo. The show also generated wider discussions around materialism, social inequality, and what should women really prioritize after they enter adulthood.

Regardless, many applaud the shows accurate portrayal of the current Chinese Tai-tai style. It isnt as flashy as it used to be, but these women still dress in a way to make sure everyone knows that they are wealthy, at least within their social circle. One could call it the Middle Money style  not too new, yet not so old.

I try to make them look like gift boxes. Chinese Tai-tais love embroidery, beading, silk and stiff fabrics, and they all have identical objects that come with hefty price tags, said Yikai Li, a costume designer and the stylist of Nothing but Thirty.

Li added that the life of a Tai-tai is extremely competitive in China, just like the rest of the world. They rival each other by who has the best jewelry, the most exotic bags. Even their husbands could be used as an object in order to prove that ones lifestyle is more superior than others, he said.

He had to borrow a good number of Hermes bags, and rare jewelry and timepieces from his rich friends to accurately reflect the characters social status in the show.

In the clip, the lead Tai-tai, who considers herself old money, carried a Himalaya Niloticus Crocodile Birkin, while the new entrant to the group carried a purple crocodile Kelly to prove to the rest that she was their equal. One less-rich Tai-tai later confessed that she had to buy a secondhand Birkin in order to fit into the group, however.

Fashion influencer Zheng Yu, founder of the Weibo account Fashionmodels, who often meets Tai-tais at fashion events, said some of them can be even more flashy and over the top in real life. They would wear the latest haute couture pieces to the Dior repeat show in Shanghai, and have Tai-tai gatherings where attendees have to wear Chanel tweed jackets, Richard Mille diamond watches, Van Cleef & Arpels rings and carry Himalaya Niloticus Crocodile Birkin bags.

Yu also observed that the older generation of Chinese Tai-tais prefers jewelry made of jade stones, over diamonds or other precious materials, compared to the younger generation.

I remembered there was a time I went to a Chinese New Year gathering, and saw the head Tai-tai wore a whole set of jade jewelry to match with her crocodile Birkin. Thats the moment when I understood our ancestors old saying: Gold has a price, but jade is priceless,' he added.

A China area manager of a Parisian luxury house told WWD that the brands VIPs  the majority of whom are Tai-tais in their 40s and 50s with husbands busy with the family business and children abroad  love any bags that come in crocodile. In order to capture this group of high spenders, brands usually have little to no price differential between China and Paris for exotic skin bags, while the monogram versions are usually 15 to 30 percent more expensive in China.

Some homegrown designers are looking to capitalize on the rising fashion influence of Chinese Tai-tai. Bing Xu, founder of his own shoe label and chief shoe designer at Shanghai Tang, and a fixture of the Chinese high society, said his shoes have been rather popular among his Birkin-carrying Tai-tai friends, and luxury brands China heads. Because of this, his shoes sell well without any advertisement, and a few European luxury brands are also looking to work with him to improve their footwear offerings in China.

Many of my Chinese Tai-tai clients told me that they prefer my shoes because the design is based on a Chinese foot shape, not a European foot shape. Once they feel how comfortable the shoes are, they tell all their Tai-tai friends, and thats how I built my business, he said. Comfort and material are the most important elements. If you manage to combine understated design and new ideas that embrace both East and West, Tai-tais will fall in love with your design instantly.

With regard to the publics newfound interest in Tai-tai style, Xu thinks Nothing but Thirtys depiction of these women and their obsession with Hermes is a bit one-dimensional.

Its for a dramatic effect, he said. Those real Chinese Tai-tais I know have far better taste than what you see on TV. Usually, when I see a woman carrying a Himalaya Birkin, she doesnt have a good taste, whether its in China or Europe. True tastemakers always go for Barenia or Box leather.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 09:35:04|Editor: huaxia

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JOHANNESBURG, July 22 (Xinhua) -- South Africa's tourism sector is using the COVID-19 era to improve their services and resume on a higher note, the South African Tourism (SAT) said Wednesday at a webinar.

SAT CEO Sisa Ntshona expressed optimism that the country will weather the COVID-19 storm and be a force to be reckoned with.

"The COVID-19 has given us the opportunity to press the reset button on how we can emerge from this. I have hope this sector will bounce back, it's a matter of time. We are using this time to sharpen our axes. We understand the frustration the sector has to get it going," said Ntshona.

He said they have been using the COVID-19 lockdown to improve the sector.

South Africa's domestic tourism is allowed to resume operation now. Ntshona said the sector has come up with risk-adjusted interventions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and restore confidence in travelers.

The country's tourism is supposed to fully operate at level one with the exact date yet to be determined. Enditem
Smartwatch and wearable device maker Garmin had to shut down some of its connected services and call centers following a ransomware attack.

On July 23, smartwatch and wearables maker Garmin has shut down several of its services due to a ransomware attack that targeted its internal network and some production systems.

We are currently experiencing an outage that affects Garmin.com and Garmin Connect, reads a statement published by the company on its website. This outage also affects our call centers, and we are currently unable to receive any calls, emails or online chats. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and apologize for this inconvenience.

We are currently experiencing an outage that affects Garmin Connect, and as a result, the Garmin Connect website and mobile app are down at this time. (1/2)  Garmin (@Garmin) July 23, 2020

The outage also impacted the company call centers, making it impossible for the company to provide information to its users.

Most of the services used by customers of the company rely on the Garmin Connect service to sync data about runs and bike rides with its servers.

Even if the company did not provide technical details of the outage, several employees shared details about the alleged ransomware attack on social media.

Some employees speculate the involvement of a new strain of ransomware called WastedLocker. The incident could have a severe impact on the company, the Taiwanese tech news iThome reported that an internal memo that Garmins IT staff sent its Taiwan factories was announcing two days of maintenance mode planned for Friday and Saturday, July 24 and July 25.

In September 2019, Garmin was the victim of a data breach, it warned customers in South Africa that shopped on the shop.garmin.co.za portal that their personal info and payment data were exposed.

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs  hacking, ransomware)
New Delhi, July 23 : The Indian Railways has created 2.2 lakh man days in the last one month for the returnee migrant workers in six states and has paid over Rs 737 crore, Railway Board Chairman V.K. Yadav said here on Thursday.

Addressing a virtual press conference, the Chairman said, "We have created 2.2 lakh man days in last four weeks in six states -- Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha and Jharkhand for the returnee migrant workers and paid over Rs 737.4 crore." He said, in Uttar Pradesh the Railways created over 71,000 man days while in Bihar it created over 65,000 man days.

The national transporter has decided to create employment opprtunity for 125 days for the returnee migrant workers in 116 districts in six states commencing from June 20 in 170 railway infrastructure development works.

The Railways has planned for 11.67 lakh man days for returnee migrant workers.

The Railways has transported over 63 lakh migrant workers since May 1 to July 9 in over 4,500 Shramik Special trains.
Siobhan Reardon has resigned as president and director of the Free Library of Philadelphia. Read more

Siobhan Reardon, the longtime leader of the Free Library of Philadelphia, resigned Thursday, after employee complaints about racial discrimination in the workplace led Mayor Jim Kenney and some library trustees to pressure her to step down.

It has been an incredible 12 years full of highs and lows, and we have achieved much during this time, Reardon wrote in her resignation letter to the chairs of the two boards that run the independent library system. I leave knowing that the mandate that the boards gave me years ago  to turn the Free Library into a world-class, 21st century library  has largely been achieved.

The resignation is the latest local reverberation of the protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Workers have raised concerns about racial discrimination in the library system for years. But their efforts gained heightened visibility in late June after they formed a group called the Concerned Black Workers of the Free Library of Philadelphia and sent an open letter to management, saying they face discrimination on a regular basis, are paid less than white colleagues, and were being asked to return to work without a plan to keep them safe from the coronavirus.

The letter led at least six authors to cancel virtual Free Library events in solidarity with the workers, a key moment in their campaign to force changes.

Reardons resignation letter did not address recent controversies at the library. And there were early indications late Thursday of a backlash building against her ouster. While many Black employees who were critical of her leadership cheered the decision, some wealthy benefactors were planning to resign from the board of the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation, a philanthropic group that supports the library.

At least four members of the foundations board, which is separate from the board of trustees that oversees the librarys operations, said Thursday that they would resign, according to one foundation board member. Many trustees and foundation board members are upset that Siobhan has been placed in this position because they feel that she has always acted in the best interest of the Free Library, that shes been a wonderful leader, and that the situation that has been thrust upon her is unfair, said the board member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The resigning board members include Stephanie Naidoff, Sheldon Bonovitz, and Susan Smith

Pamela Dembe, who chairs the Free Library board of trustees, praised Reardon in an email to trustees.

"For a dozen years Siobhan Reardon has worked tirelessly and with great imagination, with the able inspiration and energy of our amazing library workers, to transform libraries, Dembe wrote. In the last several months, events have overtaken us all. The health consequences of COVID-19 and the long-overdue wider rage about deeply imbedded racism have brought us to a point where the Free Library, like many other institutions, must make very major changes if we are to most effectively serve our employees and our patrons.

The Free Library has not announced a plan for replacing Reardon.

Reardon modernized the Free Librarys systems through ambitious information technology projects, expanded library hours from five to six days per week, and helped to launch a program in which incarcerated parents could read to their children over video. In 2015, the trade publication Library Journal named her librarian of the year.

Kenney, who had worked behind the scenes in recent days to force Reardons resignation, on Thursday thanked her for her service, but said the library needed to transition.

The Free Library of Philadelphia strives to be a welcoming and inclusive public space, and that mission must endure, Kenney said in a statement. After hearing calls for reform from library employees and the public, it is clear that a change in leadership is necessary during these unprecedented times. Our administration stands in solidarity with the Free Librarys Black employees, and the countless others who have made their voices heard.

The workers who had raised concerns about Reardons leadership applauded the resignation.

The Concerned Black Workers released a statement asking to be involved in the search for a new director and calling on Dembe, who had been a vocal supporter of Reardon, to step down as chair.

Although Siobhan Reardon could have used the letter from the Concerned Black Workers as an inroads to being part of a culture of change and building trust, her refusal to change meant that resignation was the only way forward, the workers said in the statement.

Andrea Lemoins, 43, a library community organizer in the Southwest cluster who helped write the open letter in June, said Thursday that Reardons departure is the first step in really taking down white supremacy at the Free Library.

She said issues with racial discrimination are most pronounced at the Parkway headquarters.

What it looks like is getting paid less for doing the same job, getting abusive emails from Siobhan, being told as a Black person that you are overreacting, that you dont understand whats going on, Lemoins said.

The new leader, Lemoins said, should be a Black person. I want that person to have a history of fighting for the Black community ... and I want that person to have a track record of fighting against racism and bias.

Michele Teague, a local area network administrator at the Parkway Central Branch, said she was thrilled, absolutely thrilled about the resignation because Reardon had an unwillingness to accept and hear what people were saying and feeling regarding workplace racism.

I said this to her on more than one occasion: You cannot heal what you refuse to acknowledge, said Teague, whos been with the library for 12 years. She would not acknowledge that there was bigotry and racism. She never put any appropriate actions in place.

Shahadah Abdul-Rashid, 33, a community initiative specialist in the Central Cluster who has been with the library for more than two years, said the departure of Reardon is a first step in building an organization that is more equitable to all.

Abdul-Rashid said Reardon allowed things to be brushed up under the rug.

She kind of ignored it or pacified the situation, Abdul-Rashid said. She tried to satisfy everyone involved and didnt take into account the people who were harmed.

For example, Abdul-Rashid said, after she was bullied and racially harassed in 2018 at the Fishtown branch by white employees, she was moved to another branch.

That did not address the behavior of the bullying employees, Abdul-Rashid said. I was just told thats how people in Fishtown are.
It is hard to understand the accusations of mixed messaging with the publication of the so-called green list of countries while at the same time advising people to holiday at home.

The Government published the list of 15 countries where the travel advice will be to take normal precautions, and people arriving in Ireland from these countries will not have to restrict their movements for 14 days. At the same time, the advice remains not to indulge in unnecessary travel, even to those 15 countries.
ALBANY  Even before consequences of COVID-19 threatened Americans financial security, U.S. farmers and ranchers recognized they could protect the environment and save money by transitioning to renewable energy sources.

But initial prices and the cost of maintenance are discouraging them, experts say, and the federal government needs to do more.

Shifting the reliance of farms and ranches from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources is not only essential to reduce their carbon footprint, but also to hold down costs, Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., said Thursday at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Commodity Exchange, Energy and Credit.

Energy is a particular concern for farmers, for ranchers, as approximately 15% of production costs for U.S. farms is tied up in energy costs, said Scott, the subcommittee chair. By comparison, the average American household spends just a little over 2% of its budget on electricity and the same amount for gas.

Fellow Georgia Rep. Austin Scott, a Republican, said rural Americans shoulder the burdens of an extreme climate agenda. He said while federal programs like the Environmental Quality Incentive and Rural Energy for America have been effective in implementing innovative, on-farm energy production practices, many farmers still face financial barriers switching to renewable energy sources like wind turbines, solar panels and anaerobic digesters.

Dairy farmers who rely on digesters, for instance, have continuous expenses to maintain sustainable technology. After buying a digester, which can turn solid waste into electricity and alternative fuel, farmers can sell excess repurposed energy back to electrical grids. Net metering, however, does not yield enough profit to solely support the cost of operating the digesters.

Elizabeth Wolters, deputy public policy director at New York Farm Bureau, said in a phone interview that the state and federal governments should develop policies that provide financial support for farms sustainability efforts.

Unfortunately, net metering is very dependent on energy prices, and we dont have a renewable fuel standard here in New York, Wolters said. Its something the New York Farm Bureau is advocating for because we do think that it will really help those farms who are looking to invest in a digester or support those who already have one.

As stewards of the land, farmers already recognize the importance of taking care of the environment, Wolters said. Long-term infrastructure systems and financial support are needed to help farmers reduce their environmental impact, she said

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Peter Wagner of Wagner Dairy in Poestenkill has owned a digester for 10 years, and while he has made some money from net metering and received grants from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, the maintenance costs of the of the technology are high.

Digesters are more efficient than solar panels and wind turbines, but if something goes wrong, its not pretty, Wagner said. His digester cost his small farm about $1 million. When it was installed, they earned 3 cents per kilowatt, while farms in states like Vermont earned 20 cents per kilowatt.

Wagner also said more support on a local and national level would prove to banks that this kind of technology is a worthwhile investment.

We cover our usage and other farms' usage, and we are the smallest farm by a large stretch, Wagner said.Its difficult to get involved with something like this, but at this point, weve figured it out and are pretty happy with it.

Megan Sauer is a reporter for the Medill News Service and journalism master's degree student at Northwestern University.
It appears the royal family have been sharing social media tips, with Prince Charles and Camilla adopting a new display name on their Twitter account after a similar move by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Eagle-eyed royals enthusiasts spotted that the couple, who have been touring Cornwall this week, changed their Twitter moniker from Clarence House to the 'more personalised' label of The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall.

It was a move first made by Prince William and Kate, both 38, in May, when they changed their social media names from Kensington Palace to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Unlike the younger royals, Charles, 71, and Camilla, 73, have yet to adopt the approach for their Instagram account - but fans were quick to praise the couple on Twitter for their display change, suggesting it feels more 'personal'.

It appears the royal family have been sharing social media tips, with Prince Charles and Camilla (pictured) adopting a similarly styled display name to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

Eagle-eyed royals enthusiasts spotted that the couple, who have been touring Cornwall this week, changed their Twitter moniker from Clarence House to the 'more personalised' label (above) of The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall

One person wrote: 'I've just noticed that you changed your name. I like this one! More personalised,' as another added: 'I like it that they changed their name from Clarence House.'

While a third added: 'Aww finally... they changed their username from Clarence House to The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall on Twitter like Kensington Palace.'

Charles and Camilla and William and Kate also use the same photograph of The Mall in London for their cover image, showcasing the road filled with people waving Union Jacks.

The Clarence House Twitter account was created in October 2010 and offers updates, pictures and videos from the household, about The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall.

It was a move first made by Prince William and Kate (pictured on March 19, 2020, in London), both 38, in May

The couple changed their social media names from Kensington Palace to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (above)

The change comes after Vanity Fair's Katie Nicholl revealed how Prince Charles is 'looking forward' to spending time with Prince William and Kate and his grandchildren Prince George, seven, Princess Charlotte, five, and Prince Louis, two, during a 'family holiday' in Scotland this summer.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will travel to Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire for their annual summer break in 'early August', Buckingham Palace confirmed.

Her Majesty, 94, had been self-isolating in Windsor Castle since March, but is now set to travel to Scotland alongside Prince Philip, 99, next month.

Fans were quick to praise Charles and Camilla on Twitter for their display change, suggesting it feels more 'personal'

Reports had previously suggested the Queen and Prince Philip were keen to get away for their annual holiday, but would remain socially-distanced from family.

Although the duo's loved ones will join them for the traditional summer get-together. they will not be able to get close to the monarch.

When the other family members arrive at the 50,000-acre estate in Aberdeenshire, the Queen will not host them in the castle and instead they will stay in other properties on the grounds.

They will be able to meet her for outside activities instead including walks, horse riding and picnics.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler stood Wednesday among the front lines of protests outside the federal courthouse, where he and hundreds of other people were tear gassed repeatedly by federal officers.

Demonstrators have converged every night for eight weeks in downtown Portland to call for systemic reforms to the police bureau Wheeler oversees. The mayors appearance on Day 56 attracted attention and jeers from the crowd of more than 2,000 people.

Wheeler pledged to stand beside protesters subjected to consistent force by federal law enforcement who have made the Portland protests a national storyline.

The mayor told people he was raising alarms across the nation to warn other cities about what could unfold in their towns.

Wheeler and a team of city security guards spent nearly three hours at the demonstrations, including about an hour in front of the courthouse. Federal officers released gas on the crowd after some people threw things, walked inside a new perimeter fence and aimed fireworks toward the building.

Wearing a disposable mask and plastic goggles, Wheeler stayed at the fence through multiple rounds of tear gas. Organizers of the demonstrations had encouraged Wheeler to bear witness to federal force.

The reason I am here tonight is to stand with you, Wheeler told the crowd. If theyre launching the tear gas against you, theyre launching the tear gas against me.

Wheeler is the city police commissioner. The Portland Police Bureau has also regularly used tear gas on protesters, although that has waned in the face of scrutiny and a wave of lawsuits against the city.

Yet on early Thursday morning, Portland police warned people they might use tear gas to break up the crowd after declaring it a riot. Wheeler had left in a cloud of tear gas less than an hour earlier.

The police bureaus repeated warnings came on the same day the Portland City Council issued an immediate ban for all Portland police employees to stop cooperating with federal law enforcement.

By 2:30 a.m., Portland police had not responded in force like they had warned. But the hours-long confrontation between demonstrators and federal officers continued to periodically flare up outside the federal courthouse. The addition of a fence surrounding kept the crowd -- and the federal response -- contained almost entirely to the building. Officers repeatedly emerged to set off gas or shoot non-lethal projectiles toward protesters.

Protesters greeted Wheelers arrival at the start of the night by chanting his name preceded by an expletive. The crowd often shouted to drown out what he was saying. He first stood in a throng of protesters near the Justice Center, next to the federal courthouse on Southwest Third Avenue.

Some protesters asked Wheeler questions, and the conversation was captured in part by TV crew microphones. Wheeler said he does not like the use of non-lethal projectiles or gas on crowds, because they are often deployed in an indiscriminate way. He said he has directed the use of such devices to be targeted to specific incidents. He did not make clear when he issued that directive; and police force in response to the protests has sometimes extended to bystanders.

Throughout the night, both Wheeler and the crowd focused on the recent escalating force by federal police. The mayor said protesters were taking the best possible step in response to the action: Be here, be heard, be unified and be clear ... We want them to leave.

Around 10 p.m., Wheeler made his way to the steps of the Justice Center, where Black Lives Matter organizers were leading a rally and invited him to address the crowd. When one organizer asked Wheeler why he had not showed up every day, he said he had. He went on to list actions by City Council in recent weeks.

As he spoke, someone used a projector to display demands of him onto the side of the building. The demands included forcing federal officials out, freeing any jailed protesters, significantly slashing the police budget and, ultimately, resigning.

Wheeler left the stage after about 20 minutes and talked with people in the crowd.

Focus started to shift to the federal courthouse after 10:30 p.m. Officials had built a new fence bolted to steel bars that blocked people from collecting directly next to the courthouse entrance.

Some people set off fireworks toward the building and threw debris over the fence. A small fire ignited near the edge of the fence.

As the situation escalated, young Black Portlanders continued to lead the rally at the Justice Center. One person reminded the crowd about the peaceful aim of the protest. But within minutes, a speaker told parent groups who had gathered to leave to avoid confrontation with federal officers.

Most people stayed, including Wheeler. Wheeler talked to several people in the crowd by the Justice Center, including Micah Fletcher, the man who was stabbed in a 2017 MAX train attack that left two other men dead.

The federal courthouse continued to draw more attention. After some people started shaking it, the Federal Protective Service used a loudspeaker to tell the crowd not to tamper with the fence.

Around 11 p.m., a few people found a way into the fence and wandered near the courthouse entrance. Federal officers ordered those people to leave.

Wheeler navigated to the front of the fence, surrounded by reporters and at least five security guards wearing earpieces.

Federal officers emerged from the courthouse around the same time the mayor arrived. Agents appeared to detain some people, including one person who had been roller skating in the area blocked by fences.

Some officers set off tear gas and other devices to break up the crowd. Many people stayed or returned soon after. Wheeler put on goggles and remained at the fence, flanked by guards.

By 11:25 p.m., the debris fire continued to burn on the sidewalk. Portland police said on Twitter that fireworks or a similar type of device had ignited the flames.

Federal officers emerged again around 11:40 p.m. and set off devices, including some that emitted gas, smoke or sound, to break up the crowd. The situation calmed down for a few minutes, then federal officers reemerged after warning people to leave federal property.

Wheeler and his security guards left after federal officers set off more tear gas. Some people followed Wheeler back toward the Portland Building on Southwest Fifth Avenue. He retreated inside the city office with guards.

By midnight, several hundred people returned to the courthouse. Some people again set off fireworks. Other people ran into the fenced-off area to throw debris or embers toward the building. Federal officers again released a cloud of tear gas around 12:20 a.m.

Portland police soon after declared a riot at the Justice Center next door and ordered people to leave the area. It was the first audible action by police in recent nights of protesting.

Police warned the crowd that if they did not leave, they would be subject to tear gas and other types of force.

An Oregonian/OregonLive journalist who spent several hours outside the Justice Center did not see anything happen that prompted a riot declaration centered on that building. The crowds attention was fixed on the courthouse.

Portland police repeated the riot warning at least 10 times. But as of 3 a.m., police had not arrived in force.

The order to leave did not prompt demonstrators to go.

Police issued a statement around 2:45 a.m. that explained they had labeled the gathering a riot because it had created a grave risk of public alarm. Police said that some people had also damaged fire hydrants overnight, causing them to spew water into the street.

Police said they did not arrest any one over the course of the night.

Federal officers appeared to detain at least two people.

By 12:50 a.m., hundreds of people remained near the courthouse, where a few small fires burned on the pavement in front. Federal officers walked toward the crowd and shot projectiles at people while setting off tear gas.

The tense face off continued past 3 a.m. Federal officers often emerged to try to break up the crowd, and protesters stayed. Some people stood near the fence, while others milled about nearby streets. Two people waved American flags, and one person carried a city of Portland flag.

Earlier in Wednesday evening, Wheeler issued a statement on Twitter about the use of force on protesters by federal agents.

The mayor said he had heard concerns within the community that federal officers may be approved to use lethal force on protesters. He said Oregons top federal official, U.S. Attorney for Oregon Billy Williams, assures me that the federal government has no plans to use live ammunition on Portlanders tonight, and that such an order would be unlawful.

Still, Wheeler urged people to stay safe downtown.

The mayors note of caution arrived hours after President Donald Trump announced a surge of federal law enforcement into U.S. cities to respond to radical groups, as federal officers have in Portland for several consecutive nights.

Ryan Nguyen, Dave Killen and Beth Nakamura of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report.

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh; 503-294-7632; skavanaugh@oregonian.com

-- Noelle Crombie; ncrombie@oregonian.com
- President Nana Akufo-Addo has instructed his Minister of Communication, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, to halt the implementation of the directives given to GBC

- This follows a rejection of the ministers orders by the National Media Commission

- The commission issued a statement accusing Owusu-Ekuful of taking over its mandate and authority

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

Communications Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has been instructed to suspend a directive to the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) to shut down three of its Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) channels.

The directive to the communications minister came from President Akufo-Addo through his director of communication for the presidency, Eugene Arhin.

In a statement issued on Thursday, July 23, the President requested that the decision be put on hold to allow for further consultation with stakeholders.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo Source: Facebook/Nana Akufo-Addo

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Fact check: Image of George Andah holding a gun is two years old

Meanwhile, the National Media Commission (NMC) has said the Communication Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, is undermining the constitutional rights of GBC by ordering the broadcaster to shut down three of its DTT channels.

The minister, in a letter to the state broadcaster, said the move is to free up space on the platform. However, the GBC has taken the matter to the NMC to intervene.

In a statement, the NMC said the directive by the minister has no place in the current constitutional dispensation.

The statement signed by the Commission's chairman, Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafo, said:

It is the view of the Commission that any action by any entity which culminates into limiting or depriving the media of the use of public resources legitimately allocated to them undermines their capacity to serve the nation as anticipated by the Constitution.

The Commission further added that the directive given to the broadcasting corporation and Crystal TV by the minister for communications claims to take over the constitutional mandate and authority of the Commission.

The Commission's intervention comes after the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) also kicked against the move. The GJA asked the minister to immediately suspend the directive.

According to the GJA, the directive will significantly impact the operations of GBC and among to interference by the government in the work of the state-owned media and this is against the provisions of chapter 12 of the 1992 Constitution.

READ ALSO: NPP and NDC gather to mourn Sir John at one-week commiseration

The Association, in a statement, further noted that the directive has the practical effect of reducing the broadcast of the Corporation and will lead to some of its content or programmes going off the air.

YEN.com.gh earlier reported that a communications member of the National Democratic Congress in the Ashanti Region, Onasis Rosely Kobby, has revealed that John Mahama will introduce free tertiary education when he gets the mandate from the people of Ghana on December 7, 2020.

According to Kobby, the next John Mahama government will ensure university students do not pay school fees.

Speaking on Kumasi based Hello FM, Onasis Rosely Kobby opined that Ghanaians will find out more when the party launches its manifesto for the 2020 election.

Vox Pop: Ghanaians rate the performance of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's administration:

Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page.

Source: YEN.com.gh
New York, July 23 : Pfizer, which has struck a nearly $2 billion deal with the US government to deliver 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine developed in collaboration with its German partner BioNTech, is hoping to seek regulatory approval for a vaccine "as early as October" this year and have a vaccine on the market by year end.

A "best case scenario" would be approval before year end and a vaccine by year end, according to Pfizer.

"In the third quarter of this year, we hope to get into the hospital setting with a drug that is given intravenously to patients hospitalised with COVID," John Burkhardt, Senior Vice President, Drug Safety Research and Development at Pfizer, said at a news conference in Connecticut Wednesday.

"An interesting thing about this vaccine approach is that the mRNA is enclosed in a lipid nanoparticle, so you can imagine the complexity of that. At this site, we are looking at engineering that particle and analyses for it that will allow clinical trials as well as the manufacturing to occur," Burkhardt said.

He promised Americans "safety will not be compromised" in vaccine development. "We are very optimistic", he said.

Americans will receive the vaccine for free and the US government can acquire up to an additional 500 million doses. Pfizer and BioNTech said in a statement they could potentially produce more than 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021.

"Pfizer is one of the leading horses in this race right now. There may be several winners. We need several winners," Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said at a news conference Wednesday.

Pfizer's Groton, Connecticut facility has a long history of drug discovery and development including Zoloft and Zithromax.

Pfizer's vaccine candidate will now go into large scale clinical trials involving 20,000-30,000 patients before end July. It must be proven effective and receive emergency authorisation before it can be distributed.

Pfizer is finishing an earlier stage of testing to determine which of four possible candidates to try in the final study.

Preliminary data from studies have shown a good immune response from vaccinated patients, Pfizer scientists told reporters.

Pfizer and BioNTech are evaluating at least four experimental vaccines, each of which represents a unique combination of messenger RNA (mRNA) format and target antigen.

Pfizer received fast track status for two of four vaccine candidates last week based on preliminary data from ongoing Phase 1/2 studies in the United States and Germany.

Explaining the nuts and bolts of the "fast track" label, Burkhardt said the new status allows straight line access to US health authorities.

"You don't sit around and write a 100 page document, send it for review, wait 45 days for the outcome. You can be on the telephone in real time," Burkhardt said.

Pfizer said an oral treatment for COVID-19 patients is also on its longlist.

Meanwhile, Pfizer hopes to have antiviral medication ready for clinical trials in August or September.

Also next week, a vaccine created by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc. is ready to begin final-stage testing in a study of 30,000 people.

US President Donald Trump called the federal government's $1.95 billion deal with Pfizer and biotech firm BioNTech "a historic agreement" that will help the country distribute a coronavirus vaccine in record-breaking time.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Lady Amelia Windsor appeared in great spirits when soaking up the sunshine yesterday in the capital.

The royal, 24, who is 39th in line to the throne, was seen lapping up the summer rays while shopping in Notting Hill, London, after spending lockdown at her parents' Cambridge property.

Looking effortlessly chic, the model, who is the granddaughter of the Duke of Kent, slipped into a white maxi dress, which seemed perfect for the hot weather.

Lady Amelia Windsor appeared in great spirits when soaking up the sunshine yesterday in the British capital, pictured

The royal, above, 24, who is 39th in line to the British throne, was seen lapping up the summer rays while shopping in Notting Hill, London

She teamed her floral-embellished garment with a checked orange and white mask as well as eye-catching leopard print shoes.

Lady Amelia completed her look with an oversized straw beach bag plus plenty of silver rings and bracelets.

The royal complemented her casual attire with a low-fuss hairdo, opting to leave her blonde locks down.

She is regularly snapped out and about in her local neighbourhood of Notting Hill, where she enjoys a vast-array of hobbies including pottery and ballet classes.

Looking effortlessly chic, the model (pictured), who is the granddaughter of the Duke of Kent, slipped into a white maxi dress, which seemed perfect for the hot weather

Lady Amelia teamed her floral-embellished garment with a checked orange and white mask as well as eye-catching leopard print shoes

Lady Amelia (above) completed her look with an oversized straw beach bag plus plenty of silver rings and bracelets

Lady Amelia has modelled for the likes of Dolce & Gabbana and designed her own range of accessories in collaboration with Penelope Chilvers.

She is represented by Storm models, which also looks after the likes of Kate Moss and Cara Delevingne.

Additionally she has been named as a contributing editor in Tatler Magazine, and reportedly interned at jewellery house Bulgari, during her time studying at Edinburgh university.

The royal (pictured) complemented her casual attire with a low-fuss hairdo, opting to leave her blonde locks down

Despite backlash over Londoners escaping to visit their second homes at the start of the UK's coronavirus-related lockdown, Lady Amelia fled to her parents' home in Cambridge in late March. Pictured: A snap of the area, shared by the royal to her Instagram in April

Despite most of the royals keeping their private life off social media, Amelia is a big fan of Instagram and regularly shares glimpses at her glamorous life with her followers.

She previously told Vogue UK about Instagram: 'It allows anyone to be creative and imaginative. I also love that we can share all the beautiful and meaningful things we see and hear in the world. I find it so inspiring and uplifting.'

Lady Amelia fled to her parents' house in Cambridge in late March, joining the Londoners escaping to visit their second homes at the start of the UK's coronavirus-related lockdown.

She shared a snap of the city dated 23 March, a week after the government advised against all non-essential travel and fears mounted that capital dwellers could be spreading the disease across the country.
Regulatory News:

Groupe PSA (Paris:UG):

PSA Aftermarket has acquired Amanha Global and its e-commerce platform B-Parts.com by acquiring a majority stake in the capital of the company. The acquisition of this sector leader in re-use parts (Reuse) aims to complete PSA Aftermarket's conquest strategy in the circular economy, underpinned by a target of tripling turnover by 2023. As part of this friendly takeover, the management of Amanha global, recognized for its competence and of parts expertise, will be fully maintained in its functions.

Approaching a business leader with a large customer base

Amanha Global, which joins the ecosystem of PSA Aftermarket, is a company of Portuguese origin, based in Porto and specialised in the reuse. Its existing market base is global with business activities firmly deployed in fifteen countries with both to BtoB and BtoC clients. Rapid developments are expected thanks to the combination of Amanha Global's recognized expertise and the strength of PSA Aftermarket's customer base, which has more than 100,000 points of contact worldwide. Synergies will also be sought systemically with the various entities making up the PSA Aftermarket ecosystem.

Increase efficiency and generate new business opportunities

This acquisition completes the existing system of PSA Aftermarket in the area of ??re-use parts (Reuse), which is one of the three pillars of the circular economy alongside repair (Repair) and re-manufacturing (Reman), the "3R" of this booming economy.

A partnership agreement was signed in January 2019 with INDRA, the French leader in re-employment.

These two highly complementary systems thus provide PSA Aftermarket with market coverage and benchmark expertise at the international level. This acquisition fuels the ambition that PSA Aftermarket has set itself to triple its turnover in the circular economy between 2018 and 2023.

A room for all budgets around the world, an eco-responsible approach

The acquisition of Amanha Global is part of the change in the business model of PSA Aftermarket, the aim of which is more than ever to meet the expectations of all after-sales customers worldwide, regardless of their purchasing power, make or age of their vehicle.

With this takeover of a leading operator in the circular economy, PSA Aftermarket intends to be able to supply automotive spare parts for all budgets, in all global markets.

This approach will also actively contribute to reducing the environmental footprint of PSA Aftermarket and Groupe PSA, as reuse parts achieve a 100% reduction of raw material used when compared to the manufacture of new parts.

Christophe Musy, Senior Vice President PSA Aftermarket said: Our strategy is to meet the expectations of all after-sales customers worldwide, regardless of their purchasing power, the brand and the age of their vehicle. This investment allows us to enter the heart of the reuse parts value chain, which is one of the 3 pillars of the circular economy offer. It thus reinforces our global offensive aiming to be a leader both in standard exchange (Reman), repair (Repair), and re-use (Reuse), in order to be able to respond in a relevant manner and all over the world to customers concerned about ' an economical and responsible alternative offer. Groupe PSA is firmly committed to reducing its carbon footprint, right down to vehicle maintenance

Manuel Araujo Monteiro and Luis Sousa Vieira, Managing Directors of Amanha Global said: "B-Parts is the European leader in used car parts. The acquisition by PSA is a win-win agreement that will allow us to change dimension: for PSA by being the first manufacturer to take a position on a market for used parts and for B-Parts, a unique opportunity to access the network of PSA clients. This agreement promotes the B-Parts model and will allow us to accelerate our development in geographic areas other than the European market. This is our common target for the next few years.

About PSA Group

The PSA Group designs unique automotive experiences and provides innovative mobility solutions to meet everyone's expectations. The Group brings together five automobile brands Peugeot, Citroen, DS, Opel and Vauxhall and offers a diversified range of connected and mobility services supported by the Free2Move brand. Its strategic plan "Push to Pass" is a first step towards its vision: "To be a global car manufacturer at the forefront of efficiency and a benchmark mobility service provider for lifelong customer relationships". He is one of the pioneers of the autonomous car and the connected vehicle. Its activities also extend to automotive financing with Banque PSA Finance and automotive equipment with Faurecia.

Media library: medialibrary.groupe-psa.com @GroupePSA

About Amanha

Amanha and its B-Parts platform, available in 9 languages, are the European leader in e-commerce for used auto parts with more than 3 million parts in stock available for purchase. Founded in 2015 and based in Porto, Portugal, B-Parts offers an efficient and transparent market place based on the expertise of a multidisciplinary team and on the quality of a stock of parts from Portugal, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands, with strong sales increases delivered in more than 60 countries.

Communications management www.groupe-psa.com +33 6 61 93 29 36 @GroupePSA

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200723005514/en/

Contacts:

Press contact

Marc Bocque - +33 6 80 21 87 03 marc.bocque@mpsa.com
Artsakh FM Masis Mayilian sent a congratulatory message on the occasion of the 27th anniversary of the foundation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh.

His statement runs as follows:

July 23 marks the 27th anniversary of the foundation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh. And although the date is not a jubilee, however, following the established tradition, I would like to congratulate sincerely the staff of the Central Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the diplomatic missions of the Republic of Artsakh abroad, as well as all those that in different years have worked in the structure of the Foreign Ministry of Artsakh and contributed to its formation and to the protection of the interests of our state and its citizens.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh was established in a fateful period for our people - in the midst of the military aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan against the young independent state - and immediately assumed the most difficult mission of defending the vital interests of the country, including negotiating with official Baku aimed at ceasing the hostilities and ensuring the security of our citizens. It should be noted that thanks to the victories of the Defense Army of Artsakh and our diplomatic efforts, the mission on forcing Azerbaijan to peace was successfully fulfilled - in May 1994, under the mediation of the Russian Federation, Azerbaijan, the Republic of Artsakh and the Republic of Armenia signed a termless ceasefire agreement. Unfortunately, over the past years, due to the destructive position and outright hostility of the top military-political leadership of Azerbaijan, the ceasefire has not been transformed into a lasting and sustainable peace.

Today, in the conditions of the ongoing confrontation with the authorities of Baku, which in tandem with Turkey are pursuing an outright hate policy against Armenians, the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Artsakh faces no less important and responsible tasks. In accordance with the Program of President of the Republic of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunian for 2020-2025, the priority directions of the foreign policy include the international recognition of our state, the peaceful settlement of the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict, the development and deepening of the Republic's international relations, the counteraction to any attempts to isolate it, the further strengthening of the trinity of Armenia, Artsakh and the Diaspora, which will collectively create favorable conditions for the progressive political and social-economic development of Artsakh. The tasks, I should repeat, are responsible, but Id like to state confidently that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh, as an established state institution, in close cooperation with Armenia and the Diaspora, will use its full potential for their successful implementation, for addressing the current serious challenges, and properly presenting our state in the international arena.

Once again, I congratulate the staff of the diplomatic service of the Republic of Artsakh on this significant date and wish everyone peace and prosperity, good luck and success in their professional activities.
Public health experts say detailed local data on where people are hospitalized  a real-time measure that does not depend on levels of testing  is crucial to understanding the epidemic, but federal officials have not made this data public. The New York Times gathered data for nearly 50 metropolitan areas, including 15 of the 20 largest cities in the country, using state and local health department data to provide the first detailed national look at where people are falling seriously ill.
A state in Germany has now banned the wearing of Burqas and Hijabs in schools. According to reports, the border state of Baden-Wurttemberg, which had already banned face coverings for schools teacher, has now extended the ban to its pupils alleging that full-face coverings did not have a place in free society.

Doesn't belong to 'free society'

The Angela Merkel led government of Germany has always been in support for the ban, however, the opposition parties have been divided. Meanwhile, speaking about the new rule, Baden-Wurttemberg Premier Winfried Kretschmann asserted that he imposed the ban for exceptional cases. Explaining further he said that although it wasnt unusual for school girls to wear full-face coverings, he believed that burqas and Hijabs did not belong free society and that they might prove difficult for girls to wear in universities.

Read: Synagogue Attacker Goes On Trial In Germany

The controversial ban which was implemented on July 21 prevents primary and secondary schools girls from wearing any kind of face coverings and veils. Supporting the decision, the ruling party leaders of the state, Sandra Detzer and Oliver Hildenbrand have called niqab and burqa symbol of oppression. This comes as Netherlands, France, Denmark and Austria have already legislation banning full-face coverings.

Read: Germany: More Details Emerge Of Forest Fugitive's Flight

In 2018, Denmark joined other European countries to impose a 'burqa ban'. According to an international media outlet, the law allows people to cover their face when there is a recognizable purpose like cold weather or complying with other legal requirements, such as using motorcycle helmets under Danish traffic rules.

Read: Germany Says EU Economy 'enormously' Strengthened

Read: Yom Kippur Synagogue Attacker Goes On Trial In Germany

(With inputs from AP)

Image credits: AP
Russia-Controlled Court Sentences Crimean Tatar For Participation In Resistance Group

July 22, 2020

A court in Russia-annexed Crimea has sentenced a local Tatar man to eight years in prison after finding him guilty of being a member of an "illegal armed group" that resists Moscow's control of the peninsula.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) said on July 22 that Nariman Mezhmedinov, 55, had joined the Noman Chelebidzhikhan battalion of Crimean Tatar volunteers in 2016. The battalion operates in Ukraine's southern Kherson region bordering the Crimean peninsula.

According to the FSB, Mezhmedinov had actively participated for four months during 2016 in the battalion's activities, namely blocking roads near a checkpoint and searching vehicles coming in and out of Crimea in 2016.

Since the Kremlin annexed the peninsula in 2014 following a revolution that installed a pro-Western government in Kyiv, Russian authorities have prosecuted dozens of Crimean Tatars and other local residents who openly oppose Moscow's control.

Rights groups and Western governments have denounced Russian actions in Crimea as a campaign of repression and have called for the release of those detained for political reasons.

Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-controlled-court- sentences-crimean-tatar-for-participation -in-resistance-group/30741601.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Dave Franco is set to play Vanilla Ice in the upcoming Biopic about the Musician. While the fans of either the actor or the musician did not comment much about the casting, they wonder if a biopic is even necessary.

"To The Extreme," is the title of the upcoming biopic, written by Chris Goodwin and Phillip Van. It is titled after the musician's 1990 album. While Vanilla Ice can be considered a legend in the industry, is the biopic just a little too late? Some took to Twitter to question why a biopic on him particularly when there are so many others?

Speaking with Insider, Dave Franco, 35, opened up about how he is approaching the role. He said he has a lot of great visions for the project. He deems it possible to be as great as his pervious project entitled, "The Disaster Artist," a 2017 project he did with his older brother, James Franco. "The Disaster Artist," revolved around the making of Tommy Wiseau's "The Room," and it was a massive hit. It is now deemed as "The Citizen Kane of bad movies."

And as the biopic nears preproduction, Franco said that he was already in touch with Robert Van Winkle, or Vanilla Ice.

According to Franco, he called up the "Ice Ice Baby" hitmaker to dicuss the project, knowing full well he'll be at hoe since the world is in a middle of a coronavirus pandemic.

"Rob is such a sweet and intelligent guy and he's been super helpful in the process of getting all the details correct and making us privy to information the public doesn't know," Franco said. "Just talking to him I can't help but think about the rabbit holes I'm going to go down to get ready for the role."

some people are not ectatic to hear this project though. Many even asked why? Why now?

When @DiscussingFilm tweeted the news, most of the reactions were surprisingly negative. According to @ljwr, who is asking for a Vanilla Ice biopic? He does not understand why Hollywood even thought of making it. @IcaIca said that this is so unnecessary.

One more twitter user, @JessePupp asked why Vanilla Ice, when Hollywood can make a biography about Kurt Koban, Chris Cornell, and many more others more deserving? @Trish said that 2020 truly needs a reset button, if Vanilla Ice gets a biopic ahead of Chuck D.

Just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD.  Jack Laridian @HomeTM (@JackLaridian) July 22, 2020

The logline for the project shows what the biopic will revolve around. It says that it will focus on Vanilla Ice's younger days, showing how he pushed for stardom even though he was a high school dropout selling used cars in Dallas. The biopic will also focus on how his "Ice Ice Baby" topped Billboard charts and how his stardom was not a smooth ride at all. He struggled with fame, extortion attempts and many more challenges.

It's certainly a story worth telling, but up to Dave Franco to convince the doubtful people that this is a worthy project. If the project pushes through and Franco does justice to his role, then those who questioned the existence of the project are likely to change their minds.
A government hospital in Haldwani became the first medical facility in Uttarakhand on Thursday to begin plasma therapy treatment for Covid-19 patients in the state.

The Sushila Tiwari Government Hospital (STH) in Haldwani in Nainital district is a major Covid-19 facility in the Kumaon region.

Dr. CP Bhaisora, principal of the hospital said that plasma therapy is a successful treatment method for treating Covid-19 patients.

A Covid-19 positive patients body already fights the virus, if plasma from a patient who has recovered from Covid-19 is transferred to the patients body, the body gains additional strength. The treatment helps many patients who are in serious condition, said Dr. Bhaisora.

Fifty people have agreed to donate plasma for the bank at the hospital, officials said. There are more than 50 Covid-19 patients in the hospital undergoing treatment.

Dr. Bhaisora said that health officials are trying to motivate patients who have recovered from Covid-19 to donate plasma for treating other patients. An incentive of Rs. 500 will also be given to patients from hilly areas to motivate them to donate plasma, officials said.

Only those former Covid-19 patients who are between the age of 18 and 60 years can donate plasma up to 400 ml.

Patients who have recovered from Covid-19 can donate plasma 28 days after recovery but before 60 days. However, people suffering from cold, cough or any asymptomatic disease cannot give plasma, he added.

Officials from Government Doon Medical College Hospital in Dehraun said that talks are underway to start plasma therapy at the hospital soon.

Dr. NS Khatri, deputy medical superintendent of the hospital said, We are in the process of procuring the machines needed for plasma therapy. We will soon start treating Covid-19 patients through plasma therapy wherever needed.

Delhi was the first state to being plasma therapy and set up plasma banks to treat Covid-19 patients.
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

It started, like so many things these days, with a Facebook post of unknown origin.

When Albuquerque resident and longtime crochet enthusiast Micki Foster spotted a shared post picturing a nifty device to keep elastic bands on face masks from chafing behind the ears, she had a reaction crafters everywhere might relate to.

I dont know where he got the picture, said Foster, a medically retired U.S. Air Force veteran. (But) I looked at it and thought, Huh, I can make that. 

And make that she could. In recent months, Foster estimates shes made a couple of hundred mask holders. The Louisiana native  who was about 8 when she got her first crochet lesson from her grandmother  can now knock one out in about eight minutes, start to finish, including the buttons.

But I crochet fast, she added.

The design is simple: a crocheted strip of yarn with a button on either end, designed to lay flat against the back of the mask-wearers head. Elastic bands then hook around the buttons, rather than around the backs of ears. According to Foster, it really does make masks a little more comfortable.

Foster has been giving the mask holders out all over town  at the Veterans Affairs hospital, the local Village Inn. She gave some away at the shop that changed her tires and, a few days later, got a call from the manager asking if she had any more.

Recently, Foster said she approached Albuquerque Public Schools about donating a number of the mask holders to students when they come back to class. She plans to take APS suggestion that she make the donation via a partner nonprofit.

In the meantime, Foster is hoping to attract fellow crocheters and knitters to help her make enough to holders to offer one to every student and staff member in APS.

Theres thousands of students and staff, and theres no telling how long this mask thing is going to last, she said.

Foster has already found one helper  Gail Seydel, who she fittingly met outside a local Michaels.

Foster doesnt want monetary donations and she doesnt need yarn as shes mainly been using up scrap yarn shes had for years. She doesnt even need expert crocheters and knitters.

I can teach people to crochet, too, if they want to, she said.

She just wants people who also want to give back.

Its going to be hard enough for our students, said Foster, whose own granddaughter is counting the days till she can get back to school. If we can do this just to make them a little more comfortable and a little more willing to wear the masks instead of slipping them off and losing them every chance they get, hopefully we can get this virus thing a little more under control.

Lend a hand

Anyone interested in helping Micki Foster make mask holders for donation can reach her at teachermicki@gmail.com.
Incumbent Randall Meppelink, left, and Angel Walker, right, are facing off for Ottawa County's 5th District Commissioner seat in the Republican primary race on Aug. 4. (Photos provided to MLive)

OTTAWA COUNTY, MI  Two Republicans are competing in the Aug. 4 primary election to represent the 5th District on the Ottawa County Commission. Voters will choose between incumbent Randall Meppelink, R-Zeeland, and challenger Angel Walker, of Hudsonville. The 5th District encompasses Jamestown Charter Township, Blendon Township, the city of Hudsonville and the northwestern 1st Precinct of Zeeland Charter Township. Elected in 2018, Meppelink has served as the districts commissioner for the past two years. Walker has represented the City of Hudsonvilles 2nd Ward for the past four years. No Democrat filed to run for the seat, so the winner will not have a challenger on the Nov. 3 election ballot. A U.S. Navy veteran, Meppelink, 53, owns multiple businesses in Ottawa County. He previously served as clerk and trustee in Blendon Township. He was a firefighter in Blendon Township for 20 years and served in the marine division of the Ottawa County Sheriffs Department for five years. Walker, 48, has served as a Republican delegate for the 2nd Ward in Hudsonville since 2016. She currently serves as chairperson of the Ottawa GOP Outreach Committee. She describes herself as a constitutional conservative and grassroots activist and says connecting with voters is a priority. MLive Media Group partnered with the League of Women Voters of Michigan to provide candidate information for readers. Each candidate was asked to outline their stances on a variety of public policy issues. Information on all state and federal races and many of Michigans county and local races is available at Vote411.org, an online voter guide created by the League of Women Voters. 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. 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.

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.

Heres a look at how the candidates responded to questions on some key issues:

From this list, rate your top 3 priorities for the office of Ottawa County Commissioner: Funding for infrastructure and roads, Land Use, Water Quality, Social Services, Lower Taxes, Safety, Senior Services funded through a countywide millage, Redistricting - county commissioner allocation. Discuss briefly.

Meppelink: Water Quality Social Services Land Use

Water is a very serious issue in our County and requires all hands on deck to find solutions, Social Service continue to be a top priority as we need to be able to take care of our citizens needs. and Finally Land use is important as this is something we can not make more of, so we need a very matter a fact approach to dealing with the vacant land we have left in our County.

Walker: We are living in tumultuous times. Public Safety is my first priority, insuring the voters that Ottawa County will always have top notch public safety services as we are able to provide. As the wife of a 20 year law enforcement professional, I understand the sacrifices these heroes make and the ups and downs they go through, which is why its important to give them the support, training, and tools they need to keep our community safe.

Social Services, particularly in the way of Community Mental Health, goes hand in hand with Public Safety. Our jails have become the new mental health facilities for far too many of our residents over the years due to state funding cuts. It's imperative that we come together in a bipartisan effort to tackle this extremely important issue.

Land Use is a priority because, as good stewards of our county, we should strive for responsible economic growth. Communication between residents, farmers, developers and local government is vital to finding balance.

STATEMENT: County commissioners have done an effective job in leading the county in the last two years. Do you agree or disagree? Briefly explain.

Meppelink: Most defiantly Agree, Ottawa County Commissioners done an excellent job in keeping our County on the for front of Technology, Training of staff, Well run Sheriff Department, some of the most beautiful parks on this side of the State. The list goes on. Ottawa County is truly a place where you belong. We opened the first ever DEI office (Diversity, equity and inclusion) to assist Companies and individuals gain a better understanding of the effects a diverse culture may have or bring.

Walker: For the most part I believe this statement to be true. However, I believe more can be done in the form of research and the sharing of ideas from all walks of life in a government setting that includes not just administrators, researchers, and contractors, but most importantly, the residents of Ottawa County. I believe this area is far too underrepresented at this current time. This would be a priority issue for me during my term in office, bringing people together in unity to have civil discussion of ideas from all corners of the county, especially District 5.

What are your strategies for meeting with your district to gain local insight for important county decisions?

Meppelink: COVID has really limited time where you can go out and meet with residents so its very important to be available by phone, email, or in person.

Walker: I plan to have regular office hours much the same way our current locally elected state representatives and senator hold at various local venues throughout District 5. I will use email and social media to connect with and keep residents in District 5 aware of agendas, minutes, votes, proposals, projects, etc. on a regular consistent basis. Its imperative to stay connected with my constituents in order to properly represent them and know and understand how they want to be represented. This is a major reason I am running for this office today.

More on MLive:

See whats on the ballot in Ottawa Countys Aug. 4 primary election

10 school proposals in Kent, Ottawa counties on August ballot

Republicans square off in 90th District primary race

Longtime incumbent faces newcomer in Kent County Commission Democratic primary
(Newser)  A Canadian court Wednesday invalidated the countrys Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States, ruling elements of the law violate Canadian constitutional guarantees of life, liberty and security, the AP reports. But Federal Court Justice Ann Marie McDonald delayed the implementation of her decision for six months to give the Canadian Parliament time to respond. I conclude that the provisions enacting the (safe third country agreement) infringe the guarantees in section 7 of the Charter," McDonald wrote in her decision, referring to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom, part of Canada's Constitution. I have also concluded that the infringement is not justified under section 1 of the Charter. Under the agreement, immigrants who want to seek asylum in Canada and present themselves at ground ports of entry from the United States are returned to the US and told to seek asylum there. But if they request asylum on Canadian soil at a location other than an official crossing, the process is allowed to go forward.

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Last fall Amnesty International, the Canadian Council for Refugees, and the Canadian Council of Churches sued, arguing that the Canadian government has no guarantee that those returned to the United States will be safe because of the treatment of immigrants by the administration of President Trump. The original legal challenge cited the widespread detention of asylum seekers who are turned back from Canada and the separation of parents and children as other examples of why the US is not a safe country for newly arrived immigrants. On Wednesday, the three groups that filed the lawsuit said they welcomed the decision and urged the government of Canada not to appeal. The groups also urged Canada to stop returning refugee claimants to the United States immediately. They argue that if the agreement is abandoned, it would allow Canada to meet its legal obligations for the treatment of asylum seekers and allow people to present themselves at ports of entry, ending irregular crossings. (Read more Canada stories.)
Germany is no longer the only country declaring the Grand Duchy a risk zone.

Due to the recent measures taken by the German government, Grevenmacher mayor Leon Gloden decided that the ship would no longer head for either of the German towns. Most tourists interested in the Marie-Astrid are coming from Belgium or the Netherlands. Since Luxembourg has been declared an at-risk zone by several countries, many visitors have cancelled their trip to the Grand Duchy.

Gloden comments: "We received more than 6,500 cancellations over recent weeks. We usually cooperate with travel agencies from Belgium and the Netherlands to organise bus trips to Luxembourg, but many of them have now decided not to come, even though this seems unjustified to me."

When it comes to safety precautions on the boat, the team has been working relentlessly since the beginning of the outbreak: "We adapted the same standards as the Horesca sector by reducing our maximum number of visitors by half. Safety distances can thus be guaranteed as we have also set up a clear system how to move in and around the ship."

The Marie-Astrid was scheduled to be back in the Moselle by Easter, but was pushed back with the beginning of the lockdown. To reduce costs, mayor Gloden decided that the ship would only be active on weekends. Hours can still be increased if the demand were to rise again. Until then, half of the staff will remain partially unemployed.

Gloden announced that the Marie-Astrid would be on the river until December and made an appeal for visitors to make use of the extended period: "A day on board is a great way to spend the holiday at home. The view on the vineyards is great and we provide enough drinks and gastronomic delicacies for everyone."
The federal court of Canada has branded the United States as being dangerous to asylum seekers looking to travel to the country despite having an asylum agreement between the two nations due to the rampant violations of human rights against refugees.

Asylum seekers

According to BBC, the Safe Third Country Agreement (TSCA) that was signed in 2004 would require refugee claimants to request for personal protection upon reaching the first safe country they travel to.

On Wednesday, however, a Canadian judge declared that the agreement was unconstitutional due to the US potentially detaining the immigrants that go inside the country. The decision is considered a significant victory for Canadian immigration activists.

The agreement has been challenged by lawyers of refugees who have been refused by personnel at the Canadian border, stating that the United States was not qualified to be safe for immigrants seeking asylum.

A refugee that was forced to live within the US, Nedira Jemal Mustefa, told the court that the time she spent in US solitary confinement was an absolutely terrifying and psychologically traumatizing moment in her life.

The president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Maureen Silcoff, told reporters that they knew how the US government treated individuals looking for a safe haven.

Over the past three years, more than 50,000 people traveled across the Canada-US border illegally to file refugee claims. The immigrants walked over ditches and traveled empty roads to get across, as reported by Reuters.

Also Read: Blacks, Latinos, Poor People Less Likely to Receive $1,200 Stimulus Checks

Several immigrants have expressed their desire to stay in the US had it not been for President Donald Trump's harsh immigration policies.

The Canadian government defended the agreement and expressed its desire to expand its scope. The government has been working since 2018 to have the agreement apply to the entire border to include those who are traveling outside of formal and regulated routes.

Treatment of immigrants

According to AP News, the United States' critical viewpoint of immigrants has caused some children as young as one to be detained inside hotels for as long as several weeks before being returned to their home countries.

Trump's policies have effectively shut down the system that allowed asylum seekers to find a safe haven amid the coronavirus pandemic that has terrorized the whole world.

Documents showed that a private contractor for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining young children to three hotels owned by Hampton Inn & Suites, which are located in Arizona and at the border between Texas and Mexico.

The records also show the immigrants are held for several days inside hotels that have been widely used while government shelters are filled with more than 10,000 empty beds for children.

The La Palma Correctional Center found near Eloy, Arizona, was also filled with immigrants who were detained by the US government. The detainees have become severely desperate to get out due to the rise in coronavirus cases in the facility becoming one of the worst-stricken in the country.

There have been at least 76 undocumented immigrants coronavirus positive cases detained at the facility that housed 3,060 beds. The numbers mark the sixth-largest COVID-19 outbreak at an immigration facility in the US.

Related Article: US Presidential War: White House Denies Biden's Allegation

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Late actor Sushant Singh Rajputs former co-stars are promoting his final, posthumous release, Dil Bechara, on social media. Anushka Sharma, Sara Ali Khan and other actors have also shared the poster for Dil Bechara, asking fans to watch the film when it premieres on Disney+ Hotstar on Friday.

One last glimpse of our shooting star Sushant Singh Rajput #DilBechara 24th July @ 7:30PM IST on Disney Hotstar, wrote Sara as she shared an animated poster on Instagram. She worked with Sushant in her debut film, Kedarnath. Anushka, who was seen with Sushant in PK, also shared the same poster.

Sushants Raabta co-star Kriti Sanon also shared the poster. She captioned the post with a simple heart emoji. Bhumi Pednekar, who worked with Sushant in Sonchiriya wrote, It breaks my heart saying this.Lets get together and make his final act one to remember and cherish forever Lets all watch it together, the premiere of the film, same time, different places (your homes) but as one audience in whole. This one for #SushantSinghRajput Dil Bechara to premiere on 24th July on Disney+ Hotstar in India and on Hotstar in USA, UK and Canada for Subscribers and Non-Subscribers at 7:30 PM (IST).

Dil Bechara is a romantic film which has been adapted from famous John Green novel, The Fault In Our Stars. It stars Sanjana Sanghi in the lead opposite Sushant. The film is directed by Mukesh Chhabra and will also see actor Saif Ali Khan in a special appearance.

Sanjana recently remembered the late star through an emotional note. Whoever said time helps all wounds, was lying. Some feel like theyre being ripped open, again and again, and bleeding- of moments that now will forever remain memories, of laughs together that was but will never again be, of questions, that will remain unanswered, of disbelief, that only keeps growing, she wrote.

Also read: Before Dil Bechara, did you spot Sanjana Sanghi in Hindi Medium and Fukrey Returns? Watch videos

But these wounds also contain a film, a gift that everyone is yet to see. Wounds that contain dreams, plans, and desires for our countrys children, their education and their future that will be fulfilled, wounds that contain a passion for an endless creative zest for every artist there is, wounds that contain the hope for a world that promises to uphold honesty, integrity, kindness and embraces individuality - rid of all toxicity, she added.

As a mark of tribute to the late actor, the film will be available on Disney+Hotstar for all subscribers and non-subscribers for free.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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<! <img width="510" height="351" src="https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/hushpuppi-more-woes-for-nigerians-as-uae-gives-visa-ultimatum.jpg" class="attachment-single-thumbnail size-single-thumbnail wp-post-image jetpack-lazy-image" alt="" data-attachment-id="248180" data-permalink="https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2015/08/02/united-arab-emirates-to-try-41-on-terror-charges/sheikh-khalifa-bin-zayed-al-nahyan/" data-orig-file="https://i2.wp.com/www.pmnewsnigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Sheikh-Khalifa-bin-Zayed-Al-Nahyan.jpg?fit=510%2C351&ssl=1" data-orig-size="510,351" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan" data-image-description="

Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan

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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has ordered Nigerians with expired visas to leave the country on or before August 17, 2020.

This development comes weeks after Dubai police cracked down on some Nigerians including Abass Ramon, popularly known as Hushpuppi, for fraud.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the Nigerian Embassy in Abu Dhabi, UAE, announced that the UAE government has given waivers on fines and penalties to Nigerian nationalities whose visas expired before March 1 and expect the affected Nigerians to leave the UAE on or before August 17.

The embassy enjoined the affected Nigerians to join the evacuation flights arranged from the country before the expiration of the grace period.

The statement reads in part;

The Embassy wishes to inform that the government of the United Arab Emirates has granted waivers on fines/penalties on visas that expired before 1st March 2020 to leave the country on or before 17th of August, 2020.

Consequently, the Embassy is urging fellow Nigerians living in the UAE to avail themselves of this opportunity to return home with the impending Air Peace evacuation flight scheduled for 1st August 2020, and or subsequent Emirates evacuation flights before the expiration of the grace period.

Accordingly, affected Nigerian nationals who are willing to return home are kindly requested to submit their names and passport numbers to the Embassy and or the Consulate for onward transmission to the UAE authorities to obtain the necessary clearance.

Also, UAE recently excluded Nigeria from a list of countries permitted to fly into the Emirates.

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Pierre Wright and Rodney Lee appear in a video for their friend and colleague Dominique Barrett (shooting, at left), known on TikTok as King Vader. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

TikTok on Thursday announced a new $200-million fund to help promising U.S. creators make original content for its video streaming app.

The money would go to people hoping to make a living by creating TikTok videos. Qualified creators will consistently post original videos and in return, they get payments from the fund.

"As our community continues to flourish, we're committed to fostering even more ways for our creators to earn livelihoods by inspiring joy and creativity," wrote Vanessa Pappas, general manager for TikTok U.S., in a blog post.

The incentive comes after U.S. government officials said they are looking to ban the popular app due to security concerns. The social video sharing platform's parent company is technology business ByteDance, which was founded in China.

TikTok says data for U.S. users is stored in the U.S. and Singapore and it believes protecting the privacy of its users' data is of "the utmost importance."

"We have not, and would not, give it to the Chinese government," the company said in a statement.

Still, some of its users, including popular video game player Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, said they had deleted the app because of privacy concerns.

"Hopefully a less intrusive company (data farming) that isnt owned by China can recreate the concept legally, such funny and amazing content on the app from influencers," Ninja tweeted on July 9.

TikTok has plans to rapidly expand in the U.S., adding thousands of staffers over the next three years.

The company currently employs roughly 1,400 people in the U.S. and moved into a larger office space in Culver City earlier this year.

TikTok has seen massive user growth, boosted by people sheltering at home looking for ways to entertain themselves. Its short, viral videos have been embraced by music artists and Hollywood stars. The app has also emerged as a new way for aspiring performers to gain a spotlight on their music and dance performances.

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In May, TikTok named Kevin Mayer, a former Disney executive, as CEO.

The new $200-million fund is the latest initiative by TikTok to help creators. For example, TikTok also has a $50-million creative learning fund to support educational content.

Applications for the new fund will open in August.

TikTok said qualified creators would need to meet a certain threshold of followers and post consistent original content that meets its community guidelines. It was unclear how many creators would benefit from the program.

Despite the security concerns, many TikTok users in the U.S. are continuing to use the app.

I feel like TikTok is a very creative, safe environment and it never felt not safe, said Dominique Barrett, or King Vader on TikTok, earlier this year.

Also Thursday, TikTok and the National Music Publishers Assn., a music publishers trade group, announced they had reached a multi-year agreement that allows the group's members to receive licensing revenue for their music featured on TikTok.

We are pleased to find a way forward with TikTok which benefits songwriters and publishers and offers them critical compensation for their work, said David Israelite, president and CEO of NMPA, in a statement. Music is an important part of apps like TikTok which merge songs with expression and popularize new music while also giving new life to classic songs."
A speech therapist conducts a therapy session with a patient using the Zoom online conferencing platform on May 14, 2020. A large number of Canadians compelled to work from home during the pandemic lockdown are expected to claim a federal tax break for home offices. (Hannah McKay/Associated Press)

Big Increase in Number of Canadians Expected to Claim Tax Deduction for Working From Home During Pandemic

A big increase is expected in the number of Canadians who will claim a tax deduction for working from home during the pandemic, according to an expert on tax-related matters.

I would say the number would have to be in the hundreds of thousands, Armando Minicucci, a partner with the accounting firm Grant Thornton, told CBC

Since the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown began, millions of Canadians have been working from home.

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) says that work-space-in-the-home expenses are deductible when you meet one of the following conditions, and your employer has certified that working from home is a condition of your employment.

The workspace is where you work more than 50 percent of the time.

You use the workspace only to earn your employment income. You also have to use it on a regular and continuous basis for meeting clients, customers, or other people in the course of your employment duties.

According to the CRA, 174,210 Canadians benefited from the deduction for the 2018 tax season, claiming an average per person of $1,561. Eligible applicants can claim a reasonable portion of their household expenses to reduce their tax bills. However, mortgage interest or capital cost allowance is not deductible.

For employees to claim the deduction, employers must fill out the T2200 form, which certifies the applicant is working from home as a condition of employment. Without the form, the claim would be rejected, CRA said.

According to Statistics Canadas June Labour Force Survey, 3.3 million Canadians have been working from home since the lockdown. The survey also shows that 400,000 Canadians returned to work in June. Some businesses have told their employees they can work from home indefinitely.

By September, those who started working from home in March will have worked half the year at home, which will potentially make them qualify for the tax reduction.

Were getting further and further along in this pandemic where a lot of employees are going to have exceeded the six-month mark, and in that situation they should qualify, Minicucci said to CBC.

But for those employees that have not worked the full six months or more at home, theres a question with respect to whether or not they meet the eligibility criteria.

Minicucci also suggested that tax experts should clarify if those who havent worked a full six months from home will be allowed to claim the deduction.

He noted that those who have worked from home for less than six months can claim the cost of many of the supplies they need in order to do their job.

Youre looking at things like pens, paper, ink cartridges for your printer at home. Those are items that are consumed. Capital items, unfortunately, are not deductible. So if you buy a printer, not deductible. If you buy a laptop, not deductible. Those are capital items, he said.

But if you buy items that are being consumed during the course of performing your employment duties, they are deductible. The 50 percent criteria is not a condition in order to claim expenses for items that you consumed while performing your duties at home.

The CRA and the federal finance department confirmed to CBC that they are not planning on changing any of the criteria on the work-space-in-the-home expenses deduction.
Last week the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) ruled that certain tariffs imposed on steel imports from Turkey under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act were not permitted under the law. It was a big win for American companies and consumers who had been stuck with higher prices due to the tariffs.

But this ruling should not be the end of the story. Rather, it should prompt Congress to reform Section 232 to prevent further misuse of the law.

Turkish steel was first slapped with 25% tariffs in March 2018. The official rationale was to protect U.S. national securitythe purpose of Section 232. These same tariffs were applied to nearly every country in the world at that time.

In August 2018, diplomatic tensions with Turkey were rising due to Ankaras detention of an American pastor and the depreciation of the Turkish Lira. Some said the depreciation it artificially cheaper to import steel from Turkey. In response, President Trump elected to double the Section 232 tariffs on steel from Turkey.

Transpacific Steel LLC filed suit at the CIT eight months later. The company argued that the presidents actions were both unconstitutional  violating the Fifth Amendment  and in conflict with Section 232. The constitutional arguments centered on equal protection under the law and due process. The rest held that that the presidents actions did not contain a national security reasoning and failed to follow the procedures laid out in Section 232.

The CIT, established under Article III of the Constitution to adjudicate cases regarding domestic trade law, ruled in Transpacific Steels favor. The court stated that doubling tariffs on Turkish steel had been done in violation of mandated statutory procedures and in violation of the Fifth Amendments Equal Protection guarantees.

The court pointed to procedures in Section 232 which require an investigation and report by the Secretary of Commerce. The CIT did not determine whether or not the Presidents action was a justified interpretation of national security, but it did find that he acted without a proper report and recommendation by the Secretary on the national security threat posed by imports of steel products from Turkey.

The law also requires the president to act within 90 days of receiving the report and to implement his actions within 15 additional days. The CIT found that the presidents order doubling tariffs on Turkey was issued far beyond this temporal window.

While the Trump administration reversed the order on Turkish steel imports in May 2019, importers had paid higher rates for roughly nine months. The CIT decision means that those tariffs will be refunded to the importers.

Last weeks decision signals how the CIT might rule in similar cases regarding Section 232 tariffs imposed outside of the 90-day decision deadline. For example, PrimeSource Building Products has a case pending before the CIT that challenges additional tariffs imposed on steel and aluminum derivative products this January. The same procedural arguments made by Transpacific Steel could also prove successful for PrimeSource.

While CITs decision is an important victory for American consumers, it is only a Band-Aid solution. The core problem is that Section 232 is an antiquated trade tool that gives the president virtually unchecked authority to impose or increase tariffs on U.S. imports. Despite continued expansive use of this law, Congress has irresponsibly failed to review Section 232. Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, have each offered reform proposals, but neither were given a hearing in the Senate Finance Committee.

Congress should openly debate serious reform proposals. At a minimum, they should prioritize establishing a congressional approval resolution process, shift the focus of Section 232 from national security to national defense needs, and require cost-benefit analysis of any trade restrictions being considered. Such reforms would ensure that trade policies carried out under Section 232 focus not just on what is best for certain sectors of the economy, but on what is best for all Americans.

Tori Smith is the Jay Van Andel Trade Economist in The Heritage Foundations Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies.
Sumeet Bagadia

Cumin Seed, commonly known as 'Jeera' in India, is a Rabi Spice sown/grown in the winter season during the months of October to December. The major states constitute Rajasthan and Gujarat, with the usual new crop harvesting period taking place from February to April every year.

Sowing of Jeera depends on the winter weather conditions during the said period. Cooler temperatures with good amounts of water content in the soil improves the yield for sowing and eventually increases the production during the harvest period. Price also plays a critical role that would determine how much sowing the farmers are ready to do in the above period.

Higher prices are generally forecasted to increase sowing of Jeera while lower prices can possibly lead to crop switching to other crops such as Mustard, Ginger, Coriander Seed and Chana in the earlier mentioned states respectively. There is various quality of Jeera sold in Indian market mainly NCDEX quality, Gold, Bold, Super Bold and Average. Prices differ with different quality based on the fertilizer content, organic nutrients and moisture content in the Jeera.

Europe and the United States prefer Bold and Super bold quality, which are one of the premium qualities of Jeera with higher medicinal and organic value. Other global market buyers of Jeera are China, Middle East Countries and Egypt. Turkey and Syria are two other countries that also produce cumin seed every year. India contributes 70 percent of the total Jeera production in the world, while Syria and Turkey contribute 20 percent and 10 percent of the total world production of cumin seed respectively.

NCDEX Jeera spot price has been trading mixed to bullish during the month of July so far closing at Rs 14,050 per quintal by July 21. It is higher by 1.43 percent compared to Rs 13,852 per quintal reported on July 1. Revival in export buying in the global markets, especially from China after the earlier border disputes with India has supported the prices.

Consignments to China were earlier kept on hold due to border disputes with India, but then later, the shipments have been processed after there has been some easing tensions between both these nations. On the other hand, NCDEX Jeera August Futures closed at Rs 14,410 per quintal on July 21, higher by 5.29 percent compared to Rs 13,685 per quintal reported on July 1.

Fundamentally, for the month ahead, NCDEX Jeera futures is estimated to remain bullish due to reviving export demand in the international markets. Along with China, UAE and Vietnam has also witnessed an incline in demand for Indian Jeera.

Moreover, export buying from the European Nations for Indian cumin seed is also expected to pick up, as the production in Syria has been reported to be lower by 25-30 percent in this year compared to the previous year amid the worldwide lockdown situation. Furthermore, Jeera exports from India are also expected to pick up in the United States during the coming weeks.

However, extreme bullishness in NCDEX Jeera prices can be capped as cumin production in India from last year (2019-20) has been reported to be higher by 33 percent to 100 lakh bags (1 bag=60kgs), from 75 lakh bags reported in the previous year 2018-19. This has eventually led to higher carry forward stocks of approximately 12-15 lakh bags this year 2020-21, compared to 6-8 lakh bags of the year 2019-20.

Traders sources are also forecasting that this year 2020-21, Jeera sowing acreage to decline by 20-25 percent in Gujarat and Rajasthan states, as the spot and future prices are currently trading at the lowest levels in the last 5 years. We are likely to see crops switch to other crops such as Coriander Seed, Chana, Ginger and Mustard Seed in the above states. Currently, there is still time for sowing to begin as Jeera being the rabi spice, is expected to witness sowing by the first week of November month onwards till the end of the year.

Overall, we expect a bullish trend on NCDEX Jeera August Futures and prices are expected to move up to Rs 15,200 per quintal for the month ahead.

The author is Executive Director at Choice 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.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

Trend:

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry has issued a statement in connection with the provocations of the Armenians in foreign countries, Trend reports on July 23 referring to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.

The Armenian radical forces have taken very aggressive provocative actions over the past week against the Azerbaijani diplomatic missions abroad, as well as peaceful demonstrators during the rallies held in foreign countries by members of Azerbaijani communities in connection with the military provocation, launched by the Armenian armed forces on July 12 in the direction of Azerbaijans Tovuz district on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border, the statement said.

Armenian provocations committed in front of the buildings of the diplomatic missions of Azerbaijan in France, the UK, Sweden, Poland, Australia, the US, the Netherlands, Belgium, as well as against Azerbaijani demonstrators who peacefully expressed their views in these countries, along with the content of elements of vandalism and terror, persecuting the purpose of deliberately causing damage to members of the Azerbaijani communities, diplomats and their property are marked by acts that include a crime, noted the statement.

This vandalism by radical Armenian forces is nothing new either for Azerbaijan or for other countries that have faced Armenian terrorism. In 1970-1980, ASALA and other Armenian terrorist organizations killed more than 70 people and carried out over 235 terrorist attacks in 22 countries, during which 24 Turkish diplomats were killed. After the declaration of independence in 1991, in order to realize its territorial claims to Azerbaijan, Armenia made terrorism its state policy, and during the occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven adjacent regions of Azerbaijan in various parts of the country, it used terrorist methods.

We strongly condemn the hate-based criminal actions of Armenian radicals against Azerbaijani diplomats, as well as members of Azerbaijani communities in these countries, and expect a responsible approach to their responsibilities from the structures responsible for preventing such provocations in the respective countries, said the MFAs statement.

According to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961, the host country is responsible for ensuring protection of diplomatic missions from any interference or damage, as well as for preventing any encroachments on a diplomat, his personality, freedom and honor.

Turning to friendly countries, the Azerbaijani side calls on to strengthen the protection of the diplomatic missions of Azerbaijan, to pay more attention to strengthening the immunity and security of diplomats, as well as the security of our compatriots, the statement added.

The Azerbaijani side demands that the law enforcement agencies of the respective countries investigate the acts of vandalism committed by radical Armenian forces and give a proper legal assessment of their criminal acts, the statement said.

The process of investigations and obtaining information on the results will be monitored through our respective diplomatic missions. The public will be regularly informed about the progress and results of investigations, the MFAs statement said.

The Azerbaijani state is always close to our compatriots. Our diplomatic missions have been instructed to provide all appropriate assistance to our compatriots, including the provision of legal assistance if necessary," the statement added.
U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Hunter, Jake, a radar technician, pulls the generator power cable to the Ground/Air Task Oriental Radar (G/ATOR) on Sept. 16, 2015 at Cannon Air Defense Complex (P111), Yuma, Ariz. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Summer Dowding MAWTS-1 COMCAM/ Released)

Truck-Sized Reactors Could Help Militarys Growing Reliance on Electricity

For Alexander the Great, it was provisions. For World War II strategists, it was fuel. For the next generation of commanders, the vital piece of the logistics puzzle might just be electricity.

With increasing numbers of electricity-hungry systems already in military use, and more being developed, a secure supply of mobile power could be the difference between defeat and victory on the battlefield.

Thats where a prototype program to develop miniature nuclear reactors, small enough to fit in a truck, might come in handy.

The Defense Department currently relies largely on diesel-power generators to fuel forward and remote operating bases, which require usually complex logistical supply tails, Patty-Jane Geller, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told The Epoch Times. This was a problem during the conflict in the Middle East: our fuel lines and logistical tails became easy targets.

An Iraqi soldier prepares to climb into the cab of a Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck at Camp Taji, Iraq, Sept. 13, 2011, during a week-long vehicle operator training presented by Alpha Company, 640th Aviation Support Battalion. (Department of Defense)

Military installations in the United States and abroad are also connected to the national grid, which could be vulnerable to interruptions such as cyberattacks, says Geller, who co-authored research into microreactors earlier this year.

Energythe way that the military powers its fightis something thats often overlooked and usually taken for granted, she said. But as we move on to great power competition, this is something that Congress will need to look at down the road, as technology advances.

Keeping Pace With Russia, China

Great power competition refers to a return to an era of whole-of-nation competition with Russia, and even more significantly, China, recognized as the key priority in the 2018 National Defense strategy.

In March, the Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO) announced it had awarded three contracts for a competition to make a nuclear microreactor prototype called Project Pele; the SCO referred The Epoch Times to a statement made when the project was announced.

The United States risks ceding nuclear energy technology leadership to Russia and China, said Jay Dryer, SCO director, in the statement. By retaking technological leadership, the United States will be able to supply the most innovative advanced nuclear energy technologies.

Pele reactors will have to generate 1 to 10 megawatts of power (enough to power 650 to 6,500 houses) but be small enough to fit on a truck, ship, or aircraft. Department of Defense (DOD) requirements also state that they should be able to be installed within three days, shut down within seven days, and pose no net increase in risk.

According to the SCO, the microreactors would support a variety of Department of Defense missions, such as generating power for remote operating bases.

SCO also stated the reactors could be used for disaster relief and reduce the cost of investing in power infrastructure.

After two years, one of the three companies competing with their research and development prototypes may be selected to build and demonstrate a further prototype, according to the SCO.

According to the Heritage Foundation, the R&D program will cost $40 million.

But the idea has drawn criticism from those concerned with nuclear safety and proliferation, and it may have difficulty advancing through Congress.

Hungry Gators and Lasers

The military microreactor project was spawned by the challenges over the past two decades in the Middle East, according to Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

With the military more focused on pivoting to face China and Russia in recent years, Clark thinks the project has been put on the back burner, although he thinks it will still be a useful strategic option for commanders.

He agrees that the major advantages lie in being able to confidently field power-hungry new pieces of kit, and in powering operations in remote locations.

Right now, forward operating baseslike youd see in Iraq or Syria or Afghanistan, or in even Djiboutiare generally off the power grid. Or rather, there is no power grid, Clark told The Epoch Times. So they have to use diesel generators to generate all their power, which means youve got a fuel supply that has to be provided to them from somewhere else.

This undated DOD handout shows the Laser Weapon System (LaWS) temporarily installed aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey (DDG 105) in San Diego, a technology demonstrator built by the Naval Sea Systems Command from commercial fiber solid-state lasers, utilizing combination methods developed at the Naval Research Laboratory. This capability provides Navy ships a method for sailors to easily defeat small boat threats and aerial targets without using bullets. (U.S. Navy photo by John F. Williams/Released)

According to Clark, the military is also increasingly turning to electric technologies that draw a lot of power, such as directed energy self-defense systems, lasers, high-powered microwaves, electronic warfare, and even radar systems.

G/ATOR, the Marines new radar, and some of the 3[D] and 4D radars that are being advanced to replace the existing patriot radars, these are all very power-hungry radars, he said.

The Marine Corps approved full-rate production for the AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar system on May 23, 2019. (DoD/Courtesy photo)

Clark, a former nuclear submarine chief engineer, says the basic technology behind the reactors is similar to that in a submarine reactor and pretty straightforward in theory.

The hard part, he says, is idiot-proofing the design.

Those submarine-type reactors have people that can maintain them and fix them or address support system malfunctions, he said. With microreactors, however, there might not be that kind of technical expertise on tap in remote locations, he says, so the current technology needs to be adapted so it doesnt require as much operator intervention.

Ideally, the reactor would be a sealed and self-contained unit that needed only a periodic supply of water for the cooling system, and simple maintenance or adjustment if something goes wrong, according to Clark.

Its really an engineering challenge at this point, he said. So theyre looking at 5 to 10 years, probably on the 10-year side, to get this system fully fielded in a form that could be actually deployed overseas.

Keeping Options Open

Clark says that outside of a period of open conflict, microreactors would be useful in only a limited number of locations. Thats because many key operating bases are currently well-served for power, and Navy ships come with their own portable power supplies.

But in a conflict, microreactors could be a useful tool to have in the militarys back pocket, keeping options open and adversaries on their toes, Clark says.

If you start losing the power supply or the fuel supply more broadly, these microreactors could be really valuable. So its the kind of capability you may want to have and that you could deploybut its not necessarily the thing youd want to deploy regularly.

For example, in a Pacific conflict, if oil shipments to the Philippines were shut down or the refineries in the Philippines were damaged, then microreactors could be a really useful capability, he said.

Right now, the Pele program only has a toe in the water.

If the Pentagon wants to move the program forward after the current R&D, lawmakers may take some convincing, Geller says.

I think there, we will face stumbling blocks down the road, she said. Nuclear energy is definitely something that gets pushback on both sides. People are always going to be opposed to anything that involves nuclear material or nuclear energy.

But I think that we must be careful to look at this project for what it is. Were not building giant nuclear reactors in the middle of an overseas conflict that will cause lots of trouble. This has been an R&D program to try to develop a safe, compact micro nuclear reactor for use by the DOD in great power competition.

And I think its important that this project get underway and not get stopped in its tracks purely because its nuclear.

TRISO Fuel

Geller says there are strict safety requirements, with passive safety features.

The nuclear fuel in microreactors, called tri-structural isotropic particle fuel (TRISO), is made of poppy-seed sized uranium kernels that are each coated in a triple-layered containment system that prevents radiation leaking out in a meltdown.

According to the Office of Nuclear Energy, Simply put, TRISO particles cannot melt in a reactor and can withstand extreme temperatures that are well beyond the threshold of current nuclear fuels.

If a rogue state or organization were to get hold of a reactor, that would have a high impact, Geller said. However, there are a lot of things that have to fall into place for that to happen.

The micronuclear reactors might be underground, and they would likely be hardened against attack, she says. The Pentagon would also give consideration to where it placed them.

Critics, however, say that it is impossible to guarantee containment in the event of a kinetic attack such as a missile strike.

It is hard to imagine that a direct explosive breach of the reactor core would not result in dispersal of some radioactive contamination, wrote Edwin Lyman, acting director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, in an article in The Atomic Bulletin on a similar proposal.

An operating nuclear reactor is essentially a can filled with concentrated radioactive material, including some highly volatile radionuclides, under conditions of high pressure and/or temperature.

Even a reactor as small as 1 megawatt-electric would contain a large quantity of highly radioactive, long-lived isotopes such as cesium-137a potential dirty bomb far bigger than the medical radiation sources that have caused much concern among security experts, Lyman wrote.

Regardless of how far the Pentagon eventually goes with the Pele program, the broader concept of smaller-scale traditional nuclear power plants that borrow from submarine tech is currently gaining momentum around the world, such as the 440 megawatt Rolls Royce unit ordered by the UK, a floating nuclear power plant built by Russia, and a Chinese floating power plant that is currently in development.

The worlds first floating nuclear power plant, Russian Academik Lomonosov, passes by the island of Langeland, off the coast of Spodsbjerg in Denmark, on May 4, 2018, as it is pulled through the Baltic Sea to Murmansk. (Tim Kildeborg Jensen/AFP via Getty Images)

In 2019, Russia began operating its first floating nuclear power station in the Arctic. Capable of putting out 70 megawatts, the Akademik Lomonosov is made from two of the reactors that Russia uses to power its fleet of ice-breakers.

China announced in 2016 that it was building a demonstration floating nuclear power plant, which is expected to be completed this year. Its list of uses includes powering oilfield exploration and remote islands in the South China Sea.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, wears a protective mask while walking to the Senate floor at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, July 23, 2020.

The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act, a $740 billion bill setting policy for the Pentagon that President Donald Trump has threatened to veto over a provision removing Confederate names from military bases.

The vote was 86-14 in the Republican-led chamber, paving the way for a fight later this year with the White House if the base name provision remains in the legislation.

Now that the House of Representatives and Senate have both passed versions of the bill, congressional negotiators will spend several weeks negotiating on a final, compromise NDAA, which must pass both chambers before it can be sent for Trump's signature or veto.
The Internet is filled with adorable images and videos of baby animals. From little hippos to tiny elephants, baby animal posts give many just the right amount of happiness that can put a smile on their face. Case in point is this clip of a baby hedgehog or hoglet sipping on its food happily. Chances are that the clip will easily bowl you over with its adorableness.

Shared by a Twitter account hedgehogfriendly town, run by two 14-year-old girls, the clip of the hoglet is beyond the definition of cute. The clip starts with the little one drinking a special formula.

STOP & Relax just for 30 seconds to watch & listen to this hoglet enjoying her special formula. Between the ticking clock & her drinking this could be a meditation video, reads the caption.

Check out the clip:

Posted a few days ago, the clip has garnered over 2,800 views and has left netizens gushing. While some couldnt stop admiring the adorable little hoglet, others praised the girls.

Heres how netizens reacted:

Ommmmmmgoshhhhh, so cute! Get well, little one. Thanks for all your hard work, as always!  RSPCA (England & Wales) (@RSPCA_official) July 21, 2020

An amazing video for 30 sec i feel peacefull and happy. Your are also amazing for what you do and how you do   Revolution (@Dvrmvet) July 21, 2020

That little tongue Too cuteyful!  Rosie's mum. (@Karen89780490) July 21, 2020

Ahhh that is so lovely    Sue Ashmore (@SueAshmore3) July 21, 2020

Just the cutest   Alison Langley (@AlisonL43733634) July 21, 2020

What do you think about this cutie?

Also Read | Baby rhino plants kiss of love on mom. Picture is super adorable

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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ohio issued an out-of-state travel advisory for states with above a 15% test positivity rate to protect against spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Mike DeWine announced on Wednesday.

A testing positivity rate means how many people, out of those tested, are positive for COVID-19. Ohios is around 6%, according to state data released Wednesday.

People traveling into Ohio from one of these states or returning Ohioans should self-quarantine for 14 days. This advisory is based on a seven day rolling average, and the list of states will be updated weekly.

As of Wednesday, this includes:

-- Alabama

-- Arizona

-- Florida

-- Georgia

-- Idaho

-- Mississippi

-- Nevada

-- Puerto Rico

-- South Carolina

-- Texas

DeWine referenced a case where students traveled to Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. Out of 45 travelers, more than half now have tested positive for the coronavirus. He said in the states conversations with health departments, many of them are tracing cases related to out of state travel.

Ohio has been placed on similar lists made by other states, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. In New York, travelers who do not self-quarantine and fill out travel forms could face a fine and mandatory quarantine.
Ukraine Rejects 'Human Error' As Iran's Explanation For Downing Jetliner

Radio Farda July 22, 2020

Dmytro Kuleba, the Foreign Minister of Ukraine, on Tuesday said Iranian representatives have promised to visit Ukraine till the end of next week to discuss compensations for the downing of its airliner in January.

"I expect the Iranian side to confirm dates and members of the delegation this week. The meeting is very important to move forward and deliver justice," Kuleba wrote in a tweet.

Mohsen Baharvand, Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran in Legal and International Affairs on Tuesday said that a delegation consisting of several organizations including the Civil Aviation Organization (CAO), the Legal Affairs Bureau of the Presidential Office, and the Judiciary headed by him will visit Ukraine on July 29.

Baharvand commented that the amount of the compensation has not been proposed by any of the parties yet and will be determined on the basis of international laws regarding such incidents.

Also speaking earlier at a briefing, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister said that Iran must explain the incident in detail. "In the modern world, just one person cannot simply take and shoot down a plane, even if this person is extremely cunning, talented and full of evil intentions. We must raise the question more broadly: not about human error, but in general about the functioning of the Iranian airspace control system," he said.

Ukraine wants to know if the system was functioning at the time of the incident, whether it functioned correctly, whether there was any interference in its activities, and the real reason for downing of a civilian plane over Iran, Kuleba told the reporters.

He added that Iran is expected to conduct a high-quality criminal investigation and bring all those responsible to justice. He underlined that "human error" as the cause of the downing of Flight P752 as Iran claims is not acceptable to Ukraine.

"First, Iran must admit its international legal responsibility for shooting down the Ukrainian plane. Second, Iran must apologize and provide assurance that such events will never happen again. Third, Iran must conduct a technical investigation in accordance with the requirements of the Chicago Convention. Fourth, Iran must conduct an impartial and independent criminal investigation and bring all the guilty to justice. I emphasize, all the guilty. Fifth, Iran must pay proper compensation," Kuleba said.

According to Kuleba, the procedure of reading data from the flight recorders from a Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) plane downed near Tehran in January was carried out in France on Monday, July 20, in the presence of two Ukrainian experts and representatives of the other countries.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/ukraine- rejects-human-error-as-iran-s-explanation- for-downing-jetliner/30740942.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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OTTAWA  The Manitoba government has asked the federal Liberals to pony up $10 million to help stem violent crime in Winnipeg linked to methamphetamine use, the Free Press has learned.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  The Manitoba government has asked the federal Liberals to pony up $10 million to help stem violent crime in Winnipeg linked to methamphetamine use, the Free Press has learned.

The federal government hasn't responded to the letter, sent 22 weeks ago.

The province made the pitch in February, and tried sweetening the deal with the $5 million it allocated to the Downtown Safety Partnership last month.

In a letter obtained through a freedom-of-information request, the Manitoba government noted the federal Liberals have already given funding to a Vancouver suburb plagued by gang violence.

"Winnipegs downtown safety issues require all levels of government to work in a concerted and collaborative manner, and I urge the federal government to commit additional funding," reads the Feb. 20 letter from Manitoba Justice Minister Cliff Cullen.

The letter asks Public Safety Minister Bill Blair to consider helping pay for everything from closed-circuit cameras and foot patrols to enhanced lighting and tactical interventions for chronic and prolific offenders.

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It notes the rise in violent crime linked to meth usage and the numerous reports on public safety and addictions.

Cullen followed up June 3, and his office said Wednesday he still hadn't received a response from Blair.

The Downtown Safety Partnership is an effort to have social services respond to non-violent incidents, instead of police and paramedics.

The original February letter noted that in January 2019, the Liberals announced a five-year $7.5-million funding commitment to a Surrey, B.C. project to combat gang activity. The area has experienced a rise in violent crime  and also holds three swing ridings that have been hotly contested in recent elections.

The Surrey program focuses more on diverting young people from joining gangs than on responding to real-time incidents.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
Four more people died in rain-related incidents in Assam on Thursday taking the total number of those killed in rain-related incidents this season to 91,even as Bihar reported three deaths due to drowning.

According to an Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) bulletin, one death each was reported from Bongaigaon, Kokrajhar, Morigaon and Golaghat districts. Over 28 lakh people in 26 of the states 33 districts continue to be affected. Over 47,000 displaced people are taking shelter at 456 relief camps. Rescue personnel evacuated 1,102 persons stranded by floods on Thursday.

In Bihars Bettiah, three bodies were recovered from different parts of East Champaran as villages in Raxaul, Sikarahana, Bettiah, Bagaha and Pakaridayal sub-divisions continued to be flooded.

In Chakiya sub-division, body of a 35-year-old man was recovered from Dhanauti river. Parsuram Paswan was visiting his field when he drowned, said police. In Gokhala village, the body of an 11-year-old boy was recovered from a pond. In Chirraiya, a four-year-old girl drowned in a roadside ditch at Balapur village, said police.

As the water has entered several houses, we are running community kitchens at three places in Nautan, Bairiya and Chanpatiya blocks, said Bettiah sub-divisional magistrate Vidhyanath Paswan.

At least twelve villages in Banjariya blocks were inundated after an embankment on Tilawe river breached on Wednesday, said an official.

Floods hit 2.4 mn kids in india, says Unicef

An estimated 2.4 million children have been affected by the floods in India, the UNICEF said on Thursday, calling for immediate support to address the challenges. In a statement, UNICEF said, In India, over 6 million people across Bihar, Assam, Odisha, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have been affected by the floods, including an estimated 2.4 million children, it said.

(With Agency Inputs)

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Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert has been known to rock the boat  but often through diplomacy, his field of study at Tufts University.

Calvert was elected in 2014 as the youngest and first African American commissioner in the countys history. He represents Precinct 4, a growing, densely populated area spanning much of the eastern half of the county. He says its always been the most independent, people-centric of the countys four precincts.

Invoking his predecessors Tommy Adkisson and the late Helen Dutmer, Calvert said, We are sometimes that conscious burr in the backs of political discourse.

So it stands to reason that Calvert, who soon will turn 40, has been vocal about gaps in the response to COVID-19 in San Antonio, Texas and the nation. He plans to testify next year before state legislators for higher standards for nursing homes, where many deaths have occurred.

Calvert said hes proud of efforts by BiblioTech, the countys digital library system, to supply hundreds of Wi-Fi hotspots to people during the pandemic. But he wants to do more to improve education and literacy by expanding affordable online access throughout Bexar County, which he said has the worst internet connectivity of any of Americas 40 largest urban counties.

The commissioner also has strong feelings about coronavirus testing in Texas: South Korea, he said, has whooped our rear end.

The Express-News spoke to Calvert about the pandemic, its impact on people of color and the prospects for social and economic recovery. The following has been edited for clarity and length.

Now Playing: Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert is an independent, passionate activist who is known for speaking his mind. Hes been very vocal about gaps and problems in the COVID-19 response in San Antonio, the state and the nation, saying its time for us to humble ourselves and ask for help from other countries. Video: Express-News

During the pandemic, a disproportionately high number of people in your precinct have sought rental assistance. How else has Precinct 4 been affected by COVID-19 in ways that are different from the rest of Bexar County?

I have a dozen cities from Cibolo to Elmendorf, and then we have the most densely populated unincorporated (areas). So just purely by who qualifies in the county (rental assistance) program versus the city program, because of the density of the population in areas in Precinct 4, we have a lot of applications.

Then theres an added level of ethnic diversity. We have the most ethnically diverse precinct. Of course, minorities have been hit very hard, especially African American business owners, in this pandemic.

Ive seen homeless camps almost everywhere. But from Southeast Military, which I represent, over into the FM 78 corridor, Perrin Beitel, were seeing more and more homelessness.

Youve shared your vision for economic recovery after the pandemic. What do you see as your role, and the countys role, in achieving a recovery, and what would it look like?

I really think we cant even talk about recovery until we talk about our health care response. So Im trying to get the disaggregated leadership in county and state government to get focused. For example, I talk to University Health System, our emergency operations command, our county judge, the mayor, the public health authority about what is it going to take for us to get one-day testing? You can never properly quarantine and trace if you are waiting a week to get results.

Were putting out weapons of mass distraction, I say. We give you a million masks, so we make you think were doing something. But the things were supposed to be doing well, like testing and contact tracing, were failing at.

Our economy is not going to recover until the health care system and the emergency response is in emergency mode. Were kind of in siesta mode. Theres a lot of kinetic energy without a lot of effective strategy.

What are your thoughts on racial disparity in Bexar Countys COVID-19 statistics, in terms of disproportionately high levels of infections involving people of color, particularly Hispanics, and high numbers of deaths of African Americans?

A lot of it is health disparities that are out there with hypertension, diabetes and other ailments that face this community. And one of the messages that more elected leaders should say is: losing weight right now in the pandemic will actually help your survival. That is part of just being a healthier person while were quarantined, if you can quarantine  Ive lost 8 pounds during the pandemic because I see it as a way to fight it.

To solve the disparities  you need to put more resources where you didnt put them before. But I also see a lot of burden that the minority community is carrying in terms of the actual response and testing centers, and where some of these things are located  And I think that people are not exactly feeling easy about that. Theres a lot of distrust with those things.

Looking beyond the devastating effects of COVID-19, what do you hope could come out of a post-pandemic recovery, in terms of social and political reform?

I personally see this as a real test of priorities, as a real test against the influences of greed and corruption. There are vulture capitalists out here trying to make money.

You have people who control which tests actually get approved and are put out, so that their interests can make money off of that. You have a lot of vulture capitalism. And so I think the test for us, just spiritually as a county and a country, will we fall into those old special-interest ways? We will not win doing so.

We have a weak underbelly in our economy, because we have 25 percent of our adult population that reads at a fifth-grade level. And we never talk about it. The only elected official that I ever heard talking about it was (then-mayor) Ivy Taylor and myself. And you cant send people into the information technology if they cant read.

I really think we have to be truthful about why were so behind, and are we going to give people the stair steps (to improve), and are we going to change the culture.

How has this crisis altered your personal and political trajectory, in terms of where you saw yourself headed and what youre now focused on? Has this soured your feelings about public service or enhanced it?

Being a human rights activist, Ive always had a healthy distaste and dislike of politicians. That still remains today. But Im trained as a diplomat academically. So I try to move the ball forward.

Has my own trajectory changed? No, I dont think so. Im very much focused on Precinct 4. I really think that its important that Im there to protect a lot of the folks, because I do not see many elected officials doing the things that Im doing behind the scenes that really need to be done.

Part of the reason that I operate the way I do is my faith tradition. And I think that this is about honoring our mothers and fathers. And I think thats a command that is good for all of us. Because I also believe in karma. And if we dont do it, its going to come back, and it will haunt us personally.

Is there anything else you would like to say about the pandemic?

I think that the only silver lining is looking to the world at this point. The world has dealt with this pandemic, by and large, far better than the United States. Whether its looking at Norway and how they got their kids ready for school  which were stumbling over  or whether its South Korea and testing, or whether its Iceland and contact tracing, or whether its Singapore or Argentina or United Arab Emirates, Germany, New Zealand  there are tons of global examples.

And its time for us to humble ourselves. And if we have to ask for help, if we have to ask South Korea, Will you please send us tests? then so be it. We should be humble enough to accept their help. If it means that our doctors and nurses are going to be overwhelmed in the United States, then we have to say well take New Zealands nurses and doctors. Well create a special health care visa so that you can come and relieve our doctors and first responders who are going to be worn out from a long-term fight.

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
Seoul, July 23 : The US and China can continue to work together on North Korea while competing in other areas, Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun said.

Biegun made the remark in a written testimony on Wednesday to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ahead of a hearing on US policy on China the same day, reports Yonhap News Agency.

"North Korea's weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs undermine our shared strategic interest in peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula," said Biegun, who doubles as the top US envoy for North Korea.

"China agrees that diplomacy is the preferred approach to resolving the issue of North Korea's denuclearization." Diplomatic efforts to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program have stalled since the collapse of the February 2019 Vietnam summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

As North Korea's biggest ally and economic benefactor, China wields considerable influence over Pyongyang's actions, said the Yonhap News Agency report.

Biegun said the US will continue to engage the Chinese to improve Beijing's enforcement of UN Security Council sanctions against Pyongyang.

But he also acknowledged China's efforts to reduce trade with North Korea and urge the neighbouring country to continue diplomatic conversations with the US with the aim of bringing peace and prosperity to the Korean Peninsula.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 23:35:49|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Thursday refuted the United States State Department's accusations on China's military-civilian integration policy, urging the U.S. to stop deliberate provocation and malicious attacks against China.

China is strongly dissatisfied with, and firmly opposed to, repeated public distortions and smear campaigns from the U.S. regarding China's policy of integrated military-civilian development in recent years, spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a regular press briefing, stressing that the U.S. moves were based on political motives.

The U.S. has also engaged in moral abduction, political pressure, and even threatened sanctions against personnels of Chinese and American companies and academic institutions, he added.

It is a common international practice to promote integrated development of military and civilian sectors, Wang said, noting that the U.S. is no exception.

The United States has a history of "military-civil fusion" dating back to before World War I, and it has been carried out in an all-round and multi-field way, and at an even faster pace in recent years, according to Wang.

The U.S. Defense Department and military conduct various cooperation projects with American universities, R&D institutions, and private companies, Wang said, noting that some U.S. multinational companies, for instance, the Lockheed Martin, are the "military-civil fusion" per se, as their business operations and products cover both ends.

The U.S. accusations against China in this area is a typical double standard, the spokesperson said, pointing out that the real intention is to make excuses for blocking new and high technologies exports to China.

"Fundamentally, it is another product of the U.S. adherence to the Cold War mentality, and its attempt to contain China's development," said Wang.

The U.S. wrongdoing goes against the international cooperation spirit and the trend of the times, he said, warning it will harm the common interests of China, the United States as well as all other countries.

China's military-civilian integration policy is aimed at effectively integrating military and local resources, coordinating economic and social development with national defense development, and benefiting the public with more scientific and technological achievements, according to Wang.

"This policy is aboveboard and blameless," said the spokesperson, stressing that China's scientific and technological progress is attributed to the hard work and creativity of the Chinese people.

China urged the U.S. to immediately correct its wrongdoings, stop deliberate provocation and malicious attacks against China, and come back to the right track of mutually-beneficial cooperation, said Wang. Enditem
World Sailing's Election Committee is now accepting nominations for the 2020 election of the World Sailing President and Vice-Presidents.

World Sailing Member National Authorities, in good standing with World Sailing, are invited to nominate individuals for election and candidates wishing to stand for election are now able to request the Election Pack by email The election of the World Sailing President and Vice-Presidents takes place every four years at the General Assembly. All full World Sailing MNAs in good standing are entitled to be represented and vote for the President and seven Vice-Presidents.Full information on the election of the Board of Directors is available in Articles 73-76 of the World Sailing Constitution with the voting system to elect detailed in Regulation 4 of the World Sailing Regulations The Election Committee have produced Election Rules that govern the conduct of the election to ensure an atmosphere of mutual respect and equality is shown. These are available here The deadline for the close of nominations is Sunday 6 September 2020 (eight weeks prior to the General Assembly). A candidate must have five or more nominations to be put forward for election.The next World Sailing General Assembly will take place on Sunday 1 November 2020.In June, 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. A final decision on the hosting of the Conference in Abu Dhabi will be made in August.
A s people across various industries continue to work from home, companies are drawing up plans on how and when to get staff back into offices as the Covid-19 lockdown eases.

The Evening Standard contacted FTSE 100 firms to find out how many UK-based office workers they have, how many are still working from home or are back in the office, and what plans there are for having most people back.

Responses from 53 companies show some already have certain employees back in buildings, with socially distanced measures in place. A number are looking to offer more flexible working, and there are some businesses that are not planning on having most staff back in offices this year.

Here is what groups, that have offices in London, and/or other parts of the UK, had to say and share:

3i Group

Investment company 3i has around 150 office-based employees in Britain, all of whom have worked from home since the lockdown started. It is keeping under review when staff will go back into the office, but said it will not be before September 1.

The firm added: We will carry out a risk assessment and make the necessary adjustments to our working environment to ensure a safe return to the office for all our employees at the appropriate time.

Admiral Group

Car insurance giant Admiral has some 7500 staff across its seven offices in Wales. Close to 15% are back in the office, with stringent distancing measures in place.

The company said its plan is to create a flexible workforce with a mix of remote, office and hybrid workers.

Anglo American

Miner Anglo American said less than 5% of the near 800 workers it has in its UK HQ have returned to the office.

It is unclear when more people will go back, but it added:  When we do open up the office to more of our employees, we will continue to operate a weekly shift system for the time-being to ensure appropriate de-densification and health bubbles.

Ashtead

Equipment rental giant Ashtead said less than 10% of its UK employees are office based and while some have returned to the office on a voluntary basis, most are still working from home. The firm is following government guidelines closely, and the easing of restrictions will determine when it has everyone back in the office.

AstraZeneca

The pharmaceuticals group said around 6000 of its 8000 employees working in UK sites started to work from home when the lockdown started. Those who remained on bases were key workers in lab-based, manufacturing and support roles.

AstraZeneca said: Taking into consideration UK government guidance, what is right for the health and well-being of our employees, and what enables us to safeguard the supply of medicines to patients, we will start to return UK-based office staff to their usual sites of work from September. This will be a phased approach, taking into consideration all employees personal circumstances.

Avast

Cybersecurity business Avast has 118 UK employees, of which 90 attended offices regularly before the lockdown, but only a handful have been back occasionally when business critical services are required.

Avast will reopen its London sites on July 27 to provide a workspace for employees that want it. The firm said: Avast has always provided flexible working arrangements for our colleagues and therefore our working practices have been largely unaffected by the pandemic. However, we are continuing to monitor the situation and will prioritise the safety and wellbeing of our colleagues at all times.

Aviva

The insurance company has about 17,000 employees across different locations throughout the UK. As at last week some 500 people were working from sites to different degrees. A spokesman for the firm said: The safety and wellbeing of our people continues to be our priority. While we have prepared our buildings for the safe return of a small number of people who need or want to work from the office, the majority of employees will remain working and serving our customers from home for the time being.

The spokesman added: We will create ways of working that enable us to improve productivity and deliver the best possible outcomes for customers while providing colleagues with flexibility that helps us attract and retain the best and most diverse people.

BAE Systems

BAE Systems, the defence and aerospace company, does not breakdown staff numbers into office and non-office based as many work across both. A company spokesman said: The health and wellbeing of our people is our top priority and weve taken action to keep our people safe, whilst ensuring we continue to provide critical capability to help the armed forces and governments protect national security.

Around 10,000 UK based staff have returned safely to sites. The remainder of its 34,000 UK based workforce is working from home.

Barratt

Britains biggest housebuilder by volume has around 2800 employees out of 6700 here that are office based. All of those office based staff continue to work from home.

Barratt said: We will continue to review this in light of government guidelines and our employee feedback but for now our office based employees will continue to work from home.

BP

Oil giant BP has around 6500 office based staff in the UK, most of who have worked from home, if they can, since March 13.

In the UK the firm is now starting to open some of its offices to a small number of pre-selected employees whose roles are better suited to being in the office. A number of new measures are in place such as 2 metre distancing and one way systems.

BP said: We will continue to very carefully monitor the success of these reopening measures, as well as the wider trends of the spread of the Covid-19 virus, as we decide when and how best to further open up the remaining offices in the UK.

British American Tobacco

The tobacco group has some 2700 office based employees in Britain and they have continued to work from home where they can.

A BAT spokesman said: The health and safety of our employees remains our top priority. Any return to the office will be done in line with official UK government guidance but will also take into account individual employee health and safety considerations.

British Land

The property developer has around 600 staff based in offices or British Land developments. 30% of the 400 head office staff have returned to the office in varying capacities and with social distancing measures in place.

It has not been obligatory for people to come back. British Land said once schools reopen in September it will be able to accommodate most of its employees back to the office.

BT

The telecoms giant has some 52,000 office based staff in the UK including contact centres, network operations and corporate teams. Around 10,000 continued to attend the workplace, and close to 1000 have returned to the office in roles where home working was not practical. The rest remain working from home.

BT is yet to make a decision on when most staff will be back in. A spokesman said: We would be delighted to welcome our colleagues back into our workplaces when it is safe to do so. We are confident in our ability to create safe working spaces for our colleagues. The key concern for our colleagues is commuting and especially public transport which 74% of our London based colleagues rely on to get into work.

Burberry

The fashion firm has some 1350 office based staff in London and 380 in Leeds. Most continue to work from home. It said a plan to get people back to the bases will largely depend on the course of the pandemic  the safety and wellbeing of our teams is our utmost priority.

Coca-Cola HBC

The soft drink bottler has 250 office based employees in Northern Ireland. All of those that can (233) remain working from home and the company expects to have most back in next year. That timeline remains dependent on local Government guidelines on social distancing requirements and how they influence maximum allowable capacity within the firms office environment.

Diageo

The drinks behemoth behind Guinness and Smirnoff vodka has 4500 UK employees. Of those that are office-based, those who have been able to work from home have been doing so since the beginning of March and continue to do so.

Evraz

The steel company said office employees here have worked from home since March. It currently expects to be back to normal in September. There will be hand sanitisers, masks and sufficient social distancing space available on site, the company said.

Flutter Entertainment

Flutter, which operates sports betting and gaming brands, said almost all of its 2600 UK office employees remain working from home. It has a phased plan to allow staff to return to the office but it is not currently requiring any to return to the office at this time.

Hargreaves Lansdown

Investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown has some 1600 workers in offices, mainly based in Bristol, of which 1300 continue to work from home. An extensive employee safeguarding programme is in place for remaining colleagues working from the office, which includes distributing them across their three sites to facilitate social distancing measures.

The firm is looking at the return for other staff in two stages: the short and longer term, and in line with government guidance. In the former it will prioritise return based on colleague well-being, teams/ colleagues whose role is more productive from an office based environment, and then remaining colleagues by rotation.

Longer term Hargreaves Lansdown is taking the opportunity to review what the future structure will look like: How we increase flexible and home working, and working through the optimum time for people to mix home and office working. The firm thinks returning people to work together in the office, whether on a reduced number of days per week, or by rotation, will be positive for mental health, reduce isolation, improve networking, collaboration and teamwork, and improve learning and development.

Homeserve

The firm, which has a service that guarantees that a tradesperson will come round to your house and fix your boiler, heating or plumbing, in return for a monthly premium, has 2150 UK office based staff, and less than 50 have returned to the office.

Homeserve envisages a gradual return to the office as government guidance evolves. It said: We are planning a gradual return to the office, and are hoping to introduce more flexible working in many functions on a more permanent basis, to promote employee engagement and improve work/life balance.

Imperial Brands

The tobacco company has around 500 people at the group headquarters. The firm's default position remains that people should continue to work from home.

It said there may be circumstances where staff need to go into the office, although the number of people in the office on any given day currently is still very small. The return back will depend on government advice as it evolves.

Informa

Events and research business Informa has 3,500 UK staff.

At the beginning of July, the company started to reopen its larger offices on a controlled basis for colleagues who wanted to work from the office for part or all of the week. It said it has a comprehensive range of safety and hygiene measures in place for those who come in.

InterContinental Hotels Group

The group behind the Holiday Inn chain has approximately 750 UK office employees, all of who continue to work from home. A return plan has not yet been confirmed.

Intermediate Capital Group

The asset manager has 294 office based employees here, all of who were encouraged to work from home when global offices closed in March.

The company has made some desks available for those who have difficulty working from home and a very small number have used these on a regular basis.

Intermediate Capital Group plans to allow employees to return to the London office from September onwards, depending on government advice at the time.

IAG

The owner of British Airways has 80 office based employees, and almost all have been working from home.

It does not currently plan to bring people back to the office over the summer. After that it will review the situation in conjunction with the views of employees.

Intertek

Intertek is a lab based testing and assurance business that has remained fully open and operational through the lockdown in order to supply its essential business critical services to government and businesses alike.

It said its workforce have therefore remained fully operational, "though working to the strictest government safety guidelines throughout the Covid-19 pandemic".

Just Eat

Food delivery service Just Eat has 1,200 office based employees in the UK split across three main offices, and all remain working from home.

The firm said employees have been able to work effectively remotely during lockdown and as such it is not rushing to return them back to the office. A spokesman said: We are committed to providing on-going support to all our people when offices reopen, whether they choose to return to the workplace or continue working from home.

Just Eat does not have an estimated date for having most people back in.

Landsec

The property developer has around 450 office based staff, who started working from home a week before the lockdown. It has introduced multiple new health and safety measures, and made the office available to staff from the beginning of July. It is advising employees to only come to the workplace if they have a clear business reason to do so, and that they avoid using public transport where possible, in line with current government advice.

The office is operating at a reduced capacity of approximately 30%. Landsec is not anticipating any significant changes to its current working arrangements over the summer. It is provisionally planning for greater numbers of people to return to the workplace from September when schools return full-time.

Barry Hoffman, group HR director at Landsec said: We know how important it is to be flexible with how office space is used to accommodate a diverse workforce and different ways of working, and this has only been heightened by our Covid-19 experience.

Legal & General

The company has some 6,700 UK employees in offices, although about a quarter of this headcount was already agile and not principally office-based full-time before the lockdown.

Most worked from home when lockdown started, and around 300 remained office-based. About 1200 have returned to the office since.

Looking ahead, L&G said it is taking a measured, step-by-step approach as different locations and individuals have different requirements. It said a return to the workplace is likely to be gradual rather than binary "so our approach is to adapt offices to create enough capacity so over 80% can safely spend some time, for example a day or two per fortnight, in the office. This will happen in stages".

Lloyds Banking Group

The company, which has kept 95% of its branches open through the crisis, has asked the majority of people, who are currently working from home, to continue doing so until at least September to limit travel and maintain social distancing measures.

It said it rolled out the technology and training to enable around 50,000 employees to work from home, up from the previous level of around 15,000.

For anyone whose personal circumstances makes it difficult to work from home, the firm has rolled out the use of wellbeing desks in a number of offices so colleagues have another option of where they can work.

M&G

The firms offices in the UK remain closed and some 4,000 UK-based staff continue to work from home.

The investment manager said: We will not rush into any decisions that would put anyone at risk and we will continue to monitor official advice before taking a decision whether to reopen our offices.

National Grid

Energy company National Grid said most of its 4000 UK office based workers have since March done their jobs from home, excluding 200 who continued to work in control rooms. Around 100 more have returned to the office on a full or part time basis.

National Grid is reviewing the next steps and expects the wider return to be a gradual and carefully managed process. It expects to maintain its current working arrangements until at least September.

Next

The High Street retailer has 3500 UK office based employees, of which 1500 started to work from home when the lockdown started.

Approximately 50% of people have returned to the office, but not every day. At any one time about 20% are in the head office. The chain said it continues to monitor government guidance.

Ocado

The online grocer said the bulk of its 2500 people in UK offices are working from home, excluding a couple of hundred needed in the call centres. Offices are open for an additional 200 people to return.

Ocado is not sure when everyone will be back. With the current 1 metre guidance it can get 50% to 60% back, so it will keep an eye on the guidance but expect to give more flexibility than before.

Pearson

Education publisher Pearson said most of its 3600 employees here are office-based and continue to work from home. It is planning for staff to return to the London HQ at 80 Strand in 2021, and its smaller 190 High Holborn location will be ready later this year for staff that want to come into the office.

A spokesman said: At Pearson we are committed to creating a flexible, modern working environment for all our people.

Phoenix Group

Life insurer Phoenix said most of its 4122 employees here started working from home in March, with 50 key workers in offices. A further 50 have returned. The company will review its plans in September, but does not expect to be back in before October 1

Tony Kassimiotis, chief operating officer, said: We want to make sure our employees continue to benefit from what they report are the positive aspects of more flexible, remote working, while blending that with the best aspects of office based working.

RELX

The information and analytics business has 5500 UK office workers. Most sites are open, but it is not mandatory for staff to return and most continue to work from home.

It has no planned date yet for people to return. A spokesman added: A lot of people are enjoying working from home and some are saving as many as 15 hours a week commuting, which they are not missing at all.

Rentokil Initial

The pest control and hygiene company has 700 normally based in offices that moved to work from home at the start of the pandemic. Some people have begun to combine office, with social distancing measures in place, and home working. Most are still working from home which is being kept under review.

Rightmove

The property website has over 530 staff who moved to home-based working in March. Chief executive Peter Brooks-Johnson said: Ive been encouraged by how seamlessly people have adapted to working from home and how productivity has increased over the past few months.

Small numbers of employees have been allowed into offices, with social distancing in place. The boss added: Were in no rush to bring everyone back to the office, we see the transition as a gradual one and it will be kept under constant review.

Rio Tinto

The miner has approximately 150 employees here, mostly at the HQ in London. All continue to work from home. Rio Tinto said: We continue to monitor the situation, but we have no immediate plans to change these arrangements.

Rolls-Royce

At Rolls Royce around 14,000 employees are office based in the UK, nearly all were working from home at the start of the lockdown, while some people were furloughed.

Only a very small percentage have returned to the workplace if they are unable to do their role remotely.

The engineering company is monitoring government guidelines and as measures are relaxed, teams, depending on roles and business requirements, will make the final decision on returning to the office. Many of its production staff have continued to work at manufacturing sites with strict guidelines in place.

RBS

Some 49,000 RBS staff in the UK will continue to work from home into 2021, under plans the lender has.

A spokesman for company said: Like we've done throughout the pandemic the decision has been made carefully, including considering the latest guidance from the UK Government on Friday and our own health and safety standards and procedures. It's a cautious approach but we feel the right one to take currently.

As at last week RBS had around 49,000 people in the UK logging in from home each day. Around 10,000 of its staff globally continued to work in branches, call centres, and offices during the lockdown, while an additional 400 people globally working in regulated roles were asked to go back to work in the lenders offices in June.

RSA Insurance Group

The firm has had only around 5% of its 5300 UK staff in the office during lockdown. It recently concluded a staff survey that found a number are keen on retaining more agile working.

A company spokesman said: We wont be rushing a return, as the safety and wellbeing of our people has been at the heart of our decision making throughout the pandemic. It will pilot a phased return in its Peterborough office from August, and will monitor how that goes.

Schroders

The asset manager, which employs 2500 people in Britain, said it has offered remote working options for a number of years. It kept its HQ in London open and has had a small number of people return for at least part of the week. The company is monitoring the situation, and said going forward senior executives will be working from home at least one day a week.

SpiraxSarco Engineering

The thermal energy management and niche pumping specialist has around 1000 office-based people in the UK. Only 15 skeleton staff stayed in offices when the lockdown began, and employees are still being encouraged to work from home where possible.

Those who needed to return started to do so this month as part of a phased return. They are not in the office full-time, and social distancing measures are in place. Spirax-Sarco does not have a specific return date for most workers.

SSE

Energy group SSE said 10,000 office staff started working from home in March. Its current arrangements will last until at least September, at which point SSE will review the situation again.

St Jamess Place

Wealth manager St Jamess Place has 2,000 employees across its UK locations.

Most are still working from home and occupancy levels in its building that have reopened are at 10-12%, which it said means it can comfortably achieve social distancing.

St Jamess Place added that partners and employees have shown that they have been able to work very productively from home, so it is reviewing its future approach to remote working policies as it moves in to the new normal.

Standard Life Aberdeen

The asset manager in June said that the majority of its 4,900 workforce in the UK would not be returning to the office this year. It currently has a handful of people in its UK offices.

Tesco

The supermarket chain has around 6000 people in its UK head office. It said that colleagues who have business critical roles or who need access to the office to fulfil their roles have begun to return a few days per week.

Tesco will welcome back other colleagues, in line with government guidance in relation to safe office environments.

United Utilities

The water supplier said around 2,950 employees are currently working from home. The remaining key worker roles are those that cannot be undertaken from home.

United Utilities plan is to start to bringing people back into the workplace from early September on a phased basis, starting with business critical teams. The number of people who can work in offices will depend on space and current social distancing requirements, but the aim is to allow all employees to spend some time back in the office using a rota.

Vodafone

The telecommunications giant has about 7,850 office based staff here. All worked from home for the lockdown, with only around 1% back in the office.

Vodafone said it is reviewing how it might open up access to sites with social distancing in place, for certain jobs and meetings. However it broadly expects to stay as we are until the year end. It expects to use a mixture of office based and remote working going forwards.

Whitbread

The Premier Inn owner said almost all of its 1300 office-based workers continue to work from home. It said it continues to assess the practicalities of enabling more employees to return to offices in London and Dunstable.

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WPP

Global advertising and marketing firm WPP has 10,000 employees in the UK normally working in offices. They all started working from home in March, and around 1% are currently back in.

The company is gradually starting to open offices, but it does not expect most people to be back before September. Longer term, WPP will be embracing more flexible ways of working.
(Alliance News) - Senior PLC on Thursday said it has committed to reducing its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement's objective to limit climate warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Senior had its scope 1 and 2 GHG emission targets approved by the Sciences Based Targets Initiative, being the first company in the aerospace & defence sector to do so, according to Senior.

The Hertfordshire, England-based engineering solutions provider hopes to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 30% by 2025.

GHG emissions are broken down into three categories, scope 1,2 and 3. Scope 1 includes a company's direct emissions, such fleet vehicles; scope 2 encompasses all indirect emissions caused by energy usage; and scope 3 emissions include all other indirect emissions, such as business travel, and make up the bulk of a company's carbon footprint.

Senior commits that all of its suppliers will have science-based scope 3 GHG emission targets by 2025. The company however did not comment on other elements of scope 3 emissions, such as business travel, waste disposal and water management.

Senior Chief Executive David Squires said: "We are delighted with this recognition by the SBTi, which demonstrates our long-standing commitment to help minimise global warming."

Senior shares were up 1.1% at 59.66 pence in London midday Thursday.

By Greg Roxburgh; gregroxburgh@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Kris Jenner has broken her social media silence amid the drama surrounding her son-in-law Kanye West - which saw him brand her 'Kris Jong-Un'.

But the Kardashian matriarch, 64, has not risen to Kanye's nasty jibe - and has, instead, totally ignored it.

Taking to Instagram on Wednesday evening, she posted a short clip on Instagram Stories to show off a delivery she had received of beignets - a delicacy from Louisiana.

Appearance: Kris Jenner has broken her social media silence amid the drama surrounding her son-in-law Kanye West - which saw him brand her 'Kris Jong-Un' [pictured in February]

The pastries had been sent to her from Beignet Box, a bakery in Los Angeles, which is close to where she lives in Calabasas.

In the clip, music was playing in the background, suggesting Kris was enjoying a simple evening at home with the delicious snack.

She has been notably quiet online since Kanye hit the headlines earlier this week with his bizarre 'Presidential' speech and subsequent Twitter meltdown, in which he made claims about his wife Kim Kardashian as well as her mother.

Kim took to Instagram on Wednesday morning to say that she is 'powerless' and called her husband 'brilliant but complicated'.

Ignored: But the Kardashian matriarch, 64, has not risen to Kanye's nasty jibe - and has, instead, totally ignored it [he is pictured at his presidential rally on Sunday]

Sweet treats: Taking to Instagram on Wednesday evening, Kris posted a short clip on Instagram Stories to show off a delivery she had received of donuts

In-laws: Kris, Kanye and Kim in New York City last November

The reality star, 39, said 'his words sometimes do not align with his intentions' after Kanye claimed he has been 'trying to get divorced' from Kim since she met his fellow rapper Meek Mill at a hotel.

In his latest rambling Twitter outburst, West said Tuesday that Kim was 'out of line' to meet Meek Mill to talk about 'prison reform', and blasted her mother Kris Jenner as 'Kris Jong-Un' while accusing the pair of 'white supremacy'.

Sharing three pages to her Instagram story Wednesday morning Kim said: 'Those that understand mental illness or even compulsive behavior know that the family is powerless unless the member is a minor.'

She told her 180 million followers: 'I understand Kanye is subject to criticism because he is a public figure and his actions at times can cause strong opinions and emotions. He is a brilliant but complicated person who on top of the pressures of being an artist and a black man, who experienced the painful loss of his mother, and has to deal with the pressure and isolation that is heightened by his bi-polar disorder.

'Those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words some times do not align with his intentions.'

Speaking out: Kim took to Instagram Wednesday morning following her husband's late night Twitter meltdown, saying she is 'powerless' and calling her husband 'brilliant but complicated'

West on Tuesday repeated his claim that his wife and mother-in-law had 'tried to fly in with two doctors' to have him hospitalized amid concerns about his well-being after his bizarre entry into the 2020 presidential race.

'Kris and Kim put out a statement without my approval... that's not what a wife should do,' Kanye said after reports that the Kardashians were infuriated by his latest antics. Source told TMZ Wednesday that the Kardashians 'don't know what to do' as Kanye is 'clearly not receptive to getting help'.

Kanye deleted his late-night tweets barely half an hour after posting them, except for a final post in which he signed them off as coming from 'the future president'.

Kim wrote Wednesday: 'As many of you know, Kanye has bi-polar disorder. Anyone who has this or has a loved one in their life who does, knows how incredibly complicated and painful it is to understand.

Stressed: Kim is 'completely devastated' after husband Kanye claimed in a Twitter rant that she tried to get a doctor to lock him up after his presidential rally speech in South Carolina on Sunday. Friends fear that their marriage will not survive West's recent behavior. The couple are pictured with their children North, 7; Saint, 4; Chicago, 2; and Psalm, 14 months

'I've never spoken publicly about how this has affected us at home because I am very protective of our children and Kanye's right to privacy when it comes to his health. But today, I feel like I should comment on it because of the stigma and misconceptions about mental health.

'People who are unaware or far removed from this experience can be judgmental and not understand that the individual themselves have to engage in the process of getting help no matter how hard family and friends try.

'Living with bi-polar disorder does not diminish or invalidate his dreams and his creative ideas, no matter how big or unobtainable they may feel to some. That is part of his genius and as we have all witnessed, many of his big dreams have come true.'

Kanye's shock divorce claim comes after sources had alleged that Kim and Kanye, 43, are already 'living apart' and have been 'at each other's throats' with 'daily bust-ups' during lockdown.

Claims: Kanye claimed he has been 'trying to get divorced' from Kim since she met his fellow rapper Meek Mill at the Waldorf Hotel

Disturbing: In his latest rambling Twitter outburst, West said Kim was 'out of line' to meet Meek Mill to talk about 'prison reform' and blasted her mother Kris Jenner as 'Kris Jong-Un' while accusing the pair of 'white supremacy'

Troubled: Kim , pictured left with Kanye, earned glowing praise from Meek Mill (pictured right) last year, when the rapper called her a 'friend' and hailed her for 'doing a lot of good work' on prison reform

Kim earned glowing praise from Meek Mill last year, when the rapper called her a 'friend' and hailed her for 'doing a lot of good work' on prison reform, but the nature of the alleged hotel meeting is not clear.

Meek and Kim both attended a Criminal Justice Reform Summit in Los Angeles in November 2018, but it was at the Jeremy Hotel rather than the Waldorf in Beverly Hills which Kanye appeared to be referring to.

West's tweets said that 'Meek is my man and was respectful... that's my dog', without elaborating further, before he veered off into his supposed $5billion wealth and a reference to Michael Jackson.

On Wednesday he appeared to address Kanye's tweets, writing on Twitter: 'S*** is cappp cmon ....' Cap is slang for lies. TMZ Meek Mill and Kim only ever met in a professional sense to talk prison reform.

Kanye's freewheeling tweets also referred to rapper Drake and Kim Kardashian's friend Larsa Pippen, without explaining further but followed by the question: 'Should I name more?'.

In a bizarre reference to Michael Jackson and his nemesis and former Sony Music boss Tommy Mottola, West said that 'MJ told you about Tommy before they killed him'.

He added: 'Kim saved my daughters life in the name of Jesus It's Gods choice only I will live for my children Kris I'm in Cody if your not planning another one of your children's playboy shoots.'

Tears: Kanye appeared at a campaign rally in South Carolina on Sunday (pictured) in which he delivered a lengthy monologue which sparked concerns about his well-being

What Kanye has said since joining the 2020 presidential race July 4: Kanye West announces he is running for president, declaring that 'we must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future'. West receives early backing from his wife Kim Kardashian and from SpaceX supremo Elon Musk. However, there is much skepticism about whether he genuinely intends to run. July 8: Forbes publishes an interview with Kanye in which he says he has never voted before, wants to model his presidency on the fictional country of Wakanda in the movie Black Panther, and no longer supports Donald Trump after previously appearing in the Oval Office with a Make America Great Again hat. West also says he was ill with Covid-19 in February and is sceptical of developing vaccines against it, and suggests that Musk should be head of America's space program. July 14: West scores two per cent in a poll of the presidential race, with 56 per cent of respondents believing that the rapper is not serious about running for president. July 15: Kanye appears to take a further step towards running for president, as a filing with the Federal Election Commission shows the establishment of a Kanye 2020 campaign committee under the banner of the Birthday Party or BDY. West says the name is chosen because 'when we win, it's everybody's birthday'. July 18: Kanye urges his supporters to sign a petition to get him on the ballot in South Carolina. Two days later, state officials say the deadline has passed and that that West did not submit the required paperwork in time. However, he is listed on the ballot in Oklahoma. July 19: West holds a campaign rally in South Carolina, wearing a bullet-proof jacket marked 'security' and with '2020' shaved into his head. In a rambling speech, he reveals that he and Kim had considered aborting their daughter North and sparks outrage by claiming that abolitionist Harriet Tubman 'never actually freed the slaves'. July 20: In a series of tweets, Kanye claims that Kim Kardashian is trying to have him locked up on medical grounds, compares himself to Nelson Mandela and suggests the movie Get Out was about him. The tweets spark further concern for his well-being, but Elon Musk says that 'we talked about an hour ago' and that Kanye 'seems fine'. July 21: Kanye claims he has been 'trying to get divorced' since Kim Kardashian allegedly met rapper Meek Mill to talk about prison reform at the Waldorf Hotel. He also calls his mother-in-law Kris Jenner 'Kris Jong-Un' and accuses the pair of 'white supremacy' in another freewheeling series of tweets. Most of his tweets are quickly deleted. Earlier in the day, he had hinted he could postpone his presidential run until 2024 after saying 'I guess all black people supposed to vote for Biden'. He also heaped praise on comedian Dave Chappelle for visiting him at his Wyoming ranch. Advertisement

Kanye had revealed in his South Carolina rally on Sunday that he and Kim considered aborting their daughter North, and separately announced that his children would 'never do Playboy'.

Turning to Kris and Kim, Kanye claimed that 'they tried to fly in with two doctors to 51/50 me', referring to a section of California law under which people can be confined for mental health reasons.

West had alleged just 24 hours earlier that 'Kim was trying to fly to Wyoming with a doctor to lock me up like on the movie Get Out' after his troubling appearance at the South Carolina campaign rally, his first since announcing on July 4 that he was entering the 2020 race.

'I been trying to get divorced since Kim met with Meek at the Warldolf [sic] for 'prison reform'', Kanye said, adding: 'This my lady tweet of the night... Kris Jong-Un'.

Seemingly going off on a tangent, he added in the same tweet that 'Lil Baby my favorite rapper but won't do a song wit me'.

In his next tweet he wrote: 'Meek is my man and was respectful. That's my dog. Kim was out of line.

'I'm worth $5 billion and more than that through Christ. But you'll ain't listen to MJ but you'll believe them???'.

Kanye has also shared his texts with Kris Jenner in which he threatened to 'go to war' if she did not return his calls.

The first message read: 'This Ye, you ready to talk now or are still avoiding my call?', while the second, posted a day later, said: 'This Ye, you wanna talk or go to war?'.

He captioned the screenshot: 'White supremacy at its highest no cap.'

Page Six reports that friends fear the marriage may not survive West's recent frightening behavior, as he welcomes other celebrities including comedian Dave Chappelle to his Wyoming ranch but continues to avoid his wife.

Meek Mill's last public interaction with Kim came in August 2019, when he told Access Hollywood that Kardashian was a 'friend' with whom he had spoken frequently about prison reform.

'I think she's doing a lot of good work. She's doing a lot of work, more than other people who have platforms who might even [have come] from that situation,' Meek said in an interview.

'So, big ups to her and big ups to everybody that's working for a better cause  not even just for reform,' he said.

Meek was freed from court supervision in July 2019 after a Pennsylvania appeals court on Wednesday overturned the rapper's conviction in a drug and gun case that had kept him in prison or on probation for most of his adult life.

He later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor gun charge in a deal which resolved the 12-year legal battle.

In 2018, Meek and Kardashian were both named as guests at a Criminal Justice Reform Summit in Los Angeles, organized by Variety and Rolling Stone magazine.

The event took place at the Jeremy Hotel in West Hollywood, a different venue to the Waldorf in Beverly Hills which Kanye was apparently referring to.

It is not clear whether West was mistaken about the venue or whether he was referring to a different occasion, but no meeting at the Waldorf has ever been publicized.

Kim had visited the White House to lobby for prison reform earlier in 2018, helping to persuade Donald Trump to grant clemency to Alice Marie Johnson who was serving a life sentence without parole for drugs offenses.

Kardashian was the one who broke the news to Johnson, saying that 'telling her for the first time and hearing her screams while crying together is a moment I will never forget'.

Earlier on Tuesday, Kanye heaped praise on his comedian friend Dave Chappelle for flying to Wyoming to visit him at his ranch.

Family: North West, Kardashian, West and Saint (L to R) are pictured together in New York City in 2019

'Thank you Dave for hopping on a jet to come see me doing well. Dave you are a god send and a true friend. All love,' Kanye tweeted alongside a video that showed the pair standing in a group as the rapper urged Chappelle to say a joke.

Later Tuesday he posted a video to Twitter thanking his friends for their support and captioned it: 'THANK YOU 88 MNOP FOR JOINING ME AT OUR RANCH IN CODY IT'S SO GOOD TO HAVE REAL ONES AROUND Oh AND THEY BOTH WEARING ORANGE.'

He then posted a picture of some illustrations with the condensed words: 'TH FTR IS CMNG PRMS N JSS NM.'

Yet despite West's posts with his friends on Twitter, a source told Page Six that while the Kardashian family had decided to stand by Kanye, they believe the situation is 'really bad'.

'I don't know if they can survive it,' the source claimed of Kanye and Kim's marriage.
The job of a school leader can be an isolating onenow more so than ever. In this recurring Education Week advice column, two experienced former principalsTamara McWilliams and Sharif El-Mekkitake turns sharing their decades of expertise with their colleagues.

Have a question? Send it in to AskAPrincipal@educationweek.org and check back to see if it appears in an upcoming column.

I was just promoted to an assistant principal over another colleague who I know was vying for the same job. She now wants to join me in several school leader professional-development opportunities that I had planned, even though there are no other open leadership positions at our (small) school. Should I be worried that she will try to undermine my new authority? How do I make sure shes still an ally and a friend, even though I know my becoming administrator will change our co-working dynamic?

Sharif El-Mekki: I would encourage channeling your colleagues desire to grow and lead in a very specific, focused area. Is there a specific initiative or component of the work that this colleague can own, lead, and take pride in? Are there projects and initiatives that you both can collaborate on and learn from each other, develop trust in the process?

Professional-development trainings, program development, and staff management for this colleague can be tailored to only focus on a specific initiative or component of the work. This will allow for that colleague to still remain fully engaged, continue to develop, and feel valued, while keeping the channels of leadership clear and contained.

The main thing is building trust, leading with a sense of humility, and demonstrating curiosity. Establishing trust is always the responsibility of the leader and is absolutely vital to a healthy organization. I have always enjoyed rereading books and articles by the business-management expert Patrick Lencioni when I encounter opportunities to double down on establishing trust and other critical aspects of organizational culture in our committees and schools.

It seems that we will be required to rely on remote learning again this school year for part, if not most, of the year. One of the struggles for the teachers in my elementary and middle school has been attempting to gauge student learning in their new learning environment. Some that typically struggled in the classroom performed much better than expected, probably due to a parent or caregiver providing more one-to-one instructional support. Others that typically struggled at school performed worse largely because they have no support from a parent or caregiver at home. The teachers became creative with assessments, but it was still difficult to assess authentic learning. How can we provide equitable instruction when home situations vary so greatly?

El-Mekki: You raise great points that are consistent with what I have heard from across the country. Some students who were struggling in brick-and-mortar schools fared better with remote learning; other students had a more difficult time without the routines, relationships, and support of a physical school. It is also important to remember that some of the students who are doing well with virtual learning feel that the flexibility at home, the familial relationships, and routines might be optimal for them.

Establishing trust is always the responsibility of the leader and is absolutely vital to a healthy organization."

Before assessing authentic learning, we have to ensure that all children have access to technology and reliable internet service. Some children and families may need help achieving basic technical proficiencylogging onto websites, accessing instructional tools, submitting assignments, and more.

This summer will be crucial to looking backwards and forwards to solidify the training, supports, and professional development for everyone who is invested in our students learning this fall and beyond. Helping students identify where they are stuck or struggling and how to mitigate it when and if it happens.

At the organization I lead, the Center for Black Educator Development, we moved our annual summer programming for young Black and brown students online this year. We are using Zoom to assess our students literacy rates by sharing our screens then asking the students to read the letters or respond to comprehension questions. With numeracy, students may be asked to look at the shared screen and walk us through how they would solve the problem or use whiteboards or sheets of paper to show us their work in the moment. And we are working to incentivize student engagement through virtual celebrations, certificates, and random drawings for home-delivered gifts.

Be sure to provide a range of ways to disseminate content, receive student input, and offer support. For example, instruction can be delivered by both synchronous and asynchronous learning methods. Teachers can offer virtual office hours for additional support or invite students to breakout rooms or office hours for targeted assistance. Content should be as accessible and as varied as possible, including visual media, recorded content, translated content.

Students should also have a variety of ways to share their learning, including through audio recordings, video presentations, written form, and graphics.

Be mindful of students who need specialized service. What specific supports would help them? What professional development does their case manager or teacher need to support their caseloads in there reimagined ways?

Lastly, communication and outreach with families must be consistent and purposeful. Families are eager for clear, transparent feedback to support their children. Ask families for their feedback, as well, about how they are experiencing your schools teaching, assessments, and overall virtual experience.

How do we make sure there is equity, when so much feels out of our control? I want to communicate to my schools staff that our students must be at the center of each decision we make, but Im at a loss when we cant even reach every student right now.

El-Mekki: Mobilize efforts to try to reach every single child. It is an all-hands-on-deck situation. We must never forget how many different people within and outside of schools support students. Often what may appear to be transactional interactions can be quite meaningful. Think of the support staff and cafeteria workers, for instance. Think about whose smile or encouraging word students looked forward to every day. What if these workers received stipends for checking in on caseloads of students with whom they have great relationships?

Are there stakeholders who can support fundraising for technology, call banks to connect with families, or support virtual trainings to access technology or offer support?

Be very thoughtful about the penalty measures imposed on families and students who have not engaged during this time of closure: Will kids fail the course? Will they be retained? Will parents receive unfavorable notices? Sensitivity to how we hold our students and families accountable during this time is within our realm of control. We should also be very open and transparent about our willingness to be held accountable by the families we profess to serve.

We have the ability to balance accountability with support and sensitivity. This is equity. This is the path toward educational justice. Let us not squander the opportunity.
David Koch's widow has been accused of using code words to hide purchases and vacations from her ailing husband, in a complaint filed by the couple's former bodyguard.

Felicia Racine, 29, says in her complaint that Julia Koch, 58, also locked the billionaire in a room during a dinner party and had an affair before he died in August last year at the age of 79. She is also said to have refused a feeding tube for her husband.

U.S. Air Force veteran Racine, who worked for the couple between January 2018 and April 2020, filed a 17-page complaint last week with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, The New York Daily News reports.

In it she accused Julia of gender-based discrimination and a 'hostile work environment' after she was made to carry out 'remedial' tasks not asked of male bodyguards.

A spokeswoman for Julie Koch told DailyMail.com the claims 'are nothing more than a gratuitous attempt to smear Julia and David Kochs reputation'.

They added: 'We will not dignify these baseless stories with specific responses. Julia is a devoted wife and mother.'

David Koch's widow Julia has been accused of using code words to hide purchases and vacations from her ailing husband, in a complaint filed by the couple's former bodyguard. The couple are pictured in 2016, left. Felicia Racine, 29, right, says in her complaint that Julia Koch, 58, also locked the billionaire in a room during a dinner party and had an affair before he died in August last year at the age of 79

Racine is also said to have been told Julia had a boyfriend called Charles Manger when she started work for the Kochs. The complaint states: 'Manger typically visited with Julia at several Koch residences, while David Sr. was still alive, including the Southampton residence.

'Felicia provided some security for both Julia and Manger together as a couple.'

And in one incident Republican donor Koch is said to have been escorted back to his room by nurses during a dinner party in 2019. He had joined the group, telling those present her 'loved' Julia and hugging her.

Julia is said to have told staff: 'Escort him back to this room now, you have to lock the door, lock him there so he doesn't interrupt the dinner party again.'

Nurses are said to have told Racine: '(Julia) won't allow him to have a feeding tube, it's not right, he's gonna die, we are uncomfortable with it because he is no longer eating and is basically starving to death.'

On Tuesday Page Six reported that Julia is now being helped to find a new husband by Hollywood publicist Peggy Siegal. Both women denied the claims.

Siegal once commanded the attention of studio heads, New York glitterati and A-list stars like Robert De Niro, Leonardo Di Caprio and George Clooney at her lavish events.

But she has become a professional pariah because of her association with deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who she is said to have helped 'rejoin society'. She denies that they had a close friendship and has not been accused of any connection to Epstein's criminal acts.

Racine's filing adds: 'Felicia believed that Julia had refused David Sr.'s feeding tube because Julia could not deal with David Sr. anymore and did not want his life prolonged further.'

In a full statement a spokeswoman for Julia said: 'Felicia Racine has achieved her goal of bringing an employment claim against her employer Matador Security Company, Inc. to the press in hopes of extorting funds from Matadors client, Julia Koch.

'While we have yet to see Ms. Racines employment discrimination complaint, these stories about the Kochs personal lives, which have nothing to do about the legitimacy of any personal employment claims, are nothing more than a gratuitous attempt to smear Julia and David Kochs reputation.

'We will not dignify these baseless stories with specific responses. Julia is a devoted wife and mother. Together with her late husband, they dedicated their lives work to philanthropic causesgiving over $1 billion to the arts and medical science.

'It is disappointing to see these mean-spirited accusations about the Kochs personal lives from someone that Julia trusted with the security and well-being of her children. It is even more disappointing to know that money is the ultimate motivation.'

Julia Koch, 58, is also accused of locking the billionaire in a room during a dinner party and was having an affair before his death aged 79 in August last year. She is also said to have refused a feeding tube for her husband. The couple are pictured in 2015

Koch, who was worth $50.5 billion before his death, is also said to have not been told about a $40 million Manhattan townhouse purchased by Julia.

The complaint claims Julia told Racine: 'Refer to the house as Hamilton, do not talk about this front of David Sr.'

Racine says she was also told to refer to a family vacation as Project X as Julia 'did not want David Sr. going on the trip.'

Julia also had a replica Amedeo Modigliani painting made so that David would not know she had moved the original, the filing claims.
T wo towns in the UK have been marked as "areas of intervention" by Public Health England after a rise in coronavirus cases.

Luton and Blackburn and Darwen have joined Leicester, which was subject to the UK's first local lockdown, at the top of Public Health England's Covid-19 watchlist.

The Government classes an "area of intervention" as a location where there is divergence from the measures in place in the rest of England. This is because of the "significance of the spread" of the virus in the area, with a detailed action plan needed and local resources "augmented with national support".

Other areas on the watchlist for the period between July 13 and 19 were: Oadby and Wigston, Pendle, Bradford, Rochdale, Kirklees, Peterborough, Wakefield, Northampton, Calderdale and Rotherham.

In Blackburn with Darwen, the rate has jumped from 49.7 to 81.9 cases per 100,000 with 122 new cases recorded.

In Leicester, where the rate has gone down from 102.5 to 65.6 per 100,000, 233 new cases have been recorded.

Several areas saw increases / AFP via Getty Images

Other areas reporting notable week-on-week jumps include Oadby and Wigston (up from 38.6 to 59.6, with 34 new cases), Rochdale (up from 30.9 to 49.1, with 108 new cases), Hyndburn (up from 6.2 to 44.5, with 36 new cases) and Sandwell (up from 12.2 to 26.3, with 86 new cases).

The number of new coronavirus cases for every local authority in England has been published based on PHE figures updated on July 23.

The data comes from tests carried out in laboratories (pillar one of the Governments testing programme) and in the wider community (pillar two) in the seven days leading up to July 20.

The leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council said it was sensible not to relax lockdown restrictions after the area was made an "area of intervention.

Councillor Mohammed Khan said: We are very grateful to our communities for working with us. The increase in testing is helping to ensure that we are heading in the right direction with a reduction in positive cases and hospital admissions.

We need to keep up the momentum with our strong prevention work so we agree its sensible not to relax the easing of restrictions at the moment to stop the spread.

We have already decided to delay the opening of our council leisure facilities along with introducing other localised prevention measures. We feel that accelerating our control measures in this way will assist us to move out of having higher Covid rates even faster  we are grateful for the Governments help in our local plans on this.

Results from July 21-23 have been excluded as it is incomplete and likely to be revised.

Meanwhile NHS Test and Trace chief Baroness Harding said Leicester was not completely out of the woods after a local lockdown was imposed due to a coronavirus outbreak.

Speaking to the BBC she said: "One of the challenges with Covid is that it takes 14 days from the time we have taken action to be really confident that that action is making a difference.

"The encouraging sign in Leicester is that the infection rate is starting to go down but its still very high. I dont think that Leicester is completely out of the woods yet and its really important that anyone living in Leicester comes forward for a test  if they are in any doubt they should come forward for a test."

She also shared concerns around Blackburn and Bradford.

"Other towns and cities on our areas of concern, or areas that are receiving enhanced support, would be places like Blackburn, also Bradford  who we saw increase but have now come down from being in our enhanced support category to being in our area of concern category."
Just a few minutes before Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was scheduled to exit his office suite inside the US Capitol on Thursday morning, turn left, march roughly 80 paces to the Senate floor, and introduce the GOPs latest coronavirus aid bill, he got a last-minute visitor: White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Mr Meadows just wanted to make sure everything in Mr McConnells bill conformed with what the Trump administration and the Senate Republicans agreed to last night regarding the roughly $1trn aid package, he told reporters.

But when Mr McConnell kicked off proceedings in the Senate half an hour later, he did not give his customary opening remarks for the day.

Instead of officially solemnising a deal with the White House as expected, he commenced the voting process on a series of amendments to the annual defence spending bill without a word.

Mr McConnell then retreated to his office without answering reporters questions, just about the only thing that didnt seem out of the ordinary over the preceding half hour.

The scene on Thursday morning at the Capitol underscored just how fragmented the GOP is regarding its response to Covid-19, as deadlines loom at the end of next week to extend certain key programmes.

Here are three takeaways on whats holding things up, who the key players are, and where negotiators go from here.

1. Tea Party icons are flexing their muscles

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is one of several Senate Republicans who have publicly bucked party leadership in recent days on the proposal Mr McConnell has been putting together behind closed doors with Donald Trumps top economic advisers.

Mr Cruz and other Tea Party-affiliated conservatives wary of a mounting federal debt predict, correctly, that Mr McConnells bill comes with a low-water mark price tag for a fifth phase of coronavirus relief bill. That's because it almost inevitably will swell once Democrats get involved.

"As its written right now, Im not only a no, Im a hell no, Mr Cruz told reporters of Mr McConnells plans on Wednesday.

This is the swamp in a feeding frenzy. Everybodys lobbyist has their hand out saying, 'Well, look, if youre spending trillions of dollars I want to get some,'" the Texas Republican said.

Mr McConnell drew a rough sketch of Republican priorities in his opening remarks on Tuesday.

Republicans are intent on authorising "another round of direct payments to help American families keep driving our national comeback," he said, though he did not specify who would qualify for a second round of stimulus checks, or how much they would get.

The majority leader has been adamant any coronavirus bill brought to the Senate floor for a vote include measures to shield businesses, health care providers, and schools from lawsuits stemming from possible exposure to Covid-19.

And he announced earlier this week that the first draft of the GOP bill would include $105bn in funding for public schools so they can safely re-open for in-person classes this fall, something Democrats at both the federal and local levels are sceptical administrators can do, regardless of how much money lawmakers throw at school systems.

Mr McConnell noted on Tuesday that the $105bn proposal for schools is more money than the House Democrats set aside for a similar fund, by the way.

But Democrats have fired back, saying thats because they passed their 1,800-page, $3trn bill more than two months ago  before the recent resurgence in Covid-19 cases across the country made it necessary to infuse the system with billions more.

Theyre now asking for more than $400bn in emergency funding for schools, just one example of how the ultimate price tag of the package, to Mr Cruz and other Tea Partiers point, will climb as negotiations commence in earnest between Democrats and Republicans next week.

"The majority of Republicans are now no different than socialist Democrats when it comes to debt," Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul tweeted earlier this week, putting him at loggerheads with the other senator from his own party and state who is leading the entire process, Mr McConnell.

2. Republicans were never going to pass a payroll tax cut in an election year

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin conceded on Thursday that Mr Trump will not get his wish to include a payroll tax cut in Mr McConnells bill.

It wont be in the base bill, Mr Mnuchin said in an interview with CNBC.

Let me be clear: We think the payroll tax cut is a very good pro-growth policy, but the presidents focus is he wants to get money into peoples pockets now, he said, making clear the White Houses support for a second round of direct payments to millions of Americans similar to the $1,200 most taxpayers received this spring.

The unwillingness of Republican senators to include the payroll tax holiday in the opening version of the bill, which has not been influenced by Democratic input, demonstrates how universally unpopular the presidents position was even within his own party.

For one, it would create a public relations problem, Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa said earlier this week, alluding to the fact that the revenue generated from taxing businesses payroll expenses goes directly to funding programmes such as Medicare and Social Security, on which many seniors depend.

Even though Congress would likely feel ample pressure to find ways to refill those programmes coffers, older Americans who benefit from them  and whose support is essential to Mr Trumps and Senate Republicans election prospects this November  could see a payroll tax cut as the government raiding their benefits, Mr Grassley said.

The Social Security and Medicare trust funds are not exactly on solid ground as it stands now, Senator John Cornyn said this week.

"We need to do something in that space anyway, but cutting the revenues by payroll tax is problematic because eventually you're going to have to raise [the payroll tax rate] anyway, and you're just exacerbating the already difficult status that both of those trust funds are in," the Texas Republican and McConnell ally said.

Republicans believe that by nixing the payroll tax cut proposal, theyre saving the president from doing damage to his own re-election odds in addition to their own hides.

The GOP cannot afford to lose a net of four seats in the Senate if they wish to maintain their slim majority in the chamber.

Four Senate Republicans are fighting for their legislative lives this fall in races rated Tossup by elections handicapper Nathan L Gonzales of Inside Elections.

Two more Republicans, Senators Martha McSally of Arizona and Cory Gardner of Colorado, are in even more trouble, with Inside Elections rating their races Tilt Democratic.

3. Congress will likely have to ram through a stopgap measure to help the unemployed

Millions of Americans have lost their jobs during the coronavirus pandemic, which is why, in March, Congress included a provision in the $2.2trn so-called CARES Act to cut checks worth $600 per week in federal assistance to people filing for state unemployment benefits on top of what their local governments already give them.

That federal programme expires on 31 July, ostensibly putting a deadline on Congress to reach a deal on its next coronavirus package by next Friday.

Such an ambitious timeline for a bipartisan deal appears exceedingly unlikely given the current pace of negotiations just within the GOP, where four days into formal discussions, the White House and Senate leaders still have not reached a deal.

Never mind that Republicans and Democrats will then have to stick the landing on crumbly common ground somewhere between their respective $1trn and $3trn proposals.

Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi have excoriated their Republican counterparts for procrastinating until July to hammer out a deal after Mr McConnell indicated in May he was hitting the pause button on any federal relief beyond the $2.7trn Congress commissioned this spring to fight coronavirus.

"Republicans dithered and delayed for so long, there will be an interruption in unemployment benefits. Eviction protections will expire, no matter what we do, because they waited until the last minute, and even at this last minute can't seem to get their act together," Mr Schumer of New York said on Thursday, referring to a moratorium on evictions and rent payments in federally subsidised housing included in the CARES Act.

Word began trickling out from Republicans on Wednesday, though, about passing a brief extension of the unemployment benefit from the CARES Act, despite many having railed against the programme in recent weeks for disincentivising people returning to work because theyre making more than they were at their former jobs.

The question is length and price in total dollars, Senate GOP Conference Chairman John Barrasso of Wyoming told reporters about a stopgap extension of the federal unemployment benefit.

Democrats have publicly opposed that emergency extension plan, in an apparent attempt to maintain negotiating leverage and milk promises from Republicans on the broader subsequent package.

"No, no, no. This is a package," Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said on Thursday. "We cannot piecemeal this."
RACINE  An Illinois man allegedly drove over 100 mph on Interstate 94 and claimed to be guided by God.

Tomasz J. Ruszkowski, 65, from Des Plaines, Illinois, was charged with felony first degree recklessly endangering safety and misdemeanor resisting an officer, disorderly conduct and possession of drug paraphernalia.

According to his criminal complaint:

On March 13, an officer was dispatched to a reckless driver in a truck that was going northbound on I-94, driving over 100 mph and swerving. The officer observed the truck swerve from one lane completely over to the median concrete barrier, almost hitting a vehicle in another lane.

The vehicle had to aggressively hit the brakes to avoid a crash. The truck then almost hit the median concrete barrier and swerved away to the shoulder concrete barrier. The officer turned on the emergency lights and the truck sped up, swerving between lanes for a half of a mile before finally pulling over to the shoulder and almost hitting the shoulder barrier.

The officer made contact with the driver who was identified as Ruszkowski. The officer advised him about his erratic driving and he said he was blind, couldnt see and was driving because God was guiding him and showing him the way.

The officer noticed his speech was slurred, incoherent and could smell the odor of intoxicants emitting from the vehicle. Ruszkowski said he was blind and could not open his eyes.

Ruszkowski was asked to step out of the vehicle and he stumbled out of the vehicle. When the officer went to put handcuffs on him, he went limp and fell to his knees.

He tensed his arms and tried to hold his hands together and when the officer tried to bring him to his feet he remained limp and refused to get up.

He began to yell incoherent English and Polish at the officer. Another officer arrived and Ruszkowski continued to attempt to wiggle free, resist and attempt to kick his feet around.

Officer searched Ruszkowskis vehicle and located a crack pipe that had burnt residue in the center console and a syringe that was labeled Adrenalina in the glove box. Ruszkowski was transported to Ascension Hospital and officers observed he had track marks on his arms, rapid and slurred speech and faint burn marks on his lips.

On Tuesday Ruszkowski made an initial appearance at the Racine County Law Enforcement Center, 717 Wisconsin Ave., online court records show.

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The coronation of Queen Victoria it was not. On July 8, 1850 when James Strang declared himself King of Earth and Heaven, the crown was paper, the throne built with boards, and the rough-hewn venue filled with a few hundred instead of hundreds of thousands.

Somehow, a farm boy from Western New York once involved in land swindles was able to convince a segment of Mormons that he was founder Joseph Smith's heir: an atheist turned prophet that persuaded them to settle in his dominion of Beaver Island in Lake Michigan. 'King Strang' garnered national newspaper coverage, fame, infamy - and even the attention of then President Millard Fillmore.

'He was really able to create himself out of words,' said Miles Harvey, author of a new book, The King of Confidence, which examines Strang's life that included five wives, his almost six-year rule as king, and how he ultimately met his death at his followers' hands.

Wildly ambitious as a young man, Strang wrote in his journals about marrying Princess Victoria to become the British empire's sovereign. He had many professions  newspaper editor, lawyer and state legislator  but Strang was also a 'confidence man' - a term for someone who scammed others. He was an embodiment of his era, Harvey told DailyMail.com.

The antebellum period, which was roughly from end of the War of 1812 until the start of Civil War, was one of numerous religious and social movements, apocalyptic terrors, debates and dissent over slavery, and technological disruptions that included the camera, telegraph and railroads.

'It was a period of stunning change,' Harvey explained. 'All of these upheavals left the truth open to interpretation in ways it hadn't been a few decades earlier. So confidence in such situations became a currency.

'Strang was a great storyteller and he told people what they wanted to hear.'

James Jesse Strang, above, was born on March 21, 1813 and grew up on a farm in Western New York. The region was such a hotbed of religious revivals that it became known as the Burned Over District. Raised Baptist and an active member of his church, Strang wrote in his journals that he was 'a perfect atheist.' After meeting Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Strang converted and was baptized. After Smith's death, he tried to become the church's new leader, according to a new book, The King of Confidence

First, Strang used a letter he said was from Smith as proof he should be the Mormon founder's successor. When that didn't seem to convince many in the church, Strang said he had a vision that revealed where ancient texts where buried. 'Three plates of brass' in an unknown language were unearthed and it turned out Strang was the only one who could translate them, according to the book, The King of Confidence. 'On September 18, 1845, he declared the plates to be the work of a certain Rajah Manchou of Vorito, who in some distant age had fallen in battle at the site where the plates were discovered.' Above, a contemporary broadside that depicts the Rajah Manchou plates, according to the book, from the Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

James Jesse Strang was born on March 21, 1813 and grew up on a farm in Western New York. Although he was raised in the Baptist Church and remained active in his congregation, by the time he was 18, Strang was 'already adept at dissembling, he believed not a word of what he professed,' Harvey pointed out in The King of Confidence: A Tale of Utopian Dreamers, Frontier Schemers, True Believers, False Prophets, and the Murder of an American Monarch.

'I am,' Strang wrote in his journals, 'a perfect atheist.'

However, religious revivals and proselytizing flamed all around Strang to the point that Western New York became known as the Burned Over District. It 'also produced a more radical species of preacherzealots with unconventional ideas and apocalyptic murmurings, men and women who founded their own sects, convinced that they alone spoke for God,' according to the book.

And no one caused more of a stir than Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Smith said he had found golden tablets that had been buried in Western New York for 1,400 years. He then translated the 'reformed Egyptian' writing with seer stones called Urim and Thummim. The result was the Book of Mormon.

'The Book of Mormon told the story of a centuries-long fratricidal struggle between two branches of an ancient Israelite clan that fled Jerusalem just before the Babylonian captivity, eventually winding up in the Americas. One of those tribes (the idolatrous, dark-skinned Lamanites) subsequently wiped out the other (the righteous, fair-skinned Nephites), but not before a Nephite prophet named Mormon managed to compile the history of his doomed people on some golden plates,' Harvey wrote in The King of Confidence.

The Book of Mormon, which was published in 1830 and sold for $1.25, was deemed by some to be a 'blasphemous work.' Nonetheless, Smith soon had hundreds of converts, according to the book.

In the 1830s, Smith and his followers settled in Ohio as well as in Independence, Missouri, where some believe the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will take place. But tensions and fights with non-Mormons would lead to another settlement in Nauvoo, Illinois.

While Smith was leading his followers, Strang was speculating in real estate. After the financial crisis called the Panic of 1837, Strang was deep in debt. So much so that the then newspaper editor and published disappeared - fleeing from Randolph, New York - to escape to his creditors.

Now married, Strang eventually moved his family to Wisconsin and opened a law practice. One of his neighbors convinced him to hear Joseph Smith preach in Nauvoo. Harvey noted in his book that when Strang came to the bustling Illinois town in February 1844, 'Strang was, by his own estimation, "an inveterate unbeliever and opposer of the Mormon faith."'

Somehow, however, after Strang and Smith met, the avowed atheist was converted, baptized and then ordained an elder.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had grown quickly and attracted converts and critics  especially for the practice of polygamy.

Smith, who was running for President of the United States, ordered the destruction of a printing press of a newspaper that criticized him and his doctrines. Then charged with treason, Smith was in jail when a mob stormed the building on June 27, 1844. Smith was shot and killed.

No successor had been publicly named. By that July, Strang was saying that he had been secretly named to lead the church  and offered a supposed letter from Smith as evidence. But the missive wasn't sufficient to sway many in the church.

At first, James Strang distinguished himself from his rival, Brigham Young, by coming out against polygamy. Young was said to have 55 wives during his lifetime. Strang was already married for years to his wife Mary when he met Elvira Field. They began a relationship and she traveled with him as he recruited followers to his settlement and then kingdom on Beaver Island. By June 1849, Strang and Elvira Field secretly wed and she no longer had to pretend to be his nephew, wear men's clothes and use the name Charles J Douglass. Field is seen above as Douglass. Strang ended up marrying five women

Miles Harvey, the author of a new book called The King of Confidence, told DailyMail.com that Strang surrounded himself with scoundrels and con men, including J C Bennett, seen above. Harvey wrote: 'Even in an age of what one newspaper called "bare-faced impudent corruption and public plunder," John C Bennett stood out as an unprincipled schemer, a Machiavelli of the frontier.' Bennett was Strang's second-in-command and helped him plan for the kingdom on Beaver Island. Bennett was ousted from the church due to a sex scandal

Strang then 'had a vision' that revealed where ancient texts where buried in Wisconsin. After the 'three plates of brass' in an unknown language were unearthed, it turned out Strang was the only one who could translate them, Harvey noted in The King of Confidence.

'On September 18, 1845, he declared the plates to be the work of a certain Rajah Manchou of Vorito, who in some distant age had fallen in battle at the site where the plates were discovered,' he wrote.

'After informing the dying noble that "other strangers shall inhabit thy land," God told him to record and bury these words: "The forerunner men shall kill, but a mighty prophet there shall dwell. I will be his strength, and he shall bring forth thy record."'

A newspaper article about Strang's 'discovery' and its message was the start of nationwide attention on the 'unknown prophet' and his new Mormon settlement he founded called Voree in Wisconsin.

There were about 900 newspapers in the 1830s. By 1850, there were more than 2,500 and information moved quicker than it had before, Harvey pointed out in his book. He told DailyMail.com Strang was able to take advantage of the burgeoning newspaper explosion.

As Strang's national prominence was growing, his rival, Brigham Young, was solidifying his position within the church and casting doubt on Strang's claims. Young also excommunicated Strang.

Young would lead the Mormons West and found Salt Lake City. Their struggle for power within the church lasted for years as they both sought followers. Young was also the Governor of Utah and, at one point, Strang was a possible replacement.

Initially, Strang differentiated himself from Young by being opposed to polygamy. But that would change. Rumors swirled while Strang traveled with his secretary, Charles J Douglass, as he attempted to attract followers to his newest settlement and vision: Beaver Island in Lake Michigan.

Brigham Young, above, saw James Strang as a rival to lead the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After Strang produced a letter he claimed was from Smith naming him head of the church, according to a new book, The King of Confidence, Young wrote: 'Is it not surprisingly strange that Joseph Smith should appoint a man to succeed him in the presidency of the church some seven or ten days before his death, and yet not tell it to the High Council, nor any of the authorities of the church?'

In Western New York, which become known as the Burned Over District due to to the numerous religious movements happening in the region, no one caused more of a stir than Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Smith, above, said he had found golden tablets that had been buried in Western New York for 1,400 years. He then translated the 'reformed Egyptian' writing with seer stones called Urim and Thummim. The result was the Book of Mormon, which was published in 1830. He quickly gained followers from around the world. Smith was eventually jailed for treason. A mob stormed the jail and Smith was shot and killed on June 27, 1844

By June 1849, Strang and Elvira Field secretly wed and she no longer had to pretend to be his nephew, wear men's clothes and use the name Charles.

Things were progressing for Strang. Voree, his first Mormon settlement in Wisconsin was growing and plans were moving forward for Beaver Island. By July 1850, Strang was ready to for his coronation.

Four years earlier, his followers had to swear allegiance to him as their 'Imperial Primate and Absolute Sovereign,' but it 'fell far short of the magisterial fantasies that had long haunted Strang's imagination,' Harvey wrote.

Now, Strang was to be king and renamed the island's main settlement St. James. On the day of the coronation, '"James, the Anointed" sat on his throne and brandished his scepter while "with uplifted hands," as one observer put it, the faithful bore witness "that the Kingdom of God is set up on Earth,"' according to the book.

Strang wrote then President Zachary Taylor, the US Congress and the American people a letter that requested, according to the book, 'that the prophet and his followers be granted the right to "settle upon and forever occupy all the uninhabited lands of the islands of Lake Michigan."'

However, the island was not uninhabited: The original settlers were the Odawa and Ojibwe. Tension also immediately sprang up between other locals who were not Mormons and fishermen, many who had come from Ireland because of the potato famine.

Soon, there were articles accusing the Mormons of Beaver Island of many crimes, including counterfeiting, horse theft and piracy. Harvey told DailyMail.com Strang surrounded himself with scoundrels and con men. He pointed out that some of the stories were due to anti-Mormon bias.

'He didn't do everything he was accused of,' he said. But, 'Strang was clearly running a criminal enterprise.'

Some of his followers may have participated in the crimes because they thought they were doing righteous work and preparing for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, he noted.

'The "consecrating" of "Gentile" property, or, in other words, the robbing of those who were not Mormons, was a recognized and established practice, from the earliest settlement of the island,' Morgan Lewis Leach, a local historian, wrote in 1883, according to the book.

Strang and his followers alleged crimes eventually drew the attention of the US Attorney's office and then President Millard Fillmore. While Fillmore initially waffled, he eventually authorized dispatching the U.S.S. Michigan to raid Beaver Island and to arrest Strang. Brought to trial on federal charges, Strang spent the first anniversary of his coronation arguing for his freedom in Detroit. He was acquitted, according to the book.

The next year, in 1852, Strang was elected to the Michigan state legislature. He also expanded his control over Beaver Island and its inhabitants: Non-Mormons were kicked off the island. Among his followers, he implemented a very unpopular dictate that women had to wear pantaloons, which Harvey described as 'loose-fitting trousers' that 'gathered at the ankles.' This, coupled with Strang's now openly polygamous life rankled his believers and dissent spread.

'A growing number of Beaver Islanders were coming to believe that the real tyrant was Strang,' Harvey wrote. 'By late winter of 1856, a beleaguered prophet had come to see pantaloons as the ultimate symbol of loyalty.'

Some of Strang's followers turned on him. On June 16, 1856, two lay in ambush and shot him. Harvey wrote: 'As news of the attack spread, readers across the country woke up to headlines such as this: From the Beaver Islands---A Tragical Occurrence!Strang, the Mormon Leader, Shot!! The story traveled not just the country but the globe.'

On July 9, 1856, Strang succumbed to his wounds and died. His kingdom, which lasted just shy of six years, was no more.
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This news is fake: Actor Amitabh Bachchan on reports of him testing negative

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Mumbai, July 23: Megastar Amitabh Bachchan on Thursday refuted media reports about him being tested negative for COVID-19. The 77-year-old actor shared a tweet responding to a report by Times Now. Other networks such as News18 have also reported that the actor tested negative, quoting Nanavati Hospital sources.

He wrote, "This news is incorrect, irresponsible, fake and an incorrigible LIE !!"

.. this news is incorrect , irresponsible , fake and an incorrigible LIE !! https://t.co/uI2xIjMsUU  Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) July 23, 2020

The reports emerged as the Bollywood veteran and Abhishek, 44, neared the completion of their 14-day quarantine period at the city hospital. A day after the father-son's revealed their diagnosis, Amitabh's daughter-in-law, actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, 46, and his eight-year-old granddaughter Aaradhya Bachchan also tested positive for COVID-19.

Aishwarya and Aaradhya were shifted to Nanavati last Friday, almost a week after they tested positive. Bachchan occasionally updates his fans on social media about his health.

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, daughter Aaradhya shifted to hospital days after testing COVID-19 positive

The second coronavirus test of the entire Bachchan family was done on Wednesday. Only after the reports, it will be decided by Dr. Barve, Dr. Ansari, and their team whether the family will be discharged and how the further treatment will take place.

On Sunday, Amitabh's daughter-in-law, actor Aishwarya, 46, and her eight-year-old daughter Aaradhya also tested positive for the coronavirus. Amitabh's wife, veteran actor-MP Jaya Bachchan, 71, has tested negative.

Taking to his blog, the 77-year-old screen icon said he was touched by the wishes coming the family's way for their speedy recovery.

The news of coronavirus infecting the Bachchan clan triggered an outpouring of prayers and well-wishes for the 77-year-old screen icon who has dominated Bollywood for over five decades.

In Ujjain, a group of his fans offered prayers at the local temple, and wished him and family speedy recovery.

A fan recalled on Twitter that the megastar overcame a life-threatening injury on the sets of film "Coolie" in 1982 and will do the same now.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

Amitabh, Abhishek Bachchan stable, don't require aggressive treatment: Hospital

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has declared four bungalows of the Bachchan family - Jalsa, Pratiksha, Janak and Vatsa - in Mumbai as containment zones and sealed them, a civic official said.

Civic employees sanitised the bungalows on Sunday, the official said. Around 30 workers in these places were also screened for the coronavirus on Sunday, he added.

A BMC team went to the bungalows for sanitising them and also for contact tracing, an official said.

Security was also stepped up outside Bachchan's two bungalows in Juhu and outside the hospital, the police said.

The tally of coronavirus cases in Mumbai rose to 1,04,572 with 1,310 new patients being reported on Wednesday, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said.
Cienco4 Group, one of the companies named in the list of pre-winning partnerships for the North-South Expressway in the public-private partnership (PPP) form, has raised public concerns over its possible financial risks, as although the company has not announced its second-quarter financial statement, first quarter results have been deemed worrying.

As shown in its January-March financial statement, Cienco4, which is interested in the Nghi Son-Dien Chau and Dien Chau-Bai Vot sections, has incurred debts of nearly VND6 trillion ($260.8 million), rising from VND5.73 trillion ($249.13 million) in January, while its equity reached VND1.34 trillion ($58.26 million).

During the period, this construction firm made revenues of VND237.35 billion ($10.3 million), down from VND543.07 billion ($23.6 million) in the same span last year. It also reported a 50 per cent on-year fall in after-tax profits.

Le Duc Khanh, director of the market strategy department at PetroVietnam Securities, told VIR, The figures prove somewhat financial risks. If Cienco4 wins contract to join PPP sections, it needs financial support and lending incentives to ensure bankability. According to KB Securities Vietnam, Cienco4 is likely to be favoured because the construction of some North-South Expressway projects will affect the contractors investment returns of National Highway 1 expansion build-operate-transfer (BOT) projects.

Learning valuable lessons

Together with Cienco4, within the five North-South Expressway sections in the form of PPP (National Highway 45 - Nghi Son, Nghi Son - Dien Chau, Dien Chau - Bai Vot, Nha Trang - Cam Lam, and Cam Lam - Vinh Hao), the government will select the winning partnerships of prequalified contractors including Hoa Binh Construction Group, Licogi 16, FECON, and Vinaconex Corporation.

Like Cienco4, Licogi 16 and FECON incurred big falls in profit and revenue in the first quarter. FECONs debt at the end of March was over VND9.84 trillion ($427.8 million), much higher than its equity of VND7.56 trillion ($328.69 million).

With the situation, they may have to pick up loans for the new works if they win a ticket for the North-South Expressway. However, until now, the nightmare of bad debts at loss-making BOT transport projects has made banks cautious, with some lenders saying they have no plans to offer loans to BOT or build-transfer projects this year.

Senior financial expert Nguyen Tri Hieu told VIR, Banks are cautioned because of their high credit risks.

Hieu added that, like other countries, Vietnam is speeding up infrastructure projects and public investment ventures as an effort to recover the economy after the coronavirus. He, however, warned that some problems should be taken into consideration to ensure successful development, especially direct contracting.

Some signs of direct appointment of contractors (DAC) have been seen in recent months, with the claim that this is a better way to fast-track the project despite a series of lessons in the past. Recently, the Ministry of Defence proposed DAC for its Truong Son Construction Corporation as contractor of three PPP sections.

The Ministry of Construction also made similar moves for Song Da Corporation, which is facing financial difficulties and is incapable of paying its debts. As ruled in such urgent situations, DAC can be made but contractors must be financially capable.

The Ministry of Transport (MoT) should be more selective. The Danang-Quang Ngai and Hanoi-Thai Nguyen expressways which ended up inefficient and substandard quality were costly lessons that should be taken to heart when giving DAC priority to state-owned companies, said senior economist Vu Dinh Anh.

Sluggishness concerns

The prime minister at an early July meeting asked the MoT to start construction on the three sections next month. However, much work is only half-done as resettlement areas are affected by the eastern cluster of the expressway, although the deadline for completion of this work has already passed last month.

According to a recent report by the MoT, among the 110 resettlement areas, 66 are under development and 35 others are approving designs and selecting contractors. The majority of localities with resettlement areas have proposed extension of the completion schedule until September.

The North-South Expressway, which is set to cover 2,100km, costs VND118.5 trillion ($5.15 billion) and has 11 sub-projects (six of which will be state-funded), is expected to create a driving force for the social-economic development of 23 cities and provinces once finished. Ensuring bankability of the project now depends on how the MoT disburses the investment and selects contractors.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Next time the Cleveland Indians take the field in 2020, the 60-game sprint to the playoffs will be underway. Manager Terry Francona and the Indians wrapped up summer exhibition play Wednesday with a 5-3 win against Pittsburgh at PNC Park. Fridays season opener against Kansas City is next on the agenda.

But first, Francona and the Indians completed a three-game exhibition sweep of the Pirates behind five strong innings by righty Aaron Civale. Francona praised Civales maturity and his readiness since summer camp opened three weeks ago.

Hes been good, Francona said. He pitches beyond his years, which we really like.

The top five hitters in Clevelands lineup combined to go 7-for-15 through the first five innings, including a pair of home runs with Cesar Hernandez, Jose Ramirez and Carlos Santana each collecting a pair of hits.

Santana opened the scoring with an RBI single in the first and added his third exhibition home run of the year on a line drive to left in the third against Pittsburgh starter Derek Holland.

I took a good swing at an inside pitch, Santana said. I know Holland and how he likes to attack me. The first at-bat he threw a couple of sliders. For me, my focus was on good contact and thinking in the middle.

Santana said the clubs energy is high as training camp wraps up, and that the players are eager to finally open the regular season on Friday against Kansas City.

Were ready, Santana said. Weve been working hard during the last three weeks. Im ready to roll.

Franmil Reyes added an RBI single in the first and Jose Ramirezs solo home run in the fifth off reliever Kyle Crick gave the Indians a two-run advantage.

Civale allowed four hits and did not walk a batter in five innings (79 pitches). His only mistake was a high 0-2 fastball that Pirates slugger Josh Bell launched to right field for a two-run homer that tied the score in the bottom of the first.

Afterward, the 25-year-old said it was good to finally face a lineup that didnt have Cleveland on the front of its jerseys.

The feel was a little more game-like, Civale said. It was good to get back out there and go compete again.

Adam Plutko, who moved to the bullpen earlier this week after the No. 5 spot in the starting rotation went to Zach Plesac, pitched a scoreless inning in relief of Civale in the sixth. Francona said one of his goals was to get Plutko some work out of the bullpen Wednesday.

It was good for him, Francona said. His fastball played up a little bit, which is nice to see. And now when he comes into a game it wont be his first time relieving.

Closer Brad Hand allowed a run on two hits, including an RBI double by Jerrod Dyson in the seventh. But Hand struck out the side, getting Kevin Newman on a slider to end the inning. Adam Cimber worked a scoreless eighth inning, striking out Andrew Susac on a slider.

Christian Arroyo added a solo home run in the ninth against Pirates lefty Miguel Del Pozo to put the Indians back up by a pair.

James Karinchak walked two batters in the ninth, but struck out Socrates Brito on a 96.1 mph fastball and got Ji-Hwan Bae to pop out to shortstop Yu Chang for his first exhibition save. Francona said the Indians will have to be patient while Karinchaks command develops.

His stuff is so good, as he develops and matures, youre going to see a really good pitcher, Francona said. Theres going to be some times were going to have to put our seat belts on and be patient because hes going to lose the plate from time to time.

-

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Like father like son: two generations of flood-fighting heroes

Chen Jian was only 14 when his father Chen Shentao battled the massive floods of 1998 in the city of Jiujiang, east China's Jiangxi Province.

"I remember all the roads in the township were flooded, and we had to climb over mountains to reach school," he said. "I knew my father was helping battle the floods in the frontline, and I aspired to be a hero like him."

Little did the junior Chen know that he would follow his father's footsteps and years later combat the floods together in the township.

The Chens are residents of Xingang Township, situated between Poyang Lake, which is China's largest freshwater lake, and the Yangtze River, the country's longest waterway.

China has entered its rainy season. Since June, continuous downpours have lashed large parts of southern China, and the waters of many rivers in the affected regions have exceeded warning levels. The northern stretches of Jiangxi Province have experienced heavy downpours since July 6, with water rising significantly in local rivers and lakes.

On July 12, the water level at Poyang Lake exceeded the guaranteed mark of 22.43 meters, posing a grave danger to local villages.

Amid this dire situation, Chen and his father led locals to help contain the floods on the township's Dongsheng South Embankment facing the lake.

"My father's bravery really inspired me a lot," Chen said. "I wanted to do what he did decades ago: tame the floods and save people's lives."

MEMORIES

In 1998, a devastating flood occurred along the Yangtze River.

At that time, senior Chen was a village official in Jiangji under the jurisdiction of Xingang Township.

"The floods were huge, and the village was in danger," said Chen, 62.

"I remember on June 27, villagers told me that probably water was leaking from the Yangtze through the embankment to the village pond," he recalled. "They saw water flowing into the pond."

Chen walked down into the pond barefoot and used his feet to feel the temperature of the water.

"Because the leaking water came from deep areas of the Yangtze, it was extremely cold," he said. "We knew the leakage was massive."

Chen immediately reported to other officials and worked with them to stop the leakage.

"We spent more than two hours to prevent the leaking from expanding," he said.

For about three months, Chen patrolled embankments, filled bags with sand and carried heavy sandbags.

"Of course I was scared because the floods were huge," he said. "But I also knew that I had a big responsibility as an official, so I carried on unfazed."

After the floods were tamed, Chen was accorded with a national honor for his bravery, and he went to Beijing to collect the award.

LIKE FATHER LIKE SON

This year, it is Chen Shentao's son who is leading the fight against the floods.

Chen Jian, 36, started working in the local government in 2002. He is tasked with leading locals to fight the floods at Poyang Lake these days.

"I have been part of the anti-flood force since 2002," junior Chen said. "My father has been working with me."

As years progressed, Chen Jian gradually became the leader in the local flood-prevention efforts.

"My father still comes over to help, but more often he shares his experience in combating floods," Chen Jian said. "He said he is a Party member and while he can, he will continue to serve the people."

Chen recalled that one year, when he spent several months away from home, patrolling the embankment and sleeping in the stations.

"I remember vividly that we were carrying sandbags in the pouring rain along the embankment," he said. "I was 26 years old."

This year, the water reached a historic high at Poyang Lake. Chen Jian and his father have been fighting the floods for quite some time now. Due to the call of duty, junior Chen missed his daughter's birthday.

The most unforgettable day came on July 12, when the water from Poyang Lake rose significantly, triggering strong waves that constantly hit the embankment.

"We worked for an entire day," he said. "But all the efforts will be worth it."

In the eyes of Chen Jian, his father is a hard-working person with strong principles.

"I have been influenced by my father greatly," he said. "He puts people first, and is always the first to go to the frontline to defend our homeland."

"Saving people's lives is what heroes do and my father is a hero," his son Chen Jian said. "I am extremely proud of him."
Springfield Public Schools and an association of Western Massachusetts farmers are the biggest recipients of the first round of state grants distributed to address food insecurity during the coronavirus pandemic.

Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito announced on Wednesday nearly $3 million in grants will be distributed in the first round of funding. The funding is part of the $36 million Food Security Infrastructure Grant program created to ensure residents statewide have access to healthy, local food.

The 26 grants ranged from the $485,248 Springfield Schools received to $2,500 for a Cape Cod church group that delivers food to children. They were distributed to different organizations across the state to help them improve their infrastructure to provide food, according to the governors office.

During this pandemic, Massachusetts food supply chain has faced significant challenges and there is an urgent need for food security to support our most vulnerable residents, Baker said in writing. This new funding is a $3 million investment in the infrastructure we need to continue to respond to the impacts of the pandemic, while creating a system that provides more equitable access to nutritious, local food in the Commonwealth.

Springfield Public Schools will use the grant to support the program to provide pre-packaged daily meals to the 25,000 students in the schools, especially while they are attending school remotely from their homes. Some meals will also be delivered to the classroom for children who will be physically attending school, officials said.

The money is earmarked to be used to allow food service employees to purchase packaging machinery, a refrigerated truck and insulated bags to deliver meals to the classroom, officials said.

Pioneer Valley Growers Association, a collaboration of Western Massachusetts farmers who work together to deliver their products to supermarkets, will receive $439,707 in funding. The money will be used to build a new cold storage facility, upgrade its computer tracking system and provide technical support to employees, officials said.

Clarkdale Fruit Farms, of Deerfield, also received a $44,327 grant to purchase a refrigerated delivery truck that will allow its fruit and other produce to be distributed safely for a longer distance, officials said.

Awards will continue to be granted on a rolling basis.

In addition, the administration announced the first round of new vendors for the Healthy Incentives Program, funded through $5 million in additional funds recommended by the Food Security Task Force. The vendors provide matching benefits for households who purchase locally grown produce with SNAP benefits. Most of the vendors are small farm stands and farmers markets which serve communities most impacted by the pandemic.

Vendors were named in a variety of Western Massachusetts communities including Springfield, West Springfield, Holyoke, Chicopee, Amherst, Cummington, Huntington and Worthington, officials said.

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Description

GIS  23 July 2020: B eyond your studies, you should maintain the umbilical link with the motherland and help in the advancement of the socio-economic development of Mauritius.

The President of the Republic, Mr Prithvirajsing Roopun made this statement, today, at a reception in honour of the 2019 Higher School Certificate laureates at the State House, Reduit.

The Prime Minister, Minister of Defence, Home Affairs and External Communications

Minister for Rodrigues, Outer Islands and Territorial Integrity , Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, the Vice-Prime Minister, Minister of Education, Tertiary Education, Science and Technology, Mrs Leela Devi Dookun-Luchoomun , and other personalities were also present on the occasion.

Addressing the 45 young laureates, the President lauded them for their remarkable performance and highlighted that this lifelong recognition will make them more resolute and determined to excel and reach new heights.

These scholarships, he underlined, will provide the youngsters with opportunities which will undoubtedly broaden their perspective. He therefore called upon the laureates to adhere to new social norms, while experiencing different cultures abroad, within and beyond the university campus.

President Roopun further pointed out that while these laureates are embarking on a transition phase, the whole world has been brought to a reset amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Hence, the need for everyone to adapt to this new normal and learn to live in the current situation of the Covid-19.

As for Prime Minister Jugnauth, he stated that this event celebrates the dedication, hardwork and commitment to excellence of the young laureates who have achieved exemplary performance. He indicated that as these youngsters embarked on a longer and arduous journey, they will have to embrace new responsibility and tasks. Government, he said, will continue to invest in the educational sector so as to provide more opportunities for students.

He also spoke of developing resilience with a view of transforming the country into a digital economy while adding that the innovative and entrepreneurial minds of the laureates will help the country to meet its economic aspirations in post Covid-19.

The Prime Minister urged the laureates to become ambassadors of the country while they are abroad and encouraged them to inspire other youth to strive for excellence. He also made an appeal to these youngsters to serve the country with their competencies and contribute to its socio-economic development.

The Vice-Prime Minister Dookun-Luchoomun, for her part, underscored that Government has a profound belief in equality, justice and fairness for all adding that equity will always remain at the heart of the education set up. She also dwelt on the Scholarships Schemes which have been expanded and further democratised so as to create space for a larger number of students including those from vulnerable backgrounds and those who are faced with a disability.

She also seized the opportunity to congratulate the students as they embark in their quest for academic and social excellence.
Another hot, humid day in New Jersey on Thursday is likely be interrupted by a round of afternoon thunderstorms packing strong wind gusts and possible hail.

UPDATE (3 p.m. Thursday): Strong thunderstorms closing in on state, prompting watches in 11 counties

Temperatures are expected to climb into the 90s for much of the state for a sixth straight day with the five northeastern counties (Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Passaic and Union) under a heat advisory from noon until 8 p.m. as the humidity will make it feel even warmer.

Forecasters says the rain is expected to sweep across the state this afternoon could be accompanied by thunder and cloud-to-ground lightning as well as wind gusts of up to 60 mph. Most spots will get a half-inch to an inch of rain, with as much as two inches falling in areas where the heaviest of the storms concentrate, the National Weather Service said in its morning forecast discussion.

Rain could stick around into the evening and through the overnight as temps dip into the low to mid 70s.

The threat of severe weather in New Jersey is higher in the northern half of the state on Thursday, July 23, 2020.National Weather Service

The National Weather Service says theres a slight (2 on a 1 to 5 scale) risk of severe weather in the northern half of the state and a marginal risk (1 on a 1 to 5 scale) in the southern half on Thursday

While there are no advisories for the rest of the state, highs ares still expected to reach 91 in Camden and Trenton, with forecasters calling for a high of 89 in Morristown and 87 in Atlantic City. The humidity will make it feel like the high 90s.

The weekend forecast remains unchanged  sunny skies and slightly less humidity with highs in the upper 80s and low 90s on Saturday and Sunday. Overnight temperatures will fall into the low 70s, with little to no chance of rain either day.

On Wednesday, 2.76 inches of rain fell at the Pequest Hatchery in Oxford, Jersey City recorded 2.3 inches, while Hackettstown picked up 2.19 inches, according to the NJWeather.org, the website for the state climatologists office. A wind gust of 59 mph was recorded in Lower Alloways Creek, with Harvey Cedars reporting gusts of 55 mph.

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Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
RALEIGH, N.C.Americans will be able to get a coronavirus vaccine for free under a deal with its makers, the companies say.

The U.S. government placed an order for 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine candidate BNT162, developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, the companies announced Wednesday. The U.S. will receive the doses once the vaccine, which is currently in clinical trials, is manufactured and given approval or emergency use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Once approved, it will be available to Americans for free, the release says.

The U.S. will pay $1.95 billion (U.S.) for the initial doses once theyre received and will be able to order up to 500 million more doses, according to the companies.

Pfizer and BioNTech say theyre on track to move to the next phase of trials as early as this month and to seek emergency use authorization or other approval as soon as October.

The companies anticipate having 100 million doses ready by the end of the year and potentially more than 1.3 billion doses ready by the end of next year.

The deal with the U.S. means the country will receive the first 100 million doses, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The agreement is part of Operation Warp Speed, an initiative by the Trump administration to have 300 million doses of a safe, effective COVID-19 vaccine on the market by January 2021.

It involves the government supporting vaccine development and buying doses of candidates before they are approved so they can be distributed quickly once they are. Congress has put nearly $10 million toward the effort through the CARES Act and other funding.

Expanding Operation Warp Speeds diverse portfolio by adding a vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech increases the odds that we will have a safe, effective vaccine as soon as the end of this year, HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in the release from the companies.

Vaccine development can take years, but dozens of research groups are racing to get one on the market as health experts have said its our best hope in ending the pandemic.

U.S. President Donald Trump has maintained that a vaccine will be ready by the end of this year and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the countrys top infectious disease expert, has said its conceivable, NBC News reported in May. Other health experts have said it will take a medical miracle.
New Delhi:

IL&FS Transportation Networks on Thursday said its joint venture with IL&FS Engineering and Construction Company has bagged two road projects in Madhya Pradesh worth Rs 375.23 crore.

"The joint venture (JV) comprising of the company and IL&FS Engineering and Construction Company in the ratio 51:49 has submitted bids with the Madhya Pradesh Road Development corporation Ltd.

The JV has emerged as lowest bidder for the development of two projects," IL&FS Transportation Networks said in a BSE filing.

"The company has quoted Rs 213.52 crore for project 1 and Rs 161.71 crore for project 2. The construction period for project 1 is 730 days and project 2 is 548 days," it added.

Project 1 is for widening and reconstruction of Bariya Choki-Lugasi-Garhi Malhara Road, Bamitha-Dumra Road, Rajnangar-Bachhon Road and Chhatarpur-Vikrampur-Rajnagar Road.

Project 2 is for widening and reconstruction of Barghat-Kanhiwada Road, Dharna-Asta-Dondiwada-Dharmakua Road, Waraseoni-Katangi Road.

Shares of IL&FS Transportation Networks were trading 0.56 per cent higher at Rs 89.05 on BSE.
The Government has bought a 16 million vaccine manufacturing facility as part of efforts to ensure any successful anti-Covid-19 drug can be produced at scale in the UK.

Ministers today announced an additional 100 million will be invested in the new state-of-the-art centre to scale up Covid-19 vaccine and gene therapy manufacturing.

The investment will upgrade an existing facility to create a fully-licensed Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult Manufacturing Innovation Centre in Braintree, Essex, which is due to open in December 2021.

The Government said the centre, bought for 16 million from Benchmark Holdings, will have the capacity to produce millions of doses a month, ensuring the UK has the capabilities to manufacture vaccines and advanced medicines far into the future.

The Government has bought a 16 million vaccine manufacturing facility as part of moves to ensure any successful anti-Covid-19 drug can be produced at scale in the UK (stock image)

Business Secretary Alok Sharma said: 'We are taking all necessary steps to ensure we can vaccinate the public as soon as a successful Covid-19 vaccine becomes available.

'This new Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult Manufacturing Innovation Centre, alongside crucial investment in skills, will support our efforts to rapidly produce millions of doses of a coronavirus vaccine while ensuring the UK can respond quickly to potential future pandemics.'

Peter George, chairman of Benchmark Holdings, said: 'We were in the process of evaluating this sector when Covid-19 broke, and I am delighted that we have a long-term solution for the workforce, which has always been our desired outcome.'

Kate Bingham, who chairs the Vaccines Taskforce added: 'Today's announcement is another important milestone for us. The work of the Vaccines Taskforce is focused on protecting the UK against Covid-19 through vaccination as quickly as possible.

'In order to vaccinate our high-risk populations at the earliest opportunity, the Government has agreed to proactively manufacture vaccines now, so we have millions of doses of vaccine ready if they are shown to be safe and effective.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma said: 'We are taking all necessary steps to ensure we can vaccinate the public as soon as a successful Covid-19 vaccine becomes available'

'The acquisition of this state-of-the-art manufacturing centre will not only help us with this, but also ensures we are well-placed as a country to be able to cope with any pandemics or health crises in the future.'

The Government added that employment in the cell and gene therapy sector is predicted to reach over 6,000 jobs by 2024, with over 3,000 in manufacturing and bioprocessing.

The facility in Braintree will open alongside the Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC), which is currently under construction in Oxfordshire after another 93 million investment from the Government.

Downing Street has also pledged an additional 38 million to establish a rapid deployment facility, opening later this summer, which will support efforts to ensure a successful vaccine is widely available to the public as soon as possible.

Matthew Durdy, CEO, Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult said: 'This commitment from the Government through the Vaccines Taskforce will enable continued growth and productivity in the cell and gene therapy sector, as well as providing vital resource for vaccine manufacturing and economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

'We are delighted to be able to deploy the specialist capabilities of the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult in such an important initiative.

'Accelerating the availability of COVID-19 vaccines, increasing skills and employment, and facilitating growth of the advanced medicines industry will make a valuable contribution to the recovery of the economy.'
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 00:31:08|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- A coalition of the world's five leading intellectual property offices, known as the IP5, has pledged to take further measures and share best practices in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, and promoting innovation to contribute to economic and social recovery.

The members of the IP5 are China's National Intellectual Property Administration (NIPA), the European Patent Office, the Japan Patent Office, the Korean Intellectual Property Office, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Heads of the five offices made a joint statement at their 13th annual meeting on Tuesday via a videoconference chaired by Shen Changyu, head of the NIPA.

Intellectual property plays a key role in boosting economic recovery and creating employment. The five offices will continue to provide high-quality services to inventors and researchers around the world, helping them attract investment, expand markets, and foster technology transfer, according to the statement.

This year, the five offices have taken a series of measures to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on applicants and spur virus-related innovation, including offering IP assistance and facilitating access to patent information.

The five offices should enhance international IP cooperation on their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, Shen said at the meeting.

Apart from responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, they also stressed cooperation in the fields of emerging technologies and artificial intelligence.

The offices began meeting in 2007 and have since worked together to improve the quality and efficiency of the patent examination process. In 2019, they handled approximately 85 percent of the world's patent applications, and 93 percent of the work carried out under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, an international patent law treaty. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 15:53:00|Editor: huaxia

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Israeli Army forces are seen stationed in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on July 23, 2020. Israel was reinforcing its troops along its northern border with Lebanon on Thursday, days after a fighter with the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group was killed in a reportedly Israeli airstrike. An Israeli military spokesperson said in a statement that "the Northern Command will be reinforced with select infantry forces." (Gil Eliyahu/JINI via Xinhua)

JERUSALEM, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Israel was reinforcing its troops along its northern border with Lebanon on Thursday, days after a fighter with the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group was killed in a reportedly Israeli airstrike.

An Israeli military spokesperson said in a statement that "the Northern Command will be reinforced with select infantry forces."

The move was being made "in accordance with the situational assessment," the military said.

Hezbollah said one of its fighters, Ali Kamel Mohsen, was killed on Monday in an Israeli airstrike in Syria.

The attack near the Damascus International Airport killed five foreign fighters, according to a report by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

It was the first time Hezbollah announced that one of its fighters had been killed in an Israeli attack since last August, when two Hezbollah members were killed in an Israeli attack in Syria. Following the August attack, the group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, warned Hezbollah will retaliate any more fatal attacks.

Israel and Hezbollah fought a full-fledged war in 2006 that took place mostly on Lebanese soil.
The recent border stand-off with China has prompted India to rethink its policy with its neighbour and speak up for other Asia-Pacific nations while eschewing the trade protectionism that has curtailed New Delhi's influence in the region.

With elections this year and a battered economy following Covid-19, the United States' retreat from the region is likely to continue. "What Asia needs is a collective middle-power response as a balance against China. This is where India can play a role," Mohamed Zeeshan, editor-in-chief of Freedom Gazette and a writer for The Diplomat, has said in an analysis published in South China Morning Post on Tuesday.

India has long steered clear of the geopolitical concerns of other countries in the region and played cautiously. While New Delhi has stepped up bilateral military cooperation with countries like Vietnam, it has generally stayed silent on politically sensitive issues.

In 2016, for instance, when China refused to abide by an international tribunal ruling on its South China Sea dispute with the Philippines, India chose not to explicitly call out Beijing. But India must now speak out more vocally on the concerns of other countries in the Asia-Pacific - and back that with deeper cooperation with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Japan, Australia, and others.

But now India must similarly speak up for Hong Kong and Taiwan - both of which are integral to economic activity and stability in the entire region, the analytic piece suggested.

"India should complement this shift in its foreign policy with a more open economic policy. Despite being among the largest economies in the world, India has had little leverage over China. While China is the largest source of imports to India, these imports account for less than 3 per cent of China's total exports. By contrast, Vietnam - whose economy is less than a tenth of India's - makes up a larger share of China's exports pie," Zeeshan said.

Much of this is due to years of trade protectionism in India, which has curtailed the country's influence in the region, as per Zeeshan, who has also previously served as an adviser to the Indian delegation to the United Nations in New York.

He said India's decision to sit out the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership was a missed opportunity, adding that New Delhi's current unofficial boycott of economic ties with China in response to the recent tensions will also prove counterproductive.

"The Asia-Pacific does not want a confrontation between the world's two largest nations, but it does need a balance of power between competing alliances to deter mutual aggression. India should step up and fill the leadership vacuum in the region," he said further.

-ANI

Also Read: Rahul Gandhi to explain in 3rd part of video series today: 'How should India deal with China?'
The Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith has pulled out of appearing on the junior version, it's been reported.

Sources claim the baking expert, 80, decided against appearing in the Channel 4 spin-off due to ongoing concerns about COVID-19, as it would be 'impossible' for its young contestants to completely self-isolate before filming.

Despite fears around whether Bake Off would go ahead due to coronavirus, bosses confirmed earlier this week the new series will air later this year as planned.

Not this year: The Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith has pulled out of appearing on the junior version, it's been reported (pictured with host Harry Hill and judge Liam Charles)

Sources told The Sun: 'Producers realised that under-16s were essentially impossible to quarantine in the same way you would adults, so to be on the safe side, Prue is only going to do the main series.

'Production has already started up and cameras will begin rolling very soon.

'It's not yet been confirmed who will join Liam as a judge, if anyone.'

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Channel 4 and Prue Leith for comment.

Sad news: Sources claim the baking expert decided against appearing in the Channel 4 spin-off due to concerns around COVID-19

Prue usually appears as a judge on Junior Bake Off alongside former contestant Liam Charles, with Harry Hill as host.

It comes just days after it was revealed that the main series of Bake Off has finally begun filming, after production was delayed due to COVID-19.

The popular Channel 4 show had been scheduled to go into production back in April, before the pandemic, and subsequent lockdown, scuppered all plans.

However, Sky Studios CEO Gary Davey brought all hopes for the show's return back to life on Wednesday, when he revealed that filming is 'going very well.'

We're back! It comes just days after it was revealed that the main series of Bake Off has finally begun filming, after production was delayed due to COVID-19 (2019 cast are pictured)

Further, the company's chief commercial officer Jane Millichip is quoted by Deadline as saying at a virtual Broadcasting Press Guild lunch: 'Its all happening in deep secret, somewhere in darkest deepest Britain in the shires.'

The show's judges Paul Hollywood, 54, Prue Leith, Noel Fielding, 47, as well as new presenter Matt Lucas, 46, are reported to have gone into quarantine in the run-up to filming, to allow for close interaction on the set.

While it had been feared that the show's return would be delayed until 2021, Millichip assured: 'You will have your Victoria sponge this year.'

Back to work! The show's judges Paul Hollywood, 54, Prue, Noel Fielding, 47, as well as new presenter Matt Lucas, 46, are reported to have gone into quarantine in the run-up to filming

At the start of the month, hopes for the show's return this autumn appeared to be all but bashed, when bosses warned that the 2020 series could be axed.

In a statement, bosses of Love Productions insisted they were 'working hard' to deliver a new series this year, as fans feared the show would not be ready for its usual return in late August.

It comes following reports that this year's series will not feature older contestants due to concerns they could fall ill during filming, despite the show being known for its diverse range of bakers.

The Great British Bake Off  which has traditionally been shot in Welford Park, Berkshire  is usually scheduled to begin in late August on Channel 4, but bosses are yet to begin promotions for a new series.
Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers will be joined by other state officials to update the public on the response to the COVID-19 pandemic as cases surge in Wisconsin.

On Tuesday, Wisconsin Department of Health Services recorded 1,117 new cases of COVID-19, the highest increase of confirmed cases in one day since the pandemic began.

On Wednesday, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services recorded 712 new cases of COVID-19.

The state department recorded 44,847 cumulative confirmed cases, 4,225 hospitalizations and 865 deaths statewide. Of those, 34,682 people recovered.

Evers will be joined by Wisconsin Department of Health Services Secretary-designee Andrea Palm, Dr. Ryan Westergaard, Chief Medical Officer of the Bureau of Communicable Diseases and Ryan Nilsestuen, Chief Legal Counsel, Office of the Governor at 1:30 Thursday to update the public.
Google Pay is gaining support for more and more financial institutions. The latest batch adds 25 to the list. These span 14 countries, most of which in Europe, though Australia and Japan get a new option each.

These include traditional banks as well as mobile-first alternatives like Revolut in Japan, Curve in Germany, Lunar in Sweden and Norway and more. You can follow the source link for a list of only the new additions or check out Google Pays support page for the full list of banks and cards supported in your country.

Unfortunately, no new countries are featured in the list, so if you were waiting for a local launch of Google Pay, youll have to wait some more.

Source
Foreigners seek for Russian rights advocates help in return of surrogate mothers kids

 flickr.com/ Britt-knee

16:21 23/07/2020

MOSCOW, July 23 (RAPSI)  Foreign families, who cannot take their surrogate mothers children, have applied for help to Russias Presidential Council for Human Rights, according to Deputy Chair of the body Irina Kirkora.

Not all genetic tests were conducted to confirm blood relationship with the babies locating in Russia, Kirkora said. However, foreigners are ready to take tests to reunite with their children as soon as possible, she added.

The Council seeks to promptly help the biological families in the organization of test processes, confirmation of reuniting possibility including visa, entry into the country, according to the official.

In January, law enforcement found a body of a dead newborn boy in a flat in the Moscow Regions town of Odintsovo. There were also three other kids there along with a nurse. Investigators believe surrogate mothers gave birth to the children to transfer them later to foreign parents.

In mid-June, eight defendants in the case over trafficking of surrogate mothers children were placed in detention until September.
BELLE PLAINE, Kan. - A federal judge has refused to free an ailing inmate from Kansas who, along with his wife, was convicted of abusing mentally ill patients at their treatment centre, including by forcing them to work naked and engage in sexual acts, while billing the government and their families for the supposed therapy.

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten cited the particularly heinous nature of the abusive treatment of mentally ill patients in his Tuesday ruling denying the request from Arlan Dean Kaufman for compassionate release from his 30-year prison sentence because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kaufman and his wife, Linda, were sentenced in 2006 on multiple counts of conspiracy, forced labour, involuntary servitude, health care fraud, making a false writing and obstructing a federal audit.

The couple owned and managed the Kaufman House Residential Care Treatment Center, an unlicensed residential home for the chronically mentally ill in Newton, which is 25 miles (40 kilometres) north of Wichita.

During their trial, federal prosecutors called the facility a house of horrors kept financially afloat by fraud. They portrayed the Kaufmans as controlling the lives of mentally ill residents, including deciding who could wear clothes. They were accused of coercing residents to masturbate, fondle each other and shave each others genitals while Arlan Kaufman videotaped them.

The crimes began in 1984 and continued until their 2004 arrests. The servitude counts stem from nude manual labour the residents did at the Kaufmans farm in neighbouring Butler County.

Arlan Kaufman, who is 83 and uses a wheelchair, asked the court to free him from the remaining 15 years of his imprisonment because of the risk of death from COVID-19. His attorney in a court filing said he suffers from prostrate cancer, vascular disease, kidney disease and other medical problems.

It is inhumane and unnecessarily punitive to keep an 83-year-old man with Stage 4 prostate cancer imprisoned given his deteriorating health and during the COVID-19 pandemic, his lawyer wrote to the court.

But federal prosecutors urged the court, on behalf of the courageous victims who suffered at the hands of this defendant, to deny the request for early release. It noted that the Bureau of Prisons has taken significant measures to protect the health of inmates in its charge.

Marten said the reduction of the sentence, under the circumstances of this case, would be a windfall to the defendant which would fail to promote respect for the law and would undermine just punishment.
(Bloomberg) -- STMicroelectronics NV, the chipmaker that supplies Apple Inc. and Tesla Inc., raised both its third quarter and full-year revenue forecasts as it sees improved market conditions through the end of 2020.

The company said third-quarter revenue will be $2.45 billion with a gross margin of 36%. The average estimate was $2.26 billion and 35.36% respectively, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

STMicro raised its full-year net revenue target to between $9.25 billion and $9.65 billion, from $8.8 billion to $9.5 billion. Growth in the second half of the year would be in the range of $610 million to $1.01 billion, it said.

Shares of STMicro were up 4% to 27.79 euros at 10:37 a.m. in Paris.

Key Takeaways

We expect this growth to be driven by engaged customer programs, new products and improved market conditions, STMicro Chief Executive Officer Jean-Marc Chery said of third-quarter estimates in a statement.Increased U.S.-led restrictions on Huawei equipments will impact STMicro in 4Q, Chery said on a call with analysts, which he said is included in the companys forecast.For Chery, 2Q is confirmed to be the bottom in the slowdown generated by Covid-19, including in its legacy automotive branch. The inventory, which analysts were closely monitoring, was 129 days at the end of the second quarter; at the end of the third quarter it will decrease to 115 to 120 days, Chery said, and at year end to 95 to 100 days.Gaming and wearables will support sales of consumer electronics, he said.The company reported second-quarter revenue of $2.1 billion.Gross margin was 35%. Revenue compares with average analyst estimates of $2 billion and gross margin of 34.65%.Read more analyst reaction here.

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Rival Texas Instruments Inc. projected revenue in the current quarter that topped analysts estimates; Dutch chip equipment firm ASML beat analysts expectations for the third quarter and insisted 2020 will be a growth year.Analog Devices Inc. is close to an all-stock agreement to acquire Maxim Integrated Products Inc., according to people familiar with the matter. The deal would value Maxim at more than its current market capitalization of roughly $17 billion.STMicros share price underperformed compared with analog peers. Credit Suisse and Liberum wrote that concerns around its Huawei Technologies Co. exposure is partly responsible for this.

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CHICAGO, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Grubhub Inc. (NYSE: GRUB), a leading online and mobile food-ordering and delivery marketplace, today announced it will release its second quarter financial results on Thursday, July 30, 2020, before the market open. Due to the pending acquisition by Just Eat Takeaway.com, Grubhub does not plan to host a conference call to discuss its second quarter results.

About Grubhub

Grubhub (NYSE: GRUB) is a leading online and mobile food-ordering and delivery marketplace with the largest and most comprehensive network of restaurant partners, as well as nearly 24 million active diners. Dedicated to connecting diners with the food they love from their favorite local restaurants, Grubhub elevates food ordering through innovative restaurant technology, easy-to-use platforms and an improved delivery experience. Grubhub features nearly 300,000 restaurants and is proud to partner with more than 200,000 of these restaurants in over 4,000 U.S. cities. The Grubhub portfolio of brands includes Grubhub, Seamless, LevelUp, AllMenus and MenuPages.

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American Airlines said it is investigating an incident in which a male flight attendant reportedly upset a female passenger to the point of tears, then later was recorded getting into a heated confrontation with a male passenger who tried to come to the woman's defense.

"We have seen the video and have already started an investigation to obtain the facts," American Airlines spokesperson Leslie Scott said in an email to The Washington Post. "What we see on this video does not reflect our values or how we care for our customers."

The incident was captured on video by another passenger, Surain Adyanthaya, who uploaded the video to Facebook late Friday afternoon. The airline confirmed the incident took place Friday on American Airlines Flight 591, from San Francisco to Dallas-Ft. Worth.

Video via Facebook:

"OMG! AA Flight attendant violently took a stroller from a lady with her baby on my flight, hitting her and just missing the baby," Adyanthaya wrote on Facebook. "Then he tried to fight a passenger who stood up for her."

The video does not depict the stroller incident that Adyanthaya described, but it does show a female passenger standing at the front of the plane, sobbing uncontrollably as she holds a baby in a pink outfit. Beside her, a pilot stands mostly silent.

"You can't use violence with baby," the female passenger says, through tears, toward the plane door where some passengers can still be seen boarding. "Just give me back my stroller, please."

At first, the male flight attendant in question does not appear in the frame. In the meantime, a male passenger seated near the front of the plane can be heard getting flustered.

"No, I'm not going to sit hear and watch this stuff. . ." the male passenger says. He then gets out of his seat and demands to know the male flight attendant's name.

As this takes place, other passengers can be heard discussing in low voices what they just witnessed.

Moments later, the male flight attendant returns to the plane.

"Hey, bud," the male passenger who had gotten out of his seat earlier calls out, while pointing at the male flight attendant. "You do that to me and I'll knock you flat."

"Hey, you stay out of this!" the flight attendant yells back, pointing his finger back at the male passenger.

The flight attendant takes a step forward and the male passengers leaps into the aisle. The passenger with the baby can be seen ducking out of the way, shielding her baby's head. As their argument escalates, it appears as if the confrontation could get physical.

"Hit me," the flight attendant urges, motioning with his hands. "Come on, hit me."

"Tony, sit down," a woman can be heard calling out to the male passenger.

"You don't know what the story is!" the flight attendant says to the passenger.

"I don't care what the story is," the male passenger replies. "You almost hurt a baby."

American Airlines said the male flight attendant in the video had been suspended from flying while the investigation takes place.

"The actions of our team member captured here do not appear to reflect patience or empathy, two values necessary for customer care," Scott, the airline spokeswoman, said in a statement. "In short, we are disappointed by these actions. The American team member has been removed from duty while we immediately investigate this incident."

Scott said the female passenger and her children ended up choosing to take another flight and were upgraded to first class for the remainder of their international trip.

"We are deeply sorry for the pain we have caused this passenger and her family and to any other customers affected by the incident," the airline said in a statement. "We are making sure all of her family's needs are being met while she is in our care."
Minister of Trade of Serbia Rasim Ljajic says Serbia agreed upon the export of weapons by a private company to Armenia with four ministries and the special services, Eadaily reports, citing the Serbian Nova.rs.

The Serbian portal states that the trade ministers comment comes after Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Khalaf Khalafov expressed his extreme disappointment with the export of weapons to Armenia. Khalafov told Charge dAffaires of Serbia Danica Veinovic that Serbia had supplied a large amount of weapons to Armenia, including mortars that Armenia used during the recent conflict. The Azerbaijani deputy foreign minister also hinted that the allegations will jeopardize the friendly ties between Serbia and Azerbaijan.

In 2020, a private company exported weapons to Armenia, but state-run companies werent a part of the deal. In May and June, this company supplied rifles and pistols costing a little over EUR 1,000,000, Rasim Ljajjic said. He also affirmed that the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had reached an agreement on delivery, and the Ministries of Defense, Internal Affairs and Foreign Affairs had reached an agreement earlier. The special services also gave their consent. We gave the final permission only after everyone had reached an agreement, Serbias trade minister said, adding that Armenia is not under the sanctions of the EU, the US and Russia and it would be hard to reject Armenia.




A 19th-century Buddhist painting, which was believed to have been shipped out of the country during the 1950-53 Korean War, has been brought back home from Britain, a Buddhist sect said Thursday.







The Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism said a ceremony was held at the Memorial Hall of Korean Buddhist History and Culture in downtown Seoul to celebrate the return of the Assembly of Tejaprabha Buddha.







The painting arrived here from Britain on June 28 and will be sent to its original owner, Songgwang Temple in Suncheon, about 415 kilometers south of Seoul.







It is believed that the painting was produced by the Suncheon temple in 1898.







The silk painting, measuring 141 centimeters in width and 102 cm in length, features a radiant seated figure of the Buddha flanked by standing Buddhist saints symbolizing the sun and the moon.







The Jogye order said the restoration of the precious Buddhist painting was made possible by earnest efforts by the Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation and Songgwang Temple.







It said the cultural heritage foundation discovered last month that the Assembly of Tejaprabha Buddha was put up for auction abroad and passed the information over to the Jogye order.







It is difficult to specify when and how the painting was taken out of the Suncheon temple but the Jogye order speculates that its offshore shipment may have taken place during the Korean War. (Yonhap)






Village Island creates a new breakthrough in the Broadcast market by offering JPEG-XS technology on its VICO series

intoPIX and Village Island, well known for its activities in technology distribution, system integration, product design manufacture in the broadcast and telecommunication industry, are proud to announce their agreement to integrate the JPEG-XS technology in the VICO products.

The VICO converters deployed in Japan and world-wide for UHD visually lossless compression over SDI, fiber and IP were already powered by intoPIX' TICO RDD35 technology, but will include from now the TICO-XS technology option. This upgrade ensures customers access to a higher compression ratio and an even better video quality while keeping the "zero" latency.

This upgrade allows more throughput on current SDI-based installation still widely used in Japan and elsewhere, but more importantly the VICO convertors will also provide its customers an ideal avenue to realize their ambition to switch to full IP transport using the ST2110 standard in combination with the JPEG-XS compression.

The new VICO options will power higher compression and ultra-low delay with JPEG-XS while preserving the visually loss-less quality, enabling even multiple UHD 50/60p video streams to be transported over single 3G-SDI, SFP+, ST-2110 and ST-2022-6 networks. Based on the fully standardized High Profile of JPEG-XS, it will further decrease latency down to 20 video lines, and further increase the compression ratio compared to our TICO-RDD35 version.

With this integration, Village Island will create new momentum in the ongoing conversion from SDI to IP-based transport in the contribution market. The combination of ST2110 and JPEG-XS standards will set the bar for new high speed and high quality remote Broadcast workflows. At intoPIX, we are convinced that the adoption of the JPEG-XS technology is a key feature in successfully completing the SDI to IP transition.

"intoPIX is very happy and proud that after a successful collaboration with Village Island to introduce the TICO RDD35 on the Japanese and world-wide market, Village Island is once again at the forefront integrating the new JPEG-XS standard and especially our TICO-XS technology into their VICO product" explained Katty Van Mele, Director Business Development at intoPIX.

"Our VICO converters, either used to build cost effective UHD workflow, or used as single compact box to complement existing dense solution from various large solution vendors, or simply used for monitoring, were under pressure to move to XS. Amazingly, the XS doesn't take more FPGA resource than the TICO RDD35, so we can move forward consolidating on our achievements with VICO so far. As a strong believer in the XS, we happily decided to make the move" said Michael Van Dorpe, Village-Island CEO.

The two companies welcome you to contact their respective sales teams to sample the XS technology and the VICO series.

>> Press Release images available here

>> More Press images available here

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200723005037/en/

Contacts:

intoPIX

Julie Van Roy

+32 10 23 84 70

press@intopix.com

www.intopix.com

Village Island

Yuya Hasegawa

+81 3 6409 6206

press@village-island.com

www.village-island.com
Fourth in a series on this years Courier 8 Over 80 honorees.

CEDAR FALLS  Lana Hochreiter never slows down. Her life is always full-steam ahead.

At 80, she teaches spin classes for other seasoned citizens at the Cedar Falls Recreation Center. When the center closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hochreiter set up a spinning bike in her garage where she did daily high-intensity workouts while listening to her favorite music and gazing out into the yard.

She biked or walked on the nature trails, too, and did online classes three times a week. A passionate gardener, as well, she devoted hours to working in her yard. With restrictions being lifted, Hochreiter is looking forward to returning to her spin class. Im the oldest one in the class at the Rec Center, and its my third year teaching there.

The energetic Cedar Falls octogenarian was chosen as one of the Couriers Eight over 80 honorees for 2020.

Ive always enjoyed being active. When I was 42, a friend talked me into riding my first RAGBRAI. Ive done 20 RAGBRAIs now, she said.

In her late 60s, Hochreiter stepped up her physical fitness level in rowing, spinning and other exercise taught by Kay Cervetti. She achieved her goals and began teaching senior classes.

Going to Kays classes really turned the corner for me, helped me make a new lifestyle for myself, she recalls. Then, at 70, Hochreiter began slowing down and felt something was wrong. A cardiologist diagnosed her with two severely blocked arteries. Being so physically fit had saved her life  her heart had been able to push blood through, but she needed two stents. After three months in cardiac rehab, she was back to her energetic self. At 72, she became a certified spin instructor.

I first met Lana when she was a volunteer spinning and rowing instructor. Lana has quite a heart story to tell. She has shared her story at Go Red events and has made a video for them. She has volunteered her time to hang out in cardiac rehab with clients. She still can be found decorating the room monthly for whatever holiday is close, Donna Brown said in nominating her friend for the Courier award.

Hochreiter also works for Caring Transitions, a company that offers relocation, downsizing and estate liquidation services. Im very passionate about people who have to move from their homes and dont want to do it. It takes patience and caring because the job has to be done. Im old, and I can spend time talking to these people and hearing their stories and relate to what theyre saying, she said.

Dave and Elaine Prail of Cedar Falls, who also nominated Hochreiter, offered 10 reasons to choose her as an 8 over 80 honoree. At the top of their list, Lana is an encouraging person. She boosts your mood and gives one a positive outlook. They also praised her spiritual growth and describe her as a blessing to many people.

A member of Nazareth Lutheran Church, Hochreiter has participated in Habitat for Humanity building projects, including a project last year with a half-dozen other women. So much is needed. There is so much we can do to help others when were blessed to be able to do it.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Hochreiter volunteered with the church group to help in New Orleans for a month at a stretch over four years.

She also is performance chairman for the Sweet Adelines, volunteers at the Iowa State Fair, ushers at Waterloo Community Playhouse and Cedar Falls Community Theatre performances, sings in the choir and plays in the hand bell choir at her church, makes silk flower arrangements for cardiac rehab and much more.

In February, Hochreiter was presented Sertoma Clubs Service to Mankind award, honoring a non-member who has lived a life of service to the community. That was a great way to start my 80th year, she said, laughing.

When asked what she is most passionate about, Hochreiter puts her family at the top of the list. She has seven kids  Kim, Carla, Jane, Suzie, Darrell, Danny and Greg, 25 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Next to that, Im honestly passionate about spinning, my yard, helping people downsize and relocate  Im pretty passionate about that. I just have a really good life, and Im very thankful and blessed.

As for offering advice, Hochreiter said, Find something really interesting and dont give up because of your age. Keep moving, keep doing what you enjoy. Each day is a gift, and we cant let them pass by without finding what fulfills us.

Each day is a gift, and we cant let them pass by without finding what fulfills us.  Lana Horchreiter

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JEFFERSON CITY  Missourians weary of stay-at-home orders streamed into state parks in June.

According to data compiled by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, park attendance was up 25.7% in June compared with the same period a year earlier.

Campgrounds also saw an increase, with 14% more usage last month.

The numbers are not a surprise.

With people seeking alternatives to summer vacation trips, the parks have been filling up.

Ha Ha Tonka State Park, a day-use area featuring the ruins of a castle near Lake of the Ozarks, saw a 75% increase in visitors, from 40,172 to 70,163.

Johnsons Shut-Ins State Park, located in Reynolds County, recorded 62% more visitors with 70,250 people coming through the gates, compared with 43,475 in June 2019.

And, Mastodon State Historic Site in Imperial saw a 153% increase, with 105,679 visitors compared with 41,778 last year.

Private outfitters on the states scenic riverways also say they are having a banner year.

Shane Van Steenis, owner of Harveys Alley Spring Canoe Rental in Eminence, said hes had a steady crowd coming to float the Current and Jacks Fork rivers.

I had the biggest June Ive had in years, he said Thursday. Its really been exceptionally busy.

The rush to get outdoors isnt just a Missouri trend.

In South Dakota, outdoors officials reported June visitation was 13% over last year.

Maine is seeing a 35% increase in visits so far this year, according to the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry.

The boost in usage comes after crushing crowds at some Missouri state parks triggered closures in April because too many people packed into the facilities.

Castlewood State Park, comprised of 1,800 acres on the Meramec River in St. Louis County, was among the state-run areas that was temporarily shuttered.

But in June, Castlewood saw a 79% rise in usage over the previous year, with 102,060 visitors compared with 57,167 in 2019.

Visitors to parks will see some changes. Drinking fountains at some parks have been turned off. Some visitor centers are not open. And campground bathrooms are being cleaned more often.

Not all of the state park facilities have seen increases.

Places like the Governors Mansion, home to Gov. Mike Parson and First Lady Teresa Parson, have been closed to the public because of the possible spread of COVID-19 in an indoor setting.

The historic Arrow Rock Tavern in Saline County is closed.

The numbers also dont account for potential closures because of flooding along the Missouri River last year.

The Katy Trail State Park, which is a 237-mile cross-state hiking and bike trail, saw an increase in usage in June. But, numbers were down in 2019 because many sections of the trail were closed because of floodwater.

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By Akbar Mammadov

The US ambassador to Azerbaijan has been summoned to the Foreign Ministry due to attack on peaceful Azerbaijani protesters by Armenian radicals in Los Angeles, the ministrys Spokesperson Leyla Abdullayeva said in a presser on July 22.

Abdullayeva said that a large group of Armenian radicals attacked a small group of Azerbaijanis outside of the Azerbaijani Consulate in Los Angeles on July 22, injuring seven people.

She reminded that radical Armenian Dashnaks living in Los Angeles staged a protest in front of the consulate building with aggressive and provocative slogans. In response to the protest, members of the Azerbaijani community in California, who were much smaller in number, held a rival rally against the Armenian provocateurs chanting slogans exposing Armenia's aggression against Azerbaijan and its policy of ethnic cleansing.

Radical Armenian Dashnaks used violence and aggression against peaceful Azerbaijani protesters, and even the Los Angeles police, who are responsible for providing security, failed to prevent their vandalism, the spokesperson said.

Abdullayeva pointed out that Armenian radicals, attacking Azerbaijani protesters, injured seven people, including a woman.

Unfortunately, we would like to note that we are currently witnessing attempts by radical Armenian forces to use violence and vandalism against peaceful Azerbaijani protesters in various parts of the world, including the United States and a number of European countries, she said.

She emphasized that such provocative actions are a clear example of the aggressive policy pursued by Armenia and its leadership by radical Armenian forces.

Armenian criminals have to be brought to justice for demonstrating violence and atrocity against Azerbaijani demonstrators in Los Angeles, USA, as well as in European countries, including Brussels on July 22, and the law enforcement agencies of the countries must be held accountable in ensuring the security of Azerbaijani communities in these countries, Abdullayeva concluded
Members of the loosely organized far-right boogaloo movement are making the rounds in the news. Theyre gaining notoriety not for being linked to domestic acts of terrorism in the United States, but for their penchant for Hawaiian shirts.

Their fondness for aloha-infused militia looks has caught the interest of journalists and prominent news outlets. This mix of street fashions has become an identifying characteristic of boogaloo boys or bois.

The boogaloo is a fragmented community that began as a firearms board on 4chan and then blossomed on Facebook. The term boogaloo comes from the 1980s movie Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo. More recently the term has been used to refer to anti-government sentiment, civil unrest and the desire for a second civil war.

The boogaloo community includes far-right, pro-gun, anti-government libertarians spanning a wide spectrum of ideologies including white supremacy, anarchy and a range of conspiracy theories. The boogaloo are, however, unified by violent militant attitudes and terrorist tendencies. They are also savvy when it comes to managing their public image and hiding their actions.

Hawaiian shirts vs. aloha shirts

As a scholar studying the intersections of fashion, visual culture and social issues, the boogaloos adoption of Hawaiian shirts troubles me. Hawaiian shirts have historically symbolized place, consumerism, colonialist oppression and the opposition to conventional culture, and have been an alternative to formal wear.

On the one hand, we have the problematic association of Hawaiian prints with laid-back lifestyles. On the other hand, Indigenous Hawaiians perceive these motifs as stereotyping their authentic culture.

Hawaiian shirts meanings play out in surprising ways within the far-rights efforts to make their ideology mainstream. For mainstream onlookers, Hawaiian shirts worn with tactical gear may fool them about the boogaloos true colours. The common association of Hawaiian prints with relaxed easy-going attitudes is misguided here. The boogaloo are bent on violence and hope for a second civil war to advance their agenda.

Called aloha shirts in Hawaii, these garments were reclaimed from their colonialist implications by Indigenous Hawaiian designers. Since the mid-1980s, designers like Sig Zane have injected aloha prints with authentic Indigenous energy.

Early Hawaiian shirts featured Asian motifs, which were replaced by local motifs in the 1930s. With this shift the shirts started embodying aloha, meaning respect for all animated or inanimate beings.

For Hawaiians, and especially Indigenous Hawaiians, the boogaloos co-opting of Hawaiian shirts is outrageous. In todays Hawaii, aloha shirts symbolize tolerance and Hawaiians dont want it associated with the racism of the boogaloo.

Boogaloo boys street style

Although the boogaloo movement seems to pop up in 2019, its roots are entrenched in online fringe politics. Civil rights advocacy groups and researchers have linked the boogaloo to white supremacist groups as early as 2013. These online communities are a natural evolution from neo-Nazi and militant white nationalist organizations.

Accessorizing fatigues with Hawaiian shirts is a styling attempt by far-right groups to manage their public image. The clash of camo or tactical fabrics and aloha prints is certainly striking. This is especially true against urban backdrops of cityscapes or protester and police outfits.

It isnt new for white supremacists to co-opt conformity dress, but incorporating Hawaiian shirts opens new avenues for political posturing. A similar strategy was employed in 2017 by white supremacist protesters in Charlottesville, Va. They sported polo shirts and khakis, in an attempt to lend a sense of legitimacy to their cause.

White supremacists adopted business casual attire to distance themselves from the negative connotations of Nazi and Ku Klux Klan garb. At least superficially, this new look helped conceal their true nature. But their violence eventually surfaced and fashion brands promptly made declarations to distance themselves from the movement.

What do Hawaiian shirts mean to the far-right?

Perhaps Hawaiian shirts, fatigues and assault weapons synthesize the disparity of beliefs among the loosely organized boogaloo. The colourful elements in Hawaiian prints could suggest this unity in a perceived diversity. Although these fringe groups share a belief in an upcoming race war, they differ on many other topics.

Some commentators have suggested that the Hawaiian shirt motifs speak to the boogaloos online origins. After all, they were a meme before becoming a somewhat coherent virtual and then physical organization. This inside joke, copy-and-paste esthetic of memes and GIFs is shared by boogaloos in social media.

Integrating Hawaiian prints into paramilitary outfits is a calculated effort by far-right affiliates. They want to get noticed in a crowded political space. Thus, the boogaloos seemingly innocent outfits are about calling attention to themselves, while simultaneously masking their violent intentions.

Dont be tricked by the kitschy cheerfulness of their Hawaiian prints. There is nothing as far from the aloha spirit as the hate championed by the boogaloo.
In November 2004, while on a combat mission in Iraq, Tammy Duckworth lost both her legs when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting.

Duckworth, a captain in the Illinois Army National Guard at the time and now a U.S. senator from Illinois, was the first American female double amputee of the Iraq War. But not the last.

A year later, on Thanksgiving Day 2005, while patrolling the southern Baghdad area known as the Triangle of Death, Army Spc. Marissa Strock lost both her legs when her Humvee team was hit by a command-detonated IED.

Retired U.S. Army Spc. Marissa Strock in 2008. (Tom Sperduto)

The blast instantly killed both the team leader, Staff Sgt. Steven Reynolds, and the driver, Spc. Marc A. Delgado. Strock suffered traumatic brain injury and a broken wrist, collarbone and arm. Cranial swelling left her in a coma for nearly a month.

When she came out of the coma, Strock consented to have both legs amputated below the knee. Like Duckworth, she was awarded a Purple Heart.

Despite their heroic military careers, Duckworth, Strock and many more American women like them continue to endure indignities on the home front.

Latest example: Fox News host Tucker Carlsons recent comments in which he called Duckworth a coward.

When she was asked on CNN about whether statues of George Washington should come down because Washington owned slaves, Duckworth called for a national dialogue on the issue. She did not voice support for the removal of any Washington statues, and she refused to go on Carlsons show.

Carlson, who hosts the most watched show on cable news, called Duckworth unpatriotic and said she hates the country. He called her a moron, a fraud and a deeply silly and unimpressive person.

Duckworth, whos reportedly on presidential hopeful Joe Bidens shortlist of choices as a running mate, did not take Carlsons unfounded shots sitting down. She tweeted in reply, Does @TuckerCarlson want to walk a mile in my legs and then tell me whether or not I love America?

Story continues

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., at the Capitol in January. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

President Trump then retweeted Carlsons rant and had his campaign release a statement charging Duckworth with using her military service to deflect from her support for the left-wing campaign to villainize Americas founding.

Strock and several other female combat veterans interviewed for this story say they took Carlsons comments about Duckworth personally.

Strock doesnt know Duckworth, but shes felt a connection with her since the time they were both recovering and rehabilitating at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

In many ways Tammy is my sister-in-arms. Were both double amputees, we were both in combat in Iraq and we were at Walter Reed at the same time, Strock says. She was a leader, and I saw her at several of our Friday night dinners.

The dinners, hosted by Fran OBriens Stadium Steakhouse in the Capitol Hilton, were thrown by veteran advocates and attended by hospitalized warriors, including amputees. The dinners were a respite from the hospital monotony and represented a few hours of normalcy.

Tammy was willing to give her life for her country she loves, Strock says. She went to war and lost both legs when her helicopter was hit with enemy fire. Where do you get unpatriotic? I might be mistaken, but how long did you serve, Tucker? You sit at your desk like the pretty boy that you are and have an opinion about her bravery that you just dont get to have. Shes proved her bravery; she doesnt need your validation.

Carlsons comments about Duckworth werent the first time hes demeaned American women in the military. In 2013, when the Pentagon said it would lift a 1994 prohibition on women serving in combat roles, Carlson tweeted: The [Obama] administration boasts about sending women to the front lines on the same day Democrats push the Violence Against Women Act.

The administration boasts about sending women to the front lines on the same day Democrats push the Violence Against Women Act.  Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 24, 2013

Carlson then compounded snarkiness with tastelessness: Feminisms latest victory: the right to get your limbs blown off in war. Congratulations.

Feminism's latest victory: the right to get your limbs blown off in war. Congratulations.  Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 24, 2013

Marilyn Rodgers, a retired Army major and medic in the first Gulf War who subsequently pursued a career as a physical therapist, was one of the most important people in Strocks life in her postwar days.

For 18 months, Rodgers helped Strock relearn how to walk with prosthetic legs. In that time, they had many heart-to-heart conversations. Strock sometimes resisted her, and there were some tense moments, Rodgers says. But they remain close to this day.

Marissa is amazing, and she can empathize with Tammy, Rodgers says. For Carlson to throw trash talk at a woman who lost her legs fighting for her country is inexcusable. And its sad that not one Republican came out in support of Tammy.

In 2007, Strock posed for Newsweeks Failing Our Wounded cover story, which revealed serious shortcomings in the care that veterans were receiving, both at Walter Reed and at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals and clinics.

Strock on the cover of the March 5, 2007, issue of Newsweek.

The photo of a somber Strock sitting on a stool in an Army T-shirt with her prosthetic legs at her side was both moving and controversial.

Strock told this reporter at the time that on the morning she came out of amputation surgery, she was obviously suffering, but was denied her pain medications because of what she says was an inattentive nurse.

The doctors were fantastic, Strock said. But some of the nurses and other staffers here have been a nightmare.

Duckworth says she had a positive overall experience at the hospital.

Walter Reed Army hospital saved my life, Duckworth tells Yahoo News. The doctors, nurses and staff were top-notch  they saved my arms. Despite being overwhelmed by the number of patients at the time, they were incredibly dedicated.

Valerie Whelton, who served in a combat role south of Baghdad for 14 months from 2006 to 2007, says Carlsons comments about Duckworth were uninformed and an insult to all women who serve.

What he said about Tammy makes my blood boil, Whelton says. None of us are cowards. Women in the military have it hard. We have to prove ourselves and work twice as hard as the men. And we are often still not accepted.

Despite pushback from certain media pundits and the White House, women in the military are making historic strides.

In June 2018, Michelle Macander, an Iraq War veteran who led a platoon in Kuwait, became the first woman to lead a Marine Corps ground combat battalion. And this month, the first female Army Special Forces Qualification Course candidate received her Green Beret and Special Forces tab.

Marine Corps Lt. Col. Michelle Macander speaking at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., in 2018. (Audrey C.M. Rampton/U.S. Marine Corps)

The graduation of the first female U.S. Army Green Beret is an important and hard-earned milestone, said Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., ranking member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Emerging Threats and Capabilities.

Duckworth notes that for more than a century, even before Congress allowed women to join the military, brave women left their homes and disguised themselves as men to defend the Constitution.

As the number of women in our armed forces continues to climb, it is our sacred duty as members of Congress  and as Americans  to show our appreciation for women veterans by fulfilling our promise to care for those who have borne the battle, Duckworth says.

Recently, Duckworth helped introduce a resolution to designate June 12 as Women Veterans Appreciation Day, in honor of the nearly 50,000 female veterans from her home state and the many others who have served down through the generations.

I also introduced bipartisan legislation to ensure proper-fitting body armor, which would enhance troop readiness by helping make sure our female service members are properly equipped for combat, she says.

All Americans deserve access to the best health care possible  especially the veterans who risked life and limb to defend our nation and made significant sacrifices on our behalf, which is why I introduced common-sense bipartisan legislation, the Veterans Preventive Health Coverage Fairness Act, to ensure were no longer asking veterans to pay more for essential health services than every other insured American.

Strock isnt taking political sides on the issue.

I had early hope for Trump, but Ive soured on him. The things that come out of his mouth. I wish they would change the Wi-Fi password at the White House, says Strock, who likes Jo Jorgensen, the Libertarian Partys nominee for president in 2020.

I will always support Tammy, but I try as hard as I can not to watch the news, Strock says. To be 100 percent honest, Im sick and tired watching people get national attention for running their mouth like theyre in middle school. Its the kind of name calling you do when you are 12.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:
Lady Colin Campbell has made some sensational claims about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Promoting her new book to New Magazine, "Meghan and Harry: The Real Story," the 70-year-old author revealed that the Duke of Sussex was not that smart compared to his wife.

"In my opinion, Harry is much less intelligent character than Meghan is."

The Jamaican-born author, who is not a royal nor part of Queen Elizabeth II's ladies, claimed, "I think he's so desperate to please her and go along with whatever she says, no matter how ill-conceived it is. He is that besotted with her."

Lady C further said that while the Duchess of Sussex and her husband have a strong relationship, she said that it's always Meghan Markle who's always in control.

"She wears the trousers and is as dominating, charming, and captivating a personality as Princess Diana was in her marriage."

Speaking of her book, Lady Colin said that she feels like the PR of the Sussexes has been very active in "discrediting" her book, saying that some of the things they have done "have been awful."

She believes that the 38-year-old mom has always wanted to outshine her late mother-in-law Princess Diana.

"She thought sheer hype would get her into LA, where she could become the great star she always wanted to be."

But the author said that it will be impossible and believes that Meghan Markle will definitely struggle to fulfill her Hollywood ambition.

The socialite also touched on the reported feud between the brothers and their wives, explaining, "A relationship once shattered, even if reconciled, is never as strong as it was."

Lady Colin also believes that Master Archie won't have a close relationship with his cousins Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, the kids of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

But with Prince Harry's way of thinking, who has always been sensitive compared to other royals and his wife, may not allow for Archie to not know his cousins.

However, it is also possible to happen because the Duke of Sussex has great resentment towards his family and friends that aired their concern about the fast movement of his relationship with Meghan Markle.

"It has resulted in them isolating themselves from everyone close to him. It's a very, very sad story," Lady C said.

Lady Colin Campbell has given a few interviews in the past couple of months, including one with The Sunday Times.

She told the publication that the former "Suits" star had squandered the "most wonderful opportunity" by quitting the royal family.

The author also claimed that there were already warning signs that Meghan Markle wouldn't be able to adjust to her new role in the monarchy, just before her wedding to Prince Harry in 2018.

Additionally, Lady Colin Campbell believes that the reason Meghan and Prince Harry moved to the US is that they will be entering the political scene.

She explained how she knows the California-native have some political ambitions, and her sources told her that Meghan would soon run for President.

"I think everything she is doing, leaving the royal family and moving back to California is part of her plan, and she has taken Harry along with her."

READ MORE: Megxit Hypocrites? Meghan Markle, Prince Harry Don't Want 'Totally Private Lives' At All
BRANFORD  Bees and other natural pollinators are incredibly efficient little critters, but they could always use a little help fulfilling their unique role in the worlds ecosystem  and the Branford Fire Department, working with Sustainable CT, is happy to do what it can to help.

The Fire Department is working to create a pollinator pathway in town that will transform vacant land into pollinator-friendly habitats by planting native trees, shrubs and herbaceous ground cover, organizers said in an email.

It will be part of a network of pollinator pathways through Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania that aim to link together areas where bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other pollinating insects and wildlife already do their work, according to the pollinator-pathway.org website.

The Pollinator Pathway project, which began in Fairfield County, is organized by volunteers from town conservation organizations. Most native bees have a range of about 750 meters. The overall goal is to connect properties that are no farther apart than that.

Pollinators are vital to food production, proper functioning of the ecosystem and our overall well-being, the release said.

The Pollilnator Pathway project began in 2017 in Wilton. Since then, pathways have been established in more than 85 towns in Connecticut and New York, with one regional project also begun in Pennsylvania.

The Branford Fire Department is conducting a crowdfunding campaign that aims to raise $1,250. If completed by the fundraising deadline of Aug. 31, it would then unlock a matching grant of $1,250 from Sustainable CT.

As of Wednesday, $1,035 had been raised from 17 donors.

Project organizers are asking the community to join the initiative by donating money or volunteering in the effort. All community donations will be doubled by Sustainable CTs Community Match Fund, which is a funding resource for public, community-led sustainability projects.

For Branford project details and to donate, visit www.Patronicity.com/bfdpollinatorpathway.

In Branford, plans are underway to transition grassy areas around the firehouse into a lush pollinator paradise. The total funding of $2,500 will go toward the purchase of plants, soil amendments, mulch and other supplies to create and maintain a safe home for native birds, bees and butterflies.

The Branford Fire Department is excited to support the pollinators, plants and people of our community by transitioning vacant land around the firehouse into a haven for native flora, said firefighter Alexandra Demitrack, who is leading the project for the Fire Department.

We are raising money in order to transform grassy areas into fertile foundations that will support plants and pollinators for years to come, Demitrack said. Your financial support will allow us to purchase soil amendments, seeds and shrubs. Thanks for your time and energy.

Sustainable CT is an initiative of the Institute for Sustainable Energy at Eastern Connecticut State University; it aims to inspire, support and recognize sustainability action by towns and cities statewide.

The Community Match Fund, funded by the Smart Seed Fund, Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation and the Connecticut Green Bank, provides a dollar-for-dollar match to donations raised from the community, doubling local investment in projects.

Through the Community Match Fund, we aim to put residents at the forefront of creating positive, impactful change, said Abe Hilding-Salorio, community outreach manager for Sustainable CT.

Match Fund projects are community led and community funded, demonstrating the power of people working together to make change in their communities, Hilding-Salorio said.

The Branford Pollinator Pathway project is one of 57 projects in 49 different municipalities on which Sustainable CT is working with local communities, Hilding-Salorio said.

It is one of the first projects launched as part of the second round of matching funding, which began on July 1, he said.

Four projects are currently alive and actively fundraising, Hilding-Salorio said.

Among projects nearby there are a bunch in New Haven, with another pollinator pathway project underway in West Haven, he said.

Other pollinator pathway projects have been done so far in Guilford, Madison, Wallingford, Durham, Darien, Easton, Fairfield, Greenwich, New Canaan, Newtown, Norwalk, Redding, Ridgefield, Stamford, Weston, Westport and Wilton, among other communities.
 Flash

China welcomed the European Union's (EU's) decision to authorize the signature on a China-EU agreement on geographical indications (GI), Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a press briefing on Wednesday.



It was reported that the European Council on Monday adopted a decision on the signature of the GI agreement, the first major bilateral trade agreement that will protect each side's 100 geographical indications.

Since the two sides concluded their negotiations on the agreement in October 2019, China and the EU have been respectively going through internal procedures for ratification, and China has completed the procedures, Wang said.

This is China's first comprehensive, high-level bilateral agreement on GIs, and the first major trade agreement between China and the EU in recent years, which is "monumental," he said.

Wang said it will deepen trade cooperation, deliver greater benefits to Chinese and European people, and demonstrate the Chinese government's resolve in advancing high-level opening-up and the protection of IPRs.

China is ready to work with the EU to expand two-way openness, deepen practical cooperation, achieve win-win outcomes and contribute to economic recovery in China, the EU and beyond, he said.
The beleaguered Congress in Madhya Pradesh (MP) suffered another jolt on Thursday, when the third party lawmaker resigned from the state assembly in the past 12 days amid the rumblings of dissent that has rocked Ashok Gehlot-government in neighbouring Rajasthan.

Narayan Patel (63), a Congress member of MP legislative assembly, who represents Mandhata assembly constituency in Khandwa district, is the third party legislator in 12 days to resign.

Earlier, Pradyumn Singh Lodhi (52) and Sumitra Devi Kasdekar (36) had resigned from the state assembly and later joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Lodhi was promptly rewarded by the BJP, as hours after joining the party he was appointed the chairman of MP state civil supplies corporation.

All the three Congress MLAs, who have resigned, were debutant lawmakers, who had won MP assembly polls in December 2018.

MP Assemblys Pro-tem Speaker Rameshwar Sharma said, Narayan Patel tendered his resignation from the state assembly on Wednesday. I had asked him to take a final decision after giving it a thought. He confirmed on Thursday that he is willing to resign without any pressure on him or inducement.

Sharma made the announcement in presence of the MLA as a video was released to the media, where Patel was seen standing near the Pro-tem Speaker.

Patel was unavailable for his comments, despite repeated attempts.

Narendra Saluja, state Congress president Kamal Naths media coordinator, said, The BJP has never been known to be a party with a difference. But, it is now overtly playing the dirty game of horse-trading in a bid to save its government as its leaders know the outcome of the assembly by-poll results. In a democracy, the ultimate judge is the public, who will certainly give a befitting reply to the BJP in the upcoming by-polls.

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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testifies during the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Hearings to examine implementation of Title I of the CARES Act, on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 10, 2020. (Kevin Dietsch/Pool/Getty Images)

Mnuchin: GOP Unemployment Extension Plan to Include 70 Percent Wage Replacement

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the GOPs unemployment extension plan will be based on 70 percent of wage replacement, coming just days before the extended benefits are slated to expire.

We want to make sure that the people that are out there that cant find jobs do get a reasonable wage replacement, Mnuchin said, outlining more details of the Republican stimulus plan amid months of high unemployment rates in the midst of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic. It will be based on approximately 70 percent wage replacement, he said in an interview.

During a press briefing on Wednesday, President Donald Trump suggested a similar wage replacement rate. Currently, federal unemployment benefits provide $600 per week under the CARES Act passed in March.

More than 1.4 million workers filed new unemployment claims in the past week, said the Department of Labor on Thursday, placing new pressure on the GOP and Democrats to reach a consensus.

Democrats favor extending the federal unemployment benefits through January of 2021 and have included that measure in the HEROES Act, which was passed in the House in May. GOP members of Congress have criticized the bill as one that contains too many unnecessary provisions and said its $3 trillion price tag is too costly.

Mnuchin also said that the White House may abandon its push for a payroll tax cut.

A woman shapes a Stetson hat in front of clients while wearing a mask at the manufacture store in Garland, Texas on July 20, 2020.. (Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images)

One of the issues with the payroll tax cut is that people get that money over time, Mnuchin said in the interview. So the presidents preference is to make sure we send out direct payments quickly so that in August people get more money.

Mnuchin noted that the direct payments will stimulate the re-opening of the United States economy even further.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is expected to unveil the GOPs proposal on Thursday which will likely include stimulus checks.

It came after White House chief of staff Meadows and Mnuchin met with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) this week.

The must-have provision of the for Republicans is a liability shield to protect businesses, schools, and others from coronavirus-related lawsuits, they have said.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told The Associated Press that there will be another extension for small business lending in the Paycheck Protection Program. Its going to be big, he said.
The problem with vegan ice cream? Kianu Walker, who has been vegan for four of his 25 years, found the selection boring. I didnt see a really good variety of cool and delicious flavors, he said.

So he got cranking, on his little Cuisinart ice cream maker, throwing out soy milk and then almond milk before settling on coconut milk. Plenty of experimentation followed, as did more little ice cream machines. Satisfied at last with the texture, he added such flavors as Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, cookie butter, green tea matcha, and coconut chocolate chip.

Once I felt like I had a product that I believed in, then I decided to push it, said Walker, 25, of Southwest Philadelphia, who says hes done a little bit of everything, including clothing sales as well as housecleaning with his fathers business. He also toured as a rapper for two years.

About a month ago, Walker started selling his vegan ice cream around town under the name Vannah Banana Philly, a tribute to his sister Savannah. You can get it by the scoop at Nourish (Seventh and South Streets), Tattooed Mom (530 South St.), Queen & Rook Game Cafe (607 S. Second St.), Atiya Olas Spirit First Foods (310 S. 48th St.), and soon at Dreams (33 E. Glenside Ave., Glenside) and Vegan Commissary (1429 Wolf St.).

His bigger seller, and the flavor most available, is cookies and cream  Oreo cookies are vegan, after all. Its nearly as creamy as dairy ice cream and, refreshingly, not cloyingly sweet. Walker also offers blueberry vanilla, chocolate almond, and rose gold, which includes rose petals and 24k gold flakes.

He has modest goals: Build up a following and good relationships with restaurants and customers, and then save profits and eventually open a mobile cart or actual shop.
Jordan: Dante Alighieri Amman starts courses on July 25 60% discount to study Italian

(ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, JULY 22 - The Comitato Dante Alighieri in Amman, Jordan, has launched on June 22 a promotional campaign of Italian certification in the country through the activities Promo-Plida and Focus-Plida. These are part of a project organized together with its headquarters in Rome to promote high-quality Italian language learning in Jordan. Thanks to the financial contribution of Dante Roma - the Dante chapter of the Jordanian capital has announced - the Committee in Amman will offer packages discounted by 60% for the levels A1, A2 and B1 that include a preparation course and a sum to take the PLIDA exam in September 2020.



Preparation courses, which will be held from July 25 to September 12, ''will focus on strategies to take the exam's four tests: listening, reading, writing and talking''. The exams will take place at the headquarters of the Committee on September 16-28. The promotion - explained Dante - aims to inform Jordanian students on the usefulness of PLIDA (Progetto Lingua Italiana Dante Alighieri), an official diploma released by the Societa Dante Alighieri thanks to a convention with the foreign ministry and with the scientific backing of the University ''La Sapienza'' in Rome.



PLIDA is also recognized by the ministry of labor and social policies and the education ministry as a degree to enroll in university.



The PLIDA certification - it added - proves ''Italian fluency as a foreign language according to a six-level scale: levels A1 and A2, the most basic, document the ability to use Italian in daily life; levels B1 and B2 certify language competence for educational and professional needs; levels C1 and C2 guarantee fluency that can be compared to the one of an educated native speaker.



The Societa Dante Alighieri Amman is an official certified center authorized by the PLIDA office in Rome.(ANSAmed). (ANSA).




NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 23, 2020 / People have different passions. More often, they get a picture of who they are and what they want in life early on and begin pursuing their careers at an early age. But that is not the case for Katherine Pendergast. When she was young, Katherine never really had a huge interest in reading and writing. Little did she know that in the future, it will become her brand and her legacy.

Even when Katherine started at a relatively later time, writing came smoothly for her. She found a specific niche, writing books for children under the pen name Kat Socks. Years into the industry, Katherine has authored books like Babies of the Badlands and many more. She is also famous for Pickles The Dog series. The set is about a real dog named Pickles. Pickles came to Katherine's life after one of her family members decided to take care of Pickles, who came from an animal shelter in Minot, way back 2011, during the floods in North Dakota. Now, Pickles is a member of their family and serves as a star in Pickles The Dog book series, which comprises Pickles the Dog: Adopted, Pickles The Dog: A Christmas Tradition, and an upcoming book Pickles The Dog: Goes to School, which will be out this fall.

Katherine also collaborated with another author and published books titled In Loving Memory: A Child's Journey to Understanding a Funeral and Starting the Grieving Process and In Loving Memory: A Child's Journey to Understanding a Cremation Funeral and Starting the Grieving Process.

In all of her books, Katherine wants her message to be clear and understandable to all her readers. This attribute has helped her snatch recognition and nominations from different award-giving bodies. Her books are recipients of the Independent Press Award in 2019. In the same year, Katherine received the Cover Design Award from Kids Shelf Books. She is also commended by the Next Generation Indie Books Awards and Moonbeam Children's Books Awards.

When she's not writing, Katherine spends her time traveling and attending author events in schools and book signing across the US. She believes that it is an excellent opportunity to get to know her audience and see them face-to-face. Katherine said, "To me, meeting a real live author is something a child can remember and hopefully be inspired to do whatever they want."

Prior to her writing success, she founded Kat's Socks, an apparel brand dedicated to babies. The soft materials for all the company's products assure comfort for infants. Kat's Socks makes available a variety of clothing and accessories for babies like soft sole shoes, bib sets, all-in-one covers, photo blankets, etc.

Out of her writing and entrepreneurial pursuits, Katherine gives back to others. A portion of the revenue from Kat's Socks is donated to local animal shelters while also volunteering at a local facility with her Great Dane Carmela, who is a certified pet therapy dog. The duo also does special appearances when requested, and at times, Carmela attends Kat's book signing events!

From her success, Katherine learned a lot. And she wants others, especially the youth, to learn from her experiences as well. "Go for your dreams, it's never too late to do something you love. It's never too late to fall in love with books and reading," she said.

Katherine's books are available in 50 stores nationwide and have received a #1 release badge from Amazon. For more about her books and apparel, visit her website.

Email: Kats@KatsSocks.com

SOURCE: Authority Titans

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598603/Author-Entrepreneur-and-Speaker-Katherine-Pendergast-Leaves-a-Message-For-Young-Individuals
Commentary: U.S. should undo brazen request to close Chinese consulate or prepare for countermeasures

Washington's abrupt and unilateral demand on Beijing to close China's Consulate General in Houston constitutes a brazen provocation, and an unprecedented escalation in its scheme to sabotage bilateral relations.

Condemning Washington's move as "outrageous and unjustified," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Tuesday that the United States has seriously violated international law and the basic norms of international relations, as well as the bilateral consular agreement, deliberately undermining relations between the two countries.

It is not the first time that Washington has intentionally bullied China's diplomatic missions in the United States. Well before this recent political provocation, the U.S. side, according to Wang, has imposed unwarranted restrictions on Chinese diplomats, even searching diplomatic bags without permission and seizing official articles.

In stark contrast, the Chinese side has always facilitated the normal operation of U.S. diplomatic missions in China according to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, key treaties forming the core of international diplomatic and consular law.

In fact, the demand to close the Consulate General in Houston is just the tip of the iceberg of the White House's ever-expanding anti-China campaign.

Since assuming power, the current U.S. administration has turned increasingly hostile toward China. It has tried to contain China on a wide range of areas from trade to 5G technologies, and flagrantly interfered with the country's internal affairs on issues related to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang and the South China Sea.

Over recent months, Washington, in a desperate attempt to find scapegoats for its hellish pandemic response, has launched a shameful campaign to stigmatize China.

And during his just-concluded trip to Britain, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, one of the most notorious China critics, even called for an international "coalition" against China.

As those China hawks stage one episode of their anti-China farce after another, it seems that the only weapon left in Washington's China policy arsenal is to get tougher, while elements of reason have been cast aside.

Today, the world is in the throes of two high-stake battles: the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, and a deep global economic recession. A stable and sound relationship between the world's top two economies is now more important than ever.

Unfortunately, thanks to Washington's persistent anti-China sabotage, the China-U.S. relationship is now grappling with perhaps its most severe challenge since the establishment of diplomatic ties.

Beijing has always valued a robust relationship with Washington, but that does not mean China's attempt to maintain this relationship is without principle or a bottom line.

For the moment, Washington must undo its decision to close China's consulate, and prevent such provocations in the future. If the China-hardliners in Washington continue with their bullying tactics, they should prepare for legitimate and forceful countermeasures from Beijing, as it defends its national interests.
Inhofe said he supported Trumps plan after a briefing this week from Pentagon leaders and the head of the U.S. European Command. I believe the concept for realigning U.S. military posture in Europe, as the president has approved, is sound, Inhofe said in a statement Wednesday. The department is doing a good job of following the guiding principles Ive described as the three Fs: forward presence, force projection and families.
MLA Prithviraj Meena filed an application before High Court seeking Centre to be impleaded in the ongoing case filed by rebel and 18 other MLAs case challenging Para 2 (1) (a) of the Schedule X of the

In his petition filed on Wednesday, he said, "It is humbly prayed that Union of India through The Secretary, Ministry of Law and Justice (Department of Legal Affairs), be made a Party Respondent to the present writ petition in the interest of justice and law."

The Speaker CP Joshi served disqualification notices to 19 rebel MLAs including Pilot for their alleged "anti-party activities" soon after they skipped two meetings of legislative party meetings.

He was first asked to defer action by three days last week, when the High Court began the hearing of the case.

Team was given second three-day breather on Tuesday by the High Court after it finished hearing its arguments and reserved its judgement to be announced on July 24.

The rebels had argued that no whip can be in place when the assembly is not running in session and said they have no plans to quit the but they want change in its leadership.

Meanwhile speaker Joshi on Wednesday filed a CLP in SC and its hearing is scheduled on Thursday.

--IANS

arc/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.)
U.S. defense secretary reaffirms commitment to sell arms to Taiwan

ROC Central News Agency

07/22/2020 06:17 PM

Washington, July 21 (CNA) The United States will live up to its commitment to Taiwan by selling it weapons and holding exercises in the region as China becomes more aggressive and assertive toward the island, U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Tuesday.

"The PLA's (China's People's Liberation Army's) large scale exercise to simulate the seizure of the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Island is a destabilizing activity that significantly increases the risk of miscalculation," Esper said during a speech given to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

With regard to Taiwan, "we will continue to conduct arms sales. We will continue to conduct freedom of navigation operations, and that includes in the Taiwan Strait," Esper said in the discussions on U.S. policies on the South China Sea and the Indo-Pacific region.

According to Esper, the U.S.'s policies are consistent with the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act and those established by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan's administration of conditioning arms sales to Taiwan based on the threats posed by China.

In the nearly hour-long video conference with the IISS, Esper expressed the U.S.'s concerns about the PLA's ongoing "aggressive behavior in the East and South China Seas."

He also described Beijing's claims and actions in the South China Sea as bullying Southeast Asian countries involved the maritime dispute.

Despite the friction, however, the U.S. is still "committed to a constructive and results-oriented relationship with China and within our defense relationship to open lines of communication and risk reduction," Esper said.

(By Leaf Jiang and Kay Liu) enditem/ls

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After COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, the number of cases started to climb globally. Its difficult to apply a one-size-fits-all interpretation as to why certain states experienced higher numbers of infections while others kept theirs in check.

For instance, Greeces success in containing the virus was attributed to its stringent lockdown measures, Germanys lower death rate was linked to its well-developed health-care system while South Korea was commended for its wide-ranging testing.

In Canada, theres been criticism of the lack of preventative public health policies and the consequential difficulties dealing with the health impacts of the pandemic. Even when wide-scale testing infrastructure was put in place, testing rates remained low.

Different degrees of government intervention

Generally speaking, there are three types of welfare states among western democracies: social democratic, liberal and conservative or corporatist. These tend to be characterized by various degrees of governmental intervention, universal or selective benefit plans and by different levels of welfare provisions.

The liberal regimes contain the states of Canada, the United States, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, the only non-Western liberal state. The northern European region captures the social democratic states of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and the Netherlands. And continental Europe includes the so-called called conservative or corporatist states: Italy, Greece, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium.

On the number of cases per million and the number of deaths per million  the only two variables that can illustrate the divergent testing approaches taken by individual nations  it appears that Canada fares better than the conservative states of continental Europe (Spain, Belgium, Switzerland or Italy) and even better than some social democratic nations (Iceland, Sweden and the Netherlands).

However, when comparing Canada to similar liberal democracies, the country takes third place in relation to the number of cases per million people (2,753). Its surpassed only by Ireland (5,156), the United Kingdom (4,595) and the U.S. (7,774), and fares well below Australia (307), New Zealand (244) and Japan (148).

This pattern is the same when it comes to the number of deaths per million. With 227 deaths per million, Canada fares better than the U.K. (382), Ireland (351) and the U.S. (382), yet it fares poorly compared to Japan (7.7), New Zealand (4.5) and Australia (4.1).

Canadas death rate, in fact, is 29 times higher than Japans, 50 times higher than New Zealands and 55 times higher than Australias.

In the U.K., the high number of cases and deaths could be attributed to the governments hesitancy to implement lockdown measures and, in the U.S., to how government officials, including President Donald Trump, have consistently downplayed the severity of the pandemic.

Yet those reasons dont apply to Canada, where stringent lockdown measures were implemented.

In March, Canada closed its borders to all foreign nationals, and most provinces imposed strict physical distancing measures.

Rise of neo-liberalism at play?

The findings could be interpreted as consequential of the rise of neo-liberalism in the country. The last three decades have been characterized by government cutbacks, decreased public spending, deregulation and policies centred on limited state intervention.

The 1996 Canada Health and Social Transfer amalgamated federal funding for health, education and social assistance, reducing it to the amount of what was initially allocated to social assistance only.

By 2017, federal cuts to health-care funding had resulted in an estimated $31 billion shortfall.

Such changes have been criticized for weakening the capacity of the federal government to ensure provinces conform to national principles of adequately providing health care to their citizens.

Take the example of the provincial testing lab in Windsor, Ont., which tested for tuberculosis and the West Nile virus. It was built in 1966, in the golden era of the Canadian welfare state, to service Windsor-Essex in southwestern Ontario.

Despite public outcry, the lab was demolished in 2010 to make way for a new highway. Test samples now have to be shipped to London or Hamilton for analysis. Health experts have pointed out the facility could have conducted testing for COVID-19, and somewhat redressed the low testing rates in the area. Only 2.5 per cent of the local population in Windsor-Essex had been tested by May 2020.

Long-term care homes at the epicentre

Another possible explanation for the higher mortality and infection rates in Canada rests in long-term residential facilities. About 82 per cent of Canadas COVID-19 deaths have been in long-term care homes.

A report published by the International Long-Term Care Policy Network found that among 14 countries, Canada registered the highest number of care home resident deaths. In Australia, a comparable liberal state, the deaths in long-term care homes represented only 25 per cent of the countrys COVID-19 mortality rates.

Canada has a universal health-care system, yet health-care gaps are common. Long-term care, for instance, relies heavily on the private sector to deliver services.

In 1996, the Conservative government removed regulations requiring a minimum of one registered nurse to be on duty at all times and the allocation of a minimum of 2.25 hours of daily nursing care per resident.

In Ontario in the 1990s, the government of Mike Harris expanded the number of nursing home beds in the private sector. The staggering amounts of money spent on senior care have been channelled towards private shareholders.

Now Harris is the chairman of Chartwell Corp., one of the provinces largest for-profit senior care providers and a company that has spent $845 million over the last 10 years on executive compensation and shareholder dividends.

While further research on the relationship between COVID-19 numbers and welfare state systems is needed, its clear that Canada must do much more to tackle pandemics now and in the future.
Patients with symptoms of severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) symptoms should not be moved to non-Covid spaces in hospitals even if their initial test results for the coronavirus disease are negative, experts treating Covid-19 patients said in their first meeting to present and discuss specific cases and the learnings from them.

We have to give a lot of importance to the clinico-radiological findings of the patient, in spite of the test returning negative. The tests have also to be interpreted in the light of other findings. When index of suspicion is high, the patient should not be transferred to an area where there is risk of spread of disease to other patients. We must have an area in hospitals where such patients can be put till such time there Covid-19 status is confirmed, said Dr S Rajeshwari, department of anesthesiology, AIIMS.

The comments came during the first session of national Clinical Grands Rounds (CGR) on Covid-19 diagnosis. CGR is a globally accepted practice where doctors discuss specific cases. The first session focused on patients who test negative despite showing symptoms of Covid-19 and who, sometimes, test positive in later tests.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, in collaboration with Niti Aayog and Union ministry of health and family welfare, launched the CGR on Covid-19.

The first session that took place on Wednesday was on disease diagnosis. Experts who presented cases agreed that apart from test results that can return negative in some rare cases, reports of a chest CT scan or an X-ray should be considered to watch for classic Covid-19 signs that affect the lungs, especially the lower lobe.

There will be separate discussion topics in coming weeks that will deal with issues such as neurological or gastrointestinal manifestations, and Covid in pregnant women, said Dr Randeep Guleria, director, AIIMS.

Each case discussion will be followed by a short presentation on clinically relevant topics in managing Covid-19.

Our ultimate aim is to devise a strategy that brings down the number of deaths due to Covid-19 to less than 1% (of cases) as ultimately it is the number of deaths thats going to matter and not the number of cases, said Dr Guleria.

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At the board meeting of a consumer brand last month, the companys lead investor disagreed with the founder over a supply-chain strategy. A light argument over Zoom ensued, and, eventually, the investor, who has known the founder for nearly a decade, backed down.

If I had to do the same thing in person, Im sure I could have convinced him, and we could have settled the issue far more amicably, said the partner at a venture capital firm, requesting anonymity.

At play here is a larger issue: the changing venture capitalist (VC)  founder relationship during COVID times.

We (founders and VCs) are in the business of relationships. It is critical to the companys growth that the founders and investors are on the same page. Even one misunderstanding can cause major issues, said Ravi Ramachandran, co-founder and CEO of sanitary napkin brand Nua Woman.

Here is another example.

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

In the last few months, a partner at a venture fund spoke to a Bengaluru-based entrepreneur over video, five times, but failed to convince him.

Last month, he did finally meet the entrepreneur. In that one meeting, I learnt more than what I did during the last five times, said the investor, who did not want to be named.

Why online conferencing doesnt help

Karthik Reddy, managing partner at Blume Ventures, an early-stage investor, hit the nail on the head.

On video calls, people are either multi-tasking or often distracted. On top of that, if you aren't communicating enough, cumulatively, you are doing a lot more damage to the relationship than you realise, he said.

Meeting someone even once a quarter levels the relationship. The trust is reset and comfort is re-established, he added.

Investors help founders with hiring, connect with other investors globally, and even become mentors in some cases. Founders help investors with reference checks, become angels in the investors other companies and provide an outsiders view, something fund managers often seek.

Zoom calls are only a temporary substitute. While founders and VCs who have known each other for years may be comfortable on video, assessing a new founder is difficult.

"New relationships are quite hard to establish virtually. There is a lot more back and forth than usual and when the macro situation itself needs clarity, both sides are unsure as to how to go ahead, said Vinod Murali, managing partner at Alteria Capital, which provides debt to start-ups.

No point talking over phones, lets meet them

If even events with vague agendas were thronged by hundreds of founders and investors, especially younger ones, during pre-COVID days, it was only for networking.

In a competitive start-up and internet ecosystem, meeting new people is the lifeblood for many founders and investors. Founders constantly meet potential investors and bankers to test waters.

Investors do the same so that they have a leg-up when the start-up eventually raises funds.

Today, we need to over-communicate. Right now, talking to people is the only thing of real value you can do, Reddy said.

"Even within existing portfolios, some tough calls had to be taken, sometimes on video calls. Here, we try to establish certain boundary conditions, keeping in mind the interests of both sides. The idea is to find constructive solutions, said Alterias Murali.

Indeed, in the past few months, founders and investors had to take some tough calls like laying off employees, shutting down operations in some areas, saying no to a potential deal, postponing a funding round or asking for a longer time to pay back debt.

The same things done in person, with a mix of cajoling, convincing and an arm over the shoulder would have been much easier, he said.

Lets look abroad

The transition into virtual deal-making has been tough all over the world. But Silicon Valley seems to be adapting.

The Wall Street Journal reported on May 18 that top VC firms, including Sequoia and Accel, have leapt into fully remote deals, from start to finish, without meeting the founder.

Extended lockdowns have forced them to pursue deals without meeting founders in person. I think the problem is with just waiting it outoftentimes, theres opportunity when others are fearful, Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital, had told WSJ.

Investors closer home seem to be falling into this bucket, although slower. Two investors Moneycontrol spoke to have been at the cusp of closing a deal fully remote, for a month now, but havent yet been able to fully convince the potential investors.

Whats the solution?

For now, early-stage investors, in particular, are communicating as much as possible with all portfolio companies.

Some send out weekly reading lists on WhatsApp (and not email, because it may not be read, an investor who did not want to be named said). Some hold regular webinars, and privately confess to doling out generic wisdom. It is still important, as it helps keep in touch.

Now I know that 20 percent of my portfolio is hyperactive and engaged, 20 percent is decent (at communicating), 20 percent will act when provoked, and some I wont know whether they are dead or alive unless I prod them, a partner at a VC firm, who did not want to be named, explained.

Founders and investors, though, realise that over-communicating and other management lessons are only a short-term solution and only for existing relationships, and are itching to travel again to meet new people, even if in a limited way.

The founder of one company likened the current challenge to a Leo Tolstoy quote: All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
The move comes after a Hezbollah fighter was killed in an air raid in Syrias capital, Damascus, earlier this week.

Israel has said it is sending military reinforcements to its northern frontier after the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group threatened retaliation over the killing of one of its members in an attack in Syria earlier this week.

The Israeli army said on its Twitter account on Thursday that the move was in accordance with a situational assessment.

In accordance with a recently conducted situational assessment, we have decided to reinforce the Northern Command with select infantry forces.  Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) July 23, 2020

The Hezbollah-run broadcaster al-Manar identified the man killed in Mondays air raid near Damascus International Airport as Ali Kamel Mohsen. The attack also killed four other foreign fighters and was widely attributed to Israel, which has carried out dozens of aerial assaults against what it says are Iranian-aligned fighters inside Syria.

Hezbollah legislator Sheikh Hassan Ezzedine said during Mohsens funeral that the war between us and this enemy [Israel] will continue and this path that the martyrs have taken with their blood will continue.

Israel did not comment on this weeks attacks as it generally refrains from discussing its activities in neighbouring Syria, but it has acknowledged conducting many raids inside Syria since the start of the war in 2011.





Formed in the early 1980s, Hezbollah fought off Israel in a 2006 war that highlighted the Shia groups military capabilities.

It was able to overwhelm Israels ground invasion of southern Lebanon and attack military and civilian targets, undermining support for the war inside Israel.

After Syrias war broke out almost 10 years ago, Hezbollah threw its weight behind President Bashar al-Assad, with thousands of its fighters travelling to Syria.

Israel has repeatedly bombed what it claims to be the sites belonging to Iranian-backed militias, including Hezbollah, inside Syria for years. It has accused Iran of supporting Hezbollah with money and arms.

Western intelligence sources reportedly say Israels attacks on Syria are part of a shadow war approved by the United States and part of its anti-Iran policy.

Hezbollah has pledged in the past to retaliate for any fighter that Israel kills in Syria. The group fired a barrage of anti-tank missiles into Israel on September 1 last year after two of its fighters were killed in an Israeli air raid near Damascus days earlier.

That prompted a reprisal of heavy Israeli artillery fire in a rare burst of fighting between the two sides.

Israeli defence officials have said in recent months that Israel would step up its campaign against Iran in Syria.
[music]

michael barbaro

From The New York Times, Im Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today: A fight has erupted among congressional Republicans over how long and how generously government should help the unemployed during the pandemic. Nick Fandos on what that battle is really about. Its Tuesday, July 28. Nick, tell me about this deadline coming up on Friday.

nick fandos

So on Friday, at the end of July, one of the key programs in the $2 trillion economic relief package, called the CARES Act, that Congress passed this spring to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, is set to expire. This is the federal unemployment benefit, this extra $600 that the federal government has been putting into unemployment checks, on top of whatever states give the tens of millions of Americans that are out of work.

michael barbaro

Right. And the thinking was that state unemployment benefits, which is how most people get by when they are laid off, are kind of stingy. And because these layoffs were so widespread, the federal government needed to step in an unusual way.

nick fandos

Thats right. And you know, $600 was arrived at by congressional Democrats and the Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, as something like a kind of average wage that they thought might be lost across the board. And though some Republicans were uneasy 

archived recording Mr. President, the majority leader of the Senate.

nick fandos

 they ultimately set aside their concerns and ended up voting unanimously to put this program and others in place.

archived recording (mitch mcconnell) Our nation needed us to go big and go fast. And they did. So today, Mr. President, the Senate will act to help the people of this country weather this storm.

michael barbaro

Right. And I think for many Americans the sense was that this program  $600 a week from the federal government  would probably last as long as widespread unemployment lasted, stemming from the pandemic.

nick fandos

I think that thats right, that that was the assumption of many Americans. But Republicans never quite viewed it that way.

archived recording (john cornyn) We have spent a lot of money in the last couple of months. But weve done so in the face of an emergency, kind of like the civilian equivalent of World War II.

nick fandos

They saw the whole stimulus bill, including this benefit, as a kind of extraordinary measure for extraordinary circumstances. And that this was kind of a bridge to float the economy and float the American people through this period where the government was asking them to stay home, so that we could get the virus under control.

archived recording (ted cruz) Look, I supported every one of these bills that has come through. I agree that we need emergency relief to help people, to help people through the crisis as a short-term bridge loan.

nick fandos

But you know, if that was a gamble  and it was, that this is going to be a temporary thing  Republicans do not come out where they want to. The virus has resurged in many states now across the South and West, you know, in states that are traditionally red states and are represented by Republicans.

archived recording (mitch mcconnell) So the question today is where are we? And where do we go from here?

nick fandos

And the party now has to kind of come to terms with the fact that what they hoped would be a bridge is going to be a lot longer than they initially thought.

archived recording (mitch mcconnell) We had hoped wed be on the way to saying goodbye to this health care pandemic. Clearly, it is not over.

michael barbaro

Right. Which brings us back to this Friday expiration date. So do Republicans have intrinsic objections to just renewing the $600 a week?

nick fandos

So for most Republicans, the answer is yes.

michael barbaro

Hm.

nick fandos

That $600 figure, as we said, was arrived at honestly, but somewhat hastily back in March. And Republicans started voicing concerns at the time.

archived recording (ted cruz) For 68 percent of people receiving it right now, they are being paid more on unemployment than they made in their job.

nick fandos

And theyve grown a lot louder since. That $600 from the federal government, on top of whatever states were giving people that were out of work, was simply too generous.

archived recording (ted cruz) And Ill tell you, Ive spoken to small business owners all over the state of Texas who are trying to reopen.

nick fandos

And actually was disincentivizing and has disincentivized many Americans from going back to work.

archived recording (ted cruz)  and theyre calling their waiters and waitresses, theyre calling their busboys. And they wont come back. And of course they wont come back. Because the federal government is paying, in some instances, twice as much money to stay home.

nick fandos

So ideologically, many Republicans in Congress were never comfortable with this $600 benefit at that level in the first place. And then, theyre certainly not comfortable with extending it into perpetuity.

michael barbaro

So Nick, with this program running out of time, how is this playing out among the Republicans?

nick fandos

So as Republicans are approaching these deadlines at the end of July, theyre looking around and seeing a bunch of different inputs that are really difficult for them. On the one hand, Democrats are, you know, unabashedly and enthusiastically pushing to extend this $600 benefit through the end of the year and as long as its needed.

michael barbaro

Mhm.

nick fandos

And at the same time, Republicans are having to reconcile themselves to the fact that the virus is spreading around the country. There are signs in the last few weeks that the economy, which was recovering, is starting to potentially soften again. And they recognize for a variety of reasons  economically, for the livelihood of the country, and politically, as theyre looking ahead to Novembers elections  that its simply not going to be an option not to have a plan.

michael barbaro

Mhm.

nick fandos

And so Republicans start trying to put together their own proposal for how to fix unemployment benefits going forward and a range of other programs to keep the economy afloat. And it turns out its a lot harder than they think its going to be.

michael barbaro

What do you mean?

nick fandos

Well, it turns out, as they try to unpack this and get into the details of what might we do next, that theres a pretty big split between two different camps of Republicans.

archived recording (ted cruz) I asked my Republican colleagues, what in the hell are we doing?

nick fandos

So one of them are the kind of arch conservatives that are really worried about federal spending. People like Ted Cruz.

archived recording (ted cruz) A number of senators at lunch get up and say, well gosh, we need $20 billion for this. We need $100 billion for this. And theyre just really eager to spend money. Im, like, what are you guys doing?

nick fandos

Or Rand Paul, who compared his colleagues to a bunch of Bernie bros with the way they were talking.

archived recording (rand paul) I find it extraordinary that I just came from a Republican caucus meeting that could be sort of the Bernie bros progressive caucus.

nick fandos

And that is a sharp pejorative in the Senate Republican conference.

michael barbaro

I would think.

archived recording (rand paul) This is insane. Its got to stop. Were ruining the country. And there has to be some voice left for fiscal conservatism in this country.

nick fandos

This group is just, frankly, uneasy about the $2 trillion that they spent back in the spring and is not interested in seeing the federal government add to the deficit, add to the debt and further involve itself in the U.S. economy.

archived recording (rand paul) I, for one, am alarmed at where the country is heading. Im also alarmed that my party has forgotten what they actually stand for. There is no difference now between the two parties on spending.

nick fandos

Now, at the other end of the spectrum are a group of more moderate or middle-of-the-road Republicans, who are up for re-election this fall and are actually having to face the voters, in many cases, in swing states or blue states where President Trump and the Republican response to the pandemic have been deeply unpopular. People like Cory Gardner or Thom Tillis 

archived recording (thom tillis) Well, I think we have to build on what we did with the CARES Act, almost $3 trillion dollars to help individuals, to provide a supplement for unemployment.

nick fandos

 who have really staked their re-election on the governments response to this crisis, and on showing that they are effectively leading the country through one of its most challenging periods in anybodys memory. And joining with them on that side 

archived recording (mitch mcconnell) This crisis is far from over.

nick fandos

 are some of the best known leaders of the Republican Party on Capitol Hill.

michael barbaro

Hm.

archived recording (mitch mcconnell) For weeks now, I have made it clear that further legislation out of the Senate will be a serious response to the crisis.

nick fandos

So Mitch McConnell, the majority leader from Kentucky, and John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas whos one of his longtime deputies 

archived recording (john cornyn) But as the impact of Covid-19 has grown, so has the need for assistance.

nick fandos

 seem to recognize that not only are the fates of individual senators up in the air, but the Republican Partys prospects up and down the ticket this fall may well be tied up into how they are judged to have handled this crisis. And doing what the conservatives want and basically stopping now and saying, weve done what we need to do is not an option for that group.

michael barbaro

Nick, how much of that debate you just described is being informed by the political realities surrounding the single most important person in the party at this moment, which is President Trump?

nick fandos

I think its inescapable for elected Republicans. And its not just the way that the public seems to be viewing President Trump and giving him very poor grades on handling the pandemic, which could hurt the whole Republican Party in November. Its also the kind of erratic nature of his leadership and engagement on this issue itself. And so theyre working with his Treasury secretary to iron out the details. But this is not a negotiation that President Trump is leading or even all that active in. Theyre trying to do whatever they can to bail out the party, not to please President Trump in this case.

michael barbaro

Hm.

nick fandos

And that has added another kind of layer of interest and unpredictability to this whole thing which, you know, we have not seen a lot of in the last three and a half years.

michael barbaro

And what does that tell you, that theyre choosing this moment to do that?

nick fandos

Well, I think whether they want to acknowledge it or not, Republicans are starting to sense that their party is really in trouble. That if things arent turned around quickly, they may not only lose the White House, but really get wiped out in November. And are thinking in different ways about why that is and what the party may need to look like in a world thats just starting to dawn on them as a possibility of being kind of post-Trump.

michael barbaro

So in other words, this battle over $600 a week and what this entire new version of a relief package looks like, its not really just about whats in a piece of legislation like this. Its about the identity of the Republican Party at a time where it may need a new identity. Because theoretically, Donald Trump could lose. And the Republican Party would no longer be just the party of Donald Trump.

nick fandos

Thats right. So while theyre very much focused on how is the party going to be viewed in November, theyre really kind of foreshadowing or staking out positioning for this potentially larger battle to come, over what Republicanism really looks like after Donald Trump has defined it for four or five years.

[music]

And you know, some of these folks are not new to their positions. But they recognize that there may soon be more of a need to kind of assert their views, and the primacy of those views, against others in the Republican Party.

michael barbaro

Well be right back.

[music]

So Nick, where does this very high stakes ideological battle within the Republican Party, where does it leave this economic relief package?

nick fandos

So its up to Mitch McConnell, basically, to try and pull together these different factions and arrive at a bill that deals with the expiring unemployment benefits and a host of other kind of programs and priorities. Basically, to try and reconcile those differences and put together a bill that can be Republicans starting point when they go to the negotiating table with Democrats.

michael barbaro

Mhm.

nick fandos

And so thats where we were by the middle of last week. And as he tries to work out those details with the White House and run it by his Republican colleagues, theres a bunch of snafus along the way. They push past some small deadlines. But in the end, theyre unable to introduce their bill, because those differences turn out to have been more significant than Republicans even wanted to let on.

michael barbaro

So the Republicans cannot come up with any kind of consensus bill to salvage this program that weve been talking about?

nick fandos

So as of Thursday morning, no. And as lawmakers head for the exits for the weekend, without a proposal for how to fix a whole host of programs, they have not arrived at a solution on a range of issues, including what to do about this expiring $600 unemployment benefit. But their staff and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, Meadows, the White House chief of staff, work through the weekend to try and iron out some of these details.

archived recording (mitch mcconnell) Well, good afternoon, everyone. The Senate Republicans and the administration have been consulting over the last few weeks.

nick fandos

By Monday afternoon, what they finally introduce 

archived recording (mitch mcconnell)  with what we think is an appropriate amount of additional debt to be added. We think it is about a trillion dollars.

nick fandos

 is a plan that is roughly a trillion dollars.

archived recording (mitch mcconnell) And weve allocated that in a way that we think makes the most sense.

nick fandos

Some of that goes to schools to help them reopen and for more testing and contact tracing.

archived recording (mitch mcconnell) So with that, Im going to call on my colleagues who have developed the various 

nick fandos

And on this key question of unemployment benefits, Republicans propose a real overhaul to the way that they would work conceptually.

archived recording (mitch mcconnell) Do we know whos next? archived recording Chairman Grassley. archived recording (mitch mcconnell) Senator Grassley. archived recording (chuck grassley) Number one, were going to continue 

nick fandos

So they say that for the short term, were going to cut that $600 down to $200 a week.

michael barbaro

Big cut.

nick fandos

A pretty dramatic cut.

archived recording (chuck grassley) So we want to continue to help the unemployed. But we want to encourage work. And weve learned a very tough lesson, that when you pay people not to work, what do you expect?

nick fandos

And they say, thats just going to buy us time over the next few months for us to basically help states set up a new system, where what were going to try and do is make sure that every individual thats unemployed, between the state government and the federal government ends up getting about 70 percent of what their old wages would have been.

archived recording (chuck grassley) Were going to have further tax relief for businesses to encourage hiring and rehiring. And we want to do that to encourage people to get back to work and help the employer, in the process, support people in the meantime.

nick fandos

And so what Republicans are trying to do here is keep a safety net in place, but remove what they think is hindering people from going back to work.

archived recording (chuck grassley) Lastly, I hope that Democrats will come to the table and we can work out a bipartisan agreement. Thank you very much.

nick fandos

So in other words, if they can get this program up and operating, it will always make sense from a financial point of view for somebody to go and take their old job back or take a new job back, but not be so draconian that theyre making the economic situation drastically worse, or can be accused of forcing people towards soup kitchens or the streets.

michael barbaro

So this is a classic compromise. In other words, were going to keep the benefits but not at $600 a week, because they see that as not conservative and not incentivizing an economic recovery.

nick fandos

Thats right. But remember, this is just kind of the first step. This should have been the easy part for Republicans. Because what they have coming is negotiations with Democrats, who are in favor of keeping the benefit totally as it is, and are already lining up to say basically that Republicans are giving a massive economic financial hit to individuals and the economy right when they need it most, and at this moment where the countrys recovery seems to be teetering. Is it going to keep going up? Or is it about to collapse again? And Democrats are not going to settle for $200 for any period of time.

michael barbaro

So given all that, what is likely to happen to this Republican bill in the Senate?

nick fandos

So the interesting thing about where Republicans find themselves is, this bill that theyre introducing probably couldnt even pass the Senate just on Republican votes. And that leaves them in a pretty weak position as they head into negotiations with the Democrats. Because remember, to pass anything into law, even if theres a Republican president or a Republican Senate, you need the Democrats to get it through Congress. And they have a very long and expensive wish list of things that theyd like to see in legislation. And theyre not going to be easy on the Republicans.

michael barbaro

Nick, this may sound like a strange question. But do you think Republicans now regret ever agreeing to these enhanced unemployment benefits? Im mindful of the fact that it was not a Republican idea. It was Democrats who pushed for it. As you have said, it cuts against a lot of Republican principles. But they agreed to it as a short-term fix. And it turns out its not going to be a short-term term fix, because theres nothing short-term about this pandemic. And it is inevitably hard to take something like this away from people once you give it to them. So is it possible Republicans look back and think we should have never agreed to do this?

nick fandos

I think there may be a small subset of fiscally conservative Republicans that feel that way. But my guess is that the vast majority felt like, hey, we did what we had to do back then in the springtime. I mean, the economy was in freefall, remember. And the course of the virus was highly uncertain. And the fundamental problem for them is that they envisioned the federal government having a relatively short-term role to play in getting the country back on its feet and ready to fight against this virus. And its just turned out to be, for a lot of different reasons, a much more complicated, prolonged, expensive fight than they wanted. And honestly, Michael, at this point, its hard to see how this situation resolves itself. Usually, when you cover Congress for a while, you can kind of see the pattern of how these negotiations will work. But Republicans really find themselves pretty far up the stream without a paddle right now. And there seem to be risks for them and consequences in every direction. And its going to be a pretty fascinating next couple of weeks to see how and if they can reach an agreement with Democrats  and one that some members of the party feel like doesnt completely undermine what they stand for.

michael barbaro

Of course, weeks is not what people who are on this program have. They have days. Because this thing really does expire on Friday.

nick fandos

Thats right. Many of the people receiving these benefits are living paycheck to paycheck or dont have a lot of savings to fall back on. There can and will be very real consequences to this delay. And thats not to mention the whole host of other programs that are being debated by Congress right now that are touching different aspects of peoples lives.

[music]

The longer this goes on, the effects just get magnified. Bigger and bigger and bigger. And it frankly makes the problem even harder to solve.

michael barbaro

Thank you, Nick.

nick fandos

Thank you, Michael.

michael barbaro

On Monday night, Democratic leaders, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, met with White House officials to begin negotiations over a new economic relief package, including federal unemployment benefits.

archived recording (nancy pelosi) Suffice to say that we hoped that we would be able to reach an agreement. We clearly do not have shared values.

michael barbaro

Little progress was made during the two-hour session. But afterward, the Democratic leaders made one thing clear. Congressional Republicans lack the votes to pass their own bill. Well be right back. Heres what else you need to know today. On Monday, the pandemic touched the worlds of politics, business and sports. The Trump administration said that its national security adviser, Robert OBrien, had contracted the virus, becoming the most senior White House official yet to test positive. Meanwhile, the parent company of Google  Alphabet  told employees that they would not be expected to return to the office until next summer, suggesting that work-from-home policies will extend well past the end of the year. Finally, the Miami Marlins canceled two upcoming baseball games after 12 players and two coaches tested positive for the coronavirus. The outbreak was disclosed just four days after the beginning of the baseball season.

archived recording (dave martinez) My level of concern went from about an eight to a 12. You know, it hits home now that you see half a team get infected and it go from one city to another. So 

michael barbaro

During a news conference, the manager of the Washington Nationals expressed alarm over the news.

archived recording (dave martinez) Yeah, I got friends on that Miami team. And it really stinks. Now Im not going to lie. Im not going to sugarcoat it. Seeing those guys go down like that, its not good for them. Its not good for anybody.

michael barbaro
Rajasthan crisis: After SC setback, Ashok Gehlot readies Plan B to checkmate rebel MLAs

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, July 23: Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot is likely to call an assembly session next week to conduct a floor test, after a huge setback by the Supreme court on a petition by 19 rebel Congress MLAs challenging disqualification notices.

The apex court on Thursday said Assembly Speaker CP Joshi cannot decide on disqualification of rebel Congress MLAs till the top court makes a decision on the issue.

Reportedly, Gehlot is mulling to convene a special session of the Legislative Assembly for a trust vote to 'expose' the dissident MLAs in the House. Meanwhile, the opposition BJP believes that a rapprochement is no longer possible after Pilot asserted that he was not joining the saffron party.

It also gave nod to the Rajasthan High Court to pronounce order on plea of 19 dissident Congress MLAs, including sacked deputy CM Sachin Pilot, against the Assembly Speaker''s notice for initiating disqualification proceedings against them, but said that it would be subject to the outcome of the petition before the top court.

The crisis in Rajasthan Congress has been brewing since the party picked Gehlot over Pilot for the chief minister's post. Pilot was sacked as deputy chief minister and the party's state unit president when he and 18 other MLAs stayed away from two Congress Legislature Party meetings.

Rajasthan crisis: HC can pass order on rebels plea says Supreme Court

The rebel MLAs were served notices by Speaker C.P. Joshi after the Congress sought their disqualification from the assembly. The Rajasthan High Court will on Monday resume hearing their petition challenging the notices.

Going by the current arithmetic, the Congress has 107 MLAs, including the dissidents, in the 200-member assembly and the BJP 72.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

If the 19 Congress dissidents are disqualified, the current strength of the state assembly will reduce to 181, slashing the half-way mark to 91 and making it easier for Gehlot to retain majority support.

In the past, the ruling party has claimed the support of 13 independents, two MLAs each from the CPM and the BTP, and one from the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).
While the frenzy of rioting and looting has calmed down somewhat in recent weeks, it has been supplanted by the growth of a pernicious double standard in American attitudes toward race. All across America, blatantly racist practices and statements are being hailed and promoted in the name of combating white supremacy and institutional racism  so long as the targeted race is white, anyway.

Early into the rioting that would rampage across the nation, Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan stated on her Twitter feed: "I want to acknowledge that much of the violence and destruction, both here in Seattle and across the country, has been instigated and perpetuated by white men." Lincoln County in Oregon implemented a mandatory mask-wearing policy for all its residents but exempted individuals if they were nonwhite. This policy was reversed only after significant backlash by community residents, which county officials claimed as, without a hint of irony, "horrifically racist commentary." The federally funded Smithsonian published a graphic urging Americans to be aware of supposed whiteness-related concepts, such as the scientific method, being polite, and "rugged individualism." While that graphic was eventually removed, the Smithsonian continues to maintain the following statements on its website: "Whiteness (and its accepted normality) also exist as everyday microaggressions toward people of color," and "[w]hite people can possess other marginalized parts of their identity, but their race is not one of these." A member of Seattle's city council has suggested the firing of police officers on the basis of skin color, the color being white.

These are all just a few examples of the racist hysteria that has swept across the nation, not against black Americans or other people of color, but against whites. Replace mentions of the word "white" with "black" in any of these instances, and it won't take a vivid imagination to conceive of the nonstop outrage. Acceptance of and complacency toward racism, so long as it targets the "right" races, will only encourage further discrimination.

This is not a new phenomenon to the United States. Affirmative action, which typically biases preferential hiring and academic admissions against whites and Asians in favor of other racial minorities, has been the most visible form of this. In the 2003 SCOTUS case Grutter v. Bollinger, the court held that preferential academic admissions treatment for racial minorities did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. However, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor famously wrote as part of her majority opinion, "The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today." That deadline is fast approaching, yet racial affirmative action is not any closer to ending. O'Connor's ruling has not been treated as a warning against overreliance on affirmative action, but as carte blanche to implement it across America. As a consequence, progress against one of the few blatantly racist policies on the books today is being reversed. California's famous Proposition 209, which has banned any consideration of race in school admissions in the state since 1996, is being challenged yet again in this year's election, with the state Senate overwhelmingly voting in favor of including a ballot to repeal Prop. 209. The lack of effective challenges to affirmative action, on both the judicial and political fronts, has strengthened its permanency and threatens to roll back what little has been done against it. The same will be true for many of the new forms of anti-white racism prevalent today. Calling out and demanding action against the racism of the left is a crucial first step to opposing and reversing it.

This racial discrimination is not restricted to only fringe elements of the far left. The tolerance of it by the mainstream media, and their silence on racist government policies, speaks volumes. Does anyone doubt that a county mandate demanding that masks be worn only by non-whites would make national headlines for weeks? Furthermore, supposedly "mainstream" and "moderate" Democrat politicians openly and proudly showcase the same racism. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has openly pledged that his pick for the nation's highest court will be restricted on the basis of race and sex, a black woman. Biden has effectively stated that he is willing to sideline merit and judicial record in favor of a person's race and sex for a pick to the Supreme Court. It doesn't matter whether what a judge might have accomplished, what judicial philosophy he subscribes to, or how experienced he is. Under a President Biden, he will be blocked off from achieving the pinnacle of his career because of how he was born. One of the most important institutions in the American government will be gate-kept on the basis of one's skin color and chromosomes.

It is nearly impossible to find any mention of these facts in mainstream media outlets. However, it will be the political reality should Biden win election in November.

The 2020 election is undoubtedly a crossroads for this nation. Should Biden win, the left-wing racism propagated throughout our nation in recent months will be solidified and emboldened to new heights.
Chinese girl wins free movie tickets for lifeIt's every filmophile's dream  getting the full movie theater experience without paying a dime. Now imagine this is for life.





Li Xiaomeng wins the permanent membership of Emei Film1958 Cinema, which allows her to watch free films for her whole life, in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, July 20, 2020. [Photo: VCG]

A moviegoer in Chengdu, southwest China, can now watch as many films as she wants for as long as she lives for free after being the first person to show up at a local cinema on the first day it reopened following a half-year closure because of COVID-19.

The China Film Administration gave movie theaters in low-risk areas the go-ahead to resume operations starting Monday (July 20) as the coronavirus outbreak ebbs in most parts of the country.

Li Xiaomeng beat everyone else to arrive at Emei Film1958 Cinema for the morning screening of "The First Farewell."

Being the first arrival to the first show at the theater in around six months, Li was presented with a permanent membership, which allows her to watch unlimited free movies and get invited to film premieres, press screenings and opening ceremonies of film festivals held at the venue.




For people stuck at home tending their stockpiles of face masks and toilet paper, its hard to think of a simpler pleasure than the prospect of heading on holiday to some sun-kissed beach.

Travel bubbles  the limited openings of international borders as coronavirus transmission weakens in some parts of the world  are starting to spring up. The European Union lifted restrictions on movement within its passport-free Schengen Zone last month, causing cross-border flights to quadruple in frequency. Singapore has been allowing some business travel from six Chinese provinces since last month, and is looking to set up a similar arrangement with Malaysia. Now Deutsche Lufthansa AG, United Airlines Holdings Inc., IAG SA and American Airlines Group Inc. are seeking a U.S.-European Union virus-testing program to allow trans-Atlantic trips to resume as well.

While an increasing number of tourists may be willing to chance their health for the sake of a long-overdue break, the decision for governments contemplating this is far more complex  even setting aside the most obvious risk that increased border crossings could help the spread of the coronavirus.

Thats because, in most countries, international tourism is dwarfed by the scale of domestic travel, as my colleague Clara Ferreira Marques has written about Vietnam. Its also because nations run the gamut from those whose residents spend more overseas than foreigners do on inbound trips (such as China, Canada and the UK) to those for which tourism is a major net export, such as the US, Thailand and Spain.

When economies are cratering and unemployment is soaring, that imbalance may become an important factor in deciding what to do.

Take New Zealand and Australia, which, before a recent outbreak in Melbourne, appeared to have more or less stamped out Covid-19 and were heading toward opening a bubble. For New Zealand, its a no-brainer. International tourism is the countrys largest export sector and accounts for 8.4% of employment, with Australians making up 40% of visitor arrivals, as James McIntyre of Bloomberg Economics wrote in a recent note.

For Australia the calculus is a lot harder. Unlike New Zealand, the country is a net importer of tourism  in other words, Australians spend more money abroad than foreigners spend in Australia. Last year, overseas expenditures exceeded receipts to the tune of about A$19 billion ($14 billion), equivalent to about 1% of gross domestic product. The more that revenue gets trapped at home and spent on domestic hotels, restaurants and visitor attractions, the easier it will be for the economy and job market to recover from a historic slump.

Those complicated distributional impacts happen within economies as well as between them. For instance, the airline sector is likely to benefit most from an increase in international travel. These companies have vast outlays on twin-aisle planes and flight crews that will be mostly out of action until long-haul trips resume. But in most countries, airlines  and particularly their international arms  constitute a relatively small slice of tourism employment, and one thats already relatively well-protected in terms of pay and employment rights.

In the US, the hotels and lodging sector employed about four times as many people as airlines did before coronavirus hit  and the 48% slump in employment as infection spread between March and May represented about 7.5 jobs lost for every one in aviation. Airlines tend to be heavily unionized and often boast government stakes in airports and carriers, making politicians more disposed to pleas for support. Singapore is a net importer of tourism and employs far more people in ground-based services than in aviation, but dont be surprised if the governments control of Singapore Airlines Ltd. and Changi Airport pushes the city-state to open up sooner rather than later.

Beyond that, theres even a diplomatic angle. Small island states such as those in the Caribbean and Pacific and Indian Oceans are some of the most tourism-dependent countries on the planet, and risk devastation if border lockdowns continue much longer. Major sources of holidaymakers like the US, UK, China, Japan, Australia and Taiwan could buy immense goodwill by allowing their residents to visit at an early stage. Such small island states account for about a fifth of United Nations member countries. As weve seen in areas from whaling to recognition of Taiwan, cultivating their favour is a popular avenue of geopolitical competition.

Those complexities probably explain the relatively slow progress in turning travel bubbles from proposals into reality. Right now, tourist dollars are a precious resource that stricken economies would like to see spent at home. Your dream of a getaway as summer turns to winter may have to wait until the pandemic has passed.

(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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Since April 12, National Guard soldiers packed, sorted, and helped distribute 1.6 million meals for country residents with the Montgomery County Food Bank as part of the states response to COVID-19 and the increased need at Texas food banks. But now the 64 soldiers time in Montgomery County has come to an end and the food bank is asking for help from volunteers to fill their boots.

John Tindall, director of Volunteer Services for the Montgomery County Food Bank, said during their three-month deployment, the guard contributed 14,325 hours of service and they helped sort and organize 1.5 million pounds of dry goods.

In an email to the 7,000 volunteers on the food banks volunteer list, Tindall explained that the food bank needs to feed over 35,000 people a month. Between March 12 and June 30, the food bank served 4,125,978 meals. During the disaster response, the organization has distributed 62 percent more food product than it did for this time period last year.

Because of COVID-19, the food bank has added extra safety precautions for volunteers. Handwashing stations have been placed around the facility, masks must be worn, and the cleaning regimen has doubled. To comply with social distancing, the organization caps out the number of volunteers per shift at 27.

Were doing extreme social distancing, Tindall said. Were as compliant as we possibly can be, were doing all kinds of extra safety protocols throughout the facility.

The food bank cant afford to shut down so it is being extra careful with its volunteers and all of the food products that go out.

Its a really precarious balancing act, maintain the safety of our facility plus get the labor that we need to get the product out, he said.

On a positive note, Tindall said he was starting to hear from local businesses that wanted to volunteer as a group. Since COVID-19 hit, the food bank has found several new partners in the area to hold mobile markets and lend volunteers.

Right now, the food bank is at capacity for what it is capable of handling for mobile markets. Before the pandemic, the organization was hosting about 10 mobile markets a month. Now, it is averaging about 30 mobile markets a month.

Volunteer opportunities are available at both the mobile markets and in the food bank warehouse. A new opportunity has been added that Tindall has lightheartedly named the Meat-lovers shift. Three times a week, the meet-lovers will be tasked with sorting the products in the zero-degree meat locker.

For that one, were looking for people who enjoy the cold who might have some cold-weather gear and who are physically insulated, Tindall said. 

Many of the responses Tindall received from volunteers on the email list were personal, updating him on their lives and sharing their excitement at the opportunity to return.

It was so good to hear back from them and to make contact with them, he said. It just gave me a renewed appreciation and respect for our regular volunteers. They really are passionate about the food bank and about the people that were reaching.

There are several ways that residents can help the food bank right now. First, Tindall said, is by donating. Currently, a corporate partner is matching donations for the food bank so donations go twice as far. Second, volunteer for an open shift, which can be found at mcfoodbank.org/volunteer-with-us-conroe-tx/.

jamie.swinnerton@chron.com
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For years, Japan's north coast had been the site of a macabre phenomena: fishing boats washing up on shore carrying the bodies of dead North Koreans, more than 1,000 kilometers from their homeland.

But the numbers in 2017 were unprecedented: More than 100 boats landed on the Japanese coast with 35 bodies on board. Only 66 boats had washed up the year prior.

No one was able to explain why so many of these so-called "ghost ships" ended up in Japan that year. One Japanese Coast Guard said it could be as simple as the weather. Others speculated that North Korea's aging fishing fleet was to blame.

More of these rickety boats have washed up on shore en masse since, though with fewer bodies. The mystery has puzzled authorities for years, but a study published Wednesday by international nonprofit Global Fishing Watch offers a new, compelling theory. It blames Chinese "dark fishing fleets."

The report's authors used various satellite technologies to analyze marine traffic in northeast Asia in 2017 and 2018 and found that hundreds of Chinese fishing vessels were sailing in waters off North Korea. The Chinese ships appeared to be fishing there illegally, pushing North Korea's own fleet, which is poorly equipped to travel long distances, further away from the North Korean coast and into Russian and Japanese waters.
YEREVAN, 23 JULY, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 23 July, USD exchange rate is up by 1.03 drams to 485.19 drams. EUR exchange rate is up by 3.47 drams to 562.43 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate is down by 0.01 drams to 6.82 drams. GBP exchange rate is up by 3.88 drams to 617.60 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price is up by 214.67 drams to 28895.99 drams. Silver price is up by 27.04 drams to 347 drams. Platinum price is up by 325.29 drams to 13914.5 drams.
Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi has once again trained his guns at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his handling of the border standoff with China, saying that his government lacked a clear cut vision to take the nation forward.

PM is 100% focused on building his own image. Indias captured institutions are all busy doing this task. One mans image is not a substitute for a national vision, Gandhi tweeted, along with a video in which he deliberated on how India should deal with the China situation.

The two-minute video is the latest in a series of comments made by Gandhi criticising the government's handling of tensions at the border and the novel coronavirus pandemic. The Congress leader said the lack of vision is a cause of aggravation for him as he feels a huge opportunity is being lost.

Because we are not thinking long term; because we are not thinking big and because we are disturbing our internal balance. We are fighting amongst each other. Just look at the politics. All day long; all day long; Indian is fighting Indian. And it is because there is no clear cut vision going forward, he said in the video.

Sharpening his attack on the government, he said that psychologically you have to deal with the Chinese from a position of strength. If you deal with them from a position of strength, you can work with them you can get what you need and it can be actually done. But if they sense weakness then you had it.

The first thing is you are not going take on China without a vision. And by that I don't mean a national vision. I mean an international vision, he said, and gave the example of Chinas Belt and Road initiative.

India has to have a global vision. India now has to become an idea. And it has to become a global idea. So thats the thing thats going protect India actually thinking big."

Acknowledging that the border issue first needs to be resolved, he said this is also the time to change our approach. This this is the point at which the road parts. If we go this way we become a major player if we go this way, we become irrelevant.

He said it was his job as an opponent of the PM to question him and put pressure on him so he does his work. His responsibility is to give the vision. Its not there. I can tell you, guaranteed, it's not there and thats why China's is in there today.
Government establishes ministry for strategic industries

11:00, 23.07.20 3223

The Verkhovna Rada tapped Oleh Urusky to head the ministry.
The Trump administration announced on Wednesday a $1.95 billion contract with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which has a location in Groton, Conn., and its German partner BioNTech to buy 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Pfizer and BioNTech began human trials in early May. If the vaccine is found to be safe and successful, the companies say they could manufacture the first 100 million doses by the end of the year.

A larger study of safety and efficacy is expected to begin this month. Pfizer said it could seek some form of regulatory approval as early as October.

This is warp speed, Gov. Ned Lamont said Wednesday from Pfizers research and development site in Groton. Its remarkable what theyve been able to do.

We still, along the way, have to make sure were following all the protocols that make Connecticut one of the best in the country in terms of a low infection rate, he said. But it gives us hope that science is going to lead the way past this, as it has in so many other cases.

Under the deal, the federal government will pay $1.95 billion for the first 100 million doses, with the option of ordering 500 million more. Americans would receive the immunization for free.

Pfizer announced this week that the first of four experimental vaccines it is testing showed encouraging results.

The company is developing the immunization based on genetic material known as messenger RNA, which carries the instructions for cells to make proteins. By injecting a specially tailored messenger RNA, the vaccine could tell cells how to make the spike protein of the coronavirus without making a person sick.

Pfizer officials said Wednesday that the vaccine, if successful, would likely be administered in two doses.

The first clinical trials have been a single dose, and three weeks later the patient comes back and gets a second dose, said John Burkhardt, senior vice president of drug safety research and development in Groton. The data that we have so far illustrate a really robust host immune response to that paradigm.

So its looking like thats where you would start, with two doses. Well have to see how this could be studied in larger populations and whether thats exactly right.

The U.S. government will get the doses and make the payment after the drug makers receive regulatory approval.

Nearly two dozen potential COVID-19 vaccines are in different stages of testing. Moderna, a Massachusetts biotech company, received $483 million from the U.S. government for its vaccine development and is also using messenger RNA technology.

Two other vaccine developers  Oxford University and CanSino Biologics  reported promising early results this week.
Pakistan's Opposition parties on Thursday staged a walkout from Parliament to protest against an ordinance promulgated by the government in view of the International Court of Justice's ruling in the case of Indian prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav.

The protest started in the National Assembly as the government presented the ordinance called the International Court of Justice Review and Reconsideration Ordinance 2020 under which a petition for the review of a military court's decision can be made to Islamabad High Court through an application within 60 days of its promulgation. Jadhav, the 50-year-old retired Indian Navy officer, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April 2017. India approached the ICJ against Pakistan for denial of consular access to Jadhav and challenging the death sentence.

The Hague-based ICJ ruled in July 2019 that Pakistan must undertake an "effective review and reconsideration" of the conviction and sentence of Jadhav and also to grant consular access to India without further delay. Pakistan enacted the ordinance on May 20.

During the discussion on the ordinance on Thursday, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Khawaja Asif said the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan was trying to help Jadhav. He said that the ordinance was unacceptable to the Opposition. "Who is playing with the honour of Pakistan now. Who is prostrating before them (Indians) today?" he asked.

Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also alleged that the ordinance was introduced to help the Indian prisoner on death row. The government "tried to get the ordinance approved secretly to facilitate Kulbhushan Jadhav, he claimed.

After the speech, he pointed out the lack of quorum and staged a walkout along with other parties. Later, the head count was made in the house by the Speaker only to find out that the quorum was incomplete and the session was deferred.

The development came a day after the Pakistan government in a unilateral move filed a petition in the Islamabad High Court on Wednesday, seeking appointment of a "legal representative" for Jadhav. However, the main parties, including the government of India, were consulted ahead of the filing of the application by the Ministry of Law and Justice under the ordinance.

In New Delhi, External affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava on Thursday said Pakistan has once again exposed its "farcical" approach by denying available legal remedies to Jadhav against his death sentence which is also in contravention of the ICJ verdict, and asserted that it will explore further options in the case. Srivastava said Pakistan has blocked all the avenues for an effective remedy available to India in the case, while noting that New Delhi has so far requested consular access to Jadhav for 12 times over the past one year.

"The whole exercise of not providing documents related to the case even after repeated requests, not providing an unimpeded consular access and some reported unilateral action of approaching the High Court on part of Pakistan again exposes the farcical nature of Pakistan's approach," he said. The MEA spokesperson said Pakistan is not only in violation of the judgment of ICJ, but also of its own Ordinance.

"Pakistan has completely failed to provide the remedy as directed by the ICJ and India reserves its position in the matter, including its rights to avail of further remedies," Srivastava added. Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Aisha Farooqui, however, claimed that the necessary steps have been taken to implement the verdict of the ICJ.

"Accordingly, to comply with the directive of the ICJ, the Federation has filed a petition in the Islamabad High Court for appointment of a lawyer for Commander Jadhav, so that review proceedings can be initiated, she said on Thursday. Pakistan last week provided second consular access to Jadhav, but the Indian government said the access was "neither meaningful nor credible," and the death row prisoner appeared visibly under stress.
Kolkata: Workers sanitise passenger baggage in front of the entry gate at NSCBI Airport, during weekly two-day complete lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus disease, in Kolkata, Thursday. (PTI)

With the highest-ever single-day spike of 45,720 cases, India's COVID-19 tally crossed the 12-lakh mark on Thursday, while the death-toll mounted to 29,861 with a record 1,129 fatalities in a day. The country crossed the 12-lakh mark just three days after it crossed the 11-lakh milestone.

The coronavirus caseload in the country surged to 12,38,635, while 7,82,606 people have recovered so far in the country. There are 4,26,167 active cases of coronavirus infection presently in the country. Thus, 63.18 per cent people have recovered so far.

Of the 1,129 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, 518 are from Tamil Nadu, 280 from Maharashtra, 65 from Andhra Pradesh,55 from Karnataka, 39 from West Bengal, 34 from Uttar Pradesh, 29 from Delhi, 28 from Gujarat, 14 from Madhya Pradesh and 10 from Jammu and Kashmir. Telangana and Jharkhand have reported nine fatalities each followed by Haryana with eight deaths, Assam, Punjab and Rajasthan six each, Odisha five, Goa and Uttarakhand two each while Kerala, Puducherry, Tripura and Chandigarh have registered a fatality each.

In Maharashtra, fifth minister in the Uddhav Thackerey Government  Abdus Sattar, MoS Animal Husbandry  has tested positive for COVID-19. NCPs Rajya Sabha MP Fauzia Khan has also tested positive. In view of rising cases, Kerala has imposed curfew in Aluva Municipality and 7 panchayats from Wednesday. Similarly, Chhattisgarh has re-imposed a seven-day total lockdown in several districts. Jammu and Kashmir administration has imposed a fresh six-day lockdown in view of the novel coronvirus situation.

Haryana Government has decided to declare one Central Jail and three District Jails in the state as Special Jails (Temporary Jails) for confinement of new male prisoners remanded to judicial custody in Haryana till the receipt of their COVID-19 reports.
It is not uncommon to see companies perform well in the years after insiders buy shares. The flip side of that is that there are more than a few examples of insiders dumping stock prior to a period of weak performance. So we'll take a look at whether insiders have been buying or selling shares in Australian Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (ASX:API).

What Is Insider Selling?

It's quite normal to see company insiders, such as board members, trading in company stock, from time to time. However, most countries require that the company discloses such transactions to the market.

We don't think shareholders should simply follow insider transactions. But it is perfectly logical to keep tabs on what insiders are doing. For example, a Harvard University study found that 'insider purchases earn abnormal returns of more than 6% per year'.

View our latest analysis for Australian Pharmaceutical Industries

The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Australian Pharmaceutical Industries

There wasn't any very large single transaction over the last year, but we can still observe some trading.

Australian Pharmaceutical Industries insiders may have bought shares in the last year, but they didn't sell any. Their average price was about AU$1.19. This is nice to see since it implies that insiders might see value around current prices (around AU$1.11). The chart below shows insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction!

There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

Australian Pharmaceutical Industries Insiders Bought Stock Recently

There was some insider buying at Australian Pharmaceutical Industries over the last quarter. Independent Non-Executive Chairman of the Board Mark Smith bought AU$42k worth of shares in that time. We like it when there are only buyers, and no sellers. But in this case the amount purchased means the recent transaction may not be very meaningful on its own.

Story continues

Insider Ownership

I like to look at how many shares insiders own in a company, to help inform my view of how aligned they are with insiders. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. Insiders own 1.6% of Australian Pharmaceutical Industries shares, worth about AU$8.6m, according to our data. Whilst better than nothing, we're not overly impressed by these holdings.

So What Do The Australian Pharmaceutical Industries Insider Transactions Indicate?

Insider purchases may have been minimal, in the last three months, but there was no selling at all. Overall the buying isn't worth writing home about. However, our analysis of transactions over the last year is heartening. The transactions are fine but it'd be more encouraging if Australian Pharmaceutical Industries insiders bought more shares in the company. If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its future.

If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt.

For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions, but not derivative transactions.

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.
One of the Philadelphia theater seasons most anticipated productions, Is God Is, never made it to the stage of the Wilma Theater. But starting Thursday, the Wilmas production of Aleshea Harris Obie-winning play is getting a hearing as an audio version, recorded in isolation, that will be available for streaming through Sunday.

Directed by James Ijames, the theaters first audio play stars Danielle Lenee (My General Tubman) and Brett Ashley Robinson (Describe the Night) as twin sisters, Racine and Anaia, who are dispatched by their mother on a cross-country mission that Ijames calls an entertaining sort of revenge fantasy story (one that in some other productions has involved sizable amounts of blood).

In an interview Tuesday, Ijames, a co-artistic director of the Wilma, said that in adapting the play for audio, Harris script had remained intact.

Honestly, we changed not a single word, he said. And with everyone looking at their scripts, theres not even a chance of an actor saying the line wrong. We truly honored that text. I love that play.

The challenge in adapting it to audio was figuring out how do you get the scale that we were going to try to reach in production with just the voice and just sound. And Im shocked at what you can do. This cast of actors is so impressive. And they all just came to it with so much hunger, Ijames said. And the sound design team has been truly remarkable.

To maintain consistent sound quality, the actors were sent mics and other equipment, everything that you would possibly need to do a really sophisticated recording in your home, Ijames said. We even sent them these, like, cloth panels and little boxes that had insulation that they could set around their mics to lower the ambient sound, because everybody lives in Philly. The streets are not always quiet.

Beyond that, for folks whose internet speed was a little slow, we did things to try to bump up their speed so that they could be on par with everyone else, he said. For one actor, Aaron Bell, a studio was set up in the sanitized and otherwise empty Wilma because we just couldnt get his internet speed up to the level [they needed].

Lenee, who had gone to Maryland to stay with family during the lockdown, set up her own studio in a closet, Ijames said.

Directing from a distance, he tried to maintain the emphasis on sound.

We rehearsed over Zoom so that I could see them when I was talking to them and giving notes, he said. And then we would turn all of our screens off.  We just had this black screen and we would just listen. And then we recorded it.

Though it wasnt written for audio, Is God Is turned out to have opportunities a stage presentation might not have exploited.

There are these moments in the play where were recounting a memory and  we got to be a little cinematic with it, like we could sort of mimic the sound of the memory, Ijames said, citing a moment when the mother, She [Melanye Finister], is talking about walking down the hall and hearing the little girls with the cartoons on the television and it sounded like there was a tree branch scratching on the window.

Onstage, it would have been up to Finister alone to describe it, but in the audio version, the team was able to insert a hint of a cartoon in the background, he said.

And then theres the violence.

I dont want people to think that this is like this bloody thing thats one violent thing after another. Its actually quite funny, too, Ijames said.

But also violent.

In the audio version, the violence exists for the listener in the sound of someone experiencing violence. So the cry of pain, the cry of shock of Oh my God, you just hit me  I didnt expect that to be as powerful as it was.

Working in audio was completely foreign to everyone except for Thom Weaver, who was the productions set and lighting designer but is a huge fan of radio plays and actually made the suggestion to do this, Ijames said. Weaver pulled in Chris Sannino to work with Daniel Ison, whos the sound designer for the production.

Asked if hed learned anything in trying to create theater during lockdown, Ijames said hes realized that just because its always been done this way doesnt mean that it has to be.

In working on Is God Is, a large part of the decision-making  was [about] what is going to be the healthiest thing for the artists who have to work on this, he said. That was paramount to us. And I dont know that thats always paramount when were thinking about production.

He said he tried to make sure that care was a thing that I was leading with, every time I sat down at that desk, and turned on Zoom, and talked to those actors. He also tried to display what he called radical vulnerability as a director, admitting that he didnt always know all the answers but assuring the cast that theyd get there together.

Looking ahead to post-pandemic life, I hope that were all different, but I definitely will be a different director.

Is God Is, available to stream Thursday through Sunday via wilmatheater.org. Tickets start at $10 and are structured as donations. Patrons who bought tickets for the shows original run and elected to donate the cost rather than receive refunds will also receive a link to the show.
LONDONTwitter says an elected Dutch official was among 36 account holders whose direct message inboxes were accessed in a recent high-profile hack.

The politician, anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders, said Thursday that he was informed by Twitter that his account was compromised by a hacker, who posted tweets on his account and sent false direct messages, or DMs, in his name.

The hacker indeed also got full access to my DMs which of course is totally unacceptable in many ways, Wilders said.

The social network revealed more details of the intrusion late Wednesday after completing a review of the 130 accounts that were targeted.

The U.S. tech company was embarrassed by last weeks hack, which compromised the accounts of some of its most high profile users, including world leaders, celebrities and tech moguls. The hack appeared designed to lure their Twitter followers into sending money to an anonymous bitcoin account.

Of the 130 accounts, 36 is the number of accounts where the attacker took control of the account and viewed the DM inbox, the company said.

To date, we have no indication that any other former or current elected official had their DMs accessed, the company said through its Twitter Support account

Wilders signalled that he got back control of his account on July 17, by tweeting Back online! with the hashtag #NoMoreHack.

Wilders said his inbox contained messages received during his decade using the social media platform from people critical of Islam or Middle East regimes, including from within countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

I do hope they will not be in danger if their identity would be exposed because of this hack, Wilders said. I deleted most of them but maybe some were left there for the hacker to see and copy. He added that he rarely wrote direct messages himself.

The company has previously said the incident was a co-ordinated social engineering attack that targeted some of its employees with access to internal systems and tools. They were then used to take control of many high-profile and verified accounts. The attackers were able to reset passwords for 45 accounts, and then login and tweet from them.

Twitter also confirmed that another eight accounts had their user data archive, including direct messages, downloaded through the Your Twitter Data tool, but none of those accounts were verified.

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PaintExpo, the worlds leading trade fair for industrial coating technologies, which was scheduled to be held at the Karlsruhe Exhibition Centre in Karlsruhe, Germany, from October 12 to 15, 2020, has been cancelled.

Due to the still fragile corona situation, stricter hygiene and distancing regulations for trade fairs in Baden-Wurttemberg and sustained restrictions on international travel, PaintExpo 2020 will be cancelled after all, FairFair GmbH, the trade fair organiser said in a statement.

The event will now take place in 2022 from April 26 to 29.

Together with our exhibitors and partners, we had hoped to hold PaintExpo 2020 in October with corresponding health and safety measures for all participants. However, the circumstances have changed in the meantime, amongst other things due to new regulations for holding trade fairs in Baden-Wurttemberg, so that we now have to cancel the event after all, Jurgen Haumann, managing director of event promoters FairFair GmbH, said.

This decision was taken on the basis of a survey of all PaintExpo 2020 exhibitors, a large number of whom were also against postponing the trade fair once again.

Many companies are currently struggling with the economic impact of the corona pandemic and trade fair participation is thus not at the top of their priority list. Beyond this, health protection and preventing the spread of infection continue to play a central role as well. As a result, face-to-face contact and travel are being restricted to absolutely necessary interaction. Whats more, companies prohibit trade fair visits in some cases and international travel is still subject to strict limits. The requirements stipulated in the planned Corona Regulation for Trade Fairs issued by Baden-Wurttembergs state government are a further significant reason for deciding against holding PaintExpo 2020.

We now intend to devote all of our energy to preparing the next regularly scheduled PaintExpo in order to provide the industry sector with the best possible conditions for successful trade fair participation, the statement added.

The next worlds leading trade fair for industrial coating technology will take place at the Karlsruhe Exhibition Centre from April 26 through 29, 2022.--TradeArabia News Service
 Flash

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday respectively sent congratulatory letters to the eighth meeting of the dialogue mechanism between the ruling parties of China and Russia, held via video link.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, expressed his warm congratulations on the meeting.

He said since the outbreak of COVID-19, China and Russia have supported and helped each other, and worked together to tide over the difficulties and oppose external interferences, giving new strategic connotations to bilateral cooperation, fully demonstrating the profound friendship between the two peoples, and reflecting the high level and distinctiveness of China-Russia relations in the new era.
The safety of the artists and patrons is central to every decision, Rutter said. Its so difficult . . . anticipating what you can or cannot do, she said. It would be a lot easier to say, Were closing the place down. Call us when its safe to reopen. But we need to have something to look forward to, that sense of shared experience, even if the shared experience is in a huge space and [everyone is] six feet apart.
KYODO NEWS - Jul 23, 2020 - 21:26 | Feature, All, Coronavirus, Japan

As Japanese couples return to tying the knot, a major Japanese wedding service provider has compiled guidelines to minimize the risk of spreading the coronavirus.

Watabe Wedding Corp., which resumed holding weddings in Japan in June following the lifting of a state of emergency in late May, hopes its more than 100 protocols for planning and holding wedding ceremonies and receptions will help reassure customers.

The new rules include disinfecting rental wedding gowns tried on by brides-to-be after each use.

On the wedding day, a makeup artist wearing a mask and face shield will use disposable brushes and sponges to color the bride's lips and around her eyes, as the virus can be transmitted through contact with mucous membranes.

When the couple exchange rings at the ceremony, the rings will have been placed in advance on a mounting to avoid being handled by a third person.

The guests will be asked to maintain social distancing and refrain from filling each other's glasses -- a common practice in parties in Japan -- at the reception.

The Kyoto-based firm also offers wedding services in various overseas locations, including Hawaii, Guam, Australia, Italy and Singapore.

Watabe Wedding said it plans to introduce the new protocols at its facilities overseas as well once people resume holding wedding ceremonies abroad in accordance with eased travel restrictions imposed by governments to contain the virus spread.

"We hope we can make each wedding a memorable day for the bride and groom while ensuring the health of the attendees is protected," said a company official.

Related coverage:

Bamboo lanterns lit up in hope of end to virus outbreak, disasters

Single-use masks, coronavirus waste end up polluting ocean

Japan reports record virus infections for 2nd day with over 830 cases
As the date for the bhoomi pujan ceremony for the proposed Ram Mandir at Ayodhya approaches nearer, the Shiv Sena has demanded dismissal of the Babri Masjid demolition case before the event takes off. It would be a true homage to martyrs of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, the party has said.

Its an irony that while the foundation for the Ram Mandir is being laid, the Babri Masjid demolition case is still going on against several people including Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. Even after the Supreme Court has delivered the verdict on Ram Janmabhoomi, the CBI continues with the Babri case and Advani, who was the prime leader of Ayodhya movement, appears in it as an accused, the Shiv Sena said in an editorial in party mouthpiece Saamana on Wednesday.

When you accept Babar was an aggressor, the Babri case itself becomes obsolete. If the Babri mosque demolition case is dismissed before the bhoomi pujan of the Ram Mandir, it would be a homage to the martyrs of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, the Sena said.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led party claimed that the Mughal emperor Babar was connected with Ayodhya only through invasion. Babar, who came from Uzbekistan, demolished several Hindu temples. He did not even spare Ram Janmabhoomi. The Babri encroachment was demolished by lakhs of Karsevaks, who were from Shiv Sena and others, it added.

Had the domes of Babri not been razed, the Ram Janmabhoomi premises would have never been liberated. The day Babri Masjid was pulled down, the world saw that faces of many warriors turned black with fear. We haven't done this, this is the job of Shiv Sena, the then BJP vice president Sundar Singh Bhandari had said. On this, Balasaheb Thackeray thundered in Mumbai that if his Sainiks had indeed done it, he was proud of them. Since then, he was adored by people as Hinduhridaysamrat, said the Sena.

The Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was demolished on December 6, 1992 by Karsevaks. A special CBI court has charged BJP leaders Mr Advani and Mr Joshi, who were leading the Ram Mandir movement at that time, with criminal conspiracy in the Babri Masjid demolition case. It has set July 24 for recording the statement of Mr Advani in the case through video conferencing.
MBABANE - The Ministry of Education and Training has lost an educator to a COVID-19-related sickness.

Boy Magagula (53), who was a History teacher at Mdzimba High School, died on Tuesday while undergoing treatment at Lubombo Referral Hospital where he had been quarantined.

It is worth noting that this is the first teacher to die due to a COVID-19- related sickness. Magagulas death comes at a time when the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) has taken government, the Ministry of Education and Training in particular, to court over the reopening of schools.

Reopening

The teachers association is against the reopening of schools amid the spread of COVID-19. Ever since the application was filed in court, the association has been arguing that schools were not ready to reopen. According to an impeccable source, the deceased educator started having flu-like symptoms on the week of June 29, 2020. This is when teachers were ordered to return to schools and assist with preparations for the reopening, which was set for July 6, 2020. The source said Magagula reported for work on Monday, June 29, 2020 and worked the whole day.

However, he said on the following day (Tuesday, June 30, 2020) Magagula fell sick and decided to seek medical attention after work. According to the source, he went to Hhukwini Clinic where he was given cold and flu medication, which he took and continued to go to school as he felt better. However, on Sunday, July 5, 2020, which was the day before schools reopened for Form V classes, the source said the educator relayed that his situation had worsened.

Decision

As a result, the source said, he took a decision to go to hospital. This was after he had sought the assistance of the Emergency Medical Services (EMS), popularly known as 977.

The paramedics, who according to the Ministry of Health are designated to attend to COVID-19-related emergencies, did not respond to his call for assistance. After not getting assistance from EMS, the teacher is said to have requested a colleagues help. The fellow teacher took him to Mbabane Government Hospital where he was admitted and put on oxygen therapy upon arrival. Later on, the source said, the educator was tested for COVID-19 and his test results reflected that he was infected with the virus.
The Oyo State Government and the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have disagreed over Governor Seyi Makindes plan to borrow N100 billion to finance some road projects in the state.

The Oyo State Executive Council had on Tuesday approved the issuance of a N100 billion private bond tagged Oyo Prosperity Bond to facilitate the execution of priority projects that will further drive economic development in the state.

Information commissioner, Wasiu Olatubosun, who made this disclosure after the states weekly executive council virtual meeting, said the fund would be raised in two tranches of N50 billion each.

They would be for the construction of the 50 kilometre Iseyin-Ogbomoso road, the Ibadan Circular Ring-Road and Ibadan Airport upgrade.

The fund will also cover the development of Ibadan Dry Port and rail corridor which he said would serve as economic hub of the state.

He said the state would construct and upgrade one government hospital in each of the three senatorial districts of the state.

Considering the infrastructural needs of Oyo State to enhance its economic potentials, the state government has approved the issuance of private bond tagged Oyo Prosperity Bond to facilitate the execution of priority projects with a view to raising one hundred billion Naira, which is to be raised in two tranches of fifty billion Naira each.

The state government has approved Oyo State Prosperity Bond to allow for quick completion of these iconic priority projects. The construction of Iseyin  Ogbomoso Road is very important because when completed, it will serve as a link road and help to save many hours spent on traveling and the lives of commuters, who daily experience vehicular accidents on various roads that link the already dilapidated Ogbomoso Road, he said.

APC kicks

But the major opposition political party in the state, the APC, has kicked against the decision.

Its publicity secretary, AbdulAzeez Olatunde, said the loan plan is laughable, misleading and undoubtedly shows signs of no foresight.

Mr Olatunde asked the state government to liaise with the federal government instead of borrowing money.

His statement reads in part:

Here was a Governor who promised to take Oyo State finances away from relying on federal government monthly allocation within 6-12 months of assumption of office.

This is the Governor who bragged in his inauguration address of exporting maize to Botswana to attract foreign exchange to boost Oyo States Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and infact a lot of campaign lies to get peoples votes.

Theres nothing bad in borrowing inasmuch there are commensurate projects that will fund the debts. How do we explain seeking N100 billion bond when we are yet to see anything tangible to point to for the already accrued N39.5 billion debts.

Oyo State Governments decision seeking to finance projects in the magnitude of the Ibadan Circular Road by directly seeking for loan is laughable, misleading and undoubtedly shows signs of no foresight.

Interestingly, there was a contractor in place as at 29th of May 2019 when Governor Makinde took over. The company, ENL Consortium, has committed about N7 billion to the Ibadan Circular Road project. Why revoking the contract which is based on Public Private Partnership (PPP) Model, and the government attempting to seek for loans to finance the same project?

Retrospectively, the governor who demonstrated his naivety in the business of governance on one of his visitations to the sites last year, ordered the contractor, ENL Consortium to stop work. It was when he was schooled that a government does not have power to stop work on a project its not financing, that the he had a rethink.

The federal government recently through the Minister of Works, H. E, Mr Babatunde Fashola (SAN) gave a standing order that the state governments shouldnt undertake projects under the federal governments purview, else the state concerned wont be paid for the projects. One can begin to ask, is Oyo State Government another Father Christmas, seeking to fund a project it wont be getting payment for?

State government reacts

Meanwhile, Mr Olatubosun has described the criticism from the APC as another exhibition of open hatred for the people of the state.

He said the bond will cover the development of Ibadan Dry Port as well as the upgrade of state hospitals in each of the senatorial districts in Oyo State.

He said the statement from the Oyo APC showed the insensitivity of the party leadership to the needs and yearnings of the people of the state.

It is so unfortunate that the APC that people massively voted against because of its selfish and mercantile approach to governance, claimed the federal government has stopped all states from embarking on federal projects when they know it is our people that are suffering for it.

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The Ibadan Circular Ring-Road, upgrade of Ibadan Airport and the development of the Dry Port are for the promotion of commercial activities in the state; whereas the APC administration could have done it when it was in power, but, instead, decided to emulate the slave-driver approach which turned the people against it.

Governor Seyi Makinde was voted in with massive votes from the common people who believed and still believe in him and not mercantile, cash and carry approach which failed the APC.

The governor has always toed the path of honour in his programmess, policies and actions; he has the interests of the common masses at heart; and these projects are representative of that fact. How easy could it have been if COVID-19 had not affected the global economy.

Oyo APC is in the know about the humongous borrowings by the federal government, purportedly, to support infrastructural projects but do not see anything bad in that. Governor Makinde has turned the corner in the pursuit of good governance and, therefore, would not be deterred by baseless and asinine criticisms.
The U.S. government will pay $1.95 billion to American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German biotech firm BioNTech SE for 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine if they succeed in developing one.

The companies said separately Wednesday they reached agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Defense Department to deliver a vaccine they are developing jointly, the latest in a series of similar agreements with other vaccine companies.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar said during an interview with Fox News Wednesday the U.S. could buy 500 million additional doses of the vaccine provided they are safe and effective.

The deal announced Wednesday is part of President Donald Trumps Operation Warp Speed initiative, which hopes to deliver 300 million doses of an approved vaccine by January 2021.

Of the coronavirus vaccines under development worldwide, about two dozen have reached the human trial stage.

The vaccine Pfizer and BioNTech are developing has shown promise in small, early stage human trials and is expected to be tested in a large trial.

The companies said they hope to be ready to seek some type of regulatory approval as early as October if ongoing studies of the vaccine are successful and expect to deliver up to 100 million doses by the end of 2020.
HARTFORD, Conn. The Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a sanction against Infowars host Alex Jones over an angry outburst on his web show against an attorney for relatives of some of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, who are suing him for defamation.

The court issued a 7-0 decision rejecting Jones claims that his comments aimed at attorney Christopher Mattei were protected by free speech rights, and upholding a lower courts ruling that Jones violated numerous orders to turn over documents to the families lawyers.

The lower court judge barred Jones from filing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, as a penalty for his actions.

The families of eight victims of the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, and an FBI agent who responded to the massacre are suing Jones, Infowars and others for promoting a theory that the shooting was a hoax. A 20-year-old gunman killed 20 first-graders, six educators and himself at the school, after having killed his mother at their Newtown home.

The families said they have been subjected to harassment and death threats from Jones followers because of the hoax conspiracy.

Jones, whose show is based in Austin, Texas, has since said he believes the shooting occurred.

The sanction came after Jones, on Infowars last year, accused Mattei of planting child pornography that was found in email metadata files that Jones turned over to the Sandy Hook families lawyers. Jones lawyer, Norman Pattis, has said the pornography was in emails sent to Jones that were never opened.

Youre trying to set me up with child porn, Jones said on the show. One million dollars, you little gang members. One million dollars to put your head on a pike.

Jones mentioned Mattei by name and pounded on a picture of Mattei while saying, Im gonna kill  Anyway Im done. Total war. You want it, you got it.

In Thursdays decision, Connecticut Chief Justice Richard Robinson wrote, We recognize that there is a place for strong advocacy in litigation, but language evoking threats of physical harm is not tolerable.

A message seeking comment was left for Pattis.

Sandy Hook families sued Jones and others in several states for defamation related to the hoax conspiracy.

Last year in one of the lawsuits, a Texas judge ordered Jones to pay $100,000 in legal fees and refused to dismiss the suit. And a jury in Wisconsin awarded $450,000 to one of the parents in his lawsuit against conspiracy theorist writers, not including Jones, who claimed the massacre never happened.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
She's been enjoying the sunshine while spending time with her family in France during the coronavirus pandemic.

And Natasha Poly looked effortlessly chic as she flaunted her toned legs in a pair of denim shorts while at the Club 55 in St Tropez on Thursday.

The Russian model, 34, appeared to be in good spirits as she walked barefoot on the sand and rocked a pair of black statement sunglasses.

Glowing: Natasha Poly, 34, looked effortlessly chic as she strolled outside Club 55 in a pair of ripped denim shorts with her husband Peter Bakker and daughter in St Tropez on Thursday

Natasha completed her laid-back ensemble with a white boxy t-shirt which boasted low slits at the side, giving a further glimpse at her toned physique.

She was joined on the outing by her husband Peter Bakker and their eldest child, seven-year-old daughter Aleksandra.

Earlier on Thursday Natasha also put on a leggy display as she stepped out to buy some new toys with her son Adrian Grey, 15 months.

She looked fantastic in another pair of denim shorts, which didn't have rips on the front, and a light blue shirt as she pushed her little boy's stroller.

Style: She completed her laid-back ensemble with a white boxy t-shirt and large black belt

Chic: The mother-of-two tied her long blonde locks back into a low ponytail

Natasha kept things casual in her double-denim ensemble, perfect for running errands with her young son.

The blonde beauty wore her long locks down and slightly wavy as she walked around St Tropez and stocked up on toys for her children.

Not forgetting to accessorise, Natasha slung a small black bag across her body and donned a pair of chic statement sunglasses.

She was joined on the outing by her husband Peter Bakker who looked stylish in a black t-shirt and white shorts.

Family outing: Natasha opted to go without footwear as she walked ahead of Peter and their little girl Aleksandra

Making memories: The family appeared to be in good spirits as they sat in a boat on Thursday

Looking good: Natasha also put on a leggy display as she stepped out to buy some new toys with her son Adrian Grey, 15 months, earlier on Thursday

Natasha has been in St Tropez for the past couple of weeks, but made sure to keep busy at home by participating in Carine Roitfeld's virtual charity runway at her Amsterdam home.

The blonde beauty raises her seven-year-old daughter Aleksandra and 15-month-old son Adrian Grey with her husband Peter.

The couple married during a lavish and romantic three-day wedding celebration in St Tropez, France, in 2011.

Stocking up: Natasha was joined by her husband Peter, with the parents both holding onto new toys

Casual: The Russian model looked fantastic in a long sleeved light blue shirt as she pushed her little boy's stroller around the marina and shops

Beauty: Natasha wore her long blonde locks down for the outing and completed her ensemble with some trendy black sunglasses

In 2016, Natasha admitted she would support her daughter if she developed aspirations to be a model, as she already loves joining her on shoots.

She told Grazia Daily: 'She knows how to pose which is very funny. If she wanted to do it I would support and guide her through and offer her advice for whatever she'd like to do.'

Natasha, born Natalya Sergeyevna Polevshchikova, made her debut on the catwalk for Emanuel Ungaro in 2004.

Since then, she has done campaigns for designer labels including Fendi, Louis Vuitton, Alexander McQueen and Chanel, becoming one of the most in-demand models in the world.

Lucky boy! The mother-of-two appeared to show her youngest child Adrian some of the new toys as they walked close to the yachts

Casual: The model flaunted her toned pins in the laid-back ensemble and added a designer touch with a pair of Christian Dior slide on shoes
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell speaking to the press on Capitol Hill on 12 May, 2020: Getty Images

Senate Republicans and the White House have engaged in talks this week about extending the beefed-up unemployment benefits programme  which sends cash payments directly to Americans  installed this spring to mitigate the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis on people who have been laid off.

A stopgap extension of the programme  which expires at the end of July and has provided $600 per week to millions of laid-off Americans  would be the first piece of coronavirus legislation the Republican-controlled Senate has passed in months, after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided in May to hit "pause" on negotiations towards further relief.

"We're discussing that," Republican Lamar Alexander, Senate Health, Education, Labour and Pensions Committee chairman, told Bloomberg, which first reported the discussions between the Senate GOP and White House.

Senate GOP Conference Chairman John Barrasso told reporters a stopgap extension for the unemployment programme is in the works, but the question is length and price in total dollars.

In March, Congress approved $600 in federal relief per week for recently laid-off workers in addition to what states already provide them. Since the US unemployment rate soared to 14.7 per cent in April, it has inched back down to 11.1 per cent, still several points above what economists consider a healthy figure for the economy.

Before the pandemic, the US unemployment rate had hovered around a record low for the century of 3.5 per cent.

More follows...
By Dec. 8, each state is supposed to decide which partys slate of electors will cast that states electoral votes, reflecting the official ballot tally. But what if that tally is unclear or disputed? For years, people have worried about the problem of faithless electors, but the real problem this fall might be confusion and delay, said Jared Cohen, the author of Accidental Presidents. He points out that the 2020 election could prove to be a toxic combination of the elections of 1876 and 2000. In 1876, four states faced serious allegations of irregularities or fraud, and the situation was resolved by a backroom deal. In 2000, a dispute over Floridas ballots led the Supreme Court to intervene (in an unprecedented and highly controversial move), settling the election in favor of George W. Bush. What happens this fall will take place in the midst of the most polarized political climate in a century and with the hyper-accelerant of social media.
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Linkedin Dzulfiqar Fathur Rahman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 07:38 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668989de 1 Business SME,government,disbursement,PEN-pemulihan-ekonomi-nasional Free

The government has channeled Rp 11.84 trillion (US$809.1 million) from the COVID-19 stimulus package to small businesses and cooperatives as of Tuesday but conceded that it had been slow in disbursing the funds.

More than 1 million micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) and cooperatives will receive the stimulus, Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry data showed.

The disbursement is part of the governments national economic recovery (PEN) program, which will allocate Rp 123.46 trillion to aid small businesses and cooperatives amid the ongoing health crisis. Tuesdays figure made up only 9.59 percent of the total budget.

We acknowledge the slow progress, the ministrys secretary Rully Indrawan said in a statement on Tuesday. We are still trying to identify the obstacles. The programs introduction to the public has not been going very well.

According to ministry data, most of the stimulus was disbursed through state-owned banks in the form of debt restructuring funds, Rp 381.4 billion went to investment funds for 34 cooperatives through the Revolving Fund Management Agency (LPDB), while the remaining was used for interest subsidies for MSMEs via the microcredit program (KUR).

He added that the government aimed to disburse all the funds by September, expecting to accelerate spending with the issuance of the Finance Ministry's budget execution lists (DIPA).

The government has been working to accelerate the disbursement of COVID-19 response stimulus funds, totaling Rp 695.2 trillion, to cushion the economic impacts of the pandemic, after President Joko Jokowi Widodo criticized its slow progress.

Small and medium enterprises (SME), which contribute to more than half of the countrys gross domestic product (GDP), have been greatly affected by the pandemic, as Indonesias economic growth slowed to 2.97 percent in the first quarter of 2020.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani recently stated that the government was working on a plan to transfer working capital directly to MSMEs that have yet to receive access to financing from banks.

It has also disbursed credit insurance premiums worth Rp 5 trillion to state-owned credit insurers PT Jaminan Kredit Indonesia (Jamkrindo) and PT Asuransi Kredit Indonesia (Askrindo) to guarantee working capital loans of Rp 100 trillion and help MSMEs survive the pandemic.

The scheme will provide guarantees for banks that channel loans to MSMEs until November 2021, as well as cover loans with a ceiling of Rp 10 billion and a tenor of three years available for 60.6 million MSMEs from all business sectors.



State-owned Bank Mandiri, which received Rp 10 trillion in funds from the government to boost loan disbursement, is planning to increase its financing threefold in the next three months, according to Donsuwan Simatupang, the banks director of institutional relations.

The bank has channeled Rp 12 trillion in financing as of July 17, of which 25 percent went to 14,500 small businesses, Donsuwan said.



The bank utilizes a mobile app called Mandiri Pintar to facilitate small businesses wanting to apply for new productive microloans or top up their current productive loans.



This loan mobile app on Android is very practical because the application process can take place anywhere and anytime.



Tempeh seller Rasjeni, who has been selling the soy product for three decades in Depok, West Java, recently received Rp 150 million from Bank Mandiris KUR program.



She previously received an Rp 85 million loan from the program but had to apply for an additional loan to survive her businesss 50 percent decline in revenue as the pandemic has forced her customers, such as food stalls and vegetable traders, to temporarily close.



Almost all of them were closed, said Rasjeni. But thank God, my business has recovered and now I have four employees."
India saw 31 children die by suicide every day in 2020; experts say Covid upped psychological trauma

37-year-old TN man live streams suicide on facebook

India

pti-PTI

Coimbatore, July 23: A 37-year old man ended his life by hanging in his house, live-streaming the shocking act on social media in neighbouring Tirupur district, police said on Thursday.

Some people who watched the man's suicide on Wednesday on his Facebook page alerted his wife and police, but he was declared brought dead at a hospital, they said. K Ramkumar, a driver by profession and said to be an alcoholic, bolted the house door from inside and hung himself from a ceiling fan using a rope after switching on the live video option in Facebook around 1 pm on Wednesday.

Convict in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, Nalini attempts suicide in jail

Some locals who happened to see the shocking sequence informed the police and also the man's wife, working as a tailor in a knitwear unit in Tirupur town. She, in turn, alerted Tirupur police and the owner of their rented house. They rushed to the house, broke open the door and found the man hanging.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

He was rushed to the Tirupur Medical College Hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead, police said.

In a suicide note, purportedly written by him, Ramkumar had said no one was responsible for his death and he was not interested to live. Police said a case had been registered and further investigation was on.
NEW DELHI: In yet another strong message to China, India on Thursday said while New Delhi is fully committed to observing and respecting Line of Actual Control, it will not accept any attempt to change the status quo. Addressing a press conference in the national capital, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Anurag Shrivastava said, India is fully committed to observing and respecting Line of Actual Control and we will not accept any attempt to change the status quo.

The MEA official further said that it is our expectation that China will sincerely work with India for complete de-escalation and disengagement.

Maintenance of peace and tranquillity in border areas is the basis of our bilateral ties, the top-ranking MEA official said while referring to questions on the border row with China.

I have made clear the position of the Government as regards the situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) along the India-China border areas through a number of statements in the last several weeks. As conveyed earlier, respecting and strictly abiding by the LAC is the basis of peace and tranquillity in the border areas. Several agreements concluded by India and China since 1993 firmly acknowledge this. In my statement of June 26th, I had noted that the conduct of Chinese forces this year, including the deployment of a large body of troops and changes in behaviour, accompanied by unjustified and untenable claims, has been in complete disregard of all the mutual agreements. We have also made it clear that India is fully committed to observing and respecting the LAC and that we will not accept any unilateral attempts to change the status quo along the LAC, the MEA spokesperson said.

His remarks came in the wake of reports that China is not de-escalating situation at the LAC since no movement was seen in the past one week at Finger 5 and Pangong Lake areas.

The report quoting sources stated that the Chinese are also not honouring their commitment for disengagement at the friction points in Eastern Ladakh and not moving back as per the agreed terms during the multiple rounds of talks at the government and Army level.

"The Chinese have not shown any signs of de-escalation as they continue to maintain their heavy troop deployment of almost 40,000 troops supported by heavy weaponry like air defence systems, armoured personnel carriers and long-range artillery in front and depth areas," the report said quoting sources.

The disengagement process has also not made any progress since the last round of talks between the two Corps Commanders held last week and ground positions have also not changed, the sources said.

It has been found that the Indian and Chinese troops have pulled back at Pangong Lake by 2-km and Finger 4 is empty. However, the Chinese are still camping on the ridgeline. This clearly indicates that the Chinese had camped at Finger 4 that had traditionally been under the Indian control.

Srivastava added that the two sides have agreed during the conversation of the Special Representatives to work towards complete disengagement of the troops along the LAC and de-escalation from India-China border areas for full restoration of peace and tranquillity.

Both sides are engaged in discussions through the established diplomatic and military channels to achieve this objective expeditiously. I had informed last week that the 4th round of the meeting of the Senior Commanders was held on 14th July, where they also discussed further steps to ensure complete disengagement. In this context, another meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) is also expected to be scheduled soon. As we have stated earlier, the maintenance of peace and tranquillity in the border areas is the basis of our bilateral relationship. Therefore, it is our expectation that the Chinese side will sincerely work with us for complete disengagement and de-escalation and full restoration of peace and tranquillity in the border areas at the earliest as agreed to by the Special Representatives, the MEA official said.

To a question on connectivity with Bangladesh, he added, Today, we marked another historic achievement towards strengthening India Bangladesh maritime and economic partnership. The first time ever movement of container cargo from Kolkata to Agartala through the Chattogram Port was successfully concluded. The cargo was received this morning by Chief Minister of Tripura Shri Biplab Kumar Deb. With this, the distance and time taken in the transportation of goods for India particularly the northeastern states will get reduced. It will enhance business services and revenue generation in Bangladesh. The logistical sector will also get a big boost.

He further stated that this movement was undertaken under the Agreement on use of Chattogram and Mongla Ports for movement of Indias transit cargo through Bangladesh. The SOPs for this were finalized during the visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India in October 2019. This development is in line with the vision that the two countries have towards further strengthening bilateral connectivity and a mutually beneficial partnership aimed at benefitting people on both sides.

Srivastava also informed that over 7.88 lakh Indians stranded abroad due to coronavirus pandemic have returned under Vande Bharat Mission till July 22. Srivastava said 1,03,976 Indians who have returned from Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh through land borders

"As of July 22, under the Vande Bharat Mission a total of 7,88, 217 Indian Nationals have returned and this includes 1,03,976 Indians who have returned from Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh through land borders," he said.

The government started Vande Bharat Mission on May 7 to evacuate Indians stuck in foreign countries due to suspension of flights owing to coronavirus pandemic. The mission is in its fourth phase now.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

By Elnur Baghishov - Trend:

As many as 2,621 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, 221 more people have died from the coronavirus over the past day.

Sadat Lari added that the condition of 3,667 people is critical.

The official said that Iran's Fars, East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Razavi Khorasan, Alborz, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Golestan, Kerman, Zanjan, and Ilam provinces are red zones.

So far, more than 2.25 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 284,000 people have been infected and 15,074 people have already died. Meanwhile, over 247,200 have reportedly recovered from the disease.

The country continues to apply strict measures to contain the further spread. Reportedly, the disease was brought to Iran by a businessman from Iran's Qom city, who went on a business trip to China, despite official warnings. The man died later from the disease.

The Islamic Republic only announced its first infections and deaths from the coronavirus on Feb. 19.

The outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan - which is an international transport hub - began at a fish market in late December 2019.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019.
Mr. Marricke Kofi Gane, an Independent Presidential Aspirant for the 2020 General Election has stated his commitment to discourage and stop corruption and indiscipline in the governance structure of political parties.



He, therefore, appealed to Ghanaians to vote for him in the December polls to sanitize the system and promote rapid socio-economic growth.



I will jail you as the President because that is my duty and visit you as a brother because that is what I have to do.



I have the issue of accountability at heart and I have no fear or favour in dealing with corruption. If anyone fails on corruption in office, the person will be sacked. If there is no discipline at the top, then there is no moral right to bring that to the bottom.



Mr Gane said this on Thursday in Accra when he officially launched his movement's manifesto for the General Election, dubbed, The Ghanaian Agenda.



The theme for the manifesto is; Investing in Citizens and Building a Ghana that Works for All of Us, Not Just a Few.



The movement, called Ghana Deserves Better, has a campaign tagline, Gane4Ghana and a slogan, Time No Dey.



Mr Gane, who is a professional Accountant, said he had no intention of appointing more than 50 ministers when elected into power.



He said his government would enforce sanitation laws and ensure that through public private partnership, plants were built to recycle city-based wastes generated into energy and for other useful purposes.



Mr Gane said, plans were underway to build a technical ground plan to construct large drains within a year in office, adding that his movement had also developed the Sankofa Project to identify every pit that was dug as a result of galamsey practices and convert them to farm lands or sites for river bodies.



The Independent Presidential Aspirant, said he deserved the support of the citizens, as he was the candidate concerned with working with professionals and competent people, no matter their political affiliation or religious background.



I am different because I would be a President who is free from party manipulations and ready to work with anyone competent.



An executive with a minimal political interference, a President whose allegiance is not to his party, religion, ethnic group, but to all people in the country, he added.



Mr Gane also believed the youth was not only the future of the nation, but the most important assets that the nation needed to protect and help to grow.



He said he would therefore change the nations learning philosophy from what to learn and how to learn to a practical, technological, and entrepreneurial form of learning in schools under his government.



Mr Gane said his government would invest hugely in citizen multi-skilling; production, construction, entrepreneur, agriculture, basic technology and customer care, for one to 300,000 participants over a four-year period.



All national youth, employment, and entrepreneurship schemes would also be consolidated for efficiency.



Mr Gane said said Gane4Ghana, would move the health sector from a funeral economy to a preventive primary healthcare system and provide free menstrual pads for girls between 10 to 20 years in school, who could not afford it.



Mr Michael Kafui Bosompem, the Executive Director of the Coalition of Independent Political Aspirants, endorsed the manifesto and said, The Ghanaian Agenda manifesto, would become a beacon of hope for the born and unborn Ghanaian child.

Source: GNA









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Texas AG Prohibits Government from Closing Religious Schools

NEWS PROVIDED BY

Liberty Counsel

July 22, 2020



AUSTIN, Texas, July 22, 2020 /Christian Newswire/ -- The attorney general of Texas has ordered local authorities to cease any attempts to shut down faith-based private schools, stating that those institutions are protected by both the U.S. Constitution and Texas statute.

In a public letter Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote, "Under the Governor's orders, local governments are prohibited from closing religious institutions or dictating mitigation strategies to those institutions. Local governments are similarly prohibited from issuing blanket orders closing religious private schools."

The Texas Education Agency has ordered that public schools in the state may delay in-person instruction for up to two months in the fall.

Paxton said that regarding the state's efforts to reopen public schools in the fall, "local public health officials have begun to issue orders restricting or limiting in-person instruction" in private schools. In the letter, the attorney general said that "religious private schools and institutions" are exempt from those regulations and that attempts to "restrict the provision of religious instruction through religious private schools" violate both the federal and state constitutions as well as the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

"Because a local order closing a religious private school or institution is inconsistent with the governor's order, any local order is invalid to the extent it purports to do so. The Governor of Texas rightfully identified access to 'religious services' as essential services, which must remain open even when other aspects of our communities must close to mitigate the spread of the virus. Religious private schools and religiously affiliated private schools should utilize prior joint guidance on mitigation strategies for houses of worship issued by the Governor and Attorney General," said AG Paxton.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, "I am pleased to see Texas Attorney General Paxton reminding local government of the Constitution. Many have operated as though the Constitution is quarantined during a pandemic. But I have news - the Constitution is alive and well."

Liberty Counsel provides broadcast quality TV interviews via Hi-Def Skype and LTN at no cost.



SOURCE Liberty Counsel



CONTACT: Mat Staver, 407-875-1776, Liberty@LC.org



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That court order is one of the most substantive consequences of the protests that erupted in late 2015 after the release of video of white Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting Black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times. That spurred a Justice Department investigation that castigated the police in January 2017 as poorly trained, badly supervised and prone to excessive force. The report helped make way for the consent decree now being implemented under the supervision of a federal judge.
We can put a victim on a stretcher, and lay the stretcher in the basket, Stickels said. A crane lowers them to the ground. A firefighter can be in the basket with them. Its better to have the firefighter with (a victim) during the rescue. They descend gently. They dont have to walk down 100 steps of a ladder anymore.
Statues honoring Confederate leaders such as Gen. Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis could be removed from the Capitol following a House of Representatives vote.

Seventy-two Republicans and one Libertarian joined the Democrats in passing the legislation arguing that the memorials to white men who sought to keep African Americans enslaved should no longer be lauded in Congress.

The House vote also would remove a bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the author of the 1857 Dred Scott decision that declared African Americans couldn't be citizens.

The bill directs the Architect of the Capitol to identify and eventually remove from Statuary Hall at least 12 statues honoring Confederate officials, including Lee, the commanding general of the Confederate Army, and Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president.

Three statues honoring white supremacists - including former U.S. Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina - would be immediately removed.

The House has approved a bill to remove statues of Gen. Robert E. Lee (pictured in 2020) and other Confederate leaders from the U.S. Capitol, as a reckoning over racial injustice continues following the police killing of George Floyd , a Black man, in Minneapolis

Democrat Karen Bass from California said: 'Just imagine what it feels like as an African American to know that my ancestors built the Capitol, but yet there are monuments to the very people that enslaved my ancestors. These individuals do not deserve to be honored.'

And Democrat Bennie Thompson from Mississippi said: 'It is fitting and proper that those individuals who fought to keep many of our ancestors enslaved should not have to be recognized in a place where people who do good expect to be recognized.

'This is not a way of erasing history. It is a way of correcting history.'

The House approved the bill 305-113, sending it to the Republican-controlled Senate, where prospects are uncertain.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has previously rejected efforts to 'airbrush the Capitol' and believes the decision on statues should be left up to the states, which get to send two statues each to display at the Capitol.

Seventy-two Republicans, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, joined with 232 Democrats to support the bill.

The House vote comes as communities nationwide reexamine the people they're memorializing with statues. Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month ordered that the portraits of four speakers who served the Confederacy be removed from the ornate hall just outside the House chamber.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said the statues honoring Lee and other Confederate leaders are 'deliberate attempts to rewrite history and dehumanize African Americans.?

In this March 9, 2020 file photo, a marble bust of Chief Justice Roger Taney is displayed in the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the U.S. Capitol in Washington. The House has voted to remove from the U.S. Capitol a bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the author of the 1857 Dred Scott decision that declared African Americans couldn't be citizens

The statues 'are not symbols of Southern heritage, as some claim, but are symbols of white supremacy and defiance of federal authority,' Lee said. 'It's past time we end the glorification of men who committed treason against the United States in a concerted effort to keep African Americans in chains.'

Bills to remove the Taney bust and the statues of Confederate leaders have been introduced in the Senate, although they would require separate votes.

Even if legislation passes both chambers, it would need the president's signature, and President Donald Trump has opposed the removal of historic statues elsewhere. Trump has strongly condemned those who toppled statues during protests over racial injustice and police brutality following Floyd's death in May and other police killings.

The 2-foot-high marble bust of Taney is outside a room in the Capitol where the Supreme Court met for half a century, from 1810 to 1860. It was in that room that Taney, the nation's fifth chief justice, announced the Dred Scott decision, sometimes called the worst decision in the court's history.

'What Dred Scott said was, Black lives did not matter,' Hoyer said. 'So when we assert that yes they do matter, it is out of conviction ... that in America, the land of the free includes all of us.'

This statue of Jefferson Davis was given to the National Statuary Hall Collection by Mississippi in 1931 (right). The statue of John Caldwell Calhoun was given to the National Statuary Hall Collection by South Carolina in 1910 (left)

There's at least one potentially surprising voice for Taney to stay. Lynne M. Jackson, Scott's great-great-granddaughter, says if it were up to her, she'd leave Taney's bust where it is. But she said she'd add something too: a bust of Dred Scott.

'I'm not really a fan of wiping things out,' Jackson said in a telephone interview this week from her home in Missouri.

The president and founder of The Dred Scott Heritage Foundation, Jackson has seen other Taney sculptures removed in recent years, particularly in Maryland, where he was the state's attorney general before becoming U.S. attorney general and then chief justice.

Calhoun, who served as vice president from 1825-1832, also was a U.S. senator, House member and secretary of state and war. He died a decade before the Civil War, but was known as a strong defender of slavery, segregation and white supremacy.

His statue would be removed within 30 days of the bill's passage, along with two other white supremacists, former North Carolina Gov. Charles Aycock and James Clarke, a former Arkansas governor and senator.

In the summer of 2017, shortly after white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the removal of a statue of Lee, Baltimore's mayor removed statues of Lee, Taney and others.A statue of Taney was removed from the grounds of the State House in Annapolis around the same time. And a bust of Taney was removed that year from outside city hall in Frederick, Maryland.

Another Taney bust sits alongside all other former chief justices in the Supreme Court's Great Hall, a soaring, marble-columned corridor that leads to the courtroom. A portrait of Taney hangs in one of the court's conference rooms.

Jackson said she believes that what memorials honoring figures like Taney need is context. At the Capitol, the Taney statue sits in the 'place where the Dred Scott case was decided,' but the fact he is 'there by himself is lopsided,' Jackson said in suggesting a bust of Scott be added. She had proposed a similar fix for the Taney statue in Annapolis.

In Congress, Taney's bust was controversial from the start. When Illinois Sen. Lyman Trumbull proposed its creation in 1865, shortly after Taney's death, he got into a heated debate with Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner, a fierce opponent of slavery.

'Let me tell that senator that the name of Taney is to be hooted down the page of history. Judgment is beginning now,' Sumner said. 'And an emancipated country will fasten upon him the stigma which he deserves.'

Funding for a Taney bust wasn't approved until almost a decade later. Today, near the Taney bust, inside the old Supreme Court chamber, there are also busts of the nation's first four chief justices. The first, John Marshall, is the only person to serve as chief justice longer than Taney and a revered figure in the law.
US Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responds to Rep Ted Yoho's remarks about her from the floor of the House of Representatives on 23 July 2020

US Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez delivered a speech condemning Republican lawmaker Ted Yoho, who has been accused of accosting the New York Democrat and calling her a "f***ing b***" on the steps of the House of Representatives.

Speaking from the House floor on Thursday, she said that his language reflects a "culture of lack of impunity, of accepting of violence and violent language against women, and an entire structure of power against women" including other abuses against her from Republican officials, including Donald Trump.

"This is not about one incident," she said. "Dehumanising language is now new, and what we are seeing is that incidents like these are happening in a pattern."

While she was prepared to endure his name-calling, she refused to defend the "excuses" made in his apology from the House floor on 22 July.

"I could not allow my nieces, I could not allow the little girls that I go home to, I could not allow victims of verbal abuse and worse to see that," she said. "To see that excuse and to see our Congress accept it as legitimate and accept it as an apology."

Several Democrats and Republicans in the House joined Rep Ocasio-Cortez to speak out against misogyny and the marginalisation of women in Congress and in the communities they represent.

"Mr Yoho mentioned that he has a wife and two daughters  I am two years younger than Mr Yoho's youngest daughter," she said. "I am someone's daughter, too. My father, thankfully, is not alive to see how Mr Yoho treated his daughter. My mother got to see Mr Yoho's disrespect."

She added that "when you do that to any woman," his comments "give permission to other men to do that to his daughters."

Rep Ocasio-Cortez said that "having a daughter does not make a man decent" and "having a wife does not make a decent man."

"Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man," she said.

Story continues

Minnesota Rep Ilhan Omar, who has faced routine attacks from right-wing media and elected officials, said one should respect women not just because of their relationship to men but "because they are an equal being to you."

"That's how my father raised me and how Alexandria's mother raised her," she said. "We will not allow sexism, misogyny and patriarchy to hold us back ... We will not apologise for advocating for women everywhere."

She said that an apology should show a genuine attempt to recognise and repair the harm done. Instead, "he gave permission to use that language against his wife, his daughters, women in his community, and I am here to stand up to say that is not acceptable," Rep Ocasio-Cortez said.

"I want to express to Mr Yoho ... gratitude. I want to thank him for showing the world that you can be a powerful man and accost women. You can have daughters and accost women without remorse. You can be married and accost women."

The controversy began when Rep Yoho approached the New York lawmaker as she was making her way into the House to vote on Tuesday. A reporter for The Hill overheard his exchange, in which he called her "disgusting" for suggesting that poverty and mass unemployment has contributed to a spike in crime.

"You are out of your freaking mind," Rep Yoho told her, according to the outlet.

She responded by calling his remarks "rude"  he called her a "f***ing b****" as he walked away, The Hill said.

Asked about his remarks, Texas Rep Roger Williams, who walked alongside Rep Yoho, said: "I was thinking about some issues I've got in my district that need to get done."

On Thursday, Rep Ocasio-Cortez called on other Republicans, including Rep Williams, to condemn the Florida lawmaker's remarks.

"But why is this only happening from one party?" she said. "This should not be a partisan issue."

She also said that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the body's chief Republican, has not discussed his remarks with her.

Massachusetts Rep Ayanna Pressley echoed that the exchange was not limited to "one callous incident" but speaks to the the "structural conditions" enabling men to "normalise the marginalisation of women."

Longstanding US Rep Barbara Lee, who is black, said she has endured a "lifetime of insults, racism and sexism".

"This did not stop after being elected to public office," she said. "Women of colour are here to stay ... The impact of using this language, against anyone, dehumanises women and girls."

She said the exchange should serve as an example to "all the little girls who aspire to be who they are without being called disgusting names and barriers to keep their voices silent."

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that "there's no limit to the disrespect or the lack of acknowledgement of the strength of women. Nothing is more wholesome for our government, for our politics, for our country, than the increased participation of women. And women will be treated with respect."

Read more

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez set for second term and a bigger stage

Ted Yoho apologises to AOC after allegedly calling her 'f***ing bitch'

AOC responds to allegedly being called 'f***ing bitch' on Capitol Hill
By PTI

JAIPUR: Targeting Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Tuesday said the audio clips which indicate an alleged plot to topple his government can be sent abroad for forensic tests.

Without taking the minister's name, Gehlot questioned why he is not coming forward to give a voice sample.

Rejecting the charge that the audio clips are fabricated, he said they can be sent to any forensic science laboratory for examination.

We can send it for FSL testing to America if they have no trust in the Rajasthan government, he said, adding that the Congress also did not trust the Centre.

"Why is he not giving a voice test? He should come forward for it," the chief minister said, in an apparent reference to Shekhawat whom the party has accused of trying to lure Congress MLAs.

Shekhawat has denied the charge that it his voice on tape.
He has reportedly broken up with Maxim model Tina Louise. And Brian Austin Green showed her what she was missing this Wednesday, flaunting his summer body on the beach.

The 47-year-old Beverly Hills, 90210 star was joined by the children he shares with his estranged wife Megan Fox.

The actor seemed to be in great spirits as he modeled a full beard as well as an array of tattoos.

Single again: Brian Austin Green showed Tina Louise what she was missing this Wednesday, flaunting his summer body on the beach

He and Megan welcomed three children into the world during their decade-long marriage - Noah, seven, Bodhi, six, and Journey, three.

Brian went shirtless as he frolicked across the sand on Wednesday, showing off his tattoos, including 'Green' in Japanese on his chest.

The Hollywood favorite wore a pair of navy swim trunks, accessorizing the look with a watch and a pair of Ray-Ban shades.

A few years ago he spoke to Dax Shepherd on Hollywood Pipeline and defended his and Megan's decision to let Noah wear dresses.

Having a ball: The 47-year-old Beverly Hills 90210 star was joined by the children he shares with his estranged wife Megan Fox

His three kids: He and Megan Fox welcomed three children into the world during their decade-long marriage - Noah, seven, Bodhi, six, and Journey, three

'So yeah, my son, you know, he's four and I've heard from some people that they don't agree - they don't agree with him wearing dresses. To them I say, you know, I don't care. He's four and if he wants to wear it, then he wears it,' said Brian.

Brian started running around with the leggy Australian model but the dynamic duo called it quits this week, according to TMZ.

Tina is said to have wanted a deeper commitment than Brian was ready for, inasmuch as he is fresh off the breakup of his marriage.

She was also apparently worn down by the trolling she received on social media from fans of Brian and Megan.

Family matters: The star held on to one of his children by the shore as the waves crashed

The day Brian was first spotted having lunch with Tina, Courtney Stodden posted a throwback clip of herself apparently getting cozy in a hot tub with him.

He then spoke to reporters in a video obtained by DailyMail.com, calling Tina 'really cool' but denying that they were romantically involved.

'Courtney, super nice...but disappointing,' he said, insisting: 'I was just trying to be a nice guy, I shot a video for her friend Ashley, saying hello.'

Brian, who was seen in mid-June out to lunch with Courtney, said the hot tub video was taken 'a month-plus ago, that was back when the pictures of her and I came out.'

Details: Brian went shirtless as he frolicked across the sand this Wednesday, showing off his tattoos, including 'Green' in Japanese on his chest

On May 18 amid rumors of her fling with Machine Gun Kelly, Brian emotionally revealed on an his podcast ...With Brian Austin Green that Megan had left him.

Megan has rebounded with the slender blond rapper and is currently lapping up the luxury with him at a resort in Puerto Rico.

They are there to shoot their movie Midnight In The Switchgrass, which began filming in Puerto Rico this March shortly before the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Blonde bombshell: He has reportedly broken up with Maxim model Tina Louise (pictured), whom he began running around with last month

Now the cast are quarantining at the resort before they restart filming, Megan and Machine Gun Kelly's co-star Emile Hirsch revealed on Instagram last weekend.

She previously filed for divorce from Brian in 2015 citing irreconcilable differences, but she was back with him and pregnant with Journey the following year.

Three years after they got back together, Megan took the legal step of filing to dismiss the divorce petition last April.
By Ayya Lmahamad

Azerbaijan will automize Hydrological observations and stations on rivers, Deputy Head of the Hydrometeorological Service of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources Vasif Aliyev said on July 22.

Aliyev said that the marked decline in water availability in the main waterways of Azerbaijan calls for accurate hydrological monitoring of the rivers. Automization of hydrological observations on rivers is linked to this.

Aliyev stated that the modernization of the observation network will allow timely and accurate assessment of the current situation, which in turn will be the basis for proper planning of water consumption.

Moreover, he emphasized that a task was set to equip all hydrological stations of the Ministry with the latest equipment as soon as possible.

"For the first time in the history of hydro-meteorology of Azerbaijan, automation of hydrological stations is carried out, and for this purpose, taking into account the geographical characteristics of the territory, its importance for various areas of national economy, it is planned to install 17 sets of equipment in certain points," Aliyev said.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Each man knew his killer, detectives believe.

Both a 35-year-old gunned down on a West Brighton street corner in broad daylight and a 25-year-old shot to death inside a Mariners Harbor deli 10-hours later were targeted and killed Wednesday as a result of simmering disputes with individuals they knew, according to a law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigations.
Kochi: The Kerala government is seriously mulling over imposing another round of complete lockdown in the state as the number of Covid-19 fresh cases per day has crossed 1000 mark.

The state cabinet will take a final decision in this regard on Monday.

Though chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan mentioned the need for re-imposing lockdown to put brakes on the spiralling cases of locally transmitted Covid-19 cases, the cabinet meeting held today didnt take a decision on the matter.

The special cabinet meeting scheduled for Monday will review the situation in detail and discuss the proposal of the health department for another round of total lockdown, according to reports by regional media.

The Assembly session scheduled to begin on Monday has been suspended as several legislators have to reach Thiruvananthapuram from containment zones.

The chief minister will convene a meeting with representatives of all political parties on July 24 to discuss intensive measures for virus prevention and control. The meeting is likely to touch upon the proposal for complete lockdown. The chief minister will also meet the religious leaders to discuss the matter.

Though the health authorities stress the need for total lockdown citing the rapidly increasing locally transmitted cases, some of the cabinet members are not supporting the total lockdown citing its serious economic impacts, reports added.

While talking to media persons during the regular press conference on Covid-19 situation on Wednesday stressed the need for a possible total lockdown as the state is passing through an unprecedented situation.

However, Pinarayi Vijayan termed the situation under control with necessary resources like hospital beds, medicines, PPE kits, medical staff, and testing kits.

Kerala on Wednesday recorded the highest single-day spike of 1038 cases on Wednesday among whom 758 patients contracted the virus through local spread. Source of infection in 58 cases is unknown.

Situation in few districts like Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam and Kollam is alarming as several clusters of disease spread have been formed in these districts.
Editors note: This part of a series of profiles on cannabis brokers, in which Insurance Journal explores why and how these folks got into the business, the ups and downs of insuring cannabis, as well as a few tips for those interested in a little professional development.

Pizza and cannabis go well together. Thats probably become truism for a growing number of people, but few may know that as deeply as does Jesse Parenti.

Parenti is director of national programs for Woodland Hills, Calif.-based PCF Insurance Services and program director of Nine Point Strategies, its cannabis-focused insurance division, and PizzaSurance, its food and pizza delivery division.

The insurance veteran of 15 years was formerly the programs director for Stratton Agency before it was acquired by PCF Insurance services. At the time, his specialty was hospitality, fine dining restaurants, pizza and food delivery. Then he got into cannabis, and has been specializing in the industry for roughly five years.

Parenti is involved with several cannabis groups, including the National Cannabis Industry Association, and the California Cannabis Industry Association.

Parenti spoke with Insurance Journal about his experience as a cannabis broker.

Insurance Journal: Why did you get in the cannabis and insurance space?

Parenti: I have family and friends that have been cottage growers for over 20 years. Protecting and having them be able to have a legal farm was very exciting to know could happen. When we saw the opportunity that was happening in Colorado, Oregon, Washington and California, we went all in.

We were already licensed on all 50 states for our pizza and food delivery program, so implementation was pretty easy as states moved forward with some form of legalization. We wanted to be there from the beginning.

IJ: Has this been a good financial decision so far?

Parenti: It has been a game changer. I went from 100% food and delivery to 100% vertically integrated cannabis.

Bringing our best practices to cannabis concerning commercial auto and workers compensation, from what we built for food has made a major difference for us at Nine Point Strategies. These are two of the largest expenses for cannabis operators and we have built exclusive or proprietary markets for their needs.

IJ: Whats the hardest thing about the cannabis industry to deal with?

Parenti: Professional liability was already hard to place and now its becoming even harder with the markets tightening up for directors and officers and employment practice liability.

The unfortunate actions from some executives in cannabis have caused a lot of large lawsuits the last year with a few large MSOs and this has caused the market to respond. We dont see any relief anytime soon unfortunately.

IJ: What insurance product is the most difficult to obtain for your cannabis industry clients? Why?

Parenti: Outdoor crop is the most challenging thing we cant solve. There is no real product for outdoor cultivators to buy and have peace of mind. Indoor crop is offered, but it falls under property and applies to their perils for coverage.

We hope to develop a product over the next year with a carrier partner to solve this problem that is only growing as the marketplace expands nationally.

IJ: What two or three tips do you have for brokers entering the business of insuring cannabis?

Parenti: If you are serious about getting into cannabis/hemp risk management world, be 100% all in. You have lots to learn and you cant just try to write one here and there if you want to be successful. Like anything in the insurance world, specialization creates diversification.

Make sure to dedicate time on contracts, and the differences between carriers and exclusions. This is the world of cannabis and hemp and you either have coverage or you dont based on the exclusions and or warranties.

Topics Agencies Cannabis
PHILADELPHIA--The self-eating process in embryonic stem cells known as chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA) and a related metabolite may serve as promising new therapeutic targets to repair or regenerate damaged cells and organs, Penn Medicine researchers show in a new study published online in Science.

Human bodies contain over 200 different types of specialized cells. All of them can be derived from embryonic stem (ES) cells, which relentlessly self-renew while retaining the ability to differentiate into any cell type in adult animals, a state known as pluripotency. Researchers have known that the cells' metabolism plays a role in this process; however, it wasn't clear exactly how the cells' internal wiring works to keep that state and ultimately decide stem cell fate.

The new preclinical study, for the first time, shows how the stem cells keeps CMA at low levels to promote that self-renewal, and when the stem cell is ready, it switches that suppression off to enhance CMA, among other activities, and differentiate into specialized cells.

"It's an intriguing discovery in the field of stem cell biology and for researchers looking to develop therapies for tissue or organ regeneration," said senior author Xiaolu Yang, PhD, a professor of Cancer Biology at the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "We reveal two novel ways to potentially manipulate the self-renewal and differentiation of stem cells: CMA and a metabolite, known as alpha-ketoglutarate, that is regulated by CMA. Rationally intervening or guiding these functions could be a powerful way to increase the efficiency of regenerative medicine approaches."

Autophagy is a cell-eating mechanism necessary for survival and function of most living organisms. When cells self-eat, the intracellular materials are delivered to lysosomes, which are organelles that help break down these materials. There are a few forms of autophagy. However, unlike the other forms, which are present in all eukaryotic cells, CMA is unique to mammals. To date, the physiological role of CMA remains unclear.

Using metabolomic and genetic laboratory techniques on the embryonic stem cells of mice, the researchers sought to better understand significant changes that took place during their pluripotent state and subsequent differentiation.

They found that CMA activity is kept at a minimum due to two cellular factors critical for pluripotency--Oct4 and Sox2--that suppresses a gene known as LAMP2A, which provides instructions for making a protein called lysosomal associated membrane protein-2 necessary in CMA. The minimal CMA activity allows stem cells to maintain high levels of alpha-ketoglutarate, a metabolite that is crucial to reinforce a cell's pluripotent state, the researchers found.

When it's time for differentiation, the cells begin to upregulate CMA due to the reduction in Oct4 and Sox2. Augmented CMA activity leads to the degradation of key enzymes responsible for the production of alpha-ketoglutarate. This leads to a reduction in alpha-ketoglutarate levels as well as an increases in other cellular activities to promote differentiation. These findings reveal that CMA and alpha-ketoglutarate dictate the fate of embryonic stem cells.

Embryonic stem cells are often called pluripotent due to their remarkable ability to give rise to every cell type in the body, except the placenta and umbilical cord. Embryonic stem cells not only provide a superb system to study early mammalian development, but also hold great promise for regenerative therapies to treat various human disorders. The development of stem-cell based regenerative medicine therapies has rapidly increased in the last decade, with several approaches in studies shown to repair damaged heart tissue, replace cells in solid organ transplantation, and in some cases address neurological disorders.

"This newly discovered role of autophagy in the stem cell is the beginning of further investigations that could lead to researchers and physician-scientists to better therapies to treat various disorders," Yang said.

###

Penn co-authors of the study include the first author Yi Xu, a post-doctoral researcher in Yang's Lab, Yang Zhang and Sixiang Yu, also in Yang's lab, Lili Guo and Ian A. Blair of the department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, Mengyuan Kan of the department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics, as well as Juan C. Garcia-Canaveras and Joshua D. Rabinowitz of Princeton University.

The study was supported the National Institutes of Health (R01CA182675, R01CA184867, R01CA235760, and P30ES013508, and the Department of Defense (W81XWH-15-1-0678).

Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $7.8 billion enterprise.

The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top medical schools in the United States for more than 20 years, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $425 million awarded in the 2018 fiscal year.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center--which are recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report--Chester County Hospital; Lancaster General Health; Penn Medicine Princeton Health; and Pennsylvania Hospital, the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional facilities and enterprises include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, Penn Home Care and Hospice Services, Lancaster Behavioral Health Hospital, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, among others.

Penn Medicine is powered by a talented and dedicated workforce of more than 40,000 people. The organization also has alliances with top community health systems across both Southeastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey, creating more options for patients no matter where they live.

Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2018, Penn Medicine provided more than $525 million to benefit our community.
The migrant rescue ship Ocean Viking was detained on Wednesday over technical irregularities, Italy's coastguard said, a move blasted as "harassment" by the charity that runs the vessel.

The ship had been allowed to disembark at a Sicilian port on July 7, with 180 rescued migrants onboard transferred to another boat for a two-week coronavirus quarantine.

Those two weeks ended on Tuesday -- but the next day the Ocean Viking was immobilised.

The Italian coastguard said in a statement that an inspection had revealed "several technical and operational irregularities" and the ship was under "administrative detention" until they were corrected.

The unspecified problems were "of a nature likely to compromise not only the safety of the ship and its crew, but also of the people who have been and could be recovered onboard", it added.

The coastguard also referred to "violations of regulations aimed at protecting marine environment".

SOS Mediterranee, which charters the Ocean Viking, released a furious statement condemning "a blatant administrative harassment manoeuvre aimed at impeding our lifesaving work".

"Over the past three months, the same argument over safety has been systematically used by Italian authorities to detain four NGO ships," Frederic Penard, director of operations at the organisation, said in the statement.

"Why wasn't safety more of a concern to maritime authorities when, earlier this month, the Ocean Viking had to wait 11 days for a port to be assigned?"

The migrants -- mainly from Bangladesh, Eritrea, North Africa and Pakistan -- were picked up in four separate rescues in the Mediterranean on June 25 and 30.

Their disembarkment initially came as a relief, after a tense few days on the ship marked by migrants jumping overboard, a suicide attempt and bouts of violence.

The Ocean Viking resumed rescue operations on June 22 after a three-month halt because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Story continues

More than 100,000 migrants tried to cross the Mediterranean last year with more than 1,200 dying in the attempt, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The arrival of summer and more favourable conditions at sea may lead to an increase in attempts to cross the Mediterranean with the hope of arriving in Europe.

According to Italian news agency ANSA, customs officials rescued 90 migrants off the island of Lampedusa on Wednesday.

(AFP)
The chairman of the Madhya Pradesh Scheduled Caste Commission alleged on Wednesday that the BJP-led state government was harassing him as the body decided to probe the incident in Guna where a dalit couple allegedly consumed pesticide and another couple from the family was beaten up by police.

The commissions chairman Anand Ahirwar also claimed that he was not allowed to enter his office on Wednesday. The office, Ahirwar alleged, was locked after an order from the secretary, who said he had got the order to the effect from the state government.

Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan cancelled on March 25 all the appointments made on different state commissions and boards by previous Congress-led state government. I challenged the state governments order in the high court Jabalpur bench and got a stay on the governments order, said Ahirwar.

I was coming to office daily and discharging my duties. On July 16 and 17, I visited Guna to probe the matter in which a dalit couple allegedly consumed pesticide and other members of the family were beaten up by police during an anti-encroachment action of the district administration. The police booked all the family members including the couple who consumed pesticide. Police admitted the couple to the hospital but didnt provide any medical aid to those who were beaten up by police brutally, he added.

In the report, which I was about to submit to the state government on Wednesday, I recommended withdrawal of the criminal cases against the family and provide them with a ration card and also education to kids in the family. I also recommended that an FIR should be registered against the police. But before I could submit the report, the state government blocked my entry to my own office, said the Scheduled Caste Commission chairman.

Despite repeated attempts, tribal departments principal secretary Pallavi Jain Govil and commissioner Chandrashekhar Borkar couldnt be reached for their comments. They didnt respond to phone calls and text messages.

MP BJP spokesperson Rajnesh Agrawal said, If Anand Ahirwar has any genuine grudge against the government he can lodge a complaint to the government authorities but he seems to be more interested in politicising the issues for obvious reasons. The state government took immediate action in respect with Guna incident and an inquiry has been ordered but still he is trying to draw political mileage from the same.
Swiss Life Asset Managers unveils growth plans for its pan-European healthcare fund with a strong seed portfolio and promising pipeline. The companys European Healthcare fund has been designed to respond to structural demand for investment in the European healthcare sector in a locally targeted way. The strategy seeks to capitalise

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Snake breeders in a village in the northern province of Phu Tho have recorded heavy losses because of the negative impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nguyen Huu Thuat, a local resident from Tu Xa Village in Lam Thao District, said that all households which raise copperheads in the locality have sustained losses ranging from a few hundreds of millions of VND to around VND7 billion (USD304,347).





Snake farms in Tu Xa Village



In the 2010s, the village exported around 100 tonnes of snake per year at the price of VND700,000  800,000 (USD30.43-34.78) per kilo. The business helped many households to become wealthy.



In 2016, the village focused on exporting snakes and snake eggs to China. Many traders from Lang Son Province and Mong Cai Town in Quang Ninh Province came to the locality to buy. In 2018, the copperhead egg prices reached a peak with VND80,000 (USD3.47) each.



It took people two years to have snakes of between two and three kilos for export.



People in Tu Xa Village said that the copperhead and its eggs are used to make favourite dishes at Chinese wedding parties.



However, since the Covid-19 outbreak, the village has been battling challenges following the closure of border gates. Meanwhile, domestic consumption has also dropped as the country has not yet received international visitors, including Chinese due to epidemic prevention measures.



Thuat added that copperhead egg prices dramatically decreased with just around VND3,000 each from VND55,000 at the end of last year. Some households even throw the eggs into ponds or use them as their daily food.



The major feed for the snake is fish, chicken and ducks bought from different northern localities. Previously, snakes in Tu Xa were fed once every 4-5 days, but now, they are left to starve for dozens of days to save costs.



A quarter of snake breeding households in the village have abandoned the business or sold their house to repay loans. Dtinews
Photo: (Photo : Facebook/Riley Children's Health)

Two little boys who have been staying in an Indiana hospital for months received new hearts. Now, they can finally go home.

The staff at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis celebrated the exit of Teddy Gomez, 8, and Aidyn Isley, 4. According to a video on the hospital's Facebook page, the celebration happened on back-to-back days after the two little boy's successful heart procedures.

Special moment for the hospital

The moment was not only special for the little boys' families but also for the staff at the hospital. Elise Strohl, a heart center nurse, shared her thoughts. She said that they have a really hard job, so seeing the kids go home is most rewarding.

Amie Hastings, Teddy's mom, said that her son's homecoming is what they were hoping for almost one year. She said that they could not believe that after 11 months, her baby could go home. She jokingly said that she had to share her son with everybody because she felt like the staff was losing their baby.

Aidyn's mom, Cassie Isley, shared the same sentiments as Hastings. She said the bittersweet excitement that she felt is because she will miss the hospital people.

Different heart ailments

A rep at Riley Hospital for Children explained to People that although both boys needed a heart transplant, they suffered different conditions. Teddy had a rare form of degenerative disease of the heart muscle. Without warning, his heart could stop if his ailment were left untreated. On the other hand, Aidyn had dilated cardiomyopathy. One side of his heart grew faster than the other, and it could cause cardiac arrest.

The rep shared that Aidyn's heart was only working at 15 percent before coming to the hospital. Cassie shared that before the transplant, her son suffered a near-death experience. They found him unconscious and not breathing. She said that the doctor told them it is time to get a new heart.

Strohl was amazed at how much Teddy has grown in almost one year in the hospital. She said that the little boy has opened up and has grown into a little human from when he first came in.

Although she was happy that the boys are going home, Strohl said that the staff who formed bonds would miss their absence. She explained that they get attached to patients who stayed for so long. She also added that she feels like that to most of their transplant kids.

Teddy said that he is most excited to play with his cats and not having to eat bland food anymore. Hastings is hoping that her son's story could encourage other people. She said that what people are looking for might be around the corner, so they should not lose hope.

See also other inspiring stories:

5 Siblings placed in different foster care are reunited after a couple adopted them all

Parents saved their 22-week-old baby by refusing to follow doctor's order six times

Mom and son serve homemade food to the needy during the pandemic

For a month, doctor cared for a baby whose parents are COVID-19 positive
A father accused of murdering his five-month-old son is set to be released on bail with strict conditions.

Kozan Samuel Thomas Ware, of Woodridge, was charged with murdering Adrian Joshua Wommie Ware after being found unresponsive in a Brisbane home in March 2017.

The incident took place at a residence on Russell St in Cleveland on March 28.

An autopsy revealed the baby suffered bleeding around the brain, a torn vein near the brainstem, damage to an optical nerve and a scalp wound.

Kozan Samuel Thomas Ware (pictured) was charged with murdering Adrian Joshua Wommie Ware after found unresponsive in a Brisbane home in March 2017

Adrian Joshua Wommie Ware's (pictured) death sparked a joint investigation by two police child protection units before Ware was arrested and charged on Monday

The decision comes two years after the 34-year-old posted a chain of tributes to the boy on social media in 2018 - a year after the incident.

He wrote: 'I can't believe this is the day God took you from me... my heart bleeds every day and every night.

'Today is the day my world flipped upside down... my life changed after this day... I would do anything to see your cheeky smile one more time... Dad will see you when I get there my baby angel.'

Kozan Samuel Thomas Ware (pictured) is expected to report to police on a daily basis and wear an electronic tracking device once released on bail, with strict conditions

In a separate post in 2018, Ware wrote: 'Words can't explain my pain right now, my life will never be the same. This day will always break me for the rest of my life.

'All I can do is pray that you protect your mum and brother and sisters. We all miss you and love you our little angel... rest in paradise my baby.'

In November 2017, the then 32-year-old wrote alongside a picture he posted of the baby: 'God was supposed to take me first not you my baby boy.'

The decision comes two years after the 34-year-old posted a chain of tributes to the boy (pictured) on social media in 2018 - a year after the incident

Kozan Samuel Thomas Ware (pictured) will be released once his lawyer and the prosecutor agreed on the proposed bail conditions

Adrian's death sparked a joint investigation by two police child protection units before Ware was arrested and charged.

Justice Peter Callaghan told the Brisbane Supreme Court on Thursday he would release Ware once his lawyer and the prosecutor agreed on the proposed bail conditions.

These are expected to include reporting to police on a daily basis and wearing an electronic tracking device.

The hearing continues.
Erika Hurt had become the face of drug addiction.

The young mother was captured in a photograph by police, passed out in the driver's seat of her car outside a Dollar General store in Hope, Indiana - an empty syringe still resting between the 25-year-old addict's fingers.

The snapshot captured yet another horrifying moment in the worsening U.S. opioid epidemic.

What was not seen that Saturday afternoon last October was her 10-month-old son, buckled into his car seat in the back.

When Hurt first saw the photo, she was humiliated.

"I was angry and I wanted to blame the police for putting my business out there and showing the world my private addiction and everything like that," she told NBC News, a year after the image went viral.

But the photo, she said, eventually had a sobering effect.

"I'm thankful now that the cop did take the picture. The fact that I'm able to look back on that picture and see where the addiction had taken me, and I'm able to use that picture now to show others that addicts can recover."

Hurt reposted the picture over on Facebook to celebrate one year of sobriety.

"I've decided to repost the picture simply because it displays exactly what heroin addiction is," she wrote. "Also because I do not want to ever forget where the road of addiction has taken me.

"Little did I know that day, my life was about to change, drastically. Today, I am able to focus on the good that came from that picture. Today, I am a mother to my son, again. Today, I am able to be grateful to actually have solid proof where addiction will only lead you, and today I am able to say that I am ONE YEAR SOBER!"

Hurt could not immediately be reached for comment by The Washington Post.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency, calling it the "worst drug crisis in American history" and vowing to focus the nation's attention on resolving it.

"As Americans, we cannot allow this to continue," he said. "It is time to liberate our communities from the scourge of drug addiction. We can be the generation that ends the opioid epidemic. We can do it."

Despite Trump's call to action, critics questioned the merits of his pronouncement, given that it did not include an immediate request to Congress for emergency funding.

"America is hemorrhaging lives by the day because of the opioid epidemic, but President Trump offered the country a Band-Aid when we need a tourniquet," said Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass. Markey called the announcement "nothing more than a dog-and-pony show in an attempt to demonstrate the Trump administration is not ignoring this crisis."

Since 2014, more than 28,000 people in the United States have overdosed on opioids and died, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Specifically, heroin overdose deaths have quadrupled since 2010, accounting for nearly 13,000 deaths in 2015, according to the data.

Behind the grim statistics are haunting scenes of overdosed victims - and the children affected by their parents' addictions.

Disturbing photographs and videos depicting scenes such as the one in which Hurt was found unconscious have become common as the epidemic rages.

In September 2016, a chilling photograph distributed by authorities captured the innocence lost on a 4-year-old's face in East Liverpool, Ohio, where a man and woman were seen slumped over after overdosing in a vehicle, the boy still strapped into his car seat in the back.

A week later and 600 miles away, at a Family Dollar store in Lawrence, Massachusetts, a hysterical toddler was captured on a cellphone video as she tried to wake her mother after an apparent drug overdose.

Hope Town Marshal Matt Tallent, who originally released the photo of Hurt, could not immediately be reached for comment.

But he told NBC News that he never intended to embarrass Hurt; he simply wanted to bring awareness to the public-health crisis.

"For this girl to have her life ripped up and then come back and be sober after everything that's happened to her, that's a story of success," Tallent told NBC.

Hurt had tried to get sober before - going through rehab only two weeks before her overdose photo spread across the internet, and then relapsing, she said.

In October 2016, she recalled, she was "miserable."

"I was driving home and I just knew that at some point, I wanted to use, because I didn't want to feel the pain that I was feeling," she told NBC this week.

"My son was asleep in his car seat," she said, "and I used the justification that he's too young. and he doesn't know what's going on if he does see me."

As The Post's Kristine Phillips reported, police believed Hurt had overdosed on heroin and was given two doses of Narcan, which reverses opioid overdoses in emergency situations.

Hurt ended up in jail, where she said she first saw her photo, splashed across TV screens.

"I was just shocked, I was humiliated. I really had no words," she told NBC affiliate WTHR.

Now, she said, she is "very thankful that someone decided to capture that moment."

"I'd been struggling with addiction for a long time," she said, telling WTHR that she had been battling addition since she was 15, taking prescription painkillers for a staph infection. "I've been to the point where I was wanting to get clean and didn't know how. I was trying but always failing."

Being able to see what her addiction looked like has enabled her to overcome it, she said.

"Before, when I've relapsed, I've always forgotten where my addiction has taken me," she told NBC News. "I get so far away from that miserable state, and that's when I begin to start relapsing again. So I'm able to always have that picture in my mind and always look back at it to see that that's always where addiction is going to lead me."
West African leaders gathered in Bamako on Thursday in a fresh push to end an escalating political crisis in the fragile state of Mali amid fears it could undermine a regional fight against Islamist militants.

In an exceptional one-day summit, the presidents of Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria and Niger were meeting with Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and leaders of a protest movement clamouring for his resignation.

The unrest deeply worries Mali's neighbours and allies, who fear a country bloodied by a jihadist insurgency could slide into chaos.

A small group of demonstrators gathered outside the airport where Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara, Senegal's Macky Sall, Nigeria's Muhammadu Buhari, Niger's Mahamadou Issoufou and Ghana's Nana Akufo-Addo were set to arrive for the summit.

"We're here to demand IBK's resignation and ensure our comrades who have been killed are not forgotten," said Yaya Sylla, a young protester, using the acronym by which Mali's leader is known.

The opposition umbrella group, "Movement of 5 June  Rally of Patriotic Forces" (M5-RPF), named after the date anti-government protests began, has tapped into deep anger over Keita's perceived failure to tackle the dire economy, corruption and the eight-year jihadist revolt.

At least 14 protesters were killed this month in clashes with the police, according to the UN.

The M5-RFP, whose figurehead is Saudi-trained Muslim cleric Mahmoud Dicko, has said it will not quit until Keita steps down, raising concerns in neighbouring countries of a protracted crisis.

"M5-RFP demands the resignation of Keita or the satisfaction of our demands," which include the establishment of a committee of inquiry into civilian deaths and a transitional government, the group's spokesman Nouhoum Togo told reporters on Thursday.

'The curtain will fall'

The summit comes on the heels of a five-day mediation mission from the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which ended on Sunday without reconciling the two sides.

Story continues

"It is this Thursday that the last act is played, the curtain will fall," said a Malian opposition politician who declined to be named.

The West African leaders will weigh on proposed solutions that have been crafted in behind-the-scenes talks between the president and opposition this week.

Keita, who came to power in 2013, has come under increasing pressure to end Mali's long-running jihadist conflict.

The impoverished nation of around 20 million people has been struggling to contain an insurgency that first emerged in the north in 2012 before spreading to its centre, as well as neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have died in the conflict, and hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes.

But much of the current tension was sparked in April, when the constitutional court tossed out 31 results from the parliamentary elections, benefiting Keita's party and sparking protests.

Tensions then ratcheted up into a crisis on July 10 when an anti-Keita rally organised by the M5-RFP movement turned violent.

Protesters blocked bridges in Bamako, stormed the premises of the state broadcaster and attacked the parliament.

Seeking a way out, ECOWAS mediators suggested forming a new unity government including opposition members and appointing new constitutional court judges who could potentially re-examine disputed election results.

But Mali's opposition movement has repeatedly rejected any outcome that did not involve Keita's departure.

Possible compromise?

Despite the apparent failure of the ECOWAS mediators, the president's camp and opposition figures have quietly been talking all week and the M5-RFP notably suspended protests ahead of the forthcoming Eid festival.

Brema Ely Dicko, a sociologist at the University of Bamako, suggested the opposition may be prepared to accept Prime Minister Boubou Cisse's resignation instead of Keita's.

"The M5-RFP is obliged to keep up the pressure to at least get something," he said.

A European diplomat in Bamako who declined to be named said that the opposition may have overplayed its hand in demanding Keita's departure.

"Nobody wants to open the door to a period of political instability in Mali, which remains the epicentre of the Sahel security crisis," he added.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)
Good morning,

Please find below the press release issued today.

Best regards,

Michele Moore Duhen

Global PR Manager | Group Marketing & Communications

Capgemini Group | London

Tel.: +44 3709 053408

Email: Michele.MooreDuhen@capgemini.com

_____________________________

Capgemini announces its ambition to become a net zero business by 2030

Paris, July 23 2020 - Capgemini announced today its commitment to achieve carbon neutrality for its operations no later than 2025 and its ambition to be net zero by 2030. Capgemini's ambition builds on its strong progress in delivering its target of a 30% reduction in carbon emissions per employee, in January 2020, a decade ahead of schedule1.

To reach its new ten-year net zero ambition, Capgemini will accelerate its carbon reduction program across its biggest operational impact areas which are business travel, commuting and office energy, in line with the requirements of 1.5C science-based target pathway2. Its strategy also includes elements such as expanding its new ways of working initiative reducing the need for business travel and commuting, introducing new programs including the roll out of a hybrid and electric car fleet, and engaging with suppliers to reduce the carbon impact of its supply chain. Capgemini will also switch to 100% renewable electricity across the Group.

While Capgemini's first priority remains focused on driving down its emissions to reach carbon neutrality no later than 20253, any residual emissions will be offset through a high-quality carbon offset scheme such as re-forestation. The carbon reduction focus is also being extended to include Capgemini's full supply chain with the ambition of becoming a net zero business by 20304.

Speaking on the need to act on climate change, Capgemini's Chief Executive Officer, Aiman Ezzat, said: "The current global situation with the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the importance of the need to live in balance with our planet. Capgemini has had a decade long focus on reducing environmental impacts and whilst much has been achieved to date, we are now announcing our increased ambition. I have put acting on climate change at the heart of our Group priorities with a focal point of our ambitious target of net zero by 2030. A strong set of actions have been put in place, that range from expanding our digital workplace initiatives and work from home, through to leveraging technology to help our clients drive down their own emissions."

2030 science-based target achieved a decade ahead of schedule

Capgemini's previous 2030 science-based target to reduce carbon emissions by 30% per employee was reached in January 2020 , a decade ahead of schedule, before the COVID-19 related lockdowns. This milestone was made possible through programs focusing on both business travel and energy consumption. Driving down business travel emissions through virtual collaboration was underpinned by employee training and the roll-out of collaboration tools across the Group, as well as country-specific initiatives to encourage more sustainable travel. Capgemini also nearly doubled the proportion of its electricity coming from renewable sources, from 23.7% in 2018 to 46.2% in 2019, whilst simultaneously focusing on enhancing energy efficiency across its estate which resulted in energy consumption per square meter being reduced by over 18% since 2015.

Bold actions to go further on climate change

As one of the first in its sector to set science-based targets, Capgemini has a track record of taking bold action on climate change, and was named on the CDP's prestigious A list earlier this year in recognition for its approach and impact.

It is also leveraging technology to help its clients drive down their carbon emissions and has set a target to help clients save 10 million carbon tonnes by 2030.

In addition, Capgemini recently signed the UN Global Compact's Business Ambition for 1.5oC CEO statement and is a founder member of the United Nation's RacetoZero campaign. Capgemini is also leading advocacy programs to promote the role of business in driving the critically needed sustainable business transition and to highlight the key role that technology and innovation can play.

Supporting the World Climate Summit during COP25, Capgemini shared its thoughts on the needed Sustainable Business Revolution . Since then it has also published reports on the renewable energy transition, and on technology for sustainability across key sectors including the automotive industry and retail.

Click here to find out more about Capgemini's Environmental Sustainability programs and thought leadership.

About Capgemini

Capgemini is a global leader in consulting, digital transformation, technology, and engineering services. The Group is at the forefront of innovation to address the entire breadth of clients' opportunities in the evolving world of cloud, digital and platforms. Building on its strong 50-year heritage and deep industry-specific expertise, Capgemini enables organizations to realize their business ambitions through an array of services from strategy to operations. Capgemini is driven by the conviction that the business value of technology comes from and through people. It is a multicultural company of 270,000 team members in nearly 50 countries. With Altran, the Group reported 2019 combined global revenues of 17 billion.

Visit us at www.capgemini.com . People matter, results count.

1 This target was part of Capgemini's commitment to setting strong science-based carbon reduction targets, which were validated by SBTi in 2017 as being in line with a 2oC climate change pathway. At the end of 2019, Capgemini had reduced absolute carbon emissions by 14.6% whilst Capgemini's headcount increased by 22.6%. This equates to a reduction in emissions per employee by 29.8%. By the end of January, carbon emissions per employee were 30.2% lower than in the baseline year of 2015.



2 A 1.5C Science-Based target pathway means Capgemini's targets will be aligned with the level of carbon reduction needed to keep global temperature increases at no more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. 1.5C is widely accepted as the upper limit we should aim for to avoid the most catastrophic and irreversible impacts of climate change.



3 Capgemini's residual emissions offset will include: all Scope 1 and 2 emissions (including energy consumption, fuel consumption, and fugitive emissions from air conditioning system), as well as Scope 3 emissions from business travel, commuting, wastes, water and electricity transmission and distribution losses.



4 The CDP and SBTi define net zero as achieving a state in which the activities within the value chain of a company result in no net impact on the climate from greenhouse gas emissions. This is achieved by reducing value chain greenhouse gas emissions, in line with 1.5C pathways, and by balancing the impact of any remaining greenhouse gas emissions with an appropriate amount of carbon removals.)

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The UCLA Anderson School of Management

UCLAs Anderson School of Management is taking a hard line on deferral requests from international students who are unable to get student visas in time for the start of the schools hybrid fall semester. Instead, the school is informing those students that they will have to start the MBA program online or compete again for a spot in next years entering class.

Some of the schools international admits are angered by the tone of an email announcing Andersons deferral policy. In that email, obtained by Poets&Quants, Rob Weiler, associate dean of Andersons full-time MBA program, says that tough times can be a blessing in disguise. For example, our MBA Class of 2022 will have a great story to tell to future employers about how they rose to the challenge of making the most of their education in extreme circumstances.

The announcement to admits circulated just as California surpassed New York for the most reported cases of coronavirus of any state in the U.S. There have now been more than 422,000 cases announced in California over the course of the pandemic, with the state revealing more than 12,100 additional cases, a single-day record on July 22. Some international admits have been unable to get student visas due to the closure of U.S. consulates around the world and a backlog on visa processing. Others still face travel restrictions.

Anderson is hardly alone in forcing international admits to either enroll or lose their admission to the school along with a non-refundable $2,000 deposit. With just a few exceptions, such as Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business and the University of Michigans Ross School of Business, most schools are digging their heels in on refusing most deferrals. Thats because they do not want to open the doors to a potential flood of them. At Harvard, for example, this years entering MBA class will be more than 200 students short of the more typical 930 to 940 size of the entering cohort due to its more progressive policy on deferrals.

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WE DO NOT THINK IT IS FAIR FOR US TO DECIDE MBA DEFERRALS ON A CASE-BY-CASE BASIS

Rob Weiler of UCLA Anderson

Please understand our position on doing no deferrals: We do not think it is fair for us to decide on a case-by-case basis which ones are granted and which ones are not, wrote Weiler. Plus, other admits have already made decisions based on this policy and changing it now would penalize those folks. Everybody has difficulties now, so how are we to judge who is more deserving of special treatment? Instead, we believe the most honorable thing for us to do is to keep the same established policy. Each years class is chosen from that seasons applications, and we remain straightforward in treating all admits fairly and honestly.

Last year, Anderson enrolled an MBA class of 343 students after admitting 860 of the 2,820 candidates who applied for admission. Some 27.8% of the total enrollment of 702 MBA students at Anderson were international. If those figures hold true for this coming year, the no deferral policy would impact nearly 100 international students in the schools incoming class. The estimated cost of Andersons full-time MBA program, including room and board as well as a travel budget, is $104,954 a year or well over $200,000 for the entire two-year program. The school has not announced a discount on the tuition for online classes, an issue that drew a petition from more than 130 Anderson MBA students last spring (see The Student Revolt Over MBA Tuition For Online Classes).

Weiler made clear that Anderson isnt going to be flexible. For those who have asked to defer their enrollment and be automatically admitted next year, please be advised that we are not altering our longstanding policy of treating each admission year separately, he added. If you want to decline this years offer you can do an easy reapplication next season: As a 2020 admit you can ask us to clone this years application as a head start on the 2021 application, and waive the reapplication fee. If admitted again and you join the Class of 2023, your non-refundable $2,000 deposit will be rolled over and credited to your acceptance of next years offer (details of the specific mechanics of this will be discussed with those who participate.)

TOUGH TIMES CAN BE A BLESSING IN DISGUISE

Weiler noted that the pandemic has caused many unknowns that made it challenging to say exactly how the fall term will transpire. All of us are facing a period of extreme uncertainty now, and we will continue to provide you with all the information that we have as input for your own decision-making, he wrote. While we are preparing to start the Fall quarter in a hybrid format, there is no certainty on exactly how we may be forced to deliver your MBA experience in September. What we do know with certainty is that we are committed to providing our students with opportunities to learn and grow like never before. We understand that our international students face challenges getting to the US for an array of reasons, and because of that, we will be offering a parallel virtual experience for you and for anyone who cannot get here or does not wish to attend class in person.

Tough times can be a blessing in disguise, added Weiler. For example, our MBA Class of 2022 will have a great story to tell to future employers about how they rose to the challenge of making the most of their education in extreme circumstances and learned lifelong skills in managing through significant uncertainty. Also, we are ready to link our new students electronically into the global Anderson network including students and alumni who share your background and/or career interests. So connections are waiting for you!

DONT MISS: Stanford Opens The Door To Deferrals For International MBA Admits or Most B-Schools Take A Hard Line On Deferrals For Incoming MBAs

The post UCLA Anderson To International MBA Admits: No Deferrals appeared first on Poets&Quants.
Hwang Yoon-jung, a gender ministry official speaks during a regular briefing at government complex in Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap



By Bahk Eun-ji



The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said Thursday that it will conduct an inspection of the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) next week amid an ongoing controversy over sexual harassment allegations made against the late Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon.



The decision came several days after Minister Lee Jung-ok pledged to map out effective and strengthened measures to prevent further sexual crimes in public institutions.



"The inspection will be carried out next week, with a number of women's rights and law experts. The exact date has not been settled yet, but it will take about two days," said gender ministry official Hwang Yoon-jung in a regular briefing at the Government Complex in Seoul.



Earlier, the ministry said it would check all aspects of how the city government has been handling such cases so far. In this regard, the investigation will be focused on whether the SMG has complied with sexual harassment guidelines.



Regarding the plan to share the results of the inspection with the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, Hwang said it requires further discussion between the two ministries.



The ministry said it has been making every effort to come up with measures for the prevention of such sexual abuse cases in the public sector, by creating a special committee with experts from the public and private sectors since last week.



"The measures will include support for victims to return to their daily lives and the creation of a safe work environment. For this, we are taking experts' opinions," Hwang said.



In answer to a question about how they have been supporting the alleged victim, she said, "We are closely in touch with an institution where she gets help, to confirm she is in a safe place."



Park, the three-time mayor of Seoul since 2011, was found dead July 10 in an apparent suicide, after he was reported missing July 9. His former secretary had filed a complaint with the police about alleged sexual harassment the previous day.



The police said Wednesday that it has unlocked the Park's iPhone with the password apparently secured with the help of the alleged victim. Unlocking the mobile phone is expected to accelerate the investigation into his death and the allegation made against him.



It seems that the most of his text messages and other messages he sent and received via mobile messenger apps will remain on the phone, which was found with his body, police said. This will make further investigations possible, including the suspicions of sexual harassment allegation and whether the late mayor knew about the complaint before he died.



Early last week, police asked a local court to issue a warrant to access communication records for Park's three mobile phones, but the request was rejected.


ITHACA, N.Y. - Small farms in Zambia that use the latest hybrid seed for maize, along with improving health on neutral soils, help reduce deforestation and tackle climate change, Cornell University researchers report this month in Global Environmental Change.

"Scientists around the world are trying to reduce rapid deforestation and food insecurity, especially in the tropics," said Johanne Pelletier, a postdoctoral researcher in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management and the paper's lead author.

"Smallholder farmers are a cornerstone of food security in the world," Pelletier said. "The main driver of deforestation is agricultural expansion in Africa, South America and Asia. It is important to learn what works at improving food security and keeping forests standing."

Pelletier conducted this work as part of the NatureNet Science Fellows Program, a joint research project funded by the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability and The Nature Conservancy. She works in the research group led by Chris Barrett, the Stephen B. and Janice G. Ashley Professor at Dyson.

"There are synergies to using a modern hybrid seed and good agronomic techniques to maintain healthy soils with stopping the degradation of tropical forests and halting climate change," said Barrett, the paper's senior author.

"Promoting improved maize seed uptake among smallholder farmers - which Zambia and many other governments do - is not only boosting yield, but it is reducing pressure on large forests," Barrett said. "This is good news."

Zambia has about 44 million hectares of forests that are dominated by the Miombo Woodland, an ecological region that is home to a diverse population of wildlife. The total mass of the forests has substantially dwindled since 2000: Zambia lost more than 1.3 million forested hectares between 2000 and 2012, which is referenced in the paper. A hectare is approximately 2.5 acres.

The Zambian government is looking at ways to reduce national deforestation.

"If we can produce more food per hectare with better seed, and by improving soil health," Pelletier said, "we can protect those much-needed forests."

###

In addition to Pelletier and Barrett, co-authors were Hambulo Ngoma, of the Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute, Lusaka, Zambia; and Nicole M. Mason, associate professor of agriculture, food and resource economics at Michigan State University.
Fifteen people were wounded in a shooting at a Chicago funeral home Tuesday as the city reels from a recent surge in gun violence, authorities said.

One person was in custody, and the victims conditions werent immediately known, Chicago Police First Deputy Superintendent Eric Carter told reporters Tuesday night.

Police initially said 14 people were injured in the shooting, but in an update on Wednesday morning said that an additional person had been wounded. The victims ranged in ages from 21 to 65, with most hospitalized in good condition.

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Six of the victims were taken to various hospitals in serious conditions, according to police. A 65-year-old woman was treated at the scene.

Carter said the shooting, in the citys Auburn Gresham neighborhood, occurred after a speeding black car opened fire on funeral attendees Tuesday evening. People at the funeral returned fire before the car sped away and crashed, Carter said. The people in the car then fled in different directions.

Carter didnt say who the funeral was for, and a motive remained unclear.

A neighbor, Arnita Gerder, told NBC Chicago that she saw bodies laying everywhere.

"Shot up everywhere, all over, she said. We thought it was a war out here."

Image: US-CHICAGO-CRIME-SHOOTING (Kamil Krzaczynski / Getty Images)

The shooting occurred amid a spike in gun violence that has hit minority communities already struggling through the coronavirus pandemic. At least 70 people were shot in the city over the weekend, and another 25 people were struck by gunfire Monday, according to NBC Chicago.

Tensions between authorities and protesters also escalated after they accused one another of violence during an effort to topple a Christopher Columbus statue Friday night.

President Donald Trump injected himself into the fray by appearing to threaten to send federal agents to Chicago and other cities where he said local pols are just fine with 50 days of anarchy.

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Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trumps troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot responded Tuesday.

Amid weeks of sometimes heated demonstrations in Portland, Oregon, that citys mayor said there appeared to be dozens, if not hundreds of federal troops there responding to protesters. Video showed federal agents who werent clearly identified using non-lethal weapons and hauling them into unmarked vans.

What they're doing is, they are sharply escalating the situation," Mayor Ted Wheeler said.

Trump said the administration was trying to help Portland, not hurt it.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he will send federal agents into Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to help combat rising crime, expanding the administrations intervention in local enforcement as he runs for reelection under a law-and-order mantle.

Using the same alarmist language he has employed to describe illegal immigration, Trump painted Democrat-led cities as out of control and lashed out at the radical left, even though criminal justice experts say a spike in violence in some cities defies easy explanation.

In recent weeks there has been a radical movement to defund, dismantle and dissolve our police department, Trump said at a White House event, blaming the movement for a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence.

This bloodshed must end, he said. This bloodshed will end.

The decision to dispatch federal agents to American cities is playing out at a hyperpoliticized moment when Trump is grasping for a reelection strategy now that the coronavirus has upended the economy and immigration is largely at a standstill. With less than four months until Election Day, Trump has been warning that violence will worsen if his Democratic rival Joe Biden is elected in November and Democrats have a chance to make the police reforms they seek.

Crime has surged in some cities like Chicago, New York and Philadelphia before any major policing overhauls could be made. In trying to explain violence in some cities, experts point to the unprecedented moment in the country  a pandemic that has killed more than 140,000 Americans, historic unemployment, stay-at-home orders, a mass reckoning over race and police brutality, intense stress and even the weather. And compared with other years, crime in 2020 is down overall.

Local authorities have complained that deploying federal agents to their cities has exacerbated tensions on the streets, while residents have accused the government of violating their constitutional rights. Civil unrest in Portland, Oregon, only escalated after federal agents were accused of whisking people away in unmarked cars without probable case.

Hundreds of federal agents have been sent to Kansas City, Missouri, to help quell a record rise in violence after a 4-year-old boys shooting death. Sending federal agents to help localities is not uncommon. Barr announced a similar surge effort in December for seven cities that had seen spiking violence.

Usually, the Justice Department sends agents under its own umbrella, like agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or the Drug Enforcement Agency. But this surge effort will include at least 100 Department of Homeland Security Investigations officers working in the region who generally conduct drug trafficking and child exploitation investigations.

DHS officers have already been dispatched to Portland and other localities to protect federal property and monuments as Trump has lambasted efforts by protesters to knock down Confederate statutes.

The spike in crime has hit some cities hard at a time when their resources were already stretched thin from the pandemic. But local leaders, including Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, initially rejected the move to send in federal forces.

Lightfoot later said she and other local officials had spoken with federal authorities and come to an understanding. Chicago has seen 414 homicides this year, compared with 275 during the same period in 2019. A barrage of gunfire left 15 people dead on Tuesday near a funeral home on the South Side.

Ive been very clear that we welcome actual partnership, the Democratic mayor said Tuesday after speaking with federal officials. But we do not welcome dictatorship. We do not welcome authoritarianism, and we do not welcome unconstitutional arrest and detainment of our residents. That is something I will not tolerate.

In New Mexico, meanwhile, Democratic elected officials were cautioning Trump against sending in federal agents, with U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich calling on Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales, who was at the White House on Wednesday, to resign.

Instead of collaborating with the Albuquerque Police Department, the Sheriff is inviting the Presidents stormtroopers into Albuquerque, the Democratic senator said in a statement.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf drew a distinction between the mission in Portland  to protect federal property  and the surges in Kansas City, Chicago and Albuquerque to aid in stopping violence.

Two dozen agents will be sent to Albuquerque, and the administration made available $9.4 million for 40 new Albuquerque officers.

The Justice Department will reimburse Chicago $3.5 million for local law enforcements work on the federal task force. Through a separate federal fund, Chicago received $9.3 million to hire 75 new officers.

In Kansas City, the top federal prosecutor said any agents involved in an operation to reduce violent crime in the area will be clearly identifiable when making arrests, unlike what has been seen in Portland. Hundreds of extra agents have been sent.

These agents wont be patrolling the streets, U.S. Attorney Timothy Garrison said. They wont replace or usurp the authority of local officers.

Operation Legend  named after 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was fatally shot while sleeping in a Kansas City apartment last month  was announced July 8. There have been more than 200 arrests.

My one and only child who fought through open heart surgery at four months is gone due to senseless gun violence, LeGends mother, Charon Powell, said at the White House. Children are supposed to be our future and our son didnt make it to kindergarten.

___

Associated Press writers Michael Tarm in Chicago and Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed to this report.
The bodyguard of a judicial officer allegedly shot himself dead with his service revolver at his residence in Bihars Khagaria police line premises on Thursday morning. He is the fourth bodyguard who died by suicide in the last six months. The police said that the constable, a 40-year-old a native of Begusarai district, was posted as a gunner of the additional district and session judge-1 of Khagaria.

His wife was in the kitchen and children were sleeping when he shot himself with the service pistol, said an investigating official, adding that his colleague heard the gunshots and rushed to the room to find him lying in a pool of blood on his bed.

Also read: Around five lakh people affected in Bihar flood

Khagaria Superintendent of Police, Meenu Kumari, said the victim used his service revolver to shoot himself. We are investigating the matter. The manner in which the bullet was fired and seeing its direction, we can presume that he died by suicide, she said.

The firearm has been recovered along with a shell, she added. We have sent the body for a postmortem examination, she said, adding, no note has been recovered from the house. An FSL team rushed for the spot.

A case of suicide was registered in Sadar police station and the body was sent for postmortem. While the primary probe in the case has begun, the police suspect a family dispute behind his extreme step.

Past incidents

On Jun 16, an escort guard of Darbhanga Senior Superintendent of Police allegedly shot himself dead at his barracks situated at the SSPs official residence. On June 12, a bodyguard of an additional district and sessions judge (ADJ), Katihar, allegedly died by suicide by shooting himself in his head. The deceased hailed from Begusarai. In another incident, an SSB police constable allegedly took his life by shooting himself with his service rifle at 29th battalion camp at Gurpa in Gaya district on May 12.

Also read: Bihars low testing may impact Covid-19 fatality rate - Central team

A police constable and bodyguard of DSP (East) allegedly shot himself with his AK-47 rifle in Muzaffarpur district on February 2. Earlier this year in January, a 27-year-old police constable shot dead his 24-year-old wife with an AK-47 rifle and later shot himself with the same weapon in Sitamarhi district.

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Al despedirse, Wille agradecio el compromiso del MINJUSDH. El tiene la certeza de que su caso no es el unico y cree que hay mas personas que han podido salvarse. "Tengo el sueno de volver a Peru junto a mi familia y agradezco al MINJUSDH y a todo su equipo", indico. pic.twitter.com/Gjwy3rxQhV
SAN FRANCISCO, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Wonderschool, pioneering developer of software used by in-home childcare providers nationwide, today announced the rollout of a platform that will enable parent-educators and K-12 teachers to create learning pods so that students can remain enrolled in their existing school, while creating safe and secure learning environments at home.

"This isn't a new challenge for the thousands of in-home childcare providers around the country. We're using that experience to help parents-turned-educators to create and manage pods of learners to create a safe environment -- while maintaining a strong connection to their existing school community," said Chris Bennett, Founder and CEO of Wonderschool. "This is about trying to restore school-life balance, during a period of incredible stress and uncertainty. But it's also designed to address the risk of rising inequality, as schools go remote in the fall."

Popular among in-home child care providers around the country, the Wonderschool interface allows parents or educators to create and manage a micro school (or "learning pod") by recruiting new families with a website on Wonderschool, conducting Zoom and in-person tours, hosting open houses, manage payments from parents, understand and find liability insurance, join a micro-school leader chat community, and get access to shared services such a micro-school mentors, curriculum consultants, and more. Designed to foster a more inclusive, equitable approach to microschooling, Wonderschool allows "pod" creators to promote their program to other parents, and join a growing community of parent-educators to share resources, tips, and advice.

Wonderschool's growing network of parents and educators come from a wide range of backgrounds.

Tracey McEntyre , a retired early childhood educator now runs a microschool for kids in her neighborhood. McEntyre, whose son is living with Autism, created the Little Elm STE(A)M Academy to serve students aged 3-11 with a wide range of learning differences.

, a retired early childhood educator now runs a for kids in her neighborhood. McEntyre, whose son is living with Autism, created the Little Elm STE(A)M Academy to serve students aged 3-11 with a wide range of learning differences. Rachel Weiss , who most recently taught in a preschool, started a microschool that is a forest, outdoor school to serve children grades Pre-K to 1st grade.

, who most recently taught in a preschool, started a that is a forest, outdoor school to serve children grades Pre-K to 1st grade. Jeremiah Cota , a tribal member on the San Carlos reservation in Arizona launched his microschool using borrowed church space. More than 20 students now attend the school, which utilizes just two classrooms, and receive funding through the Arizona Department of Education.

"It's not sustainable to expect parents to balance work, childcare, and managing their children's education everyday. It's not easy to identify and connect with other parents grappling with similar challenges," says [parent customer.] "We need relief, and Wonderschool removes much of the logistical challenge, and burden of building a microschool from the ground up."

About Wonderschool

Named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies, Wonderschool is building the [nation's] largest network of high-quality education programs. Our fast-growing community, technology, and know-how enables teachers and parent-educators to create safe and secure learning communities, and earn a sustainable living in the field they love. www.wonderschool.com

SOURCE Wonderschool

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http://www.wonderschool.com


STAMFORD  Starting Saturday, only Stamford residents and those with seasonal parking permits are allowed to visit city beaches on weekends and holidays.

Not only that, but parking in the lots at Cove Island, Cummings and West beaches will be cut off once 75 percent of the spaces are full.

Mayor David Martin announced Thursday he is making the change out of concern about a second wave of COVID-19 and potential overcrowding at city beaches. Other towns, including Norwalk, Fairfield and Milford, have instituted similar restrictions.

Stamford residents who drive or walk to a beach must bring proof of residency to get in, according to the statement. Each resident may bring one guest.

However, guests who come from the 31 states listed in Connecticuts Travel Advisory  the nearest ones are Delaware and Maryland; the rest are in the South or West  must complete 14 days of quarantine before visiting a beach.

The goal is to discourage travelers from out of state who may unknowingly spread the virus to our community, Martins statement reads.

Most walk-ins at Stamford beaches, and those buying daily parking passes, are non-residents, according to the statement. Restricting them on weekends and holidays will effectively reduce overcrowding, it reads.

While Stamford has always prided itself as a welcoming community, I have an obligation to put our residents health and safety first during this continuing pandemic, Martin said in the statement. With the very real possibility of overcrowding this summer, our beaches must be restricted to residents until we can ensure the health of our community. I know Stamfords community will remain welcoming and accepting of individuals from different communities and backgrounds once we overcome this pandemic.

Some say such beach bans may violate a 2001 state Supreme Court ruling that says Connecticut municipalities cannot restrict nonresidents. The ruling came in the case of Brenden Leydon, a Stamford attorney who in 1998 sued the Town of Greenwich, successfully, after he was not allowed to jog into Greenwich Point.

Health officials nationwide are recommending stricter enforcement of safety rules where people gather in large numbers. Martins announcement comes amid large spikes in the numbers of COVID-19 cases in the South, Midwest and West, and amid growing concerns that too many Americans are not following safety guidelines.

Stamfords COVID-19 cases peaked in April and have since declined steadily, but there are still new cases every week, the mayor said.

Enforcement of overcrowding will help, but preventing infection will work only if people wear masks, maintain six feet of distance from each other, and wash hands frequently, he said.

acarella@stamfordadvocate.com; 203-964-2296.
A woman has moved the Telangana High Court alleging that the body of her husband, who died of COVID-19, was not handed over to her by a private hospital here over pending dues, and sought relief.

The woman,a daily labourer, in a writ petition filed before the court alleged that hospital management did not handover her 49-year-old husband's remains after he died at the hospital on July 22 over non-payment of balance amount of treatment.

The woman's husband, who worked as a watchman, was admitted to the hospital on July 13 with high fever and respiratory problems. The hospital took his samples for COVID-19 test and he was found to be infected by the virus.

The hospital doctors informed the woman that her husband died of coronavirus on Wednesday, she stated in the petition.

The petition has been listed and will come up for hearing on Friday, the woman's counsel said.

The petitioner had initially paid an amount of Rs 2.50 lakh, which she had borrowed, and on July 22 the hospital authorities informed her that the total treatment charges were Rs 8.91 lakh.

After deducting the advance amount of Rs 2.50 lakh, the hospital authorities asked the petitioner to pay the balance of Rs 6.41 lakh and take her husband's remains. Seeking to declare the hospital's actions as illegal, arbitrary, she requested the High Court to issue an order directing the hospital to hand over her husbands body without insisting on the payment of the balance hospital treatment bill.

The petitioner also named the state and central governments as other respondents in her petition.

Meanwhile, CEO of Continental Hospitals, Rahul Medakkar in a statement said that the hospital was taken aback by the allegations against it and vehemently denied all of it. All the doctors at the hospital have given their very best to revive the patient all throughout the 11 day ICU care even as the patients family was counselled about the treatment progress and response.

Despite best efforts, the patient developed complications and passed away. "We empathize with the patient's family, but such allegations are very disheartening and demoralizing to our staff and doctors doing greater public good," the doctor added.
By Gina Lee

Investing.com  Asian stocks were down on Thursday morning, with U.S.-China tensions hitting a fresh low and decreasing investor risk appetite.

The U.S. ordered the closure of Chinas consulate in Houston on Wednesday a move "to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information."

The closure is the latest event increasing tensions between the two countries during this year. Investors are now looking to Chinas reaction, with China condemning the closure and reportedly considering a retaliatory closure of the U.S. consulate in Wuhan.

Some investors warn that the tensions will continue to worsen between the two countries over other issues such as trade and Hong Kongs national security law.

The escalation in U.S.-China tensions is a reminder of the headline risk faced by investors during the upcoming U.S. election campaign, Stephen Innes, chief global market strategist at AxiCorp, told Bloomberg.

The U.S. and China have become increasingly combative in their views this year. The markets better get used to it because there is more of that to come.

Chinas Shanghai Composite slid 2.17% by 11 PM ET (4 AM GMT), and the Shenzhen Component fell 1.57%.

South Koreas KOSPI was down 1.04% and Down Under, the ASX 200 fell 0.16%.

Hong Kongs Hang Seng Index was down 0.08%, with the city reporting 113 cases, its highest daily number yet, on Wednesday.

Japanese markets are closed for a holiday.

Meanwhile, investor sentiment was boosted after Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) said that the government ordered up to 600 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Three other candidates reported positive results in early stage human clinical trials earlier in the week. But COVID-19 continues its global rampage, with over 15.1 million cases as of July 23, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Investors are also keeping an eye on the U.S. Congress negotiations over fresh stimulus measures for the economy, with some earlier measures due to expire at the end of July.

Story continues

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A year ago, the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn declared all-out war on the BBC. Why? Because of a Panorama programme in which seven former Labour party staffers blew the whistle about anti-Semitism in Corbyn's Labour Party.

They explained how they felt a growing factionalism under Corbyn had created a safe space for anti-Semitic views inside the party.

I was the reporter on the programme, and Labour's response was to accuse me of knowingly promoting falsehoods and invented quotes.

I had misrepresented facts and fabricated facts, the party claimed - it was all part of my 'deliberate and malicious' attempt 'designed to mislead the public'.

Labour implied that I had known perfectly well that Corbyn's office was committed to dealing with anti-Semitism, and was getting the job done.

But instead of portraying that simple truth, the party claimed I tried to convince the public of what I knew to be false. It didn't stop there.

The party accused the whistle-blowers of being motivated by 'disaffection' with Corbyn and the Labour Left, saying they simply had 'personal and political axes to grind'. The Corbynistas' outrageous defamation triggered a yearlong fusillade of falsehoods from a stream of Left-wing bloggers, media 'activists', the Corbynsupporting 'people-powered' movement Momentum, and 'alt-Left' outlets - all of whom share a conviction that the mainstream media is biased and fundamentally dishonest.

JOHN WARE: A year ago, the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn declared all-out war on the BBC. Why? Because of a Panorama programme in which seven former Labour party staffers blew the whistle about anti-Semitism in Corbyn's Labour Party

Invective

It is certainly true that there is some dishonesty in the mainstream media. But whatever their faults, journalists working in the mainstream generally respect basic standards of accuracy and fairness.

The 'alternative media', both Left and Right, do not. When you're on the receiving end of unrelenting invective - I've been called a ghoul, repugnant, a liar and worse - there comes a point when you have a choice: do you turn a cheek and continue to let these people mouth off lies that impact on your reputation? Or do you do something about it? I chose the latter course.

As a result, in open court, the Labour Party has not only 'unreservedly withdrawn' the allegations against me and the whistle-blowers.

JOHN WARE: I was the reporter on the programme, and Labour's response was to accuse me of knowingly promoting falsehoods and invented quotes

It has also paid us both 'substantial damages' and expressed its 'profound regret'. It is an extraordinary turn of events.

At times, I have to remind myself that behind the defamation was the Labour Party of Clement Atlee, Aneurin Bevan and Harold Wilson.

The party people joined because it fought all forms of racism, supported the underdog and championed free speech. There's an unwritten code that says we journalists should never sue - because however offensive or defamatory criticism of our journalism may be, we hold free speech sacrosanct.

But on much of the internet, basic standards of accuracy and fairness have disappeared. Political and media 'activists' often fabricate facts, disregard truths and tell lies. At the moment, they get away with it.

Unlike journalists in the mainstream media, they are not held to account by professional bodies or even by the law of libel. And it is having a corrupting effect on the way we communicate with each other.

Yesterday, Jeremy Corbyn declared Labour's decision to settle with the whistle-blowers was a political one, rather than a legal one.

I am advised this in itself is defamatory and am consulting my legal team over whether to sue the former Labour leader.

Meanwhile pro-Corbyn conspiracy theorists persist in repeating their falsehoods. Zealotry has led them to disregard the most basic rules that govern mainstream journalism. They seem to think that using a blog or Twitter to brand someone a 'rogue journalist' or a 'liar' or fundamentally dishonest is somehow OK.

But it is not OK - and I hope the success of my proceedings against them will encourage them to think before they blog.

Some of the wildest criticism against Panorama came from Jon Lansman, then chair of Momentum, who accused me and my BBC colleagues of having 'flouted basic journalistic standards from beginning to end'.

Nonsense

Let's see how Lansman's own 'journalistic standards' measure up. On the morning of the programme's transmission, Momentum disseminated a video which said that an earlier 2015 Panorama of mine about Corbyn 'made claims that were later disproven', and also that the BBC were forced 'to issue a public apology' over 'my appalling journalism' in another Panorama investigation, in 2006, this time into the London-based charity Interpal which is concerned with Palestinian relief.

No one from Momentum had approached me before disseminating this nonsense on the internet. So I sent a polite text to Lansman to say that none of Momentum's claims were true and that had I been offered a right of reply I would have explained why. Corbyn never pressed ahead with his complaint about the 2015 programme because in our response, the BBC had shown how disingenuous his complaint was.

Nor had the BBC had to 'apologise' for my journalism, either then or at any time in the 26 years I was with the Corporation.

Lansman even suggested that one of Panorama's whistle-blowers, Sam Matthews, had deliberately consulted Corbyn's office by email on anti-Semitism cases so that he could later smear Corbyn by alleging that the Leader's office had interfered in complaints.

'We do not know why Matthews did this, we have not asked him, nor have we asked any other witness,' went the bizarre conspiracy theory, '... but maybe he was conspiring to do something calculating that when subsequently investigated it would look bad on those people he had emailed...'

Lansman and those in Corbyn's office who bought into the conspiracy theory seem to have no awareness of just how ridiculous and defamatory such speculation is.

The only smidgeon of truth in this pile of rubbish is that from mid-March 2018, Matthews and the assistant General Secretary Emilie Oldknow did refer anti-Semitism cases to Corbyn's office for approval.

But this had nothing to do with trying to discredit Corbyn. Rather, they had wearied of trying to second guess both Corbyn's office and hostile NEC members on precisely where the bar lay on anti-Semitism.

Like the Labour Party, Lansman has also had to apologise to the whistle-blowers. The witless bias spewed out after transmission of the Panorama programme by Lansman, Momentum and the Labour Party has become ingrained in the alt-Left Twittersphere.

It has libelled the whistle-blowers as a bunch of calculating plotters, and me as not merely an Islamophobe, but a supporter of the far Right and a journalist who's been disciplined by the BBC. There is not a word of truth in any of it.

The pro-Corbyn alt-Left outlets, notably Skwawkbox and The Canary, have also dismissed anti-Semitism complaints as little more than a smear concocted to damage Corbyn, to silence his support for Palestinians and to prevent the success of his socialist project.

Curb

Which is more blatant nonsense.

Most Jewish members of Labour are strong supporters of Palestinian rights and are highly critical of the Right-wing drift of Israeli politics.

They just don't think that the world's only Jewish state should be 'disappeared' or compared to Nazi Germany - a comparison which The Canary editor KerryAnne Mendoza has made. Yesterday's legal settlement may curb some of Panorama's critics. And that is important, even if it does not stop all of them.

As journalism seeps into the social-media jungle of the 'activist' fringe and further away from the mainstream where it is at least governed by clearly defined codes, there is a cost to democracy.

It is broadcasters like the BBC that are trying to hold the line on standards, not the self-appointed 'media activists' who make up their own rules and whose self-righteousness leaves them with dangerously little self-doubt.

If we want fair and truthful journalism to prevail over deceitful propaganda on the internet, we must hold their authors to account.

If we continue to let them get away with it, truth will not be the only casualty. Democracy itself will be wounded - perhaps fatally.

Labour's humiliation: Payout for seven anti-semitism whistleblowers hit by Corbynite smear campaign

Labour yesterday issued an unreserved apology to seven whistleblowers smeared by the party after they raised concerns over anti-Semitism.

In a bid to draw a line under the disastrous Jeremy Corbyn years, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer agreed to pay 'substantial damages' to former employees who contributed to a BBC probe into whether the party had victimised Jews.

In a humiliating statement in the High Court, the party accepted it had made 'false and defamatory' comments about the whistleblowers and had caused them 'distress, embarrassment and hurt'.

The party also paid damages to John Ware, the veteran journalist behind the Panorama programme. It is believed the affair has cost Labour up to 500,000 in legal costs and damages.

Labour yesterday issued an unreserved apology to seven whistleblowers smeared by the party after they raised concerns over anti-Semitism. In a bid to draw a line under the disastrous Jeremy Corbyn (pictured, Mr Corbyn with his adviser Seamus Milne in 2016) years, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer agreed to pay 'substantial damages' to former employees who contributed to a BBC probe into whether the party had victimised Jews

In the Commons yesterday, Sir Keir pointedly told the Prime Minister that Labour was 'under new management' with his moderate leadership.

But hard-Left former leader Mr Corbyn said it was 'disappointing' that the party had settled the claim, adding that it was a 'political decision, not a legal one' - prompting the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism to call for him to be suspended from the Labour Party.

Last night Mr Ware said he was considering instructing lawyers to launch action against Mr Corbyn for defamation.

The apology is the latest sign of Sir Keir's attempts to draw a clear distinction between the party he leads and the one over which Mr Corbyn presided.

Seven former employees from the party's governance and legal unit, who were responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct by members, sued Labour after it issued a Press release describing them as having 'personal and political axes to grind'.

The legal action followed the broadcast in July 2019 of the Panorama show Is Labour Anti-Semitic?.

The party officials alleged in the programme that senior figures close to the leadership, including strategy chief Seumas Milne, had interfered in the process of dealing with anti-Semitism complaints. They also claimed they had faced a huge increase in complaints since Mr Corbyn became leader in 2015.

Seven former employees from the party's governance and legal unit, who were responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct by members, sued Labour after it issued a Press release describing them as having 'personal and political axes to grind'. The legal action followed the broadcast in July 2019 of the Panorama show Is Labour Anti-Semitic? (left, Louise Withers Green; right, Ben Westerman on the BBC Panorama show)

The party officials alleged in the programme that senior figures close to the leadership, including strategy chief Seumas Milne, had interfered in the process of dealing with anti-Semitism complaints. They also claimed they had faced a huge increase in complaints since Mr Corbyn became leader in 2015 (left, Dan Hogan; right, Sam Matthews)

The High Court heard that the seven whistleblowers - Katherine Buckingham, Michael Creighton, Samuel Matthews, Daniel Hogan, Louise Withers Green, Martha Robinson and Benjamin Westerman - all had concerns there was 'a lack of commitment' by Labour to investigate anti-Semitism properly (left, Mike Creighton; right, Kat Buckingham)

What did the whistleblowers say? LOUISE WITHERS GREEN: The former Labour Party disputes officer revealed she had agreed to sign a so-called non-disclosure agreement (NDA) when she left the party after witnessing 'horrendous' disciplinary issues. 'I felt a bit complicit, actually... in the Labour Party not dealing with antiSemitism properly.' BEN WESTERMAN: The only Jewish member of the disputes team, he was quizzed on his background. 'The person got up and then turned back to me and said 'Where are you from?' I said 'What do you mean where am I from?' and they said 'Are you from Israel?' What can you say to that? You are assumed to be in cahoots with the Israeli government. It's this obsessionthat just all the time spills... into anti-Semitism.' DAN HOGAN: The investigator on Labour's disputes team revealed how officials linked to the party's former general secretary, Jennie Formby, had overruled decisions linked to anti-Semitism. Asked if Jeremy Corbyn would survive a disciplinary hearing, he said: 'I don't think he would... I think he would be expelled.' SAM MATTHEWS: Labour's former head of disputes said the burden of dealing with the issue left him feeling helpless. 'I actively considered committing suicide. Walking off her [Jennie Formby's] roof  she had a balcony outside her office  as some way not to feel trapped any more. I sat at my desk thinking 'I can't do this any more, I am being asked to do things I am... not comfortable with'.' MIKE CREIGHTON: Labour's former head of disputes said he was laughed at by Seumas Milne, one of Jeremy Corbyn's closest allies. 'He actually laughed at me. I thought he actually wanted to know how we tackle anti-Semitism within the Labour Party. 'I think what he actually meant to say was 'how do we deal with the bad publicity we're getting?' KAT BUCKINGHAM: The former chief investigator in Labour's disputes team said she left the party feeling 'stuck between an angry and obstructive leader's office and an arcane disciplinary system'. She said: 'I couldn't hold the tide and I felt so powerless and I felt guilty and I felt like I failed and yeah I had a breakdown.' Advertisement

The High Court heard that the seven whistleblowers - Katherine Buckingham, Michael Creighton, Samuel Matthews, Daniel Hogan, Louise Withers Green, Martha Robinson and Benjamin Westerman - all had concerns there was 'a lack of commitment' by Labour to investigate anti-Semitism properly.

At a brief hearing in London, their barrister William Bennett QC said: 'The whistleblowers were highly critical of the Labour Party's approach to tackling antiSemitism within its ranks.'

He told Mr Justice Nicklin: 'Before the broadcast of the Panorama programme the Labour Party issued a Press release that contained defamatory and false allegations about the whistleblowers.'

Mr Bennett said Labour accused them of 'having acted in bad faith during and after their employment with the intention of harming the Labour Party' - allegations he said were 'untrue and defamatory'.

At the same hearing, Labour apologised to Mr Ware for falsely accusing him of 'deliberate and malicious misrepresentations designed to mislead the public'.

The party agreed to pay him 'substantial damages'. Labour has declined to give details of the over all settlement yesterday, but the damages bill alone is thought to be under 200,000.

In a statement, the claimants' solicitor Mark Lewis said: 'Today in the High Court, the Labour Party retracted its false allegations made about the Panorama programme asking whether Labour was anti-Semitic.

'The answer was a clear 'Yes'. Labour chose to double-down and attack the programme's presenter, John Ware, and the whistleblowers rather than addressing the truth of the problem.'

Labour's handling of anti-Semitism allegations under Mr Corbyn's leadership is the subject of an inquiry by the Equality and Human Rights Commission - and Sir Keir has already received a draft report from the watchdog.

The party said Labour is 'committed to tackling anti-Semitism' under Sir Keir and deputy leader Angela Rayner.

In a statement, it stressed: 'Anti-Semitism has been a stain on the Labour Party in recent years. It has caused unacceptable and unimaginable levels of grief and distress for many in the Jewish community, as well as members of staff. If we are to restore the trust of the Jewish community, we must demonstrate a change of leadership.'

Outside court, shadow attorney general Lord Falconer said: 'We have brought to an end a chapter when the Labour Party was accusing whistleblowers of behaving dishonestly and I'm incredibly glad that we have brought it to an end.'

Labour Jewish MP Dame Margaret Hodge said: 'This is a big step in the right direction.'

The Jewish Labour Movement said: 'It is a sad reflection of its historic role as the party of working people that Labour sought to pursue and silence its former employees for speaking out against racism.'

However, Mr Corbyn condemned Labour's decision to apologise to the whistleblowers. It is understood he tried to challenge the move this week, but failed.

Last night he claimed lawyers had advised the party it could have won, stressing: 'The decision to settle these claims in this way is disappointing and risks giving credibility to misleading and inaccurate allegations about action taken to tackle anti-Semitism.'
The African Development Bank on Wednesday approved a $288 million (249 million euro) loan to South Africa to help fight coronavirus and mitigate the economic fallout of the pandemic.

South Africa is the hardest-hit country on the continent, with over 380,000 cases and at least 5,368 fatalities recorded to date.

It ranks among the top five countries in the world in terms of confirmed infections.

"The board of directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a loan of approximately R5 billion ($288 million) to the government of South Africa, as the country battles one of the largest COVID-19 caseloads in the world," the AfDB said in a statement on Wednesday.

The loan falls under the AfDB's $10 billion coronavirus response budget and was prepared following "a request from the government of South Africa".

It is the AfDB's first budget support to the country.

Africa's most industrialised economy is expected to contract by between 6.3 and 7.5 percent due to the pandemic, according to the AfDB.

The country was already in recession before the coronavirus outbreak with a registered GDP growth of just 0.2 percent in 2019 -- the lowest in a decade.

"South Africa's ability to respond to the pandemic has implications for neighbouring countries as well as the continent as a whole, given its position as Africa's second-largest economy after Nigeria," the AfDB said.
The Wyoming Mining Association also commended the decision.

This is something that has been in the works for several years and were pleased it has come to this point," executive director Travis Deti said. "We are hopeful the MOU will streamline the regulatory process for uranium recovery saving time and resources, which will help in getting the industry back on its feet.

But environmental groups worry about the long-term effects uranium mining can have on scarce groundwater resources throughout the West, especially with the Trump administration declaring it not pursue heftier regulations around cleanup of in situ mining sites. They point to ongoing contamination issues at uranium mine sites across the country and the dangers of the hazardous byproduct to drinking water.
The death of the federal judge's son was investigated by the authorities which made them believe that the intended target of the attackers is federal judge Esther Salas. On the other hand, the killer, Den Hollander was found dead in a car due to self-inflicted gunshot.

The son of a federal judge was killed, while her spouse was injured when a hail of gunfire from an unknown assailant rampage their New Jersey home. After the incident, there were no signs left of the gunman after firing on the victims.

The son of Salas, Daniel Anderl, 20, died after a gunman opened fire on their North Brunswick home last Sunday, the top judge at the federal courthouse confirmed CNN. Her husband, Mark Anderl, a defense attorney, is in critical condition.

According to the US Marshals and FBI on the case and looking it over. They said that Daniel opened the door before his dad. The killer shot and killed Daniel, who took the brunt of the shots. After accomplishing the task, the gunman ran away sources told CNN.

Gunman Hollander's gun was recovered in the car which was determined by the investigators as the same gun that was used in the attack.

The suspect arrived to the house of Salas wearing a FedEx uniform and a COVID-style mask. When the authorities found Hollander, they saw a package addressed to Salas.

Also read: New York Cops Will Get $1 Billion Cut From Their Budget, Warns De Blasio

Jonathan Lyons, of the FedEx responded through email, saying that the company knows what happened. They are also coordinating with the investigators to resolve the case.

One source stated that there haven't been any threats directed at Judge Salas. Lack of actual threats against her put the investigators in a rut, looking for a distinct motive.

Examination of the federal court records of Salas pointed out high profile cases in her court. One of these is cause of fraud by the "Real Housewives of New Jersey" stars Teresa and Joe Giudice.

In 2018, the sentencing of Farad Roland who was convicted of federal racketeering charges was given 45 years for the crime. Records show that Roland led the South Side Cartel, one dangerous street gang from a brief of the US Justice Department said. Last Thursday, she got the class action lawsuit against Deutsche Bank by Ali Karimi. Part of the charge was connected to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Included were other irregularities that went on from November 7, 2017, and July 6, 2020, cited New York Post.

Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said that he was with the aggrieved as the senseless violence was unacceptable. He then reminded everyone of the violence in the US that does not make communities safe. Both Democratic US Sen. Bob Menendez and North Brunswick Mayor Francis "Mac" Womack sent their condolences.

Related article: Bloodbath in NYC Continues With 9 Dead, 41 Injured Overnight

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
FRC urges Trump admin. to sanction Nigeria; cut aid over inability to stop killings of Christians

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A leading conservative evangelical advocacy group is calling on the Trump administration to consider sanctions against Nigeria in response to the governments inability to thwart communal and extremist violence that has led to the deaths of thousands of Christians in recent years.

In a policy paper released last week, the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council called on the U.S. government to impose hard-hitting sanctions against Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and consider cutting aid to the West African country until steps are taken to address the violence routinely committed against Christian communities.

The new report, titled The Crisis of Christian Persecution in Nigeria, was written by FRC Senior Fellow for International Religious Freedom Lela Gilbert.

Gilbert and others working to restore religious freedom for Christians are calling on the Trump administration to appoint a State Department envoy for Nigeria as Boko Haram extremists and radical herdsmen continue to attack and kill hundreds of civilians each year.

The individual serving in this position would be responsible for making sure that violent attacks against Christians are documented accurately.

In the fiscal year 2020, the U.S. provided Nigeria with nearly half a billion dollars in foreign assistance. Gilberts report suggests making the foreign aid conditional upon specific demands, such as governmental curbs on deadly attacks.

In an interview with The Christian Post, Gilbert called on the global Christian community to rally in support of Christians facing persecution and death in Nigeria.

We really have to pray for our Nigerian brothers and sisters because they are facing horrendous attacks and constant danger in some places, Gilbert said. We believe in doing all we can do otherwise, of course. But we also want to ask God to intervene to help these people. If our voices are raised as one, I know that Hell hear us.

Persecution and slaughter of Christians has been a common occurrence in Nigeria in recent years and the situation doesn't seem to be improving.

Referring to the country as a killing field of defenseless Christians, a report compiled by the Nigeria-based International Society for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law earlier this year estimates that between 11,500 and 12,000 Christian deaths were recorded between June 2015 and March 2020. The same group estimated that as many as 1,200 Christians have been killed in the first six months of 2020.

June 2015 was when Buhari first came to power.

Most of the bloodshed against Nigerian Christians has been attributed to radical members of the nomadic Fulani ethnic group, who have been accused of carrying out many brutal overnight attacks against predominantly Christian farming communities in the countries farm-rich Middle Belt, the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram and its offshoot Islamic State West Africa Province in northeast Nigeria.

Gilberts paper criticized Buhari, an ethnic Fulani, for doing virtually nothing to address the behavior of his fellow tribesmen.

Even after President Donald Trump publicly confronted him about violent attacks on Nigerian Christians, Buhari has not offered a substantive response to the crisis, she wrote.

Christian leaders in Nigeria and some international human rights groups have described what has taken place in their country as a genocide.

Yet, as Gilbert noted, the U.S. and other western governments have taken little action over the years to hold the Nigerian government accountable for its apathy toward the genocide that has taken place in their country. Although the State Department last December added Nigeria to its special watch list of countries that engage in or tolerate severe violations of religious freedom, advocates want to see more action taken.

In her report, Gilbert cited the deeply secular perspective of many diplomats, intelligence, and media talking heads as one reason for the complacency regarding the crisis in Nigeria.

These secularists greatly diminish or utterly overlook the role religious faith plays  for better or for worse  in the world, she said. More than a few policy-makers and media voices are convinced that religion simply amounts to cultural norms or a picturesque assortment of traditions rather than deeply held beliefs.

Gilberts report also pointed to the perception that climate change is the driving factor behind the Fulani radical attacks on Christian farmers as fertile land is becoming more scarce.

Initially, Fulani violence against Christians was attributed to climate change, she wrote. It has been widely reported that due to drought and the receding of pastures for their flocks, desperate Fulani migrant herders began to confiscate land on which to graze their animals. However, due to ever-increasing evidence of rampant bloodshed, outrageous brutality, and Islamist chants and declarations during attacks, the Fulani marauders jihadi intentions have been exposed.

In spite of the lack of observable concrete action taken to address the terror against Christians in Nigeria thus far, Gilbert remains optimistic.

The Trump administration has done more than any other administration in my memory to intervene in matters of religious freedom and Christian persecution, Gilbert told CP.

Were hoping that some of these things will happen before the election. But of course, even if they dont, then well continue to push for them. We know that we have a responsive administration, and we really hope these things will be addressed quickly.
By Azernews





By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov has held discussions on bilateral cooperation with the Secretary-General of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Hadi Suleymanpur, the ministry reported on July 22.

During the telephone conversation, the minister expressed his gratitude for the support provided for Azerbaijans active participation in the organization.

The sides discussed development opportunities for cooperation in trade, information and communication technologies, transport, logistics and other areas within the ECO.

Bayramov gave information to the Secretary-General on the military provocation and new aggression committed by Armenia on the international border of the two countries, as well as the current situation in the region.

Moreover, the minister touched upon the fact that tensions in the region are rooted in Armenia's ongoing policy of aggression against Azerbaijan and the ongoing military occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions of Azerbaijan for nearly 30 years.

Referring to the Secretary General's letter on the recent military provocation of Armenia, Bayramov expressed gratitude Suleymanpur for his call for a speedy settlement of the conflict and his support for Azerbaijan's sovereignty and territorial integrity.




HOUSEHOLD savings have hit their highest level since the last financial crisis.

People spent less in the first three months of the year which meant that they put more money aside.

The savings level was higher than any time in the last six years, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) said.

Household saving increased in the first quarter of 2020, as employee pay went up, while consumer spending decreased, the statisticians said.

This means the savings ratio hit 16.4pc, its highest level since 2009.

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What is called the derived saving ratio measures the relationship between saving and income.

The CSO found that the gross income in the State was up in the first quarter when compared with the last three months of 2019.

This was despite large numbers of people being laid off and forced to depend on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment, with others supported by the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme.

The CSO said gross disposable income rose from 30.19bn in the last three months of last year to 30.604bn in the first quarter.

Gross spending in the economy fell from 26.13bn in the last quarter of last year to 25.6bn in the January to March period of this year.

This meant the savings ratio was up.

Senior statistician with the CSO Michael Connolly said the figures were showing a rise in income despite the disruption to employment caused by the pandemic.

The CSO now uses Revenues new PAYE Modernisation real time data on incomes. This was introduced this year and is more robust than the previous methods for capturing incomes, he said.

The latest CSO data comes after Central Bank Governor Gabriel Makhlouf said households have had no choice but to cut their spending during the pandemic.

This applies especially to those who have not had a loss of income, he wrote in his latest blog.

They have been unable to consume goods and services as they normally would as a result of the restrictions imposed for health reasons, he wrote.

He said consumers may also willingly be spending less due to the high degree of uncertainty around both their incomes and potential risks to their own health.

Governor Makhlouf noted that household deposits have increased sharply since the crisis started.

He said what he called the exceptional increase may be linked to limited spending opportunities and stable income due to Covid-related supports.

But the growth in deposits has been evident since mid-2018, for both Irish and Euro area households, he noted in his blog.

This rise was due to precautionary saving.

The Central Bank boss said economic uncertainty has increased in recent years, due to the withdrawal of the UK from the EU and rising geopolitical trade disputes.

Given these uncertainties, households may have been saving to provide protection against potential shocks.
US President Donald Trump announced last night that he will send federal agents into Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to help combat rising crime, expanding the administration's intervention in local enforcement as he runs for re-election under a "law-and-order" mantle.

Using the same alarmist language he has employed to describe illegal immigration, Mr Trump painted Democrat-led cities as out of control and lashed out at the "radical left".

"In recent weeks there has been a radical movement to defund, dismantle and dissolve our police department," Mr Trump said at a White House event, blaming the movement for "a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence".

The decision to dispatch federal agents to American cities is playing out at a hyperpoliticised moment when Mr Trump is grasping for a re-election strategy now that the coronavirus has upended the economy and immigration is largely at a standstill.

With less than four months until election day, Mr Trump has been warning that violence will worsen if his Democratic rival Joe Biden is elected in November.

Crime has surged in some cities such as Chicago, New York and Philadelphia before any major policing overhauls could be made. In trying to explain violence in some cities, experts point to the unprecedented moment in the country - a pandemic that has killed more than 140,000 Americans, historic unemployment, stay-at-home orders, a mass reckoning over race and police brutality, intense stress and even the weather. And compared with other years, crime in 2020 is down overall.

Local authorities have complained that deploying federal agents to their cities has exacerbated tensions on the streets, while residents have accused the government of violating their constitutional rights. Civil unrest in Portland, Oregon, only escalated after federal agents were accused of whisking people away in unmarked cars without probable case.

Hundreds of federal agents have been sent to Kansas City, Missouri, to help quell a record rise in violence after a four-year-old boy's shooting death. Sending federal agents to help localities is not uncommon.

Usually, the Justice Department sends agents under its own umbrella, like agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or the Drug Enforcement Agency. But this surge effort will include at least 100 Department of Homeland Security Investigations officers working in the region who generally conduct drug trafficking and child exploitation investigations.

DHS officers have already been dispatched to Portland and other localities to protect federal property and monuments.

The spike in crime has hit some cities hard at a time when their resources were already stretched thin from the pandemic. But local leaders, including Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, initially rejected the move to send in federal forces.

Ms Lightfoot later said she and other local officials had spoken with federal authorities and come to an understanding. Chicago has seen 414 homicides this year, compared with 275 during the same period in 2019. A barrage of gunfire left 15 people dead on Tuesday near a funeral home on the South Side.

"I've been very clear that we welcome actual partnership," the Democratic mayor said Tuesday after speaking with federal officials. "But we do not welcome dictatorship. We do not welcome authoritarianism, and we do not welcome unconstitutional arrest."

In New Mexico, meanwhile, Democratic elected officials were cautioning Mr Trump against sending in federal agents, with senator Martin Heinrich calling on Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales to resign.

"Instead of collaborating with the Albuquerque Police Department, the Sheriff is inviting the president's stormtroopers into Albuquerque," the Democratic senator said in a statement.
Daniel Radcliffe is best known for playing Harry Potter in the eight-film fantasy series.

Daniel Radcliffe shot into the limelight with the portrayal of Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, and remains insanely popular among Potterheads. The actor turns 31 today.

The actor, after the franchise came to an end, has starred in films like What If, Kill Your Darlings (as the poet Allen Ginsburg), The Woman in Black, Victor Frankenstein, and Guns Akimbo. He has also starred in stage plays like Equus and the Broadway musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

However, Janet Hirshenson, the casting director of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, in a 2015 interview, recalled how Radcliffe was uninterested in continuing a career in acting before he was selected to play the lead character. "He just wasn't interested. He didn't want to be an actor anymore," she said.

Hirshenson told Huffington Post that the makers were very specific about who they wanted to play Harry Potter, and Radcliffe fit the bill.

It was only after the producer of the films David Heyman persuaded Radcliffe's father to send the young actor for the audition, did the miracle happen.

After Radcliffe auditioned, the makers' options were narrowed down to two, Ultimately, Radcliffe bagged the role because the actor had the "vulnerable" and "powerful" side to him that the role demanded.

Before playing the legendary wizard, Radcliffe had essayed the role of young David Copperfield in 1999's David Copperfield. He had also landed a role in the movie The Tailor of Panama that came out in 2001.

This was followed by successful screen tests of Emma Watson for Hermoine Granger and Ruper Grint for Ron Weasley, Harry's best friends.
The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority has reached an agreement with Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro's office as part of an investigation launched in February of 2019 regarding violations of the Safe Water Drinking Act in 2016 and 2017. As part of the settlement, PWSA will also hire an independent corporate monitor and make a donation of $500,000 to organizations and programs that protect Pittsburgh residents from lead contamination.

In June 2016, PWSA exceeded the drinking water lead action level established under the Pennsylvania Safe Drinking Water Act. As PWSA attempted to meet federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) service line replacement requirements, PWSA unintentionally violated the Safe Water Drinking Act in 2016 and 2017 by failing to provide 45-day advanced notice of partial service lead line replacement to customers at some homes, and failing to provide post-construction test kits.

In November 2017, PWSA entered into a consent order agreement with DEP related to these violations that included a civil penalty of $2.4 million. The Attorney General's charges were about the same violations.

PWSA Executive Director Will Pickering said: "I want to make sure our customers know PWSA is deeply sorry for not meeting the standards you expect of us and we expect of ourselves. We've shifted our culture and priorities since 2016 and 2017, revising our compliance systems, public outreach, dramatically increasing our lead line replacement program. I want our customers to know that we are committed to public health and safety, and that their well-being is our top priority."

Since 2016 and 2017, PWSA worked with legislators to modify state laws so PWSA could cease partial lead line replacements and instead replace full lead service lines, including service lines on the private property of PWSA customers. All of the homes that received partial lead line replacements in 2016 and 2017 were contacted again by PWSA later and offered a no-cost full line replacement, as well as test kits and filters.

Mr. Pickering continued: "Since PWSA signed the consent order with DEP in 2017, we implemented an industry-leading Community Lead Response program and replaced more than 7,300 lead service lines. We are well on our way to our goal of replacing all lead lines in the city of Pittsburgh in the next few years. We also established a Community Lead Response Advisory Committee to further increase transparency and community responsiveness. We are grateful for your trust and we will continue to do the ongoing work to improve the safety and reliability of Pittsburgh's drinking water."

As part of the agreement, PWSA will hire an external and independent corporate monitor to provide reports to the Office of Attorney General, PWSA, and the PA Department of Environmental Protection.

In addition to hiring an independent monitor, the PWSA will also donate $500,000 to organizations to protect Pittsburgh residents from lead contamination: $250,000 will be donated to the Safe and Healthy Homes program, and $250,000 will be donated to Women for a Healthy Environment's "Get the Lead Out, Pittsburgh" program.

Learn more about PWSA's Community Lead Response program: http://lead.pgh2o.com/.
There is something extraordinary about the various images and videos of our solar system which grace the Internet. Just like this picture which shows the North Pole of Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter. What makes things even more interesting is that the north pole of the planets moon is photographed for the first time ever.

The image of the north pole of the ninth largest object in the solar system, the moon Ganymede, is captured by NASAs Juno spacecraft, reports the space agency.

Shared on NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory divisions official Twitter profile, the image is a sight to behold. Take a look yourself and prepare to get amazed:

For the first time ever, @NASAJuno imaged the north pole of the largest moon in the solar system: Jupiter's moon Ganymede. https://t.co/IQZxjJpdaI pic.twitter.com/7qxNTgGQA6  NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) July 23, 2020

Posted just a few hours ago, the tweet has amassed over 4,700 likes  and counting. It also received all sorts of comments from tweeple. While some were excited to see the image, others had questions.

Oh, its gorgeous! Hypnotic! What are the colored specks in the shadow on Ganymede? wrote a Twitter user. It is so beautiful, tweeted another and many agreed. Wow, fascinating, tweeted a third.

Many were curious about the number of moon Jupiter has. Just like this Twitter user who asked How many moons does Jupiter has?. To which the original poster replied:

There are 79 Jovian moons. Ganymede consists primarily of water ice. Its composition contains fundamental clues for understanding the evolution of those Jovian moons from the time of their formation to today.  NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) July 23, 2020

What do you think of the image?

Also Read | Astronaut shares clip of lightning seen from space, netizens are spellbound. Watch
SHALLOTTE  A North Carolina man who won a $10 million lottery prize in 2017 has been arrested on a murder charge in the death of a woman whose body was found at a hotel.

The Shallotte Police Department charged Michael Todd Hill, 52, of Leland, with murder after the body of 23-year-old Keonna Graham was found Monday in a hotel room in the Brunwick County town, according to news outlets.

Authorities did not immediately release additional details about the womans slaying.

Graham worked as a correctional officer at a prison in Burgaw, according to a cousin, Antionette Lee. Before that, Graham had a job working with mentally disabled people at a rehabilitation center, Lee said.

She did all of this like it was second nature to her, said Lee, who described her cousin as a generous, loving and adventurous woman who enjoyed hiking and bicycle rides.

Graham is survived by her mother, Latrinda Graham, and a 10-year-old sister, Zoey. Lee said Graham and her younger sister had an unbreakable bond.

We are hurting. We are in pain, Lee said. Our family is devastated.
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Lead conversions to sales are impressive but not surprising. Patriot Roofing's being honored with the 2019 Best of the Best Award by Rich Noonan is documented in a spectacular video. Viewing this video, combined with customer reviews, leaves consumers knowing that Patriot Roofing is the clear choice for their roofing needs.
<! The aid workers executed by Boko Haram gunmen the ISIS way >

By Ismaila Chafe/Abuja

President Muhammadu Buhari has condemned the recent murder of five staff of aid agencies in Borno State, who were kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists a month ago.

The president, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, in Abuja on Wednesday, sympathised with the families of the five aid workers.

He prayed that God would comfort them for their irreplaceable loss.

He assured that the government would continue to do all it could to ensure that every remaining vestige of Boko Haram is wiped out completely from North Eastern Nigeria and that the perpetrators of this atrocity face the law.

Buhari also condoled with the State Emergency Management Agency, Action Against Hunger, Rich International, and International Rescue Committee, whose staff have suffered this gruesome fate.

He thanked them for their continued dedication and service to the victims of Boko Haram in North Eastern Nigeria.

He also assured them that security agencies in the state would work closely with their organisations to implement measures to ensure that no such kidnapping of staff occurs again.

A video circulated on Wednesday, showed how the Boko Haram gunmen executed the aid workers the ISIS way.

The aid workers were kidnapped 29 June, while travelling between Maiduguri and Monguno, in Borno State.

They were Lucas Philibuz, who was working with the International Rescue Committee, IRC, Abdulrahman Dungus, of REACH International Initiative and Ishaku Yakubu the Action Against Hunger, AAH.

Others are Abdulrahman Bulama, a camp manager with state emergency management agency, SEMA and Joseph Prince, a local guard with Halogen Security.

The terrorists reportedly demanded a ransom of $100,000 on each of the captive.

Related
(Natural News) Yesterday, Twitter announced that they are taking action against accounts related to the QAnon movement, which has frequently been maligned as conspiracy theorists by the fake news media.

(Article by Shane Trejo republished from BigLeaguePolitics.com)

Weve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm, Twitter said in their announce.

In line with this approach, this week we are taking further action on so-called QAnon activity across the service, it added. We will permanently suspend accounts Tweeting about these topics that we know are engaged in violations of our multi-account policy, coordinating abuse around individual victims, or are attempting to evade a previous suspension.

They booted over 7,000 accounts from the platform and are now blocking URLs associated with QAnon from being shared on Twitter. Twitter is intensifying the censorship crackdown against Trump supporters heading into Novembers election.

While Twitter gets rid of QAnon accounts, they are allowing terrorists and pedophiles to network on the platform.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei threatened the U.S. on the platform on Tuesday, with Twitter turning a blind eye to the violent rhetoric from the Islamic extremist.

The Islamic Republic of Iran will never forget the martyrdom of Hajj Qasem Soleimani and will definitely strike a reciprocal blow to the US.  Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) July 21, 2020

Big League Politics has reported on how Twitter actually amended their terms of service to explicitly allow pedophiles to discuss the finer points of raping children on their platform:

Social media giant Twitter has quietly amended their terms of service to allow for discussions related to attraction towards minors to be allowed on their platform. Discussions related to child sexual exploitation as a phenomenon or attraction towards minors are permitted, provided they dont promote or glorify child sexual exploitation in any way, reads Twitters terms of service. Twitter allow noted that they would allow for nude depictions of children on their platform in certain instances. Artistic depictions of nude minors in a non-sexualized context or setting may be permitted in a limited number of scenarios e.g., works by internationally renowned artists that feature minors, they added. Twitters pro-pedo policy may have been implemented at the behest of Dr. James Cantor, who describes himself as a proud Jewish homosexual. Cantor is a leading researcher and advocate for pedophiles, who he refers to as minor-attracted persons. Cantor wrote a letter in Jan. 2018 to John Starr, who works as Director of Trust and Safety with Twitter, with other university academics. The letter urged Twitter to allow pedophiles to network and discuss their attraction to children on the monolithic social media platform They argued that denying pedophiles a place on the social media platform may lead to these so-called virtuous pedophiles acting on their impulses to sexually victimize kids.

Twitter and other Silicon Valley monopolists hold values that are antithetical to Western Civilization.

Read more at: BigLeaguePolitics.com
Maharashtra Medical Education Minister Amit Deshmukh on Thursday asked the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) to defer examinations of its medical courses in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Nashik-based state university has announced holding examinations in August.

An official statement issued here said Deshmukh has asked MUHS vice-chancellor Deelip Mhaisekar to postpone the examinations, saying holding them during the ongoing pandemic was not in the interest of students.

The minister said the first and second year students be allowed to study the next years curriculum and their final year examinations and all other non certifying tests be deferred till further notice.

The internship of final year students be started and their examinations be conducted only after the COVID-19 spread is contained, he said.

Deshmukh said post-graduate students reside in their campuses and hence their exams can be conducted. The entrance examination of their courses is slated for September 15.

Set up in 1998, the MUHS is focused on teaching, training and research in modern medicine and Indian systems of medicine. It conducts courses in allopathy, dental, nursing, homoeopathy, unani and ayurveda streams.
You learn that you dont have the relationship you thought you had with your children, said a doctor in Western Massachusetts who is an estranged grandparent. Like several I spoke with, she asked for anonymity because she hoped for a future cease-fire.

She hasnt seen her son and his seven children since 2015, except at a family funeral where they didnt speak. He and his wife have blocked her email, she said, and sent gifts back unopened. I feel like Im being erased, the doctor said.

How often this happens remains an unanswered question. In a 2012 survey of nearly 2,000 grandparents conducted for AARP, 2 percent said they never saw the grandchild who lived furthest away  but distance or illness could also account for that.

The numbers could well be higher. At heart, estrangement from grandchildren reflects estrangement from adult children, the gatekeeper middle generation that can promote or deny access.

When Megan Gilligan, a sociologist at Iowa State University, studied 561 later-life families in Massachusetts, she and her team were surprised to find that about 11 percent of mothers reported being estranged from at least one of their children. (That was defined as meaning theyd either had no contact in a year, in person or by phone, or had less than monthly interaction, plus a low score on a questionnaire measuring closeness.)

Grandparents trying to cope with this rupture feel not only distraught  its a knife in the heart, one grandmother told me  but humiliated. Their friends are posting adorable grandkid photos on Facebook, while the excluded mourn every missed milestone.

If your child dies, everyone feels sorry for you, points out Joshua Coleman, a Bay Area psychologist and author of Rules of Estrangement, to be published this fall. If your child has stopped talking to you, everybody blames you.
Vodafone Ghana Foundation has donated an amount of GHC 100,000 to the Ark Foundation, a Non-Profit Organization (NGO), for the construction of the Vodafone Ark Transit Shelter for victims of the domestic violence.

The donation is part of Vodafones efforts to support the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and its numerous challenges. These include domestic abuse, which has significantly increased globally, as victims are compelled to stay at home with their abusers due to measures in place to contain the spread.



Speaking at the donation ceremony via a video call, Board Chair of Vodafone Ghana Foundation, Rev. Dr. Joyce Aryee, said:



One of the core mandates of the Vodafone Ghana Foundation is to meet the needs of vulnerable women in society and COVID-19 around making our support for Ark foundation even more relevant. During the lockdown period, it was realized that women were a group of people that proved very vulnerable in the cases of domestic violence. In view of this, we decided to support the Ark Foundation to take care of vulnerable women and children by means of this gesture. The donation is a true reflection of Vodafones continuous support for Ghanaians in spite of the pandemic.



Human Resource Director at Vodafone Ghana, Ashiokai Akrong during her remarks, said



The donation is one of the many initiatives from Vodafone as part of our commitment to helping the country to deal with some of the negative impact of the pandemic on Ghanaians. We take pride in undertaking activities that solve societal problems and change the lives of many individuals for the better. Vodafone employees generously raised 50% of the amount and the other 50% came from Vodafone Group Foundations COVID-19 Hardship Fund that was launched to support a local charity to provide relief for Ghanaians. This clearly goes to reiterate Vodafones position as a humane and people-centered one



Receiving the cheque on behalf of the Ark Foundation, Executive Director, Dr. Angela Dwamena-Aboagye, commended Vodafone for supporting the Foundation.



She said: The facility when completed will enhance our humanitarian work of providing counselling and shelter for victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence. We had come under financial stress in recent times because of the dwindling donor support. We are extremely delighted that Vodafone Ghana Foundation has come to our aid

Vodafone Ghana has provided massive support for Ghanaians since the inception of the COVID-19 pandemic with many interventions. Notable among them is the Vodafone Healthline Call Centre, which seeks to provide guidance to Ghanaians on COVID-19 in a wide range of local and international languages.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Press Release

23 July 2020

The award-winning Dutch hotel and lifestyle brand citizenM has entered into an exciting collaboration with German project developer GBI. citizenM is looking for prime locations for their entry into the German hotel market. True to its philosophy 'affordable luxury for the people', citizenM is offering guests all the luxuries they would expect from a high-end hotel in a prime location, yet without sky-high prices. Since June, citizenM is also offering contactless stays powered by its new app.

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The focus for citizenM's expansion in Germany will be on four cities: Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Berlin, where citizenM plans to open several hotels in each city. GBI and citizenM will search for suitable properties and plots of land for the brand to acquire, and then develop turnkey citizenM hotels together.

With its owner-operator model - delivering a high profitability per square meter - lean operational cost structure, and a robust tech-forward approach, citizenM has been expanding its global portfolio smoothly and continuously across Europe, North America and Asia in prime locations. In March 2019, citizenM welcomed its third investor, GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, raising the value of the company to 2 billion. GIC joins citizenM's two other investors, KRC Capital (the private investment vehicle) and APG (the Dutch Pension Fund). Together, they have committed to invest 750 million of new equity for future hotel developments.

"It had been clear for some time that Germany, as Europe's strongest economic country and a sought-after travel destination, would be one of our next targets," says Klaas van Lookeren Campagne, CEO at citizenM, "but we needed the right partner and consultant for our expansion. We are delighted to have found this with GBI."

citizenM expansion: an ideal match for GBI's development portfolio

In the spring of 2020, the GBI Group of Companies was named Germany's largest project developer of hotels by bulwiengesa,a major independent real-estate consulting company in continental Europe. GBI's hotel developments cover 140,000 square meters of usable space altogether. GBI has held its top bulwiengesa ranking for four years in a row.

"For GBI, the new mandate is a perfect addition to its development activities," emphasises Reiner Nittka, CEO of GBI Holding AG. "In terms of brand positioning and location requirements, this is an ideal fit. Now we can supplement further locations with exactly the right brand." The building specifications and requirements for the high-quality furnishings have already been tailored to the German environment. Now a final check can be carried out directly in the name and on behalf of citizenM to determine whether hotels can be developed at the chosen locations in accordance with the standards of the brand.

About the GBI Group of Companies

GBI AG and its sister company GBI Wohnungsbau GmbH develop hotel, apartment and residential projects. On its own or with partners, the company has been able to sell or place real estate in Germany and Austria with a volume of around 1.9 billion since its foundation in 2001. In addition, GBI AG acts as a fund or asset manager for funds of institutional investors in various property classes. This includes above all the selection of operators and locations as well as Due Diligence services with all purchase and sales processes. The hotel project developments of GBI AG comprise approximately 14,600 rooms - making GBI the largest hotel developer in Germany. The company is active for all relevant national and international brands from budget to upscale segments. The long-stay segment has grown particularly strongly. Under the brand umbrella SMARTments, the commitment to developing and operating micro-apartments for students, business travellers and private individuals has been stepped up since 2010. In the commercial sector of SMARTments business, the project list includes 1,169 apartments. The parent company of GBI AG is GBI Holding AG, a 100% subsidiary of the Moses Mendelssohn Foundation. Website: http://www.gbi.ag
during the forecast period. The growth of the home security systems market is driven by factors such as growing awareness regarding home security systems, the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) and wireless technologies and increasing adoption of IP cameras for video surveillance amid COVID-19 crisis.

New York, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Home Security Systems Market by Home Type, Security, Systems, Services, Region - Global Forecast 2025" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05495954/?utm_source=GNW



Home security system market for condominiums and apartments to grow at higher CAGR during the forecast period.

Owing to the increasing urbanization, the cities have started growing vertically, leading to the growth in the number of residential apartments and complexes.People in cities prefer condominiums and apartments owing to the integrated security and amenities within optimized prices.



Therefore, providing a high level of security, while managing a large number of households, becomes necessary for the society builders and management bodies. Thus, with the increasing number of condominiums and apartment projects in cities worldwide, the home security market for condominiums and apartments is expected to grow at a higher CAGR during the forecast period.



Professionally installed and monitored security systems to account for the largest share of the market by 2025.

The large market for professionally installed and monitored security systems is mainly attributed to the growing concern among consumers about consistent security and real-time monitoring, and rising disposable income.Customers can entirely rely on professionally installed and monitored security systems, which are backed up with engineering and maintenance support.



Consumers prefer opting for this category of products as the direct involvement of experts in handling and managing such products saves time and reduces efforts.Under a complete security package, professional monitoring companies offer possible discounts and insurance benefits.



Moreover, these companies can communicate with offsite monitoring centers to ask for police, firefighters, and ambulance assistance in emergencies.



Home security system market for products to grow at higher CAGR during the forecast period.

The projected growth of the home security system market for products is mainly attributed to the increasing penetration of these systems in emerging economies and the rising adoption of do-it-yourself (DIY) products. Additionally, the proliferation of smart city projects, the emergence of IoT, and the integration of wireless technology are a few factors that are expected to fuel the implementation of home security products across different households.



Breakdown of profile of primary participants:

 By Company Type: Tier 1 = 55%, Tier 2 = 25%, and Tier 3 = 20%

 By Designation: C-Level Executives = 35%, Directors = 40%, and Others = 25%

 By Region: Americas = 30%, Europe = 20%, APAC = 40%, and RoW = 10%



Major players profiled in this report include:

 ADT (US)

 Honeywell (US)

 Johnson Controls (US)

 HANGZHOU HIKVISION DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY (China)

 ASSA ABLOY (Sweden)

 SECOM (Japan)

 Robert Bosch (Germany)

 United Technologies (US)

 Godrej & Boyce (India)

 Alarm.com (US)

 Allegion (Republic of Ireland)

 Control4 (US)

 Schneider Electric (France)

 Legrand (France)

 ABB (Switzerland)

 Comcast (US)

 STANLEY Convergent Security Solutions (US)

 Nortek Security & Control (US)

 FRONTPOINT (US)

 Vivint (US)



Research Coverage

The report segments the home security system market based on home typeindependent homes and condominiums/apartments; system typeprofessionally installed and monitored, self-installed and professionally monitored, and do-it-yourself (DIY); offeringproducts (fire protection systems, video surveillance systems, access control systems, entrance control systems, intruder alarms) and services (security system integration services, remote monitoring services, fire protection services, video surveillance services, and access control services). The study also covers the geographic forecast of the market size for various segments with regard to four main regionsAmericas, Europe, APAC, and RoW.



Reasons to Buy the Report:



The report would help the leaders/new entrants in this market in the following ways:

 This report segments the home security system market comprehensively and provides the closest approximations of the overall market size and those of the subsegments across different applications and regions

 The report gives a detailed analysis of the home security system market with the help of competitive landscape, value chain analysis, including the key companies in the market and their relations in the ecosystem.

 The report helps stakeholders understand the pulse of the market and provides them the information on key drivers, restraints, challenges, and opportunities pertaining to the home security system market.



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05495954/?utm_source=GNW



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



__________________________

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CONTACT: Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001




Regarding Mitchel Ricketts letter to the editor (July 15):

Remember the Democrats started the Russian Hoax in 2017 despite knowing theres no big there there. The investigation was based on a bogus dossier paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC to undermine Trump. Yet it dragged on for years.

Many feel Robert Mueller had no concept of what was in his own report. It was run by the corrupt Andy Weissmann, who previously ruined Arthur Andersen LLP and jailed innocent people.

A few bad Department of Justice people went after Gen. Michael Flynn and other Trump staff/supporters. It took until recently to end Flynns case (thanks to attorney Sidney Powell).

In regard to Attorney General Bill Barr, an expert on the Chinese, he has recently condemned companies bowing to China. He also wants to investigate the big tech companies. These steps are necessary.

So prior to COVID-19, America had a great economy, a building military and better border control. Perhaps we can return to more of the same.
Nadia and Jimmy Bartel are selling their former marital home in Melbourne's inner south, almost a year after their high-profile split.

The one-time AFL glamour couple have listed the five-bedroom property in St Kilda West with a price guide of $3.7million to $4million, reports the Herald Sun.

The Bartels had paid $3.76million for the home back in September 2017, according to CoreLogic records.

Sale: Nadia and Jimmy Bartel are selling their former marital home in Melbourne's inner south, almost a year after their high-profile split. Pictured with their sons Aston and Henley

Nadia and Jimmy, who share custody of sons Aston, four, and Henley, one, spent the last two years of their marriage living at the Mary Street address.

Speaking about the property in 2018, Nadia praised its 'traditional Victorian feel'.

She added: 'There are lots of beautiful details that give the house character, such as timber-framed windows, detailed timber fireplaces, intricate leadlight windows, bay windows, and high ceilings with decorative plasterwork.'

On the market: The former AFL glamour couple have listed the five-bedroom property in St Kilda West with a price guide of $3.7million to $4million

Luxury pad: The Bartels had paid $3.76million for the home back in September 2017

The home is being marketed by Marshall White Port Phillip as 'one of St Kilda Wests most elite properties'.

A year before buying in Melbourne, the Bartels had sold their Geelong home for $2.25million in December 2016.

Jimmy and Nadia announced their separation on August 15 last year, but it's believed they actually split two months prior.

Bittersweet memories: Nadia and Jimmy spent the last two years of their marriage living at the Mary Street address

Good taste: Speaking about the property in 2018, Nadia praised its 'traditional Victorian feel'

Just days after confirming their break-up, the Brownlow winner, 36, was romantically linked to Melbourne socialite Lauren Mand.

They went public with their relationship weeks later.

Fashion designer Nadia has made no secret of her heartache following her marriage breakdown.

Discussing the split for the first time in April, she told Stellar magazine: 'This is never what I thought would happen. Every day is tough.'

Top dollar: The home is being marketed by Marshall White Port Phillip as 'one of St Kilda Wests most elite properties'

The Henne founder added that her priority was making sure her sons were supported emotionally during the separation.

'I want my boys to be aware of their feelings. And if they are feeling a certain way, they can show that feeling,' she said.

'They are allowed to cry and allowed to come to me and say what's happening.'

Former home: A year before buying in Melbourne, the Bartels had sold their Geelong home for $2.25million in December 2016

Jimmy has remained tight-lipped on the separation, simply saying it was 'not great' during 3AW's pre-match coverage in August.

'I am probably not going to provide any commentary on it,' he said at the time.

'I know I am in the public eye and people are interested, but it is a private matter and I ask for a bit of respect because obviously Nadia and the boys [are] involved.'

Nadia and Jimmy first met in 2008 while attending the Melbourne F1 Grand Prix. The sportsman proposed four years later in Mexico.

The couple then married in an elaborate wedding on the Bellarine Peninsula in 2014.

Splitsville: Jimmy and Nadia announced their separation on August 15 last year, but it's believed they actually split two months prior
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The casket of The Rev. C.T. Vivian was placed in front of the tomb of Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta Wednesday on the eve of his funeral.

Mourners lined the streets and gathered outside the Georgia Capital as the body of the civil rights activist was taken by horse-drawn carriage along the historic Auburn Avenue to Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park.

King and Vivian were close allies after they met 1955 as they both became prominent names in the civil rights movement.

Earlier Wednesday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Sen. Nikema Williams and other local politicians joined mourners to pay their respects for the respected activist as his body lay in state in the rotunda of the Georgia Capitol.

According to USA Today, Vivian is the first civilian Black man to lie in state at the Georgia Capitol.

He died Friday at age 95 of natural causes.

Scroll down for video

Mourners look on as the body of civil rights leader C.T. Vivian rests in front of a statue of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Georgia Capitol building on Wednesday. Vivian is the first civilian Black man to lie in state at the Georgia Capitol

The body of civil rights leader C.T. Vivian is seen during a stop at the crypt where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King are interred. A private funeral takes place Thursday due to the coronavirus pandemic

People raise their fists as the remains of civil rights leader C.T. Vivian is loaded into a hearse Wednesday. Mourners were given a final opportunity to pay their respects after thew activist's death of natural causes aged 95 on Friday

A horse-drawn hearse brings the casket of the late Civil Rights leader Reverend C.T. Vivian along historic Auburn Avenue in Atlanta on Wednesday. Vivian lay in state in the Georgia Capitol before being driven to MLK's crypt

Vivian's casket is placed on a horse-drawn hearse on Wednesday to be take to the crypt of close ally Martin Luther King Jr

Ahead of a private burial ceremony on Thursday, mourners were given a final opportunity to march with Vivian as his body was taken to King's crypt.

The masked mourners carried pictures of Vivian and Martin Luther King Jr. as they gave him a final salute.

As the casket was taken from the Georgia Capitol, it was placed for a moment of tribute beside the statue of his friend King before being transferred into the horse-drawn open carriage.

The processional was led by a police motorcade.

'This is an ultimate honor,' his son Mark Vivian said after a short ceremony in the Capitols rotunda.

'Its just an honor that now more folks are learning who he is and what he stood for, and also what the movement was and how the movement came about.'

A horse-drawn carriage is followed by supporters as it carries the body of C.T. Vivian down Capital Avenue in Atlanta

Mourners lined the streets and followed the procession that was led by a police motorcade

Vivian's casket is pictured on its way to the tomb of Martin Luther King Jr and his wife Coretta Scott King Wednesday

Dozens were gathered at Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park to welcome Vivian's casket

Women hold signs as they watch the body of civil rights leader C.T. Vivian carried off the grounds of the Georgia Capitol

On the way, the casket stopped at the headquarters of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, where Vivian was the director of national affiliates in the 1960s and national president in 2012, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

More than a decade before lunch-counter protests made headlines during the Civil Rights movement, Vivian began organizing sit-ins against segregation in Peoria, Illinois, in the 1940s.

He met King soon after the budding civil rights leader's victory in the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott.

King himself had not been allowed to lie in state when then-Gov. Lesater Maddox refused it following his 1968 assassination.

Masked mourners followed the procession after Vivian lay in state for three hours at the Georgia Capitol building

Some mourners carried pictures of Vivian and of his friend Martin Luther King Jr. as they followed his casket Wednesday

The remains of civil rights leader C.T. Vivian are carried past Ebenezer Baptist Church on a horse-drawn carriage

'As one of the foremost advocates for justice during the Civil Rights Movement and one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s most trusted friends and deputies, C.T. Vivian stood on the front lines of the fight for equality,' Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said during Wednesday's ceremony at the Capitol.

'During one of the most turbulent times in our nations history, C.T. Vivian was steadfast and calm, grounded in the knowledge that he fought for something much bigger than the obstacle in front of him,' Kemp added.

Vivian helped organize the Freedom Rides to integrate buses across the South and trained waves of activists in non-violent protest.

The Georgia state flag is prepared to lie on the casket of The Rev. C.T. Vivian in the capitol rotunda during his memorial service, Wednesday

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp prepares to speak during a memorial service

It was Vivian's bold challenge of a segregationist sheriff while trying to register black voters in Selma, Alabama, that sparked hundreds, then thousands, to march across the Edmund Pettus bridge.

'He has always been one of the people who had the most insight, wisdom, integrity and dedication,' said Andrew Young, who also worked alongside King.

Cordy Tindell Vivian was born July 28, 1924, in Howard County, Mo., but moved to Macomb, Ill., with his mother when he was still a young boy.

Mourners pass the casket of Rev. C.T. Vivian in the capitol rotunda during his memorial service

Mourners sit in the capitol rotunda around the casket

Georgia state Sen. Nikema Williams (center) is consoled during the memorial service for the activist

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and First lady Marty Kemp bow their heads during prayer service at the mermorial

As a young theology student at the American Baptist College in Nashville, Vivian helped organize that city's first sit-ins. Under King's leadership at SCLC, Vivian was national director of affiliates, traveling around the South to register voters.

In 1965 in Selma, he was met on the Dallas County courthouse by Sheriff Jim Clark, who listened as Vivian argued for voting rights, and then punched him in the mouth.

Vivian stood back up and kept talking as the cameras rolled before he was stitched up and jailed. His mistreatment, seen on national television, eventually drew thousands of protesters, whose determination to march from Selma to Montgomery pressured Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act later that year.

The tomb of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King at the MLK Center is seen above in this file photo. A horse-drawn carriage will take Vivian's casket past Martin Luther King Jr.'s tomb in Atlanta following the service

Pallbearers bring the casket into the rotunda of the building

Mourners pass the casket of The Rev. C.T. Vivian in the capitol rotunda during his memorial service ahead of the casket beng taken to the tomb

Vivian helped organize the Freedom Rides to integrate buses across the South and trained waves of activists in non-violent protest (Pictured with marchers in Selma)

Vivian served in the SCLC after King's assassination in 1968, and became its interim president in 2012 (pictured in 2011)

Vivian continued to serve in the SCLC after King's assassination in 1968, and became its interim president in 2012, lending renewed credibility and a tangible link to the civil rights era after the SCLC stagnated for years due to financial mismanagement and infighting.

Vivian was honored by former President Barack Obama with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.

Vivian 'was always one of the first in the action - a Freedom Rider, a marcher in Selma, beaten, jailed, almost killed, absorbing blows in hopes that fewer of us would have to,' Obama said in a statement shortly after his death.

A private funeral is set for Thursday at Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta.

He is survived by four daughters and two sons, along with several grandchildren. Vivian's wife died in 2011, AJC reports.
India's third Covid wave likely to peak on Jan 23, daily cases to stay below 4 lakh: IIT Kanpur scientist

SC directs states to reach out to 10,000 kids orphaned due to Covid-19, pay compensation

Tea seller gets Rs 50 crore repayment notice for loan he never applied for

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

Chandigarh (Haryana), July 23: As the coronavirus pandemic has hit the industries hard, small-scaled businesses are facing financial dearth. People end up taking a loan to meet the end.

On the same note, a strange story has been unfolded from Kurukshetra in Haryana.

Here is the claim of a loan of 50 crores on a tea seller has surprised him.

Haryana: Rajkumar, a tea seller in Kurukshetra claims he owes Rs50 crores to banks without even taking a loan. Says, "I had applied for a loan as my financial situation is dire due to COVID. Bank rejected it saying I already have debt of Rs 50 cr, don't know how it is possible." pic.twitter.com/BhTStsIwiy  ANI (@ANI) July 22, 2020

This is a story of a tea seller who has loan of Rs 50 crores under his name which he never applied for.

COVID-19: India registers 45,720 fresh cases, 1,129 deaths, tally crosses 12 lakh

Rajkumar, a tea seller in Kurukshetra, claims that banks are claiming a loan of Rs 50 crore without taking a loan.

Rajkumar said, "I had applied for a loan as my financial situation is dire due to COVID. Bank rejected it saying I already have debt of Rs 50 cr, don't know how it is possible."

Here everyone is surprised how good a loan can be on a tea seller.

Significantly, due to the corona, many poor working people are returning to their homes after the expiry of their accumulated capital, and are cutting lives by taking many loans.

Sonu Punjaban gets 24 years in jail for trafficking minor| Oneindia News

In such a situation, this uneven 50 crore loan has suddenly come on the tea seller as a shock.

However, the exact or wrong of this loan is being ascertained.
Ghanas Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, has called on the President of the Republic of Cote d Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara, to commiserate with him over the death of Amadou Gon Coulibaly, Prime Minister.



The visit which took place on Wednesday, July 22, 2020 was in compliance with the directives of President Nana Akufo-Addo



During the meeting, she expressed appreciation with the Ivoiren leader for agreeing to meet her and her delegation

at short notice in this trying and difficult period of the COVID-19 pandemic.



President Akufo Addo, the Government and people of Ghana received with great sadness, the unfortunate news of the sudden demise of H.E. Amadou Gon Coulibaly, Prime Minister and Head of Government of Cote dIvoire, on 8th July, 2020, she briefed President Ouattara.



Even though your brother and friend, President Akufo-Addo, has extended condolences to you, he has sent us to come personally and commiserate with you, the Government and people of Cote dIvoire, especially the bereaved family, on the demise of Mr. Coulibaly. President Akufo-Addo believes that this is the way we should continue to do things as Africans. In the particular case of Cote dIvoire, he believes that our visit is the proper thing to do, given the close blood ties and friendship that bind our two countries and the special relations both of you share, she said.



Mr. President, the late Prime Minister was a true son of Cote dIvoire and our dear region. As your close associate for decades, he stood by you in your efforts to build a strong and prosperous Cote dIvoire. We will all remember him for his distinguished public service and great patriotism.



Our prayer is that God will comfort you and grant you strength and courage in this moment of grief. May the soul of our departed brother and friend rest in peace.



May I also on behalf of President Akufo-Addo, convey condolences on the death of former Prime Minister, H.E. Seydou Diarra, which sad event occurred on Sunday, 19th July, 2020. Like Prime Minister Coulibaly, Mr. Diarra also served this country with distinction.



May the souls of our dearly departed rest in peace.



Once again, thank you, Mr. President, for receiving us, she said.



Madam Ayorkor Botchwey was accompanied by Minister for Defence Dominic Nitiwul, Zongo and Inner City Development Minister, Dr.Mustafa Hamid, Michael Ofori-Atta, Director  Regional Integration, Office of the President and Senior officers from the Ghana Foreign Ministry.

Source: Daily Guide









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More than 200,000 people in NSW have returned to work since COVID-19 restrictions were eased, prompting Treasurer Dominic Perrottet to warn that the economy cannot shut down again.

As NSW recorded 19 new cases of coronavirus on Thursday, Mr Perrottet said the NSW economy would take a hit of $1.3 billion a week if the state returned to a widespread lockdown.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard and NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet in Sydney on Thursday. Credit:Steven Siewert

"My view is that we should be doing everything we can to keep our economy open as much as possible," Mr Perrottet said.

"The cost of a Victorian-style lockdown to the NSW economy would be $1.3 billion a week and there are substantial costs not just on the economy but the jobs associated with that."
We decided to defer so that we could look into the points that the public made. Were hoping at the next meeting to discuss the points and see if they can be incorporated (in the ordinance) and take action, one way of the other, Tippy said.
UAB Ignitis Grupe, (hereinafter  Ignitis Grupe or the Company) identification code 301844044, registered office placed at Zveju str. 14, Vilnius, Republic of Lithuania. The total nominal value of issued bonds 900 000 000 EUR; ISIN codes XS1646530565; XS1853999313; XS2177349912.

The Company informs that on 23 July 2020 the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania (hereinafter  the Ministry of Finance), the authority implementing the rights of the sole shareholder of the Company, submitted for consideration draft resolution of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania On the amendments to the Resolution No. 20 of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania On the dividends of company shares held by the State and profit contributions from state enterprises of 14 January 1997 and draft resolution of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania On dividends paid by UAB Ignitis grupe.

After the consideration, the draft resolutions will be submitted to the Government of the Republic of Lithuania. Following the approval of the resolutions by the Government of the Republic of Lithuania, the Company will approve the updated dividend policy. The Company will inform about further related actions in the manner set forth by laws.

For more information please contact:

Arturas Ketlerius

Head of Public Relations at Ignitis Group

arturas.ketlerius@ignitis.lt

+370 620 76076




Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 21:52:32|Editor: huaxia

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HELSINKI, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health said on Thursday the downward trend in COVID-19 infections in Finland has stopped, but the situation has remained stable.

Last week 40 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the national registry. It has remained at the same level for three weeks, the ministry said.

Kirsi Varhila, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, told Finnish national radio Yle that concrete measures have started with a view of a possible second wave.

"Clusters of infection would be tackled directly at the local or regional level," Varhila said. The Infectious Diseases Act is being upgraded so that the Emergency Powers Act would not have to be resorted to. The threshold for "closing the country again" would be high, noted Varhila.

Finland is also planning COVID-19 tests at the border, following the easing of travel restrictions. A working group started last week to plan testing solutions for airports, harbours and the land borders.

Varhila said she was also concerned with the relaxed behaviour of young people in Finland. "I have considered whether new tools of modern communication should be used. I am not sure whether our factual information reaches young people now," she said.

Finnish media has published pictures of young people lining up to restaurants and bars, without keeping distance. Restrictions on restaurant opening hours were all lifted last week.

According to the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, as of Thursday afternoon, Finland has confirmed a total of 7,372 COVID-19 infections. The death toll stood at 328. An estimated 6,920 people have recovered, which is more than 90 percent of reported cases. Enditem
The downbeat outlook provides a dose of reality for Boeings rally on signs of progress for the grounded Max jet. The Federal Aviation Administration said this week its preparing to issue formal legal directives for repairs of the plane, which indicates the agency is finally comfortable with proposed fixes some 16 months after the second of two fatal crashes prompted regulators around the world to ban the plane from commercial flight. The public gets 45 days to comment on the FAAs action and there remain final additional steps in the un-grounding process, which likely pushes the planes return back to October. That will put a crimp in Boeings plans to resume deliveries during the third quarter, but such a delay hardly matters much in a time when airlines are making fresh cuts to their capacity. New planes aside, Southwest now doesnt even expect to bring any of the 34 Max jets it already owns back into its active fleet until at least December, given the time needed to retrain pilots.
Things are getting messy for the owners of the Third Ward's ultra-popular Turkey Leg Hut, and it has nothing to do with the restaurant's Texas-sized turkey legs.

Business partners who co-own the restaurant are in the middle of two lawsuits that accuse each other of stealing money for personal gain, fraud and other explosive claims, according to Eater Houston.

The first lawsuit was filed on July 8 by Turkey Leg Hut co-owner Steve Rogers and accuses co-owner and well-known community figure Nakia Price of using funds and supplies from the flagship restaurant for her other food trucks and catering gigs without compensating other shareholders.

Rogers also owns Bar 5015, which is located down the street from the Turkey Leg Hut and recently made headlines after it was destroyed in an explosion that is suspected as a case of arson. Rogers' lawsuit also argues ownership stakes amid an extensive list of other financial mismanagement claims against Price.

Price responded by filing her own lawsuit on July 15 in which she accuses Rogers of embezzling, pocketing thousands of dollars in valet parking fees over more than a year and "lying about securing a rent deferral agreement" that ultimately threatened the restaurant's lease, according to Eater.

The Houston Chronicle reports that the two parties have agreed to a temporary restraining order barring Rogers from interfering with business operations while Price has been ordered not to use the restaurant's funds or supplies for other ventures.

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Noxious smoke v. colonizers and gentrifiers. How the Turkey Leg Hut lawsuit fits into Third Ward socioeconomic clash

This isn't the first time the restaurant has been embroiled in a lawsuit. Late last year, Turkey Lug Hut was at the center of a lawsuit filed by Third Ward residents who argued they were suffering from health risks caused by the nonstop smoke coming from the establishment, the Houston Chronicle reported. The lawsuit was later dropped.

Houstonians who are craving the restaurant's massive smoked turkey legs, Cajun plates and seafood don't need to worry, though. By the looks of social media posts, Turkey Leg Hut is still as busy as ever and offering dine-in and delivery service.

The Turkey Lug Hut released the following statement to Chron.com:



"The vested partners will continue to focus on operating the business through these trying times of the COVID-19 pandemic, to keep the doors open and our employees with jobs to feed their families, as well as keep our guests safety as our priority. Mrs. Price has always been a woman of integrity, love and compassion for her brand that she started years ago in the field of the Rodeo, and will continue to work daily for the community and the customers whom we appreciate so much. As we continue to move forward as a company and our team works together to get past this, we will keep everyone informed, as we are legally able to.

Editor's Note: This story was updated to include a statement from the Turkey Leg Hut.

rebecca.hennes@chron.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 14:48:31|Editor: huaxia

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LOS ANGELES, July 22 (Xinhua) -- California Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Wednesday a new contract with China's BYD Company to produce 120 million N95 respirators and 300 million surgical masks as the number of confirmed cases in the state has surpassed New York for the most in the United States.

The new contract is worth 315 million U.S. dollars. California will pay BYD 2.13 U.S. dollars per N95 respirator and 20 cents per surgical mask, according to the new contract released by the governor's office.

Newsom confirmed Wednesday in a news briefing that around 146 million N95 respirators and 193 million surgical masks have arrived as part of the original contract with BYD. Newsom's administration has reportedly agreed a contract with BYD to buy 500 million masks.

The bridge contract signed with BYD will ensure California can provide PPE to its front-line workforce during the ongoing global pandemic at a competitive price and with an established and reliable partner, Newsom said in a statement.

"Providing front-line workers the protective equipment they need is critical to our state's response to COVID-19," the governor said, adding that "securing a reliable supply chain of PPE allows us to distribute millions of protective masks to our essential workforce while preserving millions more in our state's stockpile for future use."

To date, California has distributed 86.4 million N95 respirators and 297 million surgical masks to Californians working on the front line against COVID-19, including to hospitals, emergency responders, farm and factory workers and nursing home workers, according to the governor.

Newsom has directed the state's Department of Public Health and Office of Emergency Services to further increase the state's strategic stockpile to 100 million N95 respirators and 200 million surgical masks by early fall to account for the potential need given the recent rise in COVID-19 cases, according to the statement.

On Wednesday, California reported a record 12,807 new COVID-19 cases, taking its total cases to 413,576. The state now has the largest number of cases in the country, surpassing New York State.

California public health officials also confirmed 115 new COVID-19 deaths in a daily update on Wednesday. So far, a total of 7,870 deaths have been registered across the state.

The seven-day average number of new cases is now 9,420 per day, with the average from the week prior being 8,309, according to the California Department of Public Health.

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted on Tuesday that wearing a face mask when not able to socially distance is "Patriotic," a U-turn on his previous attitude toward masks.

Despite the president's new stance, many netizens continue to oppose mask-wearing, with one commenting, "The mandating of a face mask is wrong, it should be a choice!" Enditem
(Alliance News) - The UK is fighting hard against US President Donald Trump's plans to slap further tariffs on British industry, Liz Truss said.

The International Trade Secretary said she was "outraged" by the threat of further US tariffs which could hit the gin industry.

The US has already imposed tariffs on products including Scotch whisky as part of a transatlantic trade dispute over European subsidies for plane manufacturer Airbus SE.

The UK and US are engaged in trade negotiations on a post-Brexit deal but the row over tariffs casts a shadow over the talks.

The cabinet minister told a House of Lords committee: "We are certainly not going to accept the US hitting British industries like gin with additional tariffs."

She told the peers she would present US trade representative Robert Lighthizer with a bottle of gin to show "what the Americans could be missing out on" if tariffs are imposed.

"No-one is more outraged than me about these retaliatory tariffs and I have been speaking to affected businesses this week and I share their concerns and frustrations," she told peers.

"These tariffs are completely unnecessary and they harm industry on both sides of the Atlantic.

"We want them removed and we want them removed fast a preferably through a negotiated settlement.

"We are taking a tough line with the US, I have raised this on multiple occasions and I will continue to fight the corner of British business."

Earlier this week US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he wanted a UK-US trade deal to be done "as soon as possible".

But the complexity of the negotiations and the timing of the US presidential elections later this year means it appears unlikely that a deal can be done this year.

Truss said it would be "dangerous to make a prediction" about the timing of a deal and said she would not set a deadline because it could be used to put pressure on the UK to sign an agreement.

She added that the UK would not accept an agreement based on "photocopies" of the US deal with Mexico and Canada.

"We are commencing round three of the talks next week and we are making good progress," Ms Truss told peers.

"But we are very clear that we are not going to sacrifice a good deal for speed.

"We have expert negotiators who are tabling UK-specific texts across the whole agreement to ensure that it reflects our interests.

"We are not just going to accept photocopies of the US-Mexico-Canada agreement.

"We are also not going to budge from our red lines: the NHS remains off the table, our food standards must not be undermined and British farming must benefit from the deal.

"We also want to make sure that every region and nation of the UK benefits from the deal."

The International Trade Secretary defended seven-year gagging clauses for experts advising the government on its negotiations.

The non-disclosure agreements are aimed at protecting sensitive information about the UK's negotiating position.

"I do not want future trade partners of the UK to be having access to that level of information," she said.

It was a practice followed in other countries and "is on really specific commercial aspects of the negotiation".

But shadow trade minister Bill Esterson said the request for members of trade advisory groups to sign NDAs was "extremely worrying".

"The only reason to impose these long-term gagging orders is to prevent the public discovering the reality of what the Government is willing to give up to get these free trade deals," he said.

"On a practical level, these NDAs will make it impossible for business and union representatives to consult their members on the implications of specific proposals, and make it more likely that damaging provisions will slip into these trade agreements unchecked."

source: PA

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Nigerian government has launched the Agriculture for Food and Job Plan (AFJP), a component of the Nigeria Economic and Sustainability Plan (NESP).

The plan is to help mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on farmers and the economy.

This was disclosed by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Sabo Nanono, during the official launch of the AFJP in Katsina State on Thursday, according to a statement issued by Ezeaja Ikemefuna, the ministrys director of information.

The project would mitigate the negative impact of COVID-19 on the economy and livelihoods of farmers by creating more access to food for and the rapid emergence of a competitive food production, processing and distribution in Nigeria, the statement reads.

The minister reportedly said this symbolic launch represents over 1,100,000 smallholder farmer beneficiaries in 36 states and the FCT on the Batch A list under 6 partners namely AFEX, BabanGona, Value Seeds, Universal, Thrive Agric and Oxfam.

We will soon be announcing Batch B beneficiaries, he added.

Mr Nanono noted that President Muhammadu Buhari had earlier set up an Economic Sustainability Committee (ESC) which was chaired by the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, to fashion out a plan on COVID-19 intervention.

He said one of the strategies adopted by the committee is the AFJP, and that the programme will aid the transformation of agriculture from its largely low yielding and subsistent state to a high yielding technology based farming system.

The strategies would generate appropriate welfare gains consistent with the federal governments Economic Growth and Recovery Plan (EGRP) and Green Alternative strategies, he said.

The minister also said the plan, is also in tandem with the three pronged action plan of the ministry to deal with the impact of the pandemic on Nigerian agriculture and farmers.

Expectations

Mr Nanono explained that these measures included among others, the life-saving humanitarian assistance to vulnerable households to buffer the impact of COVID-19, such as the release of about 100,000 metric tons of assorted food commodities from the National Food Reserve to several groups and communities.

The minister said within 12 months, as contained in the NESP initiative, the expected deliverables of the AFJP include: creation of 5-10 million jobs in the agric sector; production of about 10,000,000 MT of food and cultivation of between 20,000  100,000 hectares of land per state based on land availability to an aggregate of 2.4 million farmers tied to farmlands.

More so, he said, loans to farmers will given at zero interest, as well as land clearing and preparation support, among others .

Meanwhile, the minister appreciated the continuous support of OCP Africa Fertiliser Limited for the provision of soil testing equipment and supply of 20 units of OCP branded motorcycles, android tablets and safety kits to support the FMARD extension services.

In his remarks, the chairman, Senate committee on agriculture, Abdullahi Adamu, reportedly said the agriculture sector is the bedrock of the economy, and applauded the agriculture policies of this administration.

Also, the chairman, House committee on agricultural production services, Muntari Danduste, and the permanent secretary in the ministry, Abdulkadir Muazu, appreciated Mr Buhari for providing palliative to farmers in Katsina State.
BOSTON, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Thought Industries , the world's leading B2B customer training platform provider, delivered record growth in Q2 2020 which ended June 30. New enterprise customers such as CoreLogic, AttackIQ, Amplitude, ITI and Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) selected Thought Industries' eLearning technology to create compelling learning experiences and scale their global, high-margin customer education operations.

"As demand for virtual events and continuous learning opportunities increases across the globe, enterprises are looking for new and better ways to improve the customer experience for their customers and drive additional revenue opportunities," said Barry Kelly, CEO, Thought Industries. "We've been fortunate to acquire excellent talent and execute on solving some of the toughest enterprise requirements for extended enterprise learning and continue to help our customers adapt to the new normal."

As part of the trend to move events into a virtual environment, Thought Industries also recently announced its first annual customer training virtual event and user conference powered by the Thought Industries Platform, COGNITION 2020, hosted online at https://cognition.thoughtindustries.com/ in October.

"Amplitude is all about enabling companies to join the product-led growth movement, and educating our customers and prospects on how to go through this transformation is why we are excited to be working with Thought Industries," said Erik Bower, Vice President of Growth Marketing, Amplitude. "Not only does the Thought Industries Platform give us a way to better engage with prospects and customers but it will also be a big part of our annual event Amplify, the world's largest gathering of product growth experts."

The second quarter also saw an increased demand to use the Thought Industries Platform for good. In partnership with several customers, including Britt Andreatta, CentralReach, and Duarte, Thought Industries enabled these businesses to significantly expand their market reach by supporting free access to courses that provided help adapting to change, upskilling and obtaining certifications to those laid off or furloughed due to COVID-19.

"With only an estimated 38,000 clinicians to provide care to millions of people with autism, the industry already faced a capacity constraint and any additional loss of clinicians in market due to COVID-19 would be devastating to those seeking care," said Karen Parisi, Vice President of Marketing, CentralReach. "Since March, with the help of Thought Industries, over 23,500 people, of which 18,000 are Board Certified Behavior Analysts, signed up for our certification program, or nearly 50% of the clinicians that serve the ABA market. This was an increase of more than ten-fold compared to last year. We are thrilled with the feedback we've received on the value these courses have provided as well as the user experience of the learning portal and were glad to do our part to give back to the community in this time of need."

Other Q2 highlights include:

Launch of its second-annual 2020 State of Customer Training Report

Mike Jahoda joining the team as Senior Vice President of Professional Services

joining the team as Senior Vice President of Professional Services Launch of its inaugural national Bridge Internship Program

Announcing a partnership with Gainsight and integration with Gainsight PX as part of the Gainsight Sightline Customer Success Ecosystem

Winning Gold from eLearning Industry for Best Learning Management Website Content

Being named a Top Performer for Corporate LMS by FeaturedCustomers

About Thought Industries

Thought Industries powers the business of learning by providing the world's leading B2B customer training platform. The company was founded in 2014 around the core belief that online learning experiences should be modern, intuitive, engaging, and scalable. Today, our team builds and maintains the only learning solution with completely native tools and integrations that drive higher engagement, learner proficiency, and retention rates for our customers. Headquartered in Boston, Thought Industries has offices across North America and Europe. For more information, visit www.thoughtindustries.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

SOURCE Thought Industries

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COLUMBUS, Ohio  Maneuvering has begun among Ohio House Republicans to pick a new leader following this weeks arrest of House Speaker Larry Householder in what federal officials have described as the largest corruption case in state history.

At least two candidates have emerged as possible replacements for Householder as speaker. One is Bob Cupp, a former Ohio Supreme justice from Lima who has served in the Ohio House since 2015. He has the backing of state Reps. Gary Scherer, of Pickaway County and Phil Plummer, of Montgomery County, who say they are seeking to draft him for the position.

His backers say Cupp is a well-respected figure within the caucus who is above reproach and not regarded as a political operator.

In an interview, Scherer said fair or not, there is a taint associated with current leadership following Householders arrest.

Weve got good people that are in leadership now, but with a fresh look, a fresh leader, I think the quicker we do that the better.

Another potential candidate is state Rep. Rick Carfagna, a Delaware County Republican. Carfagna, in office since 2017, said in a Thursday interview hes giving serious consideration to seeking the job, and said he has heard from people who have encouraged him to run.

I think most of my colleagues agree that the first thing we have to do is restore integrity to House leadership and do what we can to restore public confidence, he said. Not only in the House, but in government service overall.

Other members have been said to express interest privately in the seat, including state Reps. Scott Lipps, of Franklin and Craig Riedel, of Defiance.

Gov. Mike DeWine repeated a call Thursday for House members to act quickly to replace Householder. Hes previously called for Householder to resign, saying Householder cannot serve in the position effectively as hes facing up to 20 years in prison over what federal prosecutors have described as a $60 million bribery scheme to pass House Bill 6, the $1 billion nuclear bailout bill.

As a condition of this release from jail this week, Householder was ordered to not have contact with any potential witnesses in his case, which conceivably could apply to any member of the legislature.

The peoples business must be done and so I urge my friends in the legislature to very vigorously look at that and try to move as quickly as they can, DeWine, a Republican, said Thursday.

The House is not scheduled to meet again for months. But DeWine could call a special session under the Ohio Constitution, according to state Attorney General Dave Yost.

House Republicans initially had considered meeting Friday to informally discuss picking a new leader. But House members say theyre now looking at next week, as soon as Tuesday.

The chamber has been paralyzed following the Tuesday arrest of Householder, one of the states most powerful politicians who had seemed firmly entrenched in his position. The night of the arrest, Householders leadership team issued a statement saying they were reviewing the allegations against him. Since then, some of them have joined the mounting calls for Householder to step down.

Discomfort has set in among Republicans, as concern has mounted about the state of the House GOP caucus campaign funds for the upcoming legislative races this November. Householder closely controlled fundraising and the distribution of campaign funds, which were depleted following a primary earlier this year that was extended an additional six weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic. Its unclear what funds are available, what might be frozen and what might be associated with allegations contained within the investigation. Householders top political aide who saw legislative campaigns, Jeff Longstreth, also was arrested this week.

After a court appearance Tuesday, Householder told reporters he would not resign. But he can be expelled through a provision in the Ohio Constitution with a two-thirds vote. They could also simply remove him from his leadership position with a majority vote.

Even before news broke this week of the FBI investigation, the House had been harshly divided along party lines in recent weeks amid the coronavirus pandemic and an increased national focus on racial inequality amid a widespread protest movement.

A letter from Scherer and Plummer distributed Thursday floating Cupps candidacy said there will be a change in leadership soon, one way or another.

As we do that, we need to be honest with ourselves and recognize that all has not been well inside the Republican Caucus for some time, reads the letter, obtained by cleveland.com. Householder was not the only recent Speaker to misuse the office or to disrespect, bully or even threaten members who in good conscience dissented from one or another policy decision or leadership vote.

Scherer said he doesnt expect Republicans will need to reach out to Democrats to break a tie, as they did during the bitterly contested battle that saw Householder ascend to the position in January 2019.

He said he and Plummer have spoken with around a dozen members each, and believe the reception for Cupp has been positive.

Im term limited myself, but I want to see the future of our House come together, he said. Weve been fractured not only left to right, party wise. But within our own caucus.

Here is the letter from Scherer and Plummer:
(CNN)  Microsoft earnings easily beat analysts' expectations for the most recent quarter, as the pandemic drove demand for the company's cloud and remote collaboration tools.

Microsoft on Wednesday reported $38 billion in revenue for the three months ended in June  up 13% from the same period in the prior year and well above the $36.5 billion Wall Street analysts had expected.

Earnings for the quarter were $1.46 per share, again handily beating analysts' projection of $1.34 share.

"The last five months have made it clear that tech intensity is the key to business resilience," CEO Satya Nadella said in a release. "Organizations that build their own digital capability will recover faster and emerge from this crisis stronger."

The continued work-from-home trend boosted Microsoft's "intelligent cloud," "more personal computing" and "productivity and business processes" divisions.

Revenue from the productivity and business processes segment was up 6% from the year-ago period to $11.8 billion, helped by a 19% boost in sales of Office 365 Commercial. Revenue in the intelligent cloud division was up 17% to $13.4 billion. And personal computing sales were up 14% to $12.9 billion.

Still, Microsoft's stock fell more than 2.5% in after-hours trading shortly after the results were released Wednesday, after ending the day up 1.4%.

Investors may be concerned about slowing growth in its crucial Azure cloud business, which competes with market leader Amazon Web Services. Azure sales grew 47% during the second quarter, a slowdown from the 59% year-over-year growth it reported during the previous quarter.

Analysts also foresee potential road bumps for Microsoft. In particular, the second wave of shutdowns in many parts of the country and the recession could cause further reduction in companies' IT spending in the short term.

Microsoft said business license purchasing slowed in the second quarter, especially by small and medium businesses suffering from the economic fallout of the pandemic. Its search business took a hit from a pullback in ad spending.

However, as coronavirus cases continue to surge in the United States and many companies expect to keep relying on remote working, there is likely to be a greater incentive for businesses to update their digital capabilities, which should be positive for Microsoft in the longer term.

The company's operating expenses increased 13% during the quarter. They included a $450 million charge related to the plan Microsoft announced last month to close all 83 of its brick-and-mortar retail stores.

But they also included apparent investments in services to help with companies' digital transformations, including a 19% increase in operating expenses in the intelligent cloud division driven by investments in Azure. Operating expenses in the productivity and business processes segment increased 10%, "driven by Teams marketing and investments in cloud engineering."

"Right now, what I would like us to focus on, in the interest of our long-term investors, is to say: How can we build this modern tech stack so that it can really ... help customers transform, be resilient, and help us to get into new categories and build a strong position in those categories," Nadella said on a call with analysts Wednesday.

He added: "My own approach to this would be not to worry as much about short term, whether it's the growth number ... nor are we trying to think about a margin target, because in some sense, the world needs to do well for us to do well in the long run. And I think the world will come out of this, and we will be stronger if we invest during this (time)."

This story was first published on CNN.com 'Microsoft earnings beat forecasts, thanks to demand for remote-work tools'
Asma al-Assad has met with the family of a murdered child and blamed the current conditions on poor security and socials problems reports Shaam Network.

Wife of Bashar al-Assad, Asma al-Assad, who is known as the Lady of Hell, met with the family of the late child Sidra Zaidan, whose body was recently discovered in Tartous. She expressed her shock, while also seeming to forget the millions of crimes and hideous massacres carried out by her husbands army against the Syrian people.

The regimes Syrian Presidency page published pictures depicting Asma meeting with the members of the Zaidan family.

Asma expressed her shock by saying that an unimaginable event had happened, noting that she did not expect the emergence of issues and problems during the ten years of war, which was followed by what she described as an economic war. She also blamed the poor security conditions in the regime-controlled areas for what she described as social problems.

She also said that at the end of the day, Syria is a state of law and that the law will reign supreme. Asmas latest controversial statements were to promote herself and her criminal husband, who is known as Chemical Bashar (for using chemical weapons) and the killer of children.

The Ministry of Interior, affiliated with the regime, had previously announced the body of 13-year-old Zaidan was found in Tartous. The ministry revealed that the child was raped before being strangled with an electrical cord and dumped in a nearby agricultural land.

Statistics by the Syrian Network for Human Rights revealed the killing of 22,852 children by the regimes militia since the beginning of the Syrian revolution in March 2011.

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.
Pfizer said that large-scale safety and efficacy trials were to begin this month, with a regulatory review set for as early as October, although nothing was guaranteed.

Washington: As nations around the world race to lock up coronavirus vaccines even before they are ready, the Donald Trump administration on Wednesday made investments yet, announcing a nearly $2 billion contract with Pfizer and a German biotechnology company for 100 million doses by December.

The contract is part of what the White House calls the Warp Speed project, an effort to drastically shorten the time it would take to manufacture and distribute a working vaccine. So far, the United States has put money into more than a half dozen efforts, hoping to build manufacturing ability for an eventual breakthrough.

Europe has a parallel effort underway. Germany recently took a 23 percent stake in a German firm, CureVac, that President Donald Trump once tried to lure to American shores in hopes that its vaccine, if successful, would be distributed in the United States first. A European-led fundraising effort in May brought $8 billion in pledges from the worlds governments, philanthropists, and leaders for coronavirus vaccine research, even with the United States sitting out the conference.

China has militarized the effort: Researchers associated with the Academy of Military Medical Sciences have developed one of Chinas leading vaccine candidates, and another Chinese company, Sinopharm Group, announced in June that it was beginning Phase 3 trials in the United Arab Emirates.

The Pfizer contract, an agreement to ensure the pharmaceutical giant has a market for its work, is the biggest splash yet by the Americans. If the vaccine is produced by Pfizer and BioNTech, the German firm, proves to be safe and effective in clinical trials, the companies say they could manufacture those first 100 million doses by the end of the year.

Under the arrangement, the federal government would obtain that first batch for $1.95 billion, or about $20 a dose, with the right to acquire up to 500 million more, or 600 million total. Americans would receive the vaccine free. Before it could be distributed, it would need emergency approval by the Food and Drug Administration. But the US government does not pay the nearly $2 billion until the drug is approved and the first 100 million doses are delivered.

Pfizer said that large-scale safety and efficacy trials were to begin this month, with a regulatory review set for as early as October, although nothing was guaranteed.

Depending on success in clinical trials, todays agreement will enable the delivery of approximately 100 million doses of the vaccine is being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, Alex Azar, the health secretary, said in a statement announcing the deal.

On Monday, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish drug company developing a potential vaccine with Oxford University, released data suggesting that their vaccines could stimulate strong immune responses with only minor side effects.

But unlike AstraZeneca, which has also obtained funding from the US government, Pfizer did not receive a contract for its earlier research and development efforts  only for the doses and their distribution.

By refusing funding until now, Pfizer was able to avoid drawn-out contractual negotiations and get its vaccine to trials, company officials say.

We didnt accept the federal government funding solely for the reason that we wanted to be able to move as quickly as possible with our vaccine candidate into the clinic, John Young, Pfizers chief business officer, said on Tuesday at a congressional hearing with executives from five vaccine manufacturers.

Pfizer and BioNTech are developing a vaccine candidate that uses genetic material from the virus, known as messenger RNA, to stimulate the immune system without making the recipient sick. The technology can create a vaccine quickly, but has not yet produced one that has been approved and marketed.

Moderna, a Massachusetts biotech company, received $483 million from the U.S. government for its vaccine development and is also using mRNA technology. By putting the might of an industry giant behind it, Pfizer is making the technology mainstream.

The lack of a track record has prompted some skepticism about the mRNA approach, but Dr. Kathrin Jansen, a senior vice president and the head of vaccine research and development at Pfizer, dismissed the criticism.

Thats not a scientific mindset  that just because its new, it will fail, she said in an interview.

Earlier in her career, Jansen worked for Merck, where she led its development of a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, which is caused by a virus. The vaccine, Gardasil, has been successful. It, too, used a technology that was new at the time and faced considerable skepticism.

Pfizer calls its coronavirus project Lightspeed, a name that Jansen said the company picked before the administration coined Warp Speed.

Jansen said Pfizer had placed its bet on mRNA not just because the technology could produce a vaccine quickly, but also because its review of previous work by BioNTech on experimental cancer vaccines suggested the approach could cause a powerful immune response. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the two companies had been collaborating on flu vaccines.

Vaccines using mRNA consist of genetic material from part of the virus encased in tiny particles made of fat that help it get into human cells. The mRNA then prompts the cells to churn out a tiny piece of the virus, causing the immune system to attack the real virus if the person is exposed. In essence, the patients cells become factories for a harmless fragment of the virus.

These mRNA vaccines set off several different kinds of immune responses, Jansen said, which is important because scientists do not know yet which type will be most potent against the coronavirus.

Jansen described making an mRNA vaccine as a clean, fast process that required a relatively small footprint to produce many doses.

mRNA has the potential to be fast to produce a product that is very well defined and very pure, she said.

Several other companies are also making mRNA vaccines, and each has its own formulation of the genetic material and types of fat used to encase it.

The large vaccine studies set to begin this month will each include 30,000 people, with some getting placebo shots. The Food and Drug Administration has said that to be considered effective, a coronavirus vaccine should protect 50% of the people who receive it.

Companies hope to show proof of effectiveness by the fall, but that will depend on enrolling enough volunteers in areas where the infection rate is high enough to see a significant difference between the vaccinated people and the placebo group.

We think we will see the endpoints, given that the infection rates are going up, up, up, Jansen said. If the stars are aligned, it could be next fall. But everything has to be right.

Dr Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, said that Pfizer, unlike some smaller pharmaceutical companies that the government had contracted with, did not need research money because it was likely to have the infrastructure and early data it needed to speed its vaccine to trials without federal assistance.

Pfizer is a company that has a lot of expertise in making vaccines, he said. They knew that any negotiation with the government could have delayed the start of trials, which he said the company knew how to set up rapidly.

He added that the $1.95 billion agreement was a way to guarantee a market for the vaccine at the end of production since prominent drugmakers have historically been hesitant to spend on infectious disease outbreaks.

Advance purchase agreements have been one way weve been able to acquire vaccines and countermeasures against certain threats that pharmaceutical companies have traditionally stayed away from, he said.

The agreement with Pfizer, which the company and the Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday morning, is the largest one yet for Operation Warp Speed. The federal government announced this month that it would pay the Maryland-based company Novavax $1.6 billion to expedite the development of a coronavirus vaccine.

Weve been committed to making the impossible possible by working tirelessly to develop and produce in record time a safe and effective vaccine to help bring an end to this global health crisis, Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizers chairman and chief executive, said in a news release.

Noah Weiland, Denise Grady and David E Sanger c.2020 The New York Times Company
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 02:26:17|Editor: huaxia

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MOGADISHU, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The UN humanitarian agencies are seeking 186.2 million U.S. dollars to meet the immediate health and humanitarian needs of people affected by COVID-19 in Somalia.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it has only received 37 million dollars or 16.4 percent of the total funding required, to implement the Somalia component of the COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan.

"Almost half of the funding so far received has been provided for distribution across multiple clusters including health, protection, nutrition and WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene)," OCHA said in its latest report on COVID-19.

It said the remaining funds have been allocated primarily for food security and protection among others.

The UN agency said the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened Somalia's humanitarian and socioeconomic crises, exacerbating pre-existing vulnerabilities and hurting livelihoods, especially among low-income families.

Analysis by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network and Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit indicates that poor urban households, IDPs and pastoralists are likely to be most affected by an estimated 3 to 50 percent decline in annual external remittances, an anticipated 25 to 35 percent decline in annual livestock exports, lower labor demand, and above-average imported staple food prices.

The UN agency said daily confirmed COVID-19 cases have declined in recent weeks, but overall numbers remain high with 3,135 cases, 1,464 recoveries and 93 deaths recorded as of Tuesday.

It said humanitarian partners are continuing to expand COVID-19 responses to mitigate the further spread and impact of the pandemic.

Somalia is also struggling to contain floods and desert locusts, creating a triple threat. Enditem
As the US surpassed the grim milestone of four million coronavirus cases, alarming photos from one of the worlds most recognised tourist attractions highlights the virus-hit nations plight and how neighbouring Canada is managing to slow the spread of COVID-19.

A photo of two tourist ferries at Niagara Falls on the US-Canada border shows the drastically different approaches the two countries are taking amid the pandemic.

One US vessel can be seen ferrying dozens of passengers with little social distancing, while a Canadian boat just metres away merely has a handful of tourists onboard.

Although cases of COVID-19 continue to rise across the United States, neighbouring Canada has largely managed to contain the spread of the virus and is recording stabilised numbers of several hundred a day.

American tourist boat Maid Of The Mist, limited to 50 per cent occupancy glides past a Canadian vessel limited under Ontario's rules to just six passengers. Source: Reuters

The nations position has been helped by strict social distancing measures and mandatory masks in several jurisdictions  clearly evident on board its tours at the famous waterfalls.

Canadian ferries are limited to just six passengers per boat, out of a 700 person capacity. But on the US side, the ferries are operating at 50 per cent capacity, according to Maid of the Mist boat tours.

"We actually took a picture of the (American) boat," said Julie Pronovost, visiting from Quebec with her family on Tuesday.

"I don't find that it's very safe to be on a boat like that. It's much better here."

US tours frustrate operators

Maid of the Mist could not immediately be reached for comment but its website said it was following the guidance of New York State public health officials.

The boats contain markers to keep visitors spaced out, and face coverings are compulsory, among other safety changes, it said.

Mory DiMaurizio, general manager and vice president of Canada's Hornblower Niagara Cruises, said the limits placed on its business by the Ontario provincial government were "disappointing" and that it was "frustrating" to see the American boats relatively full.

Story continues

"However we've made lemonade out of lemons," DiMaurizio said, referring to a new VIP cruise the company has created  a near-empty boat, plus a meal and funicular ride included with the ticket.

Health precautions include temperature checks and mandatory masks.

The popularity of the CAD$69.95 ($73) per person cruise has "actually surprised us," DiMaurizio said.

Provisional daily infections figures for the US were in the vicinity of 71,000 as of Wednesday (local time), compared with about 500 in Canada.

Since the outbreak began, the United States has reported around 118 coronavirus cases per 10,000 residents, while Canada has around 30.

Canadian authorities are dealing with both unwanted tourists slipping though the border and permitted travellers - including essential workers, those en route to Alaska, and families reuniting - who break the strict quarantine laws, causing concerns about possible outbreaks in several provinces.

Canada has managed to curtail its spread to several hundred cases a day. Source: Worldometers

Tourists at the falls on Tuesday said they felt much safer with the six person per boat limit.

"I'm glad I'm in Canada," said Amanda Barnes of Brampton, Ontario.

"You can see why the pandemic is raging in the United States and not in Canada when you look at the difference between the boats."

With Reuters

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.
The Nigeria Customs Service Board (NCSB) has approved the the appointment of five Assistant Comptrollers- General (ACG) of Customs and promoted 2,634 Officers.

Joseph Attah, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the service, made this known in a statement in Abuja on Wednesday.

Mr Attah said the newly appointed ACG of Customs were Mohammed Boyi, Training and Coordination, Adewale Adeniyi, Commandant C&SC Gwagwalada and Jack Ajoku, Strategic Research and Policy.

Others are Olakunle Oyeleke Doctrine, Development and Administration and Emmanuel Edorhe, Zonal Coordinator, Zone C.

He disclosed that the board also approved the dismissal of ACG Aminu Dahiru for serious misconduct, while ACG Bashir Abubakar got compulsory retirement for act of negligence.

The spokesperson said the disciplinary actions against the two senior officers were in-line with the reform agenda being carried out in the service.

Mr Attah quoted the board chairman and Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, as saying the decisions taken during the meeting were meant to ginger and move the service forward in-terms of manpower and operations.

NCS is Making progress and I am optimistic that the coming of the e-Customs will help improve NCS operations, Mrs Ahmed said.

(NAN)
The nice thing about forgoing venture money as a biotech firm is that when a pandemic devastates the globe you can leave millions of dollars of revenue on the table in order to help scientists who are fighting the disease.

"Our customers were making these huge efforts to create drugs for Covid," says Claes Gustafsson, co-founder and chief commercial officer at ATUM, based in Newark, California. "Because there were no VCs breathing down our necks, there was no reason not to do it."

ATUM, which does not release revenues, manufactures synthetic versions of genes used in industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and agriculture. Extracting DNA from living things is slow and difficult; ATUM rapidly creates biological material to order from scratch, using organic chemistry. So if, for example, a researcher is looking for the optimal protein for an antibody that attacks breast cancer, "we can make 500 different versions and test them to see which works the best," says Gustafsson.

In the case of a communicable disease like Covid, synthetic genes have another advantage. "In the old days you would have to physically get the virus, ship it somewhere and grow it," says Gustafsson. "That, of course, has all sorts of safety issues."

With its Silicon Valley-proximate location and reliance on machine learning, ATUM has attracted plenty of VC suitors. But the company has declined every offer. The four founders met in the late '90s as young scientists in the biotech startup Maxygen, which went public a couple of years later, fueled largely, Gustafsson says, by VC hype. When the founders launched ATUM (then called DNA2.0) in 2003, they decided to "keep that whole VC world outside and build this business for the long term," says Gustafsson. (After struggling for years, Maxygen was dissolved in 2013. It re-launched in 2017.)

ATUM had been operating profitably for 17 years, doing lots of work in the agriculture and food space for companies like Archer Daniels Midland. Then, in January, the Wuhan Institute of Virology sequenced the genome of the first Covid virus and uploaded it to a large public database maintained by the National Institutes of Health.

"Within minutes we started getting orders from people who wanted to make different pieces of the Covid virus," says Gustafsson. That first wave comprised researchers working on diagnostic tools. When enough patients had survived and begun to develop immune responses, the focus switched to therapies. Now, of course, the world is hell-bent on creating vaccines.

Around 200 organizations working on Covid--large pharma companies, small biotech firms, government agencies, and universities--approached ATUM. "Their main concern is speed, but safety matters too," says Gustafsson. To meet demand, the company went to seven-day weeks, splitting employees into two teams and staggering work hours to enable social distancing in the lab.

The partners swiftly decided to, among other things, waive licensing fees, which are upwards of $100,000 for cell lines that generate commercial-grade antibodies at sufficient scale for mass production. All Covid-related work is processed as a rush order, typically four or five times more expensive than the standard price. ATUM also makes some gene and protein variants available at no or very low cost for Covid customers.

Virtually all the work is custom, so putting a price tag on it is difficult. "I can't even guess how much revenue we are missing out on," says Gustafsson, although he acknowledged it was at least several million dollars.

Jennifer Cochran, chair of bioengineering at Stanford University Schools of Medicine and Engineering, is part of a team of Stanford researchers who developed a test to detect antibodies for the virus underlying the disease. "ATUM generously donated reagents that were critical for scaling our Covid-19 diagnostic efforts," says Cochran. The company "prioritized support to combat Covid-19 over maximizing its own revenues during the pandemic."
Michael Cohen will be released to home confinement after a federal judge ruled Thursday that the government had returned the presidents former personal attorney to prison earlier this month in retaliation for his plans to write a tell-all memoir about Trump.

The purpose of transferring Mr. Cohen from furlough and home confinement to jail is retaliatory, and its retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his first amendment rights to publish a book and discuss anything about the book or anything else he wants on social media and others, Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled during a telephonic hearing.

The judge referenced the first clause in Cohens probation agreement proposed by the government, which would limit his ability to make public pronouncements, saying Ive never seen such a clause, in 21 years of being a judge.

Cohen, 53, was released on home arrest in May after having been sentenced to three years in federal prison in 2018 after pleading guilty to numerous counts of tax fraud, bank fraud and campaign finance violations. He was remanded on July 9 and has been held in solitary confinement at federal prison in Otisville, New York ever since. He later sued Attorney General William Barr, claiming he was being punished for his desire to publish a book about President Trump.

Cohen will be released by 2 p.m. on Friday after receiving a coronavirus test. Prosecutors and the former fixer will have one week to negotiate the terms of his involvement with the media as part of his release.

Just as you wouldnt have a press conference from a jail cell, you shouldnt be able to have a press conference from your home, Hellerstein said. You can communicate, you can discuss, you can post on social media, but you cant make a confinement into a free person. You cant make a person confined in jail or at home into totally free person. Theres got to be a limit.

However, the Justice Department defend its actions on Wednesday, saying that it hadnt been trying to stifle Cohens free speech.

Story continues

Petitioners contention that he was not placed on home confinement on July 9, 2020, in retaliation for a book that he is planning to publish that is critical of the president of the United States is not supported by the evidence, acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss told the court.

The evidence instead shows that the petitioner, who had been released from prison on furlough, was remanded into custody on July 9, 2020, because he was antagonistic during a meeting with probation officers at which he was supposed to sign the agreement that would have allowed him to complete the remaining portion of his criminal sentence in home confinement.

Cohens attorney called the judges order a victory for the First Amendment.

The ruling confirms that the government cannot block Mr. Cohen from publishing a book critical of the president as a condition of his release to home confinement, Danya Perry, who argued on behalf of Cohen at the hearing, said in a statement. This principle transcends politics and we are gratified that the rule of law prevails.

More from National Review
The Hong Kong stock market finished session higher on Thursday, 23 July 2020, recouping parts of yesterday's losses, thanks to news of progress in vaccine trials and global stimulative steps. Market sentiments also supported by Ant Group's plan to dual list in Hong Kong and Shanghai as well as news of a new Hang Seng Tech Index.

At closing bell, the benchmark Hang Seng Index rose 0.82%, or 205.06 points, to 25,263.00. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index added 0.8%, or 81.74 points, to 10,325.25.

City market fell 2.3% yesterday's amidst a dramatic escalation in tensions between Washington and Beijing after the United States on Wednesday gave China 72 hours to close its consulate in Houston, saying it was to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information. China strongly condemned the move, and as per reports Beijing was considering shutting the U. S. consulate in Wuhan in retaliation.

Select tech stocks rose as investors chased them ahead of the new Hang Seng Tech Index.

Benchmark heavyweight Tencent rose 3.3% to HK$557. Meituan Dianping increased 3.5% to HK$199. However, Alibaba slipped 0.6% to HK$246.60. The trio, plus Xiaomi and Sunny Optical, will be the most heavily weighted stocks in the new tech index. Sunny Optical advanced 3.5%, while Xiaomi rose 1.9%. AAC Tech, which makes lenses for smartphones and will also be in the Tech Index, shot up 12.9%.

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The Coronavirus did not reduce the demand for plastic surgery. Instead, all of those Zoom meetings and Facetime connections are leaving many people even more aware of their appearance  and wishing their screen images looked better.



According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, plastic surgeons report that about 65% of patients asked for Botox injections, while stay-at-home orders were in place. Another 37% were interested in dermal fillers.



Botox was the top cosmetic minimally invasive procedure in 2019, with 7.69 million sessions in the U.S. Last year, there were 2.72 million dermal filler procedures and 1.38 million procedures for chemical peels.



More complex facial procedures were also popular in 2019. Eyelid surgery accounted for about 265,200 procedures and nose reshaping for about 207,280. There were 123,685 facelifts and 77,366 dermabrasion procedures.

Dr. Russell Kridel, a world-renowned facial plastic surgeon, and founder of Houstons Facial Plastic Surgery Associates (FPSA) explained that patients want to look  and feel  good, whether they are back in the office or at home on a webcam.

Blackburn Photography

People are giving themselves permission to look better, and improve their self-confidence, Dr. Kridel said. We already get new clothes, buy make-up and go to the gym. This is just an extra step. When people look good, they feel good. Our patients often tell us how much better they feel about themselves.

When patients decide to embark on that journey, Facial Plastic Surgery Associates is the answer. Were here to help them look better, Kridel said.



Facial Plastic Surgery Associates offers rhinoplasty, face lifts and brow lifts, eyelid surgery, non-surgical facial rejuvenation and dermal fillers.

For a while, plastic surgery in Houston went on hold during the pandemic. All elective surgery came to a halt.



We canceled seven weeks of procedures, Kridel said. People were disappointed, and we were too. But everyone was frightened at the time, and we wanted our patients to stay safe and healthy.



That meant changing the clinics methods for caring for patients when already the highest standards were in place.



We had a lot of virtual consultations, Kridel said. There are actually a lot of things you can do over a teleconference, like showing your profile and three-quarter view. It allowed us to touch base with patients and move forward.



When Facial Plastic Surgery Associates reopened in June, the practice put strict safety measures in place. For instance, temperatures are now taken at the front door and masks are required.



Before surgery, patients were required to get a COVID-19 test and self-quarantine afterward. No friends or relatives are allowed to accompany patients to appointments unless they are minors.



Staff members also take their own temperatures every day, wear masks and have been COVID-19 tested. And, while physicians are already used to wearing gloves and masks at all times, they have added extra safety precautions and even stricter cleaning procedures to their routines.



We dont want our health care personnel to get infected, Kridel said. And we certainly dont want to complicate anyones recovery with COVID-19.



Even the hours have been extended at Facial Plastic Surgery Associates to ensure that there is plenty of space to social distance in the waiting rooms. We work longer hours to make our patients safe and comfortable, Kridel said.



The practice also offers an in-office surgical suite, certified by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC), where procedures can be performed on an out-patient basis.



This allows patients to be completely separate from hospitals and other individuals  and also means that no hospital beds, which should be reserved for COVID-19 patients, are occupied for elective surgery.



We are able to do almost any operation right in our office, Kridel said. Patients have safety and privacy here.



Dr. Kridel said that a number of patients are discovering unexpected benefits from opting for a procedure during the pandemic.

What better time to recover than when youre not going into work anyway? No one will see it during the healing phase, Kridel said. Patients also do not have to request time off for surgery.



Kridels practice revolves around providing natural results.

Facial Plastic Surgery Associates

People worry, Will I still look like myself? My goal to give them a natural look, to help them return to life and work looking refreshed and rejuvenated, Kridel said. When they see our results, we can ask, Does this person look like they had surgery  or do they just look great?



A surgeon who truly listens to a patients desires is key with cosmetic procedures  so that both are on the same page from the beginning.



You want to make sure the physician that you choose sits down with you to understand your goals, instead of pushing their own agenda, Kridel said.



He uses computer imaging in the office to help patients see exactly how a procedure will look on them.



Kridel also recommends that patients ask to see results  before and after photos of past surgeries performed in the practice  before they commit.



He also suggests that patients seek surgeons who have strong experience with the particular procedure that they desire. In other words, a noted hand surgeon might not be the best option for a nose surgery.



Kridel, who exclusively performs facial plastic surgery, believes that the best specialist can offer exceptional care in one area. Im not a jack of all trades, he said. Im a master in one area.



Kridel also maintains long-term relationships with his patients. We dont just operate and then were done, he said. We follow up with people for a year. Its all part of our practice.



Before deciding on a plastic surgeon, Kridel said doing some homework is necessary. Check to see if the surgeon is published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and ask other doctors about the surgeon.



Making a decision based on the lowest price is generally not the best criteria. One should expect to pay a little more for a highly skilled surgeon.



Theres nothing wrong with getting more than one opinion, Kridel said. It is your face  and it is for good.



He is offering in-person visits, as well as Zoom consultations. At Facial Plastic Surgery Associates, patients are in the best hands  a safe space with experienced surgeons and treatments that offer a respite from the stress of the pandemic.



For more information, visit todaysface.com.
Patna: Amid the rising coronavirus COVID-19 infections in Bihar shocking stories of deceased COVID-19 patients' bodies lying in hosiptals and family of deceased carrying bodies in an auto was seen in the state capital's second major hospital.

Videos of Nalanda Medical College and Hospital's negligence went viral. After the death of the corona patient in the ward, the corpse remained on the floor for two days. In another case, the family of a deceased brought the body out of the ward and put it in an auto to take it to the funeral ground.

According to protocol, when a patient dies of the disease, health workers pack the body in plastic and perform the last rites. But rules are being flouted at the NMCH

The family members of COVID-19 patients have complained of unattended dead bodies which has led to the unavailability of beds in the hospital for patients waiting to get treated.

"I admitted my father to the hospital yesterday, who has now passed away. When I was asking the doctors to check him once, they ignored me. No further action has been taken yet," Santosh Kumar Chaudhary was quoted as saying by ANI.

Bihar has a total of 27,455 confirmed coronavirus cases while the death toll stands at 187. A total of 17,535 patients have recovered.
Accused of trafficking a 12-year-old girl for prostitution, Geeta Arora aka Sonu Punjaban, 35, has been given a 24 year-prison sentence.

The court observed that Arora had has no right to live in civilised society and that she had crossed all limits to be called a woman and deserves severest punishment provided under the law", states a report by the Indian Express.

She was facing trial for trafficking of the minor girl who was kidnapped by Sandeep Bedwal, co-accused in the case. Bedwal ,41, was also sentenced to 20 years in jail and has to pay Rs 65,000 while Arora has to pay Rs 64,000. Known to be habitual offender, this is the first time Arora has been convicted in a case.

According to the court, the victim was sexually exploited for three to four years by several offenders, adding that if she had not been kidnapped by Sandeep "perhaps" she would have not have suffered.

After being kidnapped, the young girl was "sold" to Arora, who trapped her and administered her drugs to The victim was then sold to Punjaban, who confined the girl, administered drugs to immobilise the girl. After 3 to 4 months, "sold" the victim to prostitution to her Lala from Lucknow, the report states.

Additional Sessions Judge Pritam Singh observed that apart from purchasing a victim for prostitution, Arora also brutalised her, and administered drugs so that she could resist exploitation. Singh said that the modesty of a woman was "next to her soul" and asked how a woman could outrage and brutalise the modesty of another's?

The court observed that the "shameful deeds" of Arora deprived her of any leniency, and that she had no right to live in civilised society, but only in the four boundaries of jail.

The court ordered a compensation of Rs 7 lakh along with Rs 2 lakh interim relief which had been given by a court order on June 4 last year. While doing so, it said that the victim was deprived of the company of her parents, siblings and friends, "that a child requires most in her childhood, the report by IE states.

Arora's lawyer R M Tufail had sought leniency on the grounds that her husband was murdered and that there was nobody else to look after her minor son, her old and dependent 60-year-old mother HIV-positive brother. Arora had been in custody since the past two years.
Yves here. Funny, it isnt often that I see someone, better yet an academic, twit economists for acting as if theyve invented the wheel. Not only has marketing been around long enough to show that people are readily manipulated, so too is propaganda (dating at least to the start of the 20th century, see Alex Careys Taking the Risk Out of Democracy), diplomacy, and psychology.

By Philip Kotler, the S.C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Originally published at Evonomics

I often see writers equating nudging with behavioral economics. Its as if nudging is the essence of behavioral economics. As much as I respect the nudging concept and its contributions, behavioral marketing calls for a larger scheme than nudging. That scheme is social marketing.

Lets start with the meaning of behavioral economics. Before behavioral appeared, economists operated with one model of human behavior. Whether the person was a consumer or producer, that person was rational and a maximizer. That person had full knowledge of alternatives, would assign weights to the features of the alternatives, and would choose the alternative that would maximize the persons goal, which was satisfaction in the case of consumers and profits in the case of producers.

Traditional economists never used the word nudge in their theory. It only came up when two University of Chicago professors, Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein decided to challenge the idea that all economic decision makers behaved according to the rational maximizer principle. They recognized that people are infinitely different and complex. They make many decisions by habit, or impulse, or irrational thinking.

Thaler and Sunstein were not the first to notice this. The field of marketing has been classifying and explaining the great variety of human behavior for more than 100 years. Marketers drew on the disciplines of psychology, sociology, anthropology and social psychology to describe the great varieties of human behavior. Marketers were fascinated with examples of irrational behavior. Why do many people continue their smoking habit when they know that it will shorten their life? Why do poor families have so many children that will keep them and their children poor? Why is it that a CEO decides to acquire a competitor even when he knows that more than half of all mergers fail.

The core idea that humans dont behave like rational economic agents was introduced several decades ago by Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, and others.[ii] People move between hot and cold states of emotions. In a hot state, persons are emotionally aroused (more irrational) and in a cold state persons are more calm or neutral (rational). All this states that human behavior is likely to be a mix of irrational and rational episodes. When you find a totally rational maximizer, he or she is likely to be an odd bird.

Professor Dan Ariely from Duke published Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions in 2008. What a brilliant title that irrational decisions can be predicted! Ariely carries out dozens of experiments on irrational behavior to find out their patterns.

The irony is that two University of Chicago professors challenged the rational maximizer assumption in the very university that did outstanding work in propagating the image of the rational maximizer. In the process, they not only introduced the concept of nudging but also the concept of behavioral economics as having a strong relationship.

Nudging itself became an interesting concept. Thaler and Sunstein postulated that an economist needs to map out the architecture of choice that might face a decision maker. One much cited example addresses the need to influence high school students to eat a healthier lunch. The nudge would be for the dining room to change the sequence of these foods so that the healthier foods are at the beginning so that students plates are full by the time they get to the deserts.

Consider another example. A business is located on the second floor of a two-story building. Upon entering the building each morning, employees could take the elevator or walk up the staircase. Their manager prefers that they take the staircase because it would be exercise and contribute more to their well-being. He doesnt insist on this but uses a nudge. He put a photo in front of the staircase showing a healthy, happy person. From that point on, more employees used the staircase. His nudge influenced their choice behavior.

A final example. A company is trying to raise $20 from each employee for their Christmas party. The company could announce that $20 will be deducted from each salary in November unless an employee objects and opts out. Alternatively, the company could leave it to individual employees to opt in if they want to contribute $20. In this example, the company is highly likely to raise more money for the Christmas party by an opt out nudge than an opt in nudge.

So persons can use nudges to influence behavior. However, are individual nudges sufficient to create highly important behavioral changes? Can we develop a nudge to get teenage girls to stop smoking? Can we develop nudges to get poor families to have fewer children?

Social marketing provides a more holistic approach to influencing behavioral change. In the 1970s, three marketing professors at Northwestern University saw an ad saying, Can you sell brotherhood like you sell soap? Can you sell brotherhood, better race relations, daily exercise, better nutrition, and other causes using the tools of marketing? Professor Sidney Levy and I wrote Broadening the Concept of Marketing, and also Demarketing, Yes Demarketing, where we claimed that marketing can help not only sell more products and services, but also to sell fewer products, such as fewer cigarettes and less smoking. Marketing could be used to demarket something as well as to market something.

Professor Gerald Zaltman and I wrote Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change. We showed how population experts could use social marketing to encourage families to have fewer children. We defined social marketing as using market segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP) and the four Ps of product, price, place, and promotion to influence behavior change for social good.

Social marketing became a college course and drew many business students who wanted to apply their skills to mitigating social problems. Many social marketing workshops were run at the University of South Florida, producing eventually over 2,000 practitioners working with government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and businesses to create targeted behavioral change. We could have called this behavioral economics because we were always concerned about balancing the demand side and the cost side of these efforts.

Let me describe one of the most successful social marketing cases.

Dr. Mechai Viravaidya, a well-respected Thai physician, had a passion for reducing unplanned pregnancies and reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS in Thailand. His big idea was to popularize condoms, thinking a little fun might make condoms more acceptable. His creative promotional strategies supported the fun theme:

He spoke at a variety of events, proclaiming, The condom is a great friend. You can do many things with it. You can use different colors on different daysyellow for Monday, pink for Tuesday, and black when you are mourning. 63

He organized condom balloon-blowing contests with prizes for kids and adults. He also made sure the media would take photos that he hoped would appear on the front page or in the evening news.

He influenced tollbooths to hand out condoms with their tickets.

He created a Cops and Robbers program in which traffic police were given boxes of condoms to distribute on New Years Eve.

He had monks bless condoms so that Thais would be assured there would be no ill effects after using them.

He added condoms to fashion shows, with runs of condoms in different colors.

He opened new restaurants branded Cabbages and Condoms with the slogan Our food is guaranteed not to cause pregnancy and a condom, instead of a mint, comes with the bill.

In 2007, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that Thailands Population and Community Development Association (PDA) had received the 2007 Gates Award for Global Health in recognition of its pioneering work in family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention. The prize honored Dr. Mechai Viravaidya. Over a number of years, the desired number of children in Thai families moved down from seven to two.

Marketers were the original behavioral economists. They recognized the great variety of motivations and behaviors of individual consumers, producers and decision makers. They rejected the idea that all human behavior is rational and always aiming to maximize some individual good. They recognized a whole set of tools  ads, prices, products, nudges, etc., that could be used by behavioral economists to influence the level, timing and composition of demand. In building campaigns to modify behavior, social marketers consider both the expected performance and the cost of producing a specific level of behavioral change.

Social marketers differ from nudgers in preparing larger scale plans founded on many more tools to achieve behavioral change. Social marketing is used by the World Bank (WB), World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers of Disease Control (CDC). Social marketing goes much further than nudging to exemplify the work and contributions of behavioral economics.
New staff bring significant oncology, immunotherapy and rare disease expertise to Parexels Regulatory & Access Consulting team of 80+ former regulators to help life sciences companies navigate rapidly changing global regulatory landscape

BOSTON and DURHAM, N.C., July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Parexel, a leading provider of solutions to accelerate the development and delivery of innovative new therapies to improve world health, from Clinical through Commercialization, today announced the addition of former regulators with significant expertise in oncology, immunotherapy and rare disease to its Regulatory & Access Consulting team, further supporting the advancement of new treatments for patients worldwide.



The global pandemic has created a highly dynamic regulatory environment as companies adapt quickly to protect patients, preserve supply chains and maintain focus on new emerging therapies, said Paul Bridges, Senior Vice President, Regulatory & Access. Parexel remains committed now, more than ever, to helping our customers address the rapidly evolving regulatory changes through a strong roster of former regulators and regulatory experts. Our new colleagues bring first-hand experience from their tenure working within global health authorities to help our customers seamlessly navigate the regulatory process and ultimately help deliver new therapies to patients.

The new team members will serve as Technical Vice Presidents and join Parexels group of more than 1,000 consulting experts whose combined knowledge, skill and experience in quality and compliance expertly guide customers through complex global and in-country regulations. They will provide their perspective on key aspects of the regulatory process, including navigating rapidly evolving landscapes related to regulatory meetings and submissions, compliance and market access. The recent appointments include:

Yajie Li, M.D., who joins Parexel with more than 16 years of experience in key leadership positions at biopharmaceutical companies as well as hands-on experience as a Senior Clinical Reviewer with the Center for Drug Evaluation (CDE) in Beijing, where she led and managed the clinical evaluation of studies and long-term development plans for chemical and biological products. Most recently, Dr. Li served as the Vice President, Head of Compound Strategy and Pipeline Management Function, at Xuanzhu Pharma, where she advanced the development of new therapies for oncology, infectious disease, metabolic disease and hypertension. Prior to that, she served at Janssen as the Regulatory Affairs Therapeutic Area Director for Infectious Diseases & Vaccines, China Companion Diagnostic Team Leader and the China Compound Team Leader for oncology, where she supported the development of Ibrutinib, Apalutamide, Zytiga and Niraparib in China. Dr. Li began her career as a practicing physician at Beijing Railway Hospital and Peking Union Hospital in Beijing.





Jorge Camarero, Ph.D., who brings more than a decade of regulatory experience to Parexel, primarily in oncology, having served at the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in The Netherlands as an alternate member of the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) and as a member the Oncology Working Party. Prior to his tenure at the EMA, he was Head of the Oncology Area for the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices (AEMPS); a Pharmaceutical Inspector for the Spanish Governments Health Department delegation; and a Regulatory Clinical Assessor in Oncology for Spanish Agency for the AEMPS. Among his roles, Dr. Camarero provided critical assessments for advanced therapies. With a doctorate in pharmacology, he has published nearly two dozen scholarly articles in the fields of oncology, pharmacology, neurochemistry and immunotherapeutics.



Lucas Kempf, M.D., who joins Parexel with significant regulatory and clinical experience acquired over 15 years through multiple positions at the FDAs Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As the CDERs Acting Associate Director, Rare Diseases Program, Dr. Kempf supervised a team that supported rare disease drug development across the agency and advised the director on policy issues regarding rare disease drug development programs. At the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH), he supported research into experimental therapeutics for rare and major mental illness and translational biomarker development, with a focus on genetics and neuroimaging. He also trained and supervised teams of researchers in clinical care, MRI brain imaging, and genetic analysis and helped design and conduct placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trials. Prior to his tenure at federal agencies, Dr. Kempf was a practicing clinician at a Veterans Administration Medical Center and the Medical Director for a clinical practice in Maryland.

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About Parexel

Parexel is focused on supporting the development of innovative new therapies to improve patient health. We do this through a suite of services that help life science and biopharmaceutical customers across the globe transform scientific discoveries into new treatments for patients. From clinical trials to regulatory and consulting services to commercial and market access, our therapeutic, technical and functional ability is underpinned by a deep conviction in what we do. For more information, visit our website and follow us on LinkedIn , Twitter and Instagram .

Parexel is a registered trademark of Parexel International Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Parexel Contacts:

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Becky Levine

Tel: +1 919-271-5151

Email: Becky.Levine@parexel.com




Iranian news agencies on Thursday reported that Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi has been appointed as Iran's new envoy to Baku.

Mousavi who was appointed spokesperson in April 2019 will replace Javad Jahangirzadeh, the current envoy in Baku in September, but will continue to serve in his current position until starting his new assignment.

Mousavi's new position is challenging as Azerbaijan and Armenia, both Iran's neighbors, have been in conflict over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh for more than three decades and Iran has to be careful not to appear as taking sides in the conflict. Both countries have a territorial and ethnic claim to the region.

It is not clear if the appointment is a very recent decision or had been made much earlier. Last week, Mousavi paid a two-day visit to Ardabil province which borders Azerbaijan where he met with a number of officials including the governor and Friday prayer leader.

However, some social media users have speculated that his reassignment may be due to South Korea's protests against some of Mousavi's remarks last week which Seoul characterized as "inappropriate'.

"The Foreign Ministry spokesman was sent away to nowhere," one apparently hardline Twitter user wrote and asked: "Because of Korea, America's servant?  Because of mourning for George Floyd? Or because he didn't comply with the undignified policies [of the government]? What for, really?"

Mousavi had called the U.S.-Korea relationship one of "master and servant". Seoul summoned the Iranian envoy over the remarks on Tuesday.

Iran's relations with Azerbaijan somehow improved after President Hassan Rouhani took office in 2013 and trade between the two countries increased. Iran and Azerbaijan have implemented some joint projects in recent years including automaking and railway projects but the volume of trade between them hugely dropped after resumption of U.S. sanctions in 2018. Baku has also delayed a $500 million credit line for the development of Rasht-Astara railway.
'Naughty Tory' MP Charlie Elphicke asked a young Parliamentary worker to rub sunscreen on him and gave her the 'shivers', a sex assault trial heard.

The woman, then in her 20s, described the Dover MP as 'clinically insane' while confiding in friends about the alleged ordeal in 2016.

She spurned his advances when he invited her to apply sun lotion to his face while the pair were alone at his family home, jurors heard.

Charlie Elphicke former MP for Dover and his wife Natalie Elphicke current MP for Dover arrive at Southwark Crown Court this morning as his sexual assault trial continues

The married father-of-two is on trial accused of three counts of sexual assault - one involving a woman in her early 30s at his London home in 2007, and two in 2016 involving a parliamentary worker in her early 20s.

He said the alleged victim had also arranged to visit him at his Belgravia apartment on her birthday earlier that month but told him she was busy last minute.

Prosecutor Eloise Marshall slammed the claim as 'utter rubbish' and pointed to texts later in the day in which he told her he was bored and mentioned nothing about cancelled plans.

She said the woman was forced to 'keep him happy' while being advised by friends to stay away from him.

The prosecutor said: 'Is it a coincidence that his sexual interest hots up in that period when he's got an empty flat and his wife is away and he's got the opportunity if I can put it that way to take her back there or do you think it wasn't because he was in love with her, he was sexually interested in her, and he wanted to try it on her, in fact, as we know, sexually assault her?

'In terms of what happened that night we do know that Charles Elphicke did, even his own words, make an advance on her. Put aside the chasm between what they both say.

'He remembered very clearly what had happened that night, not because he had told her he was in love with her but because he had sexually assaulted her.

'Why would she go through the process of telling so many people the exact same lie only to tell them don't tell anyone?

Mr Elphicke allegedly chased the woman around singing 'I'm a naughty Tory' at his home in Belgravia, London

'If you're meant to be meeting someone would you text them saying: 'I'm bored?' Or would you say, 'Where are you?'

'It's utter rubbish to suggest that's what he means. She spends all morning texting her friends worrying about Charles Elphicke. Her real concern on her birthday is keeping Charles Elphicke happy.

'When she says: 'The cat's come in for cuddles.' It's suggested that that is the very text that Natalie Elphicke saw which led her to believe he was having an affair. Even at that time she was sending him nice texts to keep him sweet.'

'Do you think he would have missed an opportunity to take her to his empty house and ask her to put sunscreen on him?

'On (another) day she's referring to him as clinically insane. She says: 'He was trying to hold my hands earlier which gives me the shivers.'

'Is she lying when she texts that to (her friend)?'

None of the complainants can be identified for legal reasons.

Elphicke admitted to police in 2018 that he had an affair with a third woman - not a complainant in this trial - but distanced himself from the parliamentary worker.

He said he kissed the first complainant under a 'misapprehension' but denies sexual assault.

However, entering the witness box this week, Elphicke told jurors he had lied to police about his true feelings for the parliamentary worker, saying he was 'besotted' with her and 'lost his head'.

He said he did not tell police about propositioning her because he was concerned his wife Natalie Elphicke would - wrongly - think he was having an affair and that it would effectively be the final straw for their marriage.

The ex-Tory MP Charlie Elphicke was branded a 'charming, mercurial' liar as jurors heard he feigned shock and hid behind others when he was accused of sexual assault.

Elphicke (above, entering court today with his wife) admitted to police in 2018 that he had an affair with a third woman - not a complainant in this trial - but distanced himself from the parliamentary worker

Ms Marshall told the court the former government whip was a 'very charming, mercurial, clever man' who had deflected scrutiny over the allegations of groping and kissing.

The prosecutor added: 'He deflects. If you say you've done this he doesn't say no I haven't, he says no I didn't, she never complained. His next thing is to hide behind someone else.

'You may think he's feigning shock when he's asked the question were you looking lustfully into her eyes.

'He is a very charming, mercurial, clever man. He's a man who was well in control... and the kind of... Atmosphere that [he] would create would have been what people describe as toxic.'

He is also alleged to have shouted: 'I'm a naughty Tory' which chasing a young woman around his Belgravia townhouse and smacking her bottom in 2007.

A Parliamentary worker in her 20s then accused him of calling himself 'naughty' and shoving his hand down her top in the Palace of Westminster in 2016.

Summing up prosecutor Ms Marshall said: 'What is the issue in this case? Quite simply, it's who's telling the truth.

'Two women, from very different walks of life, different ages, different jobs - who both suffered very similar assaults at the hands of Charlie Elphicke.

'It is accepted there is no evidence of collusion. That brings the question - police have these accounts from two women, nine years apart, that are very similar.

'If you agree that these assaults are similar, the question you ask is could it possibly be a coincidence?'

One of the alleged victims felt the ordeal was only 'allowed to be real' after learning he had been accused by a second woman years later, the court heard.

Ms Marshall said the woman had been relieved when she heard the former government whip was facing fresh allegations because 'something that had been denied was allowed to be real.'

The prosecutor said: 'For years she couldn't look at him on TV, couldn't hear him on radio, couldn't talk or do anything about it.

'As soon as she realised he'd been accused of sexual assault she felt relief that it wasn't just her.

'She said 'I didn't have to protect the family any more because it was in the public domain.'

Elphicke, Dover MP from 2010 until he stood down in 2019 when he was succeeded by his wife, denies all charges.

The trial continues.
The Centre will soon release Rs. 346 crore as an initial amount for handling the flood situation in Assam, which has so far affected 56 lakh people in the northeastern state, an official statement said on Wednesday. Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat held a thorough discussion with Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal over the flood situation in the state through a video-conference, during which he conveyed the decision, the statement said.

"The central government will release the first installment of Rs 346 crore soon under the Flood Management Programme (FMP)," the statement from the Chief Minister's Office said.

READ | Assam records 972 fresh COVID-19 cases, infection tally reaches 27,744

The Chief Minister also apprised the Union Minister Shekhawat of the scale of devastation caused by the current wave of flood, along with erosion, in the state and the various steps taken by his government to manage the situation. Sonowal also urged Shekhawat to take up the matter of floodwaters from Bhutan inundating large areas in Lower Assam every year, to which the minister responded positively.

Centre to take up flood matter to Bhutan govt

"The Centre will take up the matter with the Bhutan government in order to address the flood issue in the Lower Assam districts", the statement further informed. During monsoon season, the release of excess water from the dams in Bhutan leads to flooding in the downstream areas in all the Lower Assam districts, especially Barpeta, Nalbari and Kokrajhar.

READ | 48 dead in Acute Encephalitis Syndrome in Assam so far this year

The devastation caused by the Assam Floods

According to the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA), 115 people have lost their lives in floods and landslides so far this year, out of which 89 were killed in flood-related incidents and 26 died due to landslides.

The flood situation in Assam worsened with two more persons losing their lives, even as over 26 lakh people remain affected in 26 districts. Cumulatively, nearly 56 lakh people have been affected by the deluge across the state this year, the ASDMA said.

READ | Flood relief work in Assam, Bihar to be a long haul: NDRF Director General SN Pradhan

READ | Assam flood misery worsens as toll nears 90; rain-related incidents kill 5 in UP, Ukhand

(With inputs from Agencies)
The White House announced plans to dispatch federal law enforcement officers into Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee within the next month as part of its initiative to curb violent crime in American cities.

President Donald Trump said his administration plans to deploy federal agents to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico during a White House event Wednesday, arguing that Democrat-led cities are experiencing a surge in crime due to social justice movements aimed at reforming police departments across the country. The president did not mention Detroit during his initial remarks, but the White House later announced plans to expand into the city on its website.

Trump was more direct about his plans for Detroit during a second press briefing Wednesday evening. The president said the White House stands ready to direct resources to the city and criticized Detroit officials for not seeking support from federal law enforcement.

At some point, they will, Trump said. At some point, we may have no other choice but to go in.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, both Democrats, previously said there is no need for federal intervention in Michigans largest city. In a Monday statement, before the White Houses official announcement, Whitmer said Trump is once again choosing to spread hateful rhetoric and attempting to suppress the voices of those he doesnt agree with.

Demonstrators have held a series of protests and events in Detroit after George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, was killed by a police officer who kneeled on Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes. Unlike other cities in Michigan, Detroit did not request assistance from the National Guard to help deal with protests. The demonstrations have been largely peaceful in recent weeks.

Quite frankly, the president doesnt know the first thing about Detroit, Whitmer said in a statement. If he did, he would know that for nearly two months now, Detroiters have gathered to peacefully protest the systemic racism and discrimination that Black Americans face every day. There is no reason for the president to send federal troops into a city where people are demanding change peacefully and respectfully.

In a joint statement released Tuesday, Duggan and Detroit Police Chief James Craig said there could be no possible justification for sending federal law enforcement agents to Detroit.

The Detroit Police Department has had the support of the Detroit community in making sure our City did not have a single store looted or a single fire started during the protests, the statement reads.

Attorney General Dana Nessel also spoke out against Trump deploying federal officers, arguing that the presidents remarks are politically motivated. Trumps reelection campaign has touted a law and order agenda in recent weeks.

Trump cited an uptick in violent crimes New York City, Chicago and other cities as justification for the surge in federal law enforcement officials. The president used harsh language to describe the rise in crime, using phrases like rampage of violence and accused local leaders of abdicating their duty.

However, the president has not provided specific examples regarding the situation in Detroit.

To look at it from any standpoint, the effort to shut down policing in their own communities has led to a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders, and heinous crimes of violence, Trump said Wednesday. This bloodshed must end. This bloodshed will end.

According to the White House, the Justice Department plans to expand Operation LeGend, an initiative named after a 4-year-old who was fatally shot in June, into Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee in the next three weeks.

Trump said the Department of Justice will provide more than $61 million in grants to hire hundreds of new police officers in cities that are the focus of Operation LeGend.

We will never defund the police, Trump said. We will hire more great police. We want to make law enforcement stronger, not weaker.

Read more on MLive:

Charges issued against Detroit police officer accused of shooting rubber pellets at 3 photographers covering protests

Michigan police brutality protests have cooled, but Detroits recent flare-up points to fragile calm
MUSKEGON, MI -- A Grand Rapids man is accused of meeting young girls online and persuading them into child porn acts, a scheme that police say involved multiple victims.

Muskegon County prosecutors are handling the case and say they have identified several victims, but there are many more yet to be identified.

Chad Derry, 42, is charged with aggravated manufacturing of child sexually abusive activity, being a sexually deviant individual and using a computer to commit a crime.

Authorities with the Muskegon County Justice for Women Taskforce identified Derry and, according to prosecutors, determined he was using social media to contact young girls and influence them to participate in child sexually abusive activity in both pictures and videos.

Muskegon County prosecutors are asking for the publics help to identify other victims. They say many appear to be from West Michigan.

Derrys Instagram screen name was kmarie13131312 and police ask that anyone who believes their child was in contact with that account, or who have information about Derry, to call the Norton Shores Police Department at 231-733-2691.

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New research bolsters the case that Black homeowners bear a disproportionate tax burden for underfunded public schools. Now those same homeowners are likely to see their property tax rates climb even higher due to the coronavirus pandemics economic devastation.

Thats because cash-strapped school boards that oversee majority-Black school districts are expected to ask their residents to fork over more cash to make up for state sales and income tax revenue lost during the pandemic.

The last recession more than a decade ago nearly wiped out states attempts to make up funding disparities between wealthier, majority white districts and poorer, majority Black districts. The coronavirus pandemic will only worsen the situation , as districts throughout the country make budget cuts and lay off thousands of educators.

At the same time, a new working paper highlights how local governments strategies to collect property taxes exacerbate academic and wealth disparities between white and Black families.

A growing group of scholars and civil rights advocates are now renewing their call for states to untangle school funding from their local housing markets.

As long as we continue to wed school funding to property tax revenue, which is based on racist marketplace trends, why would it come as any surprise that well see inequitable funding outcomes?, asked Andrew Kahrl a Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Virginia, who has studied the efforts by municipalities to overtax Black residents in order to keep white residents property tax rates low.

Racist Barriers in Housing Markets

As of 2016, majority Black and Latino school districts, on average, spent $2,226 less per student than majority white districts nationally, according to EdBuild , a think tank that, prior to dissolving earlier this year, pushed for states to overhaul their K-12 funding strategies. Thats mostly because of the way school district boundaries cluster low-income Black and Latino neighborhoods together, leaving less overall property tax revenue to pull from.

The problems that we saw with the suburbanization, post-World War II, is whites fleeing to suburbs and putting up racist barriers in their housing markets, creating their own separate districts, and hoarding their own local tax bases, Kahrl said. That ensured that their schools would be well-funded, where theyre drawing upon a middle-class tax base where the property is high in value and will continue to appreciate in value.

A new study of home assessment and taxing data by Carlos Fernando Avenancio-Leon, a finance professor at Indiana University, and Troup Howard, a finance professor at the University of Utah, finds that Black-owned homes tend to be assessed at a value far higher than they actually would bring on the marketplace, compared with white-owned homes. That translates into a tax burden nearly 13 percent higher for Black homeowners nationally, the authors say.

In other words, Black homeowners proportionally spend more for a subpar public service.

The problem lies with the way homes are assessed.

The authors found that assessors are insufficiently sensitive to majority-Black neighborhood attributes that would typically depress assessed value, such as crime, and substandard quality of public amenities such as schools, libraries, and parks. That results in Black-owned homes being assessed at too high a value.

Once their homes are overvalued by assessors, Black homeowners, compared with white homeowners, rarely dispute the new assessment amount. When they do dispute the amount, theyre far less likely than white homeowners to win in court. And when they do win, they receive smaller reductions than white homeowners.

On the flip side, Black homeowners struggle to build wealth from their property and their communities have difficulty attracting businesses and new, wealthy homeowners because of the racist perception people have of their neighborhoods. In 2018, the Brookings Institution published a study that shows that homes of similar quality in neighborhoods with similar amenities are worth 23 percentor $48,000less in majority Black neighborhoods, compared with those having very few or no Black residents.

We so often blame Black people, Black school boards, Black school districts for the state of their overall condition when in fact theyre systematically robbed of the resources they need to lift themselves up, said Andre Perry, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, who helped conduct the study and has written a book about how the devaluation of Black-owned homes suppresses majority Black school districts funding.

Troubling Trends Repeating Themselves

The coronavirus pandemic has caused the widespread shutdown of the economy, resulting in states sales and income tax revenue plunging, and sparking a recession that fiscal analysts predict will last for the next three years.

Local school boards that oversee majority Black school districts during a recession can often further increase Black homeowners already-cumbersome tax burden when they go looking for revenue, research has shown.

States in the last half century have heavily subsidized low-wealth, majority Black school districts with sales and income tax revenue. This revenue source is highly unstable, compared with property tax revenue, which rarely budges because homes are so rarely reassessed.

In Texas, David Knight, a school finance professor at the University of Washington, found during the last recession , high-poverty districts increased average local tax rates at a significantly faster rate than low-poverty districts to make up for lost state aid.

This trend is likely to repeat itself in the coming years, said Stephen Dyer, an Education Policy Fellow at Innovation Ohio, a think tank thats pushed for Ohio to overhaul its school funding formula.

Dyer has found that because of Ohios coronavirus-influenced budget cuts, poor districts will have to come up with almost 25 percent more local funding than the wealthier districts. And they have to come up with that money by asking taxpayers who barely make half as much money.

If the state pulls back [on funding], a community is going to have to raise property taxes in the middle of a pandemic and in the middle of a recession, he said.

Weathering the Economic Storm

On Novembers ballot, the Cleveland public school system, which is 65 percent Black, will ask residents to increase their tax rate by another 12 percentor $175 on top of the $2,790 in property taxes a resident pays for a home worth $100,000. (The majority of property taxes in most communities are targeted toward public schools.)

This recommendation is needed to continue our progress and to manage unprecedented expenses caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, Cleveland school district CEO Eric Gordon said in a recent video message to the community. If the levy fails, the district stands to annually lose close to $67 million in K-12 funding.

Cleveland families, who earn, on average, $29,000 a year, have one of the fastest-growing tax rates in the nation, according to research conducted by the citys Chamber of Commerce last year.

Clevelands schools, deeply impoverished and academically struggling, annually spend $16,162 per student. By comparison, the neighboring Orange school district, which is 67 percent white and one of the highest-performing school districts in the state, spends close to $21,000 per student. Its residents earn, on average, $105,000 a year.

An Orange resident who lives in a home worth $100,000 pays $2,280 a year in property taxes, $500 less than a Cleveland resident whose home is worth the same.

Rebecca Sibilia, the former CEO of EdBuild, proposed earlier this year that states pool property tax revenue at the county level. That effort, she estimates, would nationally increase spending for more than 75 percent of nonwhite students.

Were currently endorsing a system where its OK for upper-middle-class communities to continue to weather the worst economic storm in modern history, Sibilia said. Our lowest-income areas are always the most dependent on the most volatile revenues. Its no way to run one of our most important community benefits. It should be flipped.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-24 02:21:49|Editor: huaxia

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GENEVA, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) is beginning to reach out to experts at the international level for a mission to identify the zoonotic source of COVID-19, said a senior WHO expert on Thursday.

The animal source of the virus is a very important question, and experts in both Chinese and international scientific communities are "anxious to move forward with the appropriate studies," according to Micheal Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program. He believes that the experts' high level of engagement will "drive a successful mission."

An advance team comprised of two WHO experts was sent to China to prepare for the international mission two weeks ago. They have been engaged in a series of virtual consultations with their counterparts at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, to look at the preliminary investigations and the scientific studies on the origin of the virus, said Ryan.

He added that the WHO has already been reaching out to experts at the international level to see who will be available and most appropriate to support an international mission in the coming weeks to find the zoonotic source of COVID-19. Enditem
Stanford Medicine plans to start a promising method of testing for coronavirus that could significantly speed up efforts to identify cases in the Bay Area.

Pooled testing  in which a lab processes specimens from multiple people at one time, rather than just one specimen at a time  could potentially be used to conduct frequent, large-scale tests at schools, dorms, nursing homes and prisons. That would make testing faster and more efficient, and thus help prevent outbreaks in those settings.

Pooled testing has long been used to test large numbers of blood donations to make sure they are not infected with HIV or hepatitis B and C, and to screen for syphilis in the military.

Stanford will test for the coronavirus in pools of eight. That means specimens from eight people, who were swabbed individually, will be combined and tested together in the lab. A part of each persons specimen will be preserved and set aside in case it needs to be retested. If the entire pool tests negative, there is no need to test each specimen separately  saving time and lab resources. If the pool tests positive, only then would each individual specimen need to be tested.

For that reason, experts say pooled testing works best for assessing low-risk asymptomatic people who are likely to test negative, and not symptomatic people who are more likely to test positive.

Josie Lepe / Special to the Chronicle

Stanford plans to start pooling tests within the next two weeks. It is expected to increase Stanfords daily lab capacity from 4,500 tests to 20,000 tests.

Its going to allow us to test classrooms and schools and dorms and long-term care facilities and prisons, and be able to screen those populations very frequently, said Dr. Benjamin Pinsky, director of the Clinical Virology Lab at Stanford Medicine. The test volumes required to do that if we did every person individually is not possible. ... It will allow efficiency at a large scale. Otherwise, were not going to be able to (test) those populations the way we need to, to prevent outbreaks.

Stanford in late June applied for FDA Emergency Use Authorization to do pooled testing, but has not yet received a response from the agency. Stanford expects to get a response this week. The FDA did not immediately respond to questions from The Chronicle about Stanfords pooled testing. But in a July 8 virtual town hall meeting, FDA officials said labs can move forward with pooling as long as they have validated that their pooling protocols work, notified the agency, and submitted validation data  which Stanford says it has done.

About two-thirds of the coronavirus tests processed at Stanfords lab are from patients of Stanford and ValleyCare Medical Center, in Pleasanton. The remaining third come from patients in the broader Bay Area, including essential workers, health care workers and patients at community health clinics.

Since Northern California schools, nursing homes and other facilities get priority over out-of-state facilities to have their tests processed at Stanfords lab, it is a promising step for the region in helping those local facilities test faster and more efficiently.

Stanford is one of just a small number of labs in the country, and one of the only labs in the Bay Area, to conduct pool testing. Santa Clara Countys Valley Medical Center, which has been conducting the bulk of coronavirus testing in the county, has also been pooling tests since late May, in groups of five.

Others include the Nebraska Public Health Lab, which pooled tests earlier during the pandemic but later stopped, and the University of Florida.

Josie Lepe / Special to The Chronicle

One potential drawback is that if there is a positive case among the pooled specimens, pooling dilutes the concentration of viral RNA and makes it harder to detect the positive. Pinsky said pooling makes testing about 10 times less sensitive. That raises the possibility of false negatives.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

False negatives already occur in individual testing, usually because the patient tested too early or too late  when their virus load is too low to be detected by the test  or because the quality of the specimen was not good.

Stanford tested 880 specimens individually, and in pools of eight, and found that pooling detected 70% to 80% of the positive cases that had been detected through individual testing.

Pooled testing was more likely to detect a positive case if that specimen had high levels of the virus, and less likely to detect the positive case if the specimen had low levels of the virus.

Pooling experts say that trade-off is worth it for testing certain populations where individual testing is not feasible or would take much longer. Even though the proportion of detected cases in pooled testing is slightly lower, the number of tests that can be done through pooling is so much bigger that the process ends up detecting many more cases than what would be detected through individual testing, said Dr. Chris Pilcher, a professor emeritus at UCSF School of Medicine.

In some circumstances, some loss of sensitivity is acceptable because the real comparison were talking about is not between the sensitivity of pooled testing and the sensitivity of individual testing. Its between the sensitivity of pooled testing and the sensitivity of no testing at all, said Pilcher, who helped spearhead the nations first and largest pooled testing program, for diagnosing HIV, at North Carolina state labs nearly 20 years ago.

Quest Diagnostics, the large national commercial lab that is conducting a huge portion of U.S. coronavirus tests, received FDA Emergency Use Authorization over the weekend to conduct pooled testing in groups of four.

Catherine Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Cat_Ho
US-led anti-China alliance set for all-out failure

Global Times

By Yang Sheng Source: Global Times Published: 2020/7/22 22:00:49

European nations would balance between US, China for best interests

The latest US attempt to build a "global anti-China alliance" is doomed to fail as Western countries don't share its policy toward China. China needs to convince the rest of the world by enhancing opening-up and reform, and be more responsible on international issues where the US is giving up its leadership and embraces unilateralism, said Chinese analysts, after the top US diplomat pressured the UK to further offend China.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Britain to join a "broad alliance" against China as the UK government faces new pressure to impose sanctions on Chinese officials related to Xinjiang affairs, after London announced it will ban Chinese IT giant Huawei from the country's 5G program, Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

Pompeo held "candid" meetings with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other senior UK politicians, including Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, in London on Tuesday. Pompeo also met hawkish backbench MPs, telling them he wanted the UK to be "part of an alliance of nations prepared to challenge China's actions," the report said.

The meeting was about "getting us together," said one backbencher who was in the room, according to FT. "It is not about attacking China, but rather saying 'your behavior means it's very difficult for us to do business with you'."

UK media reported that London remained cautious in responding to the US, and Chinese experts said that the US can't even get its most important ally, the UK, to entirely follow its anti-China strategy, not to mention the whole Western world, and a strategy with a Cold War mentality to force others to sacrifice their interests to serve US hegemony is doomed to fail.

Wang Dong, executive director of the Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding at Peking University, told the Global Times that the West is divided on China, the EU and the US share very different views, and US allies in Asia, such as Japan and South Korea, have an even more different stance as they need to cooperate with China to realize economic recovery in the post-pandemic era.

"Maybe Australia is the only one that would thoroughly follow the US' order," so it can't even get the Five Eyes Alliance united, he said.

Leading powers of the EU, France and Germany, are showing independent foreign policies on China compared to the UK. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Tuesday that France would not ban China's Huawei from investing in the country, in contrast to Britain, which has decided to purge the firm's equipment from its 5G network by 2027, Reuters reported.

Germany's Deutsche Telekom, Huawei's largest customer in Europe, has also argued firmly against any blanket ban on individual vendors.

Cui Hongjian, director of the Department of European Studies at the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times that most European countries will not follow the US on the anti-China alliance, as they need to balance between Beijing and Washington to maximize their interests.

"Most of them have already been confused by the Trump administration on many issues before," including the US withdrawals from the Iranian nuclear deal, Paris Agreement on climate change and the World Health Organization, he said, adding that it would very difficult for them to cut off the mutually-beneficial ties with China.

Chinese analysts said these European countries might voice similar views and have some joint actions with the US on specific issues, like Hong Kong, Xinjiang or Huawei, but they will not entirely change their foreign policy to lean to one side.

What China should do

Another reason for the reluctance of other Western countries is they are waiting for the results of the US presidential election. If Trump loses, US foreign policy will significantly change, and it would be unwise for them to keep too close to the US at present and offend China, Chinese experts said.

An Gang, an expert on US studies at the Pangoal Institute, a Beijing-based think tank, said "Those countries won't follow. They believe Donald Trump won't sit in the White House for too long. And they don't want to choose between China and the US."

"The Trump administration also wants to build some new alliances to fix US ties with its allies, as it has damaged its own alliances in the past several years. European countries do not want to endorse Trump's foreign policy at this time as they believe this is part of Trump's election strategy," Cui said.

Wang said that no matter what the US does, the best strategy for China is to use opening-up and reform against blockades and isolation to strengthen its connection with the world. "In the competition between China and the US, whoever gets rid of the COVID-19 pandemic first wins."

An said pressure from the US will not make the rest of the world turn their backs on China. But if China becomes even more aggressive and conservative and selfish than the US, the world might be disappointed.

Cui said, "What we should do is to launch accurate countermeasure against US provocation but be prudent in hitting its allies who are also our partners. We should do what the opposite of what the US is doing. While the US shouts 'America First,' we should be responsible and even consider playing the role of a leader to solve the world's concerns," such as climate change and free trade.

China needs to fill in the void left by the US, especially for Western countries who used to rely on the US but get disappointed now, Cui added.

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There is a dark underside here that will not be erased by just saying Muir was a racist, White said. I would leave Muirs name on things but explain that, as hard as it may be to accept, it is not just Muir who was racist. The way we created the wilderness areas we now rightly prize was racist.
- The prodigious packaged food industry and the soaring consumption of aerated drinks is likely to drive the growth of the liquid packaging market across the forecast period

- Asia Pacific may acquire a significant market share; elevating focus on hygiene in developing countries like India and China may serve as a prominent growth pillar

ALBANY, N.Y., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Awareness for hygienic and sturdy liquid packaging across numerous sectors across the globe mainly pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and the food and beverage industry is pushing the global liquid packaging market toward growth. Liquid packaging materials have properties like anti-leak, crack-resistive, and robustness. These properties may serve as vital growth attractors for the liquid packaging market.

Based on all these factors, the global liquid packaging market is foreseen to expand at a CAGR of nearly 5% during the forecast period of 2019-2027. The global liquid packaging market stood at approximately US$ 428.5 bn in 2018 and is prophesied to reach more than US $ 657.5 bn by 2027.

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The fast-paced lifestyle of numerous individuals across the globe has led to increased preference for instant and ready-to-carry liquid products. This aspect may serve as a growth multiplier for the liquid packaging market. Sustainable packaging may also serve as an emerging trend and a game-changer for the liquid packaging market due to the heightening environmental awareness among the populace.

Liquid Packaging Market: Facts and Figures

Rigid packaging held a significant market share of more than 85% in 2018 and is expected to continue the same across 2019-2027; utilization in pharmaceuticals and beverages sector may increase the demand

Plastics consisting of materials such as PE, PP, PET, and others acquired a prominent market share of almost 50% in 2018; this forecast period may observe the repetition of the aforementioned statistics

The paper segment is predicted to flourish considerably and observe good growth rate across the forecast period of 2019-2027

Modified atmosphere packaging held a substantial market share among the technique category in 2018

Asia Pacific held a market share of more than 37% in 2018 and expects to display the same trait throughout the forecast period of 2019-2027

held a market share of more than 37% in 2018 and expects to display the same trait throughout the forecast period of 2019-2027 Europe held more than 20% market share in 2018 and expects a moderate run through 2019-2027

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Liquid Packaging Market: Growth Aspects

The awareness for health and hygiene, especially due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may trigger positive growth for the global liquid packaging market across the forecast period of 2019-2027.

The consumption of aerated drinks, protein-based ready-to-consume liquids, and other liquid types may bring promising growth for the liquid packaging market

Technological advancements in the packaging industry are also benefitting the liquid packaging market greatly; the air assist liquid packaging technology by Procter & Gamble is a classic instance of emerging technological advancements as it also won a Dow prize for packaging innovation

The emerging trend of eco-friendly and biodegradable liquid packaging may also prove to be a shot in the arm for the growth of the liquid packaging market

View Detailed Table of Contents at https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/report-toc/18827

How is Attractive Packaging Positively Influencing Growth of Liquid Packaging Market?

Appealing packaging with quirky and cool designs is proving to be a great strategy for attracting a large consumer base. Packaging design is serving as a key booster for sales and may bring tremendous growth opportunities for the liquid packaging market. Customized liquid packaging designs of a specific shape or size in tandem with the brand's product design specifications may churn immense growth during the forecast period.

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Global Liquid Packaging Market: Segmentation

By Packaging Type

Flexible

Rigid

By Raw Material

Plastics

Paper

Metal

Glass

Others

By Technique

Aseptic Packaging

Modified Atmosphere Packaging

Vacuum Packaging

Intelligent Packaging

By End-use

Food & beverage

Personal care

Pharmaceuticals

Chemicals

Household care

Petrochemicals

Others

By Region

North America

Latin America

Asia Pacific

Europe

Middle East & Africa

Explore Transparency Market Research's award-winning coverage of the global Chemicals and Materials Industry,

Plating on Plastics Market - The rise in demand for plastic in the automotive industry is expected to drive the global plating on plastics market during the forecast period. Plastics offer several structural and weight advantages over traditional metal automotive parts. They are used as raw materials to manufacture various structural, interior, exterior, and other automobile components. Furthermore, plating with metals, such as chrome and nickel provides enhanced esthetic appearance, corrosion resistance, and overall strength to products.

Specialty Zeolites Market - Specialty zeolites are employed in paints and coatings due to their high adsorption capacity. These are used in various types of paints such as marine paints and polyurethane paint. The global specialty zeolites market was valued at US$ 44 Mn in 2018 and is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 3.2% during the forecast period. Europe accounts for major share of the global specialty zeolites market, led by high demand for paints & coatings in construction industry.

Polystyrene Films Market - In terms of grade, the global polystyrene films market can be bifurcated into biaxially oriented polystyrene (BOPS) and Oriented polystyrene (OPS). BOPS are commonly used for thermoforming and shrink film products due to their stiffness and transparency. BOPS have excellent transparency and high thermoforomability and printability. OPS have excellent dimensional stability and high tensile strength for print applications.

Self-adhesive Vinyl Films Market - In terms of region, the self-adhesive vinyl films market can be divided into Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, MEA and Latin America. Asia Pacific accounts for major share of the self-adhesive vinyl films market, followed by Europe. Asia Pacific and Europe are key regions for retail branding, which covers signage, high quality photo prints, and floor graphics. North America is also a key region of the self-adhesive vinyl films market.

Bonding Film Market - The bonding film market can be segmented based on type, technology, end-use industry, and region. In terms of type, the bonding film market can be classified into epoxy, acrylic, polyurethane, and others. The others segment includes polyvinyl acetate (PVA), polyvinyl butyral (PVB), ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA), and phenolic. The epoxy segment holds a significant market share, owing to characteristics of epoxy bonding films such as high bonding strength and the capability to bond with different types of substrates.

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Tuesdays order by the Trump administration for China to close its consulate in Houston within three days, without providing any details to justify its decision, is a dangerous and unprecedented escalation in the US conflict with China.

Coming amid a tense standoff between US and Chinese warships in the South China Sea, it is hard to see the move as anything besides a step toward war.

The White House and the US political establishment as a whole, facing a massive domestic crisis over its failure to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, which has already cost nearly 150,000 American lives, is seeking to divert internal tensions outward to an external enemy.

Chinas foreign ministry condemned the closure of its oldest consulate in the US, which has been in existence since the two countries normalised diplomatic ties in 1979. A spokesperson called it an outrageous and unjustified move that will sabotage relations between the two countries.

The US government made no attempt to explain its totally unsubstantiated claims against Beijing. The State Department vaguely accused China of conducting massive illegal spying and influence operations throughout the United States. Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus echoed the litany of wild allegations issued by Donald Trump this week, accusing China of violating US sovereignty, intimidating the American people, thieving American jobs by unfair trade practices and other egregious behaviour.

Asked for specifics on why the consulate was being closed, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo responded only with sweeping assertions that China was stealing US intellectual property, which was costing hundreds of thousands of jobs. Pompeo told reporters in Copenhagen, Denmark: President Trump has said, Enough, were not going to allow this to continue to happen.

On Twitter, Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a long-time agitator against China, was even more vague and provocative. Chinas consulate in #Houston is not a diplomatic facility. It is the central node of the Communist Partys vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States. Now that building must close & the spies have 72 hours to leave or face arrest. This needed to happen.

As with its earlier claims about China having weaponized COVID-19 by supposedly unleashing the virus on the world from a Wuhan lab, there is not a shred of evidence to support these incendiary allegations. Moreover, they are issued by the country that conducts the greatest spying and political interference operations in the world, from Iran to Venezuela and China.

The Houston charges are part of a welter of claims and actions against China in recent weeks. On the same day, the US was mounting another show of force in the South China Sea, conducting joint exercises between the USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group and Japanese and Australian warships near islets claimed and occupied by China. This was the second such military display this week, after Pompeo, for the first time, formally branded virtually all of Chinas claims in the South China Sea as illegal.

US officials also unsealed an indictment against two former engineering students in China, charging them with hacking to try to steal data on COVID-19 vaccine research, supposedly at the direction of the Chinese government, as well as for their own profit.

On Tuesday as well, Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper both delivered speeches in London warning that the US is preparing its military forces across the Indo-Pacific region for potential confrontation with China and raising the pressure on other governments to join a coalition to counter the growing global influence of Beijing. We hope we can build out a coalition that understands this threat, Pompeo declared. It includes every country, he said, standing alongside British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

Esper told the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies that the US military was modernising its strength deterrence across Asia and prioritising the deployment of forces and technologies to counter Chinese efforts to establish a completely different regional order that puts China at the top.

Pompeo and Esper are touring Europe to demand that its governments line up with the US against China, having just succeeded in pressuring the British government to reverse its previous decision to permit Huawei, the largest telecommunications equipment maker in the world, to provide 5G technology in the UK.

Earlier this month, Trump signed a bill authorizing sanctions on China over its policies in Hong Kong. The US Treasury also sanctioned several high-ranking Chinese officials over Beijings treatment of ethnic minorities in Tibet and Chinas northwestern Xinjiang region.

The White House has not the slightest concern for the democratic rights of people in China or anywhere else, as witnessed by the mobilization of para-military troops against protesters in Portland, Oregon and Trumps threats to do the same in other major cities. Instead, Washington is hypocritically seeking to exploit the issues of human rights and spying to confront China, which it now regards as the chief threat to its global hegemony.

The reaction of the capitalist regime in Beijing to the Houston closure has again been a mixture of appealing to Washington for a power-sharing compromise and issuing its own nationalist and militarist responses. On Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin appealed to the US to revoke the closure. At the same time, he threatened countermeasures against the outrageous and unjustified violation of international law and unprecedented escalation of recent US actions against China.

In the South China Sea, Chinas air force held live-fire drills and sent more fighter jets to its base on disputed Woody Islandactions that only underscore the danger of a military conflict that could potentially spiral into a nuclear confrontation. Sitting on top of its own social time bomb, Beijing is itself engaging in an arms race that can only end in disaster for humanity.

These dangers are not only driven by the crisis of the Trump administration and the looming presidential election. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the drive by the US, already taken to a new level under the Obama administration, to confront China on every front, including militarily, to subordinate it and prevent it from becoming a threat to the global ascendancy established by US imperialism in World War II.

Behind the allegations of theft of vaccine research, there is a reactionary global struggle between competing corporations and nations to be the first to patent a vaccine for the coronavirus. At stake are billions of dollars for corporate CEOs, investors and bankers, and an immense geopolitical advantage for the country that wins the vaccine sweepstakes.

The United States is most nakedly pursuing a nationalistic course, aimed at enriching American oligarchs and deploying the vaccine not as a means to save lives, but as a weapon against countries in the crosshairs of US imperialism. Washington will withhold the vaccine from countries deemed impediments to its drive for global hegemony and reward those that fall into line behind its plans for war and conquest with access to the lifesaving drug.

All sections of the US political establishment have lined up behind the Trump administrations anti-Chinese campaign, with his presumptive Democrat challenger Joe Biden attacking Trump for not being aggressive enough.

These developments highlight the enormous danger of war and the need to mobilize the international working class, including the Chinese and US working people, against this threat and the political regimes responsible for it, and for a unified global effort to fight the pandemic. This is only possible on the basis of a socialist program, directed at overturning the capitalist system and abolishing its outmoded division of the world into rival nation states.
To stimulate innovation ecosystem and build capabilities among students that meet industry needs, Samsung India has launched an industry-academia program that will involve engineering students and faculty to work with its research and development (R&D) team. Students will get to work on projects in cutting edge technology areas such as artificial intelligence (including vision tech), machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT) and connected devices and 5G networks to solve real-world problems.

The program managed by Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore (SRI-B) aims to involve engineering colleges that top the government's National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings. SRI-B has already signed MoUs with 10 engineering colleges including Vellore Institute of Technology, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology, RV College of Engineering, BMS College of Engineering, Siddaganga Institute of Technology, and others. It also plans to add more colleges in the next few months

"Samsung PRISM program is a testimony to our mission of transforming people's lives with meaningful innovations. This program will draw from the strength of our academia and engineering students' community, which undoubtedly is the best in the world. Giving them an opportunity to work with Samsung, and making them industry-ready will be a step in the right direction towards Atmanirbhar Bharat," says, Dipesh Shah, Managing Director, Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore.

Under Samsung PRISM (Preparing and Inspiring Student Minds), projects will be taken up by a team of students and a professor, with a mentor from Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore that will train and guide them. SRI-B will give them research as well as development projects to be executed over four to six months. Each engineering college can have multiple teams, and students will be selected based on a test conducted by SRI-B. Students will also be encouraged to publish papers and file patents jointly with SRI-B.

A pilot program was introduced last year for Samsung PRISM where 150 teams worked on unique R&D projects on 'Make for India' such as handwriting recognition for Indian languages and AI-based Indian language translation. Some teams worked on research projects such as intelligent navigation via in-home object recognition and improving video quality in low light conditions. During the lockdown period, the program was conducted online as teams worked on the projects from home with regular video calls and webinars with their mentors.

SRI-B, Samsung's largest R&D facility outside South Korea, has filed over 2900 patents in India so far. The facility focuses on technologies around communication protocols, multimedia (including camera solutions), intelligence, payment, web services, memory, network and IoT. It also has expertise in artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing and IoT.Also read: Govt dumps new GST return system; to continue with modified version of existing one

Also read: SpiceJet to start US flights; only private carrier to get permit under 'air bubble' agreement
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 13:28:47|Editor: huaxia

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by Xinhua writer Jiang Li

BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- With the carrier rocket Long March-5 lifting off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on Thursday, China's Mars probe Tianwen-1 has embarked on its maiden voyage to brave the challenge of orbiting, landing and deploying a rover on the red planet in one single mission.

"Tianwen," the name of China's Martian exploration project, comes from the long poem "Tianwen," meaning Heavenly Questions or Questions to Heaven, written by one of the greatest poets in ancient China.

The triple-task expedition of Tianwen-1 marks another milestone in China's aerospace science and technology development, as well as a fresh daring adventure in the country's long march of outer space exploration following its lunar program and the endeavor to build a space station.

Looking up into the starlit sky, the human race has had a long-standing obsession with Mars. It is now widely known that Mars and Earth, both with warm temperatures, thick and wet atmospheres around the surface, are like twin brothers who have grown apart. Scientists always have a strong interest in exploring this planetary sibling to discover secrets of the origin of life, and decode more mysteries of the vast universe.

Every 26 months, Mars reaches the closest point to Earth in its orbit, opening up a launch window that will allow spacecraft to complete this interplanetary voyage with the least amount of fuel. Recent weeks fall in the latest window.

So far, three countries -- the United Arab Emirates, China and the United States -- have either launched or prepared to send up unmanned spacecraft to the planet more than 55 million km away.

Since mankind's first trial to launch a Mars probe in 1960, a total of 15 landing missions have successfully entered the atmosphere of the planet, but only eight missions have finally landed and carried out exploration work. Thus, Mars has become a "probe cemetery" due to a failure rate as high as nearly 50 percent. If China can succeed this time, it will join the rank of the world's pioneering Martian explorers.

China's march to Mars has been closely followed around the world. While many expect China to succeed, some are seeking to distort its purpose of developing space science and technology, demonizing the country's exploration programs as a display of ambition to challenge America's leadership in space, and to conquer what many call the final frontier of humanity.

That zero-sum mentality belongs to the Cold War era when the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a you-win-I-lose space race, but does not fit in with this age when outer space exploration ought to be about pooling global talents and resources for the benefit of the entire human race.

China's steadfast commitments to space probes and the development of the related science and technologies are not only aimed at lifting its own capacity to go deeper into space, but also at serving the progress of all mankind.

As China strives to explore the heavens, it has shared with the international community the scientific findings during its lunar exploration, and provided free satellite navigation services to global users via its Beidou global positioning system. It has also invited UN member states to conduct scientific experiments aboard the China space station, which is expected to be completed around 2022. In stark contrast, the U.S. Congress legislated in 2011 to ban any form of space cooperation with China.

With an explosion of human population, declining natural resources and a daunting global challenge of climate change on Earth, the ultimate goal of space exploration to planets like Mars is to secure the longer-term survival and development of mankind.

Therefore, outer space should not be allowed to become a new battleground for another Cold War, but a whole new frontier where all can work together for the better future of the human race. Zero summers in countries like the United States should abandon their confrontational attitude, and contribute to an open and inclusive international space cooperation.

In the sci-fi movie "The Martian," Mark Watney, a botanist who is trapped on Mars, eventually returns to Earth under joint rescue operation by China and the United States; in another film "The Wandering Earth," people of all colors and nationalities work together and save Earth.

That message of cooperation conveyed in those motion pictures echoes the ideal of China's space enterprise, and should be the very spirit that guides humanity's space endeavor for their better, shared future. Enditem
In what may be called the longest floods since 1988, almost one-third of Bangladesh is feared to have been submerged underwater as the raging rivers and torrential rains continue to wreak havoc in the country, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement. Reports claim that at least 81 people have died in Bangladesh due to floods that have been wreaking havoc for weeks as officials warn of the extended disaster, according to reports.

Flood Forecast and Warning Centre (FFWC), in a state bulletin, said that the water has risen to dangerous levels at 73 points. It added that across the four major river basins in the country, the water rose to "above danger levels". Moreover, flowing beyond the 100-centimeter danger mark, river Dhaleswari at Elasin and Padma at Golaundo posed threats of excessive flooding, it added.

Great appreciation to #BDRCS1 Red Crescent volunteers #Bangladesh on active service to vulnerable people affected by massive floods in country with more rains forecast. #IFRC mobilised emergency funds to support local efforts under difficult #Covid19 situation. pic.twitter.com/zJVtGzImhY  Azmat Ulla (@UllAzmat) July 20, 2020

Brahmaputra river at 40cm (15.7 inches) is threatening to burst its banks district administrator Farook Ahmed told a news agency.

A top government health official in Bangladesh said at a press conference that total fatalities since the flooding started on June 30 are now up to 62 as seven more deaths were reported this week. Further, he said that at least 51 people drowned in the turbulent waters, and as many as three were struck by thunder and lightning. Additionally, three were injured with the snake bites and had succumbed to the injury in the worst-hit northern regions.

Nonstop rainfall in the north of #Bangladesh puts over 7.5 M people's lives at risk, of which almost 3.5 M are children.#UNICEF is actively working with the government to assess the needs and impact of the flood and take preparations accordingly. pic.twitter.com/9LxPodbGE6  UNICEF Bangladesh (@UNICEFBD) July 20, 2020

This is going to be the worst flood in a decadeBangladesh's Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre chief Arifuzzaman Bhuiyan said, as per a news agency report.

Read: Bangladesh Border Force Delaying Taking Back Their Citizens Stranded At IB In Tripura: BSF

Read: Bangladesh's Summit Alliance Sails Strong In India

Two challenges here: one is COVID-19 and another is floodHead of local rescue team, Abhijeet Kumar Verma said, in an agency report.

The government focused on "relief measures"

Countrys disaster management and relief minister, Enamur Rahman was quoted as saying by a news agency that as many as 20,000 people had to evacuate or vacate homes due to havoc by the raging streams, and nearly 2.25 million were estimated to have been impacted in some way or the other. Bangladeshs flood monitoring cell head, Shah Muhammad Nasim, reportedly said that the government was monitoring the situation and making all efforts to provide relief measures and take immediate steps to mitigate the damage. In the past 24 hours, heavy rainfall was recorded in Sunamganj, Dhaka, Jamalpur, Bhagyakul, Lorergarh, Moheshkhola, Comilla, Coxs Bazar, and several others. Bangladesh has over 230 rivers flowing in its territory, including 53 that it shares with Indian territory.

Read: Heavy Rains Trigger Deadly Floods In Bangladesh

Read: Bangladeshi Pirate Arrested Near Kolkata

(Image Credit: Twitter/@UNICEFBD)

(With Agency Inputs)
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
On Thursday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez addressed retiring Republican Rep. Ted Yohos nonapology for calling her a fucking bitch earlier in the week. In 10 devastating minutes, Ocasio-Cortez shamed the Florida congressman as emblematic of a culture of misogyny and workplace harassment, tied the Republican Party to that abuse, and once again demonstrated that she is one of the most impactful voices in the House Democratic Caucus.

Yoho accosted the New York representative on the steps of the Capitol on Monday over comments she had made connecting crime rates to economic marginalizationa theory widely accepted by criminologists. After Yoho told Ocasio-Cortez that she was disgusting and freaking out of her mind, the New York progressive responded that he was being rude. As Yoho walked away with Rep. Roger Williams of Texas, and within earshot of a reporter from the Hill, he then used the slur.

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Then on Wednesday, Yoho took to the floor of the House to apologize for the abrupt manner of the conversation I had with my colleague from New York. He went on to deny that the thing that Ocasio-Cortez and a reporter witnessed had actually happened. The offensive name-calling words attributed to me by the press were never spoken to my colleagues, and if they were construed that way, I apologize for their misunderstanding, he claimed.

As she said in her own fiery floor speech on Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez had intended to let the incident go, but changed her mind when she heard the fake apology. After explicitly repeating the derogatory words Yoho had pretended were not meant for her on the floor of the House, she explained why they represent more than just a one-off insult:

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Dehumanizing language is not new, and what we are seeing is that incidents like these are happening in a pattern. This is a pattern of an attitude towards women and dehumanization of others. So while I was not deeply hurt or offended by little comments that are madewhen I was reflecting on this, I honestly thought that I was just going to pack it up and go home. Its just another day, right? But then yesterday Rep. Yoho decided to come to the floor of the House of Representatives and make excuses for his behavior, and that I could not let go. I could not allow my nieces, I could not allow the little girls that I go home to, I could not allow victims of verbal abuse and worse to see that, to see that excuse and to see our Congress accept it as legitimate, and to accept it as an apology, and to accept silence as a form of acceptance. I could not allow that to stand, which is why Im rising today to raise this point of personal privilege. And I do not need Rep. Yoho to apologize to me. Clearly, he does not want to. Clearly, when given the opportunity, he will not. And I will not stay up late at night waiting for an apology from a man who has no remorse over calling women and using abusive language towards women. But what I do have issue with is using women, our wives and daughters, as shields and excuses for poor behavior. Mr. Yoho mentioned that he has a wife and two daughters. I am two years younger than Mr. Yohos youngest daughter. I am someones daughter too. My father, thankfully, is not alive to see how Mr. Yoho treated his daughter. My mother got to see Mr. Yohos disrespect on the floor of this House towards me on television. And I am here because I have to show my parents that I am their daughter and that they did not raise me to accept abuse from men. Now, what I am here to say is that this harm that Mr. Yoho levied, tried to levy against me, was not just an incident directed at me. But when you do that to any woman, what Mr. Yoho did was give permission to other men to do that to his daughters. In using that language in front of the press, he gave permission to use that language against his wife, his daughters, women in his community, and I am here to stand up to say that is not acceptable.

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The entire speech is worth watching here:

Rep @AOC: "I do not need Rep. Yoho to apologize to me. Clearly he does not want to. Clearly when given the opportunity he will not & I will not stay up late at night waiting for an apology from a man who has no remorse over calling women & using abusive language towards women." pic.twitter.com/XKymFh3Oyf  CSPAN (@cspan) July 23, 2020

Beyond making a memorable point about casual misogyny, Ocasio-Cortez also created a very effective bit of political theater. The speech linked her political opponents directly to crudely sexist language, attitudes, and culture, which has been turning a critical swing-voting bloc of college-educated white women away from the Republican Party in droves.

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In her speech, she explained that this sort of abuse was endemic in the Republican Party, citing several incidents. She noted that last year President Donald Trump told her and three other women of color serving in Congress to go back to the countries from which they came, making the racist statement that each congresswomans ethnic and racial background made her not actually American.

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She pointed to the dehumanizing language used by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis before she was sworn into Congress, when he said, You look at this girl, Ocasio-Cortez or whatever she is.

Ocasio-Cortez also called out other Republicans for condoning the insult with their silence. Williams, for example, later suggested to a reporter that he hadnt heard Yohos outburst. Not only did that colleague do nothing, Ocasio-Cortez said. He pretended he didnt even hear it when he had in fact jumped in. She also noted that neither House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy nor any party official has publicly condemned the remarks.

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This should not be a partisan issue, she said. I have yet to see Republican colleagues standing up for their daughters and saying that this behavior was unacceptable.

This is not a fight Republicans should be eager to invite. Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election after losing suburban voters by 4 points and barely breaking 50 percent with college-educated white women. Currently, former Vice President Joe Biden leads both of these swing groups by significant margins. In a recent Washington Post poll, Biden led 6036 among suburban women. In another recent Fox News poll, suburban women disapproved of Trump 67 to 33, and white women with a college degree disapproved of Trump 63 to 36. Among suburban women 54 percent strongly disapproved, and among white women with a college degree 57 percent strongly disapproved, of the president. These women broke for Biden 5532 and 5539, respectively, and were the groups most likely to say they were extremely motivated and extremely likely to vote in November, according to the Fox News survey.

The more that this key group of swing voters associates the abuses of the Trump era with the Republican Party and not just the president, the better chances down-ballot congressional and state Democrats have in the next election. Ocasio-Cortez understands this, and she has the power to turn such potential viral moments into political gold.

For more of Slates political coverage, subscribe to the Political Gabfest on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
The Chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC), Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, is advocating for the public management of the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) platform.

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, Mr. Boadu-Ayeboafoh suggested that the managers of the platform be selected by the NMC.

The DTT platform is currently managed by KNET, a private firm which has been under contract since 2015.

This DTT platform must be managed by a public body which is constituted by the National Media Commission and whose Chief Executive shall be appointed by the National Media Commission in the same way because it is dealing with media.

He argued that this suggestion was in line with the mandate of the NMC.

For as long as it is media and it is funded by public funds, our position is that it is the National Media Commission that must appoint the Chief Executive and the Board of Directors to manage the DTT platform.

Mr. Boadu-Ayeboafoh was speaking after the (NMC) prevented the Ministry of Communications from limiting the channels of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) and Crystal TV on the DTT platform following a petition from GBC on the matter.

He maintained that the NMCs action was in line with its constitutional mandate, per Article 167, to insulate the state-owned media from governmental control.

President Akufo-Addo subsequently directed the Minister for Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, to suspend her directive to the GBC.

In Mr. Boadu-Ayeboafohs view, the June 26 request to the GBC from the Minister for Communications to reduce its channels necessitated NMCs intervention.

The Minister was worried about redundancies on the DDT platform and unsustainable costs.

The DTT platform currently has the capacity for 40 channels, which has been used up.

The government's planned expansion of capacity on the network has been delayed by the COVID-19.

The NMC is generally viewed as having oversight over content standards but Mr. Boadu-Ayeboafoh stressed that the responsibility of the National Media Commission, when it comes to the state-owned media, is beyond content.

The Ministers action is based on the fact that she was a Minister of State. If she were not a Minister of State, she could not have done what she did. She is not acting on her personal behalf. She is acting in the name of the government.

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Christian families in India banned from burying their dead

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Villagers in the east-central state of Chhattisgarh are not allowing Christians to bury their dead until they pay fines for not taking part in Hindu festivals and rituals. Attacks on the minority community in India continue despite the COVID-19 lockdown.

Christians faced stiff opposition to burying their dead in three separate incidents in the districts of Bastar and Dantewada in Chhattisgarh state last month, Alliance Defending Freedom India reported.

The Christians were told to make restitution for not partaking in or giving donations for religious rituals in those villages for all the years gone by, and pay an additional fine before their dead would be allowed to be buried.

It is a terrible and unimaginable thing to be denied an opportunity to grieve the loss of a loved one with dignity, ADF India said.

Since 2019, the group has recorded at least 15 confirmed incidents of Christians being denied burial rights in Chhattisgarh state.

After the groups legal team intervened, the Christians were provided police protection, and in some cases even provided land by the government, for the burials to take place.

In April, when India was under a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown, the worlds strictest, at least six incidents of targeted violence against Christians took place in Chhattisgarh, according to ADF India. In the majority of incidents, Christians were physically attacked by mobs of at least 50 people when they refused to take part in religious rituals that violated their faith.

On April 17, villagers in Chhattisgarh states Mendoli area severely assaulted a Christian family, including tearing off the clothes of the victims wife, and forcefully performed a sanctification ritual on them, the U.K.-based Christian charity Barnabas Fund said, adding that the mob then demanded a fee of 5,000 Indian rupees ($66) and threatened to kill the family if they informed the police.

While Indias Grand Old Party, the Indian National Congress, has been governing Chhattisgarh state since December 2018, Hindu right-wing groups are active in the state, which was earlier ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, for 10 years.

In the western city of Mumbai, which is among the worst-hit by the coronavirus outbreak in India, Christian cemeteries didnt have a place for the burial of coronavirus victims until recently due to the absence of official notification, according to The Times of India, which reported that Christian victims of COVID-19 had no option but to cremate their dead.

I wish to stress that coronavirus in a dead person doesnt infect living humans, a local activist Cyril Dara was quoted as saying. The virus becomes ineffective within hours of the victims death, he continued, adding that he would file police complaints against big cemeteries if they didnt allow burials.

The civic authorities finally allotted space in four Christian cemeteries for the burial of coronavirus victims, the Times said.

Attacks on Christians have been on the rise since the BJP won the 2014 general elections in India. Most attacks on Christians are launched under the pretext of the alleged forcible conversion of Hindus.

Several Indian states have had draconian anti-conversion laws, termed as Freedom of Religion Acts, for decades but no Christian has been convicted of forcibly converting anyone to Christianity.

According to Indias own population data, the conspiracy of mass conversions to Christianity does not hold up, says the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern. In 1951, the first census after independence, Christians made up only 2.3% of Indias overall population. According to the 2011 census, the most recent census data available, Christians still only make up 2.3% of the population.

Since the current ruling party took power in 2014, incidents against Christians have increased, and Hindu radicals often attack Christians with little to no consequences, noted Open Doors World Watch List, which ranked India as the 10th worst country for Christians.

The view of the Hindu nationalists is that to be Indian is to be Hindu, so any other faith  including Christianity  is viewed as non-Indian. Also, converts to Christianity from Hindu backgrounds or tribal religions are often extremely persecuted by their family members and communities, Open Doors added.

At least one Christian was attacked every day last year, according to Open Doors.
She's spent much of the COVID-19 crisis hunkering down with her family in New York City.

And life in self-isolation appears to have taken a toll on Rose Byrne's beauty regime, 40, after the actress debuted a very different look on Instagram.

Pouting for a selfie, the Australian star's face was smeared with lipstick and foundation, while her eyebrows were haphazardly drawn on with brown liner.

Self-isolation makeover! Rose Byrne, 40, debuted this very different look on Thursday, after her son Rafael, two, decided to give her a makeover

In the background were the hands of a child who seemed halfway through brushing Rose's messy-looking hair.

Proving herself the queen of self-deprecation, Rose joked in the caption that she was happy to finally enjoy a pampering session during COVID-19 lockdown.

'Great to be back in the chair,' she wrote, making sure to tag Hollywood makeup artist Hung Vanngo and hairstylist Harry Josh.

'Great to be back in the chair': Proving herself the queen of self-deprecation, Rose joked in the caption that she was happy to finally enjoy a pampering session amid COVID-19 lockdown

Rose subsequently clarified that her two-year-old son, Rafael, was responsible for her makeup look, writing: 'Rafa was so focused. New talent in town.'

Rose shares sons Rafael and Rocco, four, with her partner-of-eight-years, actor Bobby Cannavale.

It comes after Rose revealed that she feels grateful for the life she leads - despite living at the 'epicentre' of the coronavirus outbreak.

Glamour couple: Rose shares sons Rafael and Rocco, four, with her partner-of-eight-years, actor Bobby Cannavale. Pictured together in January 2020

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph in May, Rose said: 'Yeah, there are challenges but then you read the news for five minutes and think, 'I can't believe what people are going through.''

'Oh my goodness, some of the stories, it's heartbreaking. It makes you realise, "I've really got nothing to complain about."'

The star revealed she's passing the time by watching, 'a lot of Sesame Street and Bluey. We've also been cooking a lot, and we've been doing some homeschooling.'

Seeing the brighter side: Speaking to The Daily Telegraph on in May, Rose said: 'Yeah, there are challenges but then you read the news for five minutes and think, "I can't believe what people are going through"'

'You go through stages of cabin fever, but we're lucky to have a place that we can stay in,' she said.

Speaking about her family to InStyle in December, Rose said: 'Meeting Bobby and having my kids was the biggest profoundly emotional turning point in my life.

'It's so hard to talk about without sounding like a cliche because it's so much more than that.'

The famously private couple haven't just raised a family together, but they also have acted alongside each other in multiple films.

The duo appeared in the 2014 Annie remake as well as the comedy Spy, and they even played a married couple in the 2014 dramedy Adult Beginners.
The start of the 2020-2021 school year is unlike any other.

Amid the growing coronavirus pandemic, many students, parents and teachers across the United States have little idea what the upcoming school year will look like, even as some school districts prepare to start school in just weeks.

Teachers in particular have found themselves in the center of the debate as they address concerns about their own health, their students' health and the demands being placed upon them to lead both in-person and virtual classes.

PHOTO: First grade teacher Yolanda Vasquez stands in protest along with other teachers and counselors in front of the Hillsborough County Schools District Office on July 16, 2020, in Tampa, Fla. (Octavio Jones/Getty Images)

"It's coming down on us as teachers, as educators, but I think it needs to be framed as we're humans first. We have lives," said Dwayne Reed, an elementary school teacher in Chicago, who said his school district's current plan would have him teaching in the classroom four days a week while also providing virtual lessons for his students five days a week.

"You can't just look at it as dollar signs, bottom lines, standardized test scores," he said. "You have to look at it as moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas who have moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas and children that they need to tend to."

No one ever brings up the 1918 pandemic then mentions how much kids fell behind in school. What they do mention, however, is how many people lost their lives.  Dwayne Reed (@TeachMrReed) July 20, 2020

Reed, whose wife is also a public school teacher, has been vocal on social media about his questions regarding plans for school reopenings. He said he sees his decision to speak out as a life or death choice.

MORE: 3 teachers who are moms push back on reopening schools

"I get there are all of these issues that surround virtual learning, however, those issues will not lead to an immediate death or dying in five days," he said. "I can help fix these tech equity issues. I can help recover education loss, but nobody comes back from the dead."

Story continues

18 questions teachers are asking

Jillian Starr, an elementary public school teacher in Massachusetts, is also using her social media platform to highlight the fears teachers are facing as they are being asked to return to school while the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise in 40 states.

"I have the privilege of interacting with teachers on a national level through my social media platforms, said Starr. "Many teachers are beginning school in a few short weeks, and I was hearing so much fear and anxiety about going back into the classroom while cases in their states continue to rise."

"The discrepancies between the list of guidelines vs. what their experiences as teachers informs them is actually feasible in the classroom only increased those anxieties," she said.

Starr compiled a list of teachers' questions and shared it on Twitter, where it quickly went viral.

"I listened to teachers share that while they were the experts on the ground, nobody was seeking their expertise. I listened as they recalled being held in such high praise only a few short months ago, and the excitement about the possibility of our nation reinvesting in public education," she said. "I listened as they described how it felt to be pushed off those pedestals so quickly and now have their lives viewed as expendable."

MORE: Schools the latest battleground in fight over mandatory masks

"I couldn't get their words out of my head, so I decided to write them down and share them on my platform in order to give them a voice," said Starr.

I have so many questions about going back to school! My biggest question might be, why is nobody listening to my questions? What questions resonate with you? What questions would you add? pic.twitter.com/siCGBxkvRw  Teaching with Jillian Starr (@jillianteaching) July 7, 2020

Here are 18 questions teachers from across the country have about schools' reopening plans, as written by Starr.

1. "Desks 6 ft apart (in some states 3 ft...what?!?) Many classrooms do not have desks, but have 5-6 tables where students sit shoulder to shoulder. How are we supposed to spread students out? Is someone buying desks? With what money? Schools are facing budget cuts & layoffs."

2. "Students cannot share materials. Most of the materials in classrooms have been purchased BY teachers. If students cannot share, and students need their own personal sets of materials, who is purchasing these supplies? (again... with slashed budgets) "

3. "Teachers have to beg for donations of Clorox wipes and tissues from their families and friends to support cold/flu season. Who is providing ALL of the new disinfectant materials for classrooms? Are teachers expected to do the cleaning? Will they receive hazard pay?"

4. "Who is paying for masks and required PPE for teachers? Who is ensuring that these remain stocked? Will students be provided masks? What if they come to school without one, or refuse to wear one? What about our youngest students who can't put them on themselves?"

5. "We are laying off staff, but are in need of more teachers to comply with smaller class sizes. Our classrooms are currently filled to the brim & teachers are working out of modified closets. How are we paying for space & funds for these additional classrooms and teachers?"

6. "School buildings have been deteriorating for years. Many classrooms do not have AC or windows that open (if they have windows at all). How are we ensuring proper air ventilation in these spaces."

7. "Why are teachers being left out of conversations? Why were questionnaires sent to families & not teachers? Why are people making the decisions not asking teachers if those decisions are actually feasible in a classroom setting? Why are we not at the table?"

8. "Also, why are school boards meeting virtually to discuss opening schools in person?"

9. "If families are given a choice between remote vs. in-person learning, will teachers? Will immunocompromised teachers get priority? What about those caring for immunocompromised or elderly family at home? Will teachers be forced to choose between their jobs and their lives?"

10. "If teachers are forced to quarantine, will that come out of their sick pay? What if they have to quarantine multiple times? Many have 10 days or less of sick time (especially new teachers). What if we just have a cold (schools are germ factories). Can we not come to work?"

11. "If we run out of sick days, will we stop getting paid? What if we have to care for a sick family member? What if our own child's school closes or they have to be quarantined, and we have to stay home? Will we lose our health insurance while being sick?"

12. "If we are burning through sick days, where are we getting subs? There have been sub shortages for years, most include retired teachers who are at risk. What happens when we are inevitably "out of teachers". How are expected to keep up with 2 weeks of sub plans at a time?"

13. "Students are hopefully not being penalized for attendance. Will teachers? Will teachers continue to be evaluated this year? Will teacher "efficiency" be linked to state tests that are holding students to arbitrary grade level expectations they cannot meet right now?"

14. "If we are in the classroom full time, how are we expected to console a crying child from 6 feet away? What if our students can't tie their shoes or button their pants? What about when students fall and get hurt? How do we help them from 6 feet away?"

15. "If cohorts have to be kept together to limit interactions, how are students receiving required services? Are those teachers coming into classrooms (contaminating each room) or are students leaving the classroom, going against 'least restrictive environment' requirements."

16. "If we move to a hybrid model, how will teachers be expected to teach full time in the classroom AND plan for remote learning. We cannot be in two places at the same time. If we are one week on/1 week off, what happens if our own children have different schedules?"

17. "If we move to any form of remote learning, how will we ensure equitable access for our students? What plans will be put in place to focus on the emotional well-being of our students? How will we support our most vulnerable populations in the process?"

18. "Why are people using the 'children are less likely to spread the virus' as a backbone of arguments, dismissing the fact that hundreds of adults ALSO work in schools? Why are teachers and school staff being discussed as if they are expendable? Why is nobody listening?"

Teachers have a lot of questions about returning to school during the pandemic: Here are 18 of them originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
Pasadenas high school graduates are coming home.

Long before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Pasadena ISD officials booked NRG Stadium, home of the Houston Texans and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, to host the commencements for the districts seven high schools.

That plan was sidelined, however, when stadium management backed out because disinfectant requirements were such that cleaning crews could not make the turnaround between events. That forced Pasadena ISD to quickly make other arrangements.

Graduation ceremonies will now be July 28 through Aug. 3 at the districts Veterans Memorial Stadium, 2906 Dabney Drive.

Its been quite a few years since Pasadena schools had their graduation ceremonies outdoors and in town.

Its been a long time since we had a graduation at our stadium, district spokeswoman Maria Mata said.

All graduations will be at 8:30 p.m. on their respective dates. The commencement dates for the high schools are as follows:

Dr. Kirk Lewis Career & Technical High School, Tuesday, July 28

Tegeler Career Center, Wednesday, July 29

J. Frank Dobie High School, Thursday, July 30

Pasadena Memorial High School, Friday, July 31

Pasadena High School, Saturday, Aug. 1

Sam Rayburn High School, Sunday, Aug 2.

The ceremonies will also be livestreamed here.

Limits on number of guests per student

In order to maintain social distancing, seating in the grandstand will be marked off so that spectators can be spread out.

Cutting down the stadiums capacity means that guests per graduate will be limited this year.

Mata said the number of guests has been capped at six, but some schools, due their large class size, may have even fewer guests per graduate. Dobie high School, for example, is limiting guests to four per graduate.

Each high school is doing its own thing based on the number of graduates, Mata said.

Masks required

Graduates are required to wear the district-prescribed face mask.

Guests are asked to wear face masks upon arrival and throughout the ceremony.

John DeLapp is a freelance writer. He can be contacted at texdelapp@gmail.com.
CINCINNATI

July 22, 2020

Xavier University

Northern Kentucky University

Seattle University

Over 86% of junior high/high school students indicated they either felt more or had no change in how prepared and confident they felt about what to do in a violent incident after learning about ALICE.

89% of the elementary and 95% of junior high/high school students reported feeling just as safe or safer at school after ALICE training.

Xavier University

Cheryl Lero Jonson

Northern Kentucky University

Melissa M. Moon

Seattle University

Brooke Miller Gialopsos

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15564886.2020.1753871?journalCode=uvao20

/PRNewswire/ -- A new, empirical, peer-reviewed study conducted by researchers affiliated with, andhas announced the results of its assessment of the psychological impact of active-shooter response training on students. Contrary to the belief of many, the study found that for students in 4th-12th grade, active assailant training provided more feelings of safety than fear, worry, or concern.The study, published in the journal, contextualizes the psychological impact of discussion-based active assailant training in terms of other crisis/emergency preparedness techniques, such as fire drills, tornado drills, and Stranger Danger discussions. Until now, the singular focus on active assailant responses in prior research has not allowed comparisons to other well-known and accepted forms of crisis/emergency preparedness practices that children are exposed to routinely.The study specifically evaluated ALICE , a popular options-based curriculum, to determine the psychological impact of ALICE training discussions amongst a cohort of 4th through 12th grade students. The study was conducted in a greater Midwestern school district in 2019. In consultation with district personnel, two surveys were developed based on the grade level of the students: one for elementary school (4th-5th grades) and one for junior high/high school students (6th-12th grades).To understand the psychological reactions to active assailant response training protocols in relation to other crisis/emergency preparedness practices, questions about fire drills, tornado drills, and discussions of Stranger Danger were included in the surveys. Additionally, this measure was used as a proxy for how anxious or scared students are of other crisis/emergency preparedness practices they routinely experience.The analyses revealed that students are generally no more fearful of ALICE than other crisis/emergency preparedness practices, particularly tornado drills and Stranger Danger discussions. Other specific findings include:"Unlike what is commonly reported in the media about multi-option approaches, the findings of this study indicate that multi-option active assailant response programs, did not result in students feeling more fearful after the training when compared to other routine crisis/emergency preparedness practices," said researcher and Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at, Dr.. "Large percentages of students reported feeling less scared, worried, and confused and more safe, prepared, and confident after learning about what to do in a violent incident through training.""Proponents as well as opponents of active assailant protocols often draw on sound bites to support their stance for agendas that are political or personal points of view, and/or competing for funding" said researcher and Associate Professor of Criminal Justice atDr.. "Our findings are crucial because when the media, parents, schools, researchers, and other stakeholders solely focus on the negative impacts of active assailant responses  without assessing potential positive impacts  an incomplete picture of the impact of these protocols is painted."Fellow researcher and Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice atDr.said, "The results of our study, along with the four prior studies on the topic, are critical to helping schools implement evidence-based approaches to active assailant responses that are preparing and empowering, without unduly harming, millions of students across the nation."To access the study in its entirety, visit:CONTACT: jzupsic@tuskstrategies.com

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-study-analyzes-the-psychological-impact-of-discussion-based-active-assailant-response-training-on-students-301097836.html



SOURCE Dr. Cheryl Lero Jonson; Dr. Melissa M. Moon; Dr. Brooke Miller Gialopsos




(CNN)  Police dogs in Chile are being trained to sniff out Covid-19 in humans, with hopes that they will facilitate the reopening of busy public spaces including malls, sports centers, bus terminals and airports this fall.

The so-called "bio-detector" dogs are expected to complete training by mid-September and will be deployed to places with high concentrations of people, according to the Chilean police.

Chile has slowly beaten back the virus since its peak in June, and on Sunday announced a five-stage "step by step" reopening plan toward economic recovery.

For now, its dog-sniffer program is small, with just four pups in training. Chile's National Police and the Catholic University of Chile (Pontificia Universidad Catolica) are collaborating to train three Golden Retrievers and one Labrador to detect "a new odor" -- the smell of Covid-19 patients, according to university professor and veterinary epidemiologist, Fernando Mardones.

There is currently no evidence that dogs can sniff out the coronavirus, or discriminate between a coronavirus infection and any other kind of infection -- especially before symptoms begin to show up.

In past studies, researchers have given dogs samples taken from people with diseases such as cancer or malaria, along with samples from people who don't have the diseases, and demonstrated that the dogs can tell the difference.

The coronavirus does not have a smell per se, Mardones said, but researchers hope that something in sufferers' sweat may be recognizable to dogs.

"A body that contracts Covid-19 generates volatile organic compounds. A sample is taken from a person in the early stages of the infection. A gauze is left for about 15 minutes on an individual's underarm. That's the sample we store and use to train the dogs with," he told CNNE.

"The selected dogs have years working on the detection of drugs, explosives and other types of things. For them, it is simply learning to detect a new smell, a new aroma," Mardones told CNNE.

Training could take between two weeks to two months. The canines are also being taught to sit next to individuals whom they have detected as likely carriers of the coronavirus, instead of "pawing" the person as they do when sniffing drugs, the Chilean police told CNNE.

"A dog can detect, in an hour, it can sniff 250 people. So when we begin opening stadiums, schools, businesses, restaurants, it will be essential that in those places that are being opened, as we seek normalcy, we can now add our bio-detector dogs," said Colonel Julio Santelices from the Chilean police.

Similar trials have also taken place in the UK, where dogs were given face masks and nylon socks to help train them to sniff out Covid-19 ahead of potential deployment in airports, assisting the troubled travel industry.

This story was first published on CNN.com "Chile wants Covid-19 sniffer dogs to help reopen public spaces."
US is only country you can go from slave to senator in 4 generations, Christian Senate hopeful John James says

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John James, an unapologetic Christian businessman, Army veteran and second-time Republican candidate for Senate in Michigan, waded into the debate about social mobility when he declared that the United States is the only country where you can go from slave to senator in four generations and poverty to prosperity in one, in his latest campaign ad highlighting his family's history.

Im proud to teach my sons that this is the only country where you can go from slave to senator in four generations and poverty to prosperity in one, James, 39, says in the ad posted on YouTube on Sunday.

The ad features James, a married father of three young sons, and his father, John A. James, talking about their familys history in overcoming the Jim Crow South to become successful entrepreneurs in Detroit.

In 1971, John A. James, co-founded a trucking company moving cars and parts for automakers. After the Great Recession, the southwest Detroit-based company shifted to the export business, tracking parts for OEMs and assembling wheels for Toyota cars, Crains Detroit Business reported. They later got involved in real estate and evolved into the James Group International, where the senate hopeful is president.

My dad, the storyteller  he told me how the son of a slave became the son of a sharecropper, the son of a sharecropper became a mason, and the son of a mason became an entrepreneur, James says, sitting alongside his father in the ad.

I am the result of the American dream because of others sacrifices. The next chapter will take all of us working together to build a better future for our kids, said James, who is seeking to become Michigans first black U.S. senator, in a statement published along with the ad on social media.

The ad has attracted the support of high-profile Republicans such as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz who shared the message with his nearly 4 million followers on Twitter with a simple Amen.

Several other commenters responding to James ad also shared stories about finding success in the U.S.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, however, "income and wealth inequality in the United States is substantially higher than in almost any other developed nation."

"Americans have long prided themselves on the ability to move up the income ladder, but there are signs that U.S. economic mobility is disappearing," the CFR adds. "The fraction of Americans who earn more than their parents has shrunk from more than 90 percent of those born in the 1940s to 50 percent of those born in the 1980s."

It continued: "Harvard University economist Raj Chetty, who has studied social mobility extensively, found that mobility in the U.S. varies widely across the country. Some wealthy cities have high mobility, on par with countries such as Denmark and Canada, while children in some lower-income areas have less than a 5 percent chance of reaching the top fifth of the income distribution when starting from the bottom fifth."

"Overall economic mobility is lower in the U.S. than in many other developed countries, which some experts argue hampers U.S. economic growth. A 2016 Stanford University study measured the relationship between parents and childrens earnings in 24 middle- and high-income countries. The U.S. ranked 16th, ahead of Italy and the United Kingdom but far behind Canada and Denmark," CFR said.

James is set to face incumbent Democrat, Sen. Gary Peters who he recently outraised in fundraising, according to second quarter filings. James raised more than $6.4 million in the second quarter, out-raising Peters by more than $1 million.

Michigan cannot wait any longer for battle-tested leadership and that is exactly what this grassroots momentum shows, Abby Walls, a spokesperson for James campaign, said in a recent statement. Michiganders have been fed talk for too long by failed incumbent Gary Peters who, most recently, voted against his own police reform bill on the floor of the U.S. Senate to tow the partisan line. Its disappointing, but unsurprising, behavior for a career partisan politician who votes with Chuck Schumer 95% of the time.

James served as captain of two Apache helicopter platoons during Operation Iraqi Freedom before joining his familys business.
If you enjoyed the recent full leak of Samsung's Galaxy Note20 Ultra, complete with specs and official-looking press renders, here's another one for you, this time focused on the Galaxy Note20, sans Ultra.

The vanilla model will come with a flat screen, as rumored before, and as made obvious by this render that portrays its side.

The Note20 will have both 4G and 5G versions, the former being ever so slightly cheaper. Regardless of that, you'll be getting a 6.7-inch 1080x2400 Super AMOLED touchscreen with 60Hz refresh rate, so clearly this is a step down from the Note20 Ultra. The theme continues with the most baffling speculation of this leak - apparently the Note20 will have a metal frame but a plastic back.

That means Samsung may position it as a much more affordable device than the Ultra. Hopefully. Anyway, back to specs, there's still an ultrasonic fingerprint reader under the display, the same one from the S20 series.



Samsung Galaxy Note20 in Mystic Bronze

In Europe, the Note20 will be powered by Samsung's Exynos 990, the same chipset that's at the heart of the S20 family in markets that don't get a Snapdragon. The Note20 pairs that with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of non-expandable storage. There's also no headphone jack, unsurprisingly.

The main rear camera has a 12 MP f/1.8 sensor with huge 1.8um pixel size, and dual-pixel autofocus. An ultrawide camera joins it, with f/2.2 aperture and 1.4um pixels. There's also a 64 MP 3x zoom cam, with f/2.0 aperture and 1um pixels. 30x hybrid zoom will be offered, and support for 8K video recording is baked in too. On the front, a 10 MP selfie snapper sits inside the centered hole-punch. This has dual pixel autofocus too, and an f/2.2 aperture, as well as 1.22um pixels.



Samsung Galaxy Note20 in Mystic Gray

The phone will be IP68 certified, being able to survive in up to 1.5m of water for up to 30 minutes. It also has dual-SIM as well as eSIM support, and a 4,300 mAh battery which will charge from 0 to 50% in 30 minutes with the included adapter in the box. Wireless charging and reverse wireless charging are on board too.

The S-Pen has 26ms latency, which is higher than that of the Note20 Ultra's stylus. As with the bigger, more expensive sibling, expect a lot of the marketing to focus on cloud gaming, since this model will also be optimized for use with Microsoft's Project xCloud and Xbox Game Pass. The two companies will also collaborate around Office apps, and Wireless DeX.

Unsurprisingly, the Note20 will run Android 10 with One UI 2.x on top. The 5G model should be unveiled first, at the August 5 online event, and will arrive in Europe in Mystic Bronze, Mystic Gray, and Mystic Green. No details on pricing have been outed on this occasion.

Source (in German)
(Newser)  It's a big first for China: the independent launch of an unmanned probe to Mars. Riding a Long March 5 rocket out of the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province, the Tianwen-1 rover was sent into space at around 12:40pm local time on Thursday. "I now declare the launch of China's first Mars exploration mission a complete success," the Hainan base commander proclaimed after what the BBC describes as the rocket's "picture-perfect getaway." The rover will make it into Mars' orbit in February, at which point it will analyze atmospheric conditions before undertaking "seven minutes of terror" a couple of months laterthe perilous landing on the planet's surface, in a flat plain north of the planet's equator. "Entering, deceleration, and landing ... is a very difficult [process]," a mission spokesman tells Reuters, though he adds his team is confident they can pull it off.

story continues below

While the spacecraft in orbit uses a slew of instruments to study Mars from above, the rover will get to work on the ground, examining the planet's geology. Tianwen-1 isn't the only mission to the red planet making headlines: The UAE launched its Hope probe toward Mars on Monday, and the US plans on sending up its own Mars rover, Perseverance, next week. The BBC notes only the US so far has had success with long-term Mars missions. If all goes according to plan, however, China will rack up another first as the only country so far to orbit, land, and release a Mars rover in its first go-around. A previous joint bid to do so with Russia in 2011 didn't work out after the spacecraft carrying the rover couldn't get out of Earth's orbit and disintegrated. (CNBC notes some of China's other successes and failures in space.)
The July stimulus package is cold comfort to thousands of restaurants and hospitality businesses across the country, the Restaurants Association of Ireland has said.

The representative body said the Governments decision not to decrease the tourism and hospitality Vat rate in line with Northern Ireland has put a nail in the coffin for border restaurants.

While they welcomed the extension of the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme as well as the decrease in alcohol VAT rate to 21%, they raised concerns that without further supports, many local businesses will close permanently.

Adrian Cummins, chief executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland, said: We are questioning the decision not to include a grants package for Tourism and Hospitality in todays July Stimulus.

We appeal to Government to support businesses to reopen, to retain employees and keep the economy going.

July stimulus is cold comfort to thousands of Restaurant and Hospitality Businesses across the country@adriancummins @PresidentRAI#RestaurantSurvivalhttps://t.co/pGYwzgoVPM  Restaurants Association of Ireland (@RAI_ie) July 23, 2020

To ignore immediate legislative issues such as; insurance reform and commercial leases until Octobers Budget would result in the demise of a significant number of businesses and immediate job losses.

I am appealing to the Government to rethink this decision and to support independent tourism and hospitality businesses around the country with a targeted grants package.

Meanwhile, the British Irish Chamber of Commerce said it welcomed the support measures but warned it would not be enough to protect vulnerable businesses most impacted by a no-deal Brexit.

Paul Lynam, director of policy at the British Irish Chamber of Commerce, said: While the immediate focus has correctly been on the Covid-19 outbreak, the Government should not lose sight of the impact of Brexit.

Irish businesses which have been decimated because of Covid-19 now face the prospect of increased administrative burdens and potential tariffs with their largest two-way trading partner.

As part of the financial package, a 20 million euro Brexit fund has been made available to help SMEs prepare for new customs arrangements.

The chairman of the network of Local Enterprise Offices, Oisin Geoghegan, said that supports like the Trading Online Voucher and the Business Continuity Scheme have helped small businesses prepare for trading throughout the pandemic.

The Trading Online Voucher Scheme in particular has helped almost 5,000 small businesses both get online and improve their online presence since March.

The opportunity to help even more businesses with this new announcement will no doubt have a similar impact, Mr Geoghegan added.

Maura Quinn, chief executive of the Institute of Directors (IoD) in Ireland, said that the package will help businesses overcome the enormous challenges.

It is vital, too, that all supports for business are fast-tracked and have in-built flexibility to be adjusted and refined during what still is, and will continue to be, an uncertain environment, she said.

Our recent surveys of business leaders have shown that they see Covid-19 as the most significant risk factor to their organisations, but Brexit also looms large on the horizon, and low consumer confidence is an additional threat.
University of Arizona students could face suspensions if theyre found in violation of health safety rules during the coronavirus pandemic, the administration says.

President Robert C. Robbins made the comments Thursday after acknowledging the administration is aware of social media posts claiming intentions to throw parties in town once classes resume Aug. 24.

I hope its a wake-up call to our students not to engage in this type of selfish, reckless behavior. Its not good for your own health, but more importantly it endangers others, Robbins said during a news conference.

Robbins added that, We will try to do the best we can to educate, and weve got measures up to suspension from school if you violate the rules that were setting. We dont want to be so draconian about this, but this is life-and-death matters.

The administration believes about 20,000 people may end up returning to the main campus.

The university will continue to monitor campus activities and rely on students within the UAs Emergency Medical Services and the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health to help educate peers about health safety precautions.

There will be enhanced sanitizing of areas, lower class density, masks, physical distancing and other safeguards on campus, but the university will have much less control over what goes on when students are off campus.

Richard Carmona, UAs re-entry task force leader, said they can only control what we know about around campus, and the onus is on each individual to make the best decisions to benefit themselves and the community.
South Africa restaurateurs protested on Wednesday against a coronavirus curfew and an alcohol ban that they said were wrecking their industry.

President Cyril Ramaphosa imposed a lockdown in March, restricting movement and gatherings.

He loosened some of the restrictions in June, allowing restaurants to reopen, initially for take-out and then for sit-down dining.

But last week, as numbers of infections surged, he brought back a night time curfew that starts at 1900 GMT, and banned afresh the sale of alcohol.

"What the government has put in place has been knee-capping," Sean Barber, founder of the Rockets chain of restaurants, told AFP.

"It has literally wiped out our dinner trade. It's decimating our industry," he said.

Waving a placard with the inscription "#JobsSaveLives", 32-year-old waiter Divine Moyo remarked "open we are, but normal is not the case".

Many patrons were still sceptical about dining out, but lockdown measures have added to the eateries' woes.

"It's just been quiet," lamented Moyo. "I'm going to bed hungry, my family is struggling."

In Cape Town, a city popular with tourists, restaurant owners laid out rows of empty tables and chairs along pavements or in the middle of streets in what they dubbed a "One Million Seats on the Streets" demonstration.

The industry employs an estimated 800,000 people.

Restaurant Association of South Africa CEO Wendy Alberts said nearly a third of restaurants had already shuttered since the onset of lockdown and more closures were looming.

Her members want the government to urgently consider "lifting the liquor ban, having the curfew lifted", among other demands.

"We want them (government) to consider just giving us a glass or two of wine with a main meal ordered. We want them to take the curfew away, (and) to allow us to just let our businesses to survive this," said Jo-Ann Hinis, co-owner of Espresso cafe and bistro in Johannesburg.

Some of the placards carried during the protests read "#SaveOurIndustry" and "No Booze, we all loose."
Albuquerque startup AgilVax Inc. became another coronavirus victim this month after the pandemic lockdown caused a cash crunch, forcing the company to consolidate its anti-cancer drug development work to Houston, Texas.

The company, which launched in 2011 with technology licensed from the University of New Mexico, has to date raised about $10 million in private equity and federal grants to develop new vaccines for infectious disease and anti-cancer immunotherapies. It has been headquartered at the Bioscience Center in Uptown Albuquerque, employing two scientists there, and four more researchers at a JLABS incubation space in Houston.

But the COVID-19 lockdown blocked company access to lab facilities during the spring, pushing AgilVax to cut costs as it burned through cash. It laid off its two Bioscience Center researchers and ceased most Albuquerque-based operations, save for administrative activities, to instead pump its resources into the Houston operation, said President and CEO Dr. Joseph Patti, a biochemist.

We lost about four months in the spring because the facilities for animal studies were closed from COVID-19, Patti said. Unfortunately, that necessitated our making some tough decisions. We laid off two people here, but our corporate headquarters will remain in Albuquerque and we retain our lab and office space at the Bioscience Center.

Most of the companys anti-cancer drug work is already concentrated in Houston, where the JLABS space offers critical laboratory infrastructure. It also collaborates with clinical advisors at the Unversity of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, which is critical as AgilVax develops its technology, Patti said.

The companys base technology was originally created by UNM microbiologist Bryce Chackerian and molecular geneticist Dave Peabody, who use virus like particles, or VLPs, to generate immunological responses from the body to help identify the particles that provoke the most aggressive immune reactions as candidates for vaccines.

The company originally worked to identify and develop new vaccines for infectious diseases, but later pivoted to focus on anti-cancer immunotherapies that showed significant potential against various cancers. It is concentrating first on a new drug to help fight metastatic breast cancer.

The company is working now to raise a $20 million Series B round of funding to progress to clinical trials in about 24 months, Patti said.

If were successful with financing, wed like to continue using the lab space in Albuquerque to do some oncology work there as well, Patti said.

But fund raising is difficult in the pandemic, said Brian Birk of Sun Mountain Capital, an AgilVax investor and manager of New Mexico State Investment Council funding for local startups.

The companys timeline for development shifted after the coronavirus lockdown impeded access to laboratories, Birk said. Like many companies during the coronavirus, AgilVax is taking cost-cutting measures while working to raise more money.
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Ethiopia's leader says two turbines will begin generating power next year.



By ELIAS MESERET

Associated Press

Photo by Gioia Forster/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images [enlarge] Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be the largest dam in Africa. This photo taken in November 2017 shows its massive structure under construction.





ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia  Ethiopia's prime minister on Wednesday hailed the first filling of a massive dam that has led to tensions with Egypt, saying two turbines will begin generating power next year.





. . .
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 22, 2020 | 06:10 PM | PADUCAH

The Paducah Police Department has made eight arrests and are searching for eight others after a McCracken County grand jury provided indictment warrants related to drug charges on July 9.





Their drug unit began a series of investigations several months back, where they reportedly successfully purchased oxycodone, fentanyl, ecstasy, and methamphetamine. The are also pursuing charges against several people for possession of marijuana, methamphetamine, and heroin.





The following individuals were arrested as a result of the investigation:





 41-year-old Adam Timothy Kennedy - first degree trafficking in a controlled substance, first degree possession of a controlled substance (heroin), third degree possession of a controlled substance, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia.

 27-year-old Savanah J. Adams-Luna - first degree trafficking in a controlled substance.

 59-year-old Pamela S. Blair - two counts of first degree trafficking in a controlled substance.

 59-year-old Jay Carlton Clark - two counts of first degree trafficking in a controlled substance.

 53-year-old Tommy Joe Amis - first degree trafficking in a controlled substance.

 26-year-old Matthew S. Wray - second degree trafficking in a controlled substance and trafficking in marijuana.

 42-year-old Christopher Watkins - first degree possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.

 30-year-old Paris LaRoyce Thomas - trafficking in a controlled substance (fentanyl), first degree fleeing or evading police, and driving with a suspended or revoked driver's license.





The following individuals are still being sought as a result of the investigation:





 50-year-old Timothy Allen Purdue - first degree trafficking in a controlled substance.

 42-year-old Jason Lee Dowell - first degree trafficking in a controlled substance.

 35-year-old Julie Dawn Jacobs - first degree trafficking in a controlled substance.

 38-year-old Julie D. Bustamante - second degree trafficking in a controlled substance.

 45-year-old Lee Michael McTaggart - two counts of first degree trafficking in a controlled substance.

 43-year-old Louia Joseph Smith - two counts of first degree trafficking in a controlled substance.

 52-year-old Sarah M. Jones - first degree trafficking in a controlled substance

 29-year-old Forrest Edward Jones - two counts of first degree trafficking in a controlled substance.





Anyone with information on the whereabouts of any of these individuals is asked to contact the Paducah Police Department at 270-444-8550. Information can also be provided anonymously through West Kentucky Crime Stoppers by texting WKY and your tip to 847411 or by downloading the WKY Crime Stoppers app.





Information leading to an arrest or indictment could result in a reward of up to $1,000.

Eight people were arrested and eight more are being sought after a months long drug investigation in Paducah.
Illustrative image (Photo: internet)

The Drug Administration of Vietnam (DAV) on July 10 announced Dispatch No.10364/QLD-CL on the list of manufacturing sites that multinational corporations (MNCs) want to be recognised with a GMP qualification. Many of which still need to submit supplementation documents.

Specifically, in Annex 3 of the dispatch, Merck Sharp & Dohmes (MSD) site, Schering-Plough Labo NV, is requested to supplement some documents to clarify that the facility has productions of suspension dosage form, and small volume emulsions, among others.

Meanwhile, the Ho Chi Minh City representative office of GlaxoSmithKline Pte., Ltd. (GSK), which seeks GMP recognition for the manufacturing site Catalent Belgium SA, is asked to supplement the updated, valid, and legalised GMP certificate. GSK must also further explain the sites production scale of biological drugs which are not named in its overall records.

Similarly, Pfizer Ltd.s (Thailand) proposed manufacturing site, Pfizer Manufacturing Belgium NV, is required to explain its production of immunosuppressive drugs and human- or animal-derived substances.

In this race, Zuellig Pharma Pte. Ltd. is seeking GMP qualification for its manufacturing site ZambonSwitzerland Ltd. and should submit supplements and reports on regular check-ups on product quality of sterile drugs.

Other mammoth names in this list include the Ho Chi Minh City representative office of Novartis Pharma Services AG, AstraZeneca Singapore Pte., Ltd., DKSH Singapore Pte., Ltd., and Sanofi-Aventis Singapore Pte., Ltd., among many others.

In particular, Novartis is requested to submit the updated, valid, and legalised GMP certificate for the manufacturing site Glaxo Operations UK Ltd. Meanwhile, similar procedures are required to be performed by AstraZeneca Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.

According to some MNCs representatives, it is not easy for them to fulfil the requirements of the GMP certification, but they are striving to follow these as there is no other choice to join the local drug tenders.

Sanofi, Novartis, GSK, Pfizer, and MSD are also the names in the previous Dispatch No.3518 governing the list of manufacturing sites that were required to make further clarification to receive PIC/S-GMP and EU-GMP acknowledgements. Now, they are seeking for other sites, reflecting their ambition to boost presence in the local lucrative pharmaceutical market.

Branded and imported drugs often remain too expensive for Vietnamese, thus bringing about huge profit for MNCs active in the local market. In the DAVs July 14 announcement about the tender winners, Novartis, Sanofi, AstraZeneca, MSD, Pfizer, and GE Healthcare were named.

According to the DAVs statistics, such drugs make up an average of 26 per cent of total health insurance spending. The rate is 47 per cent at central hospitals, and 26 per cent at provincial ones.

The Ministry of Health is to issue a new tender circular in line with the governments direction to increase local access to quality medicines and to reduce prices, focusing on brand-name drugs, hoping that once issued, more locals will benefit from this and a more competitive tender market will form in the future.
When Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex made the bombshell announcement that they wanted to step back from their royal duties, Queen Elizabeth acted swiftly to finalize the details. She also quickly released a statement after being caught in a war of words on Twitter, with one royal expert believing she was able to take back control of the situation.

Queen Elizabeth II, Meghan Markle, and Prince Harry | Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle wanted to step back from royal duties

In January, Prince Harry and Meghan released a statement that shared their plan to step back from their royal duties while splitting their time between North America and the UK.

After many months of reflection and internal discussions, we have chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve out a progressive new role within this institution. We intend to step back as senior members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen, their statement said in part.

They added, We now plan to balance our time between the United Kingdom and North America, continuing to honour our duty to the queen, the Commonwealth, and our patronages.

RELATED: Queen Elizabeths Final Proposition About Prince Harry and Meghan Markles Exit Shocked the World and Was Ruthlessly Clear, Experts Claim

Queen Elizabeth handled the details quickly

Queen Elizabeth pulled together a meeting with Prince Harry, Prince Charles, and Prince William to discuss the Sussexes plan and determined that they would exit their royal duties on March 31. As part of the agreement, Prince Harry and Meghan would give up their HRH titles and public funding.

In the documentary, The Queen: Duty Before Family?, royal author Tom Quinn shared the reason why the queen acted so quickly. The queen would have been aware that this was a storm, that if it wasnt dealt with quickly it could blow up into something really damaging.

The queen handled the resulting Twitterstorm

After Prince Harry and Meghan made their announcement, Twitter blew up with comments from royal fans and critics. The queen was able to control the situation, however, by releasing a brief statement.

In the documentary The Queen: In Her Own Words, narrator Andrew Scarborough explained (via Express), In 2020 she beat Harry and Meghan in a war of words and proved herself to be the queen of social media.

Royal Expert Wesley Kerr OBE explained, it was a situation like a kettle which had been coming up to boil and it boiled over.

They issued that sudden statement saying that they would be stepping back from their role as senior royals and that they had laid out what their terms would be, Kerr added.

As a result, Scarborough explained, #Megxit trended all over the world and dragged the queen into a Twitterstorm.

The queen was able to quash some of the chatter. Although the queen had been caught off guard, a brief and concise tweet posted just hours later revealed that discussions were at an early stage, Scarborough noted. In just 34 friendly words, the queen had taken back control of the situation.

Discussions with The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are at an early stage. We understand their desire to take a different approach, but these are complicated issues that will take time to work through, the queen shared at the time.
Jessie Gaynor, 34, and Robbie Mackey, 36, of Brooklyn, who were married in May 2019, have not merged their finances yet, either. I mean, were planning to open a joint bank account but its always the last thing on the list, said Ms. Gaynor, a writer and audience editor at Lit Hub in New York City.

Faiz Osman and Justin Goodemoot, both 35, say their wedding last year in Brooklyn didnt inspire them to change anything else about their financial situation. They adopted a dog together, but we dont have joint accounts, said Mr. Osman, a coordinator at an investment firm. He is on my health insurance now, because I have better health insurance through work. But thats really been the only big change.

Other couples have found creative ways to share expenses without making much of a change in their financial lives.

Seth Dager, 32, and Eric Ball, 35, got married in upstate New York last year after dating for six years. They also do not share a bank account, but they do share expenses evenly. We have a joint credit card that we use for our purchases, said Mr. Dager, the head of creative at Mars Wrigley. So like groceries or when we go out to dinner, and then we just split that bill, which has really helped alleviate financial pressures.

In the current economic environment, some couples are feeling more anxious about their finances in general, even if they feel comfortable with the arrangements they have made with their partners. Ms. Lester and Mr. Henderson are both working from home but worried about the future. Mr. Henderson, who manages production at a distillery, has so far kept his job but said the floor could drop out at any moment.

We had just started to save money with the goal of maybe one day purchasing a place, and all of a sudden that money became more of a teeny tiny safety net, Ms. Lester said.
Most lizards scurry away when confronted by other animals in the wild.

But this water monitor in Thailand showed it was no yellow-belly when it slapped a dog across the face with its tail.

Footage shows a large water monitor fight off two dogs by swinging its tail and hitting one in the mouth.

The video was shared on social media by airline worker Suthida Sri' from Bangkok, Thailand, on July 18.

A water monitor slaps a barking dog across the face with its tail in Thailand after it became threatened

The dog runs away after the monitor's warning shot and another barking dog gets up in fear in footage shared by airline worker Suthida Sri' from Bangkok, Thailand

In the video, one of the dogs to the left of the lizard begins barking aggressively at the water monitor as the lizard faces it motionless.

The dog begins to creep towards the monitor still barking.

Suddenly, the other dog bolts upright and begins barking as well and the monitor slowly turns to face it, adjusting its body position.

The monitor loudly slaps the first dog across the face with its tail, which runs away in shock, and a woman behind the camera lets out a yelp.

Both dogs bark at the large lizard before it whips one with its tail. When monitors are threatened their tail turns into a powerful club with a jagged crest that makes it all the more dangerous

The Asian water monitor, which can grow more than 6ft long, originally evolved in mangroves and has remained largely unchanged for around 17million years.

The lizards, similar in appearance to Komodo dragons, are primarily adapted for life in water, with a long tail that works as the perfect aquatic propulsion system.

But when monitors are threatened the tail turns into a powerful club with a jagged crest that makes it all the more dangerous.

Bangkok has large numbers of Asian water monitor lizards that live in parks, lakes, canals and marshland.
BAMAKO, Mali - Regional mediators are stepping up efforts Thursday in Mali, where the political opposition has renewed its call for protests so that President Ibrahim Boubcar Keita leaves office three years before his final term ends.

The latest meetings come after Ivory Coasts president arrived in the capital this week to try to salvage talks. Opposition leaders had rejected an earlier solution proposed by mediators from the 15-nation West African regional bloc known as ECOWAS.

The plan called for Keita to form a unity government and share power, but opposition leaders said the deal fell short because the president would get to remain in office. ECOWAS said Keitas departure is not something it can endorse. The president was democratically elected in 2013 and re-elected five years later.

His popularity has plummeted amid allegations of corruption and a relentless Islamic insurgency that began the year before he took office and has worsened under his watch. In June, demonstrators began taking to the streets by the thousands calling for his ouster, naming themselves the June 5 Movement.

Nearly two weeks ago, things took a dramatic turn for the worse when security forces attempted to put down the protests over several days. At least a dozen people were killed, and grief deepened the resolve of Keitas opponents to seek his removal.

West Africas shuttle diplomacy has included several regional political heavyweights who helped intervene in 2012 when a military coup gave way to a jihadist takeover across Malis north. ECOWAS pressured the coup leader to hand over power to a transitional civilian government.

The year after the coup, Keita won the first elections organized after the countrys return to democracy.

The Islamic extremists deposed from power in towns across the north that year have proven resilient. After regrouping in the desert, they began launching regular attacks against U.N. peacekeepers and the Malian military. The jihadist violence has spread to more populated central Mali, where it has inflamed tensions between ethnic groups.

Meanwhile, critics say Keita made purchases like a presidential airplane and overpaid for military equipment. Some combat helicopters he bought remained grounded due to lack of maintenance.

While the World Bank says Malis extreme poverty rate has fallen under Keitas tenure, his critics say thats merely the result of exceptional agricultural production. And 47.2% of Malian families were still living in extreme poverty even before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now with borders closed and most vendors and small business owners out of work, the number of Malians who have taken to the streets has grown.

___

Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal contributed.
The California Assembly in session last year. (Robert Gourley/Los Angeles Times)

Citing the threat of coronavirus, both houses of the California Legislature plan to allow some members at higher risk for COVID-19 to weigh in on pending bills from their districts when the Legislature reconvenes in Sacramento next week, a change in the rules that has drawn criticism from some current and former lawmakers.

Under a proposal announced Thursday by Assembly leadership, a small number of members  expected to be around 10  would submit written instructions on their votes to the chief clerk before a floor session. One of the house's four top leaders would then cast a proxy vote on the floor for the absent legislator.

The plan is intended to help lawmakers most vulnerable to serious risks from coronavirus, including those over age 65 and members with underlying health conditions, officials said.

Given a spike in COVID-19 cases across the state, the Assembly is obliged to pursue safety with more stringent measures, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) said in a statement. As a result, we will implement very limited proxy voting for floor sessions to allow our most vulnerable members to participate without being physically present on the Assembly floor.

A resolution enacting limited proxy voting will be introduced next week when the Assembly returns from a two-week break taken after two legislators and several staff members tested positive for COVID-19. California this week became the state with the most coronavirus cases in the U.S.

Leaders of the state Senate have decided to allow some members to vote remotely on bills in committee, but not on the Senate floor, according to Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego). The proposal would also require absent legislators to cast votes from their district offices.

As California continues making our way through this pandemic, the Legislature has to keep exploring ways to conduct the peoples business safely and in keeping with our Constitution, Atkins said Thursday.

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She said the Senate has been testing a framework for remote voting since March in case it became needed.

In keeping with this framework, the Senates process will allow for remote voting in committee hearings when we return from recess, Atkins said.

Sam Blakeslee, vice chairman of the open-government group California Common Cause and a former Republican legislator who served as Assembly Republican leader in 2009 and 2010, called the Assembly proposal for proxy voting "very disturbing" and said he believed it was illegal.

I am a little shocked to hear that the Assembly is even considering the idea of proxy voting, Blakeslee said. There is no provision in the [State] Constitution where the right and duty to vote can be delegated to another person.

Blakeslee said proxy voting could lead to abuses, with lobbyists and special interests attempting to sway votes out of public view, betraying a system in which voters elect a representative to cast votes on bills.

Such an approach, if extended, could allow a single individual of the Legislature to essentially control all votes and they would cease to operate in a democracy, he said. There is a real peril.

Blakeslee also opposed a proposed ballot measure to allow proxy voting that recently failed to gain support in the Assembly.

Assembly Republican floor leader Heath Flora of Ripon said he supports the new process as a temporary measure for helping elected members who are vulnerable to COVID-19 still be able to represent their constituents in the Legislature, but added we hope that this emergency process is not taken advantage of for other political purposes.

Assembly Republican Leader Marie Waldron said the Legislature should not allow proxy voting until it gets approval from the voters.

Other lawmakers also have concerns. Assemblyman Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) said it sets a bad precedent.

For months the speaker has insisted that proxy vote is unconstitutional, so its not clear why were going to now go ahead and do it anyway, Kiley said. While remote voting might be justified under very narrow circumstances, the concept of proxy voting, where you hand over your vote to another legislator, is incompatible with representative government.

Former Assemblyman Mike Gatto, a Democrat from Glendale, said he also has some misgivings but said the proposal is a reasonable one-time accommodation during the health crisis.

When deciding issues that affect millions of Californians, there is tremendous value in old-fashioned, in-person debate and discussions, Gatto said.

He noted that Congress allows forms of limited proxy voting.

It is important that emergency accommodations don't become permanent, though, he said. There is a reason why legislatures gather together, and that precious tradition shouldn't be compromised when things return to normal.

Under the Assembly proposal, the Assemblys chief clerk will keep a list of lawmakers requests for proxy votes to make sure accurate votes are cast. The proxy votes will be cast by one of four leaders: Rendon, Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon (D-Whittier), Assembly Republican Leader Marie Waldron of Escondido and Flora.

Rendon said there will be strict rules on the use of proxy votes during floor sessions.

A process for allowing such votes and ensuring the transparency of every vote has been developed. It will also provide for the opportunity to verify voting accuracy. We will maintain a quorum of members physically present on the Assembly floor for all floor sessions," he said. "Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures."

Assembly officials said members would not be required to make their votes public before they are cast by proxies, which would provide a chance to view a lawmakers position on a bill in advance of the vote during floor session.

The extraordinary proposal for proxy votes was made just days after Assembly members Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale) and Autumn Burke (D-Marina del Rey) confirmed that they had tested positive for COVID-19, resulting in the Assembly delaying its return from summer recess by two weeks.

Lackey was hospitalized with complications from the virus but is back home recovering and expects to be well enough to attend floor sessions and cast his own vote.

I will not request remote voting because I will appear in person and represent my constituency, Lackey said in a statement. The people put their faith in me to vote on their behalf.

He said the public expects its government to function even in a crisis.

Personal engagement is an important element in decision making, he said. Remote voting would surrender our democracy.

In addition to legislators, a half-dozen Assembly and Senate staff members have also tested positive for coronavirus. The cases have been reported in spite of preventative measures at the state Capitol, including temperature checks and health screening interviews at public entrances, and encouragement that public testimony be done by phone from outside committee rooms.

Blakeslee said he has been in discussions with a leader of the Senate about an alternative process in which legislators would vote remotely from their district offices in a live video feed where they are not surrounded by lobbyists and special interests, in order to assure the public of a fair process.

Senate officials said guidelines are still being developed for remote voting.

The unscheduled pause in legislative operations will also require substantial changes in the process of reviewing bills before final votes are taken in the two houses. The deadline for proposals to have cleared policy committees was supposed to be July 31. But the Assembly and Senate have scheduled key committee hearings well into August.

The Senate, under a draft schedule obtained by The Times, is planning to hold some committee hearings on Saturdays. With this being the final year of the two-year session, time is limited. The California Constitution limits the passage of most bills after Aug. 31 in even-numbered years. Additional time could be added only if Gov. Gavin Newsom were to call a special session of the Legislature.

Lawmakers began to see the results of the tightened schedule on Thursday.

Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter Thursday to colleagues letting them know that her panel will only hear 26 of the 80 bills that it has receivedbecause it will only be able to hold about 12 hours of hearings in total.

Given the truncated session because of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have the unpleasant task of trying to identify those bills we will be able to hear in the limited time-frame in which we have been given to hear them, Jackson wrote, adding that she screened out many bills not related to COVID-19 or criminal justice reform.
Former County Commissioner Charlotte Ellison Vandergriff, 83, died Thursday.

She had been appointed to the commission following the death of her husband, Buster Vandergriff.

Ms. Vandergriff served until 2006 when she did not seek another four-year term.

At the time, she announced her support for Jim Coppinger as her successor. Mr. Coppinger, who had recently retired as city fire chief, went on to win the seat and later became county mayor.

Trustee Bill Hullander, who served alongside Ms. Vandergriff, said, "I enjoyed working with Charlotte Vandergriff. She did a lot for her Hixson district. She was especially interested in the health and welfare of the community and was active in setting up standards to improve the community."

When she ran again in 2002, Ms. Vandergriff said, "I am currently completing my sixth year of service to the Hixson community as I was appointed and then elected to complete the term held by my late husband.

"I appreciate the support of the constituents in District 3 and pledge to continue as a strong advocate for individual rights. Our state economy will have an effect on our local budget and we must be cautious with our local budget. Improvements in our economy is a high priority. Public school education must improve. I encourage more opportunity for technical and vocational training through our public schools, partnered with local business."

She was a graduate of Central High School, and also attended Cleveland State. She graduated from the Erlanger School of Nursing as an RN. Ms. Vandergriff was one of the first nurses hired at Parkridge Hospital. She finished her nursing career in Hixson at Memorial North Park. Charlotte was a dedicated member of Burks United Methodist Church.

Ms. Vandergriff was a member of a group of ladies aptly called the hookers, they were a rug hooking group. She also played cards with a special group of friends every Thursday. She was also a member of Beta Sigma Phi Nu Masters Chapter.

She was preceded in death by her husband, James R. Buster Vandergriff, her parents, Boyd Elbert and Anna Louise Ellison, and a brother, Sam Ellison.

She is survived by her children, David Alan (Karen) Hill, James Duane (Shea) Hill, Danny Boyd Hill, and also her special friend and sister-in-law, Pearl Ellison, grandchildren, Amy Cabe, Josh Hill, Ashley Macco, Dakoda Hill, Justin Worley, Callen Wallis, and Katy Clark, several great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and many dear friends.

A Celebration of Charlottes Life will be held privately in the Chattanooga Memorial Park. A memorial service commemorating her life will be held at a future date to be announced.

Also the family wishes to offer special thanks to the caring and compassionate staff at Hospice of Chattanooga.

In lieu of flowers the family requests that memorial contributions be made in Charlottes memory to Burks UMC, 6433 Hixson Pike, Hixson, TN 37343.

Arrangements are under the care of Chattanooga Funeral Home Crematory and Florist North Chapel, 5401 Hwy 153, Hixson,.
Its no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the economic status quo in New Mexico. A webinar hosted by the Economic Forum of Albuquerque focused on how the state can start preparing for what the future might bring once it wanes.

The world has changed, and New Mexico needs to change with it, said Dale Dekker, principal at the Albuquerque architecture firm Dekker/Perich/Sabatini and keynote speaker at the event .

During the hour-long webinar Wednesday morning, Dekker spoke about the long-running economic challenges the Land of Enchantment faced before the pandemic reached the state, and how the state can anticipate opportunities that may evolve once the pandemic abates. He termed this future period the next normal.

In particular, Dekker highlighted the trend of American companies moving manufacturing from Asia back to North America in response to the pandemic, as well as the rising demand for renewable energy, as areas where New Mexico can grow.

Change more often than not is seen as a four-letter word in our state, Dekker said. But if we dont change and look into the next normal, were going to get left behind again.

Even before the pandemic, the state lagged behind its neighbors in a host of well-known indicators including poverty and low graduation rates. And it remains over-reliant on government spending and its oil and gas industry.

Still, the state has plenty of assets as well, which can help it benefit from future large-scale economic changes, he said.

With more people working from home, Dekker predicted workers might flee crowded coastal cities and work remotely, a shift that could benefit Albuquerque.

Moreover, the supply chain disruption wrought by the pandemic has companies thinking about moving manufacturing and production closer to home. American companies may move facilities to Mexico, which could benefit border states that can develop bi-national partnerships, he said.

Finally, Dekker pointed to renewable energy to invest in. He cited a study showing that the state has the lowest cost of renewable energy in the country, due to its abundant sun and wind.

Im hopeful that we can invest in the infrastructure necessary to get that renewable energy to our central valley, Dekker said.
The Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori Atta says Akufo-Addo government has ensured that Ghanaians now enjoy stable and more affordable power since it assumed office in 2017.

He says despite coming into office at a time when the power supply was unstable, the government has ensured the frequent power outage popularly called dumsor has been relegated.

Delivering the 2020 mid-year budget review in the House on Thursday, July 23, 2020, Ken Ofori Atta said we have relegated dumsor to the past. It is clear to our fellow Ghanaians by now that we have enjoyed 3 and half years of reliable and cheaper power. We have spent in excess of 4.7 billion in capacity payments not only to ensure that we keep the lights on, but also to pay for power we do not use under very questionable contractual obligations we inherited.

This is not the first time the government has claimed success in ensuring consistent power supply.

President Nana Akufo-Addo in February also said 'dumsor' had become a thing of the past, although there are still debts in the energy sector that need to be paid due to some contractual terms the John Mahama government committed the country to.

This claim is despite the many complaints of some Ghanaians about intermittent power outages, some of which are blamed on technical faults.

That situation a few months ago prompted former Deputy Power Minister, John Jinapor to issue a statement in which he accused the government of plunging the country back into power rationing.

He said the situation was due to the ineptitude and mismanagement of the energy sector by the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).

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Claudia Tan and her family in an undated photo posing with the two SCDF certificates. (PHOTO: SCDF/Facebook)

SINGAPORE  A National University Hospital (NUH) nurse was awarded by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) for attending to two strangers from the same residence who were suffering from cardiac arrest on separate occasions while she was off duty.

The nurse, Claudia Tan Yanhua, was getting ready for work in September last year, when she received an alert on its myResponder app for a cardiac arrest case in a unit just two floors below her own home, the SCDF said in a Facebook post on Thursday (23 July).

Tan, who was then in the third trimester of her pregnancy, dashed over to render aid, said the SCDF.

When she arrived at the unit, she saw a man lying motionless on the floor. After assessing that he showed no signs of breathing or pulse, she immediately performed CPR on him.

SCDF resources arrived shortly after and rendered further medical assistance before conveying him to a hospital. Thankfully, the man survived, the post added.

The second incident occurred three months later, while Tan was at home during her post-pregnancy confinement. She had received another myResponder alert for a cardiac arrest case in the same unit and went over to the residence without hesitation, said the SCDF.

She saw a woman lying motionless, who displayed no signs of breathing or pulse, and immediately performed CPR, it added.

When SCDF resources arrived, she helped to administer intravenous lines on the patient.

Unfortunately, the patient did not survive, said the SCDF. For her quick-thinking and selfless acts, (Tan) received SCDFs Community Lifesaver Award (CLA) and Community First Responder Award (CFRA).

The myResponder mobile app by the SCDF works by notifying members of the public  also known as Community First Responders  of cardiac arrest and fire cases within 400 metres of their location.

As of March last year, it has more than 40,000 registered respondents with close to 21,000 responses to cases since its launch in 2015.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

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By Trend

Armenia should know that any of its provocations will lead to heavy losses and shameful failure, Assistant to the Azerbaijani president, head of the military affairs department of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration, Colonel General Maharram Aliyev said in an interview with Trend.

"I express my condolences to the families of our soldiers and officers who sacrificed their lives defending the territorial integrity of our country and I wish them patience, Aliyev said. May Allah rest the souls of our martyrs! By heroism and courage, they once again proved that the Azerbaijani army is full of determination and is capable of properly responding to any provocations at any time."

Aliyev also spoke on Armenia's interests, following its gross violation of ceasefire and military provocation in the direction of Azerbaijan's Tovuz district on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.

Azerbaijan has previously witnessed provocative actions of the Armenian invaders in various directions of the front on the line of contact and our armed forces reacted to these actions, suppressing the attacks of the Armenian armed forces, Aliyev stressed.

"However, I would like to draw attention to one more factor. This time, by launching attacks in the direction of Tovuz district, Armenian armed forces tried to strike a blow to the energy projects in which Azerbaijan and Turkey, as well as Georgia, are engaged."

As is known, such big international projects of the world scale as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway stretch in the direction of Tovuz district and having made a provocation in this direction, the Armenians imagined that along with the prestige of the Azerbaijani army, they will also damage the country's energy policy, but it became obvious that they were fundamentally wrong, Aliyev said.

The Armenian armed forces not only retreated but were forced to flee, leaving their positions, weapons, Aliyev said. The dominant strategic heights of Tovuz district are under the control of the Azerbaijani army, from which all the actions of the Armenian armed forces are seen.

Another goal of the Armenian side was to divert attention from the political and economic crisis inside Armenia, Aliyev said. Azerbaijan's diplomatic success hastened the political fiasco of the occupying country. Therefore, by making a provocation towards Tovuz district, Armenia tried to dispel internal discontent, as well as divert the attention of the international community from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

As a result, the problem of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has become more evident for the world community while Armenia found itself squeezed as a result of the double defeat, Aliyev said. That is, if today the international political community continues to support Azerbaijans fair position, this must be considered as Armenias military and political collapse.

While commenting on the fact that Armenia is beyond all regional projects, the assistant to the Azerbaijani president described this as the result of the vicious, treacherous and aggressive policy of both the current and previous leadership of this country.

"The current authorities, which dragged the Armenian people to hunger and poverty, does not know what to do now, it has no choice, Aliyev said. I reiterate that this is one of the reasons for the provocation in the direction of Tovuz district, but Armenia's plan has failed.

On the other hand, we also know that Armenia, which has lost foreign countries confidence, has always been a victim of its own mistakes, the assistant to the Azerbaijani president added. Even the Armenians living in other countries, subsequently showed their true colors by committing betrayal and treason. We can recall the atrocities of illegal Armenian armed groups and organizations in Turkey, France, Georgia, Azerbaijan and other countries.

The factor of aggression and ultra-chauvinism is inherent in the character of Armenians, and of course, those who know, understand and are aware of this character, will never trust them, Aliyev said. This is an indisputable fact that has become an axiom of our time. Which normal country, state would want to implement a joint project with Armenia or cooperate with it, knowing all this? For this reason, Armenia and its leadership must abandon its aggressive policy, drop its unrealizable claims and overcome this difficult, hopeless situation in which it found itself.

The assistant to the Azerbaijani president also expressed opinion on the strong international support rendered to Azerbaijan during the recent events.

In particular, Aliyev stressed that Azerbaijans voice of justice was heard and supported by big international organizations, certain influential politicians and statesmen.

"In this context, I would like to emphasize that this is based on the tireless activity and strong will of Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the assistant to the Azerbaijani president added. For this purpose, the president always touches upon this issue during all his meetings, stating that our people, our state will never put up with the fact that Armenia occupied our lands.

The Azerbaijani president emphasized and continues to emphasize that if other side does not put an end to this, Azerbaijan is able to ensure its territorial integrity, liberate the occupied lands, protect, maintain the inviolability of state borders, in full compliance with the requirements of the international law, Aliyev said.

The Azerbaijani army demonstrated its might, gave a tough response to Armenia, having won the April 2016 battles and the Gunnut operation in May 2018 and this must be an unforgettable lesson for Armenia, the assistant to the Azerbaijani president said.

This time, our army also harshly suppressed the Armenian provocation in the direction of Tovuz district, making it clear that it would inflict crushing blows on Armenia as a result of appropriate measures," Aliyev added.

The unequivocal support for Azerbaijan is associated with the country's leading role both in the region and in the world, Aliyev said. The country plays a key role and acts from the position of the initiator on many issues of the international agenda.

"However, I would also like to clarify this issue from a military-political point of view, the assistant to the Azerbaijani president said. While examining the situation thoroughly, the Azerbaijani armed forces, provided with advanced military equipment, having professional, well-trained personnel and the most modern military-industrial capabilities, hold the highest positions in the international army ratings. So, it is necessary to take into account that at the negotiating table with Azerbaijan, its military strength, the factor of military power, is certainly taken into account.

However, it is obvious that while reaching a dead end, the Armenian leadership resorts to provocative actions, Aliyev said. The Armenia is well aware of Azerbaijani army's power, so it hopes for the support of international community. However the situation with attacks on Tovuz has shown that the Armenians were wrong again, and gained no support."

Even the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), where Armenia is a member, did not support it, the assistant to the Azerbaijani president said. Regardless of the demands of the Armenians, an extraordinary meeting of the organization did not take place.

The reason is that while comparing Azerbaijan and Armenia, the countries represented there see that one of these countries is influential but the other one is hollow, Aliyev said. Azerbaijan maintains close contacts with all countries, pursues a successful policy in the spirit of friendship and cooperation, while Armenia, being a puppet, continues to remain a vassal."

While touching upon the factor of Turkey amid the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the assistant to the Azerbaijani president said that the unity of Turkey and Azerbaijan added a glorious page to history of the two countries.

The colonel general added that after Armenias provocation on the border in the direction of Tovuz district, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as well as minister of defense made certain statements on this.

"They advised Armenia to come to its senses, Aliyev added. This also testifies that both Azerbaijan and Turkey are regional power centers. Both countries cooperate in different directions, in particular, in the military-political sphere and the defense industry. Azerbaijan is as close to Turkey as Turkey is close to Azerbaijan.

I would like to remind that during President Erdogans official visit to Azerbaijan, very important discussions were held with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the colonel general added. The documents that will further strengthen the relations between our countries have been signed. Each of the joint global projects which are implemented by Azerbaijan and Turkey is of great importance both in the region and in the world.

The realities of military-strategic cooperation can be cited as the significance, Aliyev said. Everybody knows that a joint military strategy base has been formed between our countries and military projects have been implemented at different periods of time. In particular, the two countries have established cooperation at the highest level in the defense industry.

"In general, the development of both countries in various fields, the strengthening of their geographical position, at the same time, military cooperation between the two fraternal countries is important from the point of view of ensuring regional security as Azerbaijan and Turkey is allies in all spheres, the colonel general said.

Therefore, any threat to Azerbaijans territorial integrity is assessed as a vicious policy towards Turkey, Aliyev said. I think that the recent statements made by fraternal Turkey are based on these factors. Of course, Azerbaijan is proud of such steps of our brothers.

I would also like to stress that President Aliyevs historical statement "Karabakh is Azerbaijan!", as well as the reasoned responses to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on other occasion, vividly demonstrated Azerbaijans superiority not only from a military point of view but also diplomatic point of view, the colonel general added.

In this context, the supreme commander-in-chief confidently declares that the conflict must be resolved within the territorial integrity, sovereignty and inviolability of borders, Aliyev said. The factor of this confidence gives grounds to say that Azerbaijan relies only on its military power, military potential. That is, while speaking about this, one must not forget the fact that the Azerbaijani armed forces are the strongest army in the South Caucasus.

The colonel general added that the support of the army by the Azerbaijani people, who demonstrated national solidarity when the incidents started, is extremely important.

Our people came out with a united position, Aliyev said.

"In particular, the Azerbaijani youth with the spirit of military patriotism expressed the desire to voluntarily join the ranks of the army, which is great, the colonel general said. Of course, we are very happy and feel an endless sense of pride in this regard.

Thousands of citizens have appealed to the local structure and departments of the Azerbaijani State Service for Mobilization and Conscription, Aliyev added. This shows that neither internal nor external enemies are able and will be able to crush such immense love for the Motherland, the spirit of patriotism. The Azerbaijani people unambiguously united around the supreme commander-in-chief. This reality is leading to our new triumphs, new victories.

But what do we see on the Armenian side? Aliyev said. The military-political circles of this country tried to hide the number of soldiers and officers killed during Armenias own provocation and people fairly protested. People demand the authorities not to turn their children into victims of the occupation policy. This is another evidence, which is the basis for their failure. That is, Armenia must know that any of its provocations will result in defeat and shameful collapse. Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani people, Azerbaijani army are capable of doing this."

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Talking to Richards, theres an infectious optimism that makes you want to see the world the way she does. Ive tried to just look at the positive to get through different things, she said, because I have had a lot of, obviously, dark situations. Still, its hard to fathom how a person could be this sincere, a purported human ray of sunshine, after decades of drama in the spotlight. Is it a byproduct of her Midwestern Catholic upbringing? Part naivete? (She seemed stunned at the suggestion her daughters might watch Housewives, saying, Its an adult show.) If its an act, its one shes kept up for decades. But according to her good friend and ex-boyfriend, actor Patrick Muldoon, its just Denise being Denise.
Moms Demand Action has joined the anti-police witch-hunt.

I have long written that armed citizens and police are natural allies. It is because both of them have strong incentives in enforce order and prevent crime and violence. Two years ago, I wrote:

An armed people and local police are natural allies. When locally controlled police and a population who trust them work together, crime rates plummet to very low levels.

Officers on the street have generally had a positive attitude toward armed citizens.

I did not expect the Bloomberg funded group, Moms Demand Action, to come out strongly against police. I should have, as the orientation of the group was always on the far left. David Horowitz said it this way. On the left, the issue is never the issue. The issue is always about getting and keeping power. .....
In the podcast below the Tikvah Funds Jonathan Silver interviews former IDF military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin on the explosions rocking Iran. At the least, Yadlin offers informed speculation on what is happening. I get the impression, however, that Yadlin knows a little bit more than he lets on. At one point, for example, he responds to Silver that hed prefer not to address operational issues.

Tikvah introduces the podcast as follows:

On June 25, 2020, an explosion rocked the Iranian military complex of Parchin. An hour later, the city of Shirazwhich houses major Iranian military facilitieswas hit with a power outage. On June 30, there was an explosion at a clinic in Tehran; on July 2, the nuclear-enrichment facility in Natanz was hit; July 4 saw an explosion at a power plant in Ahvaz. In fact, every day or two since late June has brought news of a mysterious explosion somewhere in Iran. What on earth is going on? In this podcast, Jonathan Silver talks with Major General (ret.) Amos Yadlin, Israels former chief of military intelligence and the executive director of Tel Aviv Universitys Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), in order to understand these mysterious events. They examine the geopolitical backdrop of the current chaos, the strategic thinking of whoever is behind these bombings, and what this all could mean for the future of the region.

This interview is interesting in its entirety. In Yadlins assessment, by the way, the mullahs are waiting for GoJoe.
Representative Image

A number of Afghan and Rohingya Muslim refugees have been converting to Christianity to become eligible for Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), central agencies have alerted the government.

As a part of the ongoing assessment, 25 such cases have been flagged by them, according to a report by The Economic Times.

The Citizenship Amendment Act 2019, which was notified on January 10, grants Indian citizenship to non-Muslim minorities  Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian  who migrated to India from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh till December 31, 2014, following persecution over their faith.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), however, has not notified any rules for the Act as yet.

"Post CAA, there has been a spurt in the number of Afghan Muslims wanting to convert to Christianity," Adib Ahmed Maxwell, who heads an Afghan church in south Delhi told the newspaper.

According to Maxwell, most Afghans apply for asylum under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Officials told the newspaper that CAA can be exploited by those who are either rejected for asylum by UNHCR or are refugee Muslims who came to India before the CAA cut-off date, which is December 31, 2014.

"An inquiry should be conducted into every application followed by an endorsement from the church for Afghans," Maxwell said while stating that the government should bring in a safeguard against those converting to Christianity from Islam.
Osaka, Japan - Cancer diagnosis requires a lengthy process of multiple analyses of tissue biopsies, impeding the quick and early detection of cancers. In a new study, researchers from Osaka University developed a novel imaging system that uses near-infrared light to be less invasive and more time efficient than the conventional approach.

Histopathological analysis, or the investigation of tissue biopsies, is the cornerstone of cancer diagnosis. First, multiple specimens from different tissue locations are biopsied. These specimens are then sent to a pathologist, who will stain the tissues for molecules of interest to determine whether cancerous cells are present. Although an established process, it can be particularly invasive, as a sufficient number of biopsies from multiple locations within the same organ are necessary to increase the chances of catching the potential cancerwhich is not always possible for certain organs like the lungs, pancreas and uterus. Suspected cervical cancer is even a contraindication for biopsy acquisition. Another major downside of this process is the slow turnaround time, owing to the complexity of tissue acquisition, histopathological preparation, evaluation and preparation of the report.

"Time is of the essence when it comes to cancer," says corresponding author of the study Masaru Ishii. "The goal of our study was to develop a novel technique that can provide a cancer diagnosis in real-time using the obtained tissues only, without further histopathological preparation."

To achieve their goal, the researchers focused on cervical cancer, the fourth most common type of cancer in women. They obtained biopsies from healthy patients and patients with cervical cancer, and imaged them right away with their imaging system that uses near-infrared light to scan the tissues. An additional feature of this imaging system is its ability to not only scan tissues in two dimensions, as it is done conventionally, but also in three dimensions, thus obtaining a full picture of the tissues. The researchers found that the nuclei, compartments within cells that contain the DNA, had an irregular shape in cancerous tissue. By leveraging this finding and analyzing it using a machine learning algorithm, the researchers were able to set up a quantitative approach to classify tissues into normal and cancerous based on nuclear shape. Going a step further, the researchers developed an additional classification algorithm that takes the amount of connective tissue in the biopsies into account when deciding whether the tissue is healthy or diseased.

But did this imaging system improve the diagnosis of cervical cancer? To verify the accuracy of the imaging results, the researchers sent the specimen to pathologists who then did a conventional histopathological analysis of the biopsies and found a significant overlap between both approaches. Employing both newly developed classification algorithms even enabled the differentiation between invasive cancer and so-called cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, a precursor to invasive cancer detected by collecting cervical cells with Pap smears. Taken together, this novel imaging method enabled tissues to be visualized in three-dimensions and to be analyzed for cancer without extensive tissue preparation.

"These are striking results that show how the combination of our technique with image analysis using artificial intelligence enables the less-invasive, quick and quantitative detection of cervical cancer compared to the conventional approach," says Ishii. "Our imaging system could help develop novel medical devices as an improved approach for the diagnosis of cancers."

###

The article, "Nonlinear optics with near-infrared excitation enable real-time quantitative diagnosis of human cervical cancers," is published in Cancer Research at http://dx.doi.org/10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-20-0348

About Osaka University

Osaka University was founded in 1931 as one of the seven imperial universities of Japan and is now one of Japan's leading comprehensive universities with a broad disciplinary spectrum. This strength is coupled with a singular drive for innovation that extends throughout the scientific process, from fundamental research to the creation of applied technology with positive economic impacts. Its commitment to innovation has been recognized in Japan and around the world, being named Japan's most innovative university in 2015 (Reuters 2015 Top 100) and one of the most innovative institutions in the world in 2017 (Innovative Universities and the Nature Index Innovation 2017). Now, Osaka University is leveraging its role as a Designated National University Corporation selected by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to contribute to innovation for human welfare, sustainable development of society, and social transformation.

Website: https://resou.osaka-u.ac.jp/en/top
Police are hunting two gunmen who opened fire during a Chicago street party in the early hours of Sunday morning, leaving one man dead and a woman injured.

Footage released by law enforcement Wednesday shows as two men pull out guns and begin shooting on Wabash Avenue bridge along the Chicago River.

Gregory Crawford, 35, of Maywood, died after he was shot in the neck while driving past. His female passenger was hit in both arms but is expected to survive.

The victims were two of 63 people were shot, 12 fatally, over the weekend in Chicago.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced he will send federal agents to the city and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to help combat rising crime.

Scroll down for video

Footage released by cops Wednesday shows as two men pull out guns and begin shooting on Wabash Avenue bridge along the Chicago River on Sunday 2:30am

Police describe the individuals as armed and dangerous, telling the public to not approach them. Gregory Crawford, 35, of Maywood, died after he was shot in the neck while driving past. His female passenger was hit in both arms but is expected to survive

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who had initially blasted the news of extra federal agents, said the U.S. attorney's office will supervise the additional agents joining existing federal law enforcement offices.

'If those agents are here to actually work in partnership on support of gun violence and violent cases, plugging into existing infrastructure of federal agents, not trying to play police in our streets, then thats something different,' she said, while also accusing the president of trying to distract from scrutiny of the federal response to the pandemic.

In a statement police said of the footage: 'Detectives are seeking to identify persons who were involved in, or witnessed, the shooting that occurred in the 300 Block of North Wabash on 19 Jul 2020 at around 02:25am.'

The video cuts to a man wearing a black top and trousers who police identify as holding a gun

A second suspect, wearing a tank top and a cap, with a weapon is then identified. The two men then draw their guns and shoot out at individuals not shown on screen

Police describe the individuals as armed and dangerous, telling the public to not approach them.

The video begins with a group of men and a woman walking along the bridge at a street party The Chicago Tribune says hundreds attended.

As they continue walking, some members of the group turn back around and appear to talk with another group of people.

The video then cuts to a man wearing a black top and trousers, who police identify as holding an weapon. He appears to be holding a gun.

A second suspect, wearing a tank top and a cap, with a weapon is then identified.

The two men then draw their guns and shoot out at individuals not shown on screen. Those nearby dive for cover before fleeing the scene. The two men with guns also run out of picture.

Chicago Police officers investigate the scene of a shooting in Chicago on Tuesday after 14 people were wounded in a shootout at a funeral

The victims were two of 63 people were shot, 12 fatally, over the weekend in Chicago

Sunday morning's shooting on the bridge came days before an eruption of gunfire outside a funeral home that left 15 injured on Chicago's South Side on Tuesday.

Police said that was part of an ongoing conflict between rival gang members.

And there was more gun violence early Wednesday when a three-year-old girl was hospitalized in serious condition after being shot in the head while riding in a vehicle with her parents, police said.

More than 2,000 people have been shot in Chicago so far this year, with 25 shot, including four fatally, on Monday alone.

Trump has framed protests in the nation's large cities as a failure by 'liberal Democrats' who run them, praised the officers' actions and said he was looking to send agents to other cities.

He pointed to rising gun violence in Chicago, the nations third-largest city.

'This bloodshed must end,' he said. 'This bloodshed will end.'

President Donald Trump speaks during an event on 'Operation Legend: Combatting Violent Crime in American Cities,' in the East Room of the White House, Wednesday

The plan Trump announced Wednesday expands an existing program that sent hundreds of federal agents to Kansas City, Missouri, after a 4-year-old boys shooting death to help quell a record rise in violence.

Local authorities there have complained that agents have exacerbated tensions on the streets, while residents have accused the government of violating their constitutional rights.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf drew a distinction between the mission in Portland - to protect federal property - and the surges in Kansas City, Chicago and Albuquerque to help stop violence.
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Good morning. Virus hospitalizations are surging. The Trump administration will send more agents into cities. And desperate parents are thinking about home schooling.

The coronavirus is so widespread in the U.S. that many schools are unlikely to reopen anytime soon. Already, some large school districts  in Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix, suburban Washington and elsewhere  have indicated they will start the school year entirely with remote classes. Yet many parents and children are despondent about enduring online-only learning for the foreseeable future.

So it makes sense that the topic of home schooling is suddenly hot.

Parents who never before considered home schooling have begun looking into it  especially in combination with a small number of other families, to share the teaching load and let their children interact with others. Some are trying to hire private tutors. One example is a popular new Facebook group called Pandemic Pods and Microschools, created by Lian Chang, a mother in San Francisco.

Emily Oster, a Brown University economist who writes about parenting, has predicted that clusters of home-schooling families are going to happen everywhere.

Of course, many middle-class and poor families cannot afford to hire private tutors, as my colleague Eliza Shapiro pointed out. But there is nonetheless the potential for a home-schooling boom that is more than just a niche trend among the wealthy.
"As PICI looks to the future, it is critical that we identify and target the most promising areas of cancer immunotherapy and collaborate with the right industry partners to advance our mission," said Sean Parker, PICI founder and chairman. "John is a globally recognized scientific leader in immuno-oncology, with a background spanning academic research and executive roles in biotechnology. I'm convinced he has the experience and energy to build on our success in bringing immunotherapy treatments from bench to bedside to market for the benefit of all cancer patients."

Connolly has more than 20 years of research experience in immunotherapy and has published more than 100 papers and chapters in peer-reviewed journals. As a human immunologist, his research interests focus on immune monitoring and immunometabolism.

He most recently served as the CSO of Tessa Therapeutics, a clinical stage cell therapy company focused on solid tumor immunotherapy, where he led a team of researchers to develop next-generation T cell therapy treatments. In June 2017, Connolly started collaborating with PICI through its partnership with Tessa to develop novel cellular therapy and immuno-oncology combination treatments.

"The field of immunotherapy is at a maturity point with technology right now, which gives us the opportunity to create long-term, durable treatments that wouldn't have been possible five years ago," said Connolly. "I was attracted to PICI because of Sean's powerful vision for the institute, and I am most looking forward to collaborating with PICI's network of world-class investigators to find the fastest path forward to cure patients."

Connolly is also an associate professor at National University of Singapore and an adjunct associate professor of Immunology at Baylor University, where he served on the Board of Governors for the Institute of Biomedical Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in Immunology from Dartmouth Medical School, where he studied human dendritic cell biology.

About the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy

The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) is radically changing the way cancer research is done. Founded in 2016 through a $250 million gift from Silicon Valley entrepreneur and philanthropist Sean Parker, the San Francisco-based nonprofit is an unprecedented collaboration between the country's leading immunotherapy researchers and cancer centers, including Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Stanford Medicine, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California, San Francisco, the University of Pennsylvania and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The institute also supports top researchers at other institutions, including City of Hope, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Institute for Systems Biology and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. By forging alliances with academic, industry and nonprofit partners, PICI makes big bets on bold research to fulfill its mission: to accelerate the development of breakthrough immune therapies to turn all cancers into curable diseases. Find out more at www.parkerici.org.

SOURCE Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy

Related Links

http://www.parkerici.org


Documents were set on fire in the courtyard of a Chinese consulate in Houston after the Trump administration ordered the diplomatic office to shut down amid claims of spying.

And as the relationship between Washington and Beijing plummeted further, US president Donald Trump noted that its always possible more Chinese consulates could close.

In a move that outraged China on Wednesday (AEST), the US gave staff at the Chinese consulate in Houston 72 hours to leave, citing the need to protect American intellectual property and Americans private information.

Chinas espionage and influence operations have been a concern for the US for some time, but no specific details were given by the State Department on what exactly this closure was seeking to protect.
To the editor:

A few days ago, my friend Dawn returned home from weeks in the hospital to find that her Democratic political signs stolen, and her home vandalized. Dawn, who just needed to enjoy finally being home and able to rest, was burdened by the stress of a crime committed against her property  for what? Because someone doesnt share her political beliefs?

In a similar fashion, my friend Debbie had her Joe Biden yard sign stolen last week. After receiving a new one, it was vandalized in reprehensible ways. Incidents like these, unfortunately, dont seem to be uncommon. And, they cross party lines. One of our local candidates for Midland County Sheriff Myron Greene, experienced this as well after his own campaign signs were recently defaced with the acronym meaning All cops are bastards. I had signs defaced in 2018 to say I kneel with Sarah and earlier this month a person screamed All Sarah Schulz supporters hate America! as my friends, my children and I were getting ready to do our walking parade on the Fourth of July.

This is unacceptable, and we need to be better. Have you ever heard of someone changing their mind and voting differently because their yard signs were vandalized or because someone screamed something nasty? Me either. I know these times are stressful. But causing damage to the homes and property of our neighbors will only put fuel on the flame and further divide us at a time when we need to unite.

Id like to propose a far more effective method of promoting important change: speaking to one another with respect and dignity. Know that even if you disagree with your neighbors, you can still hold friendly, civil discussions with them and help and support them when they need it. When these conversations arent possible, channel your passion into voting, and encouraging your friends to vote.

We all have more in common than it may seem. Next time you see a yard sign you disagree with, remember there is a human being on the other side of that sign, worthy of kindness and decency.

SARAH SCHULZ

Midland
The Nashville, Tenn., schools made the decision this month to stick to full-time remote learning when the 2020-21 school year begins. In Bennington, Neb., the school district is planning to open schools for all students five days a week. And the New York City public school district is designing a hybrid model in which students would be in school a few days a week and learning remotely the other days.

Deciding among those three options can be an excruciating decision for school officials. They all have their benefits and drawbacks, and supporters and opponents. And they represent a much different look for the coming school year than what we saw this spring, when virtually all schools were operating remotely.

But the choice many schools appear to be leaning toward is the hybrid model, at least for now. Some will welcome students only four days a week. Others will split students into groups who attend for only part of the day, or on certain days of the week, or on certain weeks of the month. When they are not in school buildings, they will be learning remotely.

Some school and district leaders are leaning toward the hybrid model because they are concerned about the health of students and staff members if buildings reopen, and about the learning loss that can happen in fully remote environments. Many students will arrive carrying traumatic experiences from the spring and summer, whether dealing with the virus firsthand or feeling the effects of long-term social isolation and academic loss. The cancellation of summative tests and the disruption to the last quarter of the school year has also set back many students from meeting learning objectives and acquiring the knowledge and skills theyll need to advance in their new classes.

These are the conditions that schools will face this fall as they reconfigure operations to meet the new reality and choose the models they think will work best for students and educators.

Heres what experts and educators say an effective hybrid model should emphasize:

6 Essentials for In-Person Instruction

1. Identify the students who would benefit most from in-person instruction



Students in elementary school

Students who need to work one-on-one with a tutor, assistant, or aide

Students who lack at-home internet access or suitable digital devices

Students whose at-home situation or whose family responsibilities for work and child care dont lend themselves to consistent remote learning

Students learning English as a second language

2. Devote face-to-face time to technical training for students and teachers

During the first week or two of in-person instruction, teachers should walk students through the learning management system, class pages, videoconference platforms, and any other tools they might be using when they are learning remotely. Ask students to check whether the digital devices they used at home this spring are still working. Deploy IT teams where needed for troubleshooting and equipment repair.

3. Partner with local businesses and community organizations

Learning can happen anywhere, said Susan Patrick, CEO of the Aurora Institute, a research and advocacy organization for online and blended learning. Tutors working with students at local churches or libraries can provide supplemental instruction that accounts for limited capacity in school buildings and gives students a sense that learning doesnt stop when theyre not physically at school. Local organizations and businesses that are open safely can also provide internet connections for students and teachers who dont have them at home.

4. Focus on curriculum components that are most difficult to teach remotely.

Remember that in-person instruction may stop being an option at some point during the school year due to a resurgence of COVID-19. Identify material ahead of time thats a priority for in-person instruction. Reorient the structure of the course to focus on those in-person priorities.

5. Provide students with learning tools and supplies to take home



Manipulative bags for elementary schoolers

colored chips for counting



base ten blocks



dice



rulers



readers

School supplies

Crayons



Mini-whiteboards



Graph paper

6. Do not spend too much time lecturing

Particularly for teachers who arent trained in delivering individualized instruction remotely, classroom time should be devoted to interacting with students, asking them questions, and constructing active experiences. This will give teachers an opportunity to get to know the students better and the kids opportunities to get to know each other better, so they can be a source of support for each other when they are learning remotely.

10 Essentials for Remote Learning

1. Play to teachers strengths

When possible, teachers with expertise in online/remote teaching should be designated to work closely with students who have chosen or been selected to remain at home for the school year. Teachers who are more comfortable with in-person teaching can work with students who are able to come in. Teachers with online expertise can pair up with teachers who need help to provide guidance and mentorship.

Some schools will send teachers to the school building regardless of whether students are attending. Those teachers will be able to use the tools and Wi-fi in their classrooms, and, in many cases, spread out more than they would at home.

2. Create a landing page in the learning management system for each course. That page should include:



Contact information for teacher and school

Calendar with office hours, semester schedule, and assignment due dates

Links to virtual meetings for synchronous instruction and office hours

These pages should look the same across all courses in a school, and ideally in a district.

This summer, the Opelika school district in Alabama pulled in 60 K-12 teachers and asked them to design a virtual fourth week of the courses they regularly teach. The schools tech team gave participants parameters for which LMS and software programs to use. When the participants shared their finished work, the tech team identified which virtual classes had the cleanest layout and required the fewest clicks. Those courses will serve as a model for the visual presentation of courses throughout the district.

3. Balance high- and low-tech offerings

A 45-minute phone call with each student on a regular weekly schedule may be as effective, if not more so, than regular videoconference calls with large groups of students. Students may be using mobile devices rather than laptops or tablets while working at home, which means learning materials should be presented in digestible chunks whenever possible.

Many online tools can be accessed offline easily by downloading webpages as PDFs and loading files onto hard drives, as laid out in this resource guide.

4. Offer students a variety of pathways to learn

The biggest mistake newcomers to teaching remotely make, experts say, is assuming that students need to be engaged in live instruction 100 percent of the time. What students really need is variety and options, to account for their wide range of preferences and behaviors while learning. To illustrate a concept, educators should think about providing some combination of the following:

Readings

Videos

Diagrams

Images

Animations

Games

Interactives

Here are some resources to consider for creating those options:



5. Encourage interaction among students

Use videoconference meetings to give students an opportunity to see and interact with each other. Emphasize the value of teamwork by encouraging students to collaborate or share ideas. Consider videoconferencing with small groups of students at a time rather than an entire class.

6. Prioritize helping students develop healthy habits



Learning how to learn: Find out from students early on what kinds of synchronous and asynchronous supports they prefer. Advise them to be honest about what worked and didnt work remotely in the spring.

Self-regulation: Clearly communicate assignments to students and be explicit about when and how theyre due. Emphasize activities that encourage students to develop questions or explore areas of curiosity.

Goal-setting: Encourage students at the start of each week to establish clear, measurable, and attainable goals. Check in with them periodically to ensure theyre making progress, and offer help to students who are struggling.

7. Ask teachers what they need, such as:



Microphones and headsets for effective videoconferencing

Internet access (at home or in an alternative location)

Camera for video recording

Access to the school building/classroom (if safe and legally permitted)

Mini-whiteboard and markers

8. Take things slow, master the technologies first

Dont rush into teaching the curriculum before students are fully acquainted with the technology theyll need to use. Focus on introducing one tool to them at a time, making sure they understand it and then moving on to the next one.

And consider chunking lesson planning into weeks rather than days. It will be difficult to ensure daily that every student is progressing through the learning material at the same pace, but setting weekly goals will help account for different approaches students will take to completing assignments and gaining knowledge.

9. Ensure contracts with education and technology companies protect students data

Some schools entered into rapid agreements with tech companies this spring, bypassing some of the more elongated contract negotiations theyd typically do. That opened the door for some major data privacy concerns.

Designate a privacy expert for your school or district if you dont have one already. A few questions that person should help schools ask about technologies that will be used by teachers and students this fall:



What was the goal for using it this spring and is it really needed for the coming school year?

Did the technology meet that goal, and will that goal be the same in 2020-21?

Does the tool meet the schools privacy and security standards under normal circumstances?

10. Strengthen cybersecurity protections

Cyberattacks against schools have been on the rise for years prior to the pandemic, and widespread remote learning only heightens the risk. Teachers and students are accessing the school network from a wider variety of devices than ever before, offering hackers more opportunities to infiltrate the system. When teachers use tech tools that havent been officially sanctioned by the district, they risk the possibility of their account information, or students information, getting stolen.

Cybersecurity is a big concern for me because of the increase in remote access into our systems and users possibly logging into accounts and systems from personal devices rather than district owned devices, said Teresa Rehman, director of technology for the Roxbury district in New Jersey.

Cybersecurity priorities should include:



Installing:

Intrusion prevention/detection



Malware scanning



Secure access control

Implementing two-factor authentication for logins

Instructing students and parents to avoid accessing school materials on personal devices when possible

Training teachers to be judicious and proactive when opening emails and detecting cybersecurity threats

Consulting organizations like the Consortium for School Networking , Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center , and the K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center
The chief of the World Health Organisation has condemned US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for untrue and unacceptable comments, responding to reported allegations that included the health agency chief having been bought by China.

Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insisted WHO is focusing on saving lives as he lashed out at the comments British media have reported Mr Pompeo made at a closed-door event earlier this week in London.

Expand Close United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was speaking in London (Peter Summers/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was speaking in London (Peter Summers/PA)

Mr Tedros response to Mr Pompeo represented some of his most defensive and full-throated statements yet in the wake of the Trump administrations repeated criticism of the UN health agency in recent months.

British newspapers reported that Mr Pompeo said at the London event Mr Tedros had been bought by the Chinese government, an exceptionally personal comment against the WHO chief following the many accusations against the agency from Washington.

Critics say the Trump administration has been trying to distract attention from its own failings in managing the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, which has the most confirmed cases and virus-related deaths in the world.

In recent months, the administration has repeatedly criticised WHOs response to the pandemic and its alleged deference to Beijing.

President Donald Trump has ordered the United States to withdraw next year from the agency it has bankrolled and supported for decades.

Mr Pompeo was not asked about his reported comments at a news conference in Denmark on Wednesday. The Times reported before that appearance that Mr Pompeo had told a gathering of British politicians he had intelligence suggesting Mr Tedros had been bought by Chinas government and his election as WHO chief in 2017 had led to the death of British nationals.

The comments were done, I think on Tuesday  last Tuesday. And the comments are untrue and unacceptable, and without any foundation for that matter, Mr Tedros told reporters in Geneva.

If there is one thing that really matters to us and which should matter to the entire international community, its saving lives. And WHO will not be distracted by these comments.
RCMP investigators search for evidence at the location where Const. Heidi Stevenson was killed along the highway in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, Canada, on April 23, 2020. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press)

Review of Nova Scotia Mass Shooting to Be Done by 3-Person Panel

HALIFAXOttawa and Nova Scotia announced Thursday that a three-person panel will review the mass shooting that left 22 victims dead in April, though it will not be a fully public process.

Calling the killings shocking and deeply concerning to all Canadians, Federal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair noted many people have called for a comprehensive review.

They want to know about all the circumstances that led to it, and perhaps most importantly, they want to know what we must do to make sure it does not happen again, he told a news conference.

The panels interim and final reports will be presented next year to Blair and provincial Justice Minister Mark Furey before being made public. However, it appears littleif anyof the review will be conducted in open hearings.

The Atlantic Denture Clinic is guarded by police in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, on April 20, 2020. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press)

Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers prepare to take a suspect into custody at a gas station in Enfield, Nova Scotia, on April 19, 2020. (Tim Krochak/The Canadian Press via AP)

The panels terms of reference dont contain provisions to compel witnesses to speak under oath, and they say information collected in the preparation of its report shall be kept confidential.

The panel will be led by the former chief justice of Nova Scotia, Michael MacDonald, who will be joined by former federal Liberal cabinet minister Anne McLellan, and Leanne Fitch, the former chief of police in Fredericton.

Family members of victims have called for a full public inquiry that would include a comprehensive look at how the RCMP handled the April 1819 shootings in central and northern Nova Scotia.

Furey said he expects the panel to take a hard, broad and objective look at what happened.

Weve heard the calls for answers and know that the survivors, families of the victims and the broader public want a process to get answers that is independent from government and will make recommendations in an impartial and transparent manner, Furey said. This review responds to those needs.

A woman pays her respects to victims of a mass shooting at a roadblock in Portapique, Nova Scotia, Canada, on April 22, 2020. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press)

On Wednesday, close to 300 relatives of victims and their supporters marched to the local RCMP headquarters in Bible Hill, Nova Scotia, emphasizing their desire for a transparent and open inquiry.

A news release from the federal and provincial governments says the panels mandate is to conduct a broad review that includes the causes of the tragedy, the response of police and the way families of victims and affected citizens were dealt with.

The review panel is to complete its interim report by Feb. 28, 2021 and a final report by Aug. 31, 2021.

According to the terms of reference, the governments will consider the panels recommendations and commit to implementing them, where reasonable, within a reasonable time.

In a statement the RCMPs commanding officer in Nova Scotia, Assistant Commissioner Lee Bergerman, said the force welcomes the review.

We support the independent review and will cooperate fully, she said. She said Aprils unprecedented events had forever affected victims families foremost, but also RCMP employees across the province, particularly those who were involved in the incident.

We owe it to the memory of those we lost to learn as much as we can from this terrible tragedy, Bergerman said.

By Michael Tutton
In recent years, Americans have been less interested in living in those sprawling McMansions in the suburbs, as people of all ages gravitated toward walkable urban neighborhoods. The prevailing wisdom: Who needs all that space, anyway? What does it matter if you have only 400 square feet of living space when you can just pop out of your condo or apartment and enjoy all the amenities of the city? Fascination with tiny homes and micro-apartments grew, and experts predicted those supersized homes in the suburbs would struggle to find buyers.

Then the coronavirus pandemic hit. Suddenly, small homes felt very small.

Millions of Americans were confined to their homes with their familiesall the time. With kids interrupting Zoom meetings with the boss, bedrooms pulling triple duty as offices and fitness centers, and dining rooms being repurposed as online schools, itty-bitty living spaces no longer seemed to work.

Instead, COVID-19 has made those boring big homes with large backyards hot again as folks are seeking enough space to accommodate being home around the clock, say real estate experts. An extra 300 square feet for a dedicated home office never sounded so good. So, are we looking at the return of the McMansion?

The pandemic has been long enough and deep enough that it might bring a change in collective thinking toward bigger homes," says Sonia Hirt, an urban planning and landscape architecture at the University of Georgia in Athens. "The suburban home that was so stereotypical and boring suddenly proved itself to have benefits we've completely forgotten about.

The COVID-19 crisis has certainly led some city residents with means to trade their cramped apartments and condos for single-family homes in the burbs. But the virus isn't the only factor at play. Record-low mortgage rates are also allowing buyers to afford more home for their budgets.

Before the public health crisis, the median size of an existing (previously lived in) home purchased was 2,060 square feet, according to the National Association of Realtors 2020 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends Report. Newly built single-family homes had a median 2,291 square feet in the first quarter of 2020, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

The pandemic is likely to boost those footprints, real estate experts say. After being cooped up for months, buyers and homeowners want to "tack 500 to 1,000 square feet on top of" their previous goal, says Chris Brown, principal architect at b Architecture Studio in Winchester, MA, outside of Boston.

Americans are seeking more spacebut not McMansions

Americans may want more space, but that doesn't mean the 5,000-square-foot McMansions of the 1980s and 1990s are back. Many folks don't want to deal with the sticker priceor the upkeep.

Instead, millennials who remember the financial pain of the Great Recession are likely to make more reasonable trade-ups. They may go from an 800-square-foot condo to a 1,500-square-foot home, or sell their three-bedroom, 2,000-square-foot house and buy a five-bedroom, 3,000-square-foot abode.

Folks are also finding ways to repurpose the homes they already have, says Brown. An unfinished basement can become a fitness center, an attic could be transformed into a bedroom or play space with the addition of skylights and windows. Homeowners are also building additions, like offices.

"The market is not being driven by people looking for massive homes," says Ken Perlman, managing principal at John Burns Real Estate Consulting. "Its being driven by people looking for the right combination of functionality and price.

Multigenerational families could drive demand for larger homes

Families may also need more space to accommodate adult relatives moving in because of the pandemic.

Many college students and 20-somethings are returning to the nest as colleges have closed and entry-level jobs have dried up. Meanwhile, many folks have pulled their vulnerable parents out of nursing homes or assisted-living facilities, which have been ravaged by COVID-19. All of those extra people need places to sleep.

"We're going to see another bump in multigenerational living," says Donna Butts, executive director of Generations United, a Washington, DCbased multigenerational advocacy organization." By combining resources, they can afford a bigger house or a more comfortable lifestyle.

It happened during the Great Recession, when the number of multigenerational households swelled by more than 10% from 2007 to 2011, according to a 2011 survey from Generations United.

Whether larger homes are just a passing fad or here to stay may depend on the length of the pandemic. When a vaccine is found and folks can go out and about again, these bigger homes may fall back out of favor. But if the crisis drags on for years, the change in housing preference could be more permanent.

"I don't think the 5,000 square feet will be as fashionable and popular as it was in the '80s and '90s," says professor Hirt. However, "there will be some shift."

The post Big Homes Had Fallen Out of FavorThen Came the Coronavirus Pandemic appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
Portland: The mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler, was left coughing and wincing in the middle of his own city after federal officers deployed tear gas into a crowd of protesters that Wheeler had joined outside the federal courthouse in the early hours of Thursday morning, US time.

Wheeler, who scrambled to put on goggles while denouncing what he called the "urban warfare" tactic of the federal agents, said that he was outraged by the use of tear gas and that it was only making protesters more angry.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, right, stands at a fence guarding a courthouse as tear gas drifts by. Credit:Karina Brown/AP

"I'm not going to lie  it stings; it's hard to breathe," Wheeler said. "And I can tell you with 100 per cent honesty, I saw nothing which provoked this response."

He called it an "egregious overreaction" on the part of the federal officers and not a de-escalation strategy.
Lebanese media said an elderly passenger had been taken to a hospital affiliated with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militia and political party. Lebanese civil aviation authorities said the plane had been carrying 150 passengers, some of whom suffered minor injuries.

The American base at Al-Tanf, which sits near southern Syrias border with Jordan and Iraq, is strategically located to block Iran from controlling a land route through Iraq to Syria and Lebanon.

In recent months, the American-backed Syrian forces have skirmished with roving bands of suspected Islamic State fighters near Al-Tanf. In May 2017, American warplanes attacked a pro-Syrian government convoy that ignored warnings and violated a restricted zone around the base.

The American-led international coalition fighting the Islamic State in Syria flies combat air patrols over northeastern Syria to support about 500 American troops who carry out missions with Syrian Kurdish allies on the ground to counter pockets of ISIS fighters.

The Mahan Air encounter came as Iran was already on edge after a series of mysterious explosions and violent attacks against its civilian and military infrastructure, including at a nuclear fuel enrichment complex in early July. Iranian officials have attributed some of the recent attacks to sabotage, though they have not said whether they suspect the United States.

The encounter could amplify tensions between Iran and the United States, which is pursuing a hard-line campaign of sanctions and other actions against Iran that the Trump administration calls a maximum pressure strategy.

Abbas Mousavi, a spokesman for Irans Foreign Ministry, said Iran had contacted the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which protects American interests in Iran, to warn that the United States would be held accountable if anything happened to the Mahan Air flight, which later left Beirut empty to return to Iran.
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She has been soaking up the Spanish sun in style.

And Thandie Newton, 47, was continuing her fun-filled holiday on Thursday as she frolicked on a yacht with her son Booker, six, and husband Ol Parker, 51.

The Westworld actress looked phenomenal in a sexy khaki bikini as she launched herself into the ocean during the idyllic trip, where they are also joined by their daughters Ripley, 19, and Nico, 15.

Happy days: Thandie Newton, 47, was continuing her fun-filled holiday on Thursday as she frolicked on a yacht with her son Booker, six, and husband Ol Parker, 51

Thandie looked stunning as she stepped out in the stunning bikini to enjoy a day of fun and frolics with her family who appeared to be loving life.

The esteemed actress scraped her hair into a high bun while accessorising with layers of delicate necklaces and a pair of earrings.

Booker proved himself to be incredibly brave as he jumped into the sea under the watchful eye of his beaming mum and dad.

The sun-soaked getaway comes after Thandie gave a candid insight into the dramatic nature of working with Tom Cruise on Mission: Impossible II in 2000.

Hot stuff! The Westworld actress looked phenomenal in a sexy khaki bikini as she launched herself into the ocean during the idyllic trip, where they are also joined by their daughters Ripley, 19, and Nico, 15

Wrapping up: When she'd concluded her time in the water Thandie wrapped her hair in a towel (left) and was also seen helping Booker around the boat during the outing

Washing away: Thandie looked stunning as she stepped out in the stunning bikini to enjoy a day of fun and frolics with her family who appeared to be loving life

The British actress played Tom's character Ethan Hunt's love interest Nyah NordoffHall in the movie two decades ago, and she shed light on feeling 'terrified and insecure' on-set of the movie.

Thandie revealed she then called late director Jonathan Demme, who she worked with on Beloved and The Truth About Charlie, to seek advice after which he scolded her for not 'backing herself' and made her realise Tom wanted a 'alpha b***h'.

However, while she admitted to feeling 'scared' of 'dominant' Tom Cruise, she also insisted that he wasn't a 'horrible' person, just 'really stressed' on the set.

Check that out! Thandie and Ol were investigating the depths as they played by the shore with their son Booker

Larking around: She was feeling playful as she frolicked by the sea and spent time with her family

Having a giggle: The family were clearly entertained by something and were spotted laughing away during the trip

In an anecdote about filming a scene in Spain, the Westworld actress boldly admitted: 'I was so scared of Tom. He was a very dominant individual. He tries super hard to be a nice person. But the pressure. He takes on a lot.'

Thandie detailed how they struggled with filming a scene in Spain, in which they battled top get the perfect take of the - as she described - poorly-written scene.

She explained: 'So this scene was happening, and Tom was not happy with what I was doing because I had the s**ttiest lines, and he gets so frustrated'.

Woo! She showed her fun side as she launched into the water while Ol watched from behind her

Family affair! She later shielded her eyes with a pair of trendy sunglasses and donned a stylish silver necklace

After Tom attempted to align and improve the scene by getting them each to switch roles to practice, Thandie confessed the method made her suffer more.

She went on: 'It just pushed me further into a place of terror and insecurity. It was a real shame. And bless him. And I really do mean bless him, because he was trying his damnedest... He wasn't horrible. It was just  he was really stressed'.

She also revealed that Tom's then-wife Nicole Kidman scooped her the role.

Way back when: The British actress, 47, played Tom's character Ethan Hunt's love interest Nyah NordoffHall in the movie two decades ago, and in an interview with Vulture she has shed light on feeling 'terrified and insecure' on-set of the movie
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) said Thursday the U.S. needs a coordinated national response to better deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

The big picture: Its difficult for any single state to contain the spread of the virus because of free movement between states, Polis said at an Axios virtual event.

Weve had 50 different responses in each state. Each of us governors has been largely on our own to do the best we can, Polis said.

Quick take: Polis said his state sees a lot of visitors from Arizona, California and Texas, all of which have become COVID hotspots in recent months. The governor estimated his state welcomed between 75,000 to 100,000 visitors over the Fourth of July weekend.

Worth noting: A number of governors, lawmakers and experts have called for a national strategy to combat the virus since at least since April.

Between the lines: Polis said Colorado has maintained a lower infection rate than most of its neighbors because its residents adopted mask-wearing culture early. The state announced a mandate for masks in public indoor places last week.
F ears of Britain crashing away from the EU with "no deal" escalated today after talks with Brussels hit the buffers in rows over fishing and fair trading rules.

The EU's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier accused the Government of showing no willingness to break the deadlocks, making sealing a new trade agreement "unlikely" unless there is a shift from its current position.

However, the UK's chief EU negotiator David Frost stressed it remained unclear why Brusssels found it "so difficult" to sign up to a limited Canada-style trade deal with the UK.

He also emphasised "the possibility" that no deal will be struck and preparations were needed for "all possible scenarios" for the end of the transition period on December 31 this year.

A senior UK Government official said the talks were "equally close" to breakdown than breakthrough.

If there is "no deal", cross-Channel trade could be severely hit with new tariffs, quotas, as well as customs checks.

Pacts with the EU are often struck at the eleventh-hour, when both sides are starring into the abyss of what failure to reach one would mean for the countries involved in the talks.

However, the scale of the gap between the two sides was laid bare by the Government and EU failing to reach even the aimed-for deal of an "early understanding on the principles underlying any agreement".

Mr Frost said "considerable gaps remain in the most difficult areas", fisheries and the so-called "level playing field" for businesses.

"We have always been clear that our principles in these areas are not simple negotiating positions but expressions of the reality that we will be a fully independent country at the end of the transition period," he explained following the latest round of talks in London.

"That is why we continue to look for a deal with, at its core, a free trade agreement similar to the one the EU already has with Canada - that is, an agreement based on existing precedents."

In a sign of tension between the two sides, he added: "We remain unclear why this is so difficult for the EU, but we will continue to negotiate with this in mind."

Stressing that the Government would be "working hard to bridge gaps", Mr Frost highlighted progress including "constructive discussions" on trade in goods and services, and in some sectoral agreements, particularly transport, social security cooperation, and participation in EU programmes.

The Government also welcomed a "more pragmatic approach" from the EU over the role of the European Court of Justice after Brexit. Mr Frost added: "Similarly, we have heard the EU's concerns about a complex Switzerland-style set of agreements and we are ready to consider simpler structures, provided satisfactory terms can be found for dispute settlement and governance."

However, on fisheries the two sides are still far apart over how sharing fishing opportunities should be carved up.

The UK is arguing this should be based on the scientific principle of zonal attachment, which better reflects where fish live and would mean a major change from current arrangements, while the EU is sticking to the status quo on quota sharing which allows foreign trawlers more access to waters around Britain.

On a "level playing field", detailed talks took place covering labour, environment, climate, sustainable development and subsidy control, with a number of difficult areas remaining, particularly subsidy control.

The Government does not believe that the EU is fully engaging to resolve these disputes.

However, Mr Barnier criticised the Government's stance on "level playing field".

He said: "By its current refusal to committ to conditions of open and fair competition and to a balanced agreement on fisheries, the UK makes a trade agreement - at this point - unlikely."

Stressing that there had been no progress at all on the question of ensuring fairness on state aid, he added: "The time for answers is quickly running out."

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With the transition ending in just five months, he added: "If we do not reach an agreement on our future partnership there will be more friction."

Talks will resume in August.
Presiding Bishop of Perez Chapel International, Bishop Charles Agyinasare has been cautioned to 'choose his words' carefully following some comments he made on the banking sector.



According to media reports, Bishop Agyinasare during a virtual service wondered why locally-owned banks like uniBank, GN Bank, and UT Bank could not have been salvaged by the Bank of Ghana during its financial sector cleanup exercise.



I have been asking myself: So, for Dr Kwabena Duffuor, under whose time as Minister of Finance, we had the best economic growth rate of 14 per cent, there was nothing we could do with his bank? What about Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, who introduced or expanded susu banking and had branches than any commercial bank with more customers? Then, my own Amoabeng, who helped me grow my money to my first $100,000, which I withdrew and gave out for the building of the Dome, as part of my contribution. Could nothing have been done to salvage some of these great institutions? he queried.



This has however generated some criticisms.



Kweku Baako adding his voice to the debate said even though the Bishop does not engage in 'pastoral buffoonery' if he is going to talk politics, he should be 'prepared for some reactions'.



"....the banking sector reform. I think it's been brought to the front burner because of what Bishop Agyinasare said....Ive admired him for a very long time but I have heard him making a lot of comments . . .the Pastor's intrusion came with all sorts of statements....without the backing of science, science meaning the evidence; something of evidential value, sentimentally I felt for about three banks. . .



"Pastor this, pastor that, if they want to talk politics they must be prepared for some reactions...they wrote somewhere about the creeping culture of silence in the country. Who is afraid to speak today? I just can't understand it.....they never lived under the culture of silence and regime of fear, they never did; so they don't understand. To say that there are people who are afraid to speak out in today's Ghana?...this pastor, he is all over the place. He (Agyinasare) is more decent than some of the others; he is not part of those I consider as fake; I dont think he engages in pastoral buffoonery . . ." he said during a panel discussion on Peace FM's morning show 'Kokrokoo'.



Listen to him in the video below





Source: Rebecca Addo Tetteh/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Even in the middle of a pandemic, 500 Hamilton homeowners shelled out thousands of dollars to replace toxic lead water lines this year.

Now politicians at two levels of government are looking for ways to make it cheaper to get the lead out.

There are an estimated 20,000 homes in Hamilton with old service lines that can allow toxic lead to leach into drinking water at the tap  a particular health risk for pregnant women and small children. At least 10 per cent of annual tap water tests done by the city show lead levels above government health guidelines.

Its not a new dilemma  but Liberal MP Bob Bratina figures the federal government now has a once in a generation opportunity to use pandemic economic recovery cash to end the risk of lead in drinking water.

Bratina wrote an open letter to his own government arguing such funding can and must be used to address the national public health crisis we face in the form of lead-contaminated drinking water.

The former city mayor, who championed Hamiltons early efforts to study lead pollution and introduce a low-interest loan program for homeowners, suggests the federal government can help cities across Canada both study and prevent the leaching of lead into tap water.

A personal tax credit for homeowners seeking to replace lead pipes, which can cost anywhere from $1,500 to $4,000, is one example.

Hamiltons existing loan program already coaxes between 700 and 800 homeowners each year into replacing lead service lines, said city water director Andrew Grice.

Despite COVID-19 pandemic uncertainty and construction slowdowns, around 500 more replacements have occurred this year. Still, at that rate it will take Hamilton about 25 years to end the underground lead threat.

The city is trying to make the process more affordable for low-income residents by offering a zero-interest loan to eligible households to cover up to $2,500 of the cost of digging out the lead pipes.

Otherwise, Hamilton has also started a corrosion control program that is using a water additive designed to coat the inside of lead pipes and prevent the toxic metal from leaching into the water.
We are thrilled to present a new artist in our showcased indie artist series, #ARTHAGS. Kate Hutchens uses collage as a meditative technique to capture her story in the sea of life, from an abusive marriage to radio station internships.



Kate Hutchens was born into a family of arty people, who, like many Midwesterners, were happy to create but shy to share their work or call themselves artists. Both of her parents painted and drew. Her mother enrolled her in community classes where she became familiar with ceramics, painting, drawing, and film photography. Kate uses old photos, watercolor, ink, and other mixed media to tell stories from her life in layers. One piece can contain artifacts from her life that she has been keeping as precious objects for years.

Nowhere Man

(photo collage, epoxy and acrylic)



In 2017, I ended a 10-year-marriage with an emotionally abusive man. As a way to heal my heart, I channelled my pain through art. At first, I felt the catharsis of cutting up hundreds of photos of our life together, even wedding photos and irreplaceable photos from our life. I cried as I separated all those pieces into color groups and released the hold their memories had on me.

I created the image of the Nowhere Man as I meditated on the lines of emotionally unavailable men in our family, men who only exist on the surface level. There was such a throughline of men  even loving ones  who had not cared for their inner self. I modeled the form after my paternal grandfather, whom I never met. Family stories relate that he was so abusive, he caused trauma in his wife and all his children, including my sweet-but-distant father. I named him Nowhere Man as a nod to the shared love of the Beatles held by my mother, dad, sister, and I.

Completing this work helped me accept that I can create my own stories and meaning from incomplete materials.

Radio Campus Orleans

(pen, ink, watercolor, pencil)

Since the arrival of Covid19 and the worlds efforts to shelter at home and slow its spread, I have had a lot of time to think about how we transmit our voices into the world. Like many, I have been staying at home. For weeks, the only time I really left home was to go to my local public radio station, where I work as a fill-in host. Id drive from my lonely home to an empty broadcast studio in an empty radio station, but speak intimately to thousands of people, many of whom are also home and lonesome.

The image of sending your words into the great unknown of space intrigues me; the image of this radio station is more concrete. Its a real student-run radio station in Orleans, France, where I interned as part of a summer language program. I had a decade of radio experience but limited French skills at the time; still, I loved connecting with new friends in that funny little radio station that looked like a spaceship. We were truly sending our messages into the beyond.

Cafe Photo

(photo collage, mod podge, acrylic)

This collage marries two of my loves: coffee and photography. This piece is the first time I cut up photos into such small parts that you couldnt distinguish what they originally represented, and made something new. I can look at the piece now and see my life then: a former kitty friend, summer camp, adventures and trips with my former love. As a whole, you see a coffee, with steam escaping the top, dissolving into the background of the piece.

Making photo collages is meditative for me. First, cutting the pieces is soothing, and then sorting the pieces helps you look at them a new way. And finally, finding the perfect piece to complete each aspect is satistying.

What do you aim to capture/reveal/explore in your art? Has this shifted over time?

Im still finding my stride as an artist, so what I am most interested in capturing is my little story in the sea of life. I paint the flowers my niece brings me for Valentines Day to mark that memory down. I consider the image I am drawing or painting and what it means to me. I hope to move toward a more futuristic approach to art, where I am speculating on how life and the world could be or should be. I want to keep experimenting with styles, mediums, and formats. This is a joyful journey.

Where can people find out more about your art online?

People can follow my Instagram at @kadiveykate for more art and snapshots from life in Kansas.
A powerful 7.8 earthquake struck the Alaska Peninsula late Tuesday, triggering a tsunami warning that sent residents fleeing to higher ground before it was called off without any damaging waves. Hundreds wore masks against the spread of the coronavirus as they gathered in shelters.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake struck Tuesday at 10:12 p.m. local time. It was centered in waters 65 miles south-southeast of Perryville, Alaska at a depth of 17 miles, deeper than an earlier estimate.

No reports of any damage, Kodiak Police Sgt. Mike Sorter told The Associated Press early Wednesday morning. No injuries were reported. Everything is nominal.

The quake triggered tsunami warning for a South Alaska, the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands that was called off early Wednesday about two hours after the quake.

Tsunami warning sirens could be heard blaring in videos posted on social media as residents heeded warnings to evacuate.

On Kodiak Island, the local high school opened its doors for evacuees, as did the local Catholic school, the Anchorage Daily New s reported.

Weve got a high school full of people, said Larry LeDoux, superintendent of the Kodiak School District. Ive been passing out masks since the first siren sounded, he told the Daily News.

Everythings as calm as can be. Weve got probably 300, 400 people all wearing masks, he said.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center later called off the tsunami threat for other U.S. and Canadian Pacific coasts in North America as well.

There was actually even no reported wave activity for our area, Sorter said of the tsunami that was eventually canceled.

According to the USGS, since 1900 there have been six other earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 and higher within 155 miles of Tuesdays quake. The largest of those was a 8.2 quake in 1938.

The Alaska-Aleutian Trench was also where a magnitude 9.2 quake in 1964 was centered.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters
So much of what is viral nowadays is ugly. Indeed, most news lately is unpleasant. And then, like a glorious rose blooming on the ash heap of the news, we learn about Shetara Sims of Kansas City, Missouri. Despite being broke, when she won $100 on a $1 lottery ticket, Sims donated it to a wounded police officer, a kind act that has seen an outpouring of generosity for Sims.

Life hasn't been easy for Sims, a single mother living in Kansas City's urban streets. In 2012, a woman murdered Sims's daughter, 19-year-old Karyia, in a fight over a digital phone card. At the time, Sims felt that the Kansas City detectives who worked the case were there for her. According to a Kansas City Police Department (KCPD) Facebook post, Sims "said the detectives who worked her daughter's case were like her therapists, fathers, and lifelines all in one."

During an interview after this story broke, Sims expanded on her support for the police:

Sims said many people don't realize how wonderful officers are until they are the ones calling for help. "I've never seen the empathy that they had from strangers. They just gave us hope. They were good for us," Sims said.

Sims is currently raising Rakiya, her 12-year-old daughter. Life is especially hard right now because Sims lost her job more than a month ago due to the Wuhan virus. Almost two weeks ago, Sims was down to her last $7 and was really struggling.

While Sims and Rakiya were walking through the parking lot at a grocery store, they found a $1 bill. The money wouldn't have made a big difference to their financial situation so, for a lark, Sims bought a lottery ticket. It was a good buy, because she won $100.

At that point, most people would have squirreled the money away, bought more food, or done something frivolously celebratory. Sims, however, listened to Rakiya (a compassionate child), who said, "Mom, we should give that to the police officer who got shot."

Rakiya was referring to a police officer who had recently been in a firefight with a suspect. The suspect, who was killed, managed to shoot the officer in the head. The officer was still in the ICU when Rakiya made that suggestion.

Sims called the KCPD on July 10, asking how she could help the wounded officer. The police advised her that the officer was getting good care but suggested that she might want to donate gift cards for restaurants or gas to his family.

That's when Sims told the KCPD about her history with them, about her financial struggles, and about the $100 she'd unexpectedly won. At that point, the KCPD urged Sims to keep the money, but she was adamant, "saying the officer's family needed it, and the police needed to know they were supported."

Sims made the donation but did so anonymously. In other words, she was not seeking publicity. What she did came from the heart.

When the KCPD shared the story on its Facebook page, people wanted to know who this amazing woman was. The police were able to track Sims down, and they set up a GoFundMe page to help her out. The initial amount sought was $10,000, but as of this writing, the fund has collected more than $80,000, with the amount rising by the minute.

This story about Sims and Rakiya functions at two levels. At the most obvious level, it tells us about a genuinely decent woman who has raised a compassionate daughter. These two women, despite trying times, were able to think of and reach out to others they believed were in greater need. This is a message we should all try to carry with us.

At the less obvious, but perhaps more important, level, the Sims women's act of kindness and generosity to the KCPD is a reminder that the media are selling us a falsely divisive narrative about Americans and the police officers who serve them.

Yes, there are a small number of bad apples among the almost 690,000 law enforcement officers in the United States. The vast majority, though, are people who are drawn to serve their communities. Those in the communities whom the police serve recognize and appreciate these good motives. It is time, therefore, for Americans to reject the ugly Black Lives Matter narrative, which will reduce America's cities to war-torn squalor, as predators roam unhindered once the Marxists have successfully fired the police.

(You can see a video about the story here, in which Sims, Rakiya, and the police all get a chance to talk about Sims's and Rakiya's act of kindness and generosity.)

Image: Screen grab from KMBC.
Nurses at a Texas hospital have blown the whistle on what they say are abhorrent conditions in a make-shift COVID-19 unit where they claim corpses are left in non-air-conditioned rooms with ants crawling over them.

The unit was set up at at the Doctors Hospital Renaissance in Edinburg, Texas, earlier this year to treat COVID-19 patients.

Texas is currently experiencing its peak in the crisis. On Wednesday, the state recorded 194 deaths, a new record, and there were more than 9,000 new cases.

In Hidalgo County, where the hospital is based, bodies are now being stored in refrigerated trucks because morgues are so overwhelmed.

The DHR nurses say that the lockdown in March and April was able to stave off the initial crisis, but that reopening before many other states brought about the current spike.

This is among the photographs sent to the whistle-blower. It shows a patient who died in a non-air conditioned room who had allegedly been left for days

A row of empty hospital beds line the halls of the COVID-19 unit. Nurses say the cramped conditions in the COVID-19 unit are to keep the main hospital 'clean' and free of the virus

Hospital bed pushed together in what looks like a waiting room in the facility

While the lack of PPE and staffing across the state has been well-documented, the conditions described within DHR are alarming.

They have been shared on Twitter by a nurse who goes by Sarah and who does not work in the hospital but was sent information and photographs from staff inside who say they are too scared to speak out themselves because they risk being fired.

Heavy, old-fashioned oxygen tanks are being split between two patients, often not giving either patient enough to survive, they claim.

The nurses said their 'backs and bodies' were broken from constantly having to switch out the heavy tanks, and that even while working at full speed, they cannot keep up the influx of patients.

One whistle-blower said that one nurse was tasked with looking after 117 patients and 17 ventilators by themselves.

Others say they are being deprived of PPE like gowns, which they claim they are limited to one per day.

One nurse said they were forbidden from changing their gown despite having feces on it.

The nurses allege that the hospital is keeping its main facility 'clean' - free of COVID-19 patients - so that the facility can continue performing money-making lucrative procedures.

But with cases fast on the rise and supplies dwindling, they are urging staff to make coronavirus patients 'priority number one'.

Among the complaints from the nurses is that there is not enough oxygen for patients. They say patients are having to split oxygen tanks and that even then, there is still not enough

A grab from one patient's room. The nurses say the lack of oxygen is among the biggest problem

This is one of the texts sent from a nurse inside the hospital that alleges the main facility is being kept 'clean'

The number of deaths in Texas has spiked in the last two weeks. Yesterday, 194 died. There have been more than 4,000 deaths since March

One harrowing allegation is that patients, once they die, are being left in warm rooms with no air-conditioning.

The nurses sent their complaints to a woman who calls herself Nurse Sarah online. She does not work in the hospital but shared the claims for those who do

One nurse described seeing ants 'crawling on their bodies and faces', including in the patients' mouths.

They claimed when they raised the alarm, a hospital administrator told them the ants were 'coming from the patient'.

Some of the nurses have been drafted in to help the hospital by Krucial, a staffing company. According to a screenshot of a text that Nurse Sarah posted on Twitter, Krucial has told the nurses that if they speak to the media, they will be fired.

Krucial did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's inquiries on Thursday morning, nor did the hospital's executives.

The New York Times recently visited the hospital and while noting that it had become inundated with patients, there was no mention of the inhumane conditions described by the nurses in the tweets.

The Times' piece quoted doctors and nurses who said there had been more preparation for the crisis, but it did not prescribe any blame to the hospital for a lack of readiness.

Officials in Hidalgo County have described the ongoing crisis bleakly.

'Weve got to lasso this virus, this stallion, bring the numbers back down and get control of this thing.

'Because our hospitals  theyre war zones, they are really struggling right now,' Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez said recently.
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Linkedin Ni Nyoman Wira (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 09:39 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668a974d 1 Books books,bookstore,#ForgingtheNewNorm,Gramedia,Periplus,Post-Santa,Transit-Bookstore,Instagram,COVID-19 Free

This article is part of The Jakarta Posts "Forging the New Norm" special coverage series, on how people are forging their lives anew to adjust to the new realities of COVID-19 in Indonesia.

For some, bookstores are simply irreplaceable. Though online shops are easily accessible and e-books can be downloaded at our convenience, these cannot match the excitement of being surrounded by physical books and running your fingers along the spines to find your old favorites or discover a new escape. The smell of a freshly opened book can be compelling as well.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced numerous bookstores in Indonesia to temporarily halt their operations since March, leaving bibliophiles longing for their havens.

I certainly miss bookstores, managing editor of Kata Depan publishing Hestia Istiviani told The Jakarta Post. Scrolling through an online catalogue isnt as fun as traversing a bookstores aisles and stumbling upon hidden gems. Looking at book covers arranged on the shelves is enjoyable.

As Jakarta entered the "new normal" period and the transitional large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) stage in June, numerous bookshops gradually resumed their operations.

Jakarta-based teacher Shinta Wisnugupta is among those who visited Gramedia bookstore at Grand Indonesia shopping mall, Central Jakarta, during this period. I wanted to look for magazines or books to fill my working-from-home break time, Shinta said. "I usually search for nonfiction or language books, which are easier to peruse physically compared with the online versions."

Gaining popularity: Having a strong online presence since 1996 with an online catalog and selling non-book items, Gramedia only started to implement the e-commerce model to sell books in 2007. (Courtesy of Shutterstock/File)

Gramedias public relations manager Rezza Patria Wibowo said the company had seen a decline in the number of visitors after its reopening in early June. It is understandable as people are still afraid to go outside and be involved in social interaction, Rezza told the Post via e-mail.

Established in 1970, the bookstore has its e-commerce platform Gramedia.com featuring its Order-Pay-Deliver service where customers can use WhatsApp to order books. However, despite its online platform, Gramedia will still run its offline promotion programs based on the scheduled marketing agenda.

We will reduce the number of events at which people gather in large groups. Talk-shows and book launches are held virtually via Gramediabooks on Instagram and each publishers social media account, he said, adding that Gramedia still focused on carrying out health protocols, informing staff about COVID-19 handling and promoting its e-commerce platform.

Similar to Gramedia, Periplus bookstore has reopened several of its outlets in shopping malls while abiding by health protocols, including limiting the number of visitors and requiring its staff to wear face masks and face shields.

In an email to the Post, Periplus marketing team stated that following the reopening, its visitor numbers had declined significantly compared with the pre-pandemic days.

Were still focusing on offline business in our outlets while also strengthening our online presence via Periplus.com, social media and e-commerce platforms that have increased during the pandemic, the email stated. We will also add more features on our website and provide limited titles.

The bookstore, which was founded in 1999, has experienced several changes as a result of the outbreak. Weve taken more pre-orders as numerous publishers have postponed their publishing, read the statement. But imports from the United Kingdom and the United States had returned to normal by mid-June.

The pandemic has affected independent bookstores in the city as well.

For financial auditor Gita Swasti, visiting an indie bookshop offers her the chance of interacting with other readers. As the outlets are small, I could chat with the staff or other visitors, Gita said. When a visitor held a book that Ive read, for instance, I'd say, The authors background is interesting or This book has had a thorough research process, and he or she would respond. That's happened a lot.

Similar to Gita, Jakarta-based tax official Onut also prefers to visit indie bookshops. She recently paid a visit to Aksara bookstore in South Jakarta after being unable to travel anywhere for three months. The nearest stores [to my workplace] are Aksara and POST [Bookshop]. Their book collections are fascinating and they suit my taste, Onut said. "Bookstores are where I can search for and find interesting books I've never seen."

Nestled on the upper floor of Pasar Santa, a revitalized traditional market, in South Jakarta, POST Bookshop was established in July 2014 by husband and wife Teddy W. Kusuma and Maesy Ang.

The bookstores temporary closure in mid-March has made both more active on Instagram. They saw a slight decrease in sales at first, as their visitors usually buy a book after looking at the stores window display, asking for recommendations from the staff or other readers, as well as joining discussions often held in the bookstore.

But it returned to normal in the second month as readers who are from outside of the city and unable to visit the market bought books online, Teddy and Maesy said in an email.

Though they provide an online service, they have decided to focus on developing their physical outlet as it is aligned with its main aim to be an alternative public space where readers and writers interact about high-quality books and authorship.

On its online platform, POST Bookshop still maintains a close relationship with its readers, especially through direct messaging. It has also held various events on Instagram Live.

Regarding the shops reopening, Teddy and Maesy said they would decide the date based on the situation and conditions in August. Standard health protocols will be applied when they do reopen, including postponing regular offline discussions and limiting the number of visitors.

Online operations on Instagram have also become the focus of indie bookstore Transit after temporarily closing its store in Pasar Santa on March 20. Opened in late 2018 by Indra Soaloon Situmorang and Aliendheasja Alien Fawilia, it is known for featuring various themes in its collections, with "Resist" being the latest one.

The main shelf at Transit Bookstore, located at Pasar Santa, South Jakarta. (JP/Donny Fernando)

We are grateful that our readers interest has not subsided following the pandemic, wrote Alien in an email. By operating online, were able to interact with people who havent visited our stores because of time and distance restrictions.

Alien added that they saw potential in combining "online and offline offerings" in the future to increase readers engagement. We feel that bookstores need to enhance online features to complement the readers needs. Honestly, were still brainstorming about the patterns for our reopening, she said, adding that the shop was still waiting until the situation improved before resuming operations.

The outbreak has also greatly affected supplies as the shop orders books from direct distributors abroad. For now, most of them only operate partially because of COVID-19, so the books will take longer to reach Indonesia, Alien said. Its quite difficult as book deliveries can be unpredictable. Hence, we always inform our readers about the expected arrival or any delay. Thankfully, they understand. (wng)
By PTI

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu on Thursday signed 16 Memoranda of Understanding envisaging fresh investments totally worth more than Rs 5,100 crore that would provide over 6,500 jobs, the government said.

Within two months, the government has signed MoUs for Rs 30,664 crore investment which is expected to bring 67,212 new jobs to Tamil Nadu.

MoUs for Rs 10,399 crore was signed with eight firms on July 20 which is set to bring jobs to 13,507 people.

On May 27, agreements were signed with 17 companies for investments to the tune of Rs 15,128 crore with a potentialto provide employment opportunities to 47,150 people.

Today, MoUs were signed for Rs 5,137 crore more investments for 16 new initiatives that would provide 6,555 new jobs.

The new projects include Adani Enterprises Limited's data centre at an investment of Rs 2,300 crore at Siruseri in nearby Chengelpet district and the initiative would provide 1,000 jobs, an official release here said.

Super Auto Forge would set up a forged steel and aluminium parts manufacturing facility at an investment of Rs 500 crore at SIPCOT Vadakal industrial park in Kancheepuram district and it would bring new jobs to 800 people, it said.

American entity Visteon would expand its manufacturing capacity at Maraimalai Nagar in Chengelpet district by makingan investment of Rs 100 crore.

In the presence of Chief Minister K Palaniswami at the Secretariat, 16 Memorandums of Understanding were signed.

While 10 MoUs were signed through a virtual link, the remainder were inked in person, the government said. Industries Minister M C Sampath, Chief Secretary K Shanmugam and top officials participated.

The Chief Minister also launched a new portal HYPERLINK "http://www.investingintamilnadu.com"www.investingintamilnadu.com for the government's investment promotion agency.
On the frontline: Dr Syed Waqqar Ali was a father of five. Photo: Shaykh Dr Umar Al-Qadri/PA

The heartbroken daughter of a Dublin A&E doctor who died after contracting Covid-19 has said she will do her best to follow in his footsteps and keep his legacy alive.

Dr Syed Waqqar Ali, a native of Pakistan who lived in Tyrrelstown in Dublin, was a trusted locum doctor in several hospitals. He succumbed to the virus after a three-month battle in the intensive care unit of the Mater Hospital.

The father of five worked as an agency doctor in the Mater as well as in Tallaght Hospital and in Beaumont Hospital. He felt unwell after reporting for a shift at the Mater in April and was diagnosed with the virus.

He fought a tough three month battle in intensive care but became the eighth healthcare worker to die of the virus here.

Speaking to 'RTE News', Dr Samar Fatima Ali said there are "no words for the pain we're are experiencing".

"We didn't think that at such an age we would experience such pain. But our father has been incredibly selfless, not only through the pandemic but through his whole life," she said.

"He's been the best dad that we could have ever asked for. It's been a very difficult time for our family. He has been incredibly brave and he has pushed through. The last three months have been incredibly difficult.

"There is no word for the battle that he was fighting every day and the battle that my father has been fighting 24/7 for the past three months.

"Although he was not able to speak, he was still communicating with us, and we were making plans for when he would come home and what we would do," she said.

She added that she now hopes to continue his legacy helping others. "I'm going to do my best to follow in his footsteps and keep his legacy alive," she added.

Meanwhile, colleagues will hold a nationwide minute's silence in honour of him today.

In a statement, the Mater described him as a "frontline healthcare worker who provided selfless emergency care to Covid-19 patients at a number of hospitals as a locum during this emergency pandemic".

His colleagues remember him as a hard-working and diligent doctor with a humble and down-to-earth personality.

He leaves behind his children, his wife Rubab and his mother.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said: "I am deeply saddened to hear today of the death of Dr Syed Waqqar Ali. I want to express my sincere condolences to Dr Ali's family, his friends and his colleagues.

"Dr Ali contracted Covid-19 and has been cared for diligently by his colleagues in the ICU of the Mater Hospital for some time.

"It's clear from Dr Ali's colleagues that he was a kind, compassionate, hard-working and highly professional man, working on the front line."

Staff of Beaumont Hospital said they had lost a true hero, saying that Dr Waqar dedicated his professional life to emergency medicine, "selflessly putting himself at the frontline in our fight against Covid-19".
President Trump joined in criticism of House GOP Conference chairwoman Liz Cheney (R., Wy.) on Thursday after several House Republicans aired various grievances against the congresswoman, including over her support for the war in Afghanistan.

Liz Cheney is only upset because I have been actively getting our great and beautiful Country out of the ridiculous and costly Endless Wars, Trump wrote on Twitter. I am also making our so-called allies pay tens of billions of dollars in delinquent military costs. They must, at least, treat us fairly!!!

Its no secret the president and I disagree on some foreign policy issues, Cheney toldA Politico when asked about Trumps comments. Cheney added that as a member of the Armed Services Committee she would continue to provide for the defense of the nation.

Representatives including Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.), Chip Roy (R., Texas), and others lashed out at Cheney during a GOP Conference meeting on Tuesday. Some criticized Cheneys efforts to slow a drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, while others took her to task for continued support of Dr. Anthony Fauci and willingness to take public positions that differ from the presidents.

A House GOP lawmaker told CNN on condition of anonymity that the meeting was painful, saying, this was not just, getting something off my chest. This will have lingering effects.

However, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) expressed support for Cheney following the meeting.

Were honored to have her as conference chair, and she does an amazing job, McCarthy said at a press conference.

Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.), a longtime critic of Cheneys hawkish views on foreign policy, joined the fray on Wednesday.

She tries to sabotage everything [Trump] tries to do in foreign policy, so I dont know whether shes a good advocate for the President or not, Paul said. Im not a big fan of the perpetual war caucus. And these are the neoconservatives in our party that really try to prevent us from trying to disengage from a war.

More from National Review
More than 50 webinars will be held across the state to educate and train young girls and women and certify them as cyber sakhis.

Along with the campaign against cyber bullying, the Maharashtra State Commission for Women (MSCW) has also launched a campaign to raise awareness about domestic abuse called #UnMuteTheAbuse campaign on social media. The objective of the campaign is to get people to accept that domestic abuse is a long-standing problem that has seen an increase during the lockdown. (Photo | Flickr - ipredator)

Mumbai: The Maharashtra State Commission for Women has launched a digital programme to educate and train young girls and women on how to counter cyber-bullying and social media predators.

It has also launched a campaign to encourage women to report cases of domestic abuse, which have seen a rise during the lockdown in the country, the commissions member secretary Aastha Luthra said.

To tackle cyber bullies and social media predators, a programme has been launched on Tuesday under which more than 50 webinars will be held across the state to educate and train young girls and women and certify them as cyber sakhis, Luthra said in a statement.

On an average, the Maharashtra State Commission for Women (MSCW) receives approximately 800 complaints a month, she said, adding that the number has reduced since the state started easing the lockdown restrictions.

Women reach out to the commission through e-mails, letters, phone calls and also via Tejasvini app where most of the complaints are regarding domestic abuse, while some are also about social and financial problems.

The evaluation is done on the basis of severity of the case, where the commission ascertains if police intervention is required or counselling could be used as a medium to resolve the issue, Luthra said.

To raise awareness about domestic abuse, the MSCW on Monday launched #UnMuteTheAbuse campaign on social media, she said.

The objective of the campaign is to get people to accept that domestic abuse is a long-standing problem that has seen an increase during the lockdown, the official said. The idea is to encourage people to raise their voice against any kind of domestic abuse, she said.

Since the campaign was launched, 425 complaints of domestic violence have been received from across the state, with maximum 116 reported from Mumbai. There was also 50 e-mail complaints where the region or district was not mentioned, she said.

Often, neighbours and relatives are afraid to alert the authorities considering that any argument within the family is personal business. But, this needs to change and people need to overcome the hesitation and make it a usual practice to raise voice against any violence, she said. Luthra assured that the commission will provide compassionate and comprehensive services to those affected by domestic violence.

She said the lockdown brought to light several cases of physical and mental abuse where women were forced to stay at home with their oppressors.

With this initiative, we aim to encourage people not only to raise their voice against domestic abuse, but also spread the message and help us in helping the victims get justice and a better life, she said.
MOSCOW  Police in Moscow have detained several demonstrators who were demanding the immediate release of activists serving prison terms from the high-profile Rostov case, related to mass protests in 2017.

The single-person pickets, which do not require permission from city authorities, were held on July 23 in front of the Supreme Court as it looks into the appeals of two jailed activists from the southwestern city of Rostov-on-Don.

Members of the non-registered Other Russia opposition party, Mikhail Galyashkin, Andrei Plygach, Timofei Filin, and Natalya Krivolapova were among the detained activists.

In October, a court in Rostov-on-Don handed prison terms to three activists for mass disturbances that the media have dubbed the Rostov case.

Yan Sidorov and Vladislav Mordasov were convicted for the attempted organization of mass disturbances and were sentenced to 6 1/2 years and 6 years and 7 months, respectively, in a penal colony over protests in Rostov-on-Don.

Sidorov and Mordasov were 18 and 21 years old when they were detained in November 2017.

A third defendant in the case, Vyacheslav Shashmin, who was also 18 when he was arrested in 2017, was handed a suspended three-year prison term.

Amnesty International, which considers Sidorov and Mordasov to be prisoners of conscience, said they were prosecuted for trying to stage a peaceful protest in support of residents who had lost their houses in mass fires in Rostov-on-Don in August 2017.

The sentences came after a summer of protests in Moscow to demand free and fair municipal elections. Dozens of people have been fined or given jail sentences over the rallies.
Victoria residents will receive a payment of $300 if they take a COVID-19 test and then isolate themselves, as per a report by ABC. However, they will only get paid if they are employed and do not have sick leaves to fall on back on.

People wanting to avail this payment need to provide a pay slip or a statutory declaration; if they test positive, they will receive another payment of $1500.

Premier Daniel Andrews said that this step could help contain the spread of COVID-19.

Also read: World's 1st COVID-19 Blood Test From Australia Gives Result In 20 Minutes

AFP

Itll be a relatively simple and easy process. It essentially requires you, for instance, to provide a pay slip. If youre in a position where youre not able to do that, then a statutory declaration to that effect, which will be done as simply and as easily as possible, he said.

He added, "Paperwork is always important but its about making sure that we get those payments out as fast as possible. What weve got at the moment is people who feel unwell, but dont want to go and get tested quick enough because theyre fearful of not being able to go to work.

So far, Victoria has recorded five new deaths due to COVID-19 and 403 fresh cases in the last 24 hours.

Also read: Mystery Surrounds Car With 'COVID 19' Number Plate Abandoned At Airport In Australia Since February

AFP

Mr Andrews also mentioned that a significant number of Victorians were not self-isolating themselves even after developing symptoms for the highly contagious virus.

Out of more than 3,800 people who tested positive for the deadly disease between July 7 and July 21, 90 per cent of them did not self-isolate between the first onset of symptoms and getting tested. It was also brought to light that more than one in two people who were waiting for their test results were not taking any social distancing measures and going to work without any worry.

Also read: An Australian COVID-19 Patient Became Infectious In One Day, Nobody Knows How

AFP

The Premier is "very unhappy" with how people are ignoring the safety measures.

In a press conference, he said that the $300 payment scheme will "go a long way" to support families that are facing trouble isolating themselves and failing to avoid work.

He said, If youre sick, get tested quick and then isolate until you get a test result. If you were then a positive case, then you would be eligible because those same insecure work circumstances apply, you would be eligible for a further $1500 dollar payment, and we would make sure that we made those payments are paid as quickly as possible."



He added, This is about trying to make being an earner doesnt compromise or see you making bad choices for every other family across our state so this ensures that people are no worse off.
Persecuted Christians ordered to renounce faith or lose COVID-19 aid: 'It is a tragedy'

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In the wake of the coronavirus epidemic, Christians in Southeast Asia and Sudan have been ordered by authorities to renounce their faith or risk losing emergency aid, according to numerous reports.

Jan Vermeer, Asia communications director at Open Doors International, told Premiere News the organization has been inundated with reports of Christians telling us their communities would only give them food if they re-converted back to their original faith.

"While some have returned to the dominant religion in their country, others have contemplated suicide."

According to Open Doors, Christians from countries including Bangladesh, India, Sudan and Malaysia are being asked to renounce their faith in exchange for COVID-19 aid.

Pastor Sam, who coordinates Open Doors' work in Southeast Asia, said in rural Bangladesh, governments are giving assistance to a lot of people, but many Christians, especially those who come from a Muslim background or a Buddhist background, are not receiving the support when it goes to the villages.

The village head normally discriminates against the Christians. They say, Well, you're Christian. You became a Christian so you are not part of this support, he said.

"People may die or convert back to Islam if they don't have the means to survive," Sam said, adding that without the support of Open Doors, which is providing coronavirus relief in the area, many Christians would certainly die of malnutrition and starvation, or decide that following Jesus is too hard.

Many of these new believers only have a fragile faith and need to become stronger in the Lord, he said.

In Sudan, Christian converts face hunger and homelessness during the lockdown unless they reject their faith and return to Islam, according to Open Doors.

A local pastor explained: "Believers from Muslim backgrounds have to be entirely self-reliant because they aren't given any support from their family, tribes or community, because of their faith," he said, according to Premiere.

"But because people aren't able to work in lockdown they don't have money for food and are finding themselves being kicked out of their homes, unable to pay rent.

"When Christian converts do ask for help from their Muslim community, they are told they have to give up Christianity if they want to be helped. It is a tragedy."

In East Malaysia, one group of Christian students were told by their local mosque that they would have to convert back to Islam to receive any food aid from the community during the coronavirus lockdown.

An earlier report from Open Doors found that in Vietnam, the government denied food aid to more than 100 Christians, including children and the elderly.

You are Christians and your God shall take care of your family! authorities told 18 Christian families, comprising 107 people, in north Vietnam. The government is not responsible for your families!

A local partner of Open Doors, which was not identified due to security reasons, said, They strive to put food on their tables, and they consume their rice little by little every day. When they learned that the governments support was coming to their district, they were so happy  only to find out that they were not on the list because they are Christians.

Similarly, John Prabhudoss, Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations chairman, told The Christian Post that the organization has received several reports of religious minorities in India being mistreated during the pandemic.

Specifically, many are being left out of the programs created to help the people during this crisis, he said. Obviously, there are several systemic flaws in the Hindu nationalist government's approach to the problem. Because of those fundamentally flawed approaches, Christians and other religious minorities are suffering but they are not the only victims. Various sections of economically vulnerable people are also suffering due to these fundamentally flawed attitudes of the Hindu nationalist government.

Vermeer told Premier that discrimination against Christians is embedded in some communities, meaning such practices will be difficult to change.

"You have to appeal to the governments of those countries that they take this into account. But it's really deeply ingrained in their cultures so it's very hard to change. And especially in remote villages ... you need really fundamental changes."
WASHINGTON - Two federal inspectors general announced Thursday that they will investigate how Justice Department and Homeland Security agents used force, detained people and conducted themselves at high-profile clashes with protesters in Portland, Ore., and Washington.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz will investigate how U.S. marshals have used force in Portland, and how other parts of the Justice Department - such as the FBI; Drug Enforcement Administration; and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives - were used to quell unrest in the nation's capital.

The Department of Homeland Security inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, said in a letter to lawmakers that he opened an investigation into allegations that Customs and Border Protection agents "improperly detained and transported protesters" in Portland, and that he would review the deployment there of DHS personnel in recent weeks.

The inspector general investigations add to a growing list of inquiries into events in Portland and Washington, where local officials have criticized federal agencies for what they have called heavy-handed aggression toward peaceful protesters.

The Democratic leaders of three congressional panels - Reps. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., of the Judiciary Committee; Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., of the Oversight and Reform Committee; and Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., of the Homeland Security Committee - said in a joint statement that the investigations are "critically important" because the Trump administration has pledged to send federal agents to more cities in the coming days.

"Many of these federal agents are dressed as soldiers, driving unmarked vehicles and refusing to identify themselves or their agencies. . . . Nearly everywhere they have deployed, their presence has increased tensions and caused more confrontation between demonstrators and police."

It would be unusual for an inspector general investigation to produce quick answers. Many cases do not result in a public report until more than a year after they are initiated.

Lawmakers had pressed Horowitz in recent weeks to investigate whether the Trump administration was misusing federal law enforcement resources, particularly when it came to rules of engagement, and the use of tear gas and less-lethal munitions.

As part of those reviews, the inspector general will examine what federal law enforcement did in Lafayette Square near the White House on June 1, when protesters were forcibly cleared from the area just before President Donald Trump walked to a nearby church and held up a Bible in front of photographers.

That inquiry will be coordinated with the inspector general for the Department of Interior, which includes the U.S. Park Police, an agency that played a large role in the events of that day.

In Portland, U.S. Marshals have faced off against protesters every night for nearly two months, and the Department of Homeland Security has used its own officers and agents to try to quell nightly unrest around the federal courthouse.

Two incidents there have drawn particular scrutiny toward the Marshals Service.

In the early morning hours of July 12, a protester holding what appeared to be a speaker across the street from the courthouse was struck in the head by a nonlethal munition fired from one of the people guarding the courthouse. The U.S. Marshals has not yet identified the agency that fired that projectile, but has said it is investigating the incident. State and local law enforcement have said they, too, are investigating the matter. The protester's family said the munition struck him with such force he needed surgery for skull fractures.

A week later, 53-year-old Navy veteran Christopher David was beaten with a baton and pepper sprayed by U.S. Marshals outside the courthouse. David suffered broken bones in his hand, and U.S. Marshals said the force was justified because he presented a threat by "continuing to approach them and failing to comply with lawful commands to withdraw as they proceeded to reenter the courthouse."

David has said he was trying to ask the federal agents why they were there.

Both incidents were captured on video, and drew widespread criticism from protesters and some lawmakers who insist the video shows the individuals were not threatening anyone.

In Washington, there are still many unresolved questions about precisely how and why a phalanx of federal law enforcement officials forcibly cleared a street by Lafayette Square minutes before the president walked across the park to historic St. John's church, which had been vandalized. Attorney General William Barr directly oversaw the federal response to the protests, and has said the area was not cleared so the president could walk to the church.

"My attitude was get it done, but I didn't say, 'Go do it'," Barr later told The Associated Press.
A riot police officer points a tear gas rifle towards demonstrators during a protest in Hong Kong on July 1. Read more

President Donald Trump is taking a page straight out of the strongmans playbook by sending federal forces into Democrat-led cities, where governors and mayors neither need nor want them.

From Syria, to Egypt, to Russia and Hong Kong, I have seen this playbook in operation. The strategy goes like this: Despots stoke violence and civil strife to scare their people into supporting leaders who would protect them.

If protests are peaceful, autocrats reject compromise and provoke chaos, as an excuse to unleash their own violence. If protests draw on, and the public grows weary, autocrats move in as saviors, threatening force against any remaining resisters.

 READ MORE: White House may be turning VOA into Trump Radio Network I Trudy Rubin

This was the strategy used to crush civic protests in the Middle East, Russia, and Hong Kong over the past decade and up to the present.

Yet I never expected to see Trump try to enact this playbook here.

The Trump version already exceeds a wag the dog effort to distract from his abject failure with COVID-19. And it differs from law and order campaigns we have seen in this country before.

Yes, his strategy is directly linked to the release of dark Trump campaign ads that falsely portray U.S. cities as overrun by mob violence.

But Trump has gone beyond photo-op fascism. He is cribbing from Authoritarianism 101 with his legally dubious dispatch of federal law enforcement agents to cities whose mayors dont want them. Far from calming the streets, their presence has revived waning demonstrations in Portland, Ore., and may itself provoke violence.

As Oregons Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden warned, If the line is not drawn in the sand right now, Americans may be staring down the barrel of martial law in the middle of a presidential election.

With the presidents announcement that hell send more uninvited agents into multiple cities to fight crime, the legal pretext becomes ever more specious. The feds begin to look more like Trumps personal militia.

So its none too soon to look at how other authoritarians have used the playbook from which Trump is drawing his moves.

I will never forget interviewing Syrian writer Samar Yazbek, who risked her life in 2011 to document how peaceful Syrian protests turned into armed rebellion.

An educated, secular woman with flowing blond hair, she traveled in disguise to watch as unarmed demonstrators were attacked by regime snipers and militias. [Syrian President Bashar] Al-Assad sought to frighten minorities and moderate Sunnis into believing they must support him, she told me. Regime thugs, known as shabiha, spread rumors among Assads Alawite (a Shiite offshoot) followers that Sunnis were coming to rape and kill them.

The goal, Yazbek said, was to goad one Syrian sect to fight the other.

I heard the same from Sunni businessmen, small merchants, and farmers, whom I interviewed along the Syrian-Turkish border in 2011 and 2012. They said they didnt want a civil war, but sought governmental reforms that would curb the corruption of the Assad family. They wanted a voice in the government.

But Assad rejected moderates demands and was willing to destroy his country in order to keep power. He used personal militias to attack Sunnis and goad them into armed resistance. He persuaded a majority of Alawites, Christians, and wealthy Sunnis that they needed his dictatorship to stay safe.

Other despots have worked from a similar playbook, rallying weary publics to reject protesters when demonstrations became endless and spawned violence. Egyptian Gen. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi waited for Egyptians to tire of post-revolutionary upheaval in Cairo and for demonstrations to deteriorate into violence on the margins. Then he used his intelligence services  a form of personal militia  to conduct a coup that won public support.

As head of Russias intelligence services, Vladimir Putin used a series of apartment bombings in Russia  which many Russia experts believe were set by his agents  to gin up a fear of terrorism and Chechens that he rode to the Russian presidency.

Beijing, too, used a small minority of violent demonstrators (and the cover of COVID-19) as justification for cracking down on Hong Kongs peaceful protesters, whom it refused to negotiate with.

However, the sad outcomes in Egypt and Hong Kong also offer a lesson in caution to U.S. protesters for social justice. The leaders of Cairos Tahrir Square revolt, many of whom I interviewed, knew how to rally mass protests for change. But they failed dismally to translate those skills into practical politics, missing their chance to elect a moderate reformer for president. They wound up with a new autocrat.

 READ MORE: Beijing's crackdown on Hong Kong is dangerous for the world I Trudy Rubin

In Hong Kong, protests may have gone on too long, as the pro-democracy movement failed to curb spurts of violence and underestimated Beijings desire for total power.

Back in the USA, Trumps use of the autocrats playbook is an unmistakable warning: Those who believe in the rule of law must all work together, submerging differences, to stop this president from further threatening our democracy. As Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot put it, fighting violence is fine, but we do not welcome dictatorship.

Listen up, President Trump.
Ukraine's government to disband State Fiscal Service by year-end

22:59, 23.07.20 23411

The PM says this is one of the conditions for the second disbursement.
The Supreme Court of India agrees to hear a plea challenging the UGC circular, in order to cancel final year examinations for college students, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The students have urged that the results should be calculated on the basis of past performance and internal assessment. There have been other petitions filed with regard to this matter as well.

The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear within the next two days a plea challenging a University Grants Commission (UGC) circular and seeking cancellation of final year examination in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic. A bench of Justice Nageswara Rao posted the matter for hearing before a bench of Justice Ashok Bhushan after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted that a bench led by Justice Bhushan had already dismissed a similar plea on July 18. As many as 31 students from different universities across India approached the apex court to quash the UGC circular dated July 6 whereby all universities all across India have been asked to wrap up the final term examinations before September 30.

The students, in their petition, urged that the exams should be canceled and the results of such students should be calculated on the basis of their internal assessment or past performance. The petition filed by students from 13 states and one union territory requested that the students marksheets should be issued before July 31.



One of the students, among the 31 petitioners, has tested positive for COVID-19 and prayed for directions to the UGC to adopt the CBSE model and conduct an examination at a later date for the students who are not satisfied with the marks awarded on the basis of the assessment. That the planned examinations be canceled in the interest of justice for the students as the number of COVID-19 cases is on the rise, the plea said.



Also Read: Tamil Nadu cancels all semester exams, barring final year

Also Read: Can final exams be based on assignments and presentations; Delhi HC asks UGC to clarify

As per the UGC, universities were approached to inform the status of the conduct of examinations and responses received from 818 universities (121 deemed universities, 291 private universities, 51 central universities, and 355 state universities).

Out of the 818 universities, 603 have either conducted the examination or are planning to conduct. Meanwhile, 209 others have already conducted examination (on-line/off-line), 394 are planning to conduct examination (on-line/off-line/blended mode) in August or September. The commission has also said that for 35 universities, of which 27 are private, seven state-run, and one deemed university, the first batch is yet to become eligible for the final exams.

Another petition on the issue, filed in the apex court by final year law student Yash Dubey, also sought cancellation of UGC mandated final year exams. Shiv Sena leader Aditya Thackeray has also moved the apex court on behalf of Yuva Sena, the youth wing of Shiv Sena, against the mandated final year exams in the wake of rising COVID-19 cases.

Also Read: HP TET Card 2020 released: know how to download and other details

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By Dr. John M. Giggie and Dr. James D. Mixson

When W.E.B. Dubois, the great Black intellectual and co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, surveyed the southern frenzy to memorialize the Confederacy in the late 1920s, he shook his head in disbelief. He feared the power of public monuments, festivals, and building names to obscure the tragedy of recent American history. Focusing on the most popular namesake, Gen. Robert E. Lee, Du Bois begged white Americans to see what the Virginian actually fought for. Either he knew what slavery meant when he helped maim and murder thousands in its defense, or he did not. If he did not he was a fool. If he did, Robert Lee was a traitor and a rebelnot indeed to his country, but to humanity and humanitys God.

We teach and live in Tuscaloosa, which like so many other southern towns is now grappling with the divisive contest over history and memory that Dubois first recognized. More than ever, we are asking unsettling questions about the truth of stories passed down by earlier generations and how those stories became embedded in our public culture. We are confronting in particular how our buildings and monuments project an understanding of the past that is at odds with our aspirations to live in a democratic society that carefully honors its citizens.

There is no better example of this than the names given to the proud structures that guard the quad on our campus at the University of Alabama. We note only three cases among the many that our own students have identified: Manly Hall, home of the African American Studies program, named for Basil Manly, a slaveholder and chaplain of the Confederacy; Nott Hall, which houses the Honors College, for Josiah Nott, a Confederate surgeon who argued that whites were biologically superior to Blacks; and Morgan Hall, center for the English Department, for John Tyler Morgan, a Confederate general and six-term U.S. Senator for the state who was also a leading advocate for white supremacy during the Jim Crow era. Although each man in his own way helped the state and university grow, each also represented values that were under attack even during their lifetimes. Today these buildings collectively stand sentinel for a selective honoring of the past that protects us from having to confront its legacies of slavery and racism. While debates about these names can rage or fade depending on the news cycle, the history they represent persists.

We would do well to remember that the problem we face is not only a Southern or even an American one. Local legacies of slavery and racism rest on a wider, global story centuries in the making. We memorialize European conquerors, missionaries, and colonists as figures who brought Christianity, human rights, and refined European culture to a wider world. But many of these same figures, from famous ones like Columbus (whose murals under the Dome in South Bend have now been veiled) to lesser known ones like Junipero Serra (a newly canonized Roman Catholic saint whose statues have been toppled in California) directly contributed to the enslavement and oppression of indigenous peoples. And though their efforts at conquest, conversion, and colonization played out in a world that (to Europeans) was new, they sadly echoed an old world dynamic reaching back to the middle ages. Decades before Columbus, Henry the Navigator, Grand Master of the Military Order of Christ, orchestrated expeditions whose ships, adorned with crusader Crosses, enslaved West Africans with papal blessing. Centuries earlier still, Charlemagne, the Christian father of Europe, had forcibly baptized pagan Saxons, establishing what would become the heart of a thousand-year empire.

To confront the complexities of these stories is not to tear down the history Western Civilization, or of American or Southern history. Still less is it to bow to some vague notion of political correctness. It is instead to enrich our understanding of our shared human past by putting in the hard intellectual and personal work the task deserves and demands. We are challenged to reject easy slogans or iconoclastic solutions, however satisfying these may be in the moment; to embrace the past not as uncontested fact but as one argument among competing versions, all based on evidence; and to give voice to the full range of humanity as well as the costs and consequences of all that has come before us. In this light, to consider removing statues or renaming buildings associated with our contested past is not to erase history,' but to debate it.

The University of Alabama has taken bold steps toward doing this very work on our campuses. On June 8, the Board of Trustees of the University System of Alabama, with the support of President Stewart Bell, authorized the removal of three plaques lauding the heroism of Confederate student cadets. The Trustees also announced the formation of a committee to review the names of all buildings in System campuses. Many of our peer institutions, including most recently the University of Georgia, have made similar moves. These steps are encouraging, and it is our hope that there will be more to come. They signal what could be a great collaborative opportunity. What might happen if students, faculty, alumni, and campus leaders were to research and deliberate how, and after whom, our campus buildings have been named, and how new names might reflect a brighter common future?

Now is a rare moment for our community and campus to be able to bear witness to the transformative potential of history. We can shed a light on where we failed to fully recognize and account for the power of racism to shape and sculpt our lives. We can act in ways that illuminate our capacity to learn anew and commit ourselves to asking uncomfortable questions, and uncovering uncomfortable truths together, as a community undeterred by fear.

As Du Bois beseeched Americans nearly a century ago, at roughly the time that many of UAs buildings got their present names, we can and must do better. Referring to Lee again but speaking of all Confederates who would be glorified, he said today we can best perpetuate his memory and his nobler traits not by falsifying his moral debacle, but by explaining it to the young white south.

Dr. John M. Giggie is Associate Professor of History and African American Studies and Director, Summersell Center for the South. Dr. James Mixson is Associate Professor of History. Both teach at the University of Alabama.
The launch is Chinas first independent mission to another planet and a display of its technological prowess.

China successfully launched an uncrewed probe to Mars on Thursday  its first independent mission to another planet  in a display of its technological prowess and ambition to join the United States by successfully landing and operating a rover on the red planet.

Chinas largest carrier rocket, the Long March 5 Y-4, blasted off with the probe at 12:41pm (04:41 GMT) from Wenchang Space Launch Centre on the southern island of Hainan.

In 2020, Mars is at its closest to Earth, at a distance of about 55 million km (34 million miles), in a window of about a month that opens once every 26 months.

The probe is expected to reach Mars in February where it will try to land in Utopia Planitia, a plain in the northern hemisphere, and deploy a rover to explore for 90 days.

If successful, the Tianwen-1, or Questions to Heaven, the name of a poem written two millennia ago, will make China the first country to orbit, land and deploy a rover in its inaugural mission.

Liu Tongjie, spokesman for Chinas Mars exploration mission, (second from left) speaks during a news conference next to Meng Hua, Director of the Press Office of Chinas National Space Administration (CNSA), Mao Wanbiao, deputy chief of the launch mission command and Wang Jue, chief commander of the Long March 5 Y-4 rocket, after its launch carrying an unmanned Mars probe of the Tianwen-1 mission, at Wenchang Space Launch Centre [Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters]

Since 1960, half of all the 50-plus missions to Mars including flybys had failed, due to technical problems. Only a handful attempted to land on the planet.

Challenges multiply for those attempting a landing  from ensuring a precise deceleration of the spacecraft to navigating the planets sometimes violent atmosphere.

The mission must necessarily be challenging, and not be following in the footsteps of others completely, Liu Tonjie, mission spokesman, told Reuters news agency in an interview after the launch.

This is an exploration project, so there will be no 100 percent assurance of success. If the mission is unsuccessful, or if there are problems, we will continue to push ahead, re-establish the project, and recommit.

China previously made a Mars bid in 2011 with Russia, but the Russian spacecraft carrying the probe failed to exit the Earths orbit and disintegrated over the Pacific Ocean.

Eight spacecraft  American, European and Indian  are currently either orbiting Mars or on its surface, with other missions underway or planned.

The United Arab Emirates launched a $200m mission to Mars on Monday, an orbiter that will study the planets atmosphere.

The United States upcoming 2020 mission costs more than $2bn.

The Long March 5 Y-4 rocket, carrying an unmanned Mars probe of the Tianwen-1 mission, is seen before the launch at Wenchang Space Launch Centre in Wenchang, Hainan Province, China [Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters]

Liu declined to give a cost estimate for Chinas mission, but said expenses have been very economical when spread out over the six years since research and development began in 2014.

New Sino-US frictions?

The next US mission may be launched as soon as the end of July. The probe will deploy a rover called Perseverance, the biggest, heaviest, most advanced vehicle sent to Mars by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

NASAs InSight is currently probing the interior of Mars on a plain called Elysium Planitia. Curiosity, a car-sized rover deployed by NASA is studying soil and rocks in Gale Crater, searching for the building blocks of life.

Asked if Tianwen-1 would present new frictions with the United States, Liu told Reuters news agency the Chinese mission is a scientific exploration project aiming not to compete with anyone but cooperate with each other.

From our point of view, Mars is large enough for multiple countries to explore and carry out missions, Liu said in an interview, when asked if there was a chance the Chinese rover would meet with Curiosity and InSight.

Chinas probe will carry 13 scientific instruments to observe the planets atmosphere and surface, searching for signs of water and ice.

Scientists believe there was an ancient ocean in the southern Utopia Planitia. At a place where an ancient ocean and land meet, scientists hope to make a lot of discoveries, Liu said.
If youve been working from home for months and have concluded that this situation is unlikely to end anytime soon, you may be giving your makeshift work space a serious second look. Youre not alone.

Weve been getting a lot of people asking about ways they can improve their home-office scenarios  both past clients and new inquiries, said Keren Richter, a founder of the Brooklyn-based interior design firm White Arrow. Its definitely a topic right now.

Continuing to work from your bed or the dining table is unlikely to be very productive, or feel very professional, in the long term. But what should you do if you dont have an extra room for a proper home office, or even an obvious space for desk?

Sometimes its just about carving out a space within a space, Ms. Richter said. Or it might involve finding leftover space  like the attic she recently converted into a home office at her house in Pound Ridge, N.Y.
Photo: Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images

The initial fervor of May and Junes nationwide street protests has, inevitably, faded. Has the momentum for change faded along with it? I spoke with features writer Zak-Cheney Rice about where Americas racial-justice movement goes from here.

Ben: Were almost two months out from the killing of George Floyd and the massive nationwide protest movement it spurred. The most intense demonstrations have inevitably died down, though plenty of people are still in the streets. With the caveat that its much too early to evaluate the movement from the perspective of shifting actual policy (though it has already inspired some major changes in local police departments)  do the events of the last few weeks feel like an enduring shift in racial politics to you or more like another fleeting moment?

Zak: Its obviously hard to predict the durability of this kind of thing. For example, Black Lives Matter, as a movement, seemed to have almost totally died out with the onset of the Trump era, until it very clearly hadnt. So who knows how the groundwork being laid today shows up in the future. City budgets are being reworked all the time, so I guess my other answer to this depends on your definition of fleeting, but its worth noting that police budgets have been slashed in a number of big cities  Los Angeles, several cities in the Bay Area, New York, Philadelphia. The Minneapolis city council has voted to dismantle its police department and reimagine public safety, though its unclear what that means in practice. Ashevilles city council passed a resolution committing to reparations for its black residents, which is also murky in terms of what itll actually look like. So, short answer, there are clear material shifts happening that you can hang your hat on. At the same time, backlash is inevitable, as is compromise. And depending how it all goes, and how easily its shortcomings can be politicized by reforms detractors, public sentiment could swing pretty hard again in the other direction.

Ben: Yeah, about a month ago, you wrote that the multiracial coalition driving the protests was built on a shaky foundation, rife with conditions and subject to sea changes that already seem to be under way. Has your view on just how shaky or sturdy that foundation might be shifted at all?

Zak: My short answer is no. I think Trump and the coronavirus were major factors contributing to the massive scale of the recent protests, and both are, presumably, temporary. Trump is really good at radicalizing his allies and enemies alike. You can see this playing out in real time in Portland, as you noted in your first question. Protests might be mellowing out  were certainly not seeing anywhere near the level of unrest we saw in late May and early June  and then here he comes escalating by having federal agents snatch people off the street. Now you have a whole new wave. Hes already threatening to do this in other cities. But its hard for me to see the current level of energy being sustained without that kind of antagonism.

Ben: A Joe Biden victory would likely mean an end to that kind of antagonism on the federal level, at least temporarily. But he has not exactly been shying away from foregrounding the issue of racial justice in his campaign. Do you think his current approach signals much about what his administration might actually do if he were to win?

Zak: Biden has typified a lot of trends during his career. When backlash to school integration was setting in during the 1970s, and his constituents in Delaware were letting him hear about it, he introduced anti-busing amendments in the Senate, even though hed initially run on a pro-busing platform. When the tough on crime panic was hitting its peak in the 1990s, Biden was at the vanguard of punitive criminal-justice legislation. I think its fair to say hes responsive to pressure and then tends to run with it. So how he governs as president, hypothetically, seems like it would be driven by the same principle. If he feels the kind of public pressure were seeing now, its hard to see him ignoring it. Just dont expect him to do anything unpopular.
NEW YORK - A judge on Thursday ordered the release of President Donald Trumps former personal lawyer from prison, saying the government retaliated against him for planning to release a book critical of Trump before November's election.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEW YORK - A judge on Thursday ordered the release of President Donald Trumps former personal lawyer from prison, saying the government retaliated against him for planning to release a book critical of Trump before November's election.

Michael Cohen's First Amendment rights were violated when he was ordered back to prison on July 9 after probation authorities said he refused to sign a form banning him from publishing the book or communicating publicly in other manners, U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said during a telephone conference.

Hellerstein ordered Michael Cohen released from prison to home confinement by 2 p.m. on Friday.

How can I take any other inference than that its retaliatory? Hellerstein asked prosecutors, who insisted in court papers and again Thursday that Probation Department officers did not know about the book when they wrote a provision of home confinement that severely restricted Cohen's public communications.

Ive never seen such a clause in 21 years of being a judge and sentencing people and looking at terms of supervised release, the judge said. Why would the Bureau of Prisons ask for something like this ... unless there was a retaliatory purpose?"

In ruling, Hellerstein said he made the finding that the purpose of transferring Mr. Cohen from furlough and home confinement to jail is retaliatory. He added: And its retaliatory for his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish the book.

Cohen, 53, sued federal prison officials and Attorney General William Barr on Monday, saying he was ordered back to prison because he was writing a book: Disloyal: The True Story of Michael Cohen, Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump.

The Bureau of Prisons issued a spirited defence of its intentions after the ruling Thursday, calling any assertion that the reimprisonment of Cohen was a retaliatory action is patently false.

It said the terms of his home confinement were determined by the U.S. Probation Office, which is run by the courts, rather than the bureau.

During this process, Mr. Cohen refused to agree to the terms of the program, specifically electronic monitoring. In addition, he was argumentative, was attempting to dictate the conditions of his monitoring, including conditions relating to self-employment, access to media, use of social media and other accountability measures, the statement said.

The Bureau of Prisons also said it was not uncommon for it to place restrictions on inmates' contact with the media. Still, it said Cohen's refusal to agree to those conditions or his intent to publish a book played no role whatsoever in his return to prison.

In a written declaration, Cohen said his book will provide graphic and unflattering details about the Presidents behaviour behind closed doors, including a description of anti-Semitic and virulently racist remarks against Black leaders including President Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela, South Africas first Black president.

He said he worked openly on his manuscript until May at Otisville's prison library and discussed his book with prison officials. He said he was told in April that a lawyer for the Trump Organization, where he worked for a decade, was claiming he was barred from publishing his book by a non-disclosure agreement. Cohen disputes that.

Cohen has been in isolation at an Otisville, New York, prison camp, quarantined while prison authorities ensure he does not have the coronavirus.

Prosecutors declined through a spokesperson to comment on Hellerstein's ruling.

Cohen's attorney, Danya Perry, said in a statement that Hellerstein's order was a victory for the First Amendment and showed that the government cannot block a book critical of the president as a condition of release to home confinement.

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This principle transcends politics and we are gratified that the rule of law prevails," she said.

Cohen was initially released in May along with other prisoners as authorities tried to slow the spread of the COVID-19 in federal prisons.

He was one year into a three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to campaign finance charges and lying to Congress, among other crimes.

Campaign finance charges stemmed from his efforts to arrange payouts during the 2016 presidential race to keep the porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal from making public claims of extramarital affairs with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs.

___

Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed to this report.
A teenager accused of killing a young mother and then stuffing her body in a wheelie bin is likely to plead not guilty to murder.

The body of an 18-year-old woman was found outside Newman Hospital, in a remote mining town of Newman, in northwest Western Australia on May 6, just four weeks after she gave birth to her second child.

A 17-year-old boy, who can't be named for legal reasons, has been in custody at the Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre since the body was found.

He faced the Perth Children's Court via video-link on Thursday where lawyers expressed concerns over potential delays which could see him tried as an adult.

West Australian Police Commissioner Chris Dawson (pictured) has been briefing media on developments since the body's discovery

Lawyer Georgia Herford indicated the child may choose to fight the criminal charges against him, The West reported.

'Maybe there would be a plea of not guilty', Ms Herford said, but she added that he had not made a decision yet.

She said legal counsel didn't want the case adjourned for too long as he turns 18 next year and could end up being tried as an adult.

'We are a little bit worried,' she said.

The case has been adjourned until August 10,

The young mother's body was found inside a wheelie bin outside the Newman Hospital on May 6.

Police believe she may have been stoned to death before the body was placed inside the bin and dumped outside the medical facility.

She left behind a toddler and four-week old baby.
As part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat or self-reliant India mission, it is likely that semiconductor wafer fabrication (fab) manufacturing on a large scale for use as white goods components could be the first category.

Sources told Moneycontrol that states like Gujarat would be identified as the manufacturing location for setting up factories.

Indian companies will be incentivised to set up semiconductor fab units to manufacture internal components and chipsets for hand-held devices and small appliances. There would be tax advantages as well as some sops provided for real estate, land. Soft loans could also be given, said an official.

Semiconductor fab is a unit where chipsets or tiny circuits are produced for use in electronic devices. Here the component called wafer is the base of the chip-set that is produced.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is working with the appliance and electronic goods makers to look at segment-wise information about which component is made where and what will be the requirement to set up production facilities in India.

Industry estimates suggest that the Indian semiconductor market in India stands at around USD 300 million in India. If semiconductor fabs are added to this, the value could go upto USD 4-5 billion.

India imports all semiconductor fab units from China right now. About 1-2 percent of the products are also imported from Taiwan, another upcoming location for this industry.

A policy framework is being worked out wherein the government could partly fund setting up of semiconductor fab facilities. Collateral-free loans could also be provided to interested parties to fund between 15-20 percent of the total cost of setting up.

Semiconductor fab units would not just help in manufacturing the critical chip-sets or internal processors for smartphones, but will also come handy in producing memory units for small appliances like laptops, tablets, microwave, power banks, LED smart lighting, cameras, electric kettle among others.

So far, China has been the largest market for semiconductor components used in electronic goods. India produces semiconductor equipment only for large commercial use in computers.

It is estimated that setting up a semiconductor fab plant from scratch with multi-level production facilities would cost almost USD 1 billion (Rs 7,500 crore).

Apart from uninterrupted power supply that is the biggest requirement for setting up semiconductor fab units in India, each chip-making unit requires almost 4.8 million gallons of pure water for production.

MEITY has already worked out a Scheme for Promotion of manufacturing of Electronic Components and Semiconductors (SPECS). Here, it is proposed to offer financial incentive of 25 percent of capital expenditure for the manufacturing of goods that constitute the supply chain of an electronic product.

Under this scheme, production of items like chips, diodes, optical fiber preform, circuits and semiconductor wafers will be incentivised among others.
CAIRO  In Syrias largest city, Aleppo, rebels aligned with Al Qaeda control the power plant, run the bakeries and head a court that applies Islamic law. Elsewhere, they have seized government oil fields, put employees back to work and now profit from the crude they produce.

Across Syria, rebel-held areas are dotted with Islamic courts staffed by lawyers and clerics, and by fighting brigades led by extremists. Even the Supreme Military Council, the umbrella rebel organization whose formation the West had hoped would sideline radical groups, is stocked with commanders who want to infuse Islamic law into a future Syrian government.

Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.

This is the landscape President Obama confronts as he considers how to respond to growing evidence that Syrian officials have used chemical weapons, crossing a red line he had set. More than two years of violence have radicalized the armed opposition fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad, leaving few groups that both share the political vision of the United States and have the military might to push it forward.

Among the most extreme groups is the notorious Al Nusra Front, the Qaeda-aligned force declared a terrorist organization by the United States, but other groups share aspects of its Islamist ideology in varying degrees.
There are many types of light -- some visible and some invisible to the human eye. For example, our eyes and brain don't have the tools to process ultraviolet light when it hits our eyes, making it invisible. But there is another type of light that is invisible simply because it never reaches our eyes. When light hits certain surfaces, part of it sticks and remains behind rather than being transmitted or scattered away. This type of light is called near-field light.

Today, near-field light is mostly used for ultra-high-resolution microscopy, known as the near-field scanning optical microscopes (NSOM). However, near-field light also has untapped potential for particle manipulation, sensing, and optical communications. But since near-field light doesn't reach our eyes like far-field light does, researchers haven't developed a comprehensive toolkit to harness and manipulate the near field.

"Today, we have a lot of tools and techniques to design what far-field light looks like," said Vincent Ginis, a visiting professor at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). "We have lenses, telescopes, prisms and holograms. All these things enable us to sculpt freely propagating light in space."

Ginis is also a professor at the Vrije University of Brussel.

Now, SEAS researchers have developed a system to mold near-field light -- opening the door to unprecedented control over this powerful, largely unexplored type of light. The research is published in Science.

"Over the years, our group has developed new powerful techniques to structure propagating light using subwavelength-patterned metasurfaces," said Federico Capasso, the Robert Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering, and senior author of the paper. "With this work, we show how to structure the near field at a distance, opening exciting opportunities in science and technology."

In order to manipulate near-field light, the researchers developed a device in which light confined to a waveguide bounces back and forth between two reflectors. After each bounce it changes mode, meaning it propagates with a different spatial pattern. With multiple bounces, these patterns add up to generate a complex light intensity profile along the waveguide. The near field light near the surface of the waveguide also changes. When all the different patterns of the near-field light are superimposed on each other, a specific shape is created. The researchers can pre-program that shape by tailoring the amplitude of the modes of the bouncing light.

"The coexistence of all these modes can be designed to create near-field landscapes at will on the surface of the device," said Marco Piccardo, a research associate at SEAS and co-author of the paper. "The shape of the landscape is determined by the combined properties of the cascading light."

"It's a bit like music," said Ginis. "The music that you are hearing is the superposition of many notes or modes assembled in patterns conceived by the composer. One note alone isn't much but taken together you can generate any type of music. While music operates in time, our near-field generator operates in three-dimensional space and the extra intriguing aspect of our device is that one note generates the other."

Importantly, this molding process happens remotely, meaning no part of the device directly interacts with the near-field light. This reduces interference, which is important for applications such as particle manipulation, and is a major departure from current local methods of sculpting near fields such as shining light on metallic tips and nanoparticles.

To demonstrate their design, the researchers molded near-field light into the shape of an elephant. Or, more specifically, an elephant inside a boa constrictor, an homage to the play on dimensions in Antoine de Saint-Exupery's classic The Little Prince.

The researchers also shaped the light into a curve, a plateau and a straight line.

"This research provides a new path towards unprecedented three-dimensional control of near-field light," said Capasso. "It is a portent of the exciting discoveries and technology developments I expect to come out of this work in the future."

###

The paper was co-authored by Michele Tamagnone, Jinsheng Lu, and Simon Kheifets of SEAS and Min Qui of the School of Engineering at Westlake University in Hangzhou, China. It was supported in part by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under grant no AFOSR FA9550-14-1-0389. The Harvard authors also acknowledge the support of Harvard University Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS), a member of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN).
The Ghanaian Bishops Conference voices its concerns in the wake of increased instances of violence during activities leading up to the nations parliamentary and presidential elections in December.

By Fr. Benedict Mayaki, SJ

Ghanaian Bishops have expressed concern about the spate of violence during the Voter Registration Exercise currently being conducted in the buildup towards the nations parliamentary and presidential elections, which are slated for December 2020.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Bishops said that they have noted with dismay the acts of politically orchestrated violence in some areas of the Ashanti, Central, Ahafo, Bono, Volta and Greater Accra regions of the country.

The Bishops also noted with sadness that the recent sparks of violence claimed the life of a young Ghanaian man in the Bono region, and left many others injured.

It is an indictment, to say the least, the Bishops said, that after 27 years of democratic governance under our Fourth Republic Constitution, Ghana is still experiencing political party-related violence whenever polls are conducted to elect leaders and, in this case, the compilation of a voters register.

Electoral violence

In the statement, the Bishops reminded all of the nations Political Parties of the agreement they had signed against vigilantism and acts of violence ahead of the electoral activities.

At the same time, they urged the parties to show their commitment to the agreement by handing over to the police any member of their group who misconduct themselves or act in ways that will disrupt the registration exercise.

In this regard, the Bishops cited the latest shooting incident, involving a serving Ghanaian minister on Monday, 20 July. They referred to it as disturbing, and called on the executive and legislature to take appropriate sanctions against the perpetrator.

The acts of violence engulfing the country constitute a breach of the Vigilante and Related Offenses Act, 2019 Act 999, which was passed by Parliament, the Bishops pointed out. That Act, they added, was aimed at disbanding armed partisan hooligans and making political vigilantism an offence punishable by a prison term.

The Bishops, therefore, urged the government to have the courage to take action against instances of criminality, especially as it will serve as a deterrent to those who otherwise will continue to act with impunity.

Calls for peace

Proposing pathways to peace, the Bishops called on all political parties, particularly the ruling NPP (New Patriotic Party), and the opposition NDC (National Democratic Congress), to exhibit political maturity and stay away from acts that cause violence.

The Bishops advised the political parties to take advantage of the mechanisms put in place by the nations Electoral Commission to challenge an applicant based on ineligibility, instead of resorting to violence.

Acts such as bussing people and illegally registering people at various polling centers will always create some form of violence, as both parties will not agree to that and hence may ignite some form of violence, the Bishops noted.

Appeals

In light of their concerns, the Bishops called on the police to carry out their work in a more professional manner and not shrink from their responsibilities.

They added that if people commit criminal activities with impunity, the victims of those crimes might lose confidence in the polices capacity to provide them with safety and peace, and may be compelled to devise their own individual means of protection.

Then, turning their thoughts to the youth, the Bishops advised them not to allow themselves to be lured into violence by selfish and greedy politicians for their personal interests.

If care is not taken, the Bishops warned, these acts of political violence may draw back the nations democratic and socio-economic gains.

Concluding their statement, the Bishops exhorted everyone with the words of St. Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians: Agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you (2 Cor 13:11).

Ghanas Voter Registration Exercise started on 30 June and is expected to last till 6 August 2020 in all sixteen regions of the country.
On Thursday, budget carrier SpiceJet said it has been given the designation of 'Indian scheduled carrier' to operate flights from India to the United States.

On Thursday, budget carrier SpiceJet said it has been given the designation of "Indian scheduled carrier" to operate flights to the United States.

In a filing to BSE, senior vice president (Legal) and company secretary of SpiceJet Chandan Sand said that in terms of the Air Services Agreement between the Government of India and the Government of the United States of America, SpiceJet has been designated as Indian scheduled carrier to operate on agreed services between India and the USA.

According to a report in Livemint, SpiceJet would be the first Indian budget carrier to operate services to the US.

Currently, only the national carrier Air India is operating flights on India-US routes.

A Moneycontrol report quoted SpiceJet chairman and managing director of Ajay Singh saying that the Indian scheduled carrier designation would help the company's plan for international expansion in "much better and calibrated manner."

The report stated that this is the first time since Jet Airways was grounded in April 2019 that a private airline from India will be operating flights to the US.

As per a report in The Times of India, SpiceJet, a low cost carrier (LCC), has for some time been considering wet leasing wide body aircraft for international flights. The report added that India has, so far, created a travel bubble with US, France and Germany that allows movement of people, as per government norms, direct between both the countries.

International commercial air passenger services have been suspended in India since 22 March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Only Air India flights were operating under the Vande Bharat Mission till 21 July to bring back Indians stranded in other parts of the world after the epidemic broke out.
The hit '90s sitcom "Friends" may have been over for more than a decade now, but die-hard fans are still not over the show. It has been re-introduced to younger viewers over the years, with the new generation discovering it through online streaming applications.

Fifteen years after the show concluded, "Friends" fanatics are still divided over a debate that went through the entire show, and that is the question if Ross and Rachel were really on a break.

Episode 15: "The One Where Ross And Rachel Take A Break"

In episode 15 of the series' third instalment called "The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break," it could be recalled that Rachel Green (played by Jennifer Aniston) and Ross Geller (played by David Schwimmer) had hit the peak of their romance when the geeky palaeontologist slept with the hot copy girl named Chloe.

Prior to the Ross and Chloe hookup, Ross and Rachel had a heated argument at Monica's (Courteney Cox) apartment, which led Rachel to suggest that they need a break from each other.

Devastated Ross went straight to a bar while Rachel got some comfort from his officemate Mark, whom Ross was so jealous. Upon realizing that Mark was with Rachel, he ended up having a drink with Chloe, kissing her and taking her to his apartment. And we all know what happened next.

The next thing we know, Ross and Rachel w're arguing if it's okay for him to spend the night with another girl since they were practically on a break. Hence, Ross' famous line "We were on a break!"

Now, two decades since that episode aired, Ross Geller-portrayer took a stand on the greatest debate in the history of a sitcom series.

Ross' Final Word

In a recent virtual interview with "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," David Schwimmer finally put an end to the decade-long debate.

When Fallon asked about his take on the whole Ross-and-Rachel-on-a-break drama, the 53-year-old actor looked straight to the camera with all seriousness and said: "It's not even a question, they were on a break."

"People are so compassionately divided about whether or not they were on a break," he added.

During the interview, Schwimmer also shared how fans, until now, are still recognizing him as Ross Geller. In fact, when out in public, the actor said that instead of calling him by his name, people tend to yell "pivot" or "you were on a break."

Friends Reunion Update

During the same interview, David Schwimmer confirmed that the much-awaited Friends reunion special could be back on track by next month.

The unscripted special was supposed to happen in May 2020 along with the launch of HBO's streaming app, but everything was put on hold due to the coronavirus global pandemic.

"It's supposed to happen maybe in August, the middle of August, but honestly we're going to wait and see another week or two if we all determine it's really safe enough to do. And if not, then we'll wait until it's safe," Schwimmer revealed.

READ MORE: Queen Elizabeth II Obsessed With Netflix: What Is She Watching?
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A Belgian artist who specialises in tattooing the roof of people's mouths has shown off his unique artwork.

Indy Voet, who works at The Purple Sun tattoo parlour in Brussels, is well known for doing permanent tattoos in unconventional places - including on people's fingers and behind their ears.

However his most unique skill is doing roof of the mouth tattoos which he has been designing for around five years.

Indy Voet, who works at The Purple Sun tattoo parlour in Brussels, is well known for doing mouth tattoos including this one of a spider

Indy does tattoos in uncommon places including on people's fingers and behind their ears, but this woman opted for a moon tattoo on the roof of her mouth

Indy has a huge portfolio and has done a range of designs for his clients including this man's roof of the mouth tattoo of red lips

He uses a technique called hand poking which involves using a tattoo gun where the needle is hand powered rather than electric.

Voet - who now has a huge portfolio - is a former body piercing artist with around ten years experience and says that the transition to doing tattoos in uncommon places felt 'natural'.

'I don't really use anything other than a needle and some dexterity, combined with the trust of my client,' Indy told Inked Magazine.

He added that using a tattoo machine would be too harsh on such a sensitive body part.

He developed his own technique called hand poking which involves using a tattoo gun where the needle is hand powered rather than electric. This man chose a unique design for his roof of the mouth tattoo

Using a normal tattoo machine for these intricate designs would be too painful. Pictured is one man's tribal marking tattoo

Voet also claims that 90 per cent of people describe these tattoos as being almost painless or at least, 'very easy to handle.' Pictured is a line design that one woman chose for her mouth tattoo

Voet also claims that 90 per cent of people describe these tattoos as being almost painless or at least, 'very easy to handle'.

However around 10 per cent complain mostly about jaw muscle ache, from keeping their mouth wide open for long periods of time.

Tattoo parlours in Germany were allowed to reopen on May 18 after being shut for months due to the coronavirus pandemic. This woman chose a unique line design for her mouth tattoo

This man - who also appears to have two matching tattoos on his eye-lids - chose to have a swear word tattooed on the roof of his mouth

The Belgian artist says: 'The healing is like any other mouth tattoo or piercingdon't have anything too spicy, no strong liquor and be careful what you put in your mouth for a couple of days.

'Other than that, the natural resources of the mouth do the rest.'

Tattoo parlours in Belgium were allowed to reopen on May 18 after being shut for months due to the coronavirus pandemic.
On Eddy Binford-Ross's second night reporting on the protests in Portland, Ore., federal officers let off enough tear gas to fill the street in front of the federal courthouse and an entire city park across the street. The smokelike plumes sent her scattering along with the protesters.

"I couldn't see because my eyes were burning," she told The Washington Post. "I couldn't breathe because my throat was burning. I almost threw up because I was coughing so hard."

Like many journalists covering the tense demonstrations, Eddy has faced serious threats: She has been tear-gassed every night, had three flash-bang explosives lobbed in her direction, been shoved against a wall by police, and had a federal officer repeatedly point a gun at her.

But Eddy may be the only front-line reporter regularly risking her safety to write for a high school newspaper.

Despite the danger and a few bruises, the 17-year-old has returned to downtown Portland every night to cover the standoff between local protesters and federal law enforcement officers from the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Marshals Service. The photos, videos and scenes she has tweeted and published online have earned her high praise from professional reporters and activists.

Eddy is the editor in chief for South Salem High School's Clypian. She's also a teenager who, before last week, spent her time riding her Arabian horse, Duke, and interning for Democratic state Rep. Paul Evans while planning for the uncertain future of her senior year amid the coronavirus pandemic.

She first started reporting by watching a live stream of a protest on May 29 in Salem, Ore., in the wake of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis.

"I thought the live stream worked OK, but it would be better if I go out and report on it," she said.

She was reporting on the ground the first time Salem police used tear gas on protesters and continued her coverage until those protests died down. When the news broke that federal officers were plucking protesters from the street in nearby Portland and shoving them into unmarked vans, Eddy said she knew she had to go cover the story there, too.

"It was kind of spur of the moment," she said. "I felt like we should go see for ourselves. And it was crazy. It was chaotic, and it seemed unprecedented. I've come back every night since."

Her parents agreed to let her report on the volatile protests as long as they could stand by her side and pull her out of the crowd if the protest got too dangerous.

Now, she and her parents drive 40 minutes from Salem, where they live, to Portland every night around 7 p.m. Eddy pulls out her camera and snaps photos for hours as federal officers confront people in the streets. No two nights unfold the same way, she said.

"The protesters' attitude and dynamic, that completely shifts depending on the night," Eddy said. "And we've seen federal officers taking different approaches every single night."

Eddy walks to the front of the protest when she arrives in Portland, where the worst brutality in the ongoing battle between the feds and the locals plays out. She has documented lines of mothers, arm-in-arm to form a human barrier between federal police and young protesters, shoved back by police with batons. She's filmed protesters ripping plywood from the federal courthouse's facade and attempting to break the bulletproof glass in the windows.

"People kind of disregard me and just do what they're going to do," she said. "I feel like I can blend into the crowd and be a fly on the wall because I'm younger and because I'm smaller. I've been able to capture scenes that not as many people have been able to capture."

Protest crowds in Portland can be ambivalent or outright hostile to reporters. Some groups establish "no journalism zones" and shout down people taking photos or videos that might capture people's faces. On social media, many activists ask outlets, including the Clypian, to take down photos that could help police identify protesters.

"That's kind of against journalistic ethics," Eddy said, referring to the pleas for her to delete some of her reporting from Twitter. "I'm not going to go through and censor the coverage, because it's important to provide accurate accounts of everything that's going on. That includes protesters barricading the doors and trying to break in as well as the police firing indiscriminately."

The protests have been dangerous for everyone on the streets, especially in recent days as federal officers have agitated activists by tear-gassing largely peaceful crowds, shooting a man in the face and making secretive arrests in unmarked cars.

Eddy's parents accompany her to the protests, keeping a watchful eye as their daughter does her work.

"It's really scary," said her mother, Warren Binford. "I don't want to encourage her to live on the sidelines in this society and this life. If that means being a journalist, then our role as her parents is to help her do that as safely as possible, recognizing being a journalist is never completely safe."

On Tuesday, Eddy watched a woman step out from the crowd staged in the park across the street from the federal courthouse and walk into the no man's land between federal officers and the protesters. The woman shouted at the officials, and one man ran toward her, baton raised in the air.

The teenager rushed forward to get a closer angle and raised her camera to photograph the moment the two people collided. As the officer glanced at her, the word "Press" emblazoned on her T-shirt and helmet, he paused and lowered the baton.

"If the federal agents know they're being recorded, it might help them control themselves and de-escalate a situation that has become very dangerous," her mother said. "If Eddy's being there last night helped save that woman from injury, or even death because of the rage I saw in that federal agent, then I'm willing to let her go back out there."

In another frightening moment, Binford watched as a federal officer pointed his gun directly at Eddy on Tuesday. A moment later, another agent told him not to shoot at members of the media.

"Even after that he turned back around and directed the gun at our 17-year-old child - that's scary," Eddy's mother said. "Do you keep your child at home and wrap them in a bubble wrap? Or do you try to empower them to enter into adulthood with courage and wisdom? She's going to be an adult next year."

Tensions at the protests have been rising as federal forces have unleashed wave after wave of tear gas, stun grenades, pepper spray and other aggressive tactics. Protesters have responded by tossing tear-gas canisters back at the police, waving leaf blowers to clear the toxic smoke and using shields to force federal officers back into the safety of government buildings.

On Tuesday night, a federal officer was photographed pointing a handgun at protesters after a group wrestled with officers to help someone escape an arrest. By Wednesday, unsubstantiated rumors swirled online suggesting federal officers would have "live munitions" in Portland. Eddy's mom picked up a bulletproof vest and a ventilator for her daughter to wear while covering the next night's protest.

Despite the risks, the high school journalist doesn't anticipate staying home any time soon.

"I don't have any plans to stop now," she said. "I feel like the protest could go downhill very fast. I think it's incredibly important that people continue to be out there every night reporting on this."
Albany, N.Y.  An Upstate New York shopping mall was locked down late Wednesday afternoon as police investigated reports of shots fired.

Albany police said no injuries were reported in the incident at Crossgates Mall in suburban Guilderland, where multiple police agencies converged. Store employees and shoppers were directed to shelter in place and police blocked traffic from entering entrances to the complex.

It appears there definitely was shots fired, Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple told the Times Union. Weve got cars on the way over there now.

Pyramid Management Group, which operates the mall, said the facility would remain closed for the evening while the investigation continued.

This afternoons unfortunate and isolated incident at Crossgates appears to have been between known acquaintances and not a random act or part of any intentional threat against the property, Pyramid said in a statement. The altercation resulted in the discharge of a firearm inside our facility.

Pyramid said the suspect had left the property and police were assisting shoppers and employees in vacating the mall. The mall has closed for the night and will reopen in the morning, according to a statement from Pyramid.

An Albany man was convicted of reckless endangerment after shots were fired inside the mall in the fall of 2016. No one was injured in that incident.
Stressing that what some may call black-on-black violence is nothing more than community crime with an outsiders spin on the situation, McLemore said high crime in minority communities is the result of having few resources available, such as jobs and education, and people having to struggle to get by.
If you want to know who really controls Lancashire Holdings Limited (LON:LRE), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Insiders often own a large chunk of younger, smaller, companies while huge companies tend to have institutions as shareholders. We also tend to see lower insider ownership in companies that were previously publicly owned.

Lancashire Holdings has a market capitalization of UK2.0b, so we would expect some institutional investors to have noticed the stock. In the chart below, we can see that institutions are noticeable on the share registry. Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholder can tell us about Lancashire Holdings.

View our latest analysis for Lancashire Holdings

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Lancashire Holdings?

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Lancashire Holdings. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Lancashire Holdings, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Lancashire Holdings. GWL Investment Management Ltd. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 9.9% of shares outstanding. Jupiter Fund Management Plc is the second largest shareholder owning 6.0% of common stock, and BlackRock, Inc. holds about 5.2% of the company stock.

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Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 50% of the ownership is controlled by the top 11 shareholders, meaning that no one shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Lancashire Holdings

The definition of company insiders can be subjective, and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. The company management answer to the board; and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board, themselves.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

Our data suggests that insiders own under 1% of Lancashire Holdings Limited in their own names. But they may have an indirect interest through a corporate structure that we haven't picked up on. It's a big company, so even a small proportional interest can create alignment between the board and shareholders. In this case insiders own UK12m worth of shares. It is always good to see at least some insider ownership, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, with a 39% stake in the company, will not easily be ignored. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies.

Private Company Ownership

Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 3.9%, of the company's shares. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research.

Next Steps:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Take risks, for example - Lancashire Holdings has 2 warning signs we think you should be aware of.

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

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.
The parents of a University of Notre Dame freshman severely injured in a 2019 fall in a campus dormitory during a party filed a lawsuit on July 21 against the school, which they claim condoned a quasi-fraternity atmosphere at an on-campus residence hall.

The lawsuit filed in St. Joseph County, Indiana, by Stephen and Debbie Tennant of Gurnee, Illinois, claims the university put their son, Sean, 20, at risk. Sean Tennant, who was 18 at the time, survived the 30-foot fall on a stairwell in Sorin Hall, but suffered a traumatic brain injury that left him with a catastrophic decline in neurocognitive and functional abilities, according to the lawsuit.

A Notre Dame spokesman said the university had yet to be served with a copy of the lawsuit and had no comment.

The lawsuit accuses the Roman Catholic university of negligence, alleging the adult rector was not inside the residence hall and failed to take precautions to ensure the safety of residents under his care despite knowing about a party.

This is a kid who never drank in high school, said attorney Peter Flowers of Illinois. (Sean) was introduced to alcohol at Notre Dame. They encourage the kids to act like the dorms are fraternities, where youve got kids of legal age mixed in with underage kids and inadequate policies and procedures in place, creating an unreasonably dangerous environment.

The university, near South Bend, Indiana, does not have fraternities or sororities and requires students to live in a residence hall during their first three years at the school.

As a result of the accidental fall, Sean suffered a depressed skull fracture, brain hemorrhage and trauma to his spine that has left him unable to talk or walk without assistance or perform basic daily tasks, including bathing and dressing, the lawsuit contends.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Education
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 18:08:07|Editor: huaxia

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Afghan army soldiers participate in a military operation in Qelgho area of Khogyani district of Nangarhar province, eastern Afghanistan, on July 23, 2020. The Afghan government security forces killed 31 Taliban militants and wounded 15 others in eastern Nangarhar province on Wednesday, the country's Defense Ministry said Thursday. (Photo by Saifurahman Safi/Xinhua)

KABUL, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan government security forces killed 31 Taliban militants and wounded 15 others in eastern Nangarhar province on Wednesday, the country's Defense Ministry said Thursday.

"The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) were aware of an imminent attack on checkpoints in Qelgho area of Khogyani district late Wednesday. The ANDSF launched a responsive attack, leaving the casualties among the Taliban," the ministry said in a statement.

Ten various types of vehicles were also destroyed during the fighting and five Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) were defused after the clashes, the statement said.

The mountainous province has been the scene of heavy clashes for many years.

In the meantime, Attahulla Khogiani, provincial government spokesman, told Xinhua that 13 of the killed Taliban members were foreign militants.

"Thirteen non-Afghan nationals were among the killed. A peace pact signed between the United States and the Taliban in Doha in February required the Taliban militants to reduce violence and cut ties with foreign militants and militants of al-Qaida international terrorist group," Khogiani said.

"But Taliban did not sever ties with the international terrorists, and the foreign militants still support Taliban in the fight against the government and the people of Afghanistan," he said.

Since the signing of the peace deal between the Taliban and the United States, Afghan leaders, including President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, have frequently demanded the Taliban to reduce violence.

The militants, however, have intensified attacks, killing and injuring scores of combatants and civilians.
The signing took place on July 22 within the framework of the Vietnam Energy Summit in Hanoi.

According to the Danish Embassy in Vietnam, with an estimated cost of US$10 billion, the project is expected to create a significant source of income and jobs for Binh Thuan Province and Vietnam in general.

The successful cooperation between Binh Thuan and CIP and its partners Asiapetro and Novasia Energy, could also be a platform to attract other foreign investors to offshore wind energy projects in Vietnam.

With this MoU, the project partners will work closely with Binh Thuan and the ministries concerned to formulate a detailed investment plan once the La Gan project is integrated into Vietnams power development plans.

Findings from a cooperative research project between Vietnam and Denmark show that Vietnam has up to 160GW of potential offshore wind energy, according to Danish Ambassador Kim Hjlund Christensen.

That makes Vietnam one of the most promising markets for offshore wind development and the country needs to learn from the experience of other countries to reap the full benefits, the diplomat added.

With a potential capacity of 3.5GW, La Gan is one of the first large-scale wind power projects in Vietnam and is expected to enhance Vietnams regional and global position in the field of renewable energy.
LONGUEUIL, QUE.A 90-year-old former Quebec actor and television show host has been found guilty on two counts of indecent assault on a minor dating back to the mid-1970s.

Quebec court Judge Marc Bisson said Wednesday he believed the victims version of events in the case against Edgar Fruitier. The victim, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, was 15 at the time of the first assault in 1974 and said he considered Fruitier like a big brother.

Very glad its over, Ive been waiting for this for 46 years, the victim told reporters following the ruling, saying it was a huge weight off his shoulders. He never apologized. I think (if he had) apologized 46 years ago we wouldnt be here today. And if he had not tried again two more times, we would not be here.

Fruitier was accompanied at the courthouse by someone helping the former actor walk. Over the decades, Fruitier played numerous roles on radio, television and in theatre and was named to National Order of Quebec in 2008. Fruitier was also known as the voice of Montgomery Burns in the French-language version of The Simpsons.

The assault in 1974 took place in Quebecs Eastern Townships at a chalet belonging to Fruitier, then 44, who grabbed the victim from behind, put his hands on his private parts and tried to remove his pants.

Fruitier committed similar acts against the victim two more times at the former TV stars home in Brossard, Que., in 1976.

The victim didnt see Fruitier again and filed a police complaint in 2018, 42 years after the 1976 incident. Fruitiers trial in June lasted only an hour, during which transcription of testimony by the complainant was filed.

He did not take the stand but his lawyer, Robert Polnicky, maintained his client never had sexual intentions towards the complainant. While recognizing some of the acts, Polnicky maintained they constituted an assault and not indecent assault.

Prosecutor Erin Kavanagh said Wednesday that argument didnt hold. The indecent assault charge, which is applicable for acts committed in the 1970s, no longer exists in the Criminal Code.

When we touch someones genitals, for us, it was an indecent assault, it was an assault committed in circumstances where there is an indecency, Kavanagh said. Today, we would call it a sexual assault.

Kavanagh said the ruling sends a clear message to victims.

It is important for the victims to report to the police, to do as the gentleman did in this case, Kavanagh said. We can see the result today, a very positive result for the prosecution.

Sentencing arguments will take place Oct. 9.

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Sonu Sood

Mumbai: Actor Sonu Sood on Wednesday launched an app to offer support to workers in finding right job opportunities in various sectors across the country.

Sonu Sood has come out with a free of cost online platform called 'Pravasi Rojgar', which will provide all the necessary information and right linkages to find jobs.

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Sonu SoodThe 47-year-old actor said while arranging travel for the migrants, their conversations would often revolve around how they were looking for the right work opportunity amid the pandemic.

"Lot of thinking, planning and preparation have gone into designing this initiative over the last few months, in order to ensure that it builds on the work already being done in the country.

The initiative will be supported by community outreach in the villages to find the right employment opportunities for migrant workers in different parts of the country.

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Sonu SoodAccording to the release, the online platform has over 500 reputed companies related to construction, apparel, healthcare, engineering, BPOs, security, automobile, e-commerce and logistics sectors, and offering job opportunities.

'Pravasi Rojgar' will also be offering specific job training programmes like spoken English.
Gurugram: Indian national carrier SpiceJet on Thursday said that it will operate nine charter flights to evacuate over 1,500 Indian students stranded in Kyrgyzstan for over two months. According to an official release, this special repatriation mission to help bring back home stranded Indian students from Kyrgyzstan has been undertaken by SpiceJet in association with film actor Sonu Sood.

SpiceJet operated the first charter flight from Bishkek to bring back 135 students to their hometown of Varanasi on Thursday. The airline will be operating more charter flights from Bishkek to various Indian cities in the coming days.

SpiceJet Chairman and Managing Director Ajay Singh said, SpiceJet will be operating multiple flights in the coming days to bring our students, stuck in Kyrgyzstan for over two months, back home. These flights will be operated in association with Sonu Sood, our reel life and real life hero. Through and post lockdown, both SpiceJet and Sonu have worked non-stop to help our fellow citizens and I am glad that we have come together to help reunite Indian nationals with their families in these times of extreme crisis.

Amidst the coronavirus COVID-19 crisis, SpiceJet has operated over 4300 cargo flights and transported over 24,000 tons of cargo. It has operated over 400 charter flights to help repatriate close to 65,000 stranded citizens from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Lebanon and Sri Lanka.

In addition to the charter flights, SpiceJet has been actively participating in the Vande Bharat Mission and the airline is operating 25 flights to bring back more than 4500 Indian nationals from Ras Al-Khaimah, Jeddah, Riyadh, Muscat and Dammam to Ahmedabad, Goa and Jaipur, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Kozhikode, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Mumbai.
Kochi, July 23 : Eyebrows have been raised on the transfer of Customs officials at a time when they were probing the controversial gold smuggling case in Kerala. The transfer was however later withheld.

The order included the transfer of six superintendents and two inspectors attached to the Kochi unit of the Customs, who are presently probing the case, to other units.

In the order, which is signed by Commissioner Mohammed Yousaf, a total of 42 officials from various units are being transferred. And, this includes the key personnel presently probing the gold smuggling case.

Peeved by this sudden transfer, the issue was taken up with the higher ups in Delhi, and though the order has not been cancelled, it has been withheld.

The gold smuggling case first surfaced when P.S. Sarith, a former employee of the UAE Consulate here, was arrested by the Customs on July 5 when he was facilitating smuggling of 30 kg gold in diplomatic baggage to Thiruvananthapuram from Dubai.

It turned murkier when the name of Swapna Suresh, a former employee of the UAE Consulate here and employed with the state IT Department, surfaced. The case turned full circle when their links with senior IAS official M. Sivasankar, who has been suspended and booted out from two key posts -- principal secretary to Vijayan and also the State IT secretary, were unearthed.

It was the Cochin wing of the Customs which first broke the chain in the explosive gold smuggling case as it has been found to be done under the name of the UAE Consulate in the state capital.

The present unit had announced that none will be spared and all those who have the slightest of links with any of the accused would be called in for taking statements.

Things went out of hand, when the call list of the accused gang surfaced and in it were the names of several top notch people cutting across various segments.
Robert Moulton, left, and Ed Morandi during Tuesday night's 'Let's Talk About It' cable show.

North Adams Councilor Calls Black Lives Matter 'Terrorist' Group

NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  A city councilor who called Black Lives Matter a terrorist group on his public access show and said he didn't understand systemic racism is getting plenty of pushback on social media.

He also downplayed the novel coronavirus pandemic that's killed more than 140,000 Americans and more than 600,000 worldwide as miniscule and overblown.

Robert Moulton Jr., who was returned to the City Council last year and while also winning a seat on the School Committee, was speaking on his long-running show "Let's Talk About It" on Northern Berkshire Community Television that aired live on Tuesday night with guest co-host Edward Morandi.

Referring to neighbors who have Black Lives Matter signs on their lawns, Moulton said he didn't think they understood what it was.

"I don't agree with it, I don't think people know what it is. It seems like that it's this month's flavor," the former mayoral candidate said "It's a terrorist organization. They want to get rid of the family, as it is."

Shortly after the show aired, his fellow Councilors Jason LaForest and Benjamin Lamb posted their support for Black Lives Matter on their Facebook feeds.

"Call me a moron. Call me a phony. Call me a 'snowflake' or some other immature catch phrase. Call me whatever you so choose. It doesn't matter. You know what does? Black Lives Matter," wrote Lamb.

LaForest said, "There is no room for uninformed and hate-filled rhetoric in our society and public discourse. In 2020, we continue to shout 'BLACK LIVES MATTER!'"

Black Lives Matter was founded by three women after George Zimmerman was acquited in the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2013. The grassroots movement gained more supporters after a series of high-profile police brutality incidents and has become a leading voice for addressing police accountability and systemic racism in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis on May 25. Floyd's death sparked global protests that have been largely peaceful although some early protests saw vandalism and destruction of private property.

There have been a number of rallies in the Berkshires for Black Lives Matter and calls for the mostly white population to consider the experience of the county's people of color. Local and state officials have attended several of these protests and have vowed to help create more inclusive and responsive communities.

"I still really haven't had systemic racism explained to me," Moulton said. "But, in my opinion, they've hijacked the word racism because I don't believe any of this is racism ("No, it's prejudice," said Morandi, with which Moulton agreed.) but they kind of use that word racism, you know, that would be like, I guess the Vegetable Growers of America saying everybody kind of like all the vegetables, and well I don't like asparagus well, you're gonna like it, but you can't make a law to make me like it."

"But," he added, "you have to be compassionate and we all have to get along. We're all the same race."

Moulton also, talking about "Pine Cobble College" and Pine Cobble University" in apparent reference to Williams College, noted that the founder, Ephraim Williams, owned slaves and wondered what if they would change the name.

"How many people are gonna say you're right. Black Lives Matter," he said. "You know how they take down statues of Christopher Columbus and want to put Chef Boyardee up. ... "

Morandi also claimed that the donations to Black Lives Matter were going to the "top 10" congressional Democrats, all of whom are white. Black Lives Matter uses the nonprofit fundraising platform ActBlue, which supports progressive and Democratic causes including political campaigns and charities. It acts as a conduit for small-donation campaigns and charges a fee for its use. Conservative causes have a similar platform called WinRed. In both cases, donations go to the groups or individuals doing the fund raising, not the Democratic or Republican parties.

Moulton also described the COVID-19 pandemic as "miniscule," trying to relate the number of cases in the United States to a few grains out of a five-pound bag of sugar. He also said he'd heard last year was the worst flu season yet there had been no stopping the economy or closing schools. He said he wasn't worried about an infected contractor coming to his home.

"I'm trying to understand, like how can I relate to people how minuscule this," he said. "And again, there's people more susceptible and I'm one, I'm in the number one group, I'm an over 60, insulin-dependent diabetic."

The last flu season from about October to late April saw 24,000 to 62,000 deaths and a hospitalization rate of about 69 per 100,000 people; the COVID-19 pandemic has so far seen 142,677 deaths and an overall cumulative hospitalization rate of 113.6 per 100,000 since February. This is according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

"I just figure what's being done to this economy is terrible, what's being done in the world is terrible," Moulton said, adding that the modeling that postulated "10s of millions are going to be infected, they scared the wits out of everyone. ... They literally make this up as they go along."

He said he was disappointed in Gov. Charlie Baker, who has gotten high marks for his handling of the pandemic, and called New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo "the biggest killer."

"I am deeply disappointed to learn that a fellow City Councillor believes COVID-19 isn't real," wrote LaForest. "As a nurse, I have lost 24 patients to COVID; and we lost an immediate family member to the virus  it is real."

Moulton and Morandi indicated that they thought Black Lives Matter and the pandemic would disappear after the presidential election.

"It's a difficult, difficult time and I know a lot of people don't agree with me," Moulton said. "But they can have their own show, right, give their opinion."
Spanish prosecutors are seeking a 41-year prison term for Mohammed Houli, the only surviving member of the terrorist cell that carried out attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils in August 2017, killing 16 people and injuring over 140.

The written accusation by the prosecutors office, which EL PAIS has seen, is also demanding 36 years in prison for Driss Oukabir, who abandoned the plan at the last minute, and eight years for Said Ben Iazza for providing assistance. Neither one of them participated actively in the attacks.

Prosecutors note that even if convicted, under Spanish legislation Houli and Oukabir can only serve a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Alcanar hideout

Police searching the Ramblas area shortly after the attack. Joan Sanchez

On the night of August 16, the day before the attacks, Mohammed Houli had just dined inside a house in Alcanar, in Tarragona province, which the terrorist group had illegally occupied and transformed into a giant explosives lab.

A little before midnight, there was a tremendous blast in the house, where one of the occupants had been manipulating explosives. The building was destroyed, killing the alleged leader of the cell, an imam named Abdelbaki Es Satty who lived in the Catalan town of Ripoll. Numerous butane gas canisters were found among the rubble.

Houli was wounded and taken to the hospital. He later told the Catalan police that a group of young siblings and friends from Ripoll had been planning to perpetrate a large bomb attack in Barcelona. This plan, according to Houli, involved attacking the Sagrada Familia basilica and other landmark monuments in the Catalan capital.

But the accidental explosion at the Alcanar hideout changed their plans. Instead, the next day Younes Abouyaqooub rammed a rental van into dozens of pedestrians on the popular Rambla thoroughfare, while five other surviving members of the cell ran over more people later that night in the seaside town of Cambrils. These cell members were shot down by Catalan police officers.

None of the three individuals facing trial participated directly in the attacks, and prosecutors have not charged them with murder. Instead, they face charges of terrorist association, making explosives and conspiring to commit terrorist attacks.

The prosecution says there is enough evidence to prove that Houli was part of the terrorist cell, whose members followed the tenets of the Islamic State, and whose leader was the imam of Ripoll, where all the members lived.

The written accusation notes that Es Satty, arrived in Ripoll in 2015, first working as the imam of the El Fath community and later as the leader of the Annour community. It was there that he contacted a group of young men and taught them the most extreme form of Islam.

Ben Iazza is facing an eight-year conviction for aiding the perpetrators by allowing Younes Abouyaqooub to use his van even though, according to the prosecution, he knew it would be used to carry explosives.

English version by Susana Urra.
The United States has ordered the Chinese consulate in the southwestern U.S. city of Houston, Texas to shut down.

A statement issued early Wednesday morning by State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said the order to close the consulate was issued "in order to protect American intellectual property and American's private information."

Referencing the abbreviation of China's official name, the People's Republic of China, Ortagus said the United States "will not tolerate the PRC's violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated the PRC's unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior."

China has until Friday to shut down the consulate.
New Delhi: Director Rumi Jaffery, who after Sushant Singh Rajput's death, revealed that he was to direct the actor and actress Rhea Chakraborty in his next film, has been called by the Mumbai Police to record his statement. He is expected to arrive at the Bandra Police today for the interrogation.

Rumi Jaffery is a well-known writer-director of Bollywood. He worked with Rhea in 'Chehre', along with megastar Amitabh Bachchan and Emraan Hashmi. The film is due for a release.

After Sushant's death, the director said that he had signed the actor and Rhea for a rom-com. Rhea was Sushant's girlfriend and it would have been their first work collaboration.

Meanwhile, so far over 36 people, including Sushant's family members, his close friends, work associates, house helps, have been questioned in his suicide case. Yash Raj Films boss Aditya Chopra, filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali have also recorded their statements with the Mumbai Police.

Sushant died by suicide at the age of 34 in Mumbai on June 14. He was said to be under stress and depression. He got treated by four doctors for depression. One of the doctors who treated him also revealed to Mumbai Police that Sushant had bipolar disease.
KANSAS CITY, Mo., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Hozef Arif joined Avantis Investors, an investment brand from global asset manager American Century Investments, as a senior portfolio manager for fixed income strategies. Arif reports to Chief Investment Officer Eduardo Repetto. Repetto and Chief Operating Officer Patrick Keating launched Avantis Investors in 2019, which crossed $1.5 billion in assets under management as of June 30.

"We are thrilled to have Hozef join our investment team. He will play a critical role as we broaden our diversified, tax-efficient and low-cost investment offerings into fixed income," Repetto said.

Arif joins Avantis Investors from Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO), where he was an executive vice president and credit portfolio manager for 12 years. While at PIMCO, he managed a variety of strategies in global high yield and crossover corporate credit, including several years as co-manager of the flagship high yield credit funds. Prior to that, he worked as a leveraged finance investment banker at Credit Suisse. Arif has an undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School Business and a master's degree in petroleum engineering from Stanford University.

Arif is the second PIMCO veteran to recently join Avantis Investors. Mitchell Handa also joined as a Senior Portfolio Manager earlier this year. The firm announced in June plans to launch three fixed income strategies later this year after filing preliminary registrations with the SEC.

These two additions, along with the hiring of Dylan Hurt and Daniel Lohman into client-service roles as Senior Relationship Specialists, brings the total Avantis headcount to 20 people across the investments and client service functions. The buildout of the firm's 16,000 square-foot office space in Los Angeles was recently completed, with room to accommodate more than 60 people and ability for further expansion in the future.

American Century Investments is a leading global asset manager focused on delivering investment results and building long-term client relationships while supporting research that can improve human health and save lives. Founded in 1958, American Century Investments' 1,400 employees serve investment professionals, institutions, corporations and individual investors from offices in New York; London; Hong Kong; Frankfurt, Germany; Sydney; Mountain View, Calif.; and Kansas City, Mo. Jonathan S. Thomas is president and chief executive officer, and Victor Zhang serves as chief investment officer. Delivering investment results to clients enables American Century Investments to distribute over 40 percent of its dividends to the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, a 500-person, non-profit basic biomedical research organization. The Institute owns more than 40 percent of American Century Investments and has received dividend payments of $1.6 billion since 2000. For more information about American Century Investments, visit www.americancentury.com

You should consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before you invest. The fund's prospectus or summary prospectus, which can be obtained by visiting Avantisinvestors.com or by calling 833-928-2684, contains this and other information about the fund, and should be read carefully before investing.

Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs): Foreside Fund Services, LLC  Distributor, not affiliated with American Century Investment Services, Inc.

Mutual Funds: American Century Investment Services, Inc., Distributor

Investment return and principal value of security investments will fluctuate. The value at the time of redemption may be more or less than the original cost. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

2020 American Century Proprietary Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.

Contact: Justin Emily Wills

(816) 225-4800

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SOURCE American Century Services Corporation

Related Links

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Delegates from China's Armed Forces wear protective masks as they arrive to the opening of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 22, 2020. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Chinese Consulate in San Francisco Harbors Wanted Military Researcher, FBI Says

The Chinese consulate in San Francisco is harboring a visiting Chinese researcher who was interviewed by the FBI and faces federal charges over concealing her ties to the Chinese military to obtain a visa, according to a court document filed on July 20.

Tang Juan, a researcher at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), was charged June 26 with visa fraud for making false statements on her visa application for a J-1 non-immigrant visa, which is issued to individuals participating in work- and study-based exchange visitor programs.

Tang sought refuge at the Chinese consulate, where she remains, the U.S. Justice Department said; the FBI is seeking her arrest.

The revelations came after the United States ordered the Chinese consulate in Houston to close to protect American intellectual property.

The fugitive is one of four researchers recently charged with allegedly lying about being Chinese military personnel in their visa applications, according to the Justice Department. The others have been arrested.

In addition to these cases, the FBI zeroed in on similar suspects across the country.

In interviews with members of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army in over 25 cities across the U.S., the FBI uncovered a concerted effort to hide their true affiliation to take advantage of the United States and the American people, John Brown, Executive Assistant Director of the FBIs National Security Branch, said in a statement.

Tang Juan

Tang stated on her visa application that she never served in the Chinese military, officially known as the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). However, an FBI open-source search on published scientific papers showed that she had been employed as a researcher at the Air Force Military Medical University.

The university was formerly known as the Fourth Military Medical University (FMMU) and is subordinate to the Air Force branch of the PLA, according to the schools website. The university is located in Xian, the capital of northwestern Chinas Shaanxi Province.

The FBI also found publicly-available photographs of Tang in the uniform of the civilian cadre of the PLA.

According to Chinas Ministry of National Defense, civilian cadres are active military personnel without military rank. They are either appointed to junior technical positions or clerical ranks and above.

Tang was interviewed by the FBI at her residence in Davis, California, on June 20 during which she denied serving in the Chinese military, and said she had worn the military uniform because it was a requirement for attending FMMU. Her residence was also searched by the FBI on the same day.

The FBI assesses that, at some point following the search and interview of Tang on June 20, 2020, Tang went to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco, where the FBI assesses she has remained, according to the court document.

Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers march next to the entrance to the Forbidden City during the opening ceremony of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing on May 21, 2020. (Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images)

Prosecutors said in the court document: As the Tang case demonstrates, the Chinese consulate in San Francisco provides a potential safe harbor for a PLA official intent on avoiding prosecution in the United States.

In response to the decision by the Chinese consulate to take in Tang, Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) took to his Twitter account to explain Beijings motivation for doing so.

Most countries would cooperate in the U.S. governments prosecution of such heinous espionage crimes. Why not China? Because the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] wants to steal our intellectual property and profit, Green wrote.

The news was first reported by Axios.

Other Recent Cases

Aside from Tang, three other Chinese nationals have been charged in similar cases, Wang Xin, Song Chen, and Zhao KaiKai, the justice department said.

Just days earlier, Song was charged for visa fraud on her J-1 visa, after allegedly hiding her position as a PLA civilian cadre and her military relationships to both FMMU and Air Force General Hospital in Beijing. Song was a researcher at Stanford University conducting research related to brain disease.

When Song was arrested, she told her aunt, her custodian, that a Chinese embassy would take care of her, according to court documents.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation seal is seen at FBI headquarters in Washington, U.S. June 14, 2018. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters)

Wang, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), did not disclose his employment at FMMU on his J-1 visa application, court document said. He also concealed that he was an active member of the PLA, holding a Chinese military position that equated as the U.S. military rank of major.

Wang was instructed by his FMMU supervisor to observe and document the layout of the UCSF lab and replicate it when he returned to China, according to the court document. He was arrested on June 7 at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) before he could fly back to China and has since been charged with visa fraud.

Zhao, a graduate student studying machine learning and artificial intelligence at Indiana University, was arrested on July 18 for visa fraud, the justice department said. Prosecutors alleged she served in the PLAs premier scientific research institution, the National University of Defense Technology. They also alleged she attended Chinas equivalent to the U.S. Air Force Academy, the Aviation University of Air Force. The FBI found an online photo of Zhao wearing the PLA Air Force uniform, the department said.

In addition, court documents reveal another case of L.T., a researcher at Duke University. L.T. entered the United States on a J-1 visa in February 2019. She revealed she was affiliated with the PLA General Hospital and PLA Medical Academy when interviewed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials (CBP) at LAX on July 12.

Prior to her interview, L.T. was instructed by personnel from her departing flight airliner, Chinas state-run Xiamen Airlines, to wipe her [electronic] devices since she was about to be interviewed by customs officials.

She [L.T.] then used WeChat [messaging app] to call her contact at the [Chinese] embassy, who advised her to stay calm, delete her phone, and answer CBPs questions, according to court documents

The PRC [Peoples Republic of China] has demonstrated every reason to assist defendant in fleeing the United States and has at its disposal means such as active consular and intelligence services, the ability to issue passports, and state-controlled air transport, court documents said.

Any success that Beijing might have in helping defendants return to China would bolster the PRCs information collection activities in the United States, while undermining the ability of the American criminal justice system to deter the illegal conduct of foreign governments in the United States, prosecutors warned.

This article has been updated with the latest information.
Twenty years after former President Robert Mugabe turned Africas bread basket into a basket case, Zimbabwe is giving some land seized from white farmers to war veterans and youth with the hopes of boosting food production and fixing a tattered economy.

The war veterans fought Rhodesians from 1966 to 1980 and received government support to take over white-owned commercial farms in return for their unwavering support of the ruling ZANU-PF party

According to the World Food Program, Zimbabwe is in urgent need of food assistance because production collapsed after forceful takeover of farms by veterans who have no experience operating them.

Economy in deep decline as hunger grows

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank say the Zimbabwe economy is in a free fall and both multilateral lending agencies have suspended financial assistance to the country because of poor performance and poor track record on debt servicing.

Government inefficiency, corruption, and poor planning have also contributed to the failure of land reform. The government seized about nine hundred farms through the land reform programs, but has settled peasants on only two hundred of them.

According to the World Press Review, poor planning and a lack of follow up on those that have been resettled remain desperately poor. They were granted land, but no supporting infrastructure was developed.

President Emmerson Munangagwa signaled a willingness to reverse the Mugabe signature program by promising exiled farmers a 99-year leases but Human Rights watch says the government has reneged on that promise by turning over some of the farms to mainly its supporters for political gains.

The National Employment Council for the agricultural industry (a tripartite body of government, employers, and unions) in a report blamed the seizure of white owned farms for unemployment, declining economy and food insecurity.
Updated Definitive Feasibility Study due this quarter; will include a Preliminary Economic Assessment on phased-development production strategy

Strong palladium, platinum, gold and rhodium prices continue to propel Platreef's 'metals-price basket' higher

Mokopane, South Africa--(Newsfile Corp. - July 23, 2020) - Ivanhoe Mines' (TSX: IVN) (OTCQX: IVPAF) Co-Chairmen Robert Friedland and Yufeng "Miles" Sun announced today that the company's South African subsidiary, Ivanplats, has completed construction of the 996-metre-level station at the bottom of the project's Shaft 1 - well ahead of the contractual schedule.

Shaft 1 now is positioned to be equipped as Platreef's initial production shaft, if Ivanhoe chooses to proceed with phased development to expedite production at the tier-one palladium-platinum-nickel-copper-rhodium-gold project on the Northern Limb of South Africa's Bushveld Complex.

"Given the flurry of recent transactions in precious metals markets, we are actively exploring a number of options that can help us unlock Platreef's extraordinary value for the benefit of all Ivanhoe stakeholders," said Mr. Friedland. "After all, Platreef is among this planet's largest precious metals deposits."

"Platreef now has a completed shaft within a few hundred metres of the initial high-grade mining zone. We have a mining licence, we have water, and we have a team of highly-skilled employees. The deposit has enormous quantities of palladium, platinum, rhodium, nickel and copper; and it has more ounces of gold than many leading gold mines," Mr. Friedland added. "Given the current precious metals environment, I am confident that the pending studies will showcase the exceptional economics that one would expect from such a thick, high-grade and flat-lying deposit."

Platreef's current Indicated Mineral Resources are 346 million tonnes grading 3.77 grams per tonne (g/t) 3PE+gold (1.68 g/t platinum, 1.70 g/t palladium, 0.11 g/t rhodium, 0.28 g/t gold), 0.32% nickel and 0.16% copper at a 2.0 g/t 3PE+gold cut-off.

Platreef's current Indicated Mineral Resources contain an estimated 26.8 million ounces of palladium, 25.6 million ounces of platinum, 4.5 million ounces of gold, and 1.8 million ounces of rhodium (a combined 58.8 million ounces of PGMs plus gold), plus 4.1 billion pounds of nickel and 2.1 billion pounds of copper, at a cut-off grade of 1 gram per tonne.

Platreef's current Inferred Mineral Resources are 506 million tonnes at a grade of 3.24 g/t 3PE+gold (1.42 g/t platinum, 1.46 g/t palladium, 0.10 g/t rhodium, 0.26 g/t gold), 0.31% nickel and 0.16% copper.

Platreef's current Inferred Mineral Resources contain an additional 43.0 million ounces of palladium, 40.4 million ounces of platinum, 7.8 million ounces of gold, and 3.1 million ounces of rhodium (a combined 94.3 million ounces PGMs plus gold), plus 7.7 billion pounds of nickel and 4.1 billion pounds of copper, also at a cut-off grade of 1 gram per tonne.

Current prices for the metals contained in the Platreef Mineral Resources, in US dollars, are approximately: palladium $2160/oz., platinum $910/oz., gold $1867/oz., rhodium $8,900/oz., nickel $5.96/lb. and copper $2.96/lb.

Information on the Platreef Project's geology and mineralization, including a full tabulation of the Mineral Resource estimate at various cut-offs, is contained in the Platreef Project National Instrument (NI) 43-101 Technical Report dated September 4, 2017, available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the Ivanhoe Mines website at www.ivanhoemines.com.

Platreef's Mineral Resources are reported on a 100%-ownership basis and have an effective date of April 22, 2016. The Qualified Persons for the Mineral Resource estimate are Dr. Harry Parker, RM SME, and Mr Timothy Kuhl, RM SME. Mineral Resources are reported inclusive of Mineral Reserves. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Mineral Resources have been estimated using core drill data and conform to the requirements of the CIM Definition Standards, 2014. The 2 g/t 3PE+gold cut-off is considered the base case (3PE+Au = (platinum+ palladium + rhodium) + gold). Mineral Resources are stated from a depth of approximately 500 metres to 1,350 metres below surface. Indicated Mineral Resources are drilled on approximately 100 x 100-metre spacing; Inferred Mineral Resources are drilled on 400 x 400-metre (locally to 400 x 200-metre and 200 x 200-metre) spacing.

Reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction were determined using the following assumptions. Assumed commodity prices for the Mineral Resource estimate are platinum: $1,600/oz., palladium: $815/oz., gold: $1,300/oz., rhodium: $1,500/oz., copper: $3.00/lb and nickel: $8.90/lb. It was assumed that payable metals would be 82% from smelter/refinery and that mining costs (average $34.27/t) and process, G&A, and concentrate transport costs (average $15.83/t of mill feed for a 4 Mtpa operation) would be covered. The processing recoveries vary with block grade, but typically would be 80%-90% for platinum, palladium and rhodium; 70-90% for gold, 60-90% for copper, and 65-75% for nickel.

Updated DFS is due this quarter, which will include a PEA on the phased-development production plan for the Platreef Project

Ivanhoe is updating the Platreef Project's 2017 definitive feasibility study (DFS) to take into account development schedule advancement since 2017 when the DFS was completed, as well as updated costs and refreshed metal prices and foreign exchange assumptions.

Concurrently, Ivanhoe is finalizing a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) for the phased-development production plan for the Platreef Project. The plan targets significantly lower initial capital, to accelerate first production by using Shaft 1 as the mine's initial production shaft, followed by expansions to the production rate as outlined in the 2017 DFS.

The re-evaluation is being done in parallel with the ongoing mine development work to access the thick, high-grade, flat-lying Flatreef deposit that was discovered in 2010 and outlined in the Platreef 2017 Feasibility Study.

The new auxiliary winder for the 7.25-metre diameter Shaft 1, which is scheduled to be delivered to Platreef later this year, will be used to assist in equipping the shaft; and thereafter for logistics, shaft examination and auxiliary functions. The auxiliary winder will provide a second means of ingress and egress from the shaft after removal of the stage winder. Shaft 1 is located approximately 350 metres away from a high-grade area of the Flatreef orebody, planned for bulk-scale, mechanized mining.

The Platreef Project remains 'Fall-of-Ground' incident free since shaft-sinking operations began in July 2016, which is a tribute to the excellent work by the Platreef Project team and its South African sinking contractor, Moolmans. In June, 2020, the team achieved South African shaft-sinking industry leader status in terms of safety performance.

Revenue per tonne of ore at the Platreef Project in South African Rand near all-time highs

Significant increases in the price of palladium, rhodium, gold and nickel over the last three years has resulted in the weighted price of the 'basket' of metals contained in the ore at the Platreef palladium-platinum-rhodium-nickel-copper-gold project to rise to levels that are significantly higher than when the 2017 DFS was completed. In addition, the South African Rand has depreciated significantly against the US dollar in recent years, resulting in the weighted price of Platreef's 'basket' of metals in South African Rand trading near all-time highs.





Figure 1. Revenue per tonne of ore at the Platreef Project since 2016 (shown in US dollars)

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/3396/60356_ca479ffe34c69957_002full.jpg





Figure 2. Revenue per tonne of ore at the Platreef Project has risen significantly

since 2016 (shown in South African rand).

To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/3396/60356_ca479ffe34c69957_003full.jpg

Source for figures 1 & 2: Bloomberg. Based on historical weekly commodity prices at the end of each week.

Notes for Figures 1 and 2:

Based on Platreef Mineral Reserves with an effective date of May 24, 2017. Probable Mineral Reserve of 124.7 million tonnes at a grade of 1.95 grams per tonne (g/t) platinum, 2.01 g/t palladium, 0.30 g/t gold, 0.14 g/t rhodium, 0.34% nickel and 0.17% copper. A declining NSR cut-off of $155 per tonne (t) to $80/t was used for the Mineral Reserve estimates. The NSR cut-off is an elevated cut-off above the marginal economic cut-off. Metal prices used in the Mineral Reserve estimate: US$1,600 per ounce (oz) platinum, US$815/oz palladium, US$1,300/oz gold, US$1,500/oz rhodium, US$8.90 per pound (lb) nickel and US$3.00/lb copper. Tonnage and grade estimates include dilution and mining recovery allowances. Applies life-of-mine average recoveries of 87.4% for platinum, 86.9% for palladium, 78.6% for gold, 80.5% for rhodium, 87.9% for copper and 71.9% for nickel. Total cash cost includes mine site costs, plus realization costs such as treatment and refining charges, royalties and transportation.

Image 1: On July 15, 2020, members of the Platreef team celebrated the completion of

shaft sinking and the 996-metre-level station development work in Shaft 1

To view an enhanced version of Image 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/3396/60356_ca479ffe34c69957_004full.jpg





Image 2: Rigger Lawrence Mokoena, a member of Platreef's shaft-sinking team, with his new jacket awarded in recognition of the team's outstanding safety performance

To view an enhanced version of Image 2, please visit:

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Figure 3: Schematic section of the Platreef Mine, showing Flatreef's T1 and T2 thick, high-grade

mineralized zones (red and dark orange), underground development work completed

to date in shafts 1 and 2 (white) and planned development work (gray)

To view an enhanced version of Figure 3, please visit:

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About the Platreef Project

The Platreef Project is owned by Ivanplats (Pty) Ltd, which is 64%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines. A 26% interest is held by Ivanplats' historically-disadvantaged, broad-based, black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) partners, which include 20 local host communities with approximately 150,000 people, project employees and local entrepreneurs. A Japanese consortium of ITOCHU Corporation, Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation and Japan Gas Corporation owns a 10% interest in Ivanplats, which it acquired in two tranches for a total investment of $290 million.

Qualified Person

Disclosures of a scientific or technical nature in this news release have been reviewed and approved by Stephen Torr, who is considered, by virtue of his education, experience and professional association, a Qualified Person under the terms of NI 43-101. Mr. Torr is not considered independent under NI 43-101 as he is the Vice President, Project Geology and Evaluation. Mr. Torr has verified the technical data disclosed in this news release.

Ivanhoe has prepared a current, independent, NI 43-101-compliant technical report for the Platreef Project, titled The Platreef 2017 Feasibility Study Technical Report dated September 4, 2017, prepared by DRA Global, OreWin Pty. Ltd., Amec Foster Wheeler, Stantec Consulting, Murray & Roberts Cementation, SRK Consulting, Golder Associates, and Digby Wells Environmental. This technical report include relevant information regarding the effective dates and the assumptions, parameters and methods of the mineral resource estimates on the Platreef Project cited in this news release, as well as information regarding data verification, exploration procedures and other matters relevant to the scientific and technical disclosure contained in this news release in respect of the Platreef Project.

About Ivanhoe Mines

Ivanhoe Mines is a Canadian mining company focused on advancing its three principal projects in Southern Africa: the development of new mines at the Kamoa-Kakula copper discoveries in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Platreef palladium-platinum-nickel-copper-rhodium-gold discovery in South Africa; and the extensive redevelopment and upgrading of the historic Kipushi zinc-copper-germanium-silver mine, also in the DRC. Ivanhoe also is exploring for new copper discoveries on its wholly-owned Western Foreland exploration licences in the DRC, near the Kamoa-Kakula Project.

Information contacts

Investors

Bill Trenaman +1.604.331.9834

Media

Matthew Keevil +1.604. 558.1034

Website www.ivanhoemines.com

Cautionary statement on forward-looking information

Certain statements in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such statements and information involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company, its projects, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. Such statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "expect", "believe", "plan", "anticipate", "estimate", "scheduled", "forecast", "predict" and other similar terminology, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved.

Forward-looking statements in this release include, but are not limited to: (1) statements regarding the updated Platreef Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) is due this quarter, which will include a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) on the phased-development production plan; (2) statements regarding the new auxiliary winder for Shaft 1 is scheduled to be delivered to Platreef later this year.

Forward-looking statements and information involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indicators of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements or information, including, but not limited to, the factors discussed under "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in the company's MD&A, as well as the inability to obtain regulatory approvals in a timely manner; the potential for unknown or unexpected events to cause contractual conditions to not be satisfied; unexpected changes in laws, rules or regulations, or their enforcement by applicable authorities; the failure of parties to contracts with the company to perform as agreed; social or labour unrest; changes in commodity prices; and the failure of exploration programs or studies to deliver anticipated results or results that would justify and support continued exploration, studies, development or operations.

This news release also contains references to estimates of Mineral Resources. The estimation of Mineral Resources is inherently uncertain and involves subjective judgments about many relevant factors. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The accuracy of any such estimates is a function of the quantity and quality of available data, and of the assumptions made and judgments used in engineering and geological interpretation, which may prove to be unreliable and depend, to a certain extent, upon the analysis of drilling results and statistical inferences that may ultimately prove to be inaccurate. Mineral Resource estimates may have to be re-estimated based on, among other things: (i) fluctuations in platinum, palladium, gold, rhodium, copper, nickel or other mineral prices; (ii) results of drilling; (iii) results of metallurgical testing and other studies; (iv) changes to proposed mining operations, including dilution; (v) the evaluation of mine plans subsequent to the date of any estimates; and (vi) the possible failure to receive required permits, approvals and licences.

Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the company believes are reasonable assumptions, the company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Subject to applicable securities laws, the company does not assume any obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this news release.

The company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of the factors set forth in the "Risk Factors" section and elsewhere in the company's MD&A for the quarter ended March 31, 2020 and its current Annual Information Form.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60356
A government airstrike killed at least 14 people in Afghanistan's western Herat province, many of them women and children, witnesses said on Thursday.

Hundreds of people had gathered in Herat's Adraskan district to welcome home a former Taliban fighter freed from jail when aircraft pounded the gathering, said Noor Rahmati, a witness who lost three members of his family in the airstrike. Government officials said on Thursday the airstrike a day earlier was being investigated.

Ghulam Nabi had been released as part of a prisoner exchange aimed at moving negotiations between the government and the Taliban forward, a second and critical phase of a peace deal between the US and Taliban.

District elders and well-wishers had arrived to welcome Nabi when the attack began, the witnesses said. Nabi's 9-year-old son was apparently wounded in the attack. US Peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad tweeted a condemnation of the violence and welcomed the government investigation.

The United Nations has been critical of the increasing death toll among civilians in Afghanistan, caused by both sides in the protracted conflict.

In Herat, photos and eyewitness accounts suggest many civilians including children are among the victims of an Afghan airstrike. We condemn the attack and support an investigation, Khalilzad tweeted.

The Taliban issued a statement denouncing attacks on Taliban prisoners freed as part of the peace deal. The deal calls for the government to release 5,000 Taliban in jails throughout the country and the insurgent movement to free 1,000 government personnel, including Afghan security forces.

The statement warned that violence against freed prisoners will undermine the deal signed in February and make the job of keeping freed prisoners from returning to the battlefield that much more difficult.

Such actions can force prisoners who are recently released and wish for normal life to take up a weapon against the enemy again, said the statement.

Witness Abdul Khaliq, whose brother Abdullah was in a hospital in Herat with injuries from the attack, said these victims are not Taliban. They just wanted to meet a relative returning home." They saw women wearing their scarves covering themselves and running for safety and still they hit them too, Rahmati said. He called for an international investigation into the airstrike.

The US-Taliban peace deal was touted as the best hope for peace in Afghanistan after decades of war at the time of its signing on February 29. While the US and NATO have already begun reducing their troop strength, the second phase of the deal  which calls for Afghans on both sides of the conflict to sit at the negotiation table  has been delayed.

Much of the delays have been as a result of Kabul's reluctance to free some Taliban prisoners identified for release as part of the agreement.

For the Taliban's part, the agreement calls on them to ensure Afghanistan is not again used as a safe haven for terrorists to attack the US and its allies. However, the details of how the religious movement will fulfil that commitment have not been released by Washington, citing security reasons.

(Photo credits: Representative/AP)
The Ascott Limited, a global lodging company owned by CapitaLand, has signed an agreement with Bureau Veritas to certify hygiene and safety standards of the lodging company's properties worldwide. Bureau Veritas is a France-based global leader in testing, inspection and certification.

It has 4,600 employees in India and has over 70 offices across the country. The agreement with Bureau Veritas would certify the hygiene and safety standards of properties owned and managed by Ascott, a statement said here on Thursday.

Ascott said it has embarked on the initiative as part of its programme 'Ascott Cares' focusing on providing safe homes for its staff and guests.

"The Ascott Cares-Bureau Veritas Hygiene Excellence and Safety Label is a holistic programme developed in partnership with Ascott by leveraging Bureau Veritas expertise of more than 190 years in providing testing, inspection and certification," the statement said.

Commenting on the partnership, The Ascott Ltd, head- global operations, Alfred Ong said, "As international travel gradually resumes, our partnership with Bureau Veritas offers our guests a greater peace of mind as they book their stay with Ascott."

"Our guests can continue to place their trust in Ascott to provide a home away from home that is comfortable, clean, secure and safe. With a safe working environment, our staff members are also able to better focus on caring for our guests," he added.

Under the pact, Bureau Veritas would conduct field audits to verify if the properties of Ascott Ltd have appropriate health, hygiene and safety procedures in line with globally recognised best practices.

Ascott said it continues to roll out various initiatives as its serviced residences adapt to business modules in the post COVID-19 era.

Ascott's regional general manager (Middle-East, India, Africa and Turkey) Vincent Miccolis said, "We are continuously creating uninterrupted services at our properties which remain operational...Somerset Greenways Chennai and Citadines OMR Chennai are offering flexible work environments with services for corporate guests to work remotely."

The Ascott Ltd currently has about 69,000 operating units while over 48,000 units were under development, the statement said.
RealView Imaging, a Yokneam, Israel-based medical holography company, completed its $10M Series C funding round.

Backers included OurCrowd, a major hi-tech venture capital fund, Judith and Kobi Richter, among the most prominent technology and medical Israeli entrepreneurs, as well as other investors and physicians. The majority of the companys existing shareholders have also participated in this round, including investors as Dr. Shimon Eckhouse, Zohar Gilon and Uzia Galil. Dr. Kobi Richter, Founder and Chairman of Medinol, and Prof. Michael Eldar, former Director of the Cardiology Institute at Sheba Medical Center, joined the companys Board of Directors as part of this closing.

Founded by Aviad Kaufman, Shaul Gelman and Prof. Carmel Rotschild, with a seed investment led by Dr. Shimon Eckhouse, the Chairman of the Board of Directors, RealView Imaging is advancing the field of Holography Guided Interventions, introducing the HOLOSCOPE-i  a system that creates 3D volumetric holograms from medical imaging data. The HOLOSCOPE-i is designed to enable physicians to view and directly interact with hyper-realistic 3D holograms of the patients actual anatomy, which float in free space at hands reach during interventional procedures.

The systems highly advanced 3D interactive visualization tools empower imaging-based minimally-invasive medical interventions, which is one of the most rapidly growing fields in medicine. Along the development of the core holographic technology, RealView Imaging has generated an IP portfolio (35 patents filed, 21 granted).

In 2019, the company launched its first installation of the HOLOSCOPE-i commercial configuration at Toronto General Hospital, in the presence of the President of Israel  Mr. Reuven Rivlin.

FinSMEs

23/07/2020
Hryvnia weakens to UAH 27.78 to U.S. dollar on July 23

10:00, 23.07.20 12339

The official forex rate against the euro for Thursday is fixed at UAH 32.19 per euro.
David M. Driesen is University Professor at the Syracuse University College of Law.

The media often treat the upcoming election as a normal political battle about policy. I teach constitutional law and do not think of this presidential or congressional election in such narrow terms. And my colleagues on both the left and the right who teach constitutional law do not see it that way, either.

To explain this, I start with a point that all voters might agree to: President Donald Trump is extremely divisive. He tweets out vicious insults aimed at political opponents and members of his own party who displease him in some way. He even characterized the Democrats criticism of his handling of the coronavirus, which he consistently downplayed, as a hoax.

No American president behaves this way. Presidents aim to unite the country and generally do not descend to using personal insults.

Many people who Trump openly admires  such as Russias Vladimir Putin, Hungarys Viktor Orban, and Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan  use attacks and insults as a major governing tool. All of these leaders have one thing in common. They have all dismantled democracies to establish autocracies, not through a sudden coup, but by using attacks on individuals and institutions to destroy checks and balances over several years.

This attack strategy helps dismantle democracy because a functional democracy requires people of diverse beliefs to work together for the common good, compromising as necessary. Treating political opponents as enemies destroys the unity necessary for a functioning democracy. The dysfunction of employing divisive and insulting tweets as a governance strategy helps explain why the United States has many more Covid-19 deaths than any other country.

Constant fomenting of hatred and division is not a trivial matter, because it leads to actions dismantling the institutions essential to a free society. That is why many members of the deeply conservative Federalist Society expressed concern about Trumps actions threatening the rule of law. In particular, they cite Trumps efforts to insulate Republican Congressmen from corruption investigations on the stated ground that prosecution would hurt Republicans election chances and his repeated requests that the Department of Justice (DOJ) investigate or jail his political opponents. Meanwhile, Trump has issued tweets urging lenient treatment of his supporters convicted of crimes, leading to extraordinary DOJ decisions to seek a diminished sentence and even a dismissal of charges after guilty pleas. These extraordinary actions led over 2,000 former DOJ and FBI employees from both political parties to call for the resignation of Trumps Attorney General, William Barr. American presidents generally stay out of prosecution decisions, but such intervention is common in autocracies.

Autocrats drive relatively neutral civil servants out of office in order to use government power to benefit themselves and their supporters. Trump has driven out numerous inspectors general, who check government corruption, often because they obeyed law requiring reporting of information to Congress. After their departure, Covid funds ended up in the pockets of Trumps familys and friends businesses and hate groups. He also drove out Attorney General Jeff Sessions, probably for obeying ethics rules, which prohibited his involvement in the Russia investigation, and many others for the sin of obeying the law.

Trump has also tried to suppress speech. He files frivolous libel suits to harass members of his own family and administration who write books critical of him. He attacks the media, not just for bias, but for fake news. Most recently, he has sent unidentifiable federal agents to arrest and beat people exercising their First Amendment rights, in violation of the Constitution.

Trump has not exactly hidden his drive to create an American autocracy. He characterized the power of the president as total, an idea fundamentally at odds with our Constitution. And he has acted accordingly, telling governors, who are not under his command, to open up their economies before they had met public health criteria for opening safely, leading to a surge in deaths.

So, constitutional law scholars like myself see this election as about the survival of American democracy. That understanding has led numerous Republican stalwarts  such as George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, Colin Powell, William Kristol and George Will  to refuse to support Trump in the upcoming election. And many of them, angry at congressional Republicans for their failure to check the presidents transgressions, oppose the election of his congressional enablers, as well.

This brings me to Rep. John Katko. Katko swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution . . . against all enemies foreign and domestic. But he did not defend the Constitution against Trumps assault upon it, and now openly supports Americas autocratic president. If Trump and his enablers win this election, I fear for the country, including Trumps supporters. Autocrats, whether from the left or the right, curtail freedom, for all of us.

Also in Opinion: Columbus monument honors struggles of Italian-Americans who built it (Commentary)
US Orders China to Shut Down Texas Consulate Office

By VOA News July 22, 2020

The United States has ordered the Chinese consulate in the southwestern U.S. city of Houston, Texas to shut down.

A statement issued early Wednesday morning by State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said the order to close the consulate was issued "in order to protect American intellectual property and American's private information."

Referencing the abbreviation of China's official name, the People's Republic of China, Ortagus said the United States "will not tolerate the PRC's violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated the PRC's unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior."

China has until Friday to shut down the consulate.

Speaking to reporters in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters the order to close the Houston consulate "is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China." He accused the United States of harassing Chinese diplomatic and consular staff, as well as "intimidating and interrogating Chinese students and confiscating their personal electrical devices" and even going so far as to detain them.

Wang warned that if the Trump administration did not have a change of heart, China would retaliate.

Hours after the order was issued, local Houston television station KPRC broadcast footage of smoke billowing from a courtyard inside the consulate, with fire trucks stationed on the street outside. Houston police said consular staffers were burning documents in open containers in preparation of being evicted.

Relations between the world's two largest economies have steadily worsened in recent months over a number of issues, including trade, technology and the new national security law imposed on Hong Kong apparently aimed at squelching pro-democracy activists.

Two Chinese nationals were charged Tuesday with hacking hundreds of entities around the world, including U.S. biotech companies developing COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, while working with China's security services.

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India on Thursday accused Pakistan of blocking all legal remedies to Indian death row convict Kulbhushan Jadhav.

MEA Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava also said Pakistan adopted a farcical approach in handling the case, adding India is exploring available options in the matter.

In the absence of an unimpeded and unhindered consular access as well as of the relevant documents, as a last resort, India tried to file a petition on July 18, he said during an online media briefing. However, our Pakistani lawyer informed that a review petition could not be filed in the absence of power of attorney and supporting documents related to the case of Jadhav, he added.

Pakistan had earlier this month said July 20 is the last date of filing a review petition by Jadhav against the death sentence handed down to him by a Pakistani military court.

The 50-year-old retired Indian Navy officer was sentenced to death by the Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April 2017. India approached the International Court of Justice against Pakistan for denial of consular access to Jadhav and challenging the death sentence.

The Hague-based ICJ ruled in July 2019 that Pakistan must undertake an effective review and reconsideration of the conviction and sentence of Jadhav and also to grant consular access to India without further delay.
Richmond COVID-19 cases on the rise

(TNS) -- A COVID-19 outbreak involving 22 nursing home residents and staff members has been reported in a Richmond nursing home, according to a city of Richmond alert.Richmond city officials were notified Wednesday that TDEM will deploy the Texas Rapid Assessment Quick Reaction Force to the Cambridge Health and Rehabilitation Center to conduct a site assessment and administer additional COVID-19 test to all nursing home residents, healthcare workers and staff members. The testing is scheduled for Thursday.Director Shelia Eapen said there had been no positive cases of their 88 residents and 87 staff members at the facility before now. Testing was conducted of all nursing home residents and staff last May. However, a new round of tests revealed 17 residents and five staff members were COVID-19 positive, despite the fact all are currently asymptomatic.Eapen said notifications were sent to state and county officials, and families were notified.The family members of our residents have been very supportive throughout this time, Eapen said. They trust us.Richmond city leaders notified residents via email Wednesday. Due to health privacy laws, positive cases among Fort Bend County area nursing homes, long term care facilities and the Richmond State Supported Living Center are not made public.However, state reports show 177 nursing homes in the greater Houston and Fort Bend County area currently have at least one positive COVID-19 resident and with an overall total of 3,027 cases, 309 deaths and 899 recoveries, according to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services.The number of COVID-19 cases in Richmond has seen significant increase in recent weeks. Statistics provided by Fort Bend County Health and Human Services Department indicate Richmond currently has a total of 145 cases, an increase of roughly 50 percent over the last two weeks with 51 new cases since the July 7 total of 94 cases. Countywide, there are 6,130 confirmed cases currently, a 38.9 percent increase (1,717 cases) since July 7.The city of Richmond is committed to working with our local community partners, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, the Texas Division of Emergency Management, and the Texas Department of State Health Services to help mitigate the spread of the coronavirus in our community and surrounding areas, city officials said in an email.knix@hcnonline.com2020 the Houston ChronicleVisit the Houston Chronicle at www.chron.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
After the first COVID-19 case was reported in Wuhan, it took about 15 weeks to reach 2 million cases. By contrast, it took just eight days to climb above 15 million from the 13 million reached on July 13. (AP)

Sydney: Global coronavirus infections surged past 15 million on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally, with the pandemic gathering pace even as countries remain divided in their response to the crisis.

In the United States, which has the highest number of cases in the world with 3.91 million infections, President Donald Trump warned: It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better.

The top five countries with the most cases is rounded out by Brazil, India, Russia and South Africa. But, the Reuters tally shows the disease is accelerating the fastest in the Americas, which account for more than half the worlds infections and half its deaths.

Globally, the rate of new infections shows no sign of slowing, according to the Reuters tally, based on official reports.

After the first COVID-19 case was reported in Wuhan, China, in early January, it took about 15 weeks to reach 2 million cases. By contrast, it took just eight days to climb above 15 million from the 13 million reached on July 13.

Health experts stress that official data almost certainly underreports both infections and deaths, particularly in countries with limited testing capacity.

The official number of coronavirus cases at 15,009,213 is at least triple the number of severe influenza illnesses recorded annually, according to World Health Organization data, while the death toll of more than 616,000 in seven months is close to the upper range of yearly influenza deaths.

RELAX OR TIGHTEN

With the first wave of the virus still to peak in several countries and a resurgence of case numbers in others, some countries are reintroducing strict social distancing measures while others relax restrictions.

Stung by low approval ratings for his handling of the epidemic and downplaying the risks during the early stages, Trump made a significant shift in rhetoric on Tuesday, encouraging Americans to wear a face mask.

While the epidemic worsened in the United States, Trumps focus ahead of a presidential election in November has been on reopening the economy, and governors in the hard-hit states of Texas, Florida and Georgia continue to push back hard against calls for stricter restrictions.

In Brazil, more than 2.15 million people have tested positive including President Jair Bolsonaro, and more than 81,000 people have died. While Bolsonaro has played down the outbreak, its scale has made Brazil a prime testing ground for potential vaccines.

India, the only other country with more than 1 million cases, reported almost 40,000 new cases on Wednesday. Having been keen to reopen its economy, India is now facing the twin challenge of combating the pandemic and massive flooding in the countrys northeast.

Two ministers in South Africas cabinet were admitted to hospital with COVID-19, as Africas most-industrialised country counted a total 372,628 confirmed cases and 5,173 deaths.

Other countries are reintroducing restrictions in response to fresh outbreaks.

In Spain, the number of people allowed on Barcelonas beaches was limited after crowds flocked to the seaside over the weekend despite advice to stay home.

In Australia, residents of Melbourne, the countrys second-biggest city, were ordered to wear masks in public from Wednesday after the country reported a record 501 new cases.

Officials in Canada were closely watching a spike in cases as the economy reopens, attributing the rise in part to large numbers of young people gathering in bars.

China, meanwhile, announced that passengers on inbound flights must provide negative COVID-19 test results before boarding, as authorities seek to reduce the risk of imported cases amid increased international travel.
Chuck Blount /Staff

After months of operating as a drive-thru and curbside business due to the coronavirus pandemic, Pollos Asados Los Nortenos is welcoming guests back for dine-in. This time there's two locations to choose from.

The San Antonio favorite on Rigsby known for charcoal-grilled chicken has added a Walzem extension near Rackspace. Both are open for dine-in, according to the restaurant's social media pages.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 23)  Lawmakers of Makabayan bloc will continue their tradition of donning protest wear on the day of President Rodrigo Duterte's State of the Nation Address this year.

While none of them will be physically present inside the Batasang Pambansa Complex on Monday, the six progressive congressmen shared that they will grace rallies in "protest fashion," with their outfits representing the plight of Filipinos from various sectors.

Bayan Muna Partylist Rep. Carlos Zarate said he will don a barong with an art calling for the junking of the Anti-Terrorism Law. Artists from the Sama-Samang Artists Para sa Kilusang Agraryo drafted the design showcasing a sketch of citizens holding a movement with their fists up.

Zarate will also sport an abaca mask designed by Karapatan lawyer and artist Sol Taule, which contains drawings of people calling for mass testing, pro-active contact tracing and treatment of COVID-19 patients.

Bayan Muna Rep. Ferdinand Gaite will also wear a hand-painted barong featuring workers "uniting to protect democracy," with symbols and flags of the United States and China, designed by volunteer artist Miguel Alpas.

Eufemia Cullamat, also from the Bayan Muna Partylist, disclosed that she will wear an alampay representing indigenous people, which she advocates for.

Gabriela Partylist Rep. Arlene Brosas said that she will put on a face mask with an image representing the call for "human rights, livelihood, and health" of the Filipinos.

ACT-Teachers Partylist Rep. France Castro will use an alampay which champions for education at the time of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Kabataan Partylist Rep. Sarah Elago said she will wear a "sash panawagan" calling against contractualization, respect for human rights, and other educational struggles of today's youth.

Last year, the Makabayan lawmakers wore protest outfits on the day of the President's SONA, but these were confiscated by security personnel before they headed to the plenary. They were forced to wear a plain barong and Filipiniana attire before entering the session hall.

On Wednesday, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said Duterte acknowledges constitutional provisions involving human rights and freedom of expression of the people who wish to hold public protests, despite the passage of the controversial Anti-Terrorism Law.

"The President is a lawyer...he has been in office for four years," Roque said. "I don't think he's one to clamp down on public gatherings."

Only around 50 lawmakers and 15 Cabinet members were invited to Monday's SONA, in observance of the government's social distancing protocols.

Congress will open its second regular session before the President addresses the nation in the afternoon.
SPRINGFIELD  The attorney for the ousted Holyoke Soldiers Home superintendent argued Thursday that the response to a COVID-19 outbreak mounted by the homes leadership was anything but the catastrophe described in an independent investigators scathing report.

I suggest to you they did a great job, under great pressure, with honor and dignity, said William Bennett, uncle and attorney to Soldiers Home Superintendent Bennett Walsh. They should be applauded for the way they handled it.

A report released in June on the investigation by Mark W. Pearlstein, a former federal prosecutor appointed by Gov. Charlie Baker to probe the crisis, took a vastly different view. The report pointed to a decision on Friday, March 27 to combine two dementia units as one in a series of steps that contributed to the diseases rapid spread and the facilitys high death toll.

In short, this was the opposite of infection control: Mr. Walsh and his team created close to an optimal environment for the spread of COVID-19, the report said.

Over the course of several weeks, the deaths of 76 veterans who were residents at the facility were tied to the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

Bennett said the decision to combine the units was not catastrophic, adding, Quite the opposite was true.

He also argued that the decision came on the same day Walsh asked for help from state officials in Boston, who rebuffed his request for National Guard assistance. Walsh was told the Guard could only offer logistical help, not medical help, Bennett said  but, three days later the state swept in with 160 people, placing Walsh on leave and installing a clinical response team to stabilize the facility.

Where were they on Friday when the need was greatest, when the most good could have been done, Bennett asked.

This is a developing story that will be updated after additional reporting.
When Sheryl Sculley began writing about her war with San Antonios public safety unions over their contracts, little did the former city manager know it would arrive amid a nationwide reckoning over the role of police.

Sculley announced Wednesday her provocatively-named book, Greedy Bastards: One Citys Texas-Size Struggle to Avoid a Financial Crisis, will be released Aug. 11

In it, the former San Antonio CEO details her campaign to reform the citys finances in the 13 years she worked as city manager from 2005 to early 2019  including her efforts to rein in costs of the police and fire contracts, vehemently opposed by both unions.

Its more relevant today than it was when I started writing the book a year ago, Sculley said.

Sculleys book had been slated to arrive May 19, but she decided to delay the release because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Less than a week after the book was originally scheduled to come out, a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on the neck of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, for nearly nine minutes  killing Floyd and spurring massive protests against police brutality that evolved into cries for police reform and changes to how much cities spend on policing.

San Antonio activists have recently taken aim at the San Antonio Police Officers Association contract, decrying provisions they and Police Chief William McManus have said makes it nearly impossible for the city to fire officers accused of misconduct. Mayor Ron Nirenberg and a majority of City Council members have said theyre open to re-examining the $479 million a year the city spends on the police department.

During her time as city manager, Sculley ignited fury from the police and fire unions when she pushed police officers and firefighters to pay some of their own health care costs. She predicted that public safety would consume 100 percent of the citys general fund by 2031 if the police and fire contracts went unchanged.

That push sparked lengthy legal battles and public feuds with both unions; police and firefighters wound up having to pick up some of their own health care costs under new contracts.

The books title derives from a quote by police union head Mike Helle, who said in 2014 that Sculley was trying to make police officers look like we're a bunch of greedy bastards trying to break the city of San Antonio.

He meant to malign me, Sculley said. As it turns out, that phrase reflects how far the union, and I would say other unions, would go to protect old business models even if it meant harm to the city as well as how dirty the fight would get.

City officials left provisions of the police contract dealing with officer discipline untouched when City Council approved the current contract under a mediated settlement in 2016  which Sculley chalked up to fatigue among elected officials over drawn-out negotiations and lawsuits over the deals financial aspects.

For example, the contract says police supervisors cant discipline an officer for alleged misconduct if they find out about the incident more than 180 days after the fact.

What Im seeing across the country right now and to an extent even from our police union is that there is not a full recognition of the kind of change thats needed in many of these contracts, Sculley said.

After a years-long feud between the city and the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association over the contract  a fight that escalated when the city sued the union in 2014  the fire union struck back at Sculley, winning a referendum on what critics called her excessive pay at the November 2018 ballot box. The referendum changed the city charter to set a maximum on city manager pay: 10 times what the lowest city employee is paid.

The maximum only affected future city managers. Nonetheless, Sculley announced in December 2018 she would step down as city manager.

Sculleys base salary was $475,000 at the time of the vote. Her successor, Erik Walsh, makes $312,000, the maximum allowed by the amendment. After Sculley left, a consultant told a council committee her pay was in line with the market rate for similar positions.

The former city leader considers Greedy Bastards a guidebook for other city managers and elected officials that are trying to make dramatic change within their own communities. The book, she said, documents her time at City Hall, how she reshaped the citys executive leadership and revamped its financial policies.

But Sculley also views the book as a means to correct a narrative pushed by leaders of the public safety unions that she was anti-police or anti-firefighter.

I think people need to understand, heres the history, heres why we did this, and heres why its important to reexamine the ways weve done business in the past. Do they make sense for financial as well as social reasons? Sculley said. I think its important for this community to understand the issue so the community is prepared when these contracts are open for negotiation again.

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
A US-based chocolate company has decided to name a chocolate bar in honour of an Indian origin doctor in Maine. The 'Shah Bars' have been so named as a tribute to Dr Nirav Shah, the director of Maine's Centre for Disease Control for keeping Maine residents safe amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The initiative has been carried out by Wilbur's Chocolate Confections who have launched the limited edition chocolates in two flavours - dark and milk.

The candy bars and the wrappers feature an image of the smiling, bespectacled doctor, along with a big red heart in an outline of the state.

The doctor has been a big part of not only keeping Maine safe but also to convey a sense of warmth and caring for the people of Maine. He seems to really have a lot of compassion, Kristin Frazier from Wilburs told WCSH-TV.

Hes become the face of the state response to the pandemic through daily briefings that were held for weeks. He has been praised for his calm, reassuring demeanor. He has also reminded Mainers to take time to do things that bring them joy, such as eating soup and calling their mothers.

Shah was the head of the Illinois Department of Public Health before coming to Maine. Hed been on the job for less than a year when the coronavirus pandemic struck.

As per the company's website, ten percent of the proceeds will be donated to a local food bank.

(With inputs from AP)
Unification Minister nominee Lee In-young speaks during his confirmation hearing at the National Assembly in Seoul, Thursday. / Yonhap



By Kang Seung-woo



Unification Minister nominee Lee In-young has vowed to make bold changes in order to reactivate stalled inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation.



He also said cross-border relations should move forward regardless of progress in denuclearization talks between North Korea and the United States.



"South and North Korea should sit face-to-face again. Reaffirming their mutual trust and making good on promises, they have to restart the stopped clock on the Korean Peninsula," Lee said at his confirmation hearing at the National Assembly in Seoul, Thursday.



The four-term lawmaker was nominated earlier this month as part of President Moon Jae-in's reshuffle of his national security team.



"We will take the lead and push for bold changes to turn the focus from North-U.S. talks to South and North talks," he added. "To this end, we have to approach the issue with creativity and imagination, while making drastic decisions if necessary."



Despite a short-lived detente between the two Koreas thanks to three inter-Korean summits in 2018, bilateral ties have been strained since a summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump ended without a deal in February 2019.



"The peace train on the Korean Peninsula should run on two tracks  relations between the two Koreas and relations between North Korea and the U.S.," he said. "Even if North Korea-U.S. ties remain stalled, inter-Korean relations should steadily move forward, with their own objectives."



His remarks are in line with President Moon's stance that calls for independent inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation, separate from Pyongyang's halted denuclearization negotiations with Washington. To this end, the South has offered cross-border exchanges and talks, but the North has not responded.



The nominee admitted that the frayed ties between the two Koreas are expected to continue until the U.S. presidential election in November or even after the vote.



As for a resumption of talks between the North and the U.S., Lee said it may be possible partially, adding that North Korean leader's sister Kim Yo-jong's recent request for a DVD of U.S. Independence Day celebrations has left room for dialogue with the U.S.



Lee reiterated his stance that inter-Korean humanitarian cooperation should continue despite international sanctions.



"Issues related to eating, suffering and things that people want to see before they die should be handled independently of political issues," he said, referring to food shortage and separated family matters.



"Inter-Korean cooperation should also be expanded into borderless matters of diseases, disasters and climate change to which we can jointly respond."



He also suggested that the government supply rice and medication in exchange for water from Mount Paekdu and liquor made near the Taedong River through item-to-item trade, for instance.



Meanwhile, a fracas over the nominee's ideology occurred during the hearing.



Lee was a radical student and a former leader of the now-defunct association of university student representatives, a pro-democracy and pro-unification student organization in the 1980s, which has been called a "pro-Pyongyang" group by conservatives.



Rep. Thae Yong-ho of the main opposition United Future Party who is better known as a North Korean defector-turned-politician, asked Lee whether he had renounced Juche, the North's self-reliance ideology.



Calling the inquiry inappropriate, Lee responded, "I was never a follower of Juche in the past and I am not now, either." He said an ideology is not forced in the South and Thae has yet to fully understand the South Korean democracy.



Amid growing speculation over a possible reduction or withdrawal of American troops here, Lee said it was right to station them on the peninsula in terms of a strategic balance in Northeast Asia, adding that the government has no position on any cut or withdrawal of U.S. forces stationed in Korea.


Airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan killed 45 people, including civilians and Taliban, local officials said on Wednesday.

Ali Ahmad Faqir Yar, the governor of Adraskan District in the eastern Afghanistan province of Herat, said at least eight civilians were among the dead.

"Forty-five people had been killed so far in airstrikes by security forces in the Kham Ziarat area, Taliban were among those killed," he said.

It was unclear how many of the remaining 37 were civilians and how many were members of the Taliban.

Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense said it was investigating allegations of civilian casualities in attacks by Afghan forces in the area.

"The results of the investigation will be shared with the public and the media. The National Defense and Security Forces have the responsibility to protect the lives and property of the people, in this regard, they use all the opportunities and facilities and will not spare any effort," the statement said.

Habib Amini, a local official in neighbouring Guzara district, confirmed the incident and that 45 were killed and more injured.

A spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan said they had not taken part in Wednesday's airstrikes.

The United States is winding back troops under an agreement with the Taliban struck in February, which was meant to pave the way to formal peace talks between the insurgents and the Afghan government. However, disagreement over the release of prisoners demanded by the Taliban and rising violence around the country have hampered progress, and talks have yet to start.

Qari Muhammad Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said in a statement that two airstrikes in Heart had killed eight civilians and wounded 12.

Two local officials confirmed there had been two rounds of airstrikes.
Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. was inspected Wednesday over potential mask violations after President Trump was seen talking to guests there earlier this week with his face uncovered.

D.C.'s Mayor Muriel Bowser ordered in May that staff and guests in common areas of hotels in the Capitol must wear masks.

She doubled down on her mandate Wednesday as the city's coronavirus cases continue to rise and Trump's hotel was among those to receive a visit to ensure they are complying with city rules.

Trump was seen making a maskless visit to Trump International Hotel in D.C. on Monday

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser doubled down on her mask mandates Wednesday requiring all people to wear one when they leave their homes as Trump International Hotel was investigated

The hotel faced a fine or a warning if found to be in violation of the mask mandate.

According to the mayor's May order, hotels could be subject to 'civil , criminal and administrative penalties ... including civil fines or summary suspension or revocation of licence' if caught out.

Infractions of a similar rule for employees not wearing masks in bars leads to a warning, followed by a $1,000 fine, before more extreme steps are taken for further violations.

The inspector from the D.C. Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration found no mask violations in Trump International on Wednesday, according to the Washington Post, but the agency said that it will continue to monitor the hotel.

Inspectors can only issue a warning or a fine if they see a violation in person.

The check on the Trump D.C. hotel came two days after the president was filmed interacting closely with guests at a fundraiser, where the majority of people seen were not wearing masks.

Video emerged late Monday night of the president walking through the hotel, which is less than a mile from the White House, as he participated in a roundtable with supporters of a joint fundraising committee.

Also in tow, not adhering to D.C. masks guidelines, were Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and the president's personal attorney and former Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani.

The video specifically showed a moment the president, and his entourage, stopped to speak with Madison Cawthorn, the 24-year-old who won the Republican primary for Meadows' seat in North Carolina's 11th district, which he vacated when he joined the administration.

Captured on camera: Donald Trump made a mask-less visit to his Washington D.C. hotel for a fundraiser Monday evening with lawmakers, administration officials and other allies

Cawthorn also spoke with Trump's Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who did not wear a mask during the trip, and who's seat the candidate is running for after Meadow's stepped down to join the administration. Cawthorn posted the video to Instagram on Monday

The president made an introduction between Cawthron and Giuliani, who had a black mask pulled below his chin during the interaction and jokingly said 'Don't touch me' when the candidate approached him for a handshake.

'He won in North Carolina,' Trump told Giuliani of Cawthorn, who is wheel-chair bound following a 2014 car accident that left him partially paralyzed. 'He's a great guy.'

Trump claimed on Tuesday that he did not need to wear a mask at the fundraiser because he was 'far away' from others, despite the video showing that he was not six feet apart.

'I don't know, the hotel  I was pretty far away from people,' Trump said, noting that he and attendees had been tested for the deadly virus that has infected more than 3.5 million Americans.

'If youre close together I would put on the mask,' he urged Americans, a turn around from his previous insistence that they were not needed.

Trump International Hotel in D.C. was not found to have any mask violations on Wednesday

Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on Wednesday expanded safety requirements in a forthcoming order requiring citizens to wear a face mask when leaving home

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the president is fine not to wear a mask because she claims he is tested multiple times every day for coronavirus.

'The president's always been consistent on this, that masks, according to the CDC, are recommended but not required,' McEnany told reporters during a press briefing Tuesday morning.

'The president is the most tested man in America, he's tested more than anyone  multiple times per day,' she insisted. 'And we believe that he's acting appropriately.'

The Republican National Committee also defended the decision.

Press secretary Mandi Merritt told ABC News that the event site was sanitized beforehand and the White House Medical Unit and U.S. Secret Service evaluated all attendees.

'All attendees tested negative for COVID-19 on the day of the event, completed a wellness questionnaire and passed a temperature screening,' she said.

According to ABC News, this is not the first time that guests at the Trump D.C.. property have appeared to flout the mask rules, as the president himself gives mixed signals when it comes to covering faces.

It reported Tuesday that a birthday party scheduled for the hotel on Saturday had posted on social media a 'NO MASKS ALLOWED' disclaimer.

My Pillow CEO Michael Lindell, a vocal supporter of Trump, has also posted a maskless selfie of himself from the hotel's lobby, as has far-right social media personality Tim Gionet.

The hotels's own social media accounts have shown all guests and staff wearing masks.

Its website maintains that guests in common spaces such as the lobby are required to wear face coverings, unless they're eating.

The party planned for the Trump International Hotel for Saturday said no masks allowed

My Pillow CEO Michael Lindell, a vocal supporter of Trump, posted a maskless selfie from a common area in the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. on July 8

'The safety of our guests and employees remains our top priority' the website states.

Mayor Bowser was dealing with the D.C.'s steady uptick in COVID-19 cases Wednesday by firming up the city's mask policy telling residents of the capital that they must wear masks when they leave their homes.

She outlined some exceptions to the rule including for young children, if people are actively eating or drinking, or in an enclosed space, or if they're vigorously exercising and able to stay six feet away from others.

The Washington Post reports, however, that penalties for violating the social distancing rules are rare and only four were issued in the past month.

It comes as Trump refused to say whether the federal properties in Washington, D.C. will follow the city's lead in mandating mask-wearing outside in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

'We're going to make a decision over the next 24 hours,' Trump replied instead. 'We'll let you know what that decision is.'

Trump allowed cameras to capture him wearing a mask for the first time during a July 12 trip to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He has since sent mixed messages on masks

The non-socially distanced, mask-less visit to Trump Hotel came as the president suggested Monday it's 'Patriotic to wear a face mask when you can't socially distance.' 'There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President,' Trump added

The D.C. mayor has no power to enforce mask-wearing at federal properties, like the White House.

After months, of refusing to wear a face covering in public, Trump finally tweeted a picture of himself in a mask Monday, claiming that it is patriotic to do so.

In a recent interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace, however, he said that he would not consider a nationwide mask mandate.

There were 102 new cases of coronavirus reported in D.C. on Wednesday.

It is the highest daily total since there were 104 new cases on June 4.

The seven-day average had reached the low 30s but has more than doubled in the past weeks and local authorities struggle to get on top of a stubborn rate of community transmission.
Finas licence requirement will impact social media users - PKR MP

Lembah Pantai MP Fahmi Fadzil today raised concerns over the government's statement that all video recordings require a licence from the National Film Development Corporation (Finas).

Communications and Multimedia Minister Saifuddin Abdullah this morning told Parliament all recordings, including for personal social media, require a Finas licence.

Fahmi (above) said this has far-reaching implications on Malaysia's millions of social media users and can be used for selective prosecution.

"The implications are wide and I am sure many will now ask if their social media videos will now need a Finas licence, based on the minister's reading of the law.

"More troubling is how this reading could lead to selective prosecution, where only some people will be subject to this requirement while others are not affected," the PKR MP said in a press conference at Parliament today.

Saifuddin made the statement in response to a question from Wong Shu Qi (Harapan-Kluang) who asked if a Finas licence is required for video recordings published on social media and traditional media.

This came after Finas revealed that international broadcaster Al Jazeera was not licenced to produce its film "Locked Up in Malaysia's Lockdown", which sparked public outcry for allegedly showing the Malaysian government in a bad light.

Al Jazeera is being investigated for the film, which looks at the treatments of migrants during the movement control order and is part of its 101 East current affairs show.

Al Jazeera has rejected accusations of bias and insisted that it does not need a Finas licence to produce a news feature report.

Minister's reply unsatisfactory

Saifuddin this morning also responded to Fahmi's additional question on whether YouTuber Dr Dustin Pfundeller holds a Finas licence.

Pfundheller, who earlier produced a video praising Malaysia's efforts against Covid-19, had earlier this month published a video rubbishing the Al Jazeera documentary.

Story continues

Responding to Fahmi, Saifuddin (photo) said he leaves this to the relevant authorities to investigate and that action will be taken upon a complaint.

Commenting on this, Fahmi said the minister did not provide a sufficient answer to his question.

"The minister has to be cognisant of the fact that his answer is not only not satisfactory, but the implication can have a wide reach," he said.

According to the Finas Act 1981, a film is any recording, including a short film, documentary, trailers and advertisement.

On its website, Finas states that filmmakers seeking a licence to do a video recording must be a registered company with a paid-up capital of at least RM50,000.

Meanwhile, Fahmi also questioned if parliamentarians also require a licence to broadcast via social media live video broadcasting features, like "Facebook Live".

"(Higher Education Minister) Noraini (Ahmad) invited students to use TikTok, does that require a licence?" he asked, referring to the short video competition which Noraini was criticised for promoting.

TikTok, a social media platform where users upload short videos, is popular among youths in Malaysia.

In 2019, four million users downloaded the application in Malaysia, with most being under the age of 30.

Meanwhile, Johor Bahru MP Akmal Nasir said the licence requirement would hurt young people who use social media as a creative outlet and to earn an income.

"As such, I urge the minister to reconsider this... At best, the Finas Act should be revised and Section 22 (1) of the act (which deals with licencing) is repealed," he said in a statement.
Thirty years ago, I began to research and refine a set of business-building strategies and personal growth techniques that helped me excel in direct sales. What I learned empowered me to co-found one of the worlds most trusted and respected wellbeing companies. - Isagenix Co-Founder Kathy Coover

To inspire independent distributors to create and achieve their direct selling goals, an industry expert is sharing her blueprint for success. In her new book, Resilient: Lessons Learned, Lives Changed, Isagenix International Co-Founder and Executive Vice President Kathy Coover details how she became a highly respected leader and entrepreneur.

Thirty years ago, I began to research and refine a set of business-building strategies and personal growth techniques that helped me excel in direct sales, Coover said. What I learned empowered me to co-found one of the worlds most trusted and respected wellbeing companies  one thats dedicated to helping people experience healthy, joyful, and abundant lives. Im thrilled to share my findings so independent distributors can create the lives they truly want.

Readers will find several key takeaways in Coovers book, including:



How to create bold and daring goals that help them elevate everything they do.

The daily benchmarks of success and how to achieve them.

How to distinguish between good ideas and great opportunities.

How to ask as if they expect to get a yes.

The secrets to success of 20 top Isagenix independent distributors.

Because Coover is passionate about giving back, shes donating proceeds from the book to the ISA Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization operated by Isagenix. The foundation focuses on healthy nutrition and support for underserved children, wellness education for all, aid for those affected by natural disasters, and the pursuit of racial equality. Since its inception in 2018, the ISA Foundation has awarded grants totaling $3.4 million to 79 nonprofit partners in the United States and Canada. Those grants have provided over 5 million meals, funded over 30,000 educational events, and served over 225,000 children and families worldwide.

Helping others is one of my greatest joys, so Im honored that this book can make an impact on people around the world who need the compassionate assistance our foundation partners provide, Coover said.

Resilient: Lessons Learned, Lives Changed is available in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada at KathyCoover.com. Cost is US$12.95 in the U.S. and Puerto Rico and CA$14.95 in Canada.

To learn more about Coover, visit KathyCoover.com, and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

To learn more about Isagenix, visit the Newsroom, like the company on Facebook, and follow it on Twitter and Instagram.

About Isagenix International

Established in 2002, Isagenix International believes that everyone deserves to experience a healthy, joyful, and abundant life. The global wellbeing company artfully crafts more than 175 effective products and offers a supportive community for its more than 425,000 customers worldwide. Isagenix shares its products through a network of independent distributors in 26 markets: the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, South Korea, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland. The private family-owned company has its world headquarters in Gilbert, Arizona. For more information, visit Isagenix.com.


Cancun recertifies its 10 Blue Flag beaches

Cancun, Q.R.  The municipality of Benito Juarez has recertified its Blue Flag beaches, reaching all 33 criteria in four categories including environmental information and water quality.

Cancun mayor Mara Lezama along with members of the Federal Terrestrial Maritime Zone (Zofemat), attended the recertification of the citys 10 Blue Flag beaches. Cancun beaches were found in full compliance with security and services in public areas, which include having lifeguards and a lifeguard tower for proper visual.

Compliance also requires that beaches are controlled by specific activities such as swimming, kitesurfing, waterboards, jet skis and boats, among others. The beaches must also outfitted with facilities for the disabled.

Cancun qualified to have all 10 beaches as Blue Flag

The Blue Flag badge is awarded by the European Foundation for Environmental Education. The Denmark-based organization has been operating since 1981, through a network of national non-profit organizations spanning more than 73 countries.
Pennsylvanias health secretary said Thursday she expects students will return to classrooms in August. However, Dr. Rachel Levine also said school reopening is closely tied to success in quelling the recent resurgence of cases, which is highly dependent on state residents wearing face masks and following other steps intended to slow the spread of COVID-19.

She said its critical to drive the case counts down now  in order for schools to reopen. If we dont do that now, we put [school reopening] in jeopardy.

Levine noted that some school districts are planning a combination of classroom and online education. She further said she expects the state will look at the situation county-by-county rather than make a state-wide decision.

She said were going to stay positive and optimistic that there will be in-person school when school opens in August, and well be working toward that.

Theres presently a state-wide order limiting indoor gatherings to no more than 25 people. But Levine said Thursday she expects exceptions will be made so the limit doesnt interfere with school functions such as cafeteria meals and busing students.

Levine said the state is working on guidance for schools to use when reopening.

Gov. Tom Wolf has said he would consider closing down schools if the resurgence of cases cant be brought under control. But he also said if, new infections remain rampant, many families will keep their children home, and many teachers and staff wont come to work, effectively closing schools even without a closing order.

Testing is potentially a key part of reopening schools, since it can detect people who may be carrying COVID-19 but arent feeling sick.

There are now major delays with test results in Pennsylvania, with much of it blamed on national labs being overwhelmed with tests from other states that are facing major outbreaks. However, Pennsylvanias state lab, which processes tests from high priority setting such as nursing homes, continues to deliver results in 24-48 hours, according to Levine.

Levine was asked Thursday whether school testing could be designated as a high priority, with tests handled by the state lab to ensure fast results.

She said the state lab might be able to handle tests from a school in a certain situation such as a possible outbreak, but the state lab is unable to handle school testing on a state-wide basis.

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Vidyut Jammwal was not worried about the consequences when he publicly expressed his disappointment on being excluded by Disney+ Hotstar for a special announcement of direct digital releases of seven Hindi films, which also included his movie Khuda Hafiz.

"A BIG announcement for sure! 7 films scheduled for release but only 5 are deemed worthy of representation. 2 films, receive no invitation or intimation. Its a long road ahead. THE CYCLE CONTINUES," Vidyut had shared at the time in a response to film trade analyst Taran Adarsh's tweet that featured the announcement news.

A BIG announcement for sure!! 7 films scheduled for release but only 5 are deemed worthy of representation. 2 films, receive no invitation or intimation. Its a long road ahead. THE CYCLE CONTINUES https://t.co/rWfHBy2d77  Vidyut Jammwal (@VidyutJammwal) June 29, 2020

Vidyut, who never shies away from speaking his mind, has now opened up about what really bothered him about the entire episode and why he decided to directly call out the platform on social media.

"The funny thing is that I woke up in the morning and I read that (Taran Adarsh's) tweet and I asked myself a question, 'Why have these guys (Disney+ Hotstar) not mentioned my name?' I swear to god the moment that thought came to me, I tweeted exactly what was conceived in my head. I just wanted an answer. And, divine played such a great role in the form of the Indian audiences. They responded much more than I'd expected. Though I hadn't even given it a thought whether it'd be positive or negative. That was the real achievement.

"I have been professionally raised in a ring since the age of 6. I'm used to being kicked, punched, slapped, and thrown out. But that doesn't affect me. I will not give up till the time it's all over. So for me, these things don't matter. I'm just moving in a direction. If I feel like saying something, I do. Like one of my fans recently tweeted, 'No tweet for Sushant (Singh Rajput)?' But my point is why should I tweet or who should I tweet for? His family is not reading the tweets. Also, everybody doesn't mourn the same way," said Vidyut.

Speaking up often comes at a great professional cost in the film business, but Vidyut seems unfazed by it as he says he has very different fears in life.

"I have so many other fears to deal with that these fears (losing out on projects) don't really matter. These are very common man's fears. I was chatting with my mother day before yesterday and I told her, 'I have met ambitious people in Mumbai and they are very ambitious, but I still want to tell you my ambition is bigger than anybody I have met till now.'

"I'm representing a martial art which is 3,000 years old. It's called Kalaripayattu. It's a mother of all martial arts. It's my responsibility to make sure that everybody at least knows about it. People can't even pronounce the name. In my 10 years of journey, at least some people now know about Kalaripayattu. So my ambition is to get this martial art the credibility that it deserves. These small things don't matter to me. I'm going on that path. When I started playing a henchman, I didn't think that 'Oh my god, I'm playing a henchman.' I was just doing my martial art and was promoting it through my films," Vidyut added.

Vidyut, who is one of the finest, most dynamic, and resourceful martial artists of this generation, is often pitted against Tiger Shroff, another popular action star in Bollywood. When asked if the comparisons bother him, considering he comes from a non-film background, the actor said, "When people applaud me I don't get influenced by it. They can't make me happy. They can't make me unhappy. This is how I am. I'm trained like this (martial art). I see people around me getting affected about everything whether it is outsider vs insider debate or something, but it doesn't affect me at all. I'm going on a journey which is my own and I won't let anyone decide whether I should be happy or unhappy."

The actor is currently gearing up for the digital release of Yaara, which is a crime drama that tests an enduring friendship among four notorious criminals. It also stars Amit Sadh, Vijay Varma, Shruti Haasan and Kenny Basumatary in lead roles.

Talking about the film, he said, "We were all cast according to the personalities that we are and it was quite easy because we were just being ourselves. We were having fun. I personally feel after Zindagi Naa Milegi Dobara, there weren't great movies about friendship. We don't normally make movies on friendship. So, every time somebody watches any of the characters in this film, they will resonate with somebody that they have. I'm very proud of what Tigmanshu has done. Also, everybody was more interested in working with Tigmanshu then thinking about what's going to happen. Because we all think that he's quite an institute in himself. There was so much to learn from him."

Yaara will stream on ZEE5 from July 30 onwards.
(ANSA) - ROME, 23 LUG - The government has approved a fresh 25 billion euro 'budget deviation' aimed at helping fund the post-COVID recovery.

The package will fund various moves.

These include the extension of the CIG redundancy fund to furlough workers; funding the school restart in September; rescheduling tax deadlines; and funding local bodies.

Despite the fresh deviation from parameters, the government reiterated a pledge to bring the deficit/GDP ratio back to the eurozone average.

Conte said the summit deal, sealed after five days of acrimonious debate with 'frugal" northern Europeans, was "historic" and made him feel proud to be Italian.

But cabinet has not yet formalised the extension of the COVID state of emergency.

Sources said there was a "substantive" accord on setting the date for the extension at October 31.

But officials have yet to establish what instruments can be used to extend premier's decree already issued.

Premier Giuseppe Conte is likely to report to parliament on t he deviation and Italy's budget goals next Tuesday.

The deviation comes after Italy got the largest chunk, 209 billion euros, of a 750 billion euro EU Recovery Fund to help COVID-hit economies.

For the fist time ever, the EU agreed to jointly borrow money to fund an emergency.

Italy is the hardest hit EU member with 35,000 deaths. (ANSA).


Eamon Ryan who has been re-elected as leader of Ireland's Green Party at the Brooks Hotel in Dublin with deputy leader Catherine Martin. PA Photo.

CLIMATE Action Minister Eamon Ryan has been re-elected as Green Party leader beating Media and Tourism Minister Catherine Martin in a vote of party members.

Mr Ryan won with 994 votes to Ms Martin's 946 votes. Turnout was 66.7pc.

The contest was triggered last month after Ms Martin, the party's deputy leader, accepted the endorsement of hundreds of Green members to challenge Mr Ryan who has led the party since 2011.

Expand Close Green Party leader Eamon Ryan (left) alongside deputy leader Catherine Martin (centre) and party candidate Joe OBrien. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Green Party leader Eamon Ryan (left) alongside deputy leader Catherine Martin (centre) and party candidate Joe OBrien.

The result was announced on Thursday evening at Brooks Hotel in central Dublin.

The result was much tighter than expected with just 48 votes separating the two candidates - reflecting what has been a divisive debate over the Greens' decision to enter government with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael last month.

Amid of raft of resignations from the party in recent days, Ms Martin urged members to get behind Mr Ryan while calling on her Cabinet colleague to reform the Greens' internal structures.

Mr Ryan acknowledged it was a tight outcome and said that he would reflect that in his approach to party in the coming years. "It was a really close result. There is no two ways about that. The result could have gone either way. I will reflect on that," the Dublin Bay South TD said.

Speaking afterwards, Ms Martin said the Greens "were stronger as a party" for having had the leadership debate and contest. She said Mr Ryan was strengthened by his "fresh mandate" and added: "I ask all members to fully and actively support you as leader. "

The Dublin Rathdown TD said there was no shortage of things in the party that needed change.

"I know you will listen to the frustrations and concerns that have been expressed and you will work with all of us to unite the party as we go forward," she said.

She said the party needed structural and cultural change to "unite and heal the divisions" that have been caused in recent months.

Ms Martin said the "most important thing we can do is stay together, stay united".

Earlier the Taoiseach and Tanaiste backed Mr Ryan to be re-elected as Green Party leader with Micheal Martin wishing him "best of luck", while Mr Varadkar added: "One upset for today would be enough."

The Government suffered a surprise defeat in the Dail earlier when its candidate for Leas Ceann Comhairle, Fine Gael TD Fergus O'Dowd, was defeated by Independent TD Catherine Connolly in a secret ballot.

Speaking to journalists after the result was announced, Mr Ryan said it was a "very close vote, couldn't have been closer" and that his opponent could easily have won.

Asked about Ms Martin's comments during the campaign that she would provide "a credible threat" to walk out of Government if Green Party policies were not being delivered, Mr Ryan said: "I think there is a crisis that we have responsibilities, if we can, [to] help address it. I can play hardball too.

"We were there last night negotiating with our partners in government and that's part of a respect for politics where you can still have differences but you can actually hold the line and then say 'no' on this issue or whatever issue... it isn't one or the other, I think it's a bit of both."

Mr Ryan declined to be drawn on whether the Greens vetoed proposals to cut capital gains tax in the July Stimulus Plan.

"I am not going to go into the details of what happened," he said.

Ms Martin said she would consider a future leadership bid given the tight nature of the result.

"I am always aware as a woman in politics, that I should never say no because I am always aware that somewhere out there a young girl is watching TV, so I would never say no to running for leadership or for office, because I want all girls, all women to know that the door are open, and sometimes in politics, you lose and sometimes that inspires you to run again," she said.

She said the party had to examine why it had lost "some very, very good members" and that reform was needed to ensure that members are valued.

Why are we losing good people, and what can we do to change that?  Maybe we have to reform the party in some way," she said.

Mr Ryan said he "deeply regretted" anyone leaving but the door was always open for them to come back.

Mr Ryan said he was open to the possibility of a co-leadership of the Green Party because there is an "absence of hierarchy in the style of our leadership".
Opponents of a 30-mile natural gas pipeline being laid in Monmouth, Ocean and Burlington counties have asked a court to halt all work on the project, after one of several horizontal drilling accidents along its route damaged a house and prompted state regulators to freeze the drilling permits.

A coalition of environmental groups and two municipalities along the route of the New Jersey Natural Gas pipeline through the states environmentally sensitive Pinelands region are suing to kill the project in a case now pending before the Appellate Division of state Superior Court.

In filing the motion for a stay  an order by the appellate court temporarily halting the work  the coalition last Friday cited a July 8 decision by the state Department of Environmental Protection to suspend more than 50 permits it had issued the gas company to conduct horizontal directional drilling, or HDD, below surface wetlands along the route of the pipeline, known as the Southern Reliability Link.

The coalition, which includes the New Jersey Sierra Club, the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, the City of Bordentown and Chesterfield Township in Burlington County, wants the court to issue the stay pending a final ruling in the case.

The gas company says the $180 million project is necessary as an alternative gas delivery system in the event of an emergency.

But the project has been opposed by residents along its route and environmentalists, some of whom insist the pipeline is actually an attempt by NJNG to boost its gas transport capacity as the fracking-driven natural gas boom in Pennsylvanias Marcellus Shale region continues.

The pipeline project was approved in 2017 by the DEP and the New Jersey Pinelands Commission under former Republican Gov. Chris Christie. The ongoing suit seeks to overturn the DEP and Pinelands Commission approvals.

Under Christies Democratic successor, Gov. Phil Murphy, the DEP suspended the drilling permits pending an investigation of at least eight mishaps in 2019 and 2020.

In addition to the drilling mishaps, opponents of the project also cited a sink hole that opened up on June 26 along the pipeline route in New Egypt, in Ocean County.

Most notably, on June 19, a drilling mishap sent sludge-like fluid, known as drilling mud, under a house in Upper Freehold Township, cracking the foundation and prompting the houses condemnation. Sludge was also forced up to the surface and into a stream bed. Drilling on the site was halted while officials investigated the incident, and the DEP later suspended all of the projects drilling permits.

Barbara Fox Cooper of Upper Freehold Township leaving her home after being told it was uninhabitable due to damage to its foundation caused by a mishap during horizontal drilling for natural gas pipeline project.Sierra Club

A spokesman for New Jersey Natural Gas, Kevin Roberts, issued a statement Tuesday rejecting pipeline opponents rationale for requesting the stay. The statement insisted the companys response to the drilling incidents, was quick, fully in line with our response and mitigation plans, and conducted with the oversight of DEP officials.

Drilling activity remains suspended, and we continue to work collaboratively with the DEP and Burlington County Engineer to provide the information theyve requested, including steps we are taking to strengthen our mitigation and prevention efforts for the projects few remaining drilling locations, the statement read.

The type of incident in question is known in the industry as an inadvertent return, when a sludge-like mixture used to facilitate the drilling escapes from the bore cavity into cracks in the subterranean bedrock and returns to the surface, or travels elsewhere. NJNG has insisted that the drilling mud they use is a non-toxic, organic mix of water and clay.

Environmentalists call the incident a spill, and insist that the sludge, toxic or not, is harmful to the plants, wildlife or structures it disturbs.

Ironically, the June 19 incident sent sludge into the very wetlands the gas company and the DEP were trying not to disturb by employing horizontal drilling in that location, thus avoiding having to dig a conventional surface trench to lay the 24-inch-diameter pipe. Trench digging is the method used along most of the pipelines route, which is about two-thirds dug, with several proposed drilling sites remaining.

We said all along this could happen along the route, the Sierra Clubs director, Jeff Tittel, said in a statement Wednesday. This is the wrong pipeline in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend:

Deputy Foreign Minister of Turkmenistan Berdiniyaz Matiyev and Deputy Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Bahrain for International Affairs, Sheikh Abdulla bin Ahmed bin Abdullah Al Khalifa held a videoconference on July 22, 2020, Trend reports with reference to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan.

The sides discussed the possibility of expanding cooperation between the business circles of the two countries, including attracting investment, holding business forums, and developing partnership in the oil and gas industry.

The parties also discussed issues of bilateral cooperation in the political, trade, economic, cultural and humanitarian fields, as well as inter-parliamentary cooperation and opportunities for expanding it.

The importance of the Joint Intergovernmental Turkmen-Bahrain Commission for Economic, Trade and Scientific-Technical Cooperation was noted.

The parties also noted the positive experience of cooperation within international organizations, in particular within the UN, and touched upon implementation of the agreements reached earlier during the consultations of the foreign Ministers of Turkmenistan and Bahrain.

As it was reported earlier, the representatives of Turkmenistan and Bahrain held a meeting on July 7, 2020.

During last meeting, the parties focused on the cooperation in such areas as energy sector and chemical industry.

In this context, the ministers discussed the possibility of holding online meetings of representatives of various state and private structures of Turkmenistan and Bahrain.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @JeilaAliyeva
To promote transparency and out of respect for the rule of law and separation of powers, especially now that we have passed the early stages of the epidemic, the governor should have the support of the General Assembly. As the representatives of the people, the General Assembly should have a say in the regulation of behavior and whether there is a criminal element to violating an order issued by the governor, according to the advisory opinion.
People will get money back for holidaying in Ireland in the form of a tax credit or rebate.

Domestic holidaymakers will receive 125 back on roughly 600 spent on accommodation and restaurant bills.

It is the way the Government has decided to proceed with supports for the tourism sector as the July stimulus is to be launched this afternoon, following a cabinet meeting in Dublin Castle.

It is expected both the Pandemic Unemployment Payment and the Temporary Wage Subsidy scheme will be extended until April next year.

The unemployment payment will be reduced in September to 300 a week, and further evaluated early next year. The structure of the wage subsidy scheme is likely to be changed and reduced over time as well.

Minister of State for Trade, Robert Troy, confirms the payments will not end at next month's deadline:

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What well see later on today is the commitment to extend the wage subsidy and to ensure that some of the anomalies that have been thrown off in relation to businesses that can avail of that subsidy will be ironed out.

Well see an acknowledgement that the restart grants that was introduced previously wasnt big enough. Well see a focus on apprenticeships, retraining, upskilling.

The stimulus package is expected to be in excess of 7 billion and will include funding for most departments.

It is likely to include significant funds for the retrofitting of schools, colleges and hospitals to allow them to reopen with social distancing guidelines.

There will also be significant business supports in the form of increased restart grants and access to low cost loans through the credit guarantee scheme.
Former Finance Minister Seth Terkper, says the Akufo-Addo administration is trying to use the COVID-19 pandemic to paint a deteriorating economy.

Speaking on Citi TVs The Point of View, Mr. Terkper challenged the government to come clean on the distinct stresses on the economy during the mid-year budget later today, Thursday.

I am not downplaying COVID-19. I need to be very clear on this, but I am saying that a lot was happening already [to the economy].

The government notably said the pandemic would cost the state over GHS 9 billion and Mr. Terkper, held that this would account for 2 out of about 10 percent of Ghanas budget deficit.

The International Monetary Fund had predicted that Ghana budget deficit would be above 7 percent in December 2019 . The estimate went up by 2 percent in March 2020.

The former Finance Minister noted recent financial support like the $1 billion IMF Rapid Credit Facility to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Ghana's economy as contributing to the deficit.

Mr. Terkper criticised this particular facility as a return to the IMF despite the governments assertions that it had moved beyond the IMF.

U-turn on relationship with IMF

He also felt the move for IMF support was too quick given the claims that the economy was being well managed.

Why did we make a u-turn after we exited the IMF. Exit means that you wont go to the IMF for a programme. We went to the IMF in March, very early into COVID.

The question we should ask is why didn't other African countries rush to go to the IMF in March and April? According to the government, we had a stronger economy that other African countries and we were comparing ourselves.

He thus feels the government is primed to use the pandemic as an excuse to cover the deficit

the gap which I am talking about from Article IV [IMF assessment in December 2019] as a result of the adjustments which you are talking about.

If you are going to say the deficit is 10 percet or 9 percent, don't say it is all on account of COVID, Mr. Terkper said.

---citinewsroom
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

Trend:

Nearly 40 Azerbaijanis living abroad were injured as a result of provocations organized by radical representatives of Armenian diaspora, managed by international Armenian extremist organizations and supported by the Armenian government, Trend reports referring to a statement from State Committee on Work with Diaspora.

The provocations were carried out in Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, the US (Washington and Los Angeles), Georgia, Turkey and Ukraine.

"Despite the fact that in most cases the police authorities in these countries were pre-notified of the aggressive intentions of Armenian extremists, they did not take the necessary security measures. This was especially evident in the provocations organized in Los Angeles and Brussels," said the statement.

As a result of the radicals uncontrolled aggression, 10 of the Azerbaijanis suffered in Belgium, four of whom were hospitalized, including one media representative. About 30 of the Azerbaijanis were injured in Los Angeles (five were hospitalized, including one woman).

Moreover, in Poland, the Netherlands and France, reacting to suppression of the Armenian armed forces by Azerbaijani army on the line of contact during the recent clashes, the radicals threw bottles, stones, glass shards and explosion packages at the Azerbaijanis, tried to overturn their cars, significantly damaged the buildings of the diplomatic missions of Azerbaijan.
China Considers Closing US Consulate in Wuhan, Reports Claim

Sputnik News

09:40 GMT 22.07.2020(updated 10:38 GMT 22.07.2020)

Earlier in the day, the Global Times editor-in-chief wrote on Twitter that the US government had ordered the closure of China's Consulate General in Houston. The US State Department said that move was aimed to 'protect American intellectual property'.

China is considering shutting down the US consulate in Wuhan in retaliation for Washington's order to close the Chinese diplomatic mission in Houston, Reuters reported on Wednesday citing a person familiar with the matter.

Earlier in the day, the Chinese Foreign Ministry urged the United States to immediately override the decision to close the consulate.

The Foreign Ministry's spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, slammed the move as a "unilateral provocation" and "a grave violation of international law". Wang warned that Beijing would certainly retaliate unless the US reverses its decision.

Earlier in the day, the Global Times editor-in-chief wrote on Twitter that the US government is ordering the closure of the diplomatic mission within 72 hours. The US State Department later announced that the closure sought to 'protect American intellectual property'.

US-China relations have significantly soured in the past few years with Washington accusing Beijing of unfair trade practices, a poor response to the coronavirus outbreak, human rights violations and unwarranted territorial disputes with neighboring countries. China has denied the accusations and criticised the United States for various violations of international law.

A Sputnik

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(Photo : MIT) MIT Engineers Created a Reusable, Silicone Rubber Face Mask (Photo : MIT) Unlike N95 masks, the new masks can be easily sterilized and used many times. This image shows photos of the mask (A and B) and the steps needed to clean and reuse the mask.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineers have created a reusable face mask, which they claim to have the same efficacy as the N95 masks.

The MIT engineers worked with Brigham and Women's Hospital to design the Injection Molded Autoclavable, Scalable, Conformable (iMASC). It can be used multiple times after simple sterilization.

Like the N95, iMASC is made of silicone rubber and uses polypropylene fibers, which are specially designed to filter out tiny viral particles. It only uses two round replaceable filters in the front of the mask, so less material is required.

Moreover, research engineer Adam Wentworth wrote in a press release that the iMASC uses a lot less material compared to an N95 mask. "The filters can be popped in and then thrown away after use," he said

With heightened demand for N95 respirators during the coronavirus pandemic, the supply of medical-grade face masks has always been a concern, particularly as some states and countries have now made wearing masks mandatory. Unfortunately, some health workers are forced to wear single-use masks for days due to lack of supply.

"One of the key things we recognized early on was that in order to help meet the demand," said MIT Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Giovanni Traverso who is also the lead author of the research. He also said they want to restrict themselves to methods to scale down the iMASC while maximizing its reusability.

Moreover, the researchers wanted to produce a mask that can be sanitized tried various ways, so they tried cleaning the iMASC by autoclaving as well as soaking it in a bleach solution and isopropyl alcohol.

The iMASC research was funded by the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering, Brigham and Women's Hospital, the National Institutes of Health, Gilead Sciences, Philips Biosensing, E-Ink Corporation as well as the Prostate Cancer Foundation and Hans and Mavis Lopater Psychosocial Foundation.

iMASC passed the test

To check if the iMASC works, 20 health professionals were put in a hood where an aerosolized sugary solution has been sprayed from time to time. The subjects were asked to perform some breathing exercises and head movements.

Throughout the test, none of the subjects have tasted the solution while nearly all of them rated the breathability of the masks as either excellent or good. Also, 60% of the subjects said they are willing to trade the wearing of iMASC to an N95 or surgical mask.

One of the lead authors James Byrne, a radiation oncologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, said that there will always be a need for masks, either in the health care setting or in public. "We know that COVID is not going away until a vaccine is prevalent," he added.

The iMASC will still undergo further testing and approval from the Food and Drug Administration as well as the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health before it can reach the market.

Meanwhile, the MIT engineers are currently working on improving the iMASC based on feedback from healthcare workers. They are also looking for a partner company to support its production once it is approved.

Read also: Your COVID-19 Facemask Might Come From China's Controversial Labor: What is Uighur Labor?

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Eight days after a two-year-old boy with special needs was reported missing from his family's home in California, local police said his parents have stopped cooperating with the investigation.

Officials with the Madera Police Department previously said they were investigating Thaddeus Sran's disappearance as a possible abduction and noted that the child could be in danger.

Thaddeus, who is non-verbal and has a feeding tube, was last seen at 10pm on July 14 at his family's home in the 800 block of C street in Madera.

He was reported missing the following morning after his parents woke up at 8.30am to find their child gone.

Police in California are searching for Thaddeus Sran, a 2-year-old special-needs boy who vanished on July 14 from his home in Madera. Cops say his parents are not cooperating

Officers are seen carrying out a grid search in Madera to try and locate the missing child

Police say they are not ruling out the possibility that the child had been abducted

Local police and other agencies, including the FBI, spent days scouring the neighborhood before calling off the search on Friday.

On Wednesday, the Madera Police Department released a statement, saying that Thaddeus' parents have stopped talking to them.

'Unfortunately, Thaddeus parents stopped cooperating early on in the investigation,' the update read. 'We believe their assistance in this case would be helpful. We are hopeful that they will resume cooperating with Madera Police Department detectives and help us to locate Thaddeus.'

The family's next-door neighbor Ermelanto Espinoza told ABC30 in Spanish the Srans had moved into the neighborhood about two weeks before Thaddeus was reported missing.

Thaddeus' parents said they last saw their son at 10pm on July 14 at their home in the 800 block of C street in Madera, California

The family's next-door neighbor, Ermelanto Espinoza, said in the few weeks the Srans have lived on C Street, he never saw or heard Thaddeus,

Espinoza said during that time he never heard or saw the toddler, or his mother.

'I don't think the boy was ever here,' he said. 'I think the alleged abduction was elsewhere because I never saw anything.'

The neighbor, who gets up for work at 3am every morning, also recalled seeing lights turn on two or three times at the Sran residence on July 15.

'Maybe [the boy] he was sleeping, but someone was up,' he said.

On Tuesday, dozens of people gathered in Madera for a candlelight vigil for the missing child.

One of the attendees at the event was Sunndeep Sran, a relative of the missing boy, who told ABC30 that she has never met the two-year-old in person and has not heard anything from the boy's parents in months.

'They're really private, and I don't know why they are not speaking out,' she said.

Police said the Sran family had another daughter who died in Madera a few years ago, but they have not shared any additional information concerning the circumstances of that child's death.

Thaddeus, who was born prematurely, has only recently learned to walk and still mostly crawls. He was last seen wearing a red shirt with Spider-Man pants over a diaper.

The Sran family announced a $5,000 reward for information on the child's whereabouts.

Thaddeus had a premature birth and relies on a feeding tube to get nutrients

During a press conference last week, Madera Police Chief Dino Lawson said multiple agencies are assisting with the search for Thaddeus, including the FBI, US Marshals and the Madera County Sheriff's Department, reported Fox 26.

'Time isn't on our side right now,' said Chief Lawson. 'It could be that he got out of the house, it could be that he was abducted. Everything is on the table. We're looking at everything and we're leaving no stone unturned.'

No Amber Alert has been issued so far because police have no information on a possible suspect or a vehicle description.

'Everyone is concerned for Thaddeuss welfare, especially since he requires specialized care that few are equipped to provide,' Lawson stated.'

Thaddeus is described as two feet tall and weighing 30lbs. Anyone with information on his disappearance is being asked to contact the police at 559-675-4220.
Swiss engineering major ABB India on Thursday said that it has bagged an order to execute the country's largest process automation and safety system projects in the agro-chemical sector from Deccan Fine Chemicals. The company, however, didn't divulge the details about the value of this order.

This mission critical automation and safety system controls over 100 reactors at the largest multi-product plant, at their SEZ (special economic zone) facility in Tuni, Andhra Pradesh, ABB India said in a statement.

ABB said it will deliver these automation projects for Deccan Fine Chemicals - a leading chemical manufacturer in India.

Deccan Fine Chemicals currently has three manufacturing sites, each consisting of highly automated production plants, labs, warehousing facilities and advanced effluent treatment facilities.

ABB's offered solution is designed for both high availability and high fault tolerance by positioning the primary and back-up critical controllers and servers at two separate locations.

This design allows the system to flawlessly operate in case of immediately irreparable failure at any one geographical location, it said.

ABB said the Indian agrochemical market is pegged to reach $6.3 billion by 2020 as per a report jointly commissioned by PWC and Assocham, adding that automation and other digital technologies have demonstrated an ability to deliver increased efficiency and thereby enhance productivity for the sector.

Adoption of such digitalisation technologies can help agro-chemical companies accelerate their overall business, increase profit margins, and cater to the burgeoning demand, said G Balaji, Head - Energy Industries, Industrial Automation, ABB India.

Although ABB already automated all manufacturing operations, this is its first project wherein it is bringing over 100 reactors on to a single connected platform to control a new manufacturing block, as per Jagan Buddharaju, Chief Operating Officer, Deccan Fine Chemical.

This intelligent automation and safety system with high availability will improve product quality, process efficiency and reduce downtime. We are keen to partner with ABB to drive process efficiencies in our manufacturing operations, he said.
Two white students are behind a federal lawsuit that claims they were unfairly denied entry into the University of Texas at Austin on account of their race.

The lawsuit by the non-profit Students for Fair Admissions, was filed Monday and claims that the Universitys use of racial preferences in admissions violates the 14th Amendment, federal civil rights laws and Texas law.

The lawsuit says 'at least two members' applied and were denied undergraduate admission to University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin) in 2018 and 2019. The suit doesnt name the students.

The applicants ended up going to different schools in Texas and are 'ready and able to apply to transfer to UT-Austin when it stops discriminating against applicants on the basis of race and ethnicity,' the complaint says.

UT-Austin says it uses a holistic admissions process in accepting students, including the consideration of race to build a diverse student body, and 40 percent of the 2019 student body was white.

Students for Fair Admissions claims to have more than 20,000 members, including students, parents, and others who believe considering race in a college admissions is unfair and unconstitutional.

On Monday the Students for Fair Admissions filed a lawsuit against the University of Texas at Austin against their race-consideration policy. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two white students who applied and were denied undergraduate admission at UT in 2018 and 2019

The group filed a similar case against the UT-Austin in 2018 but it was recently dismissed, according to The Statesman. The organization also sued officials at Harvard University, but last fall a federal judge upheld Harvards race-conscious admissions policy saying it was constitutional.

According to a survey of UT-Austin's Fall 2019 student body 38.8 percent of the student body was white, the largest demographic at the school. Among the student profile 24.4 percent was Hispanic, 22.6 percent Asian, 5.1 percent black, and 5.2 percent foreign.

For the fall 2018 into spring 2019 school year there were 40,804 undergraduate students enrolled.

The lawsuit names over a dozen UT-Austin officials as defendants including James B. Milliken, the chancellor of the UT System, and Jay Hartzell, the schools interim president.

The organization is seeking a permanent injunction barring UT-Austin leaders from using race as a factor in future undergraduate admissions.

UT-Austin has been the hit with several major legal challenges regarding the consideration of race and ethnicity in college admissions.

UT-Austin says it uses a holistic admissions process in accepting students, including the consideration of race to build a diverse student body, and 40 percent of the 2019 student body was white in the fall 2019 semester undergraduate class

Fisher vs. University Texas in 2013 and 2016 that saw the US Supreme Court rule that UTs limited use of race in admissions was constitutional.

'The Supreme Court decision in the Fisher case affirmed UT-Austin's efforts to develop a diverse student body that brings with it educational benefits for all students. The university believes diversity is essential to carry out its public mission and that the educational benefits of diversity for all students enhance UT-Austin, the higher education community, and the nation,' the school says on its website on that ruling.

But in Mondays lawsuit Students for Fair Admissions accuse the university of failing to meets its obligation in the 2016 Fisher ruling to continue to scrutinize the use of race in their admissions process.

The lawsuit names over a dozen UT-Austin officials as defendants including James B. Milliken (left), the chancellor of the UT System, and Jay Hartzell (right), the schools interim president

In the Fisher Vs. UT-Austin case of 2013 Plaintiffs Abigail Noel Fisher and Rachel Multer Michalewicz claimed they were denied admission into the school based on their race. That case went up to the Supreme Court, which sided with the school and said their consideration of race in admissions is constitutional. Fisher pictured in 2012

'The Supreme Court did not give the University of Texas a blank check to use race-based preferences in perpetuity, and the university has failed its obligation to reexamine its policies,' Edward Blum, the president of the organization said, in the lawsuit.

UT-Austin's spokesman J.B. Bird says the university is reviewing the new lawsuit.

'We agreed with the judges decision to dismiss SFFAs previous lawsuit, and we remain confident in the lawfulness and constitutionality of UT Austins holistic admissions policy, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in 2016,' he said in a statement.

The lawsuit comes just one week after the school announced new measures to recruit, support and retain non-white students at the school in an effort to reach out to underrepresented students across Texas and improve education opportunities for historically marginazlied students.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a hard hit for many. But with businesses forced to close for months at a time, it seems Black-owned businesses in Indianapolis were especially affected.

Local Black business owners are using these tough times as an opportunity to uplift other fellow Black businesses in the city. From hosting podcasts, social media blasts and creating online directories, these are just a few of the initiatives local business owners have undertaken to help one another. While initiatives such as these arent new, COVID-19 has resulted in a new urgency.

I created a form to get a little more information from our Black-owned businesses, and what I got back was very eye opening, said Tamara Cypress, founder of the #BlackBusinessesMatter campaign in Indy. Forty-two percent said that they needed help with websites, 57% said they needed help with social media, and over 60% said theyre not certified with the city.

The statistics on a nationwide level may also be seen as concerning.

The Washington Post reported this year the number of working African American business owners in the United States plummeted more than 40% as COVID-19 shut down much of the economy  a far steeper drop than other racial groups experienced.

Cypress, like others, knew that something needed to be done. In partnership with the Indianapolis Urban League, the campaign entails weekly podcasts that showcase local Black businesses.

This is truly a passion campaign, intended to help, uplift and advocate for Black businesses, Cypress added.

In a similar way, the Indy Black Chamber is also giving Black-owned businesses a shoutout in a partnership with WRTV.

Every Friday, anywhere between one to four businesses are featured on the Indy Black Chambers Facebook page. These businesses are also featured on WRTVs Facebook page and in the Hiring Hoosiers, Were Open Indy and The Rebound: Indiana sections of its website.

We have a phone number available for viewers to call in and purchase things during the Facebook Live, said Anita Williams, vice chair of Indy Black Chamber. Thats whats important right now: purchases need to be made so that they can stay in business.

Bunmi Akintomide, founder of Shop Black Indy, is also using his platform to make local Black-owned businesses easily accessible.

Shop Black Indy, an online directory featuring Indys Black-owned businesses, is rapidly growing. As of July, the website features over 200 businesses.

I noticed a gap, and I wanted to make it easy for Black-owned businesses to be recognized, found and searched for, said Akintomide. Between June 1 and July 17, weve had almost 4,000 users on the website, from all over.

Akintomide uses both personal and social media networks to seek out new businesses to add to the directory, but Black business owners can also register on the website, ShopBlackIndy.com.

Despite the differences in the outlets used to promote Black businesses, local business owners have made it clear that all hands must be on deck to ensure the growth of a city-wide, Black-owned business network.

All of our contributions together will help change the trajectory and change the narrative, Cypress said. We need everyone working together at the same time to make those real, equitable changes that we seek.

Contact newsroom intern Mikaili Azziz at 317-924-5143. Follow her on Twitter @mikailiazziz.

Support Black businesses in Indy

Interested in supporting Black-owned businesses? Various initiatives are underway in Indy in an effort to promote Black businesses.

Shop Black Indy: Online database featuring over 200 Black-owned businesses in Indy. To register your business or search for local Black businesses, visit the website.

Indy Black Chamber of Commerce: Five-year-old organization created to help educate, enhance and develop Black businesses. For more information, visit their Facebook page.

#BlackBusinessesMatter: Multi-faceted marketing campaign designed to serve and advocate for Black businesses. For more information, visit their Facebook page.
CAIRO  In a July 15 press release, Google announced the launch of a new tool that uses artificial intelligence to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs and translate them into Arabic and English.

Google said that the tool, dubbed Fabricius, provides an interactive experience for people from all over the world to learn about hieroglyphics, in addition to supporting and facilitating the efforts of Egyptologists and raising awareness about the history and heritage of ancient Egyptian civilization.

We are very excited to be launching this new tool that can make it easier to access and learn about the rich culture of ancient Egypt. For over a decade, Google has been capturing imagery of cultural and historical landmarks across the region, Chance Coughenour, program manager at Google Arts and Culture, said in the statement.

Fabricius is available for free on the Google Arts and Culture platform, which encourages users to learn about arts, heritage and cultural landmarks from over 2,000 cultural institutions around the world. Anyone can interact with and explore these landmarks and treasures through virtual or augmented reality technologies, in addition to high-quality images and other interactive experiences.

Google explained that the tool seeks to facilitate the process of collecting, indexing and understanding the hieroglyphic symbols using machine learning, as well as help Egyptologists in translating hieroglyphics into English and Arabic. It also provides an opportunity for people around the world to write and share letters written in hieroglyphics.

Hieroglyphs appear in one of the writing systems of the ancient Egyptians. They were used in temples and tombs along with other forms of writing such as hieratic, demotic and Coptic. Hieroglyphic symbols remained mysterious in the modern era until the Rosetta Stone was deciphered by French scholar Jean-Francois Champollion in August 1799, opening up ancient Egyptian history.

In a July 15 BBC report, Roland Enmarch, a senior lecturer in Egyptology at the University of Liverpool, said of Fabricius, While impressive, it is not yet at the point where it replaces the need for a highly trained expert in reading ancient inscriptions, adding, There remain some very big obstacles to reading hieroglyphs, because they are handcrafted and vary enormously over time in level of pictorial detail and between individual carvers/painters.

Alaa Shaheen, former dean of the Faculty of Archeology at Cairo University, told Al-Monitor over the phone, This is a good idea, provided that the translation from hieroglyphic to English is done professionally, without any misrepresentation.

He added, Hieroglyphics is not a language in itself, but it is a form of calligraphy expressing the ancient Egyptian language that was used by senior statesmen along with other forms such as hieratic and demotic that were used by the common people. The Google tool will draw attention to the ancient Egyptian civilization and help introduce it to the world, as it encourages others from different countries to appreciate ancient Egyptian texts.

Shaheen went on, Although there is no objection to using technology to introduce ordinary people to this language, it cannot replace scholars specializing in deciphering ancient Egyptian languages. He further pointed out that Egyptologists still face difficulties in interpreting some texts due to environmental factors and incomplete artifacts that require substantial research.

Bassam al-Shammaa, a tour guide and an author specialized in Egyptology, told Al-Monitor over the phone, Launching such a tool and Googles interest in hieroglyphics is a historical step.

He added, Some websites already offer translation services from hieroglyphics to several languages, including Arabic, but Google will have a special advantage, as it is the largest search engine used by millions of people around the world, and it will urge many to use the tool and experiment out of curiosity.

He noted, This tool will make a difference for people who are not specialists but rather have basic hieroglyphic knowledge such as tour guides.

In 2015, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, affiliated with the Egyptian government, launched the Hieroglyphic Step by Step website to teach the ancient Egyptian writing system, targeting university students and interested others. The website also hosts scientific texts in both Arabic And English.

Shammaa continued, Providing an audio service along with translation to help users properly pronounce translated hieroglyphs and not just write them would be a beneficial addition to [Googles] tool.

He added, Translating hieroglyphs could serve as a gateway for translating  hieratic and demotic, which are also writing systems of the ancient Egyptian language, as well as the Nubian language, which was used in Egypts far south as code during the war between Egypt and Israel in 1973.

Shammaa noted, The secrets of civilizations lie in the deep, dark webs of their languages.
The imam of a major mosque in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has refuted a U.S. claim that the welcome plaque of the mosque has disappeared.



The plaque, originally hung over the entrance of the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar, southern Xinjiang, has been put on an outer wall of the main prayer hall inside the mosque after repair works, said Memet Jume, imam of the mosque with a history of more than 500 years.

The U.S. embassy in China recently alleged on its Twitter account that the historic Id Kah Mosque's welcome plaque with a history of over 100 years is gone.

"The U.S. allegation does not accord with the facts," said Memet Jume. The welcome plaque, 2.7 meters long and 1.3 meters wide, was made and put into use in 1982.

The characters and patterns on the plaque had faded and sustained damage due to years of exposure to wind and the sunshine, he said. In 2017, the plague was renovated together with other facilities in the mosque.

The renovated plaque was moved to its current place with a large canopy to keep it from being exposed to the weather, he explained.

Thanks to the support of the government, the well-equipped mosque boasts air-conditioners, stable supply of hot water, electricity, telecommunication facilities and firefighting equipment, among others, the imam said.

The Id Kah Mosque was listed as a key national cultural relics unit in 2001. Four major renovations have been carried out for the mosque, with the latest in 2011 when the Chinese government invested 11 million yuan (about 1.58 million U.S. dollars) for overall repair works while keeping its original appearance.

"Today, the mosque is bright and tidy, warm in winter and cool in summer. It is very comfortable for devotees to attend religious service in the mosque," said Memet Jume.
The idea that we live in a happy multicultural mosaic is one of Canadas boldest lies.

Vote-thirsty politicians constantly dog-whistle at emboldened white supremacists on the Canadian fringe. Institutions across the board are being exposed for mistreatment and neglect of racialized voices. Not even Parliament escapes scrutiny as Canadians saw footage of Jagmeet Singh, the NDPs brown and turbaned leader, getting kicked out of the House for calling out racism.

But the problem doesnt lie exclusively with white people. Rather, it has long metastasized into communities of colour that internalize discrimination in order to spew it at groups they see as inferior  usually Black Canadians.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in parts of the Chinese Canadian community, of which Im a proud member. While covering the election last fall, I ventured into neighbourhoods in Toronto filled with individuals of Chinese descent who, aside from the usual headaches over money, health care, or employment, were worried about illegal border crossers making their way onto their streets. They were clearly being fed that language by right-wing campaigners, but the pervasive fear showed how easy it is to capture people of colour with narratives that, though often rooted in racist untruths, galvanize a sense of superiority vis-a-vis those who dont belong.

Which brings us to the question of anti-Blackness in communities of colour. I think itd be hard to find a young person of Chinese descent in Canada who cant recount at least one instance of hearing an older member of their family repeat a well-worn anti-Black trope. It might not be routine dinner conversation, but it happens all the time. Slogans of underclass ideology are robotically repeated: Why dont they just work harder? Black parents have a problem raising their kids the right way. Or the popular, I came to this country with [insert small dollar amount]; dont talk to me about discrimination! And so on.

Part of the problem is internalizing an implicit hierarchy based on race that only gets reinforced by model minority ideals in a country that operates on white normality.

This leads to envious worship of those above you in the arbitrary ethnoracial hierarchy, along with contempt or fearful hatred of those who you think cant get to your level. The latter have always tended to have darker skin.

More optimistic activists may suggest that common experiences of discrimination should lead to people of different races (and from all walks of life) to automatically form political and social solidarity. Or that they naturally amount to a tangible political constituency because they all faced racism at some point. This is a naive assumption, even for people within the same race, which makes the current Black Lives Matter moment  spurred by the death of George Floyd  a valuable wake-up call.

Now more than ever is an opportunity for communities of colour, including the Chinese community, to question how their racist bias affects the world around them and why theres such widespread anger among the Black community. Its an uphill battle for progressive community organizations like the Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC), which have a history of advocacy against racism that extends into the COVID-19 era of anti-East Asian discrimination.

Their battle today will have to be led by youth, who have an opportunity to extend the broader conversation of racial and social justice into their neighbourhoods and, perhaps more importantly, into their homes.

Much of this comes down to genuine progressive engagement with newcomers  a task that, in contrast to years-long forays by Canadas conservative right, the political left is only beginning. The current opening to speak candidly about race and racism can help fill that vacuum, but only if civil society steps in on the ground level. Young people will, again, likely have to do the work of communicating, and even translating, to those who are unfamiliar with progressive narratives or vocabulary in an intelligible fashion.

In any case, the current hold of right-wing tropes and politics on significant swathes of the Chinese Canadian community (some of which have bled into alt-right territory) is not inevitable. The stereotype of wealthy, apolitical Chinese buying up land and condos can be challenged by engagement on universal issues of racial justice, among other progressive concerns.

It is necessary work for any era, but our time is one of fascist revanchism compounded by a pandemic and economic stagnation. More understanding between communities can be one of the few antidotes if collective solidarity leads to tangible successes in creating more equity in our institutions and accountability in our centres of power toward racialized people.
Judy Heumann remembers the day she went to register for kindergarten in 1952. Shed gotten dressed up and her mother had pulled her wheelchair up a flight of stairs before the principal intervened. Her disability, he said, meant she was not allowed to attend the school. Heumann had polio as a child, and it left her legs paralyzed and limited her use of her hands and arms. Throughout her time in the educational system, and after she graduated and became a teacher and activist, she had to fight for access at every turn.

Its totally different today, she says. Thats thanks in large part to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the civil rights legislation that was signed 30 years ago this month, on July 26, 1990. Under that transformative law, schools and workplaces are now required to have ramps, elevators, designated parking spots and curb cuts, and to provide accommodations for people with a range of disabilities, including those who are blind or deaf.

Taking inspiration and legal concepts from the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the ADA was designed to protect people with disabilities against discrimination and to ensure that they can participate fully in employment, state and local government services, public accommodations, transportation and telecommunications. The results today are powerful: most public buses have lifts for wheelchairs; disabled children attend school alongside their nondisabled peers; and employers are generally aware that people with disabilities have civil rights they cannot violate.

But if the 61 million Americans with disabilities are now less likely to confront the same problems that Heumann did decades ago, their fight for true equality is far from over. The ADA is ultimately a promise that has been tremendously impactful in some areas and has yet to be fulfilled in other areas, says Ari Neeman, a senior research associate at the Harvard Law School Project on Disability and the co-founder of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.

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The majority of disabled Americans still struggle to find jobs, most affordable housing is still not accessible, and disabled Americans as a group experience much higher rates of poverty and incarceration. The ways that the ADA and other disability-rights laws have been implemented often require navigating a host of bureaucratic mazes to access support. The ADA works in tandem with other laws, says Claudia Center, the legal director of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. Each step needs to be made inclusive and accessible, and thats a big project.

President George H.W. Bush signs the ADA in 1990 | Barry ThummaAP

The passage of the ADA was decades in the making, built on years of grassroots advocacy, campus activism and the rise of the so-called Independent Living movement, which challenged the idea that disabled people should be relegated to institutions. In the 70s, people with disabilities won a major victory when the 1973 Rehabilitation Act banned recipients of federal funds from discriminating on the basis of disability. It took four more years, nationwide protests and a 28-day sit-inorganized in part by Heumannto implement regulations that truly enforced the law.

That work required that disabled people be able to come together to talk about what discrimination meant for different groups, how we as a community could be supportive of each other, learning about the forms of discrimination that we experience, learning about the kinds of alterations or accommodations that would need to be made, Heumann says. That advocacy laid the groundwork for what would become the ADA.

In the 1980s, Justin Dart, vice chair of the National Council on Disability (NCD), traveled the country holding public meetings and collecting stories of discrimination. After the NCD drafted an initial bill, Senator Lowell Weicker and Representative Tony Coelho introduced the ADA in 1988; it was later championed by Senators Tom Harkin, Ted Kennedy and Bob Dole. Even as the debates grew contentious and lawmakers moved to exclude people with AIDS or complained the bill would be too costly, advocates stuck together. Their unity ensured that the ADA would eventually protect people with disabilities of all kinds. As President George H.W. Bush said at the laws signing ceremony, It will guarantee fair and just access to the fruits of American life which we all must be able to enjoy.

After a generation of advocacy, Heumann says, the ADA felt like a crescendo.

But equality in theory does not mean equality in practice. Thirty years after the ADAs passage, violations abound. Disability-related complaints remain the largest category filed with the federal agencies that enforce fair housing and employment laws, and many businesses and institutions remain inaccessible.

At a more basic level, many disabled Americans say that while the ADA guaranteed them rights, it did little to address the historical inequities that have long pushed them to the margins of society. Children with disabilities are still less likely to graduate from high school and far less likely to attend college than their nondisabled peers. They are also disciplined more often in educational settings and overrepresented in the criminal-justice system, where prisons are rarely set up to accommodate their needs.

We have not really taken the concept of disability inclusion, of community support, of nondiscrimination and made that into programs and supports that prevent homelessness and incarceration, says Center.

Access to employment, one of the central promises of the ADA, is perhaps most out of reach. Disabled people are still roughly twice as likely as nondisabled Americans to be unemployed and to live in poverty, and these numbers have persisted over time. While employment rates had begun improving in recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic is reversing that trend. Workers with disabilities still face both overt discrimination and implicit bias, but another part of the problem, experts say, is that the Social Security benefit programs on which many disabled people rely come with restrictive eligibility requirements that can act as work disincentives.

People with disabilities have long advocated for changes in these policies, but the rest of the country has been slow to listen. Though 1 in 4 Americans has some sort of disability, they have historically split their support between the two main political parties. Inaccessible polling places also pose a problem, says Keri Gray, who oversees the American Association of People with Disabilities voter-registration and civic-engagement campaign. Theres this lack of creative thinking and problem solving that needs to happen, like, yesterday, for our country to be really effective, she says. Gray, who is Black, also argues that advocating for disabled peoples right to vote should go hand in hand with fighting for racial justicesomething the disability-rights movement hasnt always done, she says.

Though that, too, is improving. As younger activists like Gray, who was born the year the ADA was passed, take center stage, they are bringing new, more inclusive ideas about disability rights. Neeman, who is writing a book about the history of American disability advocacy, says the increase in people publicly embracing their disability as part of their identity has played an important role in shaping new public attitudes.

The COVID-19 pandemic is also playing a part. With tens of millions of Americans suddenly working and attending school remotely, and thousands experiencing lingering health problems, its become more commonplace to think about what it means to need accommodations, rely on friends and neighbors, and depend on government support.

Gray says she is grateful for the activists who came before her, like Heumann, who passed the ADA and helped frame the battle for disability protections as a fight for equal rights. It leaves us with this next call to action, Gray says. How can we continue to uplift this piece of legislation, and how can we think about what else needs to come after it?
By Trend

Azerbaijanis living in France held a rally as a sign of protest against Armenias latest provocations, Trend reports on July 22.

During the rally, Azerbaijanis with the Azerbaijani state flags in their hands chanted patriotic slogans.

The purpose of the rally was to draw the attention of the French public to the realities in connection with the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, as well as to expose the Armenian lies.

The video footage of this peaceful rally is available.

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The young Archduchess of Austria be seen beaming as she walks hand-in-hand into her reception after marrying her Belgian racing driver boyfriend in a series of new photographs released this week.

Eleonore von Habsburg, 26, whose full title is Archduchess of Austria, Royal Princess of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia, tied the knot with Formula E racer Jerome dAmbrosio, 34, on Monday at a registry office in Monaco, according to Hello! magazine.

Eleonore wore an off-the-shoulder white ruffled dress by designer Carolina Herrera and a discreet fascinator by Stephen Jones for the ceremony, which took place in front of an small group of family and friends.

Born in Salzburg, the glamorous model and socialite is the daughter of Archduke Karl von Habsburg - head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine and a leading politician - and his estranged wife, Baroness Francesca von Habsburg.

Another royal wedding! Eleonore von Habsburg, 26, married Formula E racer Jerome dAmbrosio, 34, in a small civil ceremony at a registry office in Monaco yesterday

New photographs have revealed the moment the couple exchanged rings, as well as signing the marriage register (pictured)

The newlyweds later joined guests at a reception, and appeared overjoyed as they walked into their outdoor lunch

This makes Eleonore the great-granddaughter of the last Emperor of Austria, Charles I of Austria, who reigned for two years until the monarchy was abolished at the end of the First World War.

At its height of power, the House of Habsburg was one of the leading and most influential rulers in Europe.

The couple had planned a large church wedding but due to coronavirus restrictions, they opted for a smaller civil ceremony at a registry office.

In photographs released of the wedding over the last few days, the loved-up couple can be seen beaming as they exchange rings during the ceremony.

Eleonore wowed in a stunning bright-white Carolina Herrera dress for the occasion, while Jerome opted for a smart navy shirt (pictured, left to right Ferdinand of Habsburg, Fiona Campbell-Walter, Archiduchess Francesca of Habsburg, Jerome d'Ambrosio, Eleonore of Habsburg, Archiduc Karl of Habsburg and Gloria of Habsburg)

The couple were joined by a small group of family and friends for the occasion (pictured, Mayor of Monaco Georges Marsan, Henri d'Ambrosio, Giselle d'Ambrosio, Jerome d'Ambrosio, Eleonore of Habsburg, Karl of Habsburg and Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza)

Meanwhile the small group of guests appeared to be socially-distanced from one another, with each donning a mask to watch the nuptials take place.

The wedding was attended only by their closest family members, with their sisters Gloria and Olivia acting as witnesses.

Eleonore appeared overjoyed as she signed the marriage register with her beau, before the duo posed for snaps with their family.

And later, the newly-weds could be seen beaming as they walked into their socially distanced wedding lunch.

Archiduc Karl of Habsburg, Ferdinand of Habsburg and Gloria of Habsburg were among the limited guests who attended the wedding at the registry office

Eleonore carried a small bouquet of flowers and an elegant blue fan during the ceremony on Monday

The loved-up Eleonore and Jerome could be seen gazing at one another during the wedding ceremony

Eleonore and Jerome invited a larger group of guests to celebrate their marriage at a the meal.

They plan to celebrate with a larger church wedding when restrictions have lifted further.

Despite Eleonore's royal connections, she previously told Madonna24 how her parents have always insisted that she and her siblings stay 'grounded' and she loves shopping in high street stalwarts such as Mango, Zara and H&M.

'I am incredibly grateful to my parents for not raising us in the belief that it is normal to go to Swiss boarding school and to live in London in a chic apartment,' she told the site.

The couple were joined by guests, who were asked to wear masks and socially distance while inside the wedding venue

Eleonore swept her hair into a half-up do, adding a Stephen Jones fascinator and small flower clips

The couple were joined by their closest family members for the nuptials, where their sisters Gloria and Olivia acted as witnesses

Eleonore has been dating dAmbrosio, 33, since early 2017 and has close links to the racing world with her brother, Ferdinand Habsburg, a DTM driver.

The eldest of three children, she attended boarding school in Gstaad, Switzerland before studying law at London's European Business School.

The brainy aristo beauty speaks fluent German and English, and is reportedly proficient in French and Spanish too.

And it seems fashion runs in the family as her mother, who descends from Swiss nobility, also enjoyed a brief spell as a model before pursuing a career as an art collector.

Later, the couple beamed as they joined a larger group of guests at a socially-distanced wedding reception

The newlyweds appeared overjoyed as they posed for photographs at their reception venue, where they were joined by a larger group of friends and family to celebrate their nuptials

The bride wowed in a crisp white off-the-shoulder gown from designer Carolina Herrera, and accessorised with a discreet fascinator by Stephen Jones and glittering drop earrings

It is not known whether she has pursued a career in law, however she has risen to prominence in the fashion world with high-profile campaigns for the likes of Dolce & Gabbana under her belt.

She was hand-picked to star in the Italian luxury label's SS18 runway show in Milan alongside other society beauties including Lady Kitty Spencer, Lady Amelia Windsor and Maria-Olympia of Greece and Denmark.

But she insists she does not have her sights set on modelling, telling Madonna24: 'It was a great experience - but the model business is definitely not my main career path.'

The couple beamed with happiness as they posed for wedding snaps at their reception venue by the sea in Monaco

Meanwhile Eleonore added a pop of colour to the outfit with an elegant hand fan, which featured playful tassel detailing

Eleonore is a keen jet-setter and regularly posts Instagram updates from far-flung destinations including Cambodia, Morocco and Argentina to name a few.

Based in Monaco, d'Ambrosio is also a brand ambassador for Hugo Boss and Julius Baer and has previously driven in the Formula 1 Grand Prix.

The couple announced their engagement in March 2019 after two years of dating.
(Newser)  Michael Cohen is getting out of prison earlyagain. A federal judge ordered President Trump's former attorney released by 2pm Friday and accused the government of retaliating against him, reports CNBC. Cohen had been furloughed in May over concerns about the coronavirus and ordered to serve out his sentence at his Manhattan residence. But he was abruptly sent back to prison on July 10 after refusing to sign a gag order prohibiting him from writing a book about Trump. On Thursday, US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled that the Bureau of Prisons treated Cohen unfairly with that decision, calling it retaliation against Cohen for planning an anti-Trump book before the election, per the AP.

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I make the finding that the purpose of transferring Mr. Cohen from furlough and home confinement to jail is retaliatory and its retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book and to discuss anything about the book or anything else he wants on social media and with others, Hellerstein said, per the Washington Post, which describes the overall ruling as "scathing." Cohen, 53, is more than one year into a three-year sentence for crimes including lying to Congress and campaign finance violations. (Read more Michael Cohen stories.)
New Delhi, July 23 : After the Supreme Court refused to interfere with the Rajasthan High Court hearing the plea of 19 rebels MLAs, led by former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, against a disqualification notice, the Congress is contemplating to go in for a floor test in the Assembly to establish its majority.

"Congress has a majority in the state and we have no doubt about it... we have 15 to 20 MLAs more than the opposition," said party's special observer for the state, Ajay Maken.

Addressing a press conference, he said that the "battle of Rajasthan is a political one and not legal", while claiming that "these days, we don't expect a judgement favourable for us".

Maken said that the state government headed by Ashok Gehlot may seek a floor test as there are two views in the party, with one holding that the party should wait for the High Court judgement but the other group wanting to go for a floor test, as if it proves its majority, no one can shake it for the next six months.

"Even the BJP is not demanding a floor test," he said, while slamming the Pilot camp for saying that the Gehlot government has lost its majority.

Maken said that the party has been repeatedly appealing to the Pilot camp to attend the CLP meet "but they are hobnobbing with the BJP". "The raids on the Chief Minister's brother proves this and the hospitality being taken in Haryana is a witness to their playing into the BJP's hands." The Congress leader also said that the leaked audio clips of a Union Minister also shows that the BJP has a hand in the Rajasthan crisis.

The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to accede to the Rajasthan Assembly Speaker's request to stay the High Court proceedings on Sachin Pilot and MLAs' petition against his notice, seeking to know why they should not be disqualified.

The apex court also allowed the High Court to pass an order on the matter on Friday, but said that it will be subject to the outcome of the proceedings in the top court.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-24 03:05:18|Editor: huaxia

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ROME, July 23 (Xinhua) -- U.S. online retailer Amazon and tech giant Apple on Thursday issued statements denying wrongdoing, a day after Italy's main competition regulator announced it had raided their Italian offices looking for evidence of anti-competitive behavior.

Italy's Authority for Competition and Markets announced it had carried out unannounced raids on the local offices of both Amazon and Apple, as part of a probe into whether the companies engaged in price-fixing for Apple-made products and those from headphone maker Beats.

According to a statement from the regulator, the companies are alleged to have artificially inflated prices on those products while making it more difficult for other retailers to sell the products at lower prices.

On Thursday, a statement from Amazon denied wrongdoing while stating the company was "fully collaborating" with Italian regulators. Apple's statement said the company obeyed applicable laws in all countries where it operated, including Italy.

The investigation is the latest in a series of regulatory threats against the companies in Europe. In June, the European Commission announced it had launched two separate probes into Apple for the rules it applies in its online App Store and with the Apple Pay platform.

Previously, both companies -- as well as social media powerhouse Facebook and Alphabet, Google's parent company -- reached settlements with Italian tax authorities after allegations of underpaying their tax bills in the country. Enditem
A Delhi court has sought reply from the Mandoli Jail authorities over not releasing a man though he got bail 15 days ago in two cases related to northeast Delhi riots, and said he was "unnecessarily getting harassed" for delay in verification of his bail bonds.

The court was hearing an application seeking status report on bail bonds of Suhail, who was granted relief on July 8 in cases related to rioting in Dayalpur area in February, during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Purushottam Pathak, in his July 22 order, directed the Station House Officer (SHO) of Krishna Nagar Police Station for expeditious verification of bail bonds paid by Suhail.

During the hearing held through video conferencing, Deputy Jail Superintendent of Mandoli prison told the court that the particulars of surety in one of the cases had been verified but the details of the other case were yet to be verified by the concerned police station.

The Deputy Jail Superintendent further informed that wireless messages were sent on July 14 and July 21 to the SHO of Krishna Nagar police station with intimation to Deputy Commissioner of Police of Shahdara.

The court was further informed that the duty officer of the concerned police station was also contacted for early verification.

In the FIRs, accused (Suhail) was granted bail on July 8 and had furnished bail bonds of sureties Athar and Iliyas in both the FIRs with FDRs of Rs 20,000 each to the concerned Jail Superintendent, Mandoli.

"The Jail Superintendent sent the bail bonds for verification. However, till date, applicant (Suhail) has not been released and is unnecessarily getting harassed just for verification report," the court said.

Suhail had furnished the bail bonds with the sureties on July 9 and the particulars were sent to the concerned police station on July 14, said his counsel advocate Nasir Ali.

Communal clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after violence between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled out of control leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.
HYDERABAD: Hyderabad city was once known as City of Lakes'. Now, most of the lakes are either encroached or vanished. However, in a heart-warming gesture, an entire school in Hyderabad has adopted a lake and are cleaning and saving it by raising funds on its own.

Meedikunta Lake is in Miyapur area on the western side of Hyderabad city. The pictures (before & after) of Meedikunta Lake are striking. A private school - Fountainhead School - near the lake took up the mantle to clean and restore the lake to its pristine beauty.

However, instead of approaching various government departments for funds, the school right from the management, teachers, students & parents decided to pool in contributions and started restoration work in the end of 2019 till March 2020 before the school closed due to Covid-19 lockdown.

As the rainy season started, freshwater began to fill into the lake making the sight more beautiful.

A Good school should always contribute in creating a good neighbourhood and impact the communities in many optimistic ways. I believe that our actions should speak to set an example for future generations,'' said Meghana Musunuri, founder & correspondent, Fountainhead Global School, who also contributed a major chunk of amount for this work.

Students on their part came up with the idea of hosting a 5K run among other initiatives to collect funds. The idea behind involving students on every step was to inculcate a sense of ownership in what they believe is the right thing to do.

As a Head Girl, I can say this initiative meant a lot to our students and was important as it is our first time doing something at this scale. I learnt how to constantly motivate my friends and the rest of our students, coordinate with teachers and parents, involve the neighbouring communities, presenting our project to collaborate with experts and raise awareness. We learnt many solutions to revive a lake but we choose one that would best suit our Urban lake. All this is not easy and it got more challenging due to COVID-19. But I am glad that we are able to continue the project and will be able to fully revive it in no time. I created a mascot and called it 'Cheruv' to protect the lake,'' Bilvoa Vunnam, student & Head Girl, said.

In a good show of solidarity, all the parents too joined the # Save Meedikunta Lake campaign.

Reviving lakes and water bodies are needed for our future generation and one such initiative we are proud to be a part. Can you believe this school has involved their own students not only to create awareness about the project but, also to raise funds for the same? They have taken efforts to understand the gravity of the problem and the impending need to save one such waterbody in Miyapur- the Meedikunta Lake," Sapna Karthik, parent, said.

Today, the lake has been cleaned, a bund has been created and further work to stop other contaminated water inlets are happening. It now looks serene and beautiful. And when the students return to school after the Covid-19 pandemic, they will have something to be proud of.
By Ayya Lmahamad

Some 1,114 citizens were fined during the past 24 hours across the country for violating the strict quarantine regime, the main traffic police department under the Ministry of Interior reported on July 23.

All 1,114 were fined according to Article 211.1 of the Code of Administrative Offences. Of them 1,010 were drivers who failed to follow the quarantine regime requirements and 104 were citizens not using facial masks in the public transport.

In the meantime, 345 cars, which had sought to leave these territories were stopped, and returned back during the reporting period.

Earlier, it was reported that 38,986 citizens were fined in the period of June 21 and July 20 for violating the quarantine regime, 635 drivers were fined during June 14-16 lockdown, while 2,524 drivers were fined during June 6-7 lockdown.

Azerbaijan first introduced quarantine regime on March 24, and on July 17 decision was taken to extend special quarantine regime until August 31.

On July 17, Cabinet of Ministers announced decision to prolong a strict quarantine regime till August 5.

The new lockdown imposed on July 20 to August 5 include Baku, Jalilabad, Ganja, Masalli, Sumgayit, Yevlakh cities and Absheron district, and Goranboy, Goygol, Mingachevir, Barda, Khachmaz, Siyazan and Sheki.

There is a change in the SMS permit system to control the citizens movement. According to the new rules, the duration of the permits have been extended from two to three hours.

The work of beauty salons and barber shops have also been resumed under the new rules.

The work of transportation, will remeain suspended over the weekends  on July 25-27 and August 1-3.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
The BBC has been urged to clarify its plans for Belfast amid fears the city could miss out on a 77m investment that would put it on a par with media centres such as Salford.

In an email seen by the Belfast Telegraph, the corporation's director-general Lord Hall confirms that an extension to Broadcasting House on Ormeau Avenue is now under review as pressure mounts from the financial impact of Covid-19.

The original project included a central hub and a new public plaza.

South Belfast SDLP MLA Matthew O'Toole, who has raised the matter with Lord Hall, urged the broadcaster to give more detail about what form an alternative project could take.

He said Belfast risks being overlooked for large-scale BBC investment, which has had a transformative effect on other locations, including Salford in Manchester, and Cardiff, where work on a new Broadcasting House was completed in October.

Mr O'Toole said: "I recognise there have been spending constraints on the BBC but I think we deserve more clarity."

He said he was concerned that the project, put on hold in May, would be low on the to-do list of new director-general Tim Davie, who takes over in September.

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"This is the kind of investment we desperately need in Belfast," he said.

"The BBC needs to be clear why Belfast and Northern Ireland is not getting the same level of investment as other regions."

Around 3,200 BBC staff were relocated to MediaCity UK in Salford in 2011 at a cost of 200m, with production of flagship programmes such as BBC Breakfast also moving there.

The BBC has been under financial pressure due to the pandemic, and has announced hundreds of job cuts across the UK, including 40 here out of total staff of 650.

It has also moved ahead on an earlier plan to cut free TV licences for the majority of over-75s.

In an email to Mr O'Toole, Lord Hall said: "It is correct that the BBC Board has deferred substantive development work on our Broadcasting House site in Belfast and has asked for these plans to be reviewed.

"This decision reflects the significant financial challenges facing the BBC and the more recent impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

"I can assure you that we are still working towards the enhancement of BBC technology and facilities in Northern Ireland and to putting in place the infrastructure that our services require, thereby ensuring their efficiency, flexibility and long-term sustainability.

"The formal review and updating of our plans for Broadcasting House Belfast are expected to conclude in early autumn 2020.The BBC Board will then consider next steps, including the quantum, phasing and prioritisation of additional investment."

In his letter to the director-general, Mr O'Toole said the investment would have given rise to a hub for skills and spurred other investment "as similar BBC capital projects have in Glasgow, Cardiff and Salford".

He added: "Given the seriousness of the economic situation and the likely challenges facing private sector investment, it is clearly in the interests of Belfast, and the broader economy in Northern Ireland, that this project proceeds.

"Indeed, at the time of launch, you yourself said that this "was another sign of our commitment to Northern Ireland".

A BBC spokesman echoed the views Lord Hall expressed to Mr O'Toole in his email.

He added: "Audience needs will remain at the core of our plans for the future and everything that we do will be informed by ongoing discussions with BBC staff and a broad cross-section of stakeholder organisations."

The BBC now says the Covid-19 crisis alone has cost it 125m.

NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet last month called on the Government to step forward to help the broadcaster "rather than inflict further cuts on an already financially challenged BBC".
The euro has risen against sterling to over 91 pence against sterling, potentially putting more pressure of small Irish companies which depend on selling goods and services at competitive rates into Britain.

The rise in the euro to over 90 pence has yet to match the worst times of the Brexit crisis in recent years when it appeared that Britain was intent on carrying out its threat to drop out of the EU without a transition deal.
The Republican coronavirus relief plan will extend enhanced unemployment insurance "based on approximately 70% wage replacement," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday.

The Treasury secretary also said a payroll tax holiday, which President Donald Trump has repeatedly pushed for, "won't be in the base bill." The president appeared to concede defeat on the issue in a tweet Thursday and blamed Democrats for sinking the proposal (though many Republicans on Capitol Hill also oppose a payroll tax cut).

Donald Trump tweet

Mnuchin spoke to CNBC about the state of negotiations hours after Senate Republicans and the Trump administration said they reached a tentative deal on legislation they say will serve as a starting point in talks with Democrats. Congress faces pressure to pass an aid package, as Covid-19 case and death counts rise around the country and the critical extra $600 per week unemployment benefit expires at the end of the month.

But Republican plans to release their plan as soon as Thursday appeared to hit a snag as they tried to craft legislative text, further adding to doubts about Congress' ability to provide immediate relief. Democrats hammered the GOP for a lack of urgency for a second straight day, and rejected the possibility of breaking a coronavirus package into more than one bill if lawmakers cannot reach a broad agreement in July.

"This is a package. We cannot piecemeal this," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters at a news conference with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. He added that "we're not going to take care of one portion of suffering people and leave everyone else hanging."

It is unclear how Republicans would structure the plan to provide 70% wage replacement. Lawmakers chose the $600 per week sum in the March rescue package because they decided outdated state unemployment systems could not handle processing payouts for 100% of a worker's previous wages.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the GOP was considering slashing the extra benefit from about $600 to $100 a week through the rest of the year, sources told CNBC. Negotiators had not made any final decisions at that time.
Cover via An America United

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, one of the Republican Party's top future presidential prospects, has a book out Tuesday, "Still Standing," that describes how seriously he considered challenging President Trump for re-election.

What he's saying: Hogan writes that he told them he had no interest in launching "a suicide mission" if he didn't think he had a prayer to win: "But a short, energetic campaign might be right up my alley. 'Im pretty good at retail politics,' I said."

"I'm not just wandering around the states hitchhiking," Hogan recalls joking to reporters in New Hampshire after a trip to Iowa.

Hogan says he waited for Trump to unleash a nickname:

"I assumed he would go with 'Fat Larry,' an obvious choice as I had admittedly put on some weight since my cancer battle. Or maybe 'Cancer Boy.' That would be a good one. But it didnt happen."

"I never attack the president personally," Hogan continues:

Never call him a name. Id really prefer not to talk about him at all. I stay focused on my job as governor. But when something rises to the level that I really disagree with, something thats just so offensive or that directly hurts the people of Maryland, I stand up and say something. ...

I'm respectful of President Trump. But unlike a lot of Republicans, I wont just stay silent, swear allegiance, and blindly toe the line.
By Emma Pinedo

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto said on Wednesday a resurgence in coronavirus cases in Catalonia was coming under control and she hoped there would be no need for France to close the border.

With the pandemic wreaking havoc on Spain's tourism industry, which accounts for about 12% of economic output, Madrid has voiced concern after French Prime Minister Jean Castex on Sunday did not rule out closing the border.

But Maroto told an event organised by Europa Press news agency she was optimstic after data showed infections in Catalonia had fallen over the past three days.

"Let's hope that with this better data we don't have to close a border that for us is very important for mobility with our European partners."

The wealthy northeastern region, which borders France, has been at the heart of a rebound in coronavirus cases since Spain lifted a nationwide lockdown one month ago

Nearly 7,000 cases have been logged there in the past 14 days, nearly half the nationwide total, though the rate has dropped sharply in the past days.

Catalonia registered 63 new cases on Tuesday, 70 on Monday and 994 on Sunday, down from a peak of 1,226 on Saturday.

Regional capital Barcelona cut the number of people allowed onto the city's beaches after crowds formed over the weekend despite advice to stay home.

However, Catalan leader Quim Torra ruled out returning to a strict lockdown, telling the regional parliament: "Catalonia can't be closed."

Elsewhere, Madrid's regional government said it could make face masks compulsory in all situations, even when social distance can be guaranteed, unless the central government imposed stricter controls on arrivals at the capital's Barajas airport.

"If the health ministry assumes its responsibilities...we can continue with the measures taken until now," deputy regional leader Ignacio Aguado said.

Madrid and the Canary Islands are the only Spanish regions that do not already have such a rule.

Story continues

Health Minister Salvador Illa told parliament there were 224 active coronavirus clusters in Spain, mostly linked to parties, family events and fruit harvesting.

The total death toll in Spain from the epidemic is 28,424 people, with more than 266,000 confirmed cases.

(Reporting by Emma Pinedo; Additional reporting by Joan Faus, Paola Luelmo and Jose Elias Rodriguez; Writing by Ingrid Melander and Nathan Allen; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
India to Deploy More Military Equipment to Border, as China Delays Disengagement in Ladakh

Sputnik News

13:41 GMT 22.07.2020

New Delhi (Sputnik): The border dispute between India and China worsened when the armies of both sides clashed on 15 June, leaving 20 Indian soldiers and an unconfirmed number of Chinese troops killed. While efforts have been made to disengage, India has beefed up its presence along the border.

India has reinforced its military assets along the border with China, as the complete withdrawal of Chinese troops from flash points in eastern Ladakh has not yet taken place.

New Delhi and Beijing have held several rounds of talks between army commanders and diplomats, but Beijing has not yet withdrawn its troops from either Pangong Tso or the Depsang Valley. According to government sources, Chinese troops are almost 8 kilometres deep inside Indian Territory in the Depsang Valley.

India had earlier deployed its short-range quick air missile defence system in Ladakh after radar stations tracked more combat helicopters and fighter jets from the Chinese People's Liberation Army and Air Force near the loosely demarcated Line of Actual Control.

Indian Air Force has also pressed into service its largest transport aircraft, the C-17 Globemaster to mobilise men and machines near one of the highest airfields in Ladakh.

New Delhi has also deployed the Indian variant of Boeing's P-8A Poseidon capable of anti-surface warfare, and undertaken intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions in Ladakh. According to government sources, it is also planning to station MiG-29K jets in the northern sector, while the recent acquisition of French Rafale fighter jets is set to be stationed at an airbase in northern India next week.

The sources said the military brass is considering deploying Indian Navy's MiG-29K fighter jets to a couple of air bases in the northern sector as part of efforts to increase synergy in dealing with national security challenges.

After the latest violent standoff with Beijing, New Delhi has been reviewing its acquisition plans. India has requested its suppliers in Russia, the US, Israel and France to expedite existing contracts.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh visited flashpoints in eastern Ladakh and assured the troops that they would be equipped with modern weapons.

The India-China border covers the 3,488 km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC), which is a land border in most regions, but in Pangong Tso in Eastern Ladakh it passes through a lake. India controls the western portion of the 45-km long lake, while the rest is under Chinese control. Most of the clashes between the two countries have taken place in the Galwan Valley.

A Sputnik

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Arcturus Therapeutics Holdings Inc., a leading clinical-stage messenger RNA medicines company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of therapeutics for rare diseases and vaccines, and Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore's flagship research-intensive graduate entry medical school, today announced that the Clinical Trial Application for COVID-19 vaccine candidate LUNAR-COV19 has been approved to proceed by the Singapore Health Sciences Authority. Arcturus and Duke-NUS partnered to develop a coronavirus vaccine using Arcturus' STARR technology and a unique platform developed at Duke-NUS allowing rapid screening of vaccines for potential effectiveness and safety.

Arcturus and Duke-NUS will initiate human dosing of LUNAR-COV19 as soon as possible. The healthy volunteer study will evaluate several dose levels of LUNAR-COV19 in up to 108 adults, including older adults. Follow-up will be conducted to evaluate safety, tolerability and the extent and duration of the humoral and cellular immune response.

The approval of the Clinical Trial Application for LUNAR-COV19 is a critical milestone for Arcturus. We are excited to advance this promising vaccine candidate into clinical trials. Based on our preclinical data, we believe that our self-replicating mRNA-based approach may produce high rates of seroconversion and robust T-cell induction with a potential single administration, at very low doses. The LUNAR-COV19 profile is meaningfully differentiated and may facilitate the mass vaccine campaigns necessary to target hundreds of millions of individuals globally." Joseph Payne, President and CEO of Arcturus

Professor Ooi Eng Eong, Deputy Director of the Emerging Infectious Diseases Program at Duke-NUS, said, "Preclinical studies on LUNAR-COV19 have shown very promising findings, including the possibility that a single dose of this vaccine may be sufficient to trigger robust and durable immune responses against SARS-CoV-2. We are very eager to start the first-in-human clinical trial here in Singapore and advance LUNAR-COV19 on its journey to becoming a potential commercial vaccine."

There is a tremendous global imperative to develop effective preventive measures for COVID-19 infections. We are heartened by the rapid and promising progress in our vaccine collaboration with Arcturus as we move forward into clinical trials." Professor Thomas M. Coffman, Dean of Duke-NUS Medical School

The STARR Technology platform employed in LUNAR-COV19 combines self-replicating mRNA with LUNAR, a proprietary nanoparticle delivery system optimized for mRNA molecules. The efficiency and self-replicating nature of the approach were designed to enable very low doses, and a potential single vaccine administration. Prior animal data has demonstrated robust humoral and cellular immunity elicited at doses as low as 0.2 g of LUNAR-COV19. Additionally, Arcturus demonstrated 100% seroconversion for anti-SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies with a very low single dose (2.0 g).

New preclinical data demonstrate that neutralising antibody levels in response to a single administration of LUNAR-COV19 (0.2, 2.0, 10.0 g) continue to increase over 50 days. The increasing antibody levels are attributed to the self-replicating mRNA of LUNAR-COV19. These results were obtained using a Luminex bead assay. A 1/2000 serum dilution was assayed for neutralizing IgG antibodies in the mouse serum every 10 days for 60 days post vaccination.
The top Democrat on the Senates Middle East panel isnt dropping the fight to force the Donald Trump administration to declassify the legal justification for the January drone strike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Iraq.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., is appealing to an interagency panel within the federal government thats tasked with reviewing declassification requests. Any member of the public may appeal to the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP) with a declassification request. But Murphys appeal marks the first time a lawmaker has turned to ISCAP to force the executive branch to declassify something.

Weve seen the Trump administration repeatedly classify information just because it is politically damaging to President Trump, and its up to Congress to stop it, Murphy said in a statement. The American people deserve to know why the Trump administration chose to kill Qasem Soleimani back in January, since this event had far-reaching consequences for US security. By hiding the legal rationale for this action, there can be no meaningful public debate about the wisdom of the strike.

Why it matters: The Trump administration claimed the Soleimani strike was legal as an act of imminent self-defense under Article II of the US Constitution as well as the 2002 military authorization to invade Iraq. After lawmakers had an opportunity to review the classified intelligence in January, Republicans largely sided with the president while Democrats maintained that Soleimani was not planning any imminent attacks on US interests, raising the prospect that the strike was illegal. Trump himself backed off the argument that Soleimani was planning an imminent attack when vetoing Congress Iran war powers resolution in May. Instead, Trump argued that the presidents Article II authorities allow him to take military action beyond instances of imminent self-defense.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers has also tangled with the Trump administration over the intelligence communitys refusal to declassify the report naming all Saudi officials complicit in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which could implicate Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Whats next: Murphy said he expects to hear back from ISCAP this fall. The agency consists of representatives from the departments of State, Defense and Justice, as well as the National Archives, the National Security Council and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. ISCAP has reviewed more than 2,400 documents between 1996 and 2015, declassifying information in more than 1,800 of them, according to George Washington University.

Know more: House Democrats have tied three provisions to restrict Trumps Middle East war powers to a key defense spending bill, Bryant Harris reports.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 23:47:50|Editor: huaxia

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KAMPALA, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Uganda on Thursday announced that it has recorded its first COVID-19-related death.

Henry Mwebesa, director general of health services at the ministry of health told reporters that the death case is a 34-year-old Ugandan female, resident of Namisindwa district in the eastern part of the country.

Mwebesa said before the death, the case presented with COVID-19-like signs and symptoms such as fever, dry cough, headache and difficulty in breathing.

The patient, who was admitted at a health facility on July 15, was treated for severe pneumonia.

The case was later transferred to a bigger health facility and isolated.

"While in isolation, the patient's condition deteriorated with difficulty in breathing, cough, chills and headache. Unfortunately, she passed away on Tuesday," Mwebesa said.

Joyce Moriku, minister of state in charge of primary healthcare earlier told Xinhua after the death was confirmed that citizens should follow strict anti-COVID-19 directives.

"People should take preventive measures seriously such as hand washing, social distancing and use of face mask," the minister said.

Uganda currently has 1,079 cases of COVID-19, 971 recoveries and one death case, according to the ministry of health. Enditem
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By The Associated Press

Jul. 22, 2020 | PORTLAND

By The Associated Press Jul. 22, 2020 | 05:43 AM | PORTLAND

The Trump administration is facing growing pushback  in the courts and on the streets  to sending federal agents to Portland, Oregon, where protests have spiraled into violence, and vowing to do the same in other Democratic-led cities.



Far from tamping down the unrest that followed George Floyds death at the hands of Minneapolis police, the presence of federal agents on the streets of progressive Portland  and particularly allegations they have whisked people away in unmarked cars without probable cause  has energized two months of nightly protests that had begun to devolve into smaller, chaotic crowds.



President Donald Trump's administration also faces multiple lawsuits questioning its authority to use broad policing powers in cities. One filed Tuesday says federal agents are violating protesters' 10th Amendment rights by engaging in police activities designated to local and state governments. The legal action was filed by the Portland-based Western States Center, which helps organize and promote the rights of communities of color and low-income people.



Oregons attorney general sued last week, asking a judge to block federal agents actions. The state argued that masked agents have arrested people on the street, far from the U.S. courthouse that's become a target of vandalism, with no probable cause.



It is time for the Trump troops to go home and focus their attention on other activities, Democratic Gov. Kate Brown said on MSNBC.



Federal authorities, however, said state and local officials had been unwilling to work with them to stop the vandalism and violence against federal officers and the U.S. courthouse in Portland.



We need to find a peaceful outcome, acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said at a news conference Tuesday in Washington. At the end of the day, we have to protect the federal property and the law enforcement officers.



The use of federal agents against the will of local officials also has set up the potential for a constitutional crisis, legal experts say. It could escalate if Trump sends federal agents elsewhere, as he says he plans to do, including to Democratic-led Chicago.



Federal forces were deployed to Portland in early July, and tensions have grown since: A protester was hospitalized this month with critical injuries after a U.S. Marshals Service officer struck him in the head with a round of less-lethal ammunition. Anger flared again over the weekend after video surfaced of a federal agent hitting a U.S. Navy veteran repeatedly with a baton while another agent sprays him in the face with pepper spray.



Crowds had recently numbered fewer than 100 people but swelled to more than 1,000 over the weekend, again attracting a broader base in a city thats increasingly unified and outraged.



Among the protesters was Mardy Widman, who watched demonstrations against racial injustice unfold in her hometown for weeks but stayed away because, at 79, she feared getting the coronavirus.



When Trump sent in federal officers, that changed: A masked Widman took to the street Monday with other Portland residents.



Its like a dictatorship, Widman, a grandmother of five, said, holding a sign that read: Grammy says: Please feds, leave Portland.



I mean, that he can pick on our city mostly because of the way we vote and make an example of it for his base is very frightening," she said.



Federal agents again used force to scatter protesters early Tuesday and deployed tear gas and rubber bullets as some in the crowd tried to pull plywood off the shuttered entryway of the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse.



Portland police said some protesters lit fires in the street and tried several times to set them at the courthouse doors.



Wolf defended the federal response, saying the Department of Homeland Security has clear authority to protect government property and detain people suspected of threatening personnel or damaging such property.



Wolf said agents have been assaulted with lasers, bats, fireworks, bottles and other weapons and yet the city of Portland takes little to no action. While he said federal agencies have made 43 arrests since July 4, he disputed that they were done by unidentified agents, noting that they have the word police on their uniforms.



These police officers are not storm troopers, they are not Gestapo. That description is offensive, Wolf said.



Trump plans to send about 150 Homeland Security Investigations agents to Chicago to help local law enforcement deal with a spike in crime, an official with direct knowledge of the plans told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly.



The Trump administration also has sent more than 100 federal officers to Kansas City to help quell a rise in violence after the shooting death of a young boy there.



The Democratic leaders of Illinois and Chicago have pushed back on the planned deployment there. On Tuesday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker called it a wrongheaded move." Mayor Lori Lightfoot softened her previous opposition, however, saying, Ive been very clear that we welcome actual partnership. But we do not welcome dictatorship."
AkzoNobel is accompanying KOTO to renovate its centres, helping to give wings to children's dreams

AkzoNobel, under AkzoNobel Cares, has just announced to support KOTO, the first legally-recognised social enterprise in Vietnam, in renovating its training centres around the country.

Founded in 1999, KOTO (Know One, Teach One) was originally known as a non-profit training school operating in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to give at-risk and disadvantaged youth the opportunity to break the poverty cycle by forging a better future for themselves, their families, and their communities. KOTOs learning framework includes not only vocational training such as cooking, customer service, and restaurant management skill but also life skills, communication skills, and foreign languages. Up to now, after 21 years, KOTO has been helping and changing the lives of thousands of disadvantaged and at-risk youth in Vietnam.

Accompanying KOTO in this effort, AkzoNobel will support all paints for the repainting project to refresh learning spaces in KOTO centres in both cities.

AkzoNobel will accompany KOTO in renovating its centres for disadvantaged and at-risk children

Pamela Phua, general director of AkzoNobel Paints Vietnam, shared that using colours to create inspiring living spaces is always one of AkzoNobel's top priority in their sustainable development goals. In addition, the company pats huge attention to supporting the education and fostering of young generations.

We highly evaluate what KOTO has been doing to change the fate of vulnerable teenagers in the last 21 years. This matches our business philosophy to give back to the community so we are delighted to contribute to inspiring and energising KOTOs trainees in this repainting project, said Pamela Phua.

Jimmy Pham, KOTO founder, said: Were humbled to have the support of AkzoNobel, a partner who cares about the well-being of disadvantaged youths in Vietnam. The Paint with Love initiative, which was generously sponsored by AkzoNobel Vietnam in 2016, has created colourful and positive living and learning spaces for our KOTO trainees. We are forever grateful for the support that AkzoNobel has been giving us over the last 10 years."

This partnership is the latest activity of AkzoNobel under AkzoNobel Cares, a collection of social programmes including Let's Colour, Education Fund, Community Day, and more that shows how AkzoNobel cares all over the world. They aim to help people and their communities and use paints products and expertise to improve peoples lives under the company's motto delivering shared value.

In previous years, under this initiative, AkzoNobel supported thousands of litres of premium paints to repainting projects in Vietnam such as Dai Lanh lighthouse (Phu Yen), Vung Tau lighthouse (Ba Ria-Vung Tau), Canh Duong mural village (Quang Binh), Be Island (Ly Son, Quang Ngai), and impoverished schools across the country.
A teenager cheated death when his horse and cart were struck by a van as he crossed a busy dual carriageway in County Donegal, Ireland.

Terrifying dashcam footage from the van shows the horse and cart pulling out in front of the vehicle three seconds before the impact.

The teenager sustained minor injuries but the horse had to be put down at the scene.

Police are investigating the crash on the N13 in Letterkenny at around 12pm yesterday.

A teenage sulky cart driver is pulled across the N13 in Letterkenny, Ireland, by a horse yesterday before it was killed in a collision with a van

The van driver attempts to pull into the far lane to avoid the horse but is too late, sending it and the cart flying into the air

In the video, the van approaches a junction on the primary road while driving in the outer lane.

The horse cart driver appears on the right side of the dual carriageway and cuts across the road in front of the van.

The van driver attempts to avoid the horse by pulling across the middle lane towards the far side of the road but is too late.

It crashes into the side of the horse sending both the animal and cart into the air.

The horse kicks back its head in anticipation of the impact but the teenage driver continues to drive it forward

The driver pulls over immediately after as two cars in front and a van behind also stop.

Garda said: 'Gardai attended the scene of a road traffic collision that occurred between a van and a horse and carriage on the N13, Letterkenny.

'A male youth in his teens was taken to Letterkenny University Hospital with minor injuries. Enquiries are ongoing.

'The horse received serious injuries during the collision. A vet attended the scene and the horse was put down. No arrests have been made at this time.'

The cart is destroyed in the crash when it is sent flying in front of the van before it stops on the side of the road

The teenager was riding a sulky cart - a two-wheeled cart with a lightweight seat and traps - which are used in unofficial races in Ireland.

The sport is popular among the travelling community, but illegal on public roads in the country.

In April this year, Gardai seized a horse and horsebox while investigating reports of sulky racing on the N22 road in Glenflesk, Killarney, County Kerry.

Earlier in February, the animal charity ISPCA slammed participants in an unofficial and 'dangerous sulky road race' on the N7 in Dublin.
An artist's impression of an LNG-fired power project in southern Vietnam. Photo by M.Ha.

Ninh Thuan has proposed that it develops another 4,600 MW plant using liquefied natural gas (LNG), making up for shelved nuclear energy plans.

The original plan to have 4,600 MW of nuclear power developed in the province was abandoned by the National Assembly in November 2016, and the province needs to produce that energy with alternative fuel sources, Ninh Thuan Deputy Chairman Pham Van Hau said at a forum Wednesday.

Ca Na Port in the province is a deep water port that can receive ships of up to 250,000 DWT and suitable for liquefied natural gas (LNG) power development, he said, adding that the proposal was in line with the governments plan to make Ninh Thuan a renewable and LNG energy hotspot in the country.

The proposal, if approved, will add to an earlier approval for Ninh Thuan to build a 6,000 MW LNG-fired power plant at Ca Na, with the first phase of 1,500 MW to be constructed 2021-2025. Municipal authorities are in the process of choosing contractors for the project.

In March last year, Thailands Gulf Energy Development Public Company Limited (Gulf) had expressed interest in building a $7.8 billion LNG-fired power complex in Ca Na. The complex would have four LNG-fired power plants with a combined capacity of 6,000 MW to be built with build-operate-transfer (BOT) or other investment forms.

The development of LNG, including building infrastructure for gas imports, is a major part of the governments energy development plan as hydropower capacity reduces and construction of coal-fired power projects suffers delays.

However, industry insiders say that the complex infrastructure required to develop LNG power in Vietnam is slowing its progress, especially compared to wind and solar power.

Bui Hong Van, managing director of Ho Chi Minh City-based Angelin Energy, said that the biggest challenge in developing LNG projects was not price, but developing infrastructure which includes storage facilities and terminals that could cost billions of dollars.

Policy restrictions are another challenge, Van said. While factories and industrial zones have high demand for this type of energy, they are hindered by the difficulties in obtaining import permits, she said. Van proposed that the government relaxes its LNG import policies.

As per the national gas industry development plan by 2025, with vision extended to 2035, Vietnam will have six LNG terminals.

State-owned oil and gas group Petrovietnam began construction last October of the Thi Vai LNG Terminal in the southern province of Ba Ria  Vung Tau, the first of its kind in the country, which is expected to begin operations in 2022.

A recent Reuters report said that Chan May LNG, a U.S.-Vietnamese joint venture, plans to invest up to $6 billion in an LNG power project in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue.
We asked some of the UKs top travel experts to share their favourite pictures of Croatia  and explain why.

The city walls of Dubrovnik

Geraldine Stimson, managing director, Mercury Holidays

Croatia is a magnificent country with more than 50 inhabited islands to explore, but for me, one of the most enchanting destinations is Dubrovnik and the enigmatic medieval city walls that surround the bustling streets and Romanesque architecture.

Interestingly, the city walls were one of the first of three places in Croatia to be given the status of UNESCO World Heritage site, placing them number 95 on the list.

Plitvice Lakes National Park

Prini Holmes-Reilly, head of marketing, Jules Verne

I took this picture in June 2019 on Jules Vernes Secret Wonders of Croatia cruise. With its 16 glistening deep-blue, turquoise and emerald-green lakes, stunning waterfalls and dense forest, around every bend on this trail is another delightful view. When I look at this picture then close my eyes, I can hear the soothing sound of water cascading down the rocks into the mineral-rich waters, and then the infectious laughter of my late husband...this was a trip I will cherish for ever.

Split

Claire Bentley, managing director, British Airways Holidays

With its azure waters and terracotta towns, its no wonder Croatia has become such a popular holiday destination. My personal jewel in this Dalmatian coast crown is the characterful city of Split  its is a feast for the senses, thanks to the stunning UNESCO World Heritage site of Diocletians Palace, as well as the dozens of bars and restaurants that suit all appetites. Its the perfect place for sun basking, people watching and sampling some crisp red Croatian wine.

Krka National Park

Laura Wondrak, marketing director, Imagine Cruising

I visited Croatia on my honeymoon, and was awestruck by its beauty. One highlight was a Game of Thrones boat tour, which took us around the coast to explore some of the dramas settings, ending up at Krka National Park. The park is a little rocky, but a guide rope will get you up close to the stunning waterfalls so you can capture beautiful photos and the perfect selfie. Id love to go back there.

The island of Hvar

Amy Dowling, senior PR manager, TUI UK

The first time you arrive by boat at the island of Hvar is breathtaking. Theres something peaceful and unassuming  but glamorous and exclusive, too  about the horseshoe shape of Hvar town, lined with cobbled streets and climbing greenery, and with the gentle sound of luxurious yachts bobbing in the blue waters. Blessed with the perfect climate and surrounded by tiny islands in seas that could rival the Caribbean, it is truly a heavenly place.

Zlatni Rat Beach

Steve Seddon, brand marketing director, Onthebeach

Sitting by a lush pine grove, watching the crystal-clear waters glisten in the sun...being on Zlatni Rat Beach is an absolute dream. Its a glorious mix of whitewashed pebbles and azure-blue views. Located just a short boat trip from the resort of Split, this one-of-a-kind beach is a must visit for anyone heading to Croatia.

Mount srd

Chris Plummer, operations director, Leger Holidays

I have fond memories of taking the cable car up Mount Srd, which overlooks Dubrovnik, and being rewarded with fantastic views of the city. Theres also the opportunity to enjoy a refreshing drink at the cafe at the top. From here, you can see the island of Lokrum, famous as one of the filming locations for Game of Thrones, which was big at the time. Theres still so much for me to explore  I think its time for another visit!
Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - With coronavirus (COVID-19) cases worldwide surpassing 15 million and nearly 620,000 deaths, the World Health Organization (WHO) Thursday urged people everywhere to play a part in preventing its further spread
Mumbai: Actor Amit Sadh on Thursday made an appeal on behalf of helpers at shooting sets, who have started working amid the ongoing Covid pandemic.

"I know we have started to work and from home ... but guys ... big people ... please pay hair , make up , spots ...( helpers ) they need to start and revive ... !! I will be fighting fr them .. and their wages," he tweeted.

I know we have started to work and from home ... but guys ... big people ... please pay hair , make up , spots ...( helpers ) they need to start and revive ... !! I will be fighting fr them .. and their wages . ! Pranaam !  Amit Sadh (@TheAmitSadh) July 22, 2020

Amit also requested his followers to come up with ideas on how he could help the workers.

"We can do it by setting up some trust or building an organisation. What's your thought? How are you planning it?" a user wrote.

Responding to it, Amit tweeted: "I don't know ... I want to find a way or someone who can help .. I also want to give a percentage of what ever I make to that Eco system .. hoping to finish the releases and the work related around it and start looking for a path way."

Amit, whose latest release is the web series "Breathe: Into the Shadows", will soon be seen in the digitally-released films, "Shakuntala Devi" and "Yaara".
BRISTOL, Tenn.  Authorities may never know who called in a fake shooting Tuesday in Sullivan County, a spokesman for the county Sheriffs Office said Wednesday.

The Sheriffs Office received a call about a shooting at a home on Broyles Lane. When they arrived, deputies learned the call was false and determined it was a case of swatting, which occurs when someone calls 911 to report an emergency at a property when no emergency has actually occurred. The call drew a large law enforcement response.

Investigators still did not learn the identity of the caller by Wednesday, according to Capt. Andy Seabolt.

Depending on phone company records, we may never know, Seabolt added.

Sullivan County 911 Director Virginia Smelser confirmed that Tuesdays call was the first case of swatting in the county.
A Chinese coast guard ship is seen from an Indonesian Navy ship during a patrol in waters of Indonesias exclusive economic zone north of Natuna Island in the South China Sea, Jan. 11, 2020.

Indonesia is staging a major naval exercise this week in the Java Sea and the South China Sea, the contested waterway where tensions have risen lately between China and the United States.

The Indonesian Navys Western Fleet held an exercise in the Java Sea on Wednesday as part of a series of drills by Southeast Asias largest nation that began on July 18 and are scheduled to conclude Sunday, naval officials said. These will include an amphibious warfare exercise on the beach at Singkep, an island in Indonesias Riau chain in the South China Sea, they said.

The program includes sea battle simulations and 2,000 personnel, 26 warships, 19 aircraft and 18 marine combat vehicles are taking part in the drills, Naval Fleet Command I spokesman Lt. Col. Fajar Tri Rohadi said.

At the fleet level, this is the most complex exercise, because there will be more exercises involving all naval units, Fajar told BenarNews on Wednesday. The days drills in the Java Sea included damage control activities, communications, simulations of anti-submarine and surface warfare, he said.

The exercises were designed to be just like real operations, Naval Fleet I chief Rear Adm. Ahmadi Heri Purwono said, according to Viva, an Indonesian news portal.

In other developments related to the defense of the archipelago nations coasts and territorial waters, the coast guard (Bakamla) announced Wednesday that it had launched the Indonesia Maritime Information Center (IMIC), which will publish periodic reports on the nations maritime security.

Sending a message

Beni Sukadis, a military observer at the Indonesian Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies, said the drills are part of the countrys efforts to assert its maritime sovereignty.

Even though we dont have many warships, we are showing that we have the determination to assert our sovereignty, he told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

In terms of capacity building and professionalism, routine exercises are necessary. It can be once or twice a year. It sends a message that the Navy is trying to improve its capacity, he added.

According to the Global Fire Power (GFP) 2019 report, Indonesias navy has 282 ships in its fleet, including seven frigates, 24 corvettes, five submarines and 156 patrol vessels. However, the Indonesian Navy has no aircraft carriers.

In mid-2019, the military branch conducted a month-long exercise involving 8,493 personnel in the Java Sea.

Indonesia is not a claimant in the South China Sea dispute, which involves the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam  all fellow members of the ASEAN  along with China and Taiwan.

But in 2016 and late 2019, tensions flared between Jakarta and Beijing over the presence of Chinese fishing boats swarming in South China Sea waters near Indonesias Natuna Islands, which are located in Riau Islands province.

Indonesia has declined Chinas invitation to hold talks on what Beijing called overlapping claims of maritime rights and interests in waters off the Natunas, which lie in the southern reaches of the South China Sea.

Beijing claims historic and fishing rights in parts of the sea that overlap Indonesias exclusive economic zone (EEZ) but Indonesia rejects this.

Meanwhile last week, in the disputed Paracel Islands, a chain claimed by both China and Vietnam, eight Chinese fighter jets were visible at Beijings key military base in the area.

The aircrafts sighting coincided with another round of naval exercises Thursday involving two U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups  the USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan. The first maneuvers began on July 4 and lasted six days, the first such dual carrier drill by the U.S. in the South China Sea in at least four years.

In a watershed statement issued earlier this month, the United States toughened its stance on the South China Sea issue when U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that America stood with its Southeast Asian allies in protecting their sovereign rights to offshore resources.

Pompeo included Indonesias Natuna Islands in the statement that branded Beijings claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea as completely unlawful.

The two rival superpowers have since traded verbal criticism over the South China Sea. Beijing, through its embassy in Washington, responded to Pompeo by accusing America of continuing to interfere in the South China Sea issue and stirring up tension and inciting confrontation in the region as well as flexing its muscles under the pretext of preserving stability.

In recent days, apart from its public denunciation of Beijings claims and actions in the South China Sea, the United States has also carried out a series of actions targeting China, including sanctions over Chinas imposition of harsh security laws in Hong Kong and over human rights abuses against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
Even as there is no clarity as to when the upcoming Monsoon Session of Parliament will convene, top government sources have told CNN-News18 the government is very keen on a full session and not a curtailed one. Several key legislation have been listed including 11 Ordinances, which if not passed will expire soon.

An ordinance lapses if not passed within six months of its promulgation.

Here is the list of Ordinances that needs to be passed and is on the Centre's priority list:

- The Salaries and Allowances of Ministers (Amendment) Ordinance 2020, promulgated by the President on April 9. This allowed a salary cut of 30% for the Prime Minister and his entire Council of Ministers for a year in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

- The Salaries, Allowances and Pensions of Members of Parliament (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020, promulgated on April 7. The Union Cabinet had approved a 30% cut in the salaries of all MPs and a two-year suspension of the MP Local Area Development (MPLAD) scheme so that the amount saved can go to the Consolidated Fund of India to fight Covid-19.

- The Epidemic Diseases (Amendment) Ordinance 2020 promulgated on April 22. This provides protection to frontline warriors against physical attacks on doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers, and violence has now been made a non-bailable offence punishable by up to seven years in prison.

- The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020, promulgated on June 5. This allowed commodities such as edible oils, cereals, onions, pulses, and potatoes to be deregulated.

- The Farmers Produce Trade And Commerce (Promotion And Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020, promulgated on June 5. This promotes a barrier-free inter-state and intra-state commerce and trade outside the physical premises of markets notified under State Agricultural Produce marketing legislation.

- The Farmers (Empowerment And Protection) Agreement On Price Assurance And Farm Services Ordinance, 2020, promulgated on June 5. This allowed farmers to engage with aggregators, processors, large retailers, wholesalers, and exporters on a level playing field without any fear of exploitation.

- The Homeopathy Central Council (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020, promulgated on April 24.

- The Indian Medicine Central Council (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020, promulgated on April 24.

- The Taxation And Other Laws (Relaxation Of Certain Provisions) Ordinance, 2020, promulgated March 31.

- The Insolvency And Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020, promulgated on June 6.

- The Banking Regulation (Amendment) Ordinance promulgated on June 26.

Of these, at least six will lapse if not passed in the Monsoon Session since the winter session will take place in December.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi and Ministers of State Arjun Ram Meghwal and V Muraleedharan have been holding meetings over the last couple of days with both Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu and Lok Sabha Speaker OP Birla over video conference to finalise the modalities of how the session can be held.

"We will follow the due procedure as laid down by the Constitution. We are committed to call for a session well in time before the six month-lapse deadline," Joshi told CNN-News18.

Leader of Congress Adhir Chowdhary said that the Parliament is the essence of Indian democracy. "We are with the government to call for a session. Unfortunately the opposition is not kept in the loop for anything," he said. "Of course, legislation passage is the key but the government must hold discussions on a number of pressing issues like the China face-off and Covid-19 management during the course of this upcoming Monsoon Session."

Senior party leader and Rajya Sabha floor leader of Trinamool Congress Derek O'Brien said, "So far we have got no communication from the government. No prizes for guessing that only two people in the government know what's happening, it is just a two-person decision."

The meeting of the Cabinet Committee for Parliamentary Affairs, which will approve the actual dates of the session, is still to take place. Meanwhile, both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Secratariat officials are chalking out detailed plans.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee meetings are a dress rehearsal for the upcoming Session. A hurdle of sort happened when an officer in the PAC meeting tested positive a couple of days later, forcing several MPs to isolate themselves.

Speculation has been rife that the Monsoon Session may take place at the end of August or early in September. The seating arrangement of MPs is being worked out by the Secretariat officers of both Houses. Minimum presence of both MPs and ministerial staff and restricted media entry is likely to be the new normal for the upcoming session.
NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday issued a notice to Rajasthan-based businessman Raman Kant Sharma in connection with its ongoing probe into the Yes Bank money laundering case.

Sharma is already under the scanner of the central probe agency on charges of the alleged violation of forex laws related to the remittance of over Rs 96 crore from Mauritius and the agency has similarly summoned him under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) for questioning.

The central probe agency is also probing his alleged business links with Vaibhav Gehlot, the son of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, in the FEMA case. Sharma is alleged to have been a business partner of Vaibhav Gehlot in a car rental company in the past.

In the Yes Bank money laundering case, officials said the businessman has been asked to depose before the investigating officer of the case in Mumbai on July 27. It is alleged that Yes Bank had given a Rs 168-crore loan to Triton Hotels and Resorts in which Sharma is a shareholder and a promoter.

The ED wants to record his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in the Yes Bank case to ascertain how the hotel group was extended the bank loan. The ED arrested Yes Bank co-founder Rana Kapoor in this case in March along with the Wadhawan brothers, Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan, of DHFL.

The ED accused Kapoor, his family members and others of laundering proceeds of crime worth Rs 4,300 crore by receiving alleged kickbacks in lieu of extending big loans through their bank that later turned into non-performing assets (NPA).
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23

By Asif Mehman  Trend:

It is impossible to predict whether the provocative actions of Armenia will continue in the future, Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov said at the briefing at the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, Trend reports on July 23.

The Armenians adhere to the new strategy, they thwarted the negotiation process, the deputy foreign minister added.

Khalafov stressed that the Armenian government is directly responsible for the growing tension.

Perhaps, they will involve their terrorist organizations in their plans, the deputy foreign minister said. In particular, such terrorist organization as ASALA must be mentioned. Therefore, we urge everyone to be vigilant.

If we consider the situation which occurred in the recent past, the terrorist acts committed by the Armenian terrorist organizations can be mentioned, Khalafov said. They must not be forgotten. Therefore, Azerbaijan and other countries must be cautious."
Trump praised his administrations progress on developing possible vaccines and therapeutic treatments for the novel coronavirus. That would be great if we could go into the hospital and cure people, and were at a position where were actually able to, to a certain extent, with what we have right now, he said. But the most promising therapeutics currently do not cure patients with covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. One drug has reduced the length of hospitalization in some patients. Another appears to reduce a percentage of deaths among patients who require supplemental oxygen.
Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times.

First antigen kit of Indian make gets ICMR approval

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Wednesday approved a second rapid antigen test kit, by Mylab Discovery Solutions, to diagnose coronavirus disease (Covid-19). This is the first Indian made test kit to be granted an approval. Read more

Petition in Supreme Court seeks Commission to inquire Govt lapses in tackling Covid-19

Five retired bureaucrats and an academician have approached the Supreme Court through lawyer Prashant Bhushan for setting up a Commission of Inquiry to probe the lapses on part of the government in handling the Covid-19 pandemic in the country. Read more

15-year-old Uttarakhand girl allegedly raped in Haridwar hotel, relative and three others booked

A 15-year-old girl was allegedly raped in a hotel in Haridwar by a youth who befriended her at a wedding, the police said. The incident took place on Monday, but came to light on Wednesday when a case was registered. The youth, along with three others including one of her relatives who took her to the hotel have been booked, the police said. Read more

Mexicos president downplays importance of wearing masks amid Covid pandemic

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday downplayed the importance of wearing face masks during the pandemic, calling his treasury secretarys assertion that using them would be a factor in reactivating the economy disproportionate. Read more

Liverpool beat Chelsea in thriller before trophy party

Champions Liverpool geared up to lift the Premier League trophy with a 5-3 win over Chelsea in a goal feast at Anfield on Wednesday to ensure they went an entire Premier League season unbeaten at home. Read more

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5G goes official ahead of Galaxy Note 20 launch on Aug 5

Ahead of its Galaxy Unpacked event on August 5, Samsung has officially launched the Galaxy Z Flip 5G. As the name implies, the new smartphone comes with 5G support. It will be available in new Mystic Gray and Mystic Bronze colour options in select markets starting August 7, 2020. Read more

Anurag Kashyap says he tried to mend things between Taapsee Pannu, Kangana Ranaut: I was just there like a friend 

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap recently tweeted that the last time he spoke to actor Kangana Ranaut, she put their conversation on social media. Now, in an interview with NDTV, Anurag has given more details about their last interaction. Read more

Watch Toni the pupper discover sunshine and try to do this

The Internet is a treasure trove for happy and derpy doggo content. Those whore lucky enough to enjoy the company of these loveable floofers cant help but share their adorableness with the world. And others, whore also dog lovers, lap up the happy content. Read more

Virtual cosplay, comic books, watch parties and more: San Diego Comic Con has come home this season

Every year, thousands of pop-culture fans  many in elaborate costumes  convene for the San Diego Comic Con (SDCC). The pop culture extravaganza sees books, movies, books and movies discussions, memorabilia and more come together in one zone, to be celebrated by the tens of thousands of people coming together for the coveted SDCC. Read more

Watch| Covid: WHO hails Indias bold measures, points to capacity challenge
The COVID-19 National Trust Fund has mobilised GH53,911,249.87, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, the Minister of Finance said in the 2020 Fiscal Policy Review statement he presented to Parliament, on Thursday.



The benefactors include individuals, churches, corporate bodies, staff of organisations, Non-Governmental Organisations, groups, associations, among others.



The Minister said a total of GH32,820,564.97 of the funds had been utilised and expressed gratitude to the donors for their support.



The Minister said the Fund transferred GH10,257,360.00 into the COVID-19 Private Sector Fund for the acquisition of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) and other medical items to resource the countrys frontline workers.



Also, Mr Ofori-Atta said, the National Commission for Civic Education had been supported with GH2,500,000.00 to enhance COVID-19-related public sensitisation.



To improve decision making, he said, the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) was provided with GH297,920.00 to conduct studies on the impact of the pandemic in 80 districts across the country.



Additionally, some funds were released to purchase food items, vehicles, PPE, and medical supplies to 32 other key institutions.



He said, A significant quantity of the PPE were distributed to the Ghana Health Service, the COVID-19 Care Management Team, and five health institutions to support the fight against the pandemic.



The Fund also distributed food items to the aged, vulnerable, and needy persons the through Help Age, Ghana, and five care homes and shelters.



In addition, 10 saloon cars and two pick-up vehicles were provided to four Treatment/Isolation Centres, six laboratories and COVID-19 Care Management Teams to enhance surveillance, testing, contact tracing, and management of cases.



The Minister said to address the peculiar needs of the Pantang Hospital, some PPE and one ventilator were presented to them.

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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ISTANBUL - Fulfilling a dream of his Islamic-oriented youth, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined hundreds of worshipers Friday for the first Muslim prayers in 86 years inside Hagia Sophia, the Istanbul landmark that served as one of Christendoms most significant cathedrals, a mosque and a museum before its conversion back into a Muslim place of worship.

Thousands of other Muslim faithful came from across Turkey and quickly filled specially designated areas outside of the Byzantine era monument to join in the inaugural prayers. Many others were turned away, while Orthodox Christian church leaders in Greece and the United States announced a day of mourning over Hagia Sophias return as a mosque.

The prayers began with Erdogan reciting from the Quran. The head of Turkeys religious authority, Ali Erbas, led the ceremony and prayed that Muslims would never again be denied the right to worship at the internationally celebrated 6th century structure.

As many as many as 350,000 people took part in Fridays prayers, the president said.

Adem Yilmaz, who attended the prayers, expressed joy at experiencing the making of history.

This turned into a place where all hearts beat at once, he said.

Brushing aside international criticism, Erdogan issued a decree restoring the iconic building as a mosque earlier this month, shortly after a Turkish high court ruled that the Hagia Sophia had been illegally made into a museum more than eight decades ago.

The structure, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has since been renamed The Grand Hagia Sophia Mosque.

The move sparked dismay in Greece, the United States and among Christian church leaders who had called on Erdogan to maintain Hagia Sophia as a museum in recognition of Istanbuls multi-faith heritage and the structures status as a symbol of Christian and Muslim unity.

The reopening of Hagia Sophia as a mosque threatens to deepen Turkeys isolation on the world stage following its military interventions in Syria and Iraq and amid international disputes over oil-and-gas rights in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

The decision was in line with Erdogans ambitions to raise Islams profile in Turkey and to make his country a leader nation in the Islamic world.

Hagia Sophias reemergence as a mosque is also being interpreted as a move aimed at consolidating Erdogans conservative and religious support base at a time when his popularity is sagging amid an economic downturn.

It allows him to switch the narrative away from the economy to the culture wars, an area where he did well in the past by mobilizing his right-wing base, said Soner Cagaptay, Turkey analyst for the Washington Institute and author of Erdogans Empire.

By transforming Hagia Sophia back into a mosque. Erdogan may also be seeking to leave his permanent imprint on Istanbul - the city of his birth and where he served as mayor, Cagaptay added.

Built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in 537, Hagia Sophia was turned into a mosque with the 1453 Ottoman conquest of Istanbul. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding leader of the secular Turkish republic converted the structure into a museum in 1934.

Although an annex to the Hagia Sophia, the Sultans pavilion, has been open to prayers since the 1990s, religious and nationalist groups in Turkey have long yearned for the nearly 1,500-year-old edifice they regard as the legacy of Ottoman Sultan Mehmet the Conquerer, to be reverted into a mosque.

This is Hagia Sophia breaking away from its captivity chains. It was the greatest dream of our youth, Erdogan said last week. It was the yearning of our people and it has been accomplished. Erdogan also described its conversion into a museum by the republics founding leaders as a mistake that is being rectified.

In neighbouring Greece, bells tolled and flags flew at half-staff at hundreds of churches across the country in protest at the decision to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque. The Greek Orthodox Church leader, Archbishiop Ieronymos, held a special service at Athens Cathedral later Friday. Churches in Athens and in Greeces second-largest city, Thessaloniki, also organized vigils.

Universal values have been tarnished, and that is why they require universal condemnation, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said.

A few hundred people took part in two peaceful protests in Athens. After the services in Thessaloniki, dozens tried to hold a protest march to the Turkish Consulate, but police prevented the crowd from reaching the building. They burned two Turkish flags before dispersing.

Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou said the reconversion brutally insults not only the Orthodox but all Christians, and also all of civilized humanity.

The history and religious traditions of the predominantly Greek-speaking and Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire remain influential in Greece. The church protests also occurred amid a volatile dispute between Greece and Turkey over mineral rights in the eastern Mediterranean, with the Greek military on alert over a planned Turkish maritime survey in waters claimed by Greece.

In New York, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, called the inaugural prayers a cultural and spiritual misappropriation and a violation of all standards of religious harmony and mutual respect. Archbishop Elpidophoros of America held a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence in Washington on Thursday to discuss concerns over the reconversion.

In his sermon, Erbas said Mehmet the Conqueror had endowed Hagia Sophia to believers on condition that it should remain a mosque until the last day.

Any property that is endowed is inviolable in our belief and burns whoever touches it, Erbas said.

Hundreds had camped near the structure overnight. Dozens of worshipers broke through one police checkpoint to rush toward Hagia Sophia and social distancing practices, in place due to the coronavirus outbreak, were being ignored, Turkish media reported.

Retired teacher Suleyman Karatas said: God willing, it will stay as a mosque. Because Hagia Sophia is the legacy of our ancestor.

Turkey has vowed to protect Hagia Sophias artifacts and has said it will remain open to visits by Muslims and non-Muslims outside of prayer hours.

___

Suzan Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. Robert Badenbieck in Istanbul and Derek Gatopoulos in Athens and Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki contributed to this report.
By AFP

BEIJING: French claims about the imprisonment of ethnic and religious minorities in China's Xinjiang region were unacceptable, Beijing said Wednesday, criticising the accusations as "false".

China's response came a day after Paris demanded it let independent human rights observers visit the northwestern region, where rights groups and experts estimate over one million Uighurs and other Turkic-speaking minorities have been rounded up into a network of internment camps.

France's foreign affairs minister Jean-Yves le Drian said China's actions were "unacceptable" and said they "condemn them firmly".

READ| China faces criticism for human rights violation of Uyghur Muslims

Beijing has defended its strategy in Xinjiang as necessary to avoid extremism.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular press briefing on Wednesday that "China has repeatedly responded to and clarified false reports and accusations on Xinjiang-related issues".

He added that Xinjiang issues were not about human rights, religion or ethnicity but about "countering violent terrorism and separatism".

"About so-called lies that Xinjiang restricts religious freedom and suppresses Muslims... the truth is that recently, some politicians and media in the US and the west have stigmatised Xinjiang's lawful fight against terrorism and extremism," Wang said.

"We firmly oppose the politicisation of religious issues and the use of religious issues to interfere in China's internal affairs," he added.

Asked if the training programmes he referred to were still ongoing in Xinjiang, Wang said that those in the centres had "completed their courses" -- in line with officials' announcement late last year.

The latest exchange comes as tensions have been rising between the West and China on multiple fronts, including over a new draconian security law in Hong Kong and mounting opposition to the use of products made by Chinese telecom giant Huawei.
Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Bill Gates finally spoke out against the conspiracy theories doing the rounds on social media that he is planning to implant microchips in people through Covid-19 vaccine.

Gates told CBS News that he wants the truth to reach people and hoped the fake news dies down.

The reports accusing Gates of planning something so outlandish was fuelled by an outburst from the head of Russian Communist Party in May. Gennady Zyuganov, in a column, attacked capital globalism and claimed that the mandatory vaccination plan is a ploy by so-called globalists to implant chip in every human being so that their movements could be monitored.

Gates said he wants to bring the coronavirus pandemic to an end and hoped that the theory dies down as people get the facts.

Gates and a foundation led by him and his wife Melinda are working to find a vaccine for Covid-19. In February, the foundation had announced that it is donating US $100 million to vaccine research and treatment efforts.

Meanwhile, GSK and CureVac, backed by Gates, are work on developing up to five so-called mRNA-based vaccines and monoclonal antibodies for infectious diseases. mRNA vaccines use ribonucleic acid (RNA), a chemical messenger that evokes an immune response when injected by instructing cells to make proteins that mimic pathogens.

The approach, also being deployed in experimental Covid-19 vaccines by BioNTech and partner Pfizer and Moderna, is yet to be approved in any therapy.

Tech giant Google had recently said that it will prohibit websites and apps that use its advertising technology from running ads on dangerous content that goes against scientific consensus during the coronavirus pandemic.

Examples of content that will not be allowed to make money from ads include debunked conspiracy theories, such as the notion that the novel coronavirus was created in a Chinese lab as a bioweapon, that it was created by Microsoft founder Bill Gates or that the virus is a hoax, Google said.
Planned Parenthood Southeast has opened its downtown Birmingham clinic, at 1019 First Ave. North, and plans to offer abortion services at the new location.

The clinic had a soft opening on July 14 and is now open for business, said Barbara Ann Luttrell, vice president of external affairs for Planned Parenthood Southeast.

We just started seeing patients, Luttrell said.

Its 11,000 square feet, a state-of-the-art facility, she said. We will offer a full spectrum of reproductive health services.

At some point, that will include abortions, she said.

It will be available very soon, Luttrell said. I dont have an exact date.

Planned Parenthood previously had its office just off Highland Avenue in Birminghams Southside, though abortions hadnt been offered there regularly since 2017.

We werent providing abortion at the end, she said.

The Planned Parenthood clinic in Southside was often a staging area for anti-abortion protests, peaking in 1988 with protests by Operation Rescue there and at several other abortion clinics that operated in Birmingham at the time. In 1998, Eric Robert Rudolph bombed New Woman All Women Health Care Clinic near the UAB campus, killing police officer Robert Sanderson, who was working there as a security guard. Rudolph was convicted and remains in prison. New Woman, now defunct, was not affiliated with Planned Parenthood.

Pro-life groups have often picketed and surrounded abortion clinics with volunteer sidewalk counselors, stationed on public sidewalks, who try to dissuade women from having an abortion.

The new facility in downtown Birmingham is bordered by Interstate 65 to the west. It has a fenced-in parking area with a gate and security cameras.

Security is our number one concern, Luttrell said. We want our staff to feel safe and secure. We want our patients to feel safe and secure.

During the construction of the new building, protesters including Sarah Howell Neely, who works for CEC Life, a pro-life ministry of the Charismatic Episcopal Church, have picketed on the sidewalk in front of the construction site.

Weve had a prayer presence the whole time theyve been building it, Neely said.

The new high-profile clinic is likely to attract its share of protests and pickets.

We are absolutely used to having anti-abortion protesters, Luttrell said. Thats nothing new.

Construction on the new facility began in January 2019. Soon after, the Alabama Legislature passed the Human Life Protection Act to make abortion illegal in Alabama except when the mothers life is in danger. Gov. Kay Ivey signed the nearly complete ban on abortion into law in May 2019. Planned Parenthood and the ACLU sued to stop the law from taking effect.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson blocked the ban with a preliminary injunction in October 2019, staying it was unconstitutional.

That law was deemed unconstitutional, which we would knew it would be, Luttrell said.

We want to make sure that abortion is safe, legal and available in Alabama, she said.

At the time the abortion ban was passed, only three clinics in Alabama were offering abortion, in Huntsville, Montgomery and Tuscaloosa. This clinic will be the fourth.

Alabamians have access to abortion now in the state, Luttrell said.

Since 1973, when abortion was legalized by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe vs. Wade, Planned Parenthood has offered abortion services in addition to birth control and reproductive health services.

We were always committed to providing abortion to the full extent of the law, return it to what it once was, Luttrell said.

Planned Parenthood Southeast, based in Atlanta, covers Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi.

Birmingham was our first location, Luttrell said. We have been in Birmingham since 1930.
The "Europe Coffee Pods and Capsules Market Growth, Trends, and Forecast (2020 2025)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The European coffee pods and capsules market is expected to witness a CAGR of 6.8% over the forecast period, 2020-2025.

The growth drivers of coffee pods and capsules in Europe over the past few years have been a combination of convenience, premium positioning, brand experience, and the ability of manufacturers to innovate and provide new products.

The popularity of coffee pod machines in significant markets such as the United Kingdom is significantly increasing, owing to a rise in the average retail selling price of coffee, which is driving the growth of the coffee pods market in the country. On the other hand, a significantly large number of consumers are switching from instant coffee to more premium options, such as fresh ground coffee pods and coffee beans, which is expected to boost the sales of coffee pods during the forecast period.

Key Market Trends

Increasing German Appetite for Coffee

Over the past years, Germans have shown a growing inclination towards coffee consumption, amidst the volatility in prices. Germany is Europe's largest importer of green coffee beans. Its coffee roasting industry is enormous, which facilitates the country to serve both its domestic market, which is the largest in Europe, and export markets.

As of 2016, around 13% of the German population is drinking coffee made from a single-cup brewer every single day. This is due to the rise in demand for specialty coffees and single-serve methods in Germany. On the other hand, Germany's per capita coffee consumption is not among Europe's highest but is at 5.5 kg per year, which is higher than the European average of 5kg.

Supermarkets Hypermarkets Leads the Sales Channel Segment

In terms of the sales channel, the demand for coffee pods and capsules in Europe is anticipated to be driven by supermarkets and hypermarkets, followed by on-trade channels, mostly because of "out of home" consumption.

Owing to a vast retail space and catering to a wide variety of preferences, the supermarkets/hypermarkets are the dominant channels for the sales of coffee products. Supermarkets/hypermarkets have an abundance of choices across brands and functionality. These markets sell both pods and capsules in a pre-determined price range, providing high-quality coffee. Supermarkets have also been offering an increasing range of coffees with unique characteristics, such as single origins.

Competitive Landscape

Major players operating in the European coffee pods and capsules market are Nestle, Luigi Lavazza, Starbucks, and JAB Holdings, among others. Nestle Nespresso holds a significant share in the market, as compared to the other players. The company entered partnerships as well as expanded its facilities across the region, in order to strengthen its consumer base and maintain its leading position in the market. Partnership and joint ventures are being the most adopted strategies that enable significant players to increase control over competitive pricing and gain competitive advantage.

Key Topics Covered

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Study Assumptions and Market Definitions

1.2 Scope of the Study

2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

3.1 Market Overview

4 MARKET DYNAMICS

4.1 Market Drivers

4.2 Market Restraints

4.3 Porter's Five Forces Analysis

5 MARKET SEGMENTATION

5.1 By Product Type

5.1.1 Pods

5.1.2 Capsules

5.2 By Sales Channel

5.2.1 On-trade

5.2.2 Supermarket/Hypermarket

5.2.3 Specialty Stores

5.2.4 Online Retail Stores

5.2.5 Other Sales Channels

5.3 By Geography

5.3.1 Europe

5.3.1.1 Germany

5.3.1.2 United Kingdom

5.3.1.3 France

5.3.1.4 Russia

5.3.1.5 Spain

5.3.1.6 Italy

5.3.1.7 Switzerland

5.3.1.8 Rest of Europe

6 COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

6.1 Most Active Companies

6.2 Most Adopted Strategies

6.3 Market Share Analysis

6.4 Company Profiles

6.4.1 Nestle SA

6.4.2 Starbucks Corporation

6.4.3 Lavazza

6.4.4 Coind Group

6.4.5 Capsul'in

7 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES AND FUTURE TRENDS

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(Natural News) Multiple teams of military medics have reportedly been deployed to both Texas and California in response to a claimed deluge of new Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) cases.

The nations two most populous states have each reported about 10,000 new cases of the virus, though these may simply be non-symptomatic people who decided to get tested and turned up positive, possibly with false results like what is currently happening in Florida.

Florida and Arizona are also said to be seeing higher rates of the virus, along with California, which has prompted Governor Gavin Newsom to announce that children in many of the Golden States most densely populated counties will not be allowed to return to in-person public schooling this fall.

The criteria laid out by Newsom will make it impossible for many of these kids to attend anything other than online classes come August and September. And students who live in districts that do have Newsoms permission to go back to school will have to wear masks, save for those with exemptions.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the world saw 250,000 new cases of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) in a single day late last week. This is part of the reason why Texas is likewise prohibiting about five million students throughout the state from going back to school in the fall.

Up north in Chicago, some children will be returning back to class, but only for two days a week. The other three days they will learn at home  is the virus more active these three days, we wonder?

In Iowa, many school districts had planned to follow suit with what California and Texas are doing in many areas by shutting down entirely. However, Republican Governor Kim Reynolds recently announced that she is overriding the plan of school districts by requiring that they spend at least half of their schooling inside classrooms.

Phoenix orders portable storage coolers for alleged influx of bodies

As for the number of reported deaths associated with this alleged surge in new infection cases, Texas claimed 174 of them while California claimed 130. Florida says that 128 people who had previously tested positive are now dead.

In metropolitan Phoenix, the medical examiners office ordered portable storage coolers to handle what it says is an influx of bodies. And in Houston, an 86-person Army medical team is taking over an entire wing of United Memorial Medical Center to handle its Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) cases.

California is likewise sending military doctors, nurses and other health care specialists to eight different hospitals where there are said to be staffing shortages.

In many of these areas, local and state politicians are pushing members of the public to wear face masks, which they claim have the power to stop viral spread. In other areas such as Georgia, however, there is a lot more skepticism about the safety and effectiveness of face masks.

Across the world in India, there are said to be many undiagnosed cases of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) floating around that are going unnoticed. Many people are unaware that they might have the virus because they are not showing symptoms.

Over in the United Kingdom, the plan is to lift restrictions on people having to work at home and avoid public transit that have been in place for many weeks now. As of August 1, that country will have more freedom as opposed to less.

Cases dont matter, noted one Breitbart News commenter. Deaths matter, this same commenter added, followed by responses from people questioning whether the official death counts are even accurate.

To keep up with the latest news about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), be sure to check out Pandemic.news.

Sources for this article include:

Breitbart.com

NaturalNews.com
ATLANTA  The late civil rights leader C.T. Vivian was remembered Thursday morning at a private funeral in Providence Missionary Baptist Church.

The service started at 11 a.m. EDT and was closed to the public because of the coronavirus pandemic. Vivian died July 17 in his home of natural causes. He was 95.

Vivian's six grandsons served as pallbearers, and his friends and sons spoke at the service. Fifty family members and friends were allowed to attend.

Vivian was an active member of Providence Missionary Baptist. The church passed out masks and did temperature checks for those who attended. Mourners respected social distancing guidelines, leaving entire rows of pews empty or leaving ample space between them.

As her granddaughter looks on, Edna Davis, 65, holds up a sign thanking civil rights activist C.T. Vivian outside Vivian's funeral in Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta on July 23.

Outside the church, about a dozen supporters stood near the entrance, some holding signs and photos of Vivian. A police motorcade lined the street.

Edna Davis and her 9-year-old granddaughter carried a cardboard sign that read, Thank you Rev. C.T. Vivian.

Davis, a deaconess at the church, said she got to know Vivian when her daughter interviewed him for a Black History Month assignment at his house. Vivian talked about his struggles during the civil rights movement.

We love Dr. C.T. Vivian, he was very warm and friendly and gracious, said Davis, 65. He did not meet a stranger, and he was very approachable.

Davis said she was happy that Vivians contributions were recognized because he was a quiet-spoken man who was often overlooked.

Mourners celebrate the life of civil rights activist C.T. Vivian outside Vivian's funeral at the Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta July 23.

Thomas Wall, 75, said he met Vivian years ago during his visits to Providence Missionary Baptist. He stood outside, wearing a shirt that read, Vote or Die.

Vivians death hit us hard because icons are just passing, Wall said, noting the passing of John Lewis and Charles Evers. Thats the old guard, those are the ones who brought us through and paved the way. Now we gotta get ready for these younger people to step up and follow C.T. Vivian and John Lewis.

More: C.T. Vivian remembered in Georgia state Capitol, taken to Martin Luther King Jr.'s tomb

Story continues

C.T. Vivian: 5 things you may not have known about the giant figure in the civil rights movement

Video tributes by presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden, Oprah Winfrey and baseball star Hank Aaron were broadcast on screens inside the church.

A soldier who refused to raise his fists, a preacher whose voice helped electrify a movement, a leader who inspired generations to join him in the ceaseless march to progress, Biden said in the tribute. C.T. didnt waste a single one of the days God granted him, and we all know that C.T.s spirit is going to continue to inspire us to fulfill his mission, a mission that remains unfinished.

Writer Claude McKay's poem "If We Must Die" was read during the funeral. It reads, in part, "If we must die, O let us nobly die, so that our precious blood may not be shed in vain."

The service ended at 1:18 p.m.

After the funeral, mourners gathered to watch pallbearers walk Vivians casket to the hearse as a bagpiper played "Amazing Grace." Some supporters kneeled in the street and saluted Vivian.

Martin Luther King III, the oldest son of Martin Luther King Jr., was among the invited attendees at the funeral. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms was also in attendance.

King said Vivian lived his life in a ferocious, positive way and personified nonviolent protest.

"There was never an unkind word that he said, even when he stood up for injustice," King said after the service. Vivian could bring "the best out of scenario which could be the worst."

Wednesday, Vivian was honored in the Georgia State Capitol, where his body lay in state.

This is an ultimate honor, Vivian's son, Mark, said Wednesday after a short ceremony in the Capitols rotunda. Its just an honor that now more folks are learning who he is and what he stood for and also what the movement was and how the movement came about.

Vivian's casket was taken in a processional to the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Park. King, whom Vivian closely advised, described Vivian as "the greatest preacher to ever live." In 2013, President Barack Obama honored Vivian, who had continued to promote racial equality, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

C.T. Vivian, integration leader, left, leads a prayer on the courthouse steps in Selma, Ala. on Feb. 5, 1965, after Sheriff James Clark, background with helmet, stopped him at the door with a court order. Vivian led hundreds of demonstrators armed with petitions asking longer voter registration hours. Clark arrested them when they refused to disperse.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a fellow civil rights activist who marched with Vivian on March 7, 1965, what became known as Bloody Sunday, died the same day as Vivian.

Vivian's career spanned more than six decades, going back to his first sit-in demonstrations to desegregate a cafeteria in the 1940s in Peoria, Illinois. Vivian met King soon after the budding civil rights leaders victory in the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955. He became an active member of what would become the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and participated in the Freedom Rides in Mississippi, when activists faced great violence while challenging segregation in public transit by riding buses across the South in 1961.

Perhaps best known for his work in Selma, Vivian argued with then-Sheriff James Clark on the steps of a courthouse in 1965 over racial inequities in voting during a drive to get Black citizens in the town registered. Clark struck Vivian, knocking him down. Vivian stood up and continued to make his arguments.

Weeks after the incident on the courthouse steps, thousands marched from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama on Bloody Sunday to bring awareness to racial inequities. The coverage of the violence against the marchers helped galvanize the country, and by the end of the year, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: C.T. Vivian: civil rights hero to be remembered Thursday in funeral
He did not know what to expect when he was assigned to cover Kennedys funeral in New York on June 8, 1968, days after the Democratic senator from New York had been assassinated in Los Angeles. After the service at Manhattans St. Patricks Cathedral, Kennedys flag-draped casket was to be placed on a train bound for Washington. Mr. Fuscos editor told him to go to Penn Station.
The Ashanti Regional Women's organizer Nana Ama Ampomah together with the National Women's Organizer of the NPP ,Kate Abena Gyamfuah on Tuesday, 22 July stormed the registration centres in the Ashanti Region to observe the ongoing voter registration exercise.

Nana Ama Ampomah led the National Women's Organizer and former UK Women's Organiser Jennifer Boadi ,Hannatu Mbye ,National Women's Wing operations director, Mama China, Ashanti Regional women's wing operations director and Abigail Wood ,former Subin Constituency Women's Organizer respectively to Manhyia South.

They firstly, paid courtesy call on Queen mother of Apagya Nana Drowaa, who is also the elderly sister of former President of the republic of Ghana ,President John Agyekum Kufour . Nana Drowaa met them with joy, she expressed her profound gratitude to the team and the NPP , she again advised the team to work together .

Secondly , The Constituency Women's Organizer of Manhyia South Mary Coker together with other executives welcomed the team and took them to the Apagyfiem registration centre ,Osei Assibey polling station, Okomfo Anokye Rural Bank polling centre, Osons Pharmacy 1&2 and Community Centre polling station.

The team then proceeded to Old Tafo Constituency party office to hold meeting with the Constituency executives . The Constituency Chairman, Mr Donkor introduced the newly elected Parliamentary candidate, Vincent Assefuah to the team . Kate Abena Gyemfuah advised them to work as a team to bring everyone on board to increase the vote of the Parliamentary Candidate and the Presidential. Madam Akua Afriyie the Constituency Women's Organizer took the team to some registration centres.

The team journeyed on to Suame Constituency party office, Madam Abigail, the Constituency Women's Organizer together with the Constituency Chairman and other executives welcomed the team.

They took the team to some registration centres in the Constituency.

Furthermore, the team proceeded to Subin Constituency for monitoring. They were taken to Dadiesoaba Electoral area to monitor the progress made at the registration polling stations. The electoral area coordinator, Mr.Thomas, the Assembly Member, Mr.Akwasi Agyemang and the Constituency Women's Organizer joined the team during the monitoring.

In all their visit to the registration centres, the expressed their profound gratitude to the EC and polling agents for making sure the COVID-19 protocols were observed.

Finally, the team met the Constituency Executives of Atwima Kwawoma led by the Chairman Mr.Emmanuel Adjei Danquah, Akua Adutwumwaa the Constituency Women's Organizer and her deputy, Ama Tiwaa and Isaac Osei Frimpong is also known as Nana Osei. After the meeting, the entourage visited the family of the late KNUST SHS student that died painfully to commensurate with them.

The team were welcomed by the Abusuapanin of the family as tradition demands. Upon deliberations the Ashanti Regional Women's Organiser, Nana Ama Ampomah introduced the National Women's Organizer Kate Abena Gyemfua and the entire team.

Kate Aben Gyemfuah, shared a few words of grief as a parent and assured the family of the party's support and did some donation to the family.

The Abusuapanin also expressed thankfulness to the New Patriotic Party and the team for their support so far and went on to elaborate that the family will hold the final burial service on Thursday 23rd July 2020.

He emphasized on the fact that the family is also committed to making sure the COVID-19 protocols will be observed on that day.

Nana Ama Ampomah sought permission for leave and was granted by the family peacefully.
Multi-institution, international team uncovers greater role for large mutations and structural rearrangements of the genome that effectively 'lock up' suites of genes in groups.

LOGAN, UTAH, USA - Traits that form an organism's appearance, including color, are determined by many different genes and the creature's environment.

"Humans and domestic animals, for example, have varied skin, fur and hair, as well as a range of heights - an example of continuous variation," says Utah State University genetic ecologist Zach Gompert. "In the wild, however, types of genetic mutations affecting adaptation and thus, appearance, are only beginning to be understood. Some traits show more discontinuous or discrete variation."

In a paper published July 23, 2020 in Science, Gompert and colleagues from the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom; France's Paul Valery University of Montpellier; the University of Bern and the Swiss Federal Institute for Aquatic Science and Technology, Switzerland; Mexico's Campus Juriquilla of the Autonomous University of Queretaro, University of Notre Dame and the University of Nevada-Reno, discuss findings from an investigation of seven species of North American stick insects (Timema).

"Most research on the genetic basis of traits and adaptation has focused on individual genes and small mutations," says Gompert, associate professor in USU's Department of Biology and the USU Ecology Center "But in this paper, we uncover a greater role for large mutations and structural rearrangements of the genome that effectively 'lock up' suites of genes in groups."

The stick insects used in the study are flightless and plant-feeding. Most Timema species have green and brown-color "morphs," a local variety of a species, which are cryptic, meaning they visually blend into their surroundings. Cryptic coloration enables the insects to avoid predation by birds, as they blend in on the leaves and stems or bark of the plants they eat. However, one species, Timema chumash, exhibits a range of morph colors, including greens and browns, but also yellow, orange, red, and shades of blue.

"Using genome-mapping methods, we show that a large, million base pair, adaptive deletion - a supermutation - converts a continuum of color variation seen in T. chumash into discrete color morphs in the other stick insect species," Gompert says. "This finding is important, as it helps reconcile large evolutionary shifts or gaps with the continuous process of evolution. It also provides insights into how continuous variation is packaged into semi-discrete units of biological diversity, such as morphs, sexes and species."

###
China has successfully launched its first independent mission to another planet, sending a rover to Mars.

The countrys space agency became one of three countries, alongside the UAE and US, to use a helpful launch window to jet off to the red planet and hope to demonstrate their technological capabilities.

The lander was carried by Chinas biggest rocket, the Long March 5 Y-4, when it blasted off early in the morning UK time from Wenchang Space Launch Centre on the southern island of Hainan.

The probe is expected to reach Mars in February where it will attempt to deploy a rover to explore the planet for 90 days.

If successful, the Tianwen-1, or Questions to Heaven, which is the name of a poem written two millennia ago, will make China the first country to orbit, land and deploy a rover in its inaugural mission.

Recommended UAE spacecraft blasts off in first ever mission to Mars

It is the first time that China has independently launched a mission to another planet, with its previous attempt in 2011 relying on a Russian rocket. That mission also did not make it to the red planet, failing to escape Earths orbit.

There will be challenges ahead as the craft nears Mars, Liu Tongjie, spokesperson for the mission, told reporters ahead of the launch.

When arriving in the vicinity of Mars, it is very critical to decelerate, he said.

If the deceleration process is not right, or if flight precision is not sufficient, the probe would not be captured by Mars, he said, referring to gravity on Mars taking the craft down to the surface.

Mr Liu said the new probe would orbit Mars for about two and a half months and look for an opportunity to enter its atmosphere and make a soft landing.

Entering, deceleration and landing (EDL) is a very difficult [process]. We believe Chinas EDL process can still be successful, and the spacecraft can land safely, Mr Liu said.

Eight spacecraft  American, European and Indian  are either orbiting Mars or on its surface with other missions underway or planned.

The United Arab Emirates launched a mission to Mars on Monday, an orbiter that will study the planets atmosphere.

The United States has plans to send a probe in coming months that will deploy a rover called Perseverance, the biggest, heaviest, most advanced vehicle sent to the Red Planet by Nasa.

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Mystic Mountain, a pillar of gas and dust standing at three-light-years tall, bursting with jets of gas from fledgling stars buried within, was captured by Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope in February 2010 Nasa/ESA/STScI Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures The first ever selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by Nasa's Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012 Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Death of a star: This image from Nasa's Chandra X-ray telescope shows the supernova of Tycho, a star in our Milky Way galaxy Nasa Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, pictured here on 1 January 2019 by a camera on Nasa's New Horizons spaceraft at a distance of 4.1 billion miles from Earth Getty Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures The first ever image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving Nasa, and released on 10 April 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth Getty Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Pluto, as pictured by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015 Nasa/APL/SwRI Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun Nasa Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks running downhill on the surface Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary flowing water. It has since been suggested that they may instead be formed by flowing sand Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015 Nasa/Scott Kelly

Chinas probe will carry several scientific instruments to observe the planets atmosphere and surface, searching for signs of water and ice.

China previously made a Mars bid in 2011 with Russia, but the Russian spacecraft carrying the probe failed to exit the Earths orbit and disintegrated over the Pacific Ocean.

A fourth planned launch for Mars, the EU-Russian ExoMars, was postponed for two years due to the coronavirus pandemic and technical issues.

Additional reporting by Reuters
When you have such surges of disease in the community, youre basically asking for trouble if you open schools, Tan said. Youre bringing in now individuals from all across the community that potentially may be exposed to COVID, and youre putting them in a more enclosed setting, so that if someone is infected regardless of what other protocols are in place, you still run a much higher risk of spreading COVID through that population.
NAIROBI, July 22, 2020  IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, committed $5.6 billion to private sector development in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa in the fiscal year 2020, supporting businesses across the two regions to launch, grow, provide jobs and fight the impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, IFC committed nearly $2 billion in short-term trade financing to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

In sub-Saharan Africa, between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020, IFC committed $4.6 billion in investments to private firms across the region. Despite the challenges of delivering during a global health pandemic, IFC exceeded its fiscal year 2019 commitment of $4.1 billion.

Investments focused on sectors including healthcare, agribusiness, solar energy, housing finance, infrastructure, and financing for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), including in fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS) where IFC committed more than $1.2 billion in investments.

In the Middle East and North Africa, where the COVID-19 pandemic has led to declines in oil production, tourism revenues, and remittances, IFC invested more than $1 billion, including to support the construction of hospitals and clinics in Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco.

Sergio Pimenta, IFC Vice President for the Middle East and Africa, said, Countries in the Middle East and Africa were making significant progress before the COVID-19 pandemic struck and at IFC our goal was to unlock private investment and create markets and opportunities to support that progress. In the wake of the economic crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, we stepped up the momentum to help our clients stay in business and maintain jobs which are critical to economic growth and livelihoods. We applaud the perseverance and resilience of the small, medium and large businesses that are the foundation of economies in Africa and the Middle East and we will continue to support them in the next phase of the crisis and through the recovery.

In addition to its investments in the Middle East and Africa, IFC provided Advisory Services totaling a portfolio of more than $590 million to nearly 376 projects aimed at improving the business environment, investment policy and promotion and creating markets in priority sectors. Of the advisory projects IFC supported, 45 percent were focused on improving gender equality.

IFCs investment and advisory work in the Middle East and Africa supported small businesses to access finance, linked small-holder farmers to markets, facilitated solutions to supply chain disruptions caused by COVID-19, and increased access to electricity and renewable power sources.

Since the coronavirus outbreak, IFC has focused its efforts on helping the private sector mitigate the impacts and the economic fallout. In March, IFC announced $8 billion in global fast-track financing to help companies affected by the outbreak. Since then, IFC has committed more than $3.5 billion to companies globally. Of that, IFC has invested $517 million in Africa and the Middle East, with 66 percent going to countries eligible for financing from the International Development Association, the World Bank Groups fund for the poorest countries.

Among the companies IFC supported:

In Cote dIvoire , IFC provided a 25 million loan to NSIA Banque Cote dIvoire, allowing the bank to extend new loans to companies whose cash flows have been disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

, IFC provided a 25 million loan to NSIA Banque Cote dIvoire, allowing the bank to extend new loans to companies whose cash flows have been disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. In Egypt , IFC loaned $100 million to Commercial International Bank to help the bank increase support to clients and companies impacted by COVID-19.

, IFC loaned $100 million to Commercial International Bank to help the bank increase support to clients and companies impacted by COVID-19. In Kenya , IFC loaned $50 million to Equity Bank Kenya to help the bank increase working capital and trade-related lending to its SME clients.

, IFC loaned $50 million to Equity Bank Kenya to help the bank increase working capital and trade-related lending to its SME clients. In Mauritania , IFC provided $35 million, part of a $200 million credit facility arranged by Societe Generale to enable Addax Energy S.A. to deliver critical energy imports to Mauritania.

, IFC provided $35 million, part of a $200 million credit facility arranged by Societe Generale to enable Addax Energy S.A. to deliver critical energy imports to Mauritania. In Nigeria , IFC provided a combined $200 million to Access, FCMB and Zenith banks for on-lending to SMEs across a number of sectors facing working capital or trade finance challenges.

, IFC provided a combined $200 million to Access, FCMB and Zenith banks for on-lending to SMEs across a number of sectors facing working capital or trade finance challenges. In Uganda, IFC provided a $4 million loan, part of a $6.5 million financing package, to the International Medical Group (IMG), a subsidiary of Ciel Healthcare Limited, to enable the healthcare services provider to address the impact of COVID-19 on its operations.

Since March, IFC also deployed $886 million through the Global Trade Finance Program (GTFP) envelope of its COVID-19 Fast Track Facility to support SMEs in the Middle East and Africa involved in global supply chains; almost 92% of the GTFP volume deployed was in low-income and fragile countries in the regions.

About IFC

IFCa sister organization of the World Bank and a member of the World Bank Groupis the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. We work in more than 100 countries, using our capital, expertise, and influence to create markets and opportunities in developing countries.

In fiscal year 2019, we invested more than $19 billion in private companies and financial institutions in developing countries, leveraging the power of the private sector to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity. For more information, visit www.ifc.org .
On Saturday, Aug. 8, African American men and boys of all ages will gather on the grounds of the Indiana Statehouse to participate in the inaugural Strong Men, Strong Minds Empowerment Rally. The convening will take place from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

As the title suggests, the rally is designed to empower, educate and encourage Black men and boys. Specifically, its purpose statement is as follows: The mission of Strong Men, Strong Minds is to work diligently with and on behalf of Black males of all ages in Central Indiana. We endeavor to facilitate their mental, emotional, physical and intellectual development to prepare them to lead the world.

Several weeks ago, city-county councilman Keith Graves and I had a discussion regarding the crises that Black men and boys are facing in Indianapolis  one of several times that we have done so. We decided to take a number of actions, including enlisting other men who share our commitment to being action- and solution-oriented. The rally is one result of that discussion.

In addition to councilman Graves and me, the other organizers are: James Garrett and Kenneth Allen, executive director and board chair, respectively, of the Indiana Commission on the Social Status of Black Males; Dr. Clyde Posley, pastor of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church; and Robert Shegog, president and COO of the Indianapolis Recorder.

The rally will feature speeches from a group of dynamic leaders who will address such topics as economic empowerment, educational attainment, fatherhood and how to de-escalate conflict in Black communities, among other highly relevant topics.

Why Black men and boys? Or, more specifically, why not Black women and girls? The short answer is that its a question of focusing on Black males as opposed to a lack of concern for Black females. Personally, I have a son and a grandson whom I love deeply. I have lived most of the experiences that they will face as they become Black men. I am equally concerned about the myriad challenges that my two daughters face (despite the fact that one of them is an adult).

This particular rally is of, by and for Black men and boys. We highly respect and value our female counterparts, and we recognize them as equals. In no way do we intend to minimize the unique challenges that Black women and girls face. However, we are not equipped to conduct a similar event on their behalf.

Consider the following example. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), as far as I know, has never sponsored a campaign to raise awareness of child abductions. Driving under the influence and the kidnapping of children are both very important societal challenges. The fact that MADD focuses on the former rather than the latter does not diminish the urgency and appropriateness of its mission. (Incidentally, Black-led organizations are expected to address all challenges that their community faces, which is not true of white-led organizations. This line of thinking is increasingly leveled at Black Lives Matter, which was not created to address what is often labeled as Black-on-Black crime.)

In planning the rally, the organizing committee thought carefully about which leaders are best equipped to speak to the topics that we identified. Among those leaders is Minister Nuri Muhammad of the Nation of Islam, who will offer an address regarding the historical and contemporary roles that Black men have played. Nathan McGuire, MFT, will discuss techniques regarding how to reduce violence in Black communities. Camishe Nunley, LMHC CTS, will discuss Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. These and other leaders will speak to the hearts and heads of Black men and boys, thereby encouraging them to identify and deploy their unique talents in creating a better reality for future generations.

It is important to note that this is not a one-time event. One of the possibilities that were considering is developing Strong Men, Strong Minds into an organization. While attendees are not required to register in advance, we ask that they consider doing so, as this will assist the organizing committee in planning. Those who wish to do so may register or get more information on the Facebook event page.

Larry Smith is a community leader. Contact him at larry@leaf-llc.com.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 22:16:12|Editor: huaxia

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MACAO, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The government of China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) expressed on Thursday strong opposition to the European Union's (EU) 2019 annual report on the Macao SAR, saying it contains baseless and biased claims.

The Macao SAR government said the EU has made groundless and irresponsible comments over the years about Macao affairs, amounting to a brazen interference in China's domestic affairs.

It added that since the return of Macao to the motherland in 1999, the Macao SAR has successfully implemented the "one country, two systems" principle with Macao characteristics, maintained long-term prosperity, and made remarkable achievements in various aspects. Macao residents have enjoyed the rights and freedoms stipulated in law.

The SAR government said the EU report contains subjective and biased comments about Macao's achievements in politics, society and economic development.

It demanded the EU stop this practice, which is not only against basic norms of international relations but also damages China-EU relations. Enditem
First Lady Melania Trump could have had a hand in designing the U.S. Space Force's future uniform.

That's according to a new in-depth report from Time Magazine on the fledgling military force. With Melania Trump's years of attending elite fashion shows and working as a former model, President Donald Trump reportedly thought the design job would be a natural fit for her, Time reported.

The inner workings of Space Force, which was officially activated Dec. 20, 2019, have been the subject of national speculation.The new report offers insights into key decisions in which the White House played a surprising role.

During a Jan. 15 meeting with Gen. John "Jay" Raymond, chief of space operations, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and other military leaders, Trump was given an array of poster-size photos to choose from to become the sixth military branch's official seal, Time also revealed in its story, published Thursday.

Read Next: Semper Supra: Space Force Unveils Long-Awaited Official Logo

After studying four designs, Trump reportedly "pulled out a black Sharpie marker, drew an arrow pointed at the seal and scratched out his signature above it." Roughly a week later, Trump tweeted the picture of that seal; the seal uses the delta symbol from the service's flag and logo, which was unveiled this week.

Before the meeting was over, Trump suggested the First Lady "should help design Space Force uniforms because of her impeccable fashion sense," Time reported.

The incident eventually became a plotline in the Steve Carell Netflix comedy "Space Force."

In episode four of the series, the first lady's staff deliver a series of impractical uniforms to Space Force headquarters, including ones sporting capes and the words 'Space Force' fashioned with glitter and gems across the buttocks.

Since the creation of Space Force the president has been briefed on multiple occasions about Space Force design elements, sometimes offering his opinion, Time said.

So far, Space Force has debuted a service seal, logo and utility uniform name tape, but many major design decisions remain.

Pending Space Force decisions include a dress uniform, insignia and unit patches and a rank structure. Officials are also deciding what to call Space Force members.

Time also reported Paramount Pictures reached out to Space Force to avoid a trademark brouhaha over use of the delta symbol.

For months, Twitter users have been quick to point out that the insignia is highly reminiscent of the "Star Trek" Starfleet Command logo; but the military says the symbol is part of its history, too.

Others have pointed out the delta also looks very much like the now-defunct Air Force Space Command patch. AFSPC existed from 1982 until last year, when the Pentagon announced the command's personnel would be temporarily reassigned to the Space Force until formal transfers begin.

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

Related: Major Space Force Units to Be Called Deltas, Officials Announce
HELSINKI - The top U.S. diplomat says the Soviet occupation and annexation of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1940 was a criminal act and draws parallel with present-day Russias military manoeuvrs in Ukraine and Georgia.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement issued by the State Department on Wednesday that just as the United States never recognized the Baltic States forced incorporation into the Soviet Union, so it will never accept Russias attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and Georgia, which also are former Soviet republics.

The statement and Pompeos separate video message posted Thursday on the Twitter page of the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia, marked the 80th anniversary of the Welles Declaration, named after its initiator, the U.S Acting Secretary of State Sumner Welles.

In the declaration, signed on July 23, 1940, the United States condemned the occupation and annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by Soviet leader Josef Stalin. Soviet Red Army troops had invaded the three small European nations just a week before that date.

Pompeo pointed out that the Welles Declaration is no mere historical artifact.

All through the Soviet occupation, the flags of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania flew at State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. America still holds true to the principles of sovereignty articulated in the Welles Declaration, Pompeo said in his video message.

The document holds utmost importance to the governments in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius  the respective capitals of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania  as the three nations remained occupied for nearly 50 years until independence in 1991 amid the collapse of the Soviet Union.

All three Baltic states are now NATO and European Union members.

In a separate joint statement, Pompeo, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics and Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius condemned Moscows actions to rewrite history in order to justify the 1940 occupation and annexation of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union.

The Soviet occupation of the Baltic nations took place in 1940-1941 and 1944-1991. From 1941-44 the three countries were occupied by Nazi Germany.

The street where the U.S. Embassy in Riga, Latvia, is currently located is named after Sumner Welles, who was an influential Foreign Service diplomat and major foreign policy adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
She hit back at trolls who accused her of being 'too skinny' by sharing a photo of herself in a bikini earlier this week.

And Laura Anderson continued to shed light on how posing differently can alter the way your figure looks as she took to Instagram on Thursday.

The Love Island star, 31, posed on her bed in a yellow bikini, joined by her boyfriend Tom Brazier, and sat upright at first before hunching over and pinching her stomach.

Bikini babe: Laura Anderson admitted on Wednesday she's 'looking very skinny' as she posed in a yellow bikini before pinching stomach in a playful video on Instagram

Laura, who has been working hard on her fitness in recent months, showed off her enviably long legs and svelte midriff in the vibrant two-piece.

Tom watched her as she said: 'Looking very skinny' before slouching and using her hands to pinch her stomach as she said: 'Hello', prompting him to start laughing.

Laura's latest post comes a day after she defiantly hit back at trolls by sharing a bikini-clad snap after being trolled for being 'too skinny'.

Having a laugh: The Love Island star posed on her bed joined by her boyfriend Tom Brazier, sitting upright at first before hunching over and pinching her stomach

Gorgeous: Laura, who has been working hard on her fitness in recent months, showed off her enviably long legs and svelte midriff in the vibrant two-piece

Amused: Tom watched her as she said: 'Looking very skinny' before slouching and using her hands to pinch her stomach as she said: 'Hello', prompting her beau to start laughing

The television personality revealed she had hesitated to post the photo, which showed her posing by the beach in Barcelona, over fears she would be inundated with cruel taunts over her slender physique.

Wearing a blue bikini top and denim hotpants, Laura penned a lengthy caption: 'I hesitated to post this photo as I look extremely thin and we all know any trolling against your body, whatever shape is never fun.

'Reality is pictures can be deceiving and I really want to highlight this on here today. It's just a picture, an angle, lighting, maybe a filter.'

'I look like a beanpole': Laura's latest post comes a day after she defiantly hit back at trolls by sharing a bikini-clad snap after being trolled for being 'too skinny'

Laura continued: 'I like this photo because it's a happy memory of Toms and I's favourite day of our holiday together but I know my body 'at this angle' will be at the forefront of some Susan's mouths out there, am I right or am I right? (Sorry if you're name is Susan).

'On the flip side, we all naturally choose the best photos of ourselves, is this a crime? Can pictures be too deceiving? How can you please everyone?

This photo is even deceiving to me as I'm the heaviest I've ever been but I look like a beanpole above (nothing wrong with being a beanpole to my fellow long limbed angels out there)

'I shouldn't have to mention my weight and neither should you. I just knew it would be discussed negatively below today if I didn't.'
The Deputy Governor of Ondo State, Agboola Ajayi, has reacted to the emergence of Eyitayo Jedege as the flag bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the October governorship election.

Mr Ajayi said he fought a good fight but had a lot of forces that disturbed his emergence as the opposition partys candidate.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that Mr Jegede, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) from Ipele town, near Owo, defeated Mr Ajayi and six others in the election that held at Dome centre, Akure, the state capital.

The former Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in the state had 888 votes while the deputy governor polled 657 votes.

Mr Jegede also won the PDP primary in 2016, and flew the flag of the party in that years governorship election, a contest he lost to Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of the All Progressives Congress.

Reacting to his defeat, Mr Ajayi, in a statement by his media adviser, Allen Sowore, said the people have spoken, and we accept the outcome in good faith, knowing fully well that it was a race against different forces.

We remain undaunted and resolute about our commitment to a people oriented government against personalised democracy. We wish the good people of Ondo State and the winner the best as we March on. For us, life goes on.

Eight aspirants sought the partys ticket at the primary.

They are Agboola Ajayi, Eyitayo Jegede, Boluwaji Kunlere, Eddy Olafeso, Ben Okunomo, Bode Ayorinde, Godday Erewa and Sola Ebiseeni.

Mr Ajayi, the deputy governor, had pulled out of the APC and joined the PDP, hoping to clinch the opposition partys ticket.

His defeat now appears double jeopardy for him as he will now have to fend off an aggressive plot to remove him from office.

With this outcome, Mr Jegede is yet again the main challenger to Mr Akeredolu, who is the candidate of the governing party, the APC.
A new low has been reached in the simmering United States (US)-China discord with the Donald Trump administration forcing the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston, and Beijing vowing to retaliate at what it described as an unprecedented escalation. The foreign ministry in Beijing announced on July 22 that China planned to react with firm countermeasures if the Trump administration did not revoke this erroneous decision.

This unexpected US decision to raise the diplomatic heat on China comes in the wake of a US carrier strike group led by the nuclear-powered USS Nimitz exercising with warships of the Indian Navys eastern fleet on July 20 in the Indian Ocean. While this has been described as a routine passex (basic naval exercises when warships of two navies pass by each other in the oceans), the subtext points to a subtle demonstration of US-India partnership even as India and China are engaged in a slow disengagement process  which now appears to have hit a roadblock  after the Galwan incident.

As is now well-recognised, the altercation at Galwan in the Ladakh region of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), where the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) troops ambushed and killed 20 Indian soldiers, marked a different low point in the bilateral relationship between India and China. The template that framed Sino-Indian relations since 1993 and ensured an extended period of guarded peace and stability is no longer valid. Delhi is now exploring a new level of diplomatic mediation with layered military messaging.

The immediate objective for India is a return to the pre-Galwan status quo along LAC. It appears that PLA is unlikely to withdraw from the locations it has occupied and fortified in a swift and consensual manner. In reviewing other options, Delhi has revived certain naval/maritime possibilities and these include the likelihood of inviting Australia to join the India-US-Japan trilateral Malabar naval exercises towards the end of the year. This points to reviving the Quad  a group of four nations that came under one umbrella for the first time in the aftermath of the December 2004 tsunami.

It may be recalled that when India had mounted a Quad-plus Singapore five-nation naval exercise in 2007, China bristled at what it considered to be a latent threat. Delhi, then, chose to placate Beijings concerns by reverting to a bilateral Malabar with the US.

The abiding anxiety for China is what is referred to as the Malacca dilemma. This refers to Beijings perceived vulnerability in the Indo-Pacific given its enormous dependence on unimpeded merchant shipping, which is predicated on the freedom of the oceans and the sea-lines of communication.

One strand of this dependence is illustrated by the fact that in 2019, China imported an average of 10.1 million barrels of crude oil per day and most of this passes through the Malacca Strait. The vulnerability-leverage matrix can be suitably calibrated depending on the prevailing geopolitical context and Beijing is sensitive to this factor.

Consequently, Beijing has been seeking to mitigate this dilemma in various ways and an ambitious China-Iran strategic partnership is the latest initiative. It envisions a $400-billion Chinese investment in return for long-term hydrocarbon supplies and access to the Chabahar port. Along with Gwadar in Pakistan, this maritime connectivity and access, while ostensibly being part of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative project, will enhance Beijings footprint in a strategic location near the Persian Gulf. In summary, the Indian Ocean is being differently animated by China and the US in the main. India has to evolve a short-term and long-term maritime orientation that will enable Delhi to protect and advance core national interests.

This is where the presence of the USS Nimitz offers an insight into the suasive nature of the naval capability and the spectrum of options it can provide in managing the relationship with a bellicose China. The US, in recent days, has upped the ante against China in relation to the South China Sea (SCS), and termed Beijings actions as unlawful and reiterated its commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.

It is instructive that the USS Nimitz carried out a freedom of navigation patrol in the SCS before exercising with the Indian Navy and Beijing would be reading the tea leaves carefully. Astute application of military/naval capability can enhance diplomatic efficacy and India needs to acquire the requisite material capability and the partnership with the US has been useful. In an innovative use of naval platforms, the US-supplied P-8I maritime recce aircraft have been deployed along LAC for surveillance and points to maximising limited assets in unexpected exigencies.

Indias predicament is resource allocation for the military when the GDP is expected to shrink dramatically due to Covid-19. A focused strategic dialogue with the US and other Indo-Pacific nations that share both anxiety about Chinas bellicosity, and an aspiration to realise a rule-based maritime order, may offer some policy options that could be pursued both individually and collectively.

For now, how Beijing will retaliate against the US whether in relation to the Houston consulate, or the joint naval exercise in the Indian Ocean, will offer some cues about the nature of the India-China relationship in its post-Galwan phase.

C Uday Bhaskar is director, Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi

The views expressed are personal
Civil Rights Pioneer and Icon, John Lewis, Passes at 80



In the midst of a modern-day civil rights movement, birthed from the death of George Floyd, we have lost a civil rights pioneer. John Lewis endured more than 40 arrests, physical attacks and serious injuries all the while remaining a devoted advocate to the philosophy of nonviolence. He never left the frontlines of getting in good trouble when it came to standing for civil rights. He dedicated every inch of his life to fighting injustice of all kinds from the streets to the halls of Congress.

The son of sharecroppers, Lewis was born on February 21, 1940, outside of Troy, Alabama. He grew up on his familys farm and attended segregated public schools in Pike County, Alabama. In his youth, he was inspired by the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the words of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to become an activist.

As a student at Fisk University, Lewis organized sit-in demonstrations at segregated lunch counters and volunteered to participate in the Freedom Rides, which challenged segregation at interstate bus terminals across the South. He risked his life and took severe beatings by angry mobs and arrested by police for challenging the injustice of Jim Crow segregation in the South.

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Standing by his convictions by standing for what he believed in, Lewis became a nationally recognized leader. From 1963 to 1966, Lewis was named chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The organization was responsible for organizing student activism including sit-ins and other activities. He was named one of the Big Six leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. At the age of 23, he was an architect of and a keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in August 1963.

In 1964, Lewis coordinated SNCC to organize voter registration drives and community action programs during the Mississippi Freedom Summer. Along with Hosea Williams, Lewis led over 600 peaceful, orderly protestors across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965. The march, from Selma to Montgomery, was to demonstrate the need for voting rights in the state.

The marchers were attacked by Alabama state troopers in a brutal confrontation that became known as Bloody Sunday. News broadcasts and photographs revealed the senseless cruelty of the segregated South helped to bring about the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

After leaving SNCC in 1966, he continued his commitment to the Civil Rights Movement as associate director of the Field Foundation and his participation in the Southern Regional Councils voter registration programs. He went on to become director of the Voter Education Project (VEP). Under his leadership, VEP added nearly four million minorities to the voter rolls.

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In 1977, Lewis was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to direct more than 250,000 volunteers of ACTION, the federal volunteer agency. In 1981, he was elected to the Atlanta City Council, where he was an advocate for ethics in government and neighborhood preservation. He was elected to Congress in November 1986 and has served as U.S. Representative of Georgias Fifth Congressional District since then. Lewis was Senior Chief Deputy Whip for the Democratic Party in leadership in the House, a member of the House Ways & Means Committee, a member of its Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, and ranking member of its Subcommittee on Oversight.

Lewis holds a B.A. in Religion and Philosophy from Fisk University, and is a graduate of the American Baptist Theological Seminary, both in Nashville, Tennessee. He has been awarded over 50 honorary degrees from prestigious colleges and universities throughout the United States, including Harvard University, Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Duke University, Morehouse College, Clark-Atlanta University, Howard University, Brandeis University, Columbia University, Fisk University, and Troy State University.

He is the recipient of numerous awards from eminent national and international institutions, including the highest civilian honor granted by President Barack Obama, the Medal of Freedom, the Lincoln Medal from the historic Fords Theatre, the Golden Plate Award given by the Academy of Excellence, the Preservation Hero award given by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Capital Award of the National Council of La Raza, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Non-Violent Peace Prize, the Presidents Medal of Georgetown University, the NAACP Spingarn Medal, the National Education Association Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Award, and the only John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for Lifetime Achievement ever granted by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

Other accolades include Lewis working 15 years to gain approval for the Smithsonians National Museum of African American History and Culture. He met bipartisan success in Congress in 2006 when he led efforts to renew the Voting Rights Act, but the Supreme Court later invalidated much of the law.

Lewis co-authored of the #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novel memoir trilogy MARCH, written with Andrew Aydin and illustrated by Nate Powell. Garnering many accolades and awards, The MARCH series is used in schools across the country to teach the Civil Rights Movement to the next generation of young activists, and has been selected as a First-Year common reading text at colleges and universities such as Michigan State University, Georgia State University, Marquette University, University of Utah, Henderson State University, University of Illinois Springfield, Washburn University, and many others. He is also the author of Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change, written with Brenda Jones, and winner of the 2012 NAACP Image Award for Best Literary Work-Biography. His biography, published in 1998, is entitled Walking With The Wind: A Memoir of the Movement.

He has been interviewed for numerous documentaries, news broadcasts, journals and recently featured in in the documentary, John Lewis: Good Trouble. The documentary traverses his life as an activist set among interviews, images and footage of the early Civil Rights Movement.

Lewis had announced in late December 2019 that he had been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer. The announcement of his death came just hours after the passing of the Rev. C.T. Vivian, another civil rights leader, who died early Friday, July 17 at the age 95.

Lewis wife of four decades, Lillian Miles, preceded him in death in 2012. They are survived by their son, John Miles Lewis.

Those in Congress, and many others, who worked closely with Lewis and across social media, shared their thought and memories about Lewis.

I saw John Lewis last week. He was still that determined John Lewis that was a man of faith. He knew from the time that he started at 15 that any day could be his last. He lived like he didnt want to waste a single day  and he didnt! Andrew Young

#JohnLewis was a longtime personal mentor, a hero and a friend. Its a devastating loss. Marc Morial

It was the honor of my life to serve alongside such a kind, courageous, and persistent leader and public servant. I considered John and his late wife, Lillian, dear friends, and my heart is heavy with the magnitude of the loss of one of our nations most beloved sons. My sincere prayers and deepest sympathies are with his son, John Miles Lewis, family, friends, staff, and constituents during this difficult time.  Congresswoman Maxine Waters

Congressman John Lewis was an American heroa giant, whose shoulders upon many of us stand. Throughout his life, he showed unending courage, generosity, and love for our country. We are grateful that John Lewis never lost sight of how great our country can be. He carried the baton of progress and justice to the very end. It now falls on us to pick it up and march on. We must never give up, never give in, and keep the faith.  U.S. Senator Kamala D. Harris

All of us were humbled to call Congressman Lewis a colleague, and are heartbroken by his passing. May his memory be an inspiration that moves us all to, in the face of injustice, make good trouble, necessary trouble.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

A pioneering civil rights leader who put his life on the line to fight racism, promote equal rights, and bring our nation into greater alignment with its founding principles.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

We danced all night. My heart hurts. Weve got some big shoes to fill. Lets make him proud of us. RIP Congressman John Lewis. Jenifer Lewis

He got into good trouble for country he believed in, for a country that oftentimes, doesnt believe in its people. It was a necessary effort and his life proved that point, that getting into trouble, for the right reasons, will result in better lives for everyone. He summed it up best and has left us with more than few indelible words of wisdom.

When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something, to do something. Our children and their children will ask us what did you do? what did you say? stated Lewis.

We have a mission and a mandate to be on the right side of history.
Researchers are making "good progress" in developing vaccines against COVID-19, with a handful in late-stage trials, but their first use cannot be expected until early 2021, a World Health Organization (WHO) expert said on July 22.

WHO is working to ensure fair vaccine distribution, but in the meantime it is key to suppress the virus's spread, said Mike Ryan, head of WHO's emergencies programme, as daily new cases around the globe are at near-record levels.

Follow our LIVE blog for the latest updates of the novel coronavirus pandemic

"We're making good progress," Ryan said, noting that several vaccines were now in phase 3 trials and none had failed, so far, in terms of safety or ability to generate an immune response.

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

"Realistically it is going to be the first part of next year before we start seeing people getting vaccinated," he told a public event on social media.

WHO was working to expand access to potential vaccines and to help scale-up production capacity, Ryan said.

"And we need to be fair about this, because this is a global good. Vaccines for this pandemic are not for the wealthy, they are not for the poor, they are for everybody," he said.

The United States government will pay $1.95 billion to buy 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine being developed by Pfizer Inc and German biotech BioNTech if it proves safe and effective, the companies said.

Ryan also cautioned schools to be careful about re-opening until community transmission of COVID-19 is under control. Debate in the United States over restarting education has intensified, even as the pandemic flares up in dozens of states.

"We have to do everything possible to bring our children back to school, and the most effective thing we can do is to stop the disease in our community," he said. "Because if you control the disease in the community, you can open the schools."
Diaoyu Islands(photo file from Xinhua)

BEIJING, July 23 -- According to Japanese media report, Chinese coast guard ships have been patrolling in waters off Diaoyu Islands for 100 consecutive days, setting a record for the longest consecutive cruising period of time since Japan's so-called nationalization of Diaoyu Islands in September 2012.

It is also reported that Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide declared at a press conference on the morning of July 22 that "in addition to sending a patrol ship to the sea waters where the incident occurred, the Japanese side has also lodged solemn representations to China through the diplomatic channel".

In response to Japan's protest, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a regular press conference on July 22 that the Diaoyu Islands and its affiliated islands have been China's inherent territory since ancient times.

The patrol and enforcement of law by the CCG vessels in waters off Diaoyu Islands is China's inherent right. China do not accept Japan's so-called "protest", Wang Wenbin stressed.

Wang also emphasized that the two sides should act in accordance with the four-point principled consensus, properly manage the situation and prevent the escalation of tensions.
The latest close friend to the Kardashian family to fall out with the famous clan is longtime girl pal, Larsa Pippen. Many believe Pippen may have had dealings with Tristan Thompson. Pippen is remaining mum but all signs point to her no longer being close to the family as theyve unfollowed one another on social media.

Larsa Pippen and Kim Kardashian West via Twitter

The Kardashian family and Larsa Pippen unfollow each other on social media

The famous family and Pippen have been friends for over a decade. Pippen is often filmed on KUWTK and takes luxurious vacations with the Kardashians.

Out of nowhere, social media users discovered that Pippen and the Kardashians are no longer following one another on Instagram. Pippen addressed the controversy in a message she posted to her Instagram story. The note was reposted to The Shade Rooms page.

Larsa Pippen and Kourtney Kardashian 2016 | John Parra/GC Images

I woke up this morning blessed and see that everybody is focused on who I am following and who I am not following on social media. I am focused on my children, my new fitness brand Larsapippenfitness, and my relationships in real life. Praying that everybody finds peace in their own lives and focus on what brings THEM happiness, she wrote.

According to People Magazine, the Kardashians did not wish Pippen a happy birthday on July 6 as they typically do. Pippen has also wiped her social media clean of the family.

Its unclear what caused issues between the longtime friends.

Kardashian family fans react to rumored fallout with Larsa Pippen

Kardashian fans are shocked and confused about whats happening between them and Pippen. But, that hasnt stopped the conversation online. The rumored fallout is a huge discussion on Twitter and Instagram, with fans making their own assumptions, many believing Pippen caused the problem.

Always focusing on family and kids when they guilty, one wrote on Instagram.

@larsapippen needs to grow upI said what I said, another commented.

She should have maintained her silence cus this aint it, another chimed in.

Larsa a joke, another wrote with laughing-faced emojis.

Larsa Pippen blasted for stirring drama with Jordyn Woods; Kanye West calls Pippen out

Pippen has been in the mix of her fair share of Kardashian related drama. She broke the news to the family regarding the Jordyn Woods and Tristan Thompson cheating scandal and publicly criticized Woods for her part in it.

During Kanye Wests recent Twitter rant, he called her out, leaving fans questioning why.

One rumor floating around is that Pippen also had a fling with Thompson. Fans are calling her fallout with the family karma for the way she publicly bashed Woods.

Lmao the same Larsa Pippen that was complacent in the bullying of Jordan during the whole Tristan saga, is the same Larsa Pippen that's now being accused of messing around with the same Tristan? The jokes really do write themselves  BUSY BOY (@___itbelikethat) July 22, 2020 Source: Twitter

Related: Jordyn Woods Likes Shady Tweet That Accuses Larsa Pippen of Having an Affair With Tristan Thompson

Lmao the same Larsa Pippen that was complacent in the bullying of Jordan during the whole Tristan saga, is the same Larsa Pippen thats now being accused of messing around with the same Tristan? The jokes really do write themselves, one Twitter user wrote.

The Kardashians nor Pippen have spoken on the rumored rift, with the exception of Pippens Instagram note.
A local resident Ilya, 57, stands next to a house of his relatives, which locals said was destroyed during a recent shelling, in the rebel-controlled city of Donetsk, Ukraine July 22, 2020. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

Deal Reached for East Ukraine Ceasefire From July 27

Negotiators for Ukraine, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) reached an agreement on Wednesday for a full and comprehensive ceasefire between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine from Monday, Ukraines presidents office said.

A simmering conflict between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed rebels has killed more than 13,000 people since 2014. Major combat ended with a ceasefire agreed in the Belarusian capital of Minsk in 2015, but sporadic clashes still regularly kill civilians, Ukrainian soldiers, and separatists.

The breakthrough is the result of the effective efforts of the Ukrainian delegation with the support of our international partners in Berlin and Paris, President Volodymyr Zelenskys press service said in a statement.

Both Ukraine and Russia agreed, under the mediation of the OSCEan international organization of 57 countries from North America, Europe, and Asia for security and co-operation in Europeto implement the ceasefire until a full settlement of the international armed conflict in the Donbas region in Eastern Ukraine, the statement said.

(L to R) Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelenskyy , Germanys Chancellor Angela Merkel, Frances President Emmanuel Macron and Russias President Vladimir Putin attend a joint news conference after a Normandy-format summit in Paris, France on Dec. 9, 2019. (Charles Platiau/Pool/Reuters)

Ukraine confirmed that it will fully comply with agreements reached at the Paris summit held in December between Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France and is committed to the implementation of the Minsk agreements, the statement said.

The regime of a full and comprehensive ceasefire, if observed by the other party, was a precondition for the implementation of the Minsk agreements.

Elections in the Eastern Ukrainian temporarily occupied territories are possible only after the withdrawal of foreign military forces, disarmament of illegal armed groups, and the regaining of control of the Ukrainian-Russian border by Ukraine, the statement said.

Elections must be held in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine, the statement specified.

Ukraine also expects further mutual prisoner releases and provided a list of persons for the release, expecting Russia to do the same, the statement said.

Ukrainian war prisoners walk after being released after a prisoner exchange, near Odradivka, eastern Ukraine, on Dec. 29, 2019. (Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo)

Zelensky has sought to resolve the conflict since his election last year, arranging a number of prisoner swaps. Ukraine and Russia have been foes since 2014 when Moscow seized Ukraines Crimea peninsula and backed the rebellion in the east.

In 2014, Russian forces invaded the Crimea peninsula, and after that held a controversial local referendum in which Crimeans voted to join the Russian Federation, according to the Council of Foreign Relations. The referendum was called illegal by the United Nations General Assembly. Russia, however, annexed the Crimea peninsula despite criticism.

Two months later, pro-Russian separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine commonly known as Donbas held a referendum to declare independence from Ukraine. The referendum was neither in accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine nor with effect under international law, according to the report (pdf) from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The Minsk agreements consist of two ceasefire accords. The first one negotiated between Ukraine and Russia, and the two separatist regions, failed shortly after implementation. In 2015, the second ceasefire agreement was negotiated by the Normandy Format group consisting of France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine.

Participants of the Normandy Format Summit held in December adopted the Steinmeier formula which stipulates that the elections to be held in the separatist-held territories under Ukrainian legislation and the supervision of the OSCE. Both Russia and Ukraine are OSCE members.

Reuters contributed to this report.
New York: US President Donald Trump told reporters to "ask Prince Andrew" when questioned about what went on at Jeffrey Epstein's "cesspool" private island, in a newly unearthed interview.

Trump was asked in 2015 about Epstein and the alleged sexual abuse that took place on Little St James, the Caribbean island owned by the disgraced financier who died in a prison cell in August last year.

Prince Andrew's lawyers are in a back-and-forth with US prosecutors over his friendship with Epstein. Credit:AP

"That island was really a cesspool, there's no question about it, just ask Prince Andrew - he'll tell you about it," Trump told journalists shortly before he entered the presidential race. "The island was an absolute cesspool."

According to flight logs, the Duke of York paid at least one visit to the island, travelling on Epstein's private jet, although former staff claimed he visited Little St James several times.
The Nigerian government had on April 28 announced its target of testing at least two million people within the next three months.

Chikwe Ihekweazu, the head of Nigerias Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), at a Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 briefing, had said the move became necessary as the country is lagging behind in terms of testing.

He admitted that the country encountered challenges with testing at the onset of the pandemic but has now scaled up its testing capacity in recent months.

Our supply chain is better than it was at the beginning of the outbreak, and the lack of reagents or supplies has not affected testing in any part of the country in the last three months, he said then.

At the moment, we have an average of 2,000 samples tested daily across the country. This is way below our current testing capacity. While this has increased in the last month, our current target is to reach at least 15,000 samples tested daily, he added.

Mr Ihekweazu said, to meet up to the two million target, about 50,000 people will be tested per state and in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), depending on the population size.

Barely six days to the completion of the 90 days testing target, the countrys testing capacity is still very low.

Mr Ihekweazu had suggested that the country was lagging behind in testing because state governments were not collecting enough samples and individuals were not coming forward to be tested.

The success of this target depends largely on states and individuals. We urge states to collect more samples and individuals to report to the appropriate authorities if they have COVID-19 symptoms.

Several states have worked with partners to establish sample collection sites and other approaches for sample collection. This is an excellent step and we urge all states to own these targets  we can only know the true burden of COVID-19 if we test more samples, he said.

As of July 22, Nigeria has conducted 218,223 sample tests, while South Africa, with less than 30 per cent of Nigerias population, has conducted 2,536,921 tests.

Health experts warn that low testing capacity may lead to non-containment of the virus and could lead to more deaths.

States by states testing

A review of data provided by NCDC on July 14 showed a breakdown of testing conducted so far in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

According to the report, Nigeria had conducted over 190,000 tests (as of July 14) of its over 200 million population and found 33,616 infected persons as of July 14. Out of these, 13,792 have been treated and discharged and 754 fatalities recorded.

The states topping the testing chart are Lagos, Oyo, Kano, Edo and the FCT.

PREMIUM TIMES reviews states topping and lagging behind on the testing chart.

Info graph on how Nigerian states are faring

High testing

Lagos

The state tops the testing chart with 55,152 samples tested as of July 14. The state remains the epicentre of the virus since Nigerias index case was recorded in February.

From the samples tested, 12,711 cases were positive of which 1,935 had been treated and discharged. About 175 deaths had been recorded in the state.

Data from the 2006 population census published by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) places Lagos states population at over nine million.

FCT

The nations capital with an estimated population of more than 2.4 million had tested 23,169 samples as of July 14. From the samples tested, 2,687 returned as positive. Also, 810 people had been treated and successfully discharged while 39 deaths recorded.

Kano

The North-west state with a population of over nine million had tested 19,916 samples of which 1,314 returned positive. However, 1,035 cases had been treated and discharged and 52 persons had died from the virus.

Oyo

As of July 14, the South-west state had tested 12,414 samples of which 1,882 cases were confirmed. Also, 1,008 persons had been treated and discharged while 19 deaths had been recorded.

Data from the 2006 population census published by the NBS places the states population at over five million. This shows that the state still has a long way to go in terms of COVID-19 testing.

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Edo

Edo had tested 9,359 samples of COVID-19 as of July 14 and has recorded 1,807 cases of the virus. Of these 1,039 persons had been successfully treated and discharged and 60 deaths recorded.

Edo has a population of over three million, according to data from the 2006 population census published by the NBS

Low testing

Taraba state

Taraba, with an estimated population of two million has tested 438 samples of which 30 cases were confirmed. Also, 11 persons had been treated and discharged and no deaths recorded from the virus.

Zamfara

Zamfara had tested 316 persons as of July 14 out of which 76 cases were confirmed positive. Also, 71 persons had been treated and discharged. Five deaths were recorded. Zamfara states population is estimated to be over three million.

Yobe

Yobe had only tested 134 persons of its over two million estimated population. Of this, 62 confirmed cases had been recorded. Also, 51 persons had been treated and discharged and eight deaths recorded from the virus.

Kogi

Kogi had tested 24 samples for COVID-19, out of which five cases were confirmed. Three persons had been treated and discharged while two deaths were recorded.

Until it officially reported its index case, Kogi was trailed by controversy over its claim that there was no single COVID-19 case in the state. The governor, Yahaya Bello, had claimed that there was a plot to compulsorily report COVID-19 cases in the state.

Cross River

Cross River is the last of the 36 states in the federation to report a COVID-19 case. The same denial scenario that played out in Kogi equally happened in the South-south state.

The state had tested 16 persons as of July 14, of which 10 cases were confirmed positive. Three persons had been treated and discharged while one person had died from the virus.
Since 2016, Dessner has operated out of a bespoke studio called Long Pond on his property near Hudson, N.Y., with assistance from longtime engineer Jon Low. Besides "folklore," Dessner has been hard at work of late on the second album from Big Red Machine, his collaborative project with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon. An early track from it, "No Time for Love Like Now," was released in June and features vocals by former R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe.
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Mayor Bill de Blasio says he wont allow groups like Blue Lives Matter to paint messages of their own on city streets after commissioning Black Lives Matter street murals throughout the five boroughs.

But the founder of Blue Lives Matter NYC Joe Imperatrice told Advance/SILive.com he isnt going to let this slide and plans to sue the city to allow them to paint Blue Lives Matter near NYPD headquarters in Lower Manhattan.
Six different brands of vehicles are currently being assembled in Ghana by the Volkswagen Group.

The vehicles are Tiguan, Teramont, Amarok, Passat, Polo and Caddy.



Similarly, Sinotruk, a leading global manufacturer of Heavy Duty Trucks is also assembling a variety of trucks in Ghana through Zonda Tec Ghana Limitedan indigenous Ghanaian company.



Presenting the mid-year budget today [Thursday, July 23, 2020] at Parliament, Mr Ofori-Atta, many of the automobile companies are heading to Ghana following the governments introduction of a new comprehensive Automotive Manufacturing Development Policy.



He said the Kantanka Group has also been formally granted a license to continue their auto assembly operations in Ghana and to benefit from incentives under the Ghana Automotive Manufacturing Development Policy.



Mr Ofori-Atta noted that other leading car manufacturers such as Toyota and Nissan Groups are also positioned to establish assemble operations before the end of this year.



In order to support these new major developments, Government will establish an Automobile Industry Development Center which will among other things, coordinate the technical processes for licensing vehicle assemblers and manufacturers and monitor their compliance with industry regulations and standards, he explained.



He added The Center will also coordinate the implementation of a Vehicle Financing Scheme which will link financial institutions to individuals and groups interested in purchasing newly assembled vehicles in Ghana.



The Finance Minister said It is envisaged that the development of the automobile industry in Ghana, which is one of the new Strategic Anchor Initiatives being promoted under the Ministry of Trade and Industrys Industrial Transformation Agenda, will constitute a significant step towards import substitution and enhancing exports, particularly within the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).



According to Mr Ofori-Atta, Ghana is well positioned to become the new automobile manufacturing hub in Africa.







Source: Daily Graphic









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MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Alabama prisons have a pattern of using excessive force against male inmates, the U.S. Department of Justice announced in an investigation released Thursday, as it again accused the state of keeping prisoners in unconstitutional conditions.

In its report, the Justice Department detailed a chilling litany of incidents, including a prison guard beating a handcuffed prisoner in a medical unit while shouting, I am the reaper of death, now say my name! as the prisoner begged the officer to kill him. It is the second time within 18 months that the Justice Department has accused Alabama of housing male inmates in unconstitutional conditions in a prison system considered one of the most understaffed and violent in the country.

Our investigation found reasonable cause to believe that there is a pattern or practice of using excessive force against prisoners in Alabamas prisons for men, Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband for the Civil Rights Division said in a statement. Dreiband said the Justice Department hopes to work with Alabama to resolve the departments concerns.

In findings sent to the state, federal investigators wrote that officers have beaten handcuffed or restrained prisoners, excessive force is sometimes used as retribution, the state prison system fails to investigate incidents and the violence is so common that some officers consider it normal.

Ultimately, Alabama does not properly prevent and address unconstitutional uses of force in its prisons, fostering a culture where unlawful uses of force are common, the report read.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement that her administration remains hopeful that they will reach a resolution to all of the departments allegations.

I am as committed as ever to improving prison safety through necessary infrastructure investment, increased correctional staffing, comprehensive mental-health care services, and effective rehabilitation programs, among other items, the Republican governor said.

The report noted that at least two inmates died at the end of 2019 after use of force by officers.

Steven Davis died in October 2019 after an altercation with corrections officers at William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility. The department said at the time that Davis rushed the officers with a makeshift weapon.

In an apparent reference to the incident, the report said other inmates said correctional officers continued to strike the prisoner after he dropped any weapons and posed no threat. The report said an autopsy listed 16 distinct injuries to the prisoners head and neck  including multiple skull fractures in addition to multiple fractured ribs and bleeding around a kidney

Davis mother last year showed a state task force a photograph of her sons battered face.

This is my son, Sandy Ray said as she held his photo. He is beaten beyond recognition. I had to have a closed casket because of what they had done to him. No one, not even a dog, deserves this.

The 28-page Justice Department report listed other examples of violence by staff after reviewing files and visiting several state prisons. The Justice Department said those included:

 In December 2018, a correctional officer brutally punched, kicked and struck a handcuffed prisoner with an expandable baton in the Ventress medical unit. During the beating, four nurses heard the officer yell something to the effect of, I am the reaper of death, now say my name! and the prisoner begged to die.

 In September 2019, a lieutenant at Ventress prison lifted a handcuffed inmate off the ground and slammed him on a concrete floor several times, knocking him unconscious.

 In February 2019, a sergeant at Elmore prison beat two handcuffed prisoners, suspected of retrieving contraband, striking one prisoner with a collapsible baton approximately 19 times on his head, legs, arms, back and body. The sergeant who assaulted the prisoners later filed a false report about the incident. The sergeant and two correctional officers pleaded guilty in federal court.

The announcement comes more than a year after the Justice Department released a scathing report that said male inmates face excessive inmate-on-inmate violence and sexual abuse in facilities that are not sanitary, safe or secure. The department is in negotiations with the state in an attempt to reach an agreement.

The findings released Thursday were the continuation of the investigation first launched in 2016.

What does it take to get fired? said Rep. Chris England, a Tuscaloosa lawmaker who has called for the new leadership at the state Department of Corrections. Our whole system of corrections and pardons and paroles has got to be the worst in the country.

Advocacy groups said the findings reflect concerns they have been expressing for years. Charlotte Morrison of the Equal Justice Initiative said they hear every week from inmates, parents and sometimes staff concerned about abuses.

Weve been asserting that the prisons need serious reform, and most of the time the state responds with cosmetic changes, but these problems are much deeper than that and that is what this report details, Morrison said.
For seven seasons, Amir Arison has played FBI techie, Aram Mojtabai, in NBCs The Blacklist. In real life, the actor is an animal advocate who is passionate about many different organizations and giving back where he can. One platform Arison has touched on is mental health awareness and it comes from a place very close to the star.

Amir Arison had a say in The Blacklist

Amir Arison as Aram Mojtabai | NBC/NBCU Photo Bank

RELATED: Why Maggie Gyllenhaal Felt Dismissed By The Blacklist Star James Spader On the Set of Secretary

When The Blacklist premiered in 2013, creators Jon Bokenkamp and John Fox had an idea loosely based on the capture of elusive criminal, Whitey Bulger  whom James Spaders character, Raymond Red Reddington is based on.

The supporting cast wasnt as clearly thought out, as Amir Arison discovered. At the time, of Arisons Blacklist audition, the Los Angeles resident had flown out to New York where he appeared in an episode of HBOs Girls opposite Lena Dunham.

There, Arison was sent into an audition for the third episode of The Blacklist before the pilot aired.

It was a small sort of part, a computer guy in the FBI, he told Herald Mail Media. Honestly, I didnt want to go in. It wasnt something new or bigger than I had done.

He admitted the role felt kind of basic, leading him to put his own spin on the audition, which he nailed in one take.

So I just had fun with it, and added some humor and even improvised a little, he said.

How Arison knew he landed The Blacklist

A couple weeks later, Arison got the job but assumed it would only last a couple of episodes  until directors changed the characters name to reflect Arisons Israeli roots. The name was originally Morgan Hackett.

When Arison shot his first day, the director instructed him to do whatever you want, have fun with it, improvise a little with it, he said, adding he improvised.

When I saw the episode, I saw they used my improv, he said. Thats when the writers were like oh, wait. Whos that guy? Hes fun. So they just started adding me in doing computer stuff as a side character, but they were writing jokes in my natural rhythm. It was kind of a miracle.

Aside from landing a role in a hit show, Arisons passion exudes through other avenues of his life, such as his girlfriend and rescue dog, Reina.

How Arison unintentionally made his girlfriend jealous

RELATED: The Blacklist Star James Spader On His Obsessive-Compulsive Ways: Its Very Hard For Me

Aside from being a successful actor in Hollywood, Arison and his girlfriend adopted a rescue dog named Reina  a 3-year-old Doxie mix whom Arison adopted from SoldiersForStrays in California. He often refers to Reina as baby girl or nugget  much to his girlfriends chagrin.

My girlfriend gets jealous when I call her baby girl. Because my girlfriend wants to be called baby girl, Arison told Bonobos.

So now I call them my baby girls, Arison says, laughing. I posted a picture when we first got her. I said Find someone you love and hold on tight. And its me and Reina as a puppy. And my girlfriend was legit upset.

That aside, Arison is an outspoken advocate for rescue animals as well as another platform thats near and dear to him (and we hope his girlfriend forgave him).

Why mental health awareness matters to Arison

RELATED: The Blacklist Fans Still Scarred From This Season 1 Distraction

As the son of two doctors, Arison is hyper-aware of the importance of mental health awareness brings. The Blacklists success allows him ample room to raise awareness about important issues but credits his parents for instilling philanthropy.

My mom is probably the most generous and charitable person I know, he said in the same Herald Mail Media interview.

Shes like semi-retired now and is either traveling, going to opera or giving. She said, Amir, the big secret is Im the lucky one. Shes paid for scholarships and people to go to medical school and supports political organizations and donates to schools and different things.

Arisons father, Dr. Ron Arison, is a medical doctor who he sees as the hardest working, kindest person I know. His mother, Dr. Dr. Zipora Arison, is a psychiatrist who inspires him to speak out about mental health.

She always said, Im the one who benefits the most from giving. Whoever receives something, the fact that I get to give is the biggest reward ever. The big secret to charity is that youre the biggest benefactor for being the benefactor, he said. Thats really stuck with me and its really true.

Arison honored his parents amid the coronavirus pandemic

Back in March, Arison paid tribute to his parents whove endured the frontlines of the pandemic.

#HappyNationalDoctorDay takes on a whole new meaning currently. My parents are doctors, mom is a psychiatrist and dad is a surgeon and my dad is still going to work everyday, he wrote.

He explained to me the protocols he takes now, including when he treated a Covid-19 patient yesterday. I am nervous for him, and beyond proud of him. They have always been an example of hard work, dedication, and responsibility. They take great pride in being healers and eventho they are older, that pride and responsibility is still unwavering in the face of todays epidemic.

He continued by thanking them and all the doctors and health care workers, now, and always.

Clearly, the Arisons are doing something right. Not only did they raise a hard-working man but a thoughtful, aware, and compassionate one as well. And that is every parents goal.
Authorities Flood 200,000 Homes by Opening A Dam; US Orders China Close Houston Consulate in 72 Hrs

Close to 200,000 homes were flooded in four villages and towns in WangJiaBa of Anhui Funan County, after another dam opened its floodgates to full discharge on July 20. This comes after authorities in the same area blasted the Chuhe dike to discharge flood waters.

Meanwhile, the US government has ordered the Chinese consulate in Houston to close within three days, under suggestions it was involved in intellectual property theft and private information on Americans.

And The Washington Free Beacon is now pointing out that a US think tank has strong financial ties to Chinas Huawei. We look into this think tank, and how Chinese authorities have actively subverted think tanks in the United States and around the world.

These stories and more in this episode of Crossroads.

Crossroads is an Epoch Times show available on Facebook and YouTube.

Join Patreon to Support Crossroads: https://www.patreon.com/Crossroads_Josh
These famous shrines have come forward and contributed generously to fight the coronavirus pandemic.The Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust, Shirdi (Ahmednagar) donated Rs.51 crore to Maharashtra's Chief Minister's Relief Fund (CMRF).
Under pressure from the Turkish government, Netflix has canceled a new series before filming had even begun in what critics decry as a new extreme in censorship in the country.

After the success of original Turkish-language series such as The Protector and The Gift, Netflix Turkey was preparing to film If Only. The series was to feature popular actress Ozge Ozpirincci as Reyhan, an unhappily married woman who time travels back in time to the moment her husband proposed to her.

Yet on July 14, one day before shooting was scheduled to commence, Netflix canceled the project. According to an interview with the shows creator and screenwriter, Ece Yorenc, Netflix shelved the project after Turkeys Radio and Television Supreme Council, the state media regulator, objected to a gay side character in the script. Normally in Turkey, unwanted content is censored or banned after a series has been released.

According to Lara Ozlen, social media expert at the Speak Out Platform, a nongovernmental organization challenging censorship in Turkey, Netflixs cancellation of If Only is an extreme example of the culture of censorship that has long existed in the country.

Once censorship begins it is like an unstoppable vortex, Ozlen told Al-Monitor, referring to ever-increasing levels of government control since the implementation of state internet filters led to massive protests in 2011.

Bilge Yesil, an associate professor of media culture at the City University of New York, described the cancellation of If Only as a shocking new level of censorship that is ultimately consistent with the authoritarian, state-centered approach of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The latest Netflix decision exposes how Turkish media culture is becoming increasingly narrow with each passing year, month, day, Yesil, the author of "Media in New Turkey: The Origins of an Authoritarian Neoliberal State," told Al-Monitor.

In the last few months, Netflix in particular has been in the governments crosshairs. As of late 2019, Netflix had 1.5 million subscribers in Turkey.

On April 13, Ebubekir Sahin, who heads the Radio and Television Supreme Council, publicly threatened Netflix for including LGBTI+ content. "We will not tolerate broadcasts that are contrary to the national and spiritual values of our society, Sahin told the pro-government daily Yeni Akit.

Earlier this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to crack down on Netflix, YouTube and Twitter. Do you understand why were against these [digital] platforms? They are immoral, he said in a speech.

Television is already tightly controlled in Turkey, with the radio and TV council handing out hefty fines and blackout orders to channels that break its regulations against nudity, alcohol and cigarettes or that challenge taboos about religion or politics.

Until August 2019, online streaming platforms remained a partial safe haven from the sanitized world of cable TV. Netflix and local websites like BluTV remained places where one could watch more edgy content than on mainline channels.

This began to change when the council was given oversight over all online content in Turkey, including foreign streaming platforms and news services. Now companies are required to obtain a broadcasting license allowing for council supervision.

Because Netflix is foreign-based, it is subject to an additional level of control. To film in Turkey, companies must apply for a permit for foreign producers and send the script to Turkeys Ministry of Tourism and Culture for review.

In the case of If Only, Netflixs initial permit application was rejected without explanation. According to screenwriter Yorenc, the show had no particularly risque content. There was a gay character but no sex scenes. Even so, the team behind the series decided to remove this character from the script. After they reapplied, the Ministry of Tourism and Culture issued a filming permit.

However, on July 14, the TV council and Netflix representatives met in Ankara. After this meeting, Netflix decided to cancel the project.

This led to speculation that Netflix might be pulling out of Turkey. In response, Netflix issued a statement reiterating the company's commitment to their Turkish subscribers and collaborators. However, they did not elaborate on what occurred during the meeting with RTUK.

According to some sources, Netflix preferred to cancel If Only rather than accede to further demands.

Yet the company has previously demonstrated a willingness to remove content according to the wishes of foreign governments, as when it complied with Turkeys request to remove local access to an episode of the show Designated Survivor negatively portraying a fictional Turkish president.

Netflix has also removed content at the request of Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Vietnam and Germany.

Despite this readiness to bow to local mores, conservative public opinion in Turkey has turned against Netflix. In April, rumors spread on social media about a gay character in the locally produced teen drama Love 101. This rumor, which turned out actually to apply to If Only, sparked calls for a boycott of the streaming platform. According to conservative Twitter users and pro-government columnists, queer themes in media are part of a plot by the LGBT lobby to encourage homosexuality in Turkish society.

As homophobic discourse rages in Turkey, becoming particularly belligerent during Pride Week, the mere presence of a gay character in a fictional series was enough to cause a crisis between government institutions and the worlds largest streaming platform.

Yesil argues that it is no coincidence that hate speech against LGBTI+ people is rising at the same time that the AKP is proposing new legislation to restrict social media.

The AKP has long used the threat of media content it deems threatening to the morals of society to tighten the flow of information, Yesil told Al-Monitor, adding that a similar moral panic emerged in the early 2000s about websites about drugs, prostitution and Satanism thought to endanger Turkish youth had set the groundwork for the Internet Law of 2007, which allowed the government to ban websites like YouTube.

According to Ozlen, the governments reaction both to the Internet and to LGBTI+ issues is based on fear.

What scares them is both the uncontrollable flow of information and the sexuality of women and LGBTI+ people. Yet both the womens and LGBTI+ movements are growing stronger. This may be why the repression is intensifying as well.
The French government has unveiled that it will distribute 40 million free masks to its poorest people living under difficult conditions. Health minister Olivier Veran has reportedly said on July 22 that France would begin distributing the free washable fabric face masks to almost 7 million poorest people residing in the country. This move came after widespread criticism that the new rules on compulsory mask-wearing in public places put an extra burden on the economically weaker families.

READ: France: Health Minister Warns Circulation Of Coronavirus Is 'increasing'

Government to provide free masks

According to the reports, the masks will be provided to seven million people who have enrolled themselves for complementary health-insurance that people living on low incomes are entitled to. Veran added that France cannot afford to leave people unable to wear masks. He also added that the government is going to send 40 million washable masks for the general public which can be used 30 times. He further said that people who are in possess of the benefit do not need to register as the masks will be sent to them automatically via post.

READ: Police Transfer Chilean Man For France Extradition

Health Minister warns people

French Health Minister Olivier Veran on July 20 warned citizens about the increasing cases of coronavirus in the country. France's health ministry on Monday said that clusters in the country are being increasingly reported and as a result, more people are being hospitalised which is reflecting on the overall coronavirus infections tally as well. Olivier Veran said that there is a possibility of a resurgence of a national health emergency, but assured the nation that a second wave far from reality.

According to reports, there have been 400 to 500 new clusters of coronavirus cases across the country, including the district of Mayenne. Olivier said that it is a worrying sign for the country as the epidemic could re-emerge again. The minister further added that the infection rate in France is likely to increase as the reproduction rate of the virus is more than one. The country had seen a decline in both infection and mortality rate following months of precautionary measures that included lockdown and social distancing. Amid increasing cases, France has made the wearing of face mask mandatory in indoor spaces as well. Before it was only required in public places, such as museums, cinemas, places of worship, public transport, etc.

READ: France Urges 'free Entry' Of UN High Commissioner For Human Rights In China's Xinjiang

READ: British Cycling Team Changes Name Again For Tour De France

Image credit: Pixabay
The new article Evidence from Urban Roads without Bicycle Lanes on the Impact of Bicycle Traffic on Passenger Car Travel Speeds published in Transportation Research Record, the Journal of the Transportation Research Board, demonstrates that bicycles do not significantly reduce passenger car travel speeds on low speed, low volume urban roads without bicycle lanes. Authored by Jaclyn Schaefer, Miguel Figliozzi, and Avinash Unnikrishnan of Portland State University, the research shows that differences in vehicle speeds with and without cyclists were generally on the order of 1 mph or less - negligible from a practical perspective.

A concern raised by some motorists is that, on urban roads without bicycle lanes, cyclists will slow down motorized vehicles and therefore create congestion. Researchers evaluated speeds on six roads in Portland at different times of day, including peak traffic hours. They did a detailed comparative analysis of the travel speeds of passenger cars on lower volume urban roads without bicycle lanes, and found that a 1 mph differential in speed caused by the presence of a cyclist would not cause congestion.

The study also found that cyclists riding on a downhill road, and therefore traveling faster, were less likely to be overtaken by motorists. In a Forbes article on the research, "Cyclists Don't Cause Congestion: 'Must Get In Front' Maneuvers By Motorists Pointless, Finds Study," Figliozzi agreed that this has possible implications for e-bike riders, who can often travel at faster average speeds than cyclists on standard bicycles.

"[Those on] e-bikes are not as affected by uphills, and have better travel performance regarding speed and acceleration. In a low volume and low-speed street, motorists are less likely to overtake e-bikes because the speed differential is smaller or maybe zero," Figliozzi told Forbes.

This research was first presented by Jaclyn Schaefer at the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board, and you can view that poster visualization of the research at: https://tinyurl.com/yxlxob4k. Jaclyn is a recent Eisenhower Fellow and NITC Scholar, and is currently wrapping up her studies as a master's student at Portland State University.

"The hope is that our study dissuades policymakers from tossing out shared roadways as a viable option because of the perception that bicyclists will impede the mobility and speed of drivers," Schaefer shared. "While the preference is to separate modes through separated, protected bike lanes - that's not always possible in every urban setting. 'Bike boulevards', or 'neighborhood greenways' as we call them here in Portland, are great alternatives on low-volume, low-speed roads to build out a safe, well-connected bicycle network."

The research team builds on a long legacy of Portland State University research on the case for bike boulevards, as recapped recently by PSU Urban Studies Professor and TREC Director Jennifer Dill: https://jenniferdill.net/2019/06/27/a-case-for-bike-boulevards/.

Due to limitations regarding homogeneity among some site characteristics, this study is currently being expanded to include a large number of sites displaying a more diverse range of functional classifications, roadway markings, speed limits, roadway grades, and traffic volumes and compositions. Additionally, the new study will explore how oncoming traffic speed and volume may affect opportunities for overtaking bicycles, and the potential connection to passenger car speeds on roads without bicycle lanes.

###

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University is home to the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs. TREC produces research and tools for transportation decision makers, develops K-12 curriculum to expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engages students and professionals through education.

By Jaclyn Schaefer, Miguel Figliozzi, and Avinash Unnikrishnan; Portland State University
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 23, 2020) - Benchmark Botanics Inc. (CSE: BBT) (the "Company" or "Benchmark Botanics"), a holder of federal licenses to cultivate, process and sell cannabis under the Cannabis Act is pleased to announce that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Professor Dr. Michael Deyholos to establish a Comprehensive Research and Development Centre for Flax and Hemp Genetics (CFHG) at the Department of Biology of the University of British Columbia, Okanagan (UBCO).

CFHG is being established for the development of new hemp and flax varieties to serve markets for fiber, functional food, and medicinal ingredients. In partnership with Benchmark Botanics, the center will be located at the University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus, in Kelowna, BC. The focus of the center will be to use applied genomics and genetic tools to develop novel germplasm to help industrial hemp and flax to reach its full potential. High-throughput genotyping and chemotyping techniques will be deployed to survey existing variation in germplasm collections. New biotechnology including the CRISPR/Cas9 system will be used to modify metabolic pathways, such as cannabidiol (CBD) biosynthesis, to produce novel germplasm that will be transferred to pre-breeding and breeding programs. The results are expected to be new hemp varieties with improved traits and novel bioproducts for all aspects of the hemp and flax industry.

CFHG's Objectives

CFHG will focus on flax and industrial hemp-associated business objectives which include:

Flax and industrial hemp whole products chain

Leadership on flax and industry hemp research and development

Creation of an international community to collaborate and benefit the general public domestically and internationally

"Benchmark Botanics is expected to play an industry-leading role for industrial-hemp and flax. Its vision and strategy hope to position itself well at a global level for utilizing flax and industrial hemp for whole products chains. UBCO offers advantages as a leading international University, geographically located in hemp and flax growing regions with easy access to international academic and industry communities. CFHG is expected to be a global leader in basic research, applied research and commercialization of industrial hemp." said William Ying, CEO, Benchmark Botanics. "CFHG will strengthen collaborations between Canada and other parts of the world including the greater China regions. The benefit to both sides will be appreciated through personnel exchange, opening the Canadian hemp products to the Chinese market and bridge business reaching the global market. The social and economic benefits to BC and Canada could be significant and the hemp technologies developed in Canada could be commercialized soon in Canada, China and internationally."

Story continues

About Benchmark Botanics Inc.

Benchmark is a diversified multi-licensed cannabis producer focused on a three-way vertical business model targeting the medical, pharmaceutical and recreational markets in Canada. The Company's business plan also includes a strategy to become a Canadian licensed producer to pioneer selling medical cannabis and hemp throughout Asia, in countries where it is legal to do so.

Benchmark is focused on producing the highest-quality, indoor-grown cannabis for patients and adult recreational consumers, as well as developing international business partnerships to extend the Company's global footprint.

Benchmark's 100% owned subsidiary, Potanicals Green Growers Inc. ("Potanicals) is a Health Canada licensed producer under the Cannabis Act and its regulations. The Company is producing at its indoor Peachland, BC Cannabis Complex and is constructing a Phase II expansion of an additional 10,000 square foot extraction facility there. Along with cultivation and production, the company's Peachland BC facility also provides propagation, cultivation, cloning, storage, research and development, genetic improvements and is progressing towards CBD oil extraction and an EU-GMP certification.

As part of its expansion strategy, the company and a joint venture partner completed a second facility, a 4-acre Greenhouse Operation in Pitt Meadows, BC. The Company, through Potanicals, has received its second cultivation license, effective November 29, 2019, from Health Canada for the Pitt Meadow greenhouse.

For further information, please visit the Company's website at www.benchmarkbotanics.com or the Company's profile at www.sedar.com.

If you would like to be added to Benchmark's news distribution list, please sign up at Investor Relations info@bbtinc.ca

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF

BENCHMARK BOTANICS INC.

/s/ "William Ying"

William Ying

Chief Executive Officer

Tel: 604-238-0005

www.benchmarkbotanics.com

The CSE has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this release.

FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These statements relate to future events or future performance. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking statements or information. More particularly and without limitation, the news release contains forward-looking statements and information relating to Company's corporate strategy. The forward-looking statements and information are based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by management of the Company, including, without limitation, the Company's ability to carry out its business plan. Although management of the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements and information are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements and information since no assurance can be given that they will prove to be correct.

Forward-looking statements and information are provided for the purpose of providing information about the current expectations and plans of management of the Company relating to the future. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such statements and information may not be appropriate for other purposes, such as making investment decisions. Since forward-looking statements and information address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to several factors and risks. These include, but are not limited to, the Company's ability to identify and complete additional suitable acquisitions to further the Company's growth as well as risks associated with the medical marijuana industry in general, such as operational risks in development and production delays or changes in plans with respect to development projects or capital expenditures; the uncertainty of the capital markets; the uncertainty of receiving the required licenses, production, costs and expenses; health, safety and environmental risks; marketing and transportation; loss of markets; environmental risks; competition; incorrect assessment of the value of the potential market; ability to access sufficient capital from internal and external sources; failure to obtain required regulatory and other approvals and changes in legislation, including but not limited to tax laws and regulated regulations. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements, timelines and information contained in this news release. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive.

The forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and no undertaking is given to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws or the Canadian Securities Exchange. The forward-looking statements or information contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60411
As California's COVID-19 increases, Gov. Gavin Newsom once again announced conducting indoor religious services. Christian leaders and pastors are currently concerned as they go against the governor's decision.

Many Christians are urging the state governor that church is considered as "essential."

"Coupled with last week's ban on singing and worshiping, people of faith are increasingly alarmed by Sacramento's disregard of their constitutional rights."

Where do we draw the line?"

Pastor Jon Duncan of the Cross Culture Christian Center defied Newsom's previous order and continued to hold indoor services. He informed believers that church is necessary.

"The latest order conflicts with the First Amendment right to peaceably assemble and practice religion. The church provides a necessary outlet for people who are feeling hopeless or depressed."

"People do need the church. I think the church is an essential service. I think it's a necessary service," he Pastor Duncan.

Echoing that sentiment was state Senate Republican Leader Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, who urged Newsom in a letter not to close down houses of worship.

Dean Broyles, chief counsel and president of the National Center for Law and Policy, which represents Duncan's church, said in a statement that Newsom's authority "stops at the church house door."
A large group of Armenians living in Los Angeles, California attacked and injured a much smaller group of Azerbaijanis and Turks who gathered to peacefully protest recent Armenian aggression in border towns of Azerbaijan, Anadolu Agency writes in the article US: Armenians attack peaceful Azerbaijani protestors.

The incident took place on Tuesday in front of Azerbaijan's Consulate in the city when thousands of Armenians verbally and physically assaulted some 70 Azerbaijanis and Turks across the street, despite tight security measures by the L.A. Police Department. "Acts of violence by Armenian radicals against a much smaller group of Azerbaijani-American counter protesters in front of the Consulate General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles are unacceptable and appalling," Elin Suleymanov, Azerbaijan's ambassador to the US, said on Twitter on Wednesday, wishing a quick recovery to those hurt in the incident. "This is what Armenian Dashnaks are capable of. Attacking peaceful Azerbaijani protestors, including women," Nasimi Aghayev, Azerbaijans consul to the western United States, said on Twitter, sharing photos of the injured and hospitalized Azerbaijanis. He added: Hundreds of Armenians attacked today a small group of peaceful Azerbaijani counter-protestors in front of our Consulate. 7 Azerbaijanis were injured, 4 hospitalized.

The Dashnaqs are a group of radical, Islamophobic, and Turcophobic Armenians notorious for a series of political assassinations in the 20th century, martyring dozens of Turkish diplomats in the US and across the world.

Aggression, occupation

On July 12, the Armenian army violated a cease-fire and attacked Azerbaijani positions with artillery fire towards the Tovuz border district, withdrawing after losses following retaliation from the Azerbaijani army. During its aggression Armenia martyred 12 Azerbaijani soldiers, including high-ranking officers, and one civilian, besides wounding four troops.

Rash statements from local US officials seeking to win over Armenian votes and lobbying dollars have exacerbated the situation and encouraged Armenian belligerence. Neglecting his duty to represent all Angelenos, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti Monday said he stands with the "Armenian community against violence" and urged Azerbaijan to "end its provocative and dangerous threats to strike Armenias civilian nuclear power plant"  a statement at odds with the real situation, with years of Armenian threats to destroy Azerbaijans dams and energy infrastructure.

Since 1991 the Armenian military has illegally occupied the Upper Karabakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) region, an internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan. Four UN Security Council and two UN General Assembly resolutions, as well as decisions by many international organizations, decry the illegal occupation and demand the full withdrawal of Armenian forces from Upper Karabakh and seven other occupied regions of Azerbaijan.
A victory by progressives is the inclusion of language explicitly opposing the expansion of Israeli settlements.

An early draft of the Democratic Party platform leaked on Wednesday night hints at some minor gains by the progressive wing of the party but falls short of endorsing many of the more contentious ideals of that camp such as defunding the police, legalising cannabis, and curtailing military aid to Israel.

The 80-page document obtained by the Politico news service includes a nod to former candidate Bernie Sanderss signature issue, Medicare for All, despite such language being shunned by a unity task force of the two rival wings of the party in the last couple of weeks.

Overall, the platform shows the party being nudged to the left by Sanders and his acolytes in the progressive wing but not nearly the degree to which his supporters would have preferred. The Sanders camp did succeed, however, in locking in foreign policy language that is considerably less hawkish than previous Democratic platforms.

Jockeying for the final language of the platform  which will eventually be approved by delegates to the Democratic National Convention next month  will begin Monday when the Democratic National Committees platform committee takes up the proposal.





The Sanders wing is  at least publicly  pleased with the results of their lobbying so far.

Support for Medicare for All has never been mentioned in a Democratic Party platform. Its inclusion now is significant, Analilia Mejia, Sanderss political director, who spearheaded the Vermont senators strategy on the platform drafting committee, told Politico. The way we approach our movement is sometimes making big, rapid change, and sometimes it requires smaller gains that ultimately transform the discourse.

Debate over the language in the platform has been going on for several weeks behind closed doors, in contrast to previous years when such discussions were more open. Among the most contentious issues to come up during the debate were healthcare, criminal justice reform and Israel.

As the debate progresses in the coming week, the Sanders wing of the party will continue pushing for further changes about the legalisation of cannabis, defunding the police and a harder line on Israel, all of which Biden has publicly opposed in the past.

Other stand-out passages in the Democratic Party platform draft: "We will reaffirm Americas commitment to NATO and defending our allies." "We will maintain transatlantic support for Ukraines reform efforts and its territorial integrity."  Casey Michel  (@cjcmichel) July 23, 2020

Another major victory by the progressives is the inclusion of language explicitly opposing the expansion of Israeli settlements, illegal under international law, in the occupied territories, something the left wing attempted and failed to squeeze into the 2016 platform. The Sanders camp failed, however, to secure language in the document referring to Israels occupation of the West Bank and a call for placing conditions on military aid to the country.

Democrats believe a strong, secure, and democratic Israel is vital to the interests of the United States, the document reads. Our commitment to Israels security, its qualitative military edge, its right to defend itself, and the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding is ironclad.

It continues: Democrats recognize the worth of every Israeli and every Palestinian. Thats why we will work to help bring to an end a conflict that has brought so much pain to so many. We support a negotiated two-state solution that ensures Israels future as a Jewish and democratic state with recognized borders and upholds the right of Palestinians to live in freedom and security in a viable state of their own.

.@KeishaBottoms, the draft platform is out of touch with the Democratic base. It's time for the DNC to oppose Israel's illegal military occupation and to unequivocally support and protect Palestinian rights. #PlatformForPalestine @JvpAction @AMPalestine https://t.co/Cb6oo3Hoex  Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvplive) July 23, 2020

Sanderss staff were also said to be pleased with the less hawkish foreign policy language in the new platform, including a call to wind down the open-ended wars in the Middle East and to de-escalate the conflict with Iran.

Turning the page on two decades of large-scale military deployments and open-ended wars in the Middle East does not mean the United States will abandon a region where we and our partners still have enduring interests, the document says. Democrats believe its past time, however, to rebalance our tools, engagement, and relationships in the Middle East away from military intervention  leading with pragmatic diplomacy to lay the groundwork for a more peaceful, stable, and free region.
REGINA - A young man pleaded for help as he was being led out of a hospital by security before taking his own life in a lake on the Saskatchewan legislature grounds.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Samwel Uko is shown in a family handout photo. A review of what happened inside a Regina hospital the day a young man sought mental health support twice before his apparent suicide says video footage shows him calling out for help as security led him out of the facility. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Facebook MANDATORY CREDIT

REGINA - A young man pleaded for help as he was being led out of a hospital by security before taking his own life in a lake on the Saskatchewan legislature grounds.

The final moments of Samwel Uko's life are detailed in documents provided to his family as part of the Saskatchewan Health Authority's review into his care at Regina General Hospital in May. The family shared the review with The Canadian Press.

"As he was being escorted out of the facility, video footage shows him calling, 'I need help. I need help. I have mental-health issues,'" the review says.

Uko's body was discovered in Wascana Lake a short time later.

The health authority said it has formally apologized to Uko's family and it made a public apology at a news conference Thursday.

"I can't imagine the loss they feel and the suffering they continue to go through," said Scott Livingstone, chief executive the Saskatchewan Health Authority, adding Uko was "improperly denied care."

"For this I am deeply sorry."

Uko's uncle Justin Nyee called what happened to his nephew "insane."

"We are hurting, and we are angry at the same time because this shouldn't have happened," said Nyee, who lives in Calgary.

"After about 45 minutes they decided to kick him out of the hospital. He was not fighting, he was not cursing. All he was doing is telling them 'I need help.'"

Relatives say the 20-year-old man was visiting Saskatchewan from Abbotsford, B.C., and voiced concerns about being sick and people coming after him. He sought help at the Regina General Hospital.

The health authority's review says the young man went to the hospital on the morning of May 21 with "increasing depressive thoughts" and difficulty sleeping, but he denied thinking of self-harm.

It says he was connected with a mental-health clinic intake worker in the early afternoon and referred to an appointment with a psychiatrist within a week. He was told to contact a community outreach and support team or go back to the emergency room if he felt worse.

Hours later, the review says, he was brought back in by police. He had called 911 asking to go to hospital because he had mental-health issues.

The review says Uko was seated in a hallway between the registration and triage desks.

The desk clerk tried to get Uko to confirm he had been in for an earlier visit, but he did not, the review says. There was confusion over the last name he provided.

"The process for registration of an unidentified patient was not utilized."

The health authority says that after police left, a security officer consulted with a triage nurse and a decision was made for four officers to remove Uko. He was not registered or seen by the triage desk.

Video showed him calling for help on the way out.

"The honest truth is we spent too much time trying to obtain his identity and not enough time focusing on his care needs," Livingstone said.

Uko's death is to be the subject of a coroner's inquest to be held at a later date.

As a result of the review, the health authority said it has implemented a number of changes including improving the registration and triage process, better co-ordinating mental health supports in the emergency department and changing the process for removing someone from a facility.

"As an organization we failed Samwel," Livingstone said.

Nyee said he doesn't want his nephew's death to be in vain.

"There is a feeling of going forward and it will be good and better for someone else, to save someone else's life," Nyee said.

"I'm not saying the word satisfied, but we kind of understand in that sense they're trying to do the best they can to help the situation."

Ash said the purpose of the review was to allow staff to speak openly about what mistakes may have occurred as a way of improving the system.

"There have been no discussions about removal of staff. There's nothing that came out of the critical incident report that showed that there were any deliberate actions unrelated to trying to care for Samwel so right now there is nothing," Ash said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2020

 With files from Bill Graveland in Calgary

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version had comments from Saskatchewan Health Authority CEO Scott Livingstone attributed to John Ash, executive director of acute care.
Government is to use a social intervention programme, the Ghana COVID-19 Alleviation and Revitalisation of Enterprises Support (Ghana-CARES), to bring the economy back on track.



The programme, christened, Obatampa is expected to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on lives and livelihoods of Ghanaians and ensure that the country quickly emerge from the pandemic with stronger and more resilient economy.



Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister of Finance, who announced this at the mid-year budget review in Parliament on Thursday, said the 100 billion cedi programme would be implemented in two phases.



He said a stabilization phase would start from July to the end of the year with medium-term revitalisation phase aiming at accelerating the Ghana Beyond Aid economic transformation agenda.



The Minister said the stabilisation phase would extend some programmes already being run by government such as ensuring food security, protecting businesses and workers, strengthening the health system.



He said Government would also through Parliament pass some legislations to attract investors and support Ghanaian businesses during the economic revitalisation and transformation phase.



Mr Ofori-Atta said recognising the hardships that Ghanaians were experiencing, government had decided to extend the provision of free water supply for another three months and also extend free electricity supply for those on life line tariffs for three additional months.



He said that, would help the citizenry sustain quality of life and also uphold the hygiene protocols needed to fight the pandemic.



The Finance Minister said government was increasing the funding to the Coronavirus Alleviation Programme (CAP-BUSS) to reach millions of Ghanaians in the Micro, Small and Medium size Enterprises (MSMEs) that made up 70 per cent of the countrys labour force.



Government will be taking several measures to help businesses meet the challenges of COVID-19 and to protect workers. First, Government will pay its outstanding obligations to contractors and suppliers, to inject liquidity into the system and ease the cash flow difficulties of businesses, he added.



Mr Ofori-Atta said there were also plans to establish an unemployment insurance scheme and modernise the country for rapid socioeconomic growth.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Emily Ratajkowski is officially back to being a brunette.

Earlier this week, the model posted a snap saying 'Bye blondie it's been fun' and on Thursday, the model posted a new swimwear snap from her collection, which showed her brown locks tied up.

On Thursday, Emily, 29, posted a series of lingerie snaps to her Instagram Stories saying she was 'back' which she appeared to be excited about.

Back to brunette? Emily Ratajowski posted this shot of herself on Thursday which appears to suggest she has gone back to her natural hair color after telling fans it was 'fun being a blondie'

She first told fans she was going back to her old hair color by posting a photo of herself laying on top of husband Sebastian Bear-McClard in their living room.

The hair transformation marked the first time that Emily ever dyed her hair - with the model and actress revealing in a statement that she has never before dared to undergo such a daring transformation.

'I've never colored my hair or changed the length significantly in my entire life!' she said.

'She's back!' Emily Ratajkowski reverts from blonde to brunette again as she shares new bra and bikini snaps

Bra-vo: The model appeared to be excited about returning to her natural hair color

Ready for her close-up: Emily seemed thrilled to be brunette again

Feeling herself: She also posted this throwback shot of herself from December 2019 which she captioned 'back'

'I'm absolutely thrilled that Kerastase gave me their blessing to become a blonde. I just celebrated my birthday and am so happy to be coming out of quarantine with a fresh new look.

She added: 'Beauty is meant to be fun and expressive and this is definitely, hands down, the most fun Ive ever had with my look before.'

Emily and Sebastian recently returned back to New York after spending much of lockdown in their Los Angeles home.

Cozy: Emily Ratajkowski is saying goodbye to her bright blond locks, just one month after undergoing her striking quarantine makeover

They caught a flight out of The Big Apple in April, shortly after the CDC issued an advisory, asking 'residents of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut to refrain from non-essential domestic travel for 14 days effective immediately.'

The model previously told British GQ: 'You know, [my husband and I] have been a little bit on the fence. My parents are in California, but as we know the responsible thing is to not travel right now.'
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Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition.

If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create.
Fashionistas are raving about an ultra-flattering pair of $20 jeans from Kmart that reportedly lengthen the legs and lift the bottom better than designer styles almost 10 times the price.

Available in sizes six to 20, the grey high-waisted 'Front Pleated Jeans' have dominated Australian social media feeds since launching in-store and online earlier this month.



Stylists and influencers have been showcasing their versatility on Instagram, dressing the jeans up with heels and clutch bags for parties and date nights and dressing them down with trainers and jumpers for casual weekend strolls.

'If you're not on the $20 Front Pleated Jean train yet, I think you should hop on,' Melbourne blogger Bianca captioned an Instagram photo of herself in the pants.

Similar dark wash jeans from Ksubi cost $189.95 - meaning shoppers could buy nine pairs of Kmart's bargain design for almost the same price.

Scroll down for video

Brisbane stylist 'She's So Seasonal' wears Kmart's $20 Front Pleat Jeans with an orange jumper, heeled boots and a fedora hat

Save or splurge: Kmart's $20 Front Pleated Jeans (left) and Ksubi's $189.95 Chlo Wasted Venom jeans (right)

Brisbane stylist Sarah, known by her Instagram handle 'She's So Seasonal', called the jeans 'epic' and said she 'couldn't believe how perfect they fit' around her bottom and waist.

'I do struggle with jeans and usually don't opt for this style, but I immediately fell in love with the folded ankle cuff and pleat front design,' she said in a post on Saturday.

The jeans are reportedly 'selling like crazy', according to Sarah, who encouraged followers to grab a pair before they sell out.

'Must. Buy. Jeans,' one fan replied.

Melbourne fashion influencer Bianca wears the 'epic' jeans which she said flattered her bottom and waist more than any style she's tried before

Brisbane stylist Sarah (left) and Sydney blogger Dani (right) wear the jeans with boots and jumpers

Melbourne affordable fashion blogger Maria styles the jeans with strappy heels and a sleeveless top, perfect for a date or dinner with friends

Another said: 'I have these jeans and I love them! They were nothing I would have purchased in the past, but I'm so glad I did it. So versatile and easy to dress up or down.'

A third said she had bought the jeans thanks to Sarah after seeing them on her Instagram.

Sydney style blogger Dani, who posts as 'Luxe and Lemonade', told followers the jeans were part of her perfect kind of winter outfit.

Dressed down: Fashion blogger Maria wears a casual look built around the jeans, with fishnet stockings, Vans trainers and a checkered trucker shirt

Melbourne fashion blogger Maria, who specialises in creating looks from discount labels, posted five photos showing different outfits built around the pants.

'Love all of these and now you have convinced me I need these jeans!' one woman replied.

Maria advised followers to try the jeans on before buying because the 'baggy' silhouette makes them large fitting, meaning women might need to wear a size smaller than they normally would.
Estimating the demand for products or services is crucial for medical device manufacturers considering the dynamism in the market today. Insights into these factors not only help plan for future scenarios but enable businesses to apply accurate demand planning methodologies to stay well-prepared to tackle the demand-supply fluctuations.

Demand planning, according to Quantzig's experts, applies forecasts and experience to estimate the demand for various items at various points in the supply chain.

Quantzig, a leader in delivering scalable analytics solutions and data science services, today announced the completion of its demand planning engagement.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200723005351/en/

"Demand planning serves as the starting point for warehousing, shipping, price forecasting, and supply planning that aims at fulfilling the demand and requires data on the anticipated needs of customers," says a demand planning expert at Quantzig

Demand volatility is the topmost pain point for most of the businesses in the 21st century. Though this can be attributed to several factors, it is mainly because of the dynamic nature of customer needs and requirements. Request a FREE proposal to know how we can help improve your demand forecasting capability.

Supply chain demand planning and management consist of activities such as gathering and capturing critical supply chain data, analyzing the data, creating a demand estimate, and ongoing evaluation and alerts. Within the demand planning exercise, a firm can predict the future demand for its products or services. Advanced analytical demand planning methods can be divided into time series forecasting, causal models, or structural, where time series is the most common in traditional demand planning methodology. Read the complete article for comprehensive insights: https://bit.ly/3jsjM52

Demand Planning Engagement Summary

Considering the complexities of medical device manufacturing supply chains, traditional supply chain management methods are no longer adequate when it comes to analyzing and making sense of supply chain data that can help organizations to adapt to the changes in demand volatility.

The medical devices company approached Quantzig to leverage its expertise in demand planning and devise data-driven demand planning strategies to boost sales and improve margins. The client also wanted to identify and implement demand planning strategies to drive better market growth and optimize its supply chain network.

A prerequisite of conventional demand planning forecasting accuracy is stability. Conventionally it was assumed that history would repeat itself; thus, the situations that occurred past will reoccur, which is far from being true. But with Quantzig's analytics-driven demand planning solutions, you can devise a sound demand planning strategy. Speak to our experts to know more about our demand planning solutions for the healthcare industry.

Value Delivered

Improved forecast accuracy

Reduced turnaround time

Enhanced brand growth and market excellence

We offer cutting-edge advanced analytics solutions to help healthcare industry players across the globe to improve and attain commercial success by devising the perfect demand planning strategy. Collaborating with us can help you make the most of the data at hand by applying advanced data modeling techniques and solutions designed and custom-built to suit your needs. Book a FREE Demo to learn more about our demand planning solutions.

Additional Resources:

1. Pharma Marketing Analytics helped a German Drug Manufacturer to Increase Return on Marketing Investment (MROI) by 67%

2. Natural Language Processing Sentiment Analysis Helps a US Drug Manufacturer Reduce Customer Churn by 57%

3. Multi-channel Marketing Strategy Enables a Medical Devices Manufacturer to Increase Customer Engagement and Lower Acquisition Costs

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 55 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/20200723005351/en/

Contacts:

Quantzig

Eva Sharma

Marketing Manager

US: +1 630 538 7144

UK: +44 208 629 1455

https://www.quantzig.com/contact-us
Ophthalmic devices are medical devices used in the identification and treatment of ocular defects or deficiencies and eye disorders. The ophthalmic devices are designed for diagnostics, surgical, and vision correction purposes.

New York, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Ophthalmic Devices Market (By Applications, Products, End Users, Regions), Major Deals, Trends, Key Players Analysis, Recent Developments - Global Forecast to 2026" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05932569/?utm_source=GNW

These devices are continuously gaining increased importance and adoption due to high prevalence of various ophthalmic diseases such as glaucoma, cataract, and other vision related issues. According to the World Health Organization (WHO): Globally, at least 2.2 billion people have a vision impairment or blindness, of whom at least 1 billion have a vision impairment that could have been prevented or has yet to be addressed. Therefore, increasing number of eye related disorders propel demand for vision care devices, which in turn propels growth of the ophthalmic devices market. However, the elements such as the high cost of ophthalmic devices and dearth of skilled professionals with expertise in ophthalmic surgery are projected to hamper the growth of the market.



By Application Segment - Global Ophthalmic Devices Market and Forecast

 On the basis of application, the vision care segment dominated the overall ophthalmic devices market.

 Surgical instruments devices held second highest share of the overall ophthalmic devices market, while the diagnostic & monitoring devices segment is expected to grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period.

 Diagnosis is an indispensable process in the treatment of eye disorders and is responsible for contributing towards the diagnostics & monitoring segments growth.



By Products - Global Ophthalmic Devices Market and Forecast

 On product basis, contact lens held largest share of the ophthalmic devices market, while, cataract surgery devices accounted for second highest share of the total ophthalmic devices market.

 Retinal surgery devices is the third largest product segment of the ophthalmic devices market in 2019.

 The global market for fundus camera is predicted to exceed US$ 775 Million by 2026.

 The optical coherence tomography (OCT) has become the standard of care for the assessment and treatment of most retinal diseases. Introduction of hybrid techniques such as optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) can open up new pathways for the market.

 Glaucoma surgery is currently evolving with introduction of several new devices and those in pipeline have continued to address the focus on safety of glaucoma surgery.

 The global cataract surgery devices market is projected to surpass US$ 9 Billion mark by 2026.



By End Users - Global Ophthalmic Devices Market and Forecast

 Consumers segment accounted for highest share of the global ophthalmic devices market, as majority of the ophthalmic products such as vision care products are used by the common consumers.

 Hospitals and ophthalmic clinics & centers captured 2nd and 3rd largest share of the overall ophthalmic devices market respectively in 2019.

 Ambulatory surgical centers are likely to grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period, as these centers provide cost-effective services and a convenient environment that is less stressful than what many hospitals can offer.



By Region - Ophthalmic Devices Market and Forecast

 North America dominated the global ophthalmic devices market in 2019.

 In North America, United States captures highest share of the total ophthalmic devices market.

 Europe represents a major market for ophthalmic devices, owing to rising chronic eye diseases among geriatric population.

 In Europe, Germany and United Kingdom are the major market for ophthalmic devices.

 Asia Pacific is anticipated to grow at the fastest rate over the forecast period due to the presence of untapped opportunities in the emerging economies such as China and India.

 Japan ophthalmic devices market dominated the Asia Pacific region, while China accounted for over 4% share of the global ophthalmic devices market in 2019.



This report titled Ophthalmic Devices Market (By Applications, Products, End Users, Regions), Major Deals, Trends, Key Players Analysis, Recent Developments - Global Forecast to 2026 provides a comprehensive analysis of the Global Ophthalmic Devices Market.



This 254 Page report with 109 Figures and 11 Tables has been analyzed from 11 View Points:

1) Global Ophthalmic Devices Market and Forecast (2012 - 2026)

2) Global Ophthalmic Devices Market Share and Forecast (2012 - 2026)

3) By Application Segment - Global Ophthalmic Devices Market and Forecast (2012 - 2026)

4) Global Ophthalmic Diagnostics & Monitoring Devices Market and Forecast (2012 - 2026)

5) Global Ophthalmic Surgical Instruments Devices Market and Forecast (2012 - 2026)

6) Global Ophthalmic Vision Care Products Market and Forecast (2012 - 2026)

7) By End Users - Global Ophthalmic Devices Market and Forecast (2012 - 2026)

8) By Region - Ophthalmic Devices Market and Forecast (2012 - 2026)

9) Country Analysis - Ophthalmic Devices Market and Forecast (2012 - 2026)

10) Global Ophthalmic Devices Market  Key Players Sales Analysis (2012 - 2026)

11) Global Ophthalmic Devices Market - Growth Drivers & Challenges



Global Ophthalmic Devices Market  By Application Segments

1. Diagnostics & Monitoring Devices

 Fundus Camera

 Optical Coherence Tomography Scanner

 Tonometer

 Others

2. Surgical Instruments Devices

 Refractive Error Surgery Devices

 Glaucoma Surgery Devices

 Cataract Surgery Devices

 Retinal Surgery Devices

3. Vision Care

 Contact Lens

 Others



Global Ophthalmic Devices Market  By End Users

1. Hospitals

2. Ophthalmic Clinics and Centers

3. Ambulatory Surgical Centers

4. Consumers

5. Others



Global Ophthalmic Devices Market  Regional Analysis

1. North America

 United States

 Canada

2. Europe

 United Kingdom

 Germany

 France

 Italy

 Spain

 Rest of Europe

3. Asia Pacific

 Japan

 China

 India

 South Korea

 Australia

 Rest of Asia Pacific

4. Latin America

 Brazil

 Mexico

 Argentina

 Rest of Latin America

5. Middle East and Africa

 Saudi Arabia

 UAE

 Rest of Middle East and Africa



Global Ophthalmic Devices Market  Company Profiles

1. Alcon, Inc.

2. Carl Zeiss Meditec AG

3. Topcon Corporation

4. Bausch Health Companies Inc. (Formerly Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc.)

5. Iridex Corporation

6. Ellex Medical Lasers

7. Escalon Medical

8. Second Sight Medical Products Inc.

9. Lumenis

10. Nidek Co., Ltd.



Data Source



The analyst employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports. This report is built by using data and information sourced from Proprietary Information Database, Primary and Secondary Research Methodologies, and In house analysis by a dedicated team of qualified professionals with deep industry experience and expertise.



Research Methodologies



Primary Research Methodologies: Questionnaires, Surveys, Interviews with Individuals, Small Groups, Telephonic Interview, etc.



Secondary Research Methodologies: Printable and Non-printable sources, Newspaper, Magazine and Journal Content, Government and NGO Statistics, white Papers, Information on the Web, Information from Agencies Such as Industry Bodies, Companies Annual Report, Government Agencies, Libraries and Local Councils and a large number of Paid Databases.



Companies Mentioned

1. Alcon, Inc.

2. Carl Zeiss Meditec AG

3. Topcon Corporation

4. Bausch Health Companies Inc. (Formerly Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc.)

5. Iridex Corporation

6. Ellex Medical Lasers

7. Escalon Medical

8. Second Sight Medical Products Inc.

9. Lumenis

10. Nidek Co., Ltd.

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05932569/?utm_source=GNW



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



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CONTACT: Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001




WASHINGTON  A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.

The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syrias Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said.

The C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said. The Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels, but it has also acknowledged that Syrias neighbors would do so.

The clandestine intelligence-gathering effort is the most detailed known instance of the limited American support for the military campaign against the Syrian government. It is also part of Washingtons attempt to increase the pressure on President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who has recently escalated his governments deadly crackdown on civilians and the militias battling his rule. With Russia blocking more aggressive steps against the Assad government, the United States and its allies have instead turned to diplomacy and aiding allied efforts to arm the rebels to force Mr. Assad from power.
Limited democracy but high living standards and stability form a trade-off that most Singaporeans seem willing to live with -- and some now suggest rival Asian finance hub Hong Kong can emulate the model as China tightens control. The two trading centres have long been compared but recent events have brought the issue into sharper contrast as Hong Kong faces a new era of curtailed civil liberties following China's imposition of a wide-ranging national security law. Supporters argue that after months of often violent pro-democracy protests the law should bring the stability needed to retain business confidence in the commerce hub. But opponents insist it will undermine sentiment if Hong Kong morphs into a clone of many mainland cities where there is less legal and regulatory transparency. Hong Kong lawyer Antony Dapiran said Chinese control was robbing the territory of the autonomy it needed to keep investor confidence intact. "Singapore is different not least because it is not subject to CCP (Chinese Communist Party) intervention," said Dapiran, who has written books on Hong Kong's recent protest movement. "Singapore is a sovereign state and so it behaves consistent with its sovereign interests which are very different -- in both nature and scale -- to China's sovereign interests," he told AFP. - 'Right side of markets' - The new security law -- imposed in the wake of anti-China protests that convulsed Hong Kong for months last year -- targets subversion, sedition, terrorism and foreign collusion. Advocates argue Singapore has prospered with equally tough legislation covering offences ranging from sedition to contempt. It is illegal to hold a demonstration without police permission in the city-state, except in the corner of one downtown park. While these stringent laws have been criticised by rights groups, they have been largely tolerated domestically and escaped global scrutiny. "Singapore has always made a point of cultivating and staying on the right side of the global markets and the Americans in particular," Michael Barr, an expert on the country at Australia's Flinders University, told AFP. In Hong Kong however, many people have reacted to China's security law with anger and dismay. And there has been widespread criticism from Western nations that say Beijing is stripping away the territory's cherished freedoms. A number of countries have suspended their extradition treaties with Hong Kong, citing concerns about the legislation. "Beijing has pushed the Americans to cut Hong Kong off from markets," Barr said. - 'Trickle of departures' - On the rule of law, analysts say foreign firms will now feel safer operating in Singapore than Hong Kong. The new legislation has toppled the legal firewall that existed between Hong Kong and mainland China's Communist Party-controlled courts and opaque legal system. "Which foreign companies will dare to bring legal cases against Chinese state-owned companies or influential private entities?" said Ben Bland, a political analyst from the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank. Singapore has also established itself as one of the world's leading centres for international arbitration -- a process whereby parties settle disputes privately outside the court system. That said, there has been little sign as yet of a corporate exodus from Hong Kong amid renewed speculation that Singapore may benefit if businesses decide to exit the Chinese city. Hong Kong will likely "see a trickle rather than a flood of departures", Bland said. "But this could accelerate if Beijing steps up its interventions." burs-sr/axn Singapore (pictured) and Hong Kong have long been compared Riot police secure a shopping mall in Hong Kong after prostesters gathered to mark one year since a group of white-clad men attacked pro-democracy protesters in the mall People shop for fruits and vegetables at a street market in Hong Kong
WASHINGTON, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The coronavirus pandemic has shown that too many workers in America are one missed paycheck away from financial devastation. As the nation responds to and recovers from the coronavirus, redesigning the economy around good jobs must be a priority. The National Fund for Workforce Solutions will expand its job quality portfolio to invest in the financial resiliency of frontline workers.

With a new $2 million grant from Prudential Financial, the National Fund will expand its already robust job quality portfolio to include more communities coming together to build an inclusive economy on the foundation of good jobs. The National Fund will work with employers and workers using a proven, flexible model for redesigning frontline jobs to make them better. The National Fund will also lead employers through essential, but challenging conversations around racial equity and inclusion in the workplace. Taking a holistic approach to job redesign, employers and workers alike can thrive.

"The pandemic has presented a unique opportunity to redesign a more inclusive economy," said Janice Urbanik, director of innovation and strategy at the National Fund. "In the wake of the Great Recession, we focused too much on just training and placing workers into whatever jobs were available  most of which didn't offer the stability workers needed. We must focus on building economy-boosting jobs where workers, employers, and communities can thrive."

In line with their belief that financial security should be within the reach of everyone, Prudential is focused on equipping underserved communities with the support needed put them on a path to social and economic prosperity.

"The disparities the pandemic has brought to light further demonstrate the need for quality jobs for all," said Sarah Keh, Vice President of Social Responsibility & Partnerships at Prudential Financial. "As we work to build back from COVID-19 more equitably, our partnership with The National Fund will reimagine jobs to be more inclusive and give workers the skills of the future, putting them on the path to financial security."

The National Fund will leverage research and best practices developed over the past five years working across its national network of workforce funder collaboratives. Currently, the National Fund network works actively and closely with over 85 employers in over a dozen communities to change business practices and make jobs better. Under this grant, the National Fund will encourage engaged employers to meet minimum job quality standards that provide workers with financial mobility and an opportunity to grow in their careers. These include practices such as paying family sustaining wages, offering paid sick leave or financial wellness programming, and a commitment to equity and inclusion in the workplace.

About the National Fund for Workforce Solutions

The National Fund for Workforce Solutions invests in a dynamic national network of 30+ communities taking a demand-driven, evidence-based approach to workforce development. At the local level, the National Fund's partner organizations contribute resources, test ideas, collect data, and improve public policies and business practices that help all workers succeed and employers have the talent they need to compete. Learn more at www.NationalFund.org .

About Prudential Financial

Prudential was founded on the belief that financial security should be within reach for everyone. A strong sense of social responsibility has remained embedded in the company, guiding our efforts to help people now and in future generations achieve peace of mind and a more secure future. Prudential's commitment to doing business the right way, strengthening communities and providing an inclusive work environment is reflected in its inclusion in awards such as the 2019 Fortune World's Most Admired Companies and 2019 Fortune Change the World lists. In 2020, it also became one the first institutional investors to grow and manage a $1 billion AUM impact investing portfolio.

SOURCE The National Fund for Workforce Solutions




Haiti - News : Zapping...





The UDMO will change its name

The Departmental Unit for the Maintenance of Order (UDMO) will change its name to be called the "National Intervention Corps" (Corps dIntervention National - CIN). The purpose and implications of this name change are so far unknown.



Vocational training for 93 orphans

Dikel Delvariste Director General of the National Institute for Vocational Training (INFP) spoke with Fabio Ricci Head of the CISV project (Comunita Impegno Servizio Voluntariato) in the context of the signing of a memorandum of understanding for vocational training in 6 specialties of 93 young people from orphanages in the metropolitan region.



47% of Haitians need humanitarian assistance

The UN Humanitarian Agency OCHA reported that the revised Humanitarian Response Plan indicates that 5.1 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance today, or 47% of the Haitian population. As of July 23, 7,167 cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed and 154 deaths recorded https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31346-haiti-covid-19-daily-report-july-22-2020.html . The presumed effects on health services, especially maternal health services, are significant. The number of institutional deliveries and antenatal consultations has fallen sharply compared to 2019. Routine vaccination is also affected. Food insecurity remains a major concern with 4.1 million people in IPC Phase 3 and 4 or 38% of the Haitian population.



The Embassy of Haiti in France is changing Head

Consulate General of the Republic of Haiti in Paris informs that the Counselor at the Embassy of the Republic of Haiti in France Ms. Chloe Debrosse has been appointed, Head of post "ad interim" (a.i.) by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She replaces Minister Counselor Frisnel Azor in this position. Ms. Debrosse started her career at the Consulate before being transferred to the Embassy in 2012, in charge of tourism and economic issues.



Message from the French Embassy in Haiti

The French Embassy partially reopened on Monday, July 20, in anticipation of a full reopening which will be specified as the situation evolves. You will find on our website the terms of access and making appointments : https://ht.ambafrance.org/Reouverture-partielle-des-services



The Cite internationale des Arts has selected the writer Jean dAmerique

Haitian writer Jean D'Amerique wins one of the 5 places in the TRAME 2020 residency program at the Cite internationale des Arts in Paris for French-speaking artists from all over the world.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Representative image

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In March, Indian medical device manufacturers took the Make in India message to heart, and plunged into manufacturing ventilators. Their exuberance was based on projections that India would be needing thousands of the mechanical breathing devices. Ventilators blow air and oxygen into the lungs, and are critical for those affected by lung failure  one of the major complications suffered by patients with severe Covid-19.

There was a global shortage of these machines, as countries began to stockpile them and curb exports. India had always depended on MNCs for supply of ventilators but the sudden shortage meant the government, which had earmarked Rs 2,000 crore under the PM CARES Fund to procure some 60,000 of them, had to turn to home-grown manufacturers.

In the race to get thousands of ventilators made in India, however, quality, training, service and support may have been given short shrift.

Component shortage

A ventilator is nothing but a motley collection of sensors, actuators and controllers that help monitor and regulate supply of oxygen and air flow to the patient.

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 plan was to import the components from China and other countries, assemble them in India and supply the government. This was how many domestic manufacturers had made ventilators for years. This isn't an aberration  India depends heavily on imports for its medical devices.

However, there was a critical shortage of oxygen, air flow and air volume sensors, which are critical components for a ventilator.

There are about seven critical components in a ventilator, for which we are highly dependent, explains Vishwaprasad Alva, Founder and Managing Director of Skanray Technologies. The Mysore-based medical devices company has tied up with state-owned BEL and DRDO to supply 30,000 units to the government.

Alva said that, though there are other companies, US-based Honeywell dominates the supply of these components.

Make in India

This was when the auto industry, PSUs and defence laboratories joined hands to help ventilator manufacturers overcome their component supply challenges.

As soon as we were hit with shortages, they (Honeywell) started rationing supplies. DRDO, BEL and Skanray started looking out for alternative parts within the country. For components where we couldn't find suppliers, DRDO and BEL developed them in-house. Prototypes that took months and years have been made in two weeks, Alva said.

Aditya Kohli, Director of Sales and Marketing at Gurugram-based ventilator maker Allied Medical, says it has reduced dependence on imported components to 50 percent, while Skanray said the indigenisation in its ventilator is as high as 80 percent.

Quality and reliability issues

While the journey to self-reliance is a good one, problems soon cropped up. Some of the ventilators were rejected by hospitals for not having critical specifications and functionalities, such as BiPAP (bilevel positive airway pressure).

Last month, St. George Hospital and JJ Hospital in Mumbai had rejected Agvas low-cost ventilators, donated by an NGO, terming them unsuitable for Covid-19 patients. The hospitals said the test run showed a variation in concentration of oxygen inhaled and another machine failed five minutes after being plugged in.

Agva said the machines offered by the NGO were earlier versions, and not the ones made for public sector unit HLL Lifecare, under the aegis of the PM CARES Fund. The company said it had offered to replace the ventilators with upgraded versions but the hospitals did not take up the offer.

Deccan Chronicle reported in May that the Andhra Pradesh government's King George Hospital in Visakhapatnam had refused to test AMTZs ventilator as it did not meet specifications set by the Central Government. AMTZ, which has an order for 13,500 units, is yet to supply a single ventilator.

Experts say one of the key reasons for these issues is the fact that manufacturers such as BEL, Agva and AMTZ, among others, have no previous experience in making ICU ventilators, or providing large-scale service.

For instance, before the Covid-19 pandemic, Agva was making low-end ventilators with limited features and capabilities, mostly designed for home use. It had never built a full-fledged ICU ventilator. The same was the case with AMTZ, where a group of manufacturers came together to build ventilators. Again, BEL is best known for making defence equipment and electronic voting machines.

To manufacture equipment like a ventilator, there have to be lots of checks and balances in place. Of course in March the whole world was going crazy  everybody was talking about crazy quantities and all that. But all the serious manufacturers limited themselves, saying that these quantities are not doable. New players jumped in not realising the importance of having certification and quality control, in place. They have taken orders, said Kohli of Allied Medical.

The government should rely on companies that have a service back-up and who have been in this field. Overnight you can't expect new companies to come up and have a pan-India service network, Kohli said.

Rajiv Nath, Forum Coordinator, Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AiMeD), highlighted the extreme swings in decision making. I am quite surprised at how the government was willing to place orders with someone not certified. In the first week of March, the government was talking about Europes CE and USFDA, from there they went to another extreme of making it zero, he said.

Service and training concerns

While there is now a glut of ventilators, experts say there aren't enough trained people to operate them.

Every ventilator has a different way of functioning. You have to understand the nuances of how to handle a ventilator. It could take 2-4 weeks, it can take more. It's complex equipment, and handling a ventilator is not an easy job, says Dr Rajendra Patankar, Chief Executive Officer of Pune-based Jupiter Hospital.

Dr Patankar says that there is a serious shortage of intensivists, who specialise in running ICUs, leading to most Intensive Care Units being managed by doctors and nurses.

Skanrays Alva says there is a challenge in terms of training hospital staff to operate ventilators due to Covid-19.

There will always be a set of doctors and nurses going into quarantine after training, and a new set coming in. This becomes an issue in terms of training. Covid-19-related lockdowns also make it difficult to provide service staff to hospitals, Alva said.

It's a huge challenge  not enough biomedical engineers, not enough intensivists. Many government hospitals would be getting ventilators for the first time; they would be getting new technology exposure. There will be teething problems, said Rajiv Nath of AiMeD.

Alva says that could be the reason hospitals are refusing to accept ventilators because they simply do not have staff  and accepting them creates pressure to admit patients.

Some positive feedback

But despite these challenges, Dr Sudhir Bhandari, Senior Professor of Medicine and Principal and Controller of Sawai Man Singh (SMS) Medical College in Jaipur, the main public health institution leading Rajasthan's efforts to combat Covid-19, said he is satisfied with the ventilators supplied under the aegis of the PM CARES Fund.

We have received 125 ventilators and all are working fine. The availability of so many ventilators has greatly enhanced our capacity to treat more people, Bhandari said.

This is the final part of a three-part series . The first part was on how domestic manufacturers went from exuberance to despair in three months. The second part was on how arbitrary changes to specifications led to delays and cost overruns
Advertisement

Amber Heard's make-up artist claimed she had to cover up the actress' facial injuries before she appeared on James Corden's Late Late Show after Johnny Depp allegedly tried to smother her with a pillow.

Depp's ex-wife accused the Hollywood legend, 57, slapped her, dragged her by the hair through their apartment - pulling clumps of her hair out - and then repeatedly punched her in the head in LA in December 2015.

Heard, 34, described the alleged attack in her first witness statement as 'one of the worst and most violent nights of our relationship' and became visibly upset as Depp's lawyer read through passages of her statement in court.

The High Court in London heard Eleanor Laws QC accuse Heard of lying about the incident as she described Heard's claims that her body was covered in bruises as 'nonsense'.

When a short clip of Heard's appearance on The Late Late Show the next day was then played in court in which she appeared to have no facial injuries, the actress said she had covered the bruises with make-up.

Her make-up artist Melanie Inglessis then told The Sun's lawyer how a 'distressed' Heard had bruises under her eyes, a swollen nose, cuts on her lips and 'missing chunks of hair on the top of the crown'.

Ms Inglessis said that she use concealer to hide some of Heard's facial bruises and had 'no other choice' but to put red lipstick on her 'to cover the injury on her lip'.

In other developments at Depp's libel trial as he sues The Sun for calling him a 'wife beater':

Heard said Depp threw '30 or so bottles' towards her 'like grenades' and severed his finger while attacking her at an Australian mansion as he filmed Pirates of The Caribbean

Heard denied it was her decision to take their dogs Boo and Pistol into Australia illegally and blamed Depp

Heard claimed Depp attacked her 24 hours before she appeared on the Late Late Show with James Corden.

Amber Heard claimed that Johnny Depp physically abused her one day before she was on The Late, Late Show with James Corden on on December 16, 2015 (above) - and said after her appearance that she 'just did that show with two black eyes'

Amber Heard's make-up artist claimed she had to cover up the actress' facial injuries before she appeared on James Corden's Late Late Show after Johnny Depp allegedly tried to smother her with a pillow

Heard poses with guests Luke Bracey and Wanda Skyes on the Late, Late Show with James Corden on December 16, 2015

Heard claimed that Depp attacked her just 24 hours before she appeared on the Late Late Show with James Corden show on December 16, 2015.

She claims that Depp launched a vicious attack which left her with 'tons of injuries' including bruised ribs and arms, bruises all over her body, two black eyes, a broken nose and a broken lip.

The court was then played footage of Heard's appearance on the show, with her face immaculately made up and no visible marks on it.

Ms Laws said: 'That's what you looked like on the show, no injury is there?'

Heard replied: 'I have tonnes of injuries.'

Ms Laws alleged that the night before her appearance on the James Corden show, it was Heard who was violent towards Depp and that she attacked him.

Heard claims that during the fight, Depp dragged her around their Los Angeles penthouse by her hair, knocked her to the floor, pushed her onto a bed and then jumped on top of her so hard that it broke and also headbutted her.

Describing the headbutt, which Depp claims was accidental and not forceful in the way Heard claims, she told the court: 'His head came into contact with mine very deliberately. He clenched his fists, leant back and slammed his head into my nose.'

Ms Laws claimed that prior to appearing on the James Corden show she was seen without any make-up by her stylist Samantha McMillan and that she did not notice any injuries to her face.

The court was also shown photos of Depp's face taken by a friend after Heard claims he headbutted her

Photographs were issued by Heard's legal team of her with injuries to her face around the time of the alleged attack on December 15, 2015, showing bruising across the bridge of her nose and under her eyes after Depp allegedly headbutted her. Depp is believed to have been shown these pictures in court last week while he was giving evidence

Ms Laws said: 'Do you agree that you caused injury to Mr Depp's face on that night?' Ms Heard replied: 'I don't see how I could have, I'm sorry.'

Ms Laws put it to Heard that a photograph of her with bruises on her face taken after the alleged December 2015 incident was 'completely set up', which Heard denied.

Ms Laws then said: 'If someone is grabbing you by the hair and pulling your hair out, it would come out at the root.'

Heard said: 'No of course not, of course not. It comes out wherever it breaks.'

Ms Laws then asked the actress why she took a photograph of her scalp, and Heard said her scalp was 'in pain' and her friend Raquel Pennington took a photograph because she had red spots on her head and it was 'pussy' from where it had been pulled out.

A short clip of Heard's appearance on The Late Late Show was then played to the court, following which Ms Laws said: 'That is what you looked like on the show, there is no injury, is there?'

Heard replied: 'I had tonnes of injuries.' She then said she had makeup on covering the injuries and added: 'You can tell by the size of my lip alone.'

Heard, 34, described the alleged attack in her first witness statement as 'one of the worst and most violent nights of our relationship'

Ms Laws asked Heard about her first allegation of violence against Depp, which she says happened after she remarked on his 'Wino Forever' tattoo.

Heard said it was the 'first time I had been hit like that since I was a child', adding: 'It didn't feel painful necessarily, it just felt like a pop.

'The first time he hit me, I didn't even know he was serious, I was laughing, I thought he was joking ... I just didn't know.'

She said she was left with 'just redness' on her face, adding: 'My eye didn't pop out.'

The actress then said she had told her therapist about it at the time.

Ms Inglessis said Heard told her that Depp 'tried to suffocate her with a pillow ... those were her words'.

Heard also told her that 'she felt he tried to kill her that night and she said he dragged her by her hair', Ms Inglessis said.

Ms Inglessis told the court that she arrived at Depp and Heard's Los Angeles apartment to do Heard's make-up for the taping of the Late Late Show.

She said Heard had 'discolouration under her eyes, on the inner corner or her eyes by her nose. I recall her left eye being a little more bruised than the right eye'.

She added: 'I remember the bridge of the nose being red and swollen (and) like a cut or a scab on her lip.'

Ms Inglessis said Heard told her she had 'missing chunks of hair on the top of the crown', but said she 'did not recall' if she had checked herself.

Heard also told her that 'she felt he tried to kill her that night and she said he dragged her by her hair', Ms Inglessis said

Asked 'how keen' Heard was to appear on TV that day, Ms Inglessis said: 'Not that keen. It was back and forth ... if she would attend or not.'

Ms Wass asked what make-up she put on Heard, to which Ms Inglessis said: 'Obviously concealer, trying to conceal some of the bruises.'

She added that she told Ms Heard that there was 'no other choice' but to put red lipstick on her 'to cover the injury on her lip'.

Inglessis said the concealer was 'very effective' at covering up the bruises 'because, to my recollection, they were not that dark or that inflamed ... I don't remember having trouble covering them'.

Asked if they were 'still visible or not' after she applied make-up to Heard, Ms Inglessis said: 'No.'

Eleanor Laws QC, for Mr Depp, asked: 'Did you ever see Mr Depp be violent to Amber Heard?'

Ms Inglessis said: 'No.'

Ms Laws asked: 'Did you ever see Amber Heard be violent to Mr Depp?'

Ms Ingless replied: 'No.'

Ms Laws then suggested: 'Ms Heard did not have the injuries that you say. Ms Inglessis said: 'I'm not lying.'

'You are making this up as you go along': Heard is accused of lying about Depp's Thanksgiving attack as court is shown video of them celebrating and laughing about 'the monster' with actor's son and Marilyn Manson

Heard was today accused of 'making up' claims Depp was violent after being shown a video of the couple partying happily with friends including Marilyn Manson on the night the actress claims her ex-husband threw her across the room and 'busted' her lip.

Heard alleges that Depp also threw a glass and a heavy glass decanter at her, ripped her shirt and left her with a 'lump' on the back of her head on Thanksgiving in November 2015.

Today two videos were played in court from the holiday weekend where people can be heard talking excitedly and laughing with Heard and Depp, who filmed the group enjoying themselves.

When asked by Eleanor Laws, Depp's QC, to explain the footage, which showed no violence taking place, Heard replied: 'Our fights never happened in front of the family. They typically happened after everyone had gone to bed.'

Ms Laws alleged that Heard was lying about the entire incident and said: 'You are making up this up as you go along'.

Not all the faces of those in the darkened video are visible, but Heard can be seen picking up a drink and revealed that she could tell that Marilyn Manson was present after recognising his fingernails.

She also told the court that others present were her friend Rocky Pennington, Depp and his son Jack, Heard's father David and Erin Boerum, Heard's nurse and friend.

Heard has claimed that her megastar ex-husband would blame his 'alter ego' called 'the monster' for the alleged violence while intoxicated with copious amounts of drink and drugs. In the film Depp can be heard joking with Jack Depp about a monster being in the room while Amber exclaims to a guest: 'What are you doing? Get away get away'.

Ms Laws said: 'This is a happy family event we saw on that second video, a Thanksgiving dinner for family and friends. There was no violence that day or anything at any stage was there?

Heard replied: 'That's not true. The two are unrelated.' Ms Laws pointed out that the video is time stamped after midnight, adding: 'In your account Mr Depp had already been violent to you.'

Heard replied: 'Yes, we had an altercation on the top of the stairs.'

Heard said their fights never happened in front of the whole family, and typically took place behind closed doors when everyone had gone home or to bed.

Amber Heard picks up her drink while partying with Johnny Depp and friends including Marilyn Manson on the night she claims her ex-husband hurled her across a room and 'busted' her lip

Ms Heard was accused of 'making up this up as you go along' by Mr Depp's QC on her third day of evidence

Questioning: Amber Heard was cross examined by Johnny Depp's QC Eleanor Laws, she is pictured outside court, far right

Ms Laws, pictured, alleged that Heard was lying about the entire incident and said: 'You are making up this up as you go along'.

Heard was shown further photos and asked about the incident, including whether her nurse and friend Erin Boerum was present for any of the alleged violence.

Heard said: 'No, she (Ms Boerum?) was there downstairs in penthouse 5 for the bottle throwing, the decanter breaking, the painting breaking.

'I remember there's a slight altercation on the stairs involving wine and Johnny grabbed me by the shirt collar.'

She added: 'There was a slight altercation, but it wasn't what it became after everyone left.'

Ms Laws asked: 'So she was downstairs during part of the assault on you?'

Heard replied: 'Part, yes.'

Ms Laws then asked if 'the second part' of the alleged incident happened after Ms Boerum and Ms Pennington had left.

Heard said: 'Yes, it got much worse later.'

Ms Laws said: 'It's just a lie, isn't it?'

Heard said: 'No, ma'am.'

Ms Laws then asked Heard about what she has called 'the monster' - Depp's 'alter ego' - which was referred to in the Thanksgiving 2015 video.

The barrister said: 'That's just a joke, isn't it?'

She added: 'Those words, 'monster' and 'savage', are all part of the vocabulary that you and your friends would use, aren't they?'

Heard replied: 'No ... it's coming from Johnny's friend in the transcript.'

Ms Laws said: 'In a joke, isn't it?'

Heard said: 'Are you asking me if Marilyn Manson is joking?'

She then said it 'makes me wonder if he (Mr Manson) was writing the apology texts'.

Ms Laws said that, on the video, 'we have Mr Manson saying 'he's a monster, monster, he's scaring me'', adding: 'These are the sorts of words that you and your friends would use in jest.'

Heard said: 'No, it was with Johnny and his friends.'

Cell phone photographs's of Amber Heard and Depp's son Jack on Thanksgiving 2015 were also presented as evidence at the trial

Wrong door: Ms Laws then asked Ms Heard about an alleged incident in the Bahamas in August 2014, when the couple were staying on Mr Depp's private island while he was detoxing. She read out part of Ms Heard's witness statement where the actress referred to a door being splintered during the violent episode. Ms Heard admitted including a picture of another door that was not in the Bahamas in evidence

Ms Laws then asked Heard about an alleged incident in the Bahamas in August 2014, when the couple were staying on Depp's private island while he was detoxing.

She read out part of Heard's witness statement where the actress referred to a door being splintered during the violent episode.

The barrister then read from notes of Depp's doctor, Dr Kipper, which stated that Heard went to get him and nurse Debbie Lloyd and described Depp as 'erratic and paranoid'.

The notes said the pair found Depp 'sitting quietly on his porch' and that he was calm and said he was frustrated with the detox process.

Ms Laws said: 'I suggest to you that he didn't assault you in any way on that day.'

Clarifying the question, Mr Justice Nicol said: 'Did Mr Depp assault you on that day?' To which Heard replied: 'Absolutely.'

Ms Laws then asked about photographs of the broken door, saying: 'That is not a photograph from the Bahamas, is it?'

Heard said: 'No. It was a mistake in the divorce.

Ms Laws said: 'You just include any photographs, anything you can, in a very cavalier way, don't you?'

Heard explained there was a large bundle of evidence in the divorce proceedings, adding: 'This is a different door he kicked.'

'The Bahamas incident'

Ms Laws probed further about 'the Bahamas incident', which involved Tara Roberts - Depp's property manager there - and her husband.

The barrister said Heard had 'given an account in evidence of an incident whereby Tara Roberts' partner had to, in effect, take Mr Depp away from you'.

Heard said: 'My recollection is that, towards the end of that attack, Johnny only had me by the hair and I was trying, there was a bit of a scuffle, trying to bring myself from his grasp and they both approached us, I think at the same time.

'It's my recollection that Tara leaned towards me and CJ, her partner, leaned more towards Johnny and put his hands on Johnny's chest or upper shoulder and we had about two feet of separation for a moment.'

Ms Laws referred to Ms Roberts' witness statement, which said Heard was 'insulting him, calling him names and, in the middle of this onslaught, I heard her say specifically 'your career is over', 'no one is going to hire you', 'you're washed up'.'

Heard said it was Depp who said them to her and 'continued to say them ... as he continued to threaten my job'.

Asked about throwing a can of mineral spirits at Depp, Heard said: 'As I was running away from him, I had my back to him, so I don't know if it actually made contact with him.'

She added: 'He had just threatened my life.'

Ms Laws said: 'What you have done in response to that statement (by Ms Roberts), where you are being accused of really serious violence, is to concoct an account of violence by Mr Depp where, yet again, you are defending yourself.'

Heard replied: 'I have to defend myself sometimes.'

Heard was asked about an alleged incident in Tokyo in January 2015, during which the actress claims Depp slapped her, grabbed her hair and knelt on her back.

Ms Laws asked if she attended a film premiere while there and when it was, and Heard said she did and it was two days after the alleged attack, adding that she was concerned about bruises on her back.

Ms Laws said: 'Do you remember wearing a backless dress to that premiere?' Heard replied: 'Very well.'

The barrister asked: 'You didn't have any injury on your back, did you?' Heard replied: 'Not visible ... I remember checking obsessively.'

Johnny Depp's nose showed visible signs of injury after Amber Heard 'lost her temper' on their Orient Express honeymoon, star's QC claims

The High Court was shown this picture of Amber Heard and Johnny Depp on their honeymoon on the Eastern and Oriental Express in South-east Asia in 2015 with his QC claiming his reddened nose is a sign of injury inflicted by his then wife

Depp's QC Eleanor Laws had earlier discussed the 'train incident', when Depp is said to have been violent to Heard on the Eastern and Oriental Express in South-east Asia in August 2015 on their honeymoon.

Heard alleges Depp picked a fight with her, hit her and pushed her against a wall by the throat, causing her to fear for her life. This is denied by Depp.

The barrister said: 'This is yet another occasion when you had a row and it was you who lost your temper.'

Heard said: 'No, I disagree.'

Ms Laws showed Heard a photo of Depp, taken on the train, which she said showed 'an injury on his face'.

Heard said she could not see any injury to Depp.

Ms Laws continued: 'This is yet another occasion where you have completely turned an incident around and blamed Mr Depp.'

Heard said: 'No, I have tons of pictures from this vacation and these days and he's uninjured. He strangled me.'

Amber Heard's ex admits never seeing Depp hit her, but denies 'concocting' story

the ex-husband of Amber Heard's friend Raquel 'Rocky' Pennington (pictured with Heard) gave evidence from Los Angeles by videolink on Wednesday afternoon.

Joshua Drew, the ex-husband of Heard's friend Raquel 'Rocky' Pennington gave evidence from Los Angeles by videolink on Wednesday afternoon.

Ms Laws

asked Mr Drew about Heard's 30th birthday party on April 21 2016, saying: 'Mr Depp turned up and he was in a coherent, sociable, friendly mood, wasn't he?'

Mr Drew said: 'He was.'

Ms Laws said: 'He was affectionate towards Ms Heard.'

Mr Drew replied: 'Correct.'

Ms Laws continued: 'And he wasn't inebriated.'

Mr Drew said: 'My perception was that he was slightly inebriated.'

He also agreed that it was 'a nice fun evening'.

Ms Laws then asked about the incident on May 21 2016, saying: 'We know that there was a row on May 21 that marked, effectively, the end of the relationship between Mr Depp and Ms Heard.

'After those events of May 21, after you had spoken to the police officers, which we know you did, and after in fact you separated from Ms Pennington in 2017, do you remember after that meeting with Ms Heard shortly before you gave your deposition (in the US)?'

Mr Drew said he did, and Ms Laws asked: 'Did you discuss what you were going to say?'

He replied: 'No, I did not.'

Ms Laws suggested to Mr Drew that 'a lot of the information that you had about the relationship between Mr Depp and Ms Heard in fact came from your then partner, Raquel Pennington'.

Mr Drew said: 'A fair amount, yes.'

Ms Laws then said: 'You never saw Mr Depp hitting Ms Heard. You never saw him throwing a phone or anything else at her, did you?'

Mr Drew said he did not, to which Ms Laws said: 'And you never saw him strike her?'

He replied: 'No, I did not.'

Ms Laws said: 'You would have seen some rows between the two of them.'

Mr Drew said: 'On rare occasion, yes.'

He added that he also saw 'both of them shouting at each other on occasion'.

Mr Drew told the court that he had seen Heard 'drink to excess' and taking illegal drugs - including magic mushrooms and ecstasy - 'on occasion'.

Ms Laws then returned to the incident on May 21 2016.

She said to Mr Drew that, when his then partner Ms Pennington received a text from Heard to come over to the apartment she was in, Ms Pennington 'was not with you'.

Mr Drew said: 'No, that's not the case.'

Ms Laws said: 'What happened on the night of May 21 is that you got involved, along with your partner Raquel Pennington, in supporting Amber Heard and then lying for her afterwards.'

Mr Drew replied: 'I certainly don't agree with that statement.'

Ms Laws asked: 'You didn't see any assault, did you?'

Mr Drew said: 'I didn't, as I've said repeatedly.'

Ms Laws said that he spoke to the police but 'did not show them any damage in the property'.

Mr Drew said: 'I showed them all the damage in penthouse 3, the hallway and penthouse 5.'

He added that photos were taken of the damage to the penthouses before the police arrived.

Mr Drew said that 'there was a pretty substantial pool of red wine' in the hallway, 'a dent in the door of the apartment' and 'there were parts of the kitchen strewn about, broken glass on the kitchen island and the floor'.

He also told the court that, in the other apartment, 'there were a variety of things in the living room that had been thrown about' and broken glass on the floor from 'two broken picture frames'.

Ms Laws asked Mr Drew if he had caused the damage and he said he had not.

Mr Drew said the police would have seen the 'puddle of red wine in the hallway' and had 'walked them through the damage myself, pointing it out'.

Mr Drew said that one of the police officers asked to speak to Heard privately while he waited outside with the male police officer.

He added that he asked the officer what they could do because 'we were obviously very worried about her and we wanted to be helpful and protect her'.

Mr Drew said the officer 'looked at me square in the face and said something to the effect of 'her face is red, there's damage in the apartment, there's enough here that, if she wants, we can go pick him up''.

He told the court that he thanked the officer, but knew it would not happen as Heard was not willing to report the incident.

Ms Laws suggested that Mr Drew had 'concocted a story' and asked if he had 'tailored your evidence in order to support Ms Heard in this case'.

Mr Drew said: 'Absolutely not.'

Johnny Depp 'threw 30 bottles at me like grenades'

Proceedings began when Heard denied severing the tip of Depp's finger or stubbing out a cigarette on his face during a violent argument in Australia claiming the Hollywood star was lobbing up to 30 booze bottles at her 'like grenades' while holding her hostage for three days in a mansion.

The actress, who accuses the 57-year-old Pirates of the Caribbean star of physical abuse on at least 14 occasions, was questioned about an incident Down Under in March 2015 on her third day in the witness box at the High Court in London.

Depp says the tip of his finger was severed during an argument when Heard threw a large vodka bottle which struck his hand, but Heard hit back today saying: 'I only threw things to escape Johnny when he was beating me up'.

Describing the row she said she had taken a bottle from Depp from which he was drinking and smashed it on the floor, prompting a furious response from him. Heard said the majority of bottles were thrown downstairs, before giving a long answer in which she said Depp had thrown '30 or so bottles' towards her 'like grenades'.

She said he threw all the bottles within reach bar one, saying: 'He picked them up ad started using them like grenades or bombs...throwing one after another in my direction.'

Depp's lawyer said Heard's account that the actor had severed his finger by smashing a phone against a wall and then continued to assault her was a lie. 'No it's not,' she replied. 'I don't think he meant to sever the finger but yes he carried on attacking me.'

Ms Laws also accused Heard of stubbing a cigarette out on Depp's cheek. 'No, Johnny did it right in front of me. He often did things like that,' she said. It came after Heard claimed Johnny Depp and his lawyers have run a four-year campaign to 'harass' and 'abuse' Heard as well as wreck her career after they split up.

Amber Heard strides into the High Court with her girlfriend Bianca Butti as she prepares to give evidence for the final time in the bombshell libel trial. Mr Depp (pictured today) is accused of going into rages while on drink and drugs and since splitting with Ms Heard she alleges he has run a campaign of harassment

The carnage in a property in Australia after Depp and Heard allegedly had a fight in 2015, which was released as part of Ben King's evidence a week ago

Depp is on the stand at the High Court for a third day today and was questioned about the incident after he previously claimed the injury was sustained when Heard threw a vodka bottle at him during the fight in Australia. Mr Depp also has a cigaretted burn on his right cheek, but is ex-wife denies it was her

Depp insisted that the only attack on the trip had been launched by Heard when she hurled a vodka bottle at him and caused the infamous injury which cut off the top of his finger

Heard's third day of cross-examination by Depp's lawyers began on Wednesday with Ms Laws asking about the alleged incident in Australia in March 2015, which Ms Heard has described as a 'three-day hostage situation'.

Ms Laws put it to the actress that she 'worked yourself into a rage, screaming at him' and threw a glass bottle, adding: 'Because you would get yourself into rages on occasions.'

Heard said: 'No, I got angry at times but not into a rage that would cause me to throw anything at him.'

Mr Justice Nicol clarified her answer by repeating that she would sometimes get angry, and Heard continued: 'But not to the extent where I would throw anything at him offensively.'

Ms Laws said: 'I'm going to suggest you threw a bottle at his head and it smashed the mirror behind him.'

Heard said the majority of bottles were thrown downstairs. She told the court: 'I would like to be clear, I did break a bottle but it was very early on in that evening, it was the second evening, if I recall correctly, and it was before Johnny had started to throw the bottles at me.

'We were in an argument about whether he was going to drink ... the liquor. When I confronted him about it he offered me the bottle ... he said, 'here, take it'.

'He said, 'Oh yeah, you want it? Here, take it', and at that point drinking had already been ... he had already given it up for a while and it was on the list of 'if this happens, I leave' sort of thing. It was no fly.

'And he gestured to offer it to me and I reached to take it and he pulled it back.

'He was teasing me to take it and would revoke it when I reached (for it).

'Then he did it again and I have in my head all the times that he said that I saved his life, and I thought honestly I could short circuit (a row about drinking).

'So I reached for it a second time and I smashed it on the floor in between Johnny and I.

'I regret I did that.'

Describing the alleged bottle attack, Heard said: 'He started picking them up one by one and throwing them like grenades.

'One after the other after the other, in my direction, and I felt glass breaking behind me, I retreated more into the bar and he didn't stop.

'I was too scared to look behind me. He threw all the bottles that were in reach, all except for one which was a celebratory magnum-sized bottle of wine.'

Heard said she remembered that was the only bottle not smashed out of 30 or so.

The actress then said: 'He (Mr Depp) told me over and over again that my work in trying to get him clean and sober ... when he was clean and sober he would tell me I saved his life.'

In response to Ms Laws disputing her version of events, she said: 'Absolutely not, Ms Laws, I was there, I watched it.

'I would be shocked if Johnny remembers any of this himself, but I was there.'

Ms Laws put it to Heard that Depp's finger was not severed as a result of his hand smashing against the wall, which the actress disagreed with.

The barrister then said: 'This injury was you throwing a bottle in his direction, smashing it down and severing the tip of his finger with glass, wasn't it?' Heard replied: 'No.'

Ms Laws referred to a photograph showing a mark on Depp's face and accused Heard of stubbing a cigarette out on his cheek, which the actress denied, adding: 'Johnny did that.'

Ms Laws said: 'You did it, didn't you?' To which Heard replied: 'No, Johnny did it right in front of me, he often did things like that.'

Ms Laws said: 'According to you, Mr Depp sliced his finger off all on his own ... and then carried on attacking you.'

Heard said: 'Yes, he did. I don't think he meant to sever the finger but yes he did continue the attack.'

Ms Laws said: 'This was a nasty incident in which you were extremely violent.' Heard replied: 'Absolutely not.'

Eleanor Laws QC then said: 'And afterwards, we have got those tapes... when security arrived, you were screaming at Mr Depp not to leave and then in another moment calling him a f****** coward for going.'

Heard said: 'I didn't hear it on the audio files.'

Pressed further she added: 'No on both of those accusations, absolutely not. I was just in another room crying.'

There was an exchange between Ms Laws and Heard about whether she had listened to the audio file and she confirmed she had only listened to part of it, but said it was the relevant part.

She told the court: 'At the beginning of the tape, you can hear how it ended. It ended with Johnny (shouting) incoherently and I was in the bathroom crying.'

Ms Laws then asked the actress about her using the phrase 'have you been so angry you've lost it?'

Heard said: 'I have referred to losing your cool as 'losing it'. I specifically denied referencing it to Ben King.'

She added: 'I said if I did use that phrase or anything like it, I would've been asking about Johnny's behaviour, not my own.'

Ms Laws put it to Heard that it was a phrase she had used about herself, and played part of an audio recording to the court, which was mostly inaudible in the overspill courtroom where the media are listening to proceedings.

The barrister then asked: 'Is it true that sometimes you get so angry you lose it?'

Heard replied: 'Sometimes I get angry enough that I lose my cool.'

Depp also admitted to doing graffiti on a bathroom mirror after the fight with Heard, which resulted in his finger being severed. He admitted that some of it was done with his blood and some with paint

During their visits to Australia in 2015, the couple stayed in this mansion owned by former MotoGp champion Mick Doohan

Heard claims the megastar actor, 57, and his allies have tried to 'embarrass and harass me and the people around me, including potential witnesses' ahead of his extraordinary London libel trial.

In a new witness statement published today, the actress, 34, said she was 'eager for this trial to proceed' claiming her ex-husband's 'campaign has affected my professional life, my personal life and my well-being. It has been extremely upsetting'.

She said: 'Johnny is so much more powerful than I am, in every way: physically, financially, and professionally. By leaving him I escaped the physical abuse, but for the past four years he has used his power and resources to continue the harassment and abuse through the various legal proceedings he has dragged me into and the publicity campaign his team has run alongside those proceedings'.

She added: 'I have been subjected to a campaign of targeted online abuse on social media, as well as online petitions calling for me to be removed from any future sequel to Aquaman and from my association with L'Oreal. It has also been aimed at what is most important to me: my humanitarian work, including my partnerships with the United Nations (UN) and non-governmental organisations, like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and many others, and the important work that these organisations do'.

Heard is expected to give her final evidence with her ex-husband Depp feet away as the biggest English libel trial of the 21st century comes to a head.

Heard, who smiled and waved as she walked into the Royal Courts of Justice with Bianca Butti, has been in the witness box for the past three days where she claimed she feared Depp was 'going to kill' her on several occasions.

Amber has said that the megastar would blame his 'alter ego' called 'the monster' for the alleged violence while intoxicated with copious amounts of drink and drugs.

On another extraordinary day at the Royal Courts of Justice, Heard claimed that Depp once pushed supermodel Kate Moss down the stairs during their relationship in the 1990s. The actress said that was why she had punched the actor  over fears he was about to do the same to her younger sister Whitney.

Heard also denied that she had an affair with Elon Musk, James Franco or 'anybody else' while she was with Depp, who she claimed was 'jealous' and accused her of sleeping with at least eight co-stars and also Leonardo DiCaprio after an audition, giving DiCaprio the nickname 'pumpkin-head'.

But the actress was accused of changing her story about being 'backhanded' by Depp in a so-called 'disco bloodbath'  after she saw a picture of the couple with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards in which Heard does not have any visible injuries to her face.

Amber Heard and her girlfriend Bianca Butti went sightseeing through Central London yesterday after her court appearance

The couple were having a 'nasty row' at the top of stairs in March 2015 when Whitney, then 26, tried to intervene, the court heard.

Accused of punching the Pirates Of The Caribbean star with her closed fist, Heard, 34, replied: 'I did strike Johnny that day in defence of my sister.

'He was about to push her down the stairs and, the moment before that happened, I remembered information I had heard that he pushed a former girlfriend  I believe it was Kate Moss  down the stairs. I had heard this rumour from two people and it was fresh in my mind. And in a flash I reacted in defence of her.

'I have been for years Johnny's punching bag  it was the first time I actually struck him back.'

Ms Laws, for Depp, accused Heard of 'just making this up as you go along', saying she had 'added' Miss Moss  whom Depp dated in the 1990s  to her evidence. Heard admitted she had never mentioned it before, in any statements or previous explanations of the incident.

Heard said: 'He was about to push my sister down the stairs. My baby sister. She has never hurt anyone in her life.

'I would have done anything to prevent her being pushed down a flight of stairs.'

Ms Laws said: 'You are making this up as you go along, throwing in details, new details, which you have thought of literally on your feet to make your account more credible.'

Heard replied: 'Of course not.'

Ms Laws said: 'You don't want to admit the truth, which is that you are violent, do you?'

Heard said: 'Only in self-defence.'

There was no response from Miss Moss's spokesperson yesterday for requests to comment.

Ms Heard sketched giving evidence during the bombshell libel proceedings brought by Mr Depp against The Sun after being branded a 'wife-beater'

Amber Heard made the sensational claim that Johnny Depp pushed British supermodel Kate Moss down the stairs while they dated in the 1990s (pictured together in New York in 1994)

'Johnny's the boss': Amber Heard claims it was Depp's decision to bring their terriers Boo and Pistol into Australia illegally

Heard denied it was her decision to take their dogs Boo and Pistol into Australia illegally in 2015 and said: 'When Johnny wanted something it happened'

The actress said she took the blame to avoid disrupting her then-husband's filming schedule for Pirates of the Caribbean.

The barrister read a series of emails sent between Heard and Depp's then-estate manager Kevin Murphy, in which Mr Murphy told her that 'the dogs will not be allowed to fly commercial in the passenger compartment to Australia'.

Heard told Mr Murphy that she did not want to put the dogs in 'cargo', and said: 'Unless there's another way to get them there or get them on the plane with J.'

A photograph of Amber Heard and Johnny Depp's pet Yorkshire Terriers Pistol and Boo, who were taken into Australia illegally

Heard and Depp at Southport Magistrates' Court in Australia in April 2016. Heard received a $1,000 fine and a one-month good behaviour bond after pleading guilty to one count of falsifying border protection documents when entering the country with the dogs

Ms Laws said: 'You were told by Kevin Murphy, who had been doing quite a lot of work on this, that he wasn't able to get the documentation ready in time.'

Heard said: 'No ... this is a process that had been going on for about six months and I was out of the country filming a movie, I wasn't there with Johnny so it was quite confusing to me.'

She added: 'When Johnny wanted something it happened. He always found a way to make it work.'

Heard continued: 'He told me when I landed. I was only in LA for a matter of hours before we got on his plane for his movie on his flight with his staff.'

She said Depp told her 'everything had been taken care of', adding: 'I had no reason to get any clarity.'

Ms Laws put it to Heard: 'You took a decision to take them (the dogs) anyway.'

Heard replied: 'It wasn't my decision.'

She added: 'Johnny's the boss.'

Ms Laws said: 'You are the boss, aren't you?'

Heard said: 'I didn't call any of the shots. This is Johnny's plane, Johnny's crew, Johnny's staff.'

She also said: 'We both filled out the same entry cards... we both filled out the same thing, yet I took the charges because if Johnny got charges it would have further compromised Pirates (Of The Caribbean), which was already compromised.'

Ms Laws suggested that every time Heard was asked a question 'you used it as an opportunity to say something negative about Mr Depp'.

She added: 'You knew full well that you shouldn't have taken those dogs.'

Heard replied: 'Johnny told me that we would bring the dogs in.'

Ms Laws asked: 'What about Kevin Murphy?'

Heard said: 'That's Johnny's staff.'

She also said: 'I was the only one to get charged so I plead guilty... I took the blame.'

Ms Laws then suggested that Heard tried to 'shunt the blame' on to Kate James, her former assistant.

Heard replied: 'I plead guilty, why would I need to do that?'

Amber Heard accuses Johnny Depp of a four-year harassment campaign after split

Heard claimed Depp and his lawyers have run a four-year campaign to 'harass' and 'abuse' their as well as wreck her career after they split up.

Heard claims the megastar actor, 57, and his allies have tried to 'embarrass and harass me and the people around me, including potential witnesses' ahead of his extraordinary London libel trial.

In a new witness statement published today, the actress, 34, said she was 'eager for this trial to proceed' claiming her ex-husband's 'campaign has affected my professional life, my personal life and my well-being. It has been extremely upsetting'.

She said: 'Johnny is so much more powerful than I am, in every way: physically, financially, and professionally. By leaving him I escaped the physical abuse, but for the past four years he has used his power and resources to continue the harassment and abuse through the various legal proceedings he has dragged me into and the publicity campaign his team has run alongside those proceedings'.

She added: 'I have been subjected to a campaign of targeted online abuse on social media, as well as online petitions calling for me to be removed from any future sequel to Aquaman and from my association with L'Oreal. It has also been aimed at what is most important to me: my humanitarian work, including my partnerships with the United Nations (UN) and non-governmental organisations, like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and many others, and the important work that these organisations do'.

Self-harm

Johnny Depp's lawyer Eleanor Laws QC challenged Amber Heard's testimony of the incident, suggesting that scars she claims were inflicted by Depp depicted in photos shown in court were 'far more akin' to self-harm scars

Scars on Heard's arm were the result of self-harm rather than a brutal attack by Johnny Depp, his QC suggested.

Heard said they were inflicted during a terrifying ordeal in Australia in March 2015 - which she has termed the 'three-day hostage situation'  at a house they rented while Depp filmed one of the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies.

She said yesterday: 'I had been strangled, assaulted, punched, sexually assaulted, strangled, among other things.'

She claimed that Depp had guzzled whisky and ecstasy tablets before hitting and choking her, smashing bottles and throwing her around on a kitchen top strewn with broken glass in the incident in which he drunkenly severed his own finger before daubing 'I love u' with his blood on a mirror.

She told the court, her voice cracking with emotion: 'I was trying to push him off me. I was saying, 'Johnny, it's me, you're really hurting me, stop please'  it's like he couldn't hear me.'

She added: 'He pulled me around by my neck and pushed me down against the bar, I was against the bar, naked, bent over backwards, my back against the marble.

'He was pressing so hard on my neck I couldn't breathe. I was trying to tell him that I couldn't breathe. I remember thinking he was going to kill me in that moment. The floor was wet and I was slipping.'

She said she could not get any purchase on the floor or the countertop 'from all the broken bottles'.

Heard said she still bore scars on her arm. A photo taken on April 18, a month later, at the Tribeca Music Festival in New York, was shared on Twitter, and the court also saw other photos.

Ms Laws asked her: 'These are not scars sustained while you are writhing around, trying to get away from Mr Depp  jagged, uneven  they are straight in line, aren't they?'

Mr Justice Nicol intervened to ask: 'It is suggested these are not scars sustained in the Australia attack  do you agree?' Heard did not.

Miss Laws said: 'These are far more akin to self-harm scars, straight and inflicted by you, and certainly not in a struggle with Mr Depp.'

But Heard replied: 'I have had these scars on my arm since that evening and I have never self-harmed.'

And she added: 'Johnny's a self-harmer, I'm not a self-harmer.'

KEITH RICHARDS PHOTO

The actress was accused of changing her story about being 'backhanded' by Depp in a so-called 'disco bloodbath'  after she saw a picture of the couple with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards in which Heard does not have any visible injuries to her face.

The photo was taken on March 23, 2013. Heard had initially claimed Depp smacked her on March 21 but she later changed this to March 8.

She said Depp had become jealous of a painting her ex-partner Tasya van Ree put up in their bedroom, and that in a drug-fuelled rampage he had tried to set fire to it and had hit her so hard that the wall was 'spattered' with blood from her lip.

Ms Laws suggested Heard had altered her account after seeing the photo of her, her sister Whitney and Depp with Richards, saying: 'You have changed the date in order to explain away the clear face in the photo.

'You have woven a web of lies that you have had to shift and change according to when evidence has emerged.'

Heard replied: 'I disagree.'

PLASTER CAST

The actress was also accused of 'a complete lie' over her claims that Depp grabbed her hair with one hand and punched her with the other in March 2015.

It was impossible, said Miss Laws, since the actor's right hand was swathed in bandages  Depp had chosen a children's dinosaur design for fun  following the severing of his finger in Australia during a previous row. Miss Heard told the court she wasn't lying, saying: 'He grabbed my hair with this hand, and hit me with the hard plastic cast. It was especially unpleasant.'

Miss Laws said the actress had not mentioned the plaster cast before, and suggested that if it had been true it would have been 'a primary feature of the assault' that Heard would have wanted to record.

'BLACKMAIL'

Heard was accused of trying to extort and blackmail the star as they divorced. Her list of demands included three LA penthouses and a black Range Rover.

A letter from her lawyers demanded Depp's 'immediate co-operation' to complete the divorce quickly and without publicity. She also peppered the star with text messages saying 'Please call me, it's important', 'please!' and 'emergency!', the court heard.

Miss Laws said: 'It's blackmail, isn't it?' The actress said: 'No.' Heard filed her divorce declaration on May 26, 2016  five days after the alleged phone-throwing incident  and obtained a court restraining order the following day, saying she was 'petrified' that her husband would return to the apartment.

Miss Laws suggested this was 'not true'. The actress replied: 'I was petrified of the monster that Johnny could become.'

OUT WITH FRIENDS

Heard was also pictured apparently enjoying herself with friends in the days after the May 21 phone-hurling incident, during which she claimed her husband had been 'drunk and high' and smashed 'everything he could' in the apartment with a magnum bottle of champagne.

Three days later, CCTV footage from the lift of her apartment building showed her going out with her sister Whitney and friend Rocky Pennington, coming back at 11pm with wine.

Heard has been accused of faking her injuries with help from her friends, in what Depp's legal team claims was part of a 'hoax'.

FAECES ON THE BED

Amber Heard has rubbished accusations that she defecated in Johnny Depp's bed, as bombshell photographs of faeces at the centre of their bitter court row were made public for the first time

In the latest twist to what was dubbed 'Poogate' by Heard and her friends, the actress vehemently denied she was responsible for leaving 'disgusting' human excrement on the bed she shared with Depp in their Los Angeles penthouse on her 30th birthday. She blamed it on their dog Boo, who was unwell after it ate some of the star's drug stash, the court heard.

Depp says he made up his mind to divorce his wife after being informed about the faeces.

Miss Laws asked Heard: 'You left human excrement on the bed?' Heard responded: 'That's absolutely disgusting.'

Asked if any of her friends had left it, she replied: 'No, of course not. That's unimaginable to me.'

She claimed Boo, Depp's Yorkshire terrier, had had a problem with her bowels since eating cannabis that belonged to Depp when she was a puppy.

The case continues.
The Maryam Abacha American University has rewarded one of its first-class graduates of law, Maryam Damban, with N1 million for good behaviour.

Ms Damban was honoured by the president of the institution, Adamu Gwarzo, at the universitys premises in Maradi, Niger on Thursday.

Mr Gwarzo also awarded the graduating student a scholarship to further her education to PhD level in the institution.

Mr Gwarzo told PREMIUM TIMES the university does not only reward hard work but also good character.

Maryam is of good character, brilliant and as you can see, she is a first-class graduate of law. The university awards certificate not only in education but also in character, Mr Gwarzo said.

READ ALSO:

Meanwhile, while receiving her prize, Ms Damban expressed her appreciation to the school management for honouring her.

She also expressed her appreciation to resource persons and staff of the university, whom she described as the best teachers she ever met.

Meanwhile, Mr Gwarzo said the Maryan Abacha American University of Nigeria will start full operations soon.

The Maryam Abacha School of Health Technology began operation in Kaduna two years ago, Mr Gwarzo told PREMIUM TIMES.
A Nigerian woman who was recently delivered of quadruplets is stranded in Dubai due to coronavirus travel restrictions, the CNN has reported.

Suliyah AbdulKareem, 29, gave birth to the babies two boys and two girls  on July 1 but was prevented from traveling home because of travel restrictions imposed in the wake of the public health emergency.

Her husband, Tijani Abdulkareem, 32, said they had planned to move her back to Nigeria to give birth after they found she was having quadruplets in January.

But then, the coronavirus pandemic struck and held the world in a tailspin many had not imagined, disrupting plans.

The couple, who live in Dubai, share a hostel accommodation with others.

Living with others with a bunch of new-born babies has been difficult as well as renting a bigger place with their combined income which sparsely suffices them, Mr Abdulkareem, who works as a cook at a restaurant in the city, told CNN.

The most preferred option was to return to Nigeria, he said.

The Nigerian government had banned all commercial international flights when the pandemic erupted in March, just after it recorded its index case.

Currently, Nigeria, like many countries, only allows diplomatic and essential flights into its airspace.

According to Mr Abdulkareem, travel restrictions frustrated their plans.

The father said they hoped that the travel restrictions would ease after the Nigerian government, in May, began evacuating its citizens from UAE and around the world.

We thought the travel situation would improve  but the lockdown made it difficult to get flights, he said.

They planned her departure to Nigeria in May, but a premature delivery of the babies who were delivered through an emergency C-section at the Latifah Women and Children hospital in Dubai, stalled the couples plan.

More worries

Not only that, with about $120,000 (approximately N47 million) debt and more hospital bills to pay, the babies arrival had unsettled the couples finances

The new father told CNN they have been relying on the goodwill of the hospital and the generosity of the Nigerian community in Dubai.

The hospital has really helped us. They discharged my wife and are doing all they can to ensure that the babies are doing well. The Nigerian community has also been like a family to us, Mr Abdulkareem said.

Meanwhile, while the Nigerian community in Dubai contributed about $8000 (approximately N3.1 million) to pay part of the familys bills, the Nigerian government has said it would look into the matter.

The head of the Nigerians in the Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, said the countrys embassy in Dubai had contacted the family.

The mission is on top of the matter and is in constant touch with the family, Mrs Dabiri-Erewa said.
A Pakistani and two Indian-origin persons based in the US have been "blacklisted" by the government for their alleged anti-India activities. The move came after Shiv Sena MP Rahul Shewale wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah apprising them about the alleged anti-India activities of Rehan Siddiqui, a US-based Pakistani, and Rakesh Kaushal and Darshan Mehta.

The trio will not be able to travel to India following the blacklisting. In a letter to Shewale, Union Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy said the issue was examined by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) following his complaint.

"The MEA has apprised that Rehan Siddiqui, Rakesh Kaushal and Darshan Mehta have been blacklisted on the recommendations of the Consulate General of India, Houston," Reddy wrote to Shewale. Siddiqui runs a radio station in Houston and organises cultural events with artistes from Bollywood.

Kaushal and Mehta allegedly assist Siddiqui in organising such events. Reddy also conveyed to the MP that the Indian Embassy in Washington DC and the Consulate General in Houston have been requested to engage with prominent influencers, cultural bodies and bona-fide "Bollywood-affiliated" local entities to ensure that appropriate message is conveyed to Indian actors and artistes so that they disassociate themselves from such anti-national elements.

Shewale, the MP from Mumbai South Central, said the government has advised the Bollywood celebrities not to participate in events organised by the trio. In his complaint to Home Minister Shah in February 2020, Shewale had said Siddiqui is the owner of a radio station in Houston and promoter of cultural events and has been allegedly involved in anti-India activities and anti-India propaganda.

The MP claimed that Siddiqui's radio station was funded by US-based Pakistanis and the Pakistan government. Shewale said that after the February 2019 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama, Siddiqui "launched a vicious anti-India campaign and tried to malign the dignity and honour" of the Prime Minister.

Forty CRPF jawans were killed in the terror attack in Pulwama. India had carried out an air strike at a terror camp in Pakistan, days after the Pulwama attack. Shewale has now demanded investigations by the Enforcement Directorate and the National Investigation Agency on the Bollywood celebrities who had participated in the events organised by Siddiqui and his two accomplices.
Former rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas), a conservative champion unjustly convicted and imprisoned on questionable campaign finance charges, faces what amounts to the death penalty thanks to outrageous behavior within the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

During the Obama presidency, Steve was a fierce critic of official wrongdoing and was targeted for prosecution, and eventually unjustly convicted even after three federal grand juries refused to indict him on trumped up campaign finance charges. (Please see his wife Patti Stockmans AT articles here, here, here, and here.) Following his conviction for a nonviolent, non-sexual crime, his treatment in prison has been abominable, and now he is facing death from COVID-19 due to his extreme vulnerability to infection and the widespread incidence of the disease in the prison where he languishes. Prison authorities refuse compassionate release with home confinement, as has been done with thousands of prisoners, and instead keep him incarcerated in a cell block with a very high incidence of the disease.



Steve Stockman (photo credit: Gage Skidmore).

My friend Richard Viguerie has published a must-read column at Conservative HQ detailing what appears to me to be an assassination plot. I urge readers to read the whole thing, but here are some excerpts:

By the day if not by the hour, conservative movement champion former Congressman Steve Stockman's situation grows perilously close to a death sentence. Steve is the only over-60 diabetic prisoner remaining at the Beaumont, Texas federal prison facility, which also has the highest per capita COVID-19 infection rate of any prison in the country. And he's been told by prison officials he will not be leaving on orders "straight from the top" in Washington!!! It's clear someone wants him dead. Someone in Washington is ordering that his life not be saved by being released to home detention. There needs to be investigations into who it is.

A.G. Barr and President Trump need start an investigation now! Time is short, and Steve must be moved out of his lethal environment.

Steve's age (63), multiple co-morbidities (diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis, asthma, and more), and the nonviolent, non-sexual nature of his conviction (charges after three grand juries refused to indict him, involving campaign finance and fundraising from two wealthy Republican donors, neither of whom filed complaints) clearly make him eligible for release to home detention, consistent with a March 26 directive from Attorney General William Barr to the Director of the Bureau of Prisons for "at risk" inmates. And despite the known positive benefits of sunlight to fight off coronavirus, Steve has not been allowed outside in many weeks.

Compassionate release would not qualify as special treatment. In fact, the continued incarceration is discriminatory treatment:

A UCLA COVID-19 Behind Bars Data Project reports that over 70,000 people have been released from jail due to the COVID-19 threat, and over 33,000 released from prison consistent with federal "compassion" guidelines directed by a very law-and-order Attorney General, William Barr. Steve has filed and even re-filed the papers for release to home confinement, including a petition for "Compassionate Release" he filed with Warden F. J. Garrido on April 4, to which Garrido responded on April 20. Steve was told on April 24 he'd be placed in pre-release quarantine, but was then turned away at the door by prison staff. Soon after, and one more time since then, Steve was told by prison officials he will not be leaving on orders from the top. [emphasis in original] On May 21 Warden Garrido wrote responding to someone inquiring about Steve's release, noting that Attorney General Barr authorized the Director of the Bureau of Prisons to "maximize appropriate transfers to home confinements of all appropriate inmates" at certain prisons where "COVID-19 is materially affecting operations." Garrido's letter goes on to say the Beaumont prison "will take swift action to exercise its expanded home confinement authority for any inmate who is found to be at risk for COVID-19 and suitable for home confinement." Steve fits the criteria for release to home detention. The directions "from the top" that he not be released is a death sentence. Dead men, after all, tell no tales.

John Griffing, another critic of Stockman's treatment, writes to me:

In April, Stockman's caseworker advised he'd made the list for transfer to home confinement under the CARES Act, due to his advanced age, and health conditions that include asthma-scarred lungs, hypertension and diabetes. But then, inexplicably, and without warning, Steve's release was denied. After protesting, the prison official responsible sneeringly remarked, "You are safer in prison," also stressing that Steve had not "completed 50 percent of his sentence."

John also points to the origins of the prosecution of Stockman:

The hill Stockman "died on," to borrow an old political adage, is Lois Lerner. During her tenure as IRS chief, Lerner purposefully criminalized applications for nonprofit status submitted by conservative Christian groups and normalized an agency-wide policy of targeting religious groups for audits. Enter Stockman. Lerner was held in contempt for refusing to honor subpoena requests from Congress, and Texas Congressman Stockman initiated a campaign to "arrest Lois Lerner." Within 2 weeks, the FBI showed up at Steve's door. Steve later learned that Lerner was copied on emails initiating the FBI investigation against him, an investigation as politically motivated as the Soviet-style show trial which put him behind bars.

Stockman is being set up for death, as John points out:

Steve is now the only insulin-dependent diabetic over 60 remaining at FCI Beaumont, as all other elderly diabetic inmates have been, or are being, moved to home confinement, since it is impossible to social distance in prison. The ongoing slowwalk of Steve's release, combined with active withholding of vital medications, e.g. his insulin, is attempted murder.

If Roger Stone had his prison sentence commuted by President Trump, Steve Stockman surely deserves compassionate release, if not commutation or pardon.
What do you get when you cross a parking spot with a mini park?

A parklet that could offer an economic boost to restaurants hit hard by public health restrictions on indoor dining during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The city of Napa recently announced a new program called Napa Al Fresco financed by property owners to create parklets throughout downtown. The program would expand seating for restaurants whose indoor dining has been closed, opened, then closed again as California tries to tame coronavirus spread.

So far, a number of downtown restaurant owners, including Miminashi, Norman Rose, Housley Napa Valley and The Dutch Door, have expressed interest in creating parklets outside their front doors.

Parklets are usually described as public seating platforms that convert curbside parking spaces into vibrant community spaces, said the National Association of City Transportation Officials.

Most parklets have a distinctive design that incorporates seating, greenery, and/or bike racks and accommodate unmet demand for public space, the association stated.

Downtown and Oxbow District businesses will be able to apply for reimbursable grants of up to $5,000 to help finance the cost of creating a parklet.

The goal is to support our businesses during COVID-19 and provide a safe experience to people who visit and enjoy the city of Napas world-class dining and wines, said a news release from the city.

The Napa Downtown Property and Business Improvement District (PBID) has allocated $140,000 to the Downtown and Oxbow Parklet Grants Program to support businesses with the design, development, and installation of a parklet or shared space. Property owners in the district assess themselves to finance downtown promotional activities.

On Tuesday, Curtis Di Fede of Miminashi on Coombs Street, said he was in the middle of working on drawings for a possible three-space parklet. Im trying to get it going ASAP, he said.

Last weeks re-closure of inside dining impacts him pretty significantly, said Di Fede. We can only do 10% of our dining right now, which is hard.

I just want Napa to be a much more modern city, he said. The cool part is the city of Napa has given me plans that Seattle and San Francisco are using, so Im going off those plans. He doesnt have to re-create the wheel.

Having a cluster of parklets is going to draw more attention to downtown Napa, which is great, Di Fede said.

Di Fede said he plans to create an outdoor tiki lounge in front of his Japanese restaurant. Were going to offer Hawaiian fare food and tiki cocktails. Im sure it will be reservation only for the time being because space is limited.

Di Fede said he will definitely apply for a $5,000 grant for each parking spot. Im going to try and stay well under the $5,000 per spot, he said. I just dont have a lot of money to spend right now.

Those three spaces can hopefully accommodate an extra 20 outdoor seats, in addition to the 18 he has now, he said.

Next-door neighbor The Dailey Method, a fitness studio, could also share the space for outdoor cycle classes, he said.

Michael Gyetvan of Norman Rose Tavern said he plans to apply for a parklet in front of his First Street restaurant.

Its just a matter of getting something on paper and finding someone to do it; most contractors are busy at this time, he said.

Gyetvan said he can currently seat about 24 outside and with a parklet, he could possibly get maybe 12 to 16 more. That would make a big difference, he said.

At the same time, hes not sure what to expect in terms of demand.

We havent been having that big of a turnout to sit outside currently. And hes not sure how long the state ban on indoor dining will last.

As for the parklet itself, Im hoping it would be unique enough that people would want to come check it out, seeing as there havent been parklets before in Napa.

Gyetvan said hes hoping for a fast approval process from the city. We really only have two more months of positive outdoor dining weather.

The $5,000 grant is the only way he would have applied for the parklet, Gyetvan said. Im kind of banking on that.

The restaurant owner said hed like to have a parklet up and running by the first of August. Thats my goal. Its worth a shot.

Adam Housley at Housley Napa Valley on Clinton Street said that parklets will contribute to a cool vibe in downtown Napa. It just makes complete sense, he said.

So many cities have done a great job with it. For us it was a no-brainer. This will just improve the experience of our customers.

He plans to design his parklet so it complements the area outside and around his business, Like its meant to be there, he said.

Housley hopes to share two spaces with a new tenant next to him, Big Stump Brewing Company of Sacramento.

The $5,000 grant is welcome, but he plans on spending significantly more than that.

Were going to make sure its done right, he said.

Sponsoring the parklets is a smart idea by the city, said Housley. The city should be pushing this kind of thing because were all trying to keep people employed.

Mike Casey, co-owner of The Dutch Door, a take-out restaurant at First and Randolph streets, said hes hoping to create a shared parklet space out of two adjacent parking spots.

This is going to be critical to us surviving and what people are seeking now, said Casey.

Casey said the business owners were inspired by what weve seen other folks do in other cities, such as San Francisco and Seattle, he said.

The parklet will give some more space but also kind of more of an experience, he said. He now has two outdoor tables. He hopes the parklet could provide an additional eight to 10 seats.

For the design, We definitely want something more organic that could possibly feature wood and plants. We want people to feel like its a little oasis and look like its been there for a while.

Restaurants dont have to build a parklet to take advantage of the outdoor space around them. Businesses can also apply to create a shared space that can quickly transform parking spaces into expanded areas for their business.

Parklets have the short-term benefit of adding some additional seating for restaurants and tasting rooms, which is desperately needed, and that alone makes them worthwhile, said Craig Smith, executive director of the Downtown Napa Association.

But from what I am hearing, businesses plan on creating some pretty elaborate parklets. I think these will become coveted seating long after the virus is over. Folks will be drawn to parklets because of the ambiance.

A representative from the city could not be immediately reached to say how many parklets could be built in downtown Napa. For more information: cityofnapa.org/937/Napa-Al-Fresco

Watch now: 5 simple tips for improving outdoor workouts this summer

You can reach reporter Jennifer Huffman at 256-2218 or jhuffman@napanews.com

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 07:24:18|Editor: huaxia

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A man rides a bicycle near the Capitol Building in Washington D.C., the United States, June 26, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

U.S. House passed a bill which would repeal the Trump administration's travel bans, but it is unlikely to be taken up in the Republican-controlled Senate.

WASHINGTON, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. House of Representatives, led by Democrats, passed legislation on Wednesday aimed at repealing the Trump administration's travel bans.

The National Origin-Based Antidiscrimination for Nonimmigrants (NO BAN) Act was passed with a 233-183 vote, largely along party lines.

However, it is unlikely to be taken up in the Senate, where Republicans have a majority.

Jerrold Nadler, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that the bill would stop "executive overreach by preventing the president from abusing his authority to restrict the entry of non-citizens into the United States."

The bill, according to the statement, would also repeal travel restrictions imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump, which critics have called discriminatory and unconstitutional.

Trump first issued the travel ban in 2017, barring entry to those coming from several predominantly Muslim countries. 
MADRID  After already enjoying a long night of graduation celebrations, a throng of young people poured into the Babylon discotheque at 5 a.m. to continue partying in the southern Spanish city of Cordoba.

Two weeks later, 91 people linked to the Babylons 400 identified partygoers have tested positive for the coronavirus and the regional authorities are still struggling to trace all those who entered the club that night, or who later came into contact with them.

Spain lifted a nationwide state of emergency on June 21 as it emerged from a strict three-month lockdown imposed to gain control over one of Europes worst outbreaks. The rapid spread of the virus in Spain left some 28,400 people dead by the official count  almost surely understated  with most of them over the age of 70.

Since then, new coronavirus cases have quadrupled  now concentrated among young people  as the left-wing coalition government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez returned responsibility for a safe reopening to Spains regions. That has made Spain a mosaic of new rules  some less stringent or more loosely enforced than others  and an uneven patchwork of successes mixed with alarming failures.
SPRINGFIELD  The chairwoman of the Illinois House Energy and Environment Committee said this week she will not hold hearings to examine what impact Commonwealth Edisons lobbying and bribery practices have had on utility ratepayers, rebuffing a request from two Republican lawmakers.

Instead, Rep. Ann Williams, D-Chicago, said in a statement that she plans to introduce tough new amendments to the proposed Clean Energy Jobs Act next year to ensure that we hold utilities accountable and take the politics out of setting fair energy rates.

A legislative committee is not the appropriate place to investigate a criminal matter currently under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Attorneys office, Williams said this week. As was the precedent during prior corruption cases, the House Energy and Environment (committee) will not hold hearings that could impede and interfere with an ongoing federal investigation.

That statement came in response to a letter Monday from Republican Reps. David Welter, of Morris, and Keith Wheeler, of Oswego, to Williams and Rep. Larry Walsh, D-Joliet, chair of the House Public Utilities Committee. That letter requested the two committees hold joint investigative hearings.

Welter is the Republican spokesman on the Energy and Environment Committee. Wheeler is the Republican spokesman on the Public Utilities Committee.

Their letter was in reaction to ComEds public admission on Friday, July 17, that between 2011 and 2019, it awarded lobbying jobs and subcontracts to associates of House Speaker Michael Madigan as part of an effort to gain Madigans support for legislation beneficial to the utility.

That admission was made in a federal court in what is called a deferred prosecution agreement, in which the U.S. Attorneys office agreed not to pursue prosecution of bribery charges against the company in exchange for ComEd paying a $200 million fine and agreeing to cooperate with the ongoing investigation.

Madigan has not been charged and has denied any wrongdoing.

But Welter and Wheeler argued that there is more at stake in the scandal than criminal matters.

While the U.S. Attorneys office investigated criminal activity during the time period in question related to ComEds activities to influence and reward Public Official A in order to receive passage of legislation favorable to the utility, the issue of what impact ComEds activities had on ratepayers and state policy needs to be investigated, they stated in their letter.

According to people familiar with the investigation, federal prosecutors have focused on at least two pieces of legislation. One of those is the Energy Infrastructure Modernization Act of 2011, also known as the Smart Grid bill, which allowed public utilities to recover the cost of infrastructure improvements through a formula, without review by the Illinois Commerce Commission.

It passed both chambers of the General Assembly over the veto of then-Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat.

Also of interest is a massive energy bill passed in 2016 known as the Future Energy Jobs Act in which the state agreed to bail out two nuclear power plants owned by ComEds parent company Excelon by paying the company $235 million a year for 10 years to keep the plants open, with the money coming from a surcharge on customers electric bills.

More recently, lawmakers have been debating what is called the Clean Energy Jobs Act  Senate Bill 2132 and House Bill 3624  which is aimed at moving Illinois to 100 percent renewable energy for electricity production by 2050. But that bill has stalled in the General Assembly partly because, according to some observers, it could provide benefits to ComEd at a time when the companys lobbying practices were the subject of federal investigations.

Williams, who is the lead House sponsor of the Clean Energy Jobs act, said in an open letter to her colleagues Thursday that she is working on amendments to that bill, including one that would end the automatic, formula-generated rate increases allowed under the 2011 Smart Grid bill.

The era of utilities, nuclear and fossil fuel industries, and other big business groups dictating energy policy in Illinois are over, she said. We can no longer allow corporate profits to come before efforts to create affordable and clean energy sources.

In a separate statement Thursday, Welter said he had spoken again with Williams in hopes of changing her mind about holding investigative hearings. He said that while there is bipartisan support for working on legislation to prevent future corrupt lobbying practices, he was disappointed that Democratic leaders were not willing to investigate the impact that past practices have had on ratepayers.

I disagree that doing so would somehow impede or interfere with an ongoing federal investigation, because ComEd has already agreed to pay $200 million to defer further prosecution, he said. The fact is, both the City of Chicago and the Illinois Commerce Commission plan to hold hearings of their own and call ComEd officials to testify. Why not Mike Madigans House of Representatives?

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After years of heavy losses, electric carmaker Tesla reached a huge landmark in the last quarter by recording its fourth consecutive quarter of growth.

The American company reported making a net profit of $104million from April to June, having made a loss of $408million last year and despite a modest decline in revenues and the closure of its Californian factory for nearly two months.

It attributed the growth to 'fundamental operational improvements' such as salary cuts for employees as well as the opening of its new factory in China, where manufacturing is cheaper.

Tesla delivered almost 90,000 vehicles, sold over $400million of regulatory credits to other automakers and earned higher revenues from its energy generation and storage division

'Our business has shown strong resilience during these unprecedented times,' the firm stated.

'We believe the progress we made in the first half of this year has positioned us for a successful second half of 2020. Production output of our existing facilities continues to improve to meet demand, and we are adding more capacity.'

Tesla also sold over $400million of regulatory credits to other automakers, earned higher revenues from its energy generation and storage division, and delivered almost 90,000 vehicles.

The results 'caught traders off guard,' remarked CMC Markets UK's David Madden, 'as there was a feeling the firm could slip into the red on account of the issues surrounding the pandemic.'

Tesla's share price has already grown more than sixfold over the last year, making the company's founder Elon Musk (above) one of the ten richest men in the world

On average, investors predicted Tesla would make a $189million loss, though estimates were tremendously varied.

It now means the firm is a strong contender to join the S&P 500, America's most reputable stock market index, alongside American corporate titans like Apple, Amazon, McDonald's and Microsoft.

Tesla's share price soared by over 5 per cent after the results were announced. It has already grown more than sixfold over the last year, making the company's founder Elon Musk one of the ten richest men in the world.

The eccentric South-African born billionaire saw his net worth rise by another 4billion on Monday, giving him a total wealth of 59billion.

Inclusion in the S&P 500 could make him even better off as index-tracker funds would have to purchase Tesla's stock, thereby elevating the value of its shares even more.

Musk also revealed yesterday that Texas would be home to the company's biggest auto assembly plant, beating Oklahoma, which has not had a car manufacturing site since 2005.

How can I invest in Tesla? You can buy Tesla shares with UK investing Isa platforms, like: AJ Bell - Tesla is seventh on AJ Bell's list of Top Ten Buys, below Lloyds Banking Group and above Tiziana Life Sciences, whose share price has also had a meteoric rise this year. Hargreaves Lansdown - The financial service company says Tesla has 'enjoyed a period of technological superiority' that has 'helped it achieve things that at times looked impossible.' There are also several UK-based funds and investment trusts that have holdings in Tesla: Scottish Mortgage IT / Baillie Gifford - Investment giant Baillie Gifford is Tesla's second-biggest shareholder after Musk himself. Its flagship Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust fund has soared by almost 60 per cent in value since the start of the year, thanks in no small part to its Tesla holding. Capital World Investors - Morgan Stanley's Capital World fund owns a 5.9 per cent stake in Tesla. It also has holdings in Amazon and Microsoft, which have also boomed since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Invesco QQQ Trust - The fund mostly invests in technology and communication firms and has a significant holding in Tesla. iShares Electric Vehicles and Driving Technology - Blackrock's ECAR fund aims to benefit from the growing demand for electric vehicles.

Over 5,000 people are set to be employed at the factory, which will build the firm's forthcoming Cybertruck pickup, the Model Y small SUV and Model 3. Tesla has also pledged to invest $1.1billion in total and pay its workers a minimum wage of at least $15 an hour, twice the US federally-mandated rate.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted a picture of himself sitting next to Musk uesterday, writing later: 'Tesla's Gigafactory Texas will keep the Texas economy the strongest in the nation and will create thousands of jobs for hard-working Texans.'

Tesla is planning to add a new factory in Texas to its one in Fremont, California (above)

Unlike Tesla's home state of California, Texas has no income or corporate taxes. But ironically, Tesla is banned from selling its cars in Texas, because all vehicles must be sold in the state through franchised dealers instead of Tesla-style company stores.

The firm aims to sell half a million cars this year even though the car market have experienced severe disruption because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Richard Dunbar, Head of Multi-Asset Research at Aberdeen Standard Investments, said the company's results were highly impressive 'If you consider the quarter that we've just gone through.'

He added: 'The shares have gone from $300 to $1600 since the lows of March, so investors are pretty optimistic about the prospects for the company. It is starting to deliver and improve in some of the areas where they'd fallen down over the past few years.'
YEREVAN, JULY 23, ARMENPRESS. On July 22 Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Zohrab Mnatskanyan had a phone conversation with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission, Josep Borrell. The newly appointed Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Jeyhun Bayramov also joined the conversation, the Armenian MFA told Armenpress.

Zohrab Mnatsakanyan commented on the recent developments concerning escalation across certain parts of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border as a result of the hostilities instigated by Azerbaijan since July 12.

Zohrab Mnatsakanyan also emphasized the importance of implementation of the previous agreements on reducing tensions, restoring and strengthening the ceasefire. In this context, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan stressed the priority of denouncement of bellicose rhetoric and war threats by the political-military leadership of Azerbaijan.

Referring to the format of the phone conversation, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan particularly underlined the exclusive role of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship in the Nagorno Karabakh peace process.

Minister Mnatsakanyan also highly appreciated the unequivocal support of the EU High Representative/Vice President to the format of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship, as well as his remarks that the regional countries should refrain from any actions aimed at destabilization of the situation.
The City of Birmingham is tapping DC Blox to aid in everything from digitizing its services to disaster recovery to connectivity.

The company which opened its flagship multi-tenant data center in Titusville last year has been tasked with providing space, power and networking to Birmingham as part of a new contract. DC Bloxs data center has 18,000 square feet of white space (the are set aside for IT equipment), 13,000 square feet of office space, a fully-protected private network and 5MW of customer capacity in a building designed to withstand 150 mph winds.

The citys contract is $17,289 a month for 36 months.

When DC Blox announced the center two years ago, it pledged an investment of $785 million in the center over 10 years. It is the only certified Tier III multi-tenant data center in Alabama with uninterrupted service through backup power generation in the event of the loss of utility power.

DC Blox will offer enhanced Internet services between City Hall, a disaster recovery site at an undisclosed location and the data center, where the city has 32kW of colocation space and power. The centers network also interconnects with Internet Exchanges in Atlanta and Montgomery and offers private line access to all major public cloud providers.

According to a news release, the IT systems supporting Birminghams software development, operations, telecommunications, and IT governance services were housed at City Hall. The building, constructed in 1950, was unable to be retrofitted to meet expanded IT requirements.

The city also has plans to digitize many of its existing information systems and processes. City officials estimate savings of about $1.5 million over three years versus hosting an equivalent data center in-house.

Patrick McLendon, Birminghams chief technology officer, said the city now has a state-of-the-art data center with rich connectivity which moves it a huge step forward toward meeting our citys IT goals.

With DC BLOX as a strategic partner, we can accelerate our plans to digitize the citys systems, improve the reliability of our services and enhance the customer experience for our citizens, McLendon said. The move also saves the city money by avoiding an expensive rebuild of our existing site and leveraging DC BLOXs economy of scale.
For help starting a rank-and-file safety committee at your factory, send an email to the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter at autoworkers@wsws.org to learn more.

Reports continue of spreading COVID-19 infections at US auto plants as Detroit automakers are making clear that they will not permit even temporary shutdowns for cleaning and quarantining. Even as cases surge, Ford, Fiat Chrysler and General Motors are keeping a tight lid on vital information needed for workers health and safety, such as the number and location of infections.

There were nine new cases reported this week at the Kentucky Truck Plant (KTP) in Louisville, according to a memo sent to plant employees. This brings to 20 the number of confirmed cases at the plant, according to claims by Ford and the United Auto Workers (UAW), which workers believe is likely an underestimation.

Dearborn Truck worker (Source: Ford Media)

At the nearby Ford Louisville Assembly Plant (LAP), which employs a total of 4,500, workers reported to the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter that as of Tuesday there were 19 confirmed cases of COVID-19. These are figures that workers compiled independently based on social media exchanges because there is no consistent reporting on the part of the UAW and the company. Management is not saying a word, said an assembler on day shift. Wearing a mask in this heat is unbearable, and the cases just keep piling up.

The UAW admitted that no interruption in production or additional cleaning had occurred after the new cases were confirmed at KTP. Ford made it clear that its disregard for basic safety had the sanctioning of the union. In a self-serving statement, management declared, "Working closely with the UAW and external experts in infectious disease and epidemiology, we developed safety protocols to help stop the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace, which we follow at all Ford facilities globally."

So determined are the auto companies to keep pumping out production and profits, that Ford tried to keep workers on the assembly line Wednesday even after the power and lights went out at the Chicago Assembly Plant. Workers sent photos to the WSWS showing coworkers working by the light of their cellphones.

While Ford is demanding that workers risk their lives by working in the midst of a pandemic, the government of Britain awarded a $634 million loan guarantee to the company to support Fords exports of engines and transmissions from its plant in Dagenham, England.

In the face of the dire threat to health and safety posed by the return to work, under conditions where the COVID-19 pandemic is surging across the US, workers at the Fiat Chrysler Jefferson North Assembly Plant, Sterling Heights Assembly and the Toledo Jeep manufacturing complex have organized rank-and-file safety committees, independent of the UAW, to protect workers. Among their demands, the committees have insisted that workers have access to all information about infections and that an immediate 24-hour shutdown of the entire facility for deep cleaning take place after a case is found.

There has been a particular surge of COVID-19 cases at the Toledo complex, with management and the UAW flouting basic health and safety measures. At last report, there were more than 60 cases in the plant, but that is likely a vast underestimation under conditions of an information blackout by the UAW and FCA. Responding to widespread unrest, FCA said Friday that it was setting up an in-plant COVID-19 Task Force, to relay workers questions and concerns to senior management and the UAW.

A photo sent to the WSWS showing Ford workers at Chicago Assembly Plant trying to work in the dark by the light of their cellphones.

Someone just went home sick, a Toledo Jeep worker told the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter. The supervisors come up here and spray the area she was in since 5:30 this morning and run the line. Keep in mind that weve all touched the cars shes touched since 5:30 a.m.

Shes been in the break room, the bathroom and on the line, and they are going to continue running production, taking the least amount of precautions possible. This company should be facing a lawsuit.

Another worker said that he had been assigned to a new team and found that Someone tested positive on the team and everyone was just finding out today. This whole team could basically have been exposed; nobodys been tested, nobodys been quarantined. I was being trained by someone who had direct contact with the person infected. There is no social distancing over there, we were literally standing on top of each other.

At General Motors, it is being reported that the company may rescind plans to temporarily eliminate the third shift at its Wentzville, Missouri Assembly plant. The announcement of the temporary layoffs came as COVID-19 cases surged at the facility and the company faced mass absenteeism by workers who feared infection.

A worker at the GM Wentzville Assembly Plant posted on Facebook that management was talking about how it now has 52 total positive cases and dozens waiting on results. But our (UAW) chairman is reporting 38 only. They think its a joke with our lives!

Workers at the plant had demanded the temporary closure of the facility in the face of a surge of cases. GM presented the temporary layoff as a partial response to these demands.

In an interview July 19 in the Detroit Free Press, GM CEO Mary Barra defended the companys supposed safety protocols, indicating there would be no further production shutdowns due to the recent resurgence of COVID. We believe we do a very good job of keeping people safe by reducing the possibility that someone with COVID can enter our plants.

She added, We feel that weve got a safe environment at work. At Wentzville, one of the things we do is screen. We are taking the precaution to say that you need to quarantine until we know that you dont have the virus. Ive been at 10 plants since we started back up, and Im continuing to go to plants. When I talk to people, they understand the protocol. To a person, they tell me, I feel safer here than I do at the grocery store.

In fact, at the Wentzville plant, as in every other auto facility, the safety protocols are little more than window dressing. GM and other auto companies have rejected out of hand any regular testing for workers, saying it is not practical and cost-effective.

Barra did not explain how contact tracing and quarantining could take place under conditions where asymptomatic workers could be spreading the infection without knowing they have the disease.

As for safety protocols, social distancing is impossible on assembly lines that require multiple operators on one process. Workers report lack of hand sanitizer, lack of adequate breaks, and the refusal of management to carry out basic cleaning measures.

The latest reports of COVID-19 cases at auto plants add to the surge, which includes dozens of cases at the GM Arlington, Texas plant and more than 130 at electric carmaker Tesla in Fremont, California.

In a further demonstration of the collusion of the UAW with the auto companies, a group of 27 Toledo Fiat Chrysler workers filed a federal racketeering lawsuit this week alleging that both the UAW and company management colluded to deny them pay raises, advancement and seniority. The lawsuit states that FCA and the UAW engaged in a classic pattern of racketeering, including committing multiple violations of bribery.

The suit was filed less than two weeks after a federal judge in Detroit dismissed General Motors lawsuit against FCA claiming that the latters bribing of top UAW officials to obtain favorable contract terms gave FCA an unfair competitive advantage. In throwing out the lawsuit, the judge declared, FCAs UAW workers were the direct victims of the bribes because they were paid less, and GM suffered only an indirect competitive harm.

The workers had originally sued FCA and the UAW over a pattern of collusion and skullduggery dating back to 2007, when they hired in as temporary workers. At the time, the workers were systematically denied contractually stipulated advancement and pay increases and their grievance was suppressed.

In seeking the reopening of the lawsuit, the Toledo FCA workers pointed to the pattern of racketeering revealed by the arrest and conviction of top UAW officials, including former UAW Vice President for Fiat Chrysler Norwood Jewell, accusing the union of illegally manipulating the collective bargaining and grievance processes and diverting funds from the National Training Center and other FCA funds for the benefit of UAW officials.

The blatant collusion of the UAW with auto company management in enforcing unhealthy and unsafe working conditions is a further graphic demonstration of the utter worthlessness of this organization. The WSWS urges workers to build and expand the network of rank-file safety committees to continue to assert workers basic right to a safe work environment.
Agreement provides AMAG with $30 million upfront payment and eligibility to receive up to $260 million in development and commercial milestones in addition to sales royalties

Collaboration further advances the development of ciraparantag

WALTHAM, Mass. and AMSTERDAM, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Norgine B.V., a leading European specialist pharmaceutical company, today announced they have entered into an exclusive licensing agreement to develop and commercialize ciraparantag in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Ciraparantag is in development for use in patients treated with direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) and low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) when reversal of the anticoagulant effect of these products is needed for emergency surgery, urgent procedures or due to life-threatening or uncontrolled bleeding.

Under the terms of the license agreement, AMAG will receive $30 million of total upfront consideration and up to $260 million contingent upon the achievement of certain regulatory and sales milestones together with escalating double-digit royalties. Additionally, Norgine has committed to contribute one-third of the costs of the Phase 3 clinical program, which would be conducted by AMAG to support regulatory approval of ciraparantag by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the European Medicines Agency, and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency. AMAG will continue to oversee the Phase 3 clinical program, while working closely with Norgine. Norgine will be responsible for the regulatory filings and any subsequent clinical trials required for approval in its territory and will eventually hold all marketing authorizations in the licensed territories.

"This agreement is a significant milestone on our strategic evolution. We are looking forward to partnering with Norgine and working together to unlock the value of ciraparantag, which will further strengthen our company's ability to continue investing in innovative therapies that address urgent unmet medical needs," said Scott Myers, AMAG's Chief Executive Officer. "Norgine's infrastructure and capabilities to develop and commercialize products will help us further advance the program into Phase 3 clinical trials and work towards regulatory approval in countries where providers and patients may benefit from a reversal agent."

There are currently approximately six million patients in the U.S. and nine million patients in certain ex-U.S. countries on DOAC and LMWH therapy.(([1])) A recent study found that approximately 1.5-2% of patients taking certain DOACs can be at risk for serious bleeding complications each year.(([2]))

"We are delighted to enter into this new collaboration with AMAG to develop and commercialize ciraparantag in Europe, Australia and New Zealand," said Peter Stein, Chief Executive Officer of Norgine. "Patients who take anticoagulants can be at risk of serious and uncontrolled bleeding, especially in emergency situations, and we are proud to be able to support the development of a new, potentially life-saving treatment, subject to successful completion of ciraparantag's research programme and subsequent regulatory approval."

About Ciraparantag

Ciraparantag is a novel small, water-soluble molecule being investigated for reversal of anticoagulation induced by direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) or low molecular weight heparin (LMWH). Target patient populations include patients for whom rapid reversal of anticoagulation is needed because of life-threatening or uncontrolled bleeding, or for emergency surgery or urgent procedures. It is believed that ciraparantag exerts its effects by binding to and blocking the effects of DOACs such as Xarelto (rivaroxaban), Eliquis (apixaban) and Savaysa (edoxaban), as well as to the LMWH Lovenox (enoxaparin sodium injection), which in turn reestablishes normal clot formation. Ciraparantag is administered by intravenous infusion; the anticipated clinical treatment regimen is a single dose administered over approximately 10 minutes. Ciraparantag has been studied across seven completed trials, with 277 subjects having been dosed with ciraparantag and has been well tolerated in these studies. To date, the most common adverse events related to ciraparantag have been mild transient sensations of warmth or skin flushing, skin tingling, and alterations in taste. The safety and efficacy of ciraparantag is under investigation through the ongoing clinical development program.

ABOUT AMAGAMAG is a commercial stage biopharmaceutical company focused on bringing innovative products to patients with unmet medical needs. The company does this by leveraging its development and commercial expertise to invest in and grow its pharmaceutical products across a range of therapeutic areas. For additional company information, please visit www.amagpharma.com [http://www.amagpharma.com/].

About NorgineNorgine is a leading European specialist pharmaceutical company that has been bringing transformative medicines to patients for over a century. Our commitment to transforming people's lives drives everything we do and our European experience, fully integrated infrastructure and exceptional partnership approach enables us to quickly apply creative solutions to bring life-changing medicines to patients that they may not otherwise be able to access. Norgine is proud to have helped 22 million patients around the world in 2019 and generated EUR419 million in net product sales, a growth of 6% over 2018.

Norgine has a direct presence in 12 European countries, as well as Australia and New Zealand. We also have a strong global network of partnerships in non-Norgine markets. We are a flexible and fully integrated pharmaceutical business, with manufacturing (Hengoed, Wales and Dreux, France), third party supply networks and significant product development capabilities, in addition to our sales and marketing infrastructure. This enables us to acquire, develop and commercialize specialist and innovative products that make a real difference to the lives of patients around the world.

In 2012, Norgine established Norgine Ventures, a complementary business which supports innovative healthcare companies through the provision of debt-like financing in Europe and the US. For more information, please visit www.norgineventures.com [http://www.norgineventures.com/].

Forward Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking information about AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Inc. within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other federal securities laws. Any statements contained herein which do not describe historical facts, including, among others, expectations about the benefits of the transaction to AMAG's corporate strategy and strategic evolution, including its ability to unlock value in ciraparantag and continue investing in innovative therapies; beliefs about the benefits of the partnership on the development and regulatory approval of ciraparantag; beliefs about ciraparantag's potential benefits to patients; AMAG's expected plans related to the clinical development of ciraparantag and Phase 3 clinical program to support regulatory approval in the U.S., Europe, Australia, and New Zealand; statements regarding Norgine eventually holding all marketing authorizations in the licensed territories; statements regarding the potential market size and target patient population; statements regarding ciraparantag, including its safety and mechanism of action, are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are forward-looking statements which involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in such forward-looking statements.

(CONTINUA)
The Youth Employment Agency and the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme have commenced training of over 1,000 applicants of YEA job centre programme in the Upper East Region



The YEA Job Centre in collaboration with NEIP is implementing an entrepreneurship programme to train and position the youth as entrepreneurs. This programme will provide young Ghanaians with the needed skills and experience to help transform their ideas into viable businesses.

The programme will also fund selected applicants to either start or expand their existing business.



Applicants were taken through proper business ethics and Entrepreneurship training to equip them with the knowledge to manage their business



The Job centre seeks to train over 100,000 young entrepreneurs across the 16 regions of the country.



The programme trained entrepreneurs from diverse standing drawn from different parts of the upper east region on a number of topics including business models, business plan development, financial planning for SGBs and how to write fundable business plans.



The programme was aimed at training participants to understand the business terrain, especially in this COVID-19 era before being selected for the support to lessen the impact of the pandemic on businesses.



The consultant from Larry Partners applauded YEA for such initiative and said the training will go a long way to help businesses grow and also exposed existing incubation hubs to entrepreneurs in the country.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Does the July share price for Resolute Mining Limited (ASX:RSG) reflect what it's really worth? Today, we will estimate the stock's intrinsic value by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. The Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model is the tool we will apply to do this. Believe it or not, it's not too difficult to follow, as you'll see from our example!

Companies can be valued in a lot of ways, so we would point out that a DCF is not perfect for every situation. Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model.

View our latest analysis for Resolute Mining

The model

We are going to use a two-stage DCF model, which, as the name states, takes into account two stages of growth. The first stage is generally a higher growth period which levels off heading towards the terminal value, captured in the second 'steady growth' period. To start off with, we need to estimate the next ten years of cash flows. Where possible we use analyst estimates, but when these aren't available we extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the last estimate or reported value. We assume companies with shrinking free cash flow will slow their rate of shrinkage, and that companies with growing free cash flow will see their growth rate slow, over this period. We do this to reflect that growth tends to slow more in the early years than it does in later years.

Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, and so the sum of these future cash flows is then discounted to today's value:

10-year free cash flow (FCF) forecast

2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 Levered FCF (A$, Millions) AU$279.9m AU$284.1m AU$252.0m AU$234.3m AU$224.4m AU$219.2m AU$217.2m AU$217.2m AU$218.8m AU$221.3m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x5 Analyst x5 Analyst x1 Est @ -7.03% Est @ -4.24% Est @ -2.29% Est @ -0.93% Est @ 0.03% Est @ 0.7% Est @ 1.17% Present Value (A$, Millions) Discounted @ 9.1% AU$257 AU$239 AU$194 AU$165 AU$145 AU$130 AU$118 AU$108 AU$99.6 AU$92.4

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)

Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = AU$1.5b

Story continues

The second stage is also known as Terminal Value, this is the business's cash flow after the first stage. For a number of reasons a very conservative growth rate is used that cannot exceed that of a country's GDP growth. In this case we have used the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield (2.3%) to estimate future growth. In the same way as with the 10-year 'growth' period, we discount future cash flows to today's value, using a cost of equity of 9.1%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2030  (1 + g)  (r  g) = AU$221m (1 + 2.3%)  (9.1% 2.3%) = AU$3.3b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= AU$3.3b ( 1 + 9.1%)10= AU$1.4b

The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next ten years plus the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value, which in this case is AU$2.9b. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of AU$1.4, the company appears quite good value at a 47% discount to where the stock price trades currently. Remember though, that this is just an approximate valuation, and like any complex formula - garbage in, garbage out.

dcf

Important assumptions

We would point out that the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate and of course the actual cash flows. You don't have to agree with these inputs, I recommend redoing the calculations yourself and playing with them. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at Resolute Mining as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighted average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation we've used 9.1%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.143. Beta is a measure of a stock's volatility, compared to the market as a whole. We get our beta from the industry average beta of globally comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business.

Moving On:

Valuation is only one side of the coin in terms of building your investment thesis, and it ideally won't be the sole piece of analysis you scrutinize for a company. It's not possible to obtain a foolproof valuation with a DCF model. Preferably you'd apply different cases and assumptions and see how they would impact the company's valuation. For example, changes in the company's cost of equity or the risk free rate can significantly impact the valuation. Can we work out why the company is trading at a discount to intrinsic value? For Resolute Mining, there are three essential factors you should look at:

Risks: To that end, you should be aware of the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Resolute Mining . Management:Have insiders been ramping up their shares to take advantage of the market's sentiment for RSG's future outlook? Check out our management and board analysis with insights on CEO compensation and governance factors. Other High Quality Alternatives: Do you like a good all-rounder? Explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!

PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every Australian stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here.

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.
For the second straight day, New Jersey is bracing for strong thunderstorms packing heavy downpours, small hail, frequent lightning and powerful winds that could knock out power.

The National Weather Service has issued a severe thunderstorm watch for the northern half of the state, the region most likely to get hit with severe storms Thursday evening and Thursday night.

The watch was posted at 2:50 p.m. and will remain active until 10 p.m. Thursday in these 11 counties: Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Middlesex, Morris, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, Union and Warren.

Areas not included in the watch could still get rain showers and thunderstorms, but those storms are not expected to rise to the severe level  generally storms with large hail or wind gusts blowing at 58 mph or stronger.

A severe thunderstorm watch has been issued for parts of CT, MA, NJ, NY, PA until 10 PM EDT pic.twitter.com/EkfshyDMOV  NWS Mount Holly (@NWS_MountHolly) July 23, 2020

UPDATE (5:20 p.m. Thursday): A few strong thunderstorms are moving into parts of Hunterdon, Morris, Sussex and Warren counties. While they are not strong enough to warrant a severe thunderstorm warning, the National Weather Service said these storms could generate wind gusts up to 40 mph, pea-size hail and heavy rain, which could create ponding on roads and flooding in poor drainage areas.

UPDATE (6:15 p.m. Thursday): The National Weather Service says a strong thunderstorm will affect south-central Morris County, northeastern Somerset County, central Hunterdon County and north-central Middlesex County between 6:15 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. Wind gusts up to 40 mph and hail a half-inch in diameter are possible with this storm.

UPDATE (6:30 p.m. Thursday): The National Weather Service says a strong thunderstorm will affect central Mercer County, along with southeastern Bucks County in eastern Pennsylvania, between now and 7:30 p.m., with wind gusts up to 35 mph and pea-sized hail.

UPDATE (7 p.m. Thursday): The National Weather Service has issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Mercer County, southwestern Middlesex County and west-central Monmouth County, effective until 7:30 p.m. A storm cell moving through these areas could produce wind gusts as strong as 50 mph, along with quarter-size hail.

Severe Thunderstorm Warning including Trenton NJ, Hamilton Square NJ, Princeton NJ until 7:30 PM EDT pic.twitter.com/vKzC5x09TQ  NWS Mount Holly (@NWS_MountHolly) July 23, 2020

UPDATE (7:45 p.m. Thursday): The National Weather Service said strong thunderstorms were moving through Monmouth County, northeastern Ocean County and southeastern Middlesex County, with 40 mph wind gusts and pea-size hail.

UPDATE (8:10 p.m. Thursday): The National Weather service has issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Monmouth County and east-central Middlesex County, effective until 8:30 p.m. The weather service said severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from near Middletown to near Lincroft to Howell, moving east at 25 mph. Wind gusts as high as 60 mph are possible with these storm cells  strong enough to damage roofs, siding, trees and power lines.

Severe Thunderstorm Warning including Long Branch NJ, Tinton Falls NJ, Asbury Park NJ until 8:30 PM EDT pic.twitter.com/zt7sRRkjSA  NWS Mount Holly (@NWS_MountHolly) July 24, 2020

UPDATE (8:30 p.m. Thursday): A flood advisory has been posted for southern Union County because of heavy rain that has fallen during thunderstorms. This will cause urban and small stream flooding in the advisory area, the National Weather Service said in its advisory, which is effective until 10:15 p.m.

On Wednesday, many parts of New Jersey got pummeled by strong thunderstorms that flooded streets in Hudson and Essex counties, uprooted large trees in Hunterdon, Middlesex, Somerset, Sussex, Union and Warren counties, and knocked out power to more than 10,000 homes and businesses.

Some of those thunderstorm cells generated wind gusts as powerful as 63 mph in Atlantic City to 73 mph in Beach Haven on Long Beach Island in Ocean County. Tropical storms typically pack sustained winds of 39 to 73 mph.

Strong thunderstorms also rolled through parts of Burlington, Mercer and Monmouth counties Thursday morning. Those were not severe in terms of wind, but they dropped almost 1 inch of rain in Howell, Mannington, Mansfield and Wall Township, according to rainfall data from the Rutgers NJ Weather Network.

Live weather radar

Top N.J. wind gusts on Wednesday, July 22

These were the strongest wind gusts reported Wednesday by the National Weather Service and the Rutgers NJ Weather Network.

73 mph in Beach Haven (Ocean County)

66 mph in Beach Haven (Ocean County)

64 mph in Mystic Island (Ocean County)

63 mph at Atlantic City International Airport (Atlantic County)

59 mph at Brandywine Shoal Light (Cape May County)

59 mph in Elsinboro (Salem County)

59 mph in Lower Alloways Creek (Salem County)

55 mph in Harvey Cedars (Ocean County)

53 mph at Newark Liberty International Airport (Essex County)

53 mph in Pleasantville (Atlantic County)

53 mph in Ship Bottom (Ocean County)

49 mph in Brigantine (Atlantic County)

45 mph in Cape May Harbor (Cape May County)

45 mph in Fortescue (Cumberland County)

 The longest heat wave of the summer MIGHT be coming to an end in Newark today. As of now, the highest temp of the day at Newark Liberty Airport was 89, according to the @NWSNewYorkNY office. If that holds, Newark's heat wave will end at 5 days. #njwx pic.twitter.com/t2HtjQR07h  Len Melisurgo (@LensReality) July 23, 2020

Heat wave continues in parts of N.J., ends in others

New Jerseys longest heat wave of the summer continued Thursday in the Atlantic City area but came to an end in Newark and Trenton, where the highest temperature readings were 89 degrees, according to the National Weather Services preliminary data for Thursday.

At Atlantic City International Airport in Pomona, the mercury rose to 91 degrees on Thursday  making this the sixth straight day with 90-degree readings at that weather reporting station. ACs hottest day of this heat wave was Monday, when the temperature soared to 97 degrees.

 New Jerseys longest heat wave of the summer continued Thursday in the Atlantic City area but came to an end in Newark & Trenton, where the highest temperature readings were 89, according to preliminary climate data from @NWSNewYorkNY & @NWS_MountHolly. #njwx pic.twitter.com/UL5mbxFb2U  Len Melisurgo (@LensReality) July 23, 2020

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Len Melisurgo may be reached at LMelisurgo@njadvancemedia.com.
Novai, a London, UK-based biotechnology startup originating from University College London, secured 500k in seed funding.

The round was led by SFC Capital.

The company intends to use the funds to further develop AI-powered technology that enables standard medical imaging equipment to identify eye disease at a cellular level up to 18 months earlier than current gold-standard processes. Novai has also appointed Gordon Bethwaite as Acting CEO and added three new senior board members.

Founded by Professor Francesca Cordeiro from UCL and Imperial College London, Novai is a biotechnology startup, commercialising DARC technology, an exploratory retinal biomarker for use in Age-related macular degeneration & glaucoma clinical studies. DARC combines an innovative patented biologic with an AI algorithm and uses standard imaging equipment to identify cellular level disease activity. DARC has been developed by Professor Cordeiro at University College London through Wellcome Trust funding and is now approved as an exploratory biomarker by the FDA & MHRA. Following further analysis of Phase II data, several other indications may follow, including Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimers Disease and Parkinsons Disease.

Following the closing of seed funding, Novai recently appointed Gordon Bethwaite as Acting CEO. Mr. Bethwaite has worked in eyecare for over 20 years, having held senior management roles in both global market-leading organisations and early commercialisation-stage startups. Novai has also added Dr. Karl Keegan, Rob Thornhill, and Dr. Berwyn Clarke to its board, with Dr. Clarke joining as Chairman. Dr. Keegan and Mr. Thornhill bring experience of business development and big pharma.

FinSMEs

23/07/2020
Graphics chipmaker Nvidia is reportedly interested in buying chip design large Arm. The Santa Clara, California-based company made an approach about a potential deal in the recent weeks, Bloomberg reports citing people familiar with the matter.

SoftBank Group, the Japanese owner of Cambridge, England-based Arm is looking to sell part or all of its stake in the company. It has been exploring a potential sale or initial public offering (IPO) for the business. The Tokyo-based conglomerate has now gathered interest from Nvidia.

The report adds that other potential bidders could also emerge in the coming days. However, those interests may not lead to a deal. SoftBank may still opt for an IPO, Bloomberg says. The company appears to be primarily looking to return the chip designer to the public market.

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Arm was the UKs largest listed technology company before SoftBank acquired it in 2016. The latter acquired Arm through its $100 billion Vision Fund for about $32 billion.

Nvidia is looking to buy Arm

Softbank is selling off some of its assets to buffer cash reserves during this economic uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company has sold off $13.7 billion worth of stock in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba this year. It also sold off a large chunk of its holdings in wireless carrier T-Mobile.

Now, the company is looking to sell it chip design business as well. The company reportedly approached Apple to gauge its interest in acquiring Arm. However, the latter didnt show any intent. According to the report, Arms licensing operation would fit poorly with Apples hardware and software business model. And since Arm is a key licensee to so many of Apples rivals, there are also some regulatory concerns about Apple owning the British company.

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In fact, any tech firm acquiring Arm would be under regulatory scrutiny. There are many companies using Arms technologies and theyll demand assurance that the new owner would continue to provide the same level of access. This is the primary reason Softbank, a neutral company, bought Arm last time it was up for sale.

Interestingly, Softbank also owned a stake in Nvidia previously. It had $4 billion worth of shares in the American company in 2017. However, its $100 billion Vision Fund sold off all of its Nvidia holdings in early 2019.

Nvidia has been working closely with Arm in recent years. Last year, it announced a partnership to build GPU-accelerated Arm-based servers for high-performance computing. It now looking to buy out Arm isnt really surprising. If it does reach a deal with Softbank, this could become the biggest-ever acquisition in the chip industry. Itll be interesting to see how things shape up in the coming days.
 Flash

A senior Chinese diplomat has stressed the importance of guarding against "political virus" from some Western countries while the international community is fighting COVID-19 pandemic.

"While we are fighting COVID-19, it is also important to guard against 'political virus'," Liu Xiaoming, Chinese ambassador to Britain, said during his on-line meeting Tuesday with Richard Hatchett, chief executive officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and his team.

"Mankind belongs to a community with a common future, where people from all countries share weal and woe," he said. "In this battle against the virus, solidarity and cooperation are the most effective weapons."

"Some politicians from Western countries claimed that China is stealing research data from others. This is completely groundless," he said.

"Such accusations constitute a complete disrespect for the hard efforts of Chinese scientists and malicious slanders against the achievements of China in the fight against COVID-19," he said.

"They could also gravely undermine international cooperation on R&D of vaccine and global joint response to the pandemic. The world must firmly oppose and reject such groundless claims," he said.

During the meeting, Hatchett paid tribute to China for having taken effective measures against COVID-19 pandemic to not only contain the spread of the virus at home but also contribute to global response to the pandemic. The CEPI believes that the pandemic should not be used as a tool for political manipulation.

Launched in Davos in 2017, the CEPI is an innovative global partnership between public, private, philanthropic and civil society organisations.

It focuses on vaccine development, licensure and manufacturing while supporting the efforts of its partners in vaccine discovery and delivery.
San Francisco, July 23 : A Chinese researcher who lied about her affiliation with a military university entered Beijing's consulate in San Francisco after being interviewed by the FBI on about alleged visa fraud and has remained there, a media report said.

According to documents filed on July 20 in the San Francisco division of the US district court for the Northern District of California, Tang Juan came to America on a J-1 visa and was a researcher at the University of California, Davis, the Axios news website report said on Thursday.

On her visa application, Tang stated that she did not have any affiliation with the People's Liberation Army (PLA), but an investigation revealed that she worked at the Air Force Military Medical University (FMMU), a PLA-affiliated university in China, and she is considered to be active military personnel, Axios quoted the documents as saying.

After obtaining a warrant, the FBI searched her home and found evidence of her affiliation with the PLA.

On June 26, Tang was charged with visa fraud.

Federal prosecutors wrote that "at some point following the search and interview of Tang on June 20, she went to the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco, where the FBI assesses she has remained", according to the court filings.

Neither China nor the US State Department has commented on the report.

This development comes after US President Donald Trump's administration ordered the closure of China's mission in Houston, saying it was involved in stealing intellectual property, the BBC reported.

The administration gave China 72 hours to close the consulate "to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information".

The consulate is one of five in the US, not counting the embassy in Washington.

The Chinese government called the move a "political provocation".

In recent months his administration has clashed repeatedly with Beijing over trade, the coronavirus pandemic and China's imposition of a controversial new security law on Hong Kong, the BBC report added.
Newport Beach, California--(Newsfile Corp. - July 23, 2020) - Greenbriar Capital Corp. (TSXV: GRB) (OTC: GEBRF) ("Greenbriar"). The Greenbriar CEO has been made aware through many direct phone calls and emails of an ongoing controversy in Social Media channel on YouTube which indicated that there might have been rumors about the company.

To make certain for our shareholders, the company would like to clarify that it has not paid any Youtuber for any type of marketing or promotional program, nor has it involved in any sort of market abuse activities. Yet, as the rumors passing by, it might have negatively affected Greenbriars integrity and success. If further false rumor and claims continue to circulate on Social Medial channels in the future, the company will consider taking actions against such behavior to protect the truthfulness of Greenbriar.

Meanwhile, through translations made to the Greenbriar CEO from Chinese speaking stakeholders, there is a YouTuber offering his massive 100,000+ subscribers an extremely accurate and non-biased description of Greenbriar that includes our projects and our milestones. From the perspective of the Greenbriar CEO, this clip was 100% correct in his independent research, description, and discussion of the projects currently undertaken by Greenbriar.

Aside from the controversy, Greenbriar is moving ahead to construct the sophisticated 160MWdc/80MWac Montalva solar project in Puerto Rico, which will become the largest solar facility in the Caribbean once completed. Greenbriar is very confident the project will expand to 320MWdc/160MWac in the very near future. A sizeable battery storage facility as part of the solar field will enable 24/7 dispatch which is unique in ultra-large scale solar generation facilities. Montalva will provide Puerto Rican citizens with lower-cost, clean and reliable electricity and replace some of the current expensive and dirty oil generation.

Story continues

The company is proudly building the $200 Million to $400 Million project with the China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC), a leading world class premier construction and engineering company, forming part of the USD $40 Billion China National Machinery Industry Corporation (Sinomach) group of companies.

Greenbriar has been informed by its legal counsel Luis Baco, JD, LLM, that the PREPA Governing Board has approved our project and contract and that the contract has been presented to the US FOMB (US Federal Oversight Management Board) for final approval. In 2018 the US FOMB already recommended Montalva to be deemed a critical project to rebuild Puerto Rico. Montalva will provide over 900 construction jobs, an increased tax base and hundreds of millions of dollars of private funds invested to rebuild a new and resilient electrical grid. Greenbriar is proud of this contribution and its existing 12 year non-stop commitment in Puerto Rico. The delays from the FOMB are not based on any material concerns about the project, but rather related to the amount of bureaucratic consultants between the FOMB and PREPA.

About Greenbriar Capital Corp:

Greenbriar is a leading developer of renewable energy and sustainable real estate. With long-term, high impact, contracted sales agreements in key project locations and led by a successful, industry-recognized operating and development team, Greenbriar targets deep valued assets directed at accretive shareholder value. Greenbriar and its advisors have closed over $180 Billion in renewable energy projects since 2003 with previous companies.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Jeff Ciachurski

Jeffrey J. Ciachurski

Chief Executive Officer and Director

Phone: 949.903.5906

The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the accuracy or adequacy of this release. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This press release may contain forward-looking statements. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, constitute forward-looking statements and include any information that addresses activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future including the Companys strategy, plans or future financial or operating performance and other statements that express managements expectations or estimates of future performance.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60366
Rouhani said at a live broadcast from the state TV on Tuesday that the two sides are determined to implement their earlier agreements, particularly connecting the Iranian Shalamcheh to the Iraqi Basra city via railway.

Tehran, July 22 (IANS) Iran and Iraq are keen on increasing bilateral trade value to 20 billion U.S. dollars in near future, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in a joint press conference with the visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi.

Iran is also prepared to cooperate with Iraq for the peace and stability of the Arab country and the region, he noted.

The Iranian president said that Iran would stand by the Iraqi people in their fight against the COVID-19 and will provide them with medical and health needs, Xinhua news agency reported.

For his part, Al-Kadhimi said that Iran and Iraq need cooperation and coordination in the face of challenges, like the spread of COVID-19 pandemic and the fall in the crude oil prices.

He said that his government will not allow the Iraqi soil to be used as a platform for threats to Iran.

The Iraqi prime minister expressed his gratitude to the Iranian side for Tehran's supports and assistance to the Iraqi people in their fight against the Islamic State extremist group.

Al-Kadhimi pointed out that Iraq has turned into a big market for Iranian products and his country will also help Iran overcome its economic challenges.

Al-Kadhimi arrived in the Iranian capital Tehran on Tuesday for talks on bilateral issues and regional cooperation.

During his two-day visit, the Iraqi prime minister is also scheduled to meet other Iranian top officials, according to IRNA news agency.

--IANS

rt/
VP-47 Participates in Exercise Sea Breeze 2020

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS200722-11

Release Date: 7/22/2020 5:33:00 PM

From U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet Public Affairs

ODESA, Ukraine (NNS) -- Sailors assigned to Patrol Squadron (VP) 47, alongside maritime forces from eight nations, are participating in the 20th iteration of the Ukrainian-U.S. co-hosted multinational training exercise Sea Breeze in the Black Sea.

Sea Breeze 2020 is taking place from July 20-July 26 and focuses on multiple warfare areas including maritime interdiction operations, air defense, anti-submarine warfare, damage control, and search and rescue operations.

"Every participant involved in the exercise is professional, efficient, and responsible," said Lt. j. g. Hannah Hughes, a Navy pilot assigned to VP-47. "We will all acquire new skills, experience and knowledge because of Sea Breeze."

The exercise is an annual event designed to enhance interoperability amongst participating nations and strengthen regional security. Beginning in 1997, the exercise brings Black Sea nations together to train and operate with NATO members in the pursuit of building increased capability.

"Sea Breeze serves to build a rock-solid foundation of partnership in the Black Sea," Vice Adm. Gene Black, commander, U.S. 6th Fleet, said during the opening day press conference. "Our ships, aircraft, and personnel train together unified in our goal of maritime security and stability."

The eight nations participating in Sea Breeze 2020 are Bulgaria, Georgia, Norway, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United States.

"Sea Breeze challenges us to hone our skills in real time operations," said Lt. j. g. Joel Davis, assigned to VP-47. "The events are dynamic, requiring both operational and tactical decision making that not only furthers our own training, but improves the standing relationships with our allies."

U.S. participation includes one P-8A Poseidon from VP-47 and the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78). Total service member participation from the U.S. is approximately 400 Sailors.

VP-47 is currently assigned to commander, Task Force (CTF) 67 and is deployed to the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations. CTF 67 is composed of land-based maritime patrol aircraft that operate over the waters of the Mediterranean in anti-submarine reconnaissance, surveillance, and mining roles.

U.S. 6th Fleet, headquartered in Naples, Italy, conducts the full spectrum of joint and naval operations, often in concert with joint, allied, and interagency partners in order to advance U.S. national interests and security and stability in Europe and Africa.



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Christian Kids in Middle East Help Others Conquer Fear

Christian TV channel SAT-7 KIDS stages Facebook Live event; airs kids' videos to calm fears





NO MORE 'MONSTERS HIDING IN THE CLOSET:' Children living in a "world of fear" in the Middle East and North Africa are using technology to help each other conquer their deepest anxieties -- aided by SAT-7 KIDS' (www.sat7usa.org) faith-focused live broadcasts, Facebook Live events, and video sharing.



NEWS PROVIDED BY

SAT-7

July 23, 2020



EASTON, Md., July 23, 2020 /Standard Newswire/ -- Children living in a "world of fear" in the Middle East are helping each other conquer their deepest anxieties -- by sharing their own uplifting faith with others live on satellite television and social media.



Entangled in wars, social unrest, COVID-19, poverty, and religious or ethnic persecution, the Middle East and North Africa can be a frightening place to live -- especially for children caught up in the turmoil.



But Middle East-based SAT-7 KIDS (www.sat7usa.org) -- a Christian satellite television network that broadcasts live in native languages with local presenters -- is helping children use technology to defeat their worst fears.



Children recently took part in a SAT-7-hosted Facebook Live event, giving kids the chance to talk about their fears face-to-face with the show's presenters.



Meanwhile, parents are uploading videos of their children to SAT-7's social media -- showing their kids singing, dancing, telling Bible stories, and praying.



One video reached nearly 430,000 people and got more than 30,000 responses.



World of Fear

"We live in a world of fear," said SAT-7 KIDS' Suzy Gabenian, based in Lebanon. "We remind the kids that Jesus is always with them, and all they have to do is trust him to help them when they feel afraid."



The channel reaches millions of children and their parents in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and other volatile countries where fear is a part of life, and many dread the future.



"The children become the stars of the show as their uplifting videos are posted online and aired live on TV," Gabenian said. "Their example of faith helps other children who are struggling with fear."



The popularity of SAT-7 KIDS has soared during the coronavirus lockdown, with millions turning to the channel in their own living rooms, eager to find hope and reassurance.



The unique channel -- beaming shows live from Lebanon -- is a spiritual and emotional lifeline for children throughout the Middle East and North Africa, including many who don't see followers of Jesus anywhere else.



"When our young viewers are isolated at home, they need us to show them God's love and reassure them with his word," Gabenian said.



About SAT-7

Launched in 1996, SAT-7 (www.sat7usa.org) -- with its international headquarters in Cyprus -- broadcasts Christian and educational satellite television programs to more than 30 million people in the Middle East and North Africa. Its mission is to make the gospel available to everyone, and support the church in its life, work and witness for Jesus Christ. SAT-7 broadcasts 24/7 in Arabic, Farsi (Persian) and Turkish, using multiple satellite channels and online services.



SOURCE SAT-7



CONTACT: Matti Stevenson, 719-360-0586, mstevenson@inchristcommunications.com



Related Links



www.sat7usa.org


A passionate Holden fan has scored the last ever Australian-built Holden Special Vehicle by pure chance - and she couldn't be more grateful.

Shannai Beale, 23, picked up her special-order Holden Colorado HSV Sportscat from a dealership in Mackay, north-east Queensland, on June 30 after a six-month wait.

Ms Beale decided in January that it was time to upgrade from her faithful but small Holden Cruze and placed an order for her dream car.

Shannai Beale scored the last ever Australian-built Holden HSV by 'pure chance'. Pictured is Ms Beale picking the car up from a dealership in Mackay, north-east Queensland

'I didn't even know Holden was going to close down when I ordered it, that happened two weeks after,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'It was pure coincidence that mine was the last one.'

As production began to slow the delivery of Ms Beale's ute faced a series of delays before she found out her HSV would be the very last one off the assembly line.

'It is pretty surreal to own the last one, especially because Holden is such a renowned brand,' she said.

Beale's Holden Colorado HSV Sportscat (pictured) was the last car the roll off the production line at the company's Clayton factory in Melbourne

Ms Beale said she knows the car is considered a collector's item but she plans to use it as a daily driver with her dog Bel riding in the back

As Ms Beale waited for her dream ute, shattered workers at the Clayton factory in Melbourne were busy putting the special finishing touches on their very last car.

Ms Beale said her Colorado - which comes with a 'last built' badge - was undoubtedly a collector's item but she said the car would be used as a daily driver.

'When I first got the car a lot of people said "imagine if you just sat on it and put it in a bubble what it would turn over in donkey's years to come" but I'm going to use it,' she said.

Ms Beale said she didn't even make it outside of the dealership in Mackay before she started receiving offers to buy the ute.

'The dealer that I bought it off said to make sure he was the first person I called if I ever wanted to put it up for sale,' she said.

Workers at the factory imprinted her car with a 'last built' badge to highlight the ute's significance

Beale (pictured on her Holden HG ute when she was 18) said Holden has always been a big part of her family and she had only ever purchased cars from the brand

Ms Beale comes from a long line of passionate Holden enthusiasts that inspired her to purchase her own Holden HG ute when she turned 18.

'My dad is quite a car collector, he has been ever since I was little, and the two of us both love hot rods,' she said.

'Our collection has always been purely Holdens and Chevrolet, he even used to race a Holden HQ Monaro in the touring car masters series,' she said.

'Holden has just always been a thing in our family.'

Ms Beale said she was influenced by her father Darren who was a Holden and Chevrolet collector and had previously raced in a Holden HQ Monaro (pictured) in the touring car masters series

Ms Beale said one of her most treasured memories was visiting Peter Brock's famous Holden Torana with her grandfather when she was nine.

Ms Beale said she has already put more than 1,600 kilometres on her new ute and her and her dog Bel are loving the freedom it brings them.

'I've always said having a nice ute with a dog in the back and a paddle-board on the roof was about all I would ever need,' she said.
ALBANY  Every year, more than 100 Industrial Development Agencies throughout New York provide assistance to businesses in the form of tax breaks and low-interest bonds, with the stated goal of creating jobs and stimulating economic activity across the state.

But a report released Thursday by New York's Authorities Budget Office found issues with transparency, failures to adhere to reporting requirements and assistance that had been allocated to businesses not traditionally covered by IDA funding.

The ABO was unable to answer one crucial question  how much financial assistance businesses actually received  because several IDAs were not identifying those amounts in project agreements, according to the report. That lack of transparency, the ABO said, "makes it difficult for the public to understand the actual costs and measure the benefits to the localities of these projects as the law intends."

The issues raised in the report represent the continuance of decades-old criticism of the murky process by which businesses receive IDA assistance. There are currently 109 IDAs in New York; one for each of the state's 56 counties, 52 representing various cities towns and villages across the state and one for New York City.

"In each review we conduct we continue to find transparency and data accuracy issues," said Michael Farrar, ABO's deputy director of compliance. "There is still much work to be done to ensure the public and the affected taxing jurisdictions have access to the estimated values of tax exemptions being provided to be able to measure the benefits, as the Legislature intended.

The ABO report examined 50 randomly selected projects that received IDA assistance in 2018, out of 281 total projects. The 50 projects examined in the ABO report were approved by 31 different IDAs.

The bulk of IDA assistance is meant to help industrial and manufacturing projects; the word "industrial" is in the name. The state's own economic development council says IDAs can only assist retail projects "under very limited circumstances."

But in the ABO's polling, retail represented 18 percent of projects that benefited from IDA tax exemptions  second only behind manufacturing. About half of the projects approved to receive IDA funding were non-industrial.

"This shows that IDAs are providing financial assistance to a wide variety of projects that did not traditionally receive financial assistance and that the public perception of IDAs providing tax breaks to induce manufacturers to create and retain jobs may need to be revised," the report said.

Of all 281 projects, 253 said IDA assistance would be used to create jobs. But those jobs are not being distributed evenly across the state  68 percent of the total jobs to be created were for projects in New York City.

The biggest issues cited by the ABO, though, were transparency and data accuracy. In just over half of the projects examined, the number of jobs expected to be created in the project application did not match job numbers reported by the projects in the Public Authorities Reporting Information System (PARIS).

Four projects reported that no jobs existed at the time of the application. But the IDAs that allocated the funding reported a combined total of 353 jobs at those propeties.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

The report found that most projects identified the estimated value of sales-tax exemptions they received, but routinely failed to identify, without explanation, amounts received in mortgage recording and real property tax exemptions.

Only five of the 50 projects examined  or 10 percent  had documents required by law, including the project application, project approving resolution and project agreement, posted on their website. No information was published by 48 percent of the projects.

The report's findings, the ABO said, "bring to question how engaged IDA board members are in ensuring the law is followed and in reviewing and understanding the information that they are approving to be submitted." The ABO's report included a list of recommendations pertaining to transparency and data accuracy.

Earlier this month, state Sen. Jim Gaughran (D-Long Island) introduced legislation that would increase oversight powers of the ABO.

Senate Bill 8659 would require public authorities to publish a response and make corrective actions with any ABO recommendations, make knowingly submitting a false financial report to the ABO a crime and allows the ABO to remove authority board members who fail to complete state-mandated training.

Michael.Williams@timesunion.com
The Christian Council of Ghana has reproached suggestions made by the Director of Elections for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Elvis Afriyie Ankrah to his members to act violent in retaliation to any violent attack they meet at the registration centres.



According to the Council, political parties must allow institutions in the country mandated to enforce law and order to do their work without any interference.



I will urge my brothers in the opposition to exercise patience and everything will work out well, Rev. Dr. Cyril Fayose said Wednesday on Top Story.



Director of elections for the NDC Elvis Afriyie Ankrah indicated that the police on various occasions have failed to protect members of the party, therefore, members must adopt all forms of defense mechanisms even if it means getting violent.



Take whatever means to defend yourselves, Mr. Afriyie Ankrah urged. The Christian Council nonetheless does not agree with the party on these comments.



Take whatever means to defend yourselves, Mr. Afriyie Ankrah urged. The Christian Council nonetheless does not agree with the party on these comments.



Rev. Dr. Cyril Fayose, however, insisted that security agencies must work to ensure that the laws of the land are enforced devoid of any biases.



We believe that we have institutions in this country that have been established to take care of such situations. So I believe we must trust in that apparatus and if that apparatus is seen to be weak and not doing what it is supposed to do then we must call them to task and ask them to do what they have to do and not take the law into our own hands. I dont think that is a right call at this time, he said.



The Council further called for the arrest and prosecution of persons found to be guilty of perpetrating violence in the ongoing voters registration exercise.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









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CAMBRIDGE  A Cambridge man is facing charges after police stopped a vehicle driving 92 km/h in a 50-km/h community safety zone with more than 30 cannabis plants inside.

Officers made the traffic stop at around 7 p.m. on Tuesday on Blair Road in Cambridge.

When speaking to the driver, police saw 33 cannabis plants in the vehicle.

A 64-year-old man was charged with possession of more than four cannabis plants in a public place, cannabis readily available to the driver, speeding and failing to surrender insurance card.
Market America | SHOP.COMs 15-Plus Low-Cost, Family-Friendly Summertime Activities

Summertime typically means the kids are at home all day, leaving many families to figure out how theyll entertain everyone until school starts back in the fall. That means summer camp, babysitters, sports, and more  but this summer looks a little different. Since kids have been home from school the past few months and a lot of people are working from home, a lot of us have probably already gone through our list of productive and exciting things to keep us and the little ones busy. Based on how many days, weeks or months you and your family have been stuck at home, every day may start to feel like another day with nothing to do, especially if youre balancing work with taking care of the kids.

With the usual summer activities put on hold, families and parents are now looking for anything that could pass the time and not involve sitting on the couch all day. Parents might be feeling the pressure on top of their many duties to be the new at-home camp counselors, babysitters and entertainers, and this is probably increasing stress for many. Worry no longer, because Market America | SHOP.COM is here to help with a few ideas on how you can have a productive and fun summer with your family!

1. Wash Your Car (Water + Kids = Fun)

Public car washes can get pricey, and honestly a little overwhelming. Choosing between what feels like far too many options. Expensive and special soaps and shines. Waiting for a vacuum to be available. Even finding that you left your spare change on the dresser to pay for the car wash. It all seems like way too much hassle. So, lets switch it up!

All you need is a hose, bucket, cloth and the Autoworks Car Wash Promo Pack and youll be set to have fun with the family while giving your car some TLC. The Autoworks Car Wash Promo Pack is great because it includes everything you need for an easy at-home wash: Exterior Car Wash, Shimmering Polish, and Tire and Wheel Cleaner, bundled together at an affordable price. Its also packed with benefits! For example, it doesnt contain acids or alkali that strip wax and dry out paint, it rinses clean with a streak-free finish, it softens minerals in the water to reduce water-spotting, it protects against scratching, its gentle on paint and wont damage clear coats, and much more. With most at-home car wash adventures, you have to buy all three of these products separately, which can add up. Grab the kids and cool down with some soapy summer fun!

2. Mommy and Me Makeover and Photoshoot

Its no secret that recently most of us havent been able to get dressed up to go out for anything more than picking up groceries or taking out the trash. In fact, pajamas or T-shirts and leggings are totally whats hot in at-home fashion. The mommy and me makeover and photoshoot gives us the perfect low-cost or no-cost activity for glamming up at home! Who doesnt like to look great and have fun doing it? Why not get all dolled up to have a tea-time photoshoot with your little ones?

Raid the closets and let everyone go full glam for the tea party of a lifetime! You can even get creative with it; just grab a yellow shirt and yellow hat and pop some red on the cheeks and nose and youve got an at-home Pikachu costume. The best part is you probably have everything you need for this activity  clothes, cosmetics and a smartphone. If youre looking for a new addition to your makeup collection, check out the new THALIA X Motives Collection. It features an eye and cheek palette full of fun and vibrant colors and a red velvet liquid lipstick that once applied will give you the perfect pout  vivacious and bold!

3. Meditation and Yoga With the Kids

Theres something to be said for spending a bit of time practicing yoga or meditation to let your body naturally turn down the stress, while also having fun with the kids. Check out this article on ideas to get your little ones into yoga, or this video for a more visual introduction! Not to mention that there are more benefits to yoga both on and off the mat. From promoting positive body image and mindful eating to boosting weight loss and management and enhancing cardiorespiratory fitness, yoga has been proven to have both physical and mental advantages. For example, it promotes strength and flexibility, and its also a great way to become more mindful and get in tune with your body and mind.

4. Go on a Cleaning Adventure

Wouldnt it be nice to have a cleaner who would come to your home and tidy up once a week? Well, if that sounds far-fetched, you may already have your best little helpers under your roof! A lot of little ones under the age of 10 enjoy helping out. Present the task at hand as a game that requires talent that only their helping hands can provide. Instead of saying, We have to  consider saying excitedly, Lets tame this jungle of a house today! From cleaning the sliding glass doors to helping carry some of the folded laundry back to where it belongs, youre accomplishing more than just a clean home. Youre helping your kids experience what it feels like to accomplish a task and see the results for themselves.

If youre stocked up on cleaning products, then get to it with your little helpers! If youre running low, check out Snap All-Purpose Natural Concentrate, a highly versatile cleaner thats gentle on the hands as well as environmentally friendly. From upholstery to countertops, theres not much it cant do. If youre looking for a cleaner and disinfectant, check out Snap II Cleaner Disinfectant  and enter your email to be notified when it is back in stock, because you wont want to miss out! Its been added to the EPAs list of Disinfectants for Use Against SARS-CoV-2, the cause of COVID-19. You can also check out the Snap Pak, which includes a collection of essential cleaners, detergents and accessories for your home.

5. Bathe the Pets (And Possibly The Kids)

If youre a pet owner, you know that nice summer weather means more outdoor time, which unfortunately also means more messes to be made  especially if your furry friends love water and mud. Thankfully, bathing your pup can become an affordable family-friendly activity! Check out PetHealth Hypoallergenic Shampoo, perfect for any dog because of its plant-based ingredients and non-irritating qualities. Also be sure to check out this list of dangerous ingredients that you should watch out for in your dog shampoos, otherwise, grab your favorite pet shampoo and start scrubbing! If youre more of a cat person, learn about the whys and hows of cat-bathing before you jump to it. Even if bathing day doesnt go as planned, were sure there will be plenty of laughter and fun to come out of it!

Also, here is a list of 11 easy kid-friendly activities that only require what you already have at home, or a quick run to your local store:

6. Chalk Games

7. Bubble Games

8.Card Games

9. Easy Birdhouse Crafting (using recycled milk cartons!)

10. Easy Floor Maze

11. DIY Slime

12. Kid Friendly Science Experiments

13. Toilet Paper Roll Crafts

14. At-Home Treasure Hunt

15. At-Home Obstacle Course

16. Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems

Finally, dont let the stress of a stay-at-home summer give you too much grief! Remember, parenting can be chaotic, stressful and overwhelming at times. More than anything else, find time for yourself every day  even if its just 15 to 30 minutes  because you matter. Taking care of yourself means youll be able to take care of your family.

So, what if the kids are spending more time watching TV? As long as the programming is age-appropriate, dont beat yourself up when you know theyre healthy and safe. Take time to rest, read a book, listen to music or give yourself a daily break by doing something that makes you happy. We all need time for ourselves, now more than ever. Taking care of yourself has to be a daily priority. Dont feel like you have to be a superhero because, for the most part, kids are happiest with any simple activity as long as love and attention come along with it. We hope this list brings you some inspiration and peace of mind!

Market America | SHOP.COM is a global product brokerage and internet marketing company that specializes in one-to-one marketing and is the creator of The Shopping Annuity.
Michael Cohen was freed from prison Friday two weeks after being returned to custody when he refused to sign an agreement not to publish a tell-all book on Donald Trump.

The former Trump fixer left Otisville Federal Correctional Institute in upstate New York at XXX.

He will spend the rest of his almost four-year sentence for offenses including campaign finance violations in home detention at his Manhattan apartment.

His release ends a two-week spell in solitary confinement which has labeled 'retaliation' by a federal judge on Thursday.

Cohen was sent home from prison in May on furlough because of the coronavirus pandemic.

He was shackled again on July 9 after he questioned a home detention agreement that barred him from publishing his book, engaging with news organizations and posting on social media.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said he had never seen in his 21 years on the bench a provision barring a prisoner from speaking to the media and that his First Amendment rights were violated.

'The purpose of transferring Mr. Cohen from furlough and home confinement to jail is retaliatory and its retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his first amendment rights to publish a book and discuss anything about the book or anything else he wants on social media and others,' he ruled.

Cohen's memoir - whose name has yet to be released - promises to go into 'graphic details' about Trump's behavior 'behind closed doors' and reveal how he used 'anti-Semitic remarks' against Jewish people and 'racist remarks' against Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela.

The former fixer has said it will be released in September.

The ruling is is the third straight defeat for Trump and his administration in attempts to ban critical books, the first two being by John Bolton, his former national security advisor, then a bombshell memoir by his niece Mary Trump.

Trump had failed to stop both books from coming out, alleging through the DOJ that Bolton had revealed classified information and then taking part in his brother's lawsuit claiming that Mary Trump had violated a nondisclosure agreement and had to be gagged.

Another fine mess: Bill Barr's attempts to get Michael Cohen locked up ended in failure as a judge said it was 'retaliatory' because of the former fixer's tell-all book plan

Cohen was thrown back into prison one week after tweeting that he would release his tell-all book ahead of the November presidential election

Cohen has been in solitary confinement in a federal prison in Otisville, New York, about 70 miles northwest of New York City since being returned there almost two weeks ago.

His lawyers said in court papers the U.S. Bureau of Prisons violated his First Amendment rights - which the judge agreed with.

'Michael Cohen is currently imprisoned in solitary confinement because he is drafting a book manuscript that is critical of the President of the United States -- and because he recently made public that he intends to publish this book shortly before the upcoming election,' Cohen's lawyers, who include attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, wrote in seeking an order for his immediate release.

Prosecutors on Wednesday said in court papers that Cohen was 'antagonistic' during the July 9 meeting with probation officers and should remain behind bars.

Cohen took issue with nearly every provision of an agreement that would have let him finish his sentence at home, prosecutors said. Among the provisions were the media ban, electronic monitoring and approval for employment.

Jon Gustin, a Federal Bureau of Prisons official, said in a court filing that he made the decision to send Cohen back to prison.

'In my view, Cohen's behavior and, in particular, his refusal to sign the conditions of home confinement was unacceptable and undermined his suitability for placement on home confinement,' Gustin wrote.

Cohen's memoir comes hot on the heels of explosive books from former national security adviser John Bolton (left) and Trump's niece Mary Trump (right) - both of which the president tried and failed to block the release of

Gustin said he was not aware of Cohen's book.

Adam Pakula, the probation officer who drafted Cohen's agreement, said he based it on terms for the supervision of high-profile inmates that he got from a fellow officer, including the provision on media contact.

Pakula also said he was not aware of Cohen's book at the time.

Cohen, who once said he would 'take a bullet' for Trump, was sentenced in 2018 for directing hush payments to pornographic film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claimed they had affairs with Trump. Trump has denied having the encounters.

Cohen served a year of his three-year sentence before being released in May.

In a friend-of-the-court filing, 10 law professors said the government cannot jail a critic for exercising his right to free speech under the U.S. Constitution.

The professors noted the Trump administration's 'disparate treatment of its allies and prior attempts to silence or retaliate against critics of the President.'

In their filings attempting to keep Cohen locked up, the Bureau of Prisons revealed that Cohen a probation officer told him he was writing his tell-all book 'no matter what happens' and told him to 'say hello to Mr Barr.'

The documents filed by Barr's attorney Audrey Strauss claimed Cohen was actually denied house arrest because he was 'antagonistic' to probation officers and 'took issue' with the terms of the agreement - a claim roundly rejected Thursday by the judge.

'The evidence instead shows that Petitioner, who had been released from prison on furlough, was remanded in custody on July 9, 2002, because he was antagonistic during a meeting with probation officers at which he was supposed to sign the agreement that would have allowed him to complete the remaining portion of his criminal sentence in home confinement,' the document reads.

The decision to hold Cohen in prison also came from a probation officer who 'had no knowledge' he was writing a book and who said the convict was going to spill his secrets 'no matter what happens', the records state.

Adam Pakula, the probation officer assigned to his case, said in a supporting document that Cohen told him 'he was writing a book 'no matter what happens'' and told him to 'say hello to 'Mr. Barr'' - referring to the Attorney General.

'While I was aware that Cohen was a high-profile inmate, at the time I drafted the [Federal Location Monitoring] Agreement I was not aware that Cohen was writing a book,' said Pakula.

Court documents filed in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) Wednesday have hit back at Cohen's claims he was imprisoned in retaliation for writing a book, saying it 'is not supported by the evidence'

Adam Pakula, the probation officer assigned to his case, said in a supporting document that Cohen told him 'he was writing a book 'no matter what happens''

Cohen filed the lawsuit late Monday in Manhattan federal court, alleging his First Amendment rights were violated when he was returned to Otisville.

It offers a first glimpse into the secrets plans to spill in his long-anticipated book, which he started behind bars.

'Mr. Cohen's book describes Mr. Cohen's first-hand experiences with Mr. Trump, and it provides graphic details about the President's behavior behind closed doors,' the lawsuit says.

'For example, the narrative describes pointedly certain anti-Semitic remarks against prominent Jewish people and virulently racist remarks against such Black leaders as President Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela.'

The book 'will rely upon and publish numerous previously unknown anecdotes, supported by documentary evidence,' the lawsuit states.

Cohen spent hours behind bars writing the memoir before he was released from prison on furlough in May as part of an attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus in federal prisons which had fast become hotbeds for the deadly virus.

He had served only a year of his three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to campaign finance charges and lying to Congress, among other crimes.

Cohen's campaign finance charges related to his efforts to arrange payouts during the 2016 presidential race to stop porn star Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal from airing claims they had affairs with Trump.

On July 9, Cohen was thrown back behind bars after federal officials said he refused to sign an agreement of his home confinement including that he would not publish a book until he completes his sentence.

This came one week after Cohen tweeted on July 2 saying he planned to release the book ahead of the November presidential election.

'I am close to completion of my book... anticipated release date will be late September,' he tweeted.

Monday's lawsuit said Cohen was taken back into federal custody because he made it clear he planned to release the book including his crimes related to 'lying to Congress on behalf of Mr. Trump and committing campaign finance violations on behalf of Mr. Trump' in the lead-up to the election.

'In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, he intends to tell the American people about Mr. Trump's personality and proclivities, his private and professional affairs, and his personal and business ethics,' according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit said US probation officers, working on behalf of the Bureau of Prisons and its director, Michael Carvajal, demanded of Cohen that he agree not to speak to or through any media, including by publishing a book.

The lawsuit also reveals that Trump used his personal attorney Charles Harder to try to gag Cohen in April.

Harder, who led the Trump family's failed attempt to gag Mary Trump earlier this month, wrote to Cohen on April 30, the lawsuit reveals.

It says he sent 'a cease and desist' to one of Cohen's attorneys, claiming Cohen had sign a non-disclosure agreement when working with Trump.

' Mr. Cohen believes that he never signed such an NDA,' the lawsuit says.

'Though Mr. Harder purported to attach the NDA to the letter, no NDA was in fact attached. Even after Mr. Cohen's attorney followed up to request that Mr. Harder send the purported NDA, he failed to do so.'

Cohen has remained in solitary confinement since he was taken to Otisville, the lawsuit said.

It said his health has also suffered, with his blood pressure spiking to critical levels, 'leading to severe headaches, shortness of breath and anxiety.'

This marks the third explosive book that promises to reveal Trump's deepest White House secrets after Bolton's 'The Room Where It Happened' was released last month.

Mary Trump's 'Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man' was released on July 14 and sold 950,000 copies on its date of sale.
Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates.

Nicolas Liponne/NurPhoto via Getty

Bill Gates criticized the US coronavirus response, calling the current state of the outbreak in the US "an ugly picture."

In an interview with CBS News, Gates said that "serious mistakes were made" in how the virus was handled, pointing to reopenings and mask compliance as the two main issues.

"We actually had criteria for opening up that said you had to have cases declining and we opened up with cases increasing," Gates said. "We somehow got masks as this politicized thing ... and some like, harbinger of freedom, that just covering your mouth was awful."

Gates has been actively involved in the government's coronavirus response since the beginning of the outbreak in the US through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation has committed more than $250 million to developing coronavirus diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Bill Gates on Wednesday discussed the state of the US coronavirus response, saying the current state of infections and deaths is "an ugly picture."

In an interview with CBS News' Norah O'Donnell, Gates was asked his opinion on the recent spike in coronavirus deaths after the US hit more than 1,000 deaths in one day for the first time since the beginning of June. Early on in the outbreak in the US, Gates had called for a more rigorous and longterm shutdown, saying that the US had already missed its chance to contain the virus by the end of March.

Now, he told CBS, there are a lot of regrets about how the virus response was handled.

Related: How Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are changing the world

"Serious mistakes were made, some of which were because we didn't understand the virus very well  the understanding about the importance of masks came later than we wish it had, and then the US had the lowest compliance with mask use of any country, didn't have the leadership message there," Gates said. "So yes, we have a lot of regrets, but we do have innovations in the pipeline that should reduce the death rate and eventually, by the end of next year, get us out of this terrible situation."

Story continues

Gates was also asked about President Donald Trump's recent assertion that the US had the lowest virus fatality rate, which the Microsoft cofounder said was "not even close" to correct.

"I mean, by almost every measure, the US is the one of the worst and I think we can change that, but it's an ugly picture," Gates said. "We actually had criteria for opening up that said you had to have cases declining and we opened up with cases increasing. We somehow got masks as this politicized thing ... and some like, harbinger of freedom, that just covering your mouth was awful."

Now that Trump is endorsing wearing a mask, he said, the US can "move forward" and try to get mask compliance levels closer to Europe's level and bring down transmission rates.

Gates has been active in the US coronavirus response. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has partnered with the government on vaccine research, with the foundation committing more than $250 million to help develop coronavirus diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines. Gates said he has regular calls with Dr. Anthony Fauci where they update each other on the progress of the vaccine research, and that he expects we'll get some "good vaccine tools" in the first half of 2021.

Gates said the foundation will also help ensure the vaccine becomes available for people outside the US, and that the US will need to be generous when it comes to delivering the vaccine to those in need.

"We want to make sure that we don't have people dying just because they can't afford to have access to the vaccine,"Gates said.

You can watch Gates' full interview with CBS right here.

Read the original article on Business Insider
A worker at the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) in San Diego, California, died last week after testing positive for the deadly COVID-19 disease. Ignacio Nacho Uribe, 53, was exposed to the infection on the job.

Uribes aunt, Amalia Uribe Deaztlan, told a local news station, Once he was intubated, we knew it was really bad.  We never had the chance to say goodbye. They had expected Uribe to make a full recovery, as he had no underlying conditions and was still fairly young.

His family is not only dealing with the pain of their loss but blames the company for not doing nearly enough to halt and contain the spread of the virus. Uribe Deatzlan said, I just feel angry at a company that calls workers essential workers to build ships, adding that workers should have been sent home until it was safe for them to return.

General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard in San Diego [Credit: Dale Frost, Flickr, CC BY 2.0]

NASSCO, a division of General Dynamics, an aerospace and defense company, was founded in San Diego in 1905 and is one of three large shipyards that is contracted with the US Navy. Due to its contract with the military, workers are considered essential.

Shipyard workers in a number of cities have been rebelling against the corporate attacks on pay and the deplorable lack of safety during the pandemic. At Bath Iron Works, another shipyard and subsidiary owned by General Dynamics, 4,300 workers have been on strike since June 22. Although at least six workers have tested positive for COVID-19, the company viciously cut off health insurance for strikers on June 30.

In April, nearly 40 shipyard workers launched a wildcat strike at another NASSCO shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia, after the death of an engineer from COVID-19 and the positive test results of several other workers. The workers are employed by General Dynamics and BAE Systems, Inc. They demanded that the companies provide workers with personal protective equipment (masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer) in addition to a coronavirus safety plan.

Concerns about the lack of safety measures at the NASSCO shipyard in San Diego began to surface in late March, when a shipyard worker tested positive for COVID-19, along with an administrative employee from a neighboring shipyard, BAE Systems, Inc. Both NASSCO and BAE Systems employ thousands of workers, many of whom are forced to work two to three feet from each other, and not the recommended six feet required as mandated by social distancing measures.

A NASSCO employee who asked to remain anonymous told the World Socialist Web Site, In the actual yard, it seems like theyre trying to keep things clean, but in Repair, where the guy who worked died [Uribe], nothing is being done. We are not find[ing] out we have been exposed until two weeks later and at this point theyre not even telling us were exposed. Workers have reported that the actual number of cases is much higher from what the companies are telling them. We have no clue how many people have tested positive but we know it is over 100, and likely over 200. The company last updated us about COVID-19 on June 19.

In response to Uribes death, the worker said, We only found out about Nacho because it got out in the yard. The company has not addressed his death. We are literally lambs being led to the slaughter every damn day.  Nothing happened after he [Uribe] died. Nothing changed. Nothing came from upper management. My coworkers were pissed but they [management] did nothing. The worker added that the company is hiding behind the Navy, which states that they are not able to tell workers anything because it would be a threat to national security.

When asked what health measures were taken, if any, the worker reported that each worker receives six N95 masks per month, which means that employees must reuse one mask over a period of four days, and not one day, as is the standard in the medical field. There is at least one ship, if not more, with no hand-washing stations. If there is a hand-washing station, the worker states that theyre not potable water and the cheapest pink soap. The company has not been conducting daily temperature checks.

A dirty hand-washing station

The worker said that the people NASSCO hired to clean the facility do not have any training in how to disinfect contaminated spaces, and that common areas arent wiped down or cleaned. Three out of the eight cleaners have since tested positive for the virus.

The worker went on to note that there is no social distancing, and, besides the mask, employees are only given a small bottle of hand sanitizer that they are not allowed to take onto the ships, nor are they provided with disinfecting wipes. Were on dead ships with no air movement. Were climbing ladders. Were sweating our asses off and many people take off their masks to just be able to breathe. We work with different people every day so if one person is sick they can infect so many people  they test some people on the job, but send them right back to work after the test.

Having read the World Socialist Web Site, the worker said, Its important to get our story out. We have many people who work on green cards, speak very little English, didnt graduate high school or have spent time in jail. They have a hard time finding a new job and are terrified of being terminated. The company uses this to their advantage  See, at NASSCO, if you complain, youre moved around to different areas and given sh*t jobs. We also dont have seniority, our layoff position is based on an evaluation thats extremely subjective. If you make too many waves, you drop in position and that means youre the first to be laid off.

When the worker was asked his opinion about the governments handling of the pandemic, he said, Horrible. Big business was able to buy who was seen as critical infrastructure. They have put the needs of the 1 percent over the importance of human life.
What is important in medical diagnostic displays?

Some people think that medical diagnostic displays are just monitors, but this is not the case. These displays are some of the most crucial and powerful tools employed in medicine today.

Image Credit: Advantech

One must know a bit about how they are used in order to speak intelligently on the topic, and why they are different from their consumer grade cousins. This article will outline the four ways these displays are different and how they are utilized.

Is that black or is that gray: Quality assurance and calibration makes that clear

Performing regularly scheduled calibration is the single most vital thing that medical diagnostic facilities have to ensure when working with medical diagnostic displays.

The reason why this is so critical for medical imaging displays is to ensure the best image quality and to guarantee that light levels are the same throughout the screen not only at present, but also as the monitor ages over time.

Under typical use, LCD displays can last over a decade, but the light source for backlit screens does not last nearly as long. Bulbs become dimmer as they age, and their ability to show color or shades of gray becomes unbalanced.

For the physicians and medical professionals that translates into a loss of quality images and can mean an incorrect or missed interpretation for the patient. This is what the malpractice attorneys lust after in this very litigious world, the proverbial smoking gun.

If there is a missed diagnosis or medical malpractice case, attorneys will frequently subpoena the maintenance records of the displays utilized for interpretation. Asking to see the maintenance reports and calibration records on the diagnostic monitors used on their client could be enough to begin to build a potential case.

Generally, medical monitors are only covered under warranty for five years. This is because the five year mark is when the projection lamps usually start to age and deteriorate after typical use.

Usually, to guarantee their diagnostic quality, these displays include a built-in monitoring system. These sensors limit the down time for these monitors and no longer require a tech to physically test each monitor (an example of True IoT Technology).

Medical diagnostic imaging is not only critical for the diagnosis, identification, treatment and prevention of disease it is also a very high money maker for these facilities. Having these machines down or under testing slows down the facility, costing time and money.

What standard are these monitors held to and how is it completed?

DICOM is the testing standard for diagnostic monitors. A photometer (a device for measuring the intensity of ultraviolet, infrared, or visible light) is held to the screen manually or the display may have a built-in front sensor attached to the bezel for a display to be DICOM-calibrated.

Whilst, due to their versatility, color monitors might be preferred, it is much easier for QA to maintain calibration of monochrome displays. Uniformity of colors can be challenging over time and requires closer attention and maintenance.

Imaging without boundaries: eliminating the bezel

So that the physician is able to review before and after images, the typical setup for a radiology review station is two monitors side-by-side. Vendors are now providing bigger, single displays that eliminate the requirement for two monitors as well as the bezel separating the two screens.

This enables better viewing, without the distraction of the bezel when going between the images. In this setup curved displays are also popular to wrap the physician in the image horizontally. It is extremely important to make sure that the monitors are calibrated.

Color vs. monochrome

Until recently, all diagnostic imaging was performed in black and white, with grayscale showing different densities within the study. Typically, color did not have the brightness required to supply a proper radiographic interpretation.

Generally, color needed more energy to generate brighter outputs, this would have a negative influence on the lamps and the system as a whole. Now, using OLED Technology (An organic light-emitting diode (OLED)) is a light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound that emits light in response to an electric current.

This layer of organic semiconductor is located between two electrodes; usually, at least one of these electrodes is transparent. The displays are not backlit at all, permitting color to be utilized more widely.

Black is true black and not a backlit black with OLED. This shows a bigger contrast when utilizing these displays for diagnosis. OLED Technology displays are generally thinner and lighter than traditional displays.

The utilization of color, specifically blue and red can now exhibit the flow of venous and arterial blood within an image to help with the diagnosis of vascular conditions such as stenosis or calcification of arteries.

This technology is now so advanced that these displays are able to exhibit flowing blood and track the velocities of the blood as it moves through the arteries and veins of the body.

The speed (clinically known as velocity) of the blood flow in the body can be affected by a narrowing of the artery, known as a stenosis and can even block blood flow completely (an occlusion).

Medical professionals are now able to visualize this in real time. These monitors can also show blood flow to tumors in concert with visualizing the size (shrinking or growing) of these tumors without subjecting a patient to exploratory surgery.

Consumer grade vs. medical grade

Typically, consumer-grade monitors did not have enough luminance, so they were not bright enough to show enough shades of gray for adequate diagnostic interpretation. Commercial grade monitors are getting close to being acceptable as the technology advances.

It would be difficult to find consumer grade monitors in a true medical diagnostic lab. However, consumer grade displays are utilized throughout hospitals and physicians offices but not for diagnostic purposes.

Usually, as outlined above, there is a designated diagnostic computer setup where the physicians interpret the medical images. Again a malpractice attorney would be interested to know that a consumer grade monitor was utilized instead of a medical grade DICOM monitor to perform an interpretation and/or diagnostic.

Conclusion

A medical grade diagnostic medical imaging monitor is a vital medical device and should not be treated as just another monitor, DICOM certification keeps the monitors working in a uniform manner.

Having the proper equipment is vital, as is having a designated Command Center for medical imaging review within a diagnostic center. OLED Technology has brought color to medical imaging and can aid in the interpretation and diagnosis of specific medical conditions.

Medical imaging is not only crucial to care but it is a big moneymaker for medical centers, down time on these command stations literally can cost the facility thousands of dollars.

Acknowledgments

Produced from materials originally authored by Gregg Abbate, key account manager at Advantech, from Amplify.

About Advantech

With decades of proven experience and trusted by 23 of the top 30 medical device manufacturers, Advantech is a leading player in the global healthcare market. Advantech partners with leading medical equipment manufacturers and system integrators to transform healthcare and elevate patient-centered care. Advantechs medical device safety certifications and FDA registration, paired with high-performance and customizable products, meets the healthcare industrys demands for both turnkey solutions and comprehensive design and manufacturing services.

Global headquarters located in Taipei, Taiwan, North American headquarters in Irvine, California and design center in Cincinnati, Ohio, Advantech is a global market-leader in industrial PCs and medical grade PCs. Offering a high degree of customization to meet unique customer requirements with in-house design and manufacturing, along with the deliberate selection of component, processor, and chipset for product designs, Advantech products are designed and manufactured with the primary intent of longevity and availability.

Advantech has been ISO 13485 certified for medical devices since 2003; its North American Service Center located in Milpitas, CA is also a FDA Registered facility. Advantechs medical product portfolio includes medical-grade PCs, medical displays, medical tablets, mobile workstation and telehealth carts and healthcare information terminals. Medically certified for patient safety (60601), fanless and sealed for infection control, Advantechs purpose built products specific for healthcare use cases are configurable and customizable, built for both acute care and non-acute care healthcare facilities.

Sponsored Content Policy: News-Medical.net publishes articles and related content that may be derived from sources where we have existing commercial relationships, provided such content adds value to the core editorial ethos of News-Medical.Net which is to educate and inform site visitors interested in medical research, science, medical devices and treatments.
Grace Lutheran Church leaders decided the best way to have Vacation Bible School this year was drive-in style in the parking lot.

This year's theme was The Rainforest Explorers- Jesus Leads the Way with puppets performing songs and teaching Bible verses.
By Michael Martina

July 23 (Reuters) - Democrats are mounting their most extensive voter protection effort ever to gird for what Joe Biden called his biggest fear: the prospect that President Donald Trump will try to interfere with the Nov. 3 election or refuse to accept its outcome.

Interviews with more than a dozen party officials reveal how Democrats, in coordination with Biden's presidential campaign, are preparing for fights over absentee ballots, potential voting recounts and the possibility that Trump's Republican supporters will seek to intimidate voters at the polls.

The Democratic Party has hired voter protection directors in 19 key states to lead more comprehensive operations than in past cycles and filed a record number of lawsuits ahead of the election trying to make voting easier. Thousands of election monitors and lawyers will be mobilized across the country on Election Day, the officials told Reuters.

Republicans say that while they are making routine preparations for recounts and voting irregularities, they are more focused on combating efforts to expand mail-in balloting.

Trump has cast doubt on the legitimacy of mail-in ballots, which have been used in far greater numbers in primary elections amid the coronavirus pandemic. He has also made unsubstantiated allegations that voting will be rigged and has refused to say he would accept official election results if he lost.

A person briefed by the Biden campaign on its strategy told Reuters that the former vice president's staff was bracing for a "nightmare scenario" in which Trump is leading the in-person vote count in battleground states on election night but complains the contest is being stolen from him in ensuing days as mail-in ballots get counted.

One party official in a battleground state who asked not to be identified said the campaign was quietly coordinating a legal strategy with state-level party staff for post-election scenarios such as the 2000-style Bush v. Gore recount.

Story continues

Trump is "laying the groundwork to say: 'The election was stolen, there was fraud, we're going to go to court, we're going to call out people on the streets,'" said Mark Brewer, an elections lawyer who is helping train Democratic legal volunteers in Michigan. "The guy is capable of anything, so we have to plan for everything."

Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said Democrats were trying to undermine the election's integrity with efforts that could lead to fraud.

"In a free and fair election, President Trump will win," Murtaugh said.

The state-level Democratic official said Bob Bauer, a former Obama administration counsel now active in the Biden campaign, and Marc Elias, a leading voting rights and recount attorney, were "part of the contingency planning."

The official would not provide details, explaining Democrats did not want to leak their playbook or needlessly conjure the specter of a contested election.

Bauer and Elias did not respond to interview requests.

Phil Shulman, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, said: "Our lawyers and the DNC lawyers are fully prepared and getting at least mentally ready for a scenario where they have to go to the courts and fight."

Officials with the Biden campaign and Democratic National Committee also declined to discuss plans around a disputed election.

"We've designed an expansive voter protection program with the best lawyers in the country working to address every possible contingency and ensure that November's elections go smoothly," said Rachana Desai Martin, national director of voter protection for the Biden campaign.

'DESIGNED TO INTIMIDATE'

Democrats say their greatest focus is on guarding against what they expect to be a significant voter-suppression effort by Republicans.

Party officials in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania - where Trump won narrowly in 2016 and that Biden now leads in opinion polls - are planning robust poll-watching efforts.

In Michigan alone, the Biden campaign is working with the state party to activate thousands of volunteers, many of them lawyers, with a goal to monitor every voting site.

Democrats say their increased emphasis on poll monitoring is fueled by uncertainty over Michigan's new rules that allow every voter to cast a ballot by mail, which Trump opposes, as well as the expiration of the 1982 nationwide decree designed to stop Republicans from suppressing votes.

That ruling, imposed after complaints of improper conduct in past elections, required Republicans to get court approval before they could conduct poll-monitoring activities in minority precincts.

One senior Trump campaign official told Reuters the lifting of the decree in 2018 was "a real sea change" and would allow Republicans to try to meet their goal of deploying 50,000 volunteer monitors, mostly in battleground states.

Lavora Barnes, chairwoman of the Michigan Democratic Party, said she expected to hear more reports of Trump supporters walking near polling sites with guns.

"That's the kind of thing that is clearly designed to intimidate," she said.

Although Democrats have not typically monitored polls for nominating contests, they plan to use Michigan's primary on Aug. 4 as a trial run for the November general election, said Mary Ellen Gurewitz, the Biden campaign's lawyer there.

"I'm working with a group of election lawyers to try to get ready, and that means a whole lot more this year than it's ever meant," Gurewitz said.

The Republican Party's legal efforts are concentrated on blocking some states from mailing absentee ballots to all registered voters. The party also is seeking to derail efforts to allow more ballot harvesting, which is when a person collects and submits multiple ballots.

"The system is not ready for these changes and it will be overwhelmed, leading to lots of problems," said a Republican official involved in the party's efforts.

Dana Remus, general counsel for Biden's campaign, said Democrats would be ready if Republicans fight dirty.

"We will not let their legal strategies determine this election," she told a campaign fundraiser last week. (Reporting by Michael Martina; Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, Tim Reid and Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Peter Cooney)
In San Antonio, an official with Christus Health told reporters that its hospital system was running out of space for morgues and was preparing to store bodies in refrigerated trucks even as ordinary life is proceeding in other parts of the city. One of the biggest movie theaters in the area, the Palladium, remains open for discounted $5 showings.

The broadening crisis means that even hospitals in states without the worst outbreaks are feeling the strain. In Oklahoma, hospitalizations have been on the rise since mid-June, and about 80 to 90 percent of hospital beds have been filled in recent days. Even so, its situation seemed enviable compared with neighboring Texas.

Houston hospitals are calling Oklahoma hospitals trying to place their sick patients, said Dr. George Monks, president of the Oklahoma State Medical Association. Summers are typically a slower season for hospitals, Dr. Monks said, which has left him worried about the well-being of health care workers and the long months ahead.

There is just no pool of doctors and nurses available that we can hire to come in and help, he said. You cant hire them from Texas. Theyve got their hands full.

Aubree Gordon, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan, said the rise in cases and hospitalizations appeared to reflect people returning to pre-pandemic behaviors, such as going to bars or gathering with friends. The number of hospitalizations, she said, was sure to rise further, and she said some political leaders seemed wary of imposing restrictions again.

Those locations are more hesitant than before to shut down because they feel like they shut down before and it didnt prevent them from having the big outbreak, Dr. Gordon said.

In and around Miami, so many patients have packed hospitals that daily reports routinely show wards at over 100 percent capacity  a sign the facilities have filled their regular beds and are operating with additional beds set up solely to accommodate the surge.
Washington, July 23 : Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer accused of killing African-American man George Floyd under custody, has been charged with multiple felony counts of tax evasion.

Chauvin, who was filmed pressing his knee on Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes leading to the latter's death on May 25, and his estranged wife, Kellie, are accused of failing to report income from various jobs, and allegedly owe nearly $38,000 to the state of Minnesota state, the BBC reported.

They were each charged in Washington County on Wednesday with six counts of aiding and abetting filing false or fraudulent tax returns and three counts of aiding and abetting failing to file state tax returns.

They are accused of underreporting their joint income by $464,433 from 2014 to 2019.

This includes money Chauvin made doing off-duty security work and weekend shifts at a restaurant.

Chauvin is already in jail in connection with Floyd's death but his wife, who filed for divorce following Floyd's death, is not, the BBC reported.

He was fired from his job after the incident and now faces charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter.

Three other officers were also fired and charged with aiding and abetting murder.
NEW HAVEN  Seeking the identity of any alleged funding source or of any persons who paid to have the Christopher Columbus statue removed from Wooster Square Park, a group of Italian-Americans have appealed their request to the state Freedom of Information Commission.

Patricia Cofrancesco, who represents the Italian-America Heritage Group of New Haven, which has sued the city over the statues removal, filed an appeal Wednesday, claiming her July 10 FOI request was not acknowledged within four days, which is deemed a denial of the request, according to the Freedom of Information Act.

A city spokesman, however, said officials did comply with Cofrancescos request.

The city hired a crane company to remove the statue June 24, one week after the city Parks Commission voted to have the statue removed. Acting parks Director William Carone ordered the statue removed after paint was thrown on it June 21 despite a 24-hour police guard, the city has stated.

The Italian-American group sought an injunction June 23 to prevent removal of the statue, which has yet to be heard. It has also filed motions to ensure the safety of the statue and its pedestal, which is believed to contain a time capsule containing information about the donors who had the statue erected in 1892.

The city filed a motion to dismiss the suit and has said that the statue is being held in a secure location.

City spokesman Gage Frank stated in an email Wednesday that Cofrancescos July 10 FOI requests were received by acting Controller Michael Gormany and purchasing agent Michael Fumiatti and that Fumiatti had sent her the only document responsive to her request, a copy of the purchase order for moving the statue from Wooster Square Park. The purchase order was dated July 13.

However, Cofrancesco said her request for information about alleged donors or funding was sent only to Mayor Justin Elicker and that she received no response within the four-day window. If there is no documentation responsive to my inquiries, then theyve got to tell me that, she said Wednesday.

Frank wrote that the FOI request sent to Elicker was duplicative of those received by Michael Fumiatti and Michael Gormany.  The records were furnished within four days of receipt of the first of these requests for the same information.

Matthew Reed, staff attorney for the Freedom of Information Commission, said, The statute says if they dont respond within four days its deemed a denial. The person making the request then has 30 days to appeal the denial, he said, but that limit has been lifted because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He said the pandemic didnt relieve the agency of their responsibility to acknowledge and comply with an FOI request.

The New Haven Register filed a Freedom of Information request July 2 asking for the Parks Commissions minutes, which were posted July 14, as well as any correspondence or emails related to the removal of the statue. The city has not responded to any request other than posting the minutes.

edward.stannard@hearstmediact.com; 203-680-9382
Top officials of the World Health Organization on Thursday slammed "unacceptable" comments made by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who alleged that China had co-opted the WHO.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the claims made Tuesday in London by Pompeo that China had "co-opted international institutions like the World Health Organization" were untrue and a distraction from the global coronavirus pandemic response.

"The comments are untrue and unacceptable and without any foundation for that matter," Tedros said at a news briefing from the United Nations agency's Gevena headquarters on Thursday. "WHO will not be distracted by these comments and we don't want the international community also to be distracted."

Tedros has repeatedly defended the WHO against criticism of its response to the coronavirus. U.S. President Donald Trump and others have alleged the U.N. health agency has a favorable relationship with China, where the virus emerged at the end of 2019. Tedros reiterated comments on Thursday that the politicization of the pandemic is one of the greatest threats to the global response.

"I feel the need to say something as an American, as a proud WHO employee," Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, who was born in New York state and is head of the WHO's emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, added. "I have never been more proud to be WHO. ... We are firmly focused on saving lives, as Dr. Tedros has said, firmly focused. We will not be distracted."

Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO's health emergencies program, said "many of us have worked seven days a week, 24 hours a day for the last seven months," adding that WHO staff are sent "into harm's way" everyday. He added that uplifting the morale of WHO staff and all U.N. staff is critical.

"None of us are perfect," he said. "But we all serve. We serve to save lives. ... We are proud, proud to be WHO and we will remain so. And we will serve the vulnerable people of the world regardless of what is said about us."

Pompeo had previously accused China of working with the WHO to downplay the growing coronavirus crisis. On Tuesday, he said the entire world "needs to work together to ensure that every country, including China, behaves in the international system in ways that are appropriate, consistent with the international order."
Talks between the U.K. and European Union over their future relationship ended in deadlock, with neither side appearing willing to make a significant compromise with just weeks remaining to reach a deal.

After a round of talks in London, Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, told reporters on Thursday that "big differences" remain between the two sides. He added that the U.K. hasn't shown willingness to break the deadlock.

"I don't believe in brinkmanship in negotiations when they're this complex," Barnier said. "I don't think we've got time for these games."

The two sides won't reach an outline agreement this month, David Frost, Britain's Brexit negotiator, said in a statement. "Although we will continue energetically to seek an agreement with the EU, we must face the possibility that one will not be reached," he said.

Officials on both sides had hoped this week would see significant progress after last month's call between Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the EU's leadership appeared to inject fresh impetus into negotiations. Barnier and his British opposite number have since met three times for informal talks -- but they have been unable to remove the main stumbling blocks.

After five months of negotiations, the two sides are still in deadlock over the same issues, namely the right to fish in British waters, the "level playing field" rules to ensure fair competition between businesses and how to resolve disputes arising from the agreement.

Over the past month, Barnier has signaled where the EU is willing to compromise -- but European officials have expressed frustration that the U.K. hasn't done the same. British officials say they are holding out for more because in many areas, such as fishing, European countries would be left worse off in the event no deal is reached.

If the two sides fail to reach an agreement, tariffs and quotas will be re-imposed when the U.K. parts ways with the bloc at the end of the year. While the U.K. has been pressing for an agreement by the summer, the EU has considered the deadline to be the summit of EU leaders in October. Any deal would then go to all the EU governments for ratification.

Fishing, in particular, remains a key stumbling block to a deal, with little progress being made on how stocks will be shared between the two sides.

But in a sign of some progress, Frost said he welcomed the EU's concession on the role of the European Court of Justice, and said that he heard the bloc's concerns about governance. While Britain wants to strike a free trade agreement and leave other issues to a series of mini deals, the EU is pushing for a single, over-arching single agreement.

Barnier and Frost will hold informal talks next week before a formal round of negotiations start on Aug. 17.
Hotel heiress-turned-reality TV icon Paris Hilton and her live-in love, M13 co-founder Carter Reum, have been watching The Simple Life while locked down at her 'Slivington Manor' in Beverly Hills.

'We just chill together. We watch The Simple Life,' the socialite told guest host Nikki Glaser on Tuesday's episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!

'He's not, like, a reality show type of person because he's a very intellectual man. So to see him watching something like that is very fun and entertaining.'

'We just chill together!' Hotel heiress-turned-reality TV icon Paris Hilton and her live-in love, M13 co-founder Carter Reum, have been watching The Simple Life while locked down at her 'Slivington Manor' in Beverly Hills (pictured June 21)

The socialite admitted to guest host Nikki Glaser on Tuesday's episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live: 'He's not, like, a reality show type of person because he's a very intellectual man. So to see him watching something like that is very fun and entertaining'

Paris famously roughed it with former BFF Nicole Richie in the surprisingly fun reality show, which aired on Fox from 2003-2005 and the E! Network from 2007-2007.

Hilton and the 39-year-old Columbia University grad were first spotted kissing at Warner Bros. and InStyle's Golden Globes after-party in January.

'I'm used to being on a plane 250 days a year and traveling, so this is the first time since I was a little kid that I've been stuck in one place,' the Kim Petras video vixen explained.

'Obviously it's a scary and difficult time around the world right now, but I'm trying to see the silver lining in it of just being home, doing art, a lot of cooking, spending time with my pets and my boyfriend. So making the most of it.'

Sanasa! Paris famously roughed it with former BFF Nicole Richie in the surprisingly fun reality show, which aired on Fox from 2003-2005 and the E! Network from 2007-2007

Quarantine partners: Hilton and the 39-year-old Columbia University grad were first spotted kissing at Warner Bros. and InStyle's Golden Globes after-party in January (pictured July 3)

The Kim Petras video vixen explained: 'Obviously it's a scary and difficult time around the world right now, but I'm trying to see the silver lining in it of just being home, doing art, a lot of cooking, spending time with my pets and my boyfriend. So making the most of it'

Hilton was on the ABC talk show to promote her childhood trauma-revealing 110-minute documentary This is Paris, which premieres September 14 on YouTube Originals.

'I'm excited, but I'm also very nervous given the topics discussed in this film,' Paris cryptically admitted.

'It's things I've never talked about before, really personal and traumatic experiences, so to talk about that publicly is obviously very hard.'

Premieres September 14 on YouTube Originals! Hilton was on the ABC talk show to promote her childhood trauma-revealing 110-minute documentary This is Paris

Paris cryptically admitted: 'I'm excited, but I'm also very nervous given the topics discussed in this film. It's things I've never talked about before, really personal and traumatic experiences'

'I love this one even more!' This Is Paris was directed by Alexandra Dean, who helmed the Netflix documentary Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story in 2017

This Is Paris was directed by Alexandra Dean, who helmed the Netflix documentary Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story in 2017.

'Obviously I'm used to be on camera from being on camera for so long. But I've always been a very naturally shy person, so I loved just inventing this character and playing that character,' the Manhattan-born blonde explained.

'To actually be myself was a completely different experience, but also almost therapeutic in some way, where I learned so much about myself. I had no idea why I am the way I am, and now I understand myself so much more.'
STAFF at an innovative Limerick company have developed a Covid-19 contact-tracing device to use in environments where mobile phone use is restricted.

While the HSE coronavirus smartphone application has been downloaded by more than one million Irish people, there are situations where mobile phone use is not possible, like in factory environments and hospitals.

Now, Tracworx, based at Steamboat Quay has developed a wristband which performs the same function but through bluetooth.

It has meant the companys chief executive Chris Kelly not only was able to keep his staff in employment during the pandemic, but is also set to recruit four more workers in the coming weeks.

During lockdown, the companys regular product, a patient and bed-tracking system used in hospitals, became less of a priority in the medical profession as doctors battled the biggest health crisis of a generation.

Instead of shutting down the company, though, Chriss workforce of 12 rallied, and found a gap in the market.

There's obviously the national HSE Covid-19 tracing app which has been a huge success. But what we are focusing on is enterprise solutions for contact tracing. If you're operating in a factory where mobile phones aren't permitted you may not be able to use a contact tracing app. So what we have provided is a wrist-band which is the same device we use for our patient tracking device. This allows them to do effectively the same thing a contact tracing app would do, but provide it for enterprise solutions, he said.

A number of companies have already jumped on board, including chemical firm Reagecon, which has 100 people on its books in Shannon.

Rather than mobile technology, the wristband relies on bluetooth transfer, something vital when mobile signals are not permitted.

If you come into contact with someone within two metres, the device registers that as a contact for tracing at a later date. The data is then saved on the device until it comes into contact with a Wi-Fi connection, when it is uploaded to a database, Chris explained.

While staff were working from home during the pandemic, it is their innovation which meant unlike many companies, staff were not furloughed, Chris added.

"To be fair to our team, there is a culture of that in the company. What Covid showed me about my team was that normally we'd be used to having to innovate ourselves. But it was the innovation coming from everyone. It was great to see for my team how quickly they were able to innovate and adapt. I think to solve a problem, it's always innovation which is their first port of call. Thankfully we didn't have to furlough anyone and we are expanding again, he told Business Leader.

Hes now on the look out for four new engineering staff: two senior developers looking at general web development, one machine learning expert, and one development operative to manage the implementation of the new technology.

Established in 2016 as Pinpoint Innovations by Chris, Fionn Barron, and Eoin OBrien, the firm has gone from strength to strength.

Chris, 23, has appeared in the Irish Independents 30 business people to watch under 30, while Tracworx has won a raft of awards in its relatively short life. For more information on the roles, and to apply, visit www.tracworx.ai
Credit: Dave HoganMick Jagger took part in a BBC Radio interview this morning and helped introduce the exclusive radio premiere of the previously unreleased 1974 Rolling Stones track "Scarlet," which features Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page on guitar.

During the conversation, Jagger discussed The Rolling Stones' upcoming studio album, saying he didn't know when it will be finished.

Mick revealed that the band has been working on "a bunch of tracks," some of which were recorded at the same time as their recent single, "Living in a Ghost Town."

"I have been finishing off the vocals and some other instruments on them, and doing some mixes on them," Jagger pointed out, while noting, "We have got to get together and do a couple more sessions, I think, [but] we're not really going to get together right now."

He adds, "[W]hat we've already done sounds pretty good to me."

Regarding "Scarlet," which will be included on the expanded reissue of The Stones' 1973 Goats Head Soup album that's being released in September, Jagger admitted that he'd completely forgotten about the recording.

Mick said that Page has a much clearer recollection of the session, which took place in the basement of Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood's "very luxurious house."

Jagger reported that in preparing the song for release, he added some maracas to the track.

Also during the interview, Jagger recalled working in the studio with Page back in the 1960s, and revealed that he attended Led Zeppelin's 2007 reunion concert at London's O2 Arena.

"They were absolutely incredible," Mick gushed. "And I was so disappointed that they didn't actually go out and tour."

The same BBC radio show also featured an interview with Page, who commented about "Scarlet," "I knew it was something really special at the timeIt just felt really great."

By Matt Friedlander

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
An influential former Chinese property executive and critic of President Xi Jinping has been ousted from China's ruling Communist party, a notice from the Beijing district government showed Thursday.

Ren Zhiqiang, former chairman of state-controlled property developer Huayuan Real Estate Group, had called Xi a "clown" over a speech he made in February about government efforts to battle the coronavirus.

In a notice on Thursday night, the watchdog said Ren had been ousted from the Chinese Communist Party because he was in "severe violation of discipline and law".

It accused Ren of "losing faith", "not being aligned with the party on important matters of principle", "vilifying the image of party and country" and being disloyal and dishonest to the party.
CAIRO  A group of Egyptian journalists announced July 1 the launch of a campaign to support Egypt in the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) negotiations, according to Masrawy news website.

The campaign officials created pages on social media under the name Let Nile Flow, to assert Egypt's right to the Nile waters. The campaign aims to highlight the dangers of the Ethiopian dam on Egypt and to rebuke and respond to fallacies.

On June 26, the Egyptian Ministry of Immigration released a short documentary  "The Nile is Our Life"  on Egypts historical right to the Nile waters.

Immigration Minister Nabila Makram explained on Facebook that the documentary is being released in seven languages  English, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Chinese and Arabic  and called on Egyptian expatriates to share it widely.

The day before, Makram had posted on Facebook the German-language film Voice of Egypt, as part of another campaign launched by her ministry to support Egypt's Nile waters right.

The ministry had launched on Facebook the Arabic hashtag #Support_Egypt_right_in_the_Nile, calling on all Egyptians and non-Egyptians to sign a petition  titled Egyptians' Right to the Water of the Nile  on change.org, a US website that publishes popular campaigns.

Maha Salem, the official spokesman for the Immigration Ministry, said the Egyptian state will rely on media campaigns in newspapers and on social media to shed light on the GERD issue and its impact on Egypts water security. This comes as part of the states efforts to use technology to advocate Egypt's Nile water rights through all diplomatic and popular means, she told Al-Monitor.

Salem said that the Egyptian government has prepared an integrated plan to defend its right to the waters of the Nile. Egyptian media and social media campaigns and petitions are part of a plan to highlight Egypt's right to a fair quota of the Nile waters. Egypt does not seek to impede development in Ethiopia in any way, but seeks to guarantee the right of the Ethiopian people to development, while also [protecting] the right of the Egyptians to benefit from the Nile waters.

The latest tripartite negotiations, sponsored by the African Union, reached an impasse after 11 days, on July 14. Egypts Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said the talks did not yield any results and failed to resolve the technical and legal points of contention between Egypt and Ethiopia.

Salem stressed that the ministry is aware of the importance of familiarizing other countries with the GERD issue. We launched campaigns on social media sites and produced The Nile is Our Life documentary in seven languages. This will familiarize citizens and officials in Western countries and all countries of the world with the details of the current crisis that could affect security in the area if it remains unresolved.

Al-Monitor spoke to one of the officials in charge of the journalists campaign. He said on condition of anonymity that the campaign was launched in coordination with the Egyptian governments campaigns and aims to clarify the dangers of filling the GERD unilaterally by Ethiopia without signing an agreement with the two downstream countries  Egypt and Sudan.

The official added, One of the misconceptions that Ethiopia is promoting about the dam is that it will not affect Egypts share of the Nile waters. This is not true as Egypt is one of the countries battling water scarcity. It registered an average of renewable fresh water per person per year below the international average of 1,000 cubic meters even before the GERD was built, let alone after its filling.

In 2018, Egypt's per capita annual water supply reached less than 600 cubic meters.

He stressed the urgent need to use all means to pressure Ethiopia and to shed light on the seriousness of the situation on Egyptian citizens if the dam is built without a clear agreement on its filling and operation process during droughts and prolonged droughts.

Commenting on the journalists initiative, the source explained that it aims to underline the political and diplomatic responsibilities of the international community, especially African countries, to step up and try to ward off the repercussions ensuing from the construction of the dam without Egypts consent. This [the dam] exposes Egypt to the risk of drought and thus affects African security. Three major African countries [Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia] are involved in this crisis and their population exceeds 260 million citizens, which is close to a quarter of the population of the entire African continent.

Ammar Ali Hassan, professor of political science at Cairo University, believes that Egypt's strategy to promote its water rights internationally and launch media campaigns and various initiatives has been somewhat successful so far. But the problem is that these efforts, he said, have yet to be translated into an actual solution to the crisis and an agreement on the contentious points about filling the dam.

Hassan told Al-Monitor over the phone that the international community has become aware of the dimensions of the crisis and its impact on Egypt, whether through documentaries produced by the Ministry of Immigration or online petitions. But these campaigns do not seem to sway the decision-makers in these countries as they have yet to openly back Egypts rights to its water security, he added.

He noted that the representatives of Western countries have issued statements emphasizing the importance of dialogue between all parties to reach a peaceful solution that satisfies all parties. No actual intervention has been made and no warning was issued against filling the dam.

Hassan stressed the importance of Arab solidarity with Egypt on the GERD issue. Arab solidarity is currently expressed through diplomatic pressure and official statements of a number of Arab countries confirming Egypt's right to the waters of the Nile, he concluded. Initiatives and campaigns on social media have yet to succeed in pushing Western countries to take a more decisive stance on this issue.
He lost his job during the Covid-19 pandemic and was desperately in need of one. Nothing was forthcoming and the 25-year-old youth from Rajasthan devised a circuitous route only to land in a police net.

Sandeep Chaudhary, who holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA) and Bachelor of Education (BEd), was arrested by Delhi Police's Crime Branch accusing him of posing as the private secretary of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and asking Ministers in Haryana and Rajasthan to give a job to him.

Follow latest updates on the Covid-19 pandemic here

Chaudhary, who hails from Mundawar in Rajasthan's Alwar, was working in Hero Honda in Dharuhera but had lost his job during the pandemic, a senior police official said on Thursday.

Police action following the Ministry of Home Affairs filing a complaint with Delhi Police claiming that one person posing as private secretary to the Home Minister was calling the Haryana Labour Minister Anup Dhanak and Rajasthan Law Minister Tikaram Julie for giving a job to a person.

During questioning, the official claimed, Chaudhary told police that he thought of getting a job in a factory in Rajasthan or in Haryana's industrial areas.

For this, he allegedly procured a SIM of MTNL in the name of his girlfriend. A technical surveillance and investigation led the police to Chaudhary.

Police said the investigators have recovered a mobile phone and the SIM card he used for calling the ministers.
#PrimeroMiSalud El presidente @MartinVizcarraC informa sobre las acciones que realiza el Gobierno para combatir el COVID-19 y las medidas implementadas para continuar con la reactivacion economica.

En vivo: https://t.co/c5Z9DY2fjC pic.twitter.com/UDDTvRCcpw
The silhouette of an oil pump is seen at sunset.

Oil prices fell 2% on Thursday on a surge in coronavirus cases that triggered fears of a hit to demand and the latest diplomatic spat between the United States and China, outweighing the benefit of a weaker dollar.

Brent futures fell $1.01, or 2.3%, to $43.28 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate crude settled 1.98%, or 83 cents, lower at $41.07 per barrel.

Both benchmarks earlier traded close to four-month highs hit a few days ago.

The U.S. dollar was trading at its lowest against a basket of currencies since September 2018. A weaker dollar usually spurs buying of dollar-priced commodities, like oil, because they become cheaper for holders of other currencies.

A rise in U.S. oil inventories also weighed on prices.

U.S. crude and distillate inventories rose unexpectedly and fuel demand slipped last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.

U.S. coronavirus cases approached 4 million on Thursday, with more than 2,600 new cases every hour on average - the highest rate in the world, a Reuters tally showed.

"The oil demand outlook should struggle in the short term as geopolitical tensions put global trade relations at risk and as the coronavirus spread seems to have crippled reopening momentum," said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA in New York.

Adding to the market uncertainty, U.S.-China relations deteriorated as Washington gave Beijing 72 hours to close its consulate in Houston after spying allegations.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the move had "severely harmed" relations and that China would be forced to respond.
Daniel Delaney is also accused of robbing the wounded man and trying to destroy evidence (stock photo)

A teenager has been remanded into custody charged with attempted murder over a stabbing in north Belfast.

Daniel Delaney, 18, is also accused of robbing the wounded man and trying to destroy evidence by washing clothing.

The allegations relate to a reported knife attack at Ardglen Place in the Ardoyne area on April 5.

At the time police said a man in his twenties approached them on nearby Etna Drive, claiming he had been stabbed while stopped in a car.

He was taken to hospital, where his condition was initially described as critical but stable.

Following investigations Delaney, of Elimgrove Street in the city, appeared remotely at Belfast Magistrates' Court on Thursday on a charge of attempted murder.

He faces further counts of possessing an offensive weapon - namely a knife - with intent to commit an indictable offence, and robbing the man of a phone, cigarettes and money.

A fourth charge involves attempting to pervert the course of justice by putting clothing in a washing machine.

Delaney spoke only to confirm that he understood the allegations against him.

His solicitor told the court he was not seeking bail at this stage.

District Judge Mark Hamill then remanded Delaney in custody, to appear again by video-link on August 20.
Supporters of Jeremy Corbyn have raised more than 30,000 on his behalf with the former Labour leader facing legal action after criticising the party's decision to apologise and pay damages to anti-Semitism whistleblowers.

Seven former party staff members and journalist John Ware are bringing a case against the former opposition leader after he attacked successor Sir Keir Starmer's decision to settle a libel claim sparked by a BBC Panorama documentary.

In a statement released yesterday afternoon Mr Corbyn, who quit after five tumultuous years in charge led to a heavy election defeat in December, said the decision to make a 500,000 payout was 'disappointing' and 'a political decision'.

Mr Corbyn went on to say that the legal advice the party received said it had a 'strong case and the evidence in the leaked Labour report that is now the subject of an NEC inquiry led by Martin Forde QC strengthened concerns about the role played by some of those who took part in the programme.'

When asked if action would be taken arising from Mr Corbyn's statement after the hearing, lawyer Mark Lewis, from Patron Law, who represented the Panorama whistleblowers and Mr Ware, said: 'I can confirm that I have been instructed to pursue cases.'

Mr Corbyn's supporters have now rallied to his side, with Carole Morgan, from Ryde in South East England, organising the fundraising to let the former Labour leader know his fans have 'not forgotten him'.

More than 30,000 has been raised for Mr Corbyn, smashing the target of 20,000 in under 24 hours.

Mr Lewis also revealed that former Labour general secretary Iain McNicol is suing the party over a leaked report into its handling of anti-Semitism.

He said: 'Lord McNicol is one of the people who is taking action who has been named in the report. There are many other people who are named in the report, they come under different categories: people who work for the party, people who were in the party in in political positions.

'McNicol is named in the report and is blamed for things that simply didnt happen. Its a mischaracterisation of a report which has been taken on.

'And what has been prepared as a report is a very factional basis, which is incredibly edited, incredibly slanted, incredibly misleading and of course the far left are quoting from that as though its some sort of gospel.'

Supporters of Jeremy Corbyn have raised more than 27,000 to fund the former Labour leader's legal defence

The move by Sir Keir Starmer's party is part of a settlement aimed at drawing a line under allegations made during Jeremy Corbyn's leadership that the party had allowed the overt hatred of Jewish people to fester

In a statement released yesterday afternoon Mr Corbyn, who quit after five tumultuous years in charge led to election humiliation in December, said the decision to settle was 'disappointing' and 'a political decision'

The report, leaked online in April this year, described alleged mishandling of disciplinary cases and attempts by members of staff to undermine Jeremy Corbyn.

The news comes amid the GoFundMe post, an attempt to offer Mr Corbyn 'support'.

The GoFundMe post reads: 'It is reported that John Ware a reporter for Panorama is taking legal action for libel against former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

'The relentless attacks on Mr Corbyn, a man of integrity, honesty and humility cannot be allowed to continue and we have an opportunity here to offer him support in a practical way.

'It will also let him know that his supporters have not forgotten him, nor have they gone away.'

One of the whistleblowers, Louise Withers-Green, told Times Radio: 'Jeremy Corbyn's comments were obviously disappointing. I would have liked him to take responsibility for the flourishing of anti semitism under his leadership.'

The decision to apologise and pay an estimated 500,000 in compensation and legal fees is part of a settlement aimed at drawing a line under allegations made during Mr Corbyn's leadership that the party had allowed the overt hatred of Jewish people to fester.

The decision was welcomed by MPs and Jewish Labour activists who have long campaigned against anti-Semitism within the party.

Labour MPs and activists welcome decision to settle case Labour MPs and Jewish activists welcomed the decision to settle the libel claim this morning. The Jewish Labour Movement, which came close to disaffiliating with Labour under Mr Corbyn, said: 'It is a sad reflection of its historic role as the party of working people that Labour sought to pursue and silence its former employees for speaking out against racism. 'Panorama shone a spotlight on the Labour Party's failure to act and the growing culture of denial that sought to victimise those who had faced discrimination.' The group said that 'under new leadership, our hope is that the party will continue to demonstrate this willingness to change and act decisively against anti-Semitism'. Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge tweeted: 'Good! This is a big step in the right direction and shows just how far the Labour Party has come since last year.' Jewish former Labour MP Ruth Smeeth tweeted: 'This has been a long time coming, the whistleblowers were so brave to make a stand & their strength has been inspirational. 'They have been relentlessly attacked for simply being honest. @UKLabour are absolutely right to apologise for the shameless way they have been treated.' After losing her seat at last year's election, Ms Smeeth said Jeremy Corbyn's handling of anti-Semitism allegations had turned Labour in to the 'nasty party'. Advertisement

But in a sign that the move could reignite factional infighting with the party's hard Left element, Mr Corbyn and his followers including Unite leader Len McCluskey attacked the payout.

Writing on Facebook Mr Corbyn said: 'The Party's decision to apologise today and make substantial payments to former staff who sued the party in relation to last year's Panorama programme is a political decision, not a legal one.

'Our legal advice was that the party had a strong defence, and the evidence in the leaked Labour report that is now the subject of an NEC inquiry led by Martin Forde QC strengthened concerns about the role played by some of those who took part in the programme.'

Mr McCluskey, whose union is Labour's largest financial backer, tweeted: 'Today's settlement is a misuse of Labour Party funds to settle a case it was advised we would win in court.

'The leaked report on how anti-Semitism was handled tells a very different story about what happened.'

But former Labour MP John Mann, now an independent adviser to the Government on anti-Semitism, tweeted: 'The bravest of the brave are the Labour staff members who did what was right.

'Normal decent people doing what normal decent people do when faced with injustice. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.'

And at Prime Minister's Questions yesterday, when Mr Corbyn's leadership came up, Sir Keir said the party was 'under new management'.

A spokesman for the Labour leader later pointed out that all the Labour leadership candidates earlier this year - Sir Keir, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy - had pledged to 'settle this issue', adding: 'It's a sign that we will take a zero-tolerance approach to anti-Semitism.'

Mr Corbyn's criticism led the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism to demand he be suspended and investigated.

Chief executive Gideon Falter, said: 'From the backbenches, Jeremy Corbyn continues to spread conspiracy theories to cover up how the Labour Party became institutionally racist under his leadership.

'A few weeks ago he gaslit the Jewish community by claiming that the EHRC, in whose investigation we are the complainant, is ''part of the government machine''. Now he is gaslighting the whistleblowers he bullied for standing up to Jew-hatred.'

The investigation, 'Is Labour Anti-Semitic?' was screened in July last year and made a number of serious claims about the party's internal culture for dealing with complaints of anti-Semitism.

In a statement when the programme was broadcast, a Labour spokesman - acting for Mr Corbyn - called the whistleblowers 'disaffected former officials' and said they had 'worked actively to undermine' the leader and had 'both personal and political axes to grind'.

Both Mr Corbyn and the Momentum founder, Jon Lansman, also suggested in statements following the programme that it had a pre-determined outcome.

Following those statements, seven of the eight whistleblowers, who are all former Labour staffers, instructed the prominent media lawyer Mark Lewis to take action against the party.

They claimed senior figures had issued statements attacking their reputations and suggesting they had ulterior political and personal motives to undermine the party.

Among the former Labour staffers taking action were the former head of disputes Sam Matthews; the former head of compliance Mike Creighton; Dan Hogan, a former disputes team investigator; and Louise Withers Green, a former disputes officer.

The others were Katherine Buckingham, Martha Robinson and Benjamin Westerman.

Iain McNicol, the party's former general secretary who was the eighth interviewee on the programme, was not involved in the action.

At a brief hearing in London, William Bennett QC, barrister for the seven whistleblowers, said: 'The whistleblowers were highly critical of the Labour Party's approach to tackling anti-Semitism within its ranks.'

He told Mr Justice Nicklin: 'Before the broadcast of the Panorama programme, the Labour Party issued a press release that contained defamatory and false allegations about the whistleblowers.'

Mr Bennett said Labour 'accused the whistleblowers of having acted in bad faith during and after their employment with the intention of harming the Labour Party', allegations he said were 'untrue and defamatory'.

He added: 'The Labour Party is here today to set the record straight and to apologise unreservedly to the claimants for the distress and embarrassment that the publication of the false allegations have caused them and for the continuing damage that has been caused to their reputations.

'The Labour Party also has agreed to pay substantial damages to the whistleblowers.'

Mark Henderson, representing Labour, told the court: 'The Labour Party acknowledges that these claims about the claimants are untrue, and we retract and withdraw them and undertake not to repeat them.

'The Labour Party is here today to publicly set the record straight and to apologise to the claimants for the distress and embarrassment that it has caused them.'

At the same hearing, Labour also apologised to John Ware - the journalist who made the Panorama programme - for falsely accusing him of 'deliberate and malicious misrepresentations designed to mislead the public'.

Mr Bennett said Labour had alleged that Mr Ware 'invented quotes, flouted journalistic ethics and ... knowingly promoted falsehoods' in pursuit of 'a pre-determined outcome to the question asked by the Panorama programme'.

He added that the party had agreed to pay 'substantial damages' to Mr Ware.

The 500,000 payout that Labour has to make covers damages for Mr Ware and the seven whistleblowers, as well as legal costs.

In a statement, the claimants' solicitor Mark Lewis said: 'Today in the High Court, the Labour Party retracted its false allegations made about the Panorama programme asking whether Labour was anti-Semitic.

'The answer was a clear ''yes''. Labour chose to double down and attack the programme's presenter, John Ware, and the whistleblowers rather than addressing the truth of the problem.

'It is ironic that the workers' party chose to act as disgruntled bosses who had been caught out.'

He added: 'This is just the start. Actions are being taken against those who repeat the libels, and will be taken against those who choose to do so in future. An honest opinion has to be based upon facts.

'Regrettably, there are too many out there who do not bother to check the facts when the facts do not support their factional view.'

Ofcom rejected 28 complaints against the programme for alleged bias, concluding that it was 'duly impartial' and included Labour's response prominently throughout.

Today, the party issued a press release entitled 'an apology from the Labour Party to Kat Buckingham, Michael Creighton, Samuel Matthews, Dan Hogan, Louise Withers Green, Benjamin Westerman and Martha Robinson'.

It said: 'The Labour Party has today issued an unreserved apology to the former members of staff who contributed to a BBC Panorama programme about anti-Semitism within the Labour Party in July 2019.

'Before the broadcast of the programme, the Labour Party issued a press release that contained defamatory and false allegations about these whistleblowers.

'We acknowledge the many years of dedicated and committed service that the whistleblowers have given to the Labour Party as members and as staff. We appreciate their valuable contribution at all levels of the Party.

'We unreservedly withdraw all allegations of bad faith, malice and lying. We would like to apologise unreservedly for the distress, embarrassment and hurt caused by their publication. We have agreed to pay them damages.

'Under the leadership of Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, we are committed to tackling anti-Semitism within the Labour Party. Anti-Semitism has been a stain on the Labour Party in recent years. It has caused unacceptable and unimaginable levels of grief and distress for many in the Jewish community, as well as members of staff.

'If we are to restore the trust of the Jewish community, we must demonstrate a change of leadership. That means being open, transparent and respecting the right of whistleblowers. We are determined to deliver that change.'

A BBC spokesman said today: 'The BBC will always support fair and impartial reporting, exposing wrongdoing and holding power to account. The Panorama programme did precisely that, but was subject to an extraordinary and vitriolic attack by the Labour Party.

'We welcome today's long overdue apology to John Ware and the seven Panorama whistleblowers, who have been subjected to painful and damaging personal attacks on their integrity and character.

'We applaud their strength to take this case forward and are pleased it has been recognised in court that these extremely serious and damaging allegations against them were false and have been unreservedly withdrawn. 'John Ware is a reporter with an extraordinary record of excellence at Panorama for investigative journalism in the public interest.'

Speaking outside court after the hearing, Labour's shadow attorney general Lord Falconer said: 'It is a clear line under a dispute between the Labour Party and people who had been whistleblowers about anti-Semitism.

'The Labour Party made absolutely clear in its statement in open court that it withdrew completely any allegation of dishonesty or bad behaviour against the whistleblowers and the journalist involved.

'It is for the (Equality and Human Rights) Commission to make its findings public when it chooses ... but we have brought to an end a chapter when the Labour Party was accusing whistleblowers of behaving dishonestly and I'm incredibly glad that we have brought it to an end.

'We can focus now not on litigation, which is a disastrous thing for a party to be focusing on.

'Instead, it should be focusing on championing the things that matter to the public, so it's a good day.'

It comes nine days after Labour received a copy of a long-awaited report into whether it victimised Jews during the Corbyn years.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission's draft conclusions have not yet been made public, but insiders expect them to be 'damning'.

The watchdog said when it launched its official inquiry last May that it 'suspected' that Labour had committed 'unlawful acts' in its handling of its anti-Semitism crisis.

Last month Sir Keir told his hard-left former leadership rival Rebecca Long-Bailey to resign after she retweeted an online interview which contained an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

There was fury over a passage in Maxine Peake's offending article where the actress said the US police had learned the tactics that killed George Floyd from the Israel secret services.
Nasa's Perseverance rover is ready to launch, the space agency has said, ahead of its scheduled liftoff next week.

The mission and the rover finished their "Flight Readiness Review", a key final check before takeoff. The test sees both Nasa and its rocket teams approve the readiness of the spacecraft, and certifies that it is ready to launch.

As part of the test, the spacecraft, its rocket, as well as the software and people on the ground are checked and approved.

Now the rocket will be ready to launch in its window, which opens at 7.50am local eastern time on 30 July.

Our deepest thanks go to the many teams who have worked so hard to get Perseverance ready to fly during these challenging times, said Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine.

Recommended Nasa rover images used to let people see what it would be like on Mars

"This mission is emblematic of our nations spirit of meeting problems head-on and finding solutions together. The incredible science Perseverance will enable and the bold human missions it will help make possible are going to be inspirations for us all.

The space agency noted that a number of challenges must be faced as the mission heads to Mars over the coming days and years.

"We're pleased to be passing another milestone with the completion of the Flight Readiness Review," said Matt Wallace, deputy project manager for the mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California.

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Mystic Mountain, a pillar of gas and dust standing at three-light-years tall, bursting with jets of gas from fledgling stars buried within, was captured by Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope in February 2010 Nasa/ESA/STScI Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures The first ever selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by Nasa's Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012 Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Death of a star: This image from Nasa's Chandra X-ray telescope shows the supernova of Tycho, a star in our Milky Way galaxy Nasa Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, pictured here on 1 January 2019 by a camera on Nasa's New Horizons spaceraft at a distance of 4.1 billion miles from Earth Getty Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures The first ever image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving Nasa, and released on 10 April 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth Getty Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Pluto, as pictured by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015 Nasa/APL/SwRI Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun Nasa Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks running downhill on the surface Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary flowing water. It has since been suggested that they may instead be formed by flowing sand Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015 Nasa/Scott Kelly

"But well keep our heads down through the final prelaunch activities and the opening of the launch window next week, until we're certain this spacecraft is safely on its way. Mars is a tough customer, and we dont take anything for granted."
Somali, U.S. forces engage insurgents in support of the Federal Government of Somalia

In coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia, U.S. Africa Command conducted an airstrike against ISIS-Somalia terrorists after they attacked partner forces in a remote location near Timirshe, Somalia, July 21.

By U.S. Africa Command Public Affairs , United States Africa Command Stuttgart, Germany Jul 22, 2020

In coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia, U.S. Africa Command conducted an airstrike against ISIS-Somalia terrorists after they attacked partner forces in a remote location near Timirshe, Somalia, July 21. Timirshe is located 140 kilometers southeast of Bosasso.

"We continue to apply pressure on terrorist groups and assist our Somali partners in disrupting their operations," said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Miguel Castellanos, deputy director of operations, AFRICOM. "We continue our support to rid Somalia of the likes of ISIS and al-Shabaab."

At this time, it is assessed this airstrike killed seven (7) ISIS-Somalia terrorists.

Currently, we assess no civilians were injured or killed as a result of these airstrikes.

When this airstrike occurred, U.S. forces were in the area in order to advise and assist Somali and partner forces. Terrorist groups continue to resort to the tradecraft of terror and propaganda in an effort to intimidate the local populace.

"Mistruths and lies are the terrorist weapons of choice," said Col. Chris Karns, director of public affairs, AFRICOM. "ISIS-Somalia and al-Shabaab have bankrupt narratives and visions of the future. Our partnership to unmask and degrade the capability of these terrorists is essential to security and stability in Somalia."

U.S. Africa Command continues to support the Government of Somalia by strengthening its security forces and promoting regional security, stability, and prosperity. Concurrently, the command is building enduring relationships and strategic alliances in East Africa to address looming challenges and malign activity by near-peer competitors.

The U.S continues to provide support to Somali efforts and counter violent extremist threats. The challenges in Africa will require African and international solutions. U.S. Africa Command remains committed to working with our African partners.

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The African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL) has called for an effective whistleblower regime considering the startling revelations from the ongoing probe of alleged massive corruption at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

In a statement by signed by its Coordinator, Chido Onumah, the Centre applauded the forensic audit of the Commission ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari and the ongoing probe by the House of Representatives, noting that the Commission has been mired in corruption since it was created in 2000.

According to AFRICMIL, The probe is long overdue given the fact that tales of mind-boggling financial fraud have been part of the story of NDDC soon after it was established. The statement said it was unacceptable that an institution set up and funded by government to fast-track the development of a region that is the source of the countrys major revenue earner had been turned into a conduit pipe for illegitimate wealth by a few individuals.

It expressed regret that nothing of significance showed the presence of a heavily funded development institution in the Niger Delta region. Theres no remarkable development in the region nor meaningful improvement in the lives of the people courtesy of the presence of NDDC, Onumah noted. No serious government, more so one that prioritizes the fight against corruption as a major agenda, will fold its arms with the orchestrated looting of public funds allegedly perpetrated by the officials entrusted with the management of NDDC.

Riding on the wings of the investigation of the financial records of NDDC, AFRICMIL reiterated its call for the strengthening of whistleblowing as an important tool for exposing corrupt practices in the country. The statement called on the federal government to commit to fighting corruption with the enactment of an effective whistleblowing law that would be enforceable across the country.

According to Onumah, There is no doubt that if we had a strong whistleblowing law that emphasizes sufficient protection for whistleblowers, there will be more people out there willing to provide additional information on the rot in NDDC to investigators.

AFRICMIL said it expected a thorough probe, noting that the staggering level of corruption at NDDC and its corresponding negative impact on society must have contributed in no small way to the categorization of Nigeria as the poverty capital of the world.

Chido Onumah, PhD

Coordinator, AFRICMIL


The first flash-bang grenade went off around 11:10 p.m. in Portland, Ore., a thunderous clap that echoed off the high walls of the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse. Within minutes, a rowdy protest against racism and police violence had turned into a chaotic scene of screaming civilians, shouting police officers, whizzing plastic stun munitions and cascades of gas grenades arcing through the night. As the civilians fell back under stinging clouds of gas, volunteer medics dumped entire bottles of water over their heads.

Trying to see who exactly was launching this battle, I poked my head around the corner of the courthouse and came face to face with the force that is rocking Portland and drawing the attention of the nation: a dozen federal police officers in green camouflage, their faces, names and unit insignia obscured, firing crowd-control weapons and beating their way through a group of young male protesters.

These men, identified by the Department of Homeland Security as members of a U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group and a Border Patrol Tactical Unit, have been trained in antiterrorism tactics and deployed in Portland with the sniper rifles and full battle rattle of an invading army. When not emerging on most nights to drive back protesters (including Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, who was gassed Wednesday night), they have been filmed roving the downtown area in unmarked rental vans, leaping out to snatch individual protesters away for questioning.

Federal officers firing tear gas and rubber bullets at demonstrators in Portland, Ore., on Tuesday. (John Rudoff/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

The shadowy DHS force is, at least visually, reminiscent of the secret police units that do the bidding of authoritarian regimes around the world, albeit of a far less brutal variety.

But there is little evidence the tactical escalation is working. The noisy show of force I witnessed Tuesday night left hundreds of people, including me, choking on tear gas. But federal officers have essentially been deployed for a photo op: less than 15 minutes after the skirmish began, it was over. The federal officers retreated inside the courthouse, surrendering the ground they had just taken back to jeering activists.

Story continues

By some accounts, this was night 50 of the Black Lives Matter protests that have rocked Portland and focused national attention on the Trump administrations efforts to suppress protests that sometimes carry a violent edge. The give-and-take of ground has become an almost nightly ritual.

Protests begin at sunset with music and the chanting of slogans, but usually end later in the night with clouds of tear gas and nonlethal munitions ricocheting off cars and walls. In its microcosmic way, the city of Portland has become the battle space that Secretary of Defense Mark Esper vowed to mass and dominate in a White House call with governors on June 1.

It was Trump himself who tweeted about domination, vowing to deploy the military and publicly putting Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley in charge of suppressing riots. Trump also announced, just hours before I was teargassed at the Hatfield courthouse, that the same forces would be deployed to Chicago and other cities experiencing anarchic protests.

If Portland is any indication, the militarization is backfiring, turning a movement that even a week ago was drawing only a few hundred protesters into one that now draws thousands every night.

It is clear what motivates most participants.

Black Lives Matter is the most important thing, said a white protester in his 30s named Bruce, as he chalked a sidewalk with drawings of his cat holding a BLM sign. But the shadowy federal arrests had him worried.

Whats going on behind those walls doesnt feel right, he said, pointing at the courthouse, where DHS officers were assembled. Protesters like us are peacefully walking around and just getting plucked out of the crowd.

Law enforcement responds during a protest in Washington, D.C., ahead of President Trump's visit to St. John's Church on June 1. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The new tactics were previewed in Washington, D.C., last month, during the violent clearance of Lafayette Square by a mixed force of federal officers, and have now been deployed to Portland, a liberal enclave that has become an emblem for the chaotic challenge to power and authority in American cities.

The battle of Portland is rooted in President Trumps executive order to protect federal monuments, memorials, statues, or property. It broadly targeted anarchists and left-wing extremists. Both are present in Portland.

But the protests are numerically dominated by young BLM activists and contingents like the Wall of Moms, which began last Saturday night with about 100 mothers forming a human barrier between BLM protesters and police. By Tuesday night the Mom Wall had grown to almost a thousand women dressed in yellow and clutching sunflowers beneath their helmets and goggles.

A group of middle-aged men (known as the DadTifa) has also appeared, using leaf blowers to whisk tear gas back toward the police who fired it. (Theres a lot of Hong Kong tactics, one participant told me.) And some of the response seems purely Portland. In a city where strip clubs outnumber churches, a few young women have been labeled Athenas for daring to confront the heavily armed troops stark naked.

The core of the protests remains an active Black Lives Matter contingent focused on ending police violence against minorities, but in the whitest major city in America, the crowds are distinguished by a mixture of performative anger, food-cart culture and signs trolling armed federal officers (You Should Be Ashamed, Love, Mom).

Protesters at the Portland Moms March on Tuesday. (John Rudoff/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Walking through the Portland protests in recent nights, I was reminded less of a violent revolution than of Occupy Wall Street, which filled New Yorks Zuccotti Park with debate, criticism of the government and demands for economic justice. Amid nightly street battles, which include destructive actions by protesters, there has also been a flowering of that civic engagement, with volunteer medics, tents set up to provide free food and clothing, and even art therapy for stressed-out antifa. The demonstrators generally wear masks against the coronavirus or against tear gas, but rarely both. Social distancing ends with the first blast of a gas gun.

Ive been a foreign correspondent for two decades and am used to paramilitary police and citizens battling it out  but that was in the streets of troubled countries like Brazil or Venezuela, not in my hometown. I have been documenting how repressive regimes around the world work  for my newsletter, the Authoritarianism Project  but I never expected to bring that story home.

Secret policemen stuffing prisoners into unmarked cars was a hallmark of the murderous Argentine junta in the 1970s, although they used Ford Falcons rather than Chrysler minivans. And Brazils aggressive riot police spent the 1980s suppressing demonstrations only to end up as hated symbols of an antidemocratic era.

There are no allegations of torture or lethal kidnapping against U.S. police, and the DHS claims the legal authority to detain people with reasonable suspicion. But it doesnt always look that way when teams of unidentified men, working in silence, shove prisoners into cars and drive away.

Thats kidnapping of our citizens, said the Rev. Tara Wilkins of the Portland Interfaith Clergy Resistance. But acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf has said that potential threats are the only justification he needs to deploy federal troops here or elsewhere.

Wolf dismissed pleas from Mayor Wheeler and Gov. Kate Brown to send the troops home. Portlands own police officers, who have developed a high tolerance for the citys circus-like dramas, are supporting the federals but must wonder what it will be like when they leave and we all have to go back to living together.

Two years ago, right-wing groups including the Proud Boys engaged in roving street brawls in Portland with opponents from groups like Rose City Antifa and so-called black bloc protesters with a violent streak. Even then, the clowns and musicians outnumbered violent anarchists on the left, but both of the rallies I attended quickly degenerated into fistfights and beatings, with a few protesters on both sides going as far as using brass knuckles, clubs and electric shock devices.

A member of the "boogaloo" movement, left, gets into a physical altercation with members of the Proud Boys during a right-wing protest in Columbus, Ohio, on July 18. (Jeff Dean/AFP via Getty Images)

Portland police largely stayed out of sight then, but those rallies were mere appetizers compared with the large-scale battles in recent nights that have pitted the citys riot squad and a little over 100 DHS troops against thousands of mostly nonviolent protesters.

The sudden street-clearance operation I witnessed Tuesday night  in which I was teargassed worse than in any previous experience in Bolivia or Beirut  appears to have been triggered when activists set a trash fire against the stone walls of the federal courthouse. The small fire was no threat to Portland, and when DHS produced a timeline of rampant long-lasting violence to justify its deployment, the list was mostly acts of graffiti.

Wolf, who came to oversee the deployment, posted photos of what I saw in Portland that showed graffiti and boarded-up windows. He told Fox News the city was under siege.

In reality, the protests occupy an area of just two to four square blocks, with little effect on the rest of Portland, already a ghost town due to Oregons strict lockdown procedures against COVID-19. Black Lives Matter and antiracism protests were already routine in the city, and traffic flowed normally just a block from the teargassing I witnessed. Even as protests surged toward the front of the federal courthouse, I found the street behind it completely empty.

Its worth comparing the treatment of protesters in Portland with those in other cities. In Lansing, Mich., anti-lockdown protesters carried rifles into the state Capitol and menaced legislators in session, without any police response at all. Militia groups, freelance gunmen and Bikers for Trump have threatened BLM protesters everywhere from Bethel, Ohio, to Spokane, Wash. Police departments rarely do anything unless shots are fired, a deference not extended to the Mom Wall, where I saw federal agents beat unarmed women in bicycle helmets just for refusing to move.

Protesters on the steps of the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich. (Elaine Cromie/Getty Images)

I actually saw that on a video clip, even though I was standing within 100 yards from where it happened. As America is learning for the first time since 1968, it is difficult to see clearly amid clouds of tear gas. Portlands nightly revolution is televised, live-streamed, simulcast and uploaded, a fire hose of media from phones, GoPros and drones flying overhead. One of the scarcest commodities is a battery charger.

Some protesters have up to three cameras running simultaneously, even as they wander past the Riot Ribs tent, where volunteers grill free pork and beef, amid clouds of smoke far tastier than what will appear later in the evening. Never have so many posted so much, showing so little.

But the live-streaming of this moment in our history is having an effect, drawing global attention to a conflict conducted over just a few blocks of physical space. The last time I had been at a protest here, it featured countless American flags and a cowboy on a beautiful bay horse, all to support Ammon Bundy, the right-wing rancher on trial here in 2017 for his role in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation.

But even Bundy has now condemned the use of federal law enforcement in local protests, and the Three Percent Militia, arguably the most powerful in America, criticized Donald Trump for suggesting that looters be shot. Trumps overreach is causing schisms inside these ultra-right movements; at an Idaho militia rally I attended in June, hundreds of armed men and women applauded as a speaker from Black Lives Matter condemned the police murder of George Floyd. If Trump cant hold the Coeur dAlene fairgrounds, he wont take downtown Portland.

The conflict in Oregon  one step in a presidential law-and-order reelection tour  is coming down to a nightly clash between a few hundred police officers, some persistent BLM activists and a thousand moms holding flowers.

Trump can deploy the same forces to Chicago and elsewhere. But if the Portland model spreads, its unlikely he can win this fight.

Patrick Symmes is the author of the forthcoming book Death Squad Democracy: How Foreign Tyrants Brought Violence to American Politics.

Cover photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Getty Images (5), Reuters (2)

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Read more from Yahoo News:
London: Labour leader Keir Starmer and his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn are on course for an ugly public showdown following an unprecedented admission that the party had defamed a prominent BBC journalist and seven staffers who blew the whistle on anti-Semitism.

Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions who took over after the opposition's thumping 2019 election defeat, on Wednesday declared Labour was "under new management" amid the escalating clash with Corbyn and his hard-Left supporters.

Earlier, Labour revealed it would pay damages to seven former staffers who broke non-disclosure agreements to appear on the BBC's Panorama program to raise serious concerns over how the party handled complaints about anti-Semitic conduct.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has blasted his successor for awarding damages to a BBC journalist and seven former staffers. Credit:PA

Labour released a statement before the episode went to air in mid-2019 labelling the whistleblowers "disaffected former staff" with "personal and political axes to grind".
NYPD officers gather at a Black Lives Matter protest in Times Square: AFP/Getty

New York police cleared out an "Occupy City Hall" encampment shortly before dawn on Wednesday as mayors across the country moved to prevent federal law enforcement entering their cities.

It comes as violent clashes continued in Portland between protesters and federal officers overnight and the Trump administration threatened to send agents to more major cities.

About 100 uniformed NYPD police carrying riot shields brought the city's month-long Occupy protest to an end about 4 am, with seven people taken into custody.

Commissioner Dermot Shea said six would be released on minor summons and one would be charged with attempted assault for throwing a brick at an officer, who was not injured in the attack.

The decision to dismantle the encampment was made about 10 pm Tuesday by Mr Shea and Mayor Bill De Blasio.

Police issued warnings for 10 minutes before moving into the area with attorneys and cameras. Videos posted online show the officers moving forward in a wall towards tents and tarps as directions were made over a bull horn to the estimated 40-50 protestors that remained at the camp.

NYPD is now attacking the City Hall occupancy protest. Tearing down the community service tents. #nycprotest pic.twitter.com/Ia4HpxhvSy  Max Hornig (@swarmofgaybees) July 22, 2020

By 8 am, city work crews had moved in to begin the clean-up, bringing an end to the occupation that began on 23 June when 100 people set up camp to demand City Council "defund the police".

The area had attracted a growing homeless population, and Mr De Blasio said during a morning press conference that the city does not allow homeless encampments.

"The reality here is that, again, this has become less and less about protest, more and more homeless individuals who were gathered there," Mr De Blasio said.

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He said New York was prepared to go to court if the Trump Administration deployed federal law enforcement to the city. "We've seen the situation happening in Portland Oregon, it is deeply troubling," Mr De Blasio said.

New footage from Portland overnight showed the violent clashes at the federal courthouse.

Antifa black bloc is assaulting a man. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/OxSQBwthjP  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) July 22, 2020

This is why federal law enforcement were using vans and cars to make discreet arrests of violent suspects: Rioters surround and attack an officer in the process of making an arrest outside the courthouse. The suspect escapes. pic.twitter.com/U26MKxOZff  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) July 21, 2020

Someone REALLY doesn't want me there filming. I gotta write a letter to Team Wendy about their helmets. Worth every penny. I took probably 8-10 punches to the head. I stayed out for 2 assaults by the feds still & got footage of their attacks on protestors. Many media persons https://t.co/ULZXa6c0s0  Mason Lake Photo (@MasonLakePhoto) July 22, 2020

Antifa black bloc tear off the plywood protective barrier to the Portland federal courthouse. They're trying to break the glass underneath to set the interior on fire. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/00aFGkf1dF  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) July 22, 2020

Donald Trump has said federal law enforcement would be sent to more cities with rising crime as local mayors moved to defund police and activists called on supporters to spread the violence seen in Portland to the rest of the country.

Mr De Blasio said on Wednesday he would join 15 Democrat mayors that wrote to acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and Attorney General William Barr to pull federal agents out of Portland and not send to more to their cities.

"It is concerning that federal law enforcement is being deployed for political purposes," the letter said.

"The president and his administration continually attack local leadership and amplify false and divisive rhetoric purely for campaign fodder."

All extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence needs to be withdrawn from American cities @realDonaldTrump. pic.twitter.com/kcdZov4FRF  Mayor Muriel Bowser (@MayorBowser) July 22, 2020

Mr Wolf, however, said during a press conference on Tuesday that they would continue to take appropriate action against violent rioters that were not engaged in peaceful protesting.

"We have been forced because of local law enforcement presence to take measures such as arrests to protect our officials," Mr Wolf said.

"They're not military or civilian police officers. These police officers are not stormtroopers. They're not the Gestapo," said Mr Wolf, referring to a remark from House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn.

"As it relates to [Customs and Border Protection] officers deployed in Portland, these highly trained officers are in multi-camouflage wear because they work on the southwest border and they work in an environment that demands that."

Read more

Federal agents use tear gas and batons to disperse 'Wall of Moms'

Chad Wolf says federal forces in Portland will not retreat

Trump claims he is trying to help Portland

Portland protesters hit with tear gas and snatched into unmarked vans
It was the president's personal decision, Yulia Mendel stresses.

Presidential spokesperson Yulia Mendel has elaborated on Volodymyr Zelensky's move to call the gunman who was holding hostages after seizing a commuter bus in Lutsk.

"The President has kept the situation under control since morning. Consultations with the security forces began right away. During the reception of the President of Switzerland, there were constant breaks in order to clarify the developments," the spokesperson told RFE/RL's Ukrainian service.

She clarified that several options were on the table.

"It was very important for him to understand what that person wants and what is his psychological portrait. The whole strategy was aimed at saving lives," Mendel said.

The president, she says, studied the hostage-taker's requirements, the consequences of recording a video [the terrorist demanded that Zelensky upload on social networks a clip where he would endorse an Earthlings documentary, narrated by Joaquin Phoenix], and potential harm that could be done.

Read alsoZelensky reveals details of special operation in Lutsk (Photo, video)

"When in the afternoon a decision was made to pursue with recording the clip, it was Volodymyr Oleksandrovych [Zelensky]'s personal move. And this was the deal. I'd like to emphasize that as part of that deal, the terrorist was supposed to take the first step  to release three hostages," Mendel added.

When asked if the President's Office is prepared to further face other perpetrators demanding anything in such manner, Mendel noted that each case should be considered individually.

"In this case, it was a calculated strategy. Let's hope that such situations won't repeat. But all these risks were taken into account and I wouldn't want to act as someone who reads the tea leaves, so let's consider each case separately," she stressed.

As UNIAN reported earlier, on the morning of Tuesday, July 21, a gunman, later identified as Maksym Kryvosh, 44, a convicted felon, seized a commuter bus with 13 passengers on it, taking them hostage. At about 22:00 the same day, the culprit surrendered and all hostages were released unharmed.
Do we have a corrupt and rotten Establishment teeming with people who are happy to take money from countries that wish us ill, particularly Russia and China?

It's a depressing suggestion. But over the past few weeks we've seen more evidence that some of the great and good have - how shall I put it? - been drinking from the same water trough as some pretty unsavoury people.

Take Russia first. There was a phrase in the 48-page report finally published by Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee on Tuesday which made my eyes bulge with astonishment.

According to the document, there are lawyers, accountants, estate agents and PR professionals working for wealthy Russians who have, wittingly or not, become 'de facto agents of the Russian state'.

STEPHEN GLOVER: Do we have a corrupt and rotten Establishment teeming with people who are happy to take money from countries that wish us ill, particularly Russia and China? It's a depressing suggestion. But over the past few weeks we've seen more evidence that some of the great and good have - how shall I put it? - been drinking from the same water trough as some pretty unsavoury people (pictured, Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Kerch, in the Crimea)

MI5 'is to be given tough new powers to make UK a harder environment for Kremlin spies to operate in' after report said Government 'took eye off the ball' dealing with Moscow's hacking, disinformation and political meddling MI5 are to be granted tough new powers to make the UK a harsher environment for Kremlin spies to operate in after a damning report by MPs said the Government 'took its eye off the ball.' In a devastating and long-awaited report, intelligence and security committee said the UK 'badly underestimated' the Russian threat as a campaign of hacking, disinformation and political meddling was waged. London - nicknamed 'Londongrad' - has become a 'laundromat' for dirty Russian money, with Putin-linked elites able to act with 'impunity', the review concluded. The government is planning new counter-espionage legislation which they say will make the UK a 'harder environment for adversaries to operate in,' The Times reported. It takes the American Foreign Agents Registration Act as its template, which requires people working for foreign governments, officials or political parties, to notify the US Department of Justice. Advertisement

That's a serious charge, since the Russian state most certainly doesn't wish this country any good. Its military aircraft often approach British airspace, and they don't do so to admire our beaches.

In trying to bump off Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy, with a nerve agent in Salisbury in 2018, the Russian state nearly killed a British policeman and caused the death of Dawn Sturgess, an innocent civilian.

The Parliamentary report also alleges that London (nicknamed 'Londongrad') has become a 'laundromat' for dirty Russian money, and the indulgent host of elites linked to the Russian regime. These are able to act with 'impunity'.

Are some lawyers, accountants and other professionals guilty of treason? That's impossible to say, since specific examples are not given, and certainly no names are mentioned. But it would seem these people are, at the very least, guilty of lying down with flea-ridden dogs.

The report, although it shuns detailed accusations, does make some useful suggestions. One is that members of the House of Lords should have their business links 'carefully scrutinised' to ensure they are not being exploited by Vladimir Putin, Russia's unappetising leader.

We do know, in fact, thanks to the members' register of interest, of several peers with links to Russian companies, all of whom are doubtless as pure as the driven snow.

I wasn't surprised that one of them is former Labour magnifico Peter Mandelson, who served on the board of Russian defence conglomerate Sistema, in which, according to his register of interests, he holds shares.

Lord Mandelson has never felt any shame about burnishing his Russian links. Years ago, he formed a close relationship with the controversial Russian aluminium magnate Oleg Deripaska, and was sometimes to be found on his yacht.

During his lordship's term as EU trade commissioner, from 2004 until 2008, he twice acted to cut European aluminium import duties. Deripaska's company Rusal, the world's largest producer of aluminium, was one of the main beneficiaries.

Any connection, I'm sure, was fortuitous. But back to the present.

It is, of course, no crime to do business with Russia, however unpleasant its government. But we are entitled to expect more transparency on the part of politicians, and in particular peers, than exists at present.

STEPHEN GLOVE: The Parliamentary report also alleges that London (nicknamed 'Londongrad') has become a 'laundromat' for dirty Russian money, and the indulgent host of elites linked to the Russian regime. These are able to act with 'impunity'

Nor can it be right that the Tory Party should have accepted more than 1.7million from Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of one of Putin's former ministers. True, she is now a British citizen, and there is no question of wrong-doing on either side. Still, it does not smell quite right to me.

Lest Labour get on its high horse, we mustn't forget that Jeremy Corbyn was a supporter of propaganda channel Russia Today, and refused to condemn Moscow after the Salisbury poisoning. The cancer is deep and pervasive.

Let's move on to China, whose economy is roughly eight times the size of Russia's. Remember how, in 2015, the then Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne hosted a lavish state visit for President Xi Jinping?

Mr Cameron looked forward to a 'golden era' of Sino-British relations. Where as the British Establishment has never openly embraced Putin, it covered President Xi in kisses, even though he presides over one of the world's most repressive regimes.

Deals galore were struck. The Chinese state nuclear company has taken a third share in the construction of a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset, and been lined up to play a major role in the construction of two reactors at a planned nuclear power station in Essex.

STEPHEN GLOVER: According to Hidden Hand: Exposing How The Chinese Communist Party Is Shaping The World, serialised in this newspaper, the 48 Group Club is exploited by China as a networking hub 'through which Beijing grooms Britain's elites'

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

Now, with China introducing harsh new security laws in Hong Kong, the relationship is breaking down, and Beijing delivers ugly threats.

But actually it was always clear how disgracefully it can behave when it doesn't get its own way. And yet, as a Mail investigation revealed last week, many of our top universities have formed close relationships with their counterparts in China.

For almost a decade, the Chinese Communist Party has been allowed to embed itself in our most prestigious academic institutions. One chilling example of co-operation cited by this newspaper was that of Cambridge University.

It has links with a Chinese military institution blacklisted by the U.S. government for posing a nuclear threat. Needless to say, our universities have grown fat on their connections. Some 120,000 Chinese students study here, filling the coffers of many universities - and in some cases, one assumes, telling their masters in Beijing the secrets they have learnt.

Meanwhile, a new book by two China experts has highlighted the existence of the 48 Group Club, a little known UK-based organisation with 650 members which cultivates business links with China.

According to Hidden Hand: Exposing How The Chinese Communist Party Is Shaping The World, serialised in this newspaper, the 48 Group Club is exploited by China as a networking hub 'through which Beijing grooms Britain's elites'.

The organisation hotly contests this interpretation. Politicians associated with the group include former Tory Deputy Prime Minister Lord Heseltine, Tony Blair, and exForeign Secretary Jack Straw. And, of course - where would we be without him? - the ubiquitous Lord Mandelson.

If only a quarter of the claims about the 48 Group Club are true, we should register deep disquiet. Who can doubt that, whether through our universities or other bodies, has penetrated large parts of the Establishment? Are we mad?

We must obviously trade with the world's second largest economy, just as we import oil and gas from Russia, though there are alternative sources. But with both countries we should have a hands-off relationship rather than an intimate one that isn't transparent and may involve corruption.

Britain has long been an open society. Dodgy rogues have been welcomed here with few questions asked so long as their pockets are deep. Anthony Trollope wrote about this in his 1875 novel The Way We Live Now.

The mysterious, crooked foreign financier, Augustus Melmotte, is embraced by an avaricious Establishment. Is it reckless greed? In large measure, yes.

But there is also an element of naivety. Rich foreigners bearing gifts, or at any rate juicy contracts, are believed to be less dangerous, and more accommodating, than they can possibly ever be.

Yesterday's newspapers reported that, as a result of the Intelligence and Security Committee report, we are going to have tougher laws aimed at Russian and other spies plotting against Britain.

That's all well and good. But we also need tougher laws requiring greater transparency on the part of rotten members of the Establishment whose furtive deals serve only to strengthen our enemies.
AN artist will be appearing on a BBC One show on Thursday.

Nicolette Carter specialises in landscape paintings and was selected to take part in Home Is Where the Art Is, hosted by Nick Knowles.

The 55-year-old has been a professional artist for more than 30 years and she divides her time between painting and teaching at Brimpton Primary School in West Berkshire.

The show selects three artists per episode and asks them to pitch an idea for a client. The successful artist wins the prize of the commission.

They are each given a brief and tour of the persons house and the show ends with one of them being selected to bring their idea to life.

Mrs Carter, of Kelso Mews, Caversham, lives with her husband James Reed, 60, who recently retired having worked for HMRC in compliance for 31 years.

They have a nine-year-old daughter, Francesca, who attends Caversham Park Primary School.

When she was approached to be part of the show, Mrs Carter originally thought it was a scam.

She said: They have researchers on the show who look for artists that can meet a brief and there are 45 artists being showcased across 15 episodes.

Some people apply but I actually got asked to do it. They emailed me several times and then they rang me. It was a real bolt from the blue. I was really nervous to do it initially.

I have always been professional and I have been sending my artwork all over the world on social media during lockdown. They wanted to pick artists who could match a particular style.

The location was incredible. It was hundreds of miles away and it was a really historical and romantic place. You get to look around and try to guess which sort of people own the property and come up with an idea of what they might want.

We then went to the television studios in Manchester to introduce ourselves to the buyers and they whittle it down to two people.

They then have to choose someone, but I cant say which stage I got to. I cant say where the house was, but it was a long way from Henley and involved lots of travelling by train.

Filming took place in October but the scheduling was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic and Mrs Carter appears in the penultimate episode of the series.

It involved staying away from her home for two nights and her pitch was specific to the location, taking historical inspiration that was special to the owners of the house.

She has worked on many commissions, from miniature paintings to playground murals, and described it as a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Mrs Carter graduated from West Surrey College of Art and Design, but decided to enter teaching alongside doing painting. She said: I had many years teaching children with special needs, probably for the first 15 years of my career. I always wanted to do something that involves giving back to the community, which I can get from teaching.

I love my artwork as well and I think art is incredibly important. A lot of my work is inspired by buildings and the local landscape.

Mrs Carter has had her work displayed at the Tiny Art and Craft and Old Fire Station galleries in Henley. She is also part of an artist-owned gallery in London called Skylark Galleries, which will re-open at the end of July. She said: I have been with them for 21 years and we very sadly had to close down for the lockdown. We have had to really fight for the business and there have been lots of applying for grants. We are really delighted about that and the Tiny Gallery in Henley has re-opened as well.

I used to live in south London until 11 years ago and it was lovely to move to such a wonderful and inspirational place. Whenever I drive over to Henley, the landscape always inspires me.

Mrs Carter has been teaching vulnerable children and the children of key workers during lockdown and her daughter has been home-schooled. She hopes the experience of being on television will boost her reputation and possibly lead to more work in the future.

She added: I really enjoyed it. It was like a huge adventure and I felt very proud to be a part of it. It makes art more accessible to people who might watch the programme.

Because the filming was done last year, I have had to keep it a secret from all of my friends and I have had to bite my tongue. It was lovely to have a challenge to work on something like this.

You can see if Mrs Carter is selected as the winning artist by watching her show at 3.45pm on Thursday.
News of a second Bugatti model isnt new  rumors have been circulating forever. Back in September 2019, for example, we heard that Bugatti was planning to make an SUV of sorts. A month later, we found out that the Galibier name could make a comeback as an electric sedan, just to be followed up by news that Bugatti was considering a daily driver. The problem is that everything Bugatti does has to be approved by the people over at VAG and, as it turns out, the company needs the money so, despite selling 250 examples of the Chiron and taking payments for another 150, Bugatti has to shelve its plans for a second model. Thanks, dirty VAG.

It Looks Like Were Stuck With the Chiron and Various Special Editions for a While

The $3 million Bugatti Chiron is nearing the end of its life. Four years in, and at least 400 have been sold  250 produced and 150 orders taken. The company either needs to work on a second model to sell alongside the Chiron or plan the next Bugatti from which it will produce more special edition and one-off cars than you can count on both hands. The idea was for Bugatti to build a more affordable, daily driver. The term affordable, of course, being relative to a company that sells cars at $3 million a pop or more. That aside, the company now has to sit on its thumbs as VAG starts making cuts and stockpiling money.

Apparently, this boils down to the dirty VAG prioritizing liquidity in order to push through challenging times imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. This means that a company like Bugatti gets the shaft, or as Stephan Winklemann told Automotive News Europe, its been put on the backburner.

For the time being, we need to put this issue aside. Given the prevailing economic conditions, our utmost priority is on liquidity.

As Winklemann sees it, the ultra-rich dont take kindly to spending hundreds of thousands of their exorbitant amounts of money given the difficult times that we face in 2020 and, likely, the next few years.

Had the situation been different, we were expecting to see the second Bugatti as a more practical car. It would have had two usable rear seats and would have likely been electric. It would have sat a little higher than a normal car but wouldnt have been a full-on SUV either. It probably would have been, but Bugatti would have played the same mind games that Ferrari does, the latter of which refuses to call the Purosangue a sports utility vehicle. The model, which would have been considered affordable, would have carried a price tag of somewhere between $575,000 and $1.15 million  a little to steep for most of us still but still significantly cheaper than the Chiron that Bugatti sells today.

However, with all of this said, it should be pointed out that VAG might have made the right call, at least for now, and as much as I hate to admit it. Had a second Bugatti been approved by VW, it would have required some pretty significant investment to get the ball rolling. Were not talking about $1 million here or there  were talking about serious cheddar. Bugatti currently produces fewer than 100 cars annually, and a second model would have forced the company to move up to as many as 900 units annually. So, we would be talking about new and improved facilities, production lines, and lots of extra staff. With this in mind, I guess you cant blame VW too much for wanting to hold off on a second Bugatti. It still has to suck for a company that builds $3 million cars to be at the mercy of someone else, though.

Source: Automotive News Europe
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo holds a mask during a briefing in New York City, N.Y., on July 6, 2020. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

Mayor Admits Mistake After Maskless Elbow Bump With NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo

A mayor who interacted closely with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo without masks said they messed up after what happened.

Heavy criticism flooded social media after images circulated showing Cuomo interacting closely with a slew of officials, including Savannah, Georgia, Mayor Van Johnson, while not wearing a mask.

We messed up, I mean, yeah, we messed up. No big deal, in this case, Johnson, a Democrat, told reporters on Tuesday.

Were human. We made a mistake and I think for people who want to take the significance of that entire day, the significance of this massive donation, the significance of this wonderful friendship and partnership and want to delineate it to a picture, I think they need other stuff to do, he added later.

New York officials delivered items including masks to Savannah to help the city respond to the pandemic.

Johnson is among the officials who said Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemps overriding of local mask requirements endangered lives. Cuomo, meanwhile, has repeatedly harangued New Yorkers over wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. His office didnt respond to an inquiry about why he wasnt following his own advice on wearing masks when interacting with Johnson and other officials.

A tourist wears a mask as he checks into a hotel in the Historic District in Savannah, Ga., on April 25, 2020. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)

Janice Dean was among those sharing the images, which showed Cuomo leaning close to the officials while visiting Georgia this week.

Besides Johnson, the other officials appeared to be wearing masks.

Dean is a Fox News meteorologist who has been one of the fiercest critics of Cuomos order to nursing homes to accept COVID-19 patients because both her husbands parents died this year, according to her, as a result of the order.

Mr. wear your mask not wearing a mask in Georgia, Dean wrote on Twitter.

Cuomo, a Democrat, regularly shares social media posts about wearing masks and tells people to wear them during remarks at virtually every one of his daily press conferences.

If a hospital worker can wear a mask nonstop during a 10-hour shift. If women can wear masks during labor. You can wear a mask while running an errand, Cuomo said in a social media message on Tuesday.

Cuomo has called on President Donald Trump to impose national requirements to wear masks, a move that some believe would be unconstitutional.
By PTI

MUMBAI: The application of Elgar Parishad case accused Varavara Rao for bail on health grounds was a mere "ruse" and he was trying to take undue benefit under the garb of the COVID-19 pandemic situation and his old age, the NIA has told the Bombay High Court.

His health condition was stable and he did not require treatment in a multispeciality hospital, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said in its affidavit on July 16, the day the 81-year-old poet and activist tested positive for coronavirus.

Rao's application of bail on health grounds thus, was a mere "ruse" and he was "trying to take undue benefit under the garb of current situation on account of global pandemic and his old age," said the NIA, which is probing the Elgar Parishad-Maoists links case.

The NIA also said in its affidavit that otherwise Rao won't be eligible for bail only on merits of the case.

"The prison authorities have responded timely and provided necessary medical aid to the appellant accused Rao. The applicant accused was admitted to J J Hospital for the complaint of giddiness on May 28 and after medical treatment, he was discharged on June 1 as he was found asymptomatic and haemodynamically stable," it said.

Raos medical record and the report submitted by J J Hospital's superintendent did not suggest he was suffering from any such ailment which necessitated that he immediately obtain treatment in a multi-speciality hospital, the probe agency further said in its affidavit.

Rao is currently currently undergoing treatment for COVID-19 and other ailments at Nanavati Hospital in Mumbai.

On July 20, the Bombay High Court heard Rao's bail plea briefly.

His lawyer Sudeep Pasbola told the court that Rao was "almost on his deathbed" and even the NIA could not dispute the fact that his health was very critical.

ALSO READ | Writers, artists urge CJI Bobde and Uddhav Thackeray to release jailed poet Varavara Rao

"His condition is very serious. He hit his head against the hospital bed while he was at the J J hospital and sustained severe injuries. Besides COVID-19, he suffers from several ailments, he is hallucinating and is delirious," Pasbola said.

"His days are numbered and if he is to die, at least let him die in the presence of his family members," the lawyer said while seeking that Rao be granted bail. However, NIA's counsel Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh told the court on July 20 that the state was "taking good care" of Rao and he had been admitted to one of the "best super speciality hospitals in the city".

The NIA is supposed to inform the court on Thursday if Rao's family can be permitted to see him.

Last month, the NIA filed an almost similar affidavit opposing the bail application of Rao's co-accused Sudha Bharadwaj, in the case.

It said the bail application "pleading with regard to the medical condition of the petitioner is merely a ruse to obtain an order of interim relief which is not available to her otherwise on merits of the case".

Rao and nine other activists have been arrested in the Elgar Parishad case, which was initially probed by the Pune Police and later transferred to the NIA in January this year.

The case related to alleged inflammatory speeches made at the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, which the police claimed triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial.

The police have also claimed the conclave was organised by people with alleged Maoist links.
YEREVAN, JULY 23, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian has sent a congratulatory letter to President of Egypt Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi on the national day  the Revolution Day, the Armenian Presidents Office told Armenpress.

President Sarkissian said the firm friendship between the Armenian and Egyptian peoples, which has been formed based on close historical-cultural contacts and cooperation, has started from the early past and has always been distinguished with viability. I praise the fact that the inter-state relations of today are just the direct reflection of this. I believe that with joint efforts we will manage to record new achievements in all aspects and consistently use the entire potential, the Armenian President said in his letter.

The Armenian President wished his Egyptian counterpart good health and success, and to the good people of Egypt  lasting peace and welfare.



Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan




On June 21, a new podcast appeared on several Chinese and American podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts. Called In-Betweenness, it was recorded by four academics scattered around the world.

The podcast is in Mandarin, and the target audience is Chinese people, but the topic was race in America and across the worldspecifically, whats happening to race relations in the wake of the George Floyd protests. The hosts, based in the United States, Asia and Europe, didnt shy away from difficult issues. They started the conversation with how Chinese people were characterized as yellow in a world order that still favors white Europeans, and ended it with a look at anti-Black racism in China.

Some listeners complained that the first episode was too theoretical and abstractthe discussion touched on the French philosopher Frantz Fanons criticism of Hegels master-slave dialecticbut that didnt prevent people from tuning in. Since it launched, the podcast has racked up 17,000 downloads in eight countries plus Taiwan and Hong Kong. That might seem a drop in the bucket relative to the 1 billion Mandarin speakers worldwide, but the podcasts goal isnt to go mainstream. Instead, it aims to open up space for progressive conversation and build community among a select group of Chinese-speaking people, highly educated and many of them young, who might go on to have influence over politics and policy. Over 60 percent of the audience is in China.

I wasnt surprised by the geographical distribution of our audience, says Chenchen Zhang, a co-host of In-Betweenness who teaches politics and international relations at Queens University Belfast. But I was a bit surprised by the number of downloads.

In-Betweenness marks a new trend in the Chinese media landscape. All media in China, state and commercial, is closely monitored and heavily censored pre- and post-publishing. Under publishing laws and regulations, nonstate digital media is not allowed to conduct original reporting and publishing. At best, they are aggregators. State censorship of social media platforms such as WeChat and Weibo, now the primary news sources in China, has become increasingly sophisticated. The state has also cracked down on private software to circumvent the Great Firewall.

Story continues

But a wave of independent Chinese-language media platforms, based mostly outside of Chinapodcasts like In-Betweenness, as well as blogs, newsletters and video serieshas sprung up in recent years to cover America and the world for a Chinese-speaking audience. Most of the audience are educated millennials living in cities in China and abroad, and most of the platforms can be accessed anywhere in the world, including China. Even if some episodes are removed by government censors from podcast stores in China, people can still access it by subscribing to RSS feeds.

In the increasingly fraught relationship between China and the United States, these new projects amount to a kind of third information channel, one neither controlled by the Chinese state nor the America-centric Western media in English. It includes In-Betweenness; the podcasts Loud Murmurs, Stochastic Volatility and New York Culture Salon; News Lab, a newsletter run by Kecheng Fang, a journalism professor based in Hong Kong; and an independent blog run by Yan Wang, a conservative-turned-liberal popular blogger who has been writing about systemic racism on WeChat, the Chinese social-media app, for years.

The unrest following George Floyds killing has given these new outlets a new topic of huge interest to Chinese listeners: race in America. In part, the interest was fanned by Chinese state media, which tends to dramatize Americas domestic strife. As the protests grew in late spring and early summer, Chinese media portrayed a chaotic, hypocritical United States with vivid images of tumult and police violence. But these new outlets portrayed something differenta more balanced picture of race relations, a diagnosis of root causes that went beyond a two-tiered U.S. legal system and extended to global cultural and racial dynamics.

If their coverage of the George Floyd protests is a sign of whats to come, these independent Chinese media outlets could play a crucial role in demystifying, or more fully explaining, U.S. politics and culture for a select Chinese audience. They might even set the tone for a clearer, more open cultural relationship between the two countries, even as foreign-policy tensions between them boil over.

To Americans who have never seen their own country covered overseas, it can be shocking to see the way some Chinese media portray it.

Take HBOs removal of the movie Gone with the Wind as an example. After HBO briefly took down the film in early June because of its problematic portrayal of people of color, Chinese mediaofficial and unofficialblew the story up into such a hot-button national controversy that many in China think the United States is having its own Cultural Revolution, all triggered by one movie. (In reality, the network put it back online in a week.) One headline read American Cultural Revolution: Ridiculous and Unfortunate, Gone with the Wind Got Pulled. Another used a militant phrase popular during the Cultural Revolution, qingsuan, meaning eradicating crimes, to describe the removal of the Civil War drama.

To address this kind of inaccurate coverage of U.S. social dynamics, the newer independent media platforms have built their influence over the past few years among open-minded, liberal Chinese people home and abroad. Quite a few were already influencers on Chinese social mediaWeibo and WeChatbefore starting their own media products.

The creators are academics, journalists, lawyers and activists trained in Western universities, attracted to liberal democratic ideals, and critical of both Chinas party state and Western exceptionalism. On the American political spectrum, theyd be considered progressive. And they offer a perspectivecritical of both the U.S. and Chinathats rarely seen in the mainland discourse.

What they do is very important because progressive values barely had any space on the Chinese internet before, says Fang, a journalism professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who studies Chinese media. In his view, their role isnt to shift broader Chinese public attitudes, but to cater to a highly educated crowd who already hold similar political values and then to influence a minority of others who are open-minded and willing to be challenged. They want to challenge the isolationist worldview from both China and the United States, and signal with their content as well as their distribution that globalization is here to stay.

Today, this transnational treatment of the news means translating the Black Lives Matter movement for a group of people who may be curious about the movements aims in the U.S., and also willing to acknowledge that anti-Black racism is far from a uniquely American problem.

People in China following the story exclusively through state media may lack all that context. Analysts say its not uncommon for Chinese readers to regard the whole uprising with shock and disapproval; some make racist comments of their on social media and in comments sections of news stories online. When social movements, such as Black Lives Matter, erupt, because of their oversimplified view of racism, they tend to misunderstand what the protesters want, Yao Lin, an In-Betweenness cohost, says, and some of them tend to stand with white supremacists and the status quo.

Many of these new independent media platforms offer a different way to see the protests in the United States. These new media outlets have explained to their audiences what racism in the United States is, and why the Chinese should pay attention to anti-Black racism. And they have also done what would be unthinkable for institutional Chinese media: They have turned a critical lens back on China itself, pointing to the rising racism against Africans in Guangzhou during the Covid-19 outbreak, when many were evicted from their apartments from landlords or turned away from hotels. Racial discrimination can be relevant even to those in China because they can draw a parallel between systematic racism and discriminations against women, sexual minorities and migrant workers, which are more common in China, says Zhicheng Zhao, founder of New York Culture Salon.

Loud Murmurs, a Mandarin podcast focused on American pop culture, is planning a three-episode series in light of the Black Lives Matter movement unfolding in the United States, where the shows hosts live. For their upcoming episode, they invited two Black men, one of whom is an African immigrant whos been educated in the West and in China, the other an African American who works in China, to discuss how Hollywood portrays Blackness, how those portrayals are received in China and their personal experience with racism in China.

To address the misunderstanding that the United States is having its own Cultural Revolution, for instance, Loud Murmurs had their two Black guests talk about political correctness and how classic American movies portrayed slavery through rose-tinted glasses. We understand that conversation. We are plugged in to it, says Isabelle Niu, a co-host of Loud Murmurs. And so we can offer our own insight and analysis on how this should be interpreted.

Some of the new outlets are also focusing on these conversations to tackle popular conservative Chinese arguments on Black Lives Matter and claim space in an information environment filled with increasingly nationalistic voices, which is engineered by pervasive censorship, propaganda and misinformation.

Yan Wang, the WeChat blogger, appeals to his audience by recounting his experience of confronting and overcoming his own racism over the years, alongside his analysis of racial segregation. The San Francisco-based software engineer has been active in debating online with older, more conservative Chinese immigrants about stereotypes they commonly hold about Black people.

Based on his experience so far, he doesnt foresee swaying many peoples opinions. I have been trying to communicate with conservatives, and its been largely an attempt in vain, Wang says. Because what I say makes most of them extremely uncomfortable, and they dont always make rational arguments.

His goal, Wang says, is to educate those who are already interested in social justice and politics, who can, hopefully, in the future influence other Chinese Americans, who have a reputation for being less politically engaged than other minority groups in the United States.

These media platforms arent just liberal enclaves providing reporting and analysis for their audiences; they have also been trying to have conversations with people in real life. New York Culture Salon, a nonprofit organization that holds weekly seminars and releases them in podcast or video form, wanted to respond to how the social unrest in the United States has divided generations of Chinese immigrants and social media chat groups in China. The nonprofit has organized a six-week panel series devoted to the Black Lives Matter movement.

They invited young Chinese scholars who study law, activism and immigration in the U.S. to participate in broadcast panel discussions. The speakers tackled topics that might be perceived as elementary by American intellectuals, such as the historical role of violence in pushing for progress, why Chinese people should support Black Lives Matter and how systemic racism is embedded in U.S. institutions. More than 3,000 people from in and outside of China attended the first two webinars.

Such platforms often have a tenuous relationship with Chinese censors. They are not high-profile enough to be erased from the Chinese internet completely. But once their content has gained steam on Chinese social media, especially on what are deemed sensitive political issues, they draw the attention of government censors.

Loud Murmurs and New York Culture Salon have both had their content, social media posts and platforms censored for touching domestic political topics, such as Chinas controversial one-child-per-family policy. Their core audiences followed them as they moved their content to platforms untouched by Chinese censors, usually domains registered abroad. And for some of the podcasts in this new wave, talking about politics in foreign countries onlyfor instance, about the Black Lives Matter movementshields them from censorship.

With pervasive censorship, we can only relieve political depression by focusing on the events unfolding across the Pacific, says China-based Shiye Fu, a co-host of Stochastic Volatility, who has a degree in anthropology from Columbia University.

None of the people I talked to for the story expect their content to attract a mainstream audience. But they hope the small audience they have connected with will connect with other Chinese speakers and go on to create something much larger than podcasts.

We got a lot of comments like, Wow. Ive never heard four women talk about politics in a way thats so uninhibited, Niu says. I think just the idea that you can express yourself without fear, even that is very encouraging to people.
Rapper Kanye West has confirmed in a series of tweets that he has been trying to divorce his wife of six years, reality star Kim Kardashian. West also accused the 39-year-old entrepreneur and her mother, Kris Jenner, of being white supremacists.

Kanye's tweets

The rapper announced on July 4 that he is going to run for president, but the public is now concerned for his mental health after he's been showing bipolar episodes, as reported by The Blast.

On July 19, West broke down at his campaign rally in South Carolina. Kanye's series of tweets have since been deleted, and one of them is West's confession that he has been trying to divorce Kim Kardashian.

The 43-year-old rapper claimed that he wanted to split from "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" and said that he had been trying to get a divorce since Kim met Meek Mill at the Waldorf for her prison reform campaign. West was referring to the meeting between rapper Meek Mill and Kim back in 2018.

The Yeezy founder also tweeted some racist remarks and accusations towards his wife and mother-in-law, Kris Jenner, adding that the two tried to hospitalize him. West claimed that Jenner and Kardashian tried to fly in two doctors to treat him. He added that they tried to "51/50" him but that he got "200 more to go".

Also Read: Celebrities Who Are Notoriously Very Difficult to Work With

The tweet was shortly followed by calling Kris Jenner "Kris Jong-Un" and that the two put out a statement about him without his approval. He said that it is not what a wife should do, then calling it "White supremacy."

Kanye's Twitter rant came after reports that the couple is already living separately. West is now in South Carolina, busy with his campaign rallies, while Kim is still in California with their children.

The couple married in 2014 and since then became one of the most followed celebrity couples in Hollywood. Kim Kardashian trended worldwide on social media after West revealed that she considered aborting their first-born daughter, North West.

West also addressed his wealth, as Forbes confirmed this year that he is a billionaire, with a net worth of $1.3 billion.

West added that Meek Mill was respectful and that it was Kim that was out of line. He said that he was worth "5 billion dollars" and he was worth more than that "through Christ."

West also talked about pop icon Michael Jackson adding that people did not listen to him when he was alive and that the public is now just realizing that he was innocent after he was accused of being a pedophile.

Bipolar disorder

West has been open with his mental health issues, calling his bipolar disorder a "superpower." He made headlines after he cried on stage during his South Carolina rally. He also sparked outrage after he claimed that Harriet Tubman never freed the slaves and sold them to other white people.

On July 21, the rapper flew back to his Wyoming ranch and he was visited by his friend Dave Chappelle. The comedian is concerned about the condition of the rapper.

A source told Page Six that family and friends are not sure that West and Kardashian can survive their current situation, especially after West's Twitter rant.

The source also said that the entire Kardashian-Jenner clan is worried about the West. Kim and Kanye share four children together, 7-year-old North West, 4-year-old Saint West, 2-year-old Chicago West, and 14-month-old Psalm West.

Related Article: Top 4 Craziest Royal Family Rumors the Public Believed

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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Bogota, Colombia  Thu, July 23, 2020 12:00 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668b0e4a 2 World Colombia,legal-reform,Child-sexual-abuse,child-rapist,murder,Ivan-Duque Free

Colombian president Ivan Duque enacted a constitutional reform Wednesday that sets a life sentence for those found guilty of rape or child murder.

"Today Colombia has said no to those thugs that try to usurp the tenderness, innocence and principles of our children," said Duque.

On average, almost two children under the age of 18 are murdered every day in Colombia.

According to forensic authorities, more than 22,000 children under 18 were victims of sexual crimes in 2019, while 708 died violently.

Almost 6,500 minors were allegedly sexually assaulted between January and May, the Medicina Legal body said.

Until now, the maximum prison sentence in Colombia was 60 years, as the constitution banned "the penalties of exile, life imprisonment and confiscation," although that clause has now been modified.

The abuse of minors has also been a feature of the near six-decade-old conflict pitting government forces against left-wing rebels.

The top leaders of the now dissolved Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which laid down its arms and signed a historic peace deal in 2016, face accusations of recruitment and sexual violence against children at a special court set up to try those suspected of crimes committed during the conflict.

The army also recently fired 31 soldiers implicated in sexual aggressions since 2016, some against indigenous girls.

The new law will not be applied retroactively, though.

The law has been criticized by opposition politicians, academics and experts that claim an increase in punishments will not result in a reduction of crimes.
Much of what's most important in social trends, the things real people really do, isn't reported, especially if it doesn't fit the narrative. So while the record-setting 21% jump in existing home sales in June made headlines, a key trend wasn't mentioned.

Millions of Americans are voting with their feet. They're leaving the cities. In Michigan, despite some of the nation's worst unemployment  engineered in large part by our governor  homes priced around $200,000 are often on the market for about a day. Much more expensive homes in northern Michigan, hundreds of miles from Detroit and Grand Rapids, are also selling quickly.

Why? Two reasons: People have found they can work from home, and they want to escape what the media portray as nonviolent protests and riots.

These same trends were discussed by Kristin Tate in an article in The Hill. She noted that New York City real estate is down 30%.

An estimated quarter of a million New York residents will move upstate for good, while another 2 million could permanently move out of state. More than 16,000 New York residents have already relocated to suburban Connecticut. The preliminary figures show that New York is also losing citizens to rural New England and Florida in significant numbers. Similar trends are happening in other large urban areas. There is a political element within the domestic migration at play across the nation, but what is more telling is the level of movement to suburban areas and rural towns.

Over 40 percent of urbanites have browsed online for real estate, more than twice the number of people who actually live in rural areas. Redfin reports that more than a quarter of searches on its website are by urbanites in Seattle, San Francisco, and the District of Columbia searching for homes in less populated places. While real estate sales are down in San Francisco, where prices are falling by more than 50 percent, demand in its suburbs has been soaring, where prices are rising by almost 10 percent.

There has been a sharp uptick in interest in moving out to Montana, with the majority of new inquiries coming from California. Real estate sales in Montana are 10 percent higher than at this time last year. Rural Colorado, Oregon, and Maine have seen similar upticks in property sales. Vermont is going through a renaissance in real estate, with an agent there remarking that "people are buying houses without even seeing them."

Some of the biggest changes are less obvious, yet even the hidden trends support the idea that cities are emptying out. In March and April, over 2 million young people moved back in with their parents or grandparents. If the allure of cities declines further due to the risk of disease, a sputtering economy, and a future of telework, the flight to suburban and rural safety will continue well after a coronavirus vaccine hits the market.
Uganda on Thursday announced that it has recorded its first COVID-19-related death, Trend reports citing Xinhua.

Henry Mwebesa, director general of health services at the ministry of health told reporters that the death case is a 34-year-old Ugandan female, resident of Namisindwa district in the eastern part of the country.

Mwebesa said before the death, the case presented with COVID-19-like signs and symptoms such as fever, dry cough, headache and difficulty in breathing.

The patient, who was admitted at a health facility on July 15, was treated for severe pneumonia.

The case was later transferred to a bigger health facility and isolated.

"While in isolation, the patient's condition deteriorated with difficulty in breathing, cough, chills and headache. Unfortunately, she passed away on Tuesday," Mwebesa said.

Joyce Moriku, minister of state in charge of primary healthcare earlier told Xinhua after the death was confirmed that citizens should follow strict anti-COVID-19 directives.

"People should take preventive measures seriously such as hand washing, social distancing and use of face mask," the minister said.

Uganda currently has 1,079 cases of COVID-19, 971 recoveries and one death case, according to the ministry of health.
The Orange Grove Center currently has several residents and staff members who have tested positive for COVID-19.

Orange Grove media relations person Heidi Hoffecker said every staff member who has tested positive for COVID-19 is direct support personnel.

We have five individuals who are currently positive for COVID-19, and we have eight staff who are currently positive for COVID-19, said Ms. Hoffecker. We have seven individuals we support who were positive but have recovered, and nine staff members or employees who were positive and have recovered. We have had zero deaths related to COVID.



She said Orange Grove completed their first round of mass testing on Tuesday, which includes every person the center supports 24/7, 365 days a year. Orange Grove operates 65 different homes around Hamilton County, where staff provide assistance and care for people with disabilities.



We are asking the state to support us in doing another round of mass testing, said Ms. Hoffecker. She said the staff has been sheltering in place as much as possible.



Ms. Hoffecker said any COVID-19 positive person must quarantine for 14 days after exposure, and then must be symptom-free for three days before they take another test. If they then test negative for the virus, the person is allowed to return to their home or to work.



If I test positive and have quarantined for 14 days, but on day 15 I still dont have a sense of smell, I cannot test on day 16. I have to wait until day 18 to test, said Ms. Hoffecker.



For residents who test positive, she said in many cases, residents and staff alike within a home will test positive. Ms. Hoffecker said there are options when it comes to quarantining residents.



Right now, we have set up a sick bay. So lets say we have one of our homes where four of our individuals live, and they are supported by staff, said Ms. Hoffecker. If we have two individuals who test positive and two who are negative, then we will look at each individual case in order to figure out who is safest to move.



She said in some cases, people who have tested positive will be moved to the sick bay. However, the reverse may also be true, and people who have tested negative may be the ones to move to the sick bay.



Lets say Johnny has much more severe maladaptive behavior issues than David, and Johnny would fare much worse if he was moved to sick bay and completely changing his mode of day to day operations, but David would be able to tolerate it much better, said Ms. Hoffecker. Then we would move David instead of Johnny, even if Johnny is the one who is positive.



Ms. Hoffecker said that if Orange Grove has staff who are positive in a home with residents who are also positive, an asymptomatic staff member has the option of continuing to work.



We dont, in every circumstance, send the positive staff member home to not work for however long it takes them to recover, said Ms. Hoffecker. In the cases we currently have, we have individuals and staff in the same house who are positive, so those positive staff members, as long as they are able to and want to, can continue to work to support the individuals who are also positive.


YEREVAN, JULY 23, ARMENPRESS. The Consulate General of Armenia in Los Angeles strongly condemns the provocations of the Azerbaijanis in front of the Consulate General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles on July 21st, 2020, the Consulate General said in a statement.

Considering the sequence of events, it is evident that the obstruction of the peaceful protest of the Armenian community was planned in advance and had an orchestrated nature.

The Armenian Consulate General in Los Angeles considers the violence against the peaceful demonstrators unacceptable, the statement says.

The July 21 protest at the Azerbaijani Consulate, organized by the Armenian Youth Federation, drew a crowd of more than 3,000, according to Los Angeles Police Department estimates, Asbarez reported.

As Armenians were arriving at the demonstration site ahead of the 2 p.m. scheduled start time, a group Azerbaijanis, numbering less than 50, were waiting. Los Angeles Police officers escorted them across the street to prevent potential clashes.

However, this did not stop the Azerbaijanis from inciting violence and instigating the Armenians, as they began throwing water bottles at the arriving protesters, promoting them to cross the street. A small scuffle ensued and was quickly broken up by police.
A high pressure gas line crosses over a canal in an oil field over the Monterey Shale formation where hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is used to extract gas and oil near McKittrick, Calif., on March 23, 2014. (David McNew/Getty Images)

21 Attorneys General Sue Trump Administration Over Water Rule

The attorneys general of 20 states and the District of Columbia initiated a lawsuit (pdf) on July 21 against the Trump administration, alleging that new federal rules to streamline Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) permitting processes undermine their ability to halt infrastructure projects they believe could harm their waterways.

The consortium says that new rules issued last week by the EPA change procedures that gave state governments the authority to review or block projects the federal government had permitted and that involved water bodies within their borders.

In April 2019, President Donald Trump issued an executive order, officially titled Promoting Energy Infrastructure and Economic Growth, which was designed to streamline the permitting process and reform outdated federal legislation.

EPA is returning the Clean Water Act certification process under Section 401 to its original purpose, which is to review potential impacts that discharges from federally permitted projects may have on water resources, not to indefinitely delay or block critically important infrastructure, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a June statement.

The final rule was following through on President Trumps Executive Order to curb abuses of the Clean Water Act that have held our nations energy infrastructure projects hostage, and to put in place clear guidelines that finally give these projects a path forward, Wheeler said.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said in an August 2019 statement that he supports the rule change.

Its time to reform the Clean Water Act to stop these governors from weaponizing the law against Americas people, economy & environment.  Sen. John Barrasso (@SenJohnBarrasso) December 20, 2019

The Clean Water Act is being hijacked by a number of coastal states to block energy projects, he said. This coastal blockade cannot continue. It threatens Americas energy dominance and unfairly harms energy workers in Wyoming and other states. These coastal states are preventing cleaner American fuels from getting to communities in the North East and around the world. These states cant be allowed to weaponize the Clean Water Act. I applaud the Trump administration for working with me to develop solutions.

States Resistance

The attorney generals, in the lawsuit, said they believe the rule change weakened states abilities to protect their aquatic environments.

Instead of protecting the environment, this administration is yielding to polluting industries and undermining a key tool states use to protect their water, Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a statement. We will continue to advocate for a clean and healthy Washington and confront the powerful special interest groups that dictate this administrations actions.

Our office filed a lawsuit today against the Trump Administration for attempting to dismantle key protections within the Clean Water Act. The new regulation reverses 50 years of long-held & effective state & tribal water quality regulation. Read more here: https://t.co/9RgNrH73bP pic.twitter.com/45UJHWfwKL  Washington State Attorney General (@AGOWA) July 21, 2020

By illegally infringing on states rights to protect their own waters, this rule jeopardizes the health, recreation, and livelihoods that clean water sustains for so many New Yorkers, said New York Attorney General Letitia James. My office will not allow this assault on our rights, health, and environment to go unchallenged.

Aging Legislation

According to the EPA, Section 401 of the Clean Water Act gives authority to states and certain tribes to assess the impact of discharges from federally permitted projects that could affect water quality in rivers, lakes, and streams within each state.

Properly implemented, Section 401 is an important tool that can be used to help protect water quality while allowing federal permitting and licensing processes to proceed in a timely manner, according to the EPA.

However, the EPA stressed that at the time Trumps executive order was issued that the EPAs regulations for the certification of water quality were almost 50 years old, and no longer corresponded to the statutory language of Section 401.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
French authorities have told telecoms operators planning to buy Huawei 5G equipment that they won't be able to renew licences for the gear once they expire, effectively phasing the Chinese firm out of mobile networks, three sources close to the matter said. Like other countries in Europe, France is laying the ground for its next-generation 5G mobile market in the middle of a growing geopolitical storm between two global superpowers. The United States say the company's equipment could be used by the Chinese government for espionage - a charge denied by Huawei and Beijing - ...
India on Thursday said it expected China to "sincerely work" with it for complete disengagement and de-escalation and full restoration of peace and tranquility in their border areas, as a fresh round of bilateral diplomatic talks is likely to be held on Friday to push forward the disengagement process in eastern Ladakh.

At an online media briefing, ministry of external affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava also asserted that the maintenance of peace and tranquility along the Line of Control is the basis of India's bilateral ties with China.

He said another round of diplomatic talks under the framework of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination is expected to be scheduled soon.

People familiar with the developments said the diplomatic talks are likely to take place as early as Friday and its main focus would be to expedite the disengagement of troops from Pangong Tso and some other friction points in eastern Ladakh.

They said the disengagement process has not moved forward as expected following the last round of Corps Commander-level talks on July 14 which lasted for around 15 hours.

During a visit to eastern Ladakh last week, defence minister Rajnath Singh said progress has been made in the ongoing talks with China to find a solution to the border standoff but he cannot guarantee to what extent it would be resolved.

"As we have stated earlier, the maintenance of peace and tranquility in the border areas is the basis of our bilateral relationship," Srivastava said at the briefing.

"Therefore, it is our expectation that the Chinese side will sincerely work with us for complete disengagement and de-escalation and full restoration of peace and tranquility in the border areas at the earliest as agreed to by the Special Representatives," he added.

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a nearly two-hour-long telephonic conversation on July 5 to bring down tension between the armies of the two countries in eastern Ladakh.

Both sides commenced the disengagement process from July 6 following talks between Doval and Wang who are Special Representatives for the boundary question.

"We have also made it clear that India is fully committed to observing and respecting the LAC and that we will not accept any unilateral attempts to change the status quo along the LAC," said Srivastava.

He said the two sides have agreed during the conversation of the Special Representatives to work towards complete disengagement of the troops along the LAC and de-escalation from India-China border areas for full restoration of peace and tranquillity.

The MEA spokesperson said "respecting and strictly abiding" by the LAC is the basis of peace and tranquility in the border areas and that several agreements concluded by India and China since 1993 firmly acknowledge it.

He also recalled his statement of June 26 that the conduct of Chinese forces this year, including the deployment of a large body of troops and changes in behaviour, accompanied by "unjustified and untenable" claims, has been in complete disregard of all the mutual agreements.

"We have also made it clear that India is fully committed to observing and respecting the LAC and that we will not accept any unilateral attempts to change the status quo along the LAC," he said.

Srivastava said both sides are engaged in discussions through the established diplomatic and military channels to achieve the objective of full restoration of peace and tranquility expeditiously.

After the fourth round of Corps Commander-level talks, the Indian army said both sides are committed to "complete disengagement" of troops, adding the process is "intricate" and it requires "constant verification".

The people familiar with the ongoing developments said a fifth round of Corps Commander-level talks could take place depending on the outcome of the likely negotiations under the WMCC.
LOVE AND THEFT

By Stan Parish

The thriller genre is premised less on subject matter than on the direct promise of a sensational response. Unlike, say, crime or western or romance, with a thriller theres no hint at what will happen, or where it will happen, or whom it will happen to. Theres only the pledge that, once it happens, you will be  or should be  thrilled.

Love and Theft, the second novel by Stan Parish, is a thriller. It wastes no time making its intentions known. The story opens on a kaleidoscopic set piece worthy of a James Bond movie as directed by Robert Altman: Four sleek and helmeted motorcyclists attempt a brazen jewel heist (really, is there any other kind of fictional jewel heist?) at a high-end boutique off the Vegas strip. We track the action through the eyes of nearly a dozen disparate characters: a beat cop, a 911 operator, a manicurist tripping on Ecstasy, a pair of sad-sack gamblers, a valet and a gawping fifth grader, among others. This opening gambit is exciting, if slightly worrisome. Whom are we meant to invest in here? Will there be characters for us to care about? Dont worry. Theyre on their way.

The first is Rider 1, the leader of the heist gang. His name is Alex Cassidy and we meet him in a very different circumstance, as the novel cuts quickly to a ketamine party at the home of a groovy doctor in Princeton, N.J. Alex is tall, handsome, a little beat-up, an incidental expert at hand-to-hand combat; he claims, among polite company, to work in event production. The other attendee of note is Diane, clad in a Joy Division T-shirt, her face bare and beautiful. Naturally, shes skeptical of Alex but also intrigued. Weve seen the theft  this is the love.
Obey dress code: Karnataka Minister tells protesting students 20 Jan 2022 | 12:47 AM Bengaluru, Jan 19 (UNI) Karnataka Education Minister BC Nagesh on Wednesday asked six protesting students to obey the dress code as it has been in vogue for the last 36 years. see more..

CM Bommai recovers from Covid, back at work 20 Jan 2022 | 12:34 AM Bengaluru, Jan 19 (UNI) Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has recovered from Covid and was back working from Wednesday. see more..

Telangana registers 3,557 fresh Covid cases, 3 fatalities 19 Jan 2022 | 11:37 PM Hyderabad, Jan 19 (UNI) Telangana registered 3,557 fresh Coronavirus cases until 1730 hours on Wednesday taking the total tally of cases in the state to 7,18,196 so far. see more..

Akshaya Patra Foundation to vaccinate 25,000 in Jigani 19 Jan 2022 | 10:32 PM Bengaluru, Jan 19 (UNI) The Akshaya Patra Foundation, which launched a 20-day incentivised vaccination camp on January 10 at its kitchen premises in Jigani, has given the second jab for 5000 people and aims to vaccinate 25,000 people in this semi-urban and industrial area. see more..
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Oil prices rose in cautious trade on Thursday as Covid-19 vaccine hopes, improving economic data and hopes for another round of government stimulus for the virus-stricken U.S. economy helped investors shrug off a surprise increase in U.S. crude oil reserves. Benchmark Brent crude rose 39 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $44.68 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 35 cents, or 0.8 percent, at $42.25 a barrel. More than 200 candidate vaccines are currently being developed, with 23 having progressed to clinical trials with human volunteers. In economic releases, a survey showed German consumer morale improved more than expected heading into August. Market research group GfK said its forward-looking consumer sentiment index rose to -0.3 points from revised -9.4 in July. The expected reading was -5.0. Gfk said German consumers are gradually putting the coronavirus shock of earlier this year behind them. A V-shaped trend is currently emerging for the consumer climate. In France, business confidence gained further ground in July. The INSEE official statistics agency said its business climate index rose to 85, from 78 in June. On the stimulus front, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to put forward the Republican version of another comprehensive stimulus relief package-including a second stimulus check-later today. Meanwhile, data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday showed that crude inventories in the U.S. increased by 4.9 million barrels last week, nearly 2.5 times the expected increase. The EIA data also showed that oil stored at the Cushing, Oklahoma, facility rose 1.37 million barrels last week. That was nearly two times the expected surge. A report from the American Petroleum Institute, released late Tuesday showed oil inventories were up more than 7.5 million barrels last week, after seeing an 8.3 million barrels drop a week earlier. 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.
Mike Goman grew up in Stoney Creek but every year when summer arrived, his heart belonged to Tobermory.

Gomans job has taken him across North America since he left Hamilton in 1980, but his love for the tiny town at the tip of Bruce Peninsula has never wavered.

Now hes planning to bring a piece of Tobermorys marine history back to life.

Goman has an agreement to purchase the MS Norgoma, a 190-foot long ship that was once the ferry between Tobermory and Manitoulin Island, and he hopes to permanently moor the vessel in the towns Little Tub Harbour.

Its a way to strengthen the long attachment his family has had to Tobermory dating back more than 70 years, an attachment that continues to this day.

His grandfather built a sawmill in the Tobermory area in the 1940s and his father, a Hamilton engineer, helped him build several cottages they would rent out.

After Goman graduated from Mohawk College in the 70s, he worked at Firestone in Hamilton then took a job with the former Bramalea Ltd. property development company.

From there, he was off to Prince Albert, Calgary, B.C., Houston, Dallas and then East Hartford, Conn. for the past 24 years where he now has his own real estate advisory business.

Back in 1980, Goman started a little store in Tobermory called The Sweet Shop, which he still owns with a business partner.

Its grown from about 700 square feet to 4,000 square feet and 17 years ago, Goman leased the former post office next door and opened a coffee shop.

Its a crazy economy up there because you do all your business in about nine weeks, said Goman, whose mother and sister live in Burlington.

Built in 1950, the Norgoma carried passengers and cargo between Owen Sound and Sault Ste. Marie for 13 years.

It then served for a number of years as a ferry between Tobermory and Manitoulin Island until the City of Sault Ste. Marie purchased the ship for a dollar from the provincial government in 1975.

A non-profit group took ownership of the Norgoma and operated it as a floating marine museum but the city took the ship back last year and it is now sitting idle at an Algoma Steel dock while the Sault city council decides what to do with the vessel.

Twice last year, the Sault put out requests seeking a buyer with no luck.

Meanwhile, Goman was trying to figure out how to expand his coffee shop. Space is tight on the waterfront around Little Tub Harbour in Tobermory and the handful of businesses located there are rarely available.

In terms of trying to find a place to expand the coffee shop, we just kept coming up empty, Goman said.

Goman wondered what had ever happened to the old Norgoma ferry and he discovered it was up for grabs in Sault Ste. Marie.

I thought, you know as crazy as it sounds, I could put a coffee shop on that, Goman said. It would be very cool.

The upper viewing deck has space for several dozen people, there are dining areas on two lower levels and there would still be room for a marine museum.

So he reached out to officials in the Sault to see if the Norgoma was still available.

The response was kind of comical, Goman said. It was like When can you come and get it?

Sault city council has approved an agreement in principle for Goman to purchase the Norgoma for $2,500.

But thats a drop in the bucket of the total amount of money needed to make the dream come true.

Goman said hes prepared to spend $20,000 to $30,000 for an engineering study of the ships current condition. Towing the Norgoma to Tobermory would cost more than $100,000.

Including the refurbishment of the ship, Goman said the entire venture could cost $500,000.

Its not much different than a lot of the work I typically do on buildings, Goman said. It just happens to be floating.

Now he needs to work out an agreement with the Municipality of Northern Bruce Peninsula, which includes Tobermory, that would allow the Norgoma to be docked permanently in Little Tub Harbour.

The municipality charges for dock space and the Norgoma would have to be able to cover the costs for the number of slips it would occupy.

Goman said he plans to make a formal proposal to the municipality before Labour Day.

Im not interested in moving a ship several hundred miles if I dont have a place to put it, Goman said.

Weve got to be able to show we can put this in the harbour without disrupting the historic way the harbour has always run and we have to make sure its not going to be a financial liability to anybody.

He said hed be happy to turn over ownership of the vessel to a non-profit organization and lease back the space he needs to make the operation viable.

Goman said its too early to tell how his plan will be received but hes optimistic.

Im in the real estate business, Goman said. Youve got to be an optimist to stay alive.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Kuwaits 91-year-old ruling emir landed on Thursday in the United States after being flown across the world in a U.S. Air Force C-17 flying hospital, and just days after undergoing an unspecified surgery at home. The dramatic airlift reflected the close ties between the two nations but also raised concerns over the rulers medical condition.

Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah survived the 16-hour trip under the watch of U.S. medical professionals and Kuwaitis, with Kuwaits state-run news agency KUNA saying Kuwaits ambassador to the U.S. was at the airport for the planes arrival.

Kuwait has not released any information on what medical ailment Sheikh Sabah faces, other than to say he was hospitalized on Saturday and underwent a surgery on Sunday.

His condition has renewed concerns over a possible power struggle within the ruling family of Kuwait, a small Mideast nation home to some of the worlds largest oil reserves. Quranic prayer recitations filled state television and social media, all hoping for his recovery.

KUNA did not say where Sheikh Sabah went in the U.S., though flight-tracking data showed the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III that took off from Kuwait International Airport landed in Rochester, Minnesota, after a brief stopover at Germanys Ramstein Air Base.

Rochester is home to the flagship campus of the Mayo Clinic, one of Americas best hospitals, and has treated Sheikh Sabah in the past. The Mayo Clinic declined to comment.

The U.S. military uses some C-17s as airborne hospitals for medical evacuations, able to triage critically wounded soldiers while rapidly flying them onto major bases. The aircraft include onboard oxygen and the same lifesaving equipment as found in hospital emergency rooms. The flights often include critical care air transport teams, comprised of a specialized doctor, a nurse and a respiratory therapist.

Asked about the C-17 flight, U.S. Air Force Central Command based in Qatar referred questions to the U.S. militarys Transportation Command, which declined to comment. A U.S. State Department official said America provided assistance to help with the emirs treatment, without elaborating. The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as the information had not been made public.

A short time after the C-17 landed at Rochester, KUNA announced Sheikh Sabahs arrival to the U.S.

A Kuwaiti government Airbus A340 that left Kuwait City also landed earlier Thursday in Rochester. That same Airbus had flown to Rochester and New York City before returning to Kuwait just days before Sheikh Sabahs surgery.

KUNA news agency also earlier quoted a statement from the countrys royal court saying Sheikh Sabah left for America based on advice from the medical team treating His Highness to complete his treatment after a successful surgical procedure.

We ask the Almighty to aid his recovery and sustain His Highness, who is healthy and well taken care of, and to protect him from all harm, the statement said.

Kuwait earlier said that 83-year-old Crown Prince Nawaf Al Ahmad Al Sabah had assumed some of Sheikh Sabahs powers temporarily, without explaining why that was necessary.

A copy of the ministerial decree posted by Kuwaits official gazette, Kuwait Al-Youm, and seen by the AP on Sunday, said the crown prince would be empowered for the duration of a surgical procedure until the health event is over.

The decree did not elaborate. Kuwaits Information Ministry has not responded to requests for comment.

Sheikh Sabah, a widely beloved ruler in this OPEC-member nation, took power in 2006 just nine days into the rule of the ailing Sheikh Saad Al Abdullah Al Sabah. Concerns mounted during Sheikh Saads brief reign as he was seen in public only in a wheelchair and did not speak.

However, Sheikh Sabahs ascension upset an informal power-sharing arrangement between branches of Kuwaits ruling family. While Kuwait has since remained politically stable with the most empowered parliament of any Gulf Arab nation, there have been internal power struggles behind the scenes of his rule.

Kuwait, a nation home to 4.1 million people thats slightly smaller than the U.S. state of New Jersey, has the worlds sixth-largest known oil reserves.

It has been a staunch U.S. ally since the 1991 Gulf War expelled the occupying Iraqi forces of Saddam Hussein. Today, Kuwait hosts some 13,500 American troops, many at Camp Arifjan south of Kuwait City, which is also home to the forward command of U.S. Army Central. Americans remain beloved by Kuwaitis, a rarity in a Mideast still dealing with the fallout of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Sheikh Sabah, a longtime foreign minister for Kuwait, has drawn praise during his rule for hosting donation drives for both war-torn Iraq and Syria. He also has been the lead negotiator in trying to resolve a yearslong boycott of Qatar by four Arab nations over a political dispute.

He previously cancelled a White House visit last November while in the U.S. and visited a hospital there for medical checks.

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Associated Press writer Jeff Baenen in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

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Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
C hina has accused the United States of "malicious slander" after its consulate was ordered to close in Houston.

The US said on Wednesday it had given China 72 hours to shut down the consulate "to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information", prompting China to threaten retaliation.

Police were told that occupants were given until 4pm on Friday to leave the property, according to local reports.

The move comes at a time of rising tensions between the worlds two largest economies.

It all began last week when Houston authorities responded to reports of a fire at the Chinese consulate / AP

Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Thursday that claims China is stealing intellectual property is "malicious slander".

At a daily news conference in Beijing, Mr Wang was asked about reports that a Chinese researcher accused of visa fraud and concealing ties to the military was now holed up in the country's San Francisco consulate.

Mr Wang replied saying that China urged the United States to stop using any excuse to limit, harass or crack down on Chinese scholars in the country.

Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin / AP

His comments come a day after he slammed the decision to shut China's consulate as "an outrageous and unjustified move that will sabotage relations between the two countries".

On Wednesday, Mr Wang accused the US of opening Chinese diplomatic pouches without permission multiple times, confiscating Chinese items for official use and imposing restrictions on Chinese diplomats in the US last October and again in June.

He also warned of firm countermeasures if the US does not reverse its decision, which he said the consulate was informed of on Tuesday.

Fire engines outside the consulate / AP

The unilateral closure of Chinas consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China, he said.

He also said that US diplomats in China engage in infiltration activities.

"If we compare the two, it is only too evident which is engaged in interference, infiltration and confrontation," Mr Wang said.

He also said the Chinese embassy in Washington has received bomb and death threats, and blamed the US government for fanning hatred against China.

Besides its embassy in Beijing, the US has five consulates in mainland China in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and Shenyang, according to its website.

Speculation soon began to circle that the US Consulate in Wuhan might be ordered to close.

But the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post, quoting an unnamed source, said the US Consulate in Chengdu, in western China's Sichuan Province, would be the one targeted for closure.

It all began last week when Houston authorities responded to reports of a fire at the Chinese consulate.

Witnesses said people were burning paper in what appeared to be rubbish bins, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Police were told that occupants were given until 4pm on Friday to leave the property, the newspaper said.

The Houston Police Department tweeted: "About 8.25pm on Tuesday, our officers responded to a meet the firefighter call to the China Consulate General in Houston building at 3417 Montrose Blvd.

"Smoke was observed in an outside courtyard area. Officers were not granted access to enter the building."
China has become the savior of the global steel market, with its big appetite and high domestic prices supporting the international ferrous supply chain amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

While demand for steel in most economies has plummeted in the face of the health crisis, that in China has been strengthening since at least the second quarter of 2020 amid the countrys steady recovery after battling the initial outbreak of the coronavirus.



Domestic prices for Chinese steel products have been trending upward in recent months. Some of them have even risen to their highest so far this year, which opens the window for arbitrage opportunities. This has kept interest for imports high.



Compounding this is a plan by local authorities in Hebei province, the country largest steelmaking region, to reduce capacity to no more than 200 million tonnes per year by the end of 2020 and consolidate the local steel industry further through mergers and consolidated business structures in Tangshan and Handan, which will result in more electric-arc furnaces (EAFs) and bigger blast furnaces being set up.



Hot-rolled coil

China has imported large quantities of hot-rolled coil from India, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Russia this year, with traders taking advantage of the arbitrage.



Meanwhile, prices for Chinese HRC have continued to rise.



Export prices for the flat steel product has risen rapidly to $475.32 per tonne fob China on July 22 from a year-to-date low of $401.38 per tonne fob China on April 17.



Domestic HRC prices in eastern China have also increased to 3,950-3,970 yuan ($565-568) per tonne on July 22 from 3,150-3,190 yuan per tonne on April 2, when prices fell to their lowest so far this year.



While cargoes from India had made up a sizable proportion of Chinas imports earlier this year, escalated tensions between the two countries as a result of a border spat have led to Chinese buyers turning their attention toward Vietnam in recent weeks.



Sources said China has imported at least 100,000 tonnes of HRC from Vietnams Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corp in June and July, although this could not be confirmed with the latter.



Flat steel prices are expected to continue to rise in the near term. Market sources are expecting Formosa Ha Tinhs offers in August - for materials to be shipped and delivered in October - to increase further from those made in July.



Billet

Chinas insatiable demand for semi-finished steel in the face of reduced blast furnace operating rates and government-imposed emission controls has also supported prices for billet.



A shortfall in Chinese billet output benefited suppliers in Oman, Vietnam and Turkey in the past few months.



Chinese buyers were willing to pay increasingly higher prices for imports of the semi-finished product against the backdrop of a strengthening domestic market. Domestic billet prices in China rose to an intra-year high of 3,420 yuan per tonne on July 22 from an intra-year low of 3,000 yuan per tonne in February and April.



In the past few weeks, import transactions have included at least 150,000 tonnes from Vietnam, 30,000 tonnes from Oman and various other quantities from Indonesia. The latest transaction was heard to have been concluded this week at $430 per tonne cfr China, up by $7-17 per tonne from $413-423 per tonne cfr China previously.



The cancellation of contracts to supply domestic buyers with some 200,000 tonnes of billet by Chinese traders has also resulted in stronger demand for imports.



Ferrous scrap

Chinas appetite for billet imports have in turn supported global ferrous scrap prices, with major scrap buyers Turkey and Vietnam purchasing large quantities of the steelmaking raw material to churn out the semi-finished product to ship to the worlds second-largest economy.



Buyers in Vietnam are paying increasingly higher prices for Japanese H2 scrap. Offers for Japanese H2 were made at $260-270 per tonne cfr southern Vietnam this week, up by $10-15 per tonne from $250-255 per tonne cfr southern Vietnam in the previous week.



Scrap importers in Taiwan have also had to pay higher prices for the steelmaking raw material. Fastmarkets daily price assessment for steel scrap HMS 1&2 (80:20) US material import, cfr main port Taiwan was $240-242 per tonne on July 22, up by $5-7 per tonne from $235 per tonne on July 14.



Scrapyards in Japan and the United States are riding the bullish wave. They have raised their export prices significantly in the past weeks.



Prices for Japanese scrap, in particular, have benefited from strong demand in Asia.



Fastmarkets weekly price assessment for steel scrap H2 export, fob main port Japan was 24,500-25,000 ($229-234) per tonne fob on July 22, up by 5,500 per tonne from a low of 19,000-19,500 per tonne fob on April 8.



Pig iron

China has been an active importer of pig iron this year, continually purchasing large quantities from Brazil and Russia. At least three cargoes have been booked so far this month.



Chinese demand for metallics has also supported prices of complementary products such as ferrous scrap and iron ore, with steelmakers around the world looking to purchase these materials to feed their furnaces.



The worst floods in China in 20 years have also not dampened demand for steel and steelmaking raw materials. Market sources are expecting post-flood reconstruction efforts to bolster steel demand further.



Iron ore

Major iron ore miners are banking on Chinese demand to increase their shipment volumes, especially amid a drop in Brazilian supply due to operational disruptions related to Covid-19 in South America.



BHPs iron ore output rose by 4% year on year to 242-253 million tonnes in its financial year ended June 30. Its April-June shipments increased by 11% quarter on quarter, according to its latest production report.



Rio Tinto said output from its Pilbara operations increased by 4% year on year and 7% quarter on quarter, with port operations achieving a record week of shipping in early June, it said in its second-quarter production report. It attributed this mainly to steady Chinese demand for iron ore.



Brazils Vale said earlier this week that it was expecting to realize the lower end of its 310-330 million tonnes production guidance.



Meanwhile, Anglo American has lowered its 2020 production guidance for its Kumba iron ore operations in South Africa to 37-39 million tonnes from 41.5-42.5 million tonnes previously. It maintained that for its Minas Rio operations in South America at 22-24 million tonnes, though it warned that its outlook was subject to developments surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Chinese Ambassador to Ireland He Xiandong has said that reports about the restriction of civil liberties in Hong Kong and concentration camps for Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang region are exaggerated and fabricated.

Stories about Hong Kong have been exaggerated, he told RTE radios Today with Sarah McInerney show. There are limits to freedom, he said and any expressions of freedom of speech and assembly have to be subject to law and order and should be peaceful.

A lot of the concerns expressed in the US and UK have been exaggerated.

When asked about calls in Ireland to have the extradition agreement with Hong Kong withdrawn, the Ambassador said that the agreement was there is to provide mutual assistance.

I don't think many Irish people would like to see those rioters, who are terrorists, come to Ireland to take it as a safe haven for them.

Mr Xiandong also described videos showing members of the Muslim population in the province of Xinjiang, Uighurs in concentration camps as fabricated and edited for political purposes.

Read More Over 150 patients waiting on trolleys in Irish hospitals

A lot of those video clips are fabricated, edited for political purposes, too absurd, it is very unfortunate that people are basing their perceptions or judgments on those reports.

The Ambassador said it was China's position that these camps don't exist, that they were not concentration camps.

On reports of the forced sterilisation of Uighur women, Mr Xiandong said this was just a fabricated, sensational story".

"If there's any single case it would not be allowed if there is concrete proof we will have an investigation," he said.

Stories about ethnic cleansing were totally fabricated because in the past 40 years the Uighur population was double that of the rest of China, he said.

Fianna Fail senator Malcolm Byrne said the Chinese governments allegation of fabrication was worrying and he was concerned that anyone extradited from Ireland to Hong Kong would face a farce of a trail and could be spirited away to mainland China.

Ireland shouldnt allow extradition to Hong Kong. Former Attorney General Independent Senator Michael McDowell said the Ambassadors remarks were deeply misleading and troubling and that it was blatantly untrue that the stories on concentration camps had been inaccurate.

The fact that the Ambassador referred to the higher birth rate among Uighur Muslims was a matter of concern, he added.

Senator McDowell said that under Article 5 of the extradition agreement between Ireland and Hong Kong it was prohibited to extradite anyone for a political offence or on the basis of their political outlook.

Our laws and courts provide that people on trumped charges cannot be extradited.

Senator Byrne added that he was concerned that China might try to use economic might to apply pressure.

It was important to stand up to the Chinese authorities as the way they treat people Is not acceptable.
The civil rights movement must embrace the international justice cause and back the ICC investigation of US war crimes.

In the wake of George Floyds violent death at the hands of police officers, demonstrations erupted across the United States demanding justice and an end to the impunity of police violence. The protest movement received support from around the world and as far as Kabul, where Afghan artists painted murals memorialising Floyd.

In mid-June, US President Donald Trump attempted to appease American protesters by signing an executive order which encouraged limiting the use of chokeholds and sought to create a national database for police misconduct. The executive order was described as a band-aid for a bullet wound and caused much public anger across the country.

But a few days earlier, another brazen attack on justice by the Trump administration garnered little attention from the American public. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced sanctions against International Criminal Court (ICC) employees for investigating US war crimes in Afghanistan. The move was meant to shield war criminals and steals justice from Afghan civilians. It is important for the American society, especially civil rights marchers, to pay attention.

Impunity for the US military abroad is closely linked to impunity for police forces at home. Americans will not win the battle against police brutality unless they also take on the issue of US war crimes abroad. Expressing support for the ICC at this point is crucial.

Impunity for the US military

The ICC holds a mandate to examine cases which national authorities are unable or unwilling to investigate, such as large-scale war crimes, including genocide. While the US has not joined the ICC, 123 countries have, including most US allies and nearly every OECD member.

Since the War on Terror began in 2001, reports of numerous war crimes, including soldiers hunting civilians for sport and CIA operatives systematically abusing prisoners, have surfaced in Afghanistan and Iraq. While there have been some cases of prosecution  for example, for torture in Iraqs Abu Ghraib prison, which yielded convictions of US military personnel  there have been insufficient efforts to properly investigate all reported crimes. Many accused have been acquitted, never charged, or have received minor punishment.

If the US had fairly prosecuted crimes its citizens allegedly committed in Afghanistan, the ICC would not have had to step in to try those individuals.

While previous administrations chose to ignore the problem, Donald Trumps administration has decided to directly attack the ICCs probe into US war crimes.

All this does not come as a surprise given that the US has embraced war criminals, pardoning three US service members accused or implicated in war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, while loosening the rules of engagement in Afghanistan. He has also ordered an unprecedented surge of air strikes, and reportedly given unlimited authority, no-holds barred to the secretary of defence, Jim Mattis, in Afghanistan.

This policy is likely the reason why, in the first half of 2019, civilian deaths from Afghan government and US operations exceeded the number caused by the Taliban for the first time. According to Human Rights Watch, between January 1 and September 30, 2019, some 8,000 civilians were killed in Afghanistan.

The ICC has collected at least 1.17 million statements from Afghans claiming to be victims of war crimes during its investigation of crimes committed by the Taliban, Afghan government forces and US military personnel since May 2003.

Given the devastation that the war has inflicted on Afghanistan and the heavy civilian death toll  more than 100,000 were killed between 2010 and 2019 alone  it is imperative for all war criminals including Americans to be tried. This would not only provide the families of victims with justice but also assist the peace-building process in Afghanistan as well.

The argument the Trump administration is making against the ICC is void. As the UN special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, has pointed out, The whole argument of the court being illegal, illegitimate and corrupt obviously is not a new argument  The same argument has been made by the Nazis in Nuremberg  and by Slobodan Milosevic in the Yugoslavia tribunal. It has been made by Saddam Hussein in the tribunal for Iraq.

The civil rights struggle at home and abroad

Violent crimes perpetrated abroad by the US military are deeply linked to violence unleashed at home. Leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and thereafter recognised this very point. Dr Martin Luther King Jr, for example, remarked that, I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.

Other prominent leaders of the movement, including Stokely Carmichael and Fannie Lou Hamer, also spoke out against war and US impunity overseas. Angela Davis identified the global ramifications of domestic oppression in 1969, asserting that, We have been forced to see that the enemy is American imperialism and although we feel it here at home its being felt perhaps much more brutality in Vietnam, its being felt in Latin America, its being felt in Africa.

Today, American imperialism is no less brutal and expansive. Since 2001, the so-called War on Terror has stretched far beyond Afghanistan, into the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa. Violence and surveillance used abroad have been deployed at home, just as military equipment produced for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has been handed over to the US police force.

Some prominent US civil rights leaders have made this critical connection between imperial violence abroad and at home. Scholar Cornel West has said that In the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr, we have to be morally consistent in our critique of US racism, militarism, poverty, as well as materialism.

The Movement for Black Lives has emphasised that our liberation is intrinsically tied to the liberation of Black and Brown people around the world, while the Poor Peoples Campaign has called for an end to military aggression and war-mongering.

Yet, we must go beyond declarations of principle. Civil rights marchers in the US need to express support for the ICC and push for cancelling the sanctions against its employees. Divesting from and disbanding police forces must go hand in hand with downsizing US military expenditure and reallocating resources to global peacebuilding, transforming US foreign policy into a tool to advance social and gender justice, and long underutilised and critical institutions like the State Department and USAID.

The US must seek to strengthen the UN and the global governance model it stands for, and join the ICC.

The intercommunity solidarity we seek to establish today in the face of state violence should be reflected in US foreign policy. Ending impunity for police brutality at home and war crimes abroad must be closely intertwined processes. For, as King said more than five decades ago, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
Young Canadians flocking to bars or packed indoor parties may be contributing to a fresh spike in the number of coronavirus cases in the country. The number of fresh cases reported in a day, which had gone down earlier, has now increased by over 50 per cent, crossing 450.

Canadas Deputy Chief Public Health Officer Dr Howard Njoo said there may be a fatigue factor in play as younger adults are seeking to enjoy themselves after over three months of facing restrictive measures. Most provinces in the country have brought about relaxations and opened bars, restaurants and pubs.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

Njoo pointed out that younger adults, those under 39, now comprised 55 per cent of new cases as against approximately a third in May.

As social gatherings increase, authorities are also seeing the number of contacts per person increase tenfold from threefold or fourfold earlier.

Among the most impacted provinces in Canada is Ontario. On Tuesday it witnessed 203 new positive cases, the highest since late June. Ontario health authorities said 57 per cent of those cases involved those aged below 39.

According to Public Health Agency of Canada, those in the 20-29 demographic formed the largest chunk of new cases in the second week of July.

This trend has caused concern among health authorities in the country, even as the overall numbers havent spiraled out of control with the country recording nearly 112,000 cases with 8,862 deaths.

Canadas Chief Public Health Officer Dr Theresa Tam echoed the worry that younger Canadians may cause a resurgence in Covid-19 infections. Though our social, economic and recreational spaces are cautiously re-opening, we cant afford to throw caution to the wind. Living with Covid-19 means we cannot eliminate all cases and clusters in Canada, so preventing epidemic acceleration depends on our actions, individually and collectively, she said in a statement.

Pointing out that this summer is not like any other, she advised Canadians to stay in their social bubble, avoid closed and crowded spaces and maintain measures like social distancing and wearing masks, even as the last two have been among those often sacrificed in places like bars.

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Photo: (Photo : GoFundMe)

After showing coronavirus symptoms, Daniel Park has been in the intensive care unit in Texas since early July.





Only the father had severe symptoms

Daniel's daughter, Priscilla Park, explained her father's critical condition on a GoFundMe page. She said that only her dad experienced significant symptoms even though the whole family showed signs of COVID-19.

Priscilla wrote that her dad's lungs had completely collapsed, and the virus had spread quickly. They immediately placed Daniel on a ventilator, and he is still on it up until now. She said that her dad had not received proper medications due to the rapid increase in COVID cases. Her dad's lungs show little to no recovery.

See also: 2 Siblings die of coronavirus 11 days apart, devastated mom advises people to stay at home

The daughter also wrote that her father experienced a range of complications after being admitted. Daniel had kidney failure and fluctuating sugar levels and blood pressure. He also had blood clots in his lungs. Doctors said that the dad would need critical care for the "foreseeable future."

Priscilla shared that apart from being a loving father and husband, Daniel is a hard worker and a good friend to many. She also said that her dad is a firm believer in God, and he puts his trust in the Lord. She explained that her dad kept a smile on his face even as he left for the hospital.

See also: For a month, doctor cared for a baby whose parents are COVID-19 positive

On Tuesday, the daughter wrote an update about her dad's condition. She said that his kidney's function is getting better. To help with blood circulation and lung activity, the hospital moved her dad to a new mechanical bed.





Treatment with Remdesivir

Doctors gave Daniel Remdesivir, a broad-spectrum antiviral drug used for the treatment of Ebola. The drug has shown promise in coronavirus patients recently. Even though Daniel is extremely in a critical state and is at risk of other health concerns, he is fighting. Priscilla said that they are glad even with his little improvements, and they are asking people to keep praying and to think of her father always.

The GoFundMe page has raised almost $73,000 as of Wednesday. Pauline Park, Priscilla's mom, will use the donations to pay for the "immense medical bills" that Daniel would be incurring. The Park family is very thankful for all the people who are praying and supporting them. They are hoping that everyone would fight and get through this pandemic.

See also: Teen died after nurse mom treated her with hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19

The family did not comment on whether Daniel had any pre-existing conditions before getting infected by the virus.

Coronavirus update

According to the New York Times database, over 142,000 people in the US died due to the virus.

Older adults aging 65 and up are at greater risk of getting a severe illness from COVID. The CDC also noted that people with medical conditions such as heart, liver, and chronic kidney diseases are at higher risk. It also noted that people with obesity and diabetes could also be severely ill from the virus.
Cash and cash equivalents of 5.1 million as of June 30, 2020

Ongoing discussions with US FDA and European EMA on the registration strategy for setanaxib in PBC

Phase 1 study with high-dose setanaxib launched in June

Launch of the Phase 2 IPF trial still expected in 2020 despite the COVID-19 situation

Regulatory News:

Genkyotex (Paris:GKTX) (Brussels:GKTX) (Euronext Paris Brussels: FR0013399474 GKTX), a biopharmaceutical company and the leader in NOX therapies, today reported cash and cash equivalents of 5.1 million as of June 30, 2020. This amount includes the French research tax credit of 0.9 million which was received by the Company in April 2020. The existing cash and cash equivalents provide cash runway to the end of February 2021.

Clinical highlights

End-of-phase-2 discussions with regulators for setanaxib in PBC : Genkyotex is currently discussing the registration strategy for setanaxib in PBC with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The End Of Phase 2 (EOP2) meeting with the FDA was not delayed by the COVID-19 situation and took place at the end of April 2020, as planned. Genkyotex requested and obtained, at the end of June 2020, scientific advice from the EMA's Scientific Advice Working Party (SAWP) that provides a path for the late stage development and registration of setanaxib in PBC. Initial feedback was also received from the FDA following the End Of Phase 2 meeting held in April. Genkyotex will communicate on its late stage development plan once final approval of a common registration strategy has been obtained from the FDA and the EMA.

: Genkyotex is currently discussing the registration strategy for setanaxib in PBC with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The End Of Phase 2 (EOP2) meeting with the FDA was not delayed by the COVID-19 situation and took place at the end of April 2020, as planned. Genkyotex requested and obtained, at the end of June 2020, scientific advice from the EMA's Scientific Advice Working Party (SAWP) that provides a path for the late stage development and registration of setanaxib in PBC. Initial feedback was also received from the FDA following the End Of Phase 2 meeting held in April. Genkyotex will communicate on its late stage development plan once final approval of a common registration strategy has been obtained from the FDA and the EMA. IPF phase 2 trial: the launch of the study, already approved by the FDA and the relevant Institutional Review Board (IRB), is still expected in 2020 despite the COVID-19 situation. This investigator-initiated trial is fully funded by an $8.9 million grant awarded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study is being led by Professor Victor Thannickal at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and includes a consortium of five investigational centers of excellence in the United States. The study will evaluate the safety and efficacy of setanaxib in 60 IPF patients receiving standard of care therapy (pirfenidone or nintedanib) during a 24-week treatment. Efficacy endpoints include changes in plasma o,o'-dityrosine, a biomarker based on the mechanism of action of setanaxib, as well as standard clinical outcomes that include the 6-minute walk test and forced vital capacity (FVC). Plasma levels of collagen fragments and the safety and tolerability of setanaxib will also be evaluated. The trial size, design, and endpoints are adequate to support the initiation of a Phase 3 program should there be a positive outcome.

the launch of the study, already approved by the FDA and the relevant Institutional Review Board (IRB), is still expected in 2020 despite the COVID-19 situation. This investigator-initiated trial is fully funded by an $8.9 million grant awarded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study is being led by Professor Victor Thannickal at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and includes a consortium of five investigational centers of excellence in the United States. The study will evaluate the safety and efficacy of setanaxib in 60 IPF patients receiving standard of care therapy (pirfenidone or nintedanib) during a 24-week treatment. Efficacy endpoints include changes in plasma o,o'-dityrosine, a biomarker based on the mechanism of action of setanaxib, as well as standard clinical outcomes that include the 6-minute walk test and forced vital capacity (FVC). Plasma levels of collagen fragments and the safety and tolerability of setanaxib will also be evaluated. The trial size, design, and endpoints are adequate to support the initiation of a Phase 3 program should there be a positive outcome. DKD phase 2 trial: following the positive efficacy and safety results of the Company's Phase 2 trial of setanaxib in primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), the DKD trial protocol was amended to increase the dose to 400 mg BID. To date, 28 patients have already completed the full 48-week treatment and no safety signals have been identified. The DKD investigator-initiated trial is being conducted primarily in Australia, with work ongoing to activate centers in New Zealand, Denmark and Germany.

following the positive efficacy and safety results of the Company's Phase 2 trial of setanaxib in primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), the DKD trial protocol was amended to increase the dose to 400 mg BID. To date, 28 patients have already completed the full 48-week treatment and no safety signals have been identified. The DKD investigator-initiated trial is being conducted primarily in Australia, with work ongoing to activate centers in New Zealand, Denmark and Germany. Phase 1 study with setanaxib at high doses: the Company received, in May 2020, approval from the French Medicines Agency (ANSM) to initiate a Phase 1 clinical study in up to 54 healthy subjects to investigate the pharmacokinetics, potential for drug interactions and safety profile of setanaxib at doses up to 1,600mg. The first subjects were dosed at the end of June and the enrollment process is ongoing.

Financial highlights

On June 30, 2020, Genkyotex's cash and cash equivalents totaled 5.1 million vs. 5.6 million on March 31, 2020. This amount includes the French research tax credit of 0.9 million which was received by the Company in April 2020. Despite the COVID-19 situation, the Company still expects its current resources to support anticipated operations until the end of February 2021, taking into account the facts and assumptions detailed in note 2.1 "Going concern" of the December 31, 2019 consolidated financial statements. The Company will continue to inform the market of the possible impacts of COVID-19 on its operations.

Next financial press release:

2020 half-year results: September 17, 2020 (after market)

About Genkyotex

Genkyotex is the leading biopharmaceutical company in NOX therapies, listed on the Euronext Paris and Euronext Brussels markets. Its unique platform enables the identification of orally available small-molecules which selectively inhibit specific NOX enzymes that amplify multiple disease processes such as fibrosis, inflammation, pain processing, cancer development, and neurodegeneration. Genkyotex is developing a pipeline of first-in-class product candidates targeting one or multiple NOX enzymes. The lead product candidate, setanaxib (GKT831), a NOX1 and NOX4 inhibitor has shown evidence of anti-fibrotic activity in a Phase II clinical trial in primary biliary cholangitis (PBC, a fibrotic orphan disease). Based on its positive Phase II results, a phase 3 trial with setanaxib in PBC is being planned. Setanaxib is also being evaluated in an investigator-initiated Phase II clinical trial in Type 1 Diabetes and Kidney Disease (DKD). A grant from the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) of $8.9 million was awarded to Professor Victor Thannickal at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to fund a multi-year research program evaluating the role of NOX enzymes in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a chronic lung disease that results in fibrosis of the lungs. The core component of this program is a Phase 2 trial with setanaxib in patients with IPF scheduled to recruit patients in the course of 2020. This product candidate may also be active in other fibrotic indications.

Genkyotex also has a versatile platform well-suited to the development of various immunotherapies (Vaxiclase). A partnership covering the use of Vaxiclase as an antigen per se (GTL003) has been established with Serum Institute of India Private Ltd (Serum Institute), the world's largest producer of vaccine doses, for the development by Serum Institute of cellular multivalent combination vaccines against a variety of infectious diseases.

For further information, please go towww.genkyotex.com

Disclaimer

This press release may contain forward-looking statements by the company with respect to its objectives. Such statements are based upon the current beliefs, estimates and expectations of Genkyotex's management and are subject to risks and uncertainties such as the company's ability to implement its chosen strategy, customer market trends, changes in technologies and in the company's competitive environment, changes in regulations, clinical or industrial risks and all risks linked to the company's growth. These factors as well as other risks and uncertainties may prevent the company from achieving the objectives outlined in the press release and actual results may differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements, due to various factors. Without being exhaustive, such factors include uncertainties involved in the development of Genkyotex's products, which may not succeed, or in the delivery of Genkyotex's products marketing authorizations by the relevant regulatory authorities and, in general, any factor that could affects Genkyotex's capacity to commercialize the products it develops. No guarantee is given on forward-looking statements which are subject to a number of risks, notably those described in the universal registration document filed with the AMF on April 30, 2020 under number D.20-0434, and those linked to changes in economic conditions, the financial markets, or the markets on which Genkyotex is present. Genkyotex products are currently used for clinical trials only and are not otherwise available for distribution or sale

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200723005699/en/

Contacts:

GENKYOTEX

Alexandre Grassin

CFO

Tel.: +33 (0)5 61 28 70 60

investors@genkyotex.com

NewCap

Dusan Oresansky

Tel.: +33 1 44 71 94 92

genkyotex@newcap.eu
At least 11 Colombian military personnel are missing and six have been injured after a Black Hawk helicopter crashed during an operation against guerrillas in the southeast of Colombia on July 21. The helicopter crashed in the Guaviare jungle of Mitu, a rural province along the Inirida River, and had 17 military personnel onboard as it went down, armed forces high command said in a press release.

Unfortunately, we have found the bodies of nine of our personnel, a military spokesperson said on Twitter.

According to reports, the Colombian military did not mention if the helicopter crashed due to technical failure or was shot down. President of Colombia, Ivan Duque, expressed his condolences on Twitter as he described the crash an accident. He further said that the soldiers aboard the helicopter were on a military operation against the illegals.

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According to reports, the army was on a mission against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) dissidents. While the FARC rebels had signed a historic peace treaty in 2016 to halt armed activities in the region against the government that ceased half a centurys conflict, as many as 2,000 dissidents had refused to comply with deal and formed a rebel communist political party. Further, the authorities said that the conflict groups funnelled finances via illegal activities such as drug-trafficking and illegal mining. And hence, the armed forces on the operation were headed to cleanse drug plantations sites.

Army's air assault division, in an official statement, said that it was "on site beginning the corresponding investigations to determine the circumstances regarding the time, manner and place that the events occurred." Armed forces' top commander, General Luis Fernando Navarro, reportedly arrived at a military base nearby to inspect the site and direct maneuvers in order to "recover the missing soldiers". Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo took to Twitter and said at least six injured service personnel were rescued at the site and were transferred to Bogota for medical supervision.

Read: Egyptian Army: 2 Troops Killed In Militant Attack In Sinai

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(Image Credit: Pixabay/ Representative image)
Libreville (AFP) - Gabon said Monday it was relaxing a two-week-old coronavirus lockdown in the capital Libreville and three neighbouring areas.

With three deaths and 176 cases among its two-million population, half of whom live in the capital, Prime Minister Julien Nkoghe Bekale said some restrictions would be scaled back.

Some shops and hair salons would be allowed to reopen, he said, but travel beyond the city and its environs would remain prohibited to avoid contagion to other provinces.

"We are approaching the peak of the epidemic, which could come between the end of May and mid-June," Bekale said.

Schools, restaurants and places of worship will remain closed, wearing masks will be compulsory and a curfew will remain in place from 6.00 pm to 6.00 am.

Borders are also closed -- a source of concern for Gabonese as the country imports the bulk of its foodstuffs.

Bekale said the partial lifting of the lockdown took into account concern over potential "social destabilisation" if people could not earn a living.
With only two practices left until the Bruins head to Toronto for the NHLs restart, their roster remains incomplete with several key parts missing. The good news was that defenseman Charlie McAvoy, who leads the Bruins in time on ice, and Joakim Nordstrom both practice Thursday.

David Pastrnak and Ondrej Kase missed their sixth consecutive workout and their eighth of nine since training camp started, while Nick Ritchie missed his first practice.

While Pastrnaks agent explained earlier that his client has tested negative for coronavirus but was isolating because hed been exposed to someone who had been potentially positive, the Bruins are limited in what they can say. He, Kase and Ritchie are still officially Unfit to Practice.

Bruins president Cam Neely said Sunday that he didnt expect either player back until they arrived in Canada.

The Bruins were mostly off Wednesday with no formal workout. Theyll practice again Friday and Saturday. On Sunday the team will depart for Toronto, the Eastern Conference hub city for the restart that begins next week. Boston will face Columbus in an exhibition game Thursday.

The next couple days of testing are medically critical to all United States-based teams for heading to Toronto or the Western Conference hub city of Edmonton as negative or inconclusive coronavirus tests, could lead to players arriving late.

From TSN Ryan Rishaug:

NHL players need 3 negative tests spaced 48 hours apart in the 7 days prior to travel to Canada. Any positive tests after Wed or Thurs this week and they wont hit that mark. We could be talking about players left behind until cleared. Crucial week for the leagues testing.

#NHLBruins prax lines:



Marchand  Bergeron  Bjork

DeBrusk  Krejci  Studnicka

Kuraly  Coyle  Kuhlman

Nordstrom  Lindholm  Wagner

Blidh/Carey-Frederic - Senyshyn



Chara  McAvoy

Krug  Carlo

Grzelcyk - Lauzon

Moore  Clifton

Vaakanainen  Zboril



Rask

Halak

Vladar

Lagace pic.twitter.com/GHG4vI8JpY  Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) July 23, 2020

Weve got a Charlie McAvoy sighting at #NHLBruins practice pic.twitter.com/06d249z9Sy  The Camera Guys (@NBCSCameraGuys) July 23, 2020

Complete NHL/Bruins Calendar for restart:

Sunday, July 26 -Boston Bruins travel to Toronto, ON to enter the

Thursday, July 30  Boston vs. Columbus, Exhibition, 7 p.m.

Sunday, August 2 -Round Robin Game vs. Philadelphia Flyers, 3 p.m.

Wednesday, August 5 -Round Robin Game vs. Tampa Bay Lightning, 4 p.m.

Saturday, August 9 -Round Robin Game vs. Washington Capitals

Tuesday, August 11 - First Round of Stanley Cup Playoffs begins

Tuesday, August 25 -Second Round of Stanley Cup Playoffs begins

Tuesday, September 8 -Conference Finals begin

Tuesday, September 22 -Stanley Cup Final begins

Related content:

NHL Playoffs TV schedule, start times for qualifying rounds, round-robin seeding games

Boston Bruins postseason TV schedule for first week of NHL restart released Tuesday

Bruins without David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, Ondrej Kase at practice; Chris Wagner returns Tuesday
The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) has said a formerly Wanted Person, Shehu Koko, who is presently a member of the House of Representatives, is no longer wanted by the Commission.

The ICPC disclosed this via its Twitter handle on Wednesday.

The Commission explained that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, who had intervened in the matter, also made Mr Koko available to the ICPC for questioning.

Honourable Shehu Koko Mohammed is no longer a Wanted Person as earlier declared by the Commission.

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila had in December 2019 pledged to make him available to the Commission, and he did.

The Commission had on 14th December through a news release and posts on its website and social media accounts made this development public, ICPC said, in its tweet.

The commission made the announcement in reaction to the recent hearing by the House of Representatives NDDC committee, which interrogated the acting managing director of the Niger Delta Development Commission NDDC, Kemebradikumo Pondei, over alleged financial recklessness at the commission.

Mr Koko is a member of the committee that quizzed the alleged extrabudgetary spending by the NDDC. His appearance, however, raised mixed reactions by many Nigerians, questioning the credibility of the House of Reps Committee.

When contacted, the spokesperson to the Commission, Azuka Ogugua, told PREMIUM TIMES in a phone interview that the ICPC is no longer prosecuting Mr Koko for criminal offences.

Asked if the ICPC had pulled down the announcement that declared the lawmaker wanted, Ms Ogugua said Yes we have already pulled the story down.

He has declared wanted but he is no longer wanted. We have also put down the announcement of him being wanted on our website, she added.

Mr Koko, a lawmaker from Kebbi State, representing Koko/Besse Federal Constituency, was on December 14, 2019, declared wanted by the Commission after repeatedly failing to appear before the ICPC over an ongoing investigation against him.

The ICPC accused him alleged fraudulent acquisition of properties, using his position to confer undue advantage on himself while serving as ADC to a former governor of Katsina State.

Hon. Shehu Koko Mohammed has hereby (been) declared wanted by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission for his failure to appear before the commission for an ongoing investigation against him. He was declared wanted for failing to perfect his bail conditions, the ICPC said.
Message by H.E. Hussein El Saharty, Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt on the occasion of the 68th anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution of 23 July 1952





Today, the Arab Republic of Egypt proudly commemorates its Revolution of July 23rd 1952. Sixty-Eight years ago, Egypt witnessed a peaceful revolt that raised the slogans of dignity, equality, social justice and national sovereignty, which has enabled the Egyptian nation to assume its righteous role as an active player and advocate of peace, political and economic independence, and international justice across the world. Putting those noble principles into action has brought Egypt closer to her counterparts in the Global South who shared the same challenges, visions and aspirations, allowing her to build and foster ties with friendly nations including Sri Lanka. It gives me a great honor on this auspicious occasion to extend my sincere greetings and best wishes to His Excellency the President, the government and the friendly people of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.





Triumph of the revolution

Egypt and Sri Lanka have always enjoyed excellent relations throughout history and across governments. Egyptians and Sri Lankans have traded valuable goods and exchanged cultural, religious and humanitarian practices for centuries. In 1957, Egypt was the first African and Arab country to establish official diplomatic relations with Sri Lanka following its independence. Both countries played pivotal roles in launching and leading the Non-Aligned Movement and various South-South cooperation schemes. Throughout more than six decades, Sri Lanka and Egypt have worked closely in all international fora to disseminate peace, stability and international justice.





Relations between both countries have gained a remarkable momentum since H.E. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa assumed office in November 2019. First Round of Bilateral Political Consultations between our Ministries of Foreign Affairs was held in Cairo in December 2019, headed on the Sri Lankan side by Foreign Secretary Mr. Ravinatha Aryasinha, where prospects of enhancing cooperation in various fields have been thoroughly explored. Today, Egypt and Sri Lanka are bound by more than twenty bilateral agreements and memoranda of understanding covering the fields of trade, investment, tourism, culture, arts, education, civil aviation, political consultation and security cooperation. More drafts are being considered on both sides to upgrade our contractual framework.





During the current COVID-19 crisis, both countries showed much resilience on the foreign trade front and were able to facilitate the bilateral flow of commercial goods with significant success. This has resulted in Sri Lanka being able to export a total of 738 tons of its products to Egypt during the two months of April and May 2020 only, including 264 tons of Ceylon tea, 208 tons of desiccated coconut, 26 tons of cocoa powder, 234 tons of rubber products, and 7 tons of PPEs. Similarly, Egyptian products, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, have been smoothly exported to Sri Lanka. This has been an exemplary practice during such critical times.





Nowadays, Egypt and Sri Lanka are facing the same set of threats and challenges in terms of extremism and terrorism, economic hardships post COVID-19 closures, attempts to revive tourism, climate change, drug and human trafficking, illegal migration and all forms of transnational organized crimes. This necessitates closer cooperation and coordination between our two countries in all aspects.





I hereby confidently state that our long-standing bilateral relations are on the right track. Meanwhile, we will not spare any effort to enhance those relations and move them to wider horizons for the benefit of our nations and peoples.
The Irish Government has unveiled an unprecedented 7.4 billion euro financial aid package to help stimulate the economy.

A total of 50 individual measures aimed at helping every significant area of the economy in the State was announced.

Among the measures are a cut in the VAT rate from 23 to 21% which will run from September to February next year.

The waiver of commercial rates has been extended until the end of September, while a total of two billion euro in the Covid-19 Credit Guarantee Scheme will also be made available.

The help-to-buy scheme has also been expanded with first-time buyers allowed to claim up 30,000 euro, an increase of 10,000 euro.

The #JobsStimulus measures are designed to do 4 things:



1 Backing Irelands Businesses

2 Helping People, Especially young people, get back to work

3 Building Confidence and investing in communities

4 Preparing Ireland for the Economy of the Futurehttps://t.co/rt6bvf7aab pic.twitter.com/ZFjboVwtGc  MerrionStreet.ie (@merrionstreet) July 23, 2020

A stay and spend initiative was also unveiled, which will allow people who spend up to 625 euro to claim back on income tax.

People must spend a minimum of 25 euro to avail of the scheme which is expected to run until next April.

The Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) will also be extended until April next year, while the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme will also run until next year but will be referred to as the Employment Wage Support Scheme.

The PUP scheme, however will be gradually cut over time, with changes coming into effect from September.

The new maximum rate with amount to 300 euro a week, followed by a second rate of 250 euro and basic rate of 203 euro a week.

Speaking at the event in Dublin Castle, Taoiseach Micheal Martin said: No-one should be in any doubt about the fact we are not returning to pre-March reality.

The economic recession, which the pandemic has caused, is the most rapid and dramatic ever recorded.

Emergency measures introduced in March, with all party support, have prevented a much deeper, social, and economic crisis.

However, we now need to move to a new agenda, one which continues to try to limit the damage of the pandemic, which also moves on to help build a sustainable and inclusive recovery.

Weve unveiled the July #JobsStimulus to help businesses reopen and get our people back to work.



Heres what you need to know: pic.twitter.com/3ZdGZquzW0  Leo Varadkar (@LeoVaradkar) July 23, 2020

Mr Martin said the Government is determined to protect as many businesses and jobs as possible.

Mr Martin said that capital funding will be provided to every school to help with ongoing and new refurbishment projects while support will be provided for new town and village renewal schemes.

Tanaiste Leo Varadkar said that as part of the financial package, there are two billion euros in loan guarantees.

He added: Therell be a six-month reduction in the VAT rate, going down from 23% to 21%.

Thatll be particularly beneficial for the retail sector, furniture stores, clothing shops and also for pubs and restaurants.

Therell be a six-month commercial retail holiday for the vast majority of businesses.

The restart grant, Mr Varadkar said, is being improved with a further 300 million euro in grants for small and medium businesses.

The new grants will be open to more businesses, and the maximum amount available will increase from 10,000 euros to 25,000 euros and the minimum amount from 2,000 euros to 4,000 euros.

Were expanding the scheme to firms which employ up to 250 employees.

Were extending it as well to a small number of businesses and organisations that werent eligible in the past, including B&Bs and charity shops.

Significant investment will be pumped into cycling and walking facilities in cities and towns in a bid to encourage more people to use bikes and walkways.

Employers will be paid 3,000 euro for every apprentice they hire under a scheme developed by Higher Education Minister Simon Harris.

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said employers will be paid 2,000 euro in the first year and 1,000 euro in the second year if the apprentice is kept on.

Mr Ryan said: To be honest, one of the biggest problems we have had to date was getting people to do apprenticeships.

Now we will have thousands of young people potentially out of work so this scheme will help to address it.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 17:34:30|Editor: huaxia

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People visit the site of Xanadu in Zhenglan Banner of Xilingol League, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on July 22, 2020. Located in Zhenglan Banner of Xilingol League, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the relic site of Xanadu, or Yuan Shangdu ruins, is one of the best preserved sites of the capital cities of Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) in China. Listed by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage Site in 2012, site of Xanadu is resulted from the clashing and blending of grassland culture, farming culture and Western civilization. (Xinhua/Liu Lei)
The Robin Hood Relief Fund Continues to Support New Yorkers Through Cash Assistance, Emergency Food, Housing Relief, Healthcare and More

Robin Hood Relief Fund

Sorting food for homeless shelter residents at Henry Street Settlements Urban Family Center; Credit: Anthony Guachichulca, Henry Street Settlement.

Sorting food for homeless shelter residents at Henry Street Settlements Urban Family Center; Credit: Anthony Guachichulca, Henry Street Settlement.

NEW YORK, July 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Robin Hood , New York Citys largest poverty-fighting organization, has awarded more than 500 COVID-19 relief grants in support of the highest-need communities across all five boroughs of New York City. The Robin Hood Relief Fund was reactivated at the onset of the pandemic, making its first grant on March 20, in the opening days of the stay-at-home order before any direct government assistance was distributed to New Yorkers.



In 19 weeks, Robin Hood has distributed $35.5 million in support of 432 frontline nonprofit organizations with a focus on funding cash assistance, emergency support, and food distribution. The Robin Hood Relief Fund prioritizes those New Yorkers who remain left out of federal aid responses, such as low-income children and families, immigrant communities, college students, and low-wage workers. The grants have closely tracked the neighborhoods most adversely affected by COVID-19 with the majority of grants going to the Bronx and Queens, the two boroughs with the highest rates of infection, hospitalizations and mortality.

COVID-19 is exposing systemic racial and economic disparities that have plagued New York City and our nation for generations. The lingering effects of COVID-19 continue to leave New Yorkers in dire circumstances. With so many out of work, people are struggling to feed themselves and their families, or keep a roof over their heads. This virus threatens to leave communities of color, seniors, children, immigrants, and low-wage workers severely disadvantaged long after this crisis ends, said Wes Moore, CEO of Robin Hood. Robin Hoods relief efforts continue to serve as a lifeline for hardworking and vulnerable families. We are committed to continuing to elevate New Yorkers beyond the emergency as we look to the citys long-term recovery and create measurable and lasting mobility from poverty.

Story continues

Nearly half of the Robin Hood Relief Fund grants provide cash assistance for low-income New Yorkers to cover necessities like food, rent and utilities. A quarter of the grants support emergency services, including connecting New Yorkers to benefits, purchasing personal protective equipment, installing Wi-Fi at homeless shelters, and expanding and improving remote learning.

About 17 percent of the grants fund emergency food programs, ranging from food pantries and soup kitchens to meal delivery services and the temporary repurposing of restaurants for food prep. Relief grants have also helped to support medical and mental health services and programs that support housing, safety, and education for vulnerable New Yorkers.

As we observe the milestone of awarding more than 500 relief grants, we are humbled by the tenacity of our frontline community partners who feed, house and care for New Yorkers in need, said Victoria Bjorklund, Robin Hood Board Member and Chair of the Relief Committee. We somberly reflect upon the loss of lives and the impact those deaths have had on families, loved ones and our city, and we are buoyed by the generous spirit of the people of New York City who are unwilling to be defeated and determined to help neighbors in need.

Robin Hood continues to spearhead advocacy and capacity-building initiatives to alleviate the pandemics impact on the citys neighborhoods and its nonprofit sector. Robin Hood is advocating at all levels of government for policies that will protect the most vulnerable New Yorkers and the nonprofits supporting them, including the extension of unemployment assistance, expansion of food aid benefits and the inclusion of undocumented immigrants in federal relief programs.

During the pandemic, Robin Hood partnered with corporations, lenders, and capacity-building vendors to provide operational support to nonprofits, including Paycheck Protection Program application processing, pro-bono consulting, resource-sharing, and webinars on topics ranging from fundraising to governance.

Outside of the Robin Hood Relief Fund, the organization continues to lead in partnership on initiatives to expand the impact of relief efforts. As part of this effort, Robin Hood partnered with the Debra and Leon Black Family, Aramark, the Mayors Fund to Advance New York City, and the American Red Cross to launch the NYC Healthcare Heroes program to deliver food and supplies to healthcare professionals on the frontlines citywide. Additionally, Robin Hood contributed to the NYC COVID-19 Response and Impact Fund alongside other notable funders to support the citys nonprofit sector.

Beyond the Robin Hood Relief Fund, Robin Hood hosted the Rise Up New York! virtual benefit on May 11th, which brought together New York City's biggest musicians, actors, chefs and more to raise funds for the long-term recovery for New York City. More recently, Robin Hood announced The Power Fund , which aims to address systemic racism by investing in capacity building and leadership for CEOs of color in the nonprofit sector.

The Robin Hood Relief Fund benefits from the generous contributions of nearly 10,000 individual donors, family and legacy foundations, and corporations. Robin Hoods Relief Committee will continue to meet and allocate relief grants on a weekly basis until the Relief Fund has been distributed in full. Robin Hood continues to consider the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on New York City and how the organization can continue to elevate the community through the pandemics aftermath. To learn more about the Robin Hood Relief Fund, visit robinhood.org/relief-effort/ .

About Robin Hood

Founded in 1988, Robin Hood finds, fuels, and creates the most impactful and scalable solutions lifting families out of poverty in New York City, with models that can work across the country. Robin Hood invests nearly $120 million annually to provide legal services, housing, meals, workforce development training, education programs, and more to families in poverty in New York City. Robin Hood tracks every program with rigorous metrics, and since Robin Hoods Board of Directors covers all overhead, 100 percent of every donation goes directly to the poverty fight. Learn more at www.robinhood.org.

Contact: Press@robinhood.org

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Indianapolis has a lot of churches. They dont pay property taxes, dont pay income taxes  but they do find ways to meet the spiritual and many times material needs of the communities they serve.

A 2015 analysis by PropertyShark found Indianapolis has more churches and other religious sites than any other city in the country, with one for every 289 people. There are nearly 2,900 churches and religious sites in total, according to the study.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says Congress is not allowed to establish a religion or prohibit people from practicing their own religion  separation of church and state, in other words.

Its the foundational reason for why churches dont pay property and income taxes. Government and religion shouldnt become tangled, the Constitutions writers declared, and taxes are one of the sure ways to remember government is there.

Strictly considering dollars and cents, tax-exempt churches lead to a considerable amount of lost tax revenue for communities, which could be especially impactful in lower-income neighborhoods.

Using property tax data and value assessments from the Marion County Assessors Office, the Recorder sampled 20 churches  mostly in Center Township  to get a sense of how much money that might be.

The results: Those 20 churches would have owed an estimated $576,538 for tax year 2018. That comes to an average of almost $29,000. Property tax rates vary within Marion County and change over the years, but the numbers become staggering when considering what that means for churches that have been around for decades.

Jeffrey Johnson Sr., senior pastor at Eastern Star Church, cant say if the trade-off is fair, but I do know were doing an awful lot of good work in a community that this city and the state is benefiting from, he said.

Eastern Star has invested more than $10 million in the Arlington Woods neighborhood for housing, education, food security and other support over the last three years, Johnson said, which dwarfs the amount of money the church would have paid in taxes over that time.

Eastern Star has the ROCK Initiative, which began four years ago and includes a credit union, grocery store, financial education and legal clinic. The initiative is based at the Sunset at Arlington Woods building, which also has apartments.

The church also renovates houses and builds new houses to sell at more affordable prices. There are currently six renovations and seven new builds, Johnson said.

We dont believe God put us here by accident, he said.

Churches arent alone in being exempted from some taxes, of course, because it applies to other nonprofits. Churches are exempt from filing financial information with the Internal Revenue Service, though, including a form that tracks spending. Other 501(c)(3) organizations and charities have to provide that information.

Even the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which says its purpose is to promote the separation of church and state, doesnt have much to say about churches being tax-exempt because its a well-established tenant of church-state separation.

It spends much more time bringing attention to the fact that churches dont have to file financial information with the IRS. The group recently announced it will continue challenging the rule in court.

The Black church is one of the bedrock institutions for Black Americans. Its a place to organize, a place to get help paying rent, a place to find food. And thats all on top of providing spiritual and emotional support.

When we find our communities are in need of basic living assistance, the church steps in, said Janae Pitts-Murdock, interim pastor at Light of the World Christian Church.

Light of the World doesnt have the same financial resources as Eastern Star  few churches do  but Pitts-Murdock said churches have a way of getting creative with what they have in order to serve their communities. Especially when considering low-income communities, residents may be more willing to turn to the church rather than a local government or agencies they feel have left them behind.

They trust that the church is not gonna use their need against them, Pitts-Murdock said. Sometimes, in strictly social service agencies, people are just another number and theyre just another face.

Contact staff writer Tyler Fenwick at 317-762-7853. Follow him on Twitter @Ty_Fenwick.
More than 200 cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) performed on women and girls born in the UK were identified by NHS staff during one year, figures show.

Some 6,590 women and girls had a procedure to treat their FGM or were identified as having experienced FGM previously when they were treated between April 2019 and March 2020.

Of these, 205 were women or girls who had been born in the UK, according to an annual report from NHS Digital.

More than 200 cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) performed on women and girls born in the UK were identified by NHS staff during one year (Stock photo)

And 145 procedures had been performed illegally in the UK, hospital staff and GPs recorded during the period.

Since the data started being collected five years ago, around 24,420 women and girls have been identified as having previously been subject to the practice.

FGM, the intentional altering or injuring of the female genitals for non-medical reasons, has been illegal in the UK for more than three decades.

The law was strengthened in 2003 to prevent girls travelling from the UK and undergoing FGM abroad.

Since the data started being collected five years ago, around 24,420 women and girls have been identified as having previously been subject to the practice (Stock photo)

The law on FGM Female genital mutilation has been a specific offence in the UK since the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985. The 1985 Act was replaced by the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003. It now includes assisting and taking children abroad to be cut. There have been just three other trials involving FGM - two in London and one in Bristol - which all ended in acquittals while some 298 prevention orders have been put in place to safeguard children at risk. Carrying out FGM currently carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. Advertisement

Some 85% of cases undertaken in the UK are known to be piercings, which are considered a form of FGM by the World Health Organisation.

Where both sets of information were recorded, 83% of women and girls were born and had FGM undertaken in an African country.

In 80% of the attendances during the year, FGM was identified in women and girls seen by midwifery and obstetric services.

The average age a woman attended health services and was identified as having experienced FGM previously was 32.

For 59% of the attendances, there was a record of whether the patient was told of the health implications of FGM, while for 54% of the attendances there was a record of whether they were told it was illegal.

The only successful prosecution for FGM in the UK took place in February 2019 after a mother was found guilty of mutilating her daughter.

The girl's Ugandan mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was prosecuted under FGM laws after using a 'witch' to help her carry out a surgery at her home in Walthamstow, east London.

The mother claimed the girl had slipped onto this cupboard door while trying to get cookies

Her daughter told police she was pinned down while a woman they called a witch mutilated her.

The court heard how the mutilation went wrong on 28 August 2017 and emergency services were called before the victim underwent emergency surgery.

They were told the girl had fallen on to a cupboard door while trying to get cookies but a surgeon found three separate sites of injury and no bruising to indicate a fall.

The mother, who is a convicted benefits cheat, maintained her account of an accidental injury while in court.

She was handed an 11-year prison sentence and another two years for other offences, including distributing an indecent image of a child.
SPRINGFIELD  After weeks of being vilified over his alleged mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis at the Soldiers Home in Holyoke, ousted Superintendent Bennett Walsh was ready to fight back.

Or his attorney was.

William Bennett, Walshs uncle and his lawyer in ongoing litigation, delivered an address at a press conference Thursday longer than many of the closing arguments the former Hampden District Attorney delivered to juries in criminal cases.

Over nearly 90 minutes in the ballroom of the Springfield Sheraton, Bennett took aim at Gov. Charlie Baker, Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders, and the so-called Pearlstein report issued in late June that heaped blame on Walsh and his top staff for their response to the outbreak.

The lawyer argued the Baker administration has spread poison about Walsh in the aftermath of the outbreak. He said it all began when Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse called Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito to raise a flag about the growing number of coronavirus cases and deaths at the Soldiers Home.

There was some miscommunication that caused Sudders to reassure Polito and other top officials that there had not, in fact, been that many, then later correct her position when she received more accurate information. Bennett said an irate Sudders called Walsh and shouted at him over his conversation with Morse.

You have no obligation to answer to local officials! You are a state official! What about that dont you understand? she yelled, according to Bennett. Now shes embarrassed. Shes made to look foolish because shes out of the loop. Thats when the poison started. That began the drumbeat of blame.

A spokeswoman for the Baker administration and Health and Human Services declined to comment on this and other criticisms of state officials Bennett leveled during his monologue.

Bennett Walsh has been terminated and the independent report by former federal prosecutor Mark Pearlstein speaks for itself. The administration does not comment on pending litigation, the spokeswoman responded after a request for comment.

The Pearlstein report was issued June 24, and Walsh, who had been on paid administrative leave since March 30, was fired by Baker and Sudders the same day. Bennett said the report woefully mischaracterized decisions made by Walsh and his staff during the early days of the outbreak and argues Walshs firing was invalid and must be executed by the Soldiers Home board of trustees.

Specifically about the report, Bennett fought to debunk its assertion that a decision to combine two dementia units was catastrophic and baffling, as Pearlstein concluded.

I suggest quite the opposite is true. It was perhaps the best decision that could have been made ... and it had no impact on the spread of the virus, Bennett said.

The report painted a bleak picture of harried staff and veterans  both sick and well  crammed into a room, but Bennett argued this was not the case.

They were not thrown together in one room ... willy-nilly, Bennett said. This was a very thoughtful process. ... I suggest they did a great job. Under great pressure. With honor and dignity. They should be applauded for the way they handled it. Their whole goal was to protect the veterans.

He said panic began to mount when word began going around about the growing number of positive cases, and scores of staff began calling in sick on a Friday afternoon.

The head nurse, Vanessa Lauziere, who resigned after the outbreak, instructed staff to triage the veterans into seven rooms, according to Bennett. They separated those who appeared asymptomatic from patients on hospice care, and sick veterans who were actively dying. Then they began to assess each veteran, he said, also disputing accounts from staff who told Pearlsteins investigators veterans were deprived of basic care during the crisis.

The former prosecutor included as one of 15 exhibits distributed in advance of the press conference a 24-hour nursing report from that Friday that appears to indicate veterans were being properly medicated and monitored.

Bennett also said Walsh attempt to elicit help through state officials and the National Guard but was initially rebuffed. Then, when the crisis began to peak, the state sent 160 emergency staff including the guard.

Where were they on Friday when the need was greatest? When the most good could have been done? Bennett said. When they reached out to Boston for help, they were told no.

The Pearlstein report asserts that state officials told his investigators Walsh was not clear enough about the level of crisis at the Soldiers Home and didnt sound an alarm loudly enough.

The day before the report was issued, state Veterans Services Secretary Francisco Urena was asked to resign. Pearlstein portrayed him as too complacent over what he reported was a superintendent over his head and out of his league. After the report was made public, Baker said it was the fault of his administration not to have monitored Walsh more closely.

Bennett also targeted the governor himself, suggesting Baker attempted to disavow Walshs hiring but was actually the one who made the decision.

If you listen to the governor  he doesnt know why anyone would have hired him. Somebody must have snuck him in, Bennett said, adding that the trustees sent up three names to Baker after they conducted interviews. The governor was the one who made the decision to hire Mr. Walsh, but you wouldnt know it from the press coming out of his office today.

Additionally, Bennett argued the Baker administration was too slow to close the Soldiers Home to the public.

He said he hopes the trustees will have a change of heart and do a reversal on Walsh.

However, the state has already posted his job. There is a July 30 hearing scheduled in Hampden Superior Court related to a lawsuit Walsh filed against the state and the trustees over his employment.
UN Experts Urge Immediate Release Of Iranian Human Rights Defender With COVID-19 Symptoms

By RFE/RL July 22, 2020

A group of UN human rights experts has called on Iran to immediately release imprisoned human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, who has reportedly been suffering from symptoms of COVID-19 -- the illness caused by the new coronavirus -- "before it is too late."

"The group of 16 experts expressed grave concerns that Ms. Mohammadi appears to have contracted COVID-19 in Zanjan Prison," the UN Human Rights Council said in a statement on July 22.

Mohammadi, who is serving a prison sentence for anti-government propaganda and membership of a banned group opposed to the death penalty, has been in detention since 2015.

She received a combined 16-year prison sentence in May 2016, of which she will need to serve 10 years under Iranian law.

The UN experts called on authorities to give Mohammadi, who showed the first symptoms of COVID-19 on June 29, the results of the test she took on 8 July, and to move her to a hospital for proper care.

Mohammadi, who served as the spokesperson for the Center for Human Rights Defenders in Iran founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, said in a letter from prison published online on July 13, that she and 11 of her cellmates were suspected of having been infected with the coronavirus. One of her cellmates subsequently tested positive.

'Life-Or-Death Consequences'

In her letter, the activist said "signs" of an outbreak of coronavirus emerged in the Zanjan prison, some 330 kilometers west of the capital Tehran, at the beginning of this month, and called on Iran's Health Ministry to send a representative to the prison to investigate the situation.

"We are extremely concerned for Ms. Mohammadi's well-being. We previously raised concerns that she and other individuals in Iranian prisons are at great risk if they contract COVID-19 and we called for their immediate release," the UN experts said.

"For those with underlying health conditions, such as Ms. Mohammadi, it may have life-or-death consequences. The Iranian authorities must act now before it is too late."

The experts also voiced concern that there may be more cases in prison, as prisoners previously released on furlough are being returned to the detention facility, and the number of virus infections is spiking again in Iran.

Iran has been struggling to contain the deadly coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 14,600 Iranians and infected nearly 280,000, according to official figures.

Real numbers are believed to be significantly higher.

"Ms. Mohammadi should not be in prison in the first place," the experts said, adding that her detention is arbitrary.

"We yet again call on Iran to immediately release Ms. Mohammadi, as well as all others who are currently denied their right to liberty in contravention of Iran's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," the UN experts said.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran- mohammadi-un-experts-urge-immediate-release-- covid-19-symptoms/30741703.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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BALTIMORE, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Paul R. Lucas, MD, FACS, RPVI, is being recognized by Continental Who's Who as a Top Distinguished Surgeon in the field of Vascular Surgery and for demonstrating excellence in his prominent roles as Chief of Vascular Surgery, and Director with The Vascular Center at Mercy.

Proudly serving the Baltimore community at 301 St. Paul Place, The Vascular Center is led by Dr. Paul Lucas, Director of The Vascular Center and Chief of Vascular Surgery at Mercy Medical Center. With a team of highly qualified and skilled vascular surgeons and technologists, Dr. Lucas is committed to offering comprehensive diagnosis and treatment of circulatory system disorders including stroke and mini-stroke, leg pain and swelling, blood clots in veins, aneurysms, varicose veins, spider veins, and circulatory diseases. Many of these procedures are minimally invasive procedures that typically allow for more rapid recovery and return to daily activities. Additionally, Mercy is home to its nationally accredited and regionally recognized vascular laboratory at The Vascular Center at Mercy, in which Dr. Lucas was instrumental in its establishment as a premier center of excellence, as well as a teaching site for vascular technology education. Dr Lucas is a Registered Physician in Vascular Interpretation.



Board-Certified Vascular Surgeon, Dr. Lucas has garnered 25 years of vast knowledge and professional experience. In his current assignments at the Vascular Center, he has devoted the past 18 years to providing the highest standard of care for all venous and arterial issues with a strong focus on venous (varicose veins) and carotid disease. Utilizing the latest technologies at the Vascular Center, he specializes in Venefit (formerly known as VNUS Closure) and Veingogh procedures for varicose vein removal and is continuously seeking advanced diagnostic and treatment options for more efficient care. As an experienced medical professional, Dr. Lucas takes great pride in patient communication and is admired for his attentiveness to patient needs.



To prepare for his career, Dr. Lucas obtained his Bachelors degree from SUNY @ Geneseo. Shortly after, he earned his Medical Degree from Ross University School of Medicine. Gaining valuable extensive training, Dr. Lucas completed a General Surgical residency at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, and a Vascular Surgery Fellowship at the University of Maryland. He is board-certified in vascular surgery.

A front runner in his field, Dr. Lucas remains up-to-date with the latest advancements in vascular surgery as a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He is an active member of the Society for Vascular Surgery, the Maryland State Medical Society, and the Vascular and Endovascular Society. He is also actively involved with the Maryland Veterans Administration Hospital as a Volunteer Attending Vascular Surgeon. A respected voice in his field, Dr. Lucas has published several articles throughout his career.



In light of his professional achievements, Dr. Lucas is a multiyear recipient of the Top Doc Award from Baltimore Magazine.



Dr. Lucas dedicates this recognition to his parents, Barbara and Richard Lucas, who encouraged and supported him throughout his education, and to his collegiate mentor and inspiration, Stacy Edgar, Ph.D.



For further information, please visit https://mdmercy.com/.

Contact: Katherine Green , 516-825-5634 [email protected]



SOURCE Continental Who's Who

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